Get off my deck.

Question for moms...

Maiya loves to nurse. I've loved it too, but I want to wrap it up in the next few months. She'll be 1 in July (wow!). She eats other foods pretty well and she enjoys water and soy milk. So ... I'm looking for suggestions. I tried to get some info online, but all I found were articles about the benefits of extended breastfeeding and how traumatic it is for a child to be weaned. Great, helpful.

My plan is to drop one feeding every couple of weeks until she's done. Currently she nurses once before each meal and once before bed and usually once in the middle of the night. Will this work? Any suggestions on which feedings to drop first?

Haven weaned himself, so this isn't an experience I've had. Suggestions are welcome!

Learnins

I wouldn't say that education was on the top of my parents' priority list. We were homeschooled, which might lead one to believe the contrary, but the reason for homeschooling was more for our moral benefit than academic. Not once in my childhood or adolescence was I pressured to succeed academically. Perhaps that was why I was able to enjoy college; one thing I gained from homeschooling was a love for learning.

My sister, Jessica, and I were basically homeschooled forever. We had a few jaunts in traditional schools, but for one reason or another we always returned to homeschool. There are things we feel we missed, not socially because we had totally rad friends in our homeschool group, but educationally. I don't say this to berate my mother's efforts. It's just a fact that when it is one person's responsibility to supply a complete educational package for twelve grades, somethings will be missed. There are obviously ways to avoid this, as modern homeschoolers know. I like to think of my first family (to distinguish from my second family of Dave, Haven and little m) as pioneers of the modern homeschooling scene.

So, it is a wonder that Jes, Rebecca (who was homeschooled until grade 6) and I love college. And we are good at it!

For example ...

I send out a HUGE congratulations to Jessica for earning her Master's degree! My co-lover of education graduated today and Maiya and I were there to take in the accomplishment.
Nice dress!

Good job, dude!

Maiya didn't quite make it through the ceremony.

Go Jes!
(aka Jessica Kruse, MA)

Swine Flu Prevention

Don't do This

The Boy Child

When we were younger, that's what my sisters and I called Darin. He didn't love the nickname, but by then he had learned to choose his battles with us. I wrote an explanation of Darin's life in another post. In short, he is a Monk and on Sunday, we took Maiya to meet him.

As the third of four kids, he spent a lot of his childhood with a lot of other kids and the influence is still evident. He asked all the right questions about Haven and Maiya. He was a natural baby holder and Maiya liked him immediately. Haven, on the other hand, was kind of intimidated by his beard.

Haven was not intimidated, however, by the gigantic construction trucks on the campus. He was ready to climb inside and take them for a drive.

Darin said we could stay for dinner. For the record, a Monastary-style dinner + two little kids = an interesting situation. First of all, Monks eat at their own table. In silence. Secondly, men and women do not eat together. So, Dave and I each took one kid to our gender-respective tables and attempted to feed them tuna and salad. This was interesting since Haven doesn't like tuna and Maiya can't yet have tuna. We were able to interest them in the accompanying apples and bread.

To say that Monks are quiet people is in an understatement, as it is to say that Haven and Maiya are noisy people. Sounds of "apple!" and "no!" and whines filled the otherwise silent dining area. Afterward, Darin said it was fine because it was an "informal" dinner. Well, I think we gave a new meaning to Monk idea of informal.

It was a short visit, as it always is and unfortunately, this time he did not have permission to have his picture taken. Here are few shots of us from the visit:

Here I am, covered head-to-toe. Maiya got away with showing a little leg since she's still a baby. She also wasn't required to wear a head covering, but with a such a cute hat, I figured, why not?

Do I like this grass or not?

It was a quiet drive home.

A night out for Mommy means a wild party at home...

Times two.

You get it when you get it. Three of my friends are about to get it. And then they'll get it. But until you get it, you don't get it.

When you get him or her, I should say, you get it.

To clarify, when you get the Second Baby you get the craziness of managing two kids.

I am telling you right now that today the manager at the grocery store most certainly not get it.

Lately I've grocery shopped in the evenings when I can go with just one child, or, sometimes, gloriously alone. Today, however, we were very low on food supplies and since we're such food lovers, I decided to venture to the store with both babies.

(Yes, in a lot of ways Haven is still a baby. But don't tell him I said that. He considers himself a B'Boy. When I ask him if he is a baby he says very confidently, "Not a baby -- Maiya." However, until I can safely allow him to walk through the grocery store next to the shopping cart I will continue to call him a baby in my mind.)

Once we parked, I strapped Maiya into the carrier and Haven into the shopping cart seat. We were about half way through the store when I noticed black streaks all over Haven's shirt and arms and cheeks. There was something all over the cart that was now all over my boy. I dug to the bottom of the shopping cart, through my gigantic bag and retrieved the wipes. They served to smear the blackness into a grey fog. You havegottobe kidding me.

As we checked out I peeped, "I don't mean to complain, but there was something all over the cart--" The woman was very kind and appropriately flabergasted and called the manager. The manager that did not get it, as I mentioned.

He saw the mess and said ... "We'll take care of the cleaning bill for the shirt."

I was not looking for any compensation, but I was shocked by this offer. Cleaning bill? Are you suggesting that I'm going to take this little boy's Old Navy t-shirt to the dry cleaner? And then come back here and give you the bill? Please look at us - I have a sleepy 9-month-old whining and attached to my hip and a toddler covered in junk after a quick trip through the grocery store. Do we look like the kind of people who get through errands quickly? Trust me, you won't see a cleaning bill from us. I didn't actually say any of this, I might mention.

We got home and after I carried the groceries and kiddos inside, I realized that there was not only grease on my shirt as well as Haven's, but blood too. Is this some kind of joke?! I could not locate a source of this blood on any of us. Okay...

I changed Haven's shirt and scrubbed his face and arms. I read him two books (an extra because he was so well behaved at the grocery store despite the poor circumstances) and put him in bed. I put Maiya down for her nap, which included nursing her, killing a bee and changing her clothes because I found a streak of blood down her shirt too (still no source).

It was then that I remembered that I bought ice cream at the grocery store and it was still in one of the bags. Sorry about the freezer burn, Dave. This gets better and better.

Thus Grocery Shopping became an event. I will now finish this blog and go do the subsequent laundry that occured due to our trip.

Skills.

I try to remember all of things that I can do well. I was overcome by with a sense of nostalgia when I received the latest newsletter from my former employer. I didn't even like that job for the last two of the five years I worked there. Yet, I missed it for a few moments.

I just read a short memoir called Not Becoming My Mother. The author wrote that many mothers during the 40's and 50's felt like they were wasting their brains and talents sitting at home. Some days I can relate to that so well. Except that I don't sit at home. I'm on my feet, or my hands and knees, almost always. Though, by the end of the day, the living room and kitchen look like I've been sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating all day. I tell Dave that this is how I spend the day when he asks what happened that I could not complete something I'd planned to do. Maybe that's what I missed about my job - the way I could tear through my to-do list before lunch.


These little happy faces are what I'm good at right now. It's just that there is no way to quantify my success. Even when Haven listens or quickly stops a tantrum, I automatically think it is due to his phlegmatic personality more than my parenting skills. Who's to know?

Anyway, this is not the time in my life when I shine, I guess. I'm backstage. Most days I handle that graciously, I hope. Other days I want to see a report card with my name on it and straight-A's emblazoned down the side.

Back to my original thought - focusing on what I'm good at doing. It isn't anything that has to do with being a homemaker or housewife or any of the images that come to your mind when you hear those terms.

I have accumulated an interesting skill set, though. Let's see ... I can nurse Maiya and change Haven's diaper at the same time. I can nurse Maiya in the car while we're both still in our seat belts (while Dave is driving, I might add, I don't Brittany-Spears it). I can carry on a ten minute conversation with a person whose vocabulary consists primarily of animal sounds, single-syllable words and the identification of the letter W. I can fold a basket of laundry amongst the destructive efforts of not one but two kids. I can keep track of how long a sippy cup has been sitting on the (you name it) and what is inside said sippy cup and if it is safe for the tiny crawler approaching it. These are significant skills. I say they're resume-worthy.