tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-148978742024-03-06T22:00:36.653-06:00On One Foothave you ever gotten one foot stuck in a box of randomness?Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17988612323259096275noreply@blogger.comBlogger305125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-43664865141460423982012-10-03T21:48:00.002-05:002012-10-03T21:51:33.181-05:00J at 6 monthsWe had a little scramble to get all our paperwork together for him, but we were thrilled to be able to adopt J in February. We named him J, for my father who passed away last November. Our boy has been growing like crazy, in his body and in our hearts, and we are so blessed to have him and Z. We call him “little monster” and “bubba” because that was Z's best attempt at pronouncing “brother” when we brought him home.<br />
<br />
He is growing well, but differently from Z. He's about average for height, but he's thinner than she was. It seemed like it took him until he was three months to have anything you could call a bootie, and he never really got the fat rolls. He struggled a lot with his digestion the first few months. We finally figured out that he was allergic to milk around 3.5 months, and that made a huge difference. He stopped spitting up literally overnight when we changed his formula and he's been a happy baby ever since. He is up to date on all his shots and the doctor says he's hitting all his milestones. He started on solids this last month and really loves to eat! He wanted nothing to do with cereal, really, but loves any kind of soft veggie or fruit that we give him, and he's done great on the little bit of beef and chicken he's tried so far. I think his favorite is apple, but it's hard to know for sure because he's so enthusiastic about everything! <br />
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He cut his first teeth, found his feet, and got up on all fours all in a week last month. It's like he was racing to see how many milestones he could hit and how fast. Not long after that, he was crawling. It wasn't a big dramatic moment, he just looked across the room at a toy he wanted and started motoring over to it. He was so pleased when he got there, though, that he kinda forgot how he had done it. It was several days before he did it again, and a few days after that before he finally mastered it and added it to his daily repertoire of tricks. <br />
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Some of his favorite things to do now are to grab onto faces and chew chins and noses. He knows the word “zrbtt” (I think most people call them “blowing raspberries”) and if Z starts giving zrbtts to me or Rose, he will crawl across the floor to do it, too. He especially likes to zrbtt people on the cheeks. He's very slobbery, so you have to love him a lot to let him do it. He has a great grip, though, and can all but do chinups off my ears. I had been growing my hair out, and trying out dreadlocks, but he was getting his sticky little fingers so tangled in the locs, and then he barfed in them and I couldn't get the smell out, so I had to cut it short. He still gets a good grip on it and pulls me in close so he can chew my nose, but at least now it's easy to untangle him. He's got swimming lessons coming up in the fall, so we can't wait to see if he learns as quickly as Z did. He loves to play and splash in the water, and we've taught him how to float on his back and hold his breath and go underwater already.<br />
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J has been to East Texas for a family reunion, and to Houston to visit with the cousins, and to Austin to visit with our friends and family there, and also to College Station to visit with our good friends who live there. His cousins just love helping with getting him changed and dressed and fed, and they are very excited when they know Z and J are coming for a visit. He hasn't gotten to go on any real vacations yet, but we do have one coming up in October, we'll be going to the beach. I think he'll love crawling around in the sand. He's a good traveler and likes to babble in his car seat and he sleeps well in the car. <br />
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He's the apple of his Zeidy's eye (Zeidy is Yiddish for grandfather, that's what Rose's dad is called) and loves to tug on Zeidy's mustache and sit with him in the recliner when we go visit. Rose's mom goes by Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother) and she loves to hold him and feed him his bottles. We try to make sure we see them once a week, at least, so J is very familiar with them and always gets excited when he sees either of them open the door. <br />
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My mom recently moved to a new house, so we've been to visit with her a couple of times in her new place outside of Austin. J did his first rolling over there, on the rug, at Easter. My mom is very fond of him and often calls him by my dad's nickname. She reminds him sometimes that he'll have to be a little bit tough to hold his own with such a feisty big sister, but tells him it's okay to be sweet, too.<br />
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He's surrounded by music all the time, because we sing to him and to Z as we play our way through the day. He likes to have lullabyes at night, and his favorite toys are a little play piano and a musical table that is covered in noisemaking gizmos. He is definitely a pacifier-loving baby, and never was very interested in his thumb or any other soother. The day he figured out how to put his own pacifier in his mouth was probably one of his happiest, and that's saying a lot because he is a very happy baby. He has an easy, bubbly laugh that he uses all the time. Everything from funny sounds to bouncing on a lap will make him laugh out loud. He enjoyed a bouncer, liked his swing, and LOVES his jumpy seat. He can sit and bop up and down in his jumpy seat for what seems like an hour at a time. He's a funny sleeper, he wakes often as he tosses and turns but it's easy to get him back to sleep. He takes several good naps during the day, but doesn't yet sleep through the night.<br />
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And even though he's very nearly 8 months old now, I am so proud of myself for getting this and Z's updates written, that I don't even care that it's late. Writing anything at all is a victory right now.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-79530114874128156722012-10-02T00:23:00.001-05:002012-10-03T21:51:13.929-05:00Z at 18 monthsI know that Z is actually 21 months at this writing. I'm behind. What else is new? This is more or less the story of my life, so I'm patting myself on the back for getting it written at all. <br />
<br />
Our Z is now 18 months! How the time has flown by! We were blessed to adopt Z's brother in February. We named him J, for my late father. She had a little trouble adjusting to another baby in the house at first, but she loves him now and is very tender toward him. She especially likes to help him find his pacifier and get it in his mouth! <br />
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She has grown in all of her teeth except for the molars and she is eating anything that comes her way, although she is now somewhat skeptical of any “new” food – meaning food she hasn't seen lately. Her bar-none favorite is cookies, but she only gets those in moderation. Her favorite everyday food is no longer the banana – it's probably a tie between apples and pears. She loves to eat chicken and “noon -ells” (noodles) and nuts and if it were an option would probably have macaroni and cheese with every meal – even breakfast! She and I usually share a bowl of oatmeal or cereal or yogurt and berries in the morning, and then she eats whatever we're having for lunch and dinner. <br />
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She learned to walk in May, on Mother's Day, in fact. We were over at Rose's parents' house for dinner when Z finally let go of the couch and walked clear across the floor from Rose to Rose's sister, Simona (Aunt Mimo – Z pronounces it Moomoo). We had noticed that she was much more brave about trying out standing and taking steps when she was on a carpeted or soft surface, so a month or two ago we decided to put a colorful foam mat down on our wood floors in the living room. That's the room where she spends the most time, and it really encouraged her to practice her free standing, bouncing, and cruising. So we're excited that she's walking now, and she definitely appreciates the soft landing she gets when she trips. She's also an excellent swimmer. We took swim lessons in the spring and she can now swim up to 10 feet or so from person to person, or to the wall and back. She loves to be in the water and to swim and play. <br />
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She does a wonderful job of talking and signing with us and it seems like she picks up a new word every day! She can do signs for all of her favorite foods – apples, pears, oranges, berries, carrots, milk, bread, and juice, and can say something that you can recognize for pretty much all of those things, too. She loves the song “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and there's a hip-hop version from an artist named Basho that she especially likes. She loves to watch movies of herself and her new brother on my cell phone, and she calls them “mini-moos”. She also really loves the song “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” - which she calls “Go! Go!” for the part where they sing “Go, Granny, Go, Granny, Go, Granny, Go!” and “Lime In The Coconut” which she calls “Nutnut”. She loves to dance and “The Hokey Pokey” is a big-time favorite. Before she could stand, we would do that song with her sitting on my lap and I would pick her up and spin her around during the “turn yourself around” segment. Now she stands up and spins on her own until she's so dizzy she's giggling and all but falling over. It's a huge joy to watch her growing and learning. <br />
<br />
We went to a family reunion last month in East Texas. It was the first gathering on my Dad's side of the family since he passed away. It was bittersweet for that reason – so good to get to see all the aunts and uncles and cousins and all their growing families – so sad to miss Daddy during all of it. Z and J were the youngest ones there, and were quite the hit. Everyone from the aunties to the kids-of-the-cousins wanted to get to snuggle them and play with them. Z also got to go and spend a week staying with her cousins in Katy, TX while my sister, Bebe, and I were packing up our house to get us ready to move. We've been talking about moving to Austin for years, and we're finally getting ready to put the house on the market. We'll continue to be back in Dallas regularly, though, as Rose's family lives up here. We let Z go stay with the cousins while we were cleaning up and staging everything because her favorite trick right now is emptying containers. It's hard to pack when a toddler is going behind you and undoing all your work! She loved visiting with the cousins, swimming and eating popsicles and drawing with sidewalk chalk and dressing up like a princess. <br />
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She finally got her first cold in February. Aside from that, she's been a picture of health and is still pretty much average for height and weight. She usually stays between 40th and 60th percentile for both, although she was a little on the tall side at this last checkup. Learning to walk has slimmed her down a little bit. She was a very pudgy baby until then, and now she's burning off so much more energy walking everywhere. She does great with regular cups, and is starting to get the hang of forks and spoons, too. She loves to try, whether she succeeds or not, and most of the time leaves her plate or bowl sitting on the tray. Food does fly occasionally, but not too often. She takes one good nap every afternoon, though it takes some convincing now to get her to go down. We have most success either walking her in the stroller or going to run an errand in the car. Either way, being buckled into stillness helps her fall asleep. She still usually wakes once or twice a night, but is sleeping 10 or 12 hours a night in spite of that, so she gets great rest, for which we are so grateful.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-11599619369853904322012-08-22T16:45:00.000-05:002012-10-02T00:27:11.006-05:00Adoptive Mama Stretch MarksDo you realize how much society programs us about what we "should" look like? If you're into things like <a href="http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx">The Dove Campaign For Real Beauty</a> or the recent <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/07/05/156342683/seventeen-magazine-takes-no-photoshop-pledge-after-8th-graders-campaign">no-Photoshop pledge from Seventeen Magazine</a> or maybe Chris Rock's documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213585/">Good Hair</a> or even something like this movie: <a href="http://officialdarkgirlsmovie.com/preview/">Dark Girls</a> or maybe the movie <a href="http://www.missrepresentation.org/">Miss Representation</a> you probably are and this will be me preaching to the choir. If you're not up on any of the above mentioned resources, take a gander at 'em some time and start to really THINK about what the media you're immersed in all day is telling you about what is <i>acceptable</i> about your appearance. And the media for sure has a message for you: signs of aging are unacceptable until they're unavoidable. You must look like you're 20-something until you're 60-something. (Did any of you see comments critical of Hillary Clinton's wrinkles on <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/hillary-clinton-fashion-interview-facebook/">Facebook posts</a> that praised her for shutting down a sexist line of questioning about what fashion designers she favors? I saw a LOT of that.) Your hair must be straight to be "professional" or "serious". (I'm as thrilled as the next curly girl that curly hair is making so many appearances in commercials, but take a deeper look at the way it's portrayed - always as the flip, fun, crazy thing, and never as the serious, intelligent, professional, respectable thing.) The best hair and skin are blond and tan, respectively. Dark hair and skin are "exotic" and a "curiosity" - good for art - but not exactly acceptable and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8005734/Elle-magazine-in-Gabourey-Sidibe-skin-lightening-controversy.html">certainly</a> not <a href="http://main.stylelist.com/2010/12/24/aishwarya-rai-elle-india-lighten-skin-cover/">for movies</a> or <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2164603/Was-Eva-Longorias-skin-lightened-Italian-magazine-cover-Actress-appears-victim-Desperate-case-airbrushing.html">magazine covers.</a> The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2521327/Light-skinned-Beyonce-ad-sparks-outrage-knowles-LOre.html">darker the skin,</a> the less acceptable it is (and this isn't exclusive to American society, worldwide there are caste- and class-based prejudices against the dark skin associated with rural or agrarian-working people.)
<br><br>
So, recently on a website called <a href="http://www.chocolatehairvanillacare.com/">Chocolate Hair / Vanilla Care</a> for folks who (like me) have adopted transracially and want to do right by our children in their specific hair and skin care needs, there was a mom who started a conversation. Her question was fairly simple, but it sparked a lot of response and discussion. She had a history of wearing blond highlights, and though she had been blond as a child, her hair had darkened starting around 13 and been dark since. She had decided that embracing her natural hair might help her daughter to do the same. This is a big deal for young black girls - take a look around at the black women you know and survey how many of them wear their hair in its natural state. There is a lot of pressure on black women to "be presentable" by either straightening their hair or wearing a weave, or spending a lot of money on elaborate styles. (Did you hear about all the <a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/espnw/story/_/id/8232063/espnw-gabby-douglas-hair-criticized-social-media-sites">criticism of Gabby Douglas' hair</a> while she was busy winning an Olympic Gold Medal?) This mom had gotten a lot of pushback, from people as intimate as family to people as distant as cashiers looking at her ID in the store. And she was wondering if she really should go back to blond? Was she teaching her daughter something valuable by persisting, or was she just being obstinate about something that didn't matter much?
<br><br>
A lot of people, quite rightly, said that what matters is not so much what you do or don't do with your hair, but that you are happy with it, and confident in yourself. They echoed again and again the sentiment that nobody's opinion of your hair matters but your own, and if you are happy with how you look, then rock on. I took a slightly different tack. I think she should absolutely persist with the dark, natural hair, and here's what I said about why:<blockquote>
I think you are experiencing something valuable right now - society is telling you that blond hair is more appreciated and "better" than your natural beauty. Developing coping strategies from this experience and embracing your own hair's color will help you be a better ally for your daughter when she starts to internalize those same messages that her hair is more acceptable, more sophisticated, more beautiful when it is straight and light-colored and shiny. There is nothing wrong with straight blond hair, but it is certainly not BETTER than curly brown hair!</blockquote>
One of the reasons that transracial adoptive parents are counseled to find adult role models of color for their children is that they need to see people who live under the same pressure they do, modeling appropriate responses to it. It's one thing to say "be proud of your gorgeous curly hair!". It's another thing entirely to demonstrate specific ways in which one may do so. Practical example trumps sermon EVERY. TIME.
Further down the thread, several comments turned to adults who color their hair to cover up gray, and whether this was good, bad, or neither. I have thoughts on that, too! And here is what I said about that:
<blockquote>I think the impulse to cover our gray is the same impulse our chocolate children feel to lighten their skin and straighten their hair. It's the societal message that youth is more acceptable and more valuable than age, that straight blond hair is more acceptable and more valuable than curly dark hair, and that thinness is more acceptable and more valuable than curviness. Have you ever noticed how in movies, all the women either look 20 or 80? There are few 40 or 60 year old female roles in movies. You're not allowed to be gray until you look like the excellent Jessica Tandy<a href="http://www.cinemasight.com/oscar-profile-99-jessica-tandy/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cinemasight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Jessica-Tandy-253x300.jpg" width=220 align="left"></a> or Dame Judi Dench<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Dench" target="_blank"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Judi_Dench_at_the_BAFTAs_2007.jpg/220px-Judi_Dench_at_the_BAFTAs_2007.jpg" align="right" style="display:block"></a>. <br clear=right><br clear=left>Personally, I rock some silver streaks - definitely more since I brought my babies home! They're like my adoptive mother stretch marks!
</blockquote>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-12440959573197580102012-08-16T18:51:00.000-05:002012-10-02T00:30:03.607-05:00Profound Motherhood Moments #2I have these things I write on Facebook, my Profound Motherhood Moments. I just hit #50, so I'm rounding up the last 25 and sharing them here. If you're not a Mother, you may still find these apply to your relationship with your kids (as a dad) or your pets. <a href="http://thalashouse.blogspot.com/2011/10/profound-motherhood-moments.html">Here is the first list</a>
<ol start=26>
<li>A baby who will fight a kleenex like it's a zombie velociraptor intent on eating her brains slowly and painfully will then turn around and blissfully wipe boogers on your shirt.
<li>After spontaneous sloppy baby kisses are planted on your cheek, you would do well to check in a mirror, lest ye enter the doctor's office with a blob of boogers stuck to your face.
<li>Babies totally don't "get" Daylight Savings Time. Spring forward and fall back are ignored by the diaper set.
<li>To use my powers for good or evil? I forestalled the temper tantrum with a game of peekaboo 5 times (good) and then I let it happen and recorded it (evil). Watch this space for a video link
<li>A stay-at-home-mom on vacation is just a stay-at-condo-mom, BUT your afternoon walk to the park is a walk on the beach, and your spouse makes lunch! It's a good life!
<li>That cool jazz riff I'm singing as I putter around? Came from a Leap Frog music toy. My baby's stuff is officially hipper than I am.
<li>(From Rose) We survived the first year and we're still sane. Except I just ate a half-chewed banana discarded by the baby. (imagine Animal from the Muppets here) AAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH
<li>You may prefer to eat the nicer loose oranges over the bulk-in-a-bag ones, but you will also be cleaning up after someone who thinks nothing of dripping orange juice from both elbows and her chin simultaneously
<li>Do not feed cabbage to a person who lacks molars
<li>From now on, when I use the phrase, "it's better than a poke in the eye with a fork," I will be speaking from personal experience. Toddler with fork-1, Momma's cornea-0.
<li>I will continue to maintain that glitter is the herpes of the craft world. As evidence, my son spent about 5 hours at the glitter-festooned residence of his girl cousins today, and when I changed his diaper, there was a fleck of glitter on his man business, glinting brilliantly at me. Once you have a glitter outbreak, you'll be fighting them the rest of your life.
<li>What is it about newborns and 21-year olds that makes them think "party at my crib til dawn!" is a good idea?
<li>You never know how fast you can get from the front to the back seat of your car until you spend a moment trying to figure out how many labrador retrievers are attempting to share a car seat with your newborn.
<li>I frequently mock the guitar solos in classic rock, mimicking them in a nasal nee-nee-neer voice. Zoe is in the back seat, copying me, using her foot as an air mic. I am totally winning!
<li>No matter how beloved my eldest child is, she may *NOT* bogart the bacon. There are some table manners she is expected to learn, even at this age.
<li> Growing bicuspids is a pain in the face, but it opens up your world to some delicious foods. Today, pistachios!!!
<li>that very first social smile absolutely melts your heart
<li>On the plus side, my hair is long enough to trail in a pile of spit up on my shoulder. On the minus side, my hair trailed in a pile of spit up on my shoulder.
<li>The optimal nursing position for a baby with a toddler sibling is anything that places baby's head closer to the arm of the couch than to the sibling's pointy flailing elbows and knees. If you have to switch ends of the couch when the baby switches sides, it's worth it.
<li>Wine packed for road trip is wedged between stacks of diapers and padded with burp rags. Victory!
<li>Decide ahead of time how big a puddle of spilled milk will make you cry and put less than that in the toddler's cup.
<li>it's okay to get in the fridge and raid yesterday's sippy cup for milk to cream your coffee if the toddler has a cold and can't drink the milk anyway.
<li>(courtesy of Rose) Motherhood is really meant to teach you the cornucopia of things you can do one-handed while tending a kid with the other.
<li>Things that are just as endearing the second time around - discovery of the feet, learning how to work the pacifier/thumb (they go cross-eyed!), grabbing you by the hair and pulling you in for a big, sloppy, wet chomp on the nose.
<li>If they're gonna call them milestones, they should be a minimum of a quarter mile apart. Guess who found his feet and cut a tooth all in the same week?</ol>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-68924787905146085622012-07-23T20:13:00.002-05:002012-10-02T00:30:56.119-05:00Parenting surpriseI'm a casual writer and avid cook, but something about those sleep-deprived early months with my first baby really broke the part of me that cooks and writes. I can ordinarily walk into the kitchen, glance into the pantry and fridge, and whip up a meal from what's there. For six months after my daughter came home, I would walk in and glance at the fridge and ... nothing. It felt to me like what stroke victims with aphasia describe when they try to think of a word for an object in front of them - they know they should know it, everything about it is familiar, but nothing comes to mind, no matter how they stare and concentrate and think! Writing was the same way... I couldn't string two sentences together, no matter how long I stared at the composer screen on my computer, or the blank page in front of me! Eventually, both skills came back, much to the relief of both myself and my wife!
I kept up with reading; that was no problem, likely because it allowed me to be more receptive than creative. But I desperately missed adult social interaction, particularly with people who "got me". I'm not looking for anyone to fulfill me or be my reason for being, but all the same, I need a few kindred spirits in my life. I really benefited from online support groups and my friendships with far-flung folks that I maintain through Facebook, but longed for someone to chat with over coffee or a walk. I still went walking with the kid(s) all the same, but I would've liked a buddy to walk with sometimes.
I did a poor job of self-care when my first baby was tiny, partly because she was surprisingly needy (may have been a perfectly typical newborn, but she was my first so I don't have a basis for comparison) and it was hard to meet her immediate needs and mine at the same time, and partly because I easily fall prey to inertia. If I'm sitting on the couch after getting the kids to bed, I'm likely to keep sitting on the couch until bedtime, instead of getting up and working on a project. If I get started with the dishes, I'm liable to spend the whole evening cleaning, because that's one chore that is NEVER done! I know this about myself, and have for a long time -- I'm really bad at scheduling my time, at planning finite chunks of time to work on things, and at managing multiple projects in parallel. It's one of the things I liked about my job: all my projects were two weeks or less (usually much less!) in duration and they came on one at a time with little overlap. Parenting is one SERIOUSLY long-term project, with a ton of overlapping aspects. That's not to say there aren't short-term parts, or that there aren't serial aspects of it, but I find those easy to deal with so I don't give them much thought.
I've done a much better job taking care of myself and holding onto my sanity with my son. I'm building up a support network, and that helps a lot. I've also done a better job of self-care and making sure I get the rest and nourishment I need. I'm involved in things that give me a sense of purpose apart from my kids. I would say at this point my transition from working girl to working-at-home mom has been successful, but it was not without its bumps in the beginning.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-65315363804354807352012-06-26T23:03:00.002-05:002012-10-02T00:31:49.849-05:00Open Letters EditionIf I had written an open letter to my daughter three hours ago, it would've gone something like this:
<br />
<blockquote>
Dear one,<br />
<br />
Go to sleep. Now. Stop poking your finger into holes in your crib. Lie Down. Put your hat back on. Stop taking your hat off. Yes, you can sing to yourself. Put your hat back on. Go right ahead and babble. Lie Down. Lie Down. Lie Down. Put your hat back on. Lie Down. You know, you're not going to be harmed in any way if you fall asleep. Put your hat back on. Lie down. Stop poking your finger into holes in your crib. Just lie down. Put your hat back on first. Now lie down. And go to sleep. Yes, like that. The snoring is cute. <br />
<br />
Love, <br />
Mom<br />
<br />
P.S. You're about 10 times more adorable right after you fall asleep than you are right before.</blockquote>
If I wrote an open letter to the clerk at the UPS store today, it would've gone something like this:
<br />
<blockquote>
Ivan,<br />
<br />
You are very sweet and I appreciate you taking the time to attempt to get the address from me three times because I'm tending two squirming babies who keep interrupting. I'm sorry that I'm not more organized. Letting me write it down was a good idea. Thanks for your patience, I hope you have kids some day and that someone is nice to you when you're trying to manage them and some difficult task at the same time. <br />
<br />
Love, <br />
That Frazzled Mom</blockquote>
If I wrote an open letter to the neighbor it would go something like this:
<br />
<blockquote>
Dude,<br /><br />
Your tree is scratching up my car. Again. You need to trim it. I found a flower from that Crape Myrtle in my underwear today, and that's pretty much the last straw. (Can you call it a straw when it's clearly a flower? I'm going with yes.) I'm tired of getting my clothes and my hair and my babies and my car door snagged on your tree. I can't park any further away from the tree than I do, because I'd be too close to the corner and I'd rather deal with you than City Code Enforcement. I'm probably going to break that branch off again this year. Just like I did last year. And I'm not sorry.<br />
<br />
No love and increasingly less good will as the flowers pile up in my footwell,<br />
The Tall Neighbor-lady</blockquote>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-54232022696593953502012-06-24T22:37:00.000-05:002012-10-02T00:35:36.778-05:00Don't say it!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg/240px-Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg/240px-Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg" /></a></div>
You know how if you say something like, "I can't live without cheese!" you're supposed to immediately knock on wood so you don't jinx yourself? Yeah, I shoulda done that.<br />
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My totally amazing young son (who I breastfeed) is allergic to cow's milk. Which is the primary ingredient in my favorite food: cheese. Also, cheesecake, cheese dip, cheese fondue, baked brie, cheeseburgers, nachos, lasagna, eggplant (or anything else) parmesan, those little plates of cheese that come out with a wine flight, and every hors d'oeuvres on the planet (that's worth eating). I can do without ice cream. Seriously, I can! I've liked sherbet and sorbet better since I was 3 and got to pick my own flavor at the Baskin Robbins in the "old" mall in Kingsville. I always drifted away down to the left end of the little display case, to where the Orange Sherbet, Rainbow Sherbet, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Baskin-Robbins-Daiquiri-Ice-Fanatics/163531630332445">Daiquiri Ice</a> were kept. That was my favorite frozen stuff and it still is, <a href="http://www.bluebell.com/icecreamflavors/PecanPralinesnCream.html">Bluebell's Pecan Pralines 'n Cream</a> notwithstanding.<br />
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So, when my wife was considering the <a href="http://thepaleodiet.com/">Paleo</a> and <a href="http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/#axzz1yltaLtWR">Primal</a> diets, I urged her strongly to go with Primal. Why? Because of the CHEESE, of course! And every time we got into a conversation with someone about how and why she was eating a Primal diet, this would come up. And I'd loudly -- and likely melodramatically -- exclaim that I would absolutely DIE without cheese. As my friend pointed out tonight, when you say things like that, God quirks an eyebrow at you and says, "Really?" And then He laughs. Likely melodramatically.<br />
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Which brings us to how I totally screwed myself out of cheese for the near foreseeable future. Because a baby who is allergic to cow's milk is allergic typically to the proteins in it, which pass through breastmilk from mama to baby. So I'm off the cheese for a while, and all milk-derived products. The great news is that I'm friends with some awesome dairy-free eaters, and they've already turned me on to some <a href="http://www.godairyfree.org/">great resources</a> and <a href="http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/chocolate-bars/">substitutes</a> that will make this transition as easy as can be. The hardest thing so far has been finding a non-dairy milk that will do as a coffee creamer. I'm totally unenthused about non-dairy processed creamers, like Coffee Mate, so I've been exploring the almond milk (fail), coconut milk (fail), flax milk (reasonable), and hemp milk (reasonable) alternatives. Oh, and I'm allergic to soy, so soy milk is Right Out. The problem with most of these milks as creamers is that they don't have the right pH and fat content to actually cream the coffee. The flax leaves an oil slick on the surface of the coffee but tastes good, the hemp milk is grainy and falls out of solution (albeit making beautiful spiral patterns) like miso soup does. I'm still searching for the perfect alternative coffee creamer, so if you know of one, please feel free to advise me!<br />
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<br />Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17988612323259096275noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-86114797096077432142012-06-24T00:24:00.001-05:002012-10-02T00:37:12.474-05:00Holy crap, we have a baby!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHFarlbOOsnkydHXzqjB0xLIWRpP03oYhZh2s4xbWYMlwqqqlcMl9DFdGJ0xwzVm19oHsJtK9z3B2nQcQxj0qLFqyHOzcdK0Hgu8Uaoxgu4jGeOA6LwkXr5HZfq9EBmObiFr3D/s1600/family+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHFarlbOOsnkydHXzqjB0xLIWRpP03oYhZh2s4xbWYMlwqqqlcMl9DFdGJ0xwzVm19oHsJtK9z3B2nQcQxj0qLFqyHOzcdK0Hgu8Uaoxgu4jGeOA6LwkXr5HZfq9EBmObiFr3D/s400/family+004.jpg" width="400" /></a>How long have I been away from the blog that I didn't mention my new son somewhere in the four months he's been with us? At least four months, I guess. It used to be that I didn't have much to say unless it was about what went into or came out of a baby. These days, I just don't have the time! If I can't scratch it out with my phone in 140 characters or less, I just don't say it. I'm doing really well if I read something that I don't scan in a minute or less, again on my phone, so sitting down to write has been utterly out of the question. I'm already scrubbing sand out of my eyes tonight, but I have to sit a little longer while some stuff cools off in the kitchen, so here I am.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYy8afPFaKIiGULi8X5JG7Pj5WRAfq7PPgXFhqvolOZ5typLK10yEqccQmtyZ8u-z_k14pGrkXZhbp_KFsWa0qWcFmi6McG6cKN2BjuqFvBZSjkiVkZyB_ynxF1LoA4Joyq6TJ/s1600/family+003+edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYy8afPFaKIiGULi8X5JG7Pj5WRAfq7PPgXFhqvolOZ5typLK10yEqccQmtyZ8u-z_k14pGrkXZhbp_KFsWa0qWcFmi6McG6cKN2BjuqFvBZSjkiVkZyB_ynxF1LoA4Joyq6TJ/s320/family+003+edit.jpg" width="320" /></a>
Z took to her new brother like any big sister would. She started trying to poke his eyes and look in his mouth and check out his hands and feet and figure out if he was a baby why he moved so much and made so much noise. Most of the babies she'd previously encountered were made of plastic. These days, she's doing much better. She loves to kiss him goodnight and snuggle him and if he cries she's the first one to go check on him. She still pinches him from time to time, but she's getting the hang of kindly sisterhood. For his part, he's gotten a few accidental hair pulls in there, so we're calling it nearly even.
We're thrilled to have this little miracle in our family, and blessed to have had the opportunity to adopt him. We named him James after my father, which is bittersweet since my dad passed away this past Thanksgiving. This is his first grandson, and he would have loved to have met him. For his part, baby boy is a jolly soul who laughs at anyone who will stand still to make eye contact with him.<br />
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I hope to be able to manage more updates now that he's approaching the sleeps-through-the-night part of his life. You'll see it here if that happens!<br />
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Credit where credit is due: The photos in this post were taken by my stunningly talented sister, Joy. Thanks, Joy!Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17988612323259096275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-15138041000550420482012-02-09T20:55:00.000-06:002012-02-09T20:57:51.998-06:00Nothin' to prove...I wrote this months ago but never published it for some reason... probably because it felt whiny. But it was authentic, too. I know that people who are waiting for a baby will feel like this is a stunning display of ingratitude, but just because I love my life doesn't mean parts of it aren't hard. And I've been letting fear of looking ungrateful keep me mute. So, muzzle off, I got nothin' to prove...
Being a full-time mom is a darn sight different from working for the money. Any fool could tell ya that. I was expecting a full-on bliss-fest, reveling in my freedom from deadlines, elated by the utter absence of time sheets from my weekly routine, and never having to scramble to assemble a demo because somebody else failed to prepare properly. And, honestly, all of that has materialized and I bliss out about it, for about 3 minutes at the end of each day. <br /><br />I spend the rest of my day catering to an audience who shows no glimmer of approval for good work but screams bloody murder her disapproval. And in my zen moments, I know she's not so much screaming disapproval of the quality of my work as screaming her discomfort, boredom, and digestive upset. But I lose such mental clarity in the midst of the screaming. So, working for a baby is all about tradeoffs. I rather expected this, but I'm surprised at how much I miss the positive feedback I used to get.<br /><br />One of the things I liked most about my ex-boss is that he always passed along positive feedback and doled out plenty on his own when he saw us doing good things. The other thing I liked a heckuva lot about him was that he stayed out of my way until asked to intervene and didn't make my job any harder for me to do. If you ever find yourself in management, I think you should replace your WWJD wristband for a "Is this making my employee's job suck?" bracelet, if only for the duration of your work day. As it is, I'm working for a boss who never gives positive feedback, who gives tons of negative feedback, and who gives negative feedback whenever her mood sours. I know I'm really the boss, but again, I refer you to the bit about losing my mental clarity when the screaming gets loud.<br /><br />The only way to keep my head glued on straight through this is to disconnect from it sometimes. On really good days, that means I go out for a little exercise while baby Z naps, or I go grab dinner with a friend (eating with both hands and an empty lap, woo!) On bad days, I call in pizza and let her scream at me from her playpen while I fend off the pizza-loving dogs with my feet and snarf two slices.<br /><br />I'll let you guess what sort of day today was... at least the dogs didn't actually eat any of my food tonight. Last night they got half of it while I was up dealing with the screaming boss baby.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-72586775148029491972011-10-16T22:59:00.000-05:002012-10-02T00:39:02.425-05:00Profound Motherhood MomentsI don't have much to say these days. I know this is not news, as it's pretty much what I've said at the beginning of every not-really-a-post post I've made since we brought Z home. That said, I do occasionally post an update to Facebook, and I have successfully managed to do a string of these on the topic of motherhood. Since all I've got of the publishable variety these days are profound thoughts in 140 characters or less, I strung a bunch of 'em together to make this list. Enjoy!<br />
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<b>Profound Motherhood* Moments</b><br />
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* I call them Motherhood moments because I am a mother. If you are a Father, you probably have experienced some of these, too. Though a few of them are quite specific to Motherhood, feel free to think of them as Parenthood moments if that makes it more fun for you...<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>(On Dec 29, just 14 days into motherhood...) I just spent 20 minutes (over coffee) trying to remember if I've showered since Christmas. (I have.) </li>
<li>I had someone else's barf on me three times between 6 and 10 this morning, and I was more worried about her than me or my pajamas </li>
<li>babies will sneeze without regard for what else they are doing. Like nursing, say. </li>
<li>the cuteness of baby sneezes is potent enough to de-horrible horrifying things, like snot in your cleavage. </li>
<li>You can't be your kids' friend because sometimes you have to pick their noses. And as we all know, you can pick your friends... </li>
<li>all but 1 of my PMM's has been about wearing snot, and that one was about wearing barf. #gamechange </li>
<li>Installed see-the-baby mirror in car. Driving is now COO-fest instead of waa-fest. Zoe is definitely a social critter now. </li>
<li>I'm proud of my daughter for figuring out how to suck her thumb. She has been working daily on taming her spastic arm motions and refining her "gig 'em" for three months to arrive at this milestone! You can remind me of this in three years when I'm trying to get her to STOP sucking her thumb. </li>
<li>Zoe slept 7 hours straight last night (and counting!). And just like all my friends said I would, I woke up in a panic to make sure she was still breathing... </li>
<li>She pulled my hair this morning. Take me down to the Ponytail City... </li>
<li>she fell asleep on her tummy and woke up on her back. She doesn't get to lie on the couch again until she can climb onto it her own self. </li>
<li>I know I'm a grown up because I just did my laundry BEFORE going to see my folks.. </li>
<li>Zoe is sleeping in her own crib. How did she get so big?!?! </li>
<li>I just let Zoe grab me by the hair, pull me close, and chew on my nose. Insanity IS hereditary, you get it from your children... </li>
<li>Greenies: Puppies:: Smashed Bananas: Babies. Truefax. </li>
<li>Frozen cookie dough is a totally legitimate short term coping skill. </li>
<li>I can stop tears of frustration, pain, loneliness, boredom, and general grumpiness by picking her up and hugging her. I will cherish this superpower every day while I have it. </li>
<li>No matter how much chicken gravy or sweet potato you amend it with, pureed chicken feels like pureed chicken on your tongue. Especially when it's hiding under a tempting blob of apple sauce on a baby spoon. </li>
<li>the kids' song about how the little one said roll over - I'm crowded/I'm lonely was totally written by some one whose baby had a cold. </li>
<li>You know a nursing session with a newborn is done by counting how long between the baby's swallows; you know a nine month old is done when she zrbtts you.</li>
</ol>
Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-32847998546972344352011-09-22T20:13:00.000-05:002011-09-22T20:13:04.666-05:00I'm still a woeful slacker when it comes to writing. I just don't have much to say that doesn't revolve around what's going into or coming out of a baby, and that's not fun for anyone to read, even me. Also, I'm not sure I can string together a coherent paragraph if it has to be longer than a Facebook status update today. I'm okay, but Z is teething and, well, if you're a parent I don't have to explain that. If you're not, I couldn't make it make sense if I tried. Here's a little video I made, kinda stringing the timeline together of how we got here. Much love to The Polyphonic Spree, the background music is their song "Section 26: We Crawl" from their album The Fragile Army.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8r6y7_cjYYQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-66773552472404740692011-08-09T13:47:00.004-05:002011-08-09T14:03:46.750-05:00Content!I haven't been doing a lot of writing lately. (Duh.) What I have been doing is snapping photos and making little movies, mostly for the grandparents, to keep them updated on what Zoe is up to. Since content beats no content, I'm sharing. Also, if any of you have a recommendation for a good waterbaby instructor in the Dallas/Richardson area, I'd love to hear it. I'm at a stall for teaching Z how to back float. She won't relax and only wants to flip over onto her tummy. Until she gets strong enough to get her face out of the water, that is NOT a survival strategy. I think I need help.
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwEdw1S0ksYfut0gFwPyjaSEeucJqnzsIr_O8Glhb7pazec4Pt8bVtrvxTepC_8lxsVUgNKpoThaz8' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe> I'm getting reasonably good at using the basic capabilities of iMovie, too. I like the finished product so much better than bare naked video snips!Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-53950954329909577972011-08-04T11:54:00.002-05:002011-08-04T12:06:54.087-05:00Peek-a-stinkin'-boo!Z is getting so ... interesting lately! She is discovering new tricks and capabilities almost every day. The latest thing I kinda blame on her messy eating habits. We have to feed her in nothing but a diaper because she stuffs her thumb in her mouth after every bite. This leads to a large mess on her hand which she gleefully wipes on her feet, her other hand, her belly, her neck, her hair, her ears, and anything else in range. Thus, after every meal, we sit her in the sink and wash her off. Then we carry her over to her changing table to get toweled dry and into a clean diaper. While toweling her off, we play peekaboo to distract her from her usual complaints about being wiped clean. (Girl loves a mess, I tell ya!) So it was with glee we discovered this week that she has been paying attention, and she is now capable of doing the peek-a-boo herself! All we have to do is provide sound effects...<br /><iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qvvzUFHPTts?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-32680088001281119162011-07-14T14:59:00.000-05:002011-07-14T15:00:36.737-05:00Letter to Z's First Mother...Here we are at six months! This time has been special, and rewarding, and sometimes hard, but so full of love. We named our strong girl Zoe Savannah, Zoe for a college mentor of Rose's and Savannah for my great-great-grandmother. Because she was so tiny when she came home with us, we nicknamed her “Little Chicken” at first. It was half-descriptive and half a joke about how Rose had been nicknamed Little Turkey (for being so large) when she was brought home by her parents. After a couple of months, we realized how embarrassing that might be as she got older, so we have switched to more conventional nicknames like Sweet Pea, but I made up a song about a little chicken that goes to the tune of “I'm a Little Teapot” and we still sing that one with her in the car. <br /><br />She's growing at a wonderful rate, right on average for height and weight and progressing beautifully, according to the doctor. She's been getting all her shots and hasn't been sick at all. She eats well, and just started on solids in the past month. She loves, loves, loves bananas. I think they're her favorite. She scrunches her face up and giggles when she gets them! She also seems to be pretty fond of oatmeal, but nothing makes her as happy as a smashed banana. <br /><br />She has been rolling over for a couple of months now, and really enjoys rolling around on a blanket on the floor and playing with her toys. She always likes to come back to one of us and touch base, but then she rolls away again to explore a monkey or a bear. Her favorite new thing is her feet, of course, since she found them she spends about half her day in touch with her toes. Besides that, she really loves looking at and touching faces. I had to stop wearing hoop earrings because she was snagging them with her fingers, and I've had to start wearing my hair back to keep her from tangling her sticky fingers in it all the time. It's been such fun, watching her figure out how to grab and chew on Rose's chin!<br /><br />She just got two teeth in at the same time, right around 5 ½ months, so we are both gingerly switching her onto teething toys that are NOT our faces or hands. She handled teething very easily and only had a couple days of mild fussiness as the teeth were breaking through. She can already chew on some soft veggies, like steamed carrots and broccoli, and she adores the occasional pizza crust, or any bread with a tough crust that she can gnaw on with her new teeth.<br /><br />We just took a family trip down to Austin over Memorial Day. We stayed with my sisters and my nieces and my parents, swimming and eating and sucking on popsicles and swimming some more all weekend long! Zoe's cousins just love her. The youngest cousin is almost 4, and she really loves to help with feeding and changing and getting Zoe dressed. The other two are twins, one loves to sing her lullabies at bedtime and the other likes to hold her. My parents are completely in love with her and enjoy all the funny little sounds she makes and her gorgeous smile. My dad calls her Miss Vannie because that is what he called his great-grandmother who she is named for and he likes to carry her draped over his forearm at night when he helps us put her to bed.<br /><br />Rose's parents are just wonderful with her, too. They have us over for dinner every week, and they have picked up some baby toys and a high chair so that she can be comfortable at their house. They have a little crib for her to nap in and some clothes for her in case she makes a mess of what she's wearing. Rose's dad loves to carry Zoe around and sing to her in Yiddish. Rose's mom likes to hold her and give her a drink from her sippy cup. Zoe is not a great drinker yet, but she's very enthusiastic about trying and they both get a kick out of it.<br /><br />Ever since Memorial Day, she and I go swimming almost every day in our neighborhood pool. Rose comes with us on weekends and stays amazed at how easily she took to the water. She loves to hold onto people and play with floating toys, or to float herself, and she especially likes to kick. She knows how to hold her breath and put her face in, and she seems to be trying to work out how to blow bubbles. I have a silly little song about a motorboat that makes her smile every time.<br /><br />We sing a lot, just playing around the house. I sing her lullabies to put her to bed at night and sing kid songs during the day when we're going on walks or when she's in her jumper while I'm working in the kitchen. She never did like a bouncy seat very much, but she's quite fond of her swing. She lets us know when she's ready to be out of it by kicking and twisting and generally trying to wriggle out from under her seat belt. She definitely figured out early on how to let us know what she likes and what she doesn't. She's not much for lying down and doesn't like to be on her back at all if she can help it. She is totally a side-sleeper, but she really loves to fall asleep on her tummy, laid up on Rose's chest. Her first few months, she slept in a bassinet in our room. Once she started sleeping through the night (about the same time she figured out how to suck her thumb!) and did that consistently for a month or two, we graduated her to the crib in her own room. She is a great sleeper and takes at least one good nap every day, but often two good naps and a long sleep through the night. We're very lucky in that regard!<br /><br />I don't know how to say it deeply enough, or strongly enough, or meaningfully enough, but thank you. Our daughter is precious, and we love her completely and are thankful every day for her.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-31145217175456182412011-04-19T12:14:00.003-05:002011-04-19T13:25:45.141-05:00Science in our HeartsI recently read <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1">an article</a> that really helped make sense for me out of a phenomenon I've seen all around me recently. I think of it as the hallmark of internet-based discussion: people with opposing positions on a topic can read the same fact-packed article on that topic and come to opposing conclusions about the validity of the facts it contains. It happened with me and some of my friends about the <a href="http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/03/what-did-the-planned-parenthood-sting-really-accomplish/">Planned Parenthood "sting" videos</a> that came out in late January this year. When i heard about the videos, I immediately connected them in my mind to the <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/03/damaging_brooklyn_acorn_sting.html">ACORN videos</a> that were used to shutter the voter-registration organization. After a detailed investigation of the video, it was shown to have been edited to smear ACORN, which was later exonerated. So I assumed that this Planned Parenthood video was more of the same. People with an anti-Planned Parenthood bias assumed it was representative of business as usual at Planned Parenthood. At the end of the day, I was pleased that the one clinic manager was fired, as it appears she acted heinously and inappropriately, and that Planned Parenthood reported what it thought might be a sex-trafficking ring to federal authorities for investigation. At the end of the same day, my friends thought it wasn't enough to fire the one clinic manager, because they took her not as an outlier, but as a representative example of the group. They also thought that the report to the FBI came AFTER the sting video was released, as a defensive move, and not as one motivated by actual concern for the health of potential victims of sex trafficking. We were all reading the same articles, we all saw the same events unfolding. It reinforced my belief that I can trust Planned Parenthood (most of the time) to do the right thing. It reinforced their beliefs that they cannot trust Planned Parenthood (most of the time) to do the right thing.<br /><br />It turns out that that's the way the human mind is programmed to work. According to the article, "It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts." And that, my friends, is the heart and soul of internet-based discussions, comment wars, flame wars, and bulletin boards. Once you've established that you disagree with someone, they can say anything they want, and you're unlikely to listen to any of it, except to rationalize why it's wrong, to refute their facts, and to question the validity of their sources. It turns out that the well-educated are even more susceptible to this. Those who don't know much about a topic, but have strong feelings about it anyway, tend to be slightly more amenable to changing their minds when presented with facts about the topic. Those who know a lot already tend to use their education to pick apart the science, even when the science is good.<br /><br />The article is full of fascinating examples of how and why exactly this stuff happens, from the Iraq/Al Qaeda link to the Vaccines/Autism link, and especially regarding climate change. It turns out that if you want someone to change their mind on a topic, you not only have to approach them with facts, but you have to present the facts wrapped in values that person already holds.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-29250433964993132642011-04-10T10:18:00.003-05:002011-04-10T10:30:26.174-05:00At War<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsqCnIyep3yJe7W_cd8PahXPaeAxYRJvS9Yco4O3k2SSbrk3bXrmd_rmC_ngiqasJN1ECISYBfoqO9lHxY493XNvbqbokPnh2HocKnS2cx_ERxgwn9jWocRjwNxqUwjOJZs7cm/s1600/IMGP0413.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsqCnIyep3yJe7W_cd8PahXPaeAxYRJvS9Yco4O3k2SSbrk3bXrmd_rmC_ngiqasJN1ECISYBfoqO9lHxY493XNvbqbokPnh2HocKnS2cx_ERxgwn9jWocRjwNxqUwjOJZs7cm/s320/IMGP0413.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593977553147854082" /></a><br /><i>Scene: The kitchen. I am washing dishes while Rose, Zoe, and our yellow lab keep me company.</i><br /><br />Rose: Thanks for making scones this morning.<br /><br />Me: You're welcome. Blah, blah, blah...<br /><br />*Sound of a spitball flying across the room behind me*<br /><br /><i>Yellow lab moves surreptitiously to the corner of the kitchen and eats something off the floor.</i><br /><br />Me: Did you just spit the end of your scone across the room for the dog to eat?!?!<br /><br />Rose: <i>holding up Zoe to demonstrate</i> My hands were full!<br /><br />Me: You are a five-year-old boy!<br /><br />Rose: <i>spits again</i><br /><br /><i>Yellow lab, ready for it this time, catches the hunk of scone out of the air and noms it down.</i><br /><br />Rose: Look, she caught it!<br /><br /><i>I am paralyzed.</i><br /><br /><i>Rose is laughing.</i> <br /><br />Me: The two sides of me are at war over whether to be appalled or impressed. I think they just tied.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-51408151940387702292011-04-04T14:39:00.005-05:002011-04-04T15:13:35.321-05:00Bananas<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJgPYAQmFbr6WTTBFodWUALyGIeR1cAVZ3DBdHWx6DIdgVob3hTo7JGRNEutJrUgLQPR4MdvLbLcfiE4ajG7pps1kgAkdZxixJ8rVb8uQQhtOJkN1M9vpm0j7pudbOXDpX5-j/s1600/sleepz.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 289px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJgPYAQmFbr6WTTBFodWUALyGIeR1cAVZ3DBdHWx6DIdgVob3hTo7JGRNEutJrUgLQPR4MdvLbLcfiE4ajG7pps1kgAkdZxixJ8rVb8uQQhtOJkN1M9vpm0j7pudbOXDpX5-j/s320/sleepz.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591823599903766754" /></a><br />Have you ever noticed that "Going apeshit" is just a rude way of saying "Going bananas"? I wonder which phrase came up first, and which way it was altered? Did someone alter it to make it more polite? Or alter it to make it more rude?<br /><br />Stuff like this is bouncing around in my head these days, probably because since figuring out thumbsucking, Zoe has also figured out Sleeping Through The Night. It's freed up parts of my brain that haven't been seen in almost 4 months! This is the most phenomenal development since our adoption. It's a bigger deal for Rose than it is for me, which is kinda backwards since I'm the one who woke up to nurse every couple of hours in the night. I don't know if it's because of my time at the Air Force Academy, which firmly instilled the lesson that Any Sleep Is Good Sleep, or if it's a raising thing, or just an inborn personality trait. I think of a good night's sleep as any night in which I get relatively close to 8 cumulative hours of sleep. Rose thinks of a good night's sleep any night in which her approximately 8 hours of sleep is not interrupted by climate changes, blanket theft, puppymares, crying babies, beeping alarms... You get the idea. So even on nights when we would get 10 or 12 hours in the sack and a good 8 or 9 of them asleep, Rose would wake up complaining that her night had been awful, and I would wake up thinking it had been pretty great. So, two conclusions: getting Zoe to sleep through the night was going to be crucial to restoring sanity to our homelife, and Opposites Attract (thank you, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposites_Attract">Paula Abdul</a>).<br /><br />We're going on a week of Sleeping Through The Night now, so I'm almost confident saying "Yes" when people ask if she's doing so. The next question, of course, will be "Is she teething?" When we have to start saying yes to that one, I'm sure it'll be back to bananas at our house, but for now we're enjoying our rest.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-68503554615159832842011-03-16T11:37:00.005-05:002011-03-17T21:45:23.062-05:00Thumbsucker<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40uItUiAcvBSwoAlNHmWUM_fXmryqYoPMT1jzIx-aUeimSSLQEXBuFPrUZ_FPOtWpar7P2-gPPczHEiSw4E6IW2lOBxgeEVMvf7spQk_vA2A6qbwZFwgEQgbRTbO6an2YVkqG/s1600/thumbsucker+2.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 253px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40uItUiAcvBSwoAlNHmWUM_fXmryqYoPMT1jzIx-aUeimSSLQEXBuFPrUZ_FPOtWpar7P2-gPPczHEiSw4E6IW2lOBxgeEVMvf7spQk_vA2A6qbwZFwgEQgbRTbO6an2YVkqG/s320/thumbsucker+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585244420318306114" /></a>It would have been impossible for me to imagine this four months ago. Today, I just about burst with pride when my daughter managed to suck her thumb. Why did I get so giddy over this? Because I've been watching her struggle with it for the past three months. Even though I've seen sonograms that show babies in utero sucking their thumbs, I've come to appreciate that that's a happy accident. Having giving up on tucking that spat-out pacifier back into her face One More Time about a month ago, I assure you this could not be a more glorious development. At any rate, she's been working on mastering those spastic limb movements of hers, gamely shoving her fist (or fists) in the general direction of her gaping slobbertrap several times a day for the past three months. It used to be a reliable sign of hunger, but some time ago she discovered recreational fist-eating. Somewhere around three weeks ago, I noticed that sometimes she actually managed to extend her thumb at the same time and could suck on it for a second or two. About a week ago, she started reliably hitting her mouth every time, but still only 1 in 4 attempts worked out. Today, it was more like 3 in 4, and she was able to suck her thumb for 5-10 seconds before she'd lose it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh22Ei8iQMffxzfAdMtJ3IkV6zmS2d9PP9QGpYHRxZ5pmfLlYthJmowr0IWHXcunE174EXsQ6QG4xyKOcoQnLT1Er4HEs4v71f0NGumJpIGvhGiSaDm89VT4N6T9mAIyfnFUtF3/s1600/thumbsucker+3.png"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 274px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh22Ei8iQMffxzfAdMtJ3IkV6zmS2d9PP9QGpYHRxZ5pmfLlYthJmowr0IWHXcunE174EXsQ6QG4xyKOcoQnLT1Er4HEs4v71f0NGumJpIGvhGiSaDm89VT4N6T9mAIyfnFUtF3/s320/thumbsucker+3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585245176800189554" /></a>I'm sure this sounds like mommyblogger drivel, but this opens the door to a brave new frontier. One that, frankly, can't get here soon enough - going to sleep. Zoe does NOT like to go to sleep. Especially alone, double that for going without something to suck on. This, in effect, turns me into a giant pacifier. Either I have to nurse her off to sleep every time she needs to go to sleep, or I have to stay awake and see to it that her pacifier stays in place until she falls asleep. I can also walk with her until she falls asleep, but this presents the dreaded problem of How And When To Put Her Down in a way that prevents immediate return to wakefulness. And, sleep lover that I am, I'm not excited about this. Some of the best advice they give new moms is to "sleep when she sleeps." If you're paying attention, you've just noticed the conundrum. If I have to stay awake to put her to sleep, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY for me to sleep while she sleeps. Until she does fall asleep, and then I'm allowed to start falling to sleep, which means I'm guaranteed to be just drifting into the blessed REM zone when she startles herself awake and needs to be soothed back to sleep again. *sigh* Perhaps with a little sleep I can start writing something other than drivel, however amusing and momentous I find the drivel to be.<br /><br />So, let's hear it for thumbsucking and other self-soothing behaviors! Even if she's not ahead of the curve at all, I'm glad we're getting there. I can see the distant shoreline of the Ocean of Sleepless Nights ahead. I'm sure we'll make occasional forays back into this Ocean as we progress, but a couple of nights on shore will make future sailing trips easier.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhKmEymQFosPnoyxkV-ocr0EM3dapgCUp1j_8qpXXXr_1pFST9YUKFv7bRtlDsx6hGvukAwg-9U0K0GCUPXbGo0lAIS7RT_Aqkrqw89T4vqQxVsP7Ry2QhNV95GZJmgbqP6r5/s1600/thumbsucker.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 361px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhKmEymQFosPnoyxkV-ocr0EM3dapgCUp1j_8qpXXXr_1pFST9YUKFv7bRtlDsx6hGvukAwg-9U0K0GCUPXbGo0lAIS7RT_Aqkrqw89T4vqQxVsP7Ry2QhNV95GZJmgbqP6r5/s400/thumbsucker.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585243694294771538" /></a>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-9175975587970906612011-01-24T16:41:00.004-06:002011-01-24T16:57:31.542-06:00SlackitudeMothering has really wrecked my triathlon mojo. This, in itself, is not terribly interesting or surprising. Nobody can push their body to shed fat, build endurance, and work faster when they can't tell you if they're going to get 2 or 4 or 6 hours of sleep at night. But what surprises me is how I feel about it. I'm conflicted. Part of me wants to sag into a heap and wear my pajamas all day and snuggle my baby when she sleeps and play with her when she's awake and eat doughnuts and pizza until I'm back in all the pants I just donated to Goodwill. Part of me wants to bootstrap myself up and get back to my bike riding and jogging and swimming and not use this little interlude as an excuse to wreck my season. <br /><br />Zoe is brand new, she's barely six weeks old right now, and is in NOTHING approximating a routine when it comes to sleep. Some nights, she nods off with me at midnight and sleeps 4 hours at a stretch until morning. Other nights, she just looks at me and cries every time she approaches a horizontal orientation until she finally surrenders around 4 AM. <br /><br />As of now, the only exercise I can solidly count on having the energy for is a walk, and not a very long walk at that. So that's what I'm doing. And God bless my coach for sticking with me through it and continuing to encourage me to do what I can, when I can, and keeping me accountable when I miss the mark. Every little bit counts, right?<br /><br />Every time I think my end of the deal is the short one, though, I remember how rough it is for my nieces to even be able to take that walk. They have <a href="http://www.umdf.org/site/c.otJVJ7MMIqE/b.5692879/k.3851/What_is_Mitochondrial_Disease.htm">Mitochondrial Disease</a> and it makes having energy for even basic things like <a href="http://roehfamily.blogspot.com/2011/01/have-you-never-heard-have-you-never.html">digestion</a> difficult. So, in their honor, I'm going to be taking part (along with the whole family) in a walkathon in February called the "Energy for Life" walk in Houston. If you have a spare nickel, this cause is a good one and the funds will go to researching the causes and potential treatments and cures for a disease that often takes children's lives before they make their teen years. If you can, please do <a href="http://www.energyforlifewalk.org/c.buITJdNTKmL8G/b.6333865/k.A97C/Sponsor_a_Walker/siteapps/personalpage/ShowPage.aspx?c=buITJdNTKmL8G&b=6333865&sid=7nKJLVPtEaJIISMnFlE">go make a donation</a>. Every little bit counts.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-56452967199077626482011-01-10T12:14:00.003-06:002011-01-10T14:00:06.929-06:00How to Breastfeed an Adopted BabyI'm not surprised at this, really, but by far the most frequent question I get about the adoption is "How do you do THAT?!?!" when people find out that I'm nursing my sweet girl. I've been researching this for so long that I've almost forgotten what it feels like to not know this is possible. And as I was recently reminded when talking with some friends of mine, the methods I used are relevant to many other situations, breastfeeding after mastectomy, breastfeeding with low (or just insufficient) milk supply, and breastfeeding after hysterectomy, etc. <br /><br />This post, unlike so many of mine, has a short version: hormones and plastic baggies.<br /><br />I'm sure the hormones part makes sense, even if you couldn't immediately name the hormones involved and their biological roles, anyone who's got passing familiarity with the reproductive system knows that its functions are hormonally regulated. There are basically four hormones involved in making a woman lactate, and three of them are available (directly or indirectly) through medicines. For the deathly curious, the three I mentioned are estrogen, progesterone, and prolactin. The only complicated thing about the prolactin is that the drug recommended to increase it in your system (Domperidone) is only available from what's called a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounding_pharmacy">compounding pharmacy</a> and the use of it for inducing lactation is considered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use">off-label</a>. That said, it's also considered <a href="http://www.asklenore.info/breastfeeding/induced_lactation/domperidone_reglan.shtml">safe</a>. The other two hormones, obviously, are available via standard birth control pills, though high-progesterone pills are recommended for this purpose. There is so much more detailed information available on this, if you're interested, at <a href="http://www.asklenore.info/breastfeeding/induced_lactation/gn_protocols.shtml">Ask Lenore</a>. There is a whole protocol there, which is what I followed, on when and how to take the meds, what to do if you have lots of notice, if you have little to no notice of your adoption, if you can't take the birth control pill, and all the other variations on my situation you can imagine.<br /><br />As for plastic baggies, that's all part of what is called a Supplemental Nursing System. There are two big providers out there, <a href="http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/breastfeeding-devices/51/supplemental-nursing-system-sns">Medela SNS</a> and <a href="https://www.lact-aid.com/Home/tabid/955/Default.aspx">Lact-Aid</a>. I use the Lact-Aid system because of reviews I read like <a href="http://breast-feeding.adoption.com/nursing/nursing-supplementers.html">this one</a>. Basically, it's easier to use in more situations and holds up better to long-term use, which adoptive nursing certainly calls for. What it does is let baby take formula from a plastic bag via a tube at the breast, so s/he is getting all the breastmilk available, but is also getting his/her nutritional needs met, and because suckling stimulates supply, the formula supplementation actually serves to sustain mom's supply.<br /><br />That's the basic gist of it, and I hope the information is useful to someone else out there. I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for a similar post in an online journal, so I'm here to spread the word.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-62975926529921612562010-12-22T18:51:00.015-06:002010-12-24T19:16:34.175-06:00Whew... also: ALLELUIA!Relief is sweet, but the joy of motherhood is sweeter. The long, dreadful, wracking, agonizing, uncertain, plodding, itchy wait is over, and adoption is reified. It's no longer the secret we hold close to our vests. I can talk about it now, everywhere, and I do, though I suspect that will slow as it becomes less a recent happening and more a fact of our lives. I feel relieved of my burdens, of the wait, of the disappointments, and I never knew how heavy those were until I laid them down. I'm bursting to tell it from the top of the world, to shout every last one of the alleluias that are elbowing each other for space in my heart.<br /><br />So, the quick version? There isn't one. I've been more moved by this process than I ever anticipated, and I expected roiling passions of joy, fear, pain, anticipation... and I tried to leave room in my expectations for the unexpected, too. This all started two years ago when Rose and I decided we wanted to have kids. Or, rather, to act on that decision. There were those weird, tentative conversations where we asked each other who wanted to carry the baby, and those odd visits to the sperm donor followed by even more awkward weeks of waiting to see if it had worked. And always the disappointment followed. The crushing, hope-stealing feeling that accompanies the first cramps when I got my period instead of a positive pregnancy test. And the weariness that settles in when a year has gone by and you're still running on that hamster wheel.<br /><br />Then you suddenly have white lab coats in the middle of your most personal business, people contact you about financing procedures and whether they can fax or e-mail your test results. And some go on like that for some time for good or ill, but Rose and I did not. We might have, but I got some really great advice from my <a href="http://roehfamily.blogspot.com">awesome middle sister</a>. With the threat of <a href="http://www.umdf.org/site/c.otJVJ7MMIqE/b.5472191/k.BDB0/Home.htm">mitochondrial disease</a> soon to be confirmed in the family tree, she recommended adopting. Rose and I hadn't really considered adoption yet, but from our first conversation, it quickly became center stage in our world.<br /><br />I racked up heaps of 2 AM bedtimes researching agencies that work with gay couples, international adoption, domestic infant adoption, foster adoption, financing adoption, bonding, and attachment disorder in adoption. I had fun with it, in a harrowing way. It's like trying to pick a college: I knew it was vitally important to pick a good one, but it was all so detached, none of it real or personal yet, and even the mountain of rejections was just water off the duck's back. It was all glossy brochures and slick websites at that point, nothing in it to prick the heart.<br /><br />By January of this year we had found two agencies to investigate. In April of this year we chose our agency because their financial policies worked best for us. It sounds callous, but so much of what these agencies do is regulated by the state, the chief differences among them are the ratio of placed babies to waiting families and how they manage the money. <a href="http://www.hopecottage.org/">Hope Cottage</a> is where those glossy brochures started their slow transformation into our baby.<br /><br />After we chose, we had to be screened. And we were screened like the janitors at CIA headquarters. There were fingerprint cards, and questionnaires. We explained ourselves, our families, our childhoods, adolescences, adulthoods, how we became who we are, how we found each other and become <i>us</i>. We were interviewed separately and together, our home was inspected, we provided photographs and floorplans, immunization records for our dogs, blood tests and Tuberculosis tests, cholesterol measurements... It was as thorough an application process as the <a href="http://www.academyadmissions.com/#Page/Getting_in_the_Academy">Air Force Academy's</a>, and they screened me like a patio door, as I recall. All that took us to early August, and then we were "on the list" and waiting.<br /><br />I just don't know what to say about the wait, because "it was hard" is the best I can do right now, and it's woefully inadequate. It's something like the dead tedium of sitting in the kitchen in the cold dark, waiting for the coffee to percolate, and screaming at the stove to hurry. Nothing is happening as far as you can tell, but every once in a while, that splash of almost-coffee up into the percolator lid lets you know that soon, good things will arrive. Those little splashes of coffee in the percolator lid came in the form of phone calls from the agency, asking if we wanted to be referred, to have our profile shown to someone looking for parents for their baby. Over the four months, we got two of those calls, and neither of them worked out, but they kept us focused on the percolator for signs of action.<br /><br />Nearly two weeks ago now, Dec. 10, we got a referral call full of more promise. A hospital referral has always been my preference, and this was one. A baby girl had been born in the wee hours of the day and needed a home. Her birthmother was well and healthy, she was well and healthy, they were going to discharge her from the hospital the next morning and show profiles to the birthmother. Did we want to be shown? Rose was out of town but I didn't even need to call and consult her. This was our perfect situation, and our social worker thought it looked very good for us, something she'd never told us before. Four months of waiting were no competition for the intense anticipation crammed into that one night, wanting so badly to hear the phone ring, dreading that it would fall apart just like the others. <br /><br />The next morning, I was a zombie with a phone-shaped dent in my cheek, but calm. Rose was pacing her hotel room in Austin like a cranky old lion in a zoo who knows someone is about to chuck a steak over the wall. At 12:30 Saturday, our social worker called to give us the news... we'd been selected, would we like to see photos of the baby? By then, Rose had gotten too impatient to sit alone in her hotel and had checked out and loaded up. I was gripping my heart hard with both hands to keep from throwing it to this child I'd never met. Uncertainty made our path slippy, kept us fearful and guarded, but joy bubbled up at every turn. We still had to wait for the birthmother to relinquish the baby, but we had the promise of pictures, the hope of a meeting with her if the foster mom was available.<br /><br />Every phone call after that was torture. We checked our e-mail for pictures obsessively, and we'd both spasm in unison whenever the phone rang. The disappointment when it turned out to be anyone other than our agency turned us snappish, but we kept coming back to hope somehow. Another night crammed full of sleeplessness and antsy conversation in the dark and checking our e-mail over, and over, and over again came and went and passed us well into the next day. To help pass the time, my awesome middle sister took me out for some therapeutic baby shopping. Rose and her sister did the same, and Rose's inner gay man, Emmitt, popped up to help them pick out a Christmas outfit for a girl we'd never even met.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4JyCOWhIm5hHXyMeu2ggh5n-eJcJiz_Wt2hMlnm4ykZqsRhBKsHNNngJ8dlJTGXZaSz57ktk5JX86C4HKl5UnQ0Z8-XOr7tL62s7h6B6tAVPyDUzwi_P01QGeXmQPyMD2e4S/s1600/photo.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4JyCOWhIm5hHXyMeu2ggh5n-eJcJiz_Wt2hMlnm4ykZqsRhBKsHNNngJ8dlJTGXZaSz57ktk5JX86C4HKl5UnQ0Z8-XOr7tL62s7h6B6tAVPyDUzwi_P01QGeXmQPyMD2e4S/s320/photo.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554422504862333314" /></a>Sunday evening around 6 we got word in an e-mail that the birthmother had signed the relinquishment. Unless and until she had signed that, everything was just fluff wrapped around a dream. She could choose to parent the baby and we could go back to the list and back to waiting. But she didn't. And the photos arrived, revealing one beautiful, perfect tiny baby. That was about the time my heart wriggled out of my grip and went flying to her crib.<br /><br />From there, it was a whirlwind. The only obstacle between us and our daughter was the relinquishment from the birthfather, but he couldn't be found. In one conversation, we'd hear that everything looked good and placement might happen a little early; in another, we'd hear that the birthmother might be obfuscating and that we'd be delayed while the search for him continued. The timeline and the plan were doing fair imitations of Mexican jumping beans, and our hearts with them. I called my awesome baby sister and sobbed out my fear that he'd pop up at the last minute and carry our daughter away from us. And then I put my game face on and went to the agency to meet her for the first time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMHPUH3pBrvW-qScrm2fzCIM1PBNgKaiyyOnWBqbOUkhI-nJ2ha1Croz49H_ayIMiz5lwoZ2tuV77fr4VUWJAN5iw6v23GZgWCzwpY33MSXN1va-8_EgzbHEAmq2LCcvlRli4/s1600/Kim+feeding+Zoe.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMHPUH3pBrvW-qScrm2fzCIM1PBNgKaiyyOnWBqbOUkhI-nJ2ha1Croz49H_ayIMiz5lwoZ2tuV77fr4VUWJAN5iw6v23GZgWCzwpY33MSXN1va-8_EgzbHEAmq2LCcvlRli4/s320/Kim+feeding+Zoe.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554133334582294642" /></a>It was Monday, three days after she first entered our consciousness, and we were able to arrange a visit. She was soft, and sweet, and snuggly, and sleepy, and she filled our noses with baby smell and our hearts with shaky hope. I fed her, Rose rocked her back to sleep. That hour was one of the best of my life and it went so fast I barely recall it. We took lots of pictures and asked lots of questions. The foster mother cares for infants in just such situations for a couple of agencies in town and she was just amazing. The folks at Hope Cottage call her The Baby Whisperer, and I believe she merits the name.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVdNl9IlbKZBlLP28wJMh0lYuPIvvrsW0KGMzgm74lWHKyAa8PIXInulaO8Jys8LxPwQzdDp5zm-AYpP1Ea1Wmlh5XAWnXB1VGN0Q3pfiGZZGG6Pur3rR5bBqOsKABNnTCQvC/s1600/IMGP0781.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVdNl9IlbKZBlLP28wJMh0lYuPIvvrsW0KGMzgm74lWHKyAa8PIXInulaO8Jys8LxPwQzdDp5zm-AYpP1Ea1Wmlh5XAWnXB1VGN0Q3pfiGZZGG6Pur3rR5bBqOsKABNnTCQvC/s320/IMGP0781.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554420299927997314" /></a>More phone calls, more meetings with social workers, more jumping the timeline, more palpitations and flat dread on our side, more welling hope, and we had one more visit. This time, Tuesday, we had a match meeting with the birth mother. She was so quiet, but very sweet, and she handled herself well in that gawky, tenuous situation. For the first time in my life I regret that I don't watch horror films, because that was the only thing she talked at any length about, and it was to one of the social workers who shares her appreciation for the genre. After the visit with our birthmother, we had some shared time with our daughter, and then some time with just us. It was devastating to have to walk out of there that day and leave her behind! We knew the only thing remaining was a go-ahead from the lawyer certifying that the birthfather search had been diligent enough and we could proceed without actually locating him. <br /><br />A whole other kind of terror stalked that night, because with everything going so well in all other aspects of the placement, we were petrified that the birthfather would show up at the last minute and send us back to the list. I know our daughter is better off with us than with someone who didn't want her, but I struggled with conflicting wishes for this man. I wanted him found, on the one hand, so his daughter could speak to him someday, have a photograph, and know who he is. I wanted him to stay lost, on the other hand, because I didn't want him disrupting the placement. I vacillated between the two and dreaded the bad news that might come until our social worker called us at 5:30 PM. <br /><br />And then the "Whew" feeling set in, because the lawyer had approved the diligence of the search, and our baby girl would be coming home with us the next morning. Everyone advised us to get "the last good night's sleep you'll get for a while" but we spent the sane hours of the evening mailing, phoning, texting, and Facebooking our news. No sleep was there to be found in our house that night. All the anxious days, the spasms over phones ringing and calls missed, the dead hours with no news were coming to an end, and motherhood was about to begin. That's where the "Alleluias" start.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLp8vAWXhq9nZl5Fkys5aoQZEAuRDmlSMc1O4K5hY9J0k1f3y_HYcnLi_HRHTOXe6OZwlKPIIF27wIjN8ytHPZfijgDoaGfSt0DefxcpT9NXehtafVsh2XP8Ma6HMEE2N3Lu8l/s1600/IMGP0833.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLp8vAWXhq9nZl5Fkys5aoQZEAuRDmlSMc1O4K5hY9J0k1f3y_HYcnLi_HRHTOXe6OZwlKPIIF27wIjN8ytHPZfijgDoaGfSt0DefxcpT9NXehtafVsh2XP8Ma6HMEE2N3Lu8l/s400/IMGP0833.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554420778527671906" /></a>Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-70453545216987503792010-10-12T10:25:00.005-05:002010-10-12T17:40:33.966-05:00Updates editionCan I tell you people how much I just don't want to write these days? I had insomnia last night, and in lieu of coming back to the office and jotting this post down, I decided I would count sheep. I did set myself a limit... if I got to 600 sheep, I'd come in and write. Like magic, I dropped off in the mid-500s. That's my insomnia coping mechanism: I set myself to counting sheep and set a limit, if I reach the limit I get up and do something not fun. Usually, that's the dishes, or folding laundry, or cleaning out the fridge, or rearranging the pantry. Last night, I used writing. I don't know why I'm so resistant to keeping up with writing just now, but I am.<br /><br />I don't feel like I have much to say, and that makes inspiration damned difficult to find. Life is really, really good right now, but it's quiet. I've been working out, I've been keeping busy with organizations I'm part of, plans I've made with friends, and reading escapist fantasy novels because I'm off the junk food I used to put in my body. But none of it is very thought-provoking, or if it is, the thoughts are so primordial that I'm not ready to write about them yet. Think of my brain as raw banana bread batter and you've just about got it right. <br /><br />Speaking of banana bread, let me tell you how much I laughed at something that happened with Rose over the weekend. She was looking up a recipe for banana bread in the Mrs. Veteran's Vittles cookbook. This awesome cookbook was something my Granny Tootsie worked on when she and my Papa Dell were heavily involved in the VFW. Consequently, it reads a lot like a family scrapbook, with fully 1/3 the recipes entered by my mom, or my Aunt Becca, or my Big Mama Dolly, or my Granny Tootsie, or someone else whose table I ate at plenty when I was still catching fireflies and keeping them in jars by my bed at night. And it is a thorough cookbook with desserts, drinks, entrees, veggies, breads, appetizers, salads, and even a section of Mr. Veteran's Vittles with recipes for stuff like baked beans and barbecue. And Rose announced to me, after perusing it, that she couldn't find the Banana Bread recipe and she felt ripped off by Mrs. Veteran. "How could any decent 50s housewife NOT have a banana bread recipe in her cookbook?" she ranted. I was confused about all this, because I could've sworn I'd looked up the banana bread recipes IN THAT VERY BOOK early in the week when it started to look as though we wouldn't be able to finish all the bananas before the fruit flies set up immigration lines down the chimney. It turned out, after about 5 or 10 minutes of head-scratching, index-consulting, perusal of other cookbooks, and general stomping around the kitchen that those Mrs. Veterans had had the audacity and gall to stick the banana bread recipes (all 3 of them!) in the Bread section of the cookbook, instead of the Dessert section where Rose was looking. And I don't know if that's as funny to any of the rest of you as it is to me, but I figure if something says "bread" in the name of the recipe, you look it up in the bread section. I know it's more like cake, given that it comes from batter and is sweet and you don't exactly make sandwiches from it or use yeast to make it. I get all that, but still... it's called Banana BREAD. <br /><br />Newsily, I did quite well in my last triathlon. It was the same one I had to drop out of when I had an asthma attack during the swim the year before. I came in third in my division this time around, so that was a real vindication. The lesson here, kids, is that inhaled drugs are not ALL bad for you. If your pulmonologist tells you to suck down aerosolized steroids twice a day, well, your pulmonologist is probably on to something. I'm finally at ease, mostly, about taking asthma meds all the time. At any rate, they seem to work and I'm not one to argue with results. This triathlon had the distinction of being the first one ever to leave me with sore muscles. Usually, my ability to participate in these endurance events is sharply limited by my ability to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide. I just can't breathe well enough to really PUSH for any length of time, so I finish races pleasantly exhausted but not feeling as though I've worked my muscles much. This time around, I was able to work hard enough to come home with a pair of sore legs. It's probably baffling to the average user human that I'm happy to be sore, but it represents progress in my cardio fitness and my battle with my lungs, so I embrace every sore muscle fiber and celebrate this for the milestone it is.<br /><br />Finally, I have to crow about how very proud I am of Rose. She just started riding a bicycle this spring. Her first couple of rounds, she couldn't go 4 miles. But gradually, her fitness improved, her confidence improved, her bike skills improved, and now she goes out and rides by herself. This weekend, she took on her first long distance ride, a 30-mile route that was a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish foundation. We both have a soft spot for this group since they granted my niece a wish this year. She not only made the entire ride at an average pace somewhere near her usual training speed, she was a real cheerleader and shepherd for other riders who needed help, inspiration, water, and sometimes a kick in the seat. She talked people into going one more rest stop down the road before giving it up. She escorted an 11-year old who was out on the 30-mile route alone with no water. She convinced folks who were waiting for the van to ride to the finish line with her. I just can't say enough good things about her and about how significant this is for her. She's awesome, and I'm not just saying that because I'm married to her. She did a Good Thing, both physically and socially this weekend, and I'm not surprised, but I am amazed.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-87111429888377034722010-08-12T22:06:00.005-05:002010-08-25T23:12:36.978-05:00Run, Thalassa, Run!When last we left our intrepid Amazonian/wannabe triathlete, she was assuring you that it's not emphysema, it's just asthma, and that she was taking on <a href="http://thalashouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/relax-its-just-asthma.html">a very non-intimidating triathlon</a> at the end of her upcoming training class. And then she went away and never updated again. I'm one of those "no news is good news" types, it seems. <br /><br />Yeah, sorry 'bout that. It drives me crazy when people do that to me. The intervening months have been really good to me, but full of mini events, none of which were big enough to blog about. Or, none of which inspired even slightly readable blog posts. I hate reading those "then I said this, and she said that, and then I had lemon chicken for dinner and watched Mythbusters. see you tomorrow" posts, so I don't write them.<br /><br />So, to recap, that first round of meds the pulmonologist gave me helped ... a little bit. I always had to bail out of workouts a little early, or go a little easier than everyone else. But I was doing 90% of what my classmates were doing, and that beat hell out of the 60% I was doing before the pulmonologist.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCYV7EHLkl_cXSXX0AFtvyqQU4gu5j7GkDqCfq41X1IeTdTcmtBjmduQZbhBIDmDMCiYWN5j0ZS1dLwx_GcrkrZsb4aHNVdQ0-lFciojAY6xP8LNSVVdha03WnQK3-GF7xoua_/s1600/tri.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCYV7EHLkl_cXSXX0AFtvyqQU4gu5j7GkDqCfq41X1IeTdTcmtBjmduQZbhBIDmDMCiYWN5j0ZS1dLwx_GcrkrZsb4aHNVdQ0-lFciojAY6xP8LNSVVdha03WnQK3-GF7xoua_/s400/tri.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509566451784845042" /></a>Best news? I did that mini-sprint triathlon that I mentioned, and I finished the whole thing without crashing into the brick wall of asphyxiation! About two weeks later, I went down to Austin and did another short tri with my sister. The tri itself was pretty awful for me. I spent most of the run on the verge of an asthma attack; teetering on the edge of asphyxiation is only slightly more fun than crashing headlong into it. <br /><br />Rose and our friend Bea and my sister and her friend Leah all met up and we did the tri together. I'm sure our soccer-mom-mobile looked like a clown car as we unloaded all five of our Amazon selves. When it was all over and we got back to our hotel, we were a good 2 hours later than we expected to be. I am nothing if I am not running late, however, the delay meant we were an hour late for lunch with my dad for Father's Day! So, with a haste that mocked our race performances, the five of us checked back into our room, each of us showered, dressed, primped and packed, and we were back out in our cars just 25 minutes later. It was a feat of logistics the likes of which have not been seen since at least the last Superbowl Halftime Show.<br /><br />Since then, I've been back for another round with my pulmonologist. This time he didn't send me for any scary tests, he just gave me a couple of new meds to try, and it's been working AMAZINGLY well. I can now breathe like Mr. T can talk smack. It's epic Opening of the Alveoli up in here. <br /><br />I did another tri just days after going on the new drugs, before they'd really had time to build up to efficacious levels. But that was my best one yet, and it was also the longest. I didn't spend ANY time on the verge of an asthma attack that day and I turned in personal bests in all three events! <br /><br />And now, in the updatery department, I'm training for another tri. This is the same one that kicked my ass last year. But I'm confident I'll be able to tackle it this year and do well. How am I so confident? When we did our fitness test in the swim at the beginning of the class, I e-mailed my time to my coach so he could record it for comparison at the end of the class. He's the same coach I had for the previous two classes, so he's seen me struggle with this from the start. He wrote me back and asked if I'd been doping. Yup, it looks like this crazy concept of taking medication to treat your chronic illness is working for me. Why I had to be so stubborn about doing it in the first place is anyone's guess.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-33377742439069470482010-08-11T21:34:00.003-05:002010-08-11T22:28:06.311-05:00Dinner before Dessert.First, LOOK! A POST! Betcha'd almost forgotten I did that.<br /><br />Second, I'm making myself do this before I go visit Facebook tonight, because if I go visit Facebook first, this blogger tab sits up at the top of my browser window all night, collecting electronic dust bunnies while I follow the infinite, pointless, endless trails through the intarwebs that are presented there. It's like eating dinner before dessert, to make sure that you actually get the brain-food you need before you fill up on junk calories that will only make you fat and hyper in the end. And intellectually LAAAAAAZY.<br /><br />Third, this might be pretty short. I was in a wedding over the weekend for a straight friend of mine, and I found myself participating in a number of unaccustomed grooming <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h297/kmd1776/img1281580972670-1-1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 192px;" src="http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h297/kmd1776/img1281580972670-1-1.jpg" border="0" alt="See? French Manicure of Typing Doom" /></a>rituals that lesbians are blessedly free from most of the time. Foremost is the French Manicure of Typing Doom. I keep clacking my acrylic-coated fingernail lengtheners into the keys I don't mean to press, and I'm spending a third of my time backing up an correcting typos that I wouldn't have made if I were typing this with my fingertips the way God intended.<br /><br />Also, and really - STOP THE PRESSES! - but I shaved my legs for this. I haven't shaved my legs for anything other than funeral attendance and my sainted mother in about 12 years. It's surprising how little leg hair I accumulate. Dudes seriously have the hormonal upper hand on that one. Anyway, I've been doing triathlons for a year. This is a sport in which even big, burly dudes shave their arms and legs. Supposedly, it's to make the wetsuits come off easier and to prevent it getting caught in your bike chain. Which, OK, OW!!!!! But I'm not sure it's not just an aesthetic thing that carries over from other speed sports, either. In any case, I've been a hairy-legged, system-bucking triathlete for a year now, and I shaved for this wedding.<br /><br />Also? Wore makeup. I had to buy makeup for my own wedding two years ago now because I threw out the very old bag I was toting around. I hadn't opened it in about a year, maybe two, and that stuff has a shelf life shorter than fresh peaches, really. I've worn my "wedding makeup" maybe 5 times in the two years since. A professional wedding makeup artist came and painted my face, though. This totally saved me from having to figure out whether my wedding makeup had gone dodgy. Another one foofed my hair. And I have to tell you, there's something silly about brushing my hair out straight and then curling it up again with a curling iron. Incidentally, I didn't know curling irons were still in vogue. I thought everyone was flat-ironing these days... But - whatever. I wasn't in charge of planning the efficiency curve, or I'd have done things differently. I hear it looked good, but all the foof was in the back, so I didn't really get to see it. You'll have to take my word for it, because I have no photos.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UoWhcEIq3h79il0E4I2hdD70j_xxDPoZa3pAHcRoys5GLhLkcU4IV-LGSZzJYuVV4VCXTCMgM9bHG8LzBDoMmdgWcIGvC0ErU1Qaeca0gYDWR8Reiei-tWdZvr476ae4wfew/s1600/kimjannacodynikki.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UoWhcEIq3h79il0E4I2hdD70j_xxDPoZa3pAHcRoys5GLhLkcU4IV-LGSZzJYuVV4VCXTCMgM9bHG8LzBDoMmdgWcIGvC0ErU1Qaeca0gYDWR8Reiei-tWdZvr476ae4wfew/s400/kimjannacodynikki.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504359795293423666" /></a><br />Anyway, all that to say that i really pulled out all the stops to make this a very special wedding day and very nice looking wedding pictures for my friend. And she's the sort of friend who deserves it. She has probably earned it all a thousand times over for looking after me on rugby trips over the years. I don't shave for just anyone, but you're worth it, Janna. Even the manicure.Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14897874.post-69381006202755706722010-07-28T02:12:00.003-05:002010-07-28T02:41:24.931-05:00Transformative ExperiencesFirst, I am not dead. Second, I'm writing something. It seems that traveling is good for the blog-idea-generator. Third, it's about burping, so I apologize right now, but I'm writing it anyway because I finally thought of something to write, dangit!<br /><br />Recently, I started taking a new medication. Never fear, gentle readers, it's not for anything squicky or life-threatening. One of the side effects listed on the little package insert for the new med is "may affect digestion", by which I can only assume they mean "give you a chemical sex change." This right here is about to get hip-deep in sexism, y'all, so brace y'allselves: Dudes belch more often, and more foully, than women. And they comment on it more, but I think that's social and not biological. Also, don't bother commenting with examples that disprove my assertion. I just told you I'm being sexist, here, but I'm also generalizing. So, insert all the "on average" and "generally" and "as a group" disclaimers you need up in there to feel comfortable with the accuracy of the statement, and let's roll.<br /><br />Right. So. Belching. The new medicine "affects my digestion" in much the same way that the flippin' Napoleonic Army affected Russia in 1812. For one thing, aside from the occasional swallowed-air-while-drinking-Dr-Pepper sort of thing, I've been a very low-volume belcher all my life. I am presently belching about once per 10 French soldiers after every meal. For another thing, I've never belched flavors before. These new ones taste like the thousand marching feet of snow-bound, unwashed French mercenaries. So, as far as I can tell, my gut has been turned into a man-belly.<br /><br />This brings me to a completely unsurprising point that probably seems unrelated just now. I don't like having a period. Don't get me wrong, I love being a woman, and I like all the symbolic, spiritual and otherwise intangible implications of that state of affairs. But I can safely say that I hate the visceral experience of having a period. I don't like the headaches, the mood swings, the bloating, the hormone roller-coaster, or the inconvenience.<br /><br />Which brings me back to the belching. I would gladly trade the hassle of having a period to forgo the stompy, gassy, smelly French army feet marching across my tongue right now. *buuuuup*Thalassahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14082743557723235940noreply@blogger.com0