september mama

my days of being a pixie girl are numbered, it seems. last night matt officially requested that i stop cutting my hair because i'm "starting to look like a boy." (he's such a jerk sometimes, lol.)

while i strongly disagree with him--in fact, i feel quite a bit more feminine b/c i'm paying more attention to my face and accessories--i also want him to think i look cute so i will most likely comply with his request. as much as i love having super-short hair.

in a way, though, this opens new possibilities... i have never been an in-between-length kinda girl; i tend towards extremes; but now i think i will play around with style in the neck to shoulder length area for a while. all sorts of funky cuts. and colors. *mischievous grin*

anyway: another stupid hair post. whatever.

nonetheless, i wish that i had a little elf to sit in my ear canal and play a tiny banjo or mandolin so that i could listen to it all the time and no one else would know.

every year, just when the weather starts to change from summer to fall--those first days where you can feel the autumn in the air--i begin to lose myself.

i feel sad. not on the level of "oh, hey, i'm sad about [x]." i just have a deep, vague, unassociated sense of loss... of nostalgia for something i can't put my finger on... it's an apparently natural emotional reaction to the season that is out of my control, but somehow my behavior serves to exacerbate it despite my discomfort with the feelings. i find myself listening to music that makes me feel things long gone, dwelling on things or people i miss, etc. vicious cycle.

the odd thing is that along with the sorrow, i find myself extremely sensitive and vulnerable to affection. fall is the danger-time in terms of attraction to people (even fleetingly and superficially). of course, i will never act on it, but i am aware that i'm weak when this time of year rolls around.

so today, on a beautiful, warm, but autumn-tinged 30th birthday, i am just a thin veil away from a flood of tears. not bawling or justifiable tears; more like a persistent wateryness of longing for who-knows-what. something i don't have, or can't have, or lost somewhere along the way. (but what????)

no, i know what. don't i? but my sense is that i had this feeling even before then, and it has simply been amplified since and now reflects itself back upon that time period...

whatthefuckever, i'm just trying to say i feel kind of depressed, but with a sweet-memory sense lingering inside it. sigh. i wanted a happy birthday.

there are something like 15 birthdays in my close friend/family circle during september. it's nuts.

...and tomorrow liam will be a year old! friday, i will be 30. t h i r t y . whew.

but back to liam. it's been a while since i updated on his shenanigans:
- he has 9 or 10 teeth
- he tries to repeat just about everything he hears an adult say, but he's slow with actual words; he can say "cat," "dog" (more on that later), "mama," "dad," "nap," "nightnight," and he kinda says "brush" and "flower"
- he has mastered balancing on his own feet, as long as he has help getting there. he pulls up, then lets go of his support and gets really proud of himself before he plops onto his bum. it's cute.
- he's learning to eat with a fork all by himself and is really great with a regular cup (though i don't let him have one because he WILL throw it after 2 minutes)
- he tries to feed rowan's baby dolls with toy bottles/spoons and loves to give them hugs and say 'ahhhh'
- he lets me brush his teeth without any argument
- he still goes to bed like an angel without any fuss, and if he does have trouble falling asleep, i hold him for 3 minutes, he puts his head on my shoulder to cuddle, and then squirms to get back in bed. he's so awesome.
- he's very coordinated and manually dexterous, he can work fussy toys and do small stacking tasks and things like that. he's also capable of climbing/hoisting himself up on things that i would not expect him to tackle, which is slightly alarming.
- he's starting to get really into books and will yell for me to read and point to the pictures
- he loves wearing hats/crowns and putting them on and off other people's heads.

so that's liam most of the time. rowan is the size of a 3-4 year old and she's not quite 2.5 - no one believes her age. her speech is better than most 3 year olds i have encountered, too, which is interesting. they're both doing great with the new nanny though for various reasons i will not get into, she may not end up staying with us.

we are planning a very small, no big deal party for liam this weekend. i knitted him a totally awesome monster (will post pics after i sew his arms and legs on). i am hoping that in the bustle my own birthday will not be completely overlooked...

i'm actually pretty depressed about it. matt has to work, his mom will be in town (therefore no crazy late-night marital fun when he gets off work), and even if i manage to round up a few friends to go dancing with, it would be disappointing for matt not to be there to have fun with me. call me crazy for wanting him to be a part of my officially-a-grownup-birthday-milestone.

what's worse, i have been really explicit about wanting to make a big deal of it, but somehow i don't think my point was got. i fully expect to have the most unacknowledged, crappy, non-event birthday of this decade. i'm not excited. in fact, i'm feeling really lame and miserable about it in anticipation of the huge let down that i know it will be. :(

i'm already bitter. if matt doesn't at least make me feel really loved/special/yay, even if we don't do anything fun, he's going to be on my shit list for the foreseeable future. i really don't want that.

in other news, we got a puppy. a cute, sweet, super young little stray who ended up in my parents' driveway one morning last week. she's some kind of cur/boxer/shepherd mutt and we named her juno. pics soon. she's going to be a big dog, i think. the problem right now is that she really, really likes to be in the house but i refuse to have an indoor dog... thankfully she's young and impressionable. but matt may turn out to be an obstacle in training her to live outside.

ducklings should be hatching under their mamas any day now, and my 26ish little chickies are growing up. they are officially allowed out of their enclosure and a couple of them were literally trying to eat my ankles last night - never been so painfully pecked before! little crapheads. they like me, which is why they were bold enough to get so close, but for some reason the veins on the top of my feet must have looked really tasty because on of the hens pinched me hard (more than once). anyway, they're cute. my little ameraucaunas are adorable with their fluffy cheeks... i love them.

blah. i just keep thinking about how much my birthday is going to suck. i guess i will get back to work.

today i rode my horse (spirit, 'espirit') for the first time in at least 3 years. she's 22 now, but still as gorgeous and fit and spunky as she was 18 years ago when we bought her from an acquaintance of mine. my parents have been kind enough to keep her even though she spends most of her time in the pasture lately, as my sister and i have been busy making babies and unable to ride until recently. she's always had a reputation--among everyone except me, my mom, and my sister--for being crazy and difficult to handle, but the fact is you just have to know her and her little quirks to deal with her. and you have to be confident enough to bluff if you don't. she's a really sweet horse most of the time, but she does have moods now and then and has been known to rear and buck for no apparent reason :). i've learned over many years how to anticipate that kind of behavior and balance my body to survive it, so it's no big deal anymore.

i went out with two of my cousins, which was also nice, and feel like i want to get back into a regular habit of taking spirit out. i had forgotten how meditative it is to ride... when i was in middle and high school, i would spend hours on her just meandering around where we lived, thinking/not thinking and having peaceful alone time. i used to talk to her a lot. there is something really spiritual and zen-like in the trust bond between horse and rider that allows one to blank-out and go with the flow out in the open. (when you think about it, it's nuts--getting on the back of a large beast weighing about a ton with a mind of its own and just a tiny bit of metal in its mouth for control! who the fck wants to do that?? ha.) i had missed that.

i've been thinking for a while now that i would like to be much more involved with horses in general... i was a "barn girl" my whole life and there has been a hole in my life for a long time as a result of my distance from that side of myself. there are two smells in this world that make me think of "home" in the most fundamental sense: the scents of the swampy florida keys ocean, and of a well-used horse barn. i want a couple of horses and a stable. i'm interested in training young horses, when i get my own ass in shape. i want my kids to grow up around horses and know how to handle them. they are beautiful and wonderful animals and i think knowing horses can make us better people.

i wish i had a photo of spirit to share... i will have to take one. anyway, despite the sunburn i acquired, i'm looking forward to many more rides in the near future.

i am so sick of snide "fat" comments that i've actually been pushed into doing something about it just to shut my dear husband up.

so i'm resolved to eat primarily raw food (with the exception of yogurt) 5 days a week, and on our equivalent of weekends, i'll pack in the protein. i read somewhere that humans work better with alternating protein and plant foods over several day spans rather than eating them at the same time. anyway i don't really want meat anymore, so that's good for me.

i've also committed to exercising 5 nights a week. something, anything, for 30 minutes or more.

i'm not really whining about trying to lose weight, but i'm annoyed at what finally got me to work on it. i only need to lose 10lbs or so, but i definitely need to tone up. going raw always made me thin out and feel amazing before, so it seems like the most obvious way to begin the process. here we go...

"i don't wanna eat grabiolies!"


(translation: "mom, that ravioli clearly contains meat and you are NOT tricking me into eating anything slathered with tomato sauce. nice try.")

so i haven't even started my new job yet, and i'm already privy to some mini-dramas/conflict. and i thought i was escaping all that... ! really though, it just boils down to one very cranky woman in a position of not-that-much relevance to anyone else. so it shouldn't affect me often.

related to this, i HEART our amazing IT woman. yes, our IT guy is a woman. woot! she's sharp, witty, personable, and totally adept at her job. we are already friends :).

i haven't posted about animals lately because i haven't had much to say, but we've had some things going on that are worth mentioning. first, my mail-order chickies are growing fast! they're so cute and bouncy, and will shortly be outgrowing the cage i have them in. my three incubated hatchlings are slightly older and are also doing well. james brought me a rooster and hen yesterday who are about full-grown, and i have the two adolescent survivors out of the batch of sick chicks i bought back in march(?). i also have an incubator full of viable pre-chicks! i candled a few of them the other day and i saw kicking fetuses in every one i randomly picked up. so in a few days i will have some brand new hatchlings, totaling my chicken count to something like 40. holy crap.

the problem right now--since we caught the raccoon, fucker--is our ducks. they are BIG, and very, um, reproductively aggressive, which is going to be a serious problem. they attacked our new rooster yesterday, confused as to his sex, and i had to literally grab the ducks and throw them out of the coop to keep them from hurting him. and he was full-grown, much unlike the rest of my flock! i don't really know what to do about this except find a way to confine the ducks and/or get rid of them. i'm not really a fan anyway, but they are matt's project so i will leave it to him to deal with their shenanigans. all i know is if they hurt/maim/kill my chickens they are going in the oven. stat. at least one of the duck hens finally laid an egg the other day (which was promptly eaten by, i presume, crows).

matt is working with a tattoo artist to design a full sleeve for himself, which both makes me happy for him and slightly (so slightly) jealous. i've been toying with the idea of extending my own half-sleeve since i got it, and i know just how i would do it, but i am hesitating due to career issues. more than likely it would never be an issue, but then again, you never know... and i do NOT want to have to wear long-sleeves every day in florida heat. so we'll see. i need to find something spectacular to do for my bigthreeoh birthday, though, and that technically qualifies. :)

the munchkins are lovely, as always, and totally embracing their new caregiver and her kids. i come home and they are happy, rested, fed, and usually playing very intently. it's great. then i get to spend bath time with them and hang out for a little bit before they go to bed at their new, later, bedtime (about 630, lol). rowan has learned how to operate door knobs and greeted me at my bedside the other morning, declaring "i'm awake!" uggggh. so it's time to get those little childproof door knob cover things. i can't have her running around the house while we sleep, or worse, deciding to go outside on her own. liam has mastered the walker and is so funny as he runs through the house with his arms held out, propelled in a nearly-uncontrolled fashion by legs that are just starting to cooperate. he's going to be walking really soon.

oh, totally random product review: tom's of maine unscented deodorant (aluminum free) is awesome!! i usually use the lavender stuff that i bought a few years ago, but it doesn't really work over more than a few hours, but this stuff ROCKS. it says "24 hour" and it is. i don't have much of an issue with stink, thankfully, but what little there is has been quashed by this stuff. love.

i need to buy a bunch of cardigans and some prints for my office, but i have to wait for the monies :(.

i think i am satisfied now--i.e., i won't need to keep writing about hair for a little while, at least. i can move on to other things because i love how the bleach experiment turned out!

voyez:




these photos also serve to mitigate the uber-masculine vibe given off by the last pics i posted... it's much more feminine with the highlights and also with my bangs brushed gently aside rather than forced over.

end transmission.

this girl is my hair idol. normally i would feel awkward and/or guilty over blatantly stealing someone else's hairstyle, but since she lives in NYC and is in a much cooler reality than i am, i don't. i've got some foils in my hair bleaching the fun in as i write this.


my hair is not as dark as hers and i'm doing a significantly smaller chunk (to start with?!), so it should be a more subtle effect, which suits me better. i basically cut off all my sun highlights when i hacked off the length, so i am left with a duller, more solid color than i am used to and i've been wanting to perk it up a bit... this will do it! just in time for the new job next week :).

by the way, this is the final cut (until next time)... i'll have to take post-highlight pics later. see what i mean about dull? i have a lot of red that you can't see in that light, but it's still very boring and uniform...

amid all the bustle of rowan's birth back in 09, i never really got to address the death of my grandmother in journal format. something in me is needing to do it now.

my grandmother, evelyn joanne, for whom rowan was named, was the matriarch of our large and close family. she was the center of our collective universe. warm, spunky, open, and multi-talented in art, gardening, video games, and crafts... she was never disagreeable to anyone but her husband, and that mostly in jest. you couldn't fool her to save your life--she was too observant, too quick, and too full of common sense. she was also beautiful, even just before she died after being long-ill with COPD. my grandmother was the one person any of us--her 4 children, plus 3 by marriage, and 9 grandchildren--could talk to without any fear of judgment, anger, or anything but love and acceptance. she was the most amazing woman i have ever known.

her death was impossibly hard on all of us... there is really no way to describe the barren, lost, and sorrowful feeling that we have all come to live with. my mother still struggles daily. i know that her loss is greater than mine when i think about what it will someday be like to lose her; i don't know what i will do. a mother is a figure of unspeakable importance that i did not truly understand until my own lost hers.

she has been telling me lately, through tears, that i look just like my grandmother; maybe that is where this is coming from. i see what she means, but in truth i am only a pale shadow of her sparkling self. i am privileged to have inherited pieces of her jewelry, some of her clothes, and other random things from her life, and when i wear them (which i do), i am proud. it makes me feel closer to her... i sometimes think i can feel her nearby... i get the sense that she has peeked into my life and is nodding with loving approval. it is a rare comfort, but welcome.

it makes me so sad that she never knew about kai, or liam, or aria... she held rowan once, literally on her deathbed, and it was a moment unlike any i have ever witnessed. a frustrated, crying infant of 3 weeks going silent and peaceful at the touch of her great-gradmother's fragile, shaking hands. they looked in each other's eyes for a long time, gazing through four generations of first-born women. we all watched, amazed at rowan's obvious enthrallment with a putative stranger. there was a photo of this amazing moment on my dad's cell phone, until my mom accidentally put it through the wash... needless to say, she was more devastated than anyone over it.

i have regret, also, which my mother shares. in her last year or so, my grandmother had changed; whether it was a result of the medications she was on, or the illness itself, or the anxiety that accompanied it, she was not herself. she was constantly fearful, depressed, slightly confused, and often angry... she obsessed over things, and repeated conversations too many times, and was just not the same person that i had always known. because of this, she was frustrating to be around, and i let that get in the way of spending more time with her. i let myself be angry with her for changing. my mother did too (we talked about it while it was happening). now, i think back and just wish i would have ignored it, given her more love, and been there in any way i could have for her. it's not entirely true, but i have a very clear memory of throwing attitude and open frustration at her at my baby shower for rowan, and that has stuck with me so strongly and hurts so much. i was short with her and annoyed by her confusion and i hate myself for that. it wasn't the last time i saw her, but it might as well have been... the next times were while she was in hospice, deciding to die. i hate myself for being anything less than caring with her.

it is hard to lose anyone, but in this case our family has lost the greater part of its glue. we still gather every holiday and see each other at random intervals--we are all essentially neighbors--but there is always a palpable absence. a hole. my mother has taken on the administrative role of matriarch, and does a good enough job, but she can never and will never try to be a true substitute for her mother. my mom is guarded, somewhat judgmental, and not unconditionally warm; my grandmother was the opposite. i miss her so much. we all do.

of all the things i have wished for in my life, i wish the most that my grandmother could see my children and be part of their lives. i wish that every single day.

i hope she can hear me.

note to self: subway fucking SUCKS! don't buy it. even if it is the only place to get food on campus during break week... you'd rather be hungry. stale bread+weak toppings+poorly structured sandwich=suck.

ugh, my eyes are bleeding from staring at the same annoying document all day. and all day yesterday. and i can look forward to doing another one on friday! i am rather looking forward to a day off tomorrow, even if it does mean doing chores.

at the risk of rambling on and boring even myself, let's talk more about new hair. this cut i created is lending itself most ideally to the kind of styles i have never done before--choppy, edgy, jagged, and brushed forward. it feels a little weird when i look in the mirror, because while i like it, i don't see it as "my" style (yet?). i need to work on the cut so i can pull off something a little more romantic and effortless, as despite the numerous visible tattoos on my body, i don't really consider myself "edgy." i think i am going to shorten the crown section (esp around the forehead/bangs) and let the rest grow a bit to more closely approximate the pic in the post below. i do love her hair. now that i think about it, her hair is actually a reallreallyreally subtle
mullet. HA! and so i revisit the days of my youth.*

"with short hair you begin to crave pearl necklaces, long earrings, and a variety of sunglasses. and you brush your teeth more often. short hair removes obvious femininity and replaces it with style...short hair makes you aware of subtraction as style. you can no longer wear puffed sleeves or ruffles [says who?!]; the neat is suddenly preferable to the fussy. you eye the tweezers instead of the blusher. what else can you take away? you can't hide behind short hair... you may look a little androgynous, a little unfinished, a little bare... but your face is no longer a flat screen surrounded by a curtain: the world sees you in three dimensions."
- joan juliet buck for american vogue, c.1988

i have to argue with the "unfinished" bit, and forgive slightly outdated sensibilities in general (she was writing in 1988!) but otherwise YES. the first thing i did when i cut off my hair was sit down and really edit/shape/polish my eyebrows... of all random things. and i am learning that earrings are an awesome, uber-feminine accessory for me. as are cardigans, which i can never have enough of... anyway.

the devil can take subway, but at least i got a dr. pepper out of it. mmm fountain soda!


*in first grade, i begged and begged my mom to let me have "spiked hair" and she did. so at 6 years old i had a spike-top mullet (which i styled carefully every day) with long hair everywhere else. there are photos. they are funny.

i want this hair! now!!


*drool*

seriously. this chick has a whole crazy flickr album of great hair (all hers). jackpot! :D

i think my length might even be right for it, so i may whip out the scissors yet again...

i am really, really, really enjoying the pixie cut thing. i almost want to say "i'm never going back..." to long hair, but we have learned that 'never' is not an honest word. so: maybe i'm never going back.

some good(?) things have come out of this new-job-preparation state i find myself in. i almost feel a sort of mild nesting impulse, if you can imagine that.

the first thing: terrariums. (yes, that is grammatically correct.) oh. my. word. they are addictive! i realized that because my office has no windows, and less because i work in forestry, i definitely need some plants in my space. but the no-windows thing sort of poses a problem, no? enter MOSS. velvety, otherworldly green, beautiful, beautiful moss. it happens to love shade. so i found a nice little DIY kit on etsy and ordered it for myself. i have a slight obsession with containers--boxes, jars, bottles, etc--so i happened to have a stash of suitable terrarium enclosures on hand... then i went outside into the woods and gathered up rocks, lichen/mushroom-covered branches, and forest trinkets, and last night i assembled it all together into the most amazing, wonderful, dreamy little ecosystems i have ever seen. i am in love. i just want to stare at the moss and shrink myself so i can live inside the jars and roll around on it. (incidentally, i am positive i was a dryad in a previous lifetime...) here's a few pics, but trust me when i tell you they do NOT do justice to these magnificent specimens.

rowan has been doing really well with the potty, until two days ago. she decided to pee on the floor twice in a row, and then again the next day. ?! no idea.

but she watched the french babies dvd a few more times and she was counting in french all by herself, and she came up to me, pointed to the apples, and said "I need a pomme!" :D. she even tried to sing 'mary had a little lamb' in french (marie avait petit mouton, petit mouton, petit mouton) which was totally awesome. so i think we're making progress, and i barely have to do anything... i'm a little worried that the nanny won't be able or interested in keeping up (or maybe she has an atrocious accent), but i guess that comes with the territory.

i'm supposed to bring home dinner and i have no idea what to get. ugh.

and now i appreciate my soon-to-be-had freedom from this job, even if it means twice as many hours a week. i have been doing the kind of job a robot will DEFINITELY be doing in the next 15 years or so, all. freaking. day. i'm having the soul sucked out of me.

copy+paste, then format. 1003950876 times. almost the same information, in exactly the same template. and when i'm done, i get to do it all again for a different document! holy shit.

on top of the mindlessness factor, i'm also having to edit/crop faculty CVs, which, if you know anything about faculty, can be a really touchy task. this is for a big important review and here i am, ms. knows-nothing, hacking away at their decades' worth of high-level academic experience in an effort to make it fit into two pages at 12pt Times New Roman. wow, thanks! i love having that kind of responsibility without any guidance whatsoever.

best part of all, is I ALREADY DID THIS THREE WEEKS AGO--all of it!--but someone failed to tell me back then that "oh, well we have this new template so we should probably use it..." no, they forged ahead with outdated versions not thinking that we might need to re-do all previous work in yet another insane crunch deadline, instead of just doing it right the first fucking time.

oh and by the way, THANKS for going out of town and not even letting me know, when we have this huge deadline that you still haven't given me a date for. it makes resigning really simple when i don't even have to look you in the eye. *sarcasm*

((starting to think this is an effort to make myself feel better for leaving them... at least if i'm mad i can't feel guilty, right? but it is all true nonetheless))
arrrgh!

well... i wasn't planning on doing this until the kids were a bit older, but an opportunity arose that i just couldn't let pass, and now i find myself preparing to start a full-time job.

fuck.

i mean, it's a really amazing situation--better than i would have dared hope for--so i really have nothing to complain about. except the kids. i am so, so, so dreading leaving them for multiple full-days each week. to the point that i almost called the whole thing off; great salary, flexible hours, cake job, and all.

they are going to let me work 4 days @ 10hrs each so that i can be home 3 days/week(!!!), after an intial let's-get-going 8 to 5 run. because matt is also a state employee, our health insurance is going to be $15 a month instead of over $200. i'll get ample vacation leave. i'll be on salary (i.e., no time clock). i'll have a closed-door office that i can decorate as i please. and yes, i will have some mental and social stimulation while doing something i am really good at and people openly appreciate me for.

but (oh the huge BUT)... this is a major sacrifice and it is scaring the hell out of me. i just tentatively hired a stranger with two kids of her own to come to my house and care for the loves of my life. without me. ((they need me! don't they?)) i know millions of mothers struggle with this every single day, and my plight is not unique, but bollocks this hurts. how does a mother leave her newborn when maternity leave ends? i cannot imagine.

i have sought counseling from the only other working mom i know, and she assures me that the time i am with them will be all the more special once i start working, because there won't be all the time that i now spend trying to do chores around them, or whatever. and that is a good point. i spend a lot of our daily time doing maintenance work for them, managing liam's mischief, making food, and trying to clean/work/whatever around them. we don't have a whole lot of really 'quality' time, other than in brief moments here and there. so i can see what she means... but still. is it better to be there more but slightly distracted or less and fully attentive? i am going to miss them so fucking much.

it will be very good for rowan to (finally!) get to play with a little girl, and she got along marvelously with both kids and immediately took to their mother, which i take as a great sign. (we interviewed one other mom+kids and rowan was NOT into them. it was obvious.) liam too, of course--he was all smiles and her kids played with him as much as with rowan. so yes, it will be good for them, and at least they will get to be comfortable and secure in their own home... but rowan is going through a mommy-withdrawal stage where she clings to me on my return and then worries--i can see it in her face--about when i will leave again. i am afraid this might subtly scar her emotionally. really.

another but: this basically means that breastfeeding will not be increasing after all. there is no way i can get my supply up working 5 days/week. i'm not even going to try. we will continue to nurse in the morning (if he's awake) and evening as long as he wants to, but i don't expect to actually provide much in the way of nutrition... though at least i can provide comfort. i will be doubly sad when that relationship ends, because now i feel like it is mostly my fault... and i'm sorry to say i expect the end is just around the corner.

i am excited about the job, i am... i'm just in a terribly depressed funk that i pray to the gods passes quickly. i'd like to say it's just hormones but the fact is this is a totally justified emotion and i am not exaggerating. women are taught to force away their maternal feelings in favor of what society expects of them, no matter how unnatural... i'm not going to do that. it's a fucked up and horrible thing to have to leave (/abandon) your children and i plan to feel it until i don't anymore.

*sob*

edited to add:
in addition to all my stress/worry/sadness over the kids, i forgot to mention that i am feeling like a total asshole with regards to my boss, who just a few weeks ago asked me pleadingly whether i was planning to stick around for a while, because "we can't do this without you." so. guilt? yes. more guilt? oh yes.

i gave my notice today (via email, while the poor guy is traveling!) and i just feel ill over it. i know they will be ok but i hatehatehate causing a ruckus and making other peoples' lives more difficult. sigh.

*whistles* this one is a doozy.

many of my friends, most of whom are serious intellectuals (like, have PhDs or will soon), are child-free and intend to remain that way. i used to consider that kind of life myself, before i got pregnant. i get it.

i even agree that for people who just don't like children, knowing there are a few places in your town (or on vacation) you can go to enjoy your time sans-kids is a great thing. trust me when i say that as a parent, i KNOW how valuable some peace and quiet can be (not that i remember what that's like anymore...).

the issue is that underneath all this catering-to-the-child-free is a very nasty, ugly sentiment that says "children are not worthy." that frightens me on a level i can't really put into words. something along the lines of the motivations of pedophile priests and child abusers... the basic belief people like that MUST carry is that children are a lesser entity. i am not comfortable with that belief going mainstream. kids aren't pets and they certainly aren't second-hand smoke, so don't class them as if they are. like it or not, children are valuable, beautiful human beings and they have rights and thoughts and feelings just like you and they do, in fact, have a place in society.

as for the argument that "more and more people are choosing to remain child-free" and thus the market for anti-child policy is growing, let me suggest that what that really says is: if there are less of them than there are of us, we get the upper hand. it's ok to discriminate against minorities because they are minorities and we don't like them. wtf?! hello progress--not.

whatever you think about having kids or not, the problem is clearly not the children; it's bad parenting. (i blame bad parenting for soooo many things. it is a horrifyingly rampant problem in american society.) so rather than punish the children by exclusion, when in all likelihood they are simply emulating what they see from their parents and/or acting in whatever way is tolerated at home, how about we find constructive ways to improve the average joe's parenting abilities? or build in an embarrassment factor in places such that if your kid is a monster, you are openly asked to leave? if bad parents and their kids aren't even allowed to enter places or be around peers who would otherwise reprimand them for their (in)actions, how are they ever going to learn publicly appropriate behavior?

but i guess the intent is really just to make the breeders and their crotch-fruit stay at home and out of the sight of the first-class citizens as they go about their merry way.

the no-kids-allowed movement is spreading

i read liam's birth story again yesterday and it struck me as very fact-oriented and missing some critical details that i am afraid i will not remember if i don't put them in writing now. so here is an alternative viewpoint on liam's birth, from the perspective of "we know the facts, now what was it really like?"

i remember labor with him being so short--it came on fast, got really intense (but always remained bearable), and once i was in the bath it was as if time just froze for me. i was warm, comfortable minus the contractions, which were, naturally, a force to reckon with, but i never felt like i couldn't do it. with rowan, i remember being in SO MUCH pain, and despite all the "slow dancing" and ball-rocking and open-mouthed O moaning i did, i was constantly on the verge of losing it. i wasn't within myself, as i have mentioned before. with liam's labor, i was relaxed. it had just gotten dark outside and was turning rainy, but i didn't notice... i was in the dark in my bathtub, riding waves of pain and rest, pain and rest. i don't have any recollection of one contraction being worse than another, except once (i'll get into that shortly). i do remember a period of feeling like i had slept--i had no sense of time throughout all this--and then feeling the contractions change and become productive... i felt pushing before my midwife, doula, or mother arrived, but i didn't tell anyone because i was confident that he would come out safely even if i had to do it alone. i had a sense of overwhelming calm and solidity all the way down into every part of me; i was ready for the birth on all levels of my being. i just sat back and let it happen, and i know the reason i was able to do that was because i was left alone... matt checked on me every few minutes, and i had no one else there to bother me, so i could just sit and have my experience without interruption.

when debbie (midwife) and karen (doula) finally arrived, debbie came in to say hello and i had two contractions blend into one such that i was moaning for about 2 minutes straight. she mentioned that wasn't "normal" and i explained it was her fault, at which point she nodded and left the room. she returned to light a few candles and very unobtrusively lay out her supplies on the floor; i didn't even notice her. she never asked to monitor me or do a check of any kind, and i owe her for the courtesy, as i believe it would have greatly impeded my progress to be messed-with like that. i started to feel genuine pushing not long after she arrived.

pushing was unlike anything else in this world--completely terrifying and out of control--and i can easily see why women like Ina May refer to birth in terms of becoming a tigress, or a wolf, or a monkey, or whatever your beast is. i felt like an animal, roaring, mindless, and feeling only the impossible urgency of NOW, of doing, of surviving this process. liam's head emerged ever so slightly and i regained some awareness of myself, enough to reach down and feel the incredibly soft, velvety wonder of his head (i will never forget the way that felt, the downy hair on his round little head drifting in the warm water...). that was the moment it became clear what all this was really about; my baby was coming to meet me and it was really happening. the birth was happening and i hadn't failed. i started to feel proud and strong and so looked forward to the completion of my victory over fear.

no one was speaking through all of this.

a few more 'pushes' during which all i could do was try not to split in half--i know he would have been blasted out, as they say in midwife circles, if i hadn't been breathing and intensely willing liam to slow down his exit. debbie quietly encouraged me to take control and then returned to silence. i felt him emerge further until his head was fully out, and debbie confirmed with me that i would catch him, but i needed to lay back to do so because his body was going to be born with the next push. i flopped back, and she was right: a contraction and he flowed out of me into the water, into my hands, accompanied by what i recall was a lot of yelling (but am i told i did no such thing).

debbie helped me get a better hold on him amongst the rush of relief and gratitude and disbelief that i did it, that it was over, that i had a baby and a homebirth and nobody bothered me... it was very dark but i remember his shocking whiteness, his squinting eyes, his impossibly, beautifully round head, and his quiet. i think he may even have been sleeping through the birth. i held him in the water with me to keep him warm, and i laughed and cried. i remember matt looking as much in disbelief as i felt. of course my mother was crying (partly from joy and partly from sorrow at missing the actual emergence) and karen was a quiet cheerleader of my triumph. liam was small and white and seemed as shocked as i was to see him, but he didn't cry until he was wrapped in a towel and given to matt while i tried to birth the placenta and exit the tub.

the three of us got in bed, and i remember feeling some intense burning/pain in the netherparts, but otherwise great, even normal. i still hadn't birthed the placenta, but i had liam and he was thinking about nursing. it took him a little while to go for it, but once he did he seemed content. the placenta came out, we all sat and talked and took liam's measurements, and eventually i had a shower, my mom and karen left, and debbie closed up shop to go home. i think matt and i were in bed, with liam next to us in the cradle, by 130am.

the next morning when rowan woke up, she was greeted with a new brother and has loved him without hesitation ever since. i am sure she cannot remember a time when he wasn't part of her life... it is hard for me, as well.

oh yes, yes! rants from mommyland is going on my bookmarks bar.

check it out (excerpted from the post linked above):

Domestic Enemies of the New Mom
...
Veteran Moms
Don't get me wrong. You Veteran Mommies are often our saving grace with your wealth of knowledge and experience. But, can I be honest with you? It seems like the further away from that first year a mom gets, the more she forgets how difficult it can be. (Probably because she's focusing on how damn hard it is to be the mother of a toddler or 5 year old or...teenager.) A VM is often the person behind the phrase "Just you wait..." And let me tell ya, VMs: that phrase is not nice and needs to be removed from everyone's vocabulary. VMs have a tendency to brush off some of our New Mom problems because they know in the end it will all be okay. And maybe it will be. But, listen, New Moms? We don't know that. And we could use a little validation here. Or at least a hug. Or a drink. Also, if one more VM tells me to "sleep when he sleeps," I. am. going. to. square. up.
...

Exhaustion/Mommy Brain
This is another universal enemy, but New Moms also struggle with the belief delusion that it will eventually go away. HA. My baby slept through the night consistently starting at once he turned 8 weeks old, but I'm still trying to make up for those 8 weeks. I'm guessing that I'll finally start to feel well-rested again around the time my son and his wife ask me to babysit their kid. Of course, by then I'll be able to consider myself a Veteran Mommy and I'll be all like, "BRING IT, KIDS."

these ladies have a wicked sense of humor and a really fun site. score!

IUDs are always scary (at least, the non-hormonal copper kind like i have) because you're told that cramping and bleeding tend to increase, on top of other potential complications with regards to insertion. when you are like me, and have lived long years with excruciating menstrual cramps for 12-24 hours every month, "increased cramping" is not really an option. but i went for it anyway, because short of matt going under the knife, it's the only kind of birth control that was ever going to work for us. i never had much issue with heavy or long-lasting bleeding, so that didn't concern me.

6+ months and three periods later, i can say WOW! the menstrual cramping thus far has been laughable considering what i used to endure (it's likely that pregnancy alleviated it for me). sure, there's a little lower backache and some minimal cramp-like feelings, but i could endure without medication. and i'm finding my usual 4-5 day periods are now more like 6, but even that is nothing. the really interesting thing, for me, is that i have developed very distinct ovulation pains for about 3 days each month. i'm keeping detailed calendar records so that i can pinpoint my ovulation day and get better at predicting the arrival of my period. women are "supposed" to have 14-day luteal phases, but it looks like mine is more like 9-10 days (that is, 9-10 days after i feel the 'ovulation pain' i should expect my period). we'll see if it gets more exact as time goes on.

also IUD-related, still no problems with it, ah, interfering in the act. which is always nice.

in other news, rowan is using the potty (as least for pee)! she was 5/5 yesterday with NO accidents. the day before, too. she has been off-and-on for months, as i have mentioned before, but this time it was 2 days of 'i need to use the potty' right after peeing in her diaper, so we did it, and the next day she caught it before she went, and asked for her "pantypants," and we've been off diapers during the day ever since. she said "NO DIAPERS!" yesterday, and it was great.

as for liam, i have a strong feeling that Luvs are giving him a rash. he's never worn anything but the all-natural diaper types until now, and suddenly he has a horrendous rash on his butt. he's in pain, too. we're going to do some trial and error to figure it out, but in the meantime he hates diaper changes. also he is cutting the next set of FOUR teeth all at once, so it might be the yucky poo irritating him :(.

i caught a raccoon last night in the trap--probably the one that killed all our chickens--so i am hoping that problem is over. at least until next spring. i have 22 chicks coming in the mail this week!

though i should correct my title and call it... "more lactation," to be accurate. i'm still producing milk, though only in tiny amounts. liam is still nursing, though not often more than twice a day (and really only for comfort). but, i have been watching him closely and there were several times yesterday where he crawled over to me, climbed my legs and asked me to pick him up because he wanted to nurse. i also noted his disappointment when all he got was a few drops. so: he is not ready yet. and neither am i.

call it last baby syndrome or whatever you like, he's not even a year old and we still have time for him to be a baby a little bit longer. (don't worry, i am not one of those women who never lets 'the baby' of the family grow up; i just want to enjoy him a little bit longer until he is ready to grow up.) rowan's last nursing experience was on mother's day 2010, a week before her 1st birthday, and she never batted an eye... i am sure i will know when liam is ready.

all this to introduce the goal of seriously increasing my fast-waning milk supply for the benefit of the breastfeeding relationship. it's only partly about the milk production, as he eats any/all food and quite enjoys the raw milk from our grass-fed jersey cow that i give him. so: on with it.

my only genuine concerns--which are quickly brushed aside in favor of enjoying liam's infanthood longer--relate to the sex drive which has finally started to return and to the weight which has finally, slowly, begun to come off in proportion to the drop in milk supply. but a few more months won't kill me (or matt).

i am linking some relactation resources in my stash (see right) but these are the basic guidelines under which i am working (this may be different depending on situation; my baby is older and we have been full-time nursing since birth):
1) pump or nurse every 2-3 hours on the dot - they say 15 or 20 min, but i'm doing 10 because i will primarily be pumping at work
2) after a few days, add in the fenugreek for an extra boost. 2 pills 2x a day.
2.5) eat lots of oatmeal, which i already do. it can up supply by a surprising amount.
3) remember that the menstrual cycle* will create a varying supply over the month!


i officially started this morning, so i can look forward to work days filled with intermittently locked doors, awkward and slightly paranoid undressing in my "office," and shared refrigerators containing bottles of breast milk that freak out coworkers. ah, motherhood. whatever, it's worth it.


*right, i never mentioned this. i got the first monthly visit when liam was 7mo. remind me to post about it re: IUD...

i'm going to make a conscious effort to write regularly now. for my own sake, so that when i want to look back i actually have something to look at.

liam is fully mobile lately, and stands up every chance he gets. a few days ago i caught him as he pulled himself to stand next to rowan's bed, then grabbed a toy and did it with no hands! i'm thinking he will be walking before his birthday... i've been experimenting with letting him swim underwater, since he seems to have no fear of the water and can hold his breath when dunked.

rowan is still anti-potty for the most part, but she is getting enough cognitive ability that i think i'm going to start pushing her a little bit more. as for swimming, a few weeks ago she fell off the top step in my parents' pool, and came up without choking (meaning she had held her breath)... she cried for a few seconds but i made a huge fuss about what a big girl she was for swimming all by herself, and the tears turned into pride pretty quickly. but she still doesn't want to leave the steps. she is going to be a lot more work in terms of encouraging her to take risks. liam will be the total opposite, ha.

matt received a shift change as of tomorrow; he'll be working 4pm-12am with tues/wed off. that is going to be... interesting. on the days i'm home, he will be trying to sleep in until 10am or so with the kids running around (after waking up at 630am). on days i work, i won't really see him at all. i have to say i am rather looking forward to some 'alone time' in the evenings, in which to knit, or work on computer stuff, or just not cook dinner... but it will be weird to go to sleep without him almost every night. weird and unpleasant. i hope it works well for him in terms of getting things done at home, though. he used to be a total night owl, so maybe this will be comfortable for him after the initial adjustment period. we should theoretically save a bunch of money on movie rentals, too, since we will only have two nights per week in which to watch something uninterrupted. we'll see. soon enough it will change again and he'll be on 12-hour shifts... then i will really never see him. sigh.

some milk production drama happened but i don't feel like explaining it; butters is doing well and we are getting a gallon a day. our chicken situation, however, fucking sucks. all our adults were killed (but the ducks remain unharmed). the babies that i mentioned in the last post died--9 of 12 of them--of a sickness which is apparently highly contagious and re-infectable. so i can't keep the 3 who survived, because they will pass it on to any new birds we get. wtf. so right now i technically have no chickens, and it sucks. (as soon as i get rid of these 3 i will be ordering some new chicks.) i do have a batch of 9 eggs incubating, and if i can believe what i see while candling, they are all developing nicely. i'm excited about that because those were the last few eggs from our now-deceased chickens, so i'm glad to potentially have some progeny of the good birds. i'll be ordering chicks to arrive about the time the eggs are due to hatch (july 19).

speaking of milk production, work has ruined mine. i was doing great, pumping 6-8oz at work and nursing plenty... and then suddenly shit went to hell. i'm not really sure how/why. but i know that liam gets bored nursing (let-down too slow lately) and wants an instant-gratification bottle and i am failing miserably at pumping ever, let alone regularly. i started taking fenugreek but so far all it has done is make me smell like syrup. not necessarily in a good way. i was reading up on relactation, though, and it sounds like if i just stick with a 2-hour nurse or pump schedule for a week or so i should be fine to reestablish supply. i wouldn't even care about weaning except that liam is clearly not ready to stop sucking milk out of things, so i would prefer that it be me if that is the case. granted, i am giving him homegrown raw milk in those bottles, and he eats food abundantly, but since he wants to nurse i need to be able to provide the milk. trouble is, bottles are so EASY; plop him in bed, hand him a bottle, and done. none of this 'baby is sleeping in my arms gotta slide him gently into bed without waking him" frustration. laziness prevails despite the best intentions, sometimes.

what else? my new niece, aria, is adorable and growing very fast. kai has been given the 'a-ok' by several doctors, including his ophthalmologist, which was a surprise. he is normal on all the scales, and will grow out of whatever slight delays may be holding him back. it's shocking, frankly. i realize there may be emotional/behavioral differences that surface as time goes on, but apparently hope is strong. if i had to compare him to rowan (speechwise), i would say he is where she was at about 13-14 months (he is technically 19.5 months now), just starting to use understandable words. he's a sweet little kid and has so far been very good with his baby sister.

the grapes are starting to ripen on the vines in the yard...

well. i just went through to find a post about rowan when she was 8 months--as that is how old liam now is, if you can believe it!!--and i found one small paragraph. damn not updating the blog enough.

"rowan is 8 months! she eats like a champ, is still nursing full-time, sleeps through the night, has 2 full teeth and 2 half teeth (all bottoms, lol), she's babbling up a storm and trying really hard to hoist herself up on things. she loves books, playing in the grass (or dirt), and other babies."

so... liam eats like a CHAMP, i mean he eats everything and is already refusing baby food in favor of anything he can chew. he nurses full-time, which for him means about 4 times a day or so. he sleeps from about 530pm-630am. he has four teeth all the way (2 top, 2 bottom). he babbles all the time. he's about 1/2 step away from crawling successfully, which rowan never even tried to do. he is getting around using the army crawl for now, but the knees keep coming up, and he definitely likes to pull himself up when he manages to get a hold of a sturdy-enough object. i don't read him books, which is awful and i am really working to change; i just never have the chance, between rowan's demands and the housework i have to fuss with. but we do need to institute storytime AT LEAST 30 min a day. he doesn't really play in the dirt so much, because unlike rowan he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth, but he loves the pool. also unlike rowan, he's not interested in the tv; she was obsessed with elmo at his age. he barely glances up when rowan is watching something. and i am grateful for that.

he is very different than rowan in a lot of ways... he grabs at everything, and will roll/drag himself across a room if he sees something he wants. he can drink from a straw, and if i have something edible, he wants it. now. he is very silly and i call him 'trouble' all the time because he's so into everything. he loooves the cat, but unfortunately he's not very nice with his grabbing and pinching, so i have to keep an eye on that. he's a really, really, really happy little guy with a sweet personality... very affectionate. but he's also a monster because he is a little bit reckless. still very sensitive (like rowan) but not nearly as cautious. i'm told he's just "a boy" but that seems oversimplified to me.

rowan is now 2 years old... and jeebus, what a big girl she is. fully verbal, with sentences and pronouns and verbs and adjectives used correctly, many of her sentences even include the entire subject/object/verb of correct english :). she expresses her opinions very well (and they are many). she loves movies, and right now it's all about tinkerbell, peter pan, the little mermaid, ponyo, and princess mononoke.* she also really likes yo gabba gabba and sesame street. potty training is sort of on hold while she decides whether or not she wants to do it: she's really into the "pantypants" but doesn't want to go on the toilet. so we waver. but she's not the kind of kid i can trick or force into things, so we'll leave it to her pace. today she is actually going to "school" with her playmate--our nanny's 3yo son--for the first time... sigh. that thing they say about time and flying? it's true.

i am back to work at a new job 2.5 days a week, which is working out really well for everyone involved (i think). i get out of the house and a paycheck, the kids get away from me and someone their age to play with, the nanny gets a playmate for her son and some farm goods, and matt--who watches them on tuesdays--gets some alone time with the kids, who are really starting to connect with him more. it's good.

we are back to milking butters every morning (at 5am!!! aggh!) and besides some issues with the calf sneaking his nose through the fence to steal milk at night, it's going great. she is such a good cow; i never realized before. maybe being pregnant as she was made her cranky or something. we are planning to inseminate her soon with sexed-semen for a guaranteed female, so that when her time is up we have a substitute milk cow. hopefully that won't be for a while, but who knows how long she will live? she wasn't always a family farm cow... and lifespans vary by treatment. also she only has the three working udders, so her supply is never what it could be if all four worked. when does go, i will be glad to know that at least we've got her daughter :).

last weekend i convinced matt to take me over to a bird farm to pick up some chicks, since we have lost so many of our hens lately... we had a raccoon coming every night until we caught him, and after that there was a fox. we're down to 5 hens and the good old king red rooster. but now i have 12 babies in a safe cage who i hope will grow quickly. i got 6 ameraucanas, 1 wyandotte, 1 cochin, 2 plymouths, and 2 barred rocks. of course, we don't know how many will be hens, but betting 50/50 still gives us a nice-sized flock. i just hope the cochin is a hen! they are cute. and ameraucanas have fluffy cheeks :) :) :). matt picked up another duck hen; they should start laying any time now, if they haven't already (every few days we get a mysteriously large and strange-looking egg, and once or twice there has been evidence of a broken 6th egg--but we only have 5 hens). i also got my mom a pair of black bantam "frizzles" as a thank you for all the favors she does us--her flock is all bantam because big chickens scare her, lol. anyway.

things are going very well. matt is working on the fence for pasture #2 and hooking up the electric system in his workshop (finally), our garden is lush and productive, we've made a little money selling some of our goods, we *should* actually be able to save a tiny bit of money for the first time in years, and everyone is happy.

:)


*um, yeah, i know that's totally not a kids' movie... we have a bit of anime at the house and NO kid movies (other than nightmare before xmas), so she found it one day and demanded i put it on, and she loved it. why? i don't know. but she does, scary beast-gods, blood, guns, and all. so whatever. i need to get my real kid movies back from a friend (the dark crystal and spirited away).

(sing that to the death cab for cutie melody)

this is what happens:



:D


i am waaaay overdue for a real post. i know.

(luckily not in terms of children, ha!)

yes, we have more animals now. let's tally them all:

- 2 cows, both pregnant. that means we will soon have FOUR cows.
- 2 cats.
- 2 roosters.
- 11 hens - one of whom is broody as hell and has claimed a nest with 20! eggs in it.
- 6 chicks.
- 7 rabbits (5 does, 2 bucks) and the litter of bunnies.
- 4 ducklings.

matt brought home the extra rabbits and the ducks last weekend. apparently we didn't have enough already..! so the ducks are for eggs and meat, from what i understand, and it would seem that he wants to eat rabbit at least once a week for the next forever, considering we have the 8 babies and three of our does are pregnant right now. that's a lot of rabbit. we are going to need a bigger deep freezer...

the good news is that now that we have ducks, matt has to build a pond :) :) :). i'm very happy about that. though it also means that teaching rowan to swim will be priority #1 this summer.

i managed to plant a bunch of flower seeds a few days ago, so my hope is that this year i might actually have flowers (other than blackberry) in my yard. we did have some black-eyed susans and my morning glories did very well, but the rest of my flower beds were basically filled with grass, which sucked. but i figured i might as well throw the rest of my seeds now and see what happens.

that's about it for now - i'm waiting for butters to calve because i think i am seeing some signs that the birth is impending... i just hope it goes well for all of us!

my IUD insertion was a dream. i took some xanax ahead of time but it turned out to be totally unnecessary--i didn't even feel it. the speculum was the only thing i felt the whole time. ?! yay for having kids first, i guess. and i'm not even cramping! *cheer*

last night i worked out with my shamefully fit cousin doing the P90X DVDs, and i'm hooked. $130 for ten amazing videos... we only did the 'kenpo' one, which is an hour of punching and kicking, and i was beat. much looking forward to future beatings of a similar nature.

that's all for today.

T H I S W E E K ' S M E N U
ingredients marked with * are home grown!

sunday: don't ask.

monday: grilled marinated london broil; steamed green beans; twice-baked potato

tuesday: spinach & garlic stuffed chicken breast; balsamic roasted potatoes and turnips*; fresh greens* with blackberry* vinaigrette

wednesday: leftover london broil fajitas with peppers and onions; fresh greens*; turnip* chips

thursday: crockpot pork tenderloin; mashed potatoes, turnips*, and sweet potatoes; sauteed turnip greens* and spinach*

friday: tuna steaks with sweet soy glaze on a bed of wilted bok choy*; bean thread noodles with soy-ginger glaze & scallions

saturday: italian stuffed peppers; fresh greens*

last night matt very gently let me know that my cooking efforts are sub-par to his expectations and that he would appreciate it if i put a little more forethought and creativity into dinner. fair enough; i am inherently kind of lazy and the kids make it easy for me to rush and not care what i am cooking. he works a somewhat crappy job for our sake and deserves to enjoy dinner when he comes home, so i'm now planning menus because last-minute doings just don't work for me.

i thought i would share my menus in case anyone else is in a similar boat... i'm deciding just how to do it but a guess a weekly "menu" post will cover it. on we go.

i'm getting my IUD thursday via a "mainstream medical type" as previously alluded to. should be tons of fun... i'm all ready with my zonk-out drugs because i'm not in the mood for reproductive-area pain right now. i'm a little annoyed that i have no way of getting to the appointment other than having my mother take me and the kids over there. i was hoping for this to be a child-free event, being that i don't want to nurse liam while on aforementioned zonk-out drugs and i really don't want to fuss with them in the car while i'm crampy. but alas. one babysitter and one driver available, and they happen to be the same person... but as long as i get the freaking device put in place as planned i will be happy.

good news on the weight-loss front: turns out my cousin and aunt have already formed a little neighborhood workout group which they are happy to have me join! every other night they walk, and the odd nights are workout-video sessions. awesome. scheduled exercise works really well for me, and it's after the kids are asleep so i can actually do it guilt-free. matt will have to be without his nightly movie partner, but i am certain he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of me losing this baby belly. i know i am. i'd like to do the whole before/after photo thing but i can't bear the sight of my body these days and thus i will not be photographing it in such a revealing any fashion. this is also great because i tend to have my evening sweets (ice cream) during the time that i will now be busy sweating. and i can't drink beer before a workout...

I AM SO READY TO LOOK LIKE I USED TO! inspiration:

liam pulled an 8-hour sleep last night, finally! i am really hoping this means he will be a normal nighttime baby now. it was blissful to wake up and actually feel like i had slept.

today i seem to have begun a serious return to healthfulness (which i hope will bring with it a reduction of ass--and other--flab). i'm juicing the excess veggies from the garden (mmm... turnip juice... lol) and i found a nice little recipe to make healthy, but filling, muffins out of the leftover pulp. cue my favorite homemade ginger/lemon/honey tea instead of 20 cups of coffee per day and replace various junkish foods with yogurt and granola, and i should be doing pretty good. not eating meat is a plus too. i even worked out a la the "fabulously fit moms" dvd from my netflix queue. it's so cheesy but it made my lame ass sweat. i'm going to try to do it at least 3x a week...

it's hot outside today, which sort of confuses me. we're halfway through february..? last year it was freezing until easter. i never talk about this because it definitely makes me sound like i broke out of Bedlam, but i think massively devastating things are on the way shortly. crazy signs in the sky, earthquakes, tsunamis where they shouldn't be, and cracking continents. the flooding in pakistan and indonesia is just the start... but enough about that. i was just talking about the weather.

bunny mama lost a baby. *sigh* she kicked it out of the nest last night, i hope after it was already dead. he was the runt and didn't seem to be getting fed, but it makes me really sad because i considered bringing him in and hand-feeding him to keep as a pet for rowan... but i checked on him yesterday and he looked better so i didn't do it. now i wish i had :(. it's nature, but it still hurts. mama has 8 babies left though, and they are all fierce and furry.

our egg harvest has gone down to 6 a day recently and i know it's because those freaking sluts are laying eggs out in the yard somewhere. we have eleven hens, so even if a few don't lay every day we should be getting more than that. so today and tomorrow and the next day they are being kept in their pen. i'm not sure how long a hen can resist laying before she will find a new spot, but i would think not long. we'll see.

time to go help rowan with "elmo singy!!"

you know, i really want to like the birth center. i love the women who work there, i love the oldschool community connections, i love the fact that they support a hugely undervalued necessity of life for childbearing women, and so on. but bloody hell and flaming bollocks, they fucking suck! i hadn't mentioned this before but my tax forms were all sorts of fucked up when they came in the mail, though i didn't bother to fuss and try to have them fixed (staff changeovers were the reason and i'm not interested in explaining and fighting about it)... and now my IUD appointment was cancelled, in short, because they don't have their shit together. i need NEED NEED NEED that IUD! so now, i'm forced to either wait another MONTH for an appointment (since their ARNP only works one day a freaking month) or go somewhere else and deal with "doctors" and paperwork and all that crap. sigh. i want to support them. i want to say hi. i want a woman i know and trust to do the procedure for me. but more importantly, i want my motherfucking IUD.

oh and by the way, the day she can do the insertion is two days before i have a big art show in which i'm selling my screenprints. not really going to be able to put on a happy face and sell shit when i'm doubled-over with fresh cramps (or drugged up to mask them). ARGH!

whatever, i have my options. i'll just have to call around tomorrow and see what i get in terms of appts with the mainstream medical-types.

this post was supposed to be about wild runaway mommy-brain, so let's start over:
i've always had a problem with daydreaming and spacing-out into neverland a little too often, but last night i was taken to a whole new level... i think having children and being constantly forced to deal with life moment-by-moment--and i don't mean in a zen sort of timeless now fashion--has possibly done some weird things to my head. i planned this trip to the grocery store for last night after the kids were sleeping, making it the first totally un-rushed, peaceful grocery trip i've had in almost 2 years. the drive into town is a good 15+ minutes of nothing but dark roads and whatever is on my stereo (which i could actually hear for once). my brain exploded. i felt like i had taken acid again, in a way; it was like the quiet of having no mental demands caused a massive burst into wild freeform thought exploration the likes of which i cannot recall experiencing while sober. i was overwhelmed and found myself just watching the crazy places my head went. i can't begin to explain the paths that were taken so i won't try, but suffice it to say i was more spaced-out and daydreamy than even i like to be. all this from observing a few short minutes of peace and quiet on a nighttime drive...

i didn't realize just how whacked-out i was until the video store. i walked in and was greeted by lennon's "while my guitar gently weeps" (love that song; but it also reminds me of a long-ago acid trip) and managed to find a few suitable movies relatively quickly. standing at the register i remember looking at a poster for paranormal activity 2 and thinking "bah, that will be scary as hell but really stupid, i am so not interested in that movie"... as i drove off to the grocery store and looked at my movie rentals, what do you guess was staring back at me? oh yes, paranormal activity 2. cue the 'what-the-fuck' moment of the week. no, month. maybe longer. am i really THAT dumb?

my trip to the grocery store was similar, though i am relieved to say i didn't buy any foods that i hate and then wonder why... i just felt the oddest sense of freedom being able to walk through the store and have my own thoughts as my only companion. i actually bought beer, too--which i will probably get shit for--and when the cashier IDed me it went like this:
bag boy: 'i asked for ID the other day and the lady turned out to be 50!'
cashier: 'whoa, that's funny'
me, to both of them: 'well how old do you think i am? really?'
bag boy: 'ummm'
cashier: (looking at me really hard) '23'
(i laugh)
cashier at the next register: (looking at me really hard) '19'
me: (laugh harder) 'shut up, i'm seriously asking'
... etc... so i tell them i'm 29 and they all kind of make this "shit, you're old" face. so i tell them i have two kids and it gets worse.

i'm not sure if they were just young and stupid or if i really look younger than i am, but 19 seems absurd. though i must admit i was excited to maybe look under 25... blah. that just means i am getting old.

rowan continued to be sick last week, though i have decided now that she was teething too. the combination of symptoms (night waking, gross diapers, snot, crankiness) is obvious in hindsight... but let me tell you about thursday.

rowan woke up way too early and i was changing her in the dark because i was still half-asleep, when she started saying "poopie hands" repeatedly. oh god. yep. so i turned on the light and it wasn't just her hands, which had somehow found their way into her diaper, it was also her sheets, the padded bumper around her headboard, and her blankets. yay for diarrhea! into the wash it all went. the morning was fine after that, and when i put her down for her nap in just a diaper and a shirt, i remember saying to myself "she needs pants, this is a bad idea" but i guess laziness took over and i ignored it. 30 minutes later she is wailing and kicking the wall for my attention, so i went to get her and it was a horrible and yet hilarious scene: rowan lying on her side as if paralyzed with her diaper undone and hanging off her body, with gross runny poo coming down off her, through the side of the diaper, and straight onto the bed. she was whining and upset and wouldn't move because she didn't want it all over her (i shouldn't laugh but it really was funny). it was, again, all over the CLEAN sheets, and now also on her favorite little 'pillow pet' --thanks grandma--ms. ladybug. she had been shat upon!

i washed a second set of sheets while rowan played in my bathtub (with the drain unplugged, of course).

then, because mommy is really stupid, we decided to give the 'big girl panties' a go that afternoon. i knew her tummy had to be empty and i figured she would not want to pee in the underwear, so we talked over and over about how she would tell me when she needed the potty and so on... all afternoon i asked her every 5 minutes if she needed the potty, and it was always "noooo," so i left her alone. i must have ignored her for about 10 minutes at one point, though, because suddenly her panties were wet and i didn't know when or where it had happened. sigh. eventually i found a puddle on my bathroom floor. i'm sure the reason she didn't bother to tell me was because she knew she isn't allowed in there and didn't want to get caught.

as for blackmail, it's a bit of an exaggeration: i'm refusing to eat any meat until matt quits smoking. you'd think that would have no effect on him, but he gets annoyed if i even suggest i might be vegetarian again, so i'm hoping it will give him some small incentive to stop spending money and being stinky over something as stupid as cigarettes. he likes cooking excessively large slabs of animal parts for us, and he'll miss it if i don't partake... besides, at the very least i should theoretically be able to lose some weight just by cutting out the meat and replacing it with veggies. we'll see.

we had a litter of bunnies a few days ago and another is on the way today or tomorrow, and matt bought us a few rhode island pullets the other day, too. they are living in a fish tank on our dining room table at the moment. karen has successfully hatched four chicks from our eggs this week, too, which is really exciting. i hate that we will have to segregate them and deal with the whole pecking-order deal for a while when they are big enough, but it beats not having any chicks. i'm going to try another round of natural hatching later this week, i think. our hens want about 18 eggs under them to sit, so 2-3 days of no collection should do it for a full nest. i hope matt didn't piss them off too much the last time.

i'm about 1/3 of the way through knitting rowan's birthday dress (i started early to ensure it would finished on time, but now i think she will wear it for easter too). it's a really pretty little thing evocative of a flower, with the petals as skirt and the...inner part thingie...as the bodice. i'll post pics when it's done.

liam is blabbering away all the time, lots of new sounds and accompanying facial expressions. i love that kid.

i've made a resolution for perhaps the first time in history. i have an obscene (and surprisingly high-quality, considering my budget) stash of yarn, 95% of which was bought just because i liked it in the moment. now it is taking up space and doing nothing to curb my desire for more yarn... so i must be rid of it! and since i have been SPINNING--yes! it's amazing! addictive!--i have to find some excuse to do it more... "i am out of yarn" sounds like a good one to me. :) :) :)

so. the plan is to knit right on through my stash, give away the random leftovers, and spin my own when i need yarn for projects. from here on i will spin and dye yarns specifically for a given project, with as few exceptions as possible. as fiber is cheaper than yarn, i feel justified. plus i get to be twice as productive by doing it all myself. *rawr*

i'm quite proud of my planning skills at this point too, since i have managed to choose a project ahead of time for almost all my stashed yarn. i wonder if they are happier knowing their destinies are predetermined...

in other news, liam is big enough to sit in the bouncer! his feet touch the ground and he loves banging on the toys. it's really cute. he has been doing this little baby jig where he pounds his arms down and stomps one foot really enthusiastically; it's hilarious. he's also definitely teething because his fists are always in his mouth and he shouts about it most of the time. not crying, just a general ahhHHHHhhh while chewing. hehe.

rowan is advancing verbally at a breakneck speed. she's picking up so many words every day and stringing them together totally appropriately such that i am surprised by her no less than 3x a day. really need to watch my language to avoid embarrassing myself in public down the line. she's still a little cranky but now i'm starting to think it's because she has been sick... today she seemed better than she has been and she was a lot less troublesome as well. so who knows. terrible twos or just feeling bad? *shrug* i'm sure i'll be baffled by something else in another week or so.

no chicks this time around, the hens abandoned the nest (motherf*cking matt!). but we are getting 10 eggs daily now and i'm sort of swimming in them. i posted a barter ad on craigslist hoping someone wants to trade or buy some. we'll see.

gotta go clean up and make dinner now though.