A couple of weeks ago, my family signed up for our very first farm CSA. This has been amazing for me, especially pregnant. I love to cook, but when I am pregnant my ability to decide what to cook goes out the window. There are times I go to the store and just look at the vegetables knowing I need to eat lots of them, but not knowing what to choose. Going to the farmers market has been this way too. It either all looks good, or I am lacking in creative ideas that day. Now here were are receiving a box of stuff every single week. These are not just a few bunches of greens, but things like baby artichokes and fava beans. Sometimes strawberries, or last week we got some raspberries. The day we bring these veggies home, we have a FULL fridge.
So what is next? I get to be creative and figure out how to cook veggies I may never have bought myself. There are some kind of salad greens every week, enough to have a small amount every day. We love fresh salad greens. My kids will pick up the leaves and eat them as a snack in olive oil. It is fantastic! Last week I found myself making a "pesto" out of dill and turnip leaves. Life is getting colorful and interesting.
Having tons of vegetables in the house forces me to cook every day, but it also has cut down on some of my time at the store. Between our farm share and ordering once a month from Azure Standard, I basically go the store for local milk, some dairy, fruit, and the odd box of tea. My total shopping time has gone down from about one hour, to fifteen or twenty minutes in the store! This is great because when my husband comes home at night the last thing I feel like doing is running out to the store. All I want to do is curl up on the couch and relax.
Thank you local farms for making this an affordable and enjoyable experience!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
23 Weeks: Am I a Good Parent?
With every single pregnancy I have experienced a season of questioning my ability to parent. When I was pregnant with my first child it was more straight forward. Could I even be a parent at all. I was going to be twenty-three when my first son Joel was born. I felt treated as a glorified teen pregnant woman at the time, even though this was not the case. Yes, I have always looked very young for my age, but I just wanted to feel an acceptable age to parent a child. Most of my parenting questions revolved around how others saw me instead of how I felt about myself.
By the time I was pregnant with my second child I did not have enough time to deal with feeling horribly judged. Now not only was I a "young" mom, but I could not keep myself from getting pregnant again. Joel was only five months old when I found out I was pregnant again. The question was, why was a smart girl like me not using birth control?...or maybe it was, those stupid non-white people having way too many children (if I were to be judged by strangers). Adding to this was my own guilt in not using my fabulous French literature degree. If I was having two kids so young, would I ever have a career?
It took me two years after the birth of my second child to attempt to recover from the shock of becoming a parent. Oh and the main parenting skills are not to bad until one's children turn two and half. Up until then they are sweet loving bundles of perfection (not exactly, but way less work). I spent my recovery years learning how to enjoy being isolated in an American culture that disrespects stay at home moms. Instead of feeling judged all the time I set to work on writing manuscripts in my spare time. I wrote two books before I got pregnant again. Looking into publishing my work was another story. I love the writing part, but not the promoting part. As one can tell sales takes confidence and I was still struggling with this.
Also, in my two years without a pregnancy I worked on creating a family schedule where our house would be cleaned once a week. I would stay on track of things like laundry. Then I learned to cook more things than I had bothered to try and make in the past. Cooking is a great way to get out artistic frustrations and still provide something for the entire family. I cut out almost all the processed foods I could. All our cookies would be homemade, meals are too, and the only things I buy packaged these days are Annie's bunny crackers, yogurt, some breads, and pasta. If I could grow a good tomato crop I would make all my own sauce, but I buy this too. There are times when I need to get more in a box, but my general daily shopping excludes prepackaged goods. Every year I have a goal to make more from scratch and learn some kind of useful skill like canning or growing veggies. These are things our culture has lost by working around the clock to prove one's identity is worthwhile.
When I found out I was pregnant for the third time, I had actually started to think about having another child. For someone who had been pregnant three months into marriage and the five months after giving birth, this was a breakthrough. Having my third child felt natural to me. Plus, I was still young, but twenty-six seemed like a more respectable age to have a baby. I struggled with the idea of not having enough hands to keep track of all my children, but this was the most seamless soon to be a parent of three crisis ever.
Baby four was similar to baby three. I had already decided I wanted a fourth child while I was pregnant with my third. I even wanted a girl when I found out my third was a boy. Having two boys and two girls has made me feel so blessed because I get to see so many different personalities. I always wanted a sister and my husband thought about the idea of having a brother. Being from families of two kids it has been great to see a mix of brothers and sisters.
Now here I am in the midst of freak out 101 for a mother of five. There were things I thought would work with four kids that just might not with five. My oldest is going to be six and even though I was homeschooling him last year, I do not see how this will work with basically three other babies to take care of. After an emotional battle, we have decided to put him in a small Christian school. I do not know what we will do after this, but for now compromise has been important. It is strange to think that even with one kid at school I will still be home with four, just like I am now. Crazy.
I am also struggling a lot with the fact that I have been pregnant within eight months post birth two times now. I had this amazing natural break last time and this time I was hoping for another. With all my research on birth control, I am still not sure if there is a compromise there. I am not sold on the fact that all women should have children all the time, but there is an aspect of mystery in it all. God gives us gifts at different times for a reason. I cannot imagine my life without any of my children. The choice to have children in God's timing is a struggle just about all the time and I have not found the perfect answer. Maybe this does not exist.
In any case, being a parent is a gift. What I forget often is how much I learn from each child. Every single one is different and my parenting grows and changes. I also have to constantly remind myself that parenting is not about being the perfect parent, but trying to do my best. Perfect parents do not exist. Loving parents do. I feel like I fail in some aspects of my parenting every day, but I know I am not alone. God's grace gets me through.
By the time I was pregnant with my second child I did not have enough time to deal with feeling horribly judged. Now not only was I a "young" mom, but I could not keep myself from getting pregnant again. Joel was only five months old when I found out I was pregnant again. The question was, why was a smart girl like me not using birth control?...or maybe it was, those stupid non-white people having way too many children (if I were to be judged by strangers). Adding to this was my own guilt in not using my fabulous French literature degree. If I was having two kids so young, would I ever have a career?
It took me two years after the birth of my second child to attempt to recover from the shock of becoming a parent. Oh and the main parenting skills are not to bad until one's children turn two and half. Up until then they are sweet loving bundles of perfection (not exactly, but way less work). I spent my recovery years learning how to enjoy being isolated in an American culture that disrespects stay at home moms. Instead of feeling judged all the time I set to work on writing manuscripts in my spare time. I wrote two books before I got pregnant again. Looking into publishing my work was another story. I love the writing part, but not the promoting part. As one can tell sales takes confidence and I was still struggling with this.
Also, in my two years without a pregnancy I worked on creating a family schedule where our house would be cleaned once a week. I would stay on track of things like laundry. Then I learned to cook more things than I had bothered to try and make in the past. Cooking is a great way to get out artistic frustrations and still provide something for the entire family. I cut out almost all the processed foods I could. All our cookies would be homemade, meals are too, and the only things I buy packaged these days are Annie's bunny crackers, yogurt, some breads, and pasta. If I could grow a good tomato crop I would make all my own sauce, but I buy this too. There are times when I need to get more in a box, but my general daily shopping excludes prepackaged goods. Every year I have a goal to make more from scratch and learn some kind of useful skill like canning or growing veggies. These are things our culture has lost by working around the clock to prove one's identity is worthwhile.
When I found out I was pregnant for the third time, I had actually started to think about having another child. For someone who had been pregnant three months into marriage and the five months after giving birth, this was a breakthrough. Having my third child felt natural to me. Plus, I was still young, but twenty-six seemed like a more respectable age to have a baby. I struggled with the idea of not having enough hands to keep track of all my children, but this was the most seamless soon to be a parent of three crisis ever.
Baby four was similar to baby three. I had already decided I wanted a fourth child while I was pregnant with my third. I even wanted a girl when I found out my third was a boy. Having two boys and two girls has made me feel so blessed because I get to see so many different personalities. I always wanted a sister and my husband thought about the idea of having a brother. Being from families of two kids it has been great to see a mix of brothers and sisters.
Now here I am in the midst of freak out 101 for a mother of five. There were things I thought would work with four kids that just might not with five. My oldest is going to be six and even though I was homeschooling him last year, I do not see how this will work with basically three other babies to take care of. After an emotional battle, we have decided to put him in a small Christian school. I do not know what we will do after this, but for now compromise has been important. It is strange to think that even with one kid at school I will still be home with four, just like I am now. Crazy.
I am also struggling a lot with the fact that I have been pregnant within eight months post birth two times now. I had this amazing natural break last time and this time I was hoping for another. With all my research on birth control, I am still not sure if there is a compromise there. I am not sold on the fact that all women should have children all the time, but there is an aspect of mystery in it all. God gives us gifts at different times for a reason. I cannot imagine my life without any of my children. The choice to have children in God's timing is a struggle just about all the time and I have not found the perfect answer. Maybe this does not exist.
In any case, being a parent is a gift. What I forget often is how much I learn from each child. Every single one is different and my parenting grows and changes. I also have to constantly remind myself that parenting is not about being the perfect parent, but trying to do my best. Perfect parents do not exist. Loving parents do. I feel like I fail in some aspects of my parenting every day, but I know I am not alone. God's grace gets me through.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
22 Weeks: Overwhelmed Again!
Maybe I am just recovering from a two week vacation, but after about a month of energy, I find myself so tired I may as well be back in the first trimester. This is the first pregnancy I have hit such a strong wall of fatigue before around 34 weeks. Um...maybe I need to give myself a 7:30 pm bedtime? Realistically, there has to be a way to fight this.
I am trying to distract myself with things I want to accomplish before I have this baby. Challenge number one is closet and dresser space. Organizing four kids clothing and toys has been interesting. I have my two older kids sharing a dresser and a closet and my two younger kids sharing a dresser and a closet. This has worked well so far, but no there is not any more space. We may just have to get another dresser or something.
This is where shopping crazy hormones kick into overdrive. One starts pricing dressers and finds that she has begun to look at cribs and nursery design. We don't have room in our house for this stuff, but every pregnancy I find myself doing the same thing. It feel like we are not prepared for a baby. Silly, since we have managed to be just prepared enough for four so far. How did one dresser suddenly become decorating an imaginary room that we do not really have or need? Mommy drive is funny like this.
At the same time as wanting to add to our stuff...I started to figure out how much junk we could consider getting rid of. If I had not been pregnant so many times, maybe I would never clean the garage? Pregnancy does have its advantages when it comes to spring cleaning and forcing oneself to give up pack rat tendencies. If only I could part with some of my childhood toys? I was the kind of kid that insisted on keeping everything. I never understood why my mother wanted to get rid of my toys. Now I know what she means. How many stuffed animals do we need before a whole room is just full of them? What is the best strategy for organizing toys in a three bedroom house where one doesn't want the living area to basically become a glorified playroom, but insists that the bedrooms remain sleeping spaces?
If I put toys in the bedrooms, my kids would never go to bed. This is a problem. My latest idea? place a shelf in our almost too narrow hallway. It has worked so far. The toys are not in a bedroom or a living room. We can make our living room guest friendly and the kids can play in the living room or their bedrooms. Clean up has become a daily part of our routine and it is easy to keep track of since all the toys go in one place. So far so good. We cannot own every fun toy known to man, but the kids are still having tons of fun.
We really will need to purchase a dresser of some kind for this new baby, but other than that we are set. I have tons of baby clothes and all the gear. It is so easy to feel a sense of panic because having a baby tends to make me want to buy lots of things (I am not a big shopper otherwise). Lets face it, playing house never really ends. Does a new baby need me to paint all the walls and decorate the house perfectly? Not really, but somehow it feels necessary. Does my new baby care if my outdoor veggie garden is as impressive as last year? Considering all he or she will care about for six months is breast milk, I will just have to try harder next summer. Hehe. I wish I could laugh at myself more.
There is always more one can buy or change before a new baby, but at this point, I just need to focus on basic needs. God has always provided just enough for our kids and this time will be the same.
I am trying to distract myself with things I want to accomplish before I have this baby. Challenge number one is closet and dresser space. Organizing four kids clothing and toys has been interesting. I have my two older kids sharing a dresser and a closet and my two younger kids sharing a dresser and a closet. This has worked well so far, but no there is not any more space. We may just have to get another dresser or something.
This is where shopping crazy hormones kick into overdrive. One starts pricing dressers and finds that she has begun to look at cribs and nursery design. We don't have room in our house for this stuff, but every pregnancy I find myself doing the same thing. It feel like we are not prepared for a baby. Silly, since we have managed to be just prepared enough for four so far. How did one dresser suddenly become decorating an imaginary room that we do not really have or need? Mommy drive is funny like this.
At the same time as wanting to add to our stuff...I started to figure out how much junk we could consider getting rid of. If I had not been pregnant so many times, maybe I would never clean the garage? Pregnancy does have its advantages when it comes to spring cleaning and forcing oneself to give up pack rat tendencies. If only I could part with some of my childhood toys? I was the kind of kid that insisted on keeping everything. I never understood why my mother wanted to get rid of my toys. Now I know what she means. How many stuffed animals do we need before a whole room is just full of them? What is the best strategy for organizing toys in a three bedroom house where one doesn't want the living area to basically become a glorified playroom, but insists that the bedrooms remain sleeping spaces?
If I put toys in the bedrooms, my kids would never go to bed. This is a problem. My latest idea? place a shelf in our almost too narrow hallway. It has worked so far. The toys are not in a bedroom or a living room. We can make our living room guest friendly and the kids can play in the living room or their bedrooms. Clean up has become a daily part of our routine and it is easy to keep track of since all the toys go in one place. So far so good. We cannot own every fun toy known to man, but the kids are still having tons of fun.
We really will need to purchase a dresser of some kind for this new baby, but other than that we are set. I have tons of baby clothes and all the gear. It is so easy to feel a sense of panic because having a baby tends to make me want to buy lots of things (I am not a big shopper otherwise). Lets face it, playing house never really ends. Does a new baby need me to paint all the walls and decorate the house perfectly? Not really, but somehow it feels necessary. Does my new baby care if my outdoor veggie garden is as impressive as last year? Considering all he or she will care about for six months is breast milk, I will just have to try harder next summer. Hehe. I wish I could laugh at myself more.
There is always more one can buy or change before a new baby, but at this point, I just need to focus on basic needs. God has always provided just enough for our kids and this time will be the same.
Friday, July 1, 2011
21 Weeks: Mastectomy, Maternity, and Swimwear
This is a strange post for people who don't know me very well. There was a time in my life when all of my friends knew that I went through a mastectomy my freshman year of college. Now this part of my life is fading into a distant memory except for times when I want to go swimming pregnant and I need to wear my prosthetic in order to feel normal wearing a swimsuit.
I should back up to the fact that I live in the northwest and have not been swimming much in the last six years. I had breast reconstruction after my mastectomy so I did not feel strange wearing a bathing suit until pregnancy. When I started having children I had to learn about something most doctors could not teach me about. How does one buy a nursing bra when one breast is two or three sizes bigger than the other one? With my first child I bought a bra based on the size of my actual breast, but then I had to thinking about balancing the other side out. I tried shoulder pads. This sounds odd, but I really did not know what else to do. This worked for a couple of babies, but by my third pregnancy I began to notice a back ache that seemed related to having only one breast. When I asked my doctor about my back pain he did not seem to think it was related to my mastectomy, but willing wrote a prescription for a prosthetic. I did not expect my insurance to cover the cost because I had already had reconstruction, but there was a special case coverage based on my pregnancy. This prosthetic changed my life. I was able to walk correctly and fix my posture to the point when my back no longer hurt. The added bonus was I could make my body look normal again, but it was mostly about comfort.
Now I had to think about going a step further. I was in California with a strong desire to swim considering the temperature was in the 90's one day. Wearing a bathing suit is challenging enough pregnant. Between stretch marks and fat that is normally not there, it is not a time anyone I know is thrilled to walk around showing of her body. On top of this I needed to find a solution to the fact that there is no market for women younger than thirty wanting a stylish swimsuits with mastectomy pockets for a prosthetic that will go over a pregnant belly.
I found myself at a mastectomy specialty boutique buying a bathing suit that would normally be two sizes too big. It was not the most thrilling bathing suit, but it would looked good enough for me to wear in public. Going to the store was a different story. Sitting in the waiting room I felt lost in the past. All my memories of loosing my breast came back to me. My first response was to give up on the bathing suit and run away. Most of the time I feel like a normal mother with four children, but this particular day I had to remember I was not.
Thankfully the lady in the store was very nice and made me feel more at ease. She was helpful when I said I wanted a swimsuit that did not look like something my grandmother would wear. Though the selection was minimal, I felt a new sense of confidence knowing I had forced myself to buy a swimsuit in my condition. I was even brave enough to wear it a my husband's friend's pool. One never really gets over having a mastectomy, but most of the time it is easy to forget about it. It is strange, but true.
I have only met one other woman in my situation. It is rare, but very real to those of us dealing my such a huge change in one's body. In my case, I am thankful for my life and the fact that my particular breast disease (fibro mitosis of the breast a rare breast disease) could be cured by a mastectomy. Unfortunately, I have realized that I may never be completely thrilled with only having one breast. It's just the reality of my situation I guess.
I should back up to the fact that I live in the northwest and have not been swimming much in the last six years. I had breast reconstruction after my mastectomy so I did not feel strange wearing a bathing suit until pregnancy. When I started having children I had to learn about something most doctors could not teach me about. How does one buy a nursing bra when one breast is two or three sizes bigger than the other one? With my first child I bought a bra based on the size of my actual breast, but then I had to thinking about balancing the other side out. I tried shoulder pads. This sounds odd, but I really did not know what else to do. This worked for a couple of babies, but by my third pregnancy I began to notice a back ache that seemed related to having only one breast. When I asked my doctor about my back pain he did not seem to think it was related to my mastectomy, but willing wrote a prescription for a prosthetic. I did not expect my insurance to cover the cost because I had already had reconstruction, but there was a special case coverage based on my pregnancy. This prosthetic changed my life. I was able to walk correctly and fix my posture to the point when my back no longer hurt. The added bonus was I could make my body look normal again, but it was mostly about comfort.
Now I had to think about going a step further. I was in California with a strong desire to swim considering the temperature was in the 90's one day. Wearing a bathing suit is challenging enough pregnant. Between stretch marks and fat that is normally not there, it is not a time anyone I know is thrilled to walk around showing of her body. On top of this I needed to find a solution to the fact that there is no market for women younger than thirty wanting a stylish swimsuits with mastectomy pockets for a prosthetic that will go over a pregnant belly.
I found myself at a mastectomy specialty boutique buying a bathing suit that would normally be two sizes too big. It was not the most thrilling bathing suit, but it would looked good enough for me to wear in public. Going to the store was a different story. Sitting in the waiting room I felt lost in the past. All my memories of loosing my breast came back to me. My first response was to give up on the bathing suit and run away. Most of the time I feel like a normal mother with four children, but this particular day I had to remember I was not.
Thankfully the lady in the store was very nice and made me feel more at ease. She was helpful when I said I wanted a swimsuit that did not look like something my grandmother would wear. Though the selection was minimal, I felt a new sense of confidence knowing I had forced myself to buy a swimsuit in my condition. I was even brave enough to wear it a my husband's friend's pool. One never really gets over having a mastectomy, but most of the time it is easy to forget about it. It is strange, but true.
I have only met one other woman in my situation. It is rare, but very real to those of us dealing my such a huge change in one's body. In my case, I am thankful for my life and the fact that my particular breast disease (fibro mitosis of the breast a rare breast disease) could be cured by a mastectomy. Unfortunately, I have realized that I may never be completely thrilled with only having one breast. It's just the reality of my situation I guess.
20 Weeks: Half Way?
Optimistically speaking I am about halfway though my pregnancy. Realistically based on my past experiences I could be even further. All of my babies so far have been born between 37 and 38 weeks, but I am aware that every birth and baby is different. It is nice to have a due date in mind, but also nice to know that due dates change based on the baby, not measurements and calculations. For me, this is a reminder that God is in control. I cannot plan perfectly for my baby's due date leaving a sense of awe and mystery around the whole thing.
So what is my most recent obsession revolving around this baby? DIAPERS! Even though I still have months before I need to think about changing another baby's bottom, I have been dealing with diapers for about six years!. Will it ever stop? On the plus side, I have an excuse to continue my need to create the perfect cloth diaper.
When I had my first baby there was no way I would ever consider cloth diapering a child. My parents had my brother and I in the third world when we were babies and cloth diapers where only important if one could not purchase disposable ones. I thought baby poop would be too disgusting to wash in a washing machine. My comforting thought to myself was that I was saving water. Um...I was not thinking about landfills, toxic gels, and other hazards associated with disposable diapers.
It took me two babies and a three and half year old who did not want to potty train to consider cloth diapering. After realizing that my son never knew when he was wet or dry I began to panic. My third baby was on the way and there was no way I was going to change three sets of diapers a day. We were already paying about one hundred and fifty dollars a month on diapers. I admit we were a bit snobby about brands and only bought Pampers, but this was a lot of money. If one chooses to buy an all in one cloth diaper such as the Flip diaper system, or even Fuzzi Bunz one size, the diaper cost in covered in a couple of months. If one chooses to buy perfect sized diapers it might seem as if cloth diapers cost the same. There are also prefolds and flats that cost next to nothing considering the cost of disposable diapers. Regardless of the perfect diaper system for the perfect family, I am enjoying a lot of the hidden bonuses that come along with cloth diapering.
My third child is already aware of his potty needs and started to become aware around eighteen months old instead of three years old. This is amazing because I would love to have him potty trained by the time my fifth child is born. Once again I am in the zone of possibly having three babies in diapers. We also have the option of our trash not smelling terrible. There have been times when I thought we would be in some serious trouble if we missed trash day. Diapers take up over half our trash can when I have two kids in them. Washing diapers every couple of days prevents stink in the house. What can I say I am hooked.
Once one is no longer afraid of cloth diapers there is so much to consider. Diapers can be purely functional or super cute. I am having fun looking at colors, styles, and the many different kinds of diapers. After becoming familiar with different styles I have begun to make my own diapers and accessories. It is pretty addictive. I tend to enjoy making things anyway, but diapers are easy to make and one can always use a couple more diapers. Maybe cloth diapering has kept the process of changing babies for six years more fun. It definitely distracts me from poop.
So what is my most recent obsession revolving around this baby? DIAPERS! Even though I still have months before I need to think about changing another baby's bottom, I have been dealing with diapers for about six years!. Will it ever stop? On the plus side, I have an excuse to continue my need to create the perfect cloth diaper.
When I had my first baby there was no way I would ever consider cloth diapering a child. My parents had my brother and I in the third world when we were babies and cloth diapers where only important if one could not purchase disposable ones. I thought baby poop would be too disgusting to wash in a washing machine. My comforting thought to myself was that I was saving water. Um...I was not thinking about landfills, toxic gels, and other hazards associated with disposable diapers.
It took me two babies and a three and half year old who did not want to potty train to consider cloth diapering. After realizing that my son never knew when he was wet or dry I began to panic. My third baby was on the way and there was no way I was going to change three sets of diapers a day. We were already paying about one hundred and fifty dollars a month on diapers. I admit we were a bit snobby about brands and only bought Pampers, but this was a lot of money. If one chooses to buy an all in one cloth diaper such as the Flip diaper system, or even Fuzzi Bunz one size, the diaper cost in covered in a couple of months. If one chooses to buy perfect sized diapers it might seem as if cloth diapers cost the same. There are also prefolds and flats that cost next to nothing considering the cost of disposable diapers. Regardless of the perfect diaper system for the perfect family, I am enjoying a lot of the hidden bonuses that come along with cloth diapering.
My third child is already aware of his potty needs and started to become aware around eighteen months old instead of three years old. This is amazing because I would love to have him potty trained by the time my fifth child is born. Once again I am in the zone of possibly having three babies in diapers. We also have the option of our trash not smelling terrible. There have been times when I thought we would be in some serious trouble if we missed trash day. Diapers take up over half our trash can when I have two kids in them. Washing diapers every couple of days prevents stink in the house. What can I say I am hooked.
Once one is no longer afraid of cloth diapers there is so much to consider. Diapers can be purely functional or super cute. I am having fun looking at colors, styles, and the many different kinds of diapers. After becoming familiar with different styles I have begun to make my own diapers and accessories. It is pretty addictive. I tend to enjoy making things anyway, but diapers are easy to make and one can always use a couple more diapers. Maybe cloth diapering has kept the process of changing babies for six years more fun. It definitely distracts me from poop.
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