With the unprecedented social media blitz raining down on Planned Parenthood as we enter the latest way-too-long election cycle, I figured it was time to pipe up. It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that the hashtag #istandwithplannedparenthood would be one that I support. But for anyone who found their way to this blog via our Pare Down Facebook page, or a recipe on Pinterest, and who now wants nothing to do with Pare Down, I invite you to give this a read.
First, a little about me. I am a mother of two wonderful boys who were planned (kind of, they showed up more on their schedule than mine, but you get the gist) and wanted. My husband and I welcomed them into a home that was well stocked with clothes, diapers, a grip of baby gear, and hugs and kisses to spare. I loved setting up the nursery, and then adapting it to welcome a second son, almost as much as I loved the babies themselves. Almost. But come on, this was cute!
How lucky were we? Our boys were healthy. We had the means to support them. We had the emotional maturity to take care of them (insert booger joke here). I am grateful that I never had to face the choice of what to do in the case of an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy. But if I had, I would again feel grateful to live in a country where this very painful, very personal decision would have been both safe and legal. Because let's be straight on this one topic, when abortions were illegal they still happened. Rich women traveled to obtain them safely, and poor women resorted to more dangerous measures, but abortions were still being performed. There is a great short documentary from 1992 called When Abortion Was Illegal that is currently streaming on YouTube. Let those women tell you themselves how illegal abortion affected their lives, because unlike me they lived through it.
Again, I support safe and legal abortions. You don't have to. I don't have the ability (or desire) to change an anti-abortionist's stance on the issue any more than they could change mine. But that's a moot point, because abortion is legal. Signed, stamped, out-of-the-alleys-since-1973 legal. People can protest all they want, it's their American right, but like it or leave it abortion is here to stay.
What we do stand to lose is universal access to Planned Parenthood, that often vilified baby-hating abortion factory. This is where I take issue.
While I have never had an abortion, I have certainly taken advantage of Planned Parenthood. When you wonder what kind of woman would go there, the answer is me. I used to go there. A lot. For five years, while I was fresh out of college and struggling with an acting career, Planned Parenthood was my main source of health care.
When I lived in Chicago, Planned Parenthood provided yearly pap exams and discounted birth control. (Not that I was having sex. Are you kidding? My parents read this blog.) Even better, when I was living in Los Angeles and among that city's throng of nearly homeless acting hopefuls, my healthcare at Planned Parenthood was free. Yes, you read that correctly. At a time when I couldn't afford a latte, I could still see a doctor for any number of lady problems, and good ol' generic people problems, without having to cough up a dime. Granted I had to get buzzed in through a bullet-proof glass entryway to get there, but once inside it was just your average doctors office with crappy old magazines and daytime TV in the lobby.
It's odd that no one is talking about the other services that Planned Parenthood provides. Sure, a standard pelvic exam won't rile voters the same way that an inflammatory video does, but it's just as big a part of the story. Statistically, it accounts for the majority of the story. My own husband grew up being taught that the only service PP provided was that of abortion. This is untrue. Let it be known: For many of the nation's poor, and for those not-so-poor who may not have great reproductive coverage through their standard insurance, Planned Parenthood is a gateway to receiving quality, affordable healthcare. That's it. By threatening to steal their funding and forcing a number of their doors to close, we are denying many of this nation's men and women their right to receive basic exams, prescriptions, and yearly checkups.
So thank you, Planned Parenthood, for all that you provided me in the years when I would have had to go without ever seeing a doctor. Thank you for enabling me to take control of my body and make well-informed reproductive choices. I am so grateful for the care, and happy to report that my planned journey to parenthood has been a success.
Nothing prepared me for this hobby farm adventure as well as becoming a mother. Long before I was spreading goat poop in my garden, shoveling chicken poop into the compost heap, or tracking the heat cycles of a doe (yeah, dwell on that one for a minute), I was wiping secondary boogers out of my hair, cleaning vomit from my bra, and changing pee sheets in the middle of the night. The days of reading a book in a park and getting my nails done were long gone before I found myself breaking an amniotic sac and freeing a baby goat.
Which I did. 99.9% of the nation was watching the Seahawks lose the Super Bowl and I was given a reprieve by the arrival of the two tiniest, most perfect baby bucklings I've ever seen.
I'm getting ahead of the narrative a bit. Per the previous prep post, Ella was in the garage pen and we were ready. The night before her due date I spent a few dawn hours with her in what I can only equate to the caprine version of Braxton Hicks. Faker. Going into Sunday morning, February 1st, the birthing accoutrement was prepped, I had a nice pile of animal husbandring clothes ready, and we had a set schedule of checking Ella every hour on the hour. And then the stupid game started and family arrived four doors down for the party.
Who can guess where this is going?
1 pm - Ella obviously stretching but not otherwise uncomfortable.
2 pm - Ella still stretching, tail erect, visible tightening but nothing too intense.
3 pm - Checking on my own kids, making sure they are fed and fine, visiting with family and friends; Gabe is on his way home from errands and promises to stop by the house to call in an update.
3:20 pm - A call comes in to my parents' house. My dad answers. All we hear is Gabe yelling "Baby goat! Baby goat!"
I race home and there in the hay is our little Finn, being cleaned up by his mama.
All this prep and I'd missed it! But joy -- another one is headed out! Appropriate clothing be damned, it's me in yoga pants and a sweater, body-deep in bloody hay, breaking open an intact amniotic sac and wiping fluid from our little Archie's nose and mouth before placing him in front of his mama. Ella was a champ, delivering quickly and efficiently on her due date.
Then, it was time to teach them how to nurse. A quick aside for humans and goats -- this is not a process that every animal just naturally knows how to do and takes it up with aplomb on the first try. I may be anthropomorphizing, but Ella's expression was an easily readable "WTF?!" as I made her stand and subject herself to the head-butting and weak attempts at suckling exhibited by her babies. Gotta say, after two rough starts of my own, I was pretty patient during this potentially frustrating process. Babies and new moms are so dumb!
We took some extra time with Finn because he was so much smaller (1 lb, 10.1 oz to Archie's 3 lb, 1.9 oz), but even he eventually made his way from Ella's collar to her udder and got the hang of it.
We finally gave Ella some molasses water and grain, put iodine on the babies' umbilical cords, and then left the new family to get to know each other without the presence of our paparazzi. Superbowl schmuperbowl, it's Pare Down for the win.
I make no secret of the fact that I live in a lovely community suffering from a longstanding invasion of ignorant asshats (see HERE). So, I should not have been surprised by the most recent local activity but it has indeed caught me off guard. Why did I expect more? Because this issue involves the children in our county and their health.
Graphic courtesy of http://www.schoolnutritionandfitness.com/
Douglas County School District has become the only district in the state of Colorado to opt out of the Michelle Obama-championed new federal student lunch guidelines at the high school level. What a distinction! While I love the general idea of bucking the system and taking a stand, this opt-out represents one of the worst decisions that our should-have-been-voted-out-there's-always-next-time school board has had a hand in.
In response, I had a whole blog planned on the history of school lunches, the current guideline updates, and ways to embrace the healthier changes and fight childhood obesity while teaching our kids to enjoy a balanced meal. I'm going to skip that though, in favor of a Q&A, in which I cast the school board/naysayers in the roll of Inquisitor, and myself as the Voice of Reason. (This casting is totally biased, of course, but that's a perk of writing your own blog.)
A quick background and some resources, if you are into things like research and fact checking:
INQUISITOR: The government is overstepping its bounds by dictating the composition of school lunches. What's next? Will we be forced to investigate and evaluate the sack lunches kids bring in the door?
VOICE OF REASON: Public schools are subject to government oversight. With government funds, comes government accountability. This is why DCSD lost its eligibility to be reimbursed for free and low-cost school lunches when it decided not to participate in the new school lunch program. But you know that. And I'm sure you weighed that estimated $167,000 yearly reimbursement (not too many poor kids in Douglas County!) against the $3M a year in revenue that the school district takes in from its in-house Subway franchises. Nope, not even Jared and his giant pants can make Subway sandwiches worthy of our kids in the eyes of the federal guidelines, so losing those fast food chains would have been a hit to the ol' pocketbook.
What was the other part? Oh yeah, government oversight of kids' sack lunches. That's kind of an inflammatory argument based on nothing, right? Did Rush put you up to this? There is no precedent or law that prohibits parents from feeding their kids a bucket of Cheetos if they want to. Being food stupid, on a private level at least, is totally in alignment with federal regulations. Phew!
INQUISITOR: The guidelines are too strict. Our chef made a pizza that adhered to the guidelines and the kids hated it. And his burrito had to be created in miniature in order to comply. What do you say to that, huh?
VoR: Who decided that our kids need foods like pizza, burritos, cheeseburgers and fries in their daily lunch? Because they like them? If we based our children's diets on what they liked, my kids would eat nothing but macaroni and cheese and Whoppers malted milk balls for dinner. Stop luring kids to the lunch line with empty calories covered in melted cheese. Here's a crazy thought: don't serve pizza. At all. The menus aren't set by the new regulations, just the guidelines. So, and I'm just spitballing here, what if the PTO sponsored a school-wide recipe contest, kids and parents could get involved, and there could be a taste-testing night to raise money for the school? Winning recipes, with nutritional information, could be handed over to the district chef and/or school lunch supervisor and incorporated into the lunch menu. Too crazy? You'd rather stick to selling wrapping paper? Okay, then take ten minutes, harness the power of social media, and call out for help from the world of food and mom bloggers. Provide them with information on cost stipulations and nutritional content per serving and see what those wacky kitchen creatives come up with. Or google it. Someone has probably already done this.
INQUISITOR: Just because you give a kid an apple, you can't make him eat it. We have the healthiest trash cans in the state - the kids are throwing away more than they eat!
VoR: Until healthy lunches are the new normal, there is going to be a learning curve. Remember turning 21? No? That's because you were blackout drunk. A natural reaction to your new access to the magical world of booze. But your liver couldn't keep up with that kind of routine for the rest of your life, so you adapted and started to drink in moderation at least most of the time. So it will be with our kids. As booze is to a hangover, so too is trashing your lunch to hunger. (Bonus lesson: This will also teach kids a natural consequence that is a direct result of their actions!) It will also help when you stop trying to feed students pseudo-cardboard, non-fat pizza. Again, pizza is now a treat in this new world and not a school lunch staple, so it can be delicious, gooey and full of fat outside of school bounds. For the school day let's find some new recipes, like hummus/cucumber/pita sandwiches for instance, and teach the kids about cucumbers. Involve them in the school garden. If there isn't a school garden, plant one! Seeds are cheap and the child labor is built in, which is part of the reason I myself had kids. I'm sure an inventive biology teacher can adapt a lesson on Mendel's genetics to be taught outside while the ninth graders weed the pea patch. Torn away from their classrooms and textbooks, the kids may actually listen and (holy shit!) become inspired.
INQUISITOR: For some kids, this is their only guaranteed meal in a day, and it is being wasted.
VoR: A truly hungry child will eat the healthy meal. A truly hungry child, who may not have access to fresh produce on a regular basis, will eat the apple and maybe take a second one as well. A truly hungry child needs the nutrition provided by the new guidelines, since a standard piece of pizza may fill their stomaches but leave them nutritionally starving.
INQUISITOR: Well what about our cooks? They aren't allowed to give seconds, so extra food goes right into the trash.
VoR: Come on, work with me on this one. Lunch rooms must adhere to strict food and cleanliness guidelines, which makes them perfect candidates for donating extra meals to churches and soup kitchens. All that takes is a little coordination and a phone call. If you are lucky enough to live in the Denver area, check out We Don't Waste. I'm pretty sure they'll take the call.
INQUISITOR: When I grew up, school lunches were delicious. Can't we leave well enough alone?
VoR: When you grew up, school lunches weren't competing with fast foods, and you only had 2 options daily, Take It or Leave It. "Foods" that can be found in current high school cafeterias weren't even invented when you went to school.
INQUISITOR: But what about a parent's right to choose without unnecessary government -
VoR: Enough! Enough with the justifications and the inflammatory what ifs. The Voice of Reason is going to lose her mind! Seriously, where is the common sense? Even the schools adhering to the guidelines are lobbying to get french fries to count as a vegetable and pizza sauce to count as a serving of tomatoes. If you used all of this loophole energy and transferred it into trying to make the system work, we could have nutritious foods in our schools, kids who have a greater knowledge of where food comes from and how it affects their bodies, and parents would have an ally in the age old battle of getting kids to eat broccoli. Is the new system perfect? Nope. But let's try it and then when we encounter hiccups work towards a logical solution rather than writing off the whole system as broken and tossing it away. Let's not make this about economics and politics and instead refocus on the real message of raising a healthy generation of kids. If we as a community are going to unite and take a stand, let's work together to introduce our children to exotic vegetables and a new variety of spices instead of reaching a point of mutiny to protect their access to a five dollar foot long sub.
Damn. Being the only voice of reason in the discussion is exhausting. And angry-making, apparently. This issue makes me nuts. What do you all think?
My boys love My Little Pony, or as Aidan calls it, "Little My Pony." It reminds me of being a kid myself. One summer, for 3 wonderful days, Applejack and I were best friends. Then the neighbor dog got her and turned her into a chew toy. Childhood can be cruel.
Odd glamour shot I stole off of eBay. Creepy say what?
Oh Applejack, I miss you still. What a great toy for a nerdy, bookish little kid like me! Ponies were much like Care Bears in their embracing of individuality, friendship, and celebrating the differences in others. Every pony was unique. Aside from the commercials that branded Ponies as "girl" toys, they were perfect.
When Jude developed his current obsession with the Ponies, I couldn't have been happier. Until I went to get him a few for Valentine's Day. All I can say is, WTF Mattel? What have you done to the Ponies??
In my day, those cute sturdy little ponies definitely sported Disney eyes and super shiny manes, but they still looked like ponies. As a refresher, ponies are short, stout, kid-sized.
And THIS is the current rendition of My Little Pony and Jude's favorite character Twilight Sparkle:
Notice anything different, on this current "girl" toy? How about her super slender physique? Her giant bedroom eyes? And, most telling, her lack of a muzzle?! It's a pony! This one looks part anorexic teenager, part squirrel.
Suffice it to say, I'll take Ponies over Super Heroes (less "Hulk smash!" more "You're my best friend!") but if I had had daughters instead of sons I'd be writing Mattel some hate mail. According to the show, friendship is magic...but so too is food, the innocence of childhood, and a pony with enough snout to breathe and legs sturdy enough to keep it upright.
I crossed a parenting milestone this week when Jude, 4 years old and urged on by the deaths of five of our chicks and my grandpa last fall, asked me if everyone dies.
This is one of those moments when the world stops and you know your answer will have lasting effect. I am about to shape my child's first impression of death.
"Yes buddy," I say, "everyone dies."
His face crumples as he says in a tiny voice, "Oh no, even me?"
My heart shatters. I want to say, "No, no not you. Never you. By the time you get old they'll find a cure for death and you and me and Daddy and Aidan and your Granny and Grandpa and all of your family will be together always." I want to cure death so that it doesn't keep my son up at night. I want to avoid the upcoming trips in the car, when he is at his most open, during which he'll ask if his best friend Sammy will die. As endearing as it is I don't want to be present when he asks if Barack Obama will die and then, upon my answer, sobs out the words, "But he's my favorite president!"
This is when other parents are able to turn to Heaven and let their children know that if they are good, and go to church and say their prayers, then after they die a loving God will welcome them to Paradise and they'll all live happily ever after, amen. I want Heaven to be real now, just as I wanted it to be real at my grandpa's funeral when family members spoke of my grandparents being reunited in Heaven and dancing together for eternity. I want to be able to tell my child this story too. I want to believe.
But I don't. The best I can do is save my son from the devastation of growing up and thinking that I lied to him in this moment when he needed me most. I step away from the temptation of the story that I know will stop his crying and I carefully revisit the narrative that began a few days prior with the death of our first chick.
When we die, our bodies turn to dust. This dust then turns into dirt, and the dirt becomes a tree. Or grass. Our bodies help new things grow. He asks if my grandpa has turned into a fruit tree and I feel no qualms with skipping over the blasphemy of caskets and embalming and tell him yes, Grandpa Cyril is a fruit tree. Probably apple. For the moment this calms him, and he sleeps.
The conversation does not end here, and I am certain we'll be revisiting the topic for a while. In classic Jude fashion, he has declared the Circle of Life dumb. But I feel my shoulders release just a fraction when he tells me that even though he hates dying, he loves that he will become a tree. I love it to. I realize that talking through death with Jude, enlightening him on this grander scheme of decay and renewal, makes me more comfortable with the idea as well.
I promise Jude that as he gets used to the idea of dying it won't seem so scary and he won't think about it as much. I also promise that I'll do my best, years and years and years from now, to make sure that my tree is planted next to his tree and that our leaves will always be touching. It's a picture that we both need to hold on to.
Some people think that Atheists don't believe in anything. This is untrue. I believe in easing my son's pain while still telling him the truth. I believe in the Circle of Life, as dumb as it may be. I believe that death seems far less terrible when our bodies give way to new growth. I believe in cremation and in taking these fertile ashes somewhere special to scatter, or bury, and thereby create hallowed ground through regeneration. I believe that my children can grow up to view death as a natural progression of life, to cherish the time that we are together, and not to fear our eventual demise. I find comfort in these beliefs, and I hope that Jude will too.
We brought home 9 baby chicks on Friday...and have lost a chick a day since. I'd heard plenty about the high rate of chick mortality but assumed that with extensive research and a fastidiously clean brooder I'd beat the odds and take all 9 chicks to maturity. My first weekend of homesteading has been eye-opening to say the least.
This year, we are starting our flock with Buff Orpingtons, Black Australorps, and Ameraucanas. These little fluff balls steal your heart - Jude wanted to name them everything from Cutie Cutest to Cutie Fluffy Cheeks. In an effort to combine our pet-based love of animals with a farm-based mentality I decided to name by breed and all of the girls would have the same name. Forever. So the names were important!
Jude named the Orps Sunshine, which I love. The Australorps are Sadies and, after I revoked my husband's naming rights, the Ameraucanas went from Ligers to Ellas.
Sunshine
Sadie
Ella
(This particular Ella asserted her right to top of the pecking order by pecking each of her sisters in the eye the moment they were introduced to the brood box. She's got some moxy.)
Our first loss was an Ella. One moment she was fine, and an hour later we had a dead chick. Jude and I both cried. After reading a million chicken postings online, I think she had fowl pox as her eyes and nostrils were wet.
I couldn't stand the thought of throwing her away, so I placed this little Ella, still warm and limp, out on the property so that she could feed the earth like nature intended. It also made it much easier to comfort Jude by explaining how Ella would turn to dirt and then become a pine tree. In all honesty, it comforted me as well.
On Sunday one of the Sunshines was lethargic and wouldn't stand. Chicks sleep in tight little balls, whether standing or lying down, and this Sunshine was splayed out and unresponsive. Her breathing was also labored and her nostrils were wet as well. With supportive care, chicks with fowl pox have a 50% mortality rate. I separated her into a small box within the brooder that kept her close with her sisters but didn't allow anyone to touch. Even though I gave her water and hand fed her, she succumbed at the end of the day. This little Sunshine will also become a pine tree.
And then this morning, in order to even out the numbers, one of the Sadies went the way of the pine for no apparent reason at all. Strange how quickly I've moved from devastation to acceptance of nature's seemingly cruel way of ensuring species survival by culling the flock.
Also surprising is the speed with which my sadness in the face of death has turned to the practical worries of starting off with such a small flock that egg production will be lower than our family needs. As adorable as these cutie fluffy cheeks may be, their primary purpose is feeding our family. We'll be returning to the country feed store this weekend to replenish our numbers in the hope that a slightly larger chick count of 12 will increase the odds of a full flock of adult hens.
The moral of the story? No amount of preparation or hubris can cheat death. Thank you chickens, givers of eggs, life lessons, and pine trees.
I had a professor in college who wanted to eradicate the word "very" from the English language. His reasoning? If a writer had to resort to using it, then their adjective wasn't strong enough and they needed to pick another one. He was very smart.
I would also like to kill off a word. Not an obvious one, like "moist" or the love-to-hate-it "panties." The word on my chopping block is much more fraught with the poisonous nuances of guilt and shame. It's a word that I hope to erase from my vocabulary in order to lift a shroud from my life and protect my children from its dark and foreboding presence. So who gets voted off the island, sent to swim with the fishes, goes down for the big sleep?
Should.
I hate it.
Is there anything more crippling to the present moment than niggling thoughts of what you should be doing? Reading a novel when you should be starting your taxes. Checking in on Facebook when you should be writing a grant proposal. Going to a movie when you should be seeing live theatre. Eating a brownie when vegetables should be on the menu.
And the constant running list. The shoulds that always live in the background. I should:
do yoga
take the kids to the library
learn Spanish
make a grocery list
hang the pictures stacked in the closet
answer that email I've been avoiding
get a haircut
fold the laundry
sweep
buy a broom
replace batteries in all the dead toys
make a Goodwill drop
create a filing system to help out next year's taxes...
In reality, there is no such thing as a should. It is a bogus construct designed to instill unrest. Nothing is ever good enough when there is something more that should be done. Well, fuck you should. I declare you null and void.
And really, outside of this random rant, there is no such thing as a should. There is doing, and not doing. So how to kick should to the curb? Time for an action plan.
1. Question the reasoning behind the should. Why should or shouldn't I be doing something? Outside of this moment, does anyone besides me care about the implied morality of what I am doing? Sometimes all it takes to release an old idea is to face it head on. So screw you, Nancy Reagan, I didn't always say "No" and I turned out just fine.
2. Drop the guilty implications of should. What is the point of "I shouldn't be doing this?" Whether it's polishing off a box of cookies or robbing a bank, either stop the action or at the very least don't ruin it by adding shame. Savor those cookies. Steal those dollars. Be in the moment. Then go for a walk or split the take with a favorite charity.
3. Break the habit of should. Sometimes I think I use a should for no good reason other than making myself unhappy. Not on purpose, just as a lazy form of ennui. Case in point, everyone's favorite "I should exercise more." This is not an action item, this is a way to feel less than while still watching TV. Which is lame. Let my jeans chastise me by being too tight if they must, I don't need to add insult to injury. I'm back to the idea of "do it, or don't." Exercise, or don't. Thinking on the should of the matter results in a whopping nothing. And some of the shoulds are even more mundane. Alone, "I should start packing for my trip" may not be that big of a deal, but left unchecked it can multiply into a giant list of actions that a better person would be taking while crappy ol' me just plugs along. Enough! If a giant fist punched me in the face every time I said "should," I'd stop saying it pretty quickly. I'm smart like that. Time to extend that same self-preservation skill to my general happiness and sense of worth.
4. When saying or thinking the dreaded should, take a moment to reset. If I "should" be sending an overdue birthday card, am I able to stop what I am doing and crank out the card? If yes, do it and move on. If no, either decide not to send a card and live with that, or decide to send the card as soon as I am able and return to the task at hand.
5. Let the "should cycle" die by not using it with my kids. It's pretty easy to rework a "You should share with your brother," into "If you don't feel like sharing then you can go to your room and play by yourself for a while. But if you'd like to play together I'd love to have you stay here with us. Your choice." No guilt. Lesson imparted. Child retains a small sense of control and dignity.
We all know that no one escapes childhood unscathed. Even those of use with "good" parents enter adulthood with our own particular brand of baggage courtesy of mom and dad. Reflecting on my own childhood is one thing, though. Knowing that I am now actually messing up my kids in my own special way is a totally new level of hell. It's enough to make me crazy.
My head is constantly full of conflicting advice and parental chatter. For example, when I can't help but kiss Jude 1000 times in a row, will this someday be construed by a therapist as a disregard for boundaries and an invasion of personal space? Because I prefer to carry Aidan in public instead of allowing him to walk, am I introducing a lifelong dependency on his overbearing mother? How long do we let the boys bathe together? One is a better sleeper since we used the "cry it out" method and the other still wants to be rocked to sleep...is that okay? If I let Jude pick out his shirt but force him to wear socks, am I sending mixed messages? Will my boys be vain if I keep telling them how cute they are? If I tell them when I'm proud does that teach them to value my praise above their own feelings? And by taking them to a political rally, will I be ensuring their future experimentation with Republicanism as a form of rebellion?
I need a drink. (Can I drink in front of them?)
It's a lot to deal with. Larkin ends his poem with the sage advice "Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself." Well shit. Since it's too late to exercise my right choose the only option I am left with is to celebrate the highlights of my parents' careers, forgive them their shortcomings, and hope that one day my boys will do the same.
I give you:
Stuff My Parents Taught Me That Didn't Fuck Me Up
(...an ode of sorts)
We are your parents, first and foremost. You won't always like us but we won't let this stop us from protecting you.
If we mess up, we'll apologize. Even if it's years later. We're not perfect.
We will have dinner as a family whenever possible without the crutch of TV, books or magazines, or any electronic device.
From school plays to soccer games, one or both of us will be at all of them.
You are responsible for cleaning your own room. Live like a pig or don't.
Crying is an acceptable response to any situation, even for the boys.
Dark humor is totally appropriate.
If you ask us for help we'll give you all we've got.
No R-rated movies until you're old enough. No violent movies or video games in our house ever.
We don't care what your friends' parents are doing. Please refer to #1.
Until you come of age, you cannot drink in our home. We're not those parents.
If you drink at someone else's home call us for a ride and we won't freak until the next morning.
If you are going to curse, fine, but you better watch your fucking mouth at school and in front of your grandparents.
Graduation from high school is mandatory. After that you can figure out what's best for you.
You can ask us anything and we'll tell you the truth, even if it's painful and ugly.
We have no expectation of your adulthood other than wanting you to be happy and not to hurt others.
Life will be easier if you marry someone who likes your family.
If you get lost and refer to it as an adventure you'll either learn to take things less seriously or develop a lifelong distrust of the word adventure. It's up to you.
What is is. If you can't change it, then you can at least control how you react to it.
A good credit score will help you in life. You'll learn this one way or another.
You can always move home.
No matter what, even if you grow up to be a murderer, we love you.
That last one is a direct quote. Thanks, mom and dad.
As another tragedy rips through Colorado, I feel heavy with the weight of loss. My heart breaks for the families who lost a loved one. I hurt for a community who will understandably second-guess a trip to the movies, or the grocery store, or the mall. I am overcome with anger and sadness and fear.
My anger quickly focuses on our nation's loose gun laws. How any informed citizen can possibly believe that the Second Amendment, drafted in the 1790s, blindly authorizes the modern-day purchase of firearms as powerful, precise, and dedicated to destruction as the 3 guns carried by James Holmes on Friday morning is beyond my comprehension. I am shocked by the opinions being expressed by certain Republican congressmen and average American citizens - some of them my friends - who feel that the number of lives lost in the Aurora theater could have been reduced if at least one of the theater patrons had been armed and able to take down the shooter. The confusion, smoke, darkness, and panic in that theater created a combat zone, and I am of the opinion that most gun-carrying citizens are not trained to keep a level head, let alone a steady aim, in such a situation. My sadness falls on the victims, their families, and the survivors who will be imprinted with this tragedy for the rest of their lives. The stories of loss and heroism coming out of that theater gut me. My grief extends further though. I feel an excruciating pain for the mother of James Holmes, and this is where my sadness gives way to fear. Before he became the mastermind behind Friday's massacre, "Holmes" was simply James. Maybe his family called him Jim. Or Jimmy. He was an honor student, an attractive young man, a boy who regularly attended church and was a counselor at a camp for underprivileged children. Even further back, twenty years ago, he was a darling little boy showing no indication of what was to come. It is too easy to look at James' picture on the news and speak of his cold eyes, his diabolical intelligence, his malicious intentions. That makes him "other." It insulates us as average citizens, normal everyday parents, from the idea that he could have been son to any one of us. My intention here is not to excuse the actions of James Holmes - far from it - but to open a dialogue on how we can protect our own sons from this tragic fate. Because it is always the sons, isn't it? The boys who grow into men that funnel their brokenness into mass destruction. James Holmes is the latest iteration of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Of Jared Loughner. Of Seung-Hui Cho and Nathan Dunlap (no, we haven't forgotten). There are more, of course, but this short list represent 67 deaths and that number contains enough loss to prove the point.
And my point is this, how do we save our sons? How do we teach our boys to find outlets other than violence for their pain; to seek help before it is too late? Because this is my greatest fear. Not of being the victim of a random act of terrible violence, but of raising a son who is capable of carrying out such an act. I am a realist, and I can only assume that the mothers of the young men listed above used to look at their sons with the same love and adoration that I feel when I look on my own. Before they were monsters, they were little boys just like mine and yours. So what are we, as the mothers and fathers of sons, to do?
I don't pretend to have answers. I expect the antidote to this nationwide infection of violence will be multi-layered, involving a combined effort of stricter gun regulations, increased awareness of and access to men's mental health care, and collectively analyzing our country's common use of death as entertainment. On a grassroots level, I believe that parents are the first line of defense in preventing future tragedy. I don't say this to lay blame on the parents of the shooters I've mentioned above, but rather to place an active burden on myself and the other parents of young boys across the country. We can make a difference. We can honor all of the victims of violence in America by doing our part to raise emotionally intelligent men. Here is my plan:
No guns in our home, real or toy, period. Does my 3-year-old turn his wooden hammer into a "shooting machine"? Yes, and I let him. I adhere to the idea that "boys will be boys" and do my best not to overreact and make guns enticing by way of making them taboo, but I can't in good conscience aid and abet his introduction to realistic toy weaponry. And on days when he plays superheroes and "makes all the bad guys nice" instead of shooting them I feel like we are making a positive impression.
I will closely monitor the amount of violence that I allow into our home. My husband and I don't watch adult TV shows while our children are awake - even the baby - because we want to limit their exposure to adult situations as much as possible. And we are constantly adjusting our guidelines based on how our toddler reacts. Recent, seemingly innocuous, cartoons that have been taken out of rotation include Kung Fu Panda, Tom and Jerry, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
I am going to teach my sons that it is okay to cry. Tears are the easiest, most basic release that our bodies offer for strong emotion. My dad is a great man who can get choked up at the mere mention of his children or his grandsons. I love this about him. My husband can cry tears of both joy and pain, and this was one of the primary reasons that I knew he would make a good father. In our house, we will never tell our boys to buck up and stop crying.
My husband and I will strive to see our sons as they are and (hopefully) not as we want them to be. We will not hide our own fears, failures, or imperfections from our children in the hopes that they won't feel the need to hide their perceived shortcomings from us.
We will watch over the emotional health of our sons with the same care that we apply to their physical wellbeing. Just as we monitor a cold to make sure it doesn't become an ear infection, we will keep close eye on a temper tantrum to ensure that this lack of control doesn't become a way of life.
We are stocking our parental tool kit by reading. Not online chat room reading, but actual books written by authors with credentials to help us in our endeavor. Currently on the nightstand you can find "Becoming The Parent You Want To Be" by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser, and "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child" by John Gottman, PhD.
We are increasing the emotional tool kit of our toddler with books as well. The classic "Hands Are Not For Hitting" by Martine Agassi, PhD and "When I Feel Angry" by Cornelia Maude Spelman are great in that they teach valuable lessons on acceptable responses to strong feelings. These books open up a dialogue with children while you read so that talking about anger couldn't be easier. Most importantly, both texts emphasize that feeling like you want to hit or hurt someone and actually doing it are very different, which is a key lesson at any age.
We are redoubling our effort to actively listen when our oldest son is upset and to help him voice his feelings. We've recently been introduced to the idea that it is much more beneficial for a child to validate a fear of the dark, for example, and help work through it than to simply tell him there's nothing to be afraid of and go to sleep. This is an oversimplification, but the idea is to listen to a child's words and not dismiss or belittle their feelings based on our grownup understanding of the world.
Finally, I will always allow my sons access to mental health professionals if they have problems that are beyond my ability to help. Together my husband and I will teach them that asking for help is a sign of strength and not weakness. If they cannot ask for help, we will ask for them.
Yes it's a long list, and I expect that as I continue to learn it will continue to grow. But it's worth the effort. It represents a promise not only to America but also to my boys and the men they can become.
Two nights ago I took off my bra and half a french fry fell out. Par for the course with my monstrous baby-induced rack. It hoards things. But I'm not alone, right? Every mom has a collection of day-to-day moments that humble her. If you show me yours, I'll show you mine. I'll even go first...
I wash my hair so infrequently right now that it actually started to dread. I had to cut a piece out.
I was on a conference call last week when Jude got my attention, and everyone else's, by yelling out "Mom! Booger!" so that I could wipe off his picking finger.
Gabe went in to give Aidan an open mouth baby kiss and our son picked that exact moment to spit up. (Fatherhood is humbling too.)
Along those lines, Gabe once caught Jude poop with his hand during a middle of the night changing when he didn't have a fresh diaper at the ready.
Continuing on the poop train, I looked down yesterday and discovered fresh poop on my finger. I still have no idea where it came from though I am quite certain it didn't come from me. (Honestly, I don't know if that would be better or worse.)
Finally, and I'll leave you with this one, I went to rinse out a diaper this morning, pointed the sprayer the wrong direction, and full on bidet-ed myself in the face.
It is 4 minutes until noon. By the time you read this, I'll be drinking. Cheers.
Okay, we are two and a half months in to our diapering adventure and drumroll please...we LOVE the cloth diapers! Instead of merely using them a few times a day, we use them 90% of the time. They are adorable, easy to use, and create so much less waste. It's also wonderful not to drop $50 on diapers every time we go to the grocery store. The absolute best part? Look how cute my baby's bum is. (And here I thought we couldn't improve on perfection.)
These diapers are also ideal for summer, when no one wants to wear any extra clothing.
I'm glad we did a trial before going whole hog on this thing though. If you'd like a recap of our initial investment, the original blog post is here.
RESULTS:
The Good.
The GroVia hook and loop diaper shells are the best. We've tried both hook and loop (or "velcro" to normal people) and the snap shells, and velcro is the easiest and most like the disposables we were used to. They are also the fastest to secure on your kid, and this is key in winning the 7-month-old Wiggle Olympics. They are comparable in bulkiness to a disposable diaper (bonus!), so Aidan's clothes still fit.
The snap-in Soaker Pads are super. They are lined on the backside so that they trap moisture and help control leaks. They also produce less laundry than I expected since you simply unsnap the liner, toss it into the dirty clothes, and reuse the shell. Paired with a reusable organic Booster Pad (a versatile new addition to our arsenal), they can last for a few hours between changes. The soakers do take a lot to dry though. I flip them inside out, put them through a full cycle, and then let them air dry as well if needed.
The disposable Biosoakers are a nice standby when all of the soaker pads are in the washing machine. I've also used them on short excursions when I anticipate a diaper change but don't want to be stuck carting a used diaper around. (Gross. I am not that mom.) A note of caution, while these disposable inserts look similar to disposable diapers, they do not retain as much moisture and will leak if not changed in good time.
In general, since cloth diapers are not as dry for a baby as disposables, I do recommend the Bummis fleece liners or a booster pad so that something dry is against the baby's skin. If we leave a wet diaper on Aidan for any amount of time he gets a bit of a rash from the damp.
Finally, Bioliners are a must have. They look like a dryer sheet but are much more vital - they contain the poops and make it easy to flush the whole shebang down the toilet. Hooray for that.
The Not-So-Good.
Compared to disposables, cloth diapers in general are much more prone to leaks. A disposable diaper can hold a lot of liquid. In our house we call them 20-lb pee diapers, as in "That was a long day out. Looks like we got ourselves a 20-lb pee diaper here." Because of this, we will continue to use disposables for overnights as well as long afternoons spent running errands. And for car trips. And honestly for any kind of travel. Once again, I am not the mom to cart around a bag of dirty diapers waiting to be laundered. Blech.
Concerning specific products we bought and don't like, I am not a fan of the "all-in-one" style of diaper. The snap closures are odd and hard to secure on a moving target. They are also the first to leak and result in a lot of laundry for a simple pee diaper. I only use these now when everything else is dirty and I ALWAYS pair them with an organic booster pad. Otherwise they are totally useless. These are also the bulkiest diapers of the bunch.
Using a different brand of prefold diaper insert (we tried OsoCozy) is ridiculous. They are way too big to fit in this sleek little diaper shell. They also made my baby look like a fat old man. Not a waste of money though - my baby's a puker, and these make the best spit rags.
Finally, the initial investment is steep but you have to do it. We bought so few supplies to start. It made for a good trial, but not enough equipment to sustain our cloth diaper revolution. We were always out of inserts. I've since upped our count to 2 all-in-ones, 4 shells, 8 soaker pads, and 4 boosters. I'm going to purchase 4 additional shells and another dozen soaker pads and call it good for the next year.
Hot Tips:
We got a great recommendation from a friend and purchased a bumGenius Diaper Sprayer for our toilet to make rinsing poop diapers easier. It will also be useful for cleaning out a training potty when we get there again. And, according to the box, it can even be used as a personal bidet! (Again, gross. If you come to our house and use our bathroom, please do not cleanse yourself with this little sprayer. You will not be invited back.)
Secondly, we bought a Planet Wise Diaper Wet Bag to store the dirty diapers between washes. I wash the diapers every other day and the bag every few cycles. Between bag washings I spritz the inside with Febreze and let it air out. Works just fine. We need to buy another for the upstairs though.
Final adjustment - flushable toddler wipes instead of traditional diaper wipes. We were at a loss - throwing wipes in the trash without the convenient package of a disposable diaper was nasty, and flushing them is bad for your plumbing. Storing the used wipes in a smaller wet bag and tossing the contents a few times a week was a recommendation that I couldn't stomach, and we were NOT going to go so far as to embrace reusable cloth wipes. (My eco-conscience only extends so far. Apologies, Gaia.) Flushable wipes are a lifesaver.
And there you have it. Our little effort to conserve, one diaper at a time.
I am a horrible future-dweller. It causes me a lot of anxiety. I often find myself caught up in what could happen and my brain goes off in a terrible spiral of doom. This is especially true when I wake up in the middle of the night and my logic brain is still sleeping. I find myself at my most vulnerable at 2 am, when the likelihood of dropping one of my children into the Grand Canyon while on vacation, or being trapped in my car after driving into a river, or Gabe being attacked by a mountain lion while out on a suburban trail run are not only plausible but actually probable.
Welcome to Crazy Town, population of 1.
Crazy Town held a parade last week in anticipation of Gabe's latest checkup with his cardiologist. It has been eight months since his mitral valve repair, and every echocardiogram leading up to this one has resulted in bad news ranging from disappointing to devastating. Needless to say, I spent a grim Tuesday morning penning my husband's eulogy in my head, figuring out how to bravely raise two boys on my own, and working my body into a state of nauseous panic.
Fun fact - your body does not know the difference between imagined tragedy and actual tragedy. So, if you have a particularly vivid imagination, you can wreak havoc on your body by causing physical reactions to things that have never happened. The mayor of Crazy Town has mad skills in this arena.
And yet...
Despite all of my nutso mental preparations, the sky did not actually fall. I am happy to report that Gabe's fabulous, wonderful, strong-in-spite-of-it-all heart is pumping away like a champ. This week was a win. Turns out I made myself sick over nothing.
I'll cut me a little slack due to the gravity of this particular situation, but even if we had gotten bad news worrying would have accomplished nothing. It doesn't help, it doesn't stop the bad, and it in no way prepares us for dealing with actual life turbulence. It is an absolute waste. And the bitch of it all is that I can get equally caught up in something as trivial as a fake argument that will never happen based on a slight that was never actually received. I am quite adept at working myself into a frenzy over money troubles that have yet to manifest themselves. I have also been known to freak my freak, as my mom so wonderfully phrases it, about which kindergarten to send Jude to even though that actual decision is almost two years away.
I get so lost in what might/could/will happen that I ruin the here and now. It's a sickness. I need to fix this for myself, but I also feel compelled to address this behavior before I pass it on to my children.
Let's use now as an example.
It is 8:41 pm on a Sunday and I am stressing over the Q2 taxes that are due at the end of the month, the fact that I may or may not have a freelance gig after next week, and we need to call plumbers to bid on what I fear will be an expensive upgrade to our house's water main by order of Denver Water. All of these events will play themselves out within the next few weeks, but I have no idea what will actually happen. And seriously, what could I possibly do about them right now at 8:44 pm on a Sunday? Absolutely nothing.
The best trick in my bag, and the one I don't seem to utilize enough, is to root myself firmly in the present moment.
And right now, everything is okay.
Right now, at 8:46 on a Sunday, this is what I know:
Gabe is giving Jude a bath.
Aidan is practicing his new "ka-ka-ka" sounds in my lap.
Belle, our Boston Terrier, is snoring beneath a pile of blankets at the end of the couch.
Our lab Rocky is passed out at my feet.
My house is filled with the people I love most.
We are all healthy.
We are all safe.
I don't know what will happen in an hour, or a day, or next week, but it is now 8:48 on a Sunday and right now, right here, I am just fine.
***
It is 8:49 on an average Sunday. No one is home in Crazy Town. The sole occupant is currently vacationing in the present moment. Someday she hopes to move there.
I am a big believer in the idea that many people making small adjustments can create big change in the world. Time to put that idea to work for us by way of my baby's bum.
I always thought I'd be a cloth diaper kind of mom. (This was back in the day when I thought I'd do two years in the Peace Corp.) Who was I kidding? When Jude was born we said we'd start with disposables and then get cloth diapers once he was bigger. But there are so many options, and we were so tired, and we'd gotten a lot of diapers at the baby shower...and...and...And we never made the switch.
Fast-forward three years.
We now have Aidan, we are once again so so tired, and we are burning through boxes of diapers at an astonishing speed. So in honor of Earth Day, and because I am home now and able to take this on, we are finally embarking on our cloth diapering adventure. An adventure in washable poo!
For $130 I put together a starter kit. It helped that I hit a one-day sale for the GroVia diapers on babysteals.com. (If you are a mom that doesn't yet go to this site daily, you should. It's a frugal brand-whore's paradise.) The rest I bought on Amazon.
In the kit, I have 2 GroVia hybrid shells, 2 GroVia all-in-ones, GroVia bio liners (roll of 200), GroVia bio soakers, bummis fleece liners (5-pk), GroVia soaker pads (2-pk) and a box of 6 OsoCozy unbleached prefold cloth diapers to try as another insert option.
I have also ordered Woolzies drier balls to replace my beloved Bounce dryer sheets.
They were cheapest ($29.99 with free shipping) at drugstore.com. Cloth diapers react poorly to fabric softener, so this was a great motivator to move onto something reusable in the dryer. Wool dryer balls are also supposed to decrease drying time - bonus to my energy bill and a nice bump for Mother Earth.
THE CHALLENGE:
Use cloth diapers overnight as well as replace 2-4 disposable diapers in the day, assuming it's a day we're at home. At $56 for a box of 144 diapers, each disposable diapers runs me about $0.39. If I average 3 cloth diapers a day, then the cloth diapers pay for themselves in just over 3 months. In that 3 months I'll also have kept over 90 diapers out of my local landfill.
Wish me luck! I'll report on our progress. Any tips from parents who have traveled this treacherous path would be oh so appreciated.
I've swiped the title of today's blog from Alice Walker, whom I love, and her book "The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult." It's a moving long-form essay on a time in her life when the most wonderful was paired with the most devastating. In the ultimate tribute to grace, she looks back on that tangled period of time with gratitude.
There is an inherent connection, I think, between the awful and awe-inspiring moments in life. Though it's more easily said than done, I'd like to be more like Alice and learn to embrace the difficult. Not just the overtly difficult, but the small disappointments that can build up and drown us if we aren't careful. In my best moments, when I am able to let go of what I thought life would be and simply see it for what it is, I start to glimpse how lucky I really am.
If I can apply some perspective now, when I know what was waiting outside the window after life slammed that metaphorical door, maybe I will be able to more readily wade through difficult waters in the future.
Here goes.
A Letter to My Life
Written with humility, happiness, and hope for the future
Thank you failed acting career. You remain my biggest disappointment. But I learned that there is no shame in throwing in the towel. Sometimes, even though you try your best, things just don't work out. I met Gabe doing a play though, and with the gift of Gabe came the treasure of my boys. There is no sitcom, no Broadway play, no Oscar-worthy movie role that I would choose over my little family. And even though I did not end this journey a star, I cannot discount the small victories along the way. Seeing my name on a cast list, that moment when a character clicks, the feeling of holding an audience captive - these things still happened. Life is long...who knows if or when this path and I will meet up again.
Thank you failed relationships. Thank you Stupid Pete for teaching me how to love someone. Thank you Kirby the Destroyer for showing me that 2 is better than 1, even though you weren't the man I thought you were. If it weren't for the two of you, I wouldn't fully appreciate what I have with Gabe.
Thank you to the four houses that I loved and then lost over the course of 3 months due to bad home inspections. Turns out that the fifth time is a charm! And now that we've left the congestion and noise of the Denver neighborhoods that we were aiming for, I wouldn't trade my big backyard, access to open space, and proximity to my parents for anything. Not even a good English-style pub...
Thank you heart surgery. Nothing puts life and love in perspective more than the threat of loss. Gabe's surgery was 7 months ago, and today it's as if it didn't happen. Except that maybe we appreciate being together a little bit more. And we try not to take the little annoyances too seriously or let the easy moments pass by unnoticed.
Thank you XY chromosomes. I had always wanted a daughter because I am so close with my mom, but this has turned out to be a delightful curveball. I was so sure that both boys were girls! Being wrong has never been more wonderful.
Thank you miscarriage. It breaks my heart to write that, but without you I never would have been honored by the birth of Aidan. And he is worth a million heartbreaks.
Finally, thank you former job for overwhelming me with work and then cutting my health insurance benefits when I was 5 months pregnant. I learned that just because I can function at a high stress level doesn't mean that I have to, and that it sometimes takes an extra push to overcome my fear of change and walk away.
Along those lines, thank you non-profit "dream job" that didn't even call me in for a first interview. I am so happy to be freelancing, spending more time with my kids, and finally being able to work on my own projects at my own pace. I never would have had the guts to land here voluntarily.
And that's maybe the biggest lesson of all.
I don't always know what is best for me. Just because I want something so much doesn't guarantee a success, and success doesn't guarantee that that path will be the optimum one for me. Unexpected pitfalls force change. I wouldn't have chosen any of the aforementioned struggles before they happened, but in hindsight I would not change a thing.
Thank you life. You seem to be working out quite well.
