For my composition pedagogy class, I had to visit a downtown park very near the university and write about it. The teacher gave no other criteria because the point of the assignment was to see how personality affects writing style. I liked what I came up with, so I thought I'd post it here. Keep in mind this was the product of about an hour with very little editing, not my usual turn-in-able academic writing.
Kelly Elmore
Composition Pedagogy
Park Assignment
I follow the stream of students moving away from campus. Our line cuts through the park on the diagonal. We walk like a line of ants, looking neither right nor left but only forward to our destination or down at our moving feet. This pathway might as well be walled in with concrete, windowless, with thick insulation to keep out sound. It’s as if the campus moves outward with the students, passing through the surrounding city, borders lying near to each other, but never touching.
Where the diagonal path crosses the circle that rings the park, I turn right, away from the students and into the park. Suddenly, when I cross through the wall that separates campus and city, I am conspicuous. I suddenly realize how white and suburban I am. I imagine that my education, which, in this moment, seems ridiculously prolonged, is visible all over me, Greek rhetoric and Middle English hanging around my neck like gaudy costume jewelry.
As I walk along the loop, people turn to look at me and then return to what they were doing before I walked by.
A man sleeps on the grass in the field enclosed by the loop. He has removed his boots, and I can see his large brown feet.
A woman, pushing a baby girl in a stroller, has stopped to talk to a group. She stands with her hands on her hips, talking loudly, pointing at the listening people with her finger. The child doesn’t look up from
the stroller but plays with her fingers.
A group of old men play cards at a table. They laugh loudly, while one of them deals, and a very fat man, leaning back in his chair, rests his cards on his belly.
A young man asks me about my shoes. He laughs at them in a friendly way and wants to know where I got them.
I wish that I could disguise myself and move among these people like a spy. I’d like to sit down on a bench and hear what the woman is telling her group. I’d like to lean in over the shoulder of the fat man and find out what game the old men are playing and hear the joke they laugh at. I’d like to be able to talk like them and look like them and feel invisible among them.
I finish the loop and fall in with the stream of students walking back toward the university. Suddenly, when I cross back into the flow of moving campus, I can’t feel the color of my skin or the place where I live.
My education seems to shrink back to a normal size and fit down inside of me again, hidden. I am camouflaged, invisible in front of the background that looks and sounds and moves just like me.
9/28/10
9/27/10
PCOS+a team of doctors=One gorgeous baby girl!
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| Olivia, the first time we saw her. <3 |
Well, by this point it was almost the end of the year and on Jan. 1, my insurance was going to change so I didn't need to have referrals to go to specialists anymore so we decided to wait until January to go see a specialist outside of my network since obviously my network was full of complete nincompoops. So on Jan. 1, 2008 I called a fertility clinic that was near us and made an appointment. I believe it was Jan. 17 or 18. Don't ask me how I remember that though haha! We went in for the appointment and the doctor came in, sat down, opened my file, looked up at me and said:
"So, you have PCOS?"Ex-ca-use me?! I told him I had been specifically told by last doctor that I DIDN'T have PCOS. And he told us "Well, no offense to your old doctor but I am a specialist and it's pretty obvious by the string of pearls and your lack of period that you have PCOS." He sat down and explained to us what was going on, the medications we would need to take and said "I bet you'll be pregnant within 6 months." After lottttts of medications, ultrasounds and tests, we finally had THE month. The month where we walked into the doctors office, laid down for an ultrasound and saw two big fat eggs about to drop into the fallopian tube and a nice thick endometrium. I SOBBED from happiness. And even better, it had only take ONE cycle of medications to make it happen. Obviously I wasn't pregnant yet but this proved that I COULD ovulate and now we knew what to do. So I went home, called into work **cough cough** I'm soooo sick he he he. I told Shane to get naked!!
Well, we'll skip that, but it was a busy weekend. Now...it was just time to wait. And wait. The doctor said I had to wait until March 21 to take the test because of the drugs could give me an incorrect. It was a Friday and I got impatient and took it on a Wednesday. NEGATIVE. Sigh. Oh well, there was always next month (sob). On Friday morning, I woke up very upset from a dream I had had. I'd dreamed that I was laying in bed and turned around and laying beside me was a beautiful baby girl. I KNEW she was my baby girl and I picked her up and cuddled her close. I woke up so upset because I knew that baby in my dream wasn't there that month. Shane, in his infinite wisdom, forced me to take another pregnancy test because that was when the doctor had told me to take one! I was irritated because they don't grow on trees but did it anyways. I peed on my little stick and got into the shower. When I got out of the shower, I picked up the pregnancy test to throw it away and what did I see?
IT WAS POSITIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SCREAMED, running out of the bathroom "I'M PREGNANT, I'M PREGNANT, I'M PREGNANT!!" Shane LEAPED out of bed and just hugged me as I cried. After we calmed down, I told him "Oh and by the way, we're having a girl."
And so we did...
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| Olivia Carole Phyllis, born 10-29-08 4 lbs 9 oz 18.5 in |
"Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden
If you've ever seen Four Weddings and a Funeral, you've heard this poem. I encountered it for the first time in that movie and loved it ever since for its passion and its use of detail to make us feel the grief of the speaker. Read the poem here.
I like "Funeral Blues" because of its selfish portrayal of love and grief. The love that the speaker felt for the lost lover was world-changing. The lover became the speaker's cardinal directions, the way the speaker oriented himself in the world. And the grief is just as self-centered. The whole world, people, animals, inanimate objects, are all changed by the loss. This view is of a person wholly consumed by emotion and seeing the world, because he sees himself and his lover as the center of it, as wholly consumed.
Click below to listen to my reading of the poem.
I like "Funeral Blues" because of its selfish portrayal of love and grief. The love that the speaker felt for the lost lover was world-changing. The lover became the speaker's cardinal directions, the way the speaker oriented himself in the world. And the grief is just as self-centered. The whole world, people, animals, inanimate objects, are all changed by the loss. This view is of a person wholly consumed by emotion and seeing the world, because he sees himself and his lover as the center of it, as wholly consumed.
Click below to listen to my reading of the poem.
9/23/10
Getting Pregnant
Rooster and I were married in September 2006 and started trying for a baby shortly there afterwards - or more accurately we stopped trying NOT to have a baby. I felt that actually trying to get pregnant would be stressful, so we just did what we always had done.... just with lack of any birth control methods. Come January when nothing had happened and I was starting to be mildly concerned that this may not be an easy task.
Time for my extra long back track story...
Reason for my concern so soon was that in 2003 I had emergency surgery when a doctor discovered that I had a cantaloupe sized fibroid tumor hanging off the side of my uterus. I had been sick off and on for over a year, and this beast had gone undetected by a handful of doctors. My illness was pretty consistent with vomiting to the point of bile after my monthly cycle was complete. Pleasant, eh? I went into a regular doctor clinic atleast three times and each time they down played my cry for help and told me I just had really bad gas that was blocking my intestines. Honestly I think anytime I had gone in the office used me as a guinea pig for new doctors to practice vaginal exams.
I saw an experienced doctor finally and after just laying one hand on my abdomen he ordered a level two ultrasound which confirmed his suspicion of a fibroid. I was immediately sent to a local hospital and was prepped for surgery. They informed me that if it was cancerous I would be cut from about mid-chest down to my private area, and that if it was benign it would just be from belly button down.
A few hours later I woke up in post-op and remember taking my hand and trying to figure out where the cut was on my abdomen. Belly button down. BIG sigh of relief. No cancer. Once I was more alert the surgeon came in to tell me how the surgery went. This is when I learned just how massive the fibroid was in size, and that it had essentially strangled my right falopean tube. When fibroids are located outside the uterus they grow on a stalk. The stalk and my falopean tube had wrapped around each other nine times - cutting off the blood supply and killing the whole thing. He explained that while they were in there they checked around and found no other fibroids, and that the left side looked great. I was worried about fertility later in life, but he assured me that in most cases women with one ovary/tube combo are just as able to get pregnant as anyone else. This information was confirmed months later at my OB/GYN clinic. The OB explained that sometimes the remaining ovary/tube would "pick up the slack" and ovulate every month, otherwise I would just be fertile every other month therefore still fully capable of conceiving a child.
Back to 2006/2007... come January I was worried that we hadn't become pregnant yet. We starting doing the typical "trying" things like having me lay around with my legs up in the air ala Big Lebowski for a long time after doing the deed. We went off and on of "really really trying" to just "relax and it will happen" attitudes. By October 2007 I was starting to stress out that no pregnancy had occurred. That's when we happened to be shopping at a Half Price Bookstore and a book caught my attention; Getting Pregnant: What You Need To Know Right Now - Niels Lauersen and Colette Bouchez. The part of the book that most caught my attention was the fertility/infertility diet information. The book has a list of foods which hurt fertility... and it was the majority of my vegetarian diet. Oops! I changed my diet by eliminating everything that contained estrogen. This included stuff like peanut butter, peas, spinach, soy, etc.
Another thing that caught my attention from the book was different vitamins for both of us to take, and the cough syrup Robitussin. Robitussin reportedly thins the mucus in your entire body, including what is floating around in your uterus. By thinning it out you allow the sperm to get to their destination faster and easier. December 2007 after my monthly cycle we both took 500 mg of vitamin C every day, and I took a shot of Robitussin every night until the bottle was gone. Laugh all you want... it worked! January 4th first positive pregnancy test!! (after 2 negative ones earlier that week - I knew something was up because I was NEVER late before).
For baby number two in 2010 I had the bottle of Robitussin ready... but we didn't need it, ended up pregnant on the first try.
Objectivist Round Up - September 23, 2010
I've been thinking about values all week long, so this quote seemed appropriate:
"Since a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and the amount of possible action is limited by the duration of one’s lifespan, it is a part of one’s life that one invests in everything one values. The years, months, days or hours of thought, of interest, of action devoted to a value are the currency with which one pays for the enjoyment one receives from it."
-- Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
That's value dense living!
And with no further ado, welcome to the September 23, 2010 edition of the Objectivist Round Up!
John McVey presents Lake Eyre 2010 posted at John J McVey, saying, "Some of the photos from my weekend holiday in central South Australia."
Kate Yoak presents Trust your doctor? posted at Cave Kitchen, saying, "... can you trust your doctor in the age of Universal Health Care, corrupt science, bureaucratic insurance policies and a culture that does not believe, ideas matter?"
Rachel Miner presents GTD for Kids: Part 1 posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "I share my first steps in setting up Getting Things Done for my six year old. He's starting to have long term goals and I'd love to help him establish good habits like identifying "next actions" for projects etc."
Benjamin Skipper presents Controlling the Concepts of Chocolate? posted at Musing Aloud, saying, "I learned from Ghirardelli's website that the government is apparently proposing to "change the definition" of chocolate. This is not only economically improper and incompatible with freedom, but also epistemologically inappropriate. No one *decides* what the definition of a concept is; reality dictates that."
John McVey presents Fractional Reserve Banking, revisted - Part One posted at John J McVey, saying, "This is Part One of Three, for those who aren't bored of the topic. The problem with Fractional Reserve Banking is not a moral issue, only a technical one. Be prepared for a few bits of financial technospeak."
Mike Zemack presents Beneath the Title IX Controversy posted at Principled Perspectives, saying, "Title IX, the anti-sex discrimination clause of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, has led to Federal rules that are wreaking havoc on men's college sports. Though they have logic on their side, opponents of the "Title IX juggernaut" have failed time and again to defeat it. To be successful, they must challenge the basic assumptions and premises behind not just the regulations but the underlying statute itself."
Diana Hsieh presents A Quick Thyroid Update posted at NoodleFood, saying, "After sliding downhill for a while, I seem to be doing better in the management of my hypothyroidism."
Kate Yoak presents Parenting as a career posted at Parenting is..., saying, "I am pondering on Ayn Rand's insightful statements about stay-at-home parenting in her Playboy Interview."
Ari Armstrong presents Am. 62 Would Ban the Pill and Endanger Women posted at Free Colorado, saying, "A ballot measure in Colorado would ban the birth control pill and endanger women."
Julia Campbell presents thai chicken curry posted at the crankin' kitchen!, saying, "Delicious and easy Thai curry!"
Rory presents Phronesis: The power to see the world through the virtuous man's eyes posted at Mind To Matter, saying, "Vital to a moral life is understanding moral principles -- but to really understand them means understanding how and when to apply them in particular cases."
Rational Jenn presents Trader Principle Progress posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "My efforts over the past years in teaching my kids to use the Trader Principle are really beginning to pay off!"
Kelly Elmore presents Parenting and the Metaphysically Given posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "Some explanation of the idea of the metaphysically given (with Ayn Rand quotes, yay!) and it's application in parenting"
David C Lewis, RFA presents So...How Much Money Do You Need For Retirement, Exactly?: Life insurance Precious Metals Retirement Plans Financial Planning Investing Saving Money posted at A Revolution In Financial Planning, saying, "So...I need how much for retirement? I discuss how so much of financial planning is dependent on an uneducated guess and what needs to be done to stop guessing."
Greg Perkins presents Announcing Objectivist Answers: Bring Your Questions! posted at NoodleFood, saying, "There's a new question-and-answer site in town, and it's dedicated to Objectivism! Find out more in this announcement unveiling Objectivist Answers!"
Jeff Montgomery presents Devils Thumb Run posted at Fun With Gravity, saying, "This is a run I did in Colorado's Indian Peaks, with photos."
Edward Cline presents The Fakirs of Reality posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "Raymond Ibrahim, an associate director of The Middle East Forum, wrote an article for Pajamas Media, “The Ultimate Lesson of Egypt’s Faked Photo.” In it he explains why a leading Mideast newspaper, Al Ahram, decided to run a doctored photograph of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak."
Amy Mossoff presents Good Guy posted at The Little Things, saying, "What makes a Good Guy good - in terms a 4-year-old can understand?"
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Objectivist Round Up using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
9/22/10
Because it's been a while
There hasn't been a whole lot going on in hobbyland here. With school in session and hockey season starting up, free time is at a premium. That doesn't mean that nothing is happening though. A bit of speculative business first. Navel-gazing to follow, you've been warned.
When I started this blog I intended to paint first and game second. I got a bunch of Khador minis from EV, more than I wanted to start out with, but I couldn't argue with the deal and I figured it wouldn't hurt to be able to play some games while I got to painting. Fastforward to all these months later and I've painted exactly two (2) Khadoran minis and added many, many more. This qualifies as a big fail since I was trying to avoid exactly what happened. To bring this back around to business, I named the blog like I did because I was going to do Warmachine and didn't really plan on expanding beyond it, at least not until I had everything painted (and painted well).
Over my protestations that I didn't like naval games and didn't want to start in on another system, EV got me to try Uncharted Seas and it really took for me. I decided to take this fresh start as a chance to do things the way I had intended with WM, meaning I'd have all my stuff painted and wouldn't end up sitting on a pile of unpainted minis. Fastforward again and I'm not so far off the mark. My Iron Dwarves are (mostly) painted, and painted to a better standard than what I produced in my first gaming iteration. Then I over-reached and now I'm sitting on a starter box of Humans that are partially assembled, partially based, partially painted, partially everything. Not ideal.
Much to my own surprise, and a fair amount of dismay, I've been falling back in to 40k. This was the game that started it all for me, so this is a homecoming of sorts. The first minis I ever bought were an ancient box of Terminators from the Rogue Trader days. The first time I saw a White Dwarf, and particularly the big battle shot on the back cover, I was hooked. I had always loved the dioramas at museums as a kid, and here was a whole magazine of them, not to mention all the minis that went into them. That started 10+ years of GW thralldom that ended with a massive pile of unopened boxes of minis that I'm still trying to crawl out from under. Despite this history, 40k resonates with me in a way that few other things do. Pricing gripes aside, I've always loved GWs minis and fluff. All this said, it's unsurprising that I get the itch every now and again, an itch which reached a tipping point a few weeks ago when I got out my Blood Angels.
You may be wondering where the business is in all this, and I'll get there eventually, but first some pictures. I have a lot of Blood Angels. A whole lot. Nearly a full company. While I know this in the academic sense, it's something else entirely to pull them all out and have them assembled together. I did just that, and the results astounded me.
I wasn't expecting my collection to cover the breadth of the coffee table, and densely at that. It's not even fully representative as I've pulled out other bits and bobs since then, but this shot gives a good overview. I'm a pair of tactical squads away from having a full company (the 4th), which is something I've always wanted to do. I also wanted to have a full chapter in Epic scale, but I haven't made nearly the progress on that. A couple close-ups, mostly for my own satisfaction.
As you can see, some of the figures aren't painted, are painted in a different scheme, are missing arms, any number of things. The ones that I had painted the most are embarrassing now, as is the sheer volume of unpainted minis. I want to rectify this.
I've also been rambling on for too long now and need to wrap this up. I finally made a Warstore order, which hopefully will arrive in the next hour or three. I've been somewhat disappointed with the coverage and durability of the Vallejo Model Colors, so I got a set of Vallejo Game Colors, which I hear are improvements in both those areas. They're also based on the GW line so I'll finally be familiar with my paints again and will have a decent idea of what colors I'll be using instead of trying to eyeball them at the store and ending up with multiple bottles of the same color. I also got one of the new plastic Death Company boxes because they're just so damn sexy.
So it looks like I'm sliding back into 40k, which brings me back around to business. When I started this blog I was going to do Warmachine exclusively, but things have obviously changed. I've branched out into other systems and the name of the blog, which I love, is increasingly inaccurate. As such I'm considering renaming the blog to something more generic that will fit the multiple avenues I find myself pursuing. I've been batting around "Paint It Red," since that's generally what I do to minis, but I'm far from decided on anything. I don't know if Blogger lets you rename things in this way, or even if I'll rename the blog at all, but it's under consideration. Things may be changing around here eventually, so consider this forewarning.
When I started this blog I intended to paint first and game second. I got a bunch of Khador minis from EV, more than I wanted to start out with, but I couldn't argue with the deal and I figured it wouldn't hurt to be able to play some games while I got to painting. Fastforward to all these months later and I've painted exactly two (2) Khadoran minis and added many, many more. This qualifies as a big fail since I was trying to avoid exactly what happened. To bring this back around to business, I named the blog like I did because I was going to do Warmachine and didn't really plan on expanding beyond it, at least not until I had everything painted (and painted well).
Over my protestations that I didn't like naval games and didn't want to start in on another system, EV got me to try Uncharted Seas and it really took for me. I decided to take this fresh start as a chance to do things the way I had intended with WM, meaning I'd have all my stuff painted and wouldn't end up sitting on a pile of unpainted minis. Fastforward again and I'm not so far off the mark. My Iron Dwarves are (mostly) painted, and painted to a better standard than what I produced in my first gaming iteration. Then I over-reached and now I'm sitting on a starter box of Humans that are partially assembled, partially based, partially painted, partially everything. Not ideal.
Much to my own surprise, and a fair amount of dismay, I've been falling back in to 40k. This was the game that started it all for me, so this is a homecoming of sorts. The first minis I ever bought were an ancient box of Terminators from the Rogue Trader days. The first time I saw a White Dwarf, and particularly the big battle shot on the back cover, I was hooked. I had always loved the dioramas at museums as a kid, and here was a whole magazine of them, not to mention all the minis that went into them. That started 10+ years of GW thralldom that ended with a massive pile of unopened boxes of minis that I'm still trying to crawl out from under. Despite this history, 40k resonates with me in a way that few other things do. Pricing gripes aside, I've always loved GWs minis and fluff. All this said, it's unsurprising that I get the itch every now and again, an itch which reached a tipping point a few weeks ago when I got out my Blood Angels.
You may be wondering where the business is in all this, and I'll get there eventually, but first some pictures. I have a lot of Blood Angels. A whole lot. Nearly a full company. While I know this in the academic sense, it's something else entirely to pull them all out and have them assembled together. I did just that, and the results astounded me.
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| Ye gods that's a lot. |
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| Left flank |
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| Center |
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| Right flank |
I've also been rambling on for too long now and need to wrap this up. I finally made a Warstore order, which hopefully will arrive in the next hour or three. I've been somewhat disappointed with the coverage and durability of the Vallejo Model Colors, so I got a set of Vallejo Game Colors, which I hear are improvements in both those areas. They're also based on the GW line so I'll finally be familiar with my paints again and will have a decent idea of what colors I'll be using instead of trying to eyeball them at the store and ending up with multiple bottles of the same color. I also got one of the new plastic Death Company boxes because they're just so damn sexy.
So it looks like I'm sliding back into 40k, which brings me back around to business. When I started this blog I was going to do Warmachine exclusively, but things have obviously changed. I've branched out into other systems and the name of the blog, which I love, is increasingly inaccurate. As such I'm considering renaming the blog to something more generic that will fit the multiple avenues I find myself pursuing. I've been batting around "Paint It Red," since that's generally what I do to minis, but I'm far from decided on anything. I don't know if Blogger lets you rename things in this way, or even if I'll rename the blog at all, but it's under consideration. Things may be changing around here eventually, so consider this forewarning.
Livy Growing Up, Me Learning to Adjust
Last weekend, I was getting dressed to go to a party. I had chosen my shirt but couldn't decide which jeans to wear with it. I tried on both pairs for Aaron and asked which looked better. After he gave me his opinion, Livy came out of her room crying.
"Why do you only ask him things? I'm big enough to know what's pretty!"
I comforted her for a second, assured her that I would love her opinion, and offered to go put the other pants back on so she could compare. But that wasn't good enough. She didn't really care that much about my outfit. She wanted me to value her opinion and acknowledge that she getting so much older.
I thought for a second, and I realized that she was right. She is old enough to know what's pretty. Honestly, her fashion sense might be better than Aaron's. But I was stuck thinking of her as my baby still, not a person who has valuable opinions to share.
So, I explained that I had forgotten for a moment how grown up she was and that I would try not to forget again. And I will try. I don't want to be that mom who can't learn to see her child as an adult. I want to practice seeing all her maturity now and changing my perception of her as she actually changes, so that when she really is all grown up, I see her adult self clearly.
Parenting and the Metaphysically Given
Remember that old serenity prayer?
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
There's a lot in there that is applicable to Objectivists and to parents. Ayn Rand herself, in her essay "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made" in Philosophy: Who Needs It, used the wording of the prayer to discuss what can and cannot be changed.
"In regard to nature, “to accept what I cannot change” means to accept the metaphysically given; “to change what I can” means to strive to rearrange the given by acquiring knowledge—as science and technology (e.g., medicine) are doing; “to know the difference” means to know that one cannot rebel against nature and, when no action is possible, one must accept nature serenely." - Ayn Rand
So, a rational person does not fight against the facts of reality or waste time wishing they were different. He accepts that they are true and forms his plans taking these unchangeable facts into account. He uses the dictates of nature to succeed; he cannot succeed by fighting against them.
Another Ayn Rand quote from the same article: "The metaphysically given cannot be true or false, it simply is—and man determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they correspond to or contradict the facts of reality. The metaphysically given cannot be right or wrong—it is the standard of right or wrong, by which a (rational) man judges his goals, his values, his choices. The metaphysically given is, was, will be, and had to be."
It's easy to see how to apply this principle in scientific endeavors. It would rock if we could sit around all day eating yummy chocolate chip cookies and still be fit and healthy. But nature dictates that bodies require certain kinds of nutrients. A person who fought this rule would be miserable. He would keep trying to make excessive amounts of cookies and health line up, and he would continue to fail because he has not accepted the metaphysically given.
It's not always so easy to apply this principle to social interactions (including parenting) because we have characteristics dictated by nature and characteristics that we are able to change and control. As parents, though, we have to be able to identify the metaphysically given and not spend time trying to change things about our children that can't be changed.
First, I think we have to accept the nature of children qua children (don't I sound super philosophical now?). Read my thoughts on the nature of children and how that metaphysically given nature should influence our parenting here.
I also think that we have to accept the temperament that our children are born with. Temperament may change over time, and a full personality is certainly something we can change, but some basic traits just are, such as extroversion/introversion. For more thoughts on temperament, you can check out this podcast or Jenn's post or my post.
The metaphysically given aspect of parenting that I want to focus on in this post is developmental stage. We all know intuitively that children at different ages behave in certain ways. Everyone talks about "the terrible twos" or "a typical teenager." But there are tons of stages that aren't quite so infamous and well-known, and it can be really useful to know what they are. It can really help to know what to expect and what is normal for children of a certain age.
There has been some discussion recently on OGrownups about toddlers. The initial discussion was about a 15 month old child, whom I might not even classify as a toddler. I generally think of toddlers as children between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. (Yes, I know toddlerhood is supposed to start when children learn to walk, but no 9 month old is a toddler, even if he can walk. It's about more than just motor skill development.)
So here's what I think is metaphysically given about toddlers:
So, since these facts about toddlers are metaphysically given, fighting against them is like banging our heads against a wall (and that's what parenting a toddler feels like sometimes!). We have to accept these facts and use parenting strategies that take them into account.
Here are some ideas about how to use each metaphysically given fact in parenting a toddler:
Finally, a personal note: When Livy was a toddler, I thought I would go insane repeating myself and watching her so closely when she interacted with other children. She was a super intense toddler, with tantrums like you would not believe, and a fair amount of hitting. And yet, she matured into a happy, sweet child who keeps her hands to herself and tells me pretty calmly when she is upset with me. Toddler behaviors don't last forever, thank god!
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
There's a lot in there that is applicable to Objectivists and to parents. Ayn Rand herself, in her essay "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made" in Philosophy: Who Needs It, used the wording of the prayer to discuss what can and cannot be changed.
"In regard to nature, “to accept what I cannot change” means to accept the metaphysically given; “to change what I can” means to strive to rearrange the given by acquiring knowledge—as science and technology (e.g., medicine) are doing; “to know the difference” means to know that one cannot rebel against nature and, when no action is possible, one must accept nature serenely." - Ayn Rand
So, a rational person does not fight against the facts of reality or waste time wishing they were different. He accepts that they are true and forms his plans taking these unchangeable facts into account. He uses the dictates of nature to succeed; he cannot succeed by fighting against them.
Another Ayn Rand quote from the same article: "The metaphysically given cannot be true or false, it simply is—and man determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they correspond to or contradict the facts of reality. The metaphysically given cannot be right or wrong—it is the standard of right or wrong, by which a (rational) man judges his goals, his values, his choices. The metaphysically given is, was, will be, and had to be."
It's easy to see how to apply this principle in scientific endeavors. It would rock if we could sit around all day eating yummy chocolate chip cookies and still be fit and healthy. But nature dictates that bodies require certain kinds of nutrients. A person who fought this rule would be miserable. He would keep trying to make excessive amounts of cookies and health line up, and he would continue to fail because he has not accepted the metaphysically given.
It's not always so easy to apply this principle to social interactions (including parenting) because we have characteristics dictated by nature and characteristics that we are able to change and control. As parents, though, we have to be able to identify the metaphysically given and not spend time trying to change things about our children that can't be changed.
First, I think we have to accept the nature of children qua children (don't I sound super philosophical now?). Read my thoughts on the nature of children and how that metaphysically given nature should influence our parenting here.
I also think that we have to accept the temperament that our children are born with. Temperament may change over time, and a full personality is certainly something we can change, but some basic traits just are, such as extroversion/introversion. For more thoughts on temperament, you can check out this podcast or Jenn's post or my post.
The metaphysically given aspect of parenting that I want to focus on in this post is developmental stage. We all know intuitively that children at different ages behave in certain ways. Everyone talks about "the terrible twos" or "a typical teenager." But there are tons of stages that aren't quite so infamous and well-known, and it can be really useful to know what they are. It can really help to know what to expect and what is normal for children of a certain age.
There has been some discussion recently on OGrownups about toddlers. The initial discussion was about a 15 month old child, whom I might not even classify as a toddler. I generally think of toddlers as children between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. (Yes, I know toddlerhood is supposed to start when children learn to walk, but no 9 month old is a toddler, even if he can walk. It's about more than just motor skill development.)
So here's what I think is metaphysically given about toddlers:
- Toddlers don't know how to behave. They all do really inappropriate things, like hitting, biting, spitting, throwing toys, tantrums, and much more.
- Toddlers have poor impulse control. When they feel like doing something, they do it.
- It takes lots of time and lots of repetition to teach better behavior to toddlers. No matter how reasonably you explain, how firmly you set limits, even how harshly you punish (but please don't), you'll have to do it again and again.
- Toddlers are early in the conceptual process, but they are forming concepts. They are beginning to learn to use logic and reason. They are not only perceptual like animals.
So, since these facts about toddlers are metaphysically given, fighting against them is like banging our heads against a wall (and that's what parenting a toddler feels like sometimes!). We have to accept these facts and use parenting strategies that take them into account.
Here are some ideas about how to use each metaphysically given fact in parenting a toddler:
- Be prepared for these yuck behaviors. Know they are coming. Read up on developmental stages. And when your child hits, don't think, "Oh God! He's a rights violator and will probably turn out to be a communist!" Instead think, "Wow, he's really exhibiting the traits of a toddler! What can I do to stop him from doing inappropriate things and help him learn what is more appropriate?"
- Practice GOYB (Get Off Your Butt) parenting. Because toddlers have trouble controlling impulses, you gotta get right into the fray and be ready to stop hitting or biting. You can't say from your comfy computer chair, "Stop hitting, Little Johnny!" You have to get up, grab Johnny's hand to prevent the hitting, and then reinforce with words. 2 year old Johnny cannot stop himself, so you better be ready to do it for him.
- One day, one week, or even one month of putting your hand over a toddler's mouth while saying, "Keep your spit in your mouth," is not gonna do it. Your child is not particularly recalcitrant and purposefully trying to drive you to insanity. He's just little, and you will have to say it over and over and over and set the limit over and over and over. And eventually, he will mature and learn. Expecting instant or even quick success when you are not going to get it will only make you feel like a failure.
- Since toddlers, who are developing conceptual capability, aren't mentally like dogs, who are never gonna be conceptual, we can't treat them the same way. Behaviorist ideas, like punishments and rewards, don't help a child learn how to think about what is right and wrong. Setting a limit, with both action and words, and helping the child to understand the reason for the limit respect a child's developing conceptual mind. (For toddlers, this would be very simple. I grab his hand (gently) and say "No hitting. Hitting hurts Mommy.")
Finally, a personal note: When Livy was a toddler, I thought I would go insane repeating myself and watching her so closely when she interacted with other children. She was a super intense toddler, with tantrums like you would not believe, and a fair amount of hitting. And yet, she matured into a happy, sweet child who keeps her hands to herself and tells me pretty calmly when she is upset with me. Toddler behaviors don't last forever, thank god!
9/20/10
An Introspection and a New Action Plan
This post is gonna be more of a journal entry, but being all extroverted and completely without a sense of privacy, y'all get to read it! I want to write down my thoughts about a few school decisions, the relative importance of many of my values, and what I want to be when I grow up.
You can see my earlier thoughts about these issues and my values heirarchy here.
First, what started this whole fiasco/excellent change was Sunday afternoon. Livy was stir-crazy, the day was lovely, and I wanted to go to the park with Livy, Jenn, Brendan, Ryan, Morgan, and Sean. But I had homework to do. A lot of homework. So much homework that thinking about it made my lower eyelid twitch. And yet, seven year olds need to play at the park. And 31 year olds need to socialize with their friends. So there was a conflict. I decided to go to the park, but I felt completely guilty about leaving my homework undone. I had basically made this decision based on how much guilt I would feel, and there would have been more for preventing Livy from having a normal seven year old day.
Suddenly my mind exploded! What am I doing living life based on guilt, it thought? How on earth can I carry this on for years? How can I choose between my child and my work? Am I actually happy in this situation?
When I took time to introspect about what I was feeling (my pile of homework was too high for introspection!), I realized that I didn't feel like myself. I'm more of an Anne Shirley than a Dagny Taggart. I am not happy when almost all of my time and energy is devoted to one value. I know this about myself; I have long since accepted that I will never be the kind of person who pushes through misery to get to a goal. I don't like misery. I only do things that I can do happily.
I think I got caught up in the mood of graduate school. Most people have the attitude that you work night and day, give up other values, and when you come out on the other side, you can start living your life and being happy. I got sucked into the ambition and the competitiveness. I wanted to take lots of classes cause I am a good student! But I forgot that it takes time to be a good mom, a good lover, a good friend, a good business-starter, and a good introspector. And I can't do without any of those values right now.
So, I withdrew from a class. That might not seem like a big deal, and honestly, it's not. It only seems like a big deal to me because so much of my identity was built on being the star student. Who was I? I was the smart one. So when I am in school, I slip back into that pattern. Who am I now? I'm the free-spirited one. I'm the one who does positive discipline. I'm the one who reads. I'm the one who loves Aaron. I'm the one who makes the beef stock. I'm the one who goes to the park. I have developed this multi-faceted identity (that I wish I had developed much earlier), and being back in school sometimes makes it hard to remember how necessary all these new parts of me are.
Once I realized that I needed to withdraw from one of my classes, I still had to figure out which one. I was taking three: Middle English, American English, and Composition Pedagogy. I really really liked Middle English and Composition Pedagogy, but I think I probably liked Middle English the best. And that's the one I dropped.
Why on earth did I drop my favorite class? Because I finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. When I came back to grad school, I knew I wanted to teach on a college level. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to focus on rhetoric and composition or on literature. For me, it's basically the choice between a focus on teaching writing at a community college or going on to get a PhD and spending much of my time researching and writing. Though I love to read, I don't love to research, and I finally realized I'll be much happier learning about composition and pedagogy and spending the vast majority of my time teaching.
And I like teaching undergrads, even marginal kind of students. I've always enjoyed the challenge of teaching people that others labeled unteachable. I'll get to do that (and not have to write books) if I get my MA in rhet/comp and teach locally.
I'm relieved to figure out what to do because now I can get started taking required classes. These first two semesters I've been kind of dabbling to figure out what I want. But I will only be taking two classes, and I will be pursuing tons of other values all at the same time. Introspecting about what I need and making it happen has made me feel like myself again. No longer caught up in a swiftly moving current, but skipping along the banks in the sun.
You can see my earlier thoughts about these issues and my values heirarchy here.
First, what started this whole fiasco/excellent change was Sunday afternoon. Livy was stir-crazy, the day was lovely, and I wanted to go to the park with Livy, Jenn, Brendan, Ryan, Morgan, and Sean. But I had homework to do. A lot of homework. So much homework that thinking about it made my lower eyelid twitch. And yet, seven year olds need to play at the park. And 31 year olds need to socialize with their friends. So there was a conflict. I decided to go to the park, but I felt completely guilty about leaving my homework undone. I had basically made this decision based on how much guilt I would feel, and there would have been more for preventing Livy from having a normal seven year old day.
Suddenly my mind exploded! What am I doing living life based on guilt, it thought? How on earth can I carry this on for years? How can I choose between my child and my work? Am I actually happy in this situation?
When I took time to introspect about what I was feeling (my pile of homework was too high for introspection!), I realized that I didn't feel like myself. I'm more of an Anne Shirley than a Dagny Taggart. I am not happy when almost all of my time and energy is devoted to one value. I know this about myself; I have long since accepted that I will never be the kind of person who pushes through misery to get to a goal. I don't like misery. I only do things that I can do happily.
I think I got caught up in the mood of graduate school. Most people have the attitude that you work night and day, give up other values, and when you come out on the other side, you can start living your life and being happy. I got sucked into the ambition and the competitiveness. I wanted to take lots of classes cause I am a good student! But I forgot that it takes time to be a good mom, a good lover, a good friend, a good business-starter, and a good introspector. And I can't do without any of those values right now.
So, I withdrew from a class. That might not seem like a big deal, and honestly, it's not. It only seems like a big deal to me because so much of my identity was built on being the star student. Who was I? I was the smart one. So when I am in school, I slip back into that pattern. Who am I now? I'm the free-spirited one. I'm the one who does positive discipline. I'm the one who reads. I'm the one who loves Aaron. I'm the one who makes the beef stock. I'm the one who goes to the park. I have developed this multi-faceted identity (that I wish I had developed much earlier), and being back in school sometimes makes it hard to remember how necessary all these new parts of me are.
Once I realized that I needed to withdraw from one of my classes, I still had to figure out which one. I was taking three: Middle English, American English, and Composition Pedagogy. I really really liked Middle English and Composition Pedagogy, but I think I probably liked Middle English the best. And that's the one I dropped.
Why on earth did I drop my favorite class? Because I finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. When I came back to grad school, I knew I wanted to teach on a college level. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to focus on rhetoric and composition or on literature. For me, it's basically the choice between a focus on teaching writing at a community college or going on to get a PhD and spending much of my time researching and writing. Though I love to read, I don't love to research, and I finally realized I'll be much happier learning about composition and pedagogy and spending the vast majority of my time teaching.
And I like teaching undergrads, even marginal kind of students. I've always enjoyed the challenge of teaching people that others labeled unteachable. I'll get to do that (and not have to write books) if I get my MA in rhet/comp and teach locally.
I'm relieved to figure out what to do because now I can get started taking required classes. These first two semesters I've been kind of dabbling to figure out what I want. But I will only be taking two classes, and I will be pursuing tons of other values all at the same time. Introspecting about what I need and making it happen has made me feel like myself again. No longer caught up in a swiftly moving current, but skipping along the banks in the sun.
Better Late Than Never
Hi! I'm Meghan, mommy to Aiden and Chase who is expected at the end of October. I am a stay at home mom, a birth doula on leave for a while, and a placenta encapsulationist. My husband is B (Baris, but I call him B), he's a corporate kiss @$$ and an MBA student, making me an academic widow for at least another year and a half.
Aiden was born on November 17th, 2008 at St. Joe's hospital. I had an awesome waterbirth with the Generations Midwives. While my labor was not particularly fast (about 14 hours, so average for a first time mom) when it was time to push, Aiden flew out pretty quickly. This is relevant to my breastfeeding story, or the start of it at least. Aiden was placed right up on my chest for a snuggle at 6:30pm, he was perfect and I was in love. When we got settled in our room, I briefly tried to nurse him, but I was excited, distracted, and he didn't seem to care at that particular moment, so I just kept him skin to skin with me and enjoyed him. He did nurse successfuly several times through the night and I thought "damn, I'm so lucky, he's so good at this!" And he was! The problem was that because he came so fast, he was a little shocked and confused. He started puking up all the mucous in his little tummy, emptying it out...for those of you who don't know, a newborn's stomach is only about the size of a shooter marble and lined generously with mucous at birth. This enables baby to feel satisfied on the first couple days of colostrum from mother's breast. Well, since Aiden up and emptied this out...he was hunnnnnggggrry and MAD! By 12 hours old he was psychotic. He would latch, then scream, latch, then scream, latch, then scream. Me in all my hormones and lack of sleep (I stayed awake most of the night staring at his perfect face and snuggling him) thought I was broken. I was sobbing and telling my husband I didn't know what to do...this went on for an hour. B insisted that I buzz the nurses, but I was too embarassed, I could do it! So B went running out of the room and sent in a nurse...apparently my psycho babble was too much for him.
The nurse was too sweet. She tried to get him to latch and be satisfied, but he would have NONE of it...nothing respectable was coming out, he wanted food now. So she brought us a supplemental nursing system and (gulp) a thing of formula. He was so mad and worked up I didn't care, poor little baby. It was a last resort after two hours of him screaming at me and not staying latched followed by half an hour with the nurse trying to get him to settle into nursing and me telling her "There's something wrong with me! Do I need a shield?! I can't believe I couldn't even nurse him for 12 hours!!! WAAAAAHHHH!" We tried a few times to use the SNS actually AT the breast, but we couldn't get it situated right so we finger fed him with it, he had a couple milliliters and went to sleep. At last. We only had to use it that one time in the hospital, but we took it home just in case, Aiden nursed the rest of his stay.
At home we nursed religiously to try and flush out his jaundice...he was pretty orange. Once or twice a day we would follow his nursing with a few mL of formula to help with the jaundice since my milk wasn't in quite yet. This felt like the longest day and a half of my life...lol But he always latched wonderfully, and would stay at the breast for 20 minutes, then I would switch, he would nurse 20 minutes, and once or twice a day he would go with daddy for a few mL of formula while I pumped to stimulate the milk to come in.
The second evening we were home, THERE was my milk...and lots of it. For the next three months I made enough for twins easily. Aiden was a good nurser and handled my VERY overactive letdown pretty well. He gagged here and there (who can blame him...I would gag too if someone were using a hose to shove milk down my throat) and then he really started to get the rhythm of it and stopped having issues. I had to burp him frequently while nursing because of the overactive letdown, but that was our only real struggle. He gained weight quickly, pooped like a champ, and got rolly in a hurry.
When he was 5 weeks old we hit another speed bump. Aiden and I both got a NASTY cold. Aiden had trouble nursing, we think it was causing him pain to hold the breast in his mouth so he refused to nurse for more than a day. I was DEVASTATED. I pumped and sobbed, pumped and sobbed...Aiden had not had a bottle before and here he was taking every feeding for more than a day from a bottle. Again I thought something was wrong with me...why is my 5-week old refusing the breast after all this great nursing for the last month?! I offered the breast at every feeding and he would just cry, so I would run off and sob while B gave Aiden a bottle of expressed milk. Fortunately for my sanity, he went back to the breast just fine and we nursed with no problems until he was 6 months old. I was fortunate because Aiden was a FAST nurser...5 minutes to empty on one side, switch, 5 minutes to empty, and DONE! It was great!
At 6 months cue the beginning of the end. I had planned to nurse Aiden at least a year, I wanted to wean him by 18 months. Well, at 6 months, he started turning into a beast at the breast...hitting, pinching, unlatching and looking around (leaving my breast exposed to the world if we were in public...something I was NOT comfortable with) and taking forever to finish cuz he was so busy playing. I tried a lot of tricks to keep him focused...nursing only in quiet, dim places, spacing out feedings so he would get down to business and be done instead of playing...lots of stuff. Nothing really worked, he didn't want to snuggle up and get down to business...the stress of it took it's toll on me. I spent two months working every angle, asking questions, trying new things, but he just would not stay at the breast, would not sit even REMOTELY still, and my nipples began to hurt from his lazy latch, his pulling, and his screwing around. He began taking more and more bottles from my limited supply of frozen milk (I was not good about pumping past 3 months...I had no need...lol) and he would always really do his thing when having a bottle, he would look around all the time, finish his milk and go on his way. Unfortunately, between the stress of his bad booby behavior and his lazy latch not stimulating the milk production...my supply started to fall WAY off. By 8 months we called it quits. One thing you should know about me is that I'm a sexual abuse survivor, so a lot of this was not acceptable to me and made me very uncomfortable that he was treating my breasts the way he was, so my 2 months of fighting with him was a REAL struggle for me to stay focused on what was best for my little boy versus how it made me feel.
Aiden hated formula...he didn't eat that great over the next two months, and I hated formula. Everytime I made a bottle, washed a bottle, gave him a bottle I grumbled to myself about it. At 10 months we just switched him to whole milk, then milk with yogurt which was the ticket to getting his dairy in his belly...he loves plain yogurt.
So that's my story. I didn't have a huge struggle at all, but my experience was way different than I expected it to be. I didn't want it to end so soon...I wanted a baby who LOVED to be at the breast all the time...but aiden was always an in and out nurser, never a comfort nurser. In hindsight I think part of it was because he used a binky. I probably had the opportunity to take the binky away when he was a month old as his need to suck went away (he never would use the breast in this way), but I didn't, and then MONTHS of troublesome sleep started and it was our only link to sanity. I loved breastfeeding, I loved knowing it was how Aiden was getting so chunky...that his donut thighs were thanks to MY milk, MY hard work...I loved making faces at him while he was at the breast, and I loved when he started trying to smile while he was nursing and watching milk get all over. The whole thing was great.
I've always said breastfeeding is a lazy woman's sport. It is...I never had to get up and make a bottle in the middle of the night...just plop the baby on my boob and go back to sleep! Wake up three hours later...there's the baby...fat and happy. I miss it and can't wait to have another little nursling. Whatever it takes this baby will nurse at least a year. I will turn Chase into a boobie monster...since I'm taking a full year off from doula work after his birth, I don't even have to worry about pumping except occaisionally, so he's going to be my little boobie buddy all the time. I plan to avoid the binky at all costs this go around, and to spend the first couple weeks with him tucked skin to skin in my moby while I tool around the house. I was so mad about Aiden's early dismissal of the breast, and disappointed in myself for not trying longer and forcing the issue. It's a lesson learned. :)
Aiden was born on November 17th, 2008 at St. Joe's hospital. I had an awesome waterbirth with the Generations Midwives. While my labor was not particularly fast (about 14 hours, so average for a first time mom) when it was time to push, Aiden flew out pretty quickly. This is relevant to my breastfeeding story, or the start of it at least. Aiden was placed right up on my chest for a snuggle at 6:30pm, he was perfect and I was in love. When we got settled in our room, I briefly tried to nurse him, but I was excited, distracted, and he didn't seem to care at that particular moment, so I just kept him skin to skin with me and enjoyed him. He did nurse successfuly several times through the night and I thought "damn, I'm so lucky, he's so good at this!" And he was! The problem was that because he came so fast, he was a little shocked and confused. He started puking up all the mucous in his little tummy, emptying it out...for those of you who don't know, a newborn's stomach is only about the size of a shooter marble and lined generously with mucous at birth. This enables baby to feel satisfied on the first couple days of colostrum from mother's breast. Well, since Aiden up and emptied this out...he was hunnnnnggggrry and MAD! By 12 hours old he was psychotic. He would latch, then scream, latch, then scream, latch, then scream. Me in all my hormones and lack of sleep (I stayed awake most of the night staring at his perfect face and snuggling him) thought I was broken. I was sobbing and telling my husband I didn't know what to do...this went on for an hour. B insisted that I buzz the nurses, but I was too embarassed, I could do it! So B went running out of the room and sent in a nurse...apparently my psycho babble was too much for him.
The nurse was too sweet. She tried to get him to latch and be satisfied, but he would have NONE of it...nothing respectable was coming out, he wanted food now. So she brought us a supplemental nursing system and (gulp) a thing of formula. He was so mad and worked up I didn't care, poor little baby. It was a last resort after two hours of him screaming at me and not staying latched followed by half an hour with the nurse trying to get him to settle into nursing and me telling her "There's something wrong with me! Do I need a shield?! I can't believe I couldn't even nurse him for 12 hours!!! WAAAAAHHHH!" We tried a few times to use the SNS actually AT the breast, but we couldn't get it situated right so we finger fed him with it, he had a couple milliliters and went to sleep. At last. We only had to use it that one time in the hospital, but we took it home just in case, Aiden nursed the rest of his stay.
At home we nursed religiously to try and flush out his jaundice...he was pretty orange. Once or twice a day we would follow his nursing with a few mL of formula to help with the jaundice since my milk wasn't in quite yet. This felt like the longest day and a half of my life...lol But he always latched wonderfully, and would stay at the breast for 20 minutes, then I would switch, he would nurse 20 minutes, and once or twice a day he would go with daddy for a few mL of formula while I pumped to stimulate the milk to come in.
The second evening we were home, THERE was my milk...and lots of it. For the next three months I made enough for twins easily. Aiden was a good nurser and handled my VERY overactive letdown pretty well. He gagged here and there (who can blame him...I would gag too if someone were using a hose to shove milk down my throat) and then he really started to get the rhythm of it and stopped having issues. I had to burp him frequently while nursing because of the overactive letdown, but that was our only real struggle. He gained weight quickly, pooped like a champ, and got rolly in a hurry.
When he was 5 weeks old we hit another speed bump. Aiden and I both got a NASTY cold. Aiden had trouble nursing, we think it was causing him pain to hold the breast in his mouth so he refused to nurse for more than a day. I was DEVASTATED. I pumped and sobbed, pumped and sobbed...Aiden had not had a bottle before and here he was taking every feeding for more than a day from a bottle. Again I thought something was wrong with me...why is my 5-week old refusing the breast after all this great nursing for the last month?! I offered the breast at every feeding and he would just cry, so I would run off and sob while B gave Aiden a bottle of expressed milk. Fortunately for my sanity, he went back to the breast just fine and we nursed with no problems until he was 6 months old. I was fortunate because Aiden was a FAST nurser...5 minutes to empty on one side, switch, 5 minutes to empty, and DONE! It was great!
At 6 months cue the beginning of the end. I had planned to nurse Aiden at least a year, I wanted to wean him by 18 months. Well, at 6 months, he started turning into a beast at the breast...hitting, pinching, unlatching and looking around (leaving my breast exposed to the world if we were in public...something I was NOT comfortable with) and taking forever to finish cuz he was so busy playing. I tried a lot of tricks to keep him focused...nursing only in quiet, dim places, spacing out feedings so he would get down to business and be done instead of playing...lots of stuff. Nothing really worked, he didn't want to snuggle up and get down to business...the stress of it took it's toll on me. I spent two months working every angle, asking questions, trying new things, but he just would not stay at the breast, would not sit even REMOTELY still, and my nipples began to hurt from his lazy latch, his pulling, and his screwing around. He began taking more and more bottles from my limited supply of frozen milk (I was not good about pumping past 3 months...I had no need...lol) and he would always really do his thing when having a bottle, he would look around all the time, finish his milk and go on his way. Unfortunately, between the stress of his bad booby behavior and his lazy latch not stimulating the milk production...my supply started to fall WAY off. By 8 months we called it quits. One thing you should know about me is that I'm a sexual abuse survivor, so a lot of this was not acceptable to me and made me very uncomfortable that he was treating my breasts the way he was, so my 2 months of fighting with him was a REAL struggle for me to stay focused on what was best for my little boy versus how it made me feel.
Aiden hated formula...he didn't eat that great over the next two months, and I hated formula. Everytime I made a bottle, washed a bottle, gave him a bottle I grumbled to myself about it. At 10 months we just switched him to whole milk, then milk with yogurt which was the ticket to getting his dairy in his belly...he loves plain yogurt.
So that's my story. I didn't have a huge struggle at all, but my experience was way different than I expected it to be. I didn't want it to end so soon...I wanted a baby who LOVED to be at the breast all the time...but aiden was always an in and out nurser, never a comfort nurser. In hindsight I think part of it was because he used a binky. I probably had the opportunity to take the binky away when he was a month old as his need to suck went away (he never would use the breast in this way), but I didn't, and then MONTHS of troublesome sleep started and it was our only link to sanity. I loved breastfeeding, I loved knowing it was how Aiden was getting so chunky...that his donut thighs were thanks to MY milk, MY hard work...I loved making faces at him while he was at the breast, and I loved when he started trying to smile while he was nursing and watching milk get all over. The whole thing was great.
I've always said breastfeeding is a lazy woman's sport. It is...I never had to get up and make a bottle in the middle of the night...just plop the baby on my boob and go back to sleep! Wake up three hours later...there's the baby...fat and happy. I miss it and can't wait to have another little nursling. Whatever it takes this baby will nurse at least a year. I will turn Chase into a boobie monster...since I'm taking a full year off from doula work after his birth, I don't even have to worry about pumping except occaisionally, so he's going to be my little boobie buddy all the time. I plan to avoid the binky at all costs this go around, and to spend the first couple weeks with him tucked skin to skin in my moby while I tool around the house. I was so mad about Aiden's early dismissal of the breast, and disappointed in myself for not trying longer and forcing the issue. It's a lesson learned. :)
9/16/10
Values Hierarchy and Sadness
It's really hard to get used to being back in school and work and having so little free time. It's made me really think hard about my values hierarchy. And yet, even when I am doing higher values, I am still sad about having less time for the lesser values. Here's my list of values, in the order of their importance.
1. my school work
2. taking care of Livy
3. my teaching job
4. my relationship with Aaron
5. my relationship with Livy
6. leisure reading (including Latin club)
7. spending time with closest local friends (Jenn, Brendan, Jason)
8. podcasting and other parenting educator work
9. spending time with other wonderful local friends (Micheal, Jessica, Melissa, Martin, Miranda)
10. blogging
11. ESOL tutoring
11. spending time with closest distant friends (Shea, Rory)
12. wandering Atlanta in search of adventures
13. Sacred Harp singing
When I was not in school, I actively pursued all of the other values. Lately, it's been incredibly rare that I have done anything below number 7. It makes me feel kind of one dimensional and flat not to have a life full of various values and constantly changing stimuli. And I am sad about the values that I am not getting to. I miss blogging. I miss Shea. I miss going to interesting places in Atlanta where I have never been.
I know that school is more important that those things, and it does bring me an incredible amount of joy and fulfillment. But it's hard to have to give up one thing for another, even when you know you've made the right choice.
1. my school work
2. taking care of Livy
3. my teaching job
4. my relationship with Aaron
5. my relationship with Livy
6. leisure reading (including Latin club)
7. spending time with closest local friends (Jenn, Brendan, Jason)
8. podcasting and other parenting educator work
9. spending time with other wonderful local friends (Micheal, Jessica, Melissa, Martin, Miranda)
10. blogging
11. ESOL tutoring
11. spending time with closest distant friends (Shea, Rory)
12. wandering Atlanta in search of adventures
13. Sacred Harp singing
When I was not in school, I actively pursued all of the other values. Lately, it's been incredibly rare that I have done anything below number 7. It makes me feel kind of one dimensional and flat not to have a life full of various values and constantly changing stimuli. And I am sad about the values that I am not getting to. I miss blogging. I miss Shea. I miss going to interesting places in Atlanta where I have never been.
I know that school is more important that those things, and it does bring me an incredible amount of joy and fulfillment. But it's hard to have to give up one thing for another, even when you know you've made the right choice.
9/11/10
I'm the youngest of the group and I claim the hardest nursing experience medal! :)
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| Kangaroo care with Olivia after trying to nurse. 2 days old |
My name is Christa and I'm the youngest of the bunch (by 5 months ha-ha). I have no fun nicknames so Christa will do just fine. I have a 23 month old named Olivia and my husbands name is Shane. Olivia will be 2 in October.
Prior to my daughter being born, I figured I'd breastfeed for about 6 months. I don't know how I came up with this number, or why on earth I thought it sounded like a good plan but that was what I thought. Once she was born, that completely changed. I should start by introduction by giving you a brief history of how Olivia came about. It wasn't as simple as a roll in the hay and a positive pregnancy test. We tried for a year, and had to go through infertility treatment to conceive her because I had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). I finally got pregnant in March of 2008 and was due in December 2008. I had a pretty high risk pregnancy, with low progesterone, gestational diabetes, PSD (pelvic symphisis dysfunction) and then at the end, severe pre-eclampsia. I was diagnosed and hospitalized with pre-eclampsia on October 20, 2008. Exactly one week later, at 33 weeks and 5 days, my blood pressure had risen and sustained to 260/180 and they induced me. I had always intended on having a totally natural delivery but after about 25 hours of labor, I asked for an epidural. After about 48 hours of labor, I ended up with a c-section. Olivia was born on October 29 and weighed 4 lbs 9 ounces. I saw her for about 10 seconds before she was rushed to the NICU and then didn't get to see or hold her again until she was about 7 hours old.
I realize that is a lot of background information but it's important to lead me up to my breastfeeding journey! When I finally got to see and hold Olivia, she wasn't able to feed because of a medication I had been on while in the hospital called magnesium sulfate. She had to wait 24 hours before any food could be given to her. Before she could even eat, the nurses had brought me a breastpump and had me hooked up to it, pumping colostrum, which was stored in small syringes for her when she finally could eat. By the time Olivia was cleared to eat, I was eager to breastfeed her. I was in the NICU holding her and brought her to my breast with a lactation consultant present and we got her on my breast...and she fell asleep. She was barely able to latch on. I was absolutely crushed. Aren't babies supposed to latch on and eat right away?? We tried constantly. I would get up every 3 hours and try to make it to the NICU to get her to latch on but even if we could get her to latch, which was never a proper latch, Olivia would fall asleep right away. She was just too weak to latch on. After a few days, they asked if we wanted to do bottles. I said ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I wasn't going to give her bottles! I was going to breastfeed. But it came down to this--if she couldn't eat, she couldn't go home. So several hours later, and many many tears, I decided to give in to the bottles. I still tried breastfeeding her every time I was in the NICU but it just didn't work. So I continued pumping and she would get my milk from a bottle. We brought Olivia home when she was 7 days old.
For about 6 weeks, I continued trying to bring her to my breast, in hopes she would latch on. We had a few half hearted nursing sessions with a nipple shield but my milk was so fast flowing that it would get overfilled with milk and always falls off. Everytime she would refuse my breast, I would hand her over to Shane or my mom and they would bottle feed her while I sobbed with my breastpump attached to me. Eventually I stopped offering her my breast and just decided to continue pumping. We did have to supplement because the pump just didn't provide the supply and demand nor the latch that a baby did and try as I might, I couldn't get my breasts to give me what my tiny baby needed. I didn't have any education on what I was doing and I was totally flying by the seat of my pants. There is a lot I know now that I didn't know then, but hindsight is 20/20 I suppose!
By the time Olivia was about 5 months old, I'd suffered pretty bad depression about failing to get her to latch, several nipple infections and my supply was so completely low that she was getting about 1 bottle of breastmilk a day. I contacted La Leche League (LLL) and the lactation consultants (LCs) and asked if babies were able to latch on after having spent so much time at the bottle. They said it was worth a try but it probably wouldn't work. I knew that if I didn't get her to start breastfeeding, it would only be a very short time before she had to be completely on formula. On April 16, 2008, when she was 5.5 months old, I came home from work and sat on the couch cross legged. I took down my shirt and brought my almost 6 month old up to my breast.
Like she'd been doing it the entire time, Olivia latched on like a little pro!!!!!!!!!!! She breastfed for exactly 7 minutes before detaching herself and SCREAMING her head off. I had my mom prepared with a bottle, so we finished her feeding with a bottle. A few hours later, before Olivia was super hungry, we climbed into bed and I brought her to my breast again. This time she latched on again with no issues and had her entire feeding from JUST breastfeeding. I was still nervous she wouldn't continue so for quite some time we always had a bottle ready but she never had an issue after that. At almost 6 months old, my 34 weeker latched on and breastfed like a little professional piggie!! I can't even express to anyone how this felt. It was probably my number one biggest achievement of my entire life. Within weeks, my milk supply increased to the point where our freezer was full of breastmilk and I even looked into donating milk. We loved nursing and since we co-slept, Olivia fast learned how to pop the boobie out of my sleep bra and latch on while we were both sleeping.
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| A breastfed baby is a happy baby. Olivia, a few days after she latched on. |
Now I'm 26w2d pregnant with our second girl and actually on strict bedrest for pregnancy induced hypertension. We're preparing for the possibility of another preemie and I have my Medela pump and style ready to go. If we have another preemie with latch issues, you bet I'll go through it all again but this time, I am more eduacted and I definitely will not stop trying to get her to latch on.
9/10/10
My First Experience
I will be referring to myself as Mother Hen. The other girls have given me this nickname since I am a generous six years older than them.... thus pretty much ancient. For fun sake my husband will be referred to as "Rooster" and my first born will be "Chicken Little" or "CL" for short. I am expecting my second child, "Hatchling" or "Hatch" in mid-October, gender will be a surprise. EDIT: I had my baby girl on October 12th 2010 and have ended up calling her Chicklet instead as it's just cuter that way.
My breastfeeding journey began around 10:45pm September 5th 2008. I always knew I would breastfeed should I ever have children, and now the hour was upon me. I brought my tiny newborn son to my left breast and he latched on like a champ. I remember thinking how silly I had been to worry that this would be difficult. I remember the hardest part being trying to get him OFF of the nipple. We had to buzz the nurses several times when I was just exhausted/sore and he had been sucking away for much longer than the recommended "20 minutes per boob every 2 hours" I had been instructed to do.
Through the night I learned that there are challenges in breastfeeding and that doing research as well as having a support system are far from silly. After that initial time on the left breast, he would not touch lefty for about two days. I cried to nurses, doctors, my husband, and anyone that would listen that I was terrified to be a single-boob mom. Whenever I brought CL to my left breast he would arch his back as if there was something revoltingly wrong with it. All the professionals just laughed off my concerns and told me in a few weeks I wouldn't even remember all this "fuss." No one offered to send in a lactation consultant. No one offered me any tips or tricks. I was alone and completely freaking out. I pictured myself needing to supplement with formula and having lopsided boobs. I've known women who were only able to breastfeed with one boob, and hats off to them - but I definitely wanted use of both boobs since I had planned on nursing for a very long time.
Upon discharge from the hospital I let out one last plea to the nurse that came to go through the paperwork with us. She actually offered up some help! She asked if I had tried squeezing my boob to change the shape of the nipple. I did this, and CL went to town for 45 minutes. I couldn't believe how easy it was, and I was extra mad that no one else had bothered to give me such simple advice. I guess when all else fails... squeeze yer boobs! CL has always favored the right side, but I am very happy to have not been a single-boob mom.
Engorgement was ferocious for me and honestly I would have rather gone through labor again. I think part of why it was so bad is that my son was only 5 pounds 10.2 ounces at birth and the hospital had threatened to supplement with formula if he lost more than 5 ounces while at the hospital. I ignored their "every two hours" rule and probably had him on my boobs 90% of the time. He only lost 3 ounces. I win!!
I've had a pretty easy breastfeeding life after that first rough patch. Never any infections or issues (knock on wood). The most difficult part may have been learning how to breastfeed a "triangle" as CL was born with clubbed feet and needed to wear special braces on his legs 24/7 for 9 months, and then just overnights after that. The braces kept his legs far apart, so it was a little bit like holding a small guitar or something. We managed with pillows and plenty of extra back massages from the Rooster.
When my son was around 17 months old I sustained a serious injury, discovered I was pregnant, and needed to be hospitalized for about two days. I was given L3 level medications that I was not comfortable nursing my child with, so I did a few days of pumping and dumping. This period took a huge toll on our nursing relationship. We went from about four times a day down to just once a day. And my son's personality altered to being dependent on thumb sucking for comfort. It really broke my heart! Whenever he is stressed or upset he lays on the ground and sucks his thumb. Initially I tried to offer him a boob, but once the milk dried up due to pregnancy hormone changes he rarely took it for comfort.
Fast forward to CL being 24 months and 6 days old - I am still nursing CL once a day before nap time and occasionally for boo boos. It was my plan to make it to just two years, but with baby number two on the way in about a month I am really thinking that CL will be able to do me the hugest favor in the world by helping me through engorgement again. So, tandem nursing here I come! I'm not sure how long I will nurse both children. That's kind of more up to CL in my opinion. I feel like he got a little robbed out of his last six months of nursing, so at this point it is anything goes.
9/8/10
Dragon Con 2010
So, Dragon Con. How can I describe it to those who haven't ever been? It is a weekend long gathering of nerds and geeks and generally weird folks to talk about super heroes, science fiction, comics, gaming, goth culture, British humor, Joss Whedon, Steampunk, Star Wars, Star Trek, young adult literature, Dr. Who, hobbits, and costuming. Your time there is about equally divided between talking about and listening to talks about your favorite books, movies, and TV shows and wandering around gawking (admiringly or critically) at people's costumes, boobs, and sarcastic T-shirts. The panels ranged from the academic (Jungianism in Dollhouse) to the practical (making leather costume armor) to the ridiculous (who would win in a battle between unicorns and zombies?). Basically, it is the most fun thing ever.
Since some of you (bless your hearts) have never been to Dragon Con to see the wonders of it for yourself, I thought I'd give you a little tour through my weekend.
On Thursday afternoon, Aaron, Miranda, and I went down to the Sheraton hotel in downtown Atlanta to get our badges. We stood in line for 4 hours. It made me hate hobbits and Dr. Who and storm troopers and even Jane Austen. It made me hate everything and everyone. Especially Danny, who walked right past our line (for people who had the foresight to preregister) and buy his stupid badge in 15 minutes. Next year, I will remember to procrastinate and generally be a slacker and be rewarded by the universe with a 15 minute line.
This year is the first that Aaron and I have stayed at one of the conference hotels; in the past, we have commuted down each day from Marietta. When we checked into our hotel on Friday, I had the most wonderful feeling of calm because I knew I could escape for a while into cool and quiet anytime I needed a break. I also loved knowing we could stay out late and not worry about driving home.
My first session on Friday was "Young Adult Books You're Gonna Love." It was awesome. My favorite thing about the young adult lit track is that is heavily populated with middle-aged, well-read librarians. Two of these librarians had a power point presentation on books that have recently come out or are due out this year. I left with a huge list of recommendations, including the first book in the new series by Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson books). His new series tackles Egyptian mythology, and being an obsessed fan of Ancient Egypt, I can't wait to read it.
Next, I went to a science talk with Aaron on the beginnings and probable ending of planet Earth, and it was boring in an extreme way. How anyone could make oceans of lava and our Sun's future supernova boring is beyond me, but this guy totally did it. So instead I went to lunch with a group of friends.
After lunch, I attended a panel in the Whedonverse track about Dollhouse. The panel was lame, as was the show. Mostly, they made a lot of excuses for why people didn't like it (it was too intellectual, network TV viewers are all stupid, etc). I did not tell them that the show kind of sucked, except once it was canceled, and then it picked up only because the plot intended for several seasons was the right amount of action for about 5 episodes.
I went from there to my new love, the Brit track, for a panel on British science fiction literature. Apparently, not only are Brits smarter than us, but those who love British stuff are smarter too. The people on the panel were lovely and bright and funny. I hadn't read a lot of what they talked about (I went for the talk about Sherlock Holmes), but I intend to read some H.G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard (who is, coincidentally, a favorite of Amelia Peabody Emerson). Also on my list is C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.
After this I was tired, and that is a lame excuse for missing singing in the Tolkein Elf Choir, I know. I am sure I would have loved it. Instead, I got together with friends and talked over the panels we had attended that day. Aaron and I went off to park the car at a less expensive overnight lot, and after, we drank (read: I drank and Aaron fetched me drinks.) and costume watched.
On Saturday, we slept in. Then I donned my "Jayne Austen Book and Gun Club" outfit (the motto is: Pride and Extreme Prejudice) and headed out to lunch to be admired. Hardly anyone had any idea who I was, but the people who did were REALLY excited. :)
Now in a very literary mood, I went to a session called "The Demonization of Traditional Rhetoric in the Buffyverse." It was a lot of feminist rhetoric, which annoyed me slightly and Aaron a whole lot. He is not so used to navigating around the piles of poo which most academic papers contain. I was able to enjoy the questions the presenter asked, even if her answers weren't my answers. There were some interesting rhetorical moments, particularly in Season 3 of Buffy, which I may think about more. Maybe next year, I could present an academic, peer-reviewed paper (which this was) at Dragon Con.
Next I went to a wonderful dramatization of the part of The Lord of the Rings where the hobbits encounter Tom Bombadil and Goldberry presented by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. The man who read Bombadil had an awesome white beard and sang the songs with a lovely tenor voice. My only criticism was that it was too short. I wanted more, more, more.
My next two panels were in the young adult track. The first was on how young adult literature might be adversely affecting young girls' ideas about love. It was basically a wonderful bitch session about how Edward Cullen (from Twilight) is a big ole stalker and how we hoped girls weren't thinking it's okay for their boyfriends to disable their cars so that they can't see their friends or watch them while they sleep without their permission. I made the point that our society was rife with bad images of love long before Twilight, and we all hoped that girls would read it and like it and move on back into reality.
Next was "Freaks and Geeks in the Potterverse," which was a lot of fun. Basically, the panelists and the audience talked about all our favorite outcast characters from Harry Potter. We sang the praises of Luna, Neville, Dobby, Hagrid, Lupin, and Snape. One girl talked about poor freaky Lord Voldemort, and we all thought she was extra weird. It was so appealing to talk over all these characters, mostly, I think, because we can't stand it that the books are over and there will be no more geeky exploits.
After this panel, I went to dinner with friends and admired their costumes. I was so tired (and honestly kind of disappointed cause I wasn't having the fantastic time I had been planning) that I went to bed fairly early while Aaron went out to look at costumes and hang out with our crew.
The next morning, after a long bath, I was feeling much refreshed. I dressed as Dobby the House Elf, knowing I would be going to the Yule Ball (for, as Prof. McGonagall and the organizers of the Ball say, some "well-mannered frivolity").
My first panel on Sunday was the one I had most looked forward to and the best one of the whole Con. It was a discussion of the personal and professional relationship of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. I just loved it. One of the panelists grew up with a man whose father had been in the Inklings group with them, and she had heard many stories about their pub nights and their writing group. There was an academic who researched them, an expert in the mythology of England, and a super excited Tolkein/Lewis fanboy. They talked about the writing group and the men's impact on each other's writing, about Tolkein's part in Lewis's conversion back to Christianity, and about their friendship and its cooling. I learned so much, and now I want to read the book The Inklings.
That session had me bouncing to my next with the characteristic happiness of Dobby. This next session was two academics presenting peer-reviewed papers on Joss Whedon's work. The first was an analysis of the Jungian idea of self-actualization and identity construction in Dollhouse. It was very good, but nothing compared to the next. The scholar showed the clear influence of Satre's existentialist philosophy in Buffy and Angel. The case he made was stellar, and his presentation was clear and interesting. Yay, I thought, Sunday is rockin good.
More literature was to come. The next session, again in the Brit track, was about Shakespeare's influence on British media. The panelists talked about their favorite adaptations, about cross casting (men playing women or women playing men), and about the high quality of the Shakespearean-trained actors in British movies and TV. The audience was half English teachers and half actors, and we had a grand time.
At this point, all my copious amounts of literary energy was expended, so I needed a break to read and rest my mind. I intended to give blood at the Con, partly cause it's a nice thing to do and partly cause you get a rockin good shirt with a glittery red dragon on it. So I took my break waiting for my turn to give blood. It took several hours (lots of people wanted that shirt!), but I hardly noticed the time pass as I explored the tombs of Amarna with Emerson and Peabody. They had to poke me twice (apparently my right arm has no veins of any kind), but I managed to get that shirt.
Next was a filking concert. Filking is when you make up funny songs about geeky topics. I do it all the time in an informal way. At Stoney's Pub, whenever I have had a leetle too much to drink, I play the one chord I know on the guitar (G) and make up crazy songs. At Mini-Con, I did a great one that managed to incorporate the Ground Zero Mosque, circumcision, and the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. This guy's songs were lame, but at least he did know more chords than I do.
Though the concert was disappointing, it planted the seed for a fabulous idea. Miranda and I are going to do a series of filks to popular hip-hop songs. We have already come up with a line or two of a song about the rings of power set to Beyonce's "Single Ladies." "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Dogg is going to turn into a song about Harry Potter, Quiditch, and "sippin on butterbeer." When we make fabulous music videos with hobbits and wizards and men in Utilikilts as our "flyguys," we'll let you know where you can watch them.
We left the concert super early, as it sucked, and went to the Yule Ball, which turned out to be the best thing ever. On the way, I ran into Ben Franklin! I shrieked and ran to get my picture with him. I actually shouted, swear to God, "Ben Franklin! Founder of our Country! Can I get your picture?" He seemed to be surprised that I was shouting at him and not at a girl dressed as slutty Iron Man with her boobs hanging out, and he was super nice. We even discussed Franklin's inventions for a minute.
Once we got to the Yule Ball, I got a glass of wine. We milled around, looking at costumes. There was a Luna Lovegood with a huge lion's head on her hat, tons of Snapes, Bellatrixes (or should it be Bellatrices?), a man dressed as a wanted poster for Sirius Black, and a fantastic Delores Umbrage. My highlight was getting my picture taken with the entire Malfoy family stomping on me and kicking me (I was dressed as Dobby, as I hope you recall). The Potter fans are a rowdy bunch, and we danced and danced to all kinds of 80s music. I also got my picture taken with Albus Dumbledore, which felt like a solemn moment for real, even though I knew it wasn't really him.
Afterwards I fell into bed, thinking of how Sunday was the best day in the world.
Monday, things were mostly over. I went to one session about the Angel episode "Orpheus," but none of our hearts were in it, not even the panelists. Dragon Con just felt kind of done. We went out to dinner with a group of friends to debrief the whole Con experience.
So, wanna come next year? You know you do.
Since some of you (bless your hearts) have never been to Dragon Con to see the wonders of it for yourself, I thought I'd give you a little tour through my weekend.
On Thursday afternoon, Aaron, Miranda, and I went down to the Sheraton hotel in downtown Atlanta to get our badges. We stood in line for 4 hours. It made me hate hobbits and Dr. Who and storm troopers and even Jane Austen. It made me hate everything and everyone. Especially Danny, who walked right past our line (for people who had the foresight to preregister) and buy his stupid badge in 15 minutes. Next year, I will remember to procrastinate and generally be a slacker and be rewarded by the universe with a 15 minute line.
This year is the first that Aaron and I have stayed at one of the conference hotels; in the past, we have commuted down each day from Marietta. When we checked into our hotel on Friday, I had the most wonderful feeling of calm because I knew I could escape for a while into cool and quiet anytime I needed a break. I also loved knowing we could stay out late and not worry about driving home.
My first session on Friday was "Young Adult Books You're Gonna Love." It was awesome. My favorite thing about the young adult lit track is that is heavily populated with middle-aged, well-read librarians. Two of these librarians had a power point presentation on books that have recently come out or are due out this year. I left with a huge list of recommendations, including the first book in the new series by Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson books). His new series tackles Egyptian mythology, and being an obsessed fan of Ancient Egypt, I can't wait to read it.
Next, I went to a science talk with Aaron on the beginnings and probable ending of planet Earth, and it was boring in an extreme way. How anyone could make oceans of lava and our Sun's future supernova boring is beyond me, but this guy totally did it. So instead I went to lunch with a group of friends.
After lunch, I attended a panel in the Whedonverse track about Dollhouse. The panel was lame, as was the show. Mostly, they made a lot of excuses for why people didn't like it (it was too intellectual, network TV viewers are all stupid, etc). I did not tell them that the show kind of sucked, except once it was canceled, and then it picked up only because the plot intended for several seasons was the right amount of action for about 5 episodes.
I went from there to my new love, the Brit track, for a panel on British science fiction literature. Apparently, not only are Brits smarter than us, but those who love British stuff are smarter too. The people on the panel were lovely and bright and funny. I hadn't read a lot of what they talked about (I went for the talk about Sherlock Holmes), but I intend to read some H.G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard (who is, coincidentally, a favorite of Amelia Peabody Emerson). Also on my list is C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.
After this I was tired, and that is a lame excuse for missing singing in the Tolkein Elf Choir, I know. I am sure I would have loved it. Instead, I got together with friends and talked over the panels we had attended that day. Aaron and I went off to park the car at a less expensive overnight lot, and after, we drank (read: I drank and Aaron fetched me drinks.) and costume watched.
On Saturday, we slept in. Then I donned my "Jayne Austen Book and Gun Club" outfit (the motto is: Pride and Extreme Prejudice) and headed out to lunch to be admired. Hardly anyone had any idea who I was, but the people who did were REALLY excited. :)
Now in a very literary mood, I went to a session called "The Demonization of Traditional Rhetoric in the Buffyverse." It was a lot of feminist rhetoric, which annoyed me slightly and Aaron a whole lot. He is not so used to navigating around the piles of poo which most academic papers contain. I was able to enjoy the questions the presenter asked, even if her answers weren't my answers. There were some interesting rhetorical moments, particularly in Season 3 of Buffy, which I may think about more. Maybe next year, I could present an academic, peer-reviewed paper (which this was) at Dragon Con.
Next I went to a wonderful dramatization of the part of The Lord of the Rings where the hobbits encounter Tom Bombadil and Goldberry presented by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. The man who read Bombadil had an awesome white beard and sang the songs with a lovely tenor voice. My only criticism was that it was too short. I wanted more, more, more.
My next two panels were in the young adult track. The first was on how young adult literature might be adversely affecting young girls' ideas about love. It was basically a wonderful bitch session about how Edward Cullen (from Twilight) is a big ole stalker and how we hoped girls weren't thinking it's okay for their boyfriends to disable their cars so that they can't see their friends or watch them while they sleep without their permission. I made the point that our society was rife with bad images of love long before Twilight, and we all hoped that girls would read it and like it and move on back into reality.
Next was "Freaks and Geeks in the Potterverse," which was a lot of fun. Basically, the panelists and the audience talked about all our favorite outcast characters from Harry Potter. We sang the praises of Luna, Neville, Dobby, Hagrid, Lupin, and Snape. One girl talked about poor freaky Lord Voldemort, and we all thought she was extra weird. It was so appealing to talk over all these characters, mostly, I think, because we can't stand it that the books are over and there will be no more geeky exploits.
After this panel, I went to dinner with friends and admired their costumes. I was so tired (and honestly kind of disappointed cause I wasn't having the fantastic time I had been planning) that I went to bed fairly early while Aaron went out to look at costumes and hang out with our crew.
The next morning, after a long bath, I was feeling much refreshed. I dressed as Dobby the House Elf, knowing I would be going to the Yule Ball (for, as Prof. McGonagall and the organizers of the Ball say, some "well-mannered frivolity").
My first panel on Sunday was the one I had most looked forward to and the best one of the whole Con. It was a discussion of the personal and professional relationship of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. I just loved it. One of the panelists grew up with a man whose father had been in the Inklings group with them, and she had heard many stories about their pub nights and their writing group. There was an academic who researched them, an expert in the mythology of England, and a super excited Tolkein/Lewis fanboy. They talked about the writing group and the men's impact on each other's writing, about Tolkein's part in Lewis's conversion back to Christianity, and about their friendship and its cooling. I learned so much, and now I want to read the book The Inklings.
That session had me bouncing to my next with the characteristic happiness of Dobby. This next session was two academics presenting peer-reviewed papers on Joss Whedon's work. The first was an analysis of the Jungian idea of self-actualization and identity construction in Dollhouse. It was very good, but nothing compared to the next. The scholar showed the clear influence of Satre's existentialist philosophy in Buffy and Angel. The case he made was stellar, and his presentation was clear and interesting. Yay, I thought, Sunday is rockin good.
More literature was to come. The next session, again in the Brit track, was about Shakespeare's influence on British media. The panelists talked about their favorite adaptations, about cross casting (men playing women or women playing men), and about the high quality of the Shakespearean-trained actors in British movies and TV. The audience was half English teachers and half actors, and we had a grand time.
At this point, all my copious amounts of literary energy was expended, so I needed a break to read and rest my mind. I intended to give blood at the Con, partly cause it's a nice thing to do and partly cause you get a rockin good shirt with a glittery red dragon on it. So I took my break waiting for my turn to give blood. It took several hours (lots of people wanted that shirt!), but I hardly noticed the time pass as I explored the tombs of Amarna with Emerson and Peabody. They had to poke me twice (apparently my right arm has no veins of any kind), but I managed to get that shirt.
Next was a filking concert. Filking is when you make up funny songs about geeky topics. I do it all the time in an informal way. At Stoney's Pub, whenever I have had a leetle too much to drink, I play the one chord I know on the guitar (G) and make up crazy songs. At Mini-Con, I did a great one that managed to incorporate the Ground Zero Mosque, circumcision, and the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. This guy's songs were lame, but at least he did know more chords than I do.
Though the concert was disappointing, it planted the seed for a fabulous idea. Miranda and I are going to do a series of filks to popular hip-hop songs. We have already come up with a line or two of a song about the rings of power set to Beyonce's "Single Ladies." "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Dogg is going to turn into a song about Harry Potter, Quiditch, and "sippin on butterbeer." When we make fabulous music videos with hobbits and wizards and men in Utilikilts as our "flyguys," we'll let you know where you can watch them.
We left the concert super early, as it sucked, and went to the Yule Ball, which turned out to be the best thing ever. On the way, I ran into Ben Franklin! I shrieked and ran to get my picture with him. I actually shouted, swear to God, "Ben Franklin! Founder of our Country! Can I get your picture?" He seemed to be surprised that I was shouting at him and not at a girl dressed as slutty Iron Man with her boobs hanging out, and he was super nice. We even discussed Franklin's inventions for a minute.
Once we got to the Yule Ball, I got a glass of wine. We milled around, looking at costumes. There was a Luna Lovegood with a huge lion's head on her hat, tons of Snapes, Bellatrixes (or should it be Bellatrices?), a man dressed as a wanted poster for Sirius Black, and a fantastic Delores Umbrage. My highlight was getting my picture taken with the entire Malfoy family stomping on me and kicking me (I was dressed as Dobby, as I hope you recall). The Potter fans are a rowdy bunch, and we danced and danced to all kinds of 80s music. I also got my picture taken with Albus Dumbledore, which felt like a solemn moment for real, even though I knew it wasn't really him.
Afterwards I fell into bed, thinking of how Sunday was the best day in the world.
Monday, things were mostly over. I went to one session about the Angel episode "Orpheus," but none of our hearts were in it, not even the panelists. Dragon Con just felt kind of done. We went out to dinner with a group of friends to debrief the whole Con experience.
So, wanna come next year? You know you do.
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