We`re not spending any $ this week, so I`ve been cleaning, sometimes with Teeny strapped on. Here`s baby & mama, here`s a happy Creature in the living room & a cleaned up basement. I`m scared to have a cocktail hour because my basement is always the first casualty & then the boys rooms get trashed.

I`m also struggling this week with the decision of how to educate my oldest. Should he be homeschooled or do I continue to keep him in his public school up the street? Do I try private school or maybe the school my mom teaches at? It is such a tough one, he is starting to hate school , the one size fits all teaching style is not interesting him at all & yet he loves to learn.

We went to cool Uncle Mike`s town in Pa and spent the day with him last Sunday. 2 meals, a visit to his apt, an awesome ride on a steam engine thru the countryside, a state park and a tour of his TV studio...it was a packed day! And the boys loved it, only one mood swing. Here`s a 6 year old pretending to be a sports anchor like his uncle & a Creature at the state park.

Erika, the baby pic is for you. :)thanks for the shirt.

Finally

An ad in American Baby magazine.
Finally a mainstream magazine with an anti-circumcision ad.
If only every expecting couple would educate themselves fully on this subject, the risks are so much higher than any "risk" of being left the way God created. Seeing one done, learning about the history of circ in this country, would lead to routine non-religious circumcision going away forever, like it has in every other "civilized" country.
-The rates are dropping every day so there is no more locker room issue.
-The new circs are done differently to save more nerve endings, they don`t even "look like daddy" anymore.
-in the beginning of this century, both female and male circumcision were done rountinely in this country, only one caught on. If they had both caught on, we`d be carving up girls too. Lucky for us, we`re safe here.
-Every 10 years a new reason to do it is given and it is shot down every time. I wonder what excuse will be next?


p.s. because I can`t resist--circumcision totally violates the Hippocratic oath of First do No Harm. And altering a person permanently without asking them first, pretty harsh.

Saint

My little baptized cutie and his big baptism with 4 other babies.

Scary

Early this morning I dreamed I had a job in New York that I had to fly to once a month. Each time I got on the plane I worried that it would crash so I had the same ritual, saying a prayer right when I got on and staying pretty calm once we were flying.

It was time for me to go back and I had to get on the plane, but this time I was reading a book instead of saying my prayer. My book was actually religious and I remember in my dream feeling awkward about openly reading such a religious book, but it was really good, so I was reading as the plane took off. The pilot was talking, the plane was a small commuter plane & we were flying low. I looked up from my book and saw that we were really really low right over the Potomac. Then the plane just slipped into the river. I saw the water rising over the windows and I couldn`t believe it actually happened, my greatest fear. For a second I looked down at my book. Then it hit me that I had a very limited number of breaths and I was alone. Because dreams are so random, now my section of the plane was like a fighter jet. It was just me, in a bubble of glass, praying that somebody would notice as I slid further underwater. It was sunny and there were leaves all over the water.

I woke up right then and I couldn't catch my breath for the longest time.

sweet

A happy guy and a beautiful fall day in my neighborhood. That was last week. This week has been a real challenge. more later...

2 ghosts & an adorable baby bat

Ghost costumes made by their dad, who obviously belongs on Project Runway with his mad skillz. Halloween was awesome, especially for the Creature---old enough now to really enjoy it.

It took me 2 babies to do it, but I finally figured out my didymos sling!!

I`m so proud of myself!

Finally, back to wineries!

We had a great day yesterday where everybody was well rested, husband wasn`t working nights, I felt good, baby wasn`t too little and we went back out to the country and explored 2 new wineries. The second one had a 200 year old manor house and it just opened last month. They celebrated Halloween by dressing up all the employees. One was the Grim Reaper, to the delight of my 2 morbid sons. As you can see somebody was thrilled to get his Grim Reaper photo op. Some kids like to have a pic taken with Mickey Mouse, my 6 year old likes darker characters, ha ha.

OK. Blogger is being a butt right now & won`t let me post pictures. I`ll try again tomorrow...

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!"