Closure

So, my close friends and family know that I am a big fan of closure. I don't like to keep loose ends untied. I'm not saying that everything can always be tied up into a nice neat little package, but I feel better knowing that I at least tried to close the door on a subject.

To that end, I am having lunch with a very old "friend" tomorrow. Can you still call someone who you have not spoken to in 12 1/2 years friend? I'm not sure - I guess that is what I am going to find out.

I won't go into the causes of our falling out, but let's just say that it certainly wasn't worth it.

I won't lie, my curiosity is one of my most annoyingly endearing qualities. I want to see how she looks, know how her life has been, what she's been up to lately. But, mostly, I just want closure. It was devastating when we stopped being friends, mostly because I did not see it coming. One morning, she was my loving, devoted, loyal friend, by that night, she just wasn't. No good reason, no explanation. She was doing what she wanted to do with no regard to my feelings, and that was it. That was in January of 1997.

Fast forward to September of 2004, I make a run to the drug store, and there she is, working behind the photo counter. I know that she sees me, and recognizes me, but neither of us say a thing. This goes on until June 2009.

What happened in June? Facebook! I came across her profile when it was suggested to me as someone I might know. I couldn't resist. I perused her profile, trying to glean any information about her life that I could from it. I clicked on her husband's profile to try and get more info. I looked at the pics they had posted, I wanted to see my old friend in those pics, the one that I knew so long ago.

I emailed her and let her know that I harbor no ill feelings, that I had missed her throughout the years, that I was not still mad, and that honestly, I was more hurt by the fact that she did not fight for our friendship. The reasons for the "break-up," well, I couldn't really be mad about those. How bitter would I have to be to be pissed about that after more than 12 years?

So, now, we are having lunch tomorrow, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't the least bit apprehensive. Is it really possible to put all of that behind us? I think it is. Is it possible to truly be friends after all this time? That remains to be seen. But, I know that I will get one thing out of it - closure. I won't have to wonder what she is thinking of me when I venture into her store. I won't have to wonder about what might have been with our friendship. And, I will finally be able to put to rest, after all this time, the feeling that things were left horribly unfinished between us.

If you thought it was poop.....?

My son, Mason was playing outside today, with what was minimal supervision at best. I must interject right here, that I have a patio area that is roughly 200 square feet and surrounded by walls on all sides and 5.5 foot gates that lock, so it is really secure, and with the door open I can hear everything.

So, when I heard him chanting "Ucky poop, ucky poop," I got very, very scared.

Turns out, it wasn't poop, it was a snail. Which of course, begs the question, if you thought it was poop, why would you pick it up?

God only knows where he found it, there is nothing in the patio area that would be the least bit appetizing to a snail, but I decided to look at it as a lucky learning opportunity.

Now, my son, is only 22 months, and I think that he is pretty darn smart. Is he more advanced than other kids his age? who knows, but he is really quick when it comes to learning new facts. (Maybe one day he can be like his mother, full of useless trivial information.)

So, I started naming the anatomy of the snail, in simple words he could understand of course, and he was repeating them back to me. We got some cabbage so that I could show him where the snails mouth was, and he giggled at the site of the snail chomping away on the leafy greens.

It was pretty amazing to see just how interested he was in learning about the snail. I think a lot of people underestimate how much 2 year olds can understand. I "teach" him like this all the time. He now knows the kinds of flowers that humming birds eat from, how bees make honey, and that different apes and monkeys have different names (for example orangutans, lemurs, gorillas, chimps). Does he fully grasp what all of it means, probably not, but it is giving him a good foundation for understanding. And, I would be lying if I said that it doesn't make me super proud to hear him telling others all the fun facts that he knows.

He knows all of his colors, including silver, all of his shapes (even octagon), green means go, red means stop, and so much more. He amazes me daily. I am truly blessed to be his mommy.

Hopefully, we will always have this much fun learning together.

Labor (part II)

Has it really been over a month since I posted? Sorry for the delay, though I am sure that no one was on the edge of their seats waiting for the rest of my labor story. Take heart, this last part is a lot shorter than the first part.

Anyway, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, I was resolved to do it all natural, vomit and all.

So, I get back into my breathing. I realized that the great attitude that I had all through my pregnancy did not have to disappear just because I was barfing and things weren't going exactly as planned.

Time passes. I barf, I walk a little, I sit in the bottom of the shower with the hot water running on me, I change rooms, I breathe! I even manage to doze off a few times.

Time is very strange when you are in labor. It is like time is crawling, fast-forwarding, and warping all at the same time. At one point the nurse told me what time it was, but the numbers meant nothing - I really could not make it make sense.

Finally, I got to the pushing stage of labor. Okay, here it is I thought, just a couple more hours, maximum, and then I get to see my baby's face.

I was very proud of myself - I got through first stage labor, now I was gonna push this baby out! I could see the light at the end of the tunnel (I hope some one will appreciate this very sick pun!).

Now ladies, if you have had children, you know the indignities you suffer at the hands of well-meaning medical professionals. Enter the midwife.

For those of you who have not had children, let me drop some knowledge on you - the pushing stage of labor is pretty uncomfortable. I am not trying to be facetious, I just don't like using the word "pain" for labor. I have experienced physical pain much worse than labor in my life.

Back to the point though, during the pushing stage the last thing that you want is some super happy midwife or nurse sticking her hand up your hoo-haa to check and make sure that you are properly dilated. Oh, by the way, did I mention that they do this WHILE you are having a contraction and having to push with all of your might. Yeah, lovely!

"You are fully dilated, but there is just a little bit of a lip of your cervix stuck. Let me see if I can.....yup.....push it out....... of the way."

Cervix pushed out of the way - here we go.........(time, approximately 11:30 am). Too bad my mom won't make it in time for the birth, she has at least 4-5 more hours on the road before she can make it here.

After a while of pushing, I get checked again. Mason was at a -1 station (sorry for not explaining what that is for those of you who don't know, I am trying my best to keep it short).

Let me re-iterate here, time passes strangely when you are in labor. I was just minding my own business, pushing when I had contractions, getting trough them like a trooper, when all of the sudden, I look up, and there is my mom.

Yup, at this point I had been pushing for about 4 1/2 hours. Surely, I must almost be done.

"Michelle, your baby is still at a minus 1 station, I am afraid that your contractions may not be quite strong enough to properly push your baby out. What I want to do is insert a sensor into your uterus to make sure that they are strong enough and regular enough to do the job."

Long story short (too late!), in goes the sensor, and my contractions are off the charts strong. Not only that, I was having contractions that were lasting five minutes or more. Really long, strong contractions, and he still didn't move.

At this point my husband was a wreck. The midwife and the nurses told him that we needed to start considering other options. I insisted on pushing just a little while longer. Finally, at about 8:00 pm, the midwife checks me again, and I will never forget the words she said.

"Has he moved at all?" I asked

"Not one iota."

Approximately 9 hours of pushing, and he had not moved one iota. I looked at my husband, and he hunted down the doctor and we decided that a c-section was our only option.

It was pretty hilarious when the doctor came in because he had to give me all these disclaimers about the surgery - what could go wrong, something about accidentally cutting vital tubes in my body or perforating my intestines, blah blah blah, I wasn't really listening..."Just get him out of me, please. Anything you cut just sew it up when you're done." Come on - I had a baby literally STUCK inside my body and I had been pushing for forever!

The rest is history - stopped pushing, projectile vomited all over the hallway on the way to surgery (that was pretty cool), got a needle in my spine (not so cool), lost all feeling from the chest down (kinda cool), didn't get to be the first to see my son's face (un-cool), my husband was the first face that Mason saw when he opened his eyes (beyond cool!), got morphine (waaaaayyyy cool), got something to help me relax (cooooooooooool), got to finally see my beautiful baby boy and kiss his sweet face (AMAZING).

Re-cap: 24 hours of labor (15 hours of first stage + 9 hours of pushing) all without a drop of pain medicine in my system, was knocked down but I kept my spirits up, barfed all over that maternity ward, fell deeply in love with my wonderful hubby all over again, and got to meet my wonderful boy for the first time. All-in-all, it was a great day!

Labor Part 1

This post does not really belong on this blog, and someday, perhaps, I will re-post it on the blog that I intend to start for my book about the benefits of positivity during pregnancy -which I have the outline for, a billion notes, but no time to really sit and organize it. The reason I am sharing it here is simply that I have not written it down yet, and today, I feel that I must.

But, I digress, what I want to write about today is my labor and childbirth. I was thinking about it a lot today, as I often do, wondering if there was anything that I could have done differently to change the outcome, push harder, change positions, etc., knowing that there was not. Not that I had a bad outcome, I have a healthy, beautiful boy, but still I wonder.......

Every time I think about my labor, I fall in love with my husband all over again. My poor, nerve-wrecked, worried, husband, who put my needs first - like a good birth coach should - and knowing when I had had enough.

At times - it will sound like a labor "horror" story - but it really isn't. I had moments of doubt and negativity, but it was my positive attitude throughout my pregnancy that helped me through a difficult labor - and I hope that is what readers will get out of it.

So, here is the story, beginning with a little back story:

My sister - my wonderful, crazy, fertile, baby-making machine, sister (Mrs. Hannigan's Home For Girls) who can shoot babies out of her uterus on the side of the road, the kitchen, or the bathroom floor - did completely natural childbirth for all 6 of her girls (5 at the time my son was born). This was a great example for me because I don't think that I would have even considered it, had I not seen that it can be done.

As a result, I wanted nothing to do with medicated birth - a belief that I still hold strong to. I was not going to be induced, I was not going to get pain meds, I surely was not going to have a c-section (because I was going to do everything "right"), and I was not going to let the hospital tell me what to do. I had a 7 page birth plan which outlined what I wanted to happen in any situation, except c-section because I was not going to have one of those. People would tell me, "Your birth plan is great, but you'll have to be flexible too." I would look at them with what I could only describe as a suppressed roll-of-my-eyes and a sarcastic smile, and tell them "Of course, I know that I will have to be flexible," all the while knowing that they were full of it and because I had planned it out so completely, that is the way my birth would happen.

So, one day I am sitting around, timing my contractions like I had been practicing for the last month or so, and I realize, oh my, I am in labor. Call my sister and tell her, call my hubby and tell him that he should probably come home from work. He gets home, we are leaving for the hospital, my water breaks, I get some towels for the car, and off we go.

We arrive at the hospital at about 11 pm, and I am so calm, because I have got it all under control. I hand the nurse my birth plan, I get in the gown, I lie down on the bed and begin my Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth breathing exercises, and I am so happy with myself for being such a perfect patient -then it happens - I vomit all over the place. I calm down, get myself under control, glad that little episode is behind me, get back into my breathing, and an hour later -I vomit again. Then, I start to cry - no one had ever told me that I was gonna barf! This was not part of the deal that I signed up for - I did not throw up my entire pregnancy, and now, during labor, I was throwing up everything I had eaten over the last 9 months - it was awful! Let's just say, this trend would continue all the way up until I saw my son's face for the first time.

My husband, knowing and supportive of my decision to have an un-medicated birth, also knowing how much I HATE to throw up asks me softly if I would like him to see if there is any medicine the nurse can give me for the vomiting - feeling like a failure - I said yes. Here it was, the beginning of the end - only a few hours into it, and I was getting an unwanted medical intervention. Before the nurse could come in -I do it again. Then, medical intervention #2, I am told that because I am vomiting so much, I have to get an IV - I was devastated! I felt like everything was going wrong - I wasn't strong enough to do it on my own, I wasn't committed enough, I wasn't good enough.

The nurse starts my IV and gives me the anti-nausea medicine through the IV. I calm down. I am done barfing, I get back into my breathing. The best thing about the Bradley Method, is that it is really easy to relax with the breathing exercises, once you really get into it, and get the rhythm of your own breathing down, it is kind of a no-brainer, I even managed to drift in and out of a sleep-like state during first stage labor. A few barf-free hours pass, and I am actually feeling pretty good - until I start barfing again! This time, it starts happening every 30-45 minutes and as I try to get back to my breathing - I feel myself giving up. I even asked the nurse for just a little something to manage some of the pain I was feeling (which admittedly, wasn't that bad, it was just that I was so tired of trying to control my breathing while vomiting, I wanted a break!). Then, the nurse breaks the news to me, any meds that she could have given me to take the edge off are know to cause vomiting. That was all I needed to hear - vomit or no vomit - I was recommitted to doing this my way. I told my husband that no matter what, this baby was coming into this world without a drug in his system if I had to vomit up every last bit of fluid in my body. I was determined!

Organic Produce

I lived in beach cities for several years before returning to the desert town of Palmdale, California. The best thing, absolute best thing, was not the ocean being so close, but the availability of quality organic produce. Especially in Santa Barbara! Every day of the week there were farmer's markets held all around the city. On any given day, I could purchase, for a great price, all the fruits and veggies I wanted, all organic, locally grown, and just plain delicious! (Click here to check out the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market website) (side note: Yay! I figured out the link thing). My favorite was always the peaches - so big, sweet, juicy! I usually purchased enough for the week and ended up eating at least 2 the day I bought them.

So, when I returned to the desert, and found the selection of organic produce seriously lacking, I was bummed. Super bummed. Call me crazy, but I swear the organic stuff just tastes better. Eventually I got used to the limited and inconsistant offerings at my local supermarket and Trader Joe's, but always longed for something more.

Then, I found out about a service that we have in our town called Abundant Harvest Organics. In a nutshell, I subscribe to recieve a box of produce once a week and I can add on other items that are also available, such as milk or eggs or meat. ALL ORGANIC! The meat is grass-fed and hormone free, the eggs are truly free range and laid in mobile henhouses where the hens can come and go as they please and get to graze with the cows in the pasture. Nuts, seasonings, even candies are available for purchase, and all for a price that is really not that much more than what I would spend on similar items at the grocery store (except the whole chicken for roasting, but I bet it will be soooooooppper good!).

In all honesty it took me a while to get up the nerve to subscribe to the service because I don't have control over what I get every week. Last week I got beets and I just didn't know what to do with them and they went bad. I'm getting better though and finding recipes for what I will be expecting, and shopping accordingly. Every week I feel better and better about the things that I am feeding my family because we are phasing out all of the hormones and chemicals that are poisoning our foods.

And one thing that is so cool about the produce is the imperfections. I have a ton of oranges and tangeloes that look lumpy and strange - not the perfect little spheres you see in the grocery store. And, since they are all organic, and not prettied up for sale on the store shelves, there is no wax on them, so they are not shiny! And, then there is the smell! My kitchen smells like citrus and veggies straight out of the garden - I LOVE IT!

Those little link thingys and other enigmas

So, I religiously read my sister's blog and my friend, Melissa's, blog, and they always have links and pictures embedded in their posts - how do I do that? I am fairly computer literate, and I think I can figure out the picture thing (that is the little picture in the in my toolbar right?), but the link thingy.....

My Cleaning Product Philosophy

First of all, I realize that I already posted today, but since I drank waaaaayyyy too much caffeine today, you get another one.

Now, onto the post......

I am attempting to clean my house today, but as usual I am sidetracked by several more important things....FaceBook (that's a whole other post!), the season finale of Privileged, and the Real Housewives of Orange County Confess.....as a result, all of the rooms I am attempting to clean are only half done (does that make me an optimist?).

As I am cleaning the bottom of the tub, I start to laugh, I am cleaning it with degreaser for the kitchen counters. Not because we are greezy people, but that is just the cleaner I happened to grab. Yup, that's how I roll, glass cleaner to scrub the toilets, degreaser in the tub, soap scum remover on my kitchen appliances, whatever I grab first is what I use to clean everything. I figure that as long as it looks good when I am done, what does it matter what I clean it with?

I guess the point I am trying to make, (and here is where I think the fumes have gotten to me, yet another reason not to clean too often), we may all have different ways of reaching a conclusion, but as long as the end result is positive, does it really matter how we got there?

It seems lately, in these tough times, that we are all so busy bickering about how to solve the problems of the world, we forget that, in the end we all want basically the same thing. We want our troops to come home, our house prices to recover, gas to go down, banks to be held accountable for the messes they have made, the best education for our kids, our soil to be safe from terrorism, the perfect pair of jeans that make our butt look great (is that just me?).

So, next time you are arguing with your friend over whether or not Obama is making problems better or worse, remember, just because you wouldn't use degreaser in the bathtub, doesn't mean it won't do the job. Strive to be a little more open minded to possibility and try to remember that we (mostly) agree on what we want to achieve, though our methods for reaching those goals may be vastly different, and all we are arguing is semantics.

PS - I want to read more blogs, and would like more people to read mine - send me some of your favorite blogs, and share mine with others. Thanks so much for your help.