Crunchy-Chewy Mama

Moving on up...

2010-06-04T20:51:00.004-04:00

I am pleased to announce that my new blog is up and running! I'm now on Wordpress at http://crunchychewymama.com/

All of my blog posts from this blog, Mama's Mouth, and Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families have been migrated over. They are currently all on the main page. Eventually I will break them out so that all the recipe and food entries go under "Healthy Eating," all the entries about writing and art go under "The Arts," etc. This is all explained on the "About" page (which also has a link to my new writer's site, which is not up yet). Right now the only way to find stuff is just to use the tag categories.

I also don't have up any links, or buttons, or ways to help readers subscribe or anything savvy and smart in terms of social networking. I had help with the design and migration and am just now going to try to log in myself to post something. I anticipate I won't write again here except to announce the move is official and complete. But if I can't figure out what I'm doing right away, I'll keep posting here until I do!

Read me in a book!

2010-06-02T13:58:00.002-04:00

I'm pleased to announce that an essay of mine is going to be published in From the Heart: A Collection of Stories and Poems from the Front Lines of Parenting, an anthology that's just about to be published by a group called Write for Charity. Proceeds will benefit Children’s Hospital and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Foundation.

The book is now available for pre-sale. Details about the book's contents and about how to order a pre-sale (discounted) copy are available at http://writeforcharity.wordpress.com/the-book/

My essay, originally published online in 2008 at the Mothering Heights Second Mother's Day Online Anthology, compares my first year teaching high school to my first year as a mom. It's called "The First Time Around." I can't wait to see it in a volume!

American Idol 2010 -- not a mom

2010-06-01T20:05:00.003-04:00

How bad does it sound to say that because she is a mom, I'm glad Crystal Bowersox didn't win American Idol? That's not completely true. I just wondered how bad it would sound to say it.

Make no mistake, I was and am a Crystal fan. I think she's amazingly talented, so damn centered, and really someone I would love to have a beer with (metaphorically anyway. My best drinking days days were winding down when she was still a preschooler). But I'm kind of relieved for her that she didn't win, the same way I was relieved for Adam Lambert. As Lisa deMoraes of the Washington Post put it this article, Crystal "escapes the whole 'American Idol' beauty pageant syndrome -- shilling for Ford, etc." She will still go out on the summer concert and have the backing of the AI machine, but there's a bunch of stuff she won't have to do since she's not the winner. For someone as clear about who she is as Crystal (same goes for Adam Lambert), I think it sounds like a relief to have a lighter load of product endorsements and the like, especially since she's got a young son.

I don't think her career or her ego needed for her to win, and it sounds like she agrees from the "don't cry for me" comments she made after Lee Dewyze won the competition.

Read the rest of this entry at DC Metro Moms Blog.

Now I'm the know-it-all

2010-05-27T14:41:00.003-04:00

The other day, I took a prenatal yoga class for the third or fourth time. Amid all the cute bellies on first-time moms, I felt compelled to offer a dash of perspective from the side of motherhood -- the one that's been there already.

Read more in "Reality Check for New Moms" at DC Metro Moms.

I dreamed a dream Part II: Background

2010-05-18T14:02:00.004-04:00

I wanted to stay in the moment in my post the other day about my dream that my baby might have Down Syndrome. But there are a couple of other background factors I'd like to acknowledge.

First of all, we didn't do any early fetal testing, so who knows. I didn't even look into all the options that are out there. My feeling about prenatal testing is similar to my feeling about intervention with in labor: they both often serves mostly to lead to more interventions and more worries.

But I also know at least two folks who learned at their 20-week sonograms that their babies were not going to make it to delivery or more than a few hours after. That's pretty important information to have, I think. I wasn't up for skipping this one diagnostic.

The report -- now two months ago -- said that everything with our baby was, "unremarkable" except for bilateral choroid plexus cysts, which, in the presence of other indications, might point toward Trisomy 18. A few articles suggested a link between the cysts and Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21), but it sounds from this one like the likelihood of a problem with no other issues is slim.

We went with the cheapest ultrasound place we could find since everything is out of pocket. I felt like the tech was plenty competent, but you just never know, and it does feel a little weird that the cyst remark was on the written report but that the tech said to our faces that everything was fine.

We could get another sonogram to see if the cysts disappeared in the third trimester as they usually do or if there is anything else that looks possibly suspicious, like closed, clenched hands. I just checked, and two of the sono images from 20 weeks show hands that look pretty open to me. I've read that some folks just have these cysts their whole lives and there's no problem. They don't always disappear. I didn't learn until a few years ago from an MRI that I have a Rathke cleft cyst.

So if I get another sono and the baby's cysts are still there, do I worry more? What is the point of another $170 or the $500 most other places charge? Besides, when the baby is bigger, it's harder to see things. I remember being disappointed in a sonogram around 35 weeks to confirm that my son was breech; it was much less fun and dramatic than at 20 weeks when you could see the whole baby. My husband and I both felt like he was just a mess of parts and walked away not only disappointed about the breech position but significantly less giddy for having "seen" our kid than we'd been months earlier. So I don't think I really want to go there.

And even if I do and the cysts are still there, what is the point? I guess I could start doing some reading. My sister lent me Expecting Adam a while back, and maybe Waiting for Birdy would be a good read as well. But I don't want to scare myself into expecting something that probably won't happen. I've already decided not to finish reading Knocked Up, Knocked Down, because I know from her blog (and writings elsewhere) how that story turns out, and I am just not up for reading about the journey from the happy expectant phase through to the stillbirth right now. My mother-in-law had a stillbirth, and it's been my main worry throughout this pregnancy. (Many Trisomy babies are stillborn, and most don't live past age one).

I think my body, mind, and spirit will be better served by active preparation for birth that looks at the event/experience as something powerful and sacred and that holds the space open for whatever comes after to be whatever it is and not be already layered on with a ton of meaning I've spun for weeks in the prenatal period.

The second piece of background is that I realized much later the day after the dream that it might have been spurred by reading this Carolyn Hax "Tell Me About It" column in the Washington Post that day. A reader whose family was not supportive of her plans to become a single mom via artificial insemination was asking for feedback, and another mom of a special needs child wrote in that despite having a supportive co-parent, she'd had to give up everything to care for her child. If you don't have a ton of money, she suggested, or a "village," -- and if you're writing to an advice columnist! -- maybe it's time to re-think. Kids are not made to order, she reminded.

I really liked Carolyn's response: "...you're posing a question every prospective parent should answer: Am I ready to get what I want, or am I ready to get what I get? The former is dreaming, the latter is parenthood."

We will get what we get, and I will do my best to enjoy this pregnancy for the experience that it is, right now, in this moment. And while I'm at it, to just enjoy life with my family as it is now.

I dreamed a dream (Part I)

2010-05-17T13:10:00.005-04:00

As I slept the other night, a vision came into my head of a child with a crowded mouth of ill-fitting teeth. Then I heard the words, "She has Down's."

My eyes popped open. It was the middle of the night, and my 4-year-old son lay sleeping next to me, with my husband on the other side, oblivious to the pronouncement I'd just heard in my head.

Oh my God. I asked my baby -- using the name we have recently warmed to but reserve the right to change our minds about -- "Does that mean you? Do you have special needs?"

Previously asleep, she started moving right away. And she replied: "We will be fine, Mommy. I am the perfect child for you to have. We will be fine."

At first I remained concerned and wide-eyed, my heart racing. But I kept listening. What should I do? "Trust. Love. Breathe."

Um, okay. Pretty wise for a 28-week-old fetus. But then again, who knows how long that soul has been around. It would appear that it has an edge on mine!

Lately when I've woken up at this time of night -- without any alarming warning, just with alertness -- I have to get up. There's just no use staying in bed. I make a snack or do a little yoga, or read, or all three. But this night I could tell my baby just wanted me to rest.

So I did. And I thought about her words. I fell back asleep.

The next day, I wasn't shaken or upset. I felt peaceful. Accepting. It's not up to me what child is going to come into our lives. There is no script of how things should be unless I make it up in my head and cling to it, which does no one any good.

So, for the moment, I am less anxious or worried (or avoidingly distant) than I've been much of this pregnancy and more of the mind that whatever is the right experience for me to have will be the one I will have.

Whatever life looks like, however hard the challenges we face, we can always choose to believe that things are, in fact, fine.

Mama needs a massage

2010-05-12T09:27:00.002-04:00

So get one -- for free! Massage Envy is running a contest that closes Sunday, May 16 just before midnight. Tell -- in 140 characters or fewer! -- how you told your partner you were expecting. You could win a free three-month membership to Massage Envy. Sounds good to me!

Participants tweet to @massageenvydc or email mom2010@massageenvydc.com to enter. More information and contest rules are available at Massage Envy on Facebook. And more info about this prenatal massage is available at Mummy's Product Reviews (thanks for the reminder, Victoria!)

2010-05-11T11:17:00.002-04:00

Sigh. Sometimes it's easier to mother when your child is really in a rough state.

My son has been mildly sick for over a week, just sick enough that he's been unable to go to school. And I've been unable to work. It's been a delight to see him fully immersed in play by himself, to have three meals a day with him, and to see him grow developmentally -- like actually being interested in creating representational art instead of scribbles. And, at the same time, it's also been incredibly frustrating to not have any time to focus on anything either in my head (writing, volunteer work for Holistic Moms) or in my body (meditating, doing yoga, focusing on the baby in my belly). I have really been impatient for him to hurry up and get well!

The weekend offered some respite, but it was not as restful as the boy needed. Though I do appreciate his dad taking him out to Home Depot to buy garden supplies and then involving the boy while he worked, clearly the activity (and the insane wind!) tired both of them out such that sick one needed another day home on Monday to recoup. I was not pleased and felt sorry for myself.

He declared himself "still sick" and not well enough to go to school, and I decided not to push it. He's never had Tylenol or any other drug, and I'm not one to just push him through because I don't think that is going to do him any favors in the long run. But this letting the body heal approach sure takes time! It seemed like he needed a transition day to warm to the idea of getting back out in the world. He's a very social kid and is always saying he wants to see friends, but I think he got pretty used to being home all day when he could rub his face on his mama's growing belly at his leisure (well, not really, but it sure was more accessible than when we're apart!)

After a very low-key morning, we had an afternoon visit from a friend who was dropping off some pregnancy and baby items now that she's had her son. All day, E was asking, "When is Liz coming over?" He hasn't even played with her daughters in months, but he really wanted company.

And yet, while we were at the park, he started to melt. He didn't know what to do with himself. He was hungry but wouldn't eat the apple I cut up when we got back. I ended up having to kick out my friends because he was just crying like a baby. Reminder: he's four. I couldn't believe what I had on my hands.

Fortunately, the dinner was mostly made, so we ate just after 5:00. "I want to go to bed," he whined, and I complied as soon as I felt his belly was full enough. "I guess Daddy's going to have to celebrate his birthday by himself," he sighed, then offering with a little glint of possibility, "Or maybe we can celebrate in the morning."

Although he was more stable by the time we got upstairs, I had seen him really hit bottom, and out came my fierce unconditional love tools. I wanted only for him to feel better in his body, mind, and spirit and to know that everything was going to be okay by seeing me not lose it (and nourish myself -- I was not going up there on an empty stomach, either!)

So I held him like a baby while looking through my homeopathy books to see if Pulsatilla was the best choice. I chose four Bach flower remedies I thought might help: Mimulus, Aspen, Larch, and Gentian. At dinner, I made sure he finished his broth from a gelatin-rich batch of stock I made and added apple juice to water with a little electrolyte powder so he'd be sure to hydrate. Once upstairs, I wiped his face and feet with a wet washcloth with lavender oil and then gave him a foot massage before we put on clean socks.

After reading two stories, I felt compelled to sing to him -- to make him some kind of offering--, but he declined the offer of a serenade. So I told him how, when he was in my belly, I sang to him every morning and that after he was born, his dad and I sang to him while he held one of each of our fingers. With the storytelling preamble, he let me sing "You Are My Sunshine," somehow ignoring how my voice broke and noticing (or saying) only after I was done, "You're crying!" I smiled and told him it was because I loved him so much.

He climbed into bed and fell asleep while I closed rocked in the chair. I left at 6 p.m.

But then he woke three more times in the next few hours. I took one of these shifts and just laid next to him and let him feel as close to me as he needed to. His dad handled the other two wakings, and when the boy came into our bed after going potty sometime in the night, he slept soundly and woke at 6:15 a.m. talking about how he remembered one time Caillou got sick and had to stay home. Before I knew it, he was jumping on the bed, and two hours later, I was handing him over to his teacher, who seemed very happy to have him back!

It will take a while to crawl out from under all the backlog I have to get to the place I expected to be mid-week last week: shifting my focus to my baby and my body. But I'm confident that some of these steps along the way -- the bonding with my son, the benefits I got when I found a craniosacral therapist who would work on both of us, the memory of how powerful it is to nourish and nurture another being who is seemingly helpless-- were all important in their own way.

A nice afternoon, but not perfect

2010-05-08T13:27:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I finally got to see the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit at the Phillips Collection before its final weekend. However, although it was a lovely afternoon out in the city, it didn't quite hit all the sweet spots I was looking for after a week of staying home with a sick son.

Read my post -- "Mom's afternoon out thwarted" -- at DC Metro Moms Blog to learn more.

Look both ways -- a tale of a city and its suburbs

2010-05-02T19:09:00.004-04:00

Having someone in from out of town helps you see where you live with new eyes.

When my brother-in-law visited, I was kind of psyched that after my husband picked him up at Union Station, they got enjoy a lovely drive through the District -- past the monuments -- at dusk on a perfect summer-feeling evening (not very April-feeling, but still about as nice as it gets). I felt some pride in the fact that they found delicious gelato in Georgetown on a Friday night and that our visitor enjoyed the next day's trip to MOMs, the natural food store we frequent most often.

And yet, I appreciate what living in a log cabin in rural Maine affords my BIL and what kind of rhythm that can foster. Sometimes I feel like I should live in the woods instead of just in a house that backs up to the woods, but I know I value urban life and convenience too much. I love being able to walk to a mini downtown, even if its restaurants are not organic. The grocery has some decent produce, and the library is right there. It feels like a community. And when Metro is not delayed or overstuffed with tourists, I think it's pretty cool that I can hop on it and in less than 15 minutes, be at the American Art museum across the street from the library I attend an ICAN meeting.

This weekend, I was wary of track work delays on the Metro, so I decided to drive up to Bethesda to work the Holistic Moms table for a Celebrate Mama event. Now that downtown is one hoppin' place. Lots of cool shops and restaurants. But even if we could afford to buy a home there -- our house would probably sell for an extra $200K if it were plopped down in that zip code -- I don't think I would ever want to dress well enough and be cute enough to fit in.

So there is my living-on-the-border self. Not a homesteader, not a chic city girl or hip suburbanite, either. I liked driving up on Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues and seeing all the urban, cultural stuff going on. But it was busy and a little overwhelming, so on the way home, I took the Beltway to the GW Parkway, and I enjoyed the quiet serenity of the tree-lined and river-lined route, even though it was probably a couple more miles.

Although sometimes having too many options gets overwhelming (can anyone say Internet?), I do find that I like to put myself in the position of having them.

Food for the animals?

2010-04-30T21:45:00.006-04:00

Today I went to a zoo I hadn't been to before, and I'm not sure what to think about it. Having yesterday been to the (free) National Zoo -- where signs all over tell you the animals are on a planned diet and please don't feed them -- I was surprised that when I was buying my tickets for this place out in the NoVa 'burbs, I was asked if I wanted to also purchase feed or bottles. Huh?

"All the animals can eat this grain, and the animals in the barn will take these bottles," the cheery cashier explained. I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured that without much rationale other than not wanting to spend more money, I didn't want to put up with what I assumed would be a preschoolers many future requests for feed as we made our way around the farm-ish park.

So my friend and I went in on a $10 bucket of food pellets and bought a bottle for each of the three boys in our charge.

And then we went into the barn.

Those poor animals, was my first thought. They see us humans simply as food sources, but in a frenetic way that had me wondering if the zookeepers slip some kind of special ingredient into those pellets...

Maybe it was just that we were among the first ones there, I thought, but again over an hour later, after several school busloads had descended on the place, the animals were just as greedy. And just as loud. Wow, does my kid never need to hear some fake sheep or goat sound again. I think he's making "maaaa" noises in bed right now.

My son got a kick out of feeding animals, and he sure did get close to the them! But I remain disturbed by the idea of all these animals being fed non-stop, all day long (not very Waldorf, to have no rhythm or pattern to your eating!) And I'm guessing what is going into their bellies is something that is probably not that great for them. Maybe occasionally they get to graze on grass, or the pigs get to forage, but I doubt it.

Even if I'm not going to eat these guys, I'd still like them to be healthy. When I watched the movie King Corn and saw how messed up the stomachs of grain-fed cattle get, I started to understand just how wrong-headed farming practices are. Is this zoo any different?

So, my kid got to see a bunch of animals up close, including camels and goats, sheep and spider monkeys, kangaroos and huge pythons. I'm sure zoo-going helps kids develop an appreciation of the many varied life forms on our planet and a curiosity about the natural world.

I just also feel a little yucky about the fact that it's not very, well, natural.

Nothing is good enough

2010-04-28T18:40:00.003-04:00

Oh, how many varied ways there are to disappoint a four-year-old. Or maybe it's just my four-year-old. Time to pull out a parenting book and see just how much I suck as a mom and how much things are going to developmental stage plan.

Here are a few of the gems I heard today between the hours of 3:30 and 5:30, requests that, for various reasons, I was unable to accommodate.

"I want to go play with (neighbor boy)."
"I wanted to watch it all again."
"I wanted to watch Caillou."
"I wanted to go to Frying Pan Farm Park today."
"I want a gluten-free bun, too. A bun is different than toast!"
"I want pellets (homeopathy), not drops (flower essences)."
"I want to make homemade sushi."
"I want the cupcake I didn't finish at (friend's) birthday party." (10 days ago)
"I want to go to the library right now! I want to go today!"

"You said we'd go to the park to fly my new kite! I want to go right now!"
The little cherub had told me when we got home from school, "I don't want to go outside today," which seemed fair since it was so windy and I knew he'd been out plenty at school. Thus we missed my opportunity to hit the park when I 1) had the energy and 2) wasn't cooking dinner. But after that window had closed, the desire came on the boy something fierce. Fortunately his dad returned a pathetic message I left and told me (chopped up on speaker phone because both the boy and I were in tears) that he would be coming home early, so they are at the park right now. But the big guy did not arrive before I heard this next keeper at 5:30, earlier than he hardly ever gets home:

"You said he'd be home early but it's so late!"

Combine all of the above with a whining voice or precede them by an "Aw, Man!" then add a good dose of crying from a 4-year-old and a 37-year-old, and you have the soundtrack of my afternoon.

Poetry and motherhood

2010-04-21T17:33:00.002-04:00

Last month I attended an amazing session on the politics of writing motherhood at the Split this Rock Poetry Festival.

Read more about it here in a piece I wrote for Mothering.com

Time to chill

2010-04-16T19:44:00.004-04:00

I woke last night around 3 a.m. with that sad feeling of having finished something and, though it was successful, feeling like I could have played it better. Said more thank yous, not left Slow Food DC off the resource list, not been so snappy about having to rearrange the room or not having any help until 5 minutes before doors were scheduled to open.

It was a great panel on Local Food, a huge success for my chapter of Holistic Moms Network. And a lot of work. I hope it is the last big thing we try to pull off before I check out a little to have a baby in August.

My son weathered my stress and busy-ness well, so well that I bought him a virgin plastic toy today and a creme brulee dessert after lunch (when a cafe and pastry shop takes pains to list what is gluten-free, I feel like I should support their efforts even if I don't really want him eating much dairy or sugar either. At least this had eggs so some decent fat and protein, I hope).

The toy succeeded at keeping the peace this afternoon and also giving him something to occupy himself so I could actually take a nap. What a concept. He gave me a solid half-hour and then another 15 minutes, and then we cuddled on the couch for a while playing pretend with his new toy.

I shouldn't fail to mention that the toy in question is a little character and car, a pink daisy Wow! toys thing, the cheapest they had. My son got this same "character" for free at the grand reopening of a toy store and he was happy to get a second one and to go for the flowers when I said the tow trucks and emergency vehicles were too expensive.

So score one for not falling into strict gender roles, and strike one for needless consumerism. We were buying something for a friend's birthday party, and, since, as I wrote a few weeks ago, he was bummed that I didn't let people bring gifts to his birthday party, I felt like today's toy purchase softened the blow a little. I also let him pick the gift -- a turtle gardening bag with plastic shovels instead of the recycled cardboard bug dominoes I suggested. But it's for gardening...

Although I wish I'd slept through the night, my awake hours set me up to just take today as it came, to be glad I didn't have to be anywhere other than 9:30-11:30, to not get on the computer the second we got home after lunch. That two hours I spent not sleeping gave me religion to get off even the decaf and up the water, to find a place to get into my body, which is sorely overdue for this pregnancy and for healthy living.

A friend of mine who is 37 weeks along had a fall today in a parking lot, and, having yesterday been told she had low fluid and high blood pressure, spent a few hours being monitored in the hospital as a precaution. I hope that all is well (as it appears to be) and that she will rebound and have a few more weeks of pregnancy. But I also heard some real calm in her voice, being somewhere with no deadlines or anything to do. She didn't turn on the TV. She decided to just be. I hope it's exactly what she needs.

Sometimes we need a real kick -- or fall, or slap in the face -- to remember just what that is.

Parenting anthology deadline 4/15

2010-04-13T19:51:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd posted on this, but I must have just sent people emails about it.

Write for Charity is seeking submissions for a parenting anthology that will benefit charity. Submissions are due Thursday, 4/15/10. I'm still working on mine!

For details, check out http://writeforcharity.wordpress.com/

This page says:
"You are welcome to submit any parenting related stories and poems, but we are specifically looking for stories to fit into the following categories:

1. Pregnancy: Stories from Moms, Dads, and Grandparents to Be.
2. The Day You Were Born
3. Baby/Toddler Stories
4. Parent/ Child Bond
5. Growing Up/ Letting Go
6. Things I Learned From My Parents
7. What Being a Parent Has Taught Me

Please contact us at support@writeforcharity.com with any questions."

I'll also paste a bit from their guidelines page at http://writeforcharity.wordpress.com/submissions-writers-guidelines/

"We are looking for stories that weave powerful lessons about parenting into vividly told tales. They can be fiction or nonfiction stories or poems that read easily and evoke emotion. They are real life or realistic tales that reveal the positive aspects of parents; that inspire, entertain, and enlighten readers; and that bring tears of compassion and joy to our eyes, hope to our hearts, and comfort to our souls. The stories are original, creative, slice-of-life depictions of the most important and influential experiences and relationships in our lives: the ones we have with our children."

Stories have to be uplifting and not exceed 2,000 words. I received this suggestion in an email from one of the anthology organizers: "Lists (10 things I learned from being a mom, etc.) and letters (to your children or to a parent) are welcome (and are my personal favorite!)"

So get writing!

New book! "Knocked Up, Knocked Down"

2010-04-04T23:59:00.004-04:00

I was thrilled today to get an email blast from author Monica Murphy LeMoine that her book is now available on Amazon from Catalyst Book Press. Order your copy of Knocked Up, Knocked Down: Postcards of Miscarriage and Other Misadventures from the Brink of Parenthood today!

Never one to hold back or bullshit, Monica is author of the blog Knocked Up, Knocked Down and has written in Hip Mama and elsewhere about her experiences with -- and after -- stillbirth and miscarriage. I am amazed by her ability to tell stories in such a smart way with honesty and razor sharp humor. (She's also a damn good editor who did a great job trimming down a piece I had in the online magazine she started, Exhale. If only I could learn to cut to the chase with my own material.)

I knew Monica was due to have a baby in March and so was thrilled to see on her blog that Sean was born on March 26. The whole family looks like they could be in a photo shoot for post-birth bliss. (Well, that was before I read her post on stitches, but still.)

Congratulations to Monica on a baby and a book!

Clever title?

2010-04-04T23:51:00.003-04:00

My freshman year in college, my Brit Lit I professor expected we would always have a "clever title." I always used this as a space saver until I came up with one (except that on more than one occasion I noticed later that I'd spelled it "cleaver." This was almost 18 years ago, the same quarter I met my husband. Wow. I. Am. Old.)

My age, before I become the mother of two four months or so from now, I am determined to seriously upgrade this blog, move it to Wordpress, and merge my other two blogs into it as secondary pages. I'm looking for a subtitle for Crunchy-Chewy Mama, a tagline that will convey the idea of a having (at least) two identities, straddling different worlds, being a natural-minded mama in a processed world, hippy in the suburbs (wearing cable-knit sweaters)... something like that. I might keep the low-key feet in Birks image; I like the idea of two feet in two different worlds.

New logo or no, this writer mama cannot come up with a snappy (or at least succint) tagline. Can you? Please share any epiphanies that come upon you!

Navigating the birthday present conundrum

2010-04-01T18:47:00.001-04:00

I was pretty comfortable with my “No gifts, please”/Birthdays Without Pressure approach until last week when my newly-four-year-old son said of the friends coming to his playdate, “But I want them to bring presents!”

Am I an evil mommy for pushing low consumerism on my kid? Or am I just feeling the sting of letting him rummage through the recycling bin and find catalogs to drool over? And of getting gifts for other kids’ parties? I’m struggling now to find a way to be consistent or just comfortable on this issue of birthday presents.

I haven’t read Annie Leonard’s book yet, but the title says a lot: The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing The Planet, Our Communities, And Our Health - And A Vision For Change. I know age four is too young for me to push an agenda on my kid, but I do want to stick to my values.

At our planned birthday playdate, we were going to have a cake (that we’d made together, from scratch) but no gimmicks or giveaways. Just play with friends. As I’ve written before, I just want my son to see birthdays as a time where he feels special and happy, not as something that has to come wrapped in a box with a pricetag.

Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms Blog

Hot Momma finalist

2010-03-24T11:08:00.004-04:00

I just learned that I was a Top 25 Finalist for the Hot Mommas Project whose mission is "to increase self-efficacy in women and girls by providing scalable, global, free access to role models online. "

My case is titled "Spreading the Word About Healthy Living" and can be found in the case library. The task was to present background and goals along with personal and professional challenges and then to create discussion questions based on the case study for other women to consider.

Writing my case study was a thought-provoking process that came at a time of transition that has begun and is still unfolding. I hope my experience and challenges can be of use to other folks on their journeys.

Reflecting on NIH VBAC conference

2010-03-22T10:50:00.000-04:00

As I wrote shortly after attending the first day of the NIH conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) a few weeks ago, the experience was tiring. The panelists might have been trying to convey the message the uterine rupture is really rare -- less than 1% -- and that it does not deserve to be weighted more than a whole lot of other issues, including complications and risks of cesarean delivery. But honestly, it did not help this hopeful VBAC mom to see a bunch of photographs of uterine rupture!

I admired the birth activists who spoke out, women who have been working hard on this issue while I've been comparatively on the sidelines, not regularly attending ICAN meetings (in part because I didn't believe I would ever regain my fertility or get pregnant). But here I am, four and a half months along, and ignoring this issue is not an option. I've chosen to work with a midwife at home, and I hope that my baby's cord is long enough this time and that other factors go in my favor for a successful HBAC (homebirth after Cesarean).

No matter what kind of care I'd chosen, it's important that I understand the climate surrounding this issue as well as the facts. Indeed, the whole point is that the climate has dictated which facts get to "count," which in turn reinforces the tenor of the climate. Everything goes in a circle! But the way it spins has been heavily influenced by medical articles and the publicity surrounding them, and, most significnatly, by pronouncements by the American College of OB/Gyns (ACOG). Although the NIH statement is not perfect, it does call on ACOG to rethink its position about surgical facilities and anesthesia needing to be "immediately available" anywhere a VBAC is attempted.

It was powerful to follow the rest of the conference and the coverage by birth activists and then to write this news bulletin at Mothering.Com: "National Institutes of Health Conference Calls Vaginal Birth After Cesarean a "Reasonable Option."

Check it out for more background on the issue and responses to the conference.

How long until Daylight Savings Time ends?

2010-03-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

Four-year-olds do not sleep when it's sunny. That's an exaggeration, but I cannot say that I am in love with this early switch to later sunsets. The hour shift has been tough enough when we've had three more weeks of gradual, natural lightening to get used to the idea. But now that it's mid-March... Ouch.

Last summer my non-napping three-year-old played hard enough that he was ready to hit the pillow by 7:00 most nights. This early spring, he's got more stamina -- physically, not emotionally! And, he has less chance to burn off calories if it's too chilly for his wimpy mom to want to run him around a ton, or if she's too busy working all day and making dinner after preschool to let him spend two hours at the park. But my son is so darn tired, I know he needs to get rest or I will be in for a big whine-fest the next day (to say nothing of what wrath the preschool friends will encounter). If only I'd taught the child how to rest by himself and he hadn't abruptly stopped napping at two and a half with no interest in quiet time...

In the winter, early bedtime was easy. It's dark outside during dinner. Now, three days into this new schedule, I'm well over the loss of the hour on Sunday, but with daylight streaming in well into bedtime snacktime, we struggle to wind the day down on schedule. Once you're used to quiet upstairs by 7:30 p.m., it's rough on the marriage and the psyche not to have it until 8:30 p.m.

Read the rest of "How long until Daylight Savings Time ends?" here at DC Metro Moms Blog.

Breathe on me, when you're not strong

2010-03-19T16:06:00.003-04:00

I had a hunch my son was not in the greatest health when, on Wednesday morning, his breath didn't smell right. Whenever he gets a fever, his breath has a metallic or medicinal smell. I get the impression his body is heating up and detoxifying.

But it's hard to justify keeping a child home for funky breath when you've got a lot of work to do. So off he went for a full day of preschool. When we got home on a gorgeous afternoon, I was ready to walk him down to the library and finally get some exercise. He was whinier than usual (which is saying a lot these days), but we eventually made it out and back home in time for a quick dinner before I headed off to an ICAN meeting to watch Pregnant in America.

I didn't get home until 11 p.m. and had to find a source for a statistic for this piece on the NIH conference on vaginal birth after cesarean that was to be published by Mothering. I was exciting about the work and about having really gotten my head into this pregnancy at the meeting. My 20-week sonogram was scheduled for the following morning at 8 a.m. It seemed like perfect timing.

Except that it wasn't. I heard my four-year-old crying like a baby and wondered where the heck my husband was. Turns out he was right next to the boy in bed, as he had been for a few hours since the wakings and squirmings had started not long after he went to sleep. Something was up, and my husband, who had planned to work all evening while I was away at VBAC Central, was exhausted.

I told my son I was going to get him some water, dashed off the email I'd started, and went back up to more tears. I decided we were going to be together all night and that his wimpy IKEA bed was no match for my almost 20-pound-heavier-than-normal body. I suggested we move to the guest room, and he perked up at the idea and obligingly went to the bathroom before we headed downstairs. I didn't really know what his symptoms were, but I knew he'd be happy to take some "Curious George pellets," or Calms Forte, and I put some Rescue Remedy on his wrists and forehead.

He slept pretty well after that, until we plucked him out of bed Thursday morning to go to the appointment, which I did not want to reschedule or have my husband miss. E was clearly a little feverish and flushed, but that had faded within an hour or so. He was disappointed to have to cancel our playdate at the farm, but he acted pretty normal the rest of the day with, sadly, no desire to nap, even though I was dozing off on the couch right next to him.

I'm not sure when he crawled into our bed last night or this morning, but, right after my husband got out of bed and into the shower, I felt a little hand poking me and chirping, "It's morning time!"

I decided then the bug had passed.

NIH conference addresses vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC)

2010-03-09T14:21:00.008-05:00

More personal reflections will follow, but below is my official report from attending day one of the NIH conference on VBAC, a post I've also published in my column at the Washington Times Communities.

This week, the National Institutes of Health is holding a Consensus Development Conference entitled “Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: New Insights,” a three-day public meeting that, though focused on an obstetrical, biomedical model of hospital births, has drawn birth activists representing midwifery and homebirth interests.

The first day of the conference presented several short reviews of research on the topics of patterns regarding Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), risks of VBAC versus cesarean section, and maternal and neonatal outcomes from VBACs, from “Trial of Labor” (TOL) and “Elective Repeat Cesarean Delivery” (ERCD).

In the United States today, some 31% of births are c-sections. Of the 1.3 million c-sections performed each year in the U.S., 40% are repeat c-sections. According to research presented by Dr. Kimberly D. Gregory, the rate of VBACs in the U.S. rose from 3% in 1981 -- when the NIH recommended a decrease in the overall national c-section rate, including a recommendation to increase the use of VBAC -- to a high of 23% in 1996. In that year, the rate began to decline after the publication of a a medical journal article about the risks of TOL.

In 1999, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) required the “immediate” availability of emergency c-section facilities in any hospital that offered TOL and VBAC. Currently, the VBAC rate in the U.S. is around 7%*, even though VBACs, when attempted, are 60-80% successful.

The speakers at the NIH conference discussed the fact that risks associated with c-section need to be weighed against the potential risks of VBAC, which include a 1% or lower chance of uterine rupture. It was noted that much attention gets paid to this dramatic and catastrophic event, while less information is shared with mothers about the many risks associated with surgical delivery, including a higher likelihood of placental accreta in future pregnancies (a condition in which the placenta grows into the uterus).

Dr. Mona Lyndon-Rochelle explained that the risk of maternal death is highest with an elective repeat c-section without a trial of labor. Thus, then, how can we grapple ethically with the fact that more and more hospitals are banning VBAC procedures and forcing women who deliver there into mandatory repeat c-sections?

This question was raised in a Q&A session and was noted by the panel to be the very point of the conference. The NIH cannot force hospitals to change their policies, but the hope among birth activists is that the institute will make recommendations that will halt the trend toward denying women the birth they desire, forcing them into major abdominal surgery if they are unable or unwilling to find another institution at which to birth or a midwife with whom to work at home. According to the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN), over 800 hospitals in the U.S. have banned VBACs.

When attendees asked questions about the safety of VBAC at home, or HBAC, they were met with the explanation that no research of acceptable quality was available on the subject, and even that it was not possible to obtain statistics on homebirth. Upon being questioned by attendees about non-medical effects of surgical delivery (including a question from Gina, an ICAN chapter leader for and the author of The Feminist Breeder blog), the panelists admitted to a dearth of information on issues like postpartum depression (PPD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), difficulty establishing or maintaining breastfeeding, and difficulty bonding with an infant.

In light of the fact that some hospitals not only ban VBACs but also require all c-section babies to spend time (one participant said four hours at the hospital where he practices) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), it would seem that questions of mother-child bonding need to be investigated. A panelist noted that these were excellent questions that were discussed to some degree in the planning committee before it was determined that there was inadequate research to discuss them in this forum.

The conference will end Wednesday, March 10 with a presentation of the NIH’s draft statement at 9:00 a.m. followed by public discussion, after which the panel will meet in executive session before providing a summary of its findings to the press in a 2:00 telebriefing. The draft statement will be available after the proceedings at consensus.nih.gov with the final statement to follow four to six weeks later.

Further coverage of the conference from a VBACivist perspective can be found at the ICAN blog at http://blog.ican-online.org/, The Feminist Breeder Blog, which includes live radio coverage and interviews via podcast at http://thefeministbreeder.com/nihvbac/, and Momotics Blog at http://momotics.com/category/nih-vbac/.

*The most recent statistics used by the papers at the conference cite a VBAC rate of 8.5% in 2006.

The day after

2010-03-09T09:00:00.003-05:00

It was nice to have such warm & fuzzy feelings about my son yesterday, but today I just feel guilty. He was so whiny and out of sorts this morning. It's great that he can adapt well to situations (like yesterday's marathon of being in others' care), but I feel like we always pay for it later.

Before we left for preschool, I gave him some drops of the Bach flower essences Gentian for feeling despondent due to setbacks and Red Chestnut for issues related to connection/separation to/from a loved one, and I think Elm for feelings of overwhelm/burden. I took them all, too!

I might search for some other remedies this evening or try to leave time for a foot massage with some essential oils. I think he and I both need to attend more to our body/mind/spirit in an intentional way. If he's going to learn that, he has to see me doing it for myself and, while he's young, for him.

Tired and missing my kid

2010-03-08T20:38:00.004-05:00

It feels good to look forward to seeing your son. Lately I've felt so swamped -- and especially after all that snow with no break -- I haven't exactly loved all my many minutes with my boy.

Today I went to the National Institutes of Health for a conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), which I hope to write about in more depth later. But the experience of the day was something in and of itself. Getting dressed in real-people clothes, taking my boy to a friend's so she could drive him to school and pick him up, getting on a crowded Metro during rush hour, and then listening to a lot of doctors talk about best outcomes for moms and babies... Well, it was intense. Especially considering that I'm 4 months pregnant and hoping for a home VBAC (HBAC) with baby #2.

I knew E would probably be okay, but I also knew it was a long day for both of us. We were both exhausted when I picked him up from the park. I could not wait to trade my button-down and blazer for a sweatshirt and just sit on the couch hugging and talking to him. If we weren't both hungry with dinner nowhere in sight, I would have happily sat there for an hour. It felt good for that to feel so good.

For someone always looking at her watch and struggling to just be in the moment when I really want to be writing or researching or exercising, that uncomplicated couch time was a true delight.

Generosity of Peers

2010-03-03T14:24:00.003-05:00

Tell people that you might need help, and they come through!

This has nothing to do with my last post about mood blues, which aimed to say that no one can help me but me. No, I'm talking about offers from other mamas to help out with my son this summer, when I'm expecting baby #2 in early August.

I wrote a post on DC Metro Moms blog the other day about missing out on sending my son to summer (day) camp with the two friends he went with last year. Since I wrote that piece, one mom has agreed to send her child to camp with mine for four weeks of the summer, and at least five moms have come forward to offer to have my son over for playdates while they or their babysitters watch him - before or after the baby. Truthfully, they admit, it would be good for their kids, too, because they are not going to have as much social time in the summer. Who can afford a nanny and camp when school is so expensive and there is a second child who can't go anywhere yet? But still, the generosity has been inspiring. This just might help me learn to take people up on their offers to help. What a concept!

Read "Dissed for Summer Camp," the original post on DC Metro Moms Blog.

The February Blues

2010-02-28T08:27:00.003-05:00

This time of year is rough for me, with personal history of a family death and my birthday always linked and the chilly grey skies no help. Sometimes it doesn’t hit as hard, but this year, after all that snow and maybe due to the hormones of pregnancy, I am battling what I’d called situational depression. I know it won’t last forever, but it can still shoot out short, virulent doses of debilitation and self-doubt, resulting in my wanting to crawl under a rock.

While I manage to fulfill societal roles – volunteer group organizer, volunteer newsletter editor, tutor, workshop participant – I am no good for regular social mingling. It’s hard. You might think it would help, and it sometimes seem to distract for a short while, but if other people are happy and I am struggling just not to be in tears, it’s really a challenge to be in social situations. So, while I lick my wounds, I just kind of disappear from just plain communicating with friends and from anything that doesn’t serve some outside purpose.

I know I used to feel like this most of the time, and I know what medication helped, but I no longer consider pharmaceuticals an option for me. They are too hard on my liver and my body in general, and as long as I stick to eating the right foods for my body (no gluten, dairy, corn or soy, and limit the yeast, egg white, and even natural sugar, too!), I don’t think I should ever get so far gone that I would need meds.

But I also have to do other things.

I have to consider exercise a non-negotiable mental health prescription.

I need to spend time on my yoga mat, preferably with a CD or DVD or some kind of groovy music so I can get into my body and out of my head. Classes are great if I can fit them in without feeling guilty about the money (or mad about the time it takes to sign up and get there when I should just be doing it more at home).

Last week I got out my SAD light, and that seemed to help a lot.

I need to keep taking Vitamin D and cod liver oil, and probiotics (especially if I overindulge on sugar of any kind). I just started liquid chlorophyll to help with my iron. Maybe that will help.

And I need to write.

Secretary Vilsack talks to mommy bloggers about nutrition

2010-02-15T09:35:00.010-05:00

Last week I participated in a conference call organized with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who wants to get the word out about the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act and to help promote the First Lady's new Let's Move Initiative to combat childhood obesity. The call was organized and moderated by Alix of Silicon Valley Moms Blog, a sister blog of DC Metro Moms Blog, where I contribute as Claire Jess. The post below also appears on my other other blog, Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families, where I share recipes and write about nutrition and alternative health.

“This is a different USDA,” announced Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week on a conference call with members of the public to share information about the agency’s response to First Lady Michelle Obama’s new Let’s Move initiative to combat childhood obesity. The call was a great opportunity to hear about high-up efforts to address the federal school lunch program and more general issues of helping people gain health through nutrition.

From my perspective as a whole foods and local foods advocate, there was much to cheer about what Secretary Vilsack had to say about changes in the school lunch program. As an advocate of traditional foods, however, there are still a lot of concerns to address. If this is a different USDA, I'd still like to wait for the next version.

Background

The four main pillars of the Let’s Move Initiative are to 1) give parents the support they need to make healthy choices (including support for breastfeeding as a healthy start), 2) provide healthier food in schools , 3) promote physical activity, and 4) increase the availability of affordable healthy food.

The Child Nutrition Act was up for reauthorization by Congress in 2009, as it is every five years, but it has been extended through the Agriculture Appropriations Bill and is now up for reauthorization in 2010. The USDA puts out a plan and a budget, and it is up to Congress to decide where the funding will come from and to make adjustments and changes. The purpose for the conference call was to get folks aware of the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization and to describe the efforts of the USDA in light of the Let’s Move initiative.

I'm all for education, and some of these efforts sound great, but I still found myself shaking my head during parts of this call.

First, the heartening news

The USDA is paying attention to the fact that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has produced a report that is highly critical of the quality of school lunches. Secretary Vilsack explained that 31 million children participate in the school lunch program and 11 million in the breakfast program, both of which he said offer foods that have too much sugar and sodium, and not enough dark green and orange vegetables.

Secretary Vilsack said that the USDA wants to give schools incentives make healthy options more appealing to kids. “We are looking for a way in which we can significantly improve foods in school outside of lunch,” Secretary Vilsack said, including a la carte offerings and vending machines. “We want a consistent message” in schools, which would include getting sugary drinks and snacks out of vending machines.

The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program is one effort to get schools connected with local sources of food and to help students see a connection to food. Secretary Vilsack said the USDA is expanding research into organic farming and is trying to increase the number of small businesses in agriculture. “We are looking for creative ways for these guys to make ends meet,” he said, noting that the USDA does not want to arrive at a day and age with just a handful of really large producers and, on the other hand, very small producers.

One of the current areas of research, Secretary Vilsack explained, is how to make nutritious food compelling for children and how to encourage them to make healthy choices. “This requires us to focus on early childhood, to encourage kids at a young age to put a rainbow on their plate,” Secretary Vilsack said. Parents and educators alike need to explain the difference between everyday foods and sometimes foods. There has been work on a textbook and toolkit for parents participating in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program to “get them started in the right direction.”

If parents are more engaged in these kinds of conversations, Vilsack said, perhaps they will be more involved in school board decisions. Sometimes school boards see extra money in their food budget and direct it to another area that needs funding. “Part of our challenge,” Secretary Vilsack said, “is to make sure people understand that this is as important as any other thing that goes on in school.”

Educating consumers

In the Q&A portion of the call, Nutritionist and Silicon Valley Moms blogger Alix, the moderator for this call, shared her concern about “nutritional illiteracy” of parents who, for example, don’t realize that Goldfish crackers have a glycemic index as high as a lollipop. Secretary Vilsack responded that we need better labeling so that people know what the better choices are. He spoke highly of a NuVal, a numerical system currently in place in stores in his home state of Iowa that rates items on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the most nutritious. Having this information helps consumers, he said, which will then lead to better options. “As we make those more nutritious choices,” he said, “the market will be compelled to do better.”

A quick look at the NuVal website shows that 2% Horizon Organic milk gets a rating of 55, while 1% Organic Valley milk gets a much better rating of 81, and Garelick Farms Over the Moon Fat Free Milk gets a super-high rating of 91. Nevermind that the less of the naturally-occurring milkfat you take out of the milk, the harder it is to digest (and that pasteurization kills milk’s enzymes!)

Since NuVal gives Silk Soymilk Light Chocolate a decent rating of 56, I am guessing that this “patent-pending algorithm” does not take hormone and endocrine disruption into consideration. Probably not the difference in products made from grassfed vs. industrial feedlot cows, either. I am just learning about this system and look forward to investigating it further.

What about the food pyramid?

Alix pointed out that the IOM is basing its conclusions on the food pyramid, a construct that many health-minded writers and practitioners find problematic, preferring to look at the way author Michael Pollan talks about what should be in our diets, including the idea that “real food” usually does not contain more than five ingredients.

Secretary Vilsack said that the food pyramid guidelines are going to be revised. With some 20-30 people working on this “extensive effort based on what we didn’t know five, ten years ago,” the pyramid will be adjusted. He explained that what the USDA is going to want to see are “steps being taken by local school districts to better align with the IOM study” and with the new food pyramid guidelines.

There are many areas of concern about the current food pyramid, and it will be interesting to see what the revisions include. For one, traditional foods enthusiasts might want to see the “oils” page differentiate between chemically-produced unhealthy oils like canola oil and margarine compared to naturally-occurring fats that are necessary for optimum absorption of nutrients. Healthy fats include butter and coconut oil, which is not even on the list of oils at http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/oils.html

If the researchers working on the food pyramid are familiar with this research on traditional diets and fats, then perhaps they will veer away from the low-fat craze. But based on Secretary Vilsack’s insistence that we do not have enough of a focus on “low-fat dairy products,” I’m concerned. It’s unfortunate that people think that incomplete foods are somehow better recognized and utilized by our bodies than foods in their natural states (i.e. full fat). The real fats to avoid are manufactured fats like canola oil, corn oil, and soybean oil that were never intended to be removed from the rest of the food and that hold no nutritional value or provide assistance with the absorption of nutrients.

That pesky corn issue

Alix asked Secretary Vilsack if we could get a commitment that school lunches would not have foods with more than five ingredients and if the school lunch program will respond to parent desire to get high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of all foods that cross the school threshold. The answer, in short, was no. “I’m not sure we’d be as prescriptive as that,” Secretary Vilsack began. This might get pushback from members of Congress, so the better way to go, he said, is for the USDA to push for incentives for schools to make better options available. “What we can say is that food has to be consistent with dietary guidelines.” And then, he said, we have to trust people.

The next concern came from Sophia, a mother whose children’s school lunches are run by a private company that has told her it has gotten questionable food off of its menu except for “what the government sends us,” which includes HFCS and meat raised with hormones and antibiotics. She questioned the subsidy system that makes it profitable for farmers to grow genetically-modified corn. Secretary Vilsack initially respondd that organic farmers can qualify for a number of USDA regular programs in which they can receive direct payments if they raise “certain crops.” And he added that the USDA under the Obama administration has increased its participation in conservation programs that the Bush administration tried to get rid of.

Secretary Vilsack thought that roughly one-quarter of what is provided to schools is in the form of commodities, adding “If a district is insistent on what they want for their kids, we need to figure out how to be more responsive to their needs.” But he went on to explain that in the U.S., “we’re going to continue to grow corn for a lot of reasons.” This includes corn as a source of power, and Secretary Vilsack went on to reference other alternative power sources being developed. The USDA is not, he said, going to stop providing resources to those who grow corn but will try to support more mid-size farms.

Where to go now?

The call inspired me not so much to sing the praises of the Child Nutrition Act but simply to continue to share my concerns about mainstream ideas about food, problematic ideas that include promoting whole grains (despite a lot of research that says many people have gluten sensitivities) as a health food and low-fat dairy as a necessary ingredient in the fight against childhood obesity. We were healthier when we ate real food with full fat and not so darn much bread!

Although my son is not yet in public school, I look forward to learning more about the efforts Secretary Vilsack referenced and how they are being implemented in my local area. As a chapter leader with Holistic Moms Networ k, I will continue to try to educate my community about healthy eating. I hope to find ways to make healthy food more widely available and to share information about how to access affordable healthy food.

Related posts:
Sophia's blog post about the call and Secretary Vilsack's response to her question
A post at the Slow Food USA blog about what sounds like a similar call with a larger audience
A shorter post of mine (with a little more attitude) at my column, "Reading Ingredients: Tales from Health-Conscious Mom" at the Washington Times Communities

I sewed! It's a miracle!

2010-02-10T19:16:00.005-05:00

While cleaning out a closet in the midst of the current series of snowstorms, I came across some felted wool that I cut out to make a little person as my last project in last year's Waldorf school Parent-Child class. Now, I might have made my son a Halloween costume, but I'm not one of those crafty mamas in general, and I was downright pathetic by Waldorf school standards. I was in near tears trying to learn to knit, and the stitches on the mouse, snail and gnome I made in class are not exactly going to win any awards.

But there is part of me that really wants to model for my son making things with one's hands.

(Besides food, that is. Today when I was saying that his dad was better at some things and I was better at others, and E said of my top skills, "Like chopping vegetables?")

And there are so many times when he asks to do something we've been saying we were going to do for a long time and I just never get to it. (Including the fact that in all these days at home, I still haven't made homemade ketchup or mustard as planned).

So, since Daddy was on a conference call and it was way too windy and cold to go out today until after 4 when it finally stopped snowing, I said okay. I used all the thread I had on the pants and quadrupled some regular thread for the rest. The doll is not going to be a prototype for a new Etsy business or anything, but my boy enjoyed making the little guy walk and play, and he said multiple times, "I love him," though the little fellow still ended up face-down on the floor later. Old habits die hard.

It struck me how much easier it was for my son to amuse himself and to be patient while I created this real thing than it is for him to deal with me working on the computer. Shouldn't be a surprise, but it was still worth remarking.

I do hope this snow shut-in comes to an end next week, but I'm also worried that, in all my trying to clean out and purge and not get further behind on work-related stuff, that I won't have amassed enough moments like this one when this period is finally over.

Not exactly living in the moment. Maybe racking up some points? And does it make up for the fact that I never got dressed today?

Homemade Chicken Stock

2010-02-09T19:23:00.004-05:00

Homemade chicken stock is an inexpensive way to make a mineral-rich, healing liquid that can soothe testy tummies and enhance the flavor and healthfulness of any soup or cooked veggie recipe.

I just posted a recipe/protocol for making homemade chicken stock on my more food-focused outlets: on my blog "Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families" and also on my Washington Times Communities column, "Reading Ingredients: Tales of a Health-Conscious Mom."

If you're snowed in like me and happen to have recently cooked a chicken, there is no time like the present to get started on a delicious and healthy food staple!

What is a snowstorm good for?

2010-02-09T19:10:00.001-05:00

Just what all does one do during a snowed-in weekend like we've had here in the DC area? I got an email this morning telling me that DC Metro Moms Blog was low on posts, so I imagine I’m not the only one who did not use the time to catch up on writing. (I hope that’s not for lack of electricity, but there are still some outages, I hear. We got lucky [knock on wood] and clocked in at only 18 inches, a low for the region!)

Over these past three days, I have let the computer collect some dust. I took an unplanned two-day hiatus from even opening the email box for the nonprofit group chapter I run. (That’s going to have to end soon. Just as soon as I get up this post!) I was already behind from just general life and from last Wednesday’s thoroughly unnecessary snow day with no preschool.

Since the snow began to fall on Friday, I have avoided finishing a freelance assignment and replying to long overdue personal notes, taking the time only to delete emails from lists I should get off of and from yoga studios telling me they are closed. Oh, and I took photos of the snow and sent links to my family. That’s about it. It’s kind of revolutionary to see the lid of my laptop closed and my phone quiet.

The only real thing I’ve wanted to do is clean the house... Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms Blog.

My apologies to my sister DCMM writers who I found out after writing this post have been -- and in some cases still are -- without power!

Holistic living in the news

2010-01-30T19:36:00.004-05:00

So, a columnist whose work I really like wrote about me and my Holistic Moms group in the Washington Post in an article that was titled on paper "Healthier eating, a nibble at a time" but appears online here as "No need to go hog-wild in making healthier food choices."

I already posted some comments online, that if you feel good about your choices, that doesn't mean anyone else has to feel bad about hers. I elaborated on the "it's not a choice" for me issue -- if I don't live like this (specifically paying close attention to what I eat), I feel bad and am putting myself at risk of serious health problems (that would cost a lot of money to address if I weren't spending my money on good quality food).

I'm glad for the exposure, but several folks I've talked to about the article are bummed that it succumbed to the tired old "McDonalds vs. health food store" dichotomy. I wish enthusiasm the author shared with me had outshone the piece's intimidated tone. In a personal reflective piece about the author's own experiences, it seems jarring to bring in the "but not everyone can afford this" via a low-income woman talking about not being able to afford (and also not liking) vegetables. My husband complained that including this example is like inserting in an article on home renovation "but not everyone has a safe place to live" or in a travel article, "Must be nice to go to a spa when all those people in Haiti just want clean water."

There are real problematic reasons why crappy food is so cheap and accessible, and that's worth discussing. Just not as a way to suggest that the things my friends and holistic mama sisters are doing in the name of health is some kind of elitist pursuit.

Mama gets the sniffles

2010-01-25T13:15:00.004-05:00

We've got 60 degrees here in Metro DC and I think I'm finally getting over a cold that started two weeks ago. I never get sick and stay sick. This was annoying. Not so bad that I had to make the husband stay home or back out on a major event I was planning, but bad enough that I sounded like the woman from "The Nanny" if she had a sinus infection. Not pretty!

We don't do drugs in our house, so I did my best to self-medicate. This starts with food -- lots of nutrient-dense homemade (from pastured chickens) bone broth and a limit on refined carbs. When I look back, the weekend before I got sick I had hot rice cereal for breakfast one day and French toast another day (GF millet bread, but still) and a bunch of rice crackers. That's way more packaged food than usual. So I cut out what I could but still allowed myself some antioxidant-rich raw cacao.

When I started to feel an illness on I restarted the flower essences I maybe should have been taking all season long from Perelandra. On Tuesday the 12th, I tried the homeopathic remedy Hepar. Sulph. Calc. and promptly got worse with a sore throat and swollen glands. I think I honestly fell asleep on the floor of my bathroom while my son played with toys in an empty bathtub. A homeopath said it was most likely that this reaction was just pushing the natural course of events forward and that now I just had a cold I might as well let run its course. So I gave up on the homeopathy - none of the indications seemed 100% right on anymore,anyway - and just tried garlic & ginger in hot lemon water in the morning, eating well, getting sleep, staying in bed even if I couldn't sleep well (instead of getting up to work), and putting some eucalyptus in my shower. I kept meaning to get even just a basic saline nasal spray but didn't, and we found our humidifier but never got it working.

Well, all that, and a lot of water and a lot of bodywork. My head was killing me with major sinus pressure, so I looked for whatever healing hands had openings. On Wednesday, the day after I felt terrible, I had a chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture. On Saturday morning I had a massage, primarily of craniosacral therapy. On Monday afternoon I had another bodywork session, a combo of craniosacral therapy and lymphatic drainage massage. Each time I handed over my credit card after a session, I did feel better. But it didn't last to the next day, not as much as I wanted. I still had a lot of nose-blowing and some coughing.

Then, on Wednesday when I'd been sick for a week, my eye looked red in one corner, which I thought was from not sleeping well until the next morning when it was sticky and red all over. This was the day of my event. None of the many homeopathic remedies for conjunctivitis sounded spot-on for my symptoms, but I got so weepy when my friend rang the doorbell while I was trying to have my son nap, that I decided to take pulsatilla. And I found some homeopathic eye drops at CVS, which I think helped, for sure with the redness. The eye was cleared up a day later. (The second eye got it too and also cleared up after a day).

Friday I saw an osteopath who worked a lot on my head in general, my sinuses and even in my mouth and upper palette. I sounded like a different person after that appointment -- much less nasal. But the next morning I slept in and still felt like I'd regressed. Maybe shopping for a sofa, meeting friends for coffee and walking a mile in mild winter day were too much. But we did get a new rebounder, which I used twice, hoping that it would help my lymphatic system clear out. And I did fit in a little yoga.

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed but felt a lot better after starting the morning off with Vitamin C before my lemon/ginger/garlic drink, to which I added turmeric and elderberry. And then I had a full breakfast and set to work on some reorganization of the house, which felt great. I even had a little decaf coffee and some GFCF sugar-free (maple syrup only) chocolate cake my son and I had made as a celebration of my successful event Thursday night (adaptation of this cake recipe but using mashed cherries instead of applesauce and adding cacao and coconut flakes).

Despite this indulgence, I could tell I'd turned the corner Sunday afternoon. It's now Monday afternoon, and though I still am not ready to go out and do a full run in this gorgeously warm day (or to be too far away from a tissue), I am glad I was able to ride this out and that so far, no one else in the house seems to have any symptoms.

Take a break, Winter.

2010-01-16T19:33:00.004-05:00

I think my shoulders are finally detaching from my ears. Fifty degrees and the disappearance of last week's bone-chilling wind could not have come too soon.

I'm amazed at how different my attitude is now that I've actually had some warm, fresh air. The world feels open instead of hunched into a ball. I can leave my house without hours of preparation.

Yesterday we hiked in the woods behind our house to get to the park instead of walking along the sidewalk. Then we walked some more to meet a friend who recently moved nearby and walked back to the park. It was glorious. Even though I was sicker this week than I've been all winter and feel most of the day like my sinuses are blinking "drain me or I'll explode," after some time outside, the pain disappears, and my mood is vastly improved. The addiction to run to the computer is quelled, and I see remember how funny my son is.

Last week I went to a library story time featuring authors from Solar Publishing. After the reading, I bought their CD Earth Day Everyday, which is now on heavy rotation in our house. The vocals sing the praises of the sun, which I have come to appreciate these past days of thaw.

I don't even care if I see the shiny yellow ball in blue skies as long as its beams somehow hit the DC area the way they are supposed to. I moved away from the Midwest to avoid the kind of cold, cutting winters we've been seeing glimpses of here recently. I know there have been at least two New Years Eve days here in NoVa when I've gone running in a t-shirt. But lately all I can do is bark at my son to stop playing when I pick him up at preschool because Mama is not in a snowsuit.

So today, I announce with joy that yes, that was my kid wearing Tevas with socks. In January. Now that is hot!

Why I'm Not a Vegetarian Anymore

2010-01-10T10:00:00.003-05:00

In preparation for writing a piece for my column at the Washington Times Communities, "Reading Ingredients: Tales from a Health-Conscious Mom," I realized that I could stand to write have a background post on why I eat the way I do when it's so different from how I used to eat.

I've written some about my nutritional beliefs in a piece called "My Kind of Nutrition (Or Healthy Eating 101)" and a similar post here on Crunchy-Chewy Mama. I've also written a little about my ideas about health care and my past experiences with doctors on this post at DC Metro Moms.

But let me go back a little to trace my personal food history to talk about the journey to vegetarian and back.

I first lost my interest in eating ham after dissecting a fetal pig in 9th grade biology. Then, when I went to France for three weeks for a cultural exchange in 11th grade, I felt heavy and just plain yucky with all the meat at every meal. Some friends were experimenting with vegetarianism, including my co-leader in the high school student environmental organization.

When I went to college, I joined the environmental group there, and most everyone was vegetarian, as were several of the folks living on my hall in the dorm and friends of theirs. It seemed like vegetarianism made sense in terms of how much energy it took to grow grain versus to feed animals to then feed to people, and lots of folks were on the animal-rights bandwagon, too.

I stopped eating red meat and had zero desire for it. I asked for my college graduation present to be a Sierra Club backpacking trip and chose a vegan trip in the Sierra mountains that included yoga and meditation. It was beautiful and powerful.

I did not go full-on veggie for a few more months, but since I was living as a non-profit intern at at women's rights organization outside of DC, eating vegetarian became a cost-cutting measure in addition to a way of life I was gravitating toward.

On my birthday in March of 1996, I walked away from a turkey sandwich lunch at a sub shop and decided that was the last time. Soon after I saw a report on factory farmed chickens essentially living in their own feces, and I decided that no one should want to eat meat. I didn't know there were alternatives to that type of farming.

I also didn't know much about health to understand that adrenal stress and an imbalance in my digestive enzymes might have caused me to be so averse to red meat -- that not wanting to eat it was a symptom of something else rather than just a natural sigh that it wasn't right for me.

And somehow I failed to see the connection between my new diet -- grain-heavy and increasingly dependent on soy products -- and my increase in gastro-intestinal problems or deep-cyst acne. Certainly stress also played into my problems, and I'd had some G.I. issues all my life. But things were really bad in 1996-97.

Then I got some kind of food poisoning or flu, and that actually seemed to help clean me out for a while! I moved away from DC and toward graduate school, where I didn't get hard-core into animal rights issues but generally accepted the basic ideas behind The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. It just seemed like meat was a barbaric way of living, akin to abuse and misogyny. I did okay health-wise while a vegetarian student for the next three years. Well, physically anyway. My mental health -- which had always been on the verge of depression -- took a downturn.

I should also mention that I was on the Pill this whole time, which did me no favors and I'm sure contributed to my woes. After we moved back to the DC area and I began teaching, I fell into a serious depression that required medication.

I also had a recurrence of G.I. problems much worse than before. I did put together than my issues seemed to get worse after going to Sunflower Vegetarian restaurant, but I couldn't figure out why that would be. I had yet to learn anything about gluten (the meat substitute used in a lot of their cooking), and this was years before I learned I had celiac disease.

I started seeing some alternative practitioners this first year after grad school, and I cleared my seasonal allergies and my sensitivity to sulfites and some other chemicals and foods. But it still took a bout with serious and long-term constipation and, a year later, with infertility, to get me to change my tune about my diet.

When doctors found nothing wrong during a colonoscopy in 2002, I sought out more alternative healers. Without understanding how poor my health really was, I went off the Pill and off anti-depressants in preparation for trying to conceive. That's when the real fun started.

It took almost 3 months to get my first period, then 6 weeks, and then nothing. My gut wasn't happy, and my skin looked terrible. I consulted with a nutritionist who suggested that my adrenals were depleted and that my vegetarian diet was not right for me. She talked about the ideas behind the book Nourishing Traditions, and though I was first insulted that she suggest I resume eating meat, I relented to at least try cutting back on soy and to add in full-fat dairy and eggs to my diet.

After three and a half months of no fertility signs, I ovulated two weeks after changing my diet simply to a lacto-ovo (as opposed to near-vegan) vegetarian diet.

At the same time, I also started the process of being diagnosed with Graves' Disease, autoimmune hyperthyroidism. This nutritionist suggested a few months later that I might have a gluten sensitivity; sometimes autoimmune conditions go together, she'd read in the book Going Against the Grain.

I tried cutting back on gluten and dairy and found an improvement in my health. I'd already started to feel better eating poultry and fish again. My test showed the genetic marker for celiac disease, marked intestinal malabsorption, and a very high sensitivity to gluten and casein (and a lower sensitivity to egg white and yeast. I never tested soy, but I'm sure that would have come up and don't need the test to tell me to avoid it).

In addition to my new diet and supplement regimen, I took a lot of alternative methods to support myself while I was on anti-thyroid medication - acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, detox protocols. I became convinced that a lifetime of eating gluten had contributed to my tendency toward depression and that my six years as a whole-grain-heavy (and soy-based) vegetarian really did me in.

I felt better than I ever had, and, six months after I'd gone off anti-thyroid medication, I conceived my son in June 2005. I have not had to treat my thyroid since then, except for adding a little iodine a few months postpartum when my levels started to dip low, toward Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

All the details about my current diet can be found on other posts, but I did want to explain why I came to understand that a vegetarian diet is not right for me. I now buy most of my meat (and eggs, and dairy for my husband and son) directly from local farmers, and I buy as much local produce as possible. I hope to grow more this summer now that we are settled in our new house. I have not yet read The Vegetarian Myth by 20-year vegan Lierre Keith, but I get the sense from reviews (including this one) that the author addresses ecological, philosophical, ethical, political and nutritional arguments for and against vegetarianism in persuasive ways.

I can't begin to pretend that I know what is right for other people, even if part of me wants to think I know. I for sure don't want to make blanket statements that sound dismissive of other people's choices.

I just want to be clear that my choice to be an omnivore is intentional and based on a lot of trial and error; it has not been made without a lot of thought and consideration.

I'll take a village. Please.

2010-01-08T09:09:00.002-05:00

Originally posted at DC Metro Moms.

After a week home with a son who was just sick enough to have to stay home from preschool, followed by a weekend of the biggest December snow ever in D.C., I was ready to get out o’ town on Christmas Eve. The cab that took us to the airport for a week with family was driven by a man who explained that his youngest son, too ill to go out in the snow, was kept busy by his two older brothers. He gestured to my almost-four-year-old son, “He needs a brother or sister.” Ahem.

Nosy, but right. I don’t really love the dynamic the three of us have going on at home these days. Life was very different (read: much more fun) with the two other toddler cousins, their parents, and grandparents around the first half of our holiday visit. It kind of sucks that this happens only once or twice a year.

Managing three kids under four in one unfamiliar house was challenging and requiring of some adult supervision, sure. But my son was playing, all the time, and it usually didn’t involve me. This was a major bonus. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I actually took a nap. Twice. I might as well have been fed grapes by a golden-chested god . Three cheers for cousins!

...

Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms.

The call to simplify...

2009-12-31T22:56:00.004-05:00

A friend sent this piece by Ann Patchett as inspiration for taking oneself seriously as a writer. I love it and did find inspiration in it, but I also found it rather divorced from the world of being an at-home mother.

Additionally, I am someone who seriously needs to spend a good bit of time on meal preparation -- and on exercise and/or yoga, and at least one bodywork appointment per month, if not more -- or everything else falls apart. I know that I need a lot of components to be running on all cylinders. If I ignore one thing -- sleep, or healthy food, or exercise, or acupuncture/chiropractic/craniosacral work -- for a month, I spend the next 6 weeks or more playing some kind of catch up.

My feeling is often that there just isn't enough time -- not to do all the things I "have" to do, but to do all the things I want and feel like I need to do to feel alive and with both feet on the ground and my hands pressed together reaching for a star. It's like there's a Top 40 of needs in my world, not just one or three things that can demand my laser focus.

I know there are ways I can cut down on some things. Blogging for instance. But the work (to upgrade/combine/streamline) seems so much more daunting than just plodding along (which has some personal rewards, or I wouldn't do it). Shifting toward a new momentum is where I need some motivation, a coach, the decision to make something a priority. But I don't think working on writing presence/business development is going to help me fit more writing hours in the day anytime soon (as the article discusses). So the goals seem to be at odds. Would that I'd quit teaching and started freelancing before I became a mother!

The multiple strands in multiple directions are not doing wonders for my sleep or centeredness, especially as long as I keep acting like I rue them.

I am resolving nothing for the new year other than to try to be kind to myself and to be in the moment in whatever I'm doing -- even if I've got multiple things going, I'd like to stop making that wrong and just play with the complexity, which is, I recently realized, something I do truly value for its own sake.

Yummy food for the holidays

2009-12-25T19:57:00.005-05:00

We had a lovely holiday today. After a very busy Thanksgiving hosting four adults and two teenagers, I enjoyed not having to do a whole bunch today while at my in-laws'. But I did make the pumpkin pies, and they turned out delicious!

Check out this (newly updated) recipe for Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Pumpkin Pie on my food and health blog, Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families.

It's great to make something I enjoy when other people around me are having foods that are no-nos for my body. But it's really great to hear that other people enjoy my creation, too. Glad I made two pies!

Happy holidays, and happy, healthy eating!

A week home sick

2009-12-19T19:56:00.003-05:00

I'm still climbing out from the mounds of things that piled up this past week when my son missed all three days of preschool. Monday I thought was just a precaution, that going would tire him out. The cough wasn't that bad.

But apparently it was too much to take him to the Vitamin Shoppe for a homeopathic remedy, to a crowded post office where we left without sending a package because the line was ridiculous and the self-print label machine was broken, and then to Trader Joe's to get some onions so I could make soup. That night he came down with a fever, and it was lethargy city around here on Tuesday. The rest of the week was just coughing and whining, but enough that we couldn't do anything or be around anyone.

I'm glad for the Ergo that let me carry all 35+ pounds of him on my back and for the remedies, which I think helped while not fighting his body's natural work.

He was better enough today to shovel snow (his idea!). Let's hope that wasn't too much and that we're all in decent enough health to get to family for the holidays.

For more on holistic health, see "Let the Fever Go" on my Washington Times Communities column, "Reading Ingredients: Tales from a Health-Conscious Mom."

Waldorf School Advent Garden

2009-12-09T23:17:00.005-05:00

I just wrote this post at my column on the Washington Times Communities. The main idea is that I found this simple ceremony of children lighting candles and walking through a spiral of fresh evergreens to be profoundly moving.

It's late, and I don't know why the photo of the apple candle wasn't loading to the longer article, but here it is. No photos of the actual event, beautiful as it was and as much as I'd like a postcard; that, of course, would take you out of the moment.

Putting my son on the table: craniosacral therapy

2009-12-01T20:19:00.009-05:00

I don't claim to understand exactly what craniosacral therapy (CST) does, but I believe in it. I've read some books by Dr. John Upledger, and I've talked a whole lot with my practitioners about my body and my son's body.

And I've seen its results firsthand.

I've been getting CST for six years, since I first started pursuing alternative therapies, which ended up including diagnoses of celiac disease and autoimmune thyroid disorder en route to dealing with infertility.

I learned about the therapy through my sister and her work with her son, who is on the autism spectrum. CST has been immensely powerful for me, helping me to let go of a whole lot of energy I'd been holding onto, which caused physical and emotional problems. (For more, see my article in the Winter 2008/2009 issue of the Journal of Attachment Parenting).

I had my craniosacral therapist there at my son's birth, which was supposed to be all-natural in a birth center but instead was a c-section due to my baby's breech position and extremely short umbilical cord (see my poem about that in Exhale magazine). So instead, the therapist videotaped the birth, which gave her great insight into how to treat my son hours later. "There's a lot of unwinding in his hips," she said; I later learned breech babies sometimes need to wear harnesses because of their in-utero position (hip dysplaysia).

My son is now 3.5 years old. I schedule CST for him every few months, when it seems like he's just kind of off or working on something I don't know how to address. I'm so grateful that she's been seeing him since he was an infant -- really since even before he was born.

A few months ago I asked the therapist what might have been different if he hadn't been seeing her. I trust her with my life. She does tell some people they don't need to come back. She's never said that to me. "It's hard to tell. Maybe speech or other development issues. Maybe ADD or sensory integration problems."

I've had several different practitioners work on him, and they all say the same things about tight parietal bones and jaw intensity. Lately, E has been chewing on his shirt in a way that disturbs me. A lot of kids have oral fixations, but this one is causing my son's skin to be chapped, and, well, it just looks like an anxious reaction. So I made an appointment.

Usually she just plays with him on the floor with toys while they work in a gentle way. The appointment lasts a full hour. Today, after a while, she invited him up to the table, where she tucked him in. It was the first time I'd ever seen him laid down like a patient. It was a little freaky, but he looked so nurtured and cared for in the soft glow of the massage center room.

She said her recent sensory disorder training recommends letting kids follow their interest/obsession while they are getting treatment. So she did. He chewed on a toy and then, when she felt a big release, he was done with the mouthing and just sort of flopped into relaxation.

After seeing him so manic and wound up recently, it was a real gift to see him so calm under her hands. She explained some other physical things and gave me more ideas for ways to work with his particular needs, including broad and heavy strokes on his body and heavy weight on his legs in front of him, and offering him straws and other mouthing options. Her questions about other behaviors -- "does he seem to need to run full boar into things?" -- seemed so spot on. He's never gotten any kind of diagnosis, and I don't understand all the ins and outs of sensory integration issues and proprioception. But I do feel very good that I have this therapist on my team.

She said that it felt like a phase but like there was also an emotional component that was not yet resolved. His neck and chest were pouring off heat, she said.

I left a little poorer but more resolved to model and live the grounding, solidifying presence he and I both shun but deeply crave.

For more information on CST and children, see "Craniosacral Therapy and Scientific Research, Part II" by John Upledger, DO, OMM. The website for the Upledger Institute is pan style="font-weight:bold;">http://upledger.com/. Find practitioners at http://www.iahp.com/

Scarborough fair on my deck - and in my turkey

2009-11-28T19:33:00.004-05:00

I didn't get a real garden going this summer, since we were in the middle of a move. That's a bummer.

But, I do still -- in November -- have fresh rosemary, sage and thyme growing in pots on my porch. I loved that I went from plant to pot in a few steps. They were great on the turkey the other day and tonight when I whipped up some leftovers. Deck gardening at night!

This morning, I picked parsley to put in my fresh juice with beet, carrot, celery, a little lettuce, lemon, ginger and garlic. It was awesome, and my brother-in-law enjoyed it, too.

Now if only I'd remembered to pick some oregano when I was cooking the eggs.

Food is good if it's good and fresh. Thank you, earth and sun!

Yummy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T12:23:00.005-05:00

I'm thankful for a delicious turkey from Polyface Farms (and a husband and in-laws members who cooked it), fabulous pastured eggs from our local farmer, and nobody pushing my son to eat foods that aren't good for him.

I'm also thankful for health, a home large enough to stuff a bunch of people into, the resources to buy healthy food, family, friends, my healthcare practitioners, and Holistic Moms Network.

And no one complaining that our dishes don't match.

I'm also grateful for my husband and in-laws for taking my son to the park (and later again out to the madness that is consumerist Friday) so that I can have a few moments alone.

Phew!

See a longer post about gluten-free holidays in my column at the Washington Times Communities: "Reading Ingredients: Tales from a Health-Conscious Mom."

Also check out my posts (with recipes!) on GFCF pumpkin pie and GFCF hazelnut flour rolls at my other blog, Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families

Review of new PBS show on "healthy" living

2009-11-24T09:27:00.003-05:00

Watch out parents: there’s a new show in town trying to convince your kids that it knows something about healthy eating. Before I share my concerns about PBS’s new show, “Fizzy’s Lunch Lab,” I’d like to describe the kind of show about healthy eating I would actually consider allowing my son to watch.

There would be lovely images of farms, farmers markets, orchards, produce aisles, and, of course, gardens of all types – backyard, patio, windowsill, balcony, community/shared. Featured foods would be fresh and whole – as close to the source as possible. A connection to nature would be everywhere with innovative ways to bring nature to the city and to pack in a lot of growing like the national non-profit organization, Growing Power, Inc.

I’m a mom who makes nutrition a top priority, and, after looking closely at this show, I think PBS has really missed the mark in its attempt to encourage healthy eating with “Fizzy’s Lunch Lab.”

Read the rest of this review -- about the lack of green on the show, the lack of understanding about healthy fats, and the overselling of grains -- on my guest blog post at Kimberly Hartke's blog, HartkeIsOnline.com. Thanks, Kimberly!

Yes, we do hug trees

2009-11-22T21:31:00.005-05:00

When my son was just a baby three years ago, I wore him all over the Green Festival and bought him and a friend copies of the children's book My Mom Hugs Trees by Robyn Ringgold. I think I might have even met the author and had her sign our copy (the book is upstairs, and the boy is asleep; if I don't write this now, I never will).

It's taken a while for the lovely book to make it into circulation because it's not exactly for babies. It was fun when I rediscovered it, and now my son really likes it. He referenced it the other day upon snuggling our magnolia. I had to smile. So the next time we had a free morning, we did a photo shoot.

Toy's the Season

2009-11-20T19:47:00.003-05:00

So what do you do when a near-elderly neighbor gives your kid a Toys R Us catalog (along with a few other Sunday inserts) as though it's a gift?

After my husband accepted this offer, I ought to have put the stuff in the recycling bin immediately. But they went onto the floor of the car, and before I knew it, three-year-old eyes had latched onto them. "I want that Elmo magazine!"

(Don't go thinking we have any fuzzy red bug-eyed animals around these parts. But he knows the character from friends & neighbors.)

So now he's practically memorized the 80-page leaflet. At first, I was sick to my stomach with the comments about what he wants for Christmas. Yikes! Crunchy don't play that! I just hosted a screening of Consuming Kids, for crying out loud!

Now he's gotten more involved, requesting I whip up a whole family: "They are doing hair cutting. I want that to play with my brothers and my sister."

Uh, he doesn't have any siblings, and if he gets one, there are not going to be any S's at the end, if I have anything to say about it.

Today, we were cleaning out the car in the driveway when said materialist neighbor drove up. "We've got that funny magazine," Boy Wonder announced. "The toy catalog," I translated for some inexplicable reason.

She must have been thrilled and went on to ask, "Did you see some things you want for Christmas? But you know you have to be a good boy, don't you." The kid has never heard the word "good" from us Alfie Kohn disciples.

I just chuckled and hoped she would go away. Eventually, she did. Now I'm wondering if I can disappear the toy catalog without my son finding it in the recycling bin and having a fit over how cruelly I threw away his prized possession.

I might just have to burn it and bury the ashes in the woods.

Looking for bright sides

2009-11-14T20:38:00.004-05:00

Today I could tell I wasn't going to get the uninterrupted writing time I needed to work on some freelance work. We had to do some family errands, and I decided to put on my "om" necklace that carries a place for a little cotton disc on which you drop a little bit of an essential oil (okay, I don't know where the disc are, so I used the paper towel that was still in the necklace from last time). I chose Young Living's Joy oil. It's a blend that is supposed to create "magnetic energy and bring joy to the heart."

I don't know if it was added benefits of the recent run of bodywork I've gotten to heal from running into a glass door or the Emotional Freedom Technique work I've been doing or if it was, in fact, the Joy oil, but I am happy to say that I was much cheerier today than a typical rainy November day usually finds me.

Smiley face!

Here are the ingredients of the Joy blend: Bergamot (Citrus bergamia), ylang ylang (Cananga odorata), geranium (Pelargonium graveolens), rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora), lemon (Citrus limon), mandarin (Citrus reticulata), jasmine (Jasminum officinale), Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile), palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii), and rose (Rosa damascena).

Halloween costume-making

2009-11-08T19:34:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to show that even someone without a lot of sewing skill can make a frog costume!
And check out these other Green Halloween tips from my Holistic Moms Chapter.

Traditional, GFCF, and Low-Carb Eating 101

2009-11-07T11:48:00.004-05:00

I just attended a local hospital's women's health expo and spoke to a diabetes nutrition educator who was horrified that I would pursue a low carb diet. "Why would you do that?" she asked. I dropped a lot of names, none of which she was familiar with. I just wrote her an email and decided to post it here for my own (and anyone else's) future reference.

Dear health practitioner,

Different people find health and wellness through different means, but it is through a gluten-free, casein-free, low-carb, low-grain “traditional” diet that I personally was able to reverse autoimmune hyperthyroidism, regain my fertility and address chronic depression.

A powerful book about the wisdom of limiting or avoiding grains is on the site of author Melissa Diane Smith. She wrote a book called Going Against the Grain that explains connections between grain intolerance and other health issues and explains why grains give so many people problems.
http://www.melissadianesmith.com/

I recently saw two speakers talk about avoiding grains at a Gluten Intolerance Group gathering in Richmond, VA.
Dr. Stephen Wangen, author of The Irritable Bowel Syndrome Solution, has written a new book called Healthier Without Wheat. Information is available at www.HealthierWithoutWheat.com
Dr. Rodney Ford makes the case that gluten has neurological impacts on people who do not have celiac disease. Information is available at www.DrRodneyFord.com
These men both gave fascinating presentations.

In terms of traditional eating, the group I referenced is the Weston A. Price Foundation
http://www.westonaprice.org/
Some quick information from the WAPF on healthy vs. unhealthy fats is at
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html
An article on proper preparation of grains is at
http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/be_kind.html
and in Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions

A growing number of people are finding better health through increasing their intake of vegetables and decreasing their carbohydrates. Some people even point to a theory of food combining that claims putting carbohydrates with animal proteins inhibits proper digestion of food and leads to an acid/alkaline imbalance, which contributes to inflammatory conditions and to an overgrowth of Candida (yeast).

Some of this information can be found at The Body Ecology Diet - http://www.bodyecologydiet.com/ and in the BED book by Donna Gates.
Some general resources on the benefits of limiting carbohydrates can also be found at
The Gut and Psychology Syndrome - http://gapsdiet.com/
The Specific Carbohydrate Diet - http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/

A great read on why follow the wisdom of our ancestors is Nina Planck’s book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why. A farmers' daughter and a proponent of farmers markets, Nina also has a new book out for fertility, mom and baby. See her website at http://www.ninaplanck.com/

I hope you’ll get a chance to look into some of these resources and share this information with your patients.

In health,
Crunchy-Chewy Mama
http://crunchychewymama.blogspot.com/

More evidence about gluten's potential harm

2009-11-06T15:55:00.005-05:00

It took me three hours to get out of 20 miles worth of DC traffic and the rest of the 70 miles to Richmond, but I am so glad I made it to see the West End Gluten Intolerance Group’s evening presentation with two doctors and important researchers on the effect of gluten on the body. I saw the tail end of the first presentation by Dr. Stephen Wangen, author of Healthier Without Wheat. There was a nice buffet of donated GF treats and snacks, and then I got to hear the presentation by Dr. Rodney Ford from New Zealand who is known as “Dr. Gluten” for his research that shows gluten can have a neurological impact on people who do not have celiac disease. His story was powerful, and I'm so glad I got off gluten five years ago and have kept my son off of it.

I am grateful to Going Against the Grain author Melissa Diane Smith for telling me about this fabulous event!

Look for more of a report in the next few days at my column for the new Washington Times Communities, “Reading Ingredients: Tales from a Health-Conscious Mom.”

Boy Wants Feedback

2009-11-04T21:52:00.003-05:00

I have an alter-ego. Her name is Ms. Moo. She is our son’s bathtime towel, a black and white hooded number I got at Target going on two years ago.

The other day, when my son knew he was being annoying, he asked, “What’s Ms. Moo saying?” It was like he wanted to give me permission to stop him from his negative spiral.

Then he’d ask it if he’d been super cooperative, to nudge me to comment on how pleasant it was that we ate a meal together in peace.

This lasted for only a few days, maybe because we don’t take baths around here all that often. But she came out again last night. I’ll be interested to know if he starts to turn again to her and invite the sort of super-ego commentary he’s not capable of and that part of him doesn’t want to hear from me. I don’t usually want to judge or make pronouncements. But it's like he's trying to take positions and reflect on his behavior such that he craves this input from a higher power. With udders

Now let's not talk about how he's also regressed to wanting to put his hand up my shirt again.

Guns & Halloween

2009-11-01T18:56:00.003-05:00

I couldn't believe my eyes, but there was one of my neighbors, a 7-year-old boy, dressed in khaki like a solider stationed in Iraq. And slung over his should was a machine gun. That he pointed at people.

I understand that gun play is a normal part of childhood, but can we at least require some imagination if we're going to allow it? Why do we have to go to the nth degree to be realistic? Light sabers, swords, wands I can handle; their power is something we have to think up (well, not so much with swords, but how often do you see those?) Machine guns are real and frightening images a lot of kids have to deal with daily in war-torn areas. But this is not one of them. So why bring it in? I suppose that children of service members might see this as normal and honorable. But it still gives me the willies.

I said nothing during the big community gathering and had almost forgotten about it until he came to my door. And then I muttered something like, "Wow, that gun makes me uncomfortable. Please point it down." Later, an older kid with a leather jacket outfit had a big gun, too, and he got something more like, "I have a little kid and I don't like him to see guns. Maybe you can rethink that next year" before I added a cheerily contradictory, "But have a good night!"

I couldn't let these images go, but I know my comments probably didn't do any good and maybe just made me seem like a grump. So be it. I just wonder what the parents are thinking by letting this go so public. It's one thing to let kids glorify violence in your own home or to just plain let them pick up sticks and do whatever with them. Fine. Kids need to act out the whole range of human emotions and impulses. That's healthy.

But bringing a fake machine gun to the community playground after a parade where there are babies and toddlers? Can't we wait until after dark? Why is this okay?

TV-Free Month

2009-10-25T11:07:00.005-04:00

After a summer of moving and letting the light box run for way too long so I could make food or unpack something or wait on hold on my cellphone trying to get our phone and internet connected, I was really hoping to cut the cord to the TV once school started. For crying out loud, the kid is at a Waldorf school where media is strongly discouraged, the idea being that it as stifles rather than inspires kids' imaginations. I was not looking forward to being outed by my son singing "Bob the Builder!" in the school sandbox when he's supposed to be decorating mud pies with leaves.

But more importantly, I just like him better when he's not been a couch potato. And I think he likes himself better, too. If he's going to be gone 8:30-3:00 for three days in a row, can't I fill the rest of the time with wholesome activities?

Indeed, I could, and I did. After a calming afternoon in the small aftercare program, my little boy has mostly been a dream in the afternoon. At first I planned things for the afternoon to keep us away from the living room. Now I know it will go okay, and I don't fear lacking the willpower to keep the TV off. I've usually had a good bit of productivity and can wait until he's in bed to do anything besides cook (which I often start before he gets home anyway).

Some days, when I'm behind on dinner or it's raining and we decide to bake, we just hang out in the kitchen. He finds all sorts of stuff to play with on his own and enjoys helping me for real, too.

Other days we do an errand or go meet a friend or just walk down to the park. As long as I get food on the table by 5:30 (not always easier, but I'm improving), my son generally stays happy doing whatever and is asleep by 7:15. So I'm trying to just be present most of those four hours together.

As for the mornings, he wanted to watch TV before breakfast the first few days of the school routine, but I managed to weasel out of that, and now it just doesn't come up. We also had the luck -- and the misfortune -- to lose a library DVD. When we returned that last yellow "Bob," we fessed up to the missing "Cuentos Y Mas" bilingual librarian program and were told, "It's a max $10 fine if you return it and $20 if you lose it. Why don't you just keep looking?" We have, to no avail, but now I have my reason for not getting any more library DVDs. And if he remembered a week or two that we actually turned on the television and watched PBS, he's since forgotten that was an option.

I am not a purist, though. The TV is still in the house, and it has football on over the weekends. And last week, I really needed to edit a piece of writing, so he watched an episode of "Martha Speaks" on the computer, on my lap. Keep the connection, I thought. Don't let him zone out of the human world. A few days later we put on Yoga Kids (an old favorite) so that I could get a practice in. He did a few poses but mostly watched me and the screen from the couch. And the other day, when I had a slew of emails to read, he watched part of a that dry British "Kipper" that a friend had lent to us.

So I'm hoping that something like moderation does exist. I'm thrilled we made it a full month with no kid programming (outside of seeing Steve Songs at the National Book Festival, which is live and fun, and the guy is super nice). I really think my boy is a more grounded kid without the media. We still have our episodes of whining, but they are all about irrational things that seem life-shattering to a three-year-old, like there being no more grapefruit. That's just how it is for him at this stage, I think; life has to feel like it sucks one minute and is peachy the next.

The rollercoaster of emotions is annoying, but I can handle that better than I can tolerate whining about watching more of something when the boy ought to be experiencing real life.

Fabulous birth symposium!

2009-10-10T11:55:00.003-04:00

I was blown away at this week's symposium at George Mason University: "Perinatal: A Symposium on Birth Practices and Reproductive Rights" organized by MFA candidate and mother of two, Jessica Clements. There were so many great panels and talks, I hardly know where to begin. In fact, I may leave summary to a print writing venue but for now feel compelled to share a link to the story of Joy Szabo from The Unnecesarean. Szabo is a woman who has already had a VBAC and has been told by her Page Hospital in Arizona that if she refuses a c-section for her current pregnancy, the hospital will pursue a court order to force her to have a surgical delivery.

Henci Goer reported on this issue in her fabulous talk, "Cruelty in the Maternity Wards: Fifty Years Later." She had just added the info about Szabo to her talk, which detailed other incidents of abuse and an overall culture of abuse in mainstream maternity care. The news about Szabo broke October 1, and the The Unnecesarean has updates about conversations with the hospital, but I don't see that Szabo has had the baby yet. I've followed the discussion onto Facebook and am going to see if I can learn more that way. (Too many different logins so I can't do it now. Must streamline!)

Staying healthy

2009-10-04T20:25:00.003-04:00

My head is swimming with all the info it has to process from the NVIC conference. It was great to see Dr. Joseph Mercola live and in person. The title of his talk was the same as his recent book: "Take Control of Your Health." I wrote the other day about Gardasil on DC Metro Moms, and, contrary to what some folks might think about people who speak at NVIC -- that they are there to scare people with stories of vaccine injury and take advantage of the human weakness to respond to anecdote -- the speakers generally want people to be in charge of their own health. It shouldn't be government mandates or doctors pushing drugs who tell us what to do, but our own bodies. It's just that it takes time on our part to learn and pay attention.

Mercola has a ton of info on his website, mercola.com, but I want to run down a few of his most important points.

The CDC allocated $20 million for vaccine safety, but of that (if I understood correctly), $12 is going to media promotion of vaccines, including the use of Elmo to tell kids they should get their shots. The alternative to vaccines, Mercola explained, is to build your health and natural immunity. I know a lot of folks think anyone who questions vaccines is a kook. I wonder how many of those folks feed their kids refined sugar and flour and artificial colorings and flavorings regularly? What could possibly be good about those things? Why serve them if they compromise your kid's health? What about having days go by when kids don't eat any fresh (not to mention local or organic) vegetables?

According to Mercola, 90% of the food Americans purchase is processed. That's what I call kooky!

Mercola's biggest suggestions:

1) No sugar or artificial sweeteners
2) Adequate Vitamin D

Everyone should have their levels tested, and most folks need 5,000 IUs a day of D3 (not D2). An infant can get 1,000 IUs/day
Vitamin D is rare in food
Sunlight is not enough, especially in fall/winter, unless you're out 11am-1pm daily with lots of skin exposure.
High doses (up to 50,000 IUs/day for three days) can treat acute infections, including swine flu.

Dr. Mercola talked in general about nutrition, as well, including omega-3s. He prefers krill oil to fish oil because, he says, fish oil is not sustainable ecologically.

Dr. Mercola also stated that the primary influence on disease is emotional wounding as a child that has not been resolved. He referenced Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or the broader term Meridian Tapping Techniques (MTT), which I've found to be really powerful.

When moderator and Mothering magazine editor Peggy O'Mara asked about sleep, Dr. Mercola said that you can do all of the above (and exercise), but if you're not getting good sleep, forget it. He said most people actually need 6-8 hours and that getting too much can actually have a negative impact. It was getting late, and he didn't say anything about why/how or about the best time for sleep, but I've heard that sleep before midnight is much more restorative than sleep after because the body really needs to be relaxed when the gall bladder and liver do their flushing around 2-4 a.m.

Dr. Mercola had also started out his lecture talking about how little sugar there really is in the blood and how important blood sugar regulation is. When I get inadequate sleep, it seems like my body compensates by needing a ton of calories. I don't know how I got by as a breastfeeding-all-night mom for two years never getting more than five hours of sleep at a time, but I sure do know I ate a lot of nut butter!

It's inspiring to be around people who talk about health and well-being and how to achieve it. Since I'm already doing a whole lot of this -- at no small expense of time or money -- it's nice to be reminded that the effort really is worth it. I know that because I feel good and am not dealing with depression or gut problems like I did all my life before changing my diet, but it's still nice to get validation.

Watching out for mom & baby - a Japanese approach

2009-10-02T21:36:00.004-04:00

Today I had the privilege of attending the National Vaccine Information Center's Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination. Peter Doshi presented an informative look into the way the Japanese deal with mother and child health. From the time a pregnancy is confirmed, a woman is issued a Mother-Child Health Handbook in which to record information about her and the baby's health and development.

Into this boshi techo also go recordings of vaccinations. In fact, doctors will not give shots without the booklet in which to record them and to check on recent illnesses that might be contraindicated with getting a vaccine. The handbooks (and other information issued from the government) detail cautions about vaccines. They tell parents to reschedule vaccinations if the child has been ill (even in the last month) or has a fever, to plan for no strenuous activity that day, to pay attention the child all day the day of a vaccine and to make sure that someone who knows the child well is the one to take him or her to the doctor. The suggestion to take a child's fever before coming to the doctor in Japan contrasts sharply with information from the Centers for Disease Control's Parents Guide to Children's Immunizations that says that fever is "not usually a reason" to delay a vaccination.

Doshi, a doctoral candidate at MIT and visiting researcher (faculty of medicine) at the University of Tokyo, explained that since 1994, the Japanese have had a completely volunteer vaccination program in which recommendations have children getting about half the doses of vaccinations by age one that children in the U.S. typically receive. And, he explained, vaccines are always given only one at a time.

There is no school waiver or enforcement, and yet there is a high rate of vaccination. With a high expectation for product safety, the Japanese value vaccines and trust authority figures, but they seem to just have the whole different approach, Doshi's research showed. It seems that the Japanese embrace the idea of "first do no harm" and also of parents being expected to take an active role in paying attention not just to getting doses on time but to the whole context of health.

Yay for looking at the whole picture! Can we get some of that?

Chores make the memories

2009-10-02T01:14:00.005-04:00

As we drove through the neighborhood this evening, my son looked at all the trash cans ready to go out tomorrow and asked if it was going to be Friday, which is trash day around here. Then he asked, "Why did they take away the branches?"

He is so into the trash pick-up, it threw him off that he wasn't here last week for the truck drivers to wave to him or honk their horn, or to see the "leaf truck" come haul away all the brush he helped to clear. One weekend we had our first time working in the yard in our new house, and less than a week later we took our first family trip to the beach. And what he remembers is the branches that disappeared while he wasn't looking.

By some miracle, the world didn't melt into a puddle of "why?!"-laden tears when I explained the impossibility of being in two places at once:

"I guess we must have been at the beach."

"Oh."

That's what I call a good day.

Overdue travel: ripping off the band-aid

2009-09-28T13:52:00.004-04:00

We have never gone to the beach. Except for in Maine. But not once in 9 years of living in the DC Metro area have we been to the ocean as a couple or as a family. Last year I took my son to visit my sister and her kids in the Outer Banks. But the three of us in our nuclear unit have never gone to the beach together or even been on any vacation that didn't involve going to visit family or friends.

We finally changed that. It seemed unwise to go through with our first kid-free vacation to leave our traumatized-by-the-beginning-of-school boy with his grandma overnight for the first time. So instead we all headed down to Chincoteague and Assateague Island for a short getaway.

I do mean short. We arrived at the hotel at 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday and headed for home the next day just after 2 p.m. It was cold and windy and a little rainy. But our little boy had a fabulous time playing in the waves just the same. We were out there for about a hour and a half, including two changes of clothing for me (pants to shorts and donning an extra jacket) and three for the little guy (into bathing suit from shorts, then to extra long-sleeved bathing suit on top).

Then we visited the nature center where some folks were going to set free Monarch butterflies they had raised and tagged. We learned about terrapin turtles and got to touch a horseshoe crab (I'd come to believe there never really was an animal -- only an empty shell). My husband stayed shivering in the car predicting nightmares about the swarms of mosquitoes closer to the woods while I jogged with my boy on my hip to give him at least a glance at some wild ponies. We ate lunch in town and then spent a while keeping our kid's fingers off fragile items in a gallery before buying a piece of art for the first time in years.

I told my husband that this trip was like ripping off a band-aid. We just needed to do it in order to move on. Now that we've done something, I'm hoping we can make it out to Shenandoah for some hikes and eventually back to Assateague for camping, which I've heard lovely.

And then the next band-aid will be to finally get away for a night without our little one.

Through little eyes

2009-09-23T19:52:00.005-04:00

I just thought I was involving -- and amusing -- my son while we made dinner. Joel Salatin wrote in a recent issue of Flavor magazine that we need to keep our kids in the kitchen if we want to have any hope for the future of agriculture, for future farmers who will seriously care about food and the land it comes from instead of retreating to video game alternate realities where it doesn't matter what you blow up or who gets killed.

So if I made a sweet potato and squash bus with carrot headlights (a la the Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers Fast Food books), I thought, my son might get stick around to try to "help" me and feel more invested in dinner.

Without skipping a beat, he said, "Lobster!"

Going to Maine helps appreciate food, too, I guess.

I was going for a standard vehicle, but I love that my son sees things I miss. He notices representations where I don't, and, on the flip side, he notices new details it never occurred to me he'd see, like the new 2010 county sticker on my dashboard within seconds of the first time we got in the car after I'd removed the old one.

I stand corrected

2009-09-21T09:40:00.003-04:00

So, we did have a nice beginning to the school year as described last week. But then, on Tuesday, I got The Call. My son's teacher had to let me know that he'd bitten his friend's arm.

I freaked out. I cried. I felt horrible. Why is he feeling so much tension? Why can't I model for him how to just roll with the punches?

I sobbed and told him we needed to be nice to our friends or then maybe we wouldn't be able to play with them. I didn't yell or belittle, but apparently I did shame him, because the teacher told me the next day that he stuck close to her for a while and told her at lunch, "Don't call my mommy again because she cried because I was bad." I never use judgment words with him, and I really hope he didn't seriously use that word. But regardless, he took on my pain. That is not what I want. That's the last thing I want.

So it was an upsetting week, even if we did avoid the TV the whole week and he happily enjoyed playing in the kitchen while I made dinner instead of whining about something else he wanted to do or begging me to play with him. We coexisted peacefully a lot of the time

Except, that is, when things set him off. He was crushed that he didn't get to put the soap in the dishwasher, even though he was chatting with me while I did it. The world had come to an end. And he tried to hit me, as though mocking the fact that I was about to go off and lead a Holistic Moms meeting with a speaker on Craniosacral Therapy.

I sure was glad that I'd made an appointment for acupuncture weeks earlier when he'd had his first-in-a-long-time biting episode. As I wrote on my other blog, I think the acupuncture really helped -- both of us. It was a great weekend with few frustrations and lots of lovely weather. I hope he and I can both remember to breathe and enjoy what we're given.

The school year begins!

2009-09-14T22:05:00.005-04:00

After a week or two about worrying that my overtired, non-napping son would freak out in a class (even though a Waldorf class) of 12 boys and 2 girls, or that he'd melt during the transition to the afternoon program where there would be none of the aforementioned 13 other young children (and only a handful of older ones), I have to say I'm breathing easier after the first day of school.

I guess I got to feeling better after talking with his teacher on Saturday and after deciding that my angst was only going to negatively affect my son.

It's after 10 now, so I'm breaking my own new rule of reading in bed by 9:30 and lights out by 10 or 10:30 at the latest. But I am happy about a lot of parts of today that I had control over (as opposed to the fabulous weather, which was simply a gift).
- I snuggled my son in bed (he came in around 5:30) and gave him a mini massage, including effleurage. (I used to give him infant massage every morning! Let us retreat to those connected days!)
- I got out our yoga mats and had us do a few poses together, holding firm that it would not be accompanied by watching Yoga Kids
-(related happy point -- no video media today except me taping him on the camera. And the CD in the car was soporific "Duerme, Pequenitos" to which he sounds ridiculous trying to sing along)
- I ate with him instead of after. He ate a huge breakfast and I knew went off with a happy belly
- His lunch was all packed last night (in these new LunchBots containers that I love)
- He got through the transition from the morning class to the afternoon program well and did rest quietly, even if he didn't nap.
-I agreed to his suggestion to go to a particular park after school, and he had a good time (in fabulous weather) even playing with bigger kids who had just gotten out of school there and left without a serenade of "why" or "but I want to stay..."
-Dinner was leftovers as planned but we also managed to make some extra veggies and "sushi." I couldn't find the sushi rice but found 3 bags of millet and decided that was probably better anyway. We toasted the grains for a few minutes and then cooked them with new bone broth/homemade stock for millet sushi (a new invention) and also cooked butternut squash and green beans in stock, which he loved with the sushi (and ate the whole messy not-holding-together role). So later I made more (better) for tomorrow's lunch.
-During all this dinner prep, he happily hung in the kitchen, trying to do random stuff like grind nuts in a flour sifter and singing "The Noble Duke of York" and "Deedle Deedle Dumpling My Son John" from class. No real bursts of whining, no asking for TV. No asking me to play but instead just playing alongside me
-He was in bed at 6:57, though it took close to 20 min for him to fall asleep. I'm not so psyched that the last thing he was muttering was "Clifford is a big red dog." But what can you do?
-The kitchen was cleaned and the next day's lunch made by 8:45 p.m.

Apparently I can remain relatively happy and not upset as long as I have a big chunk of time alone. It would be nice if my husband could get home to put the boy to bed, as was our usual routine before work got so busy, but everything seems so much more doable when I haven't been with the little dude for 13 hours straight.

And this is why I say yay to Waldorf preschool!

Sleep + run - child = better mood

2009-09-10T11:42:00.006-04:00

My poor kid. He can't do anything right these days as far as I'm concerned. I have been working with a very short wick, even though I'm sure it's completely developmentally appropriate that he whine all the time, fall into tears when the mango isn't ready and rush to assure me "I'm not tired anymore" when I suggest rest to his whine of "I'm tired!" (Just in case it's a bigger issue, I got him a craniosacral session yesterday.)

I just can't put up with all this 3.5-year stuff very well because I just cannot get a break from him. Days that start at 6:30 and end at 7:30 with no nap or other help are just too much for this partially-introverted and wanna-be working-at-home mama.

Waldorf school starts next week. I'm counting the minutes. That sounds terrible, but with each passing day I feel more and more secure that I could never handle it as a homeschooler. I really hope it all goes well and that he transitions without incident from the big morning program to the small afternoon program where, I hope, he might actually learn to rest and recharge, which he has clearly not learned from me.

Thankfully, today I have him with a sitter so I can address some Holistic Moms work and so many other things I haven't been able to get to unless I use the dreaded TV (which I think is awful for his brain, but clearly is not the reason he stopped napping a year ago because he didn't even know TV existed back then. I cannot believe it has been a year since I could not count on naps. No wonder I'm fried).

Last night, my husband had to work late again, so I was on bedtime duty, which is normally a daddy thing. I had a flashback to earlier days: I fell asleep while putting my son to bed. I woke up at 7:40 in a pretty grumpy mood, not at all geared up for the chat my husband and I had actually (amazingly!) scheduled to talk about marriage stuff. So I called my husband, who was still 15 min. away and told him I was going to bed. Before 8:00.

I didn't drift off immediately, but close enough. I slept through the night, and you'd think I'd have popped up at 5 a.m. But instead I was still wanting to doze when little E crawled into our bed and started trying to feel me up. Without my post-bed checking in on work and friends the previous night, I felt like in fact I'd had no break from my son.

But the sleep did do me a lot of good, and it worked out that my husband could drive the boy to the babysitter for my one day of help (watch the minutes tick by while I write!). With the extra time, I felt like I could really go running. On a cool fall morning. It was fabulous. Then I came home and juiced and meditated. What a day before 10 a.m.

Now it's time to head back to other pressing matters on the computer, but I feel a lot better and hope that after a day with other kids (and quiet time, if we're lucky) my son will be happy and refreshed ... and that after a day without him, I'll be able to handle it even if he's not.

Who's Buying Now? Welcome to Consumer Parenting, Daddy!

2009-08-19T07:51:00.004-04:00

My husband was always the one complaining about "stuff" -- toys I got even for free were too much, and every time a package came even from Nova Naturals or A Toy Garden, I was contributing to an evil culture of consumerism. I agree that we don't "need" a lot of what we have, but I also feel pretty okay about most of it. And I was pretty sure that, although I thought my son would enjoy the opportunity to play with trains at home, we didn't need set with a name brand or a hefty price tag. So together we went to IKEA to get a simple, nondescript (and inexpensive) train set.

But the next weekend, I went away on my first-ever (and the world's shortest) overnight away from my boys. And what did they do? Go to Kinderhaus Toys and spend an hour at the Thomas table. All week, my son kept asking to back to the toy store near Whole Foods where he went with Daddy. Maybe it had even been my suggestion once upon a time, but now I long for the days when he was blissfully ignorant of such a fantasy land.

Oh, and did I mention they came home with a train set? And that my husband is beaming proud of it, as though he just peed his own name -- and our son's name -- in the snow.

Sure, the set is nice, and the kid is spending a lot more time with the trains now (though we're still fighting the TV battle that is of my own making). But I really didn't think we were going to buy that packaged stuff.

And I cannot believe that my husband agreed to buy the Musical Caboose, which they got the following weekend at the grand reopening of Doodlehopper, another toy store, while I was at a time management (!) workshop. The activity itself was okay -- I might have even recommended it so that he get the (chemical-free) drycleaning nearby and so that he could pick up a gift for a friend's child (he forgot).

But it's what they brought home that has me shaking my head. LJ has always turned his nose and musical toys unless the person holding the toy is the one who makes the sound, and I agree. But now we have our little boy "singing" along to a toy he loves to put up to his ear. He pushes the button over and over. At least there are no annoying kid voices or words. But still, the Waldorf school teacher is coming over next week for a home visit! And I'm pretty sure she's not hoping to see character-driven or noisy toys. Hide, everybody!

LJ wonders about the price tag for the Waldorf school, but it's always seemed like he easily fell in line with a lot of the school's practices and beliefs. I used to think that if I were working and LJ was a stay-at-home dad, we'd have a very sparse home with only sticks and twigs and a few balls for toys. Now I'm not so sure!

A playspace of one's own

2009-08-03T14:05:00.003-04:00

It's a miracle. My son is playing on his own with his wooden kitchen and fake food. And for a while before that he was playing with a ping pong ball. Before that he was vacuuming our new family room cork floor. I'm in heaven. How joyous the sound of miniature pots and pans!

Since we moved three weeks ago, E has been really tough to be around, which has resulted in me giving in to his desire to watch TV. Now that we finally got all the ripped up carpet out of the family room (used Craigslist "free stuff" to successfully give it away, to someone who left us home grown veggies, no less!) and laid down our lovely cork floor (also found on Craigslist), little E has been much more imaginative and self-entertaining.

Not sure how long it will last, but this is what I'd hoped for. This is part of why we moved.

Now if I can just find some furniture for my office so I can actually unpack all my books and files and do my own kind of play (and work)...

Yoga in the trees

2009-07-18T09:33:00.003-04:00

So it's been 8 days since we moved and probably 8 weeks since I really paid much attention to my body, exercise-wise. All week I've been trying to unpack around a roving three-year-old and struggling with various frustrations (check out my complaint about my phone service at "Life without internet" on DC Metro Moms today).

This morning, the heat and humidity had broken. While breakfast cooked under the eye of my husband and my son nibbled on fruit and listened to a CD, I did yoga out on our back deck looking out the new sun peeking through the tall, thickly leaved trees in the woods behind our house.

Talk about ahhh.

Moving pains

2009-07-06T23:49:00.003-04:00

We are all a bunch of giant mood swings around here. Remember that neighbor's great big tire swing you always wished was in your yard? Imagine it's in your hands. Now yank it, fling it, and watch it hit someone else in the head.

Yes, it's ouchy. Yes, life has to go on.

We will be moved in less than 72 hours. I hope eventually the swing just snaps and we can toss it into the woods and all just sit together under the tree.

My poor little dude

2009-07-02T00:13:00.004-04:00

My son is having such a rough time. Even before this weekend, he was already chewing on his hands and having a tough time with all the transitions going on, what with all the stress of the impending move. I've been sitting him with pillows all around when we read books, and I do think this helps him feel safe and secure.

But it's not enough to weather the tornado swirling around him. After our travel to Michigan this past weekend, resulting in a big sleep deficit, he got thrown further off kilter by the weird schedule in general and in particular by some chocolate and a little gluten at the grandparents' 50th anniversary party. He whined and cried during Sunday night's flight home, he was really tough to be around on Monday, and on Tuesday, he apparently pushed all the kids in Spanish class. The teacher said she didn't recognize him; he's usually so gentle and loving.

I took him today to a previously scheduled craniosacral therapy appointment. In the midst of our crazy move (contractors here this week, we move this weekend ourselves and next week with a company doing the furniture), I wanted to scrap the appt., which was a 30-minute drive away (this time an hour on the Beltway in rush hour to get home). But clearly it was needed. The dr. (Ron) said that E's sagittal suture was pretty stuck and that that connected to closedness in his back. Ron worked on that section last time, but he also said this time that cabin pressure from the flight might have caused a problem.

After 25-30 min. Ron felt fine letting E play (which he did happily) and then working on me. He worked a lot on my gut and then on my head just a bit, but enough to totally erase the headache I walked in with.

Let's hope we all wake up in a decent mood tomorrow. Oops. It's already tomorrow. And I still don't know what color paint to tell the contractor to get. If I have to drag that kid back to the paint store one more time, I don't know what he'll try to get me to buy. I think this calls for Shopping While the Kid is in Childcare. Assuming I don't get a call to come pick up my little brute.

Procrastination runs in the family

2009-06-29T22:21:00.005-04:00

So now I know where I get my inclination to stay up until all hours. My parents just had a 50th wedding anniversary, and the night before, we were all up until 2:00 a.m., matting photos, coming up with a table seating chart, sewing part of the party outfit... It was as if it were the middle of a workday. You can bet I scoffed when my husband woke up from his 8 hrs no more spritely than I after my <5.

My poor son. He is so damn tired. He got to bed one of the nights miraculously around 7 p.m., but the other nights -- with the northern and western extra 60-80 minutes of light (Michigan vs. our home in the DC Metro suburbs) and all the excitement -- he got such little sleep. The night we arrived, he went down at almost 10:00 (no nap, no real down time all day). Another night was almost 10:00 after a nap 3:30-5:00. The night of the party he was so overtired but couldn't even fall by 11:00 (he'd had a little chocolate at the party and a hard-won 2.5-hr nap earlier that day, thanks to a low of fossil fuels). The night we flew home (last night), it was almost 10:00 p.m. by the time we got him down; he'd had zero nap and not even 8 hrs of sleep the night before.

Today he was exhausted and could not figure out how to go to bed ... wanted me, but then wanted more food, cried and cried with his dad (the usual to-bed-putter and his sleep-mate for the past several nights at my parents' house).

Maybe part of the problem was that this morning, I had an appointment with a designer to discuss wall color and the organization of my new office... for the house we are moving into this week. (And that we got possession of today, but there was no electricity because I never called the company.) He was so confused trying to play in an empty house, wanting whatever was different than his current reality: "I want to go home and rest in my bed" (which he never does.) Then, "I don't want to go home. I want to stay here." Also: "I don't want to take the wagon. I want to ride my tricycle." Then later, when we have only the trike to take home: "I want the wagon!"

After this weekend seeing the way my whole family operates, I have no illusions that I will change my temperament, but I really do hope we can make some strides toward less last-minute and more thoughtful ways to approach life once we're settled in our new space (whenever that will be). But as long as he's three, is everything I try going to be thwarted anyway?

I've got to hope that sleep will help. Speaking off, I'm a little undercooked in that department, myself.

All or nothing

2009-06-21T23:03:00.003-04:00

When it comes to food, I'm into extremes. I spent the whole week juicing and detoxing and eating only super healthy foods that made me feel great (and get down to 101 lbs., just about right for a flat-chested, shoulder-less, small-boned but with hips 5'0").

I've been happily off of sugar for over a month and haven't even had the slightest desire for even a decaf or anything else on a no-no list. I was even vegetarian again for four days (well, except for homemade chicken stock, but that's like a magic elixir food).

The point is, I was clean and pure. And that was good. It wasn't even hard.

Then I missed out on my mommy vacation and had to confront the fact that we're moving in two weeks and seriously have a ton of decisions to make. So today dipped into a jar of chocolate sauce and must have slathered about a quart of it at least six egg-rich coconut flour mini-muffins. And the decaf that washed it down has me revved up late after a few weeks of decent bedtimes.

So I can be half-assed about backing up my computer and accidentally allow it to be reformatted before copying all my files. But when it comes to how I treat my body, it's one side or the other, either like a saint or a sinner.

Well, at least I'm still sober.

First babysitter to-bed

2009-06-16T10:42:00.004-04:00

It wasn't even intentional, but the babysitter made my son fall asleep. At 5:30 p.m. On a sunny summer evening. And then he slept until 5:50 a.m.

They were reading books on the couch while I was on my way home from an appt. I was a little annoyed -- both at her for letting him fall asleep so late and at myself for not being consistently home and quiet 1-2 p.m. so he would get used to resting then, even if the regular nap has been over for about 9 months now (since he was 2 1/2).

It freaked me out a little not to talk to him before bed. What if the girl had drugged him or something? I mean, I assumed he would wake up and have dinner and then go to bed super late, which is what happened the other day when we drove through busy traffic to pick up his dad and look at environmentally-friendly flooring at Amicus Green Building Center. (That night, he fell asleep 3 minutes before we arrived, slept in the stroller while we closed the place down and then slept almost all the way home. Then he was wired and we didn't even try to put him to bed until we went up around 10:30.)

But last night, he stayed tanked out on the couch with the sun shining on his face and while we talked in regular voices. My husband tried to no avail to wake him up and so eventually carried the kid upstairs where he transferred to his bed without a hitch. I was worried he'd wake at some ungodly hour or wet the bed, but he stayed dry and asleep all night until 5:50, when he toddled down the hall and said, "I just looked out the window and saw that it was morning time." I told him to go pee in the potty.

And then I was glad I left out a snack and water. He took them in his room, turned on his IKEA moon light and snacked and read books, which bought me an extra 10-15 minutes of horizontal time before we came downstairs.

Unless I finally get my act together to go to bed early and wake up before the little one, I think leaving out some nuts (& this had rice crackers) might be wise.

After that snack, he had a full breakfast -- first strawberries, then more strawberries with coconut milk and homemade nut butter, then his leftover rice tortilla from yesterday with chicken, goat cheese, lettuce and carrot, then an egg with zucchini and peas plus some ham. Then "chocolate" greens powder in goat milk. Then some of my fresh beet, lemon and greens juice.

And since I'm doing a pseudo juice fast and since we got up so damn early, we had time to read stories. I missed him last night!

Who are you, kid?

2009-06-11T20:35:00.003-04:00

No sooner do I finish writing a post on how electronic media is ruining my child (not exactly) but he totally proves my point. He whines, "Please, Mommy, please can I watch Curious George while you make dinner?" And then to my no he melts. Not creamy and smooth like butter but gross and chunky like one of those soy-based milkshakes from a fast-food restaurant -- gloppy and disgusting. A puddle of tears, red face, limp or mad body.

At least he's not hitting or biting or anything, but he is chewing on his hands a lot and also on his shirt... I don't know if he's processing something from last week's craniosacral session -- he was already doing the mouth thing; that's part of why I took him in. Maybe it's going to get worse before it gets better as he moves through some funky energy. Did the new sitter somehow scar him? They seemed to be doing fine while I was in the basement. Maybe it's a reaction to some kind of food -- delayed from small amounts of trial gluten a while back, or from the additional goat, or the millet toast. Cashews? It's not like he's eating McDonald's or even pizza or anything.

The guilt is kicking in that if I could just nurse him, he'd be okay. And those LLL books about weaning say chewing on hands is a sign that a child weaned too soon. Plus when he came into our bed this morning at 5:40 (which is ouch early for us for him to be ready to be awake), he wanted to "warm" his hands in my shirt but then said he just wanted to see/touch my breastes. And twice today he stroked my nipples, once in front of another person. No more little camis for me.

I was solo tonight and could NOT get the kid to sleep. Too bright outside, neighbor kids making noise... I'd jogged us to the post office and was planning to shower after he went to bed, but we needed something to kill time and kick him over into ready to sleep. So I showered and he probably ate way too much Weleda kids (baby?) tooth gel. I can't trust him with anything. I'll have to write a whole separate post about what he dumped out on his bed today.

Anyway, I told him to leave the blinds down as I was getting out of the shower. After I lowered them, he raised them again and I got really mad and stern. I was worried that I was so upset I'd freak him out. But he reacted like he did earlier today when I started crying: he copped this Mr. Maturity persona complete with reassuring foice. He patted my belly and said, "You're a good mama." Earlier he told me, "Don't worry, Mommy. It's okay. You don't have to worry." All with very controlled, calm wording.

He also got super upset when he bit his tongue. I said I knew that hurt; it had happened me, too. Then he asked me to show him how I did it, and, eyes still moist, he reflected. "I just did it and it hurt so I cried. I got sad."

Out of control at some moments but frighteningly self-aware and practically serving as my therapist at others. Who is this kid?

When I first met my friend Lisa who had a baby about 48 hours after I had E, she said, "Oh, he's Mercury Retrograde." I was clueless but she said this is not a time people choose for big events. "Maybe he'll be calm when there's chaos around him," she offered. I don't know, but I'm freaked out by my three-year-old and don't know what he needs right now.

TV Blues

2009-06-11T10:18:00.006-04:00

Last month PBS Kids hosted a lovely event for us DC Metro Mom bloggers. I ought to have posted something about it, but it was kind of culture shock for me, and I didn't want to write and sound ungrateful. Before the event, I didn't know anything about Super Why or any shows for preschoolers. I came away with a great respect for the creators and all the research they put into these shows. I'm certain that if the students I taught in high school had watched the shows that scaffold literacy skills, many of them would have had an easier time reading. I'm glad these shows exist for populations that are going to be in front of a TV anyway.

But I still don't think I want my son staring at a lightbox of whirling pictures. Especially not shows with fast-paced images that, as an educator, I think are a recipe for generalized ADD. And yet, after the event, I started using some You Tube (mostly PBS) and the Steve Songs DVD we got in our swag bag to keep my son occupied so we could keep the house clean for showing/selling.

Now TV/computer just feels like that yucky place I didn't want to get to -- where he wants this thing that gives me some time to clean, cook, etc., but I still don't think it's at all good for him. He's passive, and those glassy eyes just say heroin addict to me. He's whiny about wanting to watch something and mad when he has to stop. He's not sleeping as well (not necessarily related, but it's possible).

And watching is not doing anything for his spirit, his soul, or his imagination. Those are the pieces not represented on the PBS whole child chart and those are what Waldorf education values. Another mom at the event openly made fun of Waldorf (she brought it up; I just listened). I don't care what you call it, but I really think all this pushing kids to develop skills early -- even if the learning is "fun" -- is cheating them out of what ought to be magical time of their own making. TV may keep my son out of my way, but I think it keeps him out of his way, too. That is to say: disconnected from his body.

I don't know that I'll try to go fully TV-free. Most days are, but some days, a little saves me a lot of headache. I think I'd feel better, though, if I actually did some looking into programs I might feel good about for slow pace, real people/places/animals and/or maybe language exposure (Spanish or French) instead of whatever Curious George episode -- or hip-hop parody! -- pops up for him to click on. Yikes! A little word stuff or science stuff or get-along advice is fine, but I'm not going to seek it out. I'd rather he make up his own ideas about things and take his cues from us (but only on our good days!)

See also: The Unplugged Project

Fun again with food! Finally!

2009-06-05T23:16:00.006-04:00

After weeks of letting my son subsist almost entirely off of rice tortilla and goat cheese; apples; and a snack trap of rice crackers, pecans and raisins, I was so excited to finally get my kitchen back (once we signed a contract on our house) and get to the farmer's market for some fresh produce. What a joy to actually find joy again in making meals -- and eating meals, too! For me, stress around mealtime is almost as bad for my body as eating forbidden foods (gluten, dairy, soy, corn, sugar).

I had fun making a veggie face. In retrospect, the simpler one looks cuter, but I decided to add some a mustache and goatee of baba ganoush (one of my son's favorite words these days), some (raw/live) sauerkraut, goat cheese teeth and ham earrings. E ate this whole guy and a second guy, and then some.

If you've never seen the funny things done with vegetables and fruit in Fast Food and other books by Saxton Freyman and Joost Elffers, those images really are a hoot. I hate to think of the food that was wasted in making them, but they do give a lot of ideas for fun things to do with food. My son has often happily eaten veggies, but it's fun to be creative, and it's great to see him making up his own stories about what bites of food are to him. "Do you see, Mommy? This is a ...." Thanks for the hint, kid!

We used to nurse

2009-05-30T15:11:00.004-04:00

Last week things finally started to settle a bit once we had a buyer for our house. This piece was started several days ago but never finished, so I guess they didn't settle down all that much! I'll let the rest flow as it was written (verb tense inconsistencies and all) and just finish the story where it stood last week.
---
Maybe now that my son sees that I'm not totally frantic all the time, he's able to stop being as whiny and just plain drop down to show he needs a close connection. And I think I've been more in touch with my own feelings than I'd been able to, living with half my life stuffed into closets or in my car or in storage and having to scrap dinner plans to get take-out or eat cold (organic) hot dogs and sauerkraut for dinner because some realtor wanted to bring over a client. We hope those days are behind us, and though there's still a lot to do, we are breathing easier...

So, for the first time in the two months since my son weaned on his third birthday, I've had the desire to nurse him and sense he wishes he could. He's been touching me in a way that says "we used to have a special way to comfort me, and now that's gone." He's also been putting his hands in his mouth a whole lot, and he was whiny and tired for the sitter the other day. So I made an appt with the craniosacral therapist who will split his time -- work on E for 30 min, and then work on me for the rest of the session. It's not ideal, but at least we both get something.

R said that E was pretty restricted in his head and compressed in his thoracic area. He said his fall a month or so ago was something he was indeed working around, and he recommended probiotics. Of course, now that he's not getting nutrition from me, I've got to be more vigilant about the probiotics and cod liver oil. I can't just assume he'll get a share from me. He's all on his own now.

And I have to find ways to meaningfully connect with him even if things are still a little nutty and rhythms & rituals are not so established. He fell asleep after the appt (at 6:15) and then woke at 10:45 p.m. a little hungry. I was still out at a MNO dinner, so my husband fed him and then I returned, quietly changed clothes and planned to snuggle him down to sleep since he'd been asking for me when he woke. Part of me thought I should just let him come into our bed and be a big family, but I knew that none of us would sleep as well as we would if he were in his room. I walked into his room to get his jammies, and he followed me, clearly content to go back in his bed.

I snuggled him and remembered why I loved for so long cosleeping in a family bed. It really is beautiful to share sleep, to share closeness. And it's great to be able to do that now that he doesn't need it all the time and feel like it's a homecoming. I am glad he has his own space, and he says with high eyebrows and a gleeful sense of pride, "I slept all night in my bed!" when he does (typically first waking us with the sound of pouring his IKEA mini-potty pee into the big toilet).

I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with me for not feeling nostalgic about nursing -- for just feeling such a clear-cut break after being so connected to nursing as part of my mothering identity for three years. It kind of felt humanizing to get the sense that we both felt something of a longing, even as we understood that chapter was over.

"I'm growing up!"

2009-05-19T10:28:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we went to Frying Pan Farm Park where just a few months ago we saw newborn piggies and lambs, and, while watching the piglets nurse, my son announced to my video camera and his buddy, G: "I'm going to stop nursing when it's my birthday!" We'd had one or two conversations about that possibility, and he really seemed to embrace it that day at the farm.

We returned yesterday for G's bday party, and it felt a little like a mini-graduation to me to see the then-tiny pigs and lambs so much bigger. "Our" black and pink pigs were actually inside, where it was harder to take photos, but you get the idea with this big pink papa piggy and his little ones.

Now that we are almost two months beyond weaning, it really feels like such a long time ago. It was so clear that E was ready to be done, as was I. This last 6 weeks trying to sell the house has been so stressful. I think nursing would have driven me crazy, and I think it would have just felt confusing to him since it wasn't really helping him cope anymore.

Within a week or two of weaning, E started to say, "Look at me! Look what I can do!" Recently, E has been telling us, "I'm growing up. I'm getting so big." No doubt he's heard this from us in our attempts to get him to let go of some behavior we're ready to be done with. It's funny but also comforting to hear him brag about his maturity, like is comfortable moving on and growing into his next self.

Raising a Traditional Foods Snob

2009-05-13T21:17:00.004-04:00

"Here, Mommy," my son said as he handed me a bowl of wooden fruit and eggs he "made" for me in his play kitchen. There was half an orange, cucumber, banana, carrot and mushroom. He's been making me a lot of "food" lately and enjoying watching me pretend eat. And then he takes a turn, chomping the air loudly and happily. But now baby's adding in the food sensitivity piece.

"It's soyfree!" he noted with glee, then adding with questioning eyebrows, "Do you eat soyfree?"

Damn, I didn't know I even talked that much about soy. I bet it's that label reading in the grocery store to avoid getting some crap we don't need. He's been whining, "Why does it have gluten?" for a while now, but to hand me an orange and assure me it's "soyfree..." Egads.

Fun with my Son in the Fleeting Sun

2009-05-08T19:37:00.006-04:00

How lovely to enjoy a walk in the woods with my son and not be thinking of other things I could be doing.

Other than yesterday's trip to Hidden Oaks Nature Center, lately I've pretty much sucked at in-the-moment living. When you've got two adults and a three-year-old living in a house that is supposed to be clean enough to show to prospective buyers at the sound of a ring tone, there is a neverending battle to work toward "pristine." It's hard to enjoy lunch if you're thinking about needing to clean it up fast, or to drop down into play if you're focused on cleaning up everything else first and making sure all the animals stay in the damned barn. Really, I think they'd like to be in there. I mean, it's raining!

And speaking of rain, this past week it's been like an in-law who can't take the hint that it's time to leave. We are beyond lush. We are tropical, overgrown, dripping with fecundity out there in the natural world. Open house? Rain. Two potential buyers coming over at dinnertime on Wednesday and Thursday? Rain. Just as I'm about to head out to pick up a test at the doctor's office, to be followed up with a trip to the nearby nature center? Deluge. It was like a white-out, it was coming down so hard.

But then it stopped and I got a glimpse of blue. So off we went, and our trek through the trail actually found us following some sunshine. I didn't mind that I didn't have the camera, and I wasn't in a hurry. In fact, I had no desire to be home more than an hour before the folks came to look at the place. Longer than that would invite more messing than cleaning.

So on the trail, I dropped down and just enjoyed the damn nature! Outside and in the center. There was no one there. We watched the snakes, the turtles, the toads. We went potty. Twice. My son was my buddy, and we were explorers happily enjoying each other's company. It was kind of what I thought I'd do all the time as a SAHM but don't because there are other things to do. (Hey, I think I wrote those same words after a hike back in September. Not a coincidence. I seemingly can't keep it simple without some outside force. I think I'm happy and then enjoy stuff most when I'm sort of forced into it by circumstances and can't reach the computer, the dish towel, or my running shoes.)

I wonder if mindfulness is a buzz you can lose, if there's a tolerance you build up that makes it not so great if you spend all your time there. Like, maybe if I weren't so scattered all the time, I also wouldn't appreciate the focused moments so much. Maybe if you're always mindful, you lose how great that is.

What a brilliant philosopher I am to reason my multitasking. Except that I'm full of shit!

No matter how you dress it up, it's still a potty seat

2009-05-02T14:28:00.003-04:00

We've had a few days lately when my son just would not go to sleep. One was after he'd had his first chocolate cupcake (gluten-free and dairy-free, but still, chocolate) and had been to a party at JW Tumbles. He had a great time, and it's not like the place has TV or flashing lights or anything, but I do wonder if it was the sensory stimulation that he's not used to as much as the Pamela's mix sugar-bombs that made him wired.

Despite the fact that in recent days the kid has fell asleep during dinner (he won't nap, and we've not done so great lately prioritizing quiet time), last week we had another sleep-resist day for no good reason. He's been clear as day chirping: "I'm not tired. I don't want to go sleep." No whining, no eye-rubbing. Just matter-of-fact.

So when my husband brought him down to the basement where I was cleaning, we let him play quietly. And what did he choose to do? Find wrapping paper and present the potty seat to us as his token of appreciation for all we do for him. For me? Really? What a sweetheart!

Boy wants a bra

2009-04-28T11:49:00.004-04:00

Picking up my bra from where it sat on the toilet, my son asked with a smile, "Do you have no more milk?"
I continued drying off from my shower. "Nope. No more milk."
This prompted him to come out with yet another utterance of his new favorite word: "Why?"
"Because you're growing up."
"I want you to have a baby so you can make more milk," he suggested.
This is the second or third time he's said I should have a baby. Don't jump the gun, little boy. We're not quite there yet... As a reminder, he said with a glint in his eye and a giggle in his throat, "Can I nurse?" I returned the laugh in my "No, you don't nurse anymore," given with a hug.
Then he asked, "Do I not have breast-es?"
"Just small ones."
"Why?"
I generally feel like he doesn't need a scientific explanation for anything, but just saying "hmm..." or "I don't know" or "what do you think?" doesn't always satisfy. If I answer something right away then I avoid a continual string of "whys." Sometimes I just say "because you don't." This time I explained, "Well, you're just a little boy."
He countered that he was a big boy. Then he held the bra up to himself and asked, "Can I not wear this because I just have little breast-es?"
What response could I possibly offer, besides a laugh?

Simple can feel good

2009-04-22T21:47:00.004-04:00

This moving thing is really something. I mean, it's got my husband and me both reminiscing and nostalgic and, at other times, at each other's throats for all the things that have always rubbed us the wrong way about one another (or that have since we've become parents).

My husband's big complaint is that I am a material girl; no, I don't wear the latest fashions or anything, but I amass stuff, especially in the form of information (books, magazines, newspaper clippings), holistic health supports (an infrared sauna, a chi machine, essential oils, supplements, books, magazines) and kitchen gadgets (two flour sifters I've never used, a small Cuisinart I've never used and a Vita-Mix. At least I Freecycled the bigger, decade-old Cuisinart this week!)

Anyway, one night I shouted to him: "I am not simple! I will never be simple! I do not want to be!" I was trying to proudly claim my inner Renaissance woman, my full-of-passions self, the mama who will never sleep her life away!

And yet, now that there is a lot of stuff out of the house, I have to admit it feels pretty good. I feel lighter. The place seems more spacious. Maybe if I were simple we could make it work to stay here. But, remember, I am not. And we do have a three-year-old who someday will want to play with his toys in the living room again.

And his mom wouldn't want to think I had forever parted ways with lots of my things. They are just waiting for us in the neighbor's basement, hibernating through this spring of (we hope!) lots of traffic through our home, waiting until we set up camp in the new place and can give them new homes with more space in between.

Publish Post

I hope it feels like more space to the extent that I am envisioning. I'm sure that moving won't magically have me getting up at 5:30 a.m. to do yoga just because I have a place to write and set my bills. But a girl can hope, right?

No More Milk

2009-04-10T22:04:00.004-04:00

It's official. I'm all dried up. We've been weaned for almost three weeks. The other day I knew my son was totally okay with it when he gave me that twinkly smile as he tried to put his hand down my shirt and said, "Is there no more milk in your breast-es?"

"Nope!" I replied. "It's all gone. And you're a big boy."

But I didn't know for sure. After a shower later that day, I looked down to my now-mottled, no-longer-mouthed-and-red nipples. And I squeezed.

I was almost scared that I would still squirt, that my body would hint it wasn't done, even though I know we stopped at the right time. But nada. Just me. No leche.

This bar is officially closed.

Yoga challenge: don't think beyond my limbs

2009-04-06T20:34:00.005-04:00

"Fall in love with my body." That was the second thing that came into my head when the yoga teacher suggested, "Now take a moment to set an intention for your practice." The first thing was just to stay with my body -- to pay attention to it rather than use the time it was doing stuff to let my head float separately and plan out my day, an email, the order of errands.

But I could not ignore the little voice that told me to fall in love with my muscles and tissues. Quelle intention! Where the hell did that come from? Maybe if I were still taking seminars with Landmark Education, it would be the kind of thing I'd say all the time. But I'm not, and I'm still trying to figure out my relationship with my 3-years postpartum and post c-section and 2 weeks post-weaning body. (See more on my bra dilemma soon at DC Metro Moms). The intention seemed more than ambitious, but also just right.

So I didn't push away the idea and just it settle in. What would it mean to fall in love with my body doing yoga? I'd admire length, feel empathy for tightness and hope my breath would help me to loosen. I'd be gentle but also a cheerleader. I'd care about every little thing and think it all kicked ass.

It was only an hour class. We can't expect miracles. But I tried it on for size and enjoyed myself. It also helped that after class I found out that in my first few days of a small detox like I did last year, I've already lost two pounds (hint: cut out sugar and all carbs, use a lot of lemon and live, bitter foods). But then my tummy got a little tender, and I almost went back to a place of frustration until I realized this is probably my new typical pre-period discomfort.

I was obsessed about the fact that I didn't get my period back until my son was 29 months old, but now I realize that I've been paying little attention my cycle. I finally looked for my planner to consult my Everwoman's Very Personal Planner (on sale at Glad Rags and Jade and Pearl; I got mine via the Frontier Coop) and realized that I'm about 12 days or so after ovulation, so I should start my period in the next few days. And I had to count to see that this will actually be my eighth in a row. That's a good long period of time to have something that looks like fertility.

We are in the midst of a house move and I'm hoping to detox before trying to conceive, so I have a while yet to practice falling in love with my body. I've spent so long just trying not to be disappointed with it, but that's not very inspiring if you're talking about a relationship with a partner. We all probably say, "I'm trying not to be disappointed with my husband," but who wants that to be their 24/7 m.o? What a revolution in my mind to want to fall in love with my husband and with myself all the time!

I'm sure we'll all continue to have our tiffs, but I'm going to try to go with the sexy spring fever and feel the love.

A kitchen with a view

2009-04-03T12:34:00.004-04:00

We are hoping to move to a bigger home very near our house. We will lose some of our back yard, probably some gardening sun, and our super-social corner placement. My son loves watching the school buses come up the hill behind our house and the neighbors walk their kids to school, but I am hoping he'll come to love watching wildlife outside in the woods behind the new place. I don't know if the squirrels are as active over there or if the neighborhood cats stroll through the other yard like they do at our place. But I hear a fox makes regular visits. And in any case, I'm pretty psyched about the view from the kitchen sink.

Asleep at the plate

2009-03-29T22:48:00.004-04:00

Our child never just randomly fell asleep places. Never. Well, not unless he was nursing and in a sling and under a year old. He never fell asleep sitting in a car seat unless he was in a moving car. Not. Once.

About six months ago, he started to tank occasionally during dinner if he hadn't napped. We felt like we'd finally arrived as parents, with a kid not needing a ton of hand-holding to release his hold on hyper-aware living. We also liked getting him to bed early, especially after a day with no break. Now, with longer daylight due to the crazy early daylight savings time this year, I've felt like the days drag on forever. "It's not nighttime yet," he remarks when I close the shades against a sunny sky at 5:30 p.m.

But I guess I found a recipe for getting your newly 3-yr-old to fall asleep during dinner at a restaurant:
Make sure he doesn't nap for a least two weeks. Then take him outside to ride a tricycle in the morning and then in the afternoon on the Metro to meet cousins and watch kites fly in the non-windy humid air. Then spend about two hours in the most crowded museum on earth (National Museum of Natural History on a rainy day at the beginning of Cherry Blossom Festival) with five other children (ages 4-11). Wend your way through entire museum to get to bathroom 45 min. before closing time. Then work your way out again to exit, walk to Metro station, call husband at home to tell him to meet you at a neighborhood restaurant since you have nothing to eat and you and the boy are both ravenous and exhausted. Watch child inhale food at first, then space out and finally put his head on his arm and start snoring. Put sack of potatoes into car, change at home into pull-up and pj pants and call it a day.

At least he went quietly!

Rocking and not nursing

2009-03-27T23:37:00.002-04:00

Tonight was the first time I did bedtime duty since we've stopped nursing. Yes, he asked. Actually, he didn't ask and hasn't been asking, but he has said, "I want to nurse." My reply? "I know," and "I understand." And then try something else -- interlocking hands, sometimes asking for a hug, tonight singing ("You Are My Sunshine").

Tonight he was one tired kid who'd been kept up way too late but his parents who both tried to go jogging after 5 p.m. (me with him to the grocery store, his dad solo, starting about the time we were leaving the store). Even though someone from Craigslist with a loud voice came over just then to buy a old DVR from my husband, the boy's breathing started to get deep, and I just kept singing until the door had shut and the snoring was strong. In fact, he sort of squirmed in his new sleep as if to say, "Get me in bed where I can stretch out."

Weaning Chronicles winding down

2009-03-24T11:29:00.007-04:00

I can't believe it's already almost time to pick up my son from his new Spanish preschool and I'm still in my pajamas.

I need to get down before something changes that it is Tuesday at 11:30 and I haven't nursed him since Saturday at 7:30. I was rushing and he happily jumped down after a turn on each side because I said I needed to go do errands as a surprise for his birthday, which is TODAY! (I bought a Curious George balloon and ordered Helium ones to pick up Monday morning before his playdate party).

Then Sunday was a very busy day with lots of outside activity, and he fell asleep on the way home from another bday party. It was a little weird for me to not even offer to nurse him -- just washed him off and put him in his jammies. And then the next day was busy with friends. He asked once in the afternoon, and I said we could after dinner. But then he didn't pick up on on the hints that I was leaving to tutor, so my husband put him to bed again without having nursed at all.

---------

Fastforward over twelve hours (to Tuesday night). I didn't get to finish that post. I was going to try to capture all my feelings about weaning, but now I think I'm on the other side.

After two days of no nursing, it seemed clear that my son was ready to be done. He had a blast the last two days, and today too. So after we went to dinner, opened the last round of presents (just a few from us), we made motions to get ready for bed and he said, "I want you to put me to bed." I assured him I would.

In the rocking chair, I showed him the album of my pregnancy and the early days of his babyhood. I talked about how much he needed help back then and how much he can do on his own now. I said, "You didn't nurse all day yesterday or all day the day before, so I know you're ready."
I videotaped myself telling him, as he snuggled next to me, looking out at the camera:
"It has been an honor and a privilege to nurse you for these past three years. It's helped us to be close in a really special way. But now you're three, and we talked about you stopping nursing when you were three, right? It's your birthday, right?"
"Yeah."
"And now we can do other things that will help us feel close."
Yawn.
"Are you ready to go to bed now."
"Yeah. I want to see" and then tried to look at the video.
We watched the snippet I took of the violinist at the restaurant and then just looked at each other for a few moments, both smiling, me crying, too. I explained again that this would be our last time nursing, and he just said, "Last time." I asked him to give me a hug, and he did it with enthusiasm. Somehow he shifted from his head on my left side to my right, and he asked, "This side?" I said sure and turned off the light.

His latch already seemed different. I was distracted at first wondering if I shouldn't have taped that (I'm already glad I did for me) and feeling like watching the violin was out of character...

----
Fastforward now 24 hrs (to Wednesday night). He woke up last night crying as I was typing the above entry. He was asleep next to his dad in our bed by the time I went up. He did ask this morning, "Can we nurse downstairs?" I said no, we were all done. I can't remember if he whined a little or not b/c now I'm thinking about tonight. He was sad that I was going to leave to tutor and not nurse him. LJ said, "This is hard for Mommy too. Give her a hug. It's a change, but you're both ready to be done." I reiterated that he was grown up and I loved him so much and always would. He started getting sad after I did interlocking hands and sang "You Are My Sunshine." That's when he climbed into my arms and wanted to nurse. LJ's words helped me to focusl; I got E to calm down by telling him I understood. "Remember last night, how I videotaped that it was going to be our last time?" He nodded. I think I said something like I would miss it, too and asked for a BIG hug!

I said I'd see him in the morning and we'd go to school together. "Will we have rolls?" he asked. LJ and I explained that we'd have cake because it was his birthday this week and that he'd get to wear the special crown. A minute later, LJ said from the bedroom, "10 Minutes to Bed," the name of a book a friend got for us, and E started toddling down to the hall to hear the story. He smiled and said to me, "See you in the morning." We blew kisses and each told each other, "I love you very much!" I'm told he fell asleep pretty quickly, and certainly without fuss. I'm so glad he had his sad time with me while I was hear so that we could acknowledge that a transition was happening.

Then at 11, about 3+ hrs after he'd gone to bed, he woke crying. Not sure how long he'd been awake-- didn't have the monitor on and LJ was playing guitar downstairs. When I went up, he was sitting up in his bed. I asked if he needed to go potty. He replied, "I just want to nurse" in a way that said, no, you can't fix it because I can't have what I want and I know it. He wasn't asking; just telling me how he felt. I said sympathetically, "I understand" and laid him back down in his bed. I tucked him in and laid my arm over his body while I half-laid down next to him. He wanted to try to feel my skin on my belly but didn't get grabby, and he fell back asleep quickly. I wish I'd remembered to start Walnut flower essence for transition and Red Chestnut for connection to loved one before his birthday!

---

So back to last night -- the last night of nursing. After initially questioning my use of technology, I decided just to be in the moment -- to remember the experience I was having right then instead of worrying I'd documented its prelude wrong! Honestly, JC! Still, in the darkness, I also thought about all the time we'd spent with him in my arms at my breast. I wept but felt very much like this was just a poignant passageway. I knew it was the right time for us, and I know that not having this particular kind of connection will free us up to make new connections that are right for us right now. It had been such a lovely three days without nursing as part of our dynamic. It was clear to me he wanted permission to let it go, to not have that need anymore and to not be fulfilling a need of mine, either. I know I was invested in this relationship at so many levels.

When I came downstairs, LJ held me and I sobbed. Everything about the whole three years was right there, especially the exact three years earlier. At 8:50 we would have been prepping to go into the OR, and by 9:40 we were singing to our son, starting this journey that has been so intense and powerful. I keep telling him how lucky I am to have him in my life. LJ said E was lucky to have me. I really don't believe in luck; I have to trust that we all chose each other. I believe that about everything, but most things it's not immediately clear why things happen a certain way. With mothering my son, it feels so abundantly clear. Even the moments, days, weeks of frustration and doubt; there is such a strong sense for me that this is an inevitable unfolding that someone wiser than me or my more enlightened soul in the pre-life planned out. I know this is getting pretty woo-woo, but this has been a powerful time for me.

As I move to finally publish this post, I'm realizing that I have a new identity. I'm no longer a breastfeeding mom. Now I need to add the label "weaning" (I guess it should have been there before - maybe I'll go back and do that to help me see the progression). I need to find the rest of my real bras or, novel idea, actually buy some. After this birthday week of gorging on cake (gluten-free, dairy-free and low-sugar only goes so far if you keep adding chocolate chips with every bite), I'm going to get serious about a cleanse, and this time I can really do it up because no one else will be getting anything I might detox.

Wow. I nursed my son for three years. And now I'm done. And he's going to be just fine.

And so am I.

Sushi kid

2009-03-16T00:02:00.005-04:00

Last night our son had for dinner half an orange and almost half a can of lentil vegetable soup (Amy's, I think) because we had nothing prepared after getting home from an outing. We knew he wouldn't last long, so we stuffed whatever we could into him as fast as we could. I think there was some coconut milk and coconut milk yogurt with blueberries and nuts after that.

He didn't seem bothered that we weren't eating as a family. We ordered from a Japanese and Thai restaurant for delivery after the kid would be in bed. While my husband was on the phone, E asked what he was talking about, and we said he was getting food for tomorrow. I spelled out for him c-u-k-e r-o-l-l and said it might help us out the following day. E heard LJ say to the restaurant "cucumber roll" and asked, "Do they have sushi there?" Nothing gets by this kid.

So today, when he was looking in the fridge for the umpteenth time, he discovered last night's delivery treat and announced, "Oh! The sushi came!"

Better than Santa!

Eleven hours of sleep

2009-03-15T11:50:00.003-04:00

My son woke up in his own bed today at 7:00 a.m. He went to bed at 8:00 last night. This is unheard of! Eleven hours solid, and solo.

I'd woke up before 6:00 and had already come downstairs and done a few things -- also a rarity, though a goal I've been wanting to work toward for a while. I went up when he called for me since my husband was still resting. We chatted, me sitting on the glider rocker, him sitting up in bed. I opened his blinds and turned on his little moon light from Ikea. Then we read a few books. I'm trying to make it seem like it was extra fun to spend time in his room in the morning. I don't mind snuggles in bed, but if this is one more step toward independence and feeling secure in his own skin, I'm all for it!

Toward weaning

2009-03-14T22:10:00.002-04:00

I had a good talk today with the teacher of our parent-child class at the Waldorf school. The point was mostly to talk about my son's readiness for the extended day (12-3) next fall, which I'd like to have him in after the 8:30-12:00 three-day kindergarten. I explained how frustrating our afternoons can be when we leave the PC program or another thing on another day that ends before lunch. He always wants to go outside or to a park or something else when his body needs to just eat and rest. We have not had consistent naps for six months now, but lately he's even added, "I don't want to have rest time." Then later, after we've spent 90 minutes or more of just quiet down time -- some time reading books, sometimes a little nursing time (while I read or work on the computer), some time with him playing quietly on his own while I put away laundry or sit at the laptop -- he'll occasionally say, "Oh! We forgot to have rest time!" I think he'd benefit from a consistent ritual that had him separate from me, but I haven't had any luck creating that here in the house. About a half-dozen times over the past several months, I've taken him to a sitter's all day, and he's napped there, going to sleep on his own on her bed or couch. Not so with me!

It seemed adequate to have just some quiet lull in the day when I could get him in bed by 7:30 at the latest (sometimes even an hour earlier than that), but now with daylight savings and longer days, I feel like he's just going to get worn out if he doesn't rest. And so will I! Yesterday I tried to tell him we could go back out in the car to a further-away park later if he would spend some time in his room alone -- even just reading or playing. He resisted even the mention of it, so I didn't fight it.

Anyway, when I mentioned the issue of nursing and my conflicting thoughts on weaning, the teacher, though she was respectful and said it was up to us, of course, made the point that some of our push-pull issues might dissipate once we wean. When she said back in Sept. or Oct., "Well, he's outgrown his need for [nursing]," I firmly disagreed. But my husband and I are both feeling like she might be right now -- that this intense, intimate connection to me is interfering with his developing sense of self as an individual.

The way he talks about my body and nursing has lately gotten beyond just a little weird toward downright embarrassing and inappropriate (I'm saving some of those quotes for another day, maybe for a piece I'll try to send out). He's started to say at least once a day the past few days, "I'm going to stop nursing when it's my birthday," and yesterday he asked, "Is this the last day we're going to nurse?" Today and two days ago, we nursed only before bed. He asked to nurse in bed in the morning (he's coming into bed at some point in the morning and going back to sleep), but we never did nurse when we came downstairs and we didn't in the afternoon, either. (Yesterday I went to an attachment parenting meeting and actually nursed him there -- first time in public in a long while; I think he got the AP vibe!)

I'd suggested a month or so ago that we might stop nursing after he turns three, but I wasn't sure how hard and fast I wanted to be about it. The Waldorf teacher says, "He's looking to you to set boundaries. The decision needs to come from you, and you need to be comfortable to stand by it." I still don't know if I want to do a weaning party after his bday or to have his bday be the last day since he's saying that. Another friend and former LLL leader suggested that it's easier to wean when it's warm out, and of course it's gotten chilly again here, so that seems far off (even if the crocuses and daffodils are blooming, and the magnolias and pear trees are budding).

Someone at the API meeting suggested Becky Bailey's book I Love You Rituals. I think we need to figure out something that is special between us that is not related to my boobs or my body. I was thinking maybe a massage or a little song or prayer. I just read through the book description at Amazon and am purchasing a used copy in another window. We only have 10 days before he turns three!

Signs of spring - and back to winter

2009-03-09T21:23:00.003-04:00

We have had some crazy ups and downs with weather here in the DC area. On Monday of the week the nandina bush photo was taken, it snowed several inches. Great sledding on our slope in our yard, which we otherwise don't love.

By Friday of that week, March 6, we were all melted and looking at new growth. Then on Sunday morning, the first day of daylight savfings time, my son wanted to try out his new helmet, so there we were biking around the neighborhood before 9 a.m., in sandals, in front of crocuses (other people's have been blooming for a few weeks, but our front yard faces north and takes a long time. First come the yellow/orange. In a week I expect the purple). It felt almost steamy later that day! We started a few seedlings to bring inside.

What a shock to the system then today to be were back to mittens and hats after some wicked wind brought a new system. It is still March, after all, I know. And every year is different. When I was pregnant in 2006, the pear trees were already blooming by now (I know because we took photos outside looking up at my huge belly). But I've also seen snow the last week of March, and my husband has run in three very chilly Cherry Blossom 10-Milers. This year the cherry blossoms are expected to be about a week behind the peak of March 29ish as it's been the past three years -- peak bloom is predicted as April 3-9.

PlayDoh saves the (birth)day

2009-03-04T17:49:00.004-05:00

Thank you, crazy toy from my neighbor. You might have saved my birthday.
Until we made homemade playdough at my friend's house last weekend, the only playdouh I owned was the great stuff made by A Toy Garden -- pink is has peppermint essential oil, purple has lavender. They are lovely. But I rarely play with them. I leave that to the babysitter when she and my friend's daughter come over for four hours a week.

Yesterday my neighbor -- who has supplied us with one of those little coupe cars, lots of plastic trucks that live in the backyard and a recycling truck (and guy!) that hangs out in the living room brought by a whole bag of PlayDoh and PlayDoh accessories. It was not my favorite moment; I was trying to nurse my son so in a short while we could get out of the house to an appointment with the magic chiropractor/homeopath that, I hoped, would cure me of my March malaise. Actually, I made the appt. in February, already feeling the blahs, the negative cycle that is easy for me to slip into that this time of year.

Anyway, my hubby had left for work with the carseat in his car, so I had to scramble to borrow one. A friend dropped one off while the sitter was here and I was working like a madwoman in the basement. A few hours later, when my son was dying to play with this new bag 'o stuff, I was rushing to get the heck out of here in one piece. It was one of those days where every wrong thing means you should never have been born. The sun was shiny bright, obviously mocking my pain. The strap with the clips was too short. I was sobbing, unable to get the seat in the middle, so I tried it on the side. But, alas, carseats are not my forte. Pretty much anything that involves spatial relations and physics gives me the willies.

I thought I had it reasonably secure, but the first corner we turned, my son said, "Whoa!" I looked back at his tippy seat and knew I could not get on the highway. So I pulled into a parking lot and tried to no avail to fix the tension so his seat would be safe. I called the chiro and in between sobs tried to tell her what was going on, see if she was running late. She wasn't. So generously she suggested I call her back so we could settle the $120 I still owed her for the missed appt. What she lacks in compassion she makes up in skill, but I'd have liked to have had the compassion just then.

I put my boy in the front seat so I could try the seat again and at least get it safe enough to go back home, just a few blocks, but through a busy intersection. You know how they say accidents often happen close to home! Guess what? They do. An 80-year-old man was driving through the parking lot perpendicular to me. I looked straight at him thinking, of course he's going to stop and back up to turn the wheel some more. He did not. Crunch. He hit my rear bumper. It was a light tap, but I was already a madwoman with a birthday and a toddler in the front seat. I started screaming, called the cops, told him to get out his insurance card so we could exchange info as the cops advised (he didn't carry it with him, didn't know he was supposed to, just "got here." "Where? To the United States?" He was clearly no recent arrival!) He was a jerk, asking me deadpan to show him the damage, and "was I going fast?" Does it matter? You HIT the car! Apologize, asshole? Take some responsibility!

I took down his driver's license info and as the jerk continued to act like I was just some crazy woman, lit into him with clear ageism: He said he didn't think he'd hit the car, and I said if he couldn't see that kind of obvious accident waiting to happen maybe he shouldn't be on the road. You HIT the car!

Anyway, a friend happened to call me in my worst hour with a kind offer to help, which I rejected. My son held it together well, and I told him we'd go home and do the PlayDoh. His father heard the fear and anger in my voice and said he'd arrange to come home early. My friend from the phone call stopped by, kids sleeping in her car, and got me out of my head a bit such that by the time LJ got here, I was in a better place. It was sunny. We pushed dough through small places and laughed at what was squeezed out. We made spaghetti hair, something my husband had never done as a kid. My son loved it. We made a mess, and then we all cleaned it up. My other friend called to say that she was on for going with me to Lunafest that night. I had a hunch the short-film festival of movies by and about women was going to salvage my day. I just didn't know to what extent, and I didn't know that PlayDoh was going to be the transition that made it possible.

We ordered take-out at the Indian place. LJ took the boy over to his friend's to drop off the loser carseat, and he was thrilled to see his friend outside. I basked in the quiet, uploaded some photos and finally wrote a blog post on my other blog. They got the food and came home. The boy had a great time with his dad, and we had a good dinner. I knew the rest of the night would be nice and that tomorrow would come. It's sunny again. My eyes are a little puffy, but they are dry.

Time flies when you're not nursing

2009-03-02T21:55:00.000-05:00

I realized this week that I am more than complicit in the non-weaning campaign of my son. When he was sick, I did a ton of reading on the couch while we nursed, but since then I've started to use nurse time as type time. He brings me the little pillow, and I get through a few emails or maybe half a blog posting if I'm lucky.

This week was a busy week in my volunteer/work life, so all those spare seconds were quickly used up. But there weren't as many spare seconds! Today and yesterday -- days with Daddy home, I ought to point out -- were days of nursing only upon awaking and going to bed. Finally, back to where we were two months ago! Less groping, but less guilt-free computer time.

Truthfully, though, I have no idea where we'll be tomorrow or, more importantly, where I actually want to be. About two weeks ago I mentioned just a few times to my son that maybe after he turned three, he wouldn't need to nurse anymore. I didn't go into detail but did mention that some other kids didn't nurse anymore and that it just might be time to stop. Then, on a Friday, we went to a farm with another friend and saw brand-new piglets. I actually captured on video a conversation that started talking about the pigs nursing and then turned into my son saying, "I like nursing! And I'm going to stop nursing when it's my birthday!" Yee haw, I thought! He's going to give it up without a fight! I wondered if I'd even need to put together the weaning party I'd been thinking of.

But the next day and for the rest of the weekend and following week, he copped a whiny, "I want to nurse" whenever the slightest thing bothered him. I picked back up Mothering Your Nursing Toddler and How Weaning Happens, both of which made me feel like if I just accepted that he'd naturally want to nurse until four or five, everything would be fine. That's an exaggeration; they are great books, but I forgot how late a lot of the anecdotes take nursing. (The Natural Child Project reminds us that chimps and gorillas generally nurse five or six years! Oh, and the book I probably really need is The Nursing Mother's Guide to Weaning.)

As I wrote recently on DC Metro Moms, I don't think I have it in me to keep this up forever, especially if we want to have another child and I don't want to spiral into a health or depression crisis. But neither do I feel ready to say my child is weaned, or to lose the connection that I think makes my son so grounded and usually keeps him healthy or gets him through illness without much discomfort and without worry of dehydration.

I have lots of friends (and sisters) who've nursed beyond three, so it's not an issue of feeling judged or anything for still going. And I know lots of folks who've stopped short of three, so I don't expect to be judged for stopping before it's completely child-led, either. It's about my own role and my own investment in feeling needed in a way only I can meet. And yet, I fantasize about taking off for a weekend to go to a yoga retreat or a writing retreat and knowing my son will be just fine (if my husband can handle it!)

The day after tomorrow, on my 36th birthday, I'm seeing one of the practitioners who's previously helped a lot with emotional blockages and ambiguity (a chiropractor, but she is not your average chiropractor). I write a lot on the other blog about this kind of energy work, but I have to say here that I hope in the appointment I can cut through some of the fuzziness around my feelings about my son's dependence on me.

The latest on our family bed

2009-02-22T23:37:00.000-05:00

Sickness brings people together.

My son was sleeping through the night in his own bed until he had a one-night fever back in the fall, probably five months ago. Then he started toddling into our room late in the morning.

After this most recent (longer!) illness, he spent a lot of time in our bed throughout the night, but the past few nights has been happily going to bed in his own room. I like him having his own space where some toys and books are, and it's nice to have our bed to ourselves when we retire. This is especially true on nights when I tutor; changing clothes around a sleeping child is not my favorite thing to do.

But even as I enjoy him growing up and being more independent, and us having our own space, there's something that feels so good and close when he comes into our bedroom and just snuggles into me. (He's off the addictive nursing kick; he'll still ask at 7 a.m., and I think I'm going to keep that up as long as he asks until we wean. I'm thinking we're going to have a weaning party; I've floated the idea of stopping after his birthday and he's started to talk about it on his own.)

As long as I'm not being groped or whined at for holding out when I just can't give any more, it's quite lovely to know that your child gets such pleasure from just being close to you. We feel like a team, the three of us, and there is nothing more wonderful than waking up to a smiling child beaming at you and kissing you.

Tonight, though, E was somehow wired and not ready to go to bed. Eventually, after he'd been lying down on the couch in the living room, E was carried upstairs by my husband who decided to take him into our bed, explaining that he'd be staying on Daddy's side. They laid down, and my son took my husband's head in his hands and pulled it toward him. LJ said it just about broke his heart.

If the boy is sad about something, I hope we can figure that out. But I'm just glad he knows he can get the love he needs.

My husband went to bed over an hour ago, saying "I'm going to go lie down with my kid." Time for me to join them.

Daily plan

2009-02-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

"Where are we gonna go today?" my son asked this morning. After having just written here about staying home all day (and on my other blog about some of the things my boy says), it struck me as funny that I didn't notice the fact that my son asks about our daily plan every day. And how he asks is by inquiring about "where" we are going to go. On one hand I feel like this shows he's up for anything and enjoys an active lifestyle (maybe he'll relocate to Colorado in his 20s!), and on the other I wonder if I'm not letting him settle into a healthy rhythm.

Oh, and the answer for today is a little crazy -- a farm, which is near our friends' house where we'll have lunch and then go to a whole foods meetup I might not have checked out if I weren't already needing to go in that direction to pick up some Wilderness Family Naturals food someone got for me for wholesale prices.

There is also a playgroup on the way home, but I think we'll probably skip that today. Whew.

Homebody for a Day

2009-02-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

I did not leave the house today except to pick up the newspaper from the sidewalk. And this is not because anyone was sick.

I had four hours of childcare and then an extended quiet time with my son (after lunch) of a puzzle and nursing followed by cooking and baking and him looking at photos on the computer while I answered some email. With the exception of the dependence on technology, I think this is something like what I envisioned of life as a SAHM. But it was only the dreary, cold weather that kept me from running to the grocery store or the library or taking the kid to the gym so I could go to yoga -- or from playing tag-team parent and leaving as soon as my husband got home to attend an International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) meeting (it's been a long time since I've gone, and my membership is overdue). Normally I feel like the kid and I both need to get out at least once a day. At least he'd had his friend and the sitter to play with.

But today it felt nice to just put on my fleece pants and settle into my home (especially since I used the first 40 minutes of the childcare to clean the main level so it's not quite so challenging to inhabit). Then, after my son went to bed (8:00; I'm sure it could have been earlier if we'd rushed through dinner or not all eaten together), I got today's roll recipe up on my other blog and then did some yoga while half-watching Tivo'd episodes of "The Office" from last month and a few minutes of American Idol. I don't like to waste a lot of time on TV, and we do have a Netflix of "Freaks and Geeks" to finish, but it was nice to not have a major agenda of meeting, tutoring, volunteer work, a home project or a Marriage Conversation to address. It seems like there's always something I want to accomplish and, while one could argue that I was multitasking all night until my husband went to bed (when I blogged about my day with my boy), there's something nice about just hanging out in your living room, especially when it's not because your kid won't sleep anywhere but on you.

So even though one energy worker told me recently that our new satellite dish and its electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are part of what caused my son to get ill (and I do intend to spend some serious research time on that soon), I went ahead and enjoyed the small window I have into mainstream America via NBC, and I even sat with my laptop on my lap.

I do have a headache, though. I'll do a little more yoga before I go to bed to detox.

"C'mon, Mom."

2009-02-17T22:38:00.000-05:00

I got called out by my son today. Next Tuesday he will turn 35 months old.

After weeks of lost childcare due to snow and sickness, I was finally trying to finish preparing a mailing with just the last few loose ends to be tied up in my son's presence. As I addressed the remaining envelopes, the little dude kept inching closer to me. I was copying addresses from my laptop screen, and he wanted to be near both me and that glorious, glowing light hovering above the sticky-from-fingers (and all-enticing) keys. ("I like the arrow keys," he said, knowing they are what he can use to see images on Picasa).

I asked him to move away a little, to back up, because it was hard for me to write with him on me. Perched on my knees, I kept scooting just a little bit away from his toddler breath and paws. Standing next to me, his chin at my shoulders, he stepped in to fill each small space. I asked him not to, fully understanding that he wanted to be near this project that seemed so important to his mama, whom he wanted to believe thought he was all-important.

At first when I protested about his causing me a challenge, I got the most recent catch-all response: "Why?" But then, after a pause, when I said again, "Please. It's hard for me to write when you're so close to me," he replied, eyes peering into my soul, "No, it's not. C'mon, Mom."

Get a grip. You can't be serious. Oh, please. He's heard those implications in my husband's voice and in mine, and now he has made them his own, with our words and tone. "C'mon."

Though it was a annoying to have him hovering, he's right: it wasn't worth getting worked up over. I keep saying he's "almost three," but he's still technically a two-year-old. How much patience can I really expect out of someone so small? He'd already "helped" me close some envelopes, put paper in and out of the printer and was not wreaking any real havoc. He just wanted to be close to me. What could I really complain about? Come on, Mom.

And another one's down

2009-02-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

Just call me Caretaker.

I was on the couch for a full week with a boy with a fever. That week has stretched into two of lots and lotsa nursing, even though the son is physically pretty much recovered.

But now the husband has a pesky ruptured eardrum that is taking its own sweet time to leave him alone. Of course we both want him to avoid antibiotics, which my son's doctor says is likely only to shorten the duration of the infection by a day or so. But it's been over 48 hours that my guy has had a tissue attached to his head.

And I had to take the boy to Spanish class this morning! That's supposed to be their thing, daddy and son, just for eight short weeks (and we already missed last week because of the little guy's illness). It was a fine outing, but I'm getting a tired of being in charge all the time without a break. Good thing the munchkin took a long nap this afternoon. Maybe it was the elderberry drops, but I think the quiet three hours with no one putting his hand up my shirt and asking me for anything actually made me feel less likely to get sick myself. It could still happen, sure, but I doubt I'll get anyone offering to nurse me back to health, metaphorically or not.

Actually, tonight my husband actually hugged me, which was supposed to feel nice, except that I'd just spent 45 minutes trying to get our son to bed, which was a very touchy affair. And then, an hour later, after both boys were supposed to be in bed, the tall one was panting so loudly in pain I could hear him downstairs. I brought him The Last Tylenol and some Rescue Remedy and arnica. I hope that will last him until after I've come to bed and fallen asleep, by which time the little redheaded boy will probably want to have a sip o' mama. At least now that I've been to the Vitamin Shoppe and bought my husband some ear drops, maybe he won't ask me to try to heal him with my milk anymore. It's great to feel like Super-magic-healer-woman except that it involves squeezing yourself.

Just at home with my boy

2009-02-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

You've got to be kidding.
My sitter had to cancel today because her son was sick.
I lost childcare two weeks ago because of the snow.
Last week I spent the entire week holding and nursing my sick son.
Today I was supposed to have four hours with the sitter and my son's friend here, a gentle re-entry back to the land of the living while I would be around and available.
But, like I said, she canceled. We went to plan B and got in with an earlier appointment for him to see an acupuncturist, who used some tools to work on his meridians. Then we stopped at the other sitter's house to get the spoon and fork we left there three weeks ago when she still had room for us. I helped out a little now that she has her 3-yr-old, her 4-month-old, a 3-month-old and a 14-month-old. Then we went home and had lunch after which my son nursed to sleep and took a 2+ hour nap. So I finally got some work done, got a crock pot stew made for dinner, had time to walk to a neighbor's and then make gluten-free sugar cookies for tomorrow's parent-child class at the Waldorf school.
The husband put the boy to bed and I even got two blog posts written. I need to stop complaining!

Sick kid

2009-02-03T14:12:00.000-05:00

He's finally asleep. On the couch. Not nursing or attached to me. This seems worthy of news after my long morning. The boy's fever was 101 today, but the cough is worse and very troublesome to him. A friend went out and got me some Chestal, which I think has helped him rest. This is like having a newborn.

And my keyboard froze up just as I tried to log on when I saw this sleep was actually going to stick. Everything, everything I want to do involves typing. I don't want to empty the dishwasher and wake him up, I've finished a novel already today and read a good bit of the paper (some while he was on my back in the Ergo as I finally ate breakfast around 10:40).

I wanted to write about how stupid I feel for even considering that I could someday make it through another pregnancy and postpartum time, to feel like this all the time for a couple of months, to have no control, a ridiculously messy house that two days ago was clean, to never get out of my pajamas. To not even have a sip of water before 10 a.m.

I can't hit restart and magically get my happy, healthy son back this instant (though I do hope soon all of his bugs will flash "not responding" and will just close themselves down, clearing his screen to a new day). And I'm putting the idea of another baby to sleep for the duration of this illness, at least (not that it was on the table for months, anyway). But at least I can hit restart on the Toshiba and find that, possibly infected though it may be, I do get to start over.

This is 200...9?

2009-02-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

Having a sick toddler (if you have just one child) is an odd reminder of what the old days were like, when your baby slept a lot and wasn't making a mess faster than you could clean it.

I thought today I would resume from project/work-induced blogging obscurity to announce that we'd been diaper-free for a week and confirm that there is no more Nursing in the Bed -- not since I hurt my shoulders in a little fall a few weeks ago.

But alas, we are on day two of a fever, so we are back in the Seventh Gen #5s (to minimize frustration and disturbance for a kid who wants to sleep all day), and I gave it up in bed several times last night to a plaintive, "Can I nurse?"

So the last 36 hours have been a big old rewind, with the happy change that little boy was content to sit with his dad most of the day yesterday so I could work on the work I wouldn't get to do during this week's upcoming missed childcare.

Fortunately, I just got a glimpse of 2009 with a "I want my hot cereal!" which is decidedly no longer hot and, when asked, a very clear whine of "I want some more almond milk in it!"

We're headed to the doc soon, but in any case, I'm thankful for glimmers of toddler obstinacy.