It was too early to be awake...

As I stared at the back of a bottle of kids' shampoo this morning, I saw this line:

Tested by Opthamologists.

All I could picture was a lineup of old guys in lab coats having shampoo squirted into their eyes and yelling "Ow! I neeeeed a waaaaasshhhcloth!!!"

Advertising companies, feel free to contact me at eighthcyn  at climbinguptheslide dot com

Let's Hope It's ACTUALLY an Improvement

I posted a few months ago about the proposed changes to report cards. Apparently the Toronto District School Board has gone ahead and made changes to the "comment bank" that the teachers use, attempting to put them in plain English. So, while last year a Grade 3 pupil would have "applied critical analysis to the communication of feelings, ideas and understanding in response to a variety of dance pieces and experiences," she now "shares ideas and feelings about dances that were viewed or created."

60 teachers sat down to take the 700 previous comments and change them to be more easily understood. I'm still not convinced, and since my kids aren't in the TDSB I don't know if their reports will be any different or not. I realize that the intention of the comment bank was to make sure that report cards were more uniform from school to school and class to class, but I still feel that students and parents were better informed when the teacher actually handwrote personal comments on how the child was progressing. As a parent, if my child is having difficulty in math I need to know that, and possibly which part of the math curriculum. If I need any further information about the specifics of the problem, I can contact the teacher and talk to him/her personally. I would still rather have more specifics about my child's overall progress, rather than such minutiae.

You can read more about the "progress" of the TDSB report cards here.

Responsibility for "THE TALK" More Often Falls on Mom

My oldest daughter just turned nine. It occurs to me that it won't be long until we need to have "the talk". You know the one: the one that strikes terror into the heart of every parent. The SEX talk.

I've always assumed that I would be the one talking to the girls, while Dad would get to discuss the joy of sex with the boys. Of course, it will depend on who they go to with questions, but I just can't see my daughters voluntarily asking their father about their periods, or birth control options. Then again, I can only imagine the looks on the boys' faces if I did what a friend's mom did when I was a teenager: she handed him a box of condoms, a banana, and told him to "practice". He was so shy, too. I bet he wanted to fall through the floor!

However, according to this article, more often than not it's Mom who gets to have the conversation. I suppose that may simply be because Mom is the one who is generally around more (not in all homes, of course, but in many) and so an innocent question gets asked which has to be answered. My mom tells me that I first asked about where babies come from while she was driving on the 401 and she nearly drove off the road!

I asked on a couple of parenting message boards for stories from those who had already been down this road. One mom told me about her experience with her step-daughter: "I had to have a revision of said talk with B. this summer that included birth control. We both were pretty skeeved I think, but I did my best to be informative without being overly permissive (we talked a lot about the emotional ramifications of not only the sex, but accidentally getting pg as a teenager)." The "skeeved" part seems to be a fairly common thing: I also got told that one daughter was "appropriately creeped out." Myself, I remember being horrified by the very idea.

I've always pictured myself as the open, cool mom who would be okay with talking about these things with her kids. So far I'm still hoping that will be the case. At this point my daughter is vehemently anti-boy as anything other than "friend." I can only hope that lasts a while longer, but I also won't allow myself to be delusional about it. I know of one mom who is so sure that her daughters (and she has four of them) will listen to her message of abstinence before marriage that she absolutely refuses to believe that they would ever rebel against her. I just find that really sad. If I remember correctly, what I said to her is that by the time they are teenagers, we as parents can only control their actions so much. We are meant to be guides, and hope that they will be smart enough to follow instructions.

I'm tense just writing about this! Can I just freeze time for a few more years???

I'm Feeling Very Unloved!

I know there are readers out there - people have told me they're reading, and commented on certain articles, but no one has anything to say!?! Am I just so wise that there is nothing left to possible argue with me about? Wow...

In other words, if you're reading - leave me some love! Or, well, some not-so-love... just let me know what you think!

Hats Off to the Single Parents Out There!

My husband had a business trip this week. In all fairness, it's been a LONG time since he had to go to one of these conferences, but still, I'm not fond of them. It's part of his job, so I realize I have to expect it on occasion, though. I have to admit, this one was badly timed, though (not his fault, but...)

First of all, he had to leave on Family Day, the new Ontario statutory holiday that was instituted the year we were living in the US. I always forget about it until a few weeks before it happens, and then it's like a happy surprise: we get a long weekend! Of course, I'm at home, so a long weekend for me just means an extra day with no one at school, but it also USUALLY means an extra set of hands for one more day. Plus, since we've been back in Ontario we really have tried to use Family Day as a FAMILY day. No Family Day for us this year.

Then, last Thursday, my younger daughter came down with a stomach bug. Uh oh. I've discussed "the family pandemic" before. I was just waiting for the dominoes to fall. Sure enough, Saturday night the baby started vomiting, and Charlotte was still suffering from diarrhea. By this time I'm now picturing my husband vomiting his way across North America at 10,000 feet, and me here, spending the week with four sick kids and me throwing up all over the place, too.

So far, that hasn't happened. It seems to have only affected those two members of the family, although the baby is still fighting it off (which made for a really fun morning when he woke up with a blow-out diaper all over the inside of his sleeper.) Still, it's been a long week. Even though Daddy often doesn't get home until bath/bed time, it's still an extra set of hands at the most chaotic time of the day. It's also just that few hours in the evening with another adult. There are a lot of times where I can go the entire day and never actually interact with another adult for more than a few seconds at the grocery store/gymnastics class/library until he comes home.

My mom was a single mom. Although there was only me, I never underestimate how hard that must have been. You just don't get a break. Even though as a SAHM it's easy to think that you never get time to yourself, it's only until you're completely by yourself and outnumbered that you realize just how much of a 24/7 job it really is.

Daddy comes home tonight. I'm just praying that all five of us survive until then! Only about thirteen more hours... not that I'm counting or anything.

Thinking a Lot Tonight...

My husband started watching a special tonight on Nostradamus and Isaac Newton. I wasn't really paying attention - those "end of the world" theories aren't my thing - but my daughter asked my husband about us being related to Sir Isaac. It's a family legend, can't really be entirely true since he apparently had no children, but it started me thinking about my father's side of the family. Depending on the day I either sort of choose not to think about it, or I'm fascinated by this group of people who I really know nothing about, when it comes right down to it.

My parents separated when I was very young. My father moved to the United States when I was so young that I don't even know exactly how old I was. Younger than five, certainly. My memories are of being picked up after school by a man I barely knew, taken to visit his mother and step (adoptive) father for the evening, then taken back home to my mom. I'd get a phone call on Christmas Day, one on my birthday, and then the next year it would happen all over again.

It's not that uncommon a scenario today. I can only remember two other of the kids I went to school with in elementary school having divorced parents. My father was also a child of divorce, though, and if it was uncommon when I was young, it was almost unheard of when he was. Still, I remember hating when my teachers would say it was time to do a Father's Day art project. I'd do it anyway, knowing that it would go in the trash when I was done. Once a teacher suggested that I make something for my mom instead. I was so embarrassed. Truth is, though, that most of the time I didn't notice that my life was any different than everyone else's. I didn't know life with two parents. Even now the idea of my parents together seems ludicrous.

But I think that makes that side of my family seem all the more mysterious. My father's mother passed away last year. I read her eulogy, which she had ironically written herself for a course she was doing, and reading her recollections of her life I was hit again by the realization of how little I knew about her, really, and how I wish we'd had a better relationship that had enabled her to tell me them herself, so that I could have asked questions. No one did, really, ask her those questions, I don't think. So, I imagine what it must have been like. I imagine what must have caused her to make the decisions that she did, good and bad. I wonder what made her the person that she was, and, in the end, how she made my father the man that he is.

I'm very glad that my children have the father that they do. Every once in a while, watching them play together, or cuddle, I mourn that relationship that never was, but most of the time it just makes me happy to see the people that I love most in the world loving each other. Sir Isaac Newton, for all of his genius and fame, had nothing on that.

Another Actual Conversation with a Three-Year-Old

This commercial came on television earlier:



Andrew and I were watching it.

Andrew: Hippos don't live in houses.

(I should mention that hippos are a favourite animal in this house, because of Not the Hippopotamus and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.)

Me (thinking how smart my kid is): No, that's what the commercial is about - how not everything on tv is real, and you have to be able to decide what's real or not.

Andrew: Hippos don't live in church, either. God does.

Well, all right then.

Breastfeeding after Reduction Surgery

I remember it well, my consultation for breast reduction surgery. It was 11 years ago. I was 22 and in my last year of university. In the four years that I'd been at university my bra size had gone from a comfortable C-cup to a FFF (what I lovingly refer to as "Holy F--- that's big!") I was pretty miserable, although not as bad as some people I've heard about. I knew I wanted that surgery, though. The last bra I'd bought had cost $120. My back hurt and my shoulders slouched.

It was fairly quick, as we discussed how the surgery works, what a reasonable expectation was for post-surgery size and when the surgery could be done. Then there was about a thirty second discussion. "Is there any chance I'll be able to breastfeed?"

"Oh, about 50/50, I suppose," he said. "We don't remove the nipple anymore, so that helps."

"Okay," I said.

That was it. At the time I thought it was no big deal if I couldn't breastfeed, but I was sure that I would be one of the ones who could. Then almost exactly 2 years after my surger we had our first baby. During the pregnancy I talked about the surgery with my midwives and asked if I should be talking to a lactation consultant before the baby arrived so that I'd know how to handle things. No, I was told, just wait and see. Well all right, then.

Baby arrived, ended up as an unexpected c-section because she turned breech at the last minute. I was given a morphine pump afterwards for pain. I remember almost nothing of my baby's first 24 hours, until a nurse finally said to me "Are you ever going to try and feed that baby?" I don't think I even knew what day it was, truthfully. But she took baby in one hand, my boob in the other, and shoved them together, and there it was. Baby was breastfeeding. Except that didn't last long. The nurses started to freak out over my breast reduction. It was a small rural hospital. I don't know if that was the issue or not, but I don't think there was a lactation consultant on staff at all. They insisted that I needed to supplement with a tube at breast. This was less than 48 hours after birth. My milk, however much I was going to have, hadn't even come in yet and they decided that it was more important to supplement than it was to let me get the hang of latching on.

Trying to maneuver the tube while getting a baby to latch on, all while dealing with the pain of major surgery was just plain frustrating. The day came that we were to go home and the nurse tried to tell me I needed to stay another day so that they were confident I could feed her. I just wanted to go home by this point. I was hormonal and lonely and tired of being manhandled. I said "Just give me a bottle then." And that was it. When I got home and realized that my milk was coming in I immediately regretted my hasty decision, but at that point I couldn't get her to latch at all. I'd been so busy trying to keep that damned tube from falling off that I never really learned how to latch her on.

My husband heard about Dr. Jack Newman, who was then at Sick Kids with his famous breastfeeding clinic. He brought me the phone number and after working up my nerve I called. Dr. Newman called me back personally, as he's well-known for doing. He was very kind and tried to help, but I was so overwhelmed by everything I don't really even remember what he told me. I just couldn't deal with it. So our first was completely bottlefed.

And truthfully it was fine. She was happy, healthy and we loved every minute with her. Every once in a while I would get a rude comment from someone about why I wasn't breastfeeding. I know they meant well, because "breast is best", but despite my bravado about it, it cut deep.

By the time I was pregnant with my second I decided to look into the issue more. i found a book called Defining Your Own Success: Breastfeeding After Breast Reduction Surgery" by Diana West. I devoured it. I read about herbs, Domperidone, pumping to increase supply... all the things that no one told me about before. Plus, I learned that there was NO need to supplement immediately after birth since Baby is supposed to exist on minute amounts of collostrum until mom's milk comes in. No one (at least no one that I know) gives birth and has milk flooding out of their breasts a few minutes after birth.

So I went in to the hospital prepared for my VBAC, armed with my new knowledge (even with the book in my bag in case of any questions from the nurses). 24 hours later I'd had my second c-section (that's another story for another time). I'd asked to nurse her as soon as I was in the recovery room. She latched on beautifully (although the nurse had to do it for me) and everything was just find, until the anesthetic made me throw up and my husband had to take the baby while I hung my head over a basin.

I told them I didn't want to supplement immediately. Then she started losing weight, like all babies do after birth, and somehow this became an issue. I HAD to supplement. I was risking starving my baby if I didn't. She wasn't getting her tongue moving properly, and I needed to finger feed her until she figured it out. Then the lactation consultant (different hospital) came in and made me cry. It was horrible.

But I persevered. I ended up at the hospital's lactation clinic after we went home, eventually crying again, but this time with a much nicer LC. I had the Domperidone and I got Blessed Thistle and Fenugreek. I pumped as often as I could stand and my supply still just wasn't enough. She told me that there was no reason I had to stop breastfeeding. I could breastfeed, then give her a bottle. Just nursing because we both wanted to. So that's what we did. Except then we both ended up with thrush from antibiotics I had to take for an infection a few weeks later. But it lasted twelve weeks, and although it wasn't long, and I didn't exclusively breastfeed, it still felt like an accomplishment.

Baby #3 arrived. I was NOT going to be bullied again, and I wasn't. Apparently in the 13 months since Baby #2 the nurses had training on breastfeeding and they were told that there weren't to discourage a mom from breastfeeding, no matter what (or at least that's what the bitter nurse told me). So when it seemed like he wanted to nurse 24/7 and still wasn't happy, and I decided I needed to supplement, THEY were the ones trying to discourage me. We ended up "comfort nursing" again, but this time it went longer. Often when he was upset, nursing was the only thing that would calm him down. It lasted 14 weeks.

I wish I could say that things magically changed with Baby #4. Unfortunately with three other kids to look after I just didn't have the time or energy to commit to keeping my supply up properly. It only lasted 7 weeks.

It makes me sad that I was never able to do it, but at the same time I'm glad that I didn't completely give up, either. There are a lot of people who ARE able to do it, though, so the whole point of this post is that moms who have had breast surgery should NOT give up. Educate and make the decision for yourself! Decide what options will work for you and your family. I had a terrible experience with tube feeding, but so many people have great experience with Supplemental Nursing Systems like this.

A lot of people also are able to boost their milk supply with herbs such as Blessed Thistle and Fenugreek, or with a prescription for Domperidone (unfortunately not available in the US).

One of the best online resources for BFAR is at http://www.bfar.org/ It's where I originally found my book and information and I strongly recommend you check it out if BFAR is something you want to try.

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids

My sister-in-law posted this preview for a CBC documentary about "helicopter parents." I plan on setting my dvr. While I don't consider myself a "curling parent" (watch the video) I think it's an interesting, if somewhat scary phenomenon. I spend a lot of time on parenting message boards and it's one thing I don't completely understand, although it's funny how you start to feel pressure to "keep up".

Emma will be nine this weekend. There's a big part of me who feels like I'm not "doing enough" for her birthday, but the silly thing is that she's happy. She's even okay with one of mom's very "undesigner" cakes!