We survived the wedding!

The couple was beautiful, gracious and overjoyed to be marrying each other. It was an impeccable October afternoon, really flawless. My darling husband was a groomsman, so I sat alone in the outdoor ceremony with my 3 boys.

One nursed, spilling milk all over me, one ran away in the direction of the Potomac, the other one followed. It was an advertisement for not bringing kidz to weddings. As soon as I got inside and had my whiskey & ginger ale, things were looking up. It turned out to be a great party, for everybody. They even had goody bags for the children. The dancing was great, all the folks there were friendly.
Here`s a glimpse of the perfect day from where we were sitting in the ceremony






how else would I spend most of my time that evening?





father & son



Little dumpling had a new mommy most of the night. The groom`s sister was loving him.

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What I`ve been up to this week; showing a good friend how to wear her baby (I never wanted to put her down!) and walking in the woods as much as possible before October gets away.

Mini muffin

Grateful for even the down & up days

My nightgown was covered in baby poop down the front, upchucked milk soaked the back & I wasn`t even out of bed yet this morning. Then I see myself in the mirror, I have blood red eyes from a raging sinus infection. When I finally get it together to go to the doctor, the van`s battery was dead. After a jump start I get there and wait forever, I lay fully down and shut my eyes on the exam table with the baby strapped on and my 3 year old sitting sweetly beside me ( for once!!)I get my prescription, lunch, deal with a massive tantrum and then at 3 pm I am again graced with baby poop on one side, vomit on the other.
But ...I got my first authentic smiles from my littlest boy!

More Pumpkin Patchness

October

A beautiful Sunday afternoon with the Creature`s godfather in a low-key, cheaper pumpkin patch. It was very basic but absolutely perfect for the kids. Not crowded and very friendly, with animals, treehouse, swings and slides. The only thing I`d add would be wine!

See this look? This is the Creature in top form. Refusing to stay clothed, wrapping himself in cloth & telling everyone he`s a ghost. Then he gets his eyebrows to stay like this and he doesn`t listen to anyone until his eyebrows straighten out again. He is a challenge! I started this blog to remind myself of all the fun I could have as a stay at home mama and I try to keep it positive, but its Wild America right now with messy floors and constantly nursing little Teeny. Add to that my dear husband working nights & sleeping all day, its just me alone in boyland. My favorite month of October is not going to be quite as rockin' this year.

If you don`t love the gruesome details of surgery as much as I do, then don`t read this...

This is the best picture I could take of my haircut and I felt like a loser as I tried to get a good one. I really should be doing laundry right now!

Anyway, I loved the article in the New Yorker about "How Childbirth Went Industrial". Dr. Gawande is a great writer and the kind of surgeon who really thinks about all aspects of medicine. Its a fascinating and scary history of modern birth. As a former homebirther turned surgical birther I can truly see all sides of the issue. Here`s a link that you have to paste yourself since I can`t get blogger to get it to work:
www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061009fa_fact

I`m pasting the description of the C/s birth because as much as it is not the best situation to have a surgical birth, it is still a birth & still very amazing.

"The Cesarean section is among the strangest operations I have seen. It is also one of the most straightforward. You press a No. 10 blade down through the flesh, along a side-to-side line low on the bulging abdomen. You divide the skin and golden fat with clean, broad strokes. Using a white gauze pad, you stanch the bleeding points, which appear like red blossoms. You slice through the fascia covering the abdominal muscle, a husk-like fibrous sheath, and lift it to reveal the beefy red muscle underneath. The rectus abdominis muscle lies in two vertical belts that you part in the middle like a curtain, metal retractors pulling left and right. You cut through the peritoneum, a thin, almost translucent membrane. Now the uterus—plum-colored, thick, and muscular—gapes into view. You make a small initial opening in the uterus with the scalpel, and then you switch to bandage scissors to open it more swiftly and easily. It’s as if you were cutting open a tough, leathery fruit.

Then comes what still seems surreal to me. You reach in, and, instead of finding a tumor or some other abnormality, as surgeons usually do when we go into someone’s belly, you find five tiny wiggling toes, a knee, a whole leg. And suddenly you realize that you have a new human being struggling in your hands. You almost forget the mother on the table. The infant can sometimes be hard to get out. If the head is deep in the birth canal, you have to grasp the baby’s waist, stand up straight, and pull. Sometimes you have to have someone push on the baby’s head from below. Then the umbilical cord is cut. The baby is swaddled. The nurse records the Apgar score.

After the next uterine contraction, you deliver the placenta through the wound. With a fresh gauze pad, you wipe the inside of the mother’s uterus clean of clots and debris. You sew it closed with two baseball-stitched layers of stout absorbable suture. You sew the muscle fascia back together with another suture, then sew the skin. And you are done."

Ahhh, a few minutes to myself as the 3 boyz sleep. I cut the heck out of my hair yesterday and I`m not sure about it. Here I am with my same old long stringy style I`ve had since high school. Tomorrow I`ll post a photo of my fierce new shorter do, except it looks nerdy to me. I don`t feel good unless my hair is long, and then it always looks too long & messy.

So,I`m using my time wisely, first I cleaned the kitchen & got the schoolboy`s gear in order. Then I sat down at the computer with a glass of wine and ordered cloth diaper stuff. Then I read almost the entire blog of a woman who lost a baby to a cord accident. The baby was a beautiful girl and I feel so much for her mother right now.
I can read that utterly painful blog and see where I`ve been, in the darkest part of grief, and then I see where I am now, in a wholly different place. Its very weird to think I could ever feel almost normal again. The loss is still permanent and I still sometimes think Alistair is here and then I remember he`s not. Although I`m changed, I can have fun and stay in the moment. Alistair really taught me a lot about staying in the present moment. What`s really weird is that Joaquin looks exactly like Alistair when he`s asleep. They have almost the same face, but I`m glad about it.

I`d love to have something to say right now, but its all a blur. Little teeny is 5 weeks, almost 6, and time is flying by.

The littlest boy

Rant-o-rama

asinine article about cows milk

The Washington Post had an article about another genius move by the American Academy of Pediatrics. These are the same wizards that decided last October that all pediatricians should dissuade their patients from cosleeping with infants to prevent SIDS. They had a study that was funded by the Juvenile Furniture Manufacturers Association that showed that a very small number of kids had suffocated in adult beds or sleeping on sofas. The vast majority of SIDS deaths still occur in cribs, not to mention, suffocation is not SIDS. So, they put out a sweeping statement against cosleeping, which is stupid, because it is a very safe way to sleep,when done properly & the majority of the world cosleeps. The statement came across as treating all parents like idiots who can`t make decisions for themselves about how to get the best sleep. For many people, having a baby next to them helps everyone to get the most sleep. Japan has always been a cosleeping culture and they have the lowest rate of SIDS in the developed world.

So today, I see that they are recommending that even lactose intolerant kids get some cows milk. They did admit this, "None of the authors of the AAP guidelines received dairy industry funding. But over the past three years, the AAP has received $100,000 from the National Dairy Council to support the industry group's "3-A-Day of Dairy for Stronger Bones" campaign and a new calcium information brochure." So as usual we can see that real information gets blurred by $$, especially when it comes to the AAP.

I have a lactose intolerant 6 year old, who will lay on the floor doubled up in pain if he has more than one slice of pizza. It was a challenge to make sure he didn`t have to drink milk in the cafeteria. I think cows milk is WEIRD, I think drinking it is just GNARLY. I do love cheese though, ha ha . But... cows milk is designed to take a 90 lb animal to 900 lbs in one year, it is species specific milk, and that is not our species. Because its so heavy and strong, we have to add chemicals, process it and make it thinner just to drink it. Why bother? There is calcium in many other healthier sources that is easier to absorb. I could go on all day but I hate this myth that cows milk is important. With babies, there`s a rush to get them off the breast and into drinking cows milk. From species specific milk to thick weird milk from a huge animal. Does that make any sense? Also, kidney stones are proof to me that we excrete milk before we get any of the calcium. Cows milk goes right through us b/c its so wrong for us and then calcium builds up in places where it shouldn`t, like kidneys. The AAP is proving to me to be a bunch of lunchboxes, just do some real unallied-with-industry research and be real with us. Another reason why I take my kids to a family practice doctor, better care & less agendas.

Here`s the most adorable 1st grader finally:



And the King of the living room!

I have been thinking so much about the most precious baby girl in the world, baby Abigail. She is the 2 month old daughter of my oldest friend.

Baby Abby

She was born with a blockage in her intestine and after 2 surgeries that was fixed. She is a very strong little girl. Now she may be facing a blockage in her liver. In researching this condition, which in its most severe form is called biliary atresia, I found this blog, also about an absolutely beautiful girl baby,

Team Serena

I hope the author (Mira)doesn`t mind, but I have to quote her here as I pray for both of these girls to get better.

"In the famous questionnaire by Bernard Pivot, famously used by James Lipton, Pivot’s final question is:

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

To that, my answer is:

“Now Mira, now I’ll tell you what I meant for humankind to learn by allowing children to suffer with illness…”"
That is exactly what I`d like to hear God say to me too.

It`s the 1st day of school and Creature is bitter about it. He misses his brother and its my first day alone with the kids. Scary! Its also been a year since I`ve been blogging in my slacker way , yay! Here`s a pic of a mad boy & then he`s happy when he thought about all the fun we can have now, ha ha.
Pictures of the 1st grader to appear later...

The Creature/Muffin is very taken with his new brother. I worried he might have a problem with the baby, but he is very loving, so far anyway.

The boys trip to the aquarium

The man of the house took the older boys to the Baltimore Aquarium for a special outing. They loved it and as soon as Muffin saw the first fish he said, " Thank you Papi!"

More pics of Teeny Joaquin

Ok, Plans did change & Joaquin Xavier arrived on August 22!

He is here! It was a smooth C section and an excellent hospital stay where I actually roomed in for the first time. The nurses were awesome, my doctors were excellent, and Teeny slept in my bed with me the whole time, nursing like crazy. And the most amazing part... we left the hospital together!! It was the greatest surprise, my antibody left my little boy alone, and he looks very strong & healthy. His brothers are adjusting, but mostly they are very excited and affectionate. Here are some photos: Joaquin and I leaving the OR together, Joaquin and his godmother,Joaquin in the sunshine on my bed. The courtyard was right below us and a huge tree was next to the window, it was all so nice.

Thank you to blogger for fixing the picture problem!

His days as the baby in the house are numbered

I cannot figure out how to post pictures anymore, I`m so unhappy about it. I love putting pictures here so much & it just won`t work, blogger will tell me the picture is here & then its not!

So, its 3:03 am and I can`t sleep. I had contractions about 5 minutes apart most of the day yesterday and then they left last night at 10. Now, its just too hard to sleep at night so I`ll just hang here for a minute & try again to sleep in a few.I may have to watch an episode of Miami Vice`s first season. ( the greatest birthday present!)

Yesterday I was folding laundry and watching beach volleyball b/c nothing else was on. I`m sorry if you`re a big fan or a player, but that has to be the most inane sport on earth. Except for maybe rhythmic gymnastics. The male players wear shorts that come to their knees, but the females have to wear a bikini that doesn`t have any support (luckily the players all have identical small chested physiques) and the bikini bottoms literally leave half of each butt cheek exposed. Its funny to me again how people are so freaky about nursing in public, but these ladies are playing a sport and jumping around on TV almost naked. Of course my dear huzband loved it. I thought the game itself was boring too though & then each coach sits down with each team all serious like its boxing & goes over strategy. Like anyone cares, its just an excuse to get hot mamas in bikinis on TV on Sunday afternoon. After a few seconds, I was bored, but it was entertaining to see all the ways the players tried to casually adjust their bikini bottoms. Also, since they had no other place to advertise, each girl had temporary tattoos that said stuff like Crocs & Gatorade. I don`t know what would bother me more, if I had to be on TV fighting a constant wedgie or have my super toned volleyball body covered in goofy brands like a human race car. It was weird.

Working on Gratefulness

Trying to get our minds off the obvious thing we could be doing yesterday, we went to a beautiful park that is close by & free. I didn`t even discover it until this May and I`ve been here since 1984, off and on.

What a gorgeous day & the boyz were so taken with everything. They didn`t want to go, then they didn`t want to leave, there was so much to explore. There`s a lot to be grateful for. And... check out the super healthy elephant ear (my favorite) and the lotus flower in the pond.

Plans have changed...

Look at this drawing, amnios are creepy! This baby is much smaller, this drawing is like a 15 weeker, just your basic genetic testing amnio. I had to have one to see if Teeny`s lungs are mature enough to be born tomorrow, the scheduled day.

Because I have an antibody (a low level of anti-d) the baby could get anemic and usually in this case would come out as soon as possible, which would be 37 weeks, or at the early edge of full term. So... I wasn`t sure about doing this, I felt like maybe little boy #4 didn`t want to be forced out early, yet I could see the logic of getting him out before the antibody "sees" him. To come out early, it is required by American College of OB/GYN to do a lung maturity amnio. I had one with Chunky # 3 for this reason & it wasn't a huge deal.

We agreed to go on with the fun amnio. As soon as the doctor put the needle in, just to the edge of the uterus, not even in the amniotic fluid sac at all, I had a huge contraction that was ridiculously painful. Then, little Joaquin went bananas and smacked his hand right where she was hoping to get the needle in. After trying again to advance the needle, and Teeny again going crazy, she had to end the amnio. I think it happened like twice but it felt like she was in there for half an hour. Ditching this hellish amnio was great for 2 reasons, a. she never burst the private bubble, so I didn`t have all the worries that go with that,like it can raise my antibody level, it can cause infection etc. and b. I felt like my baby took control in a way and wanted to be left alone. He proved his vigor by being so wild & they were pretty amazed with his strength.

The bummer of it all is that OUCH I was in so much pain yesterday & I have a new scheduled section date of August 25th. Damn it!

A lovely birthday

Here`s a perfect hibiscus last night in front of the Belgian restaurant we went to for my birthday dinner out.

On second thought, now that I see this picture in the daylight, its not completely perfect-but neither is anything else in nature. Look around, nature is comfortingly filled with imperfection.

Finally, 36 weeks.
Here`s the view from my doctor`s office and a nice view of one big mama. I think I`ve decided brown must be minimizing, how`s that working for me? ha ha

Sorry, I tried to leave this alone, but...

First, my comment on the absolutely ridiculous reaction some people are having to the sight of a boobie on a magazine cover. Grow Up! If you can`t stand the sight of something that you have on your own body, then look away. If you`re just freaking out because a boobie was so upsetting as it was used for its ORIGINAL purpose, then go to therapy. I have no patience with this at all. Most people, including me, nurse in a way where you see nothing, yet the thought of a baby nursing breaks some folks out in a cold sweat. Its the original plan for babies, breastmilk has gotten humanity this far, and if a woman is not comfortable nursing in public her whole breastfeeding relationship will suffer. She will put off nursing or pump & bring bottles with her, or bring formula, all of which are either a pain in the butt or can hurt supply. One lady in the article was worried that her husband would get upset if he saw the magazine. What the hell? I have no words for such discomfort about the human body. We are mammals because we have mammaries & like Angelina Jolie says, " If God meant for women to be modest he wouldn`t have saddled us with childbirth."

Breast isn't best: readers tell US parenting magazine by Jocelyne Zablit
Fri Aug 4, 4:38 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Readers of a US parenting magazine are crying foul over the publication's latest cover depicting a woman breastfeeding, with some calling the photo offensive and disgusting.

"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one woman from Kansas wrote in reaction to the picture in Babytalk, a free magazine that caters to young mothers. "I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table."

Her reaction was part of some 5,000 letters the magazine has received in response to a poll to gage reader sentiment about Babytalk's August cover photo, which shows a baby nursing.

Several readers said they were "embarrassed" or "offended" by the Babytalk photo and one woman from Nevada said she "immediately turned the magazine face down" when she saw the photo.

"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," the mother of a four-month-old said.

Another reader said she was "horrified" when she received the magazine and hoped that her husband hadn't laid eyes on it.

"I had to rip off the cover since I didn't want it laying around the house," she said.

A national television program also ran a segment on the controversy, interviewing several people in New York who expressed disgust over the cover photo.

The picture in Babytalk was aimed at illustrating the controversy surrounding breastfeeding in the United States, where a national survey by the American Dietetic Association found that 57 percent of those polled are opposed to women breastfeeding in public and 72 percent think it is inappropriate to show a woman breastfeeding on television programs.

Babytalk executive editor Lisa Moran said though most of those who responded to the poll about the cover photo gave the magazine a thumbs up, she was surprised that some 25 percent expressed outrage.

"There is a real puritanical streak in America," Moran told AFP. "You see celebrities practically baring their breasts all the time and no one seems to mind in this sort of sexual context.

"But in this very natural context of feeding your child, a lot of Americans are very uncomfortable with it."

She said the controversy is all the more surprising in light of concerted efforts by the US government and health professionals to encourage women to breastfeed.

"Everyone is saying that breastfeeding is best for baby but there is so little support for it in public," Moran said.

She said the Babytalk cover photo marks the first time a major parenting magazine in the United States dares to break the taboo about showing a woman's breast and the outrage it has prompted is not about to discourage editors from doing it again.

"This hasn't scared us off at all," Moran said. "We're thrilled and hopefully this will help women get more support for nursing."

More for World Breastfeeding Week

This was on the yahoo news today:

Breast-feeding reduces anxiety into childhood By Patricia Reaney
Thu Aug 3, 8:11 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Breast-feeding's calming effects seem to be long-lasting.

Years after being weaned, breast-fed children cope better with stressful situations like their parents' divorce than their bottle-fed peers, researchers said on Thursday.

"In children who are breast-fed, there is less of an association between parental divorce and separation and childhood anxiety," Dr Scott Montgomery, an epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in an interview.

Breast milk is full of nutrients, hormones, enzymes, growth factors and antibodies that are passed from mother to child.

Research has shown breast-feeding reduces infections, respiratory illness and diarrhoea in the child and cuts the risk of after-birth bleeding in the mother.

In an observation study published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Montgomery and his team studied how breast- and bottle-fed 10-year-olds coped with the stress of their parents' marital problems.

The children were among 9,000 youngsters who had been monitored from birth for a major British study. Their teachers were asked to rate their anxiety level on a scale of 0-50.

There was a higher level of stress in all the children but the breast-fed youngsters coped better.

"The anxiety was much less obvious in children who were breast-fed," Montgomery said.

The researchers do not know why breast-fed babies were less anxious. They suggested breast-feeding could be an indicator of other parental factors or the physical contact between the mother and the child may have helped to reduce anxiety.

Breast-feeding could also influence the development of pathways in the body linked with its response to stress.

"The more we look at breast-feeding, the more benefits we see. As this is something that is, in evolutionary terms, normal it is likely to be important in normal human development," Montgomery said.


The researchers don`t know why breastfed babies were less anxious? I think if you can never be fully dependent when you need to be, as an infant and toddler, then how can you be fully independent? Or secure? I think a bottle fed baby who is held closely while eating, and responded to quickly when crying, has probably the same possibility of being less anxious. Its all about helping an infant feel safe and secure, and breastfeeding makes that happen easily because a nursing mom really learns to read the cues well, since its such an intimate relationship. Forcing a baby to sleep by leaving them crying in their crib can make them more anxious in my opinion, imagine being so small, with absolutely no clue how to do anything or get anything & then realizing nobody is coming to help you. Unfortunately, our culture still is focused on making a baby "independent" as aoon as possible, but that`s slowly changing.

Its World Breastfeeding Week...

so I`ll put one picture from this month`s Vogue showing how normal it can be to sit and nurse a big baby in couture. Then, here`s a re-post of my wild toddler before he weaned. I`m hoping to get excited about nursing a little guy again, I have been nursing for 6 years straight with only 6 months off, so I was enjoying having my personal space back. Too bad that`s over soon!

It`s finally August...

which means my birthday & my littlest boy`s birthday are coming soon!