How do you work though baby fever if you really want another baby but are completely and utterly frightened for your health if you actually were pregnant? I don't know what it is. I have about the family size I wanted when I was young, I'll be 37 this year, I have had two c-sections in a row that were very scary, I am overweight - wii fit says I'm obese but I don't think I'm there, my heart has been doing odd things since my last c-section. My child isn't even a year yet! It's bonkers. We are not broke but are financially stretched and that is one of the reasons my DH uses against homeschooling- we afterschool now and he would want certain programs used if homeschooling. That's another thread :glare: . And yet... I want a baby. How do you work though that yearning? I am surrounded by pregnant moms and supersized families with 10-12 kids with no signs of stopping. That's probably playing into things. And this sounds probably a bit silly, but I really don't like to travel with a child under 18 months and can't while pregnant and consequently, we haven't really gone many places in the last decade. It's more anxiety producing for me than the less-than-18 month old probably. We were just talking about how instead of starting a 'new baby' savings account this year as we have in the past, we would save for a vacation. I've never been west of the Mississipi, for example, though DH has. Some random thoughts that are bugging me today, I guess.

No. I think some of the ideas are great for living sustainably, and living though an emergency, and that I might want to copy. But to live every day of my life in prep or expectation for massive overwhelming disaster would send my anxiety to unheard of levels!

I am intimidated and yet inspired by how organized some of you are! Maybe I need to dust off one of the blogs I made when I wanted to save my screenname and actually use it for this project. I would love to get to the end of a year and have a record of things I've accomplished. My son is nagging me to read The Lightning Thief and I have been holding off because I dislike that style of writing. He wants to talk about it with me though so I might be picking that up next week. I will flat out admit that I have read nothing this week other than a non-fic book called Are Your Prescriptions Killing You? which has a ridiculous title and spent quite a long time on a Betty Crocker Indian Food cookbook that was in the new release section. I am really in the mood for fiction now.

That article reads weird. It sounds like, "Hugh Jackman caught it, so you must take precautions!"

They sell a pot holder thing that is one connected long piece and you put your hand in each side and use it to pick up a casserole dish. I have one. It's from Kohls. This contest makes me irrationally grouchy :angry:

I see some controversy brewing on those pages with someone posting that 'table runners' is the same thing as a 'service dish holder' and should have been awarded to someone else. Wooooo college bookstore scandal!

Has she posted yet? I am also concerned. It might be that sleep helped. I was nauseated and had a headache for about another week after I was released from the hospital. I agree that hospitals vary widely on how they treat. Concussions are getting more attention now though because of media focus.

This post makes me want a dog. We are waiting until we no longer have an infant in the house, which is good because I have to pay an extra $50 per month to have one pet in this particular rental.

My oldest is doing this to me now, but we are in the same place as you in needing direction. My friend told me her boys went though what she called a kid-life crisis when they were in the 10-14. I hope you find out the source and can help him.

I hit my head a few weeks ago very hard by standing up under woodwork. I tried to wait it out and was still in pain dizzy and nauseated the next day. I went into the ER for a scan and had a small bleed. They scolded me for not coming in during the first few hours. Do not mess around with head injuries. It's worth the ER copay if you have concussion symptoms. I was nauseated for a good week and a half after that. Please go get checked out.

For stuff like that, we have all the equipment necessary all set out and I sort of nudge it to go faster. Now that she's a first grader, most of her work is the fill-out-three-pages and write your spelling words variety of busy work. I didn't help with cutting because my older boy had to go though PT and I learned it is good fine motor skill development. I helped a bit though and made it as efficient as possible.

I have had two and might revisit a third down the road. I had a hard time during the c-section and in recovery though and that concerns me. However, these were my last two children and brought us to the number I imagined our family having. If these were my first two, I'd probably try for 4. Or attempt the vba2c under heavy monitoring if I could find someone. It was easy for me to find someone willing to try a vbac because a lot of hospitals by me are trying for this baby friendly hospital inititive. I have no clue about vba2c. I have many friends that have stopped after three, but most of them have a set of twins involved.

I might keep an eye on what you read because I was considering reading some Catholicism books among other religious books.

Good point. Having 3 special needs kids is quite a different situation than three mainstream. I thought of something else too. A large family downtown of a big city like New York or Chicago or something is much different of a headcount than a large family in a smaller town or rural area. The biggest city near me is Chicago. I think 4 would be huge for a family living in a loop condo!

I am on that fence too. My last two were c-sections. I have a feeling I'd end up having a very hard time finding a provider to try a VBA2C and another c-section doesn't sound fun. I might change my mind in two years or I may decide it's kind of nice to be past the infant stage! I think this is a huge thing that gets swept under the rug. I had an aunt tell me recently during the holidays, "Aw, you beat me!" because she had 6 kids. I thought it was weird. There's a lot of what I call competitive birthing out there or women that feel the need to bring up their number of children constantly and in situations that are unnecessary. (I refer to a woman I met about three weeks ago in a book club that must have said about twenty times that she had 8 children and no plans to stop. It was the equivalent of someone jumping up and down waving a flag and yelling pay attention to meeeeeeee! Everything was prefixed with, "Well I have 8 children and more to come so...") They always seem to be the same people talking smack about smaller sized families as if having only two makes you less of a parent. It's a very different vibe than from someone that happens to have a larger family and brings it up or talks about their children in context. I was going to say me too, but then I decided that large meant purchase of The Van to me. I do not own The Van yet, but I need one. DH and I were shooting for 10 if we could at one point. Don't think that's happening now!

Thank you and apologies for not thanking earlier. I just remembered (while paying my rent) that I asked this question. Decorating is a big thing to me. I am able to work with this home because the main floor is all painted a pale blue and goes well with my lighthouse and windmill theme. Last place had wood panel walls from the 80s. I thought it would give a cabin feel, but it ended up more like a teenagers basement apartment feel! I'd like to rent a farmhouse with an outbuilding and ability to own chickens and maybe a goat. We have no pets at this point and would have to pay $50 more per month to have a dog, so I know I won't be here as long. The further I get from the city areas, the more I find properties that allow pets. Nearby, not so much. It was harder when I had my last child as well. Seven kids seem to scare off some landlords or regulates us to 4-5 bedroom rentals!

That is really cool! I wonder if my boys should give a try to scouting again.

I believe that we are dealing with climate change that is exasperated by humans. Now whether that climate change is warmer/colder/ etc. I am not sure. I also don't think it's a cycle; I think it's more of a cause-effect situation and then recovery period. Volcanic activity causes a change. Sun activity causes a change. Meteor strike causes a change. Human activity causes a change. Ocean current patterns cause a change. I guess I look at it that way rather than 'a cycle.' I know my growing zone has changed. We are now warmer and I can grow plants that were only grown south of here when I was a child. What that means though? I donno.

Our last location had a very pricy co-op and joining fee. I was just investigating my options because my husband is still doubtful about homeschooling, and it didn't help my case. I have no idea what options are available to me here. We moved about 30 miles south recently.

I am getting a slow start on this year thanks to the flu. I just didn't want to look at words for a long time because my head was killing me. I haven't checked out the blog yet, but I will soon. Not sure what I will be reading next. I just read a few non fiction books- The Better Bladder Book: A Holistic Approach to Healing Interstitial Cystitis and Chronic Pelvic Pain by Wendy L. Cohan and something called Organized Kitchen I think; I'll have to double check. Both were New Years resolution type books. I don't know what I'm feeling right now to read.

Lord of the Flies was what I was thinking of. But I don't like the equivalent of disturbing images. I really wish books had ratings affixed to them or warnings like fan-fiction did. I read a lot of fan fiction for tv shows and books and other fandoms, and you know what you are getting into with the fandom standard warning systems. You just don't have that for published lit, and it'd be nice. I don't watch a lot of horror movies or bloody gore movies, but some of the things I was required to read in school were very descriptive of gory nasty disturbing things that bothered me afterward. I know they were meant to make an impression, but the overall themes and symbolism were overwhelmed by descriptions of brains leaking out or something gross.

I am morally offended by grocery stores that put a table of incredibly yummy looking baked goods right near the registers because after walking around a store that smells of chocolate chip cookies baking, you know darn well I'm going to be buying the stupid box of cookies. Trickery, I tell you.