Letting go

There is a dried yellow rose on my dashboard. It is from my grandmother's casket. On the drive home, it perfumed my car, while the sun dried it to perfection. I need to get a box to keep it in, because it's time to put it away.

Time to let go.

I did not have the best relationship with my grandmother. She could say things, unthinking or not, that cut to the bone. And did, often. At least to me, and to my mother. I've heard anecdotal evidence that we were not the only victims of her sharp tongue. On multiple occasions in his life, I heard my grandfather tell her to shut up -- necessarily so.

Yet so many people have good memories of her. She was kind to them. Generous with her time and her money. And, honestly, she was kind to me. She never doted on me the way my kids' grandparents dote on them, no. But she never missed my birthday, or Christmas. Her efforts to give me gifts as a child were often misguided, but she did try. She also gave my children generous gifts. One of her last acts was to send my mother a birthday card.

I want to hang on to the good things she did. Holding a grudge against her for the things she said to me makes my stomach hurt. I do not want my last memories of her to be bad ones. So I have deleted the last email she sent. Soon, I will put away the last card she sent, and this beautiful flower that does nothing but remind me of seeing her body in that coffin.

I did not respond to either the email or the card. For that, I am sorry. She was so lonely. But I could not for the life of me come up with a nice way to respond to the harsh messages they contained. So I put it off. Too long.

I did not want to respond in kind. Because I suspect we were more alike than she ever dreamed. I see a resemblance in her personality, my father's, and mine. A tendency to say things that aren't intended to be hurtful, but sometimes come out that way. A blunt, duty-oriented approach to life. A preoccupation with things being fair that leads to incessant comparison (I have since abandoned the concept of fair, but I used to share this obsession, so I get it). We may not have been peas in a pod, but we were certainly cut from the same bolt of cloth.

I know that my words and actions are sometimes misconstrued to be hurtful when I intended nothing of the sort. I know my father loves me and wants what is best for me, even if that doesn't always come across in his words and actions. Is it so far-fetched that my grandmother may have felt the same?

It's what I choose to believe, anyway. I like us both better this way.

So I am letting go. Of the hurt. Of the resentment. Of the guilt. Of the might-have-beens. Of her.

Goodbye, Gran. I love you. Rest in peace.

Rebuilding my supply

My milk supply really took a hit while we were in IL. My normal galactagogue schedule looks like this:

• 5ish cups of Mother's Milk tea throughout the day
• Morning oatmeal (2 servings) with 1 T of flax seed meal and 1 T of nutritional yeast
• Cheerios or oat bread for lunch
• Almonds for snacks
• 5 fenugreek capsules at breakfast, lunch, and bedtime
• 2 T brewer's yeast if needed

Our local store was out of fenugreek before we left, so while I was gone, my routine dwindled to

• 3ish cups of Mother's Milk tea throughout the day
• Morning oatmeal (1-1.5 servings) with sliced almonds on top

I came home making dribbles where I used to make spurts. I have never had an oversupply, but I can (with help) make enough to fill Kai's belly. After a few nights of nonstop nursing, though, I realized I needed to step up my game. So brewer's yeast is back on the menu for a while.

Man, I hate this stuff. Tastes godawful, and gives me a hangover to boot. (All of the headache, queasiness, and gas of drinking beer, without the buzz! What's not to love?) I see now why women put it in sugary cookies. But I am slowly (slowly) losing weight, and don't want to mess that up by adding insanely caloric cookies to my daily ritual.

So I will deal. And hope that my boobs get back to normal soon.

Do all the things!

Though my projects this month haven't necessarily been creative, and I have had damn good reasons for not accomplishing all I set out to do, I still feel like this right now:

I haven't been able to keep up with my webcomics, but I still heart Toothpaste for Dinner.

That green bit? That's this week. I have probably doomed us to fail with my overplanning, in fact. But sometimes, things go right. So here is the agenda:

• Tuesday: Hair cuts (though no color...I will just have to be sparkly rooted in our family pics) for Anya and I, also a quick shopping trip 
• Wednesday: Corn maze if it's not too muddy; pumpkin carving if it is
• Thursday: Flu vacs for the kids; family pics
• Friday: Corn maze if Wednesday was too muddy and the kids don't feel yucky; pumpkin carving otherwise
• Saturday: Cleaning; shopping for Poppy's birthday present; trick or treat; Halloween festival

Also, somewhere in there I will put in a few hours of editing for one of my clients. In addition, I will be starting my day job an hour early and taking short lunches to make up time for Monday's visit with Kai (I thought he might have an ear infection, but was just being paranoid :) and Thursday's shots.

So yoga might not be happening this week, either. I will have to work on that in November.

And the meditation. I only managed to squeeze in a couple of sessions all month.

I have kept the house relatively clean, though. And kept up with the blogging. I also may very well meet my (modest) step goal. Not all of the plates hit the floor. Just...most of them.

So this week will be crazy. And for what I do not accomplish, there is always next month.

Another cop-out post

Fair warning: This week may be full of 'em. And not just because I am in deep emotional denial about the past week.

So you don't leave empty handed, here's a cute pic of Kai flirting with his reflection at the doctor's office today.

They had quite the conversation.

Also, a fun tip: You can calm a restless baby, and keep a napping one asleep, with the smell of Mom. I am currently dashing this off while he naps clutching a sock damped with mama milk.

The things you do as a parent.

I meant to write a blog post this weekend

But life happened. I did bake some mini pumpkin pies, though.

I think whole pies would be less trouble, though these sure are cute.

Kai's first road trip

(I have things to say about my grandmother, but I am not ready to deal with them yet. Later.)

Something that kind of got lost in the shuffle was that this was Kai's first road trip. And I think he dealt with it beautifully. Certainly better than Anya on her first trip.

He was quite the hugabug, as you can see.

He slept the whole way up, only waking when we stopped. His appetite was amazing; I'd brought pouch foods for convenience, though he'd never had them and isn't that big of a solids eater, because he tends to get jealous if we're eating and he's not. Kiddo chowed down; he went through almost everything I brought! Which is good, because without my usual galactagogue ritual, I was a little low on milk.

Where's my plate?

He also dealt well with being fawned over and held by strangers. He can be a little shy, but so long as I stayed close, he went to whoever wanted to hold him. Nor did he cry during the funeral; he started babbling just as the preacher started talking, but that was just to let me know he wanted to go upstairs to nurse and nap.

It was kind of a common theme.

After the funeral, we took the kids to the park; it was a beautiful fall day. Anya got to run some of her wiggles off, Mom caught up with an old friend, and I got to introduce Kai to one of my favorite places to play as a kid.

He's not sure about the merry-go-round.

I thought the hotel room would be an issue, with its lack of babyproofing, Netflix, and a bathtub, but he seemed to enjoy the stay.

He really enjoyed bathing in the sink!

He didn't think much of the couch, apparently; he spit up on that thing three times in the first half-hour we were there. Luckily, it doesn't appear to have caused lasting damage.

Dear Hampton Inn: There is something about your couch that makes my son puke. My apologies. It looks like a perfectly nice couch to me.

— Nicole (@nmb74) October 20, 2015

The only part of the trip that was unpleasant for him, in fact, was the drive home; he was having teething pains and wanted to be held, which of course was not possible. But even then, the fussing was not unbearable; he would cry softly for a bit, then nod off until the next stop.

Obviously he enjoyed the stops themselves.

 R remarked when we got home that it had been a really good trip. And it was. The circumstances were not ideal, but we had a nice visit, great weather, good food, and a lot of fun. Not bad at all for Kai's first trip. I hope the rest of them go this well!

Once again, I overestimated myself

Or perhaps I simply underestimated how tiring having kids is. I'd meant to write a blog entry when we got back from Illinois last night. Instead, I showered, settled into bed to nurse Kai and watch Reading Rainbow with Anya, and passed out cold. Nor did I manage to get up early this morning; I got up just in time to make a cuppa and start work.

Mea culpa. I'll do better next week.