[five things]

1)I  went out of my comfort zone-twice!Normally, I don't like to go out in bad weather, but I did-twice!

2)There is a chance we might go on a cruise-a shorter one this time,and on a different cruise line but I'm OK with that.

3)We got a lot of rain last week. Not enough to make any sort of dent in our drought, but it probably helped a little!

4)I'm waiting to hear some more info before I get too excited about Bond 24-well, Spectre, to give it its proper title-I am a member of the Bond fandom-I gotta post about that at some point!

5)So this couple Erica and Cleve Rengo got their kids taken away from them. There was a lot of outrage about it.

Why?

Because they had an unassisted childbirth-of twins-at home.And they breastfeed their kids. neither of those things should get your kids taken away-and that wasn't why.

You have to understand that home birth is a selective thing. Personally, I wouldn't do it. But there are  quite a few in the home birth community that get defensive and assume that that was why the kids got taken away(it wasn't, despite authorities saying it wasn't on more than one occasion.)

There  is a lot to this story: first of all, their oldest son is only 10 months older than the twins.Yes, you read that right. And their parents decided they wanted to be together after only knowing each other a few hours. There's some dispute, but word is that both Cleve and Erica have records(for petty things mostly, but also domestic violence which *is* concerning.)

It's not just that, either. Apparently there was some question about the twins being born at home- without a doctor-a paramedic was called not long after they were born but Erica refused to go to the hospital. They only called the hospital to shut up a concerned family member(possibly-probably-the same family member who called CPS which led to the kids being removed from the house.)

Did I mention that Erica escaped with one of the kids when CPS showed up at her house?She did.Which didn't help her situation(that's putting it mildly!)

The Rengos are choosing to live a "holistic" lifestyle, which means exclusively using natural remedies . This is an issue: one of the kids had eczma which got infected and needed a doctor's care. Clearly, they weren't doing something right; I read a lot of "well, natural remedies work, you just have to give them time" sort of comments. No.Sorry. The treatment they were giving the 10 month old wasn't working, and he had pneumonia(which Erica and Cleve claim he got when he was in foster care.)

Erica and Cleve distrust doctors *that* much... that is worrying. Erica's mother is the one who called CPS..To hear her tell it,Cleve is "controlling" and makes all of the decisions in the relationship. Of course, Cleve and Erica's supporters are calling her "turncoat"..and worse.

The kids *have* been reunited with their parents, but with lots of conditions-including regular doctors' checkups.Which given the kids' health issues, is probably a good idea.

Some may say that CPS overstepped their bounds..and maybe they did,but from what I read, they had quite a few reasons to remove the kids from their house. Maybe they'll look at  what happened as a wake-up call to  not be so..searches for a word and settles on"insular".