(Give me a little slack as I get back in to the swing of things.  Mining nuggets worth writing about from my day-to-day living is a finely honed skill.  So while I whet those skills once again, hang in there with me, won’t you?)

I’m enjoying knitting my lace wrap so much, I’ve become a bit obsessed with patterns in knitting.  I can  hardly wait until my shipment of sock yarn arrives — with it, I’m set to knit lacy socks until my sock drawer is entirely revitalized.  And this time, I’m going to try out the two circulars method for knitting them.  This way, the thing I’ve HATED about sock knitting here-to-fore — that is, the fact that when you’re done with one sock, you’re only half-way done with the project — will be solved.  Whew.  The excitement!  You can hardly contain yourself, I’m sure.

(Like I said….mining nuggets worth writing about from my day-to-day living is a finely honed skill.  Let’s just say the knife, she’s not so sharp these days.)

Zoe got a “kid’s cookbook” for Christmas this year. Given my well-known disdain for cooking with my children (yes! I’m a horrible mother!), I might have to wonder just what thoughts were behind that gift from my mother-in-law. However, all was entirely forgiven when I stumbled upon a simple recipe in the dessert section of the cookbook. Simple and quick, it brings home a set of flavors I have here-to-fore felt were restricted to the domain of campfires and campgrounds. Perhaps you already know of this neat little trick. Me? I’m far to inside-the-box-thinking (at least, when it comes to the kitchen) to have figured out this little gem. In any event, enjoy. I know I have — a little too much, perhaps.

S’more Nachos

Graham Crackers
Chocolate Chips
Mini Marshmallows

Layer graham crackers on foil-lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle chocolate chips and mini marshmallows on top.  Place under broiler in oven until marshmallows begin to brown.  (Believe it or not, you can get that same crusty-on-the-outside-gooey-on-the-inside effect with your oven broiler as you can with a campfire!!)

The tradition of eating collards and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is supposed to bring good luck and financial prosperity. The black-eyed peas symbolize coins and the collards represent the green of money. Mmm. Collards. (Seriously.)

I haven’t had my plate of collards and black-eyed peas today, but I have made steps toward having a green new year. Early this morning we set up our composter, which was a gift to Tim for the holidays, and then we set up our rain barrel — also a gift to Tim. (And just yesterday, I used our new shopping bags as I purchased our New Year’s fare.) My garden will be all the richer!

Happy New Year!

This week’s weather forecast — Oh, Hi!  Who’s this, you ask?  Ah, ’tis moi.  You thought I’d gone away never to return, yes?  But of course not!

Now, hmm.  Where was I?  Yes, that’s right, the week’s weather: hot, hot, and, um, let me see, more hot.  And even though today we’re being blessed with some much-needed rain, the hours in between the storms are — you got it! — hot!  And sticky!

But here in the Hansen house, particularly the kitchen, we will not let a little (or a lot) of hot weather get us down.  We shall singlehandedly bring on Fall with this week’s menu:

Chicken Chili

Corn and Poblano Soup

Macaroni and Cheese

Pot Roast

and, for dessert: Apple Pie

So, for those of you who are, like me, still searching for Fall, stop by my house for dinner.  Because there’s nothing like a hot bowl of spicy chili when it’s 80 degrees out.

Soup’s on!

It will be four years on Labor Day that we’ve lived in this house.  You could not have told me at the time we began looking for a home that I would “settle” for a home that had as many cosmetic issues with it as this one did.  But after seven months of looking — and at seven months pregnant — we really needed a home, and this one appeared to have everything we needed, albeit under a bit of extra wallpaper and ugly paint.  We did most of the cosmetic updating early on, in the month between taking ownership of the home and actually moving in, but some things were left for later:  the bathroom;  the other bathroom;  and, finally, the upstairs.  The fire took care of the worst of her problems.  She had been an uncomfortable blue — from floor to ceiling, INCLUDING the floor and ceiling.  With the fire, she got a nice new coat of paint and carpet, tackling the most expansive of her issues.

Now, all she needed was some furniture.  You see, for four years, we only had a couch up there.  Downstairs?  Furnished to a T.  Upstairs?  A little neglected, she was.  For four years, I sat on the couch.  And my husband sat on the floor.  (Sorry, Tim.)  It really was high-time to get ourselves some furniture.  And so we did.  Last week, direct from High Point, the furniture capital of the world, a room full of furniture was plopped into our upstairs, transforming it from this:

to this:

Yeah, Furniture.

Now, about that temporary insanity.

About two weeks before I received my furniture, I received a phone call.  “This is Megan Marketer calling you from the furniture capital of the world.  We would like to sell you blahblahblahblahblah.” Click.  I have no time for sales people.

Except.  She was selling me a stain guard protection for the furniture.  And I wasn’t thinking.

We have had this furniture one week.  And in that one week, I’ve wiped marker, Coca-Cola, and some other unidentifiable substance off of said new furniture.  One week.  Three potential stains.  I’ve been nothing short of lucky, so far.  But at the rate I’m going, I won’t be lucky much longer.

What the hell was I thinking?  New furniture, some of it yellow, at that, and I didn’t purchase stain guard?  Insane.

I’m calling the upholsterer this morning.

1.  Assuming I return to a regular pattern of posting of “every-day” matters (ha!)

and

2.  Assuming I will continue to have birth stories AND birth rants from time-to-time

should I:

1.  Continue on as is, posting both here in this blog and letting folks read what they want and skip over what they don’t?

or

2. Create a second blog, a “birth blog”, to which I post all my birth-related writings?

Thoughts? Insight?

Is anyone listening anymore? Bueller?  Bueller?

Eh. I’m trying to strike a balance. I’m also failing in that regard. But, for what it’s worth, here’s another birth bitch:

I rarely, if ever, participate in banter on my blog — even back in the day when I was posting nearly every day. But Lucky Candice left a comment on my last post that struck a chord, so much so that I felt I couldn’t just respond to her comment in-line. Thus, this post. Her comment was offered respectfully, and I took it as such. Likewise, my response, in the form of this post, is also offered respectfully. Her comment:

I love your blog - so I hope you don’t mind a bit of devil’s advocate here. Many hospitals offer walking epidurals. You can have walking monitors on or take them off. You just tell the nurses you don’t need or want them. If you write in your birth plan that you want the birth to be more natural, most nurses are really really cool about it. Supportive even. Granted, at the hospital you have to stand up for yourself! You have to be in charge and be firm about your wants. I’ve had all three of my kids in the hospital. My doctors (both of them that I’ve had) have been adamant about the fact that they never do episiotomies. You CAN eat, you just tell the nurses you’re going to and they don’t fight it. I guess what I’m saying is this: if you’re going to have your baby at the hospital and want a natural experience - bring a doula or be in complete charge and make it go the way you want it to. Even with pitocin you can walk around, have a room with a birthing tub, request a birthing ball make sure you get the squatting bar. Hospitals have this stuff. People just don’t use it and don’t “shop around” when it comes to the hospital they’re going to use.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

I’ve heard her sentiments offered often — heck, even I have echoed them at some point in my life. It all sounds nice and good: advocate for yourself, and you’ll get what you want. Except, it doesn’t work all the time, or even most of the time.

Sadly, it has been my work as a doula that has brought me to this conclusion.

Take for example the case of eating and drinking during labor. Honestly, most of the time I don’t see this restriction placed on moms. But sometimes — most recently included — it happens. And mom says, “I know this is bullshit. I should be able to eat.” And I say, “You know, what happens behind closed doors isn’t anyone else’s business.” Yet, still, mom doesn’t eat. She’s been told — multiple times and quite clearly by the nurses and the doctor: nothing by mouth. The unspoken implication being that she’s putting herself — and her baby — at risk. Does this make her a “weak” individual, unable to advocate for herself? Should the blame be placed upon mom? I don’t think so. The blame — and the shame — is on the care provider: for not practicing evidence-based medicine, for unduly using his influence to force someone into submission, and for putting his own self-interests above that of his client’s. The restriction should have never been imposed in the first place.

Now, about those episiotomies. In the area I practice, I too, can say that most doctors don’t perform them any more. “Oh, please don’t be the one to make me do an episiotomy,” they’ll joke, “I haven’t had to do one in two years and I don’t want to sully my record.” Despite the underlying theme of self-interest echoed by these statements, this is a good thing. It gives me hope, in fact, because even as little as five years ago episiotomies were standard practice. If this protocol can change so quickly, maybe, I hope, others can change as well.

But that doesn’t mean that they don’t happen. “You’re going to tear. I can’t tell you how badly, but you will tear. Or I can cut you cleanly and we can have this baby on the next push.” These are the words mom’s hearing. Over and over again, actually. She’s also hearing from me, quietly, “With each push you’re stretching beautifully. A little at a time, just like nature intended it.” But the words from her care provider hold more weight. They do. Is mom to blame? Or is it the care provider? Shame on the care provider, I say: for lacking patience, for not practicing evidenced-based care, and, most of all, for not listening to mom — who’d clearly told him her preference to tear — and, instead, badgering her repeatedly until she finally submits…to his way.

Monitors — just try taking them off, and watch the fireworks fly.  Walking Epidurals — only one of the five hospitals in my area (yes, five) even provide such an option, and you tell me how you’ll be walking the halls with a fine catheter in your back attached to a pump attached to a wall.  A really, really nice nurse — one you’ve gotten by the luck of the draw — just might detach it to let you go to the bathroom, but, otherwise…these walking epidurals are a sad misnomer.  Birth Balls — you’ll get the only one available if someone else isn’t using it.  Squatting Bars — push all you want while squatting, but when doctor shows up to catch, plan on being manipulated into a lying position on your back.   Wireless monitors?  Again, if you happen to be at the one hospital out of five that even offers such an option, you might get lucky — if the two sets available for sixteen birthing rooms are not already in use.  (And, incidentally, the hospital with the wireless monitors is not the hospital that offers “walking” epidurals).  And care providers — for every one in a given practice that you show me who will respect your choices, I’ll show you another one in that same practice who operates on an entirely different playing field.  Which one shows up on the day you go into labor is anyone’s guess, and that’s an uncomfortable gamble, at best.

So, yes, you can make choices.  You can do the research and choose the hospital that has the most permissive monitoring policy, or the hospital with the “walking” epidural, or the hospital with the wireless monitors, or the care provider who you most “love.” You can make all of these choices, carefully and purposefully.  But, in this environment, you can’t guarantee they’ll be respected.  And, that, in the end, is the problem.  You shouldn’t have to fight to be respected during labor.  You just shouldn’t.

potty performance anxiety

Function: noun
: the sense of fear and concern that overwhelms you as you lead a house guest to the bathroom in your home, uncertain as to the age and responsibility-level of its last inhabitant. Did my daughter flush? Did my son aim well? Oh. Dear. God.

* AKA: All that, AND I can start a wicked fire. Who wouldn’t love me?

(In which I get a little bit…preachy? radical?  Humor me.  I’m really not all that off the wall.)

The other day, I got tagged by Chichimama for the “International Women’s Day” meme. My assignment? To name my five favorite things about feminism. As much as I believe in the principles and goals of the feminist movement, I found myself surprised by my initial, gut reaction to this prompt. Surprised because my initial reaction was that of indignation. Because, in some ways, I fear that feminism has done women more a disservice than a service.

Do not get me wrong. As I already stated, I believe in the principles and goals of the feminist movement.  I can easily list five (and more!) fruits of feminism I wholeheartedly embrace.  We have, however, borne some strange and surprising fruit, too.

Firstly, and, most obviously, as we’ve worked hard to gain equality in professional circles, to prove our mettle — our worth — in environments traditionally dominated by men, we’ve unwittingly devalued our roles as mothers. By aspiring to greater professional heights and by measuring our standard of success against the traditional masculine model, we’ve, in a sense, implied that the home from which we “fled” is a lesser goal, a less-worthy accomplishment. I am happy to know — to truly, truly know — that I can obtain any professional goal to which I aspire. But that, for many, being a mother is not considered a professional (read: valued by the masculine standard) goal — one capable of providing intellectual, social, and spiritual fulfillment — is an unfortunate by-product of feminism.

(I’m not advocating that all mothers stay at home with their children. Hardly. What I’m advocating for is a culture in which the respect paid to a mother — or father — staying at home with her children is equal to that paid to anyone showing up for work each day, and a culture in which a new family is given the respect and honor befitting it, including a maternity (or paternity) leave allowance that isn’t the laughable farce we have today.)

Secondly, less obviously, but more importantly in my mind, feminism has borne surprising fruit in our birth culture.  For me, feminism’s negative impact on our birthing culture isn’t about what it has done, but is about what it has failed to do. Feminism, in all its efforts to emphasize equality and sameness, has failed to recognize — and celebrate — the very differences our biology bestows upon us.  Birth is decidedly feminine, and decidedly…unequal.  The definition of inequalty dictates that one entity has a greater value than another entity; yet, somehow, in a perverse distortion of values,  feminist calculations on birth fail to celebrate the greater value we own in this “inequality.”  Instead, following from a history of trying to prove our equality, we end up trying to measure our biology against a masculine standard.   In doing so, we come up with a result that deems birth as messy, painful, degrading, and — ultimately — broken.  Something that needs to be fixed.  (That some women are practioners of the obstetric model of care, by definition a system that believes in the pathology of birth, is, to me, the ultimate insult of feminism.)

To get it right, feminism must embrace our “inequality” and refuse to measure us against a masculine standard.  We must foster, in ourselves and our daughters, an ownership, pride, and fundamental trust in our biology.  To get it right, feminism must celebrate birth not as messy, but as beautiful; not as painful, but as powerful; not as degrading, but as ennobling.  And not as broken, but as entirely…feminine.

For so long, feminism has advocated for equality and a measurement against an equal set of standards.  In too many cases, though, the “equal” set of standards defaulted to the masculine set.  These strange fruits borne from feminism are the result of applying  standards for measurement that do not, and cannot, make sense.  Triumph will come when redefine those standards entirely.