Spend a little time here, if you are still on the fence...

Or...even if you are not.
This site has some solid information, free of drama and hyperbole.

The bottom line on where I stand is this:

I'm voting on Tuesday and my vote will be proudly cast for Barack Hussein Obama because I believe that any other vote would place the future of this nation in jeopardy.

I hope that those of you who do not share my view that a catholic not only may but SHOULD vote the Obama/Biden ticket will take a look at the information offered on the site linked in the title of this post. Just click on the title.

God Bless and Happy Voting!





Heather

How does your baby grow?

This picture is actually about a month old. I forgot to bring my camera with me to Pittsburgh (love that high-speed connection) so all her recent pictures are back in New York with Daddy.
MaryElise Kathleen Noonan, as of her SECOND MONTH checkup (that's over a month ago) weighed 13lbs 11oz. Got to love that Mama's milk!

Forgive me for being proud, but it's pretty darn cool to think all this growing came as a result of something my body made.

I would love to announce that my body is shrinking at the same pace that ME's is growing, but...we keep way too many baked goods in the house.

About a Boy

Ian is eight now. Almost nine, I guess. Not that I want to wish away the rest of our year. Im considering today how lucky I am to be able to homeschool...I get to spend more time with my little guy before he's too big to be my little guy any more. He is a delight with the baby. Tells me he enjoys changing diapers.
So, Im reflecting today on my little chicken whispering, arms-bearing, hugging and kissing, imaginationing, loving, helping, singing and humming, reading while walking little guy.
And being oh so very grateful.

MaryElise is One Month Old Today!

I know she looks like she's All Business in this picture, but we've been getting quite a few little smiles out of her these past few days at Nana's house. This new blue bouncy seat is responsible for a few of them. I got it via Freecycle for Nana's house but I think it's going to make the trip back to NY with us in exchange for the pink one we have there because she just loves this one and well, that one, not so much.

I like this one better, too. For one thing, where on the other model there is a heinous plastic toy bar, on this one there are nice lovely soft moon and stars hanging down. This one alleges it plays classical music but I think we will just let that feature remain untested. I have this thing about lighting up and playing music. Oh, and vibrating. Not big on the whole vibrating baby gear, either.

Of course, just after I snapped this picture, her big brother (or gas) prompted her to grant us the biggest, sweetest smile.
But, I was busy typing this.

Let that be a lesson to me.

Homeschool 2008-2009 Preview

Well, after some degree of back-and-forthedness about what exactly our year is going to look like with regard to work, commuting across state lines and school, Ive decided to continue to homeschool for now. These decisions were complicated by, and most likely caused complication with regard to, my pretty significant bout of post-partum depression which, thankfully, appears to be starting to subside. What helped was:

1. Deciding that making too many changes at once would be detrimental to my emotional well being and that of my family and
2. Deciding that I would have to be crazy to leave my daughter and return to work at six weeks, especially given my current psychological state.

Once I had these realizations, I started feeling better immediately. That's a pretty good sign that they are decisions that are good for me and my family.

I also think it would be beneficial for me to seek out some therapy in the weeks to come. My husband and midwife both agree.

So, the question of what to do this year in terms of school was looming over my admittedly clouded head, making it really difficult for me to make the decisions I needed to make. Im very pleased to be able to say that I have decided on the following in terms of curriculum.

We will continue the Core Curriculum/ What your x-grader needs to know series, moving on to third grade work this year. ()

I have found that the company has re-vamped their approach to be much more inclusive when it comes to homeschoolers, so that's an added bonus. There are resources available on the web and some in print, which I have purchased, such as a daily planner and teacher's handbook for the the third grade level.

Ive also chosen a new math curriculum, as I really feel like Ian has gone beyond what I am able to accomplish with the Waldorf methods we were previously using. We are going with this program:



It's a manipulative-based, real-world math program that stresses the basics and their real-life application. Some of the processes are carried out in ways that are totally different from what I learned at good ol St. Matthew School and the Institute of Notre Dame, so it should be interesting to learn along with Ian. Tim said the package of goodies arrived in New York today. Im excited but also apprehensive as Im hoping I made a good choice and did not invest our money in something we are not going to end up using.

As far as reading goes, we will continue with the Ian-directed reading choices with a few choices thrown in there by Mama as well and we will start doing some simple book reports this year, too. Ian is reading so far beyond his grade level that Im not sure exactly where to begin in terms of choosing the books he will read, but one of the first ones we will read will be "My Side of the Mountain" which Tim suggested based on his childhood relationship with the book.

We're going to follow the Core Curriculum for History and Geography which means we will use the Pearson book () which I managed to score on ebay for half the retail price. Sweet!

Spelling is an area on which I think we need to focus in a more formal manner this year, so Im still looking for a spelling book. Of course, vocabulary words from other subjects will be studied too.

Our neighbor, Onge Warner, recently a new mom as well, will be teaching Ian Art this year. We will do some theory at home, and of course integrate the arts into the rest of the curriculum, but she will be meeting with him once a week or so for formal art lessons, which I think is FANTASTIC!

i want to focus on the human body and its development in Health as well as fulfill all the stranger-danger-wear-your-bike-helmet stuff the state says we have to do.

In terms of music, Im not sure how we will supplement what's in the Core Curriculum but there's always lots of music at our house.

Honestly, Im feeling overwhelmed and trying very hard to put on my game face and move forward into the Fall Semester. That's probably why Im boring you with this post...If I see it all written in front of me, I can convince myself that I do have a handle on things and that we are going to be successful learners this year.

I do have a handle on things.
And we are going to be successful learners this year.

Pray for us.
Thanks.
H

Placentophagy

I wanted to include with this post a link to an article about placentophagy so that people could understand the biology behind the practice of consuming the placenta and how helpful it has been for me in my battle with postpartum depression, but unfortunately, most of the links I found when I googled the word were just blog entries by people talking about how "icky" it is.

Placentophagy is the practice of consuming the placenta after birth. It is practiced as a cultural ritual by some, and taken medicinally as a remedy for postpartum depression by others. I have to admit that when my midwife suggested I consume the placenta from MaryElise's birth, I was not enthusiastic about the idea. For one thing, upon googling it, I found instructions for separating the placenta from the membrane and baking it to produce a resulting meal that resembles liver, to be eaten with knife and fork. The idea of handling the placenta so extensively and then eating it as a liveresque main course squicked me out, I admit it. As Tim put it, it was "Too granola even for [me]."

My first memory of liver is that of my Aunt Gladys basically shoving it into my face encouraging me, in her own special way, to "Try it! Try it!". I remember it smelled bad. I didnt "Try it!". The only other experience I have with liver has to do with medical training. With that in mind, I decided that no, I could not filet and then bake my placenta and then eat it with knife and fork. Then my midwife mentioned eating it a different way, one that I could potentially stomach.

You may be wondering why we had the placenta two weeks after the birth. We had saved it in the freezer because I had hoped to plant a tree over it for MaryElise. What we ended up doing with it instead:

We thawed it in the fridge over night, then Tim, God Bless Him, processed it in the blender (which chose to die midway through the task) and poured the resulting froth into ice cube trays. Every day, I remove two cubes and process them in the blender with other ingredients"I to make a smoothie. And I have to say, the smoothies are really quite delicious. Not a hint of placenta flavor (whatever that may be). Mostly Ive been adding blueberries, juice, vanilla yogurt and bananas. Passion fruit juice is my fave so far.

Okay, so that's the how. "What about the why?" you ask.

Well, it turns out that postpartum depression that comes on quickly after the birth is a result of rapid, dramatic shifts in a mother's hormonal balance after birth. I basically had a huge stockpile of estrogen for nine months and then WHAM! none. It's like PMS a thousand times over. I don't know how else to tell you how bad it was except to say "It got so bad that Im eating my placenta in order to get rid of it." Yeah. That bad.

I will keep searching for a decent link. I want people to know about this because I think it's really important that we acknowledge that once again the body's wisdom is so perfect and once again our culture denies this fact by mocking the idea (I even found an entry on a blog site called "empower her" that did nothing but talk about how ICKY the idea is. How empowering!) or by denying the possibility that it actually works without doing any sort of research whatsoever.

oops, baby's crying.

Peace
Heather

MaryElise Kathleen Noonan, Day One 7-22-08

You must forgive me for not having posted this sooner. For some reason, even attempting to log on to the blog site from home crashes our internet explorer, so while I can access the site for reading (not much good when you're the writer) I can not post anything to the blog from home.

Well, she's here.
MaryElise Kathleen Noonan was born on July 22nd 2008 at 5:45am. She was born at home, just inches above our living room floor, where her Daddy did the catching and the cord cutting. My midwife arrived at around four am, after I had been in what turned out to be pretty rapidly-advancing labor since midnight. No contractions at that time, just water breakage. The contractions started around two, I called her at three, and well, the baby was on her way.

When Jen (my midwife) arrived, I had to confess that I had drunk a really putrid disgusting combination of vodka, orange juice and castor oil beginning around six pm the evening before in order to bring on labor. My mucous plug had been making its way out for days and I knew I was ripe. The Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year had arrived in the mail that day and i decided to go for it once I found the recipe inside. It only works if you are ready to be pushed over the edge, and apparently I was because just like clockwork, after some brief nipple stimulation, my water broke and we were on our way.

I know you are dying to see her as opposed to reading my description, so here is the first-ever picture of MaryElise, taken by Daddy, while the midwife was getting her dressed. She and I had been cuddling all naked and bloody for a while before the midwife cleaned her up a little bit and got her dressed in her tie-dye onesie and a nightgown. We had already nursed at this point, too.

I love homebirth!


The next pictures are of MaryElise and myself taking a Leboyer bath. Google it :-).




And here she is snoozing, looking just like her Mama.


Of course, she is almost a month old as I type this. There is lots more to blog, and I will do so this week, so thank you for your patience and keep checking back!
-heather and maryelise

Can't Sleep... There's this baby in my esophagus

Oh yeah, I remember this. It seems we (Mary Elise and I) have entered a new phase in our time as inside-baby and mama. The ol' Just Try and Get Some Sleep with a Watermelon-sized Infant in your esophagus phase.
Handily coupled with the "Was that a contraction?" phase.
Ah yes, I remember it well.
It's funny how they say the pain of labor escapes you just after it's ended. Sensory memories are a real funny thing, though, too.
And as my husband would say, "funny" is a funny word. Not so much funny ha-ha.
I had remembered before tonite that in the end I slept sitting up with a washrag in my mouth, but...
I had forgotten how much it kind of well not kind of but really...

What's the word moms are supposed to use in place of the word "blew"?

People keep asking me if Im "ready" but not in the context of wondering if Im really ready...rather in the context of "Are you so sick of feeling like crap that you just want that thing in there to come out already?????" And Ive tried really hard to gently assert that while there are inconveniences involved in carrying a full-fledged infant around inside my uterus, there is a bright side and that bright side is that I am not able for any of my waking hours to forget that, for the second and most likely (my husband's eyebrows just went up in his sleep, methinks...most likely???? Well, we know from experience that we can not tell the future...) last time in this lifetime

I am harboring a miracle.

But Im also thinking, just now in fact, as I sit up at two am with infant-on-the-esophagus, that there just might be something to the whole "God made the end so darn uncomfortable so we would eventually want to push the thing out" theory too. Kind of like The Teenage Years. It's going to happen. She is going to come out. And the moment she comes out, I get to touch her and look into her eyes and hear her voice for the first time, but I also encounter the new risk of forgetting I have seen and felt and heard a miracle. And maybe the Universe knows that, being the sort of person I am, Im going to need a little encouragement to cross that threshold.

So the Universe puts an infant in my esophagus for a few nights and asks again "Are you ready?".

Yeah, I think Im ready.

Just please, I pray, don't let me forget the miracle.

No Baby-on-the-Outside Yet, but...

I did discover that the hanging planter I'd been watering regularly since May was actually the home of four beautiful baby robins. Sorry about the regular flooding, mamabirdie!


Hello, baby!



And here are a couple of shots (taken by me) of baby-on-the-inside, who, according to our midwife, is about 7.5lbs and in prime position for delivery. I was even able to isolate a foot last night. Now it's up to Mary Elise to decide the time is right (preferably when we are not visiting my parents three hours away from home, like we are right now.)






Hello, baby!



Our friend Carmen came by last week and took (literally) a thousand pictures of my belly in all its engorged-gorgeousness. I was just so grateful. For one thing, she came on my birthday bearing not just a cake but an amazing home-made red velvet cake straight out of heaven's pantry. For another reason, belly pictures were something I had really hoped to do this time but there was just no way we could have afforded to pay someone. Carmen loves to take pictures of pregnant women (and bake amazing cakes) and it turns out she isn't averse to receiving incredibly relaxing, deep, holistic professional massages either, so we worked out a barter. Once she is finished with the editing process, I hope to display some of her beautiful work here.

And on a related topic...Id like to offer a little tidbit of pregnancy wisdom the universe just handed to me. If you are wondering, like I was "How will I know when my baby has 'dropped'", the answer is very simple. When you are able to eat a half pound of Candy Kitchen Fudge (the King Tut flavor, in this case) not only without nausea and vomiting, but without so much as a sense of being "full", you can be assured that your baby has, indeed, dropped.

Sailboat Recon

About a month ago, we got a call from our friend about a potential adventure that awaited us at the base of a waterfall in a nearby creek. Brian later admitted that before making the call, he asked himself "Who do I know that's unbalanced enough to try this..." and our family apparently sprung to mind.
Ian was watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies, a treat we had just picked up at the library, when we presented him with a choice: Would you like to stay here and watch the rest of this movie, OR...would you like to go and rescue a sailboat?
So, into the car(s) we piled...Tim and his boys in one car, Ian and myself in the Forester, and down toward the creek we went. It took a few encounters with some neighbor boys over the next few days to get the whole story, but apparently someone grew tired of this cute little orange sailboat and offered it to one of the local boys. The local boy decided it would be fun to try to ride it over the falls, as was evidenced by the boat's location upon our arrival and the apparent damage to the bottom of the craft. Our friend, Brian, had been out hiking when he noticed the bright orange and white vessel stranded in the creek and thought we might just be the people who would be adventurous (read: crazy?) enough to try to get it out.

Once the guy living across the street from the area in question commented that several people had tried (and failed) to remove this boat from its current situation, well, I knew we'd be there as long as it took to succeed.
And succeed, we did. We are now the proud owners of a lovely small sailing craft as well as some of the rigging we later found out was still in the original owner's back yard.

Here are a few of the highlights:


Tim in the thick of things. This was taken at the top of the ravine one one side of the creek. Without going onto someone's land, we could not explore what the other side looked like past what we could see from this side. From this side, it appeared to be just as treacherous. (In other words, no place for someone to be climbing with a sailboat on his back.)


The falls, viewed from the overpass.


After a period of time spent brainstorming, it was discovered that the land on the other side of the creek from where we approached was actually a lot more easily traversed and that if we hiked far enough up that side, we would eventually come to a place where we could just walk the boat right out of the water. Well, when I say "we" I mean the men (hey, Im pregnant, remember?) and when I say "walk" I mean "carry". But still, prior to this tidbit of info, we were considering trying to get it back up over the falls, so this plan sounded like a cake-walk.






With permission from the owner of the land, the men folk set off up to tow the boat up the creek and then carry it back to the starting point, on land this time, where we were able to secure it to the top of Tim's Jeep and Viola! the Nugent-Noonan's are now the proud owners of the sailboat Mary Elise.

Why I Homeschool

We are in the process of preparing for a new life and a potentially new way of life at our house. As I contemplate what to do about Ian's education next year (to homeschool. to enroll in public school, to enroll in catholic school), I glance out the window and see one of the Top Ten Reasons I Choose to Homeschool.

I imagine that Ian would not be permitted to attend school under either of the other options wearing his batman costume.

Been Busy Building a Baby

There is absolutely no excuse for not posting anythingto the blog in well over a month, okay almost two months.
Except that Ive been, um, kinda busy, you know, throwing up and feeling for kicks and taking naps and going to bed early and getting ultrasounds and finding out we are having a girl...
So, Im hopeful that little bit of information will inspire you, dear reader, to forgive me for not being a better blogger.

My husband, son and I went last week for my ultrasound at a local hospital. When I called to schedule the appointment, the secretary informed me that I would need to have a full bladder for the test.

Okay, did I mention that the baby has taken up residence on top of my bladder, kind of like one of those papasan chairs, for oh let's say about four weeks now? Yeah. I have to pee just about every fifteen minutes. And that includes during the night. Yeah. So, Im thinking to myself "Okay, self. You are going to have to suck it up and drink a bunch of water before you go because this might be your only chance to find out the sex of the baby and we want good pictures!"

So, the day of the big test comes along and I brace myself for the Big Hydration. I realize, though, that even though Im a Licensed Health Care Professional, I have No Clue Whatsoever how long it actually takes liquid to travel from one's stomach to one's bladder. So, to be safe, I decide I will drink 500cc's an hour before the test and then another 500ccs a half hour before the test. Cool.

We reach the testing place right on time and take a seat in what will turn out to be the first waiting room...waiting for my husband and for them to call my name. I already feel like my bladder is going to burst. And that's not hyperbole. It is painful for me to walk and I am finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything else. Ian is preoccupied with the large fish tank to my left, pointing out the different fish and monitoring their behavior. My husband arrives and sits next to me. At this time, I realize that it might be better for me if I sit further away from the constant trickle-bubble-trickle of the huge fish tank filled with gallons and gallons of water. I stand up to walk across the room and look at the paintings on the wall...until I realize that featured on the wall are three gigantic oil paintings of Niagara Falls.

Great.

If it didn't hurt so badly, yeah, Id be laughing. My husband laughed for both of us.

Once we were escorted to the second waiting area, I turned to my husband and said "I cant hold this any longer. Im in agony. I have to go!" He supported my decision, urging me to see if I can "do a partial" (must be a guy talent, Ive never "done a partial" in my life). I rationalize that I will probably be in this room for at least twenty minutes, and it didnt take very long for the last liter of water to reach my bladder, so I will just go to the bathroom and then drink another liter of water and it will be just fine.

As soon as I flush the toilet, I hear my name being called in the waiting room.

"She just went into the bathroom."my husband said. "She couldnt hold it any longer."

"Oh that's fine." said the technician. "She doesn't have to have a full bladder for this test."

Hurray for Perez Sisters Photography!

We are having some disc-drive issues, but I am able to share this one little gem with you.
Maybe I will have some time and the opportunity (Have I ever told you how much dial-up really really lacks? I know, it's a shocker.) to post something of substance here Some Time Soon.
Until then, my friends.
Please enjoy...a moment from our wedding on November 23 2007.