the speaking

The speaking thing went well enough, I suppose. I certainly could have been more eloquent. It was round-robin style, so I didn't write out a speech or anything like that; I jotted some notes on each of the themes and went from there. It's hard to think while keeping one eye out on the baby, although a couple of folks I knew in the audience helped, too. (Predictably, the girl cried when the very nice mom of one of Thing Two's classmates tried to touch her. She's very friendly, the girl, but only on her own terms.) Also, Thing One did a great job of watching her and playing with her and following her around whenever she decided to explore. I was very proud of him.

I don't really think of myself as a birthing advocate, so it was odd to find myself on a panel like that. (The topic of the forum--I referenced this in the last post, but in case you missed that post--was "When Birth Doesn't Go As Planned.") My second child was born via emergency c-section at 34 weeks. Definitely, nobody plans that. I made my peace with my c-sections a while ago, but there were two points I wanted to get across to those in the audience who are in the field of supporting pregnant and postpartum women.

First, that birth was traumatic for me, not necessarily because it ended surgically but because I had an abruption that wasn't even discovered until the baby was delivered. An abruption is an OB emergency, and babies can and do die from it. This haunted me. The baby was absolutely fine. It's a rare 34-week baby who doesn't spend any time at all in a NICU, but that was us. As I said last night, there are no support groups for women who have had a traumatic birth and the baby was just fine. It sounds like there are some more local resources than there were five years ago, but my main point was that nobody but nobody was monitoring my emotional health. The baby was fine! What could possibly be wrong? Well, nothing, except that I was convinced that Death had been on that maternity floor and we had gotten away with something--our baby was fine. I was fine. And Death was lurking around, waiting for me to screw up--take an unnecessary car ride, for instance--so he could take my baby via a horrific car accident. Oh, that just sounds crazy, doesn't it? That's sort of my point. I eventually got through the crazy, but wouldn't it have been better to have had some help with that? It's shocking how many OBs and midwives don't check up on their patients' postpartum emotional health.

(An aside: After my first baby was born, I had insomnia and my OCD tendencies really stepped it up, and at my six-week postpartum check-up I told my midwife I was having trouble sleeping so I was up at 5:30 am to wash the floor because it was just too dirty with a baby in the house, and this tripped no alarms whatsoever. I think it should have.)

The second point I wanted to make is that all births are natural births. There is an implied hierarchy of birth when we speak of natural birth versus any other type of birth. Is it no longer natural if a woman has an epidural? What about a c-section? This word bothers me a lot when it is applied to activities like birthing and parenting. "Natural parenting" sounds so pretentious, so superior. Am I unnatural if I decide I'm done with cloth diapers? Is it unnatural to use formula? Does it make you less of a mother? Does it make me less of a mother because I had two c-sections? No, of course not.

I don't refer to my first birth (drug-free, in a birthing center) as "natural." That's my intervention-free birth. I see my next two births as incorporating the most extreme birthing intervention, surgery. But the two participants--me and the baby--we're both natural, thank you very much. We had some extra help. That extra help saved lives. The goal is a live, healthy baby. When we speak of natural birth, we set up the expectation for (some) women that that is the correct way to give birth, and all other experiences fall short. There are certain magazines I no longer read, certain places I don't frequent, because this attitude aggravates me so much. There is no one right way to give birth, or to be a parent. There are many ways to reach the intended, hoped-for result.

For me, the absolute star of this panel was the woman who had struggled with debilitating postpartum depression and anxiety after the birth of her first baby. After the birth of her second, she made the conscious decision to use formula rather than to breastfeed, because she knew lack of sleep was a trigger for her depression to return, and because she wanted to take her meds. She said her children needed a balanced, functioning mother far more than the baby needed breast milk over formula. I felt like applauding her. In so many ways, mothers, especially, put themselves last, and in doing so, we're not allowing ourselves to be the best mother for our children. How wise of her, how absolutely smart and right, for her to tell the lactation consultant to take the pump away and bring in the formula.

When I was pregnant for the first time I was pretty committed to breastfeeding, but I remember reading a post in a forum for first-time mothers written by a woman with MS who wouldn't be breastfeeding because she would need to go back on the MS meds as soon as she gave birth, and I thought, That makes complete sense. And also, I'm glad I don't have to make that choice. I admit to being a huge breastfeeding advocate. I don't understand why, in the absence of medical reasons (which include needing medications that are contraindicated while breastfeeding) someone wouldn't even try. I cherish the nursing relationship I have/had with each of my children. But when someone is feeding their child a bottle out in public, it is not my place--or anyone else's--to comment on it. I have witnessed some shocking condescension towards mothers who bottle feed, both in person and online, and I just have to quote my sister here. Some people have no idea what's not their business.

So. That's how the speaking went. I probably could have done better. I'm pretty much at peace with each of my births, because look! Look at those beautiful kids! An embarrassment of riches, is what they are, no matter how they got here or what I went through to deliver them into the world.

(We'll be back to our normal crafty-type stuff in the next post, assuming my kids ever attend a full day of school again. Thing Two didn't even go today, and Thing One was sent home early because he was coughing too much; he just woke up from a nap.)

last week

I kept meaning to post last week, when it was still this week, but motherhood seems to be a job that expands to fill all available space and time. So, some highlights. Last week...

• I took the boys along to the girl's 12-month appointment, since they were sick. We left with prescriptions for inhalers for both of them. Thing One hasn't needed to use it since Friday, but Thing Two (he who had pneumonia in the spring) still sounds wheezy.
• Wednesday was a holiday, but I sent them to school on Thursday. I picked them up to try and shorten the day a little. It wasn't short enough for Thing Two, though--he was wiped. So on Friday I picked him up after lunch, then went back to pick up Thing One at the end of the day.
• Thing One ran out of library books while home sick, so I gave him the first Harry Potter book after making sure he understood he would not be allowed to read all seven straight through. (This is not so much me filtering what he reads as recognizing that he simply wouldn't understand the later books, and thus the enjoyment would be lost. Also, there is something special about having to wait, like all us old people did, to read the next book in the series.) He enjoyed it very much.
• Thing Two has begun sounding out words.
• The girl brings her own dirty laundry to the closet where we keep the hamper, then bangs on the door until I open it for her.
• I witnessed first-hand the self-extinguishing properties of wool when the sleeve of my Cobblestone grazed the candle during dinner. I wondered why it smelled like singed hair all of a sudden. I took the sweater off, meaning to duplicate stitch the area later, but I can't find it. Wool is such a miracle fiber that I wonder why anyone ever bothered to make fake stuff.
• I finally finished the first sleeve of my February Lady Sweater. I'm making full-length sleeves, because as a cold-blooded thin person living in New England, three-quarter length sleeves are useless to me. I hit a black hole of knitting between the elbow and the wrist, but I finally got there. I have seventeen repeats left on the second sleeve.
• I bought buttons for it, to spur me on.
• I began this sweater (Rav link) for the girl. (Note: that link doesn't go to the main pattern listing but to a particularly cute example. The main listing doesn't show the intarsia heart, which is the version I plan to knit.)
• I began putting things in the craft table. So much fun!! Once we truly finish it--I want to add a shelf underneath for storing things like my cutting mat and the big watercolor pads--I'll work on a how-to.
• I sent out invitations for Thing One's birthday party, which will be at a local science store that also does classes, programs, and parties. (Not in my house! And also? Right across the mall from a coffee store! Win-win, yes?)
• I neglected to ask their refund policy as it pertains to blizzards and H1N1 epidemics. Thing One's second birthday party got blizzarded out and I, in the first trimester of pregnancy, sobbed.
• Thing One attended a robotics workshop at that same science store, during which he built an amphibious rover thing. All three children were fascinated as it roved the bathtub.

•  This is what they're staring at.

• I sent in the consent forms for the boys to get the H1N1 vaccine, because this wheeziness tips them into a risk group. Almost everyone I know feels the same way I do: it's a concern either way and not an easy decision. My boys have never gotten a flu shot before, which gave me pause as I had to check off whether they'd ever had a reaction to one. (No, but...) This all may be a moot point if the state runs out of vaccine before our school's clinic, which is one of the last ones.
• I agreed to speak at a forum on the topic, "When Birth Doesn't Go As Planned." I'm a last-minute replacement, which is fine, but I wouldn't ordinarily agree to try to do anything so adult-oriented when I have a clingy nursling who's never had a bottle and cries when other people even think about picking her up. Wish me luck, since it's this afternoon. I'm bringing Thing One along to entertain her and hopefully keep her down to a Category One hurricane for an hour and a half; I told him he'd earn five dollars per hour, which will put him over the total he needs for the rocket he's saving for.
• Yes, rocket. I'm out of coffee, folks, so I think I'm done here for now.

forward progress

Thanks for the good thoughts from the last post. It's not anything life-or-death, just typical growing pains of the sort that tend to make mamas a little sad. Today I have all three kids home with me (the Hurricane and I haven't left the house since FRIDAY) because the boys are home sick from school. Thing Two is on the upswing, having spent the weekend moaning on the couch. Thing One is in the thick of it, and he has staked out the futon as his preferred moaning place. This is only his second illness since school started, and unfortunately, it coincides with his second missed field trip. I feel bad for him, especially since it's mild today, just a perfect fall day for tramping around in Nature.

Anyway, as I said, forward progress. I haven't posted any pictures of the basement yet because we're still working on finishing touches. But this past weekend I washed a whole bunch of knitted stuff in (squee!) my utility sink.

I LOVE IT! And when I was done, no tedious rolling up in towels. I simply transferred the items to the washer, which is right next to the utility sink, and spun them. Then I lay them flat to dry. Easy peasy!! (If you're curious, the bright orange stuff in that bottle is Citra-Solv; it's an ingredient in the rather low-cost and environmentally friendly cleaning solution I make myself.)

Also, we're just about done with the craft table. I'm thinking maybe I'll post how we made it--yes? (When I say "we," that means I said, "Honey, I want this. And this. And this," and he figured out how to do it.)

So the lighting is bad in this picture, but those walls are bright orange. The trim isn't painted yet, but it's going to be purple, because people, we do NOT shy away from color, especially in a craft area that has no windows. And do you not just LOVE the floor? I love the floor.

Anyway, the table. It weights about 2.3 gazillion pounds, for starters. But when I was searching online for craft table possibilities, I came across one that had those cubbies as legs, but the top was smaller than I wanted, plus it was five hundred dollars. Puh-leeze, I said. We can make that for less than five hundred dollars, and it can be as big as I want it, too. Which happens to be four by six feet. There's another cubby at the other side, for the other leg. That is EIGHTEEN little foot-square boxes in which to put things. Give me a chunk of time with no sick kids and let me at 'em, I say.

So yes, between gobbled-up weekends and sick children and Husband travel, things are progressing verrrry sloooowly, but we're getting there.

What else? I finished knitting something. It doesn't at all match the vision I had in my head, so I'll probably try again. I wanted to make the girl some pants from some left over Rowan Denim. I wanted them knit in the round, with short rows on the back side, and an elastic waist. (My little public safety announcement: Drawstrings do not belong on baby/toddler wear. They just don't. String + babies and toddlers = bad. My opinion, of course, but it freaks me right the heck out.) I didn't want the legs to be quite this fitted, and while the Rowan shrunk more or less how I expected it to, the proportions still seem a little off to me.

They're on her today since we're not leaving the house anyway. She wouldn't let me photograph her from the front. I think she thinks her pants look silly.

I've started Christmas knitting.

More Evangelines, of course. I'm not sure who these will go to. I'd like to make a pair for the boys' bus driver and monitor, because they are so kind and really do watch out for the kids. They're nothing like the bus drivers I remember from my bus-riding years. They greet the boys by name, for starters, and they listen to Thing Two chatter all the way home, and I know that's no small thing. The plan is to make several pairs and let the boys pick. The school's feelings on teacher gifts is unknown. I wish they put stuff like this in the handbook. They don't officially celebrate any holidays--they are public and inclusive--so I don't know how that might translate into gifts. Yet, I hear such good things about their teachers. And then I count up the number of people, when you consider classroom teachers and "specials" teachers (art, music, PE) and teachers aides, and I get a little dizzy. Clearly, I can't knit for all of them, especially if I'm not even supposed to give them anything to begin with.

Truly, this is the sort of stuff I need information on, not a half dozen emails on the symptoms of H1N1--which, actually, overlap with my kids' current symptoms, and wouldn't that be convenient? If I could only find out if that's what they have without sticking a swab up their nose, I could sidestep the whole vaccination conundrum entirely.

Well. Here's wishing you a healthy week!

quiet

I've been quiet this week for a reason. I've been both occupied and preoccupied with some kid-related stuff, the exact sort of stuff that I don't feel it's right to blog about; yet it's hard to think about anything else. I've been a little heartsick, actually. Thus, quiet.

So instead, a moment and a picture from the week. We turned the clocks back last weekend, so it's already getting dark by the time the boys get home from school. I picked them up yesterday, though, and we went to the library in the rain. When we came out, most of the sky was dark--it was still raining--but there was a break at the horizon in front of us. Gold light lit up the tops of the trees, in stark contrast to the trunks and parking lot in shadow. I still can't understand how several people just walked out the door behind us and didn't stop, mouths open, like I did, to stare. When I see sunlight during rain, of course, I look for the rainbow, and it didn't take long to spot it, arching from the trees on one side of the parking lot to the trees on the other, all the colors distinguishable and in their proper order. (So dependable, a rainbow; the colors are always in their proper spots.) And there, above the first rainbow, was a faint fragment of another. A double rainbow: what a gift.

I don't have a picture of that. Even if I'd had my camera, I wouldn't have tried. The light wouldn't have come through properly and besides, it was one of those scenes meant to be enjoyed in the moment, burned onto the film of my mind. No, the picture is of the girl. Her hair hangs into her eyes, and while it doesn't seem to bother her, I get weary of hearing that her hair is in her eyes. So I bought some cute barrettes.

It's a good thing I took a picture, because that's the first and last time she let one stay in her hair. She doesn't like them. She tries to pull them out, and that hurts, and she cries. So, take note: The hair in her eyes bothers her far less than the barrette, and that's why her hair is in her eyes. (No! I'm not cutting it yet!! Don't even say it!)

two months

After two months of school, I still can't quite sort out how I feel about it. I've realized that all my worrying last year about whether I was doing enough was misplaced. We were definitely doing enough, and it took us less time, too, which left more time for other things, things I have absolutely no time for now.

By the time the boys get home from school and I've given them a snack, it's time to start dinner. If I want to do anything after school--like make sure they get to the library on a regular basis--I pick them up. (If not for the girl, I'd pick them up all the time.) But even then, "after school" time is not a very long time at all. I miss doing things with my kids, from the simple, like baking, to the more adventurous, like taking field trips together. I'm sure I wouldn't feel so pinched if I didn't have a toddler at home, too, who requires my one-on-one attention at bedtime. But between those two pressures, school and toddler, there is very little time during the week to just be with my boys. And when they are here, I feel like I'm always telling them what to do: Get up! Get dressed! Eat! Brush! and the same thing in reverse at bedtime, with homework and dinner in between.

And if I had any ideas that I'd have more time to myself if I didn't homeschool, and I'm not sure I actually really thought that, well, the truth is, not so much. I can count on one hand the number of times Hurricane G has napped independently in the last two months, and I have two fingers left over, and two of those naps took place this past weekend. I would view this last bit as an encouraging development, except that the clock-switching mucked her up and she was wide awake at 6:15 this morning, and sacked out at 9 am on the way to the market. So who knows. Meanwhile, getting even simple chores done, such as cleaning the bathroom--and really, I'm talking fifteen minutes to wash the sink and toilet; the tubs get scrubbed very occasionally and the floors get washed just this side of never--are much more difficult when there are no brothers around to entertain the girl.

What I DO have time for, and the ability to do, is take the girl to Music Together and our parent-child Waldorf group every week. This is a bonus, because I couldn't do those things if the boys were home. She loves the music class. Even before we started going, she was bouncing to music. She begins to dance when I play music, or sing, or even to Thing Two's lilting babble as he plays. She recognizes the song with hand motions and flaps her arms around when she hears it. I love that she loves the class, too. The parent-child group is a wee bit long for her some days--it meets once a week for about 2 1/2 hours--but she enjoys most of it, and I really like it, too. It's a very sweet morning, with time for play and time for snack, outside time and circle time.

So on balance it would seem to be a wash, I suppose. Less time for some, more for others. I don't know. Hanging over it all is the worry that, while Thing Two really likes the many pieces of his day at school, the sum total may be more than he can handle. Husband and I used to joke that if Thing Two were in school, I'd be at the school every week for some reason or another. Hmm. It's not so funny when it's very close to reality. It weighs on me, whether he is in the right place at the right time this year.

And speaking of time, mine is up. There is a toddler here, demanding and deserving of my attention.