The Mama Chronicles

Cleaning Up

Butterfly Exhibit 2008- Krohn Conservatory, originally uploaded by graggirl.

This picture is nice because it has been raining outside ALL DAY today!  Luckily we had a playdate scheduled. 

First though we hit the Scholastic Customer Appreciation Warehouse Sale.  Which was AMAZING!!!  We got a lot of stuff for under 50 dollars.  The trick is to go to their website and sign up for a fast pass $10 coupon first.  So our 60 dollar extravaganza was severely reduced in price! 

School ended yesterday.  grades don't come out until next week but I feel like I did well.  Today I am all about cleaning up and getting organized.  I would really like to start painting too.  The paint that was used when they built our house is not able to be cleaned, or brushed up against for that matter.  So I have various art work on the walls courtesy of the little people.  I can't wash it off because all the paint comes off with it too!  Today, though all I did was look at paint chips online and then I also cleaned up my Amazon wishlist.  Extending it to 4 lists, 2 public and 2 private.  I made one for school and just general books that I would like to read someday and the others are gift ideas (one for the kiddos and one for me.)  I must say that my gift giving is so much easier when people have a wish list on Amazon.  There are all types of things you can put on there too!  I went through our books last week, the kid ones mostly.  I will post about that on another day.  Maybe May will be the month for nesting and cleaning/ organizing!

Copyright

There is a lot of talk lately about copyright issues on many of the craft blogs.  With good reason.  People have taken pictures or crafts and duplicated them so they get the credit and or can sell them.  I think the first post I read where someone had made patterns to sell and the pattern had been made and the finished product sold was right on.  The other ones I have read about have also been very clearly an infringement.  But, honestly, I think it is getting me down about the blogging community.  It is causing me to ask myself why I post what I post and why I blog in general.  Lately with each post too I am brought back to preschool/ elementary school where we tell our kids to get over it because it is a form of flattery.  I am beginning to feel like we are either lying to our kids or we need to realize that our culture creates this problem.  I must admit too that one post about copyright very clearly to me did not look at all like the same product.  It makes me think about my own motivations in writing this blog.  And where the lines actually are.  Because honestly, I write this blog because at some point in my life I would like to actually be a writer.  I have a lot to learn before that point, but that circles in the back of my mind.  As I learn about writing it is mostly through what I read, styles I would liek to imitate and such.  And I could see those people all of a sudden saying they write in that specific voice and so no one can even write close to it. 

I think the other effect all this talk has on me is that I feel like the blog community is not such a safe place.  I feel very uncomfortable even looking at other blogs lately because I feel like if I get any inspiration and post it on my blog then I may be accused.  I feel this way because while I can see the clear cut cases very easily, there are some very gray areas that are causing accusations to be made that I would never want directed at me.  I wonder about the reason why these gray areas, or places where there does not seem to actually be infringement at all, are such a big deal (I feel like I just said something very taboo.)  Because I guess my purpose in creating is for my immediate recipients joy.  So if someone post a quilt they make for their child and it inspires me as a building block for something I make I feel like that should be OK.  But, I would be mortified to be villianized on the web, so I am reading fewer and fewer craft blogs, and feeling like maybe I should keep to myself.  Not out of fear of being copied.  But out of a realization that I am sensitive to images I see and things I read and sometimes ideas come to me that I may not remember that they had inspiration somewhere else.  And with some of the angry things I have read I really don't want any of that pointed at me.  You know? 

Maybe we should start copyrighting campaign promises so that they can't be repeated, or politics so that each politician is required to be innovative! 

The future of book reviews...

or where you else you can find me on the web.  I started a new blog with my friend Melissa and we are reviewing books over there.  I sort of feel like my book reviews don't fit in as much here so I may not be double posting them.  The new blog is Meg and Mag's Bookshelf (I'm Meg)  Come on over and say hi. 

I am hanging in there.  I got food poisoning earlier this week at my surprise baby shower.  Surprise, the food poisoning almost pushed me into labor :)  Things have calmed down now though.  I am a still in study hibernation.  One more final to go on Weds.  So more from me then.  Think 4.0 GPA thoughts, because for some reason I am that crazy neurotic student this time around.  I figure in the end when you average my two Bachelor's GPA's I hope to be about a 3.5. 

Good Bye

My family on my Dad's side is sort of all to themselves.  I did not grow up with family around or close to my aunts, uncles, grandfather etc.  There is some back story there that does not need to be shared.  Needless to say even two generations ago parents made mistakes.  I got a call that my aunt Nancy passed away what would be an hour ago now.  this doesn't fit in on the blog.  But, I really liked my Aunt Nancy and don't want it to just disappear into nothing.  Since my family is not really emotional or close I am sort of on my own.  But, it does feel appropriate to share it here.  I am not upset, per se, she has been fighting aggressive brain cancer for the last three years.  Her husband had passed away from cancer right before she was diagnosed.  One or the other of them has had cancer since 2 weeks before I got married.  But, this is not what I want to say.

What I want to say is that I am so very proud of her.  Proud of her for holding on.  She really just wanted to follow my Uncle Kermit and not stick around.  Her son wanted her to fight and do lots of treatments and she did.  Which is good because she got in more years with her granddaughters.  Lacy got to meet my Aunt Nancy when she was one, right at the time she really wanted to give up.  It meant so much to me that we were able to make that visit.  I am so sorry that I did not take Oliver down to meet her.   My Aunt Nancy was really great because when I was in high school she sent me the only pictures I have ever seen of my grandmother and told me that I looked like and reminded her of Grandmother Ernestine.  It was only ever from her that I have ever heard about what my grandmother was like and what my grandfather used to be like.  She told me sad family stories as well as interesting facts she had learned from doing our family's geneology.  I learned more from her about my family than anyone else.  Also, my favorite birthday cards always came from Aunt Nancy and Uncle Kermit.  One dollar each year.  It was a special way to know I was being remembered and she never missed a birthday.  These are sort of not very big things in the course of things.  But, what my Aunt Nancy gave me was a history I would not have otherwise had.  And a place to fit into my extended family that I have never really gotten to know.  I am glad to have spent the little amount of time with her that I have.  I wish her well as she moves on and hope that at the end it was a relief and peaceful.  Good bye Aunt Nancy. 

Meme!

Butterfly Exhibit 2008- Krohn Conservatory, originally uploaded by graggirl.

(Don't you think that is supposed to have an exclamation mark, like you are yelling it.)  Anyway, Five Green Acres tagged me for this so I am going to do my best to respond, although I don't know if I can come up with all the requirements.  It is a 7 things meme so I am supposed to reveal 7 shocking or not things about me:

1. I have a fake bone in my left ear.  (For those anatomically inclined it is more specifically the stapes.)  I went in 5 and a half years ago because I was having trouble hearing.  It was the old people sort of problems: like only using the phone on my left ear, listening to music and television loud, and not being able to separate background noise from conversation.  I thought it was a build up of wax, that had happened before.  But, actually I have otosclerosis.  The guy from CSI Las Vegas had this too in one season and also got sugery.

2.  I don't really have favorites.  Like some people have a favorite color, actor, author, band.  I have more of a category of favorites.  Like for favorite colors I rotate through navy blue, black, red, and pink.  No one things has ever really universally appealed to me.  This causes a lot of problems because I get into something for a short while and then move on and get really into something else.  The only things that not living that I consistently enjoy are photography, reading, and crafts.  But, that is so general I do not think it counts as a real favorite.

3.  I am really sensitive to movies, music, and books.  I have a great ability for empathy which sort of leaves me totally absorbed and emotionally committed to influences around me.  If I watch a really sad movie I cry, a lot, during it and then take a while to recover for example.

4.  I really enjoyed high school for the most part.  I wasn't popular in the everyone wanted to be like me sense.  But, I did have a wide variety of friends from different groups and was in a diverse collection of activities. 

5.  I love to take classes.  Whether it is a sewing class, art history class, or whatever I love to learn and am amazed at how much information there is out there.

6.  I am an only child.  There are so many assumptions that go along with this, I am sure.  Probably some are right and some are very wrong.  But, the ways I feel this is that my children have no aunts or uncles (my husband is an only, too.)  and it leaves me missing that connection that comes by just being blood related.  I notice this with my stepmom who I am really close to and who has been a mother to me since I was nine.  Since I have had children and her niece has too there is a different relationship, it feels like, between her and her niece and me and her. Although this could be for totally unrelated reasons I do feel that there are some ways you can never overcome the  lack  of blood  bonding.  By the way I totally believe in adoption and do think it is an amazing act of love and family.  As a person with very little family though I feel the gap between even my closest friends that will never be overcome because we are not related.  Although a few of my friends make many sisterly sacrifices and acts of love toward me.  Also, it is hard because we would most likely want one of our friends to care for our children if we were unable.  But, the way laws are set up family that is genetically related can always trump anything in a will.  (Scary!)

7.  I am a Christian.  I don't talk about this in this blog.  Actually it would probably be easy to be my friend casually and never know.  I struggle through what I read in the bible and believe and the monstrosity I see in the American Church.  The lack of female affirmation, the lack of supporting families as whole units, the segregation, the inequality, all the political intersections (It's hard to be a Democrat in an evangelical setting)  and all the judgment that Christians view each other through.  So I have trouble publicly claiming the title Christian.  Because the meaning of Christian in the general public is totally not how I want to be seen as.   But, I do believe and I go to church although we haven't found one that practices what the bible actually teaches in this neck of the woods.  A more accurate view of my spirituality could probably be found in the book Blue Like Jazz or A New Kind of Christian,  or in organizations like InterVarsity or  International Justice Mission.  I do not want this to imply that I dislike Christians or do not see myself as one, or that I deny my faith.  It is more like I think our current church has sort of lost its way.  Even as I type this I worry it won't come across the correct way.  I am still learning and figuring out this whole following Jesus thing.  (I was not raised in the Church.  I would say my parents were more along the agnostic or atheist end when I was growing up.)

OK, so now I am supposed to post the rules and then tag 7 people.  This has taken me 3 days to write and I thought that would be the easy part. 

These are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

And you fine folks have been tagged. Sorry if you’ve already been tagged for this one, or if you despise memes and the people who perpetuate them. Really sorry.  (This last paragraph was on Five Green Acres site, who tagged me, but I totally agree.  Play along or don't I for one delete all forwards I get in my in box and hate how threatening those can be about how your life will be ruined and such.  If I don't come up with 7 people then sorry meme police, but I honestly only wanted to tag people who I thought would play along or not get upset :) )

1.  Cory at the Sheldon 5.  I would be very excited to see what she would share. 

2.  Melissa at Mommies think too. 

3.  Elsewhere Living.  Crystal is becoming of my first blog friends, at least I feel that way and so I wanted to see what she would have to say.

4.  I love Liz's blog and also thought I would tag her.  Liz of the Quilted Turtle.  Her blog has great inspiration and gives me the romantic notion of wanting to live on an island, the same way I want to live on a farm.  I want to but would maybe not make it in real life. 

5.  And Veronica at Meow Musings is someone I have not gotten to know yet but, who visits regularly which brings me a lot of joy to see people are actually reading the words I send out into the universe. 

6. and 7.  If I can think of someone I will put them in later.  Maybe it will come to me in the middle of the night.  I am tempted to put Lori up here from Camp Creek Press but her blog is so clear and focused and sort of like a class in itself that I hesitate to overstep that I learn so much from your blog but here write about this boundary I have made up in my mind.  So Lori, if you want I will throw you up here as well.

Being put on a meme is very exciting in a way because new people hear about your blog who may never have found you and you get to learn a little more about your bloggy and real life friends.

Thinking of you all today as I finally finish this post.  We are having a hard Sunday.  Oliver seems to have eaten something that we can not find the source of and began throwing up at 4 am today followed by the other end after 8 (4 of the first kind and 6 of the other end).  (Small, like 1/2 the size of a cranberry, red berries are coming out.)  We spent the pre morning hours on the phone with poison control and the help nurse trying to decide how to proceed.  They aren't from our house, but if he ate them all off of a bush then they may have been from the yard.  But, there is no evidence of this and he isn't left alone ever.  But, those 2 year olds they are tricky and fast.  He is recovering some now.  But, still needs extra love.  Lacy is having a really hard time being the one who is not sick and I feel bad for how left out she feels.  I also feel very badly for the amount of laundry I have in the basement calling my name.  Hope there is health and happiness on your end.  We are high in the level of happiness and working on the health end!

Favorite Picture

Butterfly Exhibit 2008- Krohn Conservatory, originally uploaded by graggirl.

While I am busy doing finals for the next bit I figured I would share our visit to the exhibit. I want to be present in this space and was surprised how long it had been since I posted. I liked this picture best because of the depth of field (is that the right term) It appeals to me how crisp most of the butterfly was and how clear the leaf was in the foreground but then to see the other two blurry. I have actually used my book store gift card to buy some photography books and have those waiting in the wings while I am waiting for labor to come. After the madness subsides.

In baby news I finally got someone to palpate my baby with no strings attached. The first only prenatal appt. by someone not hosting this little one. I forgot how nice it is to have someone place their hands on your belly and feel for baby's position. The look that crosses over their face when they have made out all the baby landmarks and then the pleasant smile as they nudge the baby's shoulder and say hello to get some satisfactory movement. The intimacy of being with a midwife who respects your space and sees you as mother full of child and not paycheck or a hassle of a questions or a patient who has what is classified as a disability. I really miss that and had forgotten how much. I also feel like now if we didn't make it to California to have the babe I could call this woman and have a shot at an illegally assisted Ohio birth. So, sad how politics have limited women to a lot of care that has no basis in evidence and that is proven to actually be unnecessary or harmful. I have really struggled with this in the mist of no prenatal care. I feel how medicalized I am. How much I needed someone else to tell me my baby was OK even though I have the skills, training, equipment, and intuition to know that baby is well. I needed the authority from someone else. So even though I have felt that hard knot of head down very low I still was relieved to hear that baby is head down.

If some of that is unfamiliar to you then I would recommend the book Expecting Trouble. It is very good at explaining how out of sync with science our prenatal care is. It is not a hey you need to have a homebirth book either. What I want most is for everyone to have access to birth where they feel safe and where they want, as long as it is safe for the baby too, of course. Because my choices are so limited I think what I feel most at the end is relief. That the struggle and isolation is over. Most of the midwives in this corner of my state are extrememly rude and mean and so it will be nice when I am back in a supportive birthing place on the postpartum end. Hopefully all this stress hasn't caused me to make a type A baby!

Tick...tick...tick...

Butterfly Exhibit 2008- Krohn Conservatory, originally uploaded by graggirl.

and not the clock kind either. Being from California I don't see ticks all that often and am not used to having to check my kids just because they played in the back yard. I know some of you live in tick infested areas. So I want to know what you do. How often do you check your kiddos? What does that consist of? How do you get them out? These questions are spurred on mainly by fact that this morning while cuddling in bed I pulled something out of Lacy's hair only to find it was a tick. My response was not great. I got the kids off the bed and threw the tick on the bed. I can't find it now of course. I was checking my children first. So that brings me to another question...how do you respond to feeling (paralyzing knowledge) there is a tick in your home? I am petrified of going to sleep in there now. My reaction is that I think we should evacuate the home and send it up in flames and start over, tick free. See how scared of ticks I am. Oh, and as for me, I got one running through the woods in Tennessee once. It dug in but I got it out and lit it on fire. I was so much less freaked out before I became a mom!
Sorry if I have been scarce. I am probably going to be that way until finals are over on May 7th. So bear with me I will be back and hopefully I will pop in and out between studying. I would like to share more photos from the butterfly exhibit this weekend. The show was a little bit of a disappointment but I did try and play with my camera some.

Book Review: Waiting for Birdy

Waiting for Birdy
I enjoyed this book a lot. It was good to read while pregnant because I could identify with her pregnancy and some of her feelings. It is a little along the lines of Operating Instructions in my opinion, which is also a fabulous book. What I liked was reading this book and feeling like I wasn't so crazy after all. It is so easy to forget that hormones sort of take us knocked up women down to a common level. The style is sort of a cross between conversation/journal entry. At times I laughed out loud. The whole time I felt like I was right there with her. This wasn't an in depth analyze it read. It was a feel good read. If need something light and at the same time very real and honest pick it up. It may take you back to when you were pregnant or make you feel less crazy if you are currently. Happy Reading!

Rounding third with baby number 3!

Dear baby,
I know I haven't been keeping you at the forefront of this blog lately so I wanted to publicly and memorably shout out a hello. We are officially in our third trimester. You and I we will soon be two people. I am not one of those mamas that LOVES being pregnant. I think I more love being in the miracle and the honorary carrier of your life. You baby, you seem a bit cramped. Or you seem to be really enjoying yourself one of the two. Every night as I tuck myself into bed with Oliver's feet in my back and Lacy on the floor on a mattress next to me and Daddy so far away on the bed that he could be in another room, you start to have party. You kick and squirm and seem very pleased. I am going to miss that. Carrying a baby is a bit like carrying a secret. One that is internal that you get to decide how much to share. How different it will be when you join us. When everyone will be asking to hold you and our only secret alone time will be middle of the night nursings. I am excited to meet you face to face. But, as uncomfortable as I am at times, I am not in a rush. For everyone's sake I hope you aren't either. We have to make it all the way to California before you can come. So hold off until your due date. Please. I am a little nervous about how you will fit into our family. Will you get all the love and affection you need having to compete with two older kids? Will you be able to escape babyhood with minimal damage, I should tell you now that your brother and sister are a bit on the daredevil side? Will I be able to help you find your place? I know you will be so different from all the rest of us. Our family is sort of like a spider-web. Each of us is so different but we intersect and overlap in just the right places. Or maybe we are like open work lace and each strand added in makes the creation more intricate and beautiful. I am excited to see what you will bring. Three babies! How lucky I am, a little scared too.
You will only have honorary aunts and uncles. This sibling thing is something your dad and I know nothing about. So know that we are learning just as much as you. As with your brother and sister I have some of the same dreams for you. I hope that you are good friends with your brother and sister, I think family can be one of the best gifts. Hopefully we aren't too crazy to mess that up. I hope you grow up to be yourself. How ever you define that. That we as your parents don't get in your way. That we are able to guide you and protect you, but not to ever keep you from who you are meant to be. I hope you grow up to be happy and healthy. That you find peace and fulfillment in whatever you do and that discouragement is just fleeting and never permanent. I hope we are good parents to you. It can be so hard to navigate these early years. I hope that we are able to give you all the love you want, more love than you need, and much more than is required.
I love you baby, and will be ready to meet you when the time's right!
Love, Mom
PS. Could you be a little more clear on your gender? I was so sure you were a girl and now I am thinking maybe you are a boy. Any help? Before I force you to wear the dresses in my mistakenness.

Horray For Spring!

If I would take the time a nice springy picture would accompany this post. We like Garrison Keillor a lot in our house. Some of his shows talk about how Minnesota people are so much happier because they have the depression of winter to balance them out. I am feeling that way today with the windows open, the breeze blowing and the kids outside in the sandbox. So glad spring is here. This is maybe the biggest benefit of living in the midwest. Celebrating the end of winter! Must go clean and play! Ta ta!

(Picture from last year. Lacy and a friend in the sandbox we built.)