Authentically Me

My last two years have been an interesting journey for me. I guess the journey has been longer than that, but the last 21 months certainly have been heightened, if that makes sense.

21 months ago I renounced the culture I was raised in. I don’t know how to express the significance of that except to say that, even as a 34 year old woman who is a solid ENTJ and usually falls on the bold side of things, I was scared to tell my parents. It took me four months to tell my family. I was feeling so much happier and freer and better than I had in years, but I was afraid to share it.

When I finally did tell them THAT was freeing too. And in the months that followed I’ve felt increasingly comfortable with letting my authentic self show.

There are things I’m still a little private about...but for the first time in my life I feel allowed to figure out who I am—not just who I’m supposed to be—and more than that I am learning to feel comfortable letting others see that me.

I had a fascinating conversation with my therapist about a year ago about three photographs.

1

This was taken during a family reunion, where my entire family came to Alaska for a week with us. This was the first time I'd seen them all since 'coming out heathen' as it were, and I'd had a lot of anxiety about it.

We'd hired a photographer for a session to get pictures of the whole group. We'd taken family by family, all the grandkids, all the boys, all the girls...and then we gathered the siblings. We all lined up and took what one might call a 'normal' photo, and then for some reason I got it into my head that we should all get on each other's backs. I'm the oldest and when I suggested it (while grabbing my brother and pulling him onto my back) they all just sort of did it within a matter of moments...and this photo resulted. In those few moments I felt something between us that I hadn't felt since childhood. (That's funny to say, because we weren't even all children at the same time, but it's how I felt.) I don't know how to describe it except to say that it was a feeling of camaraderie and knowing that we all had each other's backs.

This was a moment where I felt unfiltered family, and it shows on my face.

2

That unfiltered feeling shows in this photo from a few days later. We were on a hike, we were hot, sweaty, tired, and trying to keep continually moving because if anyone stood still the bugs would swarm. I've been self conscious about close-ups of my smile for years because my teeth aren't quite straight, so I normally keep my mouth closed.

But my little guy was cuddly as I carried him out (I carried kids the whole hike, but switched out which one many times. Yay babywearing!) So on impulse I snapped a selfie. And in that moment--in  spite of feeling a little bit miserable--I felt genuinely happy. And it shows. That wasn't something I'd seen much of in my photos from the prior few years, and it wasn't until I saw this one that I realized what had been missing.

3

Finally, last fall I went to a fancy fundraiser with my husband. I tried on a dozen gowns at the consignment store, and bought a nice short-sleeved one that was flattering...but this one just stayed in my head. Finally, just a day or two before the fundraiser, I went back to the consignment store and it was still there so I got it.

This was the first time I'd ever worn something strapless, and not only doing it but then sharing the photos publically on facebook was definitely something new. Mormons have an easily recognizeable dress code (based upon the temple undergarments which cover significantly more than 'worldly underwear'), and this gown blatantly doesn't meet it. I hadn't hidden my exit from the church but I hadn't really announced it to anyone except my family, so I knew that  sharing this photo was going to 'out' me to many people.

Part of me really wanted to share this photo and part of me about had a panic attack...but I finally posted it.

And you know what happened?

Comment after comment after comment about how lovely the gown was, how good I looked, and how happy I looked. Not a single negative comment. In that moment, I felt accepted for me. Not because I fit within some mold or matched some expectation, but just because I was a person who picked a pretty, sparkly dress that matched my eyes, and who looked nice in it.

That felt so good. ☺



This authenticity thing is certainly much broader than clothing choices or body acceptance, but that's been an important part of it because it's bringing my outside to match my inside. I'm not opposed to modesty at all, but I think a person should be able to be comfortable in their body--not ashamed of it--and that is a journey I've had to take. Taking ownership of my body has been an important part of my authenticity.

18 months before that strapless gown I'd taken two pictures but only shared one.
Wanna guess which one?

 Look at those scandalous double-pierced ears--which I'd had done just hours earlier. 

And those bare 'porn shoulders' tsk tsk.

This week I did something else new: I've been wearing strappy tank tops to exercise in for a few years, and after a while I started wearing them to/from class without always taking a shirt or jacket to cover myself en-route. I happen to think I have very nice shoulders, and I wasn't willing to feel guilty about it anymore. I started making friends with my cleavage too, instead of hating it and fighting it, and that spared me a lot of grief.

Recently I've been taking a pole fitness class. I wore yoga pants/capri leggings the first couple of times, but discovered that I needed my legs bare to above the knee because the fabric gets in the way of holding on to the pole. So I got a pair of shorts that are shorter than anything I've ever owned. After several times of covering them up to/from class, this week I just went to class. (Yes, folks, I went in public with all this skin hanging out. How scandalous.)

And you know what? This time I didn't have anxiety over it. That feels pretty good.

Hello world. This is me. 

Just me, myself.

No more filters.

Holding Space

This may be a difficult post for some to read, but it's one that has been percolating in my mind for a few days and one that I needed to write. Writing helps me sort through my thoughts, and this was something I needed to sort. So I hope you won't mind reading.

In both birthwork and bereavement work we often do something we refer to as "holding space." It means that there is not anything particular we are doing or saying (sometimes not anything we can do or say) in the situation, but we stand as sentinel over the space. We protect the peace, the calm, the energy, the emotions, and the simple right to feel.

Over the years I have held space for grieving mothers: sometimes in person but more often in virtual space, via phone or instant messages with someone geographically distant but emotionally close. Similarly I have held space for friends and family members as they labor through the delivery of a child or through any difficult time.

I have also held space for my children on many occasions; holding a small one on my lap and surrounding him with the calm of my arms and my breathing, and giving him permission to feel what he feels, and also giving my support in getting through it.

In recent days I have come to recognize the need--and value--for holding space in another way.

My paternal grandfather's health declined sharply a few months ago. He moved in with my aunt so that she could help care for him, and we have all been aware that he would not live much longer. Early last week we learned that he had stopped eating, so we knew to count time in days.

Meanwhile, my maternal grandmother has been dealing with multiple health issues for many years, and in the last few years her hospital stays have increased in frequency, duration, and complexity. A couple of weeks ago she entered the hospital, and within a few days it became apparent that this time was more severe than others had been. Last Thursday her doctor said she probably had a week left.

Last Friday my grandfather passed away. His funeral was on Wednesday.

On Tuesday my grandmother came home under hospice care, to spend her last few days with her spouse in the home they had built and lived in together. My mother was there with her, and said that grandma sat at the window and looked out at the trees that they had planted and raised together, and seemed to be at peace. She had some good hours, and got to spend her 58th anniversary in the arms of her sweetheart and with family by her side. Today she passed on.

I had neither the money nor the scheduling flexibility to visit my grandparents in their final days, nor have it now to attend their funerals. I think they will not mind, seeing as how funerals are for the living rather than the deceased. I had time to send letters, call and communicate my love, and I am grateful for the time we had to do that. Now their spirits are free of the worn out bodies that had held them back, and all I can do is hold space.

This is a different kind of space-holding from what I have done before. My grandparents are no longer here, and do not need me to hold the space for them; instead I must hold it for myself. I must allow myself to feel--whatever I feel--without judgment or guilt. I can hold their memories, carrying them onward by sharing them with my family. I must allow myself to be quiet, to rest, to think, to cry, and to be not-my-best-or-brightest at some things for a while. I must also allow myself to laugh and play and carry on, because the cycles of life continue always.

I'm Still Here

Hi, it's been a while, I know. I haven't posted here in nearly two years because my life has moved into a new season and I simply don't have the time. But I will catch you up a little on my life these last 21 months, and at least tell you where I've gone.

I finished graduate school in August of 2014 and shortly thereafter began working full time in behavioral health as a case manager. I enjoy it and (at the risk of sounding not humble--which is fair because I'm not) I will add that I am really darn good at what I do. With that said, work now consumes 40 or 45 hours of my week, and when I am home I try to put my attention and energy toward my family.

Also in the spring/summer of 2014 my depression reared its head again. It has done this periodically over my life, but certain spells are worse than others. This time however there was something that helped. It was unexpected, but it was the right thing at the right time and has made an enormous difference in my life: Glee. 

Yes, I do mean the TV show. I had started watching the episodes on Netflix that spring, and yes it's a cheesy dramedy and sometimes the writing is terrible, but the musical and dance performances are amazing. And more than any of that, Glee reminded me of something: It reminded me of my own love for music and dance. Somewhere along the way I had forgotten how much those things mean to me. Somewhere along the way I had stopped singing and dancing around the house (or anywhere else). I had gotten so busy with the many things I had to do that I had forgotten what it was that drove me to major in theater only a decade ago. 

I started singing again. I downloaded music and I started singing along with it. I had fallen out of touch with the arts so gradually that I hadn't realized how far I had moved. But now I sing again. I dance again. I feel more (dare I say it) glee than I did for years.

The other thing that Glee did for me--or helped me to do for myself--was writing fiction. For years I've said that I'm a good writer, and a good storyteller, but that I didn't feel that I had any original stories to tell. (So much for writing a bestselling novel, right?) But then with Glee--because it was impacting me so significantly, and because I wanted more of it--I learned about the phenomenon that is fanfiction. And lest you be too judgmental (because I was too at first), I will clarify: Fanfiction is original stories--sometimes really impressive ones--that just happen to borrow characters. But do you know how helpful it is to be able to practice writing with borrowed characters? Without having to create everything from the ground up? Did you further know that authors do it all the time? Shakespeare hardly wrote anything original, and how many novels or movies are "based on" or "inspired by" another story? Yeah, so everybody writes fanfic. And, for me, Glee fanfic was a gateway. Reading it was a gateway to writing it, which in turn was a gateway to something else... Because dabbling around with borrowed characters gave me confidence to build my own. And now I'm writing my own fiction (working on two different novels actually). The practice with fanfic helped me build up my writing chops--I can write longer things than I ever used to. It also gave me the chance to get feedback on my writing from readers and other writers, and that's invaluable (and good for the self-esteem too).

So the time that used to go to writing nonfiction (blog posts and then grad school essays) has now turned to fiction. I plan to submit my novels for publishing when I finish them, but I also know that now I'm not going to stop writing either. Writing (along with dancing, music, and knitting) are my antidepressants, and they are working pretty well so I'm sticking with them.

At first I felt silly, saying that a TV show had changed my life. (Sounds crazy, no?!) But it did, and it does, and I'm better off for it. And you know, I'm not going to be shy about saying it either. Because maybe it will help someone else.

So no, I haven't written here on the blog in a long time. The truth is that I don't know how often I will write here in the future either. I am spending more time in the real world and less in the digital one. I do still see comments that are left, here, and I will reply to them and to emails. I'm also on facebook fairly regularly. I don't know how much I will post here, but I am not going to take it down because I believe that the archive here can be useful to others. I know it is useful for me: both as a reference, and as a reminder of where I've come.

Shalom.

I can see clearly now...

Nine years ago I went in for a routine eye exam and came out with a very mild prescription (+0.50 in one eye and +0.25 in the other...). They said I had very good vision, but with a slight astigmatism, and that it would probably get in the way for when I was trying to see details on things, like reading or computer work.
Initially I didn't even get the glasses made, but then I thought of my coming quarter of school (three English classes plus working as a seamstress) and decided to go ahead and get them. I picked out some slender, silver, wire-framed glasses with a "preppy" look that were as invisible as possible on my face. Sure enough, when I spent consecutive hours doing close work, I felt eye strain and the glasses really helped.

Once I was out of school, I put the glasses in their case, and rarely used them. Occasionally (when I was tired, or working at something for many hours) I'd get them out. After several years of marriage my husband came home and saw me with the glasses and stopped dead in his tracks "You have glasses?!" Mmmm, yep, got them before we even met... but that just goes to show how rarely I wore them!

Fast-forward to a few months ago when I started grad school. Textbooks and lots of papers to write led me to get out my glasses on a regular basis. And I started to notice that I needed them, not just that they helped, but that I actually couldn't read or work at the computer very well without them. I noticed that captions on movies were fuzzy, I couldn't read them from across the room. (It's a big shift from the 20/15 vision I had at 10 years old.) Wolf has braces, so every couple of months Hubby or I needs to take him into Anchorage for his next appointment. Last week was my [first] turn, and so I made an eye appointment while I was in town. When we got into town the first night, we got into the rental car and I went to pull out of the parking lot and realized I couldn't read the signs and thought "whoa, I need my glasses for driving!" so I stopped and put them on. The next morning, on the way to the appointment, I grabbed my glasses, but promptly had to stop and take them off because my depth perception was all funky with them on.

The doctor did the exam and said "well, you're farsighted with an astigmatism, so you'll probably notice most when you're looking at close range, such as reading, or when there is glare, such as a computer screen or driving at night." Oh my, this guy was good. "And if you try to wear them just walking around the house, you'll probably stumble because it'll throw off your depth perception."
I guess I wasn't crazy after all.

So I have new glasses. My prescription is up just a smidge (now +0.50 in both eyes), and this time I got hefty plastic frames with no nose pieces and scratch-resistance, so they're a little more practical for someone who routinely has children climbing on her...

Lights in the Darkness

Winter in the arctic is long and dark. Actually we are coming out of it now (only a couple of weeks left until equinox), but in exchange, we get something that you in lighter parts of the world do not:

The Aurora

in spite of the variety of colors I see in other photos, ours here are pretty much just green

but I did take these photos from my living room

unfortunately the video I froze my tooshie off to get just shows darkness...
with a lot of me whispering "they're so bright!"

There is actually another thing that lights up the dark days:

and they're even multi-colored!

You might live in the Arctic if...

Yesterday evening Bear looked out the window at the large round thermometer we have there. He has been learning numbers at his pre-k class, and is getting pretty proficient with them.
"Oh my gosh mom!" he called to me. "Look at this! It's pointing ABOVE ZERO!"
Yes indeed my dear, it was about 18F yesterday. Then I had to explain to him that in our crazy system, it can be above zero but still below freezing. He grinned and said "It's so warm!"

the weather according to google this morning  

This morning Wolf walked home from his music lesson (the band teacher at the school sweetly offered to simply give him private lessons twice a week, since the rest of the sixth grade band has basically dropped out...it's a non-credit class and most of the kids never took it seriously). It's about a half mile walk, carrying his saxophone. As he came through the door, he proclaimed "Mom, it was so warm out there today I walked home like this most of the way," and he demonstrated, instrument case jauntily on his shoulder, jacket hanging open, no mittens, no snow pants...

And to think, just three weeks ago it was -41. (And, for my non USA readers, -40F = -40C, just for reference...)  At -41, you wear the snow pants, fleece or wool jacket, 600 fill down coat, stocking cap, coat hood, a pair of thick mittens (or two), and a scarf around your face...and your snot still freezes and you get icicles in your eyelashes.

We've passed imbolc too (which marks halfway between solstice and equinox), we have light during the day and even into the evening.


It kinda feels like springtime.

All I'm missing is flowers.

What I Really Do...

These have been flying around facebook the last few days. A few applied to me (more or less), and I found them amusing.
(I know the captions are too small to read here on the blog, but if you click on the image then you'll be able to see it full size)
Enjoy!

 

*Shift*

In the middle of December I broke down. I had a total emotional and mental crash. Depression is not new for me, but it's something I sometimes forget for months or years at a time.  I don't suffer from it in the postpartum period, interestingly enough, but I do experience strong depression during my pregnancies (in spite of my excitement), and it seems that as soon as my menses return post-baby, the depression hits hard again. I wrote about my crash post-Bear, and this fall I should have anticipated another crash as my post-Eagle fertility returned. But I was busy and stressed and didn't think about it.
So, I've crashed. This is why I only wrote for the first two weeks of advent. This is why I have only written three posts in the last month. I enlisted family and friends to advise and support me, and intend to enlist a professional or two as well. In the meantime, I have made several significant adjustments in my life.
The combination of grad school with full time babysitting was wiping me out. I had never really planned to do both, it was an either/or plan...but I signed up for grad school and then the babysitting became availableSo am taking a quarter off of school. When that was not enough, I made arrangements to babysit part time rather than full time, so a couple of days a week I have a break from that. The money was hard to let go of, but I know this is more important.
On a physical front, I have weaned Eagle. That was emotionally draining for a few days but he has adjusted and I know my body appreciates that it is no longer supporting an extra person. I'm taking huge doses of vitamin D and have begun a regimen with iodine (and associated supplements) as well. We'll see how that goes. I don't feel a huge difference there yet, but then again, I'm not crashing the way I was, so maybe that's enough. I believe my depression is hormonally-linked, so I want to go in and have some bloodwork done and see if there is anything to be learned from that. I am also looking into counseling, simply because I believe that the discussion form of support will probably be helpful for me.
I do love grad school, and may return to it for spring quarter (with the lightened babysitting load and my improved physical condition I think it will be more workable). I have not decided for sure, but am considering it.

On a separate but related note, three days before Christmas break started, we decided to pull Wolf (age 11) out of 6th grade and homeschool him.
Two and a half weeks later, we jumped in with both feet.
He had been struggling with school here, both the teaching style of instructors and also the way that certain topics were taught (very book-based) and the homework load. His feelings about learning and schoolwork were becoming very negative, and getting him to do his homework was a battle almost every day. Negativity was flowing out into our home and family through it all, and we knew something had to change. So now it has.
Due to my own struggles and stresses, I felt some trepidation over bringing him home, thinking that it might add stress to our home life...but it did not. Part of me had wondered, even suspected, that bringing him home might lower the stress levels, and indeed it has. Sure, some days there are frustrations, but overall he is happier and more at ease, and so are we all. He feels that he is learning more, he is not being tied down to busywork on things he already knows, he is able to help me with all the little ones, and he feels positive about school in general.
And I must go. We're watching a movie about mummification. Did you know they stuffed peppercorns in Ramses' nose to make sure it kept his shape after he was dehydrated? and they would put little onions in the eye sockets to keep them rounded instead of sunken in (because eyes are mostly water...)

WIPs and FOs

Yeah, I've written a "discussion post" (3-4 paragraphs, with full citations) and also an "application paper" (3-4 pages, full citations) every week, and this week I'm finishing a 10+ page research paper about Benedict Arnold (and my--referenced and cited--reasons for why he did what he did)...and I have 5 kids under 5 full time. We've also had a couple of rounds of sickies in the last couple of weeks, so I suppose that's why I haven't posted anything HERE in a while!
With all that said, in the last month or two I HAVE gotten some other things done. These things--and the excitement and feeling of fulfillment that comes along with completing a project--have been contributing factors in my decision to put grad school on hold. I want to be present with my kids, I want to make things for them (and for me and for my home). Babysitting is not my favorite passtime and never was, but it pays well and if I don't have assignments to worry about then it's not stressful.
In the meantime, here's what I've made lately (if you have ravelry and like to see details about knitty things, I'm putting those links too)
First, the FOs Finished Objects:

Sweater (vest) for Bear. Rav link. The yellow and red yarn came in a box full of leftovers from a friend, I bought the blue to make enough for a sweater...he picked the style, kept changing his mind (asked for buttons then asked for a zipper just after I'd done the last buttonhole) and so on. I had to entirely invent the thing because I couldn't find a pattern at all. When it came down to it, I was thrilled when he wanted it to be a vest instead of a sweater...I was getting tired of the color. I like smaller projects and/or variegated yarn.

Rav link Bear wanted a hat like Wolf's, one that would keep his face warm when he's on the 4-wheeler with the carpool to school (oh yes that's how things are up here! even at -2 degrees folks). This time he asked for yellow, so I redistributed the remaining yarn from the sweater and turned this out in just a couple of weeks. I love how fast hats go.



I had this idea about making a sort of beret/snood/hairnet thing, (rav link) that I could use to pull my hair back when I didn't feel like doing anything with it, but which could also keep me warm when going out... I'm not sure if this entirely is what I had hoped for it to be, but I think it's pretty regardless. I love the extra room that leaves space to pull it down to my eyebrows and over my ears (it's not as chic looking when I do that, but it is warm). It was a pattern written to be done on a hat loom, and I adapted it for needles, so they featured me on the pattern homepage in ravelry (anyone can see this link). I feel very special now. ☺

Also, on a non-knitting front, I've sewn two new pairs of fleece pants for Bear. The boy grew about 3 inches since spring I think, and all in his legs, his pants were crazy short! I have two more cut out too... (black and green) which I plan to get to hopefully next week before I start focusing on Christmassy things.


And this one is a WIP Work In Progress... (Rav link) A couple of weeks ago I saw a friend's long scarf (long enough to go around 2-3 times) and I thought, yeah, I need to make something like that for me. The coldness here really calls for something over the face, and I like scarves better than toasty hats... I knew I wanted to do it with bulky yarn though, because 6 ft of scarf would take a looooooong time with skinny yarn!
Then literally days later I received a box in the mail from a friend, and she had tucked in a sweater. She had come by it for free, it didn't fit her, she thought I might be able to use it. It was gorgeous, and so soft, but when I put it on it fit about like a potato sack... so I carefully picked out the side seams, and then pulled on the corner and thub-thub-thub-thub-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb-thb... Now I have four HUGE balls of awesome bulky yarn! So then I needed a pattern. I found one I liked, with the thought that perhaps I could finally learn how to do cables (the rav pattern page promised that it was an easy pattern). Sure enough, there were 19 rows of cabling to start it off, and by row 15 I had intuitively grasped how it worked and didn't need to look at the pattern anymore. And then of course my normal nature kicked in, and so rather than knit the middle 5 1/2 feet in plain rows, I did some more crisses and crosses... and then some more, and then a crazy lot, and then fewer, but never stopping...I'm 18" into it and I have no idea what will criss or cross next. Except that I'm pretty sure it will always be symmetrical... I don't know if I know how to let loose THAT much!

The Next Stage

Eagle is now 23 months old; just weeks away from the age Bear was when I got pregnant with Eagle.
But I'm not pregnant. Yes, I am fertile (it took 22 months this time instead of 20), but we're not trying to get pregnant; actually we are actively preventing pregnancy. Maybe forever.

If you had asked me a year ago (as my husband did), I would have said no way was I ready to be done having kids. Ever since my teens I had been planning on 5 kids at least... Even with my slow start and wider-than-anticipated spacing I was 28 when Eagle was born, so I could certainly have another child or two before 35! But when Eagle was just a couple of weeks old, Hubby said something about how we were outnumbered now (more kids than parents), and he thought maybe we should be done having kids. I figured he was tired and stressed with the newborn, and brushed it off. When he brought it up again a few months later,  I began to think about it.

Initially I hated the thought of being done. Only three children? But I have so much to give! I'm pretty good at this mommy thing, I know how to handle lots of kids, shouldn't I give a good home to as many kids as I can? Pregnancy is not that hard for me physically--I don't get that sick and my body doesn't fall apart. Birth isn't hard on me either--in fact it's exhilarating.

And then a friend gave me a piece of very sound wisdom. Some kids need more than others (and I do have a couple of high-needs kids). If a mother has a finite amount of energy (which I think she does!), then no matter how much love she has, it makes sense to go with a family size that is appropriate to her energy. Sometimes that might mean 9 children, and sometimes it might mean 3. As I considered the possibility that I might actually have my quiver full with [only] three children, I began to accept that it was probably true.

So we made the decision to be done with having babies. I admit I made it more mentally than emotionally--part of me keep thinking "we're just done for now, in a few years we'll have another one or two." But I set it in my head and then let it marinate... and it took a while. Some days I would think "ok, I can wait 3 or 4 or 5 years, but I want at least one more" and other days I would think "how nice would it be to have no kids in diapers?!" or "we'll never have to buy a bigger van!"

And then, one day last winter, my sister called and told me she was pregnant. And for the first time, instead of thinking "I wish I were" I thought "I am so glad I'm not." And that was a massive turning point. I had never experienced not wanting to be pregnant in a particular moment. It was weird, and also it helped me realize that maybe I could make this transition.

I don't know precisely what the future holds, but I do know that it does not hold pregnancy for me--not for several years at least, and very probably not ever again. Some days I still struggle with the finality of it, but I also feel confident that this is the right choice for us at this time.

I have an IUD now (because breastfeeding was messing with my charting, and we did not want to allow the possibility of an 'oopsie'). Even though I intellectually knew that I wanted to do this (Hubby and I discussed at length and agreed on this option), it was still hard emotionally. I felt as though I had voluntarily given up my "full bloom" of fertility, as it were, in trade for a forced infertility. Like I had handed in the fullness of my womanhood for premature old age. I appreciate that that probably sounds like hyperbole, but I really felt it keenly. It didn't hit me until I was in the CNM's office getting ready to have the IUD put in, and then I bawled and gushed to her (a veritable stranger) about it. I suppose she doesn't get that very often! I cried much of the day after I came home too. I had not expected to react that way--after all, an IUD can be removed! But the next day I calmed down enough to do a closure ritual for myself, and felt much better for it. It was shortly after this time that I had my epiphany about the three phases of womanhood which I wrote about here.

I may be finishing with one stage of my life, but I still have many stages to live and enjoy. Perhaps I am done with pregnancy and birthing (for myself), but of course motherhood goes on. My children are young, there is much to do with them. As I exit the baby stage, I can enter another stage--a stage I have been thinking about (but putting on hold for six years)--a stage where I can reach out to other women and teach and support them as a doula and a childbirth educator. It's actually pretty exciting.

Five Kids Under 5

I have a child who is not quite 5 and a child who is not quite 2.
In addition, since coming to Kotzebue I have begun babysitting full time for some other kids...
Here is roughly what my normal weekday looks like:

8am
Babysittee 1 *"Pink" arrives (girl, age 2 1/2)
*Lest anyone think the color assignments are sexist, I actually just let each kid pick their favorite color from the options available.

9am
Babysittee 2 "Orange" arrives (girl, age 2 1/2)
*To further validate the fact that they picked their colors, I would have given her green, but she picked orange, so that's how it goes.

10ish
story time. I may not do a ton of formal organized playtime, but I try to make sure to read a few stories to the crowd every day.

10:30 or so
snacktime all around

12:15 or so
Babysittee 3 "Blue" arrives (boy, 4 1/2--sibling of Orange). His mom brings him from morning preschool, and also takes Bear back to afternoon preschool. Before Orange and Blue started coming, I used to pack up Bear, Eagle, and Pink onto a 4-wheeler to take Bear to class. It's much easier now with the carpool, although I now have so many little ones in the house that it's nigh on impossible to pack everyone safely onto the 4-wheeler if I did need to go somewhere. (This got tested last week when there was a last minute fallthrough from my after-school carpool, and I had to pile everyone on in a hurry to go get Bear after school. However Wolf was home in time to come along and help hold everybody on. In case you lost count, the 4-wheeler was laden thusly: me, Eagle strapped on my back, Orange sitting in front of me on the seat, Wolf in the back center with Bear on one side and Blue on the other, and Pink on his lap... yes indeed, that was 7 people on one 4wheeler, and most of them under age 5. Welcome to the Alaskan bush!!)

1pm ish
everybody finishes lunch. Theoretically all the 2year olds take naps. Some days this goes better than others. Bear is off at preschool, and Blue usually watches a movie or plays lego video games. Assuming everybody naps, I get in a couple of hours of school work. Depending how well they are getting along in the morning, I sometimes can work then too; but much of it falls to evenings. Hubby gets two evenings a week to work on his classes, and I get two.

3:30 or 4pm
Bear and Wolf get home from school, the littles have mostly wakened up (or I wake them at this point).
Snacks for everybody usually again
Work on making dinner

5pm
All the babysittees go home.
Feed my family dinner
Enjoy the fact that I do bedtime with only my own kids instead of all the extras. ☺


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I am making $400/wk with these kiddos, which allows me to have a date with my spouse EVERY weekend. This is priceless, as we have not had regular dates in five years. It also allows us to save up a bit, with the intent to be able to have a big long fun road trip/vacation next summer without going into any debt. We have bills enough to pay off right now, and the idea of being able to get ahead rather than just making ends meet is very exciting.

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Of course, then there are the actual logistics of having five kids under 5 in the house for 40+ hours a week. Sometimes it feels overwhelming--they can move fast and if they split up they can sure make a lot of mess in a very little time. Pink seems to be fond of books but not careful with them, so I have to keep an eye on her lest she rip them (she's damaged a couple). Eagle enjoys recruiting people to help him pull things off shelves. Pink and Eagle (and sometimes Bear) like to take off clothing... I can deal with this so long as they leave the unders/diapers on, but Pink went through a bad spell a couple of weeks ago... yeah, right now I'm pushing a strong must-wear-clothing policy. It IS below freezing outside folks. But we got some new stories and a little indoor trampoline that's good for everybody's wiggles, and I'm thinking of ordering one of those little fabric fabric tent&tunnel toys (I figured the babysitting income included some budget for broadening the toy selection here!)

I have learned some things by having this many little ones.
Firstly, if I had twins or triplets, I would change some of my parenting techniques. I would push for more of a schedule for my littles, rather than following theirs so much. I like the flexibility and non-stressed nature of just going with the flow, but with a stack of kids I kinda need them to nap around the same time or else they'll wake each other up!
~
Secondly, diaper changes. I line the three diapered ones up, and change them one after the other. The cost of electricity here is so expensive (50cents/kwh, which is quadruple what we paid before), so I switched Eagle to disposables. I feel guilty almost every time I change him that I didn't stick it out with cloth, but ultimately the cost of just drying the diapers would have cost more than disposables, and he's near potty learning anyway. So I line up the kiddos and change one after the other. They each have different brands of diapers and wipes, and that has been quite educational. I can share a couple of tips:

• Only huggies brand wipes are worth anything (the others it takes twice as many wipes to do the job, so they don't end up being cheaper, and they are not as soft). 
• And when it comes to diaper brands...Frankly, I can hardly tell a difference between the expensive huggies, the cheap luvs, and the super-expensive 7th generation organics. They all seem to do the job equally well, and they all seem equally soft (as paper diapers go at least). So there you have the extent of my feelings on disposable diapers (and seriously, if you can line dry, or your electricity is normally cheap, I still recommend cloth!) 

~
And finally, this is the brilliant bit of organization that makes mealtimes and snacktimes more or less sane. I cannot take any credit for this, it was my mother's idea when she had 4 kids under 5 (although she wasn't babysitting any of them!):

Cup colors! We had the tupperware tumblers, and each of us had an assigned color (I was red, for the record). I've done the same thing here only taken it a step further: dish colors!
<------I got this set of little plastic ikea dishes/utensils from ebid, and everybody picked a color, and now I always know what belongs to whom. I can rinse things off but usually only need to really wash them once a day--even though we have multiple meals, because I can always tell whose is whose. The bowls are about custard cup size, so it's good for little ones. The plates are salad/dessert plate size. The cups I actually don't use so much, because the little ones have sippy cups... but the forks and spoons are great.

Last Night

Thank you my little one.

I know you did not want to be awake any more than I did last night, but I also know that the time has come for you to nightwean and learn to sleep through the night, and so I was holding and rocking you as you cried, rather than just nursing you back to sleep.

And because we were awake, and because we were in the living room (due to your crying, and my desire to let everyone else sleep), I saw light outside in the sky.

And because I saw light, and because I knew what it was, I put on our coats and hats and bundled you inside my coat and took you outside.

And we walked over by the water, where we could feel the wind and smell the saltwater and hear the rolling surf and be out of the yellow glow of the streetlights.

And we looked up, in the glorious darkness of this week's new moon, and we watched the greens edged with purples of the northern lights as they danced in the sky.

photo from here, no I didn't take it, but it was taken here in Kotzebue and it is what they looked like last night

As I walked home, I fell to wondering:
If the Sun shows us Father God and the Moon shows us Mother Goddess, what is the Aurora? Is it the Spirit? Everywhere and moving and bright to see if only we can free ourselves of the little earthbound lights all about us.

Hello World

My posting here has slowed down. As I mentioned I am in grad school, but there is more to it than that.

Firstly, my classes, being web-based, do not have meeting times. This means that it is all reading and writing. My lifespan development class, for example, gives me 60-150 pages per week to read (and about 6 to write). Sometimes I think it would be easier to sit in a few hours of lectures, but honestly I am fascinated by this stuff and really enjoying what I am learning, time-consuming as it is.

Secondly, I care about how I do in the classes. I could slide through with minimums I suppose, but not only do I want to learn the material (that's the point after all!) but I have always had a good GPA and I'd like to continue to do good work. Having spent time as a teacher, I think it's a bit insulting to the teacher turn in poor work--especially if the teacher is any good. Thus it is that I am spending the time to try to do good work for these classes. The more critical of my teachers has given me extra credit twice in the last two weeks, along with this comment "You did an excellent job with this very challenging assignment. You infused information from psychological sources effectively and displayed a lot of high-level thinking." So I am feeling pretty good about that. (But since I'm writing for him, I'm not writing for you...unless you'd like to see what I've been writing?! I did a piece on the strengths and weaknesses of attachment theory last week.)

Finally, have I mentioned the babysitting? Naw, I didn't think so. This is my sixth week of babysitting a 2yr old (in addition to my own 4yo and nearly 2yo) 8-5 Mon-Fri. This is my second week of babysitting an additional 2yo and 4yo 9-5 Mon-Fri. Yes, that makes a total of two 4 year olds and three 2 year olds, full time. Plus, you know, all the standard mom stuff like making dinner and vacuuming and doing laundry and keeping the wood stove going and (occasionally) cleaning the toilet. (But not very often, because I truly hate cleaning toilets. You have no idea!)
I need to invest in a big box of crayons.
And in the meantime, I would love for you to leave grown up sorts of comments here for me. Because I spend much of the day talking to 2 year olds. ☺

Our House in Kotzebue

Part 1

(we have rearranged the living room a little since then, as you could see in my last post)

Part 2

Let it Snow!

1 small box of packing peanuts

+

2 little boys who asked

+

1 mommy who said yes

=

Snowstorm in the living room on labor day weekend

They thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So what if it filled up most of a vacuum bag. Vacuum bags are pretty cheap, and you're only a kid once.

Grad School

I was thinking about a masters degree in 8 1/2 years ago when I was student teaching.Then I got engaged and married and mothering a little boy took precedent over grad school. I didn't know if it was postponed or cancelled. I always figured I'd eventually take classes of some sort, simply because I love to learn new things, but I didn't know whether I would pursue a degree or not. However, Hubby and I began discussing the idea a few weeks ago (partly because he is taking some classes of his own, and there are some financial benefits to both being in school for a while), and I confess I jumped at it. I think it took me about 39 seconds to make up my mind that if I could find a good online program, I would go back to school.

8 years ago when I was looking at grad school, I wanted to study psychology. I had been interested in it ever since Psych 101 when I was 16. I think people and their minds are fascinating. Perception and culture and belief and the power of the mind over the body... 8 years ago, the masters programs I looked at would not accept me unless I had my undergraduate degree in Psychology (which I don't), so this summer I began looking at programs to get a BS in psychology. Online! That was the catch, of course, was that I needed to be able to do it online!! And then I found a MS program, which was online, which I could do regardless of what my undergraduate degree was in. And so I applied.

Here is an excerpt from my application essay:

I am currently in the process of becoming a doula and childbirth/fertility educator. Following my own experiences with infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, and breastfeeding, I knew that my teaching abilities could be well applied within these areas of women’s health. I have been doing this informally for some time, but am preparing to begin teaching formal classes as well. I feel that a degree in psychology will support me in these endeavors because these experiences are as mental as they are physical. I particularly hope to work with women who are experiencing crisis pregnancies, or have survived infant loss, sexual abuse, or other traumas, and I know that the mental facet of those situations will affect the physical experience of each woman I serve.

So, as of this week, I am officially a grad school student (I start classes the first week of September).
Plus all the regular fun of mommyhood and wifehood, holding down the fort, babysitting a second 2-year-old 45hrs/wk. Plus keeping up with The Amethyst Network, and actively working on pulling together my childbirth ed class curriculum, and doing my reading for my doula training...

And you expect me to still write blog posts? Oh yeah, this is me. Of course I'll still write blog posts. ☺ I just don't know how frequent they will be. Once or twice a week may be the norm. With that said, I also have been thinking I'd like to do the weekend Linky Roundups like I used to do. I share a lot of links on facebook, but I have been thinking that maybe on the weekend I should post the list of them here too. There are some great articles out there and it seems like there's not much point in my writing about things that someone else already wrote, right?!

Moving: 2011 Edition

Remember this post?

Well, this summer's move went like this:


Week 1

pulled over for a pit stop next to Kluane Lake in Yukon.
Words cannot really do justice to the vastness that is this country.

1 green mini van
2 parents
3 kids
(1 doggie left with friends)
2 countries
5 states/provinces (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Washington)
2600 miles of driving (that translates to about 56 hours)
6 times of Eagle throwing up (poor kiddo gets carsick...)
1 time of sneaking dramamine into Eagle with a skittle.
5 times of having to get dramamine into Eagle other ways, because now he won't touch a skittle for the world
3 nights of driving all night, and Bear finally asking "mom, can we please sleep in a bed on this night?"
3 rockstar energy drinks (YUCK!!! but they worked)
2 portable DVD players (praise the Lord for this invention!)
1 bath in a cold Canadian Lake
1 Midnight Sun

I gave him a pillow, really I did, it's there on the left! But yes, he is asleep

We made a rule that whenever we pulled over, we always parked the van facing the direction we needed to keep going, so that we never got turned-around, even if the other driver was still sleeping...this was after nearly going the wrong direction at 4 in the morning...

wildflowers by the roadside...

Boya Lake, northern British Columbia

Canadian rockies (in BC's Glacier National Park, not to be confused with the one in Montana!)

We left Anchorage on Sunday, and had anticipated arriving at my parents' house on Friday, probably in the evening. But for assorted reasons (including bad weather) we opted to drive straight through three nights and camp for one, rather than driving for one and camping the rest...so we actually arrived on Thursday morning.

Week 2
9 days with my family, including 2 grandparents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 1 great-grandma
1 big trampoline
6 chickens, 3 turtles, 2 guinea pigs, 1 dog (theirs, not ours), and 2 smelly mice.
1 trip to the Pacific Science Center
2 days with dear friends
2 henna-fests
1 time singing in church

And then it was time to come north again...

Week 3

2 airplanes

4 airports (Seattle, Anchorage, Nome, Kotzebue)

5 days with friends in Anchorage (thank you!!) in a house with 10 people and 7 dogs!
*&^@* hours at the stupid storage unit, getting stuff sorted and re-packed into boxes of the right weight
8 carry-on bags (plus 2 carseats)
12 stowed bags and boxes (there is a 50lb/bag limit, and I'll have you know that as they put the first one on the scale it was 49.8 lbs! And all but one of the others came in between 46-49 lbs. One was 51 lbs but they let it go because this is Alaska and people are nice and my others were underweight so it was close enough).
648 lbs of food freighted up at 61cents/lb
1 fridge, 4 mattresses, 1 vacuum cleaner, and a dozen or so assorted other of boxes freighted at non-food rate of 77cents/lb
2 nights sleeping on couches/recliners because our mattresses had not arrived (we got in on Saturday, they arrived on monday)
2 nights of sleeping on our mattresses on the floor at the neighbor's place (which shares a mudroom with ours so it's not too inconvenient) because our carpets were still wet.


1 family safely in our new home.

Yeah, they always look this cute

Pictures from Kotzebue

As the plane landed in Kotzebue, I was watching out the window, and I saw fields of this beautiful reddish-tassled grass. This grass seems to grow almost anywhere it can find the space to, including little spots all over town. This is just outside our house.

The tassels are very soft, and they flutter in the breeze...I had no idea what they were but a friend saw the picture and helped me figure it out. We're pretty sure that it's foxtail barley. It is stunning, really.

So here is our house. It's the white one behind all the pallets--that's our door right there in the center of the photo (just right of the green thing).
The pallets are what we'll be burning for firewood this winter. They are readily available in summertime (when a lot of things get shipped in), but harder to find in winter, when everyone wants them for their wood stoves... so our landlord collects them all summer (he lives next to us). We've been helping with the collecting--in fact today Hubby and the landlord built a woodshed to store the cut-to-stove-sized wood in--so we'll be able to use the wood as well. It's a good thing, since this is the arctic!

 

For the first few days we couldn't really move in because of carpet cleaning (which included a broken machine and three days of wet carpets) So even though all our stuff was in the house, this is what it looked like...

In spite of the rough start with moving in, we really like our little house. It's older, but it's clean, has fresh paint, and is very comfortable. I have a gas stove for the first time in my life so I'm adjusting to that (everything cooks faster than I'm used to, so I'm having to adapt all my baking to compensate!).We have nice neighbors--not just the landlord, but another couple and a single lady. And our 60lb dog is the little doggie on the block! Everyone (except the landlord) works at the school AND has a dog. One of the dogs looks almost exactly like Koira, only half again as big. I'll have to get pictures of them together, it's quite amusing as we have already confused them a couple of times, and we've only had them together for two days!

 
Here you can see how far we have to go to get to church (no more phone church!)
The green arrow is our house, the black arrow is the church. Between us there is a mobile home (our neighbor). That's it. It takes almost an entire minute to get to church. It'll take a little longer after it snows if we have to walk around the block.

And this photo is from the corner of the church...looking at the ocean...the ARCTIC ocean...

(You can see in this photo as well as the first one that most of the buildings here in Kotzebue are up off the ground. Apparently this is because of the wind. With the space under buildings, snow is able to just blow through, whereas if they were on the ground then the wind would cause huge drifts against the houses. I remember having to dig our way out from the front door a few times in Pelican, so I appreciate the foresight of whoever built our house putting it on stilts!)


And here are some photos from a little walk I took with Eagle and the doggie the day after we got here...

I don't know what these little white flowers are, but they're pretty. (you can click on the photo to see them larger, perhaps someone can identify them for me?)

an iris, nearly laying down, but clinging to life outside the church. I suppose it was cultivated once, but it doesn't seem to be anymore...

...and the Alaskan classic, fireweed. It's absolutely everywhere, only here it's shorter and smaller than in the more southerly parts of the state