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Yearly survey
Jan. 1st, 2011 01:19 pmOk. Here's my yearly survey, which I know I've done every year for years, but damn if I can find past years.
( This is all about babies )
( This is all about babies )
My Yearly Resolution Post!
Jan. 1st, 2010 06:17 pmHappy two-zero-one-zero, everyone!
I am drinking tea, feeling my baby do the moonwalk all over the inside of my belly, and rounding up my yearly resolutions! As usual, it's all a doozy. I've cut reflections on last years resolutions so that your eyes don't hurt.
( My resolutions for 2009 went like this: )
As '09 has wrapped to a close, the overwhelming thoughts I have when anticipating the upcoming decade are ones of question. This is honestly the first year I can remember for quite some time when I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. The next time we ring in a new decade, Buster and I will have a NINE YEAR OLD. I don't know what that's like!! I've spent the last half of my life being this sort of self indulgent, questioning, seeking, stylized, reflective, and ultimately self-motivated person... and now I'm going to spend the next half of my life being a wife and a parent. The wife part I've been practicing at for a while now, but I never really sat around and daydreamed what it would be like to be a PARENT. I mean, I wasn't sure I was going to be a parent, like, ever. I guess all of the things I've been doing for the past 15 years have been preparing me for this new role, which is awesome and exciting. I love that I'm leaping into the unexpected, but am of course a little in awe. Most of my resolutions will come from that awe place.
1) Be healthy. Not get gestational diabetes. I get tested for this at 28 weeks, which comes in February. I have been eating so much sugar for the holidays that I am ashamed of myself. I need to cut it out, immediately. I don't want problems... it's been found that babies develop preferences for foods while they are growing inside of you. I would hate to think that my kid starts on bad eating habits now! Also, I need to keep a handle on my vascular and knee situation during this pregnancy. This means getting back into my yoga practice, keeping at my compression stockings, and doing knee strengthening exercises every night. I do not want my third trimester to kick my ass. I want to be a hot, healthy, mamma.
2) Deliver this baby without giving in to feelings of fear and pain. According to the method of Hypnobirthing, labor problems are far compounded when a family goes into child birth experience feeling fear. Prior to the sexist Christian takeover of philosophy, there are no recordings of the labor process that include details of pain. Starting around 200AD, births began to be considered shameful, midwives were run out of towns, and women were expected to go through pain and labor as punishment for being unclean seducers . In the 1600s, Martin Luther said, "If women become tired, or even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth. That is what they are there for."
I'm obviously not down with this "Eve's Curse" philosophy. I'm grateful to live in a city that is so supportive to midwifery, and pray that this baby will come within two weeks of my due date, so I can really CHOOSE to have the birth that I want (why does no one want to address the fact that American women can often not CHOOSE their birthing experience?). I am hoping to hire a doula who specializes in hypnobirthing to help us through the labor process (we have an appointment this Friday with one I really like). I think that my first resolution of being healthy and renewing my yoga practice will help me with all the deep breathing meditation techniques. My midwives are really excited to attend a hypnobirthing birth, too, because they haven't attended too many. I hope I can look back on my birth experience and see it as being the magical and transformative experience I think it's supposed to be.
3) Start to become a patent, kind, and aware parent. This is probably the biggest resolution of all. This is the biggest commitment I have ever made to anyone. I realize that I got married and said the whole death do us part business, but Buster and I are self-sufficent adults who can maturely walk away from each other for private time when we are feeling impatient or annoyed. Hell, we can walk away from each other for space when we are just in bad moods (don't think we haven't). Parenting isn't quite like that. Little people have developing brains, and it's a parent's job to help guide that little brain into adulthood. Developing brains stop going crazy around 21 years of age. I've never been committed to anyone but myself for 21 whole freaking years. Sometimes, in the past 21 years, I've barely been committed to that!
In a year, I will have to start figuring out how to feed a baby human solid foods. I will be teaching a human how to walk. I will be changing a million diapers. And the project will be only beginning! Woah.
4) Be an amazing wife to my amazing husband. I don't want to ever take my relationship for granted! I am so grateful for what we have, and never want to lose sight of this wonder. My marriage is amazing, and is by far the most supportive relationship institution of my entire life. We have this ability to communicate with each other that is unparalleled in my life, and it is EVERYTHING to me. Everything. This family is my whole, entire world.
5) Continue to explore my autonomous Kellianne life. I don't want to become a mommy martyr. Of course I realize that the first several months of a baby's life are about baby baby baby... but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that I love my job, love my friends, and am super attracted to my amazing husband. I don't want to stop dressing up and (sometimes!) even going out. I have worked 34 years on becoming Kellianne, and I'm not going to lose my sense of identity over something as natural and wonderful as a baby boy.
I think that's all for now. That's enough. Onward, new decade of parenting! Let's do this! Bam!!!
I am drinking tea, feeling my baby do the moonwalk all over the inside of my belly, and rounding up my yearly resolutions! As usual, it's all a doozy. I've cut reflections on last years resolutions so that your eyes don't hurt.
( My resolutions for 2009 went like this: )
As '09 has wrapped to a close, the overwhelming thoughts I have when anticipating the upcoming decade are ones of question. This is honestly the first year I can remember for quite some time when I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. The next time we ring in a new decade, Buster and I will have a NINE YEAR OLD. I don't know what that's like!! I've spent the last half of my life being this sort of self indulgent, questioning, seeking, stylized, reflective, and ultimately self-motivated person... and now I'm going to spend the next half of my life being a wife and a parent. The wife part I've been practicing at for a while now, but I never really sat around and daydreamed what it would be like to be a PARENT. I mean, I wasn't sure I was going to be a parent, like, ever. I guess all of the things I've been doing for the past 15 years have been preparing me for this new role, which is awesome and exciting. I love that I'm leaping into the unexpected, but am of course a little in awe. Most of my resolutions will come from that awe place.
1) Be healthy. Not get gestational diabetes. I get tested for this at 28 weeks, which comes in February. I have been eating so much sugar for the holidays that I am ashamed of myself. I need to cut it out, immediately. I don't want problems... it's been found that babies develop preferences for foods while they are growing inside of you. I would hate to think that my kid starts on bad eating habits now! Also, I need to keep a handle on my vascular and knee situation during this pregnancy. This means getting back into my yoga practice, keeping at my compression stockings, and doing knee strengthening exercises every night. I do not want my third trimester to kick my ass. I want to be a hot, healthy, mamma.
2) Deliver this baby without giving in to feelings of fear and pain. According to the method of Hypnobirthing, labor problems are far compounded when a family goes into child birth experience feeling fear. Prior to the sexist Christian takeover of philosophy, there are no recordings of the labor process that include details of pain. Starting around 200AD, births began to be considered shameful, midwives were run out of towns, and women were expected to go through pain and labor as punishment for being unclean seducers . In the 1600s, Martin Luther said, "If women become tired, or even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth. That is what they are there for."
I'm obviously not down with this "Eve's Curse" philosophy. I'm grateful to live in a city that is so supportive to midwifery, and pray that this baby will come within two weeks of my due date, so I can really CHOOSE to have the birth that I want (why does no one want to address the fact that American women can often not CHOOSE their birthing experience?). I am hoping to hire a doula who specializes in hypnobirthing to help us through the labor process (we have an appointment this Friday with one I really like). I think that my first resolution of being healthy and renewing my yoga practice will help me with all the deep breathing meditation techniques. My midwives are really excited to attend a hypnobirthing birth, too, because they haven't attended too many. I hope I can look back on my birth experience and see it as being the magical and transformative experience I think it's supposed to be.
3) Start to become a patent, kind, and aware parent. This is probably the biggest resolution of all. This is the biggest commitment I have ever made to anyone. I realize that I got married and said the whole death do us part business, but Buster and I are self-sufficent adults who can maturely walk away from each other for private time when we are feeling impatient or annoyed. Hell, we can walk away from each other for space when we are just in bad moods (don't think we haven't). Parenting isn't quite like that. Little people have developing brains, and it's a parent's job to help guide that little brain into adulthood. Developing brains stop going crazy around 21 years of age. I've never been committed to anyone but myself for 21 whole freaking years. Sometimes, in the past 21 years, I've barely been committed to that!
In a year, I will have to start figuring out how to feed a baby human solid foods. I will be teaching a human how to walk. I will be changing a million diapers. And the project will be only beginning! Woah.
4) Be an amazing wife to my amazing husband. I don't want to ever take my relationship for granted! I am so grateful for what we have, and never want to lose sight of this wonder. My marriage is amazing, and is by far the most supportive relationship institution of my entire life. We have this ability to communicate with each other that is unparalleled in my life, and it is EVERYTHING to me. Everything. This family is my whole, entire world.
5) Continue to explore my autonomous Kellianne life. I don't want to become a mommy martyr. Of course I realize that the first several months of a baby's life are about baby baby baby... but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that I love my job, love my friends, and am super attracted to my amazing husband. I don't want to stop dressing up and (sometimes!) even going out. I have worked 34 years on becoming Kellianne, and I'm not going to lose my sense of identity over something as natural and wonderful as a baby boy.
I think that's all for now. That's enough. Onward, new decade of parenting! Let's do this! Bam!!!
