baremountain's Xanga

sewing

Thu, 01 May 2008 22:00:32 GMT

I have begun to sew, and not just my piddly half ass attempts to put out something passable. NO I am trying to really learn and put out quality stuff. I have learned how to do a french seam, which is nice since I just have a machine and not a serger. Someday maybe. Jewely is VERY sensitive to seams and the like so it's good that I learned to do the french seam b/c that didn't bother her at all. I think the baby is destroying something.

my new breastfeeding slideshow

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:17:29 GMT

Easter- Spring Celebration

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:30:56 GMT

Just saw some great pictures of my kids friends at her Church. They had a petting zoo. I thought for a second, well that sense of community IS something I miss about being part of a church...but then I thought about today. I have wonderful friends, 4 generations that gather together for special occasions. We had this huge feast and the kids gathered eggs, we popped out the kiddie pool and they swam. I LOVE that, that we all get together. That we have such a large crowd of people and kids, and even our parents. Year to year it varies how many of us get together. We have ebbs and flows in our involvement with one another but it's ok. It is one thing that holds me here. The sense of community we have with each other, that getting together with people you have known for so long. The fact that when we get together their is a whole Horde of kids for my daughters to play with. I will add pictures as soon as the baby goes to sleep. Speaking of the baby sleeping, the past two nights she has not night nursed at all of her own volition. Last night she even slept the whole night in her own bed. More about last night in another, post.

Easter, we aren't religious. I don't believe in the Christian god or Jesus Christ. We celebrate Easter but we are actually celebrating new life and plants. I would like to incorporate that even more into our celebration. I suppose it is appropriate that this evening DH planted two new trees in the front yard. I also tend to call it Spring Celebration. I do still say easter since I grew up calling it that, plus some one was telling me that Easter comes from the word Eastra or something like that, said it has pagan roots. I need to look it up.

We also went to my moms house after some arguments with her. I felt bad getting into an argument with her on a Holiday, but all ended well.

My firstborn is FIVE!!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:31:58 GMT

Jewely is five!
We went to the zoo, Daddy even got off of work early for the occasion. We got her a zoo year long ride pass that was tucked inside the meerkat bag you see her wearing in the photo below. Well part of it anyways. The meerkat is her favorite animal. Her favorite food is pancakes, she does not like raisins or chocolate chips or brownies. She likes salami sandwiches with ketchup.She likes to read recipes in bed sometimes, and she likes to help me cook. She will make lasagna, but she won't eat it. She is intelligent and enjoys reading and being read to.I LOVE to listen to her read, especially when she is not reading TO ME. I will sit and read and she will sit down with a book and read to herself, but she always reads aloud quietly. So I sit and pretend to read and marvel at my little girl as she reads through books I just didn't think she could read. She has recently developed an attitude that is infuriating and on her bad days she whines about everything. She likes her sister sometimes and can be so sweet, other times she fights with her for no real reason or bosses her around or stands on her knees. She loves her dad all the time more then anyone else on Earth. She does not like to clean and when a group is cleaning she pretends to be finding something or pretends to be finishing something until all the cleaning is finished. She is not afraid of anything, she is tough, she is strong, she is a leader. I think it is funny when she plays coy with strangers who compliment her because she never acts like that with anyone she knows. She makes me laugh. She is navigating this world she was put into and she has used her brains and her observations (which she is always making) to help her out.

with her favorite goat at the petting zoo.

My baby is five now, she just keeps growing and growing. I knew it was going to happen but sometimes it is still hard to believe.

a funny thing she said the other day
"Mommy I know who Gosh is, like in 'Oh my Gosh'. Gosh is like God he lives forever, but they fight sometimes. Santa is like them too."
She regaled my sister with stories of Gosh, God, and Dude as well. She is funny

I am tired

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:09:59 GMT

We have been going going going for a couple days. Ok well yesterday I took the day off and DH took care of the kids and cooked and worked around the house. But before that we really did go around a lot, to the zoo twice playdates all day, valentines parties, etc. I am glad to just have a day at home cleaning a little, watching tv, reading, playing. We will go to the library and my moms for a bit but that is it. then tomorrow i get to go to http://www.getaguru.com/ to get my fancy soap, I MISS my fancy soap!!

I am having some serious trouble with an order I placed for diapers. I went to www.simplifywithstyle.com and placed my order on the first of this month, 18 days later and nothing. I contacted her three times by e-mail and called twice. Finally after a call informing her that I would give her a bad review on mothering (that I would change once the issue was resolved) she called me back and said I should have forgotten the order a week ago. Well she said she would call back in about 1/2 an hour after she talked to fed ex. It has been, oh three days i think and i have heard nothing! Additionally she was originally supposed to send me a shipping confirmation which she never did. She said she was sorry and her mother was in the hospital, and I feel bad about that and I understand that would affect the way you do business but the thing is I spent almost $80. I am extremely worried about the money I put out, we don't have a lot of money to be spending, I have to wait and save to spend money like that. Plus when i ordered from her previous store there was some sort of problem that she apologized for and straightened out, but with the two combined I just don't know. If she has to much personnel stuff going on maybe she should just close her shop for a bit. I will update you all on the situation. i am really hoping eventually it gets straitened out b/c that is just to much money to be out.

so her is what I got me for my birthday. (a maya wrap, great deal I got the ring sling for $24.00)

Fairy Park Trip

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:59:02 GMT

So my sister and I went to a park nearby and had a little walk and a picnic. We went to the fairy bridge and the troll bridge. (hold me to adding those troll bridge pictures, they are so cute)

Amazingly i got a nice photo of both girls, with no strange faces, both looking at the camera, eyes open and a nice background.

and i am tired so with little fanfare her are the rest.

old photos of me

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:51:50 GMT

Dh and I when we first started dating.

me at 15. (white shirt)

16 shortly before I shaved my head.

right after I shaved my head.

shaved head with bangs.

our love is like strawberries

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:27:57 GMT

Dh buys me plants for special occasions, live ones. It is much better then cut flowers that die. He brings me plants and then we plant them together. He likes to put the fruits and veggies and herbs on pots so he can move them around and find their happy place.The flowers he keeps in the pot they came in and moves them around the yard, when he finds the place they like he plants them. he waters them and fertilizes them, he buys them new pots when they outgrow their old ones, and when they bloom or fruit he tells me and we look at them together, or he brings in the fruit or veggie.. Sometimes he will pick me one of the flowers and hand it to me when he kisses me bye in the morning. One of the earlier plants he got me was the strawberry plant. It took a year to bear a fruit, it was a single strawberry and it was in the shape of a heart. throughout our relationship we have often found hearts in things, food, dirty laundry, soap bubbles, boo-boos. Somewhere I have a picture on film of that first heart shaped strawberry. Every year since then the first strawberry has been shaped like a heart. Some years there is more then one. The heart shaped strawberry above (that is not an edited photo) was this years third heart. at most their has been three straberries ripe at once. Then Chris and I each got one and we gave one to my sister. Usually there is one or two and Chris and i share them with the kids. The first strawberry of the year we always share between the four of us.

I love all of this, I love my husband, i love that he takes care of the three of us the way he takes care of the plants. he is truely the best guy I have ever met. I buy him orchid's. I don't take care of them. I just don't do well with plants. When he goes out of town he calls to remind me to water his plants. I never forget though. I miss him to much to forget his plants. LOL. Okay he has only been out of town three times. but still.

Birth shows-rant-go natural damn it

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:48:11 GMT

I don't know why I keep watching them, they drive me insane. Most of the time they use Pitocin and then they act surprised when the babies heart rate starts to decelerate. UH' of course it is going to a baby wasn't meant to withstand almost continues contractions, which is what happens with pitocin!! The natural course of things, physiological labor, allows for breaks between contractions. This allows for the mom and baby to get much needed breaks. So what ends up happening is the mom of course gets an epidural because these types of contractions are much more painful and like I said there is no break between contractions.Epidurals slow labor down making labor last longer (and by the way you can still feel pain with an epi, it just takes the edge off, when you push there is still pressure and you are still uncomfortable, plus it drugs the baby and makes it harder for him/her to nurse) which gets the doctors pushing more pitocin to try and rush the mom along. Oh and before I get too far, let me say that in the first place if a labor is induced the BABY ISN'T READY TO BE BORN YET!!!!!! A due date isn't just that single date they gave you, it is the middle of a curve 13 days either way. This inducing is causing for an alarming rate of premature babies who end up in NICU and who just are not ready to be out of the uterus yet. So back to heart rates decelerating due to contractions that are to intense. This often leads to a C-section, because the baby is in distress as it was never meant to be put in such a situation. So then you have major abdominal surgery, which has a death rate for mothers two times that of the death rate for vaginal births. it involves complications that can occur for every subsequent pregnancy, a high level of blood loss for mother, on top of other dangers for mother. A higher rate of possible infection then for mothers who gave birth vaginally. Oh and as for incontinence issues, mothers with C-sections still have those issues. The highest rate of these issues is found in mothers whose vaginal births had a lot of interventions. Such as, and the highest rate involves this first one, Episiotomy, pushing down on the womans stomach to force the baby out, and yes they really do this still. Physiological birth, birth that is allowed to progress naturally without interventions on the womans and babies time schedule, has the least complications. it is safest for mothers and babies, yet the United States is progressively not allowing this to happen. breech births, twin births, these things aren't being allowed to happen anymore. Most doctors have no idea how to deliver a breech baby anymore. (By the way little intervention again is the best way for this sort of birth, forcing the baby out, pulling, speeding things up is what is so dangerous about delivering a breech birth.) If a breech baby is allowed to be born on it's own time with the mother listening to her body it is actually better for the baby.

Ok I have strayed in a way form my original topic, birth shows. I watch them while I fold laundry, and so often i find myself yelling at the screen, first because of the actual births and all of the intervention.Women know so little, they don't educate themselves and the doctor speeds things up to keep on his time schedule and to protect himself against law suits. (it looks better if you did everything you possibly could have, even though t is not as safe for mother and babies, if you find yourself in a courtroom you are more likely to win if you intervened. Better to still have a career, sadly this is being pushed on doctors from all angels. So even the ones who don't want to do this find themselves more often doing it. Some are leaving the profession because they are so unhappy with the way things are going)

Then this is the other thing breastfeeding. Interventions mean the baby won't be with mother as quickly, which means baby won't latch on immediately. Thus already putting at risk the breastfeeding relationship. C-section babies are sepreated from their mothers for hours often and are supplemented with formula in that time, getting the baby used to not having to work for food, again this jeopardizes the breast feeding relationship. A drugged (epidural) baby has more trouble latching on. OK past the birth issues and on to the doctor issues. The jaundiced card. Women are told to supplement with formula, there is no need to do this, the mother just has to make sure to gets plenty of liquids, breast feeds on demand and allows for the baby to get sunlight. Most of these cases are mild. The fact that doctors are recommending formula makes no sense. I can't believe people don't realize that breast milk is made to have everything a baby needs. Jaundice isn't a new thing, and before formula they got over it just fine. I swear sometimes it seems like the hospitals are getting money form the formula companies for pushing this type of misinformation.
Also let's get onto colostrum. YES YOUR BABY WILL HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT WITHOUT SUPPLEMENTING. THIS LIQUID IS EXTREMELY NUTRIENT DENSE AND IT WAS MADE FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF LIFE. THEY ARE GETTING ENOUGH FOOD IF THEY ARE PEEING REGULARLY! It always starts with one of those two things, they supplement so the baby gets over jaundice or so the baby has enough to eat. Baby gets used to bottle and doesn't want to work for food, which by the way this type of sucking on the human nipple helps to develop their jaws and muscles, something that doesn't happen when the milk flows so freely from an artificial nipple. Before you know it the mother claims breastfeeding just didn't work for her, she couldn't do it, the baby was failing, the baby wouldn't nurse. See I don't blame the mothers as much as I blame the doctor's, the people new mothers listen to and trust, the ones who are supposed to have gone to medical school and know what is best. Misinformation, it's a sad thing. Women need to go in with the knowledge, because most often they aren't getting correct information for the hospital. I highly recommend every pregnant women attend LLL (la leche league) meetings before the birth of her baby.
I won't get into the women who don't care one way or the other about the breastfeeding relationship or those ones who just choose not to.
and yes, here is my disclaimer about breastfeeding and birth. Yes I do know that some women really honestly can not nurse, this number is below 1%. Yes some babies can't nurse, think cleft palate. (Many women exclusively pump if this happens, what devoted moms to work so hard to give their child the best, no the perfectly made food for their babies anyways. Breast milk isn't better then formula, formula is substandard, it is worse then...

Yes some women really do NEED to have c-sections to save the life of their baby or the live of the mom, but I assure you the majority of C-sections do not fall into this emergency category. Even those babies whose hearts are decelerating due to induction, that could have been avoided. those women who have sections because of failure to progress. Listen I had a 43 hour labor, the baby was fine, some women just take longer to have babies. it is not a bad thing. My first labor was 26 hours. I have a friend that had two C-sections for failure to progress, her son was born the same day as my daughter, vaginally after a 40 some hour labor. She is expecting her fourth child who certainly will come after a similiar length labor. Even those breech and twin births could be born vaginally.
It is time women took birth back, it will be hard, it will require policy change, it will require us to stand up against doctors and insurance companies, it will take a long fight, but hopefully we can do it.

super yummy recipe

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:46:29 GMT

I lost this once and it has taken me awhile to find it again. I am now putting it in more then one place. It was YUMMY!!!

1 can whole Italian tomatoes
4 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 1/2 tablespoons dried basil (can use fresh)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Penne noodles (or anyother noodle)

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Reserving the liquid, drain can of italian Tomatoes. Spread tomatoes on a shallow pan and cut each in half (cut side up). Sprinkle with the crushed garlic, a tbsp of oil, salt and the basil. Place in oven and bake for 1 hour.
3. In the last 10 minutes add the retained liquid that was in the can.
4. Boil pasta and cut feta into small cubes.
5. When tomatoes are finished baking they will be burnt a bit (that's what you want),transfer all to a small bowl and crush with fork. Add the rest of the oil.
6. Pour the tomato mixture hot pasta and toss.