Up and drinking coffee

It was long night, so I'm not really sure why I'm awake. I've actually been awake since before seven. Cy is cutting teeth, and wanted to nurse all night long. To the point that I was begging her to take her water bottle and roll over. To which she cried, and yanked at my shirt until I gave up. Then I woke up this morning with a need to escape the bed, and come down stairs for some alone time before I face the day. I love to sleep in, but this is pretty nice too. Actually I should go see why Karl is still in bed. He's playing golf today after work. He and his friends found a place where they can use the driving range, and play half the course for six bucks. He hasn't golfed since high school or maybe freshman year of college, so that should be plenty. Opps! He's up!

I'm almost done rereading one of my books so I can write a decent report on it. My last one was pretty slim, but I found the book lacking in what I was looking for out of it. This one I actually like, and find myself pulling it out pretty often. It will also be going with me to births for awhile, since it has a nice cheap sheet on different labor and birth positions. I know that I'll probably not pull it out since most of them are really ingrained in my head (Like another million birth facts and figures), but it makes me feel better to know it's in there! I also have a few of my other assignments that are half done. Mostly because they business growing stuff, and within the next two years what I don't have done at this moment I will need to at some point. There are some other assignments though that look like tons of fun, but I need a quite day at the book store or library to work on them. Reading and some computer work I can get done at home. The actual writing that takes real train of thought, and the ability to proof read... Ha! Although as I'm sitting here in the nice quite of morning. I'm really considering getting up at six to get stuff done. The bonus of working at a public place is that when you have a stack of birth books people ask what your doing.

I'm not sure I'll get the time this weekend though. Tomorrow we will be fruit picking. We were planning on getting strawberries this weekend for both preserves and wine. I didn't make strawberry preserves last year. I made peach, blueberry, and apple butter. I thought I still had plenty of peach, but when I went downstairs to grab more I realized I only had three jars left. So we'll be getting peaches this year as well. I'm not sure if Karl wants them for wine or not. I do know that he is taking the last week of June off, and has plans to get a bunch of wine started. We currently have last year's apples juiced and frozen, dandelion flowers frozen, and lilac flowers frozen. All are just waiting for their time. With fruit season here already it's time to get moving! We seem to go through what Karl makes really fast, but Karl makes small batches and what we don't serve to family and friends we give away. I'm also considering making extra batches of preserves and putting them up for sale online. I'll stash the money for our farm fund. We'll see if I get that ambitious though. I should have a good deal of veggies to put up this summer too. I'm going to try really hard to get over to my Dad's house when he cans to tomato based sauces and get family recipes. They aren't gettable over the phone, because none of them are written down!

Cy is awake. My time is up.

I need clients!

I was reading my favorite blogger's birth story today, and found myself wishing for another baby. Craving the home birth that I wanted so bad with Cy.  At this point there is no way I could talk Karl into another baby, and the truth is the though of a third child in this house. Do the baby stuff again...it just makes me shudder. I am a birth junky though, and am very happy to live through others. I need clients! I just love to breath in the excitement of having a new baby, and then come home and play in the back yard with my big babies. The kind that walk and talk, and are cool with mommy leaving the house for a few hours.

It is day three of summer vacation. Hubby had a fantastic party Saturday, and since then things have been laid back. Karl has been working, and the kids have been playing together well. Gabe has been making a fort on his lower bunk and they play under there a least a couple hours a day. It's really nice to see them play, and not just Cy taking toys from him and screaming. It's great to be able to get a couple things down while they are playing too. I got the floor vacuumed yesterday without help! My kitchen is clean! I was starting to feel like that would never happen again. I've even been thinking about pulling out my knitting. I still have some papers to write though, but that takes my thinking and less noise than I currently have. I have been considering doing some walking this summer and see how far we can get. Gabe has been wanting to ride the city bus system. It's about a mile and half to the nearest stop. It might be kind of fun though. I have a nice light weight city stroller. Maybe we could take it over to see Karl, and then hang out on 28th street until he done working. We'll see how bored we get this summer.

Tonight we are heading to the library. Hopefully Cyan will stay quite long enough for us to get done what we want to do. She's been going nuts about horses the last few days, so maybe some horse books will do it. 

Cy is sleeping, so I should be cleaning the house or reading a birth book, or writing up a assignment. Writing in my blog is part of my business too though right? At least in this day and age it is.

I'm so giddy to use all the neat tricks I'm learning or have learned. I need clients though! A couple of weeks ago I gave out maybe ten business  cards to different people while out and about, and made friends with one of my son's friends that is about to start trying for another baby.  Getting your name out there can be a slow thing if you aren't able to dedicate tons of time to it.

This week has been pretty much about getting ready for Karl's birthday party. He turned 30 last week. It seems like a celebration is in order. We finished the garden this week. We put in extra beans and peas this year. Hopefully we have crop enough to put up for fall and winter. Our space is so limited, because of the trees in our backyard. It's a love, hate relationship with those things. I'm also not completely convinced that two of them are technically trees. They seem to be some sort of choke cherry. They also continue to try to make limbs on the lower part of the trunk, which I'm almost certain trees don't do. Karl is pretty allergic to the flowers it produces too. They are finishing falling off this week, so he's hoping he'll be off allergy meds and have his voice back by this weekend. Next year we are considering local raw honey for both he and Gabe.

Gabe's school year ends tomorrow. I will be so glad to have him move on. His teacher wasn't terrible, but her communication was pretty bad at times. Oh! He hit the ball at his baseball game last week. It was his first hit ever! We are just so proud of him for trying so hard this year, and improving.

I don't take parenting lightly

This blog entry has been rolling around in my head for over a week. Baby girl is a baby no more! She turned two on the 28th. Guess what? She's still nursing. Do I want her to wean in the near future? Yes, but I'm not pushing her very hard. She had such anxiety issues, and she is finally coming out of them. I want it to be her idea, and I know that it's the best way.

While my father was here Cy climbed up in my lap and nursed. My Dad actually said to me "You haven't broken her of that yet." Now if it hadn't been my father my response would have been something along the lines of "I didn't realize my daughter was a horse." Instead I just ground out a no, and ignored the fact that my Step-mother couldn't make eye contact while I was nursing. That I found hysterical.

The thing that drives me up the wall though is that he is always doing shit like this! I know why I parent the way I do. I don't do something because it's the way it used to be done, or because it was done with me. I research and research and research some more. I think about everything. I know why I'm still nursing my daughter. I know why I don't vaccinate my kids. I know why I don't spank. I know why I co-sleep. I can't say I won't change my mind on something. After all new research happens everyday. You can bet your ass though that I'll want to read it. I have to say though that my kids are pretty fantastic, and I think the things we do are the reason. I have no intention of changing how we parent for those that don't understand, and would rather be critical than ask me why.