Birthing Beautiful Ideas

This week, I reached goal #15 on my list of “29 accomplishments, events, and loves to anticipate before I reach the big 3-0″:  I finally created doula business cards and began advertising more prominently in the Columbus, OH area.

I actually think the cards themselves are quite lovely (and quite inexpensive, thanks to Vista Print).

If you’re in the Columbus area, you should be able to find them at various Panera Community Boards (a seemingly fantastic promotion space for doulas) and soon at the North Market and any other store, restaurant, or community board that will let me promote myself to my heart’s content.

I also created a doula profile on DoulaMatch.net.  It’s yet another great space for (online) self-promotion, and it even allows former clients to write testimonials.  (If you’re in need of a doula, you can also check out the site to search for birth or postpartum doulas based on your zip code, state or province, or even a doula’s name and/or availability.)

And finally, I added a “doula services” page to this here ‘ol blog.  It’s not as fancy as a website, but it will do for now.  I mean, I get all sorts of hits to my blog from people searching for a “Columbus Ohio doula.”  Why not allow those Googlers to get what they’re looking for when they come here?

So a round of huzzahs for self-promotion, and another round of huzzahs for me taking initiative in this last year of my twenties.

And with the hope that this won’t make me sound like an all-too-eager-birth-vampire (waiting for the bizarre search terms to start coming my way with that imagery), here’s hoping that I have lots of amazing births to anticipate this year!

It’s also known as “my 29th birthday.”

I have no qualms about nearing 30 and am actually a bit excited to begin that decade of my life next year.  (Could it be the years-long devotion to Sex and the City that gets me excited about my thirties?  Or the promise of a woman’s “sexual peak” in her mid-thirties?)

As my twenties begin to wane, I’d like to reflect a bit on what I did, and saw, and loved from my twentieth birthday until now.  And then–with not a second to spare–I’d like to anticipate what I’d like to do from now until my thirtieth birthday.

Twenty-nine things I’ve done, and twenty-nine things I’d like to do.

It’s sort of like a new year resolution, but with more reflection and sappiness than one often finds in most New Year’s resolutions.

Twenty-nine accomplishments, events, and great loves of my twenties

1. I studied in the South of France for a summer and traveled through Europe with my college roommate and my at-the-time boyfriend.
2. I adopted two kitties, Mikey and Zadie.
3. I traveled to and through the Netherlands all by myself (and attended an academic conference while there).
4. I dated an emotionally abusive person and learned that even smart feminists can make dumb relationship decisions.
5. I dated a good friend of mine, and I fell in love with him so deeply that I decided to marry him.
6. I played the piano and my guitar far less than I could have (or should have).
7. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dayton.
8. I lived in Chicago, where I worked as a receptionist at a law firm.
9. I bought coffee from the Starbucks downstairs, where my fiance worked.  Now he’s an attorney, and my future PhD in philosophy might get me a job at Starbucks some day.
10. I predicted that “this State Senator who I hope wins the Democratic Primary to run for the Illinois Senate seat” might just become our president some day, and I regretted that I never contacted Barack Obama’s offices to see how I could help out with their (Senate primary) campaign.
11. I read Ulysses, and my eyes welled with tears as I sat on a Chicago bus and finished Molly’s monologue.
12. I read many other books and developed passionate love affairs with the writings of Virginia Woolf, Michael Ondaatje, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Joyce, Simone de Beauvoir, Cormac McCarthy, and Gabriel García Márquez.
13. I was accepted to three top graduate programs in philosophy, was offered fellowships to two of those programs, and chose to attend Syracuse University.
14. I got married, and I didn’t change my last name.
15. I attended graduate school, presented at conferences and colloquia, and cyclically fell in and out of love with (academic) philosophy.
16. I developed an approach to politics and political thinking that was less dogmatic than it was in my early twenties.
17. I had an unplanned pregnancy, and then a planned one two years later.
18. I had a cesarean section, and then a drug-free, hypnobirthing VBAC two-and-a-half years later.
19. I breastfed for 26 months of my twenties.
20. I became a proficient cook and developed a recipe for what might possibly be the best-tasting chorizo gumbo on the planet.
21. I bought tickets to see Tortoise, Prince, and the Pixies, and after all three shows were cancelled, I developed the irrational fear that I wielded some sort of bad luck juju over concert performances.
22. I taught over 250 undergraduate students and graded over 500 essays.
23. I rocked sleepy newborns and marveled at first smiles and read dozens of Sandra Boynton books and taught colors and numbers to mischievous toddlers and played puzzles and board games and make-believe and realized an achingly deep and profound love for my two boys.
24. I discovered the support of ICAN and the women of the Babycenter VBAC Support Board, and I learned that the strength of pregnancy and birth can be exponentially increased by a great network of birthing (and birth-knowledgeable) women.
25. I became a birth doula and attended four very powerful, very different births.
26. I moved from Ohio to Chicago to Syracuse and then back to Ohio again–to where I was raised, and to where I will now raise my own children.
27. I bought a home with my husband, and we worked really hard to turn a neglected house into a friendly and inviting home.
28. I hosted a Christmas dinner and relished in the opportunity to watch my grandparents, parents, in-laws, sister, brother-in-law, nephews, husband, and sons gather in my home and celebrate the holiday with food and laughter and warmth.
29. I started writing a blog.

Twenty-nine accomplishments, events, and loves to anticipate before I reach the big 3-0

1. I will learn to play Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C# Minor” Op. 3 No. 2 again.
2. I will go on a vacation with my family, even if we can only afford a long-weekend trip to Indiana or Michigan.
3. I will read at least one more book by Joseph O’Neill because I think that his writing is beautiful and hypnotic and downright sexy.  (He’s downright sexy too.)
4. I will do more scrap-booking because I’m good at it and am always thrilled with the books I make for my family.
5. I will not attempt to knit or crochet again because I’m bad at it and am always disappointed each time I try my hand at it.
6. I will go and see a rock show that (fingers crossed) will not be cancelled.
7. I will finish my dissertation and will earn a PhD in Philosophy, and I will make lots of jokes about how you can now call me “Dr. O” (which is what my doctor-dad’s patients call him).
8. I will use my fancy dishes for not-fancy dinners, and I will remind my mom to bring out my grandmother’s fancy china more often so that we can have fancy tea parties together.
9. I will buy all of my groceries from the North Market one week and makes all sorts of delicious (and locally-based) meals for my family.
10. I will obsess over the last season of Lost.
11. I will attend more births and continue to be amazed by the strength of the mothers I meet and awed by the power of the births I am privileged to witness.
12. I will find a way (practically and financially) to attend the NIH Consensus Development Conference on VBAC in March.
13. I will complete my DONA International doula certification (only one childbirth education class attendance to go!).
14. I will complete my CAPPA lactation educator certification (okay, lots more to go there…).
15. I will finally create doula business cards and advertise my services more prominently in the Columbus, OH area.
16. I will send birthday cards on time, from January all the way through December.
17. I will train for a marathon.  Or perhaps a half-marathon.  Or even a 10k.  Or maybe just a jog-down-the-street-without-tripping-over-my-own-feet.
18. I will try to find an adjunct position in a local philosophy department so that I can teach part-time.
19. I will take my kids on more sled rides and on more trips to the library and the museum and on more visits to their favorite restaurants and parks and bookstores than I did last year.
20. I will make more batches of chorizo gumbo for my husband, who considers it to be his favorite meal.
21. I will teach myself and my children how to garden.
22. I will use a power drill and a broom and a hammer and a make-up brush and a screwdriver and a ladle and allow my children to see me doing all sorts of (traditionally gendered) work.
23. I will make a 100% transition to cloth diapers OR to a completely potty-trained house.  Both are admirable goals, in my opinion.
24. I will finally make my great-aunt’s recipe for challah bread.
25. I will continue (and love) teaching my four-year-old how to read.
26. I will continue (and love) teaching my almost-two-year-old to identify colors and numbers and letters and animals.
27. I will continue (and love) learning all of the amazing things that my children teach me.
28. I will host another Christmas dinner and relish in the opportunity to watch my grandparents, parents, in-laws, sister(s), brother-in-law(s), nephews, (niece?), husband, and sons gather in my home and celebrate the holiday with food and laughter and warmth.
29. I will write lots, lots more on my blog.

My 18-month-old son, A, has ginormously wide feet.

Like, wiiiiiiiide feet.  Feet that are so wide that I have never been able to squeeze them into any of the shoes I’ve ever found at Target (i.e. our affordable-shoes location of choice).  Feet that are so wide that they have literally drawn gasps from those who have looked upon them.

I love his feet.  They are squishably adorable baby feet, the sorts of feet that are the epitome of squishably adorable baby feet.

But there’s a catch to all of this squishable adorableness.

Before A started walking, I often chalked up his foot girth to the rolls (yes, rolls) of fat with which his feet were once cloaked.  And as much as I adored those rolls, I hoped against hope that once he started walking, all of the extra “foot-exercise” would “thin-out” his feet a bit, so then we wouldn’t have to make any trips to those outrageously expensive kids’ shoe stores to find footwear that fit his tootsies.

But this morning, four months after A’s first step, a day in which he was still only able to fit into the pair of Crocs that I purchased for him this summer (and FYI, Crocs aren’t exactly practical in during Ohio Decembers), I decided that it was time to make my very first journey to Stride Rite and buy some really damn expensive shoes for A’s really damn wide feet.

Turns out the kid doesn’t just have wide feet.  He has what the Stride Rite saleswoman called “double-wide” feet.

Just like a couple of trailers.  Parked at the bottom of his (c)ankles.

Trying on shoes didn’t take very long since there were only two styles in the entire store that came in “double-wides” in A’s size.  So after we spent nearly a gabillion dollars on a pair of tennis shoes for A’s trailers, we took our loot to the car, and I began buckling the kids into their car seats.

And then our shoe-extravaganza took a surprisingly scary turn as one of those large wind gusts that I had heard the weatherperson predict on the news earlier this morning blew through the area.  I heard an awful creaking sound and felt the car rumble and shake violently, and I literally threw myself over the boys as it all happened.

From where I lay, I saw the giant metal awning, which mere seconds ago had hung above the Stride Rite entrance, skid across the street just a few inches to the left of my leg.

Suddenly, the saleswoman from Stride Rite was rushing out to the car to make sure that we were alright, and I was unbuckling car seats with lightning speed. 

Debbie (my Stride Rite hero) helped me carry the boys to safety inside the building, where I took a moment to decompress.  To chuckle (in what was surely a moment of shock) about the “freak things” that often happen to me.  To hold the boys a little tighter than they were probably used to.

After exchanging a few harried yet relieved words with Debbie, I asked her if she had seen “all that glass” on the sidewalk as we were sprinting inside the store.

“Yeah, but I think it was just some plastic that had broken when the awning hit the lightpost,” she responded.

“It hit the lightpost?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think it hit the lightpost and then was knocked over toward your direction.  Oh my God, oh my God, I’m so glad that you three are alright!”

“Me too,” I muttered, still wondering about the glass.  “You know, I’m going to check outside real quick to see if it did any damage to the car.”

And then I saw it.  Our entire back windshield, shattered to pieces.  Not cracked.  Not marred by a hole in the glass.

But gone.

And the door that was open as I was buckling A into his carseat?

It could no longer shut entirely because of the force with which the awning hit it.

(This was one iron-clad awning, if you haven’t pick up on that already.)

The enormity of what has just happened was starting to hit me, was finally starting to seep its way into my consciousness, but I still wasn’t ready to “go there” quite yet.

Because I needed to file a police report.  I needed to gather insurance information from the store manager.  I needed to call Tim to come and pick us up from the mall because I couldn’t really drive home with the kids in the car, without a back windshield, in the middle of a windstorm.

And after about fifteen minutes had past, I finally burst into tears.

It wasn’t the car.  I didn’t give a flying crap about the car in that moment.

Instead, I was letting my mind “go there.”

To the “what ifs.”

What if we had left the store a minute later, leaving at least one or even all three of us still outside before the wind struck?

What if I had asked M to stand and wait on the sidewalk next to the car while I buckled in his brother first?

What if I hadn’t popped my head into the car to check A’s seatbelt right before the wind struck?

What if M hadn’t been acting up in the backseat, thereby delaying the moment in which I stepped outside into the awning’s path?

What if my children had been in the path of that awning as it flew across the sidewalk and street with enough force to shatter our entire back windshield?

I know parents with lives much different than my privileged life face these “what ifs” almost daily.  I also know that not every parent is lucky enough to even ask “what if” while staring at their very-much-alive child’s face.  And I even know each second of our life and each one of our decisions has some sort of meaningful impact on our future.

But I also know that I cannot even begin to face the other side of the “what ifs” that I asked myself this morning in that store filled with overpriced children’s shoes.

It’s too impossibly painful even to think about the other side of the “what ifs,” to articulate what that “other side” could have been.

I do know and can articulate this, however: there are lots of people who deserve some hefty thank-yous after today.

First and foremost is Debbie, shoe saleswoman and superhero to my kids and me.  She got us drinks and held A while I filed the police report and gave me loads of hugs and joked with me about how we both needed to go out for a glass of wine after this all was done and even volunteered to be a witness for me if one were ever needed.  She’s awesome, and if you’re ever shopping for really damn expensive children’s shoes in the Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, you should go and see her and tell her how awesome she is for me.

Many heartfelt thanks also go to the cleaning staff at Easton.  Those guys were under no obligation to clean out the trunk of my car with a ShopVac, but they did it anyway.  Hell, they offered to do it at a moment when my mind was eons away from thinking about my car.  Again, they are totally awesome people who make me wish that I were independently wealthy and/or wielding lots of community power so that I could lobby to get them major raises and/or giant holiday bonuses.

Thanks too to the anonymous mother who, after purchasing shoes for her daughter, returned to Stride Rite moments later with a bag of Harry and David chocolates in her hand.  She gave them to me and said, “I didn’t know what to do for you, but I know that I need chocolate when I’m in crisis mode.”  Dear anonymous mother, I hope everyone on this planet gets to experience moments of small-yet-enormous kindness-from-strangers like yours.  Oh, and M and I finished the whole bag of chocolates before we even pulled into the driveway of our house, so yes, I guess chocolate was what I needed too.

And for anyone who needs a jolt of levity right now, I’ll leave you with this:

As I was on the phone with my mother earlier this afternoon, recounting for her the events of our day, I got to giggling and said, “You know, it would have totally sucked if my obituary had read, ‘Kristen died after getting whacked in the head by an awning at the Stride Rite.’  But you guys would definitely have had permission to laugh about it after my funeral.”

And that’s the only “what if” I’m allowing myself to think about for the rest of the evening.

…and lazy!

I still have a few posts brewing in my head–one about marathons and childbirth support here, one about my transition to cloth diapers there, and a few others about breastfeeding, child-rearing, and my OMG!!OMG!!OMG!!IthinkI’minlove!!! reaction to seeing “Mr. Schuester” sing and dance on Glee the other night.

But I’d much rather devote my 100th post to this here blog itself.  (Not that it will keep me from thinking about Mr. Schuester and his wicked moves all day long, oh-no-it-won’t.)

So…out of 100 posts (some of them awesome, some of them abysmal, some of them popular, some of them seemingly tucked away into obscurity):

The most popular by far has been my VBAC Scare Tactics Series.  The popularity of the series is due largely to the recent shout-outs from Nursing Birth and the Unnecesarean.  Many thanks to both of them for their generous support!

The post with the most comments from others has been My Very Own VBAC Waterbirth.  It’s the story of my second son’s birth.  It’s also the experience that solidified my entry into the world of birth advocacy.

My favorite “Tim story” is actually not the pooper-in-the-woods post, nor is it the post about the time my dad had to puncture Tim’s toenail with a hot needle.  No, my favorite “Tim story” is about the time he bludgeoned a bat with a…well, just go read it for yourself.

Of course, I also have my favorite kid posts.  Like the one about the time when M (our three-year-old) went all Jack McCoy on us in order to avoid being disciplined in a restaurant.  Or about the time when A (our now-17-month-old) flipped his lid over an apple core and a poop-filled diaper.  Or the one where the day from hell turned into a nostalgia-fest.

(Any more “most ___” or “favorite ___” would be overkill for just 100 posts, right?)

So yay.

100 posts.

Tim–my amazingly dedicated and disciplined husband–finished his first marathon yesterday.

Yes, the pooper-in-the-woods, the loser-of-the-toenail.   The man whose wife has had the audacity to mention his running-related nipple-chafing on her blog.

He ran 26.2 miles along with 4,000 other dedicated and disciplined athletes yesterday.

 And I couldn’t be prouder of him.

Some day I’ll write about how emotional it was for me simply to observe the runners.  And (surprise, surprise) about how the doula-in-me drew a multitude of comparisons between marathon training and running and childbirth preparation and labor.  And even about how Tim may have inspired me to train for next year’s local marathon.

But that will all have to wait for another day.

Because for right now, I’d like to use this space just to marvel at Tim’s incredible accomplishment.

Honey, I think I even see you in a new light now.

After ten years of friendship, five years of marriage, and four years of parenthood, you can still do something that makes me feel totally, utterly, and completely in awe of you.  And I think that makes me a pretty lucky gal.

Am I the only person who is instantly transported to some sort of hyper-yuppie “paradise” of organizational and stylistic perfection whenever her (or his) Real Simple magazine arrives in the mail?

Because it totally has that affect on me.

It should be noted that I am well aware that there is far more to “paradise” than a set of directions for how to create gorgeous Thanksgiving table place settings for under $50.  And there is a part of me–the part of me that is not the little yuppie homunculus living in my brain–that finds my “Real Simple paradise-transport” to be a guilty pleasure ranking right up there with my love of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”

Nonetheless, sometimes I can’t help but imagine that the shampoo that the magazine recommends (it’s under $10!) will suddenly result in endless days of perfectly-styled coifs.  (Frizz?  Banana caked in my hair from my toddler’s morning tantrum?  WHAT FRIZZ AND BANANA?!?!  I’ve got the RS-recommended shampoo!)

Sometimes I find myself thinking, “Oh yes, now that I know how to pick the perfect brussels sprouts and cut open a clamshell package with a can-opener and choose the right moisturizer for my skin, the chaotic details of my life and my home and the entire world will fall magically into place!  Thank you Real Simple!”  (Everyone knows that good brussels sprouts finish dissertations and doula certifications and that the right moisturizer leads directly to world peace.)

I often “imaginatively” dress myself in their recommended pencil skirts “for women with full hips and thighs” (thanks for thinking of me!) and cool and sexy riding boots (no triple-digit attire purchases on my radar today, but thanks for the great image of me+awesome boots) and beautiful grey cashmere gloves (yeah, absolutely superfluous there).  And then I’m all like, “Pajamas!  What pajamas?  There aren’t any moms-of-two-young-kids with pajamas on after noon in this house!”

So what is it?  What is it that mysteriously feeds the shallower parts of my soul whenever I crack open this magazine?

Is it the soothing layout and design?  The trendy design photos?  That promise of organizational and stylistic perfection?

I dunno, but maybe I’ll figure it out after I check out the latest issue’s cheat sheet for navigating the buffet spread at a holiday party.

Tim and I discovered tonight that we are this close to getting the stripper-pole house!

Long, boring, and complicated story short, we are 99% sure that the sellers are going to sign on to our contract tomorrow.  Things could always fall through, however, so we’re holding off on our preliminary celebration until after the signatures are on the contract.

But when we do get those signatures, we’ll probably make and enjoy the following drink:

Minty raspberry sparklers (from Cooking Light’s 2008 Annual Recipes cookbook)

Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water in a small, heavy saucepan, and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Add 2 mint sprigs to pan; let stand 5 minutes.  Remove mint, and discard.  Combine sugar mixture, 3 cups fresh raspberries, and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice in a blender, and process until smooth.  Strain mixture through a sieve into a bowl, and discard solids.  Spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry mixture into each of  6 wineglasses; top each with 1/2 cup chilled Champagne.

This drink is so light and fresh and colorful and yummy.  And while I have yet to capture a photo of one of these delectable sparklers (they seem to disappear pretty quickly), I can say that I generally feel like this:

after drinking one.

Now for the important question: what sort of drink does becoming the proud owners of a stripper pole call for?  Minty-raspberry sparklers seem a bit too frou-frou for the occasion…

Looking for a home–especially one’s first home–can be exhausting, terrifying, exciting, and, as Tim and I have discovered, pretty zany.  Here are a few of the particularly zany moments and observations that we’ve had on our house-hunting adventures.

1. Just because you put carpet in your attic, it doesn’t mean that you’ve really added any livable space (or square footage) to your house.  Especially if that space is neither heated nor air conditioned.  Or if the only accessible entrance is through a closet.  With stairs that reach an astounding 85-degree angle.  (Yes, that’s close to 90 degrees.  And yes, I bumped my head on the freakin’ door frame as I was trying to get to the attic sauna at the top of the stairs.)

2. Some people watch too much HDTV and get the crazy-ass idea that they possess skills equal to or even better than the folks on Flip This House.  And while some people have the skills to “flip” a house, others don’t.  Like the ones who thought it would be a great idea to put a romantic and beautiful master bathroom…right off of the kitchen (which is nowhere near the master bedroom).  The ones who thought that the granite countertops in the kitchen were so remarkable on their own merit that they didn’t need to have the mud and unidentified-white-liquidy-substance wiped off of them.  The ones who think that expensive tile is so extraordinary that “who the hell cares if the grouting looks like a first-grader’s art project?”

3. Oh honey, that’s too much mauve.  Too.  Much.  Mauve.

4. The following is an actual conversation I recently had with my realtor:

Me: Umm…is that what I think it is?

*touching what appears to be a stripper’s pole*

Realtor: OH MY GOD KRISTEN, DON’T TOUCH IT!

What’s funny (I think) is that Tim and I just put an offer on one of the above-mentioned homes.  It’s up to you to guess which one it is.

Despite my many misgivings over his personal life and choices, I was so, so saddened today when I heard of Michael Jackson’s death.  It feels as if a part of my childhood just passed away.

As melodramatic as that may sound, Michael Jackson as an icon was truly an omnipresent and integral part of ’80s pop culture.  And for those of us who grew up in the ’80s, Thriller–the album and the video–The Wiz, and the moonwalk probably all loom large in our childhood memories.  (Who doesn’t remember trying (awkwardly) to do the moonwalk on the school playground?)

So if I can, I’d like to encapsulate that ’80s-and-before Michael Jackson–the Michael whose pictures and stickers I had posted on my wall as a kid–and pay tribute to his extraordinary work and talent.

I’m generally wary about making claims regarding the “progress” (or lack thereof) of the world and whether or not the world and its denizens are getting “better” or “worse.”

But after listening to the segment on How Did you Learn to Be a Father? on Talk of the Nation a couple of days ago, I must say that the concept of fatherhood in the United States has made a hell of a lot of progress in the last fifty years.  Both the guests on the show (author Abdul Ali and Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal) and the show’s callers offered some eloquent, inspiring, and, at times, heartbreaking answers to the question of how one learns to be a father.

Their responses made me feel very lucky to be a mother-married-to-a-man in a time where fathers can say things like:

• I learned to be a better father by watching my wife parent our children and trying to embody her patience and compassion,

or

• I’m grateful that my wife recently gave me the space to step in and correct my mother-in-law, who had just chastised my 2-year-old for climbing on a chair and told her that only boys do things like that.  I reminded my daughter (in so many words) that she should never feel confined by her gender.

And as I sit here and blog while Tim feeds the kids breakfast, I’m also grateful to be a mother in a time where the duties of housework and childcare can and should be reasonably shared between partners, where marriage and parenthood can and should resemble a partnership rather than a dictatorship.

And I’m lucky–oh so lucky–to be married to a person who not only agrees with those sentiments but embodies them in all of his parenting efforts.

(Just as an aside–we can all thank the feminist movement for playing a significant role in bringing us this lovely, modern vision of fatherhood.  I’m just sayin’…)