Maher Family Grows - And Baby Makes FOUR!

How to make a superhero cape

2011-07-05T16:35:00.005-04:00

Well, we all know how to make a superhero cape. But how to make one that doesn't choke your child? I came up with the easiest one ever.

Take one of your husband's old t-shirts. The bigger, the better. Whatever color. Don't worry if it has armpit stains, those will be cut off.

I have no pictures of the following, because I did it a while ago. But seriously, so what if you make a mistake? Don't you have at least seventeen old t-shirts lying around the house?

Cut off the arms. Slice it up the front up to the neckline, but don't cut the neckline. Carefully cut around each side of the neck, to the shoulder seam, leaving the circle of the neck intact. Cut down each shoulder seam to where you had sliced off the arms. Then spread out the fabric. You will have a squarish piece of fabric with a circle of neck at the middle and divots cut out where the arms used to be. The neck should still be attached all the way around the back of the shirt. Capes are roughly triangles. So, make a triangle shape, with the circle of the neck at the top. Do it however you think it looks right. Don't cut too far into the back of the neck where it is still attached. It should look something like this:

What you can't really tell is that after I made the "triangle" and put it on my son, the bottom corners dragged the ground because it was very long, so I just hacked off each corner until it didn't trip him up. This is going to be dependent on the size of the shirt, probably.

The rest of it is merely a "fitting" issue.

First, have your child step into the neck with the cape part in the FRONT:

Then have him work it up around his chest right under his arms. The cape should still be in the front.
Next, have him tuck his chin and start to flip it over his head, keeping his arms on the outside:

If you have to stretch the neck, that is fine. And the first time you do this, it seems like you are hurting your child. And he may complain. But if you have stretched it enough, it should be ok. See?
Then just continue flipping it over his head until it is flowing down his back.

I think this makes a kid pretty happy:

This will not fall off his shoulders as the neck is wrapped under his arms and around his back. It will not choke him if it gets snagged on something. And when it gets too stretched out to work anymore, you can make a new one! And I am sure there are some of y'all crafty types out there who can think of all sorts of things to decorate the cape with. Or, do the directions backward and keep whatever design on the shirt intact.

See? Easiest choke-free cape EVER.

A Good Friday Miracle plus Theology from a 4yo before 7:00 a.m.

2011-04-22T07:08:00.003-04:00

My children slept for nearly 11 hours. Thomas, who routinely wakes up at 5:00 or before, and who has never slept pas 6:00, woke up at 6:15. This is miraculous. Seriously.

And then Jonathan woke up about 6:30 and ran into our room and said, "Daddy, I had the most exciting dream!" When Marcus asked him about it, he said, "I was at Gramma and Grampa Bucher's house!" When asked what made it exciting, he said, "I played inside and outside! And Gramma Bucher and Grampa Bucher were there and Karen (the lady who helps with my grandmother) and Gramma Wenger AND Grampa* Wenger!" I repeated that last and he said, "Yes!" and then paused for a minute and asked, "Will God do the same thing to me that he did to Grampa Wenger? Will he make me alive again after I am dead?" When I said yes, if Jonathan believed in Jesus, he said, "Oh I DO believe in Him!" and then asked for breakfast.

*My grandfather, Karl F. Wenger, died at the end of September, 2010, at the ripe old age of 92 1/2. I was positive that I had posted something about it then, but it must have been only to Facebook. Which makes me think that I should write something about him here. Perhaps I shall.

Random photos of the wedding.

2011-02-15T18:24:00.005-05:00

Now, don't get all wiggy...this WAS more than six years ago.

But someone recently mentioned weddings and I thought of it.

This was one of the windows inside the 18th C. church with a lovely arrangement of hydrangeas.

This is us, outside of the church, before the ceremony. (Yes, we saw each other before the ceremony...we didn't want to make everyone wait while we took pics afterward.)

This was immediately after the ceremony. First pic of us as Mr. and Mrs.

This was such a funny picture with my cousin's daughter, our flower girl. She had just turned four. Isn't she just adorable?

We had a large reception. The church didn't seat very many people, and the wedding was near my parents' home. So, we had the reception at their house, and they invited all their friends to the reception. This is a photo of our rector giving the blessing before we cut the cake. We tried to have a bit of a ceremonial aspect to it since about half the people couldn't be at the actual wedding.

This is another photo of the cake. I LOVED my cake. Originally, it was supposed to be white piping that mimicked the beading on my dress and was going to have a burgundy bow on the top which was going to cascade down the side. Each of us only had one attendant, and our accent color was burgundy. But the cake guy said that he was worried about the stability of the burgundy fondant and suggested the piping in burgundy. I think it was just lovely!

And here is a last photo of us being smoochy post-toast. The toast was a whole other ball of wax. We had prosecco instead of champagne, and had it as our only alcohol. It was a late morning wedding and this was, essentially, lunch. Seemed odd to have lots of booze. But the caterer didn't bring a corkscrew. So, there was my sister, in her maid of honor finery, yanking corks out of dozens of bottles with the corkscrew in my dad's swiss army knife.

I could bore you with many more photos of the wedding, but I won't. Suffice it to say, we had a lovely time, and we continue to be happily married.

Oh LOOK, a gratuitous cute photo of my two boys:

Merry Christmas

2010-12-18T11:43:00.007-05:00

Well, hello there. Apparently I am posting now once a quarter. Ah well.

So, you guys who come to my little corner of the world get to see some silly potential Christmas card pictures:

I can't imagine what it is like for people with more than two kids. At least there was one adult per child in this scenario.

SOMEONE is a little too excited in this picture. (Remind me to tell you sometime about the passport photo I had taken in college....well ok, I will tell you now. After seventeen photos of me with my eyes half closed the photographer said, "For Pete's sake! Hold your eyes OPEN!" The effect was similar, though much more pronounced, to the photo above.)

It gets a little ridiculous after a while, doesn't it?

Ah yes, here is one we can use. FINALLY. It isn't perfect of anyone, but it is the best of all four of us. And so.....

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. And may your New Year be full of joy and peace and blessings.

(Please look back and note that my husband and my younger son almost always look pleasant and happy. Then look at how goofy my older kid and I are. Sheesh. I want a "photo" smile.)

Never Forget

2010-09-11T13:20:00.004-04:00

It was a bright blue morning. Crisp, for late summer. There was a freshness in the air that made people here in the DC area a little bit more perky. I had been back to work for about a week after a terrible August*. My boss and I had a horrid day-long deposition to take/defend for one of our stupider clients who shall, obviously, remain nameless. I had gone to work a bit early to get ready and was listening to the radio. And the news started. And I called my boss at home and told her to turn on her tv, which we didn't have in the office. I found some internet video news site. We watched the news about New York, horrified. And then we found out about the Pentagon. And then we had to abandon the vigil and go deal with the stupid deposition.

I didn't get a chance to see the news again until late that afternoon. And the photos and videos of smoldering buildings, and clouds of debris, and people hanging out of windows fifty stories up while the building behind them went up in flames will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My sister was working near the White House at the Court of Federal Claims. She saw the plane that hit the Pentagon fly near her building, which is in a no-fly zone. She saw it from the window of a conference room where several had gathered to watch the news. She elected to evacuate prior to the "official" decision. She had to walk out of DC because the Metro had shut down. She had on heels for work as a law clerk. She walked six miles out of DC, mostly barefoot. Cell service was intermittent, but thankfully I was able to contact her once or twice to be assured of her safety and to call my parents and let them know she was "on the road" so to speak.

I have a friend who was working in the Pentagon at the time. I called his office and cell and got nothing. Nothing all day. I didn't seriously panic because I had a vague memory that he had told me that there was an off-site meeting all day. He had been several miles away from the Pentagon when the plane hit, three doors down from his office. It took him all day to get back to his home in Maryland and phone me to let me know he was ok.

When everything shut down at the Federal level, the local counties did the same. Our deposition was right across from the Fairfax County Courthouse. I walked outside on a break and marveled at the absolute stillness. There was no traffic. There was no one around. There were snipers on the roof of the Courthouse. There was still not a cloud in the sky. The air was still cool and crisp. Birds were chirping. The world smelled fresh and clean.
But everything had changed.

We were attacked. We were at war. We were, and still are, hampered by the fact that there was no clear nation-state to respond to. But we were attacked by fascists just as determined to destroy our way of life as the regime which sent the kamikaze pilots to Pearl Harbor. And though we didn't want to destroy the Japanese people, or the German people for that matter, we NEEDED to respond. We still do. The enemy is more elusive this time. And hides in a religion. And while most Muslims are quick to distance themselves from the extremists, few step forward to identify those extremists. And the attacks keep happening. I have no answers, but I am pretty sure that one answer is NOT to stop pursuing.

Never Forget.

*Story for another time. Suffice it to say, I was full up on grief BEFORE 9/11.

Funny toddler speak.

2010-09-01T12:32:00.003-04:00

Jonathan turned four a week and a half ago and I need to write him a "Happy Birthday" post. But the tree fiasco has taken a bit of the wind out of our sails.

I primarily started this blog as a forum to document the changes in my children's lives so that I would not forget, and the other night, Thomas reminded me of this when he mispronounced a word. So here, for all time, are some of the funny words that he come up with:

Frog - pronounced without an "r" and with the "g" pronounced as a "ck". You can imagine. It reminds me of when Jonathan was learning to speak and he LOVED to shout the word "clock" whenever he saw one. Unfortunately he had a tendency to leave out the "l" sound. So I was reduced to saying, loudly, when we were in public, "Yes, that IS a CLOCK! See, it is 3:00!"

Wah-nee. It means water. Don't know why the funny pronunciation. Seems like "wa-ter" is easier, but I am not 19 mos old.

Why-Cause? - This is in response to me telling him what something is. I think it is because he started asking, "why?" and my response was, "Why? Because....." and he now just asks "Why-cause?"

Hot! Everything that is not room temperature, from warm to hot AND from cool to cold.

He knows a lot of body parts and will point them out (and poke them) with abandon! "Eyes! Nose! Errs (ears)! Hed! Herrrr (hair)! Chn! Mouse (mouth)! Tees! Tooeesss!!!"

And, of course, food. "Mluck!" "Chick!" "cookieeeeee! (cookies or crackers or anything crispy). "Ah-Pool" Loves apples. Mostly loves identifying and saying the word. "Nursies!!!!"

He also likes active words: "Danz!" "Wrunning!" "Hug!" As he throws himself full-body at you. And objects with wheels, cars and bikes and "twuck". And he is fond of showing and telling. "Come! Me!" accompanied by a demanding come hither hand gesture.

He is in a bit of a spurt and is adding about two words a day right now. Phew.

The Energizer bunny has NOTHING on this kid.

The haircut

2010-07-28T11:29:00.006-04:00

Thomas had beautiful curls, as shown in the previous post.

But he used them like a napkin, necessitating a hair scrub, if not a full bath, every
day.

Also, he is a sweaty little kid and his hair would be soaking wet after an afternoon at the park.

Marcus thought he was hot and miserable and asked me to get his hair cut. Since Marcus doesn't weigh in very much on these issues, I listened to him.

The haircut, from Thomas' point of view:

Beautiful curls.

I am fine with my beautiful curls, mommy. Can't you tell?

You wanna do WHAT? Cut them OFF? No.

This feels weird.

Hey, pretty girl cutting my hair, lollipop to suck on, life isn't too bad!

Still pretty happy, even missing half my hair.

I think I must now be quite serious, as I am now a big boy.

And what has big brother Jonathan been doing this whole time? All swimming, all the time:

And HEY, there are pictures!

2010-07-06T20:45:00.011-04:00

I promised you photos. So, here they are.

This is a great pic taken this past weekend, on July 4, the boys with Great-Grampa. My mom's dad. He is 92. Thomas is almost 18 months and Jonathan will be four at the end of August. Precious.

These are the beautiful curls on my Baby. Toddler. Soon to be a little boy. I have got to get his hair cut. I don't want to lose the curls, but he is so hot with them, and he uses them as a napkin. But, oh my heart.....

Huh, that reminds me of another little boy (taken when HE was 19 months old).....

Who has turned into quite the sun worshipper.

And yeah, that is a slate patio. On the Fourth of July. In Virginia. He only lay down for about three and a half seconds. And I added that dark "towel" to the picture of him. Because I can and should.

Oh, and you guys were all interested in how wonderfully Thomas is sleeping, right? Well we got a nifty little video monitor so we could tell if he were standing up in bed hollering for us, or if he was just rolling around trying to get back to sleep. Pretty nifty, eh?

You can see the whole crib. Well, nearly the whole crib. And it is infared or some such technology that allows us to see into the crib at night. Coolness. Sometimes you see chubby legs crossed at the ankles. Sometimes a little bum up in the air.

He likes his crib. I thought I would grab a shot of him just waking up from a nap or something. He doesn't look too happy about being photographed, does he?

And that is what I expect to see when I look at the video monitor (only he would be asleep, and not from that angle, but you know what I mean.) However, often I see this.

Which would be fine if I hadn't JUST PUT THE BABY IN THE CRIB AND LEFT THE ROOM.

The number of times that I have seen this and had a slight heart attack is more than I would care to admit. Because he hasn't piffed out of his crib or been raptured. He is there. Really. See?

I have no idea how he fits himself into that tiny area, but he does, curled up in a tight little ball. I suspect that little nubbin that you see is the edge of his bottom as he is pressed cross-wise up against the head of the crib.

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed. And one last gratuitous cuteness photo, the boys making a train out of boxes from a Costco run:

Wow.

2010-07-02T08:04:00.002-04:00

So, here I am three months later with very little to say.

Thomas has been sleeping better, which just gives him more energy to run around and scare me half to death by climbing EVERYWHERE.

We are overwhelmed with swimming lessons and assorted summer stuff. Trying to keep a toddler from jumping headfirst into the pool to get to his brother is, well, trying.

Back with pictures of the growing boys.......

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

2010-03-18T15:08:00.002-04:00

So, here is the update on the sleep situation as detailed in my last post. We got struck by the stomach flu here, and then a bout of the snots and coughing for the baby and myself, so we didn't start anything until last Friday night.

We figured we were going to have to do SOMETHING that involved crying, but I am constitutionally unable to deal with leaving him in the room to cry by himself. So we settled on what is variously called the gradual approach (Weissbluth), the "stay in the room" method (Dana Obleman, The Sleep Sense Program), and the Shuffle (Kim West, aka The Sleep Lady).
(I will come back and give html links to those things in a bit, I want to just get this down while it is fresh. If you really want to know the links, shoot me an email.)

We read the above references and went with West's book. It is most thorough for the approach we took. Essentially it goes like this. Nights 1, 2 and 3 you sit beside the crib and pat and talk to your baby until he falls asleep. Pick him up if he is hysterical, but just to calm him down, he must not fall asleep on you. Nights 4, 5, and 6, move halfway across the room. Reassure verbally and occassionally go to pat and coo, and pick up if necessary, but mostly stay across the room. Nights 7, 8, 9 sit at the door and do the same thing. Then go out of the door but stay visible. Then out of the door, not visible, but so the baby can hear you. Etc.

All "sleep solutions" start with the same premise: routine is best, early bedtimes for babies are best, and good naps mean good nighttime sleep.

Our routine is simple, after Thomas eats, I change him into jammies and as soon as my husband gets home, he says goodnight to daddy and we go read some books (2-4 depending on my mood) and then lights out and we say a prayer and sing a song and I nurse him. This all takes about 20 minutes. And he isn't a long nurser at bedtime. (Naps are a different story....I have to unlatch him every time.) When he stops nursing, he gets burped on my shoulder and rocked for about thirty seconds, then I put him in the crib.

We are now on night six and I am already sitting beside the door. The first two nights he stood in his crib and leaned over the bars and clutched at me. Wailed his little head off. But, I was sitting right there, patting him and talking to him. Every now and then I would pick him up and snuggle for a few seconds. After about 45 minutes, he fell asleep. The second night he cried a little less, but figured out that he could lie down and poke his little hand between the slats and grab my leg. I didn't want that to be a crutch for him, so I scooted out of the way and just patted his bottom myself. Each of those nights he woke up once, and then started his early waking at about 4 a.m. However, on the third night and the fourth night he didn't cry much at all and we moved to sitting a few feet from the crib. Those two nights he only waked up once in the middle of the night and then at shortly after 6. The FIFTH night? Tuesday night? He slept the whole night through. Finally fell asleep at about 8 and woke up about 6:30. Last night, the sixth night, he fell asleep with no crying, and very little complaining, with me sitting right by the door. He did wake once, very gassy, but when I picked him up, he flung himself to the side and pointed at the crib, so I laid him back down and patted his bottom for a few seconds and then went and sat by the door. He then slept solidly, AND SO DID WE, until 6:45 this morning.

We anticipate a bit more complaining when we go out of the door, especially since his brother's room is right next door. We are not going to take that step for another few nights since I have a meeting tomorrow night and all day on Saturday and things will be a bit disturbed.

But kids, check it out. We have had some serious chunks of uninterrupted sleep! Now I don't know if it is the wonderful PLAN that has worked, or if it was just his time (Jonathan started suddenly sleeping through the night at about this age.) But what a blessing!

To sleep, perchance to dream....HELP!

2010-02-23T07:57:00.007-05:00

Well hello there, dear readers. In case you follow this blog and wonder why I don't post all that much, the answer is quite simple: the baby doesn't sleep and therefore neither do I and therefore I am beyond tired. All. The. Time.

So, I am asking for your help. We are completely tapped out of ideas. I will give you the back story and I would love your advice.

We are second time parents, so this should not be rocket science, but it is. Our older boy is now 3 1/2. Thomas is 13 months old. Jonathan didn't sleep more than a couple hours at a stretch until he was 15 months old, so this isn't new, but lack of sleep when you have one kid is much different than when you have two. Also, as I will detail below, we were able to deal with his waking in a different fashion.

Our philosophy is basically attachment parenting: baby-led weaning (I nursed J until he was almost two and I was five months pregnant with his brother); babywearing (see previous post); co-sleeping (see details below); and being very responsive to the babies.

With both of the babies, we co-slept full time for the first six months or so, and then brought the baby to bed with us after the first or second night-waking for the rest of the night. This was necessary with Jonathan, as we were in the middle of renovations and his crib was in our room.

We were somewhat desperate as he rounded his first birthday and was still waking up four and five times a night, but we realized that any of the sleep "solutions" were very hard with co-sleeping in the picture. So we were waiting until the renovations were finished and the crib went into his own room. And we functioned rather well, all things considered. Though I wanted more sleep, I was able to sleep between his wakings. He would nurse for a few minutes and then we would both fall asleep. It worked ok. It WAS annoying that the intervals between his wakings got shorter and shorter as the night progressed. Four hours, then three, then two, then one, etc. Which meant that he was the most wakeful after 3:00 a.m., which is JUST when I need to sleep the hardest. Nevertheless, we managed. And, miracle of miracles, the NIGHT that we moved into our addition and moved his crib to his room, he slept for ten hours straight. TEN. And the next night he slept eleven. And that was that. He is now a GREAT sleeper and rarely wakes in the middle of the night.

So. We never really had to do any sleep solutions for him, though we were prepared for the No Cry Sleep Solution as well as Dr. Jay Gordon's "program." Now, neither of those has worked for Thomas. And then my wonderful chiropractor, herself a mom of two small boys, sent me an ebook which had a gradual approach, which let the child cry, but we would be in the room with him, first beside his crib, and then a few feet away, etc. etc. etc. Supposed to do a few days on each segment. We have never managed to get away from the crib.

So here we are. I still nurse him, but he does not fall asleep, most of the time. And I am about 90% successful at putting him down when he is still awake, though very quiet. And about three quarters of the time, we are able to get him to go to sleep "on his own" at the beginning of the night. Starting with a book or two and ending with sleep, about 45 minutes. Which isn't bad. Same deal with the 3 year old, only his routine includes a bath and songs, etc. And it is ok if both of us are home, we split the tasks. The OTHER twenty five percent of the time, it takes an hour and a half for him to go to sleep. Much of the time is spent with him in the crib and one of us sitting next to the crib. Most of that time he is not crying, but if we try to leave, he starts screaming. Bah.

But as annoying as THAT is, the real problem comes after that. Some nights he will sleep for about six hours, until 1 or 2 a.m. Then he starts a waking cycle that is enough to make the strongest man weep. He wakes up with a roar and a scream, and continues yelling until we get in there. If it is me, and he nurses, he gets quiet instantly. If my husband goes in, he yells for another three minutes and then settles. About half the time we can get him quiet and back to bed in fairly short order: twenty minutes or so. (And occassionally, about once a week, he actually POINTS to the crib, or tries to throw himself back in it, and he goes right back down, two minutes, start to finish. And each time that happens, we have a glimmer of hope. Sigh.) But the other half of the time, it takes more than an hour for him to go back to sleep. Again, much of that time is spent with him in the crib. It is MUCH easier to rock him back to a deep sleep and put him down, but we are desperately trying to get him more used to falling asleep without being held. On good nights, he wakes only two or three times after he has gone (finally) to bed, usually at about 1 ish and 4 ish, and then 5:30 or so.

On bad nights? Every two hours. And it is making us crazy. Last night is a good example, and please bear with me with the details. Hubs got home at 6:45 and I immediately took the baby in to put him to bed. He was already dressed for bed. At 8:15, hubs came in to relieve me and the baby finally was asleep at 8:30. Did you get that? Almost TWO HOURS. He woke up with a yell at 11:30. I nursed him and put him in his crib and patted him. I was almost out the door at midnight when he jerked up and stood up and started yelling. I finally managed to leave at 1:00 a.m. Did you get that? An hour and a half. And then he woke up at 4:20. Hubs got up with him and got him back down and he crawled back in bed at 5:00. Baby woke up twenty minutes later. M got up again with him since he hadn't gotten to sleep. Baby slept on him for a while and then he was able to put him back in the crib. M lay down on the guest room bed (Thomas' crib is in the guest room) for another 20 minutes. Finally T was wide awake at 6:15. I heard him roar awake without the monitor and got up to give M a break. Marcus wasn't going to be able to sleep since he needs to be up and at 'em at 7 to get to work on time, but at least he could get some space. So, to sum it up, we had a crappy night, and Marcus essentially was awake from 4:20 on.

As I said up at the front of this super long post, I was able to deal with Jonathan because I just pulled him into bed with us. I have tried that with Thomas, but the problem is that he just does NOT unlatch when he nurses. He will nurse the entire time he is in bed with me. Constant. I can fall asleep and then wake up two hours later because I am in a cramped position and he is STILL actively sucking. And that created a real painful situation for me. I actually didn't think that was the problem, and got myself looked at. The doctor suggested not letting him nurse like that and magically, the pain went away. So....no co-sleeping now. We have him in a crib in his own room and we get up and go in there and rock with him or sit by the crib.

Some people say, "Let the baby fuss for a bit before you go in." Which we do, when he is just whining and fussing. But most of the time he is YELLING, at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS. (Have I mentioned that he is a loud kid?) His room is right next to his brother's room, and until we have a plan, we are loathe to just let him cry. And we realize that unless we are totally committed to a plan, if we negatively reinforce the crying by sometimes going in and sometimes not, it will get worse.

His sleep hasn't always been this bad. Couple times a night was routine for the first nine months. Once he started solids more, the sleep got really bad and he would wake up five and six times a night. That is when we started getting super cranky. But we weren't happy about letting him CIO because he really seemed like he was in pain. Finally we thought it might be reflux and the doc put him on Zantac. Worked well after about a week, and the sleep improved for about two weeks. (only waking twice a night) Then got bad again and we upped the Zantac. Better for two weeks and then not so much. So the doc put him on Prevacid. Got better for about two weeks, and now not so much.

I would say that now, about 20% of the time he seems super uncomfortable and REALLY gassy. And 20% of the time he seems really mad. And the other 60%, he is just awake. Sometimes for a looooong time. But I am loathe to let him just wake up and cry and cry and cry if there is a 1 in 5 chance that he is really uncomfortable. That just seems mean to me.

But we are both shattered and short-tempered. The 3yo gets the brunt of my short temper because he is a willful 3 and I don't have much patience for that at the best of times. My diet has suffered tremendously (who wants to eat veggies and fruit when you have had four hours of broken sleep....only cake gets the serotonin levels up to functioning capacity.) Marcus and I have ZERO time together as we HAVE to fall into bed the very second that Thomas has gone to sleep if we are to get any rest.

I am pretty strict about naps for T....morning and afternoon. I don't do things that make him miss them, if I can help it, since he sleeps so little. He rarely naps for more than 45 minutes, and often only 30. I KNOW that naps are important and sleep begets sleep and all that. He just doesn't sleep ever. ONE night this week, for the first time in two months, he woke at 1, got right back down, and then woke at 6:20 for the day. Heaven. I tried to replicate that entire day, as well as the naps and bedtime routine. FAIL. Very disheartening.

So people, I need help. If you have done any kind of sleep solution, could you give me specifics about how it worked for you? I can read the books, but it is disheartening when they say, "for a few nights" and it hasn't changed in two weeks. So I need real-world advice. Did ANYTHING work for you? What do you do about the yelling waking up the pre-schooler in the next room? How many days or weeks did it take to work? HELP!

Winter Babywearing

2010-02-07T13:59:00.011-05:00

What do you do when there is 2 1/2 feet of snow on the ground and you have been cooped up inside for days with a 1 year old and a 3 1/2 year old. Well, you bundle them up in their multi-layered snow gear, of course, and head outside.

And the big guy will have fun climbing snow mountains.

But what about the little one, who is in the "drunken sailor" stage of walking? He is fine barefoot or with his little soft leather shoes, but boots? No way. No walk.

Well, you can plunk him in a snow pile and smoosh some against his back so he is braced.

But then, especially if it is still snowing, he looks like this:

And so you take him in, after thirty five seconds. (And after dropping your camera in the snow, but that is the subject of a different post.) So, the snow is still deep. Still needs shoveling. (The hubs, of course, is doing the lion's share of the shoveling, but one has to help out, doesn't one?) And most of all, everyone needs fresh air.

So, being a babywearing kind of a gal, you want to put him in the Ergo. But that doesn't work well over a coat. And it would be really uncomfortable with HIM in a coat, too. But it is below freezing out there. What to do? What to do? Well, if we had weather like this all the time, I would buy a babywearing coat or poncho. But I live in the allegedly temperate mid-Atlantic. We get snowfalls like this once every five years.

But mama can improvise.

And the baby likes it, too!

Now, we needed a third person (Hi, honey!) to help tuck the blanket around him, but I just tucked the top corners under the ergo shoulder straps and the bottom ones into the waist strap.

Done.

*Updated 10/4/2010 - There is a recent kerfluffle over the safety of babywearing. Stephanie Precourt is raising awareness of the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance (BCIA) which encourages safe babywearing. Go to her post to see more babywearing bloggers, and go see the BCIA Facebook page for more information.

Nearly the best quote ever

2010-01-19T10:48:00.002-05:00

A prophetess (for lack of a better quick description), giving a message to a man about to die from his God:

“Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true."

From Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm 1 (not 2 not 3 not 4)

2010-01-17T13:57:00.003-05:00

Thomas, our little baby, isn't so little, nor so much of a baby any more. He turned one year old on Sunday a week ago. We had a little family party. Big brother Jonathan oversaw the cake sprinkles, Aunt Kristen provided presents for both boys (what a good auntie!), God provided just enough snow that both kids could go sledding at Gramma and Grampa's.

It is hard to imagine that it has been a year since he was born. It has been a sleepless year, which seems to be getting worse, not better, but that is a whole 'nother post.

Thomas, though, seems little worse for the wear despite not sleeping. He started taking a few tentative steps the week before his first birthday. He now is taking more non-tentative steps, though he isn't proficient at all. But he is VERY tenacious. And excited. He THROWS himself in the direction he wants to walk, little feet trying very hard to keep up with his torso. His favorite activity is pushing a barstool around our main floor. The hardwood floors make it easy, and he very rapidly moves from room to room. Of course, he also flings toys around with abandon, and doesn't know enough to look at his feet when walking, thus tripping and falling to his knees with regularity.

He is a very happy child (more so when he is on his reflux medicine...we are giving it a break too see if his behavior is different, to report to the doctor tomorrow) and loves to laugh. He has a deep belly laugh, which sounds like it comes from a much older child. His favorite source of amusement (his favorite source of everything, come to think of it) is his big brother. Jonathan doesn't find him quite as amusing, but generally they are big fans of one another. Frequently they seem to need to occupy the same exact square foot of space at the same exact time. Wrestling and yelling ensues, some of it between the boys, much of it from Marcus and me.

Thomas is a bit more of a risk taker than Jonathan was, so I am learning the trick of turning chairs into the tables, so he won't climb on them. I went into the front room yesterday to find him attempting to do chin-ups on the shelves under the front window. Strong kid.

He is just as much of a cuddler as his big brother, which is nice, though he has a distressing tendency to fling himself backwards in your arms. He likes the feeling and he likes hanging upside down, but it is quite disconcerting if one isn't prepared. The baby is slipping away into the toddler. I feel a pang of regret that I wasn't better able to absorb his babyhood into my memory. We did a fair job off taking pictures, but I am not sure how much I was able to enjoy it, in my fog of sleeplessness. I am determined to enjoy his toddlerhood, though I greatly fear that much of it will be spent saying, "THOMAS! Nooooooo!"

How I cook: Rice Pudding edition Updated

2010-01-03T17:15:00.004-05:00

So. This is a tiny peek inside my brain.

We had Chinese food last night and lots of leftover rice. Wanted to make rice pudding. Wanted a baked rice pudding. So I looked online.

Found this one. Looked good. And so I set out, preheating the oven.

1 C. cooked rice. Hmmm. I have a small takeout container. That seems to be about two cups. Probably fine. Smoosh up into casserole. SHOOT, forgot to grease pan. Oh well.

2 1/2 C milk. Well, I doubled the rice. But FIVE cups of milk? That seems like a lot. Let's start with 3 and see what we think.

3 large eggs. Obviously needs to be increased, but maybe not double since am not doubling milk. Will whisk up five.

3/4 C. sugar. Am thinking of avoiding white sugar when possible. Will use honey granules instead.* And since honey is sweeter than sugar, will only use 1C.

3/4 C. raisins. Hate raisins in stuff. Will use dried cranberries. And 1 C of them.

Spices. Will use pumpkin pie spice instead. Because I have a whole jar even though I don't make pumpkin pie nearly often enough for my husband.

Add honey granules to the milk, add whisked eggs into milk. Add cranberries to rice in bowl. Sprinkle spice onto of rice and mix with hands. GOOPY! Begin to pour milk/egg mixture into rice. Realize forgot vanilla AND salt. Add to milk, without measuring, in some quantity more than called for in recipe. Add rest to rice.

Find 9 x 13 pan. Realize that it (stoneware) is UNDERNEATH all other stoneware pans even though it is the only one ever used. Sigh. Do weight lifting for the day.

Follow directions for water bath and pop into oven.

Sigh satisfactorily for having successfully followed a recipe.

*If I have piqued your interest re: honey granules, don't buy from that link, it is way expensive. Buy from these people. It is where I buy grain stuff for my mill. The website is non-user friendly, but I trust the quality.

UPDATE: It turned out really well, though I cooked it about an hour and 45 minutes. And in the middle had to spin the oven up to 350 to quick cook some chicken. But when stuff is in a water bath on a low oven, it is hard to really mess it up. Next time I might add some grated orange peel. Because I didn't double the milk, it is a bit more solid than the picture of hers, which is fine with me. I served mine with a drizzle (ahem) of heavy cream.

More on the diapers

2009-11-12T10:50:00.002-05:00

So, I have been using the GroBaby system for five months. Love it. Never thought I would like cloth diapers, since I hate laundry. And then I found out that GroBaby had launched a new product: biodegradable disposable "soakers", the inserts that snap into the outer shells. Well, since they are disposable, they don't have snaps, they have some adhesive where the snaps would be. GroBaby sent me a box of the disposable BioSoakers to try.

For FCC purposes, they sent me the box for free, and requested that I give them a try and let people know, via this blog, how I liked them.

I LOVE them.

They are just perfect for when I know that I will be out and about and don't want to deal with the cloth inserts (which isn't a huge deal since I carry little bags to put the wet soakers in to bring them home). In spite of the fact that the BioSoakers contain less than 10% of those super absorbent pellets that regular disposable contain, they were surprisingly absorbent. Yesterday afternoon my husband forgot to change the baby before a nap, and so the kid was in a GroBaby shell with a BioSoaker from 1:00 until about 5:30. No leaks! And I don't know what is on the outside of the BioSoaker, GroBaby says it isn't made of plastic, but it is nearly waterproof!

The one downside is that there sometimes is a bit of adhesive left on the shell from when you pull off the BioSoaker. I have noticed that if you let the whole diaper sit for a second, and cool off from the baby's body temp, the adhesive is easier to remove.

That isn't too much of a downside. The BioSoakers retail for $20 for a box of 50, and they are compatible with the GroBaby system, so they will work for all size babies. No more paying $20 for three diapers when your kid has gotten really big.

So, BIG thumbs up to GroBaby, for really great cloth diapers (and really great customer service!) and for giving cloth diaperers an alternative for when cloth isn't such a great option.

Cloth Diapering, most of the time.

2009-10-17T10:43:00.003-04:00

Well folks, here I am again. Boy, it has been a while, hasn't it? I have had several posts on issues of vital and timely interest in the works. But by the time that I get to them, they are neither timely nor relevant. Bah.

Babies. They take up a lot of time. Especially when they are sick and/or have been growth spurting.

Anyhow, one of the aspects of having Thomas as a baby that I have really enjoyed is cloth diapering. In several of my other posts, I have mentioned that I was going to use the Gro Baby system. I got a couple of the diapers and inserts, and then decided to just take the plunge and buy the whole system. Even though I hate doing laundry, and cloth diapers definitely increase the frequency of laundry, I like using them.

There are several reasons that we started cloth diapering Thomas, even though we didn't for Jonathan. The primary one was cost. When I ordered the Gro Baby system, both kids were in diapers, though Jonathan basically potty trained about a week later. But I had ordered disposables for both and spent nearly $120 at one time. So, I realized that the cloth would definitely be cheaper.

The second reason was that Thomas had a bit of a rash that was unresponsive to treatment. And it occurred to me that maybe he was having a reaction to the disposables. One more reason to try cloth.

And the third reason was that I wanted to say that I had tried it. You know, just to see if I could.

So, we have been cloth diapering since the middle/end of July and have been very happy.

I chose Gro Baby because they are a "one size" diaper, with snaps to increase or decrease the rise of the diaper as your baby grows, or to accommodate a booster pad. I also liked the "all in two" aspect of the Gro Baby system. And all in two system has an outer part, in this case the Gro Baby shell, and an inner part, the soaker pad. The Gro Baby system is unique in that the entire outer portion is mesh/PUL so that it is waterproof (mostly...it isn't plastic, so that it is a bit permeable) and dries VERY quickly. The entire soaker snaps out and can be tossed in the laundry. You don't have to wash the shell every time. I go through about eight soakers and three shells a day. You just rotate the shells and they dry out between changes. I thought this would be smelly, but it really isn't.

There ARE more leaks at night, or, more accurately, in the early morning hours, depending on how much he has nursed. The leaks are mitigated somewhat if I close the diaper differently. Still experimenting with this.

They diapers wash beautifully. I have had no problems with smells at all. There are a few stains, but those do come out better if you can put the wet diapers in the sun. The rash that he seemed to have is mostly cleared up, and he seems to react well to the cloth.

And they are pretty darn cute.

However, when we went away on vacation at the beginning of September, we just took disposables. Too much to deal with when away for a week. And disposable work well. But Thomas' rash came back. Phooey. Took a week for it to clear up when we got back to the cloth at home.

But now, NOW, Gro Baby has come up with new "disposable" inserts, called Bio Soakers. They are similar to the cloth soakers, though they have sticky tabs instead of snaps to insert the Bio Soakers into the shells. I would LOVE to try these.

Conveniently, Gro Baby is having a blog contest and will give away, FOR FREE, a set of the Bio Soakers to try for free. This is my attempt to win one of those packages. Hey Gro Baby, if you are listening, please send me a package to try!

Potty training

2009-08-10T19:42:00.005-04:00

Y'all can read this if you want to, but it is more for the family record than anything else.

So, we decided to try to potty train Jonathan earlier in the summer. Just for reference, he will be three at the end of August. He had shown very little interest in the little potty we had in the bathroom. Veeeeery occasionally he would pee in there, if someone put him on it at the right time. But he NEVER suggested it. Oddly though, he was dry in the morning, most of the time. Of course, by the time breakfast rolled around and then getting dressed, he had dumped the stored night pee into his diaper.

So I decided that there would be boot camp. And by that I mean that we had a week with NOTHING on the calendar for any of us. (Except hubs, he did have to go to work.) So, we bought some cotton training pants, some M&Ms, and I geared myself up for the week. We started on Sunday, the last week in June, so that dad could participate. Basically every 45 minutes we went in and he sat on the potty. I even broke out the DVD player, especially for the times that I wanted him to sit there for a while for pooping purposes.

Jonathan is a very compliant child, and only balked once or twice the whole week about going in and sitting on the potty. But he only peed about 20% of the time. And those were accidentally b/c of the amount of time he spent on the potty. He wet his pants at LEAST once a day, and seemed to have no idea that he was peeing. It was frustrating. It was a short week because of the July 4th holiday. By Friday, I was DONE. I ordered another two cases of diapers from Amazon (he wears a size SEVEN). We said, "Never mind, we'll try again sometime, GOOD JOB, son!"

We actually weren't upset. Marcus didn't have high hopes, anyway. I really was fine with it, though I DID have high hopes. So, we went to my folks for the weekend. Jonathan did spend some time naked in the kiddie pool in the yard (they live waaaaay in the country.) He did his share of open-air peeing, but was in diapers the whole time.

We came back early on Sunday morning of that weekend, to avoid the traffic. Got some stuff done around the house. Marcus grilled meat in the afternoon for the week. Jonathan loves hanging out with his dad when he is on the deck. Suddenly Jonathan came in the house and said, "Oh, I have to pee, can you help me?"

That was it. From that time since, in one solid MONTH, he has had only ONE accident. And that was my fault. We have used exactly six diapers of the two cases that arrived the morning after he asked for help peeing. We still do put a diaper on at night and for naps, because I am not willing to deal. But we use the same one practically, because he is DRY. We don't even use the cotton trainers anymore, just little boy underwear. Miraculous.

Pooping has been more of a struggle, and I think it is taking him longer to get comfortable doing that. But we have navigated even the public toilets ok with peeing.

So.

I have no idea what "worked" for us. Don't have any answers. It just is what it is.

Seven Quick Takes for the end of July

2009-07-24T10:19:00.005-04:00

I keep thinking I am going to write a real post, but it hasn't happened. So, I am very glad, once again, that Jennifer at Conversion Diary started the "Seven Quick Takes" idea for Fridays.

1) This week was one for contractors. I called the tree guy (dead branch overhanging the house, about 40 feet up); the plumber (had to find a new one, hated the old one, to fix our upstairs tub which was totally clogged); the HVAC guy to come check our units (gotta keep them in tip-top condition given the usual need for a/c around here.); 4) the general contractor because two years later WE STILL GET WATER IN OUR BASEMENT WHEN IT RAINS!

Of course, the problem is that you call them, leave a message and check it off your mental list. If they don't call back, you forget about it. Which is why the tub was clogged for six months. (We do have another tub, so my children aren't filthy dirty.)

2) So, the plumber came this morning. Fixed the tub. The house was built more than 50 years ago, so the pipes are really grody. They won't be permanently fixed until we rip out that bathroom and re-do it. Hmmmm. Don't think I can take THAT on right now.

3) Potty training has been accomplished (more or less) for our nearly three year old. Still have him in diapers/pullups when we go places, because, well, just because. He is VERY proud of peeing in the potty, and we have to do a little dance every time he does. It goes something like this: "Woo hoo, you pee-eed in the po-tty (etc.) boogawooga wooooh!" The baby thinks it is funny if I am holding him when I am required to "dance".

4) Grammas and Grampas are great for giving breaks to tired mommies and daddies (when they can do it) but somehow the feeling of a break doesn't last for more than six hours. Why is that? Normally a weekend gets you through the next week. Ah well, this is just a season, isn't it?

5) Today was the first of a series of pre-school birthday parties. All the little almost-3s have their birthdays between the end of July and the beginning of September. There is a whole host of them. We are giving books. I have been assured by the parents that books are ok. The current favorite is this lesser-known McCloskey book. "Wentil, by Wobert McCwoskey."

6) Woo Hoo!!! Just got my GroBaby diapers in the mail. So excited. Must go do load of laundry......

7) Suddenly my almost three year old understands the concept of "mommy is going in the other room to nurse the baby and you need to be quiet". He came in the baby's room and whispered to me that he had to "go pee" and left. Then I heard the bathroom door and the bedroom door open and he came back in and whispered, "can you help me?" Poor tyke couldn't get the diaper open. So, I unhooked it for him, handed it to him. He said, "Thanks mommy" and took his diaper and little naked self and softly shut the bedroom door. The bathroom door was slammed shut, but you can't have everything.

Seven Quick Takes

2009-07-14T14:44:00.005-04:00

I have had ideas for posts this week, but they haven't materialized much past a few sentences in draft. So, I am very glad, once again, that Jennifer at Conversion Diary started the "Seven Quick Takes" idea for Fridays.

1) This week we hit a couple milestones.

My older son, who will be three in a little more than a month, started asking to go to the potty. He has had a dry diaper since Sunday! And, of course, last Friday I ordered TWO cases of 92 diapers each for him from Amazon. Because he wears a SEVEN (He is a skinny tall kid and he needs the length). So, I have $90 of disposable diapers sitting in my front hall that are still unopened. We will see if I just jinxed everything by typing this.

The second milestone is that the six month old baby slept for SEVEN hours straight last night. After I awoke, in pain from engorgement, and pumped off a few ounces, I went in and checked on him. Remarkably, he was still breathing and deeply sleeping. Since I walked over to the crib, he stirred around and kindof woke up. So, I finished nursing him and he went down again for another hour before he needed to be brought to our bed.

2) I still worry about supply issues. I am still taking some supplements, probably not as regularly as I should. Nevertheless, as we all know, demand really does regulate supply. And the nighttime demand is really important. So, if this regular sleeping continues, I am going to have to decide how important it is to me to keep my supply up by pumping at night. Of course, I have just been EXHAUSTED by the nighttime parenting, so the supply issue is weighted against a happier, more energetic mama if I can continue to get five or six consecutive hours of sleep.

3) The baby has started solids. Sortof. I started feeding him a soft-boiled egg yolk about four weeks ago, but after two or three times, he would projectile vomit a few hours after the egg. So. No more egg. He likes yogurt, slurps that down. Though I am not sure that yogurt counts as a solid. I have tried one or two fruity baby foods. He will eat them, up to a point, but looks cranky the whole time. And FORGET cereal. He looks like I am torturing him.

On the other hand, I have been supplementing him with formula. Only about 4 oz every other day or so, so it isn't really adding to his weight, I guess. I am making it. This is a very good recipe and has none of the bad junk that manufactured formula has in it. If he is the slightest bit hungry, he sucks it back. And it hasn't really changed the content of his poo yet. Which leads me to:

3) The unchanged baby poo, and the potential for being done with diapers for Number One Son has caused me to think of cloth diapering, again, for Thomas, who just turned six months old. I talked it over with my husband, who is game to try. So I am ordering some GroBaby diapers. And "paper" liners. Cause I am a wimp. And this company had really cute Baby Legs severely on sale, so I got a couple of those. We will see if how they do.....

4) I need some more Birkenstocks. Mine sandals have finally bit the dust. I bought them in 1989, though, so I figure that is just allright. Bummed though, because the style that I like was discontinued, oh, a dozen years ago. Phooey. But since I wear Birks 90% of the time now that I am a SAHM and don't wear suits, even in winter (I have a pair of cloggy Birks that I wear with wool socks unless there is more than two inches of snow), I think that I need a new pair. Any suggestions of style?

5) We are thinking of home educating our children. For a wide variety of reasons, including probably all of the standard ones. So. Hmmm. I am reading and researching EVERYTHING. So far I have found an animated series of Bible stories that I like. Heh.

6) I need to lose weight. I also have no will power or idea of portion control. And my idea of eating veggies usually includes butter and bacon. And I hate to exercise. And I have been sitting on my butt for months now nursing the baby (see point above re: supply). So, I have bit the bullet and joined Jenny Craig for a bit, to get myself under control. AND we are eating veggies from our CSA. Veggies without butter and bacon, thankyouverymuch. Have lost eight pounds so far. Lots more to go, but hey, it is a start, eh?

7) Speaking of our CSA, we have received a bunch of stone fruit this week. And therefore I borrowed my mom's food mill to make baby apricot puree. YEAH!

Huh. Reading this post, what with the cloth-diapering, cosleeping, kid-led potty learning, breastfeeding, home-made formula and baby food-making, Birkenstock wearing, potential home-schooler, it makes me seem like a crunchy lib, not the traditional conservative I am. Boy, I LOVE bursting stereotypes!

EDITED to add: I totally forgot to add all of my babywearing nonsense to the list above. I am developing QUITE the little stash of carriers: two ring slings, one pocket sling, two Mobys, two woven wraps, one Ergo, and one BabyHawk meitai.

Things....

2009-07-05T14:28:00.002-04:00

...no one told you when you were about to become a parent.

1) "Sleeping in" means 7 a.m.

2) Never going to the bathroom with the door shut. (I get tripped up with that one when I am at other peoples' houses....)

3) When feeding the children becomes a priority, your own food needs do not. (Lunch the other day for me was the crusts from the kids' grilled cheese sandwiches. Seriously.)

4) If the baby doesn't want me to sit down, I don't sit down. Sigh.

5) A good nights' sleep is a TOTAL of six hours. Double sigh.

6) The amount of laundry in the household that contains a new baby is DOUBLE the amount of laundry before the ten-pound child hit the scene....EVEN if you only change his clothes every other day.

7) You can love your child more than you can possibly imagine and yet want to pinch his little head off.

8) Little boys (and maybe little girls, too, but little boys is all I know) have HARD bodies: toes, fingers, knees, elbows, shoulders, heads, etc. And they will use every single one of those hard bits to pummel you on a regular basis.

9) Kids never walk anywhere. They trot.

10) Just when you think you cannot possibly get madder at them than you are, you do, but in the next second they do something so precious that your heart just melts and you nearly dissolve into a puddle of tears (or is that just me?)

Seven Quick Takes

2009-06-19T14:40:00.005-04:00

This is about the only way I blog anymore. Which is why Jennifer came up with this idea, I think.

1) I own seven baby carriers. One Ergo (see side panel), two Moby's (one is a MobyD and I think it is going to go to my neighbor who is having a January baby), one ring sling, one pouch, two woven wraps (one is a lovely violet Didy and one is a red/orange Gypsy Mama gauze sling). I think I am going to trade in my Gypsy Mama and try to get a mei tai.

2) I love Twitter. I love touching base with bloggy friends I have made. I know Twitter gets a bad rap, but I think it is as much of a "water cooler" for the internet than anything else. Plus, I can hook into people who follow the news more closely than I, thus freeing me up from actually having to glean my own information.

3) I am mistreating my windows a la the Nester. Which makes me happier than I should admit. Maybe pictures are in the future.

4) The baby has some weird splotches on his lower amdomen. And he is really fussy, so we are off to the doctor this afternoon.

5) I bought a camera for my birthday. Because I am determined to take more pictures. Also, we had cake!

6) Am contemplating doing a post on choices. Working v. staying at home. Career v. family, etc. I left a reasonably fulfilling law career to become a SAHM, so I have made some choices.

7) Went to the Homeschooling Convention here in Virginia last week. Wow. Tons of stuff to take in. Since our OLDEST is only 2 1/2, we are just thinking about everything right now. But I did buy one of these DVDs. Looked very well done and interesting. We shall see.

I am not selling out. Really.

2009-06-16T07:55:00.002-04:00

So, last week I went to the yearly convention of the Home Educators Association of Virginia. Jonathan stayed with my parents and Thomas came with me. It was a fascinating time, and will (might) be the subject of a different post.

The subject of THIS post is the banner add to the left, and why it is there. While I was at the HEAV convention, I got many comments on my Ergo. And I demonstrated how to use it three separate times. If I had some, I could have sold them out of my van.

So, serendipitously, I received an email from Ergo over the weekend asking if I wanted to be part of their referral team. If you want an Ergo baby carrier and click through the link on my page, I get a little referral fee for each Ergo sold. I don't get a whole lot of traffic here, but I am so SOLD on Ergo baby carriers, that I am willing to put a banner on my blog. So. There you have it. Maybe I will make a little money, but definitely I will be doing my part to share the Ergo love.

I am woman, hear me roar....or something.

2009-05-25T10:51:00.004-04:00

Veronica has a stunningly funny post up. It isn't comically funny, it is funny because she takes on a feminist who takes herself too seriously, and yet somehow doesn't think that mothers who talk about motherly things should be taken seriously. Unless those mothers talk about Proust. And I commented on that post, but then realized that I had a lot to rant about on the subject. So, some of it is there, and some of it is here.

And then I realized that even more humorous was the fact that I have been composing a post in my head over the past week that is TOTALLY about my children, mostly how I wear them. Maybe I will do a 7 Quick Takes just about that. Because I have nothing else to talk about. So I must be uninteresting. And a traitor to feminism.

Beck had an interesting comment to Veronica's post. In part, she mockingly referenced the article, and said, "Being interesting means being ... full of academic interests and Man Style Achievements." And that, I think, is true for the author, much as she would protest. She rudely describes a dinner party in which she is "stuck" with the moms and at the other end of the table the men are engaged in a scintillating conversation: "This could in fact be a 19th-century novel where the men have retired to a different room to drink brandy and talk about news and politics." I think she has revealed herself. She wants to be with the men. Because THEY are having the interesting conversation. About things that THEY are involved in. Though today a "male" conversation seems to frequently center on sporting events rather than news and politics, but whatever.

The assumption that the "news and politics" is more important or objectively interesting and therefore those -- mothers -- who do not participate in those conversations are not, objectively, interesting, is irritating. Frankly, we all gravitate toward those whom we have something in common. If a woman is single, has no significant other, and is in a high powered career, she will have more in common with those in her same situation.

I worked on a presidential campaign for a while, years ago. In the middle of the seven day workweek and 12 hours days, I found a couple hours to go to dinner with some non-campaign friends. It was the strangest experience. They were talking about movies, and music, and boyfriends. I felt like I was underwater, hearing their voices in a muffled, distant way. I could not have POSSIBLY cared less about what they were saying. But I didn't assume that they were ignorant nobodies. I knew that I was a bit tunnel-visioned at the moment, and that it was better for me to just hang out with others who were as focused as I was. That time was going to pass, and I would shift into a different phase of life.

The same thing, I think, was true of those Victorian drawing room discussions. Women were as uninterested in the brandy and cigars as the news and politics. I don't know that they felt "banished" to the embroidery circle. They had important things in their lives to talk about with other women. And frankly, "feminists" who criticize mothers for talking about their children should perhaps be better served criticizing fathers who do not.

I talk about potty training, and breastfeeding, and babywearing, and discipline, and sleeplessness, etc, with my "mommy friends" because I want to tap into their knowledge base, and to feel not alone, and to be able to vent a bit. I don't tend to go where children aren't welcome because they ARE a part of me. They ARE my life right now. To pretend otherwise is a fantasy. My cousin got married and the invitation said, "adult only reception". And it was out of town. And my child (we only had one at the time) was still nursing. So we didn't go. No problem. It is a stage of life. And ONLY my childless, single friends even ASKED the question, "well, couldn't you just find a babysitter?"

So we don't go to dinner much. And we don't go to the movies much. Or to weddings. And it is a bit sad, but we have two precious ones who take up too much of our energy to really be upset by that.

But I was really happy to get a wedding invite from one of my husband's friends which said, explicitly, "children of all ages are welcome at the ceremony and reception." NICE!

Things to remember

2009-05-18T08:33:00.005-04:00

Isn't this the cutest little picture of Thomas? Look at his little head, pillowed on his little arm:

I was volunteering last Saturday morning to get breakfast and lunch ready for a meeting we had and I couldn't work with him in a front carrier like I usually have him in. So, my friend Sherri lent me one of her woven wraps and we put him in a Tibetan High Carry on my back. NOT to be done without a spotter. It did take the two of us to get him in it. But he loved being there. Talked and jabbered, and drooled and finally fell asleep.

This is a better idea of what it looked like:

And that afternoon, his two bottom teeth broke through. And the next morning one of his top front teeth came in. Three teeth. At four months and one week. Wow. And, just for posterity, 13 lbs, 5 0z. 27" at his four month checkup. And he likes to stand (with help). And laughs belly laughs at his big brother.

Seven Quick Takes

2009-05-14T13:21:00.007-04:00

Thanks again to Jennifer from Conversion Diary for hosting 7 Quick Takes Friday.

1) For those of you concerned about the fate of the stroller, it arrived somewhat directly the following morning. With just a few scrapes and bruises.

2) Spring has come!!! And we have had a couple really nice days here, amidst all of the heavy rain. But thankfully the 90 degree days that we had about three weeks ago haven't come back yet.

3) Ok, tips for traveling with an infant and a toddler: Have little "presents" wrapped for the older child to open during stressful times. Lots of snacks that take a long time to eat, like those little tiny "toddler dried fruit." And a water sippy for the child to drink from when taking off or landing. We brought a portable DVD player. It was useful, for a brief time, but don't rely on it. You can't use it during takeoff or landing, and if the captain has asked people to put away electronic devices, and then you sit on the runway for a while, the DVD player wouldn't help. Don't bring too many books, just a select few. Take more than one form of kid transportation. I have never been so glad to have thrown the ergo in the luggage at the last minute. Nurse the baby, if you can, during takeoff and landing. Helps with the ears.

4) It has been raining here for weeks. Which is good considering we had sod put down a week before we left for vacation and said sod is supposed to be kept "soaking wet" for four weeks after it is put down. On the other hand, all the rain brought down all the seed pods and our gutters are clogged. Which means that the water overflows over the side and not down the pipes unto the french drain which is supposed to help funnel the water away from the house and make the yard less soggy. Which is why we had to have the sod put down. A great big circle of problems.

5) Baby Thomas is teething. Enough said.

6) I love looking at cloth diapers. I don't use them. And I hate doing laundry. So I really SHOULDN'T ever start using them. But still. I am drawn to them. Like a fly to honey.

7) Need to cook with beans more. Need recipes that disguise the fact that they are, in fact, beans. Because my toddler will not eat them. Anyone have any good, mushed-bean, recipes?

Moms can do anything

2009-05-07T19:49:00.003-04:00

So, what do you do when you have two small tired children who have been traveling all day and the airline loses your stroller?

This is what you do:

For those of you keeping track, the 13 pound four month old is in the Moby on my front. The 32 pound two and a half year old is in the Ergo on my back. It wasn't fabulous because the Ergo chest strap wasn't fastened. I couldn't be bothered to redo the Moby, so just slapped the Ergo on (sortof...I did have help getting the big kid up there) over top of the Moby. It all wasn't planned, because, well, we were supposed to have the stroller for the big boy. ANYWAY.

We had a good time away, but the going and the coming sortof negates the goodness of the trip. Sigh.

7 Quick Takes

2009-04-24T09:44:00.001-04:00

1) I am so excited to finally be doing this. Jennifer from Conversion Diary had a great idea....blurbettes from the week that don't deserve their own blog post. This is point 1 because I have been wanting to do it, but Friday comes and I haven't gotten around to it. So, I am starting this on Monday night. I figure with the way my weeks have gone, this MIGHT mean that I get it up before Friday.

2) Hey! I participated in another bloggy carnival this week! Motherwear has a "Breastfeeding Carnival" every month or so, and this one was on "How To....". And so I contributed a post on the "supplement" extravaganza that I do. I really love the topic, and I think I had something to contribute. However, the stinkin' thing took me all day, what with the adding of the links of others, and the reading of those blogs, and the commenting on them, and the reading of my comments. Clearly I am not cut out to be a regular blogger.

3) I am thinking of homeschooling. But my older son is just 2.5 and my little guy is three months. Just in the "thinking" stage, we are. So, a friend who is also thinking about it, and I, and another friend (boy, THAT's a doozy of a sentence....) are getting together to do a co-op homeschool thingy for our preschool set. We are going to get together on Mondays for just a couple hours in the morning, and rotate the "teaching" among the moms. Start was this week. I "taught" first. OY! So much planning. And the littles didn't do the crafts right. ARGH. Actually, I think they had fun, since no one wanted to go home. And I had fun in the planning of it, if not the execution. I used the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a spin-off and wove some Easter theology in. Sortof. I dunno folks....don't know if I am cut out to be a teacher. So, "blog writer" and "teacher" can be checked off my list of "things I know I am cut out for."

4) I am a big fan of Twitter. I don't comment/update much because when I am on the computer I am usually using only one hand because I am nursing (See No. 2 above). But I love the updates. I feel like I know my bloggy friends better when I see daily bits and pieces. I also like Facebook for the same reason, though Facebook updates tend to be people that I know in person, though there is some overlap. Thank GOODNESS that I can do one update using a Twitter application called "Tweetdeck" and select it to update Facebook as well. Saves time.

5) Regarding No 4. above, I happily tweeted the other day that Thomas, age 3 1/2 months, had slept for 4 1/2 hours in one stretch the previous night. Well, in typical Murphy's Law fashion, the following day and night I could NOT. GET. HIM. TO. SLEEP. And, when he did go, he was all, "who needs to stay asleep for longer than twenty minutes, Mom?" and "Hey, life is so very interesting at 10:30, and 1:00, and 2:30, and 4:00 and 5:30!" Not fussy. Just UP. So, what am I doing now while he naps? Writing a blog post, of course, because Jonathan is at pre-school and I actually have TWO hands free and it is bright and sunny outside, and I had a mocha latte this morning. Anyway...advice: Don't tweet that which you don't want jinxed.

6) Sharp baby fingernails hurt. And are impossible to cut. But he is cute, so that counts for something, right?

7) We can't protect our children all the time. But when something happens RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE is is heartbreaking. The boys (my 2.5 yo and his little friend who is within three weeks of my son's age) were playing. And the other mom and I were just saying how nice it was that they were getting along so well. And they ran into my son's room. She was dealing with her older boy who had just awakened and was a bit out of sorts, and I was just preparing to nurse the baby. Suddenly I heard screams! I was more mobile than she was so I put the baby in his bouncy seat and went to see the source. The boys had been jumping on the bed. A no-no in our house, but ok in theirs b/c their bed is on the floor with no frame. However, ours has a frame, and a footboard, which, when the little boy fell and hit his mouth on it, bashed his mouth bloody. Poor little tyke. Gushing blood. My son was sitting there on the other end of the bed looking very confused.

The boy is probably ok, but the mother's nerves and my shirts will never be the same. If it is dangerous to have your kids in your house, right under your nose, in as protected a place as can be, and something like that happens, it is no wonder that we parents have a hard time even letting these little precious ones even out into our yards, much less the real world.

I lie awake at night worrying, sometimes. And then I remember: my children are God's children. He formed them in my womb. They are fearfully and wonderfully made, by Him. And I need to trust Him with them.

Harder said than done, eh?

How to Increase Breastmilk Supply Using Supplements

2009-04-19T21:08:00.015-04:00

This is a re-worked post of mine from February 24, 2009. I am participating in Motherwear's April "Breastfeeding Carnival". This month's topic is "How to...." Welcome new readers!

Short background: I had a low supply issue with my first son who is now 2 1/2. Breastfeeding got off to a rocky start, and in spite of much effort, I needed to supplement him with formula, between 30 and 50%. Therefore, I was prepared with this latest pregnancy (Son No. 2 is three months old) that I might have to supplement the baby. I started out by stocking some frozen breastmilk from a wonderful friend of mine whose son was born about three months before I was due. And, several women in my LLL group suggested that I might not have so many difficulties since your body makes more milk making tissue with each pregnancy. Nevertheless, when the lactation nurse visited me in the hospital, she recommended some supplements for ME. My doula, who is also a lactation consultant recommended some others. Therefore, without further ado, here is my daily regimen:

Calcium citrate with magnesium - Two caplets per day - This is the form of calcium that is most easily absorbed by the body and the magnesium helps the absorption as well.

Alfalfa - Two capsules three times a day - A galactogogue among other things.

Milk Thistle - Two capsules three times a day - Ditto.

Goat's Rue - Two capsules three times a day - This was new to me, but is also a galactogogue and is marketed as such. The previous two are marketed for other purposes. You can find Goat's Rue from Mother Love directly, though an internet search will show you other "shops" that have it slightly cheaper. It comes in capsules and a tincture. Allegedly the tincture is more effective, and definitely cheaper, but when you are taking as many potions as I am, it is easier if they are all of the same variety.

Soy Lecithin - One capsule two or three times a day. This is an emulsifier, but also keeps the breastmilk from getting "sticky". I found it useful last time in helping prevent plugged ducts. I am taking it prophylacticaly now.

Fish Oil - One capsule two or three times a day. This should contain EPA and DHA. Good for you, good for the baby.

Probiotic - One capsule three times a day. Just to help keep yeast at bay. I use a shelf-stable probiotic so that I can add it to the pill container. Again, the refridgerated kind is better, but this way I take it.

I am also continuing to take my prenatal vitamins.

Now, some of these have special instructions. The Goat's Rue is supposed to be taken with very little water. The probiotic is supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. the milk thistle and the alfalfa have no special instructions. The prenatal should be taken with food so as to minimize any reactions to the iron. WHATEVER. I have to take them all at the same time or there is no hope that I will remember to take them all. So, the "with food" and "without food" get taken at the same time. And when I have to take nine or eleven capsules, you know darn well that they are getting taken with more than a little water. But I figure something is better than nothing.

And the galactogogues seem to be working. It appears that I have more than enough milk for the baby. In fact, I have even managed to pump a bit! I don't pump for supply purposes like I did with my first baby, just enough to keep about four or five ounces in the freezer as I try to give the baby one bottle a week, just for practice. I actually have to take the hospital grade breast pump back in two days, so I will limp along with my own double electric that sounds like an wheezy chicken.

I also eat a lot of oatmeal, and nurse on demand. Hopefully I will be able to exclusively breastfeed this baby for a few more months before having to add anything else to his diet. But, as I have said before, breastfeeding is not for wimps!

(Update April of 2011: This post is the most searched for on my blog. Hopefully this is helpful to those of you looking to increase your supply. I am still nursing my youngest who is 27 mos old. Even if you have low supply, you should be able to stop the supplements after the baby isn't using breastfeeding as his primary source of nutrition, and if you continue to nurse on demand, you should be able to continue nursing for as long as you and your little one want to nurse.)

And now, here are the other posts in the Breastfeeding Carnival (To be updated as more are added):

Breastfeeding Moms Unite: How to become a breastfeeding support professional

The Marketing Mama: How to pump successfully at work

Amber at Strocel.com: How to get breastfeeding off to a good start

Baby Carriers Down Under: How to breastfeed hands free

Milk Act: How to care for a sick nursling

Baby Ready: How to get baby to take a bottle

The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: How to help your baby kick the nipple shield habit

Mama Saga: How to breastfeed or just look like you know what you are doing

Breastfeeding Mums Blog: How to wean a breastfeeding toddler

Mama knows Breast: How to get a spouse to help

Blacktating: How to treat a cold while breastfeeding

It's all about the Hat: How to be comfortable around a breastfeeding mom

Zen Mommy: Using YouTube to stop nosy questions!

Natural Birth and Baby Care: How to improve supply with nutrition

MoBoLeez: How to increase your supply with seaweed

Breastfeeding 1-2-3: How to teach your baby nursing manners

Happy Bambino: How to deal with unsupportive family members

Tiny Grass: Tandem Nursing: How to do it without driving yourself and your nurslings crazy!

Things doing around here

2009-04-17T10:41:00.004-04:00

Well. My three-month old baby rolled over, from his back to his front. There goes the ability to set him down on the couch for a minute. I haven't gone back and looked at Jonathan's baby book, but I think he did it at four months.

In other news, Jonathan went to bed last night without (much) dinner as he refused to eat what I gave him. Needless to say, he had a big breakfast this morning.

Also, we had some photos taken of Thomas at three weeks and three months. Email me if you would like the link.

Easter - And there will be no more weeping.

2009-04-14T08:53:00.005-04:00

Across the blogosphere, there is weeping and sorrow for the loss of several babies. And over the past few months, we have heard of several others. And I grieve for these parents. I cannot imagine the pain and anguish or losing a child, at one day, three days, three months, or three years.

My faith in Christ and His death and resurrection from the dead informs my reaction to these sad stories. Although I do weep with and for these parents, I know that these children are being cradled in the arms of their Father, a Father who loved them before their parents even knew they existed.*

That is the promise we have in the Resurrection of Christ: That we have been given the gift of new life. Life after death. Life after pain and suffering. A life where our broken bodies will be made whole and perfect. A life that we can live in direct communion with our Creator. (See 1 Corinthians 15).

That does not make the loss of these children, or the loss of anyone we love, less painful. Even Jesus wept when He heard of the death of His friend, Lazarus. After all, we are the ones left behind to mourn. But for me, the pain of these losses is mitigated by the knowledge of the new life into which these children have been born and which is available to all. (1 Corinthians 15: 21-22; John 3:16).

The Psalms are full of laments to God, as well as praises. Our God is a God who can handle our cries and fears and pain and loss. And He gives us back peace and blessing, in spite of the pain. "Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning."**

My thoughts and prayers are with the families who have recently endured the loss of these precious little ones. May God send His peace that is beyond all understanding to them in their time of grief. And may they know that their children are dancing in Heaven at the throne of God.

*Psalm 139:7-15 "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

**Psalm 30 "I will exalt you, O Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, you saints of his; praise his holy name.... [W]eeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.... To you, O Lord, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy.... Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me; O Lord, be my help." You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever."

Endurance*

2009-04-09T20:52:00.005-04:00

Today I tweeted this:

Disappointment is not about "what happened", it is about one's expectations about what happened. Still painful and annoying though.

Some people on Facebook thought that I was referring to some sort of potty training setback (because we have embarked upon that lovely challenge at the instigation of the two year old). The situation I was referring to actually had nothing to do directly with the kids.

I realized that the oblique nature of my Tweet made the statement relevant to so many areas of life and that those who read it could immediately apply it to their own personal situations.

That silly tweet doesn't say anything deep or new. In fact, a former boss of mine once said to me: "All the problems in the world are the result of unmet expectations."

I guess the real question is how we deal with the disappointment of our unmet expectations. Do we stomp around and pout like a child? (Sometimes.) Do we wail at the unfairness of it all? (More often.) Do we burst into tears as if our best friend has died? (Depends on how much sleep has been had. Or not.) Do we decide that we are never going to expect anything good again and always assume the glass is half empty? (Been there, done that.)

It probably depends on the nature of both the expectation and the depth of the disappointment. Also depends on what you think you deserve.

Parenting is full of expectations. Of ourselves, of our children, of our spouses. Of our parents, if they are still around. We are probably more forgiving of ourselves than others -- at least I am -- yet I disappoint myself on a daily basis.

Sometimes I wonder how often I disappoint God. I mean, He gave His only Son to die for me, and I can't muster the energy to thank Him as frequently as I should.

But that is where grace comes in. Getting something beautiful that I definitely don't deserve on my own merit. By any human calculation, I fail and disappoint on a regular basis. And God extends grace to me in the form of Jesus.

Although this morning I was very disappointed because my plans were thwarted and I was tired, today is still Holy Thursday, and tomorrow is Good Friday. Good Friday is called "good" because it is Christ's death which paid the price for all of our failures. And in three days we will celebrate His Resurrection, which sets our expectation for eternal life with Him. And that expectation is one that will be fulfilled, because it was promised by the Creator Himself.

Easter reminds me that the disappointments of this life are fleeting, but the promises of the next are forever. And at the end of this life I want to be able to say what Paul said to Timothy, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7 (NIV). And so, during the disappointments, I look to the Father. And this life becomes less disappointing.

*Apologies to Veronica for sortof stealing the title of her last post at 5 Minutes for Parenting.

Brothers!

2009-04-07T13:44:00.003-04:00

I just cannot seem to write anything these days, though I do have a list that I keep in my iPod of possible posts. So y'all will just have to content with pictures of the boys:

This was taken just a few days ago, so Thomas is just about 12 weeks old. His big brother Jonathan is on the "3" side of 2 1/2, but his birthday isn't until the end of August. I love the nonchalant look on Jonathan's face. Needlesstosay, we don't let them sit like this without close supervision.

Well hello there...

2009-03-29T20:36:00.002-04:00

Clearly I am not a true blogger. I have managed to let more than two weeks go by without posting. Ah well. Not a true blogger, not a true writer. Yup. Got me.

Anyway, life here with a newborn and toddler continues apace. We have had a snuffly, cough-y little two year old. The typical pre-school snots, I think. But that means the we have been up with him at least once a night, in addition to the three times for the baby.

Breastfeeding has been going well! Thomas eats somewhat constantly, which is normal, I think, since I don't store a great amount. He is a big fan of cluster feeding in the late afternoon/early evening, which means that if I don't really get most of dinner done early in the day, we eat cereal for dinner. The only time I am at the computer is when I am nursing the baby, and as I have said before, I can't blog with one hand.

So, two weeks.

But a funny thing happened this evening, my husband and the baby both went to bed early. So here I am. And I am not tired, oddly. I think I average about five or six hours of sleep a night. Since I seem to want eight and a half, I am working with a substantial deficit most of the time. As all moms do though, I manage. I have learned to function on less sleep.

The unfortunate part is that I can't really rely on caffeine because I don't need to keep my baby awake as well. So, I drift toward sugar. With predictable results.

Sigh.

Thankfully, the weather is starting to clear up so that we can get outside and get some exercise. Hopefully that will help with the energy thing.

There are plenty of topics floating around in my head, in addition to the usual "mommy" suspects, and hopefully they will get some air here soon.

Parenting choices...can we judge?

2009-03-12T10:42:00.004-04:00

As I mentioned in my post of earlier this week, there was a kerfluffle over a woman nursing another woman's child. I didn't read the blog post that originally questioned the decision of the two women to "cross-nurse" but I understand that she raised issues of the wellness of the mother (potential disease, taking medication or other substances, cleanliness) and the well-being of the child, physically and psychologically. All reasonable questions that one might ask.

The kerfluffle occurred when the woman in question felt "shamed" and "judged" by the blog post. And then the comments flew back and forth. They are almost impossible NOT to read. Very dramatic. Very soap-opera-ish.

The whole thing got me thinking, and not about the potential misuse of both the word shame and the word judge. Apparently it is verboten to "judge" another person's parenting choices. And by "judge", these people seem to mean "stating an opinion that makes a value judgment about another's parenting choices." It seems that you can make a statement that "I wouldn't do it, but it is their choice" but it is not ok to state that a particular choice is right or wrong. We are not supposed to make value judgments about other mothers. It perpetuates the "mommy wars." Or something.

The silly thing is, we make such value judgments all the time. We pass a mother on the street and her toddler has what appears to be soda in his bottle. And we judge: doesn't she know how bad that is for the baby? We see children at the playground who appear out of control. And we judge: can't those mothers discipline their children? We see a mother with a whole passel of kids at the grocery store. And we judge: that is a LOT of kids! We may never say any of these things out loud. But should we or shouldn't we?

The government makes all sorts of rules to protect children: car seat laws, seat belt laws, regulating baby and children's products, regulating child care facilities, pediatricians who frontload a vaccination schedule to ensure that they catch all the "at risk" children before their parents stop coming to see the doctor, "recommendations" for various parenting choices on childbirth, sleeping, nutrition, etc.

And each of us has opinions about various parenting choices. And we picked our choices because we reviewed all the options and picked the "best" one, right? Even if we tell others, and maybe ourselves, that each choice is perfectly valid, obviously we have picked one.

Now there are issues for which I just made a choice and I had no particular opinion about the choices. Baby food is one for me. Some people get all hepped up about organic versus regular food. Whatever. Not a big deal for me. If I have a coupon for Earth's Best, I will get it. If Gerber has a better deal, I get that one. So, when I see a mom buying (or making!) something I didn't, I actually don't think anything of it.

But there are issues about which I have stronger opinions, to varying degrees. We co-sleep, sortof. And I think that is best for my family. A crib and nursery might be better for others. We might choose to homeschool our children, if that is what is best for them. And I think homeschooling is definitely better than a lot of other educational choices, but not all of them, so I don't really think less of other options (especially since it is only theoretical on my part at this point.) I have chosen to breastfeed my baby, which is a great effort for me, and I don't just feel that breastfeeding is best for my children, I think it is best for children in general. And when I learn that a woman is formula feeding by choice, I do think her choice is not as good as mine. (I absolutely know that there are situations in which a woman cannot breastfeed and thank goodness that formula exists for those situations. You can ask me my story about breastfeeding my first child sometime.) When I see a person driving a car and there is an unrestrained child in the back seat, I absolutely think they have made the wrong choice.

So we all make judgments about parenting choices of others. Most of the time we don't say anything, or at best, gently question the choice. At other times we might say something, when we think that the child might be suffering in some way because of a parent's choice, or if we think that the parent might not be aware of the "wrongness" of the choice they have made.

And then there are the parenting choices that result in the intervention of Child Protective Services. And I don't even have to detail what those might be.

All of this is to say that the mantra of "it's her choice, you don't have a right to say (or think) anything of it, or think less of her for making it" is false. It is easy to say that, but it isn't true. We all judge. Much of the time our judgment shouldn't be voiced, because we are not more "right" than another. Sometimes we should say something, or at least ask questions. And sometimes a person should feel "shame" for making a particular choice.

Where are the lines? When do we cross them? Should we cross them? Do I have a right to tell another mother how to parent? Do I have a right to tell her she is wrong? And not only wrong, but not a good mother for making the decision she did?

The answer surely cannot be, "mind your own business."

Thoughts?

The things we have to worry about and some pick this?

2009-03-10T13:13:00.002-04:00

So, there has been a little firestorm over one woman nursing another's baby. No, not Salma Hayek. Just a mother, not a celebrity (well, not a huge celebrity...one of the reasons it was a mini firestorm is that there was a bit of celebrity about it.

Anyway. I can't imagine the controversy. Not really. There are so many other parenting issues and challenges to worry and think about. Besides, as I have said, I have fed my baby breastmilk from another mother, albeit from a bottle. Can't quite figure it.

What do y'all think?

Why I am not here

2009-03-02T07:53:00.002-05:00

For those of you who wonder how I can update Facebook and Twitter, but not the blog (and why I can't seem to answer emails with more than a one-liner), the answer is that every time I am sitting, I am also nursing. And our current set-up puts the computer at right angles with my couch. So, I am limited either to one-handed typing on my laptop, or one FINGER typing on my iPod. Those are conducive to quick, short status updates, but not well suited to typing with both hands. And I refuse to blog with one hand.

Not to worry, I have several posts in the works. This world of ours does provide lots of "blog fodder" doesn't it?

Breastfeeding supplements

2009-02-24T11:49:00.005-05:00

So, someone recently asked me what kind of supplements I am taking to increase my milk supply, since I mentioned it in this post.

And I thought this would be good place to document what I am taking, for my own records as well as y'all's edification.

Here goes:

Calcium citrate with magnesium - Two caplets per day - This is the form of calcium that is most easily absorbed by the body and the magnesium helps.

Alfalfa - Two capsules three times a day - A galactogogue among other things.

Milk Thistle - Two capsules three times a day - Ditto.

Goat's Rue - Two capsules three times a day - This was new to me, but is also a galactogogue and is marketed as such. The previous two are marketed as other things.

Soy Lecithin - One capsule two or three times a day. This is an emulsifier, but also keeps the breastmilk from getting "sticky". I found it useful last time in helping prevent plugged ducts. I am taking it prophylacticaly now.

Probiotic - One capsule three times a day. Just to help keep yeast at bay. I use a shelf-stable probiotic so that I can add it to the pill container.

I am also continuing to take my prenatal vitamins.

Now, some of these have special instructions. The Goat's Rue is supposed to be taken with very little water. The probiotic is supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. the milk thistle and the alfalfa have no special instructions. The prenatal should be taken with food so as to minimize any reactions to the iron. WHATEVER. I have to take them all at the same time or there is no hope that I will remember to take them all. So, the "with food" and "without food" get taken at the same time. And when I have to take nine or eleven capsules, you know darn well that they are getting taken with more than a little water. But I figure something is better than nothing.

And the galactogogues seem to be working. It appears that I have more than enough milk for the baby. In fact, I have even managed to pump a bit, which is good since I want to get at least a couple bottles worth saved in the freezer. I have a colonoscopy next week and will be unavailable to my voracious baby for about three hours. I am so happy that he will have a bottle of breastmilk instead of formula. YEAH!

Ok, speaking of the voracious baby, my brief window with two hands to type appears to be over.

Photo updates 1

2009-02-19T21:48:00.004-05:00

Since this blog started out as a way for me to record my thoughts and memories of the kids, it occurred to me that I needed to have more pictures.

So, I am going back through and uploading some relevant pictures. I just added one that I just got ahold of from our photographer. It shows me in the threws of irritation at the length of my pregnancy. So, it got put in the post that makes the most sense. Pretty funny.

Will update with more photos as it hits me.

And I have a rant coming up about vaccines, one in particular. And another about why making a big deal about your faith means that you need to make your faith a big deal.

A post that isn't about my kids...

2009-02-17T16:51:00.002-05:00

So, this is a facebook thing, but since I don't "get" facebook, I am going to do it here. And besides, I can do this one-handed, which is all I have right now. H/T to Sherri for this.

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible – X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman *
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien x+
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X++
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens X
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh *
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X+
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X+
34 Emma - Jane Austen X+
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X+
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X (was this not included in 33, though?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden *
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X+
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving X (ugh)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X+
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X (also ugh)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X (eh)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X+
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X+
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X+
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X+
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X (only b/c I love Ireland...)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X (but I don't remember it. odd.)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X+
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X+ (all of them!!)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X+
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X+
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X+

Total: 58

You can do this if you like. No pressure.

Adventures in babywearing

2009-02-16T19:53:00.005-05:00

**Updated on 4/10/09 to link this to Stephanie's babywearing carnival!

Apologies (or royalties, not sure which) to Stephanie for the title of this post!

So, what does one do with a five week old other than nurse all the time? Well, anything one wants or needs to, as long as you can have more than one hand free.

With my first child, I was content to nurse him for 45 minutes at a stretch and then let him sleep in my arms. I didn't get a whole lot done, but I wasn't worried. I bought a sling and a Moby wrap and settled on the latter for occasional use. I tried the sling, but the baby didn't like it, and I couldn't get it to work to my satisfaction. And in any case, for the most part, the baby bucket and a stroller sufficed nicely.

However, now that I have two kids, the luxury of cuddling the baby undisturbed is nonexistent. And I never have two hands free until the evening when at least one child is asleep. And this empahsizes that which I have suspected for a while. Casual baby-wearers become rabid baby-wearers with the birth of the second kid. It is a matter of survival.

Take this weekend. I took both boys to church by myself as my poor husband was quite sniffly and sick. And the baby was asleep so I took the bucket in with me from the car. Phew. Bucket and baby, toddler and diaper back-pack, purse. Oh yes, and I did have the foresight to pack the sling. Phew. We barely made it into the church and to the nursery, what with the toddler losing his shoes and all when he fell on the sidewalk. Anyway. Somewhere in the middle of the worship, Thomas awoke and needed to nurse, so I slipped out to do that. And then put him in the sling in the hopes that he would go back to sleep. And so he did. And it was quite freeing to go get Jonathan from the nursery in time for communion and even be able to carry him on my hip with the baby in the sling on my front. We did quite well for the rest of the service and the reception that followed. The trouble only started when I needed to strap the baby into the bucket to leave. And trying to chase down Jonathan while carting the horridly UN-ergonomic bucket was decidedly NOT freeing.

So, my husbands choice du jour is the Moby. Mine is the sling. For now. The ergo will be back in use as he grows since that is less fiddly than the wrap. I am really tempted by some of the beautiful woven wraps out there, and those who are better at the baby wearing thing than I am (hi Sherri!) sing the praises of the versatility of a woven wrap.

That might be something I explore in the next few months. But, all I have to say is, my back is happy that the sling and the Moby work. Phew. And, I have sortof figured out how to nurse in the sling, which might make that easier, too. I haven't figured out my bad configuration of a laptop, which means that, whenever I am holding the baby in any way, I am required to type one-handed. So, the babywearing doesn't help with that. But still.

Babywearing? Life-saving.

Breastfeeding is not for wimps.

2009-02-14T20:33:00.004-05:00

So, what have I been doing with myself since my last post two and a half weeks ago?

See the title to this post.

Seriously, if I wanted to blog, I would have had to have given up sleep or typed it with one hand while nursing. Seriously. I have a child who wants to nurse all the time, and only sleeps in snatches. I have been actively trying to write something since Wednesday of this week and have not had more than five minutes. Thomas is a good sleeper at night though, at the moment, so I am not really complaining.

Ok, onto the subject of the post, since that is my life right now:

Breastfeeding is a rewarding activity. You can feed your child, bond with him, and lessen your risk for all sorts of diseases, all at the same time. And it is a miracle, that a mother's body provides everything that a baby needs, from the moment of conception, through at least the first six months of life (and longer for some babies who aren't really interested in solids for much of the first year.)

For some women, breastfeeding comes easily. Their milk comes in quickly and without much discomfort; the baby latches correctly and without much pain; neither mother or child is susceptible to yeast or is intolerant of certain foods; the mother has no pressure to return to work and so is spared the need to pump on command. But even in these "best of circumstances", breastfeeding is demanding. There are very few babies, who are exclusively breastfed, who are on any sort of schedule in the first few months. That means that the mother and baby are together all the time. And the second the baby can be diverted away from the breast, the mother needs to do everything that she can, so that when the baby wants more food, she can attend to his needs.

I think that the mothers described above who are the most satisfied with that situation are those that have accepted that their child will be just as attached to them in the nine months following the birth as the prior nine months. These mothers find work-arounds for the inconveniences and embrace their choice.

But these moms are the ones for which things are going well.

For many other mothers, breastfeeding is challenging. Perhaps they have low milk supply (which was/is a difficulty I know a little something about). Perhaps they have over supply (which presents equal and opposite difficulties). Perhaps the baby has a poor latch, or the child is allergic or intolerant of many of the mother's favorite foods. Of perhaps the baby doesn't nurse well for any number of reasons. Perhaps the mother is extremely uncomfortable nursing in public and has a baby who wants to eat often and therefore she feels house-bound. Perhaps there is an illness or a sudden hospitalization. There are any number of reasons for a challenging breastfeeding situation.

Most of these can be remedied in one way or the other, and depending on the mother's (and father's - let's not forget the dads because most women need that support to continue to breastfeed) persistence and desire to breastfeed, those remedies can result in a good breastfeeding relationship with the child.

Breastfeeding is very important. I can't believe that it is even a question these days, whether an infant should receive his nourishment directly from his mother. I can't believe than anyone bought the lie that science trumped nature and that a factory could create a substance better able to nourish a child than the mother. But for a couple generations, women bought that. At the same time, our culture shifted a bit in several different ways. And the result was that it became normal to see breasts in a skimpy bikini at the pool and abnormal to see a woman feeding her child from her breasts. That 'controversy' is enough for a whole other post. The reason that I mention it is that it is part of the problem. We have lost the "institutional memory" of women. The WWII generation of women may have worked in factories, but they didn't breastfeed. So when their daughters were born, they were unable to pass along the knowledge of how to do it. And when their granddaughters were born, there was even less knowledge.

Yet now there is much more science to "prove" that breastfeeding one's child is nearly the best possible thing that one can do to prepare one's child for life. And therefore now women are told to breastfeed, although the wisdom now has to be gleaned in bits, from books, and the internet, and friends, and support groups, and a new line of professionals called lactation consultants.

At any rate, there are plenty of women, myself included, who go to great lengths to breastfeed. And not a little expense. A hospital grade double electric breast pump (which you need if you are trying to build up a flagging supply) is about $75.00 a month; supplements (galactagogues, vitamins, other "helpers") are several dollars a day (I am taking at least eight different pills each morning, noon and night). But the lengths are more than money. A baby can drink a bottle of formula (or expressed milk) in minutes. Most breastfeeding sessions take at least a half hour. Ten or twelve times a day. Several of which take place in the middle of the night. We can all do the math.

Don't get me wrong. Breastfeeding is great. And I am doing my part to give my child the best start to his life. But it is work. And don't let anyone tell you that we are doing the easy thing, or not working. Breastfeeding moms are not lazy, even though they may be sitting down on the job. Parenthood, is, as they say, the toughest job you'll ever love. (I could throw in a couple more cliches, but I will quit while I am ahead.)

Anyway, that is what I have been doing. And I have been reading my favorite blogs, and Twittering (which one can do with one hand), and trying to update my Facebook status with something that doesn't have to do with my baby (which is hard). If you are wondering where I am, give me a call or an email, I will be sitting here, with maybe one hand free.

First Day ALONE at home

2009-01-28T19:37:00.003-05:00

Well, ok, I had about six hours alone at home.

My husband had to go into work for a meeting that ended up not happening. And my inlaws headed back to Iowa after being here for two weeks. The help that they were with the cooking and cleaning was fabulous, but they will be really missed by our 2 year old. He got to spent quality and QUANTITY time with his grandparents. My mother-in-law especially has a heart for little kids, and she spent time working with him on his Bible stories, and painting, and time outside (weather permitting). He now has another gagillion songs under his belt, and a brand new hobby of painting with watercolors. My FIL brought out a bunch of trains for the train table. And, he found, somewhere, a cache of little "Caterpiller" earth moving equipment models, which have gone over like gangbusters.

Anyway, as you can see, it was one big fun time for Jonathan. And today, when Gramma and Grampa went in a plane, and Daddy had to go to "werk", it was just boring ole' mommy, who spent hours nursing the baby. As I tweeted at some point, it was really strange. Within an hour of folks leaving this morning, both boys had a dirty diaper. The baby had THREE. And the baby suddenly developed a diaper rash. And started hollering, apropos of nothing. And Jonathan wanted to hold the baby so he would "stop crying" and I was suddenly wrestling an octopus as I tried to keep Jonathan from taking the baby out of my arms. (2 year olds are STRONG.) It took a good while to settle everyone down. Thank goodness for videos. And then suddenly Thomas was asleep, and Jonathan was done with his lunch and was rubbing his eyes. It only took one rendition of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (his favorite song) for him to go to sleep as well.

And so I got a nap in! Hooray! And, seriously? Praise the Lord.

I don't pretend to think that every day will be a "double nap" day, but a girl can hope. And then, miracle of miracles, my husband was able to come home early.

Phew. And now he is home for a couple of weeks, so it can just be the four of us for a bit, trying to figure out how to be a family of four, instead of a family of three.

On a non-baby related note, my friend Sherri is doing a "read-along" of Rilla of Ingleside. I just have to get the book, and I am going to enjoy that. It is going to be a good long while before I can do a book group in the traditional sense, so this should be fun.

Update

2009-01-25T18:34:00.002-05:00

So. We have a new president. I have a new baby. The latter is more important, and all-encompassing. Feeding the baby takes up, strangely, and inordinate amount of time. And since I nursed Jonathan until he was nearly two years old, you would think that I would be prepared for this. Ah well. Good thing my inlaws are here helping with food and keeping Jonathan occupied.

Anyway, I have nothing to report except that I added two photos to the "birth story" post. One is the C-section birth itself (which is not really gross, I actually find it kindof interesting.) And the second is Thomas being weighed. Just to let you know how he looked just after birth.

Oh, one of the aspects of the birth that our doula told us when she came to visit this week was that by the time of the surgery, Thomas had slipped around to an "occiput anterior" position, which means that he was lying with his back against my back (not unusual after someone has had an epidural) and therefore was "sunny-side" up. Which might explain some of the back labor I was experiencing. Anyhoo....

We have his two-week appointment tomorrow, and will know more about his weight gain, etc. then. And then, for your reading pleasure, I will have a dissertation-worthy post about breastfeeding. And maybe a rant re: same. We shall see.

Pics of the boys.

2009-01-18T10:53:00.005-05:00

So, it occurred to me that perhaps I should post a couple pics here, since I put them on Facebook.

So, the first one is Thomas in the bouncy seat with Jonathan. And shortly thereafter, milliseconds actually, we realized that the bouncy seat is too bouncy to have the baby in while the toddler runs around.

The second one is one of a precious few of Thomas with his eyes open.

The third is what I spend my days doing. Ahem.

First full day at home!

2009-01-14T19:40:00.002-05:00

Well, home is different from the hospital. The beds are more comfortable, for one. On the other hand, the food, while marginally better than hospital food, doesn't magically arrive at your bedside.

But we are well and happy.

Jonathan likes Thomas, calls him either "the baby Thomas" or "my baby". He likes to "hold" him on the sofa and sing to him.

A friend of mine took Jonathan this morning to her house to play with her son while we went to the doc for a well baby appointment. Thomas has started to regain some weight, which is good and no one right now is worried about the jaundice. For those of you who know my history, you know this is a huge thing. Of course, his days and nights are mixed up. He sleeps all day from about 10 until 5 and then mostly wants to be awake all night for the same time frame, oh yes, and nurse all night. Bleck. 'Twould be fine if I could be on his schedule, but not with a toddler and not in the real world. Thomas nurses all the time. I won't bore you with the gory details. Suffice it to say, "Ouch."

We got Chinese food tonight. And I made a calculated misjudgment and suggested that my husband take Jonathan to the basement and put together a toy for him. So, of course they were downstairs when the doorbell rang. I was up here nursing the baby. I had to struggle first to unhook myself from the strongest latch in the world, and second to get out of my squishy sofa. I am so distracted that I just signed for the food, baby in my arms. When the guy said, "do you want to leave a tip?" I didn't really hear him and I said, "no, I don't need to." Then I saw his face and tried to recapture what he had said. Egads.... ack. Needless to say, he got a bigger tip than his services warranted.

How Thomas Maher came into this world.

2009-01-12T19:56:00.004-05:00

Once, about ten months ago....oh, never mind that bit.

For the men in the room, or people that don't want every single detail, I recounted the basic information in this post. Look no farther. If you go below the asterisks, it is at your own risk.

****************************************

If you want the background to this pregnancy, you can go look here.

Ok. So, as many of you know, my official due date was January 1, 2009. I rebelled against that and asserted in many ways that I was going to have the baby by the end of the year, and I picked December 28. I actually did have reasons to think that 12/28 was a better date, and you can ask me those reasons if you like.

In any event. Christmas came and went. December 28 came and went. January 1 came and went. Now we were beginning to get cranky. Marcus and I are planners. And as said before, Jonathan's birth was planned. So this waiting thing was hard. My Friday OB appointment on January 2 was disappointing.

Saturday, January 3, I woke up and started having contractions! Yeah!! They were fairly short, 20-30 seconds, but relatively frequent, for four or five hours. Then they stopped. Then they started. So my sister came over for dinner and the spend the night, to stay with Jonathan in case we had to make a run to the hospital in the middle of the night. We all went to bed and the contractions stopped.

Not many on Sunday.

Sometime on Sunday evening I felt the baby move and shift out of a head down position. So, I decided to take a wander to the doctor's office in the morning to see. By the time the morning came around, I had started having the contractions again, and still felt that the baby's position was off. Not wanting any surprises, I called the doc very early and he told me to head to Labor and Delivery. We rousted the troops to come watch Jonathan, again. Our plan had been just to take him with us to the doctor, but then we envisioned Labor and Delivery with a toddler, and opted for the other plan.

So, that is how I wound up in the hospital for six hours on Monday, January 5. They sent me home because I was only 1 cm dilated and the contractions had slowed. However, because things seemed to be happening in earnest, we decided to have my mom come and take Jonathan to their house (two hours away) for a few days. And so she did. Of course, essentially the second she drove away, the contractions stopped. And nothing happened.

All week. I tweeted and left Facebook status updates informing people that NOTHNG was happening.

Thursday evening I went to bed and thought labor might start. There was nothing I could point to, I just felt off. I warned the doula and Marcus.

Friday, 1:30 a.m. I started leaking, and small contractions started. At 2:30, my water broke and there was no mistake. Labor had actually started. Aimee arrived at about 3:30 or so, and I was having fairly regular, not horrid, contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. Enough that I couldn't talk or walk through them. By 5:30 I was in the aqua doula (labor tub) and the contractions were coming closer together and lasting for at least a minute.

The only position that was slightly comfortable was if I was on my hands and knees, resting my cheek/chin on the edge of the tub. And
By about 8:00 a.m. they were about 4-5 minutes apart. And right about that time, I "gave back" all the tiny bites of food that Marcus and Aimee had made me eat. Good thing I had a two quart sauce pan as a catch basin.

But about that time, 8:30 or 9:00, the contractions started to space out. So, I got out of the nice warm tub, and walked around a bit. Some inside, some outside. In my nice fuzzy long nightgown. Things weren't speeding up, and the contractions were about 10 minutes apart again, though undoubtedly they were labor contractions.

Aimee suggested that we try to sleep. Sounds weird, but Marcus got a heating pad, like a Bucky. I lay on my left side on the bed and he lay right behind me and pressed the hot pad against my back. That way, when I had a contraction, he could apply counterpressure to my lower back like he had in the tub.

We actually were able to sleep. Which was a blessing, although irritating because it meant that my contractions were still spaced out. Making my life difficult, but not being productive in terms of labor progressing.

After about an hour of sleeping/contractions, at about 12:30 p.m. we tried walking. If you were driving around Vienna on Friday morning and thought it odd to see a pregnant woman out for a walk in a red robe, that was me. Oh, and brown mammoth crocs. With black socks. Stylish. The walking helped a bit, but not as much as she had hoped.

And so we decided to go to the hospital. The thought was that perhaps a little bit of pitocin might bring the contractions faster. Also, she wanted me to wait for an epidural, based on how she had seen me dealing with the contractions I was having.

We arrived at the hospital at about 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Got myself settled in with a saline I.V. The FOURTH poke in a week, but at least this one took the first time. We waited to see my doctor, who is the chief of obstetrics at the hospital rather than electing to see one of the residents. There are all sorts of reasons why, but the result was that he did not come to see me and check my "progression" until 6:00 p.m. So I had had a chance to get back into a good rhythm with the contractions. He did not think I was as dilated as we had thought, but in any event, I was in active labor and wanted to wait to see what progress would be made.

Let me jump ahead for a second and say that, because I never dilated beyond 4 cm, that I never was in active labor. However, the descriptions of the various stages of labor (early, first stage, active first stage, transition, second stage (pushing), etc.) indicate that I managed to make it through the transition stage. I don't know what the answer to that is, except to say that I have decided that obstetrics and midwifery is as much an art as they are a science. My doula certainly thought I had made it through transition and was actually suggesting that I "bear down a little" with the contractions. And she also gave me some "pushing" pointers because she thought that the pushing phase would be quite short. So, there was something weird about my labor.

Back to the progression, or lack thereof. Between 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. I was severely uncomfortable, to put it mildly. The contractions were just miserable (and all y'all who have been through it are saying, "yes, yes, they were for me, too.") According to our doula, herself a former Bradley teacher, and my husband, I was "doing all the right things" to manage the pain: breathing, relaxation, etc. However, I did not feel like anything was being managed. And I was a sniviling, snotty mess. I could not stop shaking, toward the end, and I was done. If I could have just taken a breather, perhaps I could have done it, but that really isn't an option. So, approximately 18 hours after serious contractions had started, and about three hours into 'active labor' (or whatever....after that weird transition thing...) I asked for, and got, an epidural, at about 9:00 p.m. or so, Friday night.

Shortly after that, my doctor came and checked again and said that I had made not progress. Still 4 cm dilated, though I was fully effaced, and the baby was still high up in my pelvis and had not moved. He suggested that we all, including him, take nap. Four hours later, my contractions had slowed a bit, and when he checked me at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning, he said there had been no change. He was reluctant to give me any pitocin, because he suspected that there was a reason that the baby was not descending and allowing me to dilate. So, I had another C-section. Thomas James Maher was born at exactly 3:30 a.m. 10 pounds even. 22 inches long. Full head of straight dark brown hair.

When asked if he could see any reason why the baby didn't descend, he said that the head just wasn't quite properly positioned, and that the baby was just spinning around trying to figure out what to do, but just wasn't doing it. So. Nothing any of us could have done. Would laboring longer have given him more time to figure it out? Perhaps. And there was a era in which there would have been no other option and I would just have had to struggle through. And the end result might have been other than a happy, healthy baby boy and a happy, healthy (and tired and sore) mother.

My purpose in attempting a VBAC was not to make some grand point. There are points to be made: I do believe that the C-section rate is unnecessarily high; that women often take what is perceived the 'easy' way out, etc. I also believe that the culture and mindset around birthing needs to shift to a non-medical model of care. And I could get really passionate about the issue and do some "activist" work. But that wasn't the point here, I just wanted the best for me and my baby. I believed that was a vaginal birth. And, I think, it was.

Since I did go into labor, I know that Thomas was ready to be born (as he should have been at 41 weeks and 1 day late). I know that he and I both benefited from the labor hormones. My body was able to shift from pregnancy to post-partum in the fashion that was intended. There are so many amazing things that happen in the mom and the baby during labor and immediately after delivery, and they happen best in a particular order. Physcially, I am more tired and sore after this birth than my first, scheduled C-section. That would be from the two extra nights of no sleep and the work of labor. However, emotionally, I feel much better. I feel like the labor worked out a lot of the stress hormones or something.

So now, we are off and running. Thomas is nursing well, my milk has started to come in, a bit earlier than previously. Breastfeeding will still be a challenge, but it is one that I am expecting. A bigger challenge will be balancing the needs of Jonathan as an almost 2 1/2 year old and the newborn needs of Thomas.

What have I learned in this whole process? The big lesson is that I cannot control most of the important things in life. This really was one of the few situations that drives home that point. For those of you who have watched me wait and pace and wait some more, you have witnessed some of the frustration. Didn't God (and this baby) understand that there were tax advantages to being born before January 1? Didn't they understand health insurance premiums and the difference one day would make? Didn't they understand that I was so very very tired of being pregnant? It was helpful that people kept reiterating to me that 'babies come when they are ready.' More importantly, however, was me learning to trust God in new ways and learning a little about what it means to wait.

p.s. I know, I know. Y'all want pictures. Fine. Just give me a day or two.

Background to birth story

2009-01-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

Well, as many of you know, I had a C-section with my first child, Jonathan, in the summer of 2006. It was a scheduled procedure, timed for when I was 39 weeks pregnant, because Jonathan was a transverse breech, essentially sitting cross-legged, inside me. As surgery goes, it was straightforward and as fine as could be expected. We were disappointed, because we had planned a Bradley birth. But, we trusted that God knew what He was doing, and accepted the situation.

This time around, though, I did not want surgery again. After Jonathan was born, I had a gall-bladder attack again, and had surgery very quickly thereafter, when Jonathan was four weeks old. And to have another Cesarean with this baby would be three major abdominal surgeries in less than three years. And, of course, there is more risk for pregnancy the more C-sections you have. We are happy with two children, but I did not want to deliberately choose to have another C and therefore increase my risks. So, I wanted to try for a VBAC -- Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.

Back in the day, the wisdom was, "once a Cesarean, always a Cesarean." Now, it is acknowledged that there is essentially no more risk to the mother to have a vaginal birth after a standard Cesarean (the current standard, not the past...the incisions were very different.) )For more information on the whole issue, visit here.) Still, many OBs prefer repeat surgeries rather than supporting their patients in attempting a vaginal birth. But there are some great docs out there, and I found a very supportive one. He is the "go-to" guy for VBACs and other oddities. People either love him and are willing to put up with the wait, or they aren't. Personally, I found that I only waited for him to deliver babies, but then again, I made it a point to be the first one in the office every time.

In any case, that was where I started. The next post actually sets forth what happened during labor and delivery!

Baby is here!!

2009-01-10T11:54:00.002-05:00

I am happy.

Thomas James born at 3:30 am.

10 pounds.

22 inches.

Born via second C-section after very weird, and long, labor.

Birth story will be on blog in a bit.

Is this worth a post of its' own?

2009-01-07T04:07:00.002-05:00

To answer my own question, I'm not sure.

But, since I know that the three of you reading this are just dying to know the status of things (what, not everyone can stand to be on this knife edge of anticipation with me???) I thought I would throw up a quick update.

Which is, drum roll please, nothing.

I haven't had any contractions to speak of since Monday afternoon, post hospital. Boy, am I glad that I didn't stay (thank you Aimee, my amazing doula!)

But, because of the unknown, my mom came and took our two year old to her home a couple hours away, for a few days. He loves going to Gramma and Grampa's, so I think he is ok. Mom may be going out of her mind. My own grandparents live with them (86 and nearly 91). And my dad is still working at age 72 in spite of some fairly severe and recent health problems of his own. So, she doesn't feel like she has a whole lot of freedom to come and just hang out here.

In any event, we have had a nice day and a half, though. It has been nasty weather, so we have been mostly inside. Although that "knife edge of anticipation" is hard to live on (maybe more so for my husband since he cannot DO anything), it has been good to rest up and be quiet. In hindsight, I suspect we will look on this time as a gift straight from God, though at the moment the waiting is frustrating.

Part of it is managing expectations. We had everything so organized. On our timeline. Which apparently had very little to do with the real timeline. And our timeline has just been completely shot. Therefore, there is this uncertainty. (Which is coupled with some anxiety about the baby being breech -- which is our experience with Jonathan -- and not knowing what labor will bring -- which feels odd, since this is our second baby -- and trying to do a VBAC -- which we know is completely doable, but which freaks some people out a little, including some of the doctors -- and trying to ensure in the middle of all of this that we are being good parents to our two year old.)

And Marcus took time off from work to help with the baby, time which is slowly being eaten away by this waiting.

But y'all know what would happen if we changed it up, right? As soon as Marcus decided to go back to work for a few days, or we decided just to have Mom bring Jonathan home, I would get slammed into active labor, and I would be scrambling to get Marcus home from the city, and someone to take care of Jonathan, etc. etc.

So, I think we wait.

And pray.

Which explains why I am up at 4:00 a.m.

Labor (or pre-labor?) part two

2009-01-05T14:44:00.004-05:00

I am home from hospital.
More work to do here, apparently.

Details follow. If you don't want them, cease reading here.

******************

Went this morning b/c baby was sideways
and wanted it checked and was starting to bleed a
little. Normally this wouldn't bother me, except that
Jonathan was breech and I am a bit wiggy about the whole
thing.

But "checking" with doctor who is an attending in the hospital seems to mean
admittance to Labor and Delivery.

Good news is that am dilated and things are starting
but the baby not engaged in pelvis.

They sent me home after five hours. I wanted to leave, although they would have been happy to have me stay, because of the worry of the previous Section.
And the fact that the baby not engaged.
Without previous C/S they would have sent me home pretty immediately.

Contractions coming frequently but not "labor"
just "prelabor". Whatever. They aren't long enough. But they certainly feel HARD enough.

Hate the hospital. Not that one particularly, just in general.
They were nice. But have three IV holes. Which HURT.
Two attempts, and then a third success. Which will have to be
REDONE when I go back in to actually have this kid.

Wireless there is difficult on itouch.

Will take laptop next trip. Didn't plan on being admitted today.

Beth came this morning then Kristen came to stay with Jonathan.
Mom just came and took him down to Tapp for a day or two.
Supposed to sleet and freeze rain tonight.
Lovely.
My doula sent me home to eat and drink and sleep. So, the first two have been done.
Now, onto the next one.

More anon....

Labor. Part 1 of who knows how many.

2009-01-04T10:35:00.002-05:00

Let me start by saying that I now am officially the most boring person in the whole world. My entire world has collapsed into wondering when (and sometimes, "If???") this baby is going to be born.

My husband has been mostly relegated to "toddler duty" and my poor two year old says, not infrequently, "where's mommy?" even though I am right here.

At some point I will get back to posting about things other than this pregnancy. And then it will probably still be mostly about my family. Ah well.

Anyhoo....the following is for the interested few, and for my own records, so I don't forget.

So, Friday morning I went to the doctor. Nowhere near close to labor. Nuh-uh. Nothing.

Friday night, had chili dogs, onion rings and fried mushrooms (can we all agree that I needed more fiber?) for dinner. Got a raging case of heartburn. Course, since I had never had it before, I don't know how 'raging' it was, but for me it was awful. Tried to sleep on an incline with pillows. FAIL.

About 12:30, the baby started going nuts. He hadn't been moving a lot the past few weeks, just little squirms here and there. This was a full-out home renovation. It was clear to me that he DID. NOT. LIKE. HIS. CURRENT. POSITION. And my body promptly reacted by having very strong, and very short and sporadic, contractions. It was like a cage fight in slow motion in my belly.

Went on for about an hour.

Just as I was about to get up and call somebody, everything settled down. I did get up, anyway, for a bit, to eat a little something and see if anything kept going. Nothing. So, about three a.m. I went back to sleep. And got some decent sleep.

Saturday morning woke up and we did the normal morning routine. And then I started having more contractions, of a similar nature to the ones the night before. Uncomfortable, but short and sporadic. Those went on all day. I put the family (and Twitter and FB) on a cautious "alert". Then I made cookies.

We all took a nap after lunch since we are/were still fighting colds. During the nap everything slowed down to a crawl. Post-nap, we thought a walk would help. A walk at the speed of a two year old, which is the only speed I want to go now. Walk didn't help.

But, exactly as my doula/midwife said, just wait for nightfall. At about 7, they kicked in again. 30 seconds or so. Uncomfortable, but also not predictable. Got myself in gear for ramping up. Thought I would try to sleep a little. And did.

And everything stopped at about 11. Until about 8 this morning.

So, we got a decent night's sleep, except for the two hours I was awake in the middle of the night wondering what was happening.

That brings us to now.

More of the same contractions. I shall now go lie down and see if I can spot a pattern.

Thank you. That is all.

40 and counting

2009-01-02T15:45:00.002-05:00

No. Not my age.

Weeks. Actually, let's be accurate here, 40 weeks and one day (or is it two).

Whatever.

NO PROGRESS.

Not only "no progress", but no indication that my body ever intends to go into labor.

Hmmm.

Baby seems fine. But the doc will send me for a sono check and a NST next Friday if I still have not had the wee one. If I go another week, I might go crazy.

Or not. I do think I have managed to do some surrendering to the One who created all of us. After all, I should have this baby by, oh, Valentine's Day, right?

RIGHT?

Goodbye 2008

2008-12-31T23:04:00.003-05:00

I guess this little boy isn't going to be a tax deduction for us this year.

Ah well. I am, somewhat, being able to lean on God, and trust that He knows what He is doing.

Bright and early on New Year's Eve morning, I blew into the chiropractor's office. And I do mean "blew". Goodness gracious, it is blustery, cold and windy here. Gale force winds. Whew.

Anyway, got a good adjustment (and maybe some baby clothes!) from the chiropractor. And then I waited and the acupuncturist fit me in. Stuck some needles in certain points of my hands and feet and hooked me up to the electrodes. Supposed to start labor. Maybe.

I did feel quite a bit of movement. Which then stopped the instant the needles were removed. Oh well.

And so this evening we moved back to spicy food. Indian this time. Oh, and a good foot rub by the husband on all those pressure points.

We shall see!

Happy New Year's everyone!

...Or Not.

2008-12-29T17:16:00.007-05:00

So, the baby is still comfortably ensconced inside me.

I am determined not to be annoyed. God knows when this baby needs to be born.

I have packed the bag, talked to the insurance company, pre-registered at the hospital, etc. Friends and family are all prepared to come running at the phone call.

We have packed little presents for our toddler to open when he comes to see the baby.

Now we wait.

Mexican food Saturday night, Cajun last night, Thai tonight. If this baby doesn't come, we are bringing out the big guns and having Indian tomorrow night.

I have been admonished by more than one person to trust God in all of this, especially regarding timing. Ok. Ok. I get the message.

This is the day!

2008-12-28T09:45:00.003-05:00

Well, at least in MY mind. I have decided that today I am going to have this baby. I don't know what he has planned, but that is what I have decided.

And, generally, in spite of the lack of sleep, and the toddler being up several times, for long stretches, last night, I have a surprising amount of energy, emotional if not physical. Some of it has to do with the Christmas season. We had a glorious Advent, and our church has some lovely Christmas traditions. We went to the Family Service on Christmas Eve, because of the time, and the fact that there was child care. It was really nice. And we had a really low-key Christmas Day here, just the three of us. Jonathan doesn't really "get" Christmas yet, and since none of the rest of the family were here, there were only a few presents to open, so it wasn't the chaos that some experience.

I did bake a ham, which, when pulled apart, is apparently going to feed us well into the baby's second year. And then we went out to the Festival of Lights at Bull Run. It is a bit overrated, but we knew that Jonathan would enjoy seeing all the different things, and, indeed he did. And, shockingly, he fell asleep on the way home, and we just put him in bed when we got here. At 6:30 p.m. Did you see that, people? My hubs and I got a surprising Christmas present....several HOURS in the evening all to ourselves. Nice.

And we have run all of the pre-baby errands that seem to need to be run: Costco, Babies R Us, the grocery, etc. All of the people who are on-call for labor are back in town, clothes are being washed as we speak, etc. I think we are as set as we are going to be for this new arrival. We went to church last night for Lessons and Carols. What a worshipful time it was for me. Just what I needed.

And now we wait. I am not as anxious as I was, probably because everyone has been praying for me. And, as I said, I have a shocking amount of emotional energy. Not that I am going to channel it into cleaning bathrooms or anything, egads. (Oh, speaking of bathrooms, our master bath toilet decided to start leaking like a sieve on Christmas. Lovely. So, we have the water turned off. Good thing we have other bathrooms in the house.)

Actually, my emotional energy is high enough that I almost titled this post "Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning" and started the body of it off with "It's time to rise and shine..."

Does anyone remember that from the 70's? Mom used to come into our room and chirp that to us to wake us up. Needlesstosay, we found it annoying at best. But that is the chirpy mood I am in. Which may change on a whim.

So....I will post the birth story stuff here.

If you want a more timely announcement of the baby, you can follow me on Twitter, or send me an email, and I will put you on the "announcement" email.

As Tigger would say, "TTFN: Ta Ta for Now!"

Almost Christmas!

2008-12-23T08:14:00.003-05:00

Well folks, I have been tired. I have about a week (give or take) to go in this pregnancy, and I am tired. And, my 2 y.o. is sick. Coughy, snotty, can't breathe, can't sleep kindof sick. And so, we generally haven't been sleeping, any of us.

Somehow last night it all caught up with us, and we all slept, including the sick toddler. He slept for nearly 12 hours. Groaned once or twice, and we heard a couple coughing fits over the baby monitor, but he never really woke up. My husband actually went in and got him up just before he left for work. Poor little guy.

But this post isn't really about sickness, though that has figured prominently at the house recently.

This post is about cuteness.

My son, who is two months shy of being "Two and a HALF", loves Christmas carols. All music really, but Christmas carols figure prominently in his repertoire. His favorite is "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing". I have been singing that to him as one of the lullaby rotation, since he was born. He now knows the entire first verse, and some of the other ones. He sings it atonally, but at the top of his lungs. We, of course, think it is terribly cute. No one else really knows about his penchant for carols, but check out what he received for an early Christmas present from a friend of mine: a plastic snow globe that plays Christmas carols at the press of a button. For five days he has carried it everywhere with him, on errands, into bed for naps, etc. To nearly all the carols, he sings the words to "Hark". Except for Jingle Bells, to which he sings at least part of the first verse. All of this is quite funny. We have a video for posterity. One of these days it might actually get downloaded to the computer!

Another vignette:

My husband puts Jonathan to bed at night. Once he was weaned, Marcus took over. First there is the bath, then the bedtime stories, then the prayers and songs. It all takes about 45 minutes. I am so pleased that Jonathan and his dad pray together. Marcus told me last night that for several weeks, after the obligatory "Now I lay me" prayer, he does a general, "God, please take care of Mommy and Daddy and Jonathan" prayer. And Jonathan has been adding names (and things, like cars) to the list for Marcus to pray about. But last night, Jonathan made it very clear that daddy was not to pray, that "Jonathan [would] do it." And this is the prayer that Marcus recounted to me, "God, take care Jonathan and Mommy, and Daddy and Mommy. And the peoples, and the girls and the girls and boys. And the cars and the fire engines. And Miss Judith (babysitter). Amen."

Priceless.

I don't scrapbook, so this blog will have to do for some memories.

Christmas for us is going to be very low key. We did go to a living nativity the other night, so that we could see the "baby animals". We have a Christmas tree up, and a winter wreath on the front door, and a small nativity scene. And that is it. Jonathan has enjoyed the large-ish Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus scene at his preschool. We are looking forward to the Christmas Eve service at church. We may get take out for Christmas dinner. There are some presents for Jonathan, but we are saving most of those for when the baby comes. Some of this is the theory that we don't want to train him to expect presents at Christmas. Part of it is sheer laziness/tiredness on our part. We want Christmas to be about the Christ Child, and about family, not "stuff."

We are still in our own personal "advent", waiting with expectation for the arrival of this second baby, and that has eclipsed most Christmas preparation, especially since all of our family will be elsewhere, and not making a special trip until the baby comes. Also, we tend to celebrate Christmas, starting Christmas Eve, and continuing for the twelve days following. This year that nicely coincides with the expected arrival of the baby, so celebrations will be had later.

I will be trying to update this blog when the baby begins his arrival, so y'all can check here. I will also send an email. And, if you are desperate for real time info, you can follow me on Twitter. Merry Christmas everyone!

New Post......

2008-12-14T10:01:00.002-05:00

Ok people, I have been so bad at posting this week.

The breech baby is no longer breech!

I was scheduled for a 'version' this past Wednesday, in the early afternoon. I went to the chiropractor in the morning for my regular (in this pregnancy) adjustment. She was happy about the version since it would improve my chances for a VBAC.

Anyway, after I left, I felt odd. Just different. I couldn't have told you exactly what was different, but I described it to my doula as feeling looser as well as fuller.

Hmmm.

So, went to the hospital, got myself admitted. Thankfully the OB ordered the sonogram before the I.V. Lo' and behold, the baby was vertex!! Thank God. Seriously. There has been so much prayer surrounding this issue. And, I am very happy with the chiropractor, too!

He flipped on his own. And, as far as we can tell, he is still head down! I know this because I am much more uncomfortable. And I can't bend over at the waist. So, aside from the complaining, we are very happy! It is very good that he turned on his own and the doctor didn't have to encourage him. So now we wait.

Seventeen days and counting.

Meanwhile, there are good posts up at the Advent Blog from our church. Go read and be blessed!

About being pregnant...and cuteness from the toddler

2008-12-08T17:20:00.003-05:00

When one is in the last month of pregnancy, it is really hard to think of anything else other than being pregnant. Seriously. Even though Christmas is almost upon us, and there are a million things that I could/should be doing, this all about being pregnant.

So, I tried to "turn" the baby myself last night by doing some pelvic tilts on the floor, with some support. They say to get your hips 9-12 inches higher than your head. Doesn't sound like much, until you do it. ACK. Couldn't breathe. Said to hold position for at least five minutes, not more than 15. Not bloody likely.

Anyhoooo, so I was thinking about what I like and don't like about being pregnant. The latter list will be longer.

What I like:

1) Good hair, skin and nails. Really good. And that is important, because when you feel like a whale, it is good to know that you glow. (And thanks, S, for the compliment today...sorry I totally brushed it off.)

2) Ability to eat more than usual (though not much, because there is no room in the belly.)

3) Excuse to sit. I know I am supposed to exercise more, but I count chasing Jonathan as enough exercise for anyone.

What I don't like:

1) The constant urge to find the nearest restroom, only to find that the result did not warrant a special, emergency trip.

2) The inability to turn over in bed, or get out of a couch, without ropes and pulleys.

3) The sieve that my brain has become.

4) The disinterest in this holiday time.

Both lists to be continued.

*****

Funny Jonathan story.

Yesterday, he and his dad were "working" in the basement. Jonathan was playing with a portable radio, and using it like a phone. And this is what I heard, verbatim, from the top of the stairs:

"Hell-wo Little Bear. I am going to pick up acorns and sticks outside. Yes, I am fine. Now I will talk to Mother Bear. Hell-wow Mother Bear. I am going to pick up sticks. Goodbye Mother Bear. Now I will talk to Father Bear. Father Bear, I am going to pick up acorns and sticks outside. Yes. Thank you. Ok, Good-bye. *kissing noise* Good-bye."

The boy is only 27 months old.

Version 1

2008-12-07T11:37:00.002-05:00

So, the baby is still determinedly breech. And not buttocks down, but feet down. (How do I know this latter fact, you ask? Let me just say this, I KNOW!)

So, on Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. my OB is going to try to turn the baby.

They give me some meds so my body doesn't try to fight it.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

'Twould be an appropriate time for prayer, if you feel so inclined. Thanks.

What is impossible?

2008-12-03T15:35:00.002-05:00

a) trying to keep a 2 y.o. clean while "decorating" sugar cookies.

b) trying to roll over in bed, while being 8 mos pregnant AND wearing velour pants.

c) keeping the kitchen clean when one hates to do dishes.

d) putting up Christmas Tree decorations when one has a cat who likes shiny objects.

e) having an adult conversation with a friend when the kids are around. Well, the conversation happens, but in small chunks, and with frequent stops to keep children from getting into the food coloring, cleaning up random amounts of vomit, rescuing the cat from kids with sticky fingers, etc.

f) avoiding eating said "decorated" sugar cookies.....

Oh, help....

2008-12-03T08:20:00.002-05:00

In the midst of the frenzy of Advent (and more prominently in the Western World, decorating and preparing for the gift-giving extravaganza that has become Christmas) it is easy to forget that there are wounded people in the world, and that evil does still exist.

Frankly, that is why we wait for Jesus to come. To set things right.

Sherri has it right today.

Sometimes when faced with objective evil, all we can do is hope and pray.

"But I know we have the promise of the resurrection, and I am sure that all those little humans are at rest in paradise, awaiting that day when their humanity and ours is fully and finally restored."

I will just requote what she said. Come Lord Jesus.

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

2008-11-30T10:47:00.002-05:00

Hey there......

NaBloPoMo is officially OVER as of today.

But never fear, for those one of you who read this blog, I am participating in our church's Advent Blog, Rejoice to Behold His Appearing, and my first post is up today.

Check in and comment!

Advent Blog

2008-11-29T21:13:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent. The time of the year when we anticipate the birth of our Savior. It is a season of anticipation, and preparation, and adoration.

Our church has a new blog to celebrate this season.

Go look.

When it rains, it pours

2008-11-28T16:23:00.002-05:00

So, today being Black Friday, my husband had found several items at the WalMart that he thought we could use and that were a good price. So, he set the alarm for 4:30, to get there by 5:00 (which turned out to be too late, but that is the subject of a different post.)

So, we were planning to go to bed early. Of course, the baby decided that he was having a difficult time sleeping and went to bed nearly an hour late. Which meant that we needed a bit of time to decompress before we went to bed. And then my child, who has been sleeping for 10 hours at a stretch for nearly a year, decided to get up at 1, and 3:30, and then at 6, for the day. I woke up when the hubs left for Walmart, and never went back to sleep.

Why is it that the babies know when you have something odd going on, and decide that then is the best time to have a messed-up schedule?

So, today has been spent trying to catch up on sleep, for all of us. But it has been satisfying to be with family. AND, we have gotten a little bit of shopping done. YEA US.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T16:22:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a grand time with family and friends.

Odd Sight

2008-11-26T17:35:00.003-05:00

I saw something odd today on our drive down to Gramma's house for Thanksgiving.

A pearl white Cadillac Escalade was tooling down the road in the middle lane. As I passed it, I noticed the bumper sticker. (As an aside, I enjoy reading bumper stickers. I also enjoy putting them on my car. My husband does not like bumper stickers at all, so I am a bit restricted.) Anyway, the bumper sticker said:

"Pay no attention to the car. My treasure is in heaven."

Hmmmm.

So many ways to come at this: 1) if passers-by really are not supposed to pay attention, why draw attention to the excess? 2) If you don't care what people think, then don't apologize; 3) If you feel guilty, a bumper sticker affirming your spiritual stance isn't going to make you really feel better. Etc.

The dreaded email....

2008-11-25T21:31:00.002-05:00

So, I got the dreaded email today from the pre-school:

"dear parent,
One of the children in your child's class....."

Sigh.

This is not about lice. Even typing the word makes my head itch.

No, this is about "hand, foot and mouth disease" or HFMD for short.

It seems as if every kid gets exposed during the pre-school years. And most parents are immune since we probably all got exposed during OUR preschool years.

But, you know, I am pregnant. And the only time that this is apparently risky for the baby is if the mother contracts it close to the delivery date. ACK! I am five weeks from delivering. Give or take.

So, there is a lot of handwashing going on here at the house of Maher. And I am trying to convince my son that kissing me on the mouth is a bad idea.

Well, I suppose that the upside is that when I go for my next OB visit in 10 days, I will probably know for sure if I have it or if he has it, and since the OB is testing me from Group B strep then anyway, I can just add this to the list.

Oh. Whine whine....the baby is still breech. Though he was flirting with the idea of turning this past couple of days.

Off to pack up for going to Gramma's tomorrow.

This post is untitled.

2008-11-24T19:47:00.002-05:00

Today was a good day and I have nothing to write about.

Well, I could write about how the president-elect hasn't gone to church since the election. Or, about how his kids are going to one of the most prestigious private schools in D.C. but he doesn't believe that private schools can teach kids any more than public schools and doesn't believe in allowing a voucher system that would enable poor parents to send their children to the same school that Obama has chosen to send his girls to. And I don't want one person to tell me that it is about security of his kids. Because that brings up all sorts of issues. What? Don't you think the Secret Service can protect your kids in the big bad inner city schools of D.C.? Don't you think that your girls can get a good education in the public school system?

Ok, I am already frothing at the mouth.

So I should write any more about that.

Or how about how he appointed as the new communications director the woman who is the director of Emily's List, a group "dedicated to building a progressive America by electing Democratic pro-choice women to office." And, how the first thing that he is going to do is sign the Freedom of Choice Act which will federalize the right to abortion. FEDERALIZE!

Argh.

Shoot. That didn't stop me from frothing at the mouth.

So, I think I am going to go back to talking about my son and my unborn child, that latter of whom is quite the active little guy. Flipping and swimming and stretching to the limit of my body. Looking forward to meeting this little guy in just a few weeks. (We are rooting for December 28!!)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2008-11-23T18:06:00.002-05:00

Well, two weeks ago it was more than 70 degrees here and I had all the windows in the house open. Today it was barely 30 degrees all day.

And, as we have established, I have a baby coming in just a few short weeks (and we know that the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas go by really really fast) and so I am thinking that I am going to be less and less interested in the "decorating" thing as times go on.

So....hubby indulged me and put up the tree yesterday. And we turned on the fire, and listened to Christmas music. My two year old said, "oh the tree, it is beautiful, daddy!"

'Course, we still haven't finished raking the leaves. Ah well.

And this week we get to "go over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go."

Update and more doula thoughts

2008-11-22T09:21:00.002-05:00

Well, for those (one) of you who freaked out at my last post, everything is A-OK. Apparently, for this pregnancy (which is different from the last one, so you people who are on your first, don't think you know everything now....things can be verrrrry different) the end of the day is hard on my uterus. Or something. Didn't matter what I did yesterday, my insides were practicing for labor. Which should still be five weeks away.

Anyway. Lying down settled everything, mostly. Now, if anyone can give me a fool-proof way of getting this baby to turn, THAT would be helpful.

Ok, onto the doula controversy.

My doula says that the ban on doulas at Reston Hospital, referenced in my last post on the subject, has been in place for a few years now. However, in her experience (13 years), she has never heard of a situation in which a doula got "between" a doctor and a patient in a medical situation.

There are several tracks one could go on with this: 1) railing at the way the medical system treats birth as a disease to be managed rather than a normal process of life; 2) the condescending view of many physicians that a medical/surgical answer to anything is the quintessentially "right" answer; 3) the fact that the trial lawyers and massive litigation has made it impossible for doctors to exercise judgment and true patient care in any particular case; or 4) the insurance companies (both mal-practice insurance, which is a boondoggle to lay directly at the feet of the trial lawyers, and health insurance, which demands certain standards of care unrelated to specific patient needs) have made health care workers extremely twitchy.

I am sure there are more, but those are the four that come to mind.

It is much more fun to rant and rail on 'tracks' one and two. It is fun to pick on doctors. Just like it is fun to pick on lawyers. But since I grew up with the former, I sometimes feel compelled to defend them. And since I am one of the latter, I choose to pick on my own. Though frankly, I sometimes think it is not so much the lawyers' problem (massive lawsuits with big money, which drive up insurance rates, which cause insurance companies to require doctors to jump through stupid hoops, etc.) as it is the public. Lawyers are opportunists. And they are ethically required to represent their clients zealously (ok, fine, I know that there are many lawyers who go waaaay beyond zealous, but still). It is the juries, which are made up of ordinary people, just like you and me, who award these big huge verdicts in med-mal cases.

So, what is the real problem? Our sense of entitlement of a "good" outcome in any given situation. We can talk about tobacco (you smoke for 40 years, get lung cancer, sue the company that makes the ciggarette that you CHOSE to smoke for 40 years, even though EVERYONE knew that cigs were unhealthy....don't tell me they didn't. If my 86 year old grandmother who grew up on a farm in central Virgnia called them "coffin nails" when she was a teenager, EVERYONE knew they were bad for you....just like we all know that french fries are bad for you). We can talk about firearms (no, don't get me started on that one). We can talk about worker's compensation, etc. etc. etc.

And medicine is the same thing. Doctors practice medicine with one hand tied behind their back, because they are afraid that if they take any risks, or do anything that is creative, they will get their pants sued off. And they are right.

And birth is no exception. It used to be taken for granted that babies, and mothers, died in childbirth. And it was sad. With the advent of better hygeine and sanitation and pre-natal care, those numbers dropped drastically. And using surgery judiciously prevented women with placenta previa or transverse breech babies from bleeding out and dying. All those are good things. But still, with all of our technology today, reproduction is still a bit of a mystery.

Someone told me a long time ago that 30% of babies who are conceived are miscarried before the mother even knows she is pregnant. And another significant percentage are miscarried early in the pregnancy. All in all, I read that every woman who is sexually active and of childbearing age will have some sort of pregnancy loss in her lifetime, at least once. And THAT is WITH all of the good healthcare we have now.

Nevertheless, people believe that they deserve (are entitled to) a healthy baby. And if they can blame ANYONE other than themselves, for a result other than what they expect, they will. And somehow over the years (here I blame the lawyers), that "blame" has become associated with monetary damages. As if any amount of money can make up for a life lost, or damaged.

As I sit and write this, I am five weeks (plus or minus) away from giving birth to my second child. Doctors say he is a boy and apparently healthy. We pray that they are right.

And I am trying for a VBAC this time. And I have a doula to help me through some of my labor b/c while I have a great doctor, he only is going to be there for the last three minutes, not the rest, and I didn't go through labor the first time (breech baby that we knew about, scheduled C-section before I went into labor). She will be with me in labor, and at the hospital, until after the baby is born.

If something, heaven forbid, goes wrong, I know that I have a crack medical team standing by. And a husband and doula who have mine, and the baby's best interest at heart. And if the result of all of this is something other that what we expect, we will all want to blame someone. That is just human nature.

So, for now, not only do I have to trust God for the rest of this pregnancy, and this child, I will have to trust Him for the outcome. And we all know that doesn't stop with birth, eh? I have to trust God every minute of every day with my two year old (who is quickly learning to test the limits of his physical abilities). I need to learn, in the words of my obstetrician, to "stop trying to control everything." Because I will drive myself crazy otherwise.

Anyway, somehow this post morphed into a "Trusting God" post rather than a rant about the silly ban of doulas. Maybe that is shere it was supposed to go. Hmmm.

How do you know....

2008-11-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

....the difference between Braxton-Hicks and "real" contractions?

Doula controversy?

2008-11-20T20:05:00.003-05:00

After Motrin gate, you just knew there would have to be something else. So, now doulas are a big controversy. On the Today Show, TODAY no less, there was a bit about the 'problems' with doulas.

There was a part where they interviewed an OB at Reston Hospital, in Virginia. And she talked about the dangers to the mother when the doula gets "between" the patient and the doctor, sometimes making the patient 'question' the medical professionals. And so for "liabililty reasons" the hospital has banned doulas. (One does wonder what the trial lawyers and insurance companies have done to us....)

I was unable to find any information at the hospital site. (There is a weird link to a Denver hospital, but Reston is in Virginia, so that doesn't make sense. Anyway.)

There was a lot of emphasis on making sure that your doula has the right kind of 'training'. The implication was that if the doula was a labor and delivery nurse or a midwife, then probably she would be "ok", but if the doula just has the 'certification' from DONA, might be a little more suspect.

Wow.

There is so much here.

More tomorrow.

Good to know

2008-11-19T18:26:00.003-05:00

When making meatloaf, it is a good idea to use a bowl to mix all the ingredients which is actually BIGGER than the amount of all the ingredients added together. Otherwise, it is a big mess.

Also, it is helpful to have the sleeves on your long slouchy sweater rolled up BEFORE you start mixing raw meat.

The saving grace was that hubs unexpectedly came home early and rolled my sleeves up for me.

*****

Christmas music makes even the most ordinary chores bearable.

*****

Jonathan-ism for today: "Mommy, where is the firetruck sound?" "I don't know honey, where is the firetruck?" "In the DIS-TANCE, mommy."

Today is all about my son

2008-11-18T21:50:00.002-05:00

'Cause he is cute.

And has such funny things to say.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter (and you SHOULD if you don't, because don't we all need more excuses to stay glued to our computers?) this will be redundant.

But funny nonetheless.

Life with a two year old, is, as one would expect, unexpected most of the time.

For instance, this evening, Jonathan was gagging himself. With four fingers. With red eyes and making vomiting noises, he says "oh so funny Mommy!" Not really, son.

This afternoon when we got back from pre-school, he asked me for a nap and food in the same breath. In fact, what he said, verbatim, was "Jonathan want need food." Without waiting for me to respond, he asked, "Can Jonathan sleep now?" And I said yes, gave him a sippy of milk and he wandered into his bedroom and climbed into bed.

So I quickly changed his clothes (which I read is a good idea when they come back from school or play dates or the playground or whatnot...changing clothes and washing hands and faces keeps viruses from spreading) and he sucked down half a glass of milk and crawled into bed.

Wow.

Sometimes life is easy.

On the other hand, when I could tell he was working on a diaper, and I asked him if he wanted to go to the potty, he said, clear as a bell, "No, I don't want to." And the same response when I asked him if he needed to have his diaper changed.

Weird to have to convince someone to have their dirty diaper changed. I mean, wouldn't you want a fresh clean diaper?

Of being a mom, being fulfilled, but being TIRED!

2008-11-17T16:45:00.002-05:00

So, if you haven't been following the Motrin/babywearing controversy (or con-TRO-versy as our friends across the pond would say), you can catch up on most of it through Adventures in Babywearing. Although not as exciting a confab as the breastfeeding wars, it sparked a certain amount of interest in the mommy-blogging community.

Though I can't get TOO worked up about it, it was simply tacky of Motrin. And not well thought out. I think the latter is the worse of the crimes. It seems that if you want to market to mommies, then you need to be more intentional about your market research. But then again, that is nothing new to the marketing community. I have been shockingly appalled at the number of people who lump all "moms" in the same category. Whether it is the 'soccer mom' description, or the idea that all women vote the same. Drives me crazy. And so, it shouldn't surprise me that there is a contingent that is snarky about babywearing.

But it seems like an ad agency and huge corporation would THINK that making a non-snarky commercial, which appeals to all women, would be more effective.

I mean, we might not all agree on the importance of babywearing, etc, but all moms are tired and stretched, whether we are home with the kids full time, working full time or somewhere in between. And we all need a bit of relief. The ONLY reason I don't pop ibuprophen all the time is that I am pregnant. Because, boy, is it a good source of relief for those special aches and pains of daily motherhood.

Anyhow. With all the choices out there, it seems unnecessary to support a company that produces slightly malicious (at worse) and thoughtless (at best) ads. So I won't. And I told them that. And the only reason I am giving it even this much thought is that I needed some fodder for this NaBloPoMo thing.

And someone else made the comment that the reason this minor issue got so much traction is because Motrin made the mistake of singling out potentially the most sleep-deprived, cranky population out there with the ability to express outrage.

Anyhoo, as all of you that are parents know, extended tiredness is a way of life with little kids. Sometimes I am not sure why. It SEEMS easy enough, watching a 2 y.o. How hard can it be? (laughing maniacially....). Sigh. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but there are days when the cut-throat corporate world seems restful in comparison. I mean, you don't have to spend an hour trying to convince your co-workers or competitors that eating lunch is a good idea.

Let's start a REAL controversy. I will make some obnoxious statements and see if people pick up on it and run with it. (Probably not, but I am feeling snarky). Letting your kids watch television means you are a lazy mother. If you don't breastfeed your baby, you are a lazy, thoughtless mother. If you go out for a girls' night out, you are a lazy, thoughtless, and obviously neglectful mother.

There. Those are fightin' words.

Motrin just employees idiots.

Yummy Dinner

2008-11-16T20:41:00.003-05:00

So, about the only thing that I did today was make this recipe from Scribbit. Yummo! You should make it. Only I stuffed pasta shells with it rather than making crepes. 'Cause I am not into savory crepes.

Oh, and I picked up a very nice black trench coat for Marcus off of Freecycle.

So, yummy and productive.

Oh yes, and I got a shower.

And a nap.

Addition - otherwise known as higher math

2008-11-15T16:32:00.002-05:00

1) Slightly sick, pregnant mom;

2) Overly energetic toddler who won't nap;

3) Rainy day outside with weather that LOOKS like winter but feels like summer. Ugh;

1 + 2 + 3 = Perfect reason to NOT go outside and to bake gingerbread and send son to basement to play with his dad.

Parenthood sensitizes everything

2008-11-14T19:56:00.002-05:00

There is nothing like being a parent to make you aware of your own mortality.

A weird tightening of the chest and sudden urge to cough, when childless, is merely the on-set of a cold, or allergies, or something. When there is a toddler in the car, all sorts of possibilities loom. When there is a toddler in the car, and a baby in the belly, MORE possibilities raise their ugly heads, especially when there is additional, repeated, tightening in the belly. And when the nearest family is at least an hour commuting time away, and it is getting dark, those possibilities turn into something darker in your mind.

And if you have a people-pleasing personality, the last thing you want to do is call anyone. Heavens. What if it is nothing? Don't want to look like an idiot, do you? On the other hand, there is a toddler in the car, dependent on you, and a baby in the belly, perhaps even more dependent on you. And while you have several people you could turn to who could be there in five minutes, you don't want to waste the favor on something minor, do you?

Thankfully, as is the case most of the time, the call to the doctor is reassuring, even if the call to your family is not ("What? You should go to the hospital NOW!")

And thanks to Noggin, you can lie quietly, stretched out, and get more oxygen into your poor squished lungs and feel the reassuring thud of your baby's feet. And the braxton-hicks contractions slow down when you aren't doing so much. And when the husband gets home and takes over with the dinner, and you are able to stretch out for longer, the weird feelings nearly, if not totally fade away.

And you still feel like a bit of an idiot. But somehow less so than you might otherwise, since there is a toddler and a baby dependent on you.

Parenthood changes you in ways you don't expect.

Thoughts on Life

2008-11-13T19:51:00.002-05:00

This is, unfortunately, a loaded topic.

Life.

Specifically Life versus Choice.

A Twitter link to a blog post led to another and then finally to this. Which is from February of this year. It is an appeal to choice, and it is well written, and I find myself sympathetic to the writer.

In many ways, the author says that there is no "versus" in the argument of Life versus Choice. And certainly she thinks that there is no higher value than supporting a woman's choice, both to have a child and/or to have an abortion.

But is she right?

"I didn't make a mistake having my baby. And my friend didn't make a mistake not having hers. The right choice for me may not be the right choice for you and the right choice for you may not be the right choice for me and the right choice for Jamie Lynn Spears may be the wrong choice for you and your family but come on, now. Let's all have some respect for people's procreational choices."

I think one of the mistakes that the pro-life people have made over the years is that we have not trumpeted loud and long our support of women in unplanned pregnancies. We do, of course, have thousands of crisis pregnancy centers and other supports out there. Which do not, of course, receive anywhere near the funding that Planned Parenthood does.

But I can understand the focus on the baby. It seems like everyone else focuses on the mother: her decisions, her 'choices', her situation, the consequences of her behavior, etc. But in the discussion of choice, no one talks about the baby. And there are VERY few people as brutal as Camille Paglia is in her no-holds barred description of what abortion is:

As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body. (Hence I favor the legalization of drugs, though I do not take them.) . . . .

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

Ouch.

No one wants to face the fact that the child who is aborted is a "who" not a "what". No one. Especially not a woman who has faced the awful choice of what to do when she is faced with an unplanned pregnancy which she doesn't think she is ready for. She is faced with raising a child that she doesn't believe she is capable to ready to raise. Or placing the child for adoption after carrying him for nine months and answering all the questions from all the people. Or killing that child at a very early age. What an awful choice.

And I repeat myself.

What an awful choice.

And why should she have to make that choice?

There SHOULD be more support for women caught in these crosshairs. Attitudes toward the consequences of sex should keep up with the attitudes toward sex itself. Attitudes toward pregnancy should keep up with the attitude people have about sex. No one should have even THOUGHT about commenting much less criticizing Bristol Palin's pregnancy. And the hypocrisy of many on the left (not all) in that regard was beyond disappointing.

Something we in the pro-life community need to learn, to do the opposite of what the 'choice' community does: treat the vicitims differently. The women need as much compassion as we give the babies. And if we do that well, then maybe the 'choice' community will give as much compassion to the babies as well as the women.

We have a hard battle ahead.

Tagged! I'm It.

2008-11-12T18:36:00.010-05:00

So, Veronica tagged me for the "Seven Random Things about Myself" meme. And so, I think I am going to use it for this day's NaBloPoMo post. Because the other things I could write about are not going to cut it today.

So here goes, seven things you probably don't know about me:

1) I am (was) a big catalog reader. When we go down to visit my parents, inevitably beside the bed in my room is a big stack of her catalogs, for my nighttime reading pleasure. Some favorites are, Signals, Wireless (which I really think are the same), Bas Bleu (I could bankrupt us with this catalog), and Levenger (ditto). I don't have so much time to sit in front of the television and read catalogs now, or the energy to stay awake after crawling into bed. But I still like the idea.

2) I grew up evangelical non-denom (basically), converted to Catholicism after college, and am now Anglican. Ok, some people know that. Hmmmm. My Anglican church here in little ole' Virginia is part of the Church of Nigeria!

3) Preschool "stuff" makes me crazy (the "pictures" and crafts, etc.). It makes me crazy when the kids are making it (Jonathan goes to a co-op preschool). It makes me crazy to bring home pieces of construction paper that have wet paint and glue on them. And don't get me started on the Scholastic flyers.

4) I love makeup. All kinds. The cheaper the better. Which is why I just love E.L.F. The sad thing is that I don't bother with it on a daily basis (the whole kid thing), but I still buy it. Oh, and sparkly shiney makeup? All the better.

5) I could live on breakfast food and dessert. As long as there is plenty of bacon.

6) I used to chew on the ends of my hair. When it was longer and I was six years old. My teacher told me to stop or she would CUT. IT. OFF. I was so scared I couldn't even tell my mother. So I started biting my cuticles instead.

7) We moved to Virginia from Michigan when I was ten. But I said "y'all" so I was O.K. (My mom is a bona fide Virginian.) And from then on, every time we passed a certain little church outside of my little town, I said "that is where I want to be married." And I was, 24 years later.

And yes, the colors inside the church (except for the stone floors and plaster walls) are Tiffany Blue and Chocolate Brown.

So, seven random things....I am tagging only a couple of people, because I don't want to chase people away: Sherri (who might have done this before, but I suspect she can come up with more items), Carmen (to give her something else to post about this month!), Kristi ('cause I know her from pre-blogging days), and Meg ('cause she left me a comment once!).

Extreme Makeover - Toddler Edition

2008-11-11T16:28:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I had so much fun yesterday putting up pictures for (nearly) the first time, that I thought I would try it again.

And this is kind of a lame post, but until I return from the Positive Discipline seminar at the preschool tonight, I don't have anything to blog about.

I was thinking about the ways that my child has changed so much in the past six or seven months. He went from being a baby to a little boy in a blink of an eye.

This is my angel baby at Christmas time last year. Too precious not to post.

And this is the day of his first haircut. I caved to the pressure, people. I had just HAD it with people talking about my beautiful little girl with her pretty curls. If you had a girl with hair like this, would you dress her in grey/red/black and camouflage? Well, maybe you would. But I would dress her in pink tulle ALL. THE. TIME. Anyway, I decided he needed a haircut.

So, post haircut, he doesn't look like a baby angel anymore, does he? Though I think he looks like he is going to get himself into some trouble, which is basically what he tries to do all the time these days!

And, finally, the transformation from toddler into (not-so-little) boy is complete. And he is STILL only two years old! (This photo is courtesy of The Picture People and Smilestore.)

Good thing I have another baby on the way....we'll see how long the new one can keep his curls!

International Babywearing Week!

2008-11-10T14:47:00.008-05:00

This week is International Babywearing Week. And so, for fun, Stephanie is hosting a blog carnival for babywearing bloggers and links. I am going to try my best to participate, but y'all know my weakness with internet technical stuff.

We are fans of the babywearing thing. Jonathan really liked riding around in the Ergo, especially. Here is Marcus carrying Jonathan in the Ergo in April of 2007 (J was 8 months old or something at the time.)

And this is a closer up shot of the kiddo. You may or may not be able to tell that he liked to chew on the straps of the Ergo.

And to put things in perspective, this is how Jonathan currently likes to ride. I think our days of babywearing for THIS child are over. Conveniently, baby number two is well on his way, so we are all prepared for more babywearing. If you are interested in looking at some baby carrier options, check out here!

Today's sermon

2008-11-09T21:00:00.003-05:00

Somehow the topic at church this week surprised me. It shouldn't have. This is the Sunday after a huge presidential election. But it has been a long week here at the Maher house and it seemed like it has been a YEAR since the election. Anyway, the title of the sermon, once I got over the surprise of the topic, did not surprise me. 2008 Election - A teaching moment.

Our Rector looks at most things as teaching moments. And he certainly does them well.

One of the many aspects of the "teaching moment" that especially hit me (and you could click on the above link to go take a listen yourself...well worth it. He has a New Zealand
accent which makes everything sound kindof posh) was this:

If you are either 1) Really happy Obama was elected and think that things are now going to be coming up rainbows; or 2) Really sad that Obama was elected and are worried that things are going to hell in a hand basket, then you need to rethink to whom you are trusting. We, all of us, need to be looking toward God, not to any man (or woman) for our salvation.

The second aspect of the sermon which struck me was the importance of discerning God's voice in the midst of "stuff happening" here on earth. For instance, often if life goes according to MY plan, I think it is God's will. But if something happens that goes against my wishes, I assume that it cannot be God's will. But God is sovereign. And sometimes His plan is inscrutable to me.

One of today's scriptures was Jeremiah 1:10. "See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

Our Rector made the point that we all want to "build and to plant" but that God requires, often, that things be uprooted, and torn down, and destroyed and overthrown, before something new can be planted and built.

And then he admonished us to be reconciled to each other as Christian brothers and sisters, some of whom share differing political opinions. And what a witness that will be. "And they will know we are Christians by our love."

NaBlaPoMo Day 8

2008-11-09T09:28:00.001-05:00

Fail.

Why my husband is the best.

2008-11-07T19:43:00.002-05:00

My husband's birthday was yesterday. And we tried to have a nice dinner. But our two y.o. son was feeling iffy and just couldn't/wouldn't sleep without "daddy hold you in the rocking chair". So, I think we each got about two hot bites of food in that marathon "put to bed" session.

Anyway, I have been thinking about all of the reasons that I love him and why he is perfect for me. Many of the reasons are in direct contradiction to "feelings" I may have had for someone else earlier in life.

We got married later than average, at least for me. I was 34 when we got married. I had just about given up finding "Mr. Right." In my twenties I went through of phase of settling for "Mr. Right Now", but that phase ended predictably. By the time I entered my thirties, I had finally settled on a career that was satisfying and had great potential (law). But I had kindof given up on finding an equally satisfying life partner.

And then I met Marcus.

Within just a few dates, I realized several things:

1) He actually really listened to me, tried to figure out my likes and dislikes, and what made me tick.

2) He had a grounded steadiness that was incredibly comforting. I knew that I could count on him.

3) He faithfully stuck by his word. If he said he would be there at 7:15, he was there at 7:15. That might seem like a small thing, but it is indicative of his faithfulness in all areas.

4) His faith was very important to him. He actively encouraged us to go to church. Together. (And he picked MY church!)

5) He has a weird, quirky, funny side to him that the vast majority of people never see, because he is quiet and reserved. When I discovered these little quirks, I realized that there were hidden layers to him that only I (mostly) would get to see. And that has been very fun over the past few years.

6) He is very smart, but doesn't feel the need to brag, like many do. I have to brag for him. For instance, when asked where he works, he will say, "the government" without mentioning that he is a lawyer. When people find out, and ask where he went to law school, he says, always, "In Boston." (And when I chide him for that, he says, with a grin, "Well, they asked where, they didn't ask what school."

I learned all those things within a few weeks. But those have been indicative of his character. So, while I am continually impressed that he seems to do things for me that are above and beyond what other wives might expect, I am not surprised.

I am seven months pregnant with our second child, and while I am in generally good health (thank you God!) I am woefully out of shape, and have a toddler to chase around. So I am super tired. And I feel like I complain all the time. But he doesn't. And suddenly I find that the dishwasher has been emptied and filled, and two loads of laundry done, all the while he has been working 80 and 90 hours a week. (And the trash regularly gets taken out, but that is a constant).

These past couple months have been really rough on him at work, yet every evening that he can, he rushes home, throws off his suit, and takes over with Jonathan. Who relishes his time with his father. I know that Marcus would rather put his feet up, but he runs the bath, finishes feeding the kid, and reads him story after story to get him to sleep. I tell some of my young friends never to underestimate the power of a man who loves his family more than his free time.

We both have strong opinions on a wide variety of issues, but somehow we have never had a fight. Sure, there are some disagreements, but I can't even think of something that rose to the level of an argument. And sure, there were some snippy moments when we were severely sleep deprived after our son was born, but that was just the sleep problem.

I think the reason we don't argue or fight is that we both go out of our way (more him than me) to make sure that we understand the other's position and thoughts and feelings.
And that is my definition of respect. We are more similar than we are different, and that probably helps, but the commitment to love and care for each other is still a choice. Which he makes freely.

I love you, sweetie. Happy Birthday.

Can random thoughts equal a post?

2008-11-06T17:04:00.003-05:00

(Well, yes, if you have been reading any of my posts, it would seem that I specialize in "random thoughts".)

So, I am taking a page from Carmen's book and making a post of "random thoughts".

- Co-opping at my son's pre-school certainly puts the post-election haze into perspective. And pre-schoolers are hard! They don't put me in his class (2 y.o.) but with the 3 y.o.s. And I was in a class of all boys. Being 7 months (whatever - 32 weeks) pregnant and eight three year old boys is just hard work. My had is off to the teachers.

- Being heavily (and getting more heavy every day) pregnant makes everything else more difficult, like, you know, standing. Being woefully out of shape at the same time doesn't help matters.

- So, there is a staff member at the pre-school who looked like she could deliver ANY day. So, I asked the obvious question, and said it in what I thought was a self-deprecating sort of way, "so, you look like you are due before me, when is the big day?" And she said, "The beginning of February." I literally was speechless. My due date is January 1 (or December 31 as we keep telling the little guy). I think I caught myself before shoving the foot farther in ("Wow, you sure are huge!"). But, I should have known better.

- Noggin and PBSKids are sure fire way of ending the sadness that sometimes accompanies the end of my child's nap. And I am getting waaaay too dependent on it.

- By the time the post-nap snack is had, it is actually DARK outside. Crud.

- So, my dad had what they call a "mini-stroke" this past weekend. Do you know what the signs of a stroke are? The weird thing was that the signs were very subtle. And he, being a doctor, refused to go get taken care of for some hours. And, if you can get someone help within a very few hours (i.e. call 911 immediately), the doctors can almost fully resolve the stroke with few side-effects. Though it appears that dad will fully recover with some time, and his remaining symptoms are merely just a bit of slurring of some words, and some aphasia, the docs are telling him to take the rest of the month off.

- Since I have grandparents who are 86 and 90, and who live with my parents, and a dad who only gets serious problems (kidney stones, stroke, etc) rather than the common cold, it is not out of the ordinary to get a call from my mom which goes something like this: "everyone is ok, but we are in the hospital." But still, my heart stops a little every time the phone rings after 8 at night or before 7 in the morning.

- My husband's birthday is today. Tomorrow is a post about how fabulous he is.

Post-election thoughts, and more ramblings.

2008-11-05T12:43:00.002-05:00

Otherwise known as Day 5 of NaBloPoMo.

This is my last political-ish post. I think.

Jon stole my thunder. So I will just quote him and be done with it. "God is sovereign. God is good. He will provide and He has provided. Everything is going to be alright."

For those of you who didn't catch it, here are John McCain's remarks from last night. Very Classy Speech.

I am more than a little worried about the future of this country. I will be praying for the new president, because he does have a very hard job to do. I am worried about his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as one of his very first actions. He got a 100% rating from NARAL. Urgh. I really am not a one-issue voter, but his very liberal stance against life is more than a little concerning for me. Check out this rant about the issue. Warning, she calls a spade a spade.

But God can change the hearts and minds of even the hardest and stubbornest of people. Obama claims to be a Christian, so I will continue to storm Heaven for wisdom for the President-elect as he prepares to lead our country.

Sort-of election thoughts, and more

2008-11-04T17:28:00.002-05:00

So, I went and voted. Not for Obama. Because I am not a socialist.

And all this hype about long lines that made me scramble and get a babysitter? There was NO ONE THERE. Seriously. I went in and walked right up and gave my name. And then I got to pick a paper ballot. I probably should have done the "touch screen" thing, because that is counted instantly, but I was feeling old school about it.

We will see if they even bother to count the paper ones, or the absentee ones.

I am having a couple people over to watch the returns tonight. Thought it might be a fun, adult evening. But Jonathan had a 3 1/2 hour nap. Of COURSE he did, because I had a babysitter and had stuff (voting) to do. So he isn't going to sleep any time soon. So it may be more wrangling of kids than people were imagining, but still.

I don't know what is going to happen in this election. I just hope that Veronica is right, and that there will be a peaceful transition. I wonder about it when the cops in Ohio have been issued RIOT GEAR in Toledo. WHAT??? I thought that only happened for soccer games in the UK.

I don't want a socialist president. But I believe that God is sovereign, and my hope is in Him, anyway, not in our form of government.

Pre-election thoughts

2008-11-03T12:14:00.006-05:00

There are things that our government can do with my money* that I cannot, or more efficiently that I can. On the other hand, there are plenty of things I can do with my money much more efficiently that the government (perhaps by myself, perhaps in a small community). Let's see how they stack up:

Things the Gov't can do better than I can:

1) Wage war. Always an evil, but sometimes a necessary one. oh, I can keep and bear arms, and believe you me, I do, but I can't do a lot about national defense.

2) Organize a money structure. Ours ain't perfect, but carrying around paper that represents money is better than trying to barter with shavings off of a gold brick or something.

3) Build roads/infrastructure. Too big a job for one person, or even a small group, to do on their own. It will would probably be more efficient without a big bureaucracy behind it, but still....

4) Hmmmmm. Oh yes, ensure that certain rights are protected, namely life, liberty and the opportunity to pursue happiness. A system of justice is something the government can set up and run and I really can't, especially given the size of our country.

I am sure that someone else can come up with others that I may or may not agree with, but there you have it.

Things I can do better than the government:

1) Feed the poor. Sometimes on my own, sometimes through various agencies. I remember reading somewhere that it takes three of my tax dollars to get one dollar to the poor through a federal agency. Yet, if I give that same three dollars to Operation Blessing, they are able to multiply it and get $36 worth of food and goods to the needy. Hmmmm, I think I should keep my money and feed the poor without government interference.

2) Save for my retirement. If I hear one more commercial telling me that privatizing social security is bad because "look what just happened to wall street, I am going to scream. Do people think that the SSA just puts the money that is confiscated from your paycheck under a mattress somewhere and then doles it back out to you later? Of course not. It gets invested and either increases or decreases. If it decreases, your benefits later are merely "guaranteed" on the backs of younger tax payers. Forget it. I can sock money away under my own mattress and not burden my children.

3) Educate my children. The public school system in this country is pretty good, all things considered. However, it is not geared to ensuring the best education for MY child. There aren't the resources.

4) Protecting my family. Weirdly enough, one of the things I learned in law school was that the police department is actually not responsible for protecting individuals. Yup. I was surprised. But once I thought about it, it made sense. Police are responsible for ensuring "community" safety, not personal safety. That goes for the fire department and rescue squad, too.

5) Protect my health and choose my health care. Why anyone thinks that putting the feds in charge of health care is a good idea is beyond me. Does anyone who has an HMO really love their choices and options and decisions? How much worse is it going to be of the feds nationalize health care. Sheesh. Let ME decide how to best take care of my health, and weigh my options. And don't get me started on how government mandates on insurance companies have negatively impacted my ability to make choices about my health care with my health care practitioner.

Maybe I will add more thoughts later, but so far, I think I would do a better job with my money than the government, on a lot of levels. So, I think I should keep more of my money. And that will impact my voting decision tomorrow.

* I totally believe that the money that I (we) have is really just a blessing from God, and that He has given us what we have as a loan. So I really do wrestle with the issue of stewardship....am I doing the best with the money He has given me? But, for the sake of this discussion, the question is whether I or the government will do a better job.

Day 2 - Trophy kids?

2008-11-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

I saw a link yesterday from Shannon and it made me think.

The article is from the Wall Street Journal and it is about the "millenial kids" who are joining the workforce. These are the kids from the generation AFTER GenX, or those born after 1980. The point of the article is that apparently this generation of new workers has a vast sense of entitlement, and they want their new employers to accommodate them. So, only 40 hours a week; time with families; wearing comfortable clothes; and listening to iPods while working are becoming requirements that the newbie employees are putting on their employers.

Oh, and they want the big salaries, too.

Why would an employer bow to such hubris? Well, they are needing to replace the boomers who are rapidly aging into retirement. And, also according to the article, the employers realize that the Millenials are well educated and good workers, so they do want to capture them. The article points out that the sense of entitlement of these newbies isn't really their fault, after all, they were raised with lavish praise for every good little thing they did, and with enough money that they didn't really feel the need to work hard. Additionally, the employers who are now having to deal with the Millenials needn't look much farther than their own homes, as they are often the ones raising the kids with these types of expectations.

I was kindof amazed at the article. I am smack in the middle of GenX and had to hear about how my generation was full of slackers. But somehow I managed to realize that if I wanted to "get ahead" in life, I was going to have to become educated, and work hard. I didn't want to go to school indefinitely, so I took a few years off after college and worked for a youth ministry and then worked for a couple political campaigns, just to get a feel for things.

It became glaringly obvious to me that I was going to need more education if I were going to "get" anywhere. So I went back to law school, full time, while working part-time. Now THAT was anything but slacker-like. Phew.

And then, after three rather grueling years, I got a job in a small law firm. Making less than the secretary who did not even have a college degree. It was a bit of a wake-up call. Not only was I paying for law school loans, and working at an entry-level position at age 30, but I was going to have to "prove myself" over several/many more years in order to get to where I assumed I "should" be.

I grumbled to myself over the next few years, when the staff went home at 5:30 and I was stuck at the office until 8:00 preparing for a trial. But I understood that one has to "build" a life. Brick by brick. And that I had, theoretically, unlimited earning potential. It was a small comfort, especially after I got married and actually wanted to spend time with my husband. (What? Leave work before 8:00 at night?? Not work on Sundays? Really?)

But that is nothing compared to what these Millenials apparently feel. I mean, I cannot find a babysitter for less than ten dollars an hour these days. Seriously. I have a really hard time finding high school kids even to babysit for THAT kindof money. Apparently they have better things to do with their time. Apparently they don't need to make money. And they shop at places where t-shirts are more than $25.00.

Hmm. Entitlement.

One more thing to feel guilty about....

2008-11-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

So, Sherri has convinced me to do this NaBloPoMo thing. Posting something every day for a month? Sheesh. I have been posting about three times a YEAR, so this should be interesting.

I guess for the next week or so I can talk about the upcoming election, the day of the election, and my post-election feelings. Those can probably now be summed up as dread, anxiety, and fear, in that order. Hopefully the last one will change from "fear" to "relief". All we can do is pray.

Ok, this is counting as day 1, even though I am composing it on a post-trick or treating sugar high.

On the differences between boys and girls....and shoes.

2008-10-23T17:36:00.002-04:00

So, my poor son has had a growth spurt and now his favorite shoes don't fit. So, we have been on a hunt for shoes that fit, that are cute, that don't fall off, etc.

I found a really good pair of almost running shoes, with velcro. Nice and flexible. Easy on, easy off, which is important since he is two. But, I have a son. Not a daughter. So, shoes get wet. And muddy. And wearing paint-covered shoes to Sunday school seems weird. And he does have some very snazzy Euro-looking ones that are quite good, but are a huge pain to get on.

So, off we went to the store. And, he didn't want any of the "boy" shoes.

He wanted the glittery pink ones. With feathers. And pom poms.

Sigh.

I did convince him to get some tan work-boots and black sneaker-y things. (And since it was a sale, I got some boots for myself. And he wanted to wear MY new shoes.)

Why is it that girl shoes are all sparkly and embellished and boys' aren't? I mean, the girl shoes just SCREAM "fun!". I know, I know. Boys have "Cars" and "Spiderman" shoes, but those just kindof look scary to me, and they all are the same. The girls have fun stuff that is not tied to some Hollywood licensing thing.

I don't want sparkles for my son, but I want him to be as excited about the options he does have as the ones he doesn't.

Is that too much to ask?

Musings on love in generations gone by.

2008-10-19T10:35:00.002-04:00

This is merely a stream of consciousness post as I am watching "Becoming Jane" while sitting at home alone (gasp...how can that be? Hubs is at church with J while I am sitting home nursing a hurt back). Feel like a heathen for not listening to a sermon or something. But the chance to sit here and watch a chick flick is too appealing.

Consider this to be a form of "live-blogging" or something.....

Onto my musings...

1) "Affection is desirable. Money is absolutely indispensable." Jane's mom, at hearing Jane say that she will not marry without affection. Her mom replies that she (the mom) married for affection, and "look where that got me...I have to dig my own potatoes."

It is easy for us twenty-first women to judge the "money is indispensable" attitude, but at the time, Jane had no option for employment herself. Not really. Women, of a certain class, could not work, had no option for education except at home, and were unable to own property on their own (a fact that wasn't remedied in England, and the U.S. until shockingly recently.)

While we modern women judge Jane's position to be the "right" one, surely we can understand her mother's concern: no one wants poverty for their child.

2) Remarkable how this movie seems to mirror Pride and Prejudice, as if that work was almost autobiographical.

3) Love the costumes. Personally, I think it would be altogether fabulous if the men I know wore waistcoats and cravats on a regular basis. And frankly, I wouldn't mind wearing empire-waisted dresses. The corsets could go, though. And you never see any pregnant women....did they not go out and do stuff after they started "showing"?

4) "When a young woman such as yourself receives the attentions of a man such as my nephew, the young woman is obliged to accept." WOW. Surely that line is designed to fire up our modern passions. And of course, the nephew in question is a bit of a dullard, though not horrible like the cousin in P and P.

5) And then, and THEN, she kisses the love interest, the lovely Irishman.....who has no money and no property, but he LOVES her. Gosh, I think that is why marriages at the time were arranged by parents. Of course, all teenagers prize "love" above all else, even now.

6) "Portable property is happiness in a pocketbook". By Jane, in the presence of the wealthy(ish) uncle of the poor Irish lover.

7) Of course, to achieve the status that women have today (the ability to work, become educated, to vote, to own property, etc.) women needed to push the envelope, as Jane did (according to the movie), and push it hard. So I shouldn't be so critical.

8) I love the idea of butlers and housekeepers. Though I don't think I could bear having people around all the time.

9) We discount the complete inability of the "poor gentry" (like Jane's family), of even actually earning a living, should they have to. They wouldn't know how to, even if they wanted to.

10) Lawyers in England STILL wear those white wigs in court. Though it seems anachronistic, I suppose it is no more than the uniform that we Americans wear in court: dark suits, relieved only by a bright blouse, or tie. It is very rare to find a woman outside of lower courts, in anything but a dark skirt suit. (Men, too, but men have such fewer options when it comes to professional clothing.) And we say things like, "may it please the Court, my name is ______, and I represent the Plaintiff in this matter."

11) Apparently, at the time, it was appropriate to read one's mail at the dinner table when one is entertaining guests. Weird.

12) To paraphrase a friend of mine, our most significant goal in life shouldn't be "happiness" or personal fulfillment, even though that often appears to be the primary goal for lots of people. The end of Jane's novels is almost always the same, the protagonists make "triumphant happy endings" and are married to "very rich men." Which I think is weird, considering her apparent disdain for money.

13) Tom (the delectable Irishman), proposes an elopement to Scotland, to run away. To "leave everything" and "be together." Her sister, Cassandra, challenges her. Jane says, "happiness is within my grasp and I cannot help myself." Whew! I remember feeling much the same way, at various points, in my early 20's. By my early 30's I had realized that happiness, joy, and (horrors) reliability are not incompatible, which is what I had thought.

14) I love the look of the English countryside. One does get used to the damp and constant mist, I have heard. It is one of the reasons English women have such dewy complexions.

15) Ah! Finally, she has come to her senses and realized that responsibility is not horrible. And she is the reasonable one, not him, for realizing that he can't support his family and her, and that eventually "love" will die in the face of increasing debt and responsibility. Of course it is heartbreaking to leave the one you "love."

Ok, I quit. I sound so very critical. Really, I love a good romance as much as the rest. And, this has all the markings of a good romance, including unrequited love.

HAH. Best line, "it appears that you cannot bear to marry without affection, or with it."

Awa....Tom named his daughter after Jane. How sweet. Wonder what her mother thought of that? Not sure what the ending of the movie is supposed to mean. Should she have actually eloped with Tom? After all, according to the movie, he appeared to have made good, in the end. Should she have, as she always said, put love above all else?

Huh.

I am confused....

2008-10-05T11:28:00.002-04:00

I have been following a lot of blogs (mostly mommy, some political) as this election season has heated up. I am confused about some of the comments, especially about the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. I am not going to link to the posts or the comments because slamming a particular person isn't my point.

"She scares me!" says more than one post and many comments. That is usually followed by a comment about her "not blinking" or "flirting" with the camera by winking. Really? That is scary? If someone talked about her political beliefs and disagreed with them, THAT I would understand. I mean, I think Obama is scary because I think he is a socialist and I am scared to live under the kind of socialist regime he would instigate. But that type of comment isn't what they say.

"How DARE she shove her beliefs down our throat," a video showing her asking God's blessing on our troops who are fighting over seas, when she was speaking at a church. Really? THAT is shoving her beliefs down our throats? Obama is always telling the audiences what they/we SHOULD be thinking and believing about everything, but Palin gets castigated for praying, at a church?

"She can't possibly know what it feels like to try to send a kid to college these days, after all, one of her kids went into the military right out of high school and the other (scoff) is getting married because she got pregnant as a teenager. Clearly the Palins don't think higher education is important." I don't even know what to say about this one except to say, out loud, that I certainly hope that the person who said this is never in the position of having her (I think) children ever do anything that is different from what her plans for them might be.

"Her outfits aren't stylish enough/she looks kindof like a frumpy mom." (This is a synopsis of a WaPo newspaper column). Really? That warranted a column? I mean, I know this author is a fashion columnist, but somehow it turned into a political statement. The column continued to compare Palin to Mrs. Obama's "stylish" outfits and Mrs. McCain's "heiress" fashion. Really? Does anyone else think she looks like a frumpy mom? And, who the heck cares?

"She doesn't know what it is like to be a working mom. She has had a cushy job where she can have her child in a crib in her office. Apparently she doesn't have enough to keep her occupied at work if she can watch the baby at the same time." Really? REALLY? THAT is your criticism? That she manages to juggle things and do what works for her family? And seriously, I thought it was the general feminist goal to ensure that women in the workplace could do what they needed to care for their families. Except, I guess, if that woman has political positions you don't agree with.

And if one more person says that Palin's daughter's pregnancy proves that "abstinence" sex education doesn't work, I am going to scream. All that pregnancy proves is that the Palins prefer to carry babies to term. Those people who scoff at teen pregnancy/marriage should look at abortion statistics for teenagers who come out of a comprehensive sex education program. Those "comprehensive sex education" mentality doesn't prevent teen pregnancy, it actively discourages teen motherhood.

Bleah.

If someone wants to have an active discussion with me about Palin's (or any other person's) political positions, fine. But I am sick and tired of having people make arguments against someone based on the afore-mentioned reasons. As I said in a comment to one particularly irritating blog: I don't expect liberals to like Sarah Palin. Why would they? I started out disliking Obama for the same reason I have always disliked Biden, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hilary Clinton (and Bill for that matter), etc. I think their politics stink. And sometimes I think they are underhanded and disingenuous. But mostly I think their politics stink.

But I would never stoop to calling out Barak on his ears, or Michelle on her stupid big pearls that she wears, or Harry Reid on his constantly "poor me" appearance and whiny voice. Honestly. Why are people picking on Sarah Palin about these things? Could it be that there isn't anything else to complain about?

Discuss.

Things I am not

2008-10-01T19:50:00.002-04:00

Well, at least one thing.

I am not a writer. At least not in the academia-trained, using big words kind of way. My training, if there was any, was at a college newspaper where we were encouraged to use only subjects and verbs. Objects only if necessary; adjectives and adverbs were actively discouraged. AND, if there was a short word that would do, the editor would mercilessly strike a long word. Even if it were more technically correct.

I had a political theory professor in college who tried desperately to get me to write longer sentences and paragraphs. In fact, she famously once assigned a paper to the class along the order of: "10 pages by Friday. Except that I want Kimberly to write 20." Everyone thought I was being punished. I was amused because I knew that she knew that if I tried to AIM for 20, I might get 10. But what she tried the hardest to burn out of me was my tendency to assume that everyone thought as I did. If A, then B, then (obviously the rest of the alphabet) therefore, Z! Mostly, I learned the lesson.

But, as I said, I am not a writer. I think out loud, correct myself when necessary, and continue to opine while doing so. Therefore, what generally comes out of my pen is more or less an unedited stream of consciousness that is only interesting, much less compelling, to me. In fact, this very post is being composed directly in the blog editor, not some namby-pamby word processing program.

However, just because I am not a writer, does not mean that I am not a thinker. Mostly at night, when I should be sleeping. Anyhoooo, I am a regular blog reader, and often think of posting my thoughts which have been spiked by something I have read. But, I am not a writer. And when I try to pin down those pithy thoughts which swirl in my head at three in the morning, they generally refuse to be pinned.

This is all to explain why I never post anything on this blog. In fact, the only other places where I have posted are the brain children of someone else. My husband is a pretty good writer, and I am a fair editor, and the bloggy know-it-all of the two of us. So I manage this one. But he does the writing. Shoot. I can't even claim THAT blog. Phooey.

So, I am reduced to merely gnashing my teeth about things in my head, torturing my friends (instead of the blogosphere), and posting cute pictures of my family on this blog. And, well, since this blog was totally intended to be a way of keeping family and friends up to date on our growing family, I suppose it is doing its' intended work. Except that I never post updates. PHOOEY.

Two years Old!

2008-09-07T19:47:00.003-04:00

Suddenly, J-man is two.

Five minutes ago he was a tiny infant.

I just weighed him today and he is nearly 30 pounds. All muscle.

And words? Oh, the words. I stopped counting at several hundred.

He never stops talking! (Not surprising, given his heritage.)

Links!

2008-02-09T21:06:00.001-05:00

Hey there everyone -
I have made it my goal to post, you know, once every six months or so. So here I am. POST!

For something that is more current, see the Lenten Blog from Church of the Apostles at http://rememberthouartdust.blogspot.com

Very late addition of pictures and info

2007-07-30T09:55:00.000-04:00

So, 11 months ago I finally had the baby! Jonathan is now 11 months old and doing quite well. I am totally not a real blogger, as indicated by the passage of a year since the last post. But for those of you who might happen on here....he did arrive!

And we wait....

2006-08-18T04:19:00.000-04:00

SO, it is the wrong time of night to call anybody. 4:00 a.m. and I can't sleep. Jeez....any wonder?
Can you imagine that I am going to have this little baby in FOUR DAYS???

I went today to the spa to get my eyebrows, toes, and hair done. Had the house cleaners come, too. I have food in the freezer, and all the baby clothes are clean. We have diapers and wipes, and plenty of receiving blankets. So, if I went into labor right this second, it would be all ok. Marcus had his last day of work today. YEAH, he is home for a month! How blessed are we?

We have one last Dr. appt tomorrow morning (ummm, this morning) to see if the kiddo has turned. He hasn't. I can feel his little head trying to shove through my ribs right now. So, we have the weekend to re-group, see a couple friends who have just had babies, and realize it is the last time it will be just "the two of us". I mean, the little third person makes himself known quite frequently, but he is still portable. Anyhoo....keep your eye on the computer on Monday.....

Maher Family Grows - And Baby Makes FOUR!

How to make a superhero cape

A Good Friday Miracle plus Theology from a 4yo before 7:00 a.m.

Random photos of the wedding.

Merry Christmas

Never Forget

Funny toddler speak.

The haircut

And HEY, there are pictures!

Wow.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

To sleep, perchance to dream....HELP!

Winter Babywearing

Nearly the best quote ever

I'm 1 (not 2 not 3 not 4)

How I cook: Rice Pudding edition **Updated**

More on the diapers

Cloth Diapering, most of the time.

Potty training

Seven Quick Takes for the end of July

Seven Quick Takes

Things....

Seven Quick Takes

I am not selling out. Really.

I am woman, hear me roar....or something.

Things to remember

Seven Quick Takes

Moms can do anything

7 Quick Takes

How to Increase Breastmilk Supply Using Supplements

Things doing around here

Easter - And there will be no more weeping.

Endurance*

Disappointment is not about "what happened", it is about one's expectations about what happened. Still painful and annoying though.

Brothers!

Well hello there...

Parenting choices...can we judge?

The things we have to worry about and some pick this?

Why I am not here

Breastfeeding supplements

Photo updates 1

A post that isn't about my kids...

Adventures in babywearing

Breastfeeding is not for wimps.

First Day ALONE at home

Update

Pics of the boys.

First full day at home!

How Thomas Maher came into this world.

Background to birth story

Baby is here!!

Is this worth a post of its' own?

Labor (or pre-labor?) part two

Labor. Part 1 of who knows how many.

40 and counting

Goodbye 2008

...Or Not.

This is the day!

Almost Christmas!

New Post......

About being pregnant...and cuteness from the toddler

Version 1

What is impossible?

Oh, help....

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Advent Blog

When it rains, it pours

Happy Thanksgiving!

Odd Sight

The dreaded email....

This post is untitled.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Update and more doula thoughts

How do you know....

Doula controversy?

Good to know

Today is all about my son

Of being a mom, being fulfilled, but being TIRED!

Yummy Dinner

Addition - otherwise known as higher math

How I cook: Rice Pudding edition Updated