This morning I woke up with a tightness at the base of my neck and a headache. This normally means that a cold is on its way. It has already been a really hard week. Finally I noticed no less then 8 teeth had popped out in Mavis’ mouth. This brings her grand total to 16, only 4 more to go. Maybe we can go back to sleeping.

My morning sickness has been back with a vengeance and nothing tastes good, even food someone else cooked. In the midst of it all I realized that I can’t leave my children floundering for another 6 months while I languish in bed or just try to make it through the work I have. I write for a local paper, and try to blog, I manage a farm, a home, my children’s education, oh and nurture a marriage and family.

A couple years ago I bought a Franklin Covey planner. It has been instrumental in helping me at least try to stay on top of things. My favorite feature is the daily “to do” list which allows me to plan my days weeks and months out. It’s not as rigid as it seems since things can be moved to other days or canceled all together, but it helps me remember. When Proeun was home on days I would work I would write lists for him. One day he was talking with another driver about “wife lists” and I got the impression he didn’t appreciate them. However I love them, and he often forgets without one anyway.

So realizing I had been neglecting my children I decided to schedule them in. I know it sounds cold, but it simply wasn’t getting done. I am a morning person, me best work is done in the morning and I was raised with the idea that you should do the work you dislike the most or is least likely to get done first. So that is all my computer work and writing. Then comes the household chores–if I make it that far without getting exhausted. You get the picture.

So today I scheduled in outdoor play. Last night I heard it was supposed to rain. I was worried but the morning was beautiful. Then during nap time I heard the rain. Oh no, my schedule won’t work today. Luckily though I had a few other projects and got those done and the sun came out. We were able to get out and enjoy the beautiful day anyway. Here’s some pics of our adventure.

Four eggs from four chickens just slightly dirty.

Onions getting ready to go to field soon and hardening off.

Miss Sassy enjoying a dust bath.

It has been a really crazy busy weekend with lots of conferences, But Sunday ended up being my day. A friend from our local natural parenting group, Nichole Hirsch Kuechle, has done pretty well for herself. I remember years ago when she had the idea to start a magazine. Knowing how difficult the publishing industry is I didn’t expect too much but wished her the best. Now her magazine My Healthy Beginning has grown to be national.

This weekend Kuechle and her mag were hosting the “MN Baby Expo” at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I haven’t gone to baby type events since maybe my 2nd pregnancy. When you are pregnant with your 4th, pregnancy and babies kind of get to be old hat and it is really easy to forget that there literally is something magically happening in my body. It was great seeing all those mums with new babies all decked out the way 1st babies tend to be and the pregnant soon to be moms walking around wide eyed. It brought me back a bit and brought me down to earth.

I met Emily Sisco a midwife at the Morning Star Birth Center in Menomonie. We chated about birth and moms and healthy living, eating and thinking.

Then I met the people from Jenny’s Light and it really brought me down to earth fast. Jenny’s Light is an organization working to raise awareness about postpartum depression. Jenny was a young, professional mom who suffered silently through this all too common problem until it drove her to take her life and that of her new son. Since hearing the story I have been like, “wow. moms don’t have support these days.” We live away from our families or maybe even have strained relations with them. We don’t know how to ask for help and maybe don’t even know when we need it. Often times we don’t feel we have we have time to develop the deep interpersonal relationships that could could prevent and heal the problem.
 
I had a similar problem after Avril was born. I felt lost and alone. My husband was working hard to make ends meet, sometimes up to 60 hours a week. There were times I didn’t know what I would do. Luckily me parents lived close by and I spent nearly every evening at their house. It helped just to have some company. Rarely do I get all fired up to volunteer with an organization but last night I went to the Jenny’s Light website and signed up. 

But I don’t want to end on a sad note, actually it is all about life, and living and loving and surviving and lest you think yesterday was all about me here’s some of my favorite pics of the kids.

Mavis the big girl.

Spanky. . .

Avril’s ride.

Two’s top pick.

This weekend has been an emotionally charged one. I grew up in what I believed was an extremely close extended family. We gathered nearly every week after church on Sabbath, or on Friday night for the start of the Sabbath and sit and talk and relax and just enjoy each other. Then about 7 years ago it all fell apart. It is a really long story, complete recovery is no longer possible at least from a human standpoint.

However over the past couple of years a tentative truce had been called and we were at least able to be cordial and spend time together at holidays and birthdays. Last year we all got together at my parent’s house for Christmas, a first since the trouble began.

Then last Thursday it all erupted again. Since then I have been dealing with all sorts of negative emotions–feelings of betrayal and abandonment, regret, frustration, helplessness, fury, loss, deep sadness, confusion, and even hate. It has been exhausting and draining. In addition I have been raising 3 young children, nursing a husband back to health and growing a baby. At times it has felt impossible to move, or get around, or get over the deep pain I feel over what has happened to my family, and it scares me for what it means for my children and immediate family.

Then the Lord gently reminded me, that I do not have to feel these emotions, I do not have to be stuck in them, I can give them to the Lord and move. This is extremely important because I, as mother, am the “Gate Keeper of the Home” to protect my children and family it is my job to keep the negative and evil out and when I let these emotions in my own mind I am not fulfilling my calling.

Above Rubies has a great study guide called, Gate-Keepers of the Home: How to Guard your Home it is a “study manual on the twelve gates of Jerusalem that Nehemiah and the Israelites repaired and relating them to building and guarding the gates of our homes.” The study asserts that in traditional societies while men had their place of leadership outside of the home, women guarded the home, the children and in essense the welfare of the men and the whole culture.

“Just as it was a honor to be chosen to be an elder and sit in the gates of the city, so it is an honorable position to guard the gates of your home. It may not be admirable in the eyes of society, but it is very important in the eyes of God. It is a God-ordained mandate.”

So now I must move on, reclaim my duty and and probably review the study. I don’t know what this means for my extended family, but I know with a certainty that I must focus on my children, raise them for the Lord and trust that the Lord if He so chooses can even redeem this dire situation.

I have never thrown up with any of my pregnancies. In the past morning sickness has been easily remedied by a handful of almonds or a swig of peppermint tea. Not this time around. I still haven’t thrown up but my morning sickness has turned into an all day event that really makes me want to just curl up on the sofa. However I still have 3 children to raise.

Yesterday Two wanted to go outside. With weaning, teething and morning (all day) sickness going on all week we had canceled appointments and stayed home for nearly a week. Two is bored out of his mind. Did I mention it has rained nearly all week. Our snow banks that had still been deep enough to loose a boot in is all but gone.

So back to the request to go outside. It meant getting off the sofa, getting everyone ready to go outside and then actually do it. It didn’t really sound good to me but I decided to sacrifice. When we went out I discovered there was a lull in the rain and i didn’t feel sick at all. So I set to work cleaning the yard of a winter’s worth of dog poop. I heard rumors we were supposed to get to 60 degree next week and knew a yard of dog poop and warm weather didn’t mix. Miraculously I felt really good working.

I started thinking about summer and spending times outdoors working and how much I love it. Then for dinner I pulled out a frozen container of my favorite oven roasted tomato sauce with basil. When I opened the container it smelled like summer–heavenly. Even with being sick to my stomach it was the best meal all week.

My milk is drying up. With my other 2 children they just lost interest once this happen but for Mavis this happens to coincide with teething. So she wants to nurse but is upset because the milk isn’t coming so she wants to nurse more and more which makes me really sore since the pregnancy is making me tender anyway. Needless to say the past couple of nights have not gone well.

The Bible says that we are to be like little children. Does this mean being in a good mood in the morning no matter if we have been up all night crying due to the fact that our main source of comfort isn’t doing the trick anymore and we don’t understand what’s going on and we don’t like it and we feel wronged and maybe a little unloved?

She is definitely much better at this then I am.

I always knew that I would breastfeed my babies. My maternal grandmother did. My mother did, all my aunts did and even most of the women I was acquainted with as a young girl fed their babies in this way. I honestly didn’t know it wasn’t the norm until I met my in laws. While my mother-in-law nursed all her babies neither of my sisters-in-law did. When I asked them why they didn’t really know except, “I didn’t feel like it.”

So when my first baby was born premature and the doctors told me he didn’t have the sucking reflex to nurse yet I was heart broken, luckily the hospital I was at had a good lactation consultant who suggested a pump and having him latch on before bottle feeding him. For 7 weeks I pumped and Proeun fed the baby the milk I had pumped the time before. But by 7 weeks he was eating more then I could pump and we decided it was time to start nursing. He took to it quickly and then I began nursing on demand, but he already had a schedule in place from the bottle feeding.

When my 2nd came along I was worried about sibling rivalry so I decided to try tandem nursing. I did that for a year and had enough to know I wasn’t going to do that again. When my 2nd got over 1 year old we started having problems with thrush and I was glad when my milk dried up during the 3rd pregnancy and my 2nd lost interest.

My 3rd has always loved nursing. My husband said that he never saw babies that nursed more then my babies. I intended to nurse my 3rd until pregnant with my fourth. Now what I thought was a temporary problem is threatening to derail that plan. My baby has always nursed on demand and it has been a great bonding for the both of us. I love being able to comfort her in this way and honestly it is easy. But with more teeth coming in she has been more demanding on me then usual. First one nipple developed painful cracks. I nursed on the other most of the time to let the wounded one heal–praying the whole time that it would heal before the 2nd one was wounded as well. That didn’t happen. Now I have 2 nipples that are extremely painful and a baby that won’t fall asleep without nursing. Unfortunately even if she falls asleep that doesn’t mean she will stay asleep.

I honestly am completely at a loss. Last night I thought about calling Le Leche League but then thought how are they going to help me, they can’t magically heal nipples? To make matters worse since this is how I comforted Mavis in the past when she needs comforting she expects it now which is really really hard for me to do. I find it affecting my relationship with her since I don’t really want to be around her for fear that she will ask to nurse. I guess that is my anticonfrontational nature.

I have been praying for strength to get through this and trusting that the Lord will give me what I need to be a good parent. But each night as is gets close to bedtime I really dread it. Last night wasn’t so bad but I am by no means healed. I would hate to have this been the end of nursing my baby since mentally neither one of us are ready. I guess that is my answer, we are not ready so I just have to endure until then.