Tell me about Columbia Missouri!

[MeganMyDear]

Hey mamas (and papas if there are any over here)!

My husband is interviewing for a job in Columbia, MO at the beginning of next month (college professor). I want to know all sorts of stuff! First, about me- I am a birth and postpartum doula and childbirth educator. I am a vegan. I am liberal. I like to think of myself as crunchy with a side of moderation. (stole that quote from a friend!) :)

I have two children, ages two and four, who are currently enrolled in nature based preschools. They are outside a lot doing a lot of nature based activities. My son is really high energy and does best outside or in places where he can be really active and change activities every 20 minutes or so. Any preschool suggestions? Or even elementary school suggestions?

How is the birth scene there? Are there natural birth friendly docs? Midwives? How are the hospitals?

If anyone could tell me about Columbia I would LOVE it. :) Thanks!

[crystal_buffaloe]

Hi there --

I like living in Columbia, though since I had DD, I don't see as much of it outside of the library and playground We have 2 hospitals, and neither are good for NCB, though it is definitely possible, and both do VBAC -- high epi rate, high section rate. We did have a freestanding birth center, but it closed about 2 years ago -- the midwives still do homebirths.

We have lots of vegans and a couple of restaurants (I think Cafe Berlin can make everything on their menu vegan -- they use only local ingredients & Main Squeeze is a vegetarian restaurant with lots of vegan options & of course several varieties of various Asian places). We also have lots of students I work at the community college -- it has about 1,000 students, and then there's Columbia College, which has I think about 1,000 students, and then there's MU, which has 30,000 I think, plus we have Stephens, which is a women's college, and actually a small satellite of Central Methodist, but they only have a handful. Columbia is wonderful in the summer when most of them are gone!

Our library is great, and the trails and parks are good -- lots of off-leash places for dogs, too, if you're into that. I wish we were closer to the trail, but with a bit of a walk, we have access and that's nice.

We have a LLL but no ICAN.

As far as preschools, you've probably already found these:
Waldorf-inspired
One of the Montessori Preschools - I think we have 3 of these, but this is the one where some of my friends send their kids and they seem to have a nature focus according to things they've said

Also, we have a pretty nice farmer's market and several options for farm shares. We spit a share with friends from http://www.pierpontfarms.com/ though we might switch next year to the one through the Root Cellar