little feet, big sky

I was recently reading an article on how in pregnancy, and it got me started thinking on chocolate. While I have had a bit of a sweet tooth while pregnant, it’s mostly been for fruits and smoothies. I’ve been overjoyed since discovering that Trader Joe’s stocks canned lychees, something I’ve only previously seen at the Chinese supermarkets like Ranch 99. (Seems like a few others were just as excited! , , 3) I keep them in the fridge and when I want some, I open the can, drain out the sickly-sweet syrup water, fill it back up with filtered water and let it sit for a half hour. Then I drain that water out, toss it in a bowl and chow down.

Oh, but this entry was about chocolate, right?

(Hmm.. chocolate-dipped lychees – that might require some experimenting.)

While the spouse likes dark chocolate, I’m a milk chocolate snob. Sometimes, I’m even a white chocolate advocate, but usually only for things like white chocolate macadamia nut cookies or Cadbury’s white chocolate buttons. (Does anyone remember English-made white chocolate mice?) Most of the time it’s milk chocolate and the good stuff, which though I hate to say it, is rarely American-made.

While I’ve been a fan of Scharffen Burger for a time, and even though I once swore that Telluride Truffle was the only chocolate I would consume until I died, I must admit there’s another chocolate maker that beats these two hands down: BonBonBar.

makes handmade candybars, and I tend to think of them as a replacement for crap like Twix or Hershey bars, rather than floofy chocolates you’d bring out only for company. (Though we do bring them out for company (or give them as gifts) and knock the pants off our guests everytime.) They’re locally made here in Los Angeles, as organic and local as possible and never with artificial ingredients, like high-fructose corn syrup.

My favorites are the Caramel Nut Bar ($5) and the Malt Bar ($5) in milk chocolate, though they have it in dark chocolate if you’re into that. available starting at $15 – a great idea to treat the next pregnant lady you’re looking to gift! There’s even hand-delivery available to certain areas of L.A.

And now that I’m done writing this, I’m going to finish off my last milk chocolate Malt Bar. :-) Time to get more!!

Dear god, I feel just awful.

Not physically. Physically, I’m fine. It’s just this blog I’ve been reading. As the spouse put it, it’s like watching a train-wreck.

I stumbled onto this blog while looking up other pregnancy and parenting blogs. For the pregnancy ones, I had looked up ones that referred to natural childbirth, hoping to find others working towards a natural, drug-free birth and hoping those search terms would also help me find other home-birthers. One of these blogs seemed rather promising, even though she’s a planned hospital birth, and I’ve been following it rather closely, as the writer is almost as far along as me.

Recently, though, it’s been painful. She sounds so determined to have a natural childbirth, but her recent posts sound like naive openings to Misconceptions, Immaculate Deception II or The Business of Being Born [add to NetFlix]. One of them was about choosing which hospital nearby to go with and, perhaps it was just omission on her part, but there was no mention as to c-section rates of either hospital (or the delivering doctor), staff policies on pushing epidurals or episiotomy rates, or anything like that. Her concern, as written, was which one would be more likely to have a birth tub available and maybe the pros and cons of recovery in the same L&D room. *sigh*

Now, I know how this sounds – crazy home-birther beating on other (hospital-birth) peoples choices, but it’s really not that. Reading one of her earlier posts yesterday, I was almost in tears. And I never cry over these things. (And it’s not hormones.) I’m just so sad & scared for her! I mean, she really, really wants a natural childbirth, and yet she believes the party line – that just by “eating right” and “exercise” and listening to her doctor’s advice, she’s doing enough and everything else is just chance. *groan* I know I have every chance of ending up in the hospital as her, but at least by then I could live with knowing we really tried everything possible first. I hear so many birth stories of women who only find out years later that there were more things they could have done first to safely avoid the hospital or a c-section. I want to reach through the computer and shake her and tell her that she needs to ask better questions, be better informed to make more relevant decisions if she really wants this to happen.

I won’t. Most of our friends already think I’m a fruitcake for wanting to do this at home. You’d think California would be more open to it, but there’s like 15 midwives that do home births here in Los Angeles. Yes, most of them know each other. And home-birthers often know each others’ midwives, too, as we all shopped from the same pool nine months ago. So the knowledge of home births, the awareness of it as an option, is virtually non-existent to most people.

Anyhow. I can’t decide whether to keep reading her blog, or to stop. I really hope it all works out for her, but I’m scared that the odds are stacked against her and that is just too painful to watch. *sigh*

A couple of months ago, I wandered into a Pottery Barn Kids and saw these adorable onesies. They were plain white and had a single cute embroidered shape on each – a yellow duck, an orange giraffe, etc. I picked one up to see the price and nearly died of sticker shock: $28 for a single 0-3 months onesie!

After picking myself up off the floor, I put it back with disdain; hell, I could make that! So what if I’ve never embroidered anything real before? Life is for learning, right?

I ordered Sublime Stitching ($14) by Jenny Hart from Amazon, swung by a local Joann’s for a few handfuls of DNC embroidery floss and an embroidery hoop, picked up some cheap onesies from Target, pulled out my old sewing box and got down to business.

Of course my first one was a bit of a botch, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it. T-shirt material is a slight pain to work with – if you stretch it just a little too much on the hoop, your threadwork with sort of crumple inwards when you take it off the hoop. And if it’s not stretched enough, then you have this hill/valley up/down thing going on every time you push or pull the needle through. In the book, Hart mentions using stabilizer to avoid this, but cautions on the use of readily-available iron-on stabilizer. She mentioned that an older technique was to use tissue paper, which I tried, but it kept tearing on me. In a desperate pinch, I grabbed a nearby tissue, folded it in half and used that – voila! it worked like a charm. I think it’s just soft enough to be a little flexible not to tear so easily.

• Buy the book, Sublime Stitching, from Amazon. ($14)
• Or, order patterns, kits and more from sublimestitching.com.
• Order floss and hoops online from Joann.com, or visit your local Joann’s.
• Pick up cheap onesies from Target (5/$10), or organic sweatshop-free onsies from American Apparel ($14).
• Make a cup of tea & get started. :-)

At the next light, I glanced over again and the guy was gesturing to me. I rolled down my window and he yelled “Hey, what does your license plate mean?”

(For those who weren’t here when I showed it, it says “LACTVST”)

“It says “Lactivist” which means breastfeeding advocate,” I said.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied. “I called my wife when I saw it, she’s an advocate too and says to tell you ‘you rock!.’” – Awesome Lactivist Moment, The Lactivist

I had another appointment with our midwife yesterday morning. (We’re setup for appointments every two weeks now.) Everything looked good, so yay! She said that she started to get tired and heavy around this time, too. She guess-timates that the baby is about five pounds about now, give or take a bit, which is pretty good for 34 weeks. I’ve been cleared for visiting my mother up in NorCal next week, and I’ll probably drive up, taking breaks along the way. (I hate to fly these days, the way TSA is.)

I finally got around to ordering the birth tub yesterday. Today, it’s Errand Day, picking up groceries (as I’m finally tired of eating out) and picking up birth supplies from a list the midwife gave. And I absolutely have to call pediatricians today to set up some interview appointments.

And that’s it. I’m sure by the time I’ve done that, gotten home, put away groceries, made dog food and done a load of laundry, I’ll be wiped out. I’ll have just enough energy to make some rice & curry, or pasta-something for dinner and will crash shortly after. *sigh* Nothing to be done about it, I guess – this is what the end of pregnancy looks like: a messy house, lists of things to do and one tired lady who look like she swallowed a watermelon whole, passed out on the couch.

If you live in or near Los Angeles or Long Beach, you have to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific at some point. What does this have to do with kids or pregnancy? Well, it’s a great place to walk around for exercise while pregnant, I can easily imagine packing a young baby into a sling and wandering around here on a weekday morning when I just need to get out of the house, and it’s super kid-friendly for toddlers, strollers and older kids. As if that weren’t enough, it’s also… educational. :-)

The Aquarium of the Pacific’s mission is to instill a sense of wonder, respect, and stewardship for the Pacific Ocean, its inhabitants, and ecosystems. Our vision is to create the first aquarium, and perhaps the first institution, in the world dedicated to conserving and building Natural Capital (Nature and Nature’s services) by building Social Capital (the interactions between and among peoples).

The aquarium is broken down into different exhibits showing marine life by areas like the North Pacific, Tropical Pacific, Souther California and Baja. There’s also the Shark Lagoon and the Lorikeet Forest, as well as the new Shorebird Sanctuary. (California has lost more than 95% of its natural wetlands, more than any other state. Appalling.)

I know it’s cliche, but my favorite exhibit is the Sea Otter exhibit in the North Pacific gallery. There are three otters, all unable to be released back into the wild: Brooke, Charlie & Summer. They are so amazing to watch in the water. Actually, I love the entire North Pacific gallery, especially the North Pacific Preview, where you can see fish and other life so calm under these crashing waves overhead.

The aquarium offers a ton of educational programs for adults and kids, from dolphin/sea life cruises and whale watching, to stroller tours, day camps and sleepovers.

• Open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day of the year, except December 25 and during the weekend of the Grand Prix of Long Beach (April 18-20, 2008). Shark Lagoon exhibit is open and free to the public from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every Friday through June 13, 2008.
• Aquarium admission includes all the galleries, hands-on labs, and presentations as noted on the daily handout. Adult: $20.95; Child (3-11): $11.95; Senior (62+): $17.95
• Order tickets online and save $5 per adult ticket.
• Become a member, starting at $50. There are tons of benefits & it’s tax-deductible.
• Show your AAA card to save 10% off admission. Details & other discounts.
• 100 Aquarium Way
  Long Beach, CA 90802
  (562) 590-3100

I happened to be at one of these new-fangled L.A. tech social events recently, Lunch 2.0, hosted at Yahoo! in Burbank and was totally tickled pink to see this in their vast parking structure, directly across from the elevators.