Gratitude Abounds: Day 2

Doing good so far; I've made it back for day two. I am practically on a role here.


2. The comforts I enjoy in my daily life have been thrown into sharp relief over the past week, as Hurricane Sandy and her aftermath have devastated so many communities on the east coast. There are many days that I come inside from the rain and the wind and I am so happy to be walking into my warm, dry house. However, the news from across the nation has reminded just how damn lucky I am to have consistent access to gas for my car, to stores stocked with food, to new rolls of paper towels and the stores that sell them, to Target for all the things that I know I do not need but buy anyway, to electricity to do silly little things such as charge my phone and run my modem. I know that life can be lived fully and very satisfyingly (is that a real word?) without any of the above things, so I do not doubt that, if I chose to do so, I could live my life quite well without any of them (some easier to give up than others). However, they have become creature comforts that make my life easier and, to a lesser extent, less dire and survivalist. And for that, I truly am grateful.

And I am grateful for warm kitties who, while they absolutely will not come sit on my lap no matter what I do, will always curl up on the arm of the couch to at least be near where I am (but would never admit this, if they could speak English, that is).

Gratitude Abounds: Day 1

So this has been one killer year. Probably one of my best ever, if I do say so myself. I think the hubs would back me up on this one, too. We have made new friends, traveled to new places and experienced new things, we have become healthier than ever, we are constantly striving to make changes that make our lives better...happier...more fulfilling.

Because of all this, I feel it is time to start counting my blessings. Quite literally, in fact.

I give you Day One of what I am calling the 30-Day Gratitude Tour de Force.

P.S. To do this successfully will require me actually posting something on this somewhat musty blog each day for 30 days, so, you know, win-win.

1. I am immensely grateful for the job offer from a certain Ms. Holly Armstrong six, almost seven, years ago that brought the hubs and I down to Olympia to live. After hearing about the position opening as an aside, I have never worked so hard for a job in my life, even asking friends who knew Holly to call her after my interview to put in a good word for me. The hubs and I ran through practice interviews at the Starbucks near our house in Phinney Ridge, I drove through a torrential downpour to get to the interview, had to park half a mile away and paddle my way upstream to get to the Legislative Building in time to somewhat dry myself off with paper towels in the women's restroom before sloshing into the Governor's Office to wait, nervously fidgeting on those uncomfortable and forbidding-looking brown leather couches.

Luckily Holly is much less forbidding than those couches and I soon had a chance to work for her for two all too short years. Life-changing in so many ways, the events that led up to me getting that call from Holly ended up being what set my life on the path it is on now.

(I am also grateful for wireless internet. Seriously.)

The few, the proud ... the parents of multiple children

Invoking my "do-not-have-to-summarize-everything-that-has-happened-since-I-last-posted" clause ... NOW!

This post is dedicated to my sistas from another mister, those of you with two or more kiddos. I am humbled before your tired feet and your frazzled mind.

Allow me to explain. Tonight my hubs is going to be home later than usual. Notice I did not say late, just *later*. He will be here long before the kiddo goes to bed.

However, it is now about 20 minutes or so past the time one of us (between the kiddo and I) starts to peer out the front windows, hoping - for very different reasons - that we will soon see our crappy little rundown truck pull up. (The kiddo: "Ahh! Daddy daddy daaaaaaaadyyyyyyy! Mama, it's daddy! He's home!" Me: "Oh thank god.")

And I am already starting to question everything that led up to having a child.

“Any parent who is honest will tell you, you live with that ambivalence. You look at the face of your beautiful, lovely child and you think two things at the exact same time: ‘I love this kid so much that it ‘s changed my whole life. I love other people more because of how much I love her. I love people that died years ago more. My love has traveled time because of how completely I love her and she loves me back. She’s completely given value to life that didn’t exist before and I regret every decision that led to her birth’. That’s how it feels.”

—	Louis C.K.

Coming up next

In a little over two and a half days, I will start a new chapter in my life.

Scratch that.

A new book.

I will be attending a weekend training to become a FITNESS INSTRUCTOR! I know, right? To be specific, a Stroller Strides and Body Back instructor, which I think is the best kind there is. Yeah, I'm biased, but you will be, too, once I tell you why.

Six months ago, I hauled my sleepy, bleary-eyed self out of bed at 4:50 a.m., put on an (as you'll see in the October 2011 photos below) ill-fitting shirt and pants, laced up my shoes and drove downtown for my first day of Body Back. I seriously had no idea what to expect and was pretty nervous, as I had heard there would be running involved and I couldn't even remember the last time I had run without being chased. By something scary and possible dangerous.

Anyway, yes, there was running (only a half-mile, but that's a lot for someone who, again, doesn't run unless it's to save herself from certain death), as well as push ups, sit ups, bicep curls, planks, a weigh-in and measurements and photos.

After that first eight-week session (October to December 2011), it was really difficult for me to pick out what I liked best about the Body Back program. You workout with a group of mamas (score!) who, like you, hauled themselves out of bed insanely early for a super tough workout (score!), you are accountable to yourself for the food you eat and the work you put in (score!), you may even start feeling like you are accountable to your fellow mamas (score!), you meet the most amazing women you will ever know (double score!) and you make changes in your life, not just in your body (triple score!).

Then Kim Bauer, our Stroller Strides and Body Back maven and one of my favorite people, sent me my before and after photos. That's when I realized that my favorite thing about those first two months of Body Back was that everything I mentioned above leads to this: it works.

More to come!

And now for something completely different

I really don't like to go out on a limb and say things like, "Best ever," "Nothing like it," and "Life-changing," because those are pretty big words that could lose a lot of their oomph if you use them haphazardly.

Keeping that in mind, you may know that last October I took the first step on what has turned out to be a truly life-changing journey for me. I signed up for Bodyback, a more intense program from the fab mama who created Stroller Stride that includes workouts and a food component and it ended up to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. When I tell people about it, I have a hard time talking about the food part of it because it is definitely not a restrictive diet or calorie counting. I guess I haven't exactly found the right words to describe that part of it. The next eight-week Bodyback session begins next Monday (my third!) and I was looking back over my food journals to see how I was eating when I started this process.

My very first day of Bodyback, when I came home from my first group workout with my new food journals in hand and I had done no shopping to prepare any of the meals included, I had a bowl of cereal and a protein smoothie (one of the Bodyback recipes) made with a banana, yogurt, rice milk, protein powder, flax seed and peanut butter (because we are the type of family who has all these things in the house at any given time). It was a few days before I was only eating one of the breakfasts at a time - I did a few days of the peanut butter protein smoothie with something else, like the egg breakfast sandwich or the breakfast quinoa.

It took me about a week to incorporate the two snacks into my day, and then a few more weeks to actually eat them consistently every day. Looking over all of the week's of food journaling since October 24, there hasn't been one entire week where I didn't have at least one after dinner snack, be it healthy or not!

Now that I am working out six days a week, my eating and need for energy has changed so dramatically from my needs the first few weeks. Add on top of that I am achieving a personal best for running distance each week as I train and prepare for the Capital City Half-Marathon, and some days I find myself needing to eat every hour and a half to two hours! Certainly a change from the beginning.

Anyway, I promise to update this more as I move through this next session of Bodyback., My goals are different and my body is different from when I started, so I really have no idea what to expect.

So It's Been a Long Time. Whatevs.

Anything less than a year and I consider myself a candidate for sainthood.

Today happens to be Valentine's Day 2012. Our kiddo's third day Valentine's Day.

We (okay, maybe it's just me - I probably shouldn't speak for the hubs) would put ourselves squarely into the "less is more" category when it comes to giving gifts. I got my husband a thoughtful card and made us a super delectable, unexpected Valentine's Day treat (The New York Times' Dark Chocolate Cherry Ganache Bars). I'm planning a flavorful yet relatively healthy dinner (The Gracious Pantry's clean eating curry chicken and Enlightened Cooking's Moroccan quinoa salad) and that's it. It should be noted here that I love to cook and would have made dinner anyway - now I get to make something brand new. We got the toddler a big ol' red mylar Valentine's balloon and a card that plays music. And that's it.

That being said, I can't help but feel like I should be doing more, what with all the ads littering the right side of my Facebook news feed for 14 dozen roses, delivered by a dancing cat dressed like your favorite character from Downton Abbey, and the posts from friends in which they share that they made their kids a fully-functioning servant robot.

I've never been one to go all out on Valentine's Day and, in fact, I am a pretty awkward romantic dinner date. I'm also a hot mess at arts and crafts and other homemade-y gifties. What about you all? Do you go all out on this day, or is it just an exceptionally pleasant February day?  

Talk About Your Delayed Gratification!

So it turns out that the last time I wrote for this blog was my kid's birthday. When she turned one. Not the one that just happened, where she turned two.

Yikes. I am behind.

In an effort to save you and me both from the written word version of the time-passing montage in movies, I'll try my best not to recap everything that has happened in the last year.  I can tell you that it involved a trip to Hawai'i, a handful of birthdays, a Thanksgiving dinner with friends, a Christmas holiday with a very sick kiddo, a trip to the coast, innumerable Facebook posts, and, perhaps most happily, growing friendships and a connections to a place that we may just very well end up calling home.

Things seem to be going well on the home front - for example, I can hear my kiddo just woke up from her nap and is doing some wake up yoga in her crib: "Meow, moo! Meow, moo! Woof woof woof woof woof. Meow, moo!" (That's cat and cow pose, with a few downward dogs thrown in for good measure).

I have an idea for a post swirling about in my head, on the topic of kid-free flights, or restaurants, or dog parks (see this article, shared by a friend on Facebook: More adults support kid-free zones) but I haven't sorted out my thoughts enough to write anything on it without coming across as a raging loony. 

What are your thoughts on the topic? Please share them in the comments.

And she's one.

Today, at 9:42 a.m., my kiddo turned one year old.

The BabyCenter emails I receive weekly have changed from a subject line of, "My Baby This Week" to "My Toddler This Week." That stinks. I think I'll unsubscribe from those emails.

She opened her present of books, a drum and a coat this morning. As expected, once she tore through the tissue paper, climbed over the drum and chewed on the books, she has moved on to pulling magazines down off a shelf she has only recently been able to reach, and trying to pry open the one DVD case we forgot to move out of her reach.

The dog and cat prepared a little something for her special day - from the dog it was/continues to be full facial licking, and from the cat it appears to be a resolve to not run away immediately.

The day has only just begun; we have plans to visit our midwife with homemade brownies in tow and to buy a child bike trailer as a one-year gift to ourselves.

Last night, before falling asleep, I read her birth story...at least, as much as I have written down. It may have happened 365 days ago, but I feel more ownership and more deep pride at her birth than ever before.

Happy birthday to me.

Weird Mother's Day

I feel a bit weird about this coming Mother's Day.  It's always been an awkward day for me.  Also, I don't much care for flowering plants.

This year is the first year that there is visual proof of my momness, so I am pretty sure that this Mother's Day applies to me.  And that's weird.  It makes me feel old.  And soccer mom-ish.  And minivan mom-ish.  And flowery cards with some lame missive inside-ish.

Which is weird because I think being a mom is more like Rosie the Riveter-ish, or Lara Croft-ish.

Anyway, I guess this is all just to say I don't like flowering plants if I can't eat them.  

Chameleon

Spent the afternoon in Seattle today.

Had sushi.  I went to get my hair did while hubs and baby kicked around Fremont and Wallingford (Freford? Wallmont?  Whatever.  Anyway, both neighborhoods have way more people and cars than I remember).

After the hair cut we all went up to Molly Moon's on 45th for some ice cream to tide us over on the ride home.

Baby wore her hat that is made out of an old wool sweater, the hat that we bought at the Bellingham Farmers' Market for probably too much money but it's local and made of recycled sweaters.

Down in Oly, and up in B'ham, the hat on her head makes me think of workers and revolution and fists raised.

In Seattle it made her look uber hipster with obviously hipster parents because look at that too stylish hat perched rakishly atop her sweet head.

I like to be able to slip in and out of situations and places and be comfortable no matter where I am.  Glad to know my kid is following in the same footsteps - be they made in ballet flats, peep-toe heels or Converse.

But not in Birkenstocks because those are ugly.

Rope. End.

I love my kid.  Most of the time.

However, you wouldn't know it today when I yelled at her (maybe more like raised my voice) on my second attempt to get her down for a nap.

And you know what she did?  She kissed me.  Okay, for her it is more like coming at me with her little cute mouth, probably hoping I'll feed her some sort of yummy snack that I have hidden in my pocket because big people always have delicious solid food snackies with them, but it looked like she was coming in for a kiss and so that is what I did.

And then I asked for forgiveness from whom or whatever gave me such a good kid that when something goes wrong I don't know what to do so I act like a damn idiot.

That felt awful

Was out walking around my neighborhood yesterday (literally around - it is a loop and I know that if I do five loops it equals two miles).  Anyway, out walking, had the baby and the dog with me.

Loop one: walked past neighbor leaning on his car, calling for his son to hurry up and come outside.

Loop two: neighbor and son are in the cul de sac, tossing a football back and forth, looks to me like they know what they are doing.  My dog tries to pull me, the stroller with the baby and himself over to investigate and possibly take the football and run off.

Loop three: neighbor asks me if I am new to the neighborhood.  No, I have been here three years.  Really, says he, wow.  I don't know what to say to that so I reiterate the three years bit.  Plus, I walk around the loop A LOT so it's on him for not seeing me before.  Where do you live, he asks.  I point, he asks if we have the yellow Beetle, I say yes.  He asks what I do.

I say that I left my job to stay home with my baby ohbutIalsoamacommunicationsconsultantfromhome.  Before I can rush that mouthful out, oh, says he, and asks what my husband does. 

I head off on loop four, alternating between mentally hitting myself in the head for saying that I stay home with my kid and drowning myself in guilt for feeling like that was totally lame.

But he was the one who acted all dismissive when I said that, so he shouldn't have made me feel badly.

But I am the one who felt badly.  

So again I ask you, why do we hate mamas?  

The new reality

Turns out, I've been sleep deprived for going on nine months now.  I've grown accustomed to the familiar feeling of choosing to only pay attention to six rather than nine things at once because that's all my gasping brain can handle, to the constant race I am in to drink enough water to stay one step ahead of the ever-looming exhaustion headache that has taken up residence in the back of my brain.

But I guess it's not supposed to be like this.  Oh, it is for new parents, don't doubt that, but for the general population - no.

I went to sleep much too late last night (a stupid recent trend, I'll admit) and was awoken a glorious 90 minutes later to the sound of a crying baby.  Now this baby, she never cries at night.  When she usually wakes up after eight hours of sleeping and is hungry, she starts to stir and make grunty noises.  I get up and get into her room before things escalate to the point of actual wakefulness or sadness.  I do this every night, on my own, while hubs slumbers, peacefully undisturbed.

So when she cried last night, I knew it was his time to get up.  He didn't, not right away, anyway.  Anyway, that's a story for another post.

When the kiddo is back down and getting dozey, I find that I have been awake for two hours and can't fall back asleep.  Pre-baby, this would really freak me out.  Post-baby, this has happened more than I care to admit.

When hubs' alarm went off three hours later, I dutifully climbed out of bed, got dressed and combed my hair.

The kid woke up not long after, which is to say WHY IS SHE NOT TAKING A NAP RIGHT NOW?

I am hoping that by continuing to leave her in her room she will magically drift off to sleep.  I am also hoping that someone else will show up to take care of this.

Peevish

There are a few things in this world that really, and I mean *really*, rub me the wrong way. Try as I might I just can't get over my annoyance when these little thorns pop up.

In no particular order, a few of my least favorite things...I feel like I've written this before...

* When you are filling out a form, be it an application, a survey, online or in hard copy, whatever, and you are asked to select gender, why is it that "Male" is always listed before "Female?" Alphabetically, it doesn't make sense and if it's just random, well, those are pretty great odds to come up male all the time. I think we all know the answer to this one - it's so entrenched that we don't realize it anymore, but it's because men are thought of as superior to women. I really hate that.

* When people find out I gave birth to my healthy daughter at home they immediately ask one of two things: a) how far away do you live from the emergency room (because birth is an emergency, right?) or b) what was your backup? I want to say my backup is my midwife who was there by my side. (I've had to delete the rest of this paragraph because apparently I was feel pretty rageful when I wrote it and not only was it snippy, it didn't make as much sense as I thought it did).

* When people don't wave when you let them in front of you while driving. I just don't get this. I wave emphatically and have even been known to flash the peace sign for an exceptionally kind let-in.

* When people try to hook up my kid. No, she doesn't already have a boyfriend; no, I don't want her to meet your strapping eight-month old lad. She's a BABY. Let's let her be one, shall we? I'm not pimping out my daughter.

* Myself when I don't get back to a good friend. I hate it when I do that.

* Bad spelling and poor grammar, because I am a nerd. Although sometimes these are the things I find the most hilarious, because I am a nerd.

Here come yum yums!

For Christmas I received "A Homemade Life," written by Seattle's very own Molly Wizenberg. I have to admit to a bit of a girl crush, here, as Molly, at least what I know of her through her writing, is the type of person I thought I would end up becoming. At the very least, I know we would become fast friends were we to ever meet.

Anyway, I finished the book a few days ago (I don't get much time to read these days). I get most of the recipes I make and my ideas for meals from magazines and books. This book has already found it's way into heavy rotation in my kitchen.

In the last three days, I have made from this book the red cabbage salad with lemon and pepper, the tomato soup with two fennels and the mega-yummy custard-filled cornbread (hence, the photo of the half-empty pan).


The cabbage salad? Gone. The soup? We've had it for two meals and I see a revival for dinner tonight. The custard-filled cornbread? Well, we had it for breakfast this morning and it's already half gone, so I don't think it's long for this world, either.

Before the baby was born, we cooked and baked ALL. THE. TIME. We made our own bread all the time (like, for realsies - we did not buy bread at the store for anything, sandwiches, toast, whatever). When baby showed up, the cooking (and for that matter the regular meals) kind of went by the wayside. We'd dappled here and there in cooking, but once she turned six months old I had an epiphany/breakdown. The baby honeymoon time of screwing around, not cleaning the house and eating like garbage was over and it was time for us to start making meals that normal people would recognize. And that would go onto a plate before going into our mouths.

Although she'll never read this, I would like to send up a heartfelt thank you to Molly Wizenberg for the kick in the pants I needed to start looking forward to meal prep and grocery shopping again. For me, cooking and baking are where I feel creative and sane and I'm pleased to have both back in my life.

-----

Okay, so what is with me being all serious for an entire blog post?

How I am

Any time in my life I have tried to keep a journal it goes fairly poorly. I won't write in it for months and months and then, when I get a hankerin' to jot down my thoughts, I open the journal, realize I've been negligent and attempt to write down everything of significance that's happened since I last wrote. Once I finish that, I'm overwhelmed and my hand hurts so I put the journal back down and don't pick it up again for a few more months...wash, rinse, repeat.

So I'm going to avoid the urge to cover the happenings of the past five and a half months in chronological order and just go forward from here.

In online, too pressed for time to type out the whole thing, soooo 2010 parlance, I am now a SAHM (stay at home mom). In fact, when we bought our new car recently and *I* was filling out the loan application, the car seller guy told me to list my husband first because I was a HOMEMAKER.

I almost became a dealership burn downer after that.

To be fair to myself, I am just starting out on my own as a "contract communications consultant" (I came up with that term in order to be prepared for all the cocktail parties I am going to these days). I have already completed a few jobs and am looking for more. So I will be making some money.

Just not as much as I used to.

Which means that we have a whole budget situation to rejigger.

When the bacon arrives in the bank account, do we each get a bit that we can spend on whatever? Does it all go toward shared expenses and we no longer get to do the whatevers? Does hubs only get to do the whatevers now that he is the one bringing home said bacon? How am I going to pay to get my hair cut?

What about when I buy stuff for the baby during the day, or go grocery shopping? Do those purchases need to have pre-approval because I am not the one who gets the paycheck?

How do people work this out? More importantly to me, how do smart, professional, forward-thinking, similar-minded women who are in my boat (because I know there are a lot of them, more than you would think) work this out?

I am used to having my own money that I can spend on my own things - if I buy new mascara because I read about it in a magazine and then it makes my eyes water, I don't want to feel bad about buying a different tube of mascara the next day. Nor do I want to suffer through and wear the eye-watering mascara.

So what do I do about the mascara now?

Breast Abscess

Get that shit checked out but pronto. Six hours in the emergency room overnight is a less than restful experience, especially when you are trying your almighty best to keep your baby out of the hospital and away from germs and sickies.

On the plus side, the Percocet took the edge off.

Baby Steps

Today marks the end of day two of being at home along with the baby. True, husband has come home both days to see his little girl and to kick his shoes off, put his business-socked feet up and watch a little crappy daytime reality tv (I know, redundant), but still, this has been two days of full, 100 percent responsibility for another life for more than two hours.

Yesterday, I had goals. Call the doctor about my trip to the emergency room to have the abscess that had set up shop in my right boob taken care of, call my midwife to let her know the same story, walk around the neighborhood once and pick up my prescription of Percocet. Check, check, check and check.

Today, the adventure for the day was to get to afore-mentioned doctor's office, making it the first car trip with me and baby on our own. The preparation was intense. In an effort to keep the vocalizations ("Why am I in this damn car seat again you know how I hate it why is this blanket hanging over the car seat so I can't see a thing you know I want to be fed right now and I am making a poopy diaper as we speak unnnnnnn..." (that's the pooping sound)) down, baby had third breakfast right before we left the house.

Plan was to give her a bottle with the breast milk that I have only days ago started pumping. Get bottle out of fridge, run hot water to warm it up...remember that the one with the boobs shouldn't give the bottle to avoid confusion and isn't breastfeeding hard enough anyway without confusion, so back goes bottle into fridge, shirt comes off over the head, bra comes off, baby comes to boob and she eats. Baby usually eats for five to six minutes at a time, so I'm thinking we have time. Yeah.

For the first time in a while, she eats for close to ten minutes, meaning I make the call to settle for peeking in the leg of her diaper to see if a changing is needed and skip the outfit change all together. She's five and a half weeks old, Eau de breast milk is IN this season.

Finally she's buckled into her car seat. As she expresses the appropriate amount of displeasure at her current lot in life, I sherpa myself up with a diaper bag, purse and car seat and head out to to the car. Being baby's first trip in the Beetle, I'm not prepared for the leaning forward past vertical position that the passenger seat has to be in in order to make room for the car seat. I take this as another sign that I will never, ever get my old life back.

Drive to doctor's office was fairly uneventful - took advantage of new baby-ness to call the doctor's office and let them know I was running late because this was the first time I'd traveled on my own with the kid.

Doctor's office visit also fairly uneventful - got another shot of lidocaine so that they could pull this "wick" (tape-like piece of cotton gauze) out of me and put another one in to keep soaking up the shit that abscesses when you have an abscess. Great news, we know this hurts like a son of a bitch but please pull it out a little bit each day and your boob will heal behind it as you go.

Drive home fairly uneventful as well.

Get in the door of the house, the dog has pulled stuff down off the counters and the table, I see the breast pump boob part on the ground, baby is fussing to eat, so I go to my default mode and cry. Get baby out of car seat, take her upstairs to eat, see that I forgot to put up the gate on the stairs so the dog has also pulled down my basket that I carry with me for breastfeeding, dirty laundry from the hamper, condoms (I know, hopeful) from the nightstand, the Twilight Turtle from the table and dirty baby mitts from the baby laundry basket. Default mode now is pissed off.

After a quiet but very pointed "bad dog!", I get her (the baby, not the dog) changed and fed. While feeding it becomes clear that someone needs to changed again, so we change again and then feed again.

When all that is done I know I should pick up the stuff the dog has strewn all over the house but that would entail putting baby down and putting bra and shirt on so instead I wait for hubster to get home so he too can see that awful awfulness perpetrated by our dog and make me feel better by agreeing that the dog is so bad and knows better. And maybe he'll pick it up.

Battle of the Bulge

There comes a point in everyone's life where they are given cause to take a step back and reflect on their own "deal" - their life, their mission, their relationships, the direction of those relationships - and make a true turning point decision.

That time has come.

First, some background:

I have a (several?) clogged milk ducts in one of my boobs. This happened once before in the other boob and it developed into a low-grade breast infection that landed me with a fever and directions to take echinacea and vitamin C to fight the infection, make and eat a shittake mushroom soup made with (ancient Chinese medicine) astragalus root and a clove of garlic added each time you dish up. Also, nurse the baby with her nose and chin pointed toward the blockage as much as possible and apply castor oil with heat before taking a warm shower and massaging the oil in. Worked. Plugged ducts became unplugged, lah dee dah and off we go.

Because I am not one who likes to keep a good thing to herself, a week ago there's another lump, this time in the other boob. Shit. Only a slight fever this time that I'm able to knock out pretty quickly, but the lump, on the other hand, is hanging around. I've done the soup, the castor oil, the echinacea, vitamin C and now I'm taking a lecithin supplement to make the ducts "slippery." Babe is feeding with her nose pointing toward the blockage every night when she feeds side-lying.

Here we come back to the point - the time for pause.

The midwife said that I can also have dear hubster...nurse...because he is easier to manuever around and I can tell him if he's hitting the right spot. I love LOVE my midwives - I will cry when I have my last appointment with them - and the following should in no way reflect on how much they mean to my life.

We have been all for the natural, traditional way of doing things during this pregnancy and, for the most part, during this baby's life. Homeopathic rather than western medicine, no medical intervention, hospital birth, etc.

However, and this is a big however for me personally, when all is said and done I love my husband for more than just his hippie tendencies (luckily, not bathing is not among them) and I want him to love me back for the same reasons. Hence, the reason I will continue to wear a bra during the day even though I'm breastfeeding and why I will not ask him to nurse on me. My relationship with my daughter is vitally important to me, but my relationship with my husband is sacred, in big part because it allows my strong relationship with my daughter to grow and flourish. I want to be able to return to that relationship with him at some point.

Feminism is...

Following up to the last post, the end of this article has a pretty nifty, short description of feminism: Drunk on Not Working.