Constructive Feedback Friday

Here's a shot I got by pure luck several months ago of Judah doing his Joey Tribioni impression (click on the picture to see the whole shot--I think blogger's cutting some of the right side off):

"Hey there, whatchOO doin'?"


But, like many of my lucky expression captures, it's just not the greatest composition--to directly centered, chopped off the top of his head, weird background, skin tones are a bit odd and there's a general dullness to the coloring. Especially the eyes.

Here's the best I could come up with at the time for editing:



I have a Canon PowerShot S3, and was still just using the Auto mode at the time... I edited in Picasa. Now that I have Photoshop, I've gotten something a wee bit better. But there's still a long way to go.. Any ideas?

(still uploading recent edit...)

Here's one edit I tried with a CoffeeShop Action Called Color Pop.


And here's another version with the same action, different combonation of options:



What I still don't like is the way the background is different on the two sides of his face. It looks (to me, anyways) a bit like a hole behind his right ear....

To the dear woman who lent me her daughter for the afternoon yesterday

I am so sorry about the bright red and blue paint on the lovely white shirt. And the lovely face. And the beautiful blond curls. And the bottoms of her feet. I'm also sorry about the sugar high. I fully admit that cokes, jelly beans and six spoonfuls of sugar in her tea is not the greatest nutrition for a child of six. I sometimes find it very hard to say no to other people's children.

She is a joy. I hope we can repeat the process often. Perhaps without the paint, coke, jelly beans and diabetic-coma tea.









pssst...more on the Pit thing a little later.

Pit to whaaaa???

I tell you what, people. Just when you think you've heard the worst of the worst, you get deeper in the doo-doo (pardon my french) of our medical system in this country. What I am about to tell you in this post is going to send most of you through the roof in outrage. At least, those of you that I know are reading.... you lurkers out there might even be OBs for all I know... But that's another rant for another time.

The phrase is "pit to distress". Here's what that means, according to Jill, at Keyboard Revolutionary:

...the practice... entails administering the highest possible dosage of Pitocin in order to deliberately distress the fetus, so a C-section can be performed.

I know this sounds ridiculous. Barbaric. Surely not in America. But I kept reading. I read Nursing Birth's description of her interaction with a Dr who ordered her to "pit to distress":

Ladies and gentleman the account that you have just read is called “Pit to Distress” whether the pitocin order was actually written that way or not. What Dr. F gave me was a VERBAL ORDER to increase the pitocin, regardless of contraction or fetal heart rate pattern, until I reached “max pit,” which he acknowledged would hyperstimulate her uterus. This goes against our hospital’s policy and the physical written order that this doctor signed his name under. However, like some other doctors I work with, none of that mattered to him. What he wanted was for me to “crank her pit” regardless and from my experience with this doctor, at the first sign of fetal distress we would have been crashing down the hallway for a stat cesarean!

I read the nursing textbook page (Jill--Unnecesarean posted this excerpt from it in her article on the subject) that instructs a student nurse in how to deal with a order given to "pit to distress":

I read this article about changing birth procedures that discusses the advisability (hah! ya think???) of discontinuing this practice. Someone (sorry, can't keep track of who sent me where) posted this excerpt:

"Pitocin is used like candy in the OB world, and that's one of the reasons for medical and legal risk," says Carla Provost, assistant vice president at Baystate, who notes that in many hospitals it is common practice to "pit to distress" -- or use the maximum dose of Pitocin to stimulate contractions.

I read another first-hand account on A Midwife's Tale:

As a former L&D nurse and now a midwife, I have heard this term before. The context in which I am familiar with it is a little different than it is described on the (Unnecesarean) post. The term was used in situations where the baby was looking less than stellar during latent labor and it was already predicted that the a c/s would be likely for this reason. The pit to distress term would simply mean, go ahead and pit hard so we can section the baby.

This really doesn't sound any better at all. It's even worse, actually-- to deliberately provoke an already possibly unstable baby in order to justify an emergency section. That's practically murder! Especially if your primary reason for doing it is to avoid a prolonged trail of labor so you can make it to your afternoon golf game. That's criminal.

I tell you what. I have talked with many women about my homebirths who go on and on about how brave I am to have had my two (three, really, but again, another post for another time) births at home and how they could never do something so risky and (what they probably mean is) weird. But I tell you what. This new information, while it shocks and sickens me, doesn't surprise me AT ALL. Let me tell you, they are the brave ones. You couldn't pay me enough to take my normal, pregnant self into a hospital and put my life and the life of my innocent, helpless unborn child into the hands of men and women who do things like that. Uh uh. No way. If I need your help, I'll come ask for it.

It's late. I'll have to write more tomorrow. I'm mulling over lots of issues that I feel are connected to this one. In particular the callused attitude towards the health and well-being of the baby in these situations and how that relates to the prevalence of abortion these days. Stay tuned for that one!

Thanks so much to all of the bloggers who've been sharing this information. Here are some links to even more:

N is for Nurse (this one will super-freak you out, do not read on a full stomach)
MamaMid(Wife)Madness
Stand and Deliver

Please, go read. Inform yourself. Get mad. Blog about it. Start a Revolution!!!!!

Hey! Lookit that!!!

Mama Kat commented on my blog! Whoo-hoo! And says she's not one of the big-time bloggers. Hah. Whatevuh. I just double-checked to be sure and she has almost 800 Followers. If that's not big-time....

Anyways. Just thought you all should know.

*scurries away, blushing*

Tot Talk Tuesday

Click here to join in

Sofi, to Judah, planning the afternoon's activities:


"First let's chalk, and then we can cautiously approach the doom of blowing bubbles"


Don't look at me! I have nooo idea....

My first blog Award!!

My dear friend, Hos, over at Happily ever After, selected me for the Honest Scrap Award at her horsey blog, All the Pretty Little Horses. Thanks Hos!! It's very exciting :)

So, now I have to tell you 10 things about myself that you might now know, and then pass on the award to 10 other bloggers :)

1) It's sad, but true, I just spent ten minutes searching back through the links of people who given and received this award, and I STILL can't figure out what "Honest Scrap" means. I must be blog-award-title-challenged.

2) It's also sad, but also true, that I don't even care that I don't know what it means, I'm so thrilled to get my first blog award that I'll put it up and pass it on anyways!!

3) I have a blog-inferiority complex. I really do. I'm convinced that only people who are related to me or have to face me on a regular basis and answer the question "So, did you read my blog this week?" are reading at all. Much less regularly.

4) Sometimes I dream at night that my blog gets discovered and I go from nothing to a million hits a day over night and Dooce emails me to ask for my autograph.

5) Obviously. This is never going to happen.

6) Sad but true, yet again, I will never stop dreaming this. This is because somewhere along the way, my personality missed the message that I am a confident, individualistic, natural leader oldest child, and instead switched to attention-craving, insecure-but-faking-it, do-anything-for-a-laugh second-born or possibly-youngest mode. I think my sister stole my birthright at some point.

7) This blog-inferiority thing is sooo bad that I'm almost embarrassed to pass on a blog award to ten other bloggers, because I just know they've all got better things to do than accept an award from me...

8) Last week, I got so bored a painted my finger nails (which I never do, because...) now I have not had time to re-do them and you can just imagine what they look like now. Yes. Not at all like the hands of a mature, 30-year-old professional and mother of two.

9) My hands look like the hands of a nervous attention-craving, insecure-but-faking-it, do-anything-for-a-laugh second-born or possibly-youngest and likely only about eight-year-old.

10) I don't really care that much.

Maybe there is some of that oldest child in there after all....






I would now like to pass on the Honest Scrap Award to a sampling of my favorite blogs (this is not an exhaustive list, by any means):

Mama Kat: Because one of these days I'm actually going to enter her Writer's Workshop. And because she's FUNNY.

Stand and Deliver: This is my go-to blog for natural childbirth info and resources. This woman is a genius.

Better in Bulk: Oh the pictures... the lovely, lovely pictures....

Ordinary Days: Because the Hot Mama Revolution is a wonderful idea and has saved my sanity on more than one occasion.

The Monkeys and Me: Oh geez... the pictures, the Tot Talk Tuesdays, the cute kids, the homebirths, the insightful posts... It's all good.

Mom by Faith: Because I love her honest and God-fearing posts and she follows my blog! See? It pays off, people...

Keyboard Revolutionary: because she's a kindred spirit when it comes to natural childbirth AND she's a blogger I've actually met IRL AFTER I started reading her blog.

Fullness of Joy: because I owe her for years of friendship and lots of babysitting

Our Little Valentine: because her son is aaaalmost as cute as mine ;)

Toddled Dredge: because she's read "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" and occasionally rants about people who don't train their kids to behave :)

Each of you can now swipe that cool graphic over there, put it on your blog and pass it on to your top ten blogger friends. I may have skipped a few deserving blogs. Let me know if you think I have...

If you give a pig a poke....

You know what they say about pigs, right? The secret to get a pig to go the way you want him to go is try and force him to go in the opposite direction. The dern thing is just plain ornery that way. I am forced to admit that I do share some aspects of this characteristic of the porcine family. I am not proud of this. But I must admit it. Especially when it comes to the realm of exercise. In particular, jogging.

I hate jogging.

I hate jogging with a passion most reserve for the Other Political Party and the neighbor's loud parties on weekends.

I hate jogging with a steadfastness akin to the faithfulness of a swan couple, which (as you know) mates for life.

(cue: "You're the wiiiiiiind beneath my wings....")

However. I enjoy my health. And it seems that simply jogging a two mile route through the downtown is going to be the easiest and most dependable way for me to get exercise this summer. Therefore I have undertaken a nightly jogging routine. And I hate it.

But I have discovered that the secret to continuing this routine, despite the hatred is one borrowed from the pig farmer. Here is the conversation that goes on in my head every night after dinner:

the Jogging-Hating Me: I'm so tired tonight. I just don't know how I'm going to jog this time. I think I may just have to call it off. I'll go in the morning.

the Healthy Me: (thinking fast, and not falling for that old "I'll do it in the morning" routine) Oh, but think how much better you'll feel in the morning if you go!

the JHM: But I'm just so tired.... and I did do a lot of gardening this morning. I don't really even need to jog...

the HM: (remembers the pig farmer and changes tactics) Yeah, you're right, that's true. You've probably already burned off, like, nine thousand calories anyways...

the JHM: well, I doubt quite that much.

the HM: But still it's better not to over-do it.

the JHM: well, maybe I"ll just walk for a little while...

the HM: how about around the block?

the JHM: Maybe I'll jog half and walk half...

the HM: well, don't push yourself too hard. How about just go one mile?

the JHM: I'll jog one mile and walk/jog the other half.
the HM: are you sure you feel up to it?
the JHM: (starts warming up with some jumping-jacks) I might even jog the whole thing, maybe try to add another half-mile, maybe I'll add on some weights, or do some back-flips in there...

the HM: But think of the blisters!

the JHM: (begins belting out the theme from "Rocky" as she sprints down the block)

the HM: (quietly hums the "Hallelujah Chorus")