I found this heartwrenching and heartwarming at the same time.  I love those seven words, they hold more meaning than any words I’ve read in a very long time.

 

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-whole-heart-is-in-that-incubator.html

“My whole heart is in that incubator”

The Motherwear Breastfeeding blog recently featured a fantastic guest post by a woman whose son was born 3 months early and weighed less than 3 pounds. She writes about how breastfeeding was her and her son’s lifeline. Here is an excerpt from her post, My whole heart is in that incubator:

I was 37 years old. I thought I knew what love was. I thought I knew. But I have never loved anyone, anything, so fiercely, so terribly, so wonderfully, so achingly, as I did my little son, my only child, struggling in that incubator….

I loved and still love that boy with all I have. Because I couldn’t hold him much, and felt terrible guilt for not being able to ‘hold him in’ for the entire 9 months he deserved, I was determined to breastfeed. I pumped every 3 hours for weeks on end. That pump and the milk that came out of me was my lifeline. It was somehow the way I was going to make it up to him for giving him such a lousy start in this world. So when I read stuff like “The Case against Breastfeeding” I get so angry. I believe that my breastmilk, and the good care we got at BC Children’s, saved my child’s life. It saved my life. If there is anything in this crazy, crazy world that is really is a gift from God it is the babies we can create and the milk that comes from our bodies.

If anything is pure and natural, and real and true, it’s breastmilk. It made me feel like a mother when my baby was all alone inside a machine when he should have been inside me.

Anyone who dismisses breastfeeding so casually, or by their attitude or indifference creates an environment that doesn’t hold up and encourage and cheerlead a new mom into a successful breastfeeding relationship, has lost touch with something. They’ve lost touch with a sense of what it means to be a mother, what feeding a baby is all about, what it means to nurture, how significant that breastfeeding can be to both mother and child.

Posted by Rixa at Thursday, May 28, 2009  

Hallelujah and thank God!

Read about it here on Dr. Sears’ Site!

All of our letters and prayers were answered.  Thanks to all the concerned parents and physicians that rallied to have these shots available again!!

Our alternative vax schedule is here.  When Merck decided not to make the separate MMR shots, we decided to wait until Ayla is four to get her the big one – she will be almost four when these vaxes are reintroduced, and that’s okay with me.

I was biting it so hard this past weekend.

WARNING – RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD.  I mean a BIG RANT ahead!

Okay, you were very warned.

So a gentleman came by to purchase some baby items we had for sale.  He had a new 7 week old baby at home, a precious little girl.  His first.   New parents are just the cutest things, aren’t they??

As this very nice gentleman started regaling us with the stories of his wife’s pregnancy, childbirth, and the baby’s first few weeks of life, as well as his observations of other parents and their children now that he is a daddy, I glanced over and watched my husband prepare… waiting for me to start correcting and educating this poor unsuspecting man.  I found it funny – my hubby knows me all too well.  And I behaved and didn’t say a word.  Rather proud of myself, and if I could, I would pat my own back.

The point of this story is that I am increasingly shocked at the poor information out there.  This man said his wife was a doctor.  Now, he didn’t say what KIND of doctor, and I didn’t ask.  So she could’ve been a veterinarian for all I know.  But he began by saying that when her water broke, she knew, as a doctor and based on her doctor’s instructions, they must Immediately Rush, Without Hesitation, Without Finishing Packing The Bag, To The Hospital… because it’s absolutely urgent that she lay down in bed right that second and start being monitored.  Just because her water broke.

I hate this myth.  But I hate it more because this is coming from a doctor.  This was her first baby, she probably could’ve labored at home for hours and hours and hours before she went to the hospital and started letting doctors interfere with nature.

But I forget – she IS a doctor, so she is going to believe 100% of everything her doctors tell her, no questions asked.

And I didn’t utter a word.  I’m still beaming with pride that I didn’t let a rant go right then and there.  Of course, I didn’t have his money in my hands yet, I wasn’t about to blow a $100.00 sale because I wanted to scream that his wife and her lousy doctors were WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!

I didn’t even rant at the woman who called me and asked if I had a child leash for sale.  Well, lady, I have some for my dogs, because dogs belong on leashes… but that’s another blog altogether, isn’t it???

But then he made a comment about driving through a neighborhood and seeing children playing in their front yards alone.  ALONE??? GASP!!  THE HORROR, I was thinking!  He just couldn’t understand how any responsible parent could possibly let their children play outside without being within 32 inches of them At All Times!  I mean, if it happens on CSI Every Single Week, it must happen in your suburban neighborhood every single week too!!!

People really need to quit living in the land of make believe when it comes to their children and their safety.  I asked my husband how many scaremongering news stories we’ve heard in the past year or so about a child abduction that wasn’t committed by a mom or dad or their Uncle Bob.  We could only think of one off the top of our heads (and I’m not interested in being corrected – there hasn’t been hundreds or even dozens or even tens) and one we weren’t sure of the result of.  And the one we could think of was actually the child’s teacher or someone she knew, so still not a real stranger abduction.  But since two or three happen Every Night in prime time, people really get the lines blurred between reality and complete fiction.

I was even getting well-meaning but very ill-informed advice in another blog post about letting my children eat raw cookie and cake dough.  The chance of my kids killing themselves in a bathtub is about 60 times higher than dying from raw eggs.  More people die from venomous spider bites than eating cookie dough.  Licking the beaters is a rite of childhood, in my opinion.  Since walking across the floor and falling to their death has about a 1 in 6,000 risk, I’m not going to fret a 1 in 50,000,000 risk.  Yes, 50 million.  You’ve not even looked into the stats, or really researched the odds, have you?  Even without looking it up, I knew the odds were pathetically low and I was always a-okay with my choice.

But the naysayers are shaking their heads and shrugging “no no no – kids get killed daily by strangers and men in vans take girls from the schools weekly and it’s a bad dangerous terrible world out there”.  They look at their neighborhood map online with the sexual predators – so many then-18 year olds having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends and being on the list forever, to name a few things that totally discredit that list, IMO.  And of course, if it’s an old man, he’s waiting on his front porch with a bowl of candy, waiting to lure your children into the bowels of his vinyl siding home to do God-Knows-What to.  NO HE’S NOT!  It’s NOT a bad world!  You’re doing a horrible disservice to your kids sheltering them so.  They won’t know how to prepare for the world, because you won’t be there hovering over them.

You have to let them go.  You have to let them have their childhoods.  It’s not fair to them or you, it’s not beneficial, and it’s sad when I hear about a friend of my 11 year old son that doesn’t know how to navigate the neighborhood on his bike – he should’ve been riding in that neighborhood for years by now!  I’m so glad our kids are so safe in today’s world.

I warned you it was a rant.  I feel much better now!

So Autumn was doing something (I don’t even remember now – dragging dog food from the bowls to feed the dogs, right after I swept?  I dunno) that I asked her not to do, please.  She did it again a few minutes later.

So I asked her, rhetorically, in my familiar slightly-gritted-teeth style that lets her know I mean business, “HOW many times am I going to have to ask you to stop??”

To which she replied, after giving it quite a bit of thought, “Two?”

Okay, you’re forgiven.

as evidenced in my “Five Faces of Four”.

I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb book photo contest. If chosen, I grant I ? Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ? Faces web sites.

Our neighborhood sale was this past weekend; clear signs and clear times were posted in many places.  We do this every year, and every year without fail I meet:

The Vultures:  The women who are waiting outside 30 minutes before the sale begins.  If I have to move tables to the driveway or lay out additional clothes, I have to try to do it without opening the garage door, or these Vultures come racing in to try to get to stuff before I’m ready.  Even being told we’re not set up, the sale is not for an hour (or a day – yes, I was trying to prepare the day before, with the garage door only HALFWAY open, and had Vultures peering in to see my wares), the Vultures will not be deterred from their task of finding the bargain first.

The Ones with the Kids:  Don’t get me wrong, my kids aren’t always angels, but it seems to me there’s always a half a dozen parents that bring their 5 to 10 year old kids that feel they have the right to rifle through everything willy-nilly.  Or worse, there never fails to be eight children that ignore the fact that I have the garage clearly blocked off, and will squeeze around tables or climb under them to peruse my tools and photography props and equipment.  I’ve even had them circumvent yellow police-type tape.  Parents, reign in your kids or leave them at home.  My power tools and children’s toys stored neatly on shelves in the garage are not for your children’s pleasure.

The Late Ones:  The ones that show up 30 minutes after the sale is done while we’re trying to put everything back in the garage.  They have no concept of time, nor do they care that we are exhausted, have put the money away, and things are now being stored back in boxes that they have no business looking through.  I won’t discount a price for you, Late One – I will double it.

The Treasure Hunters:  I can see them coming from a long way away.  They almost march, with a purpose.  Do you have Jewelry?  How about Guns?  Antiques?  Okay, buh bye.  Sir, if I had these, I sure as tootin’ wouldn’t be selling them at the neighborhood garage sale.

The Old Bitties:  The ladies that come with their nickles and dimes and try to get me to sell them a $10.00 item for 50 cents.  You may sucker some with your cute blue hair, but not me.  That suit is worth more than two quarters.

The Pack:  The group of 12 people that come at once.  They all poured out of the same vehicle, bringing grandma, Aunt Hilda, and  Cousin Five-Fingers.  You pounce on my tables and everyone talks at once.  You’re shouting out offers, and I think it’s a ploy to distract me so that – yes – things are removed without that quarter being paid (you need it more than me if you have to steal something priced at twenty-five cents) and make me accept offers I never would if you were an Old Bittie.

The Normal Ones:  Ah, you are few and far between, I assure you.  I like you.  You come over, carefully look through piles of baby clothes, gently lift glass candles, ask about a price break that isn’t ridiculous, and pay me in dollars instead of twenties that I have to try to break.  You may even come back later to get something else you saw.  I love you, and wish there were more of you.

about making homemade chocolate cake, is sharing the batter-covered beaters and barely-scraped bowl with my girls!  Ah, I actually DO love rainy day fun!

I think I caught Autumn off-guard!

That “The Business of Being Born” is required to be viewed by every single pregant woman, every woman thinking about being pregnant, every woman that can become pregnant, and every single doctor/OB/midwife/nurse that ever comes in contact with someone that is, will be, or can be pregnant.

I hope everyone picks up Ricki’s new book, too:  Your Best Birth.

And that’s what I think!!

Hope all my mommy friends had a great Mother’s Day.  I was blessed with flowers on Friday, a special meal at my favorite restaurant on Saturday, and a gift from the Diamond Cellar on Sunday.  All that, and hubby did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and took care of the kids for me.  I must’ve done something right sometime, somewhere!  Here’s a (not so good) picture of my gift, it made me cry… a charm necklace for each of my children with their birth stones:

Let’s see… other random musings for today…

Wanda Sykes needs moved to a deserted island and put out of our misery.

Thank GAWD Joan won the Celebrity Apprentice.  When your boss asks you what you’ve done to earn a job, you DON’T start pointing fingers at someone else and blaming them for your failures. 

I have decided I will never beat my carb addiction.  Why are carbs so wonderful???  And isn’t it a gift for my grandkids to snuggle into a grandma with some meat on her bones?  Yeah, I think so.

Ayla has a new trick.  If you say, “Ayla, MEAN FACE!” she drops what she’s doing and does this:

But then she thinks she’s hysterical and falls out, cracking herself up:

Hm.  I think that’s all I have today.  We had a wonderful weekend, and I hope everyone else did too!  Have a great week!

 

(click image)

MOM’S BOOT CAMP FOR TEENAGERS

A little quiz for your not-so-little ones… Happy Mother’s Day!

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