A short but great vacation

Last month the family and I went to Canada for my dad's side's family reunion. (I'll post that separately.) We made a mini-vacation out of it and spent some time in Maine visiting my best friend since childhood who moved up to Middletown, County Nowhere some years back. Here are some pics:After about six hours, we're all sick of being in the van, especially when baby-girl starts crying.

After a sumptuous dinner at the TGIChiliRubySteakhouse, Fric, Frac and Fred pile into their PJ's and the backseat cinema showing of Shrek on the teeny-tiny screen.

Mom and the boys on the bridge over Bad Little Falls.
(Note the vice-grip she has on two hands at once!)

Some of Bad Little Falls

Goofballs

Somebody has a great sense of humor.

My friend lives pretty close to Lubec, home of the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, at the easternmost point in the U.S.
By the way, the clapper on that bell is still attached. And it is LOUD.

Oh, big surprise, it was foggy. Visibility was about fifty feet over the water.

Our host and Fred.

Yes, it was July.

At the crossing of Calais, ME/St. Stephen, NB.
Don't let the name fool you.

I want one.

Jasper Beach is one of the two places in the world with a smooth stone-only beach.
(And in case you're wondering, yeah, we came home with about fifty pounds of rocks.)

Um, why are you taking my picture? The water's that way.

My sweetie-pie baby-girl.

Quick story: We realized on the way home that Frac's stuffed puppy dog (which goes with him everywhere) went missing. After looking everywhere in the van and at my friend's house, we decided to go back to the seafood shack we had eaten at on the way up a few days before. I asked the guy at the counter if he had seen it. No, being a dog lover he would have remembered a stuffed dog. Oh, well, thanks anyway. Then Fric peeks behind the giant ice cream cone and finds the puppy dog where Frac had tucked him away four days earlier!

Homeschooling Diplomacy

I write this post both to ask the question and also in the hopes that in writing it, I'll be more sure of my own grasp on the big picture.

To get to it, for those of you who are homeschooling your kids, how do you discuss it with family and friends? And the corollary to that is, how do you explain it to your kids?

The reason I am asking is because up till now, our boys didn't even realize that we were doing something different. But they're now at the age to make the distinction and have latched on to the idea that fascinates them most: riding the big yellow bus, like their cousins do, and going to a school building with other kids taught by a teacher that's not Mom.

My wife and I have to deal delicately with this because we know why we're homeschooling: it's more efficient, better for the kids in terms of focus and attention, individual pace, family schedule, plus the ability for my wife and I to act as the filters for our children that we are called to be. But how do we explain this to a five year old without a.) giving him the impression that he's missing out on something fantastic, b.) running the risk that he looks down his nose at other kids who do go to school or c.)getting the impression that schools and everything associated with them are to be avoided?

How did any of you handle this discussion?

Semantics

Boy, it is interesting how phrases can skew a discussion. Since the partial-birth abortion ban was upheld, I've been listening a lot of discussion on the radio about what are the next steps for pro-choice and anti-choice groups. (Or is that anti-abortion and pro-death groups? Or pro-life and pro-women's health groups?)

To be fair, NPR has been looking at both sides of the issue with their usual civility and decorum, but the inclinations of the "establishment" still shine through
when the question is asked about women making the choice "to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy."

We probably hear those phrases so often that they can rush right past us without noticing what has happened. The fetus is either a child or the by-product of a pregnancy, all depending on the intention of the mother/ pregnant woman. If the woman wants the child, then yes, it is a child, and we're sympathetic to her struggles, her hopes and her joys. If she does not want a baby, then our society sees not a child but an inconvenience, a blob of tissue that will be an obstacle to any of that woman's happiness. Keeping a child is a joy, having an abortion is only terminating a pregnancy. It sounds like having one's tonsils out.

Oops, my mistake, on the news, they always refer to the procedure as "so-called" partial birth abortion. Wouldn't want to misrepresent the truth...

Brownback on Hannity

So I heard Sam Brownback on Hannity today. God bless the man, he has no chance.

I think he knows this though, and I suspect that winning the election is not his primary motivation. I truly believe that his first goal is to bring the sanctity of life into the fore of the public debate. I am convinced of this because of what he said to Sean today. Sean asked Senator Brownback about abortion in the case of rape and he didn't dodge the question as any other politician with blind ambition would have done. He stook his ground and pointed out that the child is still innocent and sentencing her to death will not solve the exterior problems.

That is a hard lesson to take, but one that our society needs to learn.

Sadly, a symbolic victory

So today the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on partial birth abortion. With mixed feelings I reflect on it, for though a victory for pro-life forces, its passage immediately becomes a symbolic victory.

I say this because the decision today upholds the ban on the method only, but not the practice in concept. The ban, if enforced, will not directly reduce the number of abortions in the United States. As a dammed river will overflow or change course to find its way to the ocean, the forces of abortion have already circumvented the obstacle and moved on to other "safer" methods. Live birth abortion is an alternative to partial-birth abortion in late-term pregnancies. The baby is delivered and placed in another room and denied nourishment or medical care until it dies. Other methods include injecting the fetus with chemicals which will seize its heart; the dead baby is then extracted via cesarian section. (This method in particular plays right into the argument against partial-birth abortion: why is it necessary for the health of the mother that the baby be aborted rather than delivered cesarian section?)

This seeming futility, however, does not negate the urgency in supporting the partial-birth abortion ban and other such legal measures. A symbolic victory in this uphill battle is a victory nonetheless. It sheds light on the brutality of the procedure and opens discussion on why abortion is morally wrong in all cases.