Taking a moment

For a brief moment today I started to feel pressed for time. It was a bit of a surprise to me, this feeling that has been absent since I finished my last course in school back in December. During the school term I felt pressed for time constantly. Mark was on full time parent duty two or three days a week while he worked more then full time hours. And I had to do all the full time mama stuff while balancing two very intense courses and growing a baby. It would be an understatement to say that I felt like I was barely getting by. I don't think I spoke to a single non-school friend; and I struggled to find time to get everything I wanted to do done. And ended up learning to just get what I had to done!

So this afternoon as the long weekend started to draw to an end I was caught off guard at my feelings of frustration. I was trying to look for work online; I was checking my calendar for class registration info; I still needed to finish editing a paper and finally start an intimidating reading list for a certificate I am hoping to pursue. But Baby C had other ideas. Her next set of teeth are coming through and she is in a lot of pain. I can tell because her little mouth is pulled so tightly and she's biting everything! L and R wanted to tell me about everything they were doing or thinking and Mark was getting some much needed gardening done. I wanted my time!

But as I stroked my baby's hair,applied ointment to L's latest scraped knee and listened to R rave about how nice daddy had been to let her go swimming again making it the best holiday Monday ever!!- I knew that it wasn't resentment for not being able to find time that I was feeling. It was in fact, resentment for needing to do all of those things that were crowding out my enjoyment of my girls.

And so I give you three magical mama moments that I was truly blessed to have experienced this weekend:

I want to cherish forever that moment when Baby C startled in her sleep, eyes flying open and then a soft smile lit up her face when she saw I was still there and she settled into sleep again. All the while I listened to my big girls laugh and chase each other outside playing the most non-sensical games.

I want to never ever forget the pure bliss I experienced waking up from a rare Sunday afternoon nap with two girls still asleep wrapped around me, my biggest girl reading at my feet-her long legs resting in mine, and Mark squeezed into the last few spare inches in the bed also reading.

I want to remember splashing in the pool with Mark holding Baby C;R and L squealing with laughter as we chased each other in the water with squeaky spray toys. And their cheers of encouragement as I swam without a flotation device to the ladder in the deep end.

The long weekend is over and I have all week to try to get to my to-do list. But more importantly I am truly blessed to have all week to spend with my girls because Mark goes to work for us. I am a lucky lady!

My Breastfeeding Story aka My Battle With My Boobs

Off the top (ha!), I will say, that I’m not here to judge.  Every mama does what is best for her and her baby when it comes to filling that baby’s belly so he or she can grow strong and healthy.  And I empathize with that paralyzing feeling of guilt that you are possibly making the wrong decision, regardless of what that is.  And it’s a pretty awful way to start out mamahood, second guessing your choice of milk and worrying about it.  But I’m not writing about that (today).  Instead, I’m going to tell you about my battle with my boobs.

Stories about breastfeeding are much like birth stories.  You generally only hear the horrible ones along the lines of “my baby wouldn’t latch properly and screamed at me and I nursed until my nipples were cracked and bleeding”.  And when I was pregnant for the first time, I heard a lot of those stories, often accompanied by some small piece of ridiculous advice or presumption such as: you should vigorously rub your nipples with a washcloth to get them ready; you have darker pigmentation so it won’t bother you.  Well, the first is a bad idea simply because vigorous nipple stimulation releases oxytocin which can start labour.  And the second bit, is based on science but I am here to tell you did not ring true.

Throughout my pregnancy with R, I kept waiting for the giant pregnancy boobs.  I bought a soft bra in a bigger size to grow into; I wore tight t-shirts and asked my partner if my boobs looked bigger.  I did not.  They did not.  This was a true physiological sign that something was going to go amiss with breastfeeding.  No one caught it.

The fact that I was ripped off the gigantic pregnancy boobs was actually not the first sign that breastfeeding, or rather milk supply, was going to be a problem.  The first sign would have been that I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).  But neither my GP, who is awesome, nor my midwife, who is awesome, nor my naturopath recognized this potential barrier.  None of them caught the lack of big boobs as a sign, and certainly none of them mentioned that my bottoming out iron was going to be a problem for milk supply.  (Low iron had other concerns that were addressed).

Shortly after her birth, R latched with no problems.  She pretty much stayed there for the better part of six months.  I kid you not.  The first 48 hours, she nursed in my arms contentedly sucking up all the immune system building colostrum I could give her.  We nursed sitting up and lying down.  But her third night, she got hungry.  And then she got angry.  And Mark and I felt hopeless.  R latched and wouldn’t let go, she sucked away for about twelve hours straight until our midwife came for a home visit and squeezed my breast and re-positioned her and counted wet diapers.  I was reassured that my milk would come in soon and that my baby was getting what she needed.  I found that very hard to believe given the yells that would come forth when the milk did not.  I cried.  Mark held me.  He couldn’t hold R because she would just get angrier and then be harder to settle down.  My parents wanted to visit again and when they did my mother got angry with me for something and my father made me feel guilty about it.  So, yeah, not helpful.  Mark’s older kids were with us that night and feeling displaced so he had to spend time with them and all I could do was lie on our bed, tears streaming down my face as I desperately massaged my breasts and murmured to my baby girl. This would become an all too familiar routine.  That night, the fourth night, my milk came in.  I knew it came in, because I woke up to R gulping away.  I was flooded with relief and spent the night staring at my beautiful baby girl who drank with wide eyes looking up at me. 

But R and I would have a tougher than expected breastfeeding road.  She was a lazy nurser.  I say that with love, affection, and humour (now.  Not so funny then).  She would nurse for less than ten minutes and fall asleep. When she woke up, she’d do the same thing on the other side.  I tried rubbing her head and her feet.  At some point, more desperate measures were recommended in order to ensure she was taking in enough milk, and I had to rub her with a cool, wet washcloth.  She didn’t like that.  My nipples cracked.  My nipples bled.  My nipples healed.  I called La Leche League for advice, grateful that I had had the foresight to attend a meeting while pregnant so I at least knew the lovely woman I was speaking to.  I called my midwife who came to visit.  R was gaining weight slowly but steadily and she was a long baby so she looked like a scrawny monkey.  Gradually her cheeks got fuller and her body a little plumper. 

But at just over three months old, she hit the expected growth spurt and became angry baby again.  She was attached to my nipple all the time.  All.The.Time.  Mark and I were already used to the fact that she was in my arms all the time and that wasn’t really a problem for me.  I was on maternity leave and she was my only baby.  But at three months it was different, and when I went to pump milk to give Mark a chance to feed our baby, I ended up with plugged ducts and full blown mastitis. 

Mastitis is a breast infection.  It is horrifyingly painful to nurse through it and worse to not nurse through it.  Your skin burns and swells on your breasts.  Touch is excruciating.  Cold shivers and hot flashes set in as does a fever, the shakes, and fatigue.  This is not the medical textbook definition I’m providing you with, it is what I experienced.  All while my baby would struggle against my breasts, flailing in my arms, and not settle no matter what I did, forcing me to change position, walk around, and cry – a lot.  I spent several days completely topless with her in the baby wrap trying to nurse upright from a rocking chair.  I sought the attention of a very sensitive massage therapist  who managed to  help ease some of the pressure and start the fluids moving and draining. 

When I recovered from that I realized that I had very little milk coming in at one time.  After months of only nursing for five to ten minutes at a time, my body was only producing enough milk for five to ten minute spurts.  Except now R was starving and wanted to nurse much longer.  This was compounded by the low iron, the hormone imbalances from my PCOS;and the three month postpartum hormone (mal)adjustments and so I ended up on a prescription for Domperidone that I took for over a year because every time I tried to wean myself off of it, my milk supply would go down.  Now, I have no scientific proof, but I am pretty sure that my horrifying weight gain once I went on the ‘scrip can be mostly attributed to it.

Before I started the prescription, which was offered various suggestions on how to increase my supply.  Primarily, to lie down skin-to-skin with my little girl, increase my fluid intake, and decrease my non-mama duties.  I took this advice happily.  I tried breast massage before every nursing session and hand pumping as my daughter nursed. I was advised to drink fenugreek tea.  It started leaking out of my pores and I reeked.  I mean, I sincerely stunk.  I couldn’t cope with it.  It was bad enough to be going through massive hormone upheaval, to feel desperate to feed my child, but to smell awful too – and my partner could not disagree – was horrifying to me.  At the time, midwives in Ontario could not write a prescription for Domperidone, and the Jack Newman clinic was too far away for me to reasonably get there, so I consulted my GP who provided me with a prescription but not a ton of advice on consequences and how to build up and wean off the pills.

The time that passed between getting the Domperidone and my milk supply increasing seemed like months.  I couldn’t go anywhere or be near anyone. I felt like I was failing my child.  I felt that somehow because I wasn’t producing enough milk for her; I wasn’t being a good enough mama.  I missed my cousin’s wedding because I just couldn’t bear to be around people while my child cried and wanted to nurse.  People like my parents who would have wanted to hold her and “comfort” her resulting in a more irate and now frightened baby as evidenced by every single visit when they would take her out of my arms and walk away and she would scream.

R and I went on to have a very successful breastfeeding relationship.  One might venture to say, an overly successful one as when I wanted to wean her, I couldn’t.  And when we did, at 2.5years old it was because I was crying with pain from sensitive nipples as I was pregnant with L.  R wasn’t getting any milk anymore at that point, it was just comfort.  And I wanted to at least preserve some of the good memories of breastfeeding.  We did.  I have a lot of good memories and I have a strong, beautiful, smart six year old girl who still sleeps with the soft pillow I used to tuck under my head when lying down to nurse her.  It was a long trip, both ways, but well worth it.

The Rise and Fall of the School Routine. Is it summer yet?

R is an awesome kid.  She loves her sisters (and us!).  She loves to read.  She loves school.  But she is not a morning person (like both her parents), and has a hard time falling asleep at night (despite a screen-free, sugar –free, relaxed bedtime routine).  R has always needed a plan.  From as young as two, we would lie in bed and determine what our plan for the day was going to be.  So it’s somewhat surprising to me that she has become such a layabout in the mornings and completely scatterbrained after school.

Two weeks before school started in August, we started waking up, getting dressed, having breakfast and walking to/from school.  One week before school we started doing the same thing, but at a school-appropriate time.  It was a slow build to get into a good routine where no one was crying from hunger, frustration or fatigue at the end of the day but we did it.  Christmas break was a small blip.  Baby C’s birth another one, and March break a bigger blip.  But we always managed to rebound.  Until now.

Disaster struck once it started to stay full light well past 8pm.  We hung black curtains in their room.  We closed the door to prevent the light from the hallway coming in.   L still had boundless energy and was keeping her big sister awake so we tried separate  bedtimes, but that lead to tears.  So we started taking walks after dinner; that backfired as it lead to a second wind for both of them and a longer more drawn out getting for bed routine with mandatory showers as opposed to baths after school.  We are sticking strong to an 8pm bedtime but often R is awake until almost 9pm.  (Later if we allow some extra reading time for her because our sympathy as night owls kicks in.)  With the later and later falling asleep time, comes the harder to wake up R.  And when I do get her awake, she is grumpy. 

Lately, the routine has started to crumble:  Alarm goes off, I call into R’s room.  I gently pull sheet off her, I cajole and then firmly peel her out of bed.  She wanders around like she is suffering from a slight hangover and comes to me with a barrette but no comb, with hairspray but no pony-o.  This goes one for a while.   While I ensure the two other girls are ready to go downstairs, she is supposed to finish her upstairs routine.  But when I check in on her silently, she is usually sitting half dressed on her bedroom floor reading a book.  Am I the only parent on the planet that has to tell her kid to stop reading?  Probably.  I proceed with my morning and eventually R makes an appearance in the kitchen, sometimes with a prompt.  She then notices that she hasn’t packed her snacks and is very sweet, sincere, and apologetic about it and gets started on that, taking up to ten minutes to actually get a yogurt from the fridge into her lunch bag.  I just don’t have it in me to send her to school without a snack because she forgot or to let her go with messy hair.  But, at this point we’ve moved to “Fine, be late, lollygag if you must but you are still walking to school not driving.” 

I'm not going to stress out about it, or stress her out about it.  I grew up in a household where more often than not you went to school having cried.  I'm talking daily.  And while we all know that my mother thinks I'm the child from hell, I have very distinct memories of her yelling at my youngest sister every morning before school too. So it wasn't just me.  And while I've been know to raise my voice on more than one occasion, I generally keep things quiet and efficient in the morning with room or flexibility because I don't ever want to send my daughter to school all wound up from a stressful morning. 

Some of the ways we do this is that after many chats, Mark and I have a very distinct set of chores we need to get done by 6am.  Some of it may seem like catering to our girls i.e., setting the table for breakfast, but they are only just 3 and 6.  Also, if we don't get around to it, they will do it and will just as easily empty the dishwasher.  Having it done already, just makes things go smoother. I'm not making excuses for their age - they both have a lot of responsibility every morning and evening.  Things they need to do to get themselves ready and to help me out not the least of which is getting themselves ready, and getting their own cereal.  I also wake up much earlier than I would like in order to be dressed, and have caffeine in my system before the two older girls wake up.  But these are the things that need to happen to keep things as low stress for my girls as I can.  I really, really, really, don't want any of us to get upset in the morning and while I can't control every variable, and there are mornings when I lose my temper, or one of them loses theirs, or things just fall apart, the good mornings, the mornings where we listen to music, do "knee ups" while the eggs are cooking, R makes me breakfast, L runs around dancing, and baby C sits in her chair laughing far outweigh the hard ones.  

Three more weeks of school until we can take a break from the routine.  But come mid-August, I need a new plan on how to convince my child that she needs to get all her stuff done before she picks up a book to read or stops to play with her sisters from September all the way to the end of June.  I’ll ask for advice in the summer but for now, I want to know:  Do your kids fall off the school routine bandwagon?  Were they never on it?  Do they stick to for the duration?

Mama's Day

The always provocative Julie Cole over on the Mablehood asked “What don’t you want or Mother’s Day this year?”  And I can say quite honestly:

I don’t want Mark to cook lunch or dinner for me.  Mark is an expert weekend brunch maker.   But any other meal, and he lives up to my moniker for him “The half-naked, fully angry chef”.  Enough said really.  I like to cook.  In fact I love to cook.  So if I could get a free pass to Whole Foods and time to cook a lovely meal for all of us, that would pretty much be perfection.  I do, however, have a baby who likes to nurse constantly, and a pool in the backyard I’ve been begging Mark to open.  So, raw oysters on the half-shell with freezer cold vodka on Saturday night will more than suffice as a gift from Mark.  And many, many, hugs, smiles, and kisses from my girls on Sunday with whatever they want to make me for breakfast would be fabulous.  (And I’m not presuming.  I heard my girls whispering about making me breakfast.)

I don’t want a spa day for two reasons.  One, that much time alone makes me antsy, I get anxious about my girls, and I start to think of the other things I could be doing.  And two, the spa treatments I need are not relaxing nor soothing.  They involve ripping hair off my body and trying to find a soft layer of skin on the bottom of my feet.  Ugh.

I don’t want jewellery for Mother’s Day because I think it’s just odd for my partner to thank me for having babies I wanted to have and worse yet for my girls to think they need to “pay” me with expensive gifts for the pleasure of being their mama. 

Which segues perfectly into what I wanted to write about. 

In the past, I’ve noticed that Mother’s Day seems to be a day to give mom a break from the kids; and Father’s Day is all about getting Dad to spend more time with the kids. This message seems to be very loudly broadcast this year by women.  Maybe it’s because I’m more tuned in to social networks now then ever, but there seems to be a plethora of women writing about Mother’s Day and how they both want that extra time to sleep-in but even an hour is fine; the ability to go to the bathroom uninterrupted or at least with the door closed; appreciation/acknowledgement from their partner; and time to themselves. 

I'm not a martyr, not by a long shot, and I'd love a little bit of all of those things, but not this Sunday.   Because I'd miss my girls and Mark.  After all, if it wasn’t for the cooperative –and fun-participation of Mark and the very presence of my three girls, I wouldn’t be a Mama.  So why would I want to celebrate Mother’s Day without them?  R, L, and baby C are...well, they are awesome! Baby C’s gummy silent laugh; little L’s devilish grin; and R’s sweet smile are the things that get me out of bed in the morning, because they energize me.  Sure, I want to bury my head under the pillow when it’s a Saturday and only 6:30am.  But I spent 10 months, three separate times, eagerly waiting to meet my girls, taking the best care of myself ever, and now devoting all of that time and energy into taking care of them.  And I lose a lot of sleep regretting not being more patient or a better mama in general with my lovely girls..So the idea of not getting to spend Mother’s Day with them beaming smiles at me and showering me with drawings and handmade trinkets (L and I spent yesterday morning making paper flowers for her to give me so that she wouldn’t feel one-up’d by her big sister), makes me more sad that I can say.  They want to make me breakfast.  They want to hold my hand and say my name every 90 seconds to tell me something only the six and under crowd would feel compelled to tell you immediately!  And I want to be there for it.  Too many children don't have mamas and too many mamas don't have children they can spend any Sunday with.  I am truly blessed to have children, and without them not only would I not have anything to celebrate this coming Sunday; my life would be less of a celebration .

So for Mother’s Day this year, I want to be a better Mama – to R, L and baby C.  I want to have more patience and less frustration.  I want to continue to listen to their made up stories and songs.  To continue to play with them and cook for them and take them for walks.  I want to appreciate every single hug and kiss and smile.  My girls are the light of my life and I want them to know it.

Oh, and for the record, Mark can feel free to purchase jewellery for me at any other time.  Though preferably not hand it to me carelessly and say “It was really cheap as the store was closing.”  Which is how it went the last time he bought me a necklace. Seriously.

Blame Timothy Olyphant (and 8 other reasons) for my Delinquent Blogging Habits

1. The whole point of a blog is to fulfill a narcissistic desire that other people care as much about what you have to say as you do about saying it (writing it).  But I have no idea if anyone is actually reading my entries never mind eagerly anticipating my next semi-witty post. As such, I'm not hugely committed to writing on the weekly basis that I had hoped to.  Now, if someone wanted to pay me for this...I'd be all over it!


2.My girls have decided they need to call my name approximately every 90 seconds that they are awake.  And sometimes even when they are sleeping (I kid you not.).  I'm not going to get into how much I love my girls, love hearing what they have to say and how much they love talking to me because in a few years they won't blah blah blah.  Any mama worth her mama title knows this.  And any mama not up for sainthood also knows that you can get diddly and squat done when your kids need to talk to you every 90seconds 20 out of 24 hours a day.  Even when their daddy is standing right in front of them willing to talk, listen, or do.


3.My phone is poopy.  What's that you say, in the middle of a contract so not eligible for a free upgrade yet? Then by all means my phone should stop working consistently.  I use my phone for the majority of my online interactions because it's easy.  But for reasons beyond my understanding,the touch screen is starting to fail, the apps don't work consistently and when drafts of emails and text messages disappear, I'm not going to risk that with a blog entry.  Also, sometimes my gadgets know when I'm coveting other gadgets and stop working out of spite. My phone must know that I was recently lured into wanting an iPad despite my solid stance against succumbing to dark side. (More on this another time I'm sure.  If I can stop being a delinquent blogger)


4. I'm under the delusion that all of posts have to be deeply meaningful...or at least long.  And, as of yet the technology to extract posts from my head that I think up when not near a keyboard - does not exist. Besides, I'm out of practice.  I used to be an avid journal-er and so was much better at writing personal perspective pieces.  But that was before I went back to school and had three children so that my writing as of late has consisted of text messages to myself of grocery lists, reminders, and 12-20 page academic papers.


5.I've developed a thing for a Kentucky Marshall.  Or more accurately, Timothy Olyphant in Justified.  I don't why.  His character is a bit of an ass.  I've never been particularly into the cowboy-type.  He's certainly no Jon Bon Jovi (Oh, wait, maybe I am into the cowboy-type.  As long as it's just pretend.)  My new "interest" has resulted in marathon viewings of the show's three seasons.


6.I continue to enjoy the conversation - and other things - offered up by my partner. Easy distractions from the computer. And I haven't even bought him a cowboy hat yet.


7.I recently re-discovered my love of reading and my ability to whip through a good book in a day or two.


8.My interactions with the grown up world are somewhat limited and as a result so is my content. Also, holding balancing my netbook on my knee while breastfeeding my almost 3mos old is both mildly painful for me and potentially a bump on the head for her. (Don't worry, I haven't let it slip yet.)


9.I like to sleep.


Do you have secret crush on a TV cowboy?