Facebook Status and Other

I've dumped all my friends on facebook and am just using it for a larger networking tool.  It's great for pictures and finding people or feeling in touch with people who I haven't seen in a long time.  But it's better for getting all dramatic, for arguing, and for wasting time.  So I'm choosing to spend my time on a blog.  I mostly just want a place to go and say things.  I actually do better if I don't think anyone's going to read them like with a blog. The point of that is saying that I'll probably be doing a lot more posting on here again.
Anyway, our boy is 16 months now.  I cannot believe it.  He communicates really well and uses lots of words and signs to do so.  I'm actually impressed with how many words he knows and am sure that social interaction is his strongest skill.  He recognizes letters and numbers, saying "oo, ah, ee, ii" when he sees them.  He also does somersaults.  And he's potty trained!  That was awesome.  It's amazing to hardly wash any diapers anymore.  For a day or so I was wiping a lot off the floor, but was sooo surprised when that ended so soon.  I am thankful for my supporting family who all hold to the more old-fashioned way of diapering and potty training.  I'm also very happy that he is still nursing.  He is sick the past few days and doesn't want to do anything but nurse.  It is a praise worthy thing that God gave me something that is still so perfect for his nutrition, hydration, and comfort.  For that support, I thank the La Leche League and my friends here in Erie.  Before coming here, I was shy about breastfeeding but now I realize its vitality. 
I'm leading a table for MOPS this school year.  That's really brave of me because it takes a lot of scheduling and therefore organization.  It's weird because I crave organization but I think I typically just put it off and barely keep my nose out of the water.  I have 7 people at my table.  1/2 of us are steerers which means that we are part of the MOPS leadership and then the other 1/2 are regular moms coming for support.  The theme this year is 'Be You, Bravely.' 
I don't know what Bible study I will choose to be a part of this year.
Erie is great.  I liked it a lot more when I was more social and getting friends and going places.  Since about last fall, I just was so busy outside the home and felt like I needed to do more inside and be more routine with parenting.  I got to that point and then this summer hit.  It was a hard summer for whatever reason.  Now Jonathan is back in school and I think we'll fit right back in the saddle again. 
I'm pretty sure we are going to be on the faster track through medical school, which means 2 years of classes, only 1 year of clinical, and then residency.
E-mail me at auntelcia@gmail.com to let me know how you are doing!  I would love to hear.

Fertility Awareness After 6 Months Postpartum

This is an afterlogue to my other Fertility Awareness post which was about LAM.  Here I will explain the Basic Infertile Pattern and the Patch Rules.  The understanding of these is the crux of charting postpartum.

When you see a change in cervical fluid (CF) or you stop feeding your baby exclusively (nothing by mouth but breast every time Baby cues--day and night, not to exceed 4 hr/daily or 6 hr/nightly), OR it has been 6 months and LAM's 94% success rate is no longer enough for your family, this is when charting resumes.

I love postpartum charting!

Take your temperatures as accurately as possible.  When breastfeeding at night, getting up at different times, exhaustingly missing your alarm, drinking water, it is hard to make yourself take a temperature.  When you do take it, you feel like it's pointless because there are so many variables.  Try to take it at the same time every morning anyway.  Then if you are late, or any of the above, take it anyway and record it.  Anything helps.  Just think, that will probably be your only assurance that you ovulated, which will happen NOBODY KNOWS WHEN  (the ovulatory 'pain' doesn't always mean you're ovulating.  it can just be the feeling of eggs maturing or anything else ovarian).

When charting resumes, take 2 weeks without having sex.  Chart your CF daily.  If it is the same 'less fertile' quality (sticky/pasty/etc) day after day, that is your Basic Infertile Pattern (BIP).  Good news, this is the non-fertile normal until you experience an increase in CF fertility.  However (if you're like me), if during this 2 weeks, you have any mixture of fertile/nonfertile quality CF, your BIP is dry.  I'm not going to explain the rules that your BIP imply because I don't want people reading this and thinking I've explained something to them and using it.  Read, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler.

So we are using the Patch Rule, which means we abstain during fertile patches.  When infertile patches arise, we can have sex on the evening of the 4th nonwet day.  If I don't have that many nonwet days, sex isn't safe.  This is very conservative.  I doubt anybody avoids this way.  This provides that if that last wet day--you ovulated--then 4 dry days afterward would be way too long too achieve pregnancy.

Little One's up.  Loved One's home.

Sundays

"“It is more than comforting to realize
that it is those who have plumbed the
depths of failure to whom the Father
invariably gives the call to shepherd
others. This is not a call to the gifted,
the highly trained, or the polished as
such. Without a bitter realization of their
own inadequacy and poverty they are
quite unfitted to bear the burdens of
spiritual ministry." From the "None But the Hungry Heart" devotionals by Miles J. Stanford

I have been learning a lot from his works over the years.  It doesn't seem to me that I have been growing though, until lately.  Miles suggests that there are 3 things a Christian needs for growth in Truths, a hungry heart and prayer are essentials and then meditation is critical.  I am working to increase my prayer life.  It's odd how my whole life I kind of expected to just get into a season where praying was unavoidable.  I think this is because my mom is an avid pray-er.  She always said she prayed for us everyday of our lives because she loved us so much.  What a saint!  But I pridefully misunderstood that once I was a mother I would just be on auto-pray for my child.  The same thing happened with getting married.  I was so passionate before marriage, that I assumed I would just pray like crazy when I was married too.  Lately, it hit me.  I'm never going to get to heaven and have Jesus surprise me by saying, "I know you didn't realize you were a diligent pray-er, but all those thoughts you had counted, and indeed, your prayer life was huge."  No, praying is a work.  It is something you do out of love--true prayer.

I love the beginning quote because non-Christians always think Christians have such bad self esteem.  This passage says it perfectly.  No flesh is prideless.  Everybody either pridefully esteems themselves better than they are or pridefully extinguishes themselves as worse than they are.  The appropriate viewpoint is to humbly perceive others as more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3).  

Sundays are interesting because I always see so clearly (now that I actually enjoy church).  Then the rest of the week, I am either forgetful or depressed and the evil days just swallow up my life.  This is so annoying.

I know I haven't really said anything, but this is all I have.  If I say too much more, it will just--