Lots to tell today, but I don't know how much of it is interesting.
Here's the scoop:
Monday: Went to La Leche League. Still not feeling quite the same as my original group but it is good to go anyway. I always enjoy it. Finn likes seeing other kids. I got him signed up for a playgroup, but it doesn't start until September 10.
Tuesday: Went to a meeting of the Holistic Moms Network. This was my first time with them and I haven't quite got a feel for them yet. They have a different topic every month and this month was homeschooling. One of the moms went on AT LENGTH about homeschooling and there was some discussion, but mostly it felt like a lecture to me, and I was kind of bored. I am actually really interested in homeschooling, but there was a vibe I wasn't really comfortable with of "Well, of COURSE the public schools were out of the question, so it was between the Christian academy and homeschooling..." It felt very elitist to me, with no acknowledgment that some children do very well in public schools or that homeschooling is not practical for every family, and not every parent is qualified to teach. There was actually one dad at the meeting who had been homeschooled as a kid, and 90 minutes plus into the meeting, someone asked him about his experience. He said, "I was wanting to say something, but I couldn't really get a chance..." Heh. That was true, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. And his experience was actually a terrible one, because he had an undiagnosed learning disability and his mom couldn't get anywhere with him and they just butted heads. So he quit at 14 and worked at a fast food restaurant for a while until he figured out that going back to school might be a good idea, and then he went to public school, where presumably they had specialists. I guess he has three or four siblings that did really well with homeschooling, but you would think someone would have caught on sooner that it wasn't working well for him. So anyway, that was my introduction to the Holistic Moms Network.
Wednesday: Today I woke up around 3:00 with a headache that I was almost sure was going to be another migraine. I took ibuprofen and it did get gradually better, but I couldn't get back to sleep until 6:00, and had to get up at 7. So I wasn't feeling so hot. Then the neighbor was parked behind us in the driveway, with a note in her car to call her if we needed to get out, with a long distance number on it. And as it happened I did need to get out, because it was Finn's 12-month doctor's visit today, and I was very worked up about it because I always get worked up about those stuff, and in the midst of feeding Finn breakfast and running around finding his immunization records, I called the long-distance number and left a very crabby message, and then I banged on the neighbor's door and actually had a very civilized but brief conversation with her which left the door open to possibly not being blood enemies, and I was pretty proud of myself over that. I expressed to her that I was very fixated on the notion that I might have to take my baby to the emergency room in the middle of the night so being blocked in overnight really does not work for me. And maybe that's paranoid mommy talk, but babies get sick sometimes, and sometimes they get scarysick, and it is usually in the middle of the night, am I right? And I really had to get that off my chest to her before I could stop raving like a crazy person.
So I took Finn to his doctor's visit and we saw a doctor that had been recommended to me by a couple of LLL women, and he was pretty great, so I was happy. And Finn got a shot and he screamed, but he did all right, really. And then I had to bring him to the lab where they pricked his finger and took his blood to test for iron and lead, and he screamed there too, but he was really more pissed off about having his hand held still to squeeze the blood out than he was about the finger prick, so I didn't feel too bad about it. So iron is good and lead is bad, and we already found out he has plenty of iron so let's hope the lead test goes the other way.
Then I went to the grocery store in the afternoon, and on my way out of the driveway I scratched the car on the little slate-roofed shelter for the utility meters. (We have a VERY narrow driveway and the sharp slate roof sticks out right into it.) And when I say I scratched the car, I really mean that I created a huge scrape/dent and it looks pretty awful. So I called Hans and unburdened myself by exaggerating the damage, so that when he saw it, it wouldn't look as bad. It was an effective strategy.
Hans told me that someone he works with has a close friend who has to go back to work earlier than originally intended, and she has a five-month-old baby girl who she was going to put in a group daycare, but she visited the daycare and saw that they were letting the babies cry in their cribs, and she freaked out, and now she's looking for in-home daycare. And when I heard this story, there was a part of me (the crazy part?) that said "You should look into this." I've toyed with the idea, but thought I would wait until Finn was older (or even until his future sibling was a bit older than he is now). But maybe now wouldn't be a bad time. I don't know. Maybe I could just help her out in an interim way while she gets something more permanent lined up, and I could get a feel for what it's like. I'm going to talk to Hans's coworker about it tomorrow.
Well, I DID go ON AND ON, didn't I. Good night then.
Oh, P.S. - Most interesting child's name overheard in pediatrician's office: Remington.
Monday: Went to La Leche League. Still not feeling quite the same as my original group but it is good to go anyway. I always enjoy it. Finn likes seeing other kids. I got him signed up for a playgroup, but it doesn't start until September 10.
Tuesday: Went to a meeting of the Holistic Moms Network. This was my first time with them and I haven't quite got a feel for them yet. They have a different topic every month and this month was homeschooling. One of the moms went on AT LENGTH about homeschooling and there was some discussion, but mostly it felt like a lecture to me, and I was kind of bored. I am actually really interested in homeschooling, but there was a vibe I wasn't really comfortable with of "Well, of COURSE the public schools were out of the question, so it was between the Christian academy and homeschooling..." It felt very elitist to me, with no acknowledgment that some children do very well in public schools or that homeschooling is not practical for every family, and not every parent is qualified to teach. There was actually one dad at the meeting who had been homeschooled as a kid, and 90 minutes plus into the meeting, someone asked him about his experience. He said, "I was wanting to say something, but I couldn't really get a chance..." Heh. That was true, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. And his experience was actually a terrible one, because he had an undiagnosed learning disability and his mom couldn't get anywhere with him and they just butted heads. So he quit at 14 and worked at a fast food restaurant for a while until he figured out that going back to school might be a good idea, and then he went to public school, where presumably they had specialists. I guess he has three or four siblings that did really well with homeschooling, but you would think someone would have caught on sooner that it wasn't working well for him. So anyway, that was my introduction to the Holistic Moms Network.
Wednesday: Today I woke up around 3:00 with a headache that I was almost sure was going to be another migraine. I took ibuprofen and it did get gradually better, but I couldn't get back to sleep until 6:00, and had to get up at 7. So I wasn't feeling so hot. Then the neighbor was parked behind us in the driveway, with a note in her car to call her if we needed to get out, with a long distance number on it. And as it happened I did need to get out, because it was Finn's 12-month doctor's visit today, and I was very worked up about it because I always get worked up about those stuff, and in the midst of feeding Finn breakfast and running around finding his immunization records, I called the long-distance number and left a very crabby message, and then I banged on the neighbor's door and actually had a very civilized but brief conversation with her which left the door open to possibly not being blood enemies, and I was pretty proud of myself over that. I expressed to her that I was very fixated on the notion that I might have to take my baby to the emergency room in the middle of the night so being blocked in overnight really does not work for me. And maybe that's paranoid mommy talk, but babies get sick sometimes, and sometimes they get scarysick, and it is usually in the middle of the night, am I right? And I really had to get that off my chest to her before I could stop raving like a crazy person.
So I took Finn to his doctor's visit and we saw a doctor that had been recommended to me by a couple of LLL women, and he was pretty great, so I was happy. And Finn got a shot and he screamed, but he did all right, really. And then I had to bring him to the lab where they pricked his finger and took his blood to test for iron and lead, and he screamed there too, but he was really more pissed off about having his hand held still to squeeze the blood out than he was about the finger prick, so I didn't feel too bad about it. So iron is good and lead is bad, and we already found out he has plenty of iron so let's hope the lead test goes the other way.
Then I went to the grocery store in the afternoon, and on my way out of the driveway I scratched the car on the little slate-roofed shelter for the utility meters. (We have a VERY narrow driveway and the sharp slate roof sticks out right into it.) And when I say I scratched the car, I really mean that I created a huge scrape/dent and it looks pretty awful. So I called Hans and unburdened myself by exaggerating the damage, so that when he saw it, it wouldn't look as bad. It was an effective strategy.
Hans told me that someone he works with has a close friend who has to go back to work earlier than originally intended, and she has a five-month-old baby girl who she was going to put in a group daycare, but she visited the daycare and saw that they were letting the babies cry in their cribs, and she freaked out, and now she's looking for in-home daycare. And when I heard this story, there was a part of me (the crazy part?) that said "You should look into this." I've toyed with the idea, but thought I would wait until Finn was older (or even until his future sibling was a bit older than he is now). But maybe now wouldn't be a bad time. I don't know. Maybe I could just help her out in an interim way while she gets something more permanent lined up, and I could get a feel for what it's like. I'm going to talk to Hans's coworker about it tomorrow.
Well, I DID go ON AND ON, didn't I. Good night then.
Oh, P.S. - Most interesting child's name overheard in pediatrician's office: Remington.