Please Hold

My summer project is to potty train my two-year-old girl and three-year-old boy. The latest idea I've had is to have them sit on their little potties while I let them watch some TV. This is special treat for them, because I've become pretty particular about not watching TV during the day. I don't turn it off for any noble-I-think-it-rots-your-brain kind of reason, I just don't like the tone of the house with the TV on all day. It make me edgy to have it on all day (but I think I can make the sacrifice if the end result is potty trained little children!).

So, this is either genius or completely insane. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Pottytime

This is a lazy post. I sent this info in an email to someone doing research on all things relating birth control. I thought you might be interested in the info too. Sorry I didn't find the time to make this into a real post.

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Here's the list of links I was telling you about. Again, I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but I think the topic of birth control is more nuanced than most of us take it for at first glance and is worth looking into various "out there" arguments to get a more rounded and comprehensive view.

Anti-Birth Control Movements...

If you haven't already familiarized yourself with the arguments behind the Quiverfull Movement and the Catholic view of birth control, I think that would be a good idea. While I don't agree with either view if full, I do think they both make some interesting arguments and are worth reading.

Quiverfull
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull_Movement
http://www.quiverfull.com/

Catholic View of Birth Control
http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp

Birth Control, Family Size & Being Green...

I can't find a good link for it at the moment (I'll see if I can send you something later), but I would also look at arguments regarding family size as it relates to global responsibility. The short version is that one side says it is irresponsible to have a lot of children (some say more than one child) because the Earth is going to run out of resources and more people mean more of a drain on those resources resulting in global hunger, etc. The other argument is that humans are our most valuable resource (look at what is happening to societies that have birth rates below replacement levels) and that it's not scarcity of resources, but rather it is greed in distributing those resources and outrageous standards of living that hinders us in our efforts to stop global hunger, etc. 

Regarding Birth Control...

Informed Consent?
http://tami.vox.com/library/post/informed-consent.html
This is something I wrote. It contains a lot of the same links as below.

A Longer Condensation of Does The Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?
http://www.epm.org/artman2/publish/prolife_birth_control_pill/A_Longer_Condensation_of_Does_The_Birth_Control_Pill_Cause_Abortions.shtml

Contra-Contraception
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07contraception.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

When Does Pregnancy Begin?: A Federal Appeals Court Decision Implicates a New Abortion Question
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20071015.html

Informed consent and the redefining of conception: a decision ill-conceived?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9848690

Contraceptive Info
http://contracept.org/
This is a great resource that has the best information I've found as far as how different methods work and the actual effectiveness (in preventing pregnancy) of various methods (hormonal, barrier, natural family planning).

Thoughts on Abortion, Birth Control, Family Planning, Family Size...

Thoughts on contraception and the quiverfull movement
http://humblemusings.com/archives/2008/03/04/thoughts-on-contraception-and-the-quiverfull-movement/

On Children as a Blessing Revisited
http://seekingtoglorify.blogspot.com/2009/02/on-children-as-blessing-revisited.html

How I became pro-life
http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/01/how-i-became-pro-life.html

Blessings, But…
http://parunak.com/pursuingtitus2/category/birth-control/

It's all about the money (and greed, and selfishness...)
http://ccostello.blogspot.com/2008/09/its-all-about-money-and-greed-and.html

...other stuff to think about and research how it relates to birth control, family planning, abortion, etc. are:
(sorry I don't readily have links for these)
- Sex Out of Marriage
- Infertility Treatments (IVF, etc.)
- Sterilization
- Cloning
- Stem Cell Research

Thanks for taking on this topic! Best wishes in your research.

Tami

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If any of you know if any good links or thoughts to add to this, please post them in the comments!

Fox in Socks

Dr. Seuss

For a while after Luke was born I had the Dr. Seuss tongue twister about Luke Luck found in the book "Fox in Socks" stuck in my head. 

Luke Luck likes lakes.
Luke's duck likes lakes.
Luke Luck licks lakes.
Luck's duck licks lakes.

Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.
Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

Well now it's even more ironic that that poem was stuck in my head. My husband went and looked back at the receipt we got after filing for the birth certificate. Instead of writing my son's name as "Luke" (as I had written it out on the form), they typed it up as "Luck." And in my postpartum sleep deprived state I did not catch it and signed off on it.

Luke Luck Receipt

We're now in the process of trying to correct the spelling of his name before the birth certificate is actually issued, but I can just see the people at the state vital records office saying "look, some hippie home birth mom named her kid born on St. Patrick's day 'Luck'." At very least it looks like "Luck" is going to be a permanent nickname for Luke.

Abstract from the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health: http://www.jmwh.com/article/S1526-9523(08)00338-3/abstract

jmwh.com

1 comment

Approximately 1% of American women give birth at home and face substantial obstacles when they make this choice. This study describes the reasons that women in the United States choose home birth. A qualitative descriptive secondary analysis was conducted in a previously collected dataset obtained via an online survey. The sample consisted of 160 women who were US residents and planned a home birth at least once. Content analysis was used to study the responses from women to one essay question: “Why did you choose home birth?” Women who participated in the study were mostly married (91%) and white (87%). The majority (62%) had a college education. Our analysis revealed 508 separate statements about why these women chose home birth. Responses were coded and categorized into 26 common themes. The most common reasons given for wanting to birth at home were: 1) safety (n = 38); 2) avoidance of unnecessary medical interventions common in hospital births (n = 38); 3) previous negative hospital experience (n = 37); 4) more control (n = 35); and 5) comfortable, familiar environment (n = 30). Another dominant theme was women's trust in the birth process (n = 25). Women equated medical intervention with reduced safety and trusted their bodies' inherent ability to give birth without interference.

As if I didn't have enough going on. My due date was yesterday. Come and gone. I'm getting over a cold I caught towards the end of last week. I'm still a little horse, but not too bad. Tuesday I get my kids up to go to "school" (mother's morning out, where I also work). My two-year-old keeps complaining of pain in or around his neck. Now, any of you that know my two-year-old know that he is pretty rough and tumble and not one to complain over a minor bump. So, I figure it's got to be pretty painful for him to 1) complain in the first place, and 2) point it out specifically. I'm thinking that maybe he has some sort of crick in his neck or, more likely, an ear infection. Nope. He has a broken collarbone. AND... I have no idea how he broke it [bad mom, bad mom, bad mom*].

He spent the day before with my mother, but I saw him for family time in the evening and when we put him to bed. Nothing out of the ordinary (except that he went to bed really easily). My husband and I were kind of tired so we separated the two-year-old and the four-year-old who share a room to fall asleep in separate rooms, and then move the four-year-old into their room after they were both asleep. So no thoughts of the four-year-old pounding the two-year-old before settling down to sleep. All I can guess is that the two-year-old fell out of bed sometime in the night (uncharacteristic of him, but maybe), but he was asleep in his bed when I went in the room in the morning.

And I keep having to tell this story over and over again of how his mother has no idea how her son broke his collarbone. Fun Stuff.

So, yeah, can I just go ahead and have this baby already!

*I know rationally that I'm not a "bad mom" and that these things happen, but that doesn't mean the gut/guilt part of me doesn't hear "bad mom"