Actual things that have happened this week...

No crap.


*I walked around all day with my nursing bra hanging open. Unaware. That is how much time my bra spends open.

* I shaved my legs (it was newsworthy). I did not cut myself (also newsworthy).

* My 12 year old son is texting a girl. A female. He claims she's not his girlfriend but I saw him text her a rose. Suspect. Highly suspect.

* I caught him doing push-ups. Oh. Dear. God.

* My 11 year old son got completely ready for school without any prompting. And also without pants on (inspiring my future book... Don't Forget Your Pants).

* My 15 year old daughter started drivers training. Sigh.

* I hope bald is coming back because the baby pulled out half the hair on the right side of my head.

* One of our stupid dogs attacked the other stupid dog and I almost broke my arm trying to separate them. I am not a fan of our dogs right now. Or any dogs for that matter. Or the cat. In fact, the only animals I'm feeling any good about are the fish, and one of them died. Crap.

* I had to pee (at least once a day) but the baby was in the wrap so I peed while babywearing. In fact I also swept, cooked and dusted babywearing. I would have showered babywearing if my sling was waterproof (and yes they do make those).

* I made Henry the Hoot Owl. But I had to do it with a baby on my lap which means I stabbed myself with knitting needles no less than 7 times.

* I went almost an entire day without water. I had coffee and iced tea. That's all. And they weren't even caffeinated. I didn't realize it until 9:15 pm. By then I had a headache. (I hope the Man isn't reading this or I'm busted)

* I made rice krispie treats.

* I ate rice krispie treats for breakfast.

* I ate rice krispie treats for dinner.

* I probably ate rice krispie treats for lunch but I'm not admitting it.

* One night I served the 15 year old (who had to leave for an activity before dinner was done) a plate of mexican rice, a rice krispie treat and a banana. It looked as bad as it sounds.

* I started to write a tutorial for the owl I mentioned above. I got the first two lines written. So far, that's it. It goes like this: Step One: Get some yarn. Step two: Get some size 3 knitting needles. (More on this later)

* The 11 year old told us he was learning about dictators that are "mean and crazy" also that he would like to be a dictator, but a "nice one" because he doesn't want to be shot or hung. Awesome. It's good to have dreams.

* I fell into the big curbside trash can. Like inside of it. I don't really want to talk about it.

* Did I mention the rice krispie treats?

Oh also because I've been such a good wife and mommy (or you know, because I was looking for an excuse, like I FELL IN A TRASH CAN) I bought myself this lovely book:


Isn't it lurvely?

Then someone spilled syrup on it.

Of course.

So readers... what happened to you in the last week?

Hang in folks,

j-diddle


PS I love Jane Austen. Who doesn't love Jane Austen? OK I mean what LADY doesn't love Jane Austen? If you don't love Jane Austen you should buy this book anyway because it's so purdy.

PPS It's been one the best weeks of my life.

Dinner and a show

I'm an advocate of family time. You know, time spent as a family. However your family is defined, I for one, think it's important you all sit together and connect. Whenever. Dinner seems a logical time. Right?

Right.

Our family has six people in it. If you don't count the dog and cat and bird and the tortoise and the three spiders the 10 year old keeps in his room. Coincidentally our table also seats six. (This is going to be a problem if we have another baby. Someone will have to sit on the floor. I hope it's not me.) We eat dinner together every time we are together. (Which is to say Big Kids are not with their dad). This is four nights a week. The other three nights the Hubs and Ella and myself just stare at each other trying to figure out why it's so quiet. Oh and we have a conversation about something relevant, usually. Anyway, those four nights we sit at the table together for food and conversation. Kind of.

We had a game we used to play all the time when Big Kids were still Little Kids called Hi-Lo. Each person in the family would have the floor to discuss the high and low points of their day. Presumably uninterrupted. Presumably. We went in order of youngest to oldest. This worked. For a while. Then, somewhere along the way, this game become passe' and the chaos that we now recognize as dinner ensued.

Now, I hate to have to admit that I can't keep my children under control, but I can't keep my children until control. They're just too big to be sat on.

Typically it goes something like this:

Me: Dinner is on kids. Let's go.
Boys: (stampede) Where? Where? We're STARVING.
Me: Ok good. I'm glad I cooked then. Let's eat.
15 yo: Hang on MOM I'm talking to Marissa.
Me: No. You're not talking to Marissa. Get off the phone it's time to eat. (while trying to move out the way of the starving boys who think they are going to die)
15 yo: Ugh. fine
Hubs: Ok everyone let's get at the table. (He likes to play Good Cop)

Then... We all get to the table.

15 yo: (hiding phone on lap under table, text messaging, I'm just going to guess it's Marissa)
Me: Put your phone away please.
Boys: Where are the forks? Pass the _____? Pass the _____? PASS THE _______?
Hubs: Boys, don't yell at the table please.
Ella: (sleeping in the sling on me)
Me: OK let's try to have a civilized conversation. 15 yo (of course I would be using her name here), how was your day?
15 yo: (completely unaware I exist, still looking at phone in lap)
Me: I'M GOING TO TAKE YOUR PHONE AWAY. Please put it down.
15 yo: GE-AWD MOM. OK.
Me: Don't talk to me like that please.
12 yo: OHMYGOD IF I SAID THAT TO YOU I WOULD GET IN SO MUCH TROUBLE. YOU NEVER PUNISH HER. UGH. It's not FAIR.
Ella: (stirring in the sling on me)
Me to 12 yo: That's not true. And stop yelling.
Hubs: (silently eating)
10 yo to 12 yo: STOP BEING A BABY. OH MY GOD.
Ella: (now awake and looking scared)
Me to table: Alright that's enough. Can we PUH-LEASE just eat dinner and have a conversation without anyone yelling. Let's play hi-lo (please God can't we just go back to the days of playing Hi-Lo).
10 yo: OK. My high was.... when I had recess today and I was playing tether ball and...
12 yo: (cutting off 10 yo to recite line of movie/tv show or talking in one of his comedy voices)
Hubs: (laughing at 12 yo)
Me: (giving 12 yo dirty look)
15 yo: (rolling eyes) Can I look at my phone now?
Me: (head in hands) I give up.

And no one has even eaten yet. At this point I usually have some kind of mini-mental breakdown which scares the children just enough that they are willing to stop yelling and have a conversation. I've resorted to tears a couple of times. I'm not proud of it. Don't you judge me.

Does this sound familiar at all? Please say yes.

Dear. God. Please. Say. Yes.

I'm going to keep sitting sitting at that table though. At 6 pm on any given night that's where you'll find me. Even if I have to drag them all there kicking and screaming. It's happening.

We're eating dinner. As a family.

Breastfeeding is Bestfeeding

In 100o words or less... talk about breastfeeding. Go.

This blog isn't particularly amusing or out of the ordinary. It's just something I wrote as part of my quest to not return to work (cause I really really reeeeeaaallllly don't want to). Also I should credit my Hubs who acted as Editor in Chief of this post (a new designation for him, in addition to his usual duties of being awesome).

Here goes:


As a new or expectant mother, you are filled with the best of intentions for your child. Your head is swimming with the possibilities this new life holds. And you are no doubt being bombarded with advice from friends, family and literature on how to provide your child with the best foundation for success.

What if I, a mother of four as well as a Registered Nurse specializing in maternal-child health, knew a secret that could assure you a closer, more intimate bond with your little one? What if that same secret would assure your infant an IQ of 5 or more points above average? What if the secret held myriad health benefits for both you and your child? If you are an open-minded mother in search of the best for your child, I will assume I have your attention.

The secret will save you money and keep your child from visiting the doctors office so frequently, as children often do. It will prevent a host of chronic illnesses and diseases including diabetes, leukemia, intestinal disorders, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, many childhood cancers, meningitis, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, salmonella, diarrhea and even more. It could significantly reduce your infant’s risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)?

The secret will help you lose weight and tone your uterus after childbirth, and significantly reduce your risk of cancers of the breast and reproductive organs. It requires no special equipment or products, and doesn’t require you to go anywhere or do anything special or out of the ordinary. And as the icing on the cake of benefits, the secret is ecologically aware and environmentally sound, reducing your carbon footprint and leaving the world a little cleaner than you found it. Did I happen to mention it’s also free?

Perhaps I should have said secrete instead of secret, because this simple thing you can do as a mother, that will achieve all the aforementioned benefits, is to feed your baby the milk that you yourself produce.

There is enough evidence to support that breastfeeding is, by leaps and bounds, the best way to feed your baby. In fact, breastfeeding might be more aptly named bestfeeding. And these things I mention are only the tip of the breastfeeding benefit iceberg. There are so many astounding benefits to feeding your baby in this way and not surprisingly, more are being discovered every day. This is, in part anyway, why I chose to exclusively breastfeed all four of my children from the moment of their birth until they self-weaned somewhere between 14 and 18 months.

When pregnant with my first child I made the commitment to breastfeed. I had no support from family, no friends who had breastfeeding experience that could be shared, no words of wisdom, no advice to be offered, no where to turn for help. I myself wasn’t even breastfed, nor did I know anyone who was. Bottle feeding had become the normal and accepted way to feed a baby. I questioned the notion of portion control and a one-size-fits-all scientific “formula” (pun intended) for what babies should eat. My intuition told me breastfeeding was better. I set out with my conviction, my desire to be successful, a newborn baby and two functioning breasts.

It seemed with everything in place anatomically - a healthy milk supply and a baby who needed to be fed - I’d undoubtedly be successful, presumably with little effort. I soon found this was not necessarily the case. I had a fussy newborn child with a latch issue, engorged breasts full of milk and an excruciating case of mastitis. As I quickly learned, even with all the necessary parts in place there is no guarantee breastfeeding will come easily. The natural thing doesn’t always come naturally. Like other skills in life, sometimes it must be learned. With a shelf of books, the phone number of a lactation consultant and determination for success I set about learning it. I became a sponge for knowledge and soon saw the fruits of my labor, my happy, healthy, thriving infant daughter. With relative speed breastfeeding became second nature. I found myself easily and comfortably nursing in the mall or grocery store. My determination to be successful and desire to give my child the best was indeed bearing fruit.

I subsequently took this passion and determination into my profession as a Registered Nurse caring for mothers and their newborn children and then to my community to spread the good news: It can be done! Not always effortlessly, and not without some support. But it can indeed be accomplished. And the extra effort pays off in all the ways mentioned above and more. As a community of parents we can support each other in this effort with encouragement and information, stories of successes and lessons from failures. We, as mothers, and as a culture, have the power and solemn responsibility to make choices that will positively effect the lives of our children and thus the future of our society. Feeding your baby in this natural way is the first simple step.

On being a mother...

Disclaimer: I use a curse word in this post. Twice. The word is shit. I apologize. It was for effect.

My friend Val over at Val McCormick Photography linked my blog on her facebook yesterday (I've know Val since I was a snotty preteen, btw, and so has my husband. He wasn't snotty in 7th grade though, just cute.). She suggested moms read my blog which made me think about...well, being a mom, and blogging.

Once I actually did write part of a book. It was more just a bunch of stories stuck together in what I thought might become a book someday (in the spirit of David Sedaris), but it didn't make any real sense, my rambling about whatever that wasn't really connected. The only common thread of the collection being I was a mom of 3 small children at the time and some of my days were so sitcom comical that I felt like I had to write about them (again, David Sedaris). Then one day, in true sitcom style, my computer crashed and it was all lost, because, in true sitcom style, I hadn't backed any of it up. I thought that might have been the universes way of telling me I ought not to be telling my stories to the general public. In any case, it was funny, if I do say so myself. Tales of me gardening in the nude because I was so frantic to water the tomatoes that I forgot to get dressed, of grape juice containers exploded upon white kitchen walls and freshly mopped wood, of cheerios spilled on grocery store floors with 3 crying children and other things about being a mother (PS I really love David Sedaris. You don't have to read his books but if you don't you're missing out. I'm just sayin'.).

In that light I want to tell you 10 things I wish I'd known about motherhood (you know, before I had a crying real live baby on my hands at the ripe ol' age of 20). Some of them I learned 15 years ago and some of them just in these last weeks, since I became a mommy to another sweet soul. Life is a journey, not a destination. So here it is...


1. You can live on less sleep than you think. A lot less. Chances are when you look at your baby you won't really care that you haven't seen the inside of your eyelids in what seems like an eternity. You'll sleep again someday. Probably. I should add that the combination of lack of sleep + having not enough hands or time to do all that needs to be done (like look at yourself in the mirror) you will eventually walk out of the house with your hair in total disarray/your teeth not brushed/a stain on your shirt/a booger hanging out of your nose. Possibly all of those. On the same day.

2. Alternatively, you might feel like you're going out of your mind from lack of sleep. If this is the case, you probably are and you should get some sleep. Like... now. A sleepy, grouchy mom is ineffective and just plain miserable. Ask my kids. Even with a full nights sleep, no guarantee on the booger thing though.

3. Having a baby will change your body in ways you can't imagine. Women don't tell you this. By your 5th pregnancy (and in truth it probably won't take near that many) your stomach may act as a curtain for your pubic hair and your breasts might resemble something like a tube sock with a rock in the end. On the other hand, if you are one of those women who can fit into her pre-pregnancy jeans and look like she's never been pregnant at two weeks postpartum, I'm sorry, the rest of us hate you. Well, not hate so much as envy. In any case, your husband, if you're lucky like me, will love your body even more than he did before it carried and birthed your baby. I suggest you try to love it too. It's the only one you've got. It's not broken, it doesn't need fixing, it's just new and improved. And squishier. (Note to self: have husband write a guest post on this)

4. Your house is going to be a mess. That's ok. Laundry will pile. Floors will be dirty. I promise you it won't be messy forever. Well it might, but whatever, it's just a house. When your kids leave and it's tidy, you'll just wish they were there to mess it up again. Trust me, I might be the most obsessively clean person I know (next to my mother), the day I let it go was the day I was freed from the prison of my own misery. When the 3 big kids leave to go to their dad's house I madly clean the messes they've left behind, then I sit on the sofa and cry, wishing they'd just come back home and make it a mess again. It's just a house.

5. The things you said you'd never ever do in a million zillion katrillion years like give your kids candy for bribery/take them to McDonalds/beg borrow and steal to get them to eat ANYTHING green/let them sleep in your bed when they are 4, you will do. People will judge you. If you have to give your 3 year old a sucker to survive the grocery store, oh well. That might be the only way you both make it out alive. Those teeth aren't permanent anyway.

6. Your children will make you cry. When they are babies you will cry along with them because you can't get them to stop crying/don't know why they are crying/are just realizing what you signed up for. When they are toddlers you will cry because you can't get them to mind you/eat anything that isn't macaroni or comes from a box/stop crying for every toy in the store. When they are school aged you will cry when they scrape their knee/don't make the football team/get left out of whatever circle of bratty kids they wish they were part of. When they are in high school you will cry because they tell you you're the worst mother ever because you won't let them have an xbox/cell phone/boyfriend/black eyeliner. When they are in college you will cry when you drop them off at the dorm and then again when they get their heart broken/fail a class/move into their first apartment/graduate. What happens after college, I can't say yet because I don't know but I'm sure there's just going to be more crying. When they get married/have their own kids/cry because of said kids. You're going to cry, with them, for them and sometimes because of them. If you're not a crier like me then you'll just do whatever thing you do. I cry. I just keep tissues around.

7. Your children will also make you crazy. Batshit, looney tunes, going out of your flippin mind crazy. Just when you think you've got them figured out, they'll enter a whole new phase and make you crazy again. Just when you think your baby is going to sleep all night long they'll start teething or having separation anxiety or having nightmares. Just when you think you've figured out how to get your 3 year old to eat veggies, they'll go back to eating peanut butter and jelly. Every. Single. Meal. Just when you think you see eye to eye with your 11 year old because you have a reasonable conversation, they'll hit puberty and turn into a hormonal monster. And just when you've got the teenager all figured out they'll move away and you won't know what they're doing or where they are and that will drive you crazy too. It's helpful to recognize this before it happens so you don't commit yourself to an institution.

8. Your first child will get a full baby book with a million photos and every milestone recorded, brand new un-spitup on clothes, lots of attention from family near and far and every minute of time you have. Your fourth baby (or 2nd or 6th or whatever) probably won't get all that. At least not the full baby book. I'm just keepin it real. You just won't fill out the book when 4 (or 2 or 6) small people are trying to get your attention. Bottom line: If you only have one child you'll be worried it's going to be spoiled rotten/self-centered/unable to share. If you have 4 children you'll worry they are going to feel left out/ignored/abandoned. You can't win either way. Accept this now. If you are a mother who has kept a full baby book for every baby, please email me now, I need lessons and then to award you the Nobel Prize for Peace AND Literature.

9. Whatever kind of parent you are, someone will tell you you are doing it wrong. If you are an attached parent (like me) people will say things like you're spoiling your baby/your baby is never going to learn to walk/you're going to be sorry you let your baby sleep with you/I can't believe you're STILL breastfeeding etc. etc. It's bullshit. You have to parent your kids. You might be doing it wrong, it's possible, but if you love your children and you aren't abusing them, the person criticizing you is probably just an opinionated jerk. You have my permission to tell them so, or at least just to nod politely and completely ignore them.

10. Along those lines you will continuously question your parenting. If you think you've got it all right, all the time, there's something wrong with you. Or you're Jesus. Or you should write a parenting book. Or you're one of the people mentioned in #9. You will worry that you're spoiling them/not spoiling them/hugging them too much/not hugging them enough/being overprotective/not being protective enough. You will worry that they are going to grow up to hate you for what you did "to them". Don't worry, they will. They'll probably go to college and then need therapy and then call you and tell you it's because you never bought them an xbox/cell phone/black eyeliner that they are so terribly dysfunctional. Then they'll have their own kids, call you, apologize for being a jerk and ask you how you did it. At this point you should write them a list of things you think they should know about parenting, like this one. Start the list with #6, just to make them feel guilty.

11. (oops, turns out there were 11) Until you are a parent you won't believe how much you can love another person. Other parents will tell you and you'll nod and agree but you won't really know it until you feel it first hand, until you gaze at your baby and see the future through their little eyes and realize they are your heart, your soul and your everything. And you'll probably cry. Just keep some tissue around.

Theses are my four hearts. :)


(FYI: The one in the blue shirt is thinking about how I am ruining his life by making him take pictures. As far as I can tell the other 3 are just hoping it's over soon.)