New Grandbaby News & Unicorn Flu

Exciting news from the northern branch of the family, younger daughter is expecting another baby! Sunshine will have a little brother or sister just about two years younger. Which, if you aren’t planning to have a lot of kids, is pretty good spacing. Far enough apart to give each a good measure of developmental uniqueness and give Mom a bit of a break, close enough together to allow a strong friendship to develop between them.

#1 grandson is of course going to press once again for his favorite name – Cool Ass Mojo – and once again isn’t likely to prevail. That’s okay, he can name his own child thusly. Grandpa and I are just delighted, hoping this birth will be much easier on our sweet daughter who has proven herself to be an extremely good Mom. Her family is happily well-adjusted and for her good choices we are grateful.

Meanwhile, Grandpa’s intensive work schedule in various regional public school systems kicked into high gear when school started in August, bringing home more than ‘the usual’ season-change cold this year. Some of you may know that the new H1N1 flu is officially rampant here in the Southeast. Some wish to call it swine flu, but it’s also got elements of bird flu and Spanish flu – a regular Chimera. So I just call it the Unicorn Flu, in honor of the worldwide panic it’s engendered since its so-public appearance in Mexico City this past April.

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LA Paper Sounds GMO Warning

I’ve been back and forth with #1 Daughter-in-Law down in Florida about grandson’s upcoming graduation from high school (Yea, Mikey!) and their plans to visit us here in the mountains the week of the 4th of July. It’s a little tricky, since we’ll be in Oklahoma to visit Great-Grandma until the 3rd, so we’ll both be converging on the homestead the afternoon of Independence Day. The good news is we’ll all be traveling through fireworks states, so should have some nice sparklies for the evening!

My DiL is an organic gardener like me (I’m so proud!), we often go back and forth about different cultivars, particular techniques for (trying to) beat bugs, etc. She linked me to a story from the LA Environmental Health Examiner this morning that I’m making the subject of this post.

Jon Stewart spoofs and doctors warn: avoid GMOs

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The “Virtual Baby Shower”

An idea whose time has come!

With my younger daughter expecting to deliver in March and living far enough away that we can’t see her very often, I have been quite concerned about whether she’s got friends enough up there in Yankee-land to throw her the proper showers and make sure she’s got everything she needs in the way of ‘stuff’ and sage mom advice about things that only moms can know. I’ve been stressing about how I was going to get up there both for at least one shower as well as for when the baby comes, so I can help out and get them started on the least stressful (I know, that’s a relative assessment) schedule for all baby all the time…

Her best friend lives here, where she went to high school. I’ve spoken with her about the whole shower thing and how this is to be managed with everybody living so far apart. Then, this past week my daughter’s best friend surprised and delighted me with the most wonderful idea!

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To Breast Feed or Not, That is the Question!

Back in the olden days when I was having babies breast feeding was frowned upon as something only poor people did. I don’t really know why, since my mother breast fed all five of us siblings and we turned out healthy enough. Of course, when I was having babies pediatricians also advised Moms to start feeding their infants solid food (cereals, fruit) at the ripe old age of 6 weeks, too.

In the years since then medical science has actually investigated how nature designed babies to be fed, and discovered that human breast milk in most circumstances is the very best thing a baby human could be getting in the way of nutrition. Almost as if they finally figured out that cow’s milk is for baby cows! What’ll they think of next?

In addition to being the most easily digested animal protein infants can get, breast milk also comes with antibodies that protect babies against diseases and allergies, and breast feeding generally doesn’t cause the baby to swallow air which leads to vomiting, upset stomach, and unhappy babies.

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Halloween Horrors: The Midwife-Witch

Birthing Options: Staying Home

Crone, noun
A wizened elderly woman. Feminine version of sage.

It’s Halloween, and since I happen to be a certifiable crone, I’ll begin this last chapter of the series on birthing options with some tales of witchcraft and bloody deeds of persecution that at one time threatened to eradicate the very existence of the ‘Medicine Women’ who traditionally attended the birth of new generations. The wise crones and grandmothers who tended the health, love lives and fertility of mothers, daughters and sisters back when the patriarchs of shamanism believed women to be chattel property like horses or goats, untouchable in their fertile ‘curse’ and dutifully banished from the household entirely for the duration of their menses.

It’s not a pretty history. From Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English:

“Women have always been healers. They were the unlicensed doctors and anatomists of western history. They were abortionists, nurses and counsellors. They were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were midwives, traveling from home to home and village to village. For centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. They were called “wise women” by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”

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Birthing Options: The Birthing Center

I talked a little bit about hospital birth in the last installment, so now it’s time to discuss another option – giving birth at an efficient, home-style “Birthing Center” attended by licensed midwives and with a physician or two as partners on call.

Again, it’s vitally important for a mother-to-be to receive frequent and committed prenatal care from a doctor or midwife trained to spot potential problems before they get too far along. It’s also important for expectant parents to commit themselves to a proven birth educational program, and I have recommended the one I am most familiar with – The Bradley System.

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Birthing Options: Weighing Alternatives

Option 1: Hospital Birth

In this and my next few posts I’ll be taking a look at some of the birthing options open to parents these days, along with statistical analysis of pros and cons for both mothers and infants. The first option is hospital birth.

To grandmothers (like me), it might seem odd to talk about hospital birth as an ‘option’, since back in ancient history when we were having our children, hospital births were the norm. Unless something strange happened – like giving birth in a taxi stuck in traffic, or in an elevator stuck between floors – almost everyone was born in a hospital.

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Budget-Busters: Maternity Clothes

As my younger daughter goes forward in her pregnancy, she’s soon going to grow right out of her wardrobe. It’s inevitable, of course. In this age of anorexia, how can a woman look beautiful or capable or womanly while sporting a watermelon-size belly?

She has always been fashion conscious, won’t enjoy muu-muus or tent dresses, or any of those ridiculously ‘cutesy’ outfits with the lace or Peter Pan collars, big belly-pointing arrows, or such. And since she and her hubby are young and not rich (the way of things, I think), they don’t have much money to purchase $100 outfits that serve for three months or so and then are never worn again.

So I’m going to go shopping here with my elder daughter the Professionally Creative Thrifter and Fashion Icon, ship her a maternity “Care Package.”

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It’s a Girl! …or maybe not

That’s pure Sunshine!

For all you guys out there who liked the name GuitarGreg, and for those who really, really loved CoolAssMojo, tough luck. It’s a girl, per the ultrasound, which isn’t 100% but is more reliable than dowsing or casting lots.

Our younger daughter seemed pretty convinced it would be a girl when she was here and the boys were only thinking up boy names. I thought she looked like she was pregnant with a girl too, so we’re happy with the confirmation. Another friend anxiously expecting their first baby wanted to know how you can guess the sex of a baby before having that semi-definitive ultrasound. Fact is, I don’t really know. Women’s intuition? I guessed correctly with both of mine, and now with both daughters. Maybe I’m just a good guesser.

There was no ultrasound when I was having babies. You juggled your lacy pink desires with the tons of boring blue stuff other people always buy for baby showers, then when they hand you the baby and tell you whether it’s a boy or girl, you start planning who you’re going to give away all the no longer apropos stuff to at their baby showers. It generally works out in the end for both parents and baby stuff manufacturers – while slightly more boy babies are born than girl babies, things even out in the first year or two by attrition. Just statistics, nothing against boys.

Since there haven’t always been ultrasounds that tell you a baby’s sex months before they’re born – and not everyone trusts the technology to be as harmless as it’s claimed to be – I thought I’d go looking to see what’s out there as folklore or old wives’ tales about knowing the sex of your baby well before he or she is born.

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Guitar Greg and Cool Ass Mojo

Trial by Baby Naming

My younger daughter and her husband visited this past weekend from Indianapolis. She’s into her 4th month of pregnancy (her first), just getting over the serious morning sickness phase, needed some Mom-time. Which I was of course delighted to lavish on her, sympathizing with her queazy stomach and re-arranging innards, happy to whip up some colorful stir-fry, hummus, falafel and tabouli for pita sandwiches, anything that sounded good, that she thought she might be able to keep down.

She’s never been a happy morning person, so when her hubby mentioned how hard the last few months have been – a strain on their relationship as well as their income since they work together out of home – I wasn’t very sympathetic. Grandpa could take care of that chore. And he did.

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