If you don’t want to read about nurs­ing, today’s a good day to take a break from the beau­ti­ful let­down.

First, nurs­ing bras. Who makes these things? Why do they all sag? I have yet to find a nurs­ing bra with good sup­port. Even when I take the lit­tle adjuster things (the plas­tic clasps on the bra that make the straps longer or shorter) and push them over the back of my shoul­ders, I am still not get­ting decent sup­port. I have been wear­ing nurs­ing bras since Novem­ber of 2005, and I’m still unim­pressed. Any suggestions?

Sec­ondly, nurs­ing in win­ter. I need some new win­ter clothes or some­thing. Nurs­ing in clothes that keep me warm is a tough job! Sweat­shirts are too bulky. Some of my under­shirts are a lit­tle too tight. Some shirts don’t work out that well with a nurs­ing tank­top. Sigh… Appar­ently, I’ve been hav­ing apparel issues lately.

Next, falling asleep while nurs­ing. Nei­ther of my boys have ever been the nurse to sleep type. A did for a while, but he stopped that quite a while ago. K never really nursed to sleep even as an infant. I’m not sure if it was the turkey or what, but in the past few days, both K and A have fallen asleep in my arms while nurs­ing. It’s such a sweet feel­ing. They’re just so sweet and pure and loving.

Then, there’s three years of nurs­ing and almost eigh­teen months of tan­dem nurs­ing. After three years of nurs­ing K and about 18 months of nurs­ing K and A, I’m start­ing to feel ready for K to get ready to wean. At this point, I don’t think that I will do any­thing about my feel­ings. If K isn’t ready to wean, I won’t push him. I’ve con­sid­ered lim­it­ing the num­ber of times he nurses in a day, but I don’t think that’s fair to him. If he did it out of bore­dom or habit, I might con­sider it. I don’t think he does though. I think he really needs to nurse in order to reestab­lish a con­nec­tion with me. This morn­ing, my par­ents were up with the boys while Jason and I got a bit more sleep (thanks a lot, Mom and Dad, we appre­ci­ate it). I heard Kael out­side the door at one point ask­ing for “mommy milk.” I heard him ask­ing for me a while later just as I was about to get up. When I came out to the liv­ing room, he said, “Kael needed you. My wanted mommy milk to feel bet­ter.” Now, really, how can I argue with that? I don’t, because I know he’s telling me the truth.

Finally, sup­port. I have the best fam­ily. They are all great about the nurs­ing and tan­dem nurs­ing. My mom nursed me for at least a year and a half. She nursed my brother until he was almost three. She’s always been very sup­port­ive of the boys nurs­ing. She encour­aged me to check out the local breast­feed­ing sup­port group which I have really enjoyed, and she was a huge help when both of the boys were new­borns. She sat up with me and helped me with dia­per changes and burp­ing. WONDERFUL! I know that some peo­ple are for­tu­nate enough to have sup­port when their babies are young, but as the baby grows, their sup­port fades away and they hear “when are you going to start that baby on formula/solds/cows milk?” or “when are you going to stop nurs­ing?” I have yet to hear either of those ques­tions. Of course, my boys both eat solids, but I *never* get asked when I’m going to wean! That means a lot to me. Also, over the week­end, my par­ents stayed here as did my brother and sister-in-law. They don’t have kids yet, so I’m not really sure what their thoughts on nurs­ing are, but I would never have had any rea­son to sus­pect they are any­thing but pos­i­tive and accept­ing. K nursed sev­eral times over the week­end, and A nursed MANY times. In fact, he nursed a cou­ple times at the din­ner table on Thurs­day dur­ing our Thanks­giv­ing din­ner, and no one bat­ted an eye.

Heather at Not a DIY Life tagged me for a book meme.

These are the rules
1. Grab the near­est book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sen­tence.
4. Post the text of the next two to five sen­tences.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intel­lec­tual one. Pick the Clos­est.
6. Tag five peo­ple to do the same

The clos­est book I have to me is called Artemis Speaks: V.B.A.C. Sto­ries & Nat­ural Child­birth Infor­ma­tion writ­ten and com­piled by Nan Koehler. I have no idea what I’m going to get on page 56.

“Most obste­tri­cians use tech­nol­ogy defen­sively in VBAC labors, in spite of the fact that there is no more jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for rou­tine inter­ven­tion than in any other labor. If a hor­i­zon­tal scar sep­a­rates, it does not cause mas­sive hem­mor­age, so there is no need for pro­phy­lac­tic IV. The uterus usu­ally con­tin­ues to con­tract nor­mally, and an elec­tronic fetal mon­i­tor will not pick up a scar sep­a­ra­tion.“
There you have it. I did want to break rule #5 by the way, but I didn’t do it.

I’m sup­posed to pick 5 peo­ple to do this meme, but instead I’m going to say if you do it, leave a com­ment and I’ll come read your meme.

It’s time for my favorite car­ni­val! It’s the 5 Min­utes for Books monthly “What’s on Your Night­stand?” car­ni­val. Yay!

This is so hard for me. I have so many books I want to read. I have told my hus­band sev­eral times recently that there are just too many books and too lit­tle time. Last month, I spent most of my read­ing time read­ing the Twi­light series by Stephe­nie Meyer. It was okay. Yes, that was a lot of time to allo­cate to some­thing that is just okay. Gen­er­ally, I’m not the type of per­son who sticks with some­thing and fol­lows it through if I start to lose inter­est, so I decided that I was going to read all 4 books no mat­ter what. Also, I was curi­ous. I liked some of the char­ac­ters, and I liked the first book quite a bit, so I wanted to see how she wrapped it up. It seemed to me like there was a LOT of room for another book in the series and that it wasn’t really wrapped up. I know the movie just came out, but I don’t go to movies so I most likely won’t be see­ing it for quite some time if at all.

This month, I’m back to my pile of books from Book­Mooch and Paper­back­Swap. I’m also think­ing a lot about home­school, par­ent­ing, and breast­feed­ing tod­dlers, so maybe I’ll read some of those types of books, too.

Do you have any home­school­ing, par­ent­ing or breast­feed­ing books you’d recommend?

I have a Face­book friend who often updates her sta­tus. She’s a home­school­ing mom, and often her sta­tus will say things like, “Help­ing the older ones with a project on Mesopotamia” or some­thing like that. How­ever, it also says things like, “Thank­ful for the legos on the floor, the crayons on the wall, and all my bless­ings.” It seems like the days she writes those things are the days I most need to read them.

Is there some­one in your life who helps you keep your per­spec­tive from becom­ing skewed?

I found out today that I have been listed on a list of the top 100 pedi­atric health blogs. Wow! That’s very excit­ing! Thanks, Kelly! I’m #78.

Since I have been hav­ing a harder time think­ing of top­ics related to breast­feed­ing, I was won­der­ing if you have any spe­cific top­ics you want me to write about. My posts tend to be broad and shal­low, so I can go into more depth in an area if there are any requests. Let me know.

This is a quote from the book of 2 Samuel in the old tes­ta­ment of the bible. Through Octo­ber and Novem­ber, I was attend­ing a bible study at my church study­ing the life of David. One of the day’s home­work was about this verse. “and David was danc­ing before the Lord with all his might.” At first, I read over it and blew past it. Then, when I went back, I thought about how it must feel to be doing some­thing with all his might. Then, I thought about how he was prais­ing the Lord with all his might. To me, that sounds like a very beau­ti­ful pic­ture. Although, I’m sure to some of those around him, it prob­a­bly looked more strange than any­thing else.

One of the ques­tions in the study was “When was the last time you saw some­one doing some­thing with all their might?” or some­thing sim­i­lar. I thought about it for a while, and I really didn’t have many exam­ples. The one thing that came to mind was think­ing about how ath­letes cel­e­brate after win­ning a cham­pi­onship game. See­ing them jump­ing and scream­ing and cry­ing and just lay­ing on the ground in awe is what came to my mind. Then, I won­dered when was the last time I did some­thing with all my might. I apol­o­gize in advance to any­one who thinks this is more than they want to know. The last time, I did some­thing with all my might (here’s your last chance to stop read­ing) was child­birth and push­ing. Most of you other moms who have been through labor know what I’m talk­ing about, right? That was great, because it was for my kids. Of course, I would do all that I could for them.

So, again, I was think­ing, think­ing… This month, I com­mit­ted to NaBloPoMo. I missed two days, but I have def­i­nitely blogged on days when I would rather have skipped. I men­tioned at the end of last year that Jason’s sis­ter is doing a pho­tog­ra­phy project that involves tak­ing a pic­ture every day for a year. She’s shar­ing them online at her Flickr account. It’s called Project 365. It got me wish­ing that I had some sort of neat project that I could com­mit to like that. I’m actu­ally still wish­ing that, and since it’s com­ing to the end of the year (can you believe it?!?!?), I’ve started think­ing about it again. Unfor­tu­nately, last year, I didn’t do much about these thoughts. I’m hop­ing and pray­ing that this year, I will make a com­mit­ment to some­thing. I’d like to do some­thing mean­ing­ful and chal­leng­ing. For a year? Maybe not. I’m not com­mit­ted to a year, but I would like to do some­thing that stretches and chal­lenges me. Maybe, I can do some­thing with all my might.

Since he was born, A has been sleep­ing in our room. He slept in a pack n play for a while. Then, for a while, he slept with us. Then, back into the pack n play. Last week, we decided to move him into a crib in the same room as K. I thought that it would be a rough tran­si­tion for A. He’s always been a baby who needed to be close to Jason and to myself. I fig­ured it would take two good weeks before we could tell how things were going. Well, he sur­prised us. After a cou­ple ini­tial strug­gles, he has done just won­der­fully. He nurses. Then, Jason takes him to bed where he lays down and falls asleep. K has been strug­gling with the tran­si­tion more though. Unfor­tu­nately, I think this came at a bad time for him. He’s also at a stage where he’s kind of ready to start potty learn­ing. He’s not able to get through the day with­out a nap, but if he does take a nap, then he strug­gles to fall asleep. I think that hav­ing both of those things to deal with and this tran­si­tion of A mov­ing into his room has been tough on him. Poor guy. I’ve been try­ing to give him some extra love and mommy time. He has ramped his nurs­ing up, too. Now, I just have to laugh at my wor­ries a few months ago that he wouldn’t still be nurs­ing at 3. I think he nursed 5 or 6 times yes­ter­day, and 3 or 4 today. Some­times, I won­der if A will wean before K.

With Thanks­giv­ing com­ing up and hav­ing two chil­dren, I have started think­ing again about tra­di­tions for our fam­ily. When I was younger, my fam­ily wasn’t huge on tra­di­tion other than get­ting together. THAT was our tra­di­tion. Spend­ing time with fam­ily was the most impor­tant thing. That is still impor­tant to me. I still want our extended fam­i­lies to be a big part of our kids’ lives and our lives, too, of course. I also want some­thing of our own though. What do other peo­ple do for fam­ily tra­di­tions? How do you start one? Do you just ask around and try some­thing that sounds good? Do you just hap­pen upon it and keep doing it once you decide you liked it?

A cou­ple things I’ve heard of doing are to put the Christ­mas tree up on Thanks­giv­ing as a fam­ily. Get a table cloth and use it every year at Thanks­giv­ing (or Christ­mas or another hol­i­day) and write one thing that you are thank­ful for on it. A friend of mine told me that she had 24 Christ­mas books. She wrapped them up, and start­ing Decem­ber 1st, she read one of them each night with her kids while they all had hot choco­late. I think that’s a great idea, by the way. I just don’t have 24 Christ­mas books yet.

Are there any other great ideas float­ing around out there? Now that this is becom­ing more impor­tant to me, I’m actu­ally feel­ing pres­sure to make my tra­di­tions great. I know that mak­ing them tra­di­tions is really what makes them great, but I just really want them to be meaningful.

I’m down another day in my NaBloPoMo goal. I missed post­ing yes­ter­day. I think I was over­con­fi­dent in my sta­tus as a return­ing NaBloPoMo’er. Hav­ing doen it last year, it didn’t seem as over­whelm­ing or daunt­ing. Maybe I should have wor­ried more. Oh, well. I also missed Novem­ber 1st. Maybe I’ll do another month some time in 2009.

Since I get quite a few searches about donat­ing blood while breast­feed­ing, I thought maybe I would talk a lit­tle more about blood dona­tion. I’ve already writ­ten about whether or not blood dona­tion is okay while breast­feed­ing (for most peo­ple, it’s just fine) and why I donate blood. Tonight, I thought I would write a lit­tle bit for those peo­ple who haven’t donated before and don’t know what to expect.

I know that nee­dles and blood tend to make some peo­ple ner­vous. Also, the unknown can make peo­ple wor­ried. Because I believe that donat­ing blood is very impor­tant, I thought I’d try to take away a few wor­ries for a few peo­ple. Here’s what hap­pens when I go to donate blood. First, I check in with the lady who greets me at the front desk. Then, she gives me some infor­ma­tion to read. Then, when they call my name, I go sit in a cubi­cle with one of the peo­ple who draws the blood. She took my tem­per­a­ture, my blood pres­sure, and pricked my fin­ger. She sticks a cou­ple of drops of blood from my fin­ger prick into a machine. This machine checks your blood for iron. Some­times, women find out that it’s hard to keep their iron count up high enough to donate.

Then, the ques­tions. Next, there are about 50ish ques­tions about any sort of ill­ness, risky behav­ior, surg­eries, or other issues that might pre­vent a per­son from being eli­gi­ble to donate blood. They used to read all the ques­tions and ask them ver­bally, but now they are all printed on a paper and I just read them on my own.

Now comes the time for the comfy chair. I tend to have bet­ter veins in my right arm, so I just go straight to that one. In order to take your blood, your arm has to be very well cleaned. First, they use an alco­hol wipe. Then, they use iodine. Then, comes the prick. Gen­er­ally, for me, that’s all it is. It’s a prick and a lit­tle bit of aching. I usu­ally get some sort of foam ball to squeeze. I tend to be a slow dona­tor, so when Jason and I go at the same time, he donates blood about 5 min­utes faster than I do.

After that’s all done, they put a band aid on your arm and feed you! Our blood dona­tion cen­ter has juice, donuts, pop­corn, and gra­nola bars. Also, if you like the snacks A LOT (like I do), if you sched­ule your dona­tion at the end of the day, they some­times offer you two snacks.

So, there you have it. It’s not quite as easy as “one-two-three,” but it’s def­i­nitely not as big of a deal or as scary as I’ve heard some peo­ple make it out to be.