camping with babies!!

I know! I must be craaazzzyyy! But I did it. I went camping with my 8 month old son and we had a really great time!

I have to say camping with friends makes it so that I was not carrying him all weekend and he had LOTS of kids and people to play with. Though I was always close at hand - he is still making strange, as he should be - he likes to only get passed to two people and when he's tired, he only likes to meet three people if I'm not in sight. Then the fourth gets the extended lower lip and the fifth lucky person gets the full on cry!

I am lucky that I'm an outdoor person and my little guy has always LOVED the outdoors! (Nothing stops the teething cries like a trip out of doors)

Well, I'm off to wash up from camping and put stuff away! God, moving 'house' for even a weekend is alot of work!!

essential e's birthday giveaway

Hey there ho there!!

(That's my new greeting, btw) That wonderful Emily over at essentiale blogspot is giving away a great popidiot tshirt!! Great, because it's the one you choose!! What could be better than that???

http://thepictureyousee.blogspot.com/2009/07/es-birthday-giveaway.html?showComment=1247592699178#c5090244808571547382

so check it out... and have a great day

Babies, babies, babies

They are wonderful little versions of us. And versions of us they are: all our foibles and follies in one smiling, crying, pushing and kicking mess :)
Maybe that's the worst of it - that when you make a mistake with a baby (ie: let them choose their sleep time, or eat time, or follow too many 'baby help books') your confusion shows up in a frustrated, non-verbal, lack of motor control way! And all I can think is how did I make him (and ME) so angry, frustrated, and confused out of LOVE???
It's amazing how much reading the babycenter.com polls help, though! How, knowing that other mothers' think that they aren't cut out for this, that they've 'broken' their babies, that they wish they could go to a JOB, makes me feel lighter and kinder to myself and to him.

And REALLY that's all I can do while I'm here in the trenches trudging through the muck...

Example: if I'm supposed to put him down in his crib when he's calm and he screams as I'm putting him in: when do I put him down? While he's crying? I don't put him down? I just keep making the motion like I'm going to? And then after two hours of this from midnight to 2:30am, I decide I can't go on and I leave the room with him crying in his crib and he is asleep in 4 minutes flat! What? That wasn't in the Baby Whisperer instructions. Now I'm a mass of confusion as he sleeps for his morning nap and cried himself to sleep for that and I think, "Am I making an unhappy baby in an effort to get him to stop being overtired?"

Cause he was a happy, friendly baby (with inklings of nervousness and an unsettled nature that worried me) when he called the shots - those inklings and the fact it was just killing me made me turn to the Baby Whisperer: I wasn't sleeping or showering and in the stress was slowing production of my milk and he won't eat solid food, so he was losing weight fast and there are NO tips for that in the books!!! See your pediatrition. She just said that she was worried about it. Yeah, me too... so I'm drinking all the mother's milk tea I can and trying alternate sleep methods in an effort to get some!

Blast... I just have to keep going. And hope the confusion clears :)

One more thing...

This is the journal I made for my mom. She loved and so do I.
There are somethings that I would change. It IS my first one!! But
I want to say that I am super thankful to all the free online tutorials!
Awesome.

They are of course NOT responsible for my putting the embroidery on the BACK!

THAT is artistic development... :)

Food musings

Okay, so to take a departure from the trials and whinings (mine, particularly) of motherhood...

I've been pondering food.

How it can be good for you and good for your soul.

Now I love, let me rephrase: LOVE junk food... I'm salvating now


but this morning I made a very wonderful breakfast: organic eggs with veggies, and feta and a side of oregano tomatoes.

YUMMMM...

And you know I feel great, pious even ...ahhhh

I'm going to pretend I'm a french chef more often... and I'll be smiling on the inside

that should keep the whining to a minimum

:)

Things get sooo overwhelming...
I barely had myself organized (I didn't really, at all) and I went and had a baby. Now everyday is a whirling dirvish that I can't get a handle on and then it's 7pm and BATHTIME.
really??
how did that happen???

Now he sleeps
and
I am on the computer, trying to catch up with
ethereal people
I know that you're real, you're just not really in my life
and not doing the work that I want done when I'm pacing the floor with him on my shoulder cause we're both convinced it's the only way he can fall asleep....


Where, oh, where did this conviction come from?

And won't it go back... visit's over!

Postpartum Depression

I've been thinking about Postpartum Depression alot lately... well, for awhile now.

I'm a thinker, a big one, endlessly... still.

See when I moved here to sunny Moses Lake, Washington, I didn't really know anyone. Well, my husband and a couple that are really more his friends (into his interests more), and then I found that we were going to have a baby.

Yayyyay!!

I searched around for mom's groups to join - not really friendly here, the only mom's groups were 'closed'. There was one that was open and excited for new members; it was the Mommy's Group: Postpartum Support Group. I went eager to talk babies and birth, not sure what would happen... and that's not exactly what happened.

Now Christy, who organizes the group couldn't be greater, a word, really, okay, not really... and it was great to know a mom, meet other moms and Christy encouraged me that I would be learning important information that could really help, if, after I had the baby, I did have PPD. So I went. I did learn very interesting, important, lifesaving info. Did I get PPD? Unclear really.

My husband doesn't know anything about babies, works outside the home and I was breastfeeding, so I was virtually by myself muddling through some really hard shit.

Was I sad, frustrated, regretful? You bet!

Did I get out bed? Shower? Eat? Feed the baby? Play with the baby?

ALWAYS! And I was so happy that I would cry when I'd look at him... still do.

He's awesome.

But did I have postpartum depression? I don't know. I know that I feel better.

Let me clarify: I never regretted HIM, I regretted what I hadn't done BEFORE him. Those are some steep regrets when it's 4 in the morning and all you can see is 3-4 more years that will be this intense before you can arrange something else for yourself.

That can make you depressed.

I don't want to belittle anyone's experience who has or has had Postpartum Depression. I don't even want to belittle my own experience. I am just thinking, wondering... are we concocting something to prescribe pills for instead of providing networks for people who are struggling with their new position as Holder of Toughest Job in the World?

by 'providing networks' I mean 'talking to your neighbours', 'lending a hand', 'creating community'

something we HAD, but has been, somehow lost...

Let's stop looking for the somehow for how it was lost, and start fixing it.

The somehow is letting fear win; listening to that voice that says 'We don't know who are neighbors are.'

Instead of going out to meet them.

Go Out and Meet Them.

You might find that they're very like YOU!

wow... flax seed is fab!

So I'm trying to lose some weight, feel better, reverse aging... all that. Really busy, whew. Anyhow, I picked up Gillian McKeith, a-hem, that's Dr. Gillian McKeith's "Living Food for Health".
I tried the flax seed soak (my name for it). Soak 1Tbsp of Flaxseeds overnight in a cup of warm water, drink the liquid. I feel fabulous!! And I only drank half the liquid. The reason for that was I was going to have coffee afterwards (I know 'bad'. It's half-caff, okay; cut me some slack.) I didn't want to get to 'lubed-up'. Gillian, that's right, we're on a first name basis, she doesn't know, but we are, anyways, Gillian is a fan of 2-3 bowel movements a day and I wasn't super eager to experience her definition of 'lubed': to explain she calls flax seed, a lubricating "lube" job. She means that flax acts to lubricate the whole body, but I just couldn't shake my nerves that she could mean bowels too. So in trepidation I tried it, and wow I feel great. I didn't expect so fast a result. It didn't last all day, mind you - I am kinda creaky - but the initial impression was grand! I highly recommend it. I totally recommend the book too. Each section or food has a list of ailments that the superfood can address. I found this particularly engaging.