PHSSA support - please!!

Although I've never wanted to be a teacher (I can't teach to save my life), I (obviously) think education is extremely important - look at how much schooling I did! It has also been my experience that alternative forms of education work much better than the standard that is presented in public schools. I attended a governor's school (nerds unite) as well as took college courses throughout high school, including a summer semester at Johns Hopkins. So when the Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts became a reality for Richmond Public Schools, I jumped at the chance to help out. Besides the concentration in science (hello! perfect!), the charter school opens so many opportunities to an alternative way of teaching that I just knew would be beneficial. Their focus is a integrative curriculum, which has been proven to work better than standard rote learning.

 As with anything new, the school has been met with major opposition from RPS. Of course they'd oppose it - although they have to fund the school once it opens, RPS has no say in curriculum, as the school is run by a board of directors, not the school board. So they have to put money in but  get "nothing" out of it. And although we have incredible support from the governor, we are still met with opposition from community members who think it is an excuse for the "white Richmonders" to send their children to an alternative school. Which is definitely not the case. Those who have enrolled make up an extremely diverse group - much like Richmond itself, including African American, white and Hispanic children.

As opening day of the school grows closer, we are met with more and more roadblocks from RPS. The building is an old one. It is not ADA compliant. However, we have set up a plan to make part of the building, the part that students would use the first year, compliant. However, we do not get funding from RPS until the school is actually open, which means not enough money to bring the entire school up to code before that. (Interesting is that a number of RPS schools are not ADA compliant either, yet they are open and have been for quite some time). Hence, we have found an alternative site for the first year. But we must depend on RPS to allow us to use this site (which is within walking distance of the school, so kids will still be able to work on their gardens, and identify with the school). Fingers crossed that the council finds it in their best interest, and that of the children in their city, to help us open and become the great school that we are striving to be:


April 2010

Dear Friends of PHSSA,
Times have been very busy here at the first charter school in Richmond. For a quick overview of some of the school's recent activities, visit the PHSSA website.
Currently, 95 students have enrolled at PHSSA. The most important and pending initiative for these families and the school is finalizing an alternate location for the school to open for 2010-11 school year. The PHSSA Board is working with the leadership at Woodland Heights Baptist Church to rent 10 classrooms, 2 common rooms and the dining hall in their Education Center from them for a period of up to a year. Since Richmond Public School Board and PHSSA Board have not solidified agreement on a lease for the Patrick Henry School building, PHSSA Board feels that this is the best option for PHSSA families. Read more about the details about the Education Center at WHBC (EC-WHBC).
Urgent: We Need Your Help

Getting PHSSA, the first charter school in Richmond, up and running has uncovered many unforeseen challenges. We have been working with Richmond Public School Board for two years to try and make this school a reality for the community.

This option to open the school at the EC-WHBC is not in PHSSA’s original contract with RPS and will therefore require a vote to be approved. PHSSA Board of Directors sent a letter to RPS School Board to request this change to the contract. They will vote to approve or deny this request on Monday, May 3rd at City Hall at 6 pm. We currently have 95 students enrolled in the school and the school needs community and family support to encourage school board members to approve this vote. Let your voice be heard!!

Here's what you can do:

Call, email and ask to meet with your school board rep before May 3rd and ask them to vote ‘yes’ on the alternate location for PHSSA. Find out who your school board reps at RPS's website.

Ask your friends, family, neighbors, relatives to do the same.

Blog and write letters to local newspaper editors about how PHSSA is important to your family and this city!

Attend the RPS Board Meeting on Monday, May 3rd at City Hall at 6 pm. Speak during public comments period and tell the school board members why you think PHSSA is important to your community and your family. Ask them to vote 'yes' on alternate location. See the guidelines for public comments. Contact RPS Clerk Angela Lewis at alewis@richmond.k12.va.us or 804.780.7716 by this Friday, April 30 at noon to register to give comments at the May 3rd meeting.

PHSSA is ready to open the school and has the funding in place to run the integrated curriculum program. The challenge PHSSA is facing is that the PH building is not renovated and ready for children yet. This is why the PHSSA Board of Directors sought out an alternate location. Now RPS School Board needs to approve this alternate location. Please ask them to approve it and help make this school a reality for Richmond!

Thank you so much for your support of the first charter school in Richmond!

PHSSA Board of Directors

http://www.patrickhenrycharter.org/

Working with mommy guilt

I've worked very hard for where I am in life right now. And I'm having major mom guilt, because I'm not guilty about it. I went to 5 years of undergrad (I switched my major my junior year to biology - not the easiest way to go), took a year off to work in the biotech industry, and then went back to school for another 5, almost six years of graduate school to get my PhD. This may tell you what kind of person I am - I really like my work, I like going to school.  When I got pregnant I was super excited, I've also always wanted to be a mom (I also really wanted to be pregnant, and I loved every minute of it). But I always knew that I would never ever want to stay home with my baby. And I still don't. Sure, I'm a little jealous of the fact that my husband gets to wake up to her shining face every morning smiling at him. I get to do that on saturdays and sundays and its that moment when she opens her eyes and sees me and gives me the biggest grin that makes me completely melt. And yes, I do wish I could go for a walk with her around 10am and get coffee and just hang. And no, I don't enjoy having to ask my husband what her cry may mean or what her schedule is, b/c i feel like those are things I should know. But I know that I could never do those things. I could never spend all day at home. I'd go crazy - absolutely batshit insane. Now when I get home, She reaches for me and its so sweet and she cries when i leave the room, which i secretly love. and weekends are so important to me to have that time with her. But that amount of time - its just perfect. I'm not sick of her, I'm not (usually) frustrated with her. I can handle her when my husband is at his wits end after a day with her when she's teething. I don't even mind being up in the middle of the night with her, as long as there is no kicking, scratching or hair pulling involved. hair pulling, by the way, is her newest favorite thing. So I love my daughter, but I love my job too. Do i love it more than my daughter? of course not. But i do feel  mommy guilt. Because sometimes, I would rather leave for work than stay home. But I think I'm a better mom for it.

jack's letter to the prez

Dear President Obama,

I saw online today that you might be headed to South Africa for part of the FIFA World Cup this summer.  That reminded me of something I have been meaning to write to you about since I first heard this rumor last year.  While I sincerely hope you go and enjoy yourself, I have a personal request to ask if you do.

My father, John Lavelle, works at the US Embassy in Pretoria, where he is the Admin officer.  I am traveling with my wife and daughter to South Africa in June to visit him and my mother and to watch the World Cup (Yes, I am excited. Thanks for asking).  We will be there the week before the Cup starts and for the first two USA games of the opening round.

Fortunately, my father got tickets to all three USA games in the group stages.  My father does not yet have any tickets to go to knockout round games, but I am sure he will try to as our guys continue to play (fingers crossed).  Which gets us to my problem.

If you come to South Africa, my father will not be able to go to whichever game you attend, and quite possibly, any game near where you attend.  Obviously, he will have to work.  I am sure that by now you know how big a production it is when the White House starts moving around the world.

While I know that the news recently reported that you would most likely be going to South Africa if the US team advances to the knock-out stages, for much longer the rumor has been that you might go to the opening ceremony or our first game against England.

So, now I get down to my specific request.  I am very much looking forward to enjoying games at the World Cup with my Dad.  Please help us out and stay away until after my family and I leave South Africa on June 19th, or help make sure my Dad can go to the game with me if you are there.  In fact, you might consider taking him with you if you go to a knockout game.  He is a big fan of the game and the reason I love soccer.

Please understand, this is not about you at all.  This is about your office and my father's job.

Thank you very much for your interest and time.

Take care and good Luck,

Jack Lavelle

P.S. White House staffer - Please help us out and pass this along...at least to the scheduling office.  Imagine that you are in country for the World Cup.  You have tickets and your family is traveling thousands of miles to visit you, yet you get called into work.  And I'm not talking about a softball game or a "Hey, honey - can't make it to the movie tonight. Gotta go to work" kinda thing.  This is the World Cup.

springtime placental planting

we worked in the garden this weekend. jack added some great compost to each garden ( and i mean great soil - almost black - which is a good thing for soil. seriously impressed by our hands-off, hand-made compost bin). and...we finally planted the placenta! now i won't get that and steak mixed up in the freezer. serious disappointment there. we moved the blueberry bush and planted the placenta underneath it. now we'll have blueberries fed by the blueberry. sort of. it was seriously gross and squishy. i wanted to make a sort of personal cermeony of it (get all misty eyed and think of her birthday..you know, sappy mom stuff). but it was too gross and bloody. so i just chunked it down the hole. happy birthday!

i love the springtime and the warmer weather. i kind of don't even mind the occasional cool days. mostly i love this time of year b/c there are fun things happening all over town. these are where i will be:
-french food festival...mmm crepes
-spring bada bing!
-maymont plant sale - peppers, cukes, green beans, peas
-lewis ginter plant sale - lilly of the valley, hopefully
-arts in the park
-mommie dearest and steel magnolias at movieland movies and mimosas
-lebanese food fest
-tuckahoe plantation

and on to south africa! we have tickets for both the US games while we're there (ahem, yes US v. England. ah injured Becks, I'll miss seeing your hot ass playing). I was kind of bummed we're going to miss a lot of fun things around richmond (beer fest, broad appetite, the potential blair cooke harry potter themed bday party), but of course south africa is going to be way cooler. and cooler. we're shipping winter clothes out there this week. i was hoping for safari but since its winter there, we're not sure how much we would actually be able to see. but the in-laws are trying to make it work!

and one more thing i'll be doing once the peppers come in:
making my own siracha.

mamas in the media

this is great to finally hear, it even made it on the abc morning news. and also in the mainstream media was this article and this in fit pregnancy. its nice to see the media getting away from advising women to get a c-section and use formula, backed by evidence-based facts - and the natural process of child birth. the more articles advising for nature and against unnecessary technology, the better the chances that doctors and mothers will go that way - or at least try.
oh and did anyone see pg 1239 of the health care bill?! luckily for me, I work at a company that has an overabundance of pregnant/lactating women so the upper managment (all men btw) have no choice but to provide us with a room in which we can "do what we need to do" or there would be a supreme revolt. granted, when i got moved out of my office and into a cube in the middle of the lab (it was my second week, i couldn't really complain or argue), i lost my lovely ability to pump and work at the same time. but i was able to join two co workers in their office for our twice daily "pumping parties" - please return in ~15 minutes. but i can't imagine being in an office without such privacy (and i know of two new mamas that are having this issue), that are considering pumping in a bathrrom. beyond icky. and i think the only real way to get support is if there is another mama who has been in that position making executive decisions. and unfortunately, espec. in my field that doesn't happen often.

Healthy Birth Blog Carnival

http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/ is hosting a Healthy Birth Blog Carnival  with the theme this year being:

Avoid giving birth on your back and follow your body’s urges to push

So everyone knows that I gave birth in a giant horse trough (or birthing tub, as it would more commonly and nicely be put) in the middle of our living room. What most don't know is that both the midwife and my husband insisted throughout my entire labor  that the labor would last well throughout the day (as it was my first, and most first moms take awhile) and that I should just work through it. I knew (as most mamas do) what was actually going on with my baby and my body, and she wasn't going to wait around all day to be born. I tried my hardest to be calm when my midwife insisted on taking her first appointment of the morning before coming over, but I knew (I KNEW) that she was coming whether the mdiwife was there or not. And all I wanted was to get in the tub and puuuush. My midiwfe arrived and announced, "you're ready to push!" Well, duh. I climbed in the tub - ahhh the absolute best feeling that could be had while having contractions. I started to push almost immediately - b/c we were READY. I didn't need coaching or encouragment. I knew what to do and when to do it.  I couldn't imagine a doctor telling me that I couldn't push. Or to wait.  The best part was the ability to be in the tub and stand and let gravity help this baby come out. Doctors and medical "professionals" can say whatever they like, LOGICALLY speaking, gravity will work with you if you let it, it will also most certainly work against you if you lay on your back and expect to be able to push a 7lb, 20 inch long baby out.
From an anthropologic point of view - women have been birthing for over 2 million years. Women have not had beds and stirrups and forceps and someone telling them - don't push! don't push! Women have squatted in a field, between the gathering, and let gravity and their bodies help them to birth. They listened to their bodies. They didn't ask for epidurals (which, by the way, numb the lower half, thus forcing someone to lay on her back and making it that much a harder and longer labor); their bodies were designed to give birth. That is the evolutionary POINT of women - to further the species. We are mammals. There are no mammals in the wild, giving birth on her back with legs in the air. Because it just doesn't work that way.
My labor lasted 10 hours - start to finish. I pushed for about half an hour. No medicine, no machines, no intervention at all. I had the most beautiful healthy baby, completely coherently and the way I wanted to.

updated life

with spring comes some major changes at our house! we have given up netflix, the gym membership, alcohol during the week and meat! no, not meat entirely, just cutting back.
giving up the gym membership is my way of spending more time with my family. it was so hard to get to the gym - because i'd so much rather be at home with the family. and we live so close to the vita course, i'd rather take the baby on walks there or walk oliver around the neighborhood than pay to go to the gym.*sidenote - gold's gym makes it very annoying to cancel. especially if you signed up at the fan, but tried to quit at willow lawn. and the dumb girl at willow lawn didn't mention you'd have to go to the fan to quit. ever heard of a fax machine for the stupid "written" notice they make you sign?
netflix was a hard thing to give up, but since we've gotten cable, we really haven't watched anything from netflix. and we can find most movies and tv shows on the internet. speaking of tv shows i want to watch: fringe is starting back up. i watched this when it premiered and was very excited baout it. its very x-files-ish. i kept missing episodes and then stopped watching it altogether. but malissa kept insisting it was so good and after reading the EW article, i am again intrigued. but now i need to watch all the old episodes i've missed. so hulu, here i come. i'm also in true blood withdrwal. i read the entire series. not quality reading in any way, but seriously enjoyable. i've only been able to watch the first season on dvd (b/c the other one isn't out - very annoying). so i will search for this on the internet as well. and i have a major backlog on my dvr - flash forward, bones, project runway, big bang theory (yes, i love the nerdy science humor). i'm scared to add anything else - shear genius, rupaul...it will end up like my netflix cue - i'll never get to all of it! i suppose its a good thing, i'm not watching too much tv. but whats the point in having cable if i can't watch all of these quality shows?! ah but this blog was not supposed to be about my tv watching habits. although anyone who knows me knows i love my stories.
we have friends who have inspired us (jack mostly, i was laways on board) to cut back on meat and alcohol. it has gotten expensive and of course unhealthy. i'm very excited about the no meat goal, i prefer to cook without meat and generally don't enjoy a lot of red meat. i will miss my nightly glass of wine. but yea for new recipes!
the warm weather has me very excited (not to mention the 3.5 day work week this week). we went to lowes and bought quite a few plants for the gardens - not everything i wanted, but there's still time. plus the two best plants sales - maymont and lewis ginter are at the end of the month, so we can stock up then too. i may make a trip to strange's to see if theres anything they have that lowe's didn't that i can add. specifically i'm looking for some cukes, peas, green beans, and hot peppers. i want to try  some melons again but had  a hard time with them last year. new to the garden this year: broccoli and bok choy.
i'm also extemely excited for the farmer's market to start up again soon. although we haven't really been making use of our CSA at fall line farms, i'm sure the coming season will make it much better - with a lot more produce. right now its all meat, which goes very poorly with our new goal. i'm also hoping herban avenues will start stocking some products - they're citrus hand soap is so good!

new links:
i like this girl! http://www.alittlepregnant.com/

must. make. these. http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/04/crinkle-bots.html#more

i have business cards! i need something to put them in! http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/03/business-card-holder.html