i'm tired. my body hasn't sensed a routine in forever, my body's aching (including both wrists, suddenly), and i'm waiting for something at work so i figured i'd post this in the meanwhile. it's tough reconciling how i feel physically (like crap) with how grateful i am for the good things in my life. with all the trials our family is going through, some past, some present, some future, we're so blessed that when i stop to think about it it's kinda hard to wrap my mind around. one thing's become apparent, though, as we've been interacting so much more with other parents lately: we may flounder sometimes, and we may not be good with social conventions, but our awareness of our own shortcomings and our commitment to doing what's right for our boy - as opposed to what everyone else is doing - makes some of the "normal" things other parents are doing seem utterly ridiculous. and i'm not judging, there're a number of things we would've done just like them initially - but i am building confidence as we learn and grow.
the inspiration for this thought is the "super-moms club", a small group of moms in our class who've formed their little circle of trust and patronize the rest of us while taking care of business. that's fine, whatever makes you feel special. the really cool parents are the ones who don't need to prove it, and we have a few of those in our group too.
tuesday 21st:
troubleshooting with SxS, 3.45 bedtime and then almost no sleep as mr smear got busy and vocal early
a dream involving hyperviper and eminem (he and his buddy wanted to beat the crap out of me for some reason but we left on good terms), a game controlled by masturbation that involved wolves (werewolves?) eating their way out of a giant wolf's head while i tried to clean a diaper bin and ended up smearing shit all over it
pressing all my buttons, then on arrival demonstrating that he doesn't like last week's birthday boy
trying to nap but being inspired to work instead, picking up mr smear while gd cooked - he's making the girls cry by not kissing them - returning home and resting a little until it was time to take gd to see the chiropractor, returning home for another short while before going to acupuncture
torture, plain and simple. not the pain of the needles going in - although the one that made my back arch involuntarily did freak me out a little - but about ten minutes in one of my legs got restless and it was an enormous, unpleasant effort to stop myself from kicking and shaking it out over the course of the next fifty minutes. and then i moved my discomfort to a different level by mentioning vitamin d and getting a lecture on how little medical practitioners know... he's right, but i was talking about evidence-based medicine and i realized within seconds that i was talking to the wrong person. otherwise, brilliant man and definitely knows what he's doing
a tough evening, neighbours banging on our ceiling but at least being polite when we complained, going to bed early and unwittingly starting my bloodwork fasting on time
wednesday 22nd:
a couple of hours work in the middle of the night, forgetting about the fast but for once not being in the mood to snack, back to bed for a relatively peaceful night and actually struggling to wake mr smear in the morning; making a "deal" with him to eat the inferior maize meal using cashew yoghurt as a reward
dropping him off and getting my bloodwork done (completed within ten minutes of walking through the door), home to work but getting sucked into watching fit to fat and back instead - brilliant and insightful
picking up mr smear - insane heat! - and walking past the petting zoo (which i'm now uncomfortable about), mr smear and his nemesis hugging goodbye (phew!) and successfully entering nap time on arrival home
a positive lunch hour, a little work, mom coming over while i shuttled gd to acupuncture and mr smear being highly amusing (his thing with stamping his feet in water or licking a wet table is just weird)
really investing in the legacy work ("like playing table tennis with both arms tied behind my back")
thursday 23rd:
3.30am to bed, a couple of feeds until waking up, successfully repeating wednesday's "breakfast deal", dropping him off and coming home to ffix until the therapist arrived
a good session, then returning to pick up mr smear and the heat getting HEAVY. spar shopping and mr smear smashing expensive bottles at the checkout (but thankfully the manager shrugged it off), then home for nap-time. reading ps. your not listening while trying to nap - phenomenal read! - then an afternoon spent chasing mr smear until my mom came over for a bit, getting through the bedtime prep and eating a variety of leftovers for dinner while watching half of a horrific first episode of con men case files before starting jumper and then getting back to my desk. now... to work!
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
some up, some down, some being blown around
monday 13th:
a full night's sleep! mr smear's nose cleared up! dropping him off at school and excitedly buying up loads of fruit and vegetables and coming home to clean the kitchen! and play ffix instead of nap when we realized we had less than half an hour to return to the school. back home for lunch and mr smear's nap and the cabin in the woods, then busy until it was time to take gd to the acupuncturist.
the company gardens' rapeman (young dude exclaiming how he's a sex bomb and then pointing at women and informing them that he would have sex with them), a big wind forcing us into the national library (nice, but with eerily empty shelves), then the wellness centre for a very berry smoothie that mr smear and i shared before picking up gd and coming home for bedtime prep
dinner: we all loved gd's homemade lentil burgers, mr smear saying "skeee" when he means squeeze
a little telly (the hurt business) and some sql scripting (haven't done that in a while), a surprise migraine but some great news to ease my discomfort - a raise! not nearly as much as i need, but considerably better than what i've been getting. hopefully the project i'm working on will help bring in a bigger one...
tuesday 14th:
hours fighting iis and restify (no PUTs allowed), crashing at 3am
pre-school shopping, rushing out to a cigarette-smoky corridor that fired up the morning in a very bad way
ffix while gd made her first vegan chilli (delicious! but hot enough to take the roof off your mouth)
picking up mr smear, him trying to run away while we searched for his shoes and i think he and the boy whose party he's going to might not be friends. i'm pleased that he's not scared of anyone, but we're a little concerned that he might be testing the other children physically. he's definitely getting more verbally communicative, though, so i think (and hope) that these things will be easier to manage soon
a little bit of a nap and then being woken by my boy climbing and falling on me and gd: a fun family moment, it's amazing how energetic little people can be!
gd knocking mr smear out with breastmilk, the two of us down until 5pm and me woken from a deep sleep and big dreams being ripped away and taking a while to readjust
too lazy to go out but the wind came up and a) became a good excuse and b) blew our front door open letting us know it had been unlocked for hours. when you live in a shopping centre, that's disquieting :/
showering and putting mr smear to bed - teaching him that pinching's not okay - and then vegging out to internets for a while before rejoining the battle of CORS
wednesday 15th:
finally getting it to work but not sure what precisely did the trick; taking the opportunity to clean up and optimize until 3am
mr smear up and down during the night, fitful sleep until 7am, getting through the morning and dropping him off and coming home to sleep; picking him up by myself still dazed and confused, him full of snot (apparently sinusitis started just after we dropped him off)
nap time refused, busy time instead; a canal walk mission that took longer than expected and cancelling gd's acupuncture appointment that we might still have made on time, waterfront shopping (mostly successful) and back in time to prep for mr smear's bedtime
mom joining us for gd's chilli and bringing news and books from our cousin, winding down with john oliver and the rest of the hurt business (great documentary), then struggling to get into work
thursday 16th:
a good sleep but a tough wakeup, another stressed morning turning tense, installing appcelerator and fighting with the playstation store while learning about body language
visa direct transferring within seconds... why did that stop working for a few months?!
picking up mr smear and learning about some of the other kids' security blankets and being grateful we don't have to deal with those kinds of dependencies
haircut stress and disaster and fixing, awkwardly wearing an lsd shirt to see a hippie doctor, rushing to get gd to her acupuncture appointment and arriving early in a high wind with him fast asleep so chilling at clarke's while waiting
and a horrible evening ensued for all
getting mr smear to bed easily enough
friday 17th:
working on a security system until 3.30am, mr smear up a few times during the night, coffee to get me through taking him to school, shopping and then playing ffix until the coffee wore off enough to nap; sleeping deeply enough that i'd need another to go pick him up again
a couple of hours of chasing mr smear while gd cooked, then heading out to his first class birthday party. mr smear passed out on the way there and woke up as we got back in the car after an awful twenty minutes hanging around in the hot sun with no adult refreshments and people who don't interest us in the slightest and who gd felt were rude to her
an uncomfortable ride home through rush hour traffic, realizing that i hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days at least, another couple of hours playing with mr smear before getting ready for shabbat dinner
a really nice dinner with my mom and sailor, mr smear throwing food that gd had spent hours preparing, uber to the super romance arcade indie game expo
not a lot on show and lots of indoor smoking, but a couple of great ideas on display and it was fun seeing that capetonian nightlife hasn't fundamentally changed
french stand-up (gad elmaleh, amusing) and ffix
saturday 18th:
a few zombie-state wakeups, an early morning, some of that 70's show and an argument over song lyrics getting serious
a more peaceful morning going forward, a lazy day inside aside from a brief excursion to the pharmacy, neo-nursery rhymes on the wall, a beautiful sunset walk with mr smear until the wind picked up dangerously; a couple of leash incidents including a grazed knee
stopping by my mom's for a short while then scrambling to get home unscathed by the intermittent blasts of wind
a bit of x-men apocalypse (bad mastering as usual) and an early night
sunday 19th:
a mostly decent night's sleep, joe rogan live and struggling with playstation redeem codes; fortunately i can get a refund on the south african card, but now i need to offload a US one and all because the playstation store uses ip location detection to determine whether i can put money into my own wallet (so i finally paid for what i wanted directly once i figured that out)
curtain shopping minus looking for curtains, chair shopping and picking up toys and kitchenware, driving out to pay the car rental with mr smear passing out on the way, returning home and doing absolutely nothing (aside from watching the rest of x-men apocalypse) because there was still a heavy wind and gd wasn't feeling good. mom joining us in the evening for a drink and everyone getting an early night.
monday 20th:
another decent night's sleep, mr smear not liking the new maize meal, dropping him off at school and come back home to work but watching videos on body language and terry pratchett instead. picking him up and heading straight for the gym, a pretty good workout and feeling the fact that it was our first time in weeks. mr smear passing out on the way home and sleeping straight through my mom taking over while i took gd to acupuncture, returned, picked her up and returned again. mr smear wired after drinking his wazoogles but blowing gd's mind by going to bed without a fuss, remembering my wired magazine subscription, nap, alarm, nap, alarm, nap alarm and then getting up to work feeling much better
tuesday 21st:
midnight horror - discovering that i missed an important email from the canadian revenue agency a month ago and now i owe them money. it's that time of the year again...
the wind still pumping and birds singing at 2.20am.
a full night's sleep! mr smear's nose cleared up! dropping him off at school and excitedly buying up loads of fruit and vegetables and coming home to clean the kitchen! and play ffix instead of nap when we realized we had less than half an hour to return to the school. back home for lunch and mr smear's nap and the cabin in the woods, then busy until it was time to take gd to the acupuncturist.
the company gardens' rapeman (young dude exclaiming how he's a sex bomb and then pointing at women and informing them that he would have sex with them), a big wind forcing us into the national library (nice, but with eerily empty shelves), then the wellness centre for a very berry smoothie that mr smear and i shared before picking up gd and coming home for bedtime prep
dinner: we all loved gd's homemade lentil burgers, mr smear saying "skeee" when he means squeeze
a little telly (the hurt business) and some sql scripting (haven't done that in a while), a surprise migraine but some great news to ease my discomfort - a raise! not nearly as much as i need, but considerably better than what i've been getting. hopefully the project i'm working on will help bring in a bigger one...
tuesday 14th:
hours fighting iis and restify (no PUTs allowed), crashing at 3am
pre-school shopping, rushing out to a cigarette-smoky corridor that fired up the morning in a very bad way
ffix while gd made her first vegan chilli (delicious! but hot enough to take the roof off your mouth)
picking up mr smear, him trying to run away while we searched for his shoes and i think he and the boy whose party he's going to might not be friends. i'm pleased that he's not scared of anyone, but we're a little concerned that he might be testing the other children physically. he's definitely getting more verbally communicative, though, so i think (and hope) that these things will be easier to manage soon
a little bit of a nap and then being woken by my boy climbing and falling on me and gd: a fun family moment, it's amazing how energetic little people can be!
gd knocking mr smear out with breastmilk, the two of us down until 5pm and me woken from a deep sleep and big dreams being ripped away and taking a while to readjust
too lazy to go out but the wind came up and a) became a good excuse and b) blew our front door open letting us know it had been unlocked for hours. when you live in a shopping centre, that's disquieting :/
showering and putting mr smear to bed - teaching him that pinching's not okay - and then vegging out to internets for a while before rejoining the battle of CORS
wednesday 15th:
finally getting it to work but not sure what precisely did the trick; taking the opportunity to clean up and optimize until 3am
mr smear up and down during the night, fitful sleep until 7am, getting through the morning and dropping him off and coming home to sleep; picking him up by myself still dazed and confused, him full of snot (apparently sinusitis started just after we dropped him off)
nap time refused, busy time instead; a canal walk mission that took longer than expected and cancelling gd's acupuncture appointment that we might still have made on time, waterfront shopping (mostly successful) and back in time to prep for mr smear's bedtime
mom joining us for gd's chilli and bringing news and books from our cousin, winding down with john oliver and the rest of the hurt business (great documentary), then struggling to get into work
thursday 16th:
a good sleep but a tough wakeup, another stressed morning turning tense, installing appcelerator and fighting with the playstation store while learning about body language
visa direct transferring within seconds... why did that stop working for a few months?!
picking up mr smear and learning about some of the other kids' security blankets and being grateful we don't have to deal with those kinds of dependencies
haircut stress and disaster and fixing, awkwardly wearing an lsd shirt to see a hippie doctor, rushing to get gd to her acupuncture appointment and arriving early in a high wind with him fast asleep so chilling at clarke's while waiting
i'm trying to understand something: parents concerned about the mercury content of vaccines (after thimerosol was removed in '99) but who consume seafood while pregnant or breastfeeding and feed it to their children.mr smear waking up just before gd joined us for olives, then going home to an unpleasant and unsuccessful attempt to feed mr smear vegan meatloaf
and a horrible evening ensued for all
getting mr smear to bed easily enough
friday 17th:
working on a security system until 3.30am, mr smear up a few times during the night, coffee to get me through taking him to school, shopping and then playing ffix until the coffee wore off enough to nap; sleeping deeply enough that i'd need another to go pick him up again
a couple of hours of chasing mr smear while gd cooked, then heading out to his first class birthday party. mr smear passed out on the way there and woke up as we got back in the car after an awful twenty minutes hanging around in the hot sun with no adult refreshments and people who don't interest us in the slightest and who gd felt were rude to her
an uncomfortable ride home through rush hour traffic, realizing that i hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days at least, another couple of hours playing with mr smear before getting ready for shabbat dinner
a really nice dinner with my mom and sailor, mr smear throwing food that gd had spent hours preparing, uber to the super romance arcade indie game expo
not a lot on show and lots of indoor smoking, but a couple of great ideas on display and it was fun seeing that capetonian nightlife hasn't fundamentally changed
french stand-up (gad elmaleh, amusing) and ffix
saturday 18th:
a few zombie-state wakeups, an early morning, some of that 70's show and an argument over song lyrics getting serious
a more peaceful morning going forward, a lazy day inside aside from a brief excursion to the pharmacy, neo-nursery rhymes on the wall, a beautiful sunset walk with mr smear until the wind picked up dangerously; a couple of leash incidents including a grazed knee
stopping by my mom's for a short while then scrambling to get home unscathed by the intermittent blasts of wind
a bit of x-men apocalypse (bad mastering as usual) and an early night
sunday 19th:
a mostly decent night's sleep, joe rogan live and struggling with playstation redeem codes; fortunately i can get a refund on the south african card, but now i need to offload a US one and all because the playstation store uses ip location detection to determine whether i can put money into my own wallet (so i finally paid for what i wanted directly once i figured that out)
curtain shopping minus looking for curtains, chair shopping and picking up toys and kitchenware, driving out to pay the car rental with mr smear passing out on the way, returning home and doing absolutely nothing (aside from watching the rest of x-men apocalypse) because there was still a heavy wind and gd wasn't feeling good. mom joining us in the evening for a drink and everyone getting an early night.
monday 20th:
another decent night's sleep, mr smear not liking the new maize meal, dropping him off at school and come back home to work but watching videos on body language and terry pratchett instead. picking him up and heading straight for the gym, a pretty good workout and feeling the fact that it was our first time in weeks. mr smear passing out on the way home and sleeping straight through my mom taking over while i took gd to acupuncture, returned, picked her up and returned again. mr smear wired after drinking his wazoogles but blowing gd's mind by going to bed without a fuss, remembering my wired magazine subscription, nap, alarm, nap, alarm, nap alarm and then getting up to work feeling much better
tuesday 21st:
midnight horror - discovering that i missed an important email from the canadian revenue agency a month ago and now i owe them money. it's that time of the year again...
the wind still pumping and birds singing at 2.20am.
Monday, February 13, 2017
circles and squares
well, now that i'm posting this it looks like i've come full circle from three weeks ago...
wednesday 25th january:
getting mr smear to bed was fine, a longish meeting cut for dinner, getting back to work and mr smear beginning a long, tough mystery night.
thursday 26th:
starting the day on a sour note with a particularly runny-nosed mr smear, getting through the wait for the cleaning lady then climbing into bed for four glorious, drooling hours of rest
lunch, gd's exquisite végépaté ready around the same time mr smear woke from his nap, an afternoon of work and play, but mostly running after mr smear with tissues as his face leaked
mom bringing over almond milk and a serious conversation about business (interrupted by mr smear smacking me hard in the nuts with a wooden spoon), then taking gd to the wushu centre and mr smear to a disappointing vernissage and a more or less pleasant cider at clarke's; back home to find hot fusion closed, shave and shower and prepping a still snotty mr smear for bed, a big dinner and a couple of episodes of under the dome, considering going to bed but getting to work instead
friday 27th:
making an important discovery about edge.js and making good progress, mr smear still very snotty
at least an hour of getting him back to bed pre-dawn, then up at 8.30 to call him in sick again
little to no rest, then taking gd to the osteo and mr smear for a walk to wellness warehouse for coffee (and to be horrified by the book shelves filled with banting and raw vegan literature; hanging around the osteo's offices chasing mr smear up and down stairs
it's utterly demoralizing to invest half an hour in putting mr smear to sleep with no payoff except a pinched nerve; giving up, continuing to run after him for a while until eventually he passed out to trance...
mom coming over for dinner, getting a relatively early night
saturday 28th:
mr smear sleeping better but getting up early
bad writing upsets me, but never more than when it's out of laziness by writers who have clearly demonstrated how capable they are. we've been watching trollhunter *SPOILER ALERT* and it's been consistently amazing, right until the point where mom gets tangled up with angor rot. and magically becomes utterly and unbelievably stupid enough to mess everything up, because the writers - what? couldn't think of any other way? really?!
a beach day! icy water but generally a fun morning, from clifton to the market - i stuffed myself on vegan sushi / grilled mushrooms / chocolate cake and whatever spicy thing gd thought would be a good idea, leaving just in time to get her to her chinese medicine lecture and walking mr smear around town while we waited (including a quick plant mission)
mr smear got impatient at the end and i was so tired i became a fainting hazard, shopping on the way home in spite of that, zang caffeinated chocolate to boost me through showering and pre-bedtime, then gd and i both passing out as soon as he fell asleep
waking up around 11.30pm unable to breathe,
sunday 29th:
eating well and playing ffix until gd suggested that 3am was getting a bit late... lying down in bed unable to breathe again and with my whole body very uncomfortable
mr smear up early, then down again for a bit, a slow and restless wakeup
managing to get some good work done in spite of a busy boy
picking up my mom for a mission
decent lunch wrap at the waterfront
no coffee without dairy, settling for a bad americano
the terracotta army exhibit - pretty darned impressive
a short nap for mr smear
glorious sunset, failed photos
only forty five minutes of putting mr smear to bed...
cider and chai and ffix and passing out from sudden exhaustion
monday 30th:
a peaceful night but a struggle in the early morning, getting some work done while mr smear was at school before being forced to deal with my younger sister (fortunately my older sister was available to advise)
rushing into town to find the wellness warehouse out of seitan, mr smear's nappus interruptus; my turn drooling and snoring on the physio's table
mom rescuing our afternoon and giving us some time to work and cook, my mind blown by the elegance of the hierarchy id pattern
iboy is a great movie
my younger sister's disturbing "soul vomit" news failing to shock, that failure being in and of itself sad and disturbing, working until i almost passed out sitting at my desk
tuesday 31st:
waking up early again, both myself and mr smear very tired, a morning of preacher and sleep; extended by mr smear's post-school nap
gd's chiropractor visit, then a financial anxiety attack before going out to withdraw/deposit (both ATMs blocked by heavy users)
visiting my recruiter cousin for advice, picking up hot fusion on the way home and getting mr smear ready to put himself to bed
wednesday 1st:
the little sister news i posted about bothering me through the night, an uncomfortable talk with SxS which could have been worse, struggling with an entity framework code first issue after i thought i was done with that stuff and my frustration taking me beyond my 3am exhaustion point to 4am... with mr smear up at 4.45, of course...
gd's morning haircut on the wrong day (and they "fixed" it because they didn't know what day it was either), a power nap and a chat with SxS's father, picking up mr smear and going through to the department of home affairs which was full then to the wushu centre which didn't have the gear gd needed (but a chat she did need while mr smear made me chase after him for twenty minutes) then aborting a plant mission because we didn't have a breastfeeding blanket
mr smear falling asleep on the way home, so a little rest before going shopping (big shopping, mostly fine except for tv bar disguising their new dark (milk) chocolate as their old dark (non-dairy) chocolate - the first taste was already too rich to be right
arriving home in time for a nice visit from my toronto cousin's wife, prepping mr smear for bed and troubleshooting a work problem while simultaneously continuing to hack away at the entity framework code first issue that hadn't stopped driving me crazy - finally winning and more elegantly than the internets had led me to believe was possible
bill burr's new special walk your way out is brilliant
thursday 2nd:
actually a decent amount of sleep for once, a pleasant morning, sharing pregnancy / breastfeeding experiences with people who appreciate it, picking up mr smear and learning that he has two little girls after him, from the print shop straight to nap time
playing and working and dancing, troubleshooting and playing, mom's interesting news, bedtime prep
parenting: i guess a child pooping in the shower is better than them pooping in the bath?
my neck trauma and feeling off, a long goodnight followed by possibly too many chana and rice wraps while watching that 70's show
friday 3rd:
waking up choking and throwing up, going back to bed after a while and then an hour or two unable to sleep; finally getting up and doing some unpleasant chores (financial) and eventually feeling better and heading for bed just as mr smear decided that he was done sleeping for the night (becoming a theme)
a dazed morning, a doctor's visit and forty minutes in a queue at the telkom store, the post office, the chiropractor cracking my wrist, simply asia lunch, utopia yoghurt pickup, then home finally to lie on the couch for an hour or two
gd's extreme neck pain, work investigation on a shady client and the return of SxS's brother's drama
a walk with mr smear to the playground, then back for candle lighting and a really nice shabbat dinner
[forgotten evening]
saturday 4th:
a good night but an early waking, cartoons and coffee, then going to the vegan market
a great turnout but disappointing stalls; we returned a ton of empty yoghurt bottles and had an amazing mint cheesecake slice, listened to fun music and took away some desserts that turned out to be awful sweets with beautiful presentation. TASTE your food, people, that'll teach us to buy without sampling (or trust when no samples are available)
traffic jam home, mr smear's short nap and then a busy afternoon playing with him before i took him to the park. mostly fun, very tiring
dinner / shower / bedtime for mr smear / changing privacy settings on facebook for my sister* / nursery rhyming until 2.30am
* twenty years of silence ended with manipulative, needy shit; my younger sister's communication went from disturbing through creepy and into psychotic in a matter a two or three messages and it took a week before i saw a single question asking how i am. no, thank you, goodbye.
sunday 5th:
mr smear's inexplicable distress for an hour or so (possibly just a heat rash from a winter blanket) followed by hectic dreams
failing to watch marc maron: more later, a busy morning / a rabbit hole of israeli music making me emotional, mom's visit and advice / support and finally blocking my sister
a quick aquarium tour and mr smear's fear of the fake waves and the jellyfish tunnel
half an hour looking for parking when the additional section had plenty of room and obvious not-parents were in the parental parking, lunch at wellness warehouse (trying to educate the staff on vitamin d, i think they just wanted to get rid of me), pharmacy and shopping and getting back home around 5pm worn out
a twenty minute nap, showering and dressing and rushing off to la perla for pleasant drinks; in the smokers' section, unfortunately, and we'd thought we were invited for dinner so that was awkward. and we found out later that my mom's cousin who invited us made that even more awkward and when saying goodbye gave me remarkably bad advice on raising children.
marc maron: more later was a hard sell to gd, but she gave him another chance and the two of us laughed hysterically or nodded along to most of it
gearing up for a work night and being thrown off
monday 6th:
an awful midnight feed turning into at least an hour when we didn't have it in us, peeling ourselves out of bed when mr smear woke up bright and early and chipper
dropping him off at school and getting caught up in a parking lot discussion about conversion and immigration
a big desperate nap, picking up mr smear at noon for the first time, his nap while we ate lunch watching santa clarita diet, mom picking up gd's ipad and leaving just before mr smear woke up coughing and asthma-vomiting
chiropractor visit (second wrist crack), lunch and grocery shopping, a couple of lost hours (seriously, not a clue what happened but i know it involved parenting), mr smear's bedtime and watching more santa clarita diet which is one of the goriest things we've ever seen
starting to work earlier than usual
tuesday 7th:
a big birthday and moonlight over the ocean, stopping work just after 2am
mr smear's big breakfast
napping / watching with gd
picking up mr smear waking up feeling a bit sick
a little rest while the cleaning lady helped and then while mr smear napped
trying to work and tend to mr smear simultaneously
chatting with horseman
mezepoli birthday dinner eating lots of good food and enjoying their mojitos, our first proper date since the last time we were there
a monster cockroach and my awful response
santa clarita diet and early to bed
wednesday 8th:
up at 6am, mr smear easier to manage when it's us waking HIM up
arriving at 7.45am, a long queue for the queue to get a slip for the cashier, a long queue for the cashier and a surprisingly interesting chat with a school friend's mother, a short queue to get a number, an insanely long wait in a crowded hall with a small child and a desperate need for coffee
four hours before finally getting to the photo station, then the system crashing and having to wait another short while for a different one, followed by ten minutes of service and then a much deserved lunch at truth while mr smear napped
home for a bit, making exciting progress with my project, then a message from DoHA informing us that we'd need to go back because they made a mistake...
honest chocolate and driving around in crazy traffic, the spar pharmacy and everyone having a good laugh at mr smear's swipe reflex
blocking the road waiting, gd's good news and then great news followed by more exciting work progress
thursday 9th:
crashing around midnight feeling awful, sleeping, waking up feeling much better; taking mr smear to school by myself, getting good work done, picking him up with gd and going straight through to the department of home affairs in spite of town being shut down for SONA
the shocking news of our friend's younger brother being killed in a motorcycle accident
good work
wazoogle nose is not funny, it took a while to clear the poor child's nose
walking with gd and mom and being mutually awkward with an old classmate
tough goodnight
santa clarita diet
early to bed for a pre-work nap
friday 10th:
and apparently i'm exhausted, so at least i got good day work done because i slept through the night (not counting mr smear waking a couple of times) and reluctantly got dragged out of bed around 6.30am
a little rest, a positive work morning, frustrating shopping after picking up mr smear, our cleaning lady staying on to let us cook and work, mr smear breakdancing
mr smear chaining different syllables, but fake crying a lot which we think he's picked up from the other kids
work, play and getting ready for dinner; a really nice evening with godmother's best friends, good food and mr smear being particularly entertaining but not sleeping until we left late
winding down with ffix
saturday 11th:
and then working a bit until 3am, at which point mr smear stopped sleeping well and eventually a short few hours turned into 7am; begrudgingly getting up for performance tears
a rough morning, but putting on food choices and it's AMAZING, so rock solid that gd made a decision
playtime and strategizing, mr smear going down for a nap and taking the opportunity to get some good work done
getting ready and picking up our speaker and watermelon from my mom, a quick baby city diaper run and then through to a playdate in plumstead feeling a distinct and intense cape town electricity in the air
a lovely afternoon with two cute kids moving from a sandbox to a little splashing pool, leaving late and coming home tired and picking up hot fusion and shower-and-bedtime and dinner and vegging out with a cider and an early night
sunday 12th:
a horrible night, mr smear apparently reacting to our friends' cat and barely any sleep for any of us; waking up to the last episode of trollhunter before finishing the food choices documentary - i'm really glad the director ran the segments in the precise order that he did
mr smear's 10am nap an absolute blessing, but too restless so i regenerated willpower with ffix: gleefully discovering amarant's chakra ability
still restless even after my mom came over to help out, a busy afternoon (mostly clearing mucus but including writing another couple of nursery rhymes) and taking mr smear out for a walk which he didn't seem to appreciate, gd's great lentil burgers and putting mr smear to bed and watching clips of the SONA violence and some more dazed and confused after gd went to bed
wednesday 25th january:
getting mr smear to bed was fine, a longish meeting cut for dinner, getting back to work and mr smear beginning a long, tough mystery night.
thursday 26th:
starting the day on a sour note with a particularly runny-nosed mr smear, getting through the wait for the cleaning lady then climbing into bed for four glorious, drooling hours of rest
lunch, gd's exquisite végépaté ready around the same time mr smear woke from his nap, an afternoon of work and play, but mostly running after mr smear with tissues as his face leaked
mom bringing over almond milk and a serious conversation about business (interrupted by mr smear smacking me hard in the nuts with a wooden spoon), then taking gd to the wushu centre and mr smear to a disappointing vernissage and a more or less pleasant cider at clarke's; back home to find hot fusion closed, shave and shower and prepping a still snotty mr smear for bed, a big dinner and a couple of episodes of under the dome, considering going to bed but getting to work instead
friday 27th:
making an important discovery about edge.js and making good progress, mr smear still very snotty
at least an hour of getting him back to bed pre-dawn, then up at 8.30 to call him in sick again
little to no rest, then taking gd to the osteo and mr smear for a walk to wellness warehouse for coffee (and to be horrified by the book shelves filled with banting and raw vegan literature; hanging around the osteo's offices chasing mr smear up and down stairs
it's utterly demoralizing to invest half an hour in putting mr smear to sleep with no payoff except a pinched nerve; giving up, continuing to run after him for a while until eventually he passed out to trance...
mom coming over for dinner, getting a relatively early night
saturday 28th:
mr smear sleeping better but getting up early
bad writing upsets me, but never more than when it's out of laziness by writers who have clearly demonstrated how capable they are. we've been watching trollhunter *SPOILER ALERT* and it's been consistently amazing, right until the point where mom gets tangled up with angor rot. and magically becomes utterly and unbelievably stupid enough to mess everything up, because the writers - what? couldn't think of any other way? really?!
a beach day! icy water but generally a fun morning, from clifton to the market - i stuffed myself on vegan sushi / grilled mushrooms / chocolate cake and whatever spicy thing gd thought would be a good idea, leaving just in time to get her to her chinese medicine lecture and walking mr smear around town while we waited (including a quick plant mission)
mr smear got impatient at the end and i was so tired i became a fainting hazard, shopping on the way home in spite of that, zang caffeinated chocolate to boost me through showering and pre-bedtime, then gd and i both passing out as soon as he fell asleep
waking up around 11.30pm unable to breathe,
sunday 29th:
eating well and playing ffix until gd suggested that 3am was getting a bit late... lying down in bed unable to breathe again and with my whole body very uncomfortable
mr smear up early, then down again for a bit, a slow and restless wakeup
managing to get some good work done in spite of a busy boy
picking up my mom for a mission
decent lunch wrap at the waterfront
no coffee without dairy, settling for a bad americano
the terracotta army exhibit - pretty darned impressive
a short nap for mr smear
glorious sunset, failed photos
only forty five minutes of putting mr smear to bed...
cider and chai and ffix and passing out from sudden exhaustion
monday 30th:
a peaceful night but a struggle in the early morning, getting some work done while mr smear was at school before being forced to deal with my younger sister (fortunately my older sister was available to advise)
rushing into town to find the wellness warehouse out of seitan, mr smear's nappus interruptus; my turn drooling and snoring on the physio's table
mom rescuing our afternoon and giving us some time to work and cook, my mind blown by the elegance of the hierarchy id pattern
iboy is a great movie
my younger sister's disturbing "soul vomit" news failing to shock, that failure being in and of itself sad and disturbing, working until i almost passed out sitting at my desk
tuesday 31st:
waking up early again, both myself and mr smear very tired, a morning of preacher and sleep; extended by mr smear's post-school nap
gd's chiropractor visit, then a financial anxiety attack before going out to withdraw/deposit (both ATMs blocked by heavy users)
visiting my recruiter cousin for advice, picking up hot fusion on the way home and getting mr smear ready to put himself to bed
wednesday 1st:
the little sister news i posted about bothering me through the night, an uncomfortable talk with SxS which could have been worse, struggling with an entity framework code first issue after i thought i was done with that stuff and my frustration taking me beyond my 3am exhaustion point to 4am... with mr smear up at 4.45, of course...
gd's morning haircut on the wrong day (and they "fixed" it because they didn't know what day it was either), a power nap and a chat with SxS's father, picking up mr smear and going through to the department of home affairs which was full then to the wushu centre which didn't have the gear gd needed (but a chat she did need while mr smear made me chase after him for twenty minutes) then aborting a plant mission because we didn't have a breastfeeding blanket
mr smear falling asleep on the way home, so a little rest before going shopping (big shopping, mostly fine except for tv bar disguising their new dark (milk) chocolate as their old dark (non-dairy) chocolate - the first taste was already too rich to be right
arriving home in time for a nice visit from my toronto cousin's wife, prepping mr smear for bed and troubleshooting a work problem while simultaneously continuing to hack away at the entity framework code first issue that hadn't stopped driving me crazy - finally winning and more elegantly than the internets had led me to believe was possible
bill burr's new special walk your way out is brilliant
thursday 2nd:
actually a decent amount of sleep for once, a pleasant morning, sharing pregnancy / breastfeeding experiences with people who appreciate it, picking up mr smear and learning that he has two little girls after him, from the print shop straight to nap time
"We are delighted by viral videos of youth children refusing to eat meat and making compassionate connections to where the meat came from, yet most children aren’t even given the opportunity to think through the process to begin with. Raising a vegan child is said to be “forcing beliefs,” but what in the world is raising an omnivorous child if not that, with a heaping spoonful of violence at the very top?"waking up mr smear to go to DoHA, where it became apparent that the greeter from the day before had left out an important point where the number of passport applications per day is limited...
- this article right here
playing and working and dancing, troubleshooting and playing, mom's interesting news, bedtime prep
parenting: i guess a child pooping in the shower is better than them pooping in the bath?
my neck trauma and feeling off, a long goodnight followed by possibly too many chana and rice wraps while watching that 70's show
friday 3rd:
waking up choking and throwing up, going back to bed after a while and then an hour or two unable to sleep; finally getting up and doing some unpleasant chores (financial) and eventually feeling better and heading for bed just as mr smear decided that he was done sleeping for the night (becoming a theme)
a dazed morning, a doctor's visit and forty minutes in a queue at the telkom store, the post office, the chiropractor cracking my wrist, simply asia lunch, utopia yoghurt pickup, then home finally to lie on the couch for an hour or two
gd's extreme neck pain, work investigation on a shady client and the return of SxS's brother's drama
a walk with mr smear to the playground, then back for candle lighting and a really nice shabbat dinner
[forgotten evening]
saturday 4th:
a good night but an early waking, cartoons and coffee, then going to the vegan market
a great turnout but disappointing stalls; we returned a ton of empty yoghurt bottles and had an amazing mint cheesecake slice, listened to fun music and took away some desserts that turned out to be awful sweets with beautiful presentation. TASTE your food, people, that'll teach us to buy without sampling (or trust when no samples are available)
traffic jam home, mr smear's short nap and then a busy afternoon playing with him before i took him to the park. mostly fun, very tiring
dinner / shower / bedtime for mr smear / changing privacy settings on facebook for my sister* / nursery rhyming until 2.30am
* twenty years of silence ended with manipulative, needy shit; my younger sister's communication went from disturbing through creepy and into psychotic in a matter a two or three messages and it took a week before i saw a single question asking how i am. no, thank you, goodbye.
sunday 5th:
mr smear's inexplicable distress for an hour or so (possibly just a heat rash from a winter blanket) followed by hectic dreams
failing to watch marc maron: more later, a busy morning / a rabbit hole of israeli music making me emotional, mom's visit and advice / support and finally blocking my sister
a quick aquarium tour and mr smear's fear of the fake waves and the jellyfish tunnel
half an hour looking for parking when the additional section had plenty of room and obvious not-parents were in the parental parking, lunch at wellness warehouse (trying to educate the staff on vitamin d, i think they just wanted to get rid of me), pharmacy and shopping and getting back home around 5pm worn out
a twenty minute nap, showering and dressing and rushing off to la perla for pleasant drinks; in the smokers' section, unfortunately, and we'd thought we were invited for dinner so that was awkward. and we found out later that my mom's cousin who invited us made that even more awkward and when saying goodbye gave me remarkably bad advice on raising children.
marc maron: more later was a hard sell to gd, but she gave him another chance and the two of us laughed hysterically or nodded along to most of it
gearing up for a work night and being thrown off
monday 6th:
an awful midnight feed turning into at least an hour when we didn't have it in us, peeling ourselves out of bed when mr smear woke up bright and early and chipper
dropping him off at school and getting caught up in a parking lot discussion about conversion and immigration
a big desperate nap, picking up mr smear at noon for the first time, his nap while we ate lunch watching santa clarita diet, mom picking up gd's ipad and leaving just before mr smear woke up coughing and asthma-vomiting
chiropractor visit (second wrist crack), lunch and grocery shopping, a couple of lost hours (seriously, not a clue what happened but i know it involved parenting), mr smear's bedtime and watching more santa clarita diet which is one of the goriest things we've ever seen
starting to work earlier than usual
tuesday 7th:
a big birthday and moonlight over the ocean, stopping work just after 2am
mr smear's big breakfast
napping / watching with gd
picking up mr smear waking up feeling a bit sick
a little rest while the cleaning lady helped and then while mr smear napped
trying to work and tend to mr smear simultaneously
chatting with horseman
mezepoli birthday dinner eating lots of good food and enjoying their mojitos, our first proper date since the last time we were there
a monster cockroach and my awful response
santa clarita diet and early to bed
wednesday 8th:
up at 6am, mr smear easier to manage when it's us waking HIM up
arriving at 7.45am, a long queue for the queue to get a slip for the cashier, a long queue for the cashier and a surprisingly interesting chat with a school friend's mother, a short queue to get a number, an insanely long wait in a crowded hall with a small child and a desperate need for coffee
four hours before finally getting to the photo station, then the system crashing and having to wait another short while for a different one, followed by ten minutes of service and then a much deserved lunch at truth while mr smear napped
home for a bit, making exciting progress with my project, then a message from DoHA informing us that we'd need to go back because they made a mistake...
honest chocolate and driving around in crazy traffic, the spar pharmacy and everyone having a good laugh at mr smear's swipe reflex
blocking the road waiting, gd's good news and then great news followed by more exciting work progress
thursday 9th:
crashing around midnight feeling awful, sleeping, waking up feeling much better; taking mr smear to school by myself, getting good work done, picking him up with gd and going straight through to the department of home affairs in spite of town being shut down for SONA
the shocking news of our friend's younger brother being killed in a motorcycle accident
good work
wazoogle nose is not funny, it took a while to clear the poor child's nose
walking with gd and mom and being mutually awkward with an old classmate
tough goodnight
santa clarita diet
early to bed for a pre-work nap
friday 10th:
and apparently i'm exhausted, so at least i got good day work done because i slept through the night (not counting mr smear waking a couple of times) and reluctantly got dragged out of bed around 6.30am
a little rest, a positive work morning, frustrating shopping after picking up mr smear, our cleaning lady staying on to let us cook and work, mr smear breakdancing
mr smear chaining different syllables, but fake crying a lot which we think he's picked up from the other kids
work, play and getting ready for dinner; a really nice evening with godmother's best friends, good food and mr smear being particularly entertaining but not sleeping until we left late
winding down with ffix
saturday 11th:
and then working a bit until 3am, at which point mr smear stopped sleeping well and eventually a short few hours turned into 7am; begrudgingly getting up for performance tears
a rough morning, but putting on food choices and it's AMAZING, so rock solid that gd made a decision
playtime and strategizing, mr smear going down for a nap and taking the opportunity to get some good work done
getting ready and picking up our speaker and watermelon from my mom, a quick baby city diaper run and then through to a playdate in plumstead feeling a distinct and intense cape town electricity in the air
a lovely afternoon with two cute kids moving from a sandbox to a little splashing pool, leaving late and coming home tired and picking up hot fusion and shower-and-bedtime and dinner and vegging out with a cider and an early night
sunday 12th:
a horrible night, mr smear apparently reacting to our friends' cat and barely any sleep for any of us; waking up to the last episode of trollhunter before finishing the food choices documentary - i'm really glad the director ran the segments in the precise order that he did
mr smear's 10am nap an absolute blessing, but too restless so i regenerated willpower with ffix: gleefully discovering amarant's chakra ability
still restless even after my mom came over to help out, a busy afternoon (mostly clearing mucus but including writing another couple of nursery rhymes) and taking mr smear out for a walk which he didn't seem to appreciate, gd's great lentil burgers and putting mr smear to bed and watching clips of the SONA violence and some more dazed and confused after gd went to bed
Thursday, February 02, 2017
breastfeeding's not for the faint of heart
a lot of this is info that you're SUPPOSED to get at the hospital or during prenatal classes, but the nurses we were exposed to were so busy being breastfeeding fascists and making mothers feel awful about not breastfeeding that they left out the bits that would have actually helped :(
1. stress is bad for breastfeeding. it's a lot worse to starve your child and not enjoy your child as much as possible than to not breastfeed - plenty of women don't connect with their babies immediately - and the guilt can be overpowering. prioritize happy and guilt-free mum and fed baby before anything else. this means preparing to supplement with bottle feeding, and remember that if you can't get it right, you're NOT a failure. breastfeeding is HARD.
2. all baby companies claim to produce teats just like mom's. the vast majority are straight-up lying, there's no regulation and if you choose wrong the bottle feeding will interfere with the breastfeeding (and force you to buy more products). we found playtex vent-air was okay, but we had a lot of trouble from other brands before we got there. medela is insultingly bad, they have a lot of great products (like their breast pumps) but their bottles almost undid us.
3. make sure the nurses check for a tongue tie. learning to latch is a tough process and it can be painful, but it's not supposed to be ceaseless agony. we'd never heard of tongue ties before we'd been struggling with screams and tears and bloody nipples for two whole weeks! it's a simple check, and the procedure to cut takes all of two minutes. and trust me, the procedure is a lot more painful for the parents than for the child, our son was more surprised than hurt and the immediate relief he experienced makes me a little emotional writing this.
4. nipple shields are the kind of thing that should be provided in the hospital, just in case. nipples need time to heal, so when they're damaged give them a break with a shield.
5. breast milk volume: the more you feed, the more you produce. there's a heavy psychological component to this as well. when you're struggling to produce, there are a few methods - pumping manually, fenugreek / blessed thistle, and a prescription hormonal supplement called domperidone - but few medical practitioners will tell you that there's a secret, magical tool that's mysteriously effective for a lot of women: guinness. a glass of guinness a day (from a can, glass allows light to weaken beer) can make an unbelievable difference. the reason you won't hear much about this is because you're not supposed to drink alcohol while breastfeeding, but our doctor admitted to us that it's perfectly safe if you don't drink much and you do it immediately after breastfeeding to give as much time for your system to clear before the next feed.
we tried various beers, including a non-alcoholic beer that one nurse swore by, but they did absolutely nothing. as of the end of last year, guinness is no longer using isinglass filters so it's vegan, too!
6. vitamin d: mother's milk is supposed to contain everything your child needs, so it's weird that women are instructed to put vitamin d drops on their nipples, right? dr greger ran a series of videos recently on nutritionfacts.org that explains why, it turns out that none of us are getting nearly enough vitamin d and so there isn't enough to go into the milk supply. the solution is simple, though, and that's to take supplements. most people should be taking between 4000-8000 units per day, it's obviously advisable that breastfeeding or soon-to-be-breastfeeding mums go for the upper side of that range. more than 10000 units a day isn't safe, though, and we do consume vitamin d in food and a little in sunshine so 7000-8000 per day is a safe upper limit.
regarding supplements in general:
it's always important to take your b12, vitamin d, calcium and magnesium and folic acid. not all pregnancy multivitamins have what you need, you need to be super-skeptical about those.
there were studies done on the effects of omega 3 and mercury on developing brains, the results were kinda horrifying. even if you're vegan it's important to know about this, so please share it with non-vegans who are pregnant or planning...
consumed mercury (all fish have mercury nowadays, and in south africa the levels are particularly high due to mining runoff) stays in your system for months and infant brain size is significantly reduced and brain function is measurably reduced. supplementing with omega 3, on the other hand, increases brain size significantly. so if you want you kid to start off with as much advantage in life as possible, avoid seafood from as early as possible until you're done with breastfeeding and supplement your diet with algae and milled flax to keep your omega 3 levels high.
...
trigger warning: sleep training. if you've done this, it's not your fault, it's probably not the end of the world, and you might be able to undo at least some of the damage by learning about this... if you've done this or are doing this, nobody has the right to judge you. you do what you can with what you have, not everybody has the luxury of a good support system.
having said that...
there's a new field of genetics called epigenetics, and what we've learned is that while there are a lot of genes that are hereditary, there're also a lot of genes which are activated / deactivated by environmental factors. it's the reason vaccines work, by the way, when are bodies are hit with a virus we respond by recoding our genes to fight back.
the first one i learned about is the obesity gene: yes, there is such a thing, and it's activated or deactivated during THE FIRST FIVE DAYS AFTER CONCEPTION. if mommy doesn't have enough nutrition in her body, the pre-foetus registers that it'll be born into a world where nutrition is scarce and will store as much fat as possible to prevent starvation. if you're eating a well-planned plant-based diet it's unlikely that you'll activate it, but if you're a gluten-free or french-fry vegan you might want to investigate your choices if you're trying to conceive.
the second one i learned about is the confidence gene - also called the runt gene. because we're mammals, usually born in litters and competing to breastfeed, when we're too weak to make enough physical contact our bodies reconfigure to reduce our chances of continuing to breed. when a child doesn't get enough physical affection from its parents their body will actually recode to have less confidence.
there's a new trend called sleep training: this is an effective way for parents to get some rest and it's entirely understandable - the reason i know a lot about it is because i spent a lot of time investigating it; before our son was born i thought i was tough enough to handle the sleep deprivation everyone talks about, but really i had no idea :P
the problem with sleep training is that it's basically teaching the child to give up on being held when they need it the most. you can't spoil a small child with too much hugs and affection, when your child screams in the middle of the night, try to be there. it may seem counter-intuitive, but you'll actually make them a lot less needy in the long run.
...
most important note of all: don't stress. and don't stress about stressing if you can't help it, either. it's important to be responsible, sure, but it's just as important to maintain psychological health so don't worry too much about breaking rules even if you're the one who set them in the first place.
1. stress is bad for breastfeeding. it's a lot worse to starve your child and not enjoy your child as much as possible than to not breastfeed - plenty of women don't connect with their babies immediately - and the guilt can be overpowering. prioritize happy and guilt-free mum and fed baby before anything else. this means preparing to supplement with bottle feeding, and remember that if you can't get it right, you're NOT a failure. breastfeeding is HARD.
2. all baby companies claim to produce teats just like mom's. the vast majority are straight-up lying, there's no regulation and if you choose wrong the bottle feeding will interfere with the breastfeeding (and force you to buy more products). we found playtex vent-air was okay, but we had a lot of trouble from other brands before we got there. medela is insultingly bad, they have a lot of great products (like their breast pumps) but their bottles almost undid us.
3. make sure the nurses check for a tongue tie. learning to latch is a tough process and it can be painful, but it's not supposed to be ceaseless agony. we'd never heard of tongue ties before we'd been struggling with screams and tears and bloody nipples for two whole weeks! it's a simple check, and the procedure to cut takes all of two minutes. and trust me, the procedure is a lot more painful for the parents than for the child, our son was more surprised than hurt and the immediate relief he experienced makes me a little emotional writing this.
4. nipple shields are the kind of thing that should be provided in the hospital, just in case. nipples need time to heal, so when they're damaged give them a break with a shield.
5. breast milk volume: the more you feed, the more you produce. there's a heavy psychological component to this as well. when you're struggling to produce, there are a few methods - pumping manually, fenugreek / blessed thistle, and a prescription hormonal supplement called domperidone - but few medical practitioners will tell you that there's a secret, magical tool that's mysteriously effective for a lot of women: guinness. a glass of guinness a day (from a can, glass allows light to weaken beer) can make an unbelievable difference. the reason you won't hear much about this is because you're not supposed to drink alcohol while breastfeeding, but our doctor admitted to us that it's perfectly safe if you don't drink much and you do it immediately after breastfeeding to give as much time for your system to clear before the next feed.
we tried various beers, including a non-alcoholic beer that one nurse swore by, but they did absolutely nothing. as of the end of last year, guinness is no longer using isinglass filters so it's vegan, too!
6. vitamin d: mother's milk is supposed to contain everything your child needs, so it's weird that women are instructed to put vitamin d drops on their nipples, right? dr greger ran a series of videos recently on nutritionfacts.org that explains why, it turns out that none of us are getting nearly enough vitamin d and so there isn't enough to go into the milk supply. the solution is simple, though, and that's to take supplements. most people should be taking between 4000-8000 units per day, it's obviously advisable that breastfeeding or soon-to-be-breastfeeding mums go for the upper side of that range. more than 10000 units a day isn't safe, though, and we do consume vitamin d in food and a little in sunshine so 7000-8000 per day is a safe upper limit.
regarding supplements in general:
it's always important to take your b12, vitamin d, calcium and magnesium and folic acid. not all pregnancy multivitamins have what you need, you need to be super-skeptical about those.
there were studies done on the effects of omega 3 and mercury on developing brains, the results were kinda horrifying. even if you're vegan it's important to know about this, so please share it with non-vegans who are pregnant or planning...
consumed mercury (all fish have mercury nowadays, and in south africa the levels are particularly high due to mining runoff) stays in your system for months and infant brain size is significantly reduced and brain function is measurably reduced. supplementing with omega 3, on the other hand, increases brain size significantly. so if you want you kid to start off with as much advantage in life as possible, avoid seafood from as early as possible until you're done with breastfeeding and supplement your diet with algae and milled flax to keep your omega 3 levels high.
...
trigger warning: sleep training. if you've done this, it's not your fault, it's probably not the end of the world, and you might be able to undo at least some of the damage by learning about this... if you've done this or are doing this, nobody has the right to judge you. you do what you can with what you have, not everybody has the luxury of a good support system.
having said that...
there's a new field of genetics called epigenetics, and what we've learned is that while there are a lot of genes that are hereditary, there're also a lot of genes which are activated / deactivated by environmental factors. it's the reason vaccines work, by the way, when are bodies are hit with a virus we respond by recoding our genes to fight back.
the first one i learned about is the obesity gene: yes, there is such a thing, and it's activated or deactivated during THE FIRST FIVE DAYS AFTER CONCEPTION. if mommy doesn't have enough nutrition in her body, the pre-foetus registers that it'll be born into a world where nutrition is scarce and will store as much fat as possible to prevent starvation. if you're eating a well-planned plant-based diet it's unlikely that you'll activate it, but if you're a gluten-free or french-fry vegan you might want to investigate your choices if you're trying to conceive.
the second one i learned about is the confidence gene - also called the runt gene. because we're mammals, usually born in litters and competing to breastfeed, when we're too weak to make enough physical contact our bodies reconfigure to reduce our chances of continuing to breed. when a child doesn't get enough physical affection from its parents their body will actually recode to have less confidence.
there's a new trend called sleep training: this is an effective way for parents to get some rest and it's entirely understandable - the reason i know a lot about it is because i spent a lot of time investigating it; before our son was born i thought i was tough enough to handle the sleep deprivation everyone talks about, but really i had no idea :P
the problem with sleep training is that it's basically teaching the child to give up on being held when they need it the most. you can't spoil a small child with too much hugs and affection, when your child screams in the middle of the night, try to be there. it may seem counter-intuitive, but you'll actually make them a lot less needy in the long run.
...
most important note of all: don't stress. and don't stress about stressing if you can't help it, either. it's important to be responsible, sure, but it's just as important to maintain psychological health so don't worry too much about breaking rules even if you're the one who set them in the first place.
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
bleak
i'm supposed to write when i have something to write about, and right now i can't focus because i'm overwhelmed by a number of things... so here goes.
1. overshadowing everything, my younger sister who i haven't heard from in over twenty years and who i barely knew growing up has been reaching out to me. i'm trying to avoid being unkind without inviting her darkness into my life, but even keeping a polite distance has already been responded to with a degree of heaviness to which i didn't need to be exposed. my poor sister never had a chance in life, she was born to two abusive parents (whereas the rest of us only had to deal with one) and has been unhinged and unstable since childhood. that led her to a life on the streets, the kind of life really depressing and disturbing movies are made of. i don't want to be a shitty brother, but i don't want to be a good brother either. the cost is too high and i have a family to take care of; even the cost of this communication is proving too much for my heart to bear.
2. another month done, another month beginning, and this time looking at my budget it finally sank in that it's unrealistic to expect to stop generating massive debt at my current salary level. i'm been underpaid since we left montreal and i can no longer avoid looking at the cold facts presented by my spreadsheet. the anxiety is intense and i now need to seek a raise or find new employment. and i *like* my current job.
3. there are assholes on the internet. it's worse when they're friends of friends of yours - not as bad as when they're friends, obviously, but still. that's just the cherry on the sundae, it wouldn't even get a mention but it's just helped to paint the world a shitty colour today.
here's hoping the world's ready to let me go uphill for a bit.
1. overshadowing everything, my younger sister who i haven't heard from in over twenty years and who i barely knew growing up has been reaching out to me. i'm trying to avoid being unkind without inviting her darkness into my life, but even keeping a polite distance has already been responded to with a degree of heaviness to which i didn't need to be exposed. my poor sister never had a chance in life, she was born to two abusive parents (whereas the rest of us only had to deal with one) and has been unhinged and unstable since childhood. that led her to a life on the streets, the kind of life really depressing and disturbing movies are made of. i don't want to be a shitty brother, but i don't want to be a good brother either. the cost is too high and i have a family to take care of; even the cost of this communication is proving too much for my heart to bear.
2. another month done, another month beginning, and this time looking at my budget it finally sank in that it's unrealistic to expect to stop generating massive debt at my current salary level. i'm been underpaid since we left montreal and i can no longer avoid looking at the cold facts presented by my spreadsheet. the anxiety is intense and i now need to seek a raise or find new employment. and i *like* my current job.
3. there are assholes on the internet. it's worse when they're friends of friends of yours - not as bad as when they're friends, obviously, but still. that's just the cherry on the sundae, it wouldn't even get a mention but it's just helped to paint the world a shitty colour today.
here's hoping the world's ready to let me go uphill for a bit.
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