he's got the whole world in his hands...

This is the sort of photo you get when you allow a 9 year old access to a digital camera:



After I saw the wet spot down the front of Timmy's shirt it made me imagine he had been drinking from the Atlantic Ocean.

Downloading the pictures I found the kids had taken over 100 pictures in 2 days, mostly super-closeups of each other's faces. Mary and Will also figured out how to do video, some of which involved spinning the camera around so fast that watching made me feel like I was back on the teacup ride at the county fair.

Still waiting, but with contractions ranging from every 5 to 30 minutes since yesterday at lunchtime, it can't be long now...

not so patiently waiting

It certainly was easier being pregnant with Will, even though he "cooked" the longest. When I nested, things stayed clean and tidy. When I packed my suitcase, it stayed packed. When I wanted to nap, rest, snack, or shop I was free do these things anytime I wished.

This time around, the logistical issues are overwhelming. I clean the house and before I finish one floor, it has toys (or rosary beads) strewn across it.

I have had to repack my bag 3 times now because my hairbrush keeps ending up in the kid's bathroom (Timmy and I routinely sing "Oh, where is my hairbrush?" from Veggie Tales as a really bad comedy act). The kids ask me every morning and evening, "Is Baby Sunshine coming today/tonight?" I don't have the opportunity to lie down for more than 5 minutes before someone is calling my name. I can't even shop because I'm trying not to spend money after my $200 stocking-up trip to the Commissary and I don't want to hear, "Can I have XYZ?" from anyone under the age of 11.

So here I gestate and wait, I read and then hurry to the library to stock up on more books so I don't get stuck at the hospital with nothing left in the stack.

I sew, but with no plan other than to stay busy making blocks.

At this rate, I'm going to have read the entire fiction department at the local library and enough blocks for a king sized quilt before I put my hand on my tummy and say, "It's time to go!"

fun but frightening

I found this Madame Zaritska's birth predictor. After answering the bizzare questions I found that:

The day you deliver, outside will be foggy. Your baby will arrive in the late night. After a labor lasting approximately 12 hours, your child, a girl, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 15 pounds, 2 ounces, and will be 18 inches long. This child will have dark hazel eyes and barely there brown hair.

I would rather jump off a bridge than deliver a 15 pound child. Luckily we have had a tie for biggest baby at 8lb 1oz. Wanna guess which ones?

carnival of homeschooling

Consent of the Governed is hosting the Stimulus Edition of this week's homeschool carnival.

chipping away at the 2nd Amendment

new bill HR 45 introduced into the House, the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009, which would make it illegal to own a firearm - any rifle with a clip or ANY pistol unless:

•It is registered
•You are fingerprinted
•You supply a current Driver's License
•You supply your Social Security #
•You will submit to a physical & mental evaluation at any time of their choosing
•Each update - change or ownership through private or public sale must be reported and costs $25 - Failure to do so you automatically lose the right to own a firearm and are subject up to a year in jail.
•There is a child provision clause on page 16 section 305 stating a child-access provision. Gun must be locked and inaccessible to any child under 18. They would have the right to come and inspect that you are storing your gun safely away from accessibility to children and fine is punishable for up to 5 yrs. in prison.

So, the Congress is again (voting this week to give a seat in the House of Representatives to Washington, DC) trying to stomp all over the Constitution by tampering with the 4th Amendment (unlawful search and seizure) in their campaign to restrict as much as possible the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms).

Tim took a pistol safety class earlier this month and decided to fill out the paperwork to obtain a license this weekend under the current law. Soon we will be the proud owners of a small pistol for target practice.

I'm clamoring for a double-barreled shotgun that I can prop up on the front porch next to my rocking chair, so when the revenuers come to steal my house, cow, and sheep to give to the undeserving poor, I can scare them, "Out of here, you varmints!"

it is so worth it

It is said that parenthood is a thankless job. That is true for the most part, since babies and toddlers never say, "Gee Mommy, I really appreciate you changing my nasty nappies, spooning rice mush into my mouth, teaching me the shapes and colors, taking me to the library every week, and reading to me every night for years and years....

But on Sunday morning, when I woke up at 9am (gasp!) after being up for 6 hours with mild contractions, I opened my eyes to this:

and inside was this:

I love and care about you too.

I should have been a statistics major

I love making charts, graphs, and trying to analyze data to see what it means for the future. However, I don't have any interesting data or much on my mind these days except wondering when Baby Sunshine is going to put in an appearance. For my OB appointment I brought in a chart of my progression of dilation/effacement with the last several pregnancies. Since I never got checked with the first 2 babies I don't have that info, but I showed up at L&D at 4cm with Will and 7cm with Mary, so it is likely I experienced early labor with them as well. At this stage with the last 3 babies I was already 3cm dilated and 50-75% effaced so I'm guessing with all these sleepless nights make it likely I am about the same now.

The other chart I made yesterday shows what date Baby Sunshine would appear compared to the other 5 babies. Since the earliest one was born at 37 weeks 2 days that would be today. Can you guess which child was born the earliest?

bye bye classic books

One of my favorite things to do has been collecting children's books, finding them at thrift stores, used book stores, and vendors such as Keller Books at homeschool conferences. We have 9 bookshelves of various sizes chock-full, so no child could ever say, "I don't have ANYTHING to read!"

However, the new CPSIA law which was rushed through Congress with no thought as to consequences (boy, does that sound familiar), outlaws the reselling (and possibly checking out from the library) children's books published prior to 1986 due to the possibility of lead in the print. I can tell you that my children read books, listen to books, and look at books, but they do not eat them. This is the most up-to-date statement from the agency:

Table C: Commonly Resold Children’s Products and Materials

Recalled Products
Illegal to sell ANY recalled product (for adults as well as children). Before taking into inventory or selling a product, check the CPSC Web site for dangerous recalled products including cribs, play yards, strollers, high chairs, toys with magnets, toys that are choking hazards, and other products.

Books – “ordinary” children’s titles e.g. paperbacks and hardbacks
OK to sell, if printed after 1985

Cheap children’s metal jewelry
Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell

Unpainted/untreated wood toys
OK to sell

Painted wooden or metal toys
Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell

Toys with soft plastic that are made for infants
Should be OK to sell if made for sale after February 10, 2009. If older (or if the date of manufacture is unknown) check with manufacturer or do not sell

Dyed or undyed children’s clothing made from natural, untreated cotton, silk, wool, hemp, flax, linen, and other untreated natural materials including coral, amber, feathers, fur and leather
OK to sell

Clothes with rhinestones, metal or vinyl snaps, zippers, closures or appliqués.
Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell

Surgical steel; precious metals such as gold (at least 10 karat) and sterling silver (at least 925/1000); precious and semiprecious gemstones (excluding a list of stones that are associated in nature with lead); natural or cultured pearls
OK to sell

Toys that are easily breakable into small parts including dolls and stuffed toys that have eyes, noses or other small parts that are not securely fastened
Best not to sell (for children under 3); could present a choking hazard

Here are some of my favorites from our vast shelves that are now illegal to purchase:

It seems absurd in this age when we are supposedly trying to encourage children to read and get a good education to require that the only reasonably priced books for children must be thrown away because of some infinitesimal risk of a child licking the pages. Shame on our legislators for throwing out the baby with the bathwater in their efforts to "protect the children."

I just found this fantastic Dr. Seuss style story about the CPSIA, it might just make you laugh and cry.

just in time...

I've been supplanted as the chief hugger and consoler. Timmy accidentally whacked his head on the dresser in his room right after I got him dressed, and of course burst into tears. "Come here baby Timmy," and while he did hug me for a moment, he started sobbing, "Willllllll!"

"Will, Get out of the bathroom, your brother wants YOU!"

He immediately stopped crying as soon as he was safe in his big brother's arms.

carnival of homeschooling

Topsy Technie is hosting this week's carnival with a decided technical aspect. Our household is very low-tech as I told the Verizon rep yesterday when reporting a harassing phone call, "We don't have caller ID or any of that fancy stuff."

excursion

To get an OB appointment with likely the only pro-life Catholic military doc in DC (other than my dh), I had to agree to forgo schoolwork this morning and take all 5 little munchkins with me.

I hope they don't get run over, turn the place upside down, have a temper tantrum, swing from the rafters. Things to pack in the magic bag: storybooks, Cheerios, sippy cup, extra nappies, matchbox cars, and coloring supplies.

Wish me luck!

We managed to get to my appointment on time despite the traffic, driving around looking for a parking spot (we found the last one on base), and having to walk 1/2 mile to the hospital. Now we are home again and snug and cozy doing schoolwork and drinking mugs of hot cocoa/Ovaltine. The doctor agreed that I didn't need any more appointments, just to call L&D ahead of time, "I'm coming in and this is my 6th baby," so they will have a bed prepped with my name on it.

bored and waiting

As if I didn't have enough to do between homeschooling, ferrying children to lessons, and keeping the house clean, I have made it a habit to start some complicated project toward the end of pregnancy. We moved overseas when Will was 8 weeks old, giving me the opportunity to organize and pack and then repeat it on a smaller scale again when, pregnant with Mary, we moved on-base in Italy. Tim deployed for 9 months when I was only a few weeks out from Maggie's due date so of course I had to take on preschool and a TV interview to while away the time. I don't think I did much while waiting for Charlie except prepping for our yearly trip to Maine, which we did when he was four weeks old. I take that back, packing for 2-3 months in Maine with 4 small children is a big job. While expecting Timmy I began a children's writing course, which took 2 years to complete. Each time my boredom was supplanted by endless lists of chores, but they did give me something to other than twiddle my thumbs and wait for the big contractions.

This time around I bought a new sewing machine and quilting frame so I can eventually be a talented free-motion quilter and sell my creations on etsy or ebay. Tim assembled the 15' long table a few weeks ago and over the weekend I put the cloth leaders on the roller bars and pinned on a quilt sandwich so I can begin to practice. My errors have turned into a comedy; first I couldn't figure out how the rollers unlocked, making me think they were all on backwards before rerolling them all back the exact same way, Will had to rescue me when I hollered for help after I found that I couldn't lift the sewing machine onto the frame, and finally after we pinned it all on correctly I accidentally quilted the top to the cloth leaders underneath.

The book I bought with lots of great all-over quilting patterns says that it takes a year to become really proficient on a long-arm machine. I can't see me wanting to stand in my current state and practice much now, but I guess it will still be there after Baby Sunshine learns to take good naps.

liberals are trying to destroy the Church says Rabbi...

Left Wing of the Catholic Church Destroying the Faith Says Orthodox Rabbi
By Hilary White, Rome correspondentWednesday February 11, 2009

The dissident, leftist movement in the Catholic Church over the last forty years has severely undermined the teaching of the Catholic Church on the moral teachings on life and family, a prominent US Orthodox rabbi told LifeSiteNews.com.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the head of a group of 800 Orthodox rabbis in the US and Canada, also dismissed the accusations that the Holy See had not sufficiently distanced itself from the comments made by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) on the Holocaust."I support this move" to reconcile the traditionalist faction in the Church, he said, "because I understand the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem. There is a strong left wing of the Church that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith."

Rabbi Levin said that he understands "perfectly" why the reconciliation is vital to the fight against abortion and the homosexualist movement. "I understand that it is very important to fill the pews of the Catholic Church not with cultural Catholics and left-wingers who are helping to destroy the Catholic Church and corrupt the values of the Catholic Church." This corruption, he said, "has a trickle-down effect to every single religious community in the world."

During a visit to Rome at the end of January, Rabbi Levin told LifeSiteNews.com that he believes the media furore over the lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X is a red herring. ...The most important issue," he said, is the work the Church is doing "to save babies from abortion, and save children’s minds, and young people’s minds, helping them to know right and wrong on the life and family issues."

Liberals in the Church, particularly in Europe, have bitterly opposed all overtures to the SSPX and other traditionalists, particularly the Pope’s recent permission to revive the traditional Latin Mass. The Vatican announced in early January that, as part of ongoing efforts to reconcile the breakaway group, the 1988 decree of excommunication against the Society had been rescinded. Later that month, a Swedish television station aired an interview, recorded in November 2008, in which Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four leaders of the Society, said that he did not believe that six million Jews were killed in the Nazi death camps during World War II. At that time, the media erupted with protests and accusations that the Catholic Church, and especially Pope Benedict XVI, are anti-Semitic.

"Anyone who understands and follows Vatican history knows that in the last three decades, one of the moral and intellectual underpinnings of the papacy of Pope John Paul II, was Cardinal Ratzinger."...Whoever doesn’t understand this doesn’t realise that this man, Pope Benedict XVI, has a decades-long track record of anti-Nazism and sympathy for the Jews."

music critics

On our way home from the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet I started singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

"Stop! Stop!"

"Is Mommy's singing that bad?"

"Yes!"

(the complainer? Baby Timmy)

Over the past 8 years all the children have given me similar reviews, so perhaps my singing really is terrible.

mystery solved

Did you know that if you leave your cell phone in a pocketbook and miss a call, it will beep every 15 minutes for the next 6 days? After Tim reminded me to take my phone this morning I got in the car only to hear a familiar noise, "Duh! "

military spouse deployment syndrome

Apparently the "something major goes wrong at home as soon as the spouse goes out of town syndrome" happens with all wives with traveling spouses, but it is inevitable for Navy wives, whose husbands are prone to 6 month deployments. Tim flew up to New England this week and will be arriving home in the next several hours, but as soon as he left on Monday our furnace died, complete with an odd smell and me worrying about a possible gas leak. Now it wasn't a crisis given that it hit 70F on Tuesday afternoon, but it is never good to not have heat in February. That situation was resolved within a few days. Simultaneously a mysterious beeping began, which we investigated as a bad battery in a smoke detector or something wrong with the alarm system. It has continued from some mysterious location in the finished basement every 15 minutes for 5 days now, leaving us all muttering under our breath while attempting to do school.

I didn't want to blog about the lack of heat since we had to leave the basement door unlocked and since I am already paranoid when Tim is away, staying up half the night waiting for burglars and child abductors to appear on the stairs. I certainly didn't want to put in out on the internet that 5 small children and a slow waddling mama were home alone.

The other thing I was worried about was going into labor while Tim was away, but obviously I'm still very round and now very tired. Likely I will start having contractions tonight, but if I do at least I won't have to be subjected to the walls beeping for several days!

where do they all go?

I bought a 5lb bag of Red Delicious apples at the commissary on Tuesday. I bought a 5 lb bag of Red Delicious apples at Giant Thursday afternoon. This is what the fuit bowl looks like at 11am on Friday.

If I hear one more time, "Mommy can I have an apple?" I'm going to scream. I know, I know, apples are good for you, they could be asking for cookies. Guess what is on my grocery list for this afternoon?

trying to raise GEEKS

I have likely read every parenting book out there that expresses some common sense, you know, the ones that were actually written by parents, rather than childless "development experts." My favorite authors are John Rosemond and Ray Guardendi, but Marybeth Hicks has made some outstanding contributions to practical parenting in this wacky world in her new book, Bringing Up GEEKS (Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kids): how to protect your kid's childhood in a grow-up-too-fast world. She has accomplished with her 4 children what most homeschoolers wish to with their children; raise children who are smart, sheltered, polite, team players, true friends, family oriented, and faithful to God.

While I think she does tend toward the simplistic side, "if you follow your own path rather than following the herd then your kids will automatically turn out great," she shows how the popular culture of childhood has turned out a generation of young adults who don't think, are not kind, don't believe in God, and are materialistic snobs. If we want better for our own children then we must be proactive and raise them differently. We must be counter-cultural.

We homeschoolers are the epitome of this theory, we are striving daily to guide our offspring to treasure those things that will bring us happiness in this world and the next. If you know of a new mom, I can't think of a more useful and generous gift than a copy of this book.

carnival of homeschooling

Sprittibee, another pregnant homeschool mama, is hosting the carnival this week with a very appropriate theme: baby development.

red envelopes

This is floating around the internet, I wish I could credit the creative woman who came up with it. I found 50 count packages of red Christmas envelopes on clearance at Staples for $1.50.

"Dear Friends and Intercessors: This afternoon I was praying about a number of things, and my mind began to wander. I was deeply distressed at the symbolic actions that President Obama took as he began his presidency. Namely, that he signed executive orders releasing funds to pay for abortions, permission to fund human stem cell research, and federal funding for contraception. I have been involved in the pro-life movement for nearly 20 years, and it pained my heart to see a man and a political party committed to the shedding of innocent blood. This man, and this party lead our country, but they do not represent me or the 54% of Americans who believe that abortion is wrong and should no longer be legal.

As I was praying, I believe that God gave me an interesting idea. Out in the garage I have a box of red envelopes. Like the powerful image of the red LIFE tape, an empty red envelope will send a message to Barack Obama that there is moral outrage in this country over this issue. It will be quiet, but clear.

Here is what I would like you to do: Get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos, or at party supply stores.

On the front, address it to:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20500

On the back, write the following message: This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.

Put it in the mail, and send it. Then forward this email to every one of your friends who you think would send one too. I wish we could send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who died before having a a chance to live. Maybe it will change the heart of the president. "