In Which Becca Turns Seven

Becca had, for months, been planning for it to snow on the night before her birthday, so her friends could come sledding. It was going to be SO MUCH FUN, she said.

You'd better think of a backup plan, sweetie, I said.

And so, the zoo it was! Oh what a glorious day it was for it too! (OK, ok, so it would have been better 10 degrees warmer...) We met our friends at the kid zone and after a bit of running around to burn off some kid-meeting-up energy, we found some tables and had some sugar (cake and brownies) and Becca opened her presents:



(Thanks Danelle, Becca's used at least one page of every book already.)

Then it was off to view some animals. Tempt some sharks. You know.





We came across a bunch of animal enrichment activities towards the end of the day. A tarantula! Pet rat! Barn owl! All out walking with their keepers.

And then there was the beluga whale. I've never seen him do 'tricks' before, but apparently he can, they just don't make much of a show of it. So we caught his zookeeper interaction just after the zoo closed (but before they started kicking us out):





I think we were the very last visitors to leave the zoo. As far as Becca was concerned, this was simply proof that she'd just had the best zoo birthday ever.

The Synthesis of Becca - part 1

Becca's birth story hasn't been written. I do think it will remain that way forever, now. I don't remember most of it. Oh sure, I've got bits and pieces - it's an important event! - but I didn't get it all congealed into any sort of meaningful form, and it is far too late now.

So I'll share the bits and pieces. It isn't a story, but the memories are still important.

I have come to the conclusion now, years later, that Becca was meant to be far more than she was an "accident." I'd attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison the year before, and for some reason things were simply not falling into place for housing for the next year. It was still all up in the air when I stowed my things at an aunt's house, flew home, and (you guessed it) was pregnant within the week.

In the fall I hauled my pregnant behind to the University of Hawaii, astounding people by showing up in classes like Calculus III, Calc-based Physics II, and Organic Chemistry (erm, pregnant lady, WTF are you doing here?). I filled papers with shapes and numbers and dialed microscopes, and I had this odd feeling that everyone thought my life was pretty much over after this.

They were kind of right. "It will be Different," the already-mothers all say. Different. Capital D, Different. A NEW kind of Different.

I was horribly morning-sick during the first and part of the second trimester. I ate and ate and barfed and barfed. My husband (then boyfriend) came into the room and it was all I could do not to vomit from the smell of his cologne - when I got him to stop wearing cologne it was the deodorant, when he got unscented deodorant it was the soap. I yelled at my sister not to use so much shampoo because it was stinking up the place.

I gained 4lbs in the first trimester, because I puked so much.

I felt movement at 14 weeks. Too early?! I don't know, I was pretty thin and laying on my belly at the time, and I swear I felt it. I'd forgone the first trimester ultrasound that was a given in the practice I went to (I was sure of my dates even if they weren't, and I wasn't going to do one for THEIR sake, damnit), so we compromised and had one at 15 weeks instead of 20, to get better dating but still be able to see whether things were developing right. The man who performed the ultrasound is a neonatologist, a very skilled surgeon who ENJOYED doing these ultrasounds and did them for FUN. It was probably the best scan I've ever even heard about. Chatty, immediate explanations, "look, here's what I'm measuring, isn't that neat? Oh, I love doing ultrasounds on healthy women and babies. See those toes? That there is the cord, see how it..." I hope he's still doing it.

I showed up halfway through the second trimester with a weight gain of 30 some-odd lbs and was asked if I wanted a referral to a nutritionist. "No," I said, just-out-of-teenagerhood-me having quite enough trouble with the perceptions of others already and unwilling to place myself under scrutiny any more. Blood pressure was fine, GTT was fine, and the docs at the huge HMO I was going to didn't seem inclined to care much if I got horribly fat so long as I did it without causing organ damage.

At 30-something weeks we found out that the insurance plan I was on, through my mom, would cover me but not my baby. Um, not cool? There is a "mother" and a "baby" section on the hospital bills, and that "baby" section can be a couple thousand dollars strong. So we transferred care to my Dad's PPO, and I started seeing a doctor across the mountains from us.

I liked this better. Two doctors in the practice and one of them would be at the delivery. I hand-carried my records from the HMO to my new doctors, and they accepted them without question.

I never heard another word about my weight. That's puzzling, now...I gained 75lbs or thereabouts with this pregnancy. But I must have looked healthy enough despite all that.

Before I got pregnant:



One month before Becca was born:

Part 2 - Birth! And Recovery...

First-timers never seem quite sure about going into labor, and I was no exception. I called Fran back from school around lunchtime on a Friday, because I was getting a trickle of fluid and some contractions, but the contractions stopped coming and the fluid stopped trickling, and in the evening we went on over to the hospital just to check on whether it was amniotic fluid or the mysterious "something else" of pregnant-woman legend...they said it wasn't amniotic fluid, but since the trickle had stopped quite a while back, that didn't surprise me. Probably a high leak that resealed.

We walked all weekend. Around the beach park, watching people playing volleyball...we made the 2-mile circuit twice. Around the parking lot by Fran's mom's place. Around the neighborhood by my parents' place. Up curbs, down curbs. Up stairs, down stairs.

Nothing happened.

I went to sleep defeated on Sunday night and sent Fran to school on Monday morning. Only to call him back, again around noon. This time at least, I told him to stay at school until he got out at 4. I labored lightly all day, nothing difficult or painful but oh so exciting. My mom did a manicure and pedicure. It felt nice but she painted my nails and that is very unlike me, so in the birth and postpartum photos it doesn't seem like ME holding my baby. Small thing, eh? But my bond with her was so tenuous, right at the beginning, that it seems sad to me.

I was so very hungry by dinner. My mom had made spaghetti and I ate a ton of it, despite the warning that it was sure to all come back up. By the time we were sitting around after dinner, contractions were coming almost every minute, but were still pretty painless. I definitely knew they were there. It wasn't feeling particularly urgent, but the birth center/hospital was over the mountain, so off we headed.

Things became painful when we got there.

This is where my memory really leaves off. It was a fog really. It was more pain than I had imagined and a lot of that was poor coping. We had been to childbirth ed classes, but it was one of those "you don't get a medal for going natural" classes, and all of the techniques we'd learned were about coaching, talking, touching...interacting. I discovered I was a very introspective birther and wanted not a thing to do with people telling me what to do, with looking at things, with being touched. And yet, this was all we'd learned. Our "teacher" had actually told us that it was a bad idea to close your eyes during a contraction!

So childbirth was a FIGHT for me. A tooth-and-nails, knock-em-down, FIGHT. My body versus my brain. My husband, because of that childbirth ed training, largely fell on the "brain" side of the fight and kept trying to coach. I was so stuck in myself that I couldn't tell him not to. I'm not sure I muttered a whole two intelligible words until well after I'd given birth. My body battled my brain with everything it had; muscles, hormones, everything. I was convinced I needed to battle back.

It was torture.

The nurse at some point asked whether my water broke. "Friday," I said, thinking of my trickle and not entirely thinking straight at the moment. "That's not what we want to hear," she said. "OK," I said, "it didn't break yet then." "Much better," she said, charting the news happily. Later, during pushing, my water would gush during a contraction but not EXPLODE the way it did with my second, so I do think that it leaked a bit on Friday and had reopened that leak during labor. But whatever, it is probably better she charted that it was unbroken.

Probably around 10pm the nurse asked for the second time whether I wanted an epidural, and informed me that the anesthesiologist was going home for the night and it would take an hour if we decided later. I was beyond speaking by this point and my mom answered for me, "no, she doesn't want one, send him home." "You sure?" the nurse said. I nodded. The anesthesiologist left.

At some point I did throw up that spaghetti. My mom was ready with a large bucket.

At some point I got in the bathtub, and that was nice. But it was small and to submerge my belly any kind of meaningfully I needed to lean backwards, and that was uncomfortable, so I stayed in there for probably only a little more than half an hour (wild guess there).

I don't remember a lot from the last couple hours. I remember at one point I stared at the instructions for operating the hospital bed and that got me through one contraction without losing my connection to reality.

Towards the end, I fell asleep between each contraction, I was so tired. I think that this was what finally allowed my body to complete the process, because I was too tired to fight it anymore.

When I started pushing, my mom had to battle the nurses to "let" me push in a crouch. The squat bar they'd advertised in their literature was nowhere to be found, and it was obvious that if it existed at all, it was in some dusty far-off closet.

Pushing wasn't the relief I'd heard it was, but it wasn't horrid either. I don't remember the nurse checking to see that I was fully dilated, but this might have been because I blocked it out. The only reason I remember pushing in a squat is because I can remember holding tight to the back of the bed (fully tilted upwards), looking straight at the wall, knees half-akimbo and embedded in the top half of the bed.

But I was already quite tired, and after only a few contractions I needed to lie down again. The nurses "helped" me into that unlovely c-shaped pushing position, and were shocked to see that there was quite a bit of descent. They ran off to call my doctor, insisting that I take it easy on the pushing. As more and more of the head became visible, and there was still no doctor, they tried to get me to breathe through contractions.

I was unable to tell them off, FAR beyond the ability to express myself verbally, but luckily my mom was there.

"Surely you can catch a baby? I'd get ready for that possibility, ladies!" *nurses stand about as far from me as they can get while still in the same room, looking for all the world like deer stuck in headlights* *mom gives nurses a disgusted look, and says "GO AHEAD and PUSH." I'm pretty sure she'd have caught that baby herself if they kept standing there.

Like I was about to do anything else at the moment!

This, btw, is why in all my photos (and I have very graphic photos of this birth) there is NO perineal support even though it is obvious I needed it. I was also, however, spared an episiotomy in a situation where I'm sure all but the most episiotomy-hating doctor would have performed one.

At some point the pictures stopped, because there was no mirror and the only way I could see anything was if Fran turned the swivelling screen of the camera.

My doctor came running in, her hair dishevelled, snowflake sweater pulled over a matching flannel pajama set, chewing gum, just in time to pull on gloves as Becca's head bulged past my perineum.

Her cord was wrapped around her neck a couple of times and tight, if I remember correctly. It is REALLY foggy. I think the doctor cut the cord before she was fully delivered because of it...certainly the cord was cut once already before my husband was presented with the scissors, and I think that this was the reason.

When she was plopped on my chest, I couldn't say anything but "oh, oh, oh." Words still failed me but in a very different way. Becca was born at 2ish in the morning. She stared at me with one eye open and the other sealed shut against the light. She'd switch eyes every now and then but couldn't seem to handle having them both open at once. She nursed pretty quickly after she was born.

Her shoulders were what tore me. Pretty badly, too. 3rd, almost 4th degree. The repair took a long time but my doctor was gentle and careful, and she did a good job of it. It was painful recovering but it healed well and I have no complaints about that.

At some point a broken thermometer was used and read some outrageous high temp. The nurses took Becca over to the side to check things out and redid the temp several times...with the same thermometer. Finally my mom got fed up and just TOLD them to go get a new one. They did, and she was fine. Great.





We slept that morning pretty uneasily. We were still awake when the sun rose outside the window. We slept on and off, people came in to see us. I was exhausted. I don't really remember anything, except that after we woke up that first day a kind nurse took pity on my discomfort and gave me a cast-off set of hospital scrubs to wear. I felt like she'd given me my dignity back, and when Fran's family came to visit I felt like a PERSON. It was so much better than feeling like a PATIENT.

A lovely, vibrant, curly-red-headed nurse with an unidentifiable accent (at least in my memory) was happy to hear that even if we'd had a boy, she wouldn't have had to try and talk us gently out of a circumcision.

My mom took the "breastfeeding" bag (from Similac!) and dumped all the formula propaganda into the trash. With flair. With as many nurses in the room as possible. While expounding on the evils of formula companies.

And after a second night at the hospital we packed up and left.

Recovery was heinous. And not just from my tearing. My body had fought hard, and all my muscles were sore. Very sore. My arms in particular...I couldn't lift them above my head without supreme effort for a week.

My bottom hurt like NOTHING ELSE, which isn't terribly surprising given the tearing. My mom prepped sitz baths for me and I tried to lie exposed to air on a chux pad every now and then. But I was supremely uncomfortable.

When my 6 week check came around I still didn't really feel well, but I suppose my recovery was passable.

I had PPD after my daughter was born, something I didn't recognize until well after I was out of it. She was not the easiest child in the world - colicky, difficult to comfort, supremely high-strung - and that didn't help any.

Fran and I married when she was 6 months old - she was still high-strung but no longer horribly colicky. I pulled out of my PPD a couple of months after that and became the "me" that most of you, who read my blog, now know.

The whole period - pregnancy, birth, and postpartum - was a growing and changing experience for me. I went into it a newly-adult-being, not yet matured, and came out essentially as you know me today.

Toddler Coddling

It was pointed out to me *ahem* that EldestDaughter is creating a "princess" by fawning over toddlerness. And yeah, I kinda saw it. But if there were any doubts left in my mind, the following incident cleared them entirely...

Here comes EldestDaughter carrying a whimpering Toddlerness up to me. "Mama," she says with a sigh, "Nomi bumped the sharp part of the door..." she pauses and shakes her head "...her poor magnificent little toes..."

"Mama," whimpers toddlerness, "Nomi needs a coffee."

Confession - this morning she was whining so hard for my cup that I poured about a tablespoon of it into a mug of milk. She stood on a stool in the kitchen, sipping and staring out the window, completely and utterly HAPPY.

I fear she will demand coffee every morning for the rest of her life now. And no, I'm not kidding. *I* demand coffee every morning...

Losing the Garbage War

Taking out the garbage - the process of putting it into the larger cans outside - has never been a specifically-assigned task in this household. Which would spell dooooooom for some households, but for ours, non-assigned tasks seem to get done pretty smoothly. The dishes are another such task, and we fall in and out of routines with our dishwashing, but generally Fran and I are doing half the work. That is, on any given day, we'll each do about half the work, not that one of us takes on the kitchen entirely each day. It is interesting how these things work themselves out as years of marriage start to extend behind you.

But apparently this little understanding is falling apart when it comes to the garbage.

I noticed about a month ago that it seemed like I was the ONLY one taking care of the garbage. Like if it was full, Fran would leave garbage on the counter or stick it in a bag next to the garbage...and then not take care of things when he was done with whatever-it-was.

This pissed me off. But I held that pissed-off in complete and utter silence, largely because the laundry (one of the things that are definitely "mine") was overflowing all over the bedroom, and I couldn't be starting the arguement right then. Fran had too much ammo. I decided to postpone the battle until I could stock up better.

A mere week later, we had it out, him standing in the kitchen and me in the bedroom, shouting across the living space. Not the best way to have a rational discussion, don't you think? "Niki, the trash FRUSTRATES me, I don't LIKE to do it!" "oh, and I ENJOY it?!" "well, it doesn't drive you NUTS, but it drives ME nuts!" "MAN, I don't like to do it either! Just because I don't get all huffy doesn't mean I LIKE it!" (insert man sulking here) (insert Niki at a loss for words here - stupidity can have that effect on me...)

And so in the intervening time, I had been stubbornly refusing to take out the trash. So, apparently, had Fran. Because after the trash can filled up, that ever-so-lovely bag appeared next to it. And another. And it drove me NUTS. I couldn't open the dishwasher without rearranging them. I couldn't use the step-can and had to wrestle with opening up the bag to throw stuff away. But I put up with it. Until this morning, when I woke up and there was liquid leaking from under one of the bags.

This was just too much.

I caved.

I took out the trash.

The battle, I fear, has been lost. I'm left wondering if Fran will ever take out the trash again.

So much for the eveil one, eh? Couldn't think of a better way to do this? Oh, yes, I thought of a million. Including leaving trash on his side of the bed...dumping the bag over his head...putting bags behind his car so he had to move them to go to work...

But I fear that this would cause a revival of other, more important battles. I'm not interested in starting a war I'll lose. Because when it comes down to it, Fran, as anal as he can be, is a man...and he can live in squallor far longer than I can. Plus he's still taking the filled trash cans on the long journey up to the main street for pickup every week, and I really don't want to get nailed with that one too.

I can't believe I've been out-stubborned. Me!! Out-stubborned!!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Toddlerness does a pretty fair impression of her mama in the morning, wouldn't you say?

Weird Wood

Weird title, no?

Yesterday we had our first bonfire of the year. It wasn't a SPECTACULAR bonfire, largely because the dead crap we were burning was very, very wet and it took until 11am to get it going at all. I checked the websites and made sure that there was no burn ban before we lit it, but when I came in and turned on the computer after darkness had fallen, there had been one called shortly after I checked. I might have known! The smoke, instead of wafting gently up, up, and awwaaaaaaayyyy, settled in with the tree trunks and clearings, making a fog of its own in the clear, crisp, and entirely windless day.

Oh well.

The weird part of it is that we encountered, once again, what Fran has termed "piano wood" because the smell it makes when it burns is what he imagines the grand pianos he spent his childhood around would smell like burning. Why is this weird? Well, we have no idea where it comes from. It isn't a tree identifiable to us. Nothing that grows here, anyway. We know well the smell of burning cedar and maple, and the unpleasant (but mercifully brief) tang of the burning vines and half-sprouted leaves of various poking things we decide to eradicate each spring. And this isn't one of them.

We'd kind of assumed, before, that the huge stubs of massive trunks that are littered here and there about the area were just cedars. Cedars that would have dwarfed the ones currently standing around our house but just cedars - a known entity - for all that. They certainly look plenty cedar-ish, what is left of the decaying bark and crumbling innards. But know I wonder, with the repeated appearance of the mysterious piano-wood, what stood in this forest before we were here. Before, judging by the degree of rot in the trunks versus those cut more recently, we were even born.

It would be nice to know, I think. What was here before. Somehow I doubt anyone ever took a picture of this spot before 1980 or so (this house was built in '84), if even then. Some things I can imagine, but others? What was exterminated to make this spot more inhabitable?

I think the mystery of the piano wood will be solved at some point. One day we'll run across a chunk of the stuff that actually LOOKS like something. But I suspicion that it doesn't exist in living form anymore, at least not right here.

There is a hill, by our neighbor's house, that I realized a couple of months ago was not a hill at all. It is the fallen hulk of a humongous tree, its trunk housing a new generation of growth (judging by the size of the new trees, about 10-15 years old). I wonder if at some point it will crumble away, exposing the kids-clubhouse maze of new roots that had wrapped around its exterior...or if it is now a permanent hill, a tiny protection against the erosion that is surely happening as the winter rain pours down the larger hill each year.

Nature is cool.

Bad Birth Stories

For whatever reason, in recent months I've read and heard traumatic birth stories in numbers far outstripping the "nice" ones. Some of these people I know personally, some I've never met. Some stories I know to be the full truth, some have gaps. But the reality of all of it is that these are women who are hurting. This massive exposure (I'd say the bad ones average out at about 1.5 per day versus the approximately 1 really awesome story a week) has led me down quite a few thought paths, some of which I'd like to put into some sort of more material, word-and-sentence, form.

The medical establishment disrespects women. Doesn't even want to KNOW about women, not really. Sure, they will measure the LH surges and figure out where hCG comes from, but I can't help but think that it is motivated more out of sheer human-curiousity than out of any kind of desire to understand women - real women with real babies growing in their real uteri - any better. A woman is more than the sum of her hormone receptors, vital signs, weight, income, and race. A woman is more than these things EVERY DAY OF HER LIFE, but in labor, she is more than these things by far. She has (wooo-wooo alert) a power beyond the understanding of medicine behind her. The power of millenia of moving forward, of evolution, of moving towards perfection. I ask you, would this movement toward perfection KILL her? Well, maybe if you gave her mother drugs that crippled her skeletal system. Maybe if you told her that white bread tastes better, canned vegetables are wonderous things, and all you really need in life is some meat and A1, and she fostered a body deprived of all the fuels that it really needs to thrive. Maybe if you gave her enough drugs that it short-circuited not just pain but pleasure, not just suffering but memory; that made of the process a lie. That attempted to remove from the picture anything not understood to be absolutely necessary, and left only the contraction, as if that was the one and only thing important to the process.

Maybe if, in other words, you messed with the system.

Because that is what it really is. It is a system that nature has developed, and it has been a long hard process to get here, and it is being messed with. THIS is what almost every traumatic birth story I've read has in common. There are stories with midwives, with doctors, with transfers. With all kinds of disrespect. But at the beginning there was lack of trust in this birthing system that nature has given us. Oh, and what a beautiful, complicated, WONDERFUL thing that system is! The complicated part doctors get, and most midwives get, but the BEAUTIFUL and WONDERFUL parts are so often lost in these stories.

At the heart of all the disrespectful behavior is this lack of belief. No, you don't see it written large across the face of every traumatic birth story. But in every traumatic birth story it is THERE. I haven't read a single one in which it wasn't. Whether the midwife was impatient, or the hospital absolutely needed that monitor, or the doctor at transfer held a grudge because a mama believed in herself and was finding that belief crumbling, or the nurses laughed in the face of the mama who thought she could do it without the medicine, it is THERE.

It is human nature, I think, hold other humans as far more important emotionally than events. Certainly there are birth stories with horrible outcomes that read sweetly, that in the rememberance the kindness of others shines through and makes of the memories something shining and glowing and perfect despite the traumatic FACT of what happened. People are greater than fact in our minds. We almost don't care that we tore, we care that the doctor looked at us kindly, explained everything that was going on, and took care of things with gentleness and respect. Or the outrage of that doctor doing anything otherwise will stay with us FAR beyond the impact that is left by the fact of the tear itself. Sometimes we can't ekke these things out very well, and in our minds, we are scared of tearing or of getting an IV or of placing a phone call to the hospital or whatever-of-a-million-things was traumatic the last time 'round - but most of the time, what we are really scared of is the human actions that were accessory to it.

And that is the most painful thing of all when I read these stories. That there are human beings behind these things that we fear. We go to the hospital, before we know better, because we think that these human beings can save us from the process of birth. Because we've been led to believe that this process is inherently pathological, that it is a curse, that it is - for lack of a better way to say it - a disease epidemic unto womankind, and that we NEED to be saved from it. But we aren't saved from it, not even close, because at the hospital there are human beings, just like us, who used to think that they could save us from childbirth but after a while, seem to exist in a somewhat resigned "at least we're trying" state, finding a reason for their vocation in a dozen procedures a day, bouyed by the occassional "success" story, the occassional life saved.

For every woman who experiences the rough end of that belief set and decides that the next time will be different, there are 200 who experience it and believe that the system has saved them. That it was bad, but not as bad as it probably would have been. They have bought, hook-line-and-sinker, the lie that women are incapable and need the system for their own good.

This is a system blinded by the disrespect for women that has been so endemic to our culture for so long that we've forgotten what respect looks like. (Brief foray into politics...) When is the last time you heard a MALE congressman being told his father would be proud? And yet, oh, how heart-touching, everyone said. Heart touching my fucking ass. The very fact that everyone seems to think that this is not just OK but laudable is just another symptom of the fact that WOMEN DO NOT COMMAND THE SAME RESPECT AS MEN. And anyone who thinks that they do needs to be hit upside the head with a frying pan. It is written in big bold letters across every social interaction in our culture. Across the medical literature.

Across birth.

And yet...

I feel that in some of these cases, these traumatic stories have become so very important to progress. The birth story of Janet's first child is gut-wrenching, but just look (http://www.joyousbirth.info) at what she has turned her experiences into. I feel like there would be a hole in the birthing world, almost in womanhood itself, without her voice and the voices she has added to the chorus. Even for those women who experience a traumatic birth and do nothing with any more impact than follow it up with an absolutely glorious birth that was everything they ever thought they couldn't do, the world is richer for their experience. Their lives are richer for that experience. The lives of their children are richer for that experience. In this sense, every traumatic birth story can become a victory story. And I hope that they ALL do.

Procrastination Achieved!!!

I am seriously not regretting it, either.

Shortly after writing that last post I decided to take refuge at a friend's place, so off we headed. While the kids ran around in her (wooded) backyard (with a Rainbow playset), I lost myself briefly in some genetics and embryology reading, so it wasn't time totally wasted.

We had coffee, sat around, gossiped, ate pasta, read textbooks, had more coffee...

And I didn't think about gyn. Not for a second.

And...I am seriously not regretting it.

That's life?

I have this strange desire to share what I have done this morning, largely because I'm done with my morning routine way earlier than usual.

Banging and clattering from the kitchen, and I'm borderline-awake at 5:30am-ish. Toddlerness stirs and I decide that now would be a good time to nurse her and try to escape. We do that, she settles back in, and I doze on and off while Fran makes quite enough noise to wake the DEAD getting himself ready for work. Once he's clear of the whole 2 square feet of free floor space in my house, at about 6am, I get up.

Coffeeeeeeeeee my neurons groan, but I manage to put a sock in the microwave first - it is 62 degrees in here and my Hawaii-grown internal settings are rebelling against the cold. Sock, coffee, grab the sock, grab dirty laundry - out the door, laundry in the washing machine, firewood in my arms, into the house. Set a fire, wash the one pan Fran apparently didn't bother with (WTF? He washed and put away everything else!?). Grumble. Pour coffee, add various taste-good-bad-for-you shit to it. Close the woodstove door - the fire is blazing now. Sit down at the computer, give myself a little pat on the back for thinking to position the desk four feet from the woodstove (getting warmer by the second). Drink some coffee, send some emails, check some blogs. The brain is warming up now, I sign into WebCT.

I hate WebCT.

Tempted to hit up the discussion boards, but don't. Open the pharmacology exam. A little startled by the contents, but mainly only because there are things in there I don't remember reading. Oh well, it is open book.

I finish the exam half an hour later at 7am. Email the instructor - one of the questions didn't translate properly into digital format. Give myself a minor pat on the back for drawing THAT one closed right away.

Yell at myself for forgetting that I was going to mail my mitigation forms on that damned speeding ticket yesterday.

Begin browsing school discussions.

Boyness wakes up, followed closely by toddlerness, who apparently needs cuddles and nummies in bed for half an hour.

Some time on out-of-school discussion boards.

I begin contemplating doing my Gyn Learning Objectives. Don't want to think about it.

Bring in more firewood, add it to the fire. Start another load of laundry. Bring paper towels in from the shed.

Sit back down. Still don't want to think about gynecology. Decide to write here instead.

Now.

Damn. I guess I can't procrastinate the schoolwork anymore. Dammmmmmmmmmnnnnniiiiiiiiitttttttttt.

Night Weaning

I've decided that I've had enough. I'm night-weaning toddlerness. About damn time? I dunno, she's a little teddy bear in bed, she's easy to SLEEP with. But I've been feeling drained lately and how hard this last sickness hit me was the last bit of evidence I needed. I think she's taking an enormous amount of energy from my body, and that needs to be tapered off.

Right now I'm at that difficult stage where it is MORE difficult not to nurse than it is to nurse. It means actually waking up, telling toddlerness that the nummies are sleeping, and letting her whine and thrash about for a minute. It is pretty painless, but still, it would be easier and faster to just let her nurse.

I did nurse her at 6am when my husband left for work. I felt a huge load of milk going out, and after insisting on nursing through let-down on both sides, she rolled over happy and slept another 3 hours while I got out of bed, tended the fire, had coffee, and did some homework. THAT might be a routine I could get down with.

The Snow is Gone

Looks like the last of the snow melted last night. And the world is green, green, GREEN. It is startling. The evergreens and the grass, all bright and green and ever-so-different from the sterile white that coated my world last week.

I said that I wouldn't mind a less...adventurous...driving experience, but I'm missing the snow anyway. It felt like the world was sleeping under all that snow. I feel like it still SHOULD be asleep. Like the green doesn't belong right now. I feel like *I* should still be hibernating too, but more in a recovery sort of way. I'm most of the way better today, I'm sure it will come soon.

Without further ado, various pictures I've failed to post lately:

Because a few of you haven't seen me in a bit:


What happens when you get involved with something in the kitchen and don't notice your toddler walking off with a bag of sugar:


Toddler/husband cuteness:

Toddlers and Boobs and Such

My toddlerness, yes, my *gasp* over-two-ness, yes, *gasp* still nurses. Rather a lot. How much a lot? No fucking clue.

But yesterday, I was gone at school until 8pm. And apparently, she ate/drank fairly normally in the early day, but around 5pm *gave up* on me coming home soon, and drank...get this...

3/4 gallon of milk

Holy shit little girlie! THAT is some milk-drinking talent!!!

And then she didn't jump me when I came in the door! Fran told me he was about to cut her off and switch to water, because she was getting a little scary with the refills, but DAMN no. Next time I leave, I am SO buying extra milk for Toddlerness!!

Oh, and she didn't drink another SIP of milk once I'd arrived home. Ahem.

It seems like I always get these great little clues about the inner workings of my kids when I LEAVE them.

More Fun in the Snow

So today we were 'snowed in' again. Well, kinda. Fran went to work but I wasn't about to drive anywhere.

My sister was over and we spent a TON of time outside, despite the fact that it was colder than can really be considered reasonable or humane.

There was a lot of wiping-out but even more FUN. This was our second of three outdoorsy sessions today, and Naomi was asleep so I wasn't doing anything more interesting than sitting on a log a few feet from the top of the hill, taking pictures of kids going by.

Snow Kids

OK so they had some better runs later, but I like these pictures best :)




Obligatory Naomi photo:

Snow Scenery

What lovely, lovely snow we had this morning! This doesn't happen every day 'round here, so of course, I had to go out and take some photos of it! Here are just a random couple. I've got all sorts of snow, branch, sky photos, and I'm sure I'll love and hate them all in sequence.

And yes, that IS my house, that little tiny thing under all those trees. And yes, I WAS this-close-to shitting myself during that wind storm the week before Christmas.

Why Are Toddlers So Gross?!

Toddlerness' latest and unloveliest habit? Filling her mouth with water/juice/milk (whatever) and spitting it back and forth from cup to cup. Or onto her legs. Or whatever. We just like to spit.

"Mama, here, DRINKIT!!!" Um, no girlie. No.

My Own 2000th Visitor

So when I went to check on the uploaded/not status of that last entry, I became my own 2000th visitor!

Yay me!

I think.

Books!!! Here!!! At my house!!! For REAL!!!

Oh, I'm so glad to see them.

Who ever would have thought that "The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology" and "Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies" (and 8 others) would have my heart going pitter-patter?

I was really, really worried for a while. These books were incredibly horribly expensive and were ordered practically the SECOND that a generous check from my mom cleared its way into my account. It became phenominally messy when I collaborated with MIL to use her discount (at which point she stepped in and paid the remaining several hundred dollars for the rest of my books), and things were ordered under her name to her house, so I couldn't even call people up and bitch them out in person.

I'm very much not-happy with Barnes and Noble, but I'm feeling a good deal more magnanimous now that my books are actually in my hands. I was pondering, last week while everyone ELSE was talking about how much reading they were having to do and *I* was just sitting here thinking about how I would have to do TWICE THAT next week, actually buying them on Amazon on credit and working out the details later. That would have been phenominally STUPID, and I'm glad I didn't do it.

And off I go to read.

Go With the Flow

Yup, 'tis arrived.

Just in case anyone was wondering.