Take it Back!

Good morning! I really need to go feed a Kitty so I’ll be right back.

Well, I fed Kitty and the other cat and, yes, I know she’ll never go away if I feed her but if I don’t feed her, she’ll eat all of Kitty’s food and then Kitty will go away. I like Kitty; she’s a good one and catches things. She is also very friendly and likes to sit on my shoulders. She’s a keeper.

Yesterday was a busy one. I went to see my friend Christine in Auburn. She’s just a lovely woman and has two of the cutest boys and a pretty daughter and is expecting another girl in January. If all goes well, I’ll be able to go to her birth which will be absolutely wonderful. I did have to wait for either the bug to start (which it didn’t) or the van to be ready to go (which it was around 9:30) but visiting with Christine was worth the wait.

On the way, I needed to stop and get fuel. I didn’t want to use any of the containers of fuel at the house because I really would have needed to put in two and I knew that Paul wanted at least one for the Jetta and quite frankly, the bug could use one too. So, I determined to go to Leominster even though I don’t usually go that way when I’m going to Worcester or points south of it. I forgot about the road work on the exit by the gas station I like to stop at and missed the exit I should have taken so I had to do to the next one which is by the mall where Joann’s is located. That isn’t really too far out of the way and only took a few minutes but then the exit to get back on route 2 was blocked so I had to go back to the one by the mall in order to get back on. That was fun and exciting. At least I had good music to listen to.

When I got home, there were so many things that I really needed to do that I didn’t really do anything. I fixed a grilled cheese sandwich and read a little bit but then it was almost time for Amena to be home. Once she’s home, the boys will be home in about an hour and that’s all she wrote for me getting anything done. I did fold some laundry in the morning and washed a couple of loads, one in the afternoon. When the boys were home, it was a push to get wood brought in and homework done. Seth and Joseph didn’t take long to get their math done and then Joseph read his two books to me. He’s getting pretty good at reading. I found three books for Seth to read and timed him for his 20 minutes and had him write it down on a reading log so that it will be done next week when it’s time to turn it in.

Then it was time to eat so that we could go to the pack meeting. The boys did turkey bowling. They made ‘pins’ out of empty 1.5 and 2 liter soda bottles. It was a lot of fun and Cedric won the whole thing. He was really good. I do have some pictures on my phone. I’ll get them off and get them posted somewhere today. While there, Jamie Pitney, the cub master, asked for a volunteer to be a committee chairperson. He warned us last month that they needed someone in order to stay chartered for the coming year and I figured I really ought to do it because Cedric and Seth have been doing scouts for a few years and Joseph has a few to go. I’m not sure yet if they’ll stay with Hubbardston once they reach boy scouts or go to church because I don’t know how actively they’re doing things at church but Seth still has this and next year and Joseph has until he’s in 5^th grade. Anyway, I told Jamie that I would last night so I will now have scout meetings to attend upon occasion which should add to my already fun-filled life.

Once we got home, it was past bed time, of course, so that’s what we did.

Today is going to be another busy day. Seth and Joseph have dentist appointments this morning and since we’ll be most of the way to the feed store in Winchendon, we’ll go pick up goat fodder. We need the works: sweet grain, alfalfa, and crimped oats. That should be fun. I think I’ll take lunches for them with us so they can eat on the way to school. I also think I’ll just plan on taking the van because there isn’t a lot of room for 50 pound bags of stuff in the bug. Besides, we have to leave by 8:30 and the bug might not want to start. I did plug in the van when we got home last night.

This afternoon Julia and I are going to go visit Laurie. That will be nice. Hopefully Julia was able to get to see Catalina last night. I scheduled for us to visit her and then remembered that we had a pack meeting.

Anyway, I’ll have time to get some reading and studying of phlebotomy done in the between times and hopefully there will be time for some hot chocolate as well.

This evening we have a lot going on. Amena has a dance. Seth has a birthday party in the opposite direction. Paul wants to go get potatoes over by Amherst which is in kind of another direction. I’m not sure yet how we’re going to pull it all off, but I’ll figure something out.

Right now some boys are having a really hard time getting out of bed. Joseph finally arrived but he has two brothers upstairs who aren’t doing anything more than yell (mostly Seth) and be annoying. Fun times. Even though Seth and Joseph have dentist appointments, they don’t have time to dilly dally the morning away and I think they, especially Seth, think they do.

In other news, I am deeply saddened by the general attitude of women in the United States. We have probably the worst infant and maternal mortality and morbidity rates of any ‘industrialized’ country. We also have some of the most medicalized maternity care. In watching the first two seasons of The Walking Dead in the last couple of weeks, I ran across the part where Lori discovers that she is pregnant. Glenn says, “You have a medical condition.” And that is about the size of it. Birth is NOT a medical condition but in the United States we have been conditioned to believe that it is. We have been conditioned to believe that only in the hospital can labor and birth be properly managed. We have been conditioned to believe that if we give birth anywhere other than a hospital, or perhaps a birth center, all kinds of horrible things might happen to us or our babies. We have been conditioned to stop listening to our bodies, to stop trusting that they can work, to relinquish control of the whole process. It is time, in the words of Robin Hood, to “take it back!” (We won’t talk about the one birth that takes place in that movie because it’s super medicalized and the mother and baby both miraculously lived in spite of having a cesarean in the middle of the forest with very unsterile conditions. If a cesarean birth is to take place, I do believe that conditions should be sterile. And we’ve just talked about it, sorry.)

Well, I would go on but a couple of boys need to finish getting ready to go and I need to get in the shower. Have a great day!