The Year That Was

I suppose I should do a year-end post, like all the other bloggers of the world are doing. (I must conform if I'm ever going to make it in this blogging world.)

Here are some of my favorite posts from this past year:

I Have Pale Skin

A Conversation After Church

Lent - Day 9 

How Eating Out Is Like Having Sex

Fancy Allison

I only got through part of April, but I'm going to go now and spend New Year's Eve watching Winter's Bone with my husband. Happy New Year, dear readers.

Goofy Mama Answers, Part 1

Okay. Time to start answering some of the questions. Here they are, in no particular order:

If you were pregnant for the 2nd time and planning a VBAC, where would you go for care? It is illegal to homebirth in the state I live in. 

Have you heard of ICAN? (International Cesarean Awareness Network)

I think one of the first things I would do would be to contact them and get information from them. Get resources for VBAC friendly places to birth in the state that you live in.

Personally, I would do everything I could to find a homebirth midwife (even if they happen to be illegal in the state that you live in, because some midwives still practice even though it is illegal). I would get on the Mothering.com forums and ask around there. If I lived close enough to Tennessee, I might consider driving to Ina May's farm. Or maybe going to a birth center (and driving out of state if I had to).

What state do you live in? (I'm assuming it's either Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Dakota or Wyoming.) Maybe I could help you with some contacts/information.

How do you feel about trying different things to conceive either a boy or girl (positions, ovulation timing, etc)? Ethical? Or messing with destiny?  

I have no problems with with it and I don't view it as unethical. It's just an educated part of knowing how reproduction works. Totally not a big deal to me.

What would you do if you were part of a mom's group... let's say a homeschool group and you really had an issue with one of the other moms... let's she had VERY different parenting ways along with other red flags, what would you do?  
   A. Stay in the group and make nicey, nicey with her? 
   B. Tell her how much you want her to stop talking? 
   C. Leave the group and all of the other amazing people in it because you can't get past how 
   annoyed you get in her presence? 
   D. None of the above? Then what?

Also, how would you handle it if things in the group were moving towards a homeschool co-op and you didn't feel comfortable leaving your kids with said other mom? How would you go about this within a small group of homeschooling families? I look forward to your answer to this VERY hypothetical question.  :0)

I don't really like confrontation, so I think I would do Option A, and just kind of ignore it as best as I could. But as far as having to leave my kids with her, I wouldn't want to do that. So, that would be a tough situation, especially if all the other members of the co-op were okay with it. Maybe I would leave the group because of that. That's just me though, and I'm kind of a weenie in situations like that.

Dealing With It

I am still not doing very well again. In a way, moving here has been harder than when we moved into that crappy apartment in Colorado. Because, after a couple of weeks in Colorado, we were able to fall into a rhythm with life, and we were able to enjoy it.

But here, I haven't been able to find that rhythm. It has been hard not having our own space.

And it is hard explaining this to Vern because he doesn't understand. When I say, "I'm having a hard time with this," I don't want him to say, "deal with it." I want him to say, "I know," and rub my feet.

This is kind of similar to giving birth, in a way. When I am in labor, I want to be able to say, "This is hard and it sucks." And I would want Vernon to say, "I know" and rub my feet.

*sigh*

Answering Machine and Danica McKellar

We're back "home" (I'm using quote marks because I don't feel like we really have a home yet... we're still living with Vernon's brother) from our Christmas holiday. Before leaving my mother's, I left this as her new incoming message on her answering machine:

Hi. You have reached Anita's Whorehouse... where the service is so nice, you'll want to come twice. No pun intended. Just kidding. It was. Leave a message.

Remember Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) from The Wonder Years? Well, this is what her husband, Mike Verta, had to say about Danica giving birth naturally: “Ladies, I’m not saying you’re ‘less than’ if you walk into the delivery room and ask for an entire pharmacy of drugs and an epidural. I’m just saying watching Danica go all cave-woman and do it without a single cc of help was pretty damn cool, that’s all."

Isn't that sweet?

So This Is Christmas...

Large Christmas gatherings with family are more appealing in theory than they are in real life.

First at my mother's... where my teenage niece spent the whole time texting, I felt stressed about my kids being loud and messing up the house, and the prank gift that I do almost every year (where I'll wrap up some of my mom's underwear, give it to my brother-in-law, and sign it from my mom) wasn't really even that funny because I've done it so many times.

Then, at my in-laws... where there is one bathroom for 20 people (although that wasn't even a big deal), lots of noise, and I don't feel good because I can't seem to control myself around all of this holiday food. Ugh.

The kids really enjoy it though.