I love the gym.

It's late.  The alarm will sound early.  I love the gym. 

My legs and ass hurt.  The good hurt, the sort that says, "Oh yeah, I did something good for myself" and also "holy lord how in the fuck will I ever get my ass all the way down there on the toilet seat without dying?!"

You know what I mean.  If you don't, go do 36 squats and 36 lunges and report back in 24 hours.  Or just stab yourself in the upper thigh and ass cheeks.  Whichever.

But I'm going to go back tomorrow.  And Wednesday.  Thursday, Friday, Saturday...it's like I'm daring myself to see what will happen if I actually stick to this. 

Well, this week.  Today.  It is only Monday, after all.  I would've skipped this morning if it weren't for the fact that Melinda was meeting me there at 5 a.m.  Not like I can stand her up, you know? 

I soaked in Epsom salts and now the stabbing isn't quite so awful.  And for the record, I really don't mind it...I just have a hard time controlling the grunts and groans that associate any squat-like movements. 

But I'm totally fine. 

I'll do it again tomorrow.

I Love Women.

I'm so proud of the women in our nation and around the world who marched yesterday.

I wish I could've been in it. 
I was afraid, I admit.
I am scared of our new president and I was scared of what the marches and protests would become and I wanted to take my girls, to be part of this with them...but I was scared and I kept us home.
I tell myself it's because they're so small, they wouldn't have remembered anyhow...but that's bullshit, and I know it, and I won't pretend you wouldn't see through the excuse immediately. 
I can't stop reading links with pictures of protest signs. 
God I love women.
I'm so impressed with their strength and bravery and intelligence and their will...and I haven't even gotten started on the women I personally know and love! 
I feel buoyant today after seeing images from yesterday.
I feel hopeful. 
I'm not as scared.

Well, until I got to the article about twitler's media guy's press conference where he insisted the inauguration, arguably one of the least-attended in history, was in fact the most widely attended ever, which is an easily verifiable falsehood.  These fuckers remind me so hard of 1984...and then I'm scared again. 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It's a great morning.  The girls are watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood via several technological advances (tablet, Fire Stick, Internet, TV...nothing is simple anymore, is it?).  I've done my morning warm-up, I have coffee, and, most exciting, I have a new laptop!  I can type again!  Gosh I've missed having an actual keyboard.  Not that I do all that much blogging anymore, but there is something intrinsically therapeutic to me about a keyboard.  All the click, click, click.  I used to play with my momma's typewriter - wishing desperately I both knew how to type and had something to say. 

I've seemed to pick up lately on stories where people say, "from the time I was a little kid, I just knew it's what I wanted to do...".  The kid who made costumes for his GI Joe dolls and grew up to costume Broadway.  The woman who knew she wanted to be a scientist.  I've found myself wondering, "What was that thing for me?" and I keep coming up blank - I used to say I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.  I think I just said that because I thought they made a lot of money, though.  I'd love to help people and fix people the way doctors do, but I couldn't be less interested in the idea of 13 years of college, hundreds of thousands in loans, and literally holding someone's life in my hands.  Nope.  I need a bit less stress, please and thanks.  And lawyers - I know and have worked for too many for that to have come to fruition.  I just like to argue.  I hate to research, unless it's something I'm interested in, like Mormons or pregnancy.  I'm not down with student loans.  I'll never be a lawyer.  But just now, remembering Mom's old electronic typewriter - that brings back childhood passion.  (I also have a desperate love of office supplies that's been cultivated from a young age, which I guess sort of fits, because except for those few retail jaunts early on and in the middle after city moves, I have always had office jobs.)  Writing, though.  I love writing.  I've always loved to write - to type, specifically.  And if I could ever get the hang of dictating (words, not countries), I think I'd love that just as much.  Getting the thoughts out of my mind and onto paper in a way that makes another person read it and say, "I know exactly what you mean here and it makes me feel exactly the way you meant for me to feel" - there's not much better in the world to my heart. 

Hmm.  That feels like an epiphany of some sort.  I should probably do something with this realization, huh?  Maybe I will.

When you were little, what did you dream you'd grow up to do?  Are you doing it?  Do you still want to do it?  Now what do you want to be when you grow up?  What are you doing to make that happen? 

Even just a few words counts as something.

Melinda.  She always tells me to come here, to say things. I should, I tell her, I need to.  I always mean it. I always have the best of intentions. Right now, my laptop is dead and so is my 90 wpm typing skill without an actual keyboard. Forgive brevity until the issue is resolved, I  ask of you. 

But I will come here, and say some things. Because she said so, and because it is good for my soul. 

Resolution time!  I'm going to finish some of the things that I start. I'm going to stop putting the opinions of others before my own.  (Except for doctors and other professionals, of course. Be reasonable.)  I'm going to follow my happy. I'm going to grow things. I'm going to be an awesome mom.  I'm going to be the best wife.

I'm going to live the fuck out of life, that's what I'm going to do. 

How about you?  What will 2017 bring for you?

Weaning: The End of an Era

It's been over 48 hours, and I'm calling it: after 1,367 days, my milkies are officially retired. 

I was afraid we wouldn't make it past the first 3 weeks, but we survived thrush, teething, night feedings...  And then there was a new baby - learning to nurse a newborn while in the same room with her still-nursing sister.  Learning why God gave us two? 

3 years 8 months and 26 days of interrupted nights so I could nourish and comfort and bond with my babies.  Countless sour looks and tilted heads when I answered "Yes, we're still nursing" as the weeks and months and years ticked by...as if I were doing something wrong, something unnatural.  The early days when it was ridiculous for me to not be giving them bottles full of rice cereal at 3 months, completely wrong for me to not feed them purees from jars at 4 months, just weird for me to give them whole pieces of banana and avocado at 6 months...I've been feeding them all wrong from the get go.  "Just give them a bottle, it'll be easier."  "They'll sleep better if you'll stop breastfeeding and give them a bottle with cereal."  "They're too old to still be nursing, Natalie." 

I did what I thought was the best.  I do every day.  I wake up every day and make the best choices I can in the hopes that I'm making a good start, a good life for them.  It's been time to end this, but I needed, for myself and for Cora, to make it to Cora's second birthday.  I also had to find a way to cut them off near that date without it becoming "Cora turned 2 and the milkies went away," because Geneva is serious about her milkies and I could honestly see that becoming a therapy talking-point in her later years if I screwed this up.  We've been talking for a few months about how milkies are only for little babies, and when babies grow bigger, the milkies dry up and go way. So when we were driving home Wednesday evening, and I told them that the milkies were almost all gone, they didn't freak out.  That night, we nursed before bed as usual, and I told them that was the last time.  The next morning, they asked, but didn't fight me when I gently told them no and redirected them.  Same at bedtime last night, and again this morning.  I was out tonight when they went to bed, but G was still awake when I got home - she asked me to lay with her, but didn't ask for milkies.  This is a huge positive and it makes my heart so happy - I've dreaded and delayed this because of my fear of how the transition would go.  Once again, my kids are better than I give them credit for - they understand when we talk to them, and if we don't give them room for argument, they don't argue.  Well.  Sometimes. 

This has been such a huge part of my life for so long; I'm sad that it's over, but only because it's always sad for me when chapters close.  It's exciting too - maybe now the girls will start sleeping through the night and we can get some actual sleep and not be zombies all the time!  But also, the girls are growing up, and that's so exciting - they're such neat little people, and I just love watching them turn into the awesome people they're going to be.  And I'll always be so grateful and proud of my amazing body - I didn't just grow them inside me and bring them into this world, I nourished them and kept them alive, too.  That's miraculous.  I got to be an active part in two miracles.  That's a pretty good feeling.