The Self-Nurture Challenge

My amazing friend, Savannah, has challenged us moms to find some way to nurture ourselves each and every day this week leading up to Mother's Day.

I will be playing along, and I hope you will too!!

You can read her post and let her know what activities you have done by visiting her Mindfully Mothering blog.

Mail-Order Wife!

Well... not quite, but it will have to be the next best thing. I just found out that my birthday-twin Shawna will be coming to visit in June, and is going to stay with us for 3 weeks!!! We had such a wonderful time, and the kids got so attached to her, when she came to visit last December--we are thrilled to have her come stay again!

I have to say, I know I will be very a little jealous, because she will be fresh off an amazing trip through Central America, but I am also just as eager to hear all of the wonderful details, love on her yummy brown skin, and look at all of her pictures.

Now I just have to wait 2 months...

Andy The Astrological Detective

In response to the popularity of the last post and the proposition that was made, here is a post solely dedicated to dispensing Andy's contact information:

astrologicaldetective.com

503-404-5068

andy@astrologicaldetective.com

There is more great info on her website, so I would recommend checking it out, but for a quick glimpse at the info you are looking for, a standard 1 hour natal chart reading it is $100 ($90 for my friends!!), and you leave with the chart and an audio tape of the reading (or you could probably get a videotape, Lee--she's an interpreter, also). There is also an option to have a parent and child's chart read at the same time, for $150, which is a good deal. Initially this may seem like a lot of money to spend on a non-essential service...but when you take into account how much you may spend on a haircut or an outfit, and weigh that against how much insight into your child (or yourself, or your spouse) that this can give you, it really is worth it. If it just isn't affordable, but it's something you'd really like to do, it also could be a gift to your child for a birthday or holiday and relatives may even pitch in for it.

If you are skeptical, I'll let you know a full report after we have our kids' done. Hopefully it will be soon... I feel like I really need some help understanding them lately!!

Birth Story Carnival

I realize I am a few days late, but I just couldn't pass up a chance to participate in a birth story sharing event.

My first inclination was to share Kiran's birth story, since it is my most recent and because we just celebrated his 1st birthday. But, in digging a little deeper, I have decided I would like to share Kaden's birth story. All 3 of my births changed me and are so special to me, each in it's own way. Kaden's birth was my first VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), it was a very fast and uncomplicated birth after a super-long and more complicated birth, and it was my first homebirth--all of which made it such an intensely powerful and fulfilling experience for me.

I had been having strong and regular, but not painful, contractions for several weeks. At 37 weeks I woke up at 2 am for my regular potty & snack trip. I was still having the same regular contractions, but nothing out of the ordinary. I returned to bed with my string cheese, and had trouble falling back to sleep (again, not unusual). At about 2:45 Rich woke up and asked how I was doing, and if my contractions were regular. I told him they were, but that I thought we should just go back to sleep and that we would probably have several nights like this before I really was in labor. At 3 am we both laid down to rest, and I turned over onto my belly, like in child's pose, as my contraction was a little stronger--and I felt a "pop" up in my belly. Instantly the contractions intensified and became painful, and I went into the living room to sit on my birth ball and light candles, while vocalizing through them. Rich called our midwife and called my mom to come be with me, as he worked like a mad-man trying to get the hot tub (which was completely unprepared for labor) into the house, cleaned, and filled (HA!).

I labored like this for about 20 minutes, when I felt the urge to poop--so I moved into the bathroom. As soon as I sat down on the toilet, my contractions turned to grunting pushes...what an amazing feeling that was! That urge is so powerful and overwhelming, I could not deny it. I told Rich to call our midwife back and tell her I was "feeling pushy." By the time she arrived at 3:30 and checked me, I was completely dilated and pushing.

Now came the hard part. :) I have heard a lot of women tell a lot of birth stories. I have read about and seen many many videotaped and a few live births. Some women have a very difficult time with the contractions, others with pushing... mine was pushing. It wasn't that it was so painful, although it was... It was deciding in my mind, actually committing to pushing that baby out, that was so difficult. I can remember the exact moment that I finally made up my mind, and decided to really push him out--and out he came!

It was so glorious to feel him slip out of me--although the several minutes that he was crowning was the most intense and painful moment of my life--and then to hold him on my chest, all wet and warm and brand new, was the most profound and most longed-for experience I have had.

To see pictures, and read the account of Kaden's birth that I wrote the day he was born, click here.

Thanks, Lotus, for giving us this opportunity to share such intimate and important details of our lives.

Couldn't Have Said It Better

This was in my reader this morning when I got up. I had to share it.

And here's a flower from our backyard.


Have an extraordinary day.

Boobs

You may feel like you have seen plenty of breasts in your life. You may be sick and tired of the underwear models, voluptuous cleavage, and slutty fashion trends that bombard your vulnerable eyes when waiting in the checkout line. You may have even watched your share of well-endowed (or more accurately, well-paid-for) porn stars. Well, I just read Amy's post over at Syma Says, explaining that March is National Women's History Month and detailing her journey to becoming a feminist. I thought, in keeping with the Feminist spirit, and to further talk myself out of the boob job I secretly (well, not-so-secretly) want, here is a link to a plethora of normal, natural breasts, which we do not see often enough. Enjoy.

The Normal Breast Gallery

13 Blogs I Heart (that you might not know about)

I'm not really good at keeping my love a secret... I never have been. I have link upon link trailing down my sidebar, displaying my love of each person and blog for all the world to see.

Well, there's more. Yes, in addition to the 297 links you see to the right, there are (at least) 13 more blogs that I love to read whenever I get the chance. I like to sneak little peeks, between a diaper change and a snot-wiping session... after nursing, but before making lunch. These women help to keep me sane, and let me know it's ok to be a little crazy.

1. Huckdoll-- This girl is a Rock Star. Seriously. She looks like she is not a day over 19 (although I know she is at least 25), she has A-DOR-ABLE twin girls, she is witty, clever, and genuine..3 of my favorite qualities.

2. Nina--My internet crush. Nina is a teacher in NYC...she teaches English. She is amazingly funny, candid, and talented. Then on top of all this wonderfulness, she also travels all over the world and climbs mountains. Yah, now you understand my crush??

3. Lotus--I know SarcasticMom is in my links for her awesome Weekly Winners meme, but Lotus is much more than just photos...although that is one of her specialties. Lotus cares about the environment, has a super-cute toddler that is totally photogenic, and writes the FUNNIEST shit about her little chihuaha... seriously, I didn't know animals were such good fodder for blogs until I read hers.

4. Crunchy Chicken--I have been reading Crunchy's blog the longest out of any of these. For her I have amazing respect and admiration--she is literally changing the world one person at a time, and all while she has really intense and difficult stuff going on at home (read: her husband has an incurable form of blood cancer). Her blog is very interactive, she has a huge readership, and she hosts all kinds of book discussions, challenges, and aid missions.

5. Best Laid Plans of Monkeys & Moms--Monkey's Momma is planning an HBAC, and I love her reading her stories about this journey.

6. Eating Rice--VeganMama is doing some hard work. I love reading her blog because she inspires me to take a look at myself, and she also gives me hope for those days when my kids are a little older.

7. Mrs. G--Leah "introduced" me to Mrs. G, and I totally adore her. Her kids are almost self-sufficient (13 and 17 year olds should be able to get themselves clean underwear and make mac and cheese...right??), she is a fabulous writer, and she writes about herself in 3rd person--which totally works for her!

8. A Hippie With a Minivan--I found paxye's blog by way of craftster. She is a totally talented sewer, and we have so much in common. I got really sucked into her blog one night, and even began contemplating stealing her baby's name if we happened to have another baby. IF WE HAPPENED TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY???!!! I think I must have been crazy when I was contemplating that. Go ahead and laugh yourself right off your chair now. Please. Do it. Then you may forget I ever even contemplated such a thing.

9. Hippie Girl--Hippie Girl is a recent find, but you will see right away why I was drawn to her blog. Even our cyber-names are similar!

10. Creative Mom Podcast--When I am cleaning and the sound level in my home is at "fairly quiet" (ie: one or more kids are sleeping) I like to listen to Amy Cowen's podcast about creativity and mothering. She shares wonderful resources, beautiful stories from her own life, and interesting ideas for art and creativity.

11. Crazy Man Jones--This mama shares her heart and her journey after losing her sweet baby boy, Jadon.

12. EnviroMom--I happened upon EnviroMom's blog while googling something, and when I saw she was in Portland too I was very intrigued. Turns out she organizes groups for "green" mommies!! And her blog is full of great information and discussion about topics I'm totally into.

13. Simply Green Living--This is kind of like an RSS aggregator for all of the Green blogs on the net. RawVeganMama shares lots of tips and info in digestible posts, with sprinklings of spiritual encouragement and mindfullnes.

Hope you find something you like! Happy Thursday. :)

OH, PS: Tomorrow is Leap Day, and has officially been dubbed the Blog365 Day of Rest. I may be taking tomorrow off, or more accurately, I am supposed to take tomorrow off, so that come December 31st I do, in fact, have 365 days of posts, instead of 366. I don't really care about the numbers, but I think I'll just take tomorrow off for the heluvit.

See you Saturday!!!

Surrender...

my word for the year.

I have been listening to Amy Cowen's The Creative Mom Podcast and she introduced me to Ali Edwards' idea of creating a word for the year. I was immediately drawn to the thought of choosing one word, one singular focus...a kind of a mantra...to aid me through this challenging and life-changing year. It did not take me long to come up with it, and I knew as soon as it appeared in my mind that it was perfect.

My word for the year is surrender: to relinquish to the power of another; yield to the control of another.

I spend a lot of time and mental energy throughout my days and nights trying to exert control, give the appearance of having a small bit of free will, and placating myself into believing I do have some say over how my children act, what I choose to do in any given moment, and when I get to go to the bathroom. In reality, however, I do not.

It is ok that I don't have much power over these things in my life right now. It really is. I could choose to parent by putting my babies on a schedule, letting them cry it out, not nursing on demand, deciding when they should wean, and expecting them to sleep through the night... but that is not what we are choosing to do, and I accept that fully. However, even if we did all of these things, it would still not mean I have total control over these little humans. That would just be foolish and silly. They have brains and wills and ideas of their own, and I know that 99.99% of the time they will differ from my ideas of what they should be doing, just because they know they can. That is ok, too. I want to raise people who think for themselves, and at the same time know that I am here for them and that I love them unconditionally.

And so, I am surrendering to the flow of life...to the moments that happen as they happen...to the situations in which I find myself by virtue of the path I have chosen...when it's 11:55pm and I just have to get my blog post done for the day but no one is happy sleeping without a nipple in their mouth (except if it's Rich... he can wait)--I choose to surrender to motherhood. Surrender to my baby's needs. Surrender to the curiosity of my 6 year old. Surrender to the present moment. Surrender to love and joy and peace...instead of continuing to thrash and fight, tooth and nail, to finish whatever task I had set out to complete at that moment.

I surrender.

Project Support Beauty In Nature

Lotus over at SarcasticMom is on a nature-preserving earth-saving beauty-loving rampage...my favorite kind. She has asked us to show our support for beauty in nature and help to inspire others to do the same by posting the ways in which we are caring for the environment. I don't want to bore you all again with my Green Ways, so I will just link to the post and you can read it if you are interested.

I just discovered EnviroMom recently, and went to one of her GreenGroup meetings last week. It was a wonderful way to connect with other moms who care about the environment, and to brainstorm and get new ideas on how to live more simply and in line with our values.


And, so you don't miss out on all of the cuteness, I just posted pictures from Kaden's birthday

The Kind of Births I Want to See More of

...and they actually take place in the hospital.

Amy inspired me to do a follow-up post to the hilarious, but nonetheless disturbing, video clip I posted last week. I don't think Amy took it this way, but I want to be sure everyone understands, I did not mean that to be offensive to anyone who has or would like to give birth in a hospital. I strongly believe women should be where they are most comfortable (physically, mentally, and emotionally), and for some that is not in their own home. The problem that I have is the outrageous system of medicalized birth in America. A system that is in serious trouble, being concerned much more with lawsuits and protocol than with the health of our mothers and babies. At the same time that our cesarean rate is skyrocketing, our fetal mortality rates are going up right along with it. This could be a whole long ranty post, complete with numbers and percentages that would make your jaws drop and you would all fall out of your chairs in sheer horror and disgust...but I'm not going there tonight. If you would like to read that post, Angela has outlined it very nicely in her post "How the United States Ranks." What I do want to say is that there are many wonderful midwives, doulas, nurses and doctors (yes, I said doctors) who are working in our nations hospitals to make it a safer and more peaceful place to give birth. I love this video, because it highlights exactly that. And because it is set to the song that Rich and Kylin and I walked down the aisle to after our wedding...it always makes me cry.



If you search on youtube for "Navelgazing Midwife" or "Dr. Wonderful" you will find many more amazing and touching videos. Oh, and Amy, I would LOVE to see your wonderful hospital birth video on youtube, or for sale... we need to be the change we wish to see in the world, sister.


In other news....

I bought a domain name!!! :)

I'm urbanhippiemama.com

For now I will just make it point to this site, so any bookmarks or feeds you already have in place *should* be fine. If you try to check the blog in the next couple of days and you get a weird page or something funky happens, just check back again... hopefully I'll get all the bugs worked out really quickly.

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by my friend, Ellie. The game is....get tagged and post 5 random facts about yourself and tag 5 others. You also have to make sure to post a comment on their blog to let them know they've been tagged.

5 Random Things About Breana:

1) I am totally excited to start flat traveling. We are in the process of making our flat traveler family, and as soon as they are done they will be off to exotic places. This started as an unschooling project for Kylin, but I think I might be even more into it than she is!! :) I'm making a Flat Mommy to exchange with other mommies--we can share recipes, routines, crafting stuff...anything we want to learn about how other mommies do their stuff in other parts of the country and the world!

2) I also love real-life, 3-D traveling. One of the aspects of unschooling that Rich and I are so excited about is that the world is our classroom. When the boys are a little older we hope to begin our traveling adventures in earnest, but for now we will be road-testing Euri (our Eurovan) on a trip to the Oregon Country Fair, and then on to California.

3) And, speaking of the Country Fair, that is an even that I live for all year. I love the fair community. I love the food. I love the environment. I love the eco-consciousness. I love the nakedness. I love the costumes. I love the music. I love the barefoot people. I fucking LOVE the fair.

4) I ran a half marathon once. I did! The 2004 Hippie Chick Half Marathon. 13 miles, all at once.

5) I have always wanted to dye my hair black and pink. Not necessarily together. I have wanted to dye it black. And I have wanted to dye it pink. Well, today is the day! And I have decided on black AND pink! I am so excited. A little nervous, but mostly just excited. It will add a little color to our days of poopy diapers (although those ARE colorful), nursing, and not being able to get out us all together to get of the house to save my life.

Ok, FRIENDS:

1) MamaNomad, my new sister-friend and soon-to-be personal shopper and fashion consultant.

2) My sister-in-law, Theresa, who I am SOOOOOOOOOO freaking excited to see next month.

3) My cousin, Rachel, who moved far away to North Idaho, but I'm excited to be able to keep up with their family through her blog.

4) My fellow MDC and ICAN homeschooling mama-friend of three, Allison.

and last, but not least,

5) EarthMamaGoddess, Deb, who is in the middle of packing and moving, but who's blog, and friendship, I absolutely adore.