tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53318364813144907552024-03-05T06:13:36.361-08:00The Buckmans Go WestWelcome to the adventures of Joey and Rox! We created this blog to chronicle our big move and new life in Arizona so friends and family can stay in the loop. Can't wait to see what we fill it up with!Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-9148370171616901742020-04-26T13:02:00.000-07:002020-04-28T12:45:15.172-07:00How to Buy a House You've Never Seen Joey and I are in the process of buying our home in Atlanta, GA. This will be our third home we've owned, and Joey never saw any of them in person prior to buying. I saw our Tucson house in person, but for both our Topeka, KS home and the Atlanta one an in-person visit just didn't work out. In Topeka it was due to another buyer putting an offer on the home the day we found the listing, so we had to act fast. It helped to know that Kansas was going to be a temporary location for us, so we didn't feel like we needed to be too picky- there's a lot we can live with for a couple years. The Atlanta market was also moving fast, and combined with COVID-19, we just didn't feel comfortable making a trip to see the house. Plus this wasn't our first blind-buying rodeo, so we felt prepared and comfortable with the process.<br />
I'm willing to bet we aren't the only people in this predicament right now, so I thought I'd lay out our "process" in case it was helpful for someone else. I will say that most of my method would apply to house shopping in person as well, but it came in particularly handy for our two blind-buys. So here we go.<br />
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<b>1) Prioritize.</b> Know what you are looking for. Style of the house? Neighborhood? Commute? Price? Kitchen layout? Everyone has an idea of what they would like in a dream home, but it's important to get those ideas laid out and then RANK them so that you have an idea of what to prioritize when you're shopping. This ranking system will also come in handy later. In Topeka it was really important that we liked the house aesthetically. We weren't exactly stoked about moving to the Midwest and we were a little concerned about my SADS. We figured that even though we hated Topeka, as long as we liked the actual house we lived in it would be manageable. So finding a house in a style we loved and which had a lot of natural light topped our list. Neighborhood was also important. Perrin was only five so we wanted a neighborhood with side walks for when he rode his bike. We originally also wanted to be close to Gage Park (the main green space in Topeka that has a zoo and playground), but ended up compromising on that because we found a picture-perfect 1920s bungalow with windows galore. For Atlanta, commute was most important. After two years of an hour each way drive, Joey wanted to be close enough to walk to the MARTA rail line so that he could commute to work by train. We also wanted to be close enough to Perrin's school to bike there when we felt up to it. Going from Tucson to Kansas, we realized how much we missed being able to bike and walk most places in lieu of driving everywhere. We also wanted a decent yard so I could set up a chicken coop and garden, two other things we gave up when we moved to Kansas. The style of the house itself ended up fairly low on our priority list, although it worked out in the end when we found an adorable 50s cottage.<br />
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<b>2) Map it.</b> Download Google Earth, and get the Pro edition if you can- they usually offer it for free periodically. You can create pin points of specific places and you can then add in circles of varying radii around those points. For example, I pin pointed Perrin's school, the MARTA station, downtown, and the grocery and created 1 and 3 mile radii. The area where those circles overlapped helped us narrow down what neighborhoods to look at and rate them by ideal (everything within one mile) and doable (everything within 3 miles) location. You can then use those areas to draw in your search area on Zillow or your agent's MLS site. If location is anywhere on your priority list, this is a great way to systematically incorporate it into your search. If you don't want to get that technical with it, at least throw the address into Google maps and get an idea for whats around you. Is it a busy area with tons of retail? Are you really close to a nice green space?<br />
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<b>3) Quantify. </b>If you really want to get nitty-gritty, Excel can be your new best friend. We like to make a spreadsheet of all the properties we're considering and use our list of priorities to assign each property a score and create a ranking system. We've done this two ways- a weighted score and ranking score. To create a weighted score, you'll need to decide what factors are most important (which is why prioritizing your wants and needs first is important) and assign more possible points for that value. For example, if price is the most important thing, you may want the cheapest houses to be worth five points, and the most expensive worth zero. In turn if parking isn't as important, you would maybe use a 0-3 scale from street parking to two-car garage. That way when you tally up all the points in the end, price is influencing the overall score more than parking. Or you can create a ranking system for each factor. Rank each property (1st, 2nd, 3rd, so on...) on how well that meet your criteria for each priority, then add up or average out the overall score. In this case the lowest score would be the ideal home. These systems can help you be more objective, which can help if you're prone to knee-jerk decisions or have a hard time looking at the bigger picture (i.e., one house has really nice appliances but you can buy appliances for any home so don't let yourself get distracted by that fancy gas range!).<br />
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<b>4) Reconnaissance.</b> This is the part that is especially important if you can't view a property in person before buying. You need to do a lot of digging. A simple Google search of "best neighborhoods for families in ____ area" will probably turn out a few good reads from cites like Niche, but also local publications with good insider information. You can pull up crime maps, if that's something that might be a concern. And another go-to that I love is Facebook groups. Most neighborhoods have Facebook groups. Some only allow people who currently own a home there to join, but if this is the case I've had good luck with admins answering my questions. If there isn't a neighborhood group, search for other local groups, especially parenting groups if you have children. These are great places to field general questions. For example, are there kids in the neighborhood? Is the community very close? How does traffic flow in the area? Are there any weird quirks or restrictions you should know about? Lots of barking dogs? One group I was inquiring in let me know that they have a standing casual block party every Friday at a different home each week. Another group filled me in on their don't ask/ don't tell chicken policy. These groups are great because you get to interact with people actually living in the area you are considering and they are going to have all the insider dirt.<br />
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<b>5) Delegation.</b> You're going to have to have someone on the ground. Generally this is going to be your real estate agent. Virtual home tours put online by the seller are nice, but you're probably going to get a better feel for the place if you are live with someone who is actually there. They can also give you a good feel for the place- if it seems light and airy, or dark and cramped, if there are lots of minor aesthetic flaws that didn't show up in pictures, and if there are any obvious structural issues (you're still going to need that thorough inspection once you have a contract, so it doesn't have to be comprehensive).<br />
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The other thing to remember is that I do all of this very early on in the process. I continually update it as properties come and go, but a lot of the heavy lifting is done before we are even ready to buy. The key is to be prepared on the front end in case you do have to make a quick decision. We saw the listing for the home we currently have a contract on the night it was listed. The next morning, I had it entered into our spreadsheet and was in conversation with several neighbors. Generally, distance home buying occurs because you don't have time to arrange a trip out to the location, so you need to be ahead of the game.<br />
After I've done all this, I usually have an extremely good grasp of each property. I can tell you listing details but I can also navigate from that address to any other important location. I know a few neighbors by name. I can tell you where the nearest park is and how long it takes to get to the local sports venue. I put hours and hours over the course of weeks into this process, which is why Joey and I are comfortable with home buying from a distance. That's not saying that the above steps are a guarantee to being comfortable with the situation. In the end, you have to know yourself well enough to know if you can make the decision from a far or if you need to change up your strategy to accommodate an in-person showing.<br />
Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-72062046465433200362020-01-12T16:27:00.000-08:002020-01-12T16:27:16.172-08:00 So most people who have known me for more than two seconds know that I had horrific (is there any other kind?) post-partum depression when Perrin was born. It went medically untreated for six months due to the worst therapist ever and then it took a bit to find a medication that worked for me. Zoloft did not. Wellbutrin, however, has been a good fit. And I've been on it ever since. Occasionally I toy with the idea of weaning off but life shit keeps coming up so I keep kicking that can down the road. However, there is one aspect of PPD that never went away. Maybe it's not even part of the PPD? Maybe it's just my own personal blend of depression and anxiety? IDK. But intrusive thoughts have always been a part of my day to day ever since I had Perrin. I've also noticed that while Joey recognizes that *something* is wrong, it's kind of hard for him to wrap his head around. So I'm going to try and explain what my experience with them is like because I'm sure it's kind of confusing for regular folx who don't deal with any sort of mental health issues.<br />
First of all, I'm gong to back up and explain my relationship to my brain in general. I don't really remember a time I haven't dealt with depression and anxiety, so I'm not sure what a normal relationship with your brain looks like, but I'm guessing most people without mental health issues don't have to really think about their relationship to their brain much at all. When I talk about my mental health, I tend to see myself in two parts- me, with my logical, functioning thought processes, and my brain, which I blame for the illogical weird shit that goes on in my head. So I spend a lot of time and mental energy "cleaning up" after my brain- mitigating weird thought patterns and trying to manage physical manifestations that are triggered by them. And it's exhausting, because it's damn near constant. So even without intrusive thoughts already in the mix, I feel like I already devote a lot of time and energy to not feeling (and acting) like a crazy person. The second piece of this is that my brain (as I conceptualize it in regards to my mental health) acts independently of my more rational self. I can't control what my brain does; I can just try and buffer it as much as possible.<br />
Not everyone is familiar with intrusive thoughts and I'm sure you can Google a really helpful definition. For me anyway, it's like someone flips on a movie in my head at random times. Usually it's times when I'm already feeling anxious. Other times they seem to come out of no where. Hiking in the Grand Canyon? Here's a high definition short film of your kid slipping over the edge and his skull exploding on a boulder. About to fall asleep? What happens if your car falls off a bridge into a river and I'm knocked unconscious and can't unbuckle Perrin from the car seat? (Spoiler: I bought one of those window-breaking, seatbelt-cutting tools) Most of the thoughts are ridiculous. But the thing about mental illness is it doesn't make sense- that's kind of the whole issue. And I haven't found any way to stop them. I can't "pause" the movie playing. I can't look away or see something else. It's just there. And I can tell myself that it's not real and not happening and not likely to ever happen, but it's still there. And that shit gets old. It gets tiring. Because I'm not only mentally dealing with all the shit that's <i>actually</i> happening in my life, but also dealing with the whole alternate universe were the worst possible things are constantly happening.<br />
A common coping mechanism is to try and prevent the bad thing in the alternate universe from happening in the real, which can lead to all kinds of bizarre behaviors. But the thing is, I didn't experience intrusive thoughts (at least not to this extent) until I had Perrin. Which kind of throws a whole monkey wrench into the mix because one thing I've always tried to be very aware of is making certain I'm not parenting from a place of trauma, which I plan on making a whole other post about at some point. But anyway, I have this very strong desire to "cope" with my thoughts by avoiding the shit out of everything. You can't fall off a mountain if you never hike; your kid can't be abducted if you never let them out of your sight. That's almost a really shitty limerick. And don't get me wrong, I would be THRILLED if I never had to drive over a large river again (looking at you, Kansas River, that I have to cross like 5 times every day). But man that would be unfair to Perrin.<br />
So instead, I watch my weird little brain movies. And I feel the adrenaline (which my body already sucks at regulating anyway), and my jaw hurts and I feel tired. And I lie awake at night sometimes because the movies just won't stop. Sometimes I have to hold my breath and look away, but Perrin has managed to climb REALLY high. Or he wants to go on an upside down rollercoaster for the first time, so I hold on to his little knee because I don't quite trust the safety bars to fit him, even though I know there is nothing I could do to keep him in his seat. And it's really, really awful. But I want him to ride roller coasters, and take his bike up and down the block, and play in the fire pit and climb trees and do all those things I did when I was a kid. Perrin wants to get certified to scuba when he turns 10, and at this point I am about 98% convinced he will be eaten by a shark. But I will sign him up for scuba class the day he turns 10 because honestly it does sound like a whole lot of fun and I would hate for him to miss out on that, or anything else for that matter, just because his mom is a little "off". If anything, it's been a really good lesson on being very aware of my own issues and making sure I am not passing those on to him. It just happens to be excruciatingly uncomfortable for me. But life in general tends to be extremely uncomfortable for me, so it would be a real shame to put any weight into that on Perrin's account.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-42509124457355052162020-01-11T17:13:00.000-08:002020-01-12T16:28:31.350-08:00I Still Exist I have 7 unpublished draft posts that have been lingering here for a while. Seven. It was easy to post regularly when I was trapped under a nursing baby for 20 hours a day, but these days it's just so much harder to find the time. But I have been trying very hard for about 2 years now to work on developing my voice- mostly in terms of learning how to enforce boundaries with other people. But sitting down with my thoughts, writing them out, that is a kind of awareness of my voice that also does me a lot of good. So I'm going to try to get back into it. And I might as well put it out there, in case anyone else can glean anything from it as well.<br />
In a lot of ways, I have gotten to know myself much better over the past few years. And now that I'm figuring out who I am, I how I got here, I'd like to put more energy into who I am becoming. And like I have written about previously <a href="http://joeyandrox.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-last-year-in-my-twenties.html" target="_blank">Becoming takes time and can get quite messy</a>. But I've recently made it to the place where I feel healthy enough to timidly try and establish relationships again. Please know I still absolutely suck at it and by try I mean dip my pinky toe in the water and then run away. But I want to be very mindful about how I'm interacting with other people, because let's face it- I'm not very good at it yet. Practice makes perfect. And for now this is the only kind of practice I feel comfortable with. One sided, yes. But I'm especially terrible at taking things in in a healthy way, and this allows me to put energy out there while being able to carefully receive what comes back in a way that doesn't overwhelm me at the moment. So I'm just going to sit around practicing having feelings and shit, and then practice writing them down, and then maybe one day I can actually interact with actual humans again.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-15031373196980400352019-03-14T18:38:00.001-07:002019-03-14T18:38:27.087-07:00Can there be too much adventure? Sit down and buckle up, because I have a story about the vacation from hell. It's been a hot second since I posted anything, because life, but this is too good not to share in detail. We started out with a simple premise- we would take a family vacation to Denver for spring break. Nothing too extravagant- I would have work on Monday and Tuesday, so just a few days. Maybe see the city, check out Rocky Mountain National Park, go snowboarding. It's only an 8 hour drive. We found a great AirBnB in the city. Your basic family roadtrip. We booked everything about 6 weeks in advance- it is spring break, after all. Then we settled in and anticipated our first vacation in 4 years that wasn't for family or Joey's work.<br />
Blizzard. Cyclone. Or some combination of those words. A big ass storm that was supposed to sweep across the Rockies the afternoon we got into Denver. We talked it over and Joey put forth the game plan- instead of leaving at 9-ish like we planned to, we get up super early and beat the storm to Denver. Then we'd at least be there and settled in a could wait out the storm. As soon as the city got going again, we'd be ready to go. Brilliant. Done. I was a *little* pissed about being woken up at the crack of dawn (before that, actually), but whatever. Let's do this. I was expecting to start my period, and sure enough, voila! But I'm prepared so I gulp down a handful of ibuprofen and stuff a bunch of tampons in my suitcase. As we are loading the car I wolfed down a bowl of cereal and asked Perrin what he wanted for breakfast. He said he wasn't hungry yet. Cool, it's about an hour earlier than he usually wakes up. No biggie. I told him he could eat in the car later. This would prove to be a fatal mistake.<br />
We drop off the dog, get on the road, and are all set to get into Denver half an hour before shit gets real. Then, Joey realizes he forgot his ski coat. His brand new ski coat, that bought specifically for this trip. Ugh. But I'm pretty sure you can rent them, so whatev. He mentions REI, but the why the hell am I going to buy you a ski coat when we just bought you a ski coat? An hour into it, Perrin says his stomach hurts. Ok, how about a granola bar? Nope, doesn't sound good. I try to explain that being in the car on an empty stomach makes me feel car sick, so eating might help. No go. Cool, whatever. We have to stop for gas soon anyway. About half an hour later we hear (see) the song (sign) of the Siren and Joey fills up the car while Perrin and I hit up Starbucks. He picks out a juice box (special treat, but it is vacation), a banana, and a croissant. Kid lives for croissants. I grab my coffee. We get in the car. He eats it all, as he is wont to do, and everything is peachy keen. We're making great time.<br />
And then it happens. He tells me his stomach hurts. He feels like he's going to throw up. I suggest a piece of peppermint gum and as I hand it back to him, it happens. A fountain of vomit. I don't understand digestive physics, but that was way more than the total volume of the juice, banana, and croissant that went in. And of course, because car safety, he's strapped in. Chest clip on nipples and straps pass the pinch test. He can't lean, he can't wiggle, he's completely immobile. We could have rolled our car and landed in a ditch and he would have been fine. But what he could not do was lean over or in anyway direct the spew of puke coming out of his body. His lap, the car seat, the car, the floor, the seat in front of him. My god, so much vomit. Luckily we were at an exit. Joey pulls off and we stop at the some podunk gas station. I go in and buy paper towels, Febreeze, which gives me migraines but isn't vomit, some trash bags, and a Big Gulp cup. Joey takes Perrin to the bathroom. It took us an hour to get to any semblance of recovery. Everything smelled. Everything was damp. But the mess was mostly relegated to a trash bag and we were able to get going, Perrin holding the Big Gulp in his lap just in case.<br />
Only now we were an hour behind. Which meant the storm was going to beat us to Denver. So I did what any sane, definitely not anxiety ridden person would do and booked a hotel at every small town between the state line and Denver and just canceled them as we passed. Limon, Co. That's how far we got when we caught up to the storm. We barely made it to our hotel after stopping by a grocery for microwavable burritos for dinner. We got settled, I started laundry with all the pukey stuff. Perrin got to swim. Everything was going at least ok. We had a chance to regroup. And then ya'll- the mother fucking power went out.<br />
You guys, I like camping. I don't like camping when I'm trying to wash puke laundry and it's 4 degrees outside with 50 mph winds. But we were inside. So there was that. We hoped it would come back on quickly, like a flicker. It did not. At some point, we resigned ourselves to the fact it wasn't coming back on any time soon. So I had the luxury of going and scooping our laundry out of the vomit and detergent soup it was sitting in in the washing machine. I put Perrin's car seat and all the padding in the shower and washed it best I could (Yes, Debra, I know about car seat cleaning and safety and fire retardants but jesus christ there was SO MUCH VOMIT and I will never regret my decision). No way to thaw our burritos, so we ate our car snacks for dinner. And the the sun set and we all went to bed at 7.<br />
By some miracle, they got the power back on over night. Roads were still closed for most of the day, but at least we could shower, finish the laundry, all that good stuff. So we just got to hang out at the hotel for another 8 hours. Luckily, they had a pool. So of course Perrin thought the vacation was off to great start. And Joey and I didn't necessarily mind. It was more that we are always trying to find adventure and I think it came on a little strong this time around and I'd really just like to dial it back a bit? BUT THE LESSON HERE IS THAT WE WOULD HAVE MADE IT IF I HAD INSISTED ON PERRIN EATING BEFORE GETTING IN THE CAR AND LIKE A CAR SICK BUTTERFLY, THOSE WINGBEATS HAVE REVERBERATED THROUGH OUR ENTIRE VACATION. MAKE YOUR CHILDREN EAT BREAKFAST, PEOPLE!<br />
But the roads finally opened, we got to Denver easy peasy, and the most of the afternoon with a trip to the aquarium. To top it all off, we finished up with dinner at the Broadway Market, which has a self-serve beer bar. Need I say more? The AirBnb (did I mention they had also lost power?) got the power back on before we arrived. So now I get to relax in a room that smells 0% like vomit, take a hot shower, and sleep without worrying about us all dying from hypothermia. Cheers!Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-42748868238089956832017-12-04T18:05:00.000-08:002017-12-04T18:05:11.099-08:00The Buckman's Move....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kansas... we're moving to Kansas. Topeka, actually. Joey has accepted a job at Kansas State. So the Buckman's are moving East this time. The above is the extent of my Kansas references. I even checked if the movie Twister was set in Kansas. It's not. It's in Oklahoma.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-17205055382160856942017-08-17T17:37:00.000-07:002017-08-17T17:37:24.252-07:00My Last Year in My Twenties<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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That tattoo was my birthday present to myself this year. The Velveteen Rabbit has always been one of my favorite books; mostly just due to the raw emotion portrayed in the story. I remember being a child and feeling the sadness and the worry the little rabbit felt on the dump heap. It always made me cry. But the older I got, it wasn't the discarded rabbit that brought on the tears, it was this passage: </div>
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I'm still not even sure I can put into words why that passage is so powerful. I suspect it's slightly different for each person who reads that. It's particularly applicable to motherhood, but that's not where I usually go with it. I think, in a lot of ways, I was "<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> Look, I don't really know what the point of life is. I don't know what the point of my life is. I have no clear sense of direction- no calling, no vocational predilections, no sense of purpose that I could readily identify. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And that can be hard- especially because I'm a high anxiety, Type A kind of gal. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> I think in someways, to compensate for all the above, I just wanted to be <i>there</i>. To arrive. To be finished. To have all my goddamn ducks in a row. And I wanted (or thought that it had to be?) neat and pretty. Clean and linear and tidy. I thought my purpose in life (or the best way to deal with a lack there of), was to get my life in order with as little mess as possible, and keep it carefully and neatly arranged. Then my anxiety would be gone and the reverberant feeling that there was something there in the ether I needed to accomplish would dissipate. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> But it didn't. If anything, it felt worse. It felt like I had squandered whatever chance there had been at the thing that I was supposed to do, but didn't know about yet. And then, despite all my effort to be neat and tidy, life kept happening. And I got dinged and scratched. And at some point, there were enough dings and scratches that I said screw it, and stopped being so careful. I started to give up being carefully kept. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> And this feeling is still evolving. I'm still oh so terrified to make mistakes. But regardless, I keep making them, because I'm human, and with each once I can feel the seams getting a little looser. And that's okay. Because what I realized was so wrong with my perspective, with my furious scramble for whatever I thought I was accomplishing, is that it was always going to be a dead end street. It was entirely ends focused; goal oriented. You chose your path in the woods, you get to the end, and then what? </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> The Skin Horse said "You become." It's a process; not a result. Real isn't something that has a before and after. It creeps in through the cracks overtime. It is the Becoming that makes you Real. It's the bruises and the tears and the heartache and the scars. I used to think it looked ugly. I didn't understand. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> I don't know what my goal is. I don't know what my calling is. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the time between now and death. But when you get to be Real, you don't have to worry about it quite so much. You get to enjoy Becoming. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> I don't really like to make resolutions. New Years isn't my thing, and I've never really waxed sentimental over birthdays. But as I close out this decade, I want to remind myself to try a little harder to not try so hard. I want to do things even if I'm bad at them. I want to try things and fail. And I want to be okay existing without purpose for a bit. Because I'm starting to think the purpose is existing. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">I become. </span></span>Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-90074656806758113742017-05-13T12:44:00.001-07:002017-05-13T12:44:29.512-07:00Adding to Our Family I realize I'm averaging two posts a year now, but the three jobs and a Perrin thing is kind of a time suck. I have lots of things I've wanted to put out there, but we have recent big news. We're getting a dog!<br />
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For those of you who don't know the back story, our dog Fender passed away a few months ago. I had had him since he was 11 weeks old. I raised him, trained him, and he was the best dog imaginable. He moved around with me countless times. We had tons of adventures at the Shelby Farms dog park. He loved playing with possums and chasing deer. He was the sweetest 150 lbs. you could ask for. During my labor, he was by my side the entire time. He walked the neighborhood with me and slept next to the birth tub and ate jellybeans out of the midwives' hands. Once Perrin got here, Fender became the ideal big brother. He guarded Perrin from the ever scary vacuum cleaner. He shook whenever Perrin cried. He snuggled with all of us in our bed. And even though he was generally a little too eager on the leash for Joey and I, he walked slow and gentle whenever Perrin was the one walking him. </div>
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He started having trouble using the bathroom, so we took him to the vet and they discovered that he had a huge mass blocking his GI tract and putting pressure on his hip. Surgery would be incredibly expensive and he, being an 8 year old giant breed, was unlikely to survive. We thought we were going in to the vet to get some dog laxative, and we ended up not getting to take our dog home. We were all so heartbroken. </div>
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Joey and I had always said that after Fender we would take a break from dogs for a while. Fender was expensive to board, racked up huge vet bills, and we weren't sure we wanted to tackle all of that again anytime soon. But after a few dogless months, we realized we really missed having a dog in our family. Fender was such a good dog; he really made us realize how much a dog added to our family. Perrin is about to be four and is old enough to really be interested in the idea of training and caring for a dog. (Not that we expect him to do much of it, but it's nice that he wants to be involved). So we decided to start testing the waters of dog adoption. We had no idea how complicated it would be. </div>
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For anyone who doesn't know, we feel very strongly about adopting animals from shelters and rescues. So we started with the local animal shelter, PACC. They have so many amazing dogs that need homes and are often at capacity. We did some searching online and narrowed down a list of about 10 dogs that seemed like they'd be a good fit age and breed wise. We went in and spent some time checking them out and playing with a couple. We found one awesome pit mix who snuggled right up into Joey's lap. We decided to take the day to discuss it. After coming to the conclusion that we thought she would be a good fit for our family, Joey went back to the shelter the next day. Unfortunately (for us anyway) she had been adopted as well as the other dogs we had looked at. We were glad they found homes, but a little bummed since she seemed like such a good fit for our family. We decided to get our house ready and get all the necessary dog supplies (we had donated all of Fender's stuff after he died) so that once we found "the one" we cold bring them home immediately if necessary. </div>
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A friend of mine who fosters through a local rescue generously offered one of her kennels to us. When I went to pick it up, she mentioned a litter of puppies that were in her rescue that were out for adoption day at a local pet store. I didn't think much of it because Joey had always shown preference for adult dogs, but after mentioning it to him we decided that one of the puppies might actually be right for us. So I raced over to the pet store, only to find out that the entire litter had already been adopted. Once again, we were happy for their forever homes, but a little sad that we had missed what seemed like another great opportunity. </div>
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A few other puppies and dogs were also at the pet store, so I chatted with the foster workers about them for a bit. One very young puppy was labeled as an American Bulldog mix, a breed I had always been interested in. I snapped some pictures of her and the other puppies and sent them to Joey and chatted a little bit longer. That night, Joey and I decided to fill out an adoption application for her. But over the next few days, after speaking with my friend from the foster group and our roommate who is a vet tech, we started to doubt if she was really the dog we were looking for. Being so young, it was hard to tell exactly what kind of mix she was or how big she would be. She was only 9 pounds at ten weeks, so there was a very real chance she could have some terrier or other small breed in her and may not even reach 30 pounds. While she still looked beautiful and seemed to have an excellent personality, we were looking for a slightly larger dog with a less ambiguous make up. </div>
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That led us to look more into one of the other puppies ta the foster- a lab/shepherd mix. She was 4 1/2 months, so here features were more developed and there was less of question about what her breeds may be. She was also already 30 lbs, and obviously wasn't getting any smaller, so we knew she would be a larger sized dog. I spoke with a woman from the rescue and after discussing it, we decided that this puppy would probably be the best fit for our family. So last Saturday we were able to go spend some time with her, sign the paperwork, and bring her home! </div>
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Joey and I decided to make it a sort of early birthday present for Perrin, so I came home with her and surprised him. He got to take her to Pet Smart to make her tag and pick out a few toys. We're excited for her to get acclimated to our home, cats, and chickens, and to begin the process of training and socializing. Joey has never had to train a dog, and we want Perrin to feel involved in the process, so we are going to sign up for formal classes. Her foster family had named her Quinn, but after going back and forth about a handful full of names, we decided to let Perrin name her. His pick was Icky! We decided on Iki, to make it a little less weird. So here she is, our Iki. </div>
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Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-54992310010338520672016-12-18T19:43:00.002-08:002017-05-13T17:11:46.106-07:00The PurgeNo, not the kind looming ominously in our imminent future. Like, purging stuff. My stuff. I know it's been a while since I have posted anything about our lives, but this whole having three jobs and there not being a single day when Joey and I are both off and we can spend time as a family thing is pretty harsh. But with Joey's semester ending and me being off or four weeks straight, we've begun our regular purging process and I thought I may share some of my "method" as it were. It feels slightly hypocritical considering the whole Marie Kondo thing ('commodified mindfulness' was a description I found particularly apt), but I'm not charging money for this or anything so here goes.<br />
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These are just some basic tips that I have developed over the years after a lot of trial and error. I have a feeling a lot of what "works" is dependent on individual personalities, which I'll try to explain more as I go along. It's also important to note that a certain amount of privilege goes into some of these tips. A lot of what I do would be considerably less feasible if I was renting my home or furniture, if I had a more limited income, or a number of other factors.<br />
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Tip #1: Move a lot.<br />
Ok, so this one is mostly joking. But seriously, it did work for me for a while. Until we bought our current house, I was moving at least once a year, and actually moved over 10 times in 8 years. Each time I would move, I would decide which stuff just wasn't worth moving and make a trip to a thrift store or two. So this in and of itself kept clutter down for me for a while. Now, obviously this was more of a side effect than a strategy and I don't really recommend uprooting your family every 12 months, but I'm just throwing it out there because I think it shaped my perspective on what kinds of stuff is 'worth' keeping.<br />
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Tip #2: Less space; less stuff.<br />
It may seem kind of obvious, but the less space you have to store shit, the less shit you tend to accumulate. I get that people have different needs for space depending on family size and what not, but trying to minimize the amount of space you need goes a long way to help minimize the amount of stuff you have. Our house doesn't have any usable attic space. We have a one car garage that is Joey's home gym and my tool storage, a linen closet, a coat closet, and a closet in each of the three bedrooms. There's not a lot of space to store extra stuff. So we don't keep anything we don't use regularly. Seasonal items are pared down to what can fit in two Rubbermaid totes. Things like craft supplies, media, and computer stuff all share a space in our third bedroom. All of our clothes are out year round, so there's not much room for excess in our closets or dressers. We have really enjoyed the ways that our small home has forced us to get creative and to prioritize.<br />
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Tip #3: Multifunctionality is a must.<br />
I may have just made up that word, and there may be an existing word that is escaping me right now, but we're just going to go with it. Because of #2, this one is more of a necessity than a tip, but it still works even if you have excess space. Why have two different items if there is one item that does both things? We got an Instapot and LOVE it because it has several functions that many people have completely separate appliances for (steamer, rice cooker, crock pot, etc.). Things like this are really awesome for paring down the clutter. Our "office" is our office, media room, craft room, and a good bit of our storage. Making this space function for multiple purposes keeps each of those activities in check. Instead of buying thin table for our hallway nook, we got a credenza that works as even more storage. Perrin's bed has drawers underneath. Our kitchen island also serves as our table. These kind of things help us reduce the amount of things (especially furniture) we need.<br />
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Tip #4: Do It in Increments.<br />
For the longest time I would try and clean up and organize and purge my entire house all at once. And I would get super overwhelmed and cranky and then procrastinate about doing it the next time because it was so miserable. Do one room at a time. Or one closet. Or one bookshelf. Do something you can do in one sitting so that you don't have to leave a huge anxiety inducing mess lying around for an extended period of time. It may seem like you end up moving the same pile of stuff from one spot to the next, but eventually you will have been through the whole house. Bonus tip: whatever is in that migrating pile is usually a prime candidate for getting rid of.<br />
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Tip #5: Do It Often.<br />
This was another big game changer for me. I would usually only try to go through stuff once a year or so. That made the project feel a lot bigger and it also meant that whatever mood I was in that day dictated how productive the purge would be. Now I try and go through things every 3-6 months. That's not to say the whole house, but a little bit every couple months. A lot of times I find that something I kept the last go around hasn't been touched since, so it ends up making it out the door in the next round. It also becomes more of a lifestyle than a project. I find I'm constantly brainstorming ways to make things more functional and streamline.<br />
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Tip #6: Know Thyself<br />
Like I said in the beginning, a lot of this has to do with your personality and goals. Are you a sentimental person or do you move on from things easily? Are you pretty laid back or do you tend to get stressed out by your environment? Are you motivated by a particular aesthetic result or are you trying to downsize out of environmental consciousness? Considering things like these will dictate how you go about decluttering and what you focus on. Personally, I'm not too sentimental and I hate cleaning. A lot of my energy is getting rid of things and making sure things are put away (or can be put away easily) to reduce the time and energy we spend cleaning our house. I also like reducing our material possessions from a more philosophical standpoint and reducing our waste output and environmental footprint.<br />
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Tip #7: Don't Get Rid of What Doesn't Belong to You<br />
As frustrating as it may be to have different opinions about clutter and house keeping, you don't get to make decisions about other people's things, at least not without permission. I'd be pretty pissed if I came home and Joey had decided which of my belongings were excessive. So I don't do it to him. And I don't do it to Perrin. Everyone gets to decide about their own belongings. I knew that this was my stance from an ethical standpoint, but when Perrin was an infant I worried about how practical that outlook would be. However, it's actually been quite easy. Since Perrin was old enough to point to things, I've involved him in going through his toys. Every few months, we go through stuff and he picks out what to purge and what to keep. Sometimes he picks a lot of things, sometimes it's only one or two items. But we do it often, so I'm not relying on this one go around to solve all of our organizational issues. I explain to Perrin that because he gets new things for his birthday and holidays, we have to make room for them by donating some of our old things. He also understands that other kids are getting a turn with his toys, and I think that's more helpful than his stuff just being "gone". I like that he is learning to not become too attached to material objects and that the coming and going of possessions is being normalized for him. I hope it makes it easier on him as an adult.<br />
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Tip #8: Be Conscious About Where Your Stuff Goes<br />
While getting it out of your house is usually the immediate goal, it's worth considering what to do with your stuff after that point. Items in good condition can be sold or donated to charities, but what about the rest? You can try repurposing items, recycling some of them, listing them on pages like Freecycle, or donating to art or crafting co-ops. Try and think of the trash can as a last resort. Joey's t-shirts that are too gross and sweaty to donate get cut up and become cleaning rags. Random scraps and crafting left overs get donated to a local Upcycle store. Most of our clothing and homegoods goes to a local charity thrift store. Furniture gets sold on garage sale pages. If we have things we can't sell but think someone else may be able to use, we either list it on Freecycle or put it on the curb with sign designating it as free and describing it's condition. Someone almost always picks it up.<br />
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Bonus Tip:<br />
This one isn't mine (it may even be Marie whats-her-name, I can't remember where I read about it), but I like it. Go and turn all your hangers in your closet backwards, then as you wear clothes and hang them back up just put the hangers in normal, after the season or the year or whatever, you can tell what you haven't touched and know what to get rid of. I found this helpful since I have a bad memory for things like clothing. Another thing I like to do is use websites like ThredUp for party dresses and other items I know I'll only where once or twice. I spend less on them and can always try to sell them back later on.<br />
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So there you have it. That's our basic method for keeping our house in decent shape so that we don't end up on an episode of Hoarders. It's a task that is never "finished" for us, it's more of something we do regularly through out the year as part of our basic housekeeping. Framing it this way has made it much less stressful for me and helped keep my goals in mind, rather than trying to achieve a particular one time result. Hope something in here is helpful!<br />
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<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-32778080970822006392016-08-03T11:08:00.000-07:002016-08-03T11:08:29.101-07:00In Defense of Participation Trophies To be completely honest, this is a bit of a procrastination post. I'm trying to get through a book I just don't want to read. But I have been meaning to write this up for a while; it just wasn't high up on my priority list. So, participation trophies. I didn't realize they had somehow become symbolic of all that is wrong with children today, but judging my the memes and jokes about them they are somehow indicative of supposed modern day entitlement.<br />
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So yeah, apparently people have some strong feelings about participation trophies. But I have equally strong feelings in the other direction. First, I would like to suggest that what many of these attitudes are calling "entitlement" are actually mislabeled recognition. Is your son entitled to first place because he tried his best? No. Does your son deserve recognition for his effort? Yes. One of the best ways I can think to frame it is with an interaction I had with a child last week. I recently started teaching swimming lessons, and when I was training with a new class, the first thing a child said to me after I introduced myself was "Yeah....I'm not the best swimmer." He said this with a dejected tone as he looked down at his feet, as if warning me of his lack of ability. And I felt sad. These are swim <i>lessons</i>. If you were awesome at swimming you wouldn't be here. But also, and this is what I told the child, by definition there can be only one best swimmer. We collectively as as class determined it was probably Michael Phelps. And the child perked right up. And he tried his best and got better at skills he will continue to work on.<br />
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This is my problem main with hating on participation trophies- the inherent lesson is that effort is only worth anything if you are the best. There are 7 billion people on this planet- chances are you aren't going to be the best at anything. And while as an adult we can understand more nuance, to a child that is an extreme lesson to learn. Because some kids will use that as motivation to try harder, but others will give up entirely, because if you are never going to be the best, what's the point? Or some kids will be the best for a while, then someone will surpass them and they will realize that their self-worth was tied up in their first place ribbon. It also places an emphasis on competition over cooperation. Rather than see peers as collaborators and sources of help and support, they are the enemy, the opposition. You can read more about competition in childhood<a href="http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-competition/" target="_blank"> here.</a><br />
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The other issue is that it devalues supportive roles that are necessary to a functioning society. That number one team wouldn't be number one if there weren't other teams to play against. The MVP wouldn't have a game to play without the other members of the team, etc. A CEO still needs employees to do some of the work. I absolutely hate myself for doing this, but remember that god awful movie, Talladega Nights? The winner of the race can't win without the support from the other racer. This is how society functions, and the supportive roles are just as necessary, arguably more so, than the flashy super star first place spots. Devaluing those roles leads to the same kind of mindset that says people in certain low-skill jobs don't deserve to make a living wage, that stay at home moms aren't contributing to the family, and that people's worth is linked to their job title, salary, or other rank.<br />
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When we say that only first place, or second place or whatever, is deserving of recognition, we are telling kids that their efforts, skills, and contributions are valuable only through comparison. And that is a very unhealthy perspective for anyone to have, but especially children who are internalizing these lessons as they are developing self-esteem. No one is saying that every single child should be thrown a party or given a scholarship. But recognizing that they tried hard, worked to improve themselves, tried something new, helped out a team, encouraged their friends, or even failed at something and learned a valuable lesson- that reinforces the kind of perspective and framework that allows people to grow up to be empathetic, cooperative members of society. And call me crazy, but I think that is more important than being the best in the community T-ball league.<br />
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Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-69499824217855448392016-07-23T15:26:00.003-07:002016-07-24T09:25:00.155-07:00The Weaning Post It's been about a month and a half since Perrin last nursed. He did ask a few days ago, and I responded with "I didn't think we were doing that anymore; you haven't nursed in a long time." He immediately started talking about something else. I think we are done. While it is a little weird and little sad that I am done breastfeeding, I am really excited. I was so ready to be done. Our nursing relationship was everything I could have hoped it would be, save the trouble in the beginning. I made it to my goal of a minimum of two years and letting Perrin decide when he was done. Perrin was fed completely from my body for his nine months in utero, and 7 months on the outside, and continued to receive nourishment from me until exactly three years old. And I was able to donate somewhere around 2,500 ounces of milk to other babies. So in honor of me being officially done with breastfeeding for the rest of my life, I want to do a quick review of our journey with some major highlights and favorite moments.<br />
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In The Beginning</h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Audria Abney Photography</td></tr>
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Perrin was born; he came to my chest. He wasn't much interested in nursing at that exact moment, and I needed some additional medical attention, so he went straight to Joey for about a half hour after he was born, then came back to me. We snuggled into bed, he latched, and nursed for about a half hour. Thus began our nursing journey. Within two days I was in a lot of pain and by the state of my nipples it was obvious something was wrong. Perrin was gaining extremely well, only losing 4 ounces and being back up over his birth weight by one week. We saw midwives and doctors and lactation consultants. Everyone had a lot of good ideas, but there was no silver bullet. But Perrin was gaining, breastfeeding was "working" in that sense, and I new if we figured it out, we'd be golden. So we kept trying. We used pumps, an SNS, compresses, gel pads, and all number of apparatuses in the beginning trying to get a handle on the problem. We slept in 45 minute increments for a few weeks, staying up 30-60 minutes in between trying to get a good feed. In the mean time, I was diagnosed with PPD. As part of my treatment we started going to parent and baby groups as well as La Leche League meet ups, and it all helped immensely. We struggled with two bouts of mastitis, a raging case of oversupply and an extremely forceful letdown. And at 9 weeks, the pain was gone, the night feeds were done lying in bed, and we found our groove. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First plane trip around 3 months</td></tr>
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<h4>
Adventures Nursing in Public</h4>
One of my earliest vivid nursing memories is the first time I tried to nurse in public. I was averse to the idea of using a cover, as normalizing breastfeeding was very important to me. But Perrin was only about 6 days old, I was engorged and leaking, and it took a lot of work to get him on the breast. So when I sat down on the bench at the mall to nurse, I threw a blanket over my shoulder. He wouldn't latch. I was spraying milk everywhere, I couldn't get him positioned right, random employees from a nail salon were asking questions about his name and age and whatnot. And I couldn't deal. So I cried, and I went to the nursing room. And there I sat, under bright fluorescent lights, in an uncomfortable chair, in a tiny closet sized room all by myself. And I cried. This was supposed to be a village. This knowledge was supposed to be passed down through generations, perfected by women all around me who had done it all before. And I was in a room by myself. That was the one and only time I used a cover or a nursing room.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upside down yoga snack</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">#NOL #nurseoutlout</td></tr>
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After that, we got more coordinated and got more practice in and became NIP pros. We nursed while hiking, while shopping, while doing housework. We nursed walking the dog, watching movies, chatting with friends and family. We've nursed at rock concerts (even back stage at Slipknot), Cons, and sporting events. We've nursed while swimming, while relaxing on the beach, and at grad student parties. I loved not having to pack a bag to go somewhere. The food went with us no matter what; we just had to jump in the car and go. Being able to feed Perrin anytime, anywhere with no fuss or preparation was one of my favorite things about nursing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beach snack</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watching Godsmack at KFMA Day</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Park Snack</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQEP-XvfSCmZWvDJTlAMEdr3ZI68nrsb6IcnwhoqlCYSPk15ezuCAuilxuYSUd1h7Xid3pCLYx3FXoCjBnp82NBExBhj2amdHyiKp3nIABwnv1yVO2cGYXTU8apNr-84VmIDM8ybqXSMCd/s1600/1610811_10101182639288570_7748929052037548321_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQEP-XvfSCmZWvDJTlAMEdr3ZI68nrsb6IcnwhoqlCYSPk15ezuCAuilxuYSUd1h7Xid3pCLYx3FXoCjBnp82NBExBhj2amdHyiKp3nIABwnv1yVO2cGYXTU8apNr-84VmIDM8ybqXSMCd/s320/1610811_10101182639288570_7748929052037548321_n.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zoo snack</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nursing Goten at Tucson Comicon</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbYJ3eiODqcAX6UEngecKYj1eiEOrlCB9MUXS-20Z89LGePQfPYFolIM9smMGO3BwGrydnwg9XOQdRpaterWYo2XyPwfr1k_-zSi2g6Bg52HUKeT9v5kO-vewYShOaApvPzSXSFZHxnHu/s1600/11947727_10101744995137940_788961514560389427_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbYJ3eiODqcAX6UEngecKYj1eiEOrlCB9MUXS-20Z89LGePQfPYFolIM9smMGO3BwGrydnwg9XOQdRpaterWYo2XyPwfr1k_-zSi2g6Bg52HUKeT9v5kO-vewYShOaApvPzSXSFZHxnHu/s320/11947727_10101744995137940_788961514560389427_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waiting to meet Corey Taylor with all the other metal heads. </td></tr>
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<b>Reaping the Rewards</b><br />
<b> </b>My other favorite thing about nursing was the health and comfort benefits it afforded us. For me, nursing lowers my risks of different types of cancers and some later chronic illness. It also delayed my cycle for 17 months, which I consider a hella win! For Perrin, it gave him an awesome immune boost, provided tons of excellent nutrients that he needed, got him through illness and oral surgery and numerous bumps and scrapes. It was an instant comfort for him in times of fear and stress. He has a lower risk of obesity, asthma, gastro-intestinal illness, some childhood cancers, and food allergies because he was breastfeed. He's only been sick twice in his three years- one upper respiratory infection and one stomach bug. And of course, it was amazing to see that I could feed all 9lb 14 oz of him and watch him gain so well. He was in the 90th percentiles for his entire first year.<br />
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<b>A Word About Support</b><br />
<b> </b>It's damn near crucial. I'm sure some people can make it work on their own, but I know I couldn't have. Joey is the sole reason I was able to successfully nurse. He was on the phone calling doctors and lactation counselors, he was on the computer reading articles and watching videos. He stayed up with me for every feeding. He went to the baby groups and La Leche Leagues. He shooed people off when they mentioned giving up, and he never for one second seemed to doubt that we were going to do this. I joke that he would make a wonderful IBCLC because he has so much knowledge and can troubleshoot a latch with the best of them!<br />
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If it wasn't for him and all the mom groups we went to where I was able to see other women nursing and ask for tips and advice and experiences, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I cannot stress enough how important having support is, and that begins in pregnancy! This is coming from someone who swore they would never breastfeed, until of course I actually did my research preparing for having a baby. I read books and blogs and watched documentaries and spent way too much time on the internet. But having that knowledge and semi-realistic expectations was what allowed me to prepare for and deal with the problems we did end up having.<br />
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<b>The End</b><br />
<b> </b>It was my goal to make until at least 2 years old (the recommended age by the AAP) and then allow Perrin to decide when he was done. I ended up being a little more hands on with the weaning process than I intended to be, but overall we met our goals. After a one year, he was still nursing much more than I had expected, but I knew that it was still within the realm of normal and I really didn't want to make any adjustments. While some kids handle limits on nursing fine, for others it initiates weaning and I didn't want to compromise our two year goal. But after two years, I developed a nursing aversion- where you have a negative physiological and/or psychological reaction to nursing. I'm not sure if it was because I had reached my goal and felt "done" or if it was just coincidence, but around 26 months we began toying around with some adjustments to our nursing.<br />
I was hoping to reduce frequency and night wean (no longer nurse him during the night), but he wasn't very receptive to either. However, I found reducing the length of our nursing sessions went over well, so we went with that. I'd allow him to nurse whenever he wanted, but we generally nursed for less than a minute, except at nap and before bed. Then around 28 months, he slept though the night for the first time. He didn't do it consistently, but I used that as a cue to move on with the weaning process.<br />
By 30 months, he was more receptive to me reducing the number of nursing sessions. We began nursing only before and after nap and before and after night sleep, making exceptions for boo-boos or other stressful situations. He still asked to nurse during the night, but less often and it was about 50/50 whether or not I could get him to go to back to sleep without. From then on, he completely took over the weaning process.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">18 months</td></tr>
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He started dropping our nursing sessions- first the morning, then before and after nap so by the end he was only nursing before bed. He also began sleeping through the night more consistently and not asking to nurse even when he did wake. By about 34 months, he would sometimes go several days in between nursing. We took family pictures before his birthday and I realized half way through it was the first time we wouldn't be taking nursing pictures. I thought about asking him if he wanted to try only to realize it would have been impossible for me to nurse in my dress. We were already at the point where it wasn't part of our everyday. He asked to nurse about two days before his third birthday and I managed to get a quick picture. At this point he was averaging about a week in between, so I was surprised when asked again just two days later. But it was his birthday, so I didn't mind. That was the last time he nursed.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last nursing picture ever taken, his second to last nursing session. </td></tr>
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So while it is a little sad to realize that that part of my life is over, it makes it so much easier knowing how much all of our hard work and dedication paid off and what a huge part it was in Perrin's infancy and toddlerhood. Nursing is by far the hardest thing I have ever done and I am damn proud to have done it.<br />
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Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-35650438686197162012016-06-14T14:42:00.001-07:002016-06-14T14:42:35.364-07:00Perrin is 3!!!! <br />
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We have a three year old! The past year was certainly a little challenging as Perrin has become much better at self-advocating, but it has been so fun! His personality is best described as a whole lot of sass with a side of sarcasm, and a heap of goofiness. He went from barely stringing words together to having entire conversations, making up stories, and telling jokes. We've had a lot of adventures over the past year and he's definitely hit a lot of milestones, but here are the highlights:<br />
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- He has continued his swim lessons and is now in the "big kid class", where the 3 year olds start going to class without parents. He loves swimming and has just recently become incredibly comfortable in the water.<br />
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- This year we got to see Slipknot, Disturbed, and Shinedown in concert. At Slipknot he got to go back stage and meet the band and get an epic picture with Corey Taylor. We have tickets to Rage Against the Machine in September and are considering Blink 182 as well.<br />
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-Speaking of music, he still loves Slipknot and Taylor Swift, but he is also now really into Beyonce, Katy Perry, Disturbed, and Shinedown.<br />
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-He nursed today, on his third birthday. He has gone up to 13 days without. I'm pretty sure this is the beginning of the end, but I don't know when the "last" time will be. I intend to write a whole post about our weaning experience in the future.<br />
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-He is still one molar shy of a full mouth. Poor kid has been dealing with teething for 28 months and still going.<br />
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-He's about 39 inches tall and 34 1/2 pounds, if the vet scale at the children's museum is accurate.<br />
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-He loves to go hiking and go to the desert musuem. He knows a lot about different kinds of animals, plants, and rocks. He's also REALLY into picking up litter right now.<br />
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-He's still in our bed with us, although he does go back and forth between his little bed in our room.<br />
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- He loves to read and right now really likes And Tango Makes Three, the Eric Carle books, Caillou books, and one's with a little mouse named Maisie.<br />
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-He started at a nursery school in January and goes 2 days a week. He loves it and talks a lot about his friends there and sings songs he learns.<br />
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-His favorite color is blue.<br />
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-He loves to eat pizza, broccoli, croissants from Starbucks, and sushi.<br />
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-He really enjoys his animals and helps to feed them and let Fender in and out and look for chicken eggs.<br />
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-This year he got to visit Memphis twice, went to Phoenix twice, and vacationed in Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. He seemed to enjoy Seattle the most and talks about living and working there.<br />
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- He has lots of fun playing with his friends Isaac, David, Taeo, and Luna.<br />
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- He is having a construction themed birthday party.<br />
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-He went to his first two sporting events this year- U of A Football and U of A baseball. Bear Down!<br />
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-We had a rough patch around 26 months where he was getting physically agressive with other kids, and then at around 34 months where he started having some intense tantrums. Now we are just in the whiney phase!<br />
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-He loves building with blocks, playing with his toy farm house, doing puzzles, and playing with his cars and trucks.<br />
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-His favorite places to go are Playformance, the Desert Museum, Pump It Up, and the zoo.<br />
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-For his birthday, we had Starbucks for breakfast, went to Pump It Up with his bestie, stopped by Target so he could use his birthday money to buy a toy he's had his eye on, looked at his baby pictures together and went through his birth story, and later we will open presents and eat his requested dinner of artichokes and toast.<br />
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I'm sure there are so many more things I could tell you about Perrin, but you might as well just come visit us and talk to him yourself! He loves to chat and meet new people and will definitely give you a way better impression than anything I could say. I've heard three year olds are quite the handful, so we are entering this year with a bit of apprehenshion. But knowing Perrin, I'm sure he'll at least keep things interesting!Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-10067569008779328822016-05-22T10:21:00.001-07:002016-05-22T17:19:32.934-07:00The Big, Bad Book Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As promised, I reviewed the children's books we own based on gender representation. Why, you ask? Because media literacy is important to me. Because the types of media kids are exposed to shape their perception of what the world is "supposed" to be like and how people look and act. Because when that perception is limited to very strict gender roles and ideas, children don't get to experience the full range of their personalities. Because children learn to see anything outside their experience as "other" and if this isn't challenged as they grow up, can lead to some very problematic ideas and assumptions. That's why. I ended up including 86 books in all after the rest failed to meet my initial criteria that we'll go over in a second. I'll first go over my inclusion criteria, methods, and variables and then move on to the results. Finally I'll discuss what this means in terms of parenting and strategies for mitigating some of my findings. I'll also include some recommendations for some of our favorite gender inclusive books.<br />
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But first let's address the limitations of the information. I'm sure there are more than I'll mention explicitly, but let's at least talk about some major ones. I make some assumptions about the intent of the authors. For example, when I talk about gendered illustrations, I assume that the people in pink dresses were intended to be female. It is possible that the author was being very inclusive and actually intended those children to be male or transgender or some other expression, but given the overall tone of the books and the gender representation, I felt safe in my assumptions. Second, our book collection is not representative of all the books that exists. I get that. Furthermore, since Perrin is male, the books we were given may be skewed towards male characters due to the underlying gender assumptions of the people who bought them. Third, there is a lot of gray area in some of the variables. For instance, I don't include all the background characters, only the ones that either speak or have names. But we will get more into that in the discussion of variables....So let's get started!<br />
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<b>Inclusion Criteria</b><br />
My inclusion criteria was pretty simple- it had to be a young children's book (so no chapter books) that had some kind of narrative. I did not include simple books that were only pictures or named objects. There had to be some degree of dialogue or interaction between characters. Like I stated before, that ended up being 86 books. There were definitely elements to some of the excluded books that were gendered and offered up discussions of representation, but for the purpose of comparing them to the rest of the books, it didn't make sense to include them.<br />
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<b>Variables</b><br />
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# of Female and Male Characters Named- Pretty self-explanatory. Because these are children's books, I was fairly liberal with what I considered to be a name. For example, I counted "Mommy" and "Bunny" as being a name if it was referring to a specific character. For this and the next variable, I cut off the count at 3. So if there were 5 named males, it was still recorded as 3. I did this because the only books where this occurred were in a select few where a group of characters was acting together. The higher counts weren't really affecting the gender representation and I didn't want the large numbers to skew the results.<br />
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# of Female and Male Characters Speaking- Simple and I used the same count method as above. There was a lot of overlap between these two categories but because I was not including background characters, I wanted a fairly general criteria for which characters I did include.<br />
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#of Ambiguous Characters- I also included a count for characters that were not expressly identified as male or female. In some cases the look of the character was overtly feminine or masculine, but if they were not directly identified through gendered pronouns I counted them as ambiguous. The most interesting example was Green Eggs and Ham. Neither character is ever referred to as a specific gender, although most people I know refer to them as male. One is named Sam, but that's a fairly gender neutral name.<br />
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Gendered Illustrations- I used a simple dichotomous variable to identify which books relied on gendered illustrations. Examples include all female characters wearing bows and dresses or only female characters having eyelashes.<br />
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Franchised Character- I made a note if the character was previously established from something like a movie or parent story. For example, the Cat and the Hat was not, because the extensions of the character came after the book being reviewed. However, Clifford was, because it was also a character from a TV show. This went into to how I determined the next variable.<br />
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Gender Swapping Possible?- I determined whether or not it was possible to change the gender of the characters without it affecting the plot line of the story. If the cow in the story needed help getting milked, it wasn't gender swappable. Or if the character was previously established as a specific gender in some other genre, it was not gender swappable.<br />
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Bedschel Test- The Bedschel test was originally used to rate movies for gender diversity and representation. A movie (or in my case, book) passes if there is more than one female character, the female characters speak to one another, and they speak about something other than a male character. There is also an additional criteria of the female characters having to be named, but I used the less strict version for my purposes. I noted if the book passed outright, but if one of the characters was ambiguous and you could make the assumption they were female and it met the other criteria, I gave it a provisional pass.<br />
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Main Character Sex- I also noted the sex of the main character. Some books had two main characters of different genders, and some had a main character with an ambiguous gender, so there ended up being 4 different categories.<br />
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Non-human Character- This was more for curiosity's sake, but I noted how many of the books featured some non-human character (Animals, monsters, muppets, e.g.) This goes back to the idea of gender swapping and the choices made by authors.<br />
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Father/Mother- Finally I noted which books featured either a mother character, a father character, or both. If there were illustrations with a mother or father figure in the background, but they didn't meet my initial character criteria (named or speaking), I did not count them.<br />
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<b>Results</b><br />
<b> </b>Ok, here is the good stuff. Most of it was pretty expected and also a little depressing. For starters, only 4 books passed the straight up Bedschel test. That's only 5%. If I included the ones that past provisionally, it only bumped it up to 9%. In addition, only 10% of the books had a female main character. Thirty percent had either an ambiguously gendered character or both, meaning 60% of the books featured a solo male character. Which is kind of odd considering that 73% of the books were gender swappable, meaning that the story wasn't dependent on the main character being male. Heck, 83% of the books featured non-human characters which I would assume leaves a lot of wiggle room gender wise.<br />
When we look at the characters in general, only 34% of named characters were female and 34% of speaking characters were female. In addition, 31 books featured a mother while only 16 featured fathers. If we looked only at those books that featured a sole parent, 25% of the fathers were the only parent while 61% of mothers were the sole parent.<br />
Finally, 40% of the books featured gendered illustrations in which characters were drawn to display gender over realistic depictions.<br />
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<b>Discussion</b><br />
<b> </b>Let's start with the good news- 22% of the books have ambiguous main characters, meaning there isn't really any focus on gender, which is nice. In addition, 73% of the books were gender swappable, so even though there seems to be a tendency to default characters as male, it's easy to read the characters as female to balance things out. <br />
However, when we talk about representation of female characters, it's a little more bleak. The fact that there were only 9 books with female main characters was a little depressing. Even more so that in the books that did have female characters, those characters were in more supportive roles, thus resulting in the lack of Bedschel Test passes. And average occurrence of female characters was only 34%, period. I was surprised to find that one of the biggest perpetrators of female exclusion was none other than the beloved Dr. Suess. Despite most of his characters being made up fantasy creatures, the pronouns were almost always male. Even when they weren't, they were left as ambiguous. There was extremely little female representation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe07i02xMfQ3_npkm1Ar6M_NISdFy8uyfjkjZ0Iz9Nzx0F7oXZbKmjIAolSriAL1-_ZkkFsKPPvj-GI82x5nVqWv6pWcZfhCFMSfTWL9cV2-1u3coWT4TsjZT3XAlF89iJU7mqvCIEEh_q/s1600/13278078_10102072191778250_1062945393_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe07i02xMfQ3_npkm1Ar6M_NISdFy8uyfjkjZ0Iz9Nzx0F7oXZbKmjIAolSriAL1-_ZkkFsKPPvj-GI82x5nVqWv6pWcZfhCFMSfTWL9cV2-1u3coWT4TsjZT3XAlF89iJU7mqvCIEEh_q/s320/13278078_10102072191778250_1062945393_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the book "The Day the Crayons Quit", all of the crayons are left genderless (which makes sense) except Orange and Yellow, which are defaulted as male. </td></tr>
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Another ridiculous example I found was in the Chick N Pug book. Despite referring to a future of egg laying, the baby chick was given male pronouns. Sorry, but male chickens don't lay eggs. I ended up redacting this book.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVFK53UgqvXK9RDOKpGL9yD0eMfPWMPhCgV0Ady5cdFI6iPujhzTi56vFGA_KQ1fp70PvM6PGA7deHQT1joN9oEgdSOV8GDiFHEOIot-iY3g3FLMyg3Eem6tfkAoWyMwMis6_JWkCtKqS/s1600/13282183_10102072191558690_606044739_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVFK53UgqvXK9RDOKpGL9yD0eMfPWMPhCgV0Ady5cdFI6iPujhzTi56vFGA_KQ1fp70PvM6PGA7deHQT1joN9oEgdSOV8GDiFHEOIot-iY3g3FLMyg3Eem6tfkAoWyMwMis6_JWkCtKqS/s320/13282183_10102072191558690_606044739_n.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This chick is male in the book. Female erasure, plus a jab at domestic labor?</td></tr>
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The other trend that I noticed and had to go back and recode later on was the depiction of parents. Going through the books, there was obviously way more mothers included than fathers. But after coding what I realized was that when fathers were included, it was usually in combination with mothers. In contrast, mothers were more often portrayed as the sole parent. This is troublesome because this creates a situation where fathers are seen as part of the family unit while mothers are seen as the default caregiver. That shafts both the role of the father as parent and the role of the mother as literally anything else.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R0mmV_GCEzxOmM0GqidgLsDoBy5vuCCrqEb9UnDHk3EB8Se1vpX_eAyEL5DAhdC-mZFZH68ypRlrJNpEwMBpfZnuKw1VFYViBX0F0QrXuy7Wwcc93VsRWC9KP9flcAW9wr9CCXVumLPy/s1600/13249597_10102072192217370_1748586531_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R0mmV_GCEzxOmM0GqidgLsDoBy5vuCCrqEb9UnDHk3EB8Se1vpX_eAyEL5DAhdC-mZFZH68ypRlrJNpEwMBpfZnuKw1VFYViBX0F0QrXuy7Wwcc93VsRWC9KP9flcAW9wr9CCXVumLPy/s320/13249597_10102072192217370_1748586531_n.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "Bunny Book" is one of the few books that recognizes male parents and actually presents it as the career choice of this bunny. </td></tr>
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So the big takeaway from all this was that there is a huge gender discrepancy in these books. Despite it being unnecessary, a huge emphasis is put on gender in children's book, but that emphasis steadfastly favors male characters over female. Children reading these books are getting exposed to the idea the males drive story lines, go on adventures, and do a large number of things while the females do very little at all. It also means female children are having to learn to identify and empathize with the opposite sex, which is a good thing. However, male children are not getting that lesson in reverse and are instead seeing themselves as the norm, the default, and the standard.<br />
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So what can we as parents do? Well a good start is seeking out books with female main characters or characters that don't fit into traditional gender roles. You can also look for the books with gender ambiguous characters, since that seems to be somehow easier (Is it really easier for a character to be genderless than to be female? Is the feminine side of the spectrum that low down on the list?) Once again, I include gender ambiguous to be any character that is not expressly identified as male or female. I do not include style of dress and hair. I don't want Perrin to think you can assume someone's gender by their appearance or that there is one way to be a boy and one way to be a girl. Another thing you can do is to simply swap the gender of the characters. There are lots of books we have that have male characters but I simply change the pronouns as I read the books. Sometimes I even switch them back and forth each time I read the same story. Or you can take the emphasis off gender by using neutral terms like "child" and "person" rather than "boy/girl" or "man/woman".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjno1bOyawWDukWYkEHBFp3tJEFeYRDj-gUMuhAS4oLXCiI7rGHtbZNPtomlgxYIFXa_mXY4XQvklVtZqVPAiS36gHmHO4CYK-mOeJSCWk7IDmcQyBJFGi3gBFO83cTV3M09aM7Qj_aI8c1/s1600/13285552_10102072192970860_808043820_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjno1bOyawWDukWYkEHBFp3tJEFeYRDj-gUMuhAS4oLXCiI7rGHtbZNPtomlgxYIFXa_mXY4XQvklVtZqVPAiS36gHmHO4CYK-mOeJSCWk7IDmcQyBJFGi3gBFO83cTV3M09aM7Qj_aI8c1/s320/13285552_10102072192970860_808043820_n.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is an example of where I use "child" instead of "girl" or "boy" when I read. </td></tr>
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Another idea that works a little better as the kids get older is to engage them in critiquing. Asking "Why do you think only the girls have eyelashes? All people have eyelashes!" or "Why do all the boys have short hair in this book?", "Why do you think books never have boys wearing pink?". Just opening up these kinds of questions and conversations can help children to see these books as being non-representative of the world around them and are a great introduction to media literacy.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7Wg86VFNwOa4_Rb7-zlG7IA57WaYXibNyhFvU3IXIAApb76v03HknHrRQOcwHemKRnZ2DMKp6hlTyvdirRe1UVDHPZiUR_jh3ZS1AfQydCuebqJ0eUTGs7mYM1BFr-cuzFbJLkb5JVV3/s1600/13278085_10102072191643520_2145458884_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7Wg86VFNwOa4_Rb7-zlG7IA57WaYXibNyhFvU3IXIAApb76v03HknHrRQOcwHemKRnZ2DMKp6hlTyvdirRe1UVDHPZiUR_jh3ZS1AfQydCuebqJ0eUTGs7mYM1BFr-cuzFbJLkb5JVV3/s320/13278085_10102072191643520_2145458884_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some gendered language in Dr. Suess. Despite few female characters and almost none that are named or speak, he still manages to use hyperfeminine tropes. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBocdOxAhoj4G1ps8fkP9Vb8TOAoQJ_sbm_VoAYHuOzjZH7ITTeRgpsM5TDpB_ym5hQ2sm4e7v4elExsRd9R8N5sbsnhyX-_HH9oWImBz_MVX_n9sE9Ps3LSrR7JC36f3Qzf_cz-uTTx_B/s1600/13288828_10102072192786230_1666415335_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBocdOxAhoj4G1ps8fkP9Vb8TOAoQJ_sbm_VoAYHuOzjZH7ITTeRgpsM5TDpB_ym5hQ2sm4e7v4elExsRd9R8N5sbsnhyX-_HH9oWImBz_MVX_n9sE9Ps3LSrR7JC36f3Qzf_cz-uTTx_B/s320/13288828_10102072192786230_1666415335_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This book read "with the heart of a dinosaur, he shouldn't cry" which is bullshit, so I changed it. </td></tr>
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<b>Books We Love</b><br />
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Here are some of our favorite books. They are by no means perfect, but they do help give a little balance.<br />
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Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein: This book features Dinah, a female dinosaur. She tries to learn how to kiss, but instead ends up stomping and whomping and chomping everyone. It's a simple board book, but it's nice to see a female character portrayed as being physical, clumsy, and rambunctious.<br />
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Rawr by Todd Doodler: Ok, so we like dinosaur books. This dinosaur book uses no gendered language at all, although the illustrations are gendered (all the girls in dresses, all the boys with short hair). The main character is a dinosaur that is bigger than everyone else. However, we learn that even though the dinosaur is big, they can still be gentle, helpful, and kind.<br />
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Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime by Myra Wolfe: This book features a family of pirates, so that's always cool. Charlotte is the child and she decides that going to sleep is for land lubbers, so she decides to stay up all night. She is described as "hearty" and having "formidable oomph", which is a nice change of pace from the usual adjectives describing girls.<br />
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Baby Badger's Wonderful Night by Karen Saunders: This is a father and son story; the father badger takes his baby into the forest at night to show him all of the sights. It's nice to see a father as the parent of focus, especially in a story that is tender and sweet.<br />
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Why Won't the Dragon Roar? by Rosalyn Rosenbluth and The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf:<br />
Both of these books challenge the hypermasculine norm. In these stories, the main character is a male dragon and bull, respectively. But he doesn't like to engage in the typical male behaviors of those around him. The dragon doesn't like to roar and Ferdinand doesn't like to fight. Instead they like to spend time with their friends and smell flowers. <br />
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And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson: This book is based on a true story. It follows two penguins in a same sex relationship and how they hatch an egg to have their own baby that they raise together. It is a little hit or miss in that it definitely seems to portray opposite sex relationships as normal and the two penguins as "different", however it's a good conversation starter and a really sweet story.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XkY6Vmv50RdGI8QytfBA7B1pnd_uqzGPPjrG5Xz46W59yaG8S2DY8-uu9U6B70oMQTTnfO60cUpabN7IQHfgGxOlskPgJm8US4dgAASQplWsaiWfqOCDw8cMK53-ufVeJ8Y9OGjXwdkx/s1600/13285820_10102072191972860_1852751924_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XkY6Vmv50RdGI8QytfBA7B1pnd_uqzGPPjrG5Xz46W59yaG8S2DY8-uu9U6B70oMQTTnfO60cUpabN7IQHfgGxOlskPgJm8US4dgAASQplWsaiWfqOCDw8cMK53-ufVeJ8Y9OGjXwdkx/s320/13285820_10102072191972860_1852751924_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Green Start Books (various authors): These books are some of our favorites. Many of them were left out of my analysis as they weren't narrative based, but we love them all the same. They are introductions to different aspects of environmentalism- gardening, animal habitats, recycling, etc. The illustrations are bit gendered, but otherwise gender isn't addressed at all. The illustrations are very cute and the simple sentences make these concepts accessible for even young kiddos. They are also made from recycled materials and include a back section with tips for activities and life style changes.<br />
<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-54910093359823467782016-04-24T17:14:00.002-07:002016-05-22T17:19:09.436-07:00How Bathrooms Work I never thought I'd be able to crank out two sentences on this topic, but whatdyknow! There seems to be a lot of confusion and (misplaced) anger about Target's LGTBQ supportive restroom announcement and related legislation. Now, some of that ire seems to stem from some good ole fashion transphobia. To those individuals I would like to extend the warmest of "Fuck you"s. However, I have also seen many MANY comments along the lines of "think of the children!" "We just want to be safe!" "I'm not against trans folk, but now the PERVERTS are going to get in!". Now, this is kind of embarrassing, but....I'm not sure you understand how bathrooms work. So I'm going to explain somethings to you....<br />
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1) Nothing is actually changing, per se. You've been peeing next to trans people your whole life. Policies like Target's are to show support for LGTBQ communities and to stand in opposition of the transphobic legislation that has been passed in several states. </div>
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2) These policies did not dismantle an invisible force field that was previously in place preventing trans people (or those perverts who we'll get to in a second) from entering a bathroom. Anyone can walk into any bathroom. I have accidentally walked into a men's room numerous times without anyone being like, "Oh hey! Wrong one!". And I wasn't even trying. Unless you were going to some super max bathrooms with bouncers checking IDs and birth certificates, the entry process is pretty much the same. </div>
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3) Bathrooms, especially women's, generally have several individual stalls with locks on the doors. No one can actually see anyone else pee or take a dump. </div>
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4) Bathrooms are really shitty (see what I did there?!) places to attack people. There is one entrance and exit where people come and go frequently without warning. It's a horrible place to try to do anything sketchy, from a purely strategic mindset. </div>
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5) These perverts- I have bad news- they've always been able to go into whatever restroom they want (see #2). And they can also go all kinds of other places, like dressing rooms and malls and movie theaters and pretty much any place you may also go. But don't worry, because the odds of being sexually assaulted by a stranger are pretty low. The vast majority of assault is committed by a family member or close friend. </div>
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6) If you demanded everyone pee in the restroom they were assigned at birth, ladies would be changing their tampons next to <a href="http://www.upworthy.com/heres-what-itll-look-like-if-trans-people-arent-allowed-to-use-the-right-bathroom" target="_blank">Michael Hughes</a>. Please tell me how well that would go down. </div>
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7) When you talk about the trans community and "all those perverts" in the same argument about bathrooms, you are either a) insinuating that trans people are perverts or b) saying that trans people should be humiliated and probably beaten up or at least screamed at a lot (see #6) to prevent the made up imaginary crimes by cisgendered people. Which is bullshit.</div>
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8) Literally nothing is different except that you are now aware of the fact that a transgendered person has heard you fart, and you can either be cool or be a bigoted asshole about it. </div>
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9) Target bathrooms are no more dangerous since the policy announcement and it's absence does not make bathrooms safer. That's not how bathrooms work. They are open doors people walk through to go pee. It's not super complicated. </div>
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10) The conversations I have overheard are almost entirely about the ladies' room, yet 1 in 6 boys experience some form of sexual assault, often perpetrated by males. The fact that boys have been sharing restrooms with grown men without comment highlights the absurdity of these "safety" arguments. </div>
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Some notes for people who would like to delve a little further-</div>
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Saying bathrooms are now "unisex" or that "men" can now go to the ladies room belies a complete ignorance about what it is to be transgender. I highly recommend you educate yourself. <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/08/myths-about-transgender-people/" target="_blank">Here is a good place to start.</a></div>
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Let me know if I have left anything out or if you have any additional great perspectives! </div>
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Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-44603085171077217492016-03-01T19:46:00.001-08:002016-05-22T17:18:53.555-07:00It's Personal By now most people know that <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/whole-womans-health-v-cole/" target="_blank">Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt</a> is being argued tomorrow. This ruling could prove to be my generation's Roe v. Wade. It could set a major precedent for abortion restrictions across the country. The decision made has the power to either move towards securing women's rights and healthcare or obliterate it.<br />
I've generally tried to keep pretty quiet about abortion. I have friends and family on all sides of the issue and I have been wary of stepping on anyone's toes. So I've held back from spouting off the statistics showing abortion access is an integral part of healthcare and promotes social and economic security. I haven't engaged in religious debates about what texts actually say regarding abortion. I haven't pointed out the human rights precedent of allowing women to make their own choices regarding fertility and childbearing. Don't get me wrong- I have friends, family, and coworkers who have had abortions. With one in three women having an abortion by age 45, be sure that you do to. You even go to church with them. But as dedicated as I have been to protecting the rights and experiences to those around me, I have never been overly vocal about the issue.<br />
That was until I really sat down and examined my experiences. And then I realized- it's personal. I am pro-choice by default, my own morality and sense of justice really doesn't allow for anything else. But it's more than that. While I have never personally had an abortion to date, there is a good chance that I may have one in the future. Joey and I are about 99% sure we are done having kids. But I'm only 28. I have at least 20 more fertile years ahead of me and even if we were able to use the most reliable forms of hormonal contraception (which I can't for medical reasons), there is still a decent chance we could end up with an unplanned/unwanted pregnancy. And the thought of that is what jarred me into cognizance. It's easy to think of abortion solely in the context of teen pregnancy, rife with drug use and multiple sexual partners- abortion as the answer to an unstable situation. But the reality is that many abortions don't meet any of those preconceptions. Abortions are sought by women who are married with children. By women who are well educated and financially stable. Once again- your neighbors, coworkers, church members. But society's stereotypes of the kind of women who seek abortions were so ingrained that it wasn't until recently that I realized that I am the type of woman who seeks an abortion. And I may be that woman one day. And despite all of my higher education, my financial stability, my rock solid marriage, and my amazing son, there are people who think that Joey and I shouldn't be able to make decisions about the number of children we will have or whether or not I should go through another pregnancy and birth. Or whether or not we should all suffer through another bout of severe postpartum depression. There are people who would take away a very personal decision between Joey and I and force us to have a child we didn't want. And that scares me.<br />
What scares me even more, is that after thinking about this more, I realize it's only due to sheer luck that I have never needed an abortion. I can think of three specific instances in my life where I was at risk for an unplanned pregnancy and that pregnancy would have been devastating. A pregnancy at any of those points of time would have left me in a vary dangerous situation. And the horrific part is that two of those instances were before I was educated about pregnancy, birth, and abortion. Before I had received counseling about the types of situations I was in. Frankly, had I gotten pregnant in either of those instances, the odds are pretty good that I wouldn't have sought an abortion. I would have birthed an unwanted child into circumstances that were unhealthy at best and at worst would have ended in harm to myself or the child. My life would have been shattered, my education, my personal growth and discovery. All because I didn't even believe I had a choice.<br />
But I do. It's my choice. My legal right. And it's the right of every single woman in this backwards ass country. And I'm tired of being quiet and polite. And I'm tired of people having to whisper and have secrets and live with shame because they made the absolute best decision for themselves and their families and all anyone can do it point fingers and shit on them. This is not some hypothetical debate. This is not a matter of principle or a talking point or a campaign platform. I refuse to sit back and listen to people discuss abortion as if I didn't even exist. As if their words have no impact on me. This is my family. This is my body. This is my life. It's personal.<br />
And if you are one of the people trying to take this choice away from me- if you want to limit my healthcare and my decision making and interfere in my marriage and my family- know that it does not go unnoticed. I know exactly who in my life would send me back into that dark hell of depression and call themselves a hero. I don't say this to shame you or change your mind. I say this to let you know- it hurts. You hurt people. Your words and your actions hurt people. Your hands are not clean.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-72260267992807391642016-01-11T18:53:00.000-08:002016-05-22T17:18:26.216-07:00Early Childhood Development 101<br />
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I think a lot of people- or at least a lot of people who have never had a child before- think of development as a linear process. Things gradually get better. Babies gradually sleep longer. They gradually nurse less. Which from a macro standpoint is true. A five year old probably sleeps longer stretches and nurses less than a five month old. But does a five month old sleep longer than a five day old? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes the baby sleeps longer for a few months then goes back to waking more frequently. Sometimes the toddler starts nursing like a newborn again. And if you were expecting a smooth linear path, it can be frustrating or nerve wracking or miserable. A lot of parents think something must be wrong. There are countless articles that talk about "regressions" (see <a href="http://www.pinkymckay.com/the-myth-of-baby-sleep-regressions-whats-really-happening-to-your-babys-sleep/" target="_blank">here for why that is a bit of a misnomer</a>).<br />
The reality is that development is often a messy two steps forward, one step back situation. Revisiting our expectations and adjusting our perspective can be really helpful in making the process less stressful, but I'm as guilty as anyone else in loosing sight of the long term and becoming completely overwhelmed in the day to day. So here are some of Perrin's big developments that we are finally seeing, even though they have been in the works for some time.<br />
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1. Sleeping through the night. While we were in Philadelphia, Perrin decided to sleep from 11 pm to 6 pm without waking. Previous to this, a 4-5 hour stretch was about the longest we ever got out of him, and even that wasn't on a regular basis. (Side note: Did you know that the definition of "sleeping through the night" that all those baby books use is only 5 hours? Not sure about you, but my concept of a full night's sleep is a heck of a lot more than 5 hours.) It was awesome. But the next night was the normal up every two to three hours, so we didn't get our hopes up. However, over the next few weeks the nights of long sleep stretches became more frequent until they were more often than not. For our purposes, I consider our "night" the time he goes to bed until the time Joey gets up in the morning, usually around 5:30. Perrin and I usually stay in bed until 7, so we get more sleep than that, but if he wants to nurse and then go back to sleep or something during those morning hours, I still count the night as a "success". Naturally, this meant he was also not nursing as often during the night. Which brings me to milestone number two.<br />
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2. Night weaning. We've been working on this one for a while. Waaaaay back in the day I thought I might toy with it around 1 year, the earliest it's usually recommended. But it was obvious when we got to that point that Perrin was nowhere near ready. And honestly, night nursing never really bothered me that much. We cosleep and Perrin had been pretty good at nursing lying down since about 9 weeks, so nursing him at night barely roused me at all. A little help latching and I just drifted right back to sleep. Perrin never even really woke up.<br />
So then his second birthday came, and the idea of sleeping for several hours straight had started to seem pretty sweet. I bought the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nursies-When-Shines-Katherine-Havener/dp/0615756425" target="_blank">Nursies When the Sun Shines</a>" to help prep him for the concept and we started with a version of <a href="http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html" target="_blank">Jay Gordon's nightweaning method</a>. However, once again, it was obvious he just wasn't ready. I'm sure we could have been a little more forceful with it and maybe had more success, but once again night nursing just wasn't that big of a deal for me. I didn't mind waiting a bit longer.<br />
So really, the night weaning and sleeping through the night happened pretty much simultaneously. Maybe once or twice a week he still asks to nurse in the middle of the night, and I usually let him since allowing him to latch for 10 seconds and rolling over to go back to sleep is easier than arguing about it. (In truth I offer water and remind him to wait until morning once, and if he persists I just go with it). But mosts nights he nurses before we lay down to sleep (he doesn't actually nurse to sleep at night anymore) and then doesn't nurse again until after 5:30 when Joey gets up. Sometimes he makes it all the way until 7 when we get up for the day.<br />
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3. Weaning in general. Another idea I had way back in the beginning was that I would allow Perrin to completely self wean if I was still ok with continuing the nursing relationship. My baseline goal was to make it to two years, and then just let him go after that and see what happened. Well, about two months after he turned two I developed a really awful nursing aversion. Nursing aversions are hard to describe. It's not simple as being physically uncomfortable (which can be a sign of latch issues that sometimes develop as kids get older and need to relearn a good latch). It's more like, if you could imagine that nails down a chalkboard feeling but in your nipples. At least that's the best way I can describe it. Anyway, I had started to get it during ovulation and menses around 17 months postpartum when my menstrual cycle returned. But after Perrin turned two, it was everyday, all the time. So I knew that allowing him to nurse on demand was not going to work much longer. I made the decision to start nudging him in the direction of weaning. I experimented with a few different approaches. Limiting the frequency of nursing didn't seem to go very smoothly. He was very resistant, as anyone would be when their main source of comfort was suddenly inexplicably unavailable. However, he was totally cool with me limiting the duration of the nursing session. Often I could give him about 10 seconds on each breast, say all done, and he'd scamper off to do whatever. So that became my main strategy. He could nurse as often as he like, but only for a very short amount of time, with the exceptions being before night and nap.<br />
Now about a month ago when Perrin was just shy of two and a half, I began to revisit the limiting frequency approach. We started instituting a "nursing for nap or night time" policy and did lots of offering snacks, distraction, and staying busy. So far it's been going extremely well. Most days he only nurses four times- before and after nap and before and after night sleep. I make exceptions for extreme distress, such as when he is hurt. And every now and then he inexplicably insists on nursing in between and it's obvious that it is a real need, even if I can't understand why. Going back to the start of this post, I understand that it's not going to be a perfectly smooth transition and I am fine with the ups and downs and back and forth until we both get used to the new status quo.<br />
My goal now is to keep up with the nap and night nursing, until that's no longer working either. Then we will start working on completely weaning.<br />
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So these are the several different goings ons, all of which have developed in just the past few months. I know things will continue to evolve as we near the three year mark, and I am very excited about the prospect of being done nursing and moving to even more independent sleep for Perrin. But right now I am perfectly comfortable in the fact that change is coming, even if it is slow, and I know there is light at the end of the tunnel.<br />
<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-7912552983847401852015-12-19T15:16:00.000-08:002016-03-12T18:36:32.345-08:005 Things to Know About Natural Birth (Or at least my take on it) This was not on the list of regularly scheduled programming, but I got tagged like 3 times in a post about natural birth and I've had to give this response before, so I figured it would be best just to keep all these thoughts together and accessible. So, as someone who had a natural birth and who is also a certified childbirth educator, here are the things I think are important to know:<br />
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1) We will start with anecdotal evidence. My birth. I loved it. It was loooong (78 hours) and my baby was BIG (9lb. 14oz.), but I would not describe my birth as painful. Contractions were uncomfortable (although I have endometriosis and not a single contraction hurt worse than my period cramps), pushing was really hard work (not only was he big, he wasn't ideally positioned), and crowning felt intense, but never once did it feel like I was suffering or needing additional assistance in any way. Now, to hedge, I had a homebirth. I could move freely, eat what I wanted, rest on my own bed or in a birthing tub in my living room. We could come and go from the house as we pleased and be left completely alone when I needed some space. I imagine if I had been in a different environment I would have faced some unique challenges that may have changed how the birth progressed and my perception of it, depending on the limitations of the space.<br />
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2) Let's be clear- No medication does not mean no pain relief. It simply means using other tools to cope with discomfort during labor. In my classes, we go over all the different pain relief options and they fill in a tool box with the ones that appeal to them and then have a separate space for ones they want to avoid. Massage, hydrotherapy, positioning, activity, relaxation and mediation, TENS units, aromatherapy- all these things can offer pain relief during labor and help labor to progress optimally. Some people think natural birth just means showing up and gritting through it, and that usually results in the stories you hear about it was so awful or they had to get medication or they were so exhausted after they couldn't function.<br />
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3) It's like running a marathon. Ask any long distance runner and they will tell you running can hurt. Your muscles are working hard, your body is taxed, there can be discomfort. But they still run because they know they are working towards a goal. They also know that the pain is PRODUCTIVE and not INJURIOUS, and that is an important distinction. Some people who aren't familiar with extensive physical exertion may not readily understand the difference. You can feel pain when you are injured- like stepping on a nail or breaking a bone. It hurts and it signals your body to have a adrenal response to the situation to cope. However, you can also feel pain during things that are not injurious but actually productive, like running. It may be uncomfortable, but your body is not being harmed or damaged, it's simply working hard. Same thing with birth. Nothing is happening TO you; you are ACCOMPLISHING something. And when the body perceives that kind of discomfort, it does not initiate a stress response, which is good because those stress hormones can actually make pain worse and make you feel panicky. Mentally preparing for this distinction during pregnancy can keep you from panicking when you feel a contraction and stimulating an injurious pain response. Telling yourself or having other people remind you that the discomfort is normal, your body is working hard, your baby is on it's way, etc., can help keep you calm and the discomfort in perspective.<br />
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4)One of my pet peeves is when people say "You can't plan labor." Well fucking duh. Everyone knows this. It peeves me because it is usually said in response to a mother trying to prepare herself for her labor or gain more knowledge. It sounds discouraging and frankly really patronizing. The mom knows she can't plan. But she's trying to prepare. And that is GREAT. Our culture does not prepare us for birth at all, but especially not for natural birth and it does take some effort to rectify that. While some people may feel more comfortable with a medically managed pregnancy where they don't have to participate, many others want bodily autonomy and the ability to allow their body to do what it needs to do. What I recommend to my students is this: Make a birth plan- the one you want. The one you envision and hope for. Then make a separate contingency plan. Talk with your birth partner about what you would do in certain circumstances, such as if you medically needed an induction (which is not common) or medically needed a cesarean (also not common). Write those things down so you both are on the same page and know what to do if a situation arises. But then put it away. Don't look at the contingency plan again. You have addressed the "what ifs", now focus all of your energy on your original birth plan. Say affirmations, read birth stories, watch videos, surround yourself with positivity.<br />
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5) It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Most people are interested in natural birth for the experience and the health benefits to mom and baby. However, at some point you may decide you want a different kind of experience and that's okay, but you can mitigate the risk to you and baby by knowing about interventions and how to use them. Timing of epidurals, method of induction, etc. can make a big difference in how much risk you are adding on with these interventions. Also, as I tell my students- you can't get an epidural in the parking lot. Chances are even if you plan the most medicated labor in the history of childbirth, you are going to have to deal with a few contractions on your own. So it behooves you to know about how to handle birth in the event that medical interventions aren't readily available.<br />
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So there you have it. Per usual, feel free to ask questions, email, facebook, etc.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-23653570635698971792015-12-17T18:32:00.000-08:002015-12-19T20:00:34.896-08:00Catching Up I feel like I've really been slacking the past few months and am a little frustrated because I have several topics I'd like to cover, but this semester has been crazy for us. Joey has had some very time consuming classes and I feel like I've been juggling 18 different things. Perrin and I did a parent-child Waldorf class this semester. I started phasing myself out of the grant project I was working for and launched my childbirth class series. I also had plans to go back to school and had to study and test for the classes I needed to take. Unfortunately due to our financial situation, that isn't going to work out. Money is tight and there are other projects that I also need to focus on. That coupled with the fact that once Joey has a tenure-track job I should be able to attend classes at a discounted rate led me to decide to postpone any additional education for the time being. But at least I know I can test into higher level chemistry and calculus!<br />
I did however decide to put my M.A. to use and applied for an adjunct position at the local community college. The have an adjunct "pool" and don't advertise official openings, so I just have to hope that they need a professor in the subjects I'm qualified to teach. I'm also starting an extremely part time job at the local birth center leading a Parent and Child group. Throw in an essay I prepared for a writing contest, a trip to Philadelphia, and the general fall and winter festivities, and we've been quite busy lately. I really don't like being busy, but it just seems to happen.<br />
Anyway, I'm hoping to get a few posts out over Joey's winter break. Unfortunately any school break usually turns into "Let's do all the things we've needed to do for the past 4 months!" so I'm not sure exactly how much spare time I'll have. So if anyone is still out there, stay tuned. I promised I still have original thoughts and ideas, I just rarely get a chance to write them down.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-44287944035774652102015-11-12T14:23:00.002-08:002015-12-19T20:00:22.020-08:00No time to talk Seriously. No time. None. Zero. I have about 4 different topics I want to discuss here, but I have time for exactly zilch. I finally found a place for my childbirth classes, so those begin next week. I'm going back to school in January. And Perrin is well, Perrin, and two. So....I'm sorry. Eventually, hopefully, I'll get around to discusses modern parenting and the social costs, Perrin's sleeping habits as a toddler, and whatever else it was that I wanted to talk about (See, I already forgot). But I also have a writing contest I'm submitting to and desperately trying to finish my piece for, a house to clean, and a bunch of other crap. And all of our shit keeps breaking. So it may be a while. Thanks for understanding.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-41860051038854264002015-10-10T15:47:00.002-07:002015-12-19T20:00:08.684-08:00Why Politeness Needs to Die I am vehemently anti-politeness. I have to come to this conclusion after years of self-reflection and general observation. The entire concept of being "polite" needs to curl up and die. Maybe it's because I was born and raised in the South where there is that supposed <strike>Southern</strike> White, Abled, Middle Class, Christian, Patriarchal Hopsitality, but politeness was always emphasized to me growing up. I was expected to do and say specific things because it was <i>polite</i>. I was expected to respond in a certain way because it was <i>polite</i>. And I'm calling bullshit.<br />
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Now, before anyone burns me at the stake, let me explain what I am vehemently<i> for- </i>I am for kindness. I am for being loving and kind towards my fellow humans and the rest of this gorgeous planet. I am for being considerate of others because that should be the default way in which we treat each other. I am for cultivating peacefulness and gentleness in the way we interact and relate to each other and the world around us.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.quotespedia.info/images/desire/francois_de_la_rochefoucauld_desire_697.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.quotespedia.info/images/desire/francois_de_la_rochefoucauld_desire_697.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notice how the focus is on how you are perceived <br />
and treated, not on being kind to others.<br />
Being polite to "get" something.</td></tr>
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So what's the distinction, you ask? Well, for some people there may not be any. But for me, at least the way it was presented to me or the way I perceived it until just recently in my adult life, being polite was something you had to do out of social custom. It was what "good" children and adults did. It was the opposite of rude. If you didn't want to be though rude, you had to be polite. And rudeness was "bad". And so I spent most of my life being polite as some kind of behavioralist reflex to certian cues and situations because all I knew is if I didn't, I was bad. And in some ways that meant I was an absolute door mat. And all I can think is how much different I would have perceived my place in the world is that instead of being polite, I was told to be kind.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">sic [People]</td></tr>
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We say please and thank you because it's kind to let people know we appreciate them. The use gentle words because it is kind. We wait our turn, lower our voices in crowded places, etc. because it is kind to those around us. Not because it's some constructed social custom that we do or face social penalty. Because we are striving to be kind to one another. And because we need to also be kind to ourselves, we have to have boundaries. And this is one of the biggest lessons I think politeness fails to instill. Because it's ok to be rude sometimes. Sometimes it's even necessary. And when we set up this polite-rude dichotomy, we severely limit our range of acceptable emotional responses.<br />
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Especially as a female, the need to be polite is hammered into to everything you do. This concept has been connected through all kinds of problematic situations, like rape culture and the ever present "friend zone" concept. It already marginalized people feeling the need to apologize for taking up space and not feeling empowered to take up more for fear of being rude or off-putting. <br />
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So for me, what does this look like in action? It's not buying into the ageist practice of using titles for a person just because they may be older than you. If a person wants to be called Mrs. Whatever or Sir or Ma'am, it is <i>kind </i>to oblige because it is considerate of their comfort level and costs a person nothing. Showing gratitude is important, but that doesn't have to be in the form of some preconceived phrase. Body language and tone, especially in children who may not be able to spew out their rehearsed responses, especially in times of excitement, is just as sufficient. Intention over formality. A begrudging "thank you" shouldn't be more meaningful than a squeal of excitement. A forced "I'm sorry" is pointless.<br />
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When we get so caught up in the formality that we are teaching the wrong lessons and implying the wrong values, I can no longer feign support. So to the concept of politeness, I bid you adieu. I will practice kindness. And I will teach kindness to my offspring. And I will not loose one ounce of sleep if they forget to spit out a "thank you" or "sir". And I will not allow people to treat me poorly and smile silently until I can politely excuse myself. Because that's not kind.Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-63066279298948676312015-08-18T15:40:00.001-07:002015-12-19T19:59:54.615-08:00Ain't I A Human? Once again, in an effort to get some stuff out of my brain to make room for new stuff, I'm going to hash out some thoughts I've been having as of late. There were two instances in the last week that sparked very similar feelings for me, and I would like to dissect them here for you guys. The first was a meme I saw popping up all over the place. It went something along the lines of "I've never heard of a well dressed, well spoken black man getting assaulted by the police for nothing" or something to that affect. The second is a conversation I peripherally participated in. A person made the comment that if women wanted to be respected, they needed to dress a certain way otherwise they were "asking" for mistreatment.<br />
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Now I'm just going to call it- those two things were incredibly racist and sexist, respectively. But what scares me is that the inherent racism and sexism in those statements wasn't apparent to some people. What's more, the sentiment that underlies both of those examples is the same, and it's what I want to talk about. Both center around the idea that humanity is something that must be earned. That treating people like actual people- with kindness and respect- is something you only have to do after a person has proven themself worthy of being treated like a human being. Until they have proven themselves, you can treat them like shit and feel completely justified in doing so. But let's back up and unpack this a bit.<br />
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A lot of how you respond to this discussion will depend on your basic concept of morality. I am coming from the belief that all people (really, all living things) deserve to be treated with the most basic kindness and dignity if only because we are all sharing this planet and this space. There are similar beliefs in many religious institutions- the Golden Rule and whatnot. If you don't have any beliefs like these or your personal moral standpoint is that all people are basically bad, or bad until proven otherwise, or that they must earn your respect in someway, we are probably diverging at this point. However, I urge you to reflect on this moral belief system as we continue.<br />
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For one, consider how it comes back on you. If your standpoint is that other people must meet your own requirements in order to be treated well, it would stand that you must meet the requirements of others in order to expect decent treatment. It should be obvious that people have very different opinions about what is good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. Let's take the examples above. If you think people should dress well and speak well in order to be treated like human beings- do you never make grammatical errors? Are you always in an overly presentable state? What about sweats or work out clothes? Ever left home in your pajamas for a quick trip to the store? Hair unkept? Or the sexist example. Maybe you think mini skirts reek of ill repute. But what about tank tops? Women who wear pants? Your hair uncovered? I can easily find you examples of people and places where any of the above would be considered "bad" or "wrong". So which standard should you be personally held to? And are you ready to accept being mistreated under the rule that no one has to treat you well until you meet their qualifications?<br />
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Another thing to consider when we talk about these rules for behavior and their implied justification for maltreatment is where these rules come from. It's no surprise that the majority of the people I saw passing around that racist meme were white. Who gets to decide what speech is proper? There is a long history and scholarship on the evolution of Ebonics and African-American dialect. And American English is itself a bastardization of sorts of English. Who gets to decide what is proper dress? "Proper" is entirely culturally dependent. And when you have a dominant culture or sub culture holding institutionalized power, it's easy to use "proper" as a means of subjugation and disenfranchisement. We (the dominant culture in power) use Our power to create standards that reflect Our own comfort level and custom and hold Them up to those standards-standards which They may not share, had no part in establishing, and may not be interested in emulating- and use Their failure to assimilate (whether due to inability or unwillingness) as justification for furthering criminalizing and vilifying Them and securing Our own place in power. It's a rigged game.<br />
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But I urge you also to consider not only the larger cultural implications of these attitudes, but your own internal thoughts and feelings. Namely, why do you feel the need to set these "rules" about how people should/should not act in order to be treated like basic human beings? To be completely honest, when I catch myself trying to play this game in my head, it's usually for one of two reasons. One is that sometimes I find myself trying to justify my own mistreatment. By saying that people deserve to be treated like shit if they don't jump through whatever arbitrary hoop, I can maintain the thought that people in my own life treated me poorly simply because I deserved it. I missed the mark of being "good" in some way, so I was "asking for it". The alternative, of course, is to realize that I did not deserve to be treated badly, but that means that someone I cared about/loved/trusted/whatever was mean, or worse, maybe didn't care about/love/trust me back. And that can be hard to swallow. So sometimes it's easier to pretend that we actually have control over how other people treat us and the we are responsible for our own mistreatment. And by extrapolation, so is that person who got shot down in the middle of the street or raped on their way home from work. The second reason I sometimes fall into this mindset is because to acknowledge that all people deserve to be treated with basic humanity is to also acknowledge the vast number of ways this doesn't happen. It's to realize that slavery and rape and abuse and racism and hate are rampant and problematic. And it's really hard to hold that and not do anything about it. And doing something about it can seem overwhelming, and not wanting to do anything can seem selfish. And let's face it, it is selfish. And feeling overwhelmed and selfish leads to guilt and shame and none of those are pleasant feelings for us. So it's easier to pretend once again that those that are mistreated are somehow responsible for their own fates and that there really isn't a world full of sadness that we should be doing something about.<br />
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So my one last point of order is to point out that, even if you buy into the idea that people are necessarily bad and deserving of mistreatment- that they are criminals and whores until proven otherwise- you still have a choice in how YOU treat people. I choose to default on kindness and hold the basic belief that we are all human and all entitled to being treated as such. I fall back on the idea that how we treat those that we consider the lowest of us counts a lot more than whose ass we kiss. Even if you truly believe the world operates based on these rules and you find them legitimate, that doesn't mean that they can't be changed. And if you really do see that we as a species have some serious problems in how we treat one another, you can do something small. It doesn't have to be overwhelming or earth shattering. You can start by treating other people like people. Regardless of how they look, speak, or act. And then you can start encouraging other people treat people like people. And then you can start demanding it.<br />
<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-35596958726905101602015-08-05T15:28:00.000-07:002015-12-19T19:59:31.254-08:00A Seat at the Table By now most people have heard of the family being screamed at and basically kicked out of a restaurant because of their crying toddler. It's been all over the news and blogs. There have been discussions upon discussions. I've seen a half a dozen polls about whose "side" people would take (side note: What is with all the polls about things? Why should anyone care about whatever percent of some audience thinks about their personal situation? I don't get it). I didn't really address it because I was kind of of the mind that someone else would probably say it better. And I'm working through some really intense reading right now and didn't want to get distracted. But I have found some ideas rolling around in my head that don't appear to be represented completely elsewhere. And there are other ideas about other things also rolling around, and it's getting kind of crowded. I need to clear some space so I can process what I'm reading. So here goes...<br />
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For those of you unfamiliar, the basic gist of the situation is this- A family with a toddler went to eat at a crowded diner. The toddler was restless and some version of whining/crying for the 40 minutes it took the food to come. The owner/manager then came over, yelled at the toddler, asked the family to leave. When the family complained on social media, the manager double down, cussed them out, and all in all didn't seem to be to caught up in customer service. There have been three basic reactions 1) Wow, it's not really acceptable to scream at your customers. 2) Yeah! Right on! Kids in restaurants are the worst! and 3) We can't be sure what actually happened; maybe both the manager and parents were at fault.<br />
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So let's just back up for a second. I don't really want to discuss the manager at all. I can think of very few situations where screaming at people is acceptable, and this one just doesn't cut it. Moving on, I want to back up to the family's behavior and the general commentary around it. Now, in no accounts I read was the toddler accused of physically imposing on anyone. She didn't throw things. She didn't hit someone. She was in her own space. She was making noise. The transgression we are talking about here is a toddler making noise.<br />
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Now, I saw a lot of "they should have left" or "get a babysitter" or "take the kid outside" or whatevers. Apparently it was raining, so outside wasn't an option. Leaving would mean getting to another place to eat, waiting for a table, waiting for food all over again- exponentially lengthening the amount of time before the toddler gets fed. I also saw "why didn't they bring their own snacks?" which is hilarious to me because I've also seen parents get berated for bringing outside food into restaurants. Damned-if-you-do type scenario, really. And I have to laugh at the whole "leave your kid with a babysitter" comment. First off, these people were out of town. Secondly, not everyone can afford a babysitter. Third, well, just keep reading....But once again, worst case scenario- these parents were letting their child make noise.<br />
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So what a lot of people appear to be saying is that toddlers are unwelcome in public space, because they make noise. Now, let's talk about toddlers for a minute. Toddlers make noise. They just do. They don't really understand volume control. They have short attention spans. There brains are underdeveloped and they just don't have the capacity to act like adults. They aren't adults. Their children. We were at a restaurant the other day. You know who was louder than my toddler? An elderly gentlemen who seemed to have hearing issues. He was basically shouting his entire conversation with his table. But that is pretty developmentally appropriate for him, given he has trouble hearing. Just like it is appropriate for some people to make sudden, jerking movements or random outbursts of noise and words. Yet children are held to a standard outside of what can be reasonably expected from them. So the solution that is often is offered is simply "don't bring them". If you can't act like a fully capable adult, you shouldn't be in public. Which seems kind of odd to me, because I'm not sure when we decided adults are the only humans that count.<br />
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The other retort I keep hearing is "entitlement". These parents feel entitled to bring their brats everywhere or that kids are somehow entitled to be out in public. Like taking up space is something you have to earn. But what most people don't recognize is that statement is it's own kind of entitlement. Adults feeling like they are entitled to control and micromanage their environment. I have been at a restaurant and had to sit within ear shot of some horribly racist/misogynist conversations. I have been in places where people were talking louder than I liked. And a big thing for me being prone to migraines and being sensitive to smells- I have been near people wearing entirely too much fragrance that required me medicating myself to be comfortable. There are people who are horribly racist and would rather not eat in a restaurant with certain ethnic groups. There are people who may feel revulsion at the sight of some physical disabilities. There are people who don't like the way others dress. Are we really going to argue that we are entitled to dictate who gets to take up space? That attitude reeks of entitlement.<br />
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Anyway, back to this idea that children don't count as people and if they do, certainly don't have rights to pubic spaces, and if they do, only if they follow strict guidelines that most adults are not held to. Ok. You know what that results in? Children not being visible. But if that's your attitude, you probably think that's a good thing. But hold on- someone has to care for the children. And for all the "hire a babysitter" or "leave them with the grandparents" comments- the reality is those aren't always options for most people. So not only are we erasing children from public, we are erasing parents, and most of the time that means erasing mothers. Motherhood/parenthood is relegated to behind closed doors. Don't you dare leave your house unless you can guarantee you mere existence will never ever inconvenience another person. Don't let people see you. Don't impose, simply by being. So now we have this world where parenting and child rearing is nearly invisible. It's not honored, hell, it's not even acknowledged. The continuation of our species, the social fabric of our future (cliche, I know, but true) is shut away because somehow we decided it was less than.<br />
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I'm really sure how this happened, but I'm certain it's complex. I think it has to do with how we value monetary gain over other types of productivity. Child-rearing in a traditional sense doesn't bring home a pay check, so it's not relevant. It's how we view women and motherhood. It's our constant desire to divorce ourselves from the natural world of reproduction and life and focus on the clean, shiny industrial world we have created. It's involved, to say the least. But what has that left us with? In most cultures, everyone is included. The elderly, the young, the middle age, the new parents- they all interact int the same spaces and learn from each other and teach one another. Our culture is becoming fairly unique in the way it is organized by age. We take spaces which were traditional familial and communal- such as places of worship- and make Kid's Church. Now the young ones are here and the adults over there. We segregate schools by age, with children now not having regular interactions with peers of different age groups. We lose the interage relationships, we lose those experiences. And then we sit back and wonder why children can't interact well with adults or why adults have trouble cooperating generationally.<br />
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Did it never occur to anyone that if you want a toddler to know how to act at a restaurant, they at some point need to be in a restaurant? That they might not be great at it right off the bat? For all the woes about the upcoming generations of young adults (which I don't really buy, by the way), did anyone think that maybe they would integrate with society a little better if they had had any practice at all before being flung out into the mess of it at a late age? These are the thoughts I had reading the comments and discussions around that restaurant incident. How utterly sad it makes me that we as a culture have this value of children being seen but not hear, or really not being seen at all. That adults some how are "better than" and that it is all tied basically to developmental capacity, even at the risk of the adults who may not quite meet the bar. That there is an expectation that children (and by extension, their parents) should only be welcome in public space when they meet some ridiculous arbitrary requirements, without having to acknowledge that they learn by being in those spaces.<br />
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In my humble opinion, this creates a situation where everyone loses. Yes, you enjoyed a child-free restaurant experience. Good for you. But at what cost to how we view ourselves and the rest of humanity? At what loss of community? Let's get something straight- children are people who need to eat. They sometimes need to fly places. Their parents need to go to stores. If there is a place that is inappropriate for children, make it 21 and up or 18 and up or whatever. But let's just acknowledge that a space open to people is a space open to children, and if you can't handle that, I would say you don't know how to handle yourself in a public space and may want to consider staying home. <br />
Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-3908309908022517142015-06-29T21:04:00.000-07:002015-12-19T19:59:14.518-08:00Let's All Be Careful I have a really good friend, and when I was at a particularly trying and confusing point in my life, he gave me some really good advice.<br />
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"Be really fucking careful."</div>
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Good advice, and I try to remember it from time to time. And now, I'm sharing it with you. Because I've noticed a trend. I'm a part of a lot of mothering groups and boards and follow a lot of pages. I know that breastfeeding out there in the world can suck. Moms are told to leave or cover up or that what they are doing is gross or indecent. And it gets old. It gets *so old* trying to explain why feeding a baby is not a sex act or in some way offensive. I get it. I totally do. </div>
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But what I have noticed is a sort of war of comparisons. Breastfeeding moms and pictures of celebrities in low cut or see through dresses. Nudity. Cleavage. All of these things. Irate (and justifiably so) mothers share pictures they find on the internet of breasts- all kinds of exposed breasts- and bemoan the fact that breastfeeding is so looked down upon while <i>these</i> breasts are accepted.</div>
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And your right. It sucks. It sucks that sexualized breasts or breasts pleasing to the male gaze are accepted while functional and biological breasts are frowned upon. And it's because of the over arching patriarchy and the way women are valued and the way motherhood is valued and our relationship to our own bodies. It's multifaceted and multilayered and complicated. And it sucks. </div>
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But here is my advice to you- be really fucking careful. Be careful because when we start to judge who gets to use their bodies in what ways, we are doing the exact same thing as those who dictate when and how breastfeeding is acceptable. You sitting around and deciding which bathing suits or red carpet dresses are acceptable is no different than someone sitting around and deciding whether or not breastfeeding moms should be covered. </div>
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When we start to dictate who should use their bodies and how and under what circumstances, we are playing the same game. You know what the real solution is? Let's lift each other up. Let's decide once and for all that each person's body is their own. Their own to use however they see fit.</div>
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Instead of saying, "Oh my god, why is the dress okay and my nursing photo isn't?", let's say "Oh my god, she looks amazing! Her body is beautiful and I honor her. Let's all honor each other with the same appreciation and reverence."</div>
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This isn't about us versus them. The minute we believe that is minute we believe some other person is allowed to dictate our own selves. We when try to steal the power from another woman, we are giving up our own. </div>
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So let's all be really fucking careful that we aren't creating our own powerlessness. That we aren't disempowering our fellow human beings. And that we are confident enough in ourselves to hold not only our own, but the space next to us as well. </div>
Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-43913257926156993702015-06-14T19:58:00.000-07:002015-12-20T12:57:06.544-08:00Perrin's TWO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I can't believe we survived another year. I have to say, I feel like we turned a HUGE corner at the 18 month mark. Things have gotten so much less stressful. I think a big part of it was Perrin's increased communication abilities. He has become quite chatty and it's a nice break from constantly playing the "Oh god, why are you crying!?" game. He also hates the car <i>slightly </i>less, which makes life a bit easier. He is starting to get really fun. We can actually do things together, as opposed to Perrin just tagging along. So, an overview of two-year old Perrin:<br />
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-Yes, he still sleeps in our bed. And it's awesome and we wouldn't change it. He has had his own bed for a year now but has zero interest in it and that's fine with us because we get ALL THE SNUGGLES.<br />
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- He loves to play outside. All the time. Rain or shine. Freezing or a hundred degrees.<br />
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-He loves to read books. All day long, he is asking to be read to. Right now he is really into "I Love You Little One", "Good Night Moon", "Huggly Gets Dressed" and "Nursies Are for Night Time".<br />
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-He is about 31 lbs. and 36 1/2 in. tall.<br />
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- His favorite things to do are boss the animals around and ride his bike.<br />
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- He has seen Godsmack, The Pretty Reckless, Seether, Five Finger Death Punch, and Three Days Grace Live. He has tickets to see and MEET Slipknot in August.<br />
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- He has gone from 4 teeth to 16 teeth in the past year. We also discovered those teeth suck and 4 of them need extensive work done. Boo.<br />
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- His favorite foods are peas, Pirate Booty, watermelon, beets, scrambled eggs, and toast with butter.<br />
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- His current sizes are 2-3T for clothes and 8 for shoes.<br />
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- He started showing interest in the potty again at about 20 months and we were completely done with diapers by 22 months. It was a ridiculously smooth process.<br />
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- He has (knock on wood) only been sick once- an upper respiratory infection turned ear infection.<br />
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- He loves all things animals- books, pictures, toys. If it has anything to do with an animal, he enjoys it.<br />
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- He loves watching sports, but especially American football, basketball, and hockey.<br />
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-He's been doing swim lessons for about 3 months now and is doing great with them. He loves being in the water. <br />
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- This is the one I'm most proud of- He's still nursing! We made it to my two year goal. I said from the get go that I would love to let him self wean, but that I really wanted at least make it to two years. The immune support during that time was really important to me, as well as all the other benefits. And he is still going strong! We are starting to toy with night weaning and may make a few other gentle adjustments over the next year, but I am so glad we were able to keep going for as long as we have. We had so much trouble in the beginning and it is so wonderful to see the payout for all the hard work all three of us put into it. We are by no means "done", but I cannot express how awesome it feels to have met our goal.<br />
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So that is basically Perrin, as of his second birthday. It hasn't been easy these past two years, but it's pretty cool to see him really coming into himself. <br />
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<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-4849914212260753462015-05-10T21:17:00.001-07:002015-05-10T21:23:24.122-07:00Happy Mother's Day In addition to the warm sentiments directed to their own mothers, many people take time on Mother's Day to express the joy they receive from their own experience as a mother. I know plenty of these women. They are so excited to spend Mother's Day with the children that made them a mother. Even on a regular ole day of the year, they will gush over how amazing their role of Motherhood has been. Hard, yes, but so fulfilling! So wonderful! They can't remember what their life was like before their children were in it. And they can't imagine their life without them. They are so thankful for their children for placing them into the role of Motherhood.<br />
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I am not one of those women. I know them, and I love many of them. I think they are wonderful people. And for a while, I was jealous of their enjoyment of Motherhood. I assumed that the post-partum depression was the obstacle in my way from that ethereal maternal experience. After all, when most women were endlessly kissing their tiny baby's faces, I was contemplating adoption. But almost two years later, the PPD is behind me and has been for almost a year now. Now I know that truly, it's just not who I am. </div>
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I remember what it was like before Perrin. I remember it vividly and fondly. I remember the pure selfishness with which I lived my life and absolute freedom I had. And I can easily picture what our lives would be like if he wasn't here. I can name the trips we would have taken and the things we would have done. Sometimes I find these thoughts entertaining, just because of the stark differences in those images and our reality. And sometimes, on the hard days, I find them incredibly painful as I find myself again questioning whether or not we made the right choices in our lives. </div>
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I do not like Motherhood. I do not find fulfillment in the ideal. When I don the label it feels stuffy and ill-fitted. I do not experience the romanticism that I know to exist for others. But I do like Perrin. I love Perrin. I love him fiercely. And whether I like it or not, I am his mother. And Joey and I owe it to him to raise him up in the love and kindness that every human deserves. Perrin is such a wonderful person. So I don't mind being <i>his mother</i>. But I don't like being <i>a Mother</i>. This distinction is subtle. But to me, it is a glaring disconnect.<br />
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So this Mother's Day, I want to clink glasses with all the women who don't feel the warm fuzzies. The ones who find themselves embarrassed or confused by the emotions they feel on a day honoring Motherhood in the abstract. Especially when for so many women, the reality of their own motherhood is anything but honored. Because I truly believe you don't have to love Motherhood to love your child. And you don't have to be fulfilled in Motherhood to be a damn good mother. There is no one right way to mother a child. So for anyone else who finds today especially painful or disconcerting, just know you are not alone. These feelings can be complex, but there is no shame or guilt in them. And the more we can be open about them and speak our own truths, the more the idea of Motherhood will reflect what motherhood actually is. </div>
Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331836481314490755.post-37446302239139297002015-05-02T21:24:00.000-07:002015-05-03T11:24:30.119-07:00Goodbye my diapers, goodbye my friends....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0mXIt6httiLXIt3KgEtpaAL8vWMkUYNc5foH2f8HxZuBkIk3vuN7Cu5wPjTBV32gI0kvmBA0_bWdJHZf9AvogQ_r-on9ZP5Qvb1hf_uSGh7QTpIQ6pVp4MD1_gajdz26RvnsiFECXeCOm/s1600/1172564_10100694318981380_175077386_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0mXIt6httiLXIt3KgEtpaAL8vWMkUYNc5foH2f8HxZuBkIk3vuN7Cu5wPjTBV32gI0kvmBA0_bWdJHZf9AvogQ_r-on9ZP5Qvb1hf_uSGh7QTpIQ6pVp4MD1_gajdz26RvnsiFECXeCOm/s1600/1172564_10100694318981380_175077386_o.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Of all the things baby related that Joey and I discussed and decided on, cloth diapering was pretty far down on the priority list. We both like the idea of saving a boat load of money and reducing our environmental footprint, but we didn't have a strong attachment to the concept. We knew if push came to shove and cloth diapering didn't work out for us, we could be ok with that. But it did. It worked out so well.<br />
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Joey has been in charge of the diaper department since day one, and he will be the first to tell you that cloth diapering has been simple and required pretty minimal effort. We were also lucky that most of our start up supplies was gifted to us for our baby shower. We bought a couple wetbags, our cloth wipes, and towards the end of our diapering journey I *splurged* and got a few cute print diapers used for $5-$10 a piece. But other than those late additions, we used the same basic stash for our entire diapering journey.<br />
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We had 3 newborn diapers, 2 of which I bought specifically for newborn pictures so they wouldn't look so baggy. Everything else was one-size, so we used them from birth up till potty independence. We had two packs of cloth wipes, 12 Fuzzibunz pocket diapers, 6 Bum Genius pocket diapers, 4 planet wise wet bags for the diaper bag, 1 large wet bag as a hamper/diaper pail, a sprayer, and 4 hemp inserts on top of the microfiber ones that came with our diapers. It was a pretty minimal stash. Even counting all the extra diapers I picked up, we have only had 31 diapers total over our whole journey.<br />
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But they served their purpose. We have bought exactly 2 packs of disposable diapers- one newborn pack to get us through the meconium stage, and one pack when Perrin was teething and got a gnarly diaper rash that needed max strength bum cream. We used about half of each pack and gave the rest away. We took our cloth on our vacations, no problem (although TBH having extra space for my own clothes wouldn't have been the worst thing ever, but we did only bring carry on). All included, we have spent well under $500 on diapering Perrin. Not bad for 22 months.<br />
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But now it is time to move on. We have been doing <a href="http://joeyandrox.blogspot.com/2014/02/if-school-house-rock-did-parenting.html" target="_blank">part time EC with Perrin</a> since he was around 8 months. He was very close to potty independence around 17 months, only using diapers for sleep, but we traveled over the holidays and relied more heavily on diapers and he lost interest in the toilet. However at 20 months I noticed he was dry most of the time when I changed him, so we switched to trainers and started back with the potty. By 21 months the trainers were unnecessary and we were in underwear and using diapers for night time only. Now, at 22 months, he wakes up dry in the morning. We use the trainers still at night *just in case*, but our diapering days are behind us.<br />
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And it's funny, because we are sad and sentimental. I'm sure all parents are when their kids reach any milestone, but we also have found that we are just attached to our diapers in general. As we were washing and packing away all our stash, Joey and I each had favorites we wanted to keep. Joey could tell you which he liked best for nights versus days, etc. It felt weird to think we wouldn't be washing them and stuffing them and putting them in the little tote we store them in. Some of our stash (the extra sentimental part) is packed away in a box with our favorite baby clothes and other things. The rest will be loaned out and eventually sold. So our cloth diaper journey is at an end. But I must say, it has been a great run. I would highly recommend it to any family.<br />
<br />Rox and Joey Buckmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18412065339485715781noreply@blogger.com0