The Mama Chronicles

Needing to have less

(this photo is of a coat rack our friends painted and carved for Lacy as a gift.  When we lived in the 80 year old house we couldn't hang it on the plaster walls.  This is one huge benefit to a new house I guess.  You can nail something up every 6-8 inches.)

Lately, I have found myself needing to have less.  Not that I feel like I need less or that I have gotten rid of a lot of things but that I have this need to simplify.  I have this desire to have less.  To have peace.  Which is funny in a way because I am in the process of getting ready to make all of our lives more complicated with the birth of a third child.  But, I notice when we clean a room, that I feel better.  I think relationally my life has more peace now than it has had in a few years.  Maybe it is from this emotional peace that I am starting to want to have peace in all areas of my life.  This is, I think, the blessing of my thirties that I am able to stop living in a chaotic way.  For the last 3 years we were in California we were always two weeks away from being relocated with Ryan's company.  I think this frantic unknown started to take hold in so many ways.

The other place I see this simplicity calling to me is in my desire to have rhythms.  I have been reading a book called Beyond The Rainbow Bridge that is essentially a how to on Waldorf for the first 7 years of your child's life in your home.  Although I do not subscribe to Waldorf in a lot of ways I am seeing the need of my children, especially Lacy to have more rhythm and and be able to tune in to the high energy times by recharging with low energy times.  The breathe in and breathe out of Waldorf education.  In the past I have known parents who are very strict with schedules.  I notice with these kids that they get very upset when their routine is modified slightly.  I think as a young parent I avoided routines and schedules for this reason.  I only saw the extreme.  Also, when I was having Lacy and Oliver the big thing to do in our church was Babywise, which has been shown to be so bad for kids.  So I wanted to not have any schedule or routine.  I wanted my kids to feel free.  But, as we clean out and prepare for another baby I see that our "freedom" has become restricted by what we own and by not following the kids natural emotional and physical rhythms and cues.  I think part of this realization took root when Lacy turned four and it became apparent that she had to have a nap, every day.  She hadn't napped since she was 2 and 3/4.  Something about turning four though changed that.  She is once again outgrowing naps but I see how for her these are a much larger scale of the breathing in and breathing out times utilized in Waldorf day schools. 

As for me, I need some rhythm.  What I really need are some anchors that I can depend on each day.  Ways to keep up and feel centered.  I need to have and find a rhythm to housekeeping and eating in order to be able tune into the patterns my kids and I have so that I will notice more quickly when my kids need more or less sleep.  This is instead of the scratching my head and wondering why my child has become a little troublemaker and worrying that they are doomed to a life of juvenile court and lonliness, before realizing, Oh yeah, they need 3 more hours of sleep per day now.  It reminds me of when they were babies and we would have few nights where they had trouble sleeping and were nursing all night and I would think this baby is never going to let me sleep again.  And then bleary eyed a few days later I would look down and see the runny nose and the beginning of a cold, or the tooth that starts coming through.  I think the chaos and the stuff makes it hard sometimes for me to tune into these things and I end up feeling like I am one step behind. 

The other thing that I really like in this book is that she talks about focusing on the task you are doing.  If you are washing the dishes she says you should pay attention to that and not be frantically rushing through and preoccupied with what you are going to do next.  Let me tell you right now being SO pregnant this is SO hard for me.  I am perpetually thinking of the next thing I have to do before we leave for CA to have the baby.  I am thinking of the next thing I need to get done before I have a newborn again.  I am pretty preoccupied all the time.  So, this calls to me.  As a way to start.  To be present and engaged in the task I am doing.  That is what is going on here. 

I am going to be very sporadic on the blog.  I have gotten very uncomfortable and have a lot of nesting I need to do before we fly the nest.  We leave in 2 weeks.  I am trying to learn self hypnosis for the birth  and as a way to not worry if we will be in the right place with Ryan there for the birth.  I think this pregnancy has been the hardest one because of all the legal issues with midwives here in Ohio and the result being that I have to do my own prenatal care and am lacking the emotional support that is so important in pregnancy.  It has been a really rough road and I am just now realizing the impact on me as a mother.  Having midwifery skills does not make me able to give to myself as care provider.  It means I can take all the necessary measurements and vitals but not that I can just be the mom worrying and emotional.  I think that I will feel a really big relief when the baby is in our arms and I am able to just be a mother.  It will be great to get to be taken care of as we wait for the baby in Ca and have someone else do my blood pressure, listen and palpate the baby and monitor all the diet and other things.  My other reason for absence is that I need to start journaling.  Everything is great here I just am in that really introspective huge pregnant big as a house phase.  :)

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! 

What Midwesterners Do

I have always heard that Midwesterners are very weather conscious. This is a stereotype. Who knows if it is actually true. I think it is grounded in the fact that midwesterners are assumed to be the farmers of America. After living in CA I feel like I see less farming in Ohio than I did there, but when I think of Iowa I think of corn fields. When I lived in California I didn't worry too much about the weather. All you needed really was a warm fleece and a raincoat readily available. Here though I own different kinds of coats. What were my winter jackets have become Fall and Spring jackets. Then there are the heavy coats that come out and I even wear scarves now. I also have become a Midwesterner in one respect. I am weather obsessed. I had thought about this a little. Aware that I check the forecast everyday. That I want to know what is predicted. Becoming better at looking at weather radar.
When I was younger, even up until last year, I always thought it would be great to be a meteorologist. I have a few careers that I hold in high esteem that I respect and would like to do, being a postman with a walking route in San Luis Obispo, CA, being a librarian, being a plumber (this one has fallen out of grace since our many clogged drains in our 90 year old house we used to own, I still respect them though,) and meteorologists. Tracking weather patterns and making predictions. Seems like a lot of fun. It taps into my sense of wanting to know what people think will happen about this or that.
My husband doesn't play this game well. He says he doesn't know what will happen. He would be a terrible weather man. He would stand in front of the big blue screen and tell the people what the weather had been. He would say, "Well Folks, it was cold today. But the weather is always changing so who knows what tomorrow will be like. It would be a good idea to look out your window before you get dressed in the morning if you are interested." My husband is an engineer. He deals in facts. He was in management for a while. He did a good job, but is much better as an engineer dealing with facts and looking at the past. Trying something, then waiting to see how it turns out. Engineers guess a lot about what might work. But, they don't KNOW. So they try and wait and then they know when everyone else does. They say "Look that worked." Everyone else who sees the machine now works and is spitting out Cheerios also could say the same thing. But they wouldn't get paid to say it. My dear darling gets paid to say it. Paid to deal in the concrete. To live in facts and look at the past to try things with unknown outcomes for the future. I am not trying to insult engineers, he is very smart my husband. I could not do what he does. It takes a lot of knowledge to make these guesses. I am not saying he is not talented. But, he would be a very bad meteorologist. He also is only really concerned with the weather in its effects on him, specifically driving in snow.
I, on the other hand, am fascinated by the weather. It is amazing that all these weather phenomena happen. That the weather is so diverse. It is amazing all the different weather things you can experience and all the different classifications. And it is fun to make predictions about the future and see all the people respond. You say it is going to rain and they carry their umbrellas with them all day, even though it is sunny and warm. I would be a good meteorologist and would live very ethically, not telling people it would rain just so I could laugh at them carrying around their umbrellas in the heat.
Since moving to Ohio the weather is a fascination with me. I like watching the weather. But the predictions here are not very good. I think the weathermen are right 10% of the time. Today it is supposed to be snowing, it is actually 40 degrees and not precipitating. We took a walk, knowing it wouldn't rain or snow, but to give our umbrellas some use. The ground was wet and for a four year old (and one year old) that is enough reason to walk around with an umbrella over her (his) head. What intrigues me about the weather here is how much more weather I have experienced. And last night I had another first. The above picture is of the freezing rain we had. It was crazy. I was driving and it sounded like rain. My windshield was dry though. It was great! You could see the frozen raindrops on the road, but the road wasn't wet. I was mesmerized. We drove the rest of the way home with the windows down and our hands getting stung by the sharp drops. Amazing! A Phenomena!
When Ryan got home I asked him if he had seen the freezing rain. He asked me if I meant hail. He would be a terrible meteorologist.
(My photo did not turn out well. I am thinking it is time to start playing with the other lens I have for my camera. I also am doing better and have a recipe, finished object to share, and book review but those will have to be later.)

Hanging in there...barely

Well, I am still not full blown nauseaus but I feel terrible. Not just tired but very mixed up inside. Feeling just way off. This is definitly different than the first two. Trying very, very hard to take care of myself. It doesn't help that I have two exams this week in Chemistry and Microbiology. So, I am just barely hanging in there. On a completely different note: Today we are having our first SNOW!!! Of the season that is, still too warm for it to stick though.

On another note last week was a horrible week! On Thursday I got a call from my midwife and she informed me that her cousin is pregnant and due at the same time. So she won't be able to fly out. The only thing that could keep her away. Not really a huge constolation. So after much talking and agonizing we will be moving out there for a little over a month in with the midwife and her family to have the baby. This only works because she is one of my dear friends. I know how insane this must sound but a couple moths ago a midwife who does homebirth here was brought up on charges. The details are not even close to disclosed or clear and all I know is that it has started a very unnecessary hysteria among Ohio midwives here. So a lot of us expecting mommys are left in a complete lurch. If you don't have an in already then you are hard pressed to get polite treatment or even a response from a midwife. If you can even locate one. This is my take I know, but being hormonal and pregnant and having unreturned emails and trying to get involved in the political struggle before knowing I was pregnant, and basically being insulted I'm a little angry. On the plus side it is nice to know this baby will have a CA birth certificate like the other babes. I do not feel at all like I am from Ohio and am glad in a large way that this baby won't be either. Harsh words I know. But, I just do not fit in here. Plus Mason will have all the resources she needs and be practicing legally. Which is important to me. I also like the idea of escaping the heat and the humidity when I am soooo pregnant. So that is that for Thursday!

Friday Ryan and I were going on a date and I am in that very weird place of just basically being fat. Not pregnant, not normal, just bloated and sort of fat looking. So I went to get some new clothes with the kiddos. In the GAP in Kenwood Towne Center we tried on clothes, me, the stroller, Oliver, and Lacy. All was fine. It was quiet back there because no one else was trying on clothes. Then we tried to leave I had a few things I really liked so I go to open the door and it's stuck. I pull harder. The handle comes off in my hand. So I start yelling for help...no answer. Oliver pulls Lacy hair, she is screaming for someone to let us out, and I am on the verge of tears. It's been about 5 minutes since I have discovered I am stuck. I can't crawl under the door, I can't pull it open. I start to call Ryan to tell him to call the store to let me out. When I hear voices. So we start screaming again. Some one comes, they can't open the door, they call more people. Until three people including the manager are outside and somehow they get the door open. I am almost crying, crying a tiny bit, Lacy is crying. And all those catty women. Just stare at me freakishly. Like all this is my fault. To make matters worse, there was a button in the dressing room that siad push for assistance. I pushed and pushed. After I was let out I mentioned this and those women just said "Oh that hasn't worked in 5 years!" I could have snapped. So I decided not to buy anything and on top of that was made to feel like it was my fault. Terrible. I will not be shopping at that location again. Terrible week but then Ryan took me to the Ballet and we just laid it all to rest. So, I am recovering. Slowly!