Selfish Saturday: greeting August with arms wide open

On the basis that it's hard to recieve blessings with your body closed to them, I'm looking at this Selfish Saturday from the perspective of body language.

And of course, by now, we all know that they're not entirely selfish, since if I was all selfish, I wouldn't be telling you, now would I?

So let me start off by pointing out that I want to win my standards. Why is it that the Fluff Friday over at the Cloth Diaper Whisperer and Feed Your Stash Friday from Cloth Diaper Blog seem like if you can win them, then you've made the bigtime? Call me crazy, but it does feel that way to me.

So, I'd LOVE to win this week's Feed Your stash Friday, 3 BumGenius AIOs and Babylegs, and you know I'm a sucker for babylegs. Can you say Ribbit, Clementine, and Moonbeam? Oh, and can you say Sweet Greens? I can.

Then, The Cloth Diaper Whisperer is giving away some Thirsties this week for Fluff Friday 40, and you know I am kinda parched for some Thirsties: a duo wrap, a fitted, and an AIO. How cool is that?

There is a Smartipants giveaway going on over at Snellings Stories, and I know Snapdragon would LOVE to have him another Smartipants. They're currently Spouse's favorite of all the various diapers we use. He likes that the snaps are super strong and he doesn't have to unstuff them. He's also a sucker for the versatility of a one size diaper. I also love how cute they are, how they don't leak, and how snugly they fit in the legs.

There is also a Smartipants giveaway going on at The Centsible Sawyer, and haven't I already mentioned that Spouse likes those best?

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if I were to win the Kissaluvs Marvel and Wet& Go Bag from Look What Mom Found... and Dad Too! Snapdragon LOVES the Kissaluvs Marvel that he already has, and it's so lonely in the drier all by it's self!

Fluffy Filk: An Ode to Rockin' Green

Rockin' Green, Rockin' Green, gets your fluffies really clean, Rockin' Green...

When hear that you know what, and you've got smelly stinky butt, Rockin' Green...

When your diaper's really smelly and you don't want diaper helly, Rockin' Green...

If your skin is prone to fits, but you need clean that never quits, Rockin' Green.

Phosphate free.

Sounds good to me.

Rockin' Green, Rockin' Green, gets your fluffies really clean, Rockin' Green...

Want some detergent that smells good, better than most food, Rockin' Green...

If you don't want to break out, but want the poo stains to come out, Rockin' Green...

If your water's wicked hard, take a note from this here bard, Rockin' Green.

Not that I mean to brag,

Comes in a spiffy bag.

Rockin' Green, Rockin' Green, gets your fluffies really clean, Rockin' Green!

Yes, I am feeling intirely too silly for words at the moment, but I'm excited about all the Rockin' Green, and expecting some Cherry Lemonade Rockin' Green in the mail, which is good, because I'm now completely out of the Vanilla Buttercream...

Twelve Week Update

We are twelve weeks in.
In the last twelve weeks Snapdragon has gone from hardly having the energy to look around to staring at anything and everything with a great deal of concentration.

He likes to watch the cats or daddy walk through the room and has got the whole turning of the head to see where they disappeared to thing down pretty well now.

Today he discovered grass in the garden. He was quite fascinated with it. It was not only green, but it stuck up out of the under him hard surface, moved when the great invisible pushed on him, and even came with it's own smell.

Quite the interesting specimen for study.

At twelve whole great big weeks old Snapdragon still does not believe in the inherent goodness of naps, but has developed a certain affinity for playing "mimick that vowel sound." He likes this game so much that he continues to babble for quite a while after the adult or child involved in the game has stopped so much making vowel sounds and has rather moved on to greater linguistic feats, such as asking questions which Snapdragon loves to answer.

At twelve weeks he is still wearing his fluffies with pride. No, mommy hasn't gotten tired of washing them, drying them, folding them, and taking numerous pictures of him wearing them. Snapdragon suspects that his mommy might be a tad obsessed with his fluffies, but only has the fact that she only puts clothes on him if it's too cold to go around in just the fluffy.

At twelve weeks Snapdragon has graduated from the cradle carry in his pouch sling to riding tummy to tummy in it. He prefers the view options this affords him.

At twelve weeks in Snapdragon is beginning to enjoy carrides more and more, no longer screaming every time he straps into his carseat, but only most of the times.

At twelve weeks, Snapdragon has discovered the art of sucking on his thumb. This does confuse mommy a bit when trying to determine whether or not he's hungry. This brings me to one of my points of pride.

At twelve weeks in, Snapdragon is still an exclusively breastfed baby.

So it's twelve weeks in, and all is well.

What I Wish I Knew Then

I wish I'd known how cute they could be...
When I think back on all the things I didn't know when I first started cloth diapering, I feel a little sorry for myself.

Poor deluded, ignorant, living in the dark ages me. How young and naive I was. It was 1999 and Mongoosine was going to be a mostly sustainable baby if it killed me, and so, living at home and with the help of my mother who cloth diapered me, we were going to ressurect my old cloth diapers and a few more prefolds and flats, some nine pair of plastic pants (smalls, mediums, and larges) 8 diaperpinswhich eventually grew into 12, some 9 of which I still occasionally come across, five of which are about 18" away at the moment, four of them bedecked with teal and green turtles, hooked to the lone white one. The other four are floating around here somewhere, pink and blue Winnie the Pooh honey pot pins.

We had a wetpail in the laundry room and handrinsed the poopy diapers in the toilet. That water was always bitingly cold. When the diapers began to get stinky smelly it was vinegar in the wet pail's water and bleach in the hot wash. Mongoosine's diapers were then hung on the line. The plastic pants were washed like dishes with lemon joy and hung out with the diapers.

If I could travel back in time and give myself just ONE piece of advise, well, lets keep this to diapering advice, shall we? My one piece of diapering advise would have been a diaper sprayer. I don't even know if they existed back in '99, but if they hadn't, it's not like a person couldn't have figured that one out on their own. Not exactly the height of technology, just the brilliance of application. No more hands sore, chapped, and cracking from being plunged into icy cold toilet basins and then washed with Lava soap in the hottest water I could stand. No ma'am. Diaper Sprayer.

Let's all say it again. Diaper Sprayer.

Okay.

The second piece of advise I'd have given myself would be to look into these marvelous things called wrapping covers. Imagine, a world without nasty redmarks on my baby's legs from the gimpy (and less than adorable) plastic pants.

By the way, they say they've come a long way with plastic pants. That they're new and improved wth less abrasive elastic and higher quality material for the outer.

It's a lie. They still are decades behind, and not in the delightfully old school way that wool soakers and longies are behind the times. No, they're antiquated and kinda unpleasant. Sure, I still have 6 of them for those OMG-I'm-so-tired-I-could-die days when I get more than one diaperchange behind on the laundry and it's prefold and plastic pants or free-bird. But in general, plastic pants are my absolute last choice in grabbing a cloth diapering solution to my baby's bottom's needs.

I wish I'd known about AIOs, fitteds, covers, pockets, OS pockets and the wonderful absorbancy of materials like bamboo, hemp and microfiber. Truth be told, I'm not exactly sure how long microfiber has been around, and I don't think that bamboo and hemp were being readily used back then either. I might be misinformed. I haven't studied the history of cloth diapering innovations AT ALL, so feel free to correct me, but frankly, I wish that I'd known about these things.

This time, with Snapdragon, I have a different list of things I wish I had known.

I wish I'd known that ebay diapers (sunbaby) are apt to have snapfail and elastic that just isn't quite as snug as a girl would like. I wish I'd known how great a variety of clothdiapers were out there and to go for a wider variety up front so as to not get into a position of having only 60% of the stash which my mother bought me (and don't get me wrong, I'm entirely grateful and without his Sunbaby diapers, I can't imagine how we'd make this cloth diapering thing work!) be usable at any rise adjustment, or, even less.

I wish someone had told me about newborn sized diapers that have a litle snap down part to not irritate the cord stump so we could have started with cloth from change one instead of impatiently trying to wait for that nasty cord to fall off.

I'd also have told myself not to get too terribly attached to the idea of one size. Yes, I love one size and have nothing to say against them, but his es baby QD AIO (quick drying) is divine, and his Berry Plush AIO (which also has a snap in soaker and can be used as a cover) make me squee with delight for their wonderful trimness and how precise the fit is. Once I had heard of the longterm versatility of one size, I couldn't imagine why anyone would want sized diapers, but now I totally get it, and I so wish I'd known it sooner!

Lastly, I wish I'd known about the online shops like Kelly's Closet and their registry options a few weeks/months before my baby shower, because lets face it, a Rumparooz and a Dream Eze would make far finer shower gifts than bibs and an exerssaucer.

What do you wish you'd known when you first started cloth diapering?

For more great Cloth Diaper Carnival posts, don't forget to go to:

Prayer to St. Jude, for Stellan

Oh glorious apostle St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the name of the traitor who delivered thy beloved Master into the hands of His enemies has caused thee to be forgotten by many, but the Church honors and invokes thee universally as the patron of hopeless cases--of things despaired of. Pray for Stellan who is so unwell; make use, I implore thee, of that particular privilege accorded thee of bringing visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to Stellan's assistance in this great need, that Stellan may receive the consolations and succor of heaven in all Stellan's necessities, tribulations and sufferings, particularly that this baby may be healed through God's grace and the skill of his doctors, and that he may bless God with thee and all the elect throughout eternity. I promise thee, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, and I will never cease to honor thee as my special and powerful patron, and to do all in my power to encourage devotion to thee. Amen

To learn more about Stellan, follow @MckMama on twitter and see http://www.mycharmingkids.net
My apologies if I have the URL wrong as I am writing it from memory, away from my computer.

Go Read This.

A photo essay on Breastfeeding, and how offensive it is.

Selfish Saturday: the early edition

So yeah, it's still Friday, but its so not appropriate to keep adding weekly giveaways to the same "I want to win it so bad I can taste it" post as their week prior predecessors. Right?

So first and foremost, I would LOVE to win this weeks Fluff Friday giveaway, of not one but TWO GroBaby shell sets. Snapdragon has glorious Blackberry GroBaby diaper, and not only does he love it, but I love it. Furthermore, the absorbant goodness would be far less lonely spending extra time hangin' out or in the drier if it weren't all by itself, well, with a towel, but you kow what I mean.

Did I mention I heart GroBaby? The peeps over at The Natural Baby Company know their fluff.

The Cloth Diaper Blog is having a giveaway this week for two Kissaluvs Marvels. No, in the spirit of full disclosure, Snapdragon already has the zoo blue one, but he likes it's softness and so do I. Granted, we seriously need more than just one diaper cover to go over the top of it and his other fitted, he'd still love to have this, and then the one he does have wouldn't feel so darn lonely in the drier.

A Giveaway Every Day is giving away a lagoon blue Plush Pad by Ah Goo Baby, and I'm sure you recall that I want one of those too. So yeah, all your plush pad should belong to me. K? Thx.

I'd love to win the BumGenius giveaway being hosted over at Dirty Diaper Laundry. We have one BG, and I have to say, the thing holds in all sorts of poosplosions like it's a matter of national security.

The same site has a giveaway for Teething Bling going on right now, and I really would love some of that, because the drool coming out of this kid's mouth tells me that he coulduse some teething bling, and lets face it, having your teether around mommy's neck is infinitely more convenient than having it somewhere in a diaperbag or on the floor!

Dirty Diaper Laundry is also giving away a Mommy Necklace, and these, I read, are great for nursing distractable babies, and well... distractable!baby, I haz wun.

There's also a FuzziBunz giveaway I wouldn't mind winning in the least at Baby Good Buys.

Organic Girl has some truly excellent giveaways going on at the moment. She's offering the winner of one their choice of either a GroBaby or an AMP Duo One Size.

Then she has another giveaway, sponsored by Cuddlebunz Boutique, where the winner gets to choose between a GroBaby, HautPocket, Bumwear, or Pocket Change, and the hardest part will be picking!

JessieKaitlin, Mama to the littlest lovebug, is giving away a SweetPea Diaper on her blog too!

Life More Simply is having a HUGE cloth diaper giveaway extravaganza at the moment, and to be honest, I would like to win nearly all of it, though I'm particularly enamored of the woolies. Really want to try some wool out on Snapdragon's bottom. I love it because it's not a heavily processed or unnatural material, and therefore is so much greener than PUL. Plus, they're reusable between cleanings, which further reduces environmental impact. None of that nasty washing machine waste! So head on over there to check out giveaways for the following:

Mumtaz Creations Wool Diaper Cover

Fuzzibunz OS

Knickernappies OS

Snappis

Wahmies OS

Monkey Bizness Fitted Diaper

Monkey Foot Designs Wetbag

Silicone Water Guard

Baby Legs

Fleece Shorties

Poverty.Jane Diaper set

Newly Wed, Newly Bred is giving away a Funky Diaper Co. Diaper, and I just think the skulls are adorable in a Day of the Dead kinda way. Squee! So cute.

"Because" Healthcare

Do you remember being young and full of questions? Remember pestering your parents with them until they turned to the answer "Because I said so," and then you'd be like "by why?"
I kinda feel that way about our children's healthcare.
We're living in a day and age of "because I said so" treatments, procedures, and medications. When was the last time your doctor explained just what the exact reason your blood pressure was high and just how that pricey perscription (whose name also happens to be on the pen she signed said perscription with) works?
No. Your blood pressure is high, so take this. Why? Because.
And when did they ever sit you down to explain just why that medication your on says to avoid prolonged sun exposure? They just expect you to accept that you have to, because. No, they can't inform you as to whether it causes rashes, increased intensity of sunburn, or as in some cases, magnifies the effects of the medication much like alcohol. By treating health decisions on a "because" basis, patients are robbed of their own ability to make rational decisions for themselves. Its degrading, because it assumes we are stupid.
Its the same way with vaccinations.
When was the last time your conversation with your child's pediatrician was more than "looks like Millicent's due for her next round of shots." And if you ask why, you get the medical version of "because."
Show me the studies which prove its safe, don't just brush me off with "school system requirements." That, my friends, is a load of bull.
Show me, through unbiased studies with clear and unquestionable results, that I need to subject my child to injections of toxins. Don"t brush me off like an over-inquisitive five year old who wants to know why you're shining that light in his ears.
If everything the medical world is pushing on us is so very beneficial, then why don't they go out of their way to educate us? Why do they not supply us with information, accessible, easy to comprehend information, until we're begging them to say "because?" Because they don't think we'll like the answers.
As always, if I'm wrong, then please, please, please prove me wrong.
Educate people so they can make informed decisions, not just about vaccines, but about medicines, tests, procedures, and even multi vitamins. A school requirement is not a reason to make a health decision. Health is a reason to make a health decision.

We Want You to Breastfeed, Honestly, We Do.

What's the old truism? If someone uses words like "honestly" a lot, than they're probably being anything but.

Well, that's kind of how I'm feeling about the very helpful people from the WIC office.

Oh, yeah, by the way, we're broke. I get WIC, and no, this isn't an invitation to lecture me about your tax dollars. We've paid quite a few of those ourselves before health!fail coupled with economy!fail put us in this position.

So the kindly helpful people at the WIC office.

Their literature says things like "Breast is Best" and all other sorts of glib pro-breastfeeding mantras decorate their walls. They even make a point of saying "feel free to nurse him" when a baby starts fussing during an appointment or in the lobby. They even give nursing moms food so that they can keep on eating, which is kinda crucial to the whole making milk for babies thing.

BUT, I walked out of my last WIC appointment kinda flabergasted at the anti-breastfeeding message they were accidentally sending.

They make it easy to quit.

Too easy.

I should have counted, but failed to, the numerous instances in which they pointed out that even though I'd made the desicion to breastfeed and things were going smoothly, should I decide to change my mind at any time, I just needed to bring in the vouchers printed "Congratulations on your continued breastfeeding success" and exchange them for formula coupons.

What?

I get that its wonderful that for women who for one reason or another feel they can't continue to breastfeed, or breastfeed exclusively, that there is an option available which insures that their infants won't starve, but come on!

First of all, the wording on the vouchers implies that breastfeeding is some sort of extra-credit activity and it's pat on the back worthy. It implies that success at breastfeeding is extraordinary and unusual. It implies that success is something special and therefore not the norm. Instead of encouraging and supporting, it reads like "you're doing well, and we're surprised." It almost reads like the sort of slogan you'd expect to hear at a meeting aimed at helping people overcome their addictions. "Congratulations on your continued sobriety success," as though holding one's breath against a relapse.

Further, these vouchers make it so simple. All you have to do is go back, without an appointment, and exchange them. Why not make it a little harder? I don't want it to be impossible or so complicated that mothers would rather starve their children until the next appointment than go to the hassle of utilizing the formula if they really do hit a wall, but if it were just a touch more labor intensive to quit, maybe women would try harder not to.

I can't tell you how many times they pointed this out to me, but after about five times, it began to feel like the kind woman behind the desk wanted me to cave and say "yes, already, it really is too much for me, please give us some formula!"

Maybe it was just the way she kept referencing reasons a person might want to switch to formula. "If it gets to be too much," "If you have any troubles like sorenes." I wanted to scream "STOP GIVING ME REASONS TO WANT TO QUIT!"

I was most disturbed because, having been the woman who did quit breastfeeding my first, I remember how comforting it was that everyone around me made it too easy to stop. I wasn't as committed last time as I am this time, and so I embraced their reassurances that it was okay, and I held tight to the belief that the support network around me would have made it harder to quit if quitting was really a bad idea.

Well, guess what, folks, quitting is and was a bad idea.

The human animal was intended to be raised on human milk. In much the same way that baby mice do not drink cat milk, and puppies do not drink gorilla milk, humans were not meant to drink cows milk, and were certainly not intended to drink a chemical soup designed in a laboratory and mass produced in China for convenience sake.

No. Humans were made to drink human milk. Studies have time and time shown that being breastfed, and not just drinking breast milk, is the best and healthiest way for an infant to feed. So why then do doctors offices and the WIC office go out of their way to make it so damned easy to quit?

Because, honestly, for one reason or another, they'd prefer it if you didn't. If that's not the case, then please, oh please, let them prove me wrong through their actions, and not their lofty protestations.

Boycott Worthy

So I pushed both of my children out of my own body, and as a consequence, I love them as my own. That said, when you hear language thrown casually around like "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own," it's time to take notice of the message that's being sent.

My father adopted my brother, and looking back, yes there were differences in how we were treated, but I really and truly believe it isn't an issue of love, it's a difference of age, gender, and personality. I know a lot of people who have adopted and many of them have genetic children too, and I have never seen an instance of loving one or the other be an issue. No, it turns out that parents love their kids as a general rule, and people who would have trouble loving an adopted child pretty much don't think about adopting in the first place.

So with this ridiculous horror flick coming out from Warner Brothers, "Orphan," I just want to take a moment to voice my disgust.

First of all, most people have better taste than to go waste their money on a poorly written movie in the first place, but that doesn't mean that we don't see the previews on television or watch the trailers while getting ready to watch better flims than this one. The problem therein is that the negative message is still being sent. A family adopts a girl from an orphanage and jeapordizes their own sweet and perfect fair haired angels.

Having known people who were bounce from foster home to foster home all the while praying for an adoptive home, this really upset me. There are already enough forces out there saying "don't adopt an older child, they have issues and are too much work." Movie makers really don't need to be hopping on that bandwagon too!

On another level, this movie is further stigmatizing a group of kids who really don't need it. It's hard enough to be young, but by painting an adpoted child as a psychotic menace and plastering that representation all over the social landscape through a media form already popular with the very demographic most likely to get the wrong idea about adoption and to tease adoptees, well, it's down right irresponsible.

Shame on you Warner Brothers. Shame on Dark Castle Entertainment. Shame on Appian Way.

It is cruel and irresponsible of you single out a population with enough social pressures to deal with and further stigmatize them.

Shame on you.

So, I'm asking you, dear readers, all 29 of you, not to see this film. Do not pay your money to perpetuate irresponsible filmmaking and negative social messages.

Tell your friends not to see this film.

Tell Warner Brothers that you're not seeing this film and why. Tell them that throwing around phrases that question an adoptive parent's ability to love their adoptive child as their own is hurtful to adpotive parents and children everywhere.

Be really ballsy. Tell Warner Brothers that you won't see ANY of their movies until they alter such prejorative and damaging language. Then follow through.

Tell Warner Brothers to grow a conscience.

Then, learn more about adoption.

There is no greater tool with which to fight ignorance than information.

Love & Light.

Wordless Wednesday: Center of the Universe

More Wordless Wednesday

Something Wicked This Way Comes

I feel another comin' on.

Moodswings.

I have them.

One minute I'm on top of the world, the next I'm crying an wondering if there's a point to living at all. Or I go from placid to so angry I can feel the heat pouring off of me. Don't even get me started on that little beastie called "irritation," or it's big brother "frustration."

I get mad, sad, angry, frustrated, irritated, feel fury that makes me rage and pull at my hair.

I'm sure you have your moments too.

Like when someone changes your clothdiapers laundry and doesn't bother to say "hey, does all this go in the dryer?" Or when your ten year old picks up your ocarana and decides to spend the whole day trilling really high pitched notes, making your teeth itch. Or when you go to grab that last coveted piece of chocolate that you've been hiding only to find that your spouse raided your chocolate stash. That one's serious. It almost engendered txt messages with words like "divorce lawyer."

Okay, maybe lately, being less than 3 months post-partum, I'm still a little hormonally over the edge with the moody.

That said, more and more, the one thing that keeps me in check, the one thing that keeps me somewhat balanced, is this little nursling of mine.

Spouse jokes that I had him to keep me sane.

I joke that he looks like the mailman.

Somehow he thinks my joke is far less funny than his.

Either way, on some level, he's right.

I can't imagine these awful mood swings if they weren't soothed by milk drunk smiles and midnight snuggles. I don't know how I'd buoy my spirits anymore without toothless smiles and fluffy butt. I don't know how I'd remember hope without wordless babbling and feeling his breathing while wearing him in his sling.

Snapdragon is my own personal Prozac, and I am thankful for and to him each and every day.

He keeps me just enough inside the box that everything might be okay after all.

What keeps you balanced?

Body After Baby Challenge - Fit By Labor Day 2

Well, we're a week in, and I don't think I'm even a pound down. Still my flabby old too-big-for-my-pre-pregnancy-britches self.

I've been eating a little better. More salads with less salad dressing. I've been trying to be aware of my emotional eating and have been seeking other outlets than the inlet that is my mouth.

I've been walking til my feet want to trade me in nifty prizes instead of a crazy lady who walks them to death. But, I'm not getting very far with all of this. Spending a lot of time babysitting instead of doing the things i'd otherwise be doing doesn't help all that much.

But I have new motivation.

My daughter's annual checkup was today. She's ten years old and has gained at a nice normal rate on the growth chart, but she's skyrocketed on the weight chart. So much so that her doctor was talking to her about weight management techniques like cutting back on junkfood one junk at a time, increasing movement, decreasing television, and possibly considering portion reassessment if just cutting back junk and moving the junk in her trunk doesn't seem to be doing anything.

I could have cried then and there. Sure, I know she's not skinny, yes she's bigger than I was, but the child is ten years old and it breaks my heart that she's already fighting this weight beastie. So I NEED to move more. I NEED to eat better. This isn't about me anymore. This is about my one and only babygirldoll. My Mongoosine. And she deserves to be able to look at her mother and expect something other than to grow up to be, at best, overweight.

Mommy!Fail

So this is me, feeling like the craptastic mama supreme.
Shortly before Snapdragon was born, my mother took in a pregnant stray cat.
No, really. She was that foolish. It wasn't even a soft or pretty cat.
In defense of this fourlegged creature which would be christened "Tiny," she was a friendly cat.
Well, as I mentioned, Tiny was with kitten, and I'm sure you all know how that happened, hanging out with some friendly Tom. Sadly, Tom wasn't the only fun guy Tiny had been hanging out with. No, she'd been hanging out with ringworm.
Now, for those of you who don't know, ringworm is a kind of fungus. Sorta like yeast. Ringworm likes to live on your skin and heals from the center out as it expands outward. It starts off looking like a pimple which blisters. So innocuous you'd be likely to ignore it until the center de-red-ified and keft you with a largening telltale ring of red. Mostly, that's what it looks like. It glows under a "blue light" I always called them black lights, but the vet says blue, so we'll go with that. If it gets on your scalp it behaves like cradle cap, causing scaly patches. Oh yeah, and your hair will break off at the contact point.I almost forgot to mention that part.
So Mongoosine loved Tiny, and no one ever thought it might be a problem that she cuddled Tiny. Then she started cuddeling the kittens when they were born. No one wondered why Tiny had a bald spot. She'd been a stray and cats who scratch at wounds tend to have bald spots too.
Then no one wondered too hard at why the kitens had bald patches. We figured that Tiny, being a slightly neurotic new mamakitty was probably over cleaning.
But then Mongoosine got the first of what would collectively come to be known of as "the spots." Her first spot if "Scourge" was showing and identifiable by Mother's day.
Since then we have been waging war against the scourge. She has been fighting it like mad and she hasn't been alone. My mother, father, spouse, aunt, iuncle, their three children, and my nephew have all contracted the scourge. Mongoosine was the only one who was showing signs of improvement. As a matter of fact, this weekend she was declared scourge free and the interaction with Snapdragon interdiction was lifted.
Today she was feeling happy and having fun with her grandmother. They put sun-in in her hairand she played outside. Later this evening, as my mother was admiring the highlights from across the room she saw something funny. She called Mongoosine over. It was something whitish. My mother was confused.
Alas, it was her scalp where her hair had broken and fallen off leaving a large bald spot.apparently, we mised a spot.
When she called, I used explatives best not typed. I am very unhappy. I am angry, I am hurt, and I don't know how to make this stop. But I also feel terribly guilty that I've been so wrapped up in Snapdragon, I didn't realize Mongoosine had scourge on her head before it became something which although she will claim doesn't bother her, is ultimately stigmatizing for a tween.
This was total mommy fail on so many levels, starting when my mommy let mommy cat in to start with.

Selfish Saturday

Allright, I'm informing you, all 29 of you who sometimes like to read my blog, that I'm officially starting my "selfish saturday" post, where I will list all the things that I really want to win. Some of them I really really want to win. And feel free to check back if you want to follow what I'm entering, because the list is liable to grow between now and next weekend!

I would love to win the GroBaby Shell set, Tiny Bubbles soap, and Wet Bag from the Cloth Diaper Blog. That'd be sweet. I have a Blackberry GroBaby and I LOVE it, and I'm going to be trying Tiny Bubbles soon, but I don't have a wet bag, and so this would be just great to win. I admit it, I love their Feed Your Stash Friday giveaways, even though I've never won one.

I also want to win this weeks Fluff Friday giveaway of not one, not two, but THREE Smartipants diapers. Head on over to The Cloth Diaper Whisperer to check that out.

For theLove of Baby is giving away a Diaper Daisy gift certificate. This would be just awesome to win because it would let me choose the perfect item/s to compliment our current stash, and give me a chance to enjoy the coolness that is Diaper Daisy's site. Its always especially fun to get to utilize the services of your tweeple! For Love of Baby is also hosting a Bummas coth wipes giveaway. I love the Wild Ones. That'd be awesome since we're down a few wipes after Mommy!Fail in leaving the wipes case at the doctor's office. We are going back today for a Mongoosine appointment, and I hope that they have it.

Born2Impress has a FuzziBunz giveaway going on, and I really want to try FuzziBunz. I've heard nothing but good about them, and Snapdragon is all about new experiences. They also have a giveaway for a New Native pouch sling, and I do so love wearing Snapdragon, and truth be told, the sling I made him is just a touch smaller than it should have been. I'd also like to win the Glamourmom nursing tank giveaway. It would so help me to rebuild a post baby wardrobe, which is something that I am so failing at. Mongoosine would also love it if I won the OnePearl giveaway. Really, everything isn't just about Snapdragon. Mongoosine would also love it if I won the Build-a-Bear giftcard giveaway Born2Impress is currently hosting.

Momma Molly has a Fuzzibunz giveaway going on on her blog. Did I mention that I really want to try Fuzzibunz? Or rather, that I want Snapdragon to? Well, I do.

The Mom Buzz is giving away an Urban Fluff Deluxe AIO. These are all kinds of cute, and I have my eye on the chocolate brown with lime lining, personally.

Another of my friends over at Our Life Upstate is having a giveaway for a Purple Ducks Diaper, and they're so cute! I swear, the mama behind Purple Ducks is a straight up miracle worker with diapers, and if you have a diaper dream, she's totally the one who can fulfil it.

Ever since I learned about the wonders of diaper covers and their nifty multi-use snazzitude, I have wanted to have more than just the one that taught me to love. So, I'd love to win the Thirsties Duo being given away from Diaper Style on their Facebook page.

I also am hoping to win a Smart Mom Teething Bling Necklace that my friend Jess is giving away on Monkey Toes Reviews & Giveaways.

I would be delighted to win the Mod Mom pouch sling from Barefoot Mommies.

I would also love to win Mkokopelli's Organic Moby Wrap giveaway. Can you tell I heart babywearing? Snapdragon does too, and I've never tried a wrap. I like the way they look like they would balance his weight more evenly than my pouch.

I could serioiusly use the Ah Goo Baby Plush Pad that Two of a kind, working on a full house is giving away. I like to have snapdragon sleep on a changing pad to protect the mattress, and this would be nice to have. That, and we only have a travel sized changing pad anyway, and it's just kinda tiny.

I also would love to win this giveaway for a Lil' Miss Diva dress for Mongoosine. Sometimes I think she feels left out, and she hasn't had a new dress in, gosh, I can't even remember how long its been. A year or so?

essential to diapering- essential saltes baby

Do you remember when I blogged about Random Acts of Kindness? Well, this right here is what I was talking about. When Snapdragon was a tiny baby, only some 11 lbs and very new to the world, one of my "twitter pals," as Mongoosine loves calling them, Christine, (@es_baby) sent him a fluffy. Now, I want to be very clear about the fact that she sent it as a gift for Snapdragon, and not as a "hey, plug my awesomehood" bribe. Granted, I am kinda a fluffy whore, so I'd have been all about that too, but she didn't. That, and I kinda like having the street-cred that you guys all know that if I say "hey, this is great" I mean "hey, this is great," and if I say "hey, this looks great and here's what folk say," it's because I don't yet know and I'm trying to give you the best info I have.

Got it?

So, now let me continue.

My nephew decided he had to be in the picture too. :-)

I heart Snapdragon's esbaby jungle fluffy. Yes, Mongoosine named diaper. Why did she name the diaper? Because it's that cute!

It has a PUL lining, and a layer of flannel over that which is covered in jungle animals. Now before you say "but giraffes lions and zebras are animals of the savanah," let me point out that Mongoosine has declared them jungle animals and so jungle animals they are.

I was really concerned that the hemp inserts didn't look like they'd hold very much when I first got it, and it looked so tiny. Snapdragon mostly wears OS pocket diapers, so this sized diaper just seemed ridiculously small. Well, it was a size small, so that shouldn't have surprised me. What did surprise me was that it fit him so well. At this point it's getting snug because he's a ginormo baby, weighing in at over 14lbs today, but the legs fit so perfectly, frankly, it's one of my favorites.

That said, it was a learning experience. It turns out that being accustomed to wash and go microfiber, I wasn't yet prepared to venture into the realm of hemp, bamboo, or even organic cotton for that matter. Now, Snapdragon's jungle fluffy is one of the esbaby QDAIO (quick dry all-in-one) diapers. That means the soaker snaps into the body of the diaper, which is lined in a nice fluffy fleece, but it snaps out without having to do the icky poopy pocket fishing that a truly craptastic bowel movement leads to. Thank goodness. And it really is quick drying. The layers of the soaker are sewn together down the middle as opposed to around the edges so that there is more surface area, thus reducing drying time.

Back to the learning experience. With the soaker snapped in place, I couldn't resist just puting it straight on him. I've been sewing for 20 years and figured she'd surely washed all the materials before making the diaper and so surely there weren't any nasty chemicals on it that I needed to worry about. Well, it fit cutely, but within half an hour it was leaking all over the place. I was a little disheartened.

Did I mention that microfiber is wash and go? It never occurred t me that I needed to prep the soaker. Doh!

Well, after I'd washed it a few times it quickly became my absolute favorite. It absorbs like nobody's business, looks cute as can be, and fits so well that he can wear sizes intended for babies his size instead of having to size up to account for fluffy butt! I love that his esbaby diaper means that he has a trim enough posterior that it doesn't look like someone padded his bottom like those funky undies they used to sell designed to give you back where baby had none. This diaper lets baby have just enough fluff to stay dry and just enough fluffy butt to look like a baby.

Perfect.

Beyond my immediate experience with the QDAIO diaper, there are other reasons I'm all squeeful about the awesomeness that is essential saltes baby. As I said during a recent #clothdiapers chat on twitter (Mondays at 8pm, be there or... well.. just be there, okay?) they're cloth diapers art. You can check out her etsy shop, or the essential saltes baby website. The number of outer fabric options is dizzying, and if I had to choose my favorite, I couldn't, because she has some of the most spectacular prints from some of my favorite textiles designers like Amy Butler and Alexander Henry Studios. (I'm secretly a quilting junkie.) Further, on top of the vast array (ever notice how arrays are always vast) of fabric choices, she offers a mind boggling number of different diaper styles with customizable absorbant layers so that you can find exactly the diaper you are looking for, front or side snapping, true all in one, quick dry all in one, quick dry all in two, wrapping cover, or even the "Lights Out" cover with two layers of PUL, just in case. Sound confusing? It isn't. To help you figure it out, she's compiled the best cloth diaper explanatory chart I have ever seen. The cloth diapering overview chart in and of itself makes her site more than visit worthy, and since her diapers are spectacular, you simply must go and look. I highly reccomend buying something while you're there.

Now I hear you thinking "but I only like one size diapers" or "but my baby is about to outgrow diapers so I really don't need any more." Well you should go look anyway because I keep hearing rumors (from the source even, so does that make them rumors?) that an es baby one size is in the works, and she also makes wet bags and cloth pads for mama! While you're there, check out the custom cloth wipes and adorable little doll diapers. Admit it, you'd love to diaper your little baby girl and her dolly in matching diapers. She also has a line of organics that are more than well worth a gander. See? So there is a reason for you naysayers to go have a look too.

The Perfect Child.

Having children is difficult.

We want so badly for them to be perfect.

Perfectly healthy, perfectly smart, perfectly happy.

We want others to look at our children and see their beaming perfection.

We want them to say "What a darling child. Isn't he just perfect!" or "How adorable, she's just the sweetest."

We want them to be perfect and we want that perfection to be recognized.

We want to take credit for their perfection.

"Why yes, she sleeps perfectly all night. Its because I wear her all day."

"Of course he's talking early. That's because I played music to him in the womb. Mozart."

We try not to expect too much. We try not to be too boastful. We even try not to let ourselves consciously put our kids forward to recieve undue attention, but in the end, at some point, we're all pretty guilty. That is, I'm assuming I'm not the only one who wants people to comment on how handsome my little man is riding around in his sling. And just in case you're wondering, he's quite handsome.

But here's the thing. Our children are perfectly themselves, but that's about it.

Sure, Mongoosine was born 100% couldn't be healthier, that is, after her heart restarted. But not a single "defect" on that child. She was completely coture. Unique and perfect. She wasn't the discount baby due to a backwards snap or a missed hemseam. No-sir-ee. Perfect.

When she was one she knocked a tooth out. It's replacement didn't grow in until she was about 7. So she spent years with me hoping no one realized that she had knocked it out. For a while it looked like maybe it hadn't grown in yet. Then it looked like maybe it just came out early, but I was constantly aware of it.

Then it did start to grow in, and, of all things, it grew in with a yellow stripe! But she's still my perfect little girl. My perfect little girl, with a yellow striped tooth. (Darn you tooth bud nerve damage!)

All in all, I'd never had to think about soemthing being "wrong" with my baby girl.

But then my PERFECT little boy was born. Did I mention that he's perfect? Just thought you should know that before we go any further.

i already knew he had all ten fingers and toes, and all the other appropriate bones, because the ultrasound showed them all quite clearly, so I wasn't worried about a sixth toe or horns or anything like that, and was therefore not surprised when he came out looking more or less "Perfect." Sure, he had one heck of a case of the white pimply bumps that so many newborns come with, but that was okay and to be expected. If you've ever pushed a kid out, or had it cut out, for that matter, then you know that they don't come out looking like the newborns on television.

They're wrinkly and crinkly and look a lot more like Winston Churchill or a naked chicken than anything else.

But they're PERFECT, you hear me? Perfect.

Well, it turned out that there was a very inconsequential anomoly, hydrocele. It's already starting to go down, so that's good.

I admit, I was, a little sad that he was perfect except for this one little thing.

I didn't know it was two. I'm not counting the stork bite.

And yes, it's whiny of me, but there's this other thing I found out about today.

I've been noticing that when he's sleeping, really deeply sleeping, he sometimes makes these strange high pitched barking noises when he's breathing in. It wakes me up, and so I casually mentioned it to the doctor today expecting to be told "kids make all sorts of noises. If it's not waking him up, don't worry about it."

Well, that's not what he said.

He listened to his lungs more thoroughly than I've ever seen a kid get his lungs listened to, and looked at his throat, and then showed me a windy cord like telephones had. The one hooking the lighted scope for the ears and nose.

Then he started describing the sturcture of the trachea. How it's built of rings of muscles. Then he collapsed the loops onto one another. Aparently that's what Snapdragon's airway is doing when he gets into that deeply relaxed stage of sleep where all the muscles go slack. It's collapsing.

That's right. He said my son's airway is collapsing.

Laryngomalacia. Try saying that three times fast.

It's allegedly quite common, and I'm told I shouldn't worry about it.

I don't think I'm going to be sleeping well for a while, but from what google has told me, I should go ahead and let myself sleep.

All the resources I've now read since 10:30 this morning agree with my doctor. Give him a few months, and he should be just perfect.

Tiny Bubbles

So the people over at The Natrual Baby Company are at it again.

Right now they're introducting a new cloth diapers detergent.

Why do I call it a cloth diapers detergent and not just a laundry detergent? Because quite frankly, washing your cloth diapers is both an art and a science, and your run of the mill detergent just isn't going to make you happy.

If there are softeners and fragrances, they you're running the risk of repelling moisture, which, last time I checked, was precisely the opposite of what you want your diapers to do.

Tiny Bubbles, however, is dye and fragrance free, and contains NO PHOSPHATES, which is a big deal if you care about the environment. Its also touted as being really gentle, which is great if you and your little one's cloth diapered baby bottom have sensitive skin.

The not-quite PETA but pro-animal rights side of me loves that it's not tested on animals and contains no animal by-products, because lets face it, it's just wrong, on so many levels, to be washing your laundry in the detergent equivalent of a hotdog or that weird runny sausage stuff that my brother likes to eat. Instead, its a vegan kind of laundry detergent, and I like that very much, even if all this meat talk has me craving a steak.

Now I'm going to be honest, I haven't tried it, but I plan to, and when I do I'll let you know if its really as WIN as I'm hearing it is, and I'm hoping it is, because I heart better ways to keep Snapdragon's cloth diapers clean. Lets face it, my baby's the best baby, and he deserves the best cleanest cloth diapers. :-)

I'm sure you feel precisely the same way about your baby too.

Feel free to follow the link at the bottom of this post and head over to their website and get some to try for your own laundry, and be sure to let me know how you like it too.

http://www.thenaturalbabyco.com/tiny-bubbles-p-732.html

Wordless Wednesday: It's Getting Late

More Wordless Wednesday

Body After Baby Challenge- Fit By Labor Day 1

Allright, I'm going to keep this simple because today has been a touch overwhelming.

Chasing escaped dogs, wrangling other people's children as well as my own, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off to get a way overdue Girl Scouts permission slip turned in, I'm beat and heading off to hit the hay pretty soon.

That said, I have a team! Yay! We are PURPLE!

So, to my teammates in this, my attempt to tighten up these arms of mine and be a less frightening by labor day, and hopefully manage to take off 5 lbs, I apologize for my emotional eating tonight and for enjoying an extra slice of pizza.

That said, I did go out of my way to move around instead of just sitting in a recliner while watching the boys, chased the dog myself, and made a point of staying in motion.

My acutal plan is more swimming and less cat herding, I mean babysitting, but until my nephews go home, this is where I'm at.

So I will say no to that extra cookie tomorrow. I will have the protein water instead of the rootbeer, and I will snack on something closer to its origional form than chocolate when I get home from the pool. I can do this. You can do this. We can do this.

Deep cleansing breaths. Right? I hear it helps the metabolism (I wish).

We're going to win. K? K.

For more Body After Baby and Fit By Labor Day Challenge goodness, visit MamaNotes.com

Reusing with Love

So I'm all about the whole Reduce Reuse Recycle thing.

I don't believe in buying disposable when I can buy reusable, I believe in finding ways to cut back on the amout of disposable goods I use when there isn't a readily available reusable option, and I'll recycle if I can't find a way to repurpose and reuse.

But when it comes to everyday items, things we touch and interact with each and every day of our lives, I love that once in a while we have a chance to reuse with love.

When Spouse and I got married, we didn't register for fine china because I have my grandmother's china, and we are reusing it. I love that some couples (without kids) use their china the same way everyone else uses their stonewear. I love that they don't have to double buy dishes. Similarly, my mom passed her stonewear on to me and reverted to using her sandwich glass fine china equivalent. I think it's technically called Tiara, because it's the gold color, but instead of everyone rushing out and buying duplicate dishes, we're reusing. I heart that.

My favorite chair. The zebra print one? It was my father's grandmother's chair. It's been passed down over and over again, recovered in some of the strangest fabrics (I am thinking of a particularly loud red Hawaiian print my mother used) and ics currently dressed in my favorite zebra print skirt that I hated not being able to wear anymore.

Moreover, there's this afgan. My mother's aunt made it decades ago for my grandmother, who passed it to my mother, who just this last week gave it to me. I love that every loop of her crochet hook as she made the granny squares was made with love. I love that it was made of the scrap yarn from the other crocheted goods she made to sell. I love that she was reusing to begin with. I love that each and every block of it reminds me of my childhood and growing up.

I love that I love it for its age and all the memories instead of looking at it and saying "this old thing?"

Most of my favorite things are like that.

Reused with Love.

Snapdragon: Undercover Baby

"Hello, my name is Slee, and I'm addicted to twivaways."

Just thought I'd get that out of the way, because I wouldn't have ever figured out that I <&hearts> fluffy covers.

With Mongoosine it was strictly flats and prefolds, pinned with either her pink or blue Winnie the Pooh diaper pins (yes, we had precisely four diaper pins, and never lost track of them) all stuffed into a big white balloon known as Gerber plastic pants.

So, when I found out I was pregnant with Snapdragon some ten years after the same incident with Mongoosine, I have to say, that's where my mind immediately went. When I found out that there were more modern options, I was thrilled beyond all logic. I was extatic! I was over the moon in love with the concept of this wild and crazy thing called a One Size diaper. I was tickled pink while learning this military like and seemingly unending string of alphabet soup. AIO OS, QDAI2, it goes on and on. Did you ever stop to think about the sheer volume of nomenclature involved in cloth diapering? Seriously.

I knew a lot about what I thought I wanted, and diaper covers weren't going to cut it for me. I was going to embrace all the advances and never look back. Those prefolds in the bottom drawer were going to be strictly for emergencies and overdue laundry day.

But then, like I mentioned, Twitter giveaways... well, I can't turn them down. So one late night sitting up for #clothdiapers chat, @TOTwearhouse was giving away a Berry Plush diaper, and the giveaway gods were smiling on Snapdragon, and we won. Well, it works like an AIO, only the hemp soaker in the middle snaps in and out, and when you're through using it, you can use the outer as a cover over a prefold.

Turns out, covers are WIN! I have been able to use the same ultra-cute cover through 4 changes today, two of which were pooptastic, without any leaks! Sure it makes for a fluffy butt, but I am loving this newfangled take on the way things used to be.

Snapdragon likes him some covers.

To sleep

You all know I'm a huge fan of the co-sleeping.

It's my absolute favorite to cuddle up with my little Snapdragon and slowly fall asleep, the two of us, together, where I can hear and feel his breathing.

I love the reassurance of feeling the rise and fall of his chest, the quiet little whimper when he's having what my spouse calls "kitty dreams" and knowing he's dreaming.

I love to fall asleep with my nursing nursling.

That said, sometimes, I heart his crib. Sure, it's snugly beside my bed where I can still hear his eyelilds flutter, but once in a while, when I'm that dangerously exhausted kind of tired, you know, the tired that threatens to pour out of your eyes in liquid form and has you unsure if you're going to make it all the way to any softish surface before passing out and hitting your head, the kind of tired where you nod off midsentance and can't remember who you are or why our mouth had been moving, yeah, that kind of dangerously tired, well, sometimes I'm glad that he has a completely seperate sleep surface of his own to sleep in. I'm even thankful for it. And thankful too that for a few hours a night, it doesn't even bother him.

Last night he gave me the gift of five hours of uninterrupted sleep. Five hours of uncomfortably overful, wake up in a puddle of milk, leaking like a cheap garden hose, uninterupted and blessed sleep.

Free Chocolate Friday

Yesterday I got my Free Chocolate Friday Real Chocolate Relief coupon in the mail from Mars!

I can't tell you how delightful Chocolate is, especially when you're all moody and nutty like me lately. So yes, its not healthy, green, or otherwise the type of thing a body needs to be promoting, especially during the Body After Baby Challenge, but just in case you wanna score you some Free Chocolate Love...

CHOCOLATE

Gro Baby for Growin Baby!

So sitting in the library today I came across a site saying that GroBaby was giving pre-production Blackberry shell sets to bloggers, and all I could think was SQUEE!
I have been so curious about the GroBaby line of fluffies that I had to jump on board. I really love the colors of GroBaby diapers, and I am a big fan of one-size technology. I love that it can grow with Snapdragon, who, weighing in at over 14 lbs is somewhat of an avid grower, considering that he's only 2 months old.
I also want to try these because I love the versatility of being able to reuse the shell barring a pootastrophe!
Curious? Sound nice? I sure was curious and love the sound of it, so please dear GroBaby, hook a blogger up so she can knowledgeably sing your praises!
http://www.thenaturalbabyco.com/grobaby%E2%84%A2-ic-11_16.html

Wordless Wednesday: Jester Giraffe

For more Wordless Wednesday see 5 Minutes For Mom and Wordless Wednesday

Scream it up, Kid.

Nice Huh?
Isn't that exactly what you think of when you think of a baby? Well, there's a good chance it is if you, like a lot of people in my life, are in love with the Cry It Out method. CIO sounds like a decent idea at first. Isn't the conventional wisdom that babies need to cry? They need to exercise their lungs, right? So why shouldn't I go about my merry while Snapdragon is wailing in his crib? Why should I bother with this on-demand feeding nonsense instead of a reasonable schedule that respects and preserves my needs as a liberated woman? Why shouldn't I plop him in his crib and try to catch the end of my favorite TV show?
Because I feel it's wrong.
On the surface, it does seem a little reasonable. Kids cry. Babies cry. Toddlers cry. They all cry. I even cry sometimes, and so on some level, it seemed like something to be expected. There will be crying, and you can't let the kid dominate your life.
Got it? Good.
That was my approach to Mongoosine when she was a baby. I also wasn't home a lot. I was working and going to school and she spent a lot of time with my mother. My mom had raised my brother and I and she was sure that the crying was just the way it was supposed to be, and who was I to argue with experience? She'd ran a daycare for a while and clearly knew more on the subject than I did.
I'm not saying that I never tried to meet Mongoosine's needs and just let her cry unless doing something for her suited me. Far from it. But on the whole she spent a lot of time crying herself to sleep in her crib in the evenings and afternoons.
I'm not proud of this fact, and that's not the point.
So what changed between Mongoosine and Snapdragon? Was I hijacked by a group of Attachment Parenting terrorists who brainwashed me into thinking that this moist bundle of noise that is a baby should be foremost and that his every crying whim needs to be placated?
No. Nothing nearly that sinister as babywearers with an anti-american agenda. Nothing as insidious as cloth diapering guerrillas and their co-sleeping propaganda.
It was something much smaller.
Not even the size of the head of a pin.
I had a stroke.
In the time it took me to write this blog post I went from a fully functional full time student-teacher, so close to my degree and certificate I could taste it, to a confused woman in excruciating pain who could neither maintain her consciousness reliably nor speak.
It's the speaking part that stuck the longest.
Have you ever been nearly completely incapacitated and unable to speak? Sure, I could unsteadily walk around. My hands still worked. My legs still worked, I could still think. Hell, I could even still sign like an infant, so I wasn't completely cut off from communication, but I couldn't speak, and it was terrifying.
What does this have to do with CIO?
I remember being hungry and not being able to communicate it to the "caretakers" around me. I remember being scared to death and having a panic attack when I went for my first ever MRI and they didn't bother to explain it to me. They didn't take the time to say "this is what we are going to do with you, see, here is the machine and it is only so deep, you won't be very far into it" etc. No. They pushed me in the room, had two nurses arrange me on a table strap my head down and slide me into the machine. They did tell me to hold still. They said something about it being loud.
But all I could see was the plastic walls of the MRI, and feel something at the same height hit my knees which they'd positioned awkwardly.
First of all, I am very claustrophobic. Secondly, I was having a very difficult time understanding all the various sensations while trying to cope with the fact that I couldn't talk.
My grandmother had a stroke when I was a small child. It took her decades to get to the point that she could walk again, and her speech hadn't specifically been affected. I was afraid I might not ever speak again, that I might lose the ability to walk, or worse, and being slipped into a casket sized diagnostic machine without being told what was going on wasn't helping in the least.
When they flipped it on and it started to whirr and groan, much more loudly than I had ever dreamed it would, all I could think was "what if it breaks and I'm stuck in here, unable to move, my head strapped in place, and incapable of shimmying back out?
I know I cried.
I also know that I couldn't speak to ask for some sort of reassurance. I couldn't say "please explain what is going on more precisely so that I don't have to be afraid." I couldn't ask how long the test would take. I couldn't say that it had been hours since I'd had water and I was painfully parched already. I couldn't explain that I was terrified and ask if there was some accommodation which they routinely made for claustrophobic persons. I know I'm not the only one.
So instead, in my fit I did as any good infant and started flailing my legs in full fledged panic attack meltdown.
This didn't go over well because it screwed up their test. Yes, it also meant that I had to go through this for longer, but they did come in and try to ascertain what was wrong. Turns out they have a little mirror they can use which allows you to see into the room so you can remind yourself that although your head is in a funky machine, you're really in a big room and it will be okay. That thing hitting my knees? an armature to aid in the positioning of my IV bag. Why it was on the opposite side and needed said armature is beyond me. It all seems a touch silly in retrospect, but at the time, with no sense of how long I'd be left in there, alone in a tiny enclosed space without clear understanding of what was going on, I was like an infant again, screaming alone in my crib, not sure if anyone was going to try to help me feel like the world wasn't ending.
That really changed my perspective on the crying issue.
If there are needs, real needs, and no other way to express them, then crying is apt to ensue. And just as it isn't humane to leave an adult terrified for their health and terrified of their situation, it's wrong and inhumane to leave a child in the same position.
I'm sure some of you are thinking "you survived, stop whining." But I'm going to guess that you've never, in your adult recollection, been put in a position of hunger or fear without the means to handle it yourself or convey to those around you what your needs are.

So that is why almost immediately after said picture was snapped, Snapdragon was treated to some serious cuddling and nursing. I've decided CIO isn't right for me, and therefore it can't be right for my children either.

Maybe it's the Moon Talking: Blessed and Bless-ed

As I was leaving my mother's house tonight after a grueling day of babysitting my nephews, and believe me, grueling is a gentle way of putting it, I happened to glance at her calendar long enough to read that this is the Blessing Moon.
It got me to thinking on my long drive home. Okay, it's like 20 minutes and most of it straight up I-90, but that's under construction so it feels long. But I'm thinking, Blessing Moon.
Is that like from White Christmas when Bing Crosby is singing to his lovely love interest, "When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings." If you couldn't hear the music in that, go rent it, because everyone needs a little White Christmas in July or any other month for that matter.
So are we supposed to count our Blessings? Or maybe we're supposed to bless things.
That's the problem, like love or even Love, capital L and all, blessing can be a noun or a verb. It can be the act of gifting well wishes, random acts of kindness done or received, a prayer for a friend in need, something fairies do to babies according to all my favorite bedtime stories, or even swearing- a lot.
I'm going to rule out swearing. I have never particularily attributed potty-mouth to the man on the moon, and I most certainly don't think that the intent is to swear like a sailor, although my youngest nephew did whisper a few invectives tonight which just made me giggle on the inside while feigning shock.
So that again brings me back to this fuzzy verb v noun dilemma. Am I supposed to be thankful for blessings received or actively seek to bless others?
Surely by now, seeing as you're probably a little smarter than me, you see where this is going.
It's both.
Blessing is like love. Vital and alive. Organic. You bless me, I am greatful and joyful and through recieving blessings my capacity to give is broadened because I want to share that joy. Perhaps I find a way to bless you back, perhaps I bless someone else, but blessing has a way to grow like a living thing. Just as if I love you it brightens your spirit and makes you want to spread the love, blessing is organic.
Blessing is like a mother's milk and the more it is used, the greater the stores. Blessing isn't a zero sum gain. Like the mother nursing her baby, which is in itself blessing both given and gotten, the more the baby drinks, the more there will be for it to drink. Her breasts do not dry up for over suckling but rather refill according to their usage. Blessing is like that. Each time you are blessed or bless someone, there is a greater amount of blessing to be had. Blessing is not a commodity that can be used up, leaving you bereft of blessings. Blessing is not a glass filled halfway that for each drop lost or gained, that much air is lost or gained. Blessing is the water, and then the air, and the cup and the table it sits on and each awareness of blessing expands it even further. Just as having a second child doesn't lessen the amount of love you can feel for your first because your ability to love grows and expands through its use, so does blessing.
So yes, count your blessings. Remember each and every one of them. Enumerate them like a quiet prayer. It doesn't have to be private if you're bolder than I am, but count them. I am, and this day I have many. Count them. Acknowledge them and their power to transform you into someone a little closer to the person you want to be. Conut them, and then spread them.
Be both bless-ed and bless-or.
Bright Blessings on you and yours this night.

The Shy Milch Cow

You may remember this, but I'm not too bashful about nursing in public. Whether I'm stretching the plunging V neck of a summer dress to feed Snapdragon while walking around a mall in Chicago or pulling my shirt up at the fireworks in small town Wisconsin, I don't have a problem with nursing in public. I could be a touch more discrete at times, I will give you that. I even have a gorgeous nursing cover for when I don't feel like getting a sunburn on the tatas or when I'm feeling like the creepy guy in the corner of the restaurant is enjoying watching Snapdragon eat far too much.
Sorry buddy, the girls are a bowl of porridge, so you can stop leering. Creep.
So why oh WHY is it that there is one very specific person it bothers me to nurse in front of? Why on gods green earth am I too shy to nurse Snapdragon in front of my MIL?
She nursed her first four children, so why wouldn't I feel like this is some common bond between us?
But no. I'd much rather snatch Snapdragon up and take him in my bedroom to feed him than be told that I should let him cry.
I think that's what it is.
Spoiled.
So tired of that word. Spoiled. Like a baby can go bad. Like loving your child, feeding your child, making sure their needs are met *before* the meltdown is a bad thing. Like kids are overripe pears and if we squeeze them too often they'll bruise and spoil.
So instead I get shy. I get behind-closed-doorsy about feeding times when she's around. I let him get a little more upset before I sneak off to nestle skin to skin and nurse him into that delightful milk-drunk bliss that looks so perfect and endearing on him.
I go from self assured and confident supermom with the power to make milk and satisfy small ones with the touch of my hand or a nosey nuzzle to the shy milch cow who has to hide out and worry about just how many square inches of skin might be peeking.

So here's an idea. Support the shy milch cow in your life so she doesn't feel like she has to retreat. Tell the friend of yours who is still nursing, or yourself if it's you that it's great she's feeding her baby, and wonderful that she respects her baby's needs while he's still learning to trust and doesn't quite understand yet that the discomfort and even fear will eventually end. Help her be the not-shy milch cow.

Be her own special nursing bra and support support support.

Body After Baby Challenge - a start

There is a joke. An insensitive joke, but most jokes are.
A man accidentally severs his hand in a horrifying "men in the kitchen" cooking fiasco trying to show his wife how to better carve the turkey with a never-been-used electric turkey knife. When he wakes up following the reattachment surgery, "Will I be able to play the piano?" The doctor smiles proudly, still beaming over his mad surgering skillz, "Of course you will. Give it a few weeks to heal and you'll be playing like Liberace." The man smiles. "Oh good, I always wanted to be able to play the piano."

So I am joining the Body After Baby Challenge because my "twitter pal" @MamaNotes is a good saleswoman. She tempted me, not only with piano playing, or in this case, hotness, but a chance to win something, and you all know how much of a winning stuff sheep I am. What can I say? Winning just makes me feel good, and this stands a chance at being a Win Win situation, because if I can get off my blogging posterior and lose some of this weight, that'd definitely be the best prize of all.

Now, back to the man with the reattached hand. I was not a skinny girl to start with, so to put it in those terms, I never could play the piano either. Not that I haven't done my lessons. Back in December of 2007 I weighed in around 235 lbs. That's a lot of me to love. So, when a health club was opening down the street from my house with two, count them, one two, 2 pools, my mother-in-law graciously offered to pay for my membership because she knew how much I love to swim and that it'd be good for me. Well, swim I did. As a matter of fact, by the following August, I was down to about 195 lbs and lookin' pretty good. No really, 195 lbs isn't entirely scary on a curvy girl who is nearly 5'10". (Darn you, you last quarter of an inch!) So I was looking all right and feeling great. Sure I had a ways to go to get down to the coveted size 12 170 lbs hotness that gets me hit on in the grocery store by random young men who took the sitcoms seriously and thought the produce aisle was a great place to meet women. "Hey baby, wanna see my yellow squash zucchini?"

Feel sad for me yet that 170 is my goal when it might very well be your cry-yourself-to-sleep-with-a-carton-of-Cherries-Garcia weight? It's okay, don't. A few years ago I got very sick following a mild stroke and dropped down to about 165 and was concave in places a body shouldn't be. I've learned that healthy is more important than the number.

So although I never had much of a body BEFORE baby, I'm doing this thing.

So my longterm goal:
Find a sustainable routine that will enable me to walk around at a much healthier weight and with the muscles necessary to feel good about myself. This includes a lasting less "ooh, chocolate and buttercream" approach to eating, and a more "lets get this party started" approach to movement.

My shorterm goal:
Swim at least 4 days a week. Yes, this is down from the 6 days a week that helped me lose weight last year, but I didn't have an exclusively breastfed baby last year, and my schedule was a lot more flexible.
Pretend I just had my gallbladder out and JUST SAY NO TO BUTTER!

My immediate strategy:
Today, I am going to put Snapdragon in his sling and the two of us are going for a walk. A longish walk. Then we're coming home and I'm going through the cupboards like I used to to and pulling any transfatty nonesense that I really shouldn't be eating for donation to the food pantry. Change has to start somewhere, and it's starting here. Starting now.

If you wanna get in on it too, join us over at Mama Notes and get started on the Body After Baby Challenge. You know you want to.

Watch this post for the possible upcoming appearance of my "before" picture. No promises though. That involves finding someone other than Mr. Mocky-Pants, er, I mean Spouse, to take the picture!

Disclosure:
Going into the hospital to have Snapdragon- 236 lbs
Start of Challenge- 210 lbs