Bob & Kieran

How cool is it that Kieran not only went to see Robert Munsch tell stories but he got to meet him, too! Lucky kid! I'm sooooo very jealous!

By all reports, Kieran was less than well behaved at the reading and in truth sitting in an auditorium listening to a guy talk, even a guy as funny and cool as Bob Munsch, is a bit hard for a 4 year old at 3pm. But, I'm really glad Kieran got this oppourtunity.

Thanks Auntie Julie! Kieran loves his new book and toys!

Hey NYC! Cool Gig Alert!

My beautiful Sean will be in Brooklyn NY on Sunday night to see one of his latest projects, Scotland's Aereogramme. They will be playing with the equally talented Canadian band A Nothern Chorus.



If you are in or around NYC this weekend and looking for great music, check out Aereogramme and A Northern Chorus at the Luna Lounge in Brooklyn NY on Sunday night.

And, if you see a big, burly fella with a red beard and gentle hazel eyes, tell him Mamaloo sent you!

Random, Random, Random

This weekend Kieran is going to see Robert Munsch, celebrated Canadian children's author and storyteller extraordinare. He is going with his Auntie Julie, with whom he is sleeping over for the very first time! I think they are both looking forward to it very much.

For his birthday a few weeks ago, Julie gifted Kieran tickets to go see Robert Munsch tell stories at the Simcoe high school.

There is something so special about Munsch. He writes stories that are directly out of everyday children's imaginations. He often gathers story ideas from the children he meets at the many readings he does. He is so positive and has such an open heart - not to mention a fantastically animated storytelling style - that children love him.

At Kieran's baby shower, I was given a large bound collection of Munsch's stories as well as two copies of my fabourite Munsch sotry ever: Love You Forever.

I first read the story when my youngest sister was a little girl. I have read that story dozens of times over the many years since that first time. I still cannot even hear the story without breaking out in tears. Sean and I heard Munsch being interviewed on CBCs Definitely Not The Opera one afternoon and sat in the car outside our house unable to stop listening as he explained that he'd written the story in response to he and his wife having two stillbirths. There is something so touching about the expression of weird and beautiful love in that story and then, to know that it was the profoundly moving response to Munsch and his wife's deep grief. That story is by far his most requested and best selling (it was published in 1986 and by 1999 it had sold 18 million copies - can you imagine how many more it has sold in the 7 years since then?).

Would you like to listen to Munsch tell a room full of kids and parents Love You Forever? Would you like to listen to him tell other stories?

Maybe you'd like to read more about Munsch? Especially when he tells touching and funny stories about the kids he meets?

I am pretty jealous that Kieran is going to see Munsch in action. I think I'd like it as much or more as he will! But that is going to be a special day for Kieran and his aunt.

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I finish working with doula clients as of Tuesday. From May 1 to September 1 I won't be able to doula anyone as I'll be too big with baby or have a too little baby in my arms. That gives me two months before the baby comes to rest and three months after baby comes to make sure breastfeeding works really well and that I'm sufficiently healed and healthy to start attending births again.

While I still have a postpartum visit with my final client, I'm pretty much done work. That doesn't mean I'm not still working, however. As those of you with your own businesses know, you never really clock out.

Last week I attended two events for marketing purposes. The Hamilton Public Health department sponsored a prenatal health fair last Tuesday. I got all gussied up and handed out brochures and talked to lots of pregnant women. The majority of them were due in my no-work window or they didn't seem all that interested in paying lots of money to have a women help them through the birthing process. It's that kind of city.

On the weekend, I spent my days sitting in a WalMart as part of the Ask A Doula program. In its first year, the program provides doulas as most WalMarts across Canada. We are there to educate the public about doulas, promote our personal businesses and answer questions of expecting and new parents. I wasn't expecting the experience to be particularly fruitful, and we definitely talked to less women and interested parties than we did at the prenatal health fair, but I think that we actually made more valuable contacts at WalMart.

Some people didn't care about us, some were polite and a few were downright rude about the series of candid homebirth photos available for discrete perusal (case in point, the barely out of his teens young man who looked at the pics beside his pregnant friend/girlfriend and his father who said, very loudly, "Holy shit! That's fucking gross!" when he encountered the images of the birth of the baby's head. Son, you do realise you are in the middle of a public place and that, despite what your personal feelings about what the female body in action are, it's not entirely appropriate to shout those words out? His father, who had unfortunate dental problems and may have been mildly intoxicated, also loudly echoed his son's sentiments. The poor girl, swollen with 8 months of child, just smiled gently and didn't say a word, seeming a bit overwhelmed by the reality of her situation and the obvious lack of interest her support system was paying her feelings.)

On the positive side, despite almost no pre-publicity (a column of ad space explaining our presence in the flyer delivered the day before to local households), there were three people who sought us out for advice on breastfeeding, formula use and colic. I think that's fairly successful given the lack of advance notice and the fact it was WalMart.

On the really positive side, I have a contract to do birth photography at a homebirth later this month or early June. The woman is currently 34+ weeks and though her last birth happened at 32 weeks, she's aiming for her second homebirth and last child and wants the experience captured by someone who has steadier hands than her mother. This is definitely something I can do. I've done birth photography at all of the other births I've attended, as well as some very nice newborn photos. The secondary midwife is also my third midwife (she was primary at one of my sister's births as well as the primary for my second pregnancy, the one that ended early).

In addition, this young woman, who is extremely petite, has contracted me to make an Asian Baby Carrier for her. She needs it custom fitted because she is so slim.

And, in a cherry on top of the sundae kind of thing, the doula I attended the event with ordered a knitted boob (I'm having trouble referring casually to the knitted lactation aids as anything but "boobs"!) and a c-section kit. So, for a girl who is officially not working, I'm keeping pretty busy!

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I had another bought of food poisoning the other day. It could have been the Subway subs I had for lunch while doing the Ask A Doula event, but whatever it was left my bowels weak and whiny for a day and kept me almost comatose for about 24 hours. Yet again I am thankful that Kieran is the kind of kid who can entertain himself for long periods of time while I rest on the couch. I just have to make sure he has a drink, snacks, a puzzle and something on the television and he alternates between playing, puzzling and watching TV while I'm zonked out recuperating. He's a good kid.

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Speaking of puzzles: my son is a puzzle nut! We are slowly amassing a collection of large-piece puzzles. Some are only a foot square and some are closer to 5 feet square! Many of them feature firetrucks, an obsession with my son.

While I rested on Sunday night and watched the Amazing Race and reruns of Family Jewels (featuring Gene Simmons' strangely fascinating family), Kieran took about 90 minutes to do a very complex and visually busy puzzle that he'd gotten for his birthday. He'd never opened this one up before and I split my time between watching the screen and watching Kieran work out all those jumbled pieces. I was very proud of him when he'd finally completed his project.

I like that he loves those puzzles. Generally, he'll put one together and then break it apart and reassemble it over and over for awhile. Eventually, even the really big puzzles only take him 5 or 10 minutes to put together. His fascination with the process is not dimmed at all, however, by his increasing proficiency. I think this is a great skill for him to have: all that pattern recognition, puzzle solving, patience with process can only be good for him growing brain and future intelligence.

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I want to give a huge thanks to all the moms who've been-there-done-=that about night toilet training. We decided to go back to the pullups and everyone is very happy. While I didn't mind the cleaning up of the boy when he wet himself, I was getting really tense and unable to sleep because I'd be constantly checking him at night when he was in my bed (yeah, that's nice to have mum feeling up his butt while he slept trying to prevent accidents - and I'm probably going to be crucified via Google for writing that out!) and I wasn't sleeping at all.

So, we downgraded to the cheaper store brand pullups and Kieran is still sometimes dry and sometimes wet in the mornings, but we're all less anxious.

So, again, thank you all for your encouragement and commiseration. It is so very comforting to know you all have my back.

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I also want to say thanks to the couple of you who posted anonymously regarded my decision to not undergo the Glucose Challenge Test for Gestational Diabetes. Your arguments made me think. I haven't changed my decision, but your comments definitely helped me and my other readers more fully explore the issue of routine GD testing.

I don't know if the commenters were regular readers who didn't want their disagreement with my viewpoint to colour our friendship or came to this site randomly and reacted to my post but I do want to assure everyone that I'm always open to constructive criticism and spirited discussions, as long as they respect the fact that we all have the right to make whatever decisions we want to make with the information we have at hand. None of us is perfect and I firmly believe that we each make decisions we believe are good for ourselves and our families given our own unique set of circumstances.

Now, I'm about to go make my son a lunch that consists heavily of a meat spread made of unidentified pork parts and chicken fat - mmmmmmmmmmmm liverwurst!

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes #587

Kieran: Mom, I want to make an invention!
Me: Oh yeah, what sort of invention?
Kieran: I want to make a stick that you use to pick apples [at this point Kieran begins to walk around with his arms up in the air and a far away look in his dreaming eyes]. Like a hockey stick, with a handle, and a bucket for the apples to fall in. An apple picker!
Me: An apple picker?!
Kieran: Ya! I can use my broom 'cause it's long. But we need a bucket. Mom! We need a bucket for our apple picker! Every apple picker has a bucket.
Me: Honey, why do we need an apple picker? We don't have an apple tree.
Kieran: But we will use it to get the pine cones!
Me: Oh, well, that actually makes sense.
Kieran: OK, I guess I will get the bucket for our apple picker by myself. [picks up the apple slicer tool off the counter where it has been drying] This is only a slicer but I can use this.

Ahhhhh, the imagination of children!

No Apologies, No Excuses

This is a motto I've tried to live my life on. I acknowledge that we all make mistakes and I am an expert in mistake making. But, if you falter, you must get up and move forward.

So, I won't say I'm sorry for not writing for the past two weeks. And I won't make excuses.

But, I bet you are wondering: What the heck has that mouthy woman been up to?!

Well, Kieran turned four two weeks ago. At the same time, my FIL returned from a month abroad. He stayed with us to celebrate Kieran's birthday and then returned to his own home with that crazy bird we'd all grown to love so much.

Completely exhausted from birthday prep and celebrations, I took a day or so to catch up on my rest. Then my client called to let me know she'd had an emergency c-section for a precipitous (less than 3 hours from 0-10cm) twin labour and while she was very sorry that she didn't call in the mad rush to the hospital, she needed support while her little ones negotiated possessive NICU nurses and breasts just starting to fill with milk.

After a few days, I helped mom sort out what she wanted for her baby's and am happy to say that this last client of mine before my own baby comes is home with her little ones and all are happy and healthy and the boobs work great!

But, after a few long days in hospital being my problem-solving doula self, I was again exhausted and needed a day or so to recover.

Then Sean and I went to Rochester for our now annual trip to eat BBQ at Dinosaur's, er, I mean, watch the Bulldogs play their division and now playoff rivals, The Americans. I ate till I almost burst and was very grateful to my Dad and Stepmum for giving me their corn bread (I LOVE me some corn bread!) so that I waddled around the corner to the Blue Cross Arena feeling like I'd eaten an entire side of beef!

The game was exciting but had a weird energy (it seems the Amerks changed up their game after being repeatedly trounced by the Dogs and the Dogs were really scrambling to adapt). We lost in the third by a single point.

By the time we got home in Hamilton, it was just hitting midnight. I had a doula network meeting at 9:30am at my home and I was facilitating an educational segment on infant massage. I had a little tidying up to get done, a little infant massage prep, some dishes to do and had to assemble some merchandise that was being purchased by a couple of my fellow doulas. Basically the merchandise (knitted breasts to teach basic breastfeeding and c-section tools to illustrate how the surgery is performed) were all assembled but needed to be put in nice bags with a simple invoice taped to the bags. At the last minute, I decided that the tools really needed a proper and in-depth explanation of what each element represented, how it was cut and how it was later repaired. So, I sat down and typed up a script for the doulas to work off of which explained the surgery in some detail.

Oh, yeah, and I had to do that after Sean stayed up till around 1/1:30am writing up his weekly Bulldogs column for View Magazine.

I crawled into bed around 2:30am and read for a half hour until my nerves finished buzzin and I felt able to fall asleep.

Except, I couldn't fall asleep. I kept obsessing about how I had to get up in the morning in a timely fashion, shower, dress, finish any tidying and dishes that didn't get done at night, make muffins for my guests and put out the plates, cups, napkins and fixing for juice and tea. I kept obsessing about how I have a habit of being unable to fall asleep due to pregnancy hip pain and how I'd lately been falling asleep around 6am and sleeping till after 9am. I kept obsessing about how Sean would set his alarm for 6:20am, get up, turn on the TV and fall asleep on the couch until after 8am.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep.

The meeting went off without a hitch, however.

But, then, after my guests left and Kieran arrived back from his Grandma's house, I had to sit down at the computer and write my bi-weekly restaurant review. That took about an hour or so. I hadn't eaten any lunch due to the responsibilities I was attempting to live up to so I stuffed another oatmeal muffin in my maw and popped two or five truffles down my throat (kindly left behind by a fellow doula, a women who totally disregarded the size of my ass and I adore her for it). I called one of my sisters who needed my help researching family heraldic crests online (my sister may be the last human on the planet with no desire for internet access and I love her for it) and spent a little time talking and researching before realising it was after 3pm.

If I didn't go sit or lie down, I would just pass out eventually. My doula agreed that if I kept pushing myself like this and not resting I could put myself into preterm labour.

Sean woke me up at 6pm so we could go do the groceries.

I thought I'd get a chance to rest up some the next day, but I needed to prepare myself for my very first marketing event: the Prenatal Health Fair sponsored by Hamilton Public Health. So I got some things ready to put on the display table, blow dried my hair with mousse, put makeup on and dug out a suit jacket from the closet.

The event was interesting. It was the first time I'd been accosting pregnant women to tell them about doulas and the work we do. There were a few of us there representing Doula Care , an Ontario doula group of which I am a member, so I wasn't alone. I also got a chance to network with a few complementary care professionals and get some of my own pregnancy, birth and postpartum related questions answered.

Since we won't be following the herd to the hospital, I'm curious how homebirth will affect things like getting a hearing test done. They're usually administered in hospital before discharge, so I was wondering if we'd have to haul butt to the hospital after the baby's birth or if there was an alternate arrangement for homebirth families. There is.

I also got a chance to talk with the car seat safety team for the municipality about some issues around seats. Since Kieran is now 4 and also big and tall, he qualifies to go into a booster. Until the baby comes, we're keeping the 5-point restraints on him instead of unlatching the seat and securing it was the shoulder belt alone. The team agreed with the plan and let me know that boosters don't get latched - something I was unsure of.

There was also some concern about current standards for those baby bucket seats. Ours is long gone and wouldn't be up to standard anyway, now being something like 8 years old. However, I have a niece who will be hitting 20 lbs soon and will be a year old a month after Shrimpie is born. In the spirit of sharing we sisters have established with baby gear, I would like to use my littlest niece's baby bucket instead of shelling out for a new one.

There was some concern about 3-point vs 5-point harnesses and the vigilance with which maternity nurses inspect car seats before allowing newborns to be discharged from the hospital. The safety team assured me that there had been no standards changes in the last couple of years to prevent us from using a car seat purchased (and still safe) within the last two years.

This is great news, as I would prefer to invest our limited funds in other things for baby and not a car seat that will be used for all of 5 months (that's when Kieran grew out of his and required a regular infant rear-facing seat). So, I'll be bringing my little niece a box of TimBits every few weeks until I give birth to make sure that kid fattens up right on schedule!

Since the health fair was from 4-8pm, I didn't get dinner. I brought some strawberries and grapes with me, but I didn't get a moment to eat them. By the time I got home, I was having such a strong protein craving, I told Sean to drive to a McDonald's and get me a Big Mac meal. When he got it in the house, I practically bit his hand I ate it so fast! I was still hungry so I got some nacho cheese and chips and sat down and inhaled them while watching this week's Soprano's.

A little while after Soprano's, I started to feel nauseous. I laid in bed wide awake trying not to move, and making sure a steady stream of oxygen kept me from throwing up all over the bed. Around 4am my bowels rebelled. The nausea didn't go away, however, and I slept fitfully until Sean said goodbye in the morning. I promptly fell asleep until the front doorbell sounded at 9:45am.

Yet again, I thank my lucky stars that Kieran will happily play with his toys in the livingroom, within eyesight of me, while I get a little rest. He's such a good boy and I am grateful that he is exactly the way he is.

And, that pretty much brings us up to date. I'm feeling better now, but wow! I had really forgotten how having a baby in your belly could affect your stamina in the last few months.

Incidentally, I gained a single pound in month 6 of my pregnancy! I think the grand total for weight gain is somewhere around 7 pounds! I am now 28 weeks pregnant, in my 7th month and I begin to visit with my midwives on a bi-weekly basis. If I can make it through this weekend (another public event: Ask A Doula at Walmarts across Canada, Saturday and Sunday, April 21 and 22, from 10am to 3pm), I'll be able to finally rest properly. Or maybe that'll just clear my schedule sufficiently so that I can start freaking out that HOLY SHIT! I'M HAVING A BABY, AT HOME, IN A COUPLE MONTHS!

The Latest Potty Training Challenge: Night Swimming

Now that we are totally and completely day trained on the toilet, the new challenge is night training.

I started noticing, about a month ago, that Kieran spent about half of his nights dry. I started keeping track and he began averaging about one wet night per week. We were encouraging and made a pre-bed toilet trip mandatory. We cut back on drinks after supper.

It was looking encouraging. I started developing a plan for the next step.

But, then something curious started happening: no matter how cautious we were, Kieran started waking up wet again. Every day.

I though that perhaps we were having the dreaded Pull-Up problem. Just as he had before we completely day trained, Kieran's use of Pull-Ups was too familiar, too easy. He was using them like diapers instead of an emergency backup system.

Like I had done to complete the day training, I sent got rid of the Pull-Ups, took the regular precautions in the pre-bed routine and sent Kieran to his own bed each night with a bare butt. Bare, that is, but for his pjs!

The first two nights were wonderful. He woke predictably about halfway through the night, went to the toilet for a slash and then crawled into my bed. Poor Sean was forced night after night to sleep on the couch, but he was willing to make the sacrifice for a dry boy. Then the accidents happened.

At first, Kieran would arrive at my bedside with wet pants. Then it was bare-arsed; the sodden pants abandoned on his floor in a lump. Then he began showing up with new bottoms on after having wet himself, woken up and re-dressing.

Again, taking cues from what worked in our previous potty training adventures, I offered Kieran a deal: if he slept all night in his own bed and remained dry all night, he could have a little truck. He liked that deal very much. But, after a week, he hasn't qualified for a single prize.

Last night was the first night he spent the entire night in his own bed, but he still wet himself! He won't go to bed in his own room willingly and I can't seem to crack the night pee issue.

I would settle, right now, for a preschooler who didn't wet his bed every night over a preschooler who had graduated from co-sleeping. I'm not sure which way to go. Do I really have to go back to the damned and expensive Pull-Ups? Will we ever resolve this?