CCl Convention 2008: Day 1

We started out this morning with breakfast, which made all the kids happy since they started asking for food the minute they woke up. I was off to a slow start, because I haven't slept well since our trip started. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it's taking me 1-2 hours to get back to sleep. But thankfully, I'm not feeling really tired. Good thing too, because the conference center is located on a hill, so we are climbing some major inclines to get from one building to another. I hope this means I'm burning off all the calories I've consumed on this trip.

Joshua was assigned to what they call "day camp," the girls are classified as "preschoolers," and Gabriel was in a "baby" room. So we had to drop off kids in 4 different rooms, but the younger 3 were all in the same building, so it wasn't a big deal at all. Joshua's pavilion was at the very top of the hill, so I told David he'd be the one to go get Joshua every day. :-)

Our first presentation was by Andy Alderson, executive director of CCL. He had prerecorded his talk because his wife recently had surgery, so he was not able to be there in person. But he explained where we are with teaching the new method, plans for the future, etc. They are currently working on a program that would allow couples to register and pay for the NFP classes online--which would be a huge (and means we wouldn't have that administrative duty anymore).

Next up was Dr. Katherine Dettwyler (who taught at Texas A&M from 1987-2000). She is a biological anthropologist known for her research, writings and presentations on breastfeeding (BF) and weaning. I really liked her talk--to much detail to go into here, but here are some highlights that struck me because I didn't know that:

- There are cases of mothers who are accused of sexual abuse because they are BF,

(particularly an older child), and the fathers are fighting for custody.

- Also cases where CPS has been called in to investigate a mother whose older child is

BF. I thought this pretty sad since this shows how unfriendly we are as a society towards BF.

Dr. Dettwyler stressed that she wasn't trying to be a bully about BF. Those of you who know me well know I didn't BF Joshua for a number of reasons (I did the other 3 kids). But she did say this, and I want to quote her exactly"

"Every child deserves to be breastfed as long as he/she wants/needs to, and every breastfeeding mother deserves to be supported in breastfeeding the child as long as she wants to."

Later on, Dr. Dettwyler also gave a mini-workshop about promoting BF without promoting the guilt that is often pushed onto mothers who choose to bottlefeed. Again, too much detail to go into here, but in a nutshell, she stated that we are all responsible to give a mother as much information as possible about BF AND bottlefeeding so that whichever she chooses, the decision is an informed choice. Of course, she did emphasize the benefits of breast over bottle, the risks associated with bottlefeeding, etc. I am not here to step on any one's toes however, so I won't say exactly what she did, since it will likely offend someone. To me, whichever works best for the mother is what she should do. I only offer my opinion if someones asks me outright. As a CCL Teacher, I am responsible for promoting BF as a natural means of child spacing in addition to teaching a couple how to chart. I do like to learn more about the BF aspect because women will ask me all kinds of questions in our classes, and I always pray I have the knowledge to give the correctly/informed answer. Obviously the ladies will ask me all the questions about BF, not David :-).

We're about to head down to dinner, then I have to find the local laundromat (no, there is not one here on the conference grounds-- very disappointing), because we are running out of clean clothes to wear! I have 12 dollars in quarters, which better be enough (it wasn't- I had to use 4 more dollars to finish up the drying). But we wore our Texas A&M t-shirts today, and we got lots of compliments. Here's a picture of how awesome we looked.

David decided to have some fun at dinner with all the straws on the table. He put about 6 little straws together to make one really long one. Rebecca thinks her Daddy is so cool. Little does she know Daddy is just a big kid.

And here's a picture I just had to post of the littlest, cutest Aggie!

Don't you just want to eat him up?

More talks and workshops tomorrow. More chatting and catching up with other families. When we went to our first convention 2 years ago, I felt were a "small" family because we had "only" 3 kids. Now that we have 4 kids, we're an average family. Are we destined to be a "large" family? Honestly, I don't think so, but I'm sure not going to tell God-- I know better than that! But to see so many families with lot of kids sure gives one courage (if she can handle 6, 7, 8 kids, then surely I can handle my 4, right?)

Ann Gunlach, one of the executive staff of CCL told me today she gets web alerts when something NFP or CCL relates pops up on the Internet. Apparently, my blog is coming up on her search program. So, does that make me famous? Probably not, but I was tickled :-).

Time for bed... I am tired tonight. Please pray that I sleep better!