september mama

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.

i have acquired another totally practical-yet-impractical skill which i am reveling in... spinning! as in, yarn. my vote for "next animal to join the farm" is obviously sheep, now. :D

it sort of happened by accident, despite me wanting to learn for a while (but never caring enough to invest the time or money)... i found a friend on ravelry who incidentally runs a yarn/fiber shop on etsy, she wanted makeup and i wanted yarn, so we traded. in the process, i ended up with a few drop spindles and some wool as part of the deal, and she showed me how to use them. BAM!

that day, we went to visit a nearby alpaca farm, the owners of which i have connections with, and not only did they hook her up with a crazy deal on raw fiber, they explicitly told me i can come get some for free anytime. *drool* alpaca feels like clouds. so i've got about 5oz of fluffy, jet-black heaven in a bag, which i am not going to touch until i know what i am doing with that spindle! i'll practice with plain old wool until i have a more consistent product, then on to the fancy stuff ;). i've actually been considering brushing the rabbits when they start their spring shed to blend in some non-angora-but-still-soft-rabbit with my wool or alpaca. this is really dangerous, because my knitting projects have slowed down dramatically... i want to spin all the time. i know it's a phase and it will pass, but still. i've been trying to rationalize a la telling myself i need to use up my stash of yarn and then i will have an excuse to spin :)

ah. i just love making things, and similar to the process of taking milk from the cow and turning it into something...more complicated...knitting from spinning from wool from the animal is just so satisfying. i dub it "slow crafts" off the top of my head. did i make that up??

speaking of rabbits, the distressed doe is still hanging in there. i don't know how, but she's alive, and it's hard to say whether she is still in labor. her breathing is weird and that lump (aka fetus) is still in there, but she seems ok. the sitting hen was disturbed for a day by matt stealing too many of her clutch, but she is back to sitting... though i don't know if the eggs will end up being viable or not, now. i told him in no uncertain terms to leave her the hell alone, so hopefully she recovered her broodiness quickly enough and will manage to hatch at least a few. we'll see.

we had a mystery crop of something from the garden last week--after much debate and research, it turned out to be daikon. (yes, matt failed to keep a record of what he planted.) it was then a mystery to both of us WHY he planted a massive amount of daikon... ? not the most useful vegetable, and he couldn't recall buying the sees, but we did some new things with it and it was tasty. stir-fried greens, and a potato-parsnip-daikon soup. he pickled some in the traditional way, as well, but i haven't tried them yet. the rest is basically rabbit and cow feed at this point, because it wilted really fast and we just didn't want to eat that many radishes. lol.

liam, rowan, and matt all have colds and i have a scratch in my throat that i deny is the onset of my very own sniffles. i got about 2 hours of sleep last night (thanks, liam...and matt...) and spent the morning in a nursery full of wild little boys followed by a funeral lunch... weird stuff. all i have to say is thank the stars for crock pot dinners because i have no desire to cook at all. i should be sleeping now, as a matter of fact, but i couldn't resist using naptime for knitting and spinning instead. oh well. coffee's brewing.

rowan has been difficult lately. she does things she knows will get her into trouble (albeit very little trouble) and has been pinching herself and me, just to be mean. never liam, thankfully. matt thinks she's bored, and i think he's right. so i've got to find some friends for her or something more interesting to do than sit here with me and/or invade grammy and grampy's home every day. would be easier if matt didn't take my car every day. i'm going to go hunting online for toddler activities...

i know i mentioned the rabbit tragedy already, but it got worse. the next day there was another non-living baby in the cage. it looked like its legs were hemorrhaged so i'm thinking mama smushed him or he was stuck in the birth canal for too long... sigh. then it got worse again. mama bunny ("fatty") was gasping for breath and not moving around at all, with her eyes mostly closed. there were strage pinkish drops of blood(?) around her whiskers.

we did some 'research' online and couldn't find anything, though i am versed enough in the hazards of birth to guess that she was either 1) still in labor, 2) hemorrhaging, or 3) suffering from an infection. we could only assume whatever it was must be birth-related..? but of course the vet was going to charge upwards of $200 for a visit and--cold and hard as it is--we just can't pay that for a rabbit we can replace for $15. i didn't want her to die or to suffer, but there's a limit to the extravagance we can bestow upon livestock at this point.

i decided the best chance she had was to get some penicillin from the feed store and give her the proper dose; if she did have an infection it would either cure it or not, but it was either that or nothing. (by the way it's not fun to stick bunnies with needles :(...) the next day she was the same, but we managed to check her out on the underside and there wasn't any unusual blood or other ick, which was a good sign.

today she actually seems slightly better--she is not so droopy and her breathing sounds a tiny bit easier. i'm really hoping the meds help because i hate losing animals! we're keeping a close watch on her. the more i see her the more i think she might actually have a purely coincidental respiratory infection...

in other animal news, i have cracked open five eggs with double-yokes in the last two weeks. five. that's almost a world record! being that the chances are 1 in 1000 for that to happen in the average dozen, i'm thinking one of our chickens is a hereditary double-yoker. it's novel and fun, but unfortunate because that means her chicks won't hatch. oh well.

and finally, mama is tired because babies are NOT SLEEPING AT NIGHT! why?!?!? liam woke up every hour last night. rowan woke twice. repeat for the last several days. these nights make me want to say things like "i hate my life" even though i don't. i'm just exhausted and not getting a break. in liam's case, i fear he is waking because it hurts to pee (more on that later). or he's teething. rowan, i cannot explain. it's so, so frustrating to finally climb back in bed and just drift off only to be startled out of it by wailing children. *cry*

i need a day off.

...since i last posted?! terrible.

liam is 3 months old and very much a big boy lately. physically and in terms of his interactions with other humans. i swear he will be talking by 6 months old... and he's really stable with his torso so i expect he should be sitting around when rowan did (20 weeks), if not earlier. his bedtime routine is like clockwork; we do bath and bed right after rowan goes down, and both kids are out by 630. it's amazing. but he has been waking a lot recently (every 4 hours, down from about 8 hours a few weeks ago) and i'm not sure why, but i'm hoping he settles down soon. he's also drooling a lot and eating his hands so we may have entered teething phase #1... *cringe*


rowan is using multiple-word phrases and pronouncing things very well lately. she is all about coloring, watching movies, and riding her toy unicorn all over the house. her hair is long enough to pigtail and some days she even lets me :). she recently had a few tumbles and scored some serious scrapes on her nose AND a massive ugly bruise on one cheek... it was a rough week.


matt is starting a 4-day, 10-hour shift for the next 3 months which will have him home friday, saturday, and sunday... it's nice, though i worry about how bored i know he will be. matt+boredom=annoying. and of course he never wants to do any of the projects i suggest he fill his time with, so it's kind of hopeless. i just have to resign myself to the fact that he will be monopolizing the computer for at least one full day per week, watching stupid movies on netflix instant play. ugh.

butters still hasn't had her calf, and she's huge. i worry about how much bigger she can get before that belly just plops to the ground. and day by day marge is looking rounder too... we'll see what happens. the downside to having a "farm" was evidenced to me this morning when i went out to feed the chickens: one of the rabbits decided to birth without a proper nest, so i was greeted by two dead baby bunnies in her cage. not a nice way to start the day :(. one looked like he might have come out that way, but the other was still soft and had likely died less than an hour before i went out there. it's really depressing... he was probably just too cold. the odd thing is that she only had two. rabbits like her usually have 8-10 kits per litter... ?? the point is, dead bunnies are really sad and it sucks to have to face harsh realities and deal with them sometimes. sigh.

we are getting 8--yes EIGHT--eggs every day, such that our fridge is overflowing with them. i try to use about 3-4 a day, but we still have surplus. hoping to trade someone for them, but not sure who/what for/how to go about that. i think i might start with craigslist... the garden is full of greens and root veggies because matt plants in the opposite season by accident every year, but they are growing beautifully so i'm not complaining. looking forward to lots of, er, turnips. and beets. and kale. in the spring. lol.

i'll try to post more often. i've been using my free time to knit...