What to do in preparation for a winter storm of historical proportions

The National Weather Service has actually used the following words to describe a winter storm headed our way: "potentially historic." Since the use of those words, the forecast has changed a little, probably to "really noteworthy," but there are always some generally good guidelines to follow when preparing for any noteworthy ice storm followed by a blizzard. (Incidentally, I don't recall ever having been in an area for which a Blizzard Warning was ever actually issued. This is a first for me.)

Some suggested preparations:

1) Have your grocery shopping and bulk food deliveries occur just prior to the rush on the grocery stores. This ensures your ability to remain housebound for weeks at a time, assuming your electricity and gas services aren't interrupted. Whether the timing works out perfectly for you or not, be sure to stock up on coffee, cocoa powder and chips because coffee, hot cocoa and junk food are necessities of house-bound-ness.

2) Charge every battery and battery-operated device in your house. Leave your mobile phone plugged in at all times, lest you have less than a 100% charge if/when the power goes out. Especially if you don't have a landline. Especially when your modem/router won't work without electricity--you'll need to remain glued to facebook via your mobile internet connection on your phone instead of your laptop (which device is rendered useless when disconnected from teh intarwebz).

3) Pack a bag in case the transformer behind your house explodes (like it so inevitably does) after midnight during the coldest portion of the weather event so that your house loses heat at an unbelievably fast rate. You may need to flee to a hotel in a different town with a more reliable electricity infrastructure before your children freeze to death in their sleep. I speak from experience when I relate that packing bags and readying children in the pitch black of cold night is tedious work which lends itself to forgetful omissions of necessities.

4) Prepare for the event that you will not lose electricity or heat--make sure your movie stores are stocked, all Jenga pieces present and accounted for, books are at the ready, and liquor is available when necessary.

You may find other preparations are needed for your family, but as the storm has threatened and now begun, these were the important thoughts on my mind.

What would you add to the list?

Gingerbread decapitation & Cookie Cutter Ponderings

What do you do when the gingerbread people are decapitiated?

The head is stuck back on! Really, I swear. Hopefully the boys won't notice any weirdness. Besides, we're supposed to paint the things with icing.

All the online craft projects/tutorials for building gingerbread houses with your toddler or preschooler are perfect. No decapitated gingerbread people. But ours didn't turn out so perfect. And I can't imagine we're the only ones! I made gingerbread people whose heads needed help staying attached to their respective bodies, and I made rectangles of the correct dimensions for a gingerbread house. I even used the Pythagorean theorem to estimate the dimensions. Except when I tried to transfer the bastards from the oven to the cooling racks, they broke. So screw Pythagoras. His theorem doesn't hold for shit when baking to specification. Hopefully the "glue," or frosting as it were, will cover up the most egregious errors.

Notice there are 4 big gingerbread people (in varying states of decapitation and missing limbs) and 4 small gingerbread people. Hopefully 4 or one or the other -- or 2 and 2 -- will survive the decorating process  intact.

Space Travel Cookies






When choosing their implements of cookie dough destruction, my boys picked all seasonal cookie cutters except for a rocket ship and a space shuttle. I  wonder if this is some sort of future-thought since Khary has been trying to figure out how to get into space via rocket or other mechanism for years already (he's only FIVE). Khalil, following the lead, assumes he'll take a rocket ship, without question. Amidst our holiday cookies, I find it telling that they chose a space shuttle and rocket (and a crescent moon and star cookie cutters) as their must-have cookie shapes this year.

We vistited Kennedy Space Center In March of this year, and they were both mesmerized (as were their slightly geeky parents, lol). They don't even know that their holiday gifts are some things they picked out at the space center. I am kind of dumbfounded at their fascination and conviction that they'll get there. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 6-9, but I never had that conviction. I love it.

We have a book, Bailey the Bear Cub, in which Bailey wants to reach the stars to bring them to his mama....and it's always been one of my favorites.  I hope they reach those stars.

Which reminds me...I need to get them to watch the movie Space Camp (one of my absolute favorites as a kid). Maybe that will be an additional Solstice Gift this year, on top of the warm, snuggly clothes that constitute our traditional gift.

Kids and Football *do* mix

The 2010 Ste. Genevieve High School Dragons Varsity Football Team

I love football. My dad was a coach, and some of my earliest fond memories are of me nestled with my mom under a blanket in the bleachers, watching the high school games. I knew everyone in the crowd, and almost everyone on the field, even when I was very little. Naturally, my older brother played football in high school. When other little girls my age had Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bags for sleepovers, I had a beautifully obnoxious Chicago Bears sleeping bag (before the 1985 championship, I might add). The summer after eighth grade, I worked out in the weightroom with my dad and the rest of my male football-hopeful classmates, and I even considered playing myself. (But then I figured I probably wouldn't get many dates, so I decided against it. But that's another post for another day.) My freshman year in high school, we even won the state championship. As did our cross-town rivals, in their own Class; USA Today deemed my little, rural hometown, "Titletown USA." I can even tell you that our rivals' only loss that season was to my high school. I took statistics for the Junior Varsity team (of which my dad was the defensive coach) from my eighth grade year through my junior year in high school, then became an equipment manager for our varsity team my senior year. In college, I was invited to be the first female equipment manager at Mizzou in years (sadly, I had to earn money, so took a job instead at the last minute).

I wanted to put pictures of a mizzou football helmet, chicago bears helmet, and ste gen helmet here. image licensing sucks, fyi. So instead, you get a picture of our dog, Dozer, snuggling with a football. Which is almost as good.

In short, football has been a thread woven throughout my entire life, and one for which I'm grateful and of which I'm fond.

So when I gave birth to a boy five and a half years ago--and he grew to over 25lbs in his first ten months (exclusively breastfed, by the way--another post for another day), we deemed him perfect linebacker material. In fact, he has proven himself the ideal linebacker candidate in the intervening years: his Sensory Processing issues mean he doesn't feel pain unless it's quite serious, and  he craves body-smashing sensory input; oh, and while he can throw a decent spiral and even catch one on occasion, he gets a little too distracted for offense and much prefers defending. See? Perfect linebacker material. The next Brian Urlacher, maybe? ;)

He's 5 1/2 years old now, and here in Kansas City that means there are tackle football options for him to play. I looked for the perfect one for him this summer, but weren't willing to spend that much money on our FIVE year old. Leagues expand and get a little cheaper at age 7, so we have another year and a half to find our niche.

But now I'm hearing that football is FAR TOO DANGEROUS from just about every corner. He's obviously going to get a debilitating head injury or broken bones or lose his teeth or...well, the list goes on and on.

Here's the deal: I grew up a defensive coach's kid. If you tackle properly, head injury risk goes down exponentially. The other stuff? Not exclusive to football, and I learned long ago that my kid is the one who will try any dangerous activity to say he could do it--and he almost always CAN, with impressive technique usually--so I'm not going to "protect" him from experiencing his world as fully as he knows how. He'll get broken bones and stitches, I'm sure (I'm a little shocked he hasn't yet), no matter what he's doing; I refuse to prevent him from living his life so I can feel less guilty if he does happen to become injured.

Earlier this week, NPR featured a story about soldiers experiencing IED blasts needing to take a page from football's head injury prevention knowledge & sit out from the action for a while. (Okay, how the hell is that supposed to work if a whole company experiences a blast?? But I digress.) This morning on NPR's Morning Edition, Frank DeFord railed yet again on the topic of youth football--how dangerous it is for our youth, how we should do away with this  "rite of passage into manhood" because our kids can get hurt. Come to think of it, the first time I heard anything about the "newfound" dangers of head injury to even young football players was from Frank DeFord...

The rub, though: some kids are MADE to play football. Like mine, and like the son of a friend of ours (and I dare say a few girls we know!). They crave the weight of the pads, the impact force of the block or tackle, the camaraderie. They have loving, caring parents who realize that their children cannot be protected from every potential threat to their health and safety, but rather take sensible precautions against egregious harm. These parents--myself included--choose benign neglect over being yet another helicopter parent who, so afraid of the possibility that their child may be hurt in any way, hold their children back from finding their own limits, their own strengths, their own way.

To me, attending to your child's needs INCLUDES letting him play football. I recognize the need to teach proper tackle technique, how to recognize when your body needs to sit one out, and that it's not shameful to "get your bell rung," so he doesn't need to pretend he's fine when he's not. Maybe it's a rite of passage, maybe it's nostalgia, but maybe, just maybe, it's exactly what my kid needs.

PBS's Gulf Oil Spill Leak Ticker & Spillcam

Not ONLY did PBS create this real-time way to track the spill, but they made it an easy-to-use widget so anyone can use it.




Feel free to copy and distribute liberally. (um, I'm not cool enough to know how to include the little "copy and paste" window the PBS site has.)

My Vow to NIP (Nurse in Public)

Welcome to the July 2010 Carnival of Nursing in Public


This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Nursing in Public hosted by Dionna and Paige at NursingFreedom.org. All week, July 5-9, we will be featuring articles and posts about nursing in public ("NIP"). See the bottom of this post for more information.


***




When I became pregnant six years ago, I always planned to  breastfeed, but I didn't think about what that would mean when it came down to actually implementing it. I worked in a small office with mostly women, and the topic of women nursing in public came up (as it inevitably would with me puking almost daily and growing to look like a whale). Now, like most Americans of my thirty-something age, I come from a family of formula-feeders, although I do recall visiting an older cousin of mine in the hospital after the birth of her 2nd son and seeing her latch that teeny baby onto her huge, postpartum breast. Note that such a sight at age 19 was the first time I'd seen boobs do what they're meant to do; it was totally natural and serene and I knew in that moment that I would do that, too.

But back to the watercooler conversation, right? My immediate supervisor made it beyond clear that she was exceedingly uncomfortable seeing a woman nursing in public and much preferred "they do that somewhere else where [she doesn't] have to look at it." Okay, file that one away as 'Don't nurse in front of T'...got it. (By the way, YES she knew I planned on breastfeeding.)

Fast forward about 6 months. I've had my beautiful baby boy, Khary, am out on maternity leave (that would later become permanent), and one of our other officemates is having a retirement lunch. This will be my first outing with my 4-week-old son, so I draw upon my La Leche League meeting memory and nurse him right before we leave to meet everyone at the restaurant. Khary starts screaming about halfway through lunch; I know he's hungry, but T is virtually across the table from me, and I wouldn't want to knowingly offend her after having had that conversation way back when. So he screamed. And screamed. Several people suggested he was hungry, and I laughingly agreed and excused myself to the bathroom (I had to go anyway, and I wanted to get my composure).

The wonderful hostess at the restaurant directed me to the Ladies' room and said, "You're not going in there to nurse him are you? I can open the private dining room for you if you'd like." "Oh, no, I just need to go. We'll be fine, but thanks for offering." (Stupid Raegan.) So there I am, sitting on a toilet, granted in a nice restaurant's nice Ladies' room --but a toilet is a toilet, trying to nurse my still-newborn baby. By this time he was so worked up he couldn't latch on properly, and he was so tired from fussing/crying/screaming that he was extra cranky.

After about 10 minutes I give up, re-join my lunchmates, Khary still screaming, but less plaintively now. I finish my dessert and make a lightning-fast exit to the car. Khary has always fallen asleep in the car, thankfully, so we drove the 10 minutes back home, got out, nursed for what felt like hours, and I bawled.

And I promised my perfect baby that never again would I forgo nursing him in any place where it's socially acceptable to bottle-feed a baby. So basically anywhere, anytime. He had a right to the nourishment that Nature intended for his sustenance, and I was denying him that right for what?--for the consideration of a grown woman with whom I worked and to whom I had no moral obligation? I put her needs above my newborn son's; I put my own need to be socially accepted above my newborn son's need to nurse.

To this day, almost 5 1/2 years later, I still feel sick recounting that story. But it steels my resolve:


Wherever it would be okay for a mom to give a baby a bottle, it is okay for me to give my baby my breast.

Two months later, my husband, son, and I were at our Credit Union waiting (and WAITING) to finish up paperwork on a car loan. By the time we finally got on the other side of a desk from a loan officer, Khary was fussy and hungry. I proudly lifted my shirt, unhooked my nursing bra, and latched my baby onto my breast. I could tell the loan officer, a woman, was a little uncomfortable, but that quickly faded as I engaged her in conversation about the car loan.  After we left, my husband said he was surprised and impressed that I nursed Khary right there at the desk. When I told him what I'd promised Khary two months earlier, my husband beamed. I have a fantastically supportive husband--and he knows I won't put anything above the care and nurturing of our babies.

I wasn't a part of my attachment parenting group yet when I went to that lunch, so I hadn't been out with moms nursing their babies and toddlers yet. I didn't have any nursing role models. Sure I'd been through the Bradley Childbirth classes and attended several La Leche League meetings, but that was different; that was among "my" people (read: granola), not "the real world." I try now to make a point of gladly nursing my toddler whenever I'm around pregnant women--perhaps it will plant a seed of confidence in them that I didn't have.

And I share my story now, along with my vow, in hopes that no one else will look back with regret at a time when they didn't put their baby's rights first:

Wherever it would be okay for a mom to give a baby a bottle, it is okay for me to give my baby my breast.









Welcome to the Carnival of Nursing in Public


Please join us all week, July 5-9, as we celebrate and support breastfeeding mothers. And visit NursingFreedom.org any time to connect with other breastfeeding supporters, learn more about your legal right to nurse in public, and read (and contribute!) articles about breastfeeding and N.I.P.


Do you support breastfeeding in public? Grab this badge for your blog or website to show your support and encourage others to educate themselves about the benefits of breastfeeding and the rights of breastfeeding mothers and children.

<center><a href="http://www.nursingfreedom.org/p/carnival-of-nursing-in-public.html" title="Carnival of Nursing in Public"><img src="http://www.babydustdiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/inip1.png" alt="Art by Erika Hastings at http://mudspice.wordpress.com/" border="0"></a></center>

This post is just one of many being featured as part of the Carnival of Nursing in Public. Please visit our other writers each day of the Carnival. Click on the links below to see each day’s posts - new articles will be posted on the following days:

July 5 - Making Breastfeeding the Norm: Creating a Culture of Breastfeeding in a Hyper-Sexualized World

July 6 – Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers: the New, the Experienced, and the Mothers of More Than One Nursing Child

July 7 – Creating a Supportive Network: Your Stories and Celebrations of N.I.P.

July 8 – Breastfeeding: International and Religious Perspectives

July 9 – Your Legal Right to Nurse in Public, and How to Respond to Anyone Who Questions It

food intolerances, new diet, new me

okay, so i've been dealing w/ digestive problems for at least a decade, which have also parlayed into other health issues. i finally had a food intolerance blood test and met with a naturopath.


the results of that blood test?

severe intolerance (meaning i will never really be able to eat these things):
nectarine, papaya, sage, turnip, venison

moderate intolerance (meaning i may heal my gut enough to eat some, but not all):
beef, black pepper, caraway, endive, green (bell) pepper, honeydew, kidney bean, lemon, macadamia, mung bean, oregano, safflower, sardine, squid, sunflower, tarragon, zucchini

mild intolerance (meaning i can start reintroducing them one at a time after 10-12 weeks of avoidance to test whether i've healed from them enough to include them in my diet again):
almond, anchovy, apple, artichoke, banana, basil, bay leaf, beet sugar, brewer's yeast, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cashew, catfish, cauliflower, celery, chamomile, coconut, coriander, cranberry, date, dill, duck, egg yolk, eggplant, flaxseed, flounder, fructose, grape, halibut, hazelnut, herring, iceberg lettuce, kale, kiwi, leek, lime, liver, mackerel, mussel, nutmeg, oat, okra, peach, pine nut, rhubarb, rosemary, shrimp, soybean, swiss chard, swordfish, trout, vanilla

and no gluten. 

and no dairy/casein/whey. 


also, i'm doing a digestive cleanse in order to help try to heal my gut--so no yeast, no sugars, and no high-glycemic carbs (really, no white potato since i'm gluten-free anyway.)


so what CAN i eat? 


vegetables/legumes:
acorn squash, bok choy, cucumber, jalapeno pepper, mushroom, parsnip, spinach, tomato, asparagus, broccoli, fava bean, kelp, mustard, pinto bean, yellow squash, watercress, beet, carrot, fennel, lentil bean, navy bean, radish, string bean, white potato, black eyed pea, chick pea, green pea, lima bean, onion, romaine lettuce, sweet potato

fruits:
apricot, blueberry, grapefruit, pear, pumpkin, avocado, cantaloupe, mango, pineapple, raspberry, black currant, cherry, olive, plum, strawberry, blackberry, fig, orange, pomegranate, watermelon

meat:
chicken, quail, lamb, turkey, pheasant, veal (and pork, but we don't eat it)

dairy:
egg white

seafood:
bass, crayfish, salmon, tilapia, clam, haddock, scallop, tuna, codfish, lobster, snapper, crab, oyster, sole

grains:
buckwheat, rice, corn, tapioca, quinoa

herbs/spices:
anise seed, cinnamon, ginger, parsley, cardamom, clove, licorice, saffron, cayenne pepper, cumin, mint, thyme, chili pepper, curry powder, paprika, turmeric

nuts/oils/misc:
baker's yeast*, carob, garlic, pecan, walnut, black/green tea, cocoa, honey*, pistachio, brazil nut, coffee, maple sugar*, cane sugar*, cottonseed, peanut, sesame
(*allowed after 10 weeks because i'm doing an initial digestive cleanse, as well) 
 ___________________________

so there ya have it. 


aren't you glad you're not me?

My FIRST birth story

so i wrote this 3 years ago for my local parenting message board...khary was about to turn 2.

tonight he's about to turn 5. FIVE years old. and he's such a little man. oh, how i heart that kid!

here goes...it's been 2 years, so i might have to come back and edit about a billion times as i remember other stuff...

at the beginning of my 3rd trimester, my kc doc (a friend of mine prior to that) and i decided our philosophies were too divergent, and we went our separate ways. that meant i went to the freestanding birth center in columbia, mo. yes, it was 2 hours away, but i knew a woman who drove almost as far from blue springs to olathe med ctr, and surely 2 hrs in early labor wouldn't be such a big deal because first labors are supposed to last like 12 hrs, anyway, right? the doctor who founded the clinic is devoted to midwifery AND she was on our preferred provider list for our insurance. we didn't even write a birth plan because their protocol was everything we wanted (or didn't want ) anyway, such as dh catching baby.

my edd was march 27, 2005. that was easter sunday. since my mom had 10-month pregnancies w/ my brother and me, i wasn't going to hold my breath for anything before mid-april. i was put on bedrest 5 weeks before my edd because of really intense braxton hicks contractions. so i lay in bed, eating my cashews and almonds and drinking my gallon upon gallon of water while reading all those pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding books i had bought/borrowed from the library. anyway, at my 38 week prenatal, i was upgraded to light house (ar)rest for the "last 2 weeks" of my pregnancy. i declined the pelvic exam, as i didn't see a point of it, so i have no idea how dilated/effaced i was at 38 weeks. that was a monday, the 14th.

next two weeks go by, without much ado. i took a bellydancing class at my church on march 21, though, and loved it. i could tell bean had dropped, but everything was uneventful. i was leaking colostrum at night, but that was the only other weird-ish thing i can remember.

dh and i are rabid sports fans, and the final four games were on the afternoon/evening of my edd, sunday, the 27th. we watched those, headed to the kitchen to get something to eat & decided to eat the chipotle burritos we had frozen to eat as early labor food...it was our edd, after all, and we could just get some more the next day and freeze that for the big event. that was our thinking. i recall sitting down at the counter & feeling a cramp. i looked at the clock, and it said 8:15 exactly. didn't think much of it & didn't tell dh till the second one came 5 mins later. "hon, i just had a contraction. second one in 5 minutes." we were nonchalantly going about our business because we were told in our bradley class that we should only time them once every hour so we didn't. they seemed close together, but we figured they'd space out again. we even took a hot shower together, since it's supposed to relax you and can stop labor if it's not the real thing. instead, though, i had like 3 ctx in the shower, all very strong. so we called the doc.

doc said it sounded like we had lots of time still; after all, this was my first baby. we could take a nap & drive to the bc or drive there and nap. she had the mw we chose to assist go ahead and start getting the bc ready for us, either way. dh sleeps like the dead, so we opted to drive there first, and then he could nap. GOOD FREAKING THING!!

also a good freaking thing we had our volvo s60-r (r for racing specs; very important here). i think we left at 11pm for columbia. i called my mom and gave her the heads-up that she should leave for columbia first thing in the am (she wanted to get thru st louis before morning rush hour). i remember driving on 87th street with its incessant bumps and potholes and wondering if i could get all the way to columbia. dh and i agreed that he'd drive only 80mph; there was no reason to get a ticket or get into an accident; i had time, right? after all, it was my first baby. we pulled over at oak grove, i think, because my back felt like i had a pinched nerve & just needed to stretch. only there was no way to stretch it out. i was very grumpy about having to sit for another hour and a half w/ my back hurting like that.

i remember driving through the middle of nowhere that's east of concordia and asking dawud how far we were. "about halfway" "that's not good enough. go faster" "how fast do you want me to go?" "at least 100. it's dry, clear & straight. just GO" so we covered the last part of that trip at 110mph. (i felt safe cause we were in a volvo ) my contractions were getting stronger & i had to hold on to the "oh shit handle" and i really got to practice my bradley method breathing! i told dawud "if this is what early labor feels like, what the hell does hard labor feel like?! i totally understand why people would get epidurals now!" a few more really hard ctx later, and blissfully we passed boonville. i feel like i'm going to throw up, and even gag a few times. all of a sudden, just before the missouri river bridge, i have a MASSIVE ctx that lasts a loooong time, i'm trying to groan through it but end up screaming anyway, and i felt a trickle. yes, transition while driving 110mph on i-70 in the middle of the night. i do not recommend it.

it's probably worth mentioning here that we had a chux pad on the car seat and i had a depends on *just in case* my water broke in the car. we didn't want to clean that up, and especially not on the leather seats w/ seat heaters. "oh my god, dawud. i think my water just broke." "it's okay, we're going to get there. it's going to be fine." i think we went 120mph at that point. the contractions after transition were much harder to keep on top of; i was just trying NOT to push for the next 15-20 minutes. it was getting tough to do. as we exited for columbia, we called the bc and told them my water broke & we were in hard labor. apparently the doc still thought we had tons of time...she still wasn't at the bc. she called the mw there & relayed our situation.

as we got to the bc, i got out of the car & immediately had to sit on the toilet. as i did, i had another big ctx, a huge gush of amniotic fluid & had to push. mw checked me and said i was fine. i made her and dh take my pants off cause i couldn't possibly bend down. i asked her to please fill the tub up (we were planning a waterbirth). had another ctx about a minute later, had to push more. she checked again & said to get on the bed immediately. dawud was just standing watching & she told him he needed to wash his hands--now. as the water was running in the background, she applied a warm compress to my perineum, and i had another huge ctx. i was trying to stay low and moaning, but i was able only to utter a primal scream for the rest of my labor. for some reason the mw said i was going to have to get on all fours, and i must have looked at her like she had 3 heads or something. i said no & luckily had another pushing ctx at that moment. bean was crowning. i reached down to touch the head & started to cry from joy. another pushing ctx & then i had to puff to let her push the lip of cervix away & then i couldn't hold back anymore. the head was out at the next ctx, and then the body was born with the next push. dawud caught our baby & we were elated together. our baby was born at 1:15am monday, march 28, 2005. he put the baby on my tummy (baby couldn't nurse while still attached b/c the cord was pulling on me). i had to look to see, and we had a boy!!! the mw did his apgar w/ him in my arms & he was a 9. (10 at 5 mins later). after the cord stopped pulsing, she tied it w/ a piece of cotton string. then she made sure he was latched onto my breast, and she left the room to let us bond with him on our own.

maybe 30 mins later, the doc came in w/ her & checked me & gave the sweetest welcome to our beautiful, new baby boy. only then did she weigh and measure him. 7lbs, 7oz. she helped me get him latched onto my other (flat) nipple & we talked & she told me how to make sure he was nursing. i birthed the placenta about 15 mins later (45 min after baby). about that time, the tub was full enough & baby & mommy took our first bath together. i stayed in the tub while the mw swaddled him & doc listened to heart & lungs & then daddy held him.

i couldn't sleep at all that night. i just stared and stared at my beautiful boy lying next to me on the bed. my mom got there about 9am. my dad and stepmom even came up from springfield to see us after lunch. we left for home at 6pm monday, less than 18 hours after we arrived at the bc. (it was also the day i had scheduled my next prenatal appt and my free prenatal massage, ironically enough. )

we named him about a week later. khary buatte hasam.

his birth was perfect. he is perfect. i can't wait to do it again.