Breastfeeding Working Moms

Today I spent a LOT of time surfing. See, I belong to a yahoo group called bfworkingmoms. bf stands for breastfeeding. Someone posted on the group about a pump called "Whisper Wear," that you can use while driving! I thought, COOL. So I googled it, and again, I ended up somehow on the Lactivist blog. I love this blog. I also love Hathor the Cow Goddess. Makes me feel like my blog is BORING. Lactivist has all these neat links to other blogs, and ads from places she likes. I don't know how to do that, and I can't seem to figure it out. Also, I'm not quite the activist, sort of like the difference between Lucretia Mott, the Quaker minister pre-Civil War, and her rebel-rousing activist contemporaries, like Abby Kelly, who unintentionally incited the violent sentiments that led to the war.

And how do I include my favorite yahoo groups on the side?

I have been back to work as a nurse on an orthopedic/neurological unit since mid-July. Our baby girl has never tasted formula, and she just turned 3 months old. That is thanks to an Ameda Purely Yours breast pump. The hospital has a nice lactation room for employees, but our surgical floor is so busy that I often only get one chance in 8 hours to pump. I have a 45 minute drive to and from work. You aren't supposed to go over 4 hours without pumping. So if it's been 5 hours by the time I get off work, I pump rather than add 45 more minutes. Pumping in the car to and from work would be IDEAL.

Breast milk banks also were of interest due to a post about a new bank, Prolacta. Not that I'd ever pump enough to donate. At the end of the day, I practically have plans to open my own retail store. There aren't many places around other than Toys-R-Us who sell breastfeeding supplies. I'm just trying to figure some way to tie in spinning supplies along with it. I've also been keeping up with the raw milk debate in Ohio, and am thinking if I go back to school, of studying microbiology and trying to come up with ways to lobby for safe raw milk. Our U.S. culture is becoming so, so paranoid about disease control, to a point of being rediculous. They are going to regulate us out of being able to feed ourselves and our children for free.

Last night my husband and I strolled around the county fair with the baby in our Kangaroo Korner sling. That sling was expensive, but was one of the best investments I have made. We bought a $4 apple cobbler a la mode to share, and sat at a picnic table between the apple cobbler booth and the very familiar Ruritan building. I was putting dabs of melting ice cream on baby's lip for her to taste, and she was licking and smiling at this new game - which she liked very much. An old sheep farmer who gives shearing demonstrations, and his wife sat down near us and were enjoying the baby's coos and smiles with her first experience with ice cream. My 14 y/o daughter was off with a friend riding rides.

The animal barns are getting emptier. Most of the goats were meat goats - hardly any dairy ones. There were few 4-H sewing projects, and the ones that were displayed were beginning projects. Times change, but I fear the skills I learned are being lost to future generations. No, this babe will be home schooled. I think I can teach her much more that way. And this time I will breast feed as long as possible.

Farming and Calories

How many calories does it take to shear a sheep?

I haven't shorn any sheep lately. My mother invited me to be an excercise partner on the SELF Magazine website. It is a joke. I did inspire me to use the eliptical for 30 minutes tonight, but do they really think I'm going to log on to their website and record my entire day's diet every day? I don't think so!

I'd be better off keeping a food diary and looking up calories myself on paper.

Pete, the dog, killed 2 more chickens last night. I had a taker for him a few months ago, but last minute, my husband decided HE wanted to keep the dog.

I'm thinking of starting another blog keeping track of my health. Just for the fun of it over time. I've had this blog a long time, and nobody reads it. It's boring. IF I'm going to take the time to publish a blog it should be useful to at least me for something other than a rant site.

Today was the high school football game. It is my daughter's second year in marching band. I worked in the concession stand for the band boosters, so I still have not seen her play in a half-time show yet. My husband babysat. Tonight I sat for a long, long time, holding my baby daughter while I watched "The Fellowship of the Ring" one more time with my 14 y/o daughter. The baby is so beautiful.

Something spiritual is closing in on me; expecting something out of me. It feels urgent. I've been getting feelings lately like I had before 9/11 - like something really horrible is either happening or is about to happen. I know the news says an attack was diverted, but I feel something imminent like then. When I feel this way, I want to distract myself. Excercising is good. I will keep my own diary without the aid of a website that doesn't include calories of Hershey's Kisses.

Do You Remember?

A wonder, that last post. I had a baby the next morning. It was an ordeal I'll not go into right now, but I wish I'd had her at home after all was said and done.

What a life it's become...working as a nurse, pumping breast milk for my baby during breaks; a 19 year old in Phoenix going to college, a 16 year old starting his senior year in high school, but going to college in post secondary option and a 14 year old daughter in marching band for a high school whose football team usually goes well into the play-offs. Tomorrow is a game. The leaves are ever so slightly beginning to turn.

The farm is going to pot. Our finances are shot. Chickens pooping on the porch, no chickenhouse yet, matted dogs, and do I care? Yes, I care, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Not today. I keep getting flea bites, but we don't have animals in the house. On my belly, or my back, or groin. Why are there fleas in my clothes? Where are they coming from?

I picked up a paper at a booth at the Ohio State Fair on selling black walnuts. We usually have loads of them. I got home and looked up into the trees, and this year there are hardly any! What goes with the walnuts? No matter what enterprise I take, something happens where it doesn't work for me, somehow. Then, I found a tree that had a lot of walnuts on it. Maybe the trees go through cycles.

Tropical storm Earnesto is coming through the Ohio Valley, making it chilly. So the billy goats have begun to stink and breed. They do that when the temperature first drops in August. We will have to take some to the sale barn. We have too many goats now. We may also take some to the packer.

This sweet little baby girl sitting on my lap, warm and heavy and asleep - she is every bit worth a year of sliding behind all I'd "like" to do. She says, "Eah." That means, "I'm hungry." She has the prettiest, sweetest smile. So worth things going to pot for a little while.

I don't remember the 5th of September. I wasn't born yet. My birthday is in October.