my children aren't "exclusive"

Parenting these days isn't for the faint of heart.  At least for those who have the internet at their disposal from the first moment they see two lines on the stick, through the late nights up with the newborn, to the late nights up with the toddler, to the late nights up waiting on the teenager . . . wait, do I sense a theme?  :)

The kids on a pallet watching TV - oh wait, that was something else they weren't supposed to do, right?

Seriously, though - it is just way too easy to ask Google:  "Am I a bad parent?"  "How do I get the baby to sleep?"  "I yelled at my toddler is she ruined forever?"

Parents who didn't have the advantage of Google and 3780340 parenting books seemed to have a lot more peace of mind.  Perhaps they didn't know they were making such monstrous mistakes as not feeding their kids all organic home-pureed baby food.

Kids these days have to be "exclusively" everything, if they want a chance at success.  It starts with birth.  Exclusive medication-free, of course.  Wait, I failed that one.  I had a half-dose of some dope that gave me amazing hallucinations during Vicki's birth.  Then, with Todd, well - no chance for any medication although I would have traded my left brain for some at one point.  Nope, my kids weren't exclusively free of medications at birth.

After birth comes vaccinations.  We have neither followed a standard vaccination schedule, nor refused to vaccinate.  Wait - you mean there's another option than being exclusively pro or anti vaccine!?

Let's not forget cloth diapers.  Well, except for all those times I've used disposable diapers.  Then we can forget them.  But hey, every time I use a cloth diaper, it's one less disposable in the landfill, right?

Next - exclusively breast-fed, naturally.  Except that didn't quite work out for me either.  I nursed them both as much as I could (and still nurse Todd), and recognized that they wouldn't die from being fed formula the rest of the time.  No exclusivity for my combo-fed babies.

Then the sleep training debacle.  Of course, you're either spoiling your kids and defiling your marriage by letting your kids sleep in your bed, or you're abusing your kids by letting them cry in their cribs at night while you pee by yourself for once in your life.  No middle ground here either.  Exclusively attachment parenting or cry-it-out.  Well, I failed on that one too.  My babies sleep with me all the time, except for when Vicki started sleeping by herself when she was six months and she cried a bunch.  Then she slept through the night.  Looks like I failed to be consistent on this point, as well.

When your kids start eating real food, you are bombarded by more alarmist messages:  If you feed them before six months they will be obese!  If you feed them non-organic food they will get autism!  The doctor is telling you to give them gruel with no nutritive value that looks awful.  Once again - I was never able to achieve anything exclusive.  I was the weirdo who pureed coconut oil and chicken stock and homemade yogurt into squash and took it to my kids' daycare.  But I also let them eat my fries soaked in GMO canola oil.  Nope - life is too short to ever leave a French fry behind.

And now that we are through all those hurdles, the lack of exclusivity continues.  Sometimes I yell at my kids.  Mostly I try to hug them.  Very occasionally they get spanked.  I guess this disqualified me from the ranks of the attachment parenting people.  But I also don't discipline them with rods and crazy Biblical teachings, either, so I guess I can't be a part of the Train Up a Child community.

There will be more crossroads in the future.  Someday my kids will choose gender identities and sexual orientations.  I have no idea if they will be exclusively gay or straight.  And that's totally cool with me.  Someday, perhaps, they will choose partners - and I'm sure I will neither love nor hate those people, but have extremely nuanced feelings about them.

See, life isn't about exclusivity.  I hope the one message they are seeing from me, through all of this, is that life is messy and complicated.  People who have doctrinaire stances on these issues are setting themselves and their kids up for hard re-actions.  There isn't much I can be sure of.

But there is one thing.  My children are exclusively loved and protected by God.  They are exclusively inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and held by a community of faith.  God's love for them is perfect and God needs no Google or manual to show how to love children.  So I'm leaving it up to him.  Because obviously I can't get it right!  And I've really quit trying to be so perfect.

mother's milk tea

I really discovered the power of herbs during my pregnancy.  Daily, I drank a strong tea of nettles and red raspberry leaf, sometimes with alfalfa added.  I believe that it helped keep my water weight down and gave me tons of nourishing minerals and vitamins to have a healthy, big baby.  The red raspberry leaf helped my uterus to be extremely strong and effective once labor finally began, and enabled me to have a very short one!

I had trouble producing enough milk for the entire time I nursed Vicki.  I ended up taking a drug called domperidone, which has a side effect of increasing lactation.  I decided to have domperidone ready again for when Todd was born, but I also wanted to see what kinds of herbs might help me.  I researched bagged mother's milk tea blends and figured out how to make my own.  Then you get the full power of beneficial herbs without the price tag that comes along with pre-bagged tea.  I also used two books that were extremely helpful in discerning how much of each herb to use:  The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Make More Milk, and the Nursing Mother's Herbal. 

Here are the herbs and seeds I've ended up including:

Alfalfa:  this leaf is very nutritious and provides a boost to your milk-making prolactin receptors.

Nettles:  are also packed with vitamins and minerals, giving more milk by making sure your essential nutrients are covered.

Blessed Thistle:  known for lifting depression and postpartum gloom, in addition to increasing milk supply.  

Dandelion Leaf:  supports the liver, helps you shed excess fluid, and makes your milk richer.  

Fennel Seed:  aids in the letdown reflex, making your milk more accessible.  I have particularly noticed this as compared to my last nursing experience with Vicki.  I let down more quickly and more often.  

Fenugreek Seed:  Dr. Jack Newman, the renowned breastfeeding expert, is a big fan of this one to increase milk production.  

Goat's Rue:  this is one of the only herbs actually known to increase mammary tissue - so it doesn't just help increase how much milk your glands are already making.  It actually helps make more glands!  That is why I add a larger proportion of this herb to my mix.

I mix up my own blend in these proportions:  2 parts nettle to one part each alfalfa, blessed thistle, dandelion leaf, fennel seed and fenugreek seed.  For my "parts," I use 1/4 cup measure.  I put it all in a big mason jar and keep it out on the counter.  I add the goat's rue separately to each batch of brewed tea I make.

Every night, I prepare my quart jar of tea for the next day.  I add 1/4 C of the first six mixed herbs from the jar above, as well as 2 T of goat's rue, to a quart-size mason jar.  I pour boiling water up to the top of the jar.  The next morning, I strain and funnel it into another jar and top it off with more water.  I sip it all day.  Just like with my pregnancy tea, I've found that plain water is very unappetizing to me now.  My body wants my herbs!  And I am making more milk.  Still not enough for all that Todd needs, but more than last time!

[This post is part of Fight Back Friday 9/20/13.]

the herb lady

[This post submitted to Sortacrunchy's Your Green Resource 1/3/13.]

I came home with three suspicious-looking sacks the other night.  I would have been very nervous had I been pulled over.  I even had my daughter in the car with me . . . the shame!!

What was in my sacks, you ask?

Herbs!  Alfalfa, nettles, and red raspberry leaf.

I had to gather my supplies to make my very own pregnancy tea!

My midwives gave a packet of literature on nutrition and health during pregnancy at the beginning of our time together.  On one sheet was a recipe for pregnancy tea.  They suggested equal parts nettle and red raspberry leaf, with optional flavorings like rose hips or hibiscus.

Nettle (sometimes called stinging nettle) is an herb that contains many vitamins and minerals, and also acts as a very gentle, natural diuretic, helping move some of that ubiquitous water off the pregnant woman's body.  This was attractive to me, as I got very Michelin marshallow man-esque by the end of my pregnancy with Vicki.  I mean I was retaining a ton of water.  This is not all bad, as a woman's body is meant to retain some, as a kind of "natural IV" for labor.  But too much can be really uncomfortable and can indicate kidney function issues.

Red raspberry leaf is an herb commonly used for female body functions.  It helps with menstrual cramps, cycle regularity, and contains an alkaloid that helps to tone the uterus and prepare it for effective labor.  Since I have absolutely no history of any kind of preterm labor (I never even felt a single contraction - not even any Braxton-Hicks - until my water broke with Vicki!), this is a safe herb for me.  If you are prone to contractions before the time is right, you might stay away, as it can bring them on.

Alfalfa is one I decided to add for my own reasons.  It is also very nutritious, with lots of minerals and vitamins.  A special added benefit is for mothers who are trying to increase their breastmilk production, or prepare the body for lactation.  Vicki and I struggled in the beginning of our nursing relationship, and I wanted to do what I could to help ease those possible problems for the new baby.

I just kind of concocted my own recipe for this tea.  I take 1/4 C (packed down) of each herb and add it to a quart-size mason jar.  Then I fill with boiling water.  This makes a double concentrated batch of tea.  I let it steep overnight, then strain into another jar and top off with water.  All day long, I drink it half-strength over ice, with lemon added for flavor.  I find the flavor pleasantly grassy.  So, in total, this makes 2 quarts of tea.  Which is just about the amount of liquid I need to consume in a day - so all the better!

I did not take any herbs at all during my pregnancy with Vicki, and in fact my first midwife warned me off of red raspberry leaf, saying there was no evidence that it worked.  That may be so, but it's not doing me any harm, and it barely costs anything.  These herbs were each about $1.00/oz at our local health food store, and a huge bag of each hardly came to five or six ounces. 

I suppose only time will tell, but at the very least, it's encouraging me to drink the right amount of non-caffeinated liquids, which can never be bad.  And I have noticed that downing a few glasses after eating a restaurant meal high in processed foods and salt has taken down the swelling I get in my fingers.

And my husband gets to make all kinds of cracks about how I'm going to start supplementing our family's income with my herbs . . . sigh.

on my shelf: real food for mother and baby

[This post submitted to Your Green Resource at Sortacrunchy on 11/15/12.]

As long as I can remember, I've always had a girl crush.  These non-sexual infatuations are more like intense periods of admiration.   I want to copy her style - from handwriting to clothing.  I find myself thinking, "What would [girl crush x] do in this situation?"  They usually fade in time, only to be replaced by a new crush.  I guess you could really call them role models - but that's no fun!

I have one of these girl crushes on Nina Planck.  She is a real food advocate who grew up on a produce farm, became passionate about extending access to food that is actually recognizable as food, and then founded a string of farmer's markets.  She was a strict vegan, and then made the transition back to animal foods and found her health returned simultaneously.  She wrote a fantastic book called Real Food:  What to Eat and Why.  And then, when she found herself pregnant at 35, she delved into another book project, called Real Food for Mother and Baby.

Planck's second book covers the scope of "eating for two" from eating for fertility, to conception and pregnancy, to birth, to breastfeeding, to baby's first foods.  It is comprehensive, and it is no-nonsense.  She is not into strict regulations or "protocols," as some real-food people love to banter about.  She is also into science, which makes this book a fascinating read. 

We have not had trouble with fertility, so I read that section kind of lightly.  But when I arrived at the "Pregnancy Diet" chapter, I immediately encountered an attitude I had felt myself.  Planck describes how she dutifully attempted to follow all the different pregnancy diets that are out there:  the Weston A. Price Foundation's recommendations, the Brewer Diet, and others.  Her continued conclusion:  too much food!  I'm stuffing myself to try to get all this food in.  And then she breaks it down into the most remarkably simple terms:

First trimester (or so):  your baby is building his internal systems and structures.  He needs vitamins to do this, but not a lot of extra calories, so continue eating a healthful and balanced diet, as you should have been before conceiving.

Second trimester (or so):  your baby is putting on muscle and bone, so he needs protein and calcium (meat and milk).

Third trimester (or so):  your baby is packing on fat and building his brain, so he needs lots of healthy fats and lots of fish oil (brains need DHA, which comes primarily from fish). 

Now this, I can remember - without a reference chart or a checklist on my refrigerator! 

Of course, there is more to it than just those three simple guidelines, but they encapsulate what I love most about Planck's book.  It is straightforward, and it doesn't make you feel as if you have failed before beginning if you don't have a perfect diet.  She doesn't make you think your baby will be delayed or weak if you don't eat liver every day.  She simply makes the point that liver is one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, and recommends that you try it.  She says that raw milk is best, and shows the science behind it, but then says that she and her family drink plenty of the best pasteurized milk she can find as well.  This is reality, and I love it. 

Her birth story (planned homebirth turned hospital labor turned cesarean) is humbling and emotional.  She reminds us that surgical birth is a miracle that does save lives, when it is reserved for its proper use. 

When I found I was pregnant again, this was the one book I wanted most to get my hands on, in our boxes and boxes of books.  I re-read it in a matter of days, marking pages and copying charts for reference. 

The sections about breastfeeding and introducing foods to your baby are just icing on the cake.  If you are struggling to get pregnant, want some well-thought-out, not-too-rigid guidelines on how to eat while pregnant, or are pondering how to introduce your child to the world of real food, you must check this book out.  It's a gem.

breastfed baby growth chart

Oh, "the chart."  Am I ever familiar with "the chart."

My baby is at the top of the chart!
My little one never made it onto the chart . . . 
My daughter fell off her growth curve and our doctor is concerned.
My newborn wasn't gaining on the chart right and was diagnosed with failure to thrive.

Here's the thing about the chart.  Doctors have all different ones that they use!  Some doctors are using a growth chart from the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Some doctors are using a chart drawn up by using their patients as a sample, so your child is being measured against all the other children in that practice.  The one that they should be using, according to the CDC, is the World Health Organization breastfed baby growth chart (if the child is breastfed, of course!).  I eventually started disregarding the chart the doctor pulled out at our visits, and plotted the weights I took at the breastfeeding clinic onto the WHO chart myself.  I have only recently stopped doing this!  It became somewhat of a ritual for me.

You can find the links to all the charts - boys and girls for weight, height, head circumference, and more - here.  

Another thing about "the chart" is that it functions sort of like a bell curve.  Not everyone in this class can get an A.  For every child that is in the 90th percentile, there must be a child in the 10th percentile.  For every child that is "off the chart," there must also be one that never made it on.  For each parent to think that their child should be near the top of the chart is a logical fallacy.  This is something my doctor never pointed out to me.

Vicki Jo started off right at the 50th percentile:  7 lb, 1 oz at birth.  But here's yet another thing about that weight:  we had both been pumped full of IV fluids for about 24 hours before she was born and weighed.  It certainly bloated me with extra water.  I can only imagine it did the same for her.  By discharge, 24 hours after birth, she was down to 6 lb, 12 oz.  I suspect this is nearer to her actual birth weight.  Turns out my suspicion is probably right.  If we had used her discharge weight instead of her birth weight as the starting point on the chart, no one would have been concerned about her low weight of 6 lb, 6 oz.

Because she lost a lot and was slow to gain it back, though, I was discouraged about the progress we were making with breastfeeding.  And all of this parenting stuff is a confidence game, let me tell you.  I swore to myself that after receiving this blow to my confidence early on, I would tell other new parents I knew about the WHO chart, in case it might help them.  So consider this your PSA!  In fact, I used it just last week, in a rather underhanded way.  Our friends Eric and Mackenzie had a baby in April, and they have been hosting a friendly "guess the baby's weight/height/head circumference" after her regular well-baby visits.  They provide the last check-up's figures, then solicit guesses.  I just took those last figures, plugged them into the chart, and saw where she should be on her curve at this point.  Lo and behold, I was right - down to the ounce! 

on my shelf: the womanly art of breastfeeding

This post is part of a series on the books I have found absolutely necessary in growing and raising a child so far.  For others in the series, click on one of these links.  

I always knew I wanted to nurse my child(ren).  It makes sense to me on every level:  cheaper, more convenient, a great bonding experience, better for baby, etc.  I knew from our Bradley class, and from just general mother-online-chattering, that it wasn't always as easy for us as nature had intended.  See, our society has pretty much made any exposure of the breasts a terrible, awkward, sinful, immodest . . . well, you get the picture.  Add to that some extremely effective and expensive mind manipulation (i.e. marketing) by formula companies, and you come up with my level of exposure to breastfeeding before the baby was born:  I had never (even once!) seen a woman feeding her child in this way.

So, it's no surprise that things were rocky for me.  I felt totally unsure of what I was doing, and my baby was losing weight rapidly.  When she did start to gain weight, it was never as fast as the charts demanded.  Even now, six months on Sunday, she weighs just about fourteen pounds.  Being a new mother, with all the stresses and strains that go with even the "easiest" baby (which my baby would be classified as on the "frequent screaming" end of that spectrum), and feeling like you are not able to give your baby the important fuel she needs to grow, is crazy-making.

Enter La Leche League.  I called for help in the first few days, and a kind leader talked me through my situations and listened sympathetically.  She offered assistance, followed up frequently, and just generally made me feel like I wasn't completely insane for wanting to continue with this endeavor.  So, I got the La Leche League book.

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding is way more than just a manual on how to nurse your child.  It's a full-blown parenting resource.  I devoured it.  The book is subdivided into age groupings (birth to two weeks, two weeks to four months, and so on), and I anxiously counted down the days until Vicki Jo made it into the next age category so I could start reading all about what to expect. 

And now that we're getting ready to start trying some real foods, there are helps and guidelines on how to do it healthfully for your child.  There are suggestions on sleeping, there are little vignettes and stories from women who nursed their children.  I will remember some of them forever, I think.  Sometimes I was angry at the book because it portrayed nursing as easy and fun, when it was neither for me for a long time.  But still, The Womanly Art was always there for me.

I don't think I could possibly have made it this far without this book.  And that's why it stays on my shelf.

my uniform

As the time of Vicki Jo's birth drew nearer, I realized I was going to have to give some thought to this whole nursing thing.  I had been so focused on having a healthy pregnancy and natural birth that my train of thought had kind of ended there.  I read what Dr. Bradley had to say about the first few days after birth, and I knew La Leche League would be a good resource, but so much of it seemed just like pregnancy - every woman (and baby!) is so different.  Would I need nursing pads?  Would I not?  Would a Boppy pillow help me, or just get in the way?  Did I need a rocking chair?  I chose to go with Jeff's approach on these matters:  wait and see (very unusual for me!).

Turns out I didn't need any of that stuff.  The one thing I ended up needing, loving, wearing daily, was this tank top from Gilligan & O'Malley:

I have two in white, one in gray, one in black, and I'm about to buy another one in black.  They are a steal for the number of times I've worn them:  $17 at Target.  This tank doesn't have the weird yoke-looking piece in the front that many nursing tanks have that always pops out and looks awkward.  It just has a hook that links the fabric into each strap.  It is cut generously and hasn't shrunk in the wash.  It is convenient and easy.  It is my daily uniform:  I wear it under a sweater, shirt, or dress every single day.  This tank and my rental pump have been the only two things I needed to nurse my baby for the last six months.

counting grams and ounces

We just had our four-month well-baby visit and shots (more on vaccinations at a later date . . .), and I am so overjoyed to report that we have reached the 15th percentile for weight and the 20th for length!

I know what you're thinking:  most parents would be concerned that their baby had fallen below the average.  But not so for us.  This is a triumph!  Something we have worked so very hard for.

Vicki Jo was born exactly on the middle mark:  7 pounds, 1 ounce.  Half of all babies weighed more than her when they were born, and half weighed less.  I tend to think her weight was inflated a bit because of the intravenous fluids I received during labor and delivery, but it really couldn't have added more than a few ounces of water weight.  After a day in the hospital, she was dropping weight fast.  This is normal, up to a certain point.  Babies are born with stores of fat and water to get them through a few days until their mother's milk becomes available to them. 

Another day, and she had dropped even further!  The doctor at the clinic was becoming concerned.  She had lost over 10% of her birth weight.  Supplementation with formula was recommended.  I was so stubborn on this point.  She was so young, and everything about her was fresh and new.  I didn't want to introduce any foreign substances into her body.  Instead, I went into overdrive:  feeding her every two hours at the very least, and pumping with a breast pump after every feeding (this is what is recommended by lactation specialists - the more stimulation you receive, the more milk you produce . . . supposedly).  It didn't help that this was also Vicki's "don't put me down or I will kill you with my screams" phase.  I was under so much stress, and, although she gained weight slowly after about day four, she never grew fast enough for all the medical people to be satisfied. 

She didn't come back up to her birth weight until week four - two weeks after "they" want this to have happened.  After going to the breastfeeding clinic literally every day for five weeks, they finally told me to try a last-ditch effort:  domperidone.  Domperidone is a medication that is prescribed for patients with slow-moving digestive tracts due to things like chemotherapy.  It helps to move things along, if you will.  Lactation is a happy side effect.  (I often crack up thinking about the poor men who are struggling through chemo and are prescribed this medication without anyone telling them about the lactation . . . until they wake up with milk on their sheets!)  During her sixth week of life, I started the medication.  I had to return to work in a couple of weeks, and I told myself that I couldn't maintain this level of freaking out.  If things hadn't improved by week eight, I was weaning her and going to formula.  And hating myself for the rest of my life. 

Lo and behold . . . the medicine worked!  Suddenly my milk was ample.  She gained weight rapidly, shooting up nearly an ounce per day for weeks at a time.  When I went back to work, I was able to pump pretty much all of what she needed.  She still gets a bit of formula because I don't produce as much for the pump as I do for her, but no more than 4-6 ounces three times a week.  That, I can live with - sans the self-hatred.  When I'm able to be on vacation or on my days off, she doesn't need any extra formula at all! 

Although she gained well after I started the domperidone, she still never busted through about the 10th percentile.  I was convinced that she was just going to be a small thing, and that was fine.  She is supremely healthy, has never had so much as a sniffle, and is very strong and happy.  She was tracking along just fine at her 10th percentile line when we went to the doctor yesterday.  There, she was 12 pounds and 10 ounces!  15th percentile!  OMFGosh.  I was literally over the moon.

We still go to the breastfeeding clinic every two weeks.  I'm such a regular at the place that all the nurses know us by name.  I even became one of their first ever patients to need two cards to record all the weights we had taken!  I love it there now, because I receive so much positive feedback for sticking with a truly difficult breastfeeding situation.  I know it's not a nice thing for them to say, but when I hear, "Anyone else would have given up," and I know it might be true (and after all, they would know because they see TONS of lactating women daily), it just makes me so proud of the first collaboration at which my baby and I were ever successful.

co-sleeping, bed-sharing, night-weaning . . . oh my

When I first found out I was expecting our darling dear daughter, I had visions of "normal" nighttime babyhood and parenting.  What did "normal" mean to me then?  Our baby would have her own room (our guest room/nursery), her own bed (a crib), and she would sleep peacefully by herself from a young age. 

Through the sessions of our Bradley birth class, however, and in talking with the other expectant parents there, I realized that there were some other options.  People actually regularly and legitimately plan to sleep with their children (as opposed to it just happening on accident or out of desperation)!  I also began to put the pieces together on the whole babies and nighttime thing:  it is a rare newborn who is able to sleep for long stretches without assistance and comfort from a parent.  Also, even if a baby is formula-fed, her stomach is not large enough to contain the amount of food needed to get them through the night, so they must eat several times during that period.  Breastmilk digests even faster than formula, so breastfed babies typically must eat even more often!  So babies need nighttime care, and where they are at night has a lot to do with what kind of care they get. 

For those outside the newborn universe, there are typically three options when it comes to where your baby sleeps:  in his or her own room (either on a floor-bed, in a crib, or in a bassinet); in your room but in his or her own bed; or in your bed.  These each have their distinct advantages and disadvantages.  Regardless of what you feel comfortable with, having a baby totally rocks your world.  It changes any visions of peaceful nighttime sleep permanently.  I used to wonder how parents always seemed to get up so early and it never bothered them.  Now I am that mom who gets up at five thirty and it doesn't faze me anymore. 

When we brought the baby home from the hospital, it just seemed right that we all snuggle up in bed together, as we had been in the recovery room after birth.  The baby seemed so small and vulnerable and I just needed her there tucked under my arm.  Doing some internet research, I found out about safe bed-sharing, even though they acted at the hospital like it was a sure way for our baby to die.  Our Bradley instructor had said that mothers don't lose track of where their babies are in their sleep (or really ever) - it's just a part of our animal brain that functions at all times.  I found this to be true for me from the start.  Additionally, she needed to eat all the time - every two hours or even more often!  Once we learned how to lay on our sides together and face each other so she could nurse, life became much easier.  We figured this out on about day five. 

At first, nighttime parenting was a lonely experience for me.  After all, I'm the only food source in our eating arrangement, and there was no point to me in waking Jeff up just so there could be two miserable sleepless adults in our household.  Eventually, though, the baby and I figured out how she could get what she needed from me in the night without either of us really waking up.  Then the issue began to be space.

The dog has slept with Jeff and me for years, and adding the baby into that mix put three good-sized creatures and one tiny one in a queen-sized bed.  It just wasn't working that well, and I found I was always the one scooched to the edge, as I didn't want the baby on the outside where she might fall off.  So, eventually, we moved to the guest bed.  And that's where we've been ever since.  The baby and I sleep soundly and peacefully, and Jeff and the dog snuggle up upstairs.  Is it ideal?  Not really.  But what does ideal even mean anymore?  Will I have a heck of a time getting her to sleep by herself someday?  Probably.  But is it worth it for all the amazing night and morning love, and looks, and caresses we get to share?  I think so.

For now, I've decided to put off making any serious decisions about changing our arrangement until Babe stops needing to nurse at night - so, probably until she starts eating solid food.  And I've decided to stop feeling any guilt about it, because I need all my emotional resources right now!