I decided to do National Blog Posting Month, or Nablopomo. Say that six times fast. I’ve just spend the last 15 minutes trying to figure out how the hell to put the Nablopomo image somewhere on the page and its just not working.

So, I am putting it here.  In the post.  So, nyah.

Anyways, I am going to try to do this again and see I can unsuck at blogging… if anything, it might be cathartic.  But I am doing this in bullet points because I don’t know if I can be creative anymore.

Here goes.

• I don’t know if it was hormonal or what, but I was in a foul mood mood for most of the day today.  The only time it lifted was when I was walking in WalFart with the kid and I wrapped my arm around his mouth and enjoyed the silence.  Double benefit, he thinks its a fun game, not a sanity exercise.
• I’ve had some sort of a headache all day.
• My winter rhinitis is back with a vengeance.  And nasonex is 80 smackers a bottle… too much for me right now.
• I’m in love with Dr. Pepper again.  I don’t know how this happened.  I LOVED me some DP when I was growing up.  I thought it was the best stuff ever.  And then I hated it.  It started tasting weird… about the same time as when I moved up north…  something in the bottling perhaps?  Anyways, I’ve been sucking down the stuff in record amounts for the last couple of weeks, all from the fountain.  Been mixing it with Diet DP to minimize the damaging rear end expansion effects…
• I still have a headache and I am sitting in a dark room looking at a computer screen.  What sort of moron am I?
• I thought that today was Halloween all day and was in awe of how subdued everyone was and surprised that I had not trick or treaters.  Then someone had to burst my bubble tonight.  OH well.
• I made Dump Cake tonight.  Yum.  With apple pie filling.
• The kid and I went downtown today to see the Colts rally.  Kudos to the kid who walked almost the entire time… and we walked a lot.  Had to park quite a ways from the Circle too.
• Does anyone know any homeopathic stuff for allergic rhinitis?
• Hamza got to spend time with his dad tonight.
• We have two things to do tomorrow:  Laundry (boo!) and a playdate (yay!).  They balance each other.
• All the canned mushrooms at WalFart are grown in China or Indonesia.  Is Indonesia better than China?  I don’t know… but I didn’t buy any.

Before this becomes anymore incoherant, I will stop. 

Did ya miss me?  I doubt it.

This has to be one of the best things I’ve ever done.  The group of ladies was wonderful.  The instructor was funny and knowledgeable, a great combo.  The information was valuable.  The experience was out this world.

There was so much experiential learning going on, hearing other women’s stories about their births or attempts to have children.  We all came out seeing so many new and different views of birth.  There were wonderful births, traumatic births, happily medicated births, unhappily medicated births.

Sharing a pregnancy with a woman is such a solid, intimate experience.  Being able to touch her baby through her belly (with permission) just blew me away.

Being a doula, for me, was still a dream before I met this group.  Unlike some others, I haven’t been to anyone else’s birth before.  I feel much more empowered and ready to start down this road.

I GOT TO PALPATE BABIES IN TUMMIES!!!!!  I got find the fundus, the little back… couldn’t tell the difference between a head and a butt, but I suppose that might get easier.  (the mommies were volunteers and were nicely compensated with a gift certificate or something – so  we had permission.  I didn’t just knock over some pregnant lady at the gas station and grab her belly.)  I am learning so much and putting together so much information in my head that I had but hadn’t connected.   We talked about all the pro’s and con’s of different interventions, how to get the right information for the mother, how to help HER make choices about her care instead of being pushed about.

Its interesting that Swistle and Linda over at Purple is a Fruit were talking about birth choices today as well.  I’ve come to realize my anger over how my son’s birth went and how much I wasn’t told, how much information I didn’t have at my disposal.   I’ve also realized how hard it is to let other people make their own choices in regards to their birth because I am so anti c-section.  Its mean to say to someone who regrets their choices in birth that “Well, you should be happy- you have a healthy baby!”.  Sure, you have a healthy baby, and you are grateful for that, but you may feel like you didn’t get to make the choices you needed to, even if it meant making the one for the c-section, because you didn’t have the information.

That being said, if you are happy with the way your birth went, then I am happy about it.  It doesn’t have to be same choice I would make.  Making the choices actively and with information is very important, as well as knowing the possible after effects.

I am blathering on and on.  I completely deluged the other adult who is still in my home with info tonight because I was so excited with I am learning.

I’m gonna be a doula!  I’m gonna be a doula!  Let’s go have some babies!

Even though I don’t understand RSS or use it, I suppose its the only reason I got three (THREE) comments yesterday after not blogging for several months.

So, now we start the serious transition.  We’ve told our son that Daddy is getting another house.  He asked why and I said because Daddy and I want our own spaces and Daddy said because we have money.  The first is true, if evasive.  The second is possibly true since, in true back-homelandia style, there are usually large amounts of cash squirreled away in the damnedest places.

We’ve got to figure out dumb things like child support and living schedules.  As I am not employed as of yet (I really don’t feel like changing this – I’ve grown accustomed to going to bed at 2 a.m. and getting up at 8:30 – that’s like 3 or 4 hours of PERSONAL time every single day), I will probably be doing the bulk of things.  And until someone else gets with the program.

I really hate the fact that my son will have to learn things about his father as he grows up that will disappoint him.  That he’s a big talker, but a slow mover.

I don’t want to be single.  I want company, companionship and love.  I’ve got a biological clock on top of it that’s beating like a drum.  I don’t know how I am going to find someone else.  I don’t date.  I don’t want to find someone else that I like before getting married and then dislike later.

***

There’s no good segue out of that conversation.  Hamza turned four this month.  Alhamdulillah.  He’s 40 inches tall, 30 lbs, and is a mimic.  He repeats everything.  Some days I want to strangle him.  Obviously, I haven’t.

We’ve been swimming this summer.  A lot.  I bought a really nice, modest swimsuit from Splashgear.   Tres cute.  Hamza decided he LOVES swimming since we bought a 50 cent inflatable tube from the Dollar Store.  He is no longer my little octopus sucking up to me in the water.

***

I am attending a Doula training seminar hosted by ALACE (Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators) this weekend.  I’ve been excited about this for a while — the chance to see babies born!  The chance to help people have the birth they want to have.  If I had had a doula, I think my own birth experience would be tons different.

Enough for tonight.  I’ve got to work myself back into this slowly.  I am going to go read a book and relax for a while.