Vegetarian Three Sisters Stuffed Squash

To supplement our income and keep my mind active I've started submitting content online.

Check out my recently published content on AC:
Vegetarian Three Sisters Stuffed Squash

Two MONTHS?

How has it been two months already since Charlie's birth? What a whirlwind. In addition to just the major adjustment of adding a new person to our family and family and friends visiting, Chim has started Pre-K in the public schools. She's adorable, wearing a uniform and pink princess backpack, and loving school 5 times a week for 6 hours a day -- I am proud that she's doing so well with such a long day! Badger continues to make great progress in his speech therapies. He is putting 3-4 words together and will be starting a Head Start program after his 3rd birthday... which is in a MONTH. They're all getting so grown up!

And Charlie... he's still super baby. As Dooce describes Marlo, Charlie is also the kind of kid who makes me want to just have a dozen more just like him but I too have experienced less easy babies, and we're not rolling the dice again! He's sleeping like a champ at night and nursing so well -- and subsequently growing like a weed.

Ted Kennedy, Lactivist

I ran across this blog post
Senator Edward Kennedy: The Lactivist
and thought it was so interesting.

I had the honor of having Ted Kennedy as my senator for eight years. He will be missed.

More pictures?

You'll have to talk to my husband about that -- the memory card is full and he's in charge of emptying it. So no new pictures!

OK, here's one that I took with the camera built into the laptop:

Ups and Downs of My Recent Birth

I really loved nearly all of my birth experience. I got nearly all of my wishes and I'll go over the ups after the downs, to end on a good note!

In a perfect world, I would not be a VBAC mom -- most of the negative parts of my birth experience stem from the restrictions and attitudes that go with the VBAC. Continuous monitoring (and of course the telemetry monitors didn't work). Crazy charge nurse having to be there for 2nd stage. Said crazy charge nurse flipping out during crowning because they couldn't get a good FHT reading. Said crazy charge nurse telling me how to push when I was doing fine. I had a 2nd degree laceration and I wonder if I had been able to continue pushing as I felt it, as I was trying to do, if I would've remained a little more intact!


I wish PA was more homebirth friendly and I hadn't had a previous cesarean, and that our house was a little more suited to a homebirth. Then I might have considered a homebirth. I missed my kids immensely -- my mantra was "oooooookay" which is Badger's latest favorite word, and it just felt horribly wrong not to have Chim with me since she had come to every midwife appointment and shared the excitement and comforted me in a way that no one else in my life did.

Now, what I will remember positively...
I am so glad my midwife is my midwife. He advocated when needed and gave me space to advocate for myself and joked around when needed and told me what I needed to hear -- as he has since I had unexplained bleeding in February 2006 when I was pregnant with Badger. My only regret involving Patrick Thornton is that I did not try to transfer to his practice while I was pregnant with Chim.
I had a ball for most of the labor. Even hooked up to the monitors and after my water broke, I was able to freely move about the room and drink (and if I wanted to eat I reckon I would've). I brought my doula bag and my midwife got a kick out of nosing through out. And as with most clients' births, the only thing I used was lip balm and lotion!

I loved being emotionally and mentally present in a way I wasn't for Chim's and Badger's births. A combination of being that much more familiar with the process and an acute awareness that this was the last time I'd have this experience.

Similar to the way in which Badger's VBAC resolved a lot of pain from Chim's cesarean birth, this birth resolved a lot of pain from my miscarriage last year. And in another way it made me mourn that loss on a deeper level.

It was a very good birth. My biggest regret is that it was my last birth (barring a massive failure of an IUD that has my name written all over it... or a stellar increase to our income level). My greatest joy, well, that's easy:

4 weeks with baby boy.

he's so sweet. typical newborn stuff like spit up and not wanting to be put down... but i find that i am a lot more patient with him and his needs than i was with chim's and badger's when they were infants. i am a little distressed about the state of my house -- primarily because my inlaws are visiting next week -- but it'll get done and if it doesn't, they'll still love me :)

my husband described having a newborn around with a preschooler and a toddler as running a marathon while carrying a 10-lb bag of sugar. it's not necessarily that the sack of sugar is that heavy, it's that you're running a marathon! i had a lot more patience for the bigger kids when i could interact with them more actively instead of sitting and nursing all day.

but he's a sweet pea baby and we're all just in love with him!

cloth diapering.

i started using cloth diapers with badger this spring with the intention of being able to use them with the new baby, under the assumption that badger would someday start to use the potty. i'm sure he's not too far off but in the meantime, i am so turned off cloth diapering! in the short few months i have been using these diapers, they've become stained, stinky, harbored a stubborn yeast infection, and have just been disgusting to handle, especially the soiled diapers.

i took a break when the new baby arrived but now that his bowel movements have lost that newborn runny quality i started with both boys in cloth and have had mixed results. one day i'll have leaks on both boys, the next day i'll have none. but i've determined that i am done done done with cloth on badger. it's too gross. i can manage the breastmilk poop but sorry planet, i am putting my nearly three year old in disposable diapers.