October 1, 2009 at 7:37 pm (Uncategorized)
Last Saturday we were invited to go up to the Gould Hill Orchard near Concord for some apple picking. We had a nice little group and Nicolette got to play with her new friend, Francis.
Since then I made a nice big apple pie. I’ll have to make more, because we’ve still got tons of apples! That, or make apple sauce, which I’m not really sure how to do…
September 11, 2009 at 1:27 am (Uncategorized)
Whew! It’s been months since I’ve updated. Nicolette is a walking (or rather, running) toddler now who jabbers away. She demands “bow” when she is thirsty (that’s water). She has so many “words” like that. Not pronounced correctly, but they must sound right to her because I’ll say, “Water?” and she says, “Bow” every time. So at least she is consistent.
She imitates almost anything that I do, and ever since I let her stand on a kitchen chair and help stir some cookie dough, she wants to help with everything in the kitchen.
She has become very social and independent. She always waves and says hi to strangers. I’m not exactly sure when I should start discouraging the talking to strangers.
Michael has started another year of teaching and soccer coaching. They had their first game last Tuesday, which they won. He is hoping for an undefeated team this season. Classes are busy, but he is really finding his groove now that he’s already had the classes he’s teaching once before.
I got a job working for Mother of Divine Grace school, but it was with the provision that they would have enough enrollment by the end of summer. Alas, enrollment wasn’t high enough to allow me any students, so I’m left to my own imagination for other ways to make money until I get some students. That might be next semester or next school year.
For now, I’ve been selling some things (books, movies, etc.) on ebay. Also, for those of you who know how much I enjoy knitting and crocheting, you’ll be glad to see that I’m putting this hobby to a more practical use. I’ve opened an etsy.com store. I put the link on the left side of the blog under “Marcy’s Store” if you’d like to check it out.
Summer was great. I’ll give just a short overview. We went to the Adirondacks in upstate New York with my family at the beginning of July. We celebrated Nicolette’s first birthday while we were there, did some hiking, climbing, swimming, played board games, and ate a lot of delicious food. I just wished we could stay longer.
We had about a week to ourselves once we got back, then a dear friend from California came to visit for several days. We took him to explore Boston, Lowell (MA), Quechee (VT) and a little bit around Manchester. It was such a nice time to visit and fellowship. At then end of his stay, we dropped him off at his hostel in Boston and drove down to Lacrosse, VA to meet up with some Hillsdale friends. We had a nice long weekend with them in a house on Lake Gaston. We had great fellowship, lots of food and games, and I loved watching all of the little kids interacting. Nicolette wasn’t sure what to think of the older ones. From Lacrosse, we drove down to Birmingham, Alabama to visit Michael’s family there. We intended to stay about 8 days, and ended up staying for almost two weeks. But it was really nice not to have to be back for work or anything. We just relaxed and enjoyed as much time with family as we could get.
A few pictures from the past several months:
May 31, 2009 at 10:37 pm (Uncategorized)
Nicolette has been a walking baby now for about 3 or 4 weeks. It’s been a lot of fun watching her learn the delicate art of balance. I have a few videos up on YouTube of her first walking experiences. These, I think, are on her third day of walking. You can see them here and here. My voice is weird because of my allergy/cold/swine-flu episode.
Today, after Michael threw a little temper tantrum about the computer not working, Nicolette imitated him, walking back and forth, squealing, and flapping her arms in the air. She turned Michael’s mood upside down.
With cousins, Hannah and Maggie.
She has also been a great blessing lately. In church, she sits quietly and looks at her books, tries to sing along with whatever syllables she finds fitting, and quietly plays peek-a-boo with people fortunate enough to be sitting behind us. We are really thankful that she’s becoming more well behaved in church. Her favorite part, though, is at the end when we leave because she gets to walk back up the aisle by herself. What a big girl!
Next week she will be eleven months! I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by.
May 27, 2009 at 7:03 pm (Uncategorized)
I’m always amazed about controversies over things that you wouldn’t imagine could be so controversial.
When I was pregnant, I read Jennifer Block’s Pushed in which she explores the world of obstetric care. She unveils the impossible situations of doctors caught between a patient’s well-being and pressure from insurance companies who are motivated by slanted court cases. She shows how, despite the more favorable situation of giving birth with a midwife, home birth can be unnecessarily risky in rare cases. I think her book mostly stresses the fact that the government should not have so much say in how we give birth. Laws about these matters put women in bad situations that put their own health or their baby’s health at risk. In some rare cases, women receive court orders that they can’t push the baby out, but must give birth by c-section. Doctor’s orders are judge’s orders too.
While most women may not encounter these problems, it could be because they don’t question the system. What baffles me is that state governments feel the need to make laws about such things. In some states, it’s illegal to give birth with a midwife. Insurance companies pressure doctors not to allow women to give birth vaginally after once giving birth by C-secetion. But, shouldn’t a woman be able to choose how and where to give birth (especially if she is healthy and there are no complications)? She will instinctively do what is best for her child, and doesn’t need a disinterested government to tell her what is best.
However, I don’t want to talk about birthing today. Lately I’ve been learning more about food and have been amazed at the controversies surrounding it. This morning I watched a clip from ABC’s 20/20 with John Stossel, who was arguing that irradiating all food would be the best choice for our health. He tossed aside the arguments of those opposed and claimed that ABC research had found that irradiated food is the only safe food. He made the opposing side look like terrorists and idiots. Alwasy one to question, I wondered where ABC got their information from and what their angle is.
I did a quick search of John Stossel and food and found this article, which shows ABC’s track record with this kind of information. I’m not sure why they feel the need to blatantly lie to the masses about food. I can only guess that as a large television company, they get a lot of their money by advertising for big industrial food companies, that would prefer not to have their methods challenged. What better way to get the masses on board, than to use a show like 20/20 that is supposed to look hard at the facts and give you good perspective on a matter. Hmmm.
I mentioned Nina Planck’s book, Real Food, in my last post. I’ll be ever thankful that I won that drawing for the free book. It got me very interested in raw milk.
While I’m still doing my research on raw milk, I’m finding out that it’s just another big controversy! In some states, and in Canada, it is illegal to sell milk that has not been pasteurized, even if you’re selling it off your farm to people who specifically want the untouched milk. In this beautiful article by Nathaniel Johnson, you can learn about Michael Schmidt, a man who has been arrested and had his farm infiltrated by armed men who treated it like some kind of drug sting. They even had undercover officers obtain samples of the milk.
I just wonder, if someone has researched the stuff, and believes that the benefits of clean raw milk outweigh the slim risks (and I am specifically talking about clean raw milk, not just ANY raw milk here) shouldn’t they be free to drink it? Why is the government so interested in stamping out interest in raw milk? Sure, the FDA says that it’s because raw milk is a health risk. But as we’ve learned in past years, peanut butter, spinach, chicken, beef, green onions (from Taco Bell), and even, in the case of America’s worst salmonella outbreak, pasteurized milk. And all of those things are approved by the FDA.
The FDA also approves foods that contain trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs, which they don’t even require to be labelled). And if GMO’s can cause tumors in the vegetables they inhabit, could they cause tumors in me? Could they make me sick? There’s really no good way to track or research this because the government does not require them to be labelled, says Andrew Kimbrell in The Future of Food.
So, is the FDA trustworthy? You don’t have to watch much of The Future of Food to realize that the government has been bought by big industries (and yes, I’m sure this includes the big dairy farmers) to push their agendas. Some government officials flip-flop between working for the government regulating administrations and working for Monsanto, one of the big pesticide and GMO creators. Sketchy.
So, why would a dairy farmer be so strongly opposed to people drinking raw milk? From the research I’ve done, it looks like it’s cheaper to produce milk in unsanitary ways, ways that are unhealthy for the cows. A typical dairy farm feeds the cows a diet of grain, which is an unnatural diet for a cow. This causes the cow to be more susceptible to harmful pathogens. Indistrial dairy farms also keep their cows in unnatural environments, not on grassy pastures, as they are meant to be. All of these conditions allow for germ-infested milk. This is why the infections passed on through milk had become so rampant by 1932, when pasteurization of milk became standard in the US. By then many dairy farms had become industrialized and unhealthy for the cows. Not pasteurizing the milk coming out of a normal dairy farm today would be disasterous. And changing dairy farm practices enough to make milk safe would be more costly than the big dairy farmers care to think about. So, the pasteurization continues.
Raw milk, when it comes from clean cow that lives in it’s natural pasture envrionment and eats grass, it’s natural diet, will produce safe and healthy milk. This raw milk is full of living organisms (much like you’ll find added back into pasteurized milk to make yogurt) that are beneficial for your health. It also has lactase that is supposed to assist you in digesting milk. Some people who are lactose intolerant suffer when drinking milk because their bodies don’t produce much lactase on it’s own. Pasteurized milk is harder to digest for these people. A lot of the beneficial aspects of milk are altered or killed in the process of pasteurization, even making the Calcium harder for your body to absorb.
Pasteurization advocates tend not to cite any studies when they deny the benefits of raw milk. They resort to what I call the “Nuh-uh” tactic. As I read through the FDA literature, the mostly just gave lists of illness outbreaks that may or may not have been caused by raw milk. It appears that pinning an illness on a food is a very imprecise science. I was also struck by the insistence of their emotional appeals. Raw milk advocates give raw milk to their children! They are threatening their children’s lives! We must stop this at all costs!
While I think it’s fine to insist on caution when purchasing raw milk (and from what I can tell, caution is needed), I don’t think you can condemn raw milk altogether. If a cow eats a grass diet (natural) and lives in a pasture (natural), not a manure filled pen with a million other cows, and the farmer is conscientious about hygeine, raw milk should be safe.
And what about the emotional appeals? Apparently the FDA thinks that raw milk advocates are bad parents for subjecting their children to the dangers of raw milk. But I’ll bet that raw milk advocates tend to know exactly what their children are eating, whether its the raw milk, the veggies from the farmers’ market, or chicken and beef from a farmer friend. The FDA however, in not requiring GMOs to be labelled, puts a mom who purchases baby formula in a bad position. How does she know that some of the ingredients have not been genetically modified? If her baby reacts badly to something in the formula, how will she know if it was a reaction to a GMO or an allergy? If GMOs can’t be tracked, how can we know how they affect us? But these are not questions that concern the FDA. They’re more concerned with a few yahoos who want to drink raw milk (me included). I guess their parenting advice is to do what they tell you, no questions asked.
I think that if you know where your food (milk) is coming from, you’re more likely to make a safe choice than choosing something on a grocery store shelf that was produced hundreds of miles away in a factory you’ve never seen. Local is better. As Nina Planck says, it’s better not because it’s the ‘virtuous’ choice, but because it’s less risky and probably tastes better too.
I’m thinking that I agree with Wendell Berry when he asserted that every time the American people forfeit a responsibility they don’t want, they lose freedom. We’ve lost freedom in obstetric choices, we’ve lost freedom in food choices, what else can we lose freedom in?
Do you know what’s in your food?
May 12, 2009 at 2:55 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: baby, food, health
Recently I’ve been wondering a lot about what the best foods are for Nicolette, especially since she’s dropped from the 50th percentile in weight to the 25th. I’ve been mindlessly throwing the baby food jars into the shopping cart, and ignoring the pinches of guilt that I’m not taking more of an active role in selecting and preparing food for her. The prepared spaghetti and meatballs baby food smells distinctly like Chef Boyardee Spaghettios. That smells like a problem to me.
Mmmm, Cheerios
Recently I won a drawing for a free book on Goodreads.com (Great website, by the way! If you join, friend me!). The deal is that if you win the drawing, you get an advanced reading copy of the book you entered to win and you are supposed to review it. Out of curiosity, I entered the contest for a book called Real Food for Mother and Baby. And I won!
My book came in the mail a few days ago, and I am shocked at how amazing it is! I didn’t realize when I signed up for it, that it was a book about organic/natural foods. For years, I have tried to ignore any information about the whole controversy (again with pangs of guilt) because I figured that ignorance is bliss. But is it, really?
The deeper I get into the book, I keep thinking of the scene from The Matrix, where Cypher talks about his steak. I’m learning about the unnatural diets of cattle and other animals that we rely on for meat. I’m learning about the average American’s unnatural diet, that is somehow mostly made up of corn! And while I’ve been well aware of the unnaturalness of eating margarine instead of real butter, I’ve been buying margarine lately (pangs included) because it’s so much cheaper. In my reading last night, however, I found out that the hydrogenated oils in margarine (I think this includes any hydrogenated oils) have many adverse affects on people including infertility, and reduced natural cream fat in breast milk. Hmm. I quit buying butter some time in January, and added the far inferior substitute to our diet. And it’s been since that time that Nicolette has had her drop in weight gain. Could it be that my “economic” choice is causing her to slow her growth? I don’t know. But I know I will be buying butter and not margarine next time I’m at the grocery store.
Anyway, my favorite thing about this Real Food book is that it’s not coming from some kind of holier-than-thou virtuous food pedestal. The author is very matter of fact. She often encourages buying local produce because it tends to be better for you. But she says the more important reason is that it tastes better. Now that is an argument I can get on board with! (The author, Nina Planck, has also written a book, Real Food, that isn’t focussed on mother and baby, but real food in general.) The author’s approach is very accessible, entertaining, and moving. And the fun facts you’ll discover about the FDA, chemicals in our food, and the evils of the “low-fat” fad diets will shock and amaze you. She is a huge advocate of drinking whole unhomogenized raw milk, using lots of real butter, eating the chicken skin with the chicken, etc. That’s crazy, right? And yet, she’s found that by eating real foods like this, she stays trimmer with less effort.
While I was browsing the internet for local natural groceries, farmers’ markets, etc. I discovered that there is a new movie coming out in June this year called Food, Inc. Here’s the link for the trailer. For me, it’s going to be a must-see.
So, if any of you out there have wondered, like Cypher, if food ignorance is bliss, I’m going to suggest that it’s not. If what Planck is saying is true, we could be eating some really amazing and tasty foods and have hot bodies! Where’s the bad in that?
PS. I guess there’s a lot of people out there saying that if you have a limited income, you really can’t afford to eat real food. Nina Planck says otherwise.
April 21, 2009 at 2:24 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: baby, spring
I love spring, as I love all the seasons. It seems that the new season comes around right when you’re itching for a change. I think that’s why I really like living in New Hampshire, or Michigan or Ohio. There is change. Santa Barbara had only two seasons, Spring/Summer/Fall Perfection and Rainy Winter. While the weather could 90% of the time be considered perfect weather, I was bored.
Cutie Pie.
I’ve just been enjoying watching little red and green buds appear on the trees, and spying little sprouts of daffodils and tulips showing their first signs of life for the spring. I also love those first days when the sun kicks back up to almost full power and you can bask in it, lie on a blanket in the grass, and read a book. Of course, things can’t be quite that peaceful for me anymore.
This grass looks tasty.
Now that Nicolette gets to enjoy these spring baskings with us, I’m finding that I don’t do as much reading because I’m pulling leaves and sticks out of Nicolette’s mouth and making sure her head is covered, etc. I’m sure the more seasoned moms will tell me that my reading days are over for a few years. That’s a little sad, but I actually really enjoy watching Nicolette explore her world. She looks shocked when cars drive by and wants to eat (or taste) everything. There is no end to her curiosity. She didn’t like how grass felt when she tried to crawl on it, but eventually her curiosity won out and she had to get over it so she could do some more exploring.
Mmmm...sun.
April 7, 2009 at 6:24 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: budget, hair, silly things
Ever since college, Michael has always asked me to cut his hair so he wouldn’t have to pay someone to do it. Considering my previous experience with cutting hair (zero) this always makes me a little nervous. I normally try to convince Michael to have a professional take care of it. But his first haircut in Manchester was a little to close to resembling a 90’s mini mullet. The next haircut ended up costing us a pretty penny. So when he asked me, two months ago, to cut his hair for him, I was much more willing. He went out to buy a hair cutting kit and I got online and watched some videos of someone teaching how to cut men’s hair (scary model-guy!).
Timidly, I applied the methods I had pieced together from the videos that I watched in some other order than they were meant to be watched. Michael ended up with a decent hair cut.
A few weeks ago, his coworker was over and wanted a haircut too. I was so nervous cutting someone else’s hair. Michael has to at least pretend he likes it! But, again, turned out okay. I cut Michael’s hair again last night (a little less timidly this time) and I think it looks really sharp. So this morning I decided I’d cut my own hair!
Just my bangs though. After the first snip, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Oh my goodness! What did I just do!?!” I was afraid I went too short or crooked, or something. And Nicolette kept trying to climb on the toilet and got mad when I put her outside the bathroom. It was a crazy three minutes. But now it’s done, the bangs have been styled, and while there are some imperfections that I can see, I think they look mostly okay. 
Maybe next time I’ll give myself a full haircut! 
April 5, 2009 at 1:33 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: baby, taxes
I’m not sure why I always put off doing the taxes. I guess it’s becuase of all of the work involved. You have to focus on the unnatural use of language to understand when you owe or don’t owe. You have to dig up receipts and documents that would rather remain burried. And it takes a long time, there’s math, and too many forms: W-2s, 1099s, 8880s, 3903s (yes you can get a deduction for moving expenses, and we got a rather hefty one this year).
But every year, I realize a new joy at tax time: the refund. It’s like winning the lottery, except it’s a small jackpot and you know it’s going to happen. The only question is, “How big?” This year, I’m pleased to report that with the help of Nicolette, our refund is a very nice size, and we are making all kinds of plans what to do with it. A new carseat for Nicolette, some for vacation, and the rest towards our loans (auto, education, etc.) In fact, we may be able to knock a few debtors out of the ring altogether!
Thank goodness for babies and cross-country moves that are both tax deductible!
Blinking because it's too good to be true!
March 19, 2009 at 6:42 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: baby, silly things
The other day we were watching an episode (the Office, 30 Rock, or something) and there were commercials on for Nicorette gum. Everytime the commercial came on, Nicolette looked at the computer with a bit of confusion. Nicorette sounds an awful lot like Nicolette.
March 17, 2009 at 7:23 pm (Uncategorized)
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!
This last month has been full of short trips. The first week of March, we visited Philadelphia for Michael’s cousin’s wedding. We stayed right in the city, and enjoyed a lot of time visiting with Michael’s extended family and Nicolette’s great grandparents. The day of the wedding, we had a lot of time in the morning to explore historic Philadelphia and grab some Philly Cheese Steaks for lunch. We got a lot of excercise too. It was a gorgeous day.
At the wedding, Nicolette out-partied us all. She kept going and going. She made friends with one of the linemen on the Houston Texans, and danced it up on the dance floor. By the end of the evening, most other children were asleep, but Nicolette was still going. She also enjoyed getting out on the dance floor with some of her great uncles. I only wish I had remembered to get the camera out to take more pictures. I did get some pictures from the weekend away, though. You can watch the slideshow here.
Then last Saturday we spent the day in Providence, RI with Stephen and Sarah. It was the first time we’ve been able to see them since moving East, and it was a very nice visit. We had lunch and walked around quite a bit. Again, no batteries for my camera, so I’ll have to see if I can get pictures from Sarah later. We also got to take a tour of the John Brown house, see a chair that George Washington’s bottom has graced, and saw the huge First Baptist Church.
Federal Hill
On our drive home from Providence, we forgot to pay attention to where we were going and ended up in Newburyport, right on the Massachusetts coast north of Boston. After putting ourselves on the right course, we saw a Sushi and Thai restaurant so we stopped for some sushi for the first time since before I was pregnant with Nicolette. It has been too long! We had the spicy tuna, eel, flying fish, and OCTOPUS! I have to say, I liked the octopus the least, simply because of the texture – it was harder to chew. Otherwise, everything was delicious! In the end, with the delicious sushi, we didn’t mind the unexpected detour.
Besides a bad stomach flu we all had last week, we are all doing very well. Staying busy as usual, and looking forward to Nanny and Pappa visiting next week!
