babyfruit: the miscarriage blog and motherhood diaries

Mom-MAH

It has been too long since my last blog post. What - life got in the way of blogging? Blasphemy! But it is true. The Speed Reader's Digest Version: lots of work, baby sick, mommy sick, husband away hunting for a week so mommy solo, hubby injures arm, mommy taking care of hubby and baby, hubby gets an operation to repair arm, mommy taking care of hubby and baby, mommy falling behind on work, mommy needs Calgon.

But now on to the real news.

NG finally is calling me something - she calls me "Mom-MAH." It is very cute. And not only is she saying it, but she is relating it to me. When G. asks "Where's your momma," NG points to me. She hugs my legs and looks up and says "Mom-MAH." She looks down the stairs when I get home and smiles and says "Mom-MAH."

The thing that makes this so significant - to me at least - is that she didn't call me anything until she was 15 months old. She had "DAH" and "DA-da" all down pat for months, but she had no name for me. I understand that Dada is easier to say than Mama. But I have to admit it was a strange feeling to go for months without her calling out to me or identifying me. Yes, she'd respond to me, but she didn't have a way to refer to me.

So despite the craziness we've been experiencing in our household these last weeks, I'm just basking in the glow of "Mom-MAH." It seems to make everything right with the world.

Mommy Pickup Lines

I just met this awesome woman today with her 19 month old little girl. Where, you ask? My local grocery store. We both had our daughters in those cute plastic car shopping carts, and NG immediately wanted to play with her daughter. So we chatted as they got acquainted as babies do.

She was smart, outgoing, animated - and she told me about a great gym for little kids in our town that I didn't even know about. She recently returned to Alaska this year after 3 years overseas, and seemed genuinely interested in conversation.

I felt comfortable talking with her immediately. Basically, I wanted to throw myself at her feet and grovel, "Please be my friend!"

I still only have 1 girlfriend in this town, and she is so swamped with a fulltime job on top of mothering her 18 month old daughter solo while her husband is out of town for several months on business, that we hardly get together. I am desperate for someone else to hang out with - coffee in the morning, a lunch date now and then, the impromptu evening cocktail, anything. But it just doesn't seem to happen easily in this town.

We ended our conversation with her saying something like "We'll probably see you at the Little Gym this winter." Then she was gone. Well, she actually passed us as we were at the cash register, and again, I wanted to run after her and give her my phone number and say something lame like, "Call me! Let's get our kids together!"

But I chickened out. I was afraid my desperation for friendship would show on my face and in my voice. I mean, what is the proper pickup line when you are trying to make a mommy friend at a grocery store?

I had this exact thing happen to me a few months back. A mom around my age had a baby boy in a sling, and she started speaking with me about NG. Our conversation flowed so easily. She is a business owner in town so we had that in common, too. She even said, "We should really get together!" but instead of exchanging numbers, I told her my blog name, and she said if I didn't hear from her soon, to call her business and leave a message for her.

Instead, I emailed her through her company Web site. Then waited. And waited. And eventually waited too long to go back and call and say what? "I'm the lame woman who you wanted to be friends with but I emailed instead of called and now months have gone by and I feel like a total loser so of course I'll understand if you don't want to be my friend?"

My best friends are in Colorado, and I have good friends in other parts of the country, so I know I'm not entirely incapable of making friends. How can I make the most of these mommy encounters at grocery stores? Should I give them my business card & say "Let's get our kids together?" Is it that simple?

What would YOU do?

Nominate Best Non-fiction Blogger

I know the woman seeking the submissions & she is legit so please  send her your nominations for best non-fiction blog POST today!

Creative Nonfiction (national literary journal) is currently putting together the second volume of a new anthology, The Best Creative Nonfiction, to be published by W.W. Norton in summer 2008.

Volume I was released this summer and has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly--please visit www.creativenonfiction.org for a complete table of contents and contributors. It's available at bookstores---find it in the Essay section.

They are currently accepting nominations for Volume II.

This can be from on-line publications and blogs that contain good nonfiction writing---that is to say,  well-rendered, interesting nonfiction (nothing that's purely  self-serving, i.e., how much you love your pet, or empty political rants, how-to fashion pieces, what you did on your summer travel, etc.).

They are looking for new voices, ideas, forms and approaches in creative nonfiction (literary nonfiction) on the Web.

They'll consider immersion pieces, personal essay on any topic, food writing, general features, cultural commentary, science/nature---basically anything with a strong narrative and something interesting to say--which was first web-published within the past year. In other words, something more literary in nature, not information-only.

The deadline for nominating someone else's work, or for submitting your own on-line writing, for The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume II is September 15, 2007.

To submit nominations for consideration, please send the following to the email address below or hard copy to the mailing address below:

1. the name of the writer,   
2. title of piece/post,
3. name of the on-line publication/blog
4. date the piece appeared
5. the URL

CONTACT:
Kathleen Tarr
Coordinating Editor
Best of CNF, Vol. 2
3100 Legacy Drive
Anchorage, Alaska  99516
email:  kathy.tarr@gci.net

Please feel free to forward or link to this for anyone who might be interested in submitting high-quality on-line,   creative nonfiction work.

Red Butt

I fed something to NG yesterday that caused a bright red, angry, welted diaper rash within a matter of hours, but I can't for the life of me think what it might have been. I'm usually pretty good about only introducing one new food at a time to her, but yesterday, I was just feeding her whatever I could find in the house that seemed edible for a toddler.

In the morning, we were out of gluten-free waffles - which I'd been feeding her only because I have a gluten allergy - so I gave her a regular waffle. I also gave her some wheat-free baby cereal with milk. She had a ton of organic raisins, one of her new food obsessions which makes for interesting lumpy poop, but they haven't caused a diaper rash before. She had a stick of colby/jack cheese - cheese also hasn't seemed to be a problem.

For lunch, we shared Campbell's tomato soup with frozen peas and some organic little wheat crackers - she has had the crackers before & they didn't seem a bother. She has had an organic tomato bisque before without incident but not the Campbell's soup. She also had a cup of milk. I've been trying to switch her from Enfamil Next Step formula to organic whole milk but still haven't given her milk often.

She had some banana and apple crisps as a snack - she's had those before.

For dinner, I gave her pieces of rotisserie chicken without the skin & a packaged mashed potato side dish (that I noticed had a fair amount of chemicals - I rarely give her processed foods). For dessert, I gave her some Kefir - a yogurt culture drink with strawberry. She has had plain organic yogurt many times already and also a bunch of freeze dried strawberries without a problem.

After dinner, she had another poop and this one really caused her pain. She was so red and swollen - and so suddenly - that it was clear to me something she ate was causing it.

 

Possible culprits:
1. regular waffle
2. milk
3. Campbell's tomato soup (made with milk)
4. packaged mashed potatos
5. Kefir yogurt drink

Today, I'm going to be extra careful to feed her only things she has had before without an outbreak. The plan:

Breakfast - Gluten free waffle, cottage cheese with peaches & banana

Lunch - Cheese cubes, turkey pieces, peas, gluten free crackers

Dinner - Turkey pieces, home-made mashed sweet potato, mixed veggies

Snacks will be the apple crisps or baked apple.

The experiment begins!

Boy, How Time Flies

This is the blog where I post the most, but I feel like I'm neglecting it! I have a good excuse, I think. I'm trying to spend real quality time with NG when I'm not working (why is that such a challenge? well, it is, but I'm working on it).

Also, when I am working, I'm blogging about work and motherhood here:

Working Mother

And blogging about being an older mom here:

Motherhood Later...Than Sooner

And blogging about entrepreneurship here:

Entrepreneur Mom

So not sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Not that there is any more time in life - now that I'm a mom - for thumb twiddling. Scary how thumb twiddling actually sounds desirable these days!

I'll be back soon with more updates here - lots going on, it is just so hard to process it all and put it into words sometime.

In the meanwhile, what are YOU working on? Please include links so we can read your latest blog posts or view your latest works online.