AmazonMidwife

So, I've been pondering on this Palin birth buareadh. It's just chock full of issues for me, no matter which way I look at it. Here's the best, most charitable angle from which I can view it: that the baby was indeed Palin's daughter's child, and Palin acted from a (misguided from my perspective) fear that having an illegitimate child would indeed ruin her daughter's life and created the charade pregnancy to save her daughter. (Yes, I know that it would also save her OWN reputation, and there were several degrees of self-interest involved. However, as I said previously, this is the MOST charitable reading I can give this situation.)

How can this be the best of all possible perspectives? Well, as per the title, I have judgement issues regarding Palin's parenting choices. I've had them ever since I heard that she was boasting about going back to work three days after having the baby. I know that economic necessity faced by some moms who indeed MUST return to work prematurely postpartum; I've been at some of their births. And, indeed, most postpartum mothers who have older children return to work prematurely as well, but that gets into a whole 'nuther rant re women and unpaid work. However, when I'm thinking about Palin, it's hard for me to imagine that the state of Alaska medical benefits forced her to return to work that soon. And, considering that our supposed President regularly takes a couple weeks off to go vacation at his ranch, I can't imagine that there would be such pressing matters in Alaska that Gov. Palin couldn't have handled them by doing a little work from home via the phone or with administrative aides shuttling back and forth a bit.

starts today. I'm also going to be curtailing my computer screen time to 30 minutes/day, time enough to check/answer email and our library accounts, but not time enough to blog or read blogs. So see you next week!

P.S. Went to the Billy Joel concert tonight and it was magnificent!!!. I so love classically trained pop musicians. Guess I'll have to analog and actually write an entry that I can type in next week.

I had a revelation Saturday while watching the Girl's soccer game: coaching a sport and midwifing a birthing mom use, in many ways, the same skill set. Both involve instilling self-confidence in one's body and its ability to perform the necessary tasks, looking for and praising said physical prowess, and carefully watching the athlete/mom while they are working to find ways to help them improve.

The medieval history class has two sewing projects back to back, so I've had little time to blog. Here's two of the kids dressed as Merovingian kings.

(Yes, the wigs are an important part; the Merovingians had a thing about long hair and virility, but they also had to fight, so they braided the hair in front into two braids, as we did, in case you can't tell from the picture.)

Okay, I have a confession to make. I avidly scout for [Columbus Alive](http://www.columbusalive.com/) to read...