The Laundry Line

long time no blog

2008-10-17T23:08:00.004-05:00

I have to live life instead of write about life. I have too much to write, too much I do, too many funny things my kids say (and do), too many pictures, and too many projects. I try and enjoy everyday (even the bad ones) but it doesn't help much. Time waits for no one.

My brain floods with each thing I must do next and I think I'm running out of room in my brain. I can't fit all the memories in my head so I try and write down what we do, what my kids say, I make lists of things to do (which I usually lose or misplace) and I try a mental log of all of it. My mental log however fails me frequently. At times it seems that I have short and long term memory loss. So I've started a paper journal that I can jot down notes, quick things, funny things, and sweet things.

My baby boy is lovely. A slice of heaven wrapped in blue resting on my chest or at the breast. I am in a perfect world of new motherhood again.

Charlotte turned twelve. She has amazed me lately. She spent the night at her friends last night and she held a monarch butterfly this morning. Way cool. I've never seen a monarch in the wild.

Penelope turned two. She is like a doll.

Ricky brought me home fragrant red roses for me the other day. They are gorgeous. His schedule is killing us. But we are managing. This too will pass. Almost every time Penelope hears the dog bark she exclaims, "Daddy home!" Our dog barks about 10 times a day and several times a night. It's very frustrating and heartbreaking for now. More about the kids on the homeschool blog.

Oh, and have HAPPY HALLOWEEN from Penelope...

Happy in her own world, by Abhijit Nandi, India

2008-08-27T11:58:00.001-05:00

Environmental photographer of the year and quality of life winner: Happy in her own world, by Abhijit Nandi, India.
‘The woman in my picture is returning home from the paddy field after a long day at work. She never thought a village woman could be the subject of a photograph, so when I told her I’d like to take a picture of her, she just laughed.’
See the other 14 beautiful winning photographs, here.

He's here! Our new baby is here!

2008-08-24T18:18:00.003-05:00

After a wonderful birth Sebastian has made his presence into this world!
You can see photo's here
I will write up the offical story soon but for now here is a copy of the email sent to friends and family...

Aug 23, 2008
We are excited to announce that this morning around 6am we had a beautiful baby boy! My water broke around 3am and I went into what I would call "real" labor at about 4. We left the kids sleeping this time and Ricky and I had a great birth together under white twinkling lights (I decorated our room and bathroom for the birth!). I am usually a very independent solo birther but this time he helped me a lot and I really wanted him there for me, it was very wonderful!

The kids did all wake up one at a time immediately after he was born into my hands and so they were able to join us in the excitement and not miss the fun. We all welcomed him and adored him right away. All within minutes or seconds of each other: Penelope came, then Layla, Ethan, Sage, and Charlotte.

He is 8 pounds and 21 inches long....yeah 8lbs!!!! My biggest baby ever! (Layla was 6ish pounds and Penelope was barely 7 lbs). We named him Sebastian before he was conceived. We did not truly care if we had a boy or a girl, but I knew there was a boy out there waiting for us. I attached some pictures of the little guy. Penelope didn't want too much to do with him for the first couple hours, now she adores him and wants to carry him like a baby doll all over the house. Everyone is beaming with gratitude! We are so blessed!

What is wrong with people + my fatter belly

2008-08-05T15:25:00.006-05:00

Would you believe that yesterday (one week after the tree in the road incident and one week and 1 day after Ricky's tooth incident) Ricky gets his new car hit by a older couple driving to the hospital in a mini van. They just pushed right in front of him during a 2 lane left hand turn (He was in the left they were on the right).

Not only are there no witnesses (and it was too small of an incident for police to come out) but after exchanging insurance information the lady who WAS cooperative at first and said it was HER fault and she was sorry now claims to her insurance company that Ricky hit her.

His car has large scratches and paint damage from the front passenger wheel to the headlight. There is also a small dent that could surely come out with a visit to the body shop. So now it's his word against hers and we are waiting to see what's going to happen. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

This is small beans compared to our friend "Aunt" Penny (a long time friend of the family) whose house burnt down to the ground 2 am Sunday morning (August3). Everything is gone, and she has no one (but my family). NO family at all. And get this: the first insurance guy to come out to her place right after it happened had the gonads to tell her to rather rudely and coldly to "Buck up and hold it together" when she was crying. Again, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? She complained and his boss is livid at the guy.

Last year August SUCKED and this year it does too.
(no offense to the little cute baby in my womb who will come out this month...I think this month anyway!)

Belly Thoughts....
My belly is getting fatter! Yay!
My pelvis sorer. Boo!
I think I have heartburn, but it's not that bad.
Too many onions at lunch time I guess.
I have so much to do before this baby is born.
Oh geeez.

When your kids break your heart

2008-08-04T06:08:00.007-05:00

Last week was a hard week. I weaned Penelope (22 months old) because I'm out of milk. Still.

I comfort nursed her as long as I could (for at least 4 months with really low or no milk) but I got to the point where the 'suck, suck suck, and no swallow' just was too painful (and at times irritating). It had nothing to do with being sore from the pregnancy, that sensitivity ended long ago. If you don't know what I mean "dry nursing" gets quite painful after a short while because there is no milk let-down and there is no swallow break between sucking. She was sticking it out though and didn't mind, and either did I until it continued to hurt and I'd get sharp pains in my breast from nursing too long --especially during the night stretches.

I've never been this sad about a child weaning. I'm not sure why. I have that 'she'll never nurse again she's so big now' gloomy feeling.

The actual weaning went smoothly. She was as ready as possible because she didn't fight it hardly at all. Had she fought it too hard I would have given in. But now it's been a week and she is sleeping so good at night with us (in her own bed in our room) and she's less clingy on me during the day and wants to be carried around less. My left hip/back is less sore because I don't have the added weight to carry around as often. But, I miss her. I cried a couple times last week and almost nursed her when she got a cold and got hurt. It's such a quick fix for everything. That bond is a powerful, powerful force. She brings me her baby dolls to nurse still but she hasn't asked to nurse since day 3 or 4 of our "official"weaning.

Layla weaned for a short time before Penelope was born (2-3 weeks) but then started nursing again when Penelope was born. So I'm half thinking that could happen again, and I might let it. I'll just have to see how it goes. Tandem nursing was really rewarding. Watching as Layla and Penelope -eyes closed and both nursing on a side- reached for each other and held hands is a image of mothering I'll never forget. And a feeling I'll never stop cherishing.

Ricky was really sweet and helpful last week. I laid down with Penelope and Layla and got them to sleep one night, then I got up unexpectedly and told Ricky I was so sad for weaning Penelope and started crying. He wrapped his arms around me and explained all the things I already knew. :) That my body was telling me something if it hurt that much, that she is doing great and that soon she'd be back to snuggling with me. (She hasn't been very snugly or affectionate since there's no nursies to draw her in!) All that made me feel better. Just having sympathy and hugs made me feel better.

I also feel "bad" that I'm "replacing" her with a new baby. Which I never felt that way with Layla and Penelope. So we talked about that too. I think what we have here is me realizing that this is the end of babies for me. For real. We said we were done with Penelope, but there was always this unspoken (and sometimes spoken) aura of another baby being out there for us. So lots of emotions right now, changes in life in general right now, and finally I'm seeing how fast these kids are growing up. I'm getting older and I feel it, and someday my babies -and kids- will be grown. It's all too much for a hormonal 37 week pregnant woman to think about.

To top it off Layla turned 4 last week. And made me cry 3 times! Layla is a very particular child. She's moody, fierce, and has fluctuating attitude "problems." (She's me when I was a kid!) I planned her two parties (one with her friends at playgroup, one at home with her dad because he could not come to playgroup). I worked really hard on planning her exactly what she wanted, getting her presents, Etc..

Well when I went to give her one early birthday present last week she threw it at me and said she didn't like it. (My kids just DO NOT do stuff like that! But she did.) Her dad talked to her about it and she said she was sorry. Then once more she was really hurtful/mean to me because I told her no and she pinched my belly and made me cry.

I was SO close to cancelling her playgroup birthday party but kept it on anyway. At her party she had a lot of fun but wouldn't tell anyone thank you, which bugged me, but she did say it was because she was too shy. It's so strange how she gets shy and embarrassed around others but at home she's a crazy person demanding attention! At least she expressed her feelings to me and didn't act up about it though. I just told everyone thank you for her like she asked me to.

The next day was her actual birthday (Aug 1) and we had a home party (just us) she was happy and having fun. Her dad got home and gave her a present. Then the boys and I decorated her cake (a surprise cake decorated with The Littlest Pet Shop birthday figures). We came out to sing to her and she wouldn't look at her cake. Apparently we caught her too off guard or something and she was quiet and didn't want to blow her candles out. She looked miserable. We helped her blow them out and they re-lit many times because they were trick candles. That made her giggle at least. Everyone ate cake and ice cream, she said she didn't like the cake... and I went to the bedroom and cried.

Nothing I can do will make this child happy sometimes. This has been since she was a newborn... this personality is NOTHING new it's just finally hurting my feelings to the point where I cry. When you give so much of yourself to your kids and then they treat you badly it just sucks and hurts so much...plus I'm more hormonal right now remember.

Ricky talked to her again after he heard me crying. She came into the room and looked sad, then cried and gave me a hug. So we cried for a bit together. Then we talked. I told her I just wanted to make her birthday special and I didn't think she liked it and she was being so mean. She wailed, "I do like it! I do!" And that made me feel better. She's been much better and kinder ever since. Ricky told me he did not tell her to come into the room and hug me or say sorry. He just told her I was very sad and why I was. So she did that all on her own. Which made me feel even better!

Penelope just now woke up and crawled onto my lap smiling. She put her head down on me briefly and then she wants up. I'm not ready for her to get up yet. She and I are still getting used to this new weaning thing. We both look at each other like we aren't sure what to do because morning nursing at the computer was something we did everyday FOR SO LONG. So now we need to get up and color a picture and get some juice.

Too many changes around here lately... it's okay. It's just so different.

I wonder if the IRS liked this one

2008-07-30T07:59:00.002-05:00

I totally forgot about this until just now, but it's so worth blogging as I print these entries and scrapbook them. This year on our tax return my husband wrote down for my occupation: Domestic Goddess.

One of the millions of reasons I love him so much.

July is almost gone, and trees falling from heaven

2008-07-28T23:23:00.007-05:00

Well I have not had the time to write. Life is just bursting at the seams with other things to do. I guess that's what I get for having 5 and a half kids...

I have pictures of our summer days and I would like to share here but haven't had the time to post. Posting pictures takes so much longer than I'd like it to. (I usually re-size them all first).

I guess I'll update about myself and then update the kids on the homeschool blog today or tomorrow.

This pregnancy is going wonderfully. I'm happy, healthy, and growing. There was about a 2 week span this month where I swear I wasn't growing, but suddenly my belly seems rounder and I keep hitting it on things (kitchen counter, van door, ricky... lol). This baby kicks, and moves alot. I was tired a lot this month. I miss May and June where I had seemed to have endless energy, but I feel a little energy coming back. I have been hoping the nesting instinct would kick in soon because I have a closet and a basement I had wanted to get cleaned up before the baby is born. I just haven't found the motivation though.

Ricky is doing well but working long hours (mostly due to driving). His work is easy overall (read: too easy) when he knows what he is doing that is (he has stuff apparently they want him to do but haven't trained him in). Time wise, it's not much different than graduate school. (other than the butt-crack time he has to get up in the morning.) I will say one thing; work is not utilizing him for what he went to school for and it's making both him and I scratch our heads a bit.

We have been talking a lot however and have some very good ideas about where we want our future to go. This weekend we began to make some surprising plans and are looking at some really exciting ideas for our future. We plan to stay in this area that's all I'm going to say for now, so it's not about moving per say. At least I hope not. I can't yet say exactly what we are cooking up. I'm not sure we know LOL.

All I really know for sure is that I want my husband to be happy and fulfilled. And he wants me happy and fulfilled. Our marriage is beautiful because of this.

~~~

Last night we had a terrible storm and a huge HUGE tree fell across our road. We were without power for 12 hours and I helped Ricky get ready by flashlight this morning...

A few minutes after Ricky left for work he came back into the house and unexpectedly changed out of his suit into jeans and then headed out the door (still dark outside) with his hatchet and a busted chain saw to tackle the tree he just discovered TOTALLY blocking the only road off our hill. He could not get the chainsaw working but he tried and then used his hatchet and started on smaller branches. I walked down to him and told him he had to stop. I mean there was NO WAY he was going to get this done without killing himself or it taking forever. (The biggest part of the tree was only partially covering the road, he thought he could clear enough room to squeeze by though). His determination always impresses me. Always has, always will.

A little while later we were able to get some help from our neighbor with a working chain saw. So Ricky with his hatchet and our buddy with the chain saw made some real progress and cleared the road up very well despite the still falling rain. Thinking back the whole thing was cinematic.

<---Layla outside with me. She talked me into walking her down to see the tree by saying, "But it might be fun mom!" after I told her we didn't need to go down and see it.

I see this tree in the road as nothing less than a sign for something. This obstruction meant something.

As if nothing more exciting could happen today...Ricky had a back molar crack in half on his way home from work today. (A tooth that we neglected to get a needed crown for last year. Crap.)

Just more symptom of a crappy (Mon)day? A sign we have bitten off more than we can chew? Or maybe we just neglected his tooth long enough that it cracked? Nothing more. Nothing less.

How about this sign? What is it telling me...

I might need to quit reading into everything so much. Then again maybe not, it's keeping me motivated. We have some very serious life changing events on the horizon. :)

Some gripes about adjusting

2008-07-01T07:23:00.005-05:00

Well Ricky is done with school. He is done and at work full time this week. HOOOORAY. Today is his birthday. The kids and I are going to get a few birthday things today and hopefully have a mini party for him tonight. He won't be home until 7 or 8 though.

There are some things really frustrating me and I'm trying very hard not to let them. For example I'm freaking sick of him commuting, already. (Well he's been doing it over a year already.) I want to move closer to the city because getting up at 5am sucks. (I don't always get up with him but I do a lot.) And he doesn't get home until 7 or 8pm. I am also already frustrated at our mounting bills (loans, more insurance, and looking at buying a car for Ricky. Oh, and $900 in gasoline per month). We have more money, but more bills. Isn't that life. We are 600 dollars over budget according to the budget maker online that I attempted to use. (Whhhhat?!) And no savings #@! Arugh...
One thousand dollars a month on food expenses (inc. cat/dog food and misc household type stuff) and then another 700-1000 dollars a month in student loans does not help things. The Explorer Ricky currently drives is costing us 900 dollars per month in gasoline (hence the looking for a new car thing). This stuff is STRESSING me out. Ricky keeps dropping quiet hints about me shopping at Whole Foods less. (I don't go that much)

Ricky is so mellow about it all though. I asked him why he's not more frustrated while trying to get over this hump we seem to need to get over. He said, "I've been waiting 10 years so what's waiting a little longer. It's a process, and we have to take it one step at a time." I love him and his positively too mellow and totally content attitude. Even if it is sickening sometimes.
:)

Well now that I've written out the frustrations I can focus on the positive; like how he got a job before graduation. How he got a good job that he likes with lots of growth potential. We are all healthy and happy and the new baby will be here sometime at the end of next month. I also need to remember we don't even have a real schedule or anything down yet. We are just starting off with all of these brand new changes and bills. I'm just not good at adjustment periods.

One other thing that is bothering me is that Penelope Juliet is making me crazy. She wants to nurse and I have no milk this late in this pregnancy. Instead of giving up and loosing interest, as I've been now waiting for her to do for at least 6 weeks, she just hangs on and decided a nursie with no milk is better than no nursie at all. In fact right now she's pitching a total fit about nursing so I gotta go. She is trying to mimic her sister and suck her thumb sometimes but she just doesn't like it or get it. So she pops her thumb in and out of her mouth and the two girls giggle about it. But, she is clearly looking for a way to self soothe and she's having trouble.

Also, the older kids want to learn about the Empire State Building and today is library/craft day... and I need to update homeschool blog with some adorable photos.

Selfish Mothers Give Birth At Home

2008-06-18T20:04:00.008-05:00

This post taken down because it is scheduled to be published in CfM news in the near future. Yay! Will put it back up at a later time.

Mama and babies

2008-06-16T07:29:00.004-05:00

I updated my website's pregnancy page today and added a new photo Charlotte took of me outside yesterday. The photo is also below. She had fun snapping photos yesterday and I was glad to get one of me in my too small swimsuit. (not a maternity suit lol)

Charlotte also took a photo of me nursing Penelope and Layla getting hair. For those that don't know Layla has a hair thing. She has loved my hair since she was a newborn (and thumb sucking). She grabs it, holds it, caresses it, twists it, and smells it. It's her comfort. So this second picture is so much of what mothering these two girls is for me, nearly a constant of me giving myself to them. I love them dearly and one day they will be grown. No matter how tired or worn I may get I remember that above all else.

I also updated the homeschool blog.

Last week Ricky's first week of work went great. He likes it, he likes the people. It isn't exactly "work" yet. He doesn't have a computer yet and he has mostly been doing reading, tutorials, meeting with people, sitting in on meetings, and so forth. Everyone there sounds really nice. Today was his first early day (last week he got to go in at 10am). School is also going well for him. This is his last week, then finals! Then done!

This week I am going to continue decluttering, taking the kids to the library, going to drive 1.5 hr to Whole Foods, going to our homeschool summer solstice party, and going to the Friends of Missouri Midwives Picnic. Hopefully it will be a fun week and not too exhausting...

unexpected offers / life

2008-06-09T11:28:00.004-05:00

Ricky had an unexpected offer regarding his new job the day before we left for our trip. They want him in the office sooner (which meant today). He tried telling them he was still in school and felt it may be best he wait until the end of this month as originally planned. Well... he was offered part time work until school gets out --and they will give him FULL salary pay and FULL benefits. And he gets to pick the schedule around school (21 hours). How could he say no? Well he couldn't. :) So over the weekend we went shopping for some more spiffy suits, ties, shoes and what-not. We shopped both online and in store. We both had a lot of fun. It was a great weekend overall that we spent together.

Last night I sensed Ricky awake a lot. Every time I opened my eyes he was cuddled up to me with his eyes peering at me. I think he was excited about today. He says he slept well though but just woke up a lot so that's good. Finally we both got up around 4:30am but mostly because the little girls were sick and woke up. Penelope has a fever and Layla a dry constant cough. So we were really early risers today.

I'm playing catch up after getting back into town. The worst part has to be getting the kids back on a schedule. Also, I'm looking around and my house is SO dirty. I need a housekeeper. I think today I need to put the kids to work with some rags and spray cleaner. Everything is just kid-messy. Sticky chairs, table, walls, bathrooms, the desk, the floor (needs vacuumed), windows...

Later this week I'm picking up some hens. I finally found some young hens -not chicks- that are getting ready to lay. I have tomato plants that need planting too. That is really hard to do when our garden area is over run with weeds, still un-tilled for this year, not to mention I totally missed spring planting for this year.

With a feverish baby on my lap and Layla being needy I just don't have a lot of hope for getting things done this month...or this summer. At least we have some one weed eating the yard right now. It looks like a jungle. Today I daydream about moving somewhere grassy (which we hope to sometime soon). We live in a very nice place, but it's super rocky and we have barely any land cleared. (We are IN the woods). The grass is always greener on the other side though, right?

I can not wait until Ricky gets home tonight (or calls me) so he can tell me all about his first day. Right now he's out to lunch with his new bosses and probably other coworkers. He looked so awesome in his suit this morning. I hope he continues to love what he went to school for, he's worked so very hard for this.

Trip to Vegas

2008-06-05T19:58:00.008-05:00

Vegas was fun. I posted on the homeschool blog a bit about it with a couple other fun photos.

Here are some photos from my Baby brother's wedding (I am the oldest of five). Ethan and Charlotte were in the wedding. (Sage didn't want to be). Ethan is seriously boogie'n down in the picture below (then he was break-dancing in a serious way lol --hilarious!!) I'm bummed because I don't have a full length picture of me in my really pretty dress I spent 70 bucks on. I'll have to see if some one else has one. I'm sure there is some somewhere.

Ricky and I at http://www.bonniesprings.com/ and Grandma Wanda and Penelope walking in the old west town.

Penelope and her daddy being too cute in the hot tub

I'm online because I don't want to unpack...

Photos and a new job for Ricky

2008-05-28T07:27:00.008-05:00

Below: Watermelon Belly early outside a few mornings ago (27 weeks) and a photo of Penelope washing Layla's hair in the tub.

Some baby love, snuggles, and kisses...

More photos on the kids' homeschool blog

Our family has really exciting news; Ricky landed a great job in the 'big city' and will start as soon as he finishes graduate school. He finishes school on June 26th and starts June 30th! This is very exciting. He was offered a Vice President position for a developing and expanding investment management consulting group within a huge financial institution! This is a wonderful opportunity for him (and our family)! I am so proud of him! He has worked so very hard and I'm glad he is starting off so well! He will commute (just like he has been for school) for a while then we will move closer to the city. We don't want to move too far though. We are not city people! :)

Well I just realized we leave tomorrow to go to Las Vegas. (My "hometown" & we are going to my little brother's wedding) We are not packed yet. CRAP! How did THIS happen? I better get going. Penelope is hanging ALL OVER me too and I'm feeling smothered.

Large Families and Paragraphs on Nurturing

2008-04-16T21:20:00.009-05:00

While starting a short piece of writing about why I have so many kids I ran across this interesting little article about big families from the point of view of a rabbi with 8 children: The contempt shown to parents of large families

My favorite part was; "By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free. I work hard to support a large family and I give up no pleasures in doing so because my children are my foremost pleasure."

But this was also my favorite, because it reminded me so much my my husband :) "A man who loves children is playful. He will spend his life joking with his wife because he loves to see her laugh, and will flirt with her because he loves to see her smile."

Mothering Children
I also recently began receiving Wondertime Magazine. It's much more mainstream than my usual fare, but it's pleasantly refreshing and balanced. It's not Mothering Magazine, but it's not
Parenting Magazine either. It boasts that it "celebrates your child's love of learning."

There was an article recently that I was especially touched by about nurturing. (It contains such themes as co sleeping, comfort of both younger babies and older children, breastfeeding etc..)

Three separate memorable paragraphs from the article titled "Destiny's Child" by Shoshana Marchand include:

"I once awoke from a daze of exhaustion to find myself sitting on the floor with my infant in my arms and my toddler hitting me on the head with a long spatula. I heard myself saying out loud, over and over, "What do you want? What do you want? What in God's name do you want?" I no longer believe babies are pure and simple. They are miraculous not because they're blank slates, but because they're just as complex as we are- only with smaller fingers and toes, and smaller vocabularies."
~

"Everyone told me to put him down, to get the kid a newer, better bottle, to get a babysitter, an electric swing, a nanny. And me? What everyone told me was to get a life. But this was life, this was life itself, his and ours and why would it be better to make him cry his way through it? Maybe he should be able to cope alone, but for some unknown reason, he couldn't. What could I do but take care of the kid the way he was? He was, from the first, himself."

"I swear my kids were each fully themselves from the moment they opened their eyes. Some kids are just born with the power to self-soothe with rituals or comfort objects, and bless them. But let's also bless the ones who can't quite, for whatever reason, do it on their own, who don't yet know how to make the world go away. And let's bless the parents who do what they can until their kids are old enough to handle the bright, loud, crazy place into which we are born and in which we all must survive."

New homeschool blog, the bad and good ...

2008-04-02T09:35:00.006-05:00

I started a homeschool blog for more homeschooled-kid related things. I thought it would be a good way to log some of the things they do. I like to look back and see what we've done in more detail.
http://halfdozenkids.blogspot.com/

In other news things have been both wonderful and awful. Here's the Cliff'sNotes rundown: Our family run campground business was flooded horribly by the Midwest floods. The damage is stunning. Our store/bar/kitchen/dance hall was almost completely underwater. Our chickens were attacked and killed by a dog. Ricky's job hunt is not improving (he goes to Texas on the 8th for that other interview) Charlotte started soccer which is great, but time consuming. My husband is really busy with school, but slightly less so than his last 6week mini-semester (which was not much unlike hell). I actually get to see him 1 or 2 hours a night now! Yay! I am turning 30 in 2 days. Waiting to turn 30 is like waiting to give birth, it's exciting and anxious and I don't really feel like doing it, but the only other option is death :) I am happy my last baby will be born when I'm 30. That's just such a great age to say I'm done having kids now. My husband will be 28. What a baby! :P

Speaking of Ricky, things are so good with us. We are so happy and I'm so thankful for our relationship. It often feels like the only uncomplicated thing in my life is my marriage. What a wonderful place to be in.

Well this morning, although a do-it-yourself cereal morning, is off to a slow start. I better get off here. We have stuff to do! I need to eat more than cereal I'm afraid. This baby is wanting juice, eggs, tomatoes, salt...

I am 20 weeks pregnant this week. (photo is 17 weeks pregnant though) I feel the baby wiggle and kick. (I think there is a boy in there) We rub my belly in wonder like we've never done this before. Life is so magic.

I'm pregnant!

2008-03-18T10:16:00.005-05:00

The kids are watching http://www.brainpop.com/ so perhaps I can post a entry. I have a big announcement, we are having another baby. I am due this August with our 6th little whipper-snapper. We decided in Mexico that we were done having kids and stopping at 5, but we came home and soon I was pregnant. Ha! We had always felt there was a little boy out there and I feel he's in my belly right now. In fact in Mexico I said a prayer to my little boy out there and told him I was sorry and that he needed to find another family, perhaps one of my children some day. The powers that be (of not charting my cycle right LOL!) spoke and we are granted another child. I'd have 10 more babies if it didn't take 2+ years to nurse them and 18 years each to raise them. :)

If it's not a little boy then I was wrong, and we had a little girl out there waiting for us. ;) Some one is in there though. I feel them fluttering. I'm about 16 weeks.

Sage wants twins.
Layla says, "I think it's a baby boy, or a baby girl!" lol.
Charlotte cried happy tears.
Ethan thinks it's cool.
Penelope has to share her nursies now. So we'll see what she thinks in August. :) She will be almost 2 when new baby arrives. (oct 17 is her b-day)
The husband is excited and was initially much calmer than me. He loves babies.
I was petrified and just went along my normal routine not quite believing it! Then one day I touched my swelling belly and that feeling came over me; that powerful realization that I was growing life, coupled with total satisfaction. I also felt grateful for this gift. I felt thankful to my husband who loves me and this crazy life of ours. I always said I wanted six children. And so the largest, most hardest, amazing, crazy, fulfilling goal of my whole life has now been granted to me. (be careful what you wish for :) Now I have to raise them all.

In other news Ricky has been interviewing for lots of jobs and now has a few second interviews. The choices we have are crazy. Everything from moving to Texas to staying here (but commuting to the city). One of the craziest developments is a possible job offer which would include a 10 week stint in Alabama for training. This would mean the new baby would actually be born in Alabama! :-0

Crazy.

So I don't have much to follow all that up with. That is the big news and it's big! Everything else is fine. I'm blissfully happy and content (now that morning sickness is gone and my energy is back up).

I have a small sinus infection brewing in my head. I just asked Layla to get me a tissue from the bathroom and she brought me ONE square of toilet tissue. I cracked up and said, "What am I going to do with that? Can you get me a little more?" And she got all mad and said' "HUMMPH" and stormed off. Haaaaah.

I'm thinking about starting a homeschool and family life blog to keep track of what we've been up to. It would be helpful I think. I'd like a log of what we do all day.

update, homeschooling, life with kids

2008-01-29T10:07:00.001-06:00

I'm making myself post before January is over! I never really got caught up after our trip to Mexico. Everything has been just crazy. I am just taking one day at a time. We have at least been doing better with staying on our homeschool "schedule" since being back in town. It was a rough start this school year getting into a routine that worked!
This month we have been studying a whole modge-podge of interesting things like cave paintings, art, how colors were discovered, the periodic table of elements, the big bang theory, the sun, moons (ice volcanoes!), big machines, bacteria, crystals, the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., and measurement. In addition to this the kids and I have done a decently steady job at sticking with spelling words, vocabulary, math, and reading. we are not moving through the spelling as quickly as we should, but they are retaining it and that's what matters the most. Charlotte is writing more poems and is getting better at writing, I'm getting ready to post one of her poems in her journal for her. It's SO cute! Sage is finally excited about reading! Ethan is almost finished with his 100 lesson online reading program ( http://www.clicknkids.com/) and he's doing great too.

Layla (age3) is SO busy; she wants to paint, sculpt, play with play-doh, take a bath, eat, eat, eat, make a mess, glue stuff, play on the computer, and then watch TV over and over and over everyday. This child is exhausting. She typically wakes at 7am and goes to bed at 9 or 10 pm, without a nap. She also learns an incredible deal from the other homeschooling kids.

Penelope (15 months old) is right in there doing everything the kids do. She cleans up her plate or bowl from the table and brings it to me. She insists on sitting (or standing rather) in a big chair at the big table. She will NOT sit in her highchair -that's what babies do! lol. She thinks she's at least 2. This is what I've read about other big families, the youngest kids really do fall right in line and do what the big kids do. It is easier with each child. Penelope is still a baby however, and I still spend most my time holding, nursing, and cuddling her. She is still very much a mama's baby. :) Which is both exhausting and sweet. (Especially exhausting with homeschooling.)

I can't lie, lately life has been very challenging. I've been tired and so busy (but still getting nothing done!) I'm getting by each day thinking about how my husband is working equally as tiring hours at school as I am at home. In fact I think he has it much rougher than me for sure. Each morning I think OH NO not another day of this. lol. But it's not that bad --I'm just really tired right now. Things will look up and this is the longest most dreary part of the year. It comes every year, and it will leave every year too. Just a couple more months and life will blooming and energy will be restored. I can't wait to plant our garden this year.

2007-12-22T01:45:00.004-06:00

I am in a whirlwind of time. I haven't abandoned my blog, I'm just to busy to write. When I'm not to busy to write I don't know how to catch up to the present.

In November we went to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Mexico with my side of the family. It was very nice to see my family and especially watch my parents enjoying their grand kids. It was beautiful, tropical and warm. We went zip-lining 300 feet above the ground and over a dramatic river gorge. The longest zip line was 1320 feet! The kids even went (just not the babies). It was very adventurous! The kids were also able to participate in releasing baby sea turtles on the beach. It was a beautiful sight watching the turtles crawl towards the sea, and then be carried away. There was a most excellent kids club where our children played, made pinatas, learned some Spanish, and more. It was a slice of beach front heaven, it's hard to believe I'm now sitting back at home in my pink robe plucking away at the computer on winter solstice!

So since we've been home I've been playing catch up. I'm dreadfully behind in everything it seems. I'm currently trying to get re organized, re focused, and re energized! There will be a lot of changes for us in 2008 and I am needing to really center myself and pull this place together because this is no time for falling behind! I found a school program online that we are using. It is my/our homeschooling answer, I think. http://www.homeschoollearningnetwork.com/ appears to fit our needs and the price is nothing short of wonderfully do-able! Ricky is out of School for winter Break. This past few weeks have been near impossible. We made it through though. This graduate program has finally reared it's ugly head and became tough. He is amazing. I couldn't do his job, and fair enough he couldn't do mine either :)

On December 16th we had a very overdue fun day in the snow! Pictures can be found here.

Next on the list Sage turned 8 years old on December 17

The following day we had to travel to St Louis for 3 of the kids to have dental work. Nine hundred dollars later...I'm wondering why I scheduled appointments in the month of DECEMBER!? I'm also wondering what's in the sealants they just pasted over a few teeth of 2 kids. I was not on the ball with this visit. If I had been I would have really watched more carefully. Oh well.

Well as exciting as talking about dentist trips to St Louis is (not) I'm overdue for bedtime and some snuggle time. I'm outta here...
Lots of love and holiday cheer to the world, from our heart to yours...

life learning

2007-11-29T01:07:00.000-06:00

So, I recently spent a week researching online schools, curriculum's, and overall schooling options. Not that I haven’t done this before, but this time was a wee different because Ricky and I really were geared up for spending money on homeschool programs for the kids. Before we always were just curious but not ready to invest in anything. Well what I found was the same old thing; nothing quite fit us and the programs seemed not worth it, or much too structured like public school. People in our homeschool group also shared their experiences with some programs. In the long run I came back to where I was when we began homeschooling; Kids learning at home on their own (child led) is more productive and more valuable than kids sitting at a desk all day long.

So after I have these thought processes (and a mental crisis about the whole thing) usually I receive signs that we are on the right path.

The day before yesterday Ethan was being silly and I said, “Ethan is half crazy” to which Sage laughed. I turned to Sage and said, “Hey you are half crazy too!” And Sage replied with, “No I’m not, I’m only one quarter crazy.”

*blink*blink* I didn’t teach him that. He learned that on his own.

Then the kids today are talking about electromagnetism at lunch. I did a double take.
Me: “What are you guys talking about?”
Them: “Electromagnetism.”
Me: ?What the...?

If we provide them the tools (books, games, educational television, computer, workbooks, science kits, magents, microscopes, and more) learning will, and does, take place. It does! I see it all of the time.

So I’m now plotting what kinds of wonderful “tools” I’m going to buy the kids with the money we will not spend on a formal curriculum. A talking world globe is high on the priority list (one you can update via the internet!). So are some musical instruments.

In other news we just returned from Mexico. I can’t wait to write about it. I’ll have to later though. Time for bed it’s way late and I'm drifting off at the computer!

Putting Positive Parenting Into Play

2007-11-07T00:22:00.000-06:00

The kids and I have been standing in a circle together and having moments of reflections and affirmations. Yesterday we asked the question:
"Who wants ___[insert a name here]________ to talk nicer?" We filled in the blank with each of our names, and we raised our hand if we wanted them to talk nicer. Everyone wanted everyone else to talk nicer and communicate better. We then all vowed to talk nicer to each other.

Today we will be focusing on the moments that make us happy and releasing moments that make us angry or stressed.

Thursday we will be saying one nice thing about each person.

This weeks affirmations for myself:
-they will follow my lead, so lead by example
-they will talk to each other the way I talk to them (i.e. yelling, frustrated, stressed, short tempered, huffy.)
-Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all the small stuff)

Killing chickens

2007-11-04T15:28:00.003-06:00

So I have not mentioned that I killed my first chicken. Charlotte (who is vegetarian) helped me. Unfortunately we killed one of the meat chickens because it was sick, not for food for the family. I tried giving it some antibiotics and it wasn't looking any better. Months ago when some of our little chicks got sick I made the mistake of babying sick and weak ones which just cost me a lot of time, and they died anyway. I believe they also spread the sickness on. So now I'm a little less likely to keep a sick animal around.

So that's what was wrong

2007-10-24T23:26:00.000-05:00

Ah ha!

Today the kids and I tackled the basement. See, when the fleas got bad downstairs the older 3 kids kids moved upstairs. This was fine but challenging. Their clothes moved upstairs and they lived out of laundry baskets because of lack of space upstairs... Etc., and the kids went back to bunking in the bunk bed upstairs (double bed bottom with a twin top. (Ricky got kicked out of his study space room which sucked too)

So it has been over 2 months and now that the fleas are gone there was this daunting task of cleaning up the aftermath. (The real aftermath mostly being all the pesticide residue needed cleaned up!) And we left the place a mess down there! There was lots of dusting to be done, lights that burned out, and the smoke detectors needed new batteries. Oh, and after we put the cats outside we didn't take the litter boxes out --or even clean them lol)

...So there was WORK to be done!

Well today after the kids did a great job helping me finally clean, declutter, vacuum, and wipe down the basement I felt a ton of bricks fall from my back and the kids happily romped and played in their special space. So I was right, they were all getting sick of each other, BUT more than that they needed space. Of course it's only been one evening. And for a good portion of it they turned the tv on down there! lol. But they are all nestled in their clean beds; Sage and Ethan in beds next to each other and Charlotte and Layla in Charlotte's room. (I hope Layla doesn't wake up tonight! - This is her first night down there:)

And so for now, I breathe a sigh of relief.

F I G H T S sigh

2007-10-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

Today before we left homeschool craft the kids had a big problem...again. Very typical of what has been going on lately. After I nursed Penelope in my van I went in search of the older kids. Denise, Charlotte, Sage, Ethan, Tessa and Emma were out back in a playhouse type thing. (like a pavilion with walls type outdoors thing). Apparently the kids were "building" a club house or something. As I got closer I heard Ethan yelling and screaming very loudly in anger and Charlotte yelling back. I was like oh great here we go again. Denise told me she has been telling every one to be peaceful and inviting.

Charlotte carried on like a brat saying the little kids ruined things and nailed part of the screen to a tree stump and that they aren't allowed. Ethan and Sage said they didn't nail anything or ruin anything and that Charlotte just doesn't want them inside. Charlotte told them that they did do it and this went on and on. The boys also said no one would let them nail anything or show them how and they insisted that they were as good as the older kids. Charlotte acted so insane. I just don't know what has gotten into her, she is never like this. Lately she acts the age of whatever child she is arguing with. So if it's Layla she is fighting with she throws things, whines, and acts like a baby. If it's the boys she yells, rants, grabs, or hits.

So I was speechless. Totally just speechless (and really mad.) I told her to get in the van and to think about if she wants to go to public school where they DO segregate kids by age. Sage started crying and Ethan was in the van faster than anyone (as usual). In the car I told Charlotte to think about the way she acted and that once she thought about it she would see how totally embarrassing and immature she just acted. We weren't even out of the driveway before she burst into tears and started saying she's the worst sister ever. She's so dramatic LOL she gets it from me! :)

So I asked Charlotte how she knew it was the boys that did it. She said she didn't she just thinks so. She then got a nice lecture about our legal system (which she was interested in) and innocent until proven guilty, Salem witch trials, and the death penalty. I crack myself up! What is awesome is that I could totally log that as social studies!

I also explained to her how if the other older kids would see her treating younger kids that way and then they would all think it's okay. Which in turn would mean it's open season for anyone to be "mean" to younger kids. Something very serious I drill in my kids is you will act like the people you hang around with (and in return your friends will act like you as well!)

Charlotte seemed to understand, as I knew she would. Funny thing is there is a friendship triangle going on at sports program. I don't remember all the details but Charlotte has told me about it. Some people like this girl but not another girl, and a other girl is not nice but if Charlotte doesn't like her she thinks someone else won't like her....balah blah...total stupid stuff and friends not liking you unless you are their other friends' friends too. At any rate earlier today while talking to Charlotte she said, "Why can't everyone just get along!!" So I brought that up to her and made a strong point that way.

I haven't talked to the boys about it all yet, but I will.

My wise mother (lol) lecture ended with the ol' "there is nothing that can't be fixed" line. "Don't sweat the small stuff" (and it's all the small stuff), and "will we really remember this in the morning ...does this impact our life forever?"

All that stuff I need to remember when dealing with these kids on a daily basis.

Time to do the dishes and get these kids in bed....

cancel trick or treating?

2007-10-22T23:36:00.000-05:00

My kids are making me truly crazy. I have now pulled out the big guns: I am currently holding Trick-or-Treating over their heads. If they don't shape up (and this is not an empty threat here) then Halloween is cancelled. I know they are just kids but this has been going on for weeks and weeks. The bickering, fighting, rudeness, short attitudes, hateful, and hurtful (both emotionally and physically) to each other will stop. I do not know what has happened to my children! I want the real ones back. :(

Death

2007-10-15T20:06:00.000-05:00

My great uncle died Sunday October 14, 2007 from lung cancer. He was very peaceful and died quickly. He called out for my grandma (his sister) and his son called her and told her. She came down right away. She went to his side and said, "I'm here Doyle" and he said, "Wanda....Wanda..." And he gasped for air and then died. He had a fear of dying alone and I think my grandma being there (and all his kids too) really helped. He had actually told my grandma not to let him die alone. My Aunt called me and left a message on my machine around 11pm. Ricky and I were watching TV but noticed the answering machine flashing in the kitchen when we came out for a midnight snack. My Aunt told me to call her and I knew right then. The way you just *know* something. I called her back and there was no answer. I got dressed and went right down the hill. On my way down the hill the inside lights in my van all went on at once. I thought it was a sign. Be it supernatural or an accident because of the bumpy road (unlikely but I guess possible), it was still a sign.

When I got far enough down the hill to see my uncles cabin I saw a lot of cars and headlights. I pulled up next to my aunt and the nurses car. I walked past his kids standing outside. My Aunt was standing next to his bed and she turned around to see who was there. She said, "you knew when I left the message didn't you." I shook my head and went to my uncles bedside. I'd never seen a dead body before, let alone kiss one. It's so much less weird or odd when it's someone you know and love. I kissed his head several times. I told him how the kids will miss him so much and how it wouldn't be the same without him. I looked up at my grandma and chatted with her for a minute. I went outside, and then back in once more to say good-bye.

I told the kids in the morning about 9am after Ricky went off to school. That was a mistake. I had four crying kids and a very confused Layla insisting on wanting to go see Uncle Doyle "right now!" I packed the kids up and headed down the hill to find my family. The kids settled down and we all had breakfast and talked.

I'm so thankful we had so many good years here with him. The older kids will remember him. Layla probably will not, but I'll know that she knew him, and I can one day tell her about when she morned him. Penelope will never know him but he left his stamp by nicknaming her. When she was about 5 months old I was walking past and he said, "ol' Pah-nelly, huh?" and it has stuck ever since. He said "huh" to you all the time. His most known phrase was, "Whaddya think, huh?" (Or sometimes to a woman - "whaddya think dear?)

Death is so strange and it stirs up many thoughts about mortality. Charlotte and I talked about how without death there would be no birth, and we found a small amount of comfort in that.

Charlotte

2007-10-13T22:50:00.001-05:00

Charlotte, my 11 year old, had chips and scrambled eggs for dinner. Mixed together! She tried to convince me that it's good. I guess potatoes and eggs go together I relented.

Charlotte and I spent hours tonight making Halloween candied apples and dipped pretzels that we are going to mail to my parents. I'm going to post pictures on my website and link to it later. We got very creative.

Charlotte started playing soccer 5 weeks ago. This is her first season playing soccer. I feel Charlotte has learned a lot about soccer and a couple weeks ago I really noticed she was improving drastically. I love her coach! When she first started playing she was more reserved than I had expected, but it didn't take long and she found her niche in the game. Today after her second game (they play 2 every Saturday) the coach told me, "Charlotte is doing great, she is a soccer natural. She gets the game." I knew she was doing good, but I didn't know she was doing that good! I was so happy to hear that!
I felt like all the driving for 2 practices and 2 games a week have been worth while. Soccer has been hard on me, especially with 5 kids, and all the driving.
A 35 dollar soccer sign up has turned into hundreds of dollars when I factor in gas, food since we have to spend all day in rolla on Saturdays, soccer cleats and hot pink shin guards.
Charlotte's cold rosy cheeks just beamed at hearing her coach. I am so happy to have an athletic kid! I think I really missed out by not getting involved in sports as a child.

A couple weeks ago Charlotte asked me if I had ever stolen anything. I said... well it depended. LOL. I fudged the truth a wee-bit like I always do to hide my former bad-girl image from my children. (I plan to make them think I'm a prude. I might be failing though, the other night at Six Flags Fright Night we got spray on tattoos and I asked the kid doing them if he does butts. I WAS KIDDING! It cracked him up, and my kids were humorously mortified and said, "Mommm!" HeeHeeHee)
Anyway, Charlotte confessed to stealing something from lost in found when she was in public school years ago. Apparently it was a small stuffed animal and she was so guilt ridden she had her friend return it to lost in found a year later. She couldn't return it herself because she no longer went to the public school.

I told her I never considered lost-and-found stealing, as long as you give it a chance to sit there a while.
:)

I love that kid.
I love that she asks and tells me about important things.

I love you

2007-10-09T22:08:00.000-05:00

Excuse me for gushing, but I am in love. Head over heels in love with my husband. In regards to him being so busy with school: it's quality over quantity. And so that is where we are at right now. Taking one day at a time and enjoying the ride all the while being overwhelmed with kids and school (both graduate and homeschool!)
The past couple months have been really bummer months. Just in general. It seems like one thing after another has happened. I hate it when real life gets in the way of my good time. However, as the leaves turn from green to the brilliant colors of fall things are finally balancing out yet again. (And I'm becoming more accepting of many changes and challenges)

We are all set into a new routine, as hectic as it may be. Ricky is almost done with his first quarter of classes and it is exciting to hear him be so positive about such a challenge. I do not know how he does it. This month he will be at school until 11pm on Penelope's 1st b-day, our anniversary, and Halloween. Which totally sucks! But we will make it up. We will find the time to celebrate on different days. Those days he's gone I'll get extra kisses and more phone calls than usual. He says he sees the light at the end of the tunnel... and so I follow his lead.

He is working his head off at school. To balance all of that, and us. He's amazing. I'm forever grateful for him.

I'm such a dork for crying + Running into big families is it a sign?

2007-10-03T21:09:00.000-05:00

I’ve been trying to write this post for 3 days. I’ve been running around like crazy. I’m insane for thinking I have any time for blog or website. It’s one of those pointless kinds of feelings lately. August was terrible, I kept waiting for September to get better, and now I’m here smack in the middle of the first week of October. Halloween decorations only half up, costume boxes got wet in the rain last night because I left them on the patio, and a huge tree *just 5 minutes ago* fell on our electric fence. Ah Poop. Yesterday I had Orkin come and spray for the fleas. Fleas exploded in the basement while I tried natural and not natural products. We had them so bad we couldn’t even walk to our freezer and fridge down there. The older kids have had to sleep upstairs for the past month.

Before calling Orkin I reluctantly fogged the basement. That was a funny ordeal in it’s self. My husband and I are down there early one morning passing up tubs of toys to the kids at the top of the stairs. We were trying to save some things from getting fogged. Fleas were all over us. I had a cream colored lace nightgown on and I look down and fleas are stuck all over me. So I took it off. So now I’m in the basement in just underwear. My husband is reading to me what to do with the can of fogger and we are setting off foggers as I’m running around naked. We told Charlotte to get a shower going for us. We pick the fleas off our legs and feet, and Ricky gets in his underwear and we race to the shower together.

So a day later there were still fleas flying through the basement. What a TOTAL WASTE. All my efforts failed, like everyone said they would. So, I called Orkin. Using a company that is “registered” or whatever for commercial buildings including restaurants and health care centers was important to me. They said they use no foggers. GREAT I thought! It was my understanding that they would use insect growth regulator only. They lied. I said I wanted no known neurotoxin. The lady on the phone flat out lied to me. I was given a list of 5 different chemicals after the fact. Some used inside, some out. When I found the invoice and everything they did I was crushed. I covered the house in sheets, blankets, and towels so the baby wouldn’t be on it. (That was necessary anyway for the flea stuff, that has to cover every square inch of the carpet. It is truly odorless too, which gives me a creepy false sense of half-security.) After I fretted over the invoice and read it 10 times, did a couple online searches I then broke into tears. My poor husband was trying to write a paper for school and he took a break to hold and console me. As supportive as he is I know he thought I was a tad crazy. He also knows I’m over a week “late” --so he figures it’s hormones I’m sure. (No I don’t think I’m pregnant.) Anyway I sobbed that we spend $$$ on organic food only to bring the poisons right into our home. I wailed on about how Penelope’s brain is developing and that some of those chemicals are known neurotoxins.

I have a (somewhat) happy ending. I called Orkin today and talked to the manager. Of course he knows all the right things to say like, pyrethrins are “natural” (a flower even!) and a main ingredient in another is boric acid. I wasn’t going to argue because it wasn’t going to make a difference. He’s convinced his product is just as safe as I think it’s harmful. I did bring up that he DOES use a neurotoxin, I really freaked when I read delta dust had been used in my house. It is residual and excreted through breastmilk,. What made me feel better is that not only did he act like he cared what this woman of 5 kids that buys organic food had to say, he assured me that his technicians are trained to use minimal amounts and spray cracks, crevices, and along water pipes only. They never use any baseboard sprays. In fact he said most of his calls are because their technician didn’t come in and spray the baseboards of the home. The whole thing has been just horrible for me. I can’t even think about the flea spray. They used some kind of pesticide that I am not familiar with in conjunction with the IGR. I can’t do anything about that and that is literally on EVERY SQUARE INCH OF baby crawling and somersaulting CARPET. Okay so maybe I am a tad hormonal. I’m also very fed up with a lot of things.

Anyway here is what I had started writing days ago...
Big Families...
I have been approached by three different women in the past four days in three completely different settings (one was 100 miles apart even) in regards to my growing family. I say growing, because are we done yet?

This is rare because I just don’t run into big families that often. Now in homeschooling circles, yes, sometimes. It's more likely. But the randomness as of late caught my attention.

The first lady asked me if I had 5 kids and she went on to chit-chat with me because she has 9 kids. The second lady was at Whole Foods in St Louis. She commented on Penelope in my Ergo carrier and said she had something similar 20 years ago. She is a mom of 11. At soccer practice yesterday I met another woman who has 6 children. I started wondering if I was receiving a sign or something. I love having all these kids and it is awesome seeing how they all have some one to play with (but that means fight with too! Lol.) I love having a big family. I love hearing about other people’s big families.

The three older kids are spending the night at my Aunts tonight. Penelope is nursing and Layla is playing with some cool Lego car someone else built earlier. I was just thinking about how quiet and calm the evening is right now. Life with 2 kids must be calm. (I barely remember, I only remember 2 wasn't enough!)I’ll take what quiet nights I can get, but I love my house full. I’m crazy about these kids.

The other morning Ricky and I awoke to one of the morning shows on TV and they had a family with 8 kids on. I said see it’s not just coincidence someone is trying to validate me. I’m not alone. But what else is someone telling me...

Why aren't you home?

2007-09-27T08:21:00.000-05:00

I have an unpopular view about having children. It's gaining in recent popularity, but it's not the most popular choice: stay home with your child. How can anyone think their child is getting better care than they could give? Most mothers or fathers will give their own children better care than anyone.

I worked for a short time in a so called good daycare in a upscale area of Denver, CO. It was a horrible sight. The older children all seemed to have fun doing activities, but if you were in diapers you fell into a whole different lesser class category. Diapers left unchanged, thick green boogers on children's faces and dripping out of their noses, bottles propped up. Confused babies crying, the one year olds walking around aimlessly. They can say they hand-feed each baby their bottle but what if 4 or 5 need to eat all at once? Hand-feed a baby? What are they animals? "This is little Johnny and we hand-feed him on a daily basis, that's what makes him so tame."

I know some women need to work. But, in the same way that some women can't breastfeed. People need to be honest with themselves though. How hard is it to stay home and care for your baby? I'd file for assistance, cut cable off, turn my cell phone off, and quit eating out and work an alternate schedule than of my husband if it meant my kids didn't have to go to daycare. Many parent's find that a moms job isn't making a sufficient income to pay for daycare. It's sad parents don't get a tax break for staying home, but they do if they pay someone else [insert dumbfounded look here] but if you are lower income you might qualify for heating assistance, electric assistance, a food card, Medicaid. I'm not loving people who mooch the system, but if it's to stay home with a baby I'm all for it and it's not mooching.

What is the worst though are the newborns in daycare. Why did you even have children then? The detachment is crazy. I'm sorry if I've offended someone reading this but you can't argue, home is where the heart is...
Link...Newborn Found with Pacifier Taped in Mouth, Nursery Shutdown

Bill Maher: breastfeeding is like masturbation

2007-09-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

This didn't make me angry, it made me really sad. You can watch the segment from Bill Maher's HBO special on youtube but here are the highlights to save you time, Bill Maher says:

"I'm not trying to be insensitive, your baby needs to eat, but so do I. If I'm at Applebee's, I'm already a little nauseous. Let's not add to it!"

"Breastfeeding a baby is an intimate act and I don't want to watch strangers performing an intimate act...unless I'm paying for it."

"it's natural" is wrong because, hey, "so is masturbating".

"There's no important principle at work here other than being too lazy to plan ahead or cover up."

"It's not fighting for a right, it's fighting for the spotlight. When you go all Janet Jackson on everyone and get to drink in the "oohs" and "ahhs" from other customers because you made a baby. Something a DOG can do."

"This isn't about women taking their breasts out in public, as much as I like that. It's about how petty and parochial our causes have become. How activism has become narcissism."

"There is a place where breasts and food go together...it's called Hooters."

"Next thing you know women will want to be giving birth at the waterfall at the mall!"

He also incorrectly states that the Applebees nurse-in was the first ever nurse-in.

Several of these comments hit me where it hurt. Particularly that I'm doing something a dog can do. I'm wondering why he feels so hateful to women and mothers. 2 points for misogyny.

Autism

2007-09-18T23:28:00.000-05:00

Oprah today was amazing. I've been waiting 11 years to see something like this on Oprah (many more parents have been waiting longer than me)! I've written a dozen letters to Oprah.com since 1998: "Please do a show on vaccines." "Please do a show about Autism." "Please do a show about mercury poisoning our kids." "Hey Oprah, you know what really effects parents and children? Vaccines!"

Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete both were on the show talking about the experiences they have had with their sons who have Autism. They ask why no one is listening to the mothers of kids with Autism. Jenny also has written a book called, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism. She shares her experiences but also talks about healing children with Autism, which includes diet. (Wheat and dairy allergies effect these kids' moods and behavior patterns as well as food coloring/additives.)

I was thrilled to see this show air today. It's about damn time.

From Oprah.com and the show today...
In recent years, the number of children diagnosed with autism has risen from 1 in every 500 children to 1 in 150—and science has not discovered a reason why. Jenny says she believes that childhood vaccinations may play a part. "What number will it take for people just to start listening to what the mothers of children who have seen autism have been saying for years, which is, 'We vaccinated our baby and something happened."

Jenny says even before Evan received his vaccines, she tried to talk to her pediatrician about it. "Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, 'I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn't it?' And he said, 'No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother's desperate attempt to blame something,' and he swore at me, and then the nurse gave [Evan] the shot," she says. "And I remember going, 'Oh, God, I hope he's right.' And soon thereafter—boom—the soul's gone from his eyes." http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200709/tows_past_20070918.jhtml?promocode=HP11

2007-09-11T23:41:00.000-05:00

Labor day weekend we held an ice cream fundraiser here at Indian Springs here for Friends of Missouri Midwives/Free the Midwives. It was fun. Here are the moms from left to right Me, Molly, Trisha, Summer, Erin, and Michelle. Click photo to enlarge.

The Past Couple Weeks
We have been really bust as usual. Ricky's school is off to a good start with some minor flaws. Charlotte started horseback riding lessons. Homeschool sports program is back in. Fall is in full swing and the weather is turning cool. Charlotte wont let me decorate for Halloween yet. But I did change my blog to pumpkin orange, so hah!

Messed Up Plans
Today my darling husband forgot to leave me Layla’s car seat and so I missed a Holistic Moms Network meeting about natural family planning (that I was really looking forward too), the older kids missed sports program, and we all missed homeschool enrichment class. It was quite frustrating. I still don’t know why I did indeed have Penelope’s car seat though. We all went somewhere in Ricky’s vehicle on Sunday, but I don’t remember only getting Penelope’s seat moved.

Oddly enough I didn’t feel the least bit ticked off over the ordeal, just depressed. Usually ticked off wins over sad feelings with me. I think I am so tired and frustrated with everything right now that I think I've temporarily lost my spark. It’s one of those weeks. It was alright in the long run that I was “stranded” here. I spent some time with my Uncle Doyle (the one who is dying of lung cancer) and also was around for some other family drama. (Not bad drama, just stuff and sadness about Doyle.)

Parents
My parents were here last weekend. It was a lovely visit. We played with the kids, ate sushi, and had a great time. I didn’t tell the kids they were coming, it was a surprise. Someday closer to Halloween I’ll tell the full story. It’s worth waiting for. It will be a good October entry. My family is into spooky things. The short version is that I made them a scary hunt they had to go on and at the end of all the clues they found their grandma and grandpa tied up in the Indian Springs walk in cooler! LOL. It was a total blast. The kids were so scared too as they figured out the clues on a stormy Friday night. It’s a great story.

Moving/Life/Love
Ricky has been bugging me relentlessly about where I want him to get a job. The job search begins even before graduation. We recently bought him hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of suits. (He looks damned spiffy too I might add). They are putting a lot of pressure on the business students to interview now (that’s why they have a 95% employment rate at graduation I’d suspect.). He is also going to the career fair at UMR.

So he’s bugging me about where I want to live. Duh, I want to live at Indian Springs. Somehow I’m just not getting that there is no money out here, and thus no high paying finance jobs. Silly me. The other day we had a discussion about how he’s always trying to make me happy and so I want him to make sure he is happy.(With work and whatnot) and he said, “I’m happy if you’re happy.” And I said, “Well I’m happy if you’re happy!” I asked him why he's always trying to make me so happy and he didn't even have to say anything. It was all in his eyes. I did tell him that he is turning me into a spoiled brat so he better be careful. He laughed. But I'm serious. You give me an inch.... *smile*

I'm so stressed, he's so stressed, the kids are bickering a lot, we have fleas in the house, we have too many animals... but dammit life is so, so good. I'll re read that tomorrow when I'm up to my ears in stress.

Last topic: I need to simplify. There are a few things making me really unhappy (fleas for one!) and one is too much stuff in the house. The other is too many darn cats and dogs. And lastly I have to get on a better schedule, and stick with it for more than a week, or half a month.

I was Tagged by Dee Dee and Molly --That's a double tag!

2007-09-07T22:57:00.000-05:00

I was "tagged" by both Dee Dee and Molly so here are my 8 facts/ habits

1.When I drive by funeral homes if they have the tombstones out I pick which I would want. Which leads me to tell you I have a strange obsession and sometimes fear about death. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and think, “OH MY GAWD I’M GOING TO BE DEAD SOMEDAY”
Is that one or two? I’ll count it as one. Then I can talk about myself for longer :P
2. I crack my fingers, toes, neck, ankles, wrists, back, and anything else I can manage.
3. I try and have a glass of wine (or three) in a hot bath and read Mothering or another magazine at least once a month. (I used to do this once a week, but now with 5 kids that does not happen!)
4. I’m flying by the edge of my seat “unschooling” 5 kids. I’m scared to death of it though.
5. I’m totally addicted to giving birth. It’s a drug and I crave it.
6. I love watching Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show. I’m convinced he’s the funniest man alive.
7. I’m neurotic about my house and how everything needs to “be.”
8. I really do care what people think of me, but I try not to.

I'm not tagging anyone right now. That might give me bad luck or something :)Maybe I'll tag others later.

Everything A Baby Needs To Know

2007-08-27T21:02:00.001-05:00

As I bathed with Penelope today I watched as her thighs and little butt swayed and balanced her upright as she sat in the tub of water. As the tub filled with each inch the water tried gently to carry her weight away and knock her over. The slippery tub is no match for her, for she learned long ago how to stand up and keep from falling (though I keep telling her it's not a good idea.)

It was while watching her balance (both sitting and standing) I thought to myself that babies are at the most important and crucial stage of life. It is when a human learns absolutely everything that is essential to live and thrive. Trust, warmth, food, security, love, balance, walking, communicating, and eventually care of ones own self.

This is no new realization. There have been many studies about how from birth to 6 is what sets up a child for his or her whole life. But once in a while it just hits me. The wonder in her eyes and the newness everyday brings. Penelope is pointing, waving, taking wobbly first steps, and communicating her needs. She is learning everything she needs to ever know. She curls up warm against my breast every day and every night (all night) to sleep, and that is also how she knows I'll always love her.

August turned bad

2007-08-22T00:52:00.000-05:00

For once I'm not worried about the laundry. Usually if clean laundry piles up in my room waiting to be folded I think about it everyday and sigh at night if I go to bed without folding it. I looked at the laundry tonight as I'm getting ready for bed and I thought to myself, 'I don't even care about the laundry.' There is too many other things going on.

This month is not a good one. I'd like to throw it back. I'm ready for the next one now please. I'm on the verge of that hopeless feeling. But so many positive and happy things are in my head, I just wish bad stuff would keep happening.

This month Ricky bizarrely had every wire ripped from our minivan when he had a blow out (and near accident) on I44. His car doesn't have air, so he was taking the van during this heat wave. Ricky is embarking on a brand new experience with graduate school, I can feel the stress and sense the toll driving to St Louis is taking on him. I have my own problems because I have been emotional, hormonal, and at times a bitch.

I told Ricky it was because I was ovulating. To which he replied, "You've been ovulating for 3 weeks!" LOL.

All in all Ricky's school is going good, so far. The workload hasn't started yet. We are both a little worried because this is not going to be easy. This program is intensive. He's earning a Masters of Science in Finance degree in 10 months. I'm sure he'll do great with the workload, but it's the family thing that will be hard on us both. His first day he found out he is one of 250 applicants for this program, 33 of which were accepted. He is also the only one married and that has children which was a fun fact. There are 10 woman in the program, the rest men.

So back to the van I got sidetracked.
I shrieked as Ricky talked to the insurance company about our van (twice now) for various reasons. Our insurance company won't fix it because it's a total loss and "not worth" fixing. It's because our van has so many miles on it. It's an awesome and well cared for minivan though, which is still under warranty. We are working on getting a new van. We have one picked out.

Sage (7) got very sick over the past couple days. Our relaxing Sunday at home turned into a trip to the emergency room. It's a long story but he ended up having strep throat and severe tonsillitis. He had near tennis ball size lumps in his neck (We thought it was mumps for half of a day). For me to go to the emergency room (we mainly did so because it was a Sunday so our Dr wasn't in) says it must have been bad. He was given an antibiotic IV in the hospital. Him and Layla (who insisted on going with us) were given Popsicle's and cartoons. It was a great hospital (Sullivan Baptist). They were very kind there. I was not hassled for not vaxing, and the on call doc was shocked Sage had never been on any antibiotics (except for an abscessed tooth.) The doc kept asking if Sage had ever had tonsillitis or strep before. I had to keep saying no no no. I can not, like many of us, imagine what it was like when people used to just get infections and die. I bitch about modern medicine a lot, but I am thankful for a lot too. I always want to make that clear.

What modern medicine can't do
My Uncle Doyle is dying of lung cancer. He lives here at the resort. He is in his 70's and the life of the party. I've never had a family member die like this. He is dying, and it's starting to hit us all. Death is bad enough but when you have to watch it... it seems so unbearable. He has 6 months to live. Ethan drew a heart breaking picture yesterday and handed it to me. It said get well on it. It had a stick person and a cigarette in a crossed out circle. It is so hard explaining to kids when someone just isn't going to get well.

Udate about my uncles cancer 8/23/07:
my uncle has now been given 30-60 days to live. The cancer is very aggrestive and he is worse than he was even 1 weeks ago. *Sigh* I felt like I was punched in the belly hearing that. It's starting to really become real now.

Free the Midwives in Missouri and World Breastfeeding Week

2007-08-05T08:32:00.000-05:00

Life has been very busy! This past week in addition to normal everyday things we went to the Capital (Jefferson City) and went to world Breastfeeding Week Picnic in Rolla. You can view more pictures here
I'm going to start keeping a page of activism type photos.

The rally at the capital was a great experience for the kids. It was fun but a hot day! If you want to know more about current midwifery issues in Misssouri here are some links: Friends Of Missouri Midwives , Politics Blog , Dr's Try to Block Midwives Law STLtoday
The most amazing thing was that my husband and I got to see the Business of Being Born documentary, compliments of Ricki Lake. She issued a statement of support for Missouri too. The film was great and was donated before it's release and for free. It was very nicely done. There were things I didn't care for (after all I am an unassisted birther at heart!)BUT, all in all it was fantastic. It will be released this fall I hear. I was elated to be in a room with 3 of my closest girl friends AND my husband to see the film and rally at the capital. It was very special to me.

The World Breastfeeding Week picnic was fun. I got to hang out with good friends, have good food, and support breastfeeding!

Staying Home

2007-07-25T13:02:00.000-05:00

Staying home is a sweet, sweet job. I’m paid in gratitude from my husband and satisfaction in seeing my kids grow up. (Unfortunately not all husbands are as gracious that their wives devote their lives to the children, but they should be!)

I can nap with the kids or watch a movie with them. I can type in my blog and update my website. I can eat when I want and do the housework as I see fit. Time for fresh air? Lets go to the park. Or six flags. Or take a day trip into the city.

No one it seems really cares about the housework but me, so I can do a crappy job if I want. When it comes to housework I’m an over achiever though, adding to my own insanity. (LOL)

Homeschooling is another can of worms. It’s time consuming, but also rewarding. We rarely get everything done that I set out to do. I noticed we get more done when my expectations are low. We are mostly unschoolers, so that helps as far as time constraints.

But, being a mom is a 24 hour job. And lots of over time. 2am barf clean up is in the job description, regardless if you are a stay at home mom or not. So is picking off dry applesauce off the dining room chairs.

I’ll never say I didn’t WORK all my life.

A research analysis completed by Salary.com reveals that stay-at-home moms would earn $131,471 in annual salary, including overtime pay.

On an online salary generator I was estimated to earn $223,447 per year, because of all the kids and extra work. And that's according to my geographical location, too!

Doula day 2

2007-07-14T20:44:00.000-05:00

The ALACE training is going AWESOME. Really like it. Dee Dee, the instructor, is awesome. She is a great teacher and super person. The workshop as a whole is very trusting of birth and a women's ability. (even not so bad for super unassisted birther over here) It's very good to hear that some routine procedures, like suctioning of healthy stress free babies, are on the decline. Slowly, in some areas, real birth is starting to make a comeback. It's a loong road though.

I would like to go in depth about the training when I have time (yeah right! time what's that?) I'm not going to right now because I'd be here all night if I did! I looked online for peoples thoughts about the workshop and "reviews" so to speak and never found one. So, I want to write about it and maybe someone who searches will come up with mine.

Penelope has been awesome. The first day she was a bit hard, but day two was a breeze.

Funny today I realized and thought to myself "wow they are really preparing me to be a doula, maybe I'll be one" LOL. Like what else did I think they would prepare me to do? After all I am spending 400 bucks, right? LOL.
My confidence about being a labor support person has totally gone up and I really want to make a difference in hospitals. That said, we will see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a domain now! My website is now www.birthandmotherhood.com
(can you believe that wasn't taken already?)
It's not working yet, it could take up to 3 days for the servers to make the switch.

Last week I labored over my website and I am so happy I did! I added a cool section with blessingways, birth art, placenta rituals, and motherhood and birth quotes. I am really liking my new layout too. I didn't do much but I tweaked a thing or three.

Doula training starts tomorrow

2007-07-12T23:14:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I start a weekend long (Fri, Sat, Sun) ALACE doula training workshop. I'm really excited and I think it will be a lot of fun. There are several friends of mine also doing the workshop, so that is extra fun. I am taking Penelope, as she is still an in arms nursing baby. I really hope everything goes okay and she is very good. It's going to be a long weekend.

I left a card for my husband on the pizza in the fridge he is to cook for dinner tomorrow night. It reads:
Dear Ricky,
Thank you for being excited when I first told you about this workshop. It actually made all the difference to me. Thank you for all the support and encouragement you give me. Thank you for telling me to pursue my dreams of helping women and making a difference in childbirth. Thank you for being the type of man that takes care of his children for an entire weekend without even blinking twice. I could not have asked for more in a husband. I love you so much. To say I'm lucky is an understatement. I love you always, Shauna

If I'm not to tired I'll update over the weekend and talk about how the training is going.

bad people raising more bad people

2007-06-23T17:33:00.000-05:00

So ironic how yesterdays Holistic Moms Network meeting topic was about gentle discipline and non-violent communication.

At the park today a very nasty lady told her 5 year old son to get down from the slide to go home. He cried that he didn’t want to go home. She then said, “You get down that slide or I’m going to drag you to the car and give you an ass whooping.”
That is a direct quote with no errors. I told her not to speak to her child that way or in front of my children that way. She then told me I was a bitch and that my kids were brats. I didn’t say one word after that as we were already leaving and I AM A GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR MY KIDS. My kids were flabbergasted and asking, “Mom what’s wrong with that lady?”

Now I wish I would have said, “I care enough about your child to speak up for him, why don’t you care enough to not treat him that way?”

Or

“Just because you are a miserable person, don’t take it out on your children.

She also had a three year old with her. It was really weird. We had been at the park for 45 minutes and were ready to leave anyway. They were only there 5 minutes. She was weird. The whole situation reeked of back woods white trash fried twinkie weirdness.

Poor kids. I should have got her licence plate.
(Sage said he saw her dragging him by the arm, as we pulled away.)

Well now my kids think I’m the nicest mom in the world. LOL ha.

Why Men Leave

2007-06-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Why Men Leave by John Travis, MD
From this wonderful magazine: http://www.kindredmedia.com.au/

Men leave their families in a multitude of ways. Even if they remain in the home, many fathers are often emotionally absent — through depression, workaholism, violence or abuse (physical or emotional), or a retreat into addiction to substances, media, consumer goods, sports, food, or sex.

Most men in the ‘developed' nations today never bonded (or very poorly bonded) with their mothers. Most people don't even notice how disconnected modern people are from each other, compared to cultures where the bond is still intact. Yes, we talk of alienation and notice how much people in Mediterranean cultures touch each other, but we make no connection between these phenomena and how our bonds among each other, with nature, and with the divine have been torn asunder. I maintain that this unnoticed, silent epidemic is the source of most societal ills. Fathers leaving their families is only the tip of an iceberg.

Most men in our culture have been bottlefed and subjected to other culturally-endorsed patterns of normative abuse as infants, such as sleeping alone or being left to cry when their needs aren't met. Biologically, the male is the more fragile gender of our species and developmentally lags years behind females, well into adulthood. Instead of getting the extra nurturing needed to compensate for being the weaker sex, by age five, males in almost all cultures get far less nurturing than females. It's no surprise, then, that most of these unbonded boys grow into men who spend a good deal of their lives unconsciously seeking a mummy-figure to provide them with the nurturing they were denied as infants/children (fueled by advertising that prominently features the breasts they were denied). Part of their survival mechanism is to learn to deny their feelings and project their unmet needs for nurturing onto substitutes, such as women, and other externals, such as consumerism, workaholism, and other addictions.

We unbonded men may manage pretty well in our marriages for a while, but when our ‘mummy' gives birth and suddenly turns her focus towards the newborn, we usually lose much of the nurturance we were getting from our partners. This is almost inevitable given the demands on parents trapped in what I call the nuclear family disaster (NFD) experiment our culture is trying. Mothers, especially, cannot begin to get their normal adult needs for nurturance met unless they are one of the few living in a tribe, close-knit community, or extended family.

The Northern European cultures have, in the name of civilisation and progress, gradually destroyed the tribe/village/extended family/community and replaced it the nuclear family disaster . This, in turn, has melted down into the single parent trap (SPT). These spread rapidly throughout the world as the northern Europeans busily exported their experiment in isolation to every continent but Antarctica, first via missionaries and conquest, and now via the media and multinational corporations. The consequences are immense, leading to overwhelming pressures of isolation, particularly for women, who often end up bearing the total responsibility for their children.

At the same time, our sudden exposure to an infant who has not yet been fully ‘trained' in the denial of her own needs — for suckling at the breast, being lovingly held in arms, being constantly in the presence of her caregiver, etc — and expresses them vocally in no minor manner, will usually stir up our suppressed memories of our denied needs as infants, plunging us into deep pain — conscious or unconscious.

With the resulting increase in pain levels, we usually step up our adopted/chosen means of defending against our feelings — be it via medication, having affairs, rage, depression, addiction, or violence (physical or emotional). This is the first level at which men leave. When or if the defence mechanism fails, because the real need is not addressed, many of us think the only thing we can do is to depart from the stimulus and leave our homes.

Girls in our culture also get far less nurturing than required and suffer a similar experience of failed bonding. They have the opportunity, however, of recreating the experience of a secure bond through their unique ability to have a biological bond with a fetus in pregnancy (and the concurrent hormones). If they are able to preserve that bond by resisting our cultural norms and raise a securely attached child, they are often able to heal much of their own unbondedness, but witnessing this may simultaneously exacerbate the father's restimulation of his own primal wounds , trigger his defences, and increase the likelihood of his leaving.

Since depression was my defence mechanism of choice, I understand that coping mechanism better than the others, but I believe my theory explains equally well why the other defence mechanisms, such as addictions and violence, similarly lead to broken bonds and the passing on of our trauma to another generation.

Sourcing the pain

I was born in the farmlands of western Ohio in 1943. Like most babies born in those days, I was dragged out of the womb, drugged (via my mother's general anesthetic, which took weeks to wear off), with cold, metal forceps, grasped by sticky rubber gloves, and plunged into bright lights—instead of being gently greeted with warm hands in subdued light. I was doubtless held upside down to drain my lungs (I'm not sure if I was slapped or not, but that was the norm of the day). Stinging silver nitrate was put in my eyes. I was wrapped in cold, scratchy fabrics instead of being allowed to mold my skin against the warm skin of the person with whom I'd been intimately connected for nine months. A little while later, I was taken to the nursery where I was placed in a plastic box beside Carol D., born earlier that day. I spent my next 10 days there (the norm for the early ‘40s). Arlene and Marlene soon joined me, twins born a few days later. I was given a cold, rubber nipple with a bottle of a fatty, antigenic substance instead of the miracle food that three million years of evolution had prepared for me.

Then, a day or so later, I was immobilised on a board and, without painkillers, the majority of the most sensitive nerve endings of my penis were amputated. Then followed the standard ‘normative abuse' parenting practices of the 1940s:

1. artificial baby milk — probably Carnation or Pet Evaporated Milk,
2. a four-hour bottle schedule. I got hungry every three hours and cried that last hour, until I learned it was no use and made a decision about the world that is so basic to my brain's neural organisation that it still impacts almost everything I do — 'Asking for what you want doesn't work'.
3. restraint in a crib or playpen,
4. deprivation of the continual movement of being carried in-arms,
5. sleeping alone in a separate room.

Most of these ‘improvements' in child rearing were devised by men citing untested ‘scientific' ideas, all of which have since been proven to be destructive to human bonding. I don't blame my or other parents of that age; they naturally followed the cultural winds, and the promise of science and technology to cure the world's ills was, in 1943, still an untarnished vision.

I used depression as my primary defence from the start. While my primary defence appears outwardly as depression, it's just one of a standard set that unbonded children/adults cling to in their attempts to escape the pain of the early needs deprivation that still eats away at them. The others are addiction, violence, chronic illness, and ecocide (destruction of the environment) — symptoms of what James Prescott named Somato-Sensory Affectional Deprivation Syndrome (SSADS) in his early bonding research (see special feature for definition).

I created a ‘safe' world of my own in my head that allowed a sense of control (since I had no control over being fed, touched, or moved). The fact that I was disconnected from the matrix of my life by being isolated from others limited my ability to express my needs and get them met—hence the periodic depressions. No one recognised my depressions, including me, until I was in college — people just thought I was ‘quiet'.

My condition is not atypical of most men alive today who were raised by ‘modern' cultural standards. One friend, though raised in California, was fortunate in that his mother was from South America. He was breastfed well past age two and has always seemed happier than any other person I know.

My stroke supply

Having never experienced a nurturing mother, I've subsequently spent most of my life looking for a replacement.

I thought getting married and becoming a doctor would somehow fulfil me, so at age five I blindly set on a course of 22 years of school that would handle the latter, and assumed somehow the right ‘girl' would magically appear about the time I became a doctor. Although I had few social skills, I wasn't deterred in my belief that she would appear.

Much to my surprise, marriage midway through medical school didn't suddenly make my life better, just more complicated. My feelings of emptiness got worse as my depressions deepened. After three years of marriage and several crises, my wife said we had to have a baby or split. I thought I had to comply, since divorce wasn't an option in my family. Reluctantly, in 1972, I became a father.

It was great at first, the excitement of a new being, but then the reality hit — I was a lot lower on my wife's attention list. I began to get more and more depressed, leading eventually to our getting into therapy. There I learned I actually had feelings, and could express them, though with great difficulty — even to this day. We began learning about the unconscious patterns we'd been playing out in our symbiotic marriage, but seemed relatively powerless to change them. However, my experience with this reparenting therapy group became the basis for my pioneering work in wellness and, later, my observation that failed bonding/attachment leads to the need for remedial work as adults.

Despite learning a great deal about my inner workings, I still was depressed most of the time. When our daughter was two and a half, the pain became so great that I realised I had to leave in order to keep my own sanity, as I was sometimes close to being suicidal. I abandoned my first daughter, with whom I had never really bonded — clearly out of my own inexperience with this phenomenon.

The cycle began again with another intense, three-year relationship. I was still unconsciously seeking the mommy I never had, and while I revelled in the attention she gave me, it wasn't enough, and she felt drained by my neediness. It was around this time that I first heard of the book Magical Child and author Joseph Chilton Pearce's efforts to reframe children's legitimate nurturing needs, but I didn't think it had any applicability to me and subconsciously, I didn't want to stir up my painful childhood recollections. I tried to learn to love myself and follow the tenets of self-responsibility I was helping to promote at the time, all the while struggling with my chronic depression. I was only marginally successful. Deep down, something always felt wrong.

A year later I met and fell in love with an Australian, Meryn Callander. As our love blossomed, we were often challenged in our new-forming relationship, but we managed, and a year later, married. Meryn and I also began to work together professionally, first with authoring books, and then creating authentic community, especially for helping professionals who are often lonely and unable to connect with peers on an emotional level. It was through Meryn's studies of feminist spirituality that I became aware of the estrangement rampant throughout western culture leading to the authoritarian institutions that surround us, like medicine, law, and the educational system. I had been struggling with aspects of this phenomenon in my work with our Wellness Resource Center the previous seven years, but had no understanding of the bigger picture.

I thought I was gradually overcoming my depressions through continued work on myself in growth-oriented seminars I both led and participated in. Friends who had known me a long time could see a difference — years of hard work on painful issues were paying off.

One of the things that fed me the most was lying in bed at night in Meryn's arms, usually watching TV, and having my head, chest, or tummy stroked. We spent an hour several nights a week, doing that before going sleep and 15 minutes or so in the morning, alternating who would cradle whom. Unlike the common male stereotype of always thinking about sex and wanting more, what I mainly wanted was nurturing attention from a mother figure, though I was only dimly aware of this. I would sometimes think something must be wrong with me for not being more sexually interested. Being held and stroked was the lifeline that kept me going, though I didn't fully get how desperate this need was until I lost most of it.

Taking the plunge again

Like most of our friends at the time, Meryn and I assumed we would not have children together, but after 10 years, in her late 30s, Meryn's biological alarm went off. I couldn't imagine reopening the painful experience of being a father again. At the urging of a friend, I read Liedloff's The Continuum Concept . I suddenly saw the estrangement that we'd been studying was not innate to ‘the human condition', but a direct result of how we isolate babies and young children. Personally, I could also see how the old wounds I thought I had handled in therapy were still there. I also thought I might make up for my greatest failure in life (being a father) and get it ‘right' this time with a new approach.

Until then, I had lived a pressured life of deadlines (self-imposed) using adrenalin to make myself accomplish things, always feeling like some unknown but dreaded thing was gaining on me if I didn't have something concrete to show myself at the end of each day. I gave lip service to focusing on love and relationships as my highest values, but I was driven by the need to do something to earn my keep. This is still far more true than I would like, but I've made significant progress.
For four years, early in our relationship, Meryn and I had lived a life of voluntary simplicity in the mountains of Costa Rica. We both longed to return to that simpler life. Along with our decision to have a child, we sold our big house, cut back on the seminars that we'd been facilitating, and bought 40 acres in a remote part of Mendocino County, California, seven miles past the end of the power lines.

We became homesteaders. I set about turning an unfinished cabin into a solar-powered home. We read and wrote intensely on attachment parenting. We prepared to give birth to our daughter at home with a midwife, complete with a warm water pool provided by a friend.

The birth went well, and while I thought I was now better prepared for becoming a father, I had no idea of the depth of pain and envy that would be opened up from constantly being with someone who knew what her needs were, expressed these needs, and got the nurturing every infant needs and thrives on.

And, as should have been expected, Siena's arrival supplanted much of my nurturance source. Our house was still not finished, so I was dealing with water and electrical problems. We quickly came to the realisation that the ‘in-arms' attachment parenting we were attempting was designed for an extended family, not for our nuclear one. Bringing Meryn's mum over from Australia to live with us helped, but it often seemed, given our commitment to Siena being constantly ‘in arms' until she, of her own volition, moved on, we still had an arms shortage.

While we provided her with a degree of physical nurturance unknown to most children in the West today, and she blossomed from it, our relationship got more and more strained. I went deeper into depressions, alternating with periods of hyperactivity to keep us afloat financially and make up for the downtime of my crashes. It was unsustainable.

I tried to meet my own needs on a number of fronts: building, therapy, men's groups, and spending time in nature; all to no avail.

It was only after a year of soul-searching, moving across the country to Virginia in 1996, and finding an intentional community that appeared to fulfil many of the ideals for which I'd searched during the previous 20 years, that I found some peace with my process and began to write about it.

Despite half a lifetime of therapy and personal growth work, I still struggle with my barely suppressed rage, which usually shows up as depression, a chronic clenching of my jaw, and a knot in my stomach.

But even now, nearly eleven years after my second daughter's arrival, I am struck by the contrast between witnessing her needs being expressed and fully met, and how most of us were treated. I spent over 1000 nights lying in the bed near her while she nursed. This gave me a new awareness of my own subjugated oral needs around which I've spent my whole life and career trying to compensate. While being with my daughter still sometimes activates deep and painful places in me, I see her as a spiritual teacher, challenging me to continually deal with the years of walled-in pain that keep me disconnected from the family/tribe/planet that is my birthright.

Conclusions

My personal journey reveals just one of the many ways that failed bonding can show up in a family dynamic. Fortunately, it's within our wounds that our gifts are revealed. Certainly my work in wellness has been strongly influenced by my pain, and without seeing it in the larger perspective of a personal journey, I think I'd have just gotten lost in the suffering. If you have not found the gift in your own wounding, please keep looking.

A word of caution: after observing myself and others who have worked with these issues for over half of our adult lives, I am no longer certain that the childhood wounds of not having a secure bond with anyone — or the popularised euphemism for this condition ‘low self-esteem' (Liedloff describes bonding as feeling worthy and welcome ) — can be healed beyond short-term breakthroughs and temporary remissions. But I do think we can learn to better manage our pain and be less controlled by it.

Depression is one of the largest public health problems in our culture, along with addiction, violence, and chronic disease — all symptoms of SSAD. The reactivation of this pain in our attempts to create a family of our own is a serious condition to reflect on before the birth of a child. I had, and continue to have, a difficult time with it, so I don't think it's easy for young people who naively enter into parenthood unaware of their own wounding.

To prevent perpetuating failed bonding among our young, further exacerbated by dysfunctional nuclear families — themselves an artifact of the authoritarian cultures — we need to recognise what a secure bond looks and feels like and begin challenging the normative abuse of detachment parenting we see everywhere.

We see and hear these myriad symptoms of alienation and failed bonding everyday in the news, but we never hear about the real cause — how we treat our babies and children. If we look closely, we can see these symptoms in our own lives, understand the real cause, and begin to get our own needs met with the support of self-awareness books and classes, support groups, therapy, and open honest communication with our family and friends, rather than being blind to and driven by our unmet childhood needs. Applying the wisdom found in publications like Kindred is a good start.

As more men become aware of the dynamics between their own unmet needs and seeing their children's attempts to get theirs met, the widespread denial of this problem will come out in the open and men will be better able to cope with their issues instead of denying, hiding, inflicting them on others, or medicating them.

Men will then be able to help society understand and own the wounds of unbondedness that have not only reached epidemic proportions in recent generations, but are also perpetuated by cultural and economic agendas. By re-creating communities, extended families of choice, and other as-yet-not-discovered ways of supporting each other in providing the nurturing we never got, we can break the cycle of abandonment and separation inflicted on children in the form of medicalised births, bottle feeding, circumcision, early day care, and the like.

When we face and accept our own wounding and when we can open our hearts to tend our own needs, we will unleash the compassion that gives us the strength to remain with our families and create a world that nurtures everyone.

John W. Travis is a coauthor of the Wellness Workbook, co-directs the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children (www.aTLC.org), and is available to speak on why men leave and many other areas of wellness for both adults and children. His Wellness Inventory Online is available at www.thewellspring.com along with other wellness resources, including this article (with updates). John and his family now live in Australia and spend part of each year in the United States.

Charlotte my daughter and the real stay at home mom

2007-06-15T20:08:00.001-05:00

Last night at Charlotte's softball game some of the other parents were cheering for her. I heard one ask, "Is that one Charlotte?" The other replied, "Yeah... she's a nice girl, she is still sweet... Doesn't have the attitude like the other girls her age."

I stood about 15 feet away taking in what I had just heard. I sunk into my folding chair and stared at my daughter on second base. I'm told a lot how sweet she is. She is thoughtful and kind. She is helpful and tries at everything. She's the kid that replaces the toilet paper when the roll ends. She's the kid that offers me the last of something even if she wants it. She keeps an eye on her siblings and never complains about doing chores. I know she's a good kid. But, when other people notice it, particularly other mothers with daughters aged 10-12, it makes me so very proud to be her Mother. It also makes me feel successful. I hear a lot about stay at home mothers feeling unaccomplished, unfulfilled, or unsuccessful. I feel very accomplished and very fulfilled. I am doing what most modern women don't do anymore. The stay at home mother is grossly undervalued. I'll paste two excerpts I've run across on other blogs here that coincidentally coincide with my thoughts of lately.

Men have their cars, women, their kids. It really doesn't matter what else a woman does in life, somewhere deep down inside, she will judge herself by how good of a mother she is. Even the thin, rich and beautiful woman becomes pathetic if she fails the motherhood test. (Notice I chose "thin, rich and beautiful" as the standard to envy and not "accomplished career", because that isn't even in the running...or how many girls have you ever heard say "I want to be just like Janet Reno when I grow up." Instead, we think "well at least she got to be attorney general".) -Retro-housewife blog

"Motherhood might be revered in poetry, but outside the subcultures that support the one-earner nuclear family, staying home with one's child is often considered a waste of a woman's talents and education. And although the women's movement declares every mother a working mother, I'm not so sure. Because, if there is no pay, no Social Security, and no time off, how can it really be bonafide labor. Unless. Unless you're taking care of someone else's child. If you're a nanny, a teacher, a foster parent--well, that's worth a paycheck. Even the federal government will pay a poor working mother's childcare provider to watch her three year old, but it won't pay that mother to do the same job at home. Evidently, caring from one's own child is not real work." -The Motherhood Confidential

I've said those things many times, I just could never put it into such eloquent words.
Of course staying home is best, but it's not going to miraculously transform all children into model children while magically making you feel successful. Then there is the college degree challenge. One could say I am only content because I don't have a college degree. If I had one I'd feel like my talents are wasted. Not really a good example since my father didn't have a college degree either, and he has made a ton of money and has run numerous very successful businesses (and some failures too.) I don't feel not having a college degree OR staying home is holding me back.

If you are a stay at home mom and you feel undervalued you may have a self esteem problem. No one is going to value us (although your spouse should-just as you value him!) on your pure efforts alone. You have to demand it. You have to pat yourself on the back sometimes. You have to appreciate your clean house, fresh baked cookies, folded laundry, home cooked meals, and beautiful children before any one else will. Society doesn't care. People will on occasion throw you a compliment for staying home, or offer you a small token of cryptic praise ("I don't know how you do it" and "I could never do that" is praise). Who cares though, it is enough to see the results of my kids being awesome, well behaved, well adjusted, "good kids."

Finally, Stay at home moms are not doormats or maids.
I demand being valued by my children. I show them examples of parents who aren't home and what that means for a family. I tell them I stay home because I want to raise them. I demand respect and remind them of who gave them life, who dedicates her life to them, and who does the 3421 loads of laundry a month. When I ask for help I expect common courtesy and immediate help. I deserve it. We talk about what it means that I stay home. We even talk about the difference between home cooked meals and frozen dinners/fast food. My family values me as a stay at home mom because I don't let my self be undervalued. (Sure there are those days where everything seems unfair and I'm at my wits end, but that's life, there are ups and Downs!)

Yesterday 5 kids cuddled up in my bedroom and we started a family movie, the baby played at my feet, and I folded a weeks worth of laundry. To be near them in and out of everyday (and I homeschool, so it really is in and out of everyday.) is the best gift either one of us could have. There are challenges, and we are not without our flaws, but these are the rewards...

Becoming a Ferber Family

2007-06-12T01:52:00.000-05:00

I'm up at 2am thinking about all the babies that aren't being held. All the babies that won't be held. The crying most babies do as if no one loves them. But someone, most likely, does love them. They just aren't being shown. I remember my parents thinking they were doing the right thing by letting my baby brother and sister cry themselves to sleep. I remember the hysterics. I turned my radio up it was so sad to hear. Sometimes I'd sneak in their room though and rub their backs. Sometimes the screaming was during dinner. And nobody seemed to notice.

So I hold my children for a year straight, and then some. So they sleep in my room, often in my bed. So they need a soft warm body to snuggle against. So you think I'm a super mom for having the time -for taking the time. A year, or two, or three is a small, tiny, fraction of my whole life. If I didn't take the time to hold and comfort the treasures I birthed from my own being then what is the point of doing anything? Or loving anything that much.

The story below makes me choke up and feel so much empathy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guilty as charged

Guilty. We did it. We lay in bed one night and let our eight-month-old son cry. We had no plans to implement the Ferber Method. In fact my husband and I both strongly believed it was cruel to leave an infant sobbing in the dark. We plead temporary insanity, or maybe self-defense.

Everyone has heard about the Ferber method. You teach your baby to fall asleep on his own by making incrementally spaced trips in to comfort him as he cries. You do not pick him up or touch him, but you let him know you are there. It is a behavior modification program that teaches your child to comfort himself. I never dreamed I would experience it first hand.

We certainly did not have the patience to rock our second child each night as we foolishly did with our now seven-year-old daughter. Bedtime was an undertaking with her -- more complicated and delicate than stealing state secrets. After singing song after song, we would gently carry her to the crib, rocking, swaying and humming while checking for eyelid flutters. We would lower her inch by inch until her body touched the mattress. Very slowly, we would withdraw first one hand then another, leaving just fingertips to maintain contact. Then carefully the finger could be retracted as we glided ever so quietly backwards out of the room. At any step, the eyes might snap open to expose our treachery and then the whole process would begin again. Years later, we still yawn at the thought of that procedure. We agreed our second child was simply going to learn to go to sleep!

Becoming a Ferber family Fat chance. Our little boy required rocking, singing and swaying from the beginning. Gradually he became a tyrant, waking us up 10 times per night. The final straw was a vacation with my husband's family when we took turns rocking and singing in our tiny room, knowing the whole family was awakened by each frequent, demanding shriek of outrage. We came home from the trip certain things would improve once we were all sleeping in our own beds. The first night home, at 1 am after the third wake up call, in our sleep starved delirium we gave Dr. Ferber a chance. It took about an hour of screaming and carefully timed trips back and forth to the crib, but we all did eventually sleep that night. After two more nights of less and less frequent awakenings, we were a Ferber family.

Sounds pretty simple, right? But when you lay awake at 3 am and feel your heart, broken by the multiple stab wound wails that you just know you should be responding to, it seems simply inhumane. When you walk into that room and a face, red from screaming and coated with tears and mucous, confronts you accusingly, you simply want to gather your child into your arms and calm the hyperventilation with hugs and soothing clucks. Even when the Ferber method works, you can't help but believe that if you were a better parent you would be willing to rock and sing all night, or to make room in your bed for an extra little body.

We beat ourselves up, even after we discovered that the method worked. Nothing about it seemed right -- except for the fact that it did work. Soon we could just put our son in bed and he would drift off on his own. But I missed those rocking chair times. I missed that soft little head in the crook of my arm and the quiet breathing against my skin. Now our little Ferber success story goes to the bottom of the stairs each night and asks to go to bed. If you try to rock him or cuddle him at bedtime, he squirms away. Even in the middle of the night, with a terrible cold, he refuses to be rocked or sung to. We taught him to comfort himself, not knowing we were taking away our own ability to do so for him.

About the author: Brette McWhorter Sember is the author of Repair Your Own Credit and Deal With Debt, and four other self-help law books. She writes frequently about law, parenting, books, food, travel and family life. She lives in western New York state with her husband and two children.

Letter to Parents

2007-05-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

So no one wanted to pick up on my lead hose story. The Rolla daily news did want to print my letter though. We have since bought 2 very fine rubber hoses. They cost a pretty penny but they have a lifetime guarantee. My husband rolls them up all the time because he says I run over hoses. Okay fine last year I did run over a hose end breaking it. (Apparently the ends of a hose are called male and female, did anyone else besides me NOT know this? LOL!)

At any rate I've been very busy. Here's a letter I wrote to my parents, which is just easier than new update.

~~~
There is so much I want to tell you guys! Two weeks ago I had an over the phone interview for eve magazine, which is a London based top "glossy" women's magazine. Unassisted birth has gone crazy in the media over there lately. So I am going to be in their article about women who birth at home unassisted. They also asked if they could put a picture of me and Penelope in the magazine! I'm not sure what one they want, the photo desk is supposed to get with me on that. I will get an issue mailed to me, otherwise we will have to buy copies online. I don't think eve is available in the U.S.

Recently I heard from KMOV channel 4 news in St Louis. They were looking for a woman to interview who has birthed unassisted in the St Louis area. I emailed the reporter working on the story and she said she was looking forward to talking to me more when they closer to ready to shoot the story. So I might be on the news! I hope they end up doing a story, unassisted birth is very overlooked in the U.S.

I have been very busy doing other community things as well. My friend Molly and I started a Holistic Moms Network Chapter in Rolla. It is a national natural family living support group. In addition I am also contrubutinmg to a online campaign against Gardasil, the "HPV cervical cancer" vaccine that they are trying to mandate all over the U.S. I'll send you the website address next week.

I am all signed up for a certified birth doula workshop July 14-16. A birth doula is a natural support person for women in labor. There is a real need for them everywhere. Depending on the area birth doulas on average make 200-500 dollars per birth. Statistics show doulas reduce c- section rates as well as other interventions. They also statistically help women have shorter less painful births. This is very important for women in hospitals especially.

Anyway I had to share all that good news! I am finally channeling my passions and experience in positive ways. It's good to be so busy and productive! I have many great friends in Rolla and we are all doing so many good things together and trying to make a difference in our community.

As far as the kids go, they are doing great. It's a bit daunting juggling everything but I take one day and project at a time. Layla is so funny and wild! Her hair is actually getting longer and more curly. It's precious. Penelope is standing up and pulling up on everything. I think she'll walk early like Sage did. Charlotte is doing softball and it makes me wish her grandpa was here to help her practice. She loves it. The coaches think she is the hardest worker and always tell me how hard she tries. She plays second base. The boys are boys. :)

Anyway I had to share all that good news! I am trying to channel my passions and experience in positive ways. It's good to be so busy and productive! I have many great friends in Rolla and we are all doing so many good things together and trying to make a difference in our community.

As far as the kids go, they are doing great. It's a bit daunting juggling everything but I take one day and project at a time. Layla is so funny and wild! Her hair is actually getting longer and more curly. It's precious. Penelope is standing up and pulling up on everything. I think she'll walk early like Sage did. Charlotte is doing softball and it makes me wish her grandpa was here to help her practice. She loves it. The coaches think she is the hardest worker and always tell me how hard she tries. She plays second base. The boys are boys. :)

Love,
Shauna

~~~~~
My parents responded with "you are awesome" and "I am proud of you. "

It's so so cool to have supportive parent's. I'm very thankful.

Lead Dangers At Home

2007-05-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

I just emailed this letter to every news outlet I could think of in St Louis, and the Today show just for good measure. I just never knew there was so much lead dangers around my home. A simple Google search also made me aware there is a lot of lead found in children's jewelry.

Hello,
My name is -----------. I live a half hour East of Rolla. I am a homeschooling mom of 5 children. I have a health alert news story I'd like you to consider covering.

I was cleaning up our yard today and picked up some cardboard packaging from two garden hoses bought for the fruit and vegetable garden we planted with our kids this Spring. I was getting ready to put the cardboard in the recycling bin when I noticed there was a warning on the back. It caught my eye and I began to read. It stated that this garden hose contained chemicals including lead. I read further, and it said not to drink from this hose and to wash hands after use. I was just stunned. My mouth fell open at the realization of watering our garden, food our children were to eat, with lead! I inspected the packaging and this warning was on the inside and it said nothing on the outside about any warning or that we should not drink from the hose. No one could know this unless opening the hose and reading the inside of the package.

I called Lowe's immediately and talked to a polite manager. He said he had never heard of lead being in them and had no idea they sold lead hoses, but he said he did know they sold hoses that you shouldn't drink from. He told me I could return them with my receipt and buy a hose labeled safe to drink from (they only carry one such brand). I thanked him and asked him to please look into the hoses they were selling to consumers like me. I stated many times that we were growing food to feed our family and I was just so upset that a hose could be labeled a garden hose, but not be safe to drink or handle. Again, there were no warnings on the outside of the package.

I did some brief searching online about lead in hoses and didn't turn up as much as I hoped to. I even went to the EPA website and while they have extensive information about lead dangers and prevention they do not mention hoses as a safety hazard on their website. They talk about soil contaminants such as old paint, but nothing about hoses.

I wanted to bring this to the attention of the media in hopes that other families could be made aware of this danger as well. There is a picture on the hose package that just rubbed the whole situation in even more, it's a picture of three children running through a sprinkler.
Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
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