hold on

(A crappy iphone photo but I love it)

It's strange to think that there will be a time when it won't be completely normal for Phoenix and I to be touching all day and night. Between morning snuggles, nursing, reading books in my lap, holding him on my hip as he watches me cook dinner, holding hands as we take a walk, baby massage after bath time, rocking him to sleep, and all the hugs and kisses all day long there is very little space between us. There were so many times during these past 16 months that being that close all the time felt suffocating. Obviously I loved all the closeness but between non stop nursing, co sleeping, and Phoenix's very strong attachment to me, I felt like I never had my body to myself. I went from carrying him around on the inside to carrying him and supporting him on the outside. And it was absolutely my choice. I'm not complaining about it. I feel so grateful that I've been able to (and still do) nurse him and have all this time together. I know there are other mothers who would do anything to be together.

16 months has proven to be the best. He is so adventurous, so curious, and SO loving. The hugs out of no where, the slobbery kisses as he's falling asleep at night...they slay me. Lately, bedtime has been my favorite. Which is a faaaaaar cry from the struggle it was the last few months. These days, after bath, lotions, and some quiet play time. P let's me know he's ready for bed by taking my hand and leading me to the bedroom (always around 7), we sing the goodnight song to papa, mama, and Phoenix. He puts his little arms out for each of us to squeeze him and with a big grin, leans in for a giant kiss. He loves this routine. After that, papa leaves, we put on his sleep sheep, turn out the lights, and have our time. We lay in bed and he nurses as I rub his little head and sing our song. After he's done, he rolls off my lap and snuggles into me. He takes my hand and puts it on his belly because he likes when I rub his little chest/belly area. And so I do. I quietly tell him about our day...from morning until bed time. What we did, and the adventures we went on...the friends we saw and all the sirens we heard. Sometimes he chimes in, sometimes he just listens. And every night he rolls over to face me, half asleep, and gives me a series of kisses with a sleepy grin. Heart explodes. This is what I'm talking about. How is it possible that one day this won't be happening nightly? I don't like to think about it.

Feeling his tiny ribs as his chest rises and falls...hearing his small, slow breath as he drifts off to sleep...and feeling him cuddle into me as I join him in bed...these are snippets of this precious time that I hope to never forget. I know that one day I will be longing for his little hand to hold mine and for that slobbery mouth to kiss mine. His touch will be reserved for greetings, birthday wishes, and thank yous. I know this all isn't happening tomorrow but I feel like I can see the cold reality that lies ahead and I don't like it one bit.

For now, I will cherish each little request to be held. Where as once I would do anything to have some alone time...I now realize that our days like this are numbered. I was feeling suffocated by the endless physical need from my child...now I want to give him more. I want to hold on to his hand a little bit longer before he runs off to explore, kiss his face a little bit more while he still lets me, and blow raspberries on his tummy while it's still funny. Let's not even begin talking about nibbling on those chunky thighs. I could write whole novels about my love of those thighs.

For today I will hold on a little bit tighter, and hope he will too.

natural cold remedies for mom and baby

I had big plans last week. I had errands to run, banana bread to bake, friends to meet up with. You know, a life to live. And then I got sick. Ughhhh. I felt it coming on Monday evening. The scratchy throat...gross. So I got up and immediately started on my usual arsenal of natural remedies to try and attack this cold before it had too much time to develop. Tuesday I woke up with a definite cold. And while Wednesday it seemed to peak, by Thursday I was feeling much better and by Friday I was at about 90%. I would say that is pretty good (3 days!) considering I also had to chase a toddler around and generally continue mom life. No pity from the 15 month old this time around. But I digress. Here are my recommendations for kicking a cold without any over the counter meds. All of these are also safe for baby and for breastfeeding.

Oregano Oil - We really use this for everything. It is such an amazing anti microbial, anti bacterial, and anti fungal supplement that it can be used to treat so many ailments. I have used a few different ones but I find that this one is good quality and well priced. For adults, you can take it orally. I generally take 2-4 drops under my tongue (depending on how sick I am) a few times a day. For Phoenix, I rub it into the bottom of his feet before bed and put some cozy socks on over. It works brilliantly.Oil of Oregano

Apple cider vinger - Bragg's is the brand I have been using forever. The reason it's important to use the raw and unfiltered variety of ACV is because it has natural probiotics. Those probiotics are killed off during pasteurization. ACV is alkalizing for your body. The more alkaline you are, the stronger your immunity and healthier you are. Conversly, the more acidic your body is, the weaker your immunity. I put a shot in a glass of water and take every morning when feeling unwell.Bragg's

Kombucha or other probiotics - Just like with the ACV, kombucha has lots of beneficial probiotics. Probiotics are essential in building and maintaining a healthy gut. Having a healthy gut is important because it's where we absorb all our vitamins and nutrients (among other things) and hence, we need to keep it strong to get better. If you're not accustomed to the fermented flavor of kombucha (I love it) than you can take a good quality probiotic supplement. Phoenix takes the kids one you see in the photo above. I just mix it in his hemp milk every morning.This kit from my favorite kombucha brand looks awesome!

Chest rub or eucalyptus oil - I usually burn eucalyptus oil at home when one of us is under the weather. It decongests the chest and cleans the air. I also rub it all over P's little chest before bed as well as my own. He nuzzles his little face into me at night so that way he breathes it off my skin too.Chest Rub

Eliminate dairy - Not forever, but dairy (mostly cow) is mucous forming. If you are stuffed up, you may want to hold off for a few days and let your body clear out the mucous. Dairy also causes a lot of inflammation for most people so even if you are not stuffy, you want to make it as easy as possible for your body to fight the cold (which is why you're meant to rest) and cutting out difficult to digest foods does just that. 

Citrus! - I like to include a lot of citrus this time of year for all the extra vitamin C. When I am feeling run dow I do include about 2000 mg of a vitamin c supplement but some delicious oranges and clementines never hurt anyone. Also, along with what I said about mucous, citrus breaks down mucous so even if you are taking a supplement, consider some fresh citrus for this reason.

Super garlic, tahini, ginger dressing - I made this the day after I started feeling sick (Tuesday) and ate it for almost every meal all week. I also gave some to P and forced Scott to eat it as well. He didn't mind. It's delicious. I do a variation of this dressing all the time. You basically start with as much garlic as you can handle. In this case I took about 3 whole raw cloves. You can put it in the food processor with some raw ginger root (again, as much as you can take. I used about an inch.) and one or two spoonfuls of raw tahini. Raw is important again as sesame has a lot of great nutritional benefits. Among them, tahini has a lot of magnesium which is essential in maintaining respiratory health. Zinc is also in tahini, which has been proven to shorten the length of colds. At this point, you pour in some good extra virgin olive oil and then thin out the paste to your liking. When thinner, it's a great salad dressing. A thicker paste works great on crackers and sandwiches. You can also stir it into soups, beans, hummus, or add to marinades. You basically want to get as much of this in your body as possible. Garlic kills everything. Ginger works wonders for colds and sore throats. 

Elderberry or Sambucus - The tea I drank (pictured above) has elderflower in it but Sambucus has elderberry in it as well. If you're not familiar with Sambucus, it has black elderberry, which has been used for centuries in Europe as a cold remedy. I noticed that it works right away at lessening our symptoms. Obviously we have the kids version. Scott and I take double doses twice a day. Sambucus for Kids/Cold Care Tea

Ginger, lemon, honey tea - I do sip on that cold care tea all day as well as give it to P in a sippy. Either in tea or on it's own, ginger, lemon, and honey tea is great for soothing sore throats and clearing up congestion.

Bikram yoga or just sweat! - On Thursday I was starting to feel better but I just needed to knock the last bits of the cold out of me. I bundled my sick self up and went to a Bikram class. It was just what I needed! If you've never done Bikram style yoga before, it's not as fast paced as the more popular Vinyasa or power yoga. And although it definitely get's your heart rate up and your blood flowing. that pace is slow enough that it's managable when sick. At least for me. Also, the room is about 1000 degrees so it helps you sweat out toxins. In fact, that's the whole point of the practice. I digress. That's another post. The point is, just sweating all the sick out made me feel amazing. By the next day I was feeling a million times better. 

These are most of the item that are our first line of defense. While I do think there is a definitely a time and place for drugs, we practice a lot of holistic medicine in our home as well as treat with herbs. I hope you don't get sick this season, but if you do, you may find that these may help you. Along with as much rest as you can get. (Not much for me!)

Thoughts on Breastfeeding at (Almost) Nine Months

Nursing a 1 week old at the pediatrician's office. Notice how delirious I look.

(This is a long post and one I've been wanted to write for a while. It's often difficult to put down on paper what I feel in such a deep part of my heart but here it is.)

It's not been easy. And it's also been the easiest, most natural part of being a mother. It's like everything else that comes with parenting - confusing, daunting, and without much time to research or try things out. You just jump in and hope you can tread above water. Kind of how the past nine months have felt. I don't mean for this to sound as though I hate breastfeeding or that it's impossible. It's just been such an amazingly humbling experience for me, so far.

When I was pregnant, and had all the time in the world to leisurely read everything I could find on labor, birth, breastfeeding, and newborns, I became fixated on breastfeeding. Every woman has something, right? In retrospect, I wonder if I manifested my challenges in the beginning by being so worried that I would be inadequate. In any case, the first few weeks and months were the greatest exercise in trust I have ever witnessed.

From the first nursing session with Phoenix, the experience was both painful and incredible enough to bring me to tears. A mixture of hormones and difficulty latching made for an intensely emotional start. Every time I would hear his little whimper of hunger I would cringe for what was about to come. As much as I loved it once he was latched on properly, I dreaded the excruciating 15 minutes that it took to get him there. He would be screaming from frustration, I would be crying from pain, Scott would be sitting with us doing everything he could to calm both of us down. In a word, it was exhausting (on top of being exhausted).

After what felt like the longest few weeks of my life, Phoenix and I had finally worked it out. But there's more. I know I previously wrote about the fact that I had mastitis (twice) that turned into an abscess and resulted in two failed rounds of antibiotics and hysterical calls to my midwife, ending in her draining it in her office in the middle of the night (with a giant syringe) and a scarred breast. That's the short version. What I failed to mention previously was how I didn't even notice at the time how huge all of this was, as it was happening.

I am not writing any of this because I was a medal or a pat on the back. I am by no means an expert or mother of the year. But I was determined to do everything I could to "fix" my breast. Personally, I was not interested in giving Phoenix formula. Even when my pediatrician said, "It won't kill him." Even when my mom friends said, "Breastfeeding is more trouble than it's worth." Every time I researched formula or looked at the ingredients at the supermarket, I was both terrified/overwhelmed to give Phoenix any of those millions of chemical ingredients on the label and also couldn't imagine paying so much for something I could give him myself, for free! I know that many women can't breastfeed or have to give their baby's formula and I have no judgement on anyone who chooses to do so. I think you need to do whatever is best for your baby and family. But I decided that Phoenix and I were going to figure this out.

And we did.

I told him everything that happened as it was happening. I made sure he was aware of what we were both going through. Even when I had an open drain above my nipple and there was disgusting infected pus coming out (I still cringe just imagining this actually happened), I made sure he could nurse from that side and held onto his tiny hand the whole time so he wouldn't touch it. Luckily those were the early days and he didn't flail around like a fish out of water every time he nursed, like he does now.

After the draining, the healing began. Rubbing the area with castor area every night. Applying hot compresses, taking tons of herbs and inflammation reducing foods. And all the while nursing baby boy day and night. The emotional healing came later. Much later.

As the months progressed, nursing became automatic. What once took an hour, now could be done in 5 minutes flat. At his four month well visit, Phoenix had tripled his birth weight. That was confirmation to me that all that around the clock nursing and perseverance had paid off. I have a healthy boy. Not to say that he would be unhealthy had we gone the formula route but I was just happy knowing we had gotten to to other side, Phoenix and I. We were a team and we were now in the clear, as these things go.

Since then, our nursing relationship has grown even stronger. As my tiny baby gets closer to being a toddler every day (noo!!!) I am reminded of how important this special bond is between us. When we traveled to Holland a few months ago, he nursed throughout both plane rides. Nursing has gotten us through two bouts of teething (6 teeth!) and also while being sick and having a fever last week on vacation. Now that P is about to walk, we are experiencing quite a few tumbles and falls. If there are big tears, I know baby needs that closeness. If we are out longer than expected and I have no food packed, I always breastfeed him. It's both a comfort and a source of nourishment, the best multivitamin he will ever take and his safe place.

I say that it was an exercise in trust because in the thick of it, with an infected breast, a hysterical, hungry infant, an exhausted but incredibly supportive husband, a worried midwife, and little hope, all I could do was trust that it would be okay.

After my miscarriage, I trusted that I would have a healthy pregnancy. Having an unmedicated home birth, I trusted baby and I would safe. In the intensity of labor, I trusted that the pain would eventually end and the baby would come. Throughout the first months of motherhood, I trusted that my body could conquer all those things and that I was made to breastfeed as well. I trusted the process and the lesson.

It has been humbling and powerful. Phoenix still nurses day and night, whenever he wants really. He eats three "meals" a day now so it's not as frequent as it once. There were days that I felt were impossibly long and he was attached to me the whole time. There were nights that I cried to Scott about how frustrating it was that Phoenix would only calm down or fall asleep if I nursed him. I now understand that it is all a part of my role as mama. My scent soothes him, and as much as he loves his papa, sometimes mama offers a comfort that he can't. I get it now. And those nights that I wished that we just cared less and could give him a bottle, I whined and I cried and I got over it. We never did give him a bottle. If not anything else, being a parent has made me much stronger in my convictions. And when I decided I was going to master this foreign thing - breastfeeding. I did it. We did it. And I am so grateful for all the days and nights so far. All the tiny scratches, as of late. All the nibbles now that he has teeth. All the sweet looks of love and gratitude I get when I look down. I cherish all of these.