Breast feeding tips and advice

La Leche League will tell you that as long as the baby is latched on right, breast feeding does not hurt. That's bullshit. For the first couple weeks, it hurts like a bitch. First it causes cramps (to prevent uterine hemorrhaging and also to return the uterus to its pre-pregnancy shape and location) and then there's just sore nipples. But after the first 2 weeks or so, it doesn't hurt at all unless the latch is wrong, and sometimes not even then. But if you're just starting and it hurts, and some idiot tells you that means your doing something wrong, ignore them.

Your breasts make colostrum before the baby's even born: yellowish sticky droplets that look nothing like real milk. This is all you'll make for the first 3-7 days of the baby's life and when other moms are shoving 2 ounces of formula into their babies you might feel like your baby can't be getting enough. Wrong. A newborn baby's stomach is literally the size of a marble, and it doesn't stretch. Most of those 2 ounces of formula generally gets spit up, while the colostrum that newborns need gets swallowed and digested and absorbed. Also I have heard mothers say that they had to supplement even before they left the hospital. Who lets them think that's right?

Breast fed babies eat every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Formula fed babies can go 3 hours between feedings, but not because formula is any better than breast milk. In fact, it's just the opposite. Formula is chemicals, synthetic vitamins and minerals created in labs, and it's hard to digest. For this reason it sits in the stomach longer, making the baby feel full for longer, and causing the baby to skip meals. Breast milk is absolutely ideal and perfect for babies and is digested quickly and efficiently, giving the baby space in her stomach for the next meal to go. Nothing is worse than hearing a mother say that she supplemented because the baby ate too often, except to hear that she "scheduled" feedings every 3 hours or more.

Breast feeding is easy. Formula moms will tell you they used bottles because of the ease, but they're misguided. Formula has to be purchased, measured, mixed, warmed, and the bottles and nipples have to be sterilized. Boobs get washed in the shower (but don't use soap; it can dry the nipples and dry nipples can get sore from nursing) and that's it. No supplies to carry around in the diaper bag (except maybe a blanket if you're shy) and milk is always warm enough, never goes bad, never needs to be mixed or measured, and in the middle of the night you can nurse while you lay down and doze. In the very beginning, and usually only with the first child, it's all about how long on which side, foremilk and hindmilk, proper latch, and remembering which side you nursed on last, but after a month or so it becomes second nature and is the easiest thing in the world.

Breast fed babies have less colic, fewer ear infections, and carry their mothers' immunities longer than formula fed babies. They also test higher in school later on, probably because of the species-specific fats and proteins in breast milk. Also, formula fed babies are more likely to suffer stomach problems in infancy due to the cow-specific fats and proteins in formula. Obesity is more frequent in formula fed babies, too. To put it bluntly, nature intended human babies to drink human milk; cow's milk is for baby cows who are supposed to put on hundreds of pounds right away. We are the only species that, as a common practice, feed our young the milk of another species.

Breast feeding does not cause sagging. Pregnancy does. Breasts grow during pregnancy, and engorgement happens whether you nurse or not, both of which cause stretch marks and sagging. Nursing slows the shrinking back of breast tissue, often giving the supporting muscles and tendons time to adjust. If you just let your milk dry up right away the tendons and muscles can have a hard time keeping up. Also, women who nurse are more likely to wear a bra (often even to bed) in the beginning, helping to prevent sagging.

Nursing burns around 500 calories a day, helping women to lose pregnancy weight faster.

Formula, while generally safe, is always vulnerable to manufacturing errors, product recalls, and bad water. If your city is under a boil order and you don't find out until morning, all those bottles you fed your baby during the night become dangerous. If there's a problem at the formula factory and they recall a billion cans, how much of that formula was already eaten? Breast milk is safer from outside contamination. As for inside contamination, the myth that nursing mothers have to eat the perfect diet and abstain from all alcohol or medication is just wrong. Just like during pregnancy, a nursing mother should take a multi-vitamin and whatever nutrition she doesn't take in will be given to her milk rather than to her; the species is designed to propagate itself even at the expense of the mother. As for alcohol, one drink is metabolized per hour, from the blood and the milk. If you finish your beer at 6:00, you are free to nurse guilt-free at 7:00. And many medicines are considered safe while nursing, including many pain medications, cold and flu remedies, sleep aids, and antibiotics. Even a lot of birth controls are fine to take, depending on how the hormones might affect milk production.

Last church post, I hope

After my last rant against churches, having offended someone I seriously do not want to offend, I have given more thought to the church issue. I have figured out what bothers me and hope I am better able to articulate it now.

I read an article once that said the problem with churches today is that they water down the message to just "Be a good person", and there's more to Christianity than that. I disagree. I think there is nothing more than that. At it's core, I believe Christ's message was to be a good person. Don't judge, help the poor, go out in the world and give of yourself and be a good person. The problem is that too many churches, and too many individuals for that matter, have watered it down to just "Accept Jesus as your savior". People believe (not all of them but a lot of them) that as long as you believe that he existed and was the son of God and has the power to save you, then you're doing what you're supposed to. He said "follow me and you'll get to the kingdom" not "worship me and you'll get there". Follow, as in follow his example. Churches could be gathering places to incite revolution, to make people excited about doing things, not just talking about things. If every Sunday were a food drive, or collecting clothes for the homeless, or anything more than sitting around talking amongst themselves about how great Jesus was and how great it is to be Christian and how to always pray and give thanks. It seems to be very much about how to be a Christian even when just sitting rather than to be about not just sitting.

It's great to give a tithing every week and listen to sermons and make every third post on your facebook status about God, but how many of those people volunteer for charities?

*sigh* I'm old

Is it sad to embrace age? I started this blog when I was turning 30 (and having a hard time of it) and envying an "exciting" friend I don't talk to any more, and while I'm not saying I won't have an equally bad time (or worse) turning 40, my main problem with aging now is worrying about where the line is between being comfortable with my age and "letting myself go" in Tom's eyes.

I have gray hairs. Now, let me preface this by saying that Tom is just plain gray. Not even salt and pepper anymore, but gray. A beautiful shiny silver that I love. Like Richard Gere (growl and waggle eyebrows). But I have gray hairs that society tells me I must dye over. I could go on a rant here about chemicals and the stink of hair dye, but the fact is that I dyed my hair for over a decade. But, I like gray. I'd love white, but I'll be happy when the gray grows out and I can actually see how much there is (scraggly bar-hag grays or actual streaks?). The way I see it, little kids know that some day they'll grow old and be gray and wrinkly; it's only the delusional an denial-ridden who grow to think they can avoid that fact.

I'm always cold. I used to puff out my chest and think that it was because I was so thin, but the fact is I just get cold. So I wear a sweater. It's a shapeless old cardigan grandpa sweater, but I love it. It does, however, make me feel like my grandmother when I wear it. I have even been known to shove tissues up the sleeves on occasion. Hopeless, I know.

I'm stuck in my ways. This is another example of me not knowing where the line is. Where does "routine" end and "rut" begin? When I was pregnant and had diabetes, I ate oatmeal every morning. Real, old-fashioned, unsweetened oats that had to soak overnight on the stove. After Danny was born, I was glad to be done with all the dietary rules, but soon realized that a fear of weight gain and Type 2 diabetes scared me away from a lot of foods. So now, every morning, I eat real, old-fashioned, unsweetened oatmeal. Only now, I splurge and put milk in it. It's not my only routine, but who wants to read (or publish) a list of ridiculous habits?

I try to "act my age". You know that lady at the store (or bar or PTA meeting or whatever) who wears shorts so short you can see her episiotomy scar? The one with her stretch marks hanging out of her crop top who pulls into the parking lot with Lady Gaga blaring out of her 2 door car with booster seats in back? Yeah, I don't want to be her. I wear long pants most of the time, I stopped going braless years ago (when there developed a noticeable lag between when I turned around and "they" did) and I shun all sparkly, sequined, glittery, or foil-printed clothing. I am an adult and I will dress like it, even if it makes me look like I'm 60. I'm a firm believer that, "There's nothing tragic about being 50, unless you try to be 25." I'm not 50 yet, but I think it's true for most ages that it just looks pathetic to try to be younger than you are.

a problem with churches today

I don't trust fat preachers. There's just something about representing yourself as a role model in Christianity while also being a walking billboard for gluttony that screams "Hypocrisy". I also don't trust extravagant or fancy churches. No matter how many paintings we have of Jesus in white robes with whispy blond hair, the fact remains that he was a wanderer in the desert who bathed in rivers when he came across them and gave all he had (including his life) to those in need. I cannot reconcile this with mega-churches or churches with indoor basketball courts and state of the art technology. Not only does it reek of pride, but it also diverts funds from charitable Jesus-like purposes to rather selfish ones. The Vatican is of course, the worst, but there are plenty of evangelical churches here in the US almost as bad.

There's a church here in town I just hate. hate with a passion! Electronic church bells that blare musak Christian rock, a gymnasium, a fat preacher, all of it. How many mosquito nets could that money have bought for malaria-ridden countries? How many AIDS medications could have been purchased and sent to Africa? How many hungry people could have been fed with that money? Jesus made bread and fishes for the masses; he didn't just feed his own little group fancier food.

I hate most churches, but I do hold a soft spot for the little one-room churches with old basement kitchens and no air conditioning. They somehow seem more sincere, a little less arrogant, more humble. They seem closer to God than the ones with plush carpet and padded pews and wide screen plasma TVs.

Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar

My junior year in high school I wrote a story very much like Stephen King's Rage. It was basically a first person account of a Columbine-style massacre, told from the killer's viewpoint. Of course, this was pre-Columbine so the true horror of such a thing wasn't really all that clear. It was just the violent fantasy of a bullied kid. But I had a teacher who was fresh out of an entirely religious education process and she found the thing and went all ballistic about it. I ended up getting referred to a shrink about it. Actually, the school brought the damned shrink to me. So once a week for about a month I skipped gym class to go chat with this lady so she could, I assume, tell me not to blow away the varsity football team. I came to call her Louise The Incompetent.

I once read an article about a shrink in the 70s who, to discover if gender identity and sexual orientation were learned or born traits, performed sex changes on infants and then quizzed them yearly about their sexual fantasies and showed them porno movies. I think that guy mentored Louise The Incompetent in college. She just had a whole lot of really 70s ideas about things. Very sexualized and Freudian. She told me (after a month, mind you) that I had been molested as a child and repressed the memories and that I had some sort of Oedipal complex toward my father. Yeah, I don't think so. I ended up declining her invitation to pursue my therapy sessions, promised never to shoot anyone (a promise I have kept, by the way) and moved to a new school with a less offensive varsity football team.

Last time I saw Louise The Incompetent, she said hi and waved like we were old friends. I tried to be cordial, but it's so hard when you hate someone. I mean, who tells a messed up 16 year old kid that they want to fuck their dad? I also got a facebook friend request from her that put me in a pissy mood for a good week. I once asked a competent therapist about Louise's whole repressed memory molestation theory and found out that it was very freshman-year psych 101. My views of sex were at the time indicative of me being exposed to sex at an age where I was too young to understand it. About half the time, that results from being abused. But in the other half, it comes from finding porn. And I had a neighbor girl when I was little who loved to show off her mom's Penthouse collection. Yeah, so no molestation here, just good old fashioned porno. And Loise, well she's in real estate now. I guess she finally realized that she sucked at shrinking heads.

And Rage by Stephen King is still an awesome book.

I have it all

How on Earth did I get here? What did I ever do to deserve all of this? I have an amazing husband who I literally thank the universe for every day. I have 3 great kids who make me smile all the time. And I have my dream home, my dream life, my dream everything. I mean, I could use a new van, but still basically, a dream everything. I must have been Gandhi in a past life.

Things I'm learning (before I forget)

1. Don't forget swaddling! At first I swaddled the baby all the time, but after a while I tapered off. Last night I broke out the Woombie again and Danny slept alone until 11:30.
2. Woombies are awesome. They're expensive (I got mine at Mamabargains) but they're worth it. If you can't find one for a decent price, go with SwaddleMe blankets, but the Woombie is more inescapable.
3. Don't sit down to nurse a baby without a spit rag. I seem to gravitate towards whichever couch the thing is NOT on, and then I get urped on and have nothing to clean up with.
4. Take 5 minutes. Repeatedly. Take the time to brush your teeth and hair before rushing to the crying baby. Take the time to make your coffee (decaf- blech!) while the baby fusses in the swing. Chew your food even if the baby doesn't want you to. Don't take hours, but take 5 minutes sometimes.
5. Do laundry. A lot. If I've done the laundry I feel like I'm not letting the house go, like I'm accomplishing something in the day, and it's one of the quickest chores I have. It takes 5 minutes to throw soap and clothes in the washer, and then another 5 minutes later to toss them in the dryer, and I can wait to fold them until Tom or Ryan gets home. Plus, I seem to get urped on a lot so I always have shirts that need to be washed.
   
6. Gilligan & O'Malley nursing tanks are great. I only have one right now but I hope to get more and to wear them even through the winter, under flannel shirts and cardigans. It's so nice to be able to nurse without wrenching the collar of my button down shirt over to the side, or lifting up my t-shirt and flaunting my belly. Plus it's a really good tank top. Supportive bra in it, fitted but not skin-tight, long enough to not show midriff or muffin top. I may wear the thing even after I'm done nursing.
7. If you're going to nurse laying down in bed, or co-sleep, put something under the baby. Danny's peed my sheets twice and crapped them once, too.
   

Autumnal dreams

Well, I had my baby, school has started for Ryan, and I'm ready for summer to be over. Or at least, for some cooler temperatures. I'd like to be able to take the boys for a walk, but not in 85` heat with 90% humidity. I'd like to wear Danny around in my new Moby wrap, but not when he just sweats and turns red where we meet. I like summer, but I love autumn, and I can't wait for red and gold leaves, pumpkins, apple cider, fires on the back patio, and Halloween. I got a sewing machine for my birthday this year so I'm definitely making at least one costume, hopefully two. I have no idea what I'll dress Danny as, but Tommy will probably want to be Diego.

Danny Boy

Danny was born almost 4 hours after my water broke (and 20 minutes after the doctor broke my water, because I make indestructible water that has to break twice) after ten whole minutes of pushing. And yeah, I got the epidural for that. heheheh
In the past 5 days, Danny has taught me much. I have learned that, contrary to manufacturer's instructions, you should NOT order your nursing bras by your third trimester measurements. The cup size is fine but the band is too big, resulting in supported but disturbingly wide set bosoms. I have learned that you can have 3 opposites. All of my kids look exactly opposite from one another. Bald and pink with blond peach fuzz. Darker complected with long brown hair. And finally pink and blond with long thick hair.

I want another one

I would like to wear winter maternity clothes. I think it would be nice to have big baggy sweaters and hoodies that don't meet in the middle, and to not have to worry about whether or not the straps on my tank top will cover my bra. It would be nice to have the thick, shiny, pregnancy hair and be able to wear it down my back instead of up in a ponytail in a vain attempt to not sweat to death through the back of my neck.

Sure, GD during fudge and cookie season would suck, but not gaining five pounds in December would be kind of cool. As would being able to pick out a coming-home-from-the-hospital outfit for a baby that consists of more than just a onesie.

I still really want this baby out of me, but I still also wish I could get another one in there sometime too. Making people is cool (until the last week or so) and it sucks that my pancreas is my people-making enemy. Like kryptonite for Superman, if kryptonite only really affected his ability to eat candy bars unrestricted.

It's not about YOU!

I have gotten used to being the only woman left on the planet to wait until birth to learn the sex of the baby, but am I really the only one who lets the baby decide when to come out?! Does everyone opt for elective induction? All I keep hearing is that it's all about the mother, and it's her day, and the most important thing is to make her comfortable. Gee, you'd almost forget there was a baby involved. I kind of thought it was all about him! Or her.

miserable

This baby had better come out soon. Ten days until Tommy's birthday, and I think it would be cool for them to share a birthday. But, can I make it another ten days?

36 weeks pregnant

Last time I was this far along I went to the doctor on July 14 and then drove into a wall at 60 mph. Today's appointment was much less exciting, thank gods. I'm dilated to 2 cm (more than I've ever gotten to without pitocin) and am 50% effaced, plus the baby's head is so far down that my pelvis is spreading. I wonder what all that pressure on the skull will do to the baby's head? I've known babies who were so low they were born misshapen. Oh well, hats are cute.

Ryan and Mom go to Yellowstone Friday, for a week and a half so either this baby has to come in the next day and a half or it has to wait a couple weeks. I'm still hoping to have it on the fourth but we'll see just how much say I have in it. Wish me luck; I'll keep you all (one?) updated.

Baby Products I absolutely recommend

1. swaddling blankets. I've used the kiddopotamus ones before and loved them, but this time I splurged and bought the woombie and I hope they work as well as I've heard. Either way, the principle is the same: blankets that fasten shut so the baby can't wiggle out as easily.
2. toy links. These help bring hanging toys into baby's reach, hang Mom's purse on the stroller handle, attach handles cups to the stroller so they don't hit the ground, and basically whatever else you can think of. If I had a time machine I'd go back and invent them because they are so simple they make me feel stupid for not thinking of it first.
3. musical crib toy. There are all sorts of these things, and some people just use a white noise machine, but we chose to start with a heartbeat teddy bear and then go to a musical seahorse, which Tommy still uses. When we put him in bed we tuck him in, hand him his stuffed kitty, and then turn on the music. Sometimes we hear him wake up in the middle of the night and turn on the music himself. He's like Pavlov's dog now and starts yawning once he hears it. It's on my list of things to buy before the baby is born, so they can both have their own.
4. blackout curtains. Or at least a heavy blanket over the windows. Frilly, sheer curtains look good in the daytime, but unless you want your baby to wake up at dawn or have trouble napping, you'll want to find a way to keep the room dark. I made curtains for Tommy's room, and just lined them with a thicker black fabric and so far they seem to work well.
5. Baby sunglasses. I've never used the goggles kind with the elastic strap, but any kind would be good as long as they didn't dig into the baby's head. The reason I like these so much is that I see babies all the time squinting against the sun. Either the shade in the car window stopped working after taking that last turn, or the stroller canopy leaves a crack exposed, or it's just a bright day out and they're in a sunny spot. Either way, the odds are about 50/50 that the baby will leave them on if you start young enough (like within 2 days of birth) and it's definitely worth the $5 a pair of sunglasses cost to play those odds. My daughter loved hers and my son hated his. I still don't regret buying them either time.
   

Pointless baby "necessities" that are a waste of money

1. baby mittens. Most newborn outfits come with the little fold-over pocket on the sleeves to keep baby from scratching herself, and if they don't you can use socks, which are cheaper and stay on better than little thumbless mittens anyway.
2. bassinet. I'm not talking about the pack-n-play with a higher level for a newborn to sleep in, but the piece of designer wicker furniture that stands in the corner, all top-heavy, just waiting for the baby to learn to move the slightest bit and topple it over. Cute, but pointless.
3. wipe warmer. If your house is too cold for baby wipes, why is the baby sleeping in it? Otherwise, room temperature wipes are fine and don't bother most babies. Maybe if the alternative were bracingly cold wipes a warmer would make sense, but in that case either the butt in question would already be bracingly cold, or you'd be an idiot for storing your wipes in the fridge.
4. gender specific gear. For one thing, ultrasounds are NOT always right, and buying your high chair, car seat, stroller, and swing in sexist colors could prove to be a mistake. For another thing, what if you have another baby someday and that kid is the opposite sex? Hand me downs are great, but when everything is pink and frilly, and the next baby comes out with a penis, it might be awkward (and expensive) to say the least.
5. Jogging strollers. Unless you actively jog, in straight lines on a roadway rather than a segmented sidewalk, these strollers are kind of pointless. For one thing, they cost WAY more than the regular travel-system stroller, which will work from birth through the toddler years, but they also don't all turn. A lot of the jogging strollers have immobile front wheels, which makes turning corners and maneuvering through doorways incredibly difficult.
6. crib sets. Of course when you're pregnant and setting up the baby's room, you want everything to be as cute as possible. But the $200 crib set is ridiculous. It is possible to buy a sheet (or two) and bumper pads for less than a hundred bucks. For less than fifty, probably. And the comforter and dust ruffle may look nice, but you don't use a blanket in the beginning anyway, and a dust ruffle is pretty pointless as it is. Also, these sets come with one sheep, which is fine until you put an actual baby on it and it gets spit up on, or pooped on, or it just becomes time to do a load of laundry, and then you have to have a second sheet anyway.
7. shoes. Shoes for children and adults are to protect their feet in case they step on something, or to keep them clean. Babies need no such protection. They look good in pictures, but you have no way of knowing how comfortable they are and wearing shoes can actually hamper learning to walk. If you must put shoes on a baby (barring formal occasions like weddings) use the soft ones without soles. And for God's sake, don't spend $50 on Nikes for a kid who will outgrow them within a month and never appreciate it anyway.
8. walkers. They don't teach babies how to walk; they teach them how to propel themselves backward into table legs and cabinets, and occasionally down stairs. If you want something comparable, get an exersaucer. It comes with more toys and less mobility.
   

A Mother's Wisdom

I'm definitely nesting now. I'm doing laundry every day, even if I don't have enough to make a whole load, and packing up my hospital bag and feeling a restless energy that should be put to use cleaning my house but often isn't (nesting does not negate the pointless feeling that comes when you realize your toddler will just grind more cheerios into the floor when you're done cleaning anyway). So now that I've told myself for the third time in fifteen minutes that I am not going to climb in the tub with a bottle of Soft Scrub and a brush, since I just showered and would like to stay clean for a while, I am going to make a list of things I've learned about childbirth, in case anyone actually reads this thing and maybe they've never been through this before and would appreciate my wisdom.

The lists that tell you to bring make up to the hospital for pictures are stupid. Sweaty hair, burst blood vessels, and a tear-streaked face are not going to magically transform into your everyday visage with the addition of lipstick and mascara. And they shouldn't. Your immediately-after-giving-birth photos should look like you just gave birth, not like you just showed up to meet the baby you're adopting.

The books and articles and websites about childbirth that tell you to steal the "handy" mesh panties from the hospital are stupid too. They all say to take the panties so that you can wear them for the first few days after delivery, so that if your pad leaks you won't stain your own underwear. Well, first of all, any underwear you wear within a week of giving birth will be stretched out beyond recognition anyway, stained or not, and you'll have to throw it away. But, second of all, think about it! If your pad leaks and you're wearing mesh fishnet panties (which are so stretchy they don't hold the pad against you anyway) you will ruin whatever is next in line for the blood to get to. This could be your clothes, or your bedding, or even your car if said clothes are thin enough. This is why I NEVER wear the mesh panties. Nope, not even the first day. I do, however, wear disposable underwear, in the form of adult diapers. No, not the diaper looking kind they sell on fetish websites (so I hear), but the padded paper underwear kind (like Pull-Ups but without the Minnie Mouse graphics). That way I can sleep well knowing that there's no way I'm going to ruin my sheets, and I can go out knowing I'm not going to be the last to realize a large red blotch blossoming on the back of my pants, and I can go more than an hour without running to the bathroom with an airline-pillow sized maxi pad in my fist. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking there's no way you could possibly wear an adult diaper, because you have dignity. Well. . .

You have no dignity. Once you've had strangers who may be part of the nursing staff but who really knows because you're in no position to be checking IDs checking you for dilation, and peed into an upside down plastic toddler cowboy hat every hour all night just to have your kidney output measured, pushed out a baby with none of the fears of public pooping that you'd previously had, and then asked just about anyone capable of pronouncing "La Leche" about nipple pain and the football hold (or alternately about engorgement and cold cabbage leaves), your dignity is gone. Before this happens, you can't imagine such a thing, but it's true. Kind of the way you swear you'll never let your husband see you less than presentable but then you get the flu and he not only sees you sick but knows what color you vomit after chicken soup. Like that.

Breast feeding hurts. Not as much as childbirth, or even as much as stubbing your toe, should you stub your toe for ten minutes on each side every two hours, but what the experts refer to as "sore nipples" is more like tearful pain. Don't get me wrong; I've done it for a year with each of my kids so far and fully intend to do it for a year with the third. But when they tell you that breast feeding doesn't hurt unless you're doing it wrong, they're bullshitting you. For the first month or two it will hurt. Nipples chap and sometimes crack (like if you suddenly were to start washing your hands a hundred times every day), and babies have stronger suction than squids (I assume; I have no proof), and it hurts. But it gets better, and it gets easier (if it hurts too much, buy a nipple shield; you can get them online or at drug stores), and by the baby's two month check-up most nursing mothers wouldn't trade it for the world. Just, don't listen to experts who will tell you that it shouldn't hurt, or that nipple shields are only for people with inverted nipples. Those people are wrong. Period. End of story. And it only hurts for the first few weeks. After that your nipples toughen up (in pain tolerance, not in texture- don't worry) and you could slam the damn things in a car door without getting hurt.

Men who say they wish they could share your pain are lying. Grab them by the nuts during just one contraction and see for yourself. They will, however, attempt to share your hospital issue pudding cups. Bastards.

Steal from the hospital. Everything except the fishnet underwear. Take the Vaseline and the diapers and the wipes and pads and bottle of hand sanitizer and stupid little leaky bum pads (they call them chucks, can you believe it?!). Take it all, because they will bill you for it anyway and they actually expect it. Leave the onesies and the sheets, but take all the "disposable" stuff. In fact, I never buy diapers before having the baby. I figure if I buy size 1 they'll be too big and if I buy size Newborn I'll pop out a ten pound baby, so I just steal from the hospital and then send my husband to Walmart before I run out.

Hospitals are loud. And bright. And babies have no sense of time. You'll likely either give birth in the middle of the night, or during the day after a long night of labor. An airline sleep mask and a pair of earplugs are wonderful things to pack. You'll still hear it when the baby next to you starts crying but if you're lucky you won't hear it when the baby down the hall starts crying, and then sets off all the others in chorus.

Contractions hurt like a bitch. Some women can breathe their way through them and use focal points and whatnot, but they still hurt. There's no reason to go to the hospital for a tightening feeling, or cramping, or pressure. When you feel like screaming and gutting yourself with a fishing knife, that's when you should go to the hospital. Very very few women don't realize they need to go to the hospital. Even those women on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" usually think their appendix is bursting or something. It's different for every woman, and for every birth, but it does hurt, and those of us who get epidurals don't do it because of a tightening, or cramping, or pressure. And once you've been through it just once, even if you had a relatively painless experience (emphasis on the word relatively), you too will laugh at the women who go to the hospital with indigestion.

Weepy mother post

It has occurred to me that the baby could very well be born this month, and that seems to be what it takes to kick me into gear. Today we bought the baby its first toy (a floppy stuffed Eeyore) and the picture/coming home outfits (one for each sex, since we don't know), and when we got home I vacuumed the bedroom and put together the pack n play. Well, I started putting it together but you need a waist to do that so Tom helped me. Then I ripped the covers off the swing and bouncer and carseat and am now doing a load of delicates to wash all that up. I need to pack my hospital bag (Ryan has the bag somewhere in her room and I try not to go in there because I suspect there are VC tripwires in the clutter) and wipe down the plastic parts of all the baby gear (Damn! I forgot to buy Clorox wipes) and then worry and panic and all the other stuff I've been successfully putting off by telling myself I had the whole rest of the summer left to go.

Tommy held the Eeyore in the cart while we shopped today and he was being so gentle with it. He kissed it and hugged it and rubbed it softly. He is going to be so good with this baby and it makes me tear up to think about. He's already such a big boy and he's not even two yet! He's decided recently that he loves taking showers with us. He took his shower with me last night and stayed in there through all my shampooing and conditioning and everything, and then he didn't want to get out when I did. I let him hang out in there under the water for a while and he looked so grown up. Not afraid of getting water in his eyes or anything, just holding onto the bar of soap and rubbing it on his belly until Tom made him get out. It seems so hard to believe that two years ago I was feeling all the same kicks I feel now, and it was him!

Ryan went to he movies with a friend last night. Her first movie without a parent. She saw Twilight Eclipse and I guess she liked it, although the whole Twilight saga makes me roll my eyes. Too much emotional drama and eternal love pledging by teenagers. But apparently mopey pouty kids are what people want to see these days. I'll wait till November and go see Harry Potter 7 with her, thank you very much. If she hasn't completely outgrown being seen with Mom, by then. I miss my little girl. Just a few years ago she was dressed up as Luna Lovegood at the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book, struggling to stay awake long enough to get it, hyped up on chocolate frogs and smoothies from the Border's coffee shop. Now she only wears black and everything has to have skulls on it and when she stands next to me she's almost as tall as me. Taller, if she's wearing her black platform boots and hipster fedora. I remember when she was the one with the stuffed Eeyore.

Ugh. Hormones! I'm getting all weepy now. I have to go switch the laundry out now, and avoid any more maudlin internet prose. Hopefully my next post won't be that the baby's here. I'm not ready for that just yet.

Sometimes it sucks to be a mom

Brian Jensen was a punk. He worked at the pizza place a lot of my friends worked at and he thought he was the baddest, best looking, most envied guy around. No one liked him, but he couldn't see that. He attended the local community college (and flunked every class) and drove a five year old Grand Am with a $5000 paint job and lived in his parents' basement. When he would return from a delivery an hour late, or twenty dollars short, or when he'd hang up after taking an order with no address or phone number, he'd shrug and say "I have ADD." It was his answer to everything, because it had always worked. He'd been medicated since first grade and had never learned to do so much as tie both of his shoes in a row. He played video games and read comic books and admitted that they were the only things that could hold his attention because the explosions and fights "changed things up every couple of seconds".
When my daughter was 8 and the doctor suggested ADD as a possible cause of her falling grades, Brian Jensen was the face that popped into my mind. I agreed to have her tested, and gave the questionnaires to her teachers, and filled out the parent portion myself, but the whole time I was thinking, "She can read a Harry Potter book in one day! How can she have trouble focusing?" It wasn't until the doctor told me that it was ADD that it was explained to me. Everyone can focus on stuff they like; kids with ADD just can't focus on anything they don't. It's not by choice, just an inability to buckle down. But still, did I want my kid to be Brian Jensen or worse, whatever Brian Jensen would become if unable to get his pills? If Ryan did have ADD, I told myself, it was a mild case and she could learn to focus despite the obstacle. And then if she found herself without insurance, or in a new town with a new doctor unwilling to write the prescription, she wouldn't find herself incapable of keeping or finding a job.
That was 4 years ago. There's a boarding school Ryan wants to go to, an actual goal she has, that depends in large part of grades. And in the past year I've gotten phone calls about forgotten homework assignments (including ones she was looking forward to), papers left on her desk at home over and over again, and even once when she hit a kid without even realizing she was doing it. Classic ADD behavior. So I finally broke down and asked for a prescription, and it costs $150.00.
It sucks to finally come to terms with the fact that your kid needs a crutch, only to find out you can't even give it to them. And Tom tells me that a kid who can read a whole book in one day can't have ADD anyway, and that she needs to just buckle down when she doesn't like something. It feels like there's no one to talk to about this, no one who will understand how hard it is to try to walk the line between denying your kid help she needs and not letting her stand on her own two feet. And every day that I spend wobbling on that tightrope is another day she doesn't have the help.
I can't help but wonder; if the pills were free, would Tom have such an objection to them?

Stupid name trends

1. Sticking y's in names for no reason, just to seem edgy. Robyn, Suzyn, Eryn, Kymberly, Jaymie. It's stupid and unnecessary and dooms your kid to a lifetime of misspellings. It's almost as bad as
2. Sticking i's in names for no reason, just to seem edgy. Kimmi, Candi, Jacki, Jenni. Names are assumed to carry with them some sort of dignity and replacing the Y with an I, or just eliminating half of the IE erases that dignity, and it also makes the name sort of porny.
3. Stripper names. Certain names don't have Ks in them. Crystal, Candy, Carla, all normal with a C. But Krystal, Kandy, and Karla are all stripper names. Stick a Lynn at the end and they go straight from the pole to the screen. (What jobs are there for a Krystal Lynn other than porn actress or Dairy Queen clerk?)
4. Giving kid names to babies who will hopefully survive into adulthood. Don't name your son Billy or Timmy or Danny. Name him William or Timothy or Daniel. Or at least go with Bill, Tim, or Dan. No adult man wants to hear "Do you, Timmy, take Suzyn to be your wife?"
5. Horribly dated names. Don't name your kid Hermione, or Renesmee, or Miley, or Chandler, or any other name that no one ever thought of before the movie/TV show/album came out. How stupid would it be for some 50 year old guy to be walking around named Howdy Doody? About as dumb as the 35 year old soccer moms named Madonna seem. And as much as you love the idea of naming your princess after a half vampire baby who killed her own mother, it's tacky.
6. Adjectives as names. Nothing sounds good after Harry, or Dusty, or Rusty. There are plenty of very good names you can choose for your kid wihtout it sounding like a bad description.
   

more to come....

Americans eat stupid.

I don't understand how most Americans eat. I mean it. We have to have MSG in everything. Or sugar, or salt, or high fructose corn syrup, because we've over-stimulated our taste buds to the point where anything natural is bland and subtle flavors are undetectable. I grew up on pasteurized processed cheese food and the first time I tasted Meunster cheese, it tasted like air to me. It took 3 cubes of cheese before I could detect any flavor at all! And yet, despite that, we seek out the bland in everything! White bread, white rice, pre-steamed rolled oatmeal (which we then add sugar to. Go figure.). A study was published this week detailing the correlation between brown rice consumption and lower diabetes rates. The thing is, all the articles I read were very clear in stating that no one knows why this correlation exists but that there is a very good chance that people who pick brown rice over its bleached counterpart are more likely to lead healthier lives in general. In other words, yoga instructors and vegans eat brown rice, not couch potatoes and the morbidly obese. (A gross generalization but not one without merits.) I try to eat healthy, and simply, but I fail sometimes just like everyone else. But I think my days of white rice are over, in part because of my predisposition to diabetes. Two bouts of genstational diabetes have scared me enough to eat chewier rice.