Friday, January 28, 2011

New reason to surf the web... Cha Cha!!!

One of my friends was throwing out suggestions to keep Andrew busy while I'm at work. The friend suggested signing up as a 'Guide' on Cha Cha. I'm in the midst of the registration process, so I'll report back once I pass the test & start 'working'. Right now I'm answering 'test' questions & being graded on my answers... I hope it gets more interesting!

Monday, January 24, 2011

The most important right - LIFE!

Today is the annual March for Life against the atrocity of abortion. I've never been able to attend the March in Washington DC, but my heart is close to those that are attending.

There are very few things in life more precious than life. Without life the planet would be empty. Those that argue for abortion say that the already born lives are worth more than unborn lives. They also quibble about when the Constitutional right to life begins. They label pro-lifers as extremists, religious fanatics, and cold-hearted toward women. They claim that science backs their stance that until birth, an unborn child is not a child at all, but simply an extension of the woman's body. It saddens me to hear women give this last explanation if they have already carried a child to term.

If you've ever been pregnant (or been around a pregnant woman) I don't understand how you can say the infant in her womb is just an extension of her body. By 15-20 weeks almost all women have felt their infant move within them. You also know, if you've been pregnant or around a pregnant woman, that these infant movements are definitely *not* initiated by the mother. Especially later into the pregnancy, these movements aren't even very appreciated by the mother as internal organs begin getting pinched, poked, kicked, sat upon, etc. The infant in the womb is most definitely a separate human with a mind, body, & soul of its own.

Science differentiates sub-species and variants of the smallest life-forms (bacteria, viruses, etc). It baffles me how this same 'group' can deny that upon conception, a new life begins. As soon as the egg is fertilized, there are dynamic changes within the woman's body. Chromosomes are paired and unique to this individual (or individuals in the case of identical twins - even they have some regions of their DNA that are variable sometimes) and completely separate from the mother. The gender of this baby is already established although definitely not visible. Shortly after conception, the embryo (or pre-embryo as some like to call it) begins its own metabolism. The embryo begins dividing, growing, and travelling down the fallopian tubes into the uterus. Once implanted the embryo begins to develop its protective placenta and amniotic sac. The unborn baby will reside in the mothers uterus for approximately 9 months. Although entirely dependant on the mother for nutrients and other metabolic necessities, the unborn baby's internal organs are fully functional from as early as 10 weeks. The unborn baby is genetically different from both mother & father. The unborn baby is capable of movement, reactions, 'breathing' (amniotic fluid), metabolism, & even thought. How can the term 'life' be given to bacteria, viruses (they don't even metabolize on their own), and other single celled organisms, but not to an exquitely created multi-celled unborn baby?

Historically, MLK, Rosa Parks, etc fought for civil rights for minorities (particularly African Americans). Prior to the civil rights movement, African Americans were thought to lack feeling, intelligence, and the ability to live on their own (just to name a few). In other words, they were classified as less than human. Civil rights leaders fought to dispel these myths. They were met with hostility and fuzzy science. They were persecuted and ostracized from society. They were labeled as extremists. They were slaughtered. However, they were allowed the fundamental right to life and grow and therefore they were capable of defending themselves and speaking out for themselves. The unborn are denied that most fundamental right, so we pro-lifers must take up their cause. MLK's relative, Avelda King is an advocate for both civil rights for minorities AND for the right to life for the unborn. She has pointed out that the number of minorities aborted is absurdly high. Minorities are coerced and told by society that they are incapable of controlling their bodies (ie avoiding sex & pregnancy in the first place) and that they are incapable of handling their own lives and those of their children. That is patently false.

I know there are many pro-aborts out there who claim to be 'personally pro-life' but feel its not their 'place' to tell another woman what to do with her body. On one hand, I agree. I'm not presuming (nor are any of the pro-lifers) to tell women what to do with their bodies. Instead, I'm asking women (and men) to be responsible for their actions. Contrary to popular belief, sex (protected, safe, or not) is scientifically documented to result in pregnancy. That's the purpose of sex (just look at the animal kingdom). Therefore, if men & women were responsible with their bodies and actions, abortion would not be necessary. Now, I know some out there are thinking, but what about rape, incest, pre-natal diagnosises that are incompatible with life? My answer is that even in these cases, the unborn baby did nothing wrong to deserve a death sentence. No, in rape & incest, it is definitely not the mother's fault she conceived. However, it is also not the fault of her unborn child. Regardless of the fact that 1/2 of that baby's genes came from the rapist father, the other 1/2 are fully from the mother. That is *her* flesh and blood. The child did not ask to be conceived just as the mother did not ask to be raped. However, the woman should not simply snuff out the child's life. That's two wrongs (rape & murder) not equalling a right. As for incompatible with life pre-natal diagnosises, well, they're wrong a good portion of time - in other words, both mother & baby are fine. Plus, again, the child did not ask to be conceived, nor if asked would it chose to die. Sure, some out there are thinking, but if the child is going to suffer and die upon birth (if the diagnosis is correct), why not just 'end' its misery? Well, my great-grandmother is 95. She's going to die soon (probably). She has arthritis something awful as well as osteoporosis and some dementia. She even sometimes says, "I don't know why God hasn't called me home." However, it would not be right for me to snuff out her life. As a matter of fact, I would be prosecuted in a court of law for hastening her death.

As a society, nowdays people are outraged at animal shelters that euthanize unwanted animals. However, society turns a blind eye to killing the unborn. Sure, the unwanted (and sometimes ill, maimed, etc) animals are already 'alive' and independent. Sure they're cute and cuddly. However, they are *animals*. I love my animals (I have quite a menagerie), don't get me wrong. However, if I must chose between a human life and an animal life, the human will win *EVERY* time. That's because humans operate on a higher plane than animals. We rationalize and control our own destinies (whether for good or bad is up to us).

So please, join me in praying for hearts to change. Let the most innocent of us - the unborn - have the right to life. End the atrocity called abortion. Whether you're Catholic (& should definitely be pro-life) or aethist, matters not. All that matters is that unborn human babies are given the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest - beyond the womb!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Evangelization?

Some of my FB friends & I just had a conversation about how the phenomenon of blogging has affected life in general. One of them ran across a blog that referenced the bloggers 'addiction' to Mormon mommy blogs. The blogger in question is a self-proclaimed atheist liberated woman. My friends & I are somewhat envious of the attention the Mormon mommy blogs get. According to the aforementioned blogger, many of her like-minded friends are impressed by the Mormon mommy blogs depiction of motherhood as fun, easy, and enjoyable. She also noted that the Mormons seem to value family over all else.

I'm not knocking the Mormons at all, but I'm saddened by the fact that Catholic values aren't as accepted in the main-stream. We have 'Catholics' (in name only) that go completely against the Church's position on abortion, homosexual activity, birth control, etc. When a good Catholic stands up for the Church, we're knocked down & told that we're stuck in ancient times & need to get with the program. We're labeled as hypocritical, judgmental, and cold-hearted. The Catholic Church is attacked it seems almost daily in one form or another. Most TV shows eventually have anti-Catholic sentiments if not outright blasphemous episodes. Our pope is laughed about, our ceremonies are secularized, our beautiful history is covered by the slightest scandal, etc.

I proposed to my friends on FB that we should start our own network of Catholic mommy blogs. Afterall, we have a strict family & sanctity of life moral code written into our Faith. Many of my FB friends are the not-so-common stay-at-home mom's with more than 2.5 children (I think our highest child bearer has 10+). We aren't entirely main-stream, but we enjoy a good drink, a good laugh, and sharing 'war' stories with each other. Most of us in one way or another have embraced the 'greener' side of life - whether through our eating habits, family planning (as in Natural), household items, baby-wearing, recycling, and generally good stewardship as preferred by our Faith. We don't always agree with one another, but we support each other in our everyday struggles to be the best women, wives, mothers, daughters, stewards, AND Catholics that we possibly can. We lift one another up in prayer. We commiserate in parenting 'failures'.

With this as my jumping point, I've decided to try to have at least one Catholic-based post per week. I may not make it & it may not be obvious, but I'm going to try. I've kept most of my posts fairly ecumenical so far (I think), but maybe I'll let my true Faith shine through. Perhaps it'll effect a change in my outlook as well as yours! Good luck & God bless!

Evangelization?

Some of my FB friends & I just had a conversation about how the phenomenon of blogging has affected life in general. One of them ran across a blog that referenced the bloggers 'addiction' to Mormon mommy blogs. The blogger in question is a self-proclaimed atheist liberated woman. My friends & I are somewhat envious of the attention the Mormon mommy blogs get. According to the aforementioned blogger, many of her like-minded friends are impressed by the Mormon mommy blogs depiction of motherhood as fun, easy, and enjoyable. She also noted that the Mormons seem to value family over all else.

I'm not knocking the Mormons at all, but I'm saddened by the fact that Catholic values aren't as accepted in the main-stream. We have 'Catholics' (in name only) that go completely against the Church's position on abortion, homosexual activity, birth control, etc. When a good Catholic stands up for the Church, we're knocked down & told that we're stuck in ancient times & need to get with the program. We're labeled as hypocritical, judgmental, and cold-hearted. The Catholic Church is attacked it seems almost daily in one form or another. Most TV shows eventually have anti-Catholic sentiments if not outright blasphemous episodes. Our pope is laughed about, our ceremonies are secularized, our beautiful history is covered by the slightest scandal, etc.

I proposed to my friends on FB that we should start our own network of Catholic mommy blogs. Afterall, we have a strict family & sanctity of life moral code written into our Faith. Many of my FB friends are the not-so-common stay-at-home mom's with more than 2.5 children (I think our highest child bearer has 10+). We aren't entirely main-stream, but we enjoy a good drink, a good laugh, and sharing 'war' stories with each other. Most of us in one way or another have embraced the 'greener' side of life - whether through our eating habits, family planning (as in Natural), household items, baby-wearing, recycling, and generally good stewardship as preferred by our Faith. We don't always agree with one another, but we support each other in our everyday struggles to be the best women, wives, mothers, daughters, stewards, AND Catholics that we possibly can. We lift one another up in prayer. We commiserate in parenting 'failures'.

With this as my jumping point, I've decided to try to have at least one Catholic-based post per week. I may not make it & it may not be obvious, but I'm going to try. I've kept most of my posts fairly ecumenical so far (I think), but maybe I'll let my true Faith shine through. Perhaps it'll effect a change in my outlook as well as yours! Good luck & God bless!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Simon says the darnedest things!

Simon is a walking-talking piece of comic relief. It seems like the words & phrases that trip out of his mouth are intended to be funny. He asks us to 'turn the fire on'. He calls Rachel a 'feather' - I'm still not quite sure what that means exactly. Last night I had him help me tuck Rachel into bed. As I worked on her bed, he sat next to the crib and said, "We need to tell her a pony story." I told him to go ahead with it. His story began simply enough, "One night there was a big rescue pony." Then it began to get a bit funnier. "The big rescue pony was bad, so the policemen were chasing it. The big bad pony went to the bad store to get bad stuff." The story didn't continue. We're left hanging with a cliff-hanger.

Simon is also very sweet to Rachel (besides telling her bed-time stories with no endings). I've been trying to encourage him to be a 'big' boy in the hopes that he'll want to be a big boy & use the potty. So I emphasize that Rachel is little and needs his help & for him to be gentle with her. So we instituted family bed-time prayers. Rachel sits in my lap, Andrew sits in his chair, and Simon eventually climbs into my lap too. He's very good at his prayers now. He does his version of the sign of the cross while saying the words *very* loudly. Our bed-time prayer is the Guardian Angel prayer (Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light, guard, rule and guide. Amen.). Simon has been hearing this prayer his entire life, but he's just now getting confident enough to say it. The words he hits are impressive & actually add more meaning to the prayer. Somehow he knows the most important parts. He says, "Angel of *God*, my *guardian* dear, to whom *God's love* commits me here. Ever this day, be at my side, to light, *guard*, rule and *guide*." (The starred words indicate ones he says quite loudly). We then do our intentions. He gets to say whoever's names he wants. A lot of the times his choices are very appropriate. The people he lists are often the ones that in my opinion need it most. We also sing "Ode to Joy" nightly. This is something else Simon has heard his entire life; he calls it "Joy, joy". He sings it similarly to how he says the Guardian Angel prayer. His version goes something like this, "*Joy, joy*... adore... *God*... glory... love. Hearts... flowers... Sun above... Clouds... sin and sadness... Dark... away... Immortal gladness... light of day." He doesn't know all the words, but those are the ones he sings consistently. His soft toddler voice is so sweet. As he sings this song to Rachel he climbs into my lap & kisses her during parts that he doesn't know. By the time we're finished he has his forehead pressed to hers. Rachel sits and just absorbs it all. I sit there and my heart swells with gratitude and praise to God for blessing me so abundantly.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Its been a while again...

It seems like I'm always behind. I was looking through my recent blog posts & realized I hadn't devoted one to the kids lately. So all of you out there who enjoy reading about their antics are about to get a thrill!

So Christmas was awesome for both Simon & Rachel. Simon of course has reached that magic age where he can anticipate, but he doesn't fully understand the concept yet. His presents from us were high $$: a John Deere pedal combine complete with corn header & a 20 piece set of Pixar/Disney Cars (all the main characters from the movie except Mac). We tricked him with the combine. Andrew wrapped only the header & left the rest of it in the building until Christmas morning. Simon knew he was getting the combine (thanks to Andrew), so when he saw the size of the box he was puzzled to say the least. Then when he opened it & saw this two feet of corn header & nothing to put it one, he was flabbergasted. He was running around checking under the tree to make 'Santa' hadn't forgotten the rest of it. Then Andrew wheeled the big thing in the living room. I thought Simon was going to fly across the room! Its a bit to big for him to pedal right now, both weight & pedal length, but that's great because it'll last him longer. The other day he spontaneously burst into singing "In excelsis Deo" only it sounded more like "In Chelsea's day-o". It was absoultely precious!

We're playing again at potty training. This time we've made a chart w/ characters from Disney/Pixar Cars on it. Each potty activity has a line where he can collect stickers. We've told him that when he fills up a line he'll get a new car. He's gotten better than he was, he doesn't scream & cry when I try to make him sit or stand by the potty. The other day he stood in front of the potty on command & peed! We were already on our way to town, so we took him to the tractor store in the mall to get a new tractor. The catch is that he doesn't get the tractor if he pees in his pants/pull-up. We've also been letting him just wear his pants w/o a pull-up or underwear in the afternoons after nap. The goal is to get him to be self-aware again. I think he's been in the pull-ups for so long he's forgotten the consequence of peeing on himself. So I'm hoping his neat-freak ideas will help potty-train him!

Rachel's home Christmas probably wasn't as wonderful for her as her grandmother Christmases. She loves the noise and activity of everyone gathered together. She loves the other kids and wrestling around with them. She's walking very well now, so she teetered along after the big kids trying to get into trouble. Of course, since she's the little diva, she had at least 2 ward-robe changes per celebration. If I do say so myself, she looked fab in everything! Her most favorite present right now has got to be her Violet the puppy LeapFrog stuffed animal. We've 'taught' it her name, favorite color, food, & animal. We've also 'taught' it some of her favorite songs. Otherwise, she's more into the people around her than her toys, so the gifts didn't make a huge impression on her.

She's got to be the most engaging baby I've ever seen. At this point in her life she sounds like one of those Indian singing girls or a yodeler when she 'talks'. She runs through the house yodelling at the top of her lungs. She's got good lungs too! More and more of her personality keeps coming through. I thought she was quite laid-back as a baby, but now as a toddler she's developed a distinct 'want-it-right-now' attitude. She'll pick up her empty sippy cup & scream/grunt at you until you get up to refill it. Now, I'm sure the grandma's would disagree & say she's just a perfect angel (I get that a lot), but that's what she does at home. She's also been showing me she's ready for bed lately by wandering into her room. She comes back out & looks at me, then toddles right back in there. She must be growing too because she's eating *everything* in sight & sleeping quite a bit. I have not found a food yet that she doesn't like. We laugh & say we probably don't even need to cook it (something like oatmeal) because she can put away so much food with gusto!

Together they are at times exasperating and entertaining. They love each other so much, yet already display some of the famed sibling rivalry. They compete for Andrew's devotion. If one is in his lap, the other starts whining for his attention too. Sometimes we can set their sibling rivalry against them, for instance, Simon will eat better if he thinks I'm going to give Rachel his left-overs. At this point, Simon is showing his instigation skills while Rachel is showing her tattle-taling skills. Simon will lead her somewhere they both know we don't want them & Rachel will grunt &/or cry until we come get them both. She'll also spontaneously burst into tears even when Simon's well away from her (& didn't have anything to do with her falling down). I'm so glad I've been blessed with such individuals!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Temperament

I took this quiz & got Melancholic as my result... What are you?
 

 

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Smiling already at 2 weeks

Smiling already at 2 weeks
Rachel has been smiling as a response to other people since day one.

And two shall become one...

And two shall become one...
In 2006, Andrew & I became one before God and family! Shortly thereafter we became 3 with the birth of Simon in 2008... Then 4 with the addition of Rachel in 2009!

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