"Take no advice...follow your own instincts...use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions" - Virginia Woolf
I ran across this Vancouver doula's post today, while doing a websearch on fussy newborns and growth spurt symptoms. She had this Woolf quote for the title of a post that I think every parent of a newborn should read. After I read it, I could feel a sense of relief that I haven't felt in a few days.
Finally, a positive result from Googling! (you won't believe some of the scary things you can encounter while researching online)
I've added her blog to my RSS reader -- too bad she's a couple provinces away for a house call!
Not to be confused with that condiment of condiments, ketchup. (catsup?)
So -- life's been quiet on this little piece of cyberspace lately. I suppose I could blame the silence on the fact that I've got a newborn in the house, but the truth is that I'm usually more content snuggling with my newest little love than I am ranting on this space. (for now, anyway)
It's funny though, there have been several things happen in the last week that I normally would have been ALL over in posts -- the State of the Union address, the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, "Blogging for Choice," the announcement of Hillary and Barack's presidential intentions, etc.
Or there's this whole new world of parenting I'm now a part of, complete with its own controversies. The one I've been researching lately is the scheduled feeding vs. feeding on baby's cue. There are some members of our family that are pretty insistent on the former -- whereas I'm not one to deny my 10 day-old baby of when she's hungry and needs to eat.
A lot of the controversy stems from a hundred+ year-old parenting philosophy that feeding on cue (or "demand feeding" as its critics call it) produces spoiled children. A friend of mine let me borrow a controversial (but popular) parenting book called Babywise, that advocates "parent directed feeding", allowing your baby to cry itself to sleep, and limiting parent-child contact time. I've done some research on the book's author, and he's got a fairly scary fundamentalist-evangelical background. Not only that, but his claims on child-rearing are based more on religious principles than current scientific or medical knowledge. Needless to say, I won't be employing any of this book's techniques any time soon.
But now this is turning into a full-blown post, rather than a quick catch-up. Here are a few links that I hope to come back to, but until then, read them for yourself:
Blogs for Choice post roundup: Several posts commemorating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, earlier this week. I meant to add my voice to the mix, but I was too busy tending my own choice, instead. Let's just say that now that I've had my own baby, I'm even more firmly entrenched on the side of allowing women the choices of when (or if) they become pregnant and/or have babies.
Is there a Post-Abortion Syndrome?: One of the favorite arguments of the anti-choice lobby groups is that abortions are medically proven to cause depression and other maladies in women. Not true. Read the above article for more on that.
A tune with no more substance than the air, performed on underwater instruments, is proper to this short lift from the earth. It hovers as we draw into ourselves and turn our reverent eyes toward the lights that count us to our various destinies. We're all in this together, the song says, and later we'll descend. The melody is like a name we don't recall just now that still keeps on insisting it is there.
My favorite part, though, was an interview with the Grand Dame of Quiverfulls. In explaining her opposition to family planning, she says, “It goes against the way God designed our bodies.”
So here’s my question: Why is the uterus the only part of the body that we’re supposed to let God fully control as He sees fit? When our other body parts aren’t doing what we want them to, we intervene. We cut our fingernails and toenails, despite the fact that, God-willing, they would grow out into long curling claws. Many Americans circumcise their sons, changing the natural appearance of their genitalia. We use radiation and chemotherapy to kill God-given cancer cells. We immunize ourselves against illnesses that we might otherwise contract if we submitted to the natural order of things. We have nationwide debates about artificially prolonging the life of someone who is unable to survive without medical intervention.
It will go down as one of the most intense blizzards in the city's history, claiming the lives of two people on a reserve and grinding Saskatoon to a virtual halt.
"We're ranking right up there with a first-class Prairie blizzard," Environment Canada's Larry Flysak said of Wednesday's weather. "It's an extreme event. We've got it all. It's something we'll always remember."
...
The only Saskatoon storm in the past half-century that comes close to Wednesday's storm occurred on Dec. 12, 1955. It lasted 26 hours, with winds hitting 121 kilometres per hour, and left nine centimetres of snow behind.
The 2007 blizzard began around midnight Tuesday and grew stronger through the day Wednesday, with winds pushing 90 kilometres per hour and snow totals around 25 centimetres by 6 p.m.
"It's tough to calculate newly fallen snow in a blizzard because it's blowing around so much," said Flysak.
The blizzard obliterates the single-day snowfall record for Jan. 10 in Saskatoon. The greatest accumulation recorded on that date was 10.2 cm in 1938.
Since 1953, there have been 18 blizzards recorded in the city. But other than in 1955, none compare to the snow and duration of Wednesday's blast.
Oy. For someone who's supposed to watch her blood pressure at this point in her pregnancy, this video enraged me on all sorts of levels. The QuiverFull movement is based on the verses in the Psalms that state:
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
While I have no issues with agreeing children are a blessing (most of the time), I disagree with the idea that a woman should have no control to monitor when or if she becomes pregnant. This movement degrades women to being human incubators, helpless to control how many pregnancies they endure -- all while subservantly attending to the "head of the home." Yuck. All forms of contraception are forbidden, and the more children a family has, the better -- it's all about "building the kingdom."
Ugh, the father of 8 that's interviewed makes me want to hurl something at my computer screen. I love how he expects his SONS to get an education and a career -- but for his girls, the highest and noblest calling they have is to be a mother baby-machine. "In no way will we send our daughters to State U campus."
EDIT: Read the comments in the Feministing thread -- good ideas floating around there. I liked this one, particularly: "Can someone explain to me why pre and post natal care is part of God's plan and birth control isn't?" Oh, and this one: "It scares me that these people, who don't mind a genocide in the name of their god, are threatened by a little family planning. How small minded must they be that their all powerful, all loving (supposedly) (except the gays! and women who wear pants!) God can't deal with a condom?"
Welcome to Saskatoon, SK. The view outside: It's been a harrowing day, both on the roads and medically. I had to check into the hospital for a couple of hours for some observation -- thankfully, no baby appearance today. Even more thankfully, hubby and I made it home safe in the car. The roads are CRAZY bad -- you can't even seen in front of your bumper.
It's a good thing I've been nesting and stocking up food for the next little while. We could actually be snowed in!
As I'm (not so) patiently playing the waiting game at home, I woke up this morning to an email from my dad whose subject line read "Give old dad your opinion on this."
Now, I love my dad very much -- but usually we don't see eye-t0-eye on a lot of political issues. Regardless, I took a deep breath and read the following email (which is a reprint of this Raymond S Kraft article).
Of course, I saw some red flags when I read the email's prescript:
THIS IS HISTORY THAT HAS BEEN LEFT OUT OF OUR TEXTBOOKS.
MOST OF YOU ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WWII. MOST OF YOU DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD. NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES.
READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2007.This is an EXCELLENT essay.
I won't reprint the forwarded email, but you can read it for yourself here. I will, however, post how I responded to it.
My response:
Hey pops. You're lucky I've got time on my hands, because this propagandistic essay has alot to refute.
First of all, since when is the US in danger of "being taken over by foreigners in 2007"? That's a huge red flag, in all caps no less, from the beginning of this essay. Yes, the US is in danger of terrorists and fundamentalist extremists -- but let's not forget that several of these nutjobs are our own (Oklahoma City?).
The stretch of relating WWII to Iraq is tenuous, at best. If anything, at least we (the US) had more international support for our actions there. To say that we "only" had England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia is laughable -- considering these were the majority of the powerful nations at the time (that weren't tied up with the Axis). Yeah, right now we have England helping us in Iraq -- but even so, they're going to be pulling out in the NEAR future, considering Blair is on his way out the proverbial door.
I agree, the Islamic fundamentalists are a scary bunch, and should not be tolerated. It's interesting this author is trying to link the Inquisition to them -- considering the only time I've heard Inquisition used is in reference to Christianity's past.
In terms of these two supporting "proofs" of this guy's argument:
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist. Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
Again, there is some truth there. Only, the author is leaving out key details in his rantings. First of all, Saddam was a horrible man -- I agree. But let's not forget that in the 1980's, when it was convenient for our country to have him on our side, we knowingly funded some of that genocide we're now condemning him for. Where does that leave our moral authority?
Speaking of which, where is the direct evidence that Saddam is linked to Al-Queda? There isn't any. Yes, he supported terrorism, but not under the pretenses of which we invaded. That evidence, along with the weapons of mass destruction, isn't to be found. That's not to say he should not have been deposed, as he was a wicked man. But let's be honest about why we did what we did.
Reason #2 gets me EVERY time -- and I'm a little surprised you're not catching the ethno-centrism of it all. "We fight them there so we won't fight them here." So, it's okay to have the collateral damage of Iraqi civilians, as long as we don't get messy over here in our comfortable environment. It's shameful. We stopped taking the Iraqi civilian body counts not 2 years into this "war" -- which is a message in itself. Yes, we are killing "bad people" over there -- but we're also killing innocents and exposing our own soliders to a civil war (or "sectarian violence" as Bush eumphemistically calls it). One civilian body count: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
This email says that the war has cost the US $160 trillion dollars. That's one (conservative) estimate. Here's another: http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182. And that's just in dollar amount -- what about the cost our country has paid in its reputation internationally, in the loss of life, etc? Yes, democracy is a noble aim, but at what price are we willing to enforce it? Can democracy be enforced?
Is this author really serious about the threat of the US living under Muslim mullah rule in the near future? Come on! While I agree there are dangers we are now facing because of fundamentalists, I sincerely doubt that we are going to be invaded any time soon -- especially considering most of the fundies are in splinter groups.
And my favorite part of the essay is where the author calls the Saudis "educated and rational." Weren't most of the 9/11 terrorists Saudis? The US has many vested interests in keeping these guys on our side, considering they've bought up many US corporations and pay for much of our debt. If anything, considering Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy, meaning there's more of these Islamic fundamentalists there that this author is decrying the entire essay.
What's interesting about the above response to Kraft's essay is that it's based on facts that are supported by evidence -- rather than just the author's opinion. Read it and tell your favorite grrrl what you think.
It's probably not as articulate as I would have liked, but I can blame hormone-addled reasoning for that. That said, if you get forwarded this essay by Kraft -- make SURE you read the rebuttal post I posted above. It does an excellent job of targeting the inconsistencies Kraft asserts as fact.
You scored 38% Sociability and 52% Sophistication!
You are comfortable around others. While you don't have to go out every night, yet you take pride in being easy to get along with. This should not, however, be misconstrued as believing (as many do) that you are without subtlety. In fact, you have the power to inform the anal retentive that, indeed, they are discussing an anal-retentive issue. Who else can do that? Quotation marks intimidate you a little bit.
Here I thought I was being all prepared-like, and I put together a preliminary list of people to email after the baby finally makes an appearance. The whole time I keep telling myself, "hit save, not send!" -- knowing, in the back of my pregnancy-addled head, that I'm going to eventually hit the WRONG button.
Well, guess what? I did.
So, if you were on the exclusive email list and got a notice from me this morning that caused a bit of a heart palpitation, I apologize. Baby is still firmly esconsced in utero, no appearances as of yet.
Just call me the grrrl who cried "I've had a baby!"
EDIT: Well, now that I've had a couple of hours to hit my forehead in celebration of my stupidity, I've actually rather enjoyed the different surprised responses from some of my friends and family to this early-announcement email.
Shelf Portrait is an exhibition that renders an act of generosity into a work of art. Robin Pacific’s entire archive of 1,670 books, collected o ver 30 years, will be given away– free – to all who attend the Shelf Portrait exhibition at the Red Head Gallery from Saturday January 6 through Saturday January 27, 2007. Books read 30 years ago, books read last week, books read and re-read, books never read – Art, Fiction, Poetry, Cultural Theory, Memoirs, Biographies, Autobiographies, Essays, Letters, Philosophy, Psychology, Travel, Gardening. Each book has been catalogued and inserted with a bookplate: "This book is a gift to you from Robin Pacific." In exchange for signing their name beside the title of the books on catalogues hung on the wall, visitors can take the books home with them immediately. Shopping bags will be provided.
Robin Pacific says, "My books are a portrait of an artist’s psyche. When I pick one up at random, a whole period of my life comes rushing back, people, places, what I was doing, who I was at that particular point of my past. Giving them away is a means of putting my consciousness out into the world, and isn’t that what all artists do, regardless of the medium?"
The signed catalogue sheets will be the trace, the record, and the remains of the collection. Disposable cameras will be available for people to photograph the "disappearing archive" and themselves, thus documenting the show as it disperses.
What a brave woman! While I have no problems loaning out my books (with the hopes they'll return one day), I don't think I could stomach getting permanently rid of ALL of them.
I like the name the artist has chosen -- Shelf Portrait. In the interview she talked about how attached people can get to their book collection, and how the books we own really do communicate a lot about who we are. Our bookshelves can act as self-portraits, to a certain extent.
When visiting a friend's house, one of my favorite things to do is to check out their book collection. I remember babysitting at an elaborate house that had these amazing two-story bookshelves, complete with rolling ladder. The shelves were beautiful -- but upon closer look at the contents, all I could see were Danielle Steele and trashy novels on the shelves. Tragic.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting idea for an art exhibit -- and if I lived near Toronto, you can bet I'd check it out.
Two things worth stealing sharing that I found whilst pursuing other blogs this morning:
Todd blogged about Wiki's random-article-of-the-day feature. When you have this address saved in a link -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage -- you're taken to a random article in almighty Wikipedia. So far this morning I've learned about the Slovic province of Ve'ka Trna, the Peoples' Democratic Party, and the French comic book character, Iznogoud ("he's no good"). I can already feel hours of my life being consumed by this type of Wiki-surfing.
We broke out the magic plastic and invested in a new digital camera this week -- the Panasonic Lumix DMC-Tz1. It's quite a step up from my little 2 megapixel Nikon Coolpix I've had for the past few years. From what I've read online, it's got fairly good reviews and it's more powerful in its features than I originally thought.
I'll also be able to take videos with it, with my super-big 1 GB memory card. This poor kid will be covered in digital pictures, I'm afraid.
This week marks the start of a new (and let's hope, improved) US Congress. First of all, there's a new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi -- the first woman to hold such a role. This is a step in the right direction (though many on the Right may not think so). After all, women haven't even held the right to vote for a hundred years yet.
The other interesting political news I've come across this week regards the first Muslim congressman to be sworn in, Minnesota's Keith Ellison. There was a huge controversy a month or so ago when he requested swearing in on the Quran, not the Bible. In a shining moment of my newfound home state, Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., warned that unless immigration is tightened, "many more Muslims" will be elected and follow Ellison's lead. [link] We won't even begin to debunk the cultural slurs and misinformation that statement holds.
There's a happy ending to this story though -- and one that's highly amusing, as well. Ellison has requested to be sworn in using a copy of Thomas Jefferson's Quran, published in 1764. A librarian from the Library of Congress will walk it over to the ceremony for Ellison to use. [link]
I love this for several reasons. One, why should he have to swear an oath on a book that he does not hold in such high esteem? Second, I love the fact that this disproves the misnomer that the founding fathers were predominately Christian -- when in fact, the most religious you could call them is Deist (particularly Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution).
As of 10:00 this morning, I am a permanent resident of Canada!
It's been a long time coming, but I'm glad to have finally secured this status (especially before the little one arrives).
The officers at the Saskatoon CIC office were very nice and professional. It turns out that I can use some of the time I've already lived in Canada toward my 1000+ days for securing dual-citizenship. So watch out Canadian election system -- in late 2009 I hope to have my voting abilities!
That picture is from this year's Rose Bowl parade. ("Star Wars fans, part of a club group of 200 storm troopers called the 501st Legion assemble to practice their routine before the New Year's Day 118th Rose Parade, Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006, in Pasadena, Calif.")
It's funny how I still feel that tiny gasp of fear whenever I see a Storm Trooper mask -- I suppose I could blame watching Star Wars too many times as a kid. I'm pretty sure it's engrained into me by now. As I sit here, I have the Imperial March stuck in my head, and I'm a little tempted to breathe like Darth Vader, too.
Another scary movie scene that still gets me: in ET, when the scientists invade Elliot's house with the white jumpsuits/masks. I can still remember seeing that in the theatres and getting freaked out.
What are some of your more scarier moments as a kid in cinema?
2005 was the first year we were married. 2006 is the year of "the pregnancy." 2007 will be the year of the baby (and I'm still wrapping my head around having a little one in the NEXT MONTH!).
2006 was a big year of adjusting for the two of us, relationship-wise. We weathered (and are still weathering) some pretty difficult chapters as a couple. While it wasn't fun, I can honestly say that we are stronger as a result of what we went through. I've learned that you can never please everyone in your life, no matter how hard you try -- likewise, there are also some people who you will always upset, no matter what you do. While that may sound like a simplistic realization, it took us a couple months to finally figure it out.
In 2006 I also found out that I have a pretty good support system up here, despite having my family live so far away. It's taken me a couple years and I've gone through a few different sets of friends, but the relationships I have now are solid and real -- which I'll take, any day, over masses of superficial friendships. I know that I now have a short list of friends that I could call up, any time of the day, and they'd be there for Jerry and I. I haven't always had these types of connections, and since I'm on the verge of a fairly life-changing event, I'm glad to have such friends.
In 2006 I moved onward from being a mere graduate student teacher to a faculty position in the University. While I'm still technically a student (I WILL FINISH THIS YEAR!), I now have "a career." It's hard to believe that 5 years ago I was in an undergraduate program completely clueless of where to go in life. Now I'm in Canada (quite a move from Georgia), happily married to an amazing man, working in an academic setting I love, and I'm on the verge of starting a family.
So 2006 is behind me, and it was quite the year. With that, onto the random resolution maker for 2007 (because random resolutions are always more fun than "real" ones!):
In the year 2007 I resolve to: Become anti-social.
