Our house is just down the street from a reservoir. On days when it is nice outside Asher and I often go there and feed the ducks and geese. (Oh, and these pictures were taken in the summer when it was warmer. So don't think I am a negligent mother because my child is shoeless!)
And after much observation I've discovered that there is a definite "pecking order" among the birds on the reservoir. The biggest birds are the geese, whom I have affectionately named "the goosers". When there is bread being fed they waddle up like the bird mafia and start biting ducks and smaller geese in the rear ends. They steal all the bread and make sure that other birds don't get any until they are done, and honk up a storm. They are pretty much fearless and will come right up and take the bread out of your fingers, whether you want them to or not. By some serendipitous camera luck I got this great picture of a gooser biting Ash's finger. If you look closely you can see his finger is in the gooser's mouth! Asher was pretty surprised, but the gooser didn't bite hard so he was alright. Still, that gooser had SOME nerve.
My favorite is when Asher chases them around. They are pretty slow moving and he just crawls around behind them all over the park. He hasn't' caught one yet, but he is a pretty tenacious little boy and I won't be surprised if he does catch one some day. Or, more likely a gooser will catch him!
Can't you just see the defiance in that beady little eye.
I just found this blog and think what the woman is doing is fantastic! She has been digging through old pictures in the Library of Congress to find pictures of women breastfeeding in public before the formula companies went on a campaign to make breastfeeding socially unacceptable (about the same time that birth went into the hospital-- hmmm... connected maybe?). They are AMAZING pictures. It really makes me even more upset at formula companies! Like I said before, I don't think formula is bad, but I do think that the tactics formula companies have used to get women to mistrust their bodies and give up control over feeding their babies is WRONG! I hope that seeing these pictures will help women realize that we have been duped, and that our bodies are not just sexual objects or dysfunctional, but are beautiful, sacred, and powerful. There is something innately beautiful and sacred about a woman and baby breastfeeding, and it makes me mad that people try to sexualize it.
My favorite is this one, you know that the baby must have been fussy and the mom just said "okay, I give up. I'll just keep it out and you can have it whenever you want it". I also really love this one. I think it captures the amazing feeling of love and bonding between a mom and her breastfeeding baby.
Several years ago I inherited 5 or 6 boxes of family history from my mother. I've been lugging it around with me all this time, but hadn't ever looked through it. This week I decided to delve into it to see what was there, and I found a TREASURE TROVE! One box was FULL of letters and journals from my great grandmother Florence Grace Pettes Thacker. The letters go as far back as 1922 (maybe further) and include the love letters she and her husband Gerald Quincy Thacker wrote to each other when they were courting. There are about 300+ letters, 20 journals, newspaper clippings, odds and ends, a lock of my grandmother's hair when she was a baby, pictures, and even the ration books they used during WWII that still have the ration slips in them! I am so excited I can hardly contain myself! I'm going to start transcribing the letters today.
Also, as I was digging through the letters I found and email from one of my grandmother's cousins. I knew it was a long shot, but I tried the email and.... IT WORKED! He wrote me back and told me that he was thrilled to find me and told me that he was VERY active in family history and that they even had a yahoo group for the Pettes Family that I could join! I've meet several more of my grandma's cousins and I feel like a long lost daughter finally being found. It is the most AMAZING feeling. I can't wait to get started on my great grandmother's history. I can feel her cheering me on. I've never felt like this before, and I can really feel the presence of angels who are interested in seeing me succeed. They are counting on me. I now know Malachi meant when he said,
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6)
It is truly the most amazing feeling. I feel connected to heaven and to my ancestors, and I haven't even begun yet! It is all I have been able to think about. Here is a picture I found online of my great grandmother Florence (on the left with the bow in her hair), and her sisters Eleanor, Mabel, and Charlotte in Long Beach, California on 25 Sep 1942.
On Saturday Jon and I were shopping and I found THE CUTEST little girl dress, and I bought it. Gasp. No, this isn't an announcement, I'm not pregnant. But I just couldn't let this
little dress pass me by (this isn't the exact dress, but it looks very similar). I knew that if I didn't buy it someday when I have a little girl, I would spend the rest of my days looking for one just like it. I'm kind a of a sucker for anything "sailor-y". If I could find a little boy outfit like this, that would be perfect! Anway, the dress was a steal and I figure that maybe next time I do get pregnant God might just send me a girl seeing as I already have the perfect dress for her. If not, I guess I'll just have to pass it on to someone else. OOOh little girl clothes are so cute, no offense to boy's clothes, but it would definetly be more fun to shop for a little girl.
A.T. has been cruising up and down the stairs like a pro for the last few weeks now. First he mastered the art of going up, not an easy job on our VERY narrow and steep stairs. Then after several days of Jon giving him "stair lessons" he learned how to go down them. Usually he goes down pretty slow but the other day his foot slip and he slid down fast on his tummy. When he got to the bottom of the stairs he stared at me with a terrified face and gave a little whimper. Then once he saw me laughing broke out into a skeptical grin. He takes them very carefully now. The next thing he needs to learn is how to turn himself around with his feet pointing down the stairs. He still tries to start going down with his head first. He's had a couple tumbles, but luckily we only have three small stairs before it gets to the landing. Still, it makes me nervous. The more my baby becomes independent, the more worried I get! I have a feeling it just gets worse.
Paradigm Shift: a fundamental change in approach or assumptions
I've always loved Israel. In tenth grade I did my country report on Israel. Some of my most favorite books are about Israel (ie. Exodus by Leon Uris). In college I took Hebrew for a semester. I seriously considered converting to Judaism for a year, just so I could go on the free Birthright trip. I cried when the BYU Jerusalem center closed, right before I was able to go. In Jordan it took great restraint to stop me from swimming across the Dead Sea (we couldn't go because they were bombing Lebanon at the time). My first "date" with Jon was to go talk to an orthodox rabbi. In fact, in my conditions I gave Jon when he asked if I would marry him (yes I gave him conditions) I made him promise to take me to Israel. It seems like ever since I can remember I've had a love affair with Israel.
But I think that love affair has ended.
Last month Jon and I went to go see a video called Occupation 101 hosted by a local peace organization. The guest speaker was one of Jon's environmental engineering professors who had just gotten back from a year long sabbatical in Palestine. In addition, several of Jon's classmates who are from Palestine were in attendance. The movie was AMAZING. It completely blew me away. I really had no idea what daily life is like for Palestinians, and how awful they are treated by Israel. The most amazing part was to hear Jon's classmates talk about their experiences. About how hard life has been for them, about friends who have been killed by Israeli settlers, and about how they try to survive from day to day. They said that the movie only brushed the surface of the violence and injustices that Palestinians suffer. It broke my heart, and really opened my eyes to why both sides are so angry.
I had learned from spending a few months in Jordan that the news in the US is COMPLETELY pro-Israeli. The only time that Palestinians are ever mentioned in the US media is when they are throwing rocks (think about all the Newsweek articles you've seen). It was SO upsetting to come back to the US after living in the Middle East and finding a complete disregard for the Palestinian plight. I realized that most Americans have NO CLUE about how Israel is treating the Palestinians. They think that the Palestinians are the ones causing the problems, and that they are the reason peace is impossible in the Middle East. But I think that if Americans really knew the truth behind what Israel is doing we'd be ashamed and angry.
I'm not going to delve into a history lesson right now because that would take too much time. But if you really want to understand the history behind the conflict I'd recommend reading "A Peace to End All Peace", by David Fromkin, if you can make it through it. If you want an easier and more graphic way to understand here are the first few minuets of Occupation 101. I'll warn you that the film is VERY biased and dramatic, but the historical information is correct.
There were two parts of the film that really stood out to me and really changed my feelings about Israel. The first was understanding what Israeli settlers really are. I'd heard on the news about the Israeli settlers being moved from the Gaza and about the troubles they seemed to get into with Palestinians, but I never understood what they really were doing. Israeli settlers bulldoze down Palestinian's homes (sometimes with them still in them) and destroy their cities, so that they can build new Jewish settlements in place of them (this story just happened last week). The settlements are often guarded and surrounded by barbed wire and have special roads that only Israelis can drive on. Also, every settler is required to have a gun and there are no consequences if they "accidentally" shoot someone. Jon's classmates said that some settlers like to shoot at Palestinian school kids when they walk to school. The whole idea behind settlements is to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they will go away. Settlers believe that they are doing God's work in reclaiming for the Jews EVERY TOWN mentioned in the bible. The Palestinians are in the way, and so they are killed or forced to leave their homes. I can't imagine what it must be like to be a mother living in a place like that. Well, actually maybe I can a little bit because of this clip from the film.
The other part of the film that stood out to me was the AMAZING amount of foreign aid that Israel gets from the US. Israel receives 1/3rd of ALL the foreign aid that the US gives out! And what do they do with it? Kill Palestinians. That really makes my heartache, to think that my tax dollars are bulldozing down houses and supporting people who shoot school kids. The reason Israel can do what it is doing is because the US pays for it. Also, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the third biggest lobby in the US legislature. Basically NO president or candidate could be elected if they spoke out against Israel. The string are embedded deep. I think this clip explains it better than I can.
The problem with speaking out about Israel in the US is that it is immediately classified as Anti-Semitic. Criticism of Israel's actions, no matter how violent or cruel, are seen as an attack on Judaism. But I don't think that is necessarily true. Just like most Arabs don't hate Americans, just their politics. Most Palestinians (according to Jon's classmate) don't hate Jews, they just hate the actions of Israel and the Zionist mentality. Most Palestinians would be willing to share the land and let the Jews have a homeland. It would TOTALLY be possible for the Jews to have a homeland without killing Palestinians and forcing them out of their homes. I don't think that is what God had in mind.
I know this is a bit of a rant, but today I heard on the news that Jerusalem just got a new major who is planning on extending Jewish settlements into the Arab parts of Jerusalem. AGGG! I don't see how they can even talk about peace, when every day they keep destroying more lives.
I know that being critical of Israel is especially hard from an LDS viewpoint, but I'm going to write more on that later. I want to make it clear that I AM NOT being anti-Semitic or criticizing the Jewish religion. I have a deep respect for Judaism and have many Jewish friends. But it just breaks my heart to know what is happening to children of God, and to know that I am indirectly helping it. I feel compelled to speak out about this because no one else is. I hope that this post will have opened your eyes to what is going on in Israel and that you will listen to the news with a more critical ears. I'd like to think that if Americans had the blinders lifted off their eyes for just a few seconds their hearts would be softened and they would demand that things change. All I can really do is keep praying.
One last note-- this may come as a shock to Americans, but if you want a REALLY good source of news you should read Al-Jazeera. I think it even beats the BBC for consistently telling both sides of the story.
This is the first "bad" woman that I have done. Unfortunately they exist, and the scriptures have quite a few of them. It is harder to come up with "what we can learn from her" points when they are wicked :)
Really, I am in awe of the generations of women who had to use one of these
to fasten their baby's diaper on! I am afraid to think of all the holes my nursling would have poked into him if I had to use these. How do you tackled a 11 month old and make him stay still long enough to use these? Sometimes I can't even get his diaper fastened with the handy little Velcro tabs before he starts crawling away with his little naked bottom wagging back at me. I have a new found respect for my ancestors, and I'm adding Velcro to my list of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
What a great day! I just got back from the Utah Doula Association Fall retreat, and it was wonderful! It got me all fired up about birth and motherhood-- not that I was really ever cooled down about it. It was amazing to be around women who have so much passion for birth, and who don't look at you like you are a leper when you tell them you had a home birth! Woohoo. I feel like I could write a thousand posts about how wonderful birth is, don't worry I won't. But I have to get some of the enthusiasm off my chest or I might burst (or Jon's ears might fall off).
Women, our bodies are amazing! There is NOTHING more miraculous in this world than the fact that women's bodies create other human beings. Think about it, every human being in the world was created from the parts of another woman's body. Every human being was once carried beneath a woman's heart. We all share that common bond. Not only is birth a miracle, but the whole process of labor is amazing. Every time I see a birth I can't get over the fact that for a few hours women become wide open channels between heaven and earth. They bring new life to a dying world. I can't think of anything more awe inspiring than a woman in labor. To see her endure, overcome, and discover her inner power. Women are really so much stronger than we give them credit for being.
Okay that is all I need to say for now, but I'm sure I'll write more later. Anyway, it was a great day, and the doula conference further reinforced my belief that all women need a doula. Oh, and I decided to use my heatherlady blog as the website for my doula business.
This morning I rocked Asher to sleep for a nap and thought I had him out cold. I laid him in his crib, still thinking he was sound asleep. BUT then I noticed he had this funny little smile on his face. I bent down to look closer, thinking to myself "Oh how cute, he is having a good dream". Then right when my face got close to his the smile got WIDER, his eyes popped open and he began to laugh. "Ha, just kidding mom!" He was TOTALLY faking it! The little stinker. I think I'm in trouble when this boy turns into a teenager.
That if it wasn't for women, especially women over 40, democracy as we know it would fall apart because there would be no one to run the polls.
I am just curious, how many men did you see running the polls where you went to vote? I don't think anytime I've ever voted there has been a man volunteer running the polls. Usually it is all women. Is this just a strange phenomenon of my own life? What was the gender distribution of poll workers where you voted?
You can never have too many old pictures of suffragettes, especially ones pushing babies. I'm glad strollers have gotten a bit more high-tech since then.
So I think I've changed my mind-- I can do that you know. One of my friends pointed out to me that you can change the settings on your blog so that your blog won't be picked up by search engines (you go to "settings" and under "basic" there is an option to make your blog unavailable to search engines). I VERY much appreciate this little tidbit of information, because knowing this, I feel much better about keeping my blog public. I really was dreading making it private, but also didn't like people googling pictures of my nursling. Hopefully this will give me some measure of privacy and security. So I think that for now I've officially changed my mind and have decided NOT TO MAKE MY BLOG PRIVATE. I am still going to keep my heatherlady blog, even though I'm not exactly sure what I am going to do with it. Maybe a scripture journal blog? A place for excess thoughts? Random pictures? Hmm... I guess you'll just have to be surprised.
This was one of the best Halloween's I've ever had. I think that it was the combination of having a really fun costume, a baby to dress up and take around, and a great neighborhood trunk-or-treat. Also, the fact that Asher hauled in the candy and we (the parents) got to revel in the rewards... hehe. In fact, the very first thing I did when we got home was sort all the candy into piles! Ha, it made feel like I was 10 again. Jon and I even got in a fight over who got what candy. We ended up having to divide it equally, and then each of us hid our horde. Yep, it was 10-year-old heaven all over again!
Jon and I dressed up like mad scientists. I coated my hair with egg whites (which is a really good gel) , rolled it up in curlers, and then ratted it like mad. It was amazingly huge. It looked fantastic, but washing it and brushing it out is an experience I don't think I want to repeat anytime soon. I broke all but three of the tines on my pick! Ouchy mama.
Jon also got a dose of egg whites in his hair, and he wore these spooky orange contacts he got free from Wal-Mart a few months ago. He really played it up at the trunk-or-treat. We had a little table set up with his "experiments" (baking soda and vinegar, and milk, food coloring and dish soap). It was a big hit. I've decided I am a fan of the trunk-or-treat, especially when people decorate their cars and really get into the fun.
And Asher was Baby Einstein! I told you he was a genius! ;) I'd say his costume was a hit, and his hair just kept getting messier and messier as the day went on. He was adorable. I think his facial expression looks down right "Einsteinian".
I had to include this picture, I think it shows how big my hair was, and my facial expression is...um... scary!
Oh, and just for kicks and giggles, here is a link to Asher's costume last year! And for even more kicks and giggles, check out what Asher WILL NOT be wearing next year-- and yes this is a shameful plug to get you to read my other blog :)
I am a scripture loving, baby snuggling, chicken raising, fast swimming, home birthing, toast eating, doula working, modern dancing, muffin loving, Mormon wife, mother, sister, and daughter.
God Comes to Women
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*I wrote this as an Instagram/Facebook post for Easter and it has gone
viral in the past several days. I figured I better put it some place more
official s...
