# Welcome to August, November '05 Babies!



## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Is it really August already!!?

The July thread is here.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Yay! It's August! Another month closer to my due date! And another month closer to Isaac's 2nd birthday! Can anyone believe that's sneaking up on us? 2 year olds? He's still my baby....







:







: I'm trying to enjoy every second of it... How in the world does time fly by so quickly?


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

My Isaac turns 7 this month- guess how old that makes ME feel







Same day as Steve as well, so we'll be eating cake, cake and more cake from the 23rd onwards.
Life is good. We have discussions with Skye about tantrums and why she shouldn't bang her head against hard concrete floors when she gets frustrated, discussions with Isaac about why kicking and biting is wrong and discussions with Alex about backchat, truthfulness and why you shouldn't manipulate your brother into losing his temper and hitting you because it's fun to watch him get into trouble







: I'm so glad they're all healthy, happy (mostly) and here.
I'm also 14 weeks pregnant today, and measuring big







:- Steve is joking that I'm having another 14lber. I'm still just shocked to still be pregnant, but it was definitely a baby we saw on the scan.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
I'm also 14 weeks pregnant today, and measuring big







:-

second trimester!!! oh, and i'll hope for you that this little bean isn't 14 pounds when born


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Hello again ladies. This year is flying by! I really should be sewing up some gorgeous black and purple mei tais, but I'm currently waiting to see if my iron survived a dunk in to the dishwater. Thankfully it was not plugged in and there was nothing breakable in the water. I'm sure there are other more important things I could do, but I thought I'd take a break from cursing at mcafee for screwing up my pc and check in here.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi everyone!

Helen - congrats on making it to 2nd trimester!!! That's wonderful news. And even if your little bean IS 14 lbs, I'm sure you'll handle it with your usual aplomb.

Amy - re: the other thread, Rowan is fascinated with Daddy's penis as well. And my girl-bits. She watches when I get out of the shower and points at me and very carefully says "VULVA". Of course, the first time this happened, she pointed at me and said "penis". I corrected that one right quick.







She's also learning "scary" - but so far she's used it entirely correctly - the first time we found she knew that word was when a fly landed on her hand and she sort of froze and said in a tiny voice "little bit scary". Then she said it again when an ambulance came by yesterday - but sometimes ambulances are exciting, so it's hard to say. And yes, I live somewhat in terror of inappropriate utterances but her pronunciation is not always that great and much of the time adults need to be paying close attention to her or have me or DH translate, so it's not quite so bad.

I can't believe it's August either. We leave for Britain in a month, it's my birthday in less than 3 weeks (35, EEK!) and it's suddenly pickling/canning/freezing/storing season, and my freezer and pantry need cleaning out, oh and HAPPY LAMMAS DAY everyone! It's time to bring in the first harvest, although here it sort of trickles in from mid-July to mid-August, then the hard-core deluge of produce hits and I go around stuffed full of vegetables and feeling guilty for not eating MORE of them.







: Plus there's only so much spaghetti squash the family will tolerate. Corn, though, we can eat buckets of. Can't wait for corn. I had my first ripe, juicy sweet blackberry yesterday and it was lovely. I'm so glad I'm not working









In other news, we went to the dentist for the first time today - Rowan had some discolouration on her lower incisors that I wanted to get checked out because she'd bashed her teeth there pretty badly a few months ago. Fortunately, it's all fine, just some mineralized plaque that the dentist says is nothing to worry about. Rowan was great, not even a peep of indignation even though he had to pry her lips open - but once he got in there she was pretty cooperative and quite pleased with her new toothbrush. I'm relieved - as the daughter of a dentist and a dental nurse, I'd be written out of the will if the first grandchild ended up with tooth damage or heaven forbid DECAY before her second birthday.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do about the fact that Killy knocks Ellie down every freaking time I leave the room? I'm soooo frustrated, and only a couple days away from giving Ellie a wooden spoon and telling her to hit Killy every time he comes close.







: I know the obvious thing is not to ever leave the room, but there are moments I need to put laundry in the machine or take a phone call in a room where children aren't playing (my kids are really loud all the time).


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

On purpose, or being a 3yo boy who doesn't know his own strength and hasn't turned his brain on yet that morning? Do you think this is sibling rivalry kicking in?
I'd try and find a way of helping Ellie fix it herself without actually putting yourself in the middle of a sibling dispute, because otherwise you're going to spend at LEAST the next 6 years of your life playing referee. So you could try verbalising her feelings after it happens "you feel really scared and hurt because you weren't expecting it and really ANGRY because someone pushed you and that's not cool" so Killy remembers that she's a person and not a blob. You can also work on Killy needing to remember to be gentle in the usual ways. I wouldn't give her a spoon, though, because IME the 2nd ones tend to be the more violent ones







The last thing you need is a girl with a grudge and a weapon hunting down her brother when your back is turned...


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Absolutely on purpose, Helen. Its so upsetting.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I'll go ask the font of all knowledge on sibling rivalry (aka my boys) for you. Have you read Faber and Mazlish's book on Sibling Rivalry, though?


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Well, just since last night its suddenly changed from knocking down to hair-pulling. ARGH!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Man how frusterating! Did it come out of nowhere? Or has Killey always had problems playing with Ellie?


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Sounds a lot like how my brothers interacted until they were well in to their teens. They are about 20 months apart. My mom has a picture of the younger one holding some sort of stick with murder in his eyes going after the older when he was 2-3 and sick of being beaten on. I don't know what she did to try to keep them from killing each other. I know for sure part of it was sibling rivalry as the older of the 2 was told he was a big boy and not given as much attention once the baby of the family came. It's kind of hard to keep up with attention for the 2 year old when the baby spends a large chunk of his first year of life in an oxygen tent in the hospital. That was an age when the older one still really needed to be babied though.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Queen of Cups* 
Well, just since last night its suddenly changed from knocking down to hair-pulling. ARGH!









I don't have any advice, but I just wanted to say I know that must be really difficult. I hope you can find a successful way to resolve this soon.


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## SoulJourney (Sep 26, 2005)

Hi all!!!!! Yeah, yeah, I completely ducked out on the ENTIRE month of July...







. Life has been insanely busy these days. And we have even been on vacation since JULY 20!!!!! Noah and I have been doing tons and tons of camping. He is SUCH an amazing little hiker and is SO interested in all of the dirt, water, bugs, plants, animals, etcetera. He is always on a mission to find more deer in the woods...it's SO cute. And he's talking up a storm these days. Can you believe it, Amy? NOAH is talking up a storm! He has even recently informed me that my uh...*very* non-groomed pubic hair was BIIIIIIIG and (Y)UCKY!!!







So, anyway, I'm missing you gals and just wanted to say hola!

*Barcelona*...I saw you yesterday! My SIL was watching Runway Models while I was there. I was in the other room and recognized your voice so of course I had to sit and watch the show! I saw you before on CSI(?I think?) but I just have to say you are GORGEOUS! All the pictures they showed of you and your DH were beautiful and you look so radiant. Anyway...just had to gush over you for a bit!

**Amy* and/or Spiritmomma*: Noah and I are off work until August 14th. If you guys are up for camping or hanging out let me know! We are trying to make the most of our time off.

*Flapjack*: I'm SOOOO glad to hear that you are still with bean!









And congratulations to everyone else who is expecting!

*Kaspirant*: When do you need the beads for the bead swap? I just bought mine yesterday and will probably send them out in the next day or two.

Ok...Noah is nearing the end of his nap so I need to be ready when he wakes up! I'll catch up soon. Hugs y'all!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

we are also in the picking/canning/storing mood now. DW does most of the picking with keagan while i am at work, so we have a little less than we have in years past but oh well. oh hey - does anyone know if i can freeze rhubarb?

oh, and i was also wondering when beads need to be in. . .


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Susannah, you can absolutely freeze rhubarb but I strongly recommend cooking it first.

Sorry, Jen, no bright ideas from the boys. Just keep hugging him and loving him- and maybe give him a bit more responsibility. If you're doing the laundry, take him with you and give him a job to do (folding?) something like that? I know it's not the bright idea you're looking for. I would work on him spending more time empathising and around other animals that can't express themselves with words, it always calms the boys down when they're going through a thuggy spell.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Susannah, you can absolutely freeze rhubarb but I strongly recommend cooking it first.

thanks, helen







:


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Helen - if you cut it up into cube-like pieces it'll freeze fine without cooking. I've made some darned good rhubarb pies with frozen uncooked rhubarb. In fact I don't think I've ever used frozen cooked rhubarb, come to think of it. But, whatever - it's very forgiving (with enough sugar!) so go ahead and do what you like with it!

Hot day here! I'm going to go pickle some cukes & beans.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

I'm going to buy my dress tomorrow and we reserved the location for the ceremony and reception yesterday.

Not too shabby considering we just announced our engagement a week ago.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Helen - if you cut it up into cube-like pieces it'll freeze fine without cooking. I've made some darned good rhubarb pies with frozen uncooked rhubarb. In fact I don't think I've ever used frozen cooked rhubarb, come to think of it. But, whatever - it's very forgiving (with enough sugar!) so go ahead and do what you like with it!

Hot day here! I'm going to go pickle some cukes & beans.

thanks for the info! have fun with those pickling cukes


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Yikes, I just realized it's August, thought I should search out the new thread, and it's already 2 pages, and I haven't finished reading July yet!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

QofC~ Good luck with Killy (and Ellie!). No advice here, but I hope you find something that helps.

We're battling thrust right now. I love breastfeeding Neela, but the whole mess lately just makes me want to cry. I pulled off my bra after my run this morning and took a chunk of nipple skin off with it







:


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Mel. I hope it gets better soon- I winced when I read your post









Spughy, everyone knows that rhubarb is a vegetable and must therefore be boiled into submission. I thought news of our (the Brits) successful war on vitamins and nutrients had spread far and wide across the globe?

Jen, all I can come up with isn't particularly GD- Killy forfeited his alone time by playing dangerously and deliberately hurting his sister and therefore has to follow you whenever you need to leave the room. We've used it with my boys before now, but it tends to drive me insane


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Mel, you've really been having the week from hell, haven't you? Is Neela still getting up for the day at 2:00? I'm sorry you are going through such a rough patch, Mama!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Spughy, everyone knows that rhubarb is a vegetable and must therefore be boiled into submission. I thought news of our (the Brits) successful war on vitamins and nutrients had spread far and wide across the globe?

Heh. Yes, the reputation as vegetable-killers IS pretty widespread. Check out my sister's blog post when she returned from England last year...it's not just the brits though - the australians (if my MIL is anything to go by) are the same way. Fortunately Canada absorbed enough french influence that we seem to be pretty decent to our veggies. I think I will probably offer to cook quite a bit at my Grannie's place though!

Mel: big







. I'm so sorry your boobies are in a bad way.

QofC: another big







. I have no advice, and my mom's not in the country at the moment to call and ask how she dealt with me & my younger sister - we're spaced about the same as Killy and Ellie.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

Really didn't set a *date* to get them to me by. I have some that have arrived already and when I get them all I'll send 'em back out.

Yesterday was my birthday and DH was great. He got a sitter and took me to The Melting Pot. It's a fondue restaurant and it was really fun. The in-laws gave me a check to go toward our King mattress







that was exciting. We are about 1/2 way to getting it.

I can't believe how fast summer is flying. I swear it just started and I go back to work in 2 weeks







( so not fair.

Well I gotta run. *hugs*


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Just droppin in to say hi- been swamped lately! Have been lurking through the posts though... hugs to everyone who's having a hard time!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Hello, August! The biggest sign that August has come where I am is when the tomatoes stop doing; I was standing in line at my favorite farmers market vendor on Wednesday when she sold out her last three for the season. My own tomoatoes didn't make it past late July, so that's it for the tomato-basil-fresh mozzarella sandwiches. But figs and blueberries and peppers and cucumbers and summer squash and field peas and many, many, other lovely food will be coming in for weeks ahead still, so we won't be deprived.

And school starts back on the 20th, with me going back for teacher pre-planning on the 13th. I am far more prepared this year than I was last, but still feel like there are miles of plans yet to make and things yet to do.

I feel like a foraging animal must at this time of year--I'm packing as much as I can in every day knowing that soon it will be too late as my life will be overtaken with lessons and field trips and conferences. I'm knitting a sweater, socks, and two soakers; doing the deep cleaning that should have been done in March (spring cleaning) and then May (end of school) but wasn't; sortinig through all of Woody's clothes and toys; catching up on all my "life" business (insurance, budgets, etc.); and also sleeping in, which kind of wrenches up everything else, but which makes me happier and feeling better-adjusted than most anything else.

Does anyone else always find August bittersweet, and slightly harrowing?

SoulJourney, nice to have you back! Sounds like you and Noah Sage had a fabulous time.

Mel, yikes! and







.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
Does anyone else always find August bittersweet, and slightly harrowing?

No. I hate August. I hate summer, really. August is just when I start counting down to football season.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I like August. It's stash-away-food month. And it's my birthday, although that's no longer really the source of anticipation and joy it once was. But August is good weather, berry picking, pickling, fishing, canning, and when I was a child, hunting. It's foraging/harvest season here, and I like it - it's busy, yes, but fun, and there's a feeling of such abundance in the air it's hard to be in a bad mood.

We're having a pretty mellow day here. We had a good long talk with the baby ducks this morning, that was fun







I have no idea what I'm making for dinner yet though.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

August...it's my birth month...and school starts. pretty much sums it up here. It's often too hot too. Though for some reason *maybe I've been inside too much* I haven't noticed that this year.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I have no idea what I'm making for dinner yet though.

If I ever get off my keister and run to the market...we are having beef stroganoff...however the first part seems unlikely at the moment.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kaspirant* 
If I ever get off my keister and run to the market...we are having beef stroganoff...however the first part seems unlikely at the moment.









I'm going with prawn stir-fry, because it required the least amount of shopping. I DID get off my keister and go to the store, but just for mushrooms & milk. Although, with the little bunny in tow, there's always something else. Today it was "gapes!" so we came home with a pound or so of organic grapes. Could be worse









Does anyone else's DC mangle their own names? Rowan's been calling herself "Dohna". I guess she can't say r's yet, but she can say the "w" sound so I don't know why she got "Dohna" out of "Rowan". I wasn't reallly thinking about "easy for toddler to say" when I came up with her name, unfortunately. I guess names like "Brynn" and "Ellie" are easier to say!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

DID- COngratulations on finding your dress already! Can you post pics?







:


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Sarah, Woody says his own name "Wooey," which is close, but funny. Our dog Caddy he calls a very clearly articulated "Ca-ya," and our dog Brodie is still just "Woof." So I've quit guessing which sound combinations are vexing him; at this point I think it's still that trial-and-error bit of language acquisition.

Of dinners, we had peanut butter noodles with peas, my favorite quickie meal: equal parts boiling water and peanut butter (~1/2 c each) plus a few dashes of soy sauce, a pinch of salt, a few dashes of curry powder, a few grates of ginger, then peas and cooked noodles.









Woody and I had so much fun out in the rain today. There are two pics in my blog, but here's another, taken at the end of our romp in the raindrops.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

well... I did get up and go...and came home with everything I needed but we ended up grabbing some tacos at a fast food place while we were out because I waited too long and both DS and the bean were screaming *eat eat eat*

So beef stroganoff tomorrow night then


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

nak

mel- hope you/your boob are better soon!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I like August. It's stash-away-food month. And it's my birthday, although that's no longer really the source of anticipation and joy it once was. But August is good weather, berry picking, pickling, fishing, canning, and when I was a child, hunting. It's foraging/harvest season here, and I like it - it's busy, yes, but fun, and there's a feeling of such abundance in the air it's hard to be in a bad mood.

We're having a pretty mellow day here. We had a good long talk with the baby ducks this morning, that was fun







I have no idea what I'm making for dinner yet though.

i love the summer for the same reason








oh, and i made super super yummy dinner tonight. rice, peanut sauce with tofu, and garbanzos, tomato, potato, bell pepper, coconut milk. . . so yummy!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DucetteMama21842* 
DID- COngratulations on finding your dress already! Can you post pics?







:

i've seen it. . . and it is beautiful!


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## MamaFern (Dec 13, 2003)

its august!!i only posted maybe 4 times in the july thread







i miss you guys.

we are house sitting at my boss's house and she has high speed internet so im happy.







more than 3 minutes to play. weee. i have to book people into the motel rooms, but its okay.. i only have a few rooms left then i dont have to worry.

so...

congrats on the wedding news DID









sarah: we wont be around then. elwynn is starting school and we will only have a few days at the beginning of sept







but another time.

amy: yep..little fort is very small.. there is like...... a husky gas station and 3 motels (2 with restaraunts..greasy spoon style and the icecream stand i work at) an antique store and a fly and tackle shop and thats
about it.. but it is beautiful and the people are so nice. im loving it here.

we just went for a little camping trip a few hours away at the most lovely huge "green lake" it was wonderful and i got totally sunburned and swum out if thats possible for me. the kids had a nice time, though ngiao didnt sleep at all the first night.. i think it was due to her eating strawberries and dribnking orange juice, both of which we know are allergens for her. she was just so crabby all day/night









she is going through a bit of a rough patch, but im hoping it will get better. nights are still good..its just in the day she is spazzy.







:
she is so verbal and so grown up for her age. she says "go away" and " Hmmph" when shes mad at me..if i dont let her get into something or give her something she wants... she is very self assertive, thats for sure.. but she is also very sweet and lovely too..just less these days than usual.

well, im off to peruse(spelling?!) mothering.dom.

love you all, and ill be sending my beads out on monday!


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## SoulJourney (Sep 26, 2005)

Teresa, Woody looks SO GROWN UP!!! I think it might just be the massive amounts of hair that boy has but SHEESH! Our babes aren't really babes anymore!







: Amy took some great pics of Noah playing naked in the rain when we met up in June. And my preoccupied self hasn't updated Noah's blog since BEFORE then so perhaps I should get busy!!!

I can't believe how many of you have beans growing in your bellies! I'll have to say I'm somewhat envious! My SIL is expecting and I think one or two of you are actually in her DDC in January. I finally succeeded in turning her into an MDC mama! She's still learning a lot but she's come a loooooong way!









So Noah and I went out for First Friday tonight. We had a great "date" and he was quite the lady charmer. This is the first time I've been to a First Friday since before Noah was born. We spent some time hanging out with some friends and their two little kiddos, then went to a gallery to see our favorite barista at our favorite coffee shop transform into DJ extrordinaire. I ended up making a new friend out of his buddy's girlfriend. Her mom has had NINE homebirths, extended BF'd all of them and CD'd all of them. Only two of the siblings even have social security numbers! Her mom is, of course, a long time subscriber of Mothering.







It was really cool to talk to someone who hasn't even had children yet but she is SO passionate about everything natural in terms of child rearing. And that entire conversation came on all because I said I liked her dress!









OK...it's late. I'm tired. Noah's asleep in my arms. Much love to everyone and as Noah says...Nye Nye!

Oh...and my beads are en route as of this morning!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

SoulJourney, who's your SIL? Strawberryfields and I are on the cusp of Jan/February- which for me, probably means having a baby in March









Fern, love you, mama. Everything else OK?

I love this age. So many toddlers learning new words and doing new stuff and being generally very cool







Skye has suddenly had a language explosion and we can understand almost everything she's saying as long as she takes the plug out first







I haven't heard her attempt her own name yet, but it would be easily missable.


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## SoulJourney (Sep 26, 2005)

My SIL is SecondInTheOven. I think right now she mostly lurks and has only posted a handful of times but if you see her say hello!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Sorry to be such a downer recently. The whole family is on board with a Candida-busting plan over the weekend, and if it's not helping I'll head to the doctor on Monday.

Neela calls herself Neela, but also tells me what all of the other kids call her. As is "B. says Meela", or "T. says Meena". It's too cute!

I've posted some videos on Youtube of her singing: 



 If you click on more by this user you can hear more, including some really old ones from this winter where I sing with a cold and a terrible nasally voice









I'll get my beads in the mail soon!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I think your singing is lovely, Mel! And Neela's, too







Neela's hair looks just like Rowan's, btw, except blonde.

I'm having kind of a crappy day. Rowan had what I call a "glommy" night where for most of the night she wouldn't sleep unless she was wrapped around my arm (or the other way around, hard to tell sometimes) so I didn't sleep that well and this morning my sister called, and I hadn't heard from her in ages so I wanted to talk to her and I asked DH to brush Rowan's teeth before they went out and he got all pissy with me, like it was SUCH an imposition to brush her teeth and would delay his obviously very time-sensitive morning errands SO much (not - it was 9:30, the stores had only just opened) and it really made me angry - he gets to talk to his family every day! - but I didn't have a chance to talk to him about it before he left and now I have this ugly nasty angry feeling hanging around me. And then I went to the market and one farm stand had kohlrabi, which I love, but they wanted $3 for one not even big kohlrabi and I just couldn't justify that. The produce prices are getting a bit out of hand at that market, I think. Bummer, because it's within easy cycling/walking distance. I'll just have to go up to my other farm guy more frequently.

Anyway, I am blathering. I did find some nice plums and got two nice jars of jam out of $3 worth of plums, which is a slightly better deal. Now I need to do some housework and feel productive. Bleh. I totally don't want to do that.

update: I'm in a much better mood now. DH called and apologized for being a grumpy meanie and one of my bestest friends had a beautiful perfect little baby last night - a lovely, uncomplicated homebirth.







And her wee one has been on the boob non-stop ever since. I'm so happy for her.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
update: I'm in a much better mood now. DH called and apologized for being a grumpy meanie and one of my bestest friends had a beautiful perfect little baby last night - a lovely, uncomplicated homebirth.







And her wee one has been on the boob non-stop ever since. I'm so happy for her.

i'm glad things are looking better, and yippee for new babes


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Oh, Mel, those videos were precious! You and baby girl just shine!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Mel, she's darling









Spughy, the cash and carries in the "ethnic" part of town here sell kohlrabi, and I think they're fairly cheap.

We had a big conversation last night about tummies, trampolines and babies







I love my girl- she seems to be getting more and more words recently and having fewer tantrums, thank goodness. I was getting bored with having her smell of arnica cream all the time







So she blew some big raspberry kisses on my tummy, bless her.


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## SoulJourney (Sep 26, 2005)

Mel, Noah LOVED the videos! He kept saying "Den! Den! Den!" which translates into Again! Again! Again! Then he promptly asked to see Brynn, as well, so we also watched her doing her ABCs.







He has been asking me to sing the ABCs to him a lot lately. That, Head & Shoulders and Motorboat are his favorites. He likes to do Motorboat in the pool, the bathtub and pretty much anywhere else there is water.

Helen, I know what you mean about less frustrations these days. Noah's gone through such an explosions with his words. Just a couple of weeks ago we were having a completely hellish week. I often forget that he still goes through growth spurts and wonder what the hell is wrong with my child and what did I ever do to deserve this?!







: He has been so much fun lately, though.

Spughy, I'm glad your DH apologized and the rest of your day improved! Congratulations to your friend on her new babe. A friend of mine just had a new one six weeks ago and I'm just in love with her.

So, on a positive note for myself, I've been making frequent trips to our doctor these past few months because of a lump in my left breast. I did a lot of research and was fairly confident that it was nothing serious but I can't say I never worried because, at times, it was the size of a walnut. Our D.O. was confident it was nothing more than a cycst and has been watching it. Well, it seems to have all but gone away!!! I think it was a milk duct acting like a cyst and when Noah went through a nursing frenzy recently he possibly took care of it. It's in the only spot where I've ever had a plugged duct (underneath side of left breast) on multiple occassions. I haven't actually wore a bra for at least a year because they aggrevate it so much. It's such a relief for it to be almost gone! YAAAAY!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SoulJourney* 
Mel, Noah LOVED the videos! He kept saying "Den! Den! Den!" which translates into Again! Again! Again! Then he promptly asked to see Brynn, as well, so we also watched her doing her ABCs.







He has been asking me to sing the ABCs to him a lot lately. That, Head & Shoulders and Motorboat are his favorites. He likes to do Motorboat in the pool, the bathtub and pretty much anywhere else there is water.

Helen, I know what you mean about less frustrations these days. Noah's gone through such an explosions with his words. Just a couple of weeks ago we were having a completely hellish week. I often forget that he still goes through growth spurts and wonder what the hell is wrong with my child and what did I ever do to deserve this?!







: He has been so much fun lately, though.

Spughy, I'm glad your DH apologized and the rest of your day improved! Congratulations to your friend on her new babe. A friend of mine just had a new one six weeks ago and I'm just in love with her.

So, on a positive note for myself, I've been making frequent trips to our doctor these past few months because of a lump in my left breast. I did a lot of research and was fairly confident that it was nothing serious but I can't say I never worried because, at times, it was the size of a walnut. Our D.O. was confident it was nothing more than a cycst and has been watching it. Well, it seems to have all but gone away!!! I think it was a milk duct acting like a cyst and when Noah went through a nursing frenzy recently he possibly took care of it. It's in the only spot where I've ever had a plugged duct (underneath side of left breast) on multiple occassions. I haven't actually wore a bra for at least a year because they aggrevate it so much. It's such a relief for it to be almost gone! YAAAAY!

I'm glad that's gone and you don't have to worry about it anymore! I sometimes wonder if things get "partially plugged" in the boob department more than we might think--I have one little place where I tend to get a clogged nipple pore--strange because it has never caused a real problem but seems to get a little tiny white spot again and again since this past January when that happenned for the first time when we were here looking around to see if we were going to move. Milk seems to find it's way around it, so it never completely creates any blockage but it's still just kind of weird to me that it just keeps happenning, after it never happenned before in 14 months of nursing. FWIW, you might consider taking lecithin to help prevent further plugging in the ducts.

Oh, and you Indy mamas don't forget about me just because Amy beat me to it and got up there to met up with you first!!







It's taken me a bit longer than I expected to really get fully moved in and settled here and feel like I can escape the gravitational pull of my house. But I'll get up there soon!

Ella is another young member of the Brynn fan club (partially because although I've made some friends here, Brynn is the only other kid her age that Ella has seen with any great regularity since we moved here.) But Ella is frequently talking about Brynn (she says it like "Bem") and it's really funny because I think "Brynn" sounds like "Bread" to her because she has a sign for Brynn, and it's the same as her sign for bread!







But she clearly is not talking about bread, because anytime she hears the word "friend" she starts saying "Bem, Bem!!" and signing it!







: Then after we got together with Amy and Brynn on Friday Ella kept asking for her, and I told her "Brynn is at her house, with her mommy and daddy." So now today at random intervals she's been saying, "Bem, home!" It's pretty funny. Brynn for her part seems to like Ella and I just fine too, but is apparently inexplicably fascinated with my husband!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

sigh.

We had a funny moment yesterday. We ended up at Lacock Abbey yesterday- we were trying to go to the seaside but by 10am it was so uncomfortably hot in the car that we just needed to get out- and they were doing a kids quiz thing with questions about Harry Potter and it was quite cool. For the little ones, there were hats on the questions, so tinies could just count the hats and get their prize that way, and we did that too







. Then we realised that Skye was wearing a sycamore leaf on her head. And another....and another. Lots of hats, lots of hats!!!!! She can count three though, it's her battle cry before she jumps on you


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
anytime she hears the word "friend" she starts saying "Bem, Bem!!" and signing it!







: ... Brynn for her part seems to like Ella and I just fine too, but is apparently inexplicably fascinated with my husband!









Yes, whenever I told her on Friday that we were going to see Ella and Kavita, she would say, "And Ella's Daddy! He's so cute. He's so funny." And then she'd crack up laughing.







Yes, it was so sweet when Ella would start yelling "Bem! Bem" every time she heard the word friend.

Hey SoulJourney - good to see you back. Let us know when you've updated your blog; I want to see which pictures you use! As for camping, I'm having to really motivate myself just to leave the house, in this miserable weather. I hate it. ( Have I mentioned I hate August?) And I'm SO GLAD to hear that your breast lump is nothing to worry about. Yay!!

Mel, how's the thrush and sleeping going these days? I hope you are getting some relief on both accounts. And those videos were wonderful!!









So do y'all remember last week when I thought Brynn had been exposed to staph? I talked to my friend again yesterday and it turns out that her son has impetigo (aka, strep), not staph. I think I am going to take Brynn to the doctor because she has 2-3 weird lesions in her diaper area that could be impetigo as well; the appeared about 3 days after we watched the kids, and haven't gone away at all. And you know, she really never gets diaper rash (and these area actually right at the area where her diaper elastic grips her upper thight and booty cheeks), so I am sure it's not yeast or anything like that. So, meh. She appears to be feeling fine though.

My plan this week is to de-clutter our house. I've had a general low-level anxiety for the past few weeks and just realized it's because I'm so ANNOYED with how cramped our apartment is. Every single closet is cram-packed with stuff, I can't find the things I need, and it's just driving me crazy. So I'm getting rid of all non-essentials, donating about 80% of Brynn's toys, and relocating some of our boxes (like Grandmother's china and stuff we won't use here) to Kavita's garage. If I don't get a handle on this stuff soon, I think my head might explode! So wish me luck on that.

I've updated our blog with a few new entries if anyone is interested. No new videos yet (sorry Noah Sage!) but maybe next week. Oh, and I took this really gorgeous picture of Brynn on Friday. She's not smiling (I've decided to really stop trying to coax her to smile in pictures) but I think it is so beautiful.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Amy, I was just reading your blog post about your routine; Dh and I also just agreed on a routine of sorts, borne from about two weeks of tension and grumbling at one another in the evenings when we're both sore for just a few minutes of "me" time and the boy shows no sign of sleep. We're still tweaking it, but a definite "wind down" time of night was settled for Woody, and our first trial-run, last night, went pretty well.

And of course, since everything has a tendency to snowball, I was all inspired after Woody went to bed to start making food menus for the week along with shopping lists to help with the budget and to save time; this, however, was overwhelming and I gave up!

And that picture of Brynn IS really beautiful--you captured a really lovely expression! I also like the first in the series of four smaller portraits of her, the one where she's looking down.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

SoulJourney- Soo glad to hear such good news. I know it's not breast related, but I found a large lump in my throat at the beginning of this pregnancy that totally freaked me out (but that I medically just wanted to avoid). It turned out to just be a cyst... no biggie.

Amy- Decluttering is incredibly relieving... and exhilerating. Good luck! My DH is a pack rat and I have to do most of it while he is gone..







For instance... I haven't been able to get myself to get rid of his prized boxes of toys he had as a kid that he swears will be worth something... Ninja Turtle trading cards... a whole box of He-man toys.. etc.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
My plan this week is to de-clutter our house. I've had a general low-level anxiety for the past few weeks and just realized it's because I'm so ANNOYED with how cramped our apartment is. Every single closet is cram-packed with stuff, I can't find the things I need, and it's just driving me crazy. So I'm getting rid of all non-essentials, donating about 80% of Brynn's toys, and relocating some of our boxes (like Grandmother's china and stuff we won't use here) to Kavita's garage. If I don't get a handle on this stuff soon, I think my head might explode! So wish me luck on that.

I've updated our blog with a few new entries if anyone is interested. No new videos yet (sorry Noah Sage!) but maybe next week. Oh, and I took this really gorgeous picture of Brynn on Friday. She's not smiling (I've decided to really stop trying to coax her to smile in pictures) but I think it is so beautiful.

I soooooo need to de-clutter. It is not even funny. I'd love to get rid of 80% of Keagan's toys but since we live with Grandma and she bought him most of the toys that would be kinda hard.
I love those pics of Brynn









Oh, and I hit 1,000! (yay me)


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi everyone! We had a really great family day yesterday - we went to Metchosin and Sooke, two smaller towns just west of here, visited some friends & a farmers' market, went for a little stroll, and generally had just a nice relaxing day.

We have a pretty set routine for the evenings too - I have dinner on the table between 6:30 and 7, then DH takes the child and the dog for an hour-long walk while I clean up the kitchen (which usually takes around 20 min) so I have some me-time to relax, which is nice. Then I get Rowan ready for bed and snuggle her til she falls asleep, then I have about 1/2 hour before I'm ready for bed!

She is SO cute falling asleep. I kind of miss the 20-minute bedtime routine we had before she started talking, but even though it now takes her at least 20 minutes once she's actually IN bed to fall asleep, it's just so lovely listening to her babble. She just talks herself to sleep - she's not trying to talk to me at all, she's just going through her day (or the next day sometimes!) with herself, or just babbling generally. Last night I couldn't help myself from giggling a bit - she flopped over onto her tummy, screwed her eyes shut, complete with grimace - and said "closing my eyes, closing my eyes, closing my eyes" over and over again... like she was TRYING to go to sleep the way mummy said to but somehow it just wasn't working!







She talks a lot about her friend Eli, playgroup, the baby goats (or baby chickens yesterday), the pigeons on our windowsill, how she took our neighbour Jane's doll ("baby una") back to her, and so on. And she "makes a nest" over and over, pulling the covers right up to her chin... then a minute later flopping around so they fall off again. But eventually she winds down, snuggles up against me and drops off peacefully. Once I let go of my expectation that she would return to falling asleep quickly, I found I quite enjoyed the new routine even though it does suck a good hour out of my evening. I think it's an hour well-spent.







(FTR, our routine is bath every other night, jammies, boobies, bottle of milk and books, brush teeth, kiss daddy goodnight, go cuddle in bed.)

SoulJourney - glad your boob's ok!

Amy - Brynn is lovely, as always









Susannah - woo! 1000! Do you have a senior title thunk up yet? I'm still working on mine









Helen - yeah, kohlrabi is not *generally* an expensive vegetable here, either. And my dad grew great big organic ones in our garden in the Yukon when I was growing up so I'm pretty sure they're not really that much of a difficult crop!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
Last night I couldn't help myself from giggling a bit - she flopped over onto her tummy, screwed her eyes shut, complete with grimace - and said "closing my eyes, closing my eyes, closing my eyes" over and over again... like she was TRYING to go to sleep the way mummy said to but somehow it just wasn't working!







!











Nope, no ideas for a senior title yet. I'm taking ideas though


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

We did a complete overhaul on the house this week. I was getting frustrated with the television and while DH isn't on board with getting rid of it completely I had to do *something* about it.

I moved my living room into our spare bedroom that has a door I can close. I moved the dining room into the old living room and made the old dining room our playroom. This is wonderful...except I am still working out all the kinks and NOT putting any clutter away so bag after bag after bag of trash it has been







Not to mention the mountain of things I'm going to be posting on the TP.

So I've been MIA from posting and will be prolly for the rest of the week.

I have 4 sets of beads so far...just for those who are involved to know.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

It is 6000 degrees here, and our piddly little air conditioner is not really making a dent in the furnace-like conditions. It was 80 degrees in the house last night at 10:00pm. Where is the : person-melting-into-a-puddle: smiley?

Sorry to be sucky, but I need to bail out of the bead swap. I don't have the extra time or money for it right now!

Yay, Susannah! Senior Titles rock. I never picked one because the DDDDC that Helen bought for me like 200 years ago is still there. Which I love.









Alicia, your new space arrangement sounds much more usable and happy! Speaking of space, I did get rid of a TON of stuff yesterday, and I'm thinking I'm going to try to persuade my MIL to take a truck-load of it back to Texas when she comes to visit over labor day. That should help out a lot.

Ducette (is your first name Kier? I can't see your sig right now) - my DH is the same way and it drives me insane!! When we moved, he was literally *taking things out of the garbage* and saying, "I need this!" I seriously wanted to poke him in the eye. He will get rid of nothing. His roller skates from 6th grade are in our closet as we speak. I kid you not. Everything "might be worth something" someday. GAH!!

Spughy, I love the making a nest thing. That is so cute.







And I know what you mean about talking themselves to sleep....it is just incredibly sweet, isn't it? I love it.

Jason and Brynn just left to go to Walgreens. She was wearing a blue paisley cowgirl-looking shirt, a diaper, and orange Teva sandals. She picked it out herself, natch.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Nope, not Kier. It's Danile. That's funny your DH is so similar.

And I reached my senior member marker too... any help in choosing a title?


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

I hate it when I get behind!!! I was reading along each day, unable to write until a few days ago, and am now horribly behind. But, will indeed catch up as soon as I can, hopefully tomorrow night. My exciting news is that I'm meeting kaspirant and jacob tomorrow! I'm so excited!!!!

Thinking of you all, despite being out of touch lately. Hoping for a more in-touch month, since we won't be travelling or having the visitors we had last month.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

hehe. I was just coming to say...

We are meeting barcelona and Finley today!!! but she beat me to it. I guess that's what I get for getting in bed early









Yay!! We are so excited~!!!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

barcelona, last I remember you left for vacation wondering if you might be pregnant and I don't think we've heard from you on the topic since (yet I was on the edge of my seat there for a while!) So can we assume that no news means that you're not pregnant? Or did I miss something somewhere along the way here?(nosy, aren't I?!)









Yesterday Ella and I went to Indy and had a really fun day with SoulJourney and Noah Sage. The only bad part is that we went to a really yummy cajun-creole restaurant, and now I want to go there again right now but it's two hours away!







And then I had multiple decor-gasms at Crate and Barrel!







I am still in the midst of an ongoing quest for a decent couch and a dining room that fit our pretty restricted living and dining room spaces and will withstand the ravages of dogs and children.

Kid crawling all over me, I'd better go!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Kavita, I thought I had posted about getting my first PPAF, and therefore, am not pregnant, but it's very possible that I imagined writing it/composed it in my head while lying with Finley at night...or, it could have been lost in the many messages from last month. So, no, I am not pregnant. But happily, I have my fertility back, and while we are not trying to get pregnant now, it is nice to know what's going on with my body. Sounds like you had a fun time with SoulJourney and Noah Sage...

Kaspirant and I had such a great time today, and her little Jacob is SO sweet, and handsome and adorable and has such a zest for life. It was such a joy to meet them both, and I hope we'll do it again soon







We aren't very far away at all. It was my first time meeting an MDC friend IRL, and it made me wish I could meet all of you, that we all lived closer and could all get together. How fun would that be? I can't believe I forgot to take pictures today, but will do so next time.

And SoulJourney, thanks for your compliments re: Runway Moms. I still have not brought myself to watch it, but one of these days I will. It's so hard to watch myself, especially when I'm being myself, not playing someone else. It was an interesting experience, and I went into it thinking it'd be good exposure for my one-woman play, but the people involved ended up being extremely pushy and invasive...so overall, one of the more stressful events of my pregnancy, and not something I'd do again. Oh well. At least, I can hope that maybe I give some pregnant women company or excitement as they look ahead to that day of birth.

Things here have been okay. My trip to FL was blah as usual. Really, the same old story with my family.

Speaking of families, wanted to take a minute and send you a hug, Amy...I can't believe that about your mom. I hope she's met Brynn somehow? I'm guessing you have visited her... That is wild, though.

So yeah, my family continues to be the same, and I continue to have a hard time not letting it get to me, though I DO thinking I'm making progress. My new idea is try to just not think about them so much, because I do so often, and become obsessive, and run around in circles in my mind and in my heart. I understand what is going on intellectually, it's just hard for my heart to come to terms with. But anyway, my new approach seems to be helping. I'm just focusing on my life, with my family, and the good things therein, and the beauty and positive forces, and then when I DO face my family, I'll be filled up with the good stuff and not the webs of wondering and analyzing and hurting about their words and actions and can face it with increasing strength. But...the trip did sort of put me into a slump of depression there for a few weeks. I am happily coming out of it, though, ready to fill up on good stuff and take on our life.

Our life is definitely still kind of crazy now, as we don't have a consistent stable means of income, but are getting and scraping by with DH's editing gigs. I want to get myself out there more, too, in terms of acting, but ah where's the time? The energy? By the time Finley's asleep, most nights, I can't even conceive of doing anything but resting in some capacity. But we are figuring it all out, and I do trust that it'll come together somehow.

Ah, what a me me me post. Sorry about that.







I will go back and catch up on everyone else's posts and news, and write more soon!

As for a wee Finley update, his big news, big breakthrough is that he is okay in the bath now!!!!!!!! This is HUGE! One day last week, I suggested we go splash in the bath instead of the outside baby pool, and he said yeah! So, we did, and he was happy! Talk about shock. We have taken several baths since then. He's still very upset getting his hair washed, but I have hope he'll turn that corner sooner than later. Also, as kaspirant saw today, he is obsessed with naming the color of everything (over and over again), and also likes to tell me how many there are. And every time he says 2, he follows it with 3.







We rode a train at the place we met today, and he hasn't stopped talking about it (he LOVED it), and telling us over and over again that it was Blue, and the one next to it was Red.

More soon in response to your lives, my lovely ladies!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

barcelona, you are such a light. I'm glad you are back and posting, and I like your me-me-me posts.







That is *great* about Finley's new enjoyment of the bath. Yay!! As for my mom - no, she has never met Brynn. I haven't been out to California see her because frankly, I don't even want to see her, and I refuse to be the one to go to her. Family issues? Yep, totally understand. Well, really I just have mother issues; my dad totally rocks. I still get in my head about my mom though, like you said, and pretty much do the same thing: tell myself it doesn't matter now, and that I have created the family I have always wanted. But still, I don't think I will *ever* understand how she made the choices she made. Oh well......

That's awesome that y'all got to spend the day together, Kavita & SoulJourney! I hope you took some pics! Oh and barcelona and Kaspirant, I want pics of y'all too! I know, wouldn't it be so amazing if we could all get together sometime? Maybe when all of the kids are 10!









Danile, sorry about your name!







:

I feel like I had something else noteworthy to report, but now I don't remember what it was, so ...









Well, we did find out today that DH gets to take the week of Thanksgiving off, so we get to go to Texas for a whole week, which I am really excited about!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Barcelona.

Amy, there's a Danile on the board who has a child named Kier, because I've noticed her sig a few times and get her confused with OUR Danile







My brain is like a sieve.
Kavita, you sound so broody! When's the big India trip? Are you going to start trying so you can get your bfp while you're away???







:


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

I don't mind being asked if I'm someone else.. It's a lot better than pronouncing my name Daniel. I am sooo not a boy.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

I just followed a trail of poopy corn kernels from my boy back though the house to the porch where, apparently, he pooped last night's dinner right out of my least favorite of his diapers (Under the Nile fitteds, which have never, ever, totally held a poop). My own little stinky fairy tale!

I wanted to make today a cleaning day, but I haven't slept well for a couple of nights, and sleep deprivation is my functionality nemesis. So I'm hazily following my toddler around, starting things and then walking away, forgetting what I was doing, and feeling a bit melancholy. And maybe it's the sleeplessness, maybe not, but I have to say this out loud (quietly):

I don't like nursing right now.

I'm feeling resentful and over-touched and distracted and intolerant and I just want to scream about 50% of the time we're nursing. I'm not thinking of weaning, I'm just getting that off my chest. Blah nursing!







:














:

And I went to the dentist yesterday and found out I had FOUR cavities. I haven't had dental insurance for a long time, and still don't, but since I was having pain I ponied up the $250 out of pocket for the cleaning and exam. I left feeling so sorry for myself, and so mad at myself for having eaten sweets and not taken as good care of my teeth as I should have all these years. AND, when I came home with this fluoride rinse that they put in my little baggie, dh just poured out all this horrible, horrible fluoride research he'd apparently been doing, and I felt even more awful.

Forgive me, mamas, for







: casting a black cloud over our thread. I just can't shake it today...


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Honey- Oh mama... major Hugs! Some days are just hard. You didn't put a black cloud on the thread. Who else could you vent to and not be judged? That's why we're here.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Teresa - big







. I'm sorry you're having a rough go of it, although your description of Woody's poop trail *was* kinda funny... I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but if it makes you feel any better, I HAVE picked poop up off the floor before, while simultaneously trying to convince the dog that she really didn't want to eat it. uke. Re: the flouride thing - one dose ain't gonna kill you or even make you slightly mutated. The unfortunate thing is that flouride *is* effective at preventing tooth decay. It's also arguably toxic. The trick is finding the right balance, and throwing scare-mongering research at you probably isn't helping. If you're really concerned about it, get yourself some xylitol gum, chew it after you eat or drink *anything*, and put yourself on a diet that'll help your teeth remineralize. This is a not-insignificant undertaking, unfortunately (see the Dental forum for ideas on remineralizing teeth) and frankly flouride is easier, but your DH is right that there are valid reasons to avoid it when possible. OTOH, tooth decay IS a serious health issue and has been linked to heart problems (the going theory, I believe, is that the bacteria responsible get into your bloodstream and do naughty things to your cardiovascular system or stress your systems in some as-yet-undefined way). So you don't want to just let it go, either.

Sorry, I meant to be encouraging there.







I hope it's helpful at least.

And I'm sorry you're not enjoying nursing. Maybe you should think about placing some gentle limits on it? Not weaning, not even close, but maybe asking him to wait 20 minutes so you can finish something? I'm having to prompt Rowan to nurse these days - she'd probably wean in seconds if I went the "don't refuse, don't offer" route. I am SO not going to do that - we have a 10-hour transatlantic flight ahead of us and there's no way in hell I'm doing that without working boobies. Which reminds me, she's at the g'parents today, so I should probably go pump - I want to get my supply up a bit for that.

I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed with all the stuff I *could* be doing. Household projects, food storage, volunteer work, sewing, exercise... how did I ever manage with a JOB???? ack.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 

I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed with all the stuff I *could* be doing. Household projects, food storage, volunteer work, sewing, exercise... how did I ever manage with a JOB???? ack.

And there is the rub with being a SAHM!!!! You always *think* you could/should be doing something else, and that you should have the time/energy because you're not working O.O.H. but your time ends up being chasing the baby non-stop!! (Well, at least if you're me it does!)

Off to make dinner now--a big event at my house! Ella gets very demanding around this time and my brilliant idea that a Learning Tower was going to help her tranquily stand next to me and help cook has not worked out--she would stand at the sink for hours and play in the water but that always ends with her pouring large quantities of water onto the floor. But anyway, I'm making Greek Shrimp Pasta. It's the first time I'm making it so I hope it comes out nice!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Teresa. I hope your teeth are okay. And I hear you about the nursing- I love nursing when it's a few times a day, but Neela would love it hourly if she could. Sometimes it's so hard not to get resentful of the fact that I can't sit down without her climbing in my lap and latching on.

And we have totally gone poop hunting before, too- naked baby comes and tells me she pooped, but won't say where...









We've been re-arranging and decluttering our space a lot lately, too. And I just bought a real dresser (no more ikea baskets) for my clothes. My first dresser since the one I had as a baby, which fell apart at the end of university.

I'm off to shift the laundry... don't I wish I had in-suite laundry...


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Teresa, hang in there! Hope you find a solution for your teeth, and that you hvae a better, brighter, more rested day tomorrow. And I hope this rough patch with nursing passes, and like spughy suggested, maybe you'll find a balance/compromise somehow (of course without coming close to weaning or anything).

I haven't yet made it through all the pages of posts I missed, so I'm sorry if this is repeated info, but Mel, are things going better with Neela's sleep? I hope she's not waking for the day at 2 anymore! And I hear ya on the laundry thing...I have laundry for the first time in our house/apt since I moved out of my parents. Every time I do it, I can't believe it. Oh, and Mel, I loved seeing little Neela sing! She is precious!

Spughy, I know just what you mean. It feels like there is always SO much to do! And I feel like it's nearly impossible for me to really get anything done while I'm running around with Finley.

Ah, I'm so glad to be connected again, and will promise to read/catch up more and be more in touch.

Oh, and to pitch in to a previous conversation: Finley calls himself "NiNi". Pretty close, I suppose. Love hearing your kids' interpretations of their names.

Off to watch a Fellini film with my husband...


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

Hey all.

We've been so busy as I just ended my last full week of summer







I go back to work Monday.







: Soo not ready for that!

We had a great time with barcelona and Finley. I am such a blessed mama to live so close to them. Finley is such a dear and I just adore how he points out all the colors! I learned many new things from barcelona and am looking forward to learning much much more









We are going to be out of town this weekend. My *work* monday is meetings all day with my principal...she has rented out rooms at a resort up in the mountains for our meetings so DH and I decided to make a weekend out of it and got a room up there for some end of summer play time.

I still need beads. I have some in but not all...

*hugs* to all the mama's. I'm reading and skimming but having a hard time keeping up!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Sorry, Alicia, I've been running a bit late







: I should never have moved to this godforsaken desert- no yarn shp, no bead shop, no indie bookshop


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Yay, you all slowed down enough I could post! (Of course, I'm supposed to be taking the girls to grandma's house right now....they'll be a bit late!)

I just wanted to say hi, and post this pic of Ella wearing the dress Kristina made for her!

http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/a...=HPIM1989.jpg#

(Ok, how do y'all make it just say "pic" and it *is* the link you click on?)
All these growing up babes are so adorable, I love to see them!

Helen, sorry you are trapped in Swindon - glad you weren't personally flooded!

Ok, time to go to grandma's and jump in the pool!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Hey November mamas!

I'm so excited. SOmeone from one of my other subscriptions taught me how to link stuff in my siggy... so now my blog is there. There's only a couple pics of the boys... but I'll have more soon now that I know I can share it.

My favorite on there so far is the one of Isaac "going potty".


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gingerstar* 
Yay, you all slowed down enough I could post! (Of course, I'm supposed to be taking the girls to grandma's house right now....they'll be a bit late!)

I just wanted to say hi, and post this pic of Ella wearing the dress Kristina made for her!

http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/a...=HPIM1989.jpg#

(Ok, how do y'all make it just say "pic" and it *is* the link you click on?)
All these growing up babes are so adorable, I love to see them!

Helen, sorry you are trapped in Swindon - glad you weren't personally flooded!

Ok, time to go to grandma's and jump in the pool!

Up above your message there should be a bunch of option for formatting the message. One of them looks like a little globe with glasses on it or something (anybody know what that is supposed to be?) Type in what the word you want to be a link like "cute pic here" then highlight it and click the globe. The globe pulls up a box where http:// is already filled in. I always delete that then paste in the web address I want in the box. After clicking OK you should have a link in your post.

I love that picture of her in the dress. I loved that material and can't believe how great they look on her. It was a blast sewing little girl stuff again when I did those. I'm having to get things from the big girl's section for Annette and the selection in even patterns tends towards depressing.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

I just learned how to do that today and I'm so excited!


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gingerstar* 
Yay, you all slowed down enough I could post! (Of course, I'm supposed to be taking the girls to grandma's house right now....they'll be a bit late!)

I just wanted to say hi, and post this pic of Ella wearing the dress Kristina made for her!

http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/a...=HPIM1989.jpg#


Sharon!!! You de-lurked! I am so excited to finally see a picture of Ella- I don't think I've ever seen pictures of any of you! It's great to have a mental picture of her now. What a nice sundress, Kristina, you are really talented!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hey gingerstar - nice to hear from you! Ella is a lovely little girl and that is a gorgeous dress. Nice work, Kristina!

We just got back from a day trip to Saltspring Island with my friend Marci and her little boy Eli, who's about the same age as Rowan. It was a fun trip, although Rowan's started doing some major empathic crying, so when we were coming home and they were winding down to sleep in the car, Eli started fussing and crying a bit and Rowan reacted - well, overreacted really - by bursting into tears herself. Fortunately I was able to lean back and hold her hand, and eventually they both konked out. Also one of the vendors at the market there took it upon himself to scold her for biting my hand (it wasn't even really biting, just holding my hand in her mouth) and she burst out crying from that, too. He sounded angry, and although all the adults there could tell he was joking, it totally wouldn't have sounded like that to any child under about the age of 9, so it was really inappropriate of him. He did seem genuinely sorry that he'd made Rowan cry and I frowned disapprovingly at him and told him that she was unaccustomed to people speaking to her like that and just let him feel crappy. He apologized to her and she actually looked at him and said "okay" and then he was able to coax a little smile out of her and after that she seemed fine, so I'm glad I didn't go all pissy and just whip her out of there, she was able to work it out with him. I picked her up of course and cuddled her and made sure she felt safe, and generally I'm pretty cool with how it went down, but that guy really ought to know better.

Aside from that, though, it was a fun little outing. The kids spent a lot of time playing in the playground there and running around on the lawn, and I avoided spending lots of money on cool hippy clothes, partly because they were shockingly expensive (I'm pretty sure real hippies don't spend $110 on a pair of admittedly very cool hemp pants) and partly because apparently only skinny people are hippies these days. If I ever get my sewing machine out from under its dust, I'm going to start making cool hippy clothes for us more bountiful earth mamas.

Now I'm heading outside to try to find where the chickens are hiding all their eggs. Our landlords went away and left us with the chickens, which I was all fine with since we'd get all the eggs, but those wretched birds have laid all of 3 eggs in their appointed nest since then, so I know they're stashing them *somewhere*. Off to paw through the hedges...


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Ella is so cute, Sharon. And what a great dress, Kristina!

To all of the mamas who asked about our sleep, I was ignoring the questions until I had something better to report. We had a really horrible week of waking every hour or two, alligator nursing and crying from either Neela for being un-latched, or me for my aching nipples. Then last night she slept from 9:30 until 5, nursed for a while then slept until 8. I feel like a totally new person today, with the longest sleep I've had since she was born. She told me today that she wasn't going to do it again, so I should get to bed and brace myself for tonight now.

I should put in a little plug for the no-cry sleep solution toddler book here, since I have found it quite a bit more useful than the baby book was. I found a couple of her suggestions very helpful. We've been working on a bit more of a consistent bedtime routine, since DH puts her to bed four nights a week when I work, and I do the other three. Then when he goes to Australia for two weeks (leaving at the end of August) my sister will be staying with us, so I hope a solid routine will make it easier on both her and Neela.

Good luck egg hunting, Spughy!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Sarah, if you start making plus sized hippy clothes I will be your first customer! Actually, it's funny you said that because I have a moderately hippy-ish shirt from Old Navy and a plus-sized girl at the health food store asked me the other day where I got it and she started lamenting the lack of hippy clothes in plus sizes! So I think there is a potential gold mine there for you! As far as the economics, I have noticed that most of the young hippie people that I know actually have significant family wealth and would be totally able to pay $110 for a pair of hemp pants. I guess it's a lot easier to spend your 20s and 30s living in a bus and being artsy-fartsy when you know that you have a trust fund/a sizeable future inheritance/wealthy parents you can fall back on!!







:

I had a pretty good day here! Ella woke up at about 8 or 9 or so and after she nursed for a while DH swooped in and took her so I could sleep in. He took her to a hardware store (which is apparently in its 95th year of business!!) and the farmer's market and the grocery store. They were out and about for about three hours and I slept the entire time, and then he came home and she was very excited to see me and shrieking for num nums, and so he deposited her in bed with me again and she nursed for a while and then we got up and he'd put away the groceries and made breakfast for us in the meantime and he also gave me a fresh veggie juice he'd gotten for me. Later she napped and I went shopping for the rest of the groceries I need for my meal plan. There is a local Ethiopian restaurant that sells injera in quantaties of a dozen pieces for take-out, so I am going to try my luck at making some Ethiopian dishes. I am working on making the berebere (spice paste) and the niter kibbeh (infused clarified butter) to have in the fridge, and I think once I have that done it might not be that hard to whip up a couple of dishes and have DH pick up some injera on the way home. Luckily the majority of spices are actually the same ones in Indian food, so I routinely have stuff like fenugreek seeds and cardamom and such around the house. I also went to a bookstore and had an iced tea in their cafe and got a nice guidebook on things to do with kids (day trips and such) in KY, so I'm excited to start exploring more with Ella!

Another fun thing was that I went to a place called "Liquor Barn" because I needed a bottle of wine for a recipe and because it was right next to the indian grocery store. I'd never been in there and thought it was basically going to be booze only with maybe a moderate selection of wines, but I was pleasantly suprised to find that they had an excellent wine selection and also huge section of gourmet food products, including a lot of local specialties. There were fancy jams and exotic mustards and imported cookies and about 50 kinds of hot sauces and about 100 kinds of barbeque sauce, and a whole section with really nice food gift baskets and they had an olive bar with about 20 different varieties of olives! I guess that because I wasn't even expecting it, it was a really exciting discovery! Ah, food porn!!! And then what was very possibly the best part of the day--I was paying for the wine and the 20-something cashier asked me for my ID. I showed her my drivers license, and as she was checking it she sort of did a double take and looked startled, I saw her look at the picture and then peer up at me to make sure it was the same person as on the ID, then she seemed reassured and gave me my total. As I was showing her the ID, I kind of laughed and said, "Yep, I'm well above the legal drinking age" and she said in this amazed voice, "Well, you look REALLY young!!" At nearly 36, that pretty much qualifies for making my day!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Bless, Kavita. I have to say every time I see your picture I do a double-take, because I know you're my age but you look so gentle and untouched by time. With you posting much more, recently, I feel like I know you better as well.









Gingerstar, welcome! Your daughter is beautiful!

For those looking for hippie clothes that will fit fat lasses, I heartily recommend etsy.







. But yes, spughy, you should SO get your sewing machine out. Does anyone have any pattern recommendations for plus-sized maternity, by the way?

Danile, yay on making technology behave itself!


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## 3for3hb (Jan 13, 2005)

Hi everyone!!!
It's been a long while since I"ve been on MDC. Lots of reasons (no time and no convenient internet connection are the chief culprits). Dh and I have started our own practice and are doing well (relatively speaking). Some of you already know this from yahoo but we are expecting... next april! A bit of a wtf situation and wasn't very well taken at first but I'm okay with it now and even getting excited.
Gabriel is doing well, following and imitating everything willem does. He's talking a lot and loves his big boy underwear (no, he's not potty trained but like I said he loves imitating willem so he goes when he does and wears dipes to bed for naps and night).
Just thought I'd start dropping in a bit more regularly now that we have internet at home again.
getting off the computer now because it's making me nauseous


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Bless, Kavita. I have to say every time I see your picture I do a double-take, because I know you're my age but you look so gentle and untouched by time. With you posting much more, recently, I feel like I know you better as well.


















: Aw, thanks! Now you made my Sunday!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi Monique!!!! Glad to have you back with us, and congrats on the pending arrival!

Ok, my Project for this week is to get the sewing machine out. I may even take it in for a quick servicing too, so it's all spiffy, and treat myself to some new sewing scissors, since my last pair fell prey to one of DH's projects, I think. I need to move the machine downstairs though, which means cleaning up our "sunroom", which was next on my list of to-do's anyhow. Then it's hippy clothes for everyone! hee hee. If I can find patterns. I don't think Butterick does those... although maybe, if I use some imagination, I could repurpose some of their ideas - I seem to recall seeing some tunics that with some embroidery or the right fabric would fit the bill.

I found the eggs, btw, in the first place I looked! Right inside the garden gate, under a shrub. Now I think they've found someplace new, although there was one in the coop at noon.

Kavita, I don't remember seeing a picture of you recently. I got ID'd a little while ago too - I'm more or less the same age as you, my 35th birthday is on Saturday - but it was by a crazy lady demoing cheap wines at the liquor store and I don't think she actually looked at me, so it doesn't really count. She made no reaction when she saw the ID so I'm thinking she was just doing it to random people, and not actually doing the mental math to figure out how old they were.

Helen, I have a feeling you're about the same size as me? You're on the short side, right? If I can get my act together, I might be able to whip you up something maternity-ish before I go to England.

We just had a really nice visit with my friend Tara and her girl Riley. We checked out the baby goats, fed some peacocks, came home and hung out in our garden eating veggies and playing with gravel (well, Rowan and Riley did, Tara and I just chatted) It was a really nice trauma-free visit, Riley is a lovely mellow little girl pretty similar to Rowan in just about everything and they got along really well and even did spontaneous hugging when it was time for Riley to go. So sweet.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Hi, mamas!

I go back to school tomorrow, too, for a week of preplanning, so I'm sad to say that I won't be a frequent or possibly even regular poster anymore, though I do hope to pop in every now and again. I just can't seem to juggle much else while I'm working.







But I did have a lovely summer catching back up with all of y'all and hearing about your little ones.









Spughy, I have been feeling sewing a lot recently. I want some flowy/lineny/hemp-blend shirt and pant combos in earth tones to be my kind of "core" teaching wardrobe. There are a few good co-ops for hemp fabric on yahoo groups that I belong to, but I've never been able to pull the trigger on the yards and yards that such an ensemble would take!

And taking care of chickens sounds like fun. Eventually I want a few, but not until the Doberman kicks the bucket.

Kavita, your Liquor Barn story made me laugh! I'm quite sure that with such a folksy name I would be surprised to find an olive bar and good wine selection, too! That's just not what you expect from country kitsch.









Ducette and Gingerstar, what cute kids! And Kristina, that is an adorable dress. I love little A-lines.

Monique, WOW! Congratulations!!!!! And so good to hear from you. Opening up your own practice with your dh! Again, wow.

OK mamas, take care until next time!!!








Teresa


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

We have a little summer cold here. Neela was unusually mellow today- she wouldn't napped for an hour in the bed then woke up, nursed and slept another two hours in my arms. Luckily we had just been to the library and I had a pile of books within reach. I did have thoughts about trying to finish sewing the curtain for her new room, but as soon as I even _thought_ about moving she started to stir, so it was two hours of reading on the couch this afternoon. And almost another hour of reading together!

We also had a lovely quiet picnic at a nearby park- just simple bread and olives and hummus and wonderful local figs. Neela didn't even try to run through the groups of people taking wedding pictures, just stayed nearby and practiced spinning.

HoneyTree~ Have a great school year!

Monique~ I've said it on the yahoogroup, but I'll add my congrats here, too!

I forgot to mention that I found an enormous bag of little girl clothes in our dumpster a couple of weeks ago, which I finally sorted today. Some are pretty stained, and some were a bit too "teen-y" for me to handle, but overall it was a great score. I think we have play clothes for the next little while- I found almost 20 pieces to keep, all in sizes 2 to 5. I think I have pretty good dumpster luck, since it's not the first time that I've found good stuff there.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Amy, I meant to reply to your post, and say that I am so sorry about your mom. That really sucks. I cannot believe that she has not met your beautiful little girl. I'm glad that your dad is great, though. I'm certainly not alone with yucky family situations, I see.

HoneyTree, I'll miss your posts and pictures! Have a great school year, and will still look for you every now and again popping in. And I'll check your blog too







Woody is just so cute. Did you cut his bangs?

I just gave Finley his first haircut where he happily sat and let me cut it, as opposed to sneaking in a few snips here and there while he played. It was so cute. He actually asked me to cut it, (about half an hour after I mentioned/suggested it) saying "hair" and then pointing to where the scissors are, which are blue, and saying "blue" (Alicia, yes, he made sure to tell me the color).

Spughy, hope you have fun with your sewing adventure, and with clearing out the sunroom. Rowan sounds so adorable, with the spontaneous hugs and empathic crying.

Kristina, adorable dress...You ladies and sewing, I am absolutely clueless! Maybe one of these days, I'll learn. I'm still trying to figure out how to cook a decent meal. I'm not very domestically-gifted, though I am trying to learn all the time.

Mel, I'm glad you had a good night's sleep last night, and I hope you have many more, and that Neela doesn't know what she's talking about, saying she won't do it again (what a funny girl!). The score of girl's clothes sounds great! I wish we could find that. Finley is really outgrowing his clothes and it looks like I'm going to have to do some adding to his wardrobe soon.

Kavita, you sound like such an amazing cook, and I wish I could be in your kitchen and learn! I love Indian food, and I also love Ethiopian food...let us know how that goes. And I want to see a picture of you. I don't have a mental image of you. (I want to see a picture of everyone...I don't have mental images of quite a few of you).

willemsmama, congrats on the new wee one on the way!!!

Helen, are you wearing maternity clothes yet? How many weeks are you now? Are you feeling any movement yet? I'm so excited for you!

We had a mixed weekend...the worse of which, though, I think you'll all appreciate. Friday was feeling like nightmare day. I spent hours in the DMV in the morning, while DH had Finley. Then we drove across town for me to have a meeting with a director about a short film he's shooting and that I'm doing next week (that part is lots of fun), but he was an hour late for the meeting, and I was away from Finley so much. The meeting itself was good, though, and I'm excited to do the film. (It's super low budget, not a big deal, only one day of shooting, but will be a good experience for me, esp. since I have such little experience acting for film, as opposed to theatre). But then, on the way home, Finley asked for milk, so of course, I jumped to the back seat and nursed him. I do this all the time (I'm not the only one, right?). As always, I pushed the seatbelt under my armpit, as opposed to over my shoulder. I now realize that this is not proper, but I never thought it would be a real problem...Always have my seatbelt on and thought that's all that mattered.

Well, the cops were behind us, and I said, Hey babe, just so you know, there are cops back there...just as a little FYI, make sure you're not speeding. Well, next thing you know, They pull up beside us, (to the left ot he car, and I'm sitting on the right side of the car, so they can't really see seatbelt) and I see them peer into the window at me (boob out, leaned over a bit, nursing Finley), and I see the female cop shake her head with a look of disgust on her face. I can't believe it! Next thing you know, that's right, they are behind us, lights a blaring. I couldn't believe it! I was like, what are they pulling us over for? Nursing? Is that somehow against the law? I felt fairly calm, cause I thought, we're not doing anything wrong...but then, eventually of course realized the improper wearing of the seatbelt is a violation. But anyway, the cop pulled us over, the male cop talked to us, and said I'm pulling you over because (looking at me, trying to find the words), I couldn't see your seatbelt. I said, well, I'm wearing it, see? And I had it on. He said, well, I didn't see it. I said, well I had it on. I promise. I wouldn't have been able to put it on while you pulled us over. He said, well, it's not on properly. See? And I saw, alas, the problem, but it was a problem he made up after the fact, and I really feel like they were pulling me over based on a prejudice. I know, I know, it was bad and wrong of me to have it on improperly, but it was just so frustrating, and just an upsetting end to the day. And I couldn't help but feel, can't they find something better to do with their time than pull over a nice nursing mama just trying to help her babe make it home in the car? Can't they go looking for real trouble? I guess everyone feels this way when they get a ticket for something that isn't hurting anyone else, but wow, thanks for letting me vent, and there's my little story. My DH was adamant that I take it to court, b/c it felt like such a form of prejudice against nursing, but I know I can't, and don't have a leg to stand on, since the fact is, my seatbelt was on improperly. When I nursed him today in the car (we do it often), I just made sure the belt was on my shoulder.

Yesterday DH worked, and today we went to the park together, which was lovely. Finley has been going through a testing the limits/aggressive phase, trying out hitting and things like that, but lately, he seems to be coming out of it, and has just been in such a sweet loving phase. I love it. I know more crazy phases will come, but I'm enjoying his sweetness right now. This afternoon, we all went for a walk, and DH and I caught up and enjoyed our little boy, and in between, I cleaned and did laundry, and we both tried to get little to-do's done. Tonight, I'm not feeling too great, but am hoping a good night's sleep will be all I need to feel back to normal tomorrow. DH just brought me soup.

Sorry for the super long post. Thanks for reading, if you still are


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Barcelona. It sounds like such a horrible day. I understand that you don't want to take it further, but I would let the LLL leaders in your area know, and other breastfeeding mamas.
And in answer to the question, no, I'm not really in maternity clothes yet- I'm in yoga pants and skirts with drawstrings and elasticated waists. I'm at 15 weeks, and I can feel some flutters, but because the placenta is anterior it feels really weird.

I got my sewing machine out yesterday







Just to do some repairs- I pulled the ruffle off the bottom of one of my favourite skirts, but I need to do more sewing







I have a pair of black linen trousers that I put a ginormous hole in, which I was going to remodel to make a something for Skye, but right now I'm desperately trying to finish knitting her cardigan before we go up to my mums on Wednesday







: Does anyone have any favourite patterns for toddler girl dresses, btw?

Teresa, can I have the URL for your coop please? I've been meaning to make myself a hemp skirt for the last year or so, but it's pretty hard to find (and expensive) over here. Have a great year, and don't be a stranger, huh?









Spughy







Thankyou! It'll be good to see you- the trip's only three weeks away now, right?


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Wow. That's a lot, barcelona!!

You know, here is what I am thinking. I would actually take it to court. For a couple of reasons:
1. Even if you are in the wrong, sometimes if you take it to court they will dismiss it if it wasn't that big of a deal. I once got pulled over for something and my registration was expired. (In my wild and misspent youth, lol!) So I got a ticket, and I just got the registration renewed and took it to court and it took all of about two minutes in front of a judge to get it dismissed.
2. Unless you have a big honking SUV or a minivan or something, most backseats have at least one seatbelt that is a lap belt only. So it makes sense that you should not be required to actually have a shoulder belt on at all, since many cars are not even equipped with them. So as long as you had the lap belt on, what is the big issue? What exactly are they charging you for? It sounds like whatever it is is a bit trumped up. And that giving a ticket was kind of excessive--it's a situation where you were trying to follow the law by wearing a seatbelt and you made an honest mistake. I think they could have definitely used their discretion and given you a warning instead of a ticket. Sounds like they were mostly penalizing you for scandalizing them. So I'd just take my chances in court!

In terms of pictures, I only post the occasional pic on a private group, because I am really cautious about my "real" identity on the internet. It's still a risk actually, but I feel like it's a different level of risk to post pics and my real name and some more information on a group that has about 20 people whom I feel comfortable that I've "known" online for a couple of years than to put them in an online public forum where anybody in the entire universe with internet access can see. This is why I don't have any links in my signature, or a blog that I link to that is in any way identifying. It bums me out because I really would love to post a million pics of my cutie and have everyone be able to ooh and aah over her too, but I just don't feel like it's a good idea.









I have been actually meaning to post on this topic, because it has been troubling me a bit, especially as it relates to blogging (mommy blogging in particular!). I hope that I don't offend anyone with what I'm going to say here, because it is meant not as a judgment but out of concern. I love following some of your blogs, but I do also feel concerned about the amount of personal information some of us are putting out there into cyberspace about ourselves and our babes, and how easy it would be for someone with nefarious intentions to locate us IRL. Some folks here know that I spent four years working in the criminal justice system (juvenile) before embarking on my current pursuit as a full time domestic goddess. So I am unfortunately all too well acquainted with the darker side of human nature. One of the things I used to do was work with school kids doing education, and I used to have a guest speaker come in who worked with the FBI's interagency task force on internet crimes against children. Most of these crimes against children are sexual in nature and if you really learn about these offenders you realize that they spend a lot of time on the internet targeting victims. This guy who came in to speak to the kids was a detective and he specialized in computer forensics. His presentation was totally enough to scare the crap out of anyone. Basically, he talked a lot about putting information out there such as age, name, picture, location, etc., and what somebody could surmise from something like a screen name or email address (example, that "Debbie13" is very possibly a 13 year old girl named Debbie!!) that it didn't take very much more than a few basic searches for someone to actually identify or locate a person after cobbling together information from online sources. He gave an example of how a predator might actually go about this, step by step, without even actually ever contacting or interacting with a person online. And the worst part is that at the end of it, he shared that the example he gave was a true example of a 12 year old girl with the names changed--and that the girl in the case was fine, but what had happenned was that a man had been arrested after the police had received a suspicious activity call from a neighbor about a car that was parked on the street down the block from the girls' house. On the seat they found all kinds of information printed out from the internet, such as mapquest maps to her house, her name, address, school, the walking route from school, picture, etc. And in the trunk they found a lot of paraphenalia such as duct tape, rope, knife, etc., . . . and from the information he had with him about her and what they recovered from his computer and hers, he targeted her based on some minimal chatting she'd done in some chat room with some other little girls, and a posting she had selling beanie babies and giving a contact first name of her and her mother and a phone number, on another site. He had done a reverse lookup on the phone number, gotten her mother's last name, found the address, looked up the school district, etc etc., and driven several states to find and kidnap this little girl!

Anway, I'm sorry to be a total downer and bring up an extremely unpleasant topic. I don't like to think about this myself, much less talk about it with others and depress them. I don't like to walk through life thinking that people are bad, and for the most part I don't, but I do try to maintain awareness and some basic security precautions.














Okay, stepping off my soapbox now . . . .


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Internet safety is something I've spent a good deal of thought on. As I will soon have a website up selling things I have to have some info out there as I have in the past when I had a website up. However I try to balance that with not sharing too much info. There is also a balance between how much supervision my kids have and what I feel comfortable with. I think we all have different comfort levels with things online. Just like we have different comfort levels with other things pertaining to our children. The elementary my dd goes to has computers in all the classrooms for the children to use that can be used online. There are a millions safety features built in so the older kids can't get in trouble, but there is also an opt out for using the computers. There is also an opt out for school pictures.

Ticket issues suck. I got one in Lansing, MI years ago that I should have fought. That would have meant me taking time off work and driving all the way back over there so I just paid it. I still swear I got a ticket because I was driving through East Lansing home of Michigan State University with several University of Michigan stickers and my student parking tag for U of M on my car. I might have been doing 3 miles over the speed limit it sucked. On the other hand leaning over a car seat to nurse a child while the vehicle is going is unsafe. In the event of an accident you would become a projectile in to the child's seat. Rather then allowing the seat to perform as it is intended to it would be also taking on an adult's weight. I've seen some great explanations of that by car seat techs at www.car-seat.org I know I did the lean over and nurse thing with Annette before I knew how dangerous it is. I've never done it with Joseph though.

Thanks for all the compliments on the dress. I've got some cute pink tie dye looking material that I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it for Annette. I think we are about to need to start looking for larger size clothes for Joseph too.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We have opt-ins for school pictures here, but yeah, Kavita, I know what you mean. I don't know if I posted about the nextdoor neighbour (good lad, great with the boys but a fairly young 12yo, iykwim?) who was signing himself up for a bebo account while we were round there. He declared himself to be fifteen, amongst other things







: It makes you think.
And yes, I'm aware that it would take very little to trace me through the internet to a real life person, and that way to my daughter- the boys would probably be a little harder because we have different surnames.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Well, I'm sure I'm one of the people you're very concerned about since I blog and post pictures of my kids. However, DH and I own an internet business so we've always been very open online about who/what we are. Also, because we're in the industry, we do know HOW easy it is to track people down. What people tend to forget, though, is that traditional types of media can be just as dangerous: having a listed phone number, your kids picture being snapped and put in the local paper, even donating to non-profits (then you're often listed as a sponsor in publications). My job is to protect my children, and I do that by being with them 24/7 (there are other ways to do that, I'm not saying that's the only way to be safe). We've also made conscious choices about how we "run" our lives: owning our own business so we're both home full-time, moving to a rural area where there are no anonymous neighbors, choosing to ONLY leave our children with relatives when/if we go out on datenights. Even with our family blog and online picture galleries, there are many small things I do to make it safer. (Examples: galleries are named for the date, not given easily searchable names like "baby in her cute diaper" or "first birthday party with lots of adorable babies!" and I regularly check what search threads have brought people to my blog so I can tell if there's any phrases anywhere that might be attracting perverts.) Yes, someone could be "enjoying" looking at the pics of my kids I post online. But, I also realize that any time I go out in public someone could look at my child and go home and have gross fantasies about them, and while that is undeniably creepy, on a very basic level it does not affect me or my children directly. I make sure that NO ONE has access to my children, and I keep them safe that way. When the kids are older, they will never have private access to a computer. A close family member was molested by someone she met online when she was 12/13 years old, and its had devastating effects on the whole family. Simple rules limiting internet access for kids/teens can prevent a lot of situations like that, and DH and I have already discussed what our rules will be when our kids are old enough for that risk. Just my two cents on the whole internet safety matter...

We've had a houseguest for the last week, so we're all a bit out of sorts right now. (One of DH's college friends came to visit, she leaves tomorrow.) I'm trying really hard to get the kids back on a normal schedule of being up from nap by 2pm, so they'll fall asleep before 9pm at night. I'm so much happier when I get a couple hours alone before I go to sleep at night, even if I'm too exhausted by the end of the day to do much!







Killy starts preschool for the first time next month, and he's so excited - every day he asks, "Is my school open today?" I'm looking forward to having some one-on-one time with Ellie for the first time ever! Plus, I'm hoping that six hours of constant interaction with other kids will help temper Killy's need to pick at Ellie constantly...


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Okay, I want to repeat, I am not personally criticizing anyone, and I agree that we all have to examine the issues and determine an acceptable level of risk that we are comfortable with online as in other issues--all day long every day we actually are doing this with just about everything related to our kiddos. (I am always acutely aware of this when I feed Ella grapes--I cut them in half but I sometimes wonder whether I'm being too uptight and overprotective and if it's not really necessary, but then when they are whole I worry that they're a choking hazard and that I'm being irresponsible and foolish!







: ) And yes, just life in general exposes ourselves and our kids to a level of risk, and risk of predation. But it is also easy to post things that might inadvertently put us or our children at more risk than we would otherwise choose to do just because we're not thinking about it in that way. For example, if I were to say in a blog, "tomorrow Ella and I are going unicycling in Joe Schmoe park. We're going to try to get an early start before it gets too hot outside for unicycling" then that is a lot of very specific information that is out there in the world, especially when that is added on to other information a person can glean from my previous posts. I personally wouldn't want to put that kind of information out there, especially to someone who already has my first name, last name, city I live in, my picture, my child's picture. If a person feels comfortable knowing that they are making that information available to anyone including possible predators by posting it to a wide and untraceable audience (like on the entire internet) then that's their choice and their comfort level. But I think it's important to be aware of the issues and *then* choose what is an acceptable level of risk, but if a person just isn't aware of these issues then they can't make an informed choice. If you are insulted by my message because you have already thought through these issues and chosen to do what is right for you and your family, then good--I guess you are not really my target audience!! If you read my thoughts on this matter and think--"Crap! I never really thought of it that way!" then I guess you are and my work here is done!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
We just got back from a day trip to Saltspring Island with my friend Marci and her little boy Eli, who's about the same age as Rowan.

I love Saltspring Island! We were there for part of our honeymoon









Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
I have been actually meaning to post on this topic, because it has been troubling me a bit, especially as it relates to blogging (mommy blogging in particular!).

This is the main reason I don't post pics. . . although I love reading blogs and looking at the pics of those who do post them


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
If you are insulted by my message because you have already thought through these issues and chosen to do what is right for you and your family, then good--I guess you are not really my target audience!! If you read my thoughts on this matter and think--"Crap! I never really thought of it that way!" then I guess you are and my work here is done!









Sorry, Kavita, I guess I sounded pretty snippy in my earlier post. It seems like this is one of those topics that comes up every few months here on Mothering and I always feel like I have to defend myself as an "irresponsible parent." And, my personal demon seems to be realizing that what others think of me truly doesn't matter, and just being confident and comfortable with myself and my decisions - but on the other hand, I do feel like I should present my views/opinions because someone might actually find them useful and reasonable. I guess there are parents who just haven't thought about the issues surrounding personal information/posting on the internet... but since we "live" in that world (with owning a web based business), its so old hat to me I forget that.

Btw, Barcelona, I can't believe you got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt properly in the backseat of a car! I didn't know there were even states where it was illegal for an adult to not wear a seatbelt in the backseat. At least around here, I think the laws are that people in the front seat have to wear seatbelts and children under 18 have to wear seatbelts, and kids have to be in appropriate carseats. It might be worth checking the laws, just to be sure the ticket was legit.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I'm sure anyone who really wanted to could track me & my child down (although she does have a different surname than me). But I'm kind of with QofC on this one. Also, my family is very far away, not able to see us more than once or twice a year, and the pictures we post and the blogs we have keep us all in touch, and don't bring mail servers down







Kavita, don't worry, I'm not offended at all, I understand the risks, I just don't want to avoid sharing with people out of fear. It's a conscious choice.

Anyhow, I just wanted to pop in and say hi and that I made some really awesome lactofermented pickles. Yum. And it's a beautiful day here.

Barcelona - that bites about the ticket. I think you should contest it too.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Oh and I forgot to say that I did a totally crazy thing yesterday and booked Rowan and I on a detour through Paris on our way back to England from Portugal!!! EEEK! 2 days in Paris... I know I won't be able to do much, but I've always wanted to go and missed out on a opportunity when I was pregnant so I'm doing it! With a toddler! I'm completely insane!!!!







:

Helen, I'm PM'ing you about our visit...


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Helen, here's that hemp fabric co-op.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Ooh, thanks for the link, Teresa! I love their colours...


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Wow, you mamas know how to make a girl feel welcome!







Hey, Monique - it's old home week here - now if we could just drag Julia back...but I bet she's busy starting work.
Hi to all the mamas who I don't know, too...ducette, barcelona, susannah, sorry, I know I am forgetting people...
barcelona, I agree with Laura et al - if you can make it to your court date, I think you should definitely contest it - it really sounds like a personal thing that they didn't like... And Finley is so adorable! I can see that sweetness you mentioned, he just glows with it!

I don't usually post pics online, either - my DH has worked in the security industry for many years, in many aspects, and he is really strict about personal security in all areas. For a time we were low income but he wouldn't let me go apply for LIHEAP, etc, since I said I had to take our SS cards. He is pretty hardline, but like Laura said, he has seen some stuff that makes him take it seriously. But I had to share that pic - I love it, and we always get compliments on it!

So, Kristina and Sarah, I would definitely be a customer for your work! I am so envious of you talented mamas! My mom knits amazingly, my sister quilts, and I told them, all I can make is babies!







(But, I do a [email protected]#n fine job of that!!)









Sarah I am totally envious of your trip too! I think you did the right thing stopping in Paris - I think it might be a different sort of visit with Rowan, maybe the Louvre will have to wait... but I think it is a wonderful chance. Isn't there a mama on here somewhere who lives in France? Maybe she could help you plan a couple rewarding days. Try to take lots of pics, then we can travel vicariously!

Kavita, I also have to say that if my Ella slept til 8 or 9, that _would_ be sleeping in for me!







It sounds like she and Harish are getting to do a bit more together now after your move - that is great!


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

hey mamas,

it's been over a month since my last post but i have just read all the pages to catch up with you all. teresa- i will miss reading you posts, too but i bookmarked your blog and hope that you will keep it up some?

some of you may remember that my fam left the usa back in june to live abroad for a year. we spent a gloomy month in australia before busting out of there for indonesia. it is so beautiful here and we are really enjoying our time. i am volunteering at a birth center (that functions as a general clinic, too mainly out of service to the village we are in) attending births as a doula and just general midwife assistant. dh hangs with ez and will start to teach some technology classes to the kids here. (the birth center has a youth center associated with it, too.) i am learning tons. i have come done with some sort of stomach/intestine issue though so am waiting to get lab results back right now to determine what i have. they think it's amoebic dysentery. ugh. not a fun way to lose weight, my friends. i haven't been spending as much time serving at the clinic as i have reaping their kind care! i got my first acupuncture treatment there and have been taking tons of chinese herbs.

re: travel with a toddler. it has been a lot easier than i thought. a baby carrier, breastfeeding and lots of talking with her about what we are seeing has made it easier. she takes in all the sights and seems to enjoy her life. we have bicycles here and she finally likes her seat on dad's bike. she loves the monkeys and going for rides through monkey forest which is about 2 minutes from our house. she's even gained a couple of pounds since we left the states which brings her to a whopping 20 pounds. thankfully, she hasn't had the stomach problems i do. she has a playmate who come over a few days each week who is four months older. she and dad are napping on the bed right now and i am sitting out on our deck in the breeze.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Gunter! I'm glad travelling is going so well for you (and may the dysentery go far,far away...)

We're probably going to be offline for a few days now, I'm going up to Durham to see my mum and she doesn't really do internet. See you next week!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Wow, Gunter, great to hear from you! It's good to hear that you are all doing well (well, except for the dysentery!!!) You are a way more adventurous mom than I am at this point--we're planning on taking Ella to India in October or November sometime for about 3 weeks to a month, but I am plagued by worries and doubts and angst and indecision about the whole vax thing and how much we should do or not, and am frankly dreading the whole thing! I used to be much more adventurous in my 20s. Of course I also almost got myself into serious trouble with that then too, so maybe that has sobered my viewpoint a bit! And anyway, Kolkata (aka/formerly known as Calcutta) is not exactly known for being a fun and relaxing vacation destination, and I can attest that there is a reason for that!







(Although to be fair I must note that I didn't have any problems specific to there, the people were very good to me and very accepting and didn't even give me a second glance. But the traffic, the sanitation or lack thereof, the pollution, are really stressful, although the converse of that is that it's really a quite lively and vibrant city in many ways.)

On a similar note I finally decided to bite the bullet and find a pediatrician here, so we had our first appointment today. I heard from someone on the local AP list that she was pretty good and that she extended BF, coslept with and homeschooled her three kids, and was respectful of vax choices, so that seemed hopeful. I am not in crazy in looove, but I liked her a lot better than our previous ped and I think I'll be able to work with her. Our previous ped just had sort of some weird personality quirks as well as medical advice that I didn't like (like advised me to give formula in a bottle at under one week, when I was already seeing an LC and supplementing with an SNS, etc.) This ped was a lot more respectful about things and was very good with Ella and her office and waiting room were a lot more clean and had separate sick and well waiting rooms. It was a pretty quick visit, but that was fine with me because it was just an initial visit/checkup, and she asked if we had any questions or concerns and I told her no, and she asked a few developmental questions and I asked for a lead test and an IPV shot. i told her that we'd been otherwise doing delayed/selective vax, and she was also not very pressure-y on the vax thing at all, she told me her position when we were talking about the DTaP but then she also said "But you're her parents, and you're the one who gets to make that choice." And she said it in a nice way, not a "hey, if you want to be an irresponsible ass and endanger your kid, that's your choice" way.







They had some photos of horses, ponies, llamas, and pygmy goats on the walls, and turns out that they live rural and they're hers. So that's pretty cool.

I'm probably with Helen in being more or less away for a little while--my computer seems to be in its death throes. The screen is almost entirely black (laptop). DH is fiddling with it to try to figure it out but it's not looking hopeful. Right now I'm on his computer. RIP, my faithful compaq!!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Kavita~ I'm glad you found a ped that you can work with. And I hope you enjoy your trip to India without much stress about vaxes or diseases!

gunter~ Good to hear from you! The clinic that you're volunteering at looks very interesting.

spughy~ Your travels sound exciting, too. I cancelled a trip to France booked for when we were pregnant, too... so I'm also looking forward to going someday.

My internet connection is funky right now- I don't know what is happening with it but it has only worked intermittently the past couple of days. And of course it co-incides with the non-password encrypted wireless that I was getting from a neighbour disappearing! I wandered around the house trying to find a free wireless signal today, but without luck- I can find five or six signals, but all with passwords







: So I hope to be around, but if I disappear for a couple of days we can blame it on the internet.

It's only two weeks until my sister's wedding, so I'm trying to get myself organized for the trip. Neela is going to be a flower girl, which should be very interesting- my sister hasn't seen her for over a year, and I don't really know how realistic her expectations are. I'm counting on Neela's cuteness and sincerity over-riding any disappoinment my sis might have on her perfect image being altered by a daisy-picking, dolly nursing, sponatenously singing/talking/interrupting toddler. Wish us luck!


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Wow, Gunter, *Bali*! I hope you get better soon...
I forgot to say Congrats DiD! Getting married is so exciting!








Also, congrats to all the pg mamas!









Mel, Neela is so adorable - no matter what she does at the wedding, I am sure everyone will be charmed by her...she may steal the show altogether! (But I think only someone without kiddo experience would want a nearly two year old in a role like that!







) Let us know, and take lots of pics!

Amy, I always forget to tell you how much my girls love Brynn, and watching her dance, sing, or do her ABC's. Ella will come sit on my lap if I am at the desk, and say "See baby? See baby?" She (Brynn) is just a peach, and I am glad things seem to be going well for you since your move.

Wishing everyone good travel, and good computer vibes!!








Time for bed now....


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

We have entered the "me" phase which means I want to do it. We just had a meltdown at dinner because Joseph though I helped with the buckle on his booster too much







: This is a phase I could do without.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Kristina, I'm *dreading* the "me" phase. It hasn't happened yet for us, Rowan still demands that WE do things for her. "Daddy do that too!" "Mummy do that!" and has shown zero interest in either putting on or removing clothes with the exception of socks, which she's actually pretty good at. (So cute - the other day she went for a nap wearing just a onesie and one of her daddy's big black socks.







) She has a few toys and appropriated kitchen gadgets that open and close and typically she can perform one operation but not the other, so every 30 seconds I get "mummy open that" or "mummy close that" until my brain explodes a little bit and I find her something else to do. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe a "me" phase wouldn't be so bad.









It's my birthday today and I'm 35 (ACK) years old. DH took Rowan up to his parents' this morning so I'm going to hit the market then come home and just sit and read for a while. I bought myself "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which will probably keep me entertained for today at least.

Have a good Saturday everyone!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
Kristina, I'm *dreading* the "me" phase. It hasn't happened yet for us, Rowan still demands that WE do things for her. "Daddy do that too!" "Mummy do that!" and has shown zero interest in either putting on or removing clothes with the exception of socks, which she's actually pretty good at. (So cute - the other day she went for a nap wearing just a onesie and one of her daddy's big black socks.







) She has a few toys and appropriated kitchen gadgets that open and close and typically she can perform one operation but not the other, so every 30 seconds I get "mummy open that" or "mummy close that" until my brain explodes a little bit and I find her something else to do. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe a "me" phase wouldn't be so bad.









It's my birthday today and I'm 35 (ACK) years old. DH took Rowan up to his parents' this morning so I'm going to hit the market then come home and just sit and read for a while. I bought myself "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which will probably keep me entertained for today at least.

Have a good Saturday everyone!

Happy Birthday!!!!! Welcome to 35, gateway to "your late thirties!" lol! I'll be here with you for another month and change, and then I'll enter the portal to "almost 40", ie, 36!

I'd like to read the book--I'll have to put it on my list. I am currently #65 on the hold request list for "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" at the library. Which is not so bad when you consider that I've moved up from about 90. Hopefully I should actually get to read it sometime within a few months or so, depending on how many copies they have.

Our very good news here today is that my new dining room chairs arrived earlier this week, and the dining room table arrived today!!! Yay!!! The bad news part of it though is that somebody is going to have to assemble the table, which is still in the box! I like the chairs, though. DH is currently resting/napping--he is a sick bear today.







: I was going to try to do my Ethiopian Feast tonight for dinner, having made the berebere (spice paste) and the niter kibbeh (infused clarified butter) earlier this week, but I think that's going to have to wait until I have a healthy husband to watch the toddler whirlwind while I cook.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Happy Birthday Sarah!


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Happy Birthday Sarah! Enjoy your "me" time!







napping in Daddy's sock!
Kavita, sorry your DH is ill....feel free to cook for us! I love to hear about all your cooking...mmmmm! And my DH is always reminding me how close I am to 40...







: But I am older than both of you, so I guess I am getting there, despite my denial!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

DH and I left the child at home (with grandma) and went out for a super-tasty yummyrific dinner together and had the BEST time just being with each other enjoying a wonderful meal and excellent wine. Wow. We haven't done that in nearly 2 years. I am all floaty and giddy and happy and content right now.

Oh, and Kavita, yeah you can come cook for me too.







I'm sorry your DH is feeling icky though. That kind of sucks. I totally want to read "Animal Vegetable Miracle" too - I think that's next on my "treat for me" list (our library kind of sucks for things like that, they rarely get more than one copy of anything, although I will have a look, I suspect if I want to read it this decade, I'll have to buy it).


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Happy birthday, Sarah!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
I am currently #65 on the hold request list for "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" at the library. Which is not so bad when you consider that I've moved up from about 90. Hopefully I should actually get to read it sometime within a few months or so, depending on how many copies they have.

Hmm. Putting that one on my list now. . . oh, and you can cook for me too


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
DH and I left the child at home (with grandma) and went out for a super-tasty yummyrific dinner together and had the BEST time just being with each other enjoying a wonderful meal and excellent wine. Wow. We haven't done that in nearly 2 years. I am all floaty and giddy and happy and content right now.

Happy belated birthday Sarah!!!!!! We did the same thing for our anniversary back in June, and it was THE. BEST.







I'm so glad you had a special day! (Oh, and you share your birthday with my little brother, so I'll always remember it now!)

We've had kind of a crazy week...Brynn came down with a high fever on Tuesday afternoon and went back and forth for the rest of the week between feeling OK and being quite sick, and then I came down with an abbreviated version on Friday. I took her to the doctor (whom we both love, which makes me so happy) on Thursday morning and she could find nothing wrong with her despite Brynn complaining of her ears hurting, so we just laid low all day Friday.

Yesterday we resumed our insane house-hunting adventures and found something with promise: a 4-bedroom farm house on 5 acres, including a pond and a barn, with a gorgeous view of a cornfield and farmland and the rolling hills of southern Indiana. The only thing is, we haven't seen the inside (we will tomorrow) and it could be totally trashed. Considering what they are asking for it (insanely low) it probably needs a lot of work. We're thinking about it though, and then maybe making a nice profit when we sell it to move to Austin in 5-6 years. So keep your fingers crossed for us that it doesn't have major structural damage or termites or something.

In other news, we start Waldorf school (the parent-child program) this week, and I'm suuuuuuuuper excited about it! It's going to be wonderful.









I've been reading along but haven't had time to post, but just wanted to say quickly -

gunter, it's so good that you were able to pop in and say hello! Hope your tummy troubles resolve soon. That's wonderful that your travels are going so well!

barcelona, that sucks about the ticket.

gingerstar, awww! We should be posting some new video soon, so stay tuned.









Mel, good luck at the wedding. That's amazing that Neela slept through the night! Has she done it again since then?

OK, gotta jam out so we can get a hike in before it gets too hot again. Later Mamas!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Amy, that house sounds awesome! I hope the inside is just as great


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

I will happily cook for you all!!! (You just have to come here!) I will be able to seat 6-8 at my fabby new dining room table presuming that it ever gets assembled and turns out to be fabby in fact and indeed. We got an apparently bad part, because the predrilled holes were at somewhat of a bad angle and we couldn't get the screws that were required to be screwed into the base into it by any means, including every screwdriver we had in the house, the craftsman drill with screwdriver attachment, and a brand new set of screwdrivers obtained from Home Depot 45 minutes into the process. I called the company, and they confirmed that it really shouldn't be that hard and they are sending me a new pedestal base on Tuesday. In the meantime there is a huge flat box sitting in the middle of my living room floor taking up literally about 1/3 of the room. this is the tabletop, which I haven't even seen yet, and which the dog is currently lying on top of.

As far as the cooking, I will toot my own horn for a moment and say that I actually really am a very good cook. But I have always preferred to treat cooking as an art, and myself as a tempermental artist--I am unfortunately not so into compulsory cooking for survival and thus have always tended to eat out a lot. I find cooking every night to actually be a real drag. But I am trying to cook at home regularly now for reasons of health and economics, and trying to learn how to bridge the gap between cooking elaborate stuff and just getting a simple meal on the table. I am getting better at it. I have realized that I have to start really early. But in consideration of my own state of exhaustion, the drama with the table and DH's complete lack of ability to be helpful with anything else whatsoever, I declared last night was pizza night!!

We also watched a really great movie--"10 items or less." I am going to recommend it specifically to barcelona especially because it features Morgan Freeman playing someone pretty much like himself--he's an aging actor who hasn't done any projects for 4 years, and he is considering doing a small, low budget independent film and is doing research on his proposed character and ends up getting stranded in an unfamiliar section of town and gets a ride from a Latina grocery store clerk, played by Paz Vega, and they end up having various adventures together over the course of the day. But the movie is just hilarious and awesome, and Morgan Freeman is just so good. There is a lot of swearing, but otherwise it would probably not even be rated R.

If Murphy's Law holds up, Ella should be completely potty trained and diaper free within weeks, because I just finally broke down and bought her some new diapers!







She uses the potty sometimes and goes diaper free at home more and more now, but the diapers I have are all not working at the moment and I find myself actually using sposies more because of it. I have some premium prefolds that I can't put on her because the snappi can't stretch that far even though the diapers would still fit okay, and some medium fuzzi bunz that are leaving big red marks on her legs because they are too tight now, and a dozen toddler prefolds, and that's about it for actually functional diapers. And I hate my washer, because it takes about all day to actually wash dipes in the front loader because I have to put them through multiple cycles. So anyway I ordered some pocket dipes (Happy Heiny's) in her size and more wipes and some pins so I can put the smaller prefolds back into service, and hopefully that will revitalize our cloth diapering lifestyle. I also bought her some little xxsmall panties at the Gap, because they seemed really soft and comfy and I had a gift card there, and she was soooooo excited! I could not believe how thrilled she was, she just kept saying "Pants!!! Pants!!!" and trying to put them on (over her diaper and the stroller seat belt!) 







So we'll see how it goes! I have been hesitant to try to get her full time out of diapers with the prospect of travel looming ahead of us, but it turns out that that may actually end up having to be postponed for other reasons involving DH's ability to travel at that time, so I think I'm going to just keep going with the potty thing.

so there is my novel for the weekend--you can tell that I am feeling isolated and desperate to converse with other adults after being trapped with a sick cranky husband and a wild and crazy toddler all weekend, and no computer time!!!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Wow. All you super motivated mamas starting potty training already.







Not I. Isaac has been showing signs of readiness- but not a lot of interest. I personally would like to wait until after the new baby is here so that he doesn't regress. He has such a stubborn and independent personality I don't want to try until he's decided he's ready. Which doesn't seem far off... but looking for ways to make it seem like HIS idea when we do start. I cannot get this kid to do ANYTHING that he doesn't feel like- or that he feels I'm instigating. Which is good, and I love his independence... but sometimes it makes things a little more difficult. We'll see how it goes.

Isaac is also my thrill seeker... and we assumed he'd be so at the county fair also. Not true in the least. We only took him on 3 rides that we could sit with him and talk to him the whole way through, rides containing his favorite things (planes, cars, horsies- ie: the carousel) and he freaked out! We could not believe it! The carousel was a big shocker because he rides a fake horse at my mom's all the time... Oh well. He definetely enjoyed the fair food.








Gotta count the positives right?


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We're back.

I don't know if I mentioned, but I gave up on PL- and the last week, we've been having lots of incidents with someone taking her nappy off and climbing up onto toilets herself (or shouting until someone lifts her up.) We've been home for two hours, and in that time she's taught herself to climb to the top bunk (5ft +) of the boys beds







Oh, and embarrassingly she recognises all of the family's favourite chocolate bars







: and can tell the whole shop who she's buying for.







: That was embarrassing...


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

No PL for us yet - like Isaac, Rowan's showing signs but no interest. She'll tell me when her diaper needs changing and when she has to poop, but she definitely does NOT want to poop on the potty.

Nothing much going on here. I pulled out the peas in my garden and found to my surprise that the pickling cukes that had been hiding under them were actually doing pretty well, so they got to stay. Also I discovered that the kale seeds I had were apparently imaginary, so I need to hit a garden centre today.

Last night was weird - Rowan fell off the bed right as we were settling in -"Dona sleep in mummy bed!" - as in, on my side, with fairly predictable consequences - but didn't appear to be hurt. Then she woke up I think from a nightmare a couple times during the night, once actually really needing boobies. I didn't even *try* to unglue myself from her, but I actually slept pretty well besides the one or two wakeups. Go figure.

Amy how's sleep going for you these days? I actually invented something that has helped off and on: mummy arms. I took a pillow, two knee-high stockings, and a sweater... and stuffed the stockings with rice, attached them with safety pins to the pillow (assuming the pillow was a body and the stockings were arms) and pulled a very soft old sweater over the whole thing. Then when Rowan's gone to sleep, I kind of wrap the "arms" around her so one is under her neck and the other is over her tummy and the pillow part is against her back. This worked really well for almost a week, when she stirred she felt arms around her and just went back to sleep, except for last night what with the falling off the bed and nightmares and all. It's helpful, but not a "total solution" or anything.

Ok, gotta go.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Oooh, another blog among us. Yay Spughy!









Brynn's sleeping is pretty regular these days. She usually wakes around 2:00 and then again betwen 5:00 and 6:00 to nurse. She's was sick a few nights last week so things were a big more erratic, but her general routine isn't too bad. She's also getting all four of her canines (in varying degrees) so I know that can't be pleasant for her. Overall though, we're doing OK. I was really serious about night-weaning her a few weeks ago, but once we got down to twice night, I kind of didn't feel like pushing the issue much more. The 5:00 am nursing actually helps her sleep a bit later in the morning (closer to 8:00 rather than between 6:30 and 7:00 if she doesn't nurse), and I think the extra sleep does worlds of good for her. She's slept in our room (on her crib mattress next to our bed, which is also on the floor) twice in the past few days, and it was actually really nice. I do miss her being in our room with us, and I know DH does too. If she continues sleeping pretty soundly like this, we might kind of move her back in for the time being.

I'm kind of in a rut with nursing though. I can't remember the PP who mentioned this last week, but I'm just not enjoying it these days at all. I've been talking to DH about weaning, because I feel like maybe *I'm* ready for it...but honestly, I don't think that Brynn is. I think it would be so traumatic for her, and I feel like I just can't do it to her yet. I keep trying to work on other means of coping and providing comfort for her, but she isn't really catching on yet! We have decreased her daily nursing A LOT over the past month - down to maybe 3 times a day - which has helped, and she is also eating *a lot* more in response (which makes me really happy!). So I don't know. I'm just going to try to keep hanging in there and hope this is just a phase for me and that when I get some more me-space in the coming weeks, it won't feel so GD intrusive!!

We're going to be hiring a babysitter for just one morning a week, and then we'll have Waldorf (which I will be going to with her, but during which she'll be muchly occupied most of the time) one day a week, so I am look forward to getting into our Autumn routine. I'm still doing the mid-day workout at DH's gym twice a week too, and that has really been such a nice boost for me.

Oh, we went to look at the farm house today. I have really mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it *is* habitable and has functional rooms, bathrooms, and a decent kitchen. On the other hand, it doesn't have central air or heat, and the foundation may be sinking. Yikes! So we're not sure if we want to make an offer and pay for the inspection or not. If they accepted the offer that we would make, it would give us the money we'd need to refurb everything that needs to be done - but no telling whether they would take our offer. If we did buy it, it would mean a TON of work for me, both in physical labor and in generally organizing a lot of the renovation work, and I just don't know if I want (or have time) to do it. But the land is so gorgeous, it's hard to turn it down!

And to chime in on the PL issue, I'd say Brynn is about 95% there. But we have been doing elimination communication (or a light version of) since she was born, so she has never had a potty aversion. I even let her wear panties out to run errands for the first time last week, and she didn't have an accident, so that was awesome!







Mainly she still wears diapers at night and when go out for extended errands, but otherwise she's in panties. It's pretty cool!

Welcome back, Helen. That is too funny!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Oh, and embarrassingly she recognises all of the family's favourite chocolate bars







: and can tell the whole shop who she's buying for.







: That was embarrassing...

Welcome back! how was it?

Ha ha, I know how you feel about that one. I have been busted on my worst habit. Despite the fact that we have never told her what mommy is drinking, only that it's mommy's drink, apparently she has overheard it discussed because she pointed to the can and said, "Mommy's coke!"














:







: Of course DH who already disapproves of my bad habit and nags me about it, had to give me a disapproving look that I believe meant that I am a bad example and am setting her up for my same horrible habits.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Happy Belated Birthday, Sarah! Sounds like you had a lovely day and night. The dinner out especially sounds delightful.

DH and I have an aninversary coming up in two weeks, and I am really hoping we can figure out a way to get some alone time, like a dinner out. Unfortunately, his sister was going to be our go-to babysitter (and Finley is fine with her), but she doesn't seem to want to babysit. We've asked twice and she got out of it both times...the one time she did, it was very reluctantly. Now her awful boyfriend is back, and I don't feel comfortable leaving Finley with him. So...it feels like we have to figure out another caretaking plan for us to someday have a date.

Amy, the house sounds like such a mixture of greatness and possible challenge. I hope the answer comes to you, and you know what to do. Sounds like you are in a good place, with the exercising and sleep, and that this Autumn will bring even more balance for you. Plus, I know you'll be happy the fall is here. I'm looking forward to it, too. It is so hot, too hot, here. I'm going to really miss having a "real" fall out here in CA.

Helen, how was your trip?? I hope it was great! And I hope Skye doesn't fall off the bunk beds.







: Oh no.

We haven't started PL at all, really. He has told me when he has peed or wanted a new diaper a couple of times, but that is all. He also tells us when he is going to poop, but then, it's usually pretty obvious, because he does have a bit of a hard time still (though nothing like before, thank goodness).

Finley is very into talking about the "real" thing...sees a picture of something and then says he wants the "real" watermelon. Or sees a picture of me, says Mommy, then points to me, real! It's so cute.

We've actually had a tough week (yet another one, I feel like I'm always bringing downer news to the board), as Finley got quite sick. First it was just a fever, then a cough, then he was up all night coughing and wheezing. It was the first time he's really been sick, aside from his stomach flu a few months ago. It was scary, especially the wheezing part. We ended up taking him to an urgent care center...he didn't have a break from crying or coughing, and found that he had an infection on his tonsils and spreading down his trachia. In order to prevent further spreading and to relieve him of his misery (main reason), we went ahead and put him on antibiotics. He is much better now, although still coughing and not feeling like himself. We've been letting him watch movies, so I know we'll have the challenge of breaking him out of this this coming week. Ah well.

I did a short film on Saturday and had an audition today, so I've had this good stuff to balance out the hard stuff, reminding me of what I love to do, and what I am trying to do...So, that was fun.

It seems like, in general, we're in a dark period (incredibly broke, really not liking LA, feeling pretty isolated, and our work is so uncertain and scary...), but the good thing is that we know we'll emerge from it into lightness. I am hopeful, as we begin this new week.

May all you lovely mamas have a great week.

And Kavita! I want to come over and eat some of your delicious food. If we ever visit KY...You never know.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

barcelona. You guys will make it through, I'm sure. Poor little Finley though - that sounds like a nasty illness.

Amy, I would totally go for the farmhouse, but I'd put up with a one-room shack with no indoor plumbing for land I could have a decent little farm on. So probably I'm not the best person to voice an opinion on that









Our weather is seriously sucking these days. I don't know what happened. It's Vancouver Island, it's August, there ought to be sunshine! It appeared, feebly, for about half an hour today. This is just not right.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Spughy, the weather is preparing you for England in September







You're going to see a lot more rain in the next month, believe me (does Rowan have wellies? She's going to need them...)

The trip was good. No major domestics this time, Isaac was prescribed singulair for his asthma before he went and coped with the smoky atmosphere







: and Skye gave up sleeping for the duration. We're currently trying to figure out how to raise half a million pounds in a hurry- my uncle and aunt have put their house up for sale and I don't want it to go







Four bedrooms, listed building, huge reception rooms, a bit of land- and an isolation hospital down the driveway that gets used as a workshop at the moment, it would be perfect to raise my sprawling brood in. It's walking distance from my mum and the city centre, as well. If only we had that half a million pounds- we've promised ourselves that we're going to start playing the lottery until the house sells.


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

hey mamas,

my tummy is so much better! woo hoo! the day of our 9th wedding anniversary, i woke up feeling better. yeah. we got to spend the day eating good food and hanging out together outside of the bathroom.









it did hit ez a bit though on sat night though. she got a fever super quick and dh brought her to the birth center where i was doing pre-natals. i nursed her and she was so hot. we gave her a homeopathic fever reducer kinda like bella donna that we brought with us from the states. then, she blew out in her pants so we changed those real quick. she had diarrhea throughout the night sometimes on the pot and sometimes in her diapers so we just kept changing them. we gave her the chine herbs (tried to get her to take one pill but it's so bitter she may have gotten only half of it actually in her). she did eat some sunday. on mondays, a pediatrician comes to the birth center to do free visits so we had one with her. she's a homeopathic doc, a acupuncturist and has training in traditional medicines from her native madagascar. she did some moxa on ez while i nursed her and the doc taught dh to do it so ez would be less freaked out by it. so precious. she told us to try to get ez to take at least 1/4 of the chinese herbs twice a day. what a ped visit, eh? she's fine now!

rummaging through the supply closet at the birth center, i was trying to make sense of the chaos in there. i found some dipe covers and fitteds which the midwife made me take home b/c they do ec pretty much as the norm from the beginning around here. ez wears undies except at night though. i took the covers though for night times. the other dipes were way too small for her though...hhhmmnnn...wonder what i will do with those?

helen- too funny about the chocolate bust. i've been in a similar situation though it was with ez's fascination with corks from wine bottles. you'd think we were alcoholics they way she cries out for them. just loves to play with em.

amy- sleeping arrangements and nursing at night has been everchanging thing with us since january. i had a stomach virus for three days where i could barely hold myself up to nurse or anything so i slept in another room those nights. but one of us has always co-slept with her. i am pretty overwhelmed with nursing at this point, too. i get overwhelmed like that though and then it goes away and i love to snuggle and nurse her. being able to volunteer at this birth center consistently helps b/c i am not around all day and night. so, she gets used to the idea of not nursing all the friggin time like she does when i am around. yeah, just i feel you, sister.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Happy anniversary Gunter!









I've posted some pics of the farmhouse and the land, if anyone wants to take a look. Let me know what you think!


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Hi, everyone! Don't you just hate it when your subscriptions suddenly disappear off MDC, and you're left wondering why no one's posted in days, only to find that there's been two pages worth?









Things are going pretty well here. DH and I have this new deal that we each get one afternoon off a week - and I'm so thrilled with it! I'm a SAHM and we own our own business, so we both work basically 24-7. Its such a relief to know that I'll be getting regular breaks. My MIL has also been really great about watching the kids while I go cycling once or twice a week (usually for about 2 hours). AND, I've been doing community theater! I got a part in a local melodrama, so I've been doing rehearsals in the evening, and DH and my parents split kid-watching duties. Its been so nice to get some actual "Jen-time" lately to pursue interests of my own... The first two performances of the melodrama were last weekend, and they went well, and there's two more this weekend. Then I'll be stuck trying to find more community theater that's not at least an hour away! (the downside of being in a rural area) I always wanted to do community theater, but the guy I dated all through high school was really, really involved in it so any interest I showed was immediately chalked up to me trying to be like him, so I didn't pursue it at all. I've enjoyed it so much this summer, though! I'm just kicking myself for waiting so long.

Luckily, Killy is no longer tormenting Ellie all the time, just on occasion - which is perfectly normal.







There have been several times this week that they've played together for up to 10 minutes at a time with no tears!

Potty-learning - very, very early stages here. Ellie wants to go diaperless, but pees everywhere. She sits on the potty, but just obviously hasn't figured out the muscle control to control urine. I'm not stressing about it, and just being encouraging whenever she sits on the potty.

Nursing - Ellie still nurses a ton! I went on hormonal birth control last month (the ring) and was worried it might affect my supply, so I've been encouraging her to nurse as much as she wants. I think my supply has actually increased quite a bit!







Killy's still nursing, but I've limited him to first thing in the morning only. I wanted to do total child-led weaning, but after more than three years, I was seriously needing to limit his nursing! I'm much happier now, with both kids nursing.

Today we're going to the library, coming home for lunch, and after I get the kids down for nap I get my weekly afternoon off, which I'm going to use to explore all the produce stands in my county. I'm so excited! I'm actually thinking about taking my camera to document the different stands and help me remember what's where, but I'm wondering if I'll look like too much a freak if I do that!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
(does Rowan have wellies? She's going to need them...)

I just bought Neela a new pair of gumboots as we call them (though all of last winter she cutely called them her gumshoes), but nobody in the stores here knew what a gumboot was. They call them rainboots. Or galoshes. I like wellies, too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_boot When I was a kid my mum drew lips on the inner toes of my gumboots so I could find the right feet by making the boots kiss.

Neela is spending the first part of the night in a toddler bed in her own room. She's always back in our bed for nursing and snuggles by morning (and sometimes as soon as we go to bed), but we have had a couple of nights that she slept in her room until 5 am or later







:







: And she is so cute when she climbs into our bed- she closes both bedroom doors first, then calls out "hi daddy, hi mummy- I want some nursing!" in a sing-songy voice. And now that I'm not the human pacifier all night long I do much better with daytime nursing. And both Neela and I are much more pleasant people when we're getting adequate sleep.

Our potty-learning is very casual. We have a potty, which gets a lot of use some days, then none at all for a while. She doesn't like wearing anything on her bottoms when she uses the potty, so it's a bit of a pain. And she has a new fear of automatic flush toilets, so though we used to be dry when out (I know it's the opposite of most- but Neela preferred dirty "interesting" public toilets to the toilet or potty at home) she's using a diaper more now. We had an incident a few weeks ago where she asked to pee when we were driving out to a swimming hole, so we stopped at a gas station where she proceeded to freak out about the "scary toilet", but didn't want to pee in her diaper. Eventually she chose diaper, but I'm bringing a potty in the trunk on our next road trip...

I'm glad that you're enjoying your community theater experience, QofC.

Because of my work schedule, which is on a two week rotation, I have four weekdays afternoons with daycare and only work three each week (and alternating weekends). So every week I get one afternoon free. Today I went for a run without the jogging stroller, which is quite a treat.

I have to say that I am really loving this age and stage right now. Neela is so funny, playing more independently and really fun. And a little bit of sleep means that I'm not such a zombie and can actually keep up with her


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Mel, Neela sounds so adorable! And how great that you are getting more sleep at night. I'm sure that helps so much. I agree, this is such a fun age.

Amy, I checked out the farmhouse on your blog, and I think it looks AMAZING!!! The land is gorgeous, and house looks rather cute too. Lots of potential. I can understand feeling daunted by all the repairs, but if you'll have the money to take care of those things, I think it seems wonderful. Just my two cents, and I don't know everything involved, but wow, it's stunning.

Spughy, your garden sounds great. You all make me want to get some land and live off it.

Helen, My fingers are crossed that the lottery works swings your way







How very frustrating that it's so perfect, yet just not feasible!

QofC, what's the play you're doing? So glad you're doing that, and getting more time for yourself...sounds so fun!

Today is a better day around here. DH had little trinkets of good news regarding his project, so he's feeling better, and is out meeting with a temp agency, which would at least get us through til something else comes up, or he gets more consistent freelance work. And Finley is still not himself, but a wee bit better.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Amy that house is beautiful and I love the acreage! I would be jumping all over that place if the foundation is stable. That's not something you would know until the inspection though. What a tough choice to make.

I just gave in Tuesday and got an hpt. It was not surprise at all when it came up







I'm still concerned about another lose, but starting to feel better about this all. I've still got a bunch of stuff to sort out before contacting my mw and getting care started. It looks like my edd is April 15th so I guess I'll be busy some time in April.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

: Wow!
I'm jealous, I want to be in the April DDC now







I love that the November mamas are spread out over all the new DDCs. Here's hoping for a TON of reassuring morning sickness and an early kicker for you







: I know a few of the new April mamas are posting on the main PAL thread, btw







Worry loves company, right?


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Congratulations Kristina!!!


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Thanks ladies. I've already got some all day sickness and both kids were early kickers so I have some hope on that front. I did just ship out my first order from my website so hopefully that is a good omen for everything and not just work related.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Sending you some sticky vibes!








:




























:


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Congratulations, Kristina!!!! What wonderful news!

Sending sticky vibes your way


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

Huge congrats, kristina!!!

amy- the house is beautiful. i say go for the inspection if you feel up for the challenge of fixing it up. but, the foundation sinking would be a big concern for me. that seems bigger than just getting air conditioning or heating set up, kwim? i honestly don't know much about how to improve foundation probs though. roaming that land would be so fun!

melw- ez barely ever sleeps that many hours in a row. that's great that neela's taken to her bed in the beginning of the night, at least.

qoc- so glad for good time to yourself. i need to take more of that myself. it makes me such a better person to be around when i do return from such times.

kavita- are you rethinking your trip to india? i want you to go just so i can live vicariously through you! i don't know if you remember, but dh and i were there for about 3 months and loved being there. we want to go, again sometime soon. maybe now that we're over on that side of the world we will get there.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

*Kristina*, how wonderful!!! Sticky vibes to you!!
















I had a sucktacular day yesterday.







First, I took my car into the dealership because my air conditioner hasn't been working properly for a couple of weeks (it blows cold when the engine is above 2000 RPM, but not when its idle, so if I'm sitting in a parking lot trying to nurse or just trying to let the car cool off, it just blows hot air). Turns out the compressor is shot, which is ~$900 to fix, which is out of the question right now! Not only that, but they told me I shouldn't use the AC *at all* because the compressor could explode and really do damage to my car. The real pisser is that my car is only two years old, and I'm only a few thousand miles over the bumper-to-bumper warranty!







The service guy was really nice, though, and told me to call Subaru and tell them my sad story ("It's 100 degrees here! I have a toddler!) and see if they can do anything. So I did, and they said they would try to do a "goodwill" situation where they provide the part, and I pay for labor, which would only be about $200 - so keep your fingers crossed that that works out!! I should hear back today about it.

Aside from that, Brynn has been a big huge mess the past few days because of her canines coming in. It's been *bad*, and I've been alternating between feeling really bad for her and wanting to run away from home. I even came *this close* to weaning her cold turkey yesterday







because I was just so .... what's the word? Depleted, I guess. DH came home and helped out a lot and gave Brynn appropriate doses of TLC, and got up with her once last night as well (which he usually doesn't do), so I'm feeling more even-keeled this morning. And I looked at the Dr. Sears book to make sure I was giving her the correct dosages of tylenol and ibuprofin, and turns out I've been giving her *half* of the recommended dosage of ibuprofin for her weight during this whole episode.







: No wonder it hasn't been helping much! So anyway, I'm hoping for a better day today.

And as for the house, it's not looking good.







: I think the foundation is beyond repair; the door casements are crooked, which means that the floor joists (sp?) are probably bowed; if we jacked up the foundation, the floor joists and other wood structural support systems throughout the house would most likely split, and it could be dangerous. So we're pretty close to just walking away. It's such a bummer though!!

But enough about me!!

*Helen*, good luck with *your* dream house!!









*Mel*, that's awesome that you guys are finally making progress with sleep.









*Gunter*, how's your tummy?

*Barcelona*, here's hoping things settle in for your careers and that you get to feeling more at home out there.

*QoC*, how fun that you are doing theater! That's something I've always thought about getting back into at some point down the road. And what good news that Killy isn't being as aggressive with Ellie! I know that must be such a relief for you.

Well, we're off to go play with some beans.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *barcelona* 
QofC, what's the play you're doing? So glad you're doing that, and getting more time for yourself...sounds so fun!

Its an original production, set here in our little town. The director wrote the script, the music, and the lyrics herself. Did I mention its a Melodrama Musical?







I never thought I could sing, but it turns out I'm not half bad! Its been really fun, and I think my parents are particularly enjoying the fact that members of the community keep coming up to them to tell them how talented I am.







There are a few pictures on my blog. Now I'm kind of in a quandary, because I don't think there's any other community theater productions in my county for awhile. A really good friend of mine directs a big show in January, and auditions will be in a couple months, but its an hour's drive and they have three weeks of performances. So, I don't know if I can make such a huge time commitment. Plus, he's actually an ex-boyfriend and his wife is usually the stage manager (and she's jealous - all three of us are Scorpios







: ), and I think it might end up being an uncomfortable situation - which would make it not worth all the time. So, on one hand doing the show has been awesome, on the other hand... what am I going to do once its over?!! Okay, I know that's a pretty selfish view...

I am going nuts with Ellie at night. I've been making a huge effort to have early naps, so she'll fall asleep easy, but she's suddenly thrown a wrench into things. I've been nursing her to sleep in the living room, then going and laying her down in her bed (a futon) - we don't nurse in her bed anymore, haven't for months. Well, now when I lay her down, she starts flailing her arms and smacking the bed in order to wake herself up. Then she takes her paci out and puts it back in, over and over. Then she starts singing to herself. By the end of the day, and after a marathon 20+ minute nursing session I am way beyond the end of my patience and this routine has been going on for about 1 hour the last two nights, and I end up being such a mean mommy. Mean voice telling her to just go to sleep, sitting there silently resenting her with every cell of my body... I'm thinking its time for David and I to switch kid-duty. Maybe if I read to Killy in his room and David reads to Ellie in her room it will help the situation. At any rate, he has a lot more patience with the kids at the end of the day than I do. Sometimes I feel really guilty about that, but then I realize that if I'd had 10 hours during the day to work at my desk by myself listening to my favorite music the whole time, I'd probably be in a better mood at 9pm, too!







Part of me thinks that its just because she has a cold and things will be back to normal in a few days and its not worth shaking up the routine, but I seriously can't keep doing it! Plus, I want to get her into the habit of brushing teeth AFTER the last nursing session (instead of right before it like we've been doing, my research says that as long as all the food particles are off teeth before night nursing its not so bad), so maybe this is a good excuse to get that in place.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
I just gave in Tuesday and got an hpt. It was not surprise at all when it came up







I'm still concerned about another lose, but starting to feel better about this all. I've still got a bunch of stuff to sort out before contacting my mw and getting care started. It looks like my edd is April 15th so I guess I'll be busy some time in April.

Stick, baby, stick!!!!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
We're currently trying to figure out how to raise half a million pounds in a hurry- my uncle and aunt have put their house up for sale and I don't want it to go









Good luck on that lottery, Helen


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Gunter, I meant to ask (and sorry if I missed it):
What brings your family to Bali? And how long will you be there?
I'm glad you're feeling better, and oh, how I would love to be there! One of my friends spent a semester abroad there, and I just ate up every picture and story and dance she shared with me. (She taught me one of the traditional gamalon (sp?--is that even what it's called?) dances.

Amy, I'm sorry to hear about the AC in the car! That sucks!! I hope they have mercy on you. Also, I'm sorry to hear about the foundation being in such bad shape. I think I would walk away, too, if it is that huge and potentially dangerous a situation. Yikes.

Q of C, what great photos! Thanks for sharing. It looks like so much fun. I know all about that feeling of what will I do next? I feel that way whenever I finish an acting project, be it big or small. I feel that way now, actually, having just finished the short film and audition, both tiny but very real doses of my passion. I wish we could see you in action.
I'm sorry bedtime has become so hard. I hope it gets better soon and that you all find a solution.

The past few nights have been pretty hard with Finley. He falls asleep okay, but he has been latched on almost all night and not sleeping well. It is driving me crazy.







: For a while, he's been doing great with not nursing most of the night, except in the early morning, or maybe once for a second in the middle of the night. He is definitely still getting over his bug, so maybe that is what it's about. I feel like I didn't really sleep at all last night, just hovered on that brink between consciousness and sleepyworld. Somehow, I feel okay today, though. Not great, but not as bad as I would have thought. I'm going to wait it out, though, and assume it's health-related, and hope he's back to his sleeping nights soon.

It's chilly here this morning, which has me ecstatic! And cloudy! It hasn't been cloudy since we got here. I'm so happy for a change. I've been feeling like I live in a science fiction world. And tonight, we get to go to our charming farmer's market. Change is in the air, and therefore, hope.

Off to play with my boy...


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We won ten pounds last night- it's to buy THIS, btw. Plan B is just to hope that nobody offers the asking price before Steve is back in gainful employment and mortgage-worthy, which is also a possibility.
Amy, I forgot to say this but the farmhouse looks gorgeous.
Barcelona







. We had one of those weeks last week, and a canine just came through in the middle of the birthday tea (isaac and Steve both have birthdays today.)
QofC, I hope bedtimes work themselves out. IME, though, a good show comes along fairly frequently, and if you turn one down then something twice as good turns up the week after. Then again I'm a techie, not a luvvie, so I probably have different standards of interesting







:


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi all!

Amy, big







for the car, and the house - I agree, structural problems like that are probably not worth the pain!

Gunter - glad you're having fun and you're over the worst of your tummy troubles!

QofC - wow, good for you for the theatre stuff! Don't suppose you could video a show and post it for us??

Kristina - CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Hope all goes well









Helen - I'll buy a lotto ticket for you







You can have half when we win.

My day yesterday was... interesting. You can read about it in my food blog, although ethical vegetarians may want to opt out of that. Short version: friends with excess roosters needed them taken care of, I obliged.

Rowan seems to be entering a bit of a difficult phase. She's been getting more and more sensitive - not in necessarily a bad way, just VERY effected by other people's moods, emotions, facial expressions - I was helping her jump high yesterday when my back decided that was a bad idea and I sort of grimaced and said "oooo, sorry mummy's back can't do that any more" and Rowan burst out crying - and not because we couldn't do jumping any more. If I show that I'm upset when she does something "wrong" (like spill rice grains all over the floor) she cries... it's getting a bit difficult to deal with. It's not like I'm some ogre mommy yelling at her for things, either - at most I'll say "oh dear, what a mess" but heaven forbid I say that and sound even remotely *really* upset or frown or anything.

Anyway. We'll get through it. The flip side of it is that she is sooo sweet and loving and, by her own admission, wants to "make everybody happy". She's also starting to understand the effects of certain foods on her body (this morning I suggested she have some yogurt with half a banana and she nodded and said "help Donah go poo poo"). And she knows when she's being a little monkey and giggles and says "playing games! playing games!" She's just so adorably *cute*.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Spughy, that is so interesting about Rowan - I just started reading "Parenting the Highly Sensitive Child" and it mentions behavior just like what you described! You might want to check it out. There's a little online quiz you can take to see if it might apply to Rowan.

Helen, that house looks gorgeous! Well, you're twenty pounds closer, huh!?









No news on my car's air conditioner yet. I'm still hoping!







:

Jen, the pictures of you in the play are gorgeous, as usual!!







:


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

I've been crazy busy and I only have a second now, but I wanted to hop on and say *hi* to everyone.

Baby news...we are measuring right on target for my EDD of 3-8. We got to see the peanut and watch that little heart flickering Wednesday. *I'm in love* all over again







I've spent the last few weeks on and off bedrest because of bleeding and cramping but we came out of it all doing great. It is nearly impossible to do bedrest and mother a toddler I'm learning so I hope that is all in my past.

School...UGH UGH UGH. I've been so busy. We started back as teachers last Monday and I'm realizing all over again how clueless my principal really is. The latest fiasco is our class roll sheets...we just got today. California caps middle school classes at 36 students...which is a HANDFUL to begin with...but my dearest principal has my SMALLEST class with 42 students in it and up to 46. Ohhhh and I only have 33 chairs in my classroom to begin with







:







:







: So it's been crazy. I'm trying to not get stressed i know that won't be easy.

beads...I've only got 6 other mama's who've sent me beads for a total of 8 counting mine...we have 13 mama's signed up...I'd really like to get these back out so please please please PM me or let me know what's up those of you who haven't yet









I'm off to bed. I've got to sleep while DS sleeps or i turn into the wicked witch of the west...

*hugs*


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

helen-i tried to look up the link but my internet connection is way too slow it seems. i will try, again later b.c i want to see it. i met a homeopathic doc on monday who is here in bali from england. he's volunteering at the birth center, too.

amy- that is really awesome that subaru may donate the part for your car. we sold our subaru outback to raise $$ to live abroad this year; sold it to our neighbor. so it will be kinda weird when we go home to see it parked in the driveway next to ours. but we are happy they are the ones who bought it and super happy to not have to worry about money while here. as sad as it may be, i think you're right to walk away from the house with those foundation issues. there is another house out there for you, as cheesy as that sounds!

qoc- that sounds like a frustrating sort of bedtime. you have way more patience than me. i'd be yelling for dh to take over, for sure! i am so jealous that you are in a play. i did drama in high school and loved it but never since. it's really lame of me to be so slack in it as i go to see friends. i guess i did a video with dh that was pretty funny for a friend. our dog was the main character and if i find it, i will link it. it was for this young hip sort of church that was doing a series on "responding appropriately". the story was that a man needed a heart transplant so the neighbors brought a heart in a box to our door. we acted like they were kinda odd to bring a heart in a box then the camera shifts to our very large rottie growling in the background. the couple backs away from the door and our dog charges at them. we had to do like 100 takes b/c our dog kept licking and trying to play instead of looking ferocious. the director guy finally got a great pic of our dog leaping out of the door though!

barcelona- i am in bali to work at a birth center. i am a doula and am learning about assisting midwives. i don't know that i will be a full-fledged midwife myself one day but am on a journey of learning right now. just seeing where it leads. i attend births and do prenatal appts. and speand lots of time observing and fetching things. robim lim, who is a cpm and has written some books started this place and runs it. originally, i was doing a birth attendant training school with a non-profit out of australia for a year. barely a week into it, dh and i realized we had huge idealogical and spiritual differences with the org. we tried to hang in there but it was clear that we needed to leave so i called robin and asked her if i could come volunteer. she agreed and now we are here. we've been here about one month and are not sure if we will stay for a longer time or just three months, which is what our current visas allow. COME VISIT!!! i have a blog if you want the link to it. my internet upload is so slow so there are few pictures but i am trying to get more up. sorry to hear about finley not sleeping so well. ez nurses a bunch at night, too and it can be so exhausting for me.

spughy- ez can be so sensitive, at times. especially when things startle her.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Hi all.

Gunter, we may be going to India although we are now probably postponing it until December or so due to some issues beyond our control. I'm just as happy, actually. I have been meaning to PM you and ask you what you guys have done about vaccinations due to your international journeyings, but haven't gotten around to it so if you feel okay about discussing this with me please PM me!! Who knows, maybe you could end up coming there for a visit--wouldn't that be crazy to meet up in India?!!!

Helen, the house looks awesome! Crossing my fingers for you!!!

Amy, hope Brynn is feeling better. We'll get together one of these days soon, I'm sure! Although now Ella seems warm and a little not-herself, hopefully she isn't getting sick. Although it's disappointing about the house, I'm actually sort of relieved that you're deciding against it because we would miss you if you guys all slid down the hill one night never to be heard from again!! Seriously though, the foundation seems like a deal breaker. We almost made an offer on one house when we were looking that I was later soooo glad that we didn't end up buying, it usually happens that way that when something doesn't work out there is something even better in store in the future.

A funny-gross thing happened yesterday that I must report--I was in the shower and was going to bring the naked Ella in with me, but when I opened the shower curtain she was standing there and got the concerned pee-pee look and sort of grabbed herself. So I told her that if she had to go pee to sit on the potty. So she sat on the potty and promptly peed, and it was like the most pee she has ever peed on the potty, like it was half full in the Baby bjorn little potty. I expressed my pleasure and she was grinning ear to ear and was so excited and proud of herself that she had gone pee pee on the potty, and then (inspired perhaps by Prudence in the once upon a potty book) picked up the potty to carry it over and show me--and promptly dumped the pee ALL OVER the front of herself and onto the floor. the poor thing said, "uh-oh!" and looked so stricken!! I felt so bad for her, even as I was trying to decide whether to laugh or cry about the whole mess! I just brought her and the potty both into the shower and then the bathmat soaked up the rest of the pee.

I am having a very weird week emotionally. I just have so much going on mentally and so much on my mind and on my plate that is sort of in process. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I have started studying personal finance, because I really want to get us into a better place financially. So I have been thinking a lot about the future, although I also am fighting thinking about the past, as in reading financial books which point out how much of a huge difference in your overall financial picture it will make if you start saving for retirement in your 20's rather than in your 30's. It's hard to not kick myself for being so stupid and short sighted and just not realizing and employing a few basic financial principles, and making so many stupid mistakes. I keep trying to remind myself that it's not too late and that we are taking positive and smart action, and that we're in a good place now and that dwelling on regrets is not empowering and i need to be kind to myself. Anyway, I am on a plan of trying to be fairly frugal but with an empowered, prosperity consciousness. This whole tenuous mental state was not helped by the fact that I went to lunch today with this gal who is DH's work colleague's wife--they also moved here from AZ. She's 23, blonde, skinny with perky boobs, just married, just graduated from college, and generally dewy and unscathed by life thus far!! And they have a really nice, expensive house which is already nicely decorated and furnished. It made me kind of depressed about our house, and about the fact that at 23 I was living in a basement studio apartment and working at a bakery while trying to figure out how to become a midwife. (yeah, *that* was a great idea!) (sarcasm.) I'm partly jealous of the house, although when I called DH and told him about it later, he very matter of factly pointed out, "Well, honey, that's exactly the kind of house that you *didn't* want to buy--the homeowner's association, the snooty neighbors, the pressure to buy a lot of expensive furniture and decor, the big space to clean, the huge mortgage payments . . . we could have bought a house like that too if that's what you wanted." And of course he's right. I'm stressing about this house as it is, and all I really need is to buy one sofa!!! I think that more than the house, I am just jealous that she has enough confidence and sense of entitlement, if that is the right word, to be married and living in that kind of a house at her age, and she seems very settled in that way. I guess I just feel like, wow, if I had my 20's and early 30's to do over again I'd do a few things differently. I wish I had had the confidence at 23 to really feel like I deserved to be loved and honored and taken care of and to have a nice life! OTOH, I am glad that I had a lot more experiences and adventures before I settled down too, those are times that don't come again and I would have missed out on a lot if I had taken the straight and narrow path at that point. So I guess it's kind of bittersweet.

Another major issue that is happening here is that we've had to really discuss things about our estate plans and how we want to arrange things in case we died because we have been doing our wills etc. Not a cheery subject, and not a lot of fun to talk about with your spouse either especially when you are talking about how to protect assets that should go to your kid from some hypothetical future evil stepparent if only one of you dies and the other one remarries!







: But we finally hashed all of that our and decided on guardians and everything else and I sent it to the lawyer, so it's a relief to have that part done anyway, and be able to stop thinking about the worst case scenarios!!! I think I'll feel a lot better knowing that things are set up so that Ella will be taken care of no matter what. I mean, we are certainly not rich, but as one of the lawyers pointed out, most people are worth a lot more dead than alive if they have decent life insurance!









Well, that is my gloom and doom report for the day--







is upon me so I suspect that there is also a significant hormonal basis to my Eeyore-like moaning. At least this week!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kaspirant* 

beads...I've only got 6 other mama's who've sent me beads for a total of 8 counting mine...we have 13 mama's signed up...I'd really like to get these back out so please please please PM me or let me know what's up those of you who haven't yet









I'm off to bed. I've got to sleep while DS sleeps or i turn into the wicked witch of the west...

*hugs*


As an 8th grade teacher, you should know that if you don't give us a due date for this assignment we are never going to turn it in!!!









Seriously, I will have to get my s**t together and take my lazy bum to a bead store to pick out something fantabulous for y'all!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

kaspirant, my beads were posted a week past Wednesday (9 days ago) so they should be with you by next Friday, I reckon. I'm surprised they've taken so long, but I did post them from Durham








Kavita, I am SO with you on the subject of wills. DH was somewhat upset when he realised that my mum's estate is left to me and if I predecease her, in trust to all my kids, but a big deal in our family is writing watertight wills to keep barsteward ex-SIL's out of them, for various reasons. I've just come to the conclusion that I can't die until 2018 at the absolute earliest and that's all there is to it


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
kaspirant, my beads were posted a week past Wednesday (9 days ago) so they should be with you by next Friday, I reckon. I'm surprised they've taken so long, but I did post them from Durham








Kavita, I am SO with you on the subject of wills. DH was somewhat upset when he realised that my mum's estate is left to me and if I predecease her, in trust to all my kids, but a big deal in our family is writing watertight wills to keep barsteward ex-SIL's out of them, for various reasons. I've just come to the conclusion that I can't die until 2018 at the absolute earliest and that's all there is to it









Well ya, why should a person leave their estate to their son or daughters in law anyway? Most people would leave it for the grandkids, I think.

What I've realized through this whole process and thinking things through and reading and talking with the lawyers is that trusts are the way to go. Otherwise kids get all assets when they turn 18, but nothing before. A good trustee can give them/their guardian some money before 18 if it's needed (like for private school tuition, braces, even things like prom expenses) but also the kid is prevented from receiving a huge sum of money at 18, which is a very very bad idea. (See: Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, etc.!)

I've also realized that if you think a couple of chess-moves ahead, it's actually very easy to leave things up in a way that could accidentally disinherit your kids!!! Example: I die. DH gets whatever assets I own, whatever we own jointly, and the life insurance money for me. Several years down the line he meets a woman with two kids from a previous relationship and they get married. They buy a new house together, open a joint bank account, etc., and the life insurance money sort of melds in with their joint finances over the years, gets converted into home equity, etc. He dies--now all the money and assets they hold jointly, his retirement accounts, etc., go to her. And her will leaves it to *her* kids, or she dies without a will and it goes to her next of kin which is her kids but not Ella. What does Ella get? Nothing! It sounds like the worst-case scenario type of thinking, but it's really not that far-fetched if you think about it.

Hmm, maybe I should go to law school and specialize in estate law, lol!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I think that's actually the point my mum made. It's so easy for things to go wrong, and we know of a few cases where the wrong people - in our opinion- inherited.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 

I've also realized that if you think a couple of chess-moves ahead, it's actually very easy to leave things up in a way that could accidentally disinherit your kids!!! Example: I die. DH gets whatever assets I own, whatever we own jointly, and the life insurance money for me. Several years down the line he meets a woman with two kids from a previous relationship and they get married. They buy a new house together, open a joint bank account, etc., and the life insurance money sort of melds in with their joint finances over the years, gets converted into home equity, etc. He dies--now all the money and assets they hold jointly, his retirement accounts, etc., go to her. And her will leaves it to *her* kids, or she dies without a will and it goes to her next of kin which is her kids but not Ella. What does Ella get? Nothing! It sounds like the worst-case scenario type of thinking, but it's really not that far-fetched if you think about it.

Not far-fetched at all, unfortunately. Though it wasn't exactly the same, my dad had no will and my step-mother automatically got everything. And my mum no longer got child support. I can't think about it too much or I can get really, really pissed. So thank you for thinking of Ella, as difficult as it is to imagine a future evil step-mother







:

I am officially on vacation now until September 5th. We're taking Neela camping for the first time tomorrow, then she and I leave early next week for my sister's wedding, while DH goes to Brisbane for two weeks. My youngest sister (not the one getting married) is coming back with us to help out and do childcare once I'm back to work until DH gets home. And we're going to visit Spughy and Rowan on our trip!!!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

...and spughy & Rowan are very much looking forward to that!

It's a whole week of visitations, actually, because my mom is here at the moment and leaves the day before Mel & Neela arrive (not that Mel & Neela are staying with us and leaving their unpacked luggage all over our hallway or anything
















Today we took a page from Amy & Brynn's blog and Rowan had a lunch date with DH while my mom and I enjoyed a quiet lunch together that didn't involve catching any half-chewed food with my hands or playing with ice cubes or climbing on and off chairs just for fun. It was lovely. But Rowan was very late going down for a nap and was sooooo tired, who knows when she'll wake up.

Must go now and tidy, for all the real good that it'll do. At least every time my mom visits I'm reminded of where I get my untidy genes from. Drives DH absolutely nuts though. Poor guy. At least he'll have 3 weeks of tidyness while Rowan and I are away!

Oh, and Kavita - I know exactly how you feel re: what the heck was I doing in my 20s???? Except I was being a hippy on Saltspring Island instead of working in a bakery, but same thing. But, keep in mind that money and finances are not everything, and you doubtless collected skills, memories, friends and other things that have no monetary value but which mean more than money ever can. And your skinny, apparently wealthy, perky-boobed little friend's life will probably never have the *depth* that your life has. She is probably envious of YOU for all the amazing things you've done. Moreover, I think you learn a lot more about yourself, and what matters to you, having spent some time being poor or at least struggling in some respect. After my hippy stint I went through a starving-student phase, and literally had days when I'd dig around in all my pockets and behind the cushions on the couch trying to coax out enough change to buy a box of no-name mac & cheese for dinner; I'm sure you've had similar experiences. Also, as your DH pointed out, your friend is pretty dedicated to a lifestyle of consumerism, and that, objectively, is not a Good Thing. My rambling point: you are awesome and cool, she is a typical north american - be grateful and appreciative of who you are, and stop stressing about the money thing, because, trite as it sounds, money and even its sneaky cousin "financial security" cannot buy happiness, and you're better off where you are than in some big fancy house with a big fancy car, wondering why you're vaguely dissatisfied with life, but scared to sacrifice any of your material stuff to find out.

Amy - I did that online quiz, and Rowan seems borderline "HSC". She's not terribly affected by pain, but loud noises sure do her in (the peacocks at the petting farm are the *worst*), and she's fine with strangers and new bunches of kids and stuff. I think she just is who she is, and we're just going to work with her to help her be that person and be happy. Generally she's a pretty darn easy kid to parent (I noticed that some of the "HSC" kids fall into that category). I'm not a huge fan of labelling or categorizing kids, but some of the suggestions on that site are pretty useful and it's definitely food for thought.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 

money and even its sneaky cousin "financial security" cannot buy happiness, and you're better off where you are than in some big fancy house with a big fancy car, wondering why you're vaguely dissatisfied with life, but scared to sacrifice any of your material stuff to find out.

WORD. I was thinking when we were talking today Kavita (but didn't actually say it), chances are, she is envious of something about your life: your wisdom, your beautiful child, your centeredness....I like to think that my perky boobs were a fair trade for an amazing family and home life.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
Amy - I did that online quiz, and Rowan seems borderline "HSC". She's not terribly affected by pain, but loud noises sure do her in (the peacocks at the petting farm are the *worst*), and she's fine with strangers and new bunches of kids and stuff. I think she just is who she is, and we're just going to work with her to help her be that person and be happy. Generally she's a pretty darn easy kid to parent (I noticed that some of the "HSC" kids fall into that category). I'm not a huge fan of labelling or categorizing kids, but some of the suggestions on that site are pretty useful and it's definitely food for thought.

I know what you're sayin. The thing I like about the book is that it focuses so much on the positive aspects of that personality type, and helps me remember that even if something isn't a big deal to me, it could be a huge thing to her.


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

*Amy* said:


> WORD. I was thinking when we were talking today Kavita (but didn't actually say it), chances are, she is envious of something about your life: your wisdom, your beautiful child, your centeredness....I like to think that my perky boobs were a fair trade for an amazing family and home life.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kaspirant* 
beads...I've only got 6 other mama's who've sent me beads for a total of 8 counting mine...we have 13 mama's signed up...I'd really like to get these back out so please please please PM me or let me know what's up those of you who haven't yet










Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
As an 8th grade teacher, you should know that if you don't give us a due date for this assignment we are never going to turn it in!!!









Seriously, I will have to get my s**t together and take my lazy bum to a bead store to pick out something fantabulous for y'all!

I am sooooooo glad that I am not the only one who has not sent mine yet (or bought them yet, for that matter. Yes, I definately agree that a DUE DATE would be helpful for me to actually get this done







:


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Money talk is not fun here at the moment. After 2 months of dh barely working and trying to get my business running things are crazy. Of course finding out I was pg within weeks of finally getting my website up didn't make things any less stressful. I've got a funny feeling we are now going to put up updating the only papers, guardianship, we have cared for until next spring. At the moment they only cover Annette and were done in LA so not sure how well they would even hold up in FL. With struggling to get bills caught up insurance isn't something we have been able to deal with. The good thing is dh is starting a job that will be at least 4 weeks possibly longer so that will go a long way towards getting things cared for. With the holidays coming people like getting their houses fixed up before relatives come to visit and that works well for us.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Kavita, I wholeheartedly second everything Spughy, Amy, and gingerstar said about the your 20's, the person you are, and have become through all of such adventures, and finances.

On the other hand, while reading your post, I thought, Oh, Sh*t, I really need to face the reality of our awful financial situation. But, we are in such a weird position right now, trying to make our careers happen and scraping by...it feels impossible to do some of those responsible things right now, that you noted. But, we have talked about it and agreed that if we are still in this situation two years down the road, we will make some changes so that we can get a bit more financial stability, and proceed with our lives, though while still pursuing our careers...it just might be slowed down a bit by the financial stability thing. Anyway...I am Sure the perky-breasted blonde woman will turn 40 and look back on her life so far and wonder what she has really done, and if she feels anything. Watching so many of my friends take the straight and narrow immediately after college, I envy some of their "financial stability", but on the other hand, wouldn't trade it in an instant, for all the experiences, adventures, perspective, and color my off-the-beaten-path has given me.

Kristina, I hope things look up for you soon, and that your DH's work picks up as the holidays approach, so you can feel a little calmer as you proceed through your pregnancy. How are you feeling, by the way?

All the other pregnant mamas, how are you guys feeling?

Things are looking up around here. DH is almost done with the research portion of his project, so that feels like an accomplishment-almost, and yesterday, I had a callback for the audition I had on Monday. If you have a moment, do send some positive vibes this way, or cross your fingers, or whatever. It would be so so hard to get, and the chances are slim, but if I did get it, it would be an *Amazing* opportunity, and just what I need to jumpstart my career. (I'll explain what it is after I know one way or another. I'm afraid I'll jinx it if I reveal what it is...and, no, it's not a movie or anything).

DH is working today, so Finley and I are having a low key day at home today.
Hope everyone is having a happy weekend!

Oh, and Gunter, I so wish I could come visit! Sounds like an incredible experience. I don't think we'll be able to swing it financially, though







I'll PM you for the blog link. And I'd love to see that short film you described. Sounds so funny!

QofC, hope you're having fun with the show. It's opening weekend, right?

One more note: Finley slept great last night! And I was actually able to get a bunch done last night after he went to sleep. I'm a happy, rested mama today.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Thanks everyone for your kind words and positive thoughts! I really appreciate it! (I feel like Sally Fields here accepting the academy award--"You like me!!! You really like me!!!!") I have mostly recovered from my paroxysms of envy and depression and again am feeling glad that I have had my own life and a lot of independence and experiences, especially before getting married and having a house and making babies.

I should add too, I don't want to make anyone else freak out about this stuff too! (Or make anyone feel judged if they don't have the guardianship/will stuff done themselves, or aren't as motivated by money or the idea of future "financial security", such as it is!!) I am posting about the financial stuff and estate stuff because I haven't dealt with that sort of thing too much until now, and now I'm at a place where I feel like it's necessary for me to put a lot of attention on it, so I'm talking about it because that's the journey I'm on right now and it's occupying a lot of my thoughts. There is some serious family of origin dysfunction on these issues with my parents and my sister, and everything the family has gone through in the last two years (my dad's accident then my sister having some serious health and financial problems) has really stirred it up for me and made me examine how I do and do not want to live--the whole thing has stressed me out just being around it. I just don't want to live that close to the edge and in chaos just because I'm in denial and unwilling to face issues and deal with them. So it's making me really committed to getting my own ship in order so that I have more peace of mind that certain things are in place, and I can focus more of my attentions elsewhere.

Whoops, I have more to say but my battery is dying (stupid laptop!) so I'll come back when I can!!


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

if there is anyway to help anyone feel more responsible financially, let me offer my assistance with a story of my own current life.

dh and i are living off savings for a year. he quit a high paying job. we sold our cars and half of our belongings. we're renting our house to my brother who can only afford to pay half the mortgage. if i tell you anymore, someone may track us down to shake some sense into us or shoot us. hey, we do have health insurance, at least...but we get chiro and ped visits for free so it would only matter for something bigger...which is not going to be necessary...knock on wood. we'll turn 30 and 31 in the next 6 months. we're hanging out at a pizza place owned by a friend here in bali blogging and reading the paper while our kid sleeps on a stack of pillows. we own bicycles here which we'll probably give to friends whenever we leave...which we don't know when that will be or where we'll go next.





















and maybe a little bit of this







:

i love the perspectives you all are sharing and feel really glad to have such great community of mamas as my friends!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

I actually think this is kind of a fun discussion, myself.







DH and I were just talking this morning about how to eke out a few hundred more dollars into our "spending" budget so that we can enjoy a few perks:

1. A new flat plasma TV
2. A new house (we're on the scent of a new house as of yesterday)
3. A new(er) car for DH
4. About 6 extra hours of babysitting per week

















Sure, we'd *like* all of those things, but in truth, our priorities are really #2 and #4. Even though it's really frustrating sometimes, I'm constantly reminding myself that we are saving 20% of DH's income so that after 5 years of savings, we will be set for our retirement. That feels good to have a good long-term plan, but it just SUCKS in the now because we're North Americans and we want stuff. Wah!!

Truthfully though, it's becoming painfully obvious that hiring a babysitter for 6-9 hours a week is a serious priority for our individual mental health and the health of our marriage. We're not on the brink of divorce or anything like that, but we just *miss* each other. We went on our date last weekend and were just like, "WOW! It's so fun to get to talk to each other without constant interruption!" We need more of that kind of time with each other, and with DH working a lot more hours these days than we are really accustomed to, it's even harder for us to feel connected.

As for the wills and trusts, we started working on all of that while I was pregnant and got everything settled by the time Brynn was about 6 months old, so I feel really good about that. I was telling Kavita in real life the other day, even though I have just resolved (like you, Helen) that I simply cannot die, I don't think I could sleep at night knowing that Brynn's future would be in someone else's hands if something happened to us!

Gotta go eat some breakfast. Have a good Sunday, lovely ladies!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Okay, I'm back! Limited internet time here, DH's computer is, well, HIS! And Ella is a little bit fussy intermittently and wants to be interacting or nursing a lot of the time. Her favorite thing is to demand "Story!" and then "Wap!" while patting our legs to climb up on our laps. And oy, the molars are on their way. They are really bumpy and higher on the bottom, although not close to coming through yet, they are on the move and are starting to bother her.

This has turned out to be a relatively productive few days. Prompted by my earlier dismay, house envy, and my determination to get the living/dining rooms set up, I cleaned most of the house with the assistance of DH. Friday they couldn't deliver the replacement pedestal for our pedestal table, but it was at the freight company warehouse, and I didn't want to wait another day and sit around waiting for delivery most of Saturday while the huge box with the tabletop was taking up my entire living room floor and being used as a dog bed, so I called the freight company and asked them if I could just come pick it up, they said yes and gave me directions and I went down there and they loaded it in the trunk and we got it set up Friday night. I also drove around dropping off things that I has sitting in piles to give away to various places/people, so that felt good. And yesterday we decided to bring our futon upstairs, so we now have our futon in the living room, so we are not feeling the lack of a couch anymore and can take our time to buy what we want. Then we moved the TV into the spare bedroom, so now the big hulking thing isn't in our living room anymore. That was Friday and some of Saturday, and then the rest of Saturday I spent tackling the basement. It was really bad--the finished family room area is being used to store stuff like outgrown baby clothes and baby stuff and midwifery equipment and camping/outdoors gear, and then the sorta-finished laundry/office area was just dusty and filthy and piled with disorganized stuff. So I got through the office area stuff, and cleared the shelves and desks off, sorted through a bunch of stuff with DH, got through a lot of the "special" laundry that I throw down there in a pile by the washer--like the bedcover than needs to go in a handwash cycle and really shouldn't even be put into the dryer but I do it anyway, the throw pillows that need washing, that kind of stuff that gets piled up and put off because there is always clothing and diaper and household laundry like sheets and towels that needs to be done first! I dusted, vacuumed, wiped, shined, and generally have things looking decent. I'll have to work on the storage thing too, but first I have to actually get our garage cleared out better so things can go in there.

And since the dust is settling with that, I'm able to sort of turn my attention to other things, and I ordered two pounds of redworms and am going to start vermicomposting!!! yay! Throwing out a lot of vegetable waste has bothered me, but I can't really see composting in the yard right here and now. But the unfinished work area of the basement will be perfect. This will be my second crack at worm composting--the first time was in the desert climate and I was in a little apartment without a good indoor space for them and they were on a covered porch, but unfortunately the little wigglers met their doom when the weather got a bit too hot for them.

Ugh, have to go, DH is fussing at me because I'm "neglecting" Ella. yeah, the poor child is sooo neglected, I actually spend a couple of hours a month not paying direct attention to her when he is home also.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Hey, happy homemaking Kavita! It sounds like you're on top of it.

BTW, please can you all have a quick look at yesterday's blog entry?







How proud am I? Admittedly, there's three boxes of toys in the loft, but that's a majorly tidy bedroom.

Gunter, I would never shake sense into you. The three of you are showing Ezra that it's important to have the courage of your convictions, to follow your dreams and to make choices that are right for you rather than selling out to the big house flash car high mortgage dream. My trip around the world is waiting until 42, rather than 30 (it was meant to be my 40th birthday present, but I'm putting it off until Isaac is through a-levels) but I'm looking forward to it.
Our project financial prioritising is working for us. DH and I have been talking long and really hard about what we actually want from our lives and from our homes- inspired by the sale of the house at Shincliffe, and by the whole NCT thing. Basically, there's this image of the charity I'm involved in as being a load of yoghurt-eating, middle-class volvo driving women with big houses and at least two cars in each family, and our branch is split straight down the middle- half do, half don't. Needless to state, we're firmly in the don't half at the moment







What I want, really, is a family house: one which has enough room for the children, that's filled with artwork and creativity made by ourselves and friends that we love, that reflect the people and places that are important to us and that matter and where our friends and family feel very welcomed. Plus no piles of clutter anywhere and lots of lovely storage space, naturally







If the house in Durham doesn't work out for us, we're planning on using the money from the sale of the house in Colchester to buy some land and look at building for ourselves, or else a major renovation project, I think. It seems like that's going to be the best way for us to get the home we want.
Did I tell you about my shocking realisation about this house? I've always lived in older houses before now, so it was a shock for me to realise that our new bean is going to be the first baby born in this house- and there's never been a death here, either. Steve and his parents moved in when he was only a year old, and his mum died in the hospice. That just seems so weird- and such a privilege, as well, in a way. Make sense?


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Wow, Helen! It looks spotless and amazing. I'm even more impressed with the tulip cardigan that you made for Skye, though - do you feel like making another one?







Name your price!


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Wow, flapjack and Kavita - you two are amazing! <looks around at messy kitchen> I have a lot of catching up to do!
My big girls went back to school today, so there is actually the slightest chance that I could make headway on the mess!








Helen, I know just what you mean. That is one reason we moved out into the country - the competition is less, you know, the whole, "Sally is going to state competition in gymnastics, her soccer team won their league, and after her piano recital, her French tutor has promised to take her into Chicago to the American Girl Shop for another ($100) doll!" And in our town, there is no "right" preschool - we only have the one, and kids go, or they don't!
Even my best friend had got sucked into it, bought this humongous house that cost literally twice what our new house did....and this house has enough room for us, or would if we could achieve "no piles of clutter anywhere"








Interesting about the house - your bean will bring an extra special blessing, to the house as well as your family then! And remember, as Americans, a hundred years is a very long time - most of our houses won't have seen a birth or a death. The house I grew up in was built in the 1920's, and was older than all my friends houses.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Well, Ellie has officially hit the tantrum-stage. When she doesn't get something she wants, she starts screaming at the top of her lungs. It absolutely drives me batty. I'm at the point now where I just leave the room and come back when she's stopped screaming - I'm not going to encourage it by making a big fuss over her when she's mad about something. (its different if she's crying/screaming because she's hurt or scared, of course, then I comfort her immediately) I just keep trying to remind her that I won't help her when she's screaming at me, that I'd appreciate if she would use a nice voice. Killy started this screaming-tantrum stage at about 10 months old, though, so I really shouldn't be complaining about Ellie starting it now.







My in-laws are always telling me how DH only threw two tantrums his whole life, and it makes me feel like I'm a terrible mom because my kids throw major tantrums on a daily basis.









I'm off to fix lunch, and then a nap for all three of us is in order, I think!

Btw, the play went well this weekend - it was the second (and final) weekend of shows. My family came again, a friend of mine came, and DH's parents and sister and BIL all came, and everyone enjoyed it. And at church on Sunday I got hit up to sing in the Cantata. So, I guess my singing wasn't too bad in the show!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

We went new car shopping this weekend... it's HORRIBLE! I hate it. We finally found a guy at this dealership that was nothing like a salesman whatsoever. He was very honest and was the first person to get our payments where we want them in the type of vehicle we needed. They actually got us approved... for 12,000 less asking price than the other dealerships we went to.. the only hitch is we need to come up with 1,000 dollars. (WHich was the same at the other places.. they just didn't tell us till the end part) So.. wish us luck in coming up with money out of thin air!














: The cool part is the vehicle we're trying to get was actually owned by our close friends! We didn't find that out till halfway through looking at it. So we know it's never been smoked in and it's been treated/maintained impeccably. It also has really low miles and brand new brakes and tires! Cross your fingers for us...


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Major wealth vibes heading your way, Danile. We're at the early stages of something similar (going for another banger, so no credit though) and ugh! I HATE used car salesmen







Unfortunately we can't put it off any longer. I can get five people in a Nissan Micra with a shoe-horn and a wish and a prayer, six is going to be impossible.
Amy, I'll PM you








Jen, I'm so glad the play went well







It sounds like you're getting a reputation as a singer round there








Gingerstar







. The right school around here is Marlborough public school, which is something ridiculous like 20k a year per child







NOT doing that. Most of the time, living at right angles to the ladder works well for us, but occasionally we look at our peers who did the job/mortgage/marriage/kids thing in that order and wonder.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

I'm so impressed with the house-cleaning going on, and the knitting, Helen. Youv'e got me all excited for autumn. And I love your description of the family house you desire...When you get it, I'd love to come visit! (Not that I wouldn't love to come visit now).

Danile, and Helen, good luck with car shopping. YUCK! I do not envy you at all.

And QofC, so glad the show went well, and so cool about the Cantata offer.

Finley is not eating very much. He wasn't last week, because he was so sick, but his appetite hasn't seem to come back very much since. Normal, right? I can't force-feed the kid...

Today, he ate
a few bites of scrambled egg,
a few spoonfuls of honey,
a couple spoonfuls of flaxseed oil (he loves the stuff, I have to restrict him, and after this bottle, am going to stop, and switch to ground flax on top of things, only),
and half of a banana.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

So far today, Skye's eaten a bowl of porridge, a boiled egg and toast (to be specific, MY boiled egg and toast







) two bananas, a handful of raisins, some raw spinach, three spoonfuls of tzatziki and a chocolate spread sandwich. It's 12.33pm.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

...and Rowan's had the middle of an apricot danish, a liqueur glass of kefir smoothie, several small slices of watermelon, 4 or 5 pea pods (just the peas), an indeterminate amount of ham (for some reason today is a ham-chewing day, not a ham-swallowing day), a couple slices of cheese, most of a tomato, 10 or so blackberries, a couple sips of coffee and a lick of a chocolate.

Ok, so it looks like she's eating a pretty well-balanced diet right? On most days there would probably be some oatmeal in there too. So, why are her poops so hard???? She's been totally regular, going usually twice a day, but they're all hard and this morning there was a bit of blood in her poo.







I don't know what more I can do - she won't drink prune juice, and I put dried cherries in her oatmeal (reconstitute them first), I'm always giving her water (she doesn't drink juice at all) and we don't eat any refined grains at all except for the occasional goodie when we go out for coffee, which she might have like 2 bites of. She doesn't eat much in the way of grains at all, actually, unless we have pasta which is pretty rare.

I think she really needs to drink more water actually. I just have no idea how to make that happen. She's got several water bottle on the go all over the place and I regularly remind her of them. But she drinks a couple sips at a time, and usually over the course of a day she'll maybe have 8 oz of water (plus usually 12-16 oz of milk, plus whatever boobie juice I'm still producing.) Is that enough?


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## Gunter (May 5, 2005)

sounds like ez is in good company with her eating habits. sometimes she doesn't eat much over a day and i have to remember to see the big picture of her overall diet. it's hard though when i only see her eat a tiny bit one day. she'll sometimes devour a dish of food and other times is so not interested. she does love burritos so that's a good fall back full of rice, beans, guacamole and salsa. we are vegan so i love that she loves gauc for the good fats it has.

yesterday, let me try to remember...woke up with lots of mama's milk, guacamole and bread for breakfast (uh, yeah?), couple bites of my leftover burrito, red rice and potatoes for lunch with a few beans/peppers/onions before she spit those out, another bread snack, lots of mama's milk to nap, more guacamole and chips and handmade fries around dinner time with mama's milk, cashews and a half a small oatmeal cookie. she didn't nurse to sleep last night b/c i was at a birth. she did nurse during the birth though then went home with dh. she drinks water throughout the day.

we do have smoothies rather often here in bali. they are so amazing here with the fresh coconut milk, bananas and dates. friggin yum. we eat a lot of organic stuff and most of it's grown locally.

barcelona and kavita- i pm'ed you my blog site.

spughy- okay, not to judge or anything...but, coffee?







ez would be such a lil hyper babe if i gave her a sip. how does rowan handle it and does she ask for it and love the taste or what? just curious. my best friend's 3yo likes soy lattes so she always gives him a few sips but man, ez would be off the wall if i did that.

amy- how is your car doing?

danile- did you get that car?

helen- thanks so much for the encouragement and perspective about travel and not working or saving up or doing anything that resembles responsible adult life.







ITA about your ideas of what a house can be filled with and how lovely it can be without being new and huge and clean. my house back in the usa is none of those things and it's a great house.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Um, lets not talk about what Ellie ate today... DH and I had a lunch date, so the kids were at my ILs for a big chunk of the day, during which they ate french fries, popsicles, and grapes. At home, they had mommy-milk upon waking this morning, whole wheat tortillas with natural peanut butter and all-fruit blueberry spread in them for breakfast, and pizza for dinner with grapes for dessert. The pizza had spinach and mushrooms on it, so they did get some veggies today.







Last night they ate great, though - I made Polenta Pie (basically, pour polenta with an egg mixed into it in a pie pan, spread beans over it, sprinkle some cheese and crushed tortillas on top and bake until set - my kids could eat pans and pans of it! and its super cheap and easy to make). Oh, and Ellie nursed about one million more times today. I don't know if its because her two year molars are cutting now or because she has a bit of a cold or what, but Ellie's been nursing constantly lately!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Gunter:







the coffee - literally it was a little sip, we were at a cafe and I was drinking coffee and she got bored with her water and said "have some of mummy's coffee". It was the first time she'd asked for it and she didn't really care for it (I drink it without sugar so it's quite bitter). I didn't notice any behavioural differences afterwards! I never say no when she wants to try something, no matter what it is. Beer, wine, chocolate, whatever. She can have a taste if she wants it, more often than not she doesn't much like it, except the beer, she liked that. She doesn't like wine or mead or anything else alcoholic.

For dinner she ate some vegetable soup (chicken bone broth base), some sweet corn, some chicken, then a whole honkin' big lacto-fermented dill pickle afterwards (yay! that'll help her insides). Did I mention the awesome pickles I made? Holy smokes are they ever good! And good for you, not like vinegar pickles. Helen I wish I could bring you some but I think the customs people would frown on that. Mel if you're reading - make me give you some tomorrow!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Spughy, in desperation I resorted to flavouring water. Sometimes I do squash







:- that is, tip a little bit into the bottom of the cup, wait until she turns her back and then tip it down the sink and add water. Sometimes I stick a chunk of apple or lemon or cucumber in the sippy cup, sometimes she asks for fruit juice. In the end, because Skye decided she isn't nursing any more







what's in the cup is her only source of liquid and while I need that to be a healthy choice, I also need quantity.
Are you sure it was blood and not blackberries in her poo, though? Just a thought...
The pregnancy insomnia just hit







I was up until midnight sorting out the 2nd tri swap for my other DDC and got to bed- to be woken at 5 by a small boy with an asthma attack. All the carpets upstairs are lifted because of the heating work and so there's dust everywhere- but we didn't figure out that this is going to be a problem until today. I have no hot water until Thursday (boo) but, on the bright side, the house looks so modern with a great big radiator in the living room







You know, this is really high-tech 20th century living







I can't wait until it's finished and I can have a hot bath every night this winter if I want to, without feeling guilty about using up all of the hot water







: Or, more likely, running out of hot water and freezing my bits off instead.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Hey all!

Spughy--how about some ground and/or whole flaxseed in/on her food? That will contribute to easy pooping and it doesn't take a whole huge quantity of it. It's good in oatmeal too.

I finally got my membership card at the gym near by/affiliated with DH's work, so I am going to start going and working out periodically at lunch while he takes her. Although now I am worried because I am feeling that DH needs to go out for lunch with the bosses/coworkers more, just so he stays in the loop. I stopped by his work briefly to say hello to him and also schmooze a little bit and see what is going on. He has been sort of nuking a rice noodle bowl for lunch, while everyone else goes out most of the days. I think he's seeing it as just a food choice, when it's really a sort of political workplace thing that he should do to keep in the loop and advance his career. I am also realizing that we are going to have to do more work socializing/entertaining. Yikes. It has been an interesting few days around here. It is turning out that my house-envy was sort of a tip-off to me about some other issues that are going on with his work, and our life here, and so I'm working on those things now and we are in a sort of dialogue about it now too, and despite the fact that we've been bickering and irritated a lot with each other lately DH was really appreciative for my observations and suggestions and was very receptive and told me that he's going to listen and do everything I tell him! So that is good.

Our estate attorney came over to go over our documents tonight after work, so that is good too--we are going to go by her office and sign tomorrow, and then it will be done. Thank goodness!! I will be glad to have that out of the way. The attorney is really nice, she is really active in the birth community/cesarean prevention movement/fight to legalize midwifery here, so we're getting to be good friends.

I'd better get going--I have to start getting more sleep, I'm really dragging a lot these days. And Ella is nursing more too lately--must be the molars.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

spughy- Cow's milk can be constipating so if that's what she is drinking that might have something to do with the issue also.

I managed to avoid being the embarssed parent this morning by not walking the kids to school. After dh and Joseph dropped Annette off at her classroom they have to walk back past the entire front of the school before they get out of the fenced in area and back to the sidewalk. Just as they were leaving Annette's classroom Joseph saw a lady walking in front of them maybe 15-20 feet. The entire rest of the way to the sidewalk he apperently was pointing at her and saying "butt, butt, butt." I doubt dh was amused at the time, but I was







when he came home and told me about it. I guess the little guy just saves up his words for the really important things like pointing out butts in front of him and trying to steal daddy's beer out of the fridge


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Kristina,









I don't have much to contribute to the food conversation; Brynn's been teething up a storm for the past week, so her food consumption is down. Although she did just about climb over me to get to a granola bar I'd laid on the counter for DH. Go figure!

She's been nursing a ton too, but I'm attributing it to the teeth and the cold she seems to have picked up from the twins that we swap babysitting for. We had them on Sunday and of course they both had runny noses; at least one of them is always sick. I don't think we're going to be able to swap anymore because it's just too annoying to have to worry about it every time the kids are together.

Gunter, my car is on the mend. It's a long and ANNOYING story, but basically after waiting for 5 days for Subaru to resolve the situatin, they told me that my car does in fact have an extended warranty, which is what I had thought all along, so the repair is covered 100%. I called the dealership to schedule the repair, and they told me on Monday that they had ordered the part but it wouldn't be here until Thursday (tomorrow), and that my car would be fixed by Friday. I told them that I couldn't continue driving it all week without the A/C and that they needed to give me a loaner car, which they begrudgingly agreed to. Like it's my fault!!! So I don't think I'm going to go back to that dealership after it's fixed...but at least it will be fixed, and I'm driving a fine car with A/C until then!

In other news, we hired a babysitter!!!!! This is a pretty huge deal for me, and I'm excited and freaked out about it. It's just going to be Wednesdays from 9:00 am to noon, but it feels like a really big deal. I know it'll be good for both of us though; I'll be able to get some work done on my PhD, and Brynn will get some great attention and stimulation. The woman we hired is an empty-nester; she just sent her youngest child to college in Chicago, and she has her degree in Special Education and generally has a lot of the same values and beliefs that we do (no TV, lots of outdoor time, imaginative play, home-made crafts and activities, etc.). She breast-fed her kids and has similar spiritual beliefs, so I think it will work out well. We're going to start next week, although I will probably hang around for the first couple of weeks while she gets used to it. So wish us luck!

QoC, you're not alone in Tatrum-Land. Brynn has started flinging herself backwards - regardless of location - when she doesn't get what she wants. More than once, she's bonked her head pretty hard on something, which of course just makes things worse. I usually just pick her up and hold her tight until she calms down, both so whe won't hurt herself and to help her through the emotions. It's kind of hard to help her when she's that pissed off, though. Oh speaking of pissed off, when she's really mad, she says she's "pissed out!" It's so hard not to laugh!! Oh those little babies. :sigh:


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 

Oh speaking of pissed off, when she's really mad, she says she's "pissed out!" It's so hard not to laugh!! Oh those little babies. :sigh:











This made my day!!! So cute.
And congrats on finding the babysitter! She sounds great, and I hope it works out smoothly for all of you.

Kristina, the "butt" thing...so funny! How are you feeling these days?

Spughy, I hope you find a solution to Rowan's constipation issues. You know we know all about that. It is better around here, though certainly not perfect. I think the best thing we've found so far, oddly enough, is goat's yogurt. He has it almost daily and it has really helped. And spughy, your pickles sound delicious, and I'm so jealous that I can't come over and try some!

Kavita, so glad things are going well with DH and the gym thing sounds good.

QofC, your polenta pie sounds delicious and easy; I'm gonna try it, for sure.

And flapjack, I'm gonna try the piece of orange or cucumber in Finley's water. What a great idea. Why didn't I think of it before? I actually do lemon sometimes, but he doesn't seem to like it that much.
So glad you'll have that hot water through autumn and winter. You'll especially deserve those baths with that little babe growing.

Yesterday, I spent the morning at the DMV and am officially done with all that business--got a CA license and tags for the car. Phew! And, we got a passport application for Finley and renewed mine. All big pain in the butt stuff that has been hanging over my head. I feel so light today!

Today, DH has been home, and we visited some friends we haven't seen since we moved, which is crazy. They're pretty hard to catch. The woman is pregnant with twins, and is so huge! It's crazy. She's due mid-November (twin date), but looks like she'll deliver any moment. Poor Finley was pretty sensitive...he is such a sensitive little guy...just sensitive to the new environment, a rather chaotic and cluttered and abrasive energy, coming from their home and themselves. He was crying most of the time and saying "home" and "let's go" and clinging to us. He did calm down for a bit, but was never relaxed. Anyone else have this experience? It's almost a guarantee that if we go to a new house, he's going to freak out.

Right now, we're at an indoor playground, and DH is playing with Finley, and I'm having some moments of me time, which is nice. The next few days, I'll be home sans car with Finley all day, so I'm storing up on energy to be extra creative and inventive and energetic. It's extra challenging because of the heat--oh my. It's 103 and we don't have AC downstairs. We can only stay in the upstairs room for so long. Aah! But, we will survive.

I haven't heard about the callback, so I'm resigned to thinking I probably did not get it, and am not devastated, but feeling a wee bit sad about that today.

I'm also processing the possibility of getting certified to teach yoga this year. I was approached last week by my teacher...I've got mixed feelings, and am hoping I will *know* one way or the other in the coming weeks. It would be Kundalini Yoga. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of yoga?

Okay, I'm off for now, but hope everyone is having a splendid Wednesday!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

I'm also processing the possibility of getting certified to teach yoga this year. I was approached last week by my teacher...I've got mixed feelings, and am hoping I will *know* one way or the other in the coming weeks. It would be Kundalini Yoga. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of yoga?

Okay, I'm off for now, but hope everyone is having a splendid Wednesday![/QUOTE]

Yes!!!! DH and I have both done a bit of kundalini yoga--actually he was doing teacher training when we met. His teacher is a direct student of Yogi Bhajan. Neither of us have been doing it recently but I actually would have to say that it's my favorite form of yoga--it is very forgiving and accepting and gentle and not rigid or uptight or perfectionistic, which is important for me. (since I am not always very forgiving and accepting and can kinda be somewhat rigid uptight and perfectionistic!! I can be harsh with myself and certain forms of yoga tend to exacerbate that.) If you have any specific questions or want to talk I'm sure that DH would be happy to talk with you, just pm me and I'll pass it on! (although tomorrow I will not be on here during the day b/c DH needs the computer at work. Wah.)

Things are pretty good here. We met with the lawyer and signed everything and so now that's all taken care of. Then we went to dinner.

I'm sooo tired now. I met with a potential babysitter who is also active in the birth community here, and it was a lot of fun talking with her but I didn't get much else done today except for the lawyer thing. (Although, hey, I guess that's enough actually!)

Hope all are well--I'm going "nite nite" now!!!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I've just lost my temper and thrown a big, big strop with the local hospital regarding their absolutely abysmal totally disgraceful lack of breastfeeding support







It's one horror story too many, and I've had enough.
If anyone has any information on breastmilk banks, local alternatives, SNS's and how to train health professionals in their uses or anything else that you think I might need to know about, please let me know. This is IT







: Positive action. I should damn well be able to transfer to whatever hospital I need to in labour without me worrying that the staff will put my newborn babe's life in danger by feeding them formula (and yes, with a sibling with Isaac's ailments formula = endangerment.)


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Helen, I will see what I can dig up. I'll also ask the others at kellymom and see if they have any advice. I'll also check in with Kelly and see if she has any contacts in the UK that might be of help. This website might be some help as well http://www.babyfriendly.org.uk/ Joseph was born at a hospital that is certified baby friendly through that program and as far as hospitals go it was great. I'll be going back there with the same midwife with this one.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yep, that's one of the goals. Our local SureStart programme is BabyFriendly certified (community healthcare/education programme) and the hospital that provided my midwives for all my other kids had baby friendly status. One of the things that's shocking me is in this day and age, how far from baby friendly GWH is.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

What is really sad to me is the tiny list of hospitals in the US that are certified baby friendly. Most of them think its not worth it and others think bfing is too much of a hassle. I just saw the link to this article in the Guardian http://society.guardian.co.uk/health...158674,00.html I don't know if it will be much help as you already know all the risks, but maybe it would wake up someone at your hospital. Is there anyone at LLL or API that might be able to be of help? Many time doctors don't want to listen to what an IBCLC says, but maybe one could be of help in this situation.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Hey, everybody. I know I am such a stranger around here, and I really am sorry about that. I want you all to know that I do read ALL of your posts and think about you daily!! Even though most of you reading this are probably like 'who the heck is she??'

Kristina- ITA with you. I think we've discussed the Mother/Baby Friendly thing on the other group.

Helen-







Sounds very frustrating. But good for you for pursuing it, and hopefully you'll make a difference.

Amy- Brynn sounds so hilarious! I'm happy for you that you got a babysitter!

Gunter- it has been so cool reading your updates. I love hearing about what you're doing! What an awesome experience for all of you. The US will be so boring after all the fun times you've been having.

Well, my little Ez is just the greatest...I just enjoy him so thoroughly. He is totally into clothes and has started to have strong preferences for what he wants to wear. He must wear his Thomas the train sneakers every day, even while sleeping. Sometimes he'll insist on wearing Crocs to bed. He loves to wear a Thomas T shirt, which I have to hide in order to wash it. The most fun thing for him is to try on our underwear!

Now he's into socks- I tried to put regular, white socks on the past 2 days and he threw a fit. He HAD to wear red socks, pulled all the way up. tonight he desperately rummaged in the drawer until he found some, and wearing only a diaper, red socks, and the thomas sneakers, dragged my dh to the door and we took him outside to see what he wanted, and he tried to go to the park to swing! (this was 9pm)

I just







seeing him become a little person with preferences! Oh, and our usual rocking chair for nursing isn't cool anymore, he directs me to either a blanket on the floor or the bed or sofa!

Ok, I'll try to stop...I could go on and on...but I did want to check in before the month was over yet again!


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## gingerstar (Jun 10, 2005)

Awaken, we can be strangers here together, and willemsmama too!







about the red socks - it is cute isn't it? And so surprising, in a way, that someone so little has such strong opinions! We went swimming a while ago, usually she loves it and stays in a long time, but she wanted to get out, and my MIL was playing with her, trying to get her to stay in, and Ella looked her in the eye and said "OUT!"







My MIL was like, ok, I guess she does want to get out!! And the nursing, too, now she is very clear where it has to be...."Nummy BED!" or, "Nummy COUCH!" oh, I just want to eat her up!!

Helen, how frustrating for you! And I always think of Europe as being so far ahead of us BF-wise, but I guess you have battles as well. I don't think any of our hospitals around here are BF-friendly....losers!!







It is such an uphill battle against Nestle et al and their millions $$$.

Off to bed...


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Mary, I had to laugh about the socks - my mom bought Rowan some patriotic socks (maple leaves and canadian flags all over them) for her trip and she was so thrilled with them she wore them to bed over her pyjamas (they're footy pj's). Rowan is WAY into flags - she can identify Canadian and British Columbian flags easily and she points them all out - I had no idea there were so many flags in town!

Helen - good on you for kicking up a stink about that. My mom cautioned me about nursing in public in Britain and I said that the last I heard nursing in public was protected by law there and I'd do it wherever I liked and if anyone had a problem with it they could kiss my big lactating bum. She sort of went "um, ok, but please try to be considerate of your uncles". They can kind of kiss my bum too but I didn't say that, and as a guest in their house I don't have a legal leg to stand on inside, so I'm just going to be up front and ask them how they feel about it. They'll probably be a bit taken aback and say "oh um er I suppose that's ok" and then they'll be stuck. (where's the evil grin smiley???) Sorry that was OT from you, but just a general agreement that England may need a kick in the pants regarding breastfeeding, and I'll be happy to help.

That having been said (and this is a general musing not directed at Helen) I think Rowan is starting the self-weaning process. In the last week I think the only times she's asked to nurse have been in the morning in bed. Oh, no, this morning when we got up she asked too. But the rest of the time I'm kind of running around nagging her to nurse. I'm trying to get her nursing as much as possible so my supply is ok for the plane & rest of the trip, but it's a struggle to get her to nurse during the day, and if she doesn't, my boobs are all "well I guess she doesn't need US anymore" and go into a non-milk-producing snit. Sigh. THEN my darling little girl has the temerity to complain, when she does nurse, that the "boobie not working". Squirting her in the face doesn't seem to be a viable argument for her - she's just given up on the not-good boob except for go-to-sleep nursing. Anyway, once we get home, I'm going to stop taking the herbs and whatnot that are driving us into the poorhouse (I calculated that it costs me close to $100/mo for the dosage I need to keep the supply up - domeridone was WAY cheaper) AND actually go on a real diet and exercise program to lose weight because I'm getting very sick of feeling all heavy and bleh, and my milk supply will tank and Rowan will wean and I'm FINALLY ok with that.

On a very positive note though, I cut back Rowan's cheese consumption today and she did a great big squishy poop this afternoon. yay! Now I have a calcium intake issue. I'll be getting right on the bone broths.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

NIP isn't a huge problem over here, Spughy- it's not currently protected by law but we're campaigning for it. It could be worth emailing NCT Wisbech to see if they have any recommendations for baby-friendly (boobyfriendly) cafes, restaurants, etc.
Being fair, we are way ahead of you over here in that the UK has signed up to the WHO code of marketing on baby milk substitutes. The problem is that even without active formula marketing (and Nestle aren't active in the baby food market at all here, we're the home of the boycott) the medical establishment is just too ingrained in the whole observe/assess/treat thing, and how do you assess how much a baby is eating if you can't see it in a bottle?







: Really, we're just looking at small things- tongue tie being ignored because it impedes breastfeeding but not bottle feeding, supplementation by bottle rather than finger/cup feeding being suggested for newborns, etc., but it's making such a big difference. 20% of breastfeeding mothers have exclusively formula-fed babies at 5 days old. That's not right. The point isn't that the UK is backwards, but that Swindon is a cretinous hick backwater town which really should be doing better.

Kristina, my love, thanks for posting the link to the Guardian! I forgot to buy it yesterday- figures, huh? Great timing.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Yeah, on the whole bf'ing issue, I just read the editorial of this month's Mothering and was REALLY glad that DH didn't get the job that would have had him devoting about 80% of his time to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Barf! I just can't BELIEVE people - money talks, eh? On that note, we watched Blood Diamond the other night, which was just so incredibly disturbing and it made me thankful that I don't have any diamonds on my wedding band! It can be so depressing if I let myself think about all of the atrocities in the world. YKWIM?

Anyway.

Hi Mary! The socks thing is so funny! Brynn has to have hers pulled all the way up too. She's very particular about her shoes too, and loves to wear theses little leather sandals that are too small, so I finally had to hide them so she'd stop putting them on!

barcelona, still crossing my fingers about the job. I hope you get it!!

Spughy and Helen, sorry that your babes are giving up the boobs before you are feeling ready. Helen, could it be because your milk supply is going down now that you are well into your second trimester? Spughy, I think you are doing the right thing with allowing it to happen and focusing on the fact that you can finally start taking care of yourself. You deserve it!

I'm still not really having warm-fuzzies about nursing these days but I'm not restricting her breastfeeding at all this week because she has a bit of a cold. Don't flame me, but I do think once she gets over this and has cut her final two canines (which will be all of her teeth except her two-year molars) I am going to start the weaning process. I really think it's time for us.

So do you Americans have any fun plays for the holiday? We are trying to think of something to do...maybe go down south a bit and rent a cabin and do some exploring of some kind. The weather is finally tolerable, so it would be nice to get out and do something outside without being at risk of heat-stroke.

Oh, and tomorrow is the first day of September so I hope one of you beats me to it on starting a new thread, or I'm going to have to call it: "It's Football Season, November '05 Mamas!"







Can I say that I am SO FRICKING GLAD that it's the last day of August?!


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Amy - you need to come to Virginia for the holiday weekend!







: We're going to the biggest fleamarket in the world, held every Labor Day weekend in Hillsville, VA. Its fun, and I haven't been in about 7 years because I was living in Kansas. The kids and I and my parents are doing that Saturday and then David's coming with us to go hiking on Sunday. I don't know what we'll do Monday. I remember the first year David and I were married, we both had Labor Day off and watched a Trading Spaces marathon on tv, drinking beer and wine coolers all day. It sounds kind of trashy, but it was so much fun! I'm sure we'll find something fun to do with the kids this year, though...


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Amy, I'm pretty sure that Skye's non-nursing is down to the fact that my milk supply is dropping. Alex weaned when I was pregnant with Isaac at 17 months, so yeah, it would have been about the same stage in pregnancy. I don't know why my milk supply didn't drop like this with Rowan- probably because Alex was that bit younger at the time?
In the end, CLW was never a huge goal anyhow. Making it to her second birthday would be nice, but I do like the relationship we have now more.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

I had to share my 1,000th post with y'all since this chatty bunch if a big reason why I finally got that many posts. Wait no one look at my join date to see how long it took me to get this many posts









If the weather cooperates and I can take the pull of the waves on my stomach we might hit the beach a couple evenings this weekend. That is if dh doesn't end up working. After not working for most of the past 2 months we aren't in a place he could turn down work if it's offered. However in about a month we could as they are booked solid for close to the next 2 months *big sigh of relief* Now if I can just get some orders to start coming things would be going well. I hate looking at the pile of material that I had to spend money on knowing I've only had 1 order so far. On the other hand I'm hoping the kidlets will cooperate this weekend so I can get some kid size slings and mei tais done up. Then snag some pictures of them wearing dolls or animals to put up.


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## 3for3hb (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gingerstar* 
Awaken, we can be strangers here together, and willemsmama too!

LOL. I'm here, just lurking








I was actually mostly unplugged for a few days due to a horrible yeast infection. I have never, never, never experienced the yeast monster like this before. Of course I ran out of probiotics a few months ago and in trying to save money haven't bought any to replace them. Also, apparently, after your first two pg you become extremely susceptible to pH changes in the nether-regions. Especially those caused by dh's fluids







. There goes his excitement of going barrier free!







Well, I think we can manage it I just need to be a little more proactive. Garlic, salt, and white vinegar, btw, are amazing.

I've found a mw. Like her alot. Plan on doing pre and post natals with her but in the end UCing. I may change my mind on the big day but it's nice to have options. Anyway, she told me about the liver implications of morning sickness and after three days of dosing myself up on dandelion root I am completely m/s FREE!!! Granted I am 10 wks but still it's a complete turnaroudn from where I was.

Gabriel is a screamer. He's so already a two year old. Mine. No. Um. And shrieking bloody murder at the top of his lungs seem to be the mainstay of his vocabulary. (okay, he doesn't actually say bloody murder). He's talking a lot but has a very baby sound to his words still. Most people look to me to interpret. We had a little scare with him a couple weeks ago. My mom was down visiting and she (as Miss Polish Hospitality) brought a ton of food for us with her, including a huge package of pork chops. I rarely buy pork. I know about the parasite thing and just try to stay away. But anyway, since she brought it, I decided to try this Emeril recipie I'd seen on his show (I'm addicted to Food Network btw). So she wanted to help me in the kitchen and while I had my back turned, cutting veggies up with Willem (he's very good with a butter knife!), she pounded the meat out to tenderize it (sorry vegans and vegetarians







). I turn around and see Gabriel up on his kitchen stool (our kids are very involved in the kitchen/cooking/baking process), next to her, CHEWING something!!! I asked him what it was and he said, UM, and opened his mouth... and yes, there was raw pork fat in there!!!!!!!! I washed his mouth out and had him take some olive leaf and silver hydrosol. Then when I felt he was sufficiently antiseptic-ized, went back to cooking. A minute later I turn around and she's got him up on the stool again and he's CHEWING AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!







: So, through the whole routine again, this time he protested loudly (did I mention he's in the shrieking stage







) and sent them both out of the kitchen, my mom protesting, ".,.... but, I didn't give it to him!!!"







.
So two weeks later, Gabriel started getting horrible mucousy diarrhea and was acting sick. Sure enough we muscle tested him for trichinosis and that's what he got. My mom decided that we should take him immediately to the hospital. But we put him on a kids parasite cleanse and ordered the trichinosis vibropathic from hanna krogers.

And he's fine now.

But ewww. Pork and parasites. That's my update.


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## 3for3hb (Jan 13, 2005)

congrats kristina!!!!


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Monique, hope the yeast problem is cleared up soon, I'm sure that can't be pleasant







and Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww about the pork fat. I am glad he's ok and you knew exactly what to do to keep him from getting sick!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gingerstar* 
We went swimming a while ago, usually she loves it and stays in a long time, but she wanted to get out, and my MIL was playing with her, trying to get her to stay in, and Ella looked her in the eye and said "OUT!"







My MIL was like, ok, I guess she does want to get out!! And the nursing, too, now she is very clear where it has to be...."Nummy BED!" or, "Nummy COUCH!" oh, I just want to eat her up!!
















: I love it!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I'd do it wherever I liked and if anyone had a problem with it they could kiss my big lactating bum.

the "boobie not working". Squirting her in the face doesn't seem to be a viable argument for her -











Too cute about the socks, and the flags!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
I had to share my 1,000th post with y'all .









: Congrats!!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Wow, you don't realize what a chatty group we really are until you don't get online for 20 hours or so and there are a bazillion new posts! DH has needed his computer at work so I've been computer free or computer deprived during the days the last few days, depending on how you look at it.

Around here I have been a bad mommy today. The last week or so has been really difficult with the household stuff, and I haven't known why, but it seems like as much as I try to clean that I just can't the place cleaned up. I finally realized today, as I woke up to the special treat of dog barf on the living room floor to clean up, that the difference is that in addition to several commitments in the evenings, we had moved the TV to the spare bedroom and I haven't let Ella watch any videos or anything all week. So I moved her high chair into the bedroom and let her watch videos for a while today while I did some housekeeping.







I got a lot done, but OMG the place was a mess! I spent most of the day cleaning, and didn't do much except clean all the floors and clear out the fridge and clean the kitchen. And while I was talking on the phone to Amy I had to hang up abruptly after howling in pain in her ear, because I was moving the mop into another room and somehow bashed it into the top of my ear, squashing it into my skull and it really hurt terribly. It was one of those things that was terribly painful but felt mostly better except for a slight stinging/bruised feeling after a few minutes.







:

I had a funny experience yesterday with our wormies. I had a worm bin once before, as I might have mentioned, but I only had a very small starter group of worms and the project didn't last very long. But while they were around, they were content within their little home and I rarely even saw them. This time I got a lot more worms--like, 2 pounds of worms which is about at least a thousand of the little squirmers.

Anyway, Wednesday I got the worms delivered, and Ella and I spent the afternoon drilling holes into a big rubbermaid tub and tearing up newsprint and getting it wet for bedding and mixing it with some soil and putting it into the bin and putting the worms in there. I gave them a little bit of food, took the bin into the basement and that was that.

So yesterday (Thursday) I went downstairs to give the worms some mango peels and I took the lid off of the bin and there were worms crawling all up the side of the bin, on the lid, and when I opened it a bunch of them sort of were right there by my hand and fell down and squiggled out. They were squirming out the ventilation holes, falling onto the floor, and just wriggling all over the place. I screamed and threw the lid back onto the bin (killing or maiming a handful of the livestock in the process) and went out of the room. I mean, it really was like a horror movie!







I ended up trying to put them back with a yardstick but that didn't work, finally found a rubber glove (yes, I'm that squeamish about worms, just respect me for trying to worm compost at all given my reluctance to even touch the little guys!) and put as many as I could back in the bin, and sort of whacked the side of the bin so those on the side fell back inside into the bedding. So I called the place where I bought them, and they were very nice and helpful in giving me advice on what was going on and how to handle it--she said that it was probably because I'd used tap water in preparing the bedding, and if there is chlorine and flouride in the water the worms are very sensitive to it and that's why they were probably trying to escape. She recommended leaving the lid of the bin off to let it offgas more and to use filtered water or at least let the tap water sit out for a day to let the chlorine dissipate before making more bedding, and to put the bin under a light to drive them down into the bedding. The lady I talked to was really nice, she said, "They are still disoriented from being shipped, they got turned upside down and probably got too dry, and now they just need a little help in finding their home." It made me feel more compassionate toward the worms and sorry that I had killed a handful.







But anyway I followed her instructions, and it worked--the last time I went down this morning they were very happily inside their bedding all in the bottom of the bin, and swarming around some lettuce I'd put in for them the night before. Phew!









No other news here. We were going to go out on a date tonight without the beastie but that isn't going to work out, so we're thinking of maybe going to the WorldFest and taking her with us--it's a cultural festival with all kinds of different food, etc. Should be fun!


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## 3for3hb (Jan 13, 2005)

Kavita... it's so weird calling you that







. i've heard of worm composting before but I didn't realize it was that easy. Do you feed them all your kitchen scraps? I've been feeling quite guilty for all our scraps that get trashed







:
Where'd you get your worms at?

Oh, and do dd's longies still fit? Gabriel's 1st bday ones still do (I made them at the same time). Just wondering.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
It made me feel more compassionate toward the worms and sorry that I had killed a handful.







But anyway I followed her instructions, and it worked--the last time I went down this morning they were very happily inside their bedding all in the bottom of the bin, and swarming around some lettuce I'd put in for them the night before. Phew!









Hugs for the scary wormies situation! I probably would've reacted the EXACT same way.







:







:







:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Awaken* 
Hey, everybody. I know I am such a stranger around here, and I really am sorry about that. I want you all to know that I do read ALL of your posts and think about you daily!! Even though most of you reading this are probably like 'who the heck is she??'

ITA. I feel like this is me. I just post on this thread so little that I feel weird wanting to post when I do.







So all my love and support, from lurkdom.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *willemsmamma* 
Kavita... it's so weird calling you that







. i've heard of worm composting before but I didn't realize it was that easy. Do you feed them all your kitchen scraps? I've been feeling quite guilty for all our scraps that get trashed







:
Where'd you get your worms at?

Oh, and do dd's longies still fit? Gabriel's 1st bday ones still do (I made them at the same time). Just wondering.

Well, I guess the suggestion is roughly 1 lb per square foot of surface area per week, or roughly 1 foot per person although vegetarians often need more than that. I was just reading on this a few minutes ago. Basically they can NOT eat dairy, meat, very much citrus, non-organic banana peels, anything greasy or too spicy, bones, or onion/garlic skins, human or pet waste. Other than that, they can basically eat just about all fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds and filters, tea leaves and tea bags without the staples, as long as you don't feed them too much and overload the system. I ordered the worms from flowerfield enterprises, which is the business started by the late Mary Appelhoff, author of the seminal work on vermiculture entitled "Worms Eat my Garbage." I think the website is www.wormwoman.com. She suggests weighing all your household scraps for a week to see how much you have on average and what size of a worm bin you need. I of course jumped the gun and didn't do this, but I used a box that has 1.9 square feet for them. I may also get another box going and put some of them in there--they will reproduce quite a lot if you get the conditions right.

It's too bad that Teresa is back to school and not on here--I remember her talking about harvesting out her worm bin, I think she has a lot more experience in this department than I do and could probably give us some better advice! I am actually quite a novice in this department.

I haven't tried the longies on her lately--it is sooooo hot and humid here that I haven't been putting her in much but shorts and tank tops and little dresses. But it's starting to seem like it's cooling off now, so I will have to figure out where they are--I am guessing that they will still fit! We definitely love them!







:


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi everyone,

I don't have a lot of time, just a quick "hello, goodbye" post before we head off on our epic journey. I might be able to post from Helen's, if she lets me near her computer, and maybe from my friends' in Portugal but you probably won't hear much from me otherwise for the next few weeks. I hope everyone has a good most-of-september!

Oh, duh, just realized there might be a new thread. I'll go look.

ETA: There is now.


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