Rebuild from Depression Blog

It is hard to find time to post here because I spend many hours a day rocking a baby. For me, holding a newborn and being sane at the time is a huge win, but I know that not everyone who stumbles upon this blog is interested in baby stories. At the same time, a person or two has asked for more information. Continue reading for a photo gallery. :)

Technorati Tags: postpartum depression, pregnancy

Not a lot happens here on the the southern edge of the Sequoias National Monument. The local beef cattle population far exceeds the human and the local dairy heifer population is by far more notorious than any human inhabitant. The knotty-pine paneled bar down the road finds itself home to darts, pool, and a good, old-fashioned ass whoopin' on occasion. If the United States still has a frontier, this might be it. If you are looking for a place to grow your own or a culture of rugged individualism, this may be the place for you.

If there is any order or structure at all here on the edge of civilization, it exists at about 11:20 AM every weekday when an assortment of characters gather at the post office waiting for the day's mail. The post office is where we call if we need to know when the electricity will be back on, when the road will be plowed, or who fathered whose child. I guess it should be no surprise that the post office was also the center of the Obama inauguration here this week.

Mail carrier Angela, who drives through a dozen other Podunk towns and services a whole lot of rural mailbox routes, made Obama cupcakes on Tuesday for the big day. Here in the Sequoia National Monument we don't need to compete with Obama gingerbread cookies or the Haphazard Gourmet Girls' "Sarah 'You Can't Blink' Palin Cupcakes." We just like to eat.

Behold the Obama "You can only help us if you can find us" Cupcake wrapped in institutional cupcake paper. The Obama flag uses left-over file folder labels and a toothpick flag pole stolen from a local cowboy restaurant. Asked her budget for the project, someone overheard Angela say, "About what's left in Sacramento."

From the heart of a state whose coffers will have less than mine in about a week (and that's saying something), we're already adapting here in the Sequoia National Monument.

Technorati Tags: dairy, Haphazard Gourmet Girls, Obama, Obamafoodorama, politics, Sarah Palin

In the comments section of my recent post, Barb brought up the issue of infant trauma in the neonatal intensive care unit. My son was in the NICU for four days; my first son was in the NICU for 18 hours. Barb has worried about the impact of the experience on her own children and I was somewhat cavalier about its impact on mine. My attitude is rooted in my current approach to life, "if you can't change it, don't worry about it." Yet I do know that it matters.

There is a wee bit of research on the subject, or perhaps the beginnings of research. But I am fairly confident that babies don't just forget the early moments hooked up on vents and tubes. Frederick basically told me so on his second birthday.

I took the occasion of Frederick's second birthday to describe to him the events of the day he was born. I kept the description nice and sweet: "we drove to the hospital, they took me into surgery, the doctors took you out of my tummy, and Dadda stayed with you in the baby hospital while they made sure you were healthy." Of course, I added such things as "You were the most beautiful baby I had ever seen."

A startling thing happened in the story. When I got to the part of Frederick's stay in the NICU, Frederick began to cry inconsolably. I started to cry too and it still makes me cry today. (That is, of course, why I don't think about the topic all that much.) Frederick's length of stay and interventions were minimal compared to Alastair's but I don't know what we as parents can do beyond which we are already doing-- loving our babies as much as possible. Keeping them close by breast-feeding them and wearing them next to our chest when they are sleeping are key strategies. (My favorite tool this month is a sling from Kangaroo Korner.)

Yep, there are a whole lot of reasons to avoid the NICU. I guess it's appropriate that I have written this post by dictating (thank you MacSpeech Dictate) while holding Alastair on my lap.

Technorati Tags: depression, NICU