Growing Your Homeschool

I still write guest posts now and again over at http://www.growingyourhomeschool.blogspot.com/.  This week I'm writing about alternative approaches to home education-

wait-

that's what I always write about!

O well, I hope I said something new.

This week we are hanging out in the Flint Hills of northern Kansas while Ed is here for work.  I'm going nuts trying to nest in a half-unpacked house, and I've been missing the small-town silence after a short month back in "the city". 

Today we watched yellow jackets dig tunnels in the sand- why do they do that?  We don't know.  But it was cool.

I'm thinking about birth, trying not to eat crap, and enjoying the time with my little people.


"Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." 
~Theodore Roosevelt

Hey, Where'd That Blog Go???

Sorry.

It's been wild around here.

I took a bunch of "before" pictures of our 'new' (40-year-old) home, and I thought I'd start posting when I had some "after" pics.

Snort.

Ya, right!  I still have boxes in corners, and moderate chaos still reigns.

So here's a little update:

I am, indeed, still pregnant.  38 weeks and 1 day, to be exact.  I got severely dehydrated and didn't realize it a little over a week ago and actually went in to the hospital to get a fetal monitor strip because baby stopped moving.  (If you knew me IRL, you would know Id have tro be awfully concerned to do that!)  Baby was fine. 

Last week I had 2 different days of unexplained bleeding and had another NST and sonogram, which determined that the placenta is fine, but I was still dehydrated.  I managed to get my fluid back up and the bleeding, which was not to extreme, stopped.  So we assume it was just a weird cervix thing.

Over the weekend I started bleeding again but I was sure it was just a repeat of the cervix thing.  I started having really regular contractions, bleeding stopped, contractions picked up, and I thought I was really in labor.  We actually went in, all 5 of us, Sunday morning at 3 am, expecting a baby to accompany us home!  But as soon as I stepped into the birth center, everything stopped dead in its tracks.  Poor midwife!  Poor mama!

Naturally, as soon as I got home yesterday morning, and snuggled back in my own bed, contractions started right back up again.  Thanks, baby.  I explained very camly to my baby that while I, too, wish we could just snuggle in and get 'er done here, that she would have to accept the fact that she IS going to come at that darn birth center, whether either of us like it or not.

(FYI, it is not illegal to homebirth in Nebraska, but it IS illegal for CNM's to attend homebirths, and direct-entry midwives face stiff legal action if they choose to do so.  As of right now, no midwife within 3 hours of Omaha will catch babies at home.)

After a long day of contractions, everything stopped.  Out of curiosity, I checked myself and found a smooth, membrane-covered head pretty much right there.  I'm not very good at determining dilation, but I'd say a 4?  Unfortunately, she is really wedged deeply in there, posterior.  I've been trying to get her to rotate, but no luck so far.

That was probably TMI for many of you- sorry.

Anyhow, that's the news for now. 



"The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective." 
~Robert Brault

"There is no cure for laziness but a large family helps." 
~Herbert Prochnov

While you wait!

We have been in Omaha, in our "new" old house (how did we buy yet another home with a non-functional kitchen in need of a gut and remodel???) for 5 days.  We've been through 5 gallons of paint so far (no VOC, of course), used an entire box of screws, and 37 paper plates (blush).

And even though my kitchen is a 1970's nightmare, food has been coming out of it. Really boring food, but food nonetheless.

While I'm gone, I want to suggest you check out http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/.  My sister introduced me to this new co-op and I'm very excited to make my first order this week.  Unlike many co-ops, this is a weekly fresh produce co-op, with no fees.  I was pretty impressed with the things she was getting in her baskets and was thrilled to find there is one already set up in Omaha, with the drop only a couple blocks from my house. 

While there is not a drop set up in Wichita, Kansas, where many of my readers live, I looked into it, and setting up a local group seems pretty simple. 

Happy summer eating!

"Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow." 
~Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros

Gratitude for Strange Things

Tonight I decided to make a list of the things I'm MOST grateful for today.

Because I'm tired.  Exhausted, in fact.  And really close to feeling sorry for myself.

Super funny, but the #1 thing I am grateful for as I drift off to sleep is that no one, especially John Paul or my pregnant self, got bitten by a black widow before leaving New Mexico.

Yes, I took this picture at risk of life and limb and I like it.  A lot.

Silly?  Maybe, but my good friend did confirm that lots of people in Los Alamos were finding black widows in strange places- i.e. their houses!  (They are usually much more reclusive.)  And killing them yourself is, uh, nerve-racking to say the least.  I was terrified JP would get bitten and not be able to explain it to me well enough.  Plus, the anti-venom is usually contra-indicated in pregnancy and the bite itself can cause pre-term labor because of yadda yadda, blah-blah-blah.  Er, that was what the scientific information sounded like to me...

Anyway, I didn't realize how worried I'd been over it till we were gone.

#2:  Baby is still flipping around but is 90% of the time more or less head down.  Drawback to being 6' tall is that baby never runs out of room and likes to worry and tease you by doing somersaults every day.

#3:  34.5 weeks pregnant and 6' tall!  He-he.  I'm only barely starting to feel uncomfortable.  Baby isn't even up under my ribs yet.  I can still breathe just fine.

#4:  Coconut-with-agave ice cream from the store.  Made my kids really happy today and I didn't have to clean the ice cream maker.

#5:  Leaving southern Arizona in 3 days.  I mean, I love a 111 degree day as much as anybody, don't get me wrong.  But 2 weeks of such delightful warmth... is enough for this pregnant lady.  So long, Sonoran desert!  (Hello, midwestern humidity....)


"Drag your thoughts away from your worries... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it."
-Mark Twain

32.5 and counting

 This in not my current belly!  It's Rosie in there, at about 38.5 weeks.  (I'm nowhere near this big yet, at the moment.)

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice." 
~Indian Saying

I start to focus inwardly at about this time during pregnancy.  Externals fade into the background and what's going on inside seems a lot more real than what's going on outside of me.  (You know, homes being bought and sold, landlords trying to screw us, 3,000 square feet of packing, trading in mountain canyons for tidy square lawns....)

 I thought we were nuts just a few months ago, planning a pregnancy that would mean giving birth just weeks after a major move.  Some moments I still do.  But I also realize, as always, life's insane timing is a blessing in disguise. 

"There is no other organ quite like the uterus.  If men had such an organ they would brag about it.  So should we." 
~Ina May Gaskin

My stress tolerance is quite low.  Usually I would be a mess, a total mess, with all the logistical and financial stress we're going through right now.  But instead, I have this perfect, peaceful retreat right under my heart, where I can escape every day.  It seems easier with every pregnancy to feel the baby's... soul? spirit? personality? in utero.  And the last couple of months of pregnancy I feel like I really live in 2 worlds.  The regular day to day world, and the secret, dark world inside, where only myself and my baby exist.

(Doesn't she look big and healthy?  9 lb 6 oz!)

"Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God.  Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star." 
~Larry Barretto

My last birth was nearly perfect.  And, honestly, it was painless.  However, I attribute that equally to mental prepredness, perfect baby positioning, and really, really, REALLY high pain tolerance.  (I can't handle a lot of stress, but I can handle pain.  That's the lasting benefit of surviving a major car crash and extensive bone surgery, I guess.)

"There's time enough, but none to spare." 

~Charles W. Chesnutt

Attended homebirth is illegal in Nebraska.  This means we have to choose between an unattended birth in a hostile environment (i.e. in case of transfer/ emergency/ complication), with a lot of difficulty surrounding aquisition of a birth certificate, blood typing for Rh factor, and so on, and giving birth in a clinical setting.

(My what big hands you have!)

"Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong." 
~Peggy Vincent

 I realize that to families who have never experienced homebirth, it can be quite mystifying why it is SO important to some of us.  But all I can say is, once you have experienced a homebirth...

 things will never be the same.

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it.  If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. "

~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Birthing at home is safe.  Statistically, babies fare the same and mothers fare better, both physically and psychologically, compared to hospital births.  (WHO statistics.)

 Luckily, we found the almost brand-new birth center in Omaha to be fantastic.  The midwife is about as excellent as one could hope, and she herself wishes she could attend homebirths, as is passionately pursuing legislature that will allow her to in the future. 

"Birth is not only about making babies.  Birth is about making mothers... strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength." 
~Barbara Katz Rothman

(In fact, her assistant midwife was a homebirth midwife for 20 years before she was threatened out of business.)  In other words, they get it.

 So now it's only a question of whether we can actually make it the 30 minutes there before baby just *pop* arrives. 

"$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding." 
~Frank A. Oski

(My recurrent dream is waking up in the middle of the night, realizing I'm in labor, and before I can even get out of bed, FER (fetal ejection reflex) takes over and baby just slides out.  And no kidding, John Paul was almost like that!)

(First nap, 12 hours old.  Isaiah stayed up till 2 am to watch Rosie's birth.)

"I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring."

  ~Liz Armbruster

Anyway, between packing and laying around with my babies, all 4 of them, blogging isn't really at the top of my to-do list these days!   

(A little bit of heaven.)

"Children make you want to start life over." 
~Muhammad Ali

I've got ice cream, vaccines, birth preparation, unplugged travel, and a number of other ideas on my blogging docket, and we'll see how many of them materialize here over the next few weeks and we head from the mountains of northern New Mexico, to the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, through our home on the Kansas range, and on to our new home in Nebraska.

Our Lady of the Way, pray for us.

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." 
~George Santayana, "War Shrines," Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922

Cranberry-Lime Refresher

Mmm... summer!  I can't drink thick, creamy green shakes in the summer.  I want something icy and light, but still full of yumminess and greenery.

Enter the Cranberry-Lime Refresher, a better-tasting green shake for hot summer days.  Won't sit like a rock in your tummy!  (If you can't find cranberries, remember this for next year.  Every year when grocery stores are closing out holiday cranberries, I buy bags and bags and toss them right in the freezer- they keep quite well.  And tart cranberries are a great summery taste.)

 If the green color is unappealing to you or your kiddos, try increasing the cranberry ratio, or use hibiscus or rosehip tea as the liquid.

CRANBERRY-LIME REFRESHER
1c cranberries (all ingredients are per person)
juice of 1 lime (peel and chop the lime if you have a Vitamix or Blentec high speed blender for the extra VitaminC)
1-3c spinach (use 1/2 this if you are using frozen spinach) or any other mild greens
water to thin
ice as desired
stevia or agave to sweeten

Blend.  Drink.  Feel the energy!

My kids and husband love this.  It's a great substitute for a green salad on lazy summer days when you might otherwise not get enough veggies in. 

Really easy, really yummy, really really good for you!

"Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all life really means."  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Omaha... somewhere in middle America

Quick update:

Bread with Honey will be quiet(er) than usual in the next days, as we are off to house hunt in Omaha.  I'm super-nervous.  

My baby is head down again, but emphatically posterior.  Yay.  Well, yay with a really achy back.

And, may I say, I just prepped 10 junk-free meals for a really long plane ride.  Just say "no" to the golden arches!  And I'm ashamed to say, I used baggies.  No bentos.  But seriously, who wants to haul empty bentos through the Denver airport?

"Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning."  ~John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Black Widow Effect

When you've never seen a black widow, sometimes you see a spider and think, "Is that a black widow?"

In which case, I guarantee you, it is not a black widow!

Because once you've seen this:

You never have that thought again.  You just look and know, that is a black widow, or, nope, not even close.

Well, this pregnancy, I keep checking my baby, thinking, "Is she breech?"

And I know if I have to ask is  she breech, that she's not breech.  Till today, when I woke up on my left side, looked down at my belly and went, "Expletive, expletive, THAT is a breech baby."

Sigh.  I knew things were going too well.  I'm also sure the extremely stressful weekend I just had contributed.  First, we sold our house.  Of course, we sold it for a lot, a LOT, A LOT  less than we wanted.  And then we found out we won't get a trip to Omaha (Oh, I can finally tell you now that we are moving to Omaha, because Ed finally signed his contract) to house hunt, (which is fine, I guess, since we wouldn't be able to spend as much on a house as we were expecting, having sold our Kansas house for peanuts,)  then I spent a couple hours looking at rentals on the internet and finding pretty much nada.  Then we hosted a childbirth class, after which I let 2 doulas palpate my belly.  One went really deep causing baby and me to JUMP, and causing a uterine spasm (which I hid because I didn't want her to feel bad).  Then we went swimming and I strained a muscle in my hip.  And the next day, yesterday, I spent 8 hours packing and dragging heavy boxes. 

And I flipped out at my husband over a doughnut fiasco.

So somewhere in there, amidst the stress  and strain, this baby got uncomfortable and turned around.  (Today, baby is hiccuping and moving in a weird way she's never done before.)

Today I have spent the morning doing excercises and greedily (re)reading the Spinning Babies website.  And crying.

And now I think I will resume both activities.


"Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside." 
~Rita Rudner

Pertussis: An Unbiased Look

While I never intended to write a series on vaccines, I have been studying the subject intensely, as I do every 3 years (i.e. when I am pregnant).  Pertussis is, for me, one of the most worrisome diseases one can vaccinate against.  There have been outbreaks all over the country, it seems, over the past few years, and we saw one of our dear friends' 2-year-old go through it a few years back.

Note that this is a pro-vaccination bulletin, which outlines the problems with current pertussis vaccines:
http://www.dor.kaiser.org/external/news/press_releases/Waning_and_Less_Effective_Acellular_Whooping_Cough_Vaccines_Likely_Contributed_to_the_2010_California_Whooping_Cough_Outbreak/


"Be careful about reading health books.  You may die of a misprint." 
~Mark Twain

A Few More Tidbits on Vaccines

Ok, well, I should have known I was openeing a can of worms just by typing the words "childhood vaccines."

PLEASE, dear readers, let me reiterate that I AM A MOM trying to make the best decisions for my family, NOT A HEALCARE PROFESSIONAL nor an INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT!!!  My info is not always the MOSTest up-to-date-est stuff out there, because I do not spend evenings pouring over medical journals.  Well, not every evening.

Anyhoo, all my books are loaned out, but I would like to quote from a few online articles.  Feel free to take them with a grain- or 2 or 12- of salt.  And I wish you the best on your journey as a parent and health-care consumer :).

"Dr. Walter Orenstein, Director, CDC National Immunization Program, who will have a great deal to say about recommending chicken pox vaccine for all children, described being kept up for several nights with his five-year-old during a bout of chicken pox, admitting, "It's that kind of problem that the vaccine would eliminate rather than serious disease (6)."

"Dr. Arthur Lavin, Department of Pediatrics, St. Luke's Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio wrote in The Lancet (17) of "three concerns ... (he) believe(s) argue strongly against die licensure of varicella vaccine for healthy children."

• chicken pox "is not major in the sense of disease mortality or morbidity. In childhood, mortality is very low, and morbidity is usually minor ... Therefore, if healthy children were fully vaccinated it is unclear in what significant way the health of the children or the economic health of their families would be improved."
• Routine chicken pox vaccination in healthy children might pose a "grave danger of advancing the age of onset of chicken pox into adulthood." After bemoaning adults' poor compliance with vaccine recommendations, e.g., influenzae vaccine, Dr. Lavin asks, "What makes the proponents of universal varicella immunization believe that adults who may be susceptible to varicella as a result of their efforts would protect themselves with a booster dose (of chicken pox vaccine)?"
• Dr. Lavin has deep concerns "about injecting millions of young children with a mutant strain of herpes virus. As is well known, herpes viral DNA insinuates itself into the human genome for the lifetime of a host .... Although the risk of a deleterious effect on the human genome from an injected mutant herpetic viral genome is remote, the application of this risk to hundreds of millions of hosts increases the chance that we will see some adverse effect".

Dr. Lavin concludes:
"Humanity has been well served through efforts that have eliminated smallpox and nearly eradicated poliomyelitis and measles. However, not all infections demand these interventions (emphasis added). The Varicella immunization Program may be too much of a good thing. Until we actually know the duration of immunity and the risks involved in injecting mutated hepatic DNA into the host genome, I argue strongly against licensing this vaccine for use in all children."

"It appears that chicken pox vaccine will be mandated by law, not to benefit healthy children, but to save time and money for their parents with jobs outside the home, to protect children with cancer from catching chicken pox from other children, or for parental convenience so that parents will not have to stay up for two or three nights caring for their children with chicken pox
But, as Dr. Lavin states above (17), what price might society pay for this convenience?
By Kristine M. Severyn, R.Ph., Ph.D. "

---

http://www.all.org/article/index/id/MjUyNg

"Flu seasons are unpredictable and can be severe. It is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. Over a period of 30 years, between 1976 and 2006, estimates of flu-associated deaths in the United States range from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people."

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

Um, how many people died of varicella in 1994 (before the vaccine)? About 100-105.

On a side note, do you know that vomiting is called the flu, but usually isn't?  The flu is that awful, shakey, weak thing you get, maybe with a cough. 

"The decline in protective antibody against the flu that occurs after vaccination or after flu infection may be influenced by several factors, including a person’s age, the antigen used in the vaccine, and the person’s health situation (for example, chronic health conditions that weaken the immune system may have an impact).
This decline in protective antibody has the potential to leave some people more vulnerable to infection, illness and possibly serious complications from the same influenza viruses a year after being vaccinated or infected."
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

Get the vaccine and be sure your immunity to the same flu strain will be lower later- or 'risk' getting (OR NOT GETTING) it that year.  It truly is your decision.  You get to choose the risk with which you feel more comfortable.  For now.  Until yearly flu shots are mandated by the federal government.  Enjoy your freedom while you've got it, folks.

Innocent until proven guilty?

Works for people, but did you know your government extends this concept even to synthetic drugs?

That's the American way when it comes to pharmeceuticals, and it creates a BIG cloud of confusion and doubt around vaccines.  Is this method really in the best interest of children whose organs and bosy systems are growing so fast?  In the U.S., drugs- do I even need to list exaples?- do not need to be proven safe before being administered to thousands, even millions of people, and won't be pulled from the shelves until LOTS of people have been hurt by them. 

Eli Lilly's August 1993 Prozac 20 Consumer Product Information pamphlet:

"There can be no such thing as absolute safety with prescription medicines. Individual patients sometimes react differently to the same dose of the same medicine and it is possible that some unwanted side effects will not be known until a medicine has been widely prescribed for a number of years."

(Editing to note, I never intended to publish this post with mercury info.  A draft of this post accidentally went live.  While some shots do contain mercury, they are very few now.  Aluminum is a far greater concern at this point than mercury.  You can learn more about mercury in vaccines at http://www.askdrsears.com/ and at http://www.mothering.com/.)

And because I've received enough questions on this to make me dread opening my inbox, let me state for the record that we'd like to keep our family's medical choices a private affair.  I'm not out to scare anyone, or sway anyone's opinions on their healthcare choices, but to ENCOURAGE INFORMED DECISIONS for families.  Because the way childhood vaccines are presented by many family practice doctors and pediatricians is, we feel, enethical.  And if your doctor has ever threatened to 'fire' you (or actually done so), PLEASE educate them on the policy of the AAP and the AAFP; both organizations discourage pediatricians and family practice doctors from "kicking out" patients who choose not to vaccinate, to delay vaccinations, or who wish to create their own schedules or who wish to use only single-disease vaccines.  (Go to the websites of the AAP or the AAFP to read about their policies.)

AND ANOTHER SIDE NOTE:  I find it really ironic how the medical community wants to turn Dr. Bob Sears into a villain!  Do you know that Dr. Bob and the other Dr.s Sears ARE PRO-VACCINE?  I've had a personal conversation with him and I've heard him speak on the subject in person.  He advocates a different schedule of immunization, but he advocates immunization!  He wants vaccines given one-by-one so- gasp- you could actually figure out which one caused a reaction, should your child experience one!  Inconvenient for pediatricians?  Yes.  Villainous?  No. 

How many vaccines are recommended at 12 months?  Your child could potentially receive 9 different vaccines at 12 months of age, looking at the CDC schedule.  If your child has a reaction, how will you know which vaccine caused it?  You won't.

That darned doctor telling those darned parents they can make informed decisions about their children's healthcare!  How dare he inconvenience us like that!  That's how all the attacks on Dr. Bob come across to me! 

"I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol."  ~Author Unknown

(My version:  "We eat way to much McD's to worry about vaccine safety!")

Think about your constitutional rights:

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/vaccines/end-of-vaccine-exemptions-in-california/

More on working with doctors who want to 'fire' you :):

http://mytwohats.com/2012/02/29/why-i-wont-fire-vaccine-hesitant-families/#more-484