Hooray for Boobies! Part 1

Howdy doo. Since nothing exciting is happening on the culinary front, I thought I'd chat about our nursing experience, as I alluded to in a previous post.

Before I had J, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I was more concerned about that aspect of early motherhood than anything else, including labor. I had heard so much about how it was awful; and painful and all the bad things, but very little about the good things. Still, it just seemed more convenient for the baby, and me and of course, better for him health wise. I was determined to do everything I could to make it work.

As his due date closed in on us, I had decided I would nurse for about 18 months, if that worked out for us. When people asked how long we would nurse, I would say, "Until he can ask for it", which I figured was at least a year. I took the breastfeeding course, which consisted of me and the teacher and a stuffed version of a breast that she could flip inside out. It was a revelation that the milk comes out of many tiny holes, not just one. Everything else I had read about somewhere.

I left the class with a "breastfeeding checklist" which consisted of a list of about 50 things that could go wrong while nursing. I wondered how I was supposed to remember all that while sleep deprived. I realized later it was more of a troubleshooting guide, rather than a checklist, and that made me feel better.

One thing we talked about was pumping a bottle for a night feeding. She explained the reality of the "daddy feeds the baby in the middle of the night" scenario. He would not wake up when the baby cried; I would have to wake him. Then I would already be awake, and listening to the baby scream while daddy bumbled around in the kitchen, warming up the bottle, finding the right pieces, etc. So not only would I be awake anyway, but my boobs would have been responding to the baby, and getting engorged, so I might as well nurse him anyway. This may sound pushy, but I think she sensed that the only reason I had the whole "bottle for daddy" idea was because I thought there would be something wrong with me if I didn't give him a bottle, so she said just what I needed to hear.

One of the great myths about nursing is that it's so natural that you and your baby will figure it out on your own. That is a load of crap. Witness the history of the midwife and duola. They were not only concerned with labor and childbirth, but also breastfeeding and infant care. It takes a village, from the beginning. It's a shame that so many women don't seek help at the FIRST sign of trouble, and just wait until they're so miserable they give up, and feel like failures for being unable to properly execute a natural function. A real shame for both mothers and babies.

I had J by emergency c-section, as he just got stuck due to his enormousness, and the first thing the people at the hospital did was give him a bottle of formula. They said his blood sugar was low. No kidding, I hadn't eaten in 24 hours. I was a little upset, but I was also having trouble. I had a fever and my heart rate wouldn't come down for a while, so I think they were trying to do the best for both of us. Anyway, they brought him to me, and I think it took 24 hours for him to nurse well. This is typical, as they're not really up to speed yet. Some people rail against medically assisted births for the sleepy babies they produce, but I loved me the epidural. I would have had it in my 7th month if they would have let me.

A lactation consultant came and manhandled me, showing me the "mash the burger" technique for getting it into the bay's mouth, and basically made me feel like an idiot. I complained to the staff, and they sent the lovely CO, the lactation consultant who taught my class, and she made everything all better. It wasn't her words, it was her manner. When I told her the baby had given me a blister (!) on one side, she was genuinely sympathetic, and showed me how to adjust his latch. I never got a blister again after that first day.

Once J got alert (and never slept again), he nursed CONSTANTLY. So much, in fact, that after the second day, and another three-hour session because my milk hadn't come in, I let him go to the nursery. They gave him a bottle, which they said he sucked right down, and I got a few hours rest for the first time in three days. I told them to bring him back when he was hungry again. Wouldn't you know it, by the time they brought him back, my milk had come in. We were much happier after that. It seems a little rest what all we needed.

Four days after he was born, I took my 10lb baby home. He had gained 10 ounces in the hospital, even after losing almost a pound the first day. That sounds like a lot, but a ten percent drop is normal, and with a baby that's 9lbs 6 ounces, that's well within the normal range.

The next installment will cover the first 8 weeks or so of our nursing relationship. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
-Anne

Back on the grid

It's amazing how crippled I feel without Internet access. Our hotel changed servers, and we're just now getting back on. It's been three or four days, and we still can't get the wireless to work. Someone's looking at it later today, so maybe I'll be off the cord soon.

Not too much exciting going on. I think I'm psychologically home already, and have given up trying to live here. We get on the plane in 7 days, and I can't wait! We are sad about leaving H behind, but not enough to stay longer. J has been wonderful this past week, making new friends with the Belgian boys who are going to be two apartments down from us starting tomorrow. The family has a 3.5-year-old, 2.5-year-old, and 5-month-old, all boys. I'm impressed, simply because the mother isn't a raving lunatic.

I wanted to have a baby sooner than it looks like we're going to, and so did H. I wanted them to be about 3 years apart, but certain health considerations are delaying our next baby. I wanted them to be old enough to play together, but not so close together that I was a lunatic. Hopefully, J and phantom baby will still be emotionally close; it will just be a different dynamic than I have with my brother, who is 2.5 years older than me.

I actually speak to my brother's wife more than my brother, mostly because of the whole mommy thing, but also because she's just home more. I think I feel differently about my brother, who I always adored, because now I see him as a husband and father, and not just the bossy guy in my house. He's more human to me as an adult, and has lost his mythic status. Now I can laugh with him about the children, and other things.

That's all for now. It's day three of torrential downpours, so we are going to the big grocery store for excitement. We walked around in the rain the first day, but I'm kind of over it now. Bleach.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Socialization!

Howdy all,
Another whole weekend for H, so less time to blog. I missed you all, I swear.

We've had a fabulous few days, so I feel pretty good about everything going on in our lives. Friday we went again to the Ambassador's house, and both her sons were there, a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. The boys were charming and friendly, and another child, a 4-year-old girl, was delightful, too. It was so lovely, we ended up staying for four hours. I meant to leave after two, as I'm pretty sure I haven't been to a friend's house for that long in years, but the other mother said she'd give us a ride home, and the children were playing so well, that we just stayed.

The day began in the basement/playroom, but after about an hour, we all moved outside, to their giant yard, which I've mentioned before. For most of the time, the other three children played in a group, with J doing his own thing, occasionally checking in with the other children or one of the mothers. The older boy was very kind to J, making him a Lego train when we first got there, and encouraging him to play with them. The other children managed to get out a small pool and fill it with warm tap water, as it was too cold for the hose. They had a plastic slide and had water slide fun for about 30 minutes, while J collected leaves in a wheelbarrow.

He finally decided he wanted to slide too, but went once and proclaimed it too cold. I was shivering in a sweater, but the other three naked children seemed impervious to cold. After everyone dried off and dressed, we all ate lunch together. The children ate at a separate table, which was so nice, as the mothers got to eat with BOTH hands! Then the kids played an imprisonment game, with J, and they all 4 built a fire from the woodpile. No real flames of course.

The children went back downstairs and played by themselves for another hour after this, which was just amazing to me. No screaming, no fights, no yelling for mommy. We stayed in the kitchen and had coffee. The Ambassador's wife said sometimes it just takes a longer stretch of time for the kids to get used to each other, something I'm definitely going to pass on to my friends at home. Also, I think that there were 4 of them, all of slightly different ages, might have made a difference, too. All in all, a success.

The next day, Saturday, J and I went to the park at the bottom of the hill and played in the grass for four hours. About half of that he did his own thing while I laid down and read. I'm re-reading "Perfect Madness; Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" which I'm really enjoying. She is kind of down on extended breastfeeding, but it's possible she just never met anyone who enjoyed nursing a child older than 3 months old. I think most of the women she met thought their child would be ruined for life if they didn't nurse them for at least a year. We just nursed until we didn’t need it anymore, but more on that some other time.

Anyway, very nice to see my boy entertained by other children, and by himself and some sticks. I love watching him become who he is.
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Dirt Box

Before I get started, I'd like to announce that I will now be spell checking my posts. i know you're excited, because I am. I already went back and fixed two of them, but it's kind of tedious, so I suppose we'll leave the earlier ones as proof that my writing has evolved.

Now on to bigger things.

I am torn, as J gets older, about the idea of him playing by himself. I've never been one of those mothers who thinks I have to "enrich" her child's day with stimulating activities. In fact, the first year of his life we basically just walked around the neighborhood. I miss the slingin' days. We went to a Waldorf Class when he was about a year old, but it was a huge disaster. The class was two hours long, and he inevitably would either want to nurse the whole time, or start to freak out towards the end as it was interfering with his sleepy time. Note I did not say nap time, because the boy did not nap predictably until he was 14 months old, but I digress. Anyway, it was bad times all around.

Then we had a little music class at about the 2 year mark, because he was getting really interested in music and singing, and that didn’t work out too well either. It would be a battle to keep him awake for the 25-minute drive to class, and he would DEFINITELY fall asleep on the way home. Unfortunately, until VERY recently, like the last month, I've never been able to have a successful transfer while asleep. So lots of sitting in the car reading 30-year-old National Geographics. You know, magazines no one would break in to my car to steal.

Also, the class was run by the Peabody institute, and for the zillion dollars and prestige, I thought I would at least get a teacher who got dressed before coming to work. I'm so awful and judgemental about these things sometimes, but she seriously looked like she rolled out of bed and straight into the classroom. And she did that weird goofy clown thing that some people think kids like. My kid ran from her, and I couldn't stand her either. And she couldn’t hold a tune. To cinch it, J wanted to just run around the classroom the whole time. The room was pretty big, and we all know dogs and children react to the size of the space they're in. So with three weeks left in the class, we never went back.

He had a nice time there, but it just wasn't worth it for me. I'm also not concerned about preparing him for school, as I'm planning on unschooling/ homeschooling. And, if that falls through, and he has to go to school, it’s not going to take him that long to learn to raise his hand and stand in line for the bathroom. This kid is WAY used to standing in lines forever. Airport, anyone?

Back in Baltimore, we're in a wonderful parent-child Montessori class, 90 minutes, one day a week, and it is perfect for J. They don't make the kids share, and his type of intense concentration is respected. Next session he'll be one of the older kids there, but I think it will be a good thing for him.

As far as the whole playing by himself thing, which is where I got started, he's actually been really good about it since he was about two. It literally happened overnight. One day he was screaming at the top of his lungs if I went to pee, the next, 90 minutes of action-packed car races on the couch, complete with mechanics and birds and rockets and airplanes.

Since we've been here, it's not going as well. I assume it's partly the weirdness of being away, partly the lonliness, and partly my guilt over his lack of suitable playmates. SO when he asks for me to play cars and trucks with him, if I'm genuinely not doing anything that can't wait, then I play with him. If he's already playing, I always leave him alone. It's so much fun to listen to his stories, and also I like to encourage his concentration. That's one of the things I like about Montessori.

Lately I've been saying no to do computer stuff, or house stuff, or even read or lay down, and I’m always surprised that he whines a bit and then descends into his little world. Which always involves rockets and friendly bears. He played on the balcony with a box of dirt and some treasure for 90 minutes the other day.

It's not that I don’t like playing, but it's really hard for me to focus on the millionth game of, "cars and trucks" when we're in the house and there's other stuff I could be doing. Or sometimes it's just plain boring playing with a preschooler all day.

He is fantastic about helping with the laundry and dishes and cooking, and I think that stuff is just as important as "playing" with him. I read somewhere, I think a Waldorf handout, that it's helpful not to think, "Oh, I have all this STUFF to do and THEN I can play with my child," because really, it's not the toys your kid likes, it's being with you. Also, if you present housework as a big boring chore, you end up with battles the rest of your life over cleaning and such. This may happen anyway, but my kid really enjoys being a crane picking up the small things. And crayons are rockets, and the cars vroom into the garage at night.

I find an activity, like art or building things with Legos, is easier for me than open-ended stuff, but I wish I could be better at that sometimes, because I don't want him to think I don't like being with him. I'll even tell him that I like being with him, and that he's fun to be around, because he really is. I hope my actions show it, too. Today he said his toots were not him, but majic butt aliens. How funny is that?

So I guess he's getting older, and I, like every other mother in the world, am just trying to keep up.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading,
-Anne

The Oven Hates Me

An attempt at biscuits this morning leads me to believe that it's not me, it's the oven. AGAIN with the weird gluey center. I even used real milk, because I like to live on the edge, and it made no difference.

I think it might be the water. The water here is chock full of minerals. It leaves white powder on everything it touches, so maybe it's hard to cook with rock water.

Or maybe it's the margarine versus butter. I'm just trying to keep the dairy to a minimum. I think I will do the next batch with real butter and see if that makes a difference. Our bread turned out OK, though, so maybe it's something else entirely.

We made plain biscuits, no buttermilk. Two cups flour, four teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, finger mixed with 3 tablespoons of butter, like you would with pastry. Then add 3/4 cup of milk, roll out to an inch thick, and cook at 350 for 15 minutes.

The weird biscuits are still edible, however, thanks to the blueberry jam we made at the same time. They have wild blueberries here, and they're perfect for making jam. They're really tiny and sweet, and even blue on the inside. All we did was boil equal parts sugar and blueberries, and viola! Jam! It's actually a little runny, so is behaving more like syrup, but I'm not hearing any complaints from the naked biscuit-eater on the couch. This was my first time making jam, and I think I should have let it cook longer before transferring it into jars, but it's still delicious. I highly recommend making your own jam, if it's this easy. I'm guessing it won't keep for 10 years in a jar, but we are eating the heck out of some jam these days.

In other news, J has been sleeping until 6 again, so maybe he's over the 3am thing. Hooray! I've learned not to get too used to good sleep, though. He seems to do better with no nap, although the afternoons require a little more management. Last night he slept from 6:30pm to 5:45 am, so that's pretty good. He did get in with me for a while, but then went back to his own mattress after some head rubbing.

We are going home in 2 1/2 weeks, which is very exciting for both of us. I really REALLY miss my dog. This morning, I was thinking about things I need to do, mostly people I want to visit when I get back, and couldn’t figure out how to see them all. I had FORGOTTEN that I have a car. Sheesh.

Strangely, when I realized the other day that it was three more weeks, not four, I got hysterical, because I'm going to miss my husband so much. He'll be here another month before coming home, and then home for a month before heading off on another job. Luckily, his next job is on an island where they speak English, so he’ll have a very nice time. It will almost be like a vacation for him.

Speaking of his work, we are going to visit him on set today, and pick our very own wild blueberries and strawberries. So hopefully I'll get some pictures from that.

That's it for now. Not too much exciting, but thanks for reading anyway,
-Anne

Storming the Castle

Roly Mo, what a long day!

I had been planning all week to take J to Trakai, a city with a giant old castle about 30 km from Vilnius. Sunday, was H's only day off, and I like to get J and I out on adventures on his days off so he can sleep. I was planning to take the train both ways, after a successful train ride to Kaunas for the zoo, and was really looking forward to it. Here's a picture of it from their tourism website.

What is it they say, life is what happens when you're making other plans?

To begin with, J woke at three am for the second day in a row. I have no idea what this is about, but I'm guessing it's either an intellectual growth spurt, or the whole nighttime peeing thing still. I don't really care, but I'm kind of tired of it.

Then, I checked the weather and it called for Thunderstorms all day. I figured, thunderstorms pass quickly, and the weather forecast is always wrong over here, so I packed our things. I checked the train schedule, and our choices were to leave at 8 am and be ther 90 minutes before the castle even opened, or wait until 1:30 and deal with a crabby kid and being rushed in the afternoon. I couldn't even get the bus schedule to load online, but the receptionist at our hotel/apartments called some unknown bus gurus, and wrote the outbound schedule down, which was roughly every 20 minutes from the station.

So at 9:30, stroller raincover and handwritten schedule in hand, J and I went to the bus station. We tried to buy tickets for Trakai, and the ticket lady said we had to go to information. Information said it was a holiday, apprently for summer solstice, and the next bus was in an hour. She said I had to wait two minutes to buy the ticket. I was confused until I realized I was really waiting for the ticket-selling girl to come back. The ticket girl started to sell me a ticket for an earlier bus, and I was worried about getting confused, but after much conversation between info girl and ticket girl, it was decided I could take the earlier bus. Apparently, the reason info girl didn't offer it to me as a choice is I had to buy the ticket on the bus. Why would that even matter?

J was very excited to get on the bus, never having been on one, and we got decent seats by an open window in the back, and the Quinny Zapp stowed nicely under the seats. We even had Americans sitting in front of us, although I didn't talk to them until later.

Things went pretty smoothly, and for the low price of about 50 cents USD, we were on our way. The bus stopped a few times picking up people, and the only truly smelly person near us at least only rode for about 20 minutes. A man got on with a rolled up carpet and sat right behind us. I quickly realized the carpet was soaked in cat pee. Yum. And then he had a sneezing fit, which sprayed all over my neck. Now, I'm not a huge germophobe, but I don't share drinks and I use a paper towel to open public restroom doors on my way out. So being sneezed on by Cat Pee Man made me shudder.

J fell asleep and had a nice 40-minute nap on the way there, and the American women in fron of me helped me get all our stuff out. It was a 2km walk to the castles, and we had fun stopping along the way to throw rocks in the water. We also saw a swan family. Swans are gigantic. I had no idea.

We toured the castle, and J was mostly excited by the cannons and rocks in the courtyard. I thought he barely noticed the castle, but at bedtime he told H all about the different things we saw. H had filmed there a few years ago, and I had visited set, so I took a few shots of J in some of the locations. Like, "Daddy assassinated a monk here!"

We tried to get a sailboat , with a skipper of course, to go out on the lake, but even though I offered to pay the full group rate, the guy in charge refused to let us go out. I have no idea why, since the entire time I was there not a single one of his boats was rented. Maybe it's a front for Russian Mafia money.

We had lunch by the lake, and J was very friendly with the other children around us, just picking up things and naming them. "Apple! Baby! Fork!" He was trying to teach them English. How cute.

I planned on taking the train back, to avoid any rush hour traffic, but right as we got to the bus station, to walk past it, a HUGE downpour started and I thought we'd better stick to the bus. Like I said, it was a holiday, and I didn't want to walk the ten minutes to the train station in a thunderstorm, have there be no train, and then have to walk back and have missed the bus.

The bus came a few minutes later, packed full of people, and I realized we would have to stand all the way home, about an hour's drive in a bus. So we got in a cab, while J screamed "I want to take the bus!" intending to just go to the train station. We ended up taking it all the way home, but it was so worth it.

The taxi driver told us he had a brother who lived in Florida, and then put in a disco 80's DVD for us to watch. Very entertaining. They have these driver's on-board DVD players here, and I'm not sure if it's for the driver to watch or the passengers, but it's always entertaining.

Overall a great day, and J slept until 6 this morning, so I'm feeling like an entirely new person. Now it's time to shower while J watches Bits and Bobs.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Bread Success

Remember the flat bread? Well, we made another loaf from the dry mix I mentioned. And guess what? It worked! We only did one rise, and it was nice and chewey and good.

We ate the entire loaf in one day. This was partially due to my son's three-day sandwich binge. He's over it now, but it seemed every time I turned around, I was making him another sandwich. Luckily, as I may have mentioned before, meat with jam makes a pretty good sandwich, and I used the leftover chicken from Milk Chicken night in his sandwiches. I will write about Milk Chicken as soon as I find the fancy picture I took of some of the ingredients. It may be in my home computer, so that could be a while.

Other than the Eating Machine, things have been pretty quiet. J and I had a discussion about pushing after we went to the zoo and another kid finally pushed him back. I told him instead of pushing, he can wait for his turn, or go do something else. We were at the playground the day after that, and he started to get upset that other children were climbing on the slide he used. He started to go up to them, but then caught himself and sid, "I will wait my turn."

That worked for a few minutes, but then he got impatient as the iother kids kept sliding, and J is not quite as fast as other kids his age. He went up to a younger child and put his arms on eiothre side of the kid, without touching him, and made his frustrated, "grrrrrr" noise. It was pretty funny, and overall, I think he did well. It's nice to know he is listening about that kind of stuff.

We've been doing lots of painting and drawing, and yesterday, he drew this.

He says it's his butt. Obviously, we've been a little butt-centric lately. Now he wants me to read to him every time he goes, specifically "Toot and Puddle: Top of the World". On the last page it says, "Are you getting pooped?" which is, of course, hysterical.

Now I must return to the leftover chicken, sizzling in Marks and SPencer BBQ marinade. That and sweet corn. Mmmmmm.
Thanks for reading,
Anne