Version 1

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?

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....

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

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

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

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!

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

Odd Sight

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....

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.

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!

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

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....

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

Doula controversy?

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

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

'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!

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

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

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

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.