kim through
   the looking glass

I remarked to my husband, Brad, a few weeks ago, and to a very good friend a few days ago, that it’s easy to ignore how wrong it is to live only in nuclear families - easy, that is, until you have kids.

Then it becomes painfully clear that the way we Westerners live is not quite right.

My friend and I were discussing how much easier it is when there’s even just ONE extra set of hands around. That if we lived in tribal communities, there would be not only a number of adults available all day and night, but also a large number of children of different ages - people for the young ones to play with and follow around. Mom would never be a lone caregiver.

Someone to hold the baby while you bathe or use the bathroom.

Someone to entertain the toddler while you’re nursing.

Someone to make dinner with - or to make dinner for you.

Western culture seems to value independence above all things. I believe that, while it’s important to be independent, it’s even more important to be interdependent. Relying on others isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength - of knowing and respecting your limits.

So I challenge you, readers: Support a new mom in your life!

What can you do to ease the burden? I’ve compiled a list of things that others have done for me (thanks, mom, friends, community and church women!) and things that I’d LOVE if people would do …

• Cook dinner for her family
• Bake cookies or muffins
• Listen to her complain about the sleep deprivation
• Do her dishes or clean her kitchen
• Sweep her house
• Clean her bathroom (man, if you can do this, you’re a superstar!)
• Take her other kid(s) to the park/for a walk for an hour so she can have time with the baby - and maybe even have a nap!
• Hold the baby while she spends some one-on-one time with her other kid(s)
• Pick up some groceries for her
• Mow her lawn or do some yardwork/gardening (in the winter, this would be replaced by shoveling)
• Listen to her brag about her children
• If you’re able, hold a FUSSY/CRYING baby while she takes a walk around the block
• Go over to her house and visit - but bring the snacks! Honestly, just having another person around makes the time pass easier

So, readers, what will you do for a new mom in your life?

It’s interesting. I never thought I’d ever be thinking this ‘radically’.

With my recent research into home-schooling/unschooling and the ideas floating in my mind and beliefs forming about trusting our kids more completely, we’ve come up against something:

Sleep.

When did I make the shift from fully trusting in Gwen’s newborn sleep intuition to trying to dictate when and where she sleeps? Does this even make sense? Does anyone tell me when to sleep?

When Gwen was first born, I trusted her to sleep when she was tired and wake when she was rested - or, more often than not, hungry! I also trusted her to sleep where she felt safe, which generally meant in my or Brad’s arms. We brought her to bed when we went to bed and she slept snuggled up beside me all night.

It flowed so naturally. There were no struggles - except when she was fighting sleep and wouldn’t give in. But even then it was her struggling with herself, not with us. Read the rest of this entry »

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I was busy. I was working a physically demanding job 20-30 hours a week as well as finishing my last year of a BSc in Nursing - requiring me to do 24-36 hours per week of a clinical rotation.

Partway through the pregnancy, I began to develop varicose veins in my left leg. The first ones didn’t look bad and didn’t hurt.

Then they began to get worse.

By my third trimester, I was wearing compression stockings and hoping that the unsightly veins would disappear when I delivered. Thankfully, they mostly did.

I became unexpectedly pregnant with my son when my daughter was just one year old. My first symptom was a juicy varicose vein running across my thigh that made me say to myself - “Hey! I haven’t seen one of those since … oh no!” - and run out to buy a pregnancy test! During my second pregnancy, my veins got much worse much more quickly. Thanks to some incorrectly-fitted stockings, by mid-second trimester I was in agony every time I stood, dissolved into a crying ball from the pain every night when I removed them to shower, and my leg was mangled - my ankle/foot was lumpy and purple, behind my knee was a network of throbbing, bulging veins, and they extended into my groin. It was not pretty. When I attended a Vascular Clinic to seek diagnosis for a superficial blood clot that I developed, the doctor said something along the lines of, “Well, the good news is that even if a piece of the clot were to break off, your veins are so twisty-turny that it wouldn’t make into your deep vein system.” Um, I suppose that’s good?

After beginning on a homeopathic vein remedy, the pain lessened significantly and the swelling became more mild. After I gave birth, the change was even more dramatic.

But my leg is still ugly. I struggle with feeling like it makes me look like an old woman.

I’m 26 years old.

I not only have a stretch-marked belly, but stretch marks behind my knee where the varicose veins bulged out so dramatically and quickly - and there’s no one-piece bathing suit that can hide them!

I have two completely different looking legs. As we come to summertime, I struggle with how bizarre my legs and feet will look once I break out my Birkenstock and skirts/shorts. Will people wonder why one ankle looks bruised? Will people notice at all?

I will likely need to wear some sort of compression hose for the rest of my life in order to prevent my varicose-vein prone legs from getting worse. That’s a lot of years. Years of uncomfortable, unsightly, WARM support hose - likely at least over-the-knee, if not thigh-high.

I knew my body would change once I was privileged to grow a life within me; I knew my stomach wouldn’t be the same, I knew my breasts were likely to droop, I knew I was likely to experience some perineal tearing and maybe even some incontinence.

I had no clue that I would have to deal with varicose veins.

This post is participating in the Body Image Carnival being hosted by Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! and MamanADroit who will be posting articles on themes pertaining to body image all week! Make sure you check out their blogs everyday between April 12-18 for links to other participants’ posts as well as product reviews, a giveaway, and some links to research, information and resources pertaining to body image.

Time is a-flyin’!

And boy, is he cute!! At his 6 week appointment, he was 12lb 4oz - he’s gained a full 6lb since he was born! Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been experimenting to make a friend’s curry recipe in the crockpot - here’s what I’ve come up with!

Crockpot Green Thai Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• choice of veggies (I’ve used kale, mushrooms & asparagus, cherry tomatoes, etc.)
• 2 tbsp + green curry paste
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 onion, chopped
• chicken/turkey pieces - I don’t use too much … more like as a flavouring

Instructions:

1. Add coconut milk, veggies, and meat to crockpot.
2. In pan, stir-fry onion, garlic, and curry paste for 2 minutes. Add to crockpot and stir well.
3. Let simmer on low for 6 hours or until veggies are tender.
4. Serve over brown rice.

This recipe is very simple to double - just twice as much veggies and meat and pop the leftovers in the freezer for a ready-made meal!

You can also make this the conventional way by stir-frying the garlic, onion, and veggies in a large pan, putting them to the side, then stir-frying the curry paste separately. Then, add the veggies back to the pan with the coconut milk and meat, simmering for 5-10 minutes. It’s really a quick dinner to make regardless (as long as the meat is already cooked), but I love the convenience of not having to make it *at* dinnertime. Also, the original called for 1 tbsp fish sauce, but I’ve found you don’t really need it.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a giveaway.

Melodie @ Breastfeeding Moms Unite! is giving away the Simply Breastfeeding DVD and it’s companion CD, Breastpumps and Briefcases. Go enter!

Or don’t - so I can win!