veganpagan

...was what my mom called me when I was a) having a candlelit ritual in the backyard, b) extolling the virtues of tofu and condemning the meat industry, c) telling her about my "girlfriend" in Pittsburgh, or d) being otherwise Not Of the Mainstream, at least for my itty bitty suburb in Appalachia.

She would accuse me, on occasion, of being a nonconformist because everyone else was doing it. The sexuality, the religion, the food choices- all for coolness, y'all. This infuriated by 19 year old belly pierced black dyed hair sportin' self very much. The piercings and the hair, sure. Superficial. But give a kid a little credit.

Exit mom, enter Bu. He tells me I'm non traditional for the sake of being non traditional. (Wasn't I supposed to marry my father not my mother?) He told me that when I planned to hyphenate my name. (Turns out it's an annoyingly long name, so no. I opted for his short & sweet surname, and took my maiden name as my middle name. Please don't tell my grandma. My middle name was her name.) He told me that during intense, long arguments with pregnant me about vegetarianism and circumcision. He also informed me yesterday that I am too old to dye my hair purple. (Just a few streaks? Very sophisticated purple hair it would be...)

While people I love are wondering why I'm so far out man, I'm wondering how/when I got so tame. Feeling very soccermom, having tattoo lust again. Is it motherhood? Thirty-ness? I just feel very um, restrained lately. Boring, actually. Like I'm not expressing myself at Full Heidi Strength. Possibly related in a convoluted way to my not producing (fine) art and missing school.

As an extension of this obsession with lack of hip, I think it's a huge tragedy that Molly has no cool clothes like the ones Drew is sporting. Why am I drowning in tiny pink things? So I was doing the online version of window shopping, and at Baby Wit I saw a T shirt that says "They're raising me gay." I told Bu if I were a single mom Molly'd totally have that shirt. He surprised me by laughing and saying that if we didn't have the Mormon grandies around she could have the shirt.

I don't know if I want my the Boue wearing something political, although this rocks, but I have got to get some funk up in her wardrobe for her birthday. I'm definitely earmarking some of the income tax return for her.

And this might be one of the most superficial posts I've written to date. Tomorrow I'll update you on the joy of discovering non-toxic nail polish at the health food store and how Honest Tea chai is not sweet enough. Just because I wanted organic doesn't mean I wanted you to skimp on the yum, peeps. Argh.

touchstone

This is an ode to my Bu. Bu who drags me away from my computer when I am ready to explode with stress and makes me go hike up the hill across from our property. Bu who holds me when I'm sobbing for the most inane reasons and doesn't ask why. Bu who used to live in a tent near the New River and guide whitewater rafting trips and who is like a masculine version of a water nymph, and who will snort at me for writing that.

It was an amazing day, and we went to the woods and he told me about playing there when he was little, and the dogs played. Mollybird was at church with the grandies and it was the first "date" we've had in ages. I found a little stone to take home to help ground me when the work stressed me out too much. Looking for the perfect stone was fun and silly and I was delighted like a little kid on a treasure hunt when I found the right one.

I had little anxiety relapses afterward, but Bu still helped immensely. He's an amazing force of calm and centeredness when my energy's scattered and crazy. He steered me through the hardest time in my life, and I'm so amazed at the way he manages to do this without patronizing me or letting me sink. Just perfect balance and support.

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?

ah, the morning after

I propose that February 15th be dubbed International Eat Chocolate for Breakfast Day. I scrounged up a nice dinner at the supermarket and found some chocolates for us to share. We rented "Click" which was a little better than I'd expected. The best thing?

...FIVE (5!) hours of solid sleep, in the crib!

So I actually slept with my husband on Valentine's Day. *Swoon* Could have been more romantic if someone hadn't been cranky with a sore throat and stuffy nose and hadn't kicked her husband's well meaning gentle advances away, but still: awesome.

stay-home envy

I had a whole blog entry in my head Saturday. Even had a title: Stay-at-Home-Mom for a day. I spent all day with just me and Molly at home, with no car. It was wonderful, frustrating, exhausting. My imaginary blog entry detailed our day- lots of nummins marathons, eating lots of bathing in pureed peas, then a real bath with soap and splashies. There was the newly apparent Extreme Separation Anxiety which required that she be physically touching me 80% of the time, but oh, no, not in a sling- too restrictive. The other 20% of the day she relented a little and played in her high-chair or the floor but I had to remain in the direct line of sight OR ELSE.

Despite my best intentions, a couple of things prevented me from actually blogging. The first, of course, was the insane tiny creature, but even she finally went to sleep for the night, after adventures in snotty-nosed nursing. (Nothing de-sexualizes a breast like seeing a trail of baby snot attaching it to a sickish cranky baby's nose. Not that I care if the boobs aren't sexy. The libido's still elusive.)

The second was the arrival of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 on DVD. So after the munchkin conked out in her swing, I vegged out with some fun witty carnage.

This afternoon I logged onto Bloglines, and I saw Coffee Betsy has had some working mom angst courtesy of a judgemental, self-righteous bitch. (See, I can say that because I wasn't involved.) It came at an opportune time, as I'd just dried up my tear-sniffles after calling home to hear Shane sounding very impatient with Molly. I had a revisitation of my loathing of being a worker bee when I want to be a Properly Attached 'Round the Clock Baby on Hip Mother. I love the clinic, I love my coworkers, I love the kids we serve, but I wish I could love them a few times a week as a volunteer.

I also wish I could bottle my zen-mama-patience and leave some with Shane. (He also wishes I could lend him the boobies.) He's a very, very good Dad, but his patience is a more fragile thing than mine. I'd rather Molly not be around a cranky irritable parent, because it just adds to her crankiness I think...but it's wonderful she's with her Dad.

Some secret part of me is happy that I'm more patient with her because I feel like a superhero. It's egocentric and awful, as well as sexist, but I feel like her mama should be the most amazing person ever in her eyes, and Shane a very, very close second. It's terrible to admit that- how pathetic to crave being needed by them both so much. Maybe leftovers of jealousy from her Elektra phase. It seems to be over now, that. She loves us both again:)

marriage

I don't write alot about my marriage outside of our role as co-parents, and in that respect I'm usually worrying about clashing ideologies. It's easy to avoid examining a marriage because it's an existence that's so easily taken for granted. It's like breathing, eating, sleeping. We have lived as if married for five years although our wedding was two years ago. I'm really instrospective the past few days about our marriage. I've just finished reading The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd and it brought up the issue of taking a marriage for granted. It also deals with an artist wife who feels tamed by her marriage. She falls passionately in love with another man and reconnects with her home and her mother and herself. It's heartbreakingly beautiful. At the time I've been reading this, our situation is a tense, all-but-sexless marriage of struggling new parents with barely enough money to survive. Shane is so stressed about finances he snaps at me, at telemarketers, at the dogs. Little bursts of severe asshole behavior have shot through like bullets that shatter my relative contentment. Meanwhile, we aren't making love because I have no desire for it, and we've barely spent any time together alone between all the part-time jobs it takes to make our household run.

We were out yesterday and Shane spouted some rage about something trivial and it just lodged in my head that he can be such a shit. His temper unsettles me so much. Then I was reading the book, and this cold fear settled into me and I saw myself in several years leaving him. I saw his temper flares just building and frustrating me and then I thought of how different we are and thought how devastating it would be to meet someone I connected with like the heroine of my book. Seeing this possible future made me feel 1,000 miles away from my husband. It ripped me open to be feeling our marriage as a thing that could be broken someday, a vulnerable entity that either one of us could tear apart. I have always felt if something did happen to us, it would be my breaking the vows. I sometimes worry that the wildness in me isn't meant to be married. I fret about not making art anymore. I wonder if I've lost anything to this union.

I examine those thoughts and I think that it's normal for me to wonder about those things. The truth is, I am a much better version of all possible me's because of Shane. The thing I've lost, the drive to create, it is a sleeping thing like a fire I've let dwindle, and neither my wifeness nor my husband has anything to do with that. I've struggled with that all my life. Shane has been my best advocate for channeling my energies into art. But I was reading my book, all these doubts worrying around in my head. I realized they were going to fester and grow into some resentment or anger if they weren't voiced. I went to him and it took me a long time to frame the vague ideas into a conversation, but he listened patiently and we talked about the stresses and the shape of our life and our lives. We were actually feeling similar anxieties but expressing them differently I think. I felt waves of relief giving vent to my doubts about us, and the relief washed them away as I realized how amazing it is I can talk with him about this, how strong we are. I needed to mend the disconnected feeling I'd had, and he held me close. Then the comfort turned to a fierce need to physically connect and we made love very beautifully. It was a wonderful, necessary ritual binding us tighter and the mood of the house is much lighter and cleaner now.

In unrelated news, there was another trip to the pediatrician's office today. I'd been waiting it out- just a cold, but her cough was getting worse and I didn't want to wait the weekend out with her feeling increasingly bad. The nurse said she had an ear infection too, but I hadn't seen any signs of it. I was loathe to put her back on antibiotics again since she's still on poopalot mode from the last one.

I brought her home and talked it over with Shane, and we decided ear infections are serious enough that we didn't feel like it was overreacting to use the antibiotics so we went to the pharmacy for them and to get some decongestant the nurse recommmended. It had pseudoephidrine in it, and they no longer carry anything with that at our pharmacy. The pharmacist was great, though. She went through all the possibilities with us and told us how the substitute for pseudoephidrine hasn't been tested in kids under 2. She was very knowledgeable. We bought some cough medicine & decided to stick with breastmilk dribbled into her nose and the nasal suction bulb for her nasal congestion.

After we got home, she spewed everywhere, so I gave her a bath and clean comfy pajamas. Then she pooped all over herself, so she got another bath and the last clean pj's, forcing me to wash a load of baby clothes as well as the bedsheets she'd thrown up on. Her cough has been gone since the medicine. Since the visit to the doctor's office I noticed her pulling on her ear, and then she wouldn't nurse with that side of her head lying down, so I had to wrestle her into a football hold. It is not fun to try to get a five month old baby into a new strange nursing position. She was very "whatthefuck?" Tonight may suck as our side-lying, semi-comatose-mommy position won't work if her ear still hurts.

two years yesterday

Happy Anniversary, Bu.
(& thanks for all the fish.)

I think I'm going to go cry now for the 20+ inches of hair I've cut off in 2 years.