Thursday Ramblings

Silence. Oh how I love it. Long for it. Cherish it. The girls are in bed. Olivia went right down. No asking for more water in her cup, no asking me to read "two more pages" in her book. Yes!

Matt is at a business dinner. My steaming cup of frothy cappuccino sits in front of me. Little bits of raw sugar sitting on top. How I love the sweet crunch as I sip off the froth and get to the rich, hot, milky coffee. I'm beginning to like my cappuccino and coffee stronger and stronger. It occurs to me that I used to hate coffee. I don't think I started drinking it until my early twenties. Usually the flavored variety. Over time that has changed and since living here, I've even just begun to appreciate an espresso. I now have an Italian stove top espresso maker and an Italian stove top cappuccino maker. I also now prefer my American coffee made in a french press versus a drip. In fact, I've put my electric drip coffee maker away in a cabinet.

Today is Thursday. I love Thursdays. Our housekeeper comes on Thursday. Thursday is the day of the week I start from clean. I get inspired to cook and do more with my kids. Hey, I can do more because for four hours, someone is cleaning my house. Usually, Louisa will get me moving a little bit when she arrives and I'll throw in a load of laundry, organize a few things here or there and then spend time with the girls. If you're new to our blog, we don't spend much on Louisa. By American standards, she's very inexpensive. I don't know what I'll do without her when we move back to the US. She really spoils me. Even if Lila chucks her lunch on the floor a minute after Louisa has walked out the door and Oilvia then takes out ten dolls and lines them up on the floor and proceeds to pull out ten blankets and various doll accessories...I mean she's still worth it, right?

After breakfast, the girls and I colored (read Lila pounded crayons on the paper and then quickly threw them on the floor and said, "uh oh!"). Later, I read a few books to Olivia while Lila followed Louisa around. Then I browsed recipes I've been meaning to try out. Today, I baked a pasta dish I found in Rachael Ray's magazine. You can find it here. An interesting dish that came out well. I was missing the right amount of cream and cheese. I used homemade bread that I had just taken out of the oven (recipe asks for day-old bread) and left out the peas because Matt doesn't like them. It came out well. Though, it really could have used more cream and cheese if I had had it. I'd make it again. I love dishes that require 10 or less ingredients and come together relatively quickly and easily.

I was so ahead of everything today. I had much of dinner prepared well in advance. I had a snack ready for Olivia before she got up from her nap. Usually, she screams for one before I've even had a chance to think about it. I mean, the poor kid is nearly three and is still well under 30lbs. I'd be hungry all the time too if I was that thin. Her metabolism is like mine when I was young. I could eat anything and lots of it and still be underweight (According to the doctor. I always thought my butt looked big). That is, of course, until I hit 21 or 22. It was around then that my metabolism started to hit the sh*ter and it's been downhill from there. Having two kids in less than two years didn't do a thing to help it.

Anyway, I digress. I should always have snacks prepared ahead of time knowing that she's going to want to eat as soon as she gets up. However, for some reason, it comes as a shock to me when she wakes up and asks for a snack before she's even pushed the blankets off and sat up. When she figures out that I don't have that in the immediate plan, she panics, acts like she's going to starve to death any second and a tantrum ensues. Wasn't an issue today. I made stove-top popcorn and had fruit out an hour before she even got up. Popcorn is her new favorite snack. So, she perked right up when I told her that popcorn was ready downstairs. It put her in a great mood the rest of the day. I need to take note of today's snack preparedness.

It's been warm and sunny the past couple of days. Is spring in the air? Will the humidity and rain come to an end? Or was this just a tease? Hopefully, it'll last though the weekend so we can go on a hike up in Sintra...

The Business of Being Born

This weeks Mothering Magazine newsletter guided me to an interview with Ricki Lake on her new documentary, The Business of Being Born.

Fourteen-months ago, I experienced the most empowering event in my life: Lila's waterbirth.

While Olivia's birth was moving to some degree, of course, nothing really about it was empowering. The epidural stopped my labor, I was given pitocin, I had to lay in bed on my back or side, therefore, unable to use gravity to help further dilation and progress of decent, my labor dragged on and on. There was a threat of a c-section because the pitocin wasn't working, and so on. So, when Olivia was finally born, I was swollen from IV fluids, and numb. The pitocin and epidural stopped my body's rush of "love hormones" at delivery and I felt, basically, empty.

Of course, life goes on and I fell in love with my healthy, little blondie. However, I was determined to do it MY way the second time around. I researched even more, hired a doula and learned that I, ME, MYSELF am in charge of my labor and delivery. No one will tell me to lay down if I don't want to (unless I have an epidural, in which you have no choice), no one will tell me I need an IV, no one will tell me I need pitocin after she's born and no one will cut the cord immediately after she's born. I consulted endlessly with my midwife and doula and stayed away from OB's who, most often, take a very medical approach to the birth process. I learned that labor and delivery is a normal event, not a medical one (in most cases - not talking about very high risk or rare, sudden emergencies).

There are no words to describe an unmedicated birth. For me, it was so different than an epidural birth. It cannot even be compared. The rush I felt at delivery, the feelings of absolute empowerment and feelings of elation that lasted several days. It changed me immediately. When we get pregnant with our next child, we're planning a homebirth - that's how confident my last birth made me feel about my body and the power I have to give birth normally.

I'm not dismissing mothers who had or desire an epidural as weak or wrong (obviously, I had one). I'm only encouraging mothers to look at all their options, inform themselves thoroughly about normal birth and decide for themselves what road they think is best for them.

I'm just an ordinary mother. I'm not a midwife, doula, nurse or OB. Maybe it's not my place to be going around giving unsolicited advice. But, i's my blog and this documentary excites me. While I know that an unplanned natural birth can be traumatic for a mentally unprepared mother, it is my desire to see every woman completely inform herself on all aspects of birth and delivery.


It is my hope that this documentary and website will be one resource in which women and their families can do that. Please, view the trailer here, go out and see the documentary and browse the website. Hey, you never know, it may change the way you think about birth and guide you in a direction you never imagined. At the very least, it'll educate you about the Business of Being Born.