[freckleface2727]

ok, VS is the only store I could even think to take to get her measured in in the first place, and she'll be home w/in the hour for us to go, so Quck- where else?!?!

she's very much the plain cotton no-frills un-girly-girl type, something I'm not even sure VS even offers as I don't personally ever shop there.
and lemme tell you.. her boobs are pretty damn endowed already, nothing ' little girl' ish about it, my poor love bug. its ZOOM past the training and jumping into the grown ladies w/ a Splash I'm afraid

quick quick quick- penny's? sears? I live in such a wasteland I can't think what else is close.. belks? hects maybe?

welcome mornington!!

= standing by for advice before we go today (bc she knows she's going & is not putting up a fight so I must strike while the iron is hot!)

[mornington]

*delurks*

woo! danny! and woo for mando too!

Freckle, I was an early bloomer too... I second the getting measured thing and going for simple at least to start. Give her lots of choice and make it fun - I've seen some really pretty (as in "I wish they made those when I was ten") training bras around but you have to hunt. I'd steer clear of VS until she's a little older (unless she wants to go there). And I don't think you went too far at all with PE. There is indeed a special circle of hell for those teachers.

I'm sort-of dating a man with an eight-year-old son. I'm lurking in preparation should this relationship become in any way serious.

[mandolyn]

warm welcome to smapde & luludoll.

i think that note rings just the right amount of bells, freckle.

and kudos to frecklette for even wanting to try PE. i was the most unathletic kid ever, always got picked last, always laughed at, etc. i HATED gym and got sneered at by every single gym teacher, none even tried to make me try. one even laughed at me when i feel off the balance beam (onto my back mind you). i finally gave up altogether and got a doctor's note out of gym, because i doubled up my junior/senior year of HS, and there was no way in hell i was gonna take two gym classes. with apologies to anyone who knows, loves - or IS - a PE teacher, but there's a special circle in hell for all my old PE teachers. may they be roasting there already. cruel bastids.

it breaks my heart to think of frecklette sitting on the bench, feeling badly. fuckers. don't they know she's got the will and the heart of a little lioness?

i developed at age 11, so i feel frecklette's pain. but there weren't many choices back in 1971. plain old white cotton ugly bras. so, i have no advice, other than to maybe consider going to a department store - or even an old lady bra store - with a good bra-fitter person. then again, i have issues with VS, their salespeople and their bras, so don't mind me.

danny survived his first day of high school.
so did i. *le sigh* it's not as scary as the first day of middle school was. that whole changing-classes thing freaked me the fuck out.
he already loves it, i can tell. he walks with his best bud (it's right up the street). he's his own man now. *le sigh again*


9/11 was 5 years ago, it happened 30 miles away, our local paper is still publishing obits from pieces of victims they're still finding ... i'm still fairly traumatized but don't feel right admitting that, because i wasn't there and didn't lose anyone i loved personally and live in fear every day that some fucking lunatic is going to fly a plane into the nuclear reactors 20 miles upriver and do the job right this time .... and since i have nothing rational to add, it's probably best i bow out of that part of conversation.

[moxiegirl]

frek- can i put a piece of advice in the pot? I was an early bloomer, too...younger than freklette, i think. Anyway, the sports bra theory is good in theory, but in practice kind of made me think i had to hide my body. I'm not saying get her the "great bobbie packaging magic bra" or anything like that, but a good, regular old supportive set of white/nude bras from a dept. store always suited me really well.

I don't even want to leave the house on the 11th...if you're paranoid, let me jump on board with you?!?

[freckleface2727]

-- do I know how to KILL a thread or What?!


I'm down off my ledge as far as frecklette and pe class. I'm sorry, and not feeling a little silly, for going so far off the deep end here, I swear I'll behave?

so far she's doing ok in it this year, and has a few girlfriend's in it that sort of ' have her back' so to speak and so haven't even yet called her Ped to get anything in writing. am just going to let it go til/if she tells me otherwise. her confidence seems to be pretty high - and that's wonderful!

AND her favorite class this year is MATH!

yes

MATH !

the teacher is young and female and admitted at open house that she was the one who never understood ANYTHING & was always so lost in class that she couldn't ask questions bc she didn't know where to start & so has a covered box for questions in the back that kids can just casually drop in on their way to sharpen pencils right next to it. no embarrassment. no being singled out. I Love this woman!

am taking her to victoria's secret this afternoon to get more and better b r a 's, bc bless her heart but she is really looking "older" and is attracting unwanted attention more & more.
hopefully they can size her right and will have some minimizer's ? or at the least some high speed sports b r a's (that's how we say it, we spell it out, no I don't know why) that she can wear daily instead.
1/2 her friends don't even hardly have boobs yet, and she looks like a well built 16 year old. sometimes, life is really Not fair.

and now on a more serious note.. is any one else even a tiny bit nervouse about sending your offspring to school on the 11th, or is it just my extreme paranoia striking again?

[freckleface2727]

Welcome smapde !! so gald you came to be with us here

my take on gate-keeping is that for the hands-on primary care-giver, it's almost automaticly done.
again, the older frecklette gets, the more relaxed I tend to be about her spending time w/ people other than myself, bc she's old enough to know our values and concerns, and old enough to speak up for herself as well.
that said, today when she left the house to walk down the block & around the corner to the bus, I nearly had seperation anxiety bc that's my baby !!

baby steps

ok, frecklette & PE class.........
at the open house yesterday I did Not speak to the teacher yet. had decided it'd be better to just wait and let freck's Dr speak For Her this time, as before it had been nothing but lip service, wnd freck was miserable due to it.

got the Health Form this afternoon, to list any health concerns, issues etc.

this is what I wrote:

"frecklette has Congential Radio Ulna (spelled it more phonetically for them) Synostosis.
this is a Fusion on the bones in her left forearm.

This SEVERLY LIMITS HER ABILITY To PERFORM *MANY* ACTIVITIES.

Dr's note/Conference to be scheduled.


We have had problems in the past with her needs being disregarded and frecklette being put in difficult situations due to her disability. We would greatly appreciate your utmost cooperation to make this a great school year.

Thankyou very much ~ "





too bitchy?
not enough?

was the hint of a LAWSUIT clear you think?
bc honest to pete that is what I am contemplating as a possible next step.
she has a DISABILITY. by Law then, she has major Serious RIGHTS that CANNOT be violated.
her gym teachers blowing off her condition and yelling at her to get off the bench ( what was aggreed to have happen whenever there was something she couldn't do, just quitely go sit down; instead of being Singled Out, Yelled At and TEased by other kids. damnit, I'm mad all over again now.)

a laywer or just trying to get her excused from gym indefinately.
she's not a physical kid. I really trully think it'd be the best option but yet, I know that Any activity is still better for her than none at all, and would Prefer to work With, rather than Against, the school system.

gah.

sorry to rant on like that, but Mama Bear is alive & roaring !

her first day was great however, so yah and yah!

how was Danny's day Mandi?

I have thought of him all day today too!

[smapde]

Hello!

Thank you Ms. freckle for giving me the heads up on this board.

My little ladies are 4 1/2 and 2. I'm a stay at home Mom so I tend to be in desparate need of adult conversation on a regular basis.

RE: The Gatekeeper theory

I didn't do it so much when our first baby arrived (as we were both just as clueless), but definitely with the second. Now that I am a SAHM, it's sometimes hard to "hand over the reigns" but I've gotten much much better with it.

What finally occured to me was that while my husband and I do things differently, it doesn't mean there is a "right" and a "wrong" way--just a "Mommy" and a "Daddy" way.

Helped put things into perspective quite a bit.

[freckleface2727]

the mr is on his way home and we are getting ready to take frecklette to her open house at school.

1st day of 7th grade start tomorrow.

where did the time go?

who let my baby grow up this much this fast?

why does this Always hit me this hard?

wa
wa
waaaaaa!

= that is all!=

[luludoll123]

hey momas - I've been away for a while and now I'm back with a toddler now - 16 months and just starting to talk.

Sybarite - good to hear that Italy is so kid friendly. My inlaws are Italian and we're planning on going soon. Even the Italians here friends of theirs are so friendly towards busterdoll - almost too friendly as he's at the height of seperation anxiety.

When will the seperation anxiety end?! Was getting a lot of flack on my holiday with busterdoll crying every time I left the room or anyone else trying to take him. Apparently when I'm not there he's also a lot less whiney but with me - uber whingey. But - I take comfort in everything that says that very attached children grow up more healthy or at least not as sociopaths. I am still breastfeeding in the middle of the nights which astonishes the inlaws and my mum to no end. I have to quote Pediatric Society's comments etc. but really when it comes right down to it - I'm loathe to give it up because it makes things so much easier in the middle of the night if he wakes up. He gets so worked up and a bit of boob always calms him down. I guess I'm a little lazy.

Re: gatekeeper - am inherrent gatekeeper as my job is all about gatekeeping and my single mum did it all. Have to force myself to relax and ask myself is it really important and what's the worst that could happen.

[berenguela]

Yup, I was a gatekeeper.
Now I'm divorced.
I think we both colluded in me being a gatekeeper.

[moxiegirl]

X-post with hip mama thread:

How many mama's here are "gatekeeprs?" Willingly, knowingly, not consciously?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1219962,00.html

[pepper]

hee hee hee!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/ripesu...dragontiger.jpg

[sybarite]

Thanks Mando for your post. I agree: simply wanting her around and respecting her are the biggies. I hope it's okay if I pop in here sometimes; I find reading this thread helps me make sense of her and my relationship.

We've all been on vacay together all week which was a quick learning curve into the daily decisions of parenting for me! I don't make any of the discipline decisions or have any say over what she eats, but we were effectively functioning as a family while we were away. It was fun but it was exhausting, and has left me with refreshed respect for you fulltime parents!

It helped a lot that we were in Italy, which had great food for her (and us, yum) and is very child centric. They loved her, so restaurants (for example) were really accommodating.

She and I are getting along so I do think it was a wee blip and no more. That may all change any second now as she hits the teen years but so far, so good.

I read that article and the letters fallout from it last week. Not being a mother I can't relate, so have been interested to read all your responses. We actually did some 'traipsing around museums' which, for me, was one of the more fun things about our trip, but then the mister and I are geeks. I think I would miss the 'me time' the worst. Mister's daughter is staying with us for a bit now we're back; I stayed up way too late last night just to have some time alone after being with them 24/7 for five days. Now they're out and I have the house to myself. I feel bad craving space after only a week though!

[anoushh]

I'm not working (we moved in the middle of the pregnancy back to the US and honestly, who's going to hire a pregnant woman? Well, no one here has, anyway.) so I personally can't justify using disposables. I don't really want to, either. Use them, I mean. Who knows, I may change my mind, but that's it for now. However, I cannot imagine being pregnant, as ill as I was, with chani's schedule. Wow.

I'm curious about the diaper recycling, too. That would be great!

[moxiegirl]

a diaper recycling service...really?? WOW. Any more info on that??

[chani]

anoushh: We went with disposable (yes, pampers definitely better than Huggies!) and paid $6/wk for a recycling service to pick them up. They say that over 90% of the diaper material is recyclable, so the $6 was my conscience money!

[anoushh]

Thanks--that was VERY helpful!



Oh my god--moxiebaby is CUUUUUUTTTTEEEE!

[farmgirl]

Whoops, cross-posted. As for the pumps, you can get one of the cheaper ones if it's only for occasional use, and see whether you need to "upgrade." I found the Aveda Isis manual to be most comfortable, if messier. I also had an Evenflo electric, and it about tore my nipples right off. The best by FAR in terms of comfort and ability to pump a lot in little time was the 2-holer Meleda, but that's when you're getting into more major bank.

O.K., the farmgirl quickie on cloth: All can be bought on e-bay, or secondhand. The only real issue with secondhand is that some of the "covers" loose their waterproofness and the velcro gets less sticky over time. Look carefully. This mostly applies to the larger sizes, though, as the smaller sizes are used for so short a time that they tend to still be in good shape even if they've been used for multiple babes. All cloth options have two components--an absorbent piece and a waterproof piece. There are three primary options:

All in Ones: Basically like a disposable diaper made of cloth. Most expensive, but also easiest to deal with. They have some sort of sewn-in, absorbent liner, and some sort of waterproof cover. They close with velcro or snaps. Example here: http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/allinone.htm

Tri-fold/pre-fold + cover: These are what the diaper services use (which I had for awhile--Niiiiccceee! My handsome diaper guy, Adrian, would leave clean diapers and take my stinky ones away..). These are a folded, sewn diaper that you plop into a waterproof cover. No pins here, very similar to the all-in-ones except that the pieces aren't attached to each other. You can usually get a couple of peed diapers per cover. Example here: http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/prefolds.htm

Old skool diaper + pins + cover: This is a big, single piece of cloth that you pin around baby--old skool style. You still need a waterproof cover of some sort--often of the "plastic pants" variety. These are the cheapest and least convenient option, but still do-able, and still get the job done.

You can get crazy with the fabrics--everything from wool to hemp. You can also add liners. There are also "fitted" diapers which are like an all-in-one without the waterproof part (these still require a cover of some sort). I used the tri-fold + cover option, as the all-in-ones were out of my price range.

Whew! That's the quick version--I hope it helps!

[farmgirl]

anoushh, Cloth or throwaway? I did mostly cloth for all 3 tots, so can give you the scoop on those if you're considering them. And, I agree with moxie on the breastpump--good to have so you can leave the tot for longer than a couple of hours and know he/she'll be able to eat.

[anoushh]

I was thinking cloth diapers, which are even more confusing!

(Though I'll use any given to me, whatever kind.)

Thanks for the advice about the pump. They are a lot of money, potentially, and I didn't want to get one unless there was a good reason. And unlike a lot of things I get, it's not something I'm going to get second hand!