Update on Verity!

She’s roughly 4.5 months and weighs 18 pounds (gained 10 pounds since birth). She is also verifiable sitting up all the time now (one step closer to being able to ride my bike again!!!) I just grabbed the camera to capture this mile marker, as well as her hand/mouth coordination with grabbing her toys and stuff. She will be running around with her brother in NO TIME!

She still nurses whenever the heck she wants to, is worn 99% of the time, sleeps right next to me, and sleeps about 11pm through 4am straight most nights, wakes to nurse frequently in the early morning but stay asleep until about 9 or 10am. She then cat naps all day, literally only 20 minutes at a time sometimes. She is very similar to Ethan at this stage; loudly verbal, curious, and strong.

(sorry about the spit up in the video and the fact that its sideways! lol) This is kinda long and boring and there is no sound so basically if you are a grandparent, eat your heart out; all other readers, you can pretty much skip this entire post

Well I’m at it again: researching my brain out for the health of myself and my family.

A few weeks ago I reported on my son’s cavities and what we were going to do to help support him. Since then, however, I’ve been reading and reading and I wanted to share a bit with you readers but I hadn’t gotten on here to formulate the post yet.

Then I also began feeling down about my baby weight. I’ve been running and not one person on our team of 5 has lost one pound. Luckily, I live with some one who was a fitness trainer for 4 years! So last night she sat with a gal from church and I and went over why running alone will not keep you healthy and what to do instead. She talked to us about pylometrics and how to have a workout that is not just going to make you thin, or ripped, but HEALTHY.

What I’m realizing over time is that the best diet and exercise is about supporting the body – about using the body you have and helping it be disease-free, injury-free, agile, powerful and energetic. Who doesn’t want that, right?

I wouldn’t say I have ever “struggled with my weight”, at least not on the outside. Because I am petite and have small bones, my weight usually looks normal on a scale. My body fat percentage, however, is another matter. My cholesterol? Also another matter. The leanest I’ve been and healthiest I have felt has been when I was supporting my body. In my first year married, I remember reading “The Good Fat” book and discovering the benefits of eating nutrient rich foods and good fats like unrefined coconut oil. I took vitamin supplements and mineral supplements of the highest grade I could find, like some special calcium supplement from the sea and fish oil, etc. I learned around the same time of my dietary intolerance to milk, which might have curtailed my further exploration of the road I was headed down towards optimum health.

Jump ahead, oh my, 6 years. Going pescatarian for a year was good for me. It taught me to use healthy ingredients and look more at what I was eating. It’s when I began again to rid my pantry of juices, boxed and canned things, all the processed gunk that plugs me up and doesn’t support my body. Instead we ate lots of legumes and whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats, etc) and then I began the adventure of sprouting beans and seeds and soaking grains and WHEW what a rush! lol

I managed to gain 15 pounds less with Verity than I did with Ethan, yet I was eating at least 2 eggs a day, butter, coconut oil, kefir smoothies, occasional meats (usually grass-fed, farm-raised) and so on. I began gaining towards the end and I believe its because I was unhappy internally, waiting around for the baby to come, and not taking my health into consideration. In short, I ate lots of cookies. LOL

Let me for a moment get back to Ethan’s dental issues, which has played in the background of my life these last few weeks.

I would have thought that trying to get Ethan away from anything with sugar would have been hard. Not that he ate candy and junk food, but I’m talking ANY refined sugar in ANYthing. Go out to the coffee shop and you will be hard pressed to find something with no sugars in the bread, peanut butter, etc. At home, he can have plain yogurt or fruit. No breads with added sugar, no cereals, nothing like that (not that we carry those things at the house anyway- except for Seth that is, lol. He has “special” dietary needs that I’m pretty sure includes Kix )

I was pretty inspired by Ethan’s willingness to give up sweets. He would tell some one offering him a cookie, “NO, I can’t have that, I have 3 cavities and THAT is sugar!” LOL

And because I was so aware of the sugar in these things, I began to make different choices too. Why would I sit around eating a sweet in front of him while he eats a piece of meat, or an egg, or a slice of bread with cream cheese? How unfair!

So I started weaning myself off my sweets too. Not even intentionally. I still love me some Coconut Bliss and Immaculate Baking Company, but I could go without it – especially to lose these last 15 pounds of baby weight. (Yep, that’s right – I have not lost ONE pound consistently since Verity was born four months ago.)

Okay, so combine the sugar-weaning with the losing-no-weight-running (that has also injured at least 2 of us so far with rolled ankles and skinned knees and so on! lol) and then my roommate showing me pylometrics and giving me tips about my individual body structure and which muscles I rely on too much (ahem- calves- ahem) and which ones I do NOTHING with (ahem-butt and belly-ahem) and ALL THIS AND MORE adds up to my getting a little more intentional about losing this weight and getting healthy!!!

SO, I leave you with this interview I read recently when doing our Azure Order this week. They interviewed Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions, and includes the basics of the traditional diets studied as well as a lot about tooth decay and flouride and so on. I learned a lot, and hopefully you will learn a lot too!

My plan? I’m going to be following the recommended eating for nursing women on the Weston Price website (including nothing refined and adding cod liver oil to my diet) and doing an exercise regime that supplements the running and yoga with high energy “play” movements in the backyard with Ethan a couple of times a day (the only way I can really find the time to do anything like pylometrics AND be a busy mom!)

On a related note, I can’t really do ANYTHING with my body right now because I have a pretty intense whip lash stiffness in my neck that has been there since I went to bed on Friday night. I feel pretty immobile and ridiculous that even typing on the computer hurts, so pray my neck loosens up SOON!

I was cleaning out my drafted posts recently and I discovered an old post I began writing late at night over a year ago. I never did publish it, in fact I forgot all about it. I’ll explain why in just a bit.

Here’s an excerpt:

Marriage is hard. Sometimes it downright sucks. I’ve heard married couples tell me they have never slept on the couch, or they have never felt like they hated the other– and I always think the same thing:

Gag.Me.With.A.Spoon.

All I can think about is the crushing disappointment that I experienced after the honeymoon phase of marriage, and how absolutely unrealistic and impractical the whole wedding/marriage experience can be when we put so much “God called me to marry this person” into it and takes logic out of the equation.

I’ve been in some form of marital counseling for more years of my marriage than not. I am 5.5 years into mine and must say that I HAVE NO FREAKIN IDEA HOW TO DO THIS THING!

…it’s been hell.

How wonderful is it to live your life in an unloving situation? And, I’m sorry, but I’m not Jesus. I’m Vivian! I have my own baggage, my own habits, my own struggles in trying to relate and express and merge. And, yes, I HAVE Jesus, but what does that mean, practically, to a girl who has heard it all and tried it all and is just, in pain?

I remember being in that much pain. It was confusing. Nothing made sense. Chris’ behavior didn’t make sense. If I was asked about my relationship in those years, it would have been tough to not cry. I didn’t know what to do.

Just 4 days after writing that draft, I discovered Chris’ infidelity. The weeks that followed were sucked into a time warp that included some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. It included the confession that his infidelity had begun before we were even married, that in fact it spanned back to his adolescence in the form of an addictive pattern of behaviors. I was horrified by the things I heard had happened during our marriage, as though my life was being deconstructed and an alternate timeline was emerging that was dark and perverse. I slept on the floor in my living room for weeks. My knees felt weak and there was a knot in my stomach constantly. I couldn’t work and I could barely take care of Ethan. While Chris began 12 step support groups every day and counseling and everything while living in the studio in the backyard, I was hurt and angry and embarrassed and lost. I felt divorced in every way. I had no desire to see pictures of our past, even baby pictures of Ethan pained me for a long time. One day, I decided I couldn’t have possession of my wedding ring or wedding pictures. I ripped them up and left the rings on a bench in the Pearl.

Last summer was the worst time of my life. And it was also the best.

At the time, I could barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even when I saw Chris devastated and broken and repentant, even when he found a decent new job and even once I decided to let him stay at the house again, I walked around in turmoil often. I felt a cloud of shame, my family couldn’t believe I had decided to stay for even one more minute, to give this any sort of chance at all. Sometimes I would be walking with Ethan around the neighborhood, enjoying his long talking streaks in the weather that was just as it is now, quickly turning to Fall, and a car would drive by and my eyes would meet with some stranger driving it. In an instant my heart would sink. They know, I thought. As though I were wearing a scarlet letter.

Still, we talked all the time. Sometimes ten hours a day. Talked and talked and talked. We rediscovered each other, the real us too, not just the best foot forward. We talked into the late hours of the morning, usually we ended up crying together before falling asleep again on the living room floor and couch. (I couldn’t go back to my bedroom after that, not until we redecorated it and painted the walls and so on.)

I didn’t trust Chris and I didn’t forgive Chris. Our marriage was broken and the thought of it only brought pain. But I put all that on one side of my existence, and decided that I would take it one day at a time in our “new” relationship. There was, in some small way, such promise in what was blossoming that I couldn’t bring myself to throw that all away just yet. I wanted to see what would happen, if this was truly a turning point. If a turning point is even a real thing. I felt my heart beginning to love this man talking to me, even when no love existed before.

I also, and this is key, felt love from Chris. Once I recognized it, I realized I had never been given it until then.

Of course, I conceived of Verity in the midst of our early reconciliation, and the news was shocking, to say the least. Some days were so dark that I actually called an abortion clinic to find out the cost. If you know me, that’s about the deepest darkest confession I could lay out there, but there it is. I felt nothing but the desire to NOT be pregnant for a long time. I cried through my early midwife appointments, began counseling for prenatal emotional health, and slowly began to bond and accept the idea of this new baby.

From the moment I saw Verity on the sonogram and gave her a name, I was in love. I didn’t regret my state after that, despite the unlikely and inconvenient timing of her arrival. I still felt insecure and ashamed when my baby bump began to grow, wondering if people thought I was only staying married because I was knocked up which was the furthest thing from the truth. But I came to terms with it. I moved through the last year one day at a time. Chris “celebrated” 1 year sober last June, one year since he did the wrong thing with his pain. He’s been in meetings and counseling all year, and recently began individual therapy to work on his “daddy issues”. We strive to work on our marriage daily, despite the distractions of bills, work, children, so on and so forth. Nowadays, our marriage looks and feels, well … normal. We have arguments, but we try to be respectful and focus on working at the problem together, rather than against each other. We spend time together, enjoy each others company, smooch when we pass each other in the kitchen, cuddle at night (among other things ), talk about our feelings, and apologize when we fail.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned this year, besides a ton about myself and a ton about communicating better and ton about how far I have to go, is that granting some one forgiveness doesn’t let them off the hook. It doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It doesn’t even mean I’m not angry. It’s not even very much ABOUT the offender or the offense, but rather the choice, when ready, to let it go in my own heart – to begin to heal.

And even if, in the long run, my marriage doesn’t make it through this, I know that I will. For all these lessons and more, I am grateful – to Chris, my community of support, my counselors, my family, my children, and of course, my Jesus.

Family announcement: this morning, I made a phone call to two different midwifery clinics and paid off my maternity and Verity’s pediatric bills! I feel SO much lighter and so happy to have been able to pay them off so we can now start the bankruptcy process without involving them.

If I may ask, please pray for our sanity as we navigate this journey and try to make the best decisions for our family. One step at a time…

Well, there’s nothing quite like being a woman. The things we go through amazes me. I am in awe of our ability to grow ginormous uteruses, scream out healthy slippery babies, shrink back to size, endure period cramps and hormonal fluctuations, osteoporosis and menopause – the list goes on and on. No wonder men are the ones who traditionally did the “sweat of the brow” work; the woman’s work is all within themselves and the household – and let me tell you – it IS work.

Indeed.

Ok. It must mean something about my personality that I was less afraid and less grumpy about a 15.5 hour natural labor at home with a posterior baby who came out with a hand by her head than I was of getting my IUD today.

I hate clinic rooms. Stirrups. White blankets. Metal clamps. Shots of anesthesia (that, coincidentally went too deep and entered my blood stream, giving me a numb face and a far away feeling for about ten minutes!). I also hate this really bad menstrual crampy feeling I have right now. So… yeah. I am allowing myself to b***h about this, but only for today. I’ll get it all over with in one fell swoop and you won’t hear me gripe anymore after this.

Hubby is on his way home with Coconut Bliss and I’ll be just fine.

Today is birth control day! Might be extra crampy after this. If all goes well, this will have been a really great option for “closin up shop” in my womb for awhile! My heart holds the dream of a third child in the future. I’m excited to see who that little person might be, but for now, we are working on the marriage and two little people we already have with us

Interesting side note: in my circle of siblings, there will have been born FIVE new babies in a one year period of March 09 – March 10. Us Cajuns have always been kinda good at reproducin’, heh? But, sisters, seriously, SLOW DOWN! I can’t keep up with my knitting for all these new babies! LOL

It’s on, baby.

Since posting will motivate me and hold me accountable, here goes:

My friend Amy and I (possibly Misty?!) have plans to follow the 9 week couch-to-5k program in order to run in the Race for the Cure 5k at the end of September.

YEEK!

I ran cross-country in a past life, but otherwise you’ll find I’m not the most athletic person in the world by any stretch of the imagination. BUT I’m excited to get started, maybe lose these 10 pounds of mid-section pregnancy fat, AND race for a good cause. Since I just found out this weekend that some one who, along with her husband, “discipled” Chris and I during our courtship 7 years ago just passed away from breast cancer /related (the stuff just seems to spread and spread) and left behind 4 beautiful young children, I will be thinking of her the whole time.

The Race for the Cure brochure

The Couch-to-5K Program

Wish me luck!

I mentioned last week that I’ve started reading “Mothering Without a Map”. It’s been very interesting, and hard for me to read without putting it down to sit and think on it before picking it up again. Clearly, I have mother issues, lol. (I guess most of us do!)

Having been raised by my father, a construction worker single dad of two, my “roadmap” for motherhood was a bit confusing. I had gleaned many mothering techniques from mother “figures” in my life, even purposefully studying them from a very young age- learning how they packed a lunch, kissed goodnight, or cleaned the bathroom. But I never saw a mother of an infant, never saw a woman give birth or nurse. Can you believe it? 100 years ago that was probably so commonplace. Nowadays, many woman, maybe most, in America have never seen these things.

Except that I almost always had a cat who had kittens. I remember well the hour I spent stroking my cat while she labored through increasingly intense surges until she at last pushed out 5 little amniotic sacs of kittens. She was in “labor land”- faraway and focused — just like I was in my labors. She had them and immediately began to build the bond of touch; licking … nursing … purring. As the kittens grew, she continued to allow them free reign of her poor 8 nipples, ravaged by their little kitty claws kneading feverishly at them for milk. She played with them, but not too much, as she also had to take the time to take care of herself. She had to stand up and leave them “mewing” at her while she got food, drink, or a potty break. If one got out of hand, she wasn’t timid about giving them a little growl to keep them in line, either.

Thus, I learned most about mothering small children from my cat.

Then I had a baby. Ethan turned my world around. We had such a hard time breastfeeding that I came to really value nursing more than I had expected. I longed to nurse and hold my baby, not pump while I watched longingly as some one else gave him a bottle. In those first few weeks, some well-meaning friends gave me the advice that they swore worked miracles for their sister: schedule, schedule, schedule… and above all, let him CRY IT OUT. As they were talking, a knot formed in my stomach and I’ll never forget my thought… “That sounds so… so… unnatural!”

I proceeded to mother my little one on instinct as much as I could. I held him all the time, usually in a baby carrier. I couldn’t go back to work outside the home (when he was 8 weeks old, I tried one day a week working next door to him in a church daycare and I couldn’t handle hearing him cry and not being able to comfort him!) So I started working for myself, first with in-home childcare and later began freelance copywriting which turned into my current job as a virtual assistant. I co-slept with him until he was 9 months. Once we were nursing normally, he never accepted a bottle again- nor a pacifier, or even a sippy cup! I nursed on demand –rather than schedule– until he was 18 months (and grieved giving up our night feedings, let me tell you!) I didn’t spend a night away from him until he was weaned and I cried when I had to (I went out of town for work). The bond I had with Ethan was so strong, he was my little buddy, and I didn’t want to miss the fun, even the challenges, of watching him grow and learn new things each day. This has a lot to do with my desire to homeschool/unschool Ethan and Verity as well (OH, and more on that to come very soon! So exciting!)

It occurs to me now that much of what I did was leaning into the “attachment theory” way of parenting, a theory I now subscribe to and intentionally ALLOW myself to do with Verity. With Ethan, the connection was so strong, and the period of time when he experienced separation anxiety when I left him in sunday school or something was hard on us. But I tried to trust my, again, instincts, that he would be able to stay without me when he was developmentally ready to do so. Then one day, he was. He understood the concept of “coming back” and he flourished into a very independent, confident, and highly (overly? lol) social preschooler. Looking back, I don’t regret the times I held him “too” closely for modern, American standards. We have been able to establish an intimacy that I never had with any mother figures in my life, a gift I longed to give him since I ever dared to think of myself as someday being a… GULP… mother.

Now, there are all kinds of ways to mother, I know that. I have dear, dear friends who love their kids endlessly, who have very well adjusted little buggers, and did NOT “attachment parent”. This post is NOT about the way I did it being “right” or the only way. It’s about a young woman who had no roadmap and found attachment parenting, or what I might just call mothering instinct in my case, a saving grace — both to myself and to my child(ren).

So, a deep thank you to the flea infested, broken hipped cat named Faith, who taught me the very basics of being a devoted mommy (So sorry I had to bring you to the humane society when I left for college!)

Had a good day today- first morning jugglin’ the tot and the teenie one, but it went pretty well! We even got a walk in to collect dandelions.

This afternoon we managed to get the four of us into a car and over to the midwife, where everything is “perfect”. Verity has already gained her birth weight back and lost her umbilical cord stump, and I am doing superbly, save this rough cold. Oh, and crisis averted- no pink eye! Just a terrible sinus virus that involves the eyes in it’s coarse. I’m doing everything under the sun to help me fight it and manage the pain, everything breastfeeding safe that is, so I just have to wait it out and try to rest. My midwife said that, for her, the upside to me being sick right now is that its keeping me from running a marathon until my body is actually ready for it Otherwise, my lady bits are all healed up and lovely (har) and my nips are doing better and its confirmed that the chapping is not due to faulty latching – just how mine roll.

I do hope the majority of my recent readers are female, btw. Sorry for all the powder room talk, fellas.

My laptop is going in and out of power because of either the charger/cord OR the laptop jack. So far we can jiggle it a bit and get it to charge for 5 minutes and then it goes out again. Certainly not a sustainable existence, so we are trying to figure something out. (Seeeeee, THAT was a fella friendly paragraph! I can whip them out from time to time.)

A sweet couple from church brought over a hearty supper for the whole household today, so I stuffed myself on it and I’m going to “bed” early tonight to try to get in a little extra sleep between Verity’s every-2-hour nursing preference.

I know this is all mighty boring to most of you, but oh well. Just seemed like an update from my recent doom-n-gloom conciseness was in order.

Before my laptop goes out again, I bid you farewell…

Flu sucks. Scabby nipples suck. Engorgement SUCKS.

But my little darlin’ is SO worth it!!!