september mama

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 :(.

well, rowan is officially one year old as of yesterday. crazy! she is seeming like such a little girl these days and not so much of a baby at all. she's graduated to walking with just one arm hanging on to a support, so i'm excited for the big "first step" which ought to be soon. it took her about two months to go from first supported step to here, so...

the party seemed to be a hit, though it was difficult to judge from the hostess/parent/spazoid vantage point i was looking from. my uncle showed up with a really awesome bounce house for the older kids, so that was cool. and most of the food (meat courtesy of matt's skills) was quite good. the cake was less fluffy and fantastic than i'd hoped, but the flavor was good. would've made awesome muffins, just not quite cake texture.




cuteness. she was so excited to wear that dress...

as for the "other things," i've decided to keep the appointment for ultrasound next week rather than try to reschedule it, mostly because it's just easier to get it done now. it's so strange to have no sense of what to expect--all i know is there is a baby in there (it kicks me all the freaking time)! i finished the stupid antibiotics and the baby is still kicking, so i guess all is well and i assume my phantom UTI is now gone. blah.

also i think i am going to start watching my... cousin's son--second cousin?--this summer, and he's 8 with a LOT of energy. probably a really bad idea considering i'm going to be in my last trimester over the summer, but whatever. we'll see how it goes. she's not paying much but anything is better than nothing and i'm thinking that one can reason pretty well with an 8 year old. i've been searching around for a good set of 'house rules' to establish with him, and in the process i found kiddio.org which is a pretty neat site (added to links on right). all these rules are common sense but it's nice to have a starting point. he's the sort of kid who will trample you if you don't lay it out right off the bat. i hope it goes well! i'm planning to tell my cousin that if i start to get at all frazzled or terribly inconvenienced (pregnant and touchy as i am) we're done, because i need to know i have an out if it isn't working for me. but overall i think it will be good practice to have two to juggle... ;) plus i have been considering taking on a kid or two as a nanny when the baby is no longer a tiny newborn. having a clean, organized house opens up so many possibilities!

lately we've been having an issue with ants (nasty biting ones) gathering crumbs in the kitchen, so i was using some essential oils to kill them but it was becoming a bit much...i don't really like to kill stuff, but they were in my kitchen where rowan scoots around and they were getting into food. so i went to winn dixie (the only grocery store within 20 miles) and was just praying they might have something other than 'raid' and to my great delight they sold this stuff: ecosmart ant & roach killer. it's AWESOME... not that i would ever recommend ingesting it or any other household product, but it's so kid/food/pet safe that all of the ingredients are technically edible and it smells like minty herbs with no nasty headache-inducing fumes (incidentally, it didn't cost me $8, either--it was like $4.50 or something). i couldn't believe winn dixie was selling it. oh and it works too; kills them dead on contact and seems to deter future foragers as well. score!

well, i can't think of anything else to blab about so i guess i'm done for now. here's a closing pic just for fun:

when we chose her name a friend made a pretty funny connection that had not occurred to me... as i was calling her "little bean" at the beginning, and we settled on rowan as her name, he mentioned that it was pretty ridiculous to name her the same as the actor who plays "Mr. Bean" (yes, his name is rowan *sigh*) and call her little bean. ah, coincidences. so now she is officially little miss bean for more reasons than one.

she recently started this weird thing where she kicks her legs wildly and rubs her feet together but the rest of her doesn't move, so it looks like she is trying to riverdance. it's really, really funny except that it gets her all worked up when she does it in protest of being put in the crib (or whatever). she's very ticklish now too! there are spots on her tummy, ribs, and back that make her shove her fist into her mouth, squeal, and hunch down over herself with laughter. it's pretty cute.

she's also been 'singing' to herself for a few weeks now. it started with just ahhhh vocalizations but has progressed into higher-pitched, more controlled experimentations; she even goes up and down in tone and volume deliberately now. every now and then it's obvious she's made a sound that surprises her, which is pretty funny. she also blows raspberries and spits bubbles a lot recently. she thinks she's totally hot stuff because she can sit up almost by herself and she always wants to pull herself to standing when we hold her hands.

so we've started solids here and there too, but since matt hasn't butchered a rabbit lately i've given her egg yolks (not really a fan), sweet potato (ok), and peaches (a hit). she's still sort of ambivalent about eating but after the peaches today i think she'll be more into it. i had a strange intuitive moment last night while nursing at some ungodly hour--similar to the day i realized she was bored--and i think she needs more than breastmilk now. i know they say it's enough for the first year, and that's fine, but i just got the feeling she is hungrier than she used to be and milk ain't cutting it. i'm trying to avoid cereals for a while (oatmeal MAY be an exception) but everything else is game. as soon as we have a fresh rabbit we'll try meat. oh and matt's mom sent us this beaba babycook which i used for the first time yesterday--it's great! i'm definitely not going to used jarred babyfood, so anything that simplifies the process of making it myself is welcome. the babycook steams and purees in one handy compartment, and it's small enough to not be a nuisance on the counter.

oh we also got her a walker, or rather my parents did... i'm feeling like i already said this... checking... ok nope... but she can't quite touch the ground. she likes it though, and i have high hopes for her impending mobility.

crap, she just woke up. this is becoming a nasty habit, waking before midnight lately. why?! *sigh* our quiet nights are slowly falling by the wayside and i don't know why. gotta go.

wow, i can't believe she's been here two months already--and i can't believe it's only been two months! seems like she's been in our lives forever...

things are really great despite having had no income for the last two weeks (or the next two for that matter...); rowan is such a good baby and we have really settled into an understanding, if not a full-on schedule. last night was her first night sleeping alone in her bedroom and she did great. i'm working on helping her learn to fall asleep on her own; up until now she has always nursed all the way into sleep, and it caused trouble when i'd put her down because she would wake up instantly and start crying to nurse again. so we're using the techniques from the no-cry sleep solution and even after just two nights i can tell she's learning/accepting that sleep can come without the help of my boobs. lol. it was weird to go to bed without her just a few feet away though--i kind of missed her. *sigh* evolution did a really good job ensuring moms would attach to their babies...

our typical day right now goes like this:

wake up around 730, may or may not get out of bed (if not, she's in bed with me nursing while i rest). when we finally do get up, diaper change and then she gets playtime in the swing or bouncer while i make coffee and eat breakfast. then we hang out...we dance, go for a walk, play cooing games, etc for as long as she will tolerate it.

nurse again, then usually she naps for an hour or so (11am-1pm on a good day) while i do the day's chores

she wakes up, nurses, then playtime again until around 3pm or so when she usually nurses and then naps again until 5pm. repeat, but replace playtime with daddy-time while i make dinner.

bedtime routine starts between 7-730pm: she gets a bath, then swaddled, then we nurse and sing in the rocking chair for 20-30 minutes or until she falls asleep, at which time i put her in the crib and start the "no-cry" techniques (assuming she is awake, which she usually is). she falls asleep by 830pm 99% of the time.

wake up around 2am for a nighttime feeding, and again around 5am. by this point i usually bring her to bed with me and let her nurse at will until i feel like getting out of bed...

all in all, it's nice. she's very regular unless something interrupts her, though even through a day at the mall all today she slept on her usual schedule. two perfect naps and in bed at 730. she's awesome.

i wanted to update my feelings on cloth diapers too--i still love them, but dappi covers aren't our main staple anymore (they were just too big and the velcro kept scratching her as a result). i had a single gdiaper that was my favorite, so i was looking on ebay for a used lot of them when i stumbled on a $30 off coupon someone had posted! i went to the gdiapers site and managed to get a $70 box of 6--which is about 4 more than we need--for only $40! freakin' fantastic, and i have to say these diapers are awesome. i don't use the flushable bits because we are on septic, so i use a prefold stuffed in there instead and it works like a charm. i highly recommend these diapers as they create hardly any laundry, the covers almost never get soiled, and the plastic liners are really quick to wash out when they get messy. plus they fit well! the only downside is they are definitely pricey; but it's a worthy investment. i will be buying more when she outgrows the ones we have.

also: breastpumps. i bought a medela pump-in-style on ebay ($70 all told; they normally cost $300!) and i LOVE it. it's quick and very effective, plus it's adjustable in terms of suction power and speed. i can drain myself in about 7 minutes with that thing which will come in very handy at work. and i think it has helped me increase milk production.

speaking of which, i have been drinking the traditional medicinals mother's milk tea since the beginning, and i do think it has helped a bit (i chug about a quart or so a day b/c i make a big batch and pop it in the fridge), but i wanted a more powerful increase since i know i will be having to pump a lot soon... so i started taking some fenugreek tincture. it worked, and i smelled like maple syrup, but watch out! it gave me and rowan both terrible gas, and she was miserable for a few days as a result. so i had to quit it, unfortunately, but it definitely upped my production. i'm trying to maintain the increase by pumping as much as i can.

and finally, work. *sigh* i am going back part time starting next week, i just have to figure out when and how many hours. my mom will most likely be taking care of rowan while i am away, since matt is back at the hipp next week full-time *growl* so at least she will have a loving caretaker... but i still don't really like it. i just don't have a choice. so today my sister and i went to the mall and i spent a $50 gift card i had on some shirts, a fabulous lip color that i plan to wear every single day, and a new pair of shoes (same as an old pair i wore out). it was nice--i haven't bought clothing since november, and i was pregnant then. made me feel a little more positive about going back to work.

i'm also actively beginning some "anti-aging" skin treatments since i realize now how easy it is to completely neglect myself in favor of the baby, and how easy it is to become a frumpy soccer-mom type... i'm on guard now. i'm back to a largely raw diet, i'm going to the gym regularly (30 pounds takes a long time to come off), and it's time to get serious about my skin, since it's obvious i'm not 21 anymore. i broke down and bought a commercial product but now i think my own concoction will actually be better in the end... we'll see.

so that's about it... not much, but at the same time a lot. rowan is growing so fast it's scary.

holy crikey. 7 weeks to go, give or take.

we had such a busy weekend that i think she's been kinda tired... the past two days have been quiet in there. i get the occasional wiggle or thump but overall she's calm. i think she rotated, though, which figures (she's feet-down now). i'm not going to worry about it, she likes to move around... we'll see what happens.

i do feel like she's growing a LOT though--i'm starting to notice a distinct limit to my range of motion in terms of bending and twisting and rolling over!

and i'm having sleep issues that seem to be getting worse. i wake up every 1-3 hours right on schedule and have to switch sides or pee... something about laying on one side for too long just doesn't agree with me. and i've been feeling a hovering leg cramp just under the surface that i know will show its ugly face sooner or later. so yeah, i wake up at night. a lot. i cannot wait until i can sleep on my stomach again! *sigh*

also i learned something (important) yesterday. amongst the things i bought over the weekend was a manual breast pump, and i was thinking "hey, wouldn't it be smart to start practicing before she's born?" the answer is NO! unless you are trying to induce labor, do not pump early! apparently--and i should've reasoned this out--the stimulation can start contractions due to hormone production. so however curious you may be about the BFing process and/or the effectiveness of pumping, you just have to wait.

i also bought a pack of these nature babycare diapers as a backup for our cloth stash (and for those first extra-gross meconium poos)... i'm intrigued, but i'm also kind of disappointed that i can't find as much in-depth info as i want on them. they weren't too pricey though, at $10.99 for 44. i doubt i will even use all of them, honestly.

i have to say, i love the adiri bottles i picked out though! obviously i haven't used them yet so i can't really attest to their effectiveness in feeding a baby, but my personal impression is that they are totally freakin' awesome. the whole top part (yes, it looks like a boob, on purpose) is made of a squishy silicone that feels pretty close to a milk-filled breast. and the nipples are shaped anatomically too. it's all supposed to help prevent "nipple confusion" when switching between breast and bottle. yes, nipple confusion is real. i got really annoyed with a know-it-all co-worker the other day who insisted she's 'never seen a baby get that'... except that my friend who just delivered had that exact problem when her baby was given a pacifier too soon! babies have to use a completely different oral technique for bottle vs. breast feeding. ugh. anyway. i figure if you're going to use bottles, even occasionally, they might as well be as close to the real thing as possible. so i'm excited about these. (edit: i just read that they can't be used in a warmer without the "warming cap" so i will probably be returning my bottle warmer rather than buy another gadget to make it work. hot water under the faucet is good enough for me.)

i find it interesting that my brain seems to be prepping itself for newborn care whether i like it or not... normally i'm pretty indifferent to babies, even a little uninterested, at least until they are old enough to communicate verbally. but lately i think they are really cute and sweet. i still don't necessarily want to hold one, but i find i am more interested than i have ever been before, and i can just tell it's hormonal. i had another one of those dreams where my belly skin is like thin rubber or something... i dreamed that rowan's whole body was pushed out, almost like i had no skin at all, and i was holding her and showing matt thinking "wow this is her!!" she looked like a real baby, not too little or wrinkly or anything, just cute. she wasn't being born, she just kinda became visible to the point that it was like there was nothing holding her back. i woke up with a strong sense of maternal...something...i liked holding her, i can imagine now what it will be like to have our baby out here in the world. these are things i have never really given much thought to before; or perhaps i just hadn't had the appropriately maternal emotional response to the thought. apparently now i do.

yikes! big kicks just now.

anyway i can't think of anything else to write, so peace out.

*sigh*

i'm sorry, i don't like this book. i got 10 minutes into browsing through it and was bored and frankly put-off by the almost-creepy "breastfeeding is the holiest of holies" attitude just barely hidden under the surface.

i have said before i have NO intention of using formula or bottles for any of my future children, but that doesn't mean i have to secretly worship lactation or spread the divine word of the breast in my free time. and of course, i appreciate all la leche league does in the world, they are educators and counselors and support for millions of women and that shouldn't be discounted... but let up a little. i felt like i was reading propaganda.

i do believe in "too much of a good thing" so maybe that is where this attitude of mine stems from, or maybe i have been a little bit influenced by pop media myself, but i feel like there is a point at which the obsession with breastfeeding becomes something a little creepier than just mama-feeding-baby-naturally. anyway i've already mentioned how i *personally* feel about extended BF (no way) so i'm probably just repeating myself on a similar tangent here.

sure, there was good advice for what to do about engorgement, plugged ducts, etc, but you can find all that online without the hoo-ha it's surrounded by in the book.

i guess i was a little bit offended(? is that it?) by the attitude taken in the book that breastfeeding is THE ULTIMATE in being a mother... as if pregnancy and delivery and years of nurturing pale in comparison to the simple act of feeding the baby with your body... and i just think that's ridiculous. true, i have yet to experience it, but come on. seriously? not every woman who formula-feeds has bonding issues. not every woman who breastfeeds is a good mother. but they really seemed to present it that way, and i found it disturbing and completely illogical. i'm sorry but 18+ years of caring for and loving someone (not to mention 9 months of sharing a body!) mean more than a scrawny 6 months of intimate physical contact, hormones or not.

...and if it doesn't, we have more problems as a species than i ever thought imaginable.

ok scratch the previous format, i just want to jabber:

i hated this book. really, i hated it. i don't think anyone should read it, though *perhaps* everyone should have access to it for when they want to verify their worst fears or get a few facts on this procedure or that one. as a book to actually sit and read, it's terrible and does nothing but create fear and prepare you to experience all kinds of "symptoms" (as if pregnancy is an illness).

i think it was the first one i sat down with and already at that point i knew it was a waste of my time... for one thing, if you are not going the conventional prenatal care route, it is mostly irrelevant information.

(hmm i think i am in a confused mood--all i want to say is "it's stupid" and quit this post... weird...)

um. so. yeah. don't read it. it doesn't empower women AT ALL--it was written for perpetual "patients," those consumers of health care who keep the system running. anyone who thinks for herself either 1) already knows everything it has to say, or 2) can find the same information in better, more well-rounded sources.

Naturebirth by Danae Brook

synopsis: a woman in the 70s who had a rough first birth experience shares her acquired wisdom after working with an awesome mentor during her next two births. lots of statistical info (now outdated) and really raw, practical, accessible knowledge from a woman who understands what birth is and is not.

target audience: all pregnant women! especially those who want to feel empowered in a real sense, and maybe those who didn't know they needed to. birth partners, doulas, and professionals will benefit greatly as well.

notes: while the title attracts more hippie-type readers, probably, it was actually a very balanced book. she does a great job raising metaphysical questions without being fluffy or flaky, and she really doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of birth, either. everything from breathing exercises to medications/illegal drugs and side effects to whether the manner of birth affects the personality of the child.

rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars because i loved every minute of this book. she is a powerful writer with a valuable perspective on everything she writes about. she really emphasizes the importance of the man's (or partner's) role in pregnancy, birth, and childrearing, giving the partner a real sense of worth and purpose... pregnancy and birth are not about excluding the other DNA contributor, and she does a great job pointing out that pregnant women really *need* their lovers to be around. half a star lost because i got annoyed that she defended episiotomies as a way "to prevent severe tearing" which it is absolutely not. i assume wisdom and common sense have increased over the last 30 years, which is why she only lost half a star for the mistake. overall: read it!

whew! last night was packed full of madness in my head. i'm not sure if i've mentioned that i don't really sleep well anymore--i wake up to pee at least once around 2am, and then i find myself wide awake at 430 for no reason--and part of the problem is the crazy vivid dreams i am having.

this is going to be nonsense but i have to try to recall and record as much as possible anyway:
it started as a tour of a home for sale(?) or something like that--other people were touring it and i was there, and it was xmas because there were decorations and presents. at one point i was looking at the bathroom and i noticed that if i jumped high enough i could see a hidden part of the house behind the bathroom window... a whole other bathroom behind it, preserved from the 60s complete with towels on the rack and hairbrushes on the counter... i was so pissed because it was big and it meant that part of our house was hidden from us when we could've been using it. and someone knew and just hadn't wanted to tear out the wall between them.

then i was in an apartment complex looking for a midwife's office that turned into a sushi restaurant where i was having dinner with two academics talking about soil and wetlands, and my friend gabe was sitting at the table next to us eating dinner before he had to start serving, and he asked me why the hell i was sitting with weirdos talking about soil. when he left i said to someone, "see, he's one of the gabe's leading to why i don't want to name a boy gabriel!"

then i was on a journey to a castle with a suitor of the princess, and there were lots of us in a long train of people on horseback, and the suitor was heath ledger (of course, lol) and someone was trying to trick him into doing something that i knew meant he would either die, turn into an evil person, or just lose the princess but i couldn't get to him in time to convince him not to talk to the bad guy. then it changed and i was in a parking lot with my parents maybe with an RV and a lot of other people, and the weather was getting really bad... we looked out and there were huge tornadoes all along the horizon and moving randomly closer and further away... it was extremely scary and yet exhilarating at the same time. after a few minutes the sky went crazy into a white/silver/pink luminescence with flashing streaks of lighting more like an LSD hallucination, growing along the sky and changing and flashing in swirls. i was just staring at it in shock wondering if reality was changing before our eyes and thinking it might be the end of the world because nothing else seemed to explain it.

then later i was with [x] (someone who felt like matt but i think wasn't) and we went through a door that lead to another dimension just like this one--we could go back and forth--and in the other dimension i found myself in a room surrounded by shadow people who were dancing along and inside the walls, lots of them, really menacing and scary and making noise. i was supposed to get rid of them and i had a knife from our kitchen, so i kept stabbing at the walls, but it did nothing unless the shadow person came out of the wall first. so i was just lunging and slashing trying to get them and finally the "leader" or just a big, scary, red-eyed, clawed one came almost totally out of the wall and i hit him, but he didn't seem to care so i just kept stabbing at his neck and still nothing happened until i tried a sawing motion and got through his neck and took off his head. then he died but it was anti-climactic because the others were still there... and shortly after i wasn't there anymore and the dream had ended.

wacky. i do dream of tornadoes relatively often and it's usually terrifying, but this time was different because they were so far off and it seemed that either we could avoid them (by having a head-start) or we had no chance and would certainly die (because there were so many). anyway. i have no inkling what they might mean but there they are.

on to the book. i started Naturebirth the other night and i was rapt--yes, rapt--before i finished the first introduction. it's very well-written and given completely from a first-person perspective yet no less informative and objective than one would want a "facts" book to be. even though she is clearly giving her opinion... she's right and she's smart! really great so far. i read 70 pages in the last 2 days, which is a feat for me at this point considering how little time i spend reading lately.

i want to quote parts of it here, but so far i would end up quoting the entire book...

(format totally swiped from a hilarious friend's blog)

synopsis: a self-help manual for pregnant women who want to maximize their psychological and spiritual involvement in all the processes from conception to birth.

target audience: pregnant women who intuitively "feel" that birth isn't what it used to be, but don't know much about what they think is wrong or how to make the most of their pregnancies as a spiritual event.

notes: i felt like i was having deja vu from page 1; there was no really new material (for me) in this book. it was decently written, used a lot of personal examples and women's perspectives, but overall it was pretty repetitive and not extremely fascinating.

rating: 3 out of 5 stars for having a good intentions and really trying to empower those who don't realize they have been disempowered. one star lost for the excessive overuse of michel odent quotes, another star lost for repeatedly using the (arguably untrue) phrase "no one can love a child as much as its mother." one half-star lost for only half-heartedly asserting that sometimes a c-section is the most loving choice, but gained the half-star back for all the women's quotes at the end of each chapter. that was the best part.