the bee in your bonnet

FB Nurse-in, part 2.

2012-01-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

So three years later, I find myself organizing another nurse-in at FB. There is a FB page for the Menlo Park, CA one, but because it's international, there are many others and you can check to see if there is one near you here.

The FB! Stop harassing Emma Kwasnica over her breastfeeding pics page is going to host a live chat with me tomorrow at 2pm PST (5pm EST) answering questions about my involvement in the first nurse-in if you want to go and watch that.

In the meantime, I guess all I have to say is keep on keepin' on! Nurse your babies! And your toddlers! And even your preschoolers (does that include Margaret now?)!

Counting

2012-01-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

Counting makes me cringe. It really does. I know a lot of parents do it, my own parents do it. And it was a threat, a threat that if I didn't do what they wanted by then time they got to "3," then I would get spanked. I've talked to other parents who do it and have said they've never gone to 3, so they've never had to carry out any threat. But the threat is still there and that irks me.

And then there are times when I find myself really really wanting to do the counting thing. I was successfully patient the first 50 times, but this time, I am NOT patient and I am not feeling nice. Last weekend I got to that point and I did indeed start counting, even though I didn't know what I'd do if I got to "3."

But then mid-way through my count, I remembered something someone said about counting that I really liked and I don't even remember who the person was, but I'm grateful. They said, "Think of it as counting up to something really exciting." So I did. Instead of stopping at three, I went to five and at five I picked Margaret up and flew her around the room and shouted, "Blast off!"

This did a lot of things at once: got Margaret distract from climbing the shelf again, kept the connection between us, gave me a few seconds to be patient, and it was fun. And I didn't need to threaten her or punish her.

This can be used for a lot of things: counting down to buckling in the car(but make it fun!), getting ready to leave, I've even used it in nursery class when a child doesn't want to come over for a snack or music time.

Also, kids really like to "Blast off!"

So that's something that's in my parenting bag of tricks. It doesn't work all the time. Times it hasn't worked have included times when my kids wanted me to acknowledge their upset instead of distracting them, and I've apologized for not being respectful of that and re-connected in a different way. But it's a good one to have in my pocket when I don't have patience and something needs to be done Right. Now.

Parenting Resources

2012-01-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I promised I'd do a post of linking up to various sites/resources I've found useful in parenting. And I was going to, but in the holiday and New Year rush, I never did, but PhDinParenting did a toddler-focused post on discipline that contained many of the links I was going to include, so I'll send you there: 3 Rs of Toddler Discipline: Repetition, Reaction, Reassurance.

One book she didn't mention, but I want to is Respectful Parents, Respeciful Kids 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation, which is based on Non-Violent Communication, which I absolutely love.

I also like Teacher Tom's creative ways to handle conflict and discipline. Check out that blog sometime.

Hi

2012-01-20T17:42:00.001-07:00

Popping in and saying "hi" since it's been a week since I've posted here. I had lots of ideas this morning, but forgot all of them, so I'm winging this post.

I've been very busy. The early days this week were taken over by knitting and designing. I'm intend for most of the year to be commandeered by knitting and designing. That's the direction I want to go in right now.

Breastfeeding took up the last half of my week. Lots of stuff has been going on in lactivism lately: most importantly is the FB nurse-in scheduled for Feb. 6. The link to the Bay Area one is here, but this is a combined effort and includes FB offices worldwide. Perhaps there is one close to you!

In Mormon-ness, I posted today on the Exponent about a new blog called It's Time for Sharing, focused on Primary lessons. Check it out!

In food, I've really been enjoying January in California: ORANGES! Our CSA box has given us 3.5 pounds of oranges every week for the past 3 weeks. Some recipes we've tried recently include Orecchiette with Rapini and Goat Cheese, Broccoli and Mei Qing Choi Stir Fry (we also added fennel), Schinkenroellchen (leeks wrapped in ham and then baked with eggs and cheese on top), Spinach Salad with Mandarin Oranges, Collards and Rice, and Garlic Parsnip Fries (added rutabaga to this as well). We are trying a couple new ones this next week, too: Delicata Squash with lime butter and Quinoa linguini and romanesco (though, with just quinoa, not quinoa linguini).

In feminism, Are Women People? is a blog post that includes some suffragist poetry. Very fun to read.

We finished catching up with Dr. Who. It's over, alas! The Silence haunts my dreams: and I only know because tick marks show up on my arms in my dreams. Tonight's Netflix is 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I anticipate getting a lot more knitting done. I should go start the pizza dough for pizza night. And that's all I remember right now. Happy weekend!

Friday Fill-ins and update

2012-01-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

1. When I looked out the window this morning the sun was shining and the fog was clear.
2. My blogging ennui doesn't make sense to me.
3. Remind me to actually plan my nursery lesson earlier than Friday next week.
4. Dreaming is something I love to do!
5. TP is "vulva" according to Isaac. When I ask Margaret if she'd like me to wipe her vulva after she goes potty, I also grab some toilet paper at the same time. Now Isaac associates the two!
6. I cleaned the refrigerator recently and I found some leftovers from New Year's.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to pizza night, tomorrow my plans include laundry and running and Sunday, I want to knit and write!

Ennui. That's a good word for it. For the past two weeks, I simply haven't felt like writing. I had writing projects I had to do: guest posts for other blogs, small updates to Mutual Approbation, and some very important emails with people I can't talk about. I sat down and forced myself to write all these things, but I couldn't shake the haze my brain was in when I tried to write. And looming in the background was an invitation to a writing group.

This writing group intimidated me. It was being set up by an editor. A real one. Who's edited books. That I've read.

So I forced myself on Tuesday to spend the afternoon writing a two-and-a-half page memoir piece. Miraculously, both children took naps so I was given a couple of hours to myself. Wonderful! Of course, as soon as I finished the piece I decided to no longer pursue it and toss it, but I brought it to the writing group anyway.

And talk about more intimidation, as everyone introduced themselves, there were writers who had been published, who were getting feedback on cover letters to publishers, writing screen plays, novels, the whole shebang. And me?

"I write on a lot of blogs and I brought something that I don't even want to pursue."

They asked me about what sorts of things I would like to pursue publishing.

Um? Nothing? Well, I want to publish more knitting patterns, but I don't know if reading, "K1, p2tog, K to end" was something I could really get feedback on.

My little piece was well-received, though. And that surprised me. I'm very self-conscious about my writing despite the fact that I regularly throw up blog posts on the Internet. They gave me ideas of where to go for publishing what I had written or where to go next if I want to explore adding on to it. I left with a mental list of writing I had been meaning to do, but had forgotten. Maybe I'll have something for next time.

I don't have a real direction for my writing; I'm just writing because I have ideas, but I don't have any clue on what sort of venues to seek out for publishing. And I'm not sure if I want to publish. I already have a couple of big projects in the knitting section of my life that are going to take a huge portion of my energy.

We'll see. It was fun, though.

2012-01-07T22:01:00.001-07:00

I made this image using Justin Liew's photo from flickr, which is licensed under the Creative Commons license allowing sharing and remixing of the photo. So here's my remix and I'm sharing it.

To be honest, I'm only posting it here so I can pin it on my Pinterest page.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not one for New Year's posts, and I don't normally make resolutions, so this is just going to be a recap of our family resolutions from last year (which I hadn't posted here, but whatever).

Read the scriptures more
Yeah. Didn't happen. It probably happened slightly more regularly than the year before (aka 5 times in 365 days is slightly more regular than 3 times in 365 days).

Yoga
I did a lot in November/December, and McKay did some in October, but yeah.

Be More Social.
That seriously was a resolution because we suck at forethought. We did ok. I was feeling out of place at ward play groups and such when other people would say things like, "Oh well so-an-so and I were out and...." or "I was over at so-and-so's." We couldn't make people invite us over more, but we could invite more people over. Every Friday night we have pizza from scratch. The plan was to invite someone every week and ask them to bring a topping. We actually did this a handful of times! Yay! And at a Christmas party with people in the ward, someone said, "Hey, someone needs to have a New Year's party!" so thinking, "This would be a great way to top off our resolution," I volunteered.

And no one came. Well, the person who instigated the party showed up for an hour out of obligation, but left around 8:30 or 9. Many meatballs, much fondue, and sweets were leftover. I'm making McKay take the sweets to work tomorrow because I am kind of sick of sugar.

So yeah. I suppose we were slightly ahead of the game this year. We need to actually make resolutions that we can keep. The scripture one has been on our list for years and I think it's safe to say that we really just have to let that one go or figure out a new way to do it. I'm leaning towards letting it go. Meh. Can't do it all.

We haven't made any new family resolutions yet this year, but I think we're going to keep trying the Friday pizza nights.

For my personal resolution, I've decided to be more fabulous. And I'm succeeding already.

Target Nurse-in

2011-12-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

This morning, I participated in the Nationwide Target Nurse-in. I was at the Emeryville Target since it's the closest one.

The link about the nurse-in above has a FAQ about it. I went for a couple of reasons. First, was solidarity. Breastfeeding women should not be harassed or segregated from the public and I wanted to stand against the bullying Michelle Hickman experienced.

Also, I wanted to stand against Target's corporate breastfeeding policy. On one hand, it's great that they have a corporate policy: it means that breastfeeding is something they've thought about in upper management. That's great! But what's not great is the policy itself, which I pulled from here.

"For guests in our stores, we support the use of fitting rooms for women who wish to breastfeed their babies, even if others are waiting to use the fitting rooms. In addition, guests who choose to breastfeed discreetly in more public areas of the store are welcome to do so without being made to feel uncomfortable."

Fitting rooms are great for moms who want that. I don't believe it's a workable solution for all instances: for a baby whose mom is in a long checkout line, for when there are no dressing rooms available, for children who aren't going to nurse longer than 10 seconds (like mine).

The other hot button issue is the word "discreet." What is that supposed to mean? I personally know someone who gets unnerved by breastfeeding even if it's under a blanket, in a separate room, with the door closed. Just knowing that there's a mouth on a nipple is too much for them. And for me, just nursing where I am is more discreet than going up to someone and asking for a dressing room, drawing attention to myself, and having to put my cart in a corner and hoping that no one takes it while I'm in there. Plus I'd be in and out of that dressing room every 2 minutes for 20 seconds each time. Not feasible and not conducive to shopping and giving them my money either.

This is what I look like breastfeeding in Target, for reference:

The other big thing: for some reason Target thinks they get to supersede the law. In many states, breastfeeding women are protected from indecent exposure laws in public and private. Period. Expecting women to hide in a dressing room or be "discreet" is contrary to the current provisions of the law. It's discrimination. And it's wrong.

So I went to Target today to support breastfeeding moms and to say, "Hey Target, your breastfeeding policy is not enough."

And here are some pictures!

Tandeming.

McKay representing supportive partners everywhere.

Nursing only Margaret.

Nursing only Isaac in the mei tai.

Our group gave flowers and a thank you card to the manager of Target to say, "Thanks for managing a store that hasn't had breastfeeding issues!"

A wide shot of some of the group. Couldn't get everyone in.

And some Target breastfeeding humor at Mama Is Comic.

And in the next day, Annie at PhDinParenting will be sharing a video with some pictures from nurse-in locations across the United States. I'll link it for you all.

Fun fact: It was 3 years ago that I was in Palo Alto for the Facebook nurse-in.

Miscellaneous

2011-12-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

I wanted a coherent post for today, but with the holidays, I figure no one's checking blogs, so here's a hodge podge of things I've seen recently on the Interwebs.

First, a video that I'm actually in. I'm in the red skirt, Margaret is wearing an orange shirt, and Isaac is wearing green and McKay his holding him. This was Saturday the 17th at the Bay Street outdoor mall in Emeryville, CA. Because it's not enough that I rabble rouse myself, I have to get my family involved in my illicit activities. The group in the video that put this together is mostly people from the local unschooling group and one of the boys put it together.

And now, in no particular order (ok, fine, the order listed on my G+ page):
Judge weighing whether Mormon bishop should stand trial for failure to report abuse. The answer is YES he should be. The whole thing is disgusting. And telling the young woman that her attire was at fault for the attack? Yeah. No. Also, do not read the comments if you don't want to read rape apologists defend overlooking abuse. Seriously. This has been a hot topic in the Mormon feminist realm lately.

GAPS-friendly Peanut butter cups by a friend of mine who runs Our Nourishing Roots. I know some of you readers are on special diets and thought you'd like to see that recipe.

Margaret insisted on watching this almost 10 times on Friday:

Star Wars Times Square Flash Mob

Battlestar Galactica by Portlandia

A Proposal in Internet Memes

My Christmas post at the Exponent II blog, Feeding the Multitude.

Don't tease nature.

March of the Emporers

Feminist Ryan Gosling

Handmade Ryan Gosling

Angry Birds Theme by the London Philharmonic Orchestra

For those East Bay-ers: Berkeley Enough.

This Wednesday, there is a Nationwide Nurse-in at your local Target store. FAQs here.

That's enough to keep you distracted from the sweets and troublesome in-laws, yes?

Happy holidays!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

2011-12-17T17:38:00.000-07:00

This afternoon while I was cutting out figures for my nursery class's Christmas cards tomorrow, McKay and Margaret were designing and cutting out snowflakes. After a few, McKay made one that he was particularly proud of and laid it out for me to see.

Do you see the profiles of babies getting ready to latch on?

He added sparkles to the nipples and declared, "They are tandeming!"

Best. Snowflake. Ever.

Have I ever said how much McKay rocks? He rocks.

Breastfeeding snowflakes!

Miss Representation

2011-12-16T10:41:00.001-07:00

Last night I saw a screening of the new movie, Miss Representation. It was screened by the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, which is now on my radar for something we might let Margaret do in the future.

Behold, the preview:

It was dark and I was knitting, so I didn't take many notes, but I'll share my reactions.

Reaction 1: Depression. The amount of eating disorders and self-harm among girls and young women is depressing. Violence against women in the media and in real life is depressing. The lack of women in politics in America is depressing. The lack of women in decision-making positions in the entertainment industry is depressing. It's just depressing. As well it should be. It isn't happy stuff.

Reaction 2: Community. Watching it as a screening surrounded by other people who were having the same reactions to the movie I had was validating and community-building. I'm usually off on my lonesome here. Yes, I participate in various feminist online communities, but at the end of the day, I don't normally interact and discuss feminism with other people in person (except for McKay whose ever patience with my frustration at the world is endearing). I'm not alone!

Reaction 3: I must protect my babies from EVERYTHING MEDIA. Except that's not really helpful. At all. Talk about the best way to not prepare them for life! As much as I'd like to hide them away, I can't. They're going to see women objectified. They are going to see bad things. What I can do is teach them how to think critically about it: Why does she wear that? Why do they think that about her? And I can start now while Margaret and Isaac are still very much in their own selves and don't care about what other people think about them.

Reaction 4: This movie is not making me want to go into politics. As someone who's experienced sexual harassment at work and while just out on the street, the section about the 2008 election was triggering for me. Palin and Clinton were put through the ringer: sexually harassed on public television over and over. Why would I want to go into politics and put myself through that? Of course, a few seconds after I thought that, the movie made the point that such crap keeps young women from wanting to participate in politics. Um... Yeah.

Reaction 5: I'm actually doing pretty good in my media intake. We don't watch many movies, we have Netflix, so the movies and TV we do watch are ones that we actively choose and aren't just "something that's on." Plus no commercials. And we have mostly cartoony video games like Mario- not a lot of gore, though some turtle-killing violence. Although, it would be nice to play Maria and Luigia once and a while. As far as audio media- I listen to a lot of knitting podcasts, which are mostly independently made by women. There are a few male knitting podcasts (yay!), but in general, the media I listen to isn't objectifying women. And the male knitting podcasts don't objectify women- they talk about knitting. So yeah. And I'm an active thumbs-downer and feedback-giver when it comes to advertisements on the websites I visit.

After the screening there was a panel that included Jill Culton from Dreamworks, Brenda Chapman who did some directing on Pixar's upcoming Brave, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency, Carey Fay Horowitz from Bay Area Girls Rock, and someone representing the Miss Representation people (I forget his name). It was very interesting. Jill and Brenda talked about the times they've wanted to add a character to a story but would come across, "What if we made that character male?" but have never come across the question, "What if we made that character female?" Very interesting stuff on the entertainment side. Unfortunately, I had to leave early because McKay was texting me that Isaac was not going to sleep and needed breast.

Basically, see this movie. Oprah bought the rights to it and will be showing it on her network again in 2012, so if you have cable, you might be able to find it that way. But going to a screening is great, too. Like I mentioned above, the community aspect of watching it with other people is really fun and encouraging.

Also, in the back of the room some groups had tables set up so you could donate and support local pro-girls efforts. One group was selling onesies that said, "I <3 Math," and "Princess? Call me President!" Very cute. If I can find out what group that was, I'll link so you can see/buy the shirts.

ETA: The shirts was from Handsome in Pink. Also at the back of the room was a table for Girls Moving Forward.

Mazes

2011-12-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Margaret absolutely loves mazes, so for Christmas we decided to get her a book of mazes that she can do with a pencil or crayon. Maze books apparently fall under "educational," so when I was admiring the maze book we picked out, handwriting and math workbooks were staring at me and got into my thoughts.

"Hmm. Maybe she does need a book for handwriting. She can write letters, but probably needs practice for clarity and extra control of the pencil."

Then I looked at the book in my hand: mazes. For clean lines and extra control of the pencil. And it's fun and what she likes. I smiled to myself: I can get the same results without boring her with letters (I tried once and it lasted about 5 seconds). We left with only the maze book. She's only 3 and a half. There's plenty of time before she needs to write legibly, and if she never learns that skill, she can be a doctor!

Unschooling: because repetition is boring.

Bedsharing on Vacation

2011-12-14T14:34:00.001-07:00

We just got back from a trip out of town for my birthday this past Monday. Bedsharing is one of my favorite things about vacations: despite being in a new place, Mommy and Daddy are still there and the environment is close to being "the same." We rarely have issues with getting the kids to sleep when we aren't at home.

We ran into some new sleeping issues, though. It's been a while since we've stayed in a hotel, so I forgot how high hotel beds are! We have a mattress on the floor, so I never worry about babies falling out of bed. Also, at home, our bed is big enough for all 4 of us to sleep in it if need be (Margaret has a bed next to ours that she uses some nights as well). We did not get a room with the big bed, though. We had 2 smaller beds and a pull out couch. The solution of putting Isaac between McKay and I to keep him from falling off the bed was not possible. The hotel supplied us with a pack 'n play, but I can't fit myself in one for nursing, so the whole bedsharing-makes-travel-easier-because-you-are-the-one-constant-in-your-baby's-sleep benefit wasn't going to work.

If I was going to be with the kids, I couldn't have McKay in the bed. Originally, the plan was to get the kids to sleep in one bed and then I would magically get out of the bed without waking the kidlets and join McKay. It turns out that I am not that magical.

But we were able to rig up a solution for the falling out of bed issue: a pillow under the bottom sheet. Hotels give you a lot of pillows, so we took an extra and was able to keep Isaac from falling 3 feet to his doom. Like this:

The bulge on the right side of the picture is the pillow under the bottom sheet.

Note: he is almost 17 months old, so he can have pillows and extra bedding that a newborn can't have (in fact, he insists on it! Margaret was fine without pillows, but Isaac is a bedding connoisseur). If you are travelling with a newborn, they are probably small enough to be between mom and dad without having to kick dad to the extra bed.

Margaret ended up sharing a bed with Isaac and me, though we tried to get her to sleep with McKay. I was a little worried about her falling off because of how crowded it was- and at one point, I had to rearrange her or else she would have!

So yes: if you are out and about and need a quick no-toddler-falling-off-the-bed solution, try sticking a pillow under the bottom sheet. It works!

And McKay got to have a bed to himself, lucky duck. And it wasn't his birthday. Oh well. We are all back safe and sound and without any bruises from falling off the bed.

Unconscious

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when Isaac latches on in the middle of the night, he's not fully awake.

Sometimes when he latches on in the middle of the night, I'm not fully awake.

I love that even while we are both unconscious, he can know that I'm there for him.

You Don't Have to do Anything

2011-12-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've had many parenting mantras in the past and this is my current one: You don't have to do anything.

I'm not advocating permissiveness in this mantra. I'm advocating a breather.

There have been times when I've intervened in an upset for the umpteenth time and I just don't know what to do. And nothing I done so far has solved it. And yes, it's probably because they didn't get enough sleep, but that doesn't help in the now? And every parenting book advocates consistency. My brain starts to think, "And so you've got to do something, anything, so you..."

You don't have to do anything.

I don't. Seriously. In fact, it is probably better to do nothing than to do what I really want to do, like sell the children on ebay.

You don't have to do anything.

If the choice is between doing anything and nothing, choose nothing. Because anything is vague. And often mean and violent and not something you're going to look back on with fondness. Take a breather, and come back with a solution on how to handle the situation in the future. It's ok if for a few times, you don't do anything.

Yes, kids thrive on routine and consistency, but consistency doesn't have to mean that there is a consequence every single time something happens. Frankly, in life there isn't always a consequence. Sometimes people do things, even "wrong" things and there's no one around to punish them. And it's not going to lead them into thinking they can "get away" with things.

Sometimes I don't do my chores. My bed goes unmade, the piano goes unpracticed, the dishes are dirty. No one comes and "makes" me do it. It happens and I try better in the future. I don't think I'm "getting away" with things just because I failed to do something and no one was around to punish me.

I've run stop signs. It's illegal. No one was around: no pedestrians, no other drivers, no police officers. Nothing happened. I didn't mean to and I've actually pulled off to the side of the road when I've done it to catch myself and re-focus. But no one came around to give me a ticket. It's dangerous and I don't think to myself, "I'm going to start running all kinds of stop signs because I can see I can get away with it!" I don't. I try harder NOT to do that again.

Sometimes I've said mean things to people (including my children) and no one comes to wash my mouth with soap or put me in time out.

The point is: sometimes nothing happens. And that's ok. I'm not a serial stop-sign runner. I'm not a serial non-dish-washing person. I try not to be mean.

So as the parent, there are times when you don't have to do anything. Consistency in breathing, patience, and mercy might be even better than consistency in consequences.

Hitting

2011-12-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, Isaac started hitting, or really, patting really hard and in places that aren't very comfortable like my face. Also, Margaret has started more pushing/kicking in order to keep Isaac away from her and her things (see last blog post).

I know this is where some people come in and advocate spanking because it "shows the child that hitting hurts." This doesn't make sense to me. If someone turns around and treats me badly because I treated them badly, I don't think, "Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't have done that." I think, "JERK FACE." I think kids think similarly.

But I do think that it's true: Isaac didn't know what he was doing hurt. He didn't know his own strength.

I took piano for many many years. I made the most progress under a teacher who instructed us to split each new piece into small sections and practice each section 10 times daily. In a row. You couldn't do 5, eat dinner, then finish the other 5 repetitions. She said that the first 5 (or so) times, your fingers were getting used to the notes and order and feel of the song. The second 5 times, muscle memory was developed. And after doing this for a few days (or more, depending on the piece), it would be in your muscles and then you could think about musicality.

But back to hitting. One year old Isaac doesn't know his own strength. His muscles do not know what it feels like to be soft with another person. But like my muscles needed to get used to the new note patterns in a new song, Isaac's muscles need to get used to being a person and soft with the people around him. So when he hits, I will take his hand and demonstrate with it how to be soft by using it to pat or caress my arm or hand. I think taking his hand is important because children are very much inside their bodies and their bodies need direction. Eventually, he'll learn how it feels to be soft and how much force is appropriate for interacting with other people. It'll take repetition, but eventually his muscles will commit safe patting to memory. We've been doing this for a few months and already he does more "patting" than hitting and it hasn't been on my face lately.

Of course there are issues in which this will be difficult. I know some kids have sensory issues and crave high-impact force. It's like their brains can't feel something unless they really feel it with a lot of oompf. Handling the sensory issues with a therapist trained in such issues will be important.

But it's not all Isaac. Like I said above, Margaret's been doing more kicking and pushing. Because she is verbal, we do more verbal cues. "You are the bigger person, Margaret. You can walk away from him." But sometimes the kicking comes from a place of pent-up frustration. I've tried a lot of things like stomping with her. Once I even said, "I think you can scream louder than that," to help her get the energy out. It turns it to a game and the upset passes.

Usually the kicking stems from another issue: Isaac won't leave her or her stuff alone. So addressing the original issue helps.

And as sappy as it sounds, asking, "How big is your mad? What color is your mad?" really helps. It would probably get an eye-roll from a 9 year old, but from a 3 year old, I get, "It's green and pink and chocolate. Chocolate chip! Ice cream mad!" "That sounds really sad." "Yeah." And then she's done and distracted from what she was upset about and able to start over.

In the past, I've taken her hands and have said, "Hands are for helping and loving." Maybe I should start that with Isaac, now that I think about it.

And we do the breathing I mentioned in the previous post.

Lastly, there are times when I don't intervene because the kids to like to wrestle. I try to watch to make sure that when someone is done, their wishes are respected. Multiple times a week, we actively practice saying, "Stop!" and getting a parent for those sorts of situations. I actively enforce the "stops," when they wrestle. Additionally, each time we practice "Stop!" I explicitly remind them that they should even tell mommy and daddy to stop if we are hurting them and then to tell the other parent about the incident.

As far as where we are right this moment, we've actually had a pretty bad week this past week. Many meltdowns and bodies not knowing how to be soft. Kids were sick, Daddy went out of town for a bit, we didn't go out and get our sunshine, sleep well, or get enough exercise. This next week, we'll try to get more sunlight and exercise and see if that helps. I think the winter is already getting to us- and it's not even that cold! I'm just bad at finding the energy to have outings.

I plan on doing another post of links to more ideas and books/websites that help. Stay tuned.

Sharing

2011-11-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is probably the most common disagreement in the house. Someone wants something another person has. Over and over and over.

I don't believe in "making" kids share. I feel like kids ought to be able to play with something and have a little sense of ownership without someone coming in and saying, "You have to give that to so-and-so. It's sharing."

In general, our rule is, "If someone has it, you can't take it. Wait until they are done with their turn and when they don't want it anymore, you can have a turn." Kids will lose interest in something eventually, though it does mean that sometimes someone gets a long "turn."

Sometimes I don't know who has something first and sometimes they both "take turns" in taking the desired object. Ha! When there's a big fuss, I'll ask everyone to breathe and then say that the object needs a break and can return to playing after things cool down. Breathing is big at our house. It's my answer to almost all out-of-control situations. Yelling? Whining? Fighting? Stop, breathe, then tell us what you want. I demonstrate the deep breaths with them. It took a little while for Margaret to "get it" and actually breathe with me, but consistently reminding her to breathe has helped. Now whenever she gets whiny, I ask her to breathe and immediately the whine is gone! Magic! Isaac doesn't get the breathing thing yet, but I trust that with repeated practice, he'll get it.

Isaac used to not care whether or not he had something in his hands. So Margaret thinks everything is hers. But most of our toys and other items in the house are communal. There is no "owner." We share a bed, we share the couch, we all can play with the toy food, blocks, animals, books, etc. But because everything is communal, nothing is hers, and like I said above, I think kids like to have ownership. Unfortunately because up until the past few months, Isaac didn't care about ownership, nothing is his and Margaret thinks everything is hers.

I'm hoping to remedy this at Christmas time. They are each going to get something that is solely theirs. I'm not sure what, but it'll be something. Margaret has a doll that I made her that is hers, I may make Isaac a similar doll.

In a similar vein, I can't really explain it, but I have the gut feeling that if we get rid of a lot of our stuff, there will be less fights over it. I'm currently de-cluttering a lot of the toys for this purpose.

I think "sharing" is going to be an issue for a while. We are going to be breathing a lot over the next few years.

What do you do for "sharing?"

Inquisition Monday: Santa

2011-11-28T07:00:00.001-07:00

Betttina asked on Twitter,

Inq Monday: (no rush!) How do you teach your kids that Jesus is real but Santa isn't? Thank you!

Before I get to the question, I wanted to share what prompted this question. I bought Christmas stamps and tweeted that I got the Madonna and Child stamps of Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabra. Sadly, the Christ-child isn't nursing on the stamp, but he is sticking his hand down Mary's shirt. That's a sure sign of a nursing toddler! Also, I'm pretty sure Isaac has the same hair and chubbiness that the Christ-child has in this depiction. Anyway, yay for nursing toddlers.

So onto the question.

We actually teach about Jesus and Santa in the same way. Jesus was a real, historical person. As was St. Nicholas. There is truth to both stories. And both of them have myths around them that are probably false. Was Christ born anywhere near December? No. Does Santa really come down our non-existant chimney? No. But is it fun to pretend Christ's birthday is in December? Yep! And is it fun to pretend that Santa comes? Yep.

We actually have it pretty easy. My father-in-law is a mall Santa and so we tell the kids, "Grandpa dresses up like Santa. It's fun to put on costumes and pretend!" About stockings I tell them it's a fun game that Mommy and Daddy play to put presents in stockings. I don't think it detracts from the "magic." Kids love pretending and the fact that your imaginary friends aren't real doesn't mean those hours of playing were wasted.

When the kids get older, we'll mention the history of St. Nicholas. I might even do the shoes-out-for-St. Nicholas Day-tradition this year if I feel like being on top of things. I know one mom that does all of the Santa stuff on St. Nicholas Day so Christmas is just for gifts from friends and family. This separates the Santa tradition from Christmas. I don't think I'll do that, but it's an option if you're interested.

As far as teaching about Jesus and other biblical figures, I'll definitely say that I don't believe the Bible or even the Book of Mormon to be historically accurate. Take the Gospels: there is good evidence that some of the Gospels were written using other Gospels as a base and that there was artistic license taken by the authors. Does that diminish the truth of being kind and loving? I don't think so. I believe that the scriptures can be inspiring and uplifting without needing to be strictly accurate. So when we talk about scriptures stories in which historical accuracy is in question, I am careful in my words. I'll say, "In one story, Jesus...." or "In the book of..." I also do this when I teach nursery at church or when giving talks. Maybe the semantics aren't very important, but I like to be as truthful as I can.

I know some of my readers also teach the Santa tradition is a fun game as opposed to the idea that Santa really comes. What parts of the traditions do you keep or toss? Also, when I taught computers at an elementary school, during the week before the winter break, I let the younger kids play on this site about St. Nicholas. If you are interested in celebrating St. Nicholas Day, that might be a fun place to get ideas!

The Blue Potty Seat Incident

2011-11-25T08:04:00.005-07:00

This is for Mallory who wanted more stories of parenting. This one is kind of cheating because we don't run into issues like this very often. Most of my parenting intervention stems from someone not wanting the other person having the thing they want. That will be its own post. Today is the Blue Potty Seat Incident.

I was on the computer doing something. McKay was busy doing something also. Margaret was on the potty. Alone. With a pen. And this was the big potty, not the kiddie one, so she was sitting on one of those little potty cushions that you put on the toilet seat so that small kids don't fall in.

McKay found her with pen marks all over her legs and pen holes poked into the cushion of the potty seat. We have two such potty seats, and of course she was on the her favorite one: the blue one. The other one has ducks on it. Ducks are just not as cool as the color blue.

Well, when McKay found her, he came to me wondering what we should do about the potty seat. My brain did this:

Pen on her legs? Not a big deal. It just washes off. It's her body anyway.

But the potty seat. Hmm... She didn't really do anything "wrong." It's not like we had a rule of no-pens-on-the-potty that we could point to and say, "Hey! You broke this rule, so X needs to happen." She's being 3. And it's not a sin to be three. I probably would have poked holes myself! And the fact that she had a pen? Our fault for not catching that.

But it's not really useable. Well, it is. But I like to clean the toilet and all the potty seats weekly and having holes in the foam part is going to be an issue. I don't think I could get it clean like I like it anymore.

So what we decided was to tell her that the potty seat was broken and couldn't be cleaned anymore and that she needed to throw it away. McKay led her out to the garbage can for that and with lots of crying, she threw it away. It was her favorite. It really was.

I spent some time holding her while she sobbed about the loss of the potty seat. Part of me wanted to say, "Get over it! It's just a potty seat! You have another!" But I didn't. She wanted to be heard, so I would interject things like, "That was your favorite blue seat; you liked it a lot," in order to show her that I understood why she was upset. When she was done telling me how bad it was, she did move on and has since happily used the ducky seat.

My only second-thoughts about the potty seat are related to whether or not it really need to get thrown out in the bin for the landfill or if it would have been better to figure out how to repair it and be a little more eco-friendly. I could have used an old plastic flannel-backed tablecloth and reupholstered it. But it was just a little potty seat, probably not worth the reupholstering.

Relationships are Hard

2011-11-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

This was spurred on by the comment discussion from Saturday's post. It made me think about communication in general and what we say and what we don't and why. For some, commenting on anything parenting-related is a major faux pas and immediately offensive. For others, not so much- they're glad for suggestions or input. And I think everyone falls into those categories at different times.

In general, I like people being upfront with me. But I know there are cultures and people who don't like that. I see it when we have people over for dinner: there are some people who have dinner and then chat for hours because it would be rude to leave too quickly. Then there are people who have dinner, and then feel like they are being rude by taking up our time and so they leave. I'm one of those people who ends up turning a 30 minute visit into a 3 hour day trip and I know that this irks some people and I actually really appreciate it when someone tells me I've overstayed. I really don't want to put them out, but I also really like talking and connecting with people. I also don't want someone to feel put out but then feel like it's rude to ask me to leave. In the end, they might not tell me and spend time later begrudging me and my over-talking. I don't want to be the source of negativity in someone's life. I really don't.

But navigating those waters is hard. To be honest, there are times when I'd rather not know that someone thinks I'm out of line. Want to tell me I'm causing psychological problems by nursing my children beyond what's culturally the norm? Yeah, I don't want to hear that. But do I appreciate it when someone comes to me and directly talks about something that I've done that is bothering them? Yes. I do. I'd rather that than find out someone had stewed on it or even talked about it with other people. Please just tell me.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Relationships are hard.

You know how when you go back to your parents' house you start falling back into the same parent/child relationship you grew up with even though you're an adult? That's how all relationships work. I could spend the next 7 years in meditation and reach Nirvana or be translated or whatever, but then when I run into a person that I haven't seen in 10 years? The relationship seems to go back 10 years. Because it does. I hadn't seen that person in a decade and so the relationship hasn't gone anywhere. Relationships take work and it hadn't been worked on in 10 years. They take being vulnerable and saying something completely offensive and hoping that the other person will be willing to work it out with you later. And sometimes it takes accepting that the other person doesn't want to work it out and you just have to let that relationship go. And that sucks sometimes. Other times it's really freeing.

Sometimes life feels like I'm running around and bumping into other people at random. And then I'm constantly cleaning up all the spills from the bumps.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: thanks for the comments. I learn a lot from them. Because I'm human, I'm probably going to be offensive in the future, but I hope that in the end, I get a hang of this communication and relationship thing. The Internet has taught me a lot. Now to go work on some relationships!

Inquisition Monday

2011-11-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Betttina on Twitter had a couple of questions for Inquisition Monday. I'll save the other one for next Monday.

Inq Monday: how do you take in enough calories to nourish two children through pregnancy and tandem nursing? #breastfeeding

I remember when I was pregnant with Margaret, I read that during pregnancy you need an extra 300 calories a day. I thought to myself, "That's just an extra candy bar! I can do that!" I was being a bit facetious, but for me, getting extra calories hasn't been the problem. The problem has been getting nutrient-dense calories.

When I was pregnant with Isaac, I found the nutrition section in Adventures in Tandem Nursing tob the most helpful section of the book for me. Most of the book felt wishy-washy, "Well, some babies wean during pregnancy and some don't. And some moms experience discomfort while nursing during pregnancy and some don't." And there's good reason: you really can't predict those sorts of things. But the nutrition information was more concrete and more satisfying to read. Unfortunately, my copy of the book is currently lent out, so I don't have it in front of me. But I do recall reading that while your breastmilk is generally the same stuff no matter what your diet, the aspect of breastmilk that changes the most is the type of fats in it. I'm not very good about eating fish and other omega-3s in my diet, so I took (and still take) a cod liver oil supplement, taking care of vitamin D and the omega-3s at the same time. Almost everyone is vitamin D deficient, so I figure it doesn't hurt to team those up.

Right now, I also take extra vitamin C while I patiently wait for our CSA box to start overflowing with oranges again. I try to focus our meals around our veggie box because I feel like eating in season is good for us. Lately, we've had lots of winter squash! I also find that using the box means that we get more creative with our meals, which is fun as well.

In addition to Adventures in Tandem Nursing, I found the Kellymom.com website to be helpful and they have a section devoted to tandem and pregnancy issues as well as nutrition. The Kelly behind Kellymom is an IBCLC and tries to include citations for the information, so you can go and double-check everything suggested, which I like.

I hope that helps!

Also, I did the math and next week, Margaret turns 44 months old and Isaac is now 16 months old. That's a total of 60 months of nursing. 5 years. And I was seeing colostrum 4 months before Margaret was born, so I've been lactating for even longer. Unbelievable.

When to Speak Up

2011-11-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

A couple of days before Reese Dixon's post, JoePa and the evil of apathy, I was at our church book group listening to the discussion of Richard Wright's Black Boy and the shock about the violence Wright witnessed, was a victim of, and participated in himself as a child. But then, a woman spoke up and said that it's not like in our times children aren't hurt and then went on to talk about times when she saw children kicked down an aisle or even smacked on the head in church in our ward. I was completely aghast and kept thinking, "Why didn't anyone say, 'Hey! It's not ok to do that!'" But I do know. Sadly, I do.

I've been thinking about the times I've witnessed violence and did nothing. I believe that I would absolutely get the cops involved and stop the rape of a child if I saw it. But I'm no angel, and I've looked the other way at times.

A lot of things constitute as violence. I absolutely love the book, Non-violent Communication because it has shown me how even a conversation can be toxic and violent. I need to memorize that book, I really do. And it's given me the courage, especially in online conversations in various fora, to say, "Hey, it wasn't right for you to say that." I'm not very good at it in person. And it's hard. Because violence is so varied. Personally, I think that some ways "time out" is instituted is violence. Spanking is violence. Yelling can be violence. Calling someone names is violence. Routine infant circumcision is violence. Road rage is violence. Bullying is violence.

But do I speak up? Not always. Should I? I don't know. Or I'm afraid. Mostly that last one.

I once was in a restaurant eating dinner with people and a mom in our party told her son to stand in the corner with his nose to the wall. In public. I felt this was violence: the public shame and embarrassment was cruel. I didn't say anything.

I once was at a house where a little boy about the age of 3 or 4 needed to change his clothes. As he was, his parents and another couple catcalled at him, "Take it off! Ow Ow!" because he was doing it in front of a little 3 year old girl (not his choice, just the circumstance). I didn't say anything.

I was at a playdate when a little boy had a hard time being soft with other people and so his mother spanked him. I didn't say anything.

I once let my parents yell at a sibling for something I had done. I didn't say anything.

When I walk around town, I sometimes hear people yelling at each other in the streets. I don't say anything.

More than once, when I was in school, including in college, I heard people bullying another person. I didn't always say anything. I only remember speaking up 3 times, each time was very difficult for me and I'm proud of that, but it's such a miniscule number to the many other times I let it go.

Most regrettably (and please, don't send me emails about how bad I am for this, the shame of my conscience eats me up every time I think about this), I once woke up while camping in Provo Canyon hearing a woman scream over and over. And I did nothing. It was faint and far away. And dark. And I was scared myself. But those excuses feel so pitiful to me. I think that's the one thing I truly regret in my life and I hope that if I ever hear something like that again, that I not go back to sleep.

So yeah. I really want to delete that paragraph, but that doesn't delete it from my life.

I want to say that from here on out, I will always speak up against violence that I witness. But I know I won't. I have noble friends who I'm sure would have spoken up against a mother spanking her child. My policy is that I will never do a play date at that woman's house and if spanking ever happens in my house, I tell the person that they have to do it outside off the property because my house is safe for everyone, even young people. Luckily I've never had to tell a parent that. But what do you do when you're not in your own home? And the person is someone you are going to see for the next many years over and over and you worry that saying something will burn bridges? What do you do if you hear something and a weapon might be involved? What if it's violent words and no one's physically being hurt?

I don't know. I could have been the spanking parent myself because, after all, that was what I knew. If I hadn't chosen an unassisted birth, I would never have heard about attachment parenting and started studying it. Well, I might have, but not as early. If I hadn't gone to my first LLL meeting, I might not have found the local-to-Provo AP playgroup to watch other moms parent. I learned so much from them and am very grateful for their examples. So when the spanking person could have been me... I don't know. Spanking feels mild when compared to sexual assault. But it's still violence. We need someone to show us how to be nice to each other, we really do. But stepping in and calling out an already violent situation is uncomfortable, painful.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I know I'm not perfect (see above). I don't know where the line is for stepping up and saying something. Or is there no line and I should call out all violence when I see it? How do you handle those situations?

Let me sum up

2011-11-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

I had a really busy end-of-the-week last week. Last Monday, we found 2 boxes that we hadn't unpacked since our move. We found homemade knitted toys that I thought we lost forever! I also found my knitting notebook that had my notes from a pattern I designed that I promised I would write up. But the lack of notebook meant I couldn't duplicate my design and write it up. So when I found it Monday, I vowed to write it up as quickly as possible. After all day Thursday and Friday re-knitting the pattern and writing it up, it's done and you can now buy my Deena Mitts pattern on Ravelry for $3.

Meanwhile, in the snotty nose realm, both the kids fell sick with a cold. Margaret had it first and was congested. Co-sleeping gets a little old when your toddler is snoring. She has her own bed, but is still in our room. Breastfeeding was hard, too. Because she couldn't breathe through her nose, her latch changed to accomodate her body's need to breathe with her mouth. And oh my, that latch drove me crazy. It was a catch-22: I didn't want to nurse her because she was sick, but she needed to nurse to get the antibodies to get over her sickness. She's mostly down to nursing to bed and one at 6 am, so I tried to be patient and let her nurse as long as I could stand it. But yeah.

Isaac got it about 4 days after Margaret did. His nose was so stuffy that his body didn't know how to handle it dripping down his throat, so her threw up once each day: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It was a party. He and Margaret stayed home from church with McKay and when I came home, Isaac was warm with a fever. I woke up Monday to a baby on fire. Monday afternoon around 4:30, his temperature was 103.18. We slept with out fireball baby who woke up at 102.79. So it's gone down. Barely. Luckily he has kept all his breastmilk down the past few days. He's staying hydrated and is currently sleep nursing in my lap as I type this. I am grateful for breastmilk.

So in all, we've been watching movies while trying to sit where the sun can reach us and give us some vitamin D. I'm personally feeling fine (knock on wood). I'm taking supplements, but for some reason, 3 year olds don't like cod liver oil.

Also: McKay's going to defend his thesis this month!

And some linkage I woke up to this morning:
A Letter to my Children, on Occupy Wallstreet by Arwyn at Raising My Boychick
Fun with Analogies: Cosleeping and Knives, Car Travel and Guns by Annie at PhD in Parenting
Of Babies and Habits by Amber Strocel at Strocel.com

And Betttina, I'll get to your Inquisition Monday question later. I hope that's ok. I have laundry to do.

EC and Gut Issues

2011-11-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

It might not seem like elimination communication and gut issues in a baby might be connected, and I don't think they normally are, but Isaac's life has been an interesting mix of the two.

Early on, we had thrush. It was bad and took weeks (months?) to get over. Because of that, I kind of stopped ECing. One thing at a time, I thought, and breastfeeding comfortably was a higher priority for me. During the early rough thrush times, he was naked butt a lot because he had yeast in his diaper area, but as that cleared up, I didn't work on it so much.

Then 6 months came around. Food gave him bloody stools. I slowed down the pace on the foods and still, at random times, I needed to take him off solids. I wasn't always very strict about it because he LOVES food and I can't seem to keep it from him.

Now he's eating a lot of food. I would say he's still getting 90+% of his daily volume of food from me, but it does seem like he's eating a lot more, at least compared to 9 month old Isaac. For the past few weeks we've been fighting diaper rash and bloody scabs on his scrotum and bottom because his gut just can't handle solids. And my mind keeps going back to the thrush.

A couple of weeks ago at a playgroup, some moms were talking about food sensitivities and I mentioned Isaac's issues and wondered out loud if maybe it's related to the thrush he had early on. His gut didn't get time to establish itself in the beginning and now I'm fighting to keep it happy. Then yesterday, Denise Plunger posted about Gut Integrity- or the importance of breastmilk being the only substance that goes into a baby in order to protect the intestinal walls. Synchronicity, much? Maybe. I really think Isaac's body needs time to re-heal itself. Once again, I'm going to go back to just breastmilk for him for a few days or a week and then reintroduce foods slowly. It's going to be hard because he LOVES food.

And back to elimination communication. Because of the scabs and sores and bleeding on his bum, Isaac has been going around naked butt more often. Yesterday he sat down on the potty by himself and peed. Another time he started pooping on the floor (yay for wood being easier to clean than carpet!) and I got him to the potty where he finished. So while thrush was one of the reasons we didn't spend a lot of time ECing, it is inadvertantly one of the reasons we are catching eliminations again. Silver lining.

Inquisition Monday: Faith

2011-11-07T11:29:00.002-07:00

I don't normally blog about my beliefs because I don't think the majority of my readers care that much. And to be honest, the way someone connects to God/dess/the Divine/the Universe/the Force/the Flying Spaghetti Monster/etc isn't usually relevant for most conversations and daily interactions like grocery shopping or blogging. That's not to say that I'm indifferent to how belief and religion are an important part of someone's identity and life story. It's just I don't write about what I actually believe very often because I'm not interested in turning my blog into Heather-preaches-it-about-God. It's already enough of Heather-preaches-it-about-her-life! I incorporate religion when it's important to understand a story or perspective of mine. So with that in mind, I guess I'll talk vaguely about what do and do not believe.

On last week's post on obedience, I got this question from Anna, "On a side note, do you disagree with anything the LDS church tells you and "disobey" their rules? There are many teachings/rules that seem to be a bit taboo to non-LDS members; do you follow all of these regardless because of your trust in the church, or do you ever question and do what you feel is right, even if you may alienate yourself from the rest of the church? You seem to be a very strong-minded spicy girl, so was curious your take on this."

Yes, I disagree with the LDS church at times. Sometimes it's often and sometimes it's not. My beliefs and personal faith has changed dramatically in the past 6 years of this blog, but similarly, my beliefs and personal faith changed dramatically in the previous 6 years and I anticipate that it'll continue to change because that's how the human condition works. I can definitely say that in some ways, my faith was stronger 5 years ago, but I can also say that in other ways, it's stronger now.

In my Daughters of Mormonism interview, I spoke about faith in the very Mormon terms of being a seed and as a garden. My belief garden is full of lots of plants, but sometimes I give a certain plant or two more attention than the rest. I think that's really normal. I can recall times when I felt very strongly about things like Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, prayer, fasting, tithing, etc. But I don't feel strongly about everything Mormon all the time. And sometimes I decide that I don't want to feel strongly about certain things. I take what I want to focus on and leave the rest. That probably makes me sound like a cafeteria Mormon, but I would argue that every Mormon is a cafeteria Mormon. You simply can't be 100% in because all the "rules" are going to get in the way of each other and even contradict each other at times. Take obedience: sure, you can follow everything a leader says, but Mormons are also strong believers in personal revelation. What if it contradicts what a leader says? Then what?

I think that is ultimately the big Mormon question. For a religion starting with a boy who said he saw an angel/Christ/God (depending on which version you read), we've really gotten away from finding our own personal connections with the divine. I know in the past, I've put things between me and God: my parents, my leaders, my husband, my church, my friends, etc., but I'm working on tearing those walls down. But it gets complicated.

For example the "rules" are complicated. There's doctrine, there's practice and policy, there's personal opinions, etc. And it's hard to figure out what is what. There are things that were once doctrine that are now looked at "oh, they did something and it was weird, but it wasn't really doctrine." The most obvious of that is polygamy. In the late 19th century, it was certainly taught that polygamy was essential to salvation. Fast forward more than 100 years, and the President of the Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, denied that it is doctrine in an interview with Larry King. 100% confusing. But 100% exciting. Because the LDS Church claims to be a "living" church, that means things can change. And they do and will continue to do, even if it's at a snail's pace or sometimes in directions I don't like.

I give myself permission to believe, to not believe, and to outright reject some of the things taught over the pulpit and elsewhere. I give myself permission to do or not do all the Mormon things. And I'm ok with that.

Ideally, I would always, always follow what I personally feel is right. And I think I'm doing much better at that these days, but there are times when I sigh and let things go and accept some things in the meantime. No person is an island. I won't lie- I do follow some of the "rules" for the sake of relationships. But there are also other rules that I throw out and figure that if people take issue, then well, I guess they take issue. I've butted heads with family, leaders, other ward members, friends, and anonymous Internet people over various Mormon issues. I'm not always ok with it, as it's anxiety-inducing, but there's a point where you just can't please everyone and you have to take a deep breath and worry about yourself. And that was like 4 years ago.

On the other hand, I am privileged to live in a special corner of the LDS church. People in my ward (congregation) are not afraid to disagree. I've sat in Sunday School and listened to people talk about their concern of how women in the church aren't referred to "President," despite the title of their calling. I remember a Relief Society lesson in which the parable of the talents was described and when the teacher turned to the class for comments, the first one was, "I think this is a terrible parable. I don't like it at all. The master sounds like a jerk." I go to church with women who have openly aligned themselves with the cause of feminism and they are leaders in the stake and ward. I personally know people who went to the stake president during Prop 8 and said, "I can't contribute to this," and was told that they was totally ok and there would be no pressure either way. Mitch Mayne, the man who was called to be in a bishopric in San Francisco because he is gay and who, while not currently in a relationship, has been upfront in saying that he's not opposed to the possibility of finding a partner in the future, came from the ward I go to. I was privileged to hear his "farewell" talk in person. What this means is that the people who declared him "worthy" to be able to take a prestigious position like that are the same people who have the power to "talk to me" or "ask me to pray" about things or keep me from having a calling or take the sacrament (communion) or from going to the temple or even kick me out, but they don't. Similarly, Carol Lynn Pearson, a very well-known Mormon poet, writer, feminist, and LGBT ally also lives in my stake. This past spring, she spoke about our stake president's talk in stake conference last fall about making the Mormon tent bigger and being more inclusive- if you are Mormon, listen to her talk, it's amazing. What this means for me is that I have a lot of freedom. I can start a Heavenly Mother-focused blog or speak about Heavenly Mother over the pulpit without worry. In church, I can wear pants, be barefoot, nurse openly from the top of my blouse, and all sorts of things that seem counter to the Mormon culture and the ward still welcomes me every Sunday and has never said anything, well, except some of the older ladies worry about the temperature of my feet in the winter. I am really blessed to live here. And admittedly, I don't know if I would still be as active and gung-ho somewhere else.

And before I make my ward sound like the most universalist Mormon place in the world, I'll admit there are Sundays when I close my eyes and mentally sing "LALALALALA" during a talk. And I get mad and angry with the patriarchal system. It's not perfect. But I'm grateful that there is room to stretch and try new things out here.

I'm not always the best Christian or Mormon or feminist or tree-hugging hippie or Oaklander or Californian (haven't even gotten my new diver's license!) or American or human being. I don't even know what I believe moment to moment sometimes: my view of God has shifted probably 7 times in the process of writing and pausing and thinking about this post. And it'll probably change up 30 times tomorrow. Or something like that. Can't be too boring!

I'm not sure if I answered the question well. I appreciate and welcome comments, but Internet rules apply (be nice!), along with "Bloggernacle" rules: you cannot attack someone's testimony or connection with the divine in the comments. I understand the touchy and sometimes painful and disgusting parts of Mormon history and doctrine, please don't come in and try to pronounce Mormons as bad and evil. No anti-Mormon stuff. But similarly, I'm not going to allow calls to repentance. No one gets to judge another person's journey. Well, you can, just not here. Keep it in your brain.

Obey

2011-11-03T09:50:00.001-06:00

I don't believe in obedience. At all. While it's nice when my children do what I ask, when they don't, I'm secretly rooting for them, "Keep up that fighting spirit. Don't give in when you think something is unfair!" And I often join their side.

But I know some of you, my readers, feel that obedience in children is a good thing, and I'll admit that it is nice when my children take my suggestions. These are the questions I ask myself:

When do I obey? When do I follow the instructions or advice of another person?

I think there are times that we obey other people out of fear. Thousands (tens of thousands?) of people daily take off their shoes when going through airport security out of fear that if they don't, they'll be called aside for who knows how long, miss their flight and be out $500. Fear and threats work. Over and over even. And I can try that as a parent, but just as I don't know many people who think of the TSA with endearment, I don't think a parent/child relationship based on fear is going to be very amiable.

So think of the last time someone suggested something to you and you did it: that new restaurant you tried out, that suggestion at work your boss gave you, the medical advice from your doctor, the decision to put in a firewall or build a new roof on your house. Why did you do those things?

Because you trust the person who gave you the advice. You trusted them to have special knowledge or experience that would help you make a decision.

You want your children to obey you? Then you need to be trustworthy. Can they trust you to keep their confidence? Can they trust you to keep your cool when something doesn't go as planned? Can they trust you to be excited for them when something does go well?

Think of the people you don't trust: why is that? I know I have a hard time trusting people who use passive aggression, bribery, and other manipulation. If I want my children and other people to take my advice, then I can't be the person who manipulates. I need to be honest, I need to be forthright, and sometimes, I need to be vulnerable. I need to apologize when I'm wrong.

People revolt and protest when they no longer have trust in a person, organization, or value. That's why there are people on Wall Street right now. It's why that student in your science class ditches the lab period. It's why people walk away from political parties, religions, academic institutions, society in general.

Earning the trust of other people will do more for obedience than insisting on it. It's not going to get obedience 100% of the time, but I think it'll do lots of good.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T18:58:00.000-06:00

Human milk for human babies.
Nectar for butterflies and bumblebees.

Since it might be hard to see: Margaret was a butterfly, Isaac was a bumblebee, and I sewed flowers on my shirt and cut a slit in it to nurse. :)

From the Archives: Out to Eat

2011-10-27T12:40:00.002-06:00

This post was published in September 2008. It was actually one of my very first posts about lactivism. I think about it a lot and thought I'd re-publish. In this edition, I took out the footnotes of the original post, but the message is the same. I didn't even fix the grammar and verb tense issues, though maybe I should. It's grating on me.

One sentiment I've noticed with some people's issues with breastfeeding in public is, "I hear breastfeeding is this private, bonding time. If it's so intimate, don't do it in public."

You know what? You're right. Breastfeeding can be a very wonderful bonding time. But it's not always and it doesn't have to be every single time.

Imagine you're having dinner with someone you love: a friend, a sibling, a spouse, whoever. That can be a very sweet, bonding time. You can go out to a fancy place and have a candlelit date, or stay in and spend some time talking and catching up. A beautiful bonding time.

But you can't have dinners like that every day. It'll wear you out if you try to make sure you're always intimate every single time- it takes energy and thought and planning. Sometimes, you're tired and just need to throw a pizza in the oven or you have a lot of errands and you need to grab some fast food.

Breastfeeding is the same. You can bond, but sometimes, you need to eat on the go. And expecting that every time you breastfeed it's going to be this magical connection...that's setting yourself up for disappointment, or at least frustration- because your baby's going to want different things out of breastfeeding, too. Sometimes they want comfort and bonding, but sometimes they're just thirsty or tired or are more interested in something else, but are still hungry. And sometimes I think they just want to show off how flexible and agile they are. "Look Mom! I'm eating AND standing on my head!" "Look at me! No hands!"

So conclusion, although breastfeeding can promote bonding between a mommy and baby, it also can simply promote food in a baby's tummy. And it can be that simple and doesn't require intimacy.

Breast Cancer and Breastfeeding

2011-10-24T18:27:00.000-06:00

Last night I gave a talk at an Oakland church that was putting on a breast cancer awareness and community education night. I was asked to speak about how breastfeeding reduces breast cancer as well as the options for a mom who is going through diagnosis of cancer and treatment. My audience was primarily black women. It was really fun. I especially loved that after I made a point, the pastor and audience would say, "Amen!" We need more of that. And if McKay hadn't been texting me, "Isaac cries every time he sees a picture of you on the computer," I would have stayed for all the speakers. I also think, that for the audience, it would have been better to include more stories. But hindsight is 20/20. Here is part of it:

It might not be immediately clear why breastfeeding would be brought up in discussions about breast cancer. However, the American Institute for Cancer Research has included breastfeeding in their Ten Recommendations for Cancer Prevention List. We know that breastfeeding sets a child up for a healthy life and that breastfed children are less likely to contract childhood diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer including childhood leukemia and it also reduces the child's chances of getting breast cancer. Breastfeeding is not just for the child, though. Breastfeeding reduces a woman's chances of getting breast cancer.

In the Nurses' Health study between 1997 and 2005, over 60,000 women were studied. They reported that women who had a mother, sister or other close relative with breast cancer had a 59 percent lower risk of developing the disease if they had ever breastfed. Women experience a greater decrease in their chances of breast cancer if they nursing lasts 1 and a half to 2 years or more. In fact, nursing one child for one year will do more for decreasing your chances of breast cancer than nursing 2 children for 6 months each.

Does it make a difference as to what kind of breast cancer? There are two types of breast cancer: there is a kind that depends on estrogen or progesterone for growth and that one is reduced through breastfeeding because the breastfeeding hormone of prolactin keeps progesterone and estrogen levels down like birth control does. There is also a kind that is more aggressive and is not dependent on hormones and it disproportionally affects African American women. Amazingly, in a study of 47,000 African American women that was done between 1996 and 2009, published this past August in the journal Cancer Epidemology, it was found that while an African American woman increases her chances of that cancer when she has more than one child, breastfeeding 2 or more children causes that risk to decline considerably. It is believed that breastfeeding affect the immune response in such a way that this aggressive form of breast cancer is less likely to take hold.

In all, breastfeeding your baby will reduce both yours and your baby's risk of breast cancer.

Now, we know that early diagnosis greatly increases your chances of beating breast cancer. Tests such as X-rays, mammograms, MRIs, and CT scans are safe for breastfeeding. The radiation from those tests does not collect in the milk. There is no need to stop breastfeeding or to pump and dump for these procedures, though you'll probably be more comfortable if you have recently nurse and your breasts are more empty. A well-experienced radiologist should be able to tell the difference between cancer and normal functioning milk ducts, so if you are told to wean before a mammogram, then you might need to find a new radiologist. The agents used in imaging procedures are not absorbed in the breast milk, so they are breastfeeding safe.

However, there are some diagnostic procedures that use radioactive isotopes and particulate radiation. Those aren't breastfeeding safe, so you can pump and dump until the milk is clear of the radiation. That can be tested in the hospital and can take from hours up to a month to clear, depending on the agent used. Working closely with someone who knows a lot about these drugs and lactation will be priceless. If you know that such a procedure is coming up, you can store up milk to feed your baby while you wait out the radiation.

Procedures like biopsy can affect the nerves related to breastmilk production and release. Before a biopsy, it would be wise to tell the surgeon that you are breastfeeding and ask that they keep as much of the tissue intact as they can. If you imagine the breast is a bicycle wheel, cuts that are in the direction of the spokes are more likely to keep nerves and ducts intact as opposed to cuts that go through those nerves and ducts. Depending on the situation, it may not be possible to do that.

If cancer is found, or if you've recently had it removed and you're lactating, you might have some questions. First, your baby can't get cancer from nursing on an infected breast. It is possible for a breast's ability to make milk or the baby could refuse the breast because of the changes in it. Breastfeeding might also be painful. But it also might not be. You are the one going through all of this, so follow what feels right: if you feel like weaning is necessary, there are ways to wean that will minimize the impact on your child and your breasts. If breastfeeding isn't bothering you, then you can keep on nursing for as long as you want.

Unfortunately, breastfeeding during chemotheraphy is not safe. The chemo drugs are very literally poisons and will transfer to your milk. You can pump and dump through treatments, but you can also choose to wean as chemotherapy is extremely draining. Know that you are doing a great job and making hard choices about keeping you and your baby well and healthy. You know your situation better than anyone else and you'll make the best choice for you.

So that's a lot of technical information. The take-away from this is: breastfeeding prevents breast cancer in both your baby and you. Most procedures used for diagnosing cancer like mammograms, MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds are 100% compatible with breastfeeding and you don't have to wean. If you do have cancer, chemotherapy is toxic and so it's not safe to breastfeed your baby, but you can pump and dump to keep up a supply and breastfeed when the treatment is done, if you want to. Having a good breastfeeding support person is vital. This can take the form of a good doctor or midwife, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, or an LLL leader.

Information without reference links is taken from the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, 8th edition.

Friday Fill-ins

2011-10-22T09:37:00.000-06:00

1. Old me would let ideas eventually fade away; new me would go out there and implement the ideas.

2. I'm not happy with the way things are, so I'm taking responsibility.

3. So...in a way I'm turning over a new leaf.

4. And new beginnings are fun, right?

5. The big difference is that I'm researching the ins and outs of owning a business and looking at the logistics of all that.

6. Because I want to do what makes me happy.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Halloween birthday party for one of Margaret's friends, tomorrow my plans include _playing soccer with the kids (we've promised Margaret) and going minimalist on our boxes and boxes of stuff and Sunday, I want to speak at this event about how breastfeeding prevents breast cancer and what the options are for a survivor or fighter when it comes to breastfeeding!

I've started a couple of posts this week, but I end up trashing them because I'm just not into it.

A couple of evenings in a row this week, McKay has had to remind me to be nicer to the kids. It makes me wonder if I'm really the best person to be home with them. He's the one with infinite patience. If there were an interview for the stay at home position, he'd beat me out in qualifications for sure.

And then that leads me to wonder if I should pursue a career. There's my plan B career, which is math-related and lucrative. That sort of soul-sucking thing. I really don't want to. It's plan B for a reason. NOT my plan A, but my anxiety part of me thinks I should take some of the exams and get that under my belt just in case.

And then there's the thing I really really love, but I'm intimidated by the industry: knitting and designing. But I think I'm going to step more into that soon. Of course, everything's working against me. I can't find my knitting notebook! I have a pattern written down in there that I need to write up and turn into a pdf. CANNOT FIND IT.

So I think this weekend, I'm going to go through everything and declutter the house. Less stuff = more likely to find my notebook and less mess for the kids to make.

Also, this week, we bought a play kitchen from Craigslist. The kids love it and the house is full of play food right now. We need to figure out how to control that mess as well. Also, I have boxes of baby clothes and maternity clothes. Since a new baby is not in our plans for the foreseeable future, I'm tempted to get rid of all of that. What do you think? I have already limited the baby clothes collection to 7 outfits per size, but even those take up space.

I finished the kids' costumes. Margaret's a butterfly and Isaac is a bumble bee. And I'm wearing a green shirt with fake flowers sewn on it. I have strategically cut away part of the shirt it so I can nurse my butterfly and bee: they can get "nectar" from the flowers! Pictures will be forthcoming. Yay breastfeeding-friendly costumes!

Also, I love the Occupy Movement. It's definitely wrong that people are without money, healthcare, homes, and jobs when corporations aren't paying any taxes. There have been tensions in Occupy Oakland and Occupy SF, and so I can't actually go down and occupy. Risking arrest while I have small children isn't judicious. But I can knit! There is a Ravelry group dedicated to knitting hats and other warm items for Occupiers as the weather gets colder.

So that's what has been on my mind. Halloween! Knitting! You can say I've been keeping myself occupied. Haha!

Linkage

2011-10-17T17:56:00.001-06:00

I am drowning in all that I have to do: knit Christmas stockings, make Halloween costumes, knit Christmas presents, and other day to day things like filing, emailing, doing all the things.

So you get linkage today!

I have friends!
A friend of mine is starting a site called Our Nourishing Roots. It's about nutrition. Give her some love!
Another friend of mine writes sci fi.

Circumcision
Why my Son is Not Circumcised at the Whole Network
Bad Science Doesn't Justify Male Circumcision at Sexis

What I missed seeing/sharing
International Babywearing Week was last week.
Somehow I lost the RSS feed to Nursing Freedom and I'm going back and reading old posts and wanted to share the link to Nursing Freedom with all of you again.
I'm trying to get back into Tweeting again. Link on the left hand side.
If you are LDS and a birth professional, there's a directory you can add yourself to.

Confessions
I'm a nerd and I want this pumpkin and dress.
I'm not blogging as much because I want to knit more.
We cut Margaret's hair for the first time ever. She wants it shorter, but McKay doesn't want it very short and I don't know about my hair-cutting skills with a wiggly 3 year old. Isaac still has his rat tail, no worries.
I initially made this post just to share the circumcision links, but fleshed it out because I'm a very wimpy intactivist. That's not to say I don't want to share the other stuff! Go see my friends' stuff! And check out the rest! But also, keep your boys as intact as you keep your girls. They're important, too.

ETA: Just saw a link about how breastfeeding doesn't mean your baby isn't getting good sleep.

Community Breastfeeding Support

2011-10-12T15:06:00.000-06:00

Today, I just wanted to give a shout out to those in our community who are supportive of breastfeeding. This past summer, two of the local hospitals cut services to women, including free breastpumps for mothers of newborns in the NICU. Upset about this, a local RN group hosted a bake sale to raise money. Last night, I was witness to them using some of the subsequent money to support local community breastfeeding support. It warms my heart to see people caring about the nursing relationship like this.

I love where we live: I've never once had anyone mention anything about me breastfeeding anywhere since moving to California. Our local WIC is huge on breastfeeding and organized the World Breastfeeding Week Walk we went to this year. I know there is an Oakland hospital that is actively working on receiving Baby Friendly status.

Because we are generally healthy as a family, we don't really run into healthcare professionals all that much. It's easy to read sites like myOBsaidwhat and get the impression that good support for breastfeeding from health care providers is rare to non-existent. No, we're not there yet, but we're getting closer.

Also, don't forget to buy non-Nestle candy this Halloween.

Inquisition Monday: What do you like?

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000-06:00

I've been in a blogging rut lately. Life is happening and blogging isn't keeping up, and I think that's a good thing, but I do love the outlet that blogging gives me.

So for Inquisition Monday, I want to ask all of you, "What do you like?"

Do you like life updates? Friday Fill-ins?
Do you like the tree-hugging natural living things (no poo, gardening, cloth everything?)
Do you like the parenting things (breastfeeding, gentle discipline?)
The activisty things (feminism, lactivism?)
Do you like the birthy things?

What do you want to see more of? Less? I won't be able to comply with everyone's wishes, but it would give me a little direction.

Go to the comments and discuss!

Purple

2011-10-03T17:23:00.001-06:00

It's that month for raising awareness of an evil that harms families, children, and costs more than $5.8 billion each year. Less than 1/5 of victims seek medical treatment. 85% of victims are women, with women in the 20-24 age range at greatest risk. One in every 4 women will find themselves a victim at some point in their life. And it is 100% preventable.

It's Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

I don't know if the fact that this is completely preventable is something hopeful or disparaging. It's disparaging because... wow... It's really bad. Just think of the women in your immediate family as a sample size. 1 in 4. Or on your street, or at your knitting group or church group or on the bus, or in the line at the grocery store. 1 in 4. But on the other hand, there is wonderful potential to bring those numbers down to 0. Every incidence is preventable.

So take this month and donate to your local women's shelter, as shelter services decrease the incidence and severity of future violence (in the 3-12 month period) more than court or law enforcement or moving to a new place. Check yourself for abusive behavior. Learn and practice nonviolent communication; if we can speak without violence, we can act without violence. Plant a tree. Teach your children that it is never ok to hurt another person and how to report abuse to you or another trusted person. Love, love, love.

Image by National Domestic Violence Hotline on flickr

Sources, Resources, and Links
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence Awareness Project
Domestic Violence Fact Sheet
Domestic Violence Resource Center (Oregon)

Seen and Heard

2011-09-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

A couple weeks ago, The Exponent II blog had a poll about children in sacrament meeting at church. In late July and August, there was a lot of talk surrounding restaurants with anti-child policies and airlines segregating children from first class.

I wanted to tackle the topic then, but I couldn't without a lot of frustration and incoherency. The best I came up with was my comment on the Exponent's post,

These sorts of conversations really irk me because they tend to turn into an us vs. them. Those “other” parents over there aren’t being attentive enough, proactive enough, etc.

The thing is, though, I don’t know a single parent who actually wants their child to disrupt a meeting and annoy every one. I don’t think that person exists.

I work with a lot of newly postpartum women and I guess when I see a parent who isn’t responding to a “rowdy” child (a description that varies person to person- how is a parent supposed to know what everyone’s definition of a “good” child is and meet that kind of standard?) I wonder what the extra circumstances are. Maybe the mom put clothes on for the first time in a week that morning in order to come to church and is just trying to make it 20 more minutes because it’s the first time she got to hear an adult talk to her in days. Maybe the father is alone with 5 children, one who needs a diaper change, but can’t leave to do that because the other 4 won’t have someone to watch them. Maybe a child just has really loud happy screams and isn’t upset at all.

As a parent, the attitude that you just have to deal with not being able to be in sacrament meeting for the decade or so of having small children is a punishment. “Sorry, we don’t want you to participate in our Zion. Zion isn’t for children or parents with small children.” Or it’s a “well, we had to deal with it, so now you have to” vengeance.

If there is a parent who truly is ignoring an upset child, it seems to me it wouldn’t be by choice but by physically being unable to: whether there are other children needing attention or the parent has mentally “checked out” due to not having the extra patience in their own emotional cup or a mental panic attack or other. Whatever the reason, that parent needs help, not eyes of judgment and people telling them they and their family aren’t wanted there. Church is about making the tent bigger, not throwing people out into a foyer.

I am a firm believer in children being allowed in public. It's part of why I'm a lactivist: children and mothers should be allowed to be everywhere everyone else is. I don't know why that's such a point of conflict for others.

It's actually a reason why I want to homeschool. One of the greatest downsides to public school for me was ingraining the segregation of ages. As a second grader, I thought first graders were "below" me. I always wondered why a sophomore would talk to a freshman- they were lowering themselves! It took me years to figure out that my professors in college had office hours, not just to appear helpful, but to actually help the lowly undergrads. Apparently they wanted us to do well in their classes! Today, I still find myself thinking on those lines: I really struggle to know how to talk to elderly people and I find myself caught in the thinking, "Yes! School's back in session so now all those rowdy kids won't be on the playgrounds when I'm there with my kids!" I'm working on fixing this.

If you know Margaret, you know she's the most friendly person ever. She remembers faces and names remarkably well and if you show up at a park or come over to our house and she recognizes you, she can't contain her excitement. She jumps up and down, shouts, "_____ is here! _____ is here!" and runs over to greet the person. She greets babies, toddlers, children, parents of her friends, elderly people at church, family, etc., all this way. I am afraid that the age segregation at school would kill this beautiful enthusiasm.

I want my children to know how to talk to the elderly, and adore younger children, like the boy pictured below. I was at an unschooling activity when I realized Isaac had gone missing. I found this little boy (9? 10?) playing with him on his skateboard. There were plenty of other boys his age, but he was having fun with Isaac. I thanked him for playing with Isaac and told him he didn't have to watch him, but he continued to play with Isaac for a while longer. It was adorable. And better than me. I would have tried to ditch a baby for older "cooler" playmates at that age for sure.

That's the kind of socialization I want for my children, people skills that they can't get in a classroom of peers 6 hours a day. But for them to get that, they have to be welcome everywhere: the library, the post office, the restaurants, church. After all, they can't learn what they can't practice. I know I didn't.

A homeschooled boy playing with Isaac. He's older, but not
too cool to play with a baby on a skateboard.

So yeah. This post is everywhere. Somehow it got off on homeschooling when I started it with children in church. This is why I hadn't posted on this yet! I feel very passionately that children are people, not nuisances, even though I have to remind myself that sometimes. Definitely haven't reached perfection over here.

Love your babies, hang out with your babies, bring your babies in public places.

Autumn Tree

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

I said on Friday, I'd post what we did for the equinox on Saturday and I didn't. But I am now!

Inspired by the Tree of Thanksgiving, I decided to have an autumn tree. I actually won leaves made by Lynn in the Rhythm of the home giveaway! Friday Morning, Margaret finger painted with red and yellow and I used the leaves we got as stencils and traced some more to add to our own tree. I also plan on using leaves that we find on the ground for this tree. Our grapevine in front makes a beautiful large red leaf that I think will work beautifully.

Every day, we let one leave "fall" to the bottom. We're definitely going to need some more, but I'm hoping that by Thanksgiving they'll all have "fallen" and then we'll be able to decorate the bare tree with paper ornaments as an Advent calendar. And then when spring comes, maybe we'll add a flower or small leaf to the tree each day and use big green leaves for summer. I think that will be fun. Margaret loves the tree, too. Isaac likes to run off with the "fallen" leaves.

Inquisition Monday: Cleaning

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

Cassie asked, "You said you at least clean the toilets on Monday. Do you have a house work/laundry type routine? And how does it go with the little ones. We are trying to have a little more routine house work around here but it's difficult with a two year old and almost 4 month old. (I mean routine in a very relaxed way...)"

So did I ever tell you about the time I was gossiping about the lady who had 6 kids under the age of eight and when I babysat for her, I was appalled at all the cereal on the floor and toys and everything everywhere. Yes, I did sweep her kitchen and do some dishes for her because I was an awesome babysitter like that, but I did tell the person I was gossiping with, "I will NEVER have a house that looks like that. EVER."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(gasp for breath)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh man, that is some funny stuff! When we first got married, I really felt a lot of the weight of doing the house on my shoulders. Yay social conditioning! And I kept telling myself that if I only worked hard, scheduled my life better, had more self-discipline, THEN my house would be clean.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And then I got pregnant with Margaret and heard the Mothers Who Know talk and told myself that when I was no longer working and I was home all day with my kids, THEN my house would be clean.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh boy! This is some great stuff, yeah?

It was only a couple years later that I realized that maybe it wasn't that I didn't have enough discipline to stick to a schedule, but that my methods were wrong. I kept attacking this problem in the same way and cycling into deep guilt. I was a bad mom. And I'm not as good as So-and-so and her blog over there because she has the self-discipline to be serious about her housework and look at it like a job and she finishes everything on her list every day before 10am and I'm still in bed at 10am (this was when Margaret would sleep that long, and not something that happens anymore at ALL). All because I am not disciplined enough and not good enough. BAD BAD BAD BAD.

This is when it really hurt to add "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" but it deserves to be there. Because I am good enough. That entire last paragraph was what my lying brain was telling me and it was all lies. LIES. LIES.

I've mentioned it before, but I did an experiment and did everything "right" one day. I gave it 100%. There was not a second that I wasn't cleaning the house, putting things away right after using them, cleaning dishes! And you know what my house looked like at the end of the day? The same as what it looked like when I was doing only 20% or 10% (or less). I realized I had 3 options:

1) Continue what I was doing. Do a little cleaning to try to combat the guilt and have the house look like a mess. Sure, I got my homework or writing done, but it was done while the voice in the back of my head was telling me I was a bad person.

2) CLEAN ALL THE STUFF ALL THE TIME. And get absolutely no homework or writing or knitting or anything I love done. And have the house look like a mess.

3) Throw myself into what I love and do the cleaning as it comes up and not feel guilty about it. And have the house look like a mess.

And I chose 3. It's hard to de-program that guilt-inducing voice. It's still there sometimes. But I try to remember to trust myself. If it's important to me, it'll get done. I kind of thought of it like unschooling: if it's important, you'll learn it because your goals for yourself are such that you'll want it. Not because the people around you want it for you and not because you "have to," but because it's part of your vision for yourself.

So you wanted to know what I do now. I have a mental list (because physical lists get lost too quickly) of the important things for me:

1) I like the toilets and potties clean weekly.
2) I like the kitchen sink to be devoid of dishes for one moment in a day.
3) I like randomly picking things to do because it makes it fun for me.

So I clean the toilets every Monday. And at some point in the day, the dishes are done. If that point is 10am, then I don't fret over them not being done after lunch or dinner. And sometimes they aren't done until 4 pm or 7pm. And I'm ok with that. There was one moment that they were clean and that's good enough for me.

I do have the Motivated Moms iPhone app because it's a way to randomly come up with things to clean. Since I didn't make the app, I don't know what's next for the week, so I actually like doing it. It's surprise cleaning! But there's a lot of stuff on the app I ignore, too. I mean, seriously? Who cleans their bathroom sink daily? A good baking soda scrub once a week is good enough for me.

And after I do everything on my "list," I refuse to do anything else. That's my favorite part. It doesn't matter that the dining room is filled with stuffed animals, I'm DONE! I'm going to knit instead.

And at the end of my day? It looks like it would have had I spent the whole day cleaning. Or if I had spent the whole day feeling bad about myself. Plus I got to knit and blog and go to the park. And not feel bad.

So that's what I do. And don't do.

What's worked for the rest of you out there?

Friday Fill-ins

2011-09-23T10:51:00.000-06:00

1. When I walk around my neighborhood I see urban chickens, free stuff on the curb, and people digging through the recycling to find glass and metal for money.

2. A grilled sandwich is my favorite thing to cook.

3. Life is about love.

4. My knitting makes me feel all warm and fuzzy

5. Butternut squash is my favorite Autumn vegetable.

6. Sleeping is better when it is chilly and dark longer.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to pizza night, tomorrow my plans include the Relief Society General Broadcast and Sunday, I want to knit!

It's really a shame I didn't do the pictures this week because this week was much more reflective of my breakdown weeks than last week. Days that Margaret naps are great. All the others... not so much.

Today we are celebrating the Equinox over here and getting ourselves ready for fall. I'll share pictures tomorrow. Margaret's favorite season is autumn and her favorite holiday is Halloween (seriously talks about it all year) so we're in for some fun soon!

Also, HoboMama shared this post about a toddler meltdown in her Google feed that greatly resembled Margaret's own meltdown yesterday. She really really didn't want me to bring the cloth grocery bags with us to the store. And there was lots of screaming. Our neighbor across the street asked if it was one of those days when nothing is right. I replied that, "Well, everything is not right." It's hard to get down on a toddler's level when you have a baby in a sling, but we did wait it out and Margaret didn't run off at the store like I had anticipated. So that was good.

Also, it's been more than a week ago, but thank you to Alisa for linking to me. She linked to me as a Christian AP Parenting blog. While I do consider myself a Christian and a parent, I don't think of myself as a Christian Parenting blogger. In fact, I don't mention religion all that often (and have been criticized for it by other Mormons) but it does come up occasionally and I'll mention it when it's important to me. I do try to be a gentle person with my children. After all, if the zombie apocalypse comes or aliens attack and we all die, between me and my children, mine is the salvation that's up for grabs. The kids deserve respect. Lots of it. And I try to give it to them.

Inquisition Monday: Week in Review

2011-09-19T14:40:00.000-06:00

I got a few questions over the course of last week's hourly picture posts, so here I am answering them!

Arual asked, "What do you use for a diaper pail?"

In the comments, I responded that we use a flip lid kitchen-sized garbage can. We use it as a dry pail and every morning we wash the diapers. I thoroughly rinse out the diapers before putting them in our can, so there isn't poop or anything on the inside, but just like I try to regularly clean out the insides of our garbage cans, I like to clean out the pail, so that's what I did on Tuesday!

Kate asked, "Are you no longer co-sleeping with Margaret anymore? I saw she has a big girl bed now. :) If not, could you (maybe as an inquisition Monday) go through how/why you gave her her own bed - as in, was it your choice, hers, etc., and the transition to that?"

Margaret does have her own bed, but does come into our bed often. Her bed is right next to our bed, so when she wants to nurse at night, she'll climb into bed with us and nurse. Sometimes she goes back to her bed, sometimes not. There wasn't anything big and important that spurred the choice to get a bed. I had been thinking about it off and on, but wasn't really going to get her a bed. Then, one of McKay's coworkers asked if we'd like a bed for free; we'd just have to pick it up. We figured it wouldn't hurt, so we got the bed. The first couple of nights she didn't want to sleep in it and we didn't push it. On night 3 she wanted to sleep in it, so I lied down with her and nursed her to sleep in her own bed. Very quickly, her night nursing went down from every 2-3 hours to once at around 5 or 6 in the morning. She loves her bed and she got to choose the bedding herself. It also gives us a little more room on our bed, which is nice. And she's still in the room with us, so we're still technically co-sleeping, though not bed-sharing all night with her. When she gets older and wants her own room, we can move her into the office/craft room, which is right next to ours.

Sara asked, "I think this is the first day I have seen pictures with feet in shoes (I didn't go back to make sure). It's been a while since you have mentioned this. How will you live this as we change seasons? What did you do when you lived where there was snow?"

Margaret wears shoes off and on and I don't stop her. If it's something she wants, then she gets to wear them (except on the bed and couch). It's a lot like hats: she'll have a hat on for a few days because she LOVES it, but then will stop wearing it when the novelty is gone. I will sometimes bring shoes with us when we go out if I know the park will have wood chips or something like that. Sometimes she'll ask to wear them, but even at wood chip parks, she'll often decide she prefers being barefoot.

When we hit the rainy season, I'll keep shoes with us, but I found last year, that rain is a wonderful way to keep your feet clean when you're out and about! When we were in Utah, she had shoes, but a lot of the time I would wear her in a sling and just put socks or booties on her feet (or not) and so she didn't really need shoes very often. I had a pair of mocassins for her, which are now Isaacs, that gave her feet lots of movement and protected them without hard soles. In fact, I'm considering getting myself a pair.

Lactating Girl asked about the owl I knit for the baby shower. A link to the pattern's Ravelry page is on my knitting blog. The pattern is free and very easy to knit.

What I learned from this week: I have a surprising amount of down time that I never noticed. And yet, I'm not going to jump in and fill it up. Nope. Margaret's lack of naps is wearing me down thin. I took the kids to the zoo this morning and the whole way I was regretting because I was just wanting a day at home. But I promised Margaret and we didn't stay more than 2 hours, so we're ok.

I'm fully surprised I didn't have a meltdown last week. That's usually par for the course for me once a week. I tried very hard to give you all an accurate version of our days as far as busy-ness/laziness ratio went and I avoided doing things just because you'd all be seeing it. Last week was 100% what I would have been doing had I not been taking pictures for the Internet. Or 95%. I'm sure there was some influence that I couldn't avoid.

Also, about the breastfeeding basket, I also usually include a small packet of tissues, but I forgot to buy some when I was out at the store. If you are planning on making one for a baby shower, that might be something you could add. Or not. I didn't and the breastfeeding police haven't busted down my door yet.

And when I eventually finish that PacMan sewing project, I'll share a link here. And I need to do a Halloween costume for Margaret sometime soon. She's going to be a "black and green and pink" butterfly.

Saturday

2011-09-18T15:27:00.000-06:00

My every-hour-on-the-hour alarm is not set for weekends, so Saturday's pictures are more sparse.

8 am. Stripping the beds and doing laundry. For the first time in a while (maybe ever?) Isaac's nighttime diaper wasn't able to handle a morning poo and we had to wash everything. Of course, he had gone almost 48 hours without a good poopy diaper, so it was going to happen eventually.

9 am. Getting my basket ready for the baby shower. I try to give a breastfeeding basket, full of everything you might need on hand when you're stuck under a small child who is nursing and/or fell asleep and getting up is going to be a problem. In this basket, I gave the Womanly Art, nursing pads (actually some Bamboobies I bought when they had a sale during World Breastfeeding Week), lanolin, juice, snacks, a pad of paper and a pen, a knitted baby hat, a knitted toy owl, and information on local LLL meetings.

10 am Margaret really wanted to be there when I gave the basket to my friend, so she came with me to the shower.

11 am I was at the shower and 12 pm we were leaving. No pictures of those times

1 pm. McKay sitting on the couch. He did all the laundry while I was gone with Margaret.

2 pm. Isaac is up from his mini nap and I'm working on a mitten for Margaret. So many ends to weave in! I'm not actually happy with the project, but Margaret is excited, so I'll do it for her.

3 pm. We have kids.

4 pm. And they watch TV while I blog. McKay was gone at this point for the Priesthood leadership session of stake conference.

5 pm. Margaret eating dinner.

6 pm. McKay is home and the kids are happy. I left at 6:30 for the adult session of conference. I had the hardest time figuring out what knitting to bring with me to conference and I had to come back and get my yarn after I was already part way there. But I can't go to stake conference without my knitting. That would be blasphemy.

7 pm. Look! Knitting in my lap at stake conference! The world is good.

8 pm. Rest hymn. Conference was actually really good. It started off with a bang: a talk on not conforming (and not judging those, including ourselves, who don't conform to whatever we thing they/we should), a talk on single parenthood, a talk on patience, a conversion story, and a talk on sharing our excesses with whomever lacks. Plus 2 hours of uninterrupted knitting time.

9 pm. On my way home. Dirty windshield!

Friday

2011-09-17T17:27:00.001-06:00

8 am We are finally all awake except for Isaac.

9 am. Kids playing in the living room.

10 am. Heading to the park.

11 am. At the park. For some reason, people leave toys at all the parks in the area. Isaac played with this car for quite a while.

12 pm. Margaret eats lunch.

1 pm. I was blogging Thursday's day.

2 pm. Isaac went to bed and I did some cleaning in the kitchen.

3 pm. Living room in its cleanest state all week. I had people coming over in the evening, so it had to look presentable.

4 pm. The mailperson came and brought us Nursies When the Sun Shines. I could have used this about a month ago, but with Margaret's new bed, our night nursing is getting better, so we don't actually need it now. I'm sure our local LLL will need it. Margaret does love it and asks me to read it a lot.

5 pm. Pizza dough started. Every Friday is pizza night. I don't know why the kids are over there.

6 pm. Dough rose and now making the pizza.

7 pm. No picture. Eating pizza.
8 pm. Isaac and I. My friends came over, but I didn't want to take a picture of every one because I didn't have everyone's permission. It was a Mormon feminist discussion group. Very fascinating discussion about what feminism looks within various religious paradigms: Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, various Protestant sects, Bahai, etc. Isaac is playing with his toothbrush in this picture.

9 pm. You can see some of the feet of the party here. Isaac went to bed shortly after this.

So that was Friday. Margaret wore a new shirt. :)

Thursday

2011-09-16T13:39:00.001-06:00

6 and 7 am. Too tired. Slept in.

8 am. Small people running around.

9 am. On the way to the grocery store. Actually, that's a lie. This was taken sometime after 9:30 after buckling them in to go home, but I forgot to snap a 9 am picture. Margaret is definitely eating something full of sugar.

10 am. Margaret decides to finish her breakfast. Whatever she doesn't eat, I leave out for her to graze on all morning.

11 am. At the park, getting ready to go to the farm.

12 pm. Look, goats! Notice how Margaret is far, far away. She didn't want to get anywhere near the animals.

1 pm. Back at that little park for a picnic. Isaac tries to get to the water fountain. He literally stood on that little step for 20 minutes trying to get to it.

2 pm. Isaac fell asleep on the way home and transferred over to the bed for his nap. Diaper next to him waiting for him to wake up! Also somehow has my keys next to him.

3 pm. Margaret plays board games while I write an article to send in to a magazine. Unfortunately, not the one I did research for the day before. That would make me look productive. This one was completely different.

4 pm. Still asleep. I finished up that article before 5 and afterwards, I was dead tired. But it was one of the best things I've written in a long time. It's like my writing mojo came back for a 2 hour period just to leave me high and dry and unable to stay awake even while knitting.

5 pm. State of the living room.

6 pm. State of the kitchen.

7 pm. Playing with Daddy.

8 pm. I snapped this on my way to go nurse Isaac down.

I was so tired, so I fell asleep shortly after 9.

Also, nobody comment on the fact that Margaret has worn that shirt 3 days now.

Wednesday

2011-09-15T15:29:00.001-06:00

6 am. Alarm rings. I lie in bed.

7 am. Off to meet my running buddy. She wasn't there, though. She's in the process of moving out this weekend, so I guess we're done with that! I ran the half mile home, though. Man that hurt considering how I wasn't feeling well the day before.

8am I was doing dishes, but Isaac wanted to be held.

9 am. Margaret is reading a knitting comic book. Yes, you read that right.

10 am At the park! It was really chilly.

11 am. More park! Also took a breastfeeding help call while at the park.

12 pm. Still at the park. Nursing to keep warm.

1 pm. Home and having lunch. Isaac is napping from the festivities.

2 pm. Some quiet time playing board games with herself.

3 pm and 4 pm. Margaret magically took a nap for the first time in 2 weeks, so I had time for some research for an article I want to write and took another breastfeeding help call. Also, note the board games are still out. Check out our ratty chairs. I'm looking into reupholstering them with some knitted portrayals of Mario levels.

5 pm. Making cookies to kill the time before getting Daddy. Danced to Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga while cookies were baking.

6 pm. Daddy is making dinner. Taco salad!

7 pm. Hanging around until bed time.

No picture for 8 pm because I was nursing Isaac to sleep.

9 pm Margaret fell asleep in the laundry basket while reading a book by the light of the moon from the window. That's her chin on the window sill.

Tuesday

2011-09-13T23:00:00.001-06:00

Margaret was up way too early this morning, so we had our share of toddler meltdowns today. She has dropped her nap, which means bedtime is easier, but the day is pretty miserable when she doesn't get all her sleep.

7 am: Up and at 'em. Reading a book while Daddy showers.

8 am Done with her oatmeal, Margaret puts her bowl in the sink. Diapers are soaking.

At a little before 9, Margaret started stripping and asking for a bath. Then Isaac started signing "bath" and saying, "Ba! Ba!" So they took baths.

10 am. Trying to get them ready to go to the store for a few things for a baby shower gift this Saturday and some projects I'm working on. We keep the pool inside on cold days.

11 am. Back from the store with blue fingers and faces from candy. Margaret is too good at sharing while I'm driving and can't stop it from happening.

12 pm. This was a baby hammock for Isaac's newborn pictures. Now it is a toy hammock. Right before getting lunch ready.

1 pm Walking from the car to the park. Isaac fell asleep in the car and napped for the bit of park time.

2 pm Awake!

3pm Found a boy's scooter.

4 pm On the way back to the car, we run into a little yellow fuzzy caterpillar. (left and bottom in the pic)

5 pm Margaret watches TV while I catch up on a few emails and relax. Not feeling 100% but ignorable.

6 pm. Not feeling well, so McKay is doing dinner.

7 pm Nursing a baby. He was having naked butt time this evening because of all the sand in his diaper from the park.

8 pm Margaret gets ready for bed by going potty.

All meltdowns today were on the childrens' parts. I happened to squeeze in some time for spraying out the compost bin and diaper pail. Also got some knitting time in at the park.

Monday

2011-09-12T21:44:00.000-06:00

Mondays are pretty easy. I don't normally have anything planned, so I actually get things like housework done. At bare minimum, I clean all the toilets and little potties every Monday.

6 am. Went back to sleep after seeing my running buddy cancelled on me.

7 am. Taking a bath with Isaac. On my mind: are the diapers and toilets going to be done before McKay goes to work? Where do I even start?

8 am. Breakfast. Margaret with a slice of our Crenshaw melon from our CSA. I also took a quick breastfeeding-related help call before 8 this morning.

9 am. Kids playing. I'm on the computer being feminist-y on a discussion thread. You know why.

10 am. I've been doing chores (toilets! dishes!) and reading to kids and being on the Internet off and on. This is the state of the living room.

11 am. Ironing fabric to cut out shapes for a project I want to start. We've been keeping the pool inside so it doesn't get stolen at night.

12 pm. Isaac is tired, so I nurse him down.

12:30 Sneak peak at the project before I have lunch. I need more materials before proceeding beyond the cut-everything-out phase.

1 pm. Isaac woke up so I was nursing him back to sleep. Margaret joined me and helped make her bed.

2 pm. Nap finished a little too early. Here we are sweeping up the living room so I can mop it for the first time since we've lived here.

3 pm. Living room and dining room have been mopped. For proof, here's the post-mopping living room. Looks a whole ton better from the 10 am picture, no? ;)

4 pm. We were cleaning up the diapers that Isaac pulled out of the diaper box.

5 pm. Isaac has been running around. I've snapped at Margaret 3 times total, so she's watching TV to give me a little break.

6 pm. Cooking dinner. Fajitas.

7 pm. The floor and my knitting (a caterpillar) while we watch the second half of Hello Dolly!

8 pm I nursed a baby to sleep. No picture. Just look at yesterday's picture of black and imagine that here.

In all, a pretty good day. Not overly busy. I only snapped at Margaret 3 times. Mondays are like that, though. We start our weekly running around on Tuesdays, though.

Hourly

2011-09-11T23:06:00.003-06:00

This month, this blog turns 6 years old. I cannot believe that. I considered taking some time off to relax from this blog, almost like "and on the 7th year, she rested and called it good." But when I told McKay that, he laughed and didn't think I could do it.

And I woke up this morning and realized I really couldn't. First, I've been blogging even before I knew what blogs were. There was a morning one summer when I was a teenager- I believe it was 2002- when I woke up and had an opinion essay in my head and I had to get it out. It was 6am, I wrote it down, and then I went back to sleep. And while it wasn't ever on the Internet and I'm sure that entire essay has been thrown away, it would have been blog material, if such things had existed for me at that time. But they didn't.

Second, I had an idea. After reading the post about Pinterist on The Exponent and the subsequent comments, I thought about how the things that make the blog-cut are often the shiny, polished parts of our lives. But also, I believe there is a lot of backlash against that and an attitude that if you do have that sort of polished blog life, then you're a huge faker and not a "real" person. But behind every moniker is a real person and that person absolutely has polished and unpolished parts of their lives in varying amounts depending on the day/week/month/year. And well, I wanted to show you my week this week. There will be polished parts because sometimes (and I won't lie) I am downright awesomesauce. And sometimes (again no lying) I am at the end of all my ropes and need to just hide for a few hours.

I have absolutely no idea how much awesome or how much awful will be in the next week, but I'm going to share it all with you with my camera phone. Every hour on the hour, I'll snap a picture and give you some insight into my life. Yes, it will be awesome. Yes, I will probably have a meltdown or two, usually around Thursday or Friday.

Sunday is an easy day. Here we go:

7 am. Reading my email from my phone in bed.

8 am. Margaret is impatiently waiting for me to put her other shoe on her. Eggs on the stove. On my mind: getting the bag ready for church, making sure we all eat. Listening to The Round Table's August podcast while doing this.

9 am. Waiting for church to start. We usually start about 7 minutes after the hour. Check out Isaac in that beautiful sweater vest! You can't see, but there are owls knit into it.

10 am. Third talk of the meeting. On my mind: Should I leave early to set up the nursery room? Also, nursing a baby.

11am Nursery class coloring.

12 pm. Cleaning up the nursery room and saying goodbye to the children. No picture because I was busy.

1 pm. Eating a cucumber salad for lunch. That's a cucumber in my hand.

2 pm. Relaxing. McKay fell asleep there. Margaret is watching Wall*E. Isaac is napping. I am playing on the Internet.

3 pm. Finished a bag for Margaret. McKay went to sleep with Isaac in bed. Wall*E is still on.

4 pm. Dragon Tales is now on. Margaret is making faces. I'm working on a gift for a baby shower I'm going to next Saturday. I also just remembered that we need to wash diapers, so they are soaking. McKay and Isaac still sleeping.

I finished the baby shower gift at 5. Here it is not finished in cast the recipient reads this blog.

6pm Post-dinner table. Grilled cheese and cucumber salad for dinner. The genius who made the meal plan (me) wrote "something food" for Sunday night. So we had something very food-like.

7pm. McKay reading to Margaret. Isaac playing. I did some dishes.

8 pm watching Hello Dolly!

9 pm This is what the camera phone captured as I played Words with Friends while nursing Margaret to sleep. Do iPhone have a flash option?

10 pm. Writing this post. Taken by the webcam instead of my phone.

Like I said, Sunday is an easy day. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Inquisition Monday

2011-09-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

After last week's Calendar post, Heather asked, I would love to do this with my son. He is really struggling since his baby sister was born. The problem I am having is finding activities to do that don't require too much money and such. I'd love input from anyone on things I can included for him! He is 2yrs 3months (27 months).

Good question! I actually sat down on Friday during naptime and came up with some "fall" activities to do the next few months and penciled them in on our calendar temporarily. Here's a quick little list of them:

Make Grandparent's Day Cards
Make a book (Margaret wants to be an illustrator)
Bake bread
Picnic
Collect Leaves
Make a leaf garland with said leaves
Make leaf rubbings from said leaves
Make Halloween decorations
Play soccer
Feed ducks
Carve pumpkins
Bake a cobbler
Make a bird feeder
Bake pies
Fingerpaint
Build a fort

Your son is only 2- he's still very little. Please don't feel like you need to have regular outings to museums and the like, but you don't. Don't run yourself ragged. He's not going to remember the museum like he will when he's 7, 8, or 9, don't spend the money. I know you probably need to get out of the house, so try to find short, free outings. This last Friday, we went to our local Art Break, and were there for less than an hour. Short enough for her attention span and no tantrums, and free. How did I find out about it? I'm on a local homeschooling Yahoo! group and when there are interesting activities, someone will post them and share. Lots of the activities are for more school-aged children, but sometimes you find a golden one like that!

Also, check out the local library for activities. Ours has puppet shows, arts and craft days, movie nights, and other random activities like free henna days (we missed that last Saturday!) Another great thing about the library is books. When we were in Utah, our local library had a book called Baby Days: Activities, Ideas, and Games for Enjoying Daily Life with a Child Under Threeby Barbara Rowley. It had lots of games from hand games to reminders that you can let your kid play with wooden spoons. Even if that book isn't available to you, your library might have others like it.

I wanted to open this up as an Inquisition Monday so more of you would see her question and help her out. I know there are blogs out there that put together huge lists of activities you can do with your kids. Share your ideas and your favorite links!

2011-09-02T16:44:00.001-06:00

1. When I was 10 years old my best friends were Jessica, Susie, and Amy.

2. Squash is my favorite vegetable because it's easy to freeze and good in cakes.

3. My dream pet is a sheep because I'd like to learn to spin wool, nevermind the shearing and washing and carding!

4. Tangled yarn surrounds you.

5. If I could live anywhere in the world I'd live in my own place with a yard, but exactly where we are now. The weather is great and the people are fun.

6. Summer sun keep on shinin' on me.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to pizza night, tomorrow my plans include gardening and Sunday, I want to do some reading!

Today, we took an Art Break. Here's Margaret! We also came home with four more masterpieces to hang on our art clothesline! Woohoo!

I think I'm going to spend some of the weekend uploading photos from July and August on Facebook and the family blog, if you want to be on the lookout there. I can't believe how much time that takes.

Happy September!

ETA: I recently became a permablogger on The Exponent II blog and my first post is up today! I post once every 4 weeks and I'm not going to link it it regularly, but thought some of you might be interested in that.

I'm too tired to read more sexism

2011-08-31T16:56:00.001-06:00

I used to talk about recent news articles on this blog, but I've fallen out of that practice. News happens so fast and it's forgotten about so quickly! But a part of me wonders if I should get back into that. So here goes!

If you've been around the Internet the past couple of days, you may have seen the JC Penney sexist shirt debacle. The shirt is no longer available, but if you'd like a screenshot of the online store page, you can find it here. The shirt said, "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me," and the item description said, "Who has time for homework when there's a new Justin Bieber album out? She'll love this tee that's just as cute and sassy as she is."

Ahhh- yeah.

Now, I was able to eye roll at the shirt: the world is full of shirts that are offensive and sexist and while I'd like for them not to exist, an eye roll was good enough for me. What was the zinger for me? The product description. The very existence of that description meant that someone looked at the shirt and thouht it wasn't sexist enough and continued the train wreck for a couple of extra sentences. And they got paid to do that. How many people at JC Penney saw this shirt and ok'd it as acceptable? I don't even want to know.

Now on the other hand, if it said, "I'm too unschooled to do homework," I think I would get it. Well, if it was second-hand; I'm trying to love the earth and not buy new right now. :)

The Calendar

2011-08-29T14:36:00.002-06:00

I am not an organized person. In fact, I revolt against schedules and expectations like nobody's business. But I also know that kids like routines. In order to meet in the middle with this, we have a little calendar.

I found the calendar itself cost 50 cents last Christmas at Michael's. The picture each month is a black and white coloring page, so Margaret colors it at the beginning of each month. I will put a little picture in the box of the day showing what we have planned that day: swimming? I draw water. Playing with friends? I draw stick people. Birthday? There's a birthday cake sticker. Going to the aquarium? Fish sticker. Library? Book sticker. La Leche League? I draw a couple of breasts.

Then every morning at breakfast, Margaret will ask what we are doing that day and run to the calendar. We mark off the previous day and circle the current one. I'll mention the day of the week, the date, and the month so she can get practice with those ideas. She absolutely loves it. I give Margaret the freedom to choose what day she wants to do things. For example, I let her put a dinosaur sticker on the day she wants to go to the dinosaur museum. When she wanted to plant flowers, she picked the day and I drew the flowers in. I don't feel overscheduled since we only do one picture per day. And it can be simple: want to make cookies? Pick a day! And that's the only thing I'll have set for us that day.

We've found this calendar idea works well for us. I thought I'd share since I know the world is thinking about going back to school (or not back to school) and homeschooling and scheduling is on everyone's minds.

What do you do to organize your life with kids?

Deodorant and Mopping Solution

2011-08-23T16:50:00.000-06:00

On Friday, I mentioned my Cast-on-a-thon that I'm doing on my knitting blog. Not all of my "casting on" of projects are knitting projects and I thought I'd share 2 on this blog that some of you might be interested in.

I use a natural deodorant. I had been using Funk Butter until I ran out and decided that I didn't really want to pay more for shipping. I've been deodorant-free for months; I really don't know how long, but I saved my old Funk Butter tin for future use.

I used the Instructables Deodorant tutorial and made some lavender scented deodorant for myself. I use about a pea-sized amount per arm.

Also, for my cast-on-a-thon, I made some wood floor cleaner! I had been putting off mopping the wood floors because I wanted a cleaner. I made up my own recipe for this based on other recipes around the Internet:

1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
a few drops of tea tree oil
water to fill the rest of the bottle

The bottle came from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse for a quarter and I also got a squirt attachment for the bottle for easy application on the floors. Now our floors have their own special salad dressing! I just need to remember to shake it well before use.

The Donkey's Carrot

2011-08-21T15:39:00.000-06:00

Last week, Margaret finished the summer reading program. We put the stickers on the chart for reading to her and in the end, we got a free ticket to the Lawrence Hall of Science (and the dinosaur exhibit!), a free pizza at Round Table, and a free ice cream at Fentons. That's cool and all, but I really struggle to make peace with programs like this.

I remember participating in summer reading programs and getting a gummy worm for each book I read, and my stomach hurt so much every week. I remember in third grade, we got a sticker on a chart for every 20 pages we read. I was so proud (in the obnoxious, goody-goody sort of way) that Mr. Felty had to add 3 more charts to be able to include all my stickers. I remember being promised candy every Friday in early morning seminary for every scripture mastery memorized and each day of reading completed.

And I remember receiving my first report card in high school. It was the beginning of a new semester in January and I was in a new biology class. I was anxious to see the report card from the fall semester as the teacher passed them out. I opened it, glanced down to the bottom and saw my class rank: 2 of 385. And at that moment, I thought to myself, "Well, I'm done. I can give a mediocre effort from here on out and I'll still be in the top 10 percent of the class and get scholarships. I'm done." And I was.

By the time I was in high school, I was done with the reward system. And as an adult, as soon as an incentive is put on something, I immediately question if it's worthwhile to even bother.

A few weeks ago, McKay's siblings all started this healthy-living game where you get points for exercising so many minutes and eating so many veggies and everyone puts $20 in and after it's done, whoever has the most points gets the money. I quit after just a couple of weeks because I just can't do incentives. It wasn't motivating me to do anything, in fact I resented it and got sick to my stomach even thinking about it.

This is what an incentive (whether grades, money, or other rewards) says to me:

"I think so little of your ability to make goals and keep commitments that I feel like you need X to get you do this." Or really, "Here, I'll dangle this carrot in front of you and treat you like an ass." And as soon as I hear that message, I quit. I refuse to play that game.

Now, I'm not against goals. I ran a 5k this year because I made that a goal and I worked for it, but no one needed to bribe me into it, and had they, I would not have done it. I'm not against tests. I have to take the California driving exam in order to get an California license when mine expires this year, but I see it as a means to an end, not as something that ranks my worth or value.

But rewards as bribery irk me so so much. So much, in fact, that every year the library reading program starts, I question whether or not I want to sign Margaret up for it.

I want Margaret to read because she loves it. I want her to read because it's fun and useful and it will allow her to do the things she wants to do in life. I don't want her to read because for every 15 minutes, she'll get a sticker on a chart.

I tried to not connect the reading with the chart for her. When we read together, I would make a mental note "Hmm. Two stickers today," and then some hours later offer, "Hey, how about we pick out a couple of stickers!" But even that made my stomach fall.

I know I can look at it in a more uplifting light: the chart is a means to the end of a free museum day! That's actually pretty cool!

But it still felt like bribery. And I don't know if we'll do it again next year. It pains me.

Have you run into this in your own life? Your kids? How do you frame these situations? Do you worry that your children aren't internalizing goals? Or am I just jaded from my personal experience with bribery and rewards?

Friday Fill-ins

2011-08-19T14:18:00.000-06:00

1. It's fun to meet new friends.

2. Homemade deodorant is easy to make.

3. I like to be with my family.

4. Why people feel like they have to tell me to put shoes on my children, I will never know! (But I usually just smile and say, "We're hippies. We don't wear shoes," and they leave us alone.) Also in my arsenal: "We're protesting the poor labor conditions and insufficient employee compensation in the footwear industry."

5. Something I'm very much excited about is finally connecting with the local unschooling group.

6. The time spent sewing my new temple outfit was well worth it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going out for our anniversary, tomorrow my plans include yard work and Sunday, I want to make stuffed peppers!

So over on InfiKnity, I'm doing a 30 day cast-on-a-thon where I start a new project (knitting or otherwise) every day for a month. Yesterday I made deodorant using the Instructables directions. I also sewed a new temple outfit (pictures up at InfiKnity later today or tomorrow). I would still like to add some embroidery to it, but it's usable. I'm excited to start new projects as the month progresses! I also have a few blog posts in progress that I just haven't gotten around to. I've been in a blogging ennui slump.

Wordless Wednesday: Pool

2011-08-17T14:06:00.000-06:00

Well, it's about time we got the birth pool out again!

Breastfeeding with Community

2011-08-15T17:37:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday I got a haircut. Check it out!

But that's not what this post is about. This post is actually about something my hairdresser told me. This is what she told me: "I sent someone to your blog yesterday because they are nursing their 15 month old and are getting pressure from friends and family to wean and I thought about you."

So with the prospect of someone new reading (hello, mystery person!) I thought I'd talk a little about what has helped me in my toddler nursing journey. You can read books and blogs, and those are really helpful! I did enjoy Mothering Your Nursing Toddler when I read it the first time and I have a reader full of breastfeeding-related blogs. But lately I have been feeling really lonely as a mom nursing a 3 year old. On one of those days a few weeks ago, I realized what I was missing: other nursing moms.

Now, I do have some moms I hang out with. Our local LLL group has a playgroup and there are a couple of other nursing toddlers Margaret's age. We go to that playgroup, but it feels like everywhere else I go I'm the odd one out- and I live just a few blocks out of Berkeley! You'd think there would be nursing toddlers on every corner or something.

In Utah it was so easy to nurse Margaret. There were definitely not nursing toddlers on every corner, but I had a close knit group of friends and role models to look to. Moms there nursed their 2, 3, 4, 5 year olds. When I felt out of place nursing an 18 month old in other places in my life, I just looked around and saw that my 18 month old was just a baby.

We've been in California a little over a year and I do have some friends who nurse their children for many years, but Margaret's at that age when even her nursing friends are slowly weaning. She's not anywhere near weaning. Well, she might be. It really depends on the day. Two weeks ago, she was nursing 5 times a night and now she's already down to once and sometimes not at all (I've actually woken her up to nurse because I'm full and need her to nurse!) But the way she begs and begs me to nurse during the day, I'm pretty sure we'll be doing this for a while yet.

It's like we're in nursing limbo. It's really strange. Anyone else in this boat with me? And can you come over for a playdate?

Friday Fill-ins

2011-08-12T10:11:00.000-06:00

Haven't done fill-ins in a while! We've been busy here with days of win and fail. Yesterday was a fail day, but I think the weekend will get better. It had better!

1. The only question is are you ready?

2. We went to the library, grocery store, and painted all in one day.

3. Three things on my desk: my knitting, my laptop, and library books.

4. Going to the park is the one thing I HAVE to do today!

5. I love playing with my Margaret and Isaac.

6. Having two non-napping children overwhelms the senses.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to pizza night, tomorrow my plans include a new haircut and Sunday, I want to teach nursery!

Sufferin' Succotash

2011-08-10T20:56:00.001-06:00

We've been drowning in summer vegetables for the past month and plan on drowning for another month or more. This recipe came with our CSA box and we've eaten it 3 times already, so I thought I'd share it, just in case you are drowning in vegetables as well. So here's some succotash!

1 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
2-3 ears sweet corn, cut off the cob
4-6 tomatoes, cut in fourths
1-2 cups green beans, de-stemmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
2-3 pieces of summer squash, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
4-6 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper
crumbled feta cheese

Saute the chapped onions in the olive oil in a large skillet until translucent. Add the quartered tomatoes, flattening them as you add them to the onions to release their juices. Toss in the chopped green beans. Add the summer squash. Then add the sweet corn. Add the minced garlic. Simmer covered until all the veggies are tender, about 20-25 minutes. Top with crumbled feta cheese.

It's very yummy and easy to make. You'll feel good about using up your vegetables before they go bad!

Inquisition Tuesday: Babywearing and Nursing

2011-08-09T12:02:00.001-06:00

Last week, llamaofdoom asked, "How do you nurse in a sling/mei tai/wrap carrier? I can't seem to get the positioning comfortable enough to nurse while slinging, and so I end up taking the sling off and sitting down and nursing."

It takes practice. I never really got the hang of it in the wrap because I use the wrap primarily for the newborn stage and newborns just can't do the head control thing. The picture last week was in the mei tai and I have to let it sag down enough for Isaac's head to be at the right level. The same goes for the sling right now because he's often on my hip in the sling. I just slide it down enough so he is on my hip and can be at nipple-level. Because he has good back/neck control (he's 1 afterall), he can scrunch and scootch himself down if he needs to. Also, his weight

But with baby-babies, I had to try something different. I'll demonstrate with a doll and a sling.

I always imagined lying my babies in the sling like this and nursing them from the breast on the side that the sling went over the shoulder. Unfortunately, my babies come out pretty big and the sling always squooshed their heads and they didn't like the scrunchiness that it caused in their tummies. This did not work for me at all.

As you can see: this could only work for a very small newborn, if it even does work: scrunchy tummies can be rough with reflux-y newborns. Because the entire baby from head to toe is in the sling, long babies won't really fit comfortably.

Where I found success was using the other breast. The sling holds the weight of the baby at the baby's butt. The feet and legs of a long baby hang out the bottom, and the head of the baby is at the breast. You might need to support the head and neck with your hand or use the sling up over the head. The baby is lying down long-ways and is not scrunched up.

Isaac is around 24 pounds of baby and this particular pouch sling is a little small on him, but you can see how it works here. He's trying to get down to play, so it's not the best position, but I hope you can see how it works.

One of the downsides to this feeding position is that you won't be able to nurse in a sling so that the baby's head is completely covered by sling fabric, if that was your goal. Holding the baby's head and neck can also be a downside if you were hoping to nurse completely hands-free. But I found that I used my sling a lot more once I started using this nursing position and I typically nurse so that my more dominant hand is the free hand.

I hope that answered your question!

Tandem Nursing Dolls

2011-08-07T16:30:00.000-06:00

Another one taken with my phone. Nursing Margaret to sleep at naptime. Margaret wanted the "big" breast and her doll got my "little" one. My right side has always been the bigger one since puberty. After Margaret was born, I tried to get her to nurse more on the left in order to encourage it to make more and even them out, but it just wasn't able to keep up with the right side. I think the right side simply has more ducts and breast tissue. Anyway, Margaret has called dibs on the "big" side and Isaac gets the little one. During the day he gets whichever one I offer, but that's the sleeping arrangement.

This is the last day of World Breastfeeding Week. Yesterday, I participated in the Big Latch On. We were to nurse for a full minute all together. I knew Isaac would not put up with that, especially in an environment where everything is new and exciting. The only way I can get him to nurse longer than 20 seconds is to nurse him to sleep or when he's really hungry. If he's neither of those, he's a latch-and-go child. I assumed Margaret would love the chance to nurse for a full minute since I'm usually limiting her nursing time with counts to 10 or the Itsy Bitsy Spider, but I latched her on about 15 seconds before the minute and 10 seconds later, she was done. I was able to convince her to get back on for the minute, but she really didn't want to. My children just prefer to explore!

Two Lying Down

2011-08-06T15:26:00.000-06:00

We don't do this position often, but has been helpful if they both are upset at the same time. As they fall asleep, their latches get lazy and teeth get involved, so I do try to only nurse one to sleep at a time.

The unspoken benefit of nursing 2 babies at a time: they create great cleavage. Push up bras got nothing on tandem nursing. However, due to limited lap space and balance, it's usually only done at home. This one was taken with my camera phone.

Babywearing

2011-08-05T10:11:00.000-06:00

This was taken by my friend Gail yesterday at the World Breastfeeding Week Walk in downtown Oakland. Isaac in the mei tai! You can see us in the second to last picture here during the walk: Margaret is in blue and Isaac is in the mei tai. Margaret loved the kid races and had fun, too!

Siblings

2011-08-04T10:08:00.000-06:00

Space Management

2011-08-03T09:46:00.000-06:00

Nursing at the keyboard (NAK), Isaac is standing up by the couch as I lean towards him. This allows me to not worry about baby feet kicking the computer while I NAK. The super hero mask is fun, too. Margaret's sandwich is a peanut butter, jelly, and turkey sandwich.

Side Lying

2011-08-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

Taken with my phone. Isaac's curly hair is the best.

Cradle Hold with a Toddler

2011-08-01T08:00:00.000-06:00

and a baby staring at the camera.

I tried really hard to get a cradle hold with Isaac, but as soon as he sees the camera, he's off! So I got one with Margaret instead. I am usually pretty adamant about her not having her hand on my breast, but this time I was ok with it. It's usually while nursing her down to sleep that her hand bugs me. Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

World Breastfeeding Week 2011

2011-07-31T16:31:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, McKay and I went out to donate blood for an Interfaith blood drive. While we were waiting, a group of women came in and saw Margaret and started chatting with her. Margaret introduced them to us.

She pointed at McKay, "That's my daddy."

She pointed at Isaac, "That's my Isaac."

She pointed at me, "That's my mommy."

She touched my chest, "That's my mommy's breast."

Laughter ensued and the women looked at me and asked, "She was breastfed, wasn't she?"

"Yes," I replied.

How's that for an introduction?

World Breastfeeding Week starts tomorrow, August 1 and goes through next Sunday, August 7. Our local breastfeeding community is putting on a lot of events. Two of the local LLL groups are having parties. The local county breastfeeding coalition is hosting a public health event with speakers and food, focusing on "Local Strategies to Increase Breastfeeding and Health Equity in the African American Community" on Tuesday. On Thursday, there is a Breastfeeding Walk, and on Saturday, there will be a local get together for the Big Latch On. If you are local (East Bay) and want more information, email me- my email is in my Blogger profile, and if you aren't local, see if you can find what your community is doing this week for World Breasetfeeding Week. The theme for World Breastfeeding Week this year is, "Talk to Me! Breastfeeding- A 3D experience." If you can't make it to any special events, then just talk to the people around you about breastfeeding, or blog, or whatever. It might be surprising, but I don't often talk about my work and efforts in the breastfeeding community here so I think this week, I'll look for opportunities to share the breastfeeding love.

As far as my celebrations here on this blog, you are all in for a treat. I'm going to do a position-a-day! Every day this week (and maybe into next- after all, it's National Breastfeeding Month), I'm going to post a picture of me breastfeeding. There will be the usual positions: football hold, cradle hold, side-lying, but also some more fun ones and tandem positions.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week! And party on!

Home Boring Home

2011-07-28T08:15:00.000-06:00

Our walls are bare.

Actually, I take that back. Margaret's corner has her artwork on a little "clothesline" and a calendar so she can see what we're planning on doing each day. And there's a clock hanging in the kitchen and garlic hanging in the pantry.

But other than that, our walls are bare. We have unpacked every box from our move except one: the pictures.

And I really don't want to.

As I was packing up our stuff in May, I finally admitted something to myself that the things on our walls don't reflect us. There were two kinds of things on our walls: pictures of us, and artwork other people have given us. So basically our home was a shrine to ourselves and a shrine of what other people thought we would like (or what other people thought we should like).

Serendipitously, a week before our move, The Exponent had a poll about LDS church artwork in homes. And the reality that our place doesn't reflect us was reinforced.

I've spent the past few months paying particular attention to the other homes I visit: if there's someone's place I really like, I try to figure out what it is I like about it: the colors? The statues? The artwork?

I spend time imagining what I'd like to see hanging up on our walls, and I run into a couple of issues. First, what I want to put up will take money. It's not that we don't have money for things, it's that I have a huge aversion to spending money. Huge aversion. I might go shopping for myself 2-3 times a year, and I eventually convince myself, "Heather, you need clothes because every single pair of pants you have has holes." Would you believe it took me 3 weekend excursions to the store to finally buy myself some short sleeve shirts for the summer? But with things on our walls... well, they are just things on walls. And framing costs money. And art supplies cost money. And on Tuesday, the kids broke a lamp in our living room, so some of my trepidation in this spending money thing is related to that.

But the biggest thing is time. I want to put up my own art. For example, I have a paper sculpture I've been working on for months, but I can only work on it during nap time because... it's paper. And I have some ideas for knitted wall-hangings. And a cross stitch sampler (don't worry, it'll be cool). And some geekified door stops (Daleks? Tetris pieces?). Seriously- there are doors on almost every entry way in this place and none of them stay open on their own.

I want to enjoy the place I live in. And I don't want other people to be the main decorators of our home. And I don't want a shrine to ourselves. Have you all run into this? Is there something up that you just absolutely love when you look at it? How have you found your home-y feeling groove?

Feminist Links

2011-07-27T16:52:00.001-06:00

So I've been riding the feminist train the past couple of days and I had some good ideas for a post, but since I only get Internet time during naptime, my brain is too dead to put a post together. So here are some links I've been saving up.

Are Breastfeeding Bans Just a Way to Keep Women in the Home?

Censored Cover Raises Questions: Why Are Breasts "Obscene," but not Chests?

"Proper" Swimwear for a Toddler Girl Includes a Top?

And a message from Margaret: Peace out! These are supposed to be peace signs, by the way.

Inquisition Monday: Bedtimes

2011-07-25T15:05:00.000-06:00

Last week, Lisa asked, "I'm very interested in cosleeping if I am ever able to have children, but I'm wondering how you deal with family members going to bed at different times without being too disruptive to whoever is already asleep in the bed. I'm assuming you and your husband probably don't go to sleep as early as the kids do, and that Isaac maybe goes to bed earlier than Margaret does. If that's true, then how does your bedtime routine for various family members work so that you don't wake up someone who's already in the bed when it's time for someone else to go to bed? Has that been a problem at all? Thanks! :)"

Ooh. You hit me at a bad time because for the last few weeks, bedtime has been quite a struggle. So let's go back to when it was working well and then we'll get to today.

We are pretty free about bedtimes. When Margaret was a baby, she would fall asleep with us at 10 or 10:30, but would then sleep in until 10 or 10:30, so I wasn't complaining. We also lived in a studio at that time and it wasn't really possible for us to leave the room and let her sleep: if we wanted a light on to read or knit or do homework, we were in the bedroom and couldn't get away. That worked great for her first couple of years and then after our move to California and the sudden newness of living in multiple rooms, we were able to get her down by me nursing her or McKay lying with her and then stealing away to the living room for all that reading and knitting fun we had missed out on in Utah.

Isaac is a different child. Early on, we noticed that around 8 o'clock he would just fall asleep. I didn't know what to do! All this time I had had a child who could go with me to late night parties and now suddenly we have a child who can't! We've kept up with that 8 o'clock bedtime. Around 7:30 he starts getting fussy, so that's when we'll change his diaper and wind him down for bed. I nurse him to sleep until he's full, at which point he unlatches and crawls onto a pillow. He really likes lying on his belly on a pillow. All that takes about 15-30 minutes depending on the night.

Then we get Margaret ready for bed: go potty, brush teeth, lie down and nurse. Because I like to take a break between putting the kids down, that's usually around 9 o'clock. Then I nurse her to sleep and unlatch her when she's finally unconscious (or unconscious enough to go to sleep right after the unlatch).

During this time, McKay is working on his thesis. That darned thing won't end!

But lately the sleeping routines have been really off. I think it's due to the fact that both children's nap schedules are changing at the same time. Isaac is moving from 2 naps to 1 nap a day and Margaret is in between 1 nap and 0 naps, but I'm clinging on to the hope of 1 nap. When we went out of town this summer, the naps were extra screwy and so for the past couple of weeks, we've been unable to have smooth sleep schedules. I'm also trying to limit Margaret's night nursing to only once or twice instead of 5 or 6. She's been going through a bout of not feeling well, so her nursing has increased.

Because of Isaac's nap transition, his 1 nap is earlier than his second one was, so he's tired earlier- like 7 or 7:30. And Margaret has a similar issue: she's tired earlier because she sometimes skips that nap. And you'd think this would be great: more time to myself in the evening! Except if I don't get her to sleep at just the right time, she makes it over the "sleepy" hump and go into hyper-awake mode and she won't sleep until 10:30.

As far as going to bed with other people sharing the same space, we have deep sleepers that can be moved to their "side" of the bed without waking up. If I do wake one, a minute of nursing will remedy that. I think it helps that we have a memory foam mattress and the motion of getting on and off the bed doesn't transfer like it would with springs. It's really great when we get them both to sleep early because in their sleep, they'll slowly merge over to snuggle each other, leaving the rest of the bed free. When it's our bedtime, McKay and I can cuddle until I need to go nurse later in the night.

I hope that answered your question! And can I get a "booyah!" for writing this during their naptime today? Booyah!

The Keeper/Moon Cup

2011-07-20T16:05:00.000-06:00

Before I get into my first experience with menstrual cups, I want to make it clear that I'm going to talk about my vagina in this post. In fact, to break you all in, here's a video all about vaginas.

I repeat: if you don't want TMI, don't read this post.

Ok. So I went out looking for a menstrual cup. Or actually, I looked online. But menstrual cups are getting more popular, and it's likely that you'll be able to find the Diva Cup or other cups at a local health food store. Anyway, I went online and decided on the Moon Cup, made by Keeper because of price and because I had heard that the Diva Cup is longer than it, and with my tilted uterus, I wanted something short. While you menstruate, your cervix is lower by a few centimeters and for the sake of not having something bump my cervix all day, I wanted to go with something that would be shorter. Just in case.

My Moon Cup came with its own little bag... aww... McKay's reaction to the little bag was, "So you'll have to carry that around with you?" And I was all, "You've never had a period before, have you? How is that different from carrying around pads or a tampon?"

I didn't practice putting it in or taking it out beforehand; I just waited for my period to happen. My reasoning was that since my cervix would be lower, why would practicing it a different time of month help? In hindsight, practicing probably would have helped.

I started my period in the evening. I folded it like the directions said and squished it in. The directions say to get it in and then pull it down to the bottom of your vagina, so I did that. But the little stem poked out. But I was following directions and figured they knew what they were talking about.

"Oh well," I figured and went to bed.

Some time in the middle of the night, a baby stirred and I had to nurse him. He got back to sleep, but I lied for for something about an hour because this little stem thing kept poking my labia minora. It was bothersome and hurty, so I got up to trim off about a centimeter of the stem and went back to bed. Some more time passed and I still couldn't get to sleep. My desire for a good night's sleep outweighed my desire to test run the cup overnight, so I went to the bathroom, put on some mama cloth and gave up on the cup until morning.

So I put it in the next day and walked around a bit. Having been online trying to figure how how to deal with this stem thing the previous night, I decided for the time being, to stick it up as far as it could go so the stem wouldn't poke me. Then to get it out, I would "bear down" (like pushing a baby out) a little to reach the stem and pull it out.

Online, I read many women just cut off the stem entirely. It was tempting, but I knew if I did that, I'd never be able to get the darn thing out. I decided that I would keep up at this cup thing and cut off the stem once I was an expert at getting it in and out.

Did I say I had a hard time getting it out? I did. The first few times, it took me like 5 tries (or more). I asked some more experienced friends for tips and I tried them all, without much success. I have a really hard time breaking the suction because my vagina is apparently just very squooshy. I eventually figured out a 2 hand technique: bear down and grab the stem with one hand and use my other hand to pinch the cup and "break" the suction. Nevermind the fact that I rarely did any breaking of any suction until it was almost out. Problems that arose: fingernails. When I would grab the stem, I sometimes would pinch my labia minora or the left-over skin tabs that are the remnants of my hymen with my nails. Not fun. And my nails aren't particularly long!

That was the worst part: getting it out. I always seemed to need to two hands. I'm probably doing something wrong. Or I need to get better at it. When it came time to remove it permanently until my next cycle, I resolved to remove it using only one hand. And on the second try, I did! Woohoo!

Did it successfully catch everything? Yep. The first full day with it in, I had some spotting because I don't think I had it in right, but none of the other days did I have any spotting. The first day, I emptied it once midday and once in the evening before bed. The day after that, I went 12 hours without emptying and after that, I went something like 16 or 18 hours without emptying it. I probably didn't need to empty it as much as I did the first couple of days, but I was trying to fit in more practice with getting it in and out.

I found the contents of the cup to be interesting. Right now, my periods are on the brownish side because of the lactating hormones. My periods become redder when I'm fertile. While lactation has not stopped my periods, my periods are further apart (almost 40 days as opposed to almost 30) and I ovulate a day or so before my period. When I eventually get fertile again, I'll probably have shorter cycles, earlier ovulation, and heavier, redder periods. In the meantime, there's a lot of brown and stringiness. For you fellow cup users- how do you handle stringiness when you remove a cup? I need to figure that out.

Will I try it again? Yes. I wasn't very good at using it this time, but I need to give it the good ol' college try before deciding it's not for me. We'll see how it goes next month and if I can get it in and out more easily.

Was it "cleaner?" I don't know. I didn't get any menstrual fluid on me except the first day with all my attempts to get it in and out and failing. I didn't have to rinse out any mamacloth (except for that first night), so that's a plus. But it was still kind of a hassle for me. Maybe with practice.

Have you had any experience with menstrual cups? Was it easier for you? Harder? And what am I doing wrong that I need two hands to get this darn thing out?

Inquisition Monday

2011-07-18T12:50:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, Arual asked, "how did you handle nursing Margaret during early pregnancy? I'm four weeks along and my breasts are starting to get extremely tender. I don't want to wean just yet, but the pain may be too much if it gets any worse. Tips or advice? My son is 21 months right now."

And I didn't know where to start! I realized that it's almost been 2 years since I've been at that stage in pregnancy and I actually don't remember what I did, except I somehow pushed through it.

So I searched my archives and collected up the posts that mentioned breastfeeding while pregnant. There were more than I expected! I talk about breastfeeding a lot, don't I? And guess what: next month we have World Breastfeeding Week! I know you're all excited: I've got a fun thing planned for my blog for World Breastfeeding Week (and possibly the whole National Breastfeeding Month) this year!

Anyway, so in order of publish date, earliest to latest we have:
First Trimester Thoughts
Breastfeeding and Pregnancy
The Birthday
Inquisition Friday
In which I make life harder on myself and then give up
The Whole Nine Months

I think that's all of them. There are things you can do to limit the amount of nursing time: limit the nursing to a count of 5 or 10, or a short song like Itsy Bitsy Spider. Or you can use the nursing time to practice your labor relaxation techniques. I know moms who breastfeed through one pregnancy to see how they'll like it and then decide to never do it again. But then for others, it doesn't bother them at all once they get past a certain milestone (out of the first trimester, colostrum finally coming in, etc). And sometimes the child doesn't really give some moms a choice: they simply lose interest and wean over time.

Even though you might not have plans for tandem nursing in 8 months, I'd suggest reading Adventures in Tandem Nursing because there is a section on nursing while pregnant. Also talk to other moms who have been there, done that. Maybe some of my commenters will say something. How have you dealt with nursing with sensitive nipples- from pregnancy or other hormal shifts?

Someone's One

2011-07-17T09:15:00.001-06:00

A year ago:
9 and a half pounds
21 inches

Now:
22 and a half pounds
28 inches

Happy birthday, Isaac!

Uncle Tom and Aunt Flo

2011-07-13T08:30:00.000-06:00

I had a friend who referred to her period as "Uncle Tom" for "Time Of Month." And we all know about Aunt Flo.

Anyway, as of last night, I'm battling them. I know you are all poised in anticipation for updates of my menstrual cycle, so I thought I'd share.

Actually, I bring it up because I'm trying out the Mooncup for the first time and I'm letting you know that a thorough review will be forthcoming.

I know you all just can't wait.

Harvesting

2011-07-11T11:59:00.002-06:00

This weekend we picked 20 pounds of plums (more on the way!). Five pounds of them have become jam. I think I'll make some more jam, freeze others, and eat some fresh. I also picked some blackberries. I'd like to make jam from them also, but we'll see- they tend to get eaten quickly!

I went out this morning and harvested celery, mustard greens, zucchini, broccoli, and a fennel bulb. The broccoli is a little late, but we'll still throw it into a salad. The fennel has gotten really big, so I don't have a lot of hope for it tasting very good. There are still a couple of fennel bulbs out there and I'll get them later. We need to figure out what to put in their place. I'm thinking maybe some arugula or beets. I'd also like start seeding some winter vegetables in pots to transfer in a couple of months. Cauliflower? More broccoli?

Here's our line up, starting with lots of celery and the broccoli.

Mustard greens, fennel, blackberries

Zucchini, half our plums, and a jar of plum jam. We've made 11 pints so far.

We are really drowning in celery- did you notice that? Anyone want some celery?

Checking In

2011-07-07T07:24:00.001-06:00

We got back from a vacation a couple of days ago and I'm just checking in. We've have a sick toddler and McKay has been working on his thesis, so I haven't had computer access to blog.

Vacation was good. We went down to Monterey and Morgan Hill. The Monterey Bay Aquarium uses a giant baby bottle and gives the amount of milk a newborn whale drinks in terms of baby bottles, so I made sure to fill out one of those comment forms about how imagery that equates babyhood with bottles contributes to a culture that disapproves of breastfeeding and negatively impacts I mean, come on! Whales are mammals and their breastfeeding rates are probably near 100%! And children go to this museum and it just reinforces baby=bottle and a new generation grows up not considering breastfeeding as an option. I didn't have room for all that on the comment card, but you know. I'll follow up with an email with actual links to the WHO Code and the affects of bottle imagery on our culture and babies. I also thought it was strange to use a giant plastic bottle to represent milk, especially when their environmental and conservation exhibits are against plastic. It's eco-friendly to breastfeed! Especially for whales.

Poor Margaret had a hard time keeping anything down the past two days. I threw up twice early Tuesday and she didn't keep anything in pretty much from Tuesday morning until Wednesday afternoon. We nursed and nursed and nursed and nursed and also froze some electrolyte drink for her to eat as popsicles. She wouldn't touch it when we offered it to her as "juice that will make her tummy feel better", but she was all about the popsicles. We think it was heat exhaustion, but it could have been food poisoning or a bug- a few of our nephews had upset stomachs on the trip as well. She's acting well now (knock on wood!) so we might go to the library today. Maybe.

I little to no motivation to do anything today. I have emails to catch up on (sorry if I haven't responded to you yet!) and laundry to do. And there's a baby shower this weekend I should knit something for. And I need to finish my other knitting projects and write a few letters like the above to write: our hotel is not off the hook when it comes to lactivism, either. A polite letter requesting non-Nestle food items in the breakfast area and to buy behind the counter needs to get out. I don't know if it's that particular hotel manager's choice or if Marriott has a deal with Nestle. I googled and couldn't find a connection, but I haven't had enough computer time to do a thorough search.

So we're back and as always, I'm activist-ing. If I have time, I'm going to try to upload photos to our family blog later.

Inquisition Monday: Race

2011-06-27T12:46:00.000-06:00

Inquisition Monday this week is a question for you all: How do you talk to your three year old about race?

Or more exactly, is it offensive if Margaret says that a person is "chocolate" and do I need to talk to her about that and how do I do that?

On one hand, it's absolutely normal and age-appropriate that she's noticing and pointing out the differences in people: some are boys, some are girls (and sometimes she's wrong about who is which!) and some people have blue eyes and some people wear red dresses, and some people are fat and some are skinny, and some people (in her words) are "chocolate." And she wants "chocolate" hair and insists to me that her hair will grow chocolate when she gets bigger.

But on the other hand, I have no idea what's going to offend. When I was in elementary school, we were told to NEVER refer to black people as "black;" they are "African American." Then in high school, we were told "black" was fine and "African American" can be offensive because not every "black" person is from Africa. And recently I've heard "people of color" more. And I have no idea where "chocolate" fits in this discourse except that I'm pretty sure whatever term is chosen pick, someone will take umbrage.

And then, how do you talk about it? I don't remember my parents talking about race at all when I was small- and the few things I heard, I repeated, only to find that it was racist. Because of this, I have patience with kids who are repeating things they've heard at home, but absolutely nowhere to start talking about race as the adult.

I don't want to ignore it because race is a very important part of a person's identity and culture. And I can't pretend that race doesn't matter. It does.

So my friends of color, is "chocolate" ok? I usually say, "Yes, his skin is brown" or "Yes, her hair is black." Is that enough? But it doesn't keep Margaret from using "chocolate" because she uses "chocolate" to refer to brown even with her crayons or pant color. How do you discuss this with a 3 year old?

"Guilt Suck" is now an official phrase

2011-06-21T16:57:00.001-06:00

Quick! Both the kids are asleep! Write a thoughtful, poignant blog post now!

Four years ago, I read Laura Shanley's Unassisted Childbirth while preparing to go head-first into this unknown world of motherhood. Early, in the book Shanley states,

We can retain our self-conscious personalities while at the same time becoming aware of our inner selves. Tod o this we must first rid ourselves of the unnatural emotions of fear, shame, and guilt, for they are like clouds preventing us from seeing who we are and what we're capable of doing. This can be accomplished through love, forgiveness, and understanding. Ture religions was designed to eliminate these undesirable emotions and reunite the separated self-counscious ego with its inner self. Most organized religions today fail to do eithr one. They not only perpetuate beliefs in fear, shame, and guilt, rather than alleviate them; they also encourage dependence on external authority rather than internal authority. Shanley, Unassisted Childbirth, pp. 8-9

Over the past few years, those three: fear, shame, and guilt, have come to my mind as I have gone about my life.

When I first read this book, I was 100% onboard with the eliminating fear aspect. I was preparing for my own unassisted birth and fear was the big monster I was fighting. I was regularly faced with "What if... what if... what if..." And when the big day came, I was not afraid those entire 44 hours of labor.

And I think I did a good job of keeping that up: Without fear, I blogged openly about that birth. And I crept into a new stage: No shame.

About a month after Margaret's birth, the upset comments and emails about my birth nudity came pouring in. Eight months later, I was standing in front of Facebook headquarters with signs and responding to reporters and newspapers with questions all summing into one: Have you no shame?

To which, I replied, "Nope!" And good riddance, too!

And the shame was not limited to shame about my body and how I use it. I was supposed to be ashamed about my mothering: "You're not going to be one of those mothers who is nursing her 3 year old on her front porch, are you?" I was supposed to be ashamed of the state of my house (it's not messy, it's full of awesome). And things I've written on my blog or posted- but what I wrote was how I was feeling at that time and I'm not going to rewrite my history, and who reads old posts, anyway?

But through all of this, I held on to guilt. "Guilt is important," I reasoned, "because if I don't feel guilty about something I've done, they how will I know to change?" I couched guilt under he guise of being god-fearing and having "godly sorrow." Guilt was something I thought I needed, something that was even noble. But now I look at that question and ask myself, "If I feel guilty about something I've done, how will I have the energy to change?" Guilt sucks away energy. It disempowers. It sucks me into a hole and then I feel guilty for being in that hole and get sucked down further. It's the hole of guilt suck. And when I get in that hole, I'm not using my energy to make reparations for wrongs or rubbing the toes I've stepped on, I'm sucked in the guilt and it just keeps going.

So I've been making a conscious effort to not feel guilty. I try to remind myself that when my kids are "acting up" it's because they physically can't act a different way at that moment: perhaps they are sleep deprived, or their blood sugar is low, or I haven't shown them a better way of handling the situation, or whatever: their brain isn't firing the way it could. A friend of mine told me the other day, "You know how kids are doing their best for their situation? When does that stop? We're still doing that as adults!" And suddenly so much guilt went away.

Yes, I could feel guilty about those Oreos I ate yesterday and how I just really wanted to get away from my kids at that time. I can get into the guilt suck, but will that change how things went down? Will it change how I handle a similar situation in the future? No. I'll just be in guilt suck. The tears happened, the sugar crash happened, and that's over and no more guilt.

So now, years later, I think I'm on board with Shanley's list of emotions to eschew. I'm going to try to not give into the temptation to shame and guilt myself and my kids. It's tempting, especially since it's so easy to fall back onto old habits.

And oh crap- the baby is stirring, so naptime is over and I have to end here. I hope this made sense and is somewhat coherent. The sun is high; have no more fear, guilt or shame! Have a beautiful solstice, my friends!

While I wrote this, a meltdown happened because I wouldn't play with the horse puppet.

2011-06-20T17:31:00.000-06:00

I was going to write a deep, reflective post today, but instead I locked myself in the pantry so I could eat Oreos and get away from my kids.

You know how a week ago, I wrote a post about how I didn't get very touched out because of the three hour naps? Yeah. We're on day 4 of no naps for Margaret and I am so very touched out that I just locked myself in the pantry again so I could blog. Go ahead and judge me.

I need a game plan for the afternoons. And I need my me-time. I'm not used to needing to entertain a 3 year old for an extra 3 hours every afternoon. When am I going to knit? Blog? These things are important for my personhood and recharging my batteries and resetting my touched-out-o-meter. When McKay is home, finishing his thesis and needs his spare time to be child-free, so that means mine is child-filled. When is my me time going to happen? Oh you know, after the kids fall asleep at 10:30 (Isaac goes to bed at 8/8:30, so it's mostly Margaret). Because it's not like I need to sleep any time.

Somewhat related: read this post on Feminist Mormon Housewives written by a SAHD.

Oh crap. My alarm on my phone is going off which means I have to open the door of the pantry and stop hiding so I can turn it off. That and Isaac is trying to open the door.

And now I'm in the kitchen. Why is it that as soon as Margaret stops napping, Isaac did too? He needs to sleep so much, but he won't go to sleep. And food has not been good for his butt. I'm taking him off solids because he got a terrible diaper rash. I was thinking, "He's almost 1, we can do more foods!" but that's not working here. He went from pooping once every 36 hours to 4 times in 6 hours with a bad rash that smelled really yeasty. We going to re-introduce solids slowly again to figure out what he's being sensitive to (probably milk and wheat). He's only allowed raw foods right now: carrots, peas, etc.

On the plus side, we did go out to a playdate today, which Margaret had a melt down at. Wait... that's not a plus. The melt down means she's overtired, but she won't go to sleep. Isaac's walking, that's a plus. Or is it? And despite my desire to lock myself away, I haven't locked the kids away or used the TV today. That's good, right? Probably not since it means I haven't gotten a break.

This piece of non-coherence is brought to you by a really crappy night's sleep. I need to go lock myself in the pantry again. There are Oreos there.

Splurging on Pine Nuts

2011-06-17T14:45:00.001-06:00

I very rarely buy pine nuts because of how expensive they are, but last week, I came across the opportunity to use two recipes with pine nuts in them, so I went out and bought some.

The first was purple carrot cake. I didn't get a picture because we ate it all up so quickly!

Purple Carrot Cake alla Romanesca You can get the recipe at the link, but for grocery list purposes, the ingredients that aren't normally in carrot cake were: purple carrots (yay CSA), pine nuts, and mascarpone cheese. The recipe says to use a 9x9 pan, but I think it makes enough for 9x13. McKay had to modify the icing recipe; I'll come back and add that on when he gets back to me about those details.

We also made pesto. I don't normally use pine nuts in pesto, so it was fun to use a "real" pesto recipe. I just used a basic pesto recipe and used our greens instead of basil and real pine nuts! Then, because we're kind of getting sick of all the pesto around here, we tried something we haven't had in a long while: twice baked potatoes with pesto. The potatoes were from our CSA, as were the greens.

This morning I went out to pick blackberries from our bush. I was only able to get 6. Most of them aren't ripe yet and/or out of my reach. I hoping to make jam and pie. Yum! Happy eating!

Tandem Nursing

2011-06-13T08:29:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I'll hit 11 months of tandem nursing, unless you count the pregnancy as tandem nursing- and some people do. Then it'll be 20 months. I've been nursing for 38 months straight total. Wow. That's almost longer than I was in college.

Early on, tandem nursing was difficult: I had thrush. I was healing from a birth in the early days and needed help just maneuvering. The first while when McKay went back to work, getting two kids to sleep was an adventure. But then again, mothering in general was an adventure and nothing got done.

And now that I've been doing this for almost a year, it's not a big deal. Nursing is a part of the mothering package for me right now and I feel like I've got a handle on both nursing and mothering. That plus the fact that I'm in better shape and we're almost moved in, I feel like we're doing pretty well!

I do get touched out. I never felt that way with Margaret until the pregnancy and I've never completely lost that sensation. For example, to put the children to sleep for their naps in the afternoon, I nurse Isaac until he's full, then I turn over and nurse Margaret. Ideally, Isaac will fall to sleep on his own at this point. Less ideally, he'll climb onto my head. Then, just when I start feeling touched out by Margaret's nursing, she'll either be asleep or asleep enough that I can say, "Margaret, it's Isaac's turn. You'll get a turn when he's done." And then I go back to Isaac. Most of the time, Margaret ends up falling asleep before Isaac's done. And my touched-out-o-meter resets with Isaac because his latch is different and he's on the other side, so the touched out feeling isn't an issue. Then once they are both asleep I get 2-3 hours to myself, excluding the 1 or 2 times Isaac stirs and needs me to nurse him back to sleep: 1 if he's not teething, 2 if he is. The whole nursing to sleep process takes a little over half an hour, during which time I read and try not to get diverted by my smart phone.

I don't nurse both kids at the same time very often. It takes extenuating circumstances like injuries to bring that on. I have nursed both at the same time in public, but only a handful of times. Isaac gets lots of public nursing experience whereas Margaret doesn't get quite as much, but she does nurse once in sacrament every week and once at library story time or the park or wherever we go out for the day.

So that's tandem nursing right now. I'm not any more tired than I would be having two kids. And it doesn't keep me from doing all my normal activities except when it takes an extra long time to get the kids to sleep, but even if I wasn't nursing, they'd be extra needy those days.

I've brought up the idea of weaning in conversation with Margaret a few times just to get her used to the idea, though I don't feel like weaning is necessary yet. Just a few, "When you're big, you won't nurse any more" comments. She knows she'll grow big like Mommy and Mommy doesn't nurse. It's out there as a vague idea for the future.

But she loves breast. Last week, I asked her what it tasted like.

"Chocolate."

Testimony Garden

2011-06-09T16:07:00.000-06:00

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but I'm now a panelist for the new podcast Daughters of Mormonism. It's going to be a weekly-ish podcast that covers various Mormon topics from women's perspectives and experiences. I was first on the Finding the Divine Feminine panel because of my Mutual Approbation blog and I'm going to be on various future panels! So to introduce me to the listeners, Sybil interviewed me about my life story. I talked about lactivism, unassisted birth, some eco-friendly endeavors and some other stuff. It was recorded over a week ago and I keep remembering things I should have mentioned but left out! Alas! That's why I have Inquisition Monday here, though, right?

One of the things I talked about was an analogy of Testimony Gardens. It's an analogy I came up with last winter when I was approaching my testimony in new ways and I thought I'd elaborate here. On the podcast, I was a little disheveled: we had just moved and I hadn't had time to make notes or an outline!

The idea of looking at a testimony as a garden originated in Alma's discourse about faith being a seed- and that it can be a tiny little seed of just wanting to believe.

When I think about Testimony Gardens, I see the different things we can believe in as different plants. And I don't think it has to be Mormon or even religion-related. You can have a belief that prayer and meditation is good for your body and spirit without needing someone/thing to pray to. You can believe in exercise or good food. You can believe that you time needs to be spent doing things for others. This garden represent the mores and beliefs on which you build your life.

In Mormon terms: a person might have a really strong testimony plant of tithing because they've had experiences that affirm the truthfulness of tithing. Another person might not have the same testimony- maybe their plant is just a seedling or the seed is still in the packet. That's ok. They might have a strong fasting plant. Or scripture-reading plant. Or a prophet-following plant. Or anything else. And that's ok. I know that there are times in my life when I spend a lot of energy on only one part of my testimony. In early 2005, I did a lot of study about the concept of faith and what it meant for me- and if you had been in the ward I was in at the time, almost every comment I made in a class had to do with what I was discovering about faith. And other people focus on other plants in their gardens at different times. It's ok.

When you are a child, your parents and the adults around you help you plant your garden: they might feel like honesty is really important, so you have an honesty "plant." Or that prayer is important, so you have a "prayer" plant. Or any number of things. And that's good. It's helpful to have people who show you how to live and give you ideas of good habits and beliefs to focus on and develop as you grow.

Over the past few years and especially this past winter, I looked at my testimony garden and saw that it wasn't something that I liked. It represented what my parents and family thought was important, what my teachers thought was important, what my friends thought was important, but it didn't represent what I thought was important. I needed to figure out what I actually believed. So I started tearing it up a lot of it. I am going to believe in things that I want to believe in. And my garden has changed dramatically over these years: if you knew me in high school, you might not recognize me on this blog. Well, you would, but some of my major beliefs about the world has changed- I mean, I had my babies without any medical attention! I can guarantee you that in high school, my attitude was, "Give me the drugs!" And it's not just my attitudes about what my body can do- my beliefs about the gospel have changed. And I've uprooted a lot. Last December, I straight-up told McKay, "Love, I'm uprooting my testimony garden and it's going to look like I don't believe in much of anything for a while, but I'm keeping a few of the plants to hold on to (maybe, sometimes a fresh start sounds nicer) and I'm re-planting everything how I want it to be and it'll be good in the end. If everything looks like a mess in the meantime, it's because that's the nature of gardening and life."

And now, it's spring in my life and I'm planting things again. And I'm hoping it'll be a garden that I can recognize as my own. There are plants I really want- things I really want to believe in. And it surprised me that there are plants I do not even want to touch- beliefs that I do not want a testimony of. And I think that's ok, too. It's my garden and I have big dreams for it.

What I love about this analogy is that it allows for differences. We don't all need to have identical gardens. In fact, we shouldn't have identical gardens. Some of us live in a lush metaphorical "California" and some of us look out at what life has given us and only see Arizona. That happens and you need to plant accordingly or drain all the water from 4 other states so you can have okra. Either way works, but one is going to take a lot more time and work. And hey, if you have that time and okra is important to you (it is for me!), then do it.

So that's my analogy. Don't judge your neighbor's garden. It's ok to just have a few seedlings and it's ok to have a forest of oak trees. And it's ok, and even necessary, to burn your prairie every couple of years.

And check me out over at Daughters of Mormonism from time to time. If you like it, subscribe, if you don't, then don't. The readers of this blog are very diverse and at the moment, I'm not going to use this blog to plug every podcast I'm on because I'm sure some of you would rather I talk about other things. Like breasts.

Green green everywhere

2011-06-07T11:36:00.000-06:00

We're still in the unpacking stage and I haven't found my camera cord, so all the pictures in this post are from my phone. And since the house is in disarray, all the pictures are from outside. It's been overcast and cloudy for the past week or so, but check out some of the features of the yard!

Overgrown grapevine arch. The grapes are supposed to be jelly grapes. I also want to read up on grapevine pruning for next year because this arch is a little ridiculous.

Citrus trees. There are three new little citrus trees that need constant watering, so Margaret and I are going to make sure they stay hydrated.

My basil. This was in a cup in our old place. It's graduated to a pot and will get to go in the garden once it's a little bigger. Right now the ducks are eating all the seedlings, so it's not safe for the basil to be there.

Figs. There are two fig trees in the back yard and it's almost fig season! As soon as these get droopy, they'll be ready!

The garden. You can see the compost pile in the back there. Because California has a year-round growing season, as we harvest what's there, we'll be able to plant new vegetables.

Ducks. They usually stay in their pen, but are let out on rainy days so they can eat the snails and slugs.

Blackberry bushes.

Walnut tree. This will make a big mess later this year.

There's also an apricot tree and I think I remember the landlord mentioning plums. As soon as we finish unpacking, I'm going to read up on the growing seasons out here and start planting!

Moving in

2011-06-02T10:22:00.001-06:00

We've moved! But I can't find my camera cord; it's still in a box. So no pictures yet. This week has been quite busy.

Friday
Packing packing packing. Margaret throwing up with residual food poisoning from Thursday when she couldn't keep anything down. Spent the evening arranging furniture and boxes so the move into the truck would be easy.

Saturday
Moving day! Got the truck, loaded it up. I spent the time making sure small children weren't squished. We had a lot of great help and we are very grateful. When it was time to be done loading the truck, mastitis hit- my breast was sore and had clogged ducts and I was suddenly fatigued. The stress and my activity made me forget to nurse regularly. I spent the unloading time directing where things went and praying I'd get some time to take care of myself. When everyone was gone, I nursed Isaac and Margaret in various positions to work out the clogged duct, massaged it, and lied in bed. Our landlords wanted to do a dinner together, so I mustered up strength for free dinner (we contributed asparagus from our CSA box). At the dinner, Margaret threw up again, the first time that day. I think the stress of moving was causing her tummy to stay upset. Also, we weren't eating very well.

Sunday
Mastitis was overcome. No more chills, fatigue aches, or fever. My co-teacher was out of town for the long weekend, so despite my tired state, I got myself to church. It was just Isaac and me because we weren't sure if Margaret was well yet. I finally started helping McKay unpack. With the mastitis, I had left it all to him on Saturday.

Monday
Spent the morning cleaning the old apartment out and figuring out how to transfer our Internet over to the new place. Went to the Apple Store and Ikea for a few things, but I'm going to have to take them back today. Internet worked in the evening! Woot! Oh, and Margaret threw up in the parking garage at the Apple Store. And I went over my new local yarn store. While I was gone, Margaret had diarrhea**, so McKay called frantically looking for me and I had to cut my yarn store shopping short. I did take advantage of the sale, though. No worries.

Tuesday
Woke up to Margaret having peed the bed. And nightmares that included weeping angels. I had a hair appointment at noon, but because of Margaret's lingering upset stomach, I had to cancel the babysitting I had scheduled. McKay came home to watch her for my appointment during his lunch so I wouldn't have to cancel my appointment. It's nice and short for the summer! I'd show you but I don't have my camera cord, remember? And a friend of mine came over with her two kids and the kids hung out and fed snails to the ducks in the back yard. Big accomplishment of the day: books in the bookcase!

Wednesday
Planned on going to the park, but it started raining as soon as we stepped out the door. Margaret went on a hunger strike and refused any solid food until she got to go to the park- so she finally had some bites of sandwich around 5:45 that evening. Seriously. I had a scheduled Skype call at 2, which went for 2 hours. And I did the laundry finally (see peed-in-bed above). Got the CSA box for the week (yummy!) and also did some quick grocery shopping (eggs and milk). Big accomplishment of the day: organized the pantry.

Thursday
Today was going to be a big day in one of my volunteer capacities, but I got a call last night saying I wasn't needed because the work I was going to do was accomplished already. I'm glad that all worked out. So I think we're going to go to Ikea to return the area rug and shelves we bought on Monday. They don't actually work in our new place. I also need to try to find a 2mm crochet hook so I can finish my lace shawl in time to enter in the county fair next week. I've paid the registration fee, but I need to bind off, block, and the take it to the county fair people by the 10th.

That's it. I'm going to start posting regularly soon. I'm still catching my breath!

**ETA: McKay remarks, "Monday when Margaret had diarrhea, she was also throwing up. And that had happened after Isaac woke up screaming."

Friday Fill-ins

2011-05-27T18:01:00.000-06:00

1. This week I found my debit card, but lost our quarters and I still can't find my diamond ring. Hoping it'll turn up in the move. Oh and Margaret was sick yesterday. Nothing like packing with a toddler who can't keep anything down.

2. I'm having a hard time keeping up on my library returns.

3. It's all about the hat.

4. Isaac's hair is turning blond in the sun.

5. I demand that you all celebrate Knit in Public Day in June! Woohoo!.

6. Take the scenic path, it's filled with pretty trees.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to having the laundry and packing done, tomorrow my plans include moving across town and Sunday, I want to take a breather!

Our move is tomorrow! Pack! Laundry! Clean!

Margaret has been sick the past couple of days, so that's kept me from packing. I think it's food poisoning from some strawberries that were in the fridge for probably too long. She was the only one who ate those and she's the only one who can't keep anything down. I'm grateful for breastfeeding. There are times when I think she might wean and then there are times like this that I'm grateful that breastmilk is so readily digested and that she's staying somewhat hydrated while her body refuses everything.

My brain has been everywhere this week, I need to get it all back into one place. I was on a panel for a podcast, which was fun and maybe I'll do more in the future! I lost and found my debit card in the baby clothes I donated. After taking the clothes to be donated, I found a lost shoe that was supposed to be with those clothes. When I took the shoe to meet its mate, the woman working saw me and said she had my debit card which had been missing for over a week. It snuck itself into the bags while I was sorting clothes and it was lucky that I went back to give them the lost shoe or it would still be missing. My wedding ring is still missing, though. It's been a couple of months; I was hoping to find it in the packing process. Maybe in the unpacking process? Oh, and I took care of a 3 year old who is sick and needs to be held all day and still managed to pack the entire house myself! I think I deserve a medal. I really do.

Zombies love the Oakland Library

2011-05-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we participated in a zombie crawl to Save Oakland Libraries.

Isaac was "un-born at home."

And I ran into my friend Lisa. I met her a year ago at a knitting class and haven't seen her in person since (but I stalk her projects on Ravelry, of course). Love the Plants vs. Zombies references!

I'm not blogging.

2011-05-19T16:28:00.002-06:00

I've just set up 6 posts in my queue to blog. Just the titles and links to remind me of what I wanted to say. Because I'm trying hard to not blog right now and work on packing and cleaning instead. See? Look at me not blogging! I'm so elegant at it!

But thanks for the comments and emails I've gotten in the past week or so! Sometimes I think I've got nothing new to add to the Bloggosphere and that I should take a long break, but you all remind me why I love it. I've been reading all your blogs as I nurse babies down to sleep, I promise!

Our official move date is next Saturday. Then we have to see how Internet is going to work in our new place. I really wish I could blink and everything would show up in our new place instantly. Or click my heels.

In the meantime, I'm missing out on wonderful things like the Maker Faire this weekend! Alas! But we're not going to miss the Zombie Apocalypse Saturday night. Pictures for that will be forthcoming. Oh- by the way, anyone know how to make homemade face paint? I need zombie colors like white and flesh-falling-off reds and greens and black.

Still alive!

2011-05-17T12:55:00.000-06:00

It's been rainy the past couple of days and I was not on my best mom behavior yesterday at all. I'm blaming the rain.

But here is Margaret showing off the butterfly shape she bit into her apple.

And Daddy and Isaac snuggling.

Oh! And cuteness! And check out that messy house. Oh yeah, baby!

Why I UCed

2011-05-13T17:23:00.000-06:00

So over on the Board, I'm being referenced, so I thought I could do a little response myself.

First, a little response to the "women die in childbirth!" fear. Yes, they do. They probably will forever because people die sometimes and there's not a way to 100% prevent that. I think on some levels, maternal mortality rates have improved in recent years, and in some places, it's getting worse. But historically and in developing countries, I think (my opinion, don't have statistics at the moment) many of the deaths are related to access to clean water, nutrition, and access to medical care.

And when I chose to have unassisted births, I did so with access to clean water, good nutrition, and medical care. The water that comes from our taps is drinking water. I have the money and access to grocery stores that provide me with a wide variety of good foods full of vitamins. I can buy fresh fruits and vegetables any day I want. And if in my pregnancy I showed signs of pre-eclampsia or in labor a hand presented or any other variety of emergencies necessitating medical care, I could have (and would have) sought out the appropriate care provider.

As to why people choose unassisted birth, one of the responders said they think it might because some women want control. And that's definitely one reason. Some women feel like they should be able to choose who gets to watch them labor and catch babies, who gets to stick a finger up there to determine how effaced and dilated they are (if they so choose to even want to know that number). I would hope that all women feel get to make those decisions for themselves- these birthing bodies are their birthing bodies.

But that's not the only reason. There a probably as many reasons for UC as there are UCers. Some women like privacy. Some feel that it's the safest way to have that baby. Some feel it's "just the way they do it"in their family. Some feel spiritually drawn to it. Sometimes babies come too fast. And some women don't even know they're pregnant when they give birth.

I have a sequence of posts (linked to in my right sidebar) explaining why I chose UC with Margaret. Ultimately, I felt very "led" or "drawn" to it. I couldn't get the concept out of my head, and when I have ideas like that, I go through with them because I know they're important. And I really think that with Margaret's birth, going to 43 weeks, being in labor for 44 hours with some rough back labor, I probably saved myself from a cesarean by staying home without a midwife.

With Isaac, I did not feel so led. It was an option on the table. With the move across a couple of states at 30 weeks pregnant and our inability to get health insurance in California (hello, pre-existing condition!), and the fact that just like in Provo, we were only blocks away from a big bad hospital with a good NICU, I thought it was a good choice. I didn't feel particularly drawn to UC like I did with Margaret, and looking at Isaac's birth: 5.5 hours, only 9 days "overdue," I don't think that if I had had a midwife or been in a hospital the birth would have gone too differently.

If/when we have another baby I don't know if I'll UC again. I might. I might not. Depends on how I feel, how my body acts, how that baby grows and develops, and how the birth goes.

Unassisted birth is not everyone's choice, but I do feel it is a viable option for women who want it. I don't think it's fair to pain UC with a "BAD CHOICE" brush, nor should it be painted with the "BEST CHOICE" brush. It's a choice, and for some births, a good one.

Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace

2011-05-07T16:50:00.000-06:00

by Julia Ward Howe, 1870

Arise then…women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says, “Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace…

Each bearing her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God—

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Stinson Beach

2011-05-06T18:07:00.002-06:00

Small Hiatus

2011-05-05T09:19:00.000-06:00

Dear Internets:

In my frenzy of "I CAN DO EVERYTHING!" last month, I piled my plate a little high. And we're moving this month and I have to pack. And I need to knit these things for deadlines. McKay's giving everything to finishing his thesis, so I'm on my own. My brain is going to take a break from this blog until June. I'll post a picture every couple of days or so to prove we're still alive.

In the meantime, go ahead and covet our CSA box this week: asparagus, strawberries, lettuce (both romaine and red leaf), red spring onions, green garlic, fava beans, and braising mix.

And the yummiest of all:

Inquisition Monday: Preparing a Toddler

2011-05-02T06:19:00.000-06:00

Today's Inquisition Monday question comes from McKay's cousin, Deb via Facebook, so I can't link to her, but if you want to see some gorgeous nursing pictures of her, go here.

Deb asks, do you have advice or good reference on how to prepare your toddler for a new baby? My daughter will be 21 months when the new baby arrives and I'm a little terrified.

Yes and no. I was in a similar position as you because Margaret was 27 months when Isaac was born. I scoured the web for ideas, but unfortunately most of them are for older children. For example, one preparation activity that was really endearing to read about was a suggestion of using candles to show how love is shared: Mommy's lit candle would light the toddler's candle and then light the baby's candle and you saying something like, "Mommy loves you and when the baby comes, Mommy will also love the baby, and the love for you is still bright." Beautiful. If we do that in the future, I'll probably cry (I'm like that), but Margaret was just too young to understand that.

So I don't know if I really have any good advice for a little one like yours. I now some people have done gifts from the baby: a toy or book that can help keep the child busy while you nurse or change diapers. That sounds like a good idea, but we didn't do that.

What we did do was take advantage of the small parental leave we had. McKay was an intern, so it wasn't full-blown parental leave, but it was something. Having him to play with Margaret and entertain her was great. He was able to fill her needs for those first 3 weeks so I could take care of Isaac's needs.

Margaret did get really fussy in those first few weeks after the birth, though. She needed attention because she was, in many ways, a baby herself. Nursing helped a little, if you nurse through your pregnancy. Bedsharing helped a little as well. Before Isaac was mobile, Margaret slept between us and Isaac was on the outside of me. She could get Daddy cuddles if I was nursing Isaac.

Be patient. And be gentle with yourself. You need to take care of you and heal postpartum. And feed your baby. And tend to your older baby. That's a lot. Maybe invite some friends for your toddler over to play in the days, so she's happy, but don't try to act the part of hostess and keeping the house neat and all that. Just let it be.

If you can, try to keep the toddler's schedule the same as far as bedtimes, bath times, meal times, etc. And if you don't feel too touched out, cuddle with the toddler when you can. Read books while you nurse.

But be kind to yourself. Overworking yourself is going to prolong your own healing which is bad for you and also bad for your baby and toddler.

Anyone else have any suggestions for Deb?

Friday Fill-ins and HAPPINESS!

2011-04-29T17:13:00.003-06:00

1. I love to knit.

2. Waking up to a baby is waking up to giggles and a smile.

3. It's how you play the game.

4. Show me, don't tell me!

5. Well, would you do it all over again?

6. Our basil seedlings are our spring peepers.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to signing a new lease, tomorrow my plans include cleaning up a beach and watching a friend's kids and Sunday, I want to knit!

Before continuing, I wanted to give a shout out to a new blog, Our Mother's Keeper. It's a new eco-conscious Mormon blog and I'm excited to start following it. They have some great permas there.

Now my happy news!

Did you see #7 there? Signing a new lease?! It's exciting, let me tell you. It's like this place was made for us.

It's a basement of a 1895 Victorian home and there's a yard we can use to garden in! I'm so excited! And that's not the only awesome part. The whole place is awesomesauce. They have ducks, fruit trees, solar panels, and major plans for a steampunk playhouse.

And future projects may include: grey water, water catchment and storage, irrigation system in front and back, hot tub install, clay pizza oven, taking care of the ducks, beehives.

Um, did I just die and go to heaven?

No scratch that. When we first moved to the Bay Area, I joked to McKay that it was like coming to the Celestial Kingdom: everything is in walking distance, there's great diversity, you can find crunchy people and resources, volunteer opportunities, the ward is the bee's knees, it's perfect.

And now this! I think we've upgraded to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom and I'm going to explode because it is so radiant and happy.

I'm really excited for this move. It's slightly more expensive, but with free utilities and a yard to use, I'm ok with that. The layout of the apartment is funky because the house wasn't built to have an apartment in the basement. We also don't have the security of a gated place anymore.

The biggest downside is that we're taking a hit in counter space and cabinet space, but I'm sure our landlords will be ok with us installing some counters. I'm looking at this as a crunchy apprenticeship: From now until we have the money to buy our own home, I can learn how to do grey water, how they set up their solar panels, how to (organically) garden in the local soil and climate, etc. And then when we have the money to buy, I'll be ready to set it all up there!

And what does this mean for you readers? Well, now I'll have more blog fodder, starting in June!

STEAMPUNK PLAYHOUSE.

That is all.

Pesto!

2011-04-28T10:29:00.000-06:00

We've been drowning in our CSA greens lately, and stir frying everything was getting old, so this past week, I've been trying new recipes.

On Sunday we made tzaztiki (recipe here) to share at an Easter gathering. I've been eating the leftovers for lunch all week. Yummy tzaztiki! I think I went a little overboard on the lemon juice, though. There's quite the zing.

We were still overrun with chard after that recipe, though, so after googling "what to do with too much chard" I found a pesto recipe. This is now going to be my go-to recipe for when we have too many greens. I learned anything green can be pesto! And it freezes! I'm so happy. Last summer, a lot of our greens were wasted because we couldn't eat them quickly enough! Pesto!

After the pesto, for almost 24 hours, our house was chard-free. Unbelievable. Then our CSA box came again yesterday. What has our $20 given us this week?

1 bunch of Asparagus (3rd week in a row!)
1/2 pound of Braising Mix (do I hear more pesto?)
1-1/4 pound Potatoes (soup!)
1 bunch of radish (2nd week in a row!)
1 bunch of Chard (pesto pesto!)
2 heads of cauliflower (plus the head from last week we haven't eaten yet)
1 bunch of spinach (green smoothie? pesto? salad?)
1 head of lettuce (hugest head we've ever gotten! Yay for sandwiches and salads!)
1 bunch of fennel (hugest bunch ever)

We were still drowning in all our leeks (7 stalks) and carrots from the 3 previous weeks, so last night, I shredded enough carrots to make 2 cakes later for McKay to take to work (I'm cutting back on my sugar intake). The rest of the carrots have been peeled and cut into sticks for teething and snacking. Some leeks will go with the potatoes for soup. The rest of the leeks will become toppings for our pizza tomorrow, additions for scrambled eggs (my main breakfast), and whatever else. We also have a ton of green garlic to through on a pizza and in eggs and soup.

I have a fennel salad recipe that I tried a few weeks ago and it rocked all kinds of socks, so when I make it again, I'll take a picture and share it with you all. I know this isn't a food blog, so I don't blog our recipes often (and I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures!), but my world is so full of wonderful food right now I almost can't not blog about the food we're eating.

Today's plans: after spending some time outside, I'm going to make lots of pesto and that fennel salad. We have run out of space in our fridge. Luckily, we are doing so well in the food realm that grocery shopping tomorrow will be easy: eggs, a couple of cups of milk, and maybe some bread, if I don't feel like baking some myself.

Happy eating! I'm so glad the growing season is upon us. We have a small cup containing basil and there's a possibility we might move to a new place in a month where we can garden!

Inquisition Monday: Waiting

2011-04-25T17:00:00.001-06:00

Today's Inquisition Monday question comes from Betttina on Twitter. She asks, "How did you survive the last weeks of pregnancy, mentally and physically? I've been saying for 9 mos that this kid will arrive when the kid WANTS to arrive, but I find myself getting impatient (and uncomfortable!)"

Good question! I actually have a lot of experience in the waiting department. Margaret was 21 days "late" and Isaac was 9 days "late," both due dates calculated by my ovulation date instead of LMP. That puts me up for a total of 30 days, or an entire month of sitting around "overdue."

Mentally, waiting around can be rough. It got really bad when I hit 42 weeks with Margaret. I spent time on message boards asking people about being overdue, and trying to figure out if I was mentally stalling labor or if she was just comfy in there. In the end, I have no idea why she wanted to hang out in my uterus for so long, but she was only 8.5 pounds, definitely not an "overdue" baby.

The best thing I did with Isaac was not tell people my due date or even due month. It was like a little game, "When are you due?" "Oh, sometime this summer." Meanwhile, I secretly knew the answer was "last week." That was fun. But in the in between times when I was sitting at home not playing the I'm-not-telling-you-I'm-due-yesterday game, it wasn't as fun.

When I was in high school, I was really impatient for school to end. Or for a holiday. Or a 3 day weekend. I wanted the semester to be over NOW and not in 4 weeks. So what I did mentally was think to myself, "I have 4 weeks left of school. Now what was I doing 4 weeks ago? I have only to live the last 4 weeks over once more and it'll be over. And I know I can do that because I just did it." This mental game works for all kinds of waiting. I do it often when waiting for McKay to come home from work to relieve me of kid duty. I do it when I'm driving and there's traffic. I do it when I have to do public speaking, "It's only 20 minutes; I only need to get through these next 20 minutes alive, that's not bad!"

Then there's the "Well, what else is there but to wait?" Especially with Margaret, I would ask myself, "Well, what is the other option? An induction for a kicking baby who is in the exact position for birthing and shows no signs of needing an intervention? Castor oil? Jumping jacks?" All of those options just sounded absurd, so I just kept on.

Now, I'll admit, that can be easier said than done when you're physically uncomfortable. With Margaret, I didn't get particularly uncomfortable until I was past my due date, but with Isaac, my back hurt from week 13 and on. And sleeping was difficult because I'd be on one side to nurse and then I'd get uncomfortable, but I couldn't really change sides without waking Margaret up. And I also had some swelling in my ankles because it was the summer and warm.

I tried lots of different sleeping positions as well as sleep pillows, I tried reclining for my ankles, but that hurt my back. I also meditated with lavender oil on my wrists to help me sleep at night. I drank a ton of water and red raspberry leaf tea. I waddled a lot. And I tried to keep myself busy with things like book groups, knitting, and playgroups. But I'll admit I never felt nesty at the end either. Who wants to scrub floors in that state? Not me.

So I don't know if I have anything helpful. I know some people like to do big projects like baby blankets in those last few weeks, but I preferred small ones because I was worried I might not finish a project on time. I also tried to go on about my life as normally as possible: going to the movies, to the park, or wherever, just like I would have if I hadn't been pregnant. Then when the baby comes it's a pleasant surprise you weren't expecting (2 weeks later).

Tell yourself, "I know I'll be holding my baby within the next 2 months- and 2 months ago, I was starting my 3rd trimester, and look how that has already flown!" You can do it. When your baby is 16 these few weeks won't even make a blip on your parenting radar, I promise.

Any suggestions from my readers? How do you handle the last few weeks?

Green Garment Campaign

2011-04-20T06:00:00.015-06:00

This post is heavily LDS-related, so if that doesn't apply to you, feel free to skip this.

Last year, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints created a prototype meeting house in Farmington, UT which utilizes solar energy and has many "green" features such as water-saving toilets, motion sensing lights, and the goal for the building's electricity to cost a net zero, culminating in LEED certification. According to George Handley on this panel (second mp3 on the page, minute 45:31), "They're building 4 prototypes that are LEED certified and they're applying to LEED for a portfolio certification which would basically mean they could then roll out all future chapels according to that prototype and all of them receive LEED certification."

When I first read about this, I was over the moon in excitement. I have a very special place in my heart for diminishing my family's carbon footprint- and the idea that the Church is going to try to do the same filled me with hope and happiness.

A couple of weeks ago in a forum, my friend Jena (link goes to a post about this!), posed a question about "green" garments, or garments made of sustainably grown or created fabrics. After working this in my mind for a couple of weeks, I decided that with Earth Day coming up, and with the Church's current efforts in being better stewards over the earth, what better time to discuss this important issue?

Currently, according to the most recent General Conference, there are over 14 million members of the Church around the world. I'm not sure how many are active and how many have been endowed, but even with a guess of 15% of the membership having been endowed in the temple, that means over 2 million people are asked to wear Church-produced garments day and night. Unlike in times past, members cannot make their own, but it is possible to request specially-made garments, though I don't know if fiber content is variable or if that is just for physical changes due to health or sizing reasons.

If you go to buy or order garments, you'll find that there is only one option for someone who would like to wear garments solely of natural fibers: 100% cotton. All other fabrics are synthetic (nylon, spandex, etc) or are a synthetic blend (cotton-poly). Synthetics come with quite the carbon footprint, but cotton doesn't have the best track record, either.

"Cotton is considered the world's 'dirtiest' crop due to its heavy use of insecticides, the most hazardous pesticide to human and animal health. Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other single major crop." Also, the cotton has to be bleached to get that crisp white we expect when we buy new garments, which means more chemicals and treatments. As a knitter, I've been able to find unbleached naturally-white cotton yarn (even fairtrade!) so I know it's out there! We just have to make use of it!

So this is what I'm doing, and asking you to do: take advantage of the fact that the Church asks for feedback on the Distribution Services website! Do you want the fabric options expanded? Organic cotton? Hemp? Soysilk? Wouldn't wool, which keeps you warm even when wet, be wonderful for the long-legged styles in the winter? Do you want to make sure the workers planting and harvesting the cotton for the 100% cotton garments are getting fair compensation for their hard work? And maybe you like some of the synthetics, but wouldn't it be great if it was 100% post-consumer?

Then please let the Distribution Center know! For Earth Day this Friday and through May 1st, let's send in our suggestions! The email address for suggestions is feedback@store.lds.org. It can be as simple as, "Please offer a hemp/cotton blend for garments. Thanks!"

And please spread the word. Blog about this, tweet it, sign up for the Facebook event and share it with your friends. You could even turn this into a family home evening activity about loving the earth and being grateful for what we've been given.