Mother Jugs

Ahhhhh... breastfeeding. Nutrition, love and comfort all rolled up into one. I have a love/hate relationship with it. As my oldest daughter turned 11 last week, that makes almost 12 years straight of either being pregnant and/or breastfeeding. Some of my most precious memories are of nursing my children... a 4 mos old baby Kayla gazing up at me, milk dribbling out of her toothless smiling mouth... minutes old TJ latching onto my breast like a famished barracuda... Jaiden gazing up at me as he stroked my face, looking full of wonder... Ava making "mmmmmm" noises as she fills her tummy full of mommy's sweet milk. It's absolutely mind blowing to me how our bodies are able to create, carry and birth an human being and then make food to sustain it's life once on the outside. Coming home from an exhausting and hectic day at work nothing is better than curling up on my bed with my baby to nurse, the rush of oxytocin surging down into my toes to relax me into waves of love and contentment.

Then there's the flip side... nipples sore and tender from a teething baby who thinks nipples are their own personal toy for abuse... babies who think that the "big mama's" are there to be their own personal pacifier to ease into sleep... heaven forbid it be taken out of their mouth, and let's forget that they are attached to Mom! Then we have babies who believe that the nipple currently not being used is there solely for their personal entertainment while nursing on the other side... fisher price never knew that such an amazing toy existed, none other than a mommy's nipple! We have big babies wanting to nurse while standing up with their butts in their air and twisting their torso's, babies who try to look around and turn their heads-nipple still in mouth, of course... we then have toddlers who, when attempting to wean them, lie in bed screaming "help me, mama! Help me!" and even worse are the toddlers unwilling to latch correctly and therefor putting Mom into a human meat grinder.

Ahhhh... mommyhood. For now, I have to sign off... I have a demanding 16 mos old clawing at my leg while throwing her head back and wailing. Must be nah-nah time.

Nature versus nurture....

It's the classic debate, biology vs environment... being a step-parent, this debate takes a different flavor all together.. what makes a mother? Is it genetics? Or is it being there through good times and bad, teaching and loving and nurturing? Being there when the children are sick, taking them to doctor's appointments, hugging them when hearts are broken or buying a new dress for their first dance.. the answer to me, tends to be blantantly obvious. In the words of my incredibly wise, then 5 year old stepson, "A mother gives birth to you, a Mommy takes care of you".

It's easy to take the road of not being present when convenient, being checked out so to speak and then appearing like magic when things are easy to claim the glory... I don't need a monument in my honor. My own personal glory is etched in the love I get in return... catching my first "step" granddaughter into my hands to give her to her mother's waiting arms at her birth, listening to my son play a son in my honor on his guitar that he learned because he knows I love it, my other son referring to me as "the only mother he knows". In this cases biology is just that... the study of cells, which in the scheme of life's importance have little meaning.

"How long do you wanna be loved?? Is forever enough 'cause I'm never never giving you up...."

Songbird

"For you, there'll be no more crying,
For you, the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know its right

And the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before"

All of my babies have been "assigned" songs... special songs that Mommy can sing to them that have special significance. For Kayla, it is "You are so Beautiful" by Joe Crocker and "Somewhere out there" by Linda Rodstant. When she was about two we would sing "You are so beautiful" together... it is only really a few lines long and repeats itself so it was easy for her to sing... later on I gifted her with a carousel horse my dad had given me as a child that played "somewhere out there"... she was so in love with the horse and the song that it was added to our collection.

For TJ, when I was pregnant I had bought a Disney lullaby cd and played it quite a bit, even putting headphones on my belly. After he was born I discovered that if I hummed one of those tunes, he would calm down almost instantly. As a result, his songs became "Baby Mine" and "Dream"... to this day if he is upset or sick he will ask me to sing "Baby Mine".

Jaiden's song is "You are my Shining Star"... he frequently asks to hear it and is thrilled when we listen to it on my iPod in the kitchen while he is helping me cook.

Ava has "songbird" by Fleetwood Mac... it is so sweet and fitting. Rodney has bestowed his own Daddy song onto her.. "Unforgettable" and that song soothes her when we play it for her.

So, here you go, Kayla bear... the answer to your question in my last post. :-)

Reasons I love being a Mom...

The last few days have been trying and tiresome, so I thought I would focus on some happy things..

1) Patty-baby's deep belly laugh, it could melt anyone's heart
2) Contests on who loves who more
3) "girl time" with Kayla
4) The Incredible Hulk
5) first word's being "mama"
6) children that love me enough that they supported me during the hardest part of laboring with their sister
7) Jaiden's sillyness
8) TJ's affection
9) Kayla's master macchiato making
10) bath time
11) sour milky baby breath
12) "Baby Mine", "you are my shining star", "somewhere out there" and "songbird"
13) pile-on Mommy's bed, aka co-sleeping
14) bread baking with Kayla
15) bed jumping
16) excited springtime smiles
17) sloppy, slobbery kisses
18) sibling loveys
19) fat cheekies
20) dancing in the kitchen
21) afternoons in the park
22) bedtime stories
23) sleepy heads on Mommy's shoulder
24) silky baby skin
25) goodnight kisses

Baking babies

Can I vent for a moment here? (oh ya, of course I can... 'tis my blog and no one cares a lick about what I say anyways...)

When I want to bake a batch of peanut butter cookies of which I know are my hubby's favorite, I know a few things are certain- I know what ingredients to include such as peanut butter, flour, sugar, butter, etc. I know what setting to place the oven on and how long to bake those cookies to make them come out absolutely perfect, moist and chewy. Yum!

However... those are cookies, and though I may have to adjust things slightly, say if I am using a different oven or trying out a completely different recipe, otherwise the equation remains the same. Why is it that people assume our babies are like cookies??

Babies are not bake-sale goods, people.

Once upon a time there was this doctor. And like all doctors, he was nosey and decided to graph down when a group of about 500 women spontaneously went into labor. He thus concluded that the average timeframe was 40 weeks. Wow, exciting. What did that mean?? Well, nothing really. I could have a group of ten women in the room and state that the average age of said women is 30, but have none of those women actually be 30. That's the funny thing about averages and assumptions. Going forward, future physicians took this number and ran with it. And here we have our magical number, our baking babies at 350 for 40 weeks, whether or not they may be done.

I frequently hear women make statements such as "I *had* to be induced", "I couldn't go into labor on my own", "Little Davey just wouldn't come out on his own", etc. Let's be honest here, people.. it makes me want to knock them upside their heads. When did it become "normal" to assume that women's bodies won't or can't go into labor on their own? When did it become "normal" to assume that this average that was came up via a small sample of women needs to apply to everyone... that 40 weeks is our magic cookie done time?? (Let's not even get into the discussion about the likelihood of increased possibility of c-section which poses it's own set of risks-increasing the rate of primary c-sections which in itself drives the c-section rate up for subsequent pregnancies with the lack of careproviders supporting VBACs..another subject, another day).

Let me tell you an ancient secret... listen up, as it is pretty profound. Babies come. They really actually do. Whether or not you eat an entire pineapple or dance on your head. Babies come whether you ate that eggplant parmesean and douched it down with basil and oregano. Babies come regardless of the magical date *YOU* circled on the calendar. They come. They really, honestly do. Placentas, as well, do not have a magical expiration date on them. That's right! At 40 weeks or 41 weeks or even 42 weeks they do not spontaneously combust.

Now, let me place a disclaimer on this... this is not to say there are not circumstances where a chemical induction is valid... pre-eclampsia or IUGR, for example... those are some situations where there may be a valid necessity to get the baby out, rather than wait for the timer to go off on it's own. However, this should be our exception.. and definitely not the rule.

Put your timers and calendars away, Mamas... let your babies bake.