Those Crazy Crunchies

On A Loss

2012-02-05T11:53:00.000-06:00

Storm chaser, volunteer, web site contributor, enthusiast, informant to the National Weather Service, friend, and father to a three year old daughter.

Killed in Oklahoma 02/04/2012 returning from a late-week chase in Texas. Someone was driving the wrong way down an interstate and killed him; the one going the wrong way was also killed and several others were injured.

On What The Hell

2012-02-05T11:50:00.004-06:00

Although I know I do specifically have a few close friends who are generally people I would consider to be "mildly intolerant", I more or less like to think of the people I try to surround myself and my family with as rather open minded individuals who are not hateful or who, at the very least, understand and accept that the lifestyle choices of others may not coincide with their personal beliefs, but that doesn't make them wrong.

Unfortunately I'm sometimes wrong, and when I am it seems like I'm wrong in the most horrific way.

I'd like to put a big disclaimer on the front of this because this post is going to involve religion on a pretty heavy scale, and I don't want anybody to think I'm walking around spewing my own degree of intolerance because it's more convenient or because it's somehow okay when it's me and not someone else. So let it be said that while I typically tend to dislike some of the more vocal adherents of certain religions, I DON'T dislike the religions themselves. I realize that there are negative representations of every religious circle or belief system, and that those who unfortunately choose to be the most hateful tend to give the remainder of the believers a pretty bad name. Even the most demanding religious people I know still very specifically will not go out of their way to purposefully discriminate against people that believe differently from them (for example, I'm darn good friends with a beautiful, wonderful Mormon who is only a few weeks - squee! - from welcoming her first child with her awesome hubby!) and I'd like to think that that's the kind of world we need to have, one where people can agree to disagree (but maybe also agree that disagreement doesn't mean denying basic human rights from anybody).

That being said, I also know that there are, sadly, a rather large group of people in general who are out to ensure that the rest of the known world - our country especially - adheres specifically to their own religious beliefs and interpretations of their scriptures. They aren't at all gentle or politely suggestive; they don't offer information but instead end up not only openly allowing but encouraging and enforcing policies like those at schools in a district in Minnesota that ended in the eventual suicides of nearly ten openly LGBT and supposedly "straight" students in one year because school policies kept teachers from addressing the bullying they experienced by name.

And to that sort of thing, I say, what the fuck? I don't often and openly curse, especially when I have two kids who now happily and contently repeat everything I say (and one of whom is old enough to scold me on my language and send me to time out), but really now. I'll let you read the (admittedly rather long) article yourself, but to TL;DR the whole thing, religious conservatives in the district pressured school board members to enact policies that specifically stated that teachers and other employees were not to mention or bring attention to LGBT issues, and that ended with teachers being afraid to address bullying in their classrooms and halls. It ended with kids getting called horrible names and even being physically abused by their classmates, and allowed multiple teachers to even emotionally and verbally abuse their most vulnerable students because nobody was allowed to bring up the abuse. It ended in multiple suicides because there were a lot of (sorry) really pig-headed Christians who decided that talking about homosexuality would encourage supposedly straight students to "try it out", and that it would end with an epidemic of AIDS and homosexuality.

Without rereading the article in full and counting every single death, I want to say that seven kids died in that school district.

Seven.

I'll let that sink in for a while as I head back to my original point.

Anyway, I'd rather my children grow up surrounded by the sort of tolerance I want them to express to others, and only see the other type from the "right" side - to understand that being hateful is ugly, and that intolerance is a form of bullying. It's something I hope they never personally experience, but I know that they will eventually - maybe because one or both of them are gay, or bisexual, or transsexual, or "too skinny" or "too fat" or not smart enough, or because either one decides to wear "girly clothes" or keep their hair long or end up with glasses. I know from personal experience that children raised in an environment where there is bullying in the home or where it is encouraged through a complete lack of tolerance on the behalf of the parents. Until that day comes, though, I'd rather show them what I want them to see, and live the way I'd like to see them try to live, so that when the day comes when unfortunately someone does choose to bully them or show a complete lack of tolerance for something one of my children says or does, I want my kids to see it as what it is - blatant discrimination and bullying - and understand why it's happening and how to deal with it.

I want to surround them with people who will love them, and show them what it is to love other people, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, education, income, age, disability, size, or any other factor viewed in a way that doesn't simply make a person unique. So when we found an opportunity to interact with a local SCA group (Society for Creative Anachronism, for those who aren't aware) I was thrilled. The last had recently disbanded and we had a great time with them, even as non-paying members, that I was excited to get my kids involved and let them start to experience the world that I live in in my mind.

We found out about it in an oddly roundabout way; a former participant of another group who also happened to be a "friend of a friend" who was also an SCA member from the former local group found me on Facebook and we struck up a happy little friendship. When we first got to meet him at the first (and only) meeting we went to, I was reaffirmed that the guy in question is pretty damn awesome. He liked us, we liked him, he was easygoing and a lot of fun. We and another girl who was there with her daughter had a pretty good time together, even though the fighters more or less ignored us. We made plans to try to pay at some point for an actual family membership and to come back for as many meetings as time and gas money would allow us to.

Then everything exploded.

Some general stupidity ensued; accusations were thrown around by the guy who started the group (who is a hardcore Christian) and a similarly-minded girl who ended up being the new head honcho, and without warning or discussion by anyone our new friend was ostracized from the group (specifically, he was "voted out"). Once information was eventually offered, he was given the runaround, told that "some parents" complained about how he acted at some random point around children in the group, but he wasn't told when the complaint happened - so of course when he asked the only other parents who were present the night we were there as well if they complained, we all answered no. We hadn't. None of us had. The truth is that we all acted as we normally do around our kids, which is to say that we all sort of act like big goofballs.

It turns out that, after a lot of prodding, the incident in question was unrelated to our kids or anything that we had even been there to witness. It was something that, in the end, had absolutely nothing to do with him acting inappropriately toward a child of any kind, but instead had everything to do, more or less, with the fact that he isn't Christian.

The group "leaders" are.

And I'm not sure how to react to their perceived intolerance because he may "act gay", so this has taken me a couple of days to write. It makes me angry. It makes me want to roll my eyes and try to explain to our kids (who are WAY too young to care or understand) that when people act this way, it's unacceptable. They won't get it, but I want to try to make them get it anyway. This has nothing to do with the SCA itself, and everything to do with the unfortunate mindsets of the people in our area. This is not representative of the SCA (in fact, the response from the higher ups he has spoken to has generally been that they have no right to tell him he can't be part of a local group, and that's something that needs to be decided on a larger, "kingdom" level). This is representative of stupidity, of fear, of intolerance and a lack of understanding and education.

This is what happens when you hate, folks.

People get hurt. Luckily, our new friend isn't too personally concerned about the situation beyond the personal attacks on his character. He knows they're being douches. Everybody else seems to know they're being douches. Hubby and I immediately left the Facebook group that had been created and don't plan on attending again. We don't want our kids around people like this, and frankly, I'm not a nice enough person to be able or willing to force myself to be around people like this.

So there you go. What the hell.

On Going At It Again

2012-01-12T11:15:00.001-06:00

I've been putting off posting for a while because of some crazy personal life stuff, but this needs to be said.

Facebook is at it again.

I don't mean that in a "oh, that crazy Facebook" way where we all shake our heads and have a hearty laugh and then go back to our daily lives. I mean that for over a year now they have been consistently deleting photos from the profiles of women who have posted pictures of themselves or ANYBODY ELSE breastfeeding, and on top of that they have subsequently been locking and blocking profiles associated with those pictures left and right. There are probably a hundred if not more groups on Facebook demanding that so-and-so's profile be unblocked or group be reinstated; there are easily a thousand or more pressuring Facebook to follow the laws of the state in which their main office (and thus they) are located, which happens to be California. You see, the law of California protects the rights of the breastfeeding woman. Want a copy of their laws? Find it here. California has been protecting the rights of breastfeeding mothers since 1997, when its first law ensuring a woman could breastfeed wherever she needs to was passed and put into force.

The problem?

The California law specifically states, and I quote, "except the private home or residence of another". That is a huge fucking loophole that, if you ask me, is probably how Facebook is continuing to allow people to report (and thus subsequently remove) pictures posted on profiles of women breastfeeding. It's what we in the not-really-legal profession call "a huge fucking loophole" because one would assume that if someone sees a picture of breastfeeding that they don't want to see, they're probably seeing it in their house, and thus they've every right (through the state of California) to report that picture and even that profile or group to avoid seeing it again - even if it belongs to someone that tends to post pictures like that, or join groups that contain numerous similar pictures or posts, and even if the reporting individual is fairly sure that this will continue. To make matters worse, because of Facebook's new timeline feature and subscription options that automatically leave everyone seeing what everybody else says without people going through their list and turning off subscriptions for every person on there by hand, people indeed are inadvertently seeing comments, posts, pictures, and group activity that other people on their friends list may not care about or want to see - and if they can't see the whole post and click on it, they're likely to be subjected to something that shouldn't concern them.

What does this mean?

It means a couple of things. First of all, it means that 1) via California's breastfeeding protection laws, Facebook may actually be doing something painfully legal, even though the pictures are being hosted elsewhere and the homes in which said pictures are being viewed could be located absolutely anywhere. 2) It means that even if Facebook is still in the wrong simply because of the other logistics (and they are), this is a very real loophole that needs to be closed ASAP by the California legislature with a "no loophole" clause that insists that pictures posted from California or viewed in California households are not subjected to the "except the private home or residence of another" stipulation. (And if they don't close this loophole, there's the very real possibility that Facebook can and will continue abusing their own policies.)

The amusing thing is that Facebook has no algorithm in place to detect which pictures may show more potential nudity than others; if so, (WARNING: NUDITY) pages like this and profile pictures like this and this and this whole fucking page wouldn't exist. (Which reminds me of this page, and this one too.) There are thousands, MILLIONS more, not including the profiles of men and women alike who post way more inappropriate pictures that show far more nudity than the average picture of a woman breastfeeding her child. There are pages, apps, groups and profiles completely dedicated to the dehumanization of women, to the sexualization of children, and to nearly every single illegal act you can think of. There are more of these than there are pages, groups, profiles, and even pictures that support the beautiful bond between a woman and her children, that show the benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child. Facebook is a misogynist's dream, mostly because there are very few things that we women are capable of that a man typically isn't, and one of those things is breastfeeding.

Which Facebook wants to shutter back behind closed doors. Again.

There have of course been ups and downs. Facebook briefly apologized for "wrongly" removing a picture on a woman's profile in America, but soon opened itself up to Canadian criticism when not more than a couple of weeks later they were shutting down numerous groups and profiles and removing pictures from pages and groups owned and moderated by individuals located in Canada. One woman even made the news and was interviewed extensively about what she has experienced. There's an official page on Facebook supporting Emma Kwasnica and her breastfeeding pictures, which I am a part of.

So what on earth can or should we do about this?

Well, first of all, go sign this petition to the California state legislature (that I wrote, go me!) asking them to change a loophole in their breastfeeding protection laws that may be enabling Facebook to continue removing pictures at their discretion under the guise of being pornographic or containing "sexual nudity". Once you've done that, go grab the Open Letter to Facebook that I wrote last year and find every single form you can fill out to the Facebook administrators, then send it off. You may edit that letter however you please and you do not need to attribute it to me when you send it, but I would ask that you please link back to that post or this one if you mention it online. Then, if you're really feeling up to some good, flood your profile with pictures of breastfeeding women - I really love seeing them remove pictures of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus, that always gets me somehow (and I don't mean that in an angry way, I mean that it really goes to show how terrified of breastfeeding they are) - and wait to see the fireworks.

Then, go have a boob-filled day.

On Frustration

2011-12-15T12:37:00.001-06:00

Over two weeks into the new month - and only a couple away from an entirely new year - and I have only two posts to boast (one of which is this one). It's a pretty downright sad way of going, and I know it. But depression and current events are pretty rough on us, and have kept my mind in a billion and two other places.

I have posts, mind you - half finished drafts hanging out in my folders, mocking me from afar. They have that little italicized word - draft - pasted on there so proudly, as if they're all pointing their curvy little fingers at me and giggling wildly about the woman who couldn't finish anything she started. About the woman who was a failure to herself, her kids, and her family. The woman who yelled at her kids behind the scenes while outwardly trying to impress upon others the idea of peaceful, gentle parenting. The woman who couldn't keep a house clean for five people, who couldn't balance a budget or find a job fast enough that could provide for all of them. The woman who, secretly, deep down, didn't want to go back to work again because despite her frustrations and depression and short temper, absolutely loved spending time with her kids and watching them grow.

I'm probably being over dramatic when I say that I feel as if everything's falling apart around me more often than not, but that's the feeling I typically have. It's a sensation that sometimes makes me feel like I can't do anything right, something that keeps me up some nights and drives me to the point of exhaustion where I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow on other nights. It's an endless cycle of confusion that involves insomnia and oversleeping, and massive headaches that make me want to claw off my own face. Some of it is stress, some of it is attitude, and the rest of it is general bad energy that surrounds this house 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's incredibly overwhelming and anymore it leaves me living life in the moment, but not in a good way. I keep muddling my way through each day, knowing that if I can just make it through today that tomorrow might by some miracle be a little bit better. It rarely is, but luckily the days pass fast enough that I end up feeling completely unable to accomplish anything, so that feeling of dread and the sensation that I never finish anything gets to come with me to the next day and hover over my shoulder all over again.

Naturally, of course, food has been my personal savior during this trying time. The arrival of winter - at least via the first snowfall and the plummeting temperatures - probably really set me back, because the sensation of desperately needing to hibernate has left me with highly fatty cravings and the need to eat as many carbs as I can stomach. I've done fairly well most days of resisting the temptation, but I'm not perfect and I've slipped up about as many times as I've behaved. I'd like to think that semblance of neutrality has somehow afforded me at least the ability to not GAIN weight, even if I'm not losing it now, but I know how my metabolism works and unfortunately for me, any small setback usually comes back to taunt me later on. I've been trying to make better dietary decisions, but this is probably the worst time of year (followed shortly by Halloween and Valentine's Day) for trying to avoid overdosing on sweets, dyes, and unnecessary goodies.

Ah, well. We all survive it somehow.

On Regrets

2011-12-09T11:03:00.001-06:00

Have you ever been on YouTube, watching shows or clips or whatever, and you end up somewhere that confuses you? I do rather often; I'll start off on a favorite music video or something and end up watching someone lance an abscess on a cow. A rather far-fetched example, but it has happened, and in a way to me it reminds me of the seven steps to Kevin Bacon - one way or another if you're online you'll end up someplace weird if you hang out long enough.

The other day I ended up watching videos of happy couples announcing their pregnancies to family members, who more often than not ended the piece jumping for joy, screaming, and generally being super-excited. After a few, I was in tears. It was hard to watch those things, because while I felt an intense sense of appreciation for the situation, I was honestly really, really jealous. Watching their families be so, so happy for them made me long for the same reaction, and unfortunately, it's something that will never happen.

When we found out we were pregnant, regardless of the time in question, we weren't in a good place. With G we were living with six other people in a three bedroom, two bathroom house that was a bedroom short and had a dysfunctional couple sleeping on the living room floor. I was unemployed and Hubby was barely making minimum wage, working part-time at a grocery store. We had no health insurance, no savings, no place of our own and absolutely nothing to show for ourselves - in fact, we were both still in college. With A, we were in a small, leaking one bedroom apartment that we soon found out was to be torn down. We weren't much better off financially; we were both working part-time and I had to leave my job sooner than anticipated because of problems with the nerves in my right leg. Naturally, neither of our jobs offered any benefits and we were on every form of assistance we could qualify for. They weren't good situations in the least.

My mother was probably the least supportive. G was her first grandchild and A her second (fitting, as I'm her only child), but there was no celebration to be had for us. She portrayed herself as a betrayed woman whose child had let her down, and it's a feeling she's put me through more than once - something I won't forget. For Hubby's parents, G was their fourth biological grandchild, and while they were happy, they understandably weren't overjoyed (never mind the fact that we're some 1600 miles away). The fact of the matter remains that no matter what situation we're in, no matter where we live or how we're doing, no matter what we say or do, the kinds of reactions in those videos aren't something we'll ever experience.

I should be happy, by all means, that at least I have a mother to share these things with even if she isn't necessarily happy, and in laws who are supportive and helpful. I should be thankful for a lot of things but sometimes it's hard to remember that, and instead I end up observing the good fortunes of other people in areas where I can't possibly affect my life, and wonder where I went wrong.

It's nothing against anybody, when it comes right down to it; I can't possibly expect people to react to something like that in ways they aren't apt to. I can't force anybody to be more emotional about a situation or a comment or whatnot than they're going to be naturally. It is what it is.

But sometimes that's hard to remember.

Meanwhile, A has started diving into his sleep problems again. Today he woke up at 1:30 AM; I coerced him into staying in bed until about 2 AM but he was being so noisy and violent toward me (lots of scratching and yelling) that I wasn't really willing to stay in bed with him. I didn't want him to wake up G and Hubby. So out we came to the living room, and he has since dumped out two boxes of blocks, nearly woken up Hubby and G again, demanded chocolate milk, and generally tried to suck up to me. It's now nearly 4 AM. He went to bed around 9 PM, when I also passed out, so he's functioning on about 4 1/2 hours of sleep and still managing to be rather chipper. Unlike him, I'm actually in a pretty grouchy mood right now.

I can't explain his sleep disturbances. They aren't night terrors or even nightmares, as there's no waking up screaming - he just wakes up out of a dead sleep and is incredibly violent toward me until I give in. He tends to claw my face and arms, and today he actually drew blood for the first time. Usually the only other time I see this kind of reaction is right before naptime, when we're laying in bed and I'm trying to get him to actually calm down and get ready for sleep, at which point the scratching starts again. I began changing my reaction, and have been trying NOT to react to his scratching, with the positive effect being that he scratches me less and doesn't fight as long every time. He doesn't scratch Hubby at all. I don't understand why, although I can't complain; obviously I'd rather he not scratch anybody, but if he's going to scratch someone I think it's better that it's me. All the same, it's still 4 AM, I've still been up for 2 1/2 hours, and that is honestly long enough in my book.

On Regretsy and PayPal

2011-12-06T08:26:00.001-06:00

UPDATE: PayPal made nice with Regretsy and not only refunded all of the donation money, but also made a $100 donation themselves to each and every family Regretsy was helping. Unfortunately it took a LOT of media attention, a lot of lost users, and some pretty serious ragging on PayPal to get them to acquiesce.

I don't often post about social justice and such; I've done so a couple of times in the past but unless it involves natural parenting or attachment parenting, I try to avoid making mention of mainstream things and news. It doesn't seem worth it to me; you can turn on a TV or head to one of the many news sites and find out everything you need to know. But today I am changing that for something that, to me, is a VERY big deal.

Maybe you haven't heard, but PayPal just fucked Regretsy pretty hard.

No, really, go read that and come back here, then think on it for a bit.

To summarize: April Winchell, the Queen of Awesome over at Regretsy, and her team have set up a donation system every year during the winter holidays to help out the less fortunate. This year, their goal was to help out low income children, and so they accepted donations via the "Donate" button on PayPal. They ended up getting enough money to not only buy a gift for EVERY SINGLE ONE of over 200 children, but to also send a monetary donation along with said gift for every family to use however they pleased. They used a pretty intensive vetting process, took applications, and generally ensured that the people they were helping genuinely needed their help.

Then PayPal stepped in and said this was against their ToS, and shut down the donations (and froze the account, which also contained unrelated funds).

(In case you aren't aware, there are a LOT of "shady" things you can donate to via PayPal; just last year you could donate to a woman who had a shopping addiction and of course those donations helped her buy more useless shit, and there's also a site where you can donate to a woman to help her get a breast augmentation. Among others.)

They claimed that Regretsy wasn't a legitimate non-profit charity (because the lady who needs bigger boobs obviously is), and therefore had no right to use the donate button. So Ms. Winchell decided that since she had already actually purchased all the toys she was going to give away anyway, that she would offer them up for "sale" on the site, consider the money a donation, and then ship the toys to the intended families anyway. An ingenious idea, if I do say so myself; kids would still get gifts, families would still get the money they'd been promised, and Regretsy would have completed another year of making life a little brighter for those in need.

Guess what?

PAYPAL SHUT THAT DOWN TOO.

They basically ripped Winchell a new one, and while on the phone with a representative, "When I asked how to close my account, he said I had to 'refund everything, write a letter saying you understood what you did WAS WRONG AND YOU WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, and then request permission to close your account.'" (Via Regretsy, emphasis their's)

The best part? THEY'VE KEPT EVERY FEE INCURRED AND WILL NOT RETURN A DIME OF THOSE FEES.

The problem is that this isn't the first time PayPal has screwed over businesses that were accepting donations for legitimate reasons. There's a list here of just a few of the times they knowingly took over something that they had no business taking over. It's eye-opening, to say the least.

So what can YOU do to help Regretsy out?

First, if you're able, close your PayPal account. There are a number of (admittedly less well known and thus less often accepted) options to pay online, with a huge list (complete with reviews) available for different countries from Screw PayPal, and a list from WebDistortions that has 17 different suggestions.

Second, go flood PayPal's Facebook page with information on what you're doing, and let them know that you're aware of what they've been up to and you don't approve (but make sure you click the option to see everyone's posts, and not just PayPal's; also keep in mind that you don't need to "like" them to post on their wall).

Third, go sign this petition, created by one Kevin Malone of Chicago, IL to tell PayPal to get their heads out of their asses and stop freezing the accounts of any large group that asks for donations without having a non-profit status.

Fourth, contact PayPal's president (Scott Thompson). Keep it short and to the point, and most of all, keep it polite. (EDIT: I have been informed that the emails I provided earlier for several other individuals at PayPal came back as undelivered. With that in mind, here are a couple of phone numbers to use! In the US, call 1-888-221-1161. Outside the US, call 1-402-935-2050 but be aware that fees may apply. I will post accurate emails as soon as I have them.)

If you're still with me, fifth, contact MSN/The Today Show, CNN, and as many local news networks as you can to let them know what PayPal is doing and what they've been up to while we've been casually looking away. Then, contact your local state representatives and Congresspeople to ask them to start pushing for regulations for companies like PayPal, and to force them to keep their hands off of other people's money as long as it's being used for legal purposes. Their ToS doesn't state that only IRS registered 501(c)(3) charities can use the Donate button, so how Regretsy (or any other organization or individual) chooses to use it is irrelevant.

The only way to stop PayPal from continuing to be as destructive as it is is to call them out and show them that we're paying attention. If you get a response from PayPal, PLEASE share it here!

On Baring It All

2011-11-30T19:40:00.001-06:00

I try to very rarely bring up our family's problems. I had a blog several years ago that I used for that purpose, and while it was admittedly cathartic, at the same time I realized that I didn't share anything I was particularly proud of. I shared a lot of good times, but I also shared innumerable personal failures that were nobody's fault but my own. I bared my soul to a very small number of readers, and in late 2009 shortly after A was born, I made the conscious decision to abandon "Believe In The Flowers" to move on to something that felt more realistic, more like me, and less like a dumping grounds for whatever personal struggles we faced. I last posted there on December 17, 2009.

Of course, things have fluctuated since then. We have had our share of good times and bad in the last two years, with the latter often outnumbering the former simply due to a new financial crisis every other week. I have on occasion shared what we've been going through, but have tried fairly hard to avoid sharing too much, or going into excessive detail.

The one thing I haven't spoken about at all is my mother's health.

My mom is 53, and a product of eras where rampant smoking and drug usage were not only expected but encouraged. She told me once that in the 70s she did so many drugs that she wasn't even sure how many she did or when - no doubt, in my opinion, a way to lash out at her uber-conservative parents who favored her more successful older brother over her, and who ruled their house with an iron fist at all times. She was the kind of person I honestly thought, for a while, that I would become. Not out of choice, mind you, but out of necessity, to deal with everything that caused me such trauma and agony in high school.

Now, she's paying for all of that (and for her lifelong weight problems, which I have inherited) with a host of health issues that keep her in pain and struggling most of the time. In the fall of 2007, she had her left knee replaced at the age of 50, during which time I moved in with her with six month old G to help care for her and take care of her house and dogs while she was recovering for weeks on end. Her right knee needs to be done also, but she just finished paying off her left, so I'm not entirely sure when this will occur. She has plentiful back problems, though I'm not sure if they stem from old injuries or her osteoarthritis, which plagues the rest of her joints. Repetitive motion at work has given her tennis elbow and carpal tunnel, which both affect both arms. Her blood pressure is horribly high, her blood sugar puts her just above borderline as a diabetic, and her weight has caused problems in the remainder of her body, including some pretty serious varicose veins in her legs that often ache without provocation. Her eyes haven't been checked in years, she needs to visit a dentist but is afraid of them, and to top it all off, she has struggled since childhood with asthma, which has coupled with the rest of her problems to give her a positive diagnosis for the dreaded COPD, and leaves her using an inhaler almost daily and a nebulizer at least once a week, if not more often, in addition to an enlarged heart that they also think is related to her asthma. Top it all off with severe seasonal allergies and at least two mental disorders that I'm aware of that she no longer takes medication or seeks therapy for, and a nasty battle with an MSRA infection in her foot caused by (her podiatrist thinks) an open wound on her foot and her tendency to come into contact with bacteria and viruses in the hospital she works at, and I'm sure you can see how she probably needs much more medical care than she seeks out on a regular basis.

She is also where I got my stubbornness from.

However, recently she has been struggling with even more. Her feet, especially her right, have begun to swell and hurt at night, to the point where she often can almost not stand or walk, and today her blood pressure spiked enough that she actually went in to see the employee health nurse. She didn't divulge much about the visit, but she mentioned that they aren't sure it's "just" GERD (which was originally suggested given her pre-diabetic state and the swelling in her feet), that it could be more and could be related to her blood pressure, and that she will be having more blood tests done tomorrow. I should note, at this point, that my grandfather (her father) died in his late 70s from lung cancer and my grandmother (her mother) passed away at just 65 years old from a heart attack she had in the same bedroom my mother now calls her own. Our family doesn't have a history of excessively long life, much less of pleasant ways of passing. So of course, you can probably imagine that I am freaking out.

I don't often ask for prayers, but I am doing so now, and am requesting that if you have a prayer circle, or any process or ritual in which you ask for a deity to watch over someone, that you ask them to watch over my mother. I fear the worst for her, and have in truth been trying to no avail to prepare myself for something awful, just in case. Of course, the potential severe illness and/or death of someone you love - much less the only parent you have ever known - is something that you cannot possibly prepare yourself for when you don't know what's going on and lack the amount of information that I do. I still ask, however, that you at least consider keeping her and us in your thoughts as we continue to traverse this slippery medical slope and investigate the underlying causes of her debilitating problems.

Thank you.

On Why We Fear

2011-11-29T18:24:00.001-06:00

I was hanging out on my new absolute most favorite blog, The Feminist Breeder (hi, Gina!), and read her most recent post, Things I Would Say to the Hospital Staff if I Saw Them Today... It was a pretty moving post, because it reminds me of some of the things I experienced while I was in the hospital, and my varying but overall moderately unpleasant experiences. While I know that what I went through was nothing compared to some moms, and while I wouldn't go as far as calling it "birth rape" (which by the way is a very real and incredibly harmful experience for a mom), I know that the things I was put through will stick with me through the end of time. There are things that were said and done that I will never, never forget.

That being said, she opened up the post to encourage others to vent their frustrations and bad experiences, in hopes of helping to relieve some of the tensions and pressure that many moms who have had negative births carry with them for years. Everyone was sharing and very supportive, until one user, "landdrn", popped in and had this gem to share:

"To every mother who has their child alive and in their arms: Stop being so negative towards hospital births. Yes, while many C-Sections are preformed in hospitals, doctors and nurses are making decisions only with the best interest of the patient and the baby. Not one patient I have cared for has wanted a csection, including myself, but sometimes it is the only way a baby can come safely and healthy. Unfortunately there is no way to see into the future and tell if a baby will be born vaginally or not. People do give natural child birth every last effort, including pushing for many many hours not making any progress, but at the end of the day the goal is healthy baby and healthy mom. Its easy to look back and say that your CSection was unnecessary, but you have no way of knowing that it wasn't. You dont KNOW that if you had not had a c section the baby would have been born vaginally, or ALIVE. Each and everyone of you may have had a "horrible" experience, but it is what you make of it. You should all just be thankful that you have happy and healthy children in your arms, and stop harping on the fact that it didnt go your way. Welcome to parenthood. Nothing goes as planned."

I have to admit I felt a few different things when I first read her (I assume female) response. The first thing I felt was, well.. Stupid. I mean, in a way, at least to me, she's right - my experiences, while unfortunately "typical" for a hospital birth, weren't necessarily horrible. Sure, I felt off and was upset by some of the things that were said and how I was treated, but I DID end up with two otherwise healthy, awesome kids. I didn't even have to have a c-section! I'm lucky in that regard. It at least never got THAT bad. Who am I to be complaining, to be upset about what happened, to have any ill will toward ANYONE who attended my birth?

The second thing I felt was pretty much unadulterated fury. How DARE she?! How could she possibly belittle and invalidate the feelings and experiences of hundreds, even thousands of women in one fell swoop? How on earth could someone actually think that way, someone who was part of the "big medical conspiracy" to ruin the birth experiences of women by forcing them through inductions and "unnecessarians" just to avoid lawsuits saying that more could have been done?

And then it hit me.

Because, well, that's what she has been taught to do.

It's incredibly difficult for me to back off for a moment and look at her position without the judgment of someone who has "been there", especially when my feelings are so very muted compared to others who have been through hell during birth and who are actually afraid of having more children, or who suffer from PTSD episodes by just walking into a hospital or doctor's office. While I think I have a healthy bunch of salt with me at all times to toss over my shoulder when a medical professional tells me something, I know too why they do what they do. Yes, some of it is money - but some of it is also the unfortunate and very legitimate point that we are a sue-happy society. Hell, there are people here who have sued fast food joints for serving hot coffee - it doesn't get much worse than that, does it? We jump to the conclusion that even when it's fairly obvious things were done "properly" that something was missed somewhere, or was overlooked. A single lawsuit can change how an entire profession functions, permanently. That has to be a pretty terrifying thought, especially for someone whose occupation and the laws surrounding it allow them to more or less do as they please, as long as what they do follows the hospital's rules, and still be home for dinner or head out on vacation while not missing a single high-paying birth. Losing a position at a hospital can take an individual's income from $100k+ a year down to basically nil in a matter of a few seconds, and when your lifestyle reflects your income, losing a position like that just isn't an option.

In protecting ourselves, our bodies, and our children, we have inadvertently made it nearly impossible to defend ourselves and ensure our rights to a safe, healthy birth. It's a terrifying realization, but it's true.

Cesarean sections used to be relatively rare. Back when most of our country was rural, doctors rarely attended birth - instead, family members or local midwives would attend. Unfortunately, because these midwives often didn't have the experience, tools, or ability to perform c-sections when they were needed, more moms and babies DID pass away because the surgical option simply wasn't present. When cities became the norm during the Industrial Revolution, and more people had access to a hospital instead of a rural doctor, things began to change and women gave birth in hospitals. Cue the 1940s - 1960s, when it became the norm for women to be completely knocked out or given medications that left them virtually unable to participate in or remember their births. It was a time when women stayed in the hospital for upwards of two weeks, where breastfeeding became a nuisance and formula became the socially accepted norm. Thanks to modern medicine at the time, there was also a positive aspect: more women who would have died or lost their babies without access to a c-section not only survived, but had healthy kids. It was considered a huge medical revolution.

Then things went to hell.

Lawsuits started when doctors hesitated to perform c-sections. I'm sure you can see where it went from there, but this situation goes hand-in-hand with the current tendencies of parents and moms wanting to return to our "roots" and birth children without the interventions of medicine if they aren't necessary. Obviously, because of the difficulty of staying within insurable guidelines and because of the need to avoid lawsuits that could cost a professional their job, they often lean toward the more predictable birth process: a c-section scheduled long before birth is expected.

But women deserve better. Knowing that birth is a pretty predictable state in and of itself, with changes here and there, should be enough - and with today's technology available, it's easy to foresee a number of potential complications ahead of time. Complications that would necessitate the care of a high risk OB, or birthing at a hospital, or even a scheduled c-section. There will always be that measure of unpredictable situations, but when it comes down to it, a trained professional - be it an OB, a doula, a nurse, or a midwife - should have an idea of how to handle those situations, even if it means transferring to a hospital for further assistance. Birthing in any situation should not automatically guarantee that a mom has given up all rights to her baby, her body, and her own ability to make decisions. It shouldn't mean that a mom has scrapped autonomy for the sake of what other people think is right, unless it is truly an emergency.

Childbirth is the one thing that we women have all to ourselves, and even then it's something that not all of us are blessed to ever experience should we choose to. It should be a memorable experience because it was positive and because it made us feel empowered, because we were making our own choices and informed decisions - not because we mourn the experience.

On Cheating With Food (Pumpkin Muffins)

2011-11-28T11:34:00.000-06:00

Ohmygod PUMPKIN.

I love this time of year because it's the one time when pumpkin is in plentiful supply. Or at least would be if we hadn't had such a dry (or alternatively wet, depending on where you are) fall, that led to a *gasp* decrease in pumpkin!

That aside, I am completely addicted to the flavor of pumpkin. In pies, breads, muffins, Blizzards (thanks for THAT, Dairy Queen), or practically any application. I've never tried pumpkin soup but I'm pretty sure I would love it, even though it lacks the traditional spice that we're used to. Pumpkin is the one squash that I'd take under my wing as my best friend if I thought such a relationship wouldn't be questioned in public.

But most of the options involving pumpkin also involve baking, and, well.. Um.. I don't like to bake.

You might've noticed it from my post about artisan bread the other day, but I'm kinda lazy. I don't like having to pull out 10 different ingredients and then sift them and PS measuring and processing and mixing liquids with just liquids and solids with just solids and SHOOT ME NOW. I am a disturbingly lazy person when it comes to all this effort, although Hubby tends to do all of these things to make amazing cakes, cookies, and brownies when he feels the whim (and I am so jealous, let me tell you). I know that there is a distinct difference in flavor and texture between homemade and mixes. I KNOW. SERIOUSLY. I've tasted it first hand and I agree 100% that it's DIFFERENT. In a good way.

But man. I am SO FREAKING LAZY.

Yes, these two points do come together, so stick with me.

Anyway, I like pumpkin but I don't like to bake. Obviously these two points had to intersect and they did so this morning when I realized that I wanted Pumpkin. Muffins. NOW.

The down side to this is that it required baking and Hubby has been busy making characters for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game he's running this Sunday with the remainders of our game group that haven't fled town for the holiday, and has honestly been kind of grumpy about ANY interruptions. I wasn't about to ask him to make me some fucking pumpkin muffins RIGHT THIS SECOND when I already had plans on tossing a loaf of bread in the oven. I was already going to bake. What was keeping me from making muffins if I wanted them so badly?

Oh, yeah. Effort.

But like all things, I was determined to find an easier but just as tasty way to get what I wanted. And I found that way with a box of white cake mix and a can of pureed pumpkin. And some spices.

Yeah, I went there.

Ingredients:
1 "regular" can pureed pumpkin (is it like 6 or 8 oz? I have no idea...)
1 box any brand white or yellow cake mix (I can't imagine the two really being any different; if you wanted to, I could see a spice cake mix working equally well. You rebels out there might go with chocolate. I commend you.)
1 muffin tray (maybe two depending on size?)
Ground nutmeg (like 1/2 tbsp?)
Ground cinnamon (about 1 tbsp?)
Ground cloves (uh, 1/4 tbsp?)
(OKAY SPICES TO TASTE)

Directions:
1) Turn oven to 350 or whatever you traditionally bake at. You know your oven, I don't.
2) Open cake mix. Put into bowl.
3) Open can of pumpkin. Put into bowl.
4) Add spices until you're pretty sure you have the flavor you're looking for.
5) Mix.

This is the point at which I have to stop and make a statement: You are going to want SO BADLY to add liquids. Maybe you're thinking eggs, or oil, or even just water. Maybe it's lemon juice (because you're a rebel like that). Whatever it is, DON'T DO IT. It's gloppy looking and thick at first but HAVE FAITH! (The only exception is if you have a can of pumpkin from a SERIOUSLY dry batch. In which case, add water one tablespoon at a time until you can actually incorporate the pumpkin into the cake mix, or vice versa.)

Do not fall victim to the ploy of the muffins. Excess liquid of any sort (other than the exception listed above) is NOT NECESSARY.

6) Put into muffin tin. Use paper or foil cups if you want, even silicone, I don't really care - it won't matter, no matter what you're going to get some serious awesome. I sprayed the tin first even though it was non stick and they came out easily right after baking.
7) Bake for 20-30 minutes or until they look "done". At the point of "done" they will still have a faint spot of "moist" looking batter in the middle of them; ignore this. If the sides have browned well and they stay together, don't risk burning. This spot is apparently completely normal and will not affect the texture or "doneness" of the muffins. THEY'RE DONE. Take 'em out and let them sit.

Or don't. Take them out of the pan right away if you want to; I did, and they're still completely intact and happy-looking.

My batter and the size of my muffin tin (admittedly large) yielded me seven muffins. I used way too much in some of the muffins (see that huge honkin' muffin back there in the back right?) and I think if I had been more careful with my batter, I could have made an even number like eight without difficulty. I think these would make adorable mini muffins in a smaller muffin tin with an even shorter cook time.

Add on a homemade (or, you know, NOT homemade) cream cheese icing of your choice and these would be even better. They're heavy without being too thick, and I think they would make an awesome quick breakfast if you're hurrying out the door.

Go. Make them now. DO IT.

On Cheating With Food (Bread)

2011-11-27T10:35:00.000-06:00

I love me some homemade bread.

Correction: My entire family loves it. There is nothing better, in my opinion, than the smell of fresh bread filling the house. It reminds me of cool fall evenings and comfort, although admittedly I have no real memories of being comforted by bread. But I will make up my own comforting memories involving bread just for that smell. It makes me feel good, and it's enough to insight anybody's appetite to get up and head itself into the kitchen to partake of this fluffy wonder.

But it's also a pain in the ass.

It's a moment of honesty I hate to admit, but it's true. Making fresh bread is a total pain in the ass, and I think that's why there's such a huge market for companies that make frozen loaves that you just let rise, then bake. All the difficult stuff - the mixing, the buying of specific bread flours, the finding of a "perfect" recipe that makes bread exactly how you want it - is done for you. You toss the bread out in a pan, let it rise and thaw, and then bake it. You get the smell, the taste, but really none of the same satisfaction from actually making your own bread.

Yet there are few people I know that genuinely enjoy whipping up a new batch of bread every couple of days. Who would? That's a lot of crap to keep around and measure and I've seen people go to some pretty impressive lengths for good-tasting bread. It's an amount of effort that I admittedly go to maybe once a month, and even then, I still haven't mastered the art of bread making.

I knew there had to be a better way.

Naturally, there IS!

Via The Italian Dish, I present to you: $.40 Artisan bread. (Recipe at link!)

It's an easy, four ingredient recipe that honestly kind of shocked me. This is crap everybody keeps around. It didn't require me to buy bread flour, didn't necessitate hours and hours of rising in different locations and a massive amount of cleanup - in fact, I got to store and keep the remainder of the dough in the container I mixed it in!

Check it:

Yep, that's it. That's my beautiful homemade bread dough (after taking out about half of it for two loaves). It's sticky as crap, and looks kind of like something I wouldn't expect to successfully bake and make into something that looks or tastes good.

But oh my god, it really does.

The thing that continues to shock me is how ultimately simple it is. Sure, you could spruce it up - add in some fruit, or dried veggies, or herbs, and make it into anything. Hell, Hubby used some of the dough yesterday morning to make cinnamon rolls, and it actually worked out pretty well (he said it was crispier than he expected, but I really liked it). But as a quickie bread option, it's easy. Despite having made a first batch yesterday, I tossed in another batch today and found it frighteningly simple. I already have the ingredients and amounts memorized, although I will admit that I'm not using instant yeast - I'm using active dry. With my first batch, I didn't proof it beforehand; today I proofed it first. The loaves I made yesterday still turned out awesome. Thanks to this method, I can make bread every other day if I want to, remaking the dough takes about five minutes, and there are no real limitations on size or ingredients - I'm free to add whatever I please. The downside is that I'm going through flour and yeast like nobody's business.

Now, some of it - like storing the dough in the fridge with the lid either propped open or punctured, and not washing the container before making a new batch of dough - goes against everything I've been taught about food storage. Yes, yes, I know the dough will ferment and add flavor as time goes on. I know that I have to leave the lid propped open or the gasses from the working yeast won't be able to escape and I'll end up with flat bread (speaking of which, Hubby shut the container yesterday and it sat in the fridge all day and all night that way, so we'll see what happens). I know, logically, that all these things mean that as time goes on my bread will continue to become even more amazing time and time again.

But I was taught that not shutting lids and not washing containers leads to mold, to food taking on the flavors of the fridge! I was taught that these are HUGE no no's, so recalibrating my thinking has been somewhat difficult. But oh man, it is SO worth it.

(As a note, I have no pictures of the loaves after cooking because - alas - they were pretty much instantly devoured!)

To me, this is totally cheating on making bread. And I am completely okay with that.

On Cheating With Food (Mashed Potatoes)

2011-11-26T10:18:00.001-06:00

Despite the post title, I don't mean I'm cheating on Hubby with food - I mean I'm cheating on the more difficult, traditional methods of making some foods. Why? Because, despite my innate love for cooking and my respect for the Traditions of Old (and my love for fresh mashed potatoes, oh man), I also have two small kids. I don't always have enough whole potatoes sitting around to make enough mashed for the lot of us. I don't always (okay, I rarely) have the desire to pack everybody up so I can go to the store just to get a bag of potatoes (and if we're going to the store, we WON'T come home with just potatoes). However, we almost always have potato flakes around for a variety of reasons: they're easier, and they can be tossed into a bread mix to make a dense potato bread. Okay, two reasons. But they're still very valid reasons.

Mostly the first one. Ease has a LOT to do with my choices for food.

So for Thanksgiving, as I was cooking, I made a last minute decision to toss some mashed potatoes into the mix. The problem was that I had all of two potatoes left and the only stores in town that would have sold potatoes were, naturally, closed. This left me with an interesting conundrum: I wanted homestyle mashed that had the texture and flavor of "real" mashed but didn't require me to mess with only two potatoes.

Hello, potato flakes!

So I prepared 12 servings of mashed potatoes via the directions on the box of flakes. If it matters, they're not Idahoan brand or anything, and I'm not of the impression that brand makes a lot of difference when it comes to flavor or texture. But hey, if you're super-picky and you really do prefer a certain brand of potato flakes, by all means, use them.

I prepped them on the store, as the 12 serving mixture had a "NOT RECOMMENDED" note on the microwave directions, and I didn't feel like slaughtering a massive amount of mashed potatoes in the microwave. I used 2% milk, actual butter, and kosher salt because I'm just badass like that. The results were some super-creamy, thick mashed - but they still lacked the right TEXTURE. What's that texture, you ask?

The actual pieces of potato.

And that, my dear friends, is where the magical Can 'O' New Potatoes came in.

Yes, that's right! One can of Del'Monte cubed new potatoes (not whole, yikes) got added to the mixture after being drained. Because they're already different sizes and fully cooked, they only needed to heat and soften a bit more in the mixture before serving. They didn't require anything more than the 15 seconds or so necessary to open and drain the can, and the extra maybe five minutes of warming on the store. Maybe a little extra butter, for those of us who regularly channel Paula Deen.

It was totally worth every moment. They turned out phenomenal, with the thickness of real mashed potatoes and the "potato chunk" texture that I look for in homemade mashed. Hubby told me, point-blank, "If you hadn't told me what you did, I would've thought you made this from actual whole potatoes."

I highly recommend taking this easier, tasty route to homestyle mashed goodness, without the extra time and effort (especially if neither is an option)!

On Vices

2011-11-09T03:30:00.000-06:00

I'd say that I suffer from an addiction to food, but in all honesty, at first glance I don't suffer. Looking at me, all you see is an overweight woman. You don't see the mental turmoil, the physical problems I deal with daily because of the strain my weight has put on my frame. I have a sort of affection for food, because on a bad night, chocolate is going to comfort me in a way that is deeply emotional and even spiritual. There are, of course, physical aspects of the relationship I have with food - some foods release endorphins into our bodies, helping to make us feel better about life and ourselves. Sometimes, it's just that sensation of actually being full, because it's more fulfilling than being exhausted. When you eat, you feel full almost immediately afterwards; when you're exercising, you might feel tired, but you don't see or feel the benefits of what you've done for weeks or even months. There is no way to easily judge what you've done for yourself through exercise, and at the end of it, I've always felt empty and kind of lost.

Chocolate, though? Chocolate will wrap an arm around me and tell me that I'm not a bad person, I just make mistakes sometimes. It'll reassure me that we all screw up once or twice or maybe ten times in a month and that doesn't make me bad, just maybe in need of some guidance, and chocolate can TOTALLY offer that to me, and it'll do so without me having to pay a therapist or a personal trainer to tell me that I can feel good inside maybe in a month or so when I finally decide that all this work is paying off. Chocolate will assure me that the woman who just called me something nasty two cars over only did so because she's misguided and probably late for work.

And tacos? I almost can't discuss what wonderful things tacos do. They give me a warm, sorta greasy feeling. That sensation of having your arteries clog up is disgusting to some, but for me, it's another way of feeling full inside. It's a sensation of love and affection that sort of disappears otherwise, because that guy I married and I rarely see each other anymore, and when we do, there's always at least one child between us, keeping us from touching each other or even really having a conversation. G's hyperactive tendencies feed this problem; he has difficulty staying quiet for more than a second or two (I'm being literal here), and he often simply can't stop talking. I'm not going to sit here and say, "My sons are the reason I'm fat and nobody loves me," but I think we've all been in that position before in our relationships where we just kind of stare at ourselves and get so fed up with how things are that we let ourselves make any and every excuse in the book.

Why?

Because who honestly LIKES taking responsibility for what they've become if it isn't what they wanted to be? Nobody heads off to their 10 or 20 year high school reunion to tell everybody they're a twice-divorced college dropout with four kids, two part-time minimum wage jobs, who can't manage to collect child support from either dad. I'd rather go and tell everybody I'm a famous cowboy astronaut actor who won the Nobel Prize. I don't want to be 200 pounds overweight and with nothing to show for my life. Yet for some reason that's part of what I'm allowing myself.

You may have noticed the lovely little addition to the right side of my blog: it's a weight loss ticker and goddammit I'm going to keep going. I'm going to start it with my heaviest weight and the weight I am today, and end it with my eventual goal.

Wish me luck.

On Using Your Imagination

2011-11-08T14:08:00.000-06:00

Imagine, if you will, the following.

It was 1850 in America. Victorian morals and ideals rule politics, religion, and the home. So when a well-respected doctor stepped forward, claiming that he could cleanse the nation of its ills quickly and easily, would it make sense for the country to respond with indifference? Of course not. People flocked in droves to read his pamphlets, to hear him speak, and to find out more about the things that Dr. Henry Kellogg advised to get the nation back on track.

What did he suggest?

The best way to deal with the country's problems, said Dr. Kellogg, was to remove the ultra-sensitive fingernails and fingertip skin from every male baby - called a "tipectomy". Boys, after all, were often delinquents of the mind and body. They thought impure thoughts, they lusted after women, and they stole and cheated. Young boys were impressionable, Dr. Kellogg claimed, and they needed to be started off right. A boy whose fingertips and fingernails had been removed would lack the tactile sensation he would get from handling a stolen good, from touching a woman. Those experiences would not give him the same feeling, and he would be less likely to wish to experience them without true commitment. He would be less likely to have idle hands and a wandering mind. He would not, essentially, connect with his environment on the same level because he simply could not experience the world around him in the same way. Best of all, the procedure had actually existed in a religious form for hundreds, even thousands of years, elsewhere in the world. And it could be adapted for use on females as well.

In truth, the measure made no real difference in the number of thefts or rapes or of any other negative event, but the idea spread like wildfire. Doctors nationwide claimed great success; alternative methods of performing the procedure were created. Each one was supposedly quicker and cleaner than the last. Parents were told that they have this choice to make - and after a few decades, it had become so mainstream that parents were no longer asked if they want the procedure performed. This is the time before informed consent, after all, and it's said that "doctor knows best." So off come the nails, the fingertips, and with them each child loses tactile sensation, protective skin and keratin, and a bit of their body that they can never get back.

As the years passed, and the procedure became more mainstream, there were groups that began to speak up, wondering if the procedure really carried the same benefits as had been reported for so many years. The medical community, aware that this procedure had added hundreds of thousands of dollars to their yearly coffers, jumped in, offering up all sorts of extras: the trimmed fingers, they insisted, look better. Nails must be cleaned and trimmed regularly, forcing a parent to put more upkeep and care into their child than they already did. And of course, there were potential complications: nails can be ripped or torn off, or hangnails can form, opening the child up to unpleasant infection. Although antibiotics would have been prescribed for any other infection, doctors insisted that it was simply easier to avoid future infection and the undeniable pain of a potential hangnail or torn finger nail by removal. Removal means no cuts, no burns, no scrapes. No splinters, no hangnails, no infections. Even though the chances of all of these things are relatively low anyway, it is still said that removal is the best option.

By the mid 20th century, the bygone era of natural nails and fingertips is gone. Boys (and sometimes even girls) were routinely put through the painful procedure days after birth. Although no real anesthetic option existed (as most anesthesia choices were actually too dangerous to give at full strength considering the procedure being performed), doctors insisted to parents that babies could not feel pain - and, once that argument died off, the point became that they of course give enough anesthetic to ensure that no baby truly felt pain. There was a silent choice to ignore the idea that after whatever little anesthesia is given wears off that a baby will again be in extreme pain.

Yet in the 1980s a new idea arose: in Africa, and in select areas of the Middle East, the procedure was being performed on girls. Although this had been an option for parents, it wasn't prevalent in America. Pictures and video streamed in of young girls being held down on cold concrete floors, their arms spread wide open, while older women with dirty hands and rusty, re-used razor blades sliced off their fingertips and nails. Although it was more common to perform a procedure nearly identical to what was being done to baby boys in the US, most of the footage that found its way back was that of girls whose entire fingers were being skinned, just short of the muscle. It was ignored that the barbaric procedure being streamed back to America was not the norm, and that while it of course should not have been performed under such awful conditions, that it was otherwise identical to what Americans did to their sons. It was different, the medical community screamed (with the human rights folks on their coattails), because the skin of girls was more sensitive. Because there were procedures performed in which more skin was removed. Because the procedures were performed with no anesthesia, in unsanitary conditions with improper staff and backup. The uproar led to girls gaining protection from tipectomy in the late 1990s, via court order, and the nation patted itself on the back for ensuring that the rights of girls were sealed and that any parent who tried to have a tipectomy performed on their minor daughter would be prosecuted for child abuse and endangerment.

Yet boys were still having their fingertips and nails removed on a daily basis, by the thousands.

It was at that point that the medical community began to take tipectomies in an entirely new direction. Aware of the epidemic of skin-borne illnesses in developing nations, the idea that tipectomies could prevent the spread of these diseases was suggested. Studies were ordered, and men in African countries were offered incentives for having their fingers effectively destroyed. Life after having the sensitive skin and nails removed was totally different, and it appeared that the studies had worked: men whose fingers and nails had been "trimmed" off were less likely to touch potentially infected people or objects. Without considering the idea that, after healing, men would likely return to their old habits (as there had been no guidance in proper hygiene and handwashing techniques) and end up contracting the same illnesses anyway, the studies were claimed a success - but this critical flaw was noticed by the scientific community and the studies were cut completely before a final decision could be made on the effectiveness of the procedure. In the meantime, the medical community touted a few more ideas: that "studies" had shown that men who had undergone a tipectomy tended to develop less skin cancer, that they did not experience the same late-in-life struggles of needing their fingers constantly cleaned and cared for as men who were left intact, and that men who had undergone tipectomies at birth reported no difference in their tactile sensation or pleasure sensations than a man who had been left intact (given, that was a rather silly argument; two people who had never known anything different could not possibly compare their experiences to one another). It was said that men who never knew any different didn't complain, and although instances of keratinization of skin, the development of extreme callouses that could make touching things uncomfortable, and of finger dysfunction had been steadily increasing, it was claimed that a parent who had chosen tipectomy had done the right thing.

Never mind that these boys had never been given the chance to decide if they had wanted to have their fingertips removed. Never mind that it removed an amount of skin and a protective layer of sensation that could never be restored or returned. Never mind that the procedure itself carried with it inherent flaws and dangers, such as bleeding out, removal of too much skin, or removal of too little (that often resulted in numerous secondary procedures having to be performed to "finish" the job). Never mind that other nations, where tipectomies weren't performed without reason, carried lower rates of finger dysfunction, of touch-transmitted diseases, and of the touch-specific skin cancers claimed by American doctors to be a direct result of boys still having their fingertips and nails.

Silly as all this may seem, this is exactly how routine infant circumcision is handled in America. The flippant attitude is the same, the dangers are the same, and the loss is the same. This is the line that circumcision in this country has taken. This is how we treat our sons; we protect our daughters fiercely but we allow a portion of our sons' bodies to be removed without entirely knowing what we commit them to losing. The long-term psychological effects - ignored by many - are only now being realized and acknowledged by the scientific community. Only now are people truly beginning to realize the pointlessness of routine circumcision, and of what a boy will lose through having it done.

But most of all, even if none of this strikes home with you, even if you roll your eyes and shake your head and ask who let this crazy intactivist out into the world without an escort, at least consider this: If you accept, for even a moment, that this is not YOUR choice, but your son's, he can choose later to have it done. If he feels it is necessary, then he can be circumcised and he can live with his own choice. If you strip him of that decision, and let him be strapped down on that cold plastic board, then he can NEVER GET THAT BACK. You have taken that from him permanently; you have insisted that your choices, and your knowledge, are somehow more important than his body and his right to someday make choices for himself. You have chosen to go beyond "knowing best". Please, at least consider letting HIM choose.

On Naturally Disciplining an "Aggressive" Child

2011-11-07T11:23:00.000-06:00

A is just over 27 months old. He is fiercely independent, even with things that surpass his technical abilities, proud of his knowledge, and incredibly funny when he wants to be. He is very hands-on, and, like his older brother, has a rapidly expanding vocabulary of words he manages to use properly (even if they aren't the most appropriate words for a child his age).

He is also very, very aggressive.

In this respect, he is nothing like G. G was a relatively quiet, laid-back baby who grew up a lover, not a fighter. He never particularly hit, bit, kicked, or scratched. He never did anything worse than head butt Hubby in the groin on more than one occasion, but even then it was always on accident. We always wondered how we would handle these far more physically painful expressions of emotion when they came about, but they just.. Didn't. He never acted out in that way, so when A came along and almost immediately began expressing frustration and anger via violence and aggression, we were at a loss. Of course, we were in a difficult situation; G had reacted to time out and even spankings by modifying his behavior. In retrospect, forcing our child through isolation and physical punishment wasn't a good idea, nor was it probably very helpful for his long term development, but it had WORKED. A doesn't respond to those things. Time out causes him to scream and cry crocodile tears until he's out again, and spanking doesn't do anything but hurt him. We attempt to model the idea of behavior modification we'd like to see; that is, when G does something we don't approve of or that isn't okay, we talk to him about it: what he did, why it isn't all right, what the consequences of doing it again are. That typically does it for him. But he's four, in school, and deals with challenges like this all the time. He's used to reasoning through his responses to things, even though he still has the emotional response of a preschooler on most occasions. He throws his fits, he overreacts, he becomes overstimulated and needs to be taken aside and allowed to calm down. But he never, never did this.

So now, months and months into dealing with this reaction from A, we are stumped. Where do we go from here? What's the appropriate thing to do? Natural parenting guides, magazines, and blogs all seem to recommend the same thing: taking a "time in" with our children in a quiet, comfy corner where they can have our presence if they choose, where they can cuddle with lovies and read and play quietly until they feel calm and more ready to be a part of the larger group or activity again. The point, of course, being not to isolate them but to offer the OPTION of stepping aside and collecting themselves again, providing comfort and guidance while not necessarily punishing them for bad behavior - just allowing them to calm down after we have done the same. They say we ought to laugh off the situation, make our children laugh too so they feel as though we're reconnecting to them - the general premise of the entire situation being that the child is acting out because they feel emotionally disconnected from their parents or caregivers - and that once they are calmer, we can try to talk to them about the problem.

But none of these sites seem to recommend what to do with physically inappropriate behavior such as aggression, that's actually causing harm to someone else. There seem to be no real recommendations for what to do with an aggressive child, how to react, how to deal with when they hurt you, or another child (like a sibling). It's as if it's assumed that a "naturally" raised child won't be aggressive. I have seen over and over again the idea of "bringing them in close" or "holding" - that is to say, taking them and putting them on your lap, and not allowing them to get down until they are calmer. I know my sister in law, the beautiful and wonderful K does this, and it has worked for her kids, but when we tried it with G it never seemed to work. I made the attempt a few times more recently when he was not necessarily violent, but was being frustrated (like right before dinner, when he was incredibly hungry) and after some time he finally did calm down. A, on the other hand, seems to have no concept of this activity, and I have to wonder if this is an appropriate measure to take with a toddler instead of a preschooler. A preschooler, after all, will hear and understand what's being said, and fully comprehend the concept, thus enabling him or her to calm down faster. I've found a barrier that exists between a parent and a toddler, one that (to me) makes the "holding" technique less than functional.

The problem, of course, is that I can't imagine what my two year old is thinking. I can judge, to some degree, his reactions - but if this is something that ends up being physically traumatizing for him, can I continue to justify using it? How many times after using it should he begin to react in what I consider to be a more appropriate manner? How many times using it is "too many" to believe that it wasn't effective? These are questions that I'm not finding answers to. But I think that something has to change, because nothing else is working!

(By the way, a big "congrats" to me for passing 100 posts!)

On Slow Cooking

2011-11-04T12:19:00.000-05:00

Technically, the name "Crock Pot" is a registered trademark from Sunbeam. It's the name of an actual product, one of many in a line of slow cookers and tabletop roasters that developed in the early 20th century when electricity became a household concept for even those out in rural areas. In the mid-1930s, a company called NESCO teamed up with local electric companies in the Milwaukee area to offer a combination of electric services, slow roasters, and light bulbs to rural families that had been using wood stoves up until that point. The original concept of the slow cooker was very simple: somebody had the bright idea of wrapping a wire around a double-boiler and plugged it in. It got hot - and so the concept was born.

The actual Crock Pot didn't appear until the summer of 1970, when its original design showed up. The eventual redesigns of the Crock Pot significantly changed the slow cooking and roasting world, and eventually the features that the Crock Pot offered became the standard for the industry. Numerous companies, including Kalorik, and store brands, came along throughout the years. Metal inner cookpots were replaced with porcelain, and eventually stainless steel took the place of glass fixtures and lids. Colors and decorations, of course, changed according to the era, but in general, pretty much every slow cooker was the same, they just offered different options.

Meet the NESCO 6 Roast Ryte Oven.

This bad boy jumped right out of the 1970s, and was my grandfather's slow cooker/roaster. It has multiple temperature settings and is all-metal, including the inner cookpot. I believe it's called the "NESCO 6" because it's a six quart pot - but I have no idea. I have no other information with it - except for these gems:

Oh yeah. Although the recipe/instruction book doesn't offer any specific dates, guessing by the model's hairstyle I'm thinking 1978 or so. It comes complete with the cord (obviously), this lovely booklet, and a small wire rack to use for baking - that's right, BAKING. Hubby's been talking about trying to bake in a slow cooker; our's is too small to really do much with. But I think this might be his answer.

I have no idea if this bad boy still works, but there it is. I'm probably going to be testing it at some point in the future.

Here's my mom's:

This is a vintage mid-1980s K-Mart brand "Spice of Life" style "Automatic Sim-R-Pot". It has three settings - off, auto-sim-r, and auto-hi. (Oh, yeah, those are AWESOME settings!) The lid is clear glass and the inner cookpot is white porcelain; it has a small crack/defect in the cookpot but it doesn't seem to go all the way through and I doubt it seriously affected cook time and quality. I think this is a five quart; it isn't much smaller than the roaster but is decidedly round instead of being an obvious oval shape. It's honestly hard to tell.

So the K-Mart slow cooker is the one I'm using. I've slaughtered a few baby carrots, half a yellow onion, and the remainders of about two hearts of celery (I had to peel off the first layer of stalks of each of them thanks to some serious freezer burn from sitting too far back in the fridge). Yes, leaves and all! Celery leaves have FLAVOR! Add in a one-pound bag of great northern beans, and what ended up being two large ham steaks with small marrow bones in the middle of both.

(Sidenote: Lesson learned. When you soak the beans, rinse them halfway through, drain the water, then return to soaking them. Dump in the second batch of "bean water" instead of using regular water - then you get the starch from the beans and the flavor, without the dirt and potential rocks you might have missed while sorting them. Oops.)

In other news, G seems to be getting sick (again) with a weird-sounding cough and a half-missing voice. Sigh - always something, eh?

On Deja Vu

2011-11-03T14:11:00.001-05:00

This time of year always gives me deja vu.

It's something intrinsically a part of our psyche, to fear the darkness that comes with the changing of the seasons. We are made to dislike the cold, to shun the wintertime and plead and beg with whatever powers there are above us that spring comes quickly and that the winter is relatively mild. We spend fall enveloping ourselves in a distinct inability to think about winter, instead enjoying the familiar comforts of cider, orchards, and family holidays.

It all seems to end when that first snow hits and we can't ignore that winter is here again.

The darkness, too, is difficult to contend with. Daylight Saving Time ends this Sunday at 2 AM, meaning that it will be darker an hour earlier (although it will be blissfully light at 7 AM, finally). Those of us who find ourselves struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, are no doubt hit heaviest, and begin relying more and more on material distractions to keep ourselves afloat while the season meanders its way along.

Of course, there are positives - Thanksgiving and Yule (or Christmas if it serves you better) are coming up, and both present the opportunity to stuff ourselves silly on good food and share our lives and love with those we care most about. It lets people like me try out new recipes (crock pot stuffing, anyone?) and to share new experiences with my family. The biggest bummer for us this year, I think, is that we won't be able to host a holiday get together at our house, so I'm wondering if we'll end up getting to see anybody this year, but my brother-in-law and his wife's family tend to have something. I'm hoping. I know at the very least my old friend Melissa will likely try to get us to come over at some point, and that's always a blast.

On today's menu: via my mom's request, ham and bean soup! Today I'll be soaking the beans and I'll start on the soup in the slow cooker tomorrow. Love having a good slow cooker - I wish I used it more often. Hopefully once we get our LINK card benefits back (seriously, any day now - we haven't bought a decent amount of groceries in over a month and are down to some VERY basic basics) I can go on a spending spree, restock our meat supply, buy some decent fresh veggies, and generally make good use of the money. I'm super excited.

Pictures once I've got things worked out. I know, I know, I'm awesome. For now, though, I have an entire house to clean. Hopefully A doesn't interfere with that plan any more than he usually does. :P

On Remembering

2011-10-25T11:00:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I get really angry at myself for not loving high school more.

It's mostly because of the comparably fewer responsibilities I had; while cleaning my mother's house day in and day out was hardly exciting, and was a huge point of contention for us, it's nothing compared to having to do that while caring for, feeding, and entertaining two children. As I had no car and no real bills to speak of, it was next to impossible for me to worry about money beyond what concerns I knew my mother had. What did I worry about? Getting online next, and of course seeing my long-distance boyfriend. I didn't consider how relatively lucky I was to only have to worry about homework for classes and an occasional paper. Maybe if I had listened when older friends told me that things really did get harder, got worse, I would have taken advantage of that time. Maybe I would have made more of an effort to do things with friends, to go places, to get a job and earn some money. Maybe I would have thought more about my future and less about what I was doing right that second.

Then again, for some reason, I always had it in the back of my head that I wouldn't live through high school. Not necessarily out of a suicidal urge (I was as depressed, I think, as most overweight high school kids without close friends in similar situations), but because I had (and still have) trouble imagining something that was supposed to happen in the future.

As I sit here, I can hear the band at the high school rehearsing. All I can really hear is the drums, an occasional but low beat that thumps itself out in memorable fashion. They're preparing for the last few home football games, working on their field show. I remember it all too well, how much I hated it and dreaded going outside as an overweight girl who had trouble with her knees and with breathing. Now, some 100 pounds later, I inwardly laugh at myself for being so awkward and for not taking better care of myself. I know I would have been able to lose weight, feel better, and generally like myself more physically if I had made some kind of genuine attempt - but I chose not to. If I had known what I would physically look like nearly a decade later, maybe I would have pushed myself more to work on my body, to adjust my attitude, to try to establish some kind of spirituality and concern for my own well being. Maybe if I had known then just how much MORE I would hate myself now, I would have made an effort.

Hindsight, as always, is such a bitch.

Of course, psychological studies have been done that prove that teenagers have a different mental capacity for events and situations. Their minds are built differently, the chemicals and hormones present make their reactions to things seem unreasonable or irrational to adults. We ask ourselves, "Why didn't I?" or "Why do they?" when in truth the answer is that we are all made to act this way. Some of us are blessed with the capability to suppress the desire to act out and actually achieve some pretty impressive things; the rest of us are stuck on the back burner, wondering why we never tried to aspire to such things, never made those choices.

So what do we do when the past is gone and we feel as though we've totally lost control of the present thanks to our choices way back when? What do we do when the future seems so uncertain because we didn't consider today yesterday? How do we deal with the stress of tomorrow when we aren't adequately prepared today?

On A Walk

2011-10-21T17:39:00.000-05:00

It's cold.

I have the window down anyway, because I'm pretty much stupid like that, but also because there's just something so, so refreshing about a breeze, about real air, no matter how chilly outside it is. It isn't so cold out yet that it takes my breath away, so I enjoy the season while I can - winter's coming, after all.

I'm driving. Specifically, I'm heading across a rickety old bridge just out of All American Park by the muddy Mississippi River, wandering with no real aim to Quinsippi Island. It's a place that has an odd, almost colonial feel to it, a place that screams to me in a way I can't begin to imagine. I hate bridges, but I'll cross this old piece of crap - what amounts to a VERY old rail bridge with wood slats placed over the tracks, with just enough room for a car to pass through with maybe five inches of clearance on either side - to get there.

I didn't dress right for this excursion. I'm at least wearing shoes, but no socks, and jeans with a t-shirt. Hardly appropriate for the kind of wandering I intend on doing, but I've thrown caution to the wind as it is. I want to be there; I need to be there. And once I'm across the bridge I head down that tiny road, made somehow into two lanes by a bit of yellow paint, and park next to some playground equipment. That isn't why I'm here, though; the boys are gone, one at daycare and the other at school. My being here is purely personal.

And almost right away, as I step out of the car and look around, taking in the sights (not much) and the sounds (animals), the place starts to scream.

It's not in a way I think most other people would hear. Admittedly, there isn't any real SOUND - it's feelings. It's thoughts, emotions, sounds that SHOULD be there, that were there thirty or forty years ago. The sounds of mechanical equipment, of the skyride that used to run from the island to the main part of Quincy. It's the noise of the rides and the smell of food and the sounds of families getting in one last visit on a nice afternoon before the island shuts down for the winter and the place goes silent. It's the distinct LACK of these noises that throws me off, even though they're things I've never heard before in this place. I wasn't alive when my mother worked over here, when there were concession stands and kids riding on things and people enjoying themselves. When it was more than a badly-upkept log cabin "village" and a marina. It's the exact lack of presence of things that I know existed here at one time that just DON'T now.

And it's admittedly very, very weird. I can hear these things, see them in my head, even though I can't even begin to imagine where they once were. It's unsettling in a way, because my mind insists they were here, and that I should be seeing, smelling, and hearing things that I can't and don't. Things that haven't been here since before I was born, things that won't be here again. Maybe it's better that way; it's hard to say.

There used to be more here. Even more than that, I know, it sounds weird - but it's true. There was a mini train depot, a ferris wheel, a round house, an auto museum, a souvenir shop, a carousel, and parking lots galore. There used to be SO MUCH. Now? Not really. Now it's a lot of silence.

And there's one part where if you walk toward a couple of restrooms - primitive things, with two stalls each and a small sink outside each - and then past them, you hit a plat of concrete. And it looks so damn out of place, sitting there, covered in leaves and dirt and dust, but when you look forward, you see.. Trees. Leaves, branches, grass, bushes. And one odd, out of place path that sticks out like a sore thumb.

That's where I'm heading.

Walking down that cleared out path is like heading back in time. It's a little muddy, but things have been cleared out well. At first, it's just me and the trees, which thanks to flooding off and on over the years and now thanks to drought are sparse enough that I can peek through them and see for some ways in whatever direction I please. I walk, and walk, and as I go down a small hill the trees clear out even more, becoming thinner and thinner. Occasionally one - giant in comparison to its kin - peers out, big enough that I might not be able to wrap my hands around it and have the tips of my fingers touch, but those are few and far between. Otherwise it's just mud and a bunch of trees that are so skinny they'd pass for bamboo.

Without warning, the land sinks in some.

It's sand, now, I realize as I glance down with concern. Though I have on sneakers, I can tell the difference in the terrain; it's vaguely slippery, and it's soft enough that it sort of feels like wearing cushy gel insoles. The sand here on the island is rather unique to riverbeds: gray, almost clay-like, and very fine. It catches me off guard enough the first time my foot comes down in it that I almost slide and fall, and boy, would I have felt like an idiot then. Now that I know what I'm walking on, though, it's easier. Besides, I can hear the water now, lapping furiously at the rather odd banks of the Muddy Mississippi.

As I continue forward, I can see the obvious signs of previous partying and potential gang activity, and silently thank my luck that I'm here during daylight. There are blue pieces of plastic tied to trees, guiding a wanderer off through the trees to another small clearing. No doubt if I followed them, I'd find myself half-lost among broken bottles, beer cans, and who knows what else - as it is, just by following the trail I'm seeing random bottles and other such signs of less-than-kosher human entertainment (including a thong used to tie a branch back; talk about creativity). Onward I go, and there, without warning, is the shore.

The shore itself varies considerably. In places it simply falls off from sand and some soil into the river; in others, it's moderately sandy. Still other places are nothing but rock, old limestone and contrasting huge slabs of square concrete that simply drag off into the water rather ungracefully. Everywhere there is wood of some kind; some piled up, obviously by human hands, and charred remains of campfires put out perhaps last night, or perhaps a week ago. There are huge trees and logs, felled by storms or floods, one of which I recognize as a log I sat on years and years ago with my then-boyfriend the last time I came out here. Then there's the driftwood, a term loosely used for the varying bits and pieces of wood that find their way back ashore from who knows where.

The water is almost painfully loud. The river's moving fast today, and the waves even moreso. It seems to fit the cold breeze, the atmosphere of the whole visit. It's pushing at my head, poking my brain, shoving me as though to say, "Time's moving. Time's moving. Faster, faster, faster."

Last time I was here was over a decade ago. Yet little has changed.

Last time all the things I see in my head were here was over three decades ago. Yet so, so much has changed.

On Winter

2011-10-19T17:25:00.001-05:00

It's mid-October here, and with it are coming shorter days, earlier sunsets, and cooler weather. The freeze watches and warnings are slowly creeping our way, and we've gone from t-shirt weather to jacket weather - almost coat weather - in the span of a couple short, short days. Tonight or tomorrow we're going to have to bring in the plants we plan to keep this winter (there isn't space for all of them indoors), and for now the furnace has even been turned on. The days are more often cloudy and dark than they are bright and sunny, and shoes have gone from optional to required, no questions asked.

These days are harder and harder to tolerate. As an individual with a number of equally difficult to regulate problems, and as someone who relies on Medicaid to actually provide the medication I used that actually worked for me (which they stopped doing, leading to a call from my doctor's office to inform me of the situation and that they had instead sent a script for "something else" and I should "try it for a month, see what happens" before pushing forward to another medication), the shorter days and longer nights make it increasingly more difficult to try to keep myself mentally stable. Situations going on at home don't help; needless to say, life with my mother is really tough for us, and although it's a million times better than living on the streets or otherwise being homeless, I wonder some days about the choice to move in with her (even if it wasn't really a choice). Money is tight and the ongoing lawsuit with the bank we rented our second-to-last house from hasn't helped things any; unfortunately at some point we got off-track with payments and money was tight. Because we were no longer able to pay them, and because the house we lived in still hasn't sold (to the best of my knowledge) some two years after we moved out, they're taking us back to small claims. I've been trying to negotiate with their lawyer (funny how that works) via email and phone but she refuses to respond to my phone calls and claims by email that the bank will not be able to accommodate my request to work out a different payment schedule. They sent a certified letter to Mom and to each of us (since she's also a plaintiff) and I signed for her letter, but we weren't home to get our's, and was going to appear but tried to contact them that day since I couldn't find someone to watch the boys and both Mom and Hubby had to work. I couldn't get a hold of anybody, and now, since Mom's letter was the only one signed for and thus certified as received, they want HER to appear in court to show why SHE shouldn't be held in contempt, etc.. It's a long, very painful situation that I don't know how to fix. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring it up with Mom and Hubby and haven't come up with anything yet. I know it'll end in wage garnishment, which is going to suck because as it is we already are only barely paying off our bills and Mom needs help paying all of her's, since she's still paying people off from getting help with her taxes for the house so she could, you know, keep her home. If it weren't for that, we would be homeless, too. We have cut down as much as I think we can, but it's always something anymore.

And I'm still waiting to hear from the state about whether or not we're going to get back on LINK or not. So right now we don't have groceries beyond WIC, either. It's a real party.

So right now, things suck a lot. I keep trying to remind myself that no matter what happens we have two beautiful, brilliant kids and at least we aren't homeless but there are too many mornings when that just doesn't help. I keep telling myself we're lucky we have so much, but at the same time when I take a step back and look at all of the things hovering over our heads it seems like it'll never end. I never originally intended for this blog to be a place for me to spread my pessimism and anger all over the Internet but this is one of those times when it just seems necessary. I'm sorry to those who still read; I know this isn't what you're here to hear. You want something funny, or informative, or thoughtful, or useful, and all I have is this depressing drivel. I understand, trust me. I'm sick and tired of feeling like my life is nothing but one disappointment after another, like it's "always something". I just don't feel like I have anywhere else to go, or anybody else to talk to, who actually can offer up useful advice. So I complain here to mostly strangers who have probably stopped reading by now anyway.

I've lost a lot of energy over this. Energy and sleep and probably sanity too but I lacked that in the first place and there wasn't much left to lose.

On Birth Plans #1

2011-09-20T22:39:00.001-05:00

Here's what SHOULD be on your birth plan from day one:

"I do not consent to any vaginal exams, either during pregnancy or at any point during labor, up to and including delivery. This includes checking for dilation/effacement during labor. I understand that unless I have shown signs of a potential cervical problems during pregnancy, have been diagnosed with an incompetent cervix, or have some other medical condition OTHER THAN PREGNANCY necessitating vaginal exams that they are not necessary and will not speed up my pregnancy. I understand that especially after my water has broken, vaginal exams can introduce foreign bacteria and matter into my vagina, which is otherwise a pH balanced and sterile environment with the exact right amount of good bacteria. I understand that, while gauging dilation and effacement can be useful, it can also be completely meaningless. I will not have my labor and delivery experience overwhelmed by a 'ticking clock' that insists that I must dilate a specific amount within a specific time period, lest my body has somehow decided it suddenly does not understand how to birth a child that it has otherwise created and grown without significant problems. I understand that if, at any point in time, I have changed my mind, I will inform the staff appropriately. I understand that any violation of my expectations for non-life threatening reasons will be a gross infraction of my rights as a patient and as a person." (See: Mama Birth: Obstetric Lie #93)

On No Poo

2011-09-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

So although I didn't mention it at all before, a couple of weeks ago I made a rather random and drastic change in my life: I stopped using shampoo. I do mean entirely; I had been only using it sporadically as it was because using it less often made showering easier and faster, and once we moved here, it became more normal for me because a lack of water pressure means that rinsing shampoo from my hair can take a good five or six minutes all on its own - precious time a mom of two rambunctious boys often doesn't have. So I already wasn't using it daily, as was my previous routine, but it has been about two weeks since I completely cut shampoo out of my lifestyle.

I had some idea of what it was to go "no poo" before this; I've heard the term slung around in various granola groups I'm a part of online, but the whole concept always seemed so disgusting and difficult. People washed their hair with baking soda combinations one day and vinegar the next and complained of going through weeks of adjustment where their hair was so greasy they left stains on their pillowcases. It seemed like the rule for "no poo" was "anything goes," and it reflected in the variety of homebrew products used to keep hair smelling fresh and scrubbed of dirt while maintaining its natural level of healthy oils. But let's face it: I'm not a "let's make a bunch of complicated things and try to store them in someone else's house" kind of person, and I'm probably not about to change that. I wasn't going to follow the No Poo movement if doing so meant still routinely using random products on my hair, especially when it seemed like there was no clear, concise agreement on what of those random products were best, and what actually worked without causing further damage to hair.

Then, about two weeks ago (maybe more like two and a half now), it just sort of struck me, and I stopped using shampoo. It wasn't entirely purposeful, as at first I just went my typical two or three days without - but the next day I didn't have time. And the day after that I didn't feel like it. The excuses to not shampoo my hair snowballed until I was so thrilled that my showers were short that I opted to avoid it completely. I made the mistake, one day, of putting in store-bought name brand conditioner but will not do that again - it upped the grease level tenfold and didn't really help my hair feel any better or softer afterwards.

I will be painfully honest: My hair is INCREDIBLY greasy. I've seen it said that sometimes the greasiness remains for between two and five weeks, and since I'm past two and naturally have slightly greasy skin and difficult to manage hair, I'm going to guess that my "grease period" is going to last closer to five weeks than two. After I've hit a point where my hair is beginning to regulate itself, I'm going to try a baking soda scrub (I may do this sooner, to help release some of the excess sebum naturally and to get rid of any excess dirt). I do rinse my hair fully every day, including parting and sectioning it, and massaging my scalp with my fingers every shower. Afterwards, I give my head a good scratch (not because it itches, but man, doesn't it feel good sometimes to just have your head scratched all over?) and then comb out all of my hair with a relatively fine-toothed comb. I can't use a traditional fine-tooth comb because my hair is simply too thick and too unruly still, and it tends to knot up. If I touch my hair, my hands do become noticeably more greasy, but it isn't a disgusting "stick with you for the rest of eternity" grease; it's natural and my body reacts accordingly and reabsorbs whatever gets on my hands without any irritation or lingering icky feeling. I am already seeing fewer flyaways and it is slowly beginning to behave better. It doesn't smell and doesn't look gross in the least, nor does it really "look" greasy.

All in all, I'm actually pretty happy with my experience so far. I'm not bothered by the effects of going without shampoo, and I'm looking forward to the benefits and positive sides of not using traditional shampoos anymore. We'll see how this keeps up - for now, though, I think I might be a convert.

On 9/11

2011-09-11T09:05:00.000-05:00

They don't teach you how to cope with tragedy in school.

On September 11, 2001 I was sitting in my Spanish class, learning how to conjugate some verb that has been long since forgotten. I had just begun high school, I was a sophomore, and quite frankly, I could not have cared less at the moment about the rest of the world - my world was high school, that classroom, and my individual life.

Then the phone call came.

It was a little after 8AM Central Time, and though she said nothing to us, she silently turned on the TV in the room to one of the local news stations. And we sat, quietly, and watched in confusion as a grainy picture of a burning tower in New York City came up on the screen.

We didn't understand what was happening. The room sort of went silent and we stared blankly at the TV, unable to understand how, or why, this affected us personally. A tower was burning in a city in a state half a country away. What did that mean? But as we watched, events unfolded, and the whole thing began to make a bit more sense. Another plane hit. The other tower seemed to explode. We watched the whole thing from the point we started, to the point, half an hour later, when the principal finally put an announcement over the PA system that all of the TVs in the building were to be shut off.

And that was the rest of our day. Nobody knew what was going on, our communication to the outside world was limited, and we honestly knew little from that short half-hour snippet of news. We understood that something awful had happened, but we had no more information. During the day, occasionally a student would disappear - pulled out of classes by a terrified parent, taken home to likely understand more about the event than the rest of us. We sat and waited and went about our day otherwise quite normally, because we didn't know any differently. It wasn't until most of us went home that afternoon that we saw the rest of the reports, heard the rumors and the facts, and got to see the full footage of what had unfolded that day.

It was sobering, but to be honest, I didn't understand.

In my defense, I was 15 - too young, I think, to get my head out of my own rear long enough to sit back and really look at what happened. It took years for me to become at all interested or concerned about what had occurred; I was 20 or so by the time I looked everything back up and looked at the footage again. And again. And again.

It wasn't until I grew up and had kids that I watched it and CRIED, really sat back and realized that this is the kind of place I was raising my children in, a world where people could take over airplanes and fly them into huge buildings and into government buildings and be overcome by passengers and driven into the ground, where thousands could die in an instant, all in the name of God. It disgusted me, it terrified me, and most of all it made me question my beliefs. What kind of loving god would allow this to happen? What sort of deity could kill off thousands without a second glance?

Now, ten years later, I have two beautiful children. And once a year I go back and I look at the footage and pictures and watch the videos and remind myself of what happened. I mourn and I understand a little better every single year.

Where were you on September 11, 2001? What were you doing? Who were you with? How old were you? How have you changed the world in the 3,652 days that have passed since then?

On Crazy Kids and Creativity

2011-09-04T14:28:00.000-05:00

"Don't pee in the shower! A is peeing in the shower!" I can hear G shout from the bathroom. I made the mistake of walking away for two seconds to grab something - and that's the first thing I hear. "Mom!" I toss a load of laundry in the washer and start the water; by the time I walk back into the bathroom, A is crying and G is still screaming his head off.

Of course, that isn't what I'm here to talk about - well, okay, it is. To a degree. I started this off by wanting to rant about a couple of new ideas I had about things to sell in my store (look me up on Facebook, or on Etsy), and a new design I'm using, but just about everything I want to talk about invariably comes back to the kids. They're ever-present in my life, and I love them, but sometimes they make me want to scream.

This month has started out as a month that will obviously be full of more adjustments. With a solid awareness that G has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD, sometimes referred to as Sensory Integration Disorder, or SID), we find ourselves taking baby steps. More things have begun to set him off, despite an "all clear" from the specialists. A ringing phone, a loud car, the sound of the air conditioner in the Kobold. Sounds he makes are fine; sounds from others drive him insane. He's adjusting well enough to school, but the stress of moving, of Hubby being gone almost all day constantly, of me occasionally being gone, of living with my mother, of starting school - it's wearing on the poor kid. He's developing a series of unpleasant digestive issues; during the day and evening it's often diarrhea, and at night he'll often wake up out of a dead sleep and begin throwing up violently - even though he might have eaten a good eight hours before, he'll still somehow have things in there to vomit. It's wearing on his little body, though he doesn't seem dehydrated or otherwise ill, so I try to give him some leeway, excuse the roughhousing, read to him more, and let him draw as often as he pleases. He eats pretty well otherwise during the day, so we're pushing back dinner time, ending late snacks, and generally trying to encourage him to have an empty tummy once he's in bed. A more set schedule during the day would be nice, but school changed what little schedule we had in the first place, so it's back to square one. I'm hoping that this week we can start establishing a better schedule and routine; once we work through those worst first few days, I think it'll be better for everybody in the long run.

Meanwhile, A is doing well. He's imitating G's reactions to sounds, which is more than a little irritating, but we're fairly sure that he doesn't have the same problems as G does. He tries desperately to be helpful, but usually isn't - and, curiously enough, he's actually far more violent than G ever was at his age. We think it has something to do with the fact that unlike G at two years old, he has an older brother to compete and fight with. It's sometimes unpleasant, but we manage more or less. A is a good kid, a real sweetheart and totally a Mama's boy, and when he snuggles up with me at night I'm reminded of just how short a time our kids are young enough to want and need us - and how little time we have left before they may decide they don't like to be in public with us, or that they might not want hugs and kisses before they head off to do whatever they're off doing. They remind me daily about how lucky and blessed I am to see their shining - okay, well, not so much - faces, and I love them for it.

So, on to what I wanted to talk about: my business! I don't have a business plan because, quite frankly, at this point I'm really not sure what kind of plan I should have. Happy Zombie Studios was born from a joke at a game night four years ago; the idea of a positively thrilled zombie was hilarious to the group at the time, and I swore that night I would someday start a business, and I'd call it Happy Zombie Studios. Why? Because I could. I filed the name away, and last year I finally brought HZS to life through some cutesy items that I figured out how to replicate. I sold a few - so technically I have established myself as an actual business entity - but it keeps flopping because of random life events. Things I can't easily see coming, things I usually can't work around. Anyway, I've refocused and rethought some of my options, found a low-cost, high-profit item or four that I can make relatively easily, and have begun the difficult task of reestablishing myself. I've found it hard because I've had a couple of small but legitimately negative experiences, and have thus far spent far more than I've brought in on trying to make prototypes and "cheap offerings" to friends in exchange for them letting everybody know where they got them. I know this has to change soon, and I've done my research and have concluded that I can easily put my price point exactly where I estimated and have it be "about right" - that is to say, a good middle ground that allows me to make money without overcharging and alienating my target audience. The downside, as always, is that too many other people have already stepped into this world, and my crafting intentions are becoming somewhat useless in light of others who have already established themselves as trustworthy businesswomen, creative crafters, and generally good people that everybody likes working with. Their businesses have names with the words "boutique" and "couture", their photographs are professional and often taken by volunteer business photographers, their designs are new and intricate and elaborate while still remaining tasteful and beautiful. They possess an ability to match and mix colors that I have always lacked, the connections and funding to wholesale shop effectively, and an incredibly deadly combination of word-of-mouth advertising and targeted sales that seem to draw in a crowd and keep it. They are, to be quite frank, more talented than I am, and it shows in every way. It's a frightening thing to consider when I'd previously thought this might be a relevant, sincere way to provide income to my family without having to be constantly gone and always arranging childcare (which is also something we can't afford right now).

So I'm kind of at an impasse. I'm working hard on my creations still, offering up new ones once I see an Idea I think I can make come to life without having to purchase more or commit myself to the impossible. I scout other shops, look at what they've done, and always ask how I could take that Idea and make it my own without straining myself or our budget. The fact that I have no current profit to work with is always lingering in the back of my head, a sore spot that's hard to ignore and is always there, staring me down, challenging me to find something else to try.

On Making Progress

2011-09-02T11:10:00.000-05:00

After waiting an excruciatingly long time to hear back, I've been informed that I'm a pretty normal, if not large, woman - that my hormone levels are normal, my body is (relatively) normal, and the only thing I "suffer" from is high cholesterol (and it isn't even that high). The general consensus is that nobody seems to know why my body cannot seem to regulate itself, so despite my past bad experiences, I'm now on hormonal birth control - Necon 7/7/7 which is a combination pill and the generic version of Ortho-Novum - and am actually pretty happy with it so far. I've had a lot of really negative, painful, uncomfortable experiences with other things I've tried, and though I'm only a week into this experience, I'm still doing better than I was last time. By now, with everything else I'd tried, I had already begun to experience a hint of the pain and discomfort I was due for. I think my biggest complaint is some occasional, light nausea - nothing I can't deal with, and a huge improvement over the horrible headaches I got with the NuvaRing, or the insane cramps and continual bleeding I had with the Mirena or Paragard IUDs. I feel no moodiness, no obvious increase in blood pressure, no irregular bleeding - nothing. I feel pretty good, all things considered, and I'm hoping that the trend continues.

Meanwhile, I'm working my way through some holistic living and AP parenting books I bought at Waldenbooks before they closed. I'm hoping that the AP-style books will help us figure out some more positive, less emotionally-driven responses to inappropriate behavior and acting out, and allow us to reason better with the boys during difficult times. We've been making some remote progress without them, especially by offering G more autonomy (which seems to have come along with him starting pre-school).

Yeah, that's my baby getting on his bus for the first time the other day. He's such a big boy now, and it's hard to reconcile sometimes, because he always seemed so tiny when he was born. But starting school, having time away from us and to spend with other kids in a different environment, providing him some opportunity to make choices for himself, seems to have done a lot of good for him. He still throws tantrums and has fits, but we can reason with him to a degree by asking if that's how he behaves at school. It doesn't always work, but that's part of the reason we're working on it - it's something we can use right now, which at the moment is all that counts for us.

On Respecting Your Body

2011-08-25T15:01:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I went to the doctor.

I should preface this with a bit of explanation, something to make more sense of the situation: I am morbidly obese. Although I've lost 10 glorious pounds in the last couple of months, it's nowhere near enough, and I have over 200 more to lose before I can plop myself contently back into the "obese" category and live out the rest of my life knowing that while I may be big, at least I am no longer threatening my own health with my weight. Right now, I weigh 375 (the doctor's scale tacked on .6 to the end yesterday but I am choosing to gleefully ignore that addition). My all-time heaviest was hovering near 400, which I was told time and time again I did not LOOK like I was carrying, but my body was reacting to that weight I didn't look like I had. My knees are a disaster and I was recommended that if after losing 100 pounds or so that if I do not see a marked improvement I should begin specific physical therapy. I was told I can likely expect a knee replacement before I turn 40 if I do not get the weight off and do so quickly. My back hurts almost constantly, it's hard to breathe, I have exactly one pair of fitted pants that actually fit me, I cannot purchase clothing in normal stores, and I have gastric issues related to my weight. I have obstructive sleep apnea because of my weight; it's a condition that didn't exist until last year when I finally hit my heaviest and began waking up feeling more exhausted than I had before bed, had horrible headaches that started when I woke up and lasted most of the day, and needed to nap for hours to even feel as though I'd rested. My weight has controlled my life for some time thanks to my obsession with food, and my unhealthy relationship with it. I do not respect food and appreciate and enjoy it, I LOVE it, I crave that which is most unhealthy for me. I use it to fix my problems, to fill me in ways I feel my life often doesn't. I use it to cure depression, to sate anxiety, to "fix me" as it is.

But I've been having a problem I'm going to be pretty blunt about: my monthly cycle is completely haywire.

It was getting progressively longer, and occasionally throwing two periods out a month, basically doing whatever it pleased. I had been charting as a form of birth control to try to avoid having to subject myself to more hormones that my body has proven before it HATES. And we were doing great until my body stopped being predictable, and my cycles went from around 30 days to this last one, which was a whopping 45 days.

45 days with no period, no signs of one, nothing. And I knew I wasn't pregnant, and tests had confirmed such, but there was something desperately wrong - further confirmed when I had two days of what might have been a period, and then two days of something that was a poor, pathetic excuse for one, and then nothing. So I called my doctor's office and begged to get in ASAP, and found myself with this darling little blessing of a woman who might be 30 named May Kim. She has a thick accent, she's a good foot shorter than me and might pass 100 lbs soaking wet (but that's a lot of water). She's absolutely the sweetest person I've met in a doctor's office, and for the time being is my new family practice doctor. I adore her.

I had what amounted to a LOT of stuff done yesterday at this appointment; some of it was done because I haven't had an actual check up appointment in two years (oops) and some out of concern for my health. I had blood drawn to re-test my thyroid, to check my cholesterol, and for my blood sugar (which I'm fairly sure is the only thing that will have relatively normal numbers). I had a PAP smear and breast exam. I talked to her about my weight, about the problems it has caused, about my hypermobility and about how that is likely also contributing to my knee problems.

But there were some things that made me nervous, maybe too much so. I got asked things, things like, "Have you ever had an abnormal PAP?" Which is pretty typical except that during the exam it became, "You're sure you've never had an abnormal PAP, or gotten any high results..?" And then, "I'll want to see you back after you get your PAP results." And I guess, all in all, those shouldn't really be fear-inducing questions but to me they are, because I am terrified of anything I can't control and to me having such similar but more pressing and urgent things said to me makes me fear and wonder and concerns me.

Of course, there are people I haven't shared this with yet. Like my lovely husband, and my mother, and basically everybody else I know who doesn't read this. I haven't shared because I don't feel like it's necessary until I know for sure if something's wrong or if I'm just reading too much into things. I don't want to set off panic where it isn't due but I might ask if you have time, if you won't consider lighting a candle for me tonight just to make sure.

On Days Like This

2011-08-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

It's these last few days of summer that really make me wonder about whether or not we're going to survive all this; if we'll actually make it to when G starts school and if somehow we'll manage to not all strangle one another. It's days like this where G and A are chasing one another through my mother's house - or at least through the rooms they can safely be in without A immediately breaking or disassembling something - with lightsabers and blocks and whatever else they can find that might be used to cause harm to someone else, trying to destroy one another. And G becomes "Starkiller" as he has dubbed his heroic self, and A yells out, "Superhero!" and the two of them go at it, and I go a little stir-crazy.

The problem is that it's hot outside, so hot and humid that your clothes feel like they're going to stick to your body the second you step outside, so warm that it takes your breath away and you have to spend a minute trying not to gasp in shock at the idea that it can be this inhumanly hot so many times in one summer. The heat index has soared back into the triple digits, hovering somewhere between 105 and 110, and in the very center of the Midwest, this is inexcusably hot. It's so hot that even Dante, who has often braved the heat in her fur-covered glory (she's a Malamute/Shepard mix .. We think) has been refusing to lounge outside in the shade for more than a few minutes, even though this has become her method of choice for avoiding these two screaming heathens that have come to invade her previously quiet existence. It's so hot that going anywhere or doing anything for any length of time is somehow difficult; precautions mean nothing in this world of heat. Carseats are hot enough to fry tender skin, the air conditioning could never cool down the whole car fast enough for the likes of everyone within, and even outdoor activities are nil - playground equipment is scalding, the pool is far too expensive, and even the "waterpark" is just too darn hot and doesn't have enough shade.

So the kids and I hunker down inside, enjoying the air conditioning and for once appreciating my mother's vampiric habits. We build with blocks and make horrible messes and try desperately to keep from wanting to destroy one another, and bide our time until G starts school next week. He was supposed to start today, but apparently the federal funding that allowed the Early Childhood Center to reopen their preschool program requires that all students must have a dental exam BEFORE attending; having one scheduled for two days after school starts is not enough. Thankfully, he doesn't know any better, and will be starting school what will end up being only two days late, next Monday. He'll be going for a few hours in the afternoon four days a week, will ride the bus, and I am SO EXCITED about this potential for only having one child around the house for a while (though granted, it will be the inarguably more clingy child). I never thought I'd be thrilled about the kids finally going to school, but I am - and to think that next year will be kindergarten and thus all day is even better. With any luck, A will start preschool next year and I will have some quiet time all to myself during the day.

Of course, I know I'll cry when G goes that first day, even knowing he'll survive it all and be fine and will be home in a few hours.

Drawn to deliver

2011-08-19T03:41:00.000-05:00

I've gotten a lot of questions recently about my push (no pun intended) to become a midwife and its relevance. I think a lot of people who ask me why on earth this is something I would want to do see it through the same scope of scrutiny that the majority of the public in our country does: that a midwife is a glorified nurse, someone who tries to do the job of a doctor with less pay, less education, less experience, and in a more dangerous setting with far more things going wrong. And to a degree, I can't fault them, because that's really all the general public ever hears about midwives. The media throws around all the horror stories, tales of home births gone wrong, of midwives who abuse their position of power over a patient, or of (and this in my opinion is the worst) otherwise fully trained and accredited midwives who try to practice in a state where either their entire profession or their chosen route is somehow illegal and although nothing bad has ever happened, they're turned in for practicing medicine without a license.

When that's all anybody sees or hears, who can blame this country for having such a negative view of midwifery?

The sad thing is, I can't. And believe me, I'm not looking at this from a completely rosy perspective; I understand that things can and do go wrong during otherwise normal birth processes. I understand that no two women or births are alike, and that a woman's supposedly low-risk status isn't a reason to stay on my toes and listen to that voice in the back of my head that wants me to be ready for any possibility. I get that there will be some patients, unfortunately, that I will have to turn away - not because of an inability on my behalf, but because for whatever reason the information they've presented to me or that I've gathered through examining them indicates to me that they might be safer in a more medical setting where the potential care they would need is readily available. I know those things and I've come to accept them, whether or not I want to.

And I know, too, that even the accreditation process carries some inherent risk. I'm a part of a Yahoo group for new and student midwives, and there has been a discussion going on recently about an unfortunate woman who was working as a student (as-of-yet unlicensed) midwife who showed up to a birth before her preceptors (teachers/more or less the women she was apprenticed to). She had everything set up and was ready to go, waiting for them to arrive, but while they were waiting, the baby crowned and showed up a bit faster than anticipated. The parents insisted that despite not having the birth attended by a licensed midwife, that they not transfer (this is where, perhaps, some things were questionable, but without all the details it's hard to know for sure why the parents decided this, and why the student agreed). Afterwards, there seemed to be some pieces of the placenta left over in the mother's uterus, and she was beginning to hemorrhage - so the student, thinking fast, did what was medically necessary to stop the bleeding. Mom and baby were fine. After the fact, a doula at some point discussed the happenings with other midwives, and the student ended up reported to the authorities and was charged with several felonies, including - you guessed it - practicing medicine without a license. Because of this charge, she'll never be able to finish her schooling and become a midwife, and will never be able to hold any state license for any medical field.

Now, working off of core facts, there is a HUGE question here: should the student have continued to honor the parents wishes and acted as she did, or should she have taken a step back and refused to provide any care and called 911? Obviously the choice has already been made, but there are a lot of technicalities here that I think would make this decision difficult for anyone, experienced student or new. It's one of the many problems that I may or may not personally face, and it's impossible for me to say for sure what I would have done (I'd like to think I KNOW what I would have done, but we always say that about ourselves without likely ever finding out the truth). I may face worse problems, bigger problems, along the way. May every god and goddess in every pantheon forbid it, I might well face the death of a client and/or her child. I can't even begin to process that concept, because it's just too "out there" for me, but it is a possibility, however unwelcome and tragic and horrifying.

But it's part of the job. Doctors face the same thing, only they rarely have to worry about consequences from a family because, if they've proven themselves competent and they've done everything they have to to satisfy their insurance and hospital policy, then most of the time, they're off the hook - even if a bunch of medical interference is what might have contributed to the death in the first place.

And it's something that I'll have to accept, something I'm working on accepting even now, when I haven't even been accepted (that's a lot of accepting) into the nursing program at the college I'm at. I'm still taking prerequesets and applying. I'm not even a quarter of the way there yet.

So why, despite all of these horrible things that could or might happen, do I still feel called to become a midwife?

Because I know how beautiful and amazing birth can be. Because my experiences have been not-so-great, because I've learned the trauma of having someone by your side who has pledged to help protect you from the unnecessary who then steps away at the last minute and chooses to be less than supportive. Because I have been bullied into decisions and interventions that I know (thank you, hindsight) were unnecessary or potentially harmful. Because even after making up my mind and setting my jaw and telling my OB what I would or would not allow, I was still told that in the long run my wishes were secondary to hospital policy, or "what was allowed". Because I know that my experiences and the experiences of so many other women who are now completely jaded to the birthing process do not have to be the experiences of EVERY woman. Because I know birth can be better, happier, more relaxed, and can be allowed to progress on its own without inherently risking the safety of anyone involved. Because I know and believe that women and babies deserve better, and should have better, but that it will take an entirely new generation of midwives who are able and ready to fight the system of heavily medicalized births that have become so common in so many areas.

Because I can, and I want to, and I think it's right.

Isn't that the biggest reason that anybody does anything they believe in?

On the Matter of "My Parents ___________ and I Turned Out Fine"

2011-08-16T19:40:00.000-05:00

I hate that phrase. I hate it because it insinuates that whatever we learn about life, parenting, or existence is irrelevant, somehow invalidated by the fact that our parents or relatives did things differently while we were growing up, and since we were fortunate enough to not suffer any ill effects that we're aware of, the way things were done for us must be good enough. The logical fallacies here are insane, and to me painfully obvious, but many parents may as well be wearing blinders to this topic.

So why doesn't anybody seem to understand why this reasoning is faulty? Let's consider a few things that often seem to factor into a person's usage of this defense.

First, people typically hate implying that somehow their parents raised them in a sub par way, or that their parents - despite not knowing any differently - were taking a potentially life-threatening risk while raising them. And I understand that need to believe, because most of the time, to a point, the reasoning is true: our parents did the best they could, and usually they didn't have the information or access to information that we have. Their choices were informed to a fault. Today, though, we're lucky enough to have the ability to research almost any choice or option, and there is no end of accessible opinions, either online or in books. So where do we draw the line and decide what is a choice made out of ignorance, and what is a choice made of WILLFUL ignorance?

For me, the line is drawn right here, right now. There is no excuse anymore, no excuse for not knowing or wondering - no excuse for accepting tradition. And why should we, when tradition means cutting off parts of our sons, or allowing doctors who are notorious for not disclosing all of the necessary information to make a truly informed decision as to our medical care inject us with harmful substances, then lie about or neglect to mention their potential effects on ourselves and our children? Why should we allow tradition to be the early forced evacuation from the womb of babies who otherwise have no medical need to be born early? Why should we risk the lives of children, of mothers, of families everywhere by ignoring the blatant, obvious benefits of breastfeeding and breastmilk, benefits that have been proven time and time again through numerous studies, while we tout formula as being somehow equal, if not better? Why do we do all of these things?

Because it's easy. Because the idea that somehow our parents might have made mistakes is beyond us; because we want to imagine we were given the BEST, instead of labeling it as what it truly is: the best that was POSSIBLE. That does not make it the best of all circumstances, or the absolute best option regardless of other choices that could have been made. It is almost legitimate to say that the parents of a boy circumcised in 1978 made that decision because at the time it was simply something that wasn't discussed in any circle, medical or otherwise, it was just an accepted truth; today, only 55-65% of newborn boys are circumcised for secular reasons, and it's figured that this number is dropping sharply every month. The difference, of course, is that now people are openly discussing circumcision and its harmful side effects; men who were circumcised as children are willingly coming out and explaining the pain and trauma they've experienced throughout their lives thanks to a choice made by someone who assumed control over their body. Mothers are being ASKED if they wish to circumcise their sons; while this is far from perfect, it's better than the previous assumption that it would be done. There are forums discussing it, websites and books and magazines and organizations dedicated to the idea that the ability to circumcise should be the choice of an informed adult, and not a choice made for a helpless newborn.

The idea of bodily autonomy is becoming mainstream, and is edging its way into becoming a legitimate, accepted topic of conversation among parents and medical professionals.

So is the fact that circumcision used to be so common that it was often performed without permission or informed consent a reason to continue to do it? Is the fact that a majority of the adult (18+) male population of the United States circumcised (likely at birth), completely unaware of what they lost through circumcision, and thus willing to speak out and say that somehow circumcision at birth is "okay", a good reason to continue to advocate for it?

Of course not. What worked for our parents - our grandparents - our ancestors ten or twenty times removed - is not necessarily the best choice for us. It is no reason to accept that the previous generation's "normal" should be the "normal" that our children grow up with; no reason to willingly blind ourselves to the truth because we don't want to consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, the choices of our parents were not the BEST choice. Best POSSIBLE is no excuse for us now, in the information age; if we are able to provide the BEST, it is our duty as parents, as mothers, as fathers, as caretakers, as those who have given birth and witnessed birth, as those who assist and those who deliver, to make sure that if we are CAPABLE of providing the BEST that we do so - and that we ask every possible question along the way.

Getting back on track - a homebirthing post

2011-08-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

Well, we're finally about as settled in as we're going to get, minus some unpacking. The kids are working on regulating their schedules again, for all the good it's going to do; in less than a week I'll be starting fall classes at the local community college, and at the end of the month G will start his first year of preschool. My babies are growing up so fast; G is learning to cope and we've been given an idea of just how smart he is, and A is following right after his big brother in picking up on skills, verbalizing, and generally learning to express himself. We're still struggling financially but we haven't been here long enough to really see the fruits of our labors, and I'm hoping that it won't be long before we really get an idea of just how good for us this move really is (even if it's just a financial good and not an emotional good).

On my list of things to rant about today is something I'm realizing is truly becoming a very big, very dangerous problem: The attempt by a relatively large grouping of people to eradicate a woman's right and ability to give birth at home, regardless of her choice of prenatal care. I'm finding that the vast majority of the people behind this push to end homebirthing have either never had a child at home (or perhaps haven't had any children at all), or have experienced a traumatic homebirth with extreme repercussions, up to and including losing their child. While the former group I mostly ignore (because I'm horrible like that), the latter I do give some credence to. These are individuals and families that have been through something horrifying; if they didn't lose their child (or perhaps Mom), what they went through was at least enough to make them think twice about their experience. Whatever happened was enough for them to want to quantify all homebirths as identical, with the same risks but no real plausible benefits, as an inherently dangerous situation that could have been avoided if it had been a law that a purposeful homebirth cannot happen.

And to that, I say, bullshit.

Please don't get me wrong. I am a rational person and while I have not even remotely experienced the same trauma and loss and pain as these families, I have felt a similar sensation and I admittedly wondered to myself if what I had been through only could have been avoided IF. That's a big word right there, and it carries with it a LOT of suggestions and hindsight. It implies that someone could and should have looked into the future to predict the outcome of a single, individual birth experience, and that the one person capable of doing that had the responsibility of informing the parents from the outset so that a totally different set of decisions could have been made. It implies that somehow every birth SHOULD be the same, and that even though seasoned medical professionals agree that every birth is completely different and progresses differently, somehow, every birth should be predictable and identical. That mindset is why so many women are pressured into birthing in hospitals under the care of OBs, when they would be likely in better hands with a midwife, and why so many women experience identical interventions and outcomes. It is why OBs are trained to expect certain events to occur within a certain subset of time, and when they don't, the interventions begin. It's why interventions are almost guaranteed to lead to the same path, and why all of those paths either end at or dangerously close to a c-section.

The truth is that a woman who is considered low risk and who is otherwise healthy, with an otherwise healthy baby, regardless of how many children she might have had previously, is better off at home. The fact that there are individuals who exist who have unfortunately lost children is irrelevant; there are as many, if not more, babies who are lost during or because of interventions and medications while in hospitals. More mothers pass away during unnecessary surgeries. More women are stripped of their fertility and womanhood during surgeries or procedures that go wrong, things that would otherwise not occur in a home setting where an educated attending midwife could manage any "normal" problems in a number of ways that don't involve knowingly causing trauma to mother or child. More babies and mothers become ill while in hospitals because of the inherent transfer of diseases, be they airborne or through hospital staff who do not properly cleanse themselves. More mothers and babies experience stress because they are outside of a familiar setting, because they cannot calm down and properly continue their lives because they know that they will be heading home instead of already being there. Breastfeeding relationships are strained and put in danger. More women experience postpartum depression.

There will be more to this rant, given time - I am not as lucid right now as I'd like to be when making such an important point. Eating will help. Meanwhile, I have a request: if you see fit, I would greatly appreciate any applicable donations to my PayPal account so that I may reactivate my Ancestry.com subscription for at least one month. A month of the information I would need access to is $29.99 and it would give me an opportunity to do a LOT of work on my family tree that has gone untended for some time now. If you see fit to donate to me for this purpose, I'd love you forever. :P My PayPal email address is skiefangor[at]gmail[dot]com (obvious replacements necessary).

Much love to you all! And a far more coherent post coming soon, I promise.

Crayola Slick Stix

2011-08-03T16:37:00.000-05:00

I. Hate. These.

They're just wax, surprisingly enough, with absolutely no other hazardous chemicals regulations - unusual for a children's product in this day and age. I've checked them out. There's nothing particularly hazardous about them, but they piss me off.

They don't come off of vinyl linoleum.

There's a PDF file available if you search for these things, and I suppose Crayola thinks they're being useful by providing it, but let's face it: their suggestion of some Soft Scrub and patience is really not all that helpful. I've taken several cleansers to the floor to no avail; I'm about to just break out the baking soda and call it good. I feel like I'm running out of options as I stare blankly at these happy little blue streaks across my mother's white-and-cream linoleum floors, because I can see her coming home in half an hour, likely grumpy about all the stuff that hasn't gotten properly moved in or adjusted yet - never mind the mess in the living room thanks to the boys who decided that "time to clean up" actually translates into "please dump out another bucket of blocks, that sounds like a great time for all" - and finding these lovely, darling streaks across her floor. The funny thing is that every time she has colored with them, there hasn't been even the tiniest speck of those evil, soft, squishy crayons on the floor. The first time I color with them, this happens. I suppose it's a guarantee; Murphy's Law, and all.

Meanwhile, on to money.

Oh, yes, money.

I've found that a good way of earning some cash on the side - either to add to bill payments, use as spending money, or to help out with gifts at holiday times - is to utilize sites that offer monetary payouts. One of those sites I'm coming to like quite a bit, and it's the SuperPoints Network.

Just thinking about it makes me drool.

Watch a few videos, maybe complete a couple of offers, and click that darn SuperLucky Button as many times as you're able and earn points - then use those points toward things as huge as a MacBook Pro or as small as a $5 gift card to something silly like Jamba Juice. What I really like, though, are the options to get $10 or $25 deposited into your PayPal account. I have to admit, it can become really addictive to do, and once you get that first payout, it feels like you're legitimately helping yourself in a way that a 9-5 job never could.

So if you want an invite to this exclusive network of awesomesauce, I highly suggest signing up here! If for whatever reason that code doesn't work (for instance, if it says it was already used), try clicking here instead. I have other codes I can offer out if anybody else is interested and these two go. :)

Speaking of 9-5 jobs, or rather ANYTIME jobs, I'm going to go clean up after the boys, do some dishes, clean up the remainder of Alex's lunch, then work on assembling some of our belongings appropriately in the rooms they belong in. Once Mom's home and gets a chance to relax, I'm hoping she'll watch the boys a bit so I can go down to the house and work on grabbing some more stuff to bring up here - like my crafting stuff, and maybe my plants. Err, what's left of my poor plants - my tomatoes are managing but just about everything else is dead, my chives included. :(

When my brain explodes, it'll make this sound

2011-08-02T18:53:00.000-05:00

Ka-BLOOEY!

That's pretty much all I have going for me right now. The house still isn't cleared out enough to say that we're on the right track, but we're getting there. We only have our UHaul truck until 8AM tomorrow, so we're kind of running at a frantic pace right now, desperately trying to get as much out right now as possible. We've had help off and on all day - watching kids, moving things, and generally being as helpful as possible. It isn't ideal, but then again, "ideal" would be having a whole slew of people out here all at once and having the entire moving process only take a few hours. That would also require us having absolutely everything already packed, and we certainly didn't. As with most of our moves, the last of our items have been put into bags, and will no doubt spend a good couple of weeks in the storage unit until we're at a point when we can head out and re-store some things. It's generally a huge disaster, but we can only do so much right now. Hubby is doing all the hard work, moving things and transporting them, so I've pulled him inside after our last bout of help has left so he can sit, rest, get a drink and cool down. It's horribly hot outside - the actual temperature was 102 last we checked, and with the heat index we've been sitting between 110 and 115 all afternoon. It's too much, but I'm wondering if this is better than rain. Maybe it is - maybe it isn't. I don't dare say rain would be better, because we've moved when it's pouring, and that's no better in the long run.

Also, a big congrats shout-out to an awesome person and an amazing woman in general, Raven - who is expecting an equally-as-kickass bundle of joy at the end of January! I couldn't be happier for her, and I'm so thrilled that I have yet another reason to crochet some adorable animals! Of course, obviously my biggest concern is the pictures, because I looooooove new baby pictures. Hopefully next summer if (when?) we head up that way we'll get to meet the newbie! (And finally Raven - I've never actually gotten to meet her for any length of time!)

Back to some Thundercats, then off to Nana's house to move some stuff at her place, then back to the insanity of trying to move things. Wish us well; we need it. Love and blessings to everybody.

Old memories

2011-07-28T14:59:00.000-05:00

Packing is good at bringing back memories, especially for people like us who keep more than just the typical sentimental items that most families lug around with them. We have mountains of clothing, a billion books, folders and book covers and (in my case) honors chemistry binders left over from high school that in all honesty mean nothing to me, and were kept as proof that somehow I managed to pass the class. Things that anyone else would have tossed as soon as they were done, ready and willing to accept the road to a different place in life, severing the ties to whatever was before with open arms and understanding. It's called being an adult, I hear.

As of late - blame the Lexapro, or maybe the extreme exhaustion that comes with childrearing while cleaning and packing an entire house - I've found myself craving these ties less and less. I've been forcing myself onto some trains of thought that are fairly atypical for me, such as the idea that it really is okay to let go of the past and continue on in life, that physical ties are not half as important as the memories I have formed through experience, and that I can really improve my life by letting go of things that have truly held no value to me in some time. If I haven't touched it in three years beyond packing or lugging it around from one house to another, really, then who is it benefiting? Not me, to keep the item around. It would serve someone else far more..

So that's the mental state I'm in right not, and I'm working hard on truly trying to live the ideals that I'm thinking through. Otherwise, we're doing okay. We're tired and stressed, and looking forward (I think) to being done with all of this for a while for sure.

Making ends meet

2011-07-22T19:32:00.000-05:00

I've been spending the last few days stupidly functioning as though nothing is changing. I say stupidly because in less than two weeks we're going to have to be completely moved out and cleaned up, and be more or less moved into Mom's house, which means a great deal of preparing over there that she needs help with too. It means doing a metric ton of work over here, never mind the obvious daily functioning that has to occur, to continue separating items into three piles: yard sale, storage, and coming along. This, of course, means that I've been doing a lot of reconsidering when it comes to what's actually necessary and what isn't. As my beautiful sister-in-law K pointed out, it can feel good to know you're getting rid of the unnecessary and that you're going to start living with less clutter and junk. At this point, anything that has spent its time in closets or boxes is fair game, and it means that we're parting with a bunch of stuff. But man, it feels SO good!

Tomorrow is A's second birthday, though, and that means that on top of packing and sorting, I also need to do a full-down clean - and any cleaning done tomorrow will have to also be done with a third child here, and no help from Hubby, who will be at work most of the day. I will probably go insane, and that's okay.

I did set up a budget. It currently lacks a lot of crucial information, but as it is, if we stay with my mother for a year we will not only manage to completely fix our credit scores (yes, both of us) but will also be able to put some $10,000 aside for a down payment on a house. All while Hubby keeps working and I keep going to school. The downside is that we'll have a year of absolutely no leeway - no eating out, no toys, nothing. But do we really need to do those things? They're fun, sure, but they don't define our lives or relationships, and they don't make or break a good night or day. There are other things we can do that are fun and don't cost a thing, places we can do and activities to enjoy if we look hard enough that won't cost a dime. Nobody's life is defined by the inability to go someplace, or eat somewhere, or do something, or own another item we don't need and won't have room for.

The next year is going to be incredibly hard, and full of a lot of sacrifices and griping and uncomfortable quarters. But it won't be impossible, and the short term is so meaningless and small in comparison to what could be if we were willing to push a little harder for a while. In five years we won't care in the least how long we stayed with my mom, what it was like, the times we all got on each other's nerves, especially if at the end of that five years we're in our own house, Hubby and I are both working good full-time jobs that we enjoy, and we can take care of ourselves and our kids without having to depend on anyone or anything else anymore. They'll be meaningless if we can reach our goal.

So here goes!

When good goes bad

2011-07-13T19:45:00.000-05:00

(Alternatively titled, in which I bitch a lot and am unable to see the good in things.)

We were behind on rent.

Two months, to be specific; we saw it coming because I left my job to go back to school to become an RN. I saw something I could do, that I wouldn't hate, that would pay well. I knew getting there would be a huge pain. I didn't know trying to get there would completely conflict with our lives and drive us this far.

Let me back up.

We were behind on rent and our landlord knew it. They'd been understanding about us paying late, up until it came to the point that we literally couldn't pay anymore; we kept them in the loop as much as possible but there was never really much to report. $775 a month plus all the rest of our bills was impossible on one income and questionable student loan money. We were in over our heads. Last week we were given notice to produce $1700 in cash to our landlord or face immediate eviction. My student loan payment came in, we handed just about all of it over a day late (after calling them and letting them know we had no choice; the bank put a hold on the check), and after taking and counting it our landlord informed us that he would be unable to renew our lease. We have about three weeks - not even a full month - to find someplace else to live and move completely.

This is our fifth move in about as many years.

Our kids don't remember the other places we lived. In 2007 I moved out of my mom's house into a house on the southwest side of town with what ended up being six other people by the time we found out we were pregnant and left. Our next house, on the west side of Broadway, was actually a one-bedroom apartment on the very hot third floor of a very old house. We had no storage, the air conditioning rarely functioned, and the place had problems - including the landlord - that we won't discuss. Suffice to say the guy wasn't all that nice, and after G was born we escaped, having stayed not even a year from fall of 2007 to summer of 2008. After living with my mom for a short time, we hopped immediately into another building, one on 12th Street, just off Broadway. We thought it was a good deal as even though it was technically only a one bedroom because it was the lower half of an old house, we had the basement to ourselves, a dedicated parking lot, we could convert a room into a bedroom, and we were doing okay. Spring of 2009 saw us moving before our lease was up, this time because the bank across the street that owned it was tearing the building - and two others - down to make more parking for the other tenants in the building it was located within. The assistant manager bullied us into another house they owned, and we were stupid and said yes, and again we moved. A couple of weeks after we got everything into our new home, A came along. G had his own room, we had our own room, we had a basement, a deck, the whole house was our's - but structural issues (ask anyone who had been in that house) and issues with the bank that owned it (they wanted us to rent to own, and we knew we couldn't own that house with the problems it had) left us yet again searching for someplace new. Summer of 2010 we moved yet again, living for a couple of months with my mother again, and swore it would be the last time, into the house we're in now.

But I had been sucked into a stupid "make money quick" scheme in the form of Combined Insurance, and it wasn't long before Hubby was unemployed and in a deep depression over it, and I wasn't doing much better. We struggled, hard, and for the longest time we only made ends meet because of assistance from parents. And it sucked, more than I could ever describe, but our landlords were as understanding as we could have possibly hoped they would be. The fact of the matter is that we can't afford this house. So they're refusing to renew our lease, which they have every right to do. I can't blame them. It is what it is.

But that doesn't make it any easier on us.

I'm really, really depressed right now. This happened about two and a half hours ago and I'm still desperately trying to process the fact that no matter where we go, we don't have the money right now for a new house - so we're going to be living with someone else for a while. It's less than ideal in every way, shape, and form, but it is what it is. We can't change what is. We have been beyond lucky, beyond blessed to spend a year in a structurally sound, safe house in a good neighborhood where there is no drug trafficking or other crime, within walking distance of everything we'd need. We have busted ass to try to live the American dream, in a house with a back yard that was all our's, with a carport that we didn't have to share, in a house that didn't have a crumbling ceiling or tilted floors or sinking, half-destroyed foundation. We have been amazingly lucky to live someplace where everything was our's and we weren't trying to share space with other people and always feel like we were imposing on someone else's belongings, space, or sanity. We have lived, for what will amount to be one day shy of one year, the life we have so desperately wanted for ourselves and more importantly for our children.

Now, even though Hubby is working two jobs (one of which may pan out into something much better), and although I am in school busting my butt to make a better life for my family, we have to change how we do things. In the next three weeks we will be heavily downsizing, packing, sorting, setting up at least one yard sale, and selling a deal of our belongings. What we cannot sell will go into storage with my mom's assistance. We will be making huge sacrifices and unfortunately will be asking way, way too much of two very small children.

But things will continue to be, as they always have been, what they are.

I will do my best to continue posting in here as frequently as possible. I have no intention of dropping this blog. It is too frequently my sanity; it has gone beyond being a place for me to share the things I feel most passionately about. I just can't promise all my posts will be happy, useful, or long. I can't promise how often I'll be posting. I want to finish up my developmental psychology class completely, since it's online, before we move, and I still need to finish my human anatomy and physiology class, which I have to do as it goes. I will be going back to school in the fall, and then the spring all over again. I hope that we won't be staying long wherever we end up - we've been welcomed nearly indefinitely into two different households. We don't know right now where we're going to end up.

Something satisfying

2011-07-11T15:48:00.000-05:00

I was recently given an amazing gift by a former amateur photographer:

I was more specific on Facebook about what all of this is; suffice to say it's several flashes of varying powers, three Olympus OM-2 series cameras (two of which are technically not functional), and a myriad of different lenses. Of course, these are old school - circa the late 1970s - and take expensive button cell batteries and - gasp! - film. There was a roll of heat affected film already in the bag, and the pictures on it likely won't amount to anything worth printing, but still. I have to admit.

There is something immensely satisfying about using actual film cameras.

It's something about that click of the shutter opening and closing, that faint and brief sensation akin to the backfire of a rifle for you gun enthusiasts out there. It's something about the need to physically advance the film, forcing it to move on to the next exposure - having complete control over it, instead of having a piece of admittedly amazing technology do all the work for you. There is something about learning how to properly put film into a camera such as this, advance and rewind it properly, and doing it right that is so incredibly rewarding. There is something about holding these 30+ year old lenses in your hands and knowing that while styles have changed, the general function has not, and that what I hold is somehow better than what's available today, because it's authentic, it's more real. Picking up one of these cameras with a full lens attached leaves bulk in your hands, and the weight seems more .. Realistic, somehow, than a digital camera.

When these cameras and lenses were released to the market, they were nearly top of the line for a home user - they were expensive, they were considered high-tech. Watching someone switch out these lenses and set the f-stop and ISO and select the film and whether or not to use flash used to be an art form, one that I think lost some of its glamour when digital cameras became the norm. Digital is unquestionably easier, because the camera will do so much of the work for you. A single HDSD card can hold thousands of pictures, depending on the size of the card. When it's full, you swap out - no film means no extra time lost rewinding, threading, and storing. Modern digital photographers have the right idea, for sure, in that they are saving themselves and their clients time and money by keeping the process of portraiture quick and clean. Darkrooms have been replaced with industrial photo printers and laptops; a photographer's keen eye by Photoshop. The need to take time to manually focus and position has been replaced by autofocus and, well, auto everything, down to delivery of photos via email and photo sharing sites.

But where's the glamour in quick and clean?

Why not get your hands a little muddy and take your time to enjoy the ride?

Yes, I'm going to talk about Casey Anthony

2011-07-06T19:38:00.000-05:00

I feel like it's almost a requirement at this point, a social obligation because I followed the end of her trial so closely and with such anticipation. And I'm going to put this out there, that I do have very specific and definite feelings toward the trial and toward Casey Anthony (if you follow me on Facebook, you would know).

To be honest, though, I think the problem here is that what I personally think doesn't matter.

The fact of the matter is that a beautiful little girl is dead. Some serious inconsistencies leave a lot of unanswered questions, and I worry - I think like a lot of us do - that the case will not be pursued any further and that other persons of interest won't be properly examined. Regardless of how any of us feel about Casey Anthony specifically, someone out there is walking around freely who took the life of a child.

And let's not forget the jurors - 12 men and women who had a horribly difficult job, who hadn't followed the case previously but who all the same had to take a lot of presented evidence and commentary and put aside their feelings to try to make an unbiased decision that involved the life of two human beings - one still present, the other long gone. I can't imagine their thought processes. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have your heart screaming one thing and your mind trying to interpret another. I wouldn't have wanted to trade places with them for the world and try to do what they did, and I hope it's never something I'm called upon to do. I'm proud of them for doing their civic duty, for not trying to get out of it like most people would have, and for sticking out some of the more difficult moments of the trial. Again, I don't think I could do it.

And then there's this, an article from Orlando's WESH News: "Casey Juror: 'I Did Not Say She Was Innocent'". It specifically notes that after coming to their incredibly difficult conclusion, the jurors all felt sick to their stomachs, physically ill at what they'd endured to come to any conclusion at all. I think that single physical response proves that so many of them overlooked their personal convictions about the trial and about who was or wasn't guilty to try to literally use the evidence alone.

I'd also like to note that I'm not a fan of the death penalty. I can see the point that some people make, in that an inmate sentenced to life in prison is often given better care, better meals, and so on than individuals on the outside world - and that said life costs taxpayers a deal to maintain. However, I'd like to note that a number of people in states that are especially backed up by death row inmates actually pass away while on death row from natural causes or old age - the equivalent of life in prison, depending on their age at incarceration. Also, the cost of state-paid appeals can be astronomical - and for inmates on death row, the moment they're sentenced they are automatically put on a roll for appeals. These appeals can take years, decades even, and an inmate can continue to appeal every time it comes around to be their turn. The justice system is a disaster and a blessing all at once in this way, giving potentially innocent people the opportunity to prove themselves while giving the guilty a "get out of jail free" pass with the right opportunity and potential circumstantial evidence.

In the end, what truly matters most, no matter my personal feelings about any of the Anthony family, is that we must make sure that the individual responsible for Caylee Anthony's murder is brought to justice. There is every potential that Casey Anthony is truly at fault, and at the same time, there is every possibility that she was completely uninvolved, and is in serious need of a good psychologist to figure out why she behaved the way she did after her daughter went missing.

If you're interested in ensuring that Caylee's death was not in vain, and that her memory is forever preserved in a way that can help prevent the same thing from happening to other children, please consider signing and forwarding on this petition to start Caylee's Law - which would make it a criminal offense to not report a child as missing in a timely manner. Unfortunately, if a similar law had existed sooner, there is every possibility that Caylee's life could have been saved - or that her remains would have been found sooner, and more useful DNA evidence found on them.

Blessings to everyone, and I hope Caylee Anthony rests in peace.

Trying my hand

2011-07-03T20:11:00.000-05:00

So I made some kind of a vague attempt at being all crafty a bit ago. Here's the result:

I didn't make the copper tree; that's a beautiful creation by my far more talented and awesome father-in-law, Carter. He still lives up in Maine, and is now (temporarily?) semi-retired. He's been making things like this since the dawn of time to the best of my knowledge, and while he sells them in some stores up in Maine, if you live elsewhere you can check out his wares by visiting his site, CopperTree Sculptures. His talent is unquestionable, and if you want to support a small home business made by an awesome dude (love ya, Caahh-tahh!), I highly suggest you go poke around there.

I don't know why I felt compelled to make this. It isn't as attractive as it could be, not great, but it's neat, I think. I'm proud of myself for it. It's not pretty, or professional, but it's me, and I made it, and that makes it more me. I wish it was super-awesome-shiny-pretty-cool, and it isn't, but it's neat to me and I think I did a good job. :)

My house is a mess

2011-07-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

My house is quite a mess
I really must confess
There is crap most everywhere
It'd make you stop and stare
I try to keep it clean
But I really want to scream
'Cause every time I pick up
Fold laundry or clean a cup
The kiddos throw their things
And Mess Faeries flutter their wings
And suddenly that mess
Is causing me some stress
Because of my lovely spawn
This mess is never GONE!

A bit 'o' photography

2011-07-01T00:26:00.000-05:00

I dabble in photography.

I'm not great. In fact, it could be argued that I'm actually not that good at all, and I'm just tooting my own horn because it's convenient. I'd believe as much; I'm one person with a desire and a love but absolutely no real given talent and, to add insult to injury, no real training beyond the bits and pieces I've read here and there about how to focus something and what an f-stop might be (still don't know) and different apertures to use (uhh, open?) and types of flashes and different lenses and oh my gods I don't know what I'm doing. But I'd like to think that what little experience I've had has shown some inborn talent.

Of course I want to think I'm good - what photographer doesn't? Though it would be rather mean of me, in retrospect, to say I'm good enough to charge for my services without having any idea what I'm doing - it's an insult to professionals who've taken classes and have combined that knowledge with years of experience to operate a slew of local businesses.

After years of relying solely on my mother's Kodak EasyShare 1012 (a camera very similar to this one, only older and without a few features), I'm beginning to get antsy. I want - naturally - something more, something solid, something with features and options and things to help me learn about what I'm doing and how to do it. Something with lenses. I want something that's both a fun toy and unquestionably a professional tool.

The downside is, as it always is, that getting the camera I'd like means a massive amount of money I just don't have. My ideal camera from Canon would, with a couple of lenses added in and some essential accessories, mean a price of well over $7,000. A similar option from Olympus with similar lenses and features would run around $4,000. Naturally, downgrading and giving and taking in places means lower prices, but when you're going to be spending a lot on a camera - or mentally spending a lot at least - you may as well get what you actually want than something you're settling for in lieu of the best choice.

Of course, none of this will be happening. I don't have that kind of money and if I did, right now, I certainly wouldn't be spending it on a camera (but I would be wishing I could!). I'd be doing something responsible.

Still, someday...

Meanwhile, last night I gathered some juniper sprigs from the trees in my mom's back yard. Never chemical treated, and I only took what new growth the tree was willing to give. :) They've been around longer than I've been alive!

Whew.

2011-06-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

Well, today's a short one. I'm wandering off my well-beaten path today to toss a few random things in that aren't my normal repertoire, but I don't think anybody will complain too much!

First, if you're on Facebook, go "like" Downy and then click HERE to get a free full-sized sample of whatever it is they're offering. Sad that I don't know, yeah, but it's free and full-sized, so that's about as far as my concern goes. Last I checked, this was still open, but if it isn't let me know. :)

Second! Ancestry is doing a free weekend. Unfortunately, it's specific: They're only letting users search the Sons of the American Revolution membership database. But if you know what names you're searching for, you're golden. I've already done some research on there and I know what names to look for. I technically qualify to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, along with a few other "secret" societies, but I haven't bothered. I might someday.

Third, a lovely link: No More Rack. I'm pretty much obsessed with this site now. You get a free $10 credit for joining, and when you refer friends you can earn free products (like an 8gb iPod, a MacBook Air, two different Canon cameras, and all sorts of fun stuff). They don't even have to buy anything - just register. Go! Do it!

And, of course, rounding it all out, a link from the Pagan/Wiccan section on About.com for making smudge sticks. Need to go find some juniper and dry it out - but that's easy to find wild. Not gonna buy herbs just to dry and smudge. Too expensive!

I'm going to go claw my right eye out now and wonder what's going on behind my left ear. Staying inside unless I have to today - heat index is supposed to be 105. Yuck. So glad the power's back on!

A little time please!

2011-06-28T22:12:00.000-05:00

This is going to be short, but I just wanted to note that the last few days have been auto-posted. Sunday night a nasty storm rolled through, packing 80+ mph winds. Our power was knocked out around 2 AM Sunday and only came back on about an hour ago, so we've been reassembling ourselves slowly (mostly vegging in front of the TV and computers and enjoying the lights and air conditioning, I won't lie!). I may be behind a couple of posts for a bit as we get back into the swing of things. Apologies ahead of time! :)

Ecos giveaway!

2011-06-28T10:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, folks. Here are the rules.

I won't be doing the giveaway until I have 30 followers on GFC (Google Friend Connect; basically, people who are following me and my blog). This sounds like a lot, but I already am almost halfway there - so I think this is something we can do!

Once I hit 30 followers on GFC, I will open the giveaway with a post giving a few more details. I believe there may be three prizes, all separate, so there's a good chance of a lot of people winning (but no more than one prize per person). They would be three or so Ecos products: the Free & Clear detergent I love so dearly, and probably one of their bathroom and/or kitchen products. I haven't settled on which, so this last part is up in the air, but I'd like it to be a variety. I'm working with them on this part.

You will get to comment once on that post. That will be your entry. If you go "like" my Facebook page you will get to post another entry, along with your name on FB so I know you really did "like" me. If you send someone else here after that, while the giveaway is still open, I may figure out something special (some kind of referral system, like them posting on my FB wall that so-and-so sent them) so you get another entry from that. I won't go any further with the entry options just because I don't expect to have so many people interested in the giveaway that giving people twenty ways to win is really necessary. :P But in the future, who knows?

So, let the blatant self-promotion begin! Have your friends come follow me on Google here, and go "like" my Facebook page. Once we hit 30 followers on here, the real fun begins. :)

Pagan values month - an outro

2011-06-27T10:12:00.000-05:00

Well, June is almost over, and that means that Pagan Values Month is nearly at an end as well. Of course, this doesn't mean that we're all going to go crazy on you, but I think it does unfortunately imply that a lot of people are going to start glossing over the similarities of our collective values and morals again. I think that PVM has made a huge impact on the outer world, and has helped us gather ourselves together to show that while we all believe something slightly (or incredibly) different, in the end we all feel that there are many supposedly Christian-only moral issues that we established on our own, without the influence of any other religion (or maybe any religion at all).

The fact of the matter is, we're human. Intrinsically, we want to follow certain rules. We're hardwired to make our species continue, which means that we're meant to feel bad when we kill. That death was the end of another human life. 99.9% of the human race doesn't need any deity or religious path to realize as much. We are simply meant to feel bad or guilty about some things - and while some may argue it's the voice of the Christian god speaking up to show us right from wrong, let's face it, it's our conscious and it's an important part of ourselves and who we are. People of all religions have one, it's a uniquely human trait, and that's something we should take pride in.

So what have I personally learned from PVM? A lot of things. I've learned that I will never stop learning about this path, that what I think is perfect and right one day might be completely off kilter for me the next. I've learned that many Pagans from all walks of life and chosen paths feel differently about a number of issues, but that at our cores we all have a similar respect for life and property that is not unique to only members of other more "mainstream" religions. I have learned that there are just as many of our ilk who are able to be hateful and spout some horrific things as there are Christians who do the same, and that there are a number of kind, open-armed Christians who truly do respect their Pagan kin. I've learned that the bad always finds a way to speak more loudly than the good, but that if you're willing to look deep enough, the good shines so brightly you'll wonder how on earth you missed it. I've learned that I have a direction to walk, but that the path isn't very defined, and that learning to recognize how this path looks to me is something that only I can do, but that I can also ask for help and direction along the way without needing to feel as though I'm asking someone else to tell me what I believe.

I've learned that being Pagan means being myself, which is probably the best thing of all.

Tomorrow, a special announcement and a challenge - think you're up for it?

The virtues of calming the heck down

2011-06-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

Assrats tend to spread quickly in this house; one grumpy person tends to become four incredibly grouchy people rather fast if we don't watch out for ourselves. We spread it to each other, and it usually ends up infecting all of us before too long, no matter who started it. Too often, it's me, because I don't take my medications like I should and have a very short temper. My fuse is probably shorter than the amount of time you have to throw a grenade after pulling the pin, except the damage caused is rarely physical. The spread of said assrat doesn't help; those things antagonize one another as they go on, and once one rears its ugly head you know the next person who is bitten is going to be ten times worse - until the circle finishes itself off and you're left with basically nothing but a few shells of formerly angry people who are just too tired to finish their fights anymore.

These vicious creatures are dangerous, frightening, and strike unseen. You never feel their bite and typically don't even know you've been infested until it's beyond too late, and their spawn have manifested. They crawl through your entire body, munching bits of you until you start to explode like everybody else who has been infected. And by the time it's over, you're all physically and mentally exhausted, so much so that the assrats can't even continue to bite one of you and reinfest.

You've probably had an assrat before, even if you don't know where you got it from and didn't recognize the symptoms. Those of us with a uterus, depending on the time of the month, often pass it off as a hormonal imbalance and grab our sappy movies and comfort foods and continue on with our lives. But when there's no other reason for getting grouchy - when you're angry and you just can't figure out why, and it came so quickly you never saw it hit you - you know the assrat has made his mark.

The worst part is that it's really hard to avoid letting the assrat's pissy serum get to you. You typically don't lash out until it's too late, and up until then you didn't even know you'd been bitten. What on earth is a person to do?

Well, I don't have any answers for how to avoid it, or how to recognize when you've been bitten. I'm still working on those things myself. But I do know that I've begun to realize the virtues of staying calm and patient, even when faced with frustration (especially when the basis of said frustration happens to be one of the offspring). Our kids depend on us to show them how to react properly to new situations, and for consistence in reacting to things they're already familiar with. They look to us to see how quickly they should be getting upset or frustrated with something, and how they should react to said frustration - so if we immediately freak out and throw something or yell, it quickly becomes a learned response for them to do the same. It explains why when we yell, the kids yell back - or why A's immediate response to having something taken away is to become excessively angry and throw or hit something. Mind you, we don't beat our children, but we've used spanking previously and they tend to funnel our feelings and spit them out at twice the volume - so what he does makes perfect sense.

It's a matter now of learning what to do in order to stop this circle of angry and make the whole process into something useful. Not easy when dealing with a toddler and a preschooler, but it's possible if we're patient enough and willing to work for it.

20 Things I Will Never Go Crunchy For: #19

2011-06-25T08:28:00.004-05:00

#19: Composting toilet

Don't get me wrong, I adore the idea - and I can certainly see its practical uses. Add in the idea that it means less water that has to be taken, used, and treated, and I'm for these awesome inventions 100%. The problem is that they're just not up my personal alley. Yes, they're perfect for a family who is pulling completely off the grid and trying to live away the needs of a regular society, but we will probably always be a household who lives, to some degree, in or near a city - and these toilets strike me as being incredibly over complicated for someone like myself (read: someone who is probably lucky she has the coordination to tie her own shoes).

I do get the idea, and love the concept, and would probably be all about them if we headed off to live in a cabin somewhere in isolation. But as it stands, and as neat as they are, I just cannot get myself hyped up about them enough to seriously consider it. No, really - ever. It isn't that I don't care about the environment (I was born on Earth Day, after all!), it's that I can't imagine for the life of me trying to properly upkeep one of these things without unintentionally destroying far-off worlds of sentient, intelligent creatures. Don't ask how I'd manage that. I know me. It's an inborn talent.

On another note, I'd like to give a shout out to Stephanie over at The Coexist Café, whom I only recently found. I love her blog, and just peeking at some of the recipes on there is making me hungry! We don't eat enough vegetarian meals around here, so having some new ideas is awesome - and she tends to post about things I care about, which is another plus! ;D

From Witch Mom: The blogging manifesto

2011-06-24T07:48:00.001-05:00

I saw on my feed this morning a new post over at Parenting by the Light of the Moon, and wanted to share it. It's the blogging manifesto, basically a picture assembled with three incredibly important points that I think all bloggers ought to take to heart.

Most do, I think; the concepts are simple enough, stating that as bloggers there are a few things we do, don't do, and don't want from our blogs. For example, we don't want to be given a preconceived identity by a reader and locked into that. A mom who blogs about her religion may also blog about food, her family, her job, her hobbies, or any number of things - just because her main focus is often religion doesn't make her just a religious blogger. We also are held accountable to our actions, in that just as in school it's a really terrible idea to plagiarize, or simply copy and paste someone else's comments or posts as if they're your own. Not only are you not giving credit where it's due, but (almost more importantly) you aren't learning how to think for yourself, come to your own conclusions, and form your own thoughts. Last, but not least, the ever-important (especially in the religious community) is the idea that we should be kind to one another. The ubiquitous Golden Rule. The idea here being, of course, that we truly will treat others as we wish to be treated, and act as much the part on our blogs as we do in other parts of our lives.

Luckily, the fast pace of the internet and the tendency of people to want to voraciously protect themselves and their work practically guarantee that even the smallest mistake will eventually come to light. This can be a good thing - such as someone intentionally or otherwise copying another's work - or a bad thing - such as when a poster makes a comment out of frustration or anger and ends up called out on it later. Either way, it's an eventuality.

The point is, though, that we all just need to police ourselves, be kind, remember the Golden Rule, and respect others. If we can honestly do all of that, we'll be doing just fine.

Latex

2011-06-23T00:18:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna honestly say, I had no idea you could develop a latex allergy.

I mean, I know about randomly developing allergies, trust me. I've always had problems with pollen, mold, freshly cut grass, and animal dander. After years of various allergy medicines, this suddenly manifested into an inability to eat cantelope, bananas, watermelon, or any other melon without feeling as though my lips were burning and swelling and my throat was about to close - a dangerous and potentially deadly reaction called anaphylaxis. With bananas, I can subdue the reaction somewhat with allergy medicine ahead of time, but melons are still out of my league. Curiously, I had been previously consuming all of these things during my childhood without a problem, with the first reactions manifesting in high school. I'm lucky, though - these foods are specific and easy for me to avoid. I don't eat them, I don't have a reaction, the end. I can touch, smell, and be around them without a problem, luckily.

Latex, on the other hand, is a tough one - and for most people the reaction is only skin deep, leaving an uncomfortable, painful, and itchy rash wherever the latex contact occurred. Much like my random food reactions, latex allergies can show up after a person has used or come into contact with latex before - so a person can use latex products for years without showing any signs or symptoms, and then one day their body simply gives up on the concept and the rash appears.

Sure enough, Hubby's been having a problem for a while now, ever since he started working at the dreaded Golden Arches. His hands have been covered in that tell-tale rash, and after using a pair of elbow-length gloves the other night his arms developed the same thing within an hour, if that long. Today, he went to see someone about it, and sure enough was informed he has an allergy to latex. Luckily, the store (I hesitate to call it a "restaurant") does stock non-latex gloves, and the latex gloves they have aren't powdered so people who wear them can't spread latex particles by snapping or blowing on their gloves, but he's still probably going to come into contact with latex at work. Worse yet, the only way to lessen the reaction other than taking a daily antihistamine is by trying to lessen the body's reaction with steroids. Which means a constant visit back to the doctor whenever the reaction becomes something his body can't tolerate.

This means that we have to watch what sorts of latex come into the house and ensure that he doesn't handle it, just to avoid tempting the beast to rear its ugly head.

Luckily, some forms of latex-free items are readily available in major retailers. And I don't mean gloves. *Wink*

Why I'm tired of hearing about Ryan Dunn

2011-06-22T19:45:00.001-05:00

Okay, I DO have a heart, let me assure you of that - but I'm absolutely sick and tired of hearing about how awful and tragic Ryan Dunn's death was.

I think the loss of any life is unfortunate, especially when a person dies because of someone else's poor choices (like the other guy who was also drunk, but also in the car, although that's another rant). I think it's horrible when someone dies because of something that could have been prevented. If someone had spoken up - taken his keys - called him a cab - anything! Maybe this wouldn't have happened. The point is, an individual capable of coherent, intelligent (I assume) thought became inebriated with no plan for how his drunkenness would be handled once achieved. I am sad for his family. Sad for the loss of an individual. But I do not feel BAD for him. It was a very real possibility, and unfortunately as things tend to work, Fate was tempted - and Fate answered.

I feel bad for the family of his friend who was also killed. I feel bad that he was too inebriated (and that their friends were too drunk or self-centered to care) to make a better choice than to get into a car with someone who was just as drunk. I pity the choices they made.

But I am thankful, more than ALL of that, that in their incredible stupidity they didn't take the lives of any innocent people with them.

I am understanding of a lack of education or knowledge, I am sad when information is not shared. But two adults who have had the dangers of drunken driving drilled into their heads all of their lives do not get my pity. They are gone; I hope their next lives take them in different directions and that they have peace now. But I don't feel bad that it happened. This was truly his last feat as a member of the "Jackass" crew, and it shows.

I don't condone purposeful stupidity.

Jimmy John's: You should know

2011-06-20T22:47:00.001-05:00

I used to love Jimmy John's. Cheap food, not entirely horrible for you. Not organic or even really natural, but I could pack on veggies and eat something yummy and know it was from a business that started here in my home state. I had seen nothing but good things come from JJ's and I liked how their restaurants were set up. All in all, I figured it was a win-win situation to order from them. Fast, yummy food. And that was fine with me.

Except then this popped up from Smile Politely, an online magazine from the Champaign-Urbana area in Illinois where JJ's originated: Jimmy John's is a big man. With the photos to prove it.

And I won't lie, I kind of choked a little. PLEASE be warned, there are somewhat graphic images. Not horribly so, but if you're like me and happen to like animals - especially ones like elephants and large felines - you're probably going to feel kind of ill.

Now, I want to preface this with a statement: I don't mind hunting. I understand there are some populations of some species of animals that are a nuisance to us both agriculturally and travel-wise, like deer and geese, and I have no problem with hunting these animals. Raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, small birds, turkeys, whatever. Go for it. As long as you aren't just hunting for trophies, as long as you aren't being wasteful, have at. Get your tags, do your duty as a hunter. I may not participate, but I'm not bothered by your choice to do so.

But elephants? Leopards? Brown bears? The elephant shown in the pictures at the site above is more than likely an African bush elephant, which while not endangered, is struggling to maintain its natural habitat and is considered to have a conservation status of "vulnerable" which is only one step above "endangered". These are animals that are only, within the last few dozen years, beginning to come back to their natural grounds. They still suffer from poaching in areas where hunting them is illegal. They are still being killed for only their ivory. And since elephants have no real usage otherwise, I will guarantee you that Mr. Liautaud left that lovely corpse (or was it two?) there to rot. Thanks a bunch.

And what about that spotted leopard he's shown holding up like a huge children's stuffy? While it isn't yet in the threatened category, it is listed as "near threatened" because excessive hunting and loss of habitat have decreased its natural roaming ground drastically. In fact, experts warn that populations of spotted leopards may actually be extinct in North Africa, making hunting them for sport an unwise move. It doesn't take much hunting to throw a population from "near threatened" to hovering near extinct, as we've found out with too many other animals in the wild.

And there's that brown bear. Of all the animals he went off killing - and who knows how many more there were for which we have no picture proof? - the brown bear is the only one listed as "least concern" on the conservation status list. Grizzlies also fall under this status, and I'm no expert: I don't know if the bear in that picture is grizzly or brown. However, don't let their status fool you. At a population of somewhere around 200,000, its range has shrunk considerably in the last hundred years and it has gone completely extinct in some areas where it once proliferated. The movement of humans into areas where we once didn't live so openly has had a lot to do with this. Still, is it necessary to purposefully sport-hunt such majestic creatures who are hovering close to a threatened status?

Well, I went and mentioned that article on JJ's Facebook page. You'd never believe what happened: I came back from putting the kids to bed, after politely posting it and noting on there that I was simply curious as to what had happened and wanted to know why on earth he was sport hunting these animals, and found that my "Like" status had been removed, as had my commenting abilities. I can still go re-like the page, but I cannot post anymore. No more comments, nothing. Anything relating to my commentary is gone - as it if never happened.

The problem I have with this is that regular people don't get to go spend the amount of money it takes to go safari in Africa and sport-hunt huge animals. Only people with massive amounts of money are given that privilege - and thanks to every single person who has ever purchased from his company, he gets to claim the status of "filthy rich".

I know, it's up to you as a consumer to decide who you will and won't support. But remember that it's your money - and if you wouldn't head to Africa or Alaska just to kill some near-endangered animals, I'd suggest not purposefully supporting those who do.

If you're wondering if that's really him, it is. Here's a link from an article in another paper with a picture of him for comparison. We're looking at the same guy and those aren't shopped images.

And for good measure, I have gone to re-like the page to show that I really have had my commenting abilities taken away:

Notice that I have no "comment" option link or box showing up beneath any other comments.

Ecos product giveaway!

2011-06-20T11:13:00.001-05:00

Get ready, everybody - Ecos says they'd love to provide a product for a giveaway! Working it out now, so keep watching and get ready to spread the word about TCC! I'm super excited!

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20 Things I Will Never Go Crunchy For: #20

2011-06-19T16:10:00.001-05:00

#20: Hot dogs.

Yes, I realize that the majority of hot dogs are disgusting. I know what's in them, how they're made, and all of the extra additive junk that gets thrown in to try to make them palatable. The only halfway acceptable ones are vegetarian or vegan, but I have to admit that veggiedogs just don't do it for me. I have gotten progressively pickier about what hot dogs I'll allow into the house, though - cheap meat mixes are only okay if they're on sale (hey, we're living on a budget here, after all), and we're not big on serving more than one or two every other day or so to the kids. I prefer nitrate-free all-beef dogs - Angus beef is the ultimate, but I can do without - or kosher dogs if possible. Hebrew National are great to me, although I don't mind the all-beef nitrate-free Oscar Meyer hot dogs. We don't have a Whole Foods or a dedicated store that carries a decent selection of healthy foods, so most of our options come from our nearby grocers - meaning our choices aren't always what we'd like them to be, but we still manage.

Still, there's something about a good hot dog that's been grilled over an open flame for a while that I find hard to resist. A perfect hog dog with the right snap and taste in a smooth bun, overloaded with horrific amounts of mustard and mayonnaise is pretty much ideal to me. They're admittedly a portion of my lifestyle that I should probably rethink, given their calorie content and the creation process, but they're a guilty pleasure. We use them in moderation, but they're a hit with the kids, too - if they won't eat anything else, I can almost always guarantee that they'll each eat a hot dog. And they pair well with almost anything: the old fallback of macaroni and cheese, chips, fries, broccoli, green beans. It helps that A will eat almost anything without hesitation anyway, but with G, whose food choices are far more picky, I know if he's having a hot dog he's likely to eat most of it and I won't get that sinking feeling that I usually do at mealtimes that I'm about to have to argue for him to eat half of his dinner. They're easy, quick, and something everybody will eat every time, meaning that they're perfect for evenings when we're short on time for dinner but all need to eat something - and I try to balance their presence out by offering healthier options alongside (such as serving them alongside baked sweet potato fries, broccoli and cheese, or rice with red beans) or for dessert (fruits, yogurts, smoothies). None of us could eat them every day, but they're versatile enough that I'm not concerned about using them off and on throughout the week - especially because if I put them into a dish instead of serving them as a lone item, I can stretch a package out to several servings.

Please note that while I try my best to make health-conscious decisions regarding my family's health, living, and eating habits, there are some things that are a part of our lives and preferences that make us imperfect when it comes to 'going crunchy'. I want to share this ongoing list as a way of reminding others that while we all try our best, none of us are perfect!

The neverending strep

2011-06-18T19:42:00.000-05:00

When I first got strep this year, it was in February I think. It was a short-lived thing that ended up popping back up in March. It came and went again and again until it finally decided to stick with me halfway through the month, and even after two rounds of different antibiotics it took some pretty heavy Levaquin to make it go away some three weeks after the original diagnosis. It attempted a comeback in mid-May and now is apparently on its fourth leg, torturing me yet again because it sounds like fun. Luckily, I have some Levaquin left over from another issue, and have started throwing it back now that I'm nearly incapable of swallowing yet again and am in pain. I can only hope it improves my problem significantly. I hate this feeling, and I hate the fact that I keep getting strep. It's getting old, you know?

In other news, I'd like to start introducing a new column that I'm going to work through: The top 20 things I will probably never go crunchy for. A long title, but with good reason! Look for the new post sometime in the next, oh, day or so. Meanwhile, I have a metric ton of cleaning to go do (or, rather, go stare at bitterly until I get distracted).

A laundry miracle

2011-06-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, miracles happen.

I've been struggling rather badly with our cloth diapers for a while now. I've tried everything recommended to me by friends and "pros" - soap nuts, stripping with Dawn, Rockin' Green, Purex Free & Clear, powdered Tide, this, that, and the other. I've done hot washes and cold washes and added in bleach-free OxyClean and taken it out again and rinsed and stripped again and again. I did everything everybody suggested, but nothing stopped that horrific ammonia smell, nothing fixed the absorbency problems. When I found something that temporarily fixed the absorbency, it left my diapers stiff and uncomfortable, and when I found something that helped the stink a little, it turned out to give A a horrible chemical burn because his skin is so sensitive. The worst part is that Purex Free & Clear is our regular washing detergent, but since it didn't work on the diapers as well as I would have hoped, and since my diapering routine had become so extensive, I had probably two detergents, one soap bottle, and two separate containers of cleaning agents specifically for diapers alone! My laundry room is enough of a disaster without all the extra stuff, let me tell you - and there were days when I sincerely wondered if all the hassle was worth it.

It was purely by chance that I was at Wal-Mart one day when I decided to look online one last time for a potential new detergent. I was tired of the switching and the disappointments, of my poor kiddo being in pain and acting as my sort of lab rat because I could never be sure what he would react to. I poked around and finally ended up at the site I use as my Detergent Bible: the detergent chart at Diaper Jungle. I've tried several of their recommendations, and agree that a good portion of them are spot on, so I gave it one last go and scrolled through the list on my phone to see if any of the bottles looked familiar.

The funny thing is that one did - and I was positive it was familiar because I had just walked past it, not because I had used it before. I walked back and sort of stared at it for a while. I won't lie: the container was a little intimidating. I looked at it and wasn't entirely sure if I was buying detergent or shares of Greenpeace, but there it was, the container of Ecos detergent. It was the same size as the large bottles of Purex Free & Clear, and at a dollar more with the same yield but a severe lack of basically anything potentially allergenic - no dyes, no perfumes, no essential oils, no fabric softeners, no brighteners, no formaldehyde, no.. Nothing, basically. It's purified water and a 100% natural coconut kernel oil-based surfactant. That's it. Cleaner, and water. The concept almost baffled me, as I was used to using things that had so many ingredients that only the active ones were listed. It even has a neutral pH!

I thought about all the money I had spent on every single product I had purchased so far just to try to wash diapers. I thought about how stupid it was that I had so many detergents sitting around. And I wondered, oh so casually, what if? What if this detergent worked for everything? What if it was my miracle? At only a dollar more per 5 gallon container, if you factor in everything else I've bought, just a few uses pays for the whole thing. If it worked, that was.

So I got it, and came home and crossed my fingers. I had two days worth of diapers to wash and I knew if I was going to challenge that detergent, this would be the way to go. So I started my routine with a cold rinse, then a hot wash on full load with about a quarter of the recommended amount of detergent and a cold rinse in that cycle. Then another cold rinse. I figured this was its chance to prove itself.

I was in shock.

My diapers didn't stink, even after being put in the dryer. They weren't stiff or rough. Inserts were soft and just smelled CLEAN. And during usage, I had no problems with a lack of absorbency or rashes. The best part is that this stuff works just as well on our regular clothes - so we're down to exactly one detergent for everything, and one SUPER EASY wash routine for diapers. I didn't even have to strip them first!

I don't know what I would've done without finding Ecos. If you've tried everything and you're thinking about giving up cloth because of all the same problems I had, give it a try. Seriously, the difference was absolutely amazing, and I will NEVER go back!

Note: Ecos did not in any way reimburse me for this glowing review. I tried it, and I LOVED IT, and this story is true! It was the best fluke ever!

Failing at discipline

2011-06-14T11:51:00.001-05:00

There are some aspects of parenthood that, despite having two children, I still haven't gotten the hang of. One of those things is discipline - whether or not to use it, when to use it, what to use, what to not fight, how to say and do what I end up choosing. Today I have a lot of questions going through my head as I battle my "spirited" (he is my payback for being a terror for my mother, I'm sure) four year old to get him to pick up his toys and do the few, easy things I ask him to do.

should I avoid discipline all together? Tempting, because it seems like the most friendly and AP method of raising a child. I don't WANT to yell, or feel like I'm getting angry or have reached the end of my rope. I don't like being frustrated, having to constantly count up or down to certain numbers, having to make EVERYTHING into a game that still ends with him complaining about being tired (he isn't) or getting completely distracted by playing with the same toys I've repeatedly asked him to put away. Should I have to make picking up into a game every time, without fail? Can't I simply make a request and have it fulfilled? Having my preschooler help me around the house when it's just the three of us is huge, it makes life so much easier to know that while I can't ask him for help with everything, I can give him simple directions ("Please pick up all of the shoes and put them back in the corner," or "Please pick up your toys and put them back in the boxes in the back room") and have him listen.

But he doesn't.

Should I agree and play along every time he insists on being a Pokémon or some other character while cleaning up, or should I insist that while he is cleaning up it isn't time to play pretend and he needs to be himself? The problem here, of course, is that pretending to be a character is effective in coercing him to pick up for all of two minutes, after which he again loses interest.

But this brings up a slew of other related problems - like his distinct inability to listen. Mind you, when it's my two year old I'm far more understanding; he's still learning rules and limits, and wants to test them to see how far he can push us. But G? He knows better - or damn it, he should at least, right? - so to me it becomes a neverending struggle when he continues to do something when I've asked him not to - or refuses to do something I've requested he does. For example, not a minute ago he was putting his feet on me, something I really don't like. I said, "G, please don't put your feet on me. It hurts because you kick me every time, and I don't think it's polite." So he stops. Half a minute later, he's doing it again, feet all over me and kicking me again, now on purpose.

We've done everything, including the detested spanking. Time out is irrelevant, no matter how long they stay there, spanking doesn't do anything but upset them, and yelling may as well be the same as politely requesting with an explanation for all the good it does (read: none whatsoever). I can't help but wonder if some of his issues come from his intelligence. Yes, there is a possibility that I'm just like any other parent, extolling the virtues and talents of my kids, presuming they're the smartest, but really, G is pretty darn smart. He's sounding out words and relating what he sounds out to words he already knows, and is able to "read" short books if given time and patience. He has a distinct understanding of a lot of concepts that seem to throw off kids his age, and has learned to add and subtract and do simple word problems aloud. He can count to almost any given number, assuming it's still low enough to keep his attention long enough to make it there, and is from a developmental standpoint so on-par that I'm actually concerned he won't make it into preschool after his screening this summer because educationally-speaking, he doesn't have anything to work on (it's the learning to listen and the socialization I'm concerned about). Maybe I'm tooting my kid's horn. Maybe I'm wrong. But I've looked up developmental guides and milestones, and from what I can tell he's closer to six or seven than four when it comes to his abilities.

G is smart.

So why doesn't he listen?

I'm truly at a loss trying to explain his behavior; it could be that he's also testing boundaries, and I'm the one failing on that end, or that he seriously does have an attention span so short that putting away toys without being consistently reminded of his goal and progress is impossible; he can't function for longer than that alone.

The issue with being a discipline-free household - one where we don't yell or demand, one where our children respect us just as much as we respect them - is that I have yet to have the alternative method explained fully to me. Do I ignore bad behavior, even when it's painful or potentially harmful, and only reward or praise good behavior? This doesn't seem plausible, especially when it's my two year old reacting through hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, or some other destructive behavior. How do I react when G politely asks to be excused from the table, but A, who has recently been moved from a high chair to a normal chair at the table, constantly gets down and sprints off? Do I assume that he is done, even when he's hungry again ten minutes later? How do I convince G that helping me pick up - even when A is doing the opposite to see if I'll react - is important and helpful?

What on earth do I do that will help my children and I respect one another enough that we can function as a group instead of as a bunch of argumentative individuals?

The hardest part

2011-06-12T21:57:00.001-05:00

I'm back in school for the summer, and will continue to be through at least next summer. It's hard, working around schedules and switching off the kids here and there. The days are tough, mornings are hard on everybody, meals are tense. We're behind in a lot of ways, we're dysfunctional in even more. This is unquestionably the hardest thing I have ever, ever done (despite what the emo high school version of me would tell you).

Hubby's putting the kids to bed right now so I can work on my developmental psychology homework that's due tonight. Our local cable and internet provider has spent the day down, so this is the only chance I'm going to get. I have to put on headphones and music so I can't hear him reading and singing to them - but too late. I heard it. I heard him going through our entire bedtime routine without me, alone. And god, it hurts so much, to the point of tears, to know that this is going to become a regular thing. That my kids are going to be shuffled around, going to have things be so messed up sometimes because of me.

Because I'm trying to make things better, one way or the other.

But is it worth it? The sane, logical side of me says that my kids aren't going to care if once or twice a week only Mommy or only Daddy puts them to bed. They'll get it, they understand - things are changing and they're sweet, amazingly smart boys. They have been so tolerant. The mom in me wants to scream. I just want to be there for my kids and to be helping them through their days, through their lives, and the idea that I can't - that I won't - that I'll be working full time and missing so much - it kills me. And yet somehow I want to think that I can make up for not being here by making sure they have what they want, what they NEED. A home, food, shelter, things to do and play with and read, clothes, the ability to have something special sometimes, to go places and do things.

I feel like such a horrible mother right now, and I have to turn the music up louder - because maybe if it's louder to me, they won't hear me cry.

Please, please, let all of this be worth it. I'm begging you.

Something happening

2011-06-11T23:33:00.000-05:00

There's something happening at my house right now, something I never really thought would be an issue, something I didn't expect to see, something I don't approve of but don't feel I can speak about aloud.

I have a friend over, someone I wasn't too sure about in high school but has become a close friend and like a sister recently, especially since she had her first child. And I was understanding - maybe too much so - when she misused her carseat in ways that were downright dangerous and deadly (twisted strap, too loose, mispositioned shoulders, chest clip at the belly button), rarely held her child, used disposable diapers and claimed that breastfeeding was "not for her" because it was disgusting. I let that all go. I tried my best to ignore the fact that she had no interest whatsoever in putting her child in a sling or carrier for ease of access, even attempted to let go the fact that she uses CIO methods to sleep train. I tried to let go a LOT of that, because other than the carseat issues, the rest are parenting choices - ones I don't agree with, ones I think are downright abusive in my opinion, but it's nothing more than my opinion. She's a close friend who is strongly opinionated and who claims to back up her opinions with things that I wouldn't necessarily call "research", but it's all kosher to her. So I let it go.

Then she put her six month old daughter in her high chair, here at my house, tipped it back, propped up the tray, and positioned her bottle atop the tray so the baby - who cannot yet hold her own bottle, yet is having sippy cups forced on her that she also cannot hold - could "self-feed" and my friend could do whatever she pleased.

And for some reason that REALLY pissed me off.

So in lieu of yelling inappropriately at said friend because my moods are rather unstable right now anyway, I'm venting here. But seriously? If your kids are so much of an inconvenience that while you're at someone else's house hanging out and you STILL can't be bothered to pay enough attention to them to feed them... Maybe you ought to reconsider having and keeping your kids.

Pagan values month - an intro

2011-06-11T12:15:00.000-05:00

As pretty much everybody in the blogosphere knows by now, June is Pagan Values Month, a wonderful opportunity for those of us who live an "alternative" lifestyle to share our reasonings and purposes behind what we believe, and to show the world that despite using a very wide-open word to describe a lot of people, and despite not having ten commandments or a single book to guide us, we all share similar values. I have to say, I'm pretty much in love with the concept, especially since I'm fairly new to this road.

Okay, that's a lie. I'm not NEW to it, but the first time I traveled this path I did so as a follower, as someone who was simply desperate to find something that fit her - but I was 13. My experience with organized religion in general was still somewhat negative, and when my best friend at the time turned from Christianity (she was ironically the same person who got me going to the church we both attended in the first place) and proclaimed herself Wiccan, I was eager to follow suit. It helped that I already felt a draw to nature; my boyfriend at the time (now Hubby, yikes) jokingly called me a druid and was positive I could speak to animals and influence the wind and fire. The whole experience led to a massive amount of spiritual and religious confusion that ended with me avoiding church and basically anything involving organized religion for many years, and only recently have I found a new awakening drawing me back into spiritual concerns.

So here I stand. I was baptized shortly after birth in a Catholic church as a Lutheran, was baptized again as a Christian in 8th grade, rescinded that and proclaimed myself Wiccan about a year later, then spent 11 years as a self-proclaimed confused agnostic. My experiences are hardly unique, and I'm learning more and more that a good portion of the pagan community got to where they are today through experiences with other, more "mainstream" religions. They realized they were dissatisfied, confused, disappointed, or that what they had known all along simply didn't satisfy what they looked for in a religious experience and allowed their spirit to be called in another direction, and found themselves staring down the throat of something still all-too-commonly seen as evil or negative. It's something a huge portion of the world experiences at some point in their lives, and more often than not the only thing that changes is the end result.

I was discontent with Christianity. Mind you, I didn't have an issue with a good deal of the values and thoughts behind them, but the idea that if I even once messed up that I risked eternal damnation - or, almost worse, that when I screwed up all I had to do was apologize to a deity and it was as if nothing had ever happened? - was intimidating. The god I saw in my head was forgiving, had a sense of humor, and had more respect for his creations. In my mind, Jesus wasn't an actual savior, but a very smart man who had some incredibly intelligent, wise things to say and who had a way with words. I didn't see him as the earthly embodiment of a creator. And most of all, I hated the idea that certain portions of the Bible - a book I had by that point accepted as being written entirely by mankind - were enforceable and that it was my moral duty to follow them, yet other things that had once been just as important (if not moreso) were easily ignored and swept aside. I hated how people used a book they turned toward for answers to spread hatred and intolerance. I hated the idea that somehow being gay was wrong or bad, that in one breath people insisted on loving oneself and thy neighbor but in the next breath they hemmed and hawed about how doing this or that would send you straight to hell. It was a lot to take in, and it was irritating and it rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't come to terms with what I had learned and what I had heard, couldn't fathom how so many contradictory statements could be made when the well beings of people were at stake.

But would turning from Christianity mean giving up all sense of morality and leave me a valueless (pardon the use of the word) heathen?

Of course not!

I am of the belief that people don't need a religion to tell them what to do; there is an inherent sense of morality in all of us that the tenets of the Bible were based off of. Feeling guilty about doing something wrong, trying not to be jealous about what others have that we don't - things like this are inherent for the majority of people. Sure, there are some who are on the outside of the realm of "morality", those who don't experience the same sensations of guilt for doing wrong, or who don't have the comprehension of right and wrong to avoid it in the first place. But those people are surprisingly few and far between. It turns out that there's a good portion of humanity that doesn't need a special book or tenets issued by a deity to do the right thing! What a concept!

That being said, I think a lot of people have a desire and need to integrate their sense of morality and values into their religion regardless of what's already provided. I'm a part of that; I believe that stealing and lying and cheating and murder are wrong, and while I don't believe that I'll be punished in the afterlife for them, I do believe that what happens in the next round and what I experience in the afterlife will be affected by what I do here and now. I think there are some things that are okay, others that aren't - but as a rule I do believe that fate and karma favor those who act out of kindness and sincerity, who have the best interests of others in mind, but who can still live for themselves and achieve their goals.

So this week I'm going to try to go into what I believe, and why, and why I think it's important for people to understand that I can be pagan and still share these values.

Pictures on the side

2011-06-08T17:05:00.001-05:00

I love photography but don't have very good equipment or a very good camera (no offense, Mom) compared to some of the people out there who are actually taking payment for pictures. But I dabble anyway - and thanks to Hubby's editing skills, my less-than-perfect abilities look a whole heck of a lot better than they probably would otherwise!

So, enjoy some of my work - two of my college friends, Bec and James, who are married and pretty much adorable. I do pictures for free. :)

Bullying

2011-06-06T18:11:00.001-05:00

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As an overweight woman who has been big her entire life - as someone who is making an active and conscious attempt to lose weight, despite the difficulties - I've heard the nasty comments and bad words. I've often worried that my children will someday come into contact with cruelty from other children, especially since (for the time being) we plan to utilize the public school system. And of course, it's a possibility. Children can say some pretty mean things, and sometimes they don't think about the immediate repercussions (like a classmate's reaction, or a friend's feelings) before speaking. Sometimes it's an innocent slip or a thoughtless gaffe; more often than not, anymore, it's conscious meanness meant to demean the feelings, thoughts, abilities, looks, or beliefs of another person.

It's easy enough to pass along Biblical proverbs to children whose families adhere to those religions, easy enough to quote religious texts of any kind - but what does a pagan parent say to their kids without trying to give a separate lesson on religion to a young child who may be experiencing bullying (or worse, may be the bully). What am I to do when I can't quote Christ or a disciple easily because my children haven't grown up in that lifestyle, and aren't familiar with the people and characters and stories I know from my experiences?

I know that first of all, there's common sense. While there are a number of religions that have done their best to claim the Golden Rule, Christianity among them, I believe it's a rule that has been around much longer. From the days of bartering for goods, people have understood that in order to get what's best for them, they have to be willing to sacrifice a bit for others - which means being willing and ready to treat others as they'd like to be treated. A family might give up a cow for less produce than it is worth, with the understanding that because they were kind, next time the produce farmer might give a bit more for a little less milk or meat than usual. It's an understood part of life, in my opinion, but a concept that's hard to explain to a young child who isn't having that same treatment returned to them. It's easy to say, but I know from experience it isn't so easy to DO, especially if physical violence becomes a part of it (at which point I intend to raise my children the same way I was raised: you may NEVER throw the first punch, and you are expected to find alternate routes to end the confrontation, but if you seriously feel you have no other option but to fight back, do so minimally to escape).

So now I'm looking for common sense, kid-friendly ways to explain how to deter bullies. I'm new at this parenting thing still, and I don't expect to encounter this for another few years yet, but I want to have an idea of what to do and how to say it when the time comes. Any pagan parents out there have any recommendations, books, things they've said/done that helped their kids that they want to share?

My husband is a kitchen witch

2011-06-04T23:22:00.001-05:00

Food, in our house, is special.

This isn't just because we're all fat people who like to eat (which is no less true), but because it's something that sees a deal of care taken during preparation. Hubby is an accomplished cook; though he has no serious training in cooking, I'd go as far as calling him a chef. He obsesses over herbs, how much we have, how fresh they are. He knows his spices, and adds by smell or taste, often using recipes only as bases for what he turns into his own concoctions. Rarely does he follow something exactly; everything, for him, is simply a suggestion or a place to start. And everything he does is with a sort of odd concern and carefulness that most people would reserve for things like neurosurgery or microchip construction.

I always sort of mocked him, playfully, for the care he takes in scraping down the ceramic surface of the stove, for pre-arranging his spices, for putting a jade figurine he calls his kitchen goddess over the stove in every place we've lived. One year, for his birthday, I gave him a moleskin book with a plain round binding, full of 1/4" graph paper, that has become a well-worn book we teasingly call his bible. It lives in the kitchen, partially full of his writings on the gaming worlds in his head, and partially a sort of ritual manual of recipes he has created or found and tweaked - sauces, stir fry combinations, brownies, cakes, breads, meatballs, pancakes. It seems like an endless menagerie of things, but he knows where every recipe is located and what every pencil-scribble says, even when it's so well-worn and loved that I can't even begin to decipher the things he's jotted down. Some of it even seems to be stream of consciousness, a combination of ingredients that came to him one night in a dream and that needed so desperately to be put to paper lest time and fate drag those sweet (or sour) words away.

We called him a kitchen witch because it seemed fitting, because he has an apron and calls the kitchen his. He's always claimed that somehow food talks to him, and I'd believe it - the man can sense a burning pan before anyone else can smell it, he knows something's done even when there's time left on the clock, knows food needs to be turned. It's almost off-putting, when he jumps out of his seat and informs me, "The food's yelling at me." At first it was odd, but I've grown used to - even fond of - this quirk of his. He isn't kidding, it seems; he's never wrong, never off. If he says something needs to be done, it does. It never makes sense to me - I follow recipes, don't dare substitute, and follow prescribed cooking times to a T. I can't do what he can.

So while wandering online, I found an article on About.com highlighting Kitchen Witchery, and with a delighted giggle I forward the link on to Hubby to read, sure that I was really doing no more than poking fun at him again (as he's a self-described agnostic with no real religious or spiritual leaning, other than an apparent belief in an afterlife and past lives - and mind you, there is nothing wrong with that!), but as he read it over he grew silent.

"You know," he mused aloud as he glanced back at me once he was finished, "the funny thing is, I do all of that."

For him, food and cooking are a spiritual journey in and of themselves.

Athena?

2011-06-03T22:12:00.000-05:00

So as a budding pagan, I'm kind of trying to figure out who, exactly, I'm worshiping. There are a lot of options out there (I say that like I'm going to the store for a deity, haha), and everyone finds that there's a certain somebody who calls to them more than others, or someone to whom they fit more closely - male or female - or that there's a pantheon that matches more closely with the workings of the world as they see it.

But for me, I've always just sort of looked at it as a "god" and "goddess" situation, with no real identifiers to anybody. Which is fine, all things considered, but it seemed silly to me to continually envision someone but not know who, exactly, I was thinking about. Does that make sense to anybody? No? Um.

Well, that's about as good as I can put it for now, but apparently I just figured things out. In my head, I always see Athena.

Now, I know for a mom, this sounds kind of silly - Athena loved everybody, but in a purely platonic way. She only kind of had a child (who wasn't even technically her's, but that she took in), she never had a sexual relationship - doesn't that kind of destroy the open pagan sense of relationships and seeing sex and intimate relationships as sacred things? How can I see these things as still sacred and important while envisioning a goddess that never took part in any of those?

I don't even now where I am right now in my thoughts, so this is going to be very stream of consciousness I suppose; apologies for that.

But when I see a goddess in my head I see someone strong, someone patient and kind who loves everyone, someone who is wise and thoughtful and creative. I see someone I'd like to think is the kind of person I'd like to be. I see Athena as she's described here, though maybe with a little more earth worked into her, a sort of perfect combination of Diana and Athena. But they're two separate, unrelated Greek goddesses. Do I have a right to combine them in my mind? Maybe not, but I can look at them as two functional, respective parts of a whole - two beautiful goddesses who in their own rights provided of the world. Jupiter and Apollo, as gods, strike me similarly. So in a description of the Triple Goddess, who do I see? Diana, obviously, the Mother. Athena - neither Maiden nor Crone. How does this fit in? Who is the Crone? Does it matter? Do I even have a right to be reassigning these things as I see fit?

Is there anybody out there who can lend me guidance?

Changing tides

2011-05-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

We co-sleep. I should probably correct that to the truth of what we do; we bed share. I'm all about co-sleeping safely and effectively, except that we've never owned a co-sleeper and neither of my kids have functioned well sleeping on their own in a separate unit, even if it was right next to the bed. Believe me, I tried both times! G had a bassinet and a crib, neither of which he spent much time in, and we had a Pack 'n' Play with an upper section for smaller babies that we tried to put A in when he was little. Neither slept well, neither liked it, and with A it just made breastfeeding a pain in the patootie. So we shared our bed with our kids - sometimes happily, sometimes not so much - and made things work. In 2009 it meant an upgrade to a king sized bed so we could easily accommodate ourselves (we're big!) and two growing kids, but we had by that time also acquired a big blue racecar bed for G that fit his crib mattress perfectly. We introduced it slowly but never really pushed the issue of him using it, and after a while he was more or less content there. A went much the same; we found a toddler bed that fit his crib mattress and had rails (because he seems to flail much more in his own bed) and introduced it to him.

But we put them in the same room. Granted, we didn't HAVE to, but it seemed to work out. Then, we lapsed. We had some lazy days, some bad days, some late days where bedtime simply wasn't enforced or followed, and our routine collapsed simply because we didn't want to have to stick to it. Granted, it isn't tough, but we were grouchy and self-centered. We threw (not literally) the kids into our bed. And for a long while, Hubby and I really didn't see much of each other.

Mind you, I love bed sharing, especially when the kids are little. It makes caring for a new baby so much easier, and I love knowing my little ones are close to me if they need me. But as they grow, it becomes tougher and tougher to share space with them. G, for instance, is 41" tall and 44 lbs - at or just barely above the 95th percentile for boys his age, and trust me when I say the kid is a bean stalk - and he knows how to use those wiggly appendages to his advantage at night. He kicks, pushes, shoves, and has a tendency to find a way to shove his heels into Hubby's testicles a bit too often for comfort. Add in a squirming 22 month old who reaches similar proportions who prefers sleeping perpendicular to everyone else, and I'm sure it's easy to understand how even in a king sized bed, two overweight adults of average height could feel... Well, crowded out of bed. Hubby seems to deal with it worse than I do, though in all honesty the physical comfort aspect isn't the only reason we're starting to feel that itch to make sure the kids at least start the night out of our bed again - we're human, after all, and sort of in a relationship where we kind of like spending time together alone for a multitude of reasons. It's hard to be intimate when you know you're sharing space with a kid who can and will wake up at the most inopportune moments (they already do it from their room, I don't see why it would change if they were IN the room), difficult to snuggle, hard to even have a conversation in the dark at the end of the day.

So two weeks ago or so the migration back to their own beds began again. And it wasn't pretty.

The first probably 11 days or so were hell. There were a few nights we crumbled, where I bent the comfort level and stayed in the room far longer than I probably should have to comfort upset kids who wanted nothing more than to come lay in Mommy and Daddy's bed. I sang extra songs, we read more books, we told more stories. I patted backs and offered comfort and even sat in the hallway in a folding chair sometimes, just outside their room, because it seemed to encourage A to stay in his bed and give sleep a fighting chance. We learned to remove ourselves from the room more swiftly than ninjas. I gave in and let angry, half-asleep kids come back into our bed after only a couple of hours in theirs because I knew I had to pick and choose my fights - and I need sleep to function during the day. But overall, we managed, and the last two nights have been surprisingly easy. A has stopped insisting that he be held to sleep, or that he be laying on my arm. G has been more accepting of his bed (although he still complains before bed that it's "too soft", which I know it isn't, and this confuses me) and the other night actually stayed there until 6AM. Sure, both boys end up in our bed more often than not halfway through the night, but in my opinion it's a good start.

Besides, I don't mind still sharing space with them sometimes - I just miss my Hubby.

Roughing it out

2011-05-29T09:42:00.000-05:00

I know I promised not to bring our finances into this blog, but to be honest I need to rant! So have a little story.

When I was very young - middle school or so - I was selected to be part of a local program that follows kids through high school. If they volunteered so many hours a year, kept good grades, and participated in enough extracurriculars, once they graduated they were given a four year scholarship. The first two years were to the local community college to work on general classes, and the last two were to the local university - a Franciscan endeavor - to finish off a degree. While I accepted the scholarship, it paid only my first two years, because after that I realized that my passion at the time (music) was poorly represented at the university, and that I had lost my desire to follow through with the associates degree I was after. The classes I had taken were no longer pertinent, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself or my life. After three years at the community college, a place people normally only spend two, I dropped out only a couple of classes shy of graduation with an associates in arts.

Fast forward a few years to this year - two months ago, in fact. I had been out of the community college four years and our finances are a mess, we can't pay the majority of our bills, and we're generally a disaster. It's stressful on us and on the kids, and I'm beginning to lose faith in.. Well, everything. It's straining our marriage, making the kids act out (kids can sense energy changes and feed off of them like you'd never believe), and it's driving us crazy, so I chose to make a VERY big change. I had always wanted to be a stay at home mom, but that option seemed less and less viable, so I began making arrangements to get the kids in day care and to go back to school.

This is where things get tricky.

I've been SO blessed to be able to stay home with the kids this long. Both are older, no longer babies, and are walking and talking true individuals. They've grown into themselves beautifully, and I've been able to watch the whole process from the front lines. I've taken an opportunity that maybe I shouldn't have in doing that, because we've sincerely needed the money, but I've been on the hunt for a job since last October and have yet to find something long-term and full time that would provide the benefits we need. After all, we live off the state right now via WIC and food stamps and the medical card, and have for a little while now, and to be perfectly honest I hate it. I know it's help that's there for when families need it, but I detest that we've been on it so long, that we've had no other choice. I WANT to bitch about insurance prices and co-pays. I want to budget for groceries. I want to do all the grown up things that normal people do, instead of shrugging it off and saying that the state pays for us to exist so who cares. I want to change. I want things to be different.

So I chose an RN program at the local college of nursing and found out that to enter it, I needed two more classes - but if I could take at least one of those before the fall school year started, I could possibly enter as a sophomore instead of a freshman and be saved a full year of gen ed classes at the university. I signed up at the community college for the first of those two classes. I had all my ducks in a row, so they say, with information sent through the proper channels and everything set up and ready to go for fall and summer. So I thought.

The best part of all is that with the track I'm taking, I can put cost of living into my loans and we would be able to put back Hubby's work money as extra to keep us going on the side. It's brilliant. I have it all thought through.

And then the community college informs me that because I'm over the Department of Education's credit hour limit for their institution, I have to basically plead my case with them on paper to have them let me back in and offer financial assistance. For one class. I have to explain my degree direction and why they should let me back in. Not only that, but apparently I also just so happened to be randomly selected for "verification" - meaning I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork confirming the tax information I entered on the FAFSA. Mind you, I didn't lie on the FAFSA, but on some of the portions where it asks for my husband's income specifically versus mine, I just made it all add up, I think. I honestly don't remember. It shouldn't be a big deal, but having both of these things approved could set me back a good three weeks - and classes start June 6.

And I can't apply for loans until after both of these things have been approved.

So I'm in a rut right now, grouchy and discontent and wishing that somehow things were different and that it didn't always seem like something was getting in the way of letting me accomplish my goals. I guess in all honesty I'm just frustrated, because every time I make a life-changing decision, something happens to make everything tougher. And I can only take so much of it. I'm only one person!

Admitting it hurt

2011-05-26T09:30:00.001-05:00

I spent a long time trying to come to terms with the birth of my second child. My first labor and delivery was pretty much a disaster, but I was willing to chalk that up to ignorance and a lack of faith. But my second? I had a doula, I had support, I was educated. I felt I had no excuse for being dissatisfied, even hurt by the outcome. Who was I to say that things should have gone differently when I supposedly had all the support I needed?

The problem is that I still wasn't happy with how things went. So was it okay for me to admit that, despite doing what I thought was my best? Was it okay to admit that the doula I adored - the only one in my area - hadn't fulfilled her end of the bargain? Did I have a right to be upset at my OB, the hospital and nurses? Or was all my anger in my head?

The anger I originally felt was immediate, but it took me two years to come to the conclusion that I really did have a right to feel that way. There was a lot of self-guilting along the way, soul searching, and doubting. But yes, it is okay to be upset about how your birth went, to be angry. "At least you have a healthy baby" doesn't have to be the end all, be all.

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Listening to yourself

2011-05-21T16:50:00.000-05:00

Listening to my body is, for me, especially difficult. Years of abuse through injuries, improper exercise, excessive weight gain, and having two children have all left me a physiological mess. Add in years of undue stress (completely mismanaged), a couple of mental issues, and absolutely no self esteem and you have a recipe for one large, depressed woman. The worst part is that none of that factors in the physical problems I have from being overweight all on its own: sleep apnea, severe knee and back problems, digestive issues, low blood oxygenation, diminished lung capacity, asthma... The list goes on.

Granted, I've always erred on the bigger side. I was an average baby for the mid-1980s at 8lbs, 4oz and maybe 20" long at birth, but most of my childhood I was just plain big. My lack of friends and the names I was called all attested to that fact. I more or less ate what I pleased, when I pleased, by no real fault of my mother. The experiences I had with "healthy" foods were not particularly positive, and I can honestly remember eating nothing that could call itself a veggie other than corn and potatoes, neither of which are really as healthy or nutritious as the mountain of other foods available. I was not a healthy kid, nor a healthy adolescent, and now that I'm an adult those years of abusing my body have caught up to me.

Naturally, my body has found ways of getting even. I now find the massive amounts of sugar that I once happily and readily consumed to be disgusting, and can only eat or drink a fraction of the portions I used to consume. Disgusting amounts of food coloring twist my colon in unpleasant knots, excess sugar leaves me with a temporarily geographic tongue (trust me, a single experience having the skin of your tongue peel away in long slabs is nasty enough to make you rethink future sugar consumption) and recently, the thought of deep-fried foods has left my stomach turning. One would think that after 25 years of taking with no care in return that my body could keep up with itself - or, rather, with what I choose to unwisely put in it - but it has begun to rebel by refusing the larger portion sizes and fast foods I once coveted and craved. Now, healthy lunchmeat sandwiches on whole wheat with massive amounts of fresh veggies on top and lots of water are my cravings; ice cream has been replaced by low-fat versions or by frozen yogurt, or better yet by fresh fruit that has somehow found its way into my house by way of bananas (for the kids, unfortunately; I love them but am painfully allergic), grapes, and strawberries. Pastas come in whole wheat only, with mountains of veggie-laden sauce, and broccoli with cheese is a more delectable side dish than chips or french fries.

I'm not sure I can explain this revelation; it wasn't conscious, although every deity in existence knows it should have been. But I'm not complaining. The moral of the story: Listen to your body. It really does know what's best.

Also, happy rapture day! We're about an hour and 15 minutes from the rapture here in Illinois and I'm pretty sure at 6:01 PM I'm still gonna be here, hanging out. As will everybody else. Much love.

Confessions of a Vaccinating Mom

2011-05-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

Originally, despite all the crunchy tendencies we had, there was never any question for us about vaccinating our children. With G, our first, we truly had no idea what we were up against. Back then (all of four years ago), when he was born, it was still okay to give pain killers before vaccinations, and although it seemed a bit odd, neither Hubby nor I really thought much about these routine childhood shots. We were under the impression that there were no risks, because surely if there were our healthcare providers would have been more up front with potential adverse reactions and what to watch for. Instead, we were assured that there was nothing wrong with having three or four different vaccinations given at a single appointment, and had a small packet of papers shoved at us every time highlighting why childhood vaccinations were so important (and leaving potential allergic reactions, symptoms of adverse reactions, and other vital information to the very back page in small print). We figured that by aiming for intervention-free births, keeping our boys intact, making the change to natural and organic foods, and using cloth diapers, that we were doing the utmost for our children.

Even after we became aware of some of the true potential problems, the possibility of tie-ins with debilitating disorders, we still smiled and nodded because the idea of having our children catch whooping cough or measles or whatnot was more frightening than what seemed to be the far more remote possibility of a problematic reaction. Issues related to vaccines seemed to be so few and far between, while every year or two pertussis cases would suddenly appear in our local hospital, often unreported until weeks after the outbreak, leaving us paranoid as to whether or not we had come into contact with someone who had pertussis before they had shown symptoms. Our paranoia outweighed our ability to seriously look at what we were dealing with, and even the beloved comedy duo Penn and Teller seemed to further justify my thoughts that vaccinations were typically nothing to be feared.

There were other things, too, that eased my worries. Neither of my children ever had a visible reaction. Fevers afterwards, with or without Tylenol beforehand, were rare; both are rambunctious, friendly, creative boys who have been either right on time or ahead of where they should be developmentally. Neither has given us any real reason to worry about a physical reaction to their vaccinations; even the possibility of allergies made no sense to me because my mother, who was vaccinated back in the 60s when not even half as many vaccinations were given, has allergies, as do I. To me, it's unrelated, and a lack of negative reactions in my children and (to me) a lack of proof that vaccinations were linked to any one of the numerous childhood problems that affected families seemed to tie them to justified vaccinating both on schedule. We just always skipped the flu vaccinations because they seemed unnecessary.

But every once in a while, when discussing vaccines with parents who were vehemently against them, I'd have an odd comment made to me: "You're really, really lucky." We're what? How on earth are we lucky? What, our children aren't autistic or delayed, didn't have an allergic reaction to an ingredient, and that makes us lucky? I didn't understand in the least. But it was an unsettling thing to hear, and it made me wonder.

The occasional references to doctors - legitimate medical doctors with experience in their fields - who were completely against vaccinating young children with so many different vaccines bothered me as well. I typically tried to find ways to discredit their commentary, by seeing what other things they had done or said that seemed overly radical or was specifically tied to anti-vaccinating groups or organizations. It made me feel better to be able to shake my head and laugh at these silly radicals, without realizing that I was the same - an intactivist, a lactivist, a natural birthing advocate - on other subjects where I was probably looked at the same way by those on the other end of the spectrum. When I realized that, I started being nicer to anti-vaxxing parents, aware of what they were feeling and thinking to a degree, and how it felt to be ridiculed and argued with without having their position considered or even being labeled as potentially legitimate. I figured out nicer ways to disagree without figuring out why I still hesitated when it came time to vaccinate.

Where am I going with all this?

I wonder, now, if I did the right thing. If the choices we made as parents were the right ones, if we should have more seriously considered the potential of vaccine injury. I wonder if, by making what we thought was the right choice, we completely risked the lives of our children. I wonder what we ought to do in the future with any subsequent children we have; if we should assume that they won't have a reaction either and fully vaccinate on schedule, or change things by delaying and selecting vaccines. I wonder if we risked the health of our boys, or what we would do if we changed how we vaccinated (if we did at all) next time around, and what would happen if one of our unvaccinated children became seriously ill, while our vaccinated kids were able to fight off the illness faster and easier because they had gotten the vaccine.

The more I see and learn, the more I question our choices. The more confused I become about what options we have, and the "truth" behind what keeps going on with the medical community, the government, the CDC and the ever-increasing list of childhood vaccinations. I'm posting this because I know I can't be the only parent who is wondering if they did the right thing, but it's really hard to step forward and admit because it means there is a possibility that you didn't make the right choice and potentially risked the health of your child or children. It's okay to be worried and wonder, as long as you're also willing to learn more and take into consideration all possibilities.

This Is The Life

2011-05-06T15:38:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me could figure that the title of this blog post is also, not by any small coincidence, a Weird Al song. Of course this was done purposefully, and this is a bit of a lie - life's been a pain in the tuckus as of late - but we manage all the same. Finances have been a horror but through some perseverance and a lot of trying to keep our caseworker on track, we've managed to get back onto the Illinois LINK/SNAP card program, meaning that at least our groceries are taken care of. Rent, insurance, water bills, and all those other grossly important things aren't taken care of right now but the least we can do is work one day at a time and hope for the best. Our landlords are amazingly understanding people who know we've been in a tough spot, and I can't begin to express our appreciation for that.

The mini garden needs desperately to go outdoors where all the plants can get suitable light and fresh air, but I have nothing to put them on that could keep them safe from the numerous groundling critters that like to sneak in and munch on greens. The old gifted coffee table I was using has since lost two of its legs and is incredibly unwieldy, so for now our plants have taken up residence on our kitchen table - still! - and will remain there until I can figure out something better. Unfortunately, they seem to be suffering thanks to our lack of suitable light, so I hope I can rearrange things without losing them all. Here's hoping.

My mother is still in the hospital. She's got two doctors right now who are overseeing her care, the floor on call doctor and a separate podiatrist who are apparently in conflicting opinions as to what should be done for her foot. The on-call thinks she should stay another day or two to ensure she has enough IV antibiotics pumped in her, and that the tissue isn't necrotic and the remainders of the abscess she had disappear, and the podiatrist thinks she may need to have surgery after all, likely some degree of debridement, even though the MRI she had showed that there were (thankfully) no pockets of puss in her bones. Too much information, I know, but it is what it is. She is absolutely miserable there, and I can't blame her; it's not the world's greatest hospital and she also works there, down in their pharmacy, so she is absolutely tired of being there all the time. Thankfully, she has had visitors, and the antibiotics seem to be doing their job, so that's good news. The poor woman is only 53 and is too young for all of this crap. On top of her foot problems she is pre-diabetic, has asthma and COPD, has an enlarged heart, had her right knee replaced in 2007 and will need the other knee done soon as well, has extreme back problems, has osteoarthritis in her feet and knees and back, and a menagerie of other potential issues that I probably don't even know about. Needless to say, this is a big downer for a woman already troubled with physical health problems.

Sadly, her being in the hospital means twice the work on my end, too. She has two dogs whom I grew up with also, and they are used to being in their kennels only about eight hours a day, with freedom to roam and eat and drink and be let outside whenever they please otherwise, including at night. She also is obsessed with keeping a very clean house, so it's up to me now to start my day an hour earlier than usual to let the dogs outside and feed them, then head home and take care of my own house and kids while Hubby is at work, then when he comes home and I've done cleaning my house, I go to her house and clean there, which means dusting and vacuuming her entire house, cleaning her floors, doing her laundry that I bring home for her, feeding and watering and brushing the dogs, keeping everything generally picked up, and then in the evening I head over to see her and stay at her room in the hospital with her, keeping her company until 9 or 10 PM. Then I come home in time to almost wake up the kids and finish picking up and cleaning before sitting around, a complete insomniac, until 1 or 2 AM. Then I finally fall into bed and the whole process begins again the next day, and will continue to do so for some time even after she gets out of the hospital, because she will still need my help at her house. To say that I am overwhelmed would be an understatement; I am exhausted, sick constantly, and grouchy beyond explanation. I know this isn't really anyone's fault, but I am still overwhelmed because I need to manage our finances and am working to find a job in the meantime. My head is spinning almost constantly and by the time my day is over and it's too late to accomplish anything else I realize that I have forgotten ten or so different things that needed to be done, too, and were simply forgotten amongst the other things that needed to be done too. I would try to get back in to see the therapist I was seeing previously, but at this point I am not sure when I would have free time to go in. Probably never.

Otherwise, I have nothing new or interesting to report or discuss. There are a dozen things I could rant about but at the moment, nothing seems more important than my own problems, which I'm having difficulty dealing with. I am simply angry, and bitter, and tired, and sick, and see no end in sight, that's all.

Oh, the insanity!

2011-05-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

So, obviously, some time has passed. A lot has happened, as always, that has kept me from forming more than a single coherent sentence in the last month or so. G's birthday, my birthday, I got a job and three weeks later was again unemployed, I contracted a three-week-long strain of strep throat (that I am still struggling with), A got sick (is sick?), Hubby got a job, and most recently my mother went into the hospital with what started as cellulitis in her right foot, but has progressed into a nasty abscess. They've given her IV antibiotics and did an MRI on her foot, but we won't know whether or not they think that surgery is necessary to remove dead tissue and potential pus pockets in her bones until the doctor does his rounds and actually looks at the MRI today.

So, anyway, what are we doing now.. Ah, yes. A and I are working on potty learning. This has been an interesting experience, and unquestionably way different than the first time around with G. With G it was difficult and a battle; at the time we used disposable training pants, which he was still wearing day and night at just over three years old. He seemed to have no interest in using the potty, no matter how many times we showed him how Daddy did it, no matter how much we played it up to him and celebrated the few rare occasions where he actually managed to pee on the toilet. We had a potty chair for him but in all honesty, it didn't change much, and in desperation we bought a dual toilet seat that has a larger seat for adults with a smaller seat on top for children. This worked, to a degree, but it was still a constant fight. He could wear training pants all day and not particularly care if they were wet or dirty, and while we could catch the signs for the latter, we had no idea when he was ready to pee or not (we don't do EC, mostly because of this; we just can't learn our boys' signs, apparently), and even if we did catch him before he pooped, he refused to poop anywhere but in his training pants. It was an absolute disaster - and then, randomly, one day he was just done with them. I truly think he was ready just after his third birthday when he suddenly was dry day and night, either asking to use the potty when in public or doing so without difficulty on his own at home, and was completely accident-free. It was, I think, a small miracle that we never could have foreseen. It literally just happened one night, and he was on the potty whenever he needed from then on.

A, of course, has been a different story. With his big brother to guide him, he has found using the potty to be more interesting and appealing to him. He's still in diapers at night, but during the day he's either in training pants or completely naked. Granted, he still has accidents, but a good portion of the time he asks to use the potty and seems unafraid to do any and all of his business there. We deal with the accidents in stride, without criticism or disgust, and afterwards take him to the potty where he always seems to find he has a bit more to offer. He shows all the interest in learning to use the potty that G seemed to lack, and is self-sufficient enough to wipe (if given the toilet paper, and not if he has pooped, still needs help with that), shut the potty, and flush. He needs help getting on and off, but that's to be expected despite his impressive height. It's like we're in a different world here, and the difference is honestly astounding.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to grow things. I'm succeeding in a way, and failing in another; life got in the way and the place my plants were located didn't allow me to remember to water frequently enough. My plants are behind where they should be, hands down, but are still struggling to survive. I'll take that.

Traumatic birth is real

2011-03-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

I've heard a lot of nonsense here and there about traumatic birth, about how it's a bunch of crap made up by sue-happy women who just want to find someone else to blame when their birthing experiences were not what they had originally planned for. I hear that women who claim a traumatic birth are drama queens, women who want money and nothing else, and that these women are almost single-handedly the reason that so many physicians and hospitals are so strict with their rules and regulations.

What I see from women who claim they have experienced a traumatic birth is a lot of pain, a lot of confusion, and a lot of anger that cannot be properly placed because of laws and signed papers stripping them of their rights to confront people who have knowingly and purposefully turned what should have been a positive experience into a terrifying, painful ordeal that has broken them emotionally and physically. I see parents who have been told how things would be, and who were given no warning when situations changed, who made specific but simple requests that went unhonored and ignored. I see people with PTSD related to previous experiences within hospitals or involving doctors or procedures who have requested that their caregivers do or say things a certain way so that they can continue being an easy, agreeable patient, and yet they are written off and their requests are ignored, leaving them to be labeled as "difficult". I see women who feel stripped of their dignity in a way that they should not feel, who are uncomfortable and discontent and want things to change but don't know who they should be blaming. They feel that the world blames them, that the world says their pains and emotions mean nothing and have no relevance, or aren't real in the first place, so they walk around with a fake smile proclaiming that all that matters is that they have a healthy baby, and their own feelings go unacknowledged. These are women that end up refusing to go near doctors or hospitals again, women who develop fears and phobias that shouldn't have to exist in the first place.

This isn't how life should be.

People who have never given birth, or whose expectations were met or exceeded, do not understand. I would venture to say that I certainly don't; while I've yet to experience what I believe is my optimal pregnancy and labor, I know I've not been severely traumatized by what I've experienced. But I have seen and heard the desperate pleas from women who are not looking to sue anyone, who are not interested in financial compensation, but who want to get the attention of the health care professionals who have caused them the trauma that haunts them daily, and how better to get the attention of a doctor who is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year but to hit them and their hospital in the wallet? Sometimes, that's what it takes. Don't like it, well, never have a traumatic birth. Never have a bad experience and make sure that nobody else ever does, either.

But don't write off traumatic birth as being some impossible entity that's made up by women who just want pity and attention. It is real, it is painful, and it needs to be addressed and treated by those who are at fault for bringing it about.

Short post today; mostly a rant, I guess. An unfinished draft I never posted anything on. Apologies for the lack of links, as it's quite late! Job interview tomorrow and Friday, and hopefully something will come of one of them; both would be awesome but I can only hope for so much, hmm?

G's party was awesome. I got to see some people I don't often get to see! Hope everybody has a great night!

Happy birthday, little man!

2011-03-29T09:39:00.003-05:00

Today, G turns four.

It's hard to believe that all of this time has come and gone so quickly; to be honest, I don't remember much about when he was a little baby. We were going through a lot then, and we weren't in the best place emotionally or physically.

We were in college, we were struggling to pay bills (gee, that sounds familiar), we were emotionally isolated from our friends because we had no real idea of how to cope properly.

He was always this kind of strange-looking kid, in that he had an odd sense of understanding about him. He always just sort of "got it", even when the rest of us struggled so hard to figure out where we were in life, or what we were doing. He didn't ask the same kind of questions adults did. He came into this world really unhappy about being here, after an admittedly overly long and complicated labor and delivery. But he got here, safely, even if not 24 hours after discharge we were back at the hospital for four days of phototherapy. His bili levels were WAY too high and he lost a lot of weight (just look at the two above pictures; the difference between them is all of two days).

But it was a hiccup, we managed, and we brought him home again.

Granted, we didn't always make the best parenting choices; we know more now than we did then. But G didn't care. He really never has. All he wants is a chance to hang out, relax, be loved. It's all he has ever wanted.

He's always been the kind of kid you want to stare at, too. He was bald for the longest time, so when he finally - finally! - got some hair, it was a miracle in our books.

I think a lot of it is his eyes.

Some of it is his personality.

Some of it is just that, well.. He's awesome.

He has taught us a lot, too - about ourselves, and about life.

We've learned to make faces when all else fails,

We've learned that it's hard to hold still sometimes because life moves much too fast...

We've learned that it's great to laugh when things are going well...

And we've learned that it's okay to cry when something has gone wrong.

We've learned that little kids are surprisingly resilient, and even after experiencing a skull fracture along the sutures of your skull after falling 7+ feet straight down to land on your back on solid concrete, then being strapped to a body board for nine hours with no food, drink, or idea of when you would be let free or what was going on.. Well.. You can survive. It won't be fun, but you can do it.

We've learned about what it means to be a good big brother,

That a first haircut can come after you turn two,

And that your little brother will always be watching so he can do what you do.

We have also learned that doing holiday pictures is absolutely no fun whatsoever.

We have learned that our little brothers will always look up to us, even if we are a little crazy.

We have learned... That life presents interesting opportunities to learn about the opposite gender.

We have learned to hunt eggs...

And to put on our game face.

Best of all, though, we've learned to not flip out... Unless appropriate. ^_~

Happy fourth birthday, my not so little man. Here's to a hundred more.

Love, Mom.

Why is it...

2011-03-28T09:44:00.001-05:00

That when I, or anyone else, point out that an unfortunate or even disastrous situation could have possibly been prevented or avoided if a doctor had not made an error or had been better informed, I am inherently attempting to "bash" doctors in general, and am badmouthing them?

I've noticed this happening more and more often. I will not immediately and happily discredit medical professionals without good reason; I know some that are incredibly good at their jobs and deserve far more credit than they get, and I know (and have heard of) others who are completely lost on subjects or knowingly keep their patients in the dark about procedures and side effects so they can reap the short-term benefits of more pay or better reviews. I know some amazing, great doctors, ones that I love and ones that I would trust my life with (although I can't promise I'd have a choice in the matter), and I know some that I am positive should have lost their licenses and been stripped of their degrees years ago.

Mind you, I try not to generalize, and do my best to keep it specific when able (or at least leave quantifiers when it isn't possible to be specific without giving names). I will sooner use words like "some," "most," "those I know of" instead of "all" or "every". I would never argue that some doctors have invariably more experience with certain situations than others, though few have more experience than actual specialists. I will not pretend to know what certain doctors are or are not good at.

But when I see situations that are inherently, painfully incorrect, I get upset. I get angry. I get frustrated and want to pound my fist and say that I. Was. Right. Someone messed up somewhere and information was not properly spread about and because of that, an innocent person was hurt or killed and a family has lost an important and integral part of itself that can never be replaced, or said person's life has changed in ways that they can never get back.

Let me explain.

I saw today that someone whom I went to high school with, though was not particularly close to, had passed away at a VERY young age a couple of days ago. A friend posted on her Facebook page that the individual in question had a c-section several weeks ago, had experienced some excruciating back pain, and went to bed that night but never woke up. A blood clot had killed this woman, a mother and wife, someone whose presence was needed and wanted and who could never be replaced. And the first thing I thought was, I've been in that position. After A was born, I had some problems with my right leg and excruciating pain that I could not explain (I seriously believed I had torn a muscle in my leg while giving birth, it was that bad), but I was self-educated enough to bring it up with a doctor and had an ultrasound performed that day. I was lucky; there was no blood clot and I had indeed torn something, and the pain eventually went away as the injury repaired itself. However, my doctor never brought up this possibility beyond a mild and dismissive mentioning in the hospital after A was born. It was mentioned, they said it was rare, and I thought nothing more of it until the pain began. But I had looked up a lot about pregnancy, about childbirth, and I knew what to look for and what to worry about.

The thing about this woman's situation that bothered me was that by all accounts, and with all the information I had, her life could have been saved. From what I could see, she did not need to die; if her doctor had done their job, and informed her of the risks of a major surgery, and had ensured she properly understood what a blood clot could entail, perhaps she would have sought medical attention. Do I know for a fact that she DIDN'T know about blood clots? No. Perhaps she willfully ignored information given, knowing the chance was there but thinking it couldn't or wouldn't happen to her. Perhaps even if she had hurried to the ER and expressed her worries, nothing could have been done. Perhaps even if something could have been done, it would have resulted in a lot of excruciating and difficult recovery for her, and dangerous surgery to catch and stop the clot. There is every possibility that she knew exactly what to look for, ignored it, and that even if she had rushed to the hospital that they perhaps could not have saved her. But the problem is that to me, I see the other side: Maybe she would have lived. That is where my beef comes from; I don't know a single person who would know the dangers of having a blood clot and the symptoms of one and who would still willfully ignore those symptoms and accept the risk of said clot, assuming they were properly informed and educated in the first place. We put so much trust in our medical professionals, yet too often situations like this happen, and I always wonder what might have been if information had been properly disseminated to patients.

What if she had no idea what she was up against, no idea what to expect? What if her death was directly caused by the negligence of a doctor who didn't tell her about blood clots? What if she was a victim of her own ignorance?

THAT is what makes me angry. There is a very real possibility that she trusted her doctor, like so many people do, so much that she did no further research and looked no further into the side effects of c-sections and even of the signs of problems to look for after giving birth, and because she did not simply ASSUME that her doctor would neglect to give her life-saving information, she died. Her children have lost their mother, and it may very well be because her doctor did not properly provide for her as he or she should have, and because she trusted that doctor with her life.

I have no words, in all honesty, to explain how I feel about this situation. I expressed so much on the page of the individual from whom I learned all of this information, and was greeted with a response from another friend. That response, while I no longer have it word-for-word, was basically nothing more than an accusation that I was "bashing" doctors and turning the entire discussion into an opportunity to "badmouth" them.

Realize, please, that my initial response was nothing more than a disappointed mentioning that I was aware that such situations were often preventable, but ONLY if the patient was aware of possible side effects and their symptoms. Most patients are only made aware by their doctors and thus if this girl truly passed as she did, it was quite possibly because her doctor neglected to do their job and make sure she was a fully informed patient.

I could not understand, at first, for the life of me why I was accused of apparently trying to badmouth medical professionals. I had no intention of doing anything of the kind; I simply realize that there are as many good doctors out there as bad (if not fewer), and that as patients and especially as parents, we owe it to ourselves and our families to be as informed as possible - even if the information we have is not provided by our healthcare professionals directly. If I wanted to badmouth someone, be it a doctor or a random person on the street, trust me. I would do it, and it wouldn't be pretty, and I wouldn't use nice or fancy words to do so. I would put it out there exactly how I felt and why, and I'd do so without regard for the feelings of the person in question. But I had no intention of badmouthing anyone. I responded as politely as possible, but ended up simply deleting both of my posts when I realized that no matter what I did, or said, at least one person had it cemented in their head that I was openly and willingly "badmouthing" educated doctors, and that I didn't particularly care who I hurt in the process.

So I'd like to set the record straight, here if nowhere else: I do not "badmouth" doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, or any other health professionals. I understand that they work in stressful environments and that they are, like everybody else, only human and prone to error, especially when burdened with life-changing decisions that are on the shoulders of nobody else. The problem I have, though, is that regardless of the situation, these are the same men and women on whom we rely for information we would not normally have access to or prior knowledge of, and when this information could be the difference between life and death, it is not only their job but their responsibility to protect us and provide for us by sharing this information immediately, fully, and with the ability to ensure that their patients and patients' families understand exactly what problems they may run into, their symptoms and side effects, and how to react. When a doctor gives wrong information, or neglects to share it fully in the first place, people die. And I will never, ever be able to tolerate that.

Whew!

2011-03-27T09:03:00.000-05:00

Things have been absolutely crazy over here. The last month or so has been full of things I never could have pretended to see coming. We've been taken to small claims court (not even GOING there), had a few minor changes come and go in our lives, and are still trying to make do with no income. The applications keep going out but nothing comes in with the exception of a few interviews that land us nowhere. It's the curse, I guess, of optimism - but we manage all the same, just like we always have. Life may not be completely hunky-dory, but our kids are happy and well-fed.

I'd say they're healthy, too, but right now that would be a lie! Everybody randomly developed wicked colds mid-March; it started with the kids and then spread to me, then to Hubby. The kiddos have been stuffy and drippy and coughing, and the coughing has led to sore throats, and the mucus in their tummies has led to more puking episodes than I could have ever wanted to see. A has had some trouble keeping things down, and did me the great favor of ralphing all over my lap the other night, and G has been somewhat testy. We ended up giving a Hyland's cold and cough medicine to both, and while it works wonders, it has made G into a terror with a bad attitude. It's hard to tell if he's like this because he doesn't feel well or because of the medicine, but Hubby suggested an allergy to one of the ingredients. This is possible, of course, but in all honesty I'd rather deal with him having a bad attitude and at least not throwing up everywhere because of the sinus drainage into his stomach. It's a tough call either way, but I think the illnesses are finally winding down (with the exception of Hubby, who has gotten a rather nasty ear infection out of nowhere, unlike the rest of us). Allergy season is next, and I'm not gonna lie: I HATE allergy season! Oh, well.

I managed to get some planting done at the beginning of the month. I ended up doing tomatoes (beefsteak), a red and green pepper blend, broccoli, butterleaf lettuce, parsley, green beans, and strawberries. Everything stayed inside up until a nice streak of 70 degree days we had last week, but I accidentally left almost everything outdoors one night, and of COURSE that was the night that temps dropped and it SNOWED! Gag me. It looks like almost everything survived except for one pot of parsley and the lettuce. I over-planted on purpose, and the strawberries and peppers didn't go out (peppers weren't sprouted and I'm babying the strawberries), so in a worst-case scenario I should still have everything but the parsley and lettuce. Not bad for a pretty serious mistake! Luckily, I think most everything will more or less survive, but we'll have to see. I'm keeping everything under light and watering with lukewarm tap water for now. I think my undying love and affection for my plants will hopefully keep them in better shape than the creeper in our front window and my poor, tortured African violet.

Last, but not least for today, I have to share something I found in one of our local Hy-Vee stores yesterday while out on a shopping trip: Noosa Yoghurt. This. Stuff. Is. Amazing. I've always eaten yogurt off and on, but to be honest it's usually too tart for me to really enjoy it. Greek yogurt is okay, but not what I'm looking for. Noosa, though, is freaking amazing. To me this stuff tastes almost like cream cheese, which I absolutely adore, and it has an awesomely thick texture that's a hundred times better than the "velvety" they keep advertising. It is better than velvety. I don't even have the words to properly express how great this stuff is. It tastes like heaven - maybe better - and is undoubtedly the BEST stuff I've ever tasted. And no, they aren't paying me or rewarding me for saying any of this. It is GREAT, and I figured that out all on my own. :) The kids love it, too, and it's made from all-natural ingredients, so it gets an A+ in my book! Go Noosa!

Spring? Please?

2011-02-23T23:06:00.000-06:00

There's some serious fog going on outside tonight. It's so thick I almost can't see across the street, which is pretty impressive. Supposedly we should be seeing spring sometime soon, but instead we've been occasionally teased with temperatures high enough to open a window for a few hours juxtaposed against days so cold we're half tempted to go back to hibernating and avoiding the outside world just to be able to pretend to ignore that cold wind.

Unfortunately, this is rarely an option. So we're dealing with the cold, and I'm trying desperately to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have another few inches of snow at the end of the week.

To come out of it, I want badly to plant herbs. I have the pots and soil to do so, but unfortunately I lack a very substantial ingredient: herbs. Turns out if you want to grow things, you sort of need seeds. In lieu of acknowledging this need for seeds (ha ha, ha), I've focused on watching Hubby transform our back room in about 24 hours from an unlivable mountain of assorted junk to a much more manageable and organized couple-of-hills of junk. It's a huge difference, and it's even kid-safe now, so the gate partitioning the back room off from the rest of the house has been lowered, and now the boys have the freedom to roam aaaaaaalmost anywhere they'd like. Minus the office, of course, which is going to stay off-limits so I can keep my sewing things safe, and so Hubby can have someplace to store and assemble his miniatures. And because there are pointy sharp things in there.

However, the mess that was the back room has not-so-kindly migrated to the rest of the house in the form of long-missing dishes, newly-sorted clothing that is making its way back into the rounds, and toys that have been hidden away. It's 50/50 in the long run; one room can be used but every other room in the house has picked up the slack for it.

Hoping for a job soon. Employment here is lacking severely.

Dinner!

2011-02-21T19:48:00.000-06:00

I was inspired today to share what I made for food. So you get to deal with it. >:D

This morning for breakfast/early lunch, I made cinnamon/raisin pancakes with whole wheat flour, and Hubby took charge of some bacon and scrambled eggs. We're not a gluten-free, egg-free, vegetarian, or lactose-free family - we enjoy our lactose-laden dairy, our farm-fresh eggs, and massive amounts of gluten. And our meat, oh my god, the meat. Lots of meat, maybe too much meat, in every size and shape and color.

Dinner, on the other hand, was much more complex.

Meet some salmon, spices (salt, pepper, red pepper, parsley, paprika, minced garlic), saltines, onion, and egg in a container. You will probably recognize it as a plastic Country Crock butter container, and you would be correct - that is EXACTLY what it is. I can't usually get anybody around here to eat any type of fish that isn't tilapia or fish sticks around here without a fight, and only recently has Hubby decided that maybe other non-white fishes aren't completely evil, so I haven't had a good salmon patty that hasn't been made at my mom's house in years. I miss them.

So tonight they became dinner.

I mixed the crap out of that, with my hands of course.

Then I worked on my side dish: rice and red beans. Simple, but tasty, and something we have NEVER had here. I mean, seriously. Ever.

Yes, we have a rice cooker, thanks to my mom! I've honestly never used it before, but Hubby has; in fact, it's the only thing he uses now to cook rice in. I don't blame him. It did a great job. Anyway.

Above, you will meet something Hubby affectionately calls "chicken Jell-o." I hate that term, but I can't argue. It's a little less viscous, but otherwise acts and looks identical to Jell-o, it's just made from chicken instead. Hubby makes this stuff from the chicken we go get when it's on sale - legs and thighs, usually, for super-cheap because they're on sale. He sticks them in a deep pan with some water and spices and basically bakes them in a brine for hours on end until the chicken's falling off the bone. We reap several benefits from this: 1) Cheap chicken in massive amounts that we can reuse however we please during the next week or so, 2) rendered chicken fat to use with things as we please, and 3) this "chicken Jell-o" that, when mixed about half and half with water, makes an amazing chicken stock replacement that is MUCH cheaper than buying prepackaged stock in the store - and we know where all the ingredients came from, and exactly what's in it!

Anyway, instead of using packaged chicken stock, since we don't have any, or plain water, I mixed water with this chicken Jell-o to make our own chicken stock to give the rice some extra flavor and spice.

This is the homemade butter I've mentioned before. We make it with organic cream a half-pint at a time; oddly enough, organic cream is actually cheaper at our local store than regular cream. Figure that one out. Anyway, this is fresh, unsalted butter. It's harder than the typical tub or even stick butter that we're used to, but it tastes amazing and is always super-fresh. When properly rinsed after making, and drained of buttermilk, it's lasts for quite some time.

This is eventually what became of the rice and beans. I rinsed the beans before adding them to prevent the addition of too much sodium, and too much extra unnecessary liquid. I put in parsley, paprika, our homemade butter, some salt, pepper, and a little bit of green pepper flake. It tasted great, although Hubby and I both agreed afterwards that it needed more salt. Even G sat and ate some, about half a serving, without too much prompting!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of what became of the salmon patties. Everybody was starving, and I had no intention of further delaying food when the general consensus was that We. Needed. To. Eat.

So, there you have it.

Tomorrow we're going to talk carriers.

.

2011-02-20T17:55:00.000-06:00

All right, ladies. It's time we discussed something very personal, something that only we struggle with. Something that we have to sit down and have a talk with our daughters about (well, I assume that's how it works; I never got that talk and I've no daughters). It's something that can make us into a raging maniac or a crying pile of unhappy. No, it isn't chocolate. Or Robert Downey Jr.

Let's talk about periods.

I grew up using pads, and got to figure out tampons on my own. I hated pads - always did, probably always will - because as a big woman, it was hard to keep those damn sticky tabs in place. The moment I would sweat, the tabs came unstuck, and the rest of the pad usually followed close behind. They bunched and scrunched no matter how or when I wore them, regardless of size or intended absorbency. They didn't last long enough, and I was in a state of constant worry that they would leak out - which is when I turned to the tampons.

Tampons were great, in comparison! They didn't leak as frequently and I knew that bunching up and unreliable sticky adhesive were no longer a factor in my period comfort. I had the ability to finally bleed for seven days without dying and not be completely uncomfortable, if you didn't count the fact that I could rarely get them positioned right, and the fact that the larger sizes I was forced to use thanks to a heavy flow (TMI, anyone?) carried a far more significant risk of toxic shock syndrome. Of course, like a lot of women, I was an irresponsible user: I rarely changed them when I was supposed to, often left them in too long, and likely used much larger sizes all the time than was necessary. I ignored how yucky they eventually made me feel, and the constant discomfort of having them improperly placed (which, by the way, I blamed on an inability to put them in right - without thinking that tampons were not designed for EVERYONE'S comfort in mind). I learned to think of tampons as science's gift to womenkind, despite my issues, and used them for years on end.

Then, after my period returned once A was born, something strange started to happen.

Tampons became uncomfortable beyond a doubt. I could no longer get them to sit so that I couldn't feel them, well, bulging out. Size and absorbency were irrelevant to my plight; nothing fit, nothing worked, nothing was comfortable. Even stranger, using them made me feel ill. Not throw-up-and-die ill, but mildly feverish, mildly nauseated. I only felt this way within an hour or so of putting in a tampon, and if I removed it, in just as long I would feel better. It was the strangest thing, a phenomenon I couldn't possibly explain: my body's chemistry had changed enough that I could no longer wear a tampon.

This was a problem.

Coincidentally, I had just begun looking into alternative options for taking care of myself during this longest portion of the month. Options were pretty limited; fewer (or no) periods thanks to hormone birth control was not an option, as I'd had a number of unpleasant experiences with every one I had tried, never mind the fact that the idea of nixing a period entirely felt more than a little wrong. I could get and tried using reusable cloth pads, or "mama cloth", and while I didn't particularly dislike them, and they did manage to overcome the problem of dysfunctional adhesive, they still slid all over the place because of the snap fastening, only came in one absorbency choice, and were not half as absorbent as I would have liked - never mind the fact that they did not soak in as quickly as disposables did. I had cut out the angle of toxins and the impact of disposable pads on the environment, but had brought in a totally new angle of problems I had to deal with.

Then, I heard about DivaCups.

Okay, I won't lie. I had heard about them a few years ago, and laughed. The idea of having to shove uncomfortable-looking latex cups into my body, then dump and wash them after usage, disgusted me. I looked at them as a huge hassle, and was positive that they could in no way make my life any easier or better. They were unattractive, and I couldn't imagine for the life of me justifying spending $40 - if not more - on a single product, even if it was reusable, and even then it needed to be replaced yearly (or so). I saw it as a massive drain on my budget, without thinking about the obvious - the cost of a box, or two, of tampons, which I could easily go through in one cycle.

Then, it slowly came to me.

A single box of tampons cost me around $10 a month. That was $120 a year, and I often used more than one box in a cycle (or was guilty of buying multi-packs that had different sizes in each, but I'd never use all the sizes). Add in occasional pads, worn at night, and that price was jacked up to $140 a year. A single DivaCup and the wash for it (which I've never used, by the way) was all of $50 - less than half the price. Even being replaced once a year, and occasionally buying more of the wash (which I assume normal people do, haha), it's still less expensive than tampons.

Hey, wait, that makes sense.

Usage was a bit more of an issue for me. I am a bigger woman, so it's a bit harder sometimes to reach around properly. I won't lie, it took a couple of usages for me to get it inserted properly and comfortably, but once I got that part down, it was a breeze to insert and remove. I think it takes a unique position for every woman to get it in just right, and there's nothing wrong with that. It took me a while to figure it out, but I got it, and now it's easy to do. Cleaning is still a bit of a pain, and I won't lie and say it's done without mess, but it's an improvement over how it was when I first started using the DivaCup.

So now I throw away less money during the month and year. I use it easily, can use it day or night, and never have to worry about leaks staining my clothing. There's no smell, no difficult cleanup or laundering involved, and it's COMFORTABLE. In fact, I typically forget I'm even using it unless I specifically think about it - and best of all, if I leave it in a few extra hours on accident, or because I have to, I don't have to worry about potentially poisoning myself. No big deal, just empty it out and wash it when I can, then reinsert and go again. No bunching, no staining, no discomfort. The DivaCup is perfect, everything I ever could have asked for, and it makes me feel good to use it, too.

So, go get one and give it a go. Visit the DivaCup site and get the one that's right for you and give it a try. I promise you won't be disappointed.

A lack of posts

2011-02-15T13:15:00.000-06:00

I have probably three posts, now, sitting in my drafts, waiting desperately for me to come back to them. With any luck, this post won't end up there, too - either way, I owe an apology to those who've begun reading or following and are wondering why I haven't posted recently. So I'd like to take a moment to discuss something serious, something that I feel DOES require medical intervention, treatment, and follow-up care. I promise I'll be brief, as I don't want to stand on my soapbox for too long.

I have clinical depression. I've struggled with my emotions, and with extreme downs, for as long as I can remember. Things that would not seriously upset or bother one person set me off immediately and for quite a while. I didn't have many close friends during high school, and at the time my boyfriend (now Hubby) lived 1600 miles away from me. It was tough on us emotionally and mentally; if you add in the "stresses" of school, the musicals and plays and band rehearsals and trips and everything else that my musically-centered life revolved around, well, you can maybe see how things were kind of tough. Add in that my mom struggled with a lot of similar problems (though with inarguably less-positive outcomes), and I saw and experienced her problems every day, and the fact that we just didn't TALK about these things, well... It was a recipe for disaster, in every way. I didn't talk, I didn't express myself. I learned to bottle up problems and feelings and project my issues inward.

Everything that happened (or didn't happen, but should have) became a path of regret, a mental self-immolation to try to resolve my problems. I was emo in every sense of the word, except for my clothing.

Tack on a total lack of self-confidence that I still struggle with (I have stretch marks on the inside of my elbows, and during theater class one day a much-beloved teacher looked at them and asked me in front of everyone if I was cutting - imagine what THAT did to me), and yeah, I had a plethora of problems, many of which still exist.

I struggled with postpartum depression after G was born, but managed to hold it in and deal with it via sleepless nights, crying a lot, and convincing myself that someday I'd feel better. It honestly didn't occur to me that my untreated but diagnosed problems with depression - issues I didn't really want to confront - had thrown my PPD out of control and made it nearly impossible to deal with. I survived, somehow, maybe through a miracle, but after A arrived I finally "manned up" and acknowledged my emotional state. It wasn't easy, nor was it fun, to admit to my OB during a postpartum checkup that I was a total disaster mentally, had contemplated suicide (but was "too chicken" to follow through), and had thought half-seriously about leaving my little family. I knew, inwardly, that none of those things would help, or make anything easier, but when you're depressed, you don't exactly consider what your brain is trying to tell you. Most of the time, your brain's opinion doesn't matter much, because there is a much larger, much more sinister voice that occupies your thoughts. It's hard not to listen to, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away - in fact, most of the time, ignoring it only makes it louder.

I was prescribed Lexapro to try to help me stabilize some of my thoughts and moods to a point where I could reason through it. I won't argue, taking a medication to feel human again isn't necessarily fun. I call them happy pills only mostly lovingly, because you take them hoping that maybe they'll make you less miserable, or make life "suck less", even though you know that's illogical and isn't how it works - but man, you hope. And yes, when it doesn't work out that way, you get disappointed. Who wouldn't want to take a little pill once a day and have everything get better? If that was the option, and let's be honest here, wouldn't you take it if it seriously worked?

But it doesn't work that way. The caveat here is that while medication might make it easier to deal with my problems and feelings, and easier to talk my way logically through my issues, it only does those things when I take it. I have not been taking my medication at all regularly, and I think that taking it only occasionally is almost worse than never taking it at all, because you have the sudden ups and downs of having it suddenly reintroduced into your system, then working it all back out again, over and over again. You feel bipolar, almost, and that makes you a little more insane in some ways because you have great days where you can tackle your problems and make sense of the world, and the next week you just wish you'd die in a corner where nobody could bother you or remind you that life is awful and you have no real way to fix any of your problems.

Yes, I have problems. A lot of aspects of my life are painful and difficult to deal with, and a good portion of it is out of my hands to the point where all I can do is kick and scream and maybe even pray that things will get better at some point. But there are just as many, if not more, aspects that are completely within my control, I just choose not to acknowledge that because I give myself the false impression that brief improvement is better than feeling good in the long term.

So, there you have it. I am depressed, and I need to manage it properly, and I'm not. I don't want to give the impression that somehow this is a catch-all excuse for me, but I do feel I owe my readers and followers an explanation for my erratic posting, and the promise that I am putting effort into managing my depression appropriately.

Much love to everyone, and if you feel that you or a loved one is struggling with chronic depression, please don't be afraid to step up. Sometimes when you're depressed, all you need to hear is that someone cares to acknowledge that maybe something is wrong.

Hectic weekends

2011-02-12T18:21:00.000-06:00

We've taken to watching my semi-niece (brother-in-law's wife's sister's daughter) who is a month older than G. They get along famously, playing dress up and pretending to be monsters and torturing A. It's great because E (said semi-niece!) bosses G around like nobody's business. This is what he's usually doing to A, so it's amusing to watch him finally get the short end of the stick (and in all honesty, they get along really well otherwise, so I'm willing to let it go).

Oh, yeah.

Anyway, they play all sorts of things together, and they seem to get along pretty well. Add in the fact that we get paid for watching her, and I think things work out pretty well in the end.

This, however, is not the excuse I have for not posting in a few days. The excuse is actually that I've been working on items for my store, Happy Zombie Studios, which is accessible on Facebook. I'll admit that I have a bit of a beef with Facebook right now, because they've been deleting the pictures and profiles of breastfeeding moms and lactivists, and, well, it's getting old. Really old. Just a few minutes ago, in fact, I saw another loss pop up on my newsfeed, via another mom, a woman whose page was deleted because she had reposted a removed picture of breastfeeding twins. Oh, no. Darn you, ladies, don't you dare think about feeding your children the most natural, best food out there. Stop that. But please do wiggle your boobies at the admins on the way out, they'd like that.

Sorry.

Anyway, HZS is something I've been working on for a while now. The name first popped up some four years ago while we were living in another apartment just after G was born, during a game night, and I don't remember the story anymore but at the time it was hilarious. HSZ was born as a joke that evening, but the idea was constantly in the back of my head. Hubby and I joked here and there about what we'd use it as - a front for a mob organization, a way to spread our evil ways throughout the world ("grow your own damn veggies!"), and a menagerie of other things, but I never really thought anything would come of it.

Then one day I was walking through our local mall before Christmas and saw that someone had set up a lovely little horseshoe of tables littered with metric tons of baby items, most of which were pre-packaged baby hats and headbands that they were selling for several dollars more than the purchase price. I balked at them, because I had seen the individual products they were actually using in the store, and I knew where they had come from - and how much they had cost. I shook my head, frowned, and wondered if I could do that, too.

After all, I'm not known for matching colors.

But lo and behold, it turns out I'm at least halfway capable, because I'm not only assembling cute headbands and hats, but I'm also loom knitting hats for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Heck, I can make them for adults. I can make them for anybody. And oddly enough, I'm even selling them.

So please consider this to be my shout out to my fans and followers: I have a store! Go buy things!

Back to our regularly scheduled crunch next week.

Feeling the ache

2011-02-07T23:06:00.000-06:00

Today has been an interesting day.

Earlier G's finger got shut in our office door because Hubby couldn't see him. A call to his pediatrician's office got predictable advice: because his thumb was swelling, and the skin was very taut and red, it would be better to err on the side of caution. So in we went, and after a surprisingly short wait, a couple of x-rays (for which he was SO still and attentive), and a lot of watching of Bubble Guppies on the Nintendo DS thanks to Hubby, it was concluded that nothing is broken, but using a splint for the next day or two couldn't hurt anything, and he'll probably have some problems with pain and swelling for the next week or two.

Better than the alternatives. That kid has had too many serious injuries as it is.

Thankfully, G was pretty impressed with the whole ordeal, and informed everyone he came into contact with (and some people who were more than five feet away) what his entire name is, how old he is, and what, exactly, happened to cause him to be at the hospital. That last part consisted of, "Daddy shut my finger in a door! Then he put an ice pack on my thumb! Then I got a shower, and that helped too!" I'm fairly sure he'd give a play-by-play of his entire day to people in the store if I let him.

That boy is such a trooper.

Today improved in that I've eaten all of the equivalent of a chicken thigh, a serving of mashed potatoes and gravy, half a cup of macaroni and cheese, five chocolate truffles (shhh), a handful of potato chips, a biscuit, a couple glasses of water and a glass of orange juice. All of that does not make a day's worth of meals, obviously, and I ought to note that I didn't eat ANY of that until past 2PM, as G and I weren't back home to Hubby and A until more like 3. And I didn't want to eat in the first place.

I have a horrible headache, I feel lightheaded and dizzy, and I'm nauseated by the thought of food. The orange juice was recent, too, so I know the rest of this isn't a problem with blood sugar. Sigh.

So tonight I offer a post from Peaceful Parenting on an awesome Boston-area mom who birthed her first child, a 13 pound baby boy. Four hours of labor and ten minutes of pushing. Way to rock it, and show all those naysayers who claim that size is a problem!

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to say tomorrow. Whew.

Butter!

2011-02-06T20:01:00.000-06:00

Hubby headed down to my mother's house (all of a block away) to help her with her computer, and returned with a half-pint of cream. It was originally purchased for my mother for her to use, to make scones I think, but was sent back with Hubby for us to use to make butter.

Hell, yes.

Making butter out of your own cream is incredibly easy, but insanely taxing. Pour into a container and shake the crap out of it, past the stage where you think you're making whipped cream, past the stage where it's starting to look like still-white butter, past the stage where you're losing feeling in your arms and are pretty sure that if you shake the container anymore, you're going to accidentally let go and it'll fly across the room. Getting to that point required me shaking for probably a good six or seven minutes, then passing off the container to G for him to shake it for all of half a minute and then hand it back, then giving it to Hubby to have him take over and actually achieve the goal of making some butter.

The downside is that making butter requires rinsing it afterwards and making sure it's entirely free of the buttermilk that's left over from the forming process. The other downside is that if you add some sea salt to make salted butter, it doesn't take much salt to make it over-salted butter. Plus side? All you have to do is add more butter to balance it out.

Of course, I'm now out of cream.

So after the Superbowl is over (yes, I'm watching; no, I don't care about football; yes, I only watch for the halftime show and the commercials), I'm going to head out to the store to procure our first gallon of organic milk, and way too much cream, and when I come home I'm going to make way more butter.

With the blender.

Sing like nobody's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching.

Tuckered out

2011-02-04T22:20:00.000-06:00

Well, it's late - almost 10PM here in Central Time Zone land. G is snoozing away happily in our bed tonight, where Hubby took him; A was asleep there too, but he hates being left in bed alone, even when he has his brother around to use him as a plushie, so he toddled his way back out of our room not long after I got home from helping my mother out at her house. Now he's peacefully sleeping in my lap, Hubby is in the kitchen experimenting once again with something edible, and I'm hanging out on the couch, working on ribbons and bows for my store, contemplating finishing A's hat that I'm loom knitting, and generally feeling completely worn out and achy from all the shoveling that had to be done the last couple of days. I have muscles that ache that I didn't know existed, or at least I wasn't aware of their exact location, but trust me, now I know where they are. Oh, I know.

So in lieu of a super-long post like I've been doing, I want to toss up a couple of things.

First order of business, I've asked someone I've been following on Facebook for a while now, Kristine McCormick, to write a guest post sometime soon for me. She's the amazingly strong visionary of a mom to the beautiful and terribly missed Miss Cora, and thanks to Kristine, the Indiana legislature is working on passing through a bill that would help ensure that babies born there are all given a pulse ox screening before being released from care. I know, it seems counterintuitive that a mom who is a vocal proponent of natural birthing and parenting would actually WANT another intervention, but to me, this is "one of those things" - a screening that's quick and easy, painless and unobtrusive, and is something that can be done by an OB in a hospital setting or a midwife after a homebirth. I don't want to get into it too much now, because I believe firmly that sharing her vision is for Kristine to do and not for me, but I want to warn you, dear readers, that this is coming and I DO expect you to read, consider, and think this through.

Second of all, another blog I follow (it's on the sidebar!), This Side of Crunchy, has a great post up today about supporting and helping to better shape legislation on moms breastfeeding and/or pumping at work. This is SERIOUS stuff here and she has linked to a great opportunity for moms who have had to return to work while still breastfeeding or providing breastmilk to speak out as to how the laws pertaining to this issue could be better serving them. PLEASE go check it out, leave your commentary in the appropriate places, and then thank Crunchy Mama for posting this. Go! Do it!

With that being said, for now I bid you all goodnight, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Never forget that life is precious and short. Make every moment count.

Surviving Snowpocalypse 2011

2011-02-02T22:35:00.000-06:00

Well, the Snowpocalypse is officially over, and by some miracle we've survived it. Our internet is actually down at the moment, but luckily, our phones are able to be used as portable modems, and since our area was recently graced with 3G access by AT&T, we actually can function at a reasonable speed. I'm impressed, and glad that Hubby remembered we can do that!

So besides the massive amount of snow, I've been delving into the realm of organic/raw food recently. A while back, we tried some organic milk - we balked at the price but figured it would be worth the change. Unfortunately, it spoiled pretty quickly, for no good reason from what I could tell (fridge settings were fine, etc), and that was our first (and last) dive into the world of organic milk. I never really looked into it, though, or made any real attempt to actually learn about organic milk and how it differs from regular milk past the obvious few things (the cows are likely grass-fed, no chemicals are used on their feed or on the cows).

So a quick Google search led me here, and let me tell you, for being the first site that pops up when you search, and I quote, "differences between regular milk and organic milk", this pretty much sucks. Yes, I said it. The general consensus of this site is that there are probably fewer chemicals and hormones used on the cows that produce milk that ends up labeled "organic" but in the long run, since both types of milk have to conform to government standards anyway, they're basically the same thing. Well, hell, if I wanted someone to tell me they were the same and neither was better than the other, for upwards of an extra two dollars a gallon, you can bet I'm going to be buying regular milk. Obviously my question has not been answered, so time to go a little farther.

My next hit: the National Dairy Council's PDF "Organic Milk FAQ". Sounds promising enough, except that the first phrase is, "In terms of quality, safety and nutrition, there’s no difference between organic and
regular milk. Both contain the same combination of nutrients that make dairy foods
an important part of a healthy diet." ... You have to be kidding me. So, even according to the National Dairy Council, there's no difference between the two types of milk, except that organic milk happens to be much more expensive? It does note later on that, "The definition of organic milk refers to farm management practices, not to the milk itself." Which makes sense, I guess, except the differences in question are as follows: "Organic dairy foods must additionally meet the requirements of USDA's National Organic Program. This includes using only organic fertilizers and pesticides, and not using rbST." Meaning that farmers whose milk is certified as organic aren't using dangerous chemicals on the cows or their feed, and aren't supplementing cows with artificial hormones to keep up their milk supply.

I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Now, let me put a little disclaimer here: I'm no medical professional or scientist. My mother works in a hospital in their pharmacy and is a registered LPN in our state, and while I've been an appendage to the medical community my entire life and probably know a tad more than the average person, I'm certainly no expert. I don't know much about artificial hormones or the exact problems and side effects traced to certain chemicals. All I have going for me is my common sense and my Ghd (Google doctorate, haha), but the latter provides me and a host of other people with the ability to find out the exact repercussions of using too many chemicals, or prolonged exposure to, say, rbST. So let's learn a bit more about rbST in particular.

A search for "rbST hormone" takes me first and foremost to Wikipedia. I realize that a researcher has to be careful referencing Wikipedia; I remember all too well that because it can be publicly edited by anyone that educational institutions don't allow it to be referenced in official papers. At the same time, though, I believe that this public editing option makes Wikipedia USUALLY very reliable and up-to-date, something a good portion of other sites can't claim to be, since Wikipedia can be updated immediately with the most recent information, oftentimes within seconds or minutes of a new release of information or event.

That being said, the Wikipedia page on rbST is pretty straightforward. Monsanto first synthesized it using recombinant DNA technology, named it "Posilac", and that got sold off to yet another pharmaceutical company (namely, Eli Lilly and Company). Oh, and, "The United States is the only developed nation to permit humans to drink milk from cows given artificial growth hormone. Posilac was banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all European Union countries (currently numbering 27), by 2000 or earlier."

Wait, WHAT?

Yeah, I guess I read that correctly. Posilac was banned by 27 other countries, but for whatever reason, the United States still thinks it's okay for usage in our dairy supply. Remember, it isn't just milk - because all that milk, organic or otherwise, is used to make like-labeled dairy products. So all of the non-organic cheese, pudding, butter, cream, yogurt, instant/evaporated/condensed milk products, plus the hundreds of other dairy products I DIDN'T list, all use milk that has Posilac - rbST - in it, unless the retailer or creator has specifically chosen NOT to use milk from cows treated with rbST (and unless the product happens to mention it on the label, you have no way of knowing if rbST has been used or not). I wonder what on earth made 27 other first-world countries - you know, the entire EU and then some - decide that Posilac is dangerous?

Back to the Wikipedia page, and as a warning, I'm about to be pasting a LOT of stuff all at once (any added emphasis is mine).

"On September 30, 2010, a U.S. court of appeal found based on studies presented that there is a "compositional difference" between milk from rBSG-treated cows and untreated milk. The court found that studies have shown that rBST milk has: increased levels of the hormone IGF-1; lower nutritional quality when produced at certain points in the cow's lactation cycle; and more pus in the milk (increased somatic cell counts), which "make the milk turn sour more quickly and is another indicator of poor milk quality."

Use of BST is controversial primarily due to concerns over potential effects on animal and human health.

Animal health
Two meta-analyses have been published on rBST's effects on bovine health. Findings indicated an average increase in milk output ranging from 11%-16%, a nearly 25% increase in the risk of clinical mastitis, a 40% reduction in fertility and 55% increased risk of developing clinical signs of lameness. The same study reported a decrease in body condition score for cows treated with rBST even though there was an increase in their dry matter intake.
A European Union scientific commission was asked to report on the incidence of mastitis and other disorders in dairy cows and on other aspects of the welfare of dairy cows. The commission's statement, subsequently adopted by the European Union, stated that the use of rBST substantially increased health problems with cows, including foot problems, mastitis and injection site reactions, impinged on the welfare of the animals and caused reproductive disorders. The report concluded that, on the basis of the health and welfare of the animals, rBST should not be used. Health Canada prohibited the sale of rBST in 1999; the external committees found that, although there was no significant health risk to humans, the drug presents a threat to animal health, and, for this reason, cannot be sold in Canada.

Human health
Human health concerns centre around three areas:

rBST and its byproducts
increased levels of IGF
secondary effects, e.g. the increased use of antibiotics to treat mastitis

IGF is produced by the cow in response to BGH injections, and it is this hormone which increases growth and milk production. Bovine and porcine IGF-I are identical to human IGF-I, while IGF-II differs among animal species.
IGF plays a role in the formation of new tumours and increased levels of IGF-1 may be linked to increased risk of breast, colon, and prostate cancer. However IGF is involved in many biological processes so it is not possible to assign a clear-cut cause and effect relationship. IGF-1 is not denatured by pasteurisation, so consumption of milk from rBST treated dairy cows will increase the daily intake of IGF-I.
Further association of IGF with breast cancer was provided by a 20-year epidemiological study begun in 1976, which was published in 1997."

So let's see if I'm understanding this properly. The National Dairy Council specifically states that there is absolutely no difference between the nutritional properties of regular milk and organic milk, and that neither is any more or less safe or healthy than the other, yet the use of rbST in regular milk (not all, but without labeling, you have no idea whether or not rbST has been used on the cows that the milk came from) is CLEARLY detrimental to not only the health of the animals it's used on, but on the humans that consume the milk and milk byproducts. And let me speak from experience on the mastitis side of things: I've had mastitis. I nursed through it, hallucinated through a very high fever, and ended up on some serious antibiotics to try to get rid of it (and soy lecithin to rid the subsequent blockages associated with it). It sucked beyond anything I could describe to someone who has never experienced it before, and when someone says that they stopped or almost stopped nursing because of a bout of mastitis, while I'm saddened, I understand. Mastitis is a bitch, a very painful and unyielding bitch. And I would not wish that upon a person, much less a poor cow.

I feel like somebody's lying somewhere (and I don't think it's Wikipedia).

So, basically, cattle treated with rbST make rather nasty pus-milk that has rbST secreted into it that we end up consuming ourselves.

There's no way in hell I can be okay with continuing to feed this to my family.

On to organic milk we go.