This, That, and the Other

I wake up. The day feels like a normal day. I start to get ready, get the kids dressed, prepare my primary lesson, get breakfast, and then without any warning the day takes an unexpected turn. And even though I think it's going alright, nothing I think is going to happen happens.

That was yesterday.

Maybe it was boredom. Maybe it was wanderlust. Maybe I'm just tired of living next to a cocaine selling operation.Whatever it was, it tasted an awe-full lot like freedom. This is what it looked like.

This is sort of what it will look like in two years or so:

But with something like this...right in the middle.

Made with a few of these.

  

But until then, I guess I'll just enjoy a little bit of This. 

And a little of That...












And even though some might consider the events of the day useless, even a total disaster, somehow it turned into the most extraordinary day I can remember in a very very long time.

My Green Goddesses. I of III

Okay, please forgive me but I seem to have a blug in my eye, and it goes away every time I sit down to blog about something. So naturally, this is the only place I want to be.

There is a very small story behind this. And because I love and miss my cooking muse, I'll just share it with you. Eight? No, Nine? No, Nine and a half years ago, someone I love came to visit me in my old yellow house on K Street. We took long walks, theorized about our futures, shopped estate sales like only two kindred spirits separated before birth can shop. Oh, and we made good food. I don't remember exactly how it came about, but there were some potatoes, some sweet red bell peppers and onions and somehow Ivy showed up with a bottle of something that can only be described by its name: Annies Goddess Dressing. And that my friends is the end of the story.  

Since the first Goddess incident, Ivy has played a part in my finding more goddesses of dressings to add to my repertoire of flavors. But these ones I make in my kitchen and they evolve constantly.

I bless the day I found the first green goddess. She came to me in the form of a google search for something to use up ridiculous amount of yogurt and spinach. Here is the link to resulting page. But I've changed my recipe quite a bit until I come to today. I haven't made this in a while due to a terrible accident with my blender the last time I tried. It was a sad end for my blender, but it paved the way for something infinitely more useful: my food processor.  When I had finished throwing it together today and tasted it, the exact words that came out of my mouth with no rehearsal were, "This is to die for".

So here goes. May I never forget the exact ingredients involved in this celestial concoction.



Annapurna Spinach Guacamole

2 medium avocado
2/3 c plain yogurt
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp red pepper
4 or more huge fists of fresh spinach

There isn't much to be said for my method here. It's just as you see it. Put the first 6 ingredients into your bowl, process or blend until smooth. Then stuff it with as much spinach as your blender or food processor will hold and process until smooth. With a blender, you may have to push the spinach down two or three times to get it all blended in. It will go, I promise. But push it down while the blender is stopped, if you want to avoid a horrendous and possibly lethal accident.     

 

This recipe is both kid friendly and makes friendly kids.

This is my terribly picky eater, she happens to love most things with avocado. It's what keeps her alive.

Yes, She did go back again and again and again.

Now I just have to try not to make it too often, lest she get sick of it and never touch spinach again.

Just a thought. Do you like a certain food more depending on it's color? I seem to gravitate toward foods that are green orange and brown, also my favorite colors.

Foodie Friday: Whole Wheat Pear Biscuits:

I must take a break. Even though I am just two steps away from being finished with the longest project in the history of my living room table (saying something major) I must stop for more than a moment and... blog.

It's about time I shared a recipe and It just so happens that I have invented the easiest best Yerba Mate drinking tea biscuit of all time. It also happens to be healthy. If you know me, you might guess I don't shy away from fats, but I do try to use whole grains. When it comes to biscuits, I am traditionally a cut in the butter kind of girl. But it just so happens that this recipe could be made practically fat free. These are general guidelines, not a formal recipe because well, I made it up. But follow them and you can't go wrong. I haven't yet since I started making them. The only thing that makes it not completely accessible is that it really should be made in a food processor. However you can also cut the pear by hand into very small pieces and mix it in with your hands or a mixer.

In twenty five minutes you will be eating a scrumptious bites of pear hinted sweetness. Here comes.....

Whole Wheat Pear Biscuits:

1 cup whole wheat flour (or white, or half and half, whatever)

3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Pear (hard pears work great)
1/2 cup cottage cheese
sour cream or yogurt for basting top
demerara for generous sprinkling

preheat your oven to 375 F

I actually recommend at least doubling this recipe. Your food processor may be able to handle quadrupling it, but it all depends on how many people are hanging around your kitchen today, if you want them scarfed down or if you want a few for later.

Simply mix your flour, baking soda and salt with a fork, then throw your pear in (cut into rough pieces), pulse your food processor until the mixture is the texture of wet sand with no big pieces. spoon in the cottage cheese and process JUST until it is one sticky mass with visible pieces of cheese curd. Flour table top, throw your dough on the table and sprinkle with enough flour to be able to touch it without coming away a sticky mess. The dough will be very sticky, this is good.

Flour your roller, flour your dough and roll to 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. Brush sour cream or yogurt generously over the top of your dough patty. Sprinkle demerara generously over the top of your creamy brushed substance. The only way you can go wrong with this step is by not putting enough creamy mixture or not sprinkling enough sugar. Key word, generous. the worst that could happen is it takes longer to cook because of the moisture in your creamy white stuff. Cut roughly into 1 1/2 to 2 inch squares, triangles, whatever shape fits your fancy, just make sure they are roughly the same size so they cook at the same rate. I love a rustic plate of grab-me-edibles. The sprinkled sugar looks fantastic if you sprinkle it on in stripes.

Line a baking sheet, pizza sheet, whatever your redneck kitchen affords, with parchment paper.  You can of course, always grease it. But recently I've discovered how wonderfully simple parchment paper is and am kind of addicted. Lay your biscuits in your pan and stick in your hot oven for about 15, maybe 20 minutes. You'll know that they are done when you can BARELY see color on the bottom. If in doubt, pick one up, hot off the pan and look. You don't want these to brown more than a tiny tiny bit or they'll lose their moist, soft scrumptiousness. I hope you and yours enjoy them as much as me and mine.

Just a thought: These would be Awesome with blueberries or lemon zest mixed in with the cottage cheese. 

If you're looking for other even more simple, yet awesome tea biscuits, check out my Cuñada's blog evymundo.blogspot.com. Oh, what? you don't speak Spanish? Just use Google translate!

Smile if you like food and eat it. 

Leafy Greens and Living Things

This shouldn't be too long. I don't think I have much of a ramble in me after such a long day. Maybe it's because it's January, maybe it's because I'm not in school, maybe it's because I miss important people in my life, I don't know, but lately I've felt like I'm just wandering around. I know that I have to do something important, but outside of being my kids Mom and being in a loving supportive relationship with my husband, I just don't know exactly what. Today though, even though I came home to tired kids and a tired husband, I feel rejuvinated. So in a general desire to write more, here I am; writing because I feel inspired.

I spent the day (yes, the whole darn day) with a bunch of people from all over the state and country who have one thing in common with me.  We all like leafy green living things.  There were presentations about trends in the industry, step by step instruction on techniques, lectures on the ideals of using certain plants over others, and lots and lots of pictures of plants with long Latin names. And even though I got really sleepy at one point in the afternoon, it was heavenly. Not because every moment was bliss, but because I felt little glimpses throughout the day of myself and what I want.

I think I've spent the last five years lamenting over wanting something that is outside of my reach. Thinking and dreaming about the day I would go back to it, feel it in my fingers and smell it. And I've spent the last year figuring out that I might want something else too. Today was a turning point for me because I finally realized that I really really want it. I saw myself where I want to be and I liked it. I want it so bad that I'm willing to put myself in very uncomfortable situations and do really really hard mental and emotional things in order to get there. And what's more, I like the people who are there doing it.

Not too bad for a days work, eh?
Good Night.

Music, Language, Food, Nature, Art.

As I contemplate Ada's life with me as her Mother, I've stressed about one thing more than others:

How will I teach her? 

Recently I've started to realize that this, in my case, is the wrong question. Right now in Ada's Life I see in her one persistent revolving trait. She wants to be like me.

Is it normal that it's taken me this long to figure this out? 

About a year ago when I started to do home school related activities, I tried to come up with a lot of crazy ways that I could teach Ada things. First and foremost, her letters. Ada had been drawing on our walls since she realized that pencils and pens make marks and recently she had moved to drawing squiggly horizontal lines. I made an awesome magnetic chalk board to fiddle with. And the kitchen was constantly filled with Sesame Street Alphabet songs (I may or may not know all of them by heart). All these things told me it was time to play with drawing the letters. So we talked about A for Ada. We started playing, me drawing the upward and downward slopes, she finishing with bar across. It didn't take very long until she was drawing A on everything and pointing out every A and drawing the cross bar on any letter or image with a triangle without a cross bar, thus making it into an A. We went on to D, so we could write her name and U because I thought it would be a good idea to make a word that she would know. UVA, Ada's then favorite fruit.

Then something happened. Ada no longer liked drawing letters. Everytime I moved to the chalk, Ada would run away because she didn't want to do that. She was past it. She knew how to draw her A and she was done. She didn't even want to sing the fun monster songs very much anymore.


It seems like this happened every time I have came up with a brilliant idea for how we could get from one leapfrog of learning to the next. Ada eventually rejects what it is she's being taught.  From drawing letters to pushing shapes through holes, to dressing herself and potty training.

The best piece of advice I was ever given was from my sister of five children. Not all of them were potty trained perfectly. She certainly had her share of struggles in that area, which is why I knew she knew the difference. On the subject of potty training, she told me simply, do not pressure them.  Somehow I was able to leave the pressure out of potty training, but Ada could feel it in other aspects of my mothering. She could feel it simply because it was there. I wanted her to learn those things. I spent a lot of energy everyday trying to incorporate learning modules into the fun things we did, and the not so fun things. Somehow I let slip how important it was to me that Ada learn these things. But being a three year old, the only thing Ada wanted to do was play.

We tried going to a play group to see if she wanted to play with learning games with other kids, we even hosted it at our house a few times and I loved the other women that taught it and seeing how their kids reacted to structured learning. They and their children are the kind of people who probably do well in public school because they have such amazing Mothers. But every time we would go, Ada was much more interested in the toys and exploring the house than she was with the organized play that was taking place between the teacher and the other kids. So play she did. I have gradually done less and less of those semi structured activities and for a long time I've felt guilty about not doing them. And so my question, word by word, flies out the window until only this is left:  

How will I teach her?

I've accepted the fact that my way of teaching, the way I've always thought worked well, always gave me success with kids, was flawed. I recently read something in The Big Book of Unschooling, by Sandra Dodd, about the nature of learning and how learning requires only one person. Teaching, in fact, only requires one person, and does not guarantee learning, if you happen to have a pupil. I understand that if I am to parent this independent minded child, there's not necessarily teaching involved. What I need to do is facilitate learning. To do that I need to think about who Ada is and how she learns, how she enjoys life, what does she want?

Do As I'm Doing.

Another thing that happened last year was that I joined a book club.  I decided that if I wanted Ada to want to read, she needed to see how much I loved reading; as in Books. After all, what I do on the computer isn't reading. I push buttons, the buttons make sounds and there are pictures that become videos for her to watch. Books though, as I intentionally read books in front of her, text books, novels, nonfiction, poetry, suddenly I saw a flame in her mind as she brought up her own books from her room to 'read' while I read mine lounging on the couch.

Helping Hands

One of Ada's very first words was Help. Help, by throwing random sometimes edible things into the mixing bowl. Help by chopping the Lettuce. I've  gotten better at letting her help as well as organizing my kitchen and work space so it can be accessible and safe for her, so I don't have to tell her no when that's what she wants to do. I often find her, when the house feels too quiet, standing on her stool cutting a random vegetable she has retrieved from the fridge or pouring her cup of milk into the sugar and mixing it around very methodically, with an intense look of 'I'm doing something important' on her face.

Another thing that Ada has shown an outward interest in doing is something we do as a family at least once a week. I have a basket in our living room that is full of sound makers. Shakers, a bongo drum, harmonica, all beaten up and/or passed along from the thrift store, but in perfect working order. We can all be happy making nose on the shakers and tambourines until we pull the guitar out. It was given me by the most dearest of friends and I have over the years learned a few tunes. I don't play as much as I'd like and every time I do, I end up going to the same few songs that I already know well and it's a family event. Which means it doesn't take long before someone is hurt because the other is playing the guitar and Mom and Dad are busy trying to keep the guitar in one piece.

Yesterday at the store Ariel took the kids to the toy section while I went to the fabric. Ada found a guitar. In fact, she refused to leave the guitar on the shelf. Every one of the ten times we put the guitar back, she snuck back to retreive it and contantly made sure it was STILL in the cart. We didn't buy it. Then last night we were playing drums and dancing around like the fools we are, when Ada asked to get the guitar out. I played a bit, Ariel played a bit and then Ada sat down on on a short seat with her legs at just the right angle to allow her small arms over the guitar. She started to play and sing. Not words, not a tune, but a song; music. So sad my camera was out of batteries. It was sublime, I tell you. 

Other things Ada loves are wearing dresses with pretty bows, flowers, sewing with me, pretending with her dolls, cutting hair, digging in dirt, pulling leaves off plants, Painting, Taking Molly for walks and throwing the ball, and lots of other fun three year old things.


So this is Ada's curriculum over the next year, give or take, change or not, depending on her wishes. Singing and playing the guitar, Making a dress with Mama, Helping Mama cook, Nature Walks, Painting (sometimes structured, sometimes not) Quiet time in her room with Mama reading to her while she plays, as long as she is happy. 

This is Mama's curriculum over the next year: Find Ada a guitar, Read books aloud to Ada and Nahuel and let Ada and Nahuel see me enjoy my own books. Go to the library, let them choose out their own books. Play the guitar more, with Ada and Nahuel. Take nature walks and go camping more often. Enjoy the garden, set apart a garden plot for Ada and Nahuel to sow seeds and water them and watch things grow.. Sew Ada lots of pretty things and let Ada help. 

Take the Pledge

It's no news that I am somewhat of a novice at this whole blog thing. Even though I've been sharing random thoughts for the last two+ years (that long?). I still don't know what I am doing, but I still feel a need on a constant basis to find like minded people and share bits and pieces of myself. Today, by following the foot prints of things that I feel connected to over the blog waves, I came across something that I thought worth sharing. I think sometimes about the things I could blog if I weren't as insecure as I am.

Insecure? Me? I often feel that everything I write is just plain crazy. No one has yet to actually tell me that it is. But I guess that's all part of being insecure. It doesn't matter how much reassurance you get, you don't believe it.

Why am I insecure? I have a loving husband who adores my muffin top and my breastfeeding parts and my random need to climb a tree in the middle of a thunderstorm or get out of bed in the middle of the night just to write something down that won't leave my head. I don't know. Maybe because I watched too many kids get laughed at as a kid, maybe because I rarely felt like I had a real friend growing up? I count those things as blessings. But I believe they gave me a general mistrust of peoples intentions in social realms.Which is why I love so much when I find someone, by some blessed coincidence, that I connect with; why I look here and there and everywhere for people that I might find those blessed coincidences with.

What I found tonight was nothing more than a place where I feel safe. A place that lays down the rules for safe social engagement, over the internet, between women. We women, I believe, mistrust each other more than we like to admit (admit it). But this link made me think...maybe if there were a level playing field and I thought that even if people do think I'm crazy, they'll try to understand my craziness, I might just feel more free to be the crazy person that I am and love.

If you like to feel free about being the crazy person that you are too, go HERE and make a pledge to be a humane participant of this powerful tool for people to connect across spaces. You can also grab the button on the bottom right of this page.

Coming Out

I'd like to share a dream, an itch. A reoccurring thought that nurtures and inspires other dreams while weaving it's way through me, making itself into my future. The first time I remember making sense of it I was a kid 'playing' with my girl friend Megan from across the street. I don't remember how old I was, I only remember the topic of conversation and the look of the light on the cement walls of my basement, sheets hung as partitions separating the play area from my Mom's work area, and sitting daydreaming about my future. The subject of conversation was 'if we could live anywhere we wanted...'

Of course the dream has changed since I was a kid. I use to want stables and horses and the whole idea was based on my vague idea of living on a ranch. There were animals in pastures and growing things and trees lining the whole of it. It's all still there, in my imagination, but now there are structures and more useful animals. And there are other things too. Like for example...People. More specifically...Kids. Now the nut shell of the life I want is this: A piece of land where the earth gives me what I need to grow a family and grow old with the ones that I love.

Ariel was born to some of the richest soils on the earth. A year round growing season for some of my favorite plants including but not limited to Eggplants. The climate, other than this unprecidented drought year, is perfect for entertaining my pastoral daydreams. This and the constant smell of the rain just on the edge of the next wisp of grey cloud, helped me to love that soil, those sunsets, the eucalyptus that give the horizon contour. Living on the outskirts of a small city on la pampa, I imagined my life with a few kids and some close friends on a plot of land far from civilization. I imagined a place secluded from most Argentine reality, so far from people that might take advantage of us and our North American capitalist roots that we would be forced to make a way for ourselves on the land. Of course we would need no forcing, this is part of the dream.

I dreamt about how we would meet a lot of our needs. Our need for an energy source: solar, wind, hydro; our food needs: seeds, greenhouses, root cellars, clean water. The most enjoyable needs to daydream about were how we would bring up those five beautiful children that we wanted. I had planned out a structure. It was simple, rustic; with strong bones and wide open spaces. Reading nooks and learning spaces with a little winding staircase that led to a star observatory on the roof. Chairs you could melt into a book with and tables with running water and art spaces. It was my version of what people straight out of a Charlotte Bronte novel would have done for being educated. With a little guidance and discipline combined with the natural processes of human curiosity and the world around them. Of course it was based on a firm spiritual belief that being close to nature would spark a flame and a curiosity for life that isn't found by spending your life in the suburbs, in public school, as I was. I had brief moments of fire-fed learning and growing, academically. But I think I've always recognized that the system I was educated in was stifling. I knew that few saw in me what I saw in myself and I bleieved that eventually I would figure out how to pull it out of myself on my own. I'm still trying. And sometimes I can't say I have the remotest idea how.   

And now I find that reality puts me far from that dream. But there's one piece that I follow still. Of course I haven't given up the idea of homesteading somewhere. After school, after Ariel finishes his quest to feel realized in some professional capacity, haven proved himself in two worlds, two languages, two cultures. But, after living in my current situation for more than five years, I've realized that there is no reason to wait for a lot of those things until I live in some pastoral paradise.

And as my children, who finally came, grow, I realize that this is one part of my dream that I need to cling to more than ever. They grow, they change, they learn new words and attitudes. The people that they are, regardless of the setting, show more and more color. With the culture of our family, what we choose to bring forward out of our own experiences as humans and children, I see a great need to let my children decide for themselves what they want to learn and how. I don't know what I've done to them to make them this way, but they are both highly suspicious of me. It just doesn't work to present something to them and say 'here, learn this' or 'come on don't you think this is interesting and fun, I do, don't you?' I know my kids and I know it doesn't work. So I guess this is a coming out of sorts. This isn't a subject I talk about very much, I guess I don't like having to explain myself when the inevitable doubtful questions come. I don't think that this is new for anyone I know, or who know me.  But it's stronger in this suburban ghetto than it's ever been in my romantic imaginings of cleaner air and more plentiful soil. When I imagine myself, when I imagine my kids, who are still young, I know that there is one thing that has always been the same.

My two oldest will have to suffer through a kitchen table and a back yard farm in the suburbs for a school house. I'm still trying to work out the details. I'll follow my own rugged way and I may have my eyes blindfolded half the time walking forward with faith, but one thing is for certain: I Am a Home Schooler. 

Common Thread

This month is full of Birthdays in my family. My nephew Marco is the latest contender for January's terminally cute baby award for the family. Born on the last day of the month, it's possible that he'll be beaten out by the next little Higbee, still in a little tummy. Then there's my brother David, his dad, the absolutely driven and gifted musician and linguist (listen to his latest digs HERE) born on the 28th. Then we come to the elvenly child Janessa, immortalized in her infancy with her sprightly infectious personality, voice, and smoulder that could all, individually, put both Justin Bieber and Flynn Rider in fits.  Lastly we come to two individuals who led the way for me in music, art, literature and self discovery through my adolescence. Born on the same day, they share much more than a common birth date and the same first and last initials; Mark and Melanie were born on the 5th. Though it's hard, and some may argue wrong, to put a label on a person in terms of their value, I can't help but place these two very high on the scale of valuable people in my life. Melanie was the friend that I always had and Mark, he was just incredibly, simply and unforgettably Mark. The best of all of us put together with the demons none of us like to imagine in ourselves, waging war.

So what do all of these people have in common other than the fact that they are all important people in the grand scheme of one redneck little life, and that they all share the month of January to be born into this world? They share something that I think about whenever the issue of health comes up in relationship to my children. They share a Grandfather and Great Grandfather who were both plagued by a disease that has no cure and no reliable treatment. They share Genetics. They share the possibility that one day they or their children could be diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.

It's a disease that a lot of people have never heard of, so if you're wondering why I sound so grave in talking about it, it's because I attribute this disease in large part to my brother's death 5 1/2 years ago. It was the coat of arms, if you will, of the opposing army in Marks war.  I can't claim to understand everything that this disease is. It can be a lot of different things. As far as I know my Grandfather didn't have a particularly bad case. I knew when he was alive that his kidneys gave him some trouble, but I never heard about ulcerative colitis until after he was gone. Mark's case though, was debilitating, uncomfortable, embarrassing, and ultimately handicapped his sense of happiness.

I am most certainly not a scientist. So this is, in simpletons terms, what Ulcerative Colitis is. A disease that affects the colon, the part of your digestive system that absorbs vitamins and minerals from the food you eat. Imagine the inside of a tube with holes burned through it (ulcers) all over. That tube is suppose to make your food into a feel good center of your body as it is processed and sends your cells the things they need to work right. But if it's covered in ulcers, it absorbs lots of other nasty things that are in most of the food supply in this country and makes it so you don't feel good. If you can't find a way to heal the burns(ulcers) in the tube, they get inflamed and bleed. I've heard that the discomfort from these ulcers can be worse than birthing pains. Now there's something I understand. I've been there. But one of the things that makes childbirth wonderful and beautiful and bearable, is that whatever pain you feel will eventually be over. With Ulcerative Colitis, not so.  I try to imagine feeling labor pains every day for prolonged periods of time and I start to imagine a little bit what Marks life was like. What was it like while he served and completed a two year, full time mission, teaching about Jesus Christ; while he worked his way through college, finally having to quit because he was too sick? Really, I can't begin to imagine.

One of these days someone will write a thorough account of all of the events of Marks Life, including the drugs and events that led to his diagnosis of this disease, and the drugs and events that led up to his accidental suicide in August of 2006. I don't think anyone yet has the strength to do that. Because Marks life was, as I mentioned earlier, not a common life.  But writing this post was not that attempt. I simply found something that made me think and remember. It was this article about a possible link between infant antibiotics and ulcerative colitis. It reminds me of how much I doubt our current money making health care system. How much I doubt whenever a doctor tells me something, because even though they know a lot, they have also been educated by the same system that makes billions of dollars per year with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Ariel works for the biggest health care company in the west and has worked for others. I've received free samples of prenatal vitamins, free samples of pain killers and allergy medication. I've eaten lavish lunches provided for doctors by what my husband terms jokingly "drug dealers".  My doctors have given me labor and delivery tutorial books that are written by people who promote a one sided medical view of what I've learned for myself is not a medical trauma. And who makes money off of it? They do. How often are we being told that a drug that we've relied on for years is no longer deemed safe? My point is this, if you don't feel completely comfortable with the advice your practicing physician has to offer, get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. And go someplace else to get it, other than your insurance covered doctors office. There's another kid of doctor who doesn't make nearly as much money at what he does and is still a respected health professional. It's called a naturepathic doctor. They can give you a different way of looking at the health problems that you have that won't involve risky drugs you may learn down the road were not as thoroughly studied as you believed.

I'm not trying to downplay the role of modern medicine. I recognize its value in prolonging my grandmothers life from the 54 years that her father lived, to the 83 she enjoyed. But there are too many doctors who will prescribe an antibiotic without even checking to see if it's a biotic problem you have. I have yet to hear a doctor tell me that my body can probably whip a bug all by itself if I take care of it by getting rest and giving it time, that's an infection I'm talking about(yes, it happens every day). Not to mention the recent study by the University of Utah that found that pediatricians write more than 10 million prescriptions for unnecessary antibiotics every year(for Children). It's easy to find the information. I don't claim to be very studious. Just Google 'unnecessary antibiotics'.

The fact that Ulcerative Colitis is a hereditary disease gives me some idea that it isn't ONLY the medical system that's going south. But I have to wonder if my brother was prescribed an antibiotic in the first year of his life. What was it that made him so much more susceptible to it that I am(still healthy as an ox). Either way I take from my wanderings and long winded ramblings that my children are going to eat better and live better than my generation. I call it the Right of a Wife or Mother to choose for my family in an effort of preservation to control this one element as much as I can. And I'm grateful that my children are Breastfed, Yogurt eaters who've never touched an antibiotic. My heart goes out to anyone who has been ill affected by them.