off to Grandma's

My lifestyle’s making me insane. Tag-team parenting is bullshit; I want full days with the three of us. I can handle being a working mom, but not a double working mom. It’s great we’ve had design work lately but working evenings and weekends and plopping Molly in front of videos is freaking me out. Also, my house is a pit of filth. I’m feeling so torn in half right now. Molly’s been on a half-assed nursing strike, so I’m spending as much time as I can skin-to-skin in bed with her to encourage her to nurse. The past couple days the only time she’ll nurse is going down for a nap, during the nap, and waking up. So we’ve had a couple of marathon feedings and then nothing in the afternoon and evening. There are also new and exciting Biting–Ouch-Unlatch-Wait-Relatch-Biting-Repeat rituals. I broke down in tears yesterday, worried I won’t figure this out and she’ll wean early. My dad called yesterday, and I told him she has four (almost) teeth and he said, “So breastfeeding’s over?” I said, “No it means mama has to be brave…hahaha.” I thought at the time, “Gods he doesn’t know me very well at all”- somewhat unfortunate but true. Now, however, I’m quickly gaining sympathy for all my friends who weaned when their babes grew teeth.

I have so much to do this weekend, so the Birdie’s been with the grandies for a while now. I don’t want to let go of her right now for a minute. She’s changing so fast, and she’s wanting cuddle time less and less. Every minute seems heartbreakingly precious, and I resent every one I can’t spend with her.

So when my aunt just called and told me that she needs me to take shift at Grandma’s, I was secretly thrilled*. (She has a sprained ankle and the other’s mending from a break. She has a wheelchair now, and needs someone there all the time since last weekend.) She goes to bed really early, and might be asleep when the baby and I get there. I can spend the evening watching actual cable TV and being unable to work- and therefore unable to feel guilty. We’ll make breakfast in the morning and then turn her over to my brother for Sunday afternoon.

We’re having a family meeting Friday to discuss how to get her into a care home. I’m so relieved that this is her idea. I do think she’ll be happy with a small community of her contemporaries, and I’ll feel so much better knowing she’ll have round the clock care. I really wish she could come live with me, but there are so many reason’s it’s not feasible. I think she’ll be happier soon, and I hope I’m not painting a pretty picture out of something that’s not what I think.

It’s all an unknown right now… I miss my mom so bad I can’t stand it right now. My grandma is my link with her, and my aunt and brother. That small family is so important to me. We aren’t spending enough time together- another stress point.

So I’m going to pack up the Boue and head to Grandma’s. Just talked to her and she’s up- yay:)

*ETA: Secretly thrilled? Why secretly thrilled? It's not like Grandma's a chore. We had a good time, except for the part where I cried and cried lying in the bedroom where Mom's hospital bed used to be. Grandma got to see Molly steps:)

meet sophie

I decided that anything sharing this intimate a relationship with my nipples should have a name. So, meet Sophie B.

She is my breast pump. She's a Medela Pump-in-Style double electric. She was handed down, with freshly boiled tubing, from Bu's cousin. She comes to work with me, usually. She also was my constant companion after the Great Anemia Debacle of post-partum milklessness. She did her thang, and Molly took over until I came back to work at the clinic. You go, Sophie. You brought it, girl. (The milk.)

Sophie B(reast pump) is named, bein sur, for Sophie B. Hawkins, who is killer sexy, and posed for this incredible David LaChappelle photo. I saw this years ago, when the Souster was my mental health nurse & I were roommates. Souster had this book, and I drooled on it a lot. In the book, you can see the texture of her very soft, fine leg hair under the poured milk, and it's so beautiful. Very mammal photo:) Very pretty.

I can't wait to bid my Sophie B farewell. I was counting the days until the Mollybird can drink cow or soy milk and I could stop pumping, and just nurse when I'm home. Now that I know she's gaining weight so slowly I don't have the heart to risk a supply drop. We'll add in (organic if we can afford it) whole milk in a couple months, but I definitely want to keep her full of real milk as much as possible. So, Sophie B and I have two standing dates per work day for the foreseeable future.

free, natural breast enhancement

I forgot my pump. Ergo, I look like a p0rn star and feel like the Hoover Dam. I need to learn to hand express better. We need a HazMat team in the bathroom after my squirty attempt to fix myself, since we all know breastmilk is biohazardous and complicated to deal with.

Happiness = belly full of cookies.
Happiness = baby with cookies smeared on her face, nursing herself to sleep. Me, licking my finger to clean her face and feeling like a mama cat and swooning with quiet weekend lazy mama bliss.

I'm so overjoyed that my oatmeal cookies are medicinal. Added flaxseed meal for healthy fiber and fat, and brewer's yeast to team up with the oatmeal for to make more milkies. Molly's weight is worrying me a little. We had her nine month check up yesterday... damn, what day is it? Thursday and she's fallen in her weight range the last two visits. So, I'm trying to rev up production in the ol' nummins factories. I need to add another pumping session in at work too I guess. Our pediatric nurse is wonderful. She's an LC too, and she didn't recommend adding formula or an insane amount of solid food like so many doctors do. She actually told us that on my work days she should have her solids when I'm away so she can nurse more in the evenings. She suggested using a regular cup for her pumped milk, too. The grandies tried it today for me, but she spit a lot of it out. This kid is just not impressed with expressed milk. She's never going to sleep through the night.

I hosted a Mom's Night Out for my local online breastfeeding support group. We scrapbooked, to Bu's neverending amusement.

Bu: What are you and your friends doing tonight?
Me, scrubbing soap scum off shower doors: Scrapbooking, hangin' out.
Bu: Scrapbooking? [Mimes cutting and pasting with a scrunched girly face, cracks up laughing.]
Me: Yeh. So? It's fun.
Bu: You!? Scrapbooking? [Mocking, incredulous laughter.]
Me: What is so funny?
Bu: You're crafty.
Me: [Finally getting it...] Ooooh, you mean as opposed to artsy. As in feminist ragey paintings of demon goddesses slaying the forces of the patriarchy?
Bu: Yes. I don't know you anymore. You're a soccer mom.
Me: [Hissing.] Take that back!
Bu: Soccer mom, hehehe... [unleashed tirade of soccer mommish insults.]
Me: Bu, stop it. Look how the baking soda got the scum off the shower here...Oh Fuck. I am a soccer mom. Excuse me- I have to go pierce something.

So, it turns out it is fun, just like I imagined. I also learned that even though I know how to do acid-etching, wood-cuts, and handpainted monoprints, I cannot use a rubber freaking stamp neatly.

The company was the best. I got to see an old friend who I have always adored but don't know well enough, and got to know my friend who made my (gorgeous! photos soon) Mei Tai baby carrier a little more. We talked about birth stories until 1 a.m. Lovely.

OoOooo erggh:
Unhappiness = too many cookies.
Have I mentioned backsliding in February at my weight loss goal?

someone's grief

Sometimes you read a terrible thing, and it's a stranger and it's so sad, and you pause and you send some healing thoughts out to them, but you don't even know where you're sending them. You are momentarily gloomy, and you prepare to navigate away from the blog where her friend posted about her loss of her newborn baby.

Then a small detail in a comment drags your heart out of your body and turns it inside out and you have such a vivid image of being this women that it takes your breath away.

Wannabe Hippie, who has the cutest girls ever, posted about her friend's tragedy. Asking, "What can I do? Anything at all?" Someone mentioned relief for sore breasts, because her milk would come in of course, with no mouth to feed. This just shatters me- to think of a mother's tender newly milky breasts leaking and hurting like her heart would be. Nursing to me is so much more than just feeding, it's a physical representation of the link I feel between my suddenly-mellowed spirit and Molly's bursting, new one.

All kinds of love and prayers for this woman, and her sweet friend who feels helpless.

snow, a party, milk & cookies

Snow pretty.

We may get up to 4 inches, which is unheard of lately. When I was a kid, West Virginia had real winters with the sledding and the long undies and the cocoa and the school closings. Now we rarely have actual coverage. I hear the phrase “global warming” daily, which is good as far as awareness-raising. I am not, as I’ve previously whined, a fan of winter, but I’m only opposed to actually living in it myself. I think a good four-season climate is a lovely idea, and that people should be allowed to experience a nice Appalachian winter so they can sit by a fire writing me postcards in Savannah or Key West or something.

Actually, snow is lovely, and I hope we get a good thick blanket of pure white beauty and that the schools, and therefore the clinic, are closed tomorrow.
Yesterday was a fun Mommy-networking day. We went to a birthday party and I schmoozed with another nursing mama. We discovered that nursing in public is easier in numbers, and that after we proudly dropped bra, neither of our daughters would nurse due to the extreme excitement of Dora balloons, juice, and toddlers running amok. I went fishing in Molly’s mouth for a gooey gummed-up piece of party hat I didn’t notice she’d been eating, and avoided her choking to death, which is always nice. I talked to a mom of four-month old twins- her toddler was the birthday girl- who is nearly losing her mind (understandably) and I convinced her to let me help her out with some babysitting or something sometime. Both nursing moms (those twins have never had formula and their mom is so proud) I talked to are having supply problems, so I’m baking a big batch of magic milk-enhancing cookies*. It’s my first attempt at this recipe, so we’ll call it an experiment and hope it fares better than the banana oatmeal bread I ruined this week.

A la Noel at Breastfeedingisnormal.org Their site's down for maintenence but they have a mailing list subscribe button.

lactivism

I love that word so much... so cute. So, your mission, if ya like:

Important! Breastfeeding legislation is coming up in this next session of the US House of Representatives, please help! From Florence Rotondo and the New Jersey Breastfeeding Task Force New Jersey Breast Feeding Task Force.Rep. Carolyn Maloney is going to reintroduce the Breastfeeding Promotion Act this coming session.The Breastfeeding Promotion Act would: amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding by new mothers; provide tax incentives for businesses that establish private lactation areas in the workplace; provide for a performance standard for breast pumps; and provide families with a tax deduction for breastfeeding equipment.

GET INVOLVED: Let the incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi become very aware that the Breastfeeding Promotion Act is important and that we desire and expect her support in January.* Go to a card store and purchase (or make a homemade) card that is a "Congratulations on the New Grand-baby" card. The Speaker and the press have made much of the fact that she is a grandmother first and that she was awaiting grand-baby number 6 right around Election Day. The baby is a boy named Paul.* Write in the card:1) all babies have the Right to Breastfeed anywhere that the mother has the right to be.2) their mothers' need policies in the law that support the government's Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign to educate employers and workers about mothers' rights.3) ask her to throw the full weight of her position behind getting the Breastfeeding Promotion Act PASSED this coming session.* Get all your friends to sign your card before you mail it to Speaker Pelosi. Or buy/make several cards and get them addressed/stamped and ready to go and collect signatures from supportive friends who you know have good intentions, but little time, and mail them out with your own.* And lastly, *send this email to every mother, friend, listserv, breastfeeding support group and parenting site you know so that others can also send a card*. The idea is to get hundreds if not thousands of signatures/cards sent to Nancy Pelosi's office - right now - so that, by the time the Breastfeeding Promotion Act is reintroduced in January, she and her staff will have it on their radar.

The address to mail a card to Speaker Nancy Pelosi is:
* Representative Nancy Pelosi2371 Rayburn HOBWashington, DC 20515

And in Molly news, 4 1/2 hours of solid sleep. Belly full of fatty yummy avacado maybe helped? I decided to feed her some dinner at 9:00 p.m. Perhaps that was a good plan.

oh, shiraz be praised!

OK, I promised myself I wouldn't waste any of this evening blogging. Hey- if a girl can't lie to herself, who can she lie to? (Read: "To whom can she lie?" Whatever. My mission is to relax, so that must include prepositional sins.)

Molly's playing with race cars at Papaw's & Mamaw's, and will be snuggly co-sleeping with them tonight, a full half-mile from the nummins. Me, I'll be nursing a bottle of wine (and, intermittently, a pump) and catching up on design work. Then, I’ll crawl into bed with my husband, and sleep curled up with him and some good thick cloth nursing pads until morning.

Day’s been good. Dropped the Mollybird off at the grandies’, went to a very brief meeting with a very cool new web design client. Worked at the clinic a few hours on a mailing for a fundraiser, then went to nurse Molly and visit. The in-laws fed me, bless them. Came home, pumped, for the baby’s belly was full of peas & squash. (Also they gave her a taste of strawberry, but observe how I’m not wigging- the mission statement, remember- even though the yummy berries are a notorious allergen. She had no reaction and apparently liked it, so whatever.) Then I opened my bottle of Shiraz, actually remembering to dribble a few drops on the earth (OK, a houseplant = lazy pagan) for Dionysos.

So… this is me, having a break. I counted nursies last night? Five times between bedtime and waking, six if you count her breakfast nummins. Can you say reverse cycle? I don’t know if it counts as reverse cycling, since each session’s like 3-4 minutes. Also, I betcha $5 she’ll only wake twice for Mamaw & Papaw. I am a pacifier. It’s OK, but I’m glad I have such great in-laws to ship her off to for a night.

Jeez, Papaw, it’s not necessary to call me to tell me the Boue’s having a nap. ‘Specially since you just called 10 minutes ago to make sure I wasn’t missing a cool program on TV.

No, that's not my wine photo. Check out the awesome stock-photo postin' peeps @ stockexchange.

happy moon day

Seven moons. Wow. My little piglet's growing up so fast. I can't believe how fast May became December. We had a loooong night last night. The Boue had gas and a stuffy nose, so she refused to lie down for more than a short while. I took her downstairs to the rocking chair, wrapped us up in a blanket tight so if I dosed she'd be secure, and rocked her back to sleep. Then I'd try to put her into Ye Magickal Swinge For Desp'rate Motheres and she'd start bawling gaain. Repeated this three or so times, and when I finally got her to sleep for real, I lay down with us still in a mommybaby burrito and we slept with her on my chest like when she was a cranky newborn. It was nice, that whole one hour of good sleep we got before the alarm clock sounded.

La piglet must have had gas because she ate an entire container of squash, and some mashed potatoes Mamaw snuck her. She won't eat good for me. Nor will she allow a bottle or sippy if the nummins are even a slight possibility. (Daddy only has limited sucess with the sippy.) Mama = boobage, and that's final, apparently. Um, at some point she will allow me to give her food and water, right?

showers & wings

This is a piece of art I created for my friend's baby's nursery. (Yes, that's a sleeping Molly.) We went to her shower Saturday. I obsessed about giving her this, worrying that she'd see it as a photo of Molly and a self-centered gift rather than as a collage using a photo of Molly. Shane told me it was fine but I'm still not sure. Anyway, it's cute. She is decorating with fairies and winged creatures.

The shower was great. I met a sweet woman who has two-year-old twins and conceived by artificial insemination. She and her girlfriend live next door to the mom-to-be. She offered me several nursing tops for cheap when she heard I'm planning on extended nursing. I don't have any nursing shirts, so that's a very cool thing. Extended nursing... so weird a term. Like there's an invisible line at age 1 when it suddenly becomes an extra, strange thing to do. 'Round here most folks think it's gross to nurse after a year. Well, alot of them think nursing's gross, period. Weirdest thing how that came to be the mindset amongst a poor bunch of people. They'd rather spend money on formula- it blows my mind.

The baby's back to normal... her itchy red bottom is almost healed, and she slept 7 or 8 hours last night without any nummins (nursing.) Of course, as Murphy's Law would dictate, I had insomnia. Probably because she's nursed non-stop during the week of evil diarrhea.