Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a great holiday!

We had a very low-key Christmas and New Year's. I made a lamb and feta lasagna that was very good; the recipe is from Emeril. Deb, Craig's mom, brought over a salad and we had apple pie for dessert. Lasagna is Craig's favorite dish, so he wants this to be a Christmas dinner tradition now; a different type of lasagna every year.

Gabe got many nice presents, some of which still have to be bought since a few came in the form of gift cards and we have to decide what to get. Some include some cool games and puzzles we got from Lakeshore Learning. I got myself a new purse and wallet from Kohl's (it was on sale, woo-hoo!) and Craig got a pretty stylish messenger bag for work.

I am getting bigger and slower, lol. I continue to do a LOT of reading with Gabe or outings where he has lots of engagement to compensate for my lack of physical involvement. Storytimes and playmates are a lifesaver! He is also getting better at playing alone for longer periods of time.

We've been doing a lot planning in various areas with the house. We just bought new mattresses for our room and Gabe's soon-to-be room. We are also making the dining room a playroom for the kids, since we have a eat-in kitchen. Then, we are going to buy a few pieces of furniture for the living room, since currently that room is not functional (our tv and couch is in the family room).

Of course all of this is very budgeted and will occur over the course the year.

Craig and I have been thinking about what to do about education for the kids. We've been going back and forth on whether to homeschool or not (which would involve me not working outside the home) and we're leaning towards homeschooling, but are specifically getting interested in the concept of unschooling. This is where there is no curriculum and children learn by being involved in everyday life activities.

For instance, by simply baking a cake one learns math and chemistry (these are the two subjects that immediately come to mind, I'm sure there is more). As they get older, parents basically guide the learning experience by what children are interested in (maybe they really like comics, so they can create a comic or they want to create a video game, so they learn the programming language and other things that go along with that).

Speaking of education, I wrote a post on my Cafe blog about editors changing the n-word in Huck Finn to "slave" in an upcoming edition. I do not agree with this at all. Read here. There is also a link to the article about it in that post.

Cool article and screams, screams and more screams!

For those that are interested, here is a neat article on breastfeeding, detailing one woman's determination to keep nursing even though her baby was having problems (the problem was solved, and nursing was not the problem).

Doctors and pediatricians really don't know that much about breastfeeding, so sometimes its pointless to even come to some of them with problems. Lactation consultants are better equipped, but not all of them are equal. One thing I wished I have known with Gabe, which I figured out on my own, was to nurse them as often as they wanted it and not put them on a schedule. Not only to they digest human milk faster than formula, but nursing often helps establish supply and prevent engorgement.

Ok, Gabe is into this thing where he just screams. I might tell him not to do something: screams. I tell him something he doesn't like: screams. I say, please stop screaming: screams. Now, this doesn't happen all day 24/7, but a few times a day. How have parents out there dealt with this? He is going though some changes lately; weaned from nursing a few weeks ago, mom can't play like before because of carrying baby in tummy. Could be a communication thing, or just a behavior phase. I don't know. I just know that all toddlers do it, so he is not alone. Fortunately, he does not do this in public. Crosses fingers.

Book recommends

Sorry to inundate you all with two whole blog posts in one day, but just wanted to point out that I posted new books that we've read lately, down here on the right side of the blog. Raising Boys and The Culture of Make Believe are particularly notable. Craig is half way done with Raising Boys, but he has read some parts to me that were good. The Culture of Make Believe is truly eye opening, but is a large book. However, I read through it pretty quickly because, in my opinion, Jensen is a excellent writer. Just click on the links to read more about the books.

Interesting article about interracial dating

I just read this article from the Atlantic about interracial dating that focuses on the black/white variety and how blacks have historically responded to it. Honestly, it's just not on my radar how deep it is for blacks, especially some black women, who even to this day are truly affronted when they see a black man with a non-black woman. My personal opinion has always been that unless you are THE most attractive person in the world, with the most perfect personality known to man, you need to be happy to find love where ever you can find it.

Another aspect I found interesting was that the reasons, past and present, for some black people's antipathy for interracial pairings. The reasons and feelings attached are, frankly, almost the same as white racists. A strange contradiction, but I think it's just one of many undesirable effects of our (the U.S.) racial past.

New Cafe´Post

Just wrote a post on my Cafe´blog about weaning. I really need to post to that blog at least once a week! Especially if I am going to be freelancing.

First freelance assignment: DONE

I turned in my article to Portland Family Magazine on Tuesday. It was kind of stressful. I had everything ready and prepped, emailed the article and it didn't get sent! It took an hour of me trying to figure out if there was something wrong with my gmail account, or something wrong on their end. Turned out, the editor had moved on, and the publisher was supposed have those emails forwarded to her. But it did not work. So she sent a email out to all the freelancers letting them know to send their stories directly to her email…*wipes brow*. I was actually more concerned about Gabe needing some attention while I was in the midst of all that…fortunately, he was okay.

The article will be in the January issue. I'll let you all know if it can accessed online, too.

In other news, I think most of you know that we are having another baby! We had our ultrasound yesterday and we're having another boy. We were kind of hoping for a girl, but you just get what you get when it comes to babies. He moved around a lot, opening his mouth, stretching, and gave the "hang loose" sign with his hand! Maybe this means he will be ultra laid back? Who knows.

I'm 18 weeks and right now he is breech, which concerned me. But the midwife said that at this stage they have plenty of time to turn. She outlined the steps they take if the baby is still breech at 37 weeks, but stressed for me not to worry about it because most babies end up turning by that time. I actually saw another midwife at the practice because mine was off that day. She was really nice. Their policy is for people to see all 7 midwives, just in case your regular one is not available at the time of delivery, so that you are not faced with a total stranger.

So, that's about it for now. Hope everyone is having a good week.

Busy first November weekend

Gabe had a full weekend. There was the play date that I mentioned in the last post, a birthday party on Saturday and another play date on Sunday. Whew!

The party on Saturday was for a two brothers, 3 years and 1 year. Their mom is Nigerian/white and their dad is Indian. The party was a place called Pump it up, where they have inflatable slides for kids 6 and under. Gabe wasn't too sure about these weird inflatable contraptions at first, but warmed up a little when Craig and I got in with him. When it was time for pizza, Gabe did really well sitting at the little kids table eating. I just watched him from a distance. Gabe and another little girl from our mom's group, who is half black, half Hispanic, really favor one another. Like they could be brother and sister. She is about 1.5 years old and don't you know she starts feeding Gabe his drink? And he accepts it like he is the King, and then she starts rubbing his ear, and he's like, no that's going overboard. It was so funny. Craig and I and her parents got a big laugh out of that.

Yesterday we went over to our friends Steve and Amy to have a play date with their son Silas who is the same age as Gabe (we met them in our pregnancy class). I made some chocolate flax muffins that I brought over, and they ordered pizza from Pizza Fino that had caramelized onions, mushrooms, mozzarella and fontina cheese and Gabe actually ate it, mushrooms, onions and all! We were surprised. He didn't eat my muffins though. Hmph. However, Silas loved them, but he eats almost anything, lol.

Other news: I got a freelance assignment for a local family magazine last week. I sent them a query about writing an article on black moms and breastfeeding. Some recent studies have come out this year, so it's a fairly current topic (we have the lowest rates of BF out of all ethnicities).

So, I emailed the query letter to them thinking it would be a few weeks before I'd hear one way or another because it says on their site that it could be like six weeks. So I was really surprised to not only hear from them the next day, but an expression of interest in the story and acceptance of the pitch. I'm, like wow! Also, I expected them to pay a certain amount in my mind, which was rather low and it turns out they are able to pay a little more than I thought. Now, don't get it twisted; that amount is still NOT a lot, but just more than I expected.

So I have until the end of the month to do interviews and write and submit the story. Fortunately, I started a little bit of legwork before sending off the query, so I am not scrambling for to do stuff: I will be interviewing a lady who blogs about black women and breastfeeding, a local lactation consultant I will be meeting with this week, two local moms (one older with grown kids who breastfed and one younger who is currently breastfeeding) to interview, and I will insert a little bit about my own experience.

It feels really good to have an assignment and to actually be getting paid for it. If all goes well, I'd like to write for them regularly (dependent on me having good ideas for stories, that is; they could also like me well enough to give me assignments) for a year and then I'd like to branch out and try writing for larger magazines, which means higher pay. It is all very slow going, patience is key. We'll see how it goes!