I'm putting this here because it's being linked to my new blog. It's going behind a cut because it is crazy LOOONG.

( Pregnancy, Labor, & Birth Story: Maxamilian )

I'm trying my hand at blogging outside of LiveJournal, again.  If you are interested - check out Mindful Mothering.

Hal, Liz, and I went and saw Pirates of the C, yesterday. I liked it but I swear, I needed fucking sub titles because half the time I couldn’t understand the pirate-speak. Also, it has been a while since I’ve seen the first one so a lot of the references went over my head. After the movie we discovered a new Thai restaurant in Bradenton that is actually delicious. They even have yummy veggie egg rolls!

Later last night, Sylvia waxed my hairy legs. I have not shaved since Max was in utero! But, now, I think I’m hooked on the wax and want to own my own little kit so I can do it myself.

As we were getting ready to leave Hal’s parent’s house last night I walked out into the kitchen and caught Max's NahNah giving him a drink of cow’s milk. My heart sank. Haven’t we been through this shit already? Everyone keeps warning me that they will continue to do what they want behind my back and tell me what I want to hear to my face. I, being naive and wanting to give them the benefit of my doubt, believed they would respect our wishes. I didn’t say anything because I was in shock. But, I did bolt out of the door making a bee line to my car without giving Grandma the usual hug and kiss goodbye. She probably didn’t even notice that I saw her.

I’ve managed to change my ways a lot in the past 10 years. Being in a long term relationship has giving me lots of opportunities to discover my flaws and work on them. But, having Max has brought to light a whole new set of issues for me. I can’t control how other people treat him and that drives me nuts. I really do think it is about control for me when it comes to this milk thing. Heck, we give Max cheese that isn’t organic so really, what’s the difference with the milk? Nothing – that’s the difference. But, I can’t get over the fact that they JUST DON’T LISTEN TO ME. Fuck, I really need to get over it. I have no idea if Hal and I will really ever be able to go vegan again and by the time we do there is no way we will be able to control what Max eats when he’s not at home. I’m not going to start condoning or encouraging my in-laws to give Max milk, but I am going to let my need to control this one thing go.

If it weren’t so important to me that my children have a relationship with their grandparent’s I would just isolate myself and Max from them. I know plenty of people who do that because they have issues with the family respecting their parenting choices. The truth is it is way more important to me that my in-laws are a part of my life and my children’s life than having 100% control over Max’s diet. It almost kills me to say this but I have got to let that need to control go. Of-course, there are some things I won’t bend on but in the grand scheme of life, an occasional glass or sip of milk is not that bad. Why is this so hard?

I feel like NOBODY can raise my children as well as I can – including Hal – and when I see other people interacting with Max in a way that I wouldn’t I go into protect mode. Another example aside from the milk salutation is how Max is disciplined. It pisses me off to no end that my in-laws yell at Max. When Max is doing something he isn’t suppose to do I get off my lazy ass, walk over to him, talk to him, and then redirect him. They like to sit on their lazy ass and yell across the room. Now, I can understand the first yell to get his attention but Jesus people, get the fuck up and redirect him. He’s not even two! When they were doing this last night I tried my hardest to stay in the other room and let them handle it. After all, I do believe that Max has to understand that grandpa and Lola (Pilipino for grandma) will discipline him differently than mommy and daddy. On the fourth yell, “NO,” (Max was hitting/swinging at one of the dogs, Wendy, with a plastic golf club) I walked out into the living room. Everyone was sitting down and Sylvia was running after Wendy to coddle her! I was so pissed. I was pissed at Hal, too, because he knows better. I took over and when I was done Max apologized to Wendy (sign language) and petted her gently. Will he hit her again? Probably – yeah. But, I’ll handle it the same way every time. Stuff like that is hard to deal with because they ARE NOT the kind of people who can handle/understand/participate in an intellectual conversation about disciplining children. When I’m not around, Max will probably be yelled at and even swatted on the butt or have his hand slapped – and that upsets me.

You know, other than diet and discipline they are IDEAL grandparents.

I do think as my kids get older and I gain more experience, letting go of this need to control how other people interact with them will get easier.

It’ll probably be like… as long as they aren’t abusing them, its all good.

I’ve changed my mind about our future daughter’s name.  Instead of Isabella Grace, I’m going to name her Bella Grace (middle name to be determined).  Bella Grace will be her full first name.  Should I hyphenate it so it looks like this: Bella-Grace?  And, Hal would like to use the name Samus as the middle name.  I’m okay with that IF I can’t come up with something better.  Any suggestions on the middle name?

I’m not feeling like taking Max to swim lessons today – I think we’ll skip it.

Someone on another blog I belong to posed the question: What do you do that is not so “hip”? About 100 people (which is a lot for this blog site) responded with lists of all the not-so-hip parenting choices they made/make.

( Here is my list: )

Last night Hal and I went out to eat with a few friends. Around 8pm he left to pick up Max from grandmas and I stayed to enjoy my full six hours! We played a game of Scrabble, which I haven’t played in almost two years, ate cake and enjoyed one another’s company. The funny thing is, I had a really hard time staying awake until midnight. I started to get pretty sleepy around 10pm and ended up leaving at 11pm (a full half hour before I really needed too).

Hal did wonderful with getting Max to sleep. When they got home from grandmas Hal slipped Max into bed and slipped out of the room. About five minutes later Hal heard Max on the monitor, “momma, momma!” He went into the room and sat on the bed next to Max. Max immediately knew it wasn’t momma and rejected Hal’s attempt to comfort him. Then, he ran out into the living room and clung to the steps yelling downstairs, “momma, momma!” He thought I was downstairs on the computer. Hal walked over to Max and said, “Mommas not hear right now Max, its okay, papa is.” Max ran to the window and stood with his face towards it while shaking his head "no", and cried. Hal walked up behind Max and put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Papa loves you Max.” Max turned around and put his arms out to Hal. So sweet. He fell asleep crying in Hal’s arms. When Hal tried to put him down in bed he quickly woke up and cried. Hal crawled into bed with him and put his arm around him. He told him several times that he loves him and Max eventually cried himself to sleep. Papa was there with him the whole time. This whole situation lasted about an hour.

Poop News…

Well, I always thought by the time Max could express his disdain for the smell of poop, I’d be pooping alone. Wrong. Again. He wanted me to hold him while I was in the bathroom, so I did. Soon enough, Max grabbed his nose and made the sign for “stinky.” I just laughed my ass off. Literally.

Hal will be on the channel 7 news, again, tonight. You will see him shine sometime during the 6:30pm news (maybe quite literally because it was HOT outside)! He organized a bike rodeo at his library for the kids and it went swimmingly well. I went up there to volunteer (sans Max – he was at grandma’s) and was just so incredibly proud of Hal. It was well organized and all the kids really loved it. It’s so cute hearing them call Hal, "Mr. Hal". After the rodeo, Hal and I went out to lunch. A perfect ending to a perfect morning. I’m so proud of him. I love that he contributes to the community that he works in. I’m proud of us, really. We are both doing really well at managing our outside-of-family lives productively. And, for the first time in my life, I am comfortable saying, “I’m a writer.” Gotta run, Max is at the top of the steps yelling, “Momma! Momma!”

Thought this would be interesting to see...

( Pictures... Lots of them... )

I’ve been going through a slow process of minimizing all the stuff in our living space. We have a lot of stuff that we either don’t use and just takes up space or that we use (like t-shirts) because they’re there but we don’t really need them. Today I’m going to sift through the clothing. If we have less clothes that equals less laundry which equals less detergent which equals less money to spend. I also have a ton of toxic cleaning products that I need to give away. When we used to shop at Sams I thought I needed to “stock up” on such products. Simplifying our living space is hard and will get even harder when I get to the books. It’s also tricky because Hal is a collector and a bit of a pack rat – two things I’m not and never have been. I’m spending this year, decidedly, on minimizing, simplifying, organizing, and detoxifying our living space. I foresee doing this with two small children to care for next to impossible.

I stole this from pipu who posted it in the naturalfamily community. It's about fucking time these idiot insurance companies do something right that saves them money and saves women pain...

In today's Wall Street Journal there's an article called "New Pratices Reduce Childbirth Risks". I can't link because WSJ is a pay site, but the gist of the article is that the insurance companies are finally figuring out that inductions and other interventions are leading to more birth complications and costing them money, so they are telling doctors and hospitals to reduce their use of procedures to speed up labor.

"Driven by soaring liability-insurance premiums... hospital groups are adopting policies to discourage or prohibit births induced before the minimum 39 weeks recommended by maternal and child health experts, unless medically necessary. They are curtailing the use of drugs such as the hormone oxytocin to start of speed up contractions."

"Despite the sharp rise in elective inductions in recent years, which may account for a third or more of all induced births in some hospitals, research shows that delivering babies even a few days early is associated with higher rates of emergency Caesarean deliveries, admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit with respiratory distress and other problems, and longer-term health issues for children."

"Oxytocin... is often used to speed or jump-start labor, but if the contractions become too strong and frequent, the uterus becomes "hyperstimulated," which may cause tearing and slow the supply of blood and oxygen to the fetus. Though there are no precise statistics on its use, IHI (the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement) says reviews of medical-malpractice claims show oxytocin is involved in more than 50% of situations leading to birth trauma."

Interesting that for all these years the argument (from the medical establishment) has been that interventions reduce maternal & fetal injury or death, when the opposite is true. It's sad that the driving force behind this change is a money bottom-line rather than a healthy natural birth bottom-line, but whatever works, right? Maybe next the insurance companies will start pushing breastfeeding since it leads to fewer claims!