saturday morning i was called to my first homebirth as a doula. about 2 weeks ahead of the due date which means if the money is there i might be able to go to the mma conference OVERNIGHT in traverse city. i would be excited for the conference but just as exciting is a night of undisturbed sleep. i cannot even imagine.
satuday morning at 530am i was called by the dad and i was nursing ella. the situation was as such that i needed to get out of the house and on the road asap (she was wanting to push). i whispered to ella that she was done with "mea mea" she rolled over. as soon as i started getting dressed she woke and was wimpering on the bed in protest of my preparations to leave. i crawled back into bed with her and nursed her for a minute then resorted to explaining to her why i had to leave in a desperate effort to get out of the house and keep donn from having to deal with a screaming and crying 2 year old. i looked her int he eye and told her that mama had to go bye bye. she shook her head no. i told her that there is a baby coming and i had to go help her come here. ella looked at he and replied "oh nay, bebe. oh nay." (ok, baby. ok.)and put her head down. donn told me later that she just went back to bed and even let donn sleep in a bit.
the birth was wonderful and i was only about 10 minutes late to my 10 am consult in a2. nice way to go into an interview, eh? luckily i wore black since a bulk of my morning was spent empting out a bloody birth pool. bucket by bucket. i loved it.
donn and i went to see claudia quintet at the kerrytown concert house on friday evening. the first time i saw them i was 6 months pregnant with ella. they are amazing to see. and tonight we are going to see kaki king at the ark. AND last night although i only had a bout 3-4 house sleep the night before i met some old friends at the corner brew and had a great time even though one of them is in the middle of a divorce and that was a lot of the conversation but then i moved to birth and birth experiences. we even popped over to a bar on cross but felt old and out of place when we got there. they moved onto the tap room but i decided to go home at 1am. i was done.
oh also yestrday afternoon my inlaws- mom, dad, sister, sister and husband and nephew. came down for the afternoon. it was the best time i have ever had with them . spent most of the afternoon laughing. we decided that along with the walker xmess party that we are also having the stroud family christmas at our house. that will be one crazy weekend. but i love being married into a bigger family especially now that donns sisters and m yself get along like 3 peas in a pod. i love having "sisters". its a new one for me and something i have always wanted.
this is turning out to be an absolutely lovely weeknd and its not even over yet.

it snowed today. can you believe it. i can..its michigan.

to say things have been busy would be an understatement. i am stealing a moment here because the wiggles movie is on. i HAD to make some work phone calls so i resorted to tv which i avoid like the plague but desperate times call for desperate measures.
i was blessed to have attend a lovely birth at st. joe last friday. it was absolutely wonderful and much needed for me. i am waiting on two more births this month and i have holding on to a sliver of hope that they will go before the mma conference so i can go. a night away....wow, i cannot even imagine.
i am needed 2 or 3 contracts signed this month to make bills. sometimes i hate being self employed. but i had a consult last week and one on saturday. also there are also the folks that might ask after the end of my current cbe series. i have had a few massage clients this month so that has covered groceries. so all is good.
we are thinking about sending donn to school and i am really excited but nervous about the financial thing. but if i look at it as an investment that might be better. also i would pay a million dollars to get donn out of his job and doing something he was interested in. also a friend mentioned that we could take some of the student loans to pay off current credit card debt to lower or present output. thats appealing. plus i think we can get grants since we are low income and have two kids. he is looking to take 2 classes this winter. very exciting. it will be hard but i think he will really love it. it makes me want to go back to school. someday it will be my turn.
the zine is coming along and i got my first flitters of "its real" this afternoon when stacia told me we have advertisers!!!! i have been mulling over what my written contribution could be...dunno.. but it will come in time i guess...soon though would be nice. getting time to do something i think is more of an issue. writing is hard enough but trying to write something halfass good in the mix of the spin cycle of life is no easy task.
homeschooling is going well. this week is a bit disorganized but it ebbs and flows. next week will be better after our crazy weekend. sam likes doing his activity books and my mom gets schooley with him every chance she gets.
this weekend is as follows
friday-claudia quintet in the evening with donn, dave and george
saturday- donn has the reptile show, i have a consult at 10 am, and donns sister and mom might come out for the day
sunday- uu in the morning, cpr class 1-6 and kaki king at the ark in the evening!!!!!!!
i kind of hope donns mom and sister come on monday instead of saturday. too busy i tell you and on call for two births and i need to fit a 38 week prenatal in and a post partum visit in there somewhere.

so sam has been thinking about death lately. a subject that i swore i would be honest with him about sinceit was such an issue for me as a kid. on ellsworth is a pole with teddy bears and letters taped to it and sam asked what that was about. i told him that someone might have died there in a car accident. he asked if he could go look at it and i said yes. soon after he changed his mind. a few minutes later he started asking me what happens when you die...thats a tough one for an almost 6 year old. i told him that they are no longer on earth and some say that folks go to a better place when they die. he was ok with it but did share that he was afraid to die. i told him i understood how he felt but it is nothing for him to worry about becuase he doesnt need to think about it for along long time... like when i am a grown up he asks. yes when you are a grown up. this is really one of those parenting times that you hope you said the right thing. he seems ok with it and comfotable talking to me about it.
another question that came up recently was if we could get a pet parrot like nates. i told him not in our house but when he gets older and has his own place he can get one. that threw him for a loop. it hadnt dawned on him yet that he wouldnt live with us at some point. understandable sincei live withmy mom mind you. but he informed me that he will live with us forever but ella wont she will have her own place as a grown up. sounds about right to me the way things are going.
well i am of to make spinach tofu egg rolls for a late lunch snack. oops.

the preying mantis is back...with wings!!
yesterday i went to the birthnetwork conference. it was a long but inspirational day. it is nice to go to things like this as a recharge for doing this work. barbara harper of waterbirth international spoke for 2-2hour sessions and some of the information she was sharing was really interesting about physiology of birth and its effects. there are so many notes i have from yesterday that i plan on researchign further. she is the type of woman that you just want to hang out with and talk to or just be a fly on the wall everywhere she goes. shes funny and has ovaries of steele. a OB in tiwan was explaining to her at a conference that she had to give episotomies to all asain women because they were too small to birth babies. her reply was "thats bullshit! do you understand what bullshit is?" it was gret to listen to her. much better than henci goer last year.
in the evening we got to see birth the play. it is kind of like a vagina monologues for birth. it was really good. i am thinking of sontacting the author and see how to get a copy to do a performance here in ypsi/a2 maybe in march which is womens month. i was thinking labor day weekend which is when they launched it this year but i dont want to wait that long. plus everyone wont be out of town. i was thinking maybe at the corner brewery. they have half the place for shows and such, its non smoking and childfriendly with beer. plus it is in ypsi- you cant lose with that. it might also be a good launch date for the birth magazine that myself and a couple of friend of mine are working on. hmmm...... nice hook eh? also contacting WCBN about putting the BIRTH radio documentary on in march.
it is lovely to be inspired again.
i thought i was going to have 2 births this week. one-my client induction sunday/monday at 42 weeks and donns cousin induction at 34 weeks for broken h2o 3 ish weeks ago been on bed rest in the hospital since. well i thought donns cousin was going in for induction on wed. i was wrong monday morning. so i found her a doula for free and feel good about it. if i am available i might try to make it out. she is a vbac and i would love to help her as much as poss. so only 1 birth planned this week.
i have been playing around with the idea of going to homebirths in some capacity but i have decided to bail on this thought. the opportunities are there but i need to not over do it right now and i am pretty extended as it is. i need to concentrate on the kids and family, homeschooling, childbirth ed, doula work, and massage. and somewhere in there try to have a social life as to not go crazy. some day it will be time but not now.
did you know there is a city in Iran that has a c-section rate of 100%? pretty freakin' crazy eh? scary that we are almost half way there in this counrty....

the praying mantis now resides on our mailbox. after living in a vivarium in our room and eating wild caught crickets he was released to where we found him....he has decided to stay. so every morning when we go out i m ake sure he is out of the way of the mailbox door for the mailman and he waves hello.

catch of the day. the mantis. sam found him on our mailbox.....he is sooooo excited. i am feeling a bit of guilt since when i cought it, it was a bit upset understandably so. sam wants to keep him for his collection but it is so beautiful i dont know if i will let him. we might observe it and feed it for a few days and let it go. but i have to say that would be pretty cool in the collection. quite a find. i assumeing that it is a female since females are usually the less colorful or maybe it is just a certain type of mantis that is brown. we will look into that later. ella is not dealing well this morning so it will be a project for later. we were just very excited to share.

this is the first piece that i have finished in a very long time. i like the real thing better than the photo but i wanted to share. the bug is one of many periodical cicadas that we collected in 2004. they have been sitting in a container in the garage for 2 years it is nice to see one out on display.

so my herbal recipe notebook has gone missing. i can picture it somewhere but i dont know where. so i googled a comfrey salve for my family with its random skin ailments. ella is the focus of this batch. usually it was donn or sam especially after the steroid creme incident at the peds when he was 2. so i am giong to post it here for all to share and so i dont lose it.
i swear after two kids they start to steal bits of your brain while you are asleep.

so this is from mountain rose herbs whom i really like to buy from personally.


Here's a super simple recipe for comfrey salve recipe to utilize all that comfrey in your garden!
This salve also makes great gifts for friends and family.
I like to put up big batches in the summer and give them out at the holidays.
2 cups good quality olive oil
~ 1 ounce (about two tablespoons) fresh comfrey leaves (or 1/2 ounce dried)
~ 1 ounce (about two tablespoons) fresh lavender flowers (or 1/2 ounce dried)
~ 1 ounce (about two tablespoons) fresh calendula flowers (or 1/2 ounce dried)
~ 1/2 cup beeswax
~ Gently warm the olive oil and the herbs in the top of a double boiler for about 30 minutes. Stir frequently. It should bubble a bit at the edges, but not throughout the mixture.
~ Strain out the oil by pouring through a strainer.
~ Discard herbs and reserve oil.
~ Melt your beeswax in the top of the double boiler.
~ Add the strained oil and stir until completely blended.
~ Pour the mixture into jars or salve tins.
~ Once it is cool, label and date your creation.

this is my love for ypsi post and a cicada. the tiles are from the court yard between the library and bombadills. i love the buildings in ypsi.
and the random periodical cicada from a couple of years ago. i found our collection this morning and thought i would share. sam is BIG into bug collecting this summer. i hope to post his bug board ..... that is when mom gets organized enough to get her stuff together to do it.

projects all around. sams volcano. my belly cast from ella finally getting painted. ellas project is wooing eamon. she is obsessed with him and the garden. the comfrey is a bit sad and the lovage is barely hanging in there but i have hope that they will come though. i cannot wait until it fills in over the years. i am also excited maybe next year for donn to put in a koi pond in that patch of grass there.

ellas birthday finally! notice the action shot of her backhand to sam when he tried to get in on her gifts. cute but fiesty.