GAH!!!

One thing I may not have mentioned yet in the pages of this blog is that I have a foot phobia. I'm not sure exactly when it began or what triggered it; I can only surmise that years of giving my Dad footrubs every birthday, Father's Day, Groundhog Day etc. somehow scarred me for life. Dad is a great guy, but decades of walking the bush, fording various rivers and pacing barefoot through skivy hockey locker rooms have given him feet only a hobbit would be proud of.

I have a particular aversion to what I like to call 'big yuckky man-feet,' but pretty much any bare foot will make me wince and/or recoil in horror. You can imagine how traumatic it is for me now that summer is here and everyone feels the need to bare their calluses, corns and talon-like toenails in sandals. *SHUDDER!*

Well, I came across this site today and I still feel a little nauseous. So of course I had to share. You're welcome.

The agony and the ecstasy...

Okay, let me just state here for the record that I am about to shamelessly violate my limited-baby-blog rule in this entry. And just a warning to any fellows that might be reading this: I will be talking about my boobs. And probably not in a way you want to read about them. I will, however, spare you any photos.

I thought that labour and delivery would be the hardest part of Mummyhood. And yes, that part was pretty tough. It's not often one finds oneself down on all fours on a hospital floor, groaning like a stuck pig and crying your husband's name through gritted teeth. (My friend, who's a nurse, was horrified: "Oh Kim, tell me you didn't touch the floor in TRIAGE???") And I'm getting a handle on sleep deprivation, Jade's occasional screaming fits, and even the explosive diaper surprises that land on my hand/leg/shoulder. Know what's brought me to tears more than anything? BREASTFEEDING.

How is it that something that should be so instinctual is so freaking DIFFICULT? The boobs just aren't working. I mean, that's what the darned things are for, right? And babies are hungry mammals, right? So how come possums and kittens and all those other critters can figure it out so quickly when Jade and I are still struggling after 5 weeks to get it right?

D's aunt stopped in for a visit last week and I poured out my woes to her. The older generation doesn't have much advice to offer a mum who is wrestling with the agonies of nursing; they all did bottles with formula, on their doctors' orders. In fact, D's aunt told me that she tried breastfeeding one of her kids while in the hospital, only to be scolded by the doctor, who said, "What the hell are you doing? That's not what those are for!" Um...huh? Yikes.

Today's approach is completely the opposite. There are a lot of militant breastfeeders out there and God forbid you mention formula to them. If I see "breast is best" emblazoned on another hand-out or poster I'm going to tear it down and use it for diaper liners.

I had pastoral visions of breastfeeding my baby: we would be cuddled together in a comfy chair, watching the sun rise and bonding. Instead, I'm rolling around in my office chair at 4am, wrestling with a baby who growls with impatience as I try to figure out the correct latching technique so as not to injure my already screaming sore nipples. It's magical. Really.

Believe me, I've tried to get help. Five lactation consultants, horrid finger feedings, pumping (which is a whole new exercise in humiliation), Dr. Newman's website, prescription tit cream and many tears later, we are nowhere near expert level, but we are not giving up. Why? Because I just really want to breastfeed my baby. It's something I've always dreamed of doing, and while I have nothing against formula per se, I think breastfeeding is healthiest for Jade. I have enough milk and she seems to love it, so that's not the issue. I just can't have subjected my chest to 5 weeks of torment only to cave in and switch to bottles.

And so, I hereby swear by all the lanolin I have in my cupboard that we WILL succeed! Honestly, I don't think I've ever worked this hard at achieving anything in my life. I'm not sure if that's sad or uplifting!

Enter Sandman

I swore to myself that this blog would not become a repository of baby-related rhapsodies once I gave birth. And I am going to stick to that promise. Right after I tell you that Jade has the biggest belly I've ever seen this morning. Geesh. That kid can eat. Apparently I AM a "high producer," as D says.

Anyhoo, in the interest of promoting reduced baby content on this blog, did I ever tell you about the time I attended a Metallica concert?

I was dating a guy who liked metal a lot at the time. He coaxed me into coming to the concert with a few of his friends, and a mutual friend of ours who was a rare breed: a female metalhead. I liked Metallica well enough, but I wouldn't say I was a huge fan. Sure, in the 80's, I had veered dangerously into metalhead territory with my growing penchant for bands like Motley Crue and Ratt, but I was saved by the punk and new wave music some friends introduced me to. It was like an intervention.

I thought Metallica did have considerable talent despite the screaming vocals and grinding guitars, so I bought a ticket and off we went to Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. When we got there, I realized I was dressed completely inappropriately: everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - was wearing black. Black shirts, black jackets, black jeans, black boots. I wore my favourite red shirt, embroidered jeans and running shoes. Oops.

The thing I remember most about that concert was the song "Enter Sandman." I'm still partial to the song because of the creepy lyrics and trance-inducing rhythm, but that night I was particularly excited about it as it was one of the few songs they played that I knew the words to. As I belted out the lyrics along with a coliseum full of other people, I decided it was time to try thrashing. My friends had been doing it to every song, and practically everyone else was doing it too, including the band.

Thrashing, for those of you who have never tried it, is the act of flinging your head (and preferably your long, dyed black hair) back and forth in time to heavy metal music. If you're good, you can lean to one side and get your whole torso going. If you're REALLY good, you can do this all while playing air guitar.

What I failed to realize was just how much neck muscle is actually required in order to thrash to more than one song. Encouraged by the thumbs up I received from my female metalhead friend, I thrashed enthusiastically for the rest of the concert. The next morning, I couldn't lift my head off my pillow. It felt like I had a pumpkin attached to my neck by a thread.

Why am I telling you all this, dear reader? Well, this was just one of the many random memories that's drifted across my mind during a 4am feeding. It seems particularly significant because Jade's head bobs around like a drunken thrasher if not supported, and because the Sandman is someone I have come to appreciate during these first four weeks of mummyhood.

I can't say I've ever appreciated the wonder of sleep the way I have lately. I can actually pinpoint the moment before I fall asleep, something I've never noticed before in my life. It's like I'm tiptoeing up to the edge of a very deep chasm - think Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam or Niagara Falls - looking down for a moment, then blissfully plunging over the edge. No screaming, no splat; just a delightful floaty feeling and poof! I'm asleep. It's glorious.

At first I was afraid I'd be irritable and resentful at having my sleep interrupted by baby. As lovely and wanted as she is, I am a pretty big fan of my zzz's. Thankfully I have come to view the 2, 3, or 4 hour stretches I get to sleep as exciting opportunities to nap, rather than whinging about the fact that I can't get a good night's sleep anymore. Napping is always a good thing, right? Thankfully Jade shares my enthusiasm for naps too. Enter Sandman indeed.

Guess I did end up talking a bit about baby, didn't I?

Hullo from the 'hood...

Mummyhood that is! Yes, the blessed event finally happened on May 16th at 2:04pm. May I present to you the lovely miss Jade Violet Alisa Lowry!

She weighed 6lbs 10.5 oz, 19 inches long but is now up to 7lbs 7oz and is verrrry long...thanks to daddy's genes. She is growing way too fast for Mummy's liking. *sigh* She makes snorty piggy noises when she's angry and honks like a Canada goose when she's content. I can't get enough of her toes and fingers and belly. As for the name, which probably seems huge for such a wee girl, here is the story behind it.

D and I had been volleying names back and forth for months. Our tastes are very different and so we had a hard time agreeing on anything for a girl. We had a very short list for boys (of course). After Jade was born, she was referred to as "sweet pea" for 4 days because we STILL couldn't decide on a name. I think the nurses were getting rather disgusted with us. And then, as I was lying in that wretched hospital bed, recovering from the C-section while Sweet Pea got light therapy for her jaundice, I started mulling over a conversation I'd had with my brother-in-law about a month previously.

C was filling up my errant Kia's tires with air in the shop on the farm. Suddenly he looked up at me and said, "Kimmy, I have the perfect name. Your troubles are over. Jade Lowry. Just add whatever your mother's name was in the middle." And he grinned in triumph. Hmm, I thought. Kinda strippery. Kinda catchy. I politely nodded but wasn't really won over at the time.

The more I thought about it in that hospital bed, and the more I came to know Sweet Pea's personality, the more I realized that she was not a Grace or a Madeleine or a Danielle or a Taylor. She was a Jade! And really, C has done so much for us over these past two years - the least we could do is let him name our child.

D liked the name Jadyn, which means "God has heard us" so it was a good compromise. Also, the stone Jade is said to have mystical, heart-healing properties; what better way to heal hearts so bruised after two losses than with sweet baby Jade's arrival. And as my sister Tanzi reminded me, I wrote several stories when I was younger that featured a main character named Jade.

As for Violet, it's my favourite flower, and I found them in bloom all over Someday farm's lawns the week Jade before was born. Alisa was my mother's name; she died in 1993. She was a strong, sophisticated, intelligent woman who had a gift for friendship. I can only hope that Jade will inherit these qualities from the Babushka she never got to meet.

So there's the scoop for now. Sorry to have kept you in suspense, bloggy friends! I hope to do more entries, but I'm telling ya, it's darned hard to type blog entries with one finger while nursing. (0: We are all well and healthy and very, very happy. Thanks for all your prayers and warm wishes. I'll be back soon...

Shameless Self Promotion...kinda

So when's the last time you let someone read you a story? Or a poem? Or a really racy bit of fiction? And I'm not talking about listening to uTube rants or documentaries on the CBC.

For a lot of us, our last "read to me" moments occurred in childhood, which I think is a shame. There is a very interesting kind of intimacy that springs up between an adult reader and an adult listener when it's done in person. A friend of mine and her husband used to read to each other from a series of novels every night before bed, which I found charming, but apart from that, I don't know too many folks who read aloud to others or get to be on the receiving end of a reading.

Luckily for me, being part of a Writer's Collective has given me many opportunities to listen as authors read their works aloud, and to read my stuff to other folks. (And no, they weren't tied to their chairs.) The WC (which D sometimes refers to as "The Borg Collective" - although we're much more attractive and really don't want to assimilate anyone) is part of Kitchener Library's roster of programmes, and I think I've been with them for 6 or 7 years now. My group rocks - we get along extremely well, despite our wild melange of styles: Victorian historical romance, travel writing, Christian fiction, poetry and children's literature. All of us have been published in anthologies, or the Globe & Mail/National Post, in magazines, webzines, etc. We've won awards and accolades, and one of our members had her first book come out just last week. I'm not trying to toot our WC horn - frankly, I think a great deal of our success as writers has come from the support and helpful criticism of our membership in the WC.

This Wednesday, we're joining forces with the other groups in the collective for a night of readings. The Library has even been kind enough to gather our writing together and bind it up in Anthology. How cool is that?

I used to be pretty good at getting up in front of a crowd and delivering speeches and presentations on a variety of topics; that teaching degree + endless years of being a corporate trainer allowed me to get up in front of as many as 200 people without batting an eye. But I'm out of practice at the whole reading aloud thing these days, especially after working from home for two years. Consequently, I'm a wee bit nervous about Wednesday. Likely it won't be a big crowd, and after the first few breathless sentences I usually get my rhythm; but with Baby pushing on my diaphragm and my blooming belly too big to fit into anything remotely flattering, I'm skeptical about just how well I'm going to deliver...so to speak. I guess that as long as my water doesn't break up at the podium, I'll consider it a success.

If you're looking to be read to, c'mon down to the KPL at 6:30 on Wednesday. Sadly, I'm not reading any of my racier selections this time, but I'm sure you'll have a good time all the same. With all the variety of writing styles, there will be something for everyone.

Hormones: 1; Kimber: 0

You know you're pregnant when you find yourself sitting alone in your kitchen at 4 in the morning, eating ice cream straight out of the carton and weeping. Not a pretty picture.

My sister refers to this state of being as "hormotional," and let me tell you, it's not pleasant. I did have a pretty good reason though; I heard that an old high school friend of mine gave birth to a stillborn baby last week.

Tragedies like these leave me swirling in a vile gumbo of emotions: heartsick for my old friend, reliving the awfulness of Rose's birth, terrified for Bumbo and just generally pissed off at the universe - hence the sleepless/ice cream/weeping combo.

My sisters have calmed me somewhat with their sagacity: I'm healthy and so is Bumbo, my friend's sad experience is not some cosmic sign that something bad is going to happen to me. D has also helped me by saying, simply, that he is there for me, no matter what happens. These are all things that I know and try to reassure myself with, but it still helps to hear them spoken out loud.

I wrote my friend a letter today (and went through half a box of Kleenex) to try and tell her how sorry I am; if there is one thing I'm grateful for after having had Rose, it's the increase in compassion I now have for others who may be going through something similar. Pregnancies, children - I'll never take either for granted again.

As mad as I am at God right now, I cling to the hope that someday these things will make sense to me. There's gotta be a reason. And until I figure it out, there's always Haagen-Daaz.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Spring has Sprung...

There were four sure-fire ways to confirm that spring had arrived when I lived in Waterloo: the gradual disappearance of the giant mountain of snow (also known as Mount Hussey - thanks Muffy!) in the SunLife Financial parking lot; discovering the many “treasures” my dog deposited on my lawn throughout the winter; the reopening of the local Dairy Queen; and the appearance of shorts-clad university students on their front lawns, along with living room couches, boom boxes and coolers.

The harbingers of spring are a bit different, but no less welcome here in the Bruce. Watching saucy robins bob around the lawns and trees is always a happy sign of warmer weather in both the city and the country, but up here you get the added bonus of sighting vultures, kingbirds, herons, kingfishers and goldfinches. It's a birdy-nerdy's paradise.

Nature walks are also more of a treat in the country at this time of year. I’m fascinated by the carpet of bluebells that has appeared in my in-laws’ south pasture - the only other place I've seen that is in Ireland. Down in the private lanes of Tout’s grove (D says the snootier cottagers live there), shy periwinkle flowers and their waxy green leaves peep out at me from under piles of leaves. My brother-in-law’s backyard in Blair’s Grove is a serene ocean of white, blanketed with thousands of trilliums.

I'm a girl who likes to follow her nose. In another life, I think I could have been a perfume maker or tester; I absolutely love smelling nice things. Down by the lake right now, there's a gorgeous aroma of poplar in the air that could be bottled and sold as an anti-depressant. I love walking under those sinewy old trees as their fuzzy catkins drop down on my head like scented confetti.

Back at Someday, the Pine river has woken up; we can hear it rushing over the rocks on these still, spring nights. D and I have had several shore-side discussions about whether the groups of fish that wriggle languidly around in the shallows are edible, but we haven’t tried to find out yet. For now, we’re content to hike through the woods to the edges of the riverbank and spy on their afternoon spawning parties. They swim together near the shore, so thick you could practically walk on them. I think they're trout but D is convinced they're "suckers," whatever that is.

I used to enjoy springtime walks around my established gardens in Waterloo to note the earliest flowers: violets, sweet woodruff, crocuses. I’m still somewhat wistful for my old garden stomping grounds, but there's a certain charm to exploring Someday to see what’s coming up in all the unfamiliar soil. Did any of the bulbs I planted last fall escape the squirrel feasts? And what the heck are those droopy, freckled flowers that appeared seemingly overnight in the kitchen garden?

A blanket of snowdrops surprised me around the southwest corner of the house in April, rosy pink nubs of rhubarb have poked their heads out (I still can’t believe I’m the proud owner of four patches), and some kind soul planted lots of sweet woodruff and dozens of columbines everywhere, which makes me feel more at home. Last week I was delighted to discover wild violets springing up all over the lawn. When the sun warms them and they release their delicate fragrance, it’s like breathing in a benediction. They are my favourite flowers next to freesia.

Of course, to offset the delicious scents, there’s also the occasional whiff of manure that wafts over to Someday on the spring breezes. It took me several days before I realized I didn’t need to keep checking the bottoms of my shoes; “fresh air” is the norm up here now that the farmers are "back on the land," as they say. The unmistakable tang of run-over skunk is back, too, and if that isn’t a sure sign of spring, I don’t know what is.

But the funny thing is that where I used to wrinkle my nose at the smell of diesel fumes from the buses that roared up and down Moore Ave in Waterloo, or the sporadic smell of the dump that drifted down when the wind was west, the springtime country aromas don’t bother me. They are all a part of living in the Bruce, and are quickly becoming as homey and familiar as all the other harbingers of spring at Someday.

Man, oh man...I love spring.