Finally updated...

Well, I went and changed the template figuring that'd make it more obvious that I'd updated. I removed the "subscribe to this blog" thing since it didn't seem to be working anyway and added a counterbox for the BIG NEWS that anyone who got our Winter Holiday letter now officially knows - Liam will be a big brother sometime in the first half of July (the counter is using an estimated due date of July 7, since it doesn't look like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - aka Book 7, the title was made public a few days ago - will be released that date, sounds like a good day to pop out a piglet instead, tho if JKR and the publishers get their rears in gear and release the book that day I have no problem giving birth at a bookstore instead of missing the midnight sale! Good thing our family doctor - who is also a baby catcher - is about as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am!).

Pregnancy has been going much differently than with Liam. I've had a ton more nausea (and vomiting) than I did with him and the fatigue is much worse. These could also be due to the stress of having my in-laws living in very close quarters with us until a month ago when we all moved into our new house (we bought an up-down double, they live downstairs since my FIL wakes up at 5am and I'm a light sleeper). Still stressed out a bit over home repairs that need doing (nothing terribly serious but it'd be nice to get new windows put in, need to put in a pole to support a failing I-beam, some gutter work including a serious cleaning, and maybe getting the northwest corner of the house lifted in the future - I call it the Leaning Tower of Yeung).

Liam opened his presents this morning and was much impressed with the Duplo train that was a present from Uncle Marvin, he played with it for well over an hour. He's also quite pleased with the stuffed (Disney) Piglet that plays "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" that I picked up for him, he's been snuggling it pretty consistently and was even having it help him play with the train which was quite adorable. He insisted on sharing the McDonald's custard pie he mooched from Nai-Nai (Garvin's mom) with Piglet, which was slightly less adorable because of the mess it created but I took pictures anyway. I'll try to add them below.

Though Garvin posted that Liam was using the potty back in August, he's had a bit of a relapse of late. I think it's because my milk supply vanished - I can't get anything to hand-express and he keeps doing the let-down suck for extended periods of time (which is annoying as all heck and makes me feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin, especially when I'm tired, so he was mama-lead into night weaning and we're down to just sometimes when he wakes up and sometimes when he's over-stimulated and can't fall asleep for nap or bed time... meaning that some days he's still trying to nurse 4-5x/day and sometimes he only nurses once or twice if Garvin has good luck getting him to sleep). I really don't want to completely wean him as I'm quite enthusiastic about tandem nursing, but I'm just not sure that I'll be able to handle nursing him through this pregnancy if the physical sensations keep up. I want to allow him to suckle at least occasionally so that he doesn't forget HOW - and cause problems if he wants to nurse later when the baby comes - but it's also been making my stomach clench and I'm a little worried about contractions. I know enough other tandem nursing mamas to know it's not dangerous (if you're cleared by your caregiver to have sex during pregnancy, it's safe to breastfeed - both activities release similar hormones and can cause uterine contractions, but they're safe in a normal healthy pregnancy and possibly even beneficial). After the new year (and we've settled into the house more with Garvin being off school until the 8th) I'm hoping to have some playdates with other area tandem-nursing mamas to get some support and give Liam some time to play and see other kids doing this. I think it'll help.

I've spoken to a midwife that I think I'll be going with for this birth (our family practice doctor is a backup, I intend to birth this baby at home especially now that we live about 3 blocks from the hospital I actually feel safer at home). I'm a little concerned about the distance the midwife lives from me (about a 45 minute drive), but one of her two apprentices lives about 5 minutes away and went to high school with me and we reconnected back when Liam was a newborn, so I'm feeling more confident about going with them (of course, I'm actually confident enough to birth the baby by myself if need-be, but it's not my preference - I was worried enough about being one of those rare moms that didn't notice labor after the pain of the disc herniation that I studied up on techniques when I was pregnant with Liam - good thing too because I think I COULD have missed the fact that I was in transition with him if it hadn't been for my water leaking and then having back labor). We're seeing our family practice doctor for "co-care" for all the prenatal appointments and I'm getting SOME of the standard tests (still trying to get my nerves up for the thyroid test she wants me to do, hoping to do that this week or next), and we'll probably have a 20 week ultrasound just to be sure of placenta placement and that development looks normal (I had a 6wk ultrasound to try to determine dates but the tech just punched in the date of my last period so I know the date she gave me was wrong as I don't have a standard 28-day cycle and had been doing ovulation testing so there's no way I'm due on 6/28 - thankfully she'll be out on maternity leave herself when it comes time for my 20wk. I estimate that I had just started my 6th week when I had that US tho she put me somewhere in my 7th week, which I base upon the fact that there were visible limbs and a heartbeat so I couldn't have been much less than 6wks). Anyway, the scan is packed away in some box right now, more unpacking will be done after more rooms are finished painting (so far our bedroom and dining room/office/library is painted, need to paint the living room/play room and back bedroom this week so I can use the back bedroom as unpacking zone and we can lay the play mats on the floor of the playroom.) Hopefully I'll get a chance to scan those in the next 2 weeks.

I'm hoping to get yeungs.us updated during winter break also (I have a "to-do" list that mostly involves not exerting myself too much physically, obviously... Garvin's "to-do" list is significantly more calorie-burning). The gallery software has been installed for ages now but I haven't linked it off the main page and I've not uploaded more pictures in several months due to the househunting and moving, so I'll be remedying those issues first and putting links to this blog and Garvin's. I also really want to write some of the fanfiction stories that have been floating in my head (especially with the title announced for the last book - I"d like to get them done before the book is published and I feel like an idiot for mis-interpreting clues ;) ). Maybe I'll get some time to work on some of my original projects too, especially the Lego ones are calling me!!! LOL

Pandora

OK, I've been meaning to share this service with others for a while and keep forgetting so I figured I'd say something about it here as it's being rather humourous this morning.

Pandora is a free music service that streams commercial-free music to your computer. What makes it extra cool is that you tell it a song or artist (or several) that you like, and it uses "music DNA" to compare that music to other stuff it its database that you may also like, and then plays songs you may not have otherwise heard. And it's free. It provides links to the Amazon.com and Itunes.com purchase points for each song (discretely, you have to click on the album cover to get to it). And you can have more than one "radio station" (I have rock/pop and mellow/new-age at the moment).

Now for the humourous part. I've told the thing I like Tori Amos, Michelle Branch, Evanescence, Savage Garden, Sting, and I can't remember who else in the Rock/Pop station. This morning it somehow decided that I must REALLY like 80s pop. As in it played three in a row from my early childhood (OK, elementary or middle school?) memories - Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, and Simple Minds. Not that I *dislike* any of those groups or even the particular songs (tho "Hungry Like A Wolf" just seems SOOOO dated). It just seemed rather odd to suddenly be transported back two decades.

As I was typing this it actually decided to return to the 21st century and played a Michelle Branch song ("Something to Sleep to") and now it's playing a song by Angela Ammons ("Walking Backwards") that I never would have heard without this service and I'm rather liking.

If you're reading this and want to hear what I'm listening to, I think you can search for my music by entering my email addresss. I'm registered on it using my dragonmama gmail account.

How the Great Northern Mall nurse-in went

(regarding a nurse-in at Great Northern Mall that I probably should have
mentioned on the blog before but I've been a bit out of it - more on that in
another post)

Well, none of the media showed up - though of course that's not why we were
there - but there were 11 nursing mamas present plus supportive spouses and
siblings and grandmas. We actually managed to be mostly on time (!) and
left the play area around 4:10 I think, moseying to Aeropostale (we're
mamas, we don't march, we mosey LOL). We spent a bit of time shopping in
Aeropostale (I actually bought a shirt - which I plan to crop to be a
nursing shirt - and some socks, both adorned with monkeys in honor of my
little nursing monkey). A few mamas nursed in their slings or sat on the
floor to nurse while there. The store employees were entirely polite, the
offending manager was NOT there. When I made my purchases I gave clerk a
few of the business cards I'd printed out (which say on one side "My child
has the right to eat here" and the text with law reference of the
breastfeeding law on the other side... editing out the words "her baby"
;) ). After that we moseyed to the food court and up to the mall management
office. On the walk there one of the Annas (G I think?) was nursing her
baby openly and some teens commented on it loudly to each other (not to
her), but other than that, I don't think there were any real comments made
(I could be wrong - share your story if you heard something I didn't). They
weren't open so we slid the envelope with our petition under the door and I
included at least one of the same cards I gave the clerk I think. Then
everyone disbursed for a bit and most of us wound up back in the play area
later, and then there was non-nursing drama caused by my son and husband,
which I'll post about later in a separate email so this one can be forwarded
on to others who may not be on one of these email lists and wanted to know
how things went.

I forgot to put any contact information in the envelope with the petition,
but I highly recommend as a next step that as many of you as are willing
call the management office this week. The phone number is 440-734-6300
according to their website, and their email address is
greatnorthern@westfield.com - the petition had over 70 signatures from the
website on it, and then those of the folks there added on at the end. I
wasn't sure about the legality of asking STRANGERS to sign the petition
(that may have counted as soliciting without permission on private property,
even if it was directed TO the OWNERS of the private property, and I didn't
feel like risking it).

Ahmie

parable fun

my in-laws are driving me insane with their procrastinating about moving to Cleveland. They've been unemployed for more than a month and have barely packed anything. Their health insurance runs out in the middle of August and Ohio allows insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions if there is more than a 30 day lapse of insurance.  My 57 year old barely-English-speaking, no-high-school-diploma mother-in-law is on several prescriptions, including high blood pressure medication, but doesn't see the rush in getting her rear in gear to get here and start looking for a job (never mind that it took her as-clear-as-native-English-speaking college educated younger son more than 6 months to find a job in his field and I don't know if that even had health insurance).  I feel like I'm pounding my head against a brick wall.  So here's a parable.

There were two families who lived on either side of a windy mountain.  Near the top of the mountain on either side were large boulders, resting just feet from the edge of a steep cliff, at the bottom of which were the homes of the families.  The family on the west side of the mountain took turns going up the mountain every day to push their boulder the little bit that they could away from the edge of the cliff.  It only moved about a tiny fraction of an inch every day, barely further back than the wind moved it forward, but still the family persisted.  The family on the east side of the mountain watched the western family do this and thought they were tremendously silly, and the easterners continued on their daily activities as if there were no boulder, including going on a big vacation to the far west that they'd been planning. 

While the easterners were away, the region was struck by a massive earthquake.  The mountain shook and there were several avalanches of various sizes.  The family to the west had some minor damage to their house, and the easterners pointed out how like anxious busy bees the westerners looked as the easterners passed them on their way home from their vacation.  Their mocking stopped, however, when they arrived back to their side of the mountain where, instead of their home they saw a pile of rocks, the largest in the center that they had ignored while it was on top of the mountain.  They wailed and lamented their fate, and the western family felt bad for them but they knew there was little they could do for people who wouldn't do for themselves.

*bangs head on desk repeatedly*

An excellent use of Fun Fur

Dark Mark Caplet

note the appropriate use of the ultimate evil, Fun Fur ;)

Colbert Tells College Graduates: Get Your Own TV Show

Wise words from a comedian who isn't, by his own definition, old enough to be wise:
"Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.

'Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."

(click the title to read the whole article with more quotes from the speech)

oh. my. god.

Town Cracks Down On Unwed Couples, Black Jack, Mo., To Evict Unmarried Couples With Children From Homes - CBS News: "Town Cracks Down On Unwed Couples"

so much for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... one has to wonder how equally it will be applied to different races and/or (presumed) sexual orientation.

Entenmanns bakery thrift shop coupon

Entenmanns.jpg (JPEG Image, 546x143 pixels)

Poem for our kissiversary

Today is the 10 year anniversary of our first kiss.  Yes, on April Fool's Day.  No joke.  I wrote a poem for Garvin to commemorate the occasion, this is the rough draft of it.

The Sour and Sweet

Years will come and go
As do acquaintances, we know,
Friendly faces flicker and glow
   As memories are made, sour and sweet.

Starting out with film rolls
Later we switched to digital
Different ways to catch a soul
   And hold our moments, sour and sweet.

Days fly by and never wait
Always on the go, usually late,
But to stop, breathe, and celebrate
   Makes the sour days somehow more sweet.

The days cycle on, warm and cold,
Children mature and constantly grow
You and I will become grey and old
   Warmed by these times, sour and sweet.

So though chocolates may be traditional
Like flowers, they are too ephemeral
So I offer instead this sentimental
   Tribute to our real treasures, equally sour and sweet.

(c)Ahmie Yeung, April 1, 2006

words of wisdom on NPR

Just thought I'd share this as I think it's a new mantra for this household:

If you always think what you've always thought,
  You'll always feel what you've always felt.
If you always feel what you've always felt,
  You'll alwayd do what you've always done.
If you always do what you've always done,
  You'll always get what you've always got.
If you always get what you've always got,
  You'll always think what you've always thought.

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

slightly reassuring, as is

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

slightly reassuring, as is

"State legislator proposes ban on adoption by homosexuals"

(link)

Not just homosexuals banned from adoption as the title suggests, but from fostering too... as well as bisexuals and transexuals. Republicans like this make me sick. They're twisting the research from what I can see, claiming that this is about "best outcomes" for kids because "research shows that kids do better with a mom and a dad"... no... research shows kids do better with more adults involved in their rearing, that two-parent homes are beneficial. What gender those adults are is not all that essential.

And anyway, following that logic, should single parents be barred from fostering and adopting? How about families that don't have a habit of sharing meals at the dinner table, sans TV? Research has shown a major correlation between the number of meals a family shares together at a table in an average week and achievement outcomes.

What it really boils down to is stability. Kids need stability and predictability, especially kids in the foster system. How about requiring certain standards of stability in the households that these kids are placed in, such as several years of estabilished couplehood, having lived in the same town for at least a year, demonstrated ability by at least one member of the household to hold a job? These are factors that make a real difference in outcomes for kids, not a thinly veiled attempt to fit personal bigotry to peer-reviewed research and turn that into law. Limiting the pool of potental parents for these already "unwanted" children helps no one. What next, bring back the institutional orphanages because there aren't enough "acceptable" foster parents?

Part of this is a knee-jerk reaction to the embarrassment about the family with severely retarded adopted children that they were putting to bed in cages (allegedly for the children's safety). Hello, legislaters... that was a HETEROSEXUAL, LEGALLY MARRIED couple. The proposal you're putting forth now would have had absolutely no impact on preventing that embarrassment. Heck, realistically, openly homosexual couples are more likely to be on their BEST parenting behavior because they KNOW they're under a microscope - we should be RECRUITING them, imnsho.

*growls*

*sighs*

urg. Ohio, showing it's ugly midwesterness.

edit: the actual text of the legislation is even more horrible than the article makes it out to be. It's online here: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=126_HB_515 especially wonderful is the section defining who is "transgendered" and therefore not elligible for foster/adoptive parenting:

(3) "Transgender" means an individual who may be classified according to an accepted nosology, such as the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, as having a gender identity disorder, or characterized by either of the following:

(a) A strong and persistent cross-gender identification;

(b) Persistent discomfort with that individual's sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex. [emphasis added]

So... basically.. if you're not a good little toe-the-status-quo-line heterosexual, from the wording of this ala Leave It To Beaver mentality we women should all be wearing skirts 24/7 with warm cookies ready for the kids when they get home from school, then guess what, YOU'RE TRANSGENDERED!!!

*screams*

[end rant]

Reading pleasure

A local mama I know is working on a novel and posting it to a blog for folks to read.  I'm horrible about commenting on it since I see her all the time and just give feedback that way, but I know she'd love to have more readers.  Not sure if my saying something will really encourage that (especially since I already pointed it out to Serena, Sabrina, and Garvin personally) since I don't exactly have a high readership, but who knows.  It's in the mythic realism genre, which is my favorite style when it doesn't go all gorey.  We'll see where she goes with it.  Neil Gaiman I like but he can get too gory for me so if she goes that route then I might stop reading.

Here's the link

Dancing

We went to the public Imbolc celebration held today by the Druid group I used to be involved in. The universe was watching out for me when I decided to go to today's ritual. My primary reason for going was because we are talking about different ways of doing liturgy in the worship class I'm taking at West Shore UU, part of my commitment as a Worship Associate there, and I am fascinated by ways to bring new vitality to West Shore's Sunday services and so I committed to going to this rite to reconnect and see what inspiration might strike for overlap of ideas, even though it's a lot of energy to keep a toddler away from the fires that are a central component of Pagan/Druidic worship and Imbolc, being a Celt-centric holy day and me not being much in the way of Celtic in my leanings, isn't really "my" holiday, and I was a bit grumbly about missing out on celebrating Chinese New Year with friends today in order to go to the ritual.

Not long after arriving at the site, I learned that the woman who first introduced me to the basics of belly dancing (isolations and some of the hip movements) died on Tuesday. The memorial service was yesterday.

She wasn't much older than my mother, but somehow I always had a bit more of a grandmotherly vibe from her. I'd lost touch with her over the years (especially since I completely suck at keeping in touch with people - major flaw of mine). I'd just been thinking about her yesterday as I finally got round to unpacking my altar/meditation gear and setting it up. I came across a shell bracelet she gave me about a decade ago, symbols of the sacred feminine that I'd put on while meditating occasionally and wore when I was inviting the universe to send a child to my womb (not knowing I'd already concieved Liam at that point!).

She never saw me dance.

I don't think she met Liam (my brain is a little numb right now, I can't remember if she was at this past Beltaine, which was the only other Pagan rite we'd taken Liam to so far).

I ache, but yet I don't think I can cry for her - she was such a joyful person with a purely infectious laugh that it doesn't seem right to cry over the loss of her.

As much as Unitarian Universalism is my "every week" religion, I don't feel that I can mourn her properly in that setting (even if our congregation did candles of joy and concern like our old congregation did). Part of the liturgy of Stone Creed Grove, ADF is a section called "Praise Offerings" in which the assembled folk make offerings of themselves to the gods by doing such things as singing, reciting poetry, pouring ale, etc.

I Danced for her.

This may seem like not so much of a big deal, but it was only the second time in my life that I've intentionally (belly/Oriental-style/whatever) danced in front of other people, and the first time that I've really Danced in the presence of other living beings outside my family. The first time I danced publically was 3 weeks before Liam was born, at the request of my belly dance instructor in Virginia as part of the yearly recital. That was a planned, correographed, confined dance. Today was not. Today, for the first time in my life, I intentionally Danced in front of strangers. I poured out my love for her into every sinew of my body, Dancing barefoot on cold concrete between flames, clockwise around the sacred space created for the rite. It was a wild Dance that I could not predict from second to second, movement with a mind of its own. It was completely unself-conscious and socially isolated in a way my extroversion usually blocks. It was Life celebrating Life, and it was different than anything I'd ever done before.

Dance is a central part of my private relationship with the divine. I Dance alone, now sometimes with Liam, on a pretty regular basis. It's how I meditate and connect with my center, in a way that sitting quietly or listening to music has never worked for me. I Dance for joy, I Dance for dispair, I Dance because I'm alive. I Dance when I'm in physical pain, even when it causes me more physical pain, because sometimes the pain is the most solid reminder of what there is to celebrate about being alive. When I cannot manage to stand to Dance, I Dance on my knees, and when that isn't possible, I sit and Dance with whatever parts of my body will cooperate at the moment. I do not Dance for other people, and will usually stop immediately if someone else enters the room (I may continue dancing, but not Dancing). In the nearly 10 years Garvin and I have been together and the 4 years since I started taking formal lessons, he has chanced to see me dancing, much less Dancing, a handful of times (aside from the social/ballroom dancing we do at weddings and such, of course). Somehow it feels like it loses some of it's sacred nature if I share it more freely. This is one of the VERY few things that I do not do for "extrovert" reasons. I think part of the reason I'm so private about my Dancing has to do with the misconception Westerners have with "belly dancing" = "sexual dancing". Yes, it's a dance of pure earthiness and sensuality, feminine strength and honor, and there is a sexual/fertility vibe there fairly constantly, but it's not about SEX, it's not about inticing another. It's about the divine spark within, truly loving myself at my sacred core, beyond gender and other physical/superficial concepts. This is why I usually Dance with my eyes closed, or at least why I generally refuse to look at other humans (save sometimes my son) while I Dance.

After the ritual ended, several people commented on how much they appreciated my Dancing. I found I really couldn't talk about it much, couldn't find where my own experience of the Dance fit with others perceptions of it. I think this inarticulatable nature of Dancing is part of what calls me (who prides myself on my ability to articulate... at great length) to do it, and why it is such a humbing experience to give myself over to it. I do not take pride in my Dancing. It's something I do because I'm alive. I sense a similar experience in Liam (whose dancing I was aware of by the time I was a little more than midway through my pregnancy, who now gets up and dances any time music becomes audible to him), so maybe in a few years I'll have someone I can talk to about it. Maybe I'll eventually really open up to aquaintances about how profound a part of me Dancing really is and I'll find kindred spirits to share this with, who may be able to give words to the experience better than I feel I can. The walking-with-a-cane thing is probably a bit of a stumbling block to people percieving me as a Dancer, I think - guess it seems a little oxymoronic. Don't know if I really feel the need to share my personal experiences as a Dancer with others outside my family, but somehow, I feel like I *should* be sharing it, since it was shared with me by someone who had no reason but kindness and love to share it.

This is the legacy Elena gave me, unknowing what an enduring and wonderous gift it was she was imparting. This I will share with my own children, in their time, and maybe someday with others, if I can come to terms with how much of the hang-ups listed above are actually my own. From now on, whenever I Dance, some part of me will always Dance in your honor, Elena. I know you're watching and smiling. Join the Dance again when you're ready, dear friend. I love you.

Two Lumps

Two Lumps: Serena, read this and pass it on to Carol and Heidi - there isn't an email this link on there. This cartoon about 2 Russian Blue cats is HILARIOUS - think Garfield meets Pinky & the Brain and swears vociferously. The specific date I'm linking to here involves a guinea pig which is why I think you and C&H will like it so much. It's several days in duration so be sure to click the next buttons at the bottom.