Author Archives: metamegan

>Reverse Reverse Dummening

>This post was supposed to be about how I’ve gotten so much smarter since I quit nursing. When I started to write it last week, it went like this:
***************************************************
Day 12 – I think the brain cells are starting to regenerate.
Thought process number 1: Hmm, what dessert should I make for the barbecue? A cake? Cupcakes? Cookies? What kind of cookies? If I said to Dave, “What kind of cookies should I make?” He would say, “Chocolate with peanut butter filling.” But what’s the point of that when I can’t eat… OMG! I quit nursing! I can eat peanut butter again! This story would make a lot more sense to a lot more people if I wasn’t the only mom on the face of the earth that had been told not to eat peanut butter while nursing. So, yeah, it’s been 18 months. (And you know what? Totally worth it, because Jack already has allergies, and I prefer not to have to deal with a peanut butter allergy if I can help it.) Anyway!!! It only took a week of not nursing for me to re-grow enough brain cells to remember that I can eat peanut butter. As for the dessert, I settled on cupcakes. And my cupcakes turned out like this:

Instead of like this.

So I think things are getting a little better every day.
***********************************************
But that was last week. Last week, I hadn’t been to the grocery store 3 times in a 24 hour period. My most recent trip was to pick up my wallet and cell phone. The manager said, “Had you already canceled all your cards?” “Ummm. No, I didn’t know my wallet was missing until you called me. From my phone.”

It looks like it may take the dummening a little longer to recede than I had originally thought. Or else, it reversed briefly, only to strike again. On the bright side, the transition into full on dementia should be pretty smooth.

>The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

>According to Luke, Alexander didn’t have anything to complain about because at least he didn’t end up in the emergency room. But the way I see it, if you fall out of a tree and end up the E.R., but it turns out you just have a (Pause because Jack is throwing up. And… I’m back.) bruise and a flesh wound, then hey, it’s a good day. Well, that’s what I was going to say before I cleaned up a bunch of vomit.

What happened? Luke fell out of an apple tree and landed on a stump or something. I had my back to the tree, so I didn’t see it, and that seemed to make the nurse think I was a terrible mother. Luke wished Aunt Beth was a nurse at the hospital and I did too! He got the wind knocked out of him when he fell and he was pretty scared and upset, and he said it hurt to breathe. So off we went. X-Rays showed that everything was fine. I had imagined canceling the whole summer of camp and swimming lessons and soccer and just laying around healing, but instead they said to take it easy for a few days, and no tree climbing for 6-7 days at least. Totally doable!

As for Jack, I think we’ll have to see how the rest of the night goes! Wish us luck!

>Still Milking It

>So, this may be my last post ever about nursing. I mean, I have 14 posts with the label of lactation attached, and there are probably more that I just forgot to label. But it has been a few weeks now, and while Jack did try to nurse today and threw a fit when I gave him a sippy of milk, I am still just going to call it and say he’s weaned. It’s offical. I am sure he was going to throw a fit anyway, because he was one hangry little boy. (Those of you who get hangry know what I mean right away. Thanks to my sister for sharing the term with me! Hungry+Angry=Hangry.)

I was worried that the time would fly by and I would forget what it was like to nurse my little Jack, but after a year and a half, I think we are both ready to move on. I have one more story to share that, depending on your perspective, is either adorable or disgusting, and then I retire the topic. I’m mostly writing it down for me, so I don’t forget.

In Mexico, Jack went a whole 24 hours without nursing and I thought, “Oh, that was easy!” And then the next day he wanted to nurse first thing in the morning, so we did. And he nursed for a little while and then he paused and looked up at me and said, “Num!”

>Last Day of Kindergarten

>So many boring details about my life so little time to post. Consider yourself spared!

I did shed a tear or two on Luke’s last day of kindergarten. It seems like the first day was just yesterday! I put him in the same shirt for the last day of school, but we had to go with a different pair of shorts, because he actually grew out of a pair of shorts for the first time ever.

Speaking of how Luke never grows out of shorts, I put Jack in a pair of 18 months shorts and I thought to myself, “Hmm. I think Luke wore these until he was four. For some reason I don’t see that happening with Jack.”

And then, as I was digging through the unfolded clean clothes pile for shorts for Luke, I decided to play a joke on Luke and I handed him a pair of Jack’s pants (size 12 months) to wear instead. He didn’t notice. I had to tell him.

I wish I could link to a picture of him wearing these pants 5 years ago, but they aren’t really that cute, so the only picture I have is on a Christmas ornament that the daycare made.

>Granola, Revisited

>Once upon a time, I loved to cook and plan menus, and make delicious meals and desserts. Then Jack was born. The End.

Somehow I found myself alone in the house, and the kitchen wasn’t already disaster, so I decided to make some granola. The recipe calls for 2 cups of oats, but I usually double most of the recipe and then throw in an extra cup of oats to justify the sugar and honey and orange juice. And I don’t really measure the oats, I just get 5 scoops out of the bulk bin. And that seems just about right. So I started to make granola and I measured, heated, stirred, chopped, mixed just about everything and then I dumped the oats out into the bowl on top. But it wasn’t 5 cups/scoops. It was way, way more than that. I stirred and stirred, but it was pretty dry. So I mixed up another batch of brown sugar, orange juice, honey, vanilla, and canola oil. And I stirred and stirred and stirred. Still sort of dry. So I poured some orange juice into the bowl, with a glop of honey and some canola oil. And I stirred. Little more juice. Little drop of oil. And done.

Then I hoped it would either be disgusting, since there was no way I could ever replicate it, or really, really good, because I now had two giant tupperware containers full of it. And there was still a lot left on the tray, but I was just too tired to deal with it at that point. For the rest of the evening everyone took a handful whenever they walked by. (Why yes, there is granola all over the floor, why do you ask?) I left it out and considered myself a nice mommy for preparing Luke’s breakfast the night before. Nothing like getting up on a Saturday morning and watching cartoons while you eat homemade granola out of the pan.

And then, Saturday morning, a miracle happened.

Luke was watching cartoons and eating handfuls of granola when I walked by with Baby Jack, who had made it abundantly clear through both verbal and non-verbal communication that he was interested in nursing. I grabbed a handful of granola, ate some, handed a bite to Jack and then sat down to nurse him. And he started to nurse, and then he sat up and said, “Mo? Pees?” And he did the signs for both more and please. And he wasn’t talking about breast milk. Faster than you can imagine, I had him in his high chair, eating a bowl of granola, and he hasn’t nursed since. He has eaten a lot of granola though. It’s been 6 days now, but I still feel like I am “in the process of weaning him”. That is because, according to Dave, I am “crazy”.

>Books For Sale!

>Luke has been writing books lately. He wrote an Underdog comic, and a book about Wdir Sports. (“Does water have an A in it? On no!”) And today he made a big announcement! Luke will be selling chapter books for $1.00 and non-chapter books for 2 quarters. I got really excited and offered to set him up an Etsy shop and Dave said he’d get him a PayPal account. However, he said he’d rather have people just come to our house and give him dollars in person. But Dave suggested selling prints of his artwork too, and maybe we just figured out how to pay for college. And to think all this time, I have been gathering stacks of his work and just mailing it out!

Anyway, Luke said I should blog about his project in case there are any readers who like to read and who live close enough to stop by with a dollar. Some of the books are still being written, so start saving.

>Haircut

>It was Saturday Hair Cut Day at Casa de MetaMegan this past weekend. I wanted to take Before and After pictures for my blog, but I couldn’t find my camera, and the charger for my cell (camera) phone had been lost for weeks. Dave said if I used his camera phone, then he’d be the one to blog about it. Curses. I found my phone charger and my camera just minutes after they left, so all I really have is the After picture, and we’ll have to just imagine the Before. Luke’s choices were buzz cut or nothing, because he barely needed a haircut. He chose the buzz cut, probably just to get the free sucker and then yesterday he said he didn’t like how his hair feels like a fuzzy ball. But then again, he was also upset about having long eyelashes, and after he blew his nose for 5 minutes straight, he was really angry when I said, “Watch out, your brain might come out.”

But look how cute they are, post haircut!

The trend in Boulder is a shaggy haired look for boys, but Dave and I have, thus far, been able to steer clear of that trend. Don’t get me wrong, we are dirty hippies like the rest of this town, but I just don’t want to deal with tangles in my sons’ hair. (Aside – We cut up half a burrito at dinner the other night, and then became engrossed in adult conversation while the boys ate. Next thing we knew, the rest of Jack’s burrito had been ripped open and he had beans* all over his face. And the burrito was an empty shell. The waiter said to Jack, “Um, you have a little something on your face…” I said, “Don’t worry, it’s bath night.” And the waiter said, “And that is… once a week?” “No, twice a week!” “Oh, Ok.” )

But back to the haircuts, Jack was looking especially cute on the morning before his haircut. (You know when your hair is perfect, and you are almost tempted to cancel your appointment, but you know if you do, you’ll look like Medusa every day for the next month while you try to reschedule? What? No, that’s never happened to me.) Then I had the best idea when Dave asked me how I wanted Jack’s hair to look. So I ran to find my latest InStyle magazine and I tore out a picture and said, “Have his hair cut to look like this:

Wait, that isn’t a good example, I mean, it should look like this:


And do you know what Dave said? He said, “No.” And he said it sort of derisively. Just short of scorn. He said, “I am not getting his hair cut to look like that. That is what his hair looks like now. That is why I am taking him to get his hair cut.”

Hmm. Well. Now what am I supposed to do with that magazine picture? Hang it up in my locker? Well, just like C, N, S and B, I am not in high school anymore.** Would it be weird if I hung it up in my cube at work? Just kidding, I never ripped it out of the magazine. I couldn’t risk tearing it!


* I capitalized Bean at first. Sigh.
** Since I wasn’t able to impress anyone with my one degree of seperation from Gossip Girl, I’ll just assume no one gets this.

>So Sleepy

>I was composing a hilarious post while I did some work this evening… But it isn’t finished yet and I am so sleepy. How sleepy am I? This sleepy: