1. Several weeks ago in one of my quick takes, I mentioned that I needed to schedule a haircut - but I was enjoying my newly long-enough-for-a-ponytail hair too much to ruin it with a cut. Well, that feeling of pleasure in pulling my hair back has dissipated and turned into an ugly feeling resembling hatred towards this terrible hair. By the time I admitted how badly I needed to get it cut, my normal stylist was on vacation. The NERVE!
So I had to wait.
When she returned and I finally got an appointment scheduled, I called around to find a babysitter - with absolutely zero luck. I tried all different angles, even trying for later times so my mother in-law could come after she gets off work, but if I'd rescheduled, the closest appointment I could get would have been in two more weeks. TWO. WEEKS. I couldn't picture myself living through that amount of time when I'm already so ready to chop off the locks. I was sure I'd take the scissors to my own hair during the wait.
I was beginning to lose hope. I started wallowing in self-pity, wondering why I hadn't been smart enough to schedule a doable appointment time weeks ago rather than waiting until I'm cross-eyed with need of a haircut.
Then, a straw landed gently on my strained, self-pitying back: My husband came home late on Wednesday night. Why? HE GOT A HAIRCUT. I almost cried at the unfairness of it all.
Thankfully, my aunt offered to watch the girls while she works in the church office this morning. I'm going to get my unruly hair cut right after I publish this post. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing gets in my way - I can't be held accountable for my actions if I have to endure this hair much longer.
2. Earlier this week (the Wednesday night I mentioned above), I sat down after dinner to type up the details of a post while it was fresh in my head. Justin was eating his dinner late, and the girls went off to play. We got into a discussion (probably about why the universe had conspired against me to keep me and my haircut separated from each other) at the table by ourselves while I was on the computer, and weren't paying much attention to the silence in the background. Silence is never good around here.
We were awarded with this giganto mess for our momentary lapse of attention.
3. One of my posts this week was about not being able to come up with ideas for activities we could do to keep us busy for the rest of summer. (I got some wonderful suggestions and tips - but I'd LOVE to have more!) Noting the amount of toys on the floor in that room, I'm wondering how on earth I could ever think they'd need something to DO. Cleaning up counts as an activity, right?
4. (This photo has nothing to do with the following story, I just thought it was representative of her sassiness, and wanted to make sure I had a picture of her in my Quick Takes.)
While Justin was putting Mia to bed the other night, she started whining for a Kleenex. He brought her one and was about to help her blow her nose, when she stopped him.
"Wait!" she said with a finger buried up her nostril, "let me pick this booger out of there first."
Somehow, Justin maintained his composure during this exchange. I'm sure I would have choked myself with laughter at her incongruous logic.
5. When I tried to snap some pictures of Lauren yesterday, she started doing a new camera face. This is her interpretation of 'SMILE!'
Oh, this sweet girl. She and I have been having more one-on-one time this week since Mia's been napping longer from being sick. I've gotten to snuggle and play only with LJ for at least an hour every afternoon.
She is growing into such an interesting toddler. Always dancing. Always hugging. Always lovey-dovey...
6. Always talking. I am becoming more and more impressed with Lauren's growing language. She talks so much more than I thought 16 month old's were supposed to - stringing words into phrases already. "Mama, shower?" she asks when I walk into the bathroom. "Sissy, drink!" she demands when she sees Mia's princess cup.
My favorite new phrase of hers is when she tells me 'bless you' after a sneeze. Only, she doesn't know it's only supposed to be used on sneezes, so she's been saying it after I cough. "Bayh-shoooo!" she yells after every cough. She looks so pleased with herself when she says it. Probably because I shower her with affection each time.
7. At the library this week, I checked out my first library DVD: The Business of Being Born. I'm so excited to watch this. I have a feeling it will be like preaching to the choir, but maybe that's why I'm so excited to see it - we always like to have our own feelings validated, right? My thoughts about childbirth are pretty passionate towards the 'natural' camp - and I can't wait to see some statistics and facts about the disparity between medicalized birth and natural birth in America. Have any of you seen this documentary yet? If so, what did you think?
Thank you for visiting my rambling Quick Takes! Click over to Conversion Diary, where Jen's got a list of many more links to many more Quick Takes. Have a beautiful weekend!
Oh yes, silence and small children is never a good thing! And boogers and children is always funny. I have a weird sense of humor!
ReplyDeleteLily and LJ make the same face when smiling for pictures -- they must have been separated at birth ;)
ReplyDeleteMy middle girl has been so needy lately, I was happy yesterday when we had a patch of time when she was playing quietly in her room. . . how could I be so stupid? Ours was a water incident. Silence is dangerous.
ReplyDeleteInterested in hearing your perspective on the video -- I'm also inclined to natural birth but had an upside down kid and C-Sections (too, right?). Tried V-BAC with kid #2, when she got stubborn the ob wanted to try pitocin, it was so odd to try to figure out which road would most resemble a natural birth. . .
I hope you got your haircut!
ReplyDeleteI saw "The Business of Being Born" a few weeks before I had Maria. I guess I saw it for the same reason you are: I wanted my opinions validated and I wanted to see if more women out there are turning back towards a natural way of giving birth. I liked the movie. It made me really, really want to try a home birth, but I am just too chicken. If something went wrong that permanently harmed my baby I'd never forgive myself.
#1: Will you post a picture after it is cut? Please do!
ReplyDelete#2: My whole house looks like this all the time.
#6: Uh-oh. One of ours (my 9-year-old stepdaughter) was like this. And now she talks all.the.time. Actually it is pretty helpful in entertaining the younger ones.
#7: I haven't seen it, but I will be interested to read your comments on it nonetheless. My thoughts about childbirth have changed a lot since I had babies. Before my first, I really really really really wanted an all-natural birth. Didn't happen. I have come to believe, personally, that though yes, absolutely childbirth has become medicalised, probably overly so, I would rather there be a million "unnecessary" c-sections if it averts the death of one baby or mom. There is a lot of negativity lately toward hospital births, and I think that a lot of people do not realise just how many women and babies used to die (and still do in places where there is little access to medical care; I think in africa that is the #3 or 4 cause of childhood mortality, after malaria and diarrhea I think) as a direct result of childbirth. It is very, very rare for a woman or a baby to die during childbirth in the "first world" nowadays, and like it or not, it is directly BECAUSE childbirth has become more medicalised. Successful (as in: healthy, alive babies and mothers) childbirth is one of the resounding successes of the medical profession in the last 100 years. Yes, it is true that the pendulum has perhaps swung too far in the opposite direction, and it would be nice if moms giving birth in the hospital could have, say, more freedom to move around. But like I said, I would way way way rather have an unnecessary c-section than take even a smidgeon of a chance that my baby might not make it.
Wow, I just totally hijacked your comments section with a rant. I hope y'all won't throw rotten tomatoes at me now.
(BTW I'm NOT trying to say everyone should go get an elective c-section. I do think natural childbirth sounds like the ideal, IF all goes well. I think it is amazing that (I'm assuming) you were able to do it and it is amazing when women can without needing interventions. Unfortunately, that just isn't always the case. And please know that I am not trying to be nasty. I love your blog and I totally respect your opinions on this, and I do think that there is merit to both sides. AND I'll shut up now.)
Sarah, all you have to do is call me when you need a sitter...not only do I owe you the favor but I think the girls would have a lot of fun together.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful girls. I think my 17 month old needs to hang out with your little one and learn some words. She has some, but not the helpful ones. :)
ReplyDeleteI hope your haircut met your expectations. I love getting my haircut and it is the one item in our budget that Husband has never questioned. He's a smart man.
Debbie - We must share that sense of humor, then, because one of my favorite new words from Lauren is 'booguh'. Always good for a chuckle from mama.
ReplyDeleteAmy - Not to mention that I have pictures of Mia that look SO much like your Lily. Our famlilies must have similar genes.
Marie - Yeah, my first was a c-section for breech. My doctor was very strict in not even allowing any pitocin to come close to me if I tried for natural. It was either all natural, c-section. I felt so lucky that it all worked out naturally.
Emily G - I've kinda got a crush on homebirthing too - but I doubt it'll ever happen unless it's by accident. Hubby wouldn't hear of it, but I'm too nervous to try anyway. I like knowing there's help if I need it - but hopefully not needing it :)
Rebecca - Hmmm...I guess it depends on if I can get a good picture. I'll try to post it though! And I'm so glad you commented in length! I loved reading your thoughts. While I agree that cesareans are a wonderful technology and have saved many lives, I worry about it too. I worry that using interventions in the first place - in a healthy pregnancy - may be causing the labors to proceed in a way that becomes dangerous and makes a c-section neccessary. Like, you have pitocin which makes the contractions so difficult, so you have an epidural, which makes you not able to move, so labor slows down, and you need more pitocin, which causes such strong contractions that the baby's heartrates are being affected negatively, so it suddenly becomes an emergency situation and you need a c-section. And we all are so grateful that the baby got out safely after being in distress, but if we hadn't started the interventions in the first place, the most likely scenario is that the distress wouldn't have happened at all. Plus, c-sections are WAY more dangerous than natural pregnancy, for both mother and baby. So if a c-section is a last resort, fine - it's a wonderful alternative. I DO agree that the medical field has been miraculous in saving lives that were in danger. My view, though, is that pregnancy and childbirth don't always have to be a dangerous situation. And can be handled in a responsible way without resorting to the whole line of intervention.
So, no rotten tomatoes, and thank you for your sweet comments! I totally respect your opinion also :)
Katie - Now WHY didn't I think of this!? We could have played afterwords and had a lunch date too! Doh!
Nicole - My haircut went FABULOUSLY! I love it. And your husband sounds like a genius :)
I like your list! I had to come read after I saw your nose comment on someone else's blog... I knew I'd like you. :)
ReplyDeleteMarie - I just re-read my comment to you above and it is totally incoherent, sorry :) What I meant was this: my first daughter was born by c-section, yes. My second I got to have naturally, and my dr. was very strict that it had to happen spontaneously, without needing pitocin or he wouldn't let it happen. He was worried that pitocin could cause uterine rupture, so it had to be either naturally occuring labor, or a c-section. He would have liked me to have an epidural, too, but I was aiming for the whole hog :)
ReplyDeleteChelsea - OMGoodness! The nose comment...how embarrassing. Thank you for visiting and commenting, even though I'm a nose-picking loser :)
Thanks for your reassuring words-- very comforting :)
ReplyDeleteAnd now with all these interesting comments I'm going to have to watch that documentary you mention. I feel like such a novice since I don't know a thing about giving birth (yikes). I just told my OB I wanted it as natural as possible. And then I got reassigned to a midwife, which is totally neat.
As nice as home birth sounds, I also think I'd be too scared to try it. Even though my husband (also a Justin) is an EMT, actually maybe even because of that he won't even hear of it.
I want to see your new haircut too! And I am embarrassed to admit that, like Rebecca, your messy room picture pretty much depicts my entire house.
ReplyDeleteLoves the business of being born. Unfortunately for me, my hubby is not supportive of home birth at all...oh well, we love our OB and had good experiences at the hospital. The girls are so cute in the new pics!
ReplyDeleteYour girls are adorable! And I loved the boogers comment! Oh, those little ones come up with such doozies!
ReplyDeleteI am going to post the links that you'd wanted to see, so if you have a moment, stop by Peace Garden Mama again and see more of the discussion. I also responded to your comment. Some of the responses were on Facebook so not as easy to post, but you'll get the gist.
Thanks for your beautiful post!
P.S. Your haircut fiasco reminded me how hard it is to get away when your children are very young. I now have built-in sitters but had many years of such commonplace trials as simply getting out the door for an appointment. Hope it all worked out!
It's so refreshing to see your mess! Every once in awhile I think about photographing some of our particularly epic messes, but then I always chicken out and point the camera in the other direction.
ReplyDeleteHope you like your new haircut! Post some pictures soon!
I think that it is probably true that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction (i.e. in the direction of lots of medical intervention) regarding birthing and pregnancy. And I think that you hit it spot-on when you spoke of too many interventions in a healthy pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteI do still stand by what I said that I would WAY rather have an unnecessary c-section than a dead baby. What I think is the important distinction and something that is not, I guess, very well-expressed by a lot of people (I don't mean you, I'm thinking mothering magazine and the like) is that I think that we are making a mistake by demonizing unnecessary c-sections. I think that most of the time, by the point that an emergency c-section is called for, the c-section probably IS necessary in order to avert oxygen deprivation or something else you wouldn't want.
BUT I am sure it is true that many of these c-sections would not be MADE necessary were it not for unnecessary inductions.
I really think that it would benefit us all if we would talk LESS about unnecessary c-sections -- because I really do think that once you are in that emergecy situation, the surgery probably has been made necessary -- and focus MORE on the fact that many women are being induced before they are ready.
I have NO problem with a medically indicated induction; I am of the better safe than sorry camp. Statistically, when a singleton pregnancy gets past 41-42 weeks, the chance of stillbirth goes way up; with twins it is more like 38 weeks. (I don't know what it is for higher order multiples.) So I am totally cool with inducing a pregnancy that has gone that far. If we could just concentrate on discouraging people from scheduling inductions for convenience, that would make a big part of the problem go away and so many c-sections would not be needed.
I know there is more to work on (doctors having a hair-trigger for what might be "medically necessary"; perhaps letting a woman wait another week while being monitored with non-stress tests, etc., rather than panicking and inducing, etc.) but I think that a really big part of the problem lies with the concept of picking a birthday for sheer convenience.
Also, I love that you were able to have a successful VBAC. I wanted to do that, but my husband really didn't want me to. Sometimes I'll fight him on an issue, but not this one; it's his baby too, and I understand why he wanted me to have a repeat section. (Things may have been different if this wasn't kid #4 for him, and if I was younger and thought there might be a lot more pregnancies.) I'll post about this on my own blog sometime soon.