Birth

It was only a matter of time before my thoughts would turn to birth.

I work in a large office environment, but with a small team of about 15 other co-workers. My thoughts tend to be pretty out there when it comes to birthin' babies compared to the other ladies on my team. Anywhere from jokes about placentas bowls (yes, I bought a plastic bowl to make guacamole for our potluck and then turned around and used it for my birth) to jokes about cooking placentas for dinner (I have two in my freezer.. doesn't everyone??) to my real life, serious thoughts about the natural process of birth.

A few days ago a young co-worker of mine made a comment about how painful it would be and how she couldn't deal with it. This same co-worker a mere few months ago watched her powerful sister roar a baby out into a midwife's hands at our local freestanding birth center. I couldn't resist going into my natural spiel about birth being a normal process.. that it's not pain, pain being your body telling you something is wrong. But yes, it *can*hurt, and well don't your muscles get sore and tired when they work so hard?

Anyhow, conversations like this always turn into mommy horror stories..the "I would have died had I not been in the hospital!!!" most frequently being spewed to the horror of the nulliparous women surrounding us. It makes me wonder... when did we become so terrified of our own bodies?? How did our inner power as women get stripped away to where we are so willing to hand our bodies and babies over to sterile strangers in bare, unknown environments??

I don't have an answer for this today. It merely makes me appreciate what I have had. I did experience a hospital birth where I felt like my baby was pulled out of my body and not that *I* had birthed her. From there I knew there had to be another way.. a better way to bring my children into this world. A way where they were handled with gentility and care. Where their family was the center of their care and the decisions that were made, not strangers. Where they would not be yanked, pulled, prodded or poked under bright lights after leaving the confines of a dark, warm womb. Following is a poem I once wrote, reflecting on my first birth... explaining a bit of why I am the way I am...

November

Echoes of screams longing to be free
In memories of a cold November
Waiting, no postman arrived
Instead, a savior in white
Promising to deliver

Breaking the calm, silently he sliced
Accomplice to silver spoons,
Stripping me
Like unripe fruit from a tree
Breach of trust complete.

Gift of emptiness lingers
As a small, slippery sweetness
Too soon swept away
Leaving spills of blood
Sticky between thighs

Force of hands unknown
Unwelcome
Kneading like dough
Wallowing in the waste of my womb

Illusion of mending
What once was whole
Which no man can heal
With pulling and tearing of flesh
Leaving in haste, the trauma within

Battle wounds fade
Silver with the passing of time
Memories subside
Hushing the screams within,
A muttered promise of never again.

Escape from Mommyhood

After a long week of working and being a Mom sometimes there are those moments when you wish for nothing more than to not be demanded of.. even if it's just for a few minutes. Unfortunately, that wish rarely goes granted... it is the price we pay for sweet smiles and tight hugs from little, chubby arms. Tonight, after an evening of shopping, my girls and I stopped at Trader Joes for some groceries. Passing by one of the endcaps, bottles of Trader Joes Grower's Reserve Zinfandel caught my eye.. at a whoppin' $4.99 a bottle. I could not help but buy a bottle.. I'd like to say it is because I was having a group of girlfriends over for dinner.. or even that I was feeling a sense of nostalgia seeing a bottle from Paso Robles, CA.. the area where my family originally stems from... but, no. I simply wanted to lock myself in a room for a small amount of time with some garnet colored yumminess and escape.. zinfandel, take me away!

The reason why I write about this tonight.. that cheap bottle of wine was amazing!! Granted, I only had half a glass (I *am* a nursing mother, btw) and still was not able to escape the grasps of the many demands of my children... yet still.. I would never claim to be a wine expert and be able to say "it had notes of chocolate, blackberry and strawberry with a light finish"..however, it felt like cherries bursting in my mouth! So, have you the chance, pick up a cheapie bottle for yourself. May your evening be quieter than mine ever will.

On a more important note, I now realize that the days of being a Mom to a sweet, cooing newborn baby are over. Patty-baby has surpassed the days of sweetly laying whilst smiling and blowing bubbles. No, I now have a 6 month old moving ball of curiosity. This girl won't sit still for anything and manages to get into anything she sets her mind to get into. Unless strapped in, she now can practically stand and pull herself out of her boppy chair (aptly named the patty chair). In addition, she has yet to realize that nursing is an activity done best while being still.. no, patty, the nipple can't travel with you and Mommy is not made of silly putty.

It astounds me how fast time goes.. before I know it, I will be able to have those quiet moments alone, contemplating the notes of a more fanciful wine while longing for the days of silly putty nipples and nosey 6 month olds.

Jaidenisms

J: MOMMY!!!
Me: What, Jaidy?
J: *balling fists and scrunching face* TJ called... ME... CUTE!!!!!
Me: But you ARE cute!
J: ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! *stomps away*

Mean girls

Nothing gets me more than how mean children can be... especially pre-adolescent girls. When starting third grade, my daughter had a tussle with two little girls in her class. They called her "sassy pants" and "black history" and are now named her "arch enemies".

Today, I come home from work... hubby tells me to ask K what happened today at school. Apparently, these same little heathens were calling her names again today and K (now in 4th grade) decided to fight back.

Me: What did they call you?
K: I don't remember *turns head, lifting nose*
Me: Well, did you punch them in the face?!
K: Ah! NO!
Hubby: She punched one in the arm
(That's my girl...)
Me: If they call you anything again, punch them in the face!

Ok, so maybe not the best advice in the world from a Mom to her daughter. Regardless, it enrages me... I wanted her to have confidence to stand up for herself. Maybe punching isn't the best option *sigh*, but I guarantee those mean little girls won't ever mess with her again!

What's funny is my kids have NO problems fighting amongst one another. Why do they scare away from other kids? J, my 4 year old, is aggressive as they come whereas my 6 year old, T, is definitely more passive. This past Thanksgiving we had friends over who have a 2 year old. This boy kept stealing J's toys and hitting him. Hubby tells J, "don't let him do that to you!". Finally T must have had enough.. he comes over, grabs J's hand and socks one to the little tyrant.

Now if only they could be so timid to not hit one another, and instead whack one to the mean bullies.. then we'd be in business!

Daughters

A short time ago I decided that I would like to try my hand at making some homemade bread.. in other words, bread without using a bread machine, a new task for me. I enlisted the help of my daughter, Kayla, and we went to work that rainy Sunday making homemade buttermilk biscuits and challah bread. As we mixed and kneaded the bread I was reminded of the words of a dear friend who says while she makes bread she sends wishes, prayers and blessings into it so that while it bakes and the sweet aroma fills through the air she can envision those blessings going up into the heavens. As well, when the bread is eaten those prayers become a part of those who have partaken of it. (Now, granted, she said this much more eloquently than I ever could..)

So, as Kayla and I kneaded I told her of this and we whispered our secret blessings into our dough, braiding the ropes of sweet dough into intricate lacings that soon would become hot loaves of bread... this simple afternoon caused me to reflect on myself as a mother of daughters and what I am passing onto them.

What will my daughters remember of me when they have daughters of their own? I recall my mother having tea parties with me.. pretending that we were both grown women and friends having coversation over tea and cookies.. I remember learning how to make apple pie, the first homemade dessert I could ever claim.. then years later being entrusted with my grandmother's secret recipe that is sacred in our family. I reflect on early Saturday mornings, crawling into bed with my mother and basking in the warmth and security of her bed, wishing I never had to leave.. the smell of lavendar and sweet smell of her face powder that always lingered in the bathroom.

I hope that I am and can be the mother who imparts wisdom onto her daughters.. daughters that grow up with the sacred knowledge of their own bodies, something that only I can guide them to but they must ultimately discover... I hope that I leave them with warm memories of feeling loved, safe and secure and beautiful... memories of how I braided their hair, made their favorite cookies and kissed their soft, warm cheeks.. I wish to be the mother whose daughters one day reflect back on with the hope they can pass on similar things to their own children..

These things I wish for, I may never know.. I may never know their true feelings, just as for some reason I have never shared with my own mother.. like secrets we wish into bread, untold but becoming a warm part of us.

Quiet

It's shortly before 6am and everyone is asleep. I should relish this small slice of quiet rather than be annoyed than I am awake too early in the morning and it is fruitless to try to go back to sleep.

Quiet is something that is taken for granted. I see that now that I am a mother. I have always been a person who has enjoyed time alone to herself. As a child and a teenager I would spend hours alone in my room just reading or dancing, listening to music. I loved having the space to think. Today that quiet is something I have challenges achieving. I have always enjoyed writing poetry, however it takes a lot from me and a lot out of me. I am not one of those people who are able to spit out something onto paper and call it good. Over this past year and a half, having that quiet space to think has become even more difficult to achieve. It's challenging to find a healthy balance between what I need as an individual, and what is needed from me as a mother of 4. It would be selfish of me after I work all day to close the door on the kids, who demand my love and attention at that point.

So, here I sit.. listening to my sweet 4 year old snore in my bed. His eye did swell up and now he looks like he lost a battle in the boxing ring. Soon I will have to wake my 10 year old daughter for school, the first day back after winter break. I have "trained" her well... she will get up and make a pot of coffee and bring me up a cup. The quiet will cease as we start our day.. fixing her unruly, but beautiful hair... waking my first grader up and helping him get ready... getting them off to the bus and heading out to work, all while hoping the two little ones won't wake so their daddy can get some sleep after working graveyard all night. I plan on working a little bit of overtime tonight, however my husband promises me we will sneak off to dinner tonight alone without the kids.. a small space of quiet to ourselves where we can be Rodney and Janelle for an hour, rather than just Daddy and Mommy, before starting another cycle of getting the kids to bed then back up again for school... then so on and so forth...

Here we go.. the week begins..

..or shall we say beyond it?

Well, here we go... I had a blog in the past, however it has been awhile. I realize it does me some good so I have decided to start again.

What is a babymoon, you ask? It is akin to a honeymoon after marriage. A period of quiet and bliss to be experienced after the birth of a new baby. After baby number 4 arrived this past summer, I should be saying I am "beyond the babymoon" and shall never experience another. As irony would have it, here I am again for the fourth time, with spirit babies knocking on me door, beckoning me to welcome one of them some day.

I can hardly believe it myself... here I was just a mere year ago, puking my entire being out daily. My then 5 year old saying to his Daddy, "I wish Mommy wasn't pregnant". Daddy had to explain that Mommy had to be sick in order for him to be born too. Pregnancy number 4 was by far the hardest. By week 24 I was visiting the chiropractor 1-2 times a week, week 28 I stopped working due to pubic symphysis separation. I was the largest I had ever been and by 32 weeks I was being asked by strangers if it was "any day now". However, after 18 long hours of labor I birthed my sweet baby girl into her father's waiting hands in our own home... mere feet away from where she was conceived. Nothing can compare to that bliss. The feel of her warm slipperyness... the sweet smell of amniotic fluid... gazing into her alert eyes, unhindered by bright lights, loud noises or drugs in either of our systems. Ahhh.... so amazing!

But, as I sit here after midnight with 3 out of my 4 little ones still awake, struggling for just a few moments of quiet to get a small piece of mind to write... I question my sanity as my 4 year old trudges up the stairs barely holding onto my 5 month old daughter... "Mommy, Ava is crying!" and my heart jumps into my throat in fear of him dropping her. This being only a few hours after the same little 4 year old boy decided to jump in and out of the pack-and-play and managed to fall and hit his eye...by morning it will be swollen and black. I hardly have time for a moment of sanity and here I am, thinking of one day having a fifth?? But then the sweetest of all happens minutes later... that same 4 year old walks over to me, hugging onto my arm, "Mommy I love you the biggest!".

Oh, ya... it's completely worth it.