Om

Yoga was awesome again this morning. I want to do it every day. Hmm - some crazy people do. Even 6 am hot Bikram yoga, like I said I might start doing.

Come to find out, the very same muscles that enable me to toss a 40-lb kid above my head repeatedly and wear both of them at the same time on my back & shoulders while I prance about town have rendered me almost unable to clasp my hands together and lift my arms behind me like this:
Clearly I will need remedial help in the shoulder-stretching department. I would rather look like yoga chick up there than this:


I have no idea how to make my arms loosen up. I'll have to ask my instructor to suggest some poses that I can breathe into in between scraping Play-Doh out of my hair and removing the tractor toy from my thigh. My kids never let me entirely forget they are RIGHT THERE WITH ME in yoga class. Today they convinced all the other toddlers to share their foam yoga blocks and build a barn for Pequita's pink plastic unicorn with the sparkly mane and tail. It was the hit of the yoga studio, as its feet and horn light up when you press a button on it. The other moms near me just breathed into our respective downward dogs and smiled.

I really liked ignoring the kids to the song Navah Shivayah from this album which was played at one point. The heavy drumming makes it easy to drown out all but the most persistent calls for 'Mommy!' I may buy it for motivation to yogify in my own home. The kids liked it as well, and took time out from their play to dance a bit when it came on. A little more yoga and meditation exposure and maybe we'll all be more calm. And perhaps we'll cobble together a 'spiritual practice' that works for us after all; the children already have a favorite Hindu deity, but that is a no-brainer. Ganesha is part elephant, after all.

Yoga

I got an email a few weeks ago about a family yoga class starting up and JUMPED at the chance. I joined the YMCA a couple years ago and ended up canceling the membership because the kids wouldn't tolerate the FREE DAYCARE that came with it. I am always trying to find some time for my own thoughts, self-care and brain- and body-improving activities in amongst our busy days of being a family.

We had our first Mom & Tot yoga class this morning. We were actually on time at 9 am downtown; the kids enjoyed their goldfish crackers for breakfast in the car. I had them both dressed in leggings and a t-shirt and at the last minute Pequita disappeared upstairs on some imperative errand. She reappeared having yanked on a purple gymnastics singlet on over her big shirt and leggings and declared it her 'yoga suit'. Oh-kay. Cute as a badly-dressed button.

The kids experienced a bit of trepidation as is there style with new things these days, but our instructor Amy has a young kid of her own and was really warm and friendly. We spent an hour in a safe warm room full of 9 moms and 13 kids from 3 weeks old to 4 years. Amy stressed that the kids will follow along if they want to, and the adults should just to do the yoga. I was able to do about 75% of the class, which was a huge and pleasant surprise. Pequita did several of the poses next to me on her own purple mat; Monito sat on me for many poses but chose not to use his own mat at all except for building a mammoth building with the foam yoga blocks. Nothing like using Mom as a slide while she's in a downward facing dog for exercise. I did the plank pose with 80 lbs of toddler on me. I want a prize, because I held the pose for 8 breaths like that. My prize seems to be that I kept up fairly well and was still pretty limber and strong despite not setting foot in a gym for years.

I was so grateful for the safe, chaotic, toddler-friendly yoga space that I gushed a bit to the instructor and her husband, a fellow instructor, before leaving. It was the attachment-parenting exercise class. I will sign up for every series they offer. I may get fit yet.

Hypochondriac

All in all, I'm a pretty healthy person. However, I have a lot of surgical excitement in my life; sometimes it seems like if it can happen, it will happen to me. Yeah, most of my surgeries stem from a car accident, which is bad luck, not bad health. But then I've also had my appendix out, my tonsils out, had my nose broken enough to require 2 surgeries to fix it (Hottie Friend hits a nice line drive); one of my ortho fusions failed and I had to have it redone and spend a second 3-month stint on crutches in one year; after a 10 days in hospital after my car accident I was about to be sent home when I got a systemic infection due to too many antibiotics which required an extra 10 days in hospital, blood transfusions, feeling like I wanted to die, etc. I wanted a lovely med-free birth, and ended up with a c-section. I'm not even adding in the idiot incidences, like dropping cabinets on my foot. Sometimes I feel like a hypochondriac when I worry about symptoms for regular daily things.

I currently have some chronic pain that I don't know how to handle. What I am calling carpal tunnel may be something else - I've only really had it since being pregnant, but it is worse than ever now. I have serious pain in my hands, along the knuckle and up the wrist and forearm. Sharp, scorching pain that zaps me when I bend my wrist to put on the Ergo sling, or pull off baby pants while changing a diaper, or pick up a baby. I am almost unable to open the dog crate for Cosmo. I can't open jars, push myself off the floor with my hands, or carry groceries well. My hands go numb regularly; it is not unusual for me to wake up when Monito cries and have to shake the feeling back into my hands before I can pick him up at night. It hurts so much that I have awakened a sleeping baby with my loud gasp after attempting to crate the dog. I did buy a wrist brace and wore it for a while, but misplaced it. It helped some, but it is damned hard to deal with soft sensitive babies with a club for a hand. I have been going to acupuncture for it, which also helps, but that is $65 per session and isn't covered by insurance. I'm not going to go any more until I've exhausted the treatments for which I won't have to pay out of pocket. I also have serious pain in my feet, along the balls of both feet. It feels, frankly, like the same pain in my hands. What the hell is that about? Arthritis? Lupis? Nature's way of telling me I'm too fat? Sigh. I like knowing how to fix things. This soft tissue crap is so amorphous and vague. Some medical professional is going to make a mint off of me.

One muggy day too many

I prefer cool and dry to hot and muggy. I love the onset of autumn, the pulling out of the wool sweaters, the dry rustle of leaves on the ground. I look forward to this every year.



Here we are in September and it was in the 80s and 80%ish humidity yesterday at the farmers market. Blech, I say. When I came home, Homestead Mama watched the babies while I showered off the sweat and dust. That was not quite satisfying enough - if I could have gotten an appointment with my hair guy Donald I would have, but he's got a steady 2-week wait for appointments (he's excellent). So I took matters into my own scissors. Five minutes later, voila. Instant cool.

Arrival

For the 4 years Homestead Mama and I were trying to conceive babies, I kept busy in many ways, but mostly I knit. Through the failed efforts, the non-starter months, the miscarriages we each suffered through, the myriad baby showers for other women, and all the waiting, I made baby hats, baby sweaters, and anything small and quick to keep busy.

And now look. We have arrived. Here is Pequita, light of our lives, in one of the hats I made in an outpouring of grief and hopelessness after my miscarriage in June of last year. Seeing her in it is joyous, but also a little bittersweet. Infertility is something that I have integrated, not gotten over.

Embarassment of Riches

I was happily catching up on my Bloglines feeds, and had an Ah hah! moment when reading Julia's recent posts and found her link to this. Nice to identify what's been going on with me. I've been worried, annoyed, and just confused by Monito's constant burping, spitting up, discomfort, gas, and agitation around feeding. Pequita suffered from none of that, so it was a rude awakening when my spawn struggled so. Many of the remedies the article lists are things that I arrived at by myself (after myriad combinations of habits & techniques) or cobbled together from advice and suggestions. Monito and I are managing pretty well now, at almost 3 months, but it sure would have been nice to have this information early on. I almost went to a LLL meeting several times, but figured I wasn't having trouble with his latching on, my supply, or nip.ple pain and didn't make time for it.

I know many people who had it much worse than I do, who struggled with cracked and bleeding nip.ples, not enough milk supply (=interrupted nursing, expensive formula, gadgets to help feed their baby that require set up, cleaning, sterilizing etc. even in the middle of the night, not to mention the heartbreaking disappointment of not being able to bond over the boob with their babe) and I would choose an oversupply problem any day. Nonetheless, it has been trying, and has caused much anxiety and crying on my part.

I figured out early in life that the worst you've encountered/experienced is the worst you can grasp. I arrived at this conclusion when at 18 years old I was in my car accident. I would be lying in my hospital bed with 2 broken legs, a crushed ankle, head contusions, et al, and a visitor would come to cheer me up and compare my convalescent experience to their traumatic elbow sprain when they were 10. This really infuriated me for a while. I mean, come on, really - an Ace bandage vs. traction & a wheelchair for 6 months? After a while I figured out that *I* certainly hadn't understood real pain, limitations, and loss of independence until it happened to me and I couldn't escape it. I had to learn about all those things and to accept them as lessons over time, and I'm mostly grateful for the knowledge, even as I resent the hell out of the physical limitations and expense and trouble of shoe shopping and modification. So my breast milk oversupply is like a sprained elbow to another persons multiple fractures.

Dropping

I love this dropping belly phenomena so far - since it has started to drop I am so much more comfortable! I actually forget that I'm pregnant with some regularity, which is nice. I can breathe a bit more, I can finally eat - boy can I eat! - and am sleeping better. I expect that when Monito/a drops a little more I'll be engrossed in a whole new kind of discomfort & waddling, but not yet. The round ligament pain I've been having? I think I was wrong. I believe that it is cervical pain & cramping, which is great news, meaning progress is happening. Everyone describes contractions as being like period cramps, which mine aren't as all my non-pregnant cramping was in my lower back. The pains I have now are exactly like when I was dilated for assorted procedures on the road to pregnancy.

Monita/o has fallen in love even though still in utero. The object of affection? My bladder. S/he loves it and and squeezes it and probably calls it George. I just hope s/he's willing to leave it behind in a few weeks and transfer its affections to a nice stuffed animal. Oy.

Birth and Biking - a mistake?

I am due to deliver Monito/a (these days, a.k.a. Pele) on or about June 14.
I am due to go on vacation to a lovely Cape Cod location with idyllic biking opportunities on Aug 2.

From those of you who are in the know, is it worth it to strap my bicycle onto our car for the trip - will I even be able to sit on the bike seat, let alone ride it for miles, a mere 2 months after assaulting my hoohah with what I hope will be natural childbirth?

Considering that even now, with two months left to gestate, I feel like my pelvis is no longer one cohesive unit I'm thinking that biking isn't on my summer agenda, but I'd like to hear from you! I have a comments section, for, you know, comments.

(And sis, do you want me to bring it for you to ride even if I can't?)

All sugared up and no place to go (but to sleep at my desk)

Weeks ago I scheduled a dentist appointment for this morning at 9am for a cleaning, and an OB appointment for tomorrow at 9am at which I would be given my first glucose test for gestational diabetes. I am not sleeping very well these days and am consequently a bit scatterbrained. So I dragged my tired butt out of bed, remembered (yay!) to grab my bottle of super-saturated glucose water disguised as 'orange soda' (blech) out fo the fridge, and on an empty stomach had it half consumed before realizing that the glucose test is WEDNESDAY, which of course, today is not. So after hosing the sugar off my tooth enamel & passing my dental checkup with flying colors, I am back at my desk with a sugar hangover. I am in a stupor, my system crashing as I write this since I have had nothing to eat except a handful of almonds. I may have to have lunch NOW at 10:30 to get some protein in me so I can make it through the day.

Burning question: do I tell the OB doc tomorrow that I need an additional half of a bottle of glucose juice to make the test accurate, or do I 'forget' to mention it and ace my glucose exam? I'll think about it. Regardless, having experienced the power of the glucose juice, I will be stopping for a fried egg sandwich immediately after to attempt to balance out my system.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Bath bliss

On Monday, we all fell sick here at the Homestead with variations of the same cold. As the pregnant one, I'm hardest hit since my immune system is AWOL. Homestead Mama is already on the mend, and Pequita has the sniffles & a bad cough but none of the body aches, sinus pressure, scorching sore throat or headaches that seem to only be worsening in me. (At least we don't think she's suffering - all we see is the usual face-splitting smile and lots of giggling. If she felt like I do, she'd be crumpled in a fetal position and whimpering. Wouldn't she?) She's doing so well, actually, that I have seriously considered hitting the stockpile of frozen breastmilk for the immunities that Homestead Mama is clearly passing on. If only she didn't keep such a close eye on the supply, I could get away with it.

After listening to Pequita hack, cough and struggle to breathe for a couple hours, we decided to steam all our heads/chests on Wed night before bed to help us sleep better. Into the shower we went at about 8pm. Pequita usually falls asleep between 8 - 8:30, so she was perky when we started. It was a tad challenging not to grip the slippery baby too hard in an attempt to not drop her, but it was a hoot. Now that it is warming up as winter grudgingly departs, she has started to experience different and new sensations on her skin (other than that of being bundled in 5 layers of cotton and wool.) She loves it - she is making up for lost time with her toes/feet by never letting go of them once I take off her socks & Robeez shoes. She adores being naked and being tickled gently, or getting some bare-butt time to stave off rashes. She is particularly fond of the after-bath oiling with Burt's Bees almond oil that Homestead Mama likes to give her – keeps her skin protected and she smells great, but Pequita just likes the baby massage. The new sensation of water showering down on her skin kept her in a state of constant surprise for about 10 minutes - we rotated her body around in circles so her feet, legs, back, stomach and head got to feel the spray. After the shock (and its accompanying raised eyebrows and O-shaped mouth) wore off, the smiling started. Homestead Mama and I took turns getting clean and holding the babe, and breathing deep to clear our congestion.

Pequita was finally overcome by fatigue. I was holding her while Homestead Mama rinsed her shampoo out, and Pequita moved like a suckerfish down my face and neck desperately looking for her bedtime comfort boob to nurse herself to sleep on. She usually knows that I am a 'dry well' and hasn't been interested in nursing on me since she was about 8 weeks old. Maybe it was the fact that Homestead Mama and I smelled like the same soap, or just that any boob in her exhaustion would suffice, but she latched on and immediately fell asleep quietly suckling away. In the shower. It was amazingly cute and touching. Homestead Mama finished up while I stood in the hot spray beaming beatifically at our sleeping baby. She got out & dried off, then helped me - still clutching the sleeping & wet baby - out of the clawfoot tub. We wrapped me & Pequita all up in a towel and we zipped upstairs where we outfitted her with dry jammies & a diaper, and transferred her to the real fountain of boob, Homestead Mama. She only nursed for a couple minutes and then achieved the state of deep relaxation/ sleep that we call 'loll'.

Loll: [lol].

Verb (used without object)

1. to recline or lean in a relaxed, lazy, or indolent manner; lounge: to loll on a sofa.

2. to hang loosely; droop; dangle: The dog stood in the heat with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Verb (used with object)

3. to allow to hang, droop, or dangle

Noun (archaic):

4. the act of lolling.

5. a person or thing that lolls

Loll, for Pequita, means that she is able to be set down anywhere and she'll work diligently to stay asleep. Her mouth is slack, her eyes closed, her breathing steady and slow. She may continue to suck on her pacifier or even the boob, but she isn't likely to wake up. We love loll. So in a state of loll we gently tucked her into her co-sleeper, tucked ourselves into bed, and were asleep by 9pm en famille. We all slept solidly (except for my 6 trips to the bathroom, but I don't even wake up for those anymore.) It was a lovely night.

A banner day

Finally, as it warms up and I am not wearing a bulky sweater for the first time this pregnancy, it is clear that my belly has gotten big enough so that my butt looks downright dainty.

Glory be!