UN sexy.

so i developed a pregnancy symptom i didn't have prior to this one, which is a very ugly and slighly irritating patch of varicose veins on my right calf. i discovered them in the shower one morning and freaked out. yikes, old lady legs! since then they've started to swell and occassionally cause some itchiness. lovely. my midwife, along with several friends, tell me that i MUST buy and wear ted hose every day. really? i'm groaning. what is less sexy than varicose veins? ankle-long hosery worn under summer clothing every day. it sounds so hot and uncomfortable. ick, ick, ick. and a friend told me last night that hers cost $140. holy crap, for hosery? i'm dragging my feet. not that i want to worsen the veins, but i hear that once you have them, they don't go away anyway. anyone else out there have experience with this?

circle of friends

this is what i'm eating for lunch


okay, not the whole pie. and i guess i did have a little spaghetti a couple hours ago. still, this is the main course. i made two strawberry rhubarb pies this morning and and am pretty happy with the results. i still have a lot of leftover rhubarb from my mom's garden, so i may need to finish these off quick and bake some more :) hee hee.

last night i went to birth circle, a monthly gathering for women who are or have been clients of my homebirth midwife. she has that "client for life" policy, where once you have come into the community, you never (have to) leave. my doula was there, having had both her girls with cosette, as well as the woman i buy my cloth diapers from, my midwife, her partner midwife, her 2 nurses/apprenticing midwives, and about 7 pregnant women and 20 other women who had cosette as their midwife. it's a fairly diverse group, but everyone is also quite like-minded in terms of parenting styles. each month there is a topic for discussion. i've been to the one on intimate relationships after birth and one on re-creating a village (in the sense of finding that support system for you and your children as you raise them). talk about pouring your heart out to complete strangers. it's such a safe and inviting space, with wine and chocolate and homemade soup and guacamole, and candlelight. people really share and respect the confidentiality pact. i always come home feeling so great about those new connections, and having had the chance to talk openly about so many things. having a space without children or husbands is nice, too, where women can really connect. the clinic also has a couple other groups, where children can come along (including a playgroup where advice on baby wearing & cloth diapering is shared, and it's a space for general socializing and talking about parenting). i'm so thankful to have found this community, and to have met so many fabulous and inspirational women. i'm also picking up great contacts for other things (chiropracters, caterers, :) i definitely plan to continue going for years to come.

our nanny snapped this photo the other day, after naptime when the boys wanted mama and nobody else:

still eating dinner

[scene: jack on potty. mommy sitting next to him, as patiently as possible.]

mommy: is the poop ready to come out yet?

jack: um, no. the pee and poop are still eating dinner.



a few days ago jack went to play at his friend matthew's house for 2 hours. upon arriving home, he promptly announced that he 1) played the piano at matthew's house and 2) went to the potty like a big boy at matthew's house. i thought, wow, he's going to have to go over there EVERY day. since then he's been really into peeing on the potty. so we found ourselves thrown into potty training without warning, and with no strategic plan in place. i bought some m&ms so that he can have some when he goes. it's still rather haphazard and half-assed, honestly, but we ask him occassionally and he goes occassionally. i guess it's a start. at some point we need to do the 3-day cold turkey thing where he wears underwear and runs around half naked. i'm told it's the most successful way. but that will involve a lot of messes and patience, so i definitely need to wait until mike can have 3 consecutive days off.

goodbye, baby

a week ago benjamin began sleeping through the night. i know this is supposed to be the part where i do a little dance and sing the praises of sleep, but i'm actually quite bittersweet about this new development (or phase, depending on whether or not it lasts). he had been waking every 2-3 hours and i would nurse him briefly back to sleep. to many, it sounds traumatic. but i was used to it and have become a light sleeper. i appreciated our close time, and the night nursing was the only thing that sustained our breastfeeding relationship during the months where my milk supply plummeted in early pregnancy. a week ago he had a couple nights where he only awoke once or twice. from there he went to waking once or so, but not wanting to nurse back to sleep. now he barely wakes at all. he does wake earlier, about 5:30, and nurses for nearly an hour before deciding he is officially UP. somehow, even with several hours of consecutive sleep, this waking up early has left me zonked. ironic, really. now he nurses down for his nap. that's 2-3 times in a 24 hr period. it seems weaning is on its way.

when i found out that i was pregnant while jack was still nursing, i read and read about extended BFing, tandem nursing, and BFing while pregnant. i was completely prepared to tandem nurse, but jack weaned earlier than expected (at 15 months). perhaps benj is doing the same. perhaps in both cases, my being pregnant urged them to do so (change in taste, supply, etc.) in some ways, it makes life easier knowing i may not face tandem nursing 2 young children, with a 3-yr-old in tow. but i was unprepared for the suddenness of potential weaning, and feel melancholy at best. i have found BFing to be one of my favorite parts of parenthood. it's the only thing my children and i share alone, and it has been very fulfilling for me. i will miss this part of my relationship with benjamin tremendlously when it ends, even knowing i'll soon have another little one to share it with. i get a little tearful thinking about it, actually.

moving onto brighter thoughts, we went down to my in-laws' farm in osceola today. jack had a blast driving the tractor around and seeing the cows. his rubber boots got quite the work-out in the wet, muddy pastures. benjamin got his own taste of farm living, and seemed to enjoy it.

today

...trip to ankeny to see my parents....
...ate 4 donuts from the best local shop (not at one time, but i guess that's no consolation)...
...had a good time, thus still have not told them about home birth...
...sigh...
...boys played in swampy yard, found mud puddle in area where we are trying to grow grass...
...new pregnancy symptom, patch of varicose veins on right calf, are feeling like pins and needles...
...exhausted.

that's the day.

NOTE: will somebody please, pretty please, tell me how to shrink that photo in the banner so it doesn't take up so much room? i'm not that tech saavy....
NOTE II: the "three" in the blog description indicates mike, jack, and benjamin. yes i'm still sure we're having another boy, but i have no proof. yet if we do have boy #3, i guess that "three" will change to a "four" :)

summer fun

Benjamin's First Playdate (which was all about him, and with someone his actual height) With New Friend, Brody

Benj's new thing is to give "kisses," by leaning forward and bumping his face on people and making a sound like "mmmAH"

Isn't Brody a cutie?


I learned that popsicles and light deck wood = pink deck wood




We've been enjoying the outdoors. Hanging clothes on the line, running through the sprinkler, walking barefoot in dog poop-free grass....ahh, the little things in life.

i. love. my. doula.

really, she is just so great. each time we meet she is here for two hours, and i never feel rushed, and she always has great questions that get us to think and work through fears and get even more excited about the prospect of a birth that is allowed to go the way it wants to. she has a great lending library, fifteen years of experience, and had home births for her two daughters with the same midwife i am using. she is the perfect resource and i feel so lucky to have found her. i'm just so much happier this pregnancy because i have no fear of birth this time around (or fear of having to fight for the birth i want) since i've surrounded myself with incredible, supportive, like-minded, educated people. it makes me a little sad to know that it took 3 pregnancies to get there, and this could be my last. so i'm trying to appreciate every moment.

megan (our doula) asked us today what baggage we are bringing to this birth, and what concerns we have about it or that may be left over from the last two births. i was extremely happy to hear that mike's biggest concerns with our last births were all related to the environment of the hospital (this actually surprised me), and that his biggest concern for this birth is that i will be disappointed if i don't get the "perfect" birth i'm planning for. i had been worrying that he was harboring internal fears about homebirth and the "what if something goes wrong" thing, but he seemed totally at ease (a COMPLETE switch from 3 months ago) about that. it was touching to know that he feels as comfortable with this process as i do, and that it's my experience and feelings about it that he's most worried about. having a doula provides us such great opportunities to talk about the emotional aspects of pregnancy and birth (and beyond) that we don't get a chance to talk about in our prenatal visits with a health care provider, nor do we really challenge ourselves to do it on our own. i'm very thankful for that.

A chilly spring day

Happy 13 months, Benjamin! If the past month is any indication of how quickly the next year will fly by, then you'll be two in on time. And when you turn two, we'll have a 7-month-old and an almost 4-year-old. Life keeps getting better!
Here's my wild hair little man:



This morning I made homemade whole wheat cinnamon rolls using the bread machine to process the dough (don't you love it when you make something "healthier" by using whole grains, then add butter and sugar to it?) It was an experiment, which was partially successful. The dough worked out okay (thank you bread machine gods), but when it came to the part where I was to spread the filling on top, it seemed I did not have enough. So I doubled the recipe of the filling. Mistake #1. I rolled and cut them, let them rise, and baked. In the meantime, I made the cream cheese frosting. I forgot that the woman who posted this recipe said that you do not need to use all the frosting for one batch of rolls. Mistake #2. When they first came out, I was excited:


But then I frosted them. With all the frosting. Upon eating them, we discovered two things: I had used so much filling that it leaked out the bottom of the rolls and carmelized on the bottom. You can hardly taste the fresh bread dough because there is so much sugar and cinnamon, added to this, extra frosting, that it's one big sugar coma. They're good, but there may be some changes the next time I make them.


Mike took the boys to Boone today to visit his grandmother and great aunt, so that I can have some time to work on my dissertation. I had a productive day yesterday and felt good about what I accomplished. I'm hoping today will bring the same good feelings of productivity. Speaking of, guess I should get to it :)

I love this neighborhood

We will have lived in our house for 4 years as of this July, and I'm so happy here. We have a fabulous neighborhood and great neighbors (and I'm not just saying that because we live across the street from Shawn Johnson. Heehee.) One thing I really love is that there are so many young families in our neighborhood, so Jack has a lot of kids to play with, and we have a lot of parents to socialize with. Last year I began attending a monthly neighborhood potluck for families on the block with young kids. Around 10 families are on the email list, and it's been a great way to meet new people nearby. This year I started feeling like so many of us know each other so well, that we might as well try some other groups, too. I had read about two different groups that I was incredibly interested in, and I ran the ideas past some of the other moms, most of whom were receptive. The first is a neighborhood meal swap that we do every month with 7 participating families. It takes the place of going to those assemble-and-freeze your own meals types of places. Each of us makes 7 meals (2-3 servings each, so 1/2 pans of lasagnas, etc.) and then we get together one evening to exchange with everyone else. We each go home with 7 different meals for our freezers, but the best part is having a couple hours of time chatting with other moms, and having some time away from the kids (dads watch the kids :) We've gotten to try a lot of different meals we may not have thought to make ourselves, and it gives me an excuse to cook, which I love. This month I made BBQ Chicken braided bread, with mozzarella and cheddar, fresh cilantro, red onion, and homemade BBQ sauce. We ate ours' last night:


The other group that we are in the process of putting together now is a baby-sitting co-op. Eight families will participate in this. Many of you may have heard of this sort of thing before: it's a group where families "bank" hours of child-free time by volunteering to baby-sit for other kids. It can be done a number of ways, but we're going to use poker chips (well, I couldn't find poker chips at the Dollar Store so we're using gold stars :) to exchange-- one star equals one hour of baby-sitting time per child. We'll all start with an equal number of stars to use. It is imagined to work well since a) you don't to then pay a baby-sitter in addition to what you spend on going out, b) you already know and trust the families doing the baby-sitting (and so do your kids), and c) people are encouraged to volunteer to sit for your kids since the incentive is that it buys THEM time for themselves in return. The other great thing is that it doesn't have to be an even exchange: you don't sit for one family and then have to wait until they are available to return the favor. Since we exchange chips, you can call anyone on the list that may be available so long as you have enough chips to exchange. I've wanted to have a date night for a long time but really hate to ask people to baby-sit for the kids. It seems like an added burden to them. And paying a high-school student gets to be pricey. This way the kids have other kids to play with in a home that's already familiar to them. I'm eager to get it going!

We plan on being in this house several more years. The elementary school is just down the street, which will be nice when the kids get to the age that they can walk there. I wonder if the neighborhood will stay as is, or if people will move on and new young families will come in. It will be nice if some stay around for awhile so the kids can grow up together. For now, we are enjoying it immensely.

blog challenge. to accept or not to accept?

Samantha has challenged her fellow bloggers and blog readers to attempt to post every day during the month of June. I figured I would fail, so I declined the offer. But now I'm a bit encouraged. For no other reason than the fact that so many others are daring enough to do so!!! After all, I suppose I find time to check my email each day, so I might as well find time to do a simple post. So being June 1, I dug up some new photos with which to do my first post.

Both Benjamin and Jack have decided that nakedness is fun, and when left in nothing but a diaper and their own devices, they usually end up in the nude. Benjamin also loves going through the pantry and removing all the bottles of flavoring, while Jack is newly obsessed with drums of all kinds. Here they are recently in our kitchen, having a partially nude jam session with mint flavoring in tow: (i found myself laughing so much because everything benj does seems cuter when he's naked)






Add a third boy to this mix and perhaps we'll have the next Hansen (er, Jonas Brothers. I guess I'm getting too old to make references to contemporary pop culture.)