I'm reading instead of writing

And it feels so good.

• Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues - Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Stephen Hines
• The Happiest Toddler on the Block - Harvey Karp
• Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health - Toni Weschler
• Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

Beans, the magical fruit

Our dried bean harvest --
Hidatsa Shield
We let them dry on the vine, then shelled them this weekend.
G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S
There isn't a person who has been able to resist
doing just what Baby Truen is doing in this picture.
They feel so nice.

Due to the pretty consistent turmoil,
I haven't gotten many pictures of the brothers together recently
But good news:
they are starting to laugh at each other and play together!!
[Figures.]
I am so pleased.

Lil Baby Pumpkin likes to eat pumpkins, apparently --
and Diego thinks his Dada is the funniest man alive.
Speaking of hilarious, check out that Jack-o-Lantern on the left.
That would be Squeeze's;
I've been laughing every time I look at it --
I think it looks like a robo-squash just tweaked on the bum.

And finally...
I'd like to announce that
I have a great affection for David Bowie.
It's true.

September fruit

Watermelons and cantaloupe from our garden
They are the perfect size:
Small enough to avoid left-overs
Juicy and tasty
We are so proud.

The cross-section of our cantaloupe
Did I mention how delicious it is?
The book said it would show ripeness by:
Color change [check]
Pungency of aroma, particularly by the stem [check!]

Our apple harvest.
Baby Truen had a fun time in the back of the van
while I sorted the "keepers", i.e. for the root cellar,
from those that will become applesauce in the coming weeks.

I was attempting to snap
to coax a grin from the baby for the picture --
neither of us are really smiling but I like it anyway.
There is a whole 'nother box of apples behind me.

Participate in the drama

I have a large egg-shaped lump on my forehead. It is probably the worst injury I've had since childhood and it was inflicted on me by a Jumbo Tinker Toy storage can and my butter-fingered 3 year old.

We were playing with Tinker Toys yesterday afternoon [a stupendous toy, btw] and Diego had just attempted to see if the storage can would fit as a hat on Baby Truen's head. "No," I said, "It won't fit. And see...it doesn't fit on my head either, or your head." I showed him and then handed the can back to him. Seconds afterward, I laid back on the floor thinking about naptime, when BAM! it hit me: right on the forehead. It was the hard metal corner of the can no less, probably dropped from 1-2 feet above my head. It definitely fell [vs. thrown], though whether it slipped out of his hand or was carelessly dropped is unknown to me.

I rolled, screaming - not even really knowing what hit me. I could hear the baby screaming in terror with me (poor thing) so I sat up and picked him up, tears streaming out of my eyes from the pain, sobbing. I felt me forehead, and sure enough - a lump not all that difference from the top of a Silly Putty egg was hot and bulging right below my hairline.

Poor Diego was stricken when he saw me crying; his little face scrunched up into a wailing mess and then I was comforting two little guys in my lap. I took a couple of pictures for photographic evidence, then we snuggled in for a nap. No time for icing! It was 3:15 and I wanted these children asleep. The first thing Diego asked me when he woke up from his nap was, "Is your owie okay?" He kept on reassuring me that it would be "awight" and that it was healing. [Healing is a concept we've been discussing recently.]

Another interesting aftershock from the Tinker Toy Debacle has been contemplating my tears. It is interesting to think about an adult crying over physical pain. Emotional pain is a given for me - but I had forgotten what it was like to get hurt and cry over it. And my goodness did it hurt.

Nothing like a little Fenix Funk 5 to swerve potential disaster

I felt trouble brewing this morning, so instead of the usual, I tossed in a little Aphex Twin and a full-out dance party ensued: be-bopping on feet and knees, respectively. I was able to get my breakfast in peace [they had already had theirs].

My babies and the schickens

Baby Truen, my little Pumpkin

This baby loves tomatoes

He signs "milk", "more", and "eat"

All subtle variations of "milk", but I know what he means

Diego, who loves "buggggzzzz"
and snakes and salamaders
He'll take anyone who is willing out for a hunt

Our "schickens", as Diego calls them
No more peeping, they are clucking like grown-ups now
They should start laying sometime in October or November

Not healed, but healing

I'm still teetering. My patience is thin, my time is non-existent, and I have been feeling rather trapped by mothering the past couple of weeks. In no way was I prepared for the KA-BOOM that would be our life once little Pumpkin started moving around and interacting. I feel like I should have known.

I mean, really. Shouldn't I have known? It is a big time of change, for Diego especially, as we all re-organize around this new little autonomous person, our big-boy baby who loves to roll things with wheels back-and-forth-back-and-forth, open-and-shut doors, climbs stairs, crinkle books, and get into whatever-his-big-brother-is-into. So sweet, but much of it invites the Wrath [AKA jealousy] of The Preschooler.

There is no relaxing during this phase of mothering, I guess. I have to be "on" at all times, to prevent catastrophe and injury - mostly that of Diego beating on his little brother, but also keeping little brother out of big brother's business, and therefore, harm's way. Kristina talked about 2 year olds turning into 3 year olds and suddenly going bezerk. Uhm, yes. I can attest to that. Another one of my friends (before things went ka-blewy for us) said that she'd take two over three any day. I can also remember a mom [a year ahead of me in the game] saying, "I finally came to the conclusion that, yes, I do need adult conversation during my day." At the time, I thought that sounded a little dramatic, but then - I had one child who was just learning to talk at the time. He napped regularly! He went to bed early! I worked PT and Squeeze stayed home with him! The clouds are starting to part and the clarity that experience provides is dawning.

I am emotionally exhausted. I am expending way more energy with my 3 year old than my 10 month old. I almost feel like I don't get to see Truen enough, if that is possible given the fact that I am with him 24 hours a day. Food prep, not to mention the act of eating itself, is almost impossible. I feel like I spend most of my day negotiating movement: "No, you can't do that - why don't you try this instead" or "If you choose to do that, then I will take it away" or "You can do this or that - you decide" or "Come here - Stop - I need you to - Please don't - Will you? - Can you? - STOP!!!!"

Needless to say, I feel like I am a vortex of negativity. I understand that positive parenting takes practice: some of my instincts are correct while others are completely awry. I've been drowning myself in parenting books and audio discs the last several days. It has been very helpful, but frustration and anger is still at a flash-point with me. I just need to simmer down.

I guess I just feel like life threw me a curve ball; and if I've learned anything about parenting, it is that change happens in a snap and it usually takes a little time to catch up with it. I flail and fuss until I realize a re-adjustment is in order. Once things are figured out, it is smooth sailing until the next quandary hits.

Big Find:

• Helicopters, Drill Sergeants and Consultants - Parenting Styles and the Messages They Send - [an audio lecture by] Jim Fay of Love & Logic

My aunt recommended this to me in April. I had forgotten about it, but found it through the library when I did a search for "child-rearing". LOL! I've ordered every single Love & Logic CD our system has. There are lots of books, too - but I have less time for reading than listening right now.

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!