1676
i just checked this blog and that's how many comments there are on her most recent post from October 14. i'll probably never have that many comments in my whole blogging career :) but it's a huge number ~ even for her blog, where she almost always has comments in the hundreds. The response is to her blog post about October 15th being the National Day of Remembrance for pregnancy and infant loss... She invited readers to post and share about their precious losses & there has been this huge response. i started reading some of the responses & found myself incredibly moved. i know that most of the people who read my blog are women who, like me, have lost a baby, & so you know that there's this lonesome silence out there... but it was unbelievable to me to read those comments, & hear the pain of early miscarriage, SIDS, stillbirth, and horribly regretted abortions. i thought of the women in my church congregation ~ where there's still so many that i don't know ~ or only know on a very surface level... likely at least 1 in 3 has experienced this type of loss. i love that there's a National Day of Remembrance in the States... we need one here too.
Also... i know, i didn't post about the election at all. i voted here, knowing that the man i voted for shares my convictions on human life ~ but for those of us that hoped that a Conservative government would mean some protection for the unborn, there is bitter disappointment. i wonder if our economic collapse has anything to do with our complete ethical & moral collapse... i know i've said this before & i keep saying it because we don't talk about it enough & people don't even know that *this* is the reality in Canada: there are no legal restrictions on abortion. Abortion is legal at any stage of pregnancy. There is *no* parental consent required for women (children) 12 years of age and over, and this "medical" procedure is paid for by our tax dollars. Canada has taken an extreme stand on this issue ~ it is one of only a few nations that have gone to this extent to protect a woman's right to end her child's life. There are about 30 abortions performed for every 100 live births in the country right now... & honestly... unless our hearts change, i can't see that number dropping.
My sister has her baby's 3D ultrasound picture as the screensaver on her computer... So sweet. Little peaceful babe...
Before we went to the Walk To Remember, i went on Youtube & looked at the 3D ultrasounds of babies at 16 weeks (how far along Caleb was when he died...) We need to look at these images & grapple with the fact that *these* are the innocent, the helpless, the unwanted, the 'least of these' that are too inconvenient for our politicians to make laws to protect.

i was reading in the Today's Family email i got this morning that they've developed a new test for Downs Syndrome ~ & the story said something that broke my heart. i was going to type "shocked me" but, really, that's just not true anymore. It said that around 90% of babies diagnosed in utero with Downs are aborted in the US right now. i followed the link to their source & found this quote:
But Dr. Will Johnston, president of Canadian Physicians for Life, reacted to ACOG’s pre-natal testing endorsement as another step toward eugenics.
“The progress of eugenic abortion into the heart of our society is a classic example of “mission creep,’ ” Johnson said in an article posted on the group’s Web site in February 2007. “In the 1960s, we were told that legal abortion would be a rare tragic act in cases of exceptional hardship. In the ‘70s abortion began to be both decried and accepted as birth control. In the ‘80s respected geneticists pointed out that it was cheaper to hunt for and abort Down’s babies than to raise them. By the ‘90s that observation had been widely put into action. Now we are refining and extending our eugenic vision, with new tests and abortion as our central tools.”
No wonder it makes me nervous to go to the doctor when i'm pregnant. i do refuse all the tests, but i wonder in a profession that is so bent on a search and destroy mission, if my views on the sanctity of life would be shouted down? What if we're better off letting little ones grow 'in the secret place' ~ unwatched & untested?
"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous- how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered." ~ Psalm 139:13-17

Home again.
Thanksgiving 2008 was so good ~ again, hosted by my middle sister~ & with the 3 sisters' families, my mom & dad & my gramma & grandpa (ancient one & gg... i kid you not, they chose those names...) there were twenty-eight people there! The cousins went crazy eating cookies & treats, riding horses, catching bunnies & apparently, Charter rode a goat. They performed their musical & played music, got way too little sleep & too much sugar.
So, i'm home again.
Sort of.
Home implies my heart is here, but he's somewhere in Toronto right now... *sigh*. We dropped Neil off at the Edmonton airport & then continued on to Calgary by ourselves. Hopefully this week goes by quick...

Daddy school...
So, Molls is my only 'preschooler'. Gage is just a baby & all the rest are doing 'real' school & Molls is miffed. i try really really hard to have 'school' for her to do... cutting, pasting, writing, drawing, colouring... but sometimes i just give her my most excited face & say, 'darling, YOU get FREE TIME now!!! Lucky YOU!!' & her face crumbles & she tells me, 'but, momma, i NEED to do school, i WANT to do school!!'...
So, yesterday was kinda busy & i didn't get any time to do school with Mollen. It was bed time & i hate to let a day go by without reading with my 6yo, so he was in bed with me doing his reading & Molls found us & gave me a look like i was Judas. She just started crying & was so upset that i didn't make the time for school, so Neil said, 'c'mon, we'll do daddy school'... She looked at him like, 'um, are you sure you know what you're doing, dad?' & then started to go get her books, but he said, 'nope, you don't need books for daddy school, come on in bed... ' reluctantly, she gave up the idea of getting her books & pencils & crawled into bed beside him... & they did math on their fingers, counting by 10's & visited up a storm.
ahhhhh... daddy school. Every little one needs daddy school....

humph...
i wanted to post about all the little 'homeschooly' extras that i love... i love that my littles wrote a musical for Thanksgiving, & that Cai can pick up her fiddle to practice for 5 minute chunks 10 times during the day ~ i love that my children bake, play with each other & i like watching a big kid sitting on the couch, coaching a little kid through a reading exercise they did several years ago.
but...
today is a gong show... i spent an hour cleaning out our supplies cupboard because our supplies had scattered to the 4 corners of the universe, when i went to put Gage down for his nap, all the little students also scattered to the 4 corners of the universe (i can hear the 3 younger ones playing cards in the basement & who knows what the 2 oldest are doing up in Cai's room... hopefully it's educational?), it took me until almost 11am to get the kitchen cleaned up from breakfast & usually i've got a ton accomplished by 11: history, bible, *all* of Charter's school & half of Peytons...
What happened today?
Well, we're going to my sister's house for Thanksgiving, so i had to prepare & freeze my casseroles i'm bringing (the buns & cookies we did last week...), one who will remain unnamed asked me if New Brunswick is in Canada, after we've been studying the provinces & territories for the past 3 weeks. *sigh*.. The kids had to practice their play that they're putting on for the family, & we had to gather props, costumes, deal with an uncooperative 4yo, & a little baby who kept finding teeny things to stick in his mouth, there was some poooooopy diapers that needed attention this morning & i started to feel a little overwhelmed.
This is homeschool.
The reality is: life happens ~ i love how C.S. Lewis put it ~

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.” The Quotable Lewis, (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1989), 335.

So, now, it's 11:41. i can add, 'i blogged' to my meager list of accomplishments today. i can call the littles up & we can review... again... the provinces & territories that make up our fair nation & i can embrace today as another little stepping stone on the course set before me.
Away we go...