Pregnancy Update: New Doc, Happy Mama

I met with the new doc for an official prenatal yesterday. There were some complications with the timing of the actual appointment, something happened at the hospital and then the doctor had a death in his extended family. That left me waiting for about an hour before actually seeing him. In that hour I read half a sci-fi novel (and it really was not very good) and then opened up the folder they gave me as a new patient.

Wow. The packet outlined every single visit and what to expect. The cost of each test or exam. What tests were standard and included and what test might come up. It took about 4 pages for that. Then they spent a small section on possible emergency situations and what to expect, including that their C-Section rate, including elective repeat C/S is only 15-20%! That is really amazing. The first group I was with was 35-40%, but to be fair they do take on more high risk patients in general.

Prenatal vitamins are provided as part of the package, but the doc said with my awesome diet I don't need them. I take the ones I already have anyway though. It can't hurt and sometimes I feel like I'm not eating enough veggies.

So the visit itself....the doc sat down and went over all of my pregancy records, from the infertility pre-Lil'Bug through this pregnancy. Asked about every screening, every test, every complication listed. Went over family health history in detail. I mean, he actually read my file. I'm not sure my other docs ever did that and they are the ones who cut me open.

This was the first time I have ever felt at ease with a doctor, let alone a male doctor. I have issues, I know and I work on those issues, but this time I actually felt like the doctor cared. 

He did the belly check and was concerned about the measurement as it put me father along then the charts indicated, but he pointed out that I am short waist-ed and that would account for that. Just to make sure, he asked to do an ultrasound. Yes, he asked. Since I had canceled the genetic screening ultrasound in DM that would check for the spinal deformities that run in my family, I agreed. He checked for the spine and heart health first. Yes, he did the ultrasound himself, not a tech called in. All is well with baby and he even pointed out that the baby looked smiling. That's the note he put on the picture print too, SMILING BABY. So sweet.  The dating is still questionable though, but he said we'll stick with the first ultrasound's date since it is later, December 1st. Another point for the doc, in my book.

He's still ok with us attempting vbac2. He said he would go over my surgical records and make sure nothing was noted that would indicate that I couldn't. He's very thorough. I like that. All in all my actual appointment time with him was an hour and a half. Pretty impressive.

Everything is just right. Even the nurses are kind. :)  Funny thing is that I keep losing track of how many weeks I am, just the due date sticks. So for the record, right now I am 15.5 weeks.

Chores, a Thinking Response....

I was discussing a few days ago what chores my kids do, what ages are appropriate for what chores.

What immediately came to mind was our Amish neighbor who's 6 year old son (and his 2 other son's and a couple nephews) helped him build a roof on a two story house. Each helped according to their skill and ability. Sometimes, even most of the time, the youngest just sat and watched, fetched tools, and the like- BUT there was a hard to get to joist inside the porch roof being rebuilt and he's the one who crawled in with the drill and got that end. Too young? I don't think so. I mean, the Amish obviously are doing something right considering.

After being blessed to witness that and that same week hearing a lovely piece of wisdom from a local homeschooler (never turn down kid help, and don't question its value or redo it if you can help it or it won't happen again)...I decided to adopt a middle ground. Our farm needs to function with a degree of safety and I can't do everything.

I think kids today are underestimated. Not given enough responsibility and that does them a disservice. So my girls do chores WITH me. All of them to varying degrees, to each their own ability. I'm not building houses here, but I do think it is important that they learn the cost of things, how to budget for food and needs, how to purchase things, how to clean and keep organized, nutrition, food preparation, laundry and dishes, and basic household management things. I have had to learn as I go as an adult and that has done a disservice to my family. The one thing I did know was how to balance a checkbook (thanks Dad!) but that doesn't always make the money fairy show up at our door. Ha! Seriously though. These skills are extremely important and they are an apprentice trade by nature.

Why relegate your kids to just trash take out or some other small insignificant chore? Why not have them help you with it all and make it an important part of your life? I think that part of the problem lies in how we view these tasks, as degrading. They are not. They are the ying to the yang of the breadwinner or the ying to the yang of the farmer and labourer. One needs the other and both thrive when seen as equally important to the growing family. Sounds a little old fashioned  I suppose.

Honestly I need to set a better example even still for my children. I am improving, at a steady pace. I decided not to beat myself up and just keep working on it. In the next couple months I plan to revamp our clothing and laundry system because I have serious issues there. For now, clean clothes in baskets will have to do. Mt. Washmore is not yet ready to be conquered, for now......

Back to the issue at hand. There are some chores Lily does completely on her own. I read somewhere recently (I can't find it!) that kids need chore guidance in this order:
1)watching
2)helping with full assistance
3)helping with little assistance
4)doing with supervision
5)doing with no supervision and a check later
6)doing with full trust and responsibility

A lot of chore discussion just skips from #1 and assigns tasks at the #5-6 level. That is a bit unfair to the kid. What if you were training for a job and that was done to you? You'd probably adapt, but it would be frustrating and a negative experience most likely.

So what does my 5 year old do with full responsibility? Nothing. Not yet. Right now there is always a double check later even if she doesn't realize it because her chores involve livestock and that is ultimately our responsibility. But at the #5 level, she lets the chickens out, takes them scraps, collects and washes eggs, feeds them their grain, and fluffs their nests. She does all of that without being asked, every morning. She feeds and waters the cat. She's in charge of making sure the bathrooms have toilet paper and on dump run day she collects bath and laundry room trash bags. She collects cans out of Dearest's office. At the lesser levels, she does almost EVERYTHING I do. Yes, everything to a degree. I say almost because the pigs are big enough now that she is not allowed in the pen, but her part of that chore is to watch her sister for 15 minutes. She does a great job too. She helps wash the whey buckets, load and unload them. She does a lot of things, too many to list. And she still PLAYS most of the day. Sometimes I'll go check on her and find her taking care of a task unasked, just because she saw that it needs to be done.

She surprises me sometimes with what she is ready for, what she is willing to help with. And I know her limits better now than I did when we lived in the city. We also don't do allowances. She does earn money, but she saves most of it for her future horse. She earns that by collecting metal and glass from the drive and the field that the horse will be kept, 5 cents a piece. That serves a double purpose, since those items would hurt the horse (and the tractor/car tires). Sometimes she gets mad and breaks things, money for repair comes out of the horse $ jar. Sometimes she asks for extra chores and then buys something little for her sister or one of her friends. But the $$ are not related to the "chores" that are key to keeping our home healthy and happy.

That's my take on it. Perhaps it is a little radical considering what everyone is used to, but it works for us most of the time! :)

Some big news, and some little news

Yesterday while burning a pile of wood I found a snake - I was able to grab it and MamaP and the girls pulled in to the driveway while I was looking for a place to keep it until they arrived.


The big news (for me anyway) is that it was a new species for me - a Brown Snake. I had assumed the snake was a baby but it was probably at least close to being an adult. It was extremely docile, so I let Lily bring it back to field to set it free. Even Holly got to hold it, but we didn't get a pic of that since I was helping her.


In other, much smaller news, I managed to fix the hot water heater. The board that had to be replaced is below. The heater is a tankless heater from a brand called Paloma, that was bought out by a company called Rheem. Overall the customer service on the phone was really good - inefficient (I was transfered about 4 times) but very helpful. I told them my error code, and about 20 seconds later he was getting my address to ship the part to me. When I ran into a problem with the installation related to some poor documentation, they were open on Saturday and explained the procedure to program the board very clearly - they were obviously familiar with the product and not reading from a script.



The offending board is here - the round things on the left side are capacitors, and the ones that look like they have a rounded top do, and aren't supposed to. They failed for some reason which is why we were receiving the error. The capacitors on the new board were a little different - I suspect they were replaced for that reason.

Deserting the dessert menu....

List of to do's today that are mostly done:
Dump run, hive check, and gas tank fill.

Now we still have:
Back at home.....plant a few more rows and work on flower beds. I am starting to wish we had our own chipper so I can make non firewood worthy storm fall branches into landscaping mulch. As it is I think I will just rake up grass clippings. I have zinnia's to plant! WOO!

I think an all day outside is just what we need.

So that's what is on the menu. I got to thinking about something this week. Lots of people have been posting pictures of desserts or listing out meals with desserts. Now, I love me some sugar, but the problem with desserts is that I eat them. I eat all of them. No, I eat all of all of them. No one else here really cares for sweets except Blueberry and she will forgo dinner if she knows there will be dessert.  I eat less of the good stuff too. Gobble gobble like cookie monster. Ice cream would last longer melting on the counter than in my presence. I love me some sugar.

Solution: I don't plan for desserts. I don't make them. We might have a before bed snack but it is cheese or meat or fruit. Hardly dessert menu worthy. So when we have a special occasion, the dessert really is special. Cake is not a common occurrence here. I've only ever made brownies once in my entire life and have not made them again because I would EAT them all nom nom nom nom.

I wonder when dessert became such a huge part of American daily life. You know?

Just my thoughts for the day.....