Type A Mama

Finally had "the dream"

2011-12-01T01:46:00.000-06:00

One of the things I've learned in my group for survivors of suicide is that it's common for survivors to have dreams of their loved ones where they see them happy and whole again. For survivors, it's a way to somehow feel like they connected with their loved one from the other side, and got the information that their loved one was okay. The evening that we talked about this in depth I cried (heck, I cry most of those evenings) because I hadn't had one of those dreams, and because I felt like maybe it was because I still had quite a bit of anger at him for choosing to leave like that. And because I wanted to know that he was okay.

I had a dream tonight, that was very vivid for how early I had it. I was hanging out, unpleasantly but it couldn't be avoided, with his friends who had shunned and blamed me during the separation and after his suicide. And I saw some photos of some gathering that they'd had afterwards where they had set out things that reminded them of him that happened to have been things that they'd taken from the house after he'd died. I was a little peeved to see the actual photos of all of the stuff, because there was a lot of it, things that I'd forgotten about. Things that they'd helped themselves to and not asked or let me know they'd taken (this part is true). And it was very uncomfortable because, far as I know, they all still hate and blame me. I ran into one of them at the grocery today, and she made a little wave and complimented my new short hair cut. As if she were an old friend. Very, very weird. So dreaming of hanging out with them was strange and not something I'd dreamt about before. I realized that I was sitting at a table with some of his old friends from Reed, one of whom was getting married, and suddenly I realize he's sitting beside me, except no one else can see him. He's trying to join in on the conversation, making jokes, but I'm the only one who can hear him. And when I look at him, I see three of him, from different ages, sitting beside me, all of them happy and laughing and making jokes. He was yelling "Pop corducts!" and I finally said out loud to everyone, "he's trying to say 'pop corducts'. He's saying 'pop corducts'." I was laughing and crying at the same time because I was so happy to see him, many of him at different ages, happy. And also because what the hell is pop corducts? It was totally something random, slightly techie and obscure that he would make a joke out of. He was waaaayyyy funnier than I am. Everyone got quiet, because they either had no idea what I was talking about, or because it's just unacceptable to that crowd that I could still have any connection to him.

But I had the dream. I saw him. He was sitting beside me and he was *happy*. He was happy. I heard his voice, making jokes and laughing, and he looked right at me, like, See? I'm okay. This is how it is. I'm healed from every hurt from every age. It's okay. I'm okay.

Seriously, How Do They Do It

2011-10-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

Let me just tell you right now, folks. You families who work, have your kids in activities, volunteer, go to church, stay fit and healthy and keep up with your friends and families, I have no idea how you do it. Really. Do you have a personal assistant? Do you have bologna sandwiches for dinner every night? Secret robot clones?

If I were to map out how well I feel like I fill each of those roles, it would look like this (percentages reflect how well I'm doing compared to how well I wish I was doing):

Work: 73% (writing isn't getting the attention I wish it was; I'm having issues with procrastination, like right now)
Kids activities: 90% (they do plenty, but I feel like I'm a little low on the playdate scale)
Volunteer: 50% (I'm pretty active at the school, but I wish I was more active in my neighborhood and with at-risk youth)
Go to church: 5% (I'm eyeing the Unitarian church but haven't gone yet; I still get 5% for teaching the kids meditation and prayer and having conversations about God)
Stay fit: 10% (I still eat pretty healthy, but I'm not excercising at all right now except for the playing with the kids and Sunday family hike with the dog)
Keep up with friends: 20% (I don't even have time to keep up on FB; I'm not sure why I've given myself even 20% here)

When I pick up the kids at school I see other parents who have kids as young as mine, maybe one or two more than I have, and I know their kids are great and happy, I've seen them doing the heavy-lifting sort of volunteering around the school, I know they go to church, have careers, and active social lives to boot.

My hat's off to you if you're one of these people. You are a force of nature.

Too Much Information About Transvaginal Sonograms

2011-09-01T10:31:00.000-05:00

Last May I posted about the new Texas Law requiring women to have an extended sonogram prior to undergoing an abortion procedure during which the administering technician (not always a doctor) locates and describes in detail the current state of the fetus's anatomy, including organs and limbs. She also has to be provided audio of the heartbeat if it is audible.

Opponents of abortion, such as Karen Garnett of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of the Diocese of Dallas, argue that this information is needed to educate the pregnant woman to understand the "separate uniqueness of that life before they make that decision." (attribution - the Wall Street Journal, "Perry Condemns Court Ruling on Sonogram Law," Sept. 1, 2011)

Here's the thing: the regular time at which women undergo a sonogram as part of standard prenatal care to check for correct organ development and anatomy of the fetus is at 18 - 20 weeks gestation. Prior to that, the images are unreliable. If you are fortunate enough to live in Texas and have medical insurance and have access to thorough pre-natal care where you live, you'll receive your first ultrasound around 8 weeks just to check that there is a gestational sac, that there's a heartbeat, that the embryo is favorably positioned in the uterus, that the placenta is developing. Not to examine the organs and limbs.

But approximately 90% of abortions happen before 12 weeks.1

Early in pregnancy, the sonogram is performed not with the swipe across the belly like you see on TV, but with a transvaginal probe, usually described as a "wand", because transabdominal ultrasounds don't provide a reliable image early on. This "wand" is large and long, and although one website advised the patient might feel "some pressure", the procedure is painless, it assuringly tells us.

I'm here to tell you, when the technician handling the wand is trying to get a good image of the fetus, there is a lot of forceful angling and jamming. Imagine having your tonsils examined by reaching up through your pelvis.

Receiving a sonogram prior to an abortion is standard medical procedure, to confirm the presence and location of the embryo. Receiving a transvagingal sonogram to examine and confirm the organ development of an early pregnancy (<12 weeks) is not standard medical procedure either for an abortion or for regular prenatal care. The procedure is usually performed by a technician, not a medical doctor. The anatomical information available at this early stage is sketchy at best, even for a doctor. And the physical trauma caused to the woman to attempt to obtain this information - I'll let your imagination take you there. Personally, I'm reminded of torture procedures favored by The Inquisition.

I understand the tragedy of abortion. I really do. But writing a law to require an extended, painful and humiliating procedure that is of no medical value is no way to achieve a reduction in abortions. Was there a companion law for women who choose life to also receive adequate prenatal care, including regular sonograms, for free regardless of insurance? Of course not. If you want adequate prenatal care in Texas, apparently you have to consider having an abortion.

And for those callous few who believe that a woman considering an abortion should experience the aggressive probing below as some sort of punishment for her behavior, clearly you have some other agenda at work beside protecting the sanctity of life.

I come from a decidedly pro-life, Catholic upbringing. My parents oppose abortion, but when I was pregnant with my second child at age 39, we all collectively held our breath for several weeks until we got past all of the chromosomal screens. Whether to proceed with the pregnancy if there had been evidence of a likely chromosomal abnormality was a very private decision that I shared with my family. Now, apparently, Karen Garnett, Rick Perry, and Greg Abbott (the Texas Attorney General) have pulled up chairs in the living room to weigh in with their own opinions on what decision I should make in this very private matter. Except they have the force of the law on their sides.

Fortunately, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Texas law as unconstitutional in federal court and the judge (notably a George H.W. Bush appointee) agreed that the law went too far. He was okay with requiring a sonogram, but not with legally forcing specific speech between medical caregivers and their patients.

Locally, much of the response is complaining about a New York-based non-profit interfering with Texans' right to govern themselves as they please. The same arguments were made by southern states opposed to civil rights activists invading their borders to support desegregation. Like it or not folks, the Constitution is a bright-line federal law that the states don't get to cross. Requiring individuals who disagree with you to perform specific acts of speech to advance your own ideological agenda is not something you get to do in America. And be glad that that's the law, because some day the people in control of the Legislature may be people with whom you wildly disagree, and you won't want a law on the books that says its okay for them to legally require you to perform specified speech to advance their ideological agenda, either.

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1 Measuring gestational age is difficult due to the differences in whether the count is taken from the first day after the last menstrual cycle or from actual implantation of the fertilized egg: "Abortion statistics are flawed by the lack of consistency in reporting gestational age. Several methods are generally used, and the number of abortions occurring before 12 weeks changes considerably depending upon the method used to determine gestational age. Pregnancy can be measured from the beginning of last menstruation or from fertilization, which is 14 days after the 1st day of the last menstrual period. Neither method accurately records pregnancy as determined by specialists in embryology and fetal development. Pregnancy actually begins with implantation, which begins 6-7 days after fertilization and ends 10-14 days later. Completion of fertilization and implantation occurs as much as 28 days after the 1st day of the last menstrual period. A report of an 8-week pregnancy is actually 6 weeks from fertilization and 4-5 weeks from implantation. The Centers for Disease Control and other abortion data collecting agencies use the 1st day of the last menstrual period. Statistics generally show that 50% of abortions occur before 8 weeks of gestation and 90% by 12 weeks. When gestation is considered at fertilization, 78% of abortions occur under 9 weeks, while 52% of abortions under 9 weeks are performed with data beginning at the 1st day of the last menstrual period. For abortions occurring under 12 weeks, 95% beginning at fertilization and 90% occur at the 1st day of the last menstrual period. 2/1000 vs. 5/1000 abortions occur under 20 weeks for data beginning at fertilization vs. at the onset of the last period. It is important to report abortion data accurately and to specify the method used to determine the gestational time period." From the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1526273.

Drawing the Line

2011-08-17T22:22:00.000-05:00

Tonight I was trying to get the kids to bed a little early because the boy child had us up at 5:30 this morning with an upset stomach and ended up staying home from school. He threw up once around noon, then felt much better. But still, a little extra rest seemed a good idea. So I got baths done fast, he was helpful as far as getting himself dried off, changed into pajamas, and teeth brushed. He's 6.5, he's coming along with the self-care. Yay, boy child! I read them The Velvetten Rabbit, then told him to be in his bed with his head on his pillow by the time I was done tucking in his little sister. This is our routine. He knows he has about a minute.

I got to his room and he was out of bed nuzzling the dog instead. Okay, I said, get into bed. But I want a hug and a kiss, he said. You weren't in bed like you were supposed to be, said I.

After which followed the most god-awful fit he's thrown in a long, long time. He screamed that it wasn't fair, yelled at me trying to negotiate, that it was just this one time. He even offered to pay me to give him his hug and kiss goodnight. That really floored me. I told him it wasn't fair for him to expect to get what he wants when he doesn't do his part and do what he's supposed to. I told him that I loved him very much, and because I loved him I wanted him to learn that his choices had consequences (something we're working on). I walked away to do the dishes while the crying and arguing continued. After ten minutes of loud carrying on I yelled from the kitchen that was ENOUGH. He had really worked himself up into a lather. At one point I was concerned he was going to throw up again and had to take him to the toilet in case. I had to tell him to breathe, to settle himself down. It was awful.

Part of me is observing, saying "Egads, woman, are you really taking a stand over this?" And then the other part of me is saying, he chose to do something other than what he was supposed to do, and there's a consequence. And better he learn that now, over the relatively small matter of getting his hug and kiss at bedtime, than later over the larger matter of, say, getting into the car of a friend who's been drinking.

But CHEESE AND SPRINKLES what a FIT! He hasn't had one of those in a very, very long time. It's been a couple of hours now, and I've mostly recovered, but it was bad. When he was finally calm and settled, I did walk in and asked him what he learned tonight, and he gave all the right answers, including about how wrong throwing that kind of a fit was (the epic fit lost him a favorite video game for a week). Then I gave him a brief hug and kiss and told him to go to bed. I hope that wasn't wrong. It felt like it would be okay then. I just couldn't do it while the fit was raging and inadvertently reward his out of control reaction.

I don't know if I'm drawing the line in the right place at the right time for the right "size" infraction. I picture the boy child twenty years from now in a support group for survivors of childhood trauma saying, my mom didn't give me a hug and a kiss at night if I wasn't in bed with my head on the pillow. Then I think, if that's the worst he could come up with at a meeting like that, then we're doing okay.

Deep breath. This pareting thing is so hard. It kicks my ass every day and then serves it back to me with a sassy gleam in its eye, reminding me how little I know, how inadequate I am for this job, that I volunteered for this, that I will keep showing up every moment no matter what because I love those kids more than heaven, more than my body can contain, more than I can hold without cracking sometimes. And because I never understood how my parents loved me until I became a parent, I also know that they won't understand how much they are loved either, until they step onto this path themselves one day.

Goodbye, Garden

2011-07-14T23:11:00.000-05:00

We are experiencing the worst drought in recorded history. It's official.

I've stopped watering anything except for the small flat of strawberries, which gets one gallon each day. The tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, okra, cantaloupe, beans, leeks, peppers - they were just hanging on in the heat, working too hard to stay alive to produce any fruit. Even the soaker hose did nothing for them. I let them go.

It's strange that our fallow season is the summer, when other places on our side of the equator are busy with full harvests, canning and freezing in full swing. In august I'll start the seeds for the fall garden, then set them out in mid-september and pray the young plants hold on through the remaining heat until the first cool relief arrives near the end of the month.

I've only been gardening for a few years. I'm a newbie. I know so little, and the Austin climate is unpredictable and frequently harsh. One memorable garden was innundated in June with too much rain and never recovered. I have fantasies of someday raising chickens and goats, and hunting for deer. I miss living off the land, even though I never have. It feels like coming home to get back into relationship with the earth and the animals I share it with.

I'm fortunate to have a few mature pecan trees on my land, and my neighbor has a couple of fig trees that, in less drought-stricken times, kindly drop a bounty of fruit on my side of the fence. Is it possible to be a homesteader in modern times? Can I learn to knit without gaping holes and get used to the crispy feel of laundry hand-washed and dried on the line? And how can I rationalize the time taken to live simply when I have a hard-won legal career that now pays a handsome hourly rate? It's difficult and sometimes just funny, walking between both worlds simultaneously, and they both provide needed and important sustenance.

I was reading a friend's blog describing her family's ongoing adventures in learning the difference between "want" and "need". They have taken the journey to heart, giving away their belongings and setting out on the open road, currently farming and homesteading in Kit Carson National Forest in New Mexico. Part of me feels like I have to make a radical change like that to be able to live my values. Then part of me says that wherever I go, I take me with me, and I might as well learn to live my values where I am.

Drought does this, leads one to ponder what's important as everything around you turns brown, struggles, succumbs. It is a time to go without. A time to remember to be grateful for what we have. A time to surrender.

Everything at Once

2011-06-25T20:01:00.000-05:00

I have several blogs, but this is the least censored, because very few people who know me know about this blog. This is the blog I write for me, for my own personal journal. It isn't the family record, it isn't for a specific purpose, it's just the place where I can sort out my head, or try to, among a few trusted friends and a handful of strangers who have been consistently kind in their responses.

I am feeling so many things at once. And many of them don't go together. Many of them, if you put them side by side, would be almost eerie.

Very recently I want to try to understand DH's suicide better. I know at the outset that this will be a futile undertaking, but the process of arriving at the futility of understanding is still calling, beckoning like a siren. So I have bought some books, and I will read them. I also want to understand what's going on in my own head better. I am all at once deeply grieving his loss and simultaneously experiencing the most miraculous blooming of new love in my and the kids' lives. It's like having two chapters of a book blended together and trying to still make sense of the different story threads, trying to still allow them both the space to breathe, to develop, to simultaneously both have my full attention.

I'm not sure this is possible. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't.

I realized today that my life is undeniably easier, more joyful, more stable, now than it was two years ago. And I feel simultaneously grateful and guilty for that. I'm angry at him. I miss him. I wish I could have somehow known what he was planning. I wish I could have had the chance to try to explain to him that I still loved him, but couldn't be married to him. That I thought he was a great dad. That the kids loved him dearly. That he was valuable to everyone in the world who knew him. That, contrary to what his friends assumed or told him, I didn't hate him. I didn't want him to hurt. I just needed to get free again. It was too lonely, too sad, too unkind. Please, just let me be. Please....

I feel like I need couples counseling for myself and my dead, estranged husband.

Today the four of us (me, kids, new SO) went to the Half-Priced Books store so that I could look for books on suicide. Strangely, there were none. But while I searched, SO kept the kids occupied. For almost 45 minutes. They're 3 and 6 mind you. This was a feat of extraordinary commitment and creativity. And he protected my space and time to look for books for as long as I wanted. It was astonishing. I heard him and the kids wandering nearby at one point, and my son said he wanted to come find me. No, SO said, she's having some time to herself right now. You know how sometimes you want to be by yourself? Well that's what she needs right now. Let's go look over here...

It was amazing. There I was, looking for books to help me cope with my nearly ex-husband's suicide, while my current partner protected my time and gently managed the kids to give me that opportunity.

This is nothing short of miraculous. I told him how amazing and awesome he was. He shrugged. You needed the time. We came home and had a light dinner, and he cooked something beautiful and healthy and delicious for himself. I just wanted a half a grapefruit but ended up nibbling off of his plate. It's been a lovely evening, but still framed by the complicated emotions and thoughts that come with surviving the suicide of a loved one. At this moment I'm listening to him and my son talking and laughing in my son's bedroom as he tucks him in for bed.

Miraculous.

I have though of slowing things down with new SO, but I think I can manage at the pace we're proceeding, and the kids seem to need him. If I could create a pocket in time that I could slip into for about a year to try to process everything, I would. But the kids are growing and getting older and their questions and wants and ponderings are growing up, too. I can't slow this down. Life goes at the pace it goes at. I'll flow along with it best I can.

My Dinner With Buddha

2011-06-06T20:55:00.002-05:00

Tonight at dinner the cub told me, "You're amazing, mommy, just the way you are." Took my breath away, humbled me and amazed me. I told him thank you. A few minutes later he said, "You'll be amazing forever, mommy. Even when you're angry."

That one went straight to my heart. These were powerful words, coming from my son, with whom I'd been short and impatient that morning due to a terrible lack of sleep and feeling overwhelmed by my too successful too fast law practice. In a moment I saw myself with forgiveness, as a human, flawed, imperfect, and yet not a bad person.

I told him that was a very compassionate thing to say. He asked me what "compassionate" meant, and I told him it meant full of loving and kindness. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

I had been feeling low for being quick to anger this morning, and my kid just reminded me of all the things that I tell them - it's okay to be angry, everyone gets mad, getting mad doesn't make you a bad person - it's how you behave when you're mad that matters. It's important to feel all your feelings, even the difficult ones.

I thanked him again and told him I'd been feeling pretty bad for how I'd been angry that morning, and for reminding me that everyone gets angry and getting angry is okay. And I told him that when I became angry, it was my problem, not his. He always likes that part.

No one deserves love like this. But we get it anyway. For me, that's the miracle of life in a nutshell. We didn't earn the right to breathe, to enjoy the pleasure of a thinking and reasoning mind, to see colors, to hear music, to feel a bracing cold breeze, to feel tree bark under our fingertips, to hear our kids tell us they love us. But we may get these things anyway.

Sunday I was inspired by an interview with Krishna Das to have a conversation with Griffin about God dwelling within him as him, and within everyone as that person.

I don't know where this kid is headed, but I'm so blessed to get to be beside him for some of it.

Happy Mother's Day from the Texas Lege

2011-05-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

Who represents poor women in Texas? Not the Texas Lege. Perhaps the most poignant quote comes from Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston: "Poor women should not be a political football when it comes to their healthcare. But this is where a majority does rule. And I believe that it's more important to have the program than not."

In a nutshell, the Medicaid program through which 120,000 Texas women receive critical cancer and disease screening (pap smears for cervical cancer, for example) and contraceptive care (to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place) will be scrapped unless the bill to renew the program includes a ban on participation in the funds by Planned Parenthood. Problem is, Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of services under the program, providing screening and contraception to 40,000 responsible, low-income women across the State.

Forget that Planned Parenthood is prohibited from using the funds to provide (totally legal) abortion services. Forget that Planned Parenthood has multiple urban and rural locations that provide a full range of preventative healthcare for women that is women-run and operated. Forget that the vast majority of women who have benefited from the services of Planned Parenthood (including yours truly) benefited from services ranging from diagnosis and treatment of yeast infections to annual exams to prescription for contraceptive medications (and many thanks to my health insurance for not covering that cost).

Women's healthcare is screwed. Truly. And it keeps getting further screwed by the nutjobs who will threaten to take down broad programs of preventative care (including preventing unwanted pregnancies! Are we not on the same side on that issue? REALLY?) just to spite Planned Parenthood, for having the temerity to continue to also offer abortions - with other funds, and among a SLEW of other critical health services.

You know, my family had this assumption, when I was pregnant with my kids late in life, that if a serious chromosomal issue arose, I would have considered the option to terminate the pregnancy. We all prayed that I would not be faced with such a difficult decision, and I kept them informed of test and screening appointments and called them as soon as the results were received, explaining what they meant, what the tests measured, what they were looking for. My parents are actively pro-life. But they don't connect the dots. They don't appreciate that this very personal decision that I might have been faced with for myself and my family would have been moot.

Calling abortion opponents "pro-life" is a misnomer. I have to agree with the criticism that they are really pro-birth. If the pro-life organizations put as much into parenting classes, job training, paid parental leave, publicly supported and safe 24-hr childcare, abuse and domestic violence prevention, foster programs, and all of women's healthcare - rather than being a sole force to make abortion as difficult, humiliating, expensive and dangerous as possible at the cost of critical healthcare for women - they might get my attention.

I wonder how many of them have actually walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic, just to see all of the health information available, hear how the women who go there are treated with dignity and respect, to see the faces of their sisters and mothers and daughters who are so fortunate to have a medical resource available dedicated especially to their health.

But I look at what they are trying to do my state, and to my sisters struggling to take care of themselves, and it all just seems like misogyny. They just can't stop punishing Eve for offering Adam the apple.

Tonight's Prayer

2011-04-12T22:44:00.000-05:00

Whatever or whoever higher power has been getting me though all this, thank you. Because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing, but somehow, everyone seems to be doing okay. So thank you.

Kale and Quinoa with Almond Sauce and Preserved Lemons

2011-04-12T12:41:00.000-05:00

Another departure from the heavier topics of this blog to one of my favorite topics - food.

We have joined a CSA operated on a historic farm near our home. Every Saturday morning the kids and I drive over to pick up our food - our share of veggies, plus some eggs, plus some local dairy provided by another farm nearby. There still seems to be plenty that I buy at the grocery store (bulk items, canned beans, household products, cereal, jam, ketchup, etc.), but it feels so good (and so good for us and the planet) to be able to buy my veggies and other things locally.

This week's share had kale and other greens, which I love. I couldn't wait to get home for lunch to cook up this recipe that had materialized in my brain. I'm eating it now, and it is as divine as I had hoped. And easy - especially since I skipped some of the more onerous preparation steps!

Almond Sauce:

3 tbs almond butter
3 tbs tahini
raw garlic to taste (peeled and trimmed only - let the processor do the chopping)
1 cup water, divided

1 bunch kale (I had some sort of Russian variety; dinosaur kale would work well)
1 cup quinoa
water to cook quinoa (about 3 cups)
4 wedges preserved lemons, diced thin (you can substitute 1 tsp fresh lemon zest)
salt

Lightly salt the quinoa water and bring to a boil. Theoretically you're supposed to soak quinoa before cooking it to remove a rumored bitter flavor from the grain, but this is one of those steps I regular skip. Who has the time? And I have yet to detect said bitterness. Add the quinoa, cover and reduce heat to low-med. Allow to simmer while you prep the rest of the food.

Add the almond butter, tahini, garlic, and 1/2 cup water to your food processor and turn it on. Through the pour opening in the processor lid, slowly add more water until it develops the consistency of ranch dressing. Transfer to a small bowl for pouring and set aside. The raw garlic will have a bite, but it will mellow after you add the hot quinoa.

Rinse and chop the kale, removing the thicker stems that would just be awkward to eat in this sort of salad. Place in a large non-reactive bowl and pour a generous amount of the almond sauce on top. Top with the lemon, and when the quinoa is ready, pour it hot over the rest of the ingredients and fold together. The hot quinoa brings all the flavors together and lightly cooks the kale to perfect-tender. Yummy. If you don't have lemons on hand, this would probably be good with raisins, too, to bring out the sweetness in the almond sauce.

Time Warp

2011-03-01T21:37:00.000-06:00

Next week is one year from the day he killed himself.

Therapy has been going well, so I wasn't prepared for how this has hit like a ton of bricks.

It probably shouldn't be surprising to me, I guess I'm a little slow in this department, but I just am amazed at how the fresh tears continue to flow.

It has nothing to do with our marriage or the circumstances of the moment or my lack of closure because he killed himself. It's because he's gone. He's not supposed to be, but he is.

Tonight my daughter, 3 years old, asked if daddy was going to come back to life again some day. When I told her no, her face dropped a little. She is just beginning to understand death.

The husband of a woman I know just passed away this morning, suddenly, of an aortic dissection. I will be offering help and support through our network, along with a dozen other women. Knowing what she's going through - not in her case specifically, but having an inkling of what it's like to have someone so central to your life suddenly die - has brought last year's suicide and all of the aftermath vividly back to life. It was a difficult day at work, hard to concentrate. I finally left a little early, and I've been in a bit of a fog for most of today. New tears are coming, and I'll leave in a moment to go sit with them and allow them to flow.

I sat outside for a bit to enjoy the crisp early spring evening and the stars and to watch the planes coming in low to the east. I was out for about forty-five minutes, and when I stepped back inside, my son was crying loudly in bed. I went to him, and he was in a state. He didn't know where I was, and he thought he was all alone. I held him, told him I would never leave him, then wrapped him in a blanket and carried him outside (he's 4'2" and 60 lbs. at 5 years old, mind you) to hold him and look at the stars together. We waited for another plane to come in and wondered aloud where it had come from (he guessed India) and where the people on it were going. Were they coming home? Were they happy to be back? Was there someone who loved them waiting for them at the airport? I just listened to him making the yawns and sighs characteristic of his falling asleep. All is peaceful again.

Healing is Hard Work

2011-01-26T21:36:00.000-06:00

I'm just tired. I've returned to counseling because I could feel it was necessary. Today I read through our emails from during our separation, and from the day that he killed himself. It was the first time for me to look at them again, almost 11 months later. We were scheduling the weekends around our son's birthday that was coming up in a month. I had completely forgotten about that. It was a little shocking to read now.

Why why why why why why why why why why

I've begun reading Silent Grief: Surviving in the Wake of Suicide. The picture on the cover show an empty rowboat, still on the water. The book is actually kind of depressing. The prognosis for the survivors of suicide is generally not good: failed relationships, medical issues, substance abuse, really major life failure in every direction, for the remainder. It's starting to piss me off. Turns out I'm grateful for my adolescent diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder. That kind of energy is helping me now, stoking my determination to fight for us, for the kids, for myself. I will not be a statistic. I will provide the kids every opportunity to talk, feel, draw, write, run, fight, think, breathe, search, wonder, yell, cry and sit through this. There is no "right" way to live through this, except honestly, openly, compassionately. The rest is up for grabs.

I found among the emails a lovely note that he'd written about our son, that captured how much he loved him, and how he knew - really knew - that our son loved him too. I read it to him tonight. It's occured to me that it must seem strange to him to keep hearing from me how much his daddy loved him, paired against the stark fact of his suicide. I asked him last night if daddy killing himself felt more like daddy was sad and had to go or more like he left us, and he said it felt more like he left us. So as difficult as it was to relive that time and re-read those emails, I'm so grateful to have found that one message, to save for my son, to show him that daddy really did love him. And that he had shown daddy that he loved him back, and daddy got it. Really got it.

Do a Will. Now.

2010-12-02T21:42:00.002-06:00

I am not a property or wills and estates lawyer, so DO NOT USE THIS NEXT ENTRY AS LEGAL ADVICE. This is meant to be a very strongly worded head's up that you need to go see a lawyer to get a will made if you haven't already.

It turns out, if you die intestate (without a will) in Texas, and you are married, your spouse will have the joy of proving up in court that you don't have unknown spouses or kids (heirs) somewhere. And they'll pay for a court-appointed attorney to represent the potential unknown heirs until the judge issues a decree acknowledging your spouse and kids as your sole heirs. This involves bringing at least one witness (a lifelong friend who is not related) to court to testify, as well as producing two or three more for the appointed attorney to call and interview as part of their investigation.

If you die intestate in Texas in Travis County with kids and you're married, after going through the above exercise your spouse will also then need to continue to pay a court-appointed attorney to represent your kids' interests against your spouse because if you had any separate property in the marriage, your kids have a direct interest in that property as opposed to the marital community property. So, to dispose of any assets at all as the estate's administrator, your spouse will first have to prove up to the judge whether the asset is community property or separate property. Asset by asset. While creditors are knocking and bills need to be paid.

Why are you still reading this? Go call your lawyer.

Warning Signs for the Lay Person

2010-11-20T10:34:00.004-06:00

I still know and understand very little about suicide. Some people, trained professionals, for instance, are much more informed and are the first best source for guidance and help. However, if you find yourself worried about a friend or loved one who you think might be considering harming themselves, I learned a very little bit of information on the day that he killed himself that might help save someone else's life. Information about the warning signs of suicide and actions to take should be circulated and publicized in the same way information on how to recognize a stroke are now. I wish that I could have learned this all earlier - had known that I needed to - and typed it up and circulated it to his friends, including the ones who were actively hating me, and maybe he would still be alive today. Pissed as hell at me and involuntarily in a hospital - but alive.

According to my counselor, if a person makes a remark, even an indirect allusion, revealing an intention to end their lives, take note and urge them to seek help immediately. If they make a second remark, especially if it's within just a matter of days of the first, seek to have them committed immediately. It's that cut and dry. A person's life is potentially at stake. Don't hesitate. The "two remarks" rule applied in our case.

If the person is in the midst of a divorce and the separation has been plagued by "friends" taking sides, increasing the conflict, driving a wedge between the separated spouses, communication between those who are aware of the suicidal spouse's statements is likely nearly non-existent. Also, you don't know what you don't know - your friend may have already made a suicidal comment to someone else that you're not aware of - but the estranged spouse should be. If you are a friend to a person who is in the midst of a situation like this, in spite of whatever else has been going on, if you have concern that your friend may kill him or herself, reach out to the estranged spouse. If that's not possible or if there was abuse, then make sure you are talking very closely with your friend's other friends and family so that everyone has the full picture of your friend's suicidal warning signs. It can happen so quickly. You're friend can slip away from you before you've even figured out what was going on.

If you call 911 emergency services, tell them that you believe the person is about to kill themselves. Although it's possible the person will answer all the questions correctly and the police may choose not to take the person into protective custody (as was the unfortunate case here), it may buy you enough time to get someone over to be with the suicidal person and prevent them from taking their life while you begin the longer process of involuntary commitment. To understand how involuntary commitment happens in Texas, click here.

The second time that the person alludes to killing themselves, don't let them be alone until they have received help or hospitalization. Stay awake with friends taking night shifts if needed. Don't leave them alone, even while they sleep. The person may be angry at you, yelling and screaming at you to leave them alone. You don't know what they've been planning, what materials or equipment they have on hand to end their lives in a moment. Don't even let them go to the bathroom alone. Keep them alive.

I hope this little bit of information can help prevent someone else's suicide.

There Should Be a Book About This

2010-11-15T20:44:00.002-06:00

Because I have no idea what I'm doing.

What does one do when one's spouse, whom one was in the process of divorcing, chooses suicide, leaving one with two small children?

Because this blog is about parenting, I'll try to keep the focus on that. Which should be easy (relatively speaking), since the last 18 months' events have brought remarkable clarity to the first and foremost priority in my life - my kids.

As one minister commented, "It's complicated."

There are so many huge - HUGE - questions. So much to come to grips with. Everything from figuring out how to talk to the kids about what happened immediately after the event (I was able to role-play that out with a child/parenting counselor while driving home the night of), to recognizing that child grieving is very different from adult grieving, to interviewing the adult survivors of parent death/suicide to understand how it affected them and what their parents did that did or didn't support their process.

And then there's me living my own life, consulting with the experts about how that affects them, what boundaries they need, how my actions will "show up" for them.

There's very little information out there about how to cope through something like this. There are books about grieving generally, but under these circumstances, it's very complicated. And there are books about child grief, but not about parenting through it when it occurs in the middle of a divorce. I'm not sure where to start, but I think there are a few topics I can speak to now. I've been waiting until I had enough distance from the event to be able to address it in a way that might be helpful for other people and not just confessional writing. I have no interest in doing that. There's a post from some time ago about why I won't be writing about this from a personal perspective. It still stands.

One thing I keep discovering is that whatever I'm experiencing, others have been through the same thing. So I hope those who have will find this blog and will comment on the posts and add to the dialogue. This has been - still is - a nightmare. And yet, we are getting on with our lives, too. The kids keep growing. They want their futures, and they want them bright and shiny. And so they will be.

Lemon Potato Kale

2010-08-15T13:00:00.002-05:00

You shouldn't take the fact that I'm now writing about food as meaning that all of the upheaval of the last few months is settled. It just means I'm tired of writing about it, or not writing because the only things I have to say I'm not willing to publish. So I'm writing, about something else that helps to ground me - food.

I love greens. Don't know if it's my Irish genes, but aside from mustard greens, I love them all. I also love potatoes. Again, probably the Irish ancestors. But here's a kale and potato recipe that I just made up today that I found so lip-smacking good I'm writing about it.

Dice up about 1.5 pounds of red potatoes into smallish (less that an inch) cubes, toss with thinly sliced lemon (cut the thin wheels into fourths) and olive oil and roast in a shallow dish in a 425 oven until the potaoes are getting crispy and the lemons are carmelizing. Take them out and let it cool.

Meanwhile, wash and trim some kale and steam it to cooked but still with some body in the leaves. Remove to a bowl lined with a towel and allow to cool and dry off. When everything's cool and dry, combine the kale and potatoes in a bowl, add 3 - 4 tablespoons of basil pesto, juice of half a lemon, maybe some zest if you're feeling punchy, and a little more olive oil. If you have a little roasted garlic on hand, throw some of that in too. Toss together and try to save some for everyone else in the house.

Ahhh. Peace and comfort in a bowl.

Single Parenting

2010-06-03T19:58:00.002-05:00

Lots of men and women do this, and have done this, for millenia. Who am I to whine and whinge? Seriously.

I have learned that I can't do this alone. I have learned to ask for help. A lot. At least by my standards. I have learned that my family is more supportive that I ever would have guessed had I not needed them so much these last months.

I have learned that kids grieve on their own schedules, in their own ways, in ways that we may not recognize as grieving. I am learning to worry less, to be more forgiving of them and myself.

I have learned that rejection from some people is a blessing. I have become very, very private. I have given up being the "fixer" for the world, making things okay for the people around me. I can't. They'll have to sort out things for themselves. That doesn't make me a terrible person, or a "bottom feeder" as one person put it.

A few months ago I asked my brother to drive me out to Pedernales Falls state park, so I could walk in solitude along the trails and find a private place to cry and fall apart, where I could feel the love and support of the planet holding me. Many things came to me, sitting on a rock in the sunshine listening to the wind whip the cedar and juniper around me. I felt overwhelmed by everything ahead. So, so much to do, and then the stress of being the sole parent for my children - their sole emotional anchor, financial provider, guidance counselor, guide to life and the world and adulthood and the way to their own individual paths.

A thought entered my mind as I finally rose to leave:

"There is nothing to do but love everyone."

I hold onto this when the overwhelmed feeling comes back. Which it does, in cycles. But I have also learned that it runs itself out and I'm back to feeling my old intrepid self again.

There is nothing to do but love everyone.

Tried to talk about it; can't.

2010-04-20T21:22:00.002-05:00

I've written a post about what happened and where the kids and I are at now, and I even published it for just a moment, but when I saw the words up on the page, on the internet, I couldn't take it. I deleted it.

It's too personal, too private, too painful.

But there's nothing else that I want to write about now. So my public voice is stuck mute for awhile. Maybe for months. Maybe longer.

The kind and encouraging comments to the previous post are appreciated. I realize that I hadn't posted about our separation. Again, too personal, too private, too painful. And talking about how the kids are coping, what I've learned to help them, how one lives through something like this, requires telling what "this" is. And I just can't do it. It seems disrespectful to him. His story is his own. The things that I know about him, what happened to us, between us, is between him and me and no one else.

On Our Own

2010-03-22T09:14:00.002-05:00

I can't write about it here. I maybe never will. I don't know. But the result is, the kids and I are on our own now.

I'm terrified. I'm also broken right now, completely smashed to bits. All of the friends and therapy and support is great, but no one can put me back together again but me. It's up to me to learn how to walk again. And I will.

The kids are okay. They would like a mom who laughs and sings them songs and plays on the floor with them, and I've barely got it in me to keep on an even keel sometimes. I cry a lot. And I'm realizing this isn't just grief. I've been kicked solid in the chest. This hurts.

I will walk again. I will dance and sing again. I will feel every pain and cry every tear, and then I will let it all go. I will walk again.

Another Ear Infection

2009-06-21T13:10:00.003-05:00

Two sets of tubes, adenoids surgically removed, and the little girl got another ear infection, in June. Back on to the antibiotics.

Aaaauuuuggghhh!

The ENT has looked at her ears again, now that the infection's cleared, and says the tubes are still in place and look fine. She may still get the "occasional" ear infection.

So, I've done all the regular care for this; now I'm moving on to chiropractic care. (And I've ruled out food allergies a looooong time ago.)

I absolutely adore our chiropractor. Couldn't say enough good things about him. Not being a father himself, he's a tad awkward with Ada while she does her shy-burrowing-into-mama's-shoulder routine. But when he gets into chiropractor-gear it's a whole other story. I sit on the table and hold her, he scoots in beside me, and he makes adjustments so subtly she isn't really even aware that someone who is not me is touching her. Once she catches on, she starts fussing, but until then, she's great.

I've also started doing light massage around the occipital region before she goes to sleep. Very, very light massage, sometimes just resting my fingers under the weight of her head and letting her move around a little to find the pressure that feels nice to her. She seems to really enjoy it. Dr. Chiro showed me a very subtle movement to do, cupping her head and making very tiny figure 8's in the air, in a flat lateral plane side to side, but the movement is too small and fine for me to manage now, being out of the habit of doing daily bodywork.

I'm hoping that all of this will help to free up the interior anatomy to function as designed, and help her ears to drain, because the PE tubes and lack of adenoids haven't totally cleared the problem. And I really, really hate having to keep putting her on antibiotics. She tolerates them fine; it's the building resistance problem that I'm trying to avoid.

This, too, shall pass.

Pancakes and Hot Dogs for Dinner

2009-05-07T15:02:00.002-05:00

The other night I was trying to figure out, as I was also trying to fall asleep, what I was going to make for dinner the next night. I'm still trying to keep dinner simple, to save money, to save time, to save my and my kids' sanity.

Why not zucchini pancakes? And don't we have some leftover natural hot dogs that need to be eaten? And aren't there a few odd cups of apple sauce lingering in the recesses of the pantry?

I've never seen Griffin so excited about his dinner. He spontaneously thanked me. He's four years old. The zucchini pancakes were so good, and you couldn't even really taste the zucchini. I just added shredded zucchini to my regular pancake recipe.

Zucchini Pancakes

pressed oats for oatmeal
sliced almonds
all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsps vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup finely grated zucchini

Fill a measuring cup to about 3/4 cup with the oats and put into a food processor. Add in about a fistful of sliced almonds. Grind them together to resemble flour. Pour them back into the measuring cup and top off the mixture with regular flour until you have 1 cup total.

Pour the "flour" into a large bowl and add the remaining dry ingredients. Mix lightly with a fork. Add the wet ingredients, including the zucchini, and mix with a spoon until it is generally worked through. Don't overmix or try to work out all the lumps. This is a foolproof batter, and if you overmix it your pancakes will be rubbery instead of fluffy like cake.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto a hot griddle. I don't add butter or oil to the pan because the oil in the batter keeps them from sticking, and I use a non-stick frying pan for my griddle (remember to toss those if the non-stick surface has cuts in it and only use a soft, non-metal spatula). The batter should make a soft sizzle as you drop the spoonfuls into the pan. Wait until you can see that the edges are no longer wet and are starting to cook and bubbles have risen in the center of the pancake and popped before you try to flip them. If the pancake is sticking or breaks apart when you try to slide the spatula under it, it isn't ready to flip yet. Don't worry - even the "mistakes" are delish.

Serve hot with butter/heart-healthy spread and maple syrup.

Going back to full-time work

2009-05-05T11:39:00.003-05:00

I'm interviewing. For various reasons, I think it may be time to go back to work on a regular schedule. I'm not worried about the work - that's the easy part. I'm worried about the impact on our lives, on our fabric as a family, on the kids' emotional well-being.

Lots of mama's work full-time. In fact, more mamas work than not, and the majority of those are working full-time. Even mamas with preschool-aged kids.

To prepare for the change, I'm working out what time I'll need to get up in the morning (6:00), how our morning routine will change (I'll shower and dress first, then get dad up with the kids at 6:45, get them dressed and breakfast made while dad showers and dresses, then I'll leave and dad cleans up from breakfast and takes the kids to daycare), how the afternoon will change (I'll be picking the kids up later, so I'll have healthy snacks with me in the car). I've started to scoot the kids' dinnertime to later, a little after 6 but will need to end up with dinner time around 6:30. I've also scooted Ada's bedtime to 8:00, which is appropriate for her age.

Other simplifying strategies: hire a house cleaner to do a few of the major chores once a week; stop making sit-down dinners until the kids are old enough to enjoy more complex foods like stews and quick spaghetti with garlic and olive oil and arugula and quick soups like creamy asparagus and potato-leek with aged cheddar, or a ceasar salad with bread and chicken for dinner. These are all fairly easy to make meals, but thus far the kids, ages 4 and 1, have turned their noses up at them. So they'll get zucchini pancakes and turkey dogs and macaroni and cheese and steamed brocoli for a while. And Kirby and I will eat...something.

Returning to work full-time will make it possible, if we remain relatively frugal in our expenses, for us to retire around 65, maybe even 60 if we really watch ourselves. Right now, it looks like we'll have to work full-time until we are simply unable to. That's a depressing prospect.

Ada Lovelace Day

2009-03-24T15:27:00.002-05:00

I just signed a pledge to publish a post about a woman in technology whom I admire. Considering Ada Lovelace is one of the origins of my daughter's name, I'm sort of obligated. And since I've been reading about the dearth of women in gaming development and history, here's one for you:

Roberta Williams (1953 - ) of Oakhurst, CA invented the first home-computer adventure game to use graphics, "Mystery House." She had been working as a computer operator and programmer, and when she had the idea, she and her husband brought the game to life, he doing the programming and she doing the design and gameplay. Together they formed a company, Sierra On-Line, in 1979, which continues today as Sierra Entertainment, owned by ... Activision? some Activision division? Not sure.

Good for you Roberta and Ken!

Soooo Much Easier

2009-02-28T22:20:00.002-06:00

The recovery from an adenoidectomy than from a tonsillectomy, that is. Ada is such a trooper. She woke up freaked out and mad and the nurses were all, uh, let's get this IV out and you need to get her home, now. She was fine in the car on the way home, cuddled in my lap with some cold milk watching Little Einsteins and every now and then would remember that she'd had an EFFING AWFUL MORNING but would settle back down again with kisses and hugs and then she took an early nap.

When she woke up again, she was, kid you not, 100%. She still had to stay out of school for a week, doctor's orders, but she did great. Seriously. I didn't even need the humidifier running or painkillers or anything. It was actually a little weird how completely and totally okay she was. Because she'd just had SURGERY.

Yea, Ada! And yea to no more ear infections, although she's still generally got some yuck draining from her nose. I've tried taking her off dairy to see if it would help, but made no difference. And she's on zyrtec, but I'm not sure it's making a difference. But she's happy, sleeps great, growing like gangbusters. And such a cutie.

Adenoidectomy

2009-02-01T21:07:00.004-06:00

Having nursed the boy cub through his recovery from his adenotonsillectomy last May (it was a doozy - that post still drives more traffic to this blog than any other), now the girl child goes in for adenoids and tubes tomorrow morning.

I'm a little sick with worry. I hate to be going through this again. The surgery itself is still relatively minor. It's the risk of general anesthesia that gets me. She's 16.5 months old, about 25 lbs. This is her second time under anesthesia, since she got her first set of tubes last May, and that time went fine - she threw up in the car on the way home, took a nap, and was right as rain after she got up.

Conventional wisdom and counsel is that recovery from an adenoidectomy is much less troublesome than for a tonsillectomy. From your lips to God's ears, Dr. Ent. I'm not having a whole lot of luck researching for information on the recovery for someone this young, although I did find one reassuring account from the parents of a boy child about the same age as Ada who did very well. We're doing this for recurring ear infections. She has no sleep problems, but she seems to be constantly congested, and her ears won't drain, even with the tubes. She's on Zyrtec now, which seems to be helping with the continuous congestion quite a bit (Austin is awash in cedar allergens right now), but I still can't see filling her up with antibiotics every time she gets a cold because the fluid just won't leave her ears.

Ugh. I hate this. One of my friends posted on her "25 Random Things About Me" list on FB that being a parent feels like having your heart outside your body.

So true.

My Economic Predictions for 2009

2009-01-02T09:05:00.002-06:00

What do I know? I've got a fine education and a little world experience; I try to stay reasonably informed, but I'm no economics expert. Today's post is based on observations of trends and developments with a smidge of analysis. Mostly I'm just curious to see how far off I'll be as the year unfolds, so I record my impressions here as a baseline to compare against in the coming months. Sort of like a personal experiment. So here goes.

Things will truck along in the present gloom for the next few months. New information about how historically BAD the economy has been will be announced. President Obama will succeed in collaborating with Congress to pass his stimulus package, with a few nasty compromises, but the general thrust of the plan will remain: re-invest in public and social infrastructure - roads, utilities, schools, hospitals, local police and small businesses.

In April, thin glimmers of hope will appear in the leading economic indicators. Very thin. Nothing is changing yet, the layoffs continue, instability in the middle east is ugly, drawing in countries that usually sit out the conflicts on the sidelines, but at home there are a few bits of data suggesting that there could be light at the end of the tunnel.

The summer will be a hard, long haul. Things will get even uglier in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and India will again be drawn into the conflict. The entire subcontinent will come under the threat of catastrophe with a combination of natural disasters and political instability, resulting in an appalling humanitarian crisis. The international community - including China - will render significant aid. Obama will order an air attack against a known terrorist base in the region. Oil prices will hit a new cyclical high, beating back down the small recovery that was otherwise taking root. It will feel like one step forward, two steps back. As usual, ordinary Americans will respond by putting our heads down, rolling up our sleeves, and working our asses off, creating higher levels of productivity than ever before. Violent crime in both major cities and the mid-range metropolitan areas will continue to rise through the summer as gangs extend their activities and control into new markets, feeding off of the unemployed who join their ranks and making use of technology in ways that leave law enforcement - underfunded and undermanned - struggling to keep up. In the wake of the crime, communities will organize to fight back. Stronger communities will pay off in greater social dividends later beyond reducing crime rates.

Around October, as temperatures cool, gas prices will have retreated enough to relieve the pressure against productivity gains. News will start to surface of data from the summer months showing improved fundamentals; the economy is undeniably turning around. Next year's winter holiday retail sales will be slightly better than this year's - but only slightly. Americans are still feeling the pinch, and after the violence of the summer months the desire to celebrate is hard to muster. It will have been a tough year. Around Christmas there will be another significant military aggression that the rest of the world would have been much better without, and again, the global community will be slow to respond. By this time next year, it would be overstating it to describe Americans as "cautiously optimistic;" the year will have been too ugly for optimism. But there will be a general sense that the worst of this down cycle is behind us. We will have a foundation in place to build on, and will look forward to spending 2010 working our asses off even more to make sure that foundation sticks.

Welcoming the New Year

2008-12-30T10:29:00.002-06:00

My mind is racing. There's so much I want to do. Small adjustments in the daily routine to bring more health and balance to mind and body for myself and my family. Start preparing for the growing and inquiring minds of the kids - trips, projects, looking into spiritual resources that fit our values, thinking about ways to start bringing them into greater interaction with the world around us in a way that fosters a sense of community and mutual responsibility. Roadtrips and camping.

It's all a bit too early for most of that (they're only 3 and 1) but I want to start thinking about it now.

I'm already a little bothered by the consumerfest that was Christmas. I guess to some extent there will always be some gift giving and I do enjoy the excitement and joy the kids get with their new toys, but next year I want to temper it better with other activities that also turn this season into a time of reflection and reaching out. I was so swamped with work in the days leading up to Christmas that I could barely come up to breathe. Now that I have a few days to myself before work kicks back in again, I can't help but take stock and think about how to do things better next year.

I'm looking into vegan cooking. I've just downloaded what looks to be an awesome cookbook from Vegan Dad. And today I'm going to attack clutter and take bags of outgrown toys and clothes to goodwill. And I've approached the firm about taking on a new pro bono client who just inspired the heck out of me with her story. We'll see what happens.

So much life to live and share and love and laugh and so little life to do it in.

Happy New Year, everyone.

TypeAMama's A Writer

2008-11-26T09:24:00.002-06:00

If you go to my profile, it will point you to my new blog, Smitten By the Words. You may have noticed I've opened my profile up so now you can see who I really am. I hope I'm okay with that. This blog has been a personal space for me to sound off about things that I feel pretty strongly about, and I wasn't sure I wanted that connected with my public persona. It's sort of like having an online diary: you know 90% of what you write is going to make you cringe when you look at it again a year later. I suppose if there are any regrets, I can just delete this blog, although the Toddler Tonsillectomy post still gets such an inordinate amount of traffic that I'd like to keep at least that up so that parents dealing with the post-surgical trauma still have the communal wisdom of so many generous readers to lean on.

I'm not sure how much writing I'll continue to do on this blog. I've really let it go the last several months while I wrote my novel and started the hard work of learning about publishing and querying agents. Writing the novel was easy by comparison. This is gut-wrenching. I want to write so badly it hurts. Honestly. But I can't justify spending all my time doing that if I can't contribute to the household with it - not when I've got this law practice that provides reasonably stable cash flow. And writing on the side? With a 1 year old and a 3 year old on top of my regular work? Crazy-making.

So, life takes unexpected twists and turns, and hopefully it all works out. If you've been reading this blog, thank you, and I hope you've found something here that touched you, helped you, gave you a chuckle or made you think about something in a new way. My grandmother told me that the way she knew when she'd learned something new was when she changed her mind about something. She meant it literally, but I'd take it further than that. Learning changes your mind. I love that. This isn't farewell - just a head's up that things are changing. We'll see how it goes. Meantime, if you want to follow the struggle of an unpublished author to break out into a new career, please come visit at the new blog and say hi. It's still a little lonely over there.

Rock on.

What's wrong with "liberal"?

2008-10-13T19:53:00.002-05:00

I've had it up to my mama eyeballs with the use of the "word" liberal in the McCain ads ("Obama and his liberal allies ..." "one of the most liberal voting records in Congres ...") as if accusing someone of being a "liberal" is enough to make people run in terror. It's pissing mama off.

Tell me what a person has done wrong, but don't expect me to get my panties in a wad just because they're a liberal. Time was, being liberal was looked upon as a good thing, a show of a refined, kind and generous character. I recently re-read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (gah! what a great book!) and she frequently uses the word "liberal" as a word of praise to distinguish a particular character as being especially kind and thoughtful. Here's what dictionary.com has to say about liberal. It about sums it up. Liberal is not a bad thing. Trying to make people feel ashamed for reaching out to their neighbors, believing we can work together for a better future, daring to suggest that everyone should have access to a great education and decent, across-the-board healthcare - now that's a bad thing.

lib·er·al /ˈlɪbərəl, ˈlɪbrəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
12. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal arts.
13. of, pertaining to, or befitting a freeman.
–noun 14. a person of liberal principles or views, esp. in politics or religion.
15. (often initial capital letter) a member of a liberal party in politics, esp. of the Liberal party in Great Britain.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: 1325–75; ME < L līberālis of freedom, befitting the free, equiv. to līber free + -ālis -al1]

—Related forms
lib·er·al·ly, adverb
lib·er·al·ness, noun

—Synonyms 1. progressive. 7. broad-minded, unprejudiced. 9. beneficent, charitable, openhanded, munificent, unstinting, lavish. See generous. 10. See ample.
—Antonyms 1. reactionary. 8. intolerant. 9, 10. niggardly.

Not Connecting the Dots on High Gas Prices

2008-09-05T14:28:00.005-05:00

I keep reading from my elected candidates' newsletters, as they've gone travelling around Texas, how our number one concern here is the cost of gas.

They had to drive around the state/district to figure that one out?

Anyway. They also all say that to fix it, we have to make ourselves less dependent on foreign oil by 1) drilling drilling drilling here at home to eek out every drop we have, and 2) harnessing more solar, nuclear and wind energy.

Taking the second prong first, the sustainable (at least in the case of solar and wind) resources we have don't fuel our cars. They fuel our utilities, which currently are mostly powered by coal, then by nuclear and water resources. So, by switching to these sustainable resources (which I'm not arguing would be a great idea for climate issues) would make us ... less dependent on our own coal, nuclear and water resources, but would have zero impact on gas prices.

Gas prices are not simply driven by the supply of gas. There are two parts to that equation - supply, and demand. I learned this in high school economics (and a few college and graduate courses after that) (oops there I go - elitist with my elitist education and all, because education is just so shamefully elitist ... but I digress). Plenty of credible research out there (including from the current administration) claims that trying to lower gas prices by increasing our domestic supply will have little to no long-term impact on the price of gas. OPEC still controls the lion's share of the supply out there, and if we step up production, they withhold, and the price stays where it is.

However, we do have some control on our demand. We can push for more fuel-efficient cars. We have the technology, there's no change to our fuel distribution infrastructure needed (like hydrogen cells or all-electric cars require). It's right here, available now. We could increase public mass transportation infrastructure to give people yet another choice besides their gas-dependent cars for getting from point A to point B, making the supply-demand curve even more elastic as consumers have more choice and control over making a market-based decision for how much they're willing to spend on gas for the convenience of riding in their own car.

The little elasticity that we do have in the supply-demand curve now, combined with a slight strengthening of the dollar against foreign currencies (as we do buy most of our oil from abroad) is what has helped prices come down in the last month. Not increased production.

Gas prices are an economic phenomenon, with several realistic options available. Personally, I feel the politicians of either party who neglect to address the entire equation of supply and demand and instead only jump up and down about increasing drilling domestically are a disgrace, serving the profits of american oil companies by continuing to shout out a useless non-solution and distract their constituents from what might actually be effective.

Requiring higher fuel efficiency from cars means I'm immediately spending less on gas because I need less, plus it decreases demand overall and has a macroeconomic effect of a downward shift on the price - two downward pressures on my actual gas expenditures. And if I'm really fed up with the gas price today - I can take the local commuter rail. Take that, Saudi Arabia!

Why oh why aren't those conservative, fiscal economic geniuses in the GOP leaping onto this?

My own Congressional Rep. is John Carter. I subscribe to his newsletter, the Carter Courier, and I'm starting to feel a little sorry for him. He's so out of touch, and, like someone who is out of touch, he's oblivious to how out of touch he is. So it's a little sad to read his newsletter because it's like watching someone running full-on towards a big brick wall and there's nothing you can do to get them to see the wall ahead. If he gets challenged by any sort of qualified Democrat in the next election, this will be his last term, and I almost feel a little badly for the man. I know his heart's in the right place, and I believe he's faithfully served the best as he knew how. I wish him well, but he won't be coming back to office again.

Vaccinations: Where I've Landed

2008-08-06T08:55:00.002-05:00

This debate is really getting hot. The misinformation is flying all around, while critical information is either missing or being withheld. And more vaccinations are on the way, while the AAP is showing signs of taking a more aggressive stance against parents who wish to deviate from the CDC schedule.1 I've tried to distill down what I can from my own research. Yes, it's internet research, and my now ex-pedi would scoff at me for using the internet to research anything medical, but it's all I've got. I don't have a subscription to Lancet or the JAMA and there are plenty of abstracts of studies and government data available online. And with two graduate degrees, one of which included coursework in statistical analysis, experimental design, and regression analysis, I should be able to distinguish the hype from the actual information. I link to sources where possible.

1. If there were an award given out for the greatest invention of the twentieth century, I believe vaccinations would be on the short list for potential recipients.

2. Vaccinations save untold thousands of lives every year and prevent life-long injuries from disease including loss of cognitive function, deafness, blindness, and paralysis.

3. Vaccine manufacturers are not experiencing any sort of threat or burden from litigation or the threat of litigation for liability if their vaccines cause injury because they are IMMUNE from suit for injuries that their vaccines have directly caused. They have been ever since the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund was created in 1986. The federal law that created the fund, which is paid into by the vaccine manufacturers, also made the vaccine manufacturers and every other party in the chain of supply down to the nurse who actually gives the shot immunity from suit for an injury caused by the vaccine. This immunity does not extend to negligence in the administration of the vaccine, but only covers injuries caused by the vaccines themselves. The immunity also does not extend to fraud or misrepresentation by the manufacturers, as well it shouldn't. I think it's enough that they are excused from liability for the injuries their products cause, don't you?

4. The studies to determine the safety of vaccines prior to their FDA approval generally observe the vaccine recipients only for about 3 - 6 weeks post-injection for any adverse reactions.

5. When adverse reactions do occur, they may or may not be reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Recording System (although law requires the health care provider to report them, but how can this be enforced?), and there is little to no clinical follow-up of these cases to determine whether the vaccine caused the reaction, what were the short or longer-term outcomes, and whether any information can be obtained by studying these cases more quickly to determine whether there are additional contraindications for the vaccine for particular individuals. This alert from the National Vaccine Information Center regarding Gardasil's HPV vaccination gives a good example of the problem.

6. Scads and scads of studies have been run investigating the safety of vaccines, and time and again they are not able to turn up a statistically significant correlation between administration of the vaccines and adverse health responses. However, these studies (at least every one that I was able to review) were all epidemiological data reviews. Meaning, the study consists of gathering mountains of patient data from a bunch of clinics or hospitals or a specific region and slicing and dicing the data (yes, that's a technical term ;-p ) many ways to see if any relationship can be identified between the receipt of a particular vaccine and whatever health risk is being evaluated. The theory behind the value of epidemiological studies is that, if you have a large enough data sample, the size of the data alone should cancel out any oddities in the individual data so that you can have confidence that if any sort of relationship exists, it will show up in your analysis. Some of the studies rely on data that is from 20 or more years ago, some data pools are smaller than others, some are geographically limited, so these studies are only of limited value, and can't be pointed to, with scientific soundness, as evidence that vaccines are "safe." They can, however, be used to support the statement that so far, we have not been able to find a statistically significant relationship between vaccines and the occurence of asthma, irritable bowel disease, autism, encephalopathy, demyelinizing disorders (including multiple sclerosis), and a host of other diseases.

7. We still don't know what the causes are for a lot of these conditions that are on the rise or understand the processes in the body that are involved.

8. People point to the rise in childhood vaccines and the rise in autism as being parallel and therefore there must be some sort of relationship. Over the last forty years our living environment has changed radically, as have the diagnostic criteria for autism-spectrum disorders. The rise in vaccines alone is not sufficient evidence to link them to the rise in autism. The most recent research has suggested a genetic component to the onset of autism. Again, this does not prove or disprove that the now numerous vaccinations given to young children does not play any role in what must be a very complex etiology.

9. The body's first line of defense in most infectious diseases is the respiratory system. The most important part of our immune defense system, however, is our gut. This much we understand. Vaccines inject the material that triggers the immune response directly to the bloodstream, bypassing the respiratory system and the immune triggers that would have activated there. A few experts are concerned that this method of vaccine delivery could play a role in the increase of auto-immune diseases, particularly IBD. Although their concerns are only based on speculation, the idea that vaccine injections could be a contributing factor is not implausible. Meanwhile, there are very interesting developments in alternative methods of creating immunity other than injecting vaccines directly to the bloodstream, here and here.

10. Reading through some of the stories of cases that have been granted compensation through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund will curl your toes and make you go in and hold and kiss your sleeping children. Reading through some of the stories of how children used to suffer with polio and the iron lungs will do the same. This table shows the "adverse events" that are presumed, under the Vaccine Compensation Injury Program, to have been caused by the indicated vaccine. While actual causation is still not proven or, in many cases, attributable to any other cause, the legal presumption allows families to be compensated without having to prove causation.

11. Vaccine manufacturers are major donors to the American Academy of Pediatrics. One of the leading proponents of childhood vaccinations refuses to disclose how much money he has received from vaccine manufacturers. Doctors and non-profit research institutes are not required to disclose how much income they receive from vaccine manufacturers. Or from pharmaceutical companies, for that matter. One doctor from the retinal medicine field has remarked in Senate testimony that doctors ought to be required to don the logo's of their "sponsors" on their labcoats, much like NASCAR drivers, so their patients will be aware if the doctor might have a financial conflict of interest in recommending a particular treatment or procedure or test. Historically and today, the medical profession has held itself above the same conflict of interest ethical rules that apply to every other profession, successfully resisting any attempts to require them to disclose their financial interests in surgery centers, labs, pharceutical companies, or any other supplier of the care or treatment that they prescribe for their patients. Dr. J. Gregory Rosenthal put it very succinctly: "We are literally trading independent medical integrity for corporate profits." Feeding at the trough is fine, but don't be surprised when others notice the stink.

12. The CDC schedule only states the earliest date that vaccines can be "safely" (quote marks only to reflect the limits on available information) administered; it does not include information about the best time to vaccinate the child, or what the risks of contracting any disease might be if any vaccine were delayed by three months, six months, or a year. Infants have natural immunity to many diseases for their first 6 - 12 months that's maternally derived, but this immunity disappears by one year. Hence, the drive to vaccinate as early as possible. But there is not evidence weighing the risks of slightly delaying or spreading out the vaccinations for children living in the US. In fact, one study found that the immune response developed from the monovalent measles vaccine was slightly better than that developed in response to the combined MMR vaccine. As we learn more about the body's natural immune mechanisms and how to best support them, we may discover that there are certain "ideal" times for administering different vaccines, but this information is still a long way off.

13. There are other ingredients in the vaccines besides the vaccine material itself. The list of ingredients for vaccines posted on the CDC website does not match what is listed by the manufacturers on their websites.2 I'm a big fan of informed consent, but when parents and physicians aren't receiving good information about what's included in vaccines, they aren't able to guard against giving a vaccine to someone who may have a known allergic reaction to one of the ingredients.

Reviewing the information, it is obvious why parents are beginning to resist the large number of early childhood vaccinations for their children. The available information is good, but incomplete. There are clear risks and observed adverse reactions, even if the rate of incidence is very low - if you're a parent of a child who experiences one of them, the incidence rate might as well be 100%. There are many disorders on the rise that we don't understand. And our confidence in the impartiality of the medical profession is eroding. If the AAP wants to motivate parents to make what the AAP considers to be the best decision for their child's health - early and complete childhood vaccination - they need to first work to restore trust by requiring complete transparency from their members about their financial interests in the companies who supply the medicines and treatments that they are recommending.

At ten months old, Ada has received all of the CDC-recommended vaccinations to-date. But at her next appointment we will be putting off the MMR. I'm well aware that there is no evidence suggesting that it will be safer if I do it a little older, but there is evidence that her immune response will be slightly better if she receives the first immunization after she is 15 months old. I'm also aware that there isn't information for me to refer to that will help me understand what the chances of her contracting measles, mumps or rubella are in the 6 - 12 months before she gets the first vaccination of the series, but I have found some guidance from the CDC about when they consider giving the first MMR shot at or near the first birthday to be recommended.3 The MMR vaccine seems to be one of the ones that has a higher level of adverse reactions, and twelve months old just seems to be a little immature physically to process it all.

Given all of the data I have at hand, this is the best decision I can come to.

1. Prior to passing the law allowing Texans to file for conscientious objection to vaccinations, there were widespread allegations of doctors and nurses telling parents they were breaking the law by not getting their children vaccinated on the CDC schedule, reporting the parents to CPS for failure to vaccinate, and even forcibly administering a vaccination to a child with a known egg allergy.

2. Re the MMR vaccine:

From the CDC website: "Measles, rubella, and mumps vaccines are available in monovalent measles (Attenuvax , Merck & Co., Inc.), rubella (Meruvax , Merck & Co., Inc.), or mumps (Mumpsvax , Merck & Co., Inc.) form and in combinations: measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) (M-M-R II , Merck & Co., Inc.), measles-rubella (MR) (M-R-Vax , Merck & Co., Inc.), and rubella-mumps (Biavax II , Merck & Co., Inc.) vaccines. Each dose of the combined or monovalent vaccines contains approximately 0.3 milligrams of human albumin, 25 micrograms of neomycin, 14.5 milligrams of sorbitol, and 14.5 milligrams of hydrolyzed gelatin (Merck & Co., Inc., manufacturer's package insert). Live measles vaccine and live mumps vaccine are produced in chick embryo cell culture. Live rubella vaccine is grown in human diploid cell culture."

From the Merck website (had to delve into the "medical providers" area of the website to find this): "Each 0.5 mL dose contains not less than 1,000 TCID50 (tissue culture infectious doses) of measles virus; 12,500 TCID50 of mumps virus; and 1,000 TCID50 of rubella virus. Each dose of the vaccine is calculated to contain sorbitol (14.5 mg), sodium phosphate, sucrose (1.9 mg), sodium chloride [this is regular table salt, NaCl, but still omitted by the CDC], hydrolyzed gelatin (14.5 mg), recombinant human albumin (≤0.3 mg), fetal bovine serum, other buffer and media ingredients and approximately 25 mcg of neomycin. The product contains no preservative." [emphasis added]

3. "Children should receive the first dose of MMR vaccine at age 12-15 months (i.e., on or after the first birthday). In areas where risk for measles is high, initial vaccination with MMR vaccine is recommended for all children as soon as possible upon reaching the first birthday (i.e., at age 12 months). An area where measles risk is high is defined as:
a county with a large inner city population,
a county where a recent measles outbreak has occurred among unvaccinated preschool-aged children, or
a county in which more than five cases of measles have occurred among preschool-aged children during each of the last 5 years.
These recommendations may be implemented for an entire county or only within defined areas of a county. This strategy assumes that the benefit of preventing measles cases among children aged 12-15 months outweighs the slightly reduced efficacy of the vaccine when administered to children aged less than 15 months." Found at the CDC website here.

News or Just a Crime Report?

2008-07-29T12:15:00.003-05:00

I know I'm late to the party in complaining about this, but it's just to the point of being absurd. Our local television news has degenerated to nothing but arrests, suspects sought, and crimes occured, with a little weather and sports on the side.

Every evening I get home with the kids around 4:45. Pooper gets to watch 2 episodes of Thomas (I might ff through the ads and oops maybe a little of the episode too) then we catch the end of the national network nightly news, and then the local news come on at 6. And it's nothing but crime. I get so frustrated I pick up the remote and start going through the channels.

"Police have issued this sketch of the suspect -"

"The body was found on E. Riverside drive by a woman and her father -"

"- Today was indicted on six counts of indecency with a child -"

COME ON, PEOPLE.

The only real local news I have left now is the Statesman daily, the Chronicle weekly, and the Community Impact monthly. This is ridiculous. Such a shame that local television news has gone so far into the trash. I wish I could have the news on with the kids while I finish making dinner and discuss local government, civic events, health news and other items of interest with them rather than opting for HGTV so we don't have to listen to the grisly details of the latest murder-suicide parading as "news."

CDC Vaccination Schedule

2008-07-23T20:43:00.003-05:00

The little one turned 9 months old last month, so at her 9-month wellbaby appointment I asked her pediatrician about perhaps spacing out some of the next vaccinations. She opened her mouth and breathed fire and melted my eyeballs right down my face.

Our pediatrician is one of the leading proponents of timely vaccination of children. She is also as vociferous as she can be about vaccine saftety, especially when it comes to Autism. So, we spent the remainder of the visit with her venting about all of the misinformation and fear and paranoia fed by the media, and I did a lousy job of redirecting the conversation to the many other risks associated with vaccines - encephalopathy, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease - what with the melted eyeballs and all.

And let me not add to false hysteria - I have yet to find a study that has found a positive correlation between vaccines and any of the above conditions. But, and as usual it's a big but, every one of the studies that I found was an epidemiological study. We don't know yet what triggers these conditions to arise in some kids and not in others, although we have a handle on several contributing factors. But why one child's system deteriorates to disease but another's health is resilient, when each is exposed to the same environmental stressors and pathogens, is not yet understood.

Our particular pediatrician, while she was completing her residency, had a 7 year-old girl brought in to the ER by her distraught parents with a sudden 106 fever who had the chicken pox. She had open blisters and a staph infection had invaded through one of them; her entire body was shutting down. She was put on IV antibiotics and taken to ICU, but her heart gave out before the night was over. Can't blame our doctor for being so deeply passionate about vaccinations coming from that sort of personal experience.

So, yes, I want to vaccinate my child. But there's so many of them now, and we still understand so little about the connections between vaccinations and why some children have these extraordinary adverse reactions - even death - and some don't. I feel like I'm playing Russian Roulette every time we go in for more shots. Then I look at the decisions and opinion at the website for the Court of Federal Claims under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and I get a little freaked out.

I've considered changing pediatricians, but that still doesn't solve my dilemma of what to vaccinate for and when. The CDC seems to take the approach of get as many as you can as fast as you can. I know there are alternative schedules out there, but I'd like to see some science backing them up.

I'm in a stew about this one. Ugh.

Doggie Congestive Heart Failure

2008-07-23T11:37:00.003-05:00

My dear canine companion of lo these 15 years - predating DH and the kids and even graduation from grad school - is taking four prescription meds now (thankfully much cheaper than people meds) to keep him sufficiently oxygenated in spite of having a bum ticker.

He has a heart with valve problems, which he has tolerated more or less all his life. Now, however, the fluid accumulating in his lungs resulting from the blood not getting pumped through the heart adequately is starting to be a constant bother to him. Besides having him on heavy diuretics to try to keep the fluid out of his lungs, he's on potassium supplement, Vetmedin which is supposed to be helpful for this condition, and a bronchiodilator to help him get more air into his lungs.

He's a very sweet dog, his clouding eyes are still bright and shining, he still has significant spring in his step, and if it wasn't for the coughing and hacking, you'd think he was half his age. And yet, at our last appointment, the vet said that his heart wasn't just bad, it was terrible.

My dog frequently makes me nuts with his whining and begging during dinner time and insistence on being underfoot in the kitchen while I'm rushing around to make dinner, get a baby fed, and monitor Griffin and Ada. But I love him dearly. I am finally having to come to grips with the fact that he is, after all, mortal. I have such conflicted feelings about this. Thankfully the meds seem to have made him more comfortable.

Voluntarily and Not So Voluntarily Saving Money

2008-07-14T21:14:00.002-05:00

My personal assistant quit today. She was lovely and sweet and had to quit for health reasons and I will never find someone else as cheery and efficient and just perky as her. Now I'm worried for her and will have to bug her to make sure she's okay.

I've also decided to have a go at making dinners again. I'm watching cooking shows on the DVR (favoring Ellie Krieger and Jamie Oliver at the moment - mostly I just covet his garden and rustic kitchen and dishes and food prep gadgets). All in all, this should save us a hefty chunk each month. And I may lose my mind, which should help me save on gas.

The Opposite of Co-Sleeping

2008-07-10T10:49:00.003-05:00

If co-sleeping means having everyone together in a big family bed, snuggled warm and close, what's the word for everyone sleeping separately in their own beds, with their own night-time sleep preferences (white noise v. quiet, sheets tucked in v. loose, cat on the bed v. not) intact and not disturbing the other sleepers?

Well-rested?

In our house, we all have our own room and bed for sleeping. We have four bedrooms, and each child is in their own room, Kirby's in the guest room with a loud fan and the cat, and I'm in the master bedroom, quiet and peaceful. Kirby and I each have a monitor so we can hear our assigned sleeping child if they should wake up crying or roll off the bed or whatever. Him, so he can hear it over the fan (and he's a heavy sleeper), and me, because I'm down the hall from Ada's room and might not hear her if she woke up.

I'm getting better nights of sleep now than at any other time previously in our marriage. And you know what? It's good for our family. It's good for me as a parent to be well-rested. It's good for our marriage that Kirby doesn't have the guilt, and me the frustration, of being woken up multiple times in the middle of the night by his kicking his legs during a vivid dream, or coughing from allergies, or turning on the bathroom light for a nighttime call from nature. I'm a very light sleeper, so having kids or animals in the bed is out off the question. I adjusted once during college when I lived in a dorm room that was just off of the main stairwell. I learned to sleep through loud students coming and going at all hours, some coming back from too many drinks and making way too much noise at a really cruel hour. I got used to it and slept. But I guess I'm too old for this now. And sleep is more important than ever, because it's so precious when it's so hard to come by.

I think there are studies out there - outdated studies - that cast sleeping in separate bedrooms as a marital red flag. I don't think that's a judgement that can be made across the board for all situations. Sleeping in the same bed is just a small part of the whole picture of marital intimacy. And if sleeping in separate bedrooms is the only means of getting a good night's sleep without interfering with each other's sleep habits, then it seems there may be more good than bad to it. Including for the health of the marriage.

Outsourcing It All

2008-07-06T16:12:00.002-05:00

I'm sure some media-type will come up with a catchty word for this, because it has to be some sort of trend, even in this dodgy economy. Maybe especially in this dodgy double-income and then some economy. As a lawyer, I bill by the hour. Plus, because my work is more flexible for hours and location, and since Kirby's job and career (and insurance) are the primary financial supports for the household, 98% of the domestic responsibilities - errands, appointments, repairs, service arrangements, shopping, supplying, ordering, cooking, cleaning, dropping off, picking up - fall to me. With a 3 year old and baby, and also trying to work, things get nutty. I get nutty.

About a month ago, it occured to me that, if it wasn't billable and it wasn't spending time with the family, I didn't want to do it anymore. And if freeing me up from some of this stuff helped me to be able to bill just a few more hours a month, then it was worth it and may even pay for itself. So I decided to outsource everything "else" that I do to outside vendors.

Now I have a cleaning service come twice a week for an hour to tidy up, mop floors, and do one major chore. I'm ordering dinners for delivery every Monday. And I just hired a personal assistant who helps with everything else for a few hours a week. There are still some chores for me to do, the largest being the laundry, on top of the daily picking up, washing, loading and unloading the dishwasher. And there's still meal prep to do - I only order one full dinner and then maybe some sides and put something together quickly. But Thursdays we have leftovers, Fridays we order pizza, and Saturdays we eat out or order in, so there's been a significant reduction in the time spent on making dinner. And the assistant can't do everything, but she can do a lot, and it helps. In the two weeks since she's started, all of the burned-out lightbulbs have been replaced, the fridge got cleaned out, she's done my grocery shopping (twice), gotten my broken shoes repaired, and found a handyman to install the baby-gate.

I'll probably start pulling back on some of the services as the kids become more and more self-sufficient. Ada weaning from the bottle this fall will give me back about 3 hrs/day on the weekends, and an hour on weekdays. And oh, not to be washing and mixing bottles every night. And then once she moves down to just one nap, I'll be able to run errands with both kids much more easily, since I'm firm about having her in her crib for each nap. So all of this assistance is just temporary, but it's great while I have it. I wonder what the trend-wathers will call it ... House-sourcing?

Discrimination Cloaked in Religion

2008-06-25T08:43:00.002-05:00

Last night I watched an episode of "30 Days" that followed a Mormon woman from Utah with very fixed beliefs about homosexuality venture to the Northeast to live with a gay couple and their family - four boys that they have adopted in open adoption and from the foster care system. Their home is a farmhouse in the country. It's beautiful and peaceful, and the boys are rambunctious, sweet, and clearly loved, happy and well-cared for. As one of the parents said, how could anyone who was opposed to gay couples adopting children still feel the same way after visiting and staying with them for a month?

If you have an opinion about this one way or the other, I highly recommend that you watch this episode. As it unfolds, what really becomes clear is the complete lack of common ground between people who otherwise would be shoulder to shoulder at their kids' baseball games, the grocery store, and the PTA meeting. On the one hand, it makes me happy to see once again how America is big enough to allow for people with deeply disparate beliefs to live peacefully in society together. On the other hand, it also woke me up to the ways that blending religion and public policy can undermine this broad democracy that I cherish. This was something that I understood in theory, but now I really get it.

Ultimately what it came down to was that people are blinded by their absolute certainty that their own opinions, founded in their religious beliefs, are Right. On its own, this doesn't create any problems and we can all just agree to disagree and get on with our lives. When the problems arise is when one then decides that being Right gives them permission to not only live their own life according to their own beliefs, but to also require that everyone else equally live their lives according to this one "Right" set of beliefs - whether or not they also hold them.

This is what religious extremism is - requiring others, under the force of law, to live according to your own religious beliefs.

This is what the guest from Utah never grasped. No one was telling her that she could not live her life according to her own beliefs. For example, given that she didn't have a houseful of kids and that she was married, I think it's safe to assume that she and her husband practice or use some sort of birth control. There is a non-negligible population within very conservative Christians (and other faiths) that believe that birth control of any variety is immoral. Sex is for procreational purposes only, period. I wonder what her answer would have been if someone had asked her if she would agree that, if she would prohibit a gay couple from getting married or adopting kids, would it be okay for someone else to prohibit her and her husband from practicing or using birth control? The authority of someone to do this comes from the same place that hers does - complete, Bible-based certainty that this is the law of God. So how could she argue against it?

This is the problem of allowing religion to dictate our laws. If our ultimate societal goal is freedom and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then that means for everyone, including those whose religious beliefs don't conform to your own, and who live their lives accordingly.

There's something else that wasn't raised by this episode that always leads me to the conclusion that really what's going on is discrimination and not religious fervor. There are many, many threats to the sanctity of marriage besides (as asserted by those of the belief-set) gay marriage: no fault divorce, domestic violence, infidelity, to name a few. But I don't see anyone from the Southern Baptist convention putting as much airtime and effort into combatting these ills as they do gay marriage. When I consider this, the inevitable conclusion is that the opposition comes from discriminatory motives and not the religious agenda. If one is going to oppose gay couples adopting children, then I feel that one is obligated to work with equal fervor to address the crisis from the dearth of foster parents available to provide homes for foster children.

The show also presented a woman who was truly injured by her (gay) father's conduct: taking her to sex novelty shops when she was a girl because he wanted her to be "uninhibited" about matters of sexuality, for example - some truly screwed up stuff. His relationships with men lead her to feel inadequate in her gender, and for this reason she opposes gay adoption.

Because heterosexual parents don't also sometimes (tragically) behave inappropriately with their kids when it comes to sexuality? Because heterosexual parents never made one of their kids of the opposite gender feel inadequate or guilty or shameful solely on the basis of their gender?

The succer punch to all of this is the kids who need homes. Gay adoption or not, there are children growing up in conditions and neighborhoods in America that aren't fit for army batallion units. Who will have adult lives coping with the long-term health (physical and mental health) challenges associated with long-term post-traumatic stress disorder. Who are less prepared to live lives that contribute to the social greater good rather than diminish. Who are going to be sharing this world and this town and this neighborhood with my kids and your kids. And who suffered immeasurable loneliness, grief and neglect at the most vulnerable point in their life when they were so young and helpless and should have been hugged and held and sung to and fed well and played with and hugged more every single day.

In a bit of Kismet, the James Dobson camp today pre-released to the Associated Press a scathing piece by Mr. Dobson that will air Tuesday on Focus on the Family about Dobson's take on Barack Obama's discussions of religion and public policy. Sen. Obama gets it - that if we allow the premise that religion should control our public lives, then we have the problem of whose beliefs will be the controlling beliefs. What's ironic is that Sen. Obama's postion actually protects the right of very conservative Christians to live their own lives according to their own values. What they just can't get their heads around is that, because we live in a democratic society, this means that in return they also have to allow others to live according to their beliefs. No, Mr. Dobson would rather call Obama a proponent of a "fruitcake" theology. Name calling - always a good indicator of a well-thought-out opinion.

Home Decor Overload

2008-06-14T10:31:00.002-05:00

What is it about IKEA that makes me want to throw away everything I have and start over? To have time to drive there, walk through the store, stop and look at all the beautiful things that wouldn't fit in my house, I have to block out an afternoon. Kid-free, of course, because otherwise I have to add in time for managing the meltdown just as you exit the toddler toys area for the cafeteria and marketplace.

I would love to have the bright, cheery-yet-organic-and-unfussy-and-organized vibe that is the IKEA brand in place in every room of the house. The kids' toys would all be coordinated in designer colors and yet would feel down-to-earth and simple. The bedding would have playful - but not tasteless - designs in vivid orange and green. All of the CDs, random parts of toys, papers, more random parts of toys, magazines, legal references, office supplies, linens - all of it - would have a stylish and sensible container in clever shelves or cabinets.

But here's the thing - I would have to hire a consultant to do it. Because I don't even have time to shower (unless I squeeze it in in the middle of Ada's first bottle of the morning at 6:20 or so), so when am I going to find time to review my storage and organization and furniture needs, do a gap analysis on what I already have available and could use better, review the IKEA catalog for solutions for what's still needed, and then purchase and install the new stuff? When, I ask you???

If someone wanted to be an IKEA freelance consultant to help me figure this out and take care of it for me, I'd be willing to pay for the help. Maybe I should place an ad on Craigslist.

Will he EVVVEERRR poop in the potty?

2008-06-11T22:04:00.002-05:00

Griffin turned 3 in April, about 2 months ago. Boys potty train between 2.5 and 3.5, so he's not officially late yet. And he didn't walk until he was 15 months, and is still a little speech-delayed, so why should the potty be any different?

But there are a few additional factors at play here:

- his daycare would like to move him along to the next class by the end of the summer (he's about the oldest child in the current group), but he needs to be out of diapers first;

- he's about the size of the average 4 year old, and, therefore, so are his poops; and

- god help us we can't keep cleaning up these diapers much longer.

It occurs to me, when he's older, that Griffin may not take well to discovering that his toddler toilet habits (or lack thereof) were discussed with the global community on the Internet. All I can say is, you brought this on yourself, son. And if this is the worst thing you can come up with to get mad at me about, you had it pretty good.

So here's our plan: We've been talking potty for several months now. He's well-versed in the lexicon of the poop and the pee-pee and the toilet and the paper and the wiping and the flushing. He's not at all interested in the little pretend potties, and given how he has to perch himself on those tiny things, I don't blame him. No, he needs to just get on with it with the actual appliance. He can strip down and put himself on the potty just fine. He's aware when he's pooping because he runs away so we won't make him go upstairs for a change. The kid's ready. We'll buy a few more books, establish more regular times during the day that he routinely goes to sit on the potty, whether or not the visit is productive, and keep building the habits and the practice. If things don't start to catch on by mid-August, we're just going to go cold turkey. He's going to stay home from school on a Thursday and a Friday, and I'm going to clear my calendar. Thursday morning we'll go to the store and make a Big Deal about buying his underwear and tossing the diapers. Then we'll just do it. Going in his pants right now, with the diapers, is very convenient. It will become much less so once there are no diapers to catch it all. I'm hoping by Saturday, when Ada is back home with us (and crawling around on the floor - eeesh) that he will have caught on to go. to. the. potty. By Monday hopefully the accidents will be reduced by half and he can go back to school with maybe just 3 or 4 or 12 changes of clothes. And socks.

Recovery for Toddler Tonsillectomy

2008-05-28T12:25:00.006-05:00

[UPDATE: Note to commenters - because of the heavy traffic this post generates, I moderate comments to weed out the advertisers who try to promote themselves/their products on my blog. Sometimes it takes me a day or more to get to your comment to read and post it, which means there may be a bit of a lag between you posting your comment and me getting it on the blog. I've had some folks post their comment multiple times - rest assured, each one makes it to my inbox. I promise, I'll get to your comment and I'll get it posted as soon as I can. I truly appreciate the global community of support that you parents and caretakers have formed around this one blog post. Keep it up! Much love, TypeAMama.]

We were really taken by surprise by how difficult this has been and how much pain our little guy has been dealing with, so I thought I'd post about our experience in case any information here helps someone else preparing for a tonsillectomy for a 3-yr old. A tonsillectomy is considered major surgery. It may just take 20 or 30 minutes (depending on whether you're also taking the adenoids, adding tubes), but it is major surgery. In an adult, it takes a month for full recovery. In a young child, it's a little over 2 weeks.

I think because most people don't remember how much pain they were in when they were this young (they usually just remember the ice cream) and because the doctors forget that we have no idea what we're really in for, we weren't adequately prepared for this. Because it turns out that what we're in the midst of is ten days of round-the-clock pain management. Actually, I'm hoping it's just ten days. Today is day 7. We'll see.

So, Griffin did great during the procedure itself. In the recovery room, he drank some water and ate a popsicle. He stayed overnight in the hospital, as that's their protocol to make sure the pain can be controlled just by the prescription meds that we'd be using at home. After the surgery, as we sat in the family consultation room to hear from his doctor how the procedure went, his ENT told us that Griffin's were the second-largest tonsils and adenoids he had ever removed. The only ones he'd seen larger had been so big that they crossed over each other.

Upstairs in his hospital room, Griffin ate 4 cups of ice cream in a row. Still doing fine. Then the drugs from the procedure very suddenly wore off before he got his first dose of hydrocodone and it all fell apart. I ran to get a nurse and then tightly held him and rocked him in the bed as he sobbed and choked and watched his heartrate race to 189. We gave him the hydrocodone orally using a syringe, but he spat a lot of it out and cried and yelled more. Turns out the hydrocodone can sting a little. I managed to get the rest into him by feeding it to him bit by bit with spoonfuls of ice cream. It took about 20 minutes for it to start to soothe him, but then an hour later he just went to pieces again. This time the nurse called the doctor and got permission to give him morphine. Finally he relaxed and was woozy but comfortable. Once we were finally "ahead of the pain" again, we were able to maintain with the hydrocodone, and we went home the next day.

It was a good thing that I hadn't pressed to have his IV removed early, as is my usual preference. While he was doing a good job of staying hydrated, the morphine was administered via the IV. So if you're anti-IV like I am, this might be one occasion to leave it in as long as your child is tolerating it well.

This is what we have learned since then:

Toddlers are all-or-nothing when it comes to pain management. While they're on painkillers, your child will act completely comfortable and care free. Don't be fooled. As soon as it's time to give them the next dose, do it, or you'll be dealing with 3o minutes of sobbing and clinging while you wait for the next dose to kick in.

If your prescription says to give the painkillers every 4 hours, but you need to give it to them every 3 hours to adequately control the pain, check with the doctor, but ultimately, do whatever you need to do to keep your child comfortable. I told our ENT yesterday that I was dosing Griffin every 3 to 3 1/2 hours to keep his pain under control and his doctor didn't even blink.

Have a humidifier going full-blast in your child's room whenever they're in there sleeping.

Make your child fill up on fluids before they take a nap and before they go to sleep at night.

Your two big objectives for your child will be pain management and hydration. The less your child drinks, the harder the pain is to manage. Keep them very well hydrated. While they're sleeping, they lose fluids into their bladders and into the copious amounts of sweat that will pour out of them while they're healing, and they aren't drinking any more while they snooze, so their throats dry out. As much as Griffin drinks, he still sometimes wakes up coughing and choking and crying just 2 1/2 hours after his last dose. I've heard the dry throat when waking described by an adult as feeling like you have a bunch of glass in your throat. Ooooowwwww. And then the hydrocodone stings. You'll be doing a lot of rocking and soothing and hugging and holding.

Speaking of stinging hydrocodone, if your child is old enough that you can get them to hold their mouth open so you can spray some chlorasceptic numbing throat spray before they take their hydrocodone, that will help numb the sting a little.

What Griffin could or couldn't eat varied day to day, rather than generally improving over time. Food that he was able to eat one day hurt him the next. I read somewhere that the scabs slough off somewhere between day 5 and day 7, and this is the most painful period post-op. We were at a consistently high level of pain until the 9th day, so I couldn't say for sure if this was the case with us, but I suspect it may be part of the reason for the variability in what he was able to eat.

Your child will have the breath of a dog that's dead in Texas in August, from about day 3 to about ... he still has it at day 9.

Dairy products were on the list of foods to avoid - I have no idea why. Griffin really wants a cold glass of milk in his hands at all times. He doesn't like popsicles, is not interested in jello or pudding. But he drinks milk all day, and it really seems to help him. I keep it in an insulated sippy cup so he can roam around the house with it, and he still comes back for a refresh when the chill has gone away.

Your child may be in constant pain for over a week. We've pulled a matress onto the floor in his room and his dad sleeps in there every night with a watch alarm to wake him up every 3 1/2 hours to give Griffin his painkillers, and then I handle the day shift. Usually Griffin wakes him up in pain before the alarm goes off. Just be prepared for this. It's a bit of a long haul, you're sleep-deprived, your child is miserable. This isn't a good time to be trying to accomplish anything else major in your life.

Getting work done right now is impossible, particularly given how out of sorts he is generally, which is understandable. If you normally work from home, plan to take the next 10 days off.

This isn't the time to be stingy with the DVDs. If your child will sit quietly while they watch tv, this is a good way to distract them from their discomfort and keep them still.

Let your child eat whatever they can. Even if it's just Krispy Kreme donuts for two days. They'll lose a ton of weight while they're recovering, and they can eat broccoli when they're better. Griffin can't even manage cold rice yet, and his ribs are really starting to show now. So, Krispy Kreme it is until he's healed.

They say you can take your child back to daycare 5-7 days post-op. This is nuts. Your child has to receive their pain meds at specific times, and someone needs to keep a close eye on making sure he stays hydrated and doesn't suddenly have the pain meds wear off prior to the time to dose. Also, the daycare can only give the dose according to the times on the prescription, so if your child needs their medicines more frequently, daycare isn't an option. Again - be prepared for this with alternate arrangements if necessary.

Another blogger said that the feeling in their throat while they were recovering from a tonsillectomy like "swallowing a box of tacks." Adults take longer to heal, but I think the pain is about the same for kids and adults, from what I can tell.

Good luck with your own kids' tonsillectomies. Hopefully they won't take as long to heal or be so painful an ordeal as what we're dealing with here, but in case it is, hopefully something I've said here helps.

Salutations to my 39th new year

2008-01-02T23:46:00.000-06:00

It's 2008 and we're all here. Me, the husband I was destined for, and the two kids who've been in my mind and heart for more than 10 years. We're here, I'm done, and now for the living the rest of our lives together. How can it still feel like I'm just getting started when I'm going to be FORTY YEARS OLD this coming September?

I have no new year's resolutions. I could say something noble-sounding, like that I try to live every day with the sort of reflection and mindfulness usually reserved for the first day of the year, blah blah blah. It wouldn't be true, and that sort of self-congratulatory prattle makes me vomit in my mouth a little. Really, I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude just to be here at all, and to be surrounded by these amazing beings that are my family, well, I'm struck dumb with wonder. In my mind, this next year is like starting down the runway for takeoff, watching the kids start to get a toehold on life, their personalities, likes and dislikes, gifts and misgivings. And watching DH and I start to get a toehold on our life as parents, heads of a ship, nurturing our marriage along with our kids, struggling with how much we want to be there every moment that our kids are breathing (I'm definitely pulled more in this direction) and how much we also want to succeed in our professional lives (DH is currently pulled more in this direction; I am too only insofar as I want to help stockpile funds for the family's use for travel, school, etc.).

Runways can be bumpy, too. That's okay. It just means we're picking up speed and liftoff is imminent. And second thought, I do have one resolution - find some way to be more charitable. Either through giving or volunteering. Reach out more. Forgive more.

Happy new year.

Imaginative play and developing empathy

2007-12-05T10:32:00.000-06:00

So I had The View on this morning while I was giving Ada a bottle and trying to get her to take a much needed nap, when they started talking about gender issues with children's play, starting with the factoid that more boys are getting play kitchens now than ever before. Griffin loves playing in the kitchen, loves to watch me cook and point and talk about what I'm doing, and when we go to our friends' houses that have the play kitchens he'll spend the bulk of his time playing with it, taking things in and out of the "microwave" and cupboards, making "cupcakes", and generally having a fabulous time. It hadn't occured to me that getting him a play kitchen could be controversial.

The conversation turned to boys playing dress-up with female-oriented clothing, and the womens' opinions varied from protecting childrens' need for imaginative play (go Whoopee!) to how very WRONG it would be for a teacher to permit a boy to dress up in a princess outfit during dress-up play.

Really?

One of the ways people can understand others who come from a different point of view or experience is to try to put oneself in the other's place and see how it feels. Children intuitively know this when they try dressing up in mommy's or daddy's shoes. When a young boy puts on a dress during pretend play (not the same as insisting on wearing a dress to school or for regular daytime clothes), he is exploring what it's like to be something different from him. That's the whole point of pretend play - try something different. And, holy bejeesus, he's trying to understand what it's like for a girl to be a girl - give that boy a gold star and a huge hug! Hopefully he'll carry the same interest in understanding where the other sex is coming from well into his adulthood.

I would be very distressed if my boy came home from school with a story about how his teacher had stopped him or another boy from putting on a female-oriented costume during pretend play. Young children take their social cues from their teachers (remember the famous brown eyes v. blue eyes experiment from the '70's). By demonstrating to the class that there's something "wrong" and unacceptable about a boy playing pretend with female-oriented play stigmatizes the intuitive empathy-building play that the children otherwise would have engaged in and starts to build a wall between understanding between the sexes. At home I would do my best to dismantle the damage, but if the rest of the class goes along with it and adopts the teacher's point of view, as is likely, then chances are my child will go along with the group's view and limit his own pretend play along the lines of what's deemed acceptable by the group. This would be heartbreaking.

Is This the "Rut"?

2007-09-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

Since I didn't get around to my walking to try to get this labor thing into gear (today is day 8 past due date) until after noon today, I decided to take my stroll around Lakeline Mall and avoid the surprisingly potent mid-day September heat. Plus, Dillard's is having a 75%-off sale on shoes, and DH had said that I was welcome to buy a pair (not that I need anything - but strappy summer sandals on sale are just too irresistible) as long as I parked at the far end of the mall from the Dillard's and hopped around some, too.

Since the point of the excursion was to stretch my legs and help cublette scoot down, I meandered through all of the shops and department stores from one end of the mall to the other.

Holy crap, there's a lot of stuff out there.

How did I shop successfully just mere months ago before I was pregnant, when presented with such a sea of options, 85 to 90 per cent of which is just plain bad?

Not only was I feeling overwhelmed by the dearth of well-constructed, tailored, tasteful clothing out there (and in a cut that's flattering for my shape), but I was noticing a new feeling of dis-entitlement to a pretty blouse (or skirt or blazer or dress or whatever). First, there's the obvious impracticality of investing in any decent clothes when I'll be spending the next year wiping various of DD's body fluids off my shoulder and chest that she will be freely depositing as I carry her, nurse her, sling her, etc. I know I can expect to be vomited on A LOT in the coming months (I'm including regular spit-up in this calculation), so there's no sense in wearing anything that's not machine washable. Plus, because I'll be either nursing and/or pumping, every day, several times a day, the clothes also need to provide easy access but also allow for the maintenance of modesty if I'm nursing in public. And no big dangly earings for awhile because - duh.

It was the second source of the disentitlement feeling that surprised me a little, although it makes perfect sense. I'm not working now. I'm on leave and therefore not contributing to the household cashflow. I really, really have a hard time spending money on myself when I'm not bringing any in. Particularly because, historically, I have been a significant contributor. On the other hand, I would have no problems at all with making sensible purchases for DH or the cubs right now. Getting things for them still feels okay to me.

Between the "lost at sea" sense I had flailing amongst the racks and racks of blah, the impracticality of investing in anything too nice right now, and my personal reluctance to spend money on myself anyway, I feel that I have walked up to the edge of the proverbial "rut" that women get into at a certain point in their lives where you end up wearing nothing but t-shirts, flip-flops and capris to go anywhere, your closet takes a total dive, you forget how to do anything with your hair other than a ponytail, and makeup consists of whichever lip gloss your kids haven't yet used to paint the shower curtain. It's called a rut because once you get into it, it's really hard to get back out. I have seen these women on t.v. getting royally admonished by the fashion experts for forgetting their own outer fabulous-ness. I live with, work with, laugh with, drink with, and commiserate with these women. I am one of these women.

It starts with the maternity clothes. Yes, there are many more options out there in much cuter styles now than even just 5 years ago. But really, when you know you're only going to be actually wearing the clothes for a matter of months, you aren't going to buy a maternity "investment" piece. Towards the end of your pregnancy, when you're just downright huge and small children point at you and people you've never met spontaneously offer to drive you to the hospital, you're lucky if there are maybe 3 or 4 bottoms and 3 or 4 tops left to you that fit and don't bind. And like hell you're going to buy anything else because you're about to have that baby so what would be the point. So you rotate out of your teeny wardrobe and you get used to it. You get used to the comfort of stretchy jersey cotton, the ease of t-shirts, the simplicity of only having a few things to choose from each day. And you're tired and frazzled so clothing becomes purely a matter of function. This becomes normal. The status quo.

Once the baby arrives, even though you may get your figure back in a few weeks (if you're a lucky bitch) or months - or hell, at least your body's mostly yours again, see above re tired and frazzled. If you're me, your first priority is sleep - getting the new person to the point that they have regular naps and can sleep for a decent chunk each night so that, gods be thanked, I can start to get some decent sleep again. During this first year, there is only taking care of the family and trying to balance your own needs for rest, socializing and intellectual stimulation. Oh yeah - and quality time with DH. Going back to work adds a whole other layer of complexity and logistical planning. Shopping? Fashion? Are you frakking kidding me?

I posted an entry several months after the cub's arrival wondering if I would ever get "it" back - my sense of identity, which includes a healthy dose of feminine sex appeal. I think, for a little while, that I did. I have to believe that I can do it again. I think the "rut" is inevitable, perhaps even necessary and practical. But there are some damn sexy heels in my closet waiting for me for when I'm no longer having to be cautious about carrying a little one in my arms, and a particularly lovely gun-metal silk sleeveless v-neck with bugle-beading around the neckline that will be waiting for my first dinner out without nursing or pumping on the agenda. I'll make it back out of the rut again when the time's right, but for now, it's actually kinda nice in here.

So Sad. So Very, Very Sad.

2007-09-13T00:42:00.000-05:00

FX has decided to no longer air reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on weekday mornings. Apparently they will now only air an episode on each day of the weekend. I'm devastated. Sure, I own almost every episode on DVD anyway, but it's not the same. It was so easy to scroll through the DVR list and pick the episodes to watch. And the regular pace through the seasons from having one episode aired each day, and knowing every evening that there would be a new episode waiting for me to breeze through to my favorite scenes, favorite lines, etc., was all such a treat that can't be replicated by sitting down and pulling out a dvd every night (after removing the cub's Little Einstein's dvd first, natch).

And FX couldn't even have the decency to fill the slot with something respectable. No, it's reruns of Malcolm in the Middle, which was a charming show and all, but it's no BTVS. I guess all that's left is to start to DVR the Angel reruns off of TNT.

Very, very sad.

Due Date, Schmoo Date and Unethical Hospital Billing Shakedowns

2007-09-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

Today was the cublette's due date. Tomorrow I begin Week 41. My OB/Gyn is Dr. Margaret Thompson, and I have utmost faith in her judgment to help me have a successful VBAC if there's any way at all for that to happen. I'll be delivering at North Austin Medical Center, which has a c-section rate of 30% - just a touch over the national average. Dr. Thompson's c-section rate is only 18%, god love her. At today's appointment we discussed my options and what our go-forward plan is. Basically, we treat this week like any other. We wait to see if anything changes. The cublette may have moved down a bit, but today there were no new developments. My cervix remains uneffaced, undilated, and way, way, way to the back of my body. Now, this doesn't mean that I couldn't go into labor at any moment and everything suddenly click into place. But it does mean that there aren't many things the doctor can do to help me get the ball rolling while my cervix remains so "unfavorable."

I clarified to her that although we went over my birth plan which could simply be summed up as "I'd like to have as natural a birth as possible", my number one goal was to avoid a repeat cesarian delivery because the recovery from the first one was so horriffic. She reminded me that it's possible that if I did have another c-section, that my recovery could be easier the second time around. Not wanting to sound like a negative-pants, I held the thought that, yeah, and it could be worse.

So, we wait patiently through this week. If nothing's going on by my appointment next week, we'll wait another week and start to monitor that everything's going okay with baby, and at the end of 42 weeks we start to try to get her moving. This could include breaking my waters, starting a pitocin drip, and anything else we can do to get her moving before finally going in to surgery. We don't want to start any of those steps now, because both of these measures put us on a path to surgical intervention if they don't work, so best to wait until we're staring at the likelihood of surgery anyway before we try them. My doctor understands that I mean to push her to the edge of her comfort level as far as trying everything and waiting as long as possible before we finally give up and head over to the OR, and she's willing to go for it.

On c-sections generally, CNN posted this helpful article last month on steps to take to avoid an unnecessary birth-by-surgery. The five steps are:

1. Don't get induced unless medically necessary (check)

2. Labor at home until you're approximately 3 centimeters dilated (check - I'll go for 5)

3. Choose your hospital, and your practitioner, carefully (check)

4. In the delivery room, ask questions if your practitioner says you need a C-section (check)

5. Get a doula (check)

The article goes into each of these points with helpful information. The scariest thing, though, is the statement from the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, that "many experts think as many as half of all C-sections are unnecessary ...."

As to how NAMC will be treating my appearance for a VBAC, they will have me sign a form waiver advising me of the risks of VBAC that my doctor has warned me about, because apparently it reads like a "what the hell are you thinking even TRYING to deliver this baby vaginally" manifesto. Unfortunately there's no similar document for women who are going in for elective c-sections warning them of the risks of long-term pain, infection, respiratory complications to the baby, and even death.

The other thing that NAMC does, which I may oppose because I don't think they have a right to do this, is to collect on my entire remaining insurance deductible prior to discharge - before they have filed their claim with the insurance company giving them a right to these funds. Because other providers will have likely filed their claims ahead of the hospital (the hospital's own billing coordinator confirmed this for me), it's likely that some of that deductible will be allocated to the other providers whose claims are filed first. So I'll have to pay the other providers as well, and then go back to NAMC to get them to refund the monies paid to them in advance that they, in the end, did not have a right to.

This "deposit" on discharge thing is a new practice that apparently most hospitals are starting to adopt for their maternity patients. Which means there are no laws addressing the practice, whether it's lawful, how and when the hospital must file its claims with the insurance company, how quickly the hospital must refund monies that it required to be paid at discharge that weren't allocated to it by the insurance carrier in the final processing, or even requiring the hospital to present me with an itemized invoice showing me that the charges are even in excess of my remaining deductible at the time that they tell me I have to fork it all over (NAMC won't - I have to specifically ask for it, and then they'll get it to me at some point later - whenever it damn well suits them, I guess.). Do they really have a right to force me to pay without presentation of an invoice, and without having obtained an EOB (explanation of benefits) from my insurance provider confirming their right to these funds? I've been going along with them on this because I don't want to have any problems when we show up to deliver, but I'm seriously considering telling them to file their paperwork like every other provider and I'll happily pay them after my insurance company approves charges and confirms their right to however much of the deductible is left to them.

Two May Actually Kill Me

2007-09-05T22:49:00.001-05:00

Two what? Two tries at Russian Roulette? Two episodes of "Tool Time"? Two homemade blowfish casseroles? (and btw - there's always a first time that a new chef prepares blowfish: who eats it? the chef?) No, I'm talking about two years old, yo. And the cub. Who has become such an intense little guy my heart goes out to him for how difficult it must be to feel everything as powerfully and with such unrelenting focus as he does. That is, my heart goes out to him about thirty minutes after I'm about to lose my mind or scream or, I don't know, lock him in his room and walk away until it's quiet again. I just want the screaming, crying, unending fits over things like turning off the bathtub faucet, turning on the light in the bedroom, hanging up the towel after washing hands - clearly offending acts if ever I saw them - to stop, for the love of god.

I've started reading a new book, Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child, that I hope will help. But I think he's probably still too young for the techniques covered in the book. And I think it's more than just setting limits. I've also read Playful Parenting but it's not just that, either. The guy just goes to pieces over the littlest details and becoming OCD myself about managing all of these details so that he doesn't get ruffled isn't an option because a) I'll shoot myself first, and b) what ruffles him is a moving target. I'm hoping that this is just a phase that's part of being two. And an intense personality just starting to get its sea legs. He's absolutely delightful at friends' houses, I see him sizing up situations and responding to other kids considerately and not aggressively or anything like what he dishes out to me, and his daycare teacher raves about how smart he is and how he's the best behaved kid in his class and she never has any problems with him and she's only ever heard him even fuss at all just once.

So if he does so well out in other social situations, then we must be doing something right. He seems to be generally happy, healthy, bright, outgoing - everything I would hope for for him. But I'm ending each bedtime cycle either in tears or on the verge of from the forty-five-minute nonstop screaming, crying, fussing and fighting. And 40 weeks pregnant on top of it all doesn't make it any easier to handle.

Oy.

Williamson County Legislator Watch is Underway!

2007-09-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

I enjoy reading some of the political pundit-type blogs, and I wish sometimes that I had the time, the wit, the political savvy, the deft familiarity with the issues needed to write such illuminating analyses of some of the most pressing public issues. Tonight I was reading through a letter sent to me by my Congressional Representative, Rep. John Carter (R), in response to a "canned" plea I had sent to him via the Humane Society's website to advocate for an end to the slaughtering of horses for human consumption in the U.S. I found his letter back to be somewhat trite and condescending as he explained to me his position that "property interests" over-rode the humanitarian concerns for the welfare of horses.

I wrote him a brief reply thanking him for his response and noting my satisfaction that the measure had passed in spite of his opposition, and letting him know simply that I disagreed with his assessment of the legislation concerned. As I was preparing my email reply, it occured to me that maybe there's an opportunity here. I have recently moved into Williamson County, although I am still within the Austin city limits. The political demographics of Williamson County are changing rapidly - with our household being a case in point. Every single elected legislative representative for my address, at both the state and federal houses, is a Republican. Not that there's anything wrong with that - some of my closest friends have been Republicans and they're all fine people ( ;-P).

I also poked around the site for www.congress.org, a website dedicated to supporting public involvement in the legislative process. They have a very interesting tool there where they display recent emails sent to congressional leaders via their site (they obtain the author's permission prior to publishing). I read the two that were flagged as coming from Texas, and found them to be full of threats (capitalized reminders that the legislator in question works for the author and they can just as easily see them out of office at the next opportunity), racial slurs (the phrase "wet backs" figured prominently), poor grammar, and one even appeared to have cut and pasted the "please write your representative now" language from an advocacy email and sent it to his representative under a title referring to a Senate vote and completely different issue. Just kooky.

So anyway, I thought it might be a good exercise for me, and maybe helpful for my neighbors if anyone actually reads this blog (Bueller....? Bueller....?) to specifically follow the votes and actions of my own legislators and publish what I learn via my blog. September 2007 is a lousy time to begin this undertaking, but hey - baby steps. The Texas Lege won't be back in regular session until 2009, and I'm not sure now how much longer Congress will remain in session - or have they already gone home? See? Huge learning curve over here.

Don't Get Spammed By Similac With Unwanted Formula

2007-08-20T10:59:00.001-05:00

So here's the story: Today I received two parcels from Similac (owned by Abbot Laboratories) of free formula - each parcel had 2 cans, 8 oz. each, one milk-based and one soy-based, of Similac formula. I received 2 identical parcels because, according to the first customer service rep that I spoke with, apparently 2 memberships in the Similac "Welcome Addition Club" (www.welcomeaddition.com) had been created for me by Similac out of info they had obtained about me from customer lists that they had purchased from BabiesRUs, ToysRUs, Motherhood Maternity, Mimi Maternity, A Pea in the Pod, and, as the customer service rep who I spoke with on the phone said, pretty much any baby-related business. I asked her to remove the two memberships, and asked her if it was Similac's policy to send unsolicited free formula to every mother whose information they obtained, whether or not she had indicated an interest in receiving free formula, and she said that yes, that was their policy. I registered my recommendation that they alter the policy so that they only send formula samples to women who have requested it, and ended the call.

I called back later to see what could be done for other moms who shopped at these places who DID NOT want to receive free formula, and this customer service rep said to make sure to instruct these businesses not to share my personal information. The problem, however, was that she couldn't give me a complete list of all of the businesses that Similac purchases customer information from. Moreover, she also confirmed that the mother's information could be picked up if someone else buys her a gift from one of these businesses. I explained that keeping her information from Similac was not entirely within a woman's control under these circumstances, and that I was simply looking for some means for a person to communicate in advance to the company that they did not want to receive free formula samples from Similac. She put me on hold for a couple of minutes, and when she came back she told me that mothers who wanted to make sure they did not receive formula samples from Similac could call the Welcome Addition Club customer service at 1-800-232-7677, and ask to be put on the "Do Not Mail" List.

So why all the fuss over receiving free samples of formula, you may ask? Why not just toss them? Well, actually there are several studies confirming that providing unsolicited samples and coupons for formula to women either through their "hospital discharge pack" or via their OB/Gyn office conclusively increases the rate of early abandonment of breastfeeding. As I've said before, breastfeeding is hard. It hurts; getting the latch right is hard; thrush, mastititis, engorgement, leaking through your shirt in inopportune moments, and painfully clogged milk ducts all add to the challenges. Lots of women unnecessarilly doubt whether their milk is "good enough" for their child (as the milk becomes higher in protein it takes on a more "watery" appearance that can be misleading, for example). So it's no wonder that studies find that thrusting formula into the hands of women who didn't ask for it will increase the rate and timing at which they give up.

Let me be clear - I have nothing against formula generally. Many women are unable to breastfeed, and it's wonderful that there is an option available for them that, while not quite as beneficial as breastmilk, is still perfectly adequate and safe. Many women simply choose not to breastfeed - see above re "hard" and "painful". That's their option, and they should have access to all the coupons and free samples they can get the formula companies to send them, because that stuff is not cheap. But if a woman is determined to breastfeed, she'll want every support and advantage on her side to help her be successful. Aside from picking doctors who support breastfeeding and will have resources available to help her deal with the challenges, finding lactation consultants in her area if they're available, and asking for the support of her family and friends to help her not feel the need to run and hide every time her child wants to eat (as is my own inclination, although I have nothing but admiration for my friends who manage it so effortlessly), she would also be wise to make sure that there isn't free formula getting put into her hands and mailbox - based on the information available about how this will diminish her chances of long-term success.

I hope this helps anyone out there who would like to not receive unwanted formula samples. I've forward this story to the Lactivist blog for wider circulation in case the author opts to pick it up. Ultimately it would be good to see something happen in the legal sphere prohibiting formula companies from sending free samples to women without first confirming whether they are interested in receiving them. Sheesh - there's a law against unsolicited emails; you'd think there could be a law against unsolicited formula for criminy's sake.

Who Says We're Not Political?

2007-08-14T23:40:00.001-05:00

This past month the media have given a fair amount of attention to the supposed dearth of female voices in the political blogosphere. There are plenty of women bloggers out there, but supposedly they are only talking about the challenges of raising children, taking care of aging parents, balancing work demands and family life, and other "non-political" topics.

TomPaine.com has published a fantastic article by Ruth Rosen titled "The Care Crisis" describing the need for a public, political solution to the lack of support for the family, in particular in terms of childcare and elder care. The comparisons to the stats for other countries is plain embarassing. In any case, I would posit that women bloggers are indeed engaged in political discourse when they discuss what are characterized in our society as "private" problems. These problems are "private" only insofar our elected leaders have failed to act to address them. As she points out, domestic violence, date rape, economic discrimination and sexual harassment were once considered "private" problems as well, until the political will to address them finally crossed the tipping point and a public, political solution was advanced. Eventually, I have to believe, all those politicians advocating for pro-life agendas will start to follow-through with the rest of the solution: in a country where less than 1 in 4 2-parent families can afford to have one parent at home full-time, it's time to have some pro-family legislation helping parents to obtain safe, affordable, quality care for their children and for their aging parents, and while they're at it maybe some paid maternity leave and sick leave so that one bad fall, one hospitalized spouse, one parent suffering dementia - doesn't throw the precarious balance most families are walking into a complete tailspin.

Birth Choices

2007-08-14T20:59:00.000-05:00

Friday marks 37 weeks, and we are all systems go. Work for one client is shifting to the replacement legal counsel over the next two weeks, and work for the other is already in transition. I feel huge.

I'm reading a lot now about the opinions people have about what sort of birth women are supposed to have. There are doctors who opine that women who seek an unmedicated birth are "odd" or attention-seeking martyrs. There are natural birth advocates who don't give equal air-time to the value of pain management via medical (as opposed to strictly non-medical) means. And lately there's a lot going on in the realm of expanding/limiting the birthing options available to women. The Rotunda, the largest birthing hospital in Ireland, recently announced a policy that birthing mothers would no longer be permitted to bring a doula (trained birthing assistant) for labor and delivery unless the doula was her designated "partner" - and she would only be allowed one partner (any person other than hospital staff) in the room. The "women's center" practice across the hall from my OB/gyn has stopped taking clients who plan to deliver using the Bradley method - a drug-free approach to pain management (this was our chosen approach). Hospitals are more than willing to make medical pain management available, but not so much the non-medical options (a birthing ball, a birthing tub, freedom to move around and change positions or walk around, the comfort of the presence of relatives and friends).

It got me to thinking about my decision, early on in pregnancy with the first cub, to seek a non-medicated birth, to hire a doula to assist during the birth, and then to breastfeed. I believe I'm making the best choices for my own and my family's long-term health and well-being. Having experienced a cesarian delivery and the prolonged, painful and extremely life-limiting recovery that followed and cast such a pallor of dull pain and suffering over the first few months of my first child's life, I am choosing the route that is less likely to lead me back down that road again, since available research indicates that medical interventions in birth have a way of spiraling to additional interventions that lead invariably to a surgical birth. This is one way of explaining the sky-rocketing incidence of surgical deliveries as opposed to vaginal deliveries.

More troubling, many of the "standard" interventions were adopted without studies to prove their effectiveness. A prime example is the practice of episiotomy - making an incision in the vaginal tissue down towards the perineum to reduce the likelihood of a tear and to present a cleaner wound for stitching. Recent studies found that when routine episiotomies were no longer given, many women actually did not tear, and those that did healed better from a rough wound than from a clean slice, which is more vulnerable to infection. So why was episiotomy adopted in the first place? Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. And although I have the utmost respect for the OB/Gyn profession, there are probably in reality only a small percentage of births that truly need a medical intervention, so that these highly skilled and trained professionals must actually feel a tad unnecessary at times. Hence the rise of interventions, and the subsequent rise of cesarians.

So that's why the non-medicated birth. And the doula? My chances of being successful in achieving a non-medicated birth are significantly improved with her there beside me. She has been in practice for 16 years and has assisted literally hundreds of women achieve exactly the sort of birth that I'm hoping for. She will be able to suggest things I can do to manage the pain that I wouldn't have thought of. She will be able to run interference with hospital staff to help keep intrusions into the room to a minimum. And she also frees up DH from having to manage these roles, so he can just enjoy being present with his wife for the miraculous birth of his daughter.

No doubt about it, breastfeeding is hard. It hurts of the toe-curling variety for the first couple of weeks, it puts me in the hot-seat for all of baby's wake-ups during the night, there's thrush, mastitis, and embarassing leaking to deal with, the anxiety over getting my supply up and bountiful during the first couple of months, and then once I start back to work I also start to pump 6 times a day, at 25 minutes each time to pump and clean the equipment for the next time, so that I have enough stored in bottles to send to daycare with DD the next day. And also so that my supply during the day stays primed so that on weekends there's still milk there ready for her to nurse directly. Lastly, there's the anxiety I have about nursing in public - or even in my home in front of anyone other than immediate family and very close friends. The cub was not a discreet nurser, and consequently I tended not to venture out with him when I knew he'd be needing to eat - which was a lot - unless I knew for sure that I could find a private place to go with him to nurse. Of course I could bring a bottle of breastmilk with, but then I'd become engorged from having missed the feeding and would still need to go pump somewhere, have a cooler ready for the fresh milk, and clean and dry the equipment. (I'm hoping DD will be one of those quiet nursers that can have a meal with no one who sees us even having an inkling.) But I do all of this for the superior nutritional value of the breastmilk. It's that much better. Plus, the bonding from nursing - especially now that I've experienced it once already - is sooooooo worth it. I'm not necessarily anti-formula, it's just that I'm fortunate enough that nursing is an option and I'm looking forward to doing it again, in spite of the difficulties.

I've arrived at these decisions through a rational and deliberate process, and it's simply odd to me that there are those out there who would oppose or judge or even refuse to be my doctor because of them. I don't think I'm doing anything all that radical, but in fact am being sensible and practical. So why are so many so invested in having not just opinions, but control over how women give birth and feed their infants?

TypeAMama's Domestic Agenda Priorities

2007-08-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

TypeAMama has opinions about politics, too, if you hadn't noticed those entries. With the presidential candidate debates already strangely swinging into gear at this early date, I've had a lot on my mind. Note that I don't cite studies or statistics to back up my opinions. I read a lot. I've got a decent education with a couple of graduate degrees. I'm an active participant in my community, the economy, and the political process. And I have formed some opinions.

1. Universal Healthcare

It's crazy and indefensible and inexcusable that we still have the antiquated, inefficient, and enormously costly private insurance-driven healthcare system that we have. The cost to the economy, corporate profitability (except for pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance industry), and the bodies and health of fully employed Americans and their children is staggering.

2. Public Education

No Child Left Behind - the right goals, the wrong methods. Penalizing a failing school by withdrawing funding only assures it's continued slow and painful demise. Ultimately who suffers? The children whose futures are wrecked and the communities who will have to deal with them as they turn into adults.

3. Energy

Seriously enhance programs to support the growth of domestic, clean (i.e., non-greenhouse-gas-emitting), sustainable fuel sources. Invest in infrastructure to support the widespread adoption of emerging alternative fuel sources. The beneficial impacts on expenditures to secure foreign supplies of oil, on the environment, and on creation of new jobs domestically will more than offset costs.

4. Crime

Has anyone noticed the creeping (and in some cases leaping) crime statistics rising around the country? Especially for violent crime? What gives? Spending to update police departments with current technology and equipment and training and to hire more officers for patrol is not enough. We need to invest in proven crime-prevention resources - after school programs, job development programs, substance abuse treatment programs, family violence shelters and education programs, and mental health treatment programs, for example. Also, increase controls around who gets access to guns, how quickly, after how much scrutiny. Require all current and prospective gun owners to obtain a license, just like driving a car, and to demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency in safety, judgement and skill. Again, just like driving a car.

5. Immigration

Requiring a person who came here without a visa (and there are precious few of those available, even to highly skilled workers) to pay a fine, register, become a regular taxpayer, learn English and get integrated as a contributing member of society is not amnesty, people. Currently there is only a very narrow path to citizenship available to allows immigrants with basic (but not specialized) skills to work and contribute and become part of society while they continue to live here to meet the residency requirement to either apply for legal resident status (takes 10 years of residency within the US) or citizenship via naturalization (takes 5 years) - those are the "Diversity" visas, of which there are currently only 50,000 granted, by lottery, each year. And they are alotted primarily to immigrants from countries which are under-represented in current immigration numbers, so the visa "relief" is directed where it is least needed.

6. Government Accountability

Increased transparency to the lobbying activities of special interests. Higher penalties for corruption - perjury, accepting bribes, tax fraud, etc. For starters, members of Congress or any other elected official convicted of any of the foregoing automatically forfeit their pensions. Increased reporting of public expenditures - both forecast and actual.

7. Get Practical.

Allow gay marriage. Prohibit pharmacists from denying women contraception or other prescriptions ordered by their doctors. Follow evidence-based education programs to reduce teen pregnancy: abstinence-only education is not the most effective approach for reducing teen pregnancy - "abstinence plus" has a much higher success rate. Keep religious instruction out of public schools and textbooks. Improve family leave options and create deductions for childcare costs (including after-school programs) for working parents.

Taken to a Government-Sponsored Tibetan Theme Park?

2007-08-07T19:27:00.000-05:00

Tonight I watched fellow Vassar alum Anthony Bourdain travel and eat his way through the exotic and yet ordinary foods of southwest China, ending in a "Tibetan" village that, strangely, actually wasn't in Tibet, but rather Yunan province. His guide repeatedly emphasized to him that he was seeing the "traditional" Tibetan house, the "traditional" Tibetan food, the "traditional" Tibetan dress, etc. etc. I've been to Tibet, and lived with Tibetan refugees in Nepal and India, and I can promise you there was nothing "traditional" about the size, grandeur, or wealth of the house and family that was paraded out for Tony's enjoyment. I'm afraid one of my favorite chefs got used by the Chinese government to help publicize a bunch of government-sponsored hogwash.

In the real Tibet, all public services, schools, place names, traffic directions, etc., are in Chinese. Traditional Tibetan villages have been razed to make way for Chinese-government style buildings and development. Where they have not been razed, they are a tiny, impoverished outpost surrounded by modern development. The wooden "traditional" Tibetan house visited by Tony was clearly recently built. The rooms were huge, the house had two stories, and the food was abundant. Most telling: the butter tea, which is traditionally meant to taste rancid and takes some getting used to (I grew to love it), was adjusted to suit a western palate. Tony braced for the worst, but found the light frothy beverage he was handed actually tasted good. He was not being given the real thing - he was being given something to make him feel good.

Tibetans are not permitted to have a photo of the Dalai Lama, whom they revere as their spiritual and political leader (Tibetan government does not separate church and state in the western way) on display in their shops or windows, which may not sound like a big deal to a non-Tibetan, but for Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is at the heart of their identity as Tibetans. In Tibet, the monasteries were the places of education and housed the vast libraries of ancient texts relating to law, medicine, and the dharma.

My admittedly speculative conclusion: the Tibetans that Tony visited are well-connected cadres in the communist party and are happily participating in the ruse in exchange for the lovely accommodations and assured futures for their children and relatives. The "Tibetan" village in Yunan is being put forth by the government as the "real" thing so that people won't travel the extra several hundred miles to the very remote actual Tibet and witness what in fact has happened to the Tibetan people there.

Tony, dude, you got used.

Are They Getting the Message?

2007-08-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

The weekly grocery shopping changes from week to week depending on what I need to get. If I need some regular items that the Whole Foods won't carry, then I'll go to the local HEB. If I need to buy a lot of meat products, then I'll go to the WF to get the free-range, organic, etc. etc. meats. They're pricey, but I'm a big believer in the health benefits, plus organic agriculture is easier on the planet.

So this weekend I went to HEB because I didn't feel up to the expense of Whole Paycheck, and just figured I'd try to make the best food choices I could from what they had to offer. There are two food ingredients that seem to be ubiquitous in regular commercial foods, and that I have a strict policy against bringing into the house (even in blessed Blue Bell Ice Cream): high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. HFCS because of the association with early onset type 2 diabetes and other health issues, and hydrogenated oils because that stuff just adheres to your arteries like cement and is a prime suspect in neurological disorders (the body needs good oils for healthy nerve and neuron myelination and function). Particularly because there is a little being in my tummy growing a brain from scratch, I'm very very obsessive about avoiding bad oils and supplementing with good ones.

So I was walking by the bakery breads on my way to the produce and longingly looking at the deceptively natural, no frills looking wrappers and labels, knowing full well that anything I pick up will have one or both of the two verboten ingredients. But just for the heck of it I picked up a package of garlic-herb breadsticks, and guess what? Natural sugar instead of HFCS, and no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. I was stunned. To make sure I wasn't dreaming I picked up a few more bread items, and, as expected, there were the culprits on the labels. But not these particular breadsticks. How fabulous! They are now waiting in the fridge to be paired with tonight's chicken parmesan.

Buoyed by this tiny discovery, I continued checking labels that I have been ignoring for years to see if there was any difference. Guess what? Eggo whole grain waffles? No more HFCS or hydrogenated oils! And ten in a box for less than the fancy-label organic variety. Yes, I know, I'm still supporting the corporate-industrial food complex, but every now and then you gotta save some pennies when you can. And of all companies, Hormel now makes a lunchmeat ham with no nitrites. Unbelievable.

So I'm not doing handsprings for Archer Daniels Midland, and Monsanto is still (not so) secretly run by satan himself, but at least I have a few more options for those times that I need to not empty out my wallet at Whole Paycheck.

Summer Reading

2007-07-15T23:07:00.000-05:00

Just because almost all of our books remain in boxes pending installation of the fabulous new library doesn't mean I still can't read something besides a childcare book this summer. I was invited by a few women whom I find to be quite funny, smart, grounded and everything else I wish I was more of to join their book somethingorother. They don't want to call it a book club because they've each had negative experiences with said clubs in the past (myself as well) so for now we are a book mumblemumblemumble.

Before I tell you what yummy book will be my first read with these ladies, I'll fill you in on my latest read re childcare: How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk. I've been told I have a "been there, done that" attitude about a lot of things that can come across as alternately irritating and arrogant, so apologies if this is one of those moments, but I just didn't find anything earth-shattering in this book. This isn't to say that it isn't worth your $9.95 on Amazon - it's well written and organized with lots of helpful examples, and will be a helpful source for reminding me how I ought to be communicating with my kids and policing myself better in the controlling-perfectionist-fixer department. But if you have already had any sort of training in empathic listening, then there will be nothing really new for you here. Still, a lot of good common sense and practical pointers in one place, so it will stay on the bookshelf.

So, the first read is Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. I'm so excited! Quaint English countryside cottage, dottery characters, not too heavy (my last two reads were Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Kite Runner - definitely time for something lighter). I have no idea when I'll have time to read this, but the anticipation is already delightful.

New Parents Must-Reads

2007-06-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling the little one really kicking around now and I'm starting to wonder how much I still remember about taking care of a newborn, the rough entry into regular breastfeeding, surviving massive sleep deprivation, pumping, etc. I've just ordered a new packet of books to help improve parenting of the 2-y.o. pooper in advance of the added stress on all of us of a new baby, such as How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk, Playful Parenting, and a book on helping siblings co-habitate peacefully. Or at least not send each other to the ER. Much. My thinking right now is that I want to help the pooper to develop as much self-care and independent skills now in preparation for the arrival of the baby as well as improve my parenting techniques so that I have more tools and strategies available when my personal resources are very low. At least that's the plan.

We were at a baby shower last weekend, and the couple are expecting their first child in two weeks. Like us, they started this later in life. They are both very laid back and apparently haven't picked up a single book yet on taking care of babies. And the wife was an only child, and the dad doesn't have any experience with babies, so they're both flying blind, which really blew me away and also made me a little envious of their ability not to fret. But, there are a few books that I found indispensable in the first year with the pooper, and I thought I'd share my brief list of most favorite reference books here. And I can't help myself, I'll include some copies of these from Half-Priced Books with their belated shower gift when we get around to delivering them. Hopefully this weekend. So that they can read them before the baby arrives (ha!).

1. Baby 411
Now I'm not just biased about this book because it's author also happens to be our pediatrician, although it was really great to have all of her care protocols and philosophies available and indexed at my fingertips so that she and I were almost always on the same page for what was/wasn't concerning and how to proceed treatment-wise. But this is really just a very accessible, no-nonsense, non-judgemental, highly comprehensive resource for everything from sleep cycle development to breastfeeding vs. formula (she is decidedly supportive of breastfeeding but also points out that she was raised on formula and is in great health and a graduate of Harvard Medical School so don't lose sleep if for some reason you end up taking this road) to hygiene and bathing to all types of illnesses and maladies and when to consult a nurse vs. make an appointment the next day vs. run to the ER vs. call an ambulance immediately. Her writing style is down-to-earth and reassuring and her care recommendations are consistent with current research. Plus, the index in the back is extremely helpful, in addition to the way the information is presented in bullet format in the text itself.

2. The Happiest Baby on the Block
In truth, this book could be pared down to a poster like the choking first aid poster that restaurants are required to have posted somewhere on the premises. The "gimic" of the book is that babies really have a "fourth trimester" that they have to pass through outside the womb because otherwise their big heads wouldn't fit through the birth canal, so to calm a baby during the fourth trimester (i.e., the first 13 weeks from birth), apply his 5 techniques for calming that are geared towards recreating the womb environment: swaddling (helpful how-to with diagrams is included), shushing (at least as loudly as the baby is crying), swinging (seriously - if you're standing in line somewhere and baby's having a meltdown in the carrier, pick it up and swing it - works like a charm), side-stomach position (hold baby so that they are tummy- or side-down because this feels more secure for them and the muscle reflexes they have during the early months), and sucking (pacifier, finger, whatever's handy). I still recommend buying the book because there are useful explanations and adaptations for the techniques in different circumstances that can be helpful.

3. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
This is written by one of the leading sleep researchers and experts in the U.S., and it is unfortunately not very well organized, important nuggets of information are buried in between endless case examples, and it is very ... very ... dry. If you can slog through it, however, the nuggets are worth it. Dr. Brown sums up the gist of the information where babies are concerned in about a paragraph in Baby 411, which is helpful if you're having trouble distilling what the "take away" points are, but I found the sections covering the development of sleep cycles in humans to be fascinating and also helpful context. Yes, we're wired to sleep in a certain way, but that normal development can be interrupted by any number of factors like health problems (we had a little of this early on due to pooper's severe acid reflux), incompatible family schedules, baby's temperament (pooper also would fight sleep until his eyes were actually rolling back in his head) and a difficult to accommodate early sleep cycle (pooper only napped for 30 mins. at a time and took up to 5 or 6 naps a day with just two hours in between - I went nowhere until he FINALLY started to consolidate his naps into fewer, longer naps as he got a bit older). Thanks to this book, by 4 months old I could lay pooper down in his crib for his morning nap while he was still awake and he would smile, roll onto his side, and happily fall asleep on his own while I finally got a small breather with a cup of coffee and conversation with a friend. The sleep techniques taught by the book are not necessarilly in keeping with the Attachment Parenting philosophies, if that's your preference, but I figured I'd go with the expert and pooper has generally slept solidly through the night, with a few exceptions for travel and teething, since he was about 4 months old. I give sleep the same priority as nutrition, so it's very satisfying that in spite of his rough beginning with the reflux and general disdain for going to sleep and missing out on all the fun that he's certain we get into while he's in bed, he is still a generally well-rested child, and for that I largely have this book to thank.

If I'd only known

2007-06-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think back on 2000 when W was just the guv from Texas who wanted to be President and wonder if there was any way I could have known how dramatically screwed up everything would be by the time he was done with his eight years of hiring based on ideology over competence, sending our country's best to unwinnable foreign wars, destroying the anti-poverty infrastructure, making sure his corporate cronies are growing fat on massive government contracts paid for by us, and basically breaking my heart for our country on a daily basis. I remember a particular lunch I had with a corporate attorney colleague where we both admitted our apathy towards the current election because we just couldn't see a definite "better" choice between Bush and Gore. Although our personal politics made Gore the obvious choice, we weren't persuaded that he had the strong leadership qualities called for, and, at least while he had been governor, W had actually made some very competent appointments to state government - including people who didn't necessarily agree with his rhetoric but who were very qualified and able. In 2000, having had some experience with him as our governor, he was a different sort of Republican, or so we thought. Turns out we had no idea how right we were.

So I wonder now whether there were signs that he had given, little indications of how neo-everything his policies would turn, how thoroughly he would politicize his administration from top to bottom, how little regard he had for the rule of law if it seemed to stand in the way of his agenda, his contempt for state's rights, his preference for ideology and corporate profits over science, how he would push the Supreme Court so far to the right that Constitutional Law scholars will have ample fodder for decades in sorting out the opinions into something that still looks like continuity of jurisprudence. As someone who lived in Texas during W's governorship I can't help but feel a tad responsible for not being more vigilant in protecting the rest of the country - and the world - from him. I should have seen the signs and I should have done whatever I could to raise the alarm. Doubtful just me on my own would have had much impact, but at least I wouldn't now wrestle with remorseful guilt, wondering if there was something I could have done.

I saw a new bumper sticker tonight that said something to the effect of we're making enemies faster than we can kill them. Things had been going so well for so many years by 2000 that I don't think I could have imagined reading a bumper sticker like that and not being able to muster the usual logical critique to deconstruct the little word byte. I'm finding truth in bumper stickers, but not in the nightly news anymore. January 2009 cannot get here fast enough.

27 Weeks

2007-06-06T21:28:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow the baby girl fetus gestating away in my belly becomes 27 weeks gestational age. She was conceived the night after a failed effort before City Council, so maybe she'll grow up to know better than to waste precious life time earnestly presenting to pseudo-leaders who have already made deals with the other side to take no action on your agenda items. Not that I'm bitter about it or anything. I thought that I was already rather large with her, for someone who is just now starting the third trimester, and then I looked at the Demi-Moore-style photo we took of me when I was at 7 months with the pooper, and man, I was big.

DH is out of town until so late Friday night that I won't actually see him again until I wake up Saturday morning - ditto for the pooper, who missed his daddy very much tonight during bedtime routine. We called daddy at the time in the routine when he normally stands at the top of the stairs and loudly summons daddy to come give a big night-night hug and kiss by yelling "DADDY! NIGHT-NIGHT! ... DADDY! NIGHT-NIGHT!" But tonight after we said "bye-bye Daddy" on the phone and hung up, he then looked around upstairs for just where Daddy had gone to so that he could get his night-night hug and kiss. It was sweet and heart-breaking, and tomorrow night I'll be prepared with a picture of Daddy that we can say night-night to after we get off the phone.

To the woman who was jogging in the road on Far West tonight at 5:30 p.m. and made me follow her in my car at her jog pace as I approached the intersection with Mesa rather than jogging on the sidewalk and then gave me a dirty look because she had to break her stride while I tried to figure out where exactly she was going so as to not hit her in case she darted out in some random direction, your perfect abs and clearly superb physical condition don't make up for your lack of road etiquette and if you are going to run out in the middle of traffic like a nutter at least have the decency to appreciate that people are doing all they can to not hit the unpredictable pedestrian running in traffic and shooting them dirty looks because you had to break your stride doesn't inspire the sort of concern for your well-being that you so take for granted.

The Child Turns 2 And Other Adventures

2007-04-13T20:50:00.000-05:00

Sunday the Cub will be 2 years old. Where did that come from? How are we already in multiple (as in more than 1) years? And this other one on the way? Can't WAIT to get here. So damn ready to hit the ground running she's actually a little annoyed with me for not getting pregnant sooner. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if she decided she was done cooking at 39 weeks and ready to get on with the program, dammit.

Tomorrow is the big shebang at Pump It Up. It's a little over the top for a 2nd birthday, I know. (I have no memory of my second birthday, although I have clear memories of my third, which was spent at Peppermint Park with many friends and I got to pick out my favorite dress to wear even though it was really much too small for me - but mom humored me because it was my birthday, after all. That was probably the last time I wore that little navy dress with the embroidered ribbon around the waist. But I digress ...)

The Cub may be picking up on our stress a tad. We are moving to a newer, larger house in two weeks. It is, in fact, the newest edifice of any variety that I have ever lived in. Which means that this is the first time for me to live in a dwelling that is younger than me. This probably has as much to do with my getting older as anything else. We first laid eyes on the house two weeks ago. While DH was stoned on painkillers on account of the 2mm mineral crystal stuck in his urethra. But the house was perfect and so we were under contract by the following night. And DH has just started another job, and I just signed a new client, and the Cub? Not wanting to go to bed, having meltdowns way too easily, needing lots and lots of love and hugs and kisses.

He has a broader vocabulary now, probably around 30 words. They (the therapists that we were working with) say that 50 words is a sort of threshhold, that they then start to connect words more and before you know it you're having the semblance of actual conversations! I'm really looking forward to that. He still has an expressive speech "delay" by the standard milestones, but he's excelling in other areas. He really loves the alphabet right now. He is constantly pointing out letters and calling them out, and even pointing out shapes that resemble letters that he knows and calling them out, too. Practicing saying the letters has helped him enunciate the consonant sounds in words better. He's not so big on numbers yet - nine, six and seven are the only ones he knows by name. His absolute favorite word right now is "firetruck", which comes out more like "carhuck". He still loves his school, and runs to the door waving goodbye and saying "Bye Bye! Bye Bye!" when it's time to go with Daddy in the morning. I try to tell him that there's a baby in my tummy, that he's going to have a sister, but I know that the concept is lost on him now, and probably will be until she's about 6 months old, and he's about 3, and she's sitting up and he's really getting it that this is his sister.

I am really looking forward to being done with this process and settled in the new house and able to just focus on gestating.

Fun With Impressions

2007-02-11T16:47:00.000-06:00

Holy cow - two posts in one day! It's just that I've also been thinking about the kiddo who is currently just an itty bitty fetus, and although we don't even know her sex yet, my hunch is that there's a girl in there, and that she's exactly like her brother - willful, willful, willful. Thank goodness for all the parenting information now on redirecting unwanted behaviors, because "no" just doesn't register with this kid. And redirecting him can be quite challenging. Our strategy so far has been to make as much of the house accessible and available to him as possible, so that there is plenty to keep him safely occupied. He has figured out the trick of pushing a chair next to the desk/table/bookshelf that he wants to explore further. He keeps us on our toes.

So I'm feeling that this next one will be a pigtails and darker haired version of her big brother. They'll fight a lot - except for the times that they're conspiring together to do/get something they aren't supposed to be doing/getting. I also have a very different personality that comes to mind if I imagine this kiddo as a boy, but the girl image comes through stronger right now. It's fun to write this down now to see how far off or spot on I was when the time to find out about this little person finally arrives.

10 Weeks, 3 Days

2007-02-11T08:37:00.000-06:00

Well, we did it. We thought maybe it was time for another kiddo, with the pooper getting nearer to 2 yrs old, and the very first month that we tried, Bingo! We weren't going to try until January, after we got back from the New Year's / DH's 40th birthday celebration in Paris (because who in their right mind would try to get pregnant right before a trip to Paris), but in mid-December I was siezed by the thought that this kiddo wanted to be a September baby and wanted to get here now. So into the sack we hopped. Funny thing is, we conceived the night of Dec. 14, after the lousy City Council meeting where they decided not to revoke the site plan or even to consider any action on it at all. As another volunteer said, at least something worked out right that night.

So for the last 4 weeks and three days I have been queasy, tired, moody, and waking up in the middle of the night to pee. I thought that didn't happen until the end of the last trimester? Part of me can't believe that I've voluntarily opted to put myself - and us - through all of this again. Having the pooper was wonderful, but the end of the pregnancy and his first few months were brutal, and I'm dreading going through that period again. My mom assures me that we had an especially hard time with the pooper and the next kid will be easier, but as another friend evenly reminded me, it could also be worse. Pooper was delivered by scheduled c-section, 9 days post-due date at 9 lbs. 4 oz. We didn't even try to induce because statistically it was more likely than not that I'd end up going in for a c-section, given the timing and his size and also the fact that my body had not even started to get a clue about transitioning from pregnancy to birth - cervix was high and firm, baby hadn't dropped - nada.

Supposedly a scheduled c/s is much easier to recover from because you aren't going into surgery exhausted and dehydrated. Not so for me. It was months before I started to feel okay in my body again. For weeks I could only nurse sitting up with baby propped beside me because the weight of his body on my abdomen was too much - which meant hauling a bunch of pillows around the house with me all day long and no nighttime side-lying nursing. And our poor little guy had severe acid reflux and, even after getting treatment to keep him more comfortable, never napped for more than 30 minutes at a time. He was a darling baby and was smiling by 2 weeks, but I still also remember being nearly catatonic with physical and emotional exhaustion during that time. So as excited as I am about bringing the pooper his little brother or sister, I'm also dreading the first few months.

I'm also having to find another ob/gyn. My original doctor, at my 8 week appointment, said, "so we're going to schedule you for a c-section, right?" Excuse me, doc? He then went on to explain that delivering VBAC was very risky, that there was a 1/100 chance I would experience a uterine rupture, and then even with an anaesthesiologist, surgeon and nurses by my side, there might be nothing that they could do in time and the baby would be brain damaged and possibly die. Technically, this isn't far from the truth, but the risk picture is very different from the way he has depicted it. A 2004 Kaiser study of close to 18,000 VBAC births found a uterine rupture rate of 0.7%, and of those that experienced a uterine rupture, about 5.5% resulted in brain damage to the baby, which comes out to an overall risk of brain damage from uterine rupture in a VBAC to about 1/2,550. Plus, in the study sample, there was no control for whether the VBAC patients were administered pitocin during their labor, which is significant because pitocin is known to increase the risk for uterine rupture - by up to 10x according to some sources. It's not unreasonable, therefore, to infer that the rate of uterine rupture for a natural childbirth would be even lower than the 0.7% found in the Kaiser study.

I don't want to stay with my current ob just to have him tolerate this silly notion I have that I'll deliver naturally, if at all possible, just to have him tell me at 36 weeks that I need to find another doctor if I'm still determined to try for a VBAC (which this doctor has done before to another patient). It may be that I do end up with a second c/s, but I need to know that I arrived there for the right reasons, not just because my dr. is a fan of c/s. I have my first interview with another ob next Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to meeting her. I hear that she's also going to law school now, so I'm a little concerned about her availability, but we'll discuss that along with everything else. She's generously given me an appointment slot to chat without charging me for the appointment, which is a good sign. I have two pages of typed questions to go over with her, so I'll make the best use of my 15 minutes possible.

This morning I realized as I lay in bed on my back that I can feel the firm ball of my expanded uterus now just above my pelvis. The rest of my abdomen is characteristically squigy, but at the south end there's definitely something firm underneath taking shape. We're past the danger window for a miscarriage now, and in a couple of weeks we'll get past the screens for chromosomal abnormalities and spinal defects, and then we're pretty much in the clear. We'll find out the baby's sex as soon as it's visible (pooper's was visible at the 12-week appointment), and spend the rest of the pregnancy arguing about names. I'm very, very happy.

N'il-y-a pas des vestements pour la future maman a Paris

2007-01-08T19:54:00.001-06:00

Yes, my french sucks. Speaking french is like driving stick-shift for me: I never quite got the hang of driving a stick until I took my little standard-shift Mazda truck to San Francisco one summer. I've studied French several times, but I've never gotten the pronunciation down well, I can't remember when to use "de" or "le" or "a" or "aux", and when you listen to Parisians talk, I swear they just speak in some sort of French shorthand and drop off half the words. So, like stick, I probably will never quite get a hang of French unless sometime I just get all immersed and have to deal with it on a daily basis to survive. Which will probably never happen. So DH and I spent New Year's in Paris, it being his 40th birthday this year and all and the two of us being a couple of unapologetic francophiles, and I thought, hey, we're planning on expanding the family, might as well check out the maternity clothes in this, the epicenter of all fashion waves.

I thought I had hit the mother lode when I found the H&M in the Forum des Halles with the maternity department. Turns out, not so much. So then I got online and was only able to find one store that specializes in maternity clothes, and that was a chain, and from the online information, not that great anyway. I had read that the C&A next to Galeries Lafayette had maternity clothes, but when I got there, again, nothing special.

On a lark I tried out Galeries Lafayette, and hallelujah, finally something great. We had to go to the 5th floor (yes, my intrepid DH was accompanying me God bless him) which is primarily dedicated to very high-end clothing for kids. Who buys couture for toddlers? We had to walk so far to find the maternity section that DH was sure we were going to get jumped in some dark little corner and our organs harvested for science or something. But no - we found the maternity "nook", and it was so worth the trouble. I was only able to afford a darling gun-metal silk-looking (but washable polyester - how practical!) sleeveless blouse and some fabulous grey trousers for work. This time around dressing the bump, I already have all the basics, so I may get to splurge on the occasional frivolity. Like Nordstrom's maternity. Yummy.

This Is It - Northcross in the Balance

2006-12-09T21:46:00.000-06:00

This is the moment when we will save the future of our neighborhoods or not. City Council had an agenda item to consider suspending the ridiculous "lazy man's plan" for Northcross on the Dec. 14th agenda, and Friday they took it off - seems there was a crisis of political will to stand up to Lincoln Property Company and Wal-Mart. Read: we don't want to get sued.

You can't get sued for having something listed on the agenda. In fact, they could remove it from the agenda at the last minute if they wanted. But if it doesn't get onto the agenda now, it can't be put on later, because the rules require a little advance notice so the other side can know the arguments are coming and prepare a rebuttal. This is only fair. So it HAS TO GO BACK ON TO THE AGENDA.

City Council and the Mayor are elected to represent US, not out-of-town developers. Because the site plan was approved as an "administrative" site plan, there was never an opportunity for any public hearing or discourse as to whether or not this is right for the neighborhood. How each and every member of City Council and the Mayor handle this will determine their political futures - in central Texas and beyond. Period.

If the site plan suspension doesn't stay on the agenda, possibly the best opportunity to present evidence in opposition will have been lost. The next City Council meeting when this could be heard is January 11, 2007. If demolition permits are issued, demolition is scheduled by the developers to begin January 8, 2007. This is the make-or-break moment.

To take action to save the neighborhoods around Northcross, go here.

10 Things That Don't Happen at Chez TypeAMama

2006-11-29T09:38:00.000-06:00

10. Ironing. Don't own one (or actually, I think there might be one out in the shed), and I believe we had to throw out the cheapo ironing board because the cats peed on it. Or maybe that was me.

9. Card games. This is not necessarily deliberate or by choice. There has been the occasional Texas Hold 'em game at our house, but I'm looking forward to the day that we can sit down with the pooper and start to play card games with him - even Go Fish and Crazy Eights.

8. Watching commercials. Thank God for the dvr.

7. Spanking. It's just something DH and I agreed on that seemed to be not necessary. Pooper's just 19 months right now, so this could change if/when he darts out into a parking lot or some other life threatening behavior. But so far we're managing with re-direction and time outs.

6. High Fructose Corn Syrup. Holy cow, you have to REALLY be a label reader to manage this one. It's in EVERYTHING. If something's supposed to taste sweet, then just give me regular sugar. And if it isn't supposed to taste sweet or is already sweet enough on its own, keep that crap outa there.

5. Country music. Except for stuff called "crossover" or "alternative" or whatever: Lyle, Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Marty Robinson (God help me).

4. White walls. A friend of mine says she thinks they're immoral. I think I agree.

3. A full night's sleep. Natch.

2. Home perms. This is kind of random, I know, but if permed hair ever comes back in style (yes it WAS. Shut up.) I have already had enough home perms between the ages of 12 and 20 to be very, very lucky to still have ANY hair growing on my head.

1. Artificial foliage. Although given my knack for slowly torturing plants to death, maybe it's time to reconsider this.

Reign of Chaos

2006-11-28T08:15:00.000-06:00

The house is a wreck, I'm neglecting half of my clients, the pooper (a much more apt name these days than "cub") is cranking out nose goo like it could be sold on eBay, my voice has finally returned from a long vacation in parts unknown, and I didn't think I could get stretched any thinner than I am already and then this 217,000 2-story Wal-Mart with a 3-story parking garage attached in the middle of my neighborhood (no freeway access, man) thing came along and it turns out in fact I COULD get stretched even thinner. And did I mention the holidays? Houseguests? Decorating? Cleaning? Cooking? Making MERRY???

Some of it I'm looking forward to, and some of it not so much. The being busy isn't really that bad, and if I can make it to Target today to buy a new monitor that will actually stay plugged in and not go off in the middle of the night and wake me up because it's running out of juice, then there's the chance of getting at least 6 or 7 hours of continuous sleep each night, which these days is a veritable buffet of zzzzz's.

The pooper has lately taken to waking up screaming crying in the middle of the night - 0 to 60 out of nowhere. I have been racing in each time because the howls are truly startling and he's been standing in his crib and puts his arms out to me as soon as I walk in the room. So I pick him up in the dark and stand next to the crib with him doing the sway, and after about a minute or two his breathing has calmed and back to the crib he goes and goes right back to sleep. Sometimes this happens twice in one night, so last weekend, on the second one, I didn't go in, just to see what would happen. After two minutes the screaming and crying completely stopped as abruptly as it had started. Boom, out. So now maybe I'll give it a few minutes before going in again, and maybe this nuttiness will stop.

Camping with a Toddler

2006-11-21T17:42:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we took the cub on his first camping trip. We kept it easy and straightforward by camping nearby, at the Rocky Hills Ranch just across the highway from Smithville. By staying relatively nearby, if the poop hit the fan we could pretty easily make it back to town in under an hour.

Some learning points:

- better to camp with toddlers when the days are a little longer if they tend to wander off. The cub just wasn't interested in staying near the campfire, even though it was warm and toasty.

- bigger tents ARE better. For his first trip, the cub seemed to be willing to accept that the tent was like any other "room" (and, although it was a tad embarassing, our large tent is actually larger than the smallest bedroom in our house).

- it's really hard to keep a hat on a toddler's head while he sleeps.

- hot dogs rule.

- helpful items if you can park near your campsite: a small folding table, collapsible chairs, an easy-serve igloo cooler filled with water for drinking, washing, cooking etc., a propane "stove".

Overall, I think the cub enjoyed himself. Our friends commented more than once on how "independent" he is, as we would watch him stroll fearlessly off into the distance by himself. Also, there were a couple of times that he walked over to the car and gestured, as if to say, "Okay, this park has no slides or swings or steps. Time to go home." We took the advice of friends and brought Benadryl to help with sleeptime, which was a good thing. Next time we'll go when it doesn't get quite so cold at night, and we'll have better chairs. And better food.

Turkeys and Angels

2006-11-21T17:31:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago my neighbors and I got the shocking news that a Wal-Mart was to go into our neighborhood as part of the redevelopment of the Northcross Mall. Needless to say, the vast majority of us are opposed to this. Unfortunately, no one knew about this until after the lease had been signed and the site plan approved. A Wal-Mart in central Austin. The apocalypse must be near. Those responsible would be the un-invited turkeys to the holiday season.

Being a TypeAMama, of course a development like this just puts one to work figuring out how to make it not happen. Enter the Angels. I am amazed at the dedicated, qualified, and committed people who have come forward to spearhead the effort to ensure that the redevelopment at Northcross includes neighborhood input and reflects the best planning principles and development vision for the area. Which, by the way, does not include a 24/7, 219,000 square foot supercenter with a three-level parking garage attached.

For more information, go to www.responsiblegrowthfornorthcross.org.

GOP Takes a Spanking

2006-11-11T14:30:00.000-06:00

Ok, so this is a new direction for the blog. Truth is, I frequently have lots more on my mind besides the cub, and I'm thinking I may write more if I broaden the horizons here a little. Plus, it's more interesting for me to write about all the things a Type "A" Mama might have on her mind. So here goes.

One thing - my politics go pretty far to the left. Not as far as communism - I do, after all, represent profitable businesses and anyone who's had the opportunity to negotiate on the other side of a deal with me knows how seriously I take the "profitable" part of my job. And there are some things I just don't think the government ought to be properly involved in. Like telling people who they are allowed to fall in love and build a family with, for instance. Which brings me back full circle (these days) to the left end of the spectrum. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

I'd like to think that the recent election sweep for Democrats indicates a more socially progressive nation than I had hitherto dared hope for, but I don't think so. I think, rather, that it reflects the very deep American pragmatism that comes to play in our political decisions. Americans will vote based on cultural values when everything else important is more or less taken care of. But when things are going seriously awry - corruption, an unpopular war, repeated failures of leadership, crippling health care costs - they'll fire whoever's in office and bring in a new guy, even if there's disagreement about abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research.

I hope that the Democrats will recognize that their mandate now is to govern. Which means rolling up their shirt sleeves, extending an open hand across the aisle, and starting to put solutions into place that never would have been passed in the all-GOP Congress. Start to seriously consider a single-payer system for goodness' sake. Raise the minimum wage. Create a sensible path to citizenship for immigrants that separates the contributors from the criminals. Invest heavily in efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses and dependence on foreign fossil fuels. Increase funding to education and provide tax relief for college tuition.

Get to work.

Speech Delays

2006-11-10T21:56:00.000-06:00

I'm really tired and this is really a boring entry unless you happen to have a 19 month old child with speech delays and you're considering the Early Childhood Intervention Program. In which case, read on. Otherwise, this entry's really only good for helping you get to sleep tonight. In fact, I got sleepy writing it.

The cub is going on 19 months old and doesn't really have any words yet. He's starting to get a little more varied in his sounds, he gestures and points and tries to communicate, he signs a little, and he understands when we tell him something simple to do, and sometimes he even does what we ask him to. But no words - more specifically, no consonants. Not even mama or dada. So I've called in the Early Childhood Intervention people.

Today was our first meeting, the initial "Intake". The program seems to be pretty fantastic, very affordable, and we can stop at any time. I have to admit that I'm a tad skeptical about the young woman who came to meet me for the intake, though, because she looks to be straight out of college. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and she comes across as very informed, articulate, and conscientious about her work; it's just strange to be turning for help to someone almost half my age. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt and carrying one of those cute little mini-purses didn't help. She wants us to get the cub's hearing checked, just to be sure, since he had all of those ear infections from 7 - 11 months. We'll get that done after the first of the month, after DH's insurance from his new job kicks in. We'll find out if he's eligible for the program after the assessments are complete. If he has less than a 5-month developmental delay, he's not eligible. Which would be a good thing, but also a bummer not to qualify for a little intervention.

We've about worn ourselves out reading to the cub, saying words to him, cheering and congratulating him every time he makes a sound and repeating it back to him. I probably say "up", "in", "out", "down", "more", "ball", "bye-bye", "cup", "book", "open", "closed", "eat", and "drink" about a jillion times a day. Not to mention also colors, letters, shapes, numbers, and lots and lots of singing. For a break I'll read an article on recent developments in trade secret law. I'm doomed.

DH is starting a business with a friend that takes lots and lots of coding for the website before they can launch. I wasn't able to make enough $$$ to support us all while he worked on the business, so he's had to get some more immediate cash flow supplement and take a corporate job. Maybe we can recover our savings and pay credit card debt down for awhile and then he can quit again. The insurance in the meantime will be nice. Although, I have to say, the people at Golden Rule are not half bad if you have to make do between jobs. For the three of us the premium was only $930 every three months, with a total family deductible of $5,000. Unfortunately they excluded c-sections for me, so if we 'd gotten pregnant on the plan it would have been pretty outrageous. But other than that it's been pretty good. DH developed viral meningitis and we blew through his deductible pretty quickly with the trip to the emergency room, but everything after that was covered 100%.

I Have Invented a Toddler Breakfast Recipe!

2006-08-23T07:57:00.000-05:00

I got inspired this morning and came up with the following. The cub loves it and right now is swinging by his little table to pick up more bites while he plays. Raisins are his FAVORITE, so this was an easy win.

Rice Pudding Pancakes

1 cup cooked brown rice
½ cup rolled oats, ground
¼ cup self-rising flour or pancake mix
¼ cup raisins
½ banana, sliced thinly
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
(optional: ¼ cup ground almonds – use a little more milk if you do this)
2 eggs
½ cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
(optional: 1 tsp sucanat sugar)

Combine first six ingredients in large bowl (include ground almonds if using) and lightly stir with a fork so that fruit and rice are evenly sifted with flours. In a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly with a fork. Pour wet ingredients onto dry and combine. These pancakes can be a little tricky because they may want to stick. It may help to spread the batter with the back of the spoon to make a slightly thinner pancake.

Looking Back on a Great Weekend

2006-08-21T21:12:00.000-05:00

Many things made last weekend fabulous. For one thing, we had dinner with friends Friday, Saturday AND Sunday nights! And we only actually invited ourselves over for one of them! Friday night was pizza night at the Type A household, and friends came over with their 2 month old darling to join us for that. Then Saturday night, when we usually would have gone out for a cheapy family night out at Vinny's or Threadgills, we were invited to join friends for a Whole Foods buffet. Sunday some other friends cooked Ethiopian fare which was very very good, especially considering that these friends had never been to an Ethiopian restaurant and this was their first go at a very different method of working with spices and butter and such.

(Aster, if you EVER want to open another Ethiopian restaurant and are looking for investors, groupies, whatever - just let me know.)

Also, we went to the new Half Price Books on Parmer on Saturday afternoon and had a great time. There were balloons and lemonade and animal crackers and a large man in a green worm costume that all kept the little guy very entertained. He had a great time running around the aisles laughing and giggling and every one was pretty tolerant of this in the festive atmosphere. Plus, I picked up two books from my Amazon wish list and a couple others that would have been on my list if I'd known of them: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Living to Tell the Tale (the first of three promised volumes of memoirs from one of my most favorite authors), Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World (have I mentioned the Type A thing lately?), Isabel Allende's Zorro, and a(nother) toddler cookbook. I can't wait to get started on them, and the cookbook has a rice pudding recipe that's more like rice pudding casserole that I might actually be able to get the cub to eat - rice and eggs! Woohoo!

But now for the "awwww" moment: the cub has made his first REAL FRIEND. Yes, he's just 16 months old, and parallel play is pretty much the thing, but the Ethiopian-food-cooking friends happen to have a daughter just three weeks older than the cub and they are truly two peas in a pod when they're together. She already has a name just for him - her little version of his actual name - and he is pretty much enthralled with her when she's around. She spent the evening bringing him little things that she thought he might like, and he could barely take his eyes off her when they sat across from each other for dinner. DH told me today that the cub had also gently patted her on her shoulder, but that he was the only one to see it. This is HUGE. See, when DH or I hold the cub, we pat and rub his back to give him love. Lately, the cub has taken to gently patting us on the shoulder when we hold him, giving the love back. So when he did this for his friend, he was expressing comfort and affection the only way he knows how.

Awwww!

Get Out Your Sweaters!

2006-08-20T08:56:00.000-05:00

My new absolutely favorite website is www.accuweather.com. You can look up the weather forecast for anywhere on the planet. Really, type in Kathmandu, and they'll tell you that they are expecting thunderstorms tonight, about the time that you and I are sitting down to enjoy lunch.

I'm obsessing about when, exactly, the oven I live in will start to cool off; when will the Great First Cool Breeze of Autumn make it's arrival? Now, by cool, I mean a day that the high stays below 95, so stay with me folks. So, every day I look at the forecast in the morning paper for the next five days: 100, 101, 101, 100, 100. Then I find accuweather, whose forecast goes out to fifteen days, and now we're getting somewhere.

I used to do this same thing from the other perspective when I was in college in New York and just dying for the feeling of warm sunshine on my face around late March, and there were still a few weeks to go. Frequently, just to cruelly taunt my southern ass, it would snow in April. April, man. That's just wrong.

So here's the fabulous news from accuweather: the high for Saturday, August 25, is 93! And then Sunday? 91!!!! Don't even ask me about Monday - it's such a great forecast I'm afraid to repeat it and maybe scare away the nymph of cooler breezes. But, through September third, the high stays below 95 every day. I've been checking the forecast again every day to see if they've changed their minds, but so far they're standing by their numbers, those plucky guys. So go get your shirts with sleeves on them back out, because winter is upon us!

Can You Prevent Ear Infections?

2006-08-14T20:11:00.000-05:00

The cub starts back at daycare full-time on Thursday. If the whole ear infection thing starts up again, we're royally screwed. Our insurance now is high-deductible coverage through Golden Rule. As a result of the cub's medical history (how much history can a 16 month-old child rack up?) they excluded anything to do with his ears or his upper gastrointestinal system from coverage.

Well, shit.

So, when he starts to get sick again, as is highly likely once he's back in daycare, and if it all goes straight to his ears again, as it frequently did, then ALL OF HIS ILLNESSES ARE ON US.

So I'm ready to try anything that his doctor says won't hurt him to ward these things off. For starters, I bought some kick-ass probiotics this morning. Of course I forgot to give him any of the magic stuff today, but at least it's there, in the fridge, for when I do remember it. His doc says it won't help, but won't hurt either, and if we avoid just one visit to her office as a result of the probiotics, they will have paid for themselves SEVEN TIMES OVER.

Step number two is making sure he's getting all of his minerals and good protiens and fats and fiber and basically has a well-rounded, nutritional diet of real, whole foods - as little added sugars (esp. HFCS), over-processing, hydrogenated oils and other assorted crap as possible. I'm not into vitamin supplements because the body doesn't absorb them as well and because some things in too high quantities shift over from boosting immunity to compromising it, like iron for instance.

Step number three is making sure he gets enough sleep. Although naps at daycare will be hit and miss, he zonks out around 7 - 7:30 each night. And his canines are coming down now, so we're almost through the worst of the teething. Sleep won't be a problem.

So, if anyone's still reading my blog, and you have any suggestions for how to protect the cub's ears from end-to-end ear infections this season, I'm all ears.

There's Too Much Going On and I Don't Feel Particularly Funny About It

2006-08-10T09:07:00.000-05:00

So that's a silly, long title, but it's what I've got. The cub will be starting at a new daycare soon because we were worried he was getting too isolated and not enough stimulation hanging out at home with the nanny all day. I really like the daycare that we found for him, and their play areas absolutely ROCK. But, there's no way they'll be giving him the constant hugs and kisses that he's used to at home and with his sitter, which sucks, and makes me sad. Also, he'll start getting sick a lot again, and we only have a high-deductible insurance policy and they excluded anything to do with his ears or his upper gastrointestinal system because of his history of ear infections and acid reflux, so if anything goes wrong or the doctor raises the specter of tubes again - it's all out of our very own wallets.

So, it's a good thing I've signed on another client while DH looks for a job. I'm busy and (starting next month) finally making enough to support all of us and our crazy habits, but I miss the cub.

In other news, so far the acupuncture and herbs are not working their magic. My last cycle was a measly 25 days. I guess it's a good thing it's months before I'd consider talking with DH about trying to get pregnant again. DH will be 40 this year, so we are going to Paris to celebrate over the new year. NO WAY am I going to Paris pregnant: no wine, no unpasteurized cheese, no bleu steaks, no SHOPPING.

I've been so busy the last month or so - time has flown by. We went to Houston for my 20th high school reunion, which was both weird and a blast. I knew a lot of those people from elementary school, and I walked around with DH saying things like, "See that guy? He got nosebleeds all the time after recess in the first grade. See that woman? I accidentally beaned her in the head with a softball in the fourth grade. See that guy? He got me into trouble all the time by getting me to lean back in my chair in the third grade." I stopped by to say hello to said third-grade trouble-maker, who was always a cutie, even as a boy, and met his girlfriend (who was not the wife I'd met at the 10-yr reunion) and had a laugh about the leaning back in the chair thing, and the girlfriend says, "Thank you so much for not saying you remember him for being a great kisser!" Ha - I wouldn't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. Some of the shy girls were now absolute knockouts, some of the trashy girls still were, some of the loud obnoxious guys still were, most of the popular skinny girls still were, but mostly everyone just seemed well, happy, and enjoying their lives. It was just good to see people that I'd known as a kid doing okay and looking happy. It lifted my spirits and made me think maybe the world isn't imploding slowly into a piece of angry ash. I should stop reading the news.

The next day after the reunion we took the cub for his first outing to the beach. Let me just say that sticky sunblock, combined with airborne gritty sand, combined with a tired cub rubbing his eyes, equals a very unhappy cub. He loved being out in the water with us, but that was short-lived. We'll try it again next year.

Boulder Sounds Nice

2006-07-21T22:32:00.000-05:00

I hate the summer in Texas. I'm a native, so I should be used to this, but this SUCKS. I don't want to write (obviously - been almost two weeks since the last post), work, exercise, cook, eat, have sex, or really do anything that requires movement or effort. I just want to float in my pool with a cool beverage or sit in the over-airconditioned glory of our tv room (thanks to the mini wall unit) and watch BTVS reruns off the DVR while the cub happily plays independently with his blocks and toys. Every summer I dream of moving north, and this summer is no exception, although usually I don't start talking seriously about it until August.

The cub is braving the heat fabulously. If I would let him, he would spend every waking moment outside. In spite of slathering SPF 50 sunblock on him every day, he has acquired a slight browning to his arms and face. We have decided to try full-time daycare with him again. Now that he's fully mobile, he's getting bored at home. We take him to the park in the morning after breakfast, usually around 8:00, then on an errand after his morning nap before lunch to somewhere where we can let him run around a bit, and then I take him on another outing or DH takes him to Radijazz before dinner, and still he is bored and wanting some kind of excursion in the moments in-between. If DH or I go out the door during the day and don't take him with us, he has a full-on meltdown. So, we are registered at the Children's Courtyard at the Spicewood Springs location, because they have kick-ass play areas, and we'll see how it goes. I'm worried about him getting sick because we are currently on catastrophic coverage-type insurance (DH is currently job-hunting, but that's another story ...). But, I think the expanded play opportunities (and my expanded work opportunities) will be worth it.

We have friends in town from Dallas, which I love because then I get lots of girl-chat time without even having to leave the house. Tomorrow DH is leading a naming ceremony for their 6-month-old son. This will be DH's first naming ceremony, and he's considering it even more important than a wedding. He explained why to me, and it involved references to Wittgenstein and Derrida, so I won't try to elaborate. It should be lovely. And there will be sangria. Mmmmmm, sangria.

WooHoo! I Got To See a Movie! In a THEATRE!

2006-07-09T19:31:00.000-05:00

Thanks to DH for taking the late-afternoon - evening shift tonight so that I could GO SEE A MOVIE! I was going to see the pirate movie (Johnny Depp in my favorite JD character) but it was sold out, as DH had warned (I should know by now to listen to him about ANYTHING having to do with movies), and I couldn't bring myself to purchase a ticket, leave the theater, and come back again to drive all over creation to find another parking space, so I opted to see something else - The Devil Wears Prada.

Very cute and fun. Stars two women who went to my alma mater, so of course I'm a tad biased, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And yeah, okay, I feel fat now, too, but that will wear off by tomorrow. In my (and probably most) line of work, it's possible, but not necessary, to lose oneself in one's work: to sacrifice relationships, friendships, dreams, integrity, your health - whatever - to get ahead. Historically, I don't know that there's ever been a time that women have had so much opportunity to live a life out of whack (other than the more socially acceptable lost-herself-in-her-kids option). And given that those of us in domestic relationships (I can only speak for hetero here) likely are still the primary caretaker of things domestic, if things start to get too demanding at work, we REALLY FEEL IT. Anyway, the movie reminded me of how much I LOVE my life (part-time freelance is da bomb), and I came home in time to catch the cub before he fell asleep and we cuddled and sang songs while he grabbed my nose and poked my teeth and laughed. Pardon my bliss.

Will I Get "It" Back?

2006-07-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

Between family visits and holiday goings-on, I've been a busy little such-and-such. Hence the lack of posting over the last several days. It's like I've been walking around with an itch I haven't been able to scratch. Aaaah, that's better.

I was standing in the checkout line at my little neighborhood health-foods grocery (God bless them for staying open and providing a third alternative to the exhorbitant WF and massive madhouse HEB), and I noticed a very pleasantly scented candle in a clear glass votive, and I thought of how nice it would be to have it sitting on the back of the toilet in the hall bathroom where there is no fan, so that any guest's malodorous adventure is immediately broadcast to the public areas of the house. Then the increasingly vertical cubzilla entered my little daydream, and he stumbled in, saw the pretty shiny thing, reached up on his tippy-tippy toes, got it in his grasp, and dropped it. The candle immediately got a big mental "X" over it.

I do this a lot. I don't wear white anymore because DUH. I have these killer heels that I hardly ever wear because I'm frequently carrying the cub, generally over pavement to get from the car to the whatever, and like I'm going to pull a Brittney because spunky flats just don't look as sharp as a good heel. I hardly ever have time to do more than powder and lip gloss for make-up, I rarely cook anything too exciting anymore because usually I'm cooking for us AND the cub and I don't see a 15-month-old choking down a seriously rare steak with foie gras sauce - or heck, even beef stroganoff, and there are loads of lovely things I'd love to have around the house except that I've surrendered it to Fisher Price, Leap Frog, and Little Tykes.

As a temporary change, I don't really mind any of this. In fact, I'm kind of enjoying the metamorphosis that is parenthood, and lord knows my cooking techniques could stand a little shredded sweet potato, ground oatmeal, and wheat germ to balance things out a bit. But I'm a little scared that after five years of this, when I can start reclaiming some of the house, my time, my wardrobe, and the menu, that I will have forgotten how not to be like this. I'll forget how great it feels to wear a stunning white cotton skirt. I'll forget to add those little aesthetic/artistic touches around the house that make it just a little more soothing and calming. I'll have forgotten how to make bearnaise sauce. And will I ever get the melody to "A Bicycle Built for Two" out of my frickin' head?

If I Were All Powerful

2006-06-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

There are lots of things I would do, just in my own tiny spec of a corner of the universe:

-- My nanny is illegal, which makes me a felon, I think, for hiring her. She is fabulous and there could be no better caretaker out there for my son, legal or not. She was brought here by her abusive husband (who was subsequently deported for said assaults) and her kids are US citizens and she is not. Not only is she a single mom with three boys under 10, but she is legally prohibited from working to support her family. What kind of BULLSHIT is that? So, if I were omnipotent, I would start by making it possible for her to get a Real job, with insurance and paid vacation (althought I do what I can) and sick days and shit, like she dreams about.

--There's a woman who panhandles at the Mopac intersection near my house every weekday morning and into the afternoon. She's been there, reliably, for months now. I noticed today that she seems skinnier, not that she was particularly heavy to start with - she looked fit. Now, she's starting to look almost gaunt. If she can make it to the intersection every day, surely she could make it just as reliably to one of the nearby offices. If I were omnipotent (and a business owner), I would ask her to show up just as she is and find an entry level position for her and train her if necessary. If she can be that reliable and endure the hours on her feet in the sun, surely she could handle an air-conditioned office and a regular paycheck.

--I have a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago (her link is to the right - Shauna Wears Pink). She's made it through the chemotherapy and is going to go ahead and have a bilateral mastectomy, to help her chances of surviving to see her son grow up (and old). The cancer's behind her now - nothing I can do about that - but if I were omnipotent, I'd make it so she could keep her breasts. She nursed her son for 8 months, pumping up to 6 times a day to make sure that he had sufficient breastmilk because she went back to work full-time when he was 8 weeks old, and it meant so much to her, and to him, and I'm just very, very sad to have to say goodbye to her breasts, strange as that sounds.

--If I were omnipotent, karma would work a hell of a lot faster.

I love love love Thursdays

2006-06-22T22:41:00.000-05:00

Because nice women come and clean my house while I'm gone and then I come home and it smells nice and I can walk barefoot and not feel little gritty things sticking to my feet and when I get into bed (which I am blessedly about to do), the sheets are soft and fresh and don't smell at all like sweat or cats (not that I particularly mind those smells, but fresh once in a while is good, too). I must give a shout out to my mom, who can craze me to no end and who can also be an angel from heaven, for funding the house cleaners. Thanks, Mom!

A Sudden and Lengthy Digression for Trees

2006-06-20T21:16:00.000-05:00

The cub has walked. All by himself. Thank. God.

Also, it turns out he is speaking, just not in English. Today when I was home for lunch with him and our nanny, I realized he was saying "ah-wa" for water ("aqua") and "ma" for more ("mas"). Not only does my child speak, he's bilingual.

If you're interested in what's going on with the trees in Austin, here's a link to the Task Force's recent report. Like an idiot, I have volunteered to serve on the board of directors of my neighborhood association. The association's great - what makes me an idiot is thinking that I would have time to accomplish everything I'd like to. But, I figure, being over-educated and a total busy-body should be put to good use somewhere.

It's ridiculous how hard it is to find a copy of this report online. You may not realize it, but Austin Energy very recently has begun aggressively removing and severely cutting back trees to reduce power outages after storms. While tree-trimming to reduce electrical outages sounds logical, and it is, there was no evidence or study supporting the very aggressive removal and clearance standards that Austin Energy has recently instituted. Meanwhile, our neighborhoods, particularly central neighborhoods, are losing precious shade and beauty.

One morning in December some central Austinites woke up to find ribbons tied around their trees, indicating which ones were to be removed entirely and which were to be "trimmed" - i.e., severely cut back. They promptly went before the City Council and the City Council appointed a task force to study and report back on the laws, policies and procedures governing tree-trimming and removal by Austin Energy.

What they basically found is that there is really no oversight on the authority of Austin Energy to cut down trees on private property, there is no coordinated city policy or plan describing goals and objectives for urban forestry, and there is no procedure for coordinating tree-trimming plans with neighborhood councils or other existing community organizations. The task force made several reasonable, workable suggestions for remedying the current situation and better integrating Austin Energy's tree trimming practices with city and community organizations and long-term goals. They also suggested that Austin Energy reassess their new clearance standards and trimming cylces based on (duh) a study of species-specific growth rates and other relevant criteria.

Now it's up to City Manager Toby Futrell to review the task force findings and report back to City Council with recommendations. During City Council meetings last spring Ms. Futrell was reportedly dismissive towards some of the private citizens whose houses are now exposed to the glaring heat and whose backyard view has been altered from leafy and green to empty and industrial.

So why the sudden and lengthy digression? Well, (a) I care enough about the topic to not mind boring you with my rant; (b) "tree" was one of the cub's first words, which he then used for everything that he could point to; and (c) I romantically hope that the more people who are aware of the issues and what's at stake can only help things come to a sane, reasonable, and shady resolution.

Needles

2006-06-17T20:41:00.000-05:00

Today I went for my first appointment with my acupuncture doctor since we tried to induce labor with the cub (it didn't work). I had gone to him before I got pregnant with the cub, having had two miscarriages, so that the third time I would definitely stay pregnant (it worked). Now that I'm having regular cycles again, and they're quite short again, and DH and I aren't specifically trying NOT to get pregnant (but not trying to either), I thought it would be good to get my qi back in line or whatever it is he does - just in case.

When we first started trying to get pregnant, we succeeded the very first time. We felt like pro's. Two months later I miscarried. There was no explanation or discernable reason; I just started spotting, which carried on for ten days, and then it was gone. Five months later I was pregnant again, and six weeks later that one also was gone. I was starting to feel hopeless.

When I had the second miscarriage, I had an image in my mind of my womb, and it was like a slippery, muddy slope. The baby (who I saw as an adult person) was trying to hang on, but they just couldn't. The shortness of my cycle wasn't enough to be out of the "normal" range by the standards of western medicine. My OB ran a few tests after the second miscarriage just to rule out a few things, and everything came back normal. I decided to try Traditional Chinese Medicine. I knew there was something about me that wasn't giving the embryo the chance that it needed to take root.

After a few months, my cycle was back to way it had been when I was 16 - twenty years ago. When I mentally imagined my womb, I saw a lush, green meadow. The next time I got pregnant, I stayed pregnant, and a little more than 9 months later we had the cub - all 9 lbs., 4 oz. of him. I really, REALLY hate acupuncture. I'm a total wuss around needles. But it's worth it.

Tonight we went over to a friend's house for a gathering to celebrate his 40-something-th birthday. There were lots of babies there. They were all walking except for the cub. Even the 10-month old girl. One well-meaning friend who has a habit of speaking whatever he's thinking without any internal editor asked me whether the cub, who at 14 months is neither walking nor talking, was developmentally challenged. If it had come from anyone else I would have been hurt and offended, but this friend is one of those rare people who is truly without guile. I laughed it off and explained to him that some kids don't walk until they're 15 months, and that the addition of a spanish-speaking nanny to his life would probably slow down his language development, and anyway boys are slower, yada yada yada. But the question stuck, and I told DH about it, and now we're both a little worried. Which I guess makes us normal, first-time parents. Of all the needles I've had to deal with today, the unintentional one stung the most.

Dinnertime at the Type A Household

2006-06-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned that we now eat dinner together every night as a family. Although DH and I ate dinner together before the arrival of the cub, it was on the sofa in front of the TV. Now, we sit down at the table with plates and placemats and everything. And we talk. We tell each other about our day, babble with the cub, talk about weekend plans - when did we have these conversations before? We also eat quite early to accommodate the cub's schedule, which is way healthier for us, too. In fact, I may get nutty and start trying to exercise a little in the evening.

Dinnertime has become an especially Important Part of the Day for the dog. He knows all of the cub's meal and snack times, and whines and cries under the cub's high chair when we're running late. The cub is generous with his meals. The toddler books tell us that when the child starts to throw their food on the floor, they're done. Not so for the cub. After a few minutes of scarfing down his favorite foods for himself, as he approaches the more leisurely portion of the meal, he looks to either side of the chair to see where the dog is patiently waiting, carefully selects a morsel for him, and Bomb's Away! He's so delighted with this interaction with the dog that he sometimes gets carried away and throws his milk on the dog, too. Perhaps the dog would like some "drink" to wash down the salmon with homemade cilantro-walnut pesto and mashed potatoes with truffle oil? Very thoughtful of him, don't you think?

We've tried to tell the cub "No" and "Food stays on the tray" and such, which the cub finds hysterical. He shakes his head back and forth back at us with a big grin, mocking us: "Oh no, of course we don't throw our food to the dog, I wouldn't ever dream of doing that."

Tonight, DH went for a post-prandial walk-about and got the dog's leash. We were wondering whether he would abandon his post under the high chair for the rare treat of a walk (yes, we should walk him more often, but wait until you find out where his priorities lie). Nope, not a chance. The dog walked over to DH, sniffed the leash, confirmed there were no scraps around, and returned to his post under the chair.

Brentwood Tavern RULZ

2006-06-08T21:15:00.000-05:00

The information-about-Austin-for-families-with-toddlers posts are admittedly a tad bor-ing, but I don't have anything else to write about tonight except to relate how fussy the cub is becoming. So, here's the latest in my attempts to be informative.

Brentwood Tavern is located on North Burnet, North of Koenig, adjacent to the Farmer's Market. There's an indoor seating area, but skip this unless you just really can't stand any more of Austin's heat, because the patio is remarkably pleasant.

There's shade, wrought iron and wooden chairs (no plastic loungers here), seriously yummy food, beer, live music, a kid's menu, and a PLAYSCAPE. Right next to the tables. If you're trying to eat more healthfully, well, frankly the choices are slim. The place is for omnivores, and I'm not sure that they even have any vegan options. When we're there, we skip the fried foods/quesadilla choices on the kids' menu and order the cub a plain chicken breast on a whole wheat bun, slices of avocado, and the bean casserole. The bun is sweet, which isn't a good sign for healthfulness, and the bean casserole is probably chock full of things I refuse to even have in my pantry, but once a month can't hurt, and the cub has so much fun in the middle of all the chaos and kids. And I get to sit down and drink a cold beer that someone else poured for me. The adult menu choices are sufficient, and I haven't had anything there yet that wasn't so yummy it was just wrong. One more thing - the staff there are accustomed to serving families with young kids, and I have never picked up a give-me-a-break vibe when I asked our waitperson to please bring us one more ... cup of milk, straw, fork, beer for mommy. They know their core clientele.

Outing to the Trails at The Arboretum

2006-06-04T20:44:00.000-05:00

According to the temp gauge on the Subaru, it was a scorching 97 degrees this afternoon at 3:00. The cub had been inside all day because we had visitors from out of town and thus hosted a brunch so other friends would have a chance to relax and visit and we all had a nice mini-reunion around quiche, home-made biscuits-n-sausage gravy, fruit, way potent coffee, and mimosas. Mmmmmmmm. But the cub was non-plussed, and he wanted out.

Lord knows how many times I've driven past the pond at the back of the Arboretum shops, and yet I've never walked down the trail or explored the areas back there. Because of the shade, chance of seeing geese and ducks, and ability to duck into an air conditioned store if conditions became unbearable, we decided to set out for the unknown.

What a fabulous afternoon. We packed the cub's snack and water, took our "indoor" stroller in case we ended up in Barnes & Noble (of course we did, but we still should have taken the BOB instead) and headed out. Finding parking was a bit tricky, but then we set out to the courtyard adjacent to Amy's ice cream and basically kept heading to the back of the property. There were lots of water fountains, some very large, and everything near the shops was very stroller-accessible. Behind the shops there's a wonderful grassy slope shaded by clumps of live oaks, and there are 5 life-size stone-conglomerate cows in the shade that the children were climbing over and playing on. We set the cub up on one and he was delighted and even protested when we finally moved on.

The path to the pond is very uneven paved stone and has quite a few steps. This is when having the BOB would have been handy. We ended up letting the cub ride on DH's shoulders while I rattled behind with the stroller, which was probably the best option anyway. Unfortunately the pond is not well kept at all. The little shelter in the middle to protect the ducks and geese from the weather is rotting and falling apart and provides zero comfort for the birds. The water was quite low and in some places the pond-bottom was exposed and mucky. The pond is also nearly choked with green algae and trash, and at the picnic table where we stopped, there was broken glass, a beer cap, and lots of Amy's trash, despite the fact that there was a trash bin conveniently placed just a few feet away (what is WRONG with people???). Given all of this, it's not surprising that only a few geese and even fewer ducks have decided to make their home there. What a shame.

Nevertheless, the experience was still worthwhile. The shady areas immediately behind the shops were beautiful and pleasant, and I know the cub will have a great time romping around there once he's finally vertical. Down by the pond, there were picnic tables and lots of shade, so that we were perfectly comfortable. The geese came over to demand food, and were typically a tad agressive for my preference, but that's geese for you. It was the closest the cub had been to another animal that was not a pet, and he seemed to enjoy the experience.

So overall, if you're looking for a cheap (free) family outing, even in scorching weather, I give the Arboretum a thumb's mostly up, with the only negative point being the shabby, neglected condition of the pond and surroundings. Otherwise, it's very convenient, a good leg-stretcher if you have older children that need to work off some energy, and there's ice cream and books nearby. And it's FREE.

Like Giving a Cat a Pill

2006-06-03T19:25:00.000-05:00

The cub had a nosebleed on Thursday, once getting up from his afternoon nap, and again that evening. Since then, the nostril has remained slightly crusted in black, as apparently whatever the source of the nosebleed is continues to seep lightly.

Of course, with the first nosebleed, I consulted all of my child health references. They unanimously directed that I should "gently grasp the soft portion of the child's nose (the part at the bottom) with your thumb and forefinger, applying pressure, for ten minutes." If the nosebleed had not stopped by then, I was to repeat the procedure. If it still hadn't stopped, I was to call my pediatrician.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

All of these references are written for the care of children from newborn to five years old. The cub is thirteen months old. I can barely get a tissue near enough his nose to wipe it, much less hold onto it for ten minutes. The books show the perfect example of good information that is completely useless. Maybe they could also include a section describing the manner in which to accomplish the ten-minute nose hold:

1) Gently grasp child's body entirely with left hand and arm, clutching child close to your chest.

2) Retrieve child from under dining room table and repeat step 1).

3) Spray blood stains in blouse with stain remover and change into black pants and black t-shirt.

4) Sit in comfortable chair and hold child between knees, cupping back of head with left hand, while gently grasping bottom of nose with right hand.

5) Wash bite wound well with warm soapy water, and dress wound with topical antibiotic ointment and bandage. Make note to self to call doctor if fever or feelings of light-headedness develop.

6) Pull child down from bookcases that child scaled while you were tending bite wound.

7) Review contents of refrigerator and pantry for items to use as bribe to persuade child to let you hold onto nose for ten minutes; realize that child is thirteen months old and doesn't understand bribes yet.

8) Attempt to distract child with favorite DVD recording while you slowly reach for nose from behind.

9) Apply ice pack to your nose where the back of your child's head smacked it when he jerked away from your grip on his nose. Insert wads of gauze to stem bleeding.

10) Notice that child's nosebleed has stopped, apparently after getting down from the bookcase (make note to self to clean blood off bookcase); call partner to come look after child while you drive to emergency clinic for your broken nose.

Cesarean-Born Self-Therapy?

2006-05-30T23:41:00.000-05:00

I've noticed a certain thing that the cub likes to do lately: he likes to crawl to where I'm standing (sometimes he does this with DH, too) and then butt his head against my legs to push and squeeze through between them. As soon as he's pulled himself through, he turns right around and does it again from the other side. He doesn't want me to do anything but stand there and let him push and squeeze himself through, again and again.

Our doula has a boy who was also born by Cesarean. She told me that her son (4 years old at the time) would do something similar when they were playing in the pool together. He would push up between her arm and her side and say, "Look at me, mama! I'm coming through the birth canal!" (Being the son of a doula comes with a full understanding of the process of birth.) She told me to watch for the cub doing things to mimic the experience of "pushing through" that he missed out on by being delivered by Cesarean.

If there's some connection between his new game and his Cesarean delivery, then that's just the coolest thing ever. I'm very amused and may try to devise play "tunnels" that he can crawl through and other birth-mimicking games we can play to help him integrate whatever he's working on. If anyone reads this who has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Feeling Isolated Today

2006-05-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

I've been reading some very entertaining blogs by women, other wives and mothers, that I don't even know. I feel like a voyeur reading their blogs, and a little sheepish, like I'm turning into some sort of Internet Peeping Tomasina. But I'm discovering two things: 1) we all have very similar problems, victories, hopes and fears; and 2) I live a very isolated life.

I am only able to work part-time right now, because the cub can't go into regular daycare, and I wouldn't make enough working full-time to afford a full-time individual caretaker. Because I'm a free agent who charges by the hour, and my part-time caretaker is paid by the hour, I feel guilty about any hour that she's got the cub and I'm not working. If I'm paying for a caretaker, then I damn well better be able to bill for the time.

Also, because I'm working part-time (M-Th, 10-4), I'm unable to schedule any sort of regular playdates for the cub. His caretaker doesn't know any of my friends and is a spanish speaker, so I'm not sure that she (or my friends) would be comfortable taking him to someone else's house where she can't communicate with them or vice versa. Also, since most (read: all) of my friends are now mothers themselves, the only time that there is to realistically spend time with them is as a playdate, and I'm usually working during prime playdate hours. When I get home, it's a little bit of time with the cub, dinner, tv, and bed.

DH, bless his good intentions, supports my taking time for myself while the nanny is with the cub, but read above re availability of my friends. I just need to hold it together until the cub can get back to a regular full-time daycare program so that I can take off mornings or afternoons with him for us both to go spend time with friends. Until then, I'm afraid I'm stuck in this rut.

It's a Stomach Bug, Alright

2006-05-28T17:47:00.000-05:00

The cub got up from his afternoon nap Friday with a 101.6 fever. I called the pediatrician's office and we got there just in time for the last appointment. Whatever it was, we caught it early enough that they couldn't tell if it was a respiratory bug or a stomach bug, but whatever it was, it was viral.

A vomit-y laundry and total loss of appetite later (his and mine), I'm pretty sure it's a stomach bug. And by the way, the dr. appointment without insurance? Yes, that was an $80 fever, to be told there's nothing they could do and to let it run its course. Of course it's best to rule out other more serious causes with a trip to the doctor, but sheesh.

So, Memorial Day weekend plans were put on raincheck while the cub recovers. He's been in a downright pissy mood, and who can blame him, what with the molars, the sour tummy, the fever, and the having to be house-confined for a few days. Of course I chose to stay and take care of the cub rather than represent the clan at the social events today, because I Am A Type A Mama and would have been calling DH every fifteen minutes to find out if the cub had a fever/had eaten anything/had pooped, so I might as well just stay put and let the one of us who would enjoy himself go have fun.

I Thought It Wouldn't Happen to Me

2006-05-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

Growing up in the '70's, we gals got two messages pounded into us: have a career, and get married and have children. It's like the western world can't figure out what it's supposed to do with women. We're bright, capable, and yet we're also the uteruses for the human enterprise, and the enterprise fails if we don't keep wanting to incubate new humans and then nurture them and shield them with our very bodies if necessary so that they successfully grow into contributing members of the enterprise, thus ensuring the continuity of the species.

So I: got into a great college (check); majored in something useless and got into a great grad school (check); got a fabulous advanced degree and clawed my way to a half-decent career (check); got married (check); had a kid (check); put the kid into daycare (huh?); put the career on the back burner working part-time to still try to also be a mom and a wife (wtf?); felt guilty and resentful daily because I still enjoy my work (bad mom) and yet I'd happily quit in a heartbeat to do nothing but take care of my son and have a clean, organized house with plants blooming on the porch and a delicious meal waiting for my husband every evening (what a waste of an incredible education and years of hard work).

And then something happened Thursday that just put a stake in my heart (yes, still watching BTVS reruns). The cub's caretaker came at her usual time on Thursday morning and, as usual, got the cub up from his morning nap while I finished getting ready to go in to the office. When I came in to the cub's room for a bye-bye hug and kiss, the cub CLUNG TO THE NANNY. He has never, ever, E-V-E-R preferred anyone's hugs to mine. I shook it off and didn't force the matter (how sick would that have been?) and nibbled his toes and stroked his forehead and went on to work.

When DH told my mother-in-law about it, she kindly said don't worry, it happens to everyone. I kind of knew that, but somehow thought it wouldn't happen to me.

The cub developed a fever today - his first in almost three months. It came out of nowhere and is pretty high, so la doctora thinks it's probably viral and will just have to run it's course. I hate seeing him sick. I can tell that he doesn't feel well and I hate not being able to make it all better for him.

A New Cocktail for the Summer

2006-05-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

We have bottles of things in the fridge and freezer that have been there for going on two years (pregnancy + nursing) that are still perfectly drinkable. Now that I get to belly up to the bar again, I've created my own cocktail to serve to friends who are coming over for burgers by the pool tonight. I don't have a name for it yet, but it will have something to do with bears in the summer.

2 oz. chilled key lime soda
1 oz. chilled limoncello
1/2 oz. chilled Rose's Sweetened Lime
1/2 oz. chilled unsweetened pomegranate juice
chopped ice optional
Serve in a champagne flute with a little lemon zest ribbon

Happy Mother's Day and Vive La Revolucion!

2006-05-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

It's a known fact that bears being reminded of from time to time: for every person walking the earth at this moment there was a woman who became pregnant, stayed pregnant, and gave birth.

I have recently begun reading "The Mother Trip" by Ariel Gore. This plucky gal became a mother at nineteen - a high-school drop out who had travelled to China to study and in a few years found herself living in a borrowed apartment in Tuscany with her British boyfriend taking odd jobs to support them. I realized last night that she is younger than me, which I found kind of alarming, but that's another topic for another day ....

Here is an excerpt of Ariel's wisdom for today:

"Our intuition isn't always accessible. We need each other's support and helpful words. What we don't need is junk-food advice that tells us to ignore our feelings, that undermines our confidence and insults our intelligence. It's just a recipe for depression. Because what is intuition? It's a capacity of the spirit. It's knowledge. And what is depression? It's low spirits. It's knowledge withheld. but there is also a jumping-off point from this circular equation, a point where we can recognize our exhaustion for what it is, give ourselves a break, and in that quiet hour begin to transform the energy our culture has taught us to use to scrutinize and blame ourselves, and turn it outward, into something revolutionary."

Lord knows we need a revolution. Mothers of the world (and our mother-ing friends - the men and women who support, nurture, and give the gift of their love to those fortunate enough to be in their lives), UNITE.

JCPenney Is My New Target

2006-05-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

Holy cow am I the last person to find out how CUUUUTE the clothes are at JCPenney now? Why didn't someone tell me this earlier? It would have been easy to work into conversation: "Say, TypeAMama, those parachute pants look great with that velour sweatshirt ... have you been to JCPenney lately?"

Turns out over the last year or two the department store chain has been re-vamping (and I do mean vamping) the lines they carry, and even managed to snag someone over from Macy's (Michele K? Michele something-or-other ....) with the Bisou Bisou line. Except JCPenney's prices rock. Today while I was there looking at sundresses (and I found not one but two classy numbers that made even my post-baby frame look enticing), I also saw and considered (might go back for it yet) a darling denim blazer that had seaming that even Stacy London would have praised, with a tad of stretch in the fabric to help enhance curves, a dark dye, and contemporary cut. It was on sale from $50 to $11.77. Yes, that's right folks. Skip your Starbucks for 3 days and you've paid for this blazer.

Acid Reflux After One Year

2006-05-12T07:03:00.000-05:00

Back in the sweet early days of the cub, I would, on occasion, refer to him endearingly as the "devil spawn". It wasn't his fault, of course, that his sleeping was all messed up from being very young and, poor guy, having to deal with acid reflux's constant spitting up and irritation. So much for such a little guy.

He has been on Zantac, 3 X day, since he was 5 weeks old. (Some other time I'll write about the crappy, incredibly unhelpful, anti-support I received from some of my naturopathic care providers.) He is now very close to the point that he will be "outgrowing" his current dose, and if he stays asymptomatic we get to stop giving him the Zantac. Without getting his exact weight now, but making an educated guess based on what he weighed at his one-year visit last month, his doctor reckoned we were approaching that weight now, and to take him off the Zantac and see what happens.

A return to devil spawn, that's what.

The little guy is getting his molars in. All four at once. Two have just broken through, one is a giant, swollen bump, and the other is just moving into position. So he's already in a delicate state. Last night he woke up whining a little after midnight, which has been happening sometimes when the molars are giving him a lot of grief. But instead of getting back to sleep after the tylenol, he fussed and fussed and nothing I could do could get him to go back to sleep. At about 1:45 I went ahead and gave him his first dose of Zantac in about 30 hrs. and he went to sleep shortly after that - enough time for it to work. This morning sitting in his high chair at breakfast he gave a solidly wet burp. It's not over yet.

I'm painfully exhausted, and this being a new blog I have no readers yet (if I ever will - there are some truly witty, laugh-out-loud funny mama blogs out there), and I don't want to whine to friends about how exhausted I am right now, but I'm on the verge of tears. It's the accumulated sleep deprivation thing, and it's the beginning of a day needing to be patient, gentle and attentive to my uncomfortable trooper of a cub, which takes some energy, and also being able to multi-task and deal with clients because today's my "off" day, meaning the nanny doesn't come so I'm home with the cub, theoretically not working, but the business world doesn't take Fridays off, so I end up still needing to be available anyway.

I really wanted to be done with the Zantac. I was fantasizing about going to bed every night at 9 again, like way back in the day, instead of having to stay up to give the cub his evening dose.

Working Mom

2006-05-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

What a reediculously redundant phrase. What mom isn't working? Sometimes I get so fed up with all of the advice and judgments - good and bad - about whether or not mothers should "go back to work". I still go around with the feeling that I have to justify, defend, and explain myself. To God, my mom, my clients, co-workers, strangers at the grocery store. Sometimes I'll jokingly refer to myself as "bad mom" - telling a friend how I accidently clobbered the cub with my Target bags when I was introducing myself to the prospective new nanny, for example. But I know I'm just playing with the deep fear that I might, in fact, be a bad mom. I think I'm a pretty good mom, but then there's that lurking, nagging, hard-wired self-doubt, which is the grain of truth that makes the joking funny.

Another one for the bad mom archives: I learned two more foods not to give to a 13-month-old tonight. Polenta and creamed spinach. The polenta might work after it's really set, and then cut into pieces and fried in the skillet to reheat. It wasn't set enough tonight, and wound up in the cub's hair, nose, eyes, ears, all over the hands and arms. He was very unpleased. Couldn't get rid of the stuff, and everything he touched became covered with it, including himself. Little King Midas with corn meal. And the spinach - well, it was just plain deadly. He's eaten spinach before, but just on it's own, cooked and thoroughly chopped, and flavored with some goat cheese or a dab of butter and lemon juice. He usually likes it alright. So I thought we'd advance to creamed spinach. I was very proud of my lower fat version, with diced red bell peppers and mushrooms, built a roux with whole milk instead of using a lot of cream, added a bit of grated sharp cheddar for flavor zing, and it was darn good. But I didn't chop up the leaves like I should have before I put them in, and so I gave my child what was essentially large, slippery, clumps that he couldn't easily chew to eat. What was I thinking??!!! So, dinner was sort of a disaster. I had to take him out of the chair to hug and comfort him and apologize when he had to struggle with a clump of spinach that really scared him/pissed him off royally, and he was in no mood to get back into mommy's chair of torture to eat any more, so I had to hold a little tray of peach pieces and bits of veggie burger in my lap and let him eat standing up holding onto my knees (as he isn't really walking or standing without holding onto something yet.) The dog was having such a feast that I had to lock him up in our bathroom for a little peace. I have been told that once the cub starts walking, he will refuse to eat sitting in the high chair and will just need to get up and move around during meals. This will be a boon for the dog. He'll think he's died and gone to heaven except that I still won't let him sleep on the chenille sofa.