iHappy Monday

Because, damnit, it is three hours and seven minutes into Monday.  It is already a "Monday" kind of Monday.  And also, because I damn well need a happy.  Have for weeks, and it's finally beginning to culminate into a palpable presence.

Poltergeists are not the manifestation of the energy left behind by the others, IMO.  They are instead the manifestation of all of one's stress and worry and anxiety and even to an extent, sometimes, the sadness that has been left to fester under a facade of smiles and super-mama feats of incredible strength.

Why the hell am I talking about Poltergeists on iHappy Monday, you ask?  Because, as I was taking my iHappy photo, a distinctly humanoid-profile white spot appeared on my otherwise lovely shot of my art in progress.

So, I will leave you with a different iHappy instead.

Behold, the mock-up for my newest tattoo:

And one more, because I'm feeling vain.  New hairs and *gasp* make-up!

FlogYoBlog Friday!

FlogYoBlog time again!  Some of you know the drill.  For those who don't, here it is!

1. Follow Brenda's blog. (if you haven't already done so.  And perhaps follow mine, as well.  Again, if you haven't already done so.)
2. Grab the FlogYoBlog bubbly button and post it on your sidebar. 
3. Link your First Name and/or Blog Name and URL (not your homepage) below. 
4. Add a short description (max of 125 chars). It could be a description of yourself, your blog or a teaser to your latest post.
5. Follow at least 1 linkyer/blogger (Pay it forward is the name of the game).
6. The list will be open for linkyers on Fridays (Brenda has extended the linky for us non-aussies).
7. A new and fresh link list will open every Friday. And you will have to link up AGAIN. The previous link list does not carry over to the following week.
8. And lastly, have lotsa fun.  (And wine.  Let's totally have lotsa wine.  And chocolate this week, too.  Maybe some cheese.)

That cup isn't for drinking, my dearest.

I have been issued a challenge by the ever thoughtful and lovely Lori.

"...to you, should you choose to accept it- to write openly and honestly about the topic of menstruation, without Puritan instincts kicking in..."

I've debated and pondered this challenge, thinking about it as I lay on my bathroom floor, begging for death today.  (Food poisoning is a cruel and heartless mistress when you're in her clutches.)  It kind of amuses me that I can ponder blog topics while I vomit up internal organs.  Anyways.

While I lack Puritan instincts (as anyone who knows me IRL will tell you that, with a sigh and a shake of their heads,) I certainly have a hesitancy to bare it all about menstruation right now.

It has not always been like this - normally, I am all too happy to tell you precisely how much I bleed and how terribly I was once afflicted with cramps and leaks and stains and stress.  I will wax poetic about my menstrual cup and cloth pads, and try my hardest to get you to think outside of your tampon box for a few moments and consider that your period might actually be a satisfying thing.

I'm vulnerable right now.  Vulnerability hits me hardest when I am conflicted, and now is one of those times.

I missed it quite a bit while I was pregnant with Bug.  Part of that was due, I believe, to my unhappiness with the circumstances I found myself in.  I won't lie or sugar coat the truth - I was angry, and I resented that little life inside of me more often than not.  It was a very real case of dueling emotions - one moment I would be mournful that I felt his kicks, wishing more than anything that I could go back to the day he was conceived and change it, so that instead of pointlessly buying a pregnancy test four weeks later to satisfy a question I already knew the answer to, I would be buying a case of back-up pads instead, experiencing one of the most bountiful withdrawl bleeds ever.  The moment that would follow that would be spent awestruck at the love that I had for him, and terrified about how strong it was despite my moments of resentment.

After I worked through my resentment, I found myself yet again wishing for menses.  Not because I was angry, but because I hurt.  Physical pain, emotional pain, the pain of wondering if he was well, the pain of knowing that my daughter was moving on in life as I sat and watched, unable to partake, for Bug's health and my own.

When he finally made his entrance, I bled enough to satisfy those months of wishing.  Granted, not quite the same, but blood letting is blood letting, in an odd and unexplainable way.  It was as if my body was making its own atonement to the universe for my negativity, and even though it fell on the delivery room floor (and the doctor's feet, and the nurses' feet, and splattered the walls, and their legs, and my legs, etc. etc.) and not into the earth, I felt a certain and strange peace.

I spent the next few months fighting the battles that were put in my path, and didn't once think about the absence of my menses.  When all had settled, I went in to be fitted with my little borg implant, my friend, my copper IUD named Optimus Prime. 

At the time, I had not resumed menstruating.  The day of the insertion, I found myself excited for the things to come:  No more pregnancy (hopefully,) no more artificial hormones flooding my system and giving me a false sense of security, no more terror at the thought of falling pregnant with a bad choice.  I was nervous, though.  Was I setting myself up for heartbreak?  Would I, who was blessed with the type of fertility that a rabbit would envy, somehow curse myself?  Or worse, would I be one of the percentage of women who fell victim to one of the nastier potential side effects and not be able to even ponder any more biological children?

I brushed it aside, I went through with it.  I remember thinking to myself, as the CNM parted my labia with an uncharacteristic gentleness that sticks out in my mind, "It will be okay.  Just breathe."  The insertion was fast and painless.  And... once again, my body offered up blood.  "Is it normal for her to bleed that much?" questioned the nursing student I allowed to sit in on the procedure.  The midwife simply smiled at me and said far better than I could have:  "Well, Miss AccidentallyMommy has her own thoughts on blood and bleeding.  There is no normal for her." 

Again, months melted away - a bit of spotting here, a few false starts there, but all in all - nothing that really screamed "You're back to where you should be!" to me.

I have had two "real" periods since then.  Periods where I could pinpoint my fertility without question, without temperatures or cervical length or dowsing with a crystal over my belly.

And you know what?  They have turned me upside down.

Gone is the time where I look forward to the days when I can break out the cloth pads and the cup that I so lovingly stored and missed so desperately, gone is that time where I can take geeky, suppressed-researcher joy in measurements and observations.

It's like puberty all over again.  A total rebirth into being me.  Leaks and cramps have returned, cycle days are unpredictable, and I find myself no longer at peace - I find myself filled with nerves and stress and generally being displeased.

I will come full circle again - there is no doubting that, that is the way life works.  I will stop being horrified with myself when I find myself debating the pro's of the disposable products that make me rash and itch, simply because they're so much easier in a time where nothing is any longer easy.  Gone will be the time when I find myself telling Kinder Major "No, baby, that's not a cup in the drinking sense.  Right now it's just decoration." because it can no longer handle the bounty that my body is offering up.

For now, though, I wait.  I wait for my patience and my re-establishment as a woman (in my eyes, above any,) to return to me.

Collectively, as humans, we seem to have forgotten the definition of the term "Human Rights".

An Iranian woman, mother of two, is to be stoned to death.  For adultery.  For loving someone other than her husband.

She was flogged publicly in front of her children, and now she's to be murdered slowly in front of them.

This is a harsh but truthful description.  Does it make you cringe?  Turn away?  Does it make you sad?

I hope it does.  It should.  Because if it does, then it means that you'll take action.

Read Jessica Gottlieb's post that outlines how you can contact your local government officials, and gives a better overview of the situation, including links to CNN, as well as an interview done with her son.

Tell your friends, your family, and post on Facebook.

Tweet the UN:  @UN when will you intercede on behalf of #Ashtiani? http://bit.ly/bCeWGe 


GET INVOLVED.  THIS IS A HUMAN ISSUE.

FlogYoBlog Friday! (I love Fridays.)

FlogYoBlog time again!  Some of you know the drill.  For those who don't, here it is!

1. Follow Brenda's blog. (if you haven't already done so.  And perhaps follow mine, as well.  Again, if you haven't already done so.)
2. Grab the FlogYoBlog bubbly button and post it on your sidebar. 
3. Link your First Name and/or Blog Name and URL (not your homepage) below. 
4. Add a short description (max of 125 chars). It could be a description of yourself, your blog or a teaser to your latest post.
5. Follow at least 1 linkyer/blogger (Pay it forward is the name of the game).
6. The list will be open for linkyers on Fridays (Brenda has extended the linky for us non-aussies).
7. A new and fresh link list will open every Friday. And you will have to link up AGAIN. The previous link list does not carry over to the following week.
8. And lastly, have lotsa fun.  (And wine.  Let's totally have lotsa wine.  And chocolate this week, too.  Maybe some cheese.)

On learning styles and life lessons.

You know, there's a WHOLE lot of talk of "creating a critical thinker" when it comes to nurturing young children.

I'm of two minds on this.  On one hand, I agree that yes, we should encourage our children to think critically, and nurture their analytical skills while they're so open to it and so naturally curious.  On the other hand, though, I don't think that every moment of your child's life should be spent teaching some sort of lesson or thinking skill.

I take great issue with mothers who sneer at me when I respond "she wasn't" to questions like "how high was Kinder Major counting when she was two?"

Kinder Major showed a great right-brain preference from a very early age.  She was drawn very strongly to music and color, and showed a vested interest in coloring and painting by 11 months.  I nurtured that creativity.  Instead of teaching her counting and numbers and her alphabet at such a young age, I taught her color names and allowed her to play in paint and with crayons.  We colored on "her" wall next to my bed at night.  We read books together that were filled with color and texture, we sang and listened to music of all kinds, we danced and played with blocks.  As she continued to develop cognitively, she proved to have a knack for engineering based on aesthetics.  Again, I nurtured that.

A big part of attachment parenting is *knowing* your child and nurturing their innate abilities.  I don't feel that forcing "critical thinking" education on a child that doesn't learn that way is following that facet of APing.  I believe that every child is different, and should be nurtured as such.

Now, please don't interpret that to mean "don't encourage curiosity and awareness" - that's not what I'm saying.  What I AM saying, though, is don't bully your pediatrician into making a referral for speech and occupational therapy for your 18 month old because they haven't learned their entire alphabet yet.  (True example.)  Don't fill your child's day with structured learning, either.  Allow your child to grow at their own pace, and to be a child, especially if they are still on the variable line between late infancy and early toddlerhood.  Hell, even later toddlers.  Allow them to be them, and allow them to grow as they will.  Our children are not meant to be clones, nor are they meant to be programmed to fit our personal agendas on what we feel the perfect child should be.  They are their own person, and should be allowed to grow as such.

That is a life lesson that we all need to learn as we grow with our children.  Likewise, we should apply the same concepts to ourselves, since respectively, most of us are infants in our parenting lives.  We need to remember that we are all different, and allow ourselves to grow as we will, instead of as someone else (or even our pre-child selves) think we should.  We need to have confidence and faith in ourselves that we will thrive, and only with that confidence will our children form their own.

<3