Hippiemommy

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  • Really good in the end…

    My rating:

    I must admit that I was initially very skeptical of this book. I thought it might be punitive, guilt-based parenting in disguise, and I wrote about that in the past. The fact that the authors appeared on Family Life Today made me even more skeptical, haha. Mr. Turansky graciously responded to my criticisms, and I must humbly admit that I was wrong. I think I misjudged some of his words. I think that I can accept the things that I disagreed with once I look at them in the context of the entire book.

    I would absolutely recommend this book to parents on either side of the parenting spectrum. I sincerely believe that my friends who are into punitive parenting would enjoy and learn from this book without being immediately turned off, and I think that my AP/GBD friends would love it just as much. I think it is fully in line with AP philosophy. I especially appreciated the final chapter. It focuses on how our children are not just our children, but also our brothers and sisters in Christ. I wish that more parents thought about this fact. I know that I am guilty of forgetting it very often. I was so impressed to see a mainstream Christian book that tackled this subject.

    Overall, I would happily recommend this book to any parent. I even listed (and immediately sent out) my copy on paperbackswap, so that another parent could have access to this excellent resource. I am very strict about what I paperbackswap, because I would never want to send something on that I felt was not encouraging or uplifting for the family who will receive it. That is why I have a horrific copy of “Withhold Not Correction” sitting on my shelf that my mother-in-law gave me years ago. I do NOT want any other family to see someone suggest that you switch your children with a tree branch from your own yard!

    Back on topic though… You can read my previous entries about Say Goodbye… on this page. If you end up reading the book, please post and let me know what you thought! I’d love to discuss it 🙂

    Oh, and Merry Christmas!!!

  • Tolerance levels

    I’m in a mad whirlwind while trying to finish up the 50 or so books that I have started but not finished in the past few years, so my posts will probably be quite a hodge-podge.  I am working on a big, long entry about Church History in Plain Language, but I shall save that for another night because I am nursing at the keyboard right now  😛

    Tonight’s lesson for myself is on tolerance and comes from Turansky and Miller’s Say Goodbye…

    People have an alarm in their heads that is set to a specific tolerance level.  When they’re irritated or annoyed, the alarm goes off.  Each person’s alarm is set differently…  The good news is that tolerance levels aren’t permanently set.

    Recently I’ve been more tired (go figure… with a baby and all…) and I’ve noticed that my tolerance levels have gone down considerably.  At the same time I’ve noticed that my children’s tolerance levels with each other have gone down.  This is most certainly related.  I needed this little reminder tonight to let me know that I need to work on reseting my tolerance levels and not being so testy.  😛

    This passage also prompted me to think about how each of my children respond to different circumstances.  For example, my son is incredibly tolerant when it comes to waiting for his turn, but he is not so tolerant when it comes to his personal space. My daughter, on the other hand, is comfortable with people being quite close to her, but she has a tough time waiting for her turn.  My children can learn a lot from each other, and I can learn from each of them.  It is easy to forget that what may not bother you may be very annoying to someone else.

  • My review of Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born (rated 3 stars)

    Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born

    by Tina Cassidy


    I just finished this book, and I was disappointed to recognize many sections of it from another book that I am currently reading, Milk, Money, and Madness. I don’t think the author exactly plagiarized, but its pretty close. For example, Cassidy says in Birth

    At Dublin Foundling Hospital, of ten thousand hand-fed infants between 1775 and 1796, only forty-five survived infancy, an astounding mortality rate of 99.6 percent.

    In Milk, Money, and Madness, it reads

    At the Dublin Foundling Asylum during 1775-96, where dry nursing was in vogue, only 45 children survived out of 10,272-a horrendous 99.6% mortality rate.

    Just a few paragraphs later Cassidy says

    The ignorance and confusion surrounding bottle preparation spurred Nathan Straus, owner of Macy’s department store in New York, to give away pasteurized milk to poor children at philanthropic “stations,” a concept that had also taken hold in Europe…

    Milk, Money, and Madness says

    Milk stations were soon all the fashion. At the turn of the century, “milk depots” were established in France, Britain, and the United States… In New York, Nathan Strauss of Macy’s, working through health department clinics, organized milk stations where pasteurized, bottled milk was provided free for the needy and at low cost to others.

    You get my point. I saw dozens of these kinds of passages, which was a real turn-off. Milk, Money, and Madness came out 11 years earlier, and apparently used fantastic sources since Cassidy lifted passages like the ones above.

    My other complaint is that Cassidy swings back and forth throughout the text. First she talks about how its a miracle that any of us can survive childbirth and that we’ll soon all need C-sections because our kids keep getting bigger and bigger. Then she talks about how doctors are killing us all and homebirths with midwives are safer. Then she says she’d never homebirth.

    I’m very glad that I read this after my latest pregnancy. Cassidy admits that she doesn’t trust her body, and it is evident in the text. I wouldn’t recommend this book to a pregnant woman.

    Cassidy has some really cool pictures in here though. The chapter on C-sections was horrifying, but really interesting at the same time. I feel so many mixed emotions about this book. I’m glad that I read it, but I wonder if the sections that I liked could’ve been found in other books.

  • See if you’ve been reported…

    www.rottenneighbor.com

    I find this quite hilarious. You just enter your address or zip code and then a map pops up of your neighborhood that shows all of the neighbors who have been reported for being terrible in one way or another.  My neighborhood includes a homewrecker, someone who doesn’t edge their lawn, a fighting couple, and a man who works out too early in the morning.  Check it out – and report an annoying neighbor.  😉

  • My birth story

    Here’s my last post in the pregnancy category for a while!

    For a week or so before my due date, I had been waking up around 2am with contractions that were too strong for me to sleep through. I would get up, do a hypnobabies script, and then they’d usually die down enough for me to sleep. My husband and I kept joking that she was going to be born at 2am.

    At 2am the night after my due date, I woke up to go to the bathroom and realized that I wasn’t having contractions. I thought, “Oh well, I guess it’ll be another day.” As I sat back down in bed, I felt a gush. Confused, I went and changed my clothes and went to the bathroom again. A bunch more liquid came out when I stood up, so I changed again. I did this 4 times before I realized that my water had broken. There was a pile of clothes in my bathroom from all of the changes. My water had never broken on its own, and I definitely hadn’t imagined that it would break before labor!

    I woke my husband up and told him that I thought my water had broken. It kept gushing, so I called my midwife who told me to put on one of the adult diapers in my birth kit – niiiiice. I had my first good contraction a few minutes after my water broke and I realized this was definitely the real thing. I started shaking from adrenaline. I called my parents on the east coast and told them to book a flight ASAP and maybe they could get here in time! My midwife told me to call back later. She said I sounded like “Yay! I’m having a baby!” and I needed to call when I felt like “Get her out!” or “I don’t want to do this!” I came downstairs, posted on GCM, and my husband and I did some final little cleanups before the baby arrived.

    For the next 2 hours I had contractions that were still very manageable. Around 4:30 they started to become more intense, so I grabbed my birth ball and my ipod and started listening to my hypnobabies birthing day script and affirmations. It felt so good to sit on the ball, listen to the scripts, and lean on my husband and the bed during the contractions. I was so excited that everything was so manageable.

    I decided to hop in the shower and see if I liked that. I didn’t. I felt really cold all of the sudden and wanted nothing to do with the shower. I told my husband to call my midwife because things were really picking up. I went back to my birth ball, and kept practicing my hypnobabies while the contractions came.

    My midwife arrived around 5:30 and by then it felt really good to make horsey lips or a low sound during the contractions. I was still using my fingerdrop and hypnobabies. My midwife checked me and I was 5cm. I stayed near my husband and wanted to lie on my side. I felt like my blood sugar was low and I felt a little dizzy. My midwife made me some eggs and brown rice and I felt a little better after eating. By 6:40 the contractions really started to pick up and for a few of them I was having trouble relaxing. I told my husband that I wasn’t keeping myself limp like I needed to, so we moved positions and I started to get concerned that the hypnosis wasn’t going to work. I had him say some affirmations. Around 7:00 my birthing tub was almost full, so I decided to move over there. As soon as I hit the water, my midwife said my countenance changed. I felt so calm. The contractions were really intense but in a way that I could totally handle. They were tight and had a lot of pressure, but not pain. My hypnosis was working again. My body was pushing. Amy (my midwife) checked and said I was a 7.

    The next few waves were great, but intense. My body kept pushing. I was trying not to push, but I couldn’t control it. I told Amy that I was going to poop and she put on a glove and grabbed the net. I pushed and thought “My goodness, what did I eat last night?!” I pushed a few more times and heard “The head is out!” I guess I didn’t need to poop after all. The assistant midwife arrived just then and scrambled to get things ready. I was in between waves and had no desire to push. I pushed during the next contraction and Sarah was out. I sat there in the pool amazed. After two complicated births, I had had my beautiful homebirth. It was amazing!

    We went to my bed after the placenta was delivered and my kids held her after she nursed. My 5yo son cut the cord. It was all so beautiful and peaceful. I still can’t believe it! I had never gone into labor completely on my own, had never gone drug free, had never had an uncomplicated birth, and my body did it all! I’m so proud of body!

  • I had my baby!

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    I’m so sorry for the delay, but I’ve been a little busy  ;)  I need to type up my birth story.  I had an amazing, wonderful, fabulous waterbirth at home.  My little girl is adorable.  She was 8lbs even at birth and 21″ long.  She’s a champion nurser!  She’s been gaining 2oz a day for the past 3 days.  My older two are adjusting really well.

    I have a few books that I REALLY want to write about, but I’m not sure when it’ll happen.  I also want to add some pics of a few of my FO that I knitted during my break.

    I’ll be back soon!

  • FO: Breastfeeding advocacy dishcloth

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    This has been my project while nursing (pretty fitting, eh?) I used this pattern from Suzy Q Homemaker and Butterfly Super 10 Multi Yarn that I found on sale. I was afraid that the logo wouldn’t show up, but it is actually quite clear in person.

  • Fall Reading Challenge!

    I’m always up for an excuse to read, so I simply had to join the Fall Reading Challenge. We’ll see how much I get done now that I have less than a month before my baby should be here….

    Non-fiction

    This book was introduced to me by Sarah Clarkson when she spoke in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago. It was written by an Eastern Orthodox theologian who wants to help parents make the right choices when it comes to which books and stories they should read to their children. I ordered it on ILL and it just arrived. I am anxious to read it!

    This book was recommended to me by a few GCMers. It looks interesting. We shall see.

    I found this book through the Making Home blog. Her entry was convincing enough for me to pick up the book.

    Fiction

    It is seriously embarrassing that I have not yet read this book. Its a super fast read though, and I am almost through it in a few sittings. So far I’m loving it 🙂

    Family Reads

    We started this last night. Somehow I escaped childhood without reading anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sad but true… This is our current bedtime story. We quickly finished St. George and the Dragon and before that we read Pinocchio. I think this book will be a nice follow-up.

    We’ve loved every d’Aulaire book that we’ve touched so far, so I’m sure that will be the case again!

    Please feel free to join up and read along with me! I’ll do my best to post my progress and thoughts as I read.

  • Upcoming Colorado Conferences and Speakers

    I wanted to post some info that I’ve run across over the past few weeks.

    Sally and Clay Clarkson
    The WholeHearted Child Home Education Workshop
    September 7-8
    New Life Church, Colorado Springs
    http://wholeheart.org/whcalendaritem.php?eventid=17
    This is two days (Friday and Saturday). Friday night is free and Saturday is paid. It looks great!

    Jane Lambert (author of Five in a Row) and Amanda Bennett
    Grace Point Community Church, Littleton
    October 13, 10am-2pm
    Email mpskra{at}comcast{dot}net for more information.
    Also find more information here.

    Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller (Authors of “Say Goodbye to Whining…”)
    http://www.biblicalparenting.org/schedule.asp
    October 13, 2007
    Saturday 8:45 am to 2:30 pm
    Bad Attitudes, Anger, and Accepting No as an Answer
    Presenters: Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller
    Westminster Church of the Nazarene
    3501 W 104th Ave
    Westminster, Colorado 80031
    A children’s program is provided to complement what the parents are learning.
    The cost is $30 per couple, $20 per individual.
    For more information or to register, please call (303) 469-5149.

    November 10, 2007
    Saturday 8:30 am to 12:30 pm
    Start with the Heart: The Parenting Seminar
    Brought to you by the International Network of Children’s Ministry
    Heritage Evangelical Free Church
    555 N Heritage Ave
    Castle Rock, Colorado 80104
    A children’s program is provided to complement what the parents are learning.
    The cost is $15 per adult, $5 per child.
    Register online at incm.org
    For more information call (303) 660-9911.

  • Dream houses and fantasies

    This is my new favorite book!  There are so many great sections, but I want to focus today on her chapter on the fantasy of housekeeping and “dream houses”.  There are all sorts of high-end gadgets that are marketed to people who don’t even clean their own households. People want to dream and fantasize about their perfect house, and yet the time that women spend on average cleaning has dropped by 50% since my Grandmother’s day. During that same time, no other members of the household have started spending more time on housekeeping. That’s not good.

    Clothes and toys lie strewn from one side of the house to the other, there seems to be nowhere to put anything, and we find ourselves wondering whether the whole family is likely to come down with typhoid if the bathroom is left uncleaned for yet another day or week or month.  And in the midst of it all, there too often sits someone who is reading a magazine or watching a TV show about the dream house rather than tidying up the house he or she is in.

    Our culture completely encourages this kind of fantasy life and house-porn over the real day to day, unglamorous (but worthwhile) act of keeping house.

    There has surely always been a gap between the way people keep their houses and the way they would like ideally to keep them. But many of us, I suspect, are demoralized by the task of keeping house in part because we know that our houses, no matter how well kept, will never look like the palaces in the dream house publications. And so we give up, preferring unattainable ideals to less than perfect realities.

    It is so easy to get caught in this trap. We moved about 6 months ago from a house that had become my “dream home” by the time we left. It had the floors I always wanted, the perfect layout, a great yard, and it was painted in my favorite colors. We moved to a great new home, but it has carpeting in the main living areas, a red wall in the living room, and a smaller kitchen. Our furniture was bought to fit in our old house, and doesn’t match properly in our new house. This house has some great new features, like we now live on an open space (a preserved nature area) and we have a full guest living area in the basement, but I found myself having such a hard time being motivated because I didn’t *love* it the way that I loved my old house. I made a few changes – first in my attitude, and then in the rooms, and it has become much easier to take care of the house. I am finally enjoying it again. I never realized how important my attitude was until we moved.

    The other thing that I’ve recently learned, and that this book reinforced, is that my goal as a stay at home mom is not to have a perfect house. My goal is to take care of everyone and help them to feel comfortable. This includes a clean house, but not one with the finest furnishings or artwork. It just needs to be clean and welcoming.

    I think we will realize that elaborate, spotless perfection is really not the point. The point is the continual re-creation of welcome and nurturance, not in some theoretical or disembodied sense but in simple, practical provision for the needs of the body: food, clothing, a place to sit, a place to sleep.

    Ironically, perhaps (given what is often called the materialism of modern society), these basic needs are too often met with neglect (no one makes any effort to provide clean clothes or meals) or resentment (whoever is providing the clean clothes and meals sees that work, and is encouraged by others to see it, as “drudgery”). The result is that those needs become something to indulge in fits of commercialized excess (“treating oneself” to a day at a spa or a weekend at a hotel, for example) rather than through happy daily routines of baths and meals and clean sheets.

    Yeah, why do we do that?!

    The rest of the book goes on to talk about the simple details of sheltering, clothing, feeding, and keeping a household. It is both simple and profound at the same time. It is not the kind of book that makes you feel like you need to start working yourself into a frenzy. It is a simple encouragement to bless your family and those outside of your family by making your house into a place that will nurture souls. I really recommend this book.

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