A Goddess in a Cave in the Woods

Tonight I went with my friend Heidi to a screening of the documentary The Business of Being Born. You may know it as the film that shows Ricki Lake giving birth to her second child, but it is so much more than that.

It was… awesome! Moving, informative, inspiring and empowering. Although I am a self-professed “crunchy” mama, and have done lots of research on birth, homebirth and unnecessary interventions, the facts and opinions presented in the film were still more shocking than I expected. For goodness sake, the hospital where I gave birth to Emma had a c-section rate of more than 37% last year!

The disgraceful situation of birth in the United States must be resolved, and I am so glad to have seen this film, surrounded by other concerned or curious women, men, mothers, fathers, activists, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants and students. I hope it inspires others to spread the word and educate about birth options and the concept of “normal” birth, which does not take place in a hospital.

I understand that before too long, it will be available for purchase through Netflix – I highly recommend that you see it, no matter who you are.

And let me just say, moms, you are awesome! You rock and your bodies rock and your babies rock. It is amazing what we, as women, can do!

We took Max to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium tonight. He’s been asking to see it, and has done a terrific job with his responsibility chart this week. It is nice to be able to have some special time with him (thanks to Oma and Aunt Sissy for watching Emma).

The movie was better than I expected, especially after reading a couple of negative reviews. I loved that it was not as constant-motion-manic-energy as most “kids” films these days. But, I honestly think it was more suited for older children and adults than young kids.

Max liked the movie a lot, but my sweet and sensitive boy couldn’t stop talking about the sad sock monkey. At two points in the movie, the sock monkey reached out to hug the accountant character, but he moved away before the monkey could hug him. This made Max inexplicably sad. He has such empathy. It bothers him most to see characters being emotional injured or ignored – the sadness of a hug incomplete was overwhelming to him.

Of course, the monkey did get his hug in the end, and Max got lots of hugs and kisses too….

Love/Hates for today:
Love cuddly naps with Emma under my down comforter.
Love holding hands with my big boy and hearing him tell me that he’s “growing” now.
Hate hearing that “growing” means he no longer likes Tracy Turnblad and the music from Hairspray.

He’d better not grow out of ABBA.

Cooked a turkey last night. Well… let’s try that again.

Overcooked a turkey last night.

It is only the second or third turkey I’ve ever made, and in the interest of full disclosure, my mom helped out quite a bit with getting it ready (removing the stuff, stuff other stuff into the hole where the stuff was, touching the raw turkey, you know, just some little details).

Raw poultry is a big reason why I was vegetarian for a while.

Anyway, I overcooked it. It looked beautiful, but was dry and chewing a piece caused all of the moisture in my mouth to be sucked out. It kind of ruined the dining experience for me. Sigh.

We have a ton of turkey leftover, but I really wasn’t in the mood to eat it again tonight, so I fell off the wagon and got drive-through. Need to make sure that doesn’t happen again. It is expensive and gross, and totally NOT worth the time and energy I think I’m saving. Duh, Jenny.

On a positive note, Max loved the turkey. Said, “Mommy, this is the BEST turkey I’ve EVER had!” What a sweet little liar.

OK people, my email is DOWN. I’m working on resolving it, but in case you are trying to reach me, don’t email me. Call me on my cell phone. Try telepathy. Hopefully this will all be resolved soon. Check out Aaron’s blog at www.cyberlizard.com for details.

Sorry – and thanks! I didn’t know how dependant I was on email until I didn’t have it.
Yay 21st century!

A Christmas Story is one of my family’s favorite holiday movies. My Dad loves it. My husband loves it. My in-laws love it. My sister loves it. It cracks everyone up and we can all recite lines from memory. But up ’til now, I haven’t let Max watch it.

Now, we are really pretty lenient about what sort of movies Max watches. We control the quantity part rather strictly, but we’ve been more relaxed about content. I have a friend who doesn’t let her kiddos watch most Disney movies because of questionable themes and messages (it does seem like one-parent households are the norm with Disney), but, honestly, we’ve been lax about stuff like that. Until I discussed the topic with my friend, I didn’t think about the subtle messages or even the overt stuff.

For example, Max loves movies and has been a big fan of pirates ever since riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at WDW. So, we let him see the Pirates movies. And, he’s seen most of the Disney movies. Now that he’s five and understanding more of what he sees on the screen, though, we’re definitely screening movies more. A movie rated G is automatically OK, PG is one Mommy and Daddy have to check on, and we’ve told him PG-13 movies are for 13-years and up.

So that brings us back to A Christmas Story. Honestly, I’ve avoided showing it to Max because of the gun topic. We are definitely anti-gun in our household. We don’t allow gun toys, or pretend gun play in the house, and Max knows our views and rules for playing with others. That said, we’ve discussed what guns do, and what they were used for in the past. He knows that some of his cousins go hunting, and he knows that some people choose to have guns. But, he also knows exactly what the rules are in our family.

After taking a family poll (Meemaw, Poppy, Papou, Nana, Oma, Uncle Ernie and Aunt Ker-bear all ayes) and discussing it, we let Max watch the movie with us last night. Needless to say, he loved it. We paused it quite a few times to answer questions, like “what’s a furnace?” And, we discussed the gun issue, and how times are different now than they were when the movie takes place. But it was a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be. In fact, today’s discussion has mostly revolved around “Mommy, that wasn’t the REAL Santa that was mean and stepped on Ralphie’s face, right?”

Sweet Max. I love him so much.

Phase One of the Operation Christmas Preparation is complete – the tree is up. Not completely decorated, mind you, but it is out of the garage and up in the living room. We’ve unpacked about half of the holiday boxes and have a good number of ornaments on the tree.

Actually, this is the earliest we’ve had our tree up in years – I can’t remember the last time we put it up on Thanksgiving weekend. I’m feeling very accomplished after this weekend. We got a lot of cleaning and sorting done, and the holiday stuff should be done in a few days, then we’ll be able to put all of the boxes back in the garage and just enjoy the atmosphere.

We made hot cocoa tonight and watched a Christmas movie. Yay for us. We’ve made a commitment to really enjoy the holiday season this year, instead of getting all wrapped up in the commercialism and shopping craziness. It seems that our strategy is working. I know I feel a lot less stressed than I usually do as December first approaches.

Now to work on those cards….

It is that time again. Guilt time. Time to hurry up and try to get it done, fail, then just push it to the back of your mind and feel guilty. Ah, I feel the slow tightening of the stomach and burning in the chest that is full-strength guilt. It is that time of year again.

It is Christmas Card time.

But wait. You know what? I say NO to the guilt this year! I say hold on one second! I take your guilt challenge and I rise to meet you, christmas card monster! I WILL get my cards done this year. I WILL address the envelopes. I WILL actually mail the cards this year. I WILL!

(Now all I have to do is find all of the addresses.)
Sigh.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I loved sharing the yummy food and good conversation with my Dad, Nancy and our family. I made way too much food. (Note: tripling the recipe is not really necessary unless you are feeding a lot of teenagers.)

We had a fantastic family experience on the way home – we sang Christmas carols at the top of our lungs (specifically, Jingle Bells by the Barenaked Ladies – awesome song!) I love singing together – it is something I remember fondly from my own childhood, and I love to hear Max singing in the back seat.

Today we visited Oma and cleaned house a bit. Just the tip of the iceberg, but we’re trying to get things ready to put up the holiday decorations. Here’s hoping we’ll have the tree up with plenty of time to enjoy it.

And no, I didn’t go shopping at 4:00 in the morning. I’ll camp out at Ikea, but waking up at 3:00 am to shop is just crazy!

Happy Birthday to my FIL. And love to all of you!

Our dear friends Maggie and Kirk gifted us with a huge honor this week. They asked Aaron and I to be godparents for their son Jackson! We were thrilled and amazed and so grateful to be asked, and of course we accepted! Yippee!

And, lest you think that my overuse of exclamation points means that I don’t take this honor seriously, I’ll have you know that I absolutely cherish the role of godparents. I looked it up online, and especially liked this definition:

“The (particularly) modern definition of godparent is an individual chosen by the parents to take a vested interest in raising a more complete human being.”
– Wikipedia’s entry on godparents

That really speaks to me.

I have a wonderful, close relationship with my godmother, my Aunt CC. She’s been a trusted confidant and friend to me, as well as a surrogate parent at times. I’m so thankful for her role in my life.

I’m actually the Nouna (Greek for godmother) of Aunt CC’s son, my cousin Jonathan. I am honored to fill that role for him, and I hope I’ve done a good job. I became his godmother when I was about 16, and it is a very meaningful relationship to me.

And now all of my magical fairy godmother powers are going to be unleashed on sweet little Jackson! Boy, he doesn’t know what’s coming.

Tonight I’m making a pie while I watch one of my new favorite shows about a pie maker, Pushing Daisies. Ironic, isn’t it?

I’m amazed how much my cooking has improved over the last year – I’m making four things for Thanksgiving at Dad and Nancy’s house tomorrow and I haven’t panicked once. I haven’t even had to call my cooking hotline. In fact, the cooking hotline had to call ME to check on me and make sure everything was going alright. (My cooking hotline is my friend Jenny, and I seriously lit up the phone lines last year calling her literally every five minutes, maybe every two minutes. I think she was feeling lonely this year.)

OK, OK, FINE. I did have to call my mom one little insignificant time. But how was I supposed to know when eggs were officially beaten? They don’t teach this stuff in school anymore, people.

Enjoy Thanksgiving with your family tomorrow. Or your friends. Or your significant other. Or your in-laws. Or whoever happens to be nearby – dog, cat, fish, whatever. Give someone a big hug and say “I’m thankful for you.” (Please don’t hug the fish too hard.) And while you’re at it, take a long look at yourself and say “I’m thankful for you too.” I will be counting my blessings and spreading the love tomorrow, and I’m starting with myself.

I love you Jenny Rebecca Spiliotis Wadley. You’re a good person. Thanks for being you and thanks for buying the expensive, comfortable underwear instead of the cheap stuff. You rock.