womantalk.org

The Things I Saw From the Train Window

Posted on January 27, 2009 by jeannie

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NALhuCSgJIE]

I’m feeling quite proud of myself as I made it into LA three times by train this month to see art. Now that’s more like it.

I went in on Sunday to catch at least one of the two art fairs going on (artLA and LA Art Fair); my friend Ellen picked me up from Union Station and whisked me over to the Santa Monica Airport where we browsed for several enjoyable hours in Barker Hanger.

I caught the same 4:30 train home that I caught every other time this month. I don’t know if the route is becoming more familiar to me, but suddenly I felt I could SEE much more. In the past I’ve been taking in the landscape, this time I caught more human activity.

I saw a boy, laughing, but in the middle of a major face plant in his back yard. Just that – him skidding across the grass face first, and then he was gone.

I saw a small dome tent inside a drainage tunnel of the LA River.

I saw a dozen men in identical black leather outfits, lined up to race their motorcycles on a deserted road.

And most disturbing, I saw a man lying face down by the railroad tracks on the other side of the river. His bright blue backpack was next to him on the ground. At the time I thought, “Train-hopper listening for an oncoming train” but later I worried I’d seen a dead man.

None of this was caught by my camera of course. The video on top is just as we are entering Los Angeles – you can see the skyline appear on the left side.

Posted in los angeles | 2 Comments

Almost All Growned Up

Posted on January 26, 2009 by jeannie

You know that your kid is growing up when after not being able to swallow a pill for the first fifteen years of her life, she comes into the kitchen and asks for her “own bottle of advil” to take to school – like it’s a grown-up right or something. So, we had a little sit down about how to take painkillers responsibly. I mean, she’s had nothing more than cough syrup and a handful of vaccines her entire life and now she wants her OWN bottle of advil.

You know that your kid is growing up when she goes to the mall with her best friend (not you!) to get her ears pierced. That oughtta show you how conservative she is about these things – my friend who was over the other day, noticed the bottle of disinfectant in Bella’s bathroom and asked, “Oh, did Bella get another piercing?” Not only is this Bella’s first piercing, but it is just the conventional ear piercing.

Fingers crossed, but it looks like the worst of the teenage attitude might have been year fourteen. Granted, last week she had me tell her what I had planned for dinner each night for the whole week and then said, “No offense Mom, but we’re not having anything good this week. It all sounds gross.” And then another day, “Mom, leave my room – I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” And about my new MBT shoes, “Mom, are you sure those are supposed to worn in public?”

But these things are said in a mild way that are much easier to deal with than the dramatic furies I was beginning to dread of last year. We still have conversations quite regularly about appropriate ways of talking to people – and she still sometimes gets her phone or computer taken away – but far far less than before.

I am getting nostalgic for her company. I mean, if my own history is any standard, Bella may leave my house for college in two years and never live with me again! My friend Darlene expressed this sentiment well in her post this week; she called it her “only” list and she made a partial list of things that she “only” got to do for a short time in the context of her sixty years.

Posted in says bella | 2 Comments

Some Hot EC Tips

Posted on January 26, 2009 by jeannie

As many of you already know, we have been practicing elimination communication with Christian since he was just a few months old. We’ve had our ups and downs, but recently now that he is eight months old, Christian has shown a remarkable understanding of what all is going down.

A few days ago he was fussing in my arms and I asked him brightly, Need to go potty? and I made the potty sign language symbol with my hand (you make the sign for the letter “T” and shake it – for Toilet). He immediately stopped fussing and looked at me attentively, and then smiled and grunted in affirmation. I rushed him to the potty and sure enough, dry diaper and he peed right away.

No repeats of that though. And lest you think things are all roses around here in potty land, let me tell you that Christian is very good at holding his body rigidly like a board, refusing to let us bend him to put him on the potty. And while sometimes this is because he doesn’t have to go, sometimes he does have to go pee but doesn’t want to (know that feeling?) so he pees on me after I’ve picked him back up. This has happened twice this week – but that’s only the third time I remember him peeing on me since we’ve started EC.

The other thing he’s started doing is if I hold him over the sink or toilet to pee, he now often starts peeing immediately, even before I make the cueing “sssss” sound.

He and I are still going to our bi-weekly diaper-free support group (playdate with other EC moms) and each time we go, I learn a new EC trick. For instance, taking Christian to the potty while we are out and about in town can be a hassle. We often put him in a disposable diaper if we’re going to be out for more than an hour or so – but when we can I like to pee him as soon as we’ve arrived someplace. One of the other moms says she carries an extra potty in the trunk of her car. Great idea! We finally tried it out this last weekend. Christian was too excited about the new trunk environment to favor us with a pee, but I could see that it could be very handy in the future.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdYc5-EZWEY]

What to do with the pee? Well, some moms line the potty with a cloth diaper, or a cloth diaper already inside a plastic bag, but I heard an even better idea at the last meeting: an empty 16 ounce yogurt container. It fits inside the potty and the lid keeps everything inside until you can dispose of its contents. Me? I would surreptitiously dump the pee at the base of tree and rinse the potty with water from my water bottle. Luckily, Christian rarely poos while we are out. Almost invariably he goes poo very shortly after waking up in the morning, and we haven’t missed a poo in several weeks.

That’s actually another tip I should mention. I put Christian on the potty after he wakes up in the mornings, with some very exciting toys, ie. the small plastic pouch that came with several trial-size Burt Bee’s product bottles in it, and encourage him to sit there while I brush my teeth, wash my face, brush my hair, put in my contacts, plucked my eyebrows, you get the idea. By the time I’m through, he’s often pee-ed more than once and poo-ed too. He seems to like that routine and I would think that it would work as well for any baby/toddler who is potty-training.

I’ve actually become so involved with this diaper-free group that I’ve become a co-moderator of the diaper-free yahoo support group and I’m going to apply to become a diaper-free mentor. So, if you have a question, bring it on!

P.S. Yes, in the video Chad is calling Christian, “Trunkie.” Also, this video shows better the poofiness of Christian’s hair that was upsetting Chad.

Posted in Christian Holden, elimination communication | 4 Comments

Reason #116 My Teenage Daughter Won't Be Seen With Me

Posted on January 24, 2009 by jeannie

Have you seen these “anti-shoes”? The last few times I visited my parents my mother raved and raved about her MBTs, which she wears every day, every where, including church. Except that she wears the ones that are black sandals and they look like the medical shoes you wear when your foot is in a cast.

She says that all the velcro straps makes the fit perfect and that her feet never get tired. She wears them every day while traveling too – India, Mexico, etc – and when she travels somewhere cold, like Eastern Europe, she wears them with socks! And as moms are wont, she insisted I try them too. So I did. It’s a bit rock and roll-y at first, but they are very, very comfortable. My mom kept offering to get me a pair for Christmas, but honestly I didn’t know if I liked them enough to warrant the $300 price tag.

I’ve been reconsidering though, because I end up doing so much walking when I see art in LA. Actually, Christian’s hatred of his car seat has led to more walking in general, and even though I wear my running shoes, I find that I frequently have tired, sore feet these days. It could be my age, but it could also be the extra seventeen pounds of baby in my front pack.

Then yesterday I found a pair of MBTs that were reduced by 60% because the style is being discontinued. I took my Christmas sweater money and bought my first pair of MBTs for a mere $107. They pretty much guarantee that 1) I am three inches taller and 2) Bella won’t walk anywhere with me. I got the Mary Janes in cream suede and they look just like this.

What about the juicer I was going to buy with that money you ask? That story I’ll save for another post.

P.S. If you want to read more about these shoes, I’ve linked the pictures to the MBT website.

P.P.S. Thanks Songbae! These are your Christmas present to me!

Posted in health, shopping | 1 Comment

Cooking with Mama T

Posted on January 21, 2009 by jeannie

Finally after lots of noise from the peanut gallery, my college buddy Tiff, put a bunch of her recipes over at a new blog just for her recipes called, Cooking with Mama T (her brother’s suggestion – pretty cute name, eh?)

She’s a smart stay-at-home mom who makes yummy things for her two adorable girls and husband (also adorable – I can say that since I practically introduced the two of them back on the seventh floor of Molson Hall). Since she’s Canadian with a British background there’s some more English stuff thrown in for good measure (like mince meat pie).

I’ve added a link to it under my “Eaten” page, but I was so surprised and excited to see it tonight that I wanted to give it a little shout out to the world.

Fresh Apple Cookies - don't you just want one now?

Posted in blogs, recipes | 1 Comment

It didn't taste like chocolate coming back up

Posted on January 21, 2009 by jeannie

*Caution. Graphic description of vomiting to follow.*

We are recovering from the stomach flu around here and I seem to have been hit the worst. Chad had been talking about how people at work were coming down with a 24-hour stomach bug and puking and what not. I think it’s what the little guy had too when he was throwing up on Saturday. Poor guy, sick, and being hauled all over LA and back. I guess he didn’t mind so much as long as he was being carried by mama, and sleeping whenever he needed.

It wasn’t until Monday on the drive to Ikea that I started to feel queasy. I remember thinking, Ah damn, this is what car sickness feels like, and empathizing with my sister-in-law who gets carsickness pretty bad. I felt okay enough to poke around Ikea though, and to help Chad polish off two different kinds of chocolate pie. It was the last thing I ate for 24 hours.

Later that day, I walked into the kitchen, smelled the homemade chicken stock bubbling on the stovetop, and I could feel the hurl building.

I quickly rolled down the blinds, so as not give the neighbors a show, was my own best girlfriend and held my hair back, and puked into the side of the sink with the garbage disposal. Good thinking, eh?

The first wave was brown – definitely the chocolate pie.

The next two hurls were white and lumpy. Could it possibly be the oatmeal from earlier that morning, I thought?

And then with no logic whatsoever, the last few pukes were plain clear water – which I had just drunk.

And although I don’t know much about the physiology of the stomach, I really did think that the entire contents of the stomach were evenly mixed. But now I have a picture in my mind of an unwell stomach with roiling layers of undigested food, heaving back and forth uneasily, waiting to be unloosed.

Normally I have an iron-clad stomach, eating ceviche off the streets of Baja and bits of banana wrapped fried things on the streets on Bangkok, so I rarely throw up. In fact, although this cannot be accurate, the last time I remember throwing up was over twenty years ago in Montreal after spending an evening with French friends around some large bowl filled with alcohol that we had lit on fire. Ironically, Chad, who has a more tender stomach stayed home yesterday with a stomachache and nothing more. Bella is going to school late this morning – and once in a while I can hear pitiful little coughs and gasps coming from her room.

Whereas I have been wracked with body ache, head ache, and belly ache for the last two days. It has subsided today. Although I can feel the heavy pressure of the headache still pressing against the back of my forehead, just begging me to do too much and let it get back inside me.

Sorry, no pictures for this post either. : )

Posted in health | 3 Comments

Brad Pitt or Daniel Craig?

Posted on January 20, 2009 by jeannie

Christian got his first haircut this weekend!

Pre-haircut, at Ikea.

I don’t mind when a baby boy has long or shaggy hair, and although Christian’s hair couldn’t be called either, his dad was fussing about the hair growing over his ears, and how he would be embarrassed by his baby pictures, and how soon his hair would be in his face…. So we got his hair cut. Pick your battles, right?

I think he looks like me here.

Our friend, Nu, who works in a Beverly Hills salon, cut his hair. The first thing she asked when she arrived was, “Brad Pitt or Daniel Craig?” Apparently those are our only choices. We picked 007, naturally.

Happy with his macho hair-do.

Posted in Christian Holden | 3 Comments

OC to LA by Bike

Posted on January 18, 2009 by jeannie

Something that Chad and I have in common is we both really enjoy a good adventure or challenge.

So lately, if I mention that I have to attend a diaper-free playgroup in Huntington Beach, he’s all about planning a bike trip to meet me there afterwards. He’s met me in a variety of locations all about 20-30 miles from our home in Laguna Niguel.

Today he met me at Union Station in Los Angeles; that’s 57 miles by bike! (And many of those miles through east LA, where apparently sidewalks are never repaired and trash blows around like you’re in a trash snowglobe, a trashglobe if you will.)

I’ll post his route tomorrow.

He’s in bed sleeping soundly. ( I would be too, but awoke in a panic about half an hour ago, remembering that I needed to pick Bella and her friends up from their volunteering at Safe-Rides at the hospital at 1:30 am. The way I woke up was that I had a dream about being in the living room and my baby Christian came walking out to me crying and once he was in my arms,Â I had an intense need to know the time.)

My own LA adventure was tame in comparison. I took the train to LA to see art for the second time this week and then took an LA bus for the first time ever. It was remarkably easy – especially as how having a smiling baby in your front pack practically makes strangers leap up to help you.

LA public transportation hot tip: Once you’ve paid for a metrolink ticket, you can use that ticket to ride the metro and almost every public bus in the city for FREE!

From Union, I took the metro (Red line) to Wilshire/Western. When I got off there was a 720 bus (a Wilshire express) just arriving, which dropped me off not minutes later at my art destination, 6150 Wilshire. I was mostly doing this by the seat of my pants and with some friendly questions. No problems whatsoever. And I got to a part of the art town that I haven’t seen since before the baby was born nearly eight months ago.

Then I walked north on Fairfax to Beverly, because I wanted to see the show at Richard Telles gallery too – there I could have used a little more google map research, as the walk took me a better part of an hour. Once on Beverly, it appeared that buses were passing me regularly so I hopped on a 14 and the driver took me to another stop on the Red line Metro (only blip: the baby threw up on me, which is not usual for him. Touch of stomach bug? Bananas don’t agree with him? This will require more investigation… oh and second blip: I was nursing when the train pulled into Union and so I didn’t make it off the train before the doors all closed and the train went “out of service” and so I gave all the waiting passengers on the stand a show while I got rescued by the conductor. It was fun pushing the red emergency button though.)

Chad and I (and Christain by default) celebrated our day with a meal on Olvera Street, “the world’s most famous Mexican market.” Okay, so it was a bit touristy, but the tortillas were being handmade in front of our very eyes and the pork tamales were delish. I don’t know the name of the place, but it was the restaurant on the corner facing Union Station just as you’re entering Olvera Street. FYI: the “famous market” has the same knick knacks you see waiting in line to cross the border in Tijuana.

We’re all looking forward to a chill day tomorrow which will undoubtably include the new episode of Battlestar Galatica. Chad’s legs are sore from all that biking, and so are mine, from carrying 17 pounds of baby all day.

I may try to pull Chad and Christian out for a little outing to Earthroots Field School 3rd Annual Eco Festival in the afternoon.

Posted in art, los angeles | 3 Comments

Secret Narratives, group show capsule

Posted on January 17, 2009 by jeannie

Kate Savage's Dream of You (2008)

Channeling the surreal energy of Magritte and de Chirico, the paintings and drawings in the group show, â€œSecret Narratives,â€ offer odd dreamscape images peopled by deadpan dolls riding ostriches and buck-naked ladies on zebras. The work on the walls by Kate Savage and Elise Roedenbeck complement each other, not just in the way they capture the way a fragment of a childhood perception clings to the adult mind, but also with the wordplay in the titles (You Walrus Hurt The One You Love, a doll being dragged along by the tooth of a nonchalant walrus; and A Modest Lesson, an inked crocodile with a single arm hanging out of a mouth full of clenched teeth.) The woven installation in the center of the room makes reference to less child-like narratives, but still invites a certain wondering about the six women who sat and loomed this Cone of Power which extends up and through the ceiling of the gallery some thirty feet above (Phyllis Stein, Los Angeles).

Posted in art | Leave a comment

You Can't Take Me Anywhere

Posted on January 15, 2009 by jeannie

I am so susceptible to advertising and promotions that I should just stop going into stores.

A couple days ago I was riveted to the Vita-mix stand at Costco. The guy was making a fruit smoothie, which I like to do at home, but then my eyes widened – he was throwing in entire strawberries, stem and all, whole apples, and even a pineapple barely peeled, but still with its core. The smoothie was delicious. And then he threw in more strawberries with ice and made instant strawberry sorbet. And then he made baby food that Christian gulped down ravenously – out of raw zucchini, carrot and apple. And finally he made a piping hot tortilla soup. This amazed me most, because he started with all raw ingredients and had the hot soup in our hands in 8 minutes.

I thought to myself, I HAVE TO HAVE A VITA-MIX. My monkey mind just went nuts trying to figure out how to come up with the $375.

We would eat so many more vegetables and fruit with one of these babies! We could eat more raw food and certainly I would never ever waste anything from my CSA basket again. I went home despondant – Chad had admonished me to be more “fiscally responsible” just the day before and now I was going to say that I wanted to buy a $400 juicer? I thought about just squirreling away twenties and waiting until I had enough.

And then suddenly I realized I had enough!

If I put the $200 my mom gave me at Christmas for new eye glasses (I have a perfectly good pair, but was just looking for a fresh look), plus the $100 I got for trading in the sweater my brother gave me, also at Christmas, (it was a lovely sweater, but I put it on and my mother said it made me look like a granny – then she asked how much it was. I told her that Bella had told me that it was a $100 sweater that had been discounted to $60. My mom hurried into her room, grabbed a $100 bill, thrust it into my hands and said, Buy yourself another sweater, I’ll take this one…), plus the $53 Costco rebate check I have in my wallet – I am almost there!

So to get that last bit of cash I made a bet with Chad last night. He rolled over in bed last night saying that it was late. I said it wasn’t even 10:30. He said, IT IS SO. Wanna bet? I put $25Â on the bet, and guess what? It was 10:29. I won, don’t you think?

So I am practically out the door to get this juicer, but it occurred to me today that might be able to get one used.

Now, I’m just chomping at the bit. And fussing about on the internet seeing if there are any used vita-mixes for sale…

Posted in food, money | 6 Comments