I remembered my password!

I am back! after years of either not being able to post or having forgotten my password to get to my blog!  I missed you bloggy blog blog! 

I am now a mom to 4 (FOUR!!!) great kids and still madly in love with my Beloved Husband. Happily settled down into domesticity with a 7 bedroom house that was once a public school building, kids, cat, dog, lizard, and hopefully in the next week or two I will hear if I am eligible to be a breastfeeding peer counselor through my local WIC office.

My kids are now 14 (15 day after Christmas), 11,  3 (4 in January) and 15months. Boy, girl, boy, girl, how awesome is that!

Anyway, the littlest one just woke from her nap, so I am hitting publish.  it is so good to be back!

Ahhh SLEEP! sort of...

After nearly 11 months of waking to nurse Alex every 1-2 hours, these last 2 weeks he's been sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches, ahhhh, HOWEVER, last night and the night before he slept through the night! From 10pm to 6am and 10pm to 4am, 8 and 6 hours! (5 hour stretches are considered through the night)---Now if *I* could only retrain my sleep rhythms to his again and *I'll* be sleeping through the night--I still wake up every 2-3 hours to check on him and make sure that he's OK on his mat on the floor next to me (we have a too small mattress to fully family bed, so we put our mattress on the floor and Alex has a mat and blankets next to me)

He still morning nurses for 1-2 hours, where we cuddle-nurse in our bed, and we both doze for a bit, which helps me to eek out those precious minutes of sleep, but it is a light sleep and not one that I could handle overnight.

Sad news for me, I have a major dip in my supply, and am taking fenugreek like it is going out of style, I need to get back in the habit of morning oatmeal again. One great side effect of fenugreek that I forgot that I liked was that I smell like maple syrup.

He's not ready to quit breastfeeding and neither am I, so if oatmeal and fenugreek and nurse-a-thons don't work, I am thinking of trying the dom route, but that is last ditch I think.

So anyway sleep and boobies, there you go, great thoughts for the day!

Motrin no Mo', Wear Your Baby Proudly for International Babywearing Week!

Thanks to a babywearing group I belong to near where my folks' live, I was alerted to a craptacular intelligence insulting advertizement by Motrin and directed to Moms who wear their babies. Ugh, *sarcastic note here* I am sooooo gah-laaaaaad that Motrin was there to swoop in to relieve the pain in the neck, shoulders, and back from my "schwing". I am sooooo glad that you called me on being "trendy". blech!

If you search on youtube I am sure that you will find the motrin ad and the HUGE backlash of pissed off PARENTS that wear their babies and children. Twitter is in an uproar, nay the Internet is in an uproar!

This "trendy" way of taking care of babies and young children has been around since parents' wore leathers and cleverly figured out a way to put their baby back on their body with the realization that baby was very portable when baby was in utero, baby can be portable outside of the womb. They did this out of practicality, not some desire to fit in to the "trendy crowd". As it was then, is now today, babies are tied on mothers, fathers, grandparents, guardians and other carers around the WORLD. The "western" world has just started getting its' collective head out of its' bum-hole and realized just because non-western countries do things differently isn't wrong, just different and that western society can and IS learning that babywearing is beneficial other than transportation.

Babywearing promotes a bonding between baby and parents, helps extend and increase successful breastfeeding, helps baby's physical, mental and emotional growth, and surprisingly to the naysayers, promotes the much western idealized characteristic of independence! There are many other benifits that are too numerous to put here in my mini-rant, but those are a few to give you an idea of good this "trendy" thing is :)

here are 2 places to go to learn more about babywearing.
http://www.mamatoto.org/
http://www.thebabywearer.com/

As for me and my house, we will continue to babywear!

9 months old!

Yesterday, Alex hit the nine month mark, sheesh-where did that baby go that I was counting his age in day or weeks? Anyway, speaking of counting, I got to count out 9 seconds for the time that Alex stood without holding on to anything except crackers. Standing alone! Already! He's going to be my early walker, I think.

He also is sticking his tongue out! I know that sounds a bit silly but with his mild tongue tie, sticking his tongue out is a major accomplishment.

He's quite giggly and laughs a lot as of late and I love it! This is the super cute baby stage I think. He is also more into returning hugs and kisses--awww.

He is really into eating solids, which is a bit bittersweet for me, as I loved being the only form of nurishment for him, but now he's going longer in between nursing some days, so instead of 1 1/2 to 2 hours of nursing he'll go 2-3 to even 4 hours! Wow! He drinks water and juice from sippie cups all by himself, and I'll give him crackers or foods off of my plate and he feeds himself. I did similar for his sister and didn't spoon feed her, I just gave her finger foods so she could feed herself, easy! With Z I started solids early, gave him rice cereal in his formula bottle (so he'd sleep through the night--Doh!) spoonfed him pureed baby food, and he turned out to be thee pickiest eater evah! L loves her food of all sorts, perhaps because she was free to take her time to enjoy food and textures both in her mouth and smeared all over herself. I am hoping that Alex follows suit in his sister's footsteps and enjoys food. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this has a name now--Baby Led Weaning. It wasn't until a few months ago that I knew that BLW even had a label/name.

What *I* do to be "Green"

On the subject of being "green" (my brain wanders off on a tangent thinking 'hey world! when has *my* favorite color become such a buzz word that it is now fashionable to be? *I* was into green as a favorite color as a child-but anywho...) I was off surfing green natural living blogs and quite a few had ways for you, the anonymous reader, to do, steps to take, and pointing the "you shall be eco-friendly finger" away from themselves. As my very wise Mother has always told me that it isn't nice to point and that when I pointed at someone or thing, I had three fingers pointing right back at me.....Ha! I see you pointing away from you and checking out your hand to see that indeed Mr.Tall, Mr. Ring, and Miss Pinkie are pointing right back atcha!

My things, in no particular order:

1. I breastfeed--free milk in fun containers!

2. I cloth diaper my baby. Had I had what is available now when my 11 1/2 year old and my nearly 8 year old were babies, you bet your fluffy butt they would have been in them too. And as soon as my family are settled, I am scouring thrift stores, craigslist and freecycle to find a sewing machine and sewing my own out of 2nd hand towels and sewing 2nd hand fleece for covers!

3. I wear my baby. Not so much a huge green thing but more of a natural/attachment parenting thing. However, it is greenish in that very little resources are used in making a simple no-sew piece of cloth wrap, and my little guy rarely needs a coat if it is cold out as he is wraped up safe and warm next to me under my coat and cutting down on the need to buy extra clothing. To watch some videos or look at diagrams on babywearing go to http://www.mamatoto.org/ No more strollers for this family!

4. I'm a happy thrifter. I love me a big old thrift store, a garage/yard/rummage sale, and with the advent of the interwebz craigslist, freecycle, and ReUseIt. I love discovering things, and making old things useful again. I scored 35 all-in-one diapers in size 1 and 2 and 12 cotton pre-folds on freecycle Yippee! I want to turn around and give the AIO's away right before we move so another mother/family can cloth diaper even if it is part time cloth. There is also the joy of giving away on freecycle as M and I gave away some baby items that we were done using or barely used to a family that despirately wanted them and how happy they were to recieve them. Craigslist is great too because it is where we found our minivan.

5. I ride the bus. Because of M's job, I get free bus transportation. Now I know that public transport is not glamorous by any means and sometimes one must put up with the buttmunches that play crappy tinny music on crappy tinny speakers on their phones rather than listening to their music like everyone else does by using their headphones, or the occational eedjit who thinks they can smoke and no one will smell it (it is illegal to smoke on busses, public transport, bus stop shelters, well just about any public place here in England) HOWEVER, I get to do some good old people watching in. Unfortunately, no matter where we move to in the States, we will have to give up the public transport, as nothing is within walking distance. For now it is the bus! yay!

6. We live frugally. I stop and consider every purchase. Do I need this or do I want this item. Can I use an alternate item/way/item at home to do the same thing? For instance, I have always had it in my head to bake bread I needed a bread pan and not so! I now can whip up a lovely braided herbed bread in a few hours. No need for a bread pan. If it something that I need, can I source it locally or buy it from work at home mothers. My baby's fun yet super functional diaper wraps I buy from English moms who also source their items locally. Less items bought, less resources used.

7. We use reusuable shopping bags. Yes we have to remember to bring the bags with us, but the majority of the bags that we have are easier on the hands and fingers than plastic carrier bags.

8. We have a super energy and water efficient washing machine. It is a front loader, and I thought that Id hate a front loader because I was so used to the ginormous American style top loader, but when the clothes come out, not only are they clean, but nearly dry, which is great for number 9.

9. We hang up everything to dry. When I first moved here I was amazed that there weren't laundry rooms in the apartment buildings and gasp horror how do you wash and dry your clothes?! There are nifty compact racks to hang and dry clothes, there are airing rooms with clothes lines and there are airing cupboards here. A little extra work but hey, our shirts and trousers and jeans are already on hangers so easy to put away.

I can't think of a number 10 right now, but if I do later, I'll pop that in another post.

Time to make supper--Scottish Angus beef burgers, British baked potatoes, and British salad leaves and Tomatoes grown in my Mother-in-Law's back garden greenhouse. YUM!

Oh yeah, My Take on the Breastfeeding Program

http://lizzardbits.blogspot.com/2008/08/i-am-so-looking-forwards-to-this.html

I little while back I had this blog post^^^ and was excited to see it. There were good aspects to it, such as showing women actually breastfeeding their nurslings, a woman pumping milk to donate to premature babies, and a wet nurse/nanny. All Positive portrayals of breastfeeding, but I was not so pleased with the sensational twist at the end where Kate was serving breastmilk cream with strawberries and breastmilk in shot glasses to a gallery of women in cocktail dresses and men in suit and ties, laughing as people uncomfortably came forth one at a time to try the breastmilk.

On a few UK discussion boards that I lurk at, it has gotten quite a fair few women up in arms about it and sparked major formula feeding versus breastfeeding debates. Unfortunately many women take offence or feel guilty about choosing to feed their babies artificial milk and tend to attack breastfeeding mothers as being "militant" or "hateful" to them. (sigh) If I wanted to attack mothers, nay PARENTS, that fed artificial milk, I'd have to attack myself and my eldest son's father. It isn't parents that breastfeeding advocates (lactavists) are after it is the artificial milk COMPANIES and their unethical advertisements of their various infant and toddler formulas to make their SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN INFERIOR TO BREASTMILK sound just as good as human breastmilk.

Thus the ban on Nestle' products, as they consistently market and sell artificial milk in unethical ways to poor parents, to parents that do not have access to clean safe drinking water, that sells all of the powdered artificial milks as unsterile, yet does NOT tell the consumer that the powdered form is UNSTERILE. As well as refusing to recall artificial milk products when they are found to be contaminated, or even having too much of a particular ingredient that would be life threatening to babies. Through their millions and millions spent advertising, parents have been duped into believing that artificial milk is nutritionally equivalent to the biological standard of human breastmilk, and with made up science, can "protect" babies.

What would make me happy? Some have suggested making artificial milk only available through prescription, I actually disagree with that. I'd like to see a HUGE crack down on artificial milk advertising and cans and bottles of artificial milk with black and white labels only. The labels saying simply "X-Manufacturing Company's Artificial Milk, Based on Cows' milk, Powdered, Non-Sterile, makes X fluid ounces/milliliters of artificial milk when reconstituted correctly." or same with soy or meat based artificial milk, along with health warnings like cigarette packs have on them, "Warning: switching to artificial milk may lead to childhood obesity, diabetes, gastrointestinal distress and/or damage, lower IQ, and in some cases death. If you are having difficulties breastfeeding, please contact La Leche League 1-877-4-LALECHE". No hospital bags with fee samples, no magazines sponsorship, no tv ads, no toys,bib,towels,blankets,onsies,hats,babygear, no pastel stylized bears, bunnies, babies or breastfeeding mothers (!) Just plain black and white labels.

I Am So Looking Forwards To This Breastfeeding Program (Progamme)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1048622/Kate-Garraway-faces-outcry-provocative-photoshoot-shows-breastfeeding-calf.html

Kate Garraway faces outcry over provocative photoshoot which 'shows' her breastfeeding calf Crouched next to a calf which she pretends to breast-feed, Kate Garraway presents an unsettling image.

The GMTV presenter posed for the provocative picture to promote a documentary on women who breast-feed other people's babies.

'I'm on a journey to find people who believe milk has to be from the breast, people who buy it, sell it, people who give it away and people who even feed each other's babies,' said the 41-year-old.

'To many this might seem weird, but they challenge us that it's actually much weirder to give our babies cows' milk than it is to drink milk from another woman.'

For the programme, Miss Garraway met sisters who cross-feed their babies and surrogate mothers who produce two gallons a week for donation.

-AND-

“Because of the sexualisation of breasts, we don’t see them as the clever, brilliant things they are. . . . I want to go as far as possible to be provocative and shake people up, without actually being so offensive that I upset GMTV viewers.”

--Kate Garraway

-AND-

If she had another baby and couldn't breastfeed, she still couldn't see herself letting anyone else - but she would buy human milk from a milk bank.

"Before, I wouldn't have, because I'd have found it a bit icky. But I think now that's crackers, because why are we happy about giving it something from a cow's breast, which is another species? The women kept asking me, 'Why are you happy to give your baby milk from another species' - which is what formula is - 'but you're not prepared to give it from another woman?' And I said, 'I don't know. You're absolutely right. I've never thought about it. I'm bonkers.' "

--Kate Garraway

I can't wait to watch this program, which I believe airs Sept 9th. When my daughter was little, I took an Amish woman and her daughter, born a few days after my daughter, to an appointment at the dentist, at which time I had an appointment there as well just 20 minutes before her appointment. I wanted so badly to nurse her baby when she started to root around for some food, but I was worried that the mother'd be upset that I fed her at my breast. Come to find out later, She had thought about feeding my daughter when she fussed for food.

I'd love to be a wet nurse, I'd also love to donate milk, however like my blood now, and that I have lived overseas in a land that has had out breaks of bovine spongiform encephalophy, I cannot donate.

I'll have to report back on what I thought.

Baby Sign Language

Nods to Alex's Auntie diana, this site, My Baby Can Talk is awesome to learn some basic American Sign Language (ASL) and then start using it around and to babies. Babies, even those with perfect hearing, benefit from sign, and some even start to communicate with signs before they can pronounce the words.

We use the signs "eat, Mommy, Daddy, play, diaper, toilet, kitty, and bath" with Alex and although he has yet to sign them back to us, there is definite recognition of the signs at what we are talking about. I have chosen to use the sign "eat" rather than milk as the sign for milk looks like milking a cow. I am not a cow, nor drinking another species' milk (bovine) should be normal for human babies. Alex gets excited when we use the sign for eat, and will quite literally go from crying to giggling in a blink of an eye, quickly followed by a good long breastfeeding session.

I am really happy with the baby signing and I plan on learning a lot more signs to teach Alex AND Z and L.

Pacifiers--M'buh-bye Now!

Most Breastfeeding experts agree that introducing pacifiers to infants before breastfeeding is fully established can be detrimental to the breastfeeding relationship by causing nipple confusion. I agree. I am not a huge fan of the plastic, latex, silicone artificial comfort devices, however I have given them to all 3 of my kids. I can handle comfort nursing, to an extent, however after a while *I* feel twitchy and my nipples will feel twitchy, itchy, and sore. So when all the kids were a day or two old, I gave them pacifiers as a sanity saver.

Now one of my pet peeves with pacifiers (besides them being called 'dummies' over here in the UK) is seeing 2, 3 even up to 6-7 year olds walking around with them in their mouths, and talking around them like Pop-eye the Sailorman talking around his pipe, Blech!

I can say with Z and L I have been very fortunate and they gave the pacifiers up themselves at about 6-8 months old. I am happy to say that Alex, at 7 months, no longer wants his Yay! I can toss them out! M'buh-bye!

Dillemma solved...for now

Well, we saw an excellent health visitor today, who also takes turns heading the breastfeeding group that I regularly attend, and we asked her about Alex's tongue-tie. She was amazed that we had been carrying on breastfeeding as long as we have without major difficulties. She was, however, very pleased with his growth and development. She even wrote on his notes that he was a lovely little boy, probably because he charmed her socks off. Back to the tongue tie- she said to contact our doctor and see if he wants to refer us on to a speech therapist, but she didn't seem too concerned.

Soo, I think for now, I am happy to let it go. He's happy and healthy and TALKATIVE!

Oh, and bonus--we got a cloth book bag and some new books for free today for Alex! YAY books!!!

Officially crawling

Yes my 6 month old is crawling. I should be over the moon happy that he's reached such a momentous milestone in his development, but I am sad that he's growing so fast. I really enjoyed it that his sister at this age would happily sit for ages and play with her little farm activity toy, and I was really hoping that this little guy would follow suit. Nope, it is just another thing to nail home that each child is an individual. He is very inquisitive and keeps both M and I on our toes.

Last week, we went to a breastfeeding support picnic and we were in the paper! I'll have to get the in-laws to scan their copy and I'll put it on here (if i remember). Alex was very cute in it.

Reason One Bazillion and One Why I am Glad I Breastfeed

The night before last night, one of my brilliant neighbors decided to dry her clothes in front of a high heat output electric heater and set her livingroom on fire. We were woken up at 3 am by a fireman knocking at our door saying that there was a fire in the building. We rushed to get dressed, as we only wear underwear to bed, get the cats in the pet carriers, I put a wrap on and put Alex in it, grabbed the diaper bag and blanket and our coats and got out. We were allowed to stay inside on the ground floor because the firefighters believed that they had the fire contained to the original apartment on one of the upper floors (we live in a 9 storey building). So we waited to hear what was going on.

In the mean time, Alexander was ready to eat, so I found a quiet corner, sat down and fed him. It was then that I realized that had I chosen to formula feed, we would have been in a world of hurt--I would have never remembered to grab the formula, water and bottles! I told M that I was so glad that I was breastfeeding and he wholeheartedly agreed.

Within the hour, we were given the all clear to return to our apartments. Ours was a teeny tiny bit smokey but all right after having the windows open to air out for a bit. Alex nursed to sleep, and M and I soon went back to sleep as well.

Whew! Crisis averted!

37 Weeks 4 Days Pregnant--Give or Take a few Weeks

The trip to the States was fabulous! We had such a great time, the kids had a great time, the family had a great time, and the friends had a great time!

Coming back from the States, and splitting up from my kids again hurt hurt hurt beeding heart crushing stabbing pain hurt. I stayed in bed for a week. It took me about 1 to 1/2 months to come around again to being myself.

Helping to keep my sanity is my Due Date Club at MotheringDotCommune. I spend a lot of time there. It is my feel-good place.

M and I are doing excellent and we have never been as close as we are now. He is wonderful and 100% behind my wishes to cloth diaper, and homebirth our baby. He is excited and nervous about the birth, but I know that when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of labor and birth he will be my rock. He's also very open to the attachment parenting style of parenting. He hates the idea of letting baby cry it out to go to sleep or "self-soothe", he is happy about co-sleeping since he is such a cuddler anyway, *laugh* he's very pleased about me breastfeeding, and that none of mine/our children are or will be circumcized (England doesn't do routine infant circs anymore anyway--YAY!) He is also very interested in baby wearing as we have 4 no-sew baby-wrap carriers and a ring-sling on the way courtesy of my Mom :) The cloth diapers that we got are super soft and sooo cuddley. M has agreed that after baby is born, I can order some gender-specific diaper wraps and I have several patterns/places already picked out to order from.

So according to the community midwives I am 37 weeks and 4 days pregnant. The estimated due date is the 23rd, however, baby will come when he or she is ready. I would love a Solstice baby as the 2005 summer Solstice at Stonehenge was when M officially proposed to me, but then I could see this little one choosing to share a birthday with his/her brother on the 26th, or even deciding that he/she wants to share the day with Mark and my first wedding anniversary on the 29th.

I also have the "ok" from my midwives to have the baby anytime now... nice to know I have their "permission"

what comes around, goes around

Today, i received, via snail mail, a thank you card and a wonderful hand made little green wooden box with a great vintage-type Spumanti Martini picture on the top. This was from a woman in Illinois to whom I had sent an Avent Isis breastpump. It is an awesome thank you!

My Breastfeeding advocacy pays off in fun and unique ways now!

'Tis pleased pleased pleased that I am!

Yuck

Evil Formula (rant)

Breastfeeding and breastfeeding advocacy is a passion of mine, as well as being pro-intact or anti-circumcision. those are my main "causes" if you will.

I don't get the formula feeding mentality, other than the brainwashing that formula companies do to parents. I belong to a "mainstream" parenting forum and my more comfortable "crunchy" forum. I try my hardest to advocate and support breastfeeding. The formula feeding parents have defended formula there! Defended formula! Like the companies are providing the optimal nutrition and they are run by Mother Teresa or something. These companies are FOR PROFIT. they do not care about specific children, just that they can dupe more parents to abandon breastfeeding and buying more of their product$.

Really, what are the benefits to formula, than to mothers that genuinely suffer from real low supply issues, REAL medical issues, or babies that are allergic to ALL milk, human included. None. Nada. There are more complications to formula feeding, and that are kept hidden from the public in order to make those who FF not feel guilty. I say make them feel guilty if they are perfectly capable of breastfeeding and are selfish enough to deny breastfeeding their baby. read this site The deadly influence of formula in America

If there are GENUINE reasons for formula, there are brands out there that aren't like the huge conglomerates that belch out lies and rake in the $$$. just google organic baby formula, and there are brands there that genuinely support breastfeeding.

i am will probably rant about this throughout this blog...it is my nature to be passionate about things that i really believe in.