Trash and Treasure

 I was hoping that my next post would be about morel hunting. A morel is a wild mushroom that fruits for a couple of weeks in early spring. I have never found any, but Mark, Jacob’s brother, found a surprise patch of them last year. He shared his bounty, and we fried them up in butter and ate with gusto.

I wanted to wait to write until we found them, but we’ve been out nearly every day, and all we have found so far is trash, which we take out with us. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had so much fun traipsing through the woods with Jacob and Cloe, babies on our backs. We’ve seen some beautiful examples of spring wildflowers, and gorgeous moss. Before every hike I’m always sure that this is the one, but then it becomes evident by the dry ground, that we may not  come away with a feast. So we have reassigned ourselves to trash hunting, and plant identification. It’s going very well.
So I figured I needed something to write about. What stories have I not shared? And I realized that I’ve never had time to sit and write my birth story for the twins. Now, it seems that it should be a pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding story. So while the mushrooms continue to hide, I’ll see how much I can remember of the past year.
We had been trying for a year to get pregnant, and I was starting to get a bit discouraged. I really wanted another baby, and wanted Cloe to have a brother or sister. I also wanted to have my chance at a home birth. I had Cloe with Nurse Midwives at Vanderbilt Hospital, and although I had her without an epidural, there were interventions that I did not necessarily want. Susie Meeks had been my educator and doula, and is also a CPM (Certified Practicing Midwife). She also is a close family friend, and I was so wanting to do a home birth with her attending.
Well New Years Eve of 2009 I got a hunch, and took a test. Behold the two lines! We had done it! I called Susie and soon we were planning to have the baby right here in our little house. Right away I got morning sickness. It hit me hard. We thought maybe I was having a boy and that was why. I think I even asked Susie if I could be having twins. It was too early to tell, so she just reassured me. When I closed my eyes, I saw 2 babies. That winter was really difficult for me. I started to feel isolated and very depressed. Luckily, as the spring brought my second trimester, I began to feel much better.  I forgot my fears, and continued on as normal.

We had decided to have an ultrasound at 20 weeks to determine the sex. I was really curious to get a peek at our little one, and was never good at waiting for that kind of info. When we went into the office, I had no idea. They called us back and into the darkened room. I laid on the table and she put the goop on my belly, and then the paddle. Immediatly, she stopped.
”How much do you know about this pregnancy?”
Of course this freaked us out and we were afraid there was something wrong.
“Don’t worry, it’s normal.” She moved the paddle around some more.” What do you think the sex is?”
We told her we thought it was a boy.

“Well you’re right!"
We grinned at each other, and Jacob squeezed my hand. Then she said “And.....”
I sat straight up.
“AND?”
She smiled at me....

“and a girl.”

Four weeks later I was on bedrest, after having some pretty insistent contractions. Susie had reccomended we birth in a hospital, so she was now acting as doula once again. I was sad to not get the home birth I had envisioned, but was very happy about the twins, and felt much more comfortable with a hospital at this point. I trust Susie so much, and with her help, I knew it was all going to be okay. We decided on Maury Regional, a much smaller, more personal hospital than Vanderbilt, that also has a good  NICU. Susie and my OB both assured me that a natural vaginal birth was completely possible, as long as at least the first baby was head down.
Bed rest was hard. I never thought that I would crave housework! Jacob did such a good job taking care of everything. We were able to get our friend Corri to come and help during the days, and take care of laundry and dishes and all of that. Cloe helped me pass the time by snuggling up with books and videos. Still it was so hard for me to just sit there and cook the babies, but that’s what I did.
Finally at 36 weeks, they gave me the go ahead. I figured I would go into labor right away, since we had wound up in the hospital again 2 weeks prior with more contractions. I had been taking Brethine to keep them at bay, I hated that. It made me feel like I just had 50 cups of coffee. I divided them up and tried half instead. When that seemed to keep them off, I tried a third of a pill. Thankfully, the smaller doses helped.

So, back to 36 weeks. I’m ready to get these things out! Ruby was head down, and Wyatt was transverse, up in my ribs. 36 weeks turned into 37. Dr Phillips, thankfully, wasn’t on the induction train, and just told me I was doing great, and the longer they stayed in, the better. 37 weeks turned into 38 weeks, and at my request, Susie got out her bag of tricks, and we went to work. I wont’ go into the grisly details, but it was, in my mind, better than a pitocin drip. I had pretty regular contractions on several occasions, but it seemed they would go for a while and then just peter out. At  my 38 week appointment I thought the Doc would want to set a date for induction, as she had mentioned that she wouldn’t let me go past that mark, but she just examined me and told me “any day now...”

I had driven myself to the doctor that day. It was just easier than dragging poor Jacob along. Besides, it was just a quick visit anyway, right?
Well, as I was getting dressed after my exam, I came across a dilemma that most pregnant women will face at some point: How to tie my shoes? In a moment of determination, I lunged myself down and forward to reach those elusive shoestrings. Made it. Okay, one more now, and lunge, and....pop. Water everywhere.
Our house is a good 30 minutes from everywhere, including the doctor, so although I called Jacob immediately at home, I needed quicker transport over to the hospital. Luckily, my good friend Natasha was home just a few blocks away, and showed up with lightning speed to escort me. Susie was meeting us there.
I waddled up to the desk, towel wrapped around my waist, soaking wet. The nurses were very kind, and took me to a private room. The labor itself is kind of a blur now. I remember they let me just have a hep-lock, and didn’t make me hook up to an IV, which I appreciated. And the nurse was also a lactation consultant, and was really happy that I wanted a natural labor. I don’t think I heard the work epidural come out of her mouth even once. They were very supportive. Well somewhere in there Jacob arrived with Cloe, his mom came and got her, Natasha left, and my parents arrived, although my dad waited out in the lobby. The contractions ebbed and flowed, a sensation I hadn’t really felt with my pitocin augmented birth at Vandy. All the nurses said it wouldn’t be long though, I was progressing quickly.
Susie was there with me through every contraction, reminding me to relax, to let them build and work and stay. I reminded myself with every one that my body was being done no harm, that I was made to do this.
Transition hit me like a freight train, and I escaped to a watery, floaty place, where contractions came in wave after wave after wave. Before I knew it I was being wheeled to the OR where I had to delvier just in case they needed to get Wyatt out via c-section. This was the part where Susie had me doing the rhythmic breathing, in my mouth and out in short bursts.
When we got into the OR it felt like the pain was going to suck me up into the ceiling. I could have sworn that the hands of the nurses and my loved ones were holding me down from flyng up there.

Within 20 minutes I had pushed out Ruby. Wyatt turned like a pro, and after some hard work getting him engaged, he came out 10 minutes after that.

Two beautiful, healthy babies. On August 31, 2009, I gave birth to Ruby Jain 6 lbs 12 oz, and Wyatt Jacob 5 lbs 6 oz. I had labored for under 6 hours.

The euphoria soon followed...that feeling that I could do anything in the world! With the help of the lactation team and Susie and Jacob, both babies were breastfeeding when we left the hospital. I won’t lie, it was intense when we got home. Jacob had to get up with me for every feeding. I was feeding them both at once, and needed him to help me get them latched,  at which he soon became an expert, and to be my “baby spotter”, which meant that I could hand off a baby that needed a burp, or was falling asleep and needed to be gently woken up with a diaper change. For the first few weeks, neither one of us got more than an hour and a half of  sleep at a time. Talk about exhaustion. Had it not been for the endorphin train I was riding, I might not have made it. Haha.

     I continued to nurse them exclusively for  3 months, and things did start to get better. In this time we moved temporarily into a house near my parents, one that they had lived in, and were now renting out. They were gracious enough to let us stay there for free. The kids adjusted well. It was really nice to be near family and friends.
At the 12 week mark, fussy time in the early evening became a real problem. They just never seemed to get full, no matter how much I let them cluster feed. I would nurse them every hour from 6pm until sometimes 1am. Finally, after weeks of frustration, we started adding a pumped bottle with a little formula mixed in around 7pm,  so we could get some peace in those evening hours. It really helped.

I never thought that I would miss my house in the boonies. I think I had hoped that town would solve all of our problems, and I would feel more connected with people. But after a few months, I was ready to go home to my 2 bedroom, where I could keep track of everyone. I just wasn't made to have a big house. So we did, shortly after the New Year.
We set ourselves to resettling the place. We hauled out all the crap that had piled up in the corners and closets. We even got rid of our couch, because we needed the space in the living room, and  it was rarely used for anything but a laundry hamper.
Right around the time they were reaching the 6 month mark, they started getting very difficult while nursing, and were less and less satisfied by what they were getting there. We tried some solid food, but all that did was keep them up all night with gas. Finally, I pulled out the formula, and started giving supplementary bottles. It worked. I hated that it worked, but boy, did it ever. So, after some thought, we made the decision to start the transition. I had found a very reasonably priced USDA certified organic formula at Kroger, and it did well with their systems. We started getting more and more nights of full sleep. I would still pump a couple of times a day and mix it in with the formula, and the babies would still nurse for comfort throughout the day, and if they woke in the middle of the night. It didn’t take long before I was getting less milk when I pumped. Eventually I got almost none, and this sent me into a guilt ridden tailspin. I resolved to start pumping more often, even looked into renting a hospital grade pump. But after a week, I could hardly find the time to pump enough to make anything significant. When I had called her at the beginning of the guilt spin, Susie had told me to give it a shot, but not to beat myself up if it didn’t work. So I followed her advise, and let it go.

Looking back, I am very proud of myself for breastfeeding two babies for 6 months. That’s a lot of nursing! Now they have stopped altogether, and I have gradually stopped my pumping. It’s strange to have my body back to myself again. I almost forget sometimes, that I can have that second cup of coffee, or a few beers without passing it along.
So here we are. Cloe will be 4 in just over a month, and is such a good big sister. She can make Ruby laugh just by looking at her. Both of them pay such close attention to her. They are in awe. And why shouldn’t  they be?

We looked again today for mushrooms, and we did find one lonely morel, along with our usual take of garbage and wildflower pics. Whether there will be more of them to follow we aren’t sure. Even if we don’t find a huge cluster this year, it’s okay. It’s been a pretty big year, and there will be plenty of times in the future to hunt them, and have another feast. So for now I’ll content myself with hunting trash, and nature photography. If the morels find us, great. If not, no biggie, I’m just glad we have each other.

Dry Run

Well, after months of renovations by Jacob, including removing siding, rebuilding the frame, insulating, replacing siding, rebuilding the bed/couch, turning the dinette into custom baby beds, replacing hardware and much more, our little home away from home is nearly complete. Soon I will make us some curtains, something I realized we were in need of on Sunday morning at the campground, when I didn’t feel so comfortable drinking coffee in my underwear.
The plan was to take the HI-lo on a short weekend trip, so we could get a taste of what the road would feel like, and have time to fix any kinks that we might find in our plan. The first kink turned out to be planning camping stops. The place we found online in Monteagle looked perfect on the website. Shaded parking spots, a stocked pond, serene countryside. My brother Daniel and his rockin’ wife Jenny were going to meet us there. They live in Knoxville, and we had been wanting to get together. We figured Monteagle was an equal drive for both, so that became the plan.
It takes a lot of time to get out the door with all 5 of us Crawfords to visit Grannie and Paw-Paw for the afternoon, let alone going away overnight. Even though I had done the majority of packing up the previous evening, it still took us longer than we planned to get in the truck and be on our way.
Daniel and Jenny arrived at the RV Park before us, and I received a hushed, nervous call from them when we were almost 2 hours away.
“Are you guys almost here?” I could barely hear him.
“We have, like an hour and 45 minutes, are you there already?”
He paused.
“Yeah, uh, it sort of looks like it’s just some dude’s backyard.”
And that‘s what it turned out to be, pretty much, and that might have been acceptable. But apparently this guy was not honest about the condition of the place. The cabin he had reserved for them didn’t even have mattresses, and there were broken down RV’s everywhere, but not a paying camper in sight. Daniel said the final straw was the foam mannequin’s head by the guy’s back door with a red joker grin painted on it’s face. He was just too creeped out by the whole thing. They left, saying they would be back, even going so far as to pay the man for the night, even though they had no intention of returning.
Now, I felt bad, because I was the one who had sent them there. So lesson #1 of this experience proved to be : Use the campground guidebook that I paid 30 bucks for on Amazon, and not some site on the internet that could turn out to be the last anyone hears of us.....

So we adjourned to a KOA in Manchester. Not as far as we had planned to go, but far enough to get the basic idea. We pulled in and it was very clear that not only did we have the most people in our camper (not counting Daniel and Jenny, who rented a mini cabin), but we had the smallest one there, at around 90 square feet. Some of these rigs were enormous! Bigger than my house!

  I like our cozy little trailer though, with it’s chili pepper lights around the awning, and the charcoal grill on the picnic table. It’s adorable to me.

We had arrived mid day, and agreed that the only thing we really wanted to do was spend time together, so we hung out. Cloe played on the playground, which to her delight, turned out to have a playhouse with a play kitchen. The whole time we were there she was trying to get someone to take her to the kitchen. She soon found that Uncle Dan was an easy target for her requests.

It was wonderful to see how happy she was to go with him and Jenny, and how much they have connected with her, even though they live in Knoxville.

For dinner, we pulled out some local pork ribs that we had cooked in the crockpot the day before, and Jacob fired up the grill. They were so tender, you could literally pull the bones out of them. After the kids went to bed, Jenny soon faded, and then there were 3. I’m not sure how late we stayed up, out under the awning.  Daniel had brought a good selection of beer. He loves to homebrew, but didn’t have a batch ready. What he did bring was a treat that I had not yet tried, by Dogfish Head, called Worldwide Stout. It’s 18 percent alcohol, so he and I split one and boy, I haven’t felt that warm and fuzzy since before I had the twins. It was a mellow buzz. I’m over the whole getting wasted phase of my life. Nah, we just sat and talked and reminisced. Spun our tales over a fire and a few good sips of the strongest beer I have ever tasted. Later that night, after Daniel had retired to the cabin, and we had gone to bed, a storm rolled in, and we learned the lesson that in windy weather, the awning becomes a sail! Jacob went out in the middle of the night and took it down, and there was no more rocking about, only the sound of the rain on the roof. It stayed dry as a drum in there, and perfectly warm.
 One bonus of camper living, is that it majorly reduces housework. When you only have one set of dishes for each person, one cup, and one pan, dinner cleanup is a breeze. When you only have 2 changes of clothes for adults, and 4 for kids, and are doing your next day’s clothes and diapers as a part of your morning family ritual, as we plan to, the laundry doesn’t pile up as it has here. Baskets upon baskets of the never ending chores are no more! Or at least reduced to a less menacing scale.

Also, at night, having all the kids so close is great. If one needs something, I am literally right there. And getting up to pee? As simple as rolling over and stepping into the tiny bathroom. In the morning, I fed the babies in the bed, while Cloe played and Jacob made our lattes at the counter. We were all within reach of each other. Maybe it will get old, or start to feel cramped after awhile, but so far, so good.

Another thing I learned was that I have to take my camera out for these moments! I slacked, but luckily Jenny came through with some great shots.
Now we are home again, and I sort of miss the camper. This house, only 900 square feet, feels like an echoing mansion. Soon enough we will be on our way, though, so I guess I’ll just sit tight,  and enjoy the space.

Waking up

The past couple of days, I have felt spring approaching faster than I expected. With no garden to plan for the summer, I hardly know what to do on these days when it seems like a crime to be indoors.
St Patricks day this year was my first in 6 that I didn’t spend working down at McCreary’s Irish Pub. Instead, I stayed home, and our good friends and neighbors, Matthew and Allison Neal came over. They own and operate Arugula’s star farm in Bethel, just south of Leipers Fork/Hillsboro, on Leipers Creek Road. My big ambitious idea was to find a grassfed brisket and make my own corned beef! Unfortunately for me, I declared this intention before actually researching the recipe. Much to my chagrin and embarrasment, I found it took 3 weeks to cure in the brine. What saved me were the eggs I had picked up at Puckett's. They come from Summertown. Two quiches and a cobbler later, with the crust expertly made by Jacob, we had a stand in. Allison brought fresh baby arugula and spinach greens from her garden, tossed in some sort of heavenly vinaigrette, with soft boiled eggs from her very own hens. I had at least 3 helpings. Matthew left me with an organic Hefe-wiezen called Pinkus. Jacob doesn't care for alcohol, but I like to have a good beer. I’m drinking it now, and am sad to see that it is almost gone. If you are looking for sustainably grown, organic, top of the line produce, you should go to their website http://www.arugulasstarfarm.com/
For the past 2 days we have gotten out and walked down to the Trace, where the buttercups come up. With the babies on our backs, and Cloe in the jogging stroller, I feel like we could walk anywhere. I love the open space and the freedom it suggests. I am scared, but ready for this trip. Well, ready to be ready---er---getting ready. I must whittle us down to what we need to take with us. I feel a yard sale coming on.....stay tuned :)

Karma Kitchen

This house has ghosts, and they love to cook. I can sense them beside me at the counter, adding a bit of this and that. I can hear them whisper instructions, and feel them guide my hand when I measure out ingredients. They are undoubtedly an asset. Never in my life have I concocted such wonderful, savory meals. Never has a loaf risen so obligingly, a roux browned so perfectly, as in this kitchen.
Incidentally, they also love children. When Cloe was the only child here, she would run and laugh and play with her imaginary friends. Now with the babies, it feels like a protective force here. I feel very safe with them in this house. Yesterday, Ruby and Wyatt started laughing and smiling at the wall. It was either the lamp, or something else I wasn’t seeing. It doesn’t frighten me. No more than the random whiffs of smoked country sausage that fill the air every now and again.
So our journey starts here, in the Karma kitchen, which is why I am naming this blog exactly that. In less than two months we will leave these ghosts, and embark on what some may call a foolhardy adventure. Just us 5 Crawfords (6, including Enzo, Jacob’s black lab mix Alaskan love child), a camper, a 4 Runner, and what few possessions we will need for the journey.
The coming weeks will be filled with list making, dry runs, and last minute revisions. Jacob has been preparing the camper, and the truck, while I try to incorporate day to day chores into my own prep. For instance, I want to use cloth diapers the whole trip, and that requires not only buying a tabletop hand washer, but also learning how to use it well. So what I need to do is order one, and use it here like I would on the road. That way, I will know what I am getting into. I tend to procrastinate, so this preparation stuff is going to be a good exercise in do-it-nowism.
Hopefully, this blog will allow me an opportunity to think aloud. If I can get it down here, the rest of me should soon follow. It’s like mapping it out for myself. Once we get on the road, I will be able to reflect here, and share the memories that we will undoubtedly be making.
When we return this Fall to our little country home, and it’s haunted kitchen, I imagine I will be very happy to arrive. I will be more than thrilled to spend another winter cozied up to the wood stove with my family, waiting for spring. Until then, let restlessness rule!