Guilt is a crazy thing. It’s the kind of thing that compels you to forgo purchasing yourself a steam mop and instead purchase $170 Craftsman tool set from Sears as a Father’s Day present because you are too tired to wake up early, cook a wonderful breakfast, change poopy diapers, make a fabulous dinner and bake a banana cake for your thoroughly deserving husband. Of course, you are only too tired to do those things because three weeks ago the cutest kid on the planet flew out of your crotch at warp speed but yet you still feel guilty. I can’t be the only one out there right? RIGHT??

Can someone please explain to be why juice tastes most delicious out of a juice box? It’s the most wasteful way to consume said juice but in a side by side comparison test, the juice box always wins over the bottle. Is it a genetic thing? When my sister comes over the first thing she does is hit our fridge up searching for juice boxes.

There are only a few short weeks left to my Lifetime Television Clean Start Challenge (see my weekly videos HERE and vote for Erin in Oviedo HERE ) Had I tackled it the night the idea came to me, I would most certainly be hanging another Erin original in the nursery but food poisoning and a nasty cold mowed us down one right after another and gave me pause before beginning my project. Then today, I started looking around Etsy.com to see if an old blogging friend was yet selling her robot pillows when I stumbled across this shop and now have to make a decorating decision (Just HOW does Nate Berkus do it?) What would you do?

1) Go with the original plan of painting a large canvas for the wall and praying it comes out like I want it too

2) Buy and frame these oh so retro cool Rocket Prints

3) Buy and frame this nifty series of Robot and Space Prints

I have stated many times how I am trying to do this in a very budget minded manner and I am happy to say that thus far we have really stuck with that! I have only purchased the lamp, a hepa filter, bed sheets, a crib skirt, the curtains (plus decorative patches I added) and the star mobile. Everything else in the room has been re purposed from another place in our home, a used item that has been passed on to us, or a gift. This leaves me with some wiggle room when it comes to these final designing decisions. To help you help me, here are some sneak peek pictures.

The large wall that the star mobile is hanging in front of, is the wall I will be hanging something from the above selections on. So, what are your thoughts? Which would be the best choice? Money wise, the canvas size I would use to create something would cost about the same amount of money as purchasing the above linked prints, making the budget less of a deciding factor.

And because of that food poisoning thing I mentioned, we ended up taking an unscheduled peek at one of the people inspiring this whole project:

aww he’s yawning and looks like the wittle spawn of a cartoon tryst! Then, they also confirmed that it’s not my imagination, there actually is something impeding my breathing

I hope he decides to bend his knees sometime soon.

By the time my 1st trimester closes I have usually undergone a slew of ultrasounds, batteries of tests, and had 2 or so bleeding scares. This time is different. I have had two ultrasounds. One for a cyst, where they found a gestational sac and one a week later to see if it was viable. I have not seen a baby form, though I know thumper is in there with her/his heart beating away. This is the way things should be, but have never before been.

Losing two pregnancies in a row right off the bat robbed me of much of the joy in pregnancy. Each trip to the restroom, I have to look for blood. Every ultrasound, I hold my breath until I can see or hear the heart beating. Each cramp is a potential disaster and my dreams are fraught with realistic and terrifying nightmares of loss. Blend all of that with some interesting high risk challenges and you have a circus of intervention.

I have always dreamed of having a pregnancy that was not a crisis. A pregnancy where no one is pushing amnios and terbutaline pumps. I am not opposed to what I know needs to be done- after 12 weeks and approximately every 4-6 week have an ultrasound to check on the condition of the baby and placenta due to the Heparin, taking my Heparin shots, blood draws to check my bleeding time, and possibly inducing labor.

What I do not understand is a doctor pushing me to take use medications that have not worked for me in the past, causing more harm then good and doctors ordering excessive and invasive treatments to prevent labor only to practically yank the baby from my womb when things take an “unexpected” turn south. I don’t understand the use of pitocin when I am laboring well on my own, nor do I understand the constant badgering to consent to an epidural or something to “take the edge off.” I didn’t get it when my last birth turned into a three ring circus complete with gawking student nurses. Apparently months later, my unmedicated birth left such an impression that an acquaintance who went to the same hospital to birth heard about me!

I do not want my newborn ripped from me, held captives for hours or days and subjected to unnecessary and expensive tests. I don’t want to battle the nursing staff for the right to breastfeed my child or the right to hold him all night long even if I have been discharged and he has not. I don’t want to feel like the staff is looking for something to do, someone to use this fancy! shiny! new! medical equipment on. I just want to have a baby like millions of women before me- peacefully, unburdened, and in rhythm with my body.

Losing babies made me feel broken. I’ve never fully regained trust in my body and don’t know that I ever will. Every medical intervention erodes away at what confidence I have built back and though I am a strong person, though I have a strong voice, every time they pull the “dead baby card” on me I have to worry what if.. because I have faced that before.. and never want to again.

This time I am aiming for a doctor who agrees with my less is more. I am looking for a smaller hospital with more personal attention and less procedure lust. I am hoping for no preterm labor and a natural minimally medical birth, resulting in a healthy happy baby and some soul healing for me.

~*~*~**~
For less tearful reading you should check this out. Christmas is coming fast.

How do you know it’s time to give in and go grocery shopping?
(more…)

My neighbors were robbed yesterday. If that news isn’t frightening enough, it happened in broad daylight while I was home with my three children.

Yesterday I left the front door wide open. The storm door was closed and locked but anyone skulking around could easily peer into my home. Around 4ish Dozer started having a total freak out. I didn’t even bother to look. I just moved his furry white butt from in front of the door and closed it, assuming he was posturing at the next door neighbor lady who is terrified of him (thus making barking at her extra fun and enticing). I feel like such a jackass. Had I looked, I may have prevented a crime or gotten a look at the jerk who did this.

Over the last two months I’ve had a series of dreams about our home getting broken into while we slept. The dreams have rattled me enough that I have spoken with the Hubster about installing surveillance cameras around the property. This may become a reality with the approaching new year. It would be nice to be able to identify the intruder after Dozer decapitates him. Also, we may revisit the three dog matrix. An extra set of teeth is always a huge crime deterrent.

And as a final thought can someone please explain the logic behind a crime like this? During college I lived right at the heart of crack town. I was surrounded by felons. The general thought was leave the hood to steal stuff. These people be po’ they ain’t got nuttin worth stealing. My neighbors aren’t rich, quite the opposite really. They are not at all extravagant and do nothing to attract attention and yet BAM! So please, explain why po’ people are stealing from other po’ people because we be po’ too and I’d be awful sorrowful if someone broke into my home and stole my 15 year old hand me down TV.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there in blogland. We’re keeping the gathering small and yet I can’t help but cook cook cook!

The Pioneer Woman is helping me with my turkey this year as I give brining my first go.

Gluten Free Girl is helping me with my pumpkin and apple pies.

My stuffing/dressing is homemade gluten free buttermilk cornbread with lots of sauted goodies baked to stuffingy perfection. The mashed potatoes, I’m sure, are outlawed in 10 states for being overly decadent then there are all the veggies. Oh the veggies! We have a huge organic bounty to enjoy this Thanksgiving thanks to some close friends who work at the organic veggie co-op. I’m feeling a bit like a pip and thinking that 2 pies and a cake simply might not be enough, I may need to make some more toffee. MMMMMMMMM toffee!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We added a vibrant and healthy son, our girls are flourishing, and we are expecting another miracle. Our sense of support and community has expanded 10 fold in the last year; it’s such a blessing to have people in your life who are eager to help when the road gets tough and who know that you are just as eager to help them.

I can only hope that each and every one of you have such blessings and many more in the year to come.

I remember middle school as the most turbulent chunk of my public schooling. Who ever came up with the idea to take all the kids wobbling on the cusp of hormonal overload and caging them up on the same campus, must truly have a sadistic streak. 6-8 grade is a time where you are too cool for baby stuff and not old enough to do a blessed thing There is nothing to do but rail against all authority and dominate those weaker then you. I have been preparing myself to help my children deal with this eventuality. I have not, however, prepared myself to deal with my children’s middle school offering hormonal birth control without specific parental consent.

King Middle School in Portland, Maine offers a free student clinic where middle schoolers can receive basic health care. Parents sign a consent form allowing the students to receive services but the form does not clearly define what services are available to the students. The ambiguity of the form is now an issue as the school board approved a measure that makes hormonal birth control available to the middle school students through the health clinic without specific consent from parents.

What parent would want to deny their child care for basic ailments, especially if they are among the millions of Americans who live without health insurance? None that I know and so many will sign the consent form without even realizing that it allows the school to prescribe and provide hormonal birth control in the form of pills and patches to their 11-13 year old daughters.

I have no issue with the schools educating children about safe sex, passing out condoms, offering counseling, and I think it would be fantastic if the clinic offered gynecological exams as a standard service. I do take issue with the clinic offering hormonal birth control not only to children at such a young age but to children who’s parents do not have to be informed that their child is obtaining a prescription for drugs that may cause health problems.

Hormonal birth control and it’s use has been tied to breast cancer, cervical cancer, liver tumors, diabetes, blood clots, mood disorders, weight issues and more. Is it responsible and reasonable to assume that all parents would allow their children to take such medication? Shouldn’t this service require a separate consent form which discusses exactly what pills and patches are being offered and the associated risks?

At 11 I had zero concept of family health history. I have an inherited clotting disorder, not something that they routinely test for unless and until you suffer from a blood clot or present with pregnancy complications. At 11 I could have waltzed into this center, received a BASIC check up and a script to begin hormonal birth control. I could die from that. My girls could die from that. They very well may have my clotting disorder. There is no reason for me to get them tested now, it should not affect them. I will get them tested should they ever be interested in birth control pills… oh but wait! Under Portland Maine’s new clinic policy, I wouldn’t even KNOW.

Imagine finding their lifeless body and rushing off to the hospital

“Ma’am, does your child take any medications?”

“Why no, nothing!!”

(actually she does, I just don’t know it. Oh, and it can cause life threatening complications)

What are your thoughts on this issue. To me, it just smacks of irresponsibility.

On the morning of 9/11 I sat in the office of the OB/GYN praying for a heartbeat. That morning I sat clutching my husbands hand and we trembled together. Then, the radio suddenly snapped on in the waiting room, news of the first plane striking the towers… We were dumb founded. We sat listening to the blow by blow of what happened, our mouths hung open. Everyone was talking in the waiting room, trying to get the facts straight, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The nurse called us back. The wand slid over my belly and there on the screen was a heartbeat. This child that no one could believe existed was strong and growing. This baby that came unexpectedly on the heels of a painful twin miscarriage, this baby that had no time to be conceived, looked perfectly formed. I wept with joy and walked out into the world to mourn with my fellow Americans.

Where were you?