Experiments in Winter Sowing

A few weeks ago, my mother asked if I wanted to be added to a winter sowing group on social media, and I said yes, eager to learn whatever I can about vegetable gardening in general.  We've recently moved to a more rural location, and I've been excited and enthusiastic about learning (finally) to garden and preserve.  The fact that the house came with a few tomato plants and a tangled cluster of Concord grapes thrilled me to no end, and resulted in a few extra salad toppings and low-cost jars of jelly.

Winter sowing appeals to me because I'm often hanging around in the winter, bored, indoors, without much to do, and filling containers with soil seems to be at just about the right level of strenuousness for post-holiday-season activity.  I hear that it can toughen up your seeds and make your plants potentially hardier, although I have no anecdotal evidence of this for myself yet.  That's why it's an experiment!

Earlier this week, my organic seeds came in the mail, and I had procured a bag of high-quality potting soil from our local farm store (they're starting to recognize me there from my frequent visits to fawn over their selection of Carhartt apparel).  I found my husband's sloth in not bringing the recycling to the transfer station to be of benefit, as I was able to salvage several empty milk jugs to use as my mini-greenhouses.  My daughter, who is already four, sat with me on the kitchen floor to help me assemble our emerging winter sowing collection and, for the sake of keeping her interest, we began with radish seeds.  

We proceeded to sow red peppers, green beans, cucumbers, carrots, and zucchini, as well.  The little plastic containers were originally going to take up residence on a table near our back porch, until a gust of wind blew two of them off the table.  I hope that they still have their seeds in them.  So now they are hanging out on the back porch, subject to the chilling winds of fate.  We shall see how things unfold, and more seeds will be planted as I gather more containers.

  

New Year, New Me! Kinda.

Earlier this evening, my beloved spouse hollered at us that it was time to go to dinner.  As I mumbled a half-hearted "all right" and urged my little one -- no longer a tiny baby, but a four-year-old, a full-fledged PRESCHOOLER for heaven's sake! -- into the dining room, I found myself struck with inspiration.

The blog!  I'll go back to the blog!  Even though blogs are so 2006, I'll go back to it, and I'll resurrect it with riveting tales of my adventures!

Oh, the enthusiasm that poured forth onto paper, all of my ideas and thoughts and scribbles and head shakings rendered into ink on the back of a watercolor pad!  It was joyous!

Then fear reared its lovely, lovely head again.  

That's all right, though.  My most popular post has 25 viewers.  That's almost a classroom full of students, and a classroom of students is a totally manageable audience!  Here's some of what I'm looking forward to sharing with all of you in my posts this year:

• My mother-in-law got me the most amazing socks for Christmas, but the tags on them were written in a language I do not recognize, possibly of East Asian origin, and I threw away the tags.  How can I tell everyone where to get these socks if I don't know anything else about them?  Well, as you all know from my overuse of Dr. Google, Secret Agent Google, Inspector Google, Google, LICSW, and His Holiness the Dalai Google, I have mad research skills and I WILL get to the bottom of this!
• I just got a box of art stuff from Sketchbox due to an amusing set of circumstances involving the holiday season, shipping, and my forgetfulness.  Is it awesome, or just meh?  I'll tell you all about it!
• Come and laugh along as I tell you my tales of physical prowess!  I promise, it will be fun.  Ever watched a middle-aged woman learn Parkour from the beginning?  Well, at the very least, you will get to read about it.  And by "beginning," I mean, I currently bench about 20 pounds.  As a special bonus, hear about how packing a set of double-D cups and a post-preggo belly impacts the journey (literally and figuratively).
• There will be more Feats of Strength, including my journey toward running a 5K in under 30 minutes, and moving on from there to my first 10K.  Will I be able to complete it without overtraining (from the first time I trained), or without acquiring shin splints that may turn to stress fractures (from the second time I trained)?  It's anyone's guess.
• Speaking of Feats of Strength, my sister has mentioned that she will host our first annual Festivus this year.  THAT will be a story for the books.
• Find out whether or not my experiments in winter sowing will be successful, and if I will uncover the Holy Grail of perpetual produce production.
• How NOT to clean the ashes out of your pellet stove.

Stay tuned!

Blend This! (Green Smoothies, Revisited)

 December

My name is Amy, and I have a pizza problem.  Oh, and a chocolate problem, a coffee problem, and an ice cream problem.

The problem is all of these foods are delicious (I am particularly indiscriminate about pizza), and more of them find their way into my body than is healthy and appropriate.  This became clear over the holidays this past year. 

In December, if I only had myself to think about, I would much prefer to curl up and hibernate a bit.  I'd probably spend a fair amount of time reading, writing, painting, and doing other soothing activities.  Instead, everything gets busy.  There are relatives that I want to visit, celebrations I want to attend, and gifts.  At work, there are projects to wrap up, paperwork to finalize, deadlines to meet, and projects to support students in wrapping up.  There are regular schedule disruptions at both home and work.

Chocolate and coffee were both available in abundance and, as I am fond of saying to my assistant at work, "Amy runs on Dunkin'."  She would respond by bringing out a bag of mini Snickers.  We would laugh, and then I would eat three of them in a row while staring despondently at the stack of science classwork that I'd just received and had no chance of being rendered accessible by third period.  It would then occur to me that it was only 9:10 in the morning.

With this kind of habit, you can imagine how much it might have been affecting my body.  I realized that, after the holidays, I would need a reset.  My old friend, the green smoothie, wandered back into my thoughts.

Contemplative Impulsivity

"Are you going to do the smoothie thing?"  The spouse asked me on January 3, steam rising from the dishes he was rinsing.

I shrugged as I opened the freezer, reached for one of the 15 chocolate products I had received for the holidays, then stopped.  I hadn't been fully aware that I had just grabbed a chocolate bar, but then I suddenly was.  I shoved the chocolate bar back in the freezer and heaved a sigh of martyr-like proportions.

"Yeah," I said.  "I have to do something.  I've felt like crap for over a month."
 
On January 5, I was on to the smoothies.  Twice a day, I had a smoothie and followed it up with protein.  I had forgotten how good they could be.  Spinach and mango and pineapple and coconut.  Kale and blueberry and banana.  There have been pomegranates.  There have been kiwi (and I don't like kiwi).  Oranges and grapefruit, apples and grapes, all a welcome respite from the onslaught of holiday stress.

Every night, I had whatever I wanted for dinner.  Snacks were herbal tea, water, water with lemon and ginger, fruit and veggies if I really needed them.  The chocolate bar in my desk at work taunted me.  The snickers bars...well, they snickered at me.  I ignored them.  I tried to blot out the smell of coffee while I was in the teacher's room.  By day 3, I noticed the hunger pangs between meals had stopped.  I had been fighting off some kind of illness that cleared itself up.  My energy began to return.  I discovered fried brussels sprouts and fell back in love with raw ice cream.    Even my dinners became healthier, as I started to focus more on vegetables and fruit, making sure to include some at dinner.

Diet and Habits

I'm on day 19, and I definitely feel better.  I plan to keep it going until February 5, at which point I will, with any luck, remember to keep on blending.  I don't know if other people are affected this strongly by changes to their diet, but I never fail to be stunned when I realize I've fallen into a pattern of eating unhealthy food, then change back to healthier eating.

The older I become, the more important it is to me to keep track of my energy and my health as best as I can.  This is not always easy, between working full time, caring for my family, and finding time to rest or socialize.  These days, I do not get as much exercise as I would like.  Yet I find that changes to the way I eat impact me quite profoundly.

I think it's important for people to find a way of eating that works well for them, doesn't feel overly restrictive, and helps them feel nourished and energized.  I may fall back into a pattern of eating unhealthy food, but fortunately, I know what to do to get myself back out of that place.  

How Does Life Change Once You Have Kids?

Before I became pregnant with my daughter, I had a lot of questions.  One thing I wanted to get a handle on was how my life would change once I had a child.  Now, I find it funny.  There is no way I could have figured out how my life was going to be after having a kid.  I had no frame of reference.  

If you are thinking about having children yourself, but are afraid of how your life might change, the following is for you.  Here are some of the ways I found that my life changed, and you may find that these are true for you, too. 

1.  Your life will change completely, but not in the ways you might expect.
I can't tell you exactly HOW it will change, but you will have a small, helpless person to whom you will need to attend.  This is a real person, with real needs.  It seems obvious intellectually, but it is a whole different ballgame once you are actually there.  Being a parent is a completely different experience than not being a parent.  I enjoyed not having children, and I also enjoy having a child, and I don't think that one is better than the other.  They both have their strong pros and cons.

2.  For awhile, your life might be unrecognizable.  This is temporary.
Becoming a parent has a way of turning your old roles on their heads.  You will wake up in the middle of the night a lot.  You will probably be doing a lot of laundry and managing a lot of human body wastes.  You might wonder where the "old you" is.  The answer: the "old you" is still there, although changing and evolving.  Your new role as parent will be your top focus for awhile as you learn to integrate it into the other roles in your life.  However, as I discovered recently in taking my first overnight trip away from home since my daughter was born nearly 2 years ago, the other parts will still be there when you are ready and able to focus some attention back on them.

3.  You may become more deeply aware of your mortality.
Many people don't like to think much about their own death.  We all know it's coming sooner or later, but having a child brings your attention to the passing of time in a sharp way.  As you watch your child grow, and marvel over how quickly this happens, you become more acutely aware that time is passing for you, as well.

4.  "Your Life Is Over Once You Have Kids" does not have to be the truth.
I overheard someone say this the week before I gave birth, when I was hugely and obviously pregnant.  A group of attractive younger people were talking with one another over Margaritas and salsa a few tables over from us in the restaurant, and I can only assume I was the impetus for the conversation, given the dearth of pregnant women in the vicinity and the fact that the restaurant TVs were playing NFL games.  They were not quite right in their assertion, however.  Life as you once knew it is over.  It will often take you several hours to do what used to take you one hour (for example, writing a blog post).  Like I said above, your role as parent will take center stage, especially at the beginning, and almost to the exclusion of other things.  Part of being a parent, though, is finding a path that makes you available to your children and ensuring their needs are met while making sure that you maintain your own self-care.  You might not be able to spend hours meditating, or take off for a last minute trip to Europe for three weeks.  However, you will learn how to integrate these parts of your life-before-kids into your life-with-kids.

5.  Certain things bother you less.
It's almost as if something happens and you wind up with a secret decoder in your brain that is able to empathize with kids and parents everywhere.  You start to realize that that child yelling in the produce section is overtired.  Your dealings in the comings and goings of human waste become less loaded with squeamishness: it's still kind of gross to deal with loaded diapers, but it's balanced with a certain perspective, especially if you were the parent who gave birth and went through the labor process.

6.  Speaking of labor...
Yeah, it hurts.  The first few days after birth, you will likely feel like a zombie.  You will be in completely new territory.  This is not the time to try and keep a stiff upper lip and power through alone, nor is it a time to let yourself be pushed around.  Go into pregnancy with a good sense of your limits, but do not be surprised to find out that you change your mind about some things.  The entire process of labor and childbirth is a growth process and a transformational process in and of itself and can lead you to access a sense of self-trust you may not have had before.  Do not underestimate its power, and try not to judge yourself if childbirth doesn't go the way you expected it to, because it probably won't.

7.  You may find your life expanding, rather than contracting.
Related to the myth of your life ending is a common sense that you won't be able to do anything, have a life, or do any of the old, fun things you used to do.  While personal growth isn't a reason in and of itself to have children, the journey of becoming a parent will take your growth in directions you wouldn't have imagined before.  It will inform other areas of your life and shift your perspective.  I have found myself becoming more thoughtful in my words and actions, considering what I want for my child to learn from my example.  It has meant I have had to confront my own fears and weaknesses in order to be a role model for my daughter on how to live well.  You may find your emotional life takes on a whole new texture, as you share in your child's joy and delight in discovering the world.

An Act of Loyalty

"Movement invites attention, asks us to practice devotion to ourselves, not in a self-centered way, but as an act of loyalty.  Instead of abandoning ourselves, we can learn to inhabit ourselves." -- Denise Taylor

While traveling with my sister-in-law to Toronto last week, I had the chance to settle in on the balcony with a book during a few hours' downtime in the afternoon.  The book I had brought with me, Ordinary Magic: Everyday Life As Spiritual Path, is a compilation of writings by a variety of people who talk about various aspects of spirituality and how they are a part of everyday life.  It is an old favorite of mine that I flip through from time to time, and it is loaded with ideas for spiritual practice that are down-to-earth and feel relevant to the way I live my life and walk my path.

As I tend to do when re-approaching an old favorite, I took a deep breath, quieted my mind a bit, and opened the book to a random page, upon which the above quote by Denise Taylor appeared.  I flipped back and started reading the essay, Coming Home to the Body, in its entirety.  I loved what she had to say in her essay, and I wanted to bring out some thoughts I had, specifically about the quote above.

I've done enough spiritual work, met enough people (in person and online), and read (more than) enough books to know that a lot of people who are into personal growth stuff are trying to find the sweet spot between being totally self-sacrificing and being totally self-absorbed.  My observation is that most of us seem to lean toward one of these, or vacillate between the two depending on the context, personal history, and personality characteristics.  One of the things I have observed has to do with concern over being self-centered, especially with people who perhaps lean more toward being self-sacrificial but are feeling frustrated, resentful, used, or unhappy about this tendency.  

Sometimes, the magic is in the wording.  I really like how Denise Taylor talks about devotion to ourselves as "an act of loyalty."  Many of us are familiar with what it's like to be loyal to someone else.  Loyalty is about being on someone's side, about showing our support, our alliance with, our allegiance with someone or something.  I think that there is something to be learned by focusing our loyalty on ourselves and our spiritual lives. 

Learning to be self-loyal can be about being on one's own side.  It is about supporting ourselves, aligning with ourselves, forming an allegiance with ourselves and with a spiritual source of some sort, whether that source is our own basic personhood or a concept of a divine being.  This can be a starting point, perhaps, for people who struggle with befriending themselves and their own experiences.

This may be tricky to interpret, though, because it can be read through a filter that insists that loyalty to ourselves precludes loyalty to others.  This is not the point.  The point that I am trying to make here is that loyalty to ourselves can co-exist with loyalty to others, and that the two ultimately are not mutually exclusive.  When we're loyal to ourselves, we exist in the world as people of inherent worth and value.  We learn about ourselves and know ourselves well enough to be aware of our triggers and weaknesses while not over-focusing on them within the greater context of who we are.  We become real, whole people with quirks, foibles, strengths, and admirable qualities.  We lay off of the judgments, forgive ourselves, and take life a little easier.  This is where some of that "magic" in "Ordinary Magic" might come in.






 

Thoughts on Humor (to Aid the Habitually Uptight)

Have you ever had a time in your life when you weren't entirely conscious of feeling intense amounts of stress until you realized you were having lots of unusual physical pain all of the time?  This happened to me this past spring.  As I finished up the obligations for the end of my first year at my new day job, I became aware of frequent headaches, neck tension, backaches, and exhaustion in general.  I knew the reasons for the pain were stress-related, as many changes in my personal and professional lives have taken place this year.  What I didn't know was how I might address it and bring things back to an equilibrium.  I assumed that finishing up my work obligations and going on vacation would help.  It did only slightly, as other obligations and stressors awaited me outside of work.

Meditation, Yoga, Laughter
In the past few weeks, the stress level has gone down considerably.  I credit this to several things:

1. I've had a consistent daily meditation practice since January, which is -- miracle of miracles -- one of my New Year's Resolutions that I've managed to maintain.  I use what I fondly refer to as the "Tara Brach is Busy" method of meditation: at the very least, no matter what is going on, I sit on the edge of my bed every night and bring my full presence and attention to three deep breaths.  Most days, I do more than this: 10-20 minutes of meditation is typical.  Keeping the commitment this small has kept the goal realistic and attainable, even on a few of the very busiest days I've had this year. (As an aside, if you aren't familiar with Tara Brach's work and enjoy meditation from a Buddhist perspective, please go check out her podcasts here).
2. This spring, as physical symptoms increased, I incorporated a regular yoga practice into my routine.  For this, too, I have a minimum: 5 sun salutations each day for a minimum of 5 days a week.  It helped with removing some of the physical tension and with practicing greater awareness and self-compassion.  I focus on a brief at-home practice using You Tube videos from Yoga with Adriene, so if this sounds interesting, I suggest taking a look here.
3. The third item that helped with stress -- humor, joviality, amusement, fun, delight, jocularity -- was something I discovered that I wasn't fully aware of needing to integrate further into my life.  In retrospect, it seems like biggest-duh-moment-of-my-life obvious.   

   

   How obvious?  THIS Obvious.
   (Photo credit: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Captain_Obvious)

   
   

   
   

   
   

 What helped me to notice this was the process of observing some of the choices I was making and getting curious about why I was making them.  This is when I began noticing patterns.  I chose my yoga videos based on the amusing asides and references that the instructor incorporated into the instruction.  I noticed trying to do funny things to entertain my daughter, or comments I was making to my husband and how delighted he was -- and I was! -- when he laughed.  Also, toward the end of the school year, I made all-too-frequent jokes to anyone who would listen about how much more chocolate or coffee I would need to get through the end of the year.  Printed memes and funny pictures are posted near my desk at work.  As the school year wound down and I realized something needed a shift, I happened to come across an old guilty pleasure of mine, Whose Line Is It Anyway? a show I discovered is back on the air.  While I usually watch maybe five hours of television a month -- and that's a generous estimate, --  I proceeded to plunk myself down for about a week and watch as many episodes as I could cram around my daily obligations, bringing my hubby amusement (because of the uncharacteristic nature of it) and relief (because he realized that I realized that I still have a sense of humor).

Isn't THAT Funny?
Such adventures in humor have been leading me in interesting directions, bringing up questions and beliefs I didn't know I had. This time, the growth is happening in a more lighthearted manner, even as the questions I have are ones I'm asking from a genuine place. 

 I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that real, deep inquiry into the fundamental questions of existence is heavy and not at all a place of levity, but somehow I had.  This was a first little bit of learning (or relearning), the fact that life is just all struggle and hardship if you can't find something to laugh about.  Another bit of learning: if you're on a personal growth path or a spiritual path, there is really no excuse for not having a sense of humor.  It will keep you real, it will keep you relatable, and it will keep you sane.

As I became mindful of what I find funny, I noticed that I find many things amusing or humorous.  I also noticed that I had some self-judgment around what triggers my laughter.  I'm delighted by puns, plays on words, double entendre, clever turns of phrase, wit, and irony.  I'm also pretty fond of crude and sophomoric humor when it is delivered within an appropriate context and with good timing.  While these aren't the only forms of humor I enjoy, they are some of my favorites.   As a part of my coming to terms with humor, I've had to notice and accept those things that I find funny while realizing that others might be judging and rejecting of that, and also to acknowledge that there isn't really a consensus about why we're amused by some things and not others.  In any case, I've been able to use what I find funny as information to fuel my personal growth.

I also began to notice the grounding nature of humor.  Sometimes, I think that when people are big into personal growth work or spirituality, the personality can take charge of making sure you "appear" spiritual and that you're doing spirituality as a performance to other people, as a way to make yourself look "good" and "perfect."  This can be a trap.  I think that if we try to forgo our humanness in the name of spirituality, we can get stuck in using our perfectly decent spiritual practices or personal growth practices as a way to check out of just being a human being.  I may be in the minority here, but I don't think this is ultimately a great thing.  I think that in order to live well, we need to embrace our need for spiritual depth (a term I use very broadly) as well as our need to be fully human.

As time goes on, I'm sure that my attention to the desire for more fun and humor in my life will lead me in directions I don't anticipate.  I already notice myself feeling less do-or-die intensity, and a greater capacity for focusing on what is amusing in a given situation.  It will be interesting to see where it all goes from here.

 

Independence

My first thought when I woke up this morning was, "Hey! I know! I'm going to write about independence!" Here in the United States, it's July 4, Independence Day, so hooray for timeliness and appropriateness.

When I think of Independence Day, I think of fireworks, picnics, crowds of happy people (or drunk people, or both) listening to loud music. I think of camping trips or visits to my father's house to go swimming in the summer. I think of the different celebrations I went to with different relatives.

In recent years, I've thought more about the concept of "independence" as a whole. In my work with students with special needs, one of the major areas of focus is on supporting students with the tools and skills they need to increase their ability to be independent, so as it turns out, independence is a fundamental aspect of my day job. However, I find that questions about dependence, independence, and interdependence seep into areas of my personal life, as well. What does it mean to live in a culture where people pride themselves on independence? Does independence have a "dark side"? If so, what is it? What does it mean as a person to live in an independent way? Well, here are a few of my thoughts on that.

When I was in my professional training program in college, I remember a lab in which we were discussing independence. Our teacher said something that lodged itself into my brain and stayed there: independence is the ability to use a variety of different tools, strategies, and techniques to get us where we want to be, and the freedom to choose among them.

Over the past ten years, this definition has floated into my mind from time to time, mostly when I am trying to decide what approach to take with a particular student in instruction. My tendency is to err on the side of increasing independence, to set up the circumstances so that the student has the opportunity to learn and use different tools and strategies, as well as to practice the decision-making and problem solving skills that necessarily go along with them.

It strikes me how much of independence has to do with an internal process of coming to a conclusion and choosing a course of action. This may be etymologically incorrect, but I think of independence as in-dependence: dependence turned inward, or dependence upon oneself. I don't mean this in a kind of "I can do everything on my own" mentality – which I think is one of the dark sides of independence – but as a reliance upon oneself to make reasonable and appropriate decisions, using the strategies available. This process necessarily includes the option to ask someone else for help or to make the conscious decision to rely upon or depend on someone else.

The last thought I have for now about independence is that this definition can be helpful for people who might have a tendency to rely too much on the opinions of others and who have the tendency to self-censor. If one believes he or she is too dependent upon the opinions or ideas of others – real or imagined – new skills can be learned and new choices can be made. We do not have to imprison ourselves in a limited concept of who we are if we do not choose to. Sometimes making the choice to change and be different is a matter of being willing to learn and practice something new. While this can be uncomfortable, I think the long-term benefits are worth the process of learning, experimenting, adjusting, and learning again.

A Baby in a Crib

A baby -- my daughter -- is lying sideways in her crib, her tiny toes poking out between the wooden slats.  She starts to cry a bit, trying to free them, still groggy from her nap.  As I gently move her across her mattress, her feet wriggle loose.  Fingers, long and slender for a person so small,  circle around a favorite stuffed dinosaur, stuffing the tail into her mouth for teething purposes.  My baby's blue eyes are like flying saucers, exploring an unfamiliar world.

Now she is awake, an orange pacifier in one hand that she shakes so it makes sound, her other hand free to scratch at the Winnie-the-Pooh pattern that covers her sheets.  The only sounds: the air conditioner, the tap tap tap of the pacifier, the shik shik shik of her scratching fingernails, until she gazes up at me again with those blue eyes, opens her mouth and says, aa-a-aaaa, with gravity and presence, like she is sharing something of great importance.  


 

My First Book!

I am pleased and excited to let you know that my debut poetry collection is being published!

Lessons in Letting Go is being published by Finishing Line Press.  It is currently in the pre-order period, now until June 7, 2013.  This poetry chapbook begins with the story of child loss and also explores miscarriage, confusion, coming to terms with loss, perspectives related to spirituality, and hope for the future.  

Please go here to check out the book and to read some of the things that other writers have had to say about it.  I strongly encourage you to order by June 7 -- shipping will be only $2.49 (within the United States) until then.  Please spread the word and share this link with others who might be interested!

Thank you for your support!

The Trouble with Kindness

I was not expecting to have such difficulty with my 33 Acts of Kindness project.  Yet it is already April, and I find that I am struggling.

One challenge that I'm running into is that part of my agreement in doing this was to avoid repeating the same act in different situations.  That makes it particularly challenging.  I'll be in line at Starbucks on one of my days home with the little one, and think, Hey!  I know!  I'll buy the order for the person behind me... oh, crap.  I already did that one.

Do you see the irony here?  I'm NOT doing acts of kindness that I would otherwise do because I've done them already and they won't "count" toward my 33 for the year. 

Perhaps this is what happens when people are overly perfectionistic.

I have decided to revisit this entire project.  I will continue to do acts of kindness, even if it's the same one over and over again.  If something new occurs to me, I will do it.  This takes me to my second issue which, oddly enough, was the reason I imposed the "don't do the same thing twice" rule to begin with.

Being kind in new ways can be anxiety-provoking.

It's like being new at anything.  Whenever I attempt to do something that is outside of my comfort zone, it is exciting and frightening all at once.  Buying things for people is a very easy way for me to be kind.  Turning around at a church service to tell a young woman how inspiring and courageous I thought she was for leaving her native country due to the threat of persecution for her sexual orientation was much more challenging.  In a way, it can be fun to challenge myself to do things in a way that is not the norm, and to see what happens.  Often, I find that it opens doors that would have otherwise remained closed, or brings me closer to new people or opportunities that I might not have had exposure to otherwise. 

This activity, the 33 acts of kindness, is interesting.  It's bringing into focus some of the ways in which I sabotage myself and act in excessively self-limiting ways.  It's amusing to see where I get stuck, and amusing to see how I haven't seen it before.  It's also interesting and liberating to see what happens when I do things differently, and how tiny changes tend to have a ripple effect, creating a cascade of increasingly larger changes.  



 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I've read my fair share of love stories, some better than others.  One of my main issues with love stories is that they tend to follow a predictable arc: boy meets girl.  They fall in love.  Guy becomes girl's reason for living.  Drama ensues.  They come out of it stronger.  They live happily ever after.  From time to time, that's just the kind of thing I like, but it was not what I was looking for when I happened to be ready for some new fiction to read.  

When I picked up John Green's The Fault in our Stars -- a holiday season gift, and my first John Green novel -- I was reluctant to make the investment.  I've started enough love stories with two-dimensional characters and rolled my eyes many a time at long, drawn out bedroom scenes and dull, uninspiring dialogue.  It turns out that The Fault in our Stars made the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for good reason by taking familiar themes, adding less familiar twists, and defying predictability. 

The Fault in Our Stars is an atypical love story from the start: the main characters are teenagers who meet in a cancer support group.  Seventeen-year-old Hazel Waters is the edgy, sharp-witted, intelligent protagonist who has terminal cancer.  Her life takes a turn for the more adventurous when Augustus Waters shows up to her otherwise craptastic support group.  Gus shows up to the group in support of his and Hazel's mutual friend, Isaac, who is about to have surgery that will render him blind.

Although the story focuses upon Hazel and Gus's evolving relationship, a series of intriguing side plots are explored: Isaac's transition from sighted to blind; the eccentricities of Hazel's favorite author; and the ways in which cancer affects the lives of the teens and their families.

Throughout the book, Green transitions smoothly and suddenly into moments of devastating humor and devastating pain.  He deftly creates snapshots within the story that draw upon the lives of the characters before the time of this story, infusing the dialogue with emotional depth and adding to the richness and complexity of the characters.  One particularly potent example can be found in this exchange:

     Dad asked me if I was working on anything for school.  "I've got some very advanced Algebra homework, " I told him.  "So advanced that I couldn't possibly explain it to a layperson."

    "And how's your friend Isaac?"

    "Blind," I said.

    "You're being very teenagery today," Mom said.  She seemed annoyed about it.

    "Isn't this what you wanted, Mom?  For me to be teenagery?"

    "Well, not necessarily this kind of teenagery, but of course your father and I are excited to see you become a young woman, making friends, going on dates."

     "I'm not going on dates," I said.  "I don't want to go on dates with anyone.  It's a terrible idea and a huge waste of time and ---"

     "Honey," my mom said.  "What's wrong?"

     "I'm like.  Like.  I'm like a grenade, Mom.  I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?"

     My dad tilted his head a little to the side, like a scolded puppy.

     "I'm a grenade," I said again.  "I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay?  I'm not depressed.  I don't need to get out more.  And I can't be a regular teenager, because I'm a grenade."  (p. 98-99)

As the story unfolds, Green deftly and skillfully weaves in several surprises.  Some are pleasant ones, and others not so pleasant, but they are written in such a way that struck me as true to life.  Perhaps it is trite to say, "I laughed!  I cried!  I felt like I knew the characters and I missed them when I closed the book!  I couldn't put it down!"  It turns out that all of these things were true.  I encourage you to read -- and enjoy -- this wonderful story. 

Solitude and the New Mom

I wrote this post many moons ago about the reasons why solitude is such a great and useful thing.  All of these things are completely true, and are major reasons why I think solitude is so grand.  Of course, I was not yet a parent at that time, and looking back on it, I imagine that parents in the know may have wanted to laugh me off the face of the Earth.

"Solitude," I imagine some mother scoffing at me via her computer screen circa three years ago, hair greasy, wearing pajamas, and getting up for the third time in five minutes to deal with some child-related catastrophe before vacating the vicinity of her computer screen for six hours, finally coming back after the kids have gone to bed, sighing, and shutting down the computer while throwing a load of laundry into the washer.  

Now that I'm that mom, I get it.   I continue to need to adjust accordingly.


One of the most challenging things for me about solitude as a new mom is that my opportunities for it have dramatically decreased since the birth of my daughter, especially once I returned to work.  For some people, perhaps this lack of solitude would be a welcome relief.  For me and for others, the demands of being involved with others in a continuous way -- even those we deeply love and care for -- creates a practical challenge to a vital aspect of our self-care.  In my case, lack of solitude makes it difficult for me to approach the tasks of my everyday life with the clarity and connectedness that I'd like to have.  From there, it's only a matter of time before I wind up a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor, hair in a Medusa-esque pile on my head.  

I am one of those people who cannot care well for my kid, my home, my job, or my relationship with my spouse without a little time to myself to fill my own cup, as they say.  Otherwise, I have nothing to give.  At first, trying to find time to myself was a daunting task, but I've managed to find it in a few places I wouldn't have expected before having kids.

1.  The Workplace
Not every mother goes back to the workplace, nor had outside employment to begin with.  However, for some women who relish solitude, going back to work in whatever capacity -- if you have the means and comfort to do so -- provides you with opportunities to be by yourself.  Whether it's in the car, a few minutes with a cup of your favorite (work-appropriate) beverage, or the time between clients, a little downtime can be found.


2.  Night Owls
For those who can wing it (ha ha, get it?  Wings?  Owls?  What a hoot!), grabbing a bit of time after the kids go to sleep and before you go to sleep can help fill your own cup.  Of course, if you'd just prefer to go to bed early, I'm certainly not going to blame you.


3.  Early Birds
If you're this type, go ahead and get up before your kids if you like.  Again, if you want to stay in bed, I won't judge.


4.  The Car
For whatever reason, the car seems to work magic for my daughter, and for other small kids I know.  You aren't exactly all by yourself, but a drive can give you a chunk of quiet time and space.


So I realize I'm not the first mother to ever walk the face of the planet, and I'm certainly not the first to come up with the above ideas.  I have found, however, that you can do all of the above and not feel like you've really had any solitude.  There are a couple of things I've learned about that, too.

1.  Be Present!
I define presence as the quality of bringing your full attention to the task at hand and resting there.  I have found that being by myself doesn't quite cut it -- I also need to be aware of the fact that I am in solitude and to fully engage it.  I check the clock, maybe put on a timer or alarm, and let go of my to-do lists or other activities until the alarm sounds.  By doing this, I get more out of the moments I do have, which leads me to...

2.  It's Not the Time, It's How You Use It.
Even if you were accustomed to spending tremendous stretches of time in solitude pre-kids, as I was, the length of time you have available for solitude doesn't necessarily matter.  Bringing presence to your downtime makes any time you do have -- whether it's three minutes or three hours -- more restorative and filling.

3.  Solitude Is An Inside Job
One of the major lessons I've learned about solitude in the past four months is, by and large, solitude is an inside job.  You can actually build a place of solitude within, like a wellspring or a reservoir, that you can draw upon to sustain you when even those brief pauses are difficult to come by.  I imagine this ability is really helpful once you come to parenting toddlers, but I'll let you know if that's my experience when I get there.   

I love solitude!  I think it's great, and my consistent experience is that it helps me to stay calmer, more competent, and more sane than I would be without it.  I am so glad to discover that I have been able to maintain some solitude in my life post-childbirth, although it looks different than it did before.

 

The Joy of Spring!

I have yet to live in a city or town that's famous for much of anything, other than colleges.  However, I've discovered recently that we've beaten out Syracuse, New York in terms of total snowfall for 2012-2013, as noted at Golden Snow Globe.  Hooray...?  I guess...? 

Today there is still snow on the ground, but it is melting away after two warmer, sunnier days in a row.  On a drive earlier this morning, the car windows were lowered as I enjoyed the balmy, luxurious 50 degrees Fahrenheit that Mother Nature had on offer.  You cannot possibly fathom my delight!  Well, to be fair, you probably can, especially if you have perpetually cold hands and feet and live in the cold, snowy parts of the world for at least half a year.

Naturally, with the warmer temperatures, sunshine, and approach of the spring holiday season, my thoughts turn toward spring!  Spring!  AT LAST!  All winter, we periodically purchase plants from the local florist in vibrant colors.  Bright yellow daffodils, robust red roses, and delicate pink carnations adorn the dining room table and the counter top along the edge of our open kitchen.  I love this!  It keeps the beauty of nature alive throughout a season that is often thought of as a season of stasis (although anyone who has been through a blizzard can attest that "stasis" might not be the best descriptor).

As the tulips bud and burst through the still-cool earth, I am flooded with memories, but I am surprised to find that the memories of this time of year are limited and center around sports.  The smell of snow becoming mud becoming dry dirt reminds me of chocolate bars and parades to kick of the start of softball season.

Softball season was a big deal in our town, or it was a big deal within my family and among some of my friends.  Although we had an active Minor League in town, I never seemed to hear as much about them as I did about Girls' Softball.  At school, you could find more girls playing softball than not.  Many of my friends and acquaintances were involved in the teams.  It became such a vibrant community activity that an old bike racing course was transformed into three softball diamonds, parking lots, and a big concessions stand.  My first job was as a babysitter, and my second job was as a softball umpire for the younger leagues in town.

 I loved to play, although I was not the strongest player.  I found a niche for myself eventually by playing first base on our league team, and then later for the B-Team during tournament season.  It was my sister, however, who played softball by what a college friend calls "California Rules."  No-holds-barred, take-it-to-the-limit, badass softball.  She routinely hit doubles, triples, home runs.  Part of this was her powerful and accurate hit.  Another part of it was that she would routinely ignore the third base coach and tear around to home plate, sliding in just as the ball reached the catcher and, since teams tended to place people who couldn't catch in the catcher position, my sister's carpe-home-run  attitude paid off more often than not.  We would come home, she doing her best to clap off as much of the dirt and mud as she could from her pants and shirt and shoes (and sometimes cap) while I stood next to her, running a hand along my slightly dusty knees and wishing I could slide into base without looking like a crash test dummy.  

When I went to high school, playing softball was no longer practical, and I moved on to play on the school's lacrosse team.  I loved playing lacrosse and the release it provided from the pressures of life.  I couldn't shoot on goal to save my life, but that didn't matter because I was a fierce defender who could keep up with most of my opponent offensive players.  I had a stick and I wasn't afraid to check.  Sometimes I found myself in the path of a ball flying through the air, like the time someone shot on goal and the ball struck me in the center of the chest.  It hurt, but I got over it and moved on.

As an adult, spring brings opportunities to hike in the woods and go camping.  I love being in the woods with a backpack and my thoughts, and maybe a few people to travel with while I immerse myself in the richness of thick green leaves on trees and tiny buds poking through on their bushes.  These days, I bring my camera and a book.  I write poems and take photographs of waterfalls against a backdrop of wooden bridges and rocky hills.  When I get home and see neighborhood kids outside running around and playing catch, I smile and remember the excitement of the outdoors as a child.  I remember that winter is finally done and spring has returned again.

Grieving and Gratitude

While I was out on maternity leave and home with my then-almost-a-month-old daughter, I decided to start listening to the stereo during the day.  This is something my mother always did while I was growing up.  Leaving the stereo on and one light whenever leaving the house, she always returned to a lighted, sound-filled home.  I don't know what her reasons were for this, but I assumed it had something to do with not wanting to come home to a dark, quiet house.  As I sat at home, nursing, changing diapers, sometimes cleaning the house, and sometimes eating lunch, the combination of our grandmother clock's steady tick-tock, and intermittent newborn cries could have induced a turn for the worse in my mental health.  Fighting this decline was critical, and so I started listening to the oldies station.  

I love music in general, and the oldies are no exception.  Much to my surprise, I've noticed the music of my childhood years edging its way onto the local stations, indicating that the tunes of the decadent eighties are now going the way of the dinosaurs.  It was noticing this, combined with decent pattern recognition skills and auditory recall, that led me to realize the local station was rotating a few playlists.  Tiring of being able to predict the next song to play, I decided to really shake things up and listen to NPR instead.

Although there is predictability to NPR, it didn't bother me because I knew I'd be listening to different topics each day.  I started to learn about politics as I changed diapers, and listened to people I've never heard of talk about their new books while I nursed.  

Then Sandy Hook happened.

It was one of those moments when I knew I'd remember where I was when I heard the news.  That day, I was eating lunch at my dining room table and my daughter was on the floor in her jungle animal play gym nearby when the news broke.  It was the first major tragedy to make news since my daughter had been born, and I had no preparation for the impact it had upon me.

I looked at my daughter.  I thought of my workplace friends.  The teachers filling in for me on leave.  My students.  In particular, I thought of an elementary school in which I work.  The principal, the office staff, the students with whom I work in the halls on travel skills.  The dedicated teachers who support them in their educational programming every day.  I thought of the people at Sandy Hook, desperately waiting for children, spouses, and friends to leave the school building.  I looked at my daughter again and finally understood why some people live in desperate, controlling fear, and cloak their children in it.

Oh, how I cried.

The photos started to go up online.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  Young children and the educators who lost their lives.  The person who carried the gun, and the person who brought him into the world.  I have never cried so much over the deaths of people I did not know.

I began this post intending to write something about safety versus independence, and how being able to live fully means being willing to accept a certain amount of risk, to deliberately exchange our attempts at keeping ourselves safe for the richness and joy that can be ours when we stretch beyond our habitual ways of behaving.  All of that is true.  Sandy Hook is a painful reminder that we cannot be certain that this moment won't be the last one, and of how limited our control is over what happens to us.  

We do have control, though, over the spirit in which we approach life.  After all, we only have our lives, our loved ones, our memories and values and dreams, for so long.

Let us be grateful for what we have while we are fortunate enough to still have it, and let us express that gratitude by living as fully as we can.
 

 

Musical Memories #1: "Operator" by Jim Croce

Musical Memories!  We all have them: a song comes on the radio, or over your favorite web music channel, and it brings you right back to a certain time.  I share some of my own musical memories here in this special series.  Click on "Musical Memories" in the sidebar to read them as they're posted.

The room was dark, and I was exhausted.  Thankfully for the gift from medical science known as epidural anesthesia, my body had finally relaxed enough that I was able to progress through active labor to transition after being stalled for over 12 hours.

At some point in the early morning, the spouse had hooked up his iPad and asked what kind of music I wanted.  I don't remember how the music was picked out; I eventually found out that he had set up "Moody Blues Radio" on Pandora.  This indicates that my mother had something to do with the choice of music, the Moody Blues being far and away one of her favorite groups. 

I had had my epidural placed for about three hours and was at that point where I would have to start pushing.  At some point in this whole process, I had a brief, lucid moment and tuned into the sounds in the room.  I heard "Operator" playing and said to the spouse, "Hey, this is a good station."

"Yeah," agreed the others in the room.  "It really is."


The lyrics to "Operator" have nothing to do with childbirth, as far as I can tell.  They seem to be a song about the one that got away, a long-lost love.  It's the last song I remember hearing before my daughter was born and, when it came on over the oldies station today, it brought me back to that moment just months ago when she was about to come into the world.  For that reason, it has landed a spot among my musical memories that I'm sure will last until the end of my life.
   

On Heartbreak

Sometimes I find that I have real difficulty in naming what I'm feeling.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Let's take, for instance, the feeling of heartbreak.

Over time, I've been able to recognize and acknowledge difficult feelings as they come up, and maybe even name them properly: grief, loneliness, disappointment, frustration, and so on.  I'd thought about heartbreak, and even thought that I didn't have much heartbreak in my life.

My active, present-day journey in starting to recognize and name heartbreak has a few notable markers that come readily to mind.  One that comes most quickly to mind was when I was at the wonderful Ferry Beach Camp and Conference Center last summer and speaking with new friends about some relationship challenges that I had been grappling with over a period of several years.  One woman -- a thoughtful, articulate woman with a rather quiet demeanor but a wicked sense of humor -- broke the silence after I told my story by saying, "it sounds like a situation of almost constant heartbreak."  I studied her face for a few moments before looking down at my hands.  Heartbreak.  It resonated, and I found myself in this place I find myself in so often, the place where I become reacquainted with some feeling that I haven't felt in awhile and get intensely curious about it: hey, what is this?  Where did this come from?  Heartbreak seems like the right word, but what part of what I'm feeling is the heartbreak part?

The concept of heartbreak has shown up again recently, in an online exchange I read about the distinctions, similarities, and relationship between rejection and heartbreak.  Saying that a lightbulb came on would be an understatement.  This wasn't merely a lightbulb moment; this was a veritable I'm-going-to-light-up-a-darkened-room-and-blow-your-mind moment.  My sudden realization was many times in my life, I was able to identify and work through the grief and loneliness that come with social rejection, death, or that drifting apart that happens sometimes between friends when life changes, but I had not successfully identified my feelings of heartbreak.

To help with my understanding, I went to seek some help from all-knowing Google, who referred me to Wikipedia, that lovely pre-research research page:  "Heartbreak may refer to: broken heart, the emotions felt after the end of a romance, or grief or disappointment."  As I went on to follow links and read more, I discovered that I'm not the only one who has had trouble identifying heartbreak -- or other feelings, for that matter -- and that humans can often have feelings they have difficulty naming, or even may not know they have.  I also discovered that what scientists know about heartbreak is fascinating. There is a real "broken heart syndrome" that can cause the tissue in the heart to break down and is seen at times in a person who has suffered the loss of a spouse after many years.  

As interesting to my mind as all of this was (online research:candy store :: Amy:kids), it didn't really answer the question of what one does with heartbreak, or other feelings that are so challenging.  The only thing I know to do with it is to accept it with as much compassion as you can and, eventually, grow from the experience.  I think heartbreak is one of those givens about life in a human body.  I do know, though, that for me, just being able to identify the feeling as one of heartbreak has already gone a long way toward helping me to accept it when it's there, and to move on from it when it's time.
 

33 Acts of Kindness

The holiday season comes and goes each year, and in the chaos of multiple visits to relatives' homes, the driving all over creation, and the chance to start anew at the beginning of another year, I often forget that my birthday will soon be here.  It isn't until we're a few days into the new year and I remember an ex-boyfriend's birthday, or have cause to write the date on a piece of paper, that I realize it's a new year.  That means that I have three weeks to figure out what to do for my birthday.

Each year, I've tried to pull together some kind of gathering.  Not one for big, noisy parties as a general rule -- though they have their time and place -- I usually have a few friends over sometime around my birthday.  We eat, we hang out, and one year, we even watched the Super Bowl to celebrate.  I spent my tenth birthday at a local roller skating rink with ten of my friends, while my thirtieth birthday was taken up with yoga, meditation, writing, and staring at the stars while at Kripalu.

My thirty-second year was a remarkable one, with the news that I was pregnant again, shortly after having miscarried.  That ended with a healthy little girl who is two months old today and a total delight.  I also received news that a poetry collection I had submitted to a contest had placed as a semifinalist,  meaning that I was offered publication.  I find myself fortunate to still be gainfully employed given the economic challenges that our country faces.  It also turns out that, although I still find myself feeling pangs of loneliness in my day-to-day life, I am not as alone in the world as I have often worried that I am.  

I am fortunate, and I am blessed.

 When I think of all of this, I find myself full of gratitude.  It lifts my heart and causes me to consider what had to happen for me to get to this place in my life.  Much of it has had to do with being willing to see what is good and wonderful and beautiful in life, rather than overfocusing on what is difficult or painful.  This doesn't mean ignoring the difficult pieces of life.  It only means giving the places in life that are challenging just as much attention as is necessary, and not a bit more.

I've decided that, for my thirty-third birthday, a few friends will come over as they do each year to hang out, eat ice cream, and talk about intense and thorny topics, like religion and politics.  When they go home, though, I have another year facing me, so I am committing myself to 33 Acts of Kindness over the next...well, however long it takes, but no longer than a year.  They can be big or small, but it won't be the same thing over and over.  For example, I won't be counting "let a car pull out in front of me on Pleasant Street during rush hour" more than once.

This was an idea I had unbridled enthusiasm about when I thought of it in the car on my way to the gym last week.  As I think about it now, it's the kind of thing that just feels right.  When I hear "what do you want for your birthday?"  My honest answer is that I really can't think of much.  My life is full, and I want to do these acts of kindness as a way to express my gratitude for what I already have.


For each act of kindness done in the world -- for another person, an organization, or what have you -- I plan to direct an act of kindness toward myself.  If you don't fill your own cup, you have nothing to give to others, and the giving you try to do comes from a place of needing others to give to you.

What do YOU have to give, to share with the world?




 

Santa, Baby, and Me

When the "I Ate Your Halloween Candy" videos were making the rounds these last few years, I was disturbed by them.  I thought it a cruel prank to play on little kids by the people in their lives that they were supposed to trust for their physical and emotional safety.  Everyone, at times, doesn't follow through with what they said they would do, or inadvertently misguides someone, but I would hope they would step up to apologize and try to remedy the situation.  Deliberately lying to your children, however, seems to be something different.  How do you deal with having your trust in your parents broken by them? 

I've been thinking about this as Christmas approaches, and what we're going to tell my one-month-old daughter about Santa Claus.  The struggle I have is that the story of Santa Claus is everywhere, yet I do not want to lie about Santa.  I do not want my daughter to learn that she cannot trust me to be honest with her.

I haven't thought much about exactly what I think Santa Claus is, since I know there's no way a large, jolly guy would be able to squeeze down a chimney, never mind the fact that I don't know a single man who would voluntarily dress in a fuzzy red suit.   As I contemplated this, I decided that he stands for the generosity of giving to others, without the need to be given something back in return.  He can also be the spirit of receiving, with graciousness and gratitude, without feeling the obligation to reciprocate.  Santa Claus was in action on Friday, when I went through the drive-thru at Starbucks and discovered that the person in front of me had paid for my coffee and breakfast.  Santa Claus is in action when someone anonymously leaves a pile of warm clothes, food, and gifts on a doorstep for a family who is struggling.  He could be seen as a personification of the spirit of love, of giving, of oneness and community. 

In a world in which we sometimes all struggle to give to others without wanting something back from the deal, and in which we all struggle to overcome our own feelings of lack and of wanting, Santa Claus can be a reminder that giving without an agenda is its own reward, and that receiving with gratitude is also its own reward.  Maybe this is what I will tell my daughter about Santa Claus.

 

First Time Pregnancy: Some Stuff You Might Want To Know

Here I sit in my rocking chair, finally on maternity leave, about to have my first child (or so they tell me), and I find myself reflecting on some of the things I have learned over the course of being pregnant.  I thought I'd share them with you all, so that 1) people who are considering becoming pregnant can have a sneak preview of some of the joys and non-joys of the pregnant state as experienced by just one person; and 2) people who have "been there, done that" can sit back and have a self-satisfied chuckle.

1.  Miscarriage is surprisingly common.
Having a positive pregnancy test doesn't mean you will stay that way.  We all sort of know this, but I was very surprised to find out when I miscarried at 9 weeks last December that nearly every woman I knew who had children had had at least one miscarriage somewhere along the way.  It can be emotionally and physically challenging to have a miscarriage for some women, especially if you have been trying to become pregnant for a long time.  Just go into it aware that there is a very decent chance you may experience this yourself. 

2.  You can test positive later than you think on a home pregnancy test.
I tested positive only after three tests and ten days after my expected period, and I have a regular cycle.  Everyone is different.

3.  "Morning Sickness" 
"Morning" my ass.  Try 24/7 sickness for 9 weeks (some people have it even worse, with dehydration, hospital admission, IV fluids, and so on).  That made having a full-time job, at a public school, where the cafeteria is right near the front door cooking mystery meat first thing in the morning, a challenge in ways I cannot adequately explain.  I had to resort to sniffing lemon essential oil vials in my workroom while others weren't watching.  I have never disliked food -- or even plain water --  so much in my life.  The only things I could consistently keep down were milk and Gummy Bears, and I only discovered the Gummy Bears because I was craving sweet things, averse to chocolate, and desperate for protein. 

4.  Less Testing is Sometimes Best
I found out after an early ultrasound for dating purposes -- with which I was fine -- that my embryo's development was measuring a week and a half behind where the professionals thought it should.  I thought that made sense, considering that my test was positive a week and a half later than I would have expected.  They told me they wanted to schedule a follow-up ultrasound a week later to "check on things."  The thing is, I had figured out a few things about myself during my previous pregnancy.  One is that excessive testing was total hell on my nerves.  I could not think of anything other than the tests.  Not knowing any better at the time, I had four ultrasounds, no fewer than ten blood tests (ostensibly to monitor hCg levels), and almost wound up with an exploratory surgery I didn't actually need.  This isn't to knock the work doctors and medical professionals do.  They have reasons for wanting to do things like this.  On the other hand, how was having four ultrasounds going to prevent a miscarriage?  The answer -- it wasn't.

This time around, I told the nurse who wanted to schedule my follow-up that I wanted to wait a month before having a follow-up ultrasound in order to help keep my anxiety level low.  She didn't seem totally pleased, but it was a game-changer for me as I realized that 1) I had choices, 2) I did not have to undergo testing if I did not want to, and 3) It felt much, much better to say a genuine "hell, no," even if it pissed someone else off, than it did to placate someone else and give myself up in the process.

5.  Be Prepared For Comments About Your Appearance
I was so grateful that the vast majority of comments about my appearance over the course of this pregnancy were along the lines of, "you look great!"  I don't care if they were lies or not, though I was extremely surprised by the marked frequency of such commentary.  Occasionally, I did get well-intentioned but mildly annoying comments about making sure I didn't gain an excessive amount of weight.  There were also the humorous comments about cankles, which made me smile.  On the other hand, I did get a few comments later in my pregnancy about how I "didn't look so great."  Fortunately, these didn't come from anyone I'm particularly close to, so I was able to easily blow them off with comments like, "It's because I'm wearing black" or "It's because I haven't slept through the night since July." 

6.  Weird Things Can Happen To Your Body That You've Never Heard Of Before.
It started innocently enough, with stretch marks on my abdomen.  I had heard that might happen.  Sometime in the middle of my third trimester, though, it started to feel as if fire ants had taken my entire abdomen by storm.  I was itching intensely, day and night, and nothing seemed to help except the occasional cold pack.  No one had ever mentioned severe itching to me as a pregnancy issue.  

Let me point out here that if you are having abnormal itching anywhere on your body during pregnancy, you ought to check with your doctor or midwife right away.  Some itching conditions are "benign" (although you feel like you've descended into the ninth circle of hell) and others pose real health risks to your baby.

I didn't get an official diagnosis that this is what I've had, but I'm 99% certain that when my midwife said, "looks like a pregnancy rash" at 39 weeks, she was talking about the condition known as PUPPP.  So I went to Dr. Google to learn that there are some women who get stretch marks on their rapidly-expanding bellies, and their bodies have some kind of response to that that causes them to develop an itchy rash.  I started looking for remedies online, since lotion, oatmeal baths, and scratching myself into oblivion were failing strategies that brought on real concern that I might have to just peel my skin off and start over completely.  I wanted to limit hydrocortisone cream and Benadryl, so I discovered a way to get the itching from this maddening issue under control. 

What follows is how I treated this issue.  The itching had dramatically decreased by day 3, and by day 5, it was almost entirely gone.  Your mileage may vary.  Please note:  I'm not a doctor, so please use your own judgment and common sense, and take responsibility for your own decision to use these recommendations or not:

1.  Get Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap.  They sell it at GNC, natural food stores, or online at Amazon.  Grab a washcloth, get into a cool or tepid (not hot) shower, and lather up on all the itchy, rashy areas.  Start with three times a day (I'm serious).  Let the soap stand for 5-10 minutes, then rinse off.  If the washcloth makes you too itchy, don't use it.  At the end of day 2, I had some stinging on my skin after using the soap.  The next day, the majority of the itching had gone away and I decreased the use of the soap to 1-2 times a day, depending on what I needed on a given day to manage the itching.  NOTE:  You will smell like a campfire for a few days.  If you have PUPPP, though, you will definitely not care.
2.  Aveeno sells an eczema therapy/colloidal oatmeal bath product.  Get it.  After you use the soap, take some of the oatmeal out of the packet.  Don't use it as a bath; that's bullshit.  Instead, make a paste and apply it to the itchy spots.  Leave it there for 5-10 minutes and rinse with cool or tepid water.  Use it with the same frequency that you use the tar soap.
3.  When you get out of the shower, either pat yourself dry or set your blow dryer to a cool air setting and use it to dry yourself.  Yes, you will freeze, but at least you won't itch.
4.  My spouse made a concoction of oatmeal, mint herbal tea, jasmine tea, salt, and sugar that he heated and then stored in the refrigerator.  It made a sticky paste that I applied to the itchy spots which dried and helped soothe and protect my skin.  Be sure to strain well so that you don't have tea leaves sticking to your belly.  Use as needed.
5.  I found it helpful to keep myself as cool and dry as I could comfortably manage, and to drink lots of sugar-free liquids (both hot and cold) to stay hydrated.  I recommend lemon water and herbal teas.  I found that moisturizing lotions were not helpful, even in New England in November, and that if my body got warm, this would make itching worse.
6.  If the benefits outweigh the risks for you, take an antihistamine as recommended by your doctor or midwife.  My midwife approved Benadryl, if absolutely necessary.  I took one tablet (25 mg) for three nights before bed to help manage some of the itching and so that I could sleep.  Benadryl on its own did not take away all the itching.

7.  Be Prepared To Go Past (Maybe Way Past) Your Due Date.
First-time pregnancies are notoriously long, dates can be miscalculated, and Mercury can go retrograde, all of which can contribute to a later due date (well, I don't know about the Mercury thing for sure).  Don't obsess, but start to think about what you will do if you go past your due date.  Will you opt for medical induction?  Will you try natural induction methods?  Will you wait a certain amount of time past your due date, or are you just ready to get on with giving birth?  No one can tell you what is right for you, but trust yourself to know what the best course of action is and speak respectfully but firmly with your prenatal care provider about your options, benefits, and risks.


8.  Early Labor Can Take DAYS.
I've been having legitimate irregular contractions at night and in the early morning for the past 3 or 4 nights.  Then I wake up and they go away.  I've heard this called false labor or pre-labor.  I can think of other names for it, but none of them are suitable for sharing here.  Some point out that your body is doing SOMETHING and can even talk about having had this sort of early labor feeling for as long as a week before their water breaks and they have a relatively short active labor.  Just, you know, don't be surprised or think there's necessarily something wrong with you or the baby if this is what is happening for you.  Obviously, check with your care provider if you think something is amiss -- it's appropriate and reasonable to err on the side of caution.  Other than that, keep yourself well hydrated, stay with your exercise, and keep yourself distracted by doing early holiday shopping or writing super-lengthy blog posts.