Category Archives: Parenting

Mom Gets Up Close & Personal with the Big Kid

Posted on January 24, 2013 | 10 comments

Emily has a short week of school this week. Consequently there is no Show and Tell. This is probably a good thing.

Yesterday afternoon I put my feet in the stirrups at the midwive’s office to get my new IUD. I had planned to have Emily watch Lucy for me but it was late in the afternoon and Lucy was hungry and wanting her mama. Lucy ended up in my lap which meant Emily was free.

She was standing by my feet. “Can I … see what she is doing?”

“Sure, just don’t bump in to my leg, please, and stay out of Rachel’s way.” My seven-year-old disappeared behind the sheet covering my knees.

“Is that blood? Is it period blood or blood blood? Why is betadine orange? Does it hurt? Why are you squeezing your toes? Are you making that noise to make Lucy laugh or because it hurts? Is that where Lucy was? How did she fit in there? When you were having a baby you kept saying “I can’t do it” and you were crying. That’s the part that is scary. So, what exactly is your vagina? Where is that?”

On our way to the car I said “I don’t think very many seven-year-olds have seen their mother’s cervix. Was that neat? Or kind of weird?”

“Well, I thought I would just have to sit there and watch Lucy and that it would be… Lame. That was not lame.”

When I got up this morning this is what I saw at the kitchen table. I don’t think her cervix sighting has irrevocably changed her. Although she has a certain “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar” flair, no?

In other news I snapped a picture of Lucy after she finished nursing just now. She doesn’t look like a kid who has a mother with low milk supply to me. I am ever vigilant, but so far so good.

10 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Birth, Breastfeeding, cervix, health, IUD, medicine, midwife, motherhood, OB/GYN

The Ongoing Saga of My Innards or Five Fun Facts about My New IUD

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 79 comments

You havent heard enough about my innards, have you? When I showed you a picture of my IUD moments after it was removed, that wasn’t enough. When I took a picture of the view from my colposcopy I know I really left you wanting more. And I know that when I gave you the play by play of Lucy’s birth I left out a lot of details.

So, that is why I feel compelled to give you some more deets about Lady Town.

Five Fun Facts About My Choice to Have My Paragard Replaced With a Mirena

1. Fact: I love my kids. I was blessed to fall in love with each of them the moment they were born. Moments after Emily was born I knew I would do it again. And the moment after Lucy was born and Emily said “It’s a sister” I knew that I was done. These were my children. We were complete.

2. Fact: I have good intentions. And grand plans. Eat a healthy snack every day becomes eat peanut M&Ms on occasion. Stop wearing yoga pants unless I am exercising becomes wear yoga pants when you are planning on staying home for the day. Make sure I have planned our dinners in such a way that I do not have to throw away a single leftover easily turns in to I totally I forgot I bought this cilantro but we ate everything else! Go, me!

Small things. A single bag of M&Ms, cozy yoga pants when it is cold outside and a $2 bag of fresh cilantro won’t change the course of history. But take this pill every single day at the same time or you might get pregnant. Another baby? A baby changes you. Forever.

It took me 36 years to like me just fine. This Life, the one where I forgive myself for a bag of M&Ms or some wasted cilantro, I want this Life. And the “Yes, actually I was on birth control pills but aren’t we Blessed to have this baby” baby just doesn’t fit in this Life.

3. Fact: Nursing my babies is important to me. It might even be more than important. It goes well beyond nutrition and it is the cornerstone to my parenting philosophy. Many of the decisions that I have made about how to be the best mother that I can be center around continuing the mother-baby nursing relationship for as long as it is mutually desired.

I am not denying that other women can be wonderful mothers and not breastfeed. (Nor am I telling you that daily M&Ms, a wardrobe made up solely of yoga pants and regular take-out because you forgot to pull chicken breasts out to thaw signals the imminent failure of your family foundation. But it doesn’t add up to the Life that I want. For me.)

So, I breastfeed. And I avoid things that can have a negative impact on that relationship, things like hormonal birth control.

I shared here about how I had Big Plans for getting back in the marital saddle as soon as I got my IUD last February. I had a copper IUD after Emily was born and it worked well for me for years. There is an adjustment period, pardon the pun. But it is worth it.

4. Fact: I am not a squeamish gal when it comes to my own body. I sing the praises of the menstrual cup loud and proud. Who wants to think about their period all of the time? Not me. Twice a day you can empty a menstrual cup and chances are your periods will be shorter in length! The Diva Cup is awesome. The other day a friend asked me if she could talk to me about it. I laughed. I sat in my living room and showed her how it works, folded it, talked about the magical twist and release that creates a perfect seal. Ordinarily someone has to ask me to not talk about my menstrual cup. I am what one might call a huge fan.

But that doesn’t mean I want to wear it every day. The Diva Cup is not intended to be an everyday accessory. You see where I am going with this, right? This is when I try to find a clever way to explain that I have had my period on average for 14 days out of every 21 since I got it back (at three months post-partum!!) Umm. I don’t need a separate paragraph to include the Fact that that is some bullshit right there.

5. Fact: Every women is different. Every body is different. And evidently every woman’s body isn’t even the same year after year. My beloved hormone-free Paragard isn’t working for me this time. After much research and soul searching I am having it removed and replaced with the levonorgestrel-releasing Mirena. Many women have had a Mirena with no impact on their milk supply at all.

But I am afraid.

The rest of the ill side-effects that are possible: hellacious acne, migraines and depression, I won’t be able to ignore them. It won’t sneak up on me. I will never sit down at the end of the day and say “Damn, I have had a debilitating headache all day, I didn’t even realize it.”

But I don’t know what low milk supply feels like. I don’t know how to know that it is happening. I know I do not want my baby (and yes, she turned one last week, but she is a baby) to wean. I don’t even know what weaning a baby looks like. And more than that – I do not know how to mother a toddler without nursing.

I am, as I always am, nursing Lucy while I type. And I am, as I sometimes am, crying. If the Mirena works for us I will be happy. And if it doesn’t, if my mik supply dips and I can’t get it back up quickly, I will be having it removed “even though” my baby is over a year old.

I struggled with this decision. Above all else I struggled with admitting that I was making choices about my birth control largely based on my ability to breastfeed my twelve month old. And I shouldn’t have to struggle to admit that. It’s how I choose to parent. And it works for me. And for my kids. And when I put it like that it doesn’t sound so complicated.

If you find this because you are struggling with your own decision, feel free to contact me. If you want to share your experience because it will be helpful to you, please do. If you want to tell me about your sister-in-law with a Mirena that breastfed her entire neighborhood until they graduated from high school or warn me that my insides will likely turn inside out I can assure that I have weighed both the risks and the benefits and made a choice.

In the coming weeks I can promise to keep y’all posted about my milk supply. More boobs, less uterus! Now that’s a campaign platform if ever there was one.

Update: What did my seven-year-old think of watching me get my IUD? Find out!

It is understandably difficult to comprehend why I do not want any more of these. It is even hard for me to wrap my mind around.

79 Comments

Posted in Parenting, Pregnancy

Tagged birth control, birth control pills, Breastfeeding, colposcopy, contraceptive, health, IUD, mental-health, Mirena, mothering, Paragard

Lucy Goose is ONE!

Posted on January 20, 2013 | 10 comments

Dear Lucy,

Last year I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to love a baby as much as I loved your big sister. Lucky for you – you turned out to be a Lucy, not just a baby. And in one short year my heart has tripled in size.

I am crazy about you, little girl. And the bonus that I never saw coming? I love your sister twice as much as I used to and your dad, too. You are the icing on my cake, sweet girl. Life was sweet before you arrived, but now that you are here – I just can’t imagine our family without you.

So. You’re one. We made it.

I keep writing and writing and deleting. I don’t have words for you, Lucy Goose. You are sleeping in my lap right now. And I can’t wait for you to wake up. I have spent nearly every minute of the last year with you. And all I want is more.

You are a funny little thing. You make me laugh all of the time.

One year ago we left the birthing center in the dark hours of the morning and we came home, the four of us. I’ve never looked back. You have been a sweet and smushy little baby. You nurse like a champ and you hold my hand while you sleep. You are a cuddler. But you are also so independent in your own little way. You have been just a perfect little baby.

In the last few weeks I have started to see the little girl you are going to be. And Lucy Goose, you are trouble. You are funny. Your sister and I are funny, but you? You are a nut. Your squinchy little smile. Your gonna give me a run for my money, I am afraid. There is a reason you didn’t come to me until I had figured this mothering stuff out a little bit.

Happy birthday, Lucy Goosey. I love you so much I can’t stand it.

Love,

Mom

10 Comments

Posted in Family, Parenting

Tagged baby, birthday, Dear Lucy, Lucy, mothering, one, SAHM

How to take the Baby out to Dinner

Posted on January 19, 2013 | 8 comments

Taking your kids out to eat in a restaurant can be daunting. It is a crapshoot. Will they behave? Will they get restless? Will my food come out in less than seven minutes? There are a lot of questions. Questions that do not ever include “should we order an after-dinner drink or dessert?” because if you make it through dinner unscathed, without tears or dirty looks from the wait staff or other diners you just want to pack up your crap and your kids and get the hell out of there before your good juju runs out.

Last night we had one of those once in a Blue Moon dinners. (Perhaps it was augmented by the three Blue Moons Mom slurped down during dinner!) It was perfect. We could have stayed for hours chatting it up at the table. How did we do it? Easy.

Step 1. Slide in to the booth in a manner that puts Mom far away from all of the kids. Mom is quick to jump to “Well, you knew this was going to happen!” when Baby squeals or Big Kid spills a drink. Or at least this Mom is. Yanno, before she has a couple of beers, anyway.

Step 2. Put a grandparent between Baby and Big Kid. Just do it if you can. Grandparents love to play tic-tac-toe and pick up toys off of the floor. Over and over and over again.

Step 3. Have a waitress that is over 27 but does not have her own kids. She is old enough to have the uterine twinge of “Damn, those are some cute kids” and not yet keen to the fact that it is the cute ones that wreak the most havoc. She will give you way too many straws. Key to step 4.

Step 4. Give your baby a straw. They will not poke their eyes out. Or choke. They will love it. When they throw it on the floor just give them another. Straws will not get ground in to the carpet like a Cheerio.

Step 5. Someone, anyone, preferably someone at your table but it could be a diner nearby, order the pork shank. Give the baby ALL the bones. Not one or two. Three. Three bones. She will be (you know I am going to go there) in hog heaven, I promise.

That’s it. It is that easy. Five simple steps to taking Baby out to dinner. You’re welcome.

8 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged advice, baby, dinner, nonsense, Parenting, parenting advice, pork

The Book of Truth?

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 9 comments

Emily brings home a book every day.

On Tuesday afternoon I was fit to be tied midway through homework time. I was in a mood. Stomping. A little light swearing. She handed me the book she had chosen from her “Book in a Bag” selection and I grimaced. “Did you pick this book for me? It is NOT funny.”

On Wednesday she selected another book. We were in a hurry to get homework finished because I had an appointment. To get my hair cut.

Last night we joked that we should look at the books she had selected for the rest of the week so we could take a look in to the future.

Now it is Thursday. It has been raining since about 6 o’clock this morning. She handed me her book as we sat down to read this afternoon. To my credit I did not say “You have got to be kidding me? Get away from me with your crazy voodoo future predicting book picking skills?!”

I hope it stops raining soon. I really do. While I was typing this just now Lucy dumped the dog’s bowl of water on the floor in the kitchen. I hope that is flood enough to satisfy the “Book in a Bag” Gods.

9 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged book, elementary school, Emily, future, Parenting, rainy day, SAHM

In Flight Meal

Posted on January 16, 2013 | 46 comments

We are sitting at the airport. Em is eating some fruit salad. She is licking the fork. Lucy is nursing in my lap at the Starbucks inside the terminal.

“Mom, does that ever embarrass you?”

“What?”

“You know. Having your boob out.”

“Nope. Lucy has to eat. Are you embarrassed that you have your tongue out? Everyone can see you eating.”

She smirks at me, the way you smirk at your mother.

“It’s only weird to see a woman feeding a baby because you don’t see it very often. The more people see a baby eating the less weird it will be.”

“Yeah. That’s good, Mom. That will be good.”

Yep. It sure will.

46 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Breastfeeding, Parenting

I gotta be cleeeean!!

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 7 comments

I have jars all over my kitchen with gross stuff in them. Three jars of kefir right now are growing on top of my fridge. Two large jars of kombucha scobys are sleeping peacefully in my cabinets. I like the process of watching something sort of disgusting become something else sort of disgusting. If that something disgusting means that something good is happening, too, even better. If that something good is even possibly contributing to the health of my family in a positive way than I enjoy it even more.

Oddly, I can not muster up any excitement while watching the snot roll out of Lucy’s face. I can’t feel awe for the gloopy crust that accumulates in her eyes by morning. I know that it is her little body pushing out the funk. Intellectually, I know this. Maternally, I just want it to stop.

We aren’t sleeping. Instead we are sitting up in bed at night trying to keep the snot from sitting in her chest. We are running the humidifier and using saline spray. I am shooting breast milk up her nose and in her eyes. I am pushing rest and fluids.

And we are showering. Like as a hobby.

Lucy used to be really jazzed in the shower. She loved it. It’s losing the appeal now that we are in there all of the time. Now I have to spit water at her to get a smile.

In this morning’s shower I had to resort to wowing her with my lyrical stylings. To the tune of Suzanne Vega’s “Left of Center” I sang to her this little number –

If you want me, you can find me, With my baby in the shower!! No more crying, no more whining,We’ve been giving Snot too much POWER!

It’s a first draft. And I am running on empty. Stick around for more nudity and a snazzy rendition of Sammy Davis, Jr’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me!”

Whether it’s a cold, or even the flu! Makes no difference to me, the end result is the same, I gotta be clean, I’ve gotta be cleeeean!!!

7 Comments

Posted in Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged cold, Humor, Life, mothering, nonsense, Parenting, showers, sic

The Mom who Cried…

Posted on January 4, 2013 | 13 comments

Is it Wolf? Are you crying Wolf when you take your kid to the doctor and they miraculously feel better the moment you get there? I guess I cried “Possibly More Than a Chest Cold?”

Or maybe I didn’t cry at all. Maybe I only meekly said “Umm… tell me that my baby isn’t scary wheezing and cooking pneumonia in her lungs so that I can avoid a late night trip to the Emergency Room over the weekend?”

There are things I don’t really do – things like take my baby to the doctor because she has a cold. And things like go out in public without a shower, wearing pajamas and a poncho. A fucking poncho, y’all. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

As Lucy upchucked snot rockets for the eleventh night in a row my lack of sleep started messing with my head. Her wheezy breath at night started scaring me. Her little eyes in our dark bedroom, crying. This morning I caved. I called the pediatrician. “Can you get here in fifteen minutes?”

Yep. Let me just put on a hat. And a poncho. Let me put on my Frazzled Mom That Has Not Slept in 11 Days costume so that when I show up and my hacking, coughing snot nosed baby appears to be in perfectly good health I will not look like a raving lunatic with Münchausen syndrome.

Clean lungs. No danger zone. Just a crabby baby with a nasty cold upchucking snot rockets in my bed. And I am grateful. I guess that is what motherhood is all about some days, gratitude for the strangest things.

If you need me, just look for the gal with the poncho on, the sweaty one because she has a humidifier running in every room of her house. I will be alternately squirting breastmilk up my kid’s nose and chasing her with The SnotSucker. I will be hard to miss.

Addendum: If there was a teeny part of me that felt like we were getting the short end of the health stick this holiday season I don’t need to look far to check myself. While I was at the doctor getting the clean lungs stamp of approval my dear friend Karen was heading back to the ER with one of her wee ones. Send her good juju, please. And if you are dying to hear more about bodily functions she is your gal.

13 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged baby, motherhood, nosefrida, winter

Remember that New Year’s Eve we all puked?

Posted on January 2, 2013 | 16 comments

I used to wear leather pants on New Year’s Eve. I curled my hair. I wore excessive amounts of black eyeliner and a WonderBra.

I have always liked New Year’s Eve. Even as a bartender I didn’t mind it. New Year’s Eve brings out the amateurs and typically working cut in to my party time but I never minded.

I liked the Get Fancy and Kiss a Boy aspect of the celebration.

A lot has changed in the past few years. But much has stayed the same.

This year I was not wearing leather pants. But I was wearing my fancy lounge pants, the linen ones. I was not wearing a WonderBra. But I did sport a clean “sleeping bra” (the most excellent option for keeping boobs up out of your waistband but nowhere near your neck.) I did not curl my hair or put on loads of makeup but I showered and I was wearing lipgloss. I was going to kiss my favorite boy.

We had considered having dinner across the street but Lucy had been under the weather. We opted to have dinner at home. Em would join our neighbors for dinner and a sleepover and MQD and I would have a quiet evening at home. I ran out to Trader Joe’s for wine and MQD grabbed sushi from our favorite place. It was all systems go for a good time.

We had dinner. I finished preparations for our New Year’s Day Brunch. I made three dozen ham biscuits and enough mac and cheese to sink a ship. A lemon pound cake waited on the counter. The heartburn inducing Chicken and Bleu Cheese Frank’s Red Hot dip was in the crock pot. When our neighbors invited us across the street for a drink it seemed like a great idea. Lucy was chipper and not particularly nose-runny.

Sinking in to their couch I was laughing that it was only nine o’clock and I was fading. I would give Emily one more kiss goodnight and MQD and I would head back across the street with Lucy and hopefully make it until midnight. I bent down to kiss her forehead and I thought she was hiding, goofing off the way kids do. I pulled back her blanket and she was hot. There are five words I did not expect in a million years to hear. “I want to go home.”

Across the street we went, Mom with her baby and half a bottle of wine, Dad with the big girl wrapped in her blanket. Em is not a party animal. My girl likes her sleep. When we got home I was not convinced that she wasn’t just desperate to sleep in her own bed. Ten minutes later when she filled half of a small trash can with puke I knew she wasn’t messing around.

Moms have skills. They can change gears rapidly. I was in Possibly Sexy Time Date Night mode only twenty minutes earlier and now I was spreading towels over every surface of my house. Operation Don’t Get Puke on the Carpet or the Couch was in full effect.

By 11 o’clock my New Year’s celebration was looking much different than I had imagined it. Emily had gone to bed (a bed covered in towels) and my boys were asleep on the couch.

Lucy was out cold on the floor.

I snapped these two pictures and sent them to a friend with comments about what a wild night we were having at out house.

And I sat back down in my chair. I was preparing to watch the ball drop all by my lonesome. It was 11:35. I heard Emily upstairs. She was awake. She was getting sick again. I needed to run upstairs and check on her but I couldn’t move. “Miiiike, wake up, Em is sick and…. SOOOOO AM I!!!”

Not since my days of frequenting fraternity parties have I seen someone go from having a great time to puking their guts out in a split second. It was crazy. One minute I was hanging out with my bad self, flipping channels and trying to figure out why I still love Jenny McCarthy. (It has been 18 years since MTV’s fantastic dating show Singled Out and I still love her.) The next minute I was sweating and shivering and puking my guts out.

At 11:54 I was in my bed in my bathrobe yelling to the living room “Is Emily ok?” I was going to just close my eyes for a minute and then I would hop out of bed and wish my sweet family a Happy New Year.

That’s not exactly how it went.

I passed Emily in the kitchen at around 3:30. She was dumping out her own barf bucket. I was weirdly proud of her. We sat on the couch together like you did in college after an ugly bender. We sipped water and told horror stories. “Oh man, were you awake when I barfed in the shower. That was crazy” and “do I smell like puke or do I just have puke in my nose so everything stinks?”

By morning we were certain we would live. MQD went out for Gatorade. We cancelled our brunch.

It has been two days. MQD eventually fell prey to the Nuclear Crud. He is camped out in our bedroom. I washed and folded the 800 towels we puked on. Lucy has been enjoying her new found freedom gained by the fact that no one is really paying attention to watch she is doing. She is playing in a pile of torn up magazines. Em is behind the couch watching a movie on the iPad. There is some superior parenting going on in this house.

So, yeah. As soon as we feel better I guess we will start eating ham biscuits and spicy bleu cheese chicken dip. Shit. I might have just puked in my mouth a little.

16 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Family, holiday, Life, new year's eve, sick, The Crud, vomit

Dear Universe, You can suck it. Love, Kelly

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 15 comments

I don’t remember getting an email notification that the Universe started following my blog. But that is the only possible explanation. Because it happens without fail. I say it out loud, that everything is peachy, and then Blamm-o I get knocked on my ass. I wrote last night that all was well. The girls were sick but on the mend. I had felt crummy briefly but I was on the up and up. And then I went to bed.

I was in tears about fifteen minutes after I woke up. Nothing and everything was bothering me. The long and short of it – I have been slacking on the exercise this month and it makes me mental. I need it. On top of that Lucy is nearly a year old and I might be ready for a night out. And by ready I mean I will likely cry and come home early and worry and obsess and call home a hundred times but if I don’t go soon it could get even uglier. Oh, and I am so tired, so very tired. Now you are all caught up.

The Universe saw me send up the “Life is Super, thanks for asking!” flare and so it kicked me in the stomach as soon as I woke up. In my bed with swollen eyes I said “No, I don’t want coffee, I just need ten minutes to myself.” I flopped back in my bed for a bit and then I hopped in the shower to shake it off.

Shower. Clean clothes. Polka dot knee socks and boots. Eyeliner and lipgloss that tastes like peppermint bark. I was calm and cool. I was approaching collected. But only approaching. We would take two cars to church. I wasn’t ready to go exactly and the pressure of everyone waiting on me was too much. “Just go, I will meet you there.” I might have yelled. I don’t remember. I know I was angsty by the time I got in the car.

And, well, by the time I was calling AAA to get my car out of the ditch (the ditch I have not backed my car in to since January 4th, 2012, thankyouverymuch) I was beyond angsty and full blown crying again.

Fuck it, Universe. You win.

I gave up. I took a pillow from the bed and made a spot on the couch. Lucy and I were going down for the count. I needed a nap. Not an in the chair cat nap and not a full blown fake sick and stay in the bedroom nap, but a bed pillow on the couch nap.

I am afraid to say that my nap fixed everything. But things have started to turn around.

MQD made a pile of things for the thrift store. It was in the corner of our bedroom. (Since this girl’s husband was very tolerant of her big, fat whiney freakout this morning I will not make any comment about how long it might have stayed there had I not put it in a bag.) When the chips are down I clean. I put the duvet cover in the washing machine and stripped the sheets. When you sleep with a dog and a baby a totally clean bed deserves a totally clean bedroom so you can slip between your cold sheets and feel like you are in a hotel once a week. So, the sheets were nearly done, I had to get rid of the pile of stuff.

In the pile was a pair of Levi’s. I don’t know why I dropped my pajama pants to the floor. But I did. And on they went. “Good butt or bad butt,” I asked. MQD deferred to Emily. Em said she liked them. So did MQD. “They are yours,” I said.

“Mine? They are too small. We used to be the same size,” he said.

Well, not really. I used to pour myself in to his pants. It was a squeeze. My 25-year-old boyfriend was a lot smaller than me but I tried not to let it bother me. How could it? I was 33 and I had a 25-year-old boyfriend.

Just when I though that the Universe hated me it threw me a bone. A bone in the form of a pair of Levi’s.

Universe, you tried to fuck with me today but it seems like you changed your mind. The good news is that my ass might have been bigger than my 25-year-old boyfriend’s but it is smaller than my 29-year-old husband’s. So, take that, Universe.

I just parked my ass in my chair with a big, fat glass of pinot noir. I snapped a quick picture but it didn’t really show my feeling of ahhh. So, I took another one. Universe, I am going to drink a glass of wine and go to bed. And when I wake up in my clean sheets there will still be vacuum marks on my rug. And as long as I can still button my husband’s jeans I will not be in tears before breakfast. Nope. I sure won’t.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2012. I was awake more this calendar year than any other. 2012, I put my car in the ditch four days in. And I put my car in the ditch again just two days before you were over. But all in all, when I wasn’t in the ditch, it was unfuckingbelievable.