Memories..

I just fished through this blog for the post I wrote on pitocin, and noticed that once upon a time, I kept a journal of how awesome the kids are! I know I have scattered notes here and there, and sometimes anecdotes on Facebook, but I really loved scrolling through and seeing how the kids once were… things I thought I would never forget, and now I'm reading them with tears in my eyes.

Andrew is so funny now. We are reading The Unicorn's Secret together and we were snuggled on the sofa after dinner a few nights ago, when I whispered, "Hey! If we get rid of Liliana, we can read The Unicorn's Secret!.. wait! that's a horrible thing to say! Andrew!? Why would you say such a thing?" And he looked at me with this hilarious look on his face and said, "I haate you!?" with the completely clear subtext of, "that was so weird, mom!" and we burst out laughing together.

Lil is such a snuggler. Her hot little feet push up against my legs at night when I'm cuddling her to sleep. She really did stop nursing at 5. On her birthday this week, she nursed one last time. I wasn't sad, I was ready, and anxious, and nervous to tell folks how long we had breastfed. But now it's over and I could just cry. No more nursing bras, no more wearing clothes with easy access. It happened so effortlessly, so gradually, that it seems like just last week she was nursing all day and in the night, too, but now she doesn't even mention it. Boohoo! My baby is a child, all of a sudden, and those days of milk are over.

She has such a bond with mom, even more so than Andrew did, I think. They are both meat-eaters, and although I tried their Paleo diet and although they seem to thrive on it, it left me foggy and unable to think clearly. I added eggs, grains, and beans back into my diet and I am myself again. Lil, meanwhile, can eat a whole steak in one sitting. I've started eating chicken and turkey, but I can't bring myself to eat beef or pork. It's a challenge even to broker the transactions, but I can clearly see how much more healthy they are as meat-eaters.

I downloaded the blogger app, I wonder if I can blog photos and thoughts at the end of the day from my phone? I'll try it.

This is an excerpt from a paper I recently wrote as an assignment. I thought this portion was worth sharing.

Given the social climate that shames mothers who choose not to breastfeed, very few admit that choice openly. Instead, they will say that they will “try,” but then don’t seek help when they come across problems. The same social climate, however, is what drives many women to avoid breastfeeding in the first place. It is viewed as elitist, as “best,” rather than simply normal. Breastfeeding “in public” is rarely seen and is hotly debated in the media. Many women feel so uncomfortable with breastfeeding in front of anyone beyond their immediate family that they wear a nursing cover or feed their baby with a bottle in public places.

Our society is deeply based on a belief in scarcity, and the globally-recent belief in “spoiling” a child has led many mothers, even today, to refuse to let their children nurse at night, to prefer carrying them in a car seat rather than in arms, and to avoid co-sleeping. Current rhetoric demonizing co-sleeping and bed-sharing leads many parents to lie and never admit that they do practice those very normal sleep situations, and the resulting silence and fear surrounding it lead mothers to prefer cribs in other rooms for their babies which makes it very difficult for the baby and the mother in the breastfeeding relationship. Not only is the mother driven to sleep deprivation by waking fully and rising to attend to her baby’s nighttime needs, the baby then finds it more difficult to cue the mother when he needs to feed at night, at prime milk-making hours. I believe this leads to many of the oft-quoted situations in which mother simply “did not make enough milk.” I speak to mother after mother who is shocked or disbelieving when I say that 2 months or 5 months (or heck! 2 years!) is too early for a baby to be safely sleeping “through the night,” though she’s been making that her goal for those months.

Some mothers choose not to breastfeed or make choices that undermine breastfeeding. Other mothers simply face odds stacked high against them. The postpartum time is a very sensitive period, when familial and societal support is needed more than any other time. And at that very time, a mother may be facing family members who are ignorant of what a breastfed baby needs and a partner who may not be supportive. She may have to go back to work after an excruciatingly short six-week maternity leave and then face employers and co-workers whose reactions to her new needs for pumping breaks vary from ignorance to outright harassment.

On top of all of that, there are many issues that come up after the immediate postpartum period that a mother will never know about unless she has peer support from other breastfeeding mothers. Often, at three weeks old, six weeks old, and six months old (and sometime other times as well), a baby will suddenly nurse much more frequently while mother’s breasts become soft and don’t feel full. These growth spurts are normal, but many mothers suddenly fear that they’ve lost their milk and begin the downward spiral of supplementation with breastmilk substitutes. Often, a mother will suffer from oversupply, which I believe is often misdiagnosed as reflux, and could be more easily solved by educated breastfeeding support -- education that we all would naturally have in a society in which breastfeeding is viewed as normal. 

When a mother has never seen another mother-baby pair breastfeeding, she may not be able to see if she and her baby have a proper latch, which can allow many problems to develop, from soreness and nipple damage for the mother to slow weight gain and, later, biting on the part of the baby. Sometimes, at around nine months to one year old, a baby will suddenly stop nursing (what we call a “nursing strike”). Mothers who feel societal pressure to wean an “older” baby will take this with relief as a sign that her baby is a very independent little fellow and “weaned himself,” and lose the immense benefits of nursing a toddler.

Exercise update and a new food "pyramid" from the USDA!

So, I'm still on track with exercise! Shocking, I know. I've done chi gong, the 30-day shred, gone running.. so far I haven't been at a loss for what to do. However, I'm more tired, hungrier, and kind of at a loss for what to do today. I guess I'd better look at my list again!

And on that (health-related) note, after absolutely hating the USDA's new food pyramid, I'm so pleased with the new one! It's a plate! Awesome. I've been visualizing a food pyramid like this for years. I have a post in mind to talk all about it soon.

Exercise. Really, that's the title.

Exercise! I was doing so well for a while, but I fell off the wagon. Thus, I am making this vow: Exercise 30 minutes every day in June! Doable? Probably not! But I'll try, and you are my witnesses. You can see my new chart in my bathroom right there. Behind it is a schedule of my local studio's yoga classes.


I'm already doing these things, semi-occasionally (hahaha! semi-occasionally. I'm funny.):

- Jillian Michaels 30-day Shred I love this. I only do Level One, even though I've been doing it for months now. I still feel the burn! We want your body to CHANGE! Ok, maybe a little too much Jillian Michaels. Technically this is only 20 minutes, but whatever. Whenever I do this, there are so many interruptions that by the time I have let the dog out, and then in, and then out again, gotten milk for two crying children, freaked out and grabbed the markers/scissors/nuclear weapons from the little one, and searched the house for my missing free weights, it's at least a half hour. I know that's not how it's supposed to work, but I'm doing my best here.

- Anna Saccone, one of my favorite bloggers, has a workout on her blog that's pretty simple, and I do that occasionally.

- Running. I found a podcast called Motion Traxx, and I use just the one episode I like. I don't know how to link to it, though. Or I just listen to music and jog around my neighborhood. Today I jogged to Home Depot to get my house key replaced. Did you know they cost $4 or $5 now? Ouch! I digress.

- Chi Gong. I love chi gong. I only do the first "intro" section of this video, but I'll have to keep going to get to 30 minutes. I could do the whole thing, but come ON people. I have two children, a dog, and a husband. All of them seem to think I should drop whatever I'm doing to fix them food/find their junk/solve their problems. 30 minutes is a stretch.

What I'd like to add in:

- Walking. Walking is awesome! I love it, and I never do it, and my dog hates me for it (no, he doesn't hate me, he adores me in the tireless way dogs do, which makes me feel even worse about it). Also I kind of live in the ghetto and I miss strolling along the bayou back home in Florida among all the very nice homes in my old neighborhood, admiring the architecture and the gardens. Here, I admire the bicycle someone threw in the canal and the hostas everywhere. I hate hostas. Sorry, Virginia, I know you (apparently) love them. (Okay, I do really enjoy the waterfowl here - the birds of prey, the herons, the egrets.)

- The Sivananda Guide to Yoga is the book open in this picture, showing a relatively easy-to-follow practice chart. You can see some of my green tabs which are numbered and help me go through it quickly.

- Some magazine workouts. I've been saving these and I have a little file of them. I could easily run through one while the kids are around.

- Yoga classes. I have a groupon to my favorite yoga studio that I have to use by the end of this month, so that should help, and also now that my hubby is working days, I can go to the free Saturday morning yoga class at the base.

- Speaking of the navy base, word is they have free classes and such. I should look into that.

- My kids desperately wanted Just Dance for the Wii, and they have never played it now that they got it as a gift (thanks Grammy and Grampa!) It will be played this month.

- Tag. As you'll see below, I think doing this regularly with bunches of people would be awesome, but I can at least do it with my kids for fun.

- Zumba. I've heard of this, I have no idea what it is, but it sounds kind of fun and more than a little terrifying, so I'm IN! At least, in my own private living room where no one can see me.

- Belly dancing. Our library has a really great belly dancing dvd that I kept out so long that I was not allowed to renew it anymore. Maybe I'll get it back.

What I'd like to do that is just not possible right now:

- I'd like to play soccer. I know! Right? Me? I played in a soccer league once and after I insisted that I had NO IDEA how to play, they were like, yeah, yeah, we're just about having fun! And then they let me play once and I never got out on the field again. Mm-hm. So, I'd like to find a league or just some people to teach me who genuinely understand what DO NOT KNOW HOW TO PLAY (and really suck at sports) means.

- I'd love to have a regular game of tag with a bunch of kids. I have no idea how to start this or who might be interested, and I don't really want the burden of organizing another thing.

- More yoga classes. I don't know how I would afford it, but a girl can dream.

- Swim. Aside from the fact that I have to hold my nose to go underwater, don't know any strokes, and really feel grossed out by soaking in bleach-water, I'd love to swim more. Lots more! so, you know, if anybody wants to give me a salt-water pool and free lessons, you know where to find me.

- Biking. I have this dream of going on a bike ride with my husband and kids, with a picnic lunch by some water feature, followed by an afternoon at the beach or something. This is clearly only a dream, since when we tried it, my 6-year-old wanted to ride his scooter, kept stopping to look at stuff, and eventually it ended up with a total dysfunctional-family meltdown. My children will not always be this age, but my husband, unfortunately, may never change.

- Kayaking and/or canoeing. Another family thing I'd love to do that would almost certainly fall prey to fighting/whining/fussing/forgettting things/general weekend laziness.

There you have it! I will keep you updated, and hopefully post some pics of me in my goofy workout gear and my baby "ex-oo-sizing" with Mommy, which will fill up your cute quota for approximately 3 more lifetimes.

Road Paving

They're paving the road in front of our house. To close down the day, they park a bunch of the machines across the street. One of them says, "VOLVO" on the side.

My son looked at me and said, "Mommy, why does that machine say "vulva?"

Then Andrew was chatting up the guy who was putting cones around the machines. For some reason, the guy asked him what hospital he was born at (after finding out he was born around here). My son beamed and proudly answered, "Hospital?! I was born at home!"

We were wandering around outside in the warm, moist air, watching the dark clouds and a wall of rain come closer and closer, when I remembered all the time we did stuff like that with Lloyd. So, I said, "you know who I miss? Uncle Lloyd."

After agreement all around, Liliana, ever so perky, said, "You know who I miss? Gumpa."

Today - lollipop war

We played hide and seek before bedtime, which was rollicking good fun. I'm trying to "play" more with the kids, which has been a huge success, after beginning the book Playful Parenting. What was I thinking all those years? Just PLAY!

Liliana often says, "What that sound like?" when she hears any sound, or sometimes it seems none at all. I guess she picked it up because I say, "That sounds like..." It has me stretching my ears to hear trees in the wind, creaky things, fire engines, the dog whuffling in his sleep...

And forget the big "why." BECAUSE is the word du jour around here. She will go on and on about because, but she usually has it backwards. As in, "(sob) Mommy! You took 'way the penny [pen]. Because I'm just not happy! Because I'm ky-ing [crying], because, because... (sob)" and so on.

And speaking of pens, my little angel likes to draw on walls. And chairs. And me. And when I catch her and sternly admonish her for it, she hides the instrument of destruction behind her back and says, "Okay! I won't do that. I won't," with such a charming, innocent face. But you know what happens, then, of course. Hence the "ky-ing."

And today I was the only witness to a huge war in the back seat. I was going through the drive-thru at the bank, where lollipops are given out, according to Andrew, who has apparently experienced this phenomenon while he carpools with his buddies on the way home from school. Brilliantly, the teller gave us two lollipops (and a dog treat for Degger!).

Liliana proceeded to immediately chew up her (red) lollipop, and Andrew demurely licked his slowly. Soon, of course, the balance of lollipop-ownership became unbearably uneven. Crying, begging, screaming ensued.

Now this is the shocking part: Andrew let Liliana share his lollipop!

Not so much of a shocker: she wouldn't give it back. Much, much more screaming, crying, genuine tears, sobbing, pinching, and so on.

Finally, when I could get a word in edgewise (as I'm DRIVING!), I suggested that Liliana look at Andrew's tongue. It's blue! Why don't you lick the lollipop until YOUR tongue is blue? (praying that she doesn't bite into it)... a very tense, quiet Andrew watching... more suggestions from me: You know, Liliana, Andrew gave you his lollipop because he wanted you to have some, and if you don't give it back, he may not give you his lollipop in the future. More tense nail-biting from behind me, Liliana licking away happily... and then! She gave it BACK!

Funny, neither of them were too upset over Degger hoarding his Beggin' Strip at their feet.

Funny things the kids said today:

Funny things the kids said today:

Andrew, at dinner: "You mean I can only fart in front of family? That's not FAIR!"

Liliana, crawling into bed tonight: "Nighttime.. shytime!" (to understand this, you have to see this video. Then you would also need to know that "shy" is nursing.)

Liliana: "I need shy fo my eye/fingoo/fumb/booboo."

Also, Andrew said something absolutely hilarious this morning, but that was more than 12 hours ago, so naturally I've totally forgotten it. Sorry. I'll think really hard about it tonight.