I LOVE my Maclaren Stroller.

 Dear Maclaren Stroller,
Thank you for being the best stroller ever. You have been on countless trips since we bought you in 2008. I wish we'd had you since Benjamin was born.  You can carry a big kid and tons of stuff but I can still push you with just my index finger. One day you had a six year old holding a baby and then we balanced a 3 year old on the handles and ran with you - to make it somewhere in time. And you didn't complain one bit. And you are technically an umbrella stroller. Amazing.
You fold up in a blink of an eye and I can throw you over my shoulder and you feel just like a backpack. You are slim and can even slide under the table at a restaurant.
You have been a player in most of the following pictures - schlepping kids and stuff where I need to go.
In one of these pictures the wind blew you into Town Lake while we were feeding the ducks and I screamed "MY STROLLER" the way a mom would scream "MY BABY" My loving sister went in the murky water after you. Because she loves me like that.  And I love you Maclaren.
love,
The Mom of OZ

PS. the following pics are of various assemblies, Ben's band concert, spa night with mom, Ella's school concert, sleeping and trying to go to sleep. Snapshots of our lives.

Its been one year...

 Since Kyle lead his mother into the waters of Baptism.

Tomorrow she will be going through the Temple for the first time.

A very special event for her and us.

If you want to know more go here

You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

I'll admit it.

things like this get me down:

There are some days where you just need a little inspiration, so today I'll share some of  what inspires me 

If you have a moment while chilling or working today take a listen to this episode of Girl Talk where Marlo interviews Linda Bacon and its a fascinatingly perfect synopsis of Health at Every Size and how it can benefit EVERY person of EVERY size.
I got teary eyed at the end when she says what to do first is start appreciating your body. If you have nothing you like just start with telling your body "You are awesome because you house me."

Listen to internet radio with GirlTalk with Marlo on Blog Talk Radio

And if you need a little more inspiration read this from fat heffalump: 

A little questionnaire for you all:

1. How many years of your life did you put into trying to be thin?
2. How much of your life did you put on hold while you tried to be thin?
3. How old were you when you first remember being told you were fat?
4. How many diets have you been on?
5. How many exercise “plans” have you been on?
6. How many years of your life have been taken up with eating disorders?
7. How many people have told you that you are fat?
8. How many people have treated you badly because you are fat?
9. How many years did you spend counting calories, watching the number on the scale or the size label on your clothes?

Now tally the sum of all those years, all that time, all those diets, all those times you made yourself sick in the effort to get thin, all the punishing exercise regimes, all the hurtful experiences add all those numbers together.

Take that number, write it down, look at it for a minute, and ask yourself…

Don’t you think the fat haters should invest the equivalent amount of time, the same number of years, in trying as hard to be a decent human being, as we fat people invested in trying to be thin?

Fat people are not the ones with the problem, or who are in denial.   Fat people are not in denial of being fat.  We know we are fat, and in choosing fat acceptance, we accept ourselves exactly as we are, and we accept others exactly as they are.

You can let go of all those numbers now.  Set yourself free of the pain that those numbers represent.  You’re off the hook – you’ve done your part.  Close your eyes and imagine that all those instances of trying to be thin, or being bullied and shamed for being fat are balloons, filled with helium.  Imagine them in your hand, bobbing above you, all different colours.  Now open your hand and let them all go.  You don’t have to carry them any more.

** end of excerpt.

And last but not least Maya Angelou:

Does my sexiness offend you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

and even more at this post:
Are you a mermaid or a whale?

Dr. Lisa Masterson

The "Doctors" discussed home water births. You'd have to break my arm to get me to link to it.
I should say they had a segment for Dr. Masterson to rant about how much she hates homebirth in general. And Jillian Michael's was part of the panel? Head scratching moment there because she isn't a doctor and hasn't had a homebirth or been pregnant for that matter. Because come on, as she says being pregnant ruins your body.
'Biggest Loser' trainer Jillian Michaels told Women's Health she would rather adopt than become pregnant, saying, "I can't handle doing that to my body." 

But anyway I digress. I just wanted to make a few points to Dr. Masterson:

1. Don't repeatedly cut off the guests you invited to the show. Besides being incredibly rude it makes you look immature and it defeats the purpose of a healthy debate.

2. Constantly saying babies born into pools of blood, urine, and crap (with a look of disgust on your face) was ridiculous.
 - more often than not with waterbirths babies are born in to clear water. Most moms get out to urinate. (I did). When your body goes into labor ON ITS OWN the body cleans you naturally of stool in the very early stages, especially if you are not induced. There is rarely a significant amount of blood until after the baby emerges and is out of the water. The murky appearance comes with the birth of the placenta. The baby is calmly on the mother's chest before then.

3. Even though you wanted to argue profusely this point. Midwives are TRAINED MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS. Who by the way have much, much more experience in natural birth than most OB's. OB's are trained in hospitals that average by the nation 1 out of every 3 births is a surgical birth. And 97-99% are with epidurals. And more than 50% are inductions. If I want someone who has seen an intervention free birth I'd pick a midwife any day. And I'd pick a homebirth midwife before a hospital midwife on top of that. Hospital midwives are very similar to OB's in the types of births they see.

4. You have said in the past that c-sections don't have risks for the mother. I call the BS card on that one.

5. You said that "the studies" say waterbirth babies end up in NICU. I've looked at several studies (even though I take all studies with a grain of salt) and the most recent negative study geared against homebirth - was not specifically about waterbirth.  It did get plaster all over the news about how homebirth DOUBLES the risk of neonate death. Here was the problem with that though:

It compared "all" homebirths in the group to hospital births. No big deal right till you read the fine print and see that they included precipitous births, births not planned to be at home, and women who had no prenatal care.  So I'm sorry but that is an apple and an orange.

You can NOT compare my planned homebirth with two professional midwives to a 911 episode of a woman with no prenatal care suddenly delivering at home with no supplies but bathroom towels and a scared spouse.

6. You didn't give the woman debating you a chance to answer your "But what if something happens" card. The favorite of anti-homebirthers. The vague your baby MIGHT DIE... threat.
She didn't get a chance to explain that midwives carry pitocin, oxygen and delay cutting the cord so neonates are still getting blood and oxygen until the placenta is delivered.

What also needs to be changed is the relationship between hospital OB's and midwives - something you seem dead set against helping. Midwives need steady supportive backup OB's for emergency situations.

7. The aquarium of sewage like water with the baby doll floating in it that you dramatically revealed to show how disgusting waterbirth is.. was so stupid.  I've watched a HECK of a LOT of waterbirth videos and I've never seen water like that.
And we don't deliver in aquariums. My birth pool held 100 gallons of clean water. Even if I did happen to pee, crap and bleed in the water before my baby's birth (which I didn't) it would NEVER have looked like that.
- and just in case we're forgetting, Amniotic fluid is the BABY'S urine, created from the nutrients sent in by mom. Mom and baby are not foreign creatures meeting in a cesspool of yuck in a waterbirth.
- Waterbirth babies come out cleaner that dry land babies. If you pee during crowing in the typical lithomy positions hospitals insist on - guess what? that urine will cascade right over your baby.

8. You are a surgeon. You go to a surgeon to birth and you are going to be with someone who at the slightest provocation will opt for surgery. And will ride in to post-partum singing the praises of how you HAD To have that c-section and if it wasn't for them you'd be cradling a dead baby.
Everyday babies are cut out of their mothers because of dipping heart-rates yet they pull out a hearty pink baby and you wonder - how much distress were they really in?

9. I think the Head of waterbirth international who you debated held herself really well and didn't lose her temper, I might have been inclined to punch you right in between the eyes when you unveiled the baby doll in sewage water. But I do wish you guys had been gutsy to invite some bigger names in the battle for safe homebirths for women. Ina May Gaskin, Ricki Lake, Rixa Freeze. These women would have had you for lunch if you had been able to stop interrupting.

10. The biggest issue I think is important here is NO MATTER WHERE birth is supposedly "safer" Women deserve choices in their birth environment and providers. Demonizing homebirth isn't going to make women stop birthing at home, it will just drive the choices down. Less OB's willing to back up - Less continuing education where homebirth midwives are welcome. Your version of debate which is really fear mongering lies - Isn't helping anyone.

Snapshots.

snapshots of my babies all taken today

  

I love being a mom.

My kids are funny and an announcement

Two separate conversations:

first with Benjamin...
"Hey Mom I was thinking about what I wanted for Christmas..." Long pause where he starts to smile.
"Christmas is coming! Christmas is awesome. I LOVE everything about Christmas, no school, gifts, candy... Its so awesome."
To which I try to turn to the Spiritual...
"But Benjamin what is really the BEST part about Christmas" and he says "Oh yeah totally Mom....
dreamy gaze....




Egg Nog."

Me: sigh.

Then with Maiya...
"Why do you have pumpkins Mom?"
Because its October, Halloween is coming.
same dreamy gaze...
"halloween, halloween, HALLOWEEN?... That means, that means...
Its almost time for...

Egg Nog to be at the 'stowre'.



PS.
Its that time of year where people think of Christmas Cards, and I am so grateful that many of you have thought of me for your pictures. But I am closing the door on Images from OZ.

Kyle has accepted a new (super busy) position at work. And there is the whole I have FIVE kids thing. Plus now that PJ is mobile and curious the only time I can edit is naptime and late at night. Times I have become rather selfish of.

Thank you all for the support and encouragement. If we have already made arrangements for pictures we're cool. If you want suggestions for other photographers in the area I have can hook you up so shoot me an email.

thanks again!
-Janie

P.E..... Gym Class...

... Gym class
Just the thought makes a lot of people cringe. Here are some comments I've come across recently online: 


Amy:
Gym class was a nightmare from the word go. I had years of physical ability shaming, as a lifelong fat kid–like the time we had to run a mile in the field behind the junior high school and I walked it, because running was and is uncomfortable and something I’d been laughed at for doing. It took 20 minutes for me to walk a mile, everyone else was long since finished, and the gym teacher was screaming at me from the doorway to hurry up because she was sick of waiting for me. Anyway, once in high school we were being made to do the step test for the Presidential Physical Fitness Award thing (gah). The step test, if you don’t know, is having to step up onto the bottom row of the bleachers and then down again until you feel like dying. The teachers were walking along the row behind us as we stepped up and down, “encouraging” us, and I didn’t want to be ridiculed for not being able to hack it. So of course I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion–and I fell. I had weak ankles anyway from ice skating injuries and being so tired, my foot landed wrong, and I just went down. My mother had to come and pick me up and take me to the ER to get an x-ray. Luckily I didn’t break my ankle, just sprained it really badly.
But on top of all the fat-hating, it’s just awful that physical activity is presented to us when we’re young and impressionable as something that’s about being tough and hard and not being weak or giving in to pain or tiredness. Gym class was like boot camp, I swear, and the other kids were allowed to treat the clumsy and unfit among us like sh**–though of course us braniacs were soundly rebuked should we pick on any of the jocks for being stupid because “they can’t help it.” School sucked.
Kell Brigan:
Jane, your experience in gym is one of the reasons I am motivated to do activism (however, that winds up being). I don’t know how I lucked out, but I had sane coaches & teachers in PE all through school (and I was the “second fattest girl” in my town, as the bullies made sure I knew). I know so many people my size and smaller who were put through hell by sociopath gym teachers. That level of abuse is just… ARGGGGGG!!!!
I’m sending you the psychic equivalent of wicked cool magic playballs that have nothing but happy attached to them!!!
Kristin:
Just chiming in on the gym class experiences…My sophomore year of h.s., the very thin, driller of an gym teacher was telling my all-girls class about how important is is to work out. Not a bad lesson, until she started pointing out all of the bad things that could happen to your body, including, in her words, “the disgusting pockets of fat underneath your arms that seem to extend from your chest” while looking at me in my tank top (I often didn’t change into the stupid gym uniform…). Thirteen years later and still remember. And I HATE her. I was 15, DD breasts, and 170 pounds. B**ch


The outfits, the showers, being picked last, being forced to participate in sports you loathe, the dreaded mile where if running fast is not your "thing" you are pretty much humiliated as the ones who did run faster than you sit on the sidelines and make comments.
Some things have improved with time. Showers have stalls. And any teacher worth their weight in salt don't have the alpha-kids pick teams anymore.
But thanks to the "OH MY GOD DEATH FAT IS COMING" I mean "Obesity Epidemic" Gym teachers the world over have a new mandate to increase the pain of gym class.
I have a few theories about how I think gym class could be improved.


1. Have more choices for exercise that suit different interests and skills. I enjoyed walking - still do. I LOVED field hockey. Kind of liked volleyball. Hated just about everything else in the realm of contact sports. My eye hand coordination is crap. So every six weeks spent on other sports pretty much made me dread gym class. Softball in particular was my nightmare. I was terrible at it. I remember one of the few times in my life screaming at an adult is when they forced me to go to first base. I can't catch to save my life. First Base was the equivalent of a dunce hat for me. It was awful - Its one of those things I can't even laugh about yet. I remember three boys who teased incessantly each time I missed the ball, which was every time it was thrown at me.
One year in 9th grade I was dreading going to bat that day. I worked deals like Donald Trump getting kids to take my place in the batting lineup. In my ignorance I didn't know a batting lineup should not be messed with. After several innings the gym teacher said "Grinels - why haven't you gone up to bat yet?" I died a little inside and said because "I really, really don't want to so I've been letting other people have my turn." Then he raised his voice "You can't do that GRINELS... its a LINEUP" - Which meant nothing to me... so I just shrugged like I didn't care and it made him so mad he said "That's IT Grinels - walk laps the rest of class"
BEST. GYM CLASS. EVER. I walked laps the rest of the class enjoying every minute of it. I made a point the rest of the year to be as rude as possible in the hopes I'd get sentenced to walking laps.


2. Have more teachers. Have one or two highly trained teachers and more teacher's aides willing to host smaller classes in various exercises. Kind of like a gym for adults but for kids. 
Would you sign up at the Y for exercise and show up to be forced to play basketball when you want the spin class?
One teacher could host traditional contact sports for those interested - all the basics in flag football, basketball, soccer, etc.
One teacher could teach yoga/dance/aerobics
One teacher could supervise kids walking/jogging laps and traditional strength training - push ups, sit ups, etc.
Each day kids could choose which activity interests them. They pick something suited to their body and skills.
Kids enjoy activities more when they have a choice. Every activity I have ever signed my kids up for has been better when they were part of the decision making process. If kids never choose to play contact sports it won't do any harm. I have never missed out on any life skills because I don't like softball.  But I did avoid sports related places/people for too long because it conjured feelings of inferiority. 


3. Drop the weight talk. Shame does not inspire. All teachers should be trained about HAES

Telling kids don't be fat is a high risk message.

One morning a few years back Benjamin was at his dresser beside himself upset looking at each tag in his clothes and throwing them on the ground. I can't wear any of these.  "Why not?" They are all husky, he said in a hushed disgusted, embarrassed voice.
I put on my chipper mom voice said "who cares" and probed deeper. Turns out he was shown this video in Health class:

I'll be honest I've never watched the whole thing through. But the beginning is so offensive I can't make it past that. The gist of the Arthur video is that He has to get a "husky" costume for the school play special ordered because he's been eating too much junk food. He stops eating junk food and then manages to fit into a regular costume in time.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You know nothing by looking at someone's body except what their body looks like.  You don't know what their diet is like or how much they eat or how active they are. 
But when you choose to discuss size, even under the guise of instilling healthy lifestyle choices you are making the kids who are fat feel like they are wrong - they are living a life to be avoided.
A person's size is determined more by genetics than lifestyle choice.
Dieting doesn't work. Diets have a 95-99% failure rate. When you try to inspire someone to change the size of their body you set them up for failure and self hate.
Not every diet starts an eating disorder but every eating disorder starts with a diet.
Restricting calories in children is harmful to their development.
Schools need to collectively take a deep breath and remove themselves from the equation of trying to fix something that isn't really a problem and is none of their business even if it was.


4. Stop weighing kids at school. Write your school administration today and refuse BMI testing of your children!
Its no ones business but you and your chosen doctor.
There is no need to get a report card on your child's body. No one's body needs a "Grade"
NO BODY deserves a failing grade.
Here is a good letter you can send to your child's school.
Here is information on the idiocy of BMI in general.


** My only other thought which could be the most controversial is that school sponsored gym class shouldn't exist at all.  Free play is marvelous exercise and very much needed in a long school day.  And I'd love for there to be no gym and my kids to get home an hour earlier each day. We'd have more time to do things together as a family. There would be more time for organized sports that we choose to enter.  Its my opinion that the government is not responsible for the health of my family.  We can make those choices on our own. Forced softball or four square during the school day is not the pinnacle of a healthy lifestyle.

birds of a feather:

oh my gosh - look at this picture of my sister:

 does she not look just like Maiya?

Maiya and Meg are so much like each other its almost creepy.

they march to the beat of their own drum.

playing may mean completely escaping from the world mentally

they are artistic

whining is an art

they can be messy and when its time to clean, they all of sudden feel the need to go to the bathroom for a very, very long time.

While everyone else is cleaning, you may or may not hear them singing while on the toilet.

They both love, love, love friends and will do anything for them

They both like "just going somewhere" anywhere. anytime.

very compassionate, until they are tired and or frustrated and then they are mean to everyone bar none.

they like posing for the camera -

Fun times...Prosper Parade

 has anyone seen Maiya?

Here we are at the Prosper Homecoming Parade - also known as the day almost as good as Halloween:

 I brought scooters this year for sideline entertainment

 that didn't help PJ

 but it did help Cora - that little red bike has logged more miles than anything we own including the van I think.

 Someone is getting to the age that he wants to ditch me at things like this and "meet me later"

 Nikko had fun at first and wanted to explore

 Then the parade started.

 And about this point the fire truck blew it siren and Nikko LOST HIS EVER LOVING MIND.

 so I picked him up to calm him down and he peed ALL OVER ME.

fun times, fun times.

 That's Jorie the Homecoming Queen and our friend

 Shout out to the Band!

and didn't I tell you she is adorable ready for soccer:

Early Saints and Childbirth

In the new Relief Society manual, I love that it covered the history of women in relief society being called to medical and midwifery duties. It was very ahead of the time for the leadership of the church to value such education of women and a testament to the care taken for women of that time. Money and resources were used to train women in faraway places for safe obstetric and family care.
How cool would it be to be set apart as a midwife? very cool me thinks.

Sister Snow said: “Are there here, now, any sisters who have ambition enough, and who realize the necessity of it, for Zion’s sake, to take up this study? There are some who are naturally inclined to be nurses; and such ones would do well to study Medicine. … If they cannot meet their own expenses, we have means of doing so.”

With this encouragement, some Relief Society sisters studied medicine in the eastern United States. They came back to Utah as doctors and taught classes in midwifery and home nursing. Emma Andersen Liljenquist, who attended the classes in Utah, recorded some of her experiences:

“I enjoyed [the course] very much, and after being set apart by Apostle John Henry Smith and several of the others, I returned home to do my work, having been promised by the Apostles that if I lived right I should always know what to do in case of any difficulties. …

Did you also know that women of the early church performed blessing rituals for each other - especially surrounding the time a woman prepared for childbirth. The following blessing gave me a lot of peace in my last pregnancy and the words came to my mind often as I prepared for the delivery.


from Stand and Deliver:
 By time they reached the Great Basin in the late 1840s, LDS women frequently conducted washing, anointing, and blessing ceremonies in each others' homes; most often, this was done for a woman preparing to give birth. The practice lasted for about a century.


One blessing recorded about 1909 was as follows:

We anoint your spinal column that you might be strong and healthy no disease fasten upon it no accident belaff [befall] you, your kidneys that they might be active and health and preform [sic] their proper functions, your bladder that it might be strong and protected from accident, your Hips that your system might relax and give way for the birth of your child, your sides that your liver, your lungs, and spleen that they might be strong and preform their proper functions, . . . your breasts that your milk may come freely and you need not be afflicted with sore nipples as many are, your heart that it might be comforted.

They continued by requesting blessings from the Lord on the unborn child's health and expressed the hope that it might not come before its "full time" and that

the child shall present right for birth and that the afterbirth shall come at its proper time . . . and you need not flow to excess. . . . We anoint . . . your thighs that they might be healthy and strong that you might be exempt from cramps and from the bursting of veins. . .

The document combines practical considerations, more common to women's talk over the back fence, with the reassuring solace and compassion of being anointed with the balm of sisterhood. The women sealed the blessing:

Sister ___ we unitedly lay our hands upon you to seal the washing and anointing wherewith you have been washed and anointed for your safe delivery, for the salvation of you and your child and we ask God to let his special blessings to rest upon you, that you might sleep sweet at night that your dreams might be pleasant and that the good spirit might guard and protect you from every evil influence spirit and power that you may go your full time and that every blessing that we have asked God to confer upon you and your offspring may be literally fulfilled that all fear and dread may be taken from you and that you might trust in God. All these blessings we unitedly seal upon you in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

The tender attention to both the women's psychological and physical state is an example of loving service and gentleness. 


There is also evidence to suggest that early Saints were  comfortable with breastfeeding in public  - women these days still feel the need to cover their babies even while in the mother's lounge. I can't really imagine anything worse than being up against a warm body eating a meal and having my whole self covered with a blanket. I try to rarely do it with my babies - so I definitely don't cover in the mother's lounge.
I've linked to this post before but I thought I'd include the pictures on my blog so it will be in my blog books that my daughters flip through as they grow and they will digest the normalcy of breastfeeding.

 The Handcart Company by CCA Christensen 1900

Illustration from Harper's Weekly 1871