by Augustine Colebrook

I am a grandmother and recent empty-nester, and it’s given me the time and space to reflect on this gigantic, twenty-year, “Life 101” course from which I just graduated. I read Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, “The Prophet’ when I was a teenager, and remembered the swelling feeling of recognition in my chest reading the chapter on children. When I had my children, I knew they did not belong to me.  I tried to parent them accordingly, and I think I succeeded mostly. ​

1.      I was always just honest with my kids. 
Speaking the truth to anyone takes courage, but to kids it’s a gift that grounds their developing brains in reality.  Also, I always had a reason, and wasn’t just the ‘heavy’ with the rules they had to follow’.  Kids really want and need to know “why”.  I frankly told them when I didn’t have extra money for going out or buying things.  I shared my emotions with them – I believed that it was better to be sad and say so, rather than pretend I was ok (because they would know anyway).  And then maybe they would just be sad when they were sad without trying to hide their real emotions.

2.      I choose to live in community as much as possible. 
Co-housing, community dinners, room-mates, house-mates, live-in nannies, close neighbors, in-laws in the guest room and big family holidays over the years all helped me raise kids in a village and therefore life lessons came repeatedly from many sources.
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8.      I made a conscious choice not to use violence to teach my children. 
I used to hold their little hands in mine when they were being aggressive or hitting their peers or siblings and say earnestly, “these hands are for helping, NOT hurting”.   The one time that I involuntarily slapped my rude, disrespectful, screaming, teenage daughter’s face, we talked about it for a month.  It took a lot to forgive myself for hitting my child.
 
9.      I forgave myself regularly.
 I messed up, forgot, lost track of, or downright dropped the ball so many times.  I tried and tried and failed again and again.  And I learned how to be gentle with myself – I believed that I was a newborn parent and then a toddler parent and then a teenage parent and I was gentle and forgiving to me and to them.

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10.      I took breaks. 
This parenting gig is so much more full time than any other experience in life. It didn’t used to be, however; we used to parent in community with others helping with the daily chores of life.  This nuclear, secular family living in a vacuum is unnatural and it’s exhausting.  I took personal days and played hooky and I am better for it.  I also encouraged my kids to take breaks sometimes, not just sick days, but personal days to stay home and bake cookies or go riding horses on the first snow day, or stay under the covers when they were sad.
 
11.      I got divorced (twice). 
When it was clear to me that my household was growing up believing that disrespectful or abusive behavior was the norm, I took a stand.  My kids saw me modeling self-respect and radical self-care their whole lives.  I think they will be better prepared to live a whole, full, and fulfilling life because I took this stand, rather than sticking with a marriage only so they could grow up in a two-parent household.

​12.  I fed whole foods at home. 
Sure, Halloween candy and chips and cookies crossed the threshold occationally, but almost all the time, my kids only had access to fruits and vegetables, traditional fats, organic meats, etc.  Exposure is ½ the battle with nutrition – they like what they think is normal.  Comfort food is simply the food that feels the most like home.  For some people that’s microwave TV dinners; for my kids, its homemade chicken broth or pot roast.

​13.  I took my kids on vacations that had no agendas. 
Our lives are scheduled enough – they needed to have days of un-ended time to let ideas and inventions bubble up.  They needed to taste freedom and then take a bath in it.  No rules is a good way to live sometimes!

16.  I kept switching schools till they found something that was both fun and challenging, inspiring and where they felt successful. 
If I hadn’t been a working mother, I probably would have homeschooled.  But instead I let them switch and switch until they found what they loved and thrived in, including letting one and then another go to live with their dad in another state.  I let them be in charge of as much of their own lives as they could handle, because this is the goal, right?  With so many parents experiencing the phenomena of ‘failure to launch’, I wanted to ensure their development was always centered around self-determination.
 
17.  I kept the focus of our lives on how we wanted to feel. 
If we can define how we want to feel, then choices become a lot easier.  Want to feel successful, then get things done.  Want to feel joyful, then hang around joyful people and do the things that bring you joy.  Want to feel responsible, then be responsible for your own life.  This simple exercise will do more to inform their life than anything else – It’s radical and simple.

​In birth and parenting and life in general, we finally become experts right when that expertise is no longer needed; it’s said that you ‘master’ a subject after 10,000 hours immersed in study. So here I am, graduated from parenting with an unnecessary master’s degree.  I’ll never parent daily again (in this lifetime) and no, grand-parenting is NOT the same, so what exactly was the point of the last 20 years of my life?

This is the question that keeps me up at night.  What was the point of spending all that time and money and energy raising people that don’t even seem to even like me some days and certainly don’t have need of me daily anymore?  Most of my elders tell me that they really don’t appreciate you until they’re 30 years old… gee, that’s reassuring.

I have come to believe that parenting is the most extreme personal growth workshop any of us will ever experience.  It’s the most magical and diabolical collection of joy and heart-ache.  A mystical, shamanic journey into the heart of humanity.  Welcoming a tiny, helpless human into your heart and home starts a odyssey of epic proportions, weaving through a ‘candy land’ of hormones and histories, morals and ethics, physical, spiritual, mental and emotional exhaustion.  The trials in the show ‘survivor’ have nothing on the lived-experience of surviving parenting.  In fact, the challenges little people inflict on their parents, no TV producer could ethically replicate – much of parenting is downright torture. 

But we keep doing it, not just in all of humanity, but many of us have more than one child, and although the way babies are made does ensure a modicum of success; this still doesn’t explain why many of us have devoted huge portions of our lives to parenting.  I know, we don’t all do it for the personal growth.  So why?  Why do so many of us not just sign up for a 20+ year odyssey, but in fact give it all our focus and determination?
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I believe it’s more than the biological imperative, hormonally driving us to procreate. That may be why some of us GET pregnant, but it doesn’t account for slogging through the next 20 years of painful challenge. 

To be stable, to be still, to hold space and be flexible -  this is our most precious job.  I have been bent mightily – I am a long slender bow made of willow – and I have been bent nearly in half.  I have sent my arrow children flying on their own paths of freedom, but when I read and memorized this chapter as a teenager, I didn’t have the foresight to read the chapter on giving, and even if I had, I’m not sure I would have understood its meaning.

​Parenting is giving – giving all of ourselves until we are emptied out - carved and hallowed. Some stay here sadly lamenting their emptiness for a life-time, but I – I am glad for it.  I feel completely hollow – ready to be filled with the experiences of the second half of my life. 

Someday I will be emptied again, but right now I am happily gathering experiences like seashells on the beach.  All the sparkly and stripy ones catch my eye. 

All my years of parenting was an exhale of breath, now, I am inhaling life sharply.  The season of giving is over, and it is a celebration not a mourning.  Just as each new seasonal shift is welcomed – I feel ready for this winter spiraling into myself and then the spring that will follow. 
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In the goddess tradition there are 5 life phases – maiden, lover, mother, queen, crone.  Using this imagery, I have donned my crown this year.  I am happily reigning sovereign over my own life for the first time ever!  Were we still living in tribal culture, I would be celebrated and honored for my service. 
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​CATEGORIES OF PATIENT CARE ITEMS AND INSTRUMENTS

1.CRITICAL ITEMS:
Critial items deal with a high risk of infections if contaminated with any biological agents. These items may come in contact with internal tissues and the vascular system, so the sterility of these items is prioritized above all. Because any microbial induction could lead to the transmission of disease, surgical instruments, implants, catheters and probes are examples of this category.

2. SEMICRITICAL ITEMS:
These items have contact with mucous membrane and nonintact skin. Items should be free from all microorganisms, but as they are less critical than the above category, a small number of bacterial spores are permissible. A laryngoscope blade is an example in this category.
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3. NONCRITICAL ITEMS:
Like semicritical items,  these items are in contact with intact skin but not with mucous membrane. As the skin is the most substantial effective barrier to most of the microorganism, so here sterility is not a big issue. Blood pressure cuffs, bedpans, and stethoscopes are some examples of this category.

​PROCEEDURE:

• Preheat oven (with internal oven thermometer to verify correct temp)
• 320’ F for 2 hours OR 340’ F for 1 hour
• Clean, dry and package metal instruments
• Place instruments plastic side up, on a towel or paper bag on a cookie sheet or bake stone
• Set timer for appropriate time based on temp

DISADVANTAGES:

• High temperature i.e. 160-170 degree Celsius is required.
• Items such as plastic and rubber cannot be sterilized because of increased temperature requirements.
• Slow heat penetration- an hour or two of heat- plus cool down time is required.
• Requires oven and a constant source of electricity.

PROCEDURE:

• Fill autoclave with distilled water according to package instructions
• Clean, dry and package metal instruments
• Place instruments plastic side up on rack
• Secure autoclave door according to package instructions
• Set timer or turn on self-timed autoclave to the appropriate time
• Be sure to properly vent autoclave before opening

DISADVANTAGES:

• Moisture retention in package is possible.
• Only stainless steel and plastic items can be used for this technique.
• Danger exists when not following autoclave instructions.​​

Because it is not designed to create a vacuum as its first priority, however, it is recommended that you let it vent and build pressure for a bit before starting your timer in order to create complete sterilization.
For more in-depth explanation of the comparisons of different brands please see this thorough study.

PROCEEDURE:

• Read your pressure cookers instructions
• Add clean instruments to the proper amount of waterbath
• Close lid and turn on burner
• Process instruments  at 15 psi for at least 15 min. This means the temp will be about 121 °C within the cooker.

DISSADVANTAGES:

• Sterilization time required can vary depending on the amount of liquid the size of the pressure cooker and the altitude 
• It can be messy and time consumin
• Danger exists if not following instructions
• Moisture retention in package is possible.
• Only stainless steel and plastic items can be used for this technique.

A NOTE ON BOILING INSTRUMENTS:
Boiling instruments in 100°C water for at least one minute kills 99% microorganisms, except for a few bacterial spores. Boiling does NOT sterilize equipment. This is a disinfection method and may be deemed to be acceptable for cord clamping and cutting implements, but is not recommended for episiotomy scissors or suturing instruments. Pathogenic organisms begin to die off between 60° C and 70°C. To fully disinfect, water must be at a full rolling boil for at least 2 minutes at sea level, 3 min at 6000 ft or above to achieve full disinfection, with instruments submerged the entire time.