end of an era

today, july 29th, was my first day completely without nursing since june 25, 2007 (pictured above). for those of you who read this, you know that breastfeeding has really punctuated my existence the last year. but now, 13+ months later, i am done.

i thought i'd feel this immense relief, but alexandra is sick, and all she wants is to be snuggled. she keeps pulling on my shirt to see my boobs. it is breaking my heart. there's just no more milk! but my trick of sticking her on the tit whenever she's sad, hungry, frustrated is obviously up. what will i use now?

but i am proud of myself. i said i wanted to nurse for a year--mission accomplished. let's hope i can be motivated to do this all again another time. i'm convinced alexandra will be brilliant due to the breastmilk. she better be, b/c i feel intellectually challenged!

do you see what i see?

adam pointed this out to me the other day.
it seems baby girl already has a potty mouth.
for those of you who know me, this might not come as much of a surprise.

but for her first bday, i told myself i'd stop swearing as much and clean up my mouth. i have done an okay job, but it is going to have to happen, now that a lot of my friends' babes are really beginning to talk. it's good for me to practice not cussing in the summer, when i'm not at work and hearing the kids drop the f-bomb all over the place. i swear, working working in an urban school makes cussing an occupational hazard. it's hard not to start saying, "fuckity fuck fuck fuck" all the time. no lie. it's inevitable that you'll assimilate to your environment, right? when you spend 40+ hours a week with kids who talk like that, you'll talk like that, too. when i get some of my classroom observations typed up, i'll sample some for you so that you'll know what i mean. i am not exaggerating!

regardless, if alexandra was sending me a message to clean up my mouth with these magnetic letters, i have received it loud and clear!

(if you still don't see it, written upside down and backwards from the right to left is fuck u!)

new band name

this is a placenta. it is what keeps the baby fed and breathing--via the umbilical cord--while in utero. it's an organ that the female body grows expressly for the baby then sheds after the baby is born (in what is called the afterbirth). well...at least it is SUPPOSED to come out....

yesterday i went to visit my friend katherine and her 4 week old baby, elijah.

elijah was born at 33 weeks gestation, in washington state, after his daddy did the ironman in idaho! everyone is fine (after some time in the NICU), and they are home in bklyn and getting used to life with a baby.

katherine is my second friend to have had a retained placenta. my placenta did not want to come out, and i was mad; i REALLY wanted to see it. minus the baby, i think it is one of the more amazing aspects of pregnancy. at one point in my pregnancy, i even planned on eating part of it. i was shocked when it refused to budge, b/c in all the birthing books and classes we took, nobody EVER mentioned a retained placenta. all three of us with this situation had totally natural births(no drugs, baby came out the vajayjay), and then---BAM! no placenta. katherine and i had to go into surgery and be knocked out in order to have our placentas removed, my friend cambria's midwife ripped hers out manually (which cambria claims was more agonizing than labor).

i asked my doula, who is now in midwifery school, if she had learned anything about this situation. she has several theories (too much vitamin E, past D&Cs from abortions or miscarriages, or shit happens!). but, if you have had a retained placenta once, you're more likely to have one again. ugh. the crazy thing is that both katherine and i would have died had we had these babies 100 years ago. the babies would have been fine, but we'd have become maternal mortality statistics. that is just mind numbing.

regardless, yesterday we have decided that "waiting for the placenta" would be a great band name. anyone else whose placenta decided to stay put, you're welcome to join!

i don't get satire? no, YOU don't get satire, New Yorker editors...

so, what's everyone's opinion about the New Yorker's "satirical" magazine cover? It has created some controversy.

i have listened to a lot of coverage about it on my overly liberal fave radio station NPR, but i have to say that those folks at the magazine are plain and simple elitest assholes. yes, new yorker editor, i understand satire and i get that this cover is satirical. in fact, i think your readership probably gets that not-too-subtle message as well. but, america (and by here i mean the masses) overall is not exactly well-versed in satire. let me explain:

in my high school english classes, i have taught a unit on political satire for the past five years. we read jonathan swift's "a modest proposal" and george orwell's 1984. we read the onion. we watch saturday night live skits and discuss the differences between comedy, parody, and satire. after a whole unit on this, i think most the students get it. but a few do not. understanding satire requires a lot of background knowledge and a decent set of critical thinking skills. if one does not have both of these qualities, that person is going to take something satirical on a literal level.

let me illustrate further: my first year teaching this unit, we decided to create a satirical school paper, a la the onion. students broke into groups to write articles, take polls, and create images/graphs for this said paper. we published it, and we didn't overtly write on the paper "DUDE--THIS IS SATIRE--DO NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY--IT'S A JOKE."

oh, but we should have.

my sweet little class project sparked chaos. non-American teachers get it b/c english wasn't their first language--they were offended. students started fighting b/c they took offense over the articles and polls. one of my best students came into my classroom and WHILE I WAS TALKING to another of my students, punched her square in the temple (have you ever heard anyone's skull rattle? it's not a pleasant sound) over the article this girl wrote which obliquely mentioned her. it was a total disaster. needless to say, i did NOT repeat that project in the following years.

with this in mind, i feel it was irresponsible for the New Yorker to publish such a cartoon, b/c although some of us will get that it's satirical, it will simply serve as fodder to encourage others' already strong (and ludicrous) opinions that obama is a muslim terrorist...even if TOLD that the image was meant to be satire, they're not going to care. they'll use it to justify their views. maybe those folks are hopeless anyways, but i'd like to think that they're not.

i will now descend from my soapbox.

spiderbaby

right after alexandra got her MMR vaccine (well, about three days later), she got this bump on her arm. first it looked like a mosquito bite which was curious b/c she sleeps in long sleeves. then it became red and hard, with a whitehead in the middle. then, it softened out, whitehead still there. now it's speckled around the edges.

i really thought this was related to the shot; my doctor told me she could have low fevers and rashes for up to two weeks after the immunization. she had some low fevers, so i figured this was a "rash."

but it didn't go away. so, i called the dr. she said to come in. we went in.

IT'S A SPIDER BITE!!!!!!!!!!! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i hate bugs, y'all. i am a serious bug murderer. if they made a bug machine gun, i'd have it to kill those mother effers. instead i have multiple pairs of clogs and birkenstocks. they work fairly well.

but some little bastard bit my baby. i'm so skeeved out, i couldn't fall asleep last night. i kept feeling bugs on me. yuck.

adam asked if a million little spiders would crawl out of the bump on her arm. if they do, i think i'll have to be institutionalized. no lie.

do you think she'll get crazy superpowers from the bite? i'm waiting for her to climb some walls...

feist & happiness

my friend tonio sent me this video from vietnam (glad he can still peruse youtube there) and i sang it to the baby girl all afternoon:



then he sent the original song/video, and it made me so happy i about cried. the colors, the choreographed dancing, her awesome sparkle-y blue unitard...perfection. watch and try not to smile. it's impossible!

weaning

alexandra is not happy about weaning.
i am ready to wean her.
my midwife told me at my annual last week that breastfeeding should be an agreement between mother and child, and when the mother is done mentally she should wean. she also gave me great advice on how to wean, my favorite piece being to go out of town for the weekend (to which i replied, "without the baby?!") to dry my milk up. she said to go stay at a hotel and sleep in and drink mixed drinks. sounds glorious, huh?

but alexandra loves the tit. she has been fighting for it this week more than normal. she is just about to walk (so close!) and cutting more teeth, so i'm sure she just wants the comfort, but i cant' help but fear that she'll be wanting to nurse at 8years old, like in this video.

i'm very much pro-breastfeeding, but i have to say that i believe 8 years old is a bit too old to still be on the tit, even if breastmilk is "sweeter than mangos" and the kids would "rather have breastmilk than a million melons!"

baby bulimia

help me fellow mommies.

it's seems my once sweet daughter is now the queen of the temper tantrum.

yesterday, she threw a 40 minute screaming fit b/c i wouldn't nurse her when she woke up from her afternoon nap (i have only been nursing in the am/pm for a month now). during this tantrum, she writhed on the floor and cried. these are the thoughts that ran through my mind during those agonizing minutes:

1. i ruined her by giving her the 1-year vaccinations
2. she was about to have a seizure
3. satan had possessed her and i needed an exorcist
(that comes from being raised by a born-again christian mom)

it wasn't until i gave in and nursed her that i realized she had totally been playing me. she has thrown about 5 smaller tantrums since yesterday afternoon, and now i just walk away and let her scream. is that what i'm supposed to do?

BUT, today, she learned how to gag herself. sitting at the table, after a nicely shared morning snack, she started sticking her fingers down her throat. (and, for those of you who know us, both adam and i have extraordinarily long fingers which this little darling inherited.) she threw up all over herself. then she did it again. and again. i said, "No, Alexandra..." and she did it again. i was FREAKING THE EFF OUT. she was covered with puke. so i got up and ignored her. (thinking: ignore bad behavior to stop it. sounds logical, right?), finally she stopped. i was near hysterical. i had to take a serious dose of rescue remedy.

WTF?

everyone i know has boys, so i need some advice here from any girl-moms. is this high drama normal?? i'm feeling so depressed and incompetent and i'm totally pms-ing which just adds to it all (i have the worst pms since being pregnant! i cried at the closing credits for the olympic trials last sunday!).

shit, i think she's puking herself again now in her crib.
shoot. me. now.

facebook

recently, an old high school friend found me on facebook.

i then poked around her friends and re-befriended all the high school people i found there. all week we have been chatting back and forth, talking about babies, cheerleading, and peeping into each others' photo albums. i love it.

i really enjoy finding old connections and reconnecting, but i have found that others do not enjoy this. maybe they find it suspicious that i am curious about their lives now, maybe it is awkward b/c we were momentarily french kissing partners or were once friends until i pulled the bitchy high school girl role of suddenly not being friends with them (i still have guilt over this! for real!), but i see no harm in touching base. obviously, these people once meant something to me, or else i wouldn't care.

this real life facebook video from youtube depicts how totally bizarre it is to reconnect with someone--IF that were real life. but that's exactly the point: i would NEVER ring a handfull of my facebook "friends'" doorbells and announce that i was going to poke, message, gift, or post unflattering photos of them. i guess i'm arguing that facebook isn't real life. agree/disagree?

regardless, this youtube video is a riot. (not irregardless, nicki! don't worry, i wont' disqualify myself from your friend list by using that faux word!)

go lori, it's your birthday

my good friend and partner in coop disgrunteledness (is that word?) sent me this ecard today.

i just don't understand folks who don't want to celebrate their birthdays. ever since i was in elementary school, i remember being in awe that i had aged another year. maybe i was super-deep (ha), but i particularly remember my complete amazement when i hit the double digits....whoa....10 years old.... now that i'm 34, and i hope a bit wiser, i still feel this moment of pause each birthday. be it the recent loss of a friend, or the old loss that still stings, each year that i can add one more number to my age i am pretty impressed that the universe or god or whatever has chosen to let me keep on keepin' on. many don't make it to 34. as my friend virgil reminded me, i am now older than jesus!

also, on this day everyone should really take a moment to think of their moms. regardless of the relationship you have with your mum--if she's your BFF or you're in indefinite therapy because of her--she labored (and that verb has never been more accurate) you into the world on this day. she was either cut open, or squeezed you out of a once very tiny hole so that you could join the human race.

when i was big and pregnant, i would stare at the diversity of people on the subway as i rode to work and was mesmorized that each and every one of us is born the same way. there's no way around it: your birthday signifies the day that a woman's body expelled you into this cold and wonderful world. and that, my friends, deserves all the celebration we postmodern cynical freaks can muster.

thanks for all the bday love. make sure i know your birthdays so i can give it back :)

one

alexandra osa watson stats:

fave veggie: broccoli
fave fruit: watermelon
first word: woof! woof!
new bedtime: 7pm
new skill: standing in the middle of the room
new hairstyle: pigtails
fave toy: real cellphones/real keys
new skill #2: tackling and snuggling xena
fave music: they might be giants (kids cds)
fave place: prospect park
fave drink: water with lots of lemon
fave noise: snort
best celebrity impersonation: christopher walken

our baby girl is ONE!