Striving to be a Domestic Goddess

No, I'm not cooking my way through Nigella Lawson's book, but we just got a Dyson! Wow, what a difference it makes in our house. Our house gets so dirty, so fast... with real, actual dirt. Now I just wish I had the same kind of tool for our laundry. 

The cycle of life is always before our eyes at the farm. This week we said a sad good bye to Moe and Maude, the geese. Unfortunately something of the canine variety found its way through or over the electric fence and met Maude one night and Moe the next.  I've heard of geese being mean, but these two were real sweet. Probably from being raised so lovingly from chicks by our neighbor Greg. At least we got to enjoy a few weeks of their wonderful eggs. 

Today, on the other hand, we welcomed 4 new piglets to the farm.  Lulu is showing them the ropes I suppose. 

Speaking of Lulu.... This is so cute I have to mention it. Bea has been loving the swing that Dan made her so much that he put up a swing for her in the greenhouse.  She can keep Lulu company. If you look closely at the picture you can see a little bell on the fence. Bea can hit this with her feet while she's swinging and ring the bell. Lulu gets excited and runs around. 

Can You Say "Supercute?"

Baxter Lee is Here!

Finally, here we are to announce the arrival of Baxter (born Jan 26th 9:30pm), now that he is about 6 weeks old.  (I guess this is our cyberspace version of the old-time practice of "churching" or bringing the baby out after 40 days). I had started on his birth story but I finally realized that was going to take  a while to finish so I should keep on posting in the meantime. Also, our camera is unfortunately our of batteries so we are low on pictures. We're working on that - for our friends and family who are still waiting to see how cute he is. 

I won't go into the whole story now, but his birth was a bit of a challenge in the sense that it was a lot of hard work - 9lb baby boy from little 5 foot me! Yikes! The labor was about 9 hours, pushing for 3.5. Uhg. Powerful stuff! I was so glad to be home and had the wonderful support of my midwife Elayne, our doula Sarah and friend Rachel... and of course Dan and Bea. Baxter is a hearty, beautiful little guy.

So now we have pretty much adjusted to life as a family of four and spring is on it's way. Hooray!

Still Waiting....

This little boy sure is cozy in there.  After the inauguration yesterday, I feel a certain sense of relief.  Now it seems the world is more of a sane, compassionate, hopeful, intelligent place to be born into.  What a good way to start the new year, to start a new life.  

I've been trying to walk a lot to get this baby moving.  Lately my favorite walking music is Leo Kotke & Mike Gordon. It was pretty chilly today but I went to the farm to walk anyway.  (Of course I would have much rather walked to the farm, but alas our road between the house and farm is still flooded.  There is a chance it may be frozen now, but it wasn't as of last week.) I was pretty chilled so when I got back to the farm I warmed up in the sunny greenhouse and got a nice dose of vitamin D.  It was even warm enough to get some sun on my belly.  

Bea's just come in from helping Dan make dinner with a snack of red peppers and endive.  Time for supper....

Waiting Here in Limbo....

Well, my due date is 2 days away.  With Bea I was 2 days late.  Not too bad.  I am definitely ready to burst.  We are all organized, no lose ends that I can think of so it really feels like I am sitting around waiting.  Wishing I had some crafty projects to work on, but of course I don't really want to start on anything new right now.   (Right now Bea is telling Dan that at school she and one of her friends played that she was having a baby!)

I'm also at a loss for good books to read.  Some good reads about midwifery are Ami McKay's The Birth House and Peggy Vincent's Baby Catcher.  The Birth House is historical fiction set in Nova Scotia around WWI.  It follows Dora Rare, a young midwife, working in her small community while a physician of "modern" obstetrics arrives to try to change the traditional birth practices.

Baby Catcher follows Peggy Vincent's journey from delivery room nurse to childbirth educator, to a licensed midwife. The book includes lots and lots of birth stories and insight on how every woman births differently.  Also she writes about issues facing midwives in and out of hospital settings.  

So with only a handful of days to go I should be savoring this special time with Bea. We have been out sledding and walking in the snow everyday and that has been really nice.  I'll try to come up with some more special projects for us over the next couple days....