march madness

is upon us. its not in a form of an NCAA bracket.

we are settling in as best as we can here in the hotel. jake is bouncing off the walls, myka can't sleep, and I haven't had a bite of brown rice since we left LA. I sort of miss it. I braved -10 degree weather and it wasn't too bad. I really like it here. I don't exactly know why.

today ended the original 'window of dates' that paul was supposed to come home. well, he hasn't come home yet. not that this is anything new. I'm happy that he is flying in with the first main body.

everything

is crashing down in the month of march. its sort of a time of change, from winter to warmer weathers, the brown of winter turns green, and

Mbean got her first cold.

Jzilla will turn three.

we are moving back to alaska.

Jzilla and Mbean are sick the week we have to move.

deployment is ending.

its still freezing winter in alaska.

its nice and warm in southern california. (sigh)

my dearest bean,

you are approaching 4 months old and this has been on your mama's mind since the day I held you for the first time. you see, before you were born I didn't think I want a baby girl until the day I went to your brother's ultrasound. I was happy but I didn't feel complete. That's when I realized that deep in my heart I wanted a baby girl but didn't want to admit it. I was afraid. I was afraid of because of the way I grew up. I was not happy being a girl and I felt like if I was a boy I wouldn't have had to feel the way I did. There were a lot of influences around me that made me unhappy of how I acted, what I liked, and how I looked. as an adult it still affected me. I didn't want anyone to feel that way, especially my own baby girl.

flash forward 2 years later. I went to the ultrasound to find out if you were a girl or a boy. In my mind I was still afraid of having a baby girl. I called you 'he' at the end of the ultrasound and the tech asked me how do I know? I just laughed. I didn't know. I was just afraid that you would be the girl I always wanted. later that night your dad and I opened the envelope that held that picture of you inside of me. you were a GIRL! I laughed because I was so so so happy but I cried because my fears were coming true. How will I raise you the right way as a confident girl? how would I teach you how to love yourself for who you are?

5 months later my questions were answered, so simply and so profoundly. As I pulled you up from the birthing pool, the answer was there. Your face was brimming with confidence and beauty. I realized you already knew what I thought I would have a hard time teaching you! in fact, you taught me an invaluable lesson in those few first minutes. You looked just like me, yet I saw this inner confidence in you that I didn't have. I realized at that moment that I must have been born with it too, but I had lost it along the way. I found it in you. My fears were dashed in those first few moments that I held you.

already teaching your mama a few things eh bean?

nothing will stop you bean, from becoming whoever you want to be. You are beautiful on the inside and out and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. how do I know? I've seen it since the moment you were born. Do not let anyone take away what you were born with. If you ever feel like you lost it, I hope you find it in this letter.

with much love,
your mama.

this is the very moment I learned my invaluable lesson in who I truly was.

it's almost over.. there is 30 days give or take left of this deployment.

flights are paid for.

I have butterflies in my stomach!

sometimes people will look at you and say, "you're still nursing your child?". You might feel a little taken aback, a little shame, and a little doubt. You might feel like you are doing something wrong, especially if you hear a family member or someone close to you make a statement like that. You might think to yourself, am I doing the right thing? What I am doing, is this... NORMAL?

What has been my normal?

My grandfather bought me a papaya when I was having low milk supply because that's what they do in Okinawa.

My grandmother's friend commented on how nice it is to nurse past one year.

My father's girlfriend didn't bat an eye when I nursed my 2.5 year old when he was sick.

She also told me that her daughter's OB pressures moms to nurse their children as long as they want.

My mother nursed all 4 of us - I saw her nurse my younger siblings everywhere and anywhere.

My aunt asked my son (3 years old) if he wanted to nurse like my daughter when he was fussy. She was honestly asking,

My sister is shocked how stigmatizing breastfeeding is because it's so normal to her.

My brother (who is quite conservative when it comes to girls being raised by three sisters, haha.) has no problems when I nurse in front of him because a baby's got to eat. If (and hardly ever) he feels uncomfortable, he goes and does something else.

No one objects when I openly nurse my daughter at the table, not my Uncle, Aunt, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, Husband, even my Stepmother in law.

No one has ever asked me when I was going to stop nursing.

These things are what my family considers NORMAL.

Next time you might ask yourself if what you are doing is 'normal', remember, normalcy is relative (no pun intended). somewhere out there, there is a place where no one stigmatizes breastfeeding. what you do today and tomorrow is helping our sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters be breastfed with out the stigma, shame, and doubt people seem to have today.

I chose to have a homebirth with my daughter. It was not a decision made lightly just because I cloth diaper or breastfeed. the utmost importance to me was my son's emotional well being. Yep. its true. I chose to homebirth because of Jzilla. This boy has been through amazing changes in his 3 year old life. he was born in los angeles. his daddy left for iraq when he was 8 days old. mama's milk dried up and he starved while feeling lethargic and sick. eventually back to the breast he went. 4 months later he was driven on a 14 hour drive to colorado where he got to know his dad for the first time. then a few months later, went back to los angeles while dad got some training. a little bit after his first birthday we moved back to colorado a month in an extended stay, then on to a uhaul to north carolina. learned to walk, and turned two before we were plucked off again to alaska a few weeks after his second birthday. spent 3 weeks in a hotel before his dad deployed again... this time to afghanistan. we moved back to los angeles again and 6 months later his sister was born.

its so interesting how modern medicine doesn't seem to count on emotional and psychological well being. It always comes up in debates about homebirthing or right to die. so what if you were alive and the baby was healthy after a traumatizing birth? so what if you were physically alive but brain dead while your hard earned money you wanted to leave to your children was drained to nothing? I'm not saying that hospital births are always traumatizing, or that brain dead people should die because they are a burden. I'm saying that why do people seem to fight the choice that other people want to make? why do they have problems with people making educated decisions? why don't some people understand that the risks we take are worth it when it comes to emotional and psychological well being?

when I chose to homebirth I knew its physical risks, but its not just homebirths that comes with physical risk. so do hospital births. when I contemplated the emotional well being of my family, having a homebirth was the answer. Physically I was well enough to have one as well. If I wasn't of course I would have gone to the hospital to give birth (and I am pretty sure 99% of mothers out there would agree). having the birth itself wasn't empowering for me, making the right decision for myself, my son, and my daughter was empowering.

rainbow brick roads

let me introduce myself. my name is mollie. I am wife to paul since 2006. I am a mama to two little ones... JakeZilla (born march/09) and MykaBean (born november/11)

I am an army wife.

my husband joined the army in 2006. we are currently stationed in ft wainwright, AK, and surviving our second deployment. he seemed to be a lifer but since we had kids his mind seems to be changing. i don't really mind either way. I love being an army wife. I've met great friends during our travels the army sends us on and even online through support websites. yep, a few bad apples give us a bad name but I've met more good ones than bad (and I've met a few WTFs are they thinking so I certainly don't act like they don't exist).

I am a gamer geek mama.

i play video games, card games (like mtg), and rpgs. in the late 1990's my then friend and future husband and i spent hours at a online computer center before online computer centers were cool (his dad and his friend owned/ran it. they were engineers that were ahead of their time). We played hours of command and conquer, duke nukem and mechwarrior 2. i played grups with some friends and loved it! i really want to get in to it but moving a lot sucks. :( i played EQ, WoW, tabula rasa (I liked that one a lot!), and vanguard off and on. I also played day of defeat which a lot of my WW2 weapon knowledge comes from (haha) and I currently play a lot of free cell while I stalk my husband online :P

I am a crafty mama.

i spin yarn on my ashford joy my husband 'allowed' me to buy earlier this year (lols). i knit and crochet also but my true love seems to be spinning so far. i met a lady who also weaves but i dare not start another hobby! lol. i also sew but a real novice at that.

I am a cloth diapering mama.

i wish i could say that i do it for the sake of the environment or the health of my baby's butt, but the truth is that I do it for the money. we already knew that we would have more than one so cloth diapers were an all around win. I've only spent 150 dollars on bean's girly covers and I need to spend about 50 dollars more on some flats but she will be diapered until potty training. whooohoooo!

I am a cooking mama.

we love to cook and eat. that is another thing I love love love about our military life. I've lived in colorado springs, colorado; fayetteville, north carolina; and fairbanks, alaska and I would say I miss the food as much as the people i've made friends with. I also love to cook from scratch and eat out too. I love doing thanksgiving, christmas, and new years. I look forward to it every year.

I am a breastfeeding mama.

I wish i could say that I breastfeed for the sake of lactivism, but the truth be told I do this for the money too (see a trend? lol). honestly though I am quite appalled by the resistance women encounter when it comes to breastfeeding. My mom breastfeed 3 of my siblings all past one year so I thought it was the norm. even my grandfather was a cheerleader and when I had problems nursing Jzilla, he supported me with a stinky papaya, which is considered a galactagogue in Okinawa. eventually I was able to EBF and learned the importance of support and education (i thought it would be as easy as sticking the nipple in the babies mouth back then too). I am active with my local LLL (local meaning, whenever I am in the redondo beach area). every woman should get 110% support if they want to breastfeed. I get so sad when women have to quit due to misinformation, not enough support or pressure from family (i think that's what makes me mad the most!). I currently tandem nurse Jzilla and Mbean.

I am an AP mama.

I don't necessarily advocate AP but our parenting decisions line up with most of what AP is all about.

I could go more in depth but I need to get ready to go shopping for food. LOL.