7.16.2005
7.13.2005
We're back from the store and everyone is happy and content. Still hoping it'll be an early night for both kids, though. The way it's worked out this summer is that Accalia has three days where her activities begin by 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m., and it's not especially fun for any of us that we can't just have leisurely mornings. Thankfully it's not something that we have to do every day or even beyond the summer. I seem to be becoming more and more of a night person. I don't go to bed particularly late (some nights between 11 and midnight) or sleep in (usually up by 7:30), but I've found that I prefer to do things at night if I'm not too exhausted. That started when Cole was a baby, I think, and I had nights where he wasn't in the mood to go to sleep particularly early and definitely wouldn't fall asleep if we were sitting down and nursing. He had to be moving in the sling, so I had to come up with things to do to keep me from going bonkers walking back and forth, back and forth. We'll see what the newest little one is like.
A few years ago the La Leche League Area I live in (Minnesota and the Dakotas) started providing $50 worth of continuing education to each Leader. I've usually put it toward reference books or conference attendance. This year I put it toward printed resources for myself. I ordered (from the LLL catalogue) Whole Foods For The Whole Family, Whole Foods From The Whole World (both cookbooks - the first I already have for the Group library) as well as Sheila Humphrey's The Nursing Mother's Herbal.Sheila has been a Leader in my Area for years, and I'm so pleased to finally have a copy of her book for myself.
Speaking of books, I can't recommend Ina May Gaskin's Ina May's Guide To Childbirth highly enough. Reading her first book, Spiritual Midwifery, during my pregnancy with Cole was so inspiring. This is just the same, only better.
Before the section of birth stories, Ina May writes about how the trend in the United States seems to be to share scary and gory birth stories with pregnant women, leaving many women thinking that birth could never be a positive experience. I love what she writes here:
"Now that birth has become a favorite subject of television dramas and situation comedies, this trend has been even more pronounced. No one has explained the situation more succinctly than Stephen King in his novella 'The Breathing Method.' Commenting on the fear many women have of birth, his fictional character observes, 'Believe me: if you are told that some experience is going to hurt, it will hurt. Most pain is in the mind, and when a woman absorbs the idea that the act of giving birth is excruciatingly painful-when she gets this information from her mother, her sisters, her married friends, and her physician-that woman has been mentally prepared to feel great agony.' King, you may not know, is the father of several children born at home."
That's so true. Of course childbirth will usually involve some amount of pain, but when you go into it knowing that your body is designed to give birth and isn't lacking, it's a completely different experience than being told you need x, y and z to give birth. I found out that difference with Accalia and Cole's births.
A few years ago the La Leche League Area I live in (Minnesota and the Dakotas) started providing $50 worth of continuing education to each Leader. I've usually put it toward reference books or conference attendance. This year I put it toward printed resources for myself. I ordered (from the LLL catalogue) Whole Foods For The Whole Family, Whole Foods From The Whole World (both cookbooks - the first I already have for the Group library) as well as Sheila Humphrey's The Nursing Mother's Herbal.Sheila has been a Leader in my Area for years, and I'm so pleased to finally have a copy of her book for myself.
Speaking of books, I can't recommend Ina May Gaskin's Ina May's Guide To Childbirth highly enough. Reading her first book, Spiritual Midwifery, during my pregnancy with Cole was so inspiring. This is just the same, only better.
Before the section of birth stories, Ina May writes about how the trend in the United States seems to be to share scary and gory birth stories with pregnant women, leaving many women thinking that birth could never be a positive experience. I love what she writes here:
"Now that birth has become a favorite subject of television dramas and situation comedies, this trend has been even more pronounced. No one has explained the situation more succinctly than Stephen King in his novella 'The Breathing Method.' Commenting on the fear many women have of birth, his fictional character observes, 'Believe me: if you are told that some experience is going to hurt, it will hurt. Most pain is in the mind, and when a woman absorbs the idea that the act of giving birth is excruciatingly painful-when she gets this information from her mother, her sisters, her married friends, and her physician-that woman has been mentally prepared to feel great agony.' King, you may not know, is the father of several children born at home."
That's so true. Of course childbirth will usually involve some amount of pain, but when you go into it knowing that your body is designed to give birth and isn't lacking, it's a completely different experience than being told you need x, y and z to give birth. I found out that difference with Accalia and Cole's births.
Both kids are rather out of sorts right now. Accalia wants to go to the store to see if they have a toy she saw yesterday, and Cole wants to stay home and play. Neither are in the mood to compromise, so we'd at a standstill right now. I think it's not helping that both kids are really worn out after our morning away. We went over to Hartington (about a half hour) for a LLL meeting, and they played in the hostess' backyard all morning.
Quick update: Cole has suddenly decided he wants to go to the store, so we're off. I'll finish what I wanted to write later.
Quick update: Cole has suddenly decided he wants to go to the store, so we're off. I'll finish what I wanted to write later.
7.12.2005
At yesterday's prenatal visit I found out I've gained another 10 pounds. Yikes! That brings the pregnancy total to 28 pounds. Apparently this baby just wants Mommy to be very well cushioned by the time he or she is born. Nothing too exciting to report, though. Heartbeat was strong and steady at 144. Next month I'll take the glucose tolerance test and then start with bi-weekly visits rather than monthly. Dr. M. asked how I felt about taking the test, and I said that was fine. I didn't with Cole since my midwife just checked for sugar and protein and all of that stuff in the urine sample, but I really don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other.
This morning at storytime Cole and I were sitting at a table putting together puzzles. A little ways over there were two mothers talking - one nursing a newborn - and eventually their conversation came around to breastfeeding and formula. The nursing mother was quick to say that she already was using formula, too, and that soon led to horror stories about breastfeeding making your child too dependent and taking up so much time and how formula wasn't that expensive, etc. Conversations like that are very common around here, so I wasn't surprised to hear any of that. What really got me was when the nursing mother started saying how she just wouldn't want to be confined to the baby like that, and the other mother readily agreed. How sad! I will never understand how a mother can talk about her child like that. Don't get me wrong. I understand and often feel the need for solitude and to have a little time without small bodies surrounding you and climbing all over you. It makes me so sad, though, for both the mother and the child when the mother feels like the baby is some burden that she now has and that she has to find ways to get away. Honestly, what is the point of having children if one of your first priorities is to find as many ways to make the child the least dependent on you as possible? I guess that's what happens in a society that holds such value on independence and has convinced generations of parents that it's unnatural for a baby or young child to be dependent and that this is actually healthy.
Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I didn't have children or worked outside of the home. I was just thinking about this today because I was looking at this book, which has always been one of my big historical interests. I can't remember now if I read her diary first or saw a play about her first. During my first two years of college, history had been my minor with print journalism as my major. Cory and I married the summer before my junior year, and I transferred to a university where there wasn't a print journalism major. There was just a general mass communication major that included radio, television, etc. - things I had no interest in spending my time or tuition money on. So I flipped around my major and my minor and had an absolute blast those last two years. If I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did (Accalia was planned), I would have gone on to get my master's in history. I had and still have no desire to teach, which is what many students who get master's in history do. I've always had some ideas going around in my head about what I would like to do, and perhaps one day I will.
History and writing have always been the two areas of greatest interest for me, where I really got it and wanted to continue with them whether or not it was for a grade. I had/have a particular interest in women's history, and I remember the BIG paper I had to write for one class (around 20 pages). Margaret Sanger was the subject I had picked, but I can't remember my exact thesis without looking at the paper. What I do remember is how frightened of that professor I was, but how after I completed my paper and turned it in to him, he told me, "I don't agree with your conclusion at all, but this is exactly how you write an historical paper."
I could probably sit here and type away memories all day at this point, but now I have a girl who wants help putting her pictures in her photo album and a boy who wants Spiderman books read to him.
This morning at storytime Cole and I were sitting at a table putting together puzzles. A little ways over there were two mothers talking - one nursing a newborn - and eventually their conversation came around to breastfeeding and formula. The nursing mother was quick to say that she already was using formula, too, and that soon led to horror stories about breastfeeding making your child too dependent and taking up so much time and how formula wasn't that expensive, etc. Conversations like that are very common around here, so I wasn't surprised to hear any of that. What really got me was when the nursing mother started saying how she just wouldn't want to be confined to the baby like that, and the other mother readily agreed. How sad! I will never understand how a mother can talk about her child like that. Don't get me wrong. I understand and often feel the need for solitude and to have a little time without small bodies surrounding you and climbing all over you. It makes me so sad, though, for both the mother and the child when the mother feels like the baby is some burden that she now has and that she has to find ways to get away. Honestly, what is the point of having children if one of your first priorities is to find as many ways to make the child the least dependent on you as possible? I guess that's what happens in a society that holds such value on independence and has convinced generations of parents that it's unnatural for a baby or young child to be dependent and that this is actually healthy.
Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I didn't have children or worked outside of the home. I was just thinking about this today because I was looking at this book, which has always been one of my big historical interests. I can't remember now if I read her diary first or saw a play about her first. During my first two years of college, history had been my minor with print journalism as my major. Cory and I married the summer before my junior year, and I transferred to a university where there wasn't a print journalism major. There was just a general mass communication major that included radio, television, etc. - things I had no interest in spending my time or tuition money on. So I flipped around my major and my minor and had an absolute blast those last two years. If I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did (Accalia was planned), I would have gone on to get my master's in history. I had and still have no desire to teach, which is what many students who get master's in history do. I've always had some ideas going around in my head about what I would like to do, and perhaps one day I will.
History and writing have always been the two areas of greatest interest for me, where I really got it and wanted to continue with them whether or not it was for a grade. I had/have a particular interest in women's history, and I remember the BIG paper I had to write for one class (around 20 pages). Margaret Sanger was the subject I had picked, but I can't remember my exact thesis without looking at the paper. What I do remember is how frightened of that professor I was, but how after I completed my paper and turned it in to him, he told me, "I don't agree with your conclusion at all, but this is exactly how you write an historical paper."
I could probably sit here and type away memories all day at this point, but now I have a girl who wants help putting her pictures in her photo album and a boy who wants Spiderman books read to him.
7.11.2005
Well, I tried to fix the comments thing and I managed to change it a bit. You can see the format is a bit off. That's what I get for trying to do it late at night when I have very little knowledge of this sort of thing, even with simple directions.
Accalia and I spent a good portion of the morning try to solve one of her Freddi Fish computer games. We did it!
Later this afternoon I have a prenatal appointment. I'll report anything exciting that occurs, although at 24 weeks it's pretty routine if all is going well.
It's a hot, muggy day, and the kids and I just got back from a walk around the neighborhood. Actually, they were riding in the old bike trailer we inherited from Cory's aunt. Good workout for me, though, pushing them up the incline a couple blocks away.
Our realtor called today. Ugh. Two problems with the house. The first is that the buyers have been unable to turn on the light in the kitchen and some in the dining room area. Since we didn't have electricity when we were preparing the house for closing, there's no way we could have known this. Hopefully they've checked to make sure they don't need new lightbulbs. I suggested that they check to see if they need new light switches since we never had to replace them.
The second is that apparently there's a flea infestation in the house thanks to the tenants' cats. That's so disgusting! They'll be treating it chemically, so we'll have to foot the bill for that, which I understand. I just hope we didn't bring home any fleas after being there!
Accalia and I spent a good portion of the morning try to solve one of her Freddi Fish computer games. We did it!
Later this afternoon I have a prenatal appointment. I'll report anything exciting that occurs, although at 24 weeks it's pretty routine if all is going well.
It's a hot, muggy day, and the kids and I just got back from a walk around the neighborhood. Actually, they were riding in the old bike trailer we inherited from Cory's aunt. Good workout for me, though, pushing them up the incline a couple blocks away.
Our realtor called today. Ugh. Two problems with the house. The first is that the buyers have been unable to turn on the light in the kitchen and some in the dining room area. Since we didn't have electricity when we were preparing the house for closing, there's no way we could have known this. Hopefully they've checked to make sure they don't need new lightbulbs. I suggested that they check to see if they need new light switches since we never had to replace them.
The second is that apparently there's a flea infestation in the house thanks to the tenants' cats. That's so disgusting! They'll be treating it chemically, so we'll have to foot the bill for that, which I understand. I just hope we didn't bring home any fleas after being there!
7.10.2005
About leaving comments...I know you can change your template on Blogger to leave comments, but it doesn't show up the same as it does on other blogs for me. I'm just not patient enough to mess around with the template to see what I need to change, but if you do want to leave or read comments just click on the # at the end of each post. That's the best I can do for now.
Yes, I'm back here again for the time being. I'm not sure what's going on with my other blog that I can't access the administrative stuff, but you know how it goes when you can't have something - that's when you really want it!
It's been a hot, hot weekend, and instead of hitting the pools or beaches like the majority of people around here we've been hiding out in air conditioning. Yesterday was my LLL meeting with the kids along since Cory made a day trip to Lake Wilson. It went well and made Accalia happy that one of the moms brought along her daughter that's a year or so older than Accalia. There were two moms at this meeting, and both inquired about leadership. One I had been planning to approach about it, so I was happy to hear that she was interested in it. The other mom has only been attending the Yankton Group for a couple months, so I'll need to observe her through an entire Series of meetings (four meetings) in order to get a better idea.
Last night Cory and I watched this movie, which we enjoyed. It was a pretty early night for both kids, so that was a bonus. Today we've been doing odds and ends - errands, some necessary household chores, etc. Nothing too exciting. I did make a solo trip to Goodwill to scope out the maternity clothes because (gulp) I'm starting to outgrow some of my current supply. Someone who donates clothes there seems to love maternity clothes from Target, and that's perfectly okay with me. I also managed to stock up on fall/winter clothes for the kids, so that was good.
Well, I hope everyone enjoys the change of scenery in my blog life for a while.
Oh, and Jessica, you just saw me at the family reunion! You don't need photographic evidence of my big belly!
It's been a hot, hot weekend, and instead of hitting the pools or beaches like the majority of people around here we've been hiding out in air conditioning. Yesterday was my LLL meeting with the kids along since Cory made a day trip to Lake Wilson. It went well and made Accalia happy that one of the moms brought along her daughter that's a year or so older than Accalia. There were two moms at this meeting, and both inquired about leadership. One I had been planning to approach about it, so I was happy to hear that she was interested in it. The other mom has only been attending the Yankton Group for a couple months, so I'll need to observe her through an entire Series of meetings (four meetings) in order to get a better idea.
Last night Cory and I watched this movie, which we enjoyed. It was a pretty early night for both kids, so that was a bonus. Today we've been doing odds and ends - errands, some necessary household chores, etc. Nothing too exciting. I did make a solo trip to Goodwill to scope out the maternity clothes because (gulp) I'm starting to outgrow some of my current supply. Someone who donates clothes there seems to love maternity clothes from Target, and that's perfectly okay with me. I also managed to stock up on fall/winter clothes for the kids, so that was good.
Well, I hope everyone enjoys the change of scenery in my blog life for a while.
Oh, and Jessica, you just saw me at the family reunion! You don't need photographic evidence of my big belly!
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