Husk-like

I've just finished with a block of the worst two weeks of my life. I think we're in the clear (for the most part), but I'm still emotionally flinching. A tad dramatic, maybe - but terrible nonetheless.

Consider the following combination:

• Transitioning back to "real life", with
• An amped-up preschooler filled with overzealous jealousy of his newly mobile and interactive baby brother, resulting in
• Attacks on baby brother and general unrest and upheaval, added to
  
• Grappling with the reality of our current agricultural system and the [unfortunate] direct affect it has on our lives, i.e.,
• My husband was misted by pesticides by a crop-duster [airplane] while standing near the back door of our home on a pleasant Monday evening, which leads to
• The grievous questioning of our life and choices, like, "What are we going to do?" and "Why did we move here?" and "How could we have not known?" and "With a problem of this magnitude, what can one even do?"

It has been a tough couple of weeks, complete with zombie-like staring at 3:00 am and copious amounts of tears shed. This, my friends, is why you have heard little from me.

At home - and exhausted

Brother married.
At home.
Missing my family, but
Glad to be back with my main Squeeze.
Re-entry with the off-kilter 3 year old is taxing my [depleted] reserves.
Disillusionment has kicked into high gear: pesticide laden crop-dusting planes vs. us ---
This world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Buy local and/or organic: forsake your pesticide-drenched food-like substances.
This sh*t is real.

More later.

Put this one in the brain-files

If ands and buts
were candy and nuts,
we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

My brother's skipper often brings this important point up while on the fishing vessel each summer. I thought I should pass the pearl on.

Two more days and he'll be a married man: weird (and beautiful)

Forest of Feelings and Blog-a-lot

Remember Care-a-lot, where the Care Bears lived? Remember how I said songs get stuck in my head for days and weeks at a time?

Here's my latest:

Forest of Feelings, Care-a-lot, and Earth
Aren't far apart
They differ is some ways in some ways not

Cause home is in your heart
Home is in your heart
Home is in your heart...

We've been watching my brother's Care Bears VHS tapes, saved by my mom. (He didn't even remember they were his.) And dang, has it brought back memories. Does anyone else remember the song above?

Things are good; I'm at my parents'. My brother's wedding is this coming weekend. My legs have been waxed (where I spent much time looking like a bullfrog and gulping for air, peppered with squeaks and full-body shudders). Thanks Muver!

And now, this post will be cut short while I stop my curious 3 year old from ransacking my sister's room. Wahhhhh!!!!

News involving weddings and waxings

• I will be a groomswoman in my brother's wedding this month.
• That means I will be the fanciest and nicest-smelling I've been in, literally, years.
• It also means that I will be waxing the leg and pit hairs that I've so lovingly grown for, well, years (yet again). I haven't shaved my pits since Diego was a baby. I gave up shaving the old legs during my first pregnancy; but before that it was only once a week during in the summer. [It gives me a pseudo-tan. LOL]
  
• My mom is going to do the deed: the waxing.
  
• She's enthusiastically looking forward to it - mostly, it seems, because the hair is so long that it is perfect for a home-brew of wax-o-rama. She's been dropping hints for awhile now.
  
• Maybe she'll wax my eyebrows too.
• I tried once, but burnt the crap out of my skin with my too-hot home-brew.
• Muver?
• Speaking of weddings, I will be married 8 years on Tuesday.
• 4 years this autumn with children [including pregnancy] -
  
• 4 years without.
• Almost 4 years together pre-nuptial.
• 4 + 4 + 4 = 12

Snarf City

• Red Swan beans, steamed
• Butter
• Grated Parmesan

Whoa, baby. Delicious.

Tea, anyone?

I found this 1982 vintage Fisher-Price tea set at the thrift store last week. Diego was absolutely thrilled and plays with it several times throughout each day. He even insists that I fill his "tea" [aka water] from the kettle, not sink. While I am a little wary of him drinking water out of these surely BPA-laden plastic cups, it was just too cute to pass up. [I am making sure to change the water out regularly - and nothing warm or hot.]

Isn't the yellow just too-too? So cute.

Homebirth Insurance Coverage

I keep on forgetting to post on the victorious end-result of getting our homebirth covered by insurance. Yes, it's true!!! Our prenatal care, provided by our Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), plus the labor and delivery at home was covered by our insurance. I couldn't be more pleased.

Our CPM charged us $1,500 - plus gas at each prenatal appointment and any vitamins and/or supplements I purchased through her. Our grand total came to somewhere between $1,600-1,700. [NOTE: $1,500 is exactly half of what the CPM in Minneapolis I met with charged. I believe this is because our SD midwife works in an area where the cost of living is much lower, though she may also charge less than she should - I'm not sure.]

I called our insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), sometime at the end of October or beginning of November to inquire whether they covered a homebirth with a midwife. They said they covered homebirths with a Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) but didn't see anything about CPMs. The difference between the two being: CNMs are Registered Nurses in addition to a Midwifery degree, certified by the ACNM, while CPMs gain their accreditation via a lengthy apprenticeship culminating in an 8 hour exam and skills assessment test, certified by NARM. So there is a difference (especially in the eyes of an insurance provider). CNMs most often work in correlation with OBs in hospitals, though not always. CPMs are generally the midwives who do homebirths, working with friendly OBs as back-ups.

The woman at BCBS told me to submit a claim, basically saying, "What's the diff?!" between CNMs and CPMs. While I have already established that there is a difference, I didn't get too technical with her. I complied and submitted the claim, hoping for the best. This was sometime in November 2007 - I sent in all the paperwork and attached an official Bill of Service from my CPM. Pumpkin was born October 2007.

We didn't hear anything for months and months. I finally called in to check the status on my claim sometime in February or March, but got the run-around. Every dept. I was transferred to claimed that they weren't the ones processing it, and after several hours on the phone I gave up. This was quite distressing, and I called my midwife the next day to explain the circumstances and ask advice. Unbelievably, she had gotten something in the mail from the insurance company requesting more information. A few weeks later, I got a request for more information as well - so at least we knew someone, somewhere in the behemoth that is BCBS, was processing it. This time I made copies of everything they sent me (as well as what I sent back). I wanted PROOF that I was in process, in case I had to call in again.

More waiting, more waiting.

Then, out of the clear blue sky, in MAY 2008, they sent us an Explanation of Benefit Payments and a check for $720. Unbelievable! One month later in June 2008, they sent us another Explanation of Benefit Payments and a check for $161.60. We'll take it! That is $881.60 - covered by our insurance company - for the prenatal and postnatal care, plus the labor and delivery provided by our CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL MIDWIFE, in the comfort of our own home. Our total cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $600-700. Diego's hospital birth on the midwife unit - for just the birth, mind you - was a co-pay of $800-something. Victory!

Spread the word, ladies. It can be done. It might have taken forever and a day, but it can be done. We did it - hooray!!

Quirk – noun: a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism

Nutmegg[mama] tagged me. I enjoyed reading her Quirks so much that I've decided to do my own. I tag anyone who is interested in completing their own - leave a comment so I can come and look at your list. It is actually a lot of fun, to consider little tidbits about oneself that others might not know.

Six Unspectacular Quirks:

Quirk #1:
My mother still buys my underwear. I am 30 years old, the mother of two, and have been married for almost 8 years; but aside from my pregnancy underwear, the only ones I've ever worn [and worn out, I might add] have come from my mother. I can't find comfortable underwear on my own. I've tried! My friends have tried!! It is impossible. Thanks Muver.

Quirk #2:
I don't feel completely clean unless I've brushed my teeth during a shower. I started brushing my teeth in the shower during my teenage years and have never looked back.

Quirk #3:
While reading to Diego, I often find myself wistfully wishing that children's books were, in fact, reality. The world is so beautiful, all the problems are resolved, and something interesting is always happening. I wish I could blur the lines between reality and children's fiction.

Quirk #4:
I can't watch too many compilations of music videos and/or live footage of certain bands without developing a major crush on one of them. Examples: The Cure - Robert Smith, The Beatles - Paul McCartney, Depeche Mode - Martin L. Gore, Led Zeppelin - Robert Plant, David Bowie, Spinal Tap - Nigel Tufnel. Oh dear.

Quirk #5:
I often just sit and stare at the books on our bookshelves, thinking mostly about their spines, pages, the feel of the paper, and how pretty they look in a line. I'll think about whether I've read them or not as well, but mostly just get a thrill out of their composition. I also get dreamy planning on either reading or re-reading them.

Quirk #6:
I get stuck on jags where I sing the same song everyday, all day. Sometime they can change from day-to-day, other times I will be singing them for a week. I sing them so much that Diego starts singing them with me. Recent examples: Wade in the Water, She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain, Carefully - Carefully - CAREFUL, L-Y, and Oranges Smoranges.

Third Birthday

September 2005

July 2008

Kraftwerk for robot-crazed tots

Diego's current favorite song: We are zee rrrrro-bots!

More on Wee Fang

My poor little Pumpkin was so tired this afternoon that he fell asleep mid-twist during a diaper change. Right before sleep took him over, he was very calm and staring off into space so I took the opportunity to examine his mouth thoroughly - a first! My sweet little Wee Fang, so protective of his tiny hurtin' gums.

He is teething FOUR teeth. Both Cuspids are bulgy and white, but haven't broken through the gums yet. What has broken through, however, are his Lateral Incisors. We're going to have a Front-Toothless Double-Whammy Wee Fang! His Central Incisors look rounder than they have in the past, but I wouldn't describe them as bulging. Wow. That is going to look we-ird.

Learning the signs

Yesterday, Diego was standing at his Play Table. I was nursing the baby when I hear some loud juicy farts clapping from his direction. He instantly stopped what he was doing, laughed and said, "I'd better go poopy!" and made a bee-line to his potty chair.

Yes, my boy. Run!! That is called a Pre-Poo.

On a side note, he is really getting into building: for a couple of weeks now, he has been building "houses" with both his Duplo blocks and the wooden set I snagged for him at the thrift store. They are getting quite high and somewhat complex, comparatively. It is fun to see!

Wee Fang, wolf-baby

Seriously.

Pumpkin has been in the throes of teething his canines. Besides days-on-end of clinging, crying, and fever (poor thing), the only kink in what seems to be a normal, albeit, horrible teething experience, is that he has no other upper teeth. Wee Fang will not be an overly-dramatic nickname for the little fella, because - well, he'll have fangs. [And you know me - I love stuff like this!!]

Wee. Fang.

It started Saturday, when he bawled his little eyes out if I even tried to set him down. This continued into Sunday. Because he already has his two bottom teeth, I kept on looking for bulging gums where the two front teeth should be growing in. Nothing. Strange, because Diego's bulged for weeks before anything popped through. But I kept faithfully looking and feeling, especially once he started refusing to sleep unless I was by his side (that was Monday). AND a fever started. Nary a swollen front toothy. Nothing.

Monday night, he was like a little furnace in bed - hot to the touch and nursing at least every hour, maybe more often than that. His temp that morning was 101.8 - poor thing. It was that afternoon that I started expanding my search, which led to the discovery of bulging canines. The cuspids!! I've read that they are the hardest to teeth [not sure why] so the last few days started making more sense. His fever subsided in the mid-afternoon, allowing him to act almost-normal throughout the evening - but came back again in the middle of the night. Yesterday morning his fever was 102.5, the poor little fiery babe. [I am so thankful for the pacifier-thermometer...what an ingenious device!]

They are just starting to push their way through his gums, so I don't have any photographic evidence to offer. This is aside the fact that I am hard-pressed to even get a good look at them - he will hardly let me lift his lip to see. My poor wolfie.

In happier days

Chicken scenes

Growing pains [for mama]

December 2007

2 months old

Pulling himself to a stand at the play table today

My sweet Pumpkin is almost 9 months old. Crawling, putting himself back to a sitting position from his hands and knees, pulling himself up to his knees, and now, just today, pulling himself up to a standing position (all for the love of T-O-Y-S, of course).

How does this happen?! Weren't you just born? Wasn't it just last week that you were just a sweet lump of newborn? Pumpkin's first year seems to be speeding by so much more quickly that Starbeans'. He'll be standing by himself soon, then walking, then saying his first word, then and then and then and then. Amazing.

He loves cats, his mama [he is obsessed with me], watching his brother's antics, rolling rocks around in his mouth, licking on his brother's freezer pop [all the rage around here this summer, I might add], be-bopping to music, and displaying massively enthusiastic wiggles when Squeeze walks in the door each evening. We lauvf dis baby!

His sweet-ness is my weak-ness

[with due respect to MC Hammer]

Bountiful Harvest

Squeeze and I have an old joke from years back about bountiful harvests: before kids, when we had time, we enjoyed setting up postcard-like shots of autumn scenes in our Minneapolis backyard and title them, "Bountiful Harvest". It always made us laugh (and was lovely and always made me feel very cozy).

But really, this IS a bountiful harvest! We've been eating high off the hog recently: chard egg bake [from Simply in Season], roasts accompanied by buttery beets, salads galore, turnip and beet greens in soup, spinach with butter and salt, and dynamite omelets with basil or spinach. It has been absolutely delicious.

Now, feast your eyes:

5 Color Silver-beet Chard

Chamomile

Gorgeous and delicious:
golden beets, lettuce, peas, red beets, turnips, garlic scapes

Golden beets in butter:
We've been fighting over them!!

The smell of dirt and garden carrots makes me think of him

My rough-and-tumble grandfather died this past weekend. He had been ailing for months, recovering only enough to take another fall or get hit by another UTI or some other bacterial infection. It has been difficult grieving from a distance, only being able to connect with my family via the telephone; but the most difficult part, by far, is knowing the depth of sorrow that my mother and her sisters are feeling.

He was a beautiful lug of a man: strong-jawed, stout, slow-but-steady, and with an undercurrent of wit that you could miss if one didn't slow down to notice. I will always remember his scent: B.O. mixed with cigarette smoke and earth. His death has brought new understanding to the reality of what it means to grieve.

The end was bittersweet: we will miss him dearly, but it is a relief to know he is no longer living in discomfort and misery. My mom and her sisters were able to have him home for the end, surrounded by family. This was very important to them - to all of us. He had been in the hospital but when they realized that he was dying, they made the decision to bring him home. He died on the same piece of land that he was born onto.

I am so proud of his my mom and her sisters' loving diligence in caring for him all these months, and for the of servant-love the provided for both him and my grandmother. They honored his life and love by their selfless caregiving and constant hard work. I look to them with heartfelt admiration.

My mom wrote a beautiful obituary for him.

Here is a fragment:

Lester A. Christiansen, master of the one liner, passed from his earthly body July 6, 2008. He was surrounded by his family in the home he loved. We will miss the humor he brought to our lives.

Lester was born March 29, 1919 in Stanwood to Henry and Laura Christiansen. He spent the beginning and the end of his life on Laura’s family homestead. He enjoyed the hunting and fishing the area offered. He had a favorite dog, his Chesapeake Bay retriever, Pat, that accompanied him on many excursions that ended with a good meal!

Lester served his country during World War II in the 507 parachute infantry, Company H. He joined May 6, 1939 and was honorably discharged in September 1945. He received a Bronze Star for service in Europe and was a Purple Heart recipient for injuries sustained during that time. While on leave before his European deployment, he was introduced to Lea Gundersen by his sister, Hazel. They were married Oct. 8, 1945.

We will miss you, Grandpa. We will miss you.

I can't tell

I am thirty years old, turning thirty-one this fall. As I get a bit older, it seems like my faults and short-comings are amplified. I can't tell if this is because 1) I'm actually getting worse, or 2) I am mature enough to recognize my issues much more quickly. That aside, I still feel like I am floundering in my own short-falls. Creating change is hard; but I suppose recognizing the problem is the first step.

Has anyone else noticed this?

He should get into the naming business

Starbeans named one of our friendly Dominique cockerels "Chicken Coop" yesterday.