I was talking with my midwives on the way out the door and we were talking about how psychology affects when you deliver your baby. That's a story for another day, but the fact is, since my third child, every one of them has been born between 7 and 9:30 PM. I've had birthing professionals astonished at that fact, but I put it down to the fact that I (Mom) am on call all day and there is something in my psyche that says, "Mom is off the clock," by 7 PM. Now, I can relax and here comes the baby. My 15 year old daughter, Sarah, pointed out that nowadays, the teens start coming in to my room at about 9:30 PM to talk. So, the clock goes back on. My oldest son, Ben, is notorious for coming in at 11:30 and taking a half hour to rev up to his subject, and I end up talking with him till 1:00 AM, when I point out that my vision is blurring and I don't understand what I'm saying. The teens actually fight over time to talk with Mom, because some of them are extroverts and don't mind having others there and others are introverts and will not speak if there is someone else in on the conversation. No matter what their personalities, when they hit about 14, they want to talk. Ironically, they each all need time to be alone, even the extroverts, but that talking time is precious to them.
Why do my children want to talk to me? I think I caught it from my parents. There were two things they did for my brother and me: 1) they would drop anything to talk to us and enjoyed the conversation and 2) no subject was off limits. Now, in actuality, John and I knew there were certain subjects that Mom, in particular, would not want to discuss, but if you came in at the right angle, even those were discussable. There was never a reaction of "Hrmph! Hrmph! I don't want to talk about it." So, that's what John and I do with our children.
Well, when you've got kids ranging in age from 2 to 20, how do you prioritize them? I have heard that two year olds and teens are going through the same place: they are recognizing their separation from their parents. That results in bouts of childishness, when they are afraid to be separate and bouts of independence, when they are establishing that separation. And so, in order of precedence, the first person you listen to is a 2 year old. Next, the teens. They need to know they are important NOW, but they can wait the three minutes it takes to negotiate the onset of adulthood with a 2 year old. Someone else can always tend to the baby and, in any case, babies are more hands on, less mouth on (does that make sense?). You can always change a diaper and nurse while talking to a teen. Lastly, come the 6-12 year olds because they just want to show you their frogs. It's such a lovely stage.
The way to keep your children's hearts: keep listening to them, encouraging their thoughts and actions.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
More on Varicose Veins and the wonders of a Maternity Belt
I have been learning more!
Our metabolism slows down, yes, but the relaxin in our system, that loosens everything up in preparation for birth, is the real biggie in slowing down the bowel system and resulting in varicose veins. My midwife gave me one help and I have accidentally found another.
First, at least three quarts of water drunk a day will help keep things moving, read, not need to be pushed out, slowing the advance of hemorrhoids, vulval or leg varicosities.
Second, a maternity belt! I did buy an elastic one from a maternity store, but the velcro died, as it does. So, I just got some muslin, cut it into a huge triangle and folded it over so the center was like a wide pad. Then, I put that under my belly, wrapped it around my back and pulled it AS TIGHT AS I COULD, tying a square knot at the front and tucking the ends under on the sides. I wear it outside my clothes, but under my shirts. Consider it a maternity fashion statement. If I wear a skirt, I don't have to take it off when using the facilities, but those handy hooks on the backs of stall doors in public restrooms keep it off the ground if I need to take it off while I'm out. What does the maternity belt do?
1- It lifts the belly, easing pressure on the soft tissues of the pelvis that result in, you guessed it, VARICOSE VEINS! I have had vulval varicosities for the previous four pregnancies, and none since using the belt.
2- In lifting the belly, my back is able to take some of the weight and I walk more normally, almost my usual pace. I'm walking a mile and a half a day, usually with a collie on a leash, and I'm not unduly fatigued by the end.
3- Don't worry! Though the back is taking the belly weight, it is supported by the belt. I have had almost no pain from my sacral joint (the bottom one of the spine that fits inside your hips and gets all loose from that wonderful relaxin) except when I take the belt off! In the past, I have found myself stuck, in so much pain from that joint that I couldn't move. I don't hear joint pops all the time, either.
Twenty-eight years ago, my grandmother told me that she was advised to wear a maternity girdle. "I think today they want pregnant women to strengthen their muscles and support themselves," she said. Don't kid yourselves. We need all the help we can get. In the book Childbirth Wisdom, by Judith Goldsmith, what seems universal is a maternity belt, often looked at as a point of pride, but serving a lot of vital uses. I am eight months pregnant and in the past three days I have carried a fifty pound bucket of wheat berries, more than half a 50 lb. bag of dog food, and two loads of wood up the stairs from the basement. Yes, I'm a little puffed, but that is the kind of work that traditional and tribal women do all over the world - with the help of a maternity belt. I don't feel like I have to lie down for a half hour to recover. I don't want to make you miscarry, so okay it with your doctor or midwife, but women do most of the heavy work around the world, no matter what their "condition". I credit the maternity belt!
Our metabolism slows down, yes, but the relaxin in our system, that loosens everything up in preparation for birth, is the real biggie in slowing down the bowel system and resulting in varicose veins. My midwife gave me one help and I have accidentally found another.
First, at least three quarts of water drunk a day will help keep things moving, read, not need to be pushed out, slowing the advance of hemorrhoids, vulval or leg varicosities.
Second, a maternity belt! I did buy an elastic one from a maternity store, but the velcro died, as it does. So, I just got some muslin, cut it into a huge triangle and folded it over so the center was like a wide pad. Then, I put that under my belly, wrapped it around my back and pulled it AS TIGHT AS I COULD, tying a square knot at the front and tucking the ends under on the sides. I wear it outside my clothes, but under my shirts. Consider it a maternity fashion statement. If I wear a skirt, I don't have to take it off when using the facilities, but those handy hooks on the backs of stall doors in public restrooms keep it off the ground if I need to take it off while I'm out. What does the maternity belt do?
1- It lifts the belly, easing pressure on the soft tissues of the pelvis that result in, you guessed it, VARICOSE VEINS! I have had vulval varicosities for the previous four pregnancies, and none since using the belt.
2- In lifting the belly, my back is able to take some of the weight and I walk more normally, almost my usual pace. I'm walking a mile and a half a day, usually with a collie on a leash, and I'm not unduly fatigued by the end.
3- Don't worry! Though the back is taking the belly weight, it is supported by the belt. I have had almost no pain from my sacral joint (the bottom one of the spine that fits inside your hips and gets all loose from that wonderful relaxin) except when I take the belt off! In the past, I have found myself stuck, in so much pain from that joint that I couldn't move. I don't hear joint pops all the time, either.
Twenty-eight years ago, my grandmother told me that she was advised to wear a maternity girdle. "I think today they want pregnant women to strengthen their muscles and support themselves," she said. Don't kid yourselves. We need all the help we can get. In the book Childbirth Wisdom, by Judith Goldsmith, what seems universal is a maternity belt, often looked at as a point of pride, but serving a lot of vital uses. I am eight months pregnant and in the past three days I have carried a fifty pound bucket of wheat berries, more than half a 50 lb. bag of dog food, and two loads of wood up the stairs from the basement. Yes, I'm a little puffed, but that is the kind of work that traditional and tribal women do all over the world - with the help of a maternity belt. I don't feel like I have to lie down for a half hour to recover. I don't want to make you miscarry, so okay it with your doctor or midwife, but women do most of the heavy work around the world, no matter what their "condition". I credit the maternity belt!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The Terrible Reality of Miscarriage
If there is one thing I have found in common among mothers over 40, it is miscarriage. Whether a woman is trying desperately to have her first IVF child or has been popping babies out for the past 20 years, every woman I know who was leaving their fertility to God has had a miscarriage after 40. In most cases, those women never had another child, though they may have gotten pregnant and just didn't publicize it. I have only one other friend who had subsequent babies after the miscarriage without hormone medication. I am on my second baby after two miscarriages and know that without progesterone therapy, I would not be pregnant right now.
But, whether you have been waiting or were surprised with your pregnancy, losing it is a shock.
I understand how discouraging it can be to families who have been spending thousands of dollars in attempting to have a first baby and have had multiple miscarriages. Even one can have a woman doubting her femininity or even her "right" to have a baby. A friend of mine had a miscarriage at 45 and was convinced that "the wages of sin is death" applied to her. When I questioned the applicability of that scripture in this case, she would have none of it. The fact is, all of us, including little sinners in the womb, are going to die one day. However, God used it to work in her spiritual life, and I certainly wouldn't take that away from her. On the other hand, miscarriage certainly opened my eyes to the mortality of man to give me a perspective that I have never lost.
When I had my miscarriage, I had two weeks warning, so I was somewhat prepared. I only cried about it when my mother (who NEVER cries) came into my room the next day to commiserate. I spent the whole day writing in my children's journals, telling them about the baby and how I thought about them through this. Steve and I didn't discuss our feelings about the miscarriage for FIVE YEARS. But, the awareness of the tentativeness of life has never left me since then.
Later that summer, we were driving in Chicago and Steve had Moody Radio on. The Voice of Moody Radio was speaking and I had a flashback to when I was in high school, listening to his voice late at night. And this time, he sounded so old. I had to turn my face out the window so Steve couldn't see me crying, of all things, over the aging of the Voice of Moody Radio. But, the awareness of mortality hit me like a ton of bricks while I was listening to the radio. I knew we wouldn't be hearing his Voice much longer.
When I was pregnant with Noah, after another miscarriage, I didn't talk about my reservations, but if you had watched me, you would have seen that I ran this pregnancy differently from the others. I bought nothing for the baby. I didn't get out my "newborn" box of clothes and birth items. My friend had a baby shower for me, and I didn't want it until after the baby was born. I needed some crib sheets and I made very sure that they would work for a boy or girl in case the baby died, so I could use the sheets on A.J.'s toddler bed. I was three weeks from my due date. My midwife, during labor, when things seem to be stuck, always asks me what I'm afraid of. Well, there I was, stuck, stark neked, leaning on my bed, and I cried, "I'm afraid of the baby dying! Everybody's dying! Amy died yesterday (a long-time Downs' friend from church), and I didn't even want Steve to get a new car seat, in case the baby died!" Well, that was a shocker to everyone, even Steve, who had no clue I had been suffering under that fear for the whole pregnancy. They assured me the baby was alive and kicking and just waiting to be born.
This pregnancy, I had a faint positive. I got going on the progesterone therapy immediately, but I didn't want to tell anyone until we heard a heartbeat, which we did at 13 weeks. It turned out it was high time, because I was already showing and people were beginning to wonder. I am now 16 weeks and haven't felt the baby move, so I am, once again, reserving enthusiasm. We don't do routine ultrasounds, but this is one time when I can see how reassuring one would be.
A miscarriage changes you. My loss has matured me (funny coming from a geriatric mother!) and given me grace. You may have recurring bouts of tears. Or, you may question your womanhood. Or, you may live with an undercurrent of fear of loss. Or, you may come to value every life we get to touch, aware of life's fragility. I hope to get there one day.
But, whether you have been waiting or were surprised with your pregnancy, losing it is a shock.
I understand how discouraging it can be to families who have been spending thousands of dollars in attempting to have a first baby and have had multiple miscarriages. Even one can have a woman doubting her femininity or even her "right" to have a baby. A friend of mine had a miscarriage at 45 and was convinced that "the wages of sin is death" applied to her. When I questioned the applicability of that scripture in this case, she would have none of it. The fact is, all of us, including little sinners in the womb, are going to die one day. However, God used it to work in her spiritual life, and I certainly wouldn't take that away from her. On the other hand, miscarriage certainly opened my eyes to the mortality of man to give me a perspective that I have never lost.
When I had my miscarriage, I had two weeks warning, so I was somewhat prepared. I only cried about it when my mother (who NEVER cries) came into my room the next day to commiserate. I spent the whole day writing in my children's journals, telling them about the baby and how I thought about them through this. Steve and I didn't discuss our feelings about the miscarriage for FIVE YEARS. But, the awareness of the tentativeness of life has never left me since then.
Later that summer, we were driving in Chicago and Steve had Moody Radio on. The Voice of Moody Radio was speaking and I had a flashback to when I was in high school, listening to his voice late at night. And this time, he sounded so old. I had to turn my face out the window so Steve couldn't see me crying, of all things, over the aging of the Voice of Moody Radio. But, the awareness of mortality hit me like a ton of bricks while I was listening to the radio. I knew we wouldn't be hearing his Voice much longer.
When I was pregnant with Noah, after another miscarriage, I didn't talk about my reservations, but if you had watched me, you would have seen that I ran this pregnancy differently from the others. I bought nothing for the baby. I didn't get out my "newborn" box of clothes and birth items. My friend had a baby shower for me, and I didn't want it until after the baby was born. I needed some crib sheets and I made very sure that they would work for a boy or girl in case the baby died, so I could use the sheets on A.J.'s toddler bed. I was three weeks from my due date. My midwife, during labor, when things seem to be stuck, always asks me what I'm afraid of. Well, there I was, stuck, stark neked, leaning on my bed, and I cried, "I'm afraid of the baby dying! Everybody's dying! Amy died yesterday (a long-time Downs' friend from church), and I didn't even want Steve to get a new car seat, in case the baby died!" Well, that was a shocker to everyone, even Steve, who had no clue I had been suffering under that fear for the whole pregnancy. They assured me the baby was alive and kicking and just waiting to be born.
This pregnancy, I had a faint positive. I got going on the progesterone therapy immediately, but I didn't want to tell anyone until we heard a heartbeat, which we did at 13 weeks. It turned out it was high time, because I was already showing and people were beginning to wonder. I am now 16 weeks and haven't felt the baby move, so I am, once again, reserving enthusiasm. We don't do routine ultrasounds, but this is one time when I can see how reassuring one would be.
A miscarriage changes you. My loss has matured me (funny coming from a geriatric mother!) and given me grace. You may have recurring bouts of tears. Or, you may question your womanhood. Or, you may live with an undercurrent of fear of loss. Or, you may come to value every life we get to touch, aware of life's fragility. I hope to get there one day.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Those Uuuuuugly Varicose Veins!
Ugly, ugly, ugly. And they come in so many permutations! Most commonly in pregnancy is legs, anus (hemorrhoids) and vulva. For moms over 35, particularly those who have had several children, they become hard to avoid.
They all have essentially one cause: pressure from above preventing the returning blood from getting back up your legs results in a bulge in the wall of the vein. The answer to them all is: take a load off, which will happen after the baby is born and they should all clear up within a couple of weeks. But what do you do in the meantime?
I have found that taking baths instead of showers balances the pressure inside and outside and makes things more comfortable. This should help no matter where your veins are troubling you.
I've been fortunate never to have had varicose veins in the legs. Support hosiery, not standing for long periods and spending time with your legs above your heart every day are supposed to help this condition.
Hemorrhoids are fixed by keeping the pipes cleared. They are caused by over-straining on the toilet. As I discussed before, the slower metabolism of us over-35 moms means that this is something that requires serious attention. High fiber, lots of water, and exercise help this. My personal go-to is prune juice. Whatever works for you.
The third kind is found almost exclusively in mothers of many children: vulval varicose veins. They generally are on one side or other of the external labia and are not a problem for birth, they're just darned uncomfortable. If you can get a hold of comfrey leaves, making a poultice and putting it in a pad is supposed to help. If you don't have an herb garden, you might be able to find them through an online herbalist. However, an easier remedy to acquire is witch hazel from the local drugstore. Soak a pad with it, and put it in the freezer and it will ease the discomfort when you use it. I actually find that, in the third trimester, when the baby is carrying more forward and less inside the pelvis, they go away. But, that's me. The only time vulval varicose veins are a problem are when they cross the perineum at the time of birth. At that time, you run the risk of a rupture of the vein. Your doctor or midwife can give you advice about how to proceed with your delivery.
They all have essentially one cause: pressure from above preventing the returning blood from getting back up your legs results in a bulge in the wall of the vein. The answer to them all is: take a load off, which will happen after the baby is born and they should all clear up within a couple of weeks. But what do you do in the meantime?
I have found that taking baths instead of showers balances the pressure inside and outside and makes things more comfortable. This should help no matter where your veins are troubling you.
I've been fortunate never to have had varicose veins in the legs. Support hosiery, not standing for long periods and spending time with your legs above your heart every day are supposed to help this condition.
Hemorrhoids are fixed by keeping the pipes cleared. They are caused by over-straining on the toilet. As I discussed before, the slower metabolism of us over-35 moms means that this is something that requires serious attention. High fiber, lots of water, and exercise help this. My personal go-to is prune juice. Whatever works for you.
The third kind is found almost exclusively in mothers of many children: vulval varicose veins. They generally are on one side or other of the external labia and are not a problem for birth, they're just darned uncomfortable. If you can get a hold of comfrey leaves, making a poultice and putting it in a pad is supposed to help. If you don't have an herb garden, you might be able to find them through an online herbalist. However, an easier remedy to acquire is witch hazel from the local drugstore. Soak a pad with it, and put it in the freezer and it will ease the discomfort when you use it. I actually find that, in the third trimester, when the baby is carrying more forward and less inside the pelvis, they go away. But, that's me. The only time vulval varicose veins are a problem are when they cross the perineum at the time of birth. At that time, you run the risk of a rupture of the vein. Your doctor or midwife can give you advice about how to proceed with your delivery.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The "M" word - Metabolism
Yes, it really does happen. Your metabolism slows down after 35. And that means a few things for us as over-35 pregnant mothers.
1- We gain weight more easily when pregnant and have a harder time losing it afterward.
I always gain a lot of weight when I'm pregnant, but with the later pregnancies I've gotten to higher and higher weights. Until baby number 6 at age 36, I always got back to my wedding weight or even below, a svelte 112 lbs. I haven't been able to get much below 120 unless I went on a drastic fast, and more recently, its been 130. Not good when you're only 5'2".
They talk about eating for two when you're pregnant, but that is an old wives' tale that doesn't hold water. God was smart enough to recognize that women would not always be able to increase their food intake when they were pregnant, so not just over-35 mothers, but ANY pregnant mother's metabolism slows down. It gives her body more food value out of the food she eats. While, of course, your doctor may have advice for you depending on your needs, --we had a friend who was so terribly thin that her doctor's prescription was a peanut butter brownie sundae before bed - every night! She could hardly choke it down-- generally speaking, we don't really need a lot more food. However, the slower metabolism has other ugly results that require some dietary addressing.
2- "Constipation--- it's making me wait!" Can't you just hear the old song?
We are not talking mild irregularity where you say, "Oh, dear, I guess we'll see some action tomorrow." We are talking pain from the ribs down, two weeks without a bowel movement, hemorrhoids, bleeding from the rectum, NOTHING IS MOVING constipation.
This is the kind of constipation that affected me with Mimi, 10 years old now, my first baby after 35. It was so bad that when her water broke, nothing happened. At all. For 48 hours. I had two doses of castor oil, ginger tea, and an enema and nothing came out that I hadn't just put in. The bowel wasn't moving, so neither did she. We finally went to the hospital to be induced and she was born an unprecedented 75 HOURS after rupture of the membranes.
NOTE: Not everyone can deliver that long after rupture of membranes. My only saving grace was that no internal exam had been done. Once an internal has been done, the clock starts. I believe it is 12 hours later that the baby has to be delivered or there will be concern about infection. PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK THIS WITH YOUR DOCTOR OR MIDWIFE.
Back to our riveting story. The week after she was born, my colon emptied and left my bottom feeling more burned and raw than the delivery had. So, how did I change things after that pregnancy?
3- Prune juice. I wish something else worked. Just having a big salad didn't cut it. I've been trying to cut back on my carbs and increase protein this pregnancy. This just makes the constipation worse. I've tried psyllium husk in the hopes that the greater water intake plus the bulk of the husk would save me carbs since I detest prune juice and don't want to waste good carbs on it. Nope. I was only in week 14 and already not having easy movements, even with the psyllium husk. So, I came home, looked at a dusty bottle of prune juice and choked down 14 oz. Hours later, rather than days, after bubbling and burbling in its lubrication of my colon, we cleared the pipes from the past week. Hallelujah! Angels are singing! And I guess I'm stuck with prune juice. You can try increasing your produce intake, particularly of dried fruit, and try laxative tea, but, personally, prune juice is God's gift to me.
1- We gain weight more easily when pregnant and have a harder time losing it afterward.
I always gain a lot of weight when I'm pregnant, but with the later pregnancies I've gotten to higher and higher weights. Until baby number 6 at age 36, I always got back to my wedding weight or even below, a svelte 112 lbs. I haven't been able to get much below 120 unless I went on a drastic fast, and more recently, its been 130. Not good when you're only 5'2".
They talk about eating for two when you're pregnant, but that is an old wives' tale that doesn't hold water. God was smart enough to recognize that women would not always be able to increase their food intake when they were pregnant, so not just over-35 mothers, but ANY pregnant mother's metabolism slows down. It gives her body more food value out of the food she eats. While, of course, your doctor may have advice for you depending on your needs, --we had a friend who was so terribly thin that her doctor's prescription was a peanut butter brownie sundae before bed - every night! She could hardly choke it down-- generally speaking, we don't really need a lot more food. However, the slower metabolism has other ugly results that require some dietary addressing.
2- "Constipation--- it's making me wait!" Can't you just hear the old song?
We are not talking mild irregularity where you say, "Oh, dear, I guess we'll see some action tomorrow." We are talking pain from the ribs down, two weeks without a bowel movement, hemorrhoids, bleeding from the rectum, NOTHING IS MOVING constipation.
This is the kind of constipation that affected me with Mimi, 10 years old now, my first baby after 35. It was so bad that when her water broke, nothing happened. At all. For 48 hours. I had two doses of castor oil, ginger tea, and an enema and nothing came out that I hadn't just put in. The bowel wasn't moving, so neither did she. We finally went to the hospital to be induced and she was born an unprecedented 75 HOURS after rupture of the membranes.
NOTE: Not everyone can deliver that long after rupture of membranes. My only saving grace was that no internal exam had been done. Once an internal has been done, the clock starts. I believe it is 12 hours later that the baby has to be delivered or there will be concern about infection. PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK THIS WITH YOUR DOCTOR OR MIDWIFE.
Back to our riveting story. The week after she was born, my colon emptied and left my bottom feeling more burned and raw than the delivery had. So, how did I change things after that pregnancy?
3- Prune juice. I wish something else worked. Just having a big salad didn't cut it. I've been trying to cut back on my carbs and increase protein this pregnancy. This just makes the constipation worse. I've tried psyllium husk in the hopes that the greater water intake plus the bulk of the husk would save me carbs since I detest prune juice and don't want to waste good carbs on it. Nope. I was only in week 14 and already not having easy movements, even with the psyllium husk. So, I came home, looked at a dusty bottle of prune juice and choked down 14 oz. Hours later, rather than days, after bubbling and burbling in its lubrication of my colon, we cleared the pipes from the past week. Hallelujah! Angels are singing! And I guess I'm stuck with prune juice. You can try increasing your produce intake, particularly of dried fruit, and try laxative tea, but, personally, prune juice is God's gift to me.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Staying pregnant
As I was saying before, getting pregnant and staying pregnant are two different things.
I never worried about that before, but I noticed friend after friend with multiple children, never had a problem, hitting 40 and, suddenly, they miscarry. It seemed that most of the time, you never heard of them being pregnant again. I have since come to the conclusion, from my own experience, that it's not that they didn't get pregnant again, but that the baby died so soon that they didn't have a chance to share it with anyone. That was my experience.
At 42, I got pregnant, right on schedule, and three days before my 43rd birthday, I miscarried. We saw it coming. There was no heartbeat, I had stopped gaining weight (which I'm very good at, by the way), and the morning sickness had stopped sooner than normal. There was no baby. It was a blighted ovum, a baby that has started but not continued past the point where there is much more than a umbilical stem. However, I had continued to grow. I was filled with blood clots and lost almost a third of my blood volume in two hours. I was one hematocrit point away from needing a blood transfusion. Three months later, I miscarried again. Just one contraction, and a small, gelatinous puddle of blood about the size of a silver dollar with that same little stem, and the pregnancy was over.
What we discovered is that many women over the age of 40 have enough estrogen to get pregnant, but not enough progesterone to grow the baby until the placenta takes over progesterone production at 14 weeks. Just before Noah (3) was started, we found out about the Magic Bullet.
The Magic Bullet, as it is fondly known, is a progesterone suppository. They have tried pills and shots, but the direct approach, targeting the source, has been found to be the most effective. It is inserted directly in the vagina as close to the cervix as it can get. Two different chemicals are compounded with a light wax that melts at skin temperature, 94.4 degrees, according to my friendly neighborhood pharmacist. It is in the shape of a little torpedo and can only be prepared by a compounding pharmacy. Wal-mart won't cut it. Walgreens, CVS, or, in our case, a small private pharmacy with compounding facilities is the only way to get it. The chemicals can be overnighted, so we got them as soon as we needed them; it was finding the pharmacist that was the challenge! Abri and I were heading out on her 13-yr-old trip to Mammoth Cave on a Friday and Steve called it in to a local pharmacist in Kentucky. He had the chemicals that day and when we showed up on Saturday, he mixed them up and we had a nice talk with him while the wax set. When we needed it renewed, he shipped it to us in Wisconsin with a cold pack, since it needs to be kept where it won't melt prematurely. I have gotten it in pill bottles, boxes with tiny compartments, (looking very much like a box of ammo), and encased individually in plastic. It has become the go-to solution for any age woman who is having a dangerous looking first trimester.
Which has put us in an interested moral dilemma. Steve loves all our children and gets excited about every time we have a baby. But for me, this time was different. I had come to the conclusion that I was done having children; the likelihood of getting pregnant was too great, I was too old, etc., etc. It wasn't easy, recognizing that I was in a different life stage. It was very much an identity crisis. All of the moms in our homeschool group have small children, and, while many of them have decided not to have any more children, the possibility still remains. I figured, for me, that it didn't. It was like looking wide-eyed into an abyss. What was I going to be in that next stage? But I came to terms with it. I gave away my brand new maternity clothes that I had actually gone out and bought - no more hand-me-downs from people who are not shaped like me! I had taken down the crib for the first time in 18 years. I was giving away baby clothes. And I turn up pregnant!
And I debated telling Steve. At all. I was getting used to the idea of a new life stage. I could just not say anything and quietly miscarry in a week or two (he's still not convinced that second miscarriage was even a pregnancy - he's prudent about major things like that) and life would go on.
And therein is the moral dilemma. It is the same dilemma that occurs in late-life medical decisions. If you know of a procedure that could save a person's life, but you choose not to use it, is it tantamount to murder? On the other hand, if the person can't live without that procedure, was their life meant to continue? Some people may say that the life of an old person who is in the last weeks of life, who has lived a full life is different from an unborn child, who can't even be identified visually as a child yet. I look at it from a purely selfish standpoint, off in the future and I think, "The next time I would be having a baby I would be 50. Fifty! 5!0! At what point does this become ridiculous?" But just because it is not the norm to be having a baby at that age does not mean it is ridiculous. Technically, progesterone is infertility medication, but it is relatively inexpensive. I need two fills of the prescription ranging in price from $60 to $120. I pay more for a blood panel. It is not a hardship to our family, nor is it placing a burden on people paying insurance, having their costs go up because I want an expensive treatment to get pregnant. Every single one of the patriarchal wives in the Bible were barren and had babies in their thirties and beyond; in Sarah's case, she was 90! My children are still excited about us having a baby, so there is no emotional drama over the pregnancy. Abri and I hiked 20 miles in 3 days above and below ground at Mammoth Cave when I was 6 weeks pregnant, so there are no health issues. Our midwife pointed out that having had no Downs' babies in my previous post-35 babies, my chances of having one now are not high. Steve's excited. We already have all the baby gear, so there's no increase of expense there. I would be fine not having anymore children, so I have no psychological mess of needing to have a baby to make me feel loved, or whatever psychobabble you want to throw at it. So, why would I think it ridiculous to be having a baby at 50, as long as God sees fit to make me pregnant? Only the views of modern society that say that women are supposed to have their children and then live their lives. I mentioned that I was pregnant at knitting group and was met with dead silence. Later, a lady did congratulate me, but I'd never been confronted with the dead silence before. Fortunately, at 46, I could handle it. You don't learn how to boss 9 kids around without learning to be confident in yourself to some extent. But, that is the only reason I can think of to be appalled at the thought of being pregnant at 50, perhaps. The ancient Jews would call me blessed! So, there it is: I'm blessed!
I never worried about that before, but I noticed friend after friend with multiple children, never had a problem, hitting 40 and, suddenly, they miscarry. It seemed that most of the time, you never heard of them being pregnant again. I have since come to the conclusion, from my own experience, that it's not that they didn't get pregnant again, but that the baby died so soon that they didn't have a chance to share it with anyone. That was my experience.
At 42, I got pregnant, right on schedule, and three days before my 43rd birthday, I miscarried. We saw it coming. There was no heartbeat, I had stopped gaining weight (which I'm very good at, by the way), and the morning sickness had stopped sooner than normal. There was no baby. It was a blighted ovum, a baby that has started but not continued past the point where there is much more than a umbilical stem. However, I had continued to grow. I was filled with blood clots and lost almost a third of my blood volume in two hours. I was one hematocrit point away from needing a blood transfusion. Three months later, I miscarried again. Just one contraction, and a small, gelatinous puddle of blood about the size of a silver dollar with that same little stem, and the pregnancy was over.
What we discovered is that many women over the age of 40 have enough estrogen to get pregnant, but not enough progesterone to grow the baby until the placenta takes over progesterone production at 14 weeks. Just before Noah (3) was started, we found out about the Magic Bullet.
The Magic Bullet, as it is fondly known, is a progesterone suppository. They have tried pills and shots, but the direct approach, targeting the source, has been found to be the most effective. It is inserted directly in the vagina as close to the cervix as it can get. Two different chemicals are compounded with a light wax that melts at skin temperature, 94.4 degrees, according to my friendly neighborhood pharmacist. It is in the shape of a little torpedo and can only be prepared by a compounding pharmacy. Wal-mart won't cut it. Walgreens, CVS, or, in our case, a small private pharmacy with compounding facilities is the only way to get it. The chemicals can be overnighted, so we got them as soon as we needed them; it was finding the pharmacist that was the challenge! Abri and I were heading out on her 13-yr-old trip to Mammoth Cave on a Friday and Steve called it in to a local pharmacist in Kentucky. He had the chemicals that day and when we showed up on Saturday, he mixed them up and we had a nice talk with him while the wax set. When we needed it renewed, he shipped it to us in Wisconsin with a cold pack, since it needs to be kept where it won't melt prematurely. I have gotten it in pill bottles, boxes with tiny compartments, (looking very much like a box of ammo), and encased individually in plastic. It has become the go-to solution for any age woman who is having a dangerous looking first trimester.
Which has put us in an interested moral dilemma. Steve loves all our children and gets excited about every time we have a baby. But for me, this time was different. I had come to the conclusion that I was done having children; the likelihood of getting pregnant was too great, I was too old, etc., etc. It wasn't easy, recognizing that I was in a different life stage. It was very much an identity crisis. All of the moms in our homeschool group have small children, and, while many of them have decided not to have any more children, the possibility still remains. I figured, for me, that it didn't. It was like looking wide-eyed into an abyss. What was I going to be in that next stage? But I came to terms with it. I gave away my brand new maternity clothes that I had actually gone out and bought - no more hand-me-downs from people who are not shaped like me! I had taken down the crib for the first time in 18 years. I was giving away baby clothes. And I turn up pregnant!
And I debated telling Steve. At all. I was getting used to the idea of a new life stage. I could just not say anything and quietly miscarry in a week or two (he's still not convinced that second miscarriage was even a pregnancy - he's prudent about major things like that) and life would go on.
And therein is the moral dilemma. It is the same dilemma that occurs in late-life medical decisions. If you know of a procedure that could save a person's life, but you choose not to use it, is it tantamount to murder? On the other hand, if the person can't live without that procedure, was their life meant to continue? Some people may say that the life of an old person who is in the last weeks of life, who has lived a full life is different from an unborn child, who can't even be identified visually as a child yet. I look at it from a purely selfish standpoint, off in the future and I think, "The next time I would be having a baby I would be 50. Fifty! 5!0! At what point does this become ridiculous?" But just because it is not the norm to be having a baby at that age does not mean it is ridiculous. Technically, progesterone is infertility medication, but it is relatively inexpensive. I need two fills of the prescription ranging in price from $60 to $120. I pay more for a blood panel. It is not a hardship to our family, nor is it placing a burden on people paying insurance, having their costs go up because I want an expensive treatment to get pregnant. Every single one of the patriarchal wives in the Bible were barren and had babies in their thirties and beyond; in Sarah's case, she was 90! My children are still excited about us having a baby, so there is no emotional drama over the pregnancy. Abri and I hiked 20 miles in 3 days above and below ground at Mammoth Cave when I was 6 weeks pregnant, so there are no health issues. Our midwife pointed out that having had no Downs' babies in my previous post-35 babies, my chances of having one now are not high. Steve's excited. We already have all the baby gear, so there's no increase of expense there. I would be fine not having anymore children, so I have no psychological mess of needing to have a baby to make me feel loved, or whatever psychobabble you want to throw at it. So, why would I think it ridiculous to be having a baby at 50, as long as God sees fit to make me pregnant? Only the views of modern society that say that women are supposed to have their children and then live their lives. I mentioned that I was pregnant at knitting group and was met with dead silence. Later, a lady did congratulate me, but I'd never been confronted with the dead silence before. Fortunately, at 46, I could handle it. You don't learn how to boss 9 kids around without learning to be confident in yourself to some extent. But, that is the only reason I can think of to be appalled at the thought of being pregnant at 50, perhaps. The ancient Jews would call me blessed! So, there it is: I'm blessed!
Pregnant for the Umpteenth Time
I'm pregnant! With baby number 10 or baby number 13, depending on how you count. Unless, of course, it's twins, in which case, we will have 10 children for about 5 minutes and move right onto number 11.
I'm pregnant and I will be 47 in two weeks. A double whammy. Back when I was keeping it a secret, I was at Barnes and Noble with Becki, my 16-yr-old and a couple of friends of hers, and surreptitiously looked at the family and child-rearing books. There were 3, count 'em, three, books on having babies after the age of 35, but even they were all about first babies. Had a little talk with the midwife, and she suggested I write a book. Well, I'll blog about being pregnant over 35 and with multiple pregnancies, okay? Because having more than even 4 children changes the issues of pregnancy, and being over 35 throws some even more creative curves into your curve ball. I just realized that I have had more pregnancies over 35 than under. So, I'll be sharing some things that I have learned.
FIRST! Getting pregnant is one thing. Staying pregnant is another. Obviously, for me, getting pregnant isn't an issue, though it is for many mothers over 35.
Back when I was on baby number two, I called the head of our home birth practice, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, with Home First in the Chicago area. He had a Saturday morning radio program on Christian radio. He was wonderful. He's the only person I've ever met who could out-talk my mother. (She claimed it was because he was standing up and he held the microphone.) Anyway, I got pregnant with Mick only 6 months after Ben was born, and I called about whether I should take any supplements or do any particular exercises to ease the wear and tear on my body, since, who knew how many children I would be having. He said that nursing automatically gives you some spacing, so you won't be cranking them out every year, but also, after the age of 33, your body drops down in its egg production. "It would be surprising if you had more than 7 children." (He was right, because I have not maintained a pregnancy on my own after number 8. More about that another day.) While, after 33, you will probably continue to have regular periods, you simply aren't producing that many eggs, which is why so many women who wait to have babies have a challenge getting pregnant.
ON THE OTHER HAND! I talked with a lady at a retirement party who had had two children and gotten remarried at the age of 41. She did a ton of research and discovered that, if you have already been pregnant earlier, getting pregnant at "an advanced maternal age" is not usually a problem. The system has been kicked in already. Which explains all the Amish going strong into their forties and yuppies having to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get pregnant the first time at age 34.
I have no advice for getting pregnant. Steve and I gave the bigness of our family to God when we got married and it wasn't until after Mick was born and 6 months came and went and I wasn't pregnant, waking up in the middle of the night convinced that I was pregnant and the test was wrong, wondering if something was wrong with the baby (I wasn't pregnant, I was just assuming), that I realized something. I hadn't given God the smallness of our family. After I confessed to the Lord that I would be perfectly happy if all we had were our little boys, I got pregnant. While I am a firm believer of giving the Lord the desires of your heart and then He turns around and gives them right back to you, I know that sometimes he causes our desires to change. We might not have gotten pregnant again. Those few weeks of nighttime trauma are my only experience with infertility.
In all fairness, I have never again had two children so close together and I have always figured that it was because we changed our feeding patterns for the babies. We thought we were doing well to wait till 6 months to give Ben solids. We made our own baby food in the blender. But after getting Dr. Rosi's talk (also from Home First) on how to feed your baby from the table, we have given no liquids except breast milk until 15 months and have introduced real food from the table. I got pregnant with Mick 3 weeks after Ben started solids. After Mick, the babies were almost exactly two years apart. Out of 10 birthdays, we have three Augusts and three Septembers. Dr. Eisenstein was right! Nursing does space them out!
I'm pregnant and I will be 47 in two weeks. A double whammy. Back when I was keeping it a secret, I was at Barnes and Noble with Becki, my 16-yr-old and a couple of friends of hers, and surreptitiously looked at the family and child-rearing books. There were 3, count 'em, three, books on having babies after the age of 35, but even they were all about first babies. Had a little talk with the midwife, and she suggested I write a book. Well, I'll blog about being pregnant over 35 and with multiple pregnancies, okay? Because having more than even 4 children changes the issues of pregnancy, and being over 35 throws some even more creative curves into your curve ball. I just realized that I have had more pregnancies over 35 than under. So, I'll be sharing some things that I have learned.
FIRST! Getting pregnant is one thing. Staying pregnant is another. Obviously, for me, getting pregnant isn't an issue, though it is for many mothers over 35.
Back when I was on baby number two, I called the head of our home birth practice, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, with Home First in the Chicago area. He had a Saturday morning radio program on Christian radio. He was wonderful. He's the only person I've ever met who could out-talk my mother. (She claimed it was because he was standing up and he held the microphone.) Anyway, I got pregnant with Mick only 6 months after Ben was born, and I called about whether I should take any supplements or do any particular exercises to ease the wear and tear on my body, since, who knew how many children I would be having. He said that nursing automatically gives you some spacing, so you won't be cranking them out every year, but also, after the age of 33, your body drops down in its egg production. "It would be surprising if you had more than 7 children." (He was right, because I have not maintained a pregnancy on my own after number 8. More about that another day.) While, after 33, you will probably continue to have regular periods, you simply aren't producing that many eggs, which is why so many women who wait to have babies have a challenge getting pregnant.
ON THE OTHER HAND! I talked with a lady at a retirement party who had had two children and gotten remarried at the age of 41. She did a ton of research and discovered that, if you have already been pregnant earlier, getting pregnant at "an advanced maternal age" is not usually a problem. The system has been kicked in already. Which explains all the Amish going strong into their forties and yuppies having to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get pregnant the first time at age 34.
I have no advice for getting pregnant. Steve and I gave the bigness of our family to God when we got married and it wasn't until after Mick was born and 6 months came and went and I wasn't pregnant, waking up in the middle of the night convinced that I was pregnant and the test was wrong, wondering if something was wrong with the baby (I wasn't pregnant, I was just assuming), that I realized something. I hadn't given God the smallness of our family. After I confessed to the Lord that I would be perfectly happy if all we had were our little boys, I got pregnant. While I am a firm believer of giving the Lord the desires of your heart and then He turns around and gives them right back to you, I know that sometimes he causes our desires to change. We might not have gotten pregnant again. Those few weeks of nighttime trauma are my only experience with infertility.
In all fairness, I have never again had two children so close together and I have always figured that it was because we changed our feeding patterns for the babies. We thought we were doing well to wait till 6 months to give Ben solids. We made our own baby food in the blender. But after getting Dr. Rosi's talk (also from Home First) on how to feed your baby from the table, we have given no liquids except breast milk until 15 months and have introduced real food from the table. I got pregnant with Mick 3 weeks after Ben started solids. After Mick, the babies were almost exactly two years apart. Out of 10 birthdays, we have three Augusts and three Septembers. Dr. Eisenstein was right! Nursing does space them out!
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Creative Writing and Reading Aloud
I don't teach Creative Writing. Actually, there are a lot of things i don't do as a home schooler. I am a firm believer in learning through osmosis.
I have a tape from a home school conference more than fifteen years ago entitled "Storytelling in your curriculum". The speaker summed up her point in one statement: your children can only write stories out of the fund of stories that is within them. It's very biblical: what you put in is what you'll get out.
Mark Twain said that Moby Dick was the only American novel worthy of belonging to great world literature and every one of his themes was based on the Bible. Her point is made.
On a personal level, I used to tell the kids stories while we were waiting in the car for Steve to run errands. I came up with one that was a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia, Merlin legends, Make Way for Ducklings, and Candyland. It really did work.
Anyway, we read a lot of living books in our house. The only readers we use at our house are for the little ones, mostly so that they get the large print version! And we read out loud. I come from generations of read aloud cultures. It's amazing what gets passed down! My grandfather read Alice in Wonderland to my dad and his sisters, my dad read it to my brother and me, I've read it to my children. We've read everything from A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick to Charlotte's Web and An Angel, a Shepherd, and Walter, the Christmas Miracle Dog. Why, you may ask?
First of all, for the relationship it develops between me and my children. Sarah ,at 14, discovered Jane Austen and we read ALL of them. We are now working on The Lord of the the Rings. We talk, do chores, knit, ask questions, answer questions; she started to get ahead of me in recognizing foreshadowing.
The reason I am wrote this post. Ben, at 20, skyped us from his internship up north. He is writing something he has been working on for years and wanted to know my recommended reading list for Creative Writing. Here it is.
For Characterization: Jane Austen, esp.
I have a tape from a home school conference more than fifteen years ago entitled "Storytelling in your curriculum". The speaker summed up her point in one statement: your children can only write stories out of the fund of stories that is within them. It's very biblical: what you put in is what you'll get out.
Mark Twain said that Moby Dick was the only American novel worthy of belonging to great world literature and every one of his themes was based on the Bible. Her point is made.
On a personal level, I used to tell the kids stories while we were waiting in the car for Steve to run errands. I came up with one that was a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia, Merlin legends, Make Way for Ducklings, and Candyland. It really did work.
Anyway, we read a lot of living books in our house. The only readers we use at our house are for the little ones, mostly so that they get the large print version! And we read out loud. I come from generations of read aloud cultures. It's amazing what gets passed down! My grandfather read Alice in Wonderland to my dad and his sisters, my dad read it to my brother and me, I've read it to my children. We've read everything from A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick to Charlotte's Web and An Angel, a Shepherd, and Walter, the Christmas Miracle Dog. Why, you may ask?
First of all, for the relationship it develops between me and my children. Sarah ,at 14, discovered Jane Austen and we read ALL of them. We are now working on The Lord of the the Rings. We talk, do chores, knit, ask questions, answer questions; she started to get ahead of me in recognizing foreshadowing.
The reason I am wrote this post. Ben, at 20, skyped us from his internship up north. He is writing something he has been working on for years and wanted to know my recommended reading list for Creative Writing. Here it is.
For Characterization: Jane Austen, esp.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Introduction, Part 2
Well, what happened once we got to Wisconsin?
First, we lived in town in two small houses. Steve was investing the equity of the home we had just sold, and we were able to live off the profits - until 2002. Oi. Steve started packing boxes at Lands' End for the Christmas season and was, fortunately, asked to stay on after New Years. His mom had followed us up in 2001, and she gave us a few hundred dollars every month that paid for food. We also learned the joy of living in the country - people kept giving us food! We had squash pie for breakfast quite a bit. Thank heavens, the kids still like it!
When we moved to the property, my folks paid Steve to work around the property because we had gotten to the point where we thought we would have to move back to the city for a job more suited to his computer skills. With all the land to be mown, it was worth it. Also, my mother had bought five alpacas to start our alpaca business. I started getting a paycheck from the alpaca business because I was doing most of the fiber processing, which I had to learn on the job. My dad, meanwhile, managed to get onto the board of directors of a few companies.
Out of the blue, Steve got a call from the brother of someone that we went to church with in Chicago. He lived in Wisconsin and we had only met him once and he was attending church with a gentleman who had a programming job that he didn't think he could handle; so he passed the job off to Steve! That was a good time for us. Knowing God's provision and the grace of the body of believers gave us so much joy! The paycheck was nice, too.
Eventually, that job slowed down and Steve's brother had a vision for Steve. It involved selling cell-phone service and accessories via websites to businesses. So, Steve worked for two months to put together a basic model. Bill's company didn't want it, so Bill changed companies. That company wasn't too excited about it, either. So, Steve worked for another two months without pay to further develop it. The point of their website was that they could set it up in only two weeks and start selling phones immediately, instead of a year later, as most other providers had to do. Finally, they were willing to take him on as a consultant on the off chance that it might work. After four months as a consultant, they hired him and the whole company got a pay cut. They were the poor relations at the engineering company but after Obama got into office, their little cell phone website supported the entire firm. (No one was spending money on new engineering at the time.) They now have clients like the Mormon church and the US Navy. I'm so proud of him. Not only that, but after three years, he finally got a raise!
The alpacas are slowing down, but we still go to shows and sell our products in shops around Wisconsin. I have enjoyed the fiber work and I'm glad to know how to do it, but I really want to focus on being a mom, since I'm getting more teens and they all want to TALK to Mom!
First, we lived in town in two small houses. Steve was investing the equity of the home we had just sold, and we were able to live off the profits - until 2002. Oi. Steve started packing boxes at Lands' End for the Christmas season and was, fortunately, asked to stay on after New Years. His mom had followed us up in 2001, and she gave us a few hundred dollars every month that paid for food. We also learned the joy of living in the country - people kept giving us food! We had squash pie for breakfast quite a bit. Thank heavens, the kids still like it!
When we moved to the property, my folks paid Steve to work around the property because we had gotten to the point where we thought we would have to move back to the city for a job more suited to his computer skills. With all the land to be mown, it was worth it. Also, my mother had bought five alpacas to start our alpaca business. I started getting a paycheck from the alpaca business because I was doing most of the fiber processing, which I had to learn on the job. My dad, meanwhile, managed to get onto the board of directors of a few companies.
Out of the blue, Steve got a call from the brother of someone that we went to church with in Chicago. He lived in Wisconsin and we had only met him once and he was attending church with a gentleman who had a programming job that he didn't think he could handle; so he passed the job off to Steve! That was a good time for us. Knowing God's provision and the grace of the body of believers gave us so much joy! The paycheck was nice, too.
Eventually, that job slowed down and Steve's brother had a vision for Steve. It involved selling cell-phone service and accessories via websites to businesses. So, Steve worked for two months to put together a basic model. Bill's company didn't want it, so Bill changed companies. That company wasn't too excited about it, either. So, Steve worked for another two months without pay to further develop it. The point of their website was that they could set it up in only two weeks and start selling phones immediately, instead of a year later, as most other providers had to do. Finally, they were willing to take him on as a consultant on the off chance that it might work. After four months as a consultant, they hired him and the whole company got a pay cut. They were the poor relations at the engineering company but after Obama got into office, their little cell phone website supported the entire firm. (No one was spending money on new engineering at the time.) They now have clients like the Mormon church and the US Navy. I'm so proud of him. Not only that, but after three years, he finally got a raise!
The alpacas are slowing down, but we still go to shows and sell our products in shops around Wisconsin. I have enjoyed the fiber work and I'm glad to know how to do it, but I really want to focus on being a mom, since I'm getting more teens and they all want to TALK to Mom!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Why We're Gluten Free 1
Why are we gluten free?
Well, we aren't, entirely. But, I did some research and am always listening to people and have come to some conclusions.
People who are gluten intolerant can often develop celiac disease.
On the other hand, once you have cleared a lot of the gluten out of your system, you don't have to be death on wheat bread.
It's easier than a lot of other dietary restrictions, particularly, if you aren't celiac and can't even have a tablespoon of flour to thicken your soup with.
Why are so many people intolerant of gluten? Are we just weaker than our ancestors? Maybe, but there are two basic reasons.
1) For thousands of years the only grains people could bake with were whole grains, making a coarser, denser bread than our modern day white breads. By soaking their flour in an acid (sour milk, buttermilk, yogurt, water with lemon or vinegar) overnight, it automatically made their finished product lighter, not to mention breaking down the outer coating of the grains and making more nutrition available. I'm not an expert, I read this on the internet, just the way you can. The side effect was, the gluten also broke down, so even societies that lived on wheat, rye, or barley bread three meals a day were not getting glutened out.
2) The 20th century Green Revolution made it possible to breed strains of wheat, especially, that had higher gluten levels and resulted in higher, lighter, fluffier products. Think Wonder Bread, hot dog buns, and Betty Crocker cake mixes. People liked them, which fueled the demand for high gluten wheats, so the strains were widely developed commercially. I don't know where you could go to get an heirloom wheat today.
Why did we go gluten free?
I was wondering what was going on with my kids. I did body testing with all of them and figured out that it wasn't the wheat, per se, it was the gluten that was bothering many of them. So, I started changing our family diet. Coincidentally, we got a new pastor and he had to have gluten free meals. I asked him, "How did you know something was wrong?"
He started listing off his symptoms. Pain in the lower shoulder blades, pain in the feet and ankles, deep pain, like, bone deep. And extreme fatigue. Suddenly, so many things came clear.
Personally, whenever I got up from a seated position, it would take me at least 4 steps to walk normally. The pain didn't go away, but things loosened up enough I could take it. I thought it was from being pregnant all the time!
Anna and Becki were complaining of pain in their backs and feet for years. Becki has lain down to do school since she was 12 and still prefers a very sedentary lifestyle. As for Anna, she always complained of being tired. When she was three, we took a family hike at the local state park, and she ended up being carried by Gabrielle because I was a hardnose and thought she ought to buck up and walk. She was fairly active until she learned to read, at which point she went to bed with her books and never came out. She would put herself to bed and read while the family was watching a movie. That was what contributed to her getting up to 100 lbs. by the age of 7. Since we went gluten free, she has taught herself to ride a bike, always wants to go on the trampoline, has learned how to skip and is fighting with her brothers, which she never had the energy to do before. (The downside!) She had never been strong and pain-free her entire little life.
I am more flexible with the gluten now that we have been careful for so long and it has gotten out of our systems. Anna, in particular, who had the worst symptoms, body tests as gluten free, while her older sister, Mimi, still is sensitive. But Anna was amazing in her efforts to stay clean from gluten. Imagine, going to a church breakfast when you are 7 and there is NOTHING you can eat. (She's dairy sensitive, as well!) No one told her she couldn't eat anything; she just didn't. Becki has been more of a challenge. She's always more of a challenge. She is also 16 and has to make her own decisions on things more than before.
Would it be nice if we didn't have to do gluten free? Yes. It would certainly be easier. But, believe it or not, it's cheaper, since we do make a lot from scratch, and it's healthier, since we are forced to use whole grains in a variety, increasing our fiber and making it less likely to develop an allergy because of overexposure. My life is not about gluten free, it's about living healthy. I don't make my kids eat hot dogs with corn tortillas (not a success). I don't turn down the occasional chocolate chip cookie. I don't have to make an issue of it with other people or convert them. They do what they need to for their families, we do it for our family. Celiac is, of course, a different story. But, while most people could benefit from cutting back on their gluten intake, most of us don't have to make our lives all about what we eat. Praise the Lord!
Well, we aren't, entirely. But, I did some research and am always listening to people and have come to some conclusions.
People who are gluten intolerant can often develop celiac disease.
On the other hand, once you have cleared a lot of the gluten out of your system, you don't have to be death on wheat bread.
It's easier than a lot of other dietary restrictions, particularly, if you aren't celiac and can't even have a tablespoon of flour to thicken your soup with.
Why are so many people intolerant of gluten? Are we just weaker than our ancestors? Maybe, but there are two basic reasons.
1) For thousands of years the only grains people could bake with were whole grains, making a coarser, denser bread than our modern day white breads. By soaking their flour in an acid (sour milk, buttermilk, yogurt, water with lemon or vinegar) overnight, it automatically made their finished product lighter, not to mention breaking down the outer coating of the grains and making more nutrition available. I'm not an expert, I read this on the internet, just the way you can. The side effect was, the gluten also broke down, so even societies that lived on wheat, rye, or barley bread three meals a day were not getting glutened out.
2) The 20th century Green Revolution made it possible to breed strains of wheat, especially, that had higher gluten levels and resulted in higher, lighter, fluffier products. Think Wonder Bread, hot dog buns, and Betty Crocker cake mixes. People liked them, which fueled the demand for high gluten wheats, so the strains were widely developed commercially. I don't know where you could go to get an heirloom wheat today.
Why did we go gluten free?
I was wondering what was going on with my kids. I did body testing with all of them and figured out that it wasn't the wheat, per se, it was the gluten that was bothering many of them. So, I started changing our family diet. Coincidentally, we got a new pastor and he had to have gluten free meals. I asked him, "How did you know something was wrong?"
He started listing off his symptoms. Pain in the lower shoulder blades, pain in the feet and ankles, deep pain, like, bone deep. And extreme fatigue. Suddenly, so many things came clear.
Personally, whenever I got up from a seated position, it would take me at least 4 steps to walk normally. The pain didn't go away, but things loosened up enough I could take it. I thought it was from being pregnant all the time!
Anna and Becki were complaining of pain in their backs and feet for years. Becki has lain down to do school since she was 12 and still prefers a very sedentary lifestyle. As for Anna, she always complained of being tired. When she was three, we took a family hike at the local state park, and she ended up being carried by Gabrielle because I was a hardnose and thought she ought to buck up and walk. She was fairly active until she learned to read, at which point she went to bed with her books and never came out. She would put herself to bed and read while the family was watching a movie. That was what contributed to her getting up to 100 lbs. by the age of 7. Since we went gluten free, she has taught herself to ride a bike, always wants to go on the trampoline, has learned how to skip and is fighting with her brothers, which she never had the energy to do before. (The downside!) She had never been strong and pain-free her entire little life.
I am more flexible with the gluten now that we have been careful for so long and it has gotten out of our systems. Anna, in particular, who had the worst symptoms, body tests as gluten free, while her older sister, Mimi, still is sensitive. But Anna was amazing in her efforts to stay clean from gluten. Imagine, going to a church breakfast when you are 7 and there is NOTHING you can eat. (She's dairy sensitive, as well!) No one told her she couldn't eat anything; she just didn't. Becki has been more of a challenge. She's always more of a challenge. She is also 16 and has to make her own decisions on things more than before.
Would it be nice if we didn't have to do gluten free? Yes. It would certainly be easier. But, believe it or not, it's cheaper, since we do make a lot from scratch, and it's healthier, since we are forced to use whole grains in a variety, increasing our fiber and making it less likely to develop an allergy because of overexposure. My life is not about gluten free, it's about living healthy. I don't make my kids eat hot dogs with corn tortillas (not a success). I don't turn down the occasional chocolate chip cookie. I don't have to make an issue of it with other people or convert them. They do what they need to for their families, we do it for our family. Celiac is, of course, a different story. But, while most people could benefit from cutting back on their gluten intake, most of us don't have to make our lives all about what we eat. Praise the Lord!
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
One more little girl, Anna, who is 8, and not really expressing her own style yet. But she has her own issues. When you have a daughter who is a regular 8 when she is 8, it is a simple matter to find clothes that fit and are age appropriate. But what do you do when you have an 8 year old who is as tall as a 10 year old and weighs 100 lbs.?
A year or so ago, I saw some growing up pictures of Steve's aunts and realized that my "big" girls came by it honestly. The women on Steve's side of the family tend to be big girls and grow up to be matronly; not fat, matronly. Becki complains that she always gets the part of "the mother" in any play she is in. Matronly doesn't work at 8, however. Once again, we get the bubbles and rolls.
So, to avoid bubbles and rolls, a friend with 8 daughters and a variety of figures advised me to get tunic or baby doll style shirts, which are designed to be a)loose and b) long. They disguise a lot, while not relegating your daughter to looking like garbage bag. The pants are tougher. Anna is still child size in height, but adult size in circumference and Wal-Mart does not carry plus sizes! But we have discovered a wonderful thing: adult capris. Her bottom can be hidden by the long tunic style shirt if she wears adult sized leggings, but we found that capri length pants actually worked very well. "What Not To Wear" did a family makeover and also dealt with an extremely slim little girl using capris as well. The length, being an issue when buying trousers, is not an issue with capris.
After going to all this trouble to find pants that fit her, ironically, she prefers dresses. They are far more comfortable and the height issue doesn't exist. At least, at this point. She can still wear a size 16 girl and it will be child-like in style and appropriate in length. We shall see what we shall see when she gets to be 11 and has to wear adult sized 12 dresses!
One of greatest tricks for turning dresses with not enough fabric on top into modest dresswear, is a variety of tank tops and camisoles. A camisole with lace at the top can "modi-fy" a dress with too much cleavage, while remaining dressy. A tank top with wide straps can "modi-fy" a spaghetti string sundress. As always, finding them long enough is the trick, but a pair of capri leggings under a dress that Mutti gave Gabrielle for her birthday that turned out to have a hem above the knee fixed that.
We're not done.
Shoes. I love shoes, though I am frugal enough to know that I don't need 14 pairs of flats just because they're cute. of all the clothing choices out there, women's shoes are the most diverse and finding a pair of dress shoes that are not too faddish (why buy something that you will not WANT to wear next year?) but are attractive isn't difficult, even if you rule out all the high heels. Shoes are the most expensive part of clothes shopping for us because they do not come in the hand-me-down bags very often. I have also heard that shoes conform to the shape of your foot and you may do damage by wearing pre-worn shoes. So, we buy shoes. Generally speaking however, we have seasonal rules. Sports sandals in the summer, tennis shoes and boots in the winter. Dress shoes are optional and, since they buy their own clothes once they get to 10 years old, they may buy dress shoes if they like. However, not just any dress shoes.
Mimi, 10, likes high heels. Boots for horseback riding need a heel, of course, so I don't argue with those but, since all our girls, including 8 yr. old Anna, wear adult sized shoes, we sometimes have a challenge. Even shoes can be age appropriate. Becki is 16: she pretty much gets free rein. Sarah, 14, and Gabrielle, 13, prefer flats, except for concert wear, which is the most dressed up they ever get. (Ah, the advantages of living in a cornfield!) For Anna, she likes her tennis/dress shoes that are popular these days. But, Mimi! I allow her a 1 inch heel since it is possible to get modest dress shoes with a small heel. It is a constant struggle to remind her that she is not a big girl yet and that shoes count. But, she is learning!
A year or so ago, I saw some growing up pictures of Steve's aunts and realized that my "big" girls came by it honestly. The women on Steve's side of the family tend to be big girls and grow up to be matronly; not fat, matronly. Becki complains that she always gets the part of "the mother" in any play she is in. Matronly doesn't work at 8, however. Once again, we get the bubbles and rolls.
So, to avoid bubbles and rolls, a friend with 8 daughters and a variety of figures advised me to get tunic or baby doll style shirts, which are designed to be a)loose and b) long. They disguise a lot, while not relegating your daughter to looking like garbage bag. The pants are tougher. Anna is still child size in height, but adult size in circumference and Wal-Mart does not carry plus sizes! But we have discovered a wonderful thing: adult capris. Her bottom can be hidden by the long tunic style shirt if she wears adult sized leggings, but we found that capri length pants actually worked very well. "What Not To Wear" did a family makeover and also dealt with an extremely slim little girl using capris as well. The length, being an issue when buying trousers, is not an issue with capris.
After going to all this trouble to find pants that fit her, ironically, she prefers dresses. They are far more comfortable and the height issue doesn't exist. At least, at this point. She can still wear a size 16 girl and it will be child-like in style and appropriate in length. We shall see what we shall see when she gets to be 11 and has to wear adult sized 12 dresses!
One of greatest tricks for turning dresses with not enough fabric on top into modest dresswear, is a variety of tank tops and camisoles. A camisole with lace at the top can "modi-fy" a dress with too much cleavage, while remaining dressy. A tank top with wide straps can "modi-fy" a spaghetti string sundress. As always, finding them long enough is the trick, but a pair of capri leggings under a dress that Mutti gave Gabrielle for her birthday that turned out to have a hem above the knee fixed that.
We're not done.
Shoes. I love shoes, though I am frugal enough to know that I don't need 14 pairs of flats just because they're cute. of all the clothing choices out there, women's shoes are the most diverse and finding a pair of dress shoes that are not too faddish (why buy something that you will not WANT to wear next year?) but are attractive isn't difficult, even if you rule out all the high heels. Shoes are the most expensive part of clothes shopping for us because they do not come in the hand-me-down bags very often. I have also heard that shoes conform to the shape of your foot and you may do damage by wearing pre-worn shoes. So, we buy shoes. Generally speaking however, we have seasonal rules. Sports sandals in the summer, tennis shoes and boots in the winter. Dress shoes are optional and, since they buy their own clothes once they get to 10 years old, they may buy dress shoes if they like. However, not just any dress shoes.
Mimi, 10, likes high heels. Boots for horseback riding need a heel, of course, so I don't argue with those but, since all our girls, including 8 yr. old Anna, wear adult sized shoes, we sometimes have a challenge. Even shoes can be age appropriate. Becki is 16: she pretty much gets free rein. Sarah, 14, and Gabrielle, 13, prefer flats, except for concert wear, which is the most dressed up they ever get. (Ah, the advantages of living in a cornfield!) For Anna, she likes her tennis/dress shoes that are popular these days. But, Mimi! I allow her a 1 inch heel since it is possible to get modest dress shoes with a small heel. It is a constant struggle to remind her that she is not a big girl yet and that shoes count. But, she is learning!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Your daughter's style
How do you enforce standards of dress at your home and yet still let your daughters find their own styles? I have seen a whole family of homeschool girls apparently in uniform and, if they are happy with that, of course, there is no problem. But, if your daughter is not comfortable or feels badly in the clothes you want her to wear, it could affect her negatively for years. So could not having standards in dress, so we will address both of these.
When I was little, I always wanted to go look at the fluffy, fru-fru dresses. My mother wouldn't darken the door of that department. She hated shopping, so I only went shopping once a year for my school clothes and it became a battle of her practicality in opposition to my feminine longings. We have since discovered that her style is sporty/natural and my style is romantic. So, when I wanted ruffled dresses, I ended up with herringbone tweed jumpers with gigungous flat buttons for decoration. Yay. By the time I was eleven, she would get a whole pile of clothes to the dressing room and go through them saying, "Do you like this?" I wouldn't exactly say yes or no, but I knew she would not allow me to get something I would like, so I said, "If it is in my closet, I'll wear it." I had come to the conclusion that my opinion didn't matter, so we both got frustrated with her attempts to elicit one. It wasn't until I was 38 and, ironically enough, moved into a house with my mother that I discovered my style.
The house is theirs, but divided distinctly, with two of everything. For the first time, I thought I would be in a house long enough to actually decorate it beyond hand-me-down furniture, so I asked my mother for some of her decorating books. We live in the same county as Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, Taliesin, and our house was designed with the Prairie Style in mind. Think Mission furniture and Morris as a decorator. Arts and Crafts. Well, I looked at her books and, as lovely and warm as all these rooms were, they left me cold. They were dark, (though our house has heaps of windows and maple flooring), lots of geometric florals and sharp cornered furniture. Very masculine. Things began to percolate for me, however, and I realized that the Arts and Crafts movement took place in the Victorian Age. So, I looked at Victorian and Romantic Country style magazines and fell in love. And when I discovered how I wantee d a house to look, I discovered how I wanted me to look.
My mother wears tweed pants; I wear flowy cotton skirts. Her dining room table is rectangular; mine is oval. Her chairs (even the sofa) have rectangular backs and corners; I have overstuffed furniture and rounded chair backs. Her floral patterns are geometric; mine are natural. I was finally a grown-up, making my own choices!
So, how do you let your daughter make her own choices while still upholding your standards?
We had planned that our daughters would all wear skirts: Steve likes femininity. However, I have seen some very frumpy ladies who would swear they are dressing femininely. Lets look at Proverbs 31:22: "She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple." The Bible says she dresses well. It doesn't mean it has to be fancy or designer - she made it herself - but she is not a frump. Her style should be modest, but flattering. For us, modest means no cleavage and no knees and clothes that are loose enough to not stretch on the body. Clothing that is figure-unflattering can draw just as much attention and be as bad a witness to the Christian life as clothing that is entirely too flattering, shall we say. Our change of thought on the sksirts business, however, occurred when our oldest daughter, Becki, was 8.
Becki was very active, loved to play with the boys, since she had two older brothers, but wasn't comfortable playing boy games in dresses. I can appreciate that, since, at that age, I wore shorts under my (polyester tweed!) skirts to play tag on the monkey bars with the boys. So, she wore sweatpants for the next three years. Everywhere. Even church. She had dresses for really nice occasions, but we didn't have many of those. Her challenge was that she has always been a big girl. She was always taller going into an age (say, 8) than the people turning out of it (becoming 9). So, by the time she was was 11 or 12 and decided she wanted to look nice, she was already in junior sizes. By the age of 13, she was wearing women's size 12. She wanted to be able to wear the cute girl dresses, which actually were age appropriate for her, but none of the clothes available to her were like that. We made a dress or two, but it was mostly letting her dabble with skirts and dress pants, jackets and different styles of blouses and shoes, that she finally found her style. She is still a big girl and she has to try everything on, but we have found her comfortable, everyday style, which is mid-rise pants, a polo with a tank top (for modesty, as well as style) and often a necklace to divide her chest and make it appear smaller. Remember, she's a BIG girl. She has also discovered that she can wear snazzy shoes that add to her height and give her a more feminine walk, even when she is wearing jeans. She is sixteen, so high heels are acceptable in our opinion.
Sarah is 14. She prefers skirts, but will wear pants and is rather artsy at heart. She draws, paints, dances ballet, and came into her own about the time that women friends of ours started handing down their grown-up clothes to us. Becki will sometimes avail herself of the hand-me-down bags, but Sarah revels in them. She covers her head, either with bandana or an artistic hat, and loves long skirts. She is slighter than Becki and shorter, so she doesn't have a problem being fit. Her favorite outfit is a brown tiered skirt, an Israeli Defense Force camo t-shirt and a green or tan scarf for a belt. She's modest, it's flattering, can't complain.
Gabrielle is 12. She wants to live like Laura Ingalls. She only wears pants when she is cleaning out the barn in the winter or when she hunts with her older brother, or when she plays the trombone in marching band. For her, it is dresses, only dresses, not skirts. She covers her head, but only with bandanas or scarves and has made herself a pair of Duck Tape sandals (thank you, Mythbusters!) to replace the $70 Tevas she left at the water park. (That hurt!) Since she truly wants to homestead (completely conceivable as a future career where we live) and would rather have a horse and wagon than a driver's license, the dresses work very well for her.
Miriam is 10 and only happy when she is moving. Literally. She starts to cry when she has to be still for too long. She is also a ballet dancer, but considers that far too controlled to be really fun. Jeans are her speed. However, she, like Becki, is also a big girl, and the challenge for her is allowing her to wear jeans and t-shirts that are bigger, so they are not too tight (one of standards, remember?) I sometimes have to sneak clothes out of her laundry pile when I know they are getting too small. She's not happy about it, but she doesn't realize they're gone til it's too late. She says she prefers them snug, and I am not really surprised by that. She is extremely tactile, as one might imagine from my description of her, and the tight clothes may actually be more comfortable for her. However, they are not flattering, showing her bumps and rolls. So, we, as parents, have had to work with her style (jeans and shirts and boots) while setting standards (not too tight!)
When I was little, I always wanted to go look at the fluffy, fru-fru dresses. My mother wouldn't darken the door of that department. She hated shopping, so I only went shopping once a year for my school clothes and it became a battle of her practicality in opposition to my feminine longings. We have since discovered that her style is sporty/natural and my style is romantic. So, when I wanted ruffled dresses, I ended up with herringbone tweed jumpers with gigungous flat buttons for decoration. Yay. By the time I was eleven, she would get a whole pile of clothes to the dressing room and go through them saying, "Do you like this?" I wouldn't exactly say yes or no, but I knew she would not allow me to get something I would like, so I said, "If it is in my closet, I'll wear it." I had come to the conclusion that my opinion didn't matter, so we both got frustrated with her attempts to elicit one. It wasn't until I was 38 and, ironically enough, moved into a house with my mother that I discovered my style.
The house is theirs, but divided distinctly, with two of everything. For the first time, I thought I would be in a house long enough to actually decorate it beyond hand-me-down furniture, so I asked my mother for some of her decorating books. We live in the same county as Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, Taliesin, and our house was designed with the Prairie Style in mind. Think Mission furniture and Morris as a decorator. Arts and Crafts. Well, I looked at her books and, as lovely and warm as all these rooms were, they left me cold. They were dark, (though our house has heaps of windows and maple flooring), lots of geometric florals and sharp cornered furniture. Very masculine. Things began to percolate for me, however, and I realized that the Arts and Crafts movement took place in the Victorian Age. So, I looked at Victorian and Romantic Country style magazines and fell in love. And when I discovered how I wantee d a house to look, I discovered how I wanted me to look.
My mother wears tweed pants; I wear flowy cotton skirts. Her dining room table is rectangular; mine is oval. Her chairs (even the sofa) have rectangular backs and corners; I have overstuffed furniture and rounded chair backs. Her floral patterns are geometric; mine are natural. I was finally a grown-up, making my own choices!
So, how do you let your daughter make her own choices while still upholding your standards?
We had planned that our daughters would all wear skirts: Steve likes femininity. However, I have seen some very frumpy ladies who would swear they are dressing femininely. Lets look at Proverbs 31:22: "She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple." The Bible says she dresses well. It doesn't mean it has to be fancy or designer - she made it herself - but she is not a frump. Her style should be modest, but flattering. For us, modest means no cleavage and no knees and clothes that are loose enough to not stretch on the body. Clothing that is figure-unflattering can draw just as much attention and be as bad a witness to the Christian life as clothing that is entirely too flattering, shall we say. Our change of thought on the sksirts business, however, occurred when our oldest daughter, Becki, was 8.
Becki was very active, loved to play with the boys, since she had two older brothers, but wasn't comfortable playing boy games in dresses. I can appreciate that, since, at that age, I wore shorts under my (polyester tweed!) skirts to play tag on the monkey bars with the boys. So, she wore sweatpants for the next three years. Everywhere. Even church. She had dresses for really nice occasions, but we didn't have many of those. Her challenge was that she has always been a big girl. She was always taller going into an age (say, 8) than the people turning out of it (becoming 9). So, by the time she was was 11 or 12 and decided she wanted to look nice, she was already in junior sizes. By the age of 13, she was wearing women's size 12. She wanted to be able to wear the cute girl dresses, which actually were age appropriate for her, but none of the clothes available to her were like that. We made a dress or two, but it was mostly letting her dabble with skirts and dress pants, jackets and different styles of blouses and shoes, that she finally found her style. She is still a big girl and she has to try everything on, but we have found her comfortable, everyday style, which is mid-rise pants, a polo with a tank top (for modesty, as well as style) and often a necklace to divide her chest and make it appear smaller. Remember, she's a BIG girl. She has also discovered that she can wear snazzy shoes that add to her height and give her a more feminine walk, even when she is wearing jeans. She is sixteen, so high heels are acceptable in our opinion.
Sarah is 14. She prefers skirts, but will wear pants and is rather artsy at heart. She draws, paints, dances ballet, and came into her own about the time that women friends of ours started handing down their grown-up clothes to us. Becki will sometimes avail herself of the hand-me-down bags, but Sarah revels in them. She covers her head, either with bandana or an artistic hat, and loves long skirts. She is slighter than Becki and shorter, so she doesn't have a problem being fit. Her favorite outfit is a brown tiered skirt, an Israeli Defense Force camo t-shirt and a green or tan scarf for a belt. She's modest, it's flattering, can't complain.
Gabrielle is 12. She wants to live like Laura Ingalls. She only wears pants when she is cleaning out the barn in the winter or when she hunts with her older brother, or when she plays the trombone in marching band. For her, it is dresses, only dresses, not skirts. She covers her head, but only with bandanas or scarves and has made herself a pair of Duck Tape sandals (thank you, Mythbusters!) to replace the $70 Tevas she left at the water park. (That hurt!) Since she truly wants to homestead (completely conceivable as a future career where we live) and would rather have a horse and wagon than a driver's license, the dresses work very well for her.
Miriam is 10 and only happy when she is moving. Literally. She starts to cry when she has to be still for too long. She is also a ballet dancer, but considers that far too controlled to be really fun. Jeans are her speed. However, she, like Becki, is also a big girl, and the challenge for her is allowing her to wear jeans and t-shirts that are bigger, so they are not too tight (one of standards, remember?) I sometimes have to sneak clothes out of her laundry pile when I know they are getting too small. She's not happy about it, but she doesn't realize they're gone til it's too late. She says she prefers them snug, and I am not really surprised by that. She is extremely tactile, as one might imagine from my description of her, and the tight clothes may actually be more comfortable for her. However, they are not flattering, showing her bumps and rolls. So, we, as parents, have had to work with her style (jeans and shirts and boots) while setting standards (not too tight!)
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Daily Prayers
We're supposed to pray for our family every day, right? And there are times when there are specific things that need prayer (like the temper tantrum happening next to me), but there are other times when we know that we need to pray but don't know how to pray in a way that isn't selfishly motivated. Well, every since doing Kay Arthur's Lord, Teach Me to Pray, I have tried to base my prayers on scripture because I can know I'm praying in God's will if I am praying His words, right? And I have found that even what can seem repetitive prayers can be effective when I pray God's word. So, here are my prayers:
Lord, help me to submit to Steve in all things, as the Church submits to Christ in all things. (Eph. 5:22-24)
Please help the teachings of wisdom to be on my tongue when I speak to my children. (Prov. 31:26)
Lord, I pray that Steve will live with his wife in an understanding manner, as with a weaker vessel, so that his prayers may not be hindered. (I Pet. 3:7)
I pray that you would turn the heart of the father to the children and the heart of the children to the father, so that we may not be smitten with a curse. (Mal. 4:6)
I pray that the children would honor their parents in the Lord so that it may go well with them. (Ex. 20:12)
Help us to love one another, so that people will see that we are Your disciples. (John 13:35)
These aren't my only prayers, and I am always willing to pray more, but this covers the basics of every day with the family.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Introduction
Well, where are we? My name is Shannon and my husband, Steve, and I have been married for 21 years. I was brought up in apartments in Chicago and he was brought up under the runways at O'Hare Airport. We met at a large singles Bible Study at a large, non-denominational church in the western suburbs, where he was Mr. Hospitality and I was a lowly, recent college grad. But he took pity on this introverted girl who got stomach pains whenever she walked into a ballroom and talked to me. We got married 2 1/2 years later and started having babies right away. (Steve was 31 and figured he had waited long enough to have children and there was nothing else I wanted to do!) Ben was born a month after we moved into our first house and two weeks before our first anniversary. I had convinced Steve that I really wanted a home birth and, as hard as it was, we were both glad that I had.
On our honeymoon, Steve and I sat on the balcony of his condo and discussed the direction of our life.
Shannon: What do you really want to do?
Steve: I want to spend time with my kids.
Shannon: Okay. So what do you want to do while you are spending time with your kids?
Steve: It doesn't matter. Whatever will allow me to spend time with my kids.
That turned into a nine-year adventure of praying that God would bring Daddy home while we investigated buying a deer farm, an apartment building, and a camera shop. We talked about raising llamas and starting a Bed and Breakfast. We discussed his going back to school to become a veterinarian, or my pursuing a performing career in music and his taking the kids with me on the road, or having a family ministry. We especially talked about moving to the country in the hope of getting out of debt with a lower cost of living. But we always understood that Dad being home was the goal, not country living.
With his computer work for various companies, Steve finally ended up at a job that was in a small town/country environment, but there was no housing available with all the building going on and he was commuting so far that some of the children were acting out terribly. There were only five of them at the time, and we all missed Steve dreadfully. Well, coincidentally enough, my father (Papa) retired and followed my mother's (Mutti's) inclination to move to Southwestern Wisconsin so she could become a recluse. They knew of Steve's interest in multi-generational living, and his desire to move us to the country, so Papa and Mutti invited us to dinner one night and said, "How would you like to move up to Wisconsin with us and we will find out what we're going to do when we grow up?" Steve was 40!
So, we did! We had two small houses in town while Mutti and Papa located land to build a house for us all. It's a house like you've never seen, since it is essentially two houses connected by common areas. My mother insisted that we have our own kitchens, so she wouldn't take advantage of my cooking and she would not have to face our mob for every meal.
On our honeymoon, Steve and I sat on the balcony of his condo and discussed the direction of our life.
Shannon: What do you really want to do?
Steve: I want to spend time with my kids.
Shannon: Okay. So what do you want to do while you are spending time with your kids?
Steve: It doesn't matter. Whatever will allow me to spend time with my kids.
That turned into a nine-year adventure of praying that God would bring Daddy home while we investigated buying a deer farm, an apartment building, and a camera shop. We talked about raising llamas and starting a Bed and Breakfast. We discussed his going back to school to become a veterinarian, or my pursuing a performing career in music and his taking the kids with me on the road, or having a family ministry. We especially talked about moving to the country in the hope of getting out of debt with a lower cost of living. But we always understood that Dad being home was the goal, not country living.
With his computer work for various companies, Steve finally ended up at a job that was in a small town/country environment, but there was no housing available with all the building going on and he was commuting so far that some of the children were acting out terribly. There were only five of them at the time, and we all missed Steve dreadfully. Well, coincidentally enough, my father (Papa) retired and followed my mother's (Mutti's) inclination to move to Southwestern Wisconsin so she could become a recluse. They knew of Steve's interest in multi-generational living, and his desire to move us to the country, so Papa and Mutti invited us to dinner one night and said, "How would you like to move up to Wisconsin with us and we will find out what we're going to do when we grow up?" Steve was 40!
So, we did! We had two small houses in town while Mutti and Papa located land to build a house for us all. It's a house like you've never seen, since it is essentially two houses connected by common areas. My mother insisted that we have our own kitchens, so she wouldn't take advantage of my cooking and she would not have to face our mob for every meal.
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