bearing blog

Candlemas Saturday.

Leila reminds us that Saturday is Candlemas.  If you want your candles blessed, you have a couple of days to get your ducks in a row (i.e. find candles, plan to get to Saturday's Mass).

It so happens that Saturday is a First Saturday, and I usually hit those, so I'll be there without any extra work.  We don't use candles a lot in our house, but it occurred to me that I could

(a) dig out my Advent candles and bring them!

(b) buy a few packs of birthday candles.  Why not?  

 

Vi Hart's Guide to Comments.

This is wonderful.

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Enjoy.

Babies mid-homeschool-year.

All the birth discussion in the previous post and the other post that wasn't originally about birth brought on a reader question via email.

...as a new homeschooler, I'd love to hear how you've dealt with homeschooling while both feeling terrible during pregnancy (I don't actually puke during my pregnancies but usually feel like I could and I sleep twice as much as usual) and then recuperating postpartum. 

But your last baby was definitely mid-school year. Did you stop school entirely for a month and make it up early/late in the year? Did you plan curriculum in advance that didn't require much micromanaging so you could go on auto-pilot when things were rough?

I feel like I've got a handle on homeschooling, planning meals, working a few hours a week ...  and going to a gym regularly, but throwing a pregnancy in with everything seems like it would be tricky.

 

I'm a control freak, so I get what you're saying.

Tricky, yes.  So far for us, impossible, no.

Since pregnancies and school years are the same length, if you are going to have a pregnancy in the middle of the school year, you know it with enough time to adapt your schedule. 

When I was pregnant with my daughter, #3, my oldest son was 5.  She was born in the summer, but the morning sickness and fatigue was midyear.   

If I was doing it over again I wouldn't even have worried about it (kindergarten!  sheesh!) but back then, since he was my very first homeschooled child, I felt some pressure to keep up the schedule.   I let the five- and two-year-old boys watch a lot of DVDs in the afternoon.  

One thing I did during a period when I felt guilty about how much screen time the two-year-old boy was having was to lay in a supply of good educational or otherwise quality DVDs.  That two-year-old was fascinated by nature documentaries, so I bought this huge collection of BBC nature documentaries.  

Yes, it was expensive -- I remember the sticker price, $180 at Best Buy back then.  (Same price at Amazon today).  In retrospect, because that two-year-old watched every single disc many times, it was money very well spent.  We also invested in a lot of  Signing Time.

When you have a plan to use DVDs,  you can show a lot of DVDs while you are napping and still feel like you are Sticking To A Plan.  At that time, I felt okay in the morning, so we did math and reading first thing and then I put on DVDs while I slept in the afternoon.   Here is a blog post I wrote around that time:

There is an unbelievable amount of stuff that has to get done around here.  My Ideal To-Do List is about twenty lines long.  My Real To-Do List is as follows:

• Get dressed
• Feed children
• Do math or reading
• Feed children again
• Take nap while children dump toys on floor and watch DVDs they got for Christmas that I haven't had time to screen yet (please, someone tell me that Madagascar is not too objectionable, because they've already watched it four times and I haven't seen it yet)
• Possibly make dinner

That's all that happened today.  Laundry?  Nope.  Clean up after breakfast or lunch?  Nope.  Schoowork prep?  Nope.  Packing any boxes (supposedly we're moving on Saturday)?  Nope.  Blogging?  Okay, one entry (other than this one), made while we ate breakfast. 

 

When I had my boy who is three years old today(!), the morning sicknessand fatigue came in the late spring, a time when I'm winding down anyway.  Once again I felt okay in the morning, so it did not cause too much trouble, as we could have easier afternoons.   Since he was to be born in late January, I planned my year to include an extra three-week break after the birth.   I started school on August 17th and my records seem to indicate that I stopped around June 14 or 15.   We always do sporadic lessons in the summer, so I never worry if I have to cut the regular school year short by a day or week here and there.

I operated on a somewhat reduced schedule for the first couple of weeks back -- my oldest was in fourth grade and could work pretty well from a to-do list, but I cut back to essentials (math, reading) for my boy who was in kindergarten.   H. and M. took good care of me on co-schooling days, which remained at my house for several weeks.

I'm always helped by my drive to "get back to normal" after a birth -- a few days in bed and I'm itching to get up.  Not so good for my pelvic floor, but good for schooling, I guess.

Being prepared for precipitous labor.

Yesterday I mentioned that commenter Jenny has a history of precipitous labor, and even though she typically gives birth in a hospital, she was interested in hearing suggestions for being ready in case of precipitous labor at home.

Jenny writes,

My general precipitous labor story is thus: my body dilates and effaces without me knowing it, i.e, no painful or regular contractions. My doctor watches the progression over the last few weeks of pregnancy. When I am a dilated to a 6, she schedules an induction for that night or the next day. I arrive at the hospital, have my water broken artificially, and deliver the baby in about an hour. It's a little crazy!

IMO every woman preparing for birth, even in a hospital with an OB practice, should learn at least a little bit about home birth and about how birth unfolds when it's left alone.   It's not that uncommon for babies to come really fast when they decide to come, and once you pass a certain point it's much safer to stay home than to race to the hospital and risk giving birth in the car -- or, as one woman I know did, next to a file cabinet in the fire station in her neighborhood.

Wouldn't it be better to be prepared?

Here's my suggestions.  

 

Emergency Childbirth:  A Manual by Gregory White.     

My midwife would say that childbirth isn't an emergency unless you think it is, but she still recommends this slim handbook for all her birthing families. It was written mainly for people who might be expected to find themselves helping a mother who's giving birth outside the hospital -- police, etc.  It has some advice that's pretty doctor-centric (advising that the mother be on her back, for example) but what it's really good for is telling the difference between normal birth and birth with complications, and how to handle some of the events that might be unnerving, including what to do if something serious happens.

 

 

 

 

 

Double-make your bed.   You'll be glad you did this if your water breaks while you're sleeping.  This is one of the Great Secrets Of Home-Birthers.  It's also useful later if you have a chronically bed-wetting kid or someone's got a vomiting illness.

Have an extra, waterproof mattress cover (a rubber sheet's cheap, but there are more comfortable, breathable options out there now.)   Make your bed once with mattress cover, bottom sheet, and top sheet well tucked in.  Then put the second, waterproof mattress cover on top and make your bed again with another set of sheets and your blankets.   If your water breaks all over everything, or you wind up giving birth squatting on top of your bed, zip!  it all comes off and there's a fresh newly made bed underneath.  You can go to sleep in it (maybe with your baby) and someone can wash the soiled sheets when it's convenient.

 

Got a tub?  Clean it out.  Bathtubs are awesome.  Everybody should have one.  If you keep potted plants in your tub, take them out.  If your tub is gross, have someone clean it.  Or use some of that late pregnancy nesting energy to do it yourself.  There are worse places to give birth than a bathtub, and if you find yourself really WANTING to be in the tub, you'll be glad if it's all ready for you.  Skip the perfumed bubble bath.

 

Have some clean towels.   If you're perpetually behind on the laundry, set some aside.  Three or four big ones should do.  

 

Have a package of Depends-type underpads, a.k.a. "chux pads." This is another one of those magic tips for not having to clean up any mess, and they have utility later.   For the newborn period when I'm still resting a lot in bed and in chairs, I much prefer sitting/sleeping on one of these to wearing those damn postpartum pads.   I have been known to pull them out of my stash when the little one has their first bout of vomiting.

How does the midwife use them?  When the bearing-down starts, someone puts one on the floor (or bed, or whatever -- wherever you're squatting) between your feet.  From my POV, the chux pad magically appeared from nowhere just when I started to push -- really the midwife put it there.  Although frankly, if you're having precipitous labor you might not care very much, it might give your husband something to do.  "Stay right there honey!  I will protect the carpet!"

 

That newborn nose-suctioning bulb thing. 

 

Some kind of heating pad.  For the afterpains.  They suck and you won't want to be without your heating pad.  I like a rice bag, myself.  Here's a fancy one, but you can just use a tube sock tied shut with a knot.

 

Consider putting a flexible "telephone" shower head in your shower.  Well, I give this advice to every woman who is about to have a baby.

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Since you are preparing for the possibility of precipitous labor -- which is by definition fast -- you don't have to do a lot of the things that home birthers prepare for.  Like always having your fridge and pantry stocked with the kind of food you want to eat when you've been in labor for 6 hours.   And you won't bother with a lot of the postpartum care stuff, because if you give birth at home, sooner or later you will probably be (unnecessarily and at great cost) transported to a medical facility where you will experience standard-ish hospital postpartum care.  

I usually buy a custom birth kit put together by In His Hands Birth Supply from a list that my midwife gives them.  It has things like antiseptic, gloves, cord clamps, peri bottles, baby hat, gauze pads, and underpads in it.  In fact, In His Hands sells an emergency birth kit for $12.  They also sell Emergency Childbirth along with some other literature.  

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Add more thoughts in the comments - and if you have a story of precipitous labor of your own, please share!

Understanding the mechanism.

I think by now everybody's heard the canard:  "It takes 20 minutes to feel full after eating, so wait that long before you serve up a second helping."  I saw it again today, but with a twist on it I've rarely seen.

As far as I can tell, the advice to eat slowly and wait between servings in order to prevent eating until overfull is backed up by research --- I don't think anyone disputes that it probably helps and won't hurt.  What I think is interesting is the rationale.

  Usually, this advice is accompanied by a folk-theory explanation of why it supposedly takes 20 minutes to feel full after eating.    Here are a few I managed to scrape up from Google:

 

"It takes your stomach about 20 minutes to produce the hormones that tell your brain that you are full. This process doesn’t start until your stomach begins to stretch."

"Eating quickly doesn’t give the stomach enough time to communicate with the brain to send up the “I’m full” message, and missing that cue can cause overeating. Waiting 20 minutes gives the brain enough time to register the “full” or “still hungry” signal."

"Remember that it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you're full."

 

There's more like that out there.  The details vary but the gist of it is commonly "stomach talks to brain, 20 minutes required."

Today, for the first time, I saw deviation from this folk tale in a soundbite-type article --- the kind that takes you through a slideshow of stock images, one per "tip".  Tip number 6  in a WaPo slide show that starts here:  

Wait 20 minutes for seconds:   Food must move 22 feet through your intestines from your stomach to peptide YY cells — the switch that says you are sated. 

What's this?  Peptide YY cells?  The intestines are involved in the conversation?  How novel!

The mechanism is apparently a bit more complex, though you wouldn't know it from the folktales.  I'm always particularly annoyed when the advice columnist, or whoever, suggests that satiety is primarily the feeling of your stomach "stretching" or some such thing, and that hunger is the feeling of the walls of the stomach touching each other or some such thing.   That's a theory from the early 1900s that's been well disproven.   (Have your stomach surgically removed and you'll still feel hunger and satiety.)

Mostly, hunger and satiety are brought on by hormonal signals (even that is a vast oversimplification!), and if your stomach is straining to contain the food you've gobbled, chances are you've overshot it.  

Peptide YY hormones (abbreviated PYY) are just one of several factors implicated in appetite regulation.  I'll borrow this brief explanation of PYY action in one set of mouse experiments from an abstract:  

In response to food ingestion plasma [PYY] concentrations rise within 15 min and plateau by approximately 90 min. The peak [PYY] level achieved is proportional to the calories ingested, suggesting that [PYY] may signal food ingestion from the gut to appetite-regulating circuits within the brain.

(I caution against taking single statements in reports of experiments, wherever published, as gospel.  I'm just quoting this here in order to borrow the wording, and emphasize that active research has moved beyond the "stomach walls rubbing together" thing.)

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So why does it matter?  If the advice is good, who cares whether we understand the real mechanism or not?

Maybe you can chalk it up to different types of people.  I for one find it easier to adhere to suggested behaviors if I have a mental model of what's really going on.

Here's one example.  Like many folks, I get cravings for carbohydrates when I've had a busy morning dealing with the kids or a long shopping trip or a stressful afternoon.   I have had an easier time riding them out and solving them in better ways now that I understand a few things (the following does not apply to diabetics and prediabetics):  

    (1) they are physiological, not a sign of mental weakness;

    (2) they really do signal low blood glucose, and I really will be sluggish if I don't get fed;

    (3) eating carbs will feel great and deliver immediate relief, but might not last long;

    (4) eating protein-and-fat will deliver the same relief from the craving, because a protein snack really will raise your blood glucose; but the relief won't show up for 30 minutes or so, and sadly it will not deliver the rush of "oh thank God this cookie is the best thing I ever ate."  Still, it will solve the problem.

How does this help with the carb cravings?

    (1) I know better than to try to ignore this signal.  It's a real message saying, "Either eat something, or quit doing anything mentally taxing until your next meal."

   (2) Even if the idea of a Coke and french fries and pie  is making me go yes yes yes, and the thought of a hardboiled egg or a handful of  almonds is making me go meh, I know that --- in the end --- the egg or the almonds will fix this problem.   

  (3) If I know this, I cannot fool myself into thinking, "But I really need a hit of sugar."  I don't.  But before I really understood the slower response to protein, I easily tricked myself into thinking that I did need the Coke or the cookies.

  (4)  If I can't stop what I'm doing and wait for the slower protein response, having a little bit of each might be a good compromise.  

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I can't say for sure whether I'll be more or less likely to wait that 20 minutes if I know that one of the "you've eaten enough" signals is triggered by caloric food reaching the ileum.  (Or if I know that gastrointestinal transit is not simple either:  "Materials do not leave segments of the digestive tube in the same order that they arrive."

One thing that does help me is knowing from experience how I've accidentally become overfull.  Can't count the times where "hm, I think I've got room for dessert!" has turned into "ooof, I guess I didn't really have room..." after, oh, twenty minutes or so.   I really have to almost feel like I've undereaten for a whole dessert not to make me all stuffed.

We have a locally owned, family-style restaurant near our house that charges only a dollar for pie after 7 p.m.  I am a great fan of pie, and so this restaurant (kid's meals under $3 that include drinks and dessert!  No kidding!) has been a good training ground for "saving room for dessert."  I almost always take the kids there after swimming lessons when Mark goes out of town for a few days, and I almost always arrive thinking "At the end of this meal, I will have pie."  

Keeping in mind the feeling of having eaten too much before the pie, and then added the pie onto that, really does help me remember not to order something big and then polish it off.   It's entirely mental -- another kind of knowledge that makes a real difference.

Bleg: Preparations for the possibility of unplanned unassisted home birth.

In the post about weekends, we kind of went off topic in the comments!

Commenter Jenny mentioned that she had a history of precipitous labor, and I suggested that (even though she and her husband prefer to plan a hospital birth) it would be a good idea to make a few preparations at home in the event of a precipitous labor necessitating an unplanned unassisted birth.

(If baby's about to come out, you're likely to be much safer staying home than trying to race to the hospital.)

Jenny sez:

I would love some recommendations. When I first went to the OB with this latest pregnancy, she actually suggested my husband come in to get some birthing pointers, just in case.

My husband keeps plants in the tub in our bathroom (don't ask). During my last pregnancy in the last month, I insisted he get them out of there and clean up the tub. I was not going to be a happy camper giving birth unexpectedly amongst his plants!

Getting the plants out of the tub is definitely a good start.

I have some ideas, but as I'm about to rush off to the vigil Mass I'm going to put this up here and invite ideas, recommendations, and brief precipitous-labor stories in the comments.  Be back later!

UPDATE:  More here.

Trauma in football.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a devastating summary of the NFL's attitude toward brain trauma in players.  Here's an excerpt:

1997 - The American Academy of Neurology establishes guidelines for concussed athletes returning to play. The guidelines recommend holding athletes who suffer a Grade 3 concussion (loss of consciousness) be taken "withheld from play until asymptomatic for 1 week at rest and with exertion."

2000 - The NFL rejects these guidelines. ''We don't know whether being knocked out briefly is any more dangerous than having amnesia and not being knocked out,'' says neurologist Mark R. Lovell. ''We see people all the time that get knocked out briefly and have no symptoms,'' he added. ''Others get elbowed, go back to the bench and say, 'Where am I?' ''

Lovell is a consultant for NFL and the NHL.

2002 - Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler center Mike Webster dies. Towards the end of his life Webster was living out a pick-up truck, using a Taser to ease back pain, and applying Super Glue to his teeth. 

2003 - In a game against the New York Giants, Kurt Warner suffers a concussion. Confusion ensues over the medical chain of command. Warner's coach, Mike Martz, says that the team doctor cleared Warner to play. The doctor, Bernard T. Garfinkel, agrees. But asked why Warner was allowed to play even though he "had trouble deciphering plays," Garfinkel says, "That's a coaching decision, not a medical decision."

Warner leaves Giant stadium in an ambulance.

"I would say it's not the coach; it's ultimately the physician's decision," says Pellman. "But you can't have a hard and fast protocol, because the injury is all over the place."

The whole post is much longer.

It's probably a good idea to point out that the kind of brain trauma that TNC has been discussing is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE -- not just "concussion" or even much more serious, but acute, injuries.  (Here's the CTE page at Wikipedia.) It's a degenerative disease that's the result of repeated, rapid accelerations and decelerations of the head.  First noticed in boxers and prizefighters ("punch drunk" syndrome), since 2002 it has been found repeatedly in the autopsied brains of professional football players.  (All this info is from the linked Wikipedia page.)  Hockey, wrestling, and soccer (because of "heading" the ball) are also suspected to entail the kind of head trauma that increases the risk of CTE.

If the data continues to pile up as it has been, professional football and its fans may be forced to do a lot of soul-searching.  Perhaps it will go the way of boxing in the public eye.  

TNC has pointed out that the effects of this sobering knowledge may be seen first in the youth and pee-wee leagues, as parents reconsider whether they want their sons to set out upon a road full of repeated, rapid accelerations and decelerations of their heads.  The youngest known victim of CTE is Nathan Stiles, who collapsed and died from brain bleeding while playing high school football, after a series of hits in previous games; he was 17.

I'm not a big fan of raising your kids wrapped in a protective bubble.  But I'm also not a big fan of repeatedly dropping your kids on their heads.

Here are some more blog posts by Coates on CTE in the NFL.  here here here

Class distinctions.

Darwin links to a post about class differences between marriage partners.  Um, I'll just copy a big chunk of this from Darwin.

I was struck by this post which talks about marraige frictions which derive from class assumptions:

Oliver and Maggie are young, very much in love, and planning their honeymoon. What should be an exciting series of conversations becomes surprisingly unpleasant. Maggie resents Oliver’s nonchalance about where the trip should be; he’s seemingly happy with almost any destination. Oliver finds the normally easy-going Maggie strangely rigid and demanding about where to take the trip, and doesn’t understand her anxious, almost obsessive research into the possible details of each honeymoon location.

Finally, it occurs to Oliver to ask a question: “Do you imagine that this is the only trip we are going to take together?”.

Maggie bursts out “Of course it is!” and starts to cry.

What is going on? Oliver grew up middle class and therefore anticipates a lifetime of travel with his future spouse, of which the honeymoon is only one journey. Maggie grew up in a community where virtually everyone was flat on their uppers. For her, a honeymoon is the only trip a couple would take, the sole travel memory they would share between themselves and with their children and grandchildren for 50 years to come. For her the choice was thus fraught with fear that she and Oliver’s one and only venture into the wider world would be less than perfect.

Another couple, Alphonse and Pat, generally get along well until something in their household breaks and a long-running feud comes to the surface. When the dishwasher floods the floor, for example, Alphonse digs out the service manual and his tool kit and commences to tinker with it over a few days until its function is restored. Pat simmers with anger at the days without a dishwasher and the grimy tools and grease stains on the kitchen floor. Alphonse is bitter that Pat doesn’t seem to admire how handy he is at fixing things around the house.

What is going on? Alphonse grew up in a blue collar home in which calling a repairman was considered an extravagance and in which men were supposed to know how to fix things with their own two hands. Pat grew up in an upper middle class home in which the only thing in the tool box was a cell phone. When Pat’s high-powered professional parents needed something to be repaired, they hired someone and it was done immediately, no muss no fuss.

 

MrsDarwin and I have very nearly identical class backgrounds, so I don't think there's ever been a time when we've found ourselves working from different assumptions like this. There have been a number of times at work, however, when I've found myself suddenly conscious of my background assumptions as compared to those of other people....

Darwin goes on to write about having "a deep feeling that 'people like us don't have vacation cottages' or 'people like us do our own yard work.'"  

I'm tempted to go off in three different directions in response to the post, which has a lot of food for thought, but right here I'll write about the first one that struck me upon reading the fictional frictions between Oliver and Maggie and between Alphonse and Pat, based on unspoken assumptions that arise from their backgrounds.

It reminded me of my marriage, just a bit.  Not because of significant economic class distinctions between Mark and me, but because of this difference:  A large fraction of my cohort of friends came from divorced families, and not one of my parents or my parents' siblings had stayed married.   Whereas in my husband's family and cohort, almost everyone had stayed married.  Mark comes from a place where it is assumed that marriages last.  I come from a place where it was assumed that they do not.  

Indeed, during the time that Mark and I were planning our wedding, one close relative warned me (technically not "to my face" -- it was over the phone)  that my marriage would likely fail.  

The difference hasn't caused arguments between us, not that I can remember (maybe it did while we were dating) -- but it has from time to time caused us to be bemused at each other's reactions.  

I guess most of the bemusement comes from me, now that I think of it.  

"Why Moms Need A Weekend..."

"...and how to make sure you get one."   A post at SteadyMom.com that I heartily endorse.

There was a time, especially when my children were much younger, when my weekend days mostly matched all my days. Steve stayed home from work, which we loved, but the basic rhythm and routine of life for the most part stayed the same....

I've shed that load now, and I want you to be free, too.

why you need a weekend:

* because moms work really, really hard

* because resignation from motherhood is not an option

* because a burnt out, exhausted mama isn't a good one

* because having your weekdays and your weekend look mostly the same is a recipe for frustration and resentment

I am right on board with this.  

(I've never felt this thing that so many other moms claim to have felt, this idea that it was wrong to take time to oneself to recharge, this idea that you were supposed to give and give and give and that you should feel bad for wanting to get away from the children once in a while.   Sometimes I feel vaguely guilty about not feeling guilty, but only for a minute.)

(I've needed time away from people in general my whole life.  Even the people I love most.  So it is not particularly surprising that I should need time away from toddlers, preschoolers, and tweens.)

(One thing that did surprise me, delightfully, is that I never felt a need to get away from the little ones until they started talking.  Handy for a nursing mom.)

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My method for having a weekend is to leave the house.  For years I have taken Saturday mornings as a sort of mother's sabbath.  Mark stays home with the children and I slip out the door before anyone is up.

Rarely are they filled with relaxation; I usually cram a bunch of errands into them, errands that I don't want to do with kids along -- I shop for clothes for myself, or I get my hair cut, that kind of thing.  I take myself out for breakfast, and sometimes for lunch, too.  I go to the gym.  I go to Mass and Confession on first Saturdays.  I sit in a coffee shop and catch up on email and blogging.  

This is something I look forward to ALL WEEK.  Lately, if Mark has to be out of town on a business trip over the weekend, I have taken  to hiring a babysitter for a few hours -- can't usually do it first thing in the morning Saturday, but I can put it off till Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon if I want.   It's that important.  I told Mark that his life insurance policy has to have enough  money in it for me to hire a babysitter at least once a week if he ever gets hit by a bus.

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Not everyone wants to spend their weekend (even if it's just a few hours of it) out of their house.  There are a few suggestions over at SteadyMom's post for making weekend days look different from weekdays even if you don't leave home.  

Obviously, if you're churchgoing, that's one thing that makes the weekend "look" different (because you're going someplace you don't go the rest of the week) but it strikes me that it may take some doing to make the Sunday-morning out-the-door-rush feel a little different from the Monday-morning out-the-door-rush.  

How about you?  What steps do you take to make your weekend really a weekend? 

Les Misérables: the film.

I'm trying really hard to get back into the blogging thing after a dry spell.  

Acting on a hunch, I declared to the children that they were no longer allowed to set their alarms for 6 AM so they could get downstairs before I wake up and claim the computer in order to play Minecraft.  

 I assured them it was not a punishment, just an attempt by me to reclaim my working and blogging time.

"You need more sleep anyway," I said.  "Unless there's schoolwork you need to finish, please don't set your alarms to go off before eight."

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Mark and I went out this past weekend to see the filmed Les Misérables.  I've noticed that it's received many cool and critical reviews, and I get the impression that it's going to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing.  A local reviewer disliked it (but he also dislikes the staged musical:  "I'd like to say the show never got boring, but that would be a lie: it does stop often for songs, and once you realize what any given round of bellowing is about, you can let your attention drift.")  Jeffrey Overstreet at Patheos wrote a more thoughtful (and occasionally amusing) criticism, acknowledging that his dislike of it might be in part because it was his first exposure to the story, songs, and play.  

(Overstreet's a little inaccurate, though, calling Jean Valjean a "Christ Figure" -- if he's a figure of anything, he's a "redeemed sinner" figure, not at all the same.)

My take on it:  I enjoyed the whole thing.  I am apparently one of the unwashed masses who, having loved the stage show, doesn't know any better than to like the movie too.

(Mark enjoyed it too, even though all he remembered of the story was the TL;DR:  Jean Valjean is chased by a policeman.)

I've seen the opera form of Les Misérables on stage, performed by top regional/traveling companies three times.  I own 3 different soundtracks, and I know the libretto by heart, including the French concept album.  (Come on everybody!  Á la volonté du peuple!  et á la santé du progrès, Remplis ton coeur d'un vin rebelle, Et á demain, ami fidèle...)

Let's discuss the big-name stars.

• Anne Hathaway: surprisingly good, I don't know why anyone was complaining.
• Russell Crowe: Good on him for stepping up to the plate and trying so hard. Javert does deserve a stronger voice, but I couldn't blame Russell; just wanted to pat him on the head and say "You're doing a GOOD JOB." 
• Sacha Baron-Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were fine, but I kept wishing they were Eric Idle and Madeline Kahn for some reason. 

Overall an excellent adaptation of the stage to the screen, retaining the stagey feel very well without trying to BE a stage production when it couldn't possibly have been, while exploiting well the things that cinema excels in.

In particular, the close-up solos ("I Dreamed A Dream," "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables") were fantastic -- they all really took the strengths of film and ran with them.  The film is being mocked for its close-ups, but I thought that the close-up was a good translation -- into film -- of the "spotlight" effect that's the best a stage production can do to highlight a character.

The live-singing technique transformed the songs, especially the emotional solo songs, into something new.  (Here's a little video that explains it if you're unfamiliar) When you know the recorded versions very well, as I do -- I  blast show tunes in the car from time to time to cheer myself up -- you get accustomed to a certain "polish" on the voices.  In a stage production, the singer has no choice but to (a) belt it out, so that she can be heard all the way to the back of the theater, and (b) follow the timing of the orchestra.  

But with the live singing, the actress/singer could adjust her voice timbre and volume, and the timing of the phrases to match the emotion of the moment.  (An earpiece provided a live piano accompaniment to keep them on key.)   Instead of the singer following the orchestra, the orchestral accompaniment was instead added later to match the singer.   This makes a big difference in "I Dreamed A Dream," which is placed here after Fantine's descent into prostitution, and in "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables."  Both of these characters are grieving, and you know, grief only sometimes calls for you to belt it out to the back of the hall, and it goes at its own pace.

I forgot where I was and fell into the story and the screen for at least the first half, although that was possibly an effect of the two margaritas I downed before the film.

(My new favorite date is to go out for nachos and too many margaritas at the bar next door to the theater, and then sober up while watching the movie.)  

There was a certain grittiness to the look of it all which the film wore very well, too.

I expect that if you go to it expecting it to be cinematic you will be disappointed; if you go to it because you love the stage production and you want it to be stagey you will be happy. 

Here's the Overstreet review again:

Hey, I have no problem applauding a narrative as profound as this one. But here I go again, digging out Ebert’s fundamental rule of film criticism: “A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.” The filmmakers don’t get credit for the story; that belongs to Victor Hugo. As Gandalf might say, all the filmmakers have to do is “decide is what to do with the material that is given to us.” These filmmakers made me feel like I was suffocating, and I was oh so glad to get out of that theater.

See, what I think Overstreet misses here is that this movie is not about what he thinks when it is about how it is about it.  It's not a movie about Restoration France.  It's a movie about the blockbuster stage opera Les Misérables about Restoration France.    The point is to bring the experience of the opera to new audiences in a new way.  And the movie goes about being about a blockbuster stage opera very well.