Eclectic Effervescence

Beyond Attachment

2011-11-29T11:31:00.001-08:00

When I was pregnant for the first time, I threw myself into preparing for motherhood. I researched gentle parenting techniques. Kyle and I prepared to rearrange our lives to accommodate and nurture our baby twins in the most loving way possible. I couldn't wait to change their tiny cloth diapers. I couldn't wait to snuggle them close to me in the Moby wrap. I felt peaceful in the idea that attachment parenting would provide us with the right tools to gently nurture our little family.

When the boys were born seven weeks early and whisked off to the NICU, our plans for the early days with our babies changed dramatically. Instead of taking a quiet few weeks together at home to bond, the boys were kept in plastic isolettes amidst the constantly chiming monitors. When I was discharged three days after my Cesarean, I was told to go home and visit the boys during the day, rather than staying with them in their room as I desperately wanted. Weak and overwhelmed, I agreed. I was petrified for my tiny babies alone in their fancy plastic bins. How would this time impact our bond?

Somehow, as time went on, in the blur of postpartum depression and sleep deprivation, I began to think of those first few weeks as my first transgression against attachment parenting. Every AP article I read talked about the shoulds and should nots. I should always respond to my babies' cries. Did they do that at 3 AM in the NICU? I should not allow my baby to spend hours a day laying alone in a plastic bin. Nothing addressed things not going according to plan. In whatever big or small way, I felt I had failed.

Fast forward several months. I persevered with attachment parenting, trying my best to live up to what were beginning to feel, at times, like pretty exacting standards. As time wore on, that early NICU experience started to feel like the first of many stumbling departures from AP. At nine months, there was sleep training - a desperate and heartbreaking solution to my extreme sleep deprivation from getting up to nurse the boys every two hours at night. Skip ahead a few more months. At some point I yelled for the first time. At some point, I swore. At some point, I tried time outs. In my head, all I could hear was "failure!" "Failure!" "Failure!"

Here's the thing. I think attachment parenting offers some wonderful tools. I believe the world would be a better place if more people adopted its principals. However.

I AM AN IMPERFECT HUMAN BEING. I am not always entirely zen. I am emotional, sensitive, and quick to react to my environment. No matter how hard I try, I can never be true to myself AND fit my circular body into a square shaped box. But it goes further than that, too.

I'm concerned about the ominously missing coverage of "what if" situations in AP literature. No parent is perfect all of the time. I'm wary of any parenting advice that quickly and harshly judges those who chose other paths, and I can't help but feel horrified by every AP article I've ever read that warns of the brain damage! and antisocial behaviors! suffered by non AP children.

As a feminist, I'm left feeling icky about the implications of AP on women. AP is child centered, but I'm not sure that it's family balanced. In college, I spent my senior year completing a capstone project on women and self-help culture. My overwhelming conclusion was that our society's plethora of self-help books and television, largely aimed at women, lead to the message that we're somehow not good enough as we are. Forget that we're all supposed to look like super models. We're also not centered enough on the inside. At some point, AP advice has started to feel the same way to me. I need to be more patient. I need to do a better job of empathizing with my child. I need to be gentle and maintain my child's dignity when disciplining. If I do not do these things, I bear the weight of harming their very sense of self.

I offer these thoughts not to condemn AP or those who practice it. In most ways, I continue to parent in a very AP fashion. What I want is to be honest with myself about how and why I choose to parent. I want to challenge and examine it. AP is becoming increasingly popular. I suspect I'm not the only one who at times feels confused by a parenting style that centers around the gentle treatment of children yet leaves me feeling like my own sense of self has taken a beating. In the end, I pick and choose. More than anything, I strive to parent mindfully, in a way that is gentle for our entire family. As a mother, I know that I am not now and never will be perfect. I'm learning that this little fact isn't a failure on my part. In all reality, it's one of the best parts of this journey.

One bird. Six meals.

2011-11-22T11:23:00.001-08:00

Soon, I'm going to post some thoughts on cost of living as it relates to motherhood and feminism. I realize that dropping a teaser like this at the beginning of a post is totally unfair. How will anyone enjoy their Thanksgiving while sitting in anxious anticipation of such juiciness? The short version goes like this: life is expensive. High cost of living limits parenting choices. Limited parenting choices equals less than ideal family situations. Bad for society. Saving money becomes tool of liberated women everywhere. Or something like that.

In the meantime, I'm taking frugality pretty seriously around here. I recently mentioned that I love cooking, and have been considering adding some food elements to my blog. There are lots of great cooking blogs, lots of great money saving blogs - and lots that cook while saving money and stomping on one foot and saving the earth. I'm not breaking out anything really novel here. BUT. I do cook while saving money, maximizing my time, and entertaining three small people. Perhaps this will be in the very least entertaining.

So. Let's do this.

What we're cooking: Turkey. One bird. Six meals.

It's Thanksgiving week, which means turkey is on sale. Go buy a turkey. Unless you're a vegetarian. But otherwise. Really. Even if you're not hosting. Especially if you're not hosting. I bought a fresh ten pound turkey for eight dollars with a coupon and am using it as the base for six meals.

Meal one: Turkey dinner. Roast your turkey. Eat. Enjoy.

Meal two: Salad with turkey. Make a salad. Top with cold leftover turkey. Throw on some craisins and goat cheese. Yum.

Meals three through five: Turkey pot pie. Here's where I actually give a recipe. One that I created myself, at that. Muster appropriate awe and proceed.

Turkey Pot Pie

5 cups roasted turkey

3 carrots, roughly chopped

1 onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, roughly chopped

1/2 cup chopped mushrooms

Thyme
3 T cooking sherry

Salt and pepper

1/2 stick butter

3 T flour

2 cups chicken stock (or beef/vegetable)

1/2 cup half and half (or milk)

2 cups frozen vegetables of your choice - I used a mix of rutabaga, broccoli, and peas

3 ready-made pie crusts (or puff pastry sheets)

1 egg

How to cook three turkey pot pies with three little people running around and constantly requesting help using the potty:

I try do most of my dinner cooking during the day so I have plenty of time and don't get frazzled if the time elapsed between chopping carrots and actually sauteing them takes forty-five minutes. I prepared this particular meal during pre-lunch play time, lunch itself, and then finished it up once I had everyone down for the post-lunch nap. Here's how I broke it down:

1. First I browned my vegetables. Chop and saute onions. Do this on low heat so that they don't burn while you're wiping somebody's nose. Cooking with toddlers and babies around requires slowing things down. It's noon, dinner's not til 6:30, we've got plenty of time. While the onions cook, chop your carrots, celery, and mushrooms. When the onions start to brown, add the vegetables you just chopped. Season with about a teaspoon of thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Saute until things get glossy and the vegetables soften and brown. Set aside. Be proactive, and set your frozen pie crusts out now to thaw. If you're using fresh pie crusts, congratulations.

2. Get that turkey meat. No knives here. Use your hands. If you're following my little plan (which is doubtful, but let's indulge in the idea for a minute), you've already had this bird for dinner twice. There should be plenty of meat left if you're feeding only a few substantial meat eaters (our toddlers are more of the vegetarian variety) but you're also probably at the point where you need to work for the meat that remains. Push up your sleeves and get to it. I was able to recover at least five cups of turkey. Chop it up. Dump it in a big bowl.

3. Make your sauce. I did this step while my kids were napping. It's not difficult, but it takes a minute of patience and a few more minutes of undivided-ish attention. Melt half a stick of butter over medium heat in a heavy pot. Add three tablespoons of flour. Whisk until uniform. Stir for a couple of minutes to toast the flour. SLOWLY add your stock, whisking constantly. As the sauce thickens, add a bit more, then a bit more. If you add it all at once, your sauce will be watery and you'll blame me for making up bad recipes that disappoint your entire family. Once it's thickened and you've added your stock, add your half and half using the same method. Let this simmer while you add a teaspoon of thyme, salt and pepper to taste, and your cooking sherry. Give it a good stir and let it simmer for a minute before turning off the heat.

4. Combine the sauteed vegetables with your chopped turkey. Add frozen vegetables if you wish. I added them for some extra nutrition and substance, but I have mixed feelings about frozen vegetables. On a more food snobbish day, I would have skipped them and increased my sauteed mix. Go with whatever moves you. Pour the sauce over all of it. Mix well.

5. Assemble your pies. Lay out three pie plates. You don't have to grease them. Spread your turkey mix evenly in the plates. Roll a pie crust over the top of each one. Tuck the edges down and cinch if you wish. Get a knife. Makes slits in your crust so the steam can escape.

6. Freeze two pies. Wrap them well first. They'll keep in the freezer for at least a month.

7. The other pie is for dinner tonight. An hour before you want to eat: Heat your oven to 350. Brush the top of your crust with a lightly beaten egg. Pop that pie into the oven. Start checking around 30 minutes. I cooked mine for 45 - you're watching for a nicely browned crust and bubbly edges.

8. WAIT! You're not done! That's only five meals. I promised six. Before you clean up: grab that turkey carcass. Plop it into a large pot of water. Add an onion, chopped roughly, a few broken carrots and stalks of celery, and two bay leaves. Salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer. Simmer for several hours, until the liquid is cloudy and reduced by 1/3 to 1/2. Strain the liquid - now you have stock. Use it to make a turkey stew, or separate and freeze in 4 cup quantities, which is the same size as those boxes you buy at the store.

9. Okay, now you can break out the bon bons and relax. In all practicality, you just prepared 3-4 meals in about an hour's time, using refrigerator staples and leftovers. Plus, if you're lucky like me, your two year old twins are only half an hour into a THREE AND A HALF HOUR afternoon nap. Hooray momma.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Honey and water

2011-11-21T17:09:00.001-08:00

It has been so, so long since I've written about my kids. Truly written about them. I feel panicked when I realize this. All of these moments, all of this time that just keeps plowing forward...it baffles me and breaks my heart. I am so overwhelmed by the everything-ness of them. Watching them grow is like trying to cup water in my hands - no matter how tightly I press my fingers together, it somehow still slips through and falls away.

I am sometimes guilty of rushing bedtime for the boys. That last leg of the day before becoming an adult again, anxious to savor the indulgent few quiet hours where nobody is pulling on me or asking for juice, where Kyle and I hungrily soak up every luxurious moment of just being. I do love our evenings. But. Toddlers, teetering on the edge of sleep, slow down to the pace of honey rather than water. At bedtime I can't help but give them a hundred kisses, all over their still-round faces, their downy skin and deliciously fat cheeks, their soft jaws and little rubber noses.

The boys are not babies any more. They are tiny people as certain and forceful as the tides. They have gentle souls that pour out into everything they do and touch. They are the best of friends. I am endlessly amazed by the extent to which they are entirely individual in their beings. Rhys is independent, deeply sensitive, and has a remarkable assuredness. He becomes fully immersed in his play and his curiosity of the world, making his way through tasks at a pace he refuses to alter for any agenda other than his own. This is one of my favorite things about him. Getting him dressed or walking up a flight of stairs could easily take ten minutes. He is unapologetically true to himself. He has an incredible imagination and a deep, nurturing love for his toys and the stories he invents for them. Tonight, he is sleeping with a tiny rubber frog nestled into an egg carton. This is very typical. In the mornings, he crawls into bed with me and pushes his face against mine. "I wuv you mama. I wuv you the moon and stars."

Quin is funny, charming, and empathetic. He is boldly inquisitive and is the child who just last week, while in line at the fabric store, turned to me while pointing at the woman behind us to ask, "why she got purple hair?" He loves music and dancing and piggy backs. His laugh is infectious and wild. He is a dutiful helper, and will often slip out the back door while telling me, "stay there. I be right back. I just getting a log for the fire." He'll then pull on Kyle's size 14 sandals and venture naked into the cold November air to pull a log half his size off the wood pile. My efforts to stop this are entirely futile, so I've given up. I cannot keep clothes on him for more than twenty minutes at a time. His propensity for empathy and thoughtfulness are moving. Rhys was feeling sad at bedtime tonight. While I rubbed his back, Quin climbed out of bed but quickly returned, carrying a stuffed musical giraffe. He pulled the string. "I play music for Rhys," he explained, "and now he will not be sad."

Anwen's name means beautiful and pure; she is both of those things. She is an easy baby, full of joy and mischief. She loves her brothers and has every intention of keeping up with them. She has a head full of fuzzy wisps and big round eyes with heavy lashes and a beautifully bowed little mouth. Her birth and early infancy helped to bring me back from the trauma and sadness that surrounded the early days with the boys. She has renewed my faith in myself as a mother to a young infant by helping me to feel calm and confident, just as my pregnancy with her renewed my faith in my body's ability to nurture life. She is the answer to questions I hadn't yet acknowledged asking.

These first days since I've left my job have been bliss. The pace of our life has slowed to a crawl. I just feel happy. And peaceful. Incredibly, foolishly lucky. Every day. I feel like I'm looking at my children for the first time in months. I have nowhere to rush off to. No conference call. No email I need to get to. I'm just here. With them. I never expected motherhood to be a forceful lesson in mindfulness. It doesn't have to be. But what a tragedy to not allow it to be.

Home

2011-11-14T11:01:00.001-08:00

So I mentioned I left my job. Life had gotten so chaotic. I stopped being the mother I know I can be. We all have days when we're 'less than' mothers. Less than we know we could be. Less than we know we should be. Less than we'd hoped and dreamed of being. It's normal. But my 'less than' days were becoming my norm. Something had to give.

We'd wanted me to stay home from the time the boys were born. But god. Life is expensive. So I went back to work. The first six months I was back at work were completely heartbreaking. I hated leaving them. At first I just worked a little. A small position. Eighteen hours. Mostly from home. I got used to it, and it was okay. Within a year, I somehow found myself back in my old position, except instead of doing the job in forty hours, I was trying to cram it into twenty five. It was stressful. I was struggling to maintain balance, but we made it work. Then Anwen was born. My game changer. I had a three month maternity leave. It was Spring and beautiful, and although I was adjusting to three under three, life was peaceful. Near the end of my three months, I started to panic. I didn't want to go back. Anwen wouldn't take a bottle, and I didn't want to leave her. When the day came for me to return, I brought her with me. I promised I'd work to get her to take a bottle. Week after week, she refused, and week after week I showed up at work with my baby wrapped cozily on my chest. When Anwen was five months old, my boss asked me to bump my hours up to thirty per week. I was falling behind. I felt like a 'less than' mother at home and a 'less than' employee at work. Somewhere in between ear infections and twin two year old's who loved to murmur "I wuv you" in my ear, I had lost my passion for the work I was being paid to do. But I was scared to leave. I said yes to the thirty hours. It was the best mistake I've ever made.

For two months, I struggled to work thirty hours a week. My employers were so flexible with me. I was lucky. Although I worked mostly from home, I went in to the office about once a week. Each time, I'd show up with Anwen, who by now was crawling and making her presence known with loud exclamations of "AHHH!" throughout the day. I'd work at home at night when the kids were sleeping. During nap times. Our home life became total chaos. My time home with the kids was spent trying to frantically play catch up. Instead of playing with the boys, I was stripping beds and throwing in loads of laundry. Folding baskets full of clean clothes that had become wrinkled from sitting ignored for days, while the boys sat and watched tv. I was miserable and bitter. I resented everything.

Finally, it was clear Anwen couldn't come in to the office with me any more. She'd outstayed her welcome. I knew this day would come, but I had made no arrangements. She still wouldn't take a bottle. I had no desire to put her in any form of child care.

In the background, Kyle and I had been planning and restructuring our finances. For two and a half years, we chipped away at getting things in order. We sat down and looked at the numbers. It would be tight, but we thought we could make it work.

I gave my notice. Two and a half weeks.

Our house was a revolving door of sickness for those last eighteen days, culminating with my catching pneumonia just in time for my last week. I missed more than half the week, sick at home, feeling depressed and feverish. My last day came. I hobbled into the office, wearing a sick and cranky Anwen. It was completely anti-climatic, overshadowed by my seventh day of totally untreated pneumonia. (Which in itself could be another post entirely, but I'll spare you. Let's just say two doctors who told me "Just a cold!" three days apart were quite off the mark.)

That was Thursday.

Today it's Monday. My system is heavy with antibiotics for which I couldn't be more grateful. But more than that, the relief has set in. I've never felt more complete. I have over ten loads of laundry to fold. Several projects...several...waiting to be finished. All in good time. I took the kids to a nearby park with my mother. We had a picnic lunch. We played on the playground. It was the happiest I've felt since my last days of maternity leave. We came home and I tucked my sleepy boys into their beds. I picked up some toys.
I'm happy. I'm so, so happy.

I'm home.

And about those changes...

2011-11-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

I've had thoughts of starting a new blog. The idea of a clean slate, a fresh format, incorporating fancy new features...all are appealing to me. But this jumbled mess of my history from the last four years has me kind of attached. A lot has happened on this blog.

I read other blogs and am inspired by the focus. The clarity. The soundness and consistency of voice. My blog has none of these things. It is what I am from day to day. It is my evolution, and I'm not ready to let it go. I'm still evolving.

I'm going to meet myself half way, though. I won't abandon ship here, but I am going to try and spruce it up a bit. A little clarity of voice would be helpful. And features...I'm going to try some. There are things I want to weigh in on and examine, conversations I want to add my voice to. Parenting choices and style are a big one. As a feminist, I'm offended by and concerned about much of the parenting advice and philosophy that is becoming predominant. So much of it seems to come with the underlying assertion that relying on one's inner voice and wisdom isn't enough...that we need to read philosophical books on children to understand the beings we have created. Regardless of one's personal parenting decisions, I think any philosophy that praises its followers and condemns others is cause for concern. I'm going to begin blogging somewhat regularly on my own evolution as a parent and how I'm sorting through the rhetoric to find what feels right for our family.

I'll be reintroducing the cast of characters that make up my family...somewhere in the craziness I stopped capturing the growth and craziness of our joint life together. I miss that.

I'm toying with the possibility of introducing some posts on cooking. I love to cook and love to read about cooking. If I can find a way to harmonize with some posts on what I'm whipping up, I will.

Also in consideration...some posts on thriftiness. I began couponing (don't gag yet) a couple of months ago to try and save some money so that my staying home with the kids would be more affordable. In no way do I ever want to become a couponing blog, (though there are some fantastic ones out there) but I do think there is space to highlight the fact that couponing and living a holistic lifestyle are not mutually exclusive.

I definitely plan to work in ongoing posts on mastering the art of domestic goddess-hood. Leaving my seven year career in non-profits, I am coming home with a lot of skills that I plan to maintain and keep entirely relevant in the homestead. I'm a kick-ass planner and an even more kick-ass time manager. Life with three little ones may be chaotic, but it doesn't mean I can't implement some crazy underlying organizational structure to help keep the peace. I know what I'm talking about...at least a little bit. In the past two years and ten months since I became a mother, I've spent seven months exclusively at home (maternity leaves), and the remainder as a working mom, working between eighteen and thirty hours a week, most of those hours from home. Balancing chaos has become an art form in our house.

So we'll see how this all unfolds, It will be a growing process as I figure out what works and what doesn't...at home and for my blog.

I hope you'll still follow along. (And comment, to let me know what is working and what is painfully boring!)

There's Gonna Be Some Changes Made.

2011-11-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

I quit my job.

My last day is Thursday.

Life was too chaotic. I was unhappy.

Three beautiful babies, a kick-ass husband, and I was unhappy. Stretched far too thin for far too long.

My writing is rusty, and terribly neglected.

That had best change, because I think I'm going to have a lot to write about on this next leg of my journey, where I throw myself into the role of domestic goddess.

Except instead of wearing heels and an apron, I'll probably be in sweats and a nursing tank. With spaghetti sauce in my hair.

I can't wait.

It's a good thing I'm not famous with swarms of zealous paparazzi around me. (But also, it's a little bit too bad that I'm not, because I really think Jennifer Aniston and I would get along swimmingly and might look really cute having our picture taken together poolside in a very luxurious location sipping extremely sophisticated beverages.)

2011-06-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

Because if I were famous, these events would have been widely publicized.

Scenario 1. Zumba.
I went to Zumba class. By myself. Apparently, I am no longer a 19 year old cheerleader who can shake my sugar 'til the sun goes down. Apparently, in fact, I am 30, and eleven weeks postpartum, and I do not know how to Zumba. I tried following the woman in front of me. If you've ever been to an organized exercise class, you KNOW this woman. The over-zealous, takes it all too serious, where does she buy spandex in that color? one. She looked like she was strapped onto the back of a cracked out bumble-bee trying to whip it into submission while simultaneously gyrating her hips with reckless and wild abandon.

So I settle for quick glimpses of the instructor through the sea of hip-shaking, booty-wagging, breast-shimmying women, and end up following about six beats behind everyone else, turning right when they're turning left, shaking when they're shimmying, honking when they're tonking, and gyrating when they're...oh whoops...cooling down. I was far too confused to work up any form of sweat, but at one point I accidentally started lactating and that was exciting. Everyone else's shirt was damp in all those exercise-appropriate areas, but I seemed to be the only one with large wet nipple stains.

And although most days I'm seven to fourteen percent disappointed that I'm not crazy famous with swarms of paparazzi, this was one day where I thanked my lucky heavens that no cameras were in pursuit. TMZ would have squashed my entire career in thirty four recorded seconds of rhythm-less, lactational gyrations. Then I would have to stage a divorce from Kyle and go on the Millionaire Matchmaker in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect my celebrity and make a quirky yet alluringly sexy appearance as the Millionaire-ess and Patti and I would have it set up ahead of time that Kyle would be one of the potential suitors, and we'd re-marry in a very publicized and lavish affair with Rhys and Quin and Anwen in our wedding and suddenly I'd be America's darling once again.

But it seems like a lot of work to go through for one lousy Zumba class.

***

Scenario 2: Where I pump gas in my bathing suit.
Most people would have made some serious mental notations about no longer being a nineteen year old cheerleader after the Zumba incident. Ironically, the last time I was in a bathing suit at a gas station, I WAS a nineteen year old cheerleader, trying to raise money for my team by ~~parading around half naked like a prostitute~~ washing cars at the local Citgo station.

So how, and why, was it that I, at eleven weeks postpartum, found myself in my bathing suit pumping gas? On a very busy road in a very busy town, mind you? With three children in my car?

Let's just say that this was far less intentional than my college days, and came about through the perfect storm of a gas light, a screaming newborn in the back seat, and a day at the beach that left us all exhausted and sandy. And my pants conveniently tucked into our massive beach bag which was tucked under our massive stroller in the back of my Forester. When I realized that accessing my pants would require me to get out of the car and dig through all our gear in my swim-ready state, I decided it would be easier and less embarrassing to just pump in my ruffle-butt tankini.

You're welcome, City of Portsmouth. Your teen pregnancy rate just went down by 28 percent.

***

But in closing, let me make one thing clear. I WILL learn how to Zumba. I will gyrate my way to EXTREME SEXINESS, and then? Once I've accomplished that? I will head straight for the nearest gas station and pump gas in my string bikini while slowly shaking my long golden locks of hair like one of the ~~poor role~~ models in a beer commercial. And then teenagers everywhere will think that pregnancy is a good idea because LOOK AT HER! it most definitely does not ruin your body forever.

A postpartum montage of sexiness.

2011-06-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

You're out in public, a few weeks after having your third baby in less than three years. Feeling slightly exhausted, slightly frumpy, and just a teensy, weensy bit hormonal. But you notice several passers-by checking out your robustly perky breasts, and for just a moment you mentally shout out "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH! YOU'VE STILL GOT IT, YOU SEXY BITCH!"

A moment later, you feel a sticky warmth against your belly. You look down, only to be overtaken by the horrendous realization that while your cleavage might be swell, those passers-by were more likely checking out the massive and rapidly growing milk stains running down the front of your shirt and pooling attractively in your postpartum pooch.

***

Grocery store. You've brought along your 16 year old mother's helper, because for the love of god, you learned your lesson the last time you tried to navigate the grocery store as the solo adult responsible for ensuring that nobody was left in the cereal aisle and now you're fairly certain that the store management is considering banning you for life. So now you've brought reinforcements, and the travelling ~~shit-show~~ circus you run with has made it into the produce aisle. You have two overflowing carts and the kale keeps falling on the floor and suddenly you've got company in the form of a creepishly swanky thirty-something. He circles, and then circles again, and just as you're about to let loose on him a small tirade to the likes of FOR GOODNESS SAKE HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO WAVE MY WEDDING BAND IN YOUR FACE YOU CREEPY PRICK...you're saved by the realization that the wagon he's circling belongs not to you, but to the sitter. And then he's asking her out in an eerily "To Catch a Predator" sort of way, and you casually fluff your sensibly short mom-hair and shoot him a look that he TOTALLY will know means, "I FIT THIS ASS INTO SIZE FOUR JEANS THIS MORNING AFTER KNOCKING OUT A BABY SEVEN WEEKS AGO, YOU SICK PEDOPHILE."

***

So you decide that an upcoming wedding will be your chance to get your swagger back. You order a flirty little number online and buy some killer heels. You buy spanx. Gulp. Cringe. Spanx.

You try it all on. You smile. Hoooooooo yeah.

You slink down the hall to the kitchen to show your husband. You spin around and ask, totally casually, "do you think this outfit will be okay for the wedding?"

You await and envision his response. "WOW." "You're stunning." "HEY SEXY MAMA!" "HOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!"

He cocks his head to the side. "Yeah. That should work." He turns back around to the sink.

He will spend the next six weeks wondering why the OB suddenly "called" to advise that things are not healing well from the birth and will probably take at least another month or two.

***

You develop a new mantra, to cover all your bases:

I will embrace my maternal womanhood! Hoooooo yeah!

I will age gracefully and no matter how tempting, I will not bleach my hair, tuck my tummy, or resort to pink lip gloss! Hooooooooo yeah!

I will have my ass inappropriately pinched by a stranger at least once more in my life, even if I have to pay somebody to do it! Hooooooooo yeah!

I will not say "Hoooooooooooooooo yeah!" out loud even though I use it in my writing to emphasize points, because it makes me sound like I'm seventy! Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo yeah!

2011-05-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

So many moments. Pivotal moments, ordinary moments, moments that linger forever, and those that go by all too fast.

My pregnancy with Anwen was a series of interwoven moments I may have hoped for but never expected to have...learning I was unexpectedly pregnant, allowing myself to trust in my body's ability to carry a pregnancy to term, approaching labor and attempting a VBAC...

...Overcoming obstacles (breech presentation, going past my due date, heart decelerations) and succeeding at a VBAC.

Succeeding at a VBAC.

***

I woke up a week after my due date with a nagging feeling. I hadn't felt Anwen move much (at all?) over night. I tried to get her to move. I drank orange juice, pushed on my belly, changed positions again and again. Nothing. Flashbacks to Rhys and Quin's birth started running through my mind. We called the midwife, and her instructions were simple: "get here now."

At the hospital, we were relieved. They found the baby's heartbeat. They checked my fluid levels. Everything looked good. Except. The baby was having some heart decelerations after contractions. The midwife was afraid she wouldn't tolerate labor. They couldn't let me go home, at 41 weeks pregnant, knowing I was having contractions, with a baby whose heart rate was dipping. They could fit us in for a c-section at 3:00pm.

I cried.

I called our doula. Instead of attending the birth, would she be willing to instead provide postpartum support? She would.

The doctor came in. She confirmed what the midwife had told us: a c-section was likely.

But.

Would we like to try a trial of labor? We'd be on a short leash - IV, constant monitoring, and a first class ticket to the OR at the first sign of distress - but she was willing to let us try a pitocin induction.

A window of opportunity.

They started my pitocin around noon. Early labor was lovely. My pitocin dose was low (2 milliunits) and the contractions were bearable. Kyle and I walked around the unit, we had tea, we listened to music. (Live harp music, at that, from a musical therapist visiting the unit!)

At four the OB came in to check my progress. A centimeter and a half. We discussed having her break my water. It would allow my body to kick in to help, and I was already on a time frame because of the induced VBAC. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Water broken. Contractions coming in waves. I felt suddenly disorganized and panicked. Pain. Relief. Pain. Relief. But instead of feeling like a rhythmic pattern, my contractions felt tangled up with each other, with my mind. Kyle brought me a hot pack for my back. Helped me get into a more comfortable position. I regained composure, found a rhythm.

I lose track of time.

Pitocin up to six. Want hot water. Into the tub. In a rhythm. Waves of pain. Relief. Laughing. Pain building. Cresting. Dissipating. Hot water is amazing. Again and again.

The pauses between the waves get shorter and shorter. Contractions build, peak, and dissipate...and build, peak, and dissipate. Relief slips through my fingers before I can grasp it. I feel panicked. I had planned not to use any medical pain relief. I also had planned not to use a medical induction.

"I want to talk about pain meds." As I'd requested months earlier, Kyle and my doula try to talk me out of it. The doctor checks me. I feel like I'm in transition, and yet I know, I KNOW, that I am nowhere near that point. I tell Kyle and our doula, "if I'm seven centimeters I'll go on without meds". I say seven. I mean eight or nine.

The doctor checks me. Almost three centimeters. I am not discouraged. I am relieved. "Get me an epidural." It's all I can say, again and again, until I'm laying in bed savoring sweet relief.

Two hours later. 4 centimeters. Okay. It's okay. I'm not in pain.

Two more hours pass. It's time to push.

At first I can't feel when to push. The nurse has to cue me. But then I can tell. I'm not in pain. But I can tell.

I push for an hour. The baby's heart rate starts getting low towards the end. Into the sixties. The midwife talks about the vacuum. It doesn't scare me, just motivates. We don't end up needing the vacuum. Kyle is by my side, holding my hand. We are doing this. We are in the hospital, we've been induced, I have an epidural, but we are doing this! The lights are dim. We are surrounded by flameless candles and beautiful music. The doctor is in the room next door, so we're back with the midwife. Does Kyle want to help deliver the baby?

And then she's out. Anwen. She's tiny and warm and wet. She has an amazing strong cry. She's crawling up my belly and all I can see are her beautiful big eyes - blue and deep and so, so new. She has matted dark hair and I'm already in love.

(Photos by Allison Connor, our wonderful doula)

2011-04-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

Anwen Bay

4.9.11

6 lbs 15oz ~ 20.5 inches

Successful VBAC!!!

Details to come.

After I change some diapers. And get some sleep. And nurse the baby. And calm a tantrum.

She is bliss.

39 weeks.

2011-03-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

I'm 39 weeks today.

This is a weird feeling, considering my last pregnancy ended abruptly with the emergency delivery of Rhys and Quin at 33 weeks.

As of my appointment with the midwife today, the baby is no longer breech...following a week that consisted of three visits with a chiropractor who specializes in the Webster technique, lots of DIY moxibustion, a heavy dose of Pulsitilla, hours of inversion, and a totally fast, painless, and successful version. I'm so thankful that we're back on course for the VBAC, even if I am still reeling from the stress of the situation and dealing with it like an uninhibited ninety-year old woman with a knack for saying all the inappropriate things that cross her mind and no thoughts of apologies.

Now we wait.

On the one hand, I love the waiting. I have something awesome about to happen - I don't know when or how or what it will be like, but at this point birth is pretty much a guarantee. Though I did see a TLC show once about a woman who had been pregnant for something like sixty years. But that unfortunate woman aside, this kind of feels like when you have a box full of maple sugar candy in front of you and not even one has been nibbled yet, and you know you're about to go hide in a corner somewhere and just gorge yourself. The delicious anticipation. If you're not from a maple sugar candy area, I'm sorry.

And then on the other hand, there's the reality that the time between now and delivery may seem short to those who are not carrying an extra human being in their womb while chasing two toddlers around all day, but for those of us who happen to be in that boat, well, OH MY GOD HOW AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH NEXT WEEK BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE SOOOO LONG AND THERE IS STILL SNOW ON THE GROUND AND THE WEATHER ISN'T LOOKING LIKE WE'LL BREAK THE FORTY DEGREE MARK IN THE NEXT FIVE TO SEVEN DAYS.

And I want to see her. I want to see her eyes, and whether or not she has hair, and if she looks like Rhys or Quin or Kyle or me or none of us...I want to experience this birth process that I've been fascinated with for as long as I can remember...

I'm so close and so far. I try to settle in and remember that it's always more exciting to have the full box of maple sugar candy rather than just the empty wrappers with a few maple crumbs in the corner of the box, but then I remember that that's a terrible metaphor because in this case instead of empty wrappers I get an actual baby that I get to keep.

So there's that.

I thought writing might help me find a nice Zen place. Instead I find that since I rarely write anymore, I'm rusty, which means my writing is 1. of poor quality and 2. hardly satisfying.

Instead of some nice Zen insight, I offer a crude summary:

Baby is, at this point, head down.
VBAC plans are, at this point, a go.
I am, at this point, excited and anxious as shit.

38 Weeks.

2011-03-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Baby is breech.

VBAC plans in jeopardy.

This is not the update I'd hoped to be posting.

30 weeks

2011-01-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

I don't want another c-section.

Early in this pregnancy, we decided we'd go for the birth we'd hoped for with Rhys and Quin but weren't able to achieve; first because of the twin pregnancy and then later because of the unexpected placental abruption which led to their early emergency arrival at 33 weeks. We decided that this time, we'd go for a VBAC in a freestanding (non-hospital affiliated) birthing center.

It felt so right. I immediately began thinking about whether I'd want to bring patchouli candles to create my birthing ambiance, or whether lavender would win out.

Our ability to move forward with the VBAC as planned was contingent upon my placenta being in the right place during our OB consult and ultrasound after we hit the 20 week mark. At 23 weeks we went in, nervous and excited to get the go-ahead for moving forward.

First we had the ultrasound. Learned we are having a girl. Learned that placenta-wise, all was as it should be. Placenta far away from my Cesarean scar, far away from the cervix.

Next was the OB consult. We went in, giddy about our girl, giddy about our green light. The OB talked to us about the risks of VBAC. She talked to us about Rhys and Quin's birth. She mentioned that although the placental abruption probably would not recur, if it did, being so far from a hospital, our baby could die. I could die.

Suddenly, I was back at the hospital the night Rhys and Quin were born. Laying on the bed and bleeding, waiting for the ultrasound, waiting for them to tell me my babies were dead. I was on the operating table as they pulled my babies from my body and whisked them away. I was in recovery, confused and cold and shaking, wondering if we'd all survive.

And then I was back in the OB consult, sitting next to Kyle and nodding at the doctor's blurred words. I knew I wasn't going to be bringing patchouli candles or lavender candles or anything else with a flame to this baby's birth. In one startling second, the idea of a birthing center birth went from being exactly what I wanted to something I knew I'd never have.

The next day I transferred my care to a group of midwives who deliver at a local hospital with a decent VBAC rate, and began attempting to stem the flow of fear that suddenly gushed from every molecule of my being.

What if she's born too early? What if I can't conquer my fears enough to let go in labor and VBAC successfully? What if IT happens again? What if IT happens again and I'm at home alone with the boys??????

I'm scared.

And I'm angry.

I'm angry at the doctor who was on call the night Rhys and Quin were born. That doctor, who for whatever reason, knowing I lived 30+ minutes from the hospital, told me I probably had a kidney stone when I called an hour before my water broke complaining of terrible back pain and cramping. Suggested I push fluids...at 33 weeks pregnant with twins, after a positive fetal fibronectin test, several hospital visits to stop my pre-term labor, and a steroid shot that morning to develop the babies' little lungs. A kidney stone. That same doctor who didn't call me back for over ten minutes when I called the emergency on-call service to say my water had broken and I was gushing blood all over my living room floor. That same doctor, who responded to my report of blood by saying, "it's normal. Put on a pad and come to the hospital" and then adding a cheerful, "congratulations, your babies are going to be born tonight!"

I'm angry that my trauma over the babies' birth is still there. That I'm scared shitless. That I didn't need to go through some of the trauma. That the doctor could have said, "why don't you come on in" when I called the first time, and should have said, "get here NOW" when I called the second.

But it is what it is.

I have ten more weeks to go. Ten weeks to get to an okay place.

I've made progress since our consult. We've hired a doula. I talk a lot to our midwife. I'm reading and re-reading Birthing From Within. I'm working and trying and processing.

I've accepted that this is the next leg of my journey.

It will be what it will be. In the end, I get to determine what it becomes.

28 weeks

2011-01-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I decided to make a smoothie. Although I seem to have no trouble gaining weight in this pregnancy, I feel like really "taking care of myself" has been a struggle. So a smoothie. Full of brewer's yeast, wheat germ, flax seed, fruit, yogurt, milk, all the good stuff. It took me ninety minutes to make. Not because I had to pick the fruit, milk the cows, or even grind the flax seed myself. No. It was because I am Mama and this morning, that meant diapers and bartering for peace and returning boy bits into diapers where they rightfully belong. But finally, I hit "blend" and had a luscious smoothie ready for my enjoyment. Sixty minutes later, after taking two sips and spending at least three quarters of an hour searching for (but never finding) Cookie Monster, I decided to really buckle down and just drink the damn thing. Enter toddlers into kitchen. "Noothie! Noothie!" Thirty minutes later, after consuming a good 80% of my breakfast, they were both busy tantruming over my glum announcement that our smoothie was all gone.

This is why I have not posted in four months.

This is the one thing that scares me about having a third baby.

I don't know how to get it all done.

Mothering, working, cleaning the house, making sure our refrigerator has more than an old jar of artichoke tapenade sitting on the top shelf, making sure we don't run out of dog food or milk or toilet paper, making sure Rhys and Quin know how much we love them and have the security in their world to grow into the people they deserve to be, making sure I remember to eat so that this new baby is born strong and healthy and robust...

...these are the things that I love and that consume me and often claim victory over my life.

And although it is crazy and full and hectic every second of every day, life has been really good.

We're lucky.

I am still blown away by how lucky we are.

I still can't believe I'm pregnant. From sex.

By surprise. Unplanned.

An infertile girl's dream come true.

Speaking of girls, I'm gestating one, and feeling pretty thrilled about that.

I have other things I need to write about.

I need to write about how I weaned the babies and it broke my heart, about how we're planning a VBAC and I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified, about how this pregnancy has been an exercise in feeling confident in myself as a mother while finding the strength to ignore advice and input that isn't helpful to me, and about how I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of experience out of this pregnancy to savor the right now.

It all has to come later, and I confess that I have no idea when that will be. Maybe this week, maybe next month. It all depends on how things go with my morning smoothie.

Letting Go.

2010-09-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

First it is summer. We are finally sleeping at night, we have time for us, we are in a routine. Our babies are toddlers, and they are delightful. We are the small family we always wanted to be.

In creeps this unfinished business. Suddenly I feel like this IUD is exactly what it is - birth CONTROL. I can't escape the thought that infertility taught me to let go and yet inside my body is something with CONTROL in the title. I need to face the unknown. Need to face possibility. Need to test my strength now that I am where I wanted to be.

We talk. We discuss. Do we want to open ourselves to possibility? We feel pretty balanced as we are. Kyle worries I will end up where I once was. Heartbroken. Depressed. Disappointed. Desperate. And I say, therapeutically, I need this. I remind him that it wouldn't be about trying for a baby, but to just let life happen. He listens.

We decide together. Ditch the IUD.

I feel free.

We move on.

Within a month I am disappointed in myself.

I suddenly don't want to nurse the babies anymore. Could I be pregnant?

A week later. I still don't want to nurse. I feel tired. Am I?

I start craving spice. I describe my favorite Vietnamese and Thai foods to friends and feel like crying in my desperation to eat it all, now.

I have a talk with myself. You don't even want to be pregnant right now. It terrifies you. You're back at your old tricks...one sleepy afternoon and it MUST be pregnancy, huh? You're psychotic. You made a mistake, removing that IUD. You weren't ready for the unknown. Don't let Kyle know you're obsessing over this. Just don't. You promised him you wouldn't go back there.

I decide I will take a test on the sly. Clear the slate. Confirm what I know must be true. I am not pregnant but I am insane. Move on.

I don't buy a test. There's no good time. No good time?

I am tired. I want spice. I am peeing awfully frequently.

I fess up to Kyle, sheepish. I am obsessed with this idea that I'm pregnant. I can't shake it. I'm so embarrassed. I need to take a test, and then I will move on.

I have no idea what he thinks.

He buys a test on his way home from work.

Seven weeks have passed since my IUD was removed.

I tear off the cellophane wrapper and run into the bathroom.

I look forward to breathing again.

I pee.

I start to set the test on the counter when I see the blue plus sign.

A blue plus sign.

A blue plus sign.

A blue plus sign.

The symbol I dreamed about through three years of infertility. The moment I coveted with every desperate cell of my being - casually taking a test, only to find that, indeed, I am pregnant.

I've got Lex Appeal!

2010-08-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

A few months back, I was interviewed for a clever new podcast called Lex Appeal, which delves into the raw, human, sexier side of the law. In the wake of the Facebook buzz generated from these posts, the guys who do the show appealed to my vanity and asked me to do an interview. As a blogger, I was very excited to be asked to be a part of the show. On my blog, I'm in control. I get to go on and on and on and on about whatever I find oh-so-interesting. But being asked by somebody else to talk about the same stuff? Means that at least one other human being finds me mildly worthwhile. And cheers to that.

So without further lamenting about how fantastic I must be, I invite you to listen to the now-available final product. Enjoy!

Animal

2010-07-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

We are in the grocery store.

You are teething; mouth swollen and bruised
but we are in reprieve and you are laughing.

I am warmth and you are mine.

She walks toward us with a cold blue stare I chide my judgement and offer a smile
She swoops in as I am distracted

She
sends
cruel words
in your direction.

Your face.
Perplexed.
I wait for your sweet eyes to crumple.
They don't.

Before that happens I stop being human.
I stop being
wife
daughter
sister
friend

who loves

artichokes
music
deep breaths
what is right
wine
open fields
and sunshine

and I am only
animal
mother

who sees a threat
harm

I lose everything to this one realization:

I would kill
to protect you.

I am alarmed and distracted and raw
and cannot compose an appropriate response

Instead I think I roar
only like the mother that I am.

We lock eyes, she and I.
Try as I might, I cannot pull my message away.

Blood Work

2010-07-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sweet baby.
Today you needed some blood drawn.

First we went to the grocery store
where I bought you a balloon
because you were happy
and I felt ashamed that this world can be too harsh

Get Well Soon!
Scrawled across silver mylar
and I wish that towards the world

where you will be subjected to life
the difficult things we have to choose
needles
and the difficult things we never would
heartbreak

I couldn't bear to go into that tiny lab room with you
so your Papa held you on his lap

your brother and I distracting ourselves in the waiting room
until my guilt made me pass by the window

your tiny scared face
rightfully angry
hot tears and sweat

When Papa carried you out
the world could have split
you on one side
I on the other

and nothing
nothing
would have kept me
from pulling you into my arms
safe.

I'm so sorry that I cannot promise
smooth sailing from here

and even sorrier that I can promise
rocky seas will come

but that is life
and we're building you a strong ship.

Tonight we put you to bed
and at first you were happy

but then the tears swelled
a deep cry
and I couldn't stop imagining you
afraid of that needle

I went and first I held you
swaying
and then I put you back to bed
leaning into your crib
rubbing your back
and then my hand still
feeling your tiny breath

Twice I tried to take my hand away
your wide eyes found me
and back it went
until you made it safely to sleep

The trick, I think
is keeping that hand there
gently on your back

even once I've left the room.

Tubbies

2010-07-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

I learned pride tonight
here when I thought I knew it all along

but that on the face of my baby son
blowing bubbles in the bath water

half the time taking accidental gulps

all for my applause -

unabashed wild smile
and a sparkle in his eye

I want him to always be this free
and acutely unaware

my torn open heart again and again

be careful, so careful.

These are beautiful tiny humans and all that that entails.

Picking raspberries at the well.

2010-07-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

Had I known
that one year olds can pick their own raspberries
reaching out with fat sticky fingers
joyful and sure

had I known the caution-less bliss
no bug checks
just raspberry to mouth
again and again

and had I known
I mean really known

sweet raspberry pulp
smeared haphazardly on baby fat chins

I wouldn't have chosen writing as my outlet

but photography to catch

that.

But then I realize no still camera could capture
the sun's dance in pixie wisps
the way it really is

and so maybe cinematography
until I realize no lens at all
can appreciate
that the wind is better when it's laced with
belly laughs
and chatter untainted by a good grasp of language.

So I'm back to words
and feel like I can't get enough air

until the right word is found

time is slipping away
this will pass
before I've captured it right
and before I'm ready to let it go

presence
beauty
innocence
mine
real
love

and still nothing feels big enough
right enough
or true enough.

Not disillusioned by art
but humbled by life.

Shhhh. Just don't tell Perez.

2010-06-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Around the time that Rhys and Quin were conceived, Matt Damon and I had a very short-lived but passionate affair.

Kyle knows. He's okay with it.

Matt's one of my celebrity freebies.

What? You don't have a list of celebrity freebies? You're hardly living.

Anyway, I definitely probably would never make something like this up.

I especially wouldn't be so crass as to suggest that one of my children is Matt Damon's illegitimate love child.

Okay. Maybe I definitely am exactly that crass.

(Thanks Kevin and Jill for the photographic evidence.)

I don't post as much these days. I'm busy.

2010-06-04T10:29:00.001-07:00

Somewhere in a dark corner, Facebook is eating the tiniest morsel of crow. At least for the moment.

2010-05-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Remember the misogyny fan page on Facebook that I recently wrote about?

It's gone.

Just like that. The only way I know it is gone is because I've been checking in regularly. Facebook doesn't seem to communicate with the account holders who report offensive content, which seems to be a poor choice in customer service to me, but I suppose that's their right.

Either way, the page is gone, even though I'm not exactly sure how or why Facebook finally chose to remove it. I think it's reasonable to believe that enough of us reported the page and pushed Facebook to act, so I'm going to count this as a small victory.

The disappointing thing is that originally, I was counting this as a big victory. After I wrote about the hypocritical Facebook policies regarding images of women's bodies and showed images of the highly sexualized and objectified pictures of women's breasts that Facebook allows next to my banned breastfeeding picture, most of the objectifying images and applications suddenly disappeared from Facebook. Since that post had a lot of exposure, I was hoping and believing that the hundreds of people who reported those images had helped to get them removed. So before writing this post, I decided to check back in and see how Facebook is doing on equally applying their policies regarding images of breasts. We know they're still removing images of women breastfeeding, so I had foolishly hoped that they're at least also applying their ignorant policies to the content that objectifies women and is actually offensive. No such luck. A quick search for "tits" and "boobs" on Facebook brought up many of the images from my original post that had initially been removed. Even more disheartening were the many new fan pages and applications that go even further to objectify women's bodies.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I'm starting to reek of Facebook conspiracy theory. But any way I look at it, I cannot find any reasonable explanation for why Facebook would remove misogynistic content when they're getting a lot of negative publicity over it, and then quietly re-instate that content when the buzz dies down. From every angle, all I see is Facebook contributing to a social structure that allows for violence toward and hatred of women.

Will the misogyny page come back in a few weeks? I don't know if it even matters. The real misogyny page is the one that opens when you visit www.facebook.com.

privacy

2010-05-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

Using the facilities used to be a private matter in our house.

I liked that privacy.

There was a time in life when I would have assured you that there was nothing, nothing, that would ever cause me to let go of that privacy.

Enter Rhys and Quin. Both literally and figuratively. Into the bathroom. Where I am.

They stagger in teetering like dizzy drunks with big toothy smiles and triumphantly signing, over and over again, POTTY! POTTY! POTTY!

I am SO glad we taught them to sign, so that in situations like this when I think that perhaps my dignity is still fully intact because after all, they are so young and still in diapers thus they do not use the POTTY - I can learn that in fact, my dignity is in shreds. Yes. Mommy is on the potty.

And I'll be damned if I know what to do while I'm sitting there, otherwise indisposed, and one of them falls and bumps his head on a corner and is now crying to be picked up. Now mommy is on the potty and Quin is on her lap.

At which time it is only fair that Rhys discovers toilet paper. And this toddler who is still learning coordination somehow manages to unravel the entire roll onto the floor before I've even figured out how to reach an arm out in a weak attempt to stop him. Now mommy is on the potty and Quin is on her lap and Rhys is on the floor in a pile of toilet paper that mommy needs and cannot reach.

I've changed my mantra.

It now goes like this.

Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. I bet Kyle is pooping in peace at work. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Would anyone find out if I started stashing a bottle of vodka in here? Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated. Privacy is overrated.

Aftermath

2010-05-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

National Infertility Awareness week took place the week of April 25th.

I didn't write about it.

I thought about writing a post on it, and each time I sat down to work on it, I would end up spilling a frustrated mish-mash of words onto the screen. Sometimes I sounded angry. Sometimes bitter. Sometimes resentful. Sometimes sad, sellf-pitying, and pathetic. I stopped trying to write about it.

One pregnancy and two babies later, it is sometimes difficult to know where I fall with infertility.

Then I saw this video, from Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed:

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

Suddenly I found my words, in the form of many "what if's" of my own.

What if my infertility-inflicted wounds do not heal?

What if a small part of me always feels like a fraud?

What if I forget where I came from? What if I can't?

What if my sharing the joys and hardships of motherhood is hurtful to those still struggling through infertility?

What if I don't deserve to describe the hardships of motherhood?

What if people never stop asking if twins run in my family?

What if I make the wrong decision for our four frozen embryos?

What if I never stop being angry?

What if it never stops hurting?

I used to think that the cure for infertility must be a baby. What I didn't count on was the aftermath of infertility; the role of mother has been achieved, but this woman who I have become is not the woman I was when I started on this journey.

Don't get me wrong. I am beyond grateful that IVF worked for us. I love being a mother. Bred into the love I have for my children is the realization of how close I was to never having them in my life.

There are parts of me that just want to live in the moment and forget how I got here. I know that I never can.

For me, infertility has been about acceptance. As I sit here today, I realize that my newest task is to accept the fact that while there is necessary healing that will happen, the inevitable reality is that the fabric of my being is forever altered.

National Infertility Awareness week has passed.

The heartbreak of infertility has not.

Is it just me, or is Mark Zuckerberg starting to make Harvard look bad?

2010-05-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Harvard can't help it if some of their students turn out to be greedy, arrogant, pricks. But I mean, come on. You're Harvard. Surely, the admissions process must be rigorous enough to highlight sociopathic personality traits.

Wait a minute. Did I just call Mark Zuckerberg a sociopath?

Here, a direct quote from Mark Zuckerberg, talking about why early Facebook users would submit their personal information to the site: "I don't know why. 'They trust me'. Dumb fucks."

Sounds kind of sociopathic to me.

Anyhoo, I kind of have a general philosophy about NOT trusting people who would call me a "dumb fuck" for doing so. To that end, I share with you what I believe is the equivalent of safer-sex for the Facebook user: ways to keep your Facebook content at least a little more private. You don't want your profile information to be getting all promiscuous with this guy, do you?

Facebook...apparently a safe harbor for misogyny

2010-05-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I wrote about quitting Facebook. Here's the thing...

I'm not going to quit Facebook.

I'll be honest, there are a couple of selfish reasons why I'm going to continue to utilize a company whose morals threaten to make Ted Nugent sound like a good guy. I like staying in contact with friends and family who I don't get to see regularly (yes - I could do this via another social networking service - but until THEY all move over too, well...) and a lot of my blog readers connect to my posts via Facebook. I'm no Dooce - I need every reader I can get.

But selfish reasons aside, there's a more compelling reason that I'm not quitting Facebook: I think Facebook sucks.

I also think that Facebook is not going away any time soon.

So I can take a stand, pack up my principals, and leave (which, to be honest, is exactly what Facebook probably wants from its less-than-cooperative users - after all, they kick people off for swimming upstream, and with 400,000,000 users, they certainly don't need me), or I can take a stand, gather my principals around me, and stay.

I don't plan to stay quietly.

I plan to regularly, methodically, and insistently expose Facebook's misogyny and lackluster corporate responsibility. I plan to blog, Tweet, and yes, use Facebook, to reach as many people as possible to work together to ask them to change.

Facebook has no reason to care if non-users think they suck. But if Facebookers start complaining, start suggesting, start reporting content that spreads hate and perpetuates inequality, then maybe, just maybe, Facebook will start to have reason to care.

That said, today I'm focusing on the Facebook fan page titled "Misogyny." Since misogyny is defined as hatred of women, I would have expected that when I and several of my Facebook friends reported this page, it would have been removed. After all, Facebook explains in their Terms of Use that:

We remove content that harasses an individual or group. Facebook also must honor requests to remove content that draws unwanted attention to specific people. To prevent this from happening in the future, please be careful to review the content of any group you administer.

And,

Facebook thoroughly reviews every report we receive to determine whether or not the content violates our Terms of Use. Any content that is considered sexually explicit, violent, malicious or otherwise offensive will be removed. If you received a warning about an item that was taken down, then we have established that it violated these terms.

I would consider a fan page dedicated to the hatred of women as containing content that "harasses an individual or group." And as a woman, I also have to say that the type of attention drawn to woman from such a group is "unwanted." They claim to "thoroughly review every report" they receive to determine if there's been a violation. I wonder how they could review this page, multiple times, and NOT conclude that it is "violent, malicious, or otherwise offensive."

And so I have to ask, why is it that Facebook is knowingly allowing a group dedicated to the hatred of women?

***

Click here to visit the Facebook misogyny page - on the left hand side near the bottom is the link to report the content...you know what to do.

It's nice to meet you!

2010-05-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

I've fallen into the unfortunate habit of over-sharing the mundane details of our adventures in erranding, especially trips to the grocery store.

I'm sorry.

I'm even more sorry that I have no real plans to stop.

I tell myself, "okay. Okay. That's enough for a while," but then we go to the grocery store and while I'm wearing Quin on my front, he discovers the wonderful world of (and do excuse the lack of sophistication in the following term) motorboating. Not the water sport, friends. The face-in-cleavage kind. With loud and exuberant sound effects. And I'm pushing Rhys in the cart and he and I are shaking hands non-stop while I say emphatically, over and over again, "It's nice to meet you!" because that's our grocery store game and he finds it hilarious and it keeps him from jumping ship and escaping to the banana display. And then Quin decides that motorboating is significantly more fun if he grabs onto my ears and pulls outward, so now we're really attracting attention as I push our cart with one hand trying to avoid a collision while one child practices manners, the other practices a total lack thereof, and my ears are stretched beyond the realms of normalcy and any pretense of comfort. And as all this is happening, I'm thinking how I really need to do a post on this because I have no self control and I cannot stop.

And so I'm sorry.

Growth

2010-05-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

That song came on the radio

drumming through my veins
when I was younger I'd hear it and feel sexy
wild
alive

and today you heard it
you grinned with all four teeth
and bounced on chubby legs

I scooped you up
a baby on each hip

we danced in the kitchen
in front of the dirty dishes
I was supposed to be washing

spinning and twirling and bouncing and dipping

you threw your head back and laughed
and held on tight

I try to be more awake
understanding that some day
you will love to hear this story

and then some day you won't

your chore will be to wash the dishes
and you won't want to dance with me instead.

Listen, Facebook. It's not you, it's me. I want to break up.

2010-05-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me a link to this fantastic post on why you should quit Facebook. I'm not even slightly tech savvy, so I have to admit that a few of the reasons you should quit Facebook were over my head. Since the author focused primarily on the technical/privacy aspects of Facebook, I'm adding two reasons of my own. It is because of these two reasons that in thirty days, I'm taking the plunge. I'm breaking up with Facebook.

1. Facebook is misogynistic. Their tendency to allow sexualized images of women and to ban images of empowered women is not a mistake. It is the atmosphere they have crafted. If the virtual community of Facebook were a work environment, they would be sued regularly for sexual harassment.

2. Facebook is making money off of you. And me. And by continuing to stand by and accept their sexism, their privacy violations, and their big-brotherish bullying, we are saying "okay." I make a point of sending my money in the direction of companies that I respect. Companies with corporate values and social responsibility. Since Facebook is a massive fail in these categories, I'm moving my consumer voice elsewhere.

I'm not going to sit here and say "okay" any more. I'm creating an exit strategy, and I'm leaving. Facebook isn't the only gig in town. Sure they're huge. But only because we allow them to be.

***

I started a Facebook page called "In thirty days, I'm breaking up with FB." I had to use FB because fittingly, Facebook would not allow me to use "Facebook" in the name of my group. I'm guessing Facebook might remove the group, or me, before I finish my thirty day exit strategy, but it's worth a try. On the page, I will be detailing my plan for departure. I'm certain that life exists both before, and after, Facebook.

***

(about 45 minutes later)

Having second thoughts. Do I NEED Facebook for the sake of my blog? Have deleted my "breaking up with FB page" while I mull this over.

Bananas.

2010-05-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

The babies are on a strike. Actually, one baby is on a strike, the other crosses the picket line daily.

Babies, I have found, are fond of exercising their right to strike, especially when unionized as in the case of any and all sets of multiples. In the past fifteen months, we've had nap strikes, poop strikes, nighttime-sleep strikes, walking strikes, and independent-play strikes.

As a member of executive management on this parental team, I've become a master at negotiating peaceful resolutions, which might come in handy right about now, since our latest strike is a biggie: food strike.

While Quin eats every last bite of food that crosses his path, Rhys has become quite exacting in his food standards. Slowly, he has whittled his formerly diverse diet down to one favored food - banana. All other foods are meticulously cast over the edge of his highchair tray and onto the floor, where at the conclusion of every meal, Quin and Bella hover, sharing delectable discarded morsels.

It's been a steady and slippery slope. First he (Rhys) cut out egg - one of his favorite foods, second only to the wondrous banana. Then it was toast. Then oatmeal. And so on. If I am crafty and incredibly casual, sometimes I will have a short-lived bout of success at breaking his strict "bananas only" rule. He'll nibble my toast, or have a bite of melon. Before I even get my hopes up, he is puckering his face and dramatically wiping his tongue off with his pudgy hand. I find myself wondering if humans can live on a diet comprised almost solely of bananas. I find myself feeling more thankful than ever that he is still nursing. I find myself wondering how many bananas it will take to push us back into poop-strike territory.

And here's the big deal: I'm not worried.

Strike negotiations haven't commenced. He wins.

Don't get me wrong - I have certainly noticed this new trend. I've talked about it with other parents. And here I am writing about it.

But I haven't run to the internet, or one of the several options in my vast baby book library, to get advice. I know it is a phase. I get it. I know it will pass.

If I didn't know any better, I might even say I'm relaxed.

Break out the red pens and fill in my report card, please. The comments section will now read: "is a relaxed and confident mother."

***

Okay. So maybe we happen to have our fifteen month well-baby visit this Thursday. So what if the banana-issue is at the top of my painfully long list of questions for the pediatrician. I want my damn gold star.

Ever found yourself screaming, "It's f@#^ing SLEEPY TIME!" at 3am? Well, mama, this post is for you.

2010-04-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

There were a few times in college where I remember dramatically labeling myself "sleep deprived." Doing so was kind of sexy. Getting up and dragging oneself to class with tousled hair and last night's eye makeup smeared all over the left facial region said "I consider myself quite busy and important...too much so to shower before class. Aren't I mysterious?" Or something like that. Young Hollywood seems to think itself chronically sleep deprived, with their ever-so-posh hospitalizations for "exhaustion."

I have come to feel a bit territorial over the terms "sleep deprived" and "exhaustion." Mothers are sleep deprived. Every one else is just whiny. (Disclaimer: My three-day sleep total = under twelve hours. I am not rational, kind, or understanding at this moment. Prepare to be offended. Prepare to be horrified. Just don't say I didn't warn you.)

Because our nation clearly has an issue tossing around the terms "sleep deprivation" and "exhaustion" like candy at a parade, let me attempt to set some new parameters to the concept. If you cannot relate to the following incidents, congratulations, you are NOT sleep deprived. If you can, it's official. You are sleep deprived. Welcome to the club, sister.

You are definitely sleep deprived if...

You are writing/reading this post while eating an entire batch of buttercream frosting with a spoon. Caffeine is too obvious and reeks of trying to hard.
Within the last week, you've turned to your husband at 4am and hissed, "I am going into the fucking kitchen to grab a fucking frying pan to fucking smash my fucking face in because I CANNOT fucking take any fucking more of this and I am so. fucking. tired." and he just rolled over and went back to sleep without saying a word because it's the third time you've threatened tonight and so far you seem to be making hollow threats.
You've zoned out for A TEENSY SECOND in the grocery store and upon zoning back in you find your fifteen month old standing up on the seat of the cart leaning into the back to pop open a beer.
In a desperate attempt to keep from becoming one of those mothers who yells, you've taken to loudly reciting children's books and songs when you've had it up to here: "I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-BOOM! I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-BOOM! I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-ROCKA-CHICK-A-ROCKA-CHICKA-BOOM! Your children are terrified when you start to sing.
You've screamed, "it's FUCKING sleepy time!" at 3am and wondered who the crazy screaming woman is and how she got into your bed.
Yesterday you fell asleep laying in the middle of the living room floor with your fifteen month old twins playing loudly right next to you. You woke up to find three sticky fingers in your nose, a thumb in your ear, and two smooshed noses pressed against your forehead.
You've run out of diapers but because you are too tired to go to the store, you pray that nobody will poop. Of course somebody poops, at which time you are faced with either fashioning a diaper out of duct tape and paper towels or opening the diaper, removing the poop, and re-applying the diaper like it never happened. Since this is purely a hypothetical situation, we do not need to get into discussing the choice that was made.

I think you get the gist here. Of course, do keep in mind that, as stated above, these are all purely hypothetical situations which probably definitely NEVER HAPPENED in my house. But if they happened to you, I think you should know that you are probably definitely not alone. Wink wink.

Okay, so it's not sexy.

2010-04-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

When Rhys and Quin first came home from the hospital, I was terrified to take them in the car. It felt crazy to take those tiny five pound babies and casually buckle them into their car seats...my every purpose in life cruising along, listening to Rusted Root, facing backward and rendering me blind to their well-being in my own necessary forward facing. I've never had those baby mirrors that let you keep an eye out because I've read that they can become dangerous projectiles in an accident. Over time, I got accustomed to driving on high alert - the tiniest peep, burp, or cough would raise every hair on my body as I tuned in to decide whether it was a "normal" baby noise or a SOMETHING IS WRONG baby noise. I was counting down the days until they would reach the necessary twenty pounds and one year old so that I could turn them around to face front. The idea of us all facing forward just seemed so right - I would look in the rear view mirror and see their smiling faces, munching on crackers or sleeping in a warm haze.

Then I heard about Extended Rear Facing. I've got to be honest, I think it sounds like something that might happen on a crazy Saturday night after a few tequila shots too many. But really, it's disappointingly pure, and even more disappointing to my forward looking self, it is S-A-F-E-R in a very well documented statistical sense.

If you haven't heard of ERF - it is simply keeping your baby/toddler in a rear-facing car seat past the twenty-pound, one year guideline. The American Academy of Pediatrics thinks it's a good idea, as does the entire country of Sweden, where children stay rear facing until as old as five and where, during the period of 1992-1997, only nine children who were properly restrained in rear facing car seats died in motor vehicle crashes. When you consider that car accidents are the number one cause of death for US children, that's a pretty remarkable statistic. In fact, all of the statistics are remarkable, but don't take my word for it:

American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines (See Seat Selection Topic #1)
MSNBC: Toddlers Should Face the Rear Longer
Rear-Facing Car Seats: What You Need to Know, by Kathleen Weber
SafetyBeltSafe Technical Information (Scroll down to the section on Rear-facing vs. forward-facing)
SafetyBeltSafe: Why must babies under one year of age ride facing the back of the car? (PDF)
CPSafety: Rear-Facing, Unmatched Safety
Diaper Pin: Is Your Baby Ready to Face Forward in the Car
An impressive account of ERF in a rear-end collision

My little bubble of longed-for forward facing has been burst. Rhys and Quin are both over the age of one and are both over 20 pounds. They ride facing back, and they will continue to do so until they outgrow the guidelines for their car seats, which will be 33 pounds. When I tell people this who are not familiar with ERF, they automatically ask where their legs go, and I myself asked the same question when I first heard about the concept. Right now, they're still short enough that their feet barely come to the edge of their car seats. Their legs are a little bit bent, but I doubt they'd ride with their knees locked and their legs out like dolls if they had the option. As they get older, they'll cross their legs, bend them more, or prop them up on the back seat. Most kids prefer to bend and flex - do a Google search for images of ERF and you'll see lots of happy toddlers safely facing back and making it work.

I had hoped to make this post at least slightly sexy or mildly interesting. Alas, just as Extended Rear Facing turns out not to live up to its kinky-name potential (really...I can't be the only one who sees it!?), this post probably isn't going to make it onto anyone's Facebook status. That's okay. Just consider ERF and pass it on.

Skunky.

2010-04-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Friends, I've gone over to the dark side.

The.

Dark.

Side.

I've given up cloth diapers.

(Short moment of silence whilst I hang my head in shame and defeat. Please feel free to use this time to point, laugh, judge, and scoff. Better yet, if you know me in "real" life, DO remember that it was I, who only a month ago, was enthusiastically detailing my LOVE for cloth and attempting to make you feel like a miserable failure at life for your unwillingness to save the earth and your precious baby's tiny bum from the known and even worse, unknown evils of disposable diapers. That was me. I'm an asshole. Can we move on now, please?)

The tagline for my blog is "mastering the universe, one cloth diaper at a time." Dammit. Somehow, "mastering the universe, one chlorine-laden diaper at a time" just doesn't have the same ring.

(I'm not really sure that I'm going to use chlorine-laden diapers, but the dramatic effect of toying with the idea is one I can't pass up. Truth is, I spent all of my precious-few research-ready brain cells figuring out the PERFECT cloth diapering system, and since that has failed me, I find myself in Target feeling like Alice in Wonderland and staring hopelessly at piles and piles of shiny plastic packages covered in adorably swaddled baby bums knowing not what to do.)

Going through infertility, I had these symbols of motherhood in my head, things I needed to experience to make this life a full one: baby wearing (check), breastfeeding (check), cloth diapering (check)...

I had not planned to give up cloth until the babies were successfully destroying Cheerios with streams of urine in the big-boy potty. But then our diapers got skunky.

I tried stripping them. Spent a week with the babies in disposables running back and forth to the washer every hour to set another hot water rinse. I tried Dawn. I tried Bac-Out. I tried leaving them in the sun for three days. I tried Borax, bleach, washing soda, new detergent, no detergent, a wet pail, a dry pail, and standing on my head in front of the washing machine chanting ancient diaper-cleansing chants.

And finally, they were clean.

Relief.

I transitioned the babies out of disposables and back into cloth. We went through our full supply, and I washed them using my new sure-fire method. The next morning, I brought the babies into our room to nurse. I lay in bed with them, thinking about the day, and smelling...something. I nudged Kyle. "Our house was sprayed by a skunk. Do you smell that?" He hadn't even opened his eyes before I realized my mistake. I looked down at my two sweet babies in their adorably massive cloth diapers. Damn.

I've recently decided to test my limits and sanity by taking on some new projects around the house. In an insane moment of overestimating the hours in any given day, I gave up buying cereal, cookies, hummus, bread, and yogurt to make my own healthier, cheaper, organic versions. Add to that, I've been making the babies food from scratch all along, which isn't difficult or incredibly time consuming. It is, however, something that is not particularly optional. "Sorry guys. Mommy didn't make any steel cut oats today. Would you rather have a beer?" I've started a garden. Blah, blah, blah. I'm busy, and I take on too much. And I usually balance "too much" just fine, because I don't usually mind teetering on the steep edge of total insanity.

But I'm a smell person. A laundry person. I don't like skunky.

So last week, in a crazy and wild moment of letting something go, I gave up on cloth.

Because washing each load of diapers six times in scalding hot water is at best questionable in environmental-friendliness.

Because I don't have time any more.

Because I'm not a martyr, and I'm not perfect, and I'm working on being softer with myself.

Farewell, cloth.

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you a terrifically large and hysterical panic attack.

2010-04-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

As a responsible and duly prepared parent, I've been readying myself for toddler-hood.

In my head it goes something like this:

As we ease into their second year of life, the babies will have learned to talk - in complete and rational sentences. They will sleep through the night and thus their parents will as well. Shortly after their second birthday, they will begin to have tantrums. Their coolly competent mother will respond to these tantrums with a loving, patient, and gracious chuckle. She will share knowing looks with kind strangers who will sigh wistfully and say things like, "ahhhh. The terrible twos." As those strangers walk away, they know they will sleep better tonight, with the understanding that today's children are being raised by such masters of motherhood. "She makes it look so easy" they will say. Playful angelic fairies will fly around farting honey.

And now here's what happened in real life:

Toddler-hood came bursting through our front door without knocking. Swinging and punching with closed fists. The asshole punched me in the trachea. My sweet babies woke up one day with the sole desire to point out my utter incompetence as a mother. I'm not ready. I have not formulated my tantrum response yet! I have not mastered the gracious chuckle! I have been forced to fly by the seat of my pants and it is threatening to tear wide open and show the entire world my granny-panties, which I have peed in twice today already. I am master of nothing but inconsistency. Tantrums send me into a tailspin. My sweet and innocent babes let loose with demonic shrieks I am certain they are wholly incapable of and I will do anything and everything to just. make. it. stop. And then I realize that I'm likely encouraging my beautiful children to grow up sounding like Veronica from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, speaking with bizarre British accents and saying, "mother, make me more crepes this instant!" So the next tantrum I respond by ignoring it completely while a tiny voice in my head whispers "refrigerator mother....refrigerator mother...refrigerator mother." I mentally kick Leo Kanner square in the testicles and hurry into the kitchen to make some chamomile tea before I lose control and just start drinking mouthwash.

I've looked into what it would take to develop a light drug problem to help ease this time. Am having a hard time deciding between huffing glue and prescription pills. I hear glue is easier to obtain.

Divided we fail babies.

2010-04-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week in breastfeeding news. On Monday, the journal Pediatrics published a study about breastfeeding, showing that over 900 American babies die each year and 13 billion dollars are spent due to low breastfeeding rates. Almost immediately, the internet seemed to explode with reactions. Gina from the Feminist Breeder took the information and wrote what I believe is one of the best analyses of breastfeeding in Western society that I have ever read. Articles popped up left and right discussing how to deal with the "guilt" that accompanies sharing information about breastfeeding. Matador Life published a well-written and comprehensive article detailing the ongoing Facebook vs. breastfeeding saga (featuring yours truly...). I read and I read, and then I read some more.

And now something is gnawing at me.

We have all of this information, all of these analyses, all of this movement. But I wonder how we will really move forward, how we will really succeed at changing things, when we have a sensitive, fragile, and bitter divide threatening to let us all continue to spin our wheels without ever actually going anywhere.

Here is the issue: Some mothers breastfeed. Some mothers do not. You knew that, I know. But hear me out.

The CDC reports that 75% of mothers leave the hospital having initiated breastfeeding. Six months later, that number drops down to 13.6% who are still exclusively breastfeeding.

Although I have a lot of thoughts about what happens to those 61.4% of women, it's not something I want to discuss right here and right now. It's been discussed - a lot in fact (okay fine. Quick summary: society bullies them out of continuing.) - and my concern this time lies elsewhere.

My concern is how we all learn to work together. How we heal the wounds of the mothers who desperately wanted to succeed at breastfeeding but did not. How we swallow our pride, set our noble principles down for a moment, and respond with empathy to the human experiences of one another. How we admit that perhaps we all need to do better together.

Here's what's so tricky about all of it. Although society as a collective whole is to blame for not providing mothers with the support, information, and education they need to succeed in breastfeeding, change happens in individual increments. Essentially, we are asking mothers to look society in the eye, punch it in the gut, and overcome all of the social barriers that stand in their way - with no more tools to succeed than they originally started with. It's a chicken and egg dilemma of epic proportions - with human lives and billions of dollars at stake. Society will not change until individuals change, yet demanding individual change within an unsupportive society is hardly simple. Hardly fair.

But it is where we are.

The study published in Pediatrics based its numbers on how things would be if we brought that 13.6% up to 90% of mothers still exclusively breastfeeding at six months.

76.4% of mothers is massive change.

We're not going to get there by fighting.

We're not going to get there by blaming one another.

We're not going to get there by standing on soapboxes, getting defensive, or indulging old wounds.

As with any battle, patriarchy has always benefited from the in-fighting of the oppressed. When mothers fight mothers, it is babies who lose.

I'm not suggesting we hedge. I'm not suggesting we tiptoe. I'm suggesting we suck it up, get over ourselves, and work together.

There are nine hundred and eleven babies who are counting on us to succeed.

Okay Mark Zuckerberg, let's get personal.

2010-04-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

Nine hundred and eleven, Mark Zuckerberg.

Nine hundred and eleven babies die each year in America because they weren't breast fed.

If we go back and start counting at, oh, say 2007, when tens of thousands of women asked you to stop calling breastfeeding obscene, that nine hundred and eleven translates into over twenty five hundred babies. Dead.

Twenty five hundred dead little babies, Mark Zuckerberg.

Because the mothers of twenty five hundred little babies were not given the tools, the support, or the education they needed to choose and succeed at breastfeeding.

Because when those mothers were little girls growing up, social media outlets like Facebook were busy teaching them that breasts are for sex, and that using them to nurture a child is offensive.

Because our society has allowed the greed of corporate America to sway public opinion into believing that scientifically created formula is superior to the nutritionally perfect milk produced by a mother's body.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. Facebook is powerful. You have over 400 million users around the world. You can make a difference. You've been asked to help. You've been asked to change. Again, and again and again, you have been asked.

Your response is patronizing.

You've ignored us.

You've ignored the calls to change Facebook's policies. You've ignored the media reviews. You've ignored your social responsibility to simply do! the! right! thing! Mark Zuckerberg, you haven't just ignored. You've failed.

You've failed mothers.

You've failed babies.

By refusing to become a part of the solution, you have remained a part of the problem.

The problem that leads to the deaths of nine hundred and eleven babies in America each year.

It's not all your fault, Mark Zuckerberg. But it is a little bit your fault. I would surely imagine that among the 400 million users out there, there has been at least one mother on the fence about whether or not to breastfeed her baby. At least one mother wondering if she will feel embarrassed to use her breasts in this way. At least one mother wondering who will support her. At least one mother wondering if she will get in trouble for feeding her baby in public. At least one mother who has never known anyone who has breastfed. At least one mother who does not know how to breastfeed. At least one mother wondering if others will feel offended by her choice. At least one mother who gave up.

At least one mother whose baby died.

Mark Zuckerberg, you could have helped her.

Keep on keeping on...

2010-04-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Facebook is waiting for us all to go away.

Supporters of breastfeeding have been fighting against Facebook's hypocritical and discriminatory policies towards breastfeeding for over three years now, and yet Facebook has pretty much been eerily silent on the whole matter.

I find that infuriating. I find it patronizing. I find it unacceptable.

There is too much at stake to move on and accept the idea that the world's largest social networking site declares breastfeeding to be obscene. We cannot slowly dissipate and forget it ever happened. We CAN make a difference. We need to make a difference, because if we don't, it will be our sons and daughters and their sons and daughters and theirs and theirs and theirs who will fight this fight after we are long gone. I don't want that for my children. I don't want that for any children.

I'm not going to go away. I hope you won't either. Facebook can hide, Facebook can ignore this issue, but Facebook cannot out-will the strength or stubbornness of thousands of passionate mothers (And fathers! And babies!) who demand to be treated with respect.

I find it easy to get swept up in the excitement of activism when the energy is high and things are moving fast. It becomes more challenging as time goes by, people move on, and we start to lose focus. It is in these moments of losing focus and moving on that Facebook wins. It is in these moments that patriarchy - a system that is failing humanity - wins.

Forget breastfeeding for a minute. Let's talk simply and plainly and honestly about humanity. People. Human beings. Mothers, fathers, babies. Children. Let's talk about a world where we're not afraid to love and nurture, and where we prioritize the well-being of individuals and communities rather than corporations and greed.

Our passion and conviction over what is RIGHT is stronger than Facebook's passion and conviction over what is wrong.

It's time to continue taking action.

A few action steps to show Facebook that this - and we - are not going away:

1. Use social media to our benefit. Retweet, Digg, and Share on Facebook. (This post, earlier posts, posts from other blogs, news articles, your own words...send the message loud and clear!)

2. Continue to share breastfeeding pictures on Facebook.

3. Write to Facebook. Tell them they're wrong. If you can't find their contact information (good luck...and please share if you do!), make your letter to Facebook public and share it openly with the world.

4. Ask Ellen (and other public figures) to join in the effort to normalize breastfeeding in our culture.

This has gone on long enough! It is 2010! Don't let Facebook get away with telling mothers that breastfeeding is obscene. Do not give up.

Ownership.

2010-03-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

Let's talk "sexy" for a minute. Not to each other. I don't know you that well. Let's talk about sexy.

We Americans are rather puritanical. Not YOU. Of course not YOU. But the collective us. We live in a society that functions much like a confused fourteen year old. One minute we're stuffing our best friend's mother's romance novels under our mattress, all the good parts carefully highlighted in neon green, and the next we're sitting in "sex ed" learning that sex is for marriage, and that while some people will break the rules and become lustful much earlier, those will be the folks who end up crying alone in the bathroom stall, pregnant at 15 with a raging case of VD and no place left in heaven for their soiled soul.

It's no wonder that breasts confuse us.

I wrote a post when I was pregnant sharing my joy over the fact that at the tender age of 27, I had finally sprouted some hormone induced breasts. An angry reader recently pointed this out to me, accusing me of being a hypocrite and suggesting that all of "this" (lactivism) has nothing to do with my core beliefs and everything to do with my wanting to "show off" my new curves.

I'm concerned. If I thought this was one isolated view point, I would leave well enough alone. But the confusion over the purpose of women's bodies, the FIGHT over the purpose of women's bodies, needs to stop.

So since this is my blog, and since I am the sole and rightful owner of MY BODY, I'm going to talk about it.

I am a human being. A woman. Sexual. I am a wife. A mother. Strong. Passionate.

I don't want to settle for simply feeling comfortable in my own skin, I want to (and most often do) feel ecstatic in it. I'm not perfect. I'm working to accept the stretch marks left from having babies, but they're new, and I need time. But I know who I am. Physically, emotionally and mentally. I like this person. I love her.

I am amazed by my body's accomplishments of the last several years. My body worked hard to heal and overcome endometriosis and infertility. My womb nourished and grew two beautiful babies. My breasts produce milk to feed those babies. They provide solace to those babies when they are sad. They provide comfort when my babies are sick or hurt. They provide safety when my babies are scared.

My identity, my purpose, extends beyond my role as mother. As much as I cherish, love, and adore that role, I also cherish, love, and adore the other facets of my life. My body accompanies me on every adventure. My breasts do not cease to exist when my babies aren't around. The value and functionality of my breasts does not begin and end with the ability to lactate. The fact that right now, my breasts serve a primary purpose of nourishing babies does not negate or detract from the fact that they are also (GASP!!!) sexual.

For me, that is the beauty of humanity. We are all multi-faceted. Life is not black and white. There are hundreds of thousands of beautiful shades of grey. How sad to go through life trying to force every minute detail into the correctly shaped container. Motherhood, womanhood, individuality, love, lust, sexuality, these elements of who I am rarely, if ever, enjoy a show stopping solo. They are intermingled, intertwined, and deliciously co-dependent.

Empowered women, unite. Our bodies belong to us only. We do not need to look externally for the definition of how and who we should be. Dance if you want to dance. Be sexual, be maternal, be beautiful, be all of those things, be none of those things, or be something else entirely. Wear a push up bra, wear a nursing bra, wear no bra. Celebrate your body, your mind, your spirit, and your soul.

We're human beings. It's messy. Beautiful. Complicated. We can embrace it or not.

I hope that I'll always be brave enough to embrace it.

It goes so far beyond Facebook...

2010-03-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Standing up and demanding that breastfeeding be normalized in our society goes far beyond the issue of whether some people are uncomfortable with the sight of a mother nourishing her child in the best way possible. If this video doesn't give you chills, doesn't outrage you, and doesn't make you question the corporate corruption that too often drives our society, I'm not sure what will.

We need to demand change.

And as a breastfeeding mother who fiercely and adamantly believes that breast is best - I think it is incredibly important, essential even, to point out that this is NOT an attack on mothers who choose not to breastfeed or are not able to. This is an attack on the societal pressures that contribute to an environment where the benefits of breastfeeding are incredibly marginalized and where mothers who choose to breastfeed are often stigmatized, judged, and harassed. Despite the fact that the WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, 2003 CDC data shows that in the US, only 14.2% of mothers were following that recommendation. And did you know that in 2006, the United States had the second worst infant mortality rate in the entire developed world?

Where are our priorities?

A society that surrounds young girls with Barbie and her ridiculous body measurements, where approximately one in four females experiences sexual violence, where breastfeeding mothers are asked to leave public places , and where a major formula company can net profits of over 9 billion dollars a year, I really wonder HOW we expect mothers to choose breastfeeding and stick to it. US hospitals are notorious for giving babies bottles even when asked not to by mothers attempting to establish breastfeeding. I've posted about my own experiences struggling to teach my preemies to breastfeed and the hurdles I ran into with lack of hospital support, and I assure you that I am not alone - not by a long shot - in that experience.

Facebook, I'm afraid, is only the tip of the iceberg. It is simply symbolic of the environment we sit in.

But.

We have to start somewhere. We have to start everywhere.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be defined by the society I described above. To the core of my being, I believe that we are better than this.

You can learn more. You can help.

This earlier post lists things we can all do to help...here are some additions to that list, many of them courtesy of your comments...thank you!
Baby Milk Action - helping to protect babies from unsafe breast milk substitutes and protecting breastfeeding
Help get Ellen on board - it may sound silly, but we NEED mainstream media support and exposure
Offer to become a Roots of Empathy family, or become an instructor. Roots of Empathy brings attachment parenting, including breastfeeding, into the classroom.
Offer to visit your a local classroom or daycare as a pregnant woman, and then do follow up visits with the baby.
Support the Nursing is Normal initiative: http://www.kathyobrien.org/NINgallery.htm and on Facebook.

This list is a small sampling of how you can help - if you have an idea or know of a resource, please share and I will post.

This post makes no sense unless you complete the prerequisite summer reading, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

2010-03-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

I recently joined PaperBack Swap, because I like to read, I like free things, and I like the environment. Win, win, and win. One of my favorite authors is Tom Robbins, and when you consider that my local library does! not! carry! his books, PaperBack Swap is a virtual Tom Robbins mecca. I promptly pulled ten of Kyle's books off our shelves and listed them (part with my own books? I don't know...) to get my first two credits. Within a week, my mailbox was swarming with cowgirls, beets, and insanely large badger testicles. (If you've never read Tom Robbins, I understand how this sounds).

I eagerly ripped open the packages and thumbed through the pages of Still Life With Woodpecker. It was as I flipped through that, as though I myself were the lustful and pleasantly psychotic heroine in one of his books, three tiny slips of paper slid out and onto my lap.

I consider myself to be quite the detective, and probably have missed my calling in life, so I never pass up the chance to do a little digging around when the opportunity presents itself. My three slips of paper presented a fantastic mystery. Each was a slightly yellowed receipt. The first, ink faded beyond readability, had this phone number scrawled on it: 325-0476. The store ink on the second had fared better over time and read:

THE WALL

SPRINGFIELD MALL

SPRINGFIELD, PA. 19064

215-328-3430

07-01-98 SOO586 ROO3

Of course I called the number. Of course I was bitterly disappointed that it has been disconnected. I Googled "the wall springfield pa." No luck. The back of the receipt had two numbers written on it in a bouncy, curly, assumingly female print along with the name, Suzin: 659-5851 and 532-4253. I didn't try calling Suzin. Even if I were to assume the appropriate area code, what would I say? Hi Suzin. Did you once give your number to a Tom Robbins fan who frequented "The Wall" in Pennsylvania?...You're not sure?....Who am I?...No, please don't call the police....No, no, I am not stalking you...Just a little detective work...

The third slip is my favorite. Also from The Wall, but earlier in the year, dated 3/24/98. This one has Liz C.'s phone number scribbled on it: 522-7356. Apparently our mystery book sender is quite the ladies man. But perhaps I need to think outside the box a bit more. Because the third receipt also had this scrawled on it:

I'll use a canine

for an airbag

use a gopher for a stool

I'd use a dolphin

for a suitcase

if I traveled with

a pool

I'd use a kitten

for a pillow if it

didn't cause no strife

I'll use my doggie for an

airbag if I thought it

would save my life

I'm not kidding.

Really.

And I wonder just exactly what sort of fare was peddled at The Wall back in the late nineties.

But I have solved the mystery. I think any Tom Robbins reader will agree that there's really no other explanation.

Clearly, clearly, Tom Robbins is in love with me.

magnitude

2010-03-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

For the first few months after Rhys and Quin were born, I was certain that throughout the world and throughout history, no mother had ever loved her babies as I loved mine. This thought wasn’t a reflection of my opinions about other mothers, it was simply a matter of capacity and an irrational certainty that loving my babies any more than I already did would cause the universe to explode into a hundred billion pieces of sopping, heavy heart. I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of motherhood; the idea that other mothers felt the way that I felt and were able to pull it together and function was completely incomprehensible to me. I looked out at the world, feeling perplexed and at a total loss in trying to make sense of the suddenly re-written familiar. Images I’ve seen hundreds, thousands of times immediately took on new meaning. Commercials about the starving children in Africa, news stories about a runaway teenage boy, television dramas about kidnappings and murders. Although I’ve always considered myself a compassionate person, it suddenly seemed as though my former self must have been a cold and heartless shell of a human being to be able to stomach these ideas without urgently forming what had recently become my inescapable conclusion: somebody’s baby. That is somebody’s baby.

As time has passed, I’ve become slightly more acclimated to the experience of being a mother. Of creating life and loving beyond the bounds of understanding. I have come to realize that as much as I love my babies, it is not only possible, but in fact quite likely that other mothers love their babies just as much. Initially, that realization stung a bit. Then the stinging turned into an emphatic, “huh.” And now amazement. What a collective power.

I suppose that’s what knocked me off my center in the first place. Human beings. Creating them. Raising them. Loving them. The impact that we make on the world and on one another. Single influential individuals, good and evil. Martin Luther King. Gandhi. Hitler. Joint movements for change. The Emancipation Proclamation. The suffragettes. The daily fabric of our world, individual lives woven together in a delicate yet inescapable chain reaction. It’s not just about mothers. It’s about all of us and all of our actions and all of the beautiful and mundane details of life. But right now I can only speak as a mother. I want to hold on to this moment; here, where I sit and see the magnitude of what I hold in my hands. Two babies, for whom I simply want peace and love and true happiness. Two babies, who make me want to mold the world into a place that welcomes and nurtures and is safe.

I know that in time I may become desensitized. We haven’t hit the terrible twos yet. I have never attempted to parent a teenager. Just as I’ve slowly come to realize that the universe is not in danger of explosion under the pressure of my love, perhaps in time I will feel at ease with the fragility of it all. But for now I am here. Writing to ask myself to remember what it felt like, peering out at the world with my babies wrapped tightly in my arms.

Censor-Book

2010-03-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, FOX news out of Washington aired this piece detailing the hard work of thousands of mothers across the country and around the globe. It is amazing and exciting to see that people are starting to pay attention, and to help spread the word that breastfeeding is healthy, normal, and nothing to hide.

Imagine my surprise when I went to share the link with a group on Facebook and got this message:

And what exactly is it, Facebook, that you found to be abusive about this piece? The part where breastfeeding mothers speak up against your misogynistic and sexist policies? Or is it just women taking a stand that bothers you?

You can censor us Facebook, you can delete our photos and delete our accounts. We'll still be the ones who are right.

Cinnamon and Angel Farts

2010-03-18T06:40:00.001-07:00

When we were going through infertility, I was certain that the cruelest truth of our situation was that I was destined to be a mother. I am human; I have my flaws. Lots and lots of flaws. But motherhood? I could see it dangling in front of me, just out of reach. My unattainable destined perfection.

And then I became a mother.

Oprah did a show about a year ago on the truth behind motherhood. She featured successful mommy-bloggers like Dooce who confessed their deepest maternal woes and suggested that no matter how bright and glossy the exterior, we all have a poopy diaper or two stuffed under the couch that we're hoping nobody notices. And they were about a year ahead of me. Sleep deprived with two colicky preemies, I watched with a vague interest and no real connection. My entire life felt like that poopy diaper desperately hidden away. The idea of shining up the surface and slapping on a smile seemed insane and potentially harmful.

Now I get it.

And if it's not a wadded, soiled cloth diaper under my couch, it's the fact that I'm writing this while slowly sipping a shot glass full of maple syrup because I'm feeling too responsible to drink anything really serious at 9:52am but dammit my babies are sleeping and if that's not a reason to celebrate and imbibe on sweet condiments, I don't know what is.

I'm a year behind on the uptake, but I'd like to join the collectively pleading voices from that Oprah episode and ask WHY WHY WHY is it that so many mothers make this business look like cinnamon and angel farts?

Motherhood may be wonderful, and I believe it is, but it is also beautifully and recklessly real. I feel like life should suddenly come equipped with air bags and seat belts and a very serious helmet. For me.

I'm not the mother I expected I would be. I call Kyle and beg him to come home from work early. Demand, even. I try to reason with thirteen month olds. "This behavior is NOT ACCEPTABLE!" It is inevitable that at some point in the day, somebody will get hold of their toothbrush and demonically chase after Bella in a desperate attempt to brush her teeth. She will be having none of that and thus will settle for having her tail lavishly brushed with a toddler sized spin brush full of baby Orajel tooth cleanser. The meal I've spent thirty harried minutes lovingly preparing will be thrown over the side of the high chair. I will swear. I will grit my teeth and mumble and grunt and in the midst of it all will not be able to resist kissing those cute and chubby and defiant cheeks as I walk by. Somebody will vomit in my car. I will let that vomit dry using the excuse that it will be "easier" to clean up that way. My babies spend half their life looking like baby hobos with food smeared on their faces and banana gumming up their hair and I will leave it there because really? I don't have the energy to fight over that and besides, people spend a lot of money on strikingly similar spa treatments. I hold on for dear life and offer a snarky laugh at the timid and perfect mother I thought I would be.

This mother, this real life, breathing mother, is a human being.

Scab.

2010-03-14T17:14:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I wrote about Rhys and Quin's time in the NICU. It's not the first time I've written about it, but it is the first time that I really went there and wrote about it. On some subconscious level, I've played through snippets of our NICU days a thousand times. The scene that plays most often is us leaving the hospital for the night. Tucking the thin flannel hospital blankets around my tiny babies and leaning in to kiss their faces. Whispering how much I loved them into their sweet and soft little ears. Begging them to be okay. To grow. To understand why, when they woke up that night, I wouldn't be there to scoop them up into my arms.

It's easy to get lost in the right now. And in most ways, what a wonderful place to be lost. My babies are walking. I watch them take these beautiful shaky steps. When they hear music, they immediately start to dance. I sit in awe and just stare at them - their pureness - just experiencing and reacting with wonder and honesty and joy. When they're not fighting over every toy they own, they fall into the moment and lean their heads together, laughing from the core with wild abandon.

All of this makes it easy not to look back. Easy to carefully tiptoe around when it falls across my path. And then I went there. And I wrote it.

I cried.

The details are sharper than knives. I remember the sandy winter grit on the NICU floor. The white board on the wall introducing my babies: "Hi. I'm Quin. Today I weigh 5lbs 1oz." "Hi. I'm Rhys. Today I weigh 5lbs. 6oz." Little dry-erase stars carefully decorating the empty space. Reminding us that this is happy. The incessantly beeping machines. The computer printouts the doctors showed me, neatly charting the dates and times when my babies had momentarily stopped breathing. The nurse who clucked at me, "don't worry dear. We'll get them as high functioning as we can. Easter Seals will work with them." The day I found out that Quin had several unusual cysts on his brain. Sitting alone in the rocking chair that day, holding him and crying. Big salty tears falling on my little sleeping baby. The withdrawal babies down the hall, crying in agony. Trips to the family room. Peeling back the foil lids on plastic containers of cranberry juice and chocolate milk. Believing I would never feel nourished again. Bringing Rhys home. Leaving Quin behind.

In and out of days, I know all of this happened. I thought I had scars.

A scar happens after the flesh heals and the scab falls off.

I wrote it. Hastily and quickly. Without caution. In my haste I caught my scab on the words. It ripped off.

Underneath, to my surprise, is open and raw.

I'm bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

Let's get Ellen to help!

2010-03-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

So Facebook doesn't like breastfeeding.

Let's use Facebook against itself.

I've started a Facebook group titled, Hey Ellen, we could use your help...please do a show on breastfeeding!.

I invite you to join and to invite your friends. Attention from the mainstream media will help accomplish exactly what we need: to bring breastfeeding out from the corners, under the blankets, and in bathroom stalls and back into the light.

Fixing things.

2010-03-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

How does one change the world? Or at least the parts of the world that need fixing?

Society has continued, generation after generation, because women breastfed their babies. Maybe not every woman. Maybe not every generation. But if you take the formula and bottles out of the equation, society would still exist. Take the breasts and breast milk out of the equation, and we would have never arrived at a point where we decided to see if science could out-do the human body.

And here we are. It's 2010. Breastfeeding is still met with controversy. Stigma. Enough is enough. Enough. Let's fix this. Throughout history, women have overcome amazing obstacles - bigger obstacles than this. We can overcome this obstacle. Once and for all, let's work together and put this issue to rest. Let's create a world where women feed their babies in peace, and where the act of breastfeeding is viewed as the loving, natural, necessary, and important act that it is.

Change doesn't happen overnight. It happens when a group of people refuse to give up. Dedicate themselves to taking the small and large steps necessary to make things right as many times as it takes. Organize themselves. Persist.

Here are some of my ideas. I want to hear yours. If you send them to me as comments or email, I will continue to post on this topic and include them. If you've already sent me one that I haven't included here, I apologize. I'm going to comb back through comments and pick up any I've missed.

1. Next time you see a woman breastfeeding in public, say thank you. Say good job.

2. Visit http://squishybummum.blogspot.com/2010/03/bugger-having-dreami-have-plan.html. She offers a good plan for helping to "normalize" breastfeeding - she needs our support, our participation, and our help.

3. If you're a breastfeeding mother, get out there and do it in public. Our society needs to see that breastfeeding is normal and healthy.

4. Learn about the breastfeeding legislation in your state. http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14389. If your state protects your right to breastfeed in public, print out the legislation and carry it in your diaper bag. Show it to anyone who questions you or asks you to go somewhere more private. If your state doesn't protect your right to feed your baby in public, contact your elected officials and ask them to help.

5. Write a letter to the editor in support of breastfeeding.

6. If you're a blogger, blog about the importance of breastfeeding, or your experiences with it.

7. Post pictures of breastfeeding on Facebook. Make it your profile picture. Emma from Montreal offers support and a challenge to all of us at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2517126532&topic=18640.

8. Join pro-breastfeeding groups on Facebook, including Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! and If breastfeeding offends you, put a blanket over YOUR head!

9. Talk to your children about breastfeeding. What it is and why it is important.

10. If you're a business owner, make sure that your business is breastfeeding friendly. Display the international breastfeeding symbol. http://www.breastfeedingsymbol.org/

11. Visit http://thenursingcircle.com/ and share your breastfeeding story.

12. Push for media attention. Write to the media you feel are influential and important. Ask them to help in these efforts.

13. Wear pro-breastfeeding clothing. Have your baby wear it. Get a bumper sticker. Visit http://www.breastfeedingsymbol.org/ or make your own.

14. Become familiar with the World Health Organization's recommendations on breastfeeding. http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/. Share these recommendations with friends and family.

15. Learn about the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. If you are pregnant, try to find a Baby Friendly hospital in your area. Let local hospitals know that you want them to adopt the BFHI standards. http://www.babyfriendlyusa.org/eng/01.html

16. Let hospital staff know that you don't want your newborn to be given a bottle, and explain why. Visit http://web.me.com/jodieisner/Site/Hat.html for hats that remind hospital staff that bottles are not welcome for your baby.

17. If you have a surplus in your milk supply, donate it to a baby in need. http://www.breastmilkproject.org/ http://www.hmbana.org/.

18. Learn about the benefits of breast milk. Tell your friends. Tell your family.

19. Ask new moms if they have support with breastfeeding. If they don't, offer to be that support.

20. Speak up when you hear or see breastfeeding mothers being treated with disrespect.

What are your ideas? How are you going to make a difference?

Stand and Speak

2010-03-11T05:43:00.000-08:00

When Rhys and Quin were born, they were admitted to the NICU for several weeks. They had feeding tubes and were kept in hard plastic isolettes for warmth. It wasn't what I'd envisioned for my babies' first days in the world.

We were allowed to visit as much as we wanted, but were warned about touching them too much for fear of over-stimulation. I remember the trepidation and heartbreak I'd feel every time I'd reach my hand through the little porthole into the warmth of the isolette and feel their soft downy skin and delicate tufts of hair. I longed to pick them up and hold them close. Sometimes the nurses would come in and see me standing there with my hand on one of my babies and give me a chiding look. "They need to rest." I had to ask permission to change their diapers. They were almost 24 hours old by the time I got "permission" to try breastfeeding.

It wasn't what I'd envisioned for my first days as a mother. I kept waiting for their real mother to sweep in - a more competent and therefore deserving woman who I imagined would wear peach lipstick and smell faintly of mint gum. The days came and went, but she never appeared. I trudged on. Back and forth to the hospital every day, a hunched and spent shell of my former self. At night I'd set the alarm to go off every two hours so that I could wake up and pump. I'd sit in the dark of our bedroom and cry alongside the whoosh and whir of the Medela, covered in postpartum sweat and sticky from milk. Each morning I'd deposit my night's work with the nurses in the NICU, and I'd ask them to count my supply. I'd anxiously await the results, frantically calculating in my head whether I'd supplied enough milk to get both babies through the day without the nurses supplementing with formula. Formula. Nobody ever asked my permission.

When I finally accepted that the lady with the peach lipstick wouldn't be waltzing in to save us, I realized I would have to muster up my strength and figure out how to be the mother my babies needed. The NICU staff was starting to talk about removing the feeding tubes and starting the babies on bottles. Breastfeeding wasn't going spectacularly, but we were making progress. I knew I didn't want my tiny new babies to have bottles. I did my research. Talked to the lactation consultant. Talked to family and friends. Armed with a page of researched rationale, I walked in to the babies' hospital room one morning and requested to speak with the provider on duty. When the young PA arrived, I took a breath and started my rehearsed speech.

"I want to talk about how we can avoid putting the babies on bottles. I want to exclusively - "

She turned briskly to face me and cut me off. "Not gonna happen." She then opened the porthole on the isolette and reached her hand in to stroke Quin's back. She didn't have to ask anyone's permission. I watched her touch his tiny arms and legs the way I longed to. She smoothed the fuzz on his head. I tried to swallow and couldn't. Four year's worth of wanting and waiting lodged in my throat and refused to leave.

Later that day, the lactation consultant tried to console me. "Just do what they say and get these babies home. Then you can do whatever you want. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war."

An hour later, I was sitting in a rocking chair, feeding one of my babies a bottle while every last frail thread of motherly confidence quietly withered and fell away.

***

It seems that Facebook has removed some of the hyper-sexual pictures of breasts that I included in Monday's post. But there are more. And there will be more. So while removing all of the sexualized images of women might make the playing field more even, that's really not what I'm aiming for. What I'm aiming for is for Facebook and for society as a whole to start viewing breastfeeding with respect instead of disdain, and with support rather than stigma.

In the past three days, over 25,000 people have visited these posts. Many have shared their support. I am overwhelmed and energized. Let's not stop here.

Facebook has offered no direct response. We need to show them that we're not going away. This matters. We matter. Our babies matter.

The woman with peach lipstick never came to save me. She doesn't exist. For Rhys and Quin, I'm what they've got. I lost a battle but I will not lose the war. These are my babies. I'm going to make the world right for them. I believe I can.

***

What next? Where do we go from here?

We need to keep standing up. We need to keep SPEAKING up. If you agree, share these posts. Post them on message boards, post them on Facebook, send them to your local news. Or write your own and share them here. Or on Facebook. Or wherever you feel most comfortable. Share your own mothering story. How did you fight the battle to become the mother your baby(ies) needed?

Write to Ellen. Write to Oprah. Write to NPR or Good Morning America or whoever you think has influence.

Stand. Speak. Don't stop.

If it were men who could breast feed, I'm not sure we'd even be having a conversation.

2010-03-10T02:32:00.001-08:00

And that's really the issue here.

Because if men could breast feed, I think we'd have special massage chairs in every public establishment in the US for men to get comfortable while they sustain the next generation and laud breast milk as the global super-food.

I'm a feminist. I'm shocked by how many people are scared of that term. It scares me that so many people are scared of that term.

Things aren't equal, my friends. Sure, we've come a long way from the days of burning women at the stake. Right? But even if that is true, we haven't arrived at some mecca of gender equality. Far from it.

Women in the US are still earning on average about 20% less than their male counterparts. And there are organizations that are outraged by this - great organizations like the National Organization for Women who have been fighting the good fight for a long time. But what about the collective masses. Where are we? Have we forgotten that we can change things?

One of every four women in the United States experiences domestic violence in her lifetime. One. Out. Of. FOUR. Do you have a daughter? A mother? A sister? A friend? Look around you.

I'm not simply angry at Facebook. I'm angry that Facebook has the opportunity, as a powerful social utility, to contribute to gender equality and a better world. But Facebook is acting like a bunch of juvenile frat brothers and doing what has been done throughout the ages - continuing the marginalization of women and women's contributions to society by dosing out patriarchy in teensy, palatable doses.

I was nauseous watching this year's Superbowl ads. The Dodge Charger, amping men up to believe that they are repressed by women - Dockers chanting at men to start wearing the pants again...and I say come on already, America! In a world where patriarchy still reigns supreme - where we go to war and send our children to war, where there is rape and battery and child abuse around every other street corner, isn't enough finally enough?

Whether it's the big-deal issues like the wage gap or the "smaller" issues like Facebook removing pictures of breastfeeding mothers, we need to start standing up. We need to start speaking up. It is these issues, large and small, that work together to create a world where we are so programmed to find gender inequality palatable that we don't say anything.

And that would be scary, if we said something. If we all stood up and said something. Because change is scary. People don't like change. And if we stood up, one by one, stood together, and said "ENOUGH!" things might actually start to move in that scary, changing direction.

Stand up. Please. Stand up.

Defense.

2010-03-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

Most US states have laws protecting a breastfeeding mother's right to feed her child in public. And last time I checked, the entire nation was protected by a tiny little concept we call freedom of speech.

Apparently Facebook is above these ideals. Apparently Facebook is really quite invested in making sure that the images we see of women are sexualized rather than celebratory.

I'm told that Facebook has blocked the link to my post "Offense." (Update at 8:00pm EST...am told that people are now able to link to it again.) It was reported as violating the terms of use for Facebook. Funny. Because I reported every truly offensive picture included in that post and when I checked one minute ago, they are all still up on Facebook.

But I get it. Facebook is a private entity and they make their own rules. That doesn't mean their rules are right.

Not only is Facebook treating women in a misogynistic manner, apparently they're quite terrified of free speech as well.

Facebook, you're wrong. And the 6,700 + people who have visited my blog today seem to agree with me.

I'm not stopping here.

(And if you want to link to this post, please feel free. You can do so by copying the blog URL of http://eclecticeffervescence.blogspot.com/, this post URL of http://eclecticeffervescence.blogspot.com/2010/03/defense.html or my original letter to Facebook at http://eclecticeffervescence.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-letter-to-facebook.html.

Linking to my post from yesterday, http://eclecticeffervescence.blogspot.com/2010/03/offense.html, may or may not be allowed on Facebook.)

Offense.

2010-03-08T17:36:00.001-08:00

Facebook hasn't written back.

And Ellen hasn't called and said "yes! I will do a show on breastfeeding and fill my audience with lactating mamas who I will shower with lanolin cream and fancy nursing bras. Yes!" Oprah hasn't called either. And Tyra hasn't. And NPR hasn't. And my local news station hasn't.

And you know what? I think they're missing out on an opportunity. Because this image is still on Facebook, as the profile pic for the Big Boobs application, which has 55,842 monthly users:

And this image is still on Facebook, as the profile pic for the "Tits" application with 12, 260 monthly users:

And this image is still on Facebook, the profile pic for the "T i t s" fan page, with 1,863 fans:

And this image is still on Facebook, the profile pic for the group "Titties" with 580 members:

And I'd like to say I'm surprised. Because Facebook has a policy against sexually offensive material. And given the context of each of these pictures, I'd call them pretty damn sexually offensive. So I reported them. Each and every one. And included my letter to Facebook as my comment for each one. No response. No removal of the pictures.

But you know what picture Facebook did remove?

This one. Originally posted on the "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is NOT obscene" group, with 258,448 members.

Here, where, after three years of infertility and a traumatic and pre-term birth, I finally tandem nursed my babies successfully for the first time. Facebook told me this picture was offensive. And warned me that they will delete my account if I continue to break the rules.

Hey Facebook?

Fuck you.

An open letter to Facebook

2010-02-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

Dear Facebook,

Last year, you were hard at work as the world's largest social networking site. You have created a space for people to communicate, waste time playing mindless games, raise money for important causes, become the recipient of endless marketing scams, connect with long lost friends and loved ones, and send one another virtual gifts such as flowers, drinks, even sets of voluptuous female breasts.

While you were entertaining the virtual masses, I (along with millions of other women around the world!) was busy creating and nourishing human life. Not just one life, but two. That's right, Facebook. I grew two tiny people inside my womb, birthed them, almost died in the process, and then set my own needs aside to carry out the grave responsibility of sustaining those lives by creating nutritionally perfect food within my body and feeding it to them using my (GASP!) breasts. That's right, Facebook. I had twins and breastfed. In fact, I'm still breastfeeding. Isn't that amazing? I think it is. The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees with me. This is what the WHO has to say about breastfeeding:

Over the past decades, evidence for the health advantages of breastfeeding and recommendations for practice have continued to increase. WHO can now say with full confidence that breastfeeding reduces child mortality and has health benefits that extend into adulthood. On a population basis, exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is the recommended way of feeding infants, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to two years or beyond.
To enable mothers to establish and sustain exclusive breastfeeding for six months, WHO and UNICEF recommend:
Initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of life;
Exclusive breastfeeding - that is, the infant only receives breast milk without any additional food or drink, not even water;
Breastfeeding on demand - that is, as often as the child wants, day and night;
No use of bottles, teats or pacifiers.
Breast milk is the natural first food for babies, it provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first months of life, and it continues to provide up to half or more of a child’s nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to one-third during the second year of life.
Breast milk promotes sensory and cognitive development, and protects the infant against infectious and chronic diseases. Exclusive breastfeeding reduces infant mortality due to common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea or pneumonia, and helps for a quicker recovery during illness.
Breastfeeding contributes to the health and well-being of mothers, it helps to space children, reduces the risk of ovarian cancer and breast cancer, increases family and national resources, is a secure way of feeding and is safe for the environment.
While breastfeeding is a natural act, it is also a learned behaviour. An extensive body of research has demonstrated that mothers and other caregivers require active support for establishing and sustaining appropriate breastfeeding practices.

Did you know that, Facebook?

And here's what I have to say about breastfeeding:

Breastfeeding mothers are responsible for the continuation of humanity. It is because of women who breastfeed that YOU, yes YOU, are alive today. Even if your mother did not breastfeed. Even if her mother did not breastfeed. And even if hers didn't. At some point in history, millions of women made the beautiful and giving decision to breastfeed so that humankind could continue. Women who breastfeed are heroes.

Did you know that, Facebook?

Did you know that breastfeeding is really hard? That it can be quite painful to have a small being suck on your flesh for hours each day? That overcoming the social stigma in patriarchal countries like the United States is a brave and admirable act? For some silly reason, millions of women have been taught that our biggest value comes from our sexuality. Isn't that weird? Considering that women have the ability to create, birth, and sustain life, it seems awfully skewed that we would be systematically taught to believe that we are worthless unless we are beautiful and highly sexualized. But you see, Facebook, that's exactly what patriarchy does. It marginalizes the contributions of women. How shameful. How ignorant. How embarrassing.

Remember how humanity continues because of women?

Why am I sending this to you, Facebook?

Last week, I posted a picture of myself breastfeeding my newborn twins using my Facebook account. I posted this picture to a pro-breastfeeding fan page, to help encourage other mothers. My picture was one of thousands uploaded to the page. What a beautiful site. All of these experienced breastfeeding women, supporting each other. Helping to say, "breastfeeding is normal!" "Breastfeeding is beautiful!" It really is an amazing page.

But you took that picture down. You took hundreds of pictures down. You told me my picture is offensive. Inappropriate for children.

You know what I find offensive? The "Big Boobs" application that lets users send each other cartoon drawings of over-sexualized breasts. And the many "boobs" fan pages created by ignorant minded people who devalue women and their beautiful and amazing abilities. And the YoVille advertisement that assures me that I can look fantastic in my virtual bikini this year even if my real bikini looks terrible. And the many females showing ample cleavage in thousands of pictures where they're too drunk to know better. Facebook, I could go on and on.

Facebook, you're powerful. You have over 400 million users around the globe. Is this how you choose to hold this power? Are you afraid to take a stand against the oppression of women? Do you really devalue women this much? Do strong women make you feel threatened?

Or are you better than that? Braver?

I spent this last year putting forth every effort of my being to make this world a better place. I contributed two beautiful children. My first and last priority in life is helping them become amazing and happy people in every way I know how.

And so, Facebook, I wonder. I really wonder. What did you do last year?

12 Month Checkup

2010-02-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

5:30am

Half-assed effort to convince self that we enjoy waking up this early.

6:30am

Two diapers, successfully changed.

7:30am

Feed the babies breakfast. Feeling of smug confidence, knowing that today we will get to the babies' doctor's appointment not only on time, but a full fifteen minutes early like they ask. Babies eat Kiwi for the first time and love it. Plan to leave at 9:30.

9:27am

Both babies have fallen asleep following massive play session. Revise plan. We will leave at 10 and drive five over.

10:07am

Shit. Literally and figuratively. Two more diapers changed. Screw the "fifteen minutes early" suggestion.

10:16am

Driving.

11:06am

Pull into the parking lot for 11am appointment. Load Rhys into front carrier. Find a large chunk of Kiwi skin resting on Quin's shoulder, complete with tiny teeth marks and lots of saliva bubbles. Confused computation of time elapsed since breakfast. Certainty that all Kiwi skin was placed in the trash. Shrug it off. Hoist Quin onto hip. Sling massive diaper bag around neck. Run into the building.

11:13am

Waiting room. Babies want no part of quiet lap sitting. Give in. Two babies on the floor. Bolt in different directions. Water cooler. Cups. Lots of water. Carpet. Outlet. Visions of children's services intervening. Redirect. End tables. Magazines. Fire extinguisher. Visions of children's services intervening. Our name is called. Tiny prayer of thanks to a god I'm uncertain about.

11:17am

Neat and orderly exam room. Waiting for the doctor.

11:19am

Chaos. Bright red biohazard disposal can. Curious minds. Drumming on the can. Pushing the can. Pulling on the plastic liner. Attempts to open the lid. Visions of children's services intervening. Redirect. Privacy curtain. Peekaboo. Pull on the curtain. Tangle up in the curtain. Shrieks of delight. Bumped head. Crying. Soothing. Look! Puzzles and books! Little interest.

11:21am

Nurse arrives. Time for weights and lengths. Strong, foul odor. Poop. One more diaper, successfully changed. Wistful thoughts of potty training. Back to reality.

11:26

Doctor walks in. Lots of questions. Questions neatly written on paper. Babies want to eat paper. Redirect. Ask about everything. Everything. Doctor is patient. Babies are examined. Babies are healthy. Strong, foul odor. Poop. Naked Rhys. Distracted momma. Must get diaper. Splashing sound. Puddle. Splashing Quin. Laughing Rhys. Drenched wooden puzzle. Pee on Quin's face. Naked Rhys standing in the middle of it all. Pee covered feet. Relaxed doctor. "Urine is sterile." Puzzle in the sink. Wipe up the floor. Diaper is finally put in place. Back to questions. Chaos continues. Babies discover exam table. Stirrups. Can. Not. Resist. Babies discover secret corner behind exam table. Hidden electrical wires. Tiny space too small for big people. Momma squeezes in for baby removal. Second baby squeezes by. Doctor lends a hand. The list of questions is finally exhausted. Hot room. Time for shots. Tired momma. Waiting for the nurse. More biohazard can. More stirrups. More curtain. More corner of danger. Nurse returns. Shot out of stock. Sorry. Relieved momma. Oh wait. The family practice wing will have some. Waiting. Hot room. Sweaty momma. Tired momma. Biohazard can. Stirrups. Curtain. Corner. Books and puzzles are, apparently, boring. Nurse returns. Quin's up first. Prick. Hysterics. Rhys joins in to show his sympathy. Full lap. Not enough arms to fulfill necessary hugging and soothing. Rhys' turn. Prick. Hysterics haven't yet stopped from before. Intensify. Hot momma. Tired momma. Need. More. Arms. Band aids. Nurse says good bye. We are alone in the room. Hysterical. Hot. Overwhelmed. Must soothe. Must re-pack the diaper bag. Must put on coats. Babies on hips. Diaper bag around the neck. Massive. Heavy. Sippy cup falls out. Fuck. Just fuck. Bend down. Don't drop the babies. Sippy cup retrieved. Diaper bag spills onto floor. FUCK. Swearing. Sweating. Swearing. Quietly. Try again. Upright. Babies on hips. Diaper bag re-assembled. Out the door. Down the hall. Babies slipping. Stop. Hoist babies back up. Automatic door opening button is not working. Must need to be hit harder. Using elbow for this purpose. Hit. Hit. Hit. This will leave a bruise. FUCK IT. Open door with foot. Blow by checkout. Screw checkout. We're outside. Cool air. Almost to the car. Almost to the car. Where are the keys. ARGGGGHHH. Rhys is in. Diaper bag. So heavy. Pull off the neck. Sippy cup tumbles out. Rolls away. Retrieve it. Want to throw it. Babies are watching. Put it back in the bag. Quin deposited. Everyone is buckled up.

1:48pm

Turn the key in the ignition. Look at the clock on the dash. Holy mother of all mothers. Face flushes. Quick computation of time elapsed since arrival. Embarrassment. Wondering what note is going in the chart. "High needs." "Schedule PLENTY of time." Oh well.

1:49pm

Driving. Music. Sleeping babies.

We're all in one piece.

Flavor.

2010-02-15T15:45:00.001-08:00

It's been a beautiful, crazy, amazing, and stressful year. My driver's license, which I renewed this fall after a particularly eventful and sleepless night, looks oddly out of sequence with the last one, taken the day after I returned from our honeymoon - tan, rested, and glowing. The stress and exhaustion has taken a toll on more than just my driver's license picture. I've been introduced to entirely new worlds of how-crazy-I-can-become on next to no sleep and lord knows how many hours of nursing and bouncing babies.

Things are getting easier now. The exhaustion and craziness are fading away. But every now and again, I'm confronted with a reminder of how things were. It's in these moments that I realize Kyle really deserves a medal, or at least some good therapy.

On Saturday:

Kyle walks into the dining room where I'm feeding the babies some lunch.

"I have something to tell you."

I look up at him. What could this be? I offer a tentative, you-can-totally-tell-me-anything-and-I-won't-get-angry "okay."

"It's not a big deal. But I don't want you to be upset." He punctuates this with a nervous laugh.

"Well what?" My mind races.

Long pause.

"I don't want you to buy me plain potato chips any more. I want flavor. Always at least some sort of flavor."

"Oh." I start to breathe again. "Okay."

Flavor. How reasonable. But it makes me wonder.

Just how scary was I?

Turning One.

2010-01-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

The babies are one today.

I am one today.

Lately I've been feeling sympathetic towards babies. So much to learn so quickly. They shame us adults and our slowed pace of learning, and I can't help but wondering if humans would be able to fly if we continued to learn and grow at the rate of babies. As a mother, I feel painfully aware of my slow learning. As the babies are learning to walk, to eat, to use words, I am focusing on my own necessary new life skills. There are some things that mothers and babies come hard wired for. For babies, the ability to nurse. For mothers, overwhelming and intoxicating love.

And it is intoxicating, that love. It is beautiful and wild and scary. It is the rawest thing I have ever experienced, trying to walk through the world with composure as I carry in my hand the most vulnerable, the most delicate, the most screaming and hysterical and brazen emotion - love for my babies.

I try to smooth out the edges. Try to believe that with a warm, clean house and successful nap times and nutritious meals, this thing, this love, will not upend me or knock me down with its magnificence. How do mothers walk through the world? How do we not take over and make the world what we need it to be for our children? How are we not overwhelmed by the amazing beauty of everything wonderful - mountains and oceans and sunsets and big trees with strong branches, deep midnight skies that would swallow you whole if it weren't for a thousand bright stars, warm sun on your back and a cool breeze against your face, first kisses, first crushes, first loves. How do we contain ourselves in the face of all things terrible that threaten our children? How do we not march ourselves out there, grab all the bad things by the scruff of the neck, and use that rawness to make things right in every way we know how?

As the babies are learning to maneuver through the world, I struggle to keep pace in my learning as a mother. I work to be as gentle and tolerant with myself as I am with them. I try to shake off the fear that I will fail them and walk confidently, knowing that my crazy love is the only guidepost I need.

The babies are starting to let go when they walk. They are so brave. They've never walked before. They don't know what will happen. But they do it again and again. Sometimes they fall. They get up. Again and again. I am inspired.

I will walk confidently. I will hold this amazing love proudly and strongly, and I will trust myself, knowing I am the mother they need.

Four.

2010-01-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

We have four frozen embryos.

The leftovers.

The ones that weren't chosen. If the doctors had chosen differently, Rhys or Quin could be neatly preserved in a medical freezer in Boston right now, instead of playing happily on our living room floor.

At first I was thrilled with our four frozen embryos. I felt so lucky - to suddenly be pregnant with twins AND have four more embryos sitting quietly in wait should we need them.

And now the thought sickens me. Haunts me.

My four little embryos. Waiting. With uncertain futures.

I am a card holding member of the National Organization for Women. I will always stand up for, support, and believe in a woman's right to choose. I hate the way pro-lifers make the right to choose about something other than a most basic human right. They make it about "when life begins" and the "rights" of a fetus. Or an embryo.

It's not the pro-lifers who have gotten to me. I don't care what they think about infertility or infertility treatments or frozen embryos. But I have gotten to me. The mother that I have become has gotten to me.

When we chose to freeze them - or back this up even more - when we chose to create them or maybe have them created for us, I understood what we were doing. What I didn't understand was how it feels to be a mother, or the painful pull of the love I would feel for my children.

I feel that painful pull for our embryos.

I let my mind go all of the places that logic tells me not to go. I wonder about the children they might be. Would they coo like Quin? Give big open mouthed kisses like Rhys? Or have their own endearing traits to make me fall helplessly in love? Do they have souls yet? When does that happen, that an embryo, a fetus, a baby grows a soul? Why do I sound like I should be standing outside of an abortion clinic thumping my bible?

We don't know if we want any more children.

And if we do want more children, maybe we would want to see if it could happen without medical intervention this time.

But what about our embryos?

I consider donating them to "the right" couple. And believe almost immediately that I love them too much to chance that. To chance that they wouldn't be loved enough, or that I couldn't live knowing they were out there, mine but not mine.

I consider how selfish it would be to try and have a baby "naturally" when we have four we already started just sitting there waiting for us. I consider what that would say to Rhys and Quin about how they came into this world.

I watch Rhys and Quin play. I listen to them babble together. I look into their big blue eyes and am awed by their simple innocence. Behind the love is a layer of guilt.

Four embryos, waiting.

And here I talk about poop again.

2010-01-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part three.

After the initial incident with the fireflies, our first real away-from-home stint with the babies was a success. An exhausting success, but a success all the same. By the time we were packed up and ready to make the journey back home, I was drooling over the idea of a four hour date with my pillow in the front seat of the car while Kyle drove. We had the babies in clean diapers, cozied up in pajamas and ready to be tucked into their car seats for some quality car-slumber. As we said our goodbyes, Kyle's mom held Quin up and made a face. "I think he pooped."

"Nope," I said, offering an optimistic and perhaps slightly desperate smile. "We just put him in a clean diaper. It's probably gas."

She gave him another sniff. "It's poop."

I took Quin from her, ready to prove the gas theory. I took a deep breath in. It didn't smell like gas. It didn't smell like poop - at least not any baby poop I'd ever been acquainted with. It didn't smell like anything that should be coming out of an innocent and squishy little baby. I sent Kyle to dig the diaper bag out of our warming and packed car, and set Quin down on the floor. Within seconds, one of the dogs ran over to him and started sniffing and licking. It was as I reached down to intervene that I noticed the green soupy seepage coming through the back of his pajamas and making a trail on the floor behind him. I flashed to the image of my soft and warm pillow in the front of the car. I wanted to be there. So tired. So close to making it home without major incident.

I picked Quin up and held him out at arms length in a feeble attempt to remain sludge-free. He swung his legs and cooed. Where the hell was Kyle? Hadn't I sent him for the diaper bag, like, five minutes ago? I looked around the kitchen at Kyle's family. I offered an "I'm totally relaxed right now" smile. Quin cooed and kicked. My arms burned. Where the hell was Kyle? I attempted a casual yell to Kyle's brother who was heading out to pack up his own car: "can you ask Kyle to hurry up? Maybe let him know that Quin has poop running down his legs and all over the place? Maybe remind him that I'm waiting for a diaper?" I offered a totally non-desperate smile. I scanned the room again at the smiling faces of Kyle's family.

When you try to have a baby for years, it's easy to fall into the thinking that when it finally happens, you'd better be damn good at it. Like you have to prove your worthiness. That all your heartache and pain and wanting was well spent because LOOK at those parenting skills that are finally able to be put to use. I try to ignore these thoughts, and in the privacy of my own mind, I usually can. But in front of other people? I am a crazed woman on a mission to prove my worth and competence as a maternal figure.

Holding Quin out at an increasingly weak arm's length, these thoughts took over. Must do something competent! screamed the nagging little voice that had convinced me of fireflies the previous evening. I shot a pleading glance toward the doorway, willing Kyle to walk through. No Kyle. I looked around and weighed my options. Remove the pajamas. Simple. Efficient. Necessary.

I unzipped Quin's pajamas and pulled his arms out. Without his arms to hold them up, his poop-laden pj's slid off his legs and landed on the floor in a squishy, sopping heap. Poop splattered on the floor. It splattered the cabinets next to us. It splattered the wall in front of us. It ran off his legs and landed in heavy wet plops below. The room started to spin. Must look competent. Do something! Do something! More plops. I saw the smiling and expectant faces of Kyle's family. More plops. As if the heavens had opened in a festive holiday poop storm. Do something! I shot a last desperate look to the door, and there was Kyle. His eyes wide, taking in the scene. Me, standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding our now mostly-naked-save-for-the-copiously-poop-filled-diaper baby out at arms length, a puddle of mushy poop below us, totally frozen. Seconds passed, our gazes locked. Plop, plop, plop.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!" The words burst out of me, louder and harsher than I'd probably have chosen if I'd had any warning that I was about to speak. And without warning I repeated it. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!"

And then time started again. Kyle's sister came to me and gently ushered us into the bathroom. We got Quin washed up, re-diapered, into clean pajamas. The asshole in my head kept us company the whole way.

Into the bathroom. You bring a poop-covered child into the bathroom. Bathrooms have water and soap.

Kitchens are a bad place for poop.

Weren't you the one who wanted babies more than anything in the world? You, who doesn't know how to handle a poopy diaper?

Nicely played. Way to show that you're a natural.

And so on and so forth. We said our goodbyes. I attempted some casual laughter and smiled and offered seventeen feeble apologies for the poop-covered kitchen.

We drove home. I drifted in and out of sleep, stewing in my mortification and carrying on quite the internal dialogue.

Nobody noticed.

Are you kidding? Everyone noticed!

This sort of thing happens all the time.

No. No it doesn't.

You're a new mom. Of twins!

And you did a bang-up job of demonstrating your motherly prowess.

And so on and so forth.

I later learned that as a last show of competence, we accidentally left the poop covered pajamas sitting in a mushy bundle on the floor, leading to Kyle's sister having to wash the pajamas and Kyle's mother having to transport them back home for us. Which I believe kind of seals the deal on everyone remembering this for a very long time.

Bundled

2010-01-04T09:50:00.001-08:00

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part two.

In my first holiday season as a mother, I decided I would sail through in a completely stress-less state, laughing and snickering at the ease of it all in a most festive holiday spirit. My strategy involved completing 98% of our Christmas shopping in one morning online, and cramming 98% of our holiday erranding into three insane days of babies-in-tow mayhem.

By day three of our festive erranding, my state of stress-less-ness was hanging by a very wispy little thread. Despite the seventeen degree weather and whipping wind, in and out of the car went the babies and I - unbuckling car seats, hoisting babies onto hips, using my feet to open doors and enter buildings, and maneuvering my wallet with my one free pinky finger before re-buckling car seats, tightening the straps, and heading to the next stop.

It was at our third-to-last stop where things started to get hairy. First was the fact that the store I chose to complete our shopping in did not have shopping carts as I'd hoped, leading to an unusual shopping experience that entailed wearing one baby on my front and holding the other on my hip, using my one free arm to shop, select, pay, and be done with it. And then there was the issue of the babies requiring nourishment. I had planned ahead and brought bottles of pumped milk to give the babies so I wouldn't have to tandem nurse in public. I was feeling quite satisfied with my forethought as I leaned into the backseat of the car with their bottles. It took me about four seconds to notice a bizarre, rotten cheese sort of smell. Almost like rotten milk. Rotten milk. Shit. I took the bottles away. The babies started to scream.

I got into the driver's seat, turned the key, and weighed my options as I drove to the next stop. All I had left to do was purchase a bottle of rum and go grocery shopping. On the plus side, the liquor and grocery stores were in the same mini-mall. On the negative side, that meant at least another two hours before we'd be home. And two babies screaming in the back seat, scorned by a mother who first fed them rotten milk and then had the gall to steal it away. I pulled into the parking lot and the babies' continued screaming made my decision for me: boobs. Lots and lots of boobs.

Getting the babies out of their seats and into the front of the car was challenging. Even more challenging was getting the three of us settled into the driver's seat, removing the babies' hats, mittens, and jackets, using my feet to kick the keys out of the ignition, and then not dropping the babies onto the floor as I pushed the seat back as far as it would go, unzipped my coat, and inched up my shirt in the most discreet parking-lot fashion I could muster. Keeping an eye out for overly curious cart-collection boys, I fed the babies, and all was well. Time to buy that rum, get those groceries, and get the hell home.

Except. I now had two babies in the front seat. Both needing to be re-bundled for the cold, both needing to somehow be carefully carried into the store, and me feeling perplexed about how to accomplish anything other than sit there and wait for a second set of arms and hands to sprout from my body. But I did it. I used my knees, my feet, my elbows, and my teeth. By the time I emerged into the parking lot, my car safely locked, both babies carefully bundled, Rhys happily on my front and Quin in the front of our cart, I felt really damn proud. Okay, so maybe Quin was precariously balanced in the cart because I couldn't get the seat belt to buckle and it was just too damn cold to mess with it any longer, but I had a death grip on him and we were on our way into the liquor store where I planned to buckle him in for real.

As we crossed the parking lot, I noticed an old woman break from her hurried path to bolt in my direction, yelling. I couldn't hear her at first, her voice lost in the wind. As she got closer, her shrill advice slapped me in the face. "YOU NEED TO BUNDLE YOUR BABIES!!!"

Well.

Perhaps it was a beautiful display of motherly decorum that led me straight into that liquor store without another glance in her direction. Perhaps it was my complete inability to think of an appropriately feisty response.

And so just in case it was the latter, let me take a minute to respond now.

Because I kind of think I've got this thing down.

Because not only were my children both wearing wool hats and mittens, not only were they wearing fleece lined pants and warm jackets, not only was I wearing one of them snugly on my chest and holding on to the other with every cell and muscle in my body, not only had I just whipped out my naked breasts in front of the entire parking lot to feed them, not only that, but have I spent my entire life waiting to love them and mother them. And maybe I'm not quite as perfect as I'd hoped to be, or wanted to be. Perhaps I am a bit sleep deprived and perhaps I have days where I NEED A BREAK. I am still doing the best that I can and have finally realized that I am a competent and fairly good mother to these two perfect babies. And I get it, parking lot lady. It breaks my heart and tears at my soul but I get it. I realize that as much as I love them and try to hold on to every bit of them and every second of every day, I know that life will go on and moments will pass by and sometimes it will be seventeen degrees and we will still have to leave the house and the wind might bite their sweet little noses and make them cold and I get it! I get it! I cannot always keep them warm enough. No matter how hard I try, life or the weather or some shrill stranger will butt in. And so I'm just doing the best that I can. In spite of life, in spite of the weather. And that is why being a mother is hard. Really fucking hard, parking lot lady. It is wonderful, and break-your-heart beautiful, and really, really hard.

My babies are bundled, parking lot lady. Bundled, and bundled, and bundled.

bed bugs.

2010-01-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part three.

So we've kind of spent the last eleven months staying within a 90 minute radius of our house, since eventually somebody is going to poop or need a nap or a boob, and that 90 minute radius just seems safe. We knew it couldn't last forever.

The week before Christmas we made the trek North to visit Kyle's family. We made the genius maneuver of travelling at night, starting off just before the babies' bedtime so that they would be none the wiser, travelling in sweet peaceful dreams while Kyle and I played twenty questions. Well, while Kyle drove and I slept. We were a bit perplexed to find our strategy successful.

We arrived at Kyle's sister's house, set up the babies' beds, and after a brief nursing, settled them down for the night. Cake. Maybe travelling wouldn't be the end of the world.

Quin has a habit of waking up for a midnight snack three hours too late, and despite our unfamiliar surroundings, he stuck to this routine during our visit. I picked him up and brought him into bed to nurse him back to sleep, begging for just a little cooperation. I was just settling into bed with him when I noticed a flash of light near his foot. Odd. I chalked it up to nothing more than a harmless little hallucination and continued about our business. Another flash, and then another. My mind raced to put the pieces together - a flashing, glowing foot? I settled on the only solution slightly logical: a firefly. Not being one for insects, I threw a hard elbow in Kyle's direction.

"Get up! Get up! Quin has a firefly in the foot of his pajamas and it is biting him! It is flashing and burning his foot. Get up! Get it out! I'm not putting my hand in there, it's going to be crunchy!"

And from Kyle: "???"

"Hurry! It's flashing and biting him!" I ripped open the leg of Quin's pajamas, pulled his foot out, and instructed Kyle once again. "I am not putting my hand in there. It's going to be crunchy!"

I believe he sighed. I believe he rolled his eyes. I suppose the past eleven months have also taught him enough about the level of crazy I can become on little to no sleep. He reached his hand in. "There's nothing in there. You do know it's December, right?"

"Kyle. It was flashing. I saw it. I SAW it. Your fingers are just too fat. Feel again. I don't want to touch that crunchy bug."

Repeat the sigh. Repeat the eye rolling. Repeat the pajama-foot-sweep.

"April. There is no firefly."

Exasperated and contemplating the victorious scorn I would shoot in his direction upon proving my right-ness and accompanying lack of insanity, I shoved my own hand into the pajama-foot. I braced for the crunch.

Nothing.

I swept again. Nothing. My next sweep was frantic. Nothing.

My heart raced. Is this how it ends for me? At Kyle's sister's house, away from home? This is where I will finally lose it? This is where the men in white jackets will come and take me away? This is where the real world and the world of pink elephants and phantom fireflies come to haunt me and then disappear when I run to prove myself?

I put Quin's little foot back into his pajamas. I re-closed the snaps. Spark. Flash.

The messy swirling in my brain stopped. The dust settled. Sunlight and moonbeams shone on reason.

Static. Just static.

"Oh." I tried a sheepish giggle. "I guess it's really dry in here."

Kyle was already asleep. I nudged another elbow in his direction.

"Pssst. It was just static! I'm not crazy! Static!"

"Uh huh. Night."

You really never can be too safe.

The one with the gorgeous chin.

2010-01-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part one.

I have a loose and unwritten rule that aside from Kyle and the babies, I don't blog about friends and family in a direct manner. Sure, they pop up as bystanders in certain posts, but for the most part, I leave well enough alone. Because.

Loose and unwritten rules, however, beg to be broken. So really, it's been a matter of waiting for the right occasion. I'm not sure I can think of any better occasion than one that takes high expectations, joy, anticipation, alcohol, copious amounts of food, stress, and goodwill toward all - stuffs them together in a cramped and overly warm living room, throws on some decorations, and presses play on Silent Night. If David Sedaris serves up his holidays on ice, I suppose this year I served ours not on ice, but fork-mashed, with sweet potatoes and breast milk.

***

A week before Christmas, my parents were at my house helping me get ready for a big family dinner to celebrate my sister's arrival from the West Coast. While my mother and I cooked ridiculous amounts of food, my father played with the babies. Holding Rhys, he commented how much Rhys looks like Kyle. "Actually," I told him, "lately I think he looks a lot like I did as a baby." He looked at Rhys and then back at me. "You know, I can kind of see it. He definitely has your chin." My chin, I thought. "I didn't realize my chin was all that distinctive." I stopped chopping vegetables for a moment to consider this new piece of information. Am I known for my chin? When describing me, do people say, "ahhh, yes, April. The one with the gorgeous chin." And what is it about my chin that makes it so distinctive? Its graceful curve? Softly jutting point? "Well," I asked, "what about my chin? In what way does he have my chin?"

My father blushed a little. He rarely blushes. He cleared his throat. Made a little cough. "You know. Your..." and then he made a little waving motion in front of his neck. "No." I said, perhaps a bit pointedly. "I don't know." And so he waved his hand again. A neck to chin and chin to neck sort of wave.

"Are you saying I have a double chin?"

He shrugged a little and grinned sheepishly. "Well yeah."

Don't be alarmed if you just heard a loud crash. It was nothing more than my illusions of a graceful chin shattering on the floor.

"I do NOT have a double chin! And neither does Rhys!"

"Well," he said, "his is just baby fat."

My father is a kind and loving man. A bit generous with his honest opinions, perhaps, but kind and loving. And so I chose my response carefully.

"You" I exclaimed, jutting my chin out ever so subtly "just earned yourself a spot on my blog."

And so here we are.

I'm sorry. Were you having a hard time reading this? Was my enormous double chin blocking your view?

Oh, and happy holidays. From Kyle, the babies, me, and my grotesquely fat chin.

2009-12-15T04:17:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, my mother posted this link on her Facebook page. I have always loved poetry but have strayed away in the past few years. Sarah Kay single handedly re-inspired this love with her poem "B" and the beautiful way she performs it. When I start to breath again, I am going to start writing poetry once more.

It's early and I couldn't remember how to embed the video, but if you're interested, the link is MORE than worth the click.

Today.

2009-12-10T19:04:00.000-08:00

A little irony: me, sitting in the car outside of our local natural foods store, scarfing down a Whopper as fast as I can chew.

Not appreciated? Was the guy in the silver Honda next to me, shooting looks of judgement and disgust in my direction.

So listen up, you pretentious prick, lest you should be reading:

That's right. I was eating a Whopper. A big, fat, juicy Whopper. With mayonnaise, in-humanely raised beef, and processed cheese product. Whilst sitting outside a store that sells wholesome, organic and delicious food. With my two fussing babies in the backseat.

Yes, that was me.

You know why?

Because I forgot to eat. That's right. Forgot. All day.

And at 2pm, I got hungry.

Insane, nursing-two-babies on zero calorie input, put some EFFING nourishment in my stomach, HUNGRY.

Because somewhere, in the midst of changing poopy diapers, begging my children to take naps, and creating miraculous, edible milk-product from my breasts, I got distracted and forgot not only to eat, but to brush my teeth as well.

So judge away, Honda Man.

For what it's worth, I think it's thoroughly ironic to sit in judgement outside of a natural food store, so I suppose we sit in irony together.

That damn Whopper was good.

***

Yes, one of my children spit up copious amounts of breast milk once we were within the safely organic walls of said store. No, I am not a responsible mother and did not have any appropriate items with which to clean said spit up. Yes, I used the sleeve of my jacket instead. Looks of judgement? Yes.

Well Hello.

2009-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't felt like posting lately.

I have, however, felt like eating fudge, listening to Christmas music, and watching two incredible little babies grow.

Over ten months old.

I've been arguing with myself over whether or not I want to blog about why I haven't felt like blogging.

But here it is. At the end of the day, I'm a frustrated writer. Frustrated by the confines of my blog, and frustrated that I don't have more time to promote it. That's all. And so in a childish indulgence of that frustration, I spent a few delicious weeks waving a big old F*&# YOU to my blog.

I think I'm going to get over it now.

Apparently somebody thinks I'm kinda fantastic.

2009-10-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

And that would be a funny-as-shit fellow twin mama Joy over at Freckletree.

She gave me this award:

Along with the HUMONGOUS cash prize (checking the mail daily, Joy!) she also awarded me the right to drink before noon as much as I want.

Now if that's not a sweet deal.

Poop. Yup. Poop.

2009-10-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

So if you were so excited to get to the juicy details and skimmed over the title, let me offer it once more. This post is about poop.

Is this what it has come to? Am I forever reduced to the intrigues of BM's? Will I ever get out of sweatpants and brush my hair again? And when will Pandora get it through its thick cyber-brain that I unequivocally do not want to listen to songs by Barney?

But the reality is that this is a fleeting moment in time. Almost nine months have gone by. Nine months! And when I wanted this, I wanted it all. I'm going to savor every last drop: the faces they make when trying a new food for the first time, their fascination with Bella's food dish, the sweet, cooing mamamamamamamamama sounds they make. And poop.

Prior to motherhood, I had heard tales of this ridiculous obsession with poop that afflicts many new mothers. I knew that I would never be one of those. And for the larger part of nine months, I haven't been. It kind of went like this: Babies eat. Babies poop. Parents change diapers. Repeat. What's there to get all in a tizzy about?

And then we started solid foods.

From there, poop has just really gotten, well, fun. Kind of like the train wreck that is Jon and Kate Plus Eight. You're sick of it, sick of them. Yet you can't seem to pull yourself away. You've Googled them on your lunch break just to get one more bit of delicious juiciness. You never know what it will be next. Or when they'll pop up in the news next to important stories like current events in Afghanistan. And so it goes with poop.

Sure, my new-found interest in poop does little for the resume. I don't care. It may be wildly indulgent of me, but I'm embracing this long-awaited milestone of motherhood and sharing. Poop stories. I'll keep them brief.

***

I get periodic emails from Babycenter.com which I find mostly annoying. Recently, one arrived in my inbox titled, "Baby Poop. A visual guide." UGH, I thought. How disgusting. How insulting. Like new mothers have no need to know about more important things in this world. Three seconds later I was scooping that email out of my trash box like it was candy and scanning through the images while performing a mental comparison of every diaper I've ever changed. Satisfied that my babies are the proud owners of normal bowel habits, I closed the email and promptly deleted my browsing history. (Now you have to know, don't you? Here.)

***

The other day I was changing Quin's diaper. I love to make the babies giggle by giving them big tummy tickles and raspberries. I was going in for some good gigglage when I noticed a tiny little bead in his belly button. What a bizarre find! I scooped out a perfectly round little piece of clay. And as I was inspecting this clay, racking my brain to figure out how it got in there, holding it close to my eye to determine it's origin, it came to me. Feces. Poop! On my finger. Close to my eye. Out of my child's belly button. A perfect little ball of poop. Do not judge my diaper changing abilities, or the thoroughness of my wiping. They're perfectly fine. The poop ball just happened. I don't know how.

***

Every night before bed, the babies get a warm bath. We've gotten into the habit of changing them on the living room floor (does anyone actually use a changing table?) and then leaving the dirty diapers and clothes while we give them their baths and put them to bed. Once they're asleep, we get to the business of taking care of our messy living room, including putting the dirty diapers in the wash. The other night, one of the babies had a particularly huge blowout. After getting them to sleep, we decided a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, would be the only fair way to determine which of us would be responsible for taking care of the poopy explosion. I looked over at the two dirty diapers, hoping I would not be the one. And then I did a double take. The diapers were still there, but totally poop-less. The wipes we had used were not on the pile of diapers and covers where we had left them, but rather set aside in a neat little bundle. Even these had barely a trace of what had been there only minutes before. I looked at Kyle. He looked at the diapers. And then we looked at Bella. Laying on her bed, licking her lips.

***

I feel better. Purged, even.

armor

2009-10-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

I think I was in the third grade the first time that I realized that my world wasn't fully comprised of butterflies and cinnamon. I knew that THE world had dangers and sadness. I had seen the starving children on TV. But I didn't know MY world was susceptible. Ignorance? Innocence? Gluttony? Ethnocentrism? Being an American? Probably a combination. But then the news broke that the US was embarking on the Gulf War. I remember sitting in the living room with my family and begging my parents to cancel their upcoming trip to Florida. I pictured bombs falling from the sky and soldiers on street corners like in the books I had read about World War II. Surely plane travel and a trip to sunny Florida were perilous activities in the war-torn country I was certain we were about to become.

But then life went on. Our favorite shows were still on TV. I didn't know anybody who died. We could still buy microwave popcorn and ice cream at the grocery store. I licked my wounds and moved forward. In time, the illusion of safety settled in around me once again, with only the slightest ding in its shiny varnish.

And that's how things went. I became so accustomed to that illusion of safety that eventually it felt like an armor. People were killed in Kosovo and the armor suffered another ding. Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered, there was genocide in Rwanda, and hundreds of thousands of people died from cancer: ding, ding, and ding. I got it. Terrible things happened in the world. I didn't feel invincible. I just felt safe.

I was living by myself for the first and only time in my life when two planes crashed into the world trade center. This time, there were no dings. The armor shattered. As the dust settled, I looked around and felt stupid. Ignorant. I never had any armor. Luck, maybe?

A little over a week ago, not far from where we live, a mother and daughter were picked at random and attacked in their home while they slept. Four teen boys with machetes and knives stabbed the mother to death and slit her daughter's throat. They say the little girl is going to live. I wonder what they mean by that.

I don't understand this world we live in. A world with apple cider and fall leaves. Where miracle babies are born and learn to smile and laugh and crawl. Where incredible people overcome incredible obstacles. Where we strive to save the forests, save the whales, save the ozone. A world with tulips and warm puppies and grandparents. A world of good. Beauty, love, peace, and harmony.

This world. With poverty and disease. Where we send our children to war. Where we get up in the morning and make our coffee, knowing full well that somewhere, right this instant, there is rape, torture, hunger, and worse. Where four bored teenagers break into a home and massacre a sleeping family.

I don't know how we piece these worlds together. I don't know how to build an armor around my children. How to make that armor real.

I'm not interested in illusions this time.

This.

2009-10-13T18:31:00.001-07:00

Sometimes when we go to put the babies to bed at night, panic sets in. And it's the type of panic that might have once sounded to me cliche or inauthentic. But still it's there. We're giving the babies their baths and they have these soft full little tummies and tiny hands that splash the water and wet heads with hair that mats together and smells like lavender. And I feel panicked that I haven't loved them enough today. That I haven't breathed in enough of their baby-ness. Or made them giggle enough. The sound of their giggles makes me want to cry. It is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I panic that whatever I've done to mother them and make them feel loved is just. not. enough. Because they're them. Beauty and wonder and more than I ever thought I could know of anything. Ever.

And I suppose that's how this will be.

Eight months, almost nine, have gone by, and this has not faded. I love them more. Every day I know them, I love them more. And that is not possible. It is not humanly possible. It happens anyway.

And Kyle and I sit on our couch at night while the babies sleep and we say, "God they're fantastic. They're fantastic. Amazing." And it never gets old. Or stops being truer than the day before.

I wanted this more than anything. Would have moved the universe to have it. And it's more - they're more - more than everything.

The cows? Are in the freezer.

2009-10-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend we held a yard sale with my family. Time to clean out, mostly because I've been watching all those shows on TV about hoarders and am now overreacting by getting rid of such essentials as our dish rack. Who really needs a dish rack, anyway?

So we're at the yard sale, and apparently I'm not the only one who has been affected by those hoarding shows because nothing is selling. And I think my junk is decent junk that anyone would be lucky to have, but our customers seem to disagree. I'm bored.

Until a neighbor shows up. A neighbor who owns a farm. With a mule. And cows. The mule. The cows. And it may be the boredom, but I suddenly get gutsy and decide that this neighbor and I are going to have a little chat about her animals. Because I need to know a few things. Like, will a hammer protect me? And why do your animals froth at the mouth every time I walk by? And that fence. How sturdy is it?

And you know what she says, after she finishes laughing?

"Well you don't have to worry about the cows any more. They're in the freezer."

And I suppose that means I really don't have to bring up the hammer now. Because, overkill, right?

I learn that the mule is named Doc. And that he's quite "social." I can't bring myself to mention that I've been considering giving him a concussion with a carpentry tool. I certainly can't mention that I may have wished EEE on him.

She suggests that I not put my fingers through the fence. Okay. I can totally handle not offering my dainty fingers up like so many carrots for the chomping.

I get home and Google "mule meat." Turns out it's illegal. At least in San Fransisco. But I got tired of Googling after that.

I suppose I don't really want Doc to end up in the freezer anyway. If I can survive as the mother of twins, I can handle Doc.

But I'm keeping the hammer, just in case.

Building on Obama's Nobel Prize...

2009-10-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

...(and let's just start with a big old Hooray and Yippee, Mr. President!)...I've been reflecting on the ways that I work to contribute to global peace. When I can, I buy Fair Trade, eat organically, and support non profits that I feel are making a positive impact on our world. All nice things, but, let's be honest, a little lacking in creativity.

So the other day I was preparing to depart on our long trek to Trader Joe's, and remembered that, shockingly, I was without cash for the toll. I am too stubborn to break down and pay for an E-ZPass, so I run into this issue every time I have to travel a toll road. With the babies already loaded into the car and strapped into their car seats, I considered for a few brief moments that perhaps I would just speed through the toll without paying. Since we hadn't yet left the driveway, I decided the better course of action would be to sprint into the house, grab some change, and pay the toll like the good little law abiding citizen that I reluctantly admit to being. Grabbing a few quarters turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. Our change jar was full of pennies and various world currencies never converted back into US dollars after Kyle's last business trip. Rather than throw a handful of pennies at the toll attendant, I grabbed a few Euros and ran back out to the car. Because I'm a member of the global community, people. Euros are worth more anyway.

Apparently the toll attendant didn't agree. And so even though I quickly pressed my Euros into her palm and sped away, she still found the time to press the alarm buzzer and make the red light go off before I was through. So now I'm waiting for the grainy photograph to arrive in the mail, which will show me and the babies speeding through the toll like tax evaders and be accompanied by a hefty little fine. And I think it's totally unpatriotic and un-world-peacely that I will be fined for trying to broaden the global horizons of this fine state. Besides, I had no quarters, and everyone knows that pennies aren't money any more.

I like to think that our fine President would be proud of me. Or that he would tell me to stop making pathetic attempts to pass off my coin shortage as a stand for world peace. One of those.

Unrelated and far more exciting...

Thank you! to Musings of a Wannabe Mommy for the Kreativ Blogger Award! The accompanying rules are as follows (and remember...I am law abiding!):

1-Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

2-Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3-Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4-Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.
5-Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6-Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7-Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they’ve been nominated.

Ta-da:

So...seven things you may not know about me (good god...is there really anything I haven't shared?)

1. Fall is my favorite season.

2. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I think Paris Hilton is a comedic genius.

3. I make delectable maple sticky buns.

4. I enrolled in culinary school and dropped out a week later, before classes even started.

5. I was a cheerleader in college, and ultimately left the sport to become more active in the Feminist Collective.

6. I gag when I touch dry sand, chalk, or cotton balls.

7. I can not be counted on to not half-ass most home improvement projects.

So, to share a little love, peace, and goodwill, I'm passing this award on to the following talented bloggers: Freckletree, Nourish the Soul, The Maybe Baby, Parsing Nonsense, on the m104, Poop and Boogies, and Maybe If You Just Relax.

And on a closing note, I'd like to add that I ate a huge piece of chocolate cake for breakfast, and it was really awesome.

Writer's Block

2009-10-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

I hate writer's block. I had my longest running case of it when I was pregnant and found myself so dumbfounded that for once, I had nothing to say. It was all I could do to pick my chin up off the floor. For the past week I've been battling another nasty case of this dreaded affliction, and half-written posts have been piling up from my twisted, frustrated attempts to communicate something coherent, witty, or at least mildly amusing.

Perhaps it was purging my Bella guilt that has left me silenced. Perhaps it was crossing the line and then trying to figure out whether to stay on the other side or bashfully retreat back into the safe territory where I talk about peeing on myself and cutesy baby things. We'll see.

Two paragraphs in, I should mention that this little incident of writer's block is still very much with me at this moment. It's like getting cut off by someone going 15 mph under the speed limit when you've just moved into the passing lane, over and over and over and over again. And with two babies at home, it's not like I can simply hit the gas pedal when that car finally gets out of my way, because I guarantee that by then someone will have a massively poopy diaper and my motherly guilt will force me to change it rather than whipping open the laptop to let my inspiration flow. And I'm not complaining. Simply explaining why this post might suck, why I might suddenly have the writing skills of a third grader, and that I am posting anyway out of guilt and obligation and fear that those who follow might get bored and simply move on if I don't throw out at least one or two niblets of amusement on a somewhat regular basis. So.

Although I cannot be depended upon to write anything spectacular at this specific point in time, I figure I can give a few updates on past posts that may have left some things hanging. And if it sucks, well, fine. Let's have this post also symbolize a big old F*** YOU to writer's block.

Sleep Training

After agonizing for months, we finally gave in/took the plunge/gathered the courage/were about to gouge our own eyeballs out - and started sleep training (read: crying it out) with the babies. Our strategy was to let them cry for ten minutes and then go in and rub their backs (but NO picking them up) for two minutes...repeat...repeat...repeat...until asleep. I knew that once we committed to this, it wouldn't be fair to the babies to not follow through. Thus began my first experience in loving discipline. Not punishment. Discipline. To anyone who thinks that sleep training is a cop out for lazy parents who are sick of taking care of their children at night, think again. Sleep training has been much more difficult than getting up with the babies every hour (or every twenty minutes) all night long. But. It is working. The babies are finally getting more sleep (10-12 hours a night) and sleep in stretches of 4-8 hours at a time. They are napping during the day. Most amazing to me is how much their development has picked up since they started getting more sleep. At the beginning of the summer, our OT gauged the babies' development 3-4 months behind their actual age. When she came and visited this past Monday, she gauged their development in the 6-8 (Quin) and 8-10 (Rhys) month range - perfectly on target and vastly improved from just a few short months ago. I'll write more on sleep training some time soon, because it is deserving of its own post. The sheer amount of wine I consumed is deserving of its own post, if we're going to really get honest.

The Line

I don't have cancer in my butt. I know, because I finally went for the colonoscopy. And folks, I don't really want to talk about that. Once the mental scars have healed, I may consider a post on this topic. But for Christ sake. I just had a camera up there and need some distance from the whole experience. What I will say is that the doctor who is now far too familiar with my back-door-areas told me that I am spoiling my children because I'm not planning on giving up breastfeeding at the one year mark. Maybe shoving a camera up a person's ass imparts such a powerful feeling that it becomes necessary to give bad and unsolicited advice about all topics in all areas, or maybe this doctor was just an ass herself. But really? Either way, I refuse to be offended by the ignorance of a woman who has chosen to make a career out of rectal examinations. And Dr. Igari, if you're out there, I'd like you to know that I may well breastfeed far beyond the age of not one, but two. And might I also just mention that this would be totally in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization. But hell. What do they know.

Food, mobility, and general development. (And here's where both babies have woken up from their naps, both have poopy diapers, mommy has a raging headache, and let's just wrap this up already! sets in)

They're eating. Sweet potatoes, apples, avocados, lentils, and bananas. Must post entirely about food and include pictures. Coming soon to a blog near you. Way more entertaining than one might expect.

They're crawling. Everywhere. Main goal: seek danger.

They're developing. Language, personalities, and the ability to pull each other's hair.

So.

As I search for a witty closing line or amusing summary, I do nothing but come up empty handed.

I hate writer's block.

bella, revisited.

2009-09-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

All is not lost.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

2009-09-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes

we sacrifice

for

the greater

good.

bella.

2009-09-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

One time when Bella was a puppy, we made the mistake of letting her "chew" on several corn cobs. She was on her sixth one when the thought finally permeated the cheap plywood of our skulls that hey...where are the previous five cobs...OH LORD IS SHE ACTUALLY EATING THEM???

Ten days and zero poops later, we were at the vet's with one seriously backed up puppy and several hundred dollars worth of x-rays confirming the presence of six mushy corn cobs, all neatly lined up in her intestines.

Overly anxious and slightly neurotic pet mother that I once was, I asked the most pressing and logical question that popped into my head: "Is she going to die?" When his laughter died down, the vet sighed and looked at me.

"Just you wait. She's the center of your universe now. But in a few years you'll have a baby, forget about the dog, and then come in crying and wanting us to fix it because she's developed all sorts of behavioral problems."

Well thanks, jackass. Love the bedside manner.

I angrily explained to him that there was no way I would ever allow that to happen. Explained that Bella was special to me. I couldn't tell him that maybe I wouldn't have a baby in a few years. That I was trying and it wasn't working. And that Bella was the stand in, the willing recipient of my excess maternal energy.

For two years, our little mother-baby/pet owner-pet relationship worked. It was ignorant bliss. She absorbed my sadness and helped me feel needed. She stayed by my side as I ran and ran and ran. I petted her, adored her, babied her, nurtured her. We went to puppy class, to the beach, to the relatives' for holidays.

And then I got pregnant.

At first I didn't think much would change. I was excited for Bella to be a big sister. I didn't have the energy to run and play, but we snuggled a lot and life went on.

And then my water broke.

In all the craziness that ensued, I remember one moment clearly. Kyle and I, rushing to get out the door and into the car for a frantic trip to the hospital. Blood, blood, blood. Everywhere. Scared Bella. Bella trying to run out the door with us. And Kyle yelling at Bella to stay. Yelling. Out of panic and fear and necessity. It was the first time either of us had really ever yelled at her.

What followed is mostly now a blur. Weeks in the NICU - functioning - barely. Bella staying at my parent's house. I could not stand up straight. Could hardly feed myself dinner. Did not have the emotional, physical, or mental capacity to wash a load of laundry. The idea of Bella coming home was terrifying to me.

I don't remember when she came home. I don't know if it was before or after the babies were released from the hospital. I only remember realizing that I could not be relied upon to feed her consistently, and delegating that job to Kyle. Eight months later, it's still his job.

Bella, my former muse, my joy and love, is rarely mentioned in my blog anymore. I've avoided writing about her because I'm embarrassed. Embarrassed of how often I walk by her and feel nothing but disgust for the burden that she is to me. Embarrassed because she deserves better and is stuck with me because I'm too stubborn to stop believing that things will change.

Embarrassed. Because when I pull into the driveway, she runs and greets me like I'm the most amazing person in the world. And with the belief that today is a new day. And the willingness to forgive and forget. And the wildly desperate hope that I will do something, anything, to help her feel loved once again.

Embarrassed, because she drops her head and sulks away when I tell her to "move it!" in my nastiest voice.

Embarrassed, because my dog surpasses me in loyalty, forgiveness, and unconditional love.

I'm searching for the day where I stop letting her down.

Copious amounts of snot.

2009-09-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

So lately I've indulged in a little light bragging about the health of my children. Perhaps I am a bit sensitive about having had them two months early, but it seems the expectation is that preemies would be constantly sick and frail and snotty-nosed. But mine are not.

Aside from our initial stint in the NICU, the babies have been healthy for the larger part of eight months. We had a blip of a cold that lasted a day this spring, but that was it. And since I have two babies, that's like sixteen cumulative months of health. So I've been all, "Go me and my miraculous healseveryailmentbringitonH1N1you'vegotnothingontheseboobies breast milk."

Nobody likes a brag.

So of course what happened next is that we all got sick.

Rather than spending my week recounting our thrilling adventures to the Internet, I've instead been working on developing my bulb-syringe skills. And wondering if I'm the only mother who has to sit on her infant to create even the slightest chance of a successful nose/syringe interaction. And popping homeopathic cold remedies into the babies' mouths like Skittles.

Consider me humbled.

From now on I'll be blogging about irrational animal fears.

2009-09-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

Last week the babies and I were chased by a demonic cow.

This week?

An asshole of a mule with an extraordinarily large penis.

I wish I were joking.

With my trusty hammer safely tucked into the under-basket of our stroller, I set out on our typical route for a nice autumn walk. As we approached the scene of the cow chase, I scanned the fields warily. No cows.

Whew.

I noticed an absolutely benign looking mule. Half donkey, half horse. Typically infertile. Finally, an animal I have something in common with. He stood next to the fence grazing. I gave a psychic little hello and walked on.

And then he brayed. A terrible, bone rattling bray.

And starting trotting along the fence next to us.

I walked faster. He trotted faster. I picked it up to a jog. He galloped.

In the distance, I could see the electric fence cutting through the field sectioning it off. Safety was in sight.

As I sprinted toward it, I started to have my doubts.

What if the fence is only for looks? What if these farmers did not pay their electric bill and it's not working? What if this incredibly well endowed mule leaps over it in a frothing, blood thirsty frenzy?

The fence worked. The mule stopped.

I stopped.

I turned and looked at his ugly squinty eyes and long nose. It occurred to me that I have developed a raging farm animal phobia. I googled this. Zoophobia. Ah ha.

And I don't know why I suddenly seem to have this raw animal magnetism. The last thing I want is to attract the attention of large domesticated animals. Is it our bright orange stroller? Is it the patchouli? Or is it that they sense the fear oozing out of my pores like fat on bacon?

The realist in me does not intervene to come up with helpful, practical reasons why these large beasts will not break through their fence and stampede me like kindergartners on ants. My inner realist does, however, show up three thoughts too late to remind me that a hammer is likely a poor choice of weapon against an attacking mule in the 800-1000 lb range. Stop mule, stop! I insist. Disobey me and I will render a massive goose-egg on your head! A MASSIVE GOOSE EGG! I wonder if Google can help me get one of those tranquilizer dart guns they use on Animal Planet to sedate lions.

I find myself casually hoping that a mosquito infected with EEE or West Nile Virus will stop for a little mule snack on its way through the neighborhood. Does that make me a bad person, or just an optimistic Zoophobe?

Where am I going with all of this?

I have no idea. But probably not on a walk. Not until Google comes through for me with those tranquilizer darts.

Sunday Morning Story (told on a Monday)

2009-09-14T06:31:00.001-07:00

Food...meh.

2009-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

They say you cannot live off of vitamins alone. That vitamins are for "supplementation," a sort of nutritional insurance policy, if you will.

But I wonder. Maybe they're just saying that. Maybe you can live off of vitamins alone. Maybe the need to eat actual food is simply a fictionalization brought on by lobbyists just like corn subsidies and the rest of our corrupt food system in the US.

See, I have recently given up food. So you can probably understand why I'm hopeful that perhaps boatloads of vitamins will be enough to keep me kicking.

First it was dairy, and then soy. My determination to exclusively breastfeed wasn't about to be squashed by a little reflux and the delicate, immature digestive systems of my little loves. After months of cheating and sneaking teensy bits of dairy here and there, I finally kicked the habit and stocked the house with sheep's milk cheese, coconut milk ice cream, Earth Balance butter substitute, and goat's milk.

Problem solved.

I sat back and started counting the days until the babies' digestive systems would allow for the delicious reintroduction of things like MOZZARELLA (sigh) and BEN AND JERRY'S (sniff).

And then something happened.

I share a lot with you, Internet. I've shared stirrup stories and incidents of accidentally urinating on myself. I've shared postpartum depression and infertility. And all that sharing has been nice. But I have standards. There is a line. I actually didn't know if I had one, one of those line thingies. But I do. And I've stumbled upon it. Suffice to say, I am not going to share details. But something happened. It happened once, then twice, and then a third time. Three days in a row.

And I was concerned. Alarmed, even.

It involved blood and what I could only suspect might be my intestines. Ahem. The line.

I called the doctor. Made an appointment. She and I had a nice long chat.

The good news? Now I can breastfeed until the babies are eleven (I won't) because who cares if their still young digestive systems are finicky about what I put into my mouth?

Because apparently, my own digestive system has developed some raging, bloody (The line. The LINE...dammit!) finicky-ness of its own.

Did my doctor suggest a colonoscopy? Oh yes she did. And to avoid having a camera poking all about the business of my bum, I've decided to take option B and first try cutting out gluten and kissing dairy goodbye for...forever?

If things improve? Apparently I have colitis.

If things don't? Hello, bum-cam. And in the back of my mind, I am trying to quell the raging fear that I have cancer in my butt.

Until then, I am living on a totally delicious diet of, um, vitamins.

And can I just add that there are like, a lot of body parts? Pretty, glamorous things like arms and legs, and then neutral things like noses and toes. Yet with so many options, I, with my inability to respect the line, end up with issues in my effing ass.

That's right, Internet. It is all EFFED UP. My derriere. Butt. Bottom. Booty. Tush. Keister. Heinie. Rear. Caboose. Fanny. Rump. Badonkadonk.

Crap. (Get it? Get it?)

Screw the line.

Growing.

2009-09-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

While we were on our totally awesome and relaxing and you-should-be-jealous-of-its-fabulousity camping trip, Quin cut his first tooth. A tooth!

It is razor sharp and adorable. I'm waiting for him to bite a nipple off, and in my head have been practicing saying "NO" in a gentle yet firm voice. We'll see.

Would I bite you, Mama?

Rhys is also teething, although seems quite far from actually sprouting any teeth. Either way, I've been trying to be especially mindful and appreciative of these last few weeks of big, toothless grins.

These new days of teething have led to my becoming acquainted with a little product that moms-in-the-know have affectionately nicknamed "Baby Crack." Stop being horrified and just agree that it's funny.

Apparently the box itself provides some teething relief.

I know, I know. Good mothers do NOT allow their babies to chew on packaging.

My babies are seven months old. They are beautiful and growing. Looking through these pictures with Kyle tonight, we kept looking at each other and saying, "We MADE them!" Holy crap. We made beautiful little people.

My little Bee, Quin.

Rhys, my little Bear.