5 years ago

5 years ago I was trying my hardest to rest after labor stopped AGAIN! Marc and I went and saw Revenge of the Sith while his dad and step-mom watch the boys. I actually went into labor during the movie, and hoped that Lily would arrive while they were still in town only to have it stop as soon as I got home and laid down. It came and went all night long........5/26 10:39pm

5 years ago I was up eating the breakfast my husband made me and waiting for his parents to come say goodbye before they got on a plane back to South Carolina. Contractions were about 10 minutes apart still like they had been off and on all night. 5/27 7:35am

5 years ago I was rocking on the birth ball in my living room while saying goodbye to my inlaws. Labor had indeed started, but it was slow going! Sad to see them go, and sad that they would just be missing the birth of their granddaughter! 8:13am

5 years ago I was changing my clothes, Marc was calling our Doula and the Birthcenter, we loaded up the boys our bags and headed out to Tualatin to settle in for labor.  9:55am

5 years ago I was finally in active labor! I settled into the tub and called the family to let them know Lily was on her way! 11:14am

5 years ago I floated in a tub of warm water, surrounded by flickering candles, the faces of women I trusted, and the power of every laboring woman who had come before me.  I felt their energy as I sored through each contraction going deep within myself to find the beautiful and power of the moment. 1:02pm

5 years ago I was still laboring away. the AC at the birthcenter had shut off, my midwives and husband were melting while I was in a warm tub floating through contractions. Lily's arrival was still abouit 4 hours away! 5:56pm

5 years ago transition hit, but with a power and excitement I didn't experience with my boys. I was so excited because this meant Lily was almost ready to be pushed out!! 6:32pm

5 years ago I started feeling the urge to push!! Just little moments of my body working to move that baby down. I will always be amazed at how my body just knew what to do. I didn't push per say as much as it was my body pushing of its own will. About now I decided it was time to go back to the tub; as I got to the side of it about to climb in my body said, "PUSH!!!!!" I did and my water broke with that first push. 7:57pm

5 years ago having tried out the birth stool and deciding I HATED it, I got back into the tub and started pushing in earnest. I with Marc at my shoulder holding me under my arms and my wonderful midwives encourage me the whole way I kept at it. Determined and powerful. I had never felt so alive or so empowered! 8:24pm

 5 years ago Colton and Austin had joined us by the tub, and Lily was crowning. Almost time now.......8:52pm

 5 years ago today at 9:01pm Lillian Elizabeth was born in the water of the Lavendar Room Tub at Andaluz Waterbirth Center in Tualatin, Oregon. Her brother Austin cut her cord a few minutes later and the whole room sang Happy Birthday to our sweet daughter. Happy 5th Birthday Princess Lilybug!! 9:01pm Pacific Time

Not Me Monday-It's been awhile....May 24th, 2010

So I've gotten out of the habit of weekly blogging, not because I've been off doing some important life changing work, although life has certainly been changing, and not because I have been so busy that I didn't time, and certainly not because I've spent too much time on Facebook sharing links about birth, breastfeeding, or parenting. NO I could never be accused of too much time on Facebook. NOPE NOT ME! 
I definitely didn't spend my morning working on my webpage for my business and then my afternoon curled up on the couch watching The Wizard of Oz with my daughter, totally neglecting the fact that my husband is out of tshirts (the white underwear kind, not the wear with jeans kind) until 8pm. 
Oh and I have NOT turned into a morning person, even though I'm going to bed before 11pm and up by 7:30  nearly every morning, EVEN ON THE WEEKENDS. Don't let the smile over my cup of coffee confuse you.
And two weeks ago I didn't spend nearly all evening on Saturday planning my garden on graph paper:

Nor did I get up at 6am ON A SUNDAY to start working in my garden by 8, measuring and laying it all out with twine and stakes before planting a single seed. Nor did I have it all planted by dinner time.  There is no way my children actually got out there and helped me out of their own free will with no bribes involved, And I definitely didn't forget to put on any sunblock and get a wonderful burn on my shoulders that is NOT at this very moment itching like a son of a biscuit! 

    

Of course after the heat in the garden and all the hard work they didn't do, playing in the sprinkler was definitely not something I'd allow!! And those are certainly NOT rain boots on my daughter. LOL!

Of course now that I've begun posting again, I am certainly NOT going to promise any regularity since it's become quite evident that being consistent is really NOT ME.

Human American not an option on the new school forms.

I was sitting down to fill out Lily's kinder registration this week and came across the section that I usually skip. The one where they ask you to fill in your child's race.  Well this year instead of the normal (optional) written beside the section heading it has been replaced with (required). ?!?!??!?!WHAT!?!?!?!  Required???? I'm being told by the gov't (the school is a gov't entity btw) that I'm required to label my child.


 I looked a bit further into the paperwork and found the handout explaining the changes to the student enrollment forms for the upcoming year. In bold on that handout it states:


   Beginning with the 2010-2011 school year, the federal government is requiring school districts to follow new standards with regard to collecting student and stave race and ethnicity data. Oregon schools must make changes to follow these new reporting requirements.


Then following that they explain how to determine the correct way to report your child's race and ethnicity. Seriously? Why? What does it matter? It makes no sense to me. It didn't make sense to my nearly 9 year old son either. I asked him what race he thought he was and he answered, "American".  BINGO! Exactly! If a 9 year old can get that race labels shouldn't matter why can't a bunch of supposedly well educated bureaucrats?


My kids are all HUMAN and they are all AMERICAN. Period. Enough said.


But apparently that isn't enough for the federal government. The new regulations will not allow the schools to turn in blank forms. That means that they have to fill in the information if you leave it out, and of course that means the schools have to determine what race/ethnicity my child is.  Um no, I don't think so. I don't need someone labeling my kid. Could you look at my kids and know they had Hispanic heritage? What about children of mixed race. For instance my friends who's kids are both of Korean and European decent? What would the school bean counter choose for the form especially if they hadn't met both parents? Why the heck does it even matter? What happens when one child looks more Asian and the other more European. Does that mean they aren't the same race???


 And then comes the question, what are they going to do with the information they collect???


I feel sorry for the schools who are obviously going to face other parents who question their right to collect such data when all they are trying to do is follow the stupid rules set by the feds in order to secure funding. And that brings me to the next logical step in this argument.   It is no different than the census in my opinion, they have no constitutional right to gather anything other than the number of people living in my house, but they push the envelope and asked a ton of questions about race and ethnicity. Why are we still dolling out funds on the basis of race demographics? 


Shouldn't we be passed that by now? I could understand it 40 even 20 years ago. But now when almost every school has a huge range of diversity why does it matter??  People will argue that it is so those who are ESL (English as a 2nd Language) students get the help they need.  Well ok, so ask the question what is your primary language and what is spoken in your home?  No need for the race question there.  Others will say that schools with a high level of minorities have lower socioeconomic levels and need more funding. Not necessarily true.  And why don't you just ask for a wage range instead of race if economic levels are truly what you are concerned about?? 


We live in a country where the highest office in the land is held by someone of mixed heritage and dark skin, we tell our children that everyone is equal and that they should look past skin color, yet we are still saying that skin color makes a difference and should be counted when considering funding for schools?? Seriously??  Talk about mixed messages.


In the end I left it blank. I will figure out how to keep it that way if we decide to keep the kids in public school. Right now we are seriously leaning toward homeschooling. 


References:
http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/home/departments/info-and-tech/policies-regulations-and-guidelines/ethnicitychange
http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/pdf/it/it_Parent%20Letter.pdf
http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/pdf/it/it_Ethnicity%20Brochure.pdf