ElementalMom

I mentioned the other day that Aurora is starting to talk up a storm, and someone asked me what her first word actually was.

It does my heart good, after two prior attempts at gender-neutrality that failed utterly, to let everyone know that Aurora’s first official word was:

Yup. Her word was “truck.” Just the first, my friends, of many, many things that will be as they are because she’s the little sister of two very enthusiastic and generous older brothers.

Yesterday was the Marina holiday party. It’s like that, when you have lots of chaos in your life; you have to wait for some sort of external motivation to do the decoration thing. Otherwise, your brain is saying “oh goodness, that looks and sounds like more work…”

So. Considering that we live on a boat, and a boat does not provide much room either for storing or for putting up decorations, you have to be compact. We have precisely one box of decorations. And this is how we arrayed them:

The “tree” in the lazyjacks:

The stockings on the sailcover (Kaia has her own!):

The finished product. The kids stuffed fabric gift bags with rags, and we threw a tree skirt over the boom, for the illusion of gifts under the tree:

One of the really cool things about living in a marina is that there’s always something fascinating happening. While we were decorating, our neighbor Jay was fishing, (while Chris socialized) and the boys kept running over to see what he’d caught.

At the party later that night, the inestimable DJ played Santa. Rowan and Kestrel had seen Santa once before, but it was all terribly new for Aurora. I’m not sure if she was more intimidated by the Santa she didn’t know, or by the monkey, which is bigger than her.

So there’s the beginning of our holiday. I think our next big adventure will be the attempting of gluten-free cinnamon rolls…

Taken by my pal Steven, on a more-or-less recent visit.

I was recently told that I haven’t been posting enough pics of the kids. D’oh! I also realized I haven’t cleaned out the camera in, oh, a stupid long time. So, here’s a pic from earlier in the year, when the weather was warmer.

Kestrel decided he wanted his hair cut. He was serious. For over two months, he badgered me about getting it done, and I stalled, not only because I wanted to make sure that was really what he wanted, but also because I loved, loved, loved his golden curls, and the way they made him look all Pre-Raphaelite.

This is why it really needed to be cut.

This is my pal Jenny, who is a professional hair stylist, preparing to do battle with the blizzard of Kestrel’s hair.

The end of the ponytail. My mom had asked for some hair, and here it is. The whole ponytail. Kes had gotten so annoyed with his hair that he’d actually started asking for ponytails regularly, but his hair is so fine, they’d slip out promptly anyway.

Rowan kept Kestrel and Jenny entertained by reading Bionicle comics to them, and holding the comic up so Kes could see it without moving his head around. What a guy!

And as per usual, Aurora was fascinated by the proceedings, and wanted to get in on keeping Kestrel entertained.

It’s a little blurry, but I just love the expression on his face here. So serious, so determined, and so gorgeous. It’s Kestrel all over.

The deed is nearly done now. Jenny’s putting on the final touches.

The deed is nearly done now. Jenny’s putting on the final touches.

The first thing Kes said, upon seeing his new short hair in the mirror, was “Whew! That’s better!” I was so worried about cutting it and then him changing his mind, but apparently, it all worked for him. Hurrah!

I don’t think of myself as an alarmist. I try very, very hard, especially when something bothers me in that kind of pressure-on-the-sternum kind of way, to sit back, and apply logic to the problem, to vanquish the boogeyman through sheer force of thought.

But friends, this H1N1 vaccination program, and the attendant “planning” has me terrified. See, the problem is, I don’t trust our government to apply rigorous testing to vaccines as it is. When I was researching the basic childhood vaccines of the American schedule, I was *horrified* by the shoddy research and bad statistics involved. It became clear, quite rapidly, that the studies governing vaccinations were informed more by corporation’s quarterly profit calls than by rigorous adherence to the scientific method.

So when the public gets whipped up by fearmongering in the media, the Forces of Profit get together and give them… something. Probably not really what they wanted.

What’s really, deeply bothersome is that H1N1, while a horrible illness, is something that most people get and recover from. I’ve spoken to a few people who verifiably had it (complete with physician testing) and got better, just like with any other flu. Judging from their stories, I’m pretty sure (although I did not confirm it with a physician) that we got a bout of it here on the boat. And you know what? We’re all just fine, thanks.

IMO, the disease, while serious, is easy to address. It’s called “wellness.” If, as a family, you focus on good diet, adequate rest, hygiene, and good humor, you tend to weather things like viruses pretty well. These things are a threat in our overworked, overstimulated, overmedicated, undernourished society.

But is anyone working on that? No. They’re working on a mandatory vaccination program, with a vaccine whose path to approval is littered with the same shoddy research that characterizes the rest of the vaccine program, pushed to distribution way ahead of when they originally said they could, and used first on the most delicate and important segment of our population; our children.

Obviously, you can read the same stuff I’m reading, and come to your own conclusions. And I know this is highly personal stuff, and very emotionally charged for a lot of people. I’m just sayin… I find the aggressive mobilization around something that I know from personal and firsthand experience is no big deal, really nervousmaking.

National Home Education Legal Defense Bulletin #68

Pandemic Flu Online

Pandemic Flu Training Flyer

A fellow Foodlabber thought that I tirade I’d had a few years back was worthy of reposting, so I thought I’d let you know it was there.

http://ecowahm.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/finding-the-time-for-a-nutmilk-revolution/

Grandpa Gagan’s birthday is today.

He died when I was 17. And never a year goes by that I do not make my way to the sea on this day. On years where I’m pressed for time, I throw in flowers. In years where I can, I bake his favorite cake, the truly ghastly applesauce spice cake with chocolate icing, and I heave it ceremoniously into the sea for him.

This year is hitting me hard. There are so very many things I want to talk to him about. I think he would have adored his grandchildren, especially Aurora, who is the first female child in the family since me. I think he would have loved the boat, and I think he would have been pleased to know that I was taking my kids back to the place where he took me when I was their age, to learn to freedive in the warm, clear waters of Baja. I think he’d like Jason, and I’m pretty sure Jason would have thought the world of him.

I think about him every single time we sail out under the Golden Gate Bridge. When I was 9 or 10, I don’t remember really which, he brought me to San Francisco with him, to watch five operas in four days at the San Francisco Opera. I learned a lot of things on that trip, but the highlight for me (other than the moment where I discovered that he’d fallen asleep in Boris Gudnov) was the point where he proposed that we walk across the bridge and back. I thought it was fantastic. He later told me that I was the only girl in his life who had ever been willing to do that with him (Grandpa had abysmal taste in women). I think he’d be proud to know that I’ve taken his little foray into being intrepid and gone a few steps further. I think he’d be pleased that “Che gelida manina” still makes me sob like a baby every time I hear it.

I‘m sad that he won’t be in the boys’ life. Due to age and circumstance, I think they were shorted in the grandfather department. My biological father is long dead, Jason’s died right before Rowan turned 1. The Bear is very sick and thoroughly crabby, which basically leaves the ball in Grandpa Allen and Grandpa Charlie’s courts, and they’re in Oregon and Mississippi, respectively. It makes me sad that my kids aren’t going to have the experience I did, of knowing that no matter what, there was someone indomitable popping into your life every few days to check in.

I miss his advice. He only ever gave one piece, no matter what you asked him about. It could be money, food, love, whatever, and he would look at you seriously and say “First, decide what makes you happy. And then, do it.” The older I get, the more wise that seems. I use it a lot, and I have started giving it a lot too. And the youth I use it on are as annoyed with me as I was with him, thinking him glib and nonspecific. I wish he was alive, so that I could say “Grandpa… I finally get it.”

He established the tradition of enchiladas on St. Patrick’s Day, waldorf salad at Thanksgiving, and lasagne on Christmas Eve. He was very much a “food is love” guy, and twenty-three years later, longer gone to me than he was here with me, I still think of him, and still follow his traditions. Including the immediate making of the bed every morning. He had a thing about unmade beds, and right up until I started getting out of bed and leaving small sleeping children behind me, I’d get up, make the bed, and say “Good morning, Grandpa!”

I‘ve lost track of how old he’d have been. I like to think of him as somehow immortal and beneficent, sitting in the afterworld with a soupbowl sized cup of coffee and a newspaper, comfortable as he always was, with the smell of something bubbling away in the oven surrounding him always. That’s the picture that I paint of him, to my boys.

So happy birthday, Grandpa. And as many more as I’m alive to mark them for you.

OK, I’m his mother, I’m biased, I get that. But is he not beautiful enough to break the heart?

Jason just took these shots randomly the other day.

As I’ve mentioned a time or two before, Aurora is growing fast. Way faster than her brothers did, mostly because she has them to look up to, and an intense motivation to catch up to them. I didn’t post the other day when she started crawling, but she is. It’s still not super-organized; more like, she moves with purpose in several disorganized ways. But move with purpose, she does.

This morning, the kids were cuddled up in the salon. It’s cold here, and the salon, being the highest part of the boat, stays warmest, so the boys have been sleeping up there, in the “spare bunk”. It’s a neat space for kids, and they’re really loving being up there, not only for the heat, but for the novelty. So as soon as Aurora wakes up, I take her up there to hang with her brothers.

You can see from the first photo to this one, she’s definitely making progress towards Rowan and his Bionicles. Yet another advantage of being a little girl with two older brothers is that she’s never going to have to have the discussion with people that yes, despite being a girl, she’d like LEGOs, thank you. Her brothers have huge collections already, (you can see the bags behind the couch there) and are really interested in sharing with her. Both of them have gotten clear on the idea that the small ones can be swallowed, but that the big ones can be played with, so they’re both making big block creations for her to play with and gnaw upon.

And there’s the reach. Aurora has targeted the Bionicle… and you know what’s awesome? Rowan’s letting her. He’s specifically put one of the “big piece” Bionicles within her reach. Is that awesome big brotherness? Oh yeah…

Quite a few folks told me that having three kids was just spectacular, back when I was waffling about whether or not to increase our family size. Two was great, Rowan and Kestrel were awesome, and the boat is not huge, blah blah blah. And I’ll never know whether it’s the addition of the third, or whether it’s Aurora herself that makes it, but there’s something about the dynamic of the three that brings them together into a cohesive unit. I can’t wait to see how things go as they grow up. It’s entirely possible that this could change. But right now, I’m doing this post so that some day Rowan and Kestrel can look back at when Aurora wanted to be just like them.

Yesterday was my eighth wedding anniversary.

This is not the man I thought I was marrying. The guy I thought I was marrying was a rough, tough, hammer-swinging, tattooed-and-earringed bad boy. I thought the sun rose in his eyes, and wasn’t terribly concerned about the rest.

Things change, with time. If you’re lucky and you’ve chosen really, really well, you change for the better, together. Goodness knows I’ve covered a lot of ground in the last eight years. I’m certainly not the person he married either; that girl was not a mother, not a wife, not a lot of other things I consider myself to be, now.

It seems like no time has passed. It seems like it’s been far more than a scant 8 years. It’s had high highs and low lows and the only thing I can say with absolute, utter certainty, is that I am more madly in love with him than I was back then, and that’s saying a whole lot, since the smitten level was pretty high at the beginning.

So here’s to eight years, m’love, and another eight, and another, and another. Let’s see what happens next…

I‘m working on the birthstory, the announcement, and all that good stuff. But for right this instant… I had to post this photo.

I love the “getting to know you” phase. It’s everything babymooning is about.

More later, I promise!

I blogged a teeny bit about my July 31 miscarriage here. And until I was discussing the due date for the baby I’m carrying now with Mom2, I had forgotten that the baby I miscarried was due right around now.

I miscarried between Rowan and Kestrel too. That one, an eight-weeker and so-called “silent” miscarriage, was horrible, because I still felt broken from the cesarean, and took the miscarriage as a sign that meant I could not do this birth thing that normal women could do. I was an emotional wreck for ages. And that Christmas was kinda sad, because that baby would have been due then. A Christmas baby.

This time, I knew that miscarriages are just a normal part of a breeder’s life, and I wasn’t so freaked out about that; I was just very very sad. This one was not at all “silent”, and therefore I was also physically wrecked for a while. And that baby was due around my birthday. A Birthday baby.

Instead, we caught this one, who is due smack in between Kestrel’s birthday and Rowan’s. There will be a nearly perfect three-year spacing between our kids, which is precisely what Jason was hoping for, but too wise to “plan” for, since we all know that biology does what it does when it cares to. My three kids (how weird is that to type! Much less to think!) will be May-June-July. Late spring/early summer birthdays, perfect for parties, far enough apart that they don’t collide unpleasantly with each other, close enough together that they will all always remember each other.

And that, right there? That says “hand of the Divine” all over it.

See, the two miscarriages? Nice due times and all, easy for me to remember. But as my parenting guru pal Valarie told me once (and it rocked my world)… my children will be in each other’s lives far longer than they’ll be in mine. It’s easy, as a parent, to constantly frame your kids in terms of their relationship with you, but that’s not the primary relationship considering the scope of their lives; the primary relationship is with each other. And somehow, this baby picked a time snuggled right in between its brothers. Jason and I are both winter birthdays, but our children are the bright lights of spring and summer, all clustered together.

It’s another reminder that they are each other’s family, long after Jason and I have moved on to whatever adventure comes next. I know that there are some who feel that trying to ascribe meaning to tragedy is simply the coping mechanism of a gullible brain, and that’s fine, they can think that. But for me, for the rest of my life, when “birthday season” rolls around, I’ll be reminded that pretty much even the most awful events can sometimes end up turning out perfectly.

So here I am, over halfway. In our culture, for the first baby, you spend all your time panicking about the unknown of it all. In my case, I spent my second pregnancy wholly focused on the event of the birth, which was a planned HBAC, and came with all the challenges inherent to that. But with this baby, I have achieved an odd sort of calm. People keep shaking their heads at me.

It’s uncool, apparently, to be pregnant and non-dramatic about it. Apparently, despite the fact that I feel great, that I’m gaining normally, that baby is kicking around in there, I’ve got my midwife and my birth plans (including a full emergency backup plan) all dialed in, I am supposed to be freaking out about something.

There’s plenty to freak out about, if I felt like it. Birth isn’t all that safe an event, no matter where it happens. I could worry about shoulder dystocia, I could worry about stillbirth, meconium in the water, aspiration, short cord, breech. Last time labor was 38 hours, this one might be longer. Or, it might be supershort! I could fret about the fact that I’m older, so birth defects of some kind are more likely than they were before (although according to the Powers That Be, I’ve been a geriatric mother for five years already, LOL!). It’s true; this baby could have autism, CP, spina bifida, or a whole host of other things that people are born with. We’ll face that if it becomes necessary.

But you know… there’s nothing wrong with a little hope, is there? Must it always be about impending disaster?

It makes me sad that the American Culture of Fear has so pervaded the American Culture of Birth, that the fact that my simple statements that I feel great, baby’s doing great, and the birth is gonna be great, have people thinking I’m somehow naive or oblivious.

I spent Kestrel’s pregnancy reading everything. I mean everything. I am under absolutely no illusions about what could happen. I know that babies die. I know that mothers die. I’ve faced it, internalized it, accepted it, and… here’s the kicker… I am now moving past it.

In 14 weeks or so, I’m having a baby. And like everything else in this life, there are factors I can control, and factors I cannot, and I am going to meet them with the most joy, and the most faith, and the most love, I possibly can. Everything else is a waste of my energy; energy I could put to use growing this baby. So that’s what I’m doing.