Shutterbug Mama

...this is cadence thrumming on a mini nori, which is a traditional korean drum...

...and this is cadence saying her first korean word...

...in case you haven't guessed it, she's saying 'mommy' in korean!

...yes, it's true...my 5 month old nikon coolpix 8800 konked out on me...i have no idea what i did, but there's something wrong with the lens motor, and i get this fatal 'lens error' that doesn't let me do anything...it's still under warranty, so i will ship it to be fixed, but quite frankly, i don't want the damn thing any more at all...*sigh*...why oh why did i not get another coolpix 4500 with the lovely swivel lens??? i took some photos with my friend nanette's 4500 this past weekend, and that just reminded me of how much i loved that camera...and i still swear i took better photos with that camera than this klunker i've been lugging around...8 megapixels my ass, what the hell did i want with EIGHT megapixels???

...so i go on vacation to my favorite city in the world in two days and i have no camera...i think it'll be a good experience for me...i will just enjoy being with my family and take in the sights instead of being glued to my camera's LCD monitor...i'll still have ted's canon powershot, which takes okay pictures...at least i won't have to carry that huge 10x optical zoom camera...i am so tempted to go on ebay right now and just buy another 4500...but i won't...i'm a mom now, and i have to exhibit a tad bit of self-discipline every now and then...mouths to feed, ya know...

...lots to do before we leave thursday afternoon...tons of laundry...packing... cleaning...creating an itinerary...researching all the free wi-fi spots in seattle...i'm glad i get to work from home tomorrow...i don't have to waste time commuting...

...i'm really looking forward to this vacation...we'll get a taste of some cooler fall weather while we're out there...not sure exactly what we're gonna do, but there's plenty to choose from...

3 years ago yesterday was when i first laid eyes on my teddy…i know, i know, i tell this story every year…but for those of you who’ve never heard, i first saw teddy while he was setting up his drumkit at a show at the empty bottle…the band he was with at the time (watchers) was opening up for duvall, which was the band i was planning on seeing that night…

i credit numerous people and forces that be for making it possible for me to see and meet and eventually start a family with teddy…

first, my cousin ike…he got me into the whole indie rock thing when he made me a mix cd years ago with music by the likes of the innocence mission, over the rhine and johnny cash on it…

then there’s the garden coffeehouse curated by my friend chris langill, where i went to see miranda stone play one night and was introduced to pastemusic.com…

pastemusic.com introduced me to the music of denison witmer, pedro the lion, bill mallonee, damien jurado and many others…

i went to see denison play live at a little coffeehouse in rockford, il…he invited me to his show the next night at schubas…i was hooked on chicago’s live music scene ever since…

then there’s my friend matt d. who i used to go to church with…i ran into him one day in the city and we chatted about bands and music, and he told me i should check out a band called duvall, which was made up of former members of the smoking popes…

and then there’s bill mallonee, who i went to see play a show at the abbey pub, where i met his manager tim white of the wildwood agency…

that led to one having coffee with derek becker, who was about to come on board with wildwood agency, one august 24th morning…as we were finishing up our meeting, i mentioned i was going to see duvall at the empty bottle that night, because my friend matt had recommended them so highly…derek told me that a coworker’s band called watchers was opening up and that i should go check them out too…

and it’s a good thing he did, cuz i was hanging out w/ my friends connolly and olarn at greekfest that evening and may have skipped the opening bands if derek hadn’t given me the heads up about watchers…and that’s when i first laid eyes on teddy setting up his kit and i thought to myself, ‘oh my god he’s hot how am i ever gonna talk to him?!!’ luckily, his frontman came up and talked to me after the show, and he introduced me to teddy a couple weeks after that, and the rest they say is history, and it’s still in the making!

YAY!

thrumming!

next thursday, i will embark on my 6th trip to the lovely emerald city aka seattle, WA…teddy, cadence and i are visiting our rockstar brother and sis-in-law charles and ali…i call ‘em rockstar cuz to me that’s what they are…they do things like ride their motorcycle up to yukon territory and hang with the bears and caribou for 3 weeks…or blaze cross country and roll into our post-wedding karaoke/pizza party dressed in leather…they are way cool like that…and we’re gonna spend a handful of days with them soaking in the cool seattle sun…maybe visit bruce lee’s grave…spend two days at bumbershoot, which will end with iggy and the stooges…spend some time with our friend ian and his family…

this will be our first flight with cadence (unless ted’s dad takes us up in his plane before then which is not likely)…i’m a tad nervous… how will she react to being confined to an area of approx 8 cubic feet for 4.5 hours? and what if the pressure change makes her little ears pop painfully? will we be the parents with the bloody-murder-screaming baby surrounded by glaring passengers? what if someone buys the ticket for the seat between ted and me (we’re taking cadence as a lap baby and i bought the window and aisle seats in our row in hopes that we would get the whole row to ourselves…selfish, ain’t we)? will they have a diaper changing table in the plane lavatory? will she poop during the flight? and what if she won’t sleep once we get to seattle? or when we come back home? what if she gets her night and day mixed up? and do they sell 7th generation diapers in seattle? should we lug our stroller on the plane or just buy a cheap umbrella stroller when we get to seattle? are we even gonna need a stroller since i'll be wearing her most of the time? will cadence survive two full days at bumbershoot? how will she take naps? where will she sit when she eats? should we take her little chair with us?

so these are just some of the questions i’ve been chewing on these past few months…i’m sure everything will work out okay…i just need to chill…

"yes, i'm gonna be a star!"

well, thank goodness the music room at the hideout was virtually smoke-free when we got there to see the GetUp Johns...i didn't have to make teddy wait outside with cadence! they got to see the whole show too! and what a lovely show it was...

we got to the show soon after jake and josh started playing...there was already a nice little crowd gathered...uncle dave was already there...people kept coming in throughout the performance, and you could tell they were really enjoying the music...jake and josh do this lovely close harmony hillbilly music, which i absolutlely love...those of you who've heard the lullaby i wrote for cadence while she was in the womb, this is the style of music i was aspiring to...i'm gonna raise cadence on this type of music and hope she develops an ear for improvising harmony...

i've already requested a set list via my friend (and the GetUp Johns' friend) caleb...these guys are coming out with an album this fall, and i can't wait! hopefully they'll be back in chicago soon!

i only took a few photos, but you can see the set on my flickr site right over here...

they also had this beautiful, awesome microphone...it looks so professional, doesn't it? the sound it produced was just lovely...i guess when you've got two guys singing that close to one mic, you want it to be good so you don't have to get TOO close...

this morning, ted and cadence walked me to my train as they often will do on nice summer mornings…when i got on my compartment and took my seat by the window, i could see the two of them looking at me from the platform…a group of hispanic women sitting in front of me noticed her as well and starting making comments in spanish in that universal ‘oh, what a cute baby!’ voice, and when cadence started waving at me as the train pulled away, they let out a chorus of admiring ‘ahhhs’…it was a proud mommy moment for me!

you had to be there…

anyhoo, today i am going to the hideout's happy hour to see the get up johns, friends of caleb's from minnesota...maybe i should wear my urban hillbilly quartet t-shirt...

"look! i got a ponytail just like mommy's!"

it’s been a week of catching up on sleep in our household…for a number of nights until monday night, cadence was waking up at 3:14 am too fussy to go back to sleep right away…the worst was on sunday night…well, it was actually monday by then…she woke up around 3 and wanted to play until 5:30 am…this was after refusing to go to bed until around 11pm…i normally wake up around 5:45 to catch my train to work, so by 5 am, i knew i was in trouble…i called my boss and left her a voice mail that i’d be taking a vacation day on monday because i’d be useless at work…i’m usually pretty stingy about using vacation days, but i knew my week would be totally screwed if i didn’t get some sleep…

you know, some babies are great sleepers, either because they naturally like to sleep or because their parents trained them to…cadence is not one of those babies…she’s a fair sleeper at best…on a good night she’ll go to bed around 9pm, stir a couple times during the night to be fed, but barely enough to wake herself or me for more than 15 seconds, and then wake up happily babbling around 6am…i know that it may surprise people that i am still nursing her during the night, but i think those feeding sessions are important to her physical and emotional health, esp. because i’m gone for so long during most days…i see the nighttime as my time to parent, and although that may sound insane for someone who works full-time during the day, it’s usually not that bad…maybe a few seconds of holding her a little closer, whispering in her ear to soothe her, stroking her forehead, patting her back, giving her my boob, whatever to get her back to sleep…all of this i can usually do while still lying down…

but you know what? as much as i crave sleep sometimes (and i just let out a big yawn as i typed that!), i feel so lucky and blessed to have cadence as our daughter…i actually like it that she is a persistent and strong-willed child…i may eat my words someday, but for now, i try to imagine that given abundant love and encouragement and appropriate boundaries, she will grow up to be someone who is persistent and strong-willed for those who’ve given up and had their wills broken, that she will fight relentlessly for the weak and helpless…i don’t dream about my daughter becoming a doctor or a lawyer or a professor…i don’t want her to be defined by the occupation she chooses in this life…what i dream is that no matter what she chooses to earn a living, that she will always be motivated by love and compassion for humanity…

i know that this means that ted and i will have to model love and compassion in our daily lives…and THAT is something we really need to think about…

in other news, my childhood chum ruthy just announced her engagement! she’ll be getting married in march in the south bay area where she currently lives, and i am so happy for her! she’s been in town this week and visited us yesterday…it sounds like her fiance michael is a really awesome guy, and i can’t wait to meet him…ruthy became my first friend when my family moved to the u.s….we were in the same class from 2nd through 7th grades and spent almost everyday together for a number of years…i still remember those days when we’d spend the afternoon watching the brady bunch or playing double dutch or badminton or whiffle ball…and there was that magical summer of ’84 when the cubs were winning left and right…i was supposed to be practicing piano at ruthy’s house everyday, but instead we watched every cubs game on WGN…*sigh*...jody davis…*sigh*…

anywho…

2 minutes into the new son volt cd and it is already my favorite son volt cd...simply with the lyric "the words of woody guthrie ringing in my head..."

i am a sucker for the mere mention of woody guthrie...

i am just a sucker in general i guess...

...this is jay farrar formerly of uncle tupelo and currently (yay!) of son volt...he played a free (short) solo acoustic set at the uptown borders just an hour ago...i found out about the show at 6pm in a tiny little blurb on gapers block, and i freaked out cuz the show was at 7 and cadence was still napping...luckily, she woke up in the next 5 minutes and we hurried up and made it on time to the show...however, a lot of other people in chicago either read gapers block or are way more on the ball than i am (probably both) and the place was packed out...it does help though to have an extremely cute baby slung to you in a fancypantsy technicolor dreamcoat wrap, and i was able to squeeze our way to a place where we could actually see jay play...at least i could...cadence was strapped to my front facing me with her back to the ministage, so she could hear the music but had no idea who was producing the lovely tunes...

it was such a short short set, but a lovely one...i have to admit i'm quite the sucker for acoustic shows where guitars and harmonicas and former members of uncle tupelo are involved...i can't wait to see the whole band (son volt) live at the bumbershoot festival in seattle...

oh god, i gotta go...i just caught a whiff of cadence as she crawled by, if you catch my drift..

...i think cadence will be ready for her own drum kit soon...

the neighbors are gonna love us!

here's a short sweet one to make up for that last monstrosity of a post...

go give some love over at the art lad's blog...he's a six year-old boy named thomas who's blogging his art and he makes the best dinosaurs EVER...thanks to my friend graeme for sending me the link...

someday, we hope to have a child-sized crafts table where cadence and her friends can gather around and make art for HOURS AND HOURS ON END...

WARNING: really long post to follow!

i’ve been wanting to write for some time about this whole attachment parenting thing…those of you who’ve been around this place for awhile know that i try to practice attachment parenting, which is a parenting style that emphasizes listening to your heart and intuition when it comes to your child and building a relationship with your child based on a two-way emotional attachment. i first read about AP in the baby book by william and martha sears, who have been major proponents of AP in the last couple of decades. for those totally unfamiliar with AP, here are the basics according to the searses—what they refer to as the 7 B’s of attachment parenting:

1. birth bonding—bonding with baby from the first moments and during the first days and weeks after birth
2. breastfeeding—gives baby the perfect food for the 1st year of life while promoting happy mommy hormones for mom
3. babywearing—carrying a baby for extended periods during and throughout the day, whether in one’s arms or in a sling or wrap
4. bedding close to baby—that may mean baby sleeps in bed with parents (cosleeping), or baby is kept in a crib or bassinet next to mom’s side of the bed or in the same room as parents or in a room close to parents, or whatever works so everyone gets the best sleep and the parents are close enough to effectively care for baby’s needs during the night as well as during the day.
5. belief in the language of your baby’s cries—responding sensitively to baby’s cries to meet their needs and to build trust, believing that young babies cry not because they’re spoiled or trying to manipulate you but because they have a need that needs to be met
6. beware of baby trainers—learning to discern parenting advice that would have you replace your intuition and your baby’s cues with rigid rules, schedules or cry-it-out solutions.
7. balance--attending to the needs of yourself and your partner as well as your baby's.

i would also add to this list gentle and positive discipline without corporal punishment.

i immediately identified with this style of parenting, and embraced it with the wide open arms of a novice…since then, through reading various mommyblogs and parenting sites on the web, i have discovered that AP is a hot button for many…some folks consider it a wimpy approach to parenting that will surely result in the parents’ lives being thoroughly dictated by the child…for others, AP is almost like a religion, and you will find an alarming large number of these fanatics attacking anyone who doesn’t breastfeed, wear their baby or cosleep…i’ve been quite shocked at how vicious and closed-minded some of these folks can be, and i know that this is NOT what AP is about…if anything, AP is supposed to promote PEACEFUL parenting…not MILITANTLY peaceful parenting….c’mon, that’s oxymoronic…or just plain moronic…

when i was about 28 weeks pregnant, thoroughly engrossed with the bradley method (natural childbirth) and the idea(l) of becoming an AP mom, i thought i’d found the answer to all the world’s problems…if we’d all just become AP parents, the next generation of children would be so full of love and peace, that war and violence and poverty would be eradicated… god, i am so embarrassed at my own stupidity and naivety…and they let ME become a mom?!

well, GOD, in his infinite love and wisdom, decided to steer me away from a lifetime of militantly!!peaceful!!!parenting!!!!, and he gave me a stubbornly breech baby in the womb…for those of you who don’t know, a baby will usually be in a head down position around the time they are ready to be born…breech is when they’re butt/feet down instead of head down…what this means is that 99% of mainstream OB doctors will opt for a C-section instead of trying to deliver a breech baby vaginally…so by giving me a breech baby, the good lord (i know, i know…some of you don’t believe god has anything to do with any part of our existence, but just humor me, okay?), yes the good lord shattered my dreams of a beautiful, tears-of-the-purest-joy-filled natural, drugfree, episiotomy-free vaginal birth, which would then have led to my baby immediately latching onto my breast leading to easy breastfeeding until she was at least 18 months old, which would have created the most beautiful bond between us that she’d be an angel of a child from the moment of birth until she went off to college with a full scholarship…

it’s not that i didn’t TRY to salvage my dream…many of you will remember my tearful plea for prayers that the baby would turn on its head so that i could resume my idyllic life as an AP mom the way i had envisioned it…i tried the webster technique (a chiropractic maneuver that has some success in turning breech babies), i tried moxybustion, i tried the swimming pool, i tried gravity…little cadence, however, liked the upright position in the womb, and she wasn’t turning…so bye-bye bradley method…helLOOOO c-section…

now, just because i had a c-section, i didn’t throw the whole AP thing out the window…i met with a lactation consultant everyday i was in the hospital until by golly i got the breastfeeding thing down…i had failed in turning a breech baby, i had failed in having a natural vaginal birth, and come hell or high water, i was gonna AT LEAST get the breastfeeding part right…

so anywho, this post is getting way too long and is in danger of veering off on a tangent…here’s what i wanna say about attachment parenting before i forget…

i think that the principles of AP are great, and it seems to be working for our family…cadence is a happy, healthy baby…however, i have learned that i really need to keep an open mind and do what feels right for us, not what the crazy AP fanatics say to do…

for example, due to the aforementioned c-section, i didn’t get to hold cadence for more than 2 minutes when she was first born before she was whisked away to the nursery so that i could recover from my anesthesia…i didn’t see her for at least another couple of hours, maybe more…but you know what? we still bonded…human babies aren’t like ducklings, you know…they’ll still figure out you’re the mama eventually…

also, even though i managed to breastfeed pretty well so far, i don’t know how much longer i’ll be able to keep it up…as you may have read in previous rants, my milk supply is getting low…am i gonna miss that time of bonding with her? of course i will…and i’ll do what i can to keep my supply up, but i can eat only so much oatmeal before i start losing all interest in life…so to those so-called AP moms who would shoot daggers at me with their eyes if they saw me pull out a bottle of formula, all i have to say is—would you rather i let my baby starve? huh? is that what you want??!!! and you know what else? a lot of moms end up not being able to breastfeed for one reason or another, but that doesn’t mean they love their baby any less, so get a life and stop attacking every woman who pulls out a bottle in the park or the mall…that woman may have breast cancer…or she may have suffered excruciating post partum depression…would you rather that she had forgone treatment for either and possibly ended up DEAD just so her baby could have that precious breastmilk? yeah, breast may be best, but not if the breast is on a dead mom…

and the cosleeping thing…i like not having to get out of bed to feed cadence in the middle of the night, and i love watching my daughter sleep and feeling her little foot in my hand while i doze off, but dangnabbit, our queen sized bed isn’t growing while cadence definitely is, and she’s doing gymnastics in her sleep to boot…that crib, which is just 3 feet from the bed, is looking mighty roomy these days…or maybe we just need a kingsized bed! (NOTE TO NEW PARENTS/PARENTS-TO-BE: get a king-sized bed…even if you don’t plan on co-sleeping…it’ll be inevitable to someday have a kid in bed with you, so you may as well be prepared…)

when it comes to letting baby cry it out (CIO) once they’re older, say at least 5 months old, i think that’s a decision each parent needs to make for themselves, and no one can tell you you’re wrong…i know of many parents who’ve done it in a gentle, gradual manner, and some babies will be fine, cry a few nights and then put themselves to sleep peacefully thereon out…other babies will stubbornly refuse to go to sleep on their own, and that’s okay too…cadence falls into the latter category, btw…

as for babywearing, i am totally all gungho for it…ted and i took a four hour babywearing class this sunday, and we’re more enthusiastic about it than ever…i really believe that science supports babywearing as being very beneficial to a developing baby’s physical and emotional health…not to mention you get to do things around the house…i actually helped ted get dinner ready last night by wearing cadence on my back rucksack style! other benefits of babywearing include:

• not having to lug my stroller up and down the stairs and in and out of the car trunk…i have a hate/hate relationship with strollers, light and heavy…i acknowledge their occasional necessity, but i’d rather not…
• i can go braless outside the home, and no one will know cuz carrying cadence in front in a wrap keeps my sagging nursing boobs out of sight
• that colorful wrap is so stylin’
• you always have a place to wipe your nose

neverthless, babywearing is not for everyone, and some babies might not like it, esp. if you introduce it too late…cadence didn’t really like it until she could hold her head up, but that’s cuz we introduced it kinda late…i wish i’d carried her from the beginning, but it’s kinda hard to do when you’ve got a gash healing on your bikini line and you can barely move or walk, let alone WEAR a baby…

anywho, i’m saying for the 2nd time that this is getting way too long, so just suffice it to say that AP is okay with me, but some of their advocates are nuts and i hope i don’t turn out like that…i think all parents need to think for themselves when it comes to parenting instead of being swayed by all the ‘experts’ and parenting trends…i know esp. first-time parents want so very much to get it ‘right’, but what exactly does that mean, anyway? who are you going to allow to define what ‘right’ is for you and your child? each child is unique in his or her gifts and quirks and needs, so there’s no way you can break it all down to a science…

and that's all i have to say about that...at least for now...

just wait until i write about "unschooling"...