I’ve Moved

Please find me at: http://thebeginningofwisdom.wordpress.com/

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Just so you know what I’m up against here

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We’ve had a rough night.  It started with food trash in the bedroom of a certain 9 year old and rapidly unraveled from there.  Fortunately, there was just a bit of comic relief.

As I check on OED, to see if his room is starting to resemble a room again, I notice one of my books, recently reviewed for you, my bloggy friends, laying open, face down on his bed (Yes, I confess I still haven’t returned it to the library.  Oh, the shame!).  “So, um, why’s my book in here?” I ask, trying to put on an air of causality and thinking to myself “Oh, CRAP. If he reads the book he’ll know when I’m blowing him off and…I just don’t want to even go any further.”

“I wanted to read it,” he says.  That’s right, it’s perfectly logical for a 9 year old to read a parenting book.  Oh, wait, NO! IT’S! NOT!

“Why?’ still trying to sound as casual as possible

“I just did.”

“Did you read all the way to where it’s open?” trying not to panic after noting that the book is laying more toward the back than the front and that I’m not sure I’ve even read that far.

“Nah, not really.”

“He’s been reading that for a long time,” pipes up Conundrum.  Ever the helpful sibling.

“Well,” trying to muster a little bit of authority but feeling very undone as I snag the book off of his bed “I need to get that back.  It’s not really age-appropriate reading material.”

“But I want to read it because I want to know all of your tricks so I can devise a way to outsmart you.”  DIRECT QUOTE.  I did manage to make it out of the room and onto the front porch before I laughed until I cried.  Because when your 9 year old openly tells you that he’s trying to outsmart you, and you know that with his methodology, he may actually succeed, you either laugh or cry.  Or both.

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Renaming My Family

I’m working on my blog a little and have decided that maybe privacy is more important than I originally thought, especially where my children are concerned.  Thus, I’m renaming my family. At least in blogland.

Therefore, henceforth:

My husband is La Roca.  Because he rocks.

My oldest son is OED. In academia, the OED needs no explanation but for those of you who weren’t blessed with PhD in English Lit mothers, the OED is the Oxford English Dictionary, the be-all-end-all record of the English language. 59 million words contained in two relatively unassuming volumes, it is sold paired with a magnifying glass so you can really see what it contains. My oldest is the OED because he’s fast becoming the closest thing to a living dictionary I know and because he might–just might–be easier to read under a magnifying glass.

My middle son is Conundrum.  The real definition of his name is something a lot more beautiful and sweet and romantic, but a popular website defines his name as an “unsolvable conundrum.”  He is the hardest to figure out, laid back and easy going unless he’s not and then he’s just NOT.  Shopping for him is impossible because he has no preferences, unless he does.  Apparently he’s also an inexplicable conundrum because I’m failing miserably at this.

My youngest son is Pebble, because a pebble is a small rock and this one is definitely my husband in miniature.

My youngest child, and only daughter, is Ad lib.  A google search for the definition reveals Ad lib defined as “with little or no preparation or forethought,” which fits this little one very well.  She is our one and only surprise.  Dig a little further and you’ll find that Ad lib is an “abbreviation for the Latin ad libitum meaning ‘as much as one desires, to the full extent of one’s wishes,’” which also fits because she’s every bit the little girl I’ve always hoped for.

I’ll be working my way through my archives, changing names as I go.  Please respect my decision for our privacy and use blognames if you know us in real life and choose to name one of us in a comment.  Thanks!!

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Changes

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In my neverending search for self-discipline, I’ve decided to make some changes in the next few weeks.

First, I want to stick to my housekeeping schedule a little more closely.  When I was creating and thus following the schedule, it was almost as if I had a little housekeeping fairy who paved the way for me.  Cleaning house once a week is so much easier than waiting until I’m going crazy to do it.  So, I’m back to my plan of cleaning, sweeping and mopping the kitchen on Thursday evenings, then cleaning the rest of the house on Friday and planning weekly meals while doing every last stitch of laundry in the house on Mondays.

Second, in order to have time for things like cleaning the house and tending to my gaggle of children and in the interest of being more disciplined with my time and finances, I’m self-imposing a Facebook and iPhone detox.  I’m not quite to the point of deleting my Facebook account but knowing who Facebook shares my information with has made me pretty sure that I want to spend a lot less time on the site.  Add to that the fact that I feel like I spend what’s left of my time staring at my iPhone and I’m actually paying for the privilege and I came to the realization that the iPhone must go.  I started by deleting the Facebook app and disallowing e-mail notifications from Facebook.  Sometime this week La Roca and I will make a visit to the AT&T store and make the break with our iPhones (okay, well, he already did, only he hasn’t told AT&T about it and therefore we are still paying for the darned thing).

Third, since I will no longer be staring at my iPhone or Facebook screen all day, I’ll have more time.  I want to fill that time with things that are valuable and enriching.  Blogging has proven, for me, to be one of those things, so there will be a return to it.  I’m going to aim at three times a week.  And maybe I’ll start a midwifery blog, too.  But blogging isn’t valuable and enriching for my children, so I’ve got some goals there as well.  During the summer, which starts in an ever-shortening time *cue Jaws theme song*, I have planned a pool trip once weekly and a weekly craft for the big kids.  But since that is still three short weeks away, starting last night, I’m reading Tales From the Arabian Nights to them after putting Pebble to bed with a more age-appropriate story.  After Arabian Nights, I plan to move to Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and then onto something else that will allow me to mold their little brains to my purposes. (I’m open to suggestions)

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Cute things in my life this week

OED: This year of school has wrought such a huge change in my shy little boy, sometimes I don’t recognize him.  He has a minor role in his grade’s production of The Jungle Book and has been hard at work on his 19 lines.  He was immensely disappointed to only have 19 lines, but I’m really glad that’s all he had!  He has them down and is perfecting their presentation.  He’s also practicing “The Bare Necessities” and will sing the whole song for just about anyone who asks.  Lemmie tell you, that’s a BIG change for this kid.

Conundrum: Spent 10 days away from home with his great-grandparents this week.  Came back having traded thier planned birthday present for a Texas Longhorns hat and shirt and now wears them everywhere.  Missed his brothers so much that when he called us, he’d ask to talk to both of them on the phone and would talk longer with them than us.

Pebble: Learned two new words yesterday.  He’s not much of a talker and I was worried about his lack of vocabulary at one point.  Our (incredibly wonderful, laid back) pediatrician calmed my fears and let me know that as long as he has about 24 words by two years old, he’s fine…even if he doesn’t start adding those words until a week before his birthday.  He’s been adding a couple of words every week or two and now says (when he wants to) No, Thank You, Daddy, Car, Kitty, Bye, Night-Night, Outside, Chicken, Shoe and maybe a few more.  Yesterday I spent a good hour blowing bubbles with him, saying “Bubble” over and over and over again.  Then Conundrum came along and started to pop the bubbles, saying “Pop! Pop! Pop!” and in just a few minutes time, Pebble could say “Buba POP! POP!”  Again, he’ll only say them when he wants to, but he definitely said them very clearly.  I look forward to hearing his renditions of his sibling’s names.

Ad Lib: is such a happy, giggly girl this week.  When I gave her a bath a few days ago, her fuzzy little hair and furrowed brow had La Roca and me laughing for a good ten minutes.  She likes to stand up on our laps and is determined to start rolling over.  She’s done it once or twice accidentally, but is working on perfecting the skill.  She wiggles all over her crib and still hates her pacifier.

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Body Change Success

Sometime after Conundrum was born, during my midwifery apprenticeship, I gained 30 to 40 pounds. I’m not really even sure when the gain started, but about three years after Conundrum was born, I realized that this was a problem. I weighed 194 pounds, up from 158 right before I was pregnant with Conundrum, which was up from 135 four years before that when I got married. I tried to not let it bother me, to be myself, to be happy with my life, to make the best food choices I could, and to convince myself that whatever weight I was was okay with me. I remember reading even before the 30 to 40 pounds in a book about weight loss that whatever weight you are today is not the weight you’re likely to be in a year. 12 months from today, your weight will either be lower or higher than it is right now. And say it’s “only” 10 pounds higher…that’s pretty good right? Well, maybe, but if the trend continues, 10 pounds a year over 5 years is 50 pounds! As I’ve thought about my weight gain and its causes, that has come to my mind over and over. I decided in November 2008, two months after Pebble was born, that 12 months from that day I would not weigh the same or more. I would weigh less. Even if it was “just” 10 pounds less. That was a goal I could handle. It didn’t mean months of counting calories and weighing every day. It didn’t mean a complete and drastic lifestyle change. It meant that I could do little things to change my habits slowly and that as long as I really stuck with them, I would be slowly losing the weight I’d gained. After all, it wasn’t as if I woke up one day weighing nearly 200 pounds. The weight wasn’t even gained over the course of six or twelve months. It took years to gain and I made my peace with the fact that it might take years to come off.

Little did I know, 12 months after November 2008, I was pregnant again and I did weigh more, for a good reason. I had been working toward my goal until I got pregnant, however, and kept track of the sometimes incremental changes in my body by recording a set of measurements and my weight every few weeks. On November 11, 2008, I weighed 187.8 with a waist measurement of 42.5″, hip measurement of 42″ and a thigh measurement of 24.5″. On July 1, 2009, the day I found out I was pregnant, I weighed 179 with a waist measurement of 38″, 40.75″ hips, and 23″ thighs. After Ad Lib was born in February, I waited four weeks, then took measurements again. On March 16, I weighed 179 with a waist measurement of 40″, hips at 40.75″ and 23.5″ thighs. Yesterday I stood on the scale and read 170.6, almost 25 pounds less than that day four years ago when I stood on the scale, read 194 and wanted to cry.

Before you ask, I don’t have a “secret.” I have a set of changes I’ve worked into my life that are the things we all know we “should” do but don’t. I’ve focused on being active more consistently, but not forcing my body to do things it doesn’t want to do or that I don’t enjoy. I’ve been incorporating the FitYummyMummy resistance and interval workouts, which are the most effective yet shortest workouts I’ve ever done, into my weekly activities, with less consistency than I’d like, but with enough to make a difference. I’ve eliminated 99% of the fast food from my diet. I’ve mostly stopped drinking Coke and find that when I do, it’s not as good as I remember it. I bake less and when I do bake, I use whole grains, less sugar and absolutely no trans fats (not even in pie crusts). When the baking’s done, I divide the finished product into portions and freeze them so eating them takes more thought than walking by the stove and stuffing a brownie in my mouth.

I also eat more. Yes, you read that correctly. I eat more. I calculated that as a breastfeeding mother at my current weight, I need nearly 2500 calories a day. On an ideal day, I’ll eat five 500 calorie meals, but on most days, I eat three meals and a couple of small snacks. I used to hate eating breakfast and often got distracted with the house or kids and forget to eat lunch. Usually in the midmorning and midafternoon, I’d make up for missing the meals by eating something totally unhealthy that gave me just enough of a blood sugar boost to keep moving. This, I’m sure, is one of the contributors to the weight gain in the first place, since my body was undoubtedly storing every little extra calorie it ever got as fat. Now that there are enough healthy calories from whole foods to nourish my body, it feels safe enough to use the food I give it as well as the fat it has saved. Now, as my baby nurses less, starting at about 6 months, I’ll need to decrease my calorie intake or I’ll stop seeing the positive changes and will ultimately see fat gain, but I have no intention of letting that happen! This is change for good that I’m working for here!

Realizing this week that I weighed 25 pounds less than I did four years ago, I went on a little picture hunt. I haven’t liked my looks for a long time and we had a hard drive crash and lost quite a few pictures, so pictures of me are hard to find, but I managed to find a few.

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April 2005

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July 2007--these shorts are now TOO BIG!

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October 2007-at my heaviest

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July 2008-30w pregnant

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September 2008, ~3w postpartum

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October 2008, our 10th anniversary. I now wear a belt with these jeans instead of Spanx

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Late July 2009- 8w pregnant

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January 2010, 30w pregnant. Look at the difference in this and my prior pregnancy.

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April 16, 2010-20# lighter and mama to two more babies

FitYummyMummy has a 12 week transformation challenge four times a year. The goal is to see what kind of body change consistency in clean eating and working out can bring about. I’m thinking about doing the next one, but again, this isn’t about changing my body as fast as I can or seeing as much change as I can in the shortest amount of time. It’s about learning to live so that my body becomes healthier, not vice versa. Knowing that, and working toward little goals, while not as immediately satisfying as losing 50 pounds in 6 months, allows me to know that 12 months from now I know I will be in an ever better place. And the evidence overwhelmingly supports that this kind of change is the kind that works for life, which is what I remind myself when I want to speed things up and reach a certain weight, size or BMI by X date. Slow and steady…

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The Birth of Ad Lib

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One week before her birth.

I guess the story really starts a little over a week before she was born. On Wednesday I had a noticeable increase in swelling in my legs and feet, which isn’t really abnormal in pregnancy, but I was concerned about how quickly it came on given the fact that I have a history of pre-eclampsia. I checked my blood pressure on and off that evening and it was elevated, but not really concerning. Still, I called the doctor the next morning to see if she wanted me to have any lab work done in preparation for my appointment on Friday. She preferred to see me in the office on Thursday and decide from there what labs to run. So I went in to discover a totally normal blood pressure and that I had a really bad UTI that would skew any of the lab tests that would help us determine if I had pre-eclampsia again. I took antibiotics for the infection, scheduled the lab tests for the following Monday and made an appointment for the following Friday.

Since the lab ran the tests on Tuesday I fully expected a call about them on Wednesday. When I made it through the day without a phone call, I was shocked and I remember thinking on Thursday morning that I was actually going to make it to my appointment on Friday without incident, which I hadn’t expected. About the time I finished that thought, I got a call from the nurse saying that my test came back “quite elevated” and they needed me to come in for an office visit. I arranged child care and went. Again, my BP was just slightly elevated, but the lab test showed that I was 4 times over what’s considered pre-eclamptic. We decided to induce labor the next day, starting with cervadil at midnight, then a foley catheter and a little bit of pitocin the next morning. This is very similar to what we did with Pebble’s induction, but with him I was terrified of pitocin. Pitocin made my labor with OED (my first) very, VERY difficult to cope with. The experience with Pebble (my third) was totally different and I decided this time I wouldn’t be so afraid to use the pitocin to get things going.

By 8:00 am I was 4-5cm dilated and we started the pitocin at 2 units. I was determined that I would have a baby by noon and thus when my contractions started to space out a little bit, I’d ask the nurse to go ahead and bump the pitocin up a couple of units. I was up to 4 units and in a good contraction pattern pretty quickly but was really having to focus on keeping the darned monitor because every time I breathed wrong, the baby’s heart rate would stop reading and it would pick up mine. We eventually realized that if you listened, the monitor was picking up baby’s heart rate even though it was registering my heart rate on the tracing and the digital display. I would listen to make sure baby wasn’t having any issues and my nurse would come in occasionally to listen and try to get a minute or two of baby’s actual heart rate onto the tracing. Once I stopped worrying about the stupid monitor so much, my contractions picked up a lot in intensity and I started feeling some pressure with them. I asked to be checked at 10:40 or so and was frustrated and disappointed to find that I was still only 4-5, though baby had dropped considerably (from a -3 to a 0 or +1 station).

We bumped the pitocin up a final two units, for a total of 6 and things started to get intense quickly. Around 11:40 I looked at the clock and whined to La Roca that I wasn’t going to make my goal of having a baby by noon. At 12:15, after quite a few contractions that required counter pressure and/or a heavy dose of a double hip squeeze to get through, I told La Roca I was going to have someone check me and if I was still 4-5 I was getting an epidural and I wanted him to understand that I was dead serious and I really wanted to do that if I wasn’t making any progress. In my head I knew that if I was working this hard without any progress, something wasn’t right and maybe an epidural would help, but I couldn’t manage to express all of that to him. I told him to get my nurse, who he found was eating lunch, so some other nurse offered to check me. I was fine with that, but sobbed when I found out that I was 9+ centimeters with a bulging bag of water and there would be no epidural in my future. The scrub tech and my nurse came in to get things situated. Since no one had any gloves on when Pebble was born and he literally fell onto the bed, as soon as I had an urge to push, I made my nurse glove up just in case Dr. T didn’t make it. My water broke and I started to really push right about the time Dr. T walked into the room. Ad Lib was born at 12:38pm after something like three pushes. It was my fastest and easiest labor, possibly because she only weighed 6 pounds 2 ounces. And if that were the end of the story, it’d be the perfect induced-but-unmedicated birth story. But anyone who knows me knows that as much as I try, I never seem to hit the “perfection” mark.

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As I dried Ad Lib off and talked to her, I immediately noticed two things: she had a full head of hair and my mother’s beautifully shaped nail beds and long, thin fingers. While I was getting to know her, we waited on the placenta. I should stop here to say that we knew the placenta had some issues, including a funky cord insertion, called a velamentous insertion. This means that instead of the cord attaching to the middle of the placenta as normal, the cord actually attaches to the amniotic sac and then the cord vessels traverse the membranes to the placenta. With this type of insertion, it’s really important to wait until the placenta separates on its own and to have a hands-off delivery of it. As we waited, I had some contractions and signs that the placenta had separated, so I pushed a little bit, thinking it would all be over soon. Instead, the membranes and cord came out, leaving the placenta behind. I remember this moment so clearly. Even more clearly than her actual birth, which is upsetting. It was like time stood still while everyone in the room—and there were quite a few of us—looked at that bin the placenta was supposed to be in and collectively thought “oh, shit.”

We tried a few things, including nursing and some other things I’ll spare you the details of, but it became clear pretty quickly that they weren’t going to work. Since my hemoglobin was low, I was at higher risk of bleeding and I wanted to get the placenta out as soon as possible. We opted for a trip to the OR for a D&C and/or manual removal. The anesthesiologist came in and Dr. Tynes went to square away her clinic patients (yeah, if you were sitting in the waiting room forever that day, it was my fault…sorry!) and my nurse went to get the OR ready. After some questions, the anesthesiologist left me and Jason…alone…in the room. I was freaked out by that, knowing that my body was trying to clamp down my uterus but couldn’t (I sure could feel it trying, though), so I was on edge for any signs of bleeding. I started to feel a little cold and nauseous—signs of shock–and had La Roca call the nurse. She came in and noted that my uterus had gotten bigger, not smaller (a sign that it’s filling up with blood) and got me into the OR pretty quickly. As everyone was getting me and everything else settled in the OR, I passed out, which freaked everyone out and prompted them to order two units of blood for me.

Here’s what I remember: I remember my husband telling Dr. T to “be sure you bring her back because I can’t do this alone” as he held our newborn daughter. I remember being disturbed by the idea of someone else’s blood going into my body, but glad that I wasn’t morally opposed to blood products. I thought for a moment about refusing the blood, then thought better of it because I knew it would take me literally months to recover from a blood loss like that and having three kids at home to take care of, plus a new baby, I wouldn’t get the rest I needed to properly recover. I remember scribbling on the consent line for the blood. I remember that my IV was blown, in spite of the fact that it had just been dripping pit into me less than an hour or two before. I remember telling them to get a line in me NOW because I was sick of cramping and bleeding and I wanted to be DONE. I remember making a concerted effort to feel EVERYTHING so that I wouldn’t pass out again, which meant that when they pulled the tape off and tried to reopen the IV line in my right arm, I whined about it hurting. I remember telling the guy on my left–twice–that he better tell me before he stuck me for the new IV line. I remember my doctor “petting” my leg and belly and talking to me so I wouldn’t pass out again. I remember someone commenting on that and I remember telling whoever it was that Dr. T loves me because I push her outside of her comfort zones. I remember them putting something in my IV and putting a mask over my face and asking me to count down from 10. I remember asking if this was the anesthesia and them saying that it was just oxygen. I remember thinking that IT WASN’T “just oxygen” because next thing I knew, I was awake. I remember the first thing I asked was how much blood I lost. I remember my doctor asking me if I wanted to see the placenta (God love her, she knows me too well!). I remember that I was so groggy I said no, even though I had been waiting five months to see and touch that darned thing. I remember being really upset that the hospital was Catholic and therefore she couldn’t do a tubal while I was under anesthetic. And I remember going back to my room, seeing La Roca and Ad Lib sitting in the chair in the corner, and asking if I’d be able to nurse. I meant would my milk come in because of all the blood I’d lost, but the anesthesiologist responded that he hadn’t given me any medications that were incompatible with breastfeeding. I remember thinking “oh, well, that’s good because I didn’t even THINK about that.”

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Dr. T talked to La Roca and filled me in on some things that I don’t (or can’t) remember: she ended up doing a manual removal. They had to give me two shots of brethine to get my uterus to relax enough for her to do the procedure and even then she had a hard time finding an edge of the placenta that would release. She wondered at one point if it was an accreta and she was going to have to do an emergency hysterectomy, but it wasn’t, which is a good thing because unless my uterus is threatening to kill me, I’m determined to keep it until I die. I’m a little attached to it. She managed to remove all of the placenta, but it came out in pieces (I have pictures if you’d like to see them). Apparently I said “I don’t care if you have to put the IV in my NECK, just get it in!” And apparently I cracked everyone in the OR up with my comfort zone comment.

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A little while after I got back into the room and settled, I held and nursed Ad Lib for the fist time since right after her birth. She was over three hours old by now. Since the crook of my left elbow had an IV in it, I couldn’t bend my left arm without obstructing the flow of (someone else’s!) blood into my body, so La Roca had to help me breastfeed her for the first time. I couldn’t bend my arm to burp her or to rub her head full of soft hair or…anything. I was grateful that they got a line in me so fast, but wished for it to be in a less obtrusive spot. I decided that since I was disturbingly pale and had someone else’s blood dripping into my body, I didn’t want the boys to see me or Ad Lib just yet. A friend was at the hospital for some blood work and stopped in to see us. She didn’t stay long and later apologized for coming at all because she didn’t know what we’d just been through. I’m not usually big on having visitors in the hospital, but I think having a steady stream of friends and family in that afternoon was a Godsend. It gave me time to process what had just happened in small pieces instead of all at once. La Roca told me that my dad had left work the instant La Roca called to tell him what was going on, and was on his way. We visited with him for a little while and he when he held Ad Lib, the first thing he said was that she has my mother’s fingers. She’s eight weeks old now and I see my mother in her more every day. The dark hair, the long thin, perfect fingers, her small stature, her laid-back-until-she’s-not personality. She’s perfect.

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Garden 2010

La Roca won’t let me post pictures until he mows the lawn, which will be a few days since the lawnmower is broken, but our garden is well underway this year.  I documented the building of our five raised beds last year and took pictures at the beginning of the growing season.  Last year we had beans, pickle cucumbers, jalapenos, zucchini, bell peppers, six tomato plants, and one bed of herbs (mint, lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, dill, sage, cilantro and basil when the dill died).  We fought early blight and tomato horn worms and really didn’t have much for tomatoes last year because of it.  There was a bumper crop of peppers and zucchini, but the beans and pickling cucumbers didn’t do so well.

We hope to add more beds, but that requires more forethought than we had this year, so it just wasn’t possible.  Instead we’ve settled for creative ways to expand our garden space, improving the quality of our crops by buying heirlooms, and adding a fence to the garden so we can one day grow lettuce without fear of little rabbits eating it all.  This year the herb bed has come back with mint, lemon balm, rosemary, sage and lavender.  I’ve planted a second bed of herbs with purple basil (I can’t wait to make purple pesto!!), green basil, marjoram, thyme, cilantro, and oregano.  I’d like to have dill again this year too, but haven’t bought it yet.

Our 7 heirloom tomato plants will be grown upside down in 5 gallon buckets (aka T*opsy T*urvy-style).  It’s supposed to make them more resistant to things like blight because they aren’t packed closely together and they can easily be watered from the roots.  I hope so.  Nursing them back from blight only to have a hoard of horn worms (over 100 total, with many hand picked off of the plants each day for a couple of weeks straight!!) eat them every day was NO FUN.

We have two heirloom pepper plants and are waiting on some others from a local gardener.  One is a rooster spur, which was grown by only one family for 100 years and is supposed to be pretty darned hot.  I’m looking forward to that.  We’ve also planted two heirloom watermelon plants at the top of our retaining wall.  The garden beds are too small for them and the garden soil, while excellent for most plants, isn’t sandy enough for watermelon.  The kids are itching for some watermelon so I really hope they make.

We planted okra, peas, and English cucumbers from seed (sown directly into the ground) and they are all coming up nicely.  Next year I hope to plan ahead enough to buy Monsanto-free seeds, but again, this year we did what we could with what we had.

I’m not normally into yard work and/or gardening (just the fact that they’re synonymous no doubt says something about my feelings toward gardening), but I am enjoying seeing the yard and garden take shape.  I loved putting my hands into the dirt to plant our pepper plant that was passed from generation to generation in one family and feeling the heat of good, black soil.  I love knowing that the majority of our plants this year will be bearing non-GMO, non-hybrid fruits for my family.  I take comfort in knowing that Sevin Dust, the touted “solution” to tomato bugs, will be no where near my food producing plants and that only organic products and materials have been used on the food we harvest from the garden and put into our bodies.  If only that were the case for all of our foods!

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Book Review: Mom, Jason’s Breathing On Me!

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I’ve been reading Mom, Jason’s Breathing on Me: The Solution to Sibling Bickering.  Since I have a newborn, it’s taking me a while.  A very long while.  Actually, I think by now I may have bought it from the library.  I can say already it’s worth the read.  I have learned much about sibling relationships from the first few chapters.

Some of you may know I’m an only child.  And you may know that I now have four children (ohmygosh…FOUR!?).  Here are some things a lot of you probably don’t know: I prayed (begged would be a more accurate description) for my fourth child–only 17.5 months younger than my third child–to be a daughter because I am overwhelmed by the relationship my first two sons have (they are 28 months apart) and because my husband and his brother were 16 months apart and I just CANNOT imagine being the mother of two boys like them.  Some of the stories they tell on each other make me want to run away with my hands over my ears screaming “LaLaLaLa I’m not LISTENING!”  And I’m NOT their mother.  I prayed for a daughter, hoping the dynamic between two closely spaced siblings of the opposite sex would be a little more tolerable.  I did get a sweet little girl, but as she’s only six weeks old, the jury’s still out on my theory.

Over the years I’ve asked my friends who have siblings what a normal sibling relationship is like in childhood (because, please God, my husband’s relationship with his brother CANNOT actually be the norm, right?).  I’ve asked mothers whose kids seem to love each other how they manage to make that happen.  I’ve read every book about sibling rivalry that comes across my path.  Nothing has really helped me understand what in the world my sons are doing to each other.  Until now.

Things I’ve learned in the painfully slow process of reading this book:

  1. Unfortunately, my husband’s relationship with his brother as a child seems to be the universal standard.
  2. Stay out of it.  Unless they are going to HARM each other, keep my mouth shut, don’t listen, and butt out.
  3. How siblings interact as children has very, VERY little bearing on what their adult relationships will be like. (thank you, Jesus).
  4. Sibling relationships {mostly} exist outside the realm of self-esteem.  Therefore being called a jerk by your brother is not the same as being called a jerk by the kid down the street.
  5. Along the same lines as #4, siblings have a back and forth, push and pull that only they are allowed to participate in.

Okay, I kinda knew numbers 4 and 5.  I remember stepping in it in high school once because a friend was berating her two years younger sister–who I also happened to know and work with–behind her back.  I had the audacity to agree with her on some minor point.  I swear the entire lunch room went silent as she gave me a look that could kill and said “Don’t talk about MY sister like THAT!”  Um…excuse me what just happened here?  You were saying much worse about her just a moment ago?  Clearly I had stepped over some imaginary line that only people with siblings know exists.  I guess I’m lucky she was a relatively non-combative friend.

For me as a mother this means a few things:

First, the pressure is off of me to make my children into each other’s best friends.  They may never be like that as kids.  Actually, they probably won’t even appear to get along until they no longer feel the need to compete for my attention and affection as their parent.

I can hasten the day when they don’t feel the need to compete for my affection by not ever getting involved.  Never, EVER, take sides, unless one appears to be ready to harm (or is harming) the other.  Thus, if I were parenting my husband and his brother through the famous BB-gun-shot-to-the-butt-lead-to-breaking-down-the-door incident, I would get involved. (I think they were at home alone at the time, but you get the point)

And finally, I can make my life easier by not ever listening to the tattles.  The author gives all sorts of creative ways to blow your kids off and not offend either of them when they come to you saying, “Mama, so-n-so did XYZ.”  I’ve been using his some of his techniques for the subtle and caring blow-off and they are wonderful.  The boys have already started coming to me less often with their perfectly rehearsed tattles in their perfect little whiny voices.  Imagine this: permission to and instructions for blowing your children off is the most useful thing I’ve ever gleaned from a parenting book.

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Menu Plan Monday Returns!!

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Monday: Chicken Parm with green beans

Tuesday: Black bean enchilada casserole We had this last week on a busy night.  It is a GREAT meal to make ahead and have in the fridge, then while it bakes, cook some Spanish rice and warm up some refried black beans.  It was wonderful enough to repeat, although La Roca has warned me not to burn us out on it.

Wednesday:  Pork Chops, stuffing, and a frozen veggie

Thursday: I works…homemade pizza

Friday: Grocery Day!–Gyros in homemade pitas, Family Fun Night

Saturday: Cookout with friends, BYOMeat.  I’m thinking hand patted burgers or really good quality steaks.

Sunday:  Kabobs on the grill (where’s the drooling smiley?)

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