Wow. This is part of what I value about CE and LCC, by the way. The insistence on going right to the source. I have been surrounded by devout, eastern European Catholics all my life, and I'm sure that they thought I'd get the catechism in CCD, but 'tis not so. And I attended all the way through Confirmation. :bigear:

My first son presented weirdly, and my third child was an emergency c-section, so I really only have the second (a homebirth) to go by, but based on that, I'm quiet in the early stages, yelling during transition, and growling when I push.

Or an anniversary present...which year is flesh?

Now, see? I'm supposed to be up in six hours, and what am I doing? Wondering where ChrisN in NY lives. That makes at least three of us in upstate NY, right? I need to go to bed!!!

LOL...my dd's is still in my best friend's chest freezer, two states away. We couldn't figure out how to move with it, and we didn't want to bury it and then move away forever. We keep forgetting to pick it up when we visit. The eating it thing is supposed to help with ppd. I've been a vegetarian for over half my life, but my ppd was bad enough with my first that I told myself I was entertaining the possibility the second time around...and then didn't. Fortunately that was the easiest pregnancy, birth and post-partum of the three.

Yes, but it bothers me most when I'm reading whatever it is aloud already...what is it, a race? Knock it off!

You're in my prayers. Stay in touch with the companies when your bills go past due...I think a lot of small business owners are in similar straits this year.

Oh, please tell me we'll get there. I *hate* waking up to dishes in the sink, but my kids are little and waste a ton of water when they wash, and dh prefers to do dishes in the morning...the dishrag sitting there all gross in the bottom of the sink, the scummy water...*shudder*. I just do it myself most of the time, but when you're home for three squares a day and snacks and have no dishwasher...well, you want some dish washers!

To reply to the OP, I would be a supporter of strong separation between church and state regardless of where I lived or what the dominant viewpoint was in that place at that time.

I disagree. First you said, when asked if you would support "legislating" Catholicism, "Depends on the legislation..." You later posted this: ...and I considered it dodging the question. We're being asked what we think, and it seemed to me that you took a pass. I can't find the passage you mention, although I did come across a Papal Bull from 1302 which states, "Now, therefore, we declare, say, determine and pronounce that for every human creature it is necessary for salvation to be subject to the authority of the Roman pontiff." I suppose I'm reading the word "subject" as "being under domination, control, or influence of", which to me does not indicate an internal locus of control. The overall impression I'm getting is that, while you consider forced conversion "no conversion at all", you'd consider a Catholic State a useful means of gradual conversion of the populace. Is that accurate?

Perhaps. However, the question of what you'd prefer to happen is not...and that was the question, wasn't it, however much we split hairs about the phrasing? I think you're being a bit precious. Yes, we see how states are formed. Thank you. And I can agree that, in a Catholic state, legislation would be issued in accordance with Church teachings...although whether that is right and just is a different question. The real issue at hand is whether the imposition of a Catholic State upon a population is something you find desirable enough to will and pray for it...or even take direct action (were that possible) to bring it about. You said that you "will and pray that all become subject to the Roman Pontiff". Not that all choose to become subject, not, in fact, that they become true members of the Catholic faith, simply that they become subject to the Pope. Do you, or do you not, consider the possibility of people being forced to live as Catholics to be one possible fulfillment of your desire/prayer?

I get up at about 5:30. I set an alarm, but I usually wake up before it goes off. I don't do this for homeschooling reasons, I do it because we have an acre of veggies and I get my best work done out there sans kids. I'm hoping to keep it up after the garden shuts down for the winter, but we'll see.

In my last district, there was a "fair share" union policy. Basically, you paid some portion of dues whether you were an NEA member or not, so we had almost 100% enrollment. I did see the union do some very good things, such as encouraging an overall higher standard of professional development and agitating for quality health insurance. They also did a great job of advocating for major changes in (or the scrapping of) NCLB. That said, their policy on hs'ing is all about the preservation of an institution, which, as we discussed above, some parents will always need...so I find their militant anti-hs'ing stance ill-considered.

I think that teachers who are knee-jerk opponents of homeschooling invite that comparison. If they are unwilling to consider homeschooling as a viable alternative option, then they themselves believe that they are capable of more than the general population. I think they should be able to back up that opinion some other way than by being their own sacred cows.

An editorial on the NEA board. The NEA's 2007-2008 Homeschooling policy: I am an ex-public school teacher, and I've seen both very good and very bad teachers. I've also seen very good and very bad homeschoolers. That said, I don't feel obligated to pussyfoot around when someone bashes homeschooling, or my decision to do so. On a national level, public school teachers are adopting policies intended to assist them in cornering the market on educating children; there is a movement among public school teachers to deprive me of the right to engage in best practice, to limit my curricular options to theirs, and ultimately to deprive me of the right to homeschool at all. I will not allow them to do so, nor will I feed the flames by being deferential when they make rude and ignorant comments. Likewise, when someone says to me, "Well, it's all right for YOU to homeschool: you're a TEACHER," I do not do you the disservice of agreeing. I make it clear that my credentials are not my qualifications, if you see what I mean. WRT the teacher's comments about classical ed. upthread, I think that many, many teachers who are anti-homeschooling have absolutely no clue how much more comprehensive the scope and sequence of the average WTM-er's homeschool is than theirs. And believe me, it is. By the time each goal gets parsed down into eight objectives which are all measurable by scan-tron, the average district's academic goals baby-step children through every tiny detail of a topic...which drastically reduces how many topics one can actually cover. (In my experience, it also decimates student initiative.) Not to mention all the topics which must be covered because students spend their days cut off from everyday life experiences. I'm not talking about state standards and benchmarks...in many states, state standards and benchmarks tend to be applied skills, and there's a distinct lack of hard data on those because you can't measure them easily with standardized tests. Many teachers do not teach to these standards, or even bother to look at them. They teach using the curricular materials the district has purchased, and they teach to the standardized tests. Why doesn't this worry the people who teach this way? Because being part of a school gives one a sense of confidence, of being under the mantle of authority, in a way that can breed complacency. Therein lies the seed of the know-it-all attitude many teachers turn on homeschoolers. Yes, there are bright, imaginative, wonderful teachers. My kids are home in part because even a ratio of one terrific teacher every four years seemed dangerously low...and I think that would have been a high expectation. Any teacher who wants to decry homeschooling had better have some pretty extensive experience with the topic, or I'm going to write them off. I don't think I owe anyone an apology for refusing to tolerate his or her unsubstantiated opinion.

What will she recommend instead?

•First of all, while I was getting my teaching degree, the progressive educational theory I was exploring on the side was based around the idea that the classroom should be more like the "real world", with genuine field experiences and applied concepts in all academic areas. This begged the question, "Why be in the classroom in the first place?" •Gifted programs are practically non-existent at the elementary level, and fine arts are on the decline. •History and science instruction are minimal in the early grades, and my oldest son in particular is passionately interested in both these subjects. •I hate the focus on standardized testing. •Once I truly saw how much my kids could love learning new things and compared that to the attitudes of the schoolchildren I knew, it was a no-brainer. •It seemed kind of silly to teach in one classroom while my children were taught in another one down the hall...especially when I was missing them so badly. •The things we'd have had to do to cope with both of us working full-time and having them in school full-time would have compromised a lot of our core values. •Conservation ethic, social justice, tolerance and anti-commercialism are all difficult attitudes/behaviors to teach when one's child is being immersed in their opposites daily.

I do not believe that anyone has a "need" equivalent to my child's in this situation. You would not sit and stare at someone in public, regardless of how unusual they looked, b/c it's considered rude. Making a decision that someone has to cover up while nursing is tantamount to declaring you do not have the option to look away. You may briefly see something and be shocked, but for goodness sake, when it's a normal function being performed, your shock is your problem. You wouldn't ask someone with fifty piercings to go elsewhere so you didn't have to see them, even if it really, really bothered you. It would be ludicrous to do so. You might consider their choices strange, even immoral, but you would never think of asking a manager to have them cover up. Why would you do so because someone was breastfeeding? IME, you've lucked out. I've been asked to move multiple times, though I'm quite discreet. I've never capitulated, but I've been asked. I had a friend who realized she was being viewed with binoculars by someone across a lake. No no no. The point is that impropriety is tolerated, whereas a completely legitimate, proper behavior is sexualized and maligned. If I were owned by Scripps-Howard, no one would say boo even if I were standing there naked with my fingertips over my nipples.

Women had to insist on their right to breastfeed when there were not laws to protect their doing so. Women had to insist that their newborns NOT be fed bottles or given pacifiers by nursing staff. When that didn't work, women had to insist on rooming in so they could monitor their infant. Women had to agitate for lactation consultants in hospitals, and for insurance to cover the use of them. Women had to contend with the attitudes of family members and coworkers who saw nursing as abnormal or unnecessary, or who didn't understand it was hard work. Women had to speak to pediatricians and obstetricians about their tendency to push formula supplies on women even after their insistence that they wanted to breastfeed. Women had to fight back against formula companies for pushing formula in third world countries with contaminated water supplies rather than encouraging mothers to nurse, and for sending cases of formula to women who'd indicated they were planning to breastfeed, but only samples to women who'd said they were planning to use formula. Women had to advocate for pumping stations and time to pump at work. Women have to stop enabling others to make a fuss about how much of a breast is permitted to be visible while nursing.

Yes. Those voluminous nursing shirts drove my kids crazy. A normal tee, however, can just sort of rest around the part of the breast that would otherwise be exposed without interfering with the child's breathing or vision. That worked better for me. Even so, kids wiggle, bigger kids need you to hand them something...stuff happens. I despise people who say, "Eeek! A breast!" Every time it happens, all I can think is, "Grow up".

We created much more of a stir trying to keep the blanket on when the baby pulled it off than I ever did nursing blanketless. Honestly, the most discreet nursing I ever did was with a normal, non-nursing bra, and a totally typical Old Navy t-shirt on. The baby covers most of the breast. It never ceases to amaze me the way sex just screams from every ad and source of media, yet seeing a human breast used for an utterly innocent and necessary function makes people squeamish. I think it's because it's *real*. After a while, the sexualized media starts to seem like some ephemeral fantasy world with its own rules. Being confronted with actual, real, non-airbrushed life is shocking by comparison, but that does not make it wrong. IME, kids can be taught very quickly and easily that nursing is normal and not something to stare at...as long as they don't pick up on discomfort or unspoken disapproval from an adult authority figure.

Oh, now see, I'd totally agree that babysitting is more valued. That's part of why it bugs me. You and dp bandying that term back and forth wouldn't bother me at all, but people acting like my dh, the father of my children, is doing us some kind of special favor by actually parenting just chaps my...well, everything.

They're not asleep yet...want me to have said 8 y.o. call you?

Homemade lo mein (really quick once you've got the ingredients...peanut oil, soy sauce, garlic, peanut butter or miso), burritos with canned beans or burger crumbles...and I have a schweet recipe for sweet potato/black bean burritos that's really fast if you keep some baked sweet potatoes in the fridge, baked potato bar, baked sweet potato bar, pasta with jarred sauce augmented with whatever's in the garden right now, "Incredible Hulk" pasta (garlic sauteed in olive oil, add chopped kale or chard or spinach until wilted, toss with pasta and parm and serve).

Sorry, but I do have this very thorough book.