Homeschooling Research On Hold

I have been gung-ho about researching all things homeschooling for years now.  In fact, one of the reasons I was hoping to have children was so that I could homeschool!  I've enjoyed "doing preschool" at home with my daughter, but I've been noticing that I feel stretched and unable to balance everything I want/need to do.  The hard truth is that with my daughter only three and a half, homeschooling is not a current need.  It's been a hobby really, the research and the planning and the attempts at implementation.

Instead, what I think I'm going to focus on is laying the foundation of our future success.  A smoothly running household will require me to have a firm grasp on decluttering, truly finding a place for everything so that everything could actually go in its place, and then getting into a reliable schedule of household cleaning and chores.  I am slowly warming up to cooking again, so that is where my research and planning needs to be directed right now.  Gardening is another area that requires my attention.  All of these silmultaneously present educational opportunities anyway, just not standard academics.

So what I propose for the next year or so is this.  Still attend the Catholic Homeschoolers'  planning meeting at our church in August. Still participate in the annual Not Back to School online summit in September.  Still attend the homeschooling curriculum fairs/conventions next May.  And in the meantime, I know what I'm working on with Maya is letter and numeral recognition, letter-sound correlation, counting, as well as the things I have prepared on our Morning Board that just needs a few finishing touches for us to start using it daily.  And of course we'll continue with library books, lots of reading time in all three languages, and prayer and faith talks.

I don't need to incessantly view YouTube videos on homeschool room tours or curriculum reviews or how-tos of any kind.  I know what I need to be doing over this next year of preschool, and I am deciding to be intentional about how I spend my free time.  I'm done researching homeschooling until next summer, at which point I will access where we are and determine if we'll be starting Kindergarten "level" work, or rather how we're going to be implementing what is suggested in The Well-Trained Mind (I've returned to this resource and realizing I have the freedom to tinker with what doesn't resonate with me, I think this will be our primary go-to as far as choosing subjects and resources.  Basing our educational approach on the trivuum makes the most sense.  Everything else we'll take as it comes.)

Hopefully this decision will pave the way for more intentional prayer time, as well as using my desire to research and plan for more useful endeavors (gardening, cooking, homemaking in general). Sometimes just writing it down makes it feel more official, and so here it is.

I Stand Corrected! I Have Found My Way!

There IS a label for my spirituality, and I'm going to go out on a limb and just shout it from the rooftops that I have realized that I am a Taoist!  I just took beliefnet.com's belief-o-matic religion quiz, which I've taken numerous times over the years, and it confirmed my recent insight: 100% Taoist!

It's funny, but soon after writing my last blog about how I've accepted that my label is "Deist" with supplementation of Quaker testimonies and Buddhist practices, I was reading on a Deist site where several members commented that they felt disillusioned with having accepted the label of Deist for themselves.  As in, "Ok, so I'm a Deist.  Now what?"  There's nothing in the way of morality and practice that comes with the philosophical standing of being a Deist. Someone mentioned in passing a comparison of their personal stance to Taoism, and a lightbulb went off.  I remember studying Taoism - why hadn't I revisited it recently?!

The first thought I had, actually, was that Deism and Taoism in terms of belief in God is essentially the same thing said with different words, which makes sense considering the drastically different cultures and timeframes each came from.  In the West, we are used to talking about God as a personal entity, and Deism's description of God is a reaction to this notion.  In Taoism, the Tao could be said to be "God".  The difference is that by not calling that ultimate reality "God", there isn't the temptation to personify it and, what naturally follows, worship it.  I think worship is meant to honor God and show our gratitude, but I think the best way to do that is through the way we live our lives, not through lipservice and gestures done ritually to make us feel religious.

The second thought I had after Taoism reentered my consciousness was to compare the three jewels of Taoism with the four testimonies of Quakerism.  I was fairly comfortable with the Quaker testimonies of peace, equality, integrity, and simplicity.  But as I reflected on the three jewels of Taoism - compassion, humility, and simplicity (or frugality) - I realized that the Taoists actually got an even more simplified version of the basic moral principles I seek to live by.

If you have compassion for others, you will automatically work towards peace and equality.  You will be truthful because it's the right thing to do and doing otherwise may harm others, thus not being compassionate.  If you cultivate humility, you will naturally lean towards compassion, and you will see others as equal to you rather than looking down on them.  You will desire peace because war only comes from a place of egotistic desires for control.  If you are humble, you will be honest with yourself and have no reason to withhold the truth from others.  And if you maintain simplicity, this ties your humility and compassion together.  Stay simple in terms of how you view yourself, don't exaggerate truth, don't complicate relationships with hierarchies or conflict, and take only what you need.  In essence, if you're compassionate, humble, and simple, you automatically live a life of peace, equality, integrity, and obviously simplicity.

The last thought I had was comparing the aim of Taoism with that of Buddhism.  Interestingly, Buddhism presupposes a negative state of being - that life is suffering - and the goal of Buddhist practice is to transcend that reality.  Taoism merely observes suffering as a balancing opposite to pleasure, embraces the reality of there being bad as well as good in the world, acknowledges that good and evil are constructs that often do not actually translate to being inherently good or bad, but rather good or bad in a certain circumstance, to a certain person, while possibly being the opposite to someone else or in another set of circumstances.

To me, Taoism is really about acceptance.  I think every other religion I've studies has found a problem to work out.  Every other religion tries to fix something, thus inevitably leading to a subconscious focus on negativity, either in ourselves or others.  Taoism is about balance.  It's the ultimate non-judgmental religion (though I hesitate to use that term, since I subscribe to the philosophical bend of Taoism, not the religious).

The most beautiful thing about realizing I'm a Taoist is that all it took for me to "become" a Taoist is to realize that I am!  To have found the label I've been looking for, to apply it to myself, and to move on to finding balance in my life with the assistance of Taoist philosophy.  I don't need external validation to confirm that indeed I am a Taoist.  Much like with being a Deist.  But unlike being a Deist, there is a moral base and a goal I can aspire to, as well as spiritual practices based on the underlying belief in the Tao.  It's a full package: belief, morality, and spiritual practice.

So hello world!  The irony of Jesus's words does not escape me.  He said "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).  And when looked at under the layers of personifcation and taking metaphors literally, this is indeed a beautifully simple statement.  Tao = the way.  Full stop.  No interpretation follows.  No scriptural references needed.  Look around, look within, that is where the way is.  Follow it!

Maya's Birth Story

Maya was born at home at 10:15 pm on Monday, November 25, 2013, weighing 5 pounds 10 ounces, measuring 18.5 inches.

Days after birth.

I was in labor for a total of 18 hours and some change, going into active labor shortly before my water broke 13 hours into it.  Alex ended up going into work for a few hours when we realized it was either that or once baby came.  It was a tough call, bc I did not do well laboring alone.  He finally got back home around 7pm, and at this point my contractions were lasting a minute and 2-3 minutes apart.  I was not a happy camper.  I think not having Alex really messed up our hypnobabies system. I tried laboring with the CDs but it wasn't helping.  I ended up doing a lot of vocalizing.  Birth assistant came shortly after Alex, and midwife wasn't too far behind.  I ended up not getting antibiotics for GBS as midwife felt baby was going to come very soon, not the 4-8 hours after the first dose that is standard.  Indeed, she was born 2 hours after midwife arrived.

They spent a good deal of time trying to fill the birth pool, but they were having problems with the water not being hot enough.  I only got a little bit of hydrotherapy in the shower before all the hot water in the house apparently went out.  Never got in the birth tub.  :( Huge disappointment.

The tub all ready, except that the water never got hot enough :(

I labored on the toilet for a while, but didn't want baby born in there, and they were telling me that I was sounding pushy.  Labored on all fours on the floor for a while, then agreed to have a vaginal check and was almost fully dilated.  They had me move to the bed, midwife pulled the lip of my cervix over baby, and when she came out, she came flying out!  I birthed Maya on all fours, and the placenta in a squat.

Apparently, Maya is a miracle baby in more ways than one.  She had her cord wrapped around her neck and torso, and the cord was not directly linked to the placenta, what is known as a velamentous cord insertion.  They asked if I had had any ultrasounds done, because this normally would've been found at the 20 week sono.  The problem is that if the veins and artery connecting the cord to the placenta happen to run over the cervix (vasa previa) instead of above the baby, then if the water breaks, the baby can cut off the blood supply and not survive birth.  Midwife was shocked that my last sono was just last week!  Alex and I are just amazed at what a humongous blessing this baby is.

We each held Maya for about an hour before finding out if we had a girl or a boy.  I finally cried when Alex peeked and then introduced me to her by name

Daddy showing off her footsies.

I ended up getting a shot of pitocin to cut down on bleeding, a couple of pills under my tongue that were supposed to give me cramps to expel whatever may have been left of the cord/placenta in my uterus, which I think ended up giving me horrible chills, which then led to a fluid IV.   Luckily, I had a chance to hold Maya for a bit before I started with the chills, and after that Daddy got lots of hands-on time with her bc I was a hot mess.  Just laying there half asleep. My perineum stayed intact, but I got little tears on my labia, so I got a couple of stitches.

I had just gotten belly henna done Sunday evening, on our way home from our Ignatian retreat.  I originally was going to get it the Friday after Thanksgiving, but something kept telling me that Maya may be early.  The henna artist advised me that it was unlikely that the henna would still be there for the Birth Day 2 weeks away, but I couldn't risk waiting too long.  So it was pretty cool that I got to have it done just on time after all.  I feel like so many things lined up for us!

My belly henna design.

Maya is such a good baby.  Very cuddly, smiles a lot.  When she's awake, she's so alert and looking around.  Unfortunately, breastfeeding woes started soon after birth, in spite of taking all the precautions.  But that I will save for another post.  

Thank you, Lord, for our miracle!

Be Careful What You Ask For

A little over 2 weeks ago, I was concerned going into our first sonogram because I "didn't feel any different".  Well, thanks to my big mouth, I now feel different, and it isn't pretty.  My hay fever went into overdrive at the same time as my bronchitis came back, and only after spending the week in bed and NOT taking preggo-unsafe medication did I also realize that lo and behold, I have morning sickness!  But wait, there's more!  In my case, to make up for not feeling different, I guess, the nausea pretty much sticks with me everywhere I go.  I'm on crackers and ginger ale all day long, I gotta eat every 3-4 hours or little Dino will let me know I'm overdue, and I've napped every single day, for several hours at a stretch.  This is not normal for me, so yeah, I'll say .... I finally feel different.  But now that I do, I kinda wish I didn't!

What's worse, with my illness I'm worried about the little one and was assuming I'd have another ultrasound next week.... only to find out we have graduated early to the OB.  So now it'll be up to my regular OB when my next sono will be.  Of course, I will request one asap, but I think I remember them saying they only have the abdominal scan version, which means we'd have to wait a bit longer before being able to see/hear anything again.  I'm thinking I might want to get a doppler to evesdrop on my little occupant so I can be reassured whenever I need it.

The good news is that today I am 8 weeks along, aka 2 months pregnant!  We are a third of the way done with the first trimester!  I have started to wean off the fertility medication as well, so I'll be on completely natural hormones in a month.  I'm hoping that the combo of the artificial hormones and the baby-induced hormones has been contributing to the way I feel, and once I'm off the meds, all will be well with the world again.

I am writing about this, but it is not sinking in yet.  Interestingly, I think that once I tell my dad, he won't let me forget about it, and then it'll start to get more real!  I'm actually looking forward to telling my dad, bc he has been hassling me for years about having a baby, so I just know that he will be thrilled.  My guess is that there will be a thumbs-up, huge grin, hugs, and tears.  I've been having several dreams about him lately, so maybe I need to hurry up and tell him.  My mom, so funny, wants me to quit making her keep this a secret any longer because she can't shop for the baby around my dad because he tells her the stuff is too small for their 3-year-old grandson!  Precious.