where's Jack?

Packed up Boo bright and early this morning and set off to visit my friend Jack. It's his birthday on Monday. 89th, I think. I wanted to wish him well. Drove Northbound on one freeway, merged onto another for a Northeasterly jaunt, then looped back Westbound on yet another. Finally, Exit 7. Straight a few miles, left on 78th, right on 28th, up the hill, left into the parking lot. Through the front door, down the hallway, up to the second floor, past the nurse's station, down another hallway, to Room 209. Empty. Room 209 was empty and my heart sank. Had he left us? I found a nurse and told her I was looking for my friend Jack. Oh, they moved him closer to home. Two days ago. I guess I should have called first. It would have ruined the surprise though. At least I have his stepson's number. I left a message with him. Hopefully he'll let me know where to find him.

Friday Show and Tell

...and Blackbird says... Show us your front porch.

Alas, my front porch is not so pretty. Not so inviting (but it doesn't seem to deter the friendly Mormon missionary boys and the nice Jehovah's Witness ladies, who all keep returning, again and again...)








On my front porch is an assortment of withering plants and a few empty pots (whose contents have recently met their demise and been sent to the afterlife -- compost heaven).

Note to self. Must water plants.






There is one thing of beauty, however. This glorious green! Such a lovely coleus. Something is nibbling away at it though.





I live in suburbia where nobody knows their neighbors and nobody uses their front porch. People enter and exit their homes via the garage door, so there is little chance of interaction and things on the front porch can easily be forgotten. A level 2 sex offender just moved in a few houses down anyway, so we're even less inclined towards being sociable. Directly across the street from a grade school. How does this happen?

All said, I am thankful that I have a front porch.

and the vocabulary grows

meme

/meem/ n. [coined by analogy with `gene', by RichardDawkins] An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do... ...Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=meme

id•i•o•syn•cra•sy

I've been tagged! (Meme, thanks to Pea Soup)

id•i•o•syn•cra•sy - a structural or behavioural characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. Write down 5 of your own idiosyncrasies, then if you wish, tag 5 people.

1. I can't seem to find a watch that will keep time when I wear it. I've had quartz watches and they run slow, even with new batteries. I've recently upgraded to a watch with an automatic movement, which ran fine for a while, but is now running fast. Maybe it's because I don't buy expensive watches, but I'm afraid to invest in one, just in case.
2. Coffee and Tea OCD - The color is of utmost importance, as is the brew! It must be rich and strong. Coffee with non-dairy creamer and no sweetener; tea with dairy creamer, preferably evaporated milk, and two sugars (but I can drink it without, if necessary --I had to, when I had gestational diabetes, and I survived). Both must be whitened to that gorgeous caramel color. Of course, the level in the cup matters as well. No more than 1 cm from the rim!! And don't forget the cup! Medium size with a thin lip - no big thick dribbly ceramics/porcelains!! (I could go on - this probably doesn't count as one idiosyncrasy!!!)
3. I can't stand to have hair in my face. Bangs are okay, as long as they're not in my eyes.
4. Everything in its place, and a place for everything (more OCD). I like the dishes and pots/pans to have a stable home so that I know exactly where they are when I go to use them. When my mom visited for a few weeks, she helped out alot, and put things away, but not in the right place. When she left, I put everything back where it belonged. I like order in the dishwasher as well. Forks in one compartment, big spoons in one, small spoons in one, etc. (When it's time to put them away, this minimizes the amount of handling, thus promoting a more sanitary environment.) I can justify all my OCD!
5. I like to eat things one color or item at a time, even if the dish is a mix, like a salad or a stir fry. I'll eat just the green things, then start on the red things, etc. or if the meal isn't a mix, I'll still tend to eat things one at a time, usually starting with the veggies. Shrimp fettucine? I'll eat all the shrimp first, then the pasta. I generally finish my plate (and it shows).

Sadly, I don't know 5 bloggers well enough to tag them. If I were more brave, I'd pick 5 randomly. If somebody visits my blog and reads this, and hasn't already been tagged, consider yourself tagged! (That's as brave as I am at the moment.)

Mr. Squished Piggy has his own funny beverage idiosyncrasies. He won't drink Coke unless it's with ice, but he will drink Pepsi from a can or a bottle. He prefers soda with ice, and when we're home, he wants the ice to first be rinsed with cold water until it's done cracking and popping and then he likes the soda added slowly to the freshly rinsed (and drained) ice. He claims that there's less foam and that this prolongs the carbonation. We are so well suited to each other in some ways!!

Where Does the Day Go?

I took Boo to his daycare this morning and he broke my heart because he started crying the most heart-wrenching cry when he realized I was dropping him off again. I'm working from home today, which is wonderful, but I just can't get my work done and give him the attention he needs, so off to daycare he goes.

It's such a beautiful day that I decided to try and set up my laptop outside on the patio, so I could get some of the cool morning air. In the process of unplugging the power cord, I managed to shock myself, which shook me up quite a bit. I realized how easy it is to compromise one's life. It only takes a twinkling of an eye and life can drastically change. I must be more careful. And I must baby proof my house SOON. All that drama and the traffic was too noisy for me to concentrate, and the cool morning was quickly replaced by stifling heat, so back in the house I went. Now the day is over and I'm off to collect my precious Boo, and I feel anxious that I'm surrounded by things to do that I haven't done. I must learn to let it slide and not worry about it.

Can't wait to see my beautiful boy!!

Self Portrait Tuesday

I like the things one can do with graphics software. This is a paintbrush effect. Boo is snuggled against me in a mei tai wrap, also called an Asian Baby Carrier (ABC), which I made using this pattern and some gorgeous blue batik fabric. I love batiks!

the sun rises on a brand new day

I've recovered from yesterday's pity-party-of-one. On a somewhat good note, Buggaboo's strawberry broke open again this afternoon, but barely bled at all. When I saw the first trickle I jumped for a towel, but it only bled a few drops, and re-clotted on its own. Maybe it will heal swiftly now. Fingers are crossed.

Drained

What a day. The strawberry broke. I wasn't prepared for the sight of so much blood. I knew there would be blood, but how can it not be a shock to look at your baby and see their face completely covered in bright red blood, with more blood streaming steadily, on and on? It bled for nearly TWO HOURS. It completely saturated a 16"x16" microfiber towel. We were on our way to the in-laws for a birthday celebration. I don't know if he rubbed his eyes or rubbed his face against the seat belt shoulder strap. He was asleep and it happened in the blink of an eye. We went to the emergency room. I was distressed that he was gushing so much blood and didn't know what to do, since it wouldn't stop bleeding. It's not a bit like what you see on shows like ER or Gray's Anatomy. It took nearly two hours to see a doctor. The triage nurse saw him in the first 20 minutes, took his weight and blood pressure and told me to keep on putting pressure on it, just as I was already doing. He bled on and on. He fell asleep. Still bleeding. At least he held still better when he was sleeping. He didn't like me holding the towel to his face and kept squirming while he was awake. It stopped bleeding just before the doctor saw him. Diagnosis? Bleeding Hemangioma. Yes, I know. Treatment? Plan A. If it happens again, apply pressure until the bleeding stops. It will eventually heal on its own. Plan B. Anesthetize and Cauterize - inject a needle that close to my baby's eye, to numb the area, then burn him and leave a lifetime scar? We chose Plan A. During last Monday's checkup our doctor had told me that it could break open and it would bleed, and it would probably grow back, and eventually it would diminish and disappear on its own. She just didn't mention how much it would bleed, and what to do if it did. I was expecting something I could put a bandaid on. I did tell Mr. Man that the treatment is to wait it out, that it would eventually heal on its own. He wasn't too impressed with that solution, but in the ER, hearing the doctor pose Plan A and Plan B, he was amenable to Plan A. Go figure. (But I'm glad that he was no longer adamant about more drastic action such as Plan B.)

We made it to the birthday celebration an hour and a half late. We have another new mom in the family. Her little guy is 2 weeks old and she herself is looking fabulous, as though she'd never even been pregnant. She's had no trouble at all nursing. I'm so jealous. Really. The little guy knew just what to do. He latches like a pro and drains her efficiently, in 10-15 minutes. TEN MINUTES! I remember our struggle, where Buggaboo would chew me raw for 30-40 minutes at a time, every two hours, and hardly draw anything out. I'd have to pump afterwards, another 15-20 minutes. Clean up the bottles and get them ready for the next round. 5-10 minutes. Then do it all again. Do the math. I spent over 12 hours a day trying to feed my baby. How I longed to be a breast-feeding mother! I tried SO hard, with nipple shields, a tiny feeding tube along side the nipple, or against my finger. There were so many obstacles. The breasts were too big, which made it difficult to position him. The nipples were too big for his sweet little mouth. He couldn't get a good latch. The milk didn't come in well and he didn't have the patience to try to draw it out, and I just didn't produce enough milk. Maybe it wouldn't have been so emotionally difficult had I not had my heart set on being a breast-feeding mother. And to see this new mom and her little guy sail so smoothly into it! I'm so happy for them, truly, and surprised at my concurrent feelings of jealousy. In the self-pity confines of my mind, my selfish thoughts are why couldn't it have been that easy for me?

I feel drained.

The Strawberry Grows

It is bigger. This distresses me.

Shades of Summer

The lonely peach. Last year we had so many peaches that the branches broke from the tree. It was very sad. I'm surprised that there are any peaches at all this year.
The apricot tree suffered a similar woe, and there are no apricots this year. There were hundreds and hundreds last year, but not a one this year. The tree has to get its oomph back. We have plums though! Two kinds!
I love bamboo. I have four kinds. I love the sound the leaves make when there's a little breeze. They rustle so peacefully.


I have a box of lavender. See the bee?! It's a bedraggled box of lavender, but I love it just the same.

Consider the Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. --Matt 6:28-29

I love lilies!!

I could have sworn I planted Casablanca's though. I wonder if soil ph affects lily color in a similar manner as it affects the hydrangea's color?

the best of all possible worlds

I found this list while going through some stacks of old papers. Sometimes I get way too caught up in my head and if I take a moment to write things out like this, it helps.

If life could be any way I want it to be, how would I want it to be?

• I would want to wake up each morning feeling refreshed after having gotten a good night's sleep
• I would like to have the time to enjoy a nice cup of something hot and soothing, while sitting in the morning sun, breathing in some fresh morning air
• I would like to take a nice morning walk and enjoy the fresh air
• I would like to begin and end the day with a tidy home
• I would like to earn my living by doing something that nourishes my heart and soul, as well as my mind
• I would like to live in a beautiful and peaceful home
• I would like to have the time and the energy to prepare delicious and healhty meals for my family
• I would like to have a happy and healthy family
• I would like to be a good mother
• I would like to have strong, loving and communicative relationships
• I would like to laugh with mirth
• I would like to make somebody smile
• I would like to be content with who I am and how I look
• I would like to have time to play
• I would like to have what I need
• I would like to have a place to put everything, and be able to find anything that I need
• I would like to feel healthy, energetic, and peaceful
• I would like to have no financial anxiety
• I would like to live in a peaceful place
• I would like to live in a place where the air is clean and fresh
• I would like to make it through the day without becoming angry, frustrated, annoyed, hurt, or anxious
• I would like to make it through the day without causing anybody else anger, frustration, annoyance, hurt, or anxiety
• I would like to begin and end the day with no residual resentment in my heart
• I would like to go to sleep at night knowing that I have lived the day thankfully and have honored the gift of life that I have been blessed with.

so much beauty, so little time

I'm new to Blogland and can't help but follow links from here to there and back again. There are so many people out there in Blogland who share their beauty, be it photographs, musings, poems, crafts, paintings -- all manner of creative pursuits. I see lists of what people have been reading, what they've been listening to. All these things blow my mind! Not that my mind is that small, but I am in part inspired by this outpouring of creativity that surrounds me, and in part baffled as to how people possibly find the time! (...Not to mention the inspiration and of course the ability...) I've made a few paintings here and there through the years, and I've taken a few decent photographs. I've written one or two poems that I might not be too embarrassed to publish. I'm merely a dabbler. I have no strong bent to any of these wonderful pursuits, yet I have a yearning. Oh to find my art, she muttered wistfully as her thoughts meandered off to other things.

Confessions of a Costco Addict

I went to Costco yesterday to place an order for a birthday cake, and left the store with three sets of canisters (they were only $9.97 so how could I pass that up?), some tie downs and a cold heat welder gizmo (these are gifts for a brother-in-law), a huge pasta stock pot with a neat draining sieve lid thingy (gift for a sister-in-law) and a set of cookware pour moi. I stopped to admire a nice looking pan and fell victim to the peddler and her sales schpiel. I've been looking for the perfect 'everything' pan, as I'm trying to simplify my life and belongings and equip my kitchen with only the essential things that work perfectly for my cooking needs, but there was such a deal on the complete set package that I took the bait. I parted with quite alot of $$ that day, and have just found an interesting article about this cookware. This site, Cooking for Engineers appeals to my analytic side for sure. I think I've been had. (I must say that the non-stick demo was very impressive, though.) At least it's Costco and I can return it if I decide I can't live with being had, even if I make that decision months, or even a year from now. I still love Costco. I confess.

Self Portrait Tuesday

My dear friend Pea Soup participates in Self Portrait Tuesdays. I think this is a blogworld tradition, but as I am new to blogging, I'm not very certain. I have precious few shots of me and my Buggaboo, mostly because I'm always holding him and taking pictures of him. This was a very difficult pose, holding my camera up and taking a picture of our reflection in a mirror that is propped in my office. Sort of reminds me of the Statue of Liberty. Bring me your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. We spend alot of time here, and I put the mirror there for his fun and enjoyment. He recognized me in the reflection and looked at my reflection intently, then tilted his head back to look up at me, with a puzzled look on his face, then back at the reflection! He kept doing this, wondering, why are there two mamas?! He's SOOOOO darn CUUUUUUUUTE!!!

yep.. uh huh...

She was right. The doctor confirmed it to be a strawberry hemangioma, but not to be worried. It should go away on its own in due course, but we shall keep an eye on it, in case it becomes very large and obstructs vision.

Strawberry Hemangioma

This icky red thing showed up on my face a couple of weeks ago. My mama thought it was a speck of fluff at first, then she thought it was a scab because I have a tendency to scratch myself these days. I try, but my hands just don't go exactly where I want them to. This ugly thing got bigger and bigger.

My mama did some reading and she thinks this is a strawberry hemangioma, but we're going to the doctor tomorrow to find out. I wish it would go away so she would stop worrying.

It's all about the boy

First I scared my mom by kicking and wiggling and nearly getting myself stuck in my bed. It's a comfy bed, but I think I'm getting to be too big for it. It's an Amby hammock, and it's supposed to be good for my development, but honestly, I like to snuggle up next to my mom more than I like to hang out in this comfy hammock.


Later, I took a shower and got all nice and clean. I'm not quite sure what I think of this water business.

Then I got all snuggly buggly before it was time to get dressed.

We went to my mom's company picnic today. It would have been much more exciting if I were a little bit older. It was hot outside and I mostly slept, but I did make sure I urped all over myself and my mommy a few times. When I woke up, I got my picture taken with Daisy Duck (but that picture is still in my daddy's camera). I also got this super cool froggy tattoo. My mama likes froggies, and so do I.

What Does It Mean?

I found this list when I was trying to figure out what the Gulag Archipelago had to do with giant sea turtles (see galactagogue). I don't know what it means, but I found it interesting.

If you have read the whole book, bold it. If you have read part of the book, italicize it. If you own it but haven't gotten around to reading it yet, ** it.
1 The Bible
2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
4 The Koran
5 Arabian Nights
6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
25 Ulysses by James Joyce
26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
29 Candide by Voltaire
30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
31 Analects by Confucius
32 Dubliners by James Joyce
33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69 The Talmud
70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
78 Popol Vuh
79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
80 Satyricon by Petronius
81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
103 Nana by Emile Zola
104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
111 Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
112 The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
113 The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
114 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
115 The Witches of Worm, Zilpha Keatly Snyder

Superstar

Today is a day of note. Today my Buggaboo showed me that he can sit unattended. He's such a superstar!

of zeal and obsession

I can't stop! It's so typical of me. I find interest in something and it consumes my mind so that I spend far too much time engrossed and immersed. I shouldn't be alarmed. I know this too shall pass. Like the time I became interested in baby wearing. It started with a Snugli before Buggaboo was born. Then came the ring sling from eBay. Then the Premaxx, again from eBay. Then the eleven variations of SPOC from Mamatoto's Make Your Own. Then the Mei Tai, or ABC --my favorite. I've made five. First with the Mamatoto Make Your Own instructions. Next on to the internet, where I joined a Yahoo group (traditional-baby-carriers). Found a great site with lots of instructions and finally ended up at Beth's Mei Tai, whose design and instructions I liked the best. Of course I had to modify them for me and my Buggaboo, as we are both above average in girth and dimension, and I can't leave well enough alone anyway, always looking for the ideal, the ultimate, the best of all possible worlds (I'll thank Tartuffe for that last one, from a million or two years ago). I even made new pattern and layout drawings that I've been meaning to send to Beth, but haven't gotten around to it. It's on the list. One of many. I have bound journals filled with lists. Things to Do. My life is lived by the list. I like order in the scheme of things (just a little OCD, not a lot). Sometimes I even finish a list. I find them when I'm going through stacks of this and that, sometimes years, even decades old. It's amazing that although I'd long forgotten the list, so many of its items have come to pass. Marry a good man. Have a healthy baby. Those two took much longer than I'd ever have thought (they weren't 100 percent in the sphere of things I could control). But they happened!! Thanks be to God!

I used to have greyhounds. They are wonderful pets. Who ever would have known? I dived into that world too. Became an advocate and adoption volunteer. A foster hound-mom. I loved those dogs! I can't even say how many coat variations and designs I came up with for them. My brother-in-law used to say they had a bigger wardrobe than he did. (Greyhounds are very lean with short hair and need a little something extra to keep them warm in a cool climate.) The best outfit was the buckskin ensemble, moccassins, fringe, and all. Made from real suede (I chopped up an old coat I found at a thrift store for a couple dollars). Even an Indian (would native American be PC?) headdress with big beautiful wild turkey feathers (from real wild turkeys that used to gobble gobble on property I once had in this fair land). My boy Jet strutted about the houndfest in that (greyhound folk get IN to it, and have meets and festivals -- it's greyt!!), oblivious to most things, and wondering why on earth his hound-mom made him wear such ridiculous things on his feet. Alas, Buggaboo came along and I reached my limit. Sadly, I found myself unable to be the supermom and super hound-mom I wanted to be, so Buggabbo won and I let my beautiful hounds go (happily they were adopted by loving families immediately and didn't even have to spend one night alone in a dark and scary kennel). I still have guilt issues to resolve.

So. Of zeal and obsession. I love to write! It means nothing and goes round and round and ends up nowhere, but I do enjoy the ride.

galactagogue

I love the sound of this word! It makes me think of giant sea turtles. I know why. Phonetic association. We had a radio in our kitchen when I was growing up and my mom used to listen to NPR and the radio reader, Dick Estelle. I recall fragments like “archipelago” and some “g” word. At first I think it must be The Gulag Archipelago, but no, that’s not about giant sea turtles. Maybe Dick Estelle read the Gulag Archipelago on the Radio Reader. That would have taken quite some time. The “g” word must be “Galapagos”. The Galapagos Archipelago has giant sea turtles. I wonder what book that was. It makes me think of James Michener.

Alas, galactagogues have nothing to do with giant sea turtles. A galactagogue is an agent that promotes the secretion and flow of milk. I’m trying to boost my milk supply. Buggaboo started daycare this week and suddenly his formula consumption is up to 12 oz/day and he has a runny nose. He IS teething, so perhaps his immune system is compromised a bit, and he is now exposed to five other wee ones on a daily basis. I want him to have more mother’s milk and less supplementation.

I’ve sported these double-D’s for nearly three decades, and in my time of need when they were called into duty, who would have thought that they wouldn’t produce? My poor hungry Buggaboo. Nursing was a nightmare. He wouldn’t latch properly and got angry that nothing was there anyway. His weight dropped alarmingly and off to the hospital we went. The lactation specialist had me pump and after 30 minutes I had only 28 cc. I opted for a prescription galactagogue –Reglan. It’s not actually a galactagogue by design. That’s just a bonus side effect. I think it’s normally prescribed to reduce nausea in cancer patients. It has other undesirable side effects as well, namely lethargia and depression. Just what a mother needs in those post-partum days. I took it for two weeks. I recall that I couldn’t talk to anybody for two weeks (depression) and I would literally pass out for a little while each night. I know those first few weeks are a blur of crazy mood changes and exhaustion anyway, so don’t know how much of that was exacerbated by the Reglan. It helped with the milk supply though. I still had to supplement, but I was able to produce about 750 cc/day, which is a dramatic improvement from the measly 250 cc I was able to pump prior to that.

I need to make more though! I read up on Fenugreek and started taking it last week. It seems to be the wonder cure for many things. Why didn’t I try this earlier? I might have been able to avoid supplementation altogether. I hope it works for me. I’ve been able to pump around 825 cc/day this week. My Buggaboo eats a lot! He started out at 10 lbs 7 oz, and is now around 25 lbs. He is six months old now, healthy and beautiful. I am very blessed.

Shoogga Boogga Boo

Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
Shoogga Boogga Boo
Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
Tell Me, Who Are You?

Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
Shoogga Boogga Boo
Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
You’re Mama’s Buggaboo!

Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
Shoogga Boogga Boo
Shoogga Boogga Boogga Woogga
Mama Sure Loves You!

Snuggely Buggely Boo

Biggedy Buggedy Buggedy Boo
Snuggely Buggely Boo
Buggedy Biggedy Biggedy Boo
Somebody Loves Her Buggaboo!

Biggedy Buggedy Buggedy Boo
Snuggely Buggely Boo
Buggedy Biggedy Biggedy Boo
Guess Who Loves Her Buggaboo?

Biggedy Buggedy Buggedy Boo
Snuggely Buggely Boo
Buggedy Biggedy Biggedy Boo
Mama Loves Her Buggaboo!

My First Blog

With fear and trembling I venture forth to the land of blogs.