Playing for Diamonds

We’re playing football.

I’m using the Royal We because it’s a whole family commitment. Practice most nights, games all over So Cal on Saturdays, in stadiums where somebody thought it was a good idea to put aluminum bleachers. Last week it was 105 degrees. Aluminum bleachers.

I have lots of mama friends who think we are crazy to let our 8 year play tackle football. Heck, I used to be one of them.

Although one of those mama friends only has daughters, and if she and her husband had a son, he’d be the size of Gabriel, so who knows what decision they would make. I won’t name any names but she writes on this blog with me.

And another mama friend, who is related to me and lives internationally, told me she thought I was nuts to let him play but in the next breath admitted her son starts his first season of ice hockey this year.

Right. There but for the grace of God and all that good stuff.

Here we are, proud-ish Patriots. Ish because as Bills and Jets fans, Shea and I can’t get totally on board with the Pats. Even the 8 year old version.

In fact, here’s a funny story. (Stranded at JFK) Amy’s husband, Dave is a BIG TIME Chargers fan. Season ticket holders from waaaaay back.

One night we had dinner at their house and Gabe brought his Patriots helmet over to show Dave. After dinner the kids were making a huge racket upstairs, so Shea went to check it out. He came back and said to Dave and Amy “Well, your daughter is riding my son like a bucking Bronco, wearing his Patriots helmet.”

Dave’s eyebrows crashed together. “Are you kidding me?! She’s wearing a Patriots helmet????”

Priorities.

By far the most difficult part of football for me has been the whole football mom thing. Currently, half the veteran moms on our team are not speaking or even looking at the other half. No one really knows what happened, but the sides formed up pretty quickly. I sit in the middle with the other new moms and just smile at everyone.

AYSO, it’s not.

Then there’s the fact that I am a football brat, born and raised, from a long line of season ticket holders and folks who think that if they yell loud enough at the TV, the coaches or refs will hear them. Plus I have some experience with the whole competition thing.

So I am torn every single practice and game between Grizzly Bear and Mama Bear.

The thrill of the clash of the helmets (which is bad, I know and we are a head’s up league but there’s still something about that sound…)

The fear when someone doesn’t get up from a play.

The almost over-powering urge to scream “F*CK YEAH!” when my son sacks the quarterback.

The anger when one of the coaches tells him to get up and stop being such a whiner.

The fierce pride of watching him go back to the line and do it again.

Saturday, we played a team that won the national championship three years ago. They are some of the best 8 and 9 year olds in the nation. They have creamed everyone so far, and we were next to go. Gabe lined up against a kid who was five inches taller and at least 50 lbs heavier than he was. Lined up against him a lot, since our offense didn’t spend much time on the field.

We lost. Big.

But not as big as everyone else.

It wasn’t until we were in the parking lot that Gabe showed me his arms. Scratches and cuts everywhere. “He held me almost every time, Mom” he told me, tears welling up in his eyes. “He had long fingernails and he dug them into my skin. It hurt sooo bad.” And then the sobs came, thirty hard seconds where all the frustration and stress of having to face that kid over and over finally got to him.

Mama Bear was all over that.

She got there in front of Grizzly Bear only because Grizzly paused for a second to consider whether there were enough Patriot dads around to back her up if she told that kid’s dad and uncles exactly what she thought about his fingernails.

It’s ok. Gabe learned a lesson, and it was not that he needs to grow out his fingernails.

It was that if other kids choose to play a bit outside the rules and spirit of the game, he has little control over it. There will always be cheaters. All he can do is what he did today, get back in there and try again.

And I have to let him, first of all because he wants to. He loves football. But also because these are the kinds of life experiences that grow kids into adults, the kind of adults who face adversity with determination and manage their fear with action.

No pressure, no diamonds.

August Is Breast Feeding Awareness Month ~ Guest Post by Jennifer

My name is Jennifer and I met Jen and Dana when we were all teachers. Now I am a homemaker for my amazing husband, two beautiful sons, and one slightly neurotic cocker spaniel.

In July, Jen and Dana invited me to guest post with the instructions to write about something that “fired me up”. I never anticipated breastfeeding to be the topic that pushed me into writing.

August is Breastfeeding Awareness Month and I realized that I needed to tell my story about my experiences. When I was pregnant with Jacob I assumed I would breastfeed. I mean, it’s free and healthy! How hard could it be? Oh the naiveté! I know some women who are so incredibly fortunate to have had easy experiences. I am not one of them.

My initiation as a breastfeeding mother was a rocky one. When Jacob was a newborn he refused to nurse. He would shut his mouth and go to sleep every single time I tried to nurse. So there I was with a hungry baby and my “talent”, which as a friend once put it, is producing a lot of breast milk. I will forever be thankful to a dear friend, who is a Lactation Consultant, for giving me peace of mind over using a bottle. Once we made this feeding decision, I heard a lot about how now he would never take to nursing and that I needed to keep trying. The comments were masked in concern and support but I felt like less of a woman/mother for feeding my baby with a bottle. I fought the guilt since it was still my milk; plus, this way my husband was able to feed and bond with Jacob too. Prior to this I didn’t even know that exclusive pumping was a thing but I did it. I remember crying as I learned to use the pump and asking God why Jacob wouldn’t latch. Thankfully, Jacob decided to nurse at three weeks old but it was still touch and go for some time after that. We got through some days “nursing session by nursing session” but we didn’t give up and I ended up nursing Jacob until he was 14 months old. (Take that, naysayers!) I know now that I had to learn to pump so that I could provide milk for Jacob while I was at school earning my MA. Plus, six months later a friend of mine had a very similar situation happen and I was able to minister to her in her time of need!

Jennifer and her first son, Jacob. Look at his chunky thighs! — Jacob and I. Look at his chunky thighs!

When I was pregnant with my second son, Andrew, I thought I was ready. I knew what nursing was like. I knew it might be difficult and that it would probably hurt. If all else failed, I knew my way around a pump. As it turns out, I was not prepared for the entirely new kind of hard that establishing, and maintaining, a breastfeeding relationship with Andrew would prove to be.

Last week, Andrew turned 1. But he was born one month early at 36 weeks gestation. His birth was very quick and he was small so he ended up with fluid in his lungs (Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn) and became a NICU baby for a week. Unfortunately, he could not eat those first three days because of his rapid breathing. As I did with Jacob, I pumped every three hours so I wouldn’t lose my supply. Within a week I had a stash of over 100 ounces. The NICU nurses were impressed. He went from tube feeding, to a bottle, before learning how to nurse. Remember my “talent”? My less than six-pound baby had to learn to nurse from breasts that were bigger than his head. Once again, it was not easy and it hurt. He was five days old before we had a successful nursing session. I still cry when I think about how relieved I was that day.

Jennifer nursing preemie Andrew. — Nursing preemie Andrew.

Nursing Andrew was easier than Jacob only because he was eager. The hard parts were the technical ones like correct latch and drinking enough. Because of my “talent” I also had to worry about foremilk/hind milk imbalance which is a product of the vicious cycle of having so much milk that he would be full and I would have to pump out the excess; I was desperate to avoid mastitis. I had to actively work to decrease my supply just enough so that he wasn’t choking at every feeding but not so much that my supply went away. I went back to see a Lactation Consultant for some peace of mind and the reassurance that we were doing things right. Unfortunately, when Andrew was about two months old he rejected the bottle and would only nurse…I felt like I was on a leash tied to my baby. There were other factors at play but Andrew’s refusal of the bottle, and my subsequent inability to get a break, were big factors in the severity of my Post Partum Depression (PPD). There were a few months there where I just wanted to get out of the house and part of me resented nursing Andrew. Statistics will tell you that breastfeeding reduces the likelihood of mothers developing PPD but it was making things worse for me. Despite all this, I believe my PPD would have gotten worse, due to guilt, if I had stopped nursing Andrew at four months of age. This was when my PPD was at its strongest point, as four months is when PPD tends to peak.

Since my baby refused to take a bottle, my freezer filled up with pumped milk. I knew I needed to donate it but I could not bring myself to give it away. It took me months to give away the first batch of milk and I totally cried over it. I was literally giving away part of myself and it was super hard to do. (You know the phrase “There’s no use crying over spilled milk”? Whoever came up with that nugget never had to pump their own milk.) I ended up donating over 300 ounces to our cousin’s baby with Down Syndrome who couldn’t latch. Each time I gave away my milk I cried but it also got a tiny bit easier. I knew it was needed elsewhere, my baby wasn’t got to drink it, and I sure wasn’t going to let my milk go to waste in my freezer!

My baby is 1 and I am doing better. I am at the point where I am cherishing every nursing session with Andrew because I know they are numbered. It’s interesting though how things change. When I was almost done nursing Jacob I was ready. I was looking forward to having my body back to myself. Maybe it’s because things started so poorly for us. I don’t know. I just know that I feel differently about weaning Andrew. Jen has a theory that we attach more strongly to our PPD/Anxiety babies. That could be it. One thing I do know is that I am proud to be a breastfeeding mom. It has been so much harder than I could have ever imagined but I am so glad I didn’t give up. It is such an amazing experience to watch my babies develop rolls upon rolls of baby chub because of ME. Rolls that I get to tickle and kiss to my heart’s content.

During this month of Breastfeeding Awareness I celebrate my personal journey in being a breastfeeding mother and I support all mothers in feeding their babies. Exclusive breastfeeding, exclusive pumping, donor milk feeding, formula feeding, supplemental feeding, and any other method of feeding, we are all doing the best we can for our babies and for ourselves. We should all be proud of that and we should be supporting each other. I know I would be telling a different story if it weren’t for the support of my amazing husband and the mamas in my village.

Resources:

For Breastfeeding in the US

Loving Support (Riverside County, CA): www.lovingsupport.org

La Leche League: www.llli.org

For Breastfeeding in Canada

INFACT Canada: www.infactcanada.ca

La Leche League Canada: www.lllc.ca

For Pre and Postpartum Mental Health support worldwide:

Postpartum Support International: www.postpartum.net

90 Days and Counting!

My friend Paula is pregnant for the first time. Paula and I have been friends for 20 years. We played volleyball together in high school, then taught and lived together for ten years until I married Shea.

This Spring, her husband Jimmy, who is a National Park Service Ranger, got transferred far away. They moved in her first trimester. New place, new home, no job for Paula. The baby was a surprise in the fact that she thought that ship had sailed, and she worried about being able to get a teaching job with a November due date.

When I talked to her in May, she didn’t sound great. She was lonely, stressed about the job search and trying to process all these tremendous life changes. Who can blame her? So the Committee decided someone needed to go see her.

Because that’s how we do.

It was a toss up for Lisa and me: we both wanted to see Paula pregnant, and we both wanted to meet sweet baby girl when she gets here. In the end, I came now, and she will go later. We pinkie-promised to take lots of pictures.

And off I went to see my pregnant friend.

In Maui.

Did I forget to mention they moved to Maui?

Maui is one of my favorite places in the whole world. Paula and I went to Maui in the summer of 2002 to reward ourselves for making the jump to public school. We had a blast. When I met Shea a year later, and found out he grew up on Maui, it felt like a sign from God that he was for me.

But this trip was not about Maui. If Paula and Jimmy had moved to South Dakota, I’d still be going to visit her, even though I have no real desire to see South Dakota. She’s my friend and she’s having a baby! So the Maui part is neither here nor there, beyond the fact that we got a beachfront condo for the weekend.

The point was to get things ready. There’s no Babies R Us on Maui. Or Target. There’s a Walmart, but Paula feels the same way I do about Walmart, so that’s out. And Paula and Jimmy are super low-key folks. A lot of people don’t even know she’s pregnant. If she was closer, she might have let us throw a baby shower. Maybe. Probably not. She is just not a big fuss kind of gal.

But a baby requires equipment. And equipment requires shopping, which is not Paula’s favorite thing. And help wading through the crap that the baby industry tells new mamas that they need.

Like a wipes warmer. I could have just set $30 on fire for the good that thing did anyone.

The first thing we did was throw a wi-fi baby shower. I came armed with love and gifts cards, and we bought a mattress, swing, bath and the two cutest towels you ever did see.

Then we rolled through the baby section and reloaded her registry, which shocked her into silence when it reminded her that she has 90 days to go! I am happy to report that while there is plenty of pink out there for baby girls, there’s also a ton of fun blue, green and melon. And car mirrors have come a long way. The one she picked has flashing lights, plays music and even comes with a remote control so mom can reset while driving.

Paula is feeling better and looks great. She got a teaching job where she is facing down the challenges of being a haole. She and Jimmy are super excited to meet their baby. And you heard it here first: Jimmy doesn’t stand a chance when Miss Thing gets here. He loves himself some Paula, and when Mini-Paula shows up, he’s going over the edge. No doubt.

In other news, Paula took me to see Oprah’s Maui estate, which is right down the road from them. It looked kinda nice:

This is the main house on the Winfrey compound. There were at least five smaller (and by smaller, I mean normal) houses too. #itsgoodtobeoprah

And Maui? Maui’s doing all right. Not that I noticed:

No Turtles

This right here? This is good stuff: “Are we raising a generation of helpless kids?”

“We made our kid’s happiness a central goal – and now it’s difficult for them to generate happiness — the by-product of living a meaningful life.”

Timely, since here I am at home for the summer with my 8 year old, 6 year old and 2 year old who still needs a nap. They do not play well with each for more than 20 minutes. And sometimes by play well, I’m only talking about agreeing on the same TV show.

They’re bored, they’re hungry, they’re mean to each other and the next thing we know, mama is a screaming harpy and everyone’s been grounded til they’re twelve.

I guess I could take control of every minute of their day and schedule them into exhausted silence. It’s tempting. I know lots of moms who do.

But then I remember my “No Turtles” rule.

We started it when Gabe was about three and he’d pseudo try to do something, such as put his shirt on himself, and then he’d flop like Arjen Robben and wail “I can’t do it!!!”

I used to tell him “Don’t act like a turtle on your back, arms and legs kicking in the air! Figure it out.” This evolved into our “No Turtle” rule.

So if I hijack summer, my days might be more peaceful, but the long term result will be a household full of turtles. “Mom, I’m bored! Mom, we never do anything! Mom, I wish we could go to Disneyland! We never have any fun!”

No thank you.

Dearest children of mine,

This summer, the management will no longer be providing Perfect Days. There will be many, many opportunities for fun and games, but very few of them will be directed by Mom.

We went to the library, so there are books to read.

We went to the teacher supply store, so there are workbooks and science experiments.

We’ll keep up our tradition of the weekly trip to the mall, because Mama loves her some mall. We’ll hit the waterpark once or twice. I’ll set up play dates upon request. Maybe a trip or two to the beach. VBS, for sure.

And there are 12 kids in a five house radius. Everyone can learn a new game, like “tag” or “hide and go seek”. After a long day playing outside, I could probably be talked into making ice cream for the lot of you.

I know this is different, but we have no choice. If we continue to take responsibility for your happiness, where does it stop? I met a lady last week who is planning her son’s honeymoon—not just paying for it, planning it down to the daily excursions and nightly dinners.

Can you imagine getting a text from your mom on your honeymoon: “Have you guys gotten dressed for dinner yet? If you’re running behind, let me know and I’ll call the restaurant”.

Someday you’ll thank me.

In the meantime, remember the new house rule: If anyone says “I’m bored” or “There’s nothing to do”, I automatically get to pick a new activity. My current favorites are “Put the laundry away”, “Pack a box” and “Vacuum”.

Happy Summer!

Love, Mom

What’s In a Name?

One of my best friends is pregnant with her first child and just found out that she’s having a girl. When she sent me the text, I asked “Does she have a name?”

“Work in progress.”

A few days later, she texted again, no hello, how you doing. Just this:

“How many Olivias are there in Gabe and Kate’s classes?”

“None. Why?”

“We’re thinking about Olivia but are worried it’s too common.”

I had Teresa ask Siri where Olivia lands on the Top 100 of girls names.

“Looks like it’s #3 on the Top 100.”

“I know.”

“Can her middle name be Grace so we can call her the OG?”

“No. Olivia Claire, mom’s middle name.”

“I love it. Love it. And if you love it you should go with it and not worry about the other Olivias. That’s coming from a Jennifer. I know what I’m talking about.”

I was born in 1972, at the peak of Jennifer’s popularity. I spent the first 12 years of my life called Jenny F to distinguish me from the other five Jennys in the class. I survived. So will Olivia H.

“We are also thinking about Vivienne.”

“Vivi!”

She and I are Ya-Yas from way back. In fact, we ditched graduation duty to see the movie on the day it came out.

“Yes! Or Devynn. Or Blake.”

I’m down with the whole gender neutral naming trend. Devin was one of our boy names when I was pregnant with Annie. And we have two Quinns in our close circle. My kids call them “Boy Quinn” and “Girl Quinn” to keep them straight in conversation.

“When we were picking, I would imagine hearing the name on a loudspeaker or see it running along the bottom of the screen on ESPN.”

No, I am not kidding.

“That’s all I do, too.”

“Midfielder Olivia H— Or, midfielder Vivi H—“

“Mine more says “US Olympic Gold Medalist”

“Now playing on center court…”

“Now you’re with me!”

“Do all moms pick names this way or is it just us?”

Dana did it too. She was kicking around Cossette when she was pregnant with Violet. Then I made her think about the trash-talking across the net if the 6’3’ setter was named Cossette. I got your Castle on a Cloud, b***h!

Needless to say, picking a name is a big responsibility.

The year that Gabriel was two, I wrote my family names on the board for a project, and one of my students raised his hand and asked if my son was the only one in the family with a Mexican name. I laughed, because I have taught some wonderful Gabriels in my career—all of whom happened to be Mexican American—but we picked his name for the archangel, the right hand of God, defender of the light against the dark. Which is probably how the other Gabriels got their names as well.

I took full advantage of Shea’s English heritage to choose queen’s names for my girls.

Kathryn Grace was the first ever baby name that popped into my head when I found out I was pregnant with Gabe. It took two more years before we got our Kate. When I call her Kate, I see Katherine Hepburn, and hope that she takes the same big strides in the world, with the same sense of humor and maybe a little less booze.

Anne’s full name is Anne Elizabeth, which I justified because Ann is my mom’s middle name and Elizabeth was my grandmother’s middle name. But that’s a pretty regal name on a little girl. When I “Anne Elizabeth!” her in my mom voice, people always stop to look.

Olivia/Vivienne/Devynn/Blake’s mom actually asked me after Anne was born if I was naming my daughters in the order of Henry VIII’s wives on purpose and if the next one would be a Jane.

That made me laugh too. Because, kind of. And maybe. Let’s face it: you take the jerk husband out of the equation and those women were pretty bad ass.

So to answer the question: hope, dreams, love, Bible, family, culture, tradition. And maybe a wee bit of humor.

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