update...

life is calming down a little bit after a pretty nutso two days. calm is good. i like calm. so yes, crystal, things are okay now.

aaaaand.....

another shoe drops. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

some thoughts.

i think of myself -- and have always thought of myself -- as broken, for the most part. i'm functional, clever, blah blah blah, but there are parts of me that will always be somewhat in pieces. and when you think of yourself in this manner, it makes the idea that you are capable of growing a complete person inside of you difficult to believe.

early on in my pregnancy with abbey, it was almost impossible to comprehend that anything healthy and beautiful could come from my tobacco-coated, prescription drug-laden, alcohol soaked and somewhat carved-up self. and i recall nursing her in bed when she was a few months old, and being so taken in by her. there was this small person, completely formed, no broken parts, and she had come from ME, of all places.

this feeling happened tonight. in bed, nursing oskar, and i remembered the sound of his heart when he was still in fetus stage. then i touched his chest to feel his heartbeat and i was mesmerized by his bones -- his rib cage, specifically. then i just studied him in disbelief. sure, this time around i was not tobacco-coated upon conceiving this baby, but still my usual, broken, in-pieces self... and here's the little boy with the correct numbers of digits, both eyes, no extra body part or tails of any type.

i don't say it often (mostly b/c i'm afraid i'm tempting fate and if i say it, it somehow opens the door for life to come in and kick me in the head), but i have a very, very good life. from all my fucked-up parts, all my neuroses and my flaws and my complications and issues and broken pieces, two completely amazing children have come into my life, as a result of my life. (not that i solely made them, but you know what i mean.) my very existence made them exist.

i can't wrap my head around that. but i know to say that i'm lucky is a complete understatement.

wha...? an actual blog post?

of course now that i've typed the post title, lil' Oskar has begun to stir. figures.
so what's new in my life? besides trying to master the skill of the double breast pump (damn near impossible with what i've got to work with), not a whole hell of a lot. i was going through a whole "which pill should i take?" situation when i finally resolved that going back on prozac is for the best. oskar is older now and can handle the wee dose i'm taking --- the benefits WAY outweigh any possible risk, so we're moving ahead with that.

fall is on the way here and although it is my favorite season, fall is usually riddled with all sorts of head problems for me -- but it seems like it will be less this year. it was kicking my ass last fall (as it usually does) and then bram died. that really changed EVERYTHING. it changed how i think about stuff, how i worry about stuff, how i feel about people and how i express to people how i feel about them. it put all that head shit on the back burner and now i feel like -- for the first time ever -- it's staying on the back burner. i know it's always going to be there, but that horrible crap is less important than everything else. that fucker gets no more of my life and no more of what little sanity remains in this grey matter of mine. (that's right, i spell it GREY, now GRAY. i also spell theatre with an RE. unless it's a movie theater. that's different. but i digress.)

so i'm re-medicated (b/c i found zoloft to be as useful as tic-tacs) and my anxieties are better already. never realized how i'm so uncomfortably close to being a hypochondriac. i had the aura migraine a few weeks ago and since then i was horribly obsessed with "what if another one comes" that i was making myself sick over it. then i was worried about my heart and cholesterol and basically anything that could that happen to the point where i was just a wreck. it's a little known bit that, while pregnant, i actually went to urgent care b/c i was having chest pains and freaking out that i was having a heart attack. irrational? completely. but that didn't make it any less scary.

dude, i need to sleep.

it feels nice to write again. more to come in the not-so distant future.

boy learning to laugh...

stupid summer colds!!!!

from nin.com:

"8.01.2008: NIN Minneapolis show at Target Center postponed to November 25th

We regret to announce that due to illness, the Minneapolis show originally scheduled for Saturday, August 2nd at the Target Center has been postponed due to illness. The band is sincerely sorry for the last minute announcement, but after receiving doctor's orders not to perform, Trent has reluctantly agreed to the postponement.

The concert is being rescheduled for Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at Target Center. All tickets purchased for the August 2nd concert will be honored on the new date. For those unable to attend the rescheduled date of November 25th, a refund will be available at original point of purchase.

Thank you very much for your understanding."

*tear*

a brief post before bed...

congrats to jason and leita on the arrival of the wee baby Hank!

last week was basically defined by sunday's migraine. once every six or so years i get one of these bad-boy, ass-kicking aura migraines that destroy me. it's pretty scary when you realize you can't recall a certain word, or even pronounce it correctly... dysphasia is just one of the many gems the aura migraine offers.

so eight hours after it began the pain finally stopped. monday was kind of a blur but today i was pretty much back to normal.

bon voyage to terry -- have a great time in paris, my friend!

now.... to sleep. must... sleep....

a visit with em and family!

emily, one of the lovely leingirlz3, had a wee boy five days before our oskar was born, and last night we went over to visit!

look at those kiddos! plotting our demise already.

oskar has brute feet.

even their moods were in sync.

abbey and ellie bonded.

we've acquired a bumbo seat for oskar...


oh, and look below to see what came in the mail today for oskar to wear... (note the defiance in his left hand...)

but even a hard-core badass like oskar needs a tubby.


he likes the warm towel on him to keep him toasty...




awww, cheeks mcghee.

good stuff.

when i nurse oskar, he'll sometimes fall asleep with his fingers in my belly button.

what a lad. takes after his awesome sister.

so pensive as i kiss him.

terry, wearing this year's fashionable Oskar.

a great article on the myth of spoiling babies

dr. sears is the best, and it's great to have an expert actually confirm what i feel in my gut as a mother. so if you are interested and have time, take a read...

SPOILING

Few parents make it through their offspring's babyhood without being told that all their efforts to nurture and respond to their baby will surely spoil her. And if it's not spoiling that they're warned against, they're told not to let themselves be "manipulated" by baby. Attachment parenting is not the same as indulgently giving your child everything she asks for. We stress that parents should respond appropriately to their baby's needs, which means knowing when to say "yes" and when to say "no." Sometimes in their zeal to give children everything they need, it's easy for parents to give their children everything they want, and this is indeed harmful. Parents must learn to distinguish between a child's needs and a child's wants.

Yet, telling the difference between needs and wants is not a problem that parents have to wrestle with during their early months of parenting. In the beginning, wants and needs are the same. During the first several months of life, a baby's wants are a baby's needs. A consistent "yes" response teaches babies trust, which will make them more accepting of "no" later on, when they start wanting things they should not have. If you learn to know your baby by responding readily to his needs in the early months, you'll have a good sense of when it's appropriate to say no later on.

New parents often ask, "Won't holding our baby a lot, responding to cries, nursing our baby on cue, and even sleeping with our baby spoil her?" Or they ask if this kind of parenting will create an overly dependent, manipulative child? Our answer is an emphatic no. In fact, both experience and research have shown the opposite. Attachment fosters eventual interdependence. A child whose needs are met predictably and dependably does not have to whine and cry and worry about getting his parents to do what he needs.

Dr. Sears suggests: Attachment parenting implies responding appropriately to your baby; spoiling suggests responding inappropriately.

The spoiling theory seems scientific. At least it seemed logical to the childcare "experts" who popularized this idea, beginning in the early part of the 20th century. They thought that if you rewarded crying by picking the baby up, he would cry more, so that he would get picked up more. It turns out that human behavior is a little more complicated than this. It is true that if you carry a newborn baby in your arms much of the time, the baby will protest when put down in the crib. This baby has learned how to feel right, and she lets you know when she needs help getting that feeling back. However, in the long run, this rightness within her will make her less likely to cry for attention. She gets used to feeling right most of the time, and her parent's responsiveness shows her how to recognize her own needs. Spoiling happens when a child is put on the shelf, left alone, forgotten about--the way that food spoils. There was no scientific basis for this spoiling theory, just unwarranted fears and opinions. We would like to put the spoiling theory on the shelf � to spoil forever.

The attachment style of parenting is not the same as overindulging kids or creating inappropriate dependency. The possessive parent, or "hover mother," is constantly in a flurry around her child, doing everything for him because of her own fears and insecurity. Her child may become overly dependent, because he has been kept from doing what he needs to do. An attached mother recognizes when it is appropriate to let her child struggle a bit, experience some frustration, so that he can grow. This is why we continually emphasize putting balance in your chosen parenting style. Attachment differs from dependency. Attachment enhances development; prolonged dependency will hinder development.

Science Says Attachment studies have spoiled the spoiling theory. Researchers Drs. Bell and Ainsworth at John Hopkins University studied two sets of parents and their children. Group A were attachment-parented babies. These babies were securely attached, the products of responsive parenting. Group B babies were parented n a more restrained way, with a set schedule and given a less intuitive and nurturing response to their cues. All these babies were tracked for at least a year. Which group do you think eventually turned out to be the most independent? Group A, the securely attached babies. Researchers who have studied the affects of parenting styles on children's later outcome have concluded, to put it simply, that the spoiling theory is utter nonsense.

Pick them up quickly and they'll get down quickly. Or, as one sensitive mother of a well-attached child said proudly, "He's not spoiled; he's perfectly fresh!" Spoiling does become an issue a few years from now, when overindulgence or permissiveness signals a parent's inability to set limits and provide boundaries. This happens most often in children who are materially bonded or whose parents are still trapped in dysfunctional patterns from their own childhood.

Oskar's first mohawk...

oskar chats with his dad

ahh! ahhhhhh! eeeeeek!

HOLY MOTHER OF F**K!

it's about time!

note to self: begin babyproofing...

it's good that crawling doesn't happen until 7-8 months of age, b/c we have babyproofing to do. sure, every house has these:


and these:
but what about this found art?

and this box of tacks and other sharp things?

and a bowl of safety pins?


and FIREWORKS?


and this is JUST IN THE LIVING ROOM...

we've got some work to do.

stacey!

i miss you, stacey! come live here already!

ahem...

why was i not told of this sooner???

happy belated birthday to me!

hurrah!

schtuff.

newest video (long), courtesy of husband.
no time to write, just long enough to hit an upload button...

classic.