MollyMadonna.com

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halfway and a heart check. (50)

Half way. Fifty days down and fifty to go in this countdown toward baby, and I kind of can’t believe we’re here. By the same token, so many signs point to baby getting close, and if we never arrived here, I’d be awfully hung up by now. Fifty days in feels just right.

The balloon artist downtown tonight asked me how much longer I had to go. He said he thought maybe I had stopped down to get a balloon on the way to the hospital. Thanks? This baby has grown for sure, but I do not yet look like Molly ready to give birth, I guarantee you. I’ll post a photo further into the countdown of what it looks like when I’m near ready to be in labor. No, I do not yet look like that.

I took the kids out this morning for bagels at our favorite joint. I say favorite because it’s history to us–the place we’ve been coming since long before Henry could walk himself over to his favorite chair and lounge there eating a bagel. The space has changed a lot, and it no longer feels like home to me. It will always be “home” in a nostalgic kind of way, but it’s only still our shop because it’s the place the kids beg to go for a treat when we have a day that’s wide open, and it’s the place where they’ve grown and changed and feel “in their own skin.” I love that about it, and I won’t be inclined to move on from it for some time, so long as it keeps feeling that way.

We ate bagels and Eloise had her favorite bar, and we said hello to all of the familiar faces and strolled out the door together smiling, as we do. Spending time there together just feels like us, so we keep going back.

When I just sit with our kiddos, enjoying them for who they are and what they bring to the table in the here and now, I am my best self as a mom.

I love to love our little ones well, and yet it is so easy to feel like I’m not doing that. The world makes it easy to feel inadequate, and as I’m learning afresh, so does pregnancy, and so do hormones, and so does the cranky edge that settles in around many of us when the summer heat is oppressive and we’re all coming up for air.

It has been especially difficult to feel like my best self as a mama in this season where all of the factors are playing in at once, so I am especially thankful for moments or days when I walk confidently in my motherhood and confidently in my deep, deep love for our babies. It’s always there, but I am better at showing it at certain times than in others, and I know the kids ride that roller coaster as I do. I wish they didn’t, but it’s part of doing life together, I think.

The kids are so sensitive to me and so aware of me, which is sometimes the very best thing as their mom. Other times, I feel like it means my emotions come at a cost to them, when their perception is so astute and I can’t just pretend all is well. Each addresses me in their own way when I am crumbling (which at 33 weeks along, I am wont to do much more often than usual). Eloise is a snuggler. She will drop whatever she’s doing to find me in my moment of duress and to get up close to comfort me in her cuddly way. Henry is a hugger and a crier, so as soon as my water works begin, his kick in, too. Both comfort in ways I’ve comforted them, and it’s beautiful that they care so much.

I trust that our time being intentional with one another contributes to this, and the rest I have to credit simply to God giving us all the very children He knows our hearts and our lives will need. I pray all of the time that I can be the mama who meets their hearts and needs most closely, too.

My heart in a photograph. God has lavished on us in ways I never imagined.

My heart in a photograph. God has lavished on us in ways I never imagined.

At this halfway point on this third 100 days journey, I am taking inventory of my own motherhood and how it has evolved and changed since the start. On a day when I could spend a good deal of time just plugging into our kiddos and enjoying them for who they are, I am a mix of profoundly grateful and heavy hearted. We have two resilient children who have patiently weathered this pregnancy with me, and by the same token, two babes who will never be the same for all of the times I’ve lacked energy, been short, answered harshly or not met them with the grace they so deserve as the loves of our lives.

I continue to be amazed at the gifts that God has given us in parenthood, and it’s hard to even fathom what adding another delightful life into the mix will mean for each of us in the time to come. The days are few between now and when we’ll discover who our newest babe will be, and I’m so glad that we know so little of who to expect will arrive in September. The anticipation is good for all of us, even as much as the wait is hard. I suspect that in fifty more days, give or take, we’ll be filled with joy all the more for “knowing” the unknown, and for reaping the beautiful reward of harder days and challenged hearts.

loving H and E and baby to be as much as ever, or as Henry would say, “a crazy ton!”

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if you can’t stand the heat… (57)

…get out of the kitchen. Or so the saying goes, right? It’s possible that I’ve taken this a tad too much to heart lately, which is why I’m here tonight with a plea for a little culinary inspiration from my friends.

It’s hot, is it not? I looooove hot summer days, but it turns out that a third pregnancy in the summer heat feels a tad different to me than a second (I thought being pregnant with Eloise in the summertime was fantastic), and I am giving it my all to embrace these consistently 90º temps paired with 32 weeks of baby in utero.

I’m spending a bit more time in the air conditioning than I’d hoped, and a little less in the sunshine. I want to be outside…so badly. But I’m also keenly aware that more than an hour or two of keeping up with our kiddos in the heat with this humidity will push me into a bad place in more ways than one. As such, this summer has been a humbling exercise in acknowledging my limitations and more thoughtfully managing my expectations, which has carried over as much into my kitchen as anywhere else in my life.

The peak heat of the day here usually falls shortly before dinner time. I don’t have any desire to turn the oven on, or to stand over a hot stove. My appetite is questionable at best by 5pm, and my people are hungry. None of us wants something heavy or hot to eat, but I know that if the meal I prep isn’t substantial enough, everyone will be asking for snacks long before bedtime.

I live with a trio of carnivores, but I could skip out on meat most days. Ground beef has been particularly off-putting for me this pregnancy, so even go to options like easy tacos or spaghetti are at the bottom of my list.

At this point in the summer, with the hot days unwavering and my culinary motivation waning to a terrible degree, I could use some fresh ideas. Jason and I will eat salads all day long (Jason if there’s significant protein in the mix), and Henry enjoys a decent repertoire of veggies, but our dairy free Eloise is not the biggest fan of anything green.

So. I need some help.

Do you have a favorite summer recipe that incorporates real, whole foods and requires less than an hour (or a 400º oven) to prepare? Do your kids absolutely love a summer meal that you’d be excited to pass on to me and my ever-hungry brood?

I’d love to add a handful of new recipes to our menu for the remaining weeks or months of summer, and I’m in need of a fresh dose of motivation. Ideas that incorporate helpers in the kitchen are very welcome–Eloise is often eager to play sous chef, and I love it when I have reasonable jobs for her to do at (almost) three years old.

And if you’re in the same boat as I am this summer, would you ask a friend and pass on any delightful tips they’re willing to share?

I want to love being in my kitchen again, and to arrive there before baby comes would be so great…for everyone who sits around our table in the evenings, really 😉

trying to avoid my own level of “hangry,”  but missing the mark,

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Please post or link your recipes/favorite foodie websites in the comments. Then we can all enjoy them together, and I can refer back to them with ease in the coming days. xo!

 

 

 

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preemptive cereal. (64)

I do not like being hungry, but most of all, I do not like being middle of the night, third trimester hungry. It’s the kind of pang that I can’t ignore; once I’m up, I’m up, so I’m inevitably fumbling through the pantry in the dark trying to figure out what will stave off another rude awakening for the rest of the night.

I don’t make great choices when I’m half awake, nor do I bust out any special culinary moves, so it’s usually a handful of trail mix or a too-sweet-for-bedtime Lara Bar to tide me over. Of all of the symptoms of pregnancy, the “my stomach may very well be eating itself” sensation is not my favorite. Whatever does the trick to negate it is acceptable, but I just don’t love eating in the dark at 3:30am (because it’s always, without fail, 3:30am). Our bodies are so fascinating.

At any rate, I’ve decided it’s far better to succumb to my own “fourth meal” of sorts before bedtime than to be coaxed awake by the grumblings of my hungry belly. Thus, when the third trimester is well on its way in each pregnancy, I bring back the bowl…the preemptive cereal bowl, that is.

It’s true that every night when I sit down to blog these pregnant days, I also pour myself a bowl of cereal. At this time of year, cheerios or anything really basic with fresh blueberries and almond milk take the cake. Tonight, I’m enjoying this as I write:

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The lighting is awesome, I know, and I threw in the striped towel for your viewing pleasure (you can thank me later), but you get the idea. Heaps of blueberries to beautify a plain old bowl of cheerios in my favorite almond milk. Proportions are key. The more berries, the better. A good, weighty bowl helps, too, and as Eloise can attest, a spoon that’s not too big but also not too small is essential.

Ladies and gents, we are off to the races.

I can buy myself a second wind with a good bowl of cereal. Not only that, but so far, I’ve avoided the hangry wake ups almost entirely this pregnancy, which is a win for cereals everywhere.

This boxed phenomenon is basically my pre-bedtime hero.

I know, I know. I shouldn’t eat much after the dinner hour, and my body should have time overnight to digest and rest, too. But no one and no thing can rest with a hunger so fierce as growing-a-human hungry. I’m just saying.

The preemptive cereal bowl is likely to stick around these parts for a while, what with 64 days to go in the countdown and plenty more days past that of nourishing another person around the clock. Can’t say that I mind it a bit, really, especially since it’s blueberry season here in the mitten.

If we run out, baby and I will just head back to the farm to pick some more!

Things that start with "b."

What’s your go to bedtime snack? I mean, I’m not likely to tire of the cereal routine anytime soon, but suggestions are always welcome. 😉

spoon in hand,

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the fruits of summer. (71)

I’m scrolling through photos from today’s outing with the kiddos and smiling so widely. One of my very favorite built in benefits of living where we do is the bounty of blueberries waiting to be collected every July/August. I look forward to going picking every year, and today’s time in the field was just as sweet as can be. We went with friends, and the older kids wandered down the long aisle of bushes, laughing and giggling and eating up equally as many berries as they picked. Eloise ran back and forth between us time and again, joyfully showing me her growing collection and dropping extra berries into my bucket along the way. For two straight hours, we all enjoyed the remote peacefulness that a blueberry farm can offer on a hot summer morning.

It’s been fairly sweltering here these past few days, so when the cool breeze blew in off of the lake ahead of an unexpected thunderstorm, we were all in heaven. We headed in to weigh our loot after the first thunder clap, and we made it under the storefront awning just as the first drops hit the ground. Then we gave into the temptation for blueberry donuts as the only obvious way to wait out the storm inside. 😉

Furrowing clouds before the storm.

Furrowing clouds before the storm.

All five kiddos were truly delightful, and delighted to be together enjoying such a sweetly seasoned morning. I couldn’t have been happier with two hours of adult conversation, ten pounds of blueberries to tote home and the thought of returning soon for more.

Sometimes summer just steps up to bat and hits one out of the park. Today’s outing was definitely good for our souls, and mine especially. No arguing. No banter. No debating who had what toy/book/place on the couch first. No whining at all. Just “Look at this big blueberry!” and “Oh, yum!” and “Can we come here again?!”

As I type, I’m enjoying a massive handful of freshly picked berries atop my current favorite granola and contemplating the blueberry crisp and the blueberry zucchini cake that will surely need to find their way into our weekend. Those, and scoop by scoop of sweet summer goodness to add to salads, yogurt, cereal, ice cream, and anything else we can dream up, until we’ve run out and just *have* to go back for more.

Things that start with "b."

Things that start with “b.”

blueberries for president, I’d say. or at least for dessert. 😉

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jelly beans. (87)

Four weeks ago, at my last OB appointment, I asked the nurse whether the office offered an alternative option to drinking the glucose solution for my upcoming glucose screening. I always dread moments like this in a medical appointment, because nine times out of ten, my “out of the box” questions are met with resistance or an eye roll. In this case, I was talking with a nurse I’ve not met before, who doesn’t know me or my intentions at all. This never helps. Always better to have a rapport with the person sitting across from you when you’re going to put a “crunchy granola mama” label on your own forehead, but anyway.

So I get the predicted eye roll, which is such a disappointment because I’m hoping it will be one of those times where the nurse is refreshed by my independent thinking (Tiny bit of sarcasm. Just tiny). Still, now we’re going to have the conversation, so I take a small deep breath and continue on. She wants to know why I don’t want to drink the glucose drink, and what I really want to say is, “Because I’m not super excited about feeding my baby a mixture of purified water, 50g Dextrose (D-glucose derived from corn), Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sodium Benzoate, 0.1%, FD&C Yellow #6.” But I don’t say that, of course, because I will sound arrogant and obnoxious, which is not at all my goal. Instead, I share about how I always feel sick after drinking the solution, and that my diet doesn’t consist of much in the way of artificial or processed foods, so I’d prefer to go a more natural route if possible.

Thankfully, she does offer me an alternative option. Jelly beans. 28 regular-sized jelly beans, consumed in five minutes or less, and then the test an hour after. I can do that, I tell her, and I thank her for the option. Meanwhile, I’m contemplating the nutritional value of jelly beans and scheming to find a “healthy” option that will suit both her criteria and my comfort level. The kids think this sounds awesome, and they’re both getting excited about eating the jelly beans with me, which must seem like a great idea. Let’s all eat jelly beans together, get hopped up on sugar as a team, and then go get mommy a blood test. Perfect.

Enter Amazon, purveyor of fine and organic jelly beans. I ordered myself an $8.50 bag of Organic Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, doing the math on how many of the sweet little things I’d need to eat to equal 28 of the regular-sized variety. 50 grams of sugar, basically, which in this case turned out to be 62.5 beans. Excellent.

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The bag arrived on Friday, and it sat on the counter where the kids wanted to touch it and look at it and study the colors of the beans all weekend long. I promised them each two beans on the day I took the test, presuming that they would come with me and behave spectacularly while I had my test done. So when this morning rolled around and with it, “Jelly Bean Tuesday!” the kids were all in. To their credit, two jelly beans apiece was a very small price to pay for their exemplary patience at the lab today. I mean, truly. I am tucking this trick in my back pocket for visits to come.

So this morning I woke up, had breakfast, packed us for the pool and timed and measured out my jelly bean consumption as instructed. 62.5 little jelly beans to eat in 5 minutes. No sweat.

Turns out I was pounding them like crazy trying to eat them all in five minutes, and I was totally near a sweat by the time I was done. Within ten minutes, I felt like I had gulped two cups of coffee, with crazy energy and jitters to match. I put the kiddos in the car in my sugared up state, and off we went.

I told the girl at registration that I’d had my “glucose” at 10:45a, so I’d need to be drawn at 11:45. She was surprised they’d given me the glucose drink to take home, so I had to explain myself and the jelly beans again. Oy. But she quietly made a note about it and gave me my folder to take to the waiting area, where we sat obligingly with books for a while until the phlebotomist called my name. Could have been worse.

Round 2.

She told me to sit in the chair and I did, and then she cracked open a bottle of glucose awesomeness to hand to me and said, “Here. You need to drink this in the next five minutes.” Ummm…if only I could get around this without any awkwardness, but no. “Actually, I’ve already had my glucose, at 10:45,” I said to her, almost as more of a question than a statement. “What?” she said. “Well, I ate 28 jelly beans at 10:45, which the doctor said I could do in place of the glucose drink,” I explained. (I was not about to get into the math of 62.5 smaller jelly beans and 50 grams of sugar and all that.) “The doctor ordered that?” she questioned. “The nurse did,” I told her. “She said I could eat the jelly beans and then come in for the test within the hour.” This was going well.

“Well then, I can’t draw you for ten more minutes,” she answered, totally annoyed. I looked up at the clock. It was 11:35am. So the kiddos and I went back to the waiting room to finish our book and wait a tad longer.

When my name was called again, it was a different phlebotomist this time. I don’t know whether the other woman was busy, or if she just didn’t want to deal with the crazy pregnant lady, but I figured this might be a good thing. I sat down and explained that I’m a tricky draw (always have been), and asked if she minded using a butterfly needle.

Seriously, this is the part where I’d love to know if it’s ok for us to know our own bodies and speak up for ourselves. Because, really, I go in trying to broach all of these things so delicately every. single. time.

But no. She did not like my question. And she was not going to use a butterfly needle. She asked me if I was asking her to use one, and I said, “Yes, please. That always works the best. I have tricky veins,” with a smile. Then she used a different needly anyway (and proceeded to tell me so). When my natural response to the poke was a quiet, “Oooh, that stings,” she questioned me rudely. “That stings?!” “It burns quite a bit,” I told her. “It shouldn’t burn,” she said. The kids are watching as she wraps things up, and I’m just sitting there, wondering how a glucose screening went from a nasty drink to jelly beans and a red C on my chest for “Crazy Pregnant Lady,” and wanting to get out of the room as fast as possible.

I am telling you, I just don’t know how to feel about it all.

In these experiences, while I’m ultimately grateful that we have access to quality medical care and insurance and prenatal visits, I’m still befuddled at the process a good portion of the time. In that moment in the chair today, it’s not as if I can say to the woman, “I gave birth to these two kiddos without medicine and my pain tolerance is just fine, but I’m being honest and it stings.” I can’t ask whether I actually seem nuts from an outsider’s view, despite the fact that my five and two year old are sitting there quietly and patiently, and none of us is unkempt.

I want to pursue a pregnancy and birthing experience a certain way, without feeling like I’m losing my mind for doing it, or like everyone at the office is making mental notes about my possibly insanity while I’m there. I want to birth my babies in the healthiest way possible, and to usher them into the world with grace if I can.

And I really like my doctor, and Jason and I have agreed on a hospital birth, so there’s the rub. I’ve had two really great hospital births thus far, and I have every hope of doing so again, but getting there is painful every time.

I’m telling this story because I think it’s kind of funny, because it’s where I’m at on day 87 before baby’s “due date,” and because my intention is always to represent my pregnancy experiences with a balance of candor and humility. But I’m telling it for a bigger reason, too–one that I can’t likely address to the full here in this post (maybe tomorrow…).

The fact of the matter is, while we are patients of doctors and nurses and hospitals, we also have a right to be able-minded mamas who want the best for our babies. And if I personally don’t feel like the glucose solution is best for me or my baby, then I think it’s ok that I question that in a respectful way. And I think it’s ok that I anticipate a respectful response. I am just all too tired of feeling like if I don’t walk through pregnancy in a uninformed stupor, then I can’t go the traditional route of doctors and hospitals and still expect it’s possible to deliver a baby naturally, without a million interventions (and a million judgements) getting in the way.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I can’t expect that. But if that’s true, I’m terribly sad about it. And I’m disappointed that the systematic approach to birth has become just that–as if anyone can put a prescription on birth and how it will go for any given mama or any given baby on any given day.

I’m 28 weeks pregnant and totally at a crossroads again. I know this will rub some the wrong way, and that’s not my intention at all. It’s just that I wish for something different, and I’m too passionate about birth as God designed it to let it go without a bit of an internal fight.

As a doula, this is territory I walk ever-so-carefully. I want each mama (and family) I assist to have the labor and delivery that she desires. It does not need to look anything like my ideal birth, because it isn’t mine. I have loved every birth I’ve attended, and they’ve all been different and beautiful for a thousand reasons.

But this time it’s our birth experience, and I just want to be real about it without feeling the way I feel every time I speak up. I will eat the organic jelly beans if that’s the option (and I’m grateful for the option at all). But the judgement and the shaming I feel each time I ask a question that goes against the grain of what’s expected when we’re expecting? That’s a pill I’m just not able to swallow very well.

My glucose screen results arrived to my inbox tonight as I typed this diatribe. “Your level is within the normal range” is all I needed to see for now. At least I won’t be getting back up to bat for a second test (and thank you, Lord, for a clear screen for baby and me tonight). Organic sugar for the win, I guess?

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all hopped up on tiny beans, clearly.

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