No big news, I know.

I cannot get the Phineas and Ferb TV show theme song out of my head. Yes, it's a Disney cartoon. I know. In my defense it's adapted from a song by Bowling for Soup - rationalization, anyone?   Scarier yet, I even don't mind the show.  The sister is annoying and I don't dig the platypus thing, but the boys themselves are cute and their adventures are original.  See?  Serious problems.  Or maybe just REALLLLLY LOW STANDARDS.  And quite honestly, I can't figure out why I am compelled to confess this - maybe hoping that I will be shamed out of watching it?  Hmm.  No, I think it's really low standards, and easily amused.  And a totally juvenile sense of humor.

This is it.

The lyrics, cause I think they're cute.

There's a hundred and four days of summer vacation, then school comes along just to end it.
So the annual problem of our generation is finding a good way to spend it.

LIKE MAYBE:
Building a rocket, 
or fighting a mummy, 
or climbing up the Eiffel tower.

Discovering something that doesn't exist,
or giving a monkey a shower.

Surfing tidal waves,
creating nanobots,
or locating Frankenstein's brain.

Finding a dodo bird,
painting a continent,
or driving our sister insane.

As you can see, there's a who lot of stuff to do before school starts this fall,
So stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna to do it all;
So stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna to do it all.
(Mom! Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence!) 

Oh - and I clearly have NO shame, 'cause I'm TOTALLY still watching it.

Donovan has been spinning in circles singing

"Run run rudolph cause I'm reelin like a merick-o-round" LOL.

Hey friend-type ladies,  you can ignore this if you want; this is part of my application for  adopt_a_mom


When I was pregnant with my son, I read about childbirth and breastfeeding, and knew I would breastfeed because "breast is best". Also, it's free and easy, and I'm cheap and lazy. I figured I'd do it until he started solids, or started teething and bit me, but once he was on baby food I'd probably stop. Then...he was born. I went into labor spontaneously, labored and pushed with no medication and pushed for a little over 2 hours, but the boy would NOT budge. After all that pushing and having him in the same place that he was when I began, I consented to a C-section. He never engaged in my pelvis. After an excruciatingly long time waiting while the spinal anesthesia wore off (I don't know why I didn't question them not "allowing" me to hold him until my legs weren't numb anymore, or why I didn't lie to them and say they weren't numb - wink, wink), I held my babe. He latched like a champ the first time and nursed for about 15 min. And thus began a pretty easy nursing relationship. He had a couple bad latches in the hospital and they gave me a shield to try, but I used it once and hated it and ditched them, and concentrated more on the latch - his problem was not opening wide enough, which was very easy to fix. My milk came in on the 3rd day, and there was plenty of it. He had a little jaundice but was just under their tolerance limit to discharge home, and a visiting nurse check 2 days later showed it was clearing with frequent nursing. He nursed a long time on both sides every time, so that sometimes a nursing session would last 45 minutes, and he'd be ready 45 minutes later. Starting at about 6 weeks he would cluster nurse from 6-9 pm, and thank heavens for Kellymom.com or I would have been FREAKED out about that. I had no exposure to a breastfeeding woman aside from a non-local friend of mine who had a baby 6 months older than mine. I'm an only child, only grandchild, only niece on my mom's side, my dad's side is halfway across the country, and my husband's family didn't have any babies around either. So, other than emotional support from my family and friends, I was pretty well on my own. I didn't think I'd "fit in" at LLL meetings (silly, silly me), so Kellymom.com was my savior. Fortunately, my nursing relationship with my son was relatively uneventful. I nursed him on demand, and started solids at 4 months on the regular cereal/veggies/fruit jarred routine I got from his pediatrician. He was always a good eater and nurser, and we had no problems with progressing off baby food to finger foods and then regular table food. I thought at first I'd nurse 3 months...then at 3 months, I said, 'probably until he gets teeth and bites me"...then he bit me, and I said, "well, he only did it once, so we'll go the full year until I can give him regular milk"...and, we weaned slowly after he was a year old, with him last nursing in his 14th month. We basically had a great nursing relationship.

I felt like an old pro going into it the second time around...but I should have known from the beginning that my daughter was going to teach me the meaning of individuality and how different children from the same family can be. I was induced for moderate, but increasing pre-eclampsia as a VBAC, and did everything I could to birth her vaginally, pushing for about an hour and a half in various positions to try to let gravity help along, considering my previous birth experience with failure to descend. But once again, the girl would not budge. The midwives were so supportive, trying anything and everything with me. Squatting, sitting, standing, you name it, we tried it. Then her heart rate started to drop, and then it stopped coming back up between contractions, even with an oxygen mask on me and having me change positions. It was one of the scariest sounds I've ever heard. Soo, off to the OR for an urgent section and me knocked out under general anesthesia (no epidural, I just wound up with one shot of Nubain aroudn 6 cm to take the edge off the pain) - they had her out so quickly, by the time my husband hopped into one of those paper suits and ran into the room, she was already out, being checked by the neonatologist. Fortunately, we got her out in time and she didn't have any problems other than a big bruise/dent on her head, they say from being stuck on something in my pelvis, which is likely why she (and probably my son, too) couldn't come out vaginally. I held her as soon as I got to my room, and we got situated to nurse. Only she wouldn't keep her tongue down. A couple nurses tried to help, and finally one of the midwives came and helped me figure out how to tease her with my nipple and then shove my breast in quickly while gently pushing her tongue down. She said she probably sucked her tongue in utero and was used to having it on the roof of her mouth, and we'd just have to work on keeping her tongue down. Hurdle #1 was cleared relatively easily, if not a bit frustrating and painful sometimes when I didn't get things quite right. She was a very efficient nurser from the get go, and was rarely on the breast more than 7 or 8 minutes each side and often would go 3 hours between feedings during the day (though she did the cluster feeding at night too), but she was gaining weight really well, making enough wet and dirty diapers, and very alert when she was awake, so I didn't sweat it. Then, a couple weeks later, we got thrush. I cringed every time she wanted to nurse. I had the "lipstick nipple", the itching, the heat, everything. Tried treating with grapefruit seed extract, but it wasn't quite doing the trick, so I got some nystatin suspension and it knocked it out in a couple days. Next, it was overactive letdown. The poor girl was sputtering and choking, gasping and getting in tons of air in her belly, and just miserable. I read about block feeding but since she wasn't as frequent an eater and liked to do both sides every feeding, feeding on the same side for 2-3 hours was only one feeding anyway...so I went the route of pulling her off during my letdown and catching it in a cloth, and/or leaning WAYYYYY back as I let down (like, with me on my back and her on top of me) so that it worked against gravity too instead of spurting down the back of her throat. And, it helped immensely. Starting around 12 weeks she was nursing only about 5 min per side, and she started sleeping through the night! And I mean THROUGH - like, from 9pm to 5am! I thought something *must* be wrong, my son woke every couple hours throughout his first year. But, she was thriving, meeting milestones, happy and alert when awake, so I just let it be...and she was fine. That bliss only lasted a few months, since she stopped sleeping through the night once she started teething, and at 11 months she was still up a couple times a night to nurse, but we cosleep so it's no biggie to just roll over and nurse. So, let's see. Latch, thrush, overactive letdown.....Ah yes, then came the biting. When she started getting the new choppers, she wasn't quite sure what to do with them or where they were in relation to her mouth, and she chomped me probably 10 times over the course of the first few weeks with teeth. NOT fun. My reaction was always to immediately unlatch her and give a serious, firm (but not overly dramatic) "No biting mommy, it hurts me." Then wait a couple seconds and say, "let's try again, please don't bite me" and get back to business. Fortunately it was short lived, and there has been no biting with subsequent teeth. We decided this time around we'd basically do self feeding, which meant waiting until she was able to feed herself chunks of food - which is just as well, since the few times I did try baby food consistency food she had no interest in it - she wants the real deal. Don't ever let anyone tell you breastmilk isn't enough nutrition. So long as you feed them when they're hungry and don't worry about whether it's "time" yet or not, breastmilk is plenty for a baby for well over their first 6 months. My girl topped 20 pounds at her 6-month checkup, being exclusively breastfed on demand! She had a taste of sweet potato at Thanksgiving when she was 5 months just for fun, but then didn't start any other solids until well after 6 months, more towards 7. And then it was only O's, banana, and avocado, as that's all she was interested in. We progressed through soft fruits and cooked vegetables, to meat and grains, just cutting/mushing things up into pieces she could pick up and feed herself, and by a year old she was eating just about everything we did with the full seasoning we eat, just avoiding the major allergens. SO much easier than babyfood jars like I did with my son.  She's 18 months old as of this most recent edit, and is now nursing before naptime, before bedtime, and maybe once overnight.  That fits my own comfort level, and I'll continue up to about 2 years old, at which point my own confort level will be maxed out and I'll start gently weaning her.  I never thought I'd nurse past a year, but it has just seemed to be the thing to do given her personality, needs, and our relationship.  

I've nursed both my babies in front of family and friends, in public, in about every conceivable position and hold.  I've come to realize breast isn't just "best", breast is "normal". And I wish everyone would realize that. I've never had anyone approach me about nursing in public, but if they dared, they would probably find they wished they hadn't. I'm not obnoxious, but I am confident, and I do know my rights and the pertinent backup information.

So, now with just about 3 years of nursing under my belt, here's the funny thing: I don't love nursing! I've never gotten the hormonal rush, the mushy feeling that so many women describe. I will admit that it makes me smile when she would drift off sleepily at the breast, but aside from that I don't get much in the warm fuzzies - maybe I'm missing a gene or something. I nurse my children because I can - in fact, most women can, many just lack the proper support and get bad information from their family, friends, and healthcare professionals. I nurse my children because I should. I do it because that's primarily what my breasts were made for, contrary to the message mainstream media sends about them just being sex objects. I do it because it's the perfect nutrition for my children and individualized to their needs at different stages. I do it because that's the way humans have done it since we've been on the planet, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I do it because....well, why wouldn't I? 



**A  final edit:  K weaned at 21 months old.  I had a medical emergency and surgery, and the antibiotic and steroid combination they put me on (VERY necessary and had to be this specific antibiotic for bacterial culture sensitivites) while deemed "moderately safe" for nursing, apparently changed the taste of my milk such that she stopped nursing within 2 days of me starting them.  I can only imagine it was the same nasty metallic taste I have in my mouth, and I can hardly blame her.  She was nursing at naptime, bedtime, and maybe one other time a day for a minute or two at a time.  I am upset that this is how it ended, but at the same time I am not interested in getting her back to the breast once my condition resolves (this is going to be a long-term healing for me) since I've been nearing the end of my comfort zone; we have found a new rhythm and new ways to connect.  What a bittersweet time.   I'm proud to have given her 21 months of nutrition and comfort.  

I never would have dreamt that these two children of mine would have changed my views and passions so much, but I am so glad they have.