PARENTING FREEDOM

Carol | December 31, 2010

The children, Nana, and me

Beautiful Scenery

The pictures don’t do it justice.

Baby GC sleeping in the sling in the crisp air

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Carol | December 31, 2010

Baby GC was the latest among the five best gifts I have ever received (outside of the gift of eternal life.) How did I get the best toy in the world? She is such a life-like doll. Just like a real baby! She has been such an incredible delight and joy in our lives. We are all very thankful for her. We have been having so much fun with her. Having a baby at this age is just as great as everybody (with that experience) told me it would me – even better! It is EASY because everything comes second nature by now. I know what to do, I know what works, and I am more relaxed. I am not exaggerating (much) when I say that I spend most of the day looking at her and making her laugh and smile. I get little else done, but you know what? I don’t even care!

Miss Christmas ~ 3 1/2 months old

Baby GC reading ~ getting close to four months old

Baby GC in the sling enjoying
the winter wonderland of our beautiful province

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Carol | December 31, 2010

Our lawn on Christmas morning!

Same place: Our lawn four days later!!

The river, Christmas morning

Same place: The river, two days after Christmas

The river, Christmas morning

Same place: The river, two days after Christmas

Our backyard, 3 days after Christmas

Early Sunset

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Carol | December 31, 2010

I have tried my new baby wrap a few times. It is comfortable, but it takes forever to get Baby in and out. (She’s sound asleep in the picture). I love my sling so much better, but I do use the wrap every week when I take Baby GC, C9, and L6 in the swimming pool. After five babies and owning about 20 carriers/slings, the tie for first is between an unpadded, wide/long ring sling and my Tough Traveller backpack. Both are extremely useful with different purposes.

Baby GC in my favorite sling

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Carol | December 31, 2010

My computer area in the kitchen with a rarely used (by me)
new video baby monitor and a new mousepad (desk is usually messier)

My Boys and their favorite computer activity (next to World of Warcraft):
Glenn Beck’s Insider Extreme (especially fourth hour with Stu and Pat)

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Carol | December 31, 2010

I miss personal blogging. I miss the old way I used to blog. I am so behind that it almost seems hopeless. I stopped posting regular family pictures around July and never picked it up again. I haven’t even written Baby GC’s birth story. I want to get back into it, so for now, I think I will skip the summer and fall and only go back as far as the beginning of Advent 2010.

We had a very slow, low-key month of December. I made the choice not to do many of our annual traditions. I wanted peace without commotion. I was tired of feeling tired, so we did very little. It still felt very much like Christmas.

One new idea that proved to be quite fun was our new Advent calendar house. After Christmas last year, I ordered it on EBay. It sat in its box all year, so it was rather amusing when we opened it. Do you notice anything unusual about it? I didn’t until the children mentioned it.

Our Advent Calendar House

I bought some secret things. (The treats were often things we would do anyway, or candy from the Bulk Barn, or things we could have saved for Christmas presents. I had lots of ideas we didn’t even use.)

And I made a list of hiding places. (Examples: Look in the organ… Look in the drawer under the sock monkey… Look in the doll house… Look by the doll on the stairs… Look behind the ceramic Christmas tree… Look in the front bench… Look in the fridge… Look by the Cascade… Look on the computer desk… Look in the bathtub… Look in the black cabinet in the bathroom… Look on the dryer…)

Each day of December, I would either stuff a small treat or a “Look under/in/behind” note behind one of the doors. Instead of getting it ready all at once, I would do it one day at a time, so the most appropriate treat would go on the most convenient day.

Day 1: pack of crackling candy to share (funny)

Day 2: four lollipops and four Double Bubble gum (to divide among four children)

Day 3: four chocolate loonies

Day 4: Decorated wooden Christmas tree ornament crafts with marker and glitter

Day 5: Made T.V. advertisments with video camera – Sham Wow, Goldline

This was fun. We spent additional time watching home videos. (It makes me feel bad that I didn’t take more during the past few years. I have hardly ANY of Baby GC, but I guess it doesn’t matter.)

Day 6: bag of peanut M&Ms to share

Day 7: four chocolate peanut butter balls and four mints

Day 8: four mints and four rockets

Day 9: four pieces Hubba Bubba gum

Day 10: chocolate rocks (It took them a while to figure out you could eat them. It looked like a bag of real stones.)

Day 11: Ice Cream Moon Sand

The three middles really enjoyed this project.

Playing Moon Sand
See Baby and cat and lights?
I was getting ready to put the lights on the real tree.

Day 12: Decorated Gingerbread houses with Daddy

Derek is always responsible for the construction of the gingerbread houses.

Our Gingerbread Houses 2010

Day 13: Gum that tastes like SOAP. I can’t let them get TOO spoiled. It was hilarious, but they were mad and thought it was a dud. ROFLOL After, I told them if they had reacted like good sports, they would have got something else, but… FAIL… ?! (To clarify, for the biblically minded, it was a joke, not a character test… and they read the label before they tried it.)

Day 14: foam sticker wreath craft with glitter glue, one KitKat to share

Christmas wreath foam craft

Day 15: watched Ramona and Beezus on PayPerVu

I knew C9 would like this especially. I think she has read all the Beverly Cleary books by now. It will be a sad day when something happens to our cat. I LOVED all the baby wearing in the movie! Even Ramona was carrying around her baby sister in a forward facing carrier.

Day 16: four candy canes

Day 17: four lollipops and four Double Bubble gum

Day 18: Three oldest went to Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D with Daddy… L6 watched Cats and Dogs 2 on PayPerVu

I didn’t want to take Baby GC to Voyage of the Dawn Treader because it was only available in 3D. There is nothing worse than a seeing a 3D movie without the glasses, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep them on the baby, and she LOVES to watch the big screen, so I chose to skip the movie.

Day 19: The middles painted plaster tree ornaments with me, Derek, and his brother who happened to stop by.

Painting Christmas Tree Ornaments

Decorating chocolate cupcakes with icing
and Christmas sprinkles (with Derek’s brother)

Day 20: I forget what it was.

Day 21: two Kit Kats and two O’Henrys

Day 22: four pieces of Hubba Bubba gum

Day 23: four kinds of juice cans

Day 24: made things out of clay

Making things out of clay on Christmas Eve

Some of our clay creations

We had a nice, relaxing Christmas Eve.

Day 25: four mints

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Carol | December 30, 2010

I Was Raised By Wolves [Carol's note: excellent essay]

“Parents are losing their Christian children to the world in droves because of the wolves who are truly raising them.”

“Some school teachers literally tell the students not to tell their moms and dads what happens in class.”

Teacher Effort Is Linked to Difficult Students’ Inherited Traits
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101216122016.htm

The 1,000 primary schools failing our children: 11-year-olds leave unable to read or write
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338514/Primary-schools-league-tables-1000-fail-11-year-olds-unable-read-write.html#ixzz19cUN0U7e

Boy, 13, Busted For Illegal Marker Possession [Carol's note: This isn't even The Onion!]
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/boy-13-busted-illegal-marker-possession

Muslim kid in Spain traumatized by hearing his teacher say “ham”

I used to be traumatized by the word, “homework”. Maybe I can still sue.

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Carol | December 30, 2010

(Click bottom right of video to make it fill the screen.)

The Procedure

The women in the waiting room looked like they had been exploited and abandoned and then treated like cattle going to slaughter.

Category: Abortion, Family Planning, Feminism | No Comments »
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Carol | December 30, 2010

“The Last Text”

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Carol | December 30, 2010

SIDS Spikes on New Year’s Day
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101215193102.htm

“The number of babies who die of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, surges by 33 percent on New Year’s Day. The suspected reason? Alcohol consumption by caretakers the night before.”

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Carol | December 30, 2010

CAESAR’S THUMB
Lord Nicholas Windsor [Great-grandson of King George V of the United Kingdom] warns Europeans not to forget their most pressing moral issue: abortion.
http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201012/2197491621.html

“…Is it still possible then that we can point to anything of any real significance that had been overlooked, anything dangerous smuggled into this new phase of history that has caught us unawares? I would say that this is indeed the case, and I would like to focus especially on a matter and a practice that constitutes the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life: the abortion of our unborn children.”

“This is a historically unprecedented cascade of destruction wrought on individuals: on sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, future spouses and friends, mothers and fathers – destroyed in the form of those to whom we owe, quite simply and certainly, the greatest solidarity and duty of care because they are the weakest and most dependent of our fellow humans…”

“…And this enforcement of a new status quo succeeds so well due, surely, to benefits enjoyed as a result – benefits of an order that make acceptable even the killing of innocents, by their protectors, on a scale that freezes the imagination…”

“In the second order of consequences, however, we must look closely at the hidden burden faced by those, especially mothers, who participate in these acts and the losses affecting present and future society…”

“…What we must first lament is the mass destruction of human beings who had first been deemed worthless…”

Brilliant essay.

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Carol | December 30, 2010

New guidance on vitamin D recommends midday sunshine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12013332

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Carol | December 30, 2010

The HIV/ AIDS Story is Being Rewritten
http://www.houseofnumbers.com/site/

Questioning “INFECTIOUS DISEASES” in the context of GNM
http://germannewmedicine.ca/documents/infectious_diseases.html

Questioning the “VIRUS-THEORY”
http://germannewmedicine.ca/documents/virus_theory.html

Virus Mania – Part 1
http://www.screencast.com/users/GNM/folders/GNM%20Videos/media/19ff3380-c040-45aa-962b-6e701efd56d6

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Carol | December 30, 2010

Lia Mill’s speech to the national pro-life conference in Ottawa
http://www.lifesitenews.com/resources/lia-mills-speech-to-the-national-pro-life-conference-in-ottawa

“What I realize now, is that when I made the decision to speak on abortion, it wasn’t just a decision to do a speech. It was a decision to step into a spiritual battle, a battle that I wasn’t aware of in the least and a battle that was growing in intensity…”

“I think that, as Canadians, we tend to be the peacemakers and people pleasers. We try to avoid conflict, regarding it as a negative thing, rather than something that will help us grow and mature. So we spend our lives trying to make people happy, not ruffle any feathers, and live our lives in peace. At school, what is taught should be accepted as truth, no arguing, and no conflict what-so-ever. Even as children, although conflict does happen, we learn to almost be afraid of it. We learn to do what we’re told and when we don’t, we are labelled as being ‘rebellious’…”

“But the truth is that, as pro-lifers, even if we’re Canadians, we have to learn not to avoid conflict, but to embrace it and approach it in the right way. Instead of arguing and only trying to prove a point, we have to respond, not in a superior way, but by speaking the truth…”

“I still don’t know why God chose me to do what I did, but I’m learning, ever so slowly, to try and embrace conflict, to try to realize that some things will only change as I become willing to stand in opposition to the status quo, as I become willing to see beyond my need for pace and safety and learn to step out of the boat and make some waves…”

Tiny pro-life activist making big waves
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/tiny-pro-life-activist-making-big-waves

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Carol | December 30, 2010

Moms who don’t breastfeed have much higher risk of type-2 diabetes
http://www.naturalnews.com/030722_breastfeeding_diabetes.html#ixzz19cUfABfW

“Mothers who do not breastfeed their infants may be significantly increasing their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.”

Breast-Feeding Keeps Diabetes at Bay
http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/Pregnancy/21910 

“Women who had never breast-fed were almost twice as likely to develop the disease as women who had never had children.”

Breastfed boys (but not girls) are brainier: Reading, writing and maths skills better than those given bottle
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1340136/Breastfeeding-makes-boys-brainier.html#ixzz19cVhfIob

“A study of ten-year-olds found that breastfed boys were better at maths, reading, writing and spelling than those who were bottle-fed.”

Breastfeeding ‘prevents baby infections,’ research suggests
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11417490

Forget vaccines: Breastfeeding boosts infant immunity!
http://www.naturalnews.com/030857_infant_immunity_breastfeeding.html#ixzz19cXQos6W

“Babies who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life contract significantly fewer infections than babies fed from bottles, and get less sick even when they do get infected.”

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