Ordinary

I am utterly exhausted these days. I think I'm suffering from mother's brain and long-term sleep deprivation. "Mother's brain" may be a term that I just coined, but if you're a mother, chances are you know exactly what I'm talking about. With the birth of your children you acquire (okay, work hard for) certain talents like being the one to figure out why your child is unhappy when no one else can figure it out, somehow operate as though you have 14 arms when you really only have one (the kid is always in the other one!), etc. What you sacrifice, however, is the concentration and memory skills that you might have boasted of before. I can probably count the number of nights that I have slept through the night since January on two hands, as I seem to always be up with one boy or another at night. It took months of George crying it out at night to finally learn that he is perfectly capable of getting himself to sleep (believe me, I wasn't starving him! I still often feed him around 5:00 in the morning if he wakes up because it has been over eight hours). George is a light sleeper, unlike Silas, and he is also an early-riser, so 6:20 seems to find us up-and-at-'em regularly these days.

I'm not too tired to tell you about today's small events though. Nothing special, just an ordinary day, but I thought I would share my ordinary day with you. First off, I knew that disaster would befall my floors because I steam-mopped them yesterday. It never fails that something hideous splashes on my floor within moments of me sterilizing it. Today, it was chocolate milk. Somehow, and I say somehow because I didn't see it but I strongly suspect that Tex was involved, Silas managed to fall right out of his dining room chair this morning. I'm no sleuth, but the scene upon my arrival seemed to indicate that he had fallen backward as he was drinking his chocolate milk, and as he lost control he inadvertently emptied the entire cup over the top of his head. He was sitting on his rear, screaming in the middle of the dining room floor, Tex was happily licking at chocolate puddles, and Silas had streams of milk running from his thick head of hair all down his face and clothes.

So there was that. One of my other favorite parts was when Silas later accidentally knocked a glass of water over on to the table as I was putting away groceries. That one I did see happen, and it was definitely an accident. However, he turned right around to me and asked with wide eyes, "Mommy, what did you do?" Ha ha. Yeah right.

We have George now climbing onto window ledges as if he owns the house, and standing on his own while "reading" books or playing patty cake. We have Tex happily crawling up into my kids' laps, uninvited mind you, to eat the foods upon which they are feasting. We had snowfall, a visit from a great friend in from Maine for the week, and a trip to the grocery store. We had cupcake-baking, Christmas-shaped pancakes, and Mickey's Christmas Carol (yes, it's still Christmas here) and long conversations with Silas about his perceptions of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. A very ordinary day, followed on the heels of another ordinary day in which George pooped in the tub (again) and we read a million books and we played with new toys. And all on five hours of rest, which is, sadly, very ordinary for me. But my word, how lovely 'ordinary' truly is to me these days.

Gender and Violence

I love my feminist husband. He and I have some amazing conversations, and over the years we have truly challenged one another toward becoming better individuals by simply talking, debating, agreeing, and arguing topics out. One topic that has been on our 'discussion table' time and again is the problem of violence. What doesn't seem to be discussed frequently in society is, truly, whose problem violence really is. Well, looking at statistics, the answer is that violence is a man's problem. Women have their own generalized issues, and yes, there are exceptions to the rule when women become violent and go on a killing spree. Overall though, anyone with a brain at all must concede the fact that, by and large, violent crimes are the doing of men.

This is not our debate topic. We obviously both agree on this. (If you care to keep reading about this soapbox, check out the part at the end of this post regarding Carol Gilligan and the TAT.) Our discussions have more centered on why this might be the case. Why is it that men are more physically violent than women? Why are males nearly ten times more likely than females to commit murder? Why does it seem that every stinking act of mass violence that we see on the news is perpetrated by one or more men? So many factors can really come into play, including the ways that boys versus girls are raised, societal norms that condone violence and objectification of women, exposure to violent media, etc. Another factor that comes into play that BJ and I don't feel gets the attention it deserves, however, is evolutionary tendencies themselves. Looking at evolution itself helps to provide an understanding of all kinds of human behaviors and phenomena, from nurturing to sex to violence. Not so long ago (in the grand scheme of time), it was imperative that men be physically aggressive in order for their families and offspring to survive; the men who were the most physically aggressive were the ones who won meat, fought off enemies who sought to kill, and established themselves as leaders within their clans, thereby ensuring the safety of themselves and the survival of their children (and thus the species itself). Only the fittest survived. Women, on the other hand, were expected to care for children and take care of duties to keep the home running smoothly, including preparing meals, gathering water, etc.

So here we are, post-Industrial revolution, and what do we have? Well, we still have these biological tendencies within us to be physically aggressive if we are male, and nurturing and domestic if we are female. Our human race has survived until now precisely because of these instincts that we have adopted. Obviously, these stereotypes do not generalize to each and every individual--I'm no idiot. But evolution has also proved that there are exceptions to every rule, some of which succeed and some of which do not. Unless men are in third-world countries these days, there is really no use at all for the physical-aggression tendencies, and thus they are primarily latent. Businessmen and plumbers aren't facing lions and warring villages these days. However, the biological need to be aggressive seems to rear its ugly head at times, and not for the purposes for which it was intended. Instead of fighting off enemies, violence is turned toward intimate partners (it probably was way back in the day too, but now it is considered unacceptable---at least it should be), colleagues, fellow men who are not actual physical threats. It has become a dysfunctional part of this society; as BJ would say, it has become a "vestigial organ" that we can't seem to get rid of entirely because biology won't let us, and now we're stuck with crazy guys who can't get that impulse under control and they go around shooting kids with semi-automatic weapons. Evolution, it seems has turned in on itself. Or at least that's what we think.

If you're interested in the topic of gender and violence, read on!
One of my favorite authors is a feminist psychologist by the name of Carol Gilligan. Dr. Gilligan spent the bulk of her career studying gender differences on moral issues, and she wrote a book called "In a Different Voice" that simply rocked my world.

Check this out:

Dr. G writes about a study that she and Susan Pollak conducted in 1982 using college students and the Thematic Apperception Test. In this test, pictures of various scenarios are shown to subjects and they are encouraged to tell a story that incorporates the scene that they are shown. Gilligan and Pollak were both intrigued by responses to a card that showed a "tranquil scene" of a couple sitting on a bench together overlooking a river. She notes on page 40, "In response to this picture, more than 21 percent of the eighty-eight men in the class had written stories containing incidents of violence--homicide, suicide, stabbing, kidnapping, or rape. In contrast, none of the fifty women in the class had projected violence into this scene." The following quote is a specific example from a man in the class who viewed the card:

Nick saw his life pass before his eyes. He could feel the cold penetrating ever deeper into his body.  How long had it been since he had fallen through the ice-- thirty seconds, a minute? it wouldn't take long for him to succumb to the chilling grip of the mid-February Charles River. What a fool he had been to accept the challenge of his roommate Sam to cross the frozen river. He knew all along that Sam hated him. Hated him for being rich and especially hated him for being engaged to Mary, Sam's childhood sweetheart. But Nick never realized until now that Mary also hated him and really loved Sam. Yet there they were, the two of them, calmly sitting on a bench in the riverbend, watching Nick drown. They'd probably soon would be married, and they'd probably finance it with the life insurance policy for which Mary was the beneficiary.

  It seems crazy to me that some people can actually draw this nature of thought from something that seems so innocent, and yet it seems to not be so uncommon. There is a huge leap, though, from entertaining violent fantasies to actually acting on them, which is what makes today's tragedy in Connecticut seem all the more incomprehensible.

Jay-Bay

Saturday evening in our house was spent decorating the Christmas tree and hauling out boxes with stockings, Santas, and the assortment of holiday decorations that I have purchased from Pier 1 in moments of impulse throughout the years. This was the first year that Silas participated in the process; the last two years we decorated the tree while he napped and surprised him with it upon awakening. He will NEVER let us do that again! This kid was on fire to decorate for Christmas. He unwrapped all items from the boxes and wanted to be the one to place them where they belong. Many of these items have since 'moved' from their places because he just can't seem to resist touching them, either. (Three times yesterday I replaced the two glittery Christmas trees from the nightstands in our bedroom, only to find that someone had moved them back again to the couch or dining room table.)

So here is my cute story: among our ornaments is a red metal bell that belonged to BJ when he was a small boy, and it is marked with his name. On Saturday night, I asked Silas what letters were on the bell and he replied. "B. (pause) J." I said, "That's daddy's name, B.J. This was daddy's ornament when he was a boy like you."

The next morning, Silas ran out to the Christmas tree and began removing ornaments at will, just so that he could inspect them again. When Silas pulled the red bell from the tree, BJ asked him, "What does the bell say on it?" Silas looked at the bell and replied matter-of-factly, "It says you, Jay-Bay!" And this is precisely what he is now calling BJ half the time.

My adorable two-year-old (who has also mastered a gorilla impersonation, by the way).

My littlest turkey-boy, just for good measure.  Since dairy is no longer an issue, this guy ate big-time on Thanksgiving Day--cranberries, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, bread, stuffing, corn, and pumpkin pie! Sparsity of teeth wasn't stopping him!

Pics by Holly

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Wishing you all a happy day spent with loved ones!

May I sing the praises of Ms. Holly Hooper-Stover? On this day when we spend so much time reflecting on what we are thankful for, I would like to say thank you to Holly for capturing such beautiful images of my family. Holly is new to professional photography, but she definitely doesn't give herself enough credit. I am tickled with these shots of us, and now I will always be able to remember our family exactly as we are right now. Holly is located in Elk City, Oklahoma, but she quickly volunteered to drive to Oklahoma City for our pictures. I highly recommend her. Here are some of my favorites from that freezing morning (literally! 28 degrees at the time of the shoot!):

 

 Thank you again, Holly!

Yet Another Reason to Give Thanks

In my last post I lamented the end of nursing, which I presumed was coming because I made the decision to put dairy back into my diet believing that George would react to it. George has always thrown me curve balls, and his NON-reaction to dairy when I began eating it again was definitely one of the bigger ones he has thrown! My dinner on that first night consisted of a flour tortilla with queso in it, approximately ten chips dipped into queso, and an ala carte sour cream chicken enchilada with most of the sour cream sauce (but not all of it!) scraped off. It was enough dairy that even I felt nauseated afterward, which maybe isn't surprising since I have consumed zero dairy in the last seven months. There may or may not have been a large frozen margarita on my ticket that night as well. (Of course, I let that burn out of my system before I fed George.) All of this dairy, and not a thing from George...no fussiness, no rash on the face, no Desitin required on the cute little buns, nothing! So I ate some dairy the next day, and then the next, and the next, and he kept repeatedly showing me that he just wasn't reacting to dairy anymore! So then I took it a step further and fed HIM foods that contained dairy, such as mashed potatoes and whipped cream (the good stuff), and still he has shown no problems! I am giving thanks that next week I can actually eat the Thanksgiving meal and Georgie can even have bites, and I am thankful that we can continue to nurse until George is ready to wean (within reason). Mostly, however, I am thankful that my son is not going to be dairy-allergic for life.

I have so much to write about, but I don't want to overwhelm readers with one ridiculously long post, so I will pledge to write a series of posts throughout November that will highlight things that have happened in our family; I'm seriously so behind. I'm the parent that still hasn't even posted my kids' Halloween pictures for all to see! A few quick updates though:

• Our good friends the Marshalls came all the way from Massachusetts to visit our humble abode a couple of weeks ago, and we seriously had a major blast! We made sure to give the Marshalls some of the good things that Oklahoma has to offer, including delicious Mexican food, warm weather, a Thunder game (for BJ and Pete), and plenty of time with loved ones. During their visit we marked the one-year anniversary of the day that Sommer and Pete received the heartbreaking news of Owen's progressive brain disease, and we decided to honor Owen for the occasion by participating in a 5K and dedicating every step to their little guy. Som and I ran the whole way and finished in our personal best time, while the rest of the clan was a great cheerleading section. Pete even made fantastic Owen shirts for the occasion. 
• 
• At this point last year, BJ and I were pretty unhappy. I chronicled our unhappiness in this post a year ago and discussed that the Christmas season came early to our house as a coping mechanism for dealing with the greatest sadness that we have ever known. A year later, we know Owen well and are pleased to have gotten to kiss his cheeks so many more times than we ever expected; still, I find myself reminiscent of that intense pain. In a tribute to the last year, I am running yet another 5K (I run a lot of 5K's apparently) this Saturday through the park in Yukon, which will be decorated with the awesome Christmas lights display that will be unveiled just prior to the run. The family doesn't know it yet, but we are also eating at Alfredo's that night, just as we did a year ago when BJ's parents attempted to lighten our gloominess by taking us to dinner at Alfredo's and then driving us through the Christmas lights to kick off the season. What a year of intense highs and lows it has been for our family...
• Which brings me to my last point of this post: the importance of this holiday season. As I told my friend Julie last night, my sanity is hanging on my ability to fully enjoy this season and engage with those I love. This Christmas season I am truly dedicating myself to time spent with loved ones, and letting frivolous details fall to the wayside. This means I will do less cleaning and more baking, less stressing and more Grinch-watching, more knitting, more fires, more hot chocolate, and more Christmas-light looking. Family and friends are welcome to drop in at our house at any time; I can't promise a spic and span house, but I can bet there will be some fresh baked goods lying around, two beautiful and hilarious children to entertain you, and hugs to be shared. The season is coming soon, friends. I can't wait to share it.

Dairy: This Is the End

I feel like it has been a long road of nursing with George. From those first two months when I knew that something was wrong with my baby but couldn't figure out what it was, to the decision to eliminate all forms of dairy from my diet, and then throughout the next six-plus months of adhering to that decision, it really has been interesting. I know more about milk proteins like casein and whey then I ever knew I could, and I have learned that milk is in an enormous amount of food. And now, here we are; the first line of Adele's new superfly James Bond song has been repeating in my head all afternoon and evening: "This is the end."

Poor George before I cut out dairy

Do you know the feeling of carrying in heavy groceries that you know you're about to drop? You feel them slipping from your hand so, if you're like me, you pick up the pace dramatically to try to get every step underfoot possible before the peanut butter and lunchmeat hit the floor (okay, maybe it's just me. Maybe I load my grocery bags too heavily.)? Well, this is where I am with the no-dairy diet. These days, every week underfoot is considered a victory to me. In the beginning and middle of this journey it was fairly easy. When the pediatrician looks you in the eye and says that your son has a better chance of overcoming this allergy if you will just eliminate cow milk from your own diet and continue to nurse, rather than putting him on alimentum formula, how do you not choose this for your child? So, the choice was easy. Sure, I had weeks that were hard, like when those Doritos Locos tacos first came out, when I drink disgusting black coffee, and when I think of Pioneer Woman's Potato Leek Pizza. But I can say that I honestly held strong with no slip-ups, except for once when George was four months old and I ate a single hush puppy that I knew had milk in it, just to see if such a minute amount would make a difference (He was covered in a rash the next day and ended up needing prescription steroid cream. Yeah, this kid really has/had an allergy.). Now, these moments of weakness are coming every day. I am starting to feel consumed by the decisions about food, thinking about dairy versus non-dairy, and thinking about the foods that I crave and cannot eat even in moderation. The absurdity culminated the other day when I caved in and put a dairy item (a McDonald's french fry, if you must know) into my mouth, chewed it, and then spat it out. This hasn't even been one of my cravings, and now here I was impulsively shoving a fry into my face, feeling like a fool, and then spitting it out and brushing off my tongue with my paper napkin! Other people must have thought I had a problem, and they were probably right.

Add to this the physical stress that I know my body is under. I seriously don't know how vegans do it. Since the day I checked into the hospital to give birth to George, I have lost 65 pounds (including George himself); 34 of these have come since the day I decided to go dairy-free. I just can't keep the weight on, which doesn't sound like a problem but is not characteristic of my frame. Not sure if it's my imagination, but I think my teeth feel a little different. And the kicker was at a doctor's appointment today when the dermatologist told me that the itchy, bleeding rash I have had on the palms of my hands since April is undoubtedly a result of having eliminated dairy from my diet. She advised, "Your baby will be okay. I suggest that you take care of you so that you can keep taking great care of him."

Happy George now

So this is the end. Next week, Sommer and her lovely family are visiting, and we have a delicious meal planned at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The pediatrician told me to eat dairy on purpose when George turns nine months old (which happened last week) so that we can see where he stands, and I have been planning this meal for five months: chips and queso, and sour cream chicken enchiladas. Lifting that fork to my mouth is going to be one of the harder things I have done in recent years; after having so vigilantly watched every single morsel going into my mouth for seven months and reading every ingredient label so closely, now I'm going to put the allergen there on purpose. Hopefully, George has grown out of his allergy, and I can incorporate dairy back into my diet while continuing to nurse. However, if George shows signs of reaction, I will go back dairy-free for a week or two, just long enough to wean him, and he will then be put on formula because I just don't think I can do this anymore.

I feel racked with guilt about this decision. I feel nearly certain he will still show allergic reaction, and that I'm going to have to guide my baby to a bottle rather than my breast from now on. This honestly breaks my heart because we both love to nurse, and I love the benefits that come from breast-milk, like extra immunities. But the price just seems higher and higher to me these days, and so I'm hoping that ten months of breast milk will be enough in the end.

Friends, do you have thoughts?

Stillwater!

I have about ten favorite days in the calendar year (family birthdays, Christmas Eve, the day of BCS bowls, Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day are some, if you must know), and Walkaround is one of them. Every year as a kickoff to OSU's Homecoming, Stillwater puts on a remarkable Walkaround festivity where we all get to return to our college home, walk the streets around campus, and take in all of the awesome house decorations. When asked to explain what these house decorations are like, I explain the facts of them: they are huge, made of tissue paper stuffed into chicken wire, and move around. But that just sounds like something, well, crazy-like. Giant pieces of tissue paper that move around like chickens? Um, no. Here is an example of what some of them this year looked like:

 

We never miss Walkaround. Now that we have kids, we arrive there early and leave a little earlier, but you'll find us there each year. Silas particularly enjoyed our time this year. Some of the house decs were exciting to him, especially the one that had moving puzzle pieces and the one that had a moving front-end loader. He liked looking at the camels in the carnival area, throwing sticks into Theta Pond, viewing Pistol Pete (albeit from afar), eating popcorn, and watching the tubas in the OSU marching band (a shout-out to Hooge is appropriate here!).

Time with the boys at Theta Pond really brought back memories, as always. I could practically see my 19-year-old self reading about the Rwandan genocide on a bench by the water, and getting bit by the local swan as I tried to walk through heading to the NSC one day (that son of a bitch drew blood on my leg, and I was minding my own business!). Go Pokes!