RPW Recommendation: The First Comes Around

Pastor Brown said this much better than me regarding how we treat each other within confessionalism:

I'm Better Than You (No, really, I'm SO not)

I have pretty strong opinions on many issues...and a lot of the positions that I take are not really mainstream.

I believe in natural birth and think the best place to be born, is probably home and with a midwife.

I chose a method called Attachment Parenting to raise my children -- family bed, child-led weaning, and I carried my infants around on my body in a sling, rather than using a stroller -- most of the time.

I also believe that raw milk and meat is better coming from grass-fed cows that get a lot of time out in the sunshine and fresh air. There is a significant difference in the nutrients of the products between grass-fed and grain fed cattle. Pasteurization destroys and alters nutrients, and changes the ratios so that the nutrients left may not be as useful to your body. And Vitamin A and D are replenished, but in forms your body can barely use, and are even suspected carcinogens. Not only that, when the fat is removed, these fat soluble vitamins are even less useful. You need fat to absorb vitamins. I could do a whole post on this.

Obviously, I feel strongly on these issues. I have done a LOT of research on these issues and have personal experience with them. As far as breastfeeding, I even underwent what amounts to two years of training to be a La Leche League Leader and certified lactation consultant. If I didn't feel strongly that "Breast is best" doesn't mean "its just a little bit better," I wouldn't have done that. I also wouldn't have nursed two children for a grand total of seven years combined.

Does this mean that I believe that you are inferior if you chose differently, if for some reason you couldn't, or if you didn't really think about the issues? No. Because in my life, it has taken me 40 years to get to this point, and I wasn't even there on some of the nutritional issues a year ago. And I know I'm not done yet.

Let me give you some examples:

Despite my birth beliefs, I have two children out of two who were born via c-section. The first because I didn't know any better, the 2nd, because after 32 hours of labor, they weren't going to let me go any farther. Things weren't happening according to their textbook at the hospital, where I could only deliver at, because there wasn't a midwife in L.A. at that point who could get a doctor to back her up if she did a home VBAC, despite the fact that the safety statistics are there.

Breastfeeding -- I didn't want to breastfeed. I only tried because I promised my husband I would give it six weeks, and he held me to that. And since my son was very allergic to cows milk and soy, it was a blessing that he did. But he was nipple-confused from the first time he received a bottle in the hospital, and it took almost 4 weeks to get him to nurse. I think the c-section made me determined. But he had four weeks on soy formula, throwing up all over the place and dealing with chronic constipation. The difference I saw in my son when he finally was a breastfed baby as opposed to a formula fed baby showed me that there really is a difference.

Nutrition -- we have eaten fast food at least three times this week, and despite my knowing that I was reacting poorly to wheat for years, I only managed to get off of it when it turned into full-blown celiac disease.


But that doesn't mean that I don't strongly believe that there is an ideal as to how something should be. And I know I generally don't reach it. I know most people don't. But that isn't going to stop me from posting articles or statements about what the ideal is. And I am not necessarily saying you should meet this ideal. I am putting information out there, in case you are interested in this topic, because I certainly am....and it is my blog (my facebook status, my mouth) :D

I get frustrated when people take it as "I didn't do this, so you are attacking me." No, generally the information that I put out there is citing something that is fact. If you didn't have a natural birth or breastfeed your child, I still know that you love your child, and if you missed out on those things (and I did) you still have MANY ways that you love your child. If you don't want to become a food hippie like me, I at least hope there is something you do that is good for yourself...that YOU are more interested in.

But in the end, through my research and experience, I believe strongly in these things. I wouldn't be sharing this information if I didn't believe strongly in these things. So my sharing them with you is not an attack, it is a gesture of love -- this matters to me. I hope it helps you. But it should be treated like any gift I would give you. If it doesn't help you, get rid of it.

Socialization and Homeschooling

HT: The Elephant's Child, and of course, Indiana Jane herself.

One of the best statements I've seen on the "S" Word, by my friend Jane, and her kids are proof it works. I remembered it from a long time ago, but it deserves recirculation.

The Company You Keep

Is Facebook Down for You, Too?

Just wondering. All of a sudden everything disappeared a few minutes ago, and my cell phone is getting a couple of updates, but not a whole lot. When I try to go to my page....nothing.

I've spent the day kind of defending Facebook's right to make changes. I can't say that I LIKE the changes, especially once I realized that I was getting updates on Friends commenting on their Friends' comments. Who needs that?

So I started editing what would be in my feed, person by person as they popped up. Then all it would say is (for instance) "Indiana Jane shared a link" That's even WORSE.

Many people commented on how Facebook is a free service. That's not exactly true (and I'd just got done saying this when it shut down...so maybe I'm just paranoid). Facebook isn't free. It makes a HUGE amount of money. And the product that they offer is US. They sell the information we give them, our links to our friends, our regional connections, and yes, now even the data off our cell phones. And they also advertise TO us (unless you have Adblock, which I love). We are their commodity, and they need to keep us happy in order to keep us on Facebook and not somewhere else, like, say our personal blogs.

The image that comes to mind, and maybe its fairly apt, is the human farms in Matrix. Remember when the evil cyber-agent dude said when they made it too perfect, people couldn't handle it and died? Maybe they do like to shake it up because in the end, we do need change and trouble every once in a while. And believe me, Facebook knows that with each change, people get upset for a few days and adjust. If they don't change every once in a while, something else will come along and steal us away, or we'll grow bored. If they do change a bit, they'll get some complaints, but we will settle down. But if it is too much -- then it will stay upsetting to people, and they'll go over to Google Plus, spend more time on Twitter, blog, or actually go hang out with their family, which is what I am going to do now.

Dinner

Dinner last night was brought to you by our garden! Woohoo. Well, some of it.

Until the garden has finished up, I am not resigning myself to giving up nightshades yet. I planted a whole bunch of heirloom tomatoes and they are just too FUN to ignore.

Serrano and jalapeno peppers, along with some of the tomatoes went into a really kickin' salsa. The peppers were picked a while ago so were partially dried, which means spicy. I love my salsa to bite back, but it took way fewer peppers to make that happen this time.

The salsa was there to provide ornament to -- Paleo Pork Tacos.

I took some of the pork that I had cooked and froze, and cooked it back up with onions, garlic, and apple cider vinegar. Then instead of taco shells, we used romaine lettuce leaves as taco shells...just put the toppings of tomatoes, raw cheddar, and salsa on the spine and folded it length-wise. It was more popular, even among the Paleo-resistant, than the organic corn taco shells.

Oh, and we finally harvested a watermelon. It was amazing.

I only wish the avocados were ripe.

Pumpkiny Goodness

I was greatly afraid that powdery mildew and squash bugs were going to get my pumpkins before they got ripe. Fortunately, I chose a type of sugar pumpkin this year that ripened a lot earlier than previous types. The plants are withered and dead, but the pumpkins just made it.

The pumpkin harvest is here, and they look beautiful. I have started processing them two by two. I learned a valuable tip last year in processing pumpkins -- well, two really. First of all, its a lot easier to wait until AFTER they are roasted to get out all the stringy stuff and the seeds (unless you are purposely wanting to roast those separately). This year hasn't been as much of an issue, because the sugar pumpkins this year actually are REALLY easy to seed. Secondly, the crock pot is a magnificent way to roast pumpkins. I just break them up into quarters and put two of them in my six quart crock pot and set it for twelve hours. When its done, I can pull them out, let them cool a little bit, take off the stringy layer with a swipe of my spoon, and then measure out the remaining pulp into 1 cup increments, baggie by baggie.

Voila...then they are ready to be pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin soup, and maybe even some pumpkin juice, Harry Potter style :D