Baby Things I Need Before This Baby Is Born

As most of you already know, we sold half of all our possessions in order to move from Utah to Washington for graduate school. Logically, a lot of the baby stuff disappeared, because we didn't have an immediate need for them. Now, I have to (get to?) start over again. This is what I need.

A New Car Seat

We have a Jeep Cherokee and thus very little space for car seats. So, we will need some of the narrower models. Most likely, the baby will use Deirdre's seat, since it is a convertible, and we'll get Deirdre a bosster with a 5-point harness.

So far, I'm looking at this one:

Sunshine Kids Radian65 Convertible Car Seat

It's not cheap, but some of the cheaper car seats have been having a lot of recalls lately. This one is built to be narrow and comes from a more reputable company.

Cloth Diapers

I am starting all over again with the cloth diaper sewing. This time, I have a walking foot, so it should be easier to work with annoying fabrics. Our favorite style right now is a waterproof cover with a snap-in soaker. Pockets are a no-go because Bryan usually forgets to take the cloth out of the pocket and so they don't get clean. However, he's not fond of fitteds and separate covers, and All-In-Ones where the diaper and cover are all one piece take forever to wash and dry.

The solution is an All-In-One style but with a snap in center instead of a sewn in center so that they can be separated at washing time.

This is a smaple of one I have:

It's PUL on the outside, microfleece on the inside, and just flannel for the soaker. I've decided to just use my Very Baby pattern and tweak it.

Breastfeeding Pillow

I don't think anyone should have a baby without one of these. Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, doesn't matter, a narrow pillow keeps you from hunching over to breastfeeding the baby, keeps baby off of c-section incisions, and works as a reading and laptop-typing pillow later in life.

I already have a set of baby patterns that includes a pattern for breastfeeding pillow covers. I recommend polyester fleece. Regular cotton covers look pretty but don't protect the pillow at, and the pillow is a pain to clean. Polyester fleece resists liquids like pee, baby poop and spit-up.

Changing Pad and Changing Table

These aren't essentials, but they were super convenient to have. The diapers, wipes, creams and diaper pail were all stored nicely in one spot. The one time I skipped at and changed baby Connor on a towel on the couch, his pee went EVERYWHERE.

Another advantage to a changing table is that you don't have to bend over, and you can hang a mobile or wind chime over it to keep baby occupied.

We got our last one on Freecycle. This time I'll be perusing Craigslist and some of the kid consignment shops they have in the area.

An Indented Pillow

This is what we used as a mini baby bed while our children were infants:

It kept the babies at an incline which helped with colic, and kept them at the perfect height for breastfeeding. It also kept the deep-sleeping daddy from rolling over on them, and acted as a barrier between them and the bed in case of leaks.

The Natural Newborn Soft Baby Wash

The day Connor took his first submersion bath, this happened:

There was no dairy in the wash, and it was an organic scent-free wash. Nevertheless, it caused his whole body to break out in a horrible rash.

The doctor was useless, so we had to experiment on our own to find out what was causing the problem. It was coco betaine - a surfactent derived from coconuts that is found in even the mildest body washes.

We finally discovered Soft Baby Wash, which contained saponified coconut oil but did not cause him to break out.

These were the 6 ingredients:

"Saponified Oils of Olive and Coconut, Vegetable Glycerin, Guar Gum, Calendula Oil, and Rosemary Extract"

He could not tolerate any other kind of wash or soap until he was over a year old. With Deirdre, we didn't even bother trying other soaps. This is all we used her first year of life.

Summer Baby Clothes

Because my other bebas were both born in November, I have no newborn or even 3 month sizes in summer clothes. Even my baby patterns are for winter baby things.

Maternity Clothes

I still have some things because I planned on using the fabric to make other things. I already turned one maternity shirt into a pair of pants for Deirdre.

So...I'm going to need one pair of pants and one pair of long shorts, and 2 or 3 more shirts. I still have my black maternity skirt because it's comfortable and stretchy.

Anything I'm forgetting? I still have my Moby Wrap, which is the best newborn carrier ever. Don't need a crib, stroller, baby monitor, baby bath, bottles, bibs, high chair (neither of my kids ever used it and we finally sold it before we moved), pacifiers or playpens. Both kids did like a swing or bounder for naps, but that's more of a luxury...

Free 19 minutes prenatal yoga video

I just finished this and I feel divine!

More On Informed Consent With VBACs/Repeat Cesareans

Remember a few posts ago I talked about the VBAC consent forms versus the complete lack of informational consent forms for c-sections? I came across another blogger who had a similar post worth reading.

http://vbacfacts.com/2009/10/19/response-to-ob-scare-tactics-vs-informed-consent-aka-why-i-started-this-website/

This was the part where I was nodding my head in total agreement:

"Here’s how I make the distinction between informed consent and scare tactics.

Informed consent is understanding the risks and benefits of VBAC vs. repeat cesarean.

Scare tactics are just talking about the risks of VBAC without mentioning the risks of a repeat cesarean."

The blogger then said she had a comment from someone who's doctor told her there was a whopping 10% chance of her dying if she had a VBAC. Excuse me??? And of course the blogger insisted that women who want VBACs are idiots. They would be if that rate weren't several hundred times inflated!

I know someone myself who was told by her OB that the rupture rate in a VBAC is as high as 30%. It's is actually less than 1%, but she trusted her doctor and doesn't believe her doctor would misinform her.

So why did her doctor misinform her?

I thought perhaps it had to do with rupture rates for vertical versus horizontal incisions, but the rupture rate for a vertical incision is 4-8%. Where did that 30% come from? Was her doctor misled? Why?

The blogger continues:

"It’s one thing to understand the risks of VBAC, but they must be countered with the risks of repeat cesarean, otherwise the patient is left with the false notion that repeat cesareans are risk free. This does not benefit the patient and I believe it’s only because women haven’t started suing over complications resulting from repeat cesareans that this erroneous philosophy on informed consent continues to thrive."

Most disturbing and yet typical was her description of the following OB/GYN:

• OB only talks about the risks of VBAC.
• OB required a VBAC consent form that only lists the risks of VBAC.
• OB wants to schedule a cesarean at 38 weeks.
• OB “did not seem very please” when the patient expressed her desire to VBAC.
• OB began NST at 37 weeks. Patient lists no reason for this.
• OB does not put the process and significance of dilation into context. Patient seems to believe that no dilation at 37 weeks and no change till 40 weeks is a bad sign. Patient does not understand that dilation is not a hard sign of labor.
• OB tries to scare patient by telling her that her baby was big and it “could be a very hard delivery” for her. It is this scare tactic, and the subsequent recommendation for cesarean based on suspected macrosomia that convinces patient to schedule a cesarean. Baby ends up weighing 7lbs 2oz. ACOG does not recommend cesarean for suspected macrosomia unless the baby is 11lbs (ACOG’s Practice Bulletin No. 22 on Guidelines for Fetal Macrosomia published in the November 2000 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology).
• OB makes a “threatening call” to patient upon her spontaneous labor and lies by saying that if patient doesn’t have the “C-sec at the decided time, [OB] was not going to be available for the entire week and that some random doctor from the hospital” would perform her surgery.
• OB gets caught in this lie when the nurse tells patient that OB “has asked to be informed about your progress [and] will continue to be there for you.”
• OB then has a colleague tell patient that “she was sure it was going to be a very tough delivery” because of “baby’s head was big” and would weight “at least 8 lbs.”
• OB who said she wouldn’t be available after 11:45am, suddenly becomes available and is present to perform the surgery.

You can see why, as someone who is no longer willing to give birth at home, I am also not willing to give birth at a hospital, and thus not willing to give birth at all and hope this baby will suddenly appear one morning like baby bears for a hibernating mother in a den in winter.

First Trimester Yoga Wisdom

A friend of mine who teaches yoga sent me the following message concerning poses in the first trimester. With her permission, I am sharing it here!  - Alisa

1. You should only start yoga during your pregnancy if you've already been practicing. In other words, if you haven't already been practicing, the first trimester is not the time to start. If you are practicing regularly, you can keep practicing. If not, you can start in the second trimester.


2. Common sense says: No crazy headstands, handstands, or arm balances. Nothing that puts direct pressure on the pelvis. Laying on the belly is OK until it becomes uncomfortable. (Half inversions or partial inversions - like down dog- are perfectly fine). Use your brain and if it makes you uncomfortable, don't do it.


3. Open your legs once your belly starts to pull you forward. Forward bending should always be supported with feet at a minimum hip or belly width. Backbends are awesome, but again, open your feet.


4. Breathe deeper, watch your hydration and dress comfortably. When you lay on your back, bend your knees or lay side-lying. No situps, both legs over the head, plough, or double leg raises.


Just remember that pregnancy makes you more flexible. All that relaxin, especially towards the end can make your body very open. Go slow, but enjoy it. Pregnancy can be a great time to find some nice deep postures. ENJOY mamma!

Babywearing Vampires Are Sexy

Found on Celebrity Baby Blog

Merry Christmas!

Identify This Mystery Diaper!

I got one of these for free in a stack of different types of diapers. It is a PUL/Fleece side-snapping cover with a snap-in diaper/soaker.

I want to make MANY of them. Newborns, smalls, mediums, larges. MANY.

Who makes them and are they selling a pattern?? Do you recognize this diaper? I must have more!

I, The Undersigned, Understand That My Baby May Die

I recently came across the PDF copy of a VBAC consent form offered by a group of Bellingham Ob/Gyns. I include the link for your review:

http://bellinghamobgyn.com/forms/VBACconsent.pdf

I bring this up because I noticed how very seriously they want you to know that your baby may die, become brain damaged, and you may become permanently sterile if you attempt this VBAC. I understand this - those very small risks for uterine rupture include these very serious possibilities, and they don't want you and your lawyer to come back and tell them you didn't know.

But what I want to know is - where is their c-section consent form, and does it also address the risks? During both of my c-sections, no one ever told me any of the following:

1. Higher chance of ME dying. 4 times higher, to be exact. According to the Mayo Clinic, the risk of maternal death during vaginal birth is less than 1 in 10,000. The risk for maternal death with a c-section is a little less than 1 in 2,500.

They continue to enlighten:

■Inflammation and infection of the membrane lining the uterus. This condition — known as endometritis — may cause fever, chills, back pain, foul-smelling vaginal discharge and uterine pain. It's often treated with intravenous (IV) antibiotics.



■Increased bleeding. You may lose more blood with a C-section than with a vaginal birth. However, blood transfusions are rarely needed.


■Urinary tract infection. You may develop a urinary tract infection in the bladder or kidneys.


■Decreased bowel function. Any abdominal surgery slows the movement of waste material through your intestines. Some medications for pain relief may further contribute to this problem, leading to constipation.


■Reactions to anesthesia. After regional anesthesia, a small number of women may experience a headache caused by a leak of the fluid around the spinal canal into the tissues of the back. Allergic or adverse reactions to the anesthetic also are possible.


■Blood clots. The risk of developing a blood clot inside a vein — especially in the legs or pelvic organs — is about four times greater after a C-section than after a vaginal delivery. If a blood clot travels to your lungs (pulmonary embolism), the damage can be life-threatening. Your doctors will take steps to prevent blood clots. You can help, too, by walking frequently soon after surgery.


■Wound infection. An infection at or around the incision site is possible. When a wound is infected, it may open at the skin and release pus.


■Additional surgeries. Although rare, surgical injuries to nearby organs can occur during a C-section. If this happens, additional operations may be needed.


■Increased risks during future pregnancies. After a C-section, you face a higher risk of potentially serious complications — including bleeding, placenta previa, abnormal fetal positions and tearing of the uterus along the scar line from the prior C-section (uterine rupture) — in a subsequent pregnancy than you would after a vaginal delivery
 
And for the baby:
 
■Breathing problems. Babies born by C-section are more likely to develop a breathing problem marked by abnormally fast breathing during the first few days after birth (transient tachypnea). Elective C-sections done before 39 weeks of pregnancy or without proof of the baby's lung maturity may increase the risk of other breathing problems, including respiratory distress syndrome.



■Fetal injury. Although rare, accidental nicks to the baby's skin can occur during surgery.
 
 
Where were my c-section consent forms? All I signed was paperwork saying if there was an emergency, I authorized the attending Ob to attend to it. How does that count as informed consent? Where was my thorough discussion so that I could make an educated choice about my own care?

If the point is to avoid lawsuits and CYA, shouldn't I know all the risks of major surgery?? Or is the avoidance of litigation not the true reason for the increase in surgeries that doctors get paid thousands of more dollars for than vaginal births? And perform more of on Fridays than any other day? Is physician convenience and pay the real reason women are getting bullied into being cut open?

Where was my information? Where was my real choice?

Aerobic Exercise As Effective As Insulin For Gestational Diabetes

I bring this up because I'm already checking my blood sugar every day. Very disappointed to find out what french bread does to my blood sugar levels. It made me sad.
 Anyway...this is encouraging since I had already starting exercising more before I got pregnant!


- Alisa


The following text is excerpt from,

From First Kicks to First Steps:

Nurturing Your Baby's Development from Pregnancy Through the First Year of Life,

McGraw-Hill, 2004,

by Dr. Alan Greene
The hormonal shifts of pregnancy are a challenge for maintaining healthy blood glucose levels. Up to 1 in 8 women will develop gestational diabetes during their pregnancies, increasing risks for themselves and for their babies.

Researchers at the University of Southern California School of Medicine found something amazing. They looked at women who had already developed gestational diabetes. Their fasting blood glucose levels were high enough to require insulin. Half of the women got the recommended insulin. The other half got personal trainers.

Which would you rather have?

Trainers supervised women in a simple exercise bike program. The result? Aerobic exercise was equally effective to insulin in pregnant women. Blood glucose measurements were statistically the same in both groups. Simple exercise is a prescription-strength way to decreases blood sugar peaks and to decrease blood sugar swings. And fetal heart rate tracings suggested that the babies in the studies liked the exercise as well.

Three 20-minute sessions of aerobic exercise weekly have a surprisingly powerful impact. And the blood sugar benefit is still detectable 5 to 7 days after the last session. Of course, exercise during pregnancy has many other benefits including stronger muscles, bones, and joints; less chance of urinary incontinence; easier labor and delivery; and enhanced ability to enjoy your new baby by helping to ward off the baby blues of postpartum depression.

Alan Greene MD FAAP
Originally published: May 12, 2008

Healthcare Vigil With the Kids

We attended a candlelight vigil for healthcare reform with the kids last Tuesday. It was very cold. I was one of the speakers.

You can see Deeda and Connor there - Deirdre is in pink and Connor is in red. That's daddy in jeans and blue fleece.

That's me in front with Deirdre holding a candle, sitting next to Connor and some family friends.

Deirdre and her candle. It was placed through a hole in a piece of paper to catch the drips.

The vigil was organized by MoveOn.org

Behold My New Ticker....

On the right side of this blog.

To which I would like to add, I never have to wait 2 minutes for a test. The first one had the whole word appear in a window, the second had one line, and this one had a plus sign, and they all appeared the moment my pee spread across the test window...

I will also be adding a new label - Pregnancy Diary. I will not be using the Natural Birth Label. After 2 failed homebirths, being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the last one, and already having my blood sugar shoot up over 130 mg/dL this morning, I accept that this needs to be followed by an OB and done in a hospital.

I'm going to try to give birth vaginally with an epidural. If it happens, then I may plan a 4th child a few years down the road. If it's a 3rd cesarean, I'm going to have them tie my tubes, or possibly remove the whole damn thing since menstruating gives me "crazy episodes."

In fact, we had considered it with Deirdre, but it didn't feel right. I've even considered going on birth control and each time changed my mind. I would prefer to stick with 2 children but something told me someone else is wiating to join our family. Deirdre was completely unplanned and unexpected because I wasn't even menstruating again yet, but I wouldn't trade her for the world. She's one of the most amazing little humans I've ever met. I would hate to miss out on this other person.

But I can't handle one more traumaticly painful birth with its accompanying battle with anti-attachment nurses. If this birth is anything like the last 2, no more.

But I also realise that actually planning my epidural, knowing the risks, puts me on the hit list of many of my own fellow mamas in the Natural Family Living community. There's this horrible belief that all birth pain is equal and completely manageable. I know it isn't, and there's a support group on MDC that knows it. It is the uncommon woman whose body will not birth for her, but she is not imaginary. She exists. I exist. And when I saw that plus sign appear at 1:30 this morning, my first thought was, I don't think I can do this. And I cried. And then dried up as fast as possible so my waiting husband and kids wouldn't see me crying.

You don't know, unless it has happened to you, just how horrific the pain is.

So I need to say this to you, right now.

If you think I am wrong for wanting an epidural and going to an OB, stop reading my blog. I don't want you here. I need as much support as I can possibly get right now just to face the fact that I am going to feel any labor at all in the near future. I need only love and strength coming from the people around me in the next 9 or so months. I need sympathy. My comment section is going back on Moderated. I have a place in the natural birth world, but it has limits that I did not choose. It's not weakness, it's not selfishness, it is reality. I have never dilated past 2 centimeters.

And while laboring with Deirdre, I developed HELLP syndrome, which had a very high chance of killing us both. That is my reality. But I still belong here, because I do what I can with the limits I have. But I do have them.

So if you think I did something wrong thye last 2 times, or have any ideas about how I can try again, don't tell me. I do not want to risk that pain again. I do not want to risk that crushing disappointment. I do not want to hear about it. I want you to trust that I have reached the edge of my capacities for this, and if you can't accept that, leave and don't come back.

Babywearing Spoof of Beyonce's Single Ladies Video

Let a child suddenly become interested in pursuing a subject that strikes his or her fancy, and a teacher should be able to seize that opportunity.... Instead, the bell rings, and the little inmates are expected to turn off that spark of curiosity that fires constantly in six-year-olds, but which is progressively extinguished by a 19th century factory model of education that only considers such outbursts inconvenient, as they shuffle off to their next planned activity like spiritless drones.


- Vin Suprynowicz

School is necessary to produce the habits and expectations of the managed consumer society.

- Ivan Illich

It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry, because what this delicate little plant needs most, apart from initial stimulation, is freedom; without that it is surely destroyed ... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not.



"Autobiographical Notes" in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Schilpp

•Arthur C. Clarke:



The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past.

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Through the parted curtains of the window I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her. The sky is a hard hollow sapphire. Let us go out into the night. Thought is wonderful, but adventure is more wonderful still. Who knows but we may meet Prince Florizel of Bohemia, and hear the fair Cuban tell us that she is not what she seems?


-Oscar Wilde

It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that there are few who can appreciate it, and that ordinary education can take no account of so aristocratic a good. I do not believe this. The joy of mental adventure is far commoner in the young than in grown men and women. ...It is rare in later life because everything is done to kill it during education.



-Bertrand Russell

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."



- H. L. Mencken

The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority."



-Walter Karp

What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed so that by the time most people are mature they have lost their innate capabilities.


-Richard Buckminster Fuller

More From John Gatto on the Origins and Purpose of Compulsory Education

"Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted - sometimes with guns - by an estimated eighty per cent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880's when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard."



"....The next step came in 1890, when Andrew Carnegie wrote eleven essays, called The Gospel of Wealth. In it he said that capitalism (free enterprise) was stone cold dead in the United States. It had been killed by its own success. That men like himself, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Rockefeller now owned everything. They owned the government. Competition was impossible unless they allowed it. Which, human nature being what it is, was a problematical thing.


Carnegie said that this was a very dangerous situation, because eventually young people will become aware of this and form clandestine organizations to work against it. Ultimately they'll bring down this edifice. You've got to read all eleven essays, sometimes several times, and only then the majesty of the design emerges. Carnegie proposed that men of wealth re-establish a synthetic free enterprise system (since the real one was no longer possible) based on cradle-to-grave schooling. The people who advanced most successfully in the schooling that was available to everyone would be given licenses to lead profitable lives, they would be given jobs and promotions and that a large part of the economy had to be tied directly to schooling."

"The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong."



"The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch."


"The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command."


"The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study."


"In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth."


"In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched."


"The seventh lesson I teach is that you can't hide."


“The net effect of holding children in confinement for twelve years without honor paid to the spirit is a compelling demonstration that the State considers the Western spiritual tradition dangerous.”


“Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory.”


“The crime of mass forced schooling is this: it amputates the full argument and replaces it with engineered consensus.”



A few years back one of the schools at Harvard, perhaps the School of Government, issued some advice to its students on planning a career in the new international economy it believed was arriving. It warned sharply that academic classes and professional credentials would count for less and less when measured against real world training. Ten qualities were offered as essential to successfully adapting to the rapidly changing world of work. See how many of those you think are regularly taught in the schools of your city or state:


1) The ability to define problems without a guide.


2) The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.


3) The ability to work in teams without guidance.


4) The ability to work absolutely alone.


5) The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.


6) The ability to discuss issues and techniques in public with an eye to reaching decisions about policy.


7) The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns.


8) The ability to pull what you need quickly from masses of irrelevant data.


9) The ability to think inductively, deductively, and dialectically.


10) The ability to attack problems heuristically.


You might be able to come up with a better list than Harvard did without surrendering any of these fundamental ideas, and yet from where I sit, and I sat around schools for nearly 30 years, I don't think we teach any of these things as a matter of school policy.


And for good reason, schools as we know them couldn't function at all if we did. Can you imagine a school where children challenged prevailing assumptions? Or worked alone without guidance? Or defined their own problems? It would be a radical contradiction of everything we've been conditioned to expect schools to do. If you want your son or daughter to learn what Harvard said was necessary, you'll have to arrange it outside of school time, maybe in between the dentist and the dancing lessons. And if you are poor, you better forget it altogether."


"I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers."

After the Civil War, utopian speculative analysis regarding isolation of children in custodial compounds where they could be subjected to deliberate molding routines, began to be discussed seriously by the Northeastern policy elites of business, government, and university life. These discussions were inspired by a growing realization that the productive potential of machinery driven by coal was limitless. Railroad development made possible by coal and startling new inventions like the telegraph, seemed suddenly to make village life and local dreams irrelevant. A new governing mind was emerging in harmony with the new reality.


The principal motivation for this revolution in family and community life might seem to be greed, but this surface appearance conceals philosophical visions approaching religious exaltation in intensity—that effective early indoctrination of all children would lead to an orderly scientific society, one controlled by the best people, now freed from the obsolete straitjacket of democratic traditions and historic American libertarian attitudes.


Forced schooling was the medicine to bring the whole continental population into conformity with these plans so that it might be regarded as a "human resource" and managed as a "workforce." No more Ben Franklins or Tom Edisons could be allowed; they set a bad example. One way to manage this was to see to it that individuals were prevented from taking up their working lives until an advanced age when the ardor of youth and its insufferable self-confidence had cooled."

- John Taylor Gatto

The Origins of Compulsory Schooling

I once complained to my father about how one of my high school English Teachers believed her view on a book or poem was the only right one and if you believed differently she gave you a lower grade. My dad's answer was that he succeeded by figuring out what each teacher wanted and then giving it to them. He told this to me many times while I attended high school and college.

And that's public education in a nutshell, is it not? The answer is not to think independently, but think the way the textbooks and teachers expect you to think.

You could argue that my dad grew up to be an independent thinker, except that he worked in my uncle's law firm for decades and was never made a partner. He was an employee, a very good and efficient soldier.

- Alisa


"The structure of American schooling, 20th century style, began in 1806 when Napoleon's amateur soldiers beat the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is selling soldiers, losing a battle like that is serious. Almost immediately afterwards a German philosopher named Fichte delivered his famous "Address to the German Nation" which became one of the most influential documents in modern history. In effect he told the Prussian people that the party was over, that the nation would have to shape up through a new Utopian institution of forced schooling in which everyone would learn to take orders.


So the world got compulsion schooling at the end of a state bayonet for the first time in human history; modern forced schooling started in Prussia in 1819 with a clear vision of what centralized schools could deliver:

1.Obedient soldiers to the army;


2.Obedient workers to the mines;


3.Well subordinated civil servants to government;


4.Well subordinated clerks to industry


5.Citizens who thought alike about major issues. "

- John Gatto

Where have you been, Alisa?

...Suffering a horrible, debilitating depression brought on by late fall Pacific Northwest weather.

I would like to now say that the Verilux HappyLite Sunshine Simulator Deluxe is worth every penny. I bought it when I first brought home a baby Connor four years ago. I sit in front of it every day now, every time I am at the computer. The difference is phenominal.

I also want to point out that the marled absence of sunlight in fall and winter will reduce Vitamin D levels. I had my blood drawn to have my levels checked and I'm waiting on the results. Several mommies I know said they got their energy back when they got their Vit D levels up.

So that's where I've been.