The Evolutionary Psychology of Andrea Yates

The Texas woman who drowned her 5 children in a bathtub has been on my mind nearly non-stop since my husband, Mr. Field Notes, was told by his new psychology prof that evolutionary psychology has nothing to say about the case, because her genes died with the kids, whereas the other perspectives of psychology do.

I have been trying to keep from going bananas about it. After all, he is only taking the class to satisfy a dumb prerequisite required for what he really wants to study. And it's only a dumb requirement because he already has a much larger knowledge of psychology than most students who take intro retain even after 6 months.

So anyway, he started taking an introductory psychology class online through our local community college and I didn't have high hopes that it would actually be a good class, and I agree that he should just do the minimal effort required to get an A and leave it at that.

But...

When the prof so summarily dismisses my field's perspective so early on, it sort of slams the door on that perspective being seen as valuable from there on out. I just don't like the foundation it sets for the rest of the class and he can, if he chooses to, defend the perspective and show that it actually has some value, not to mention increase everyone's knowledge. I don't know if he will speak up in the class discussion forum where it came up, but I kind of hope he does.

If I were him, I'd argue that Andrea Yates killing her kids is an example of female infanticide and that under certain circumstances, killing your own progeny can increase reproductive success. It wouldn't at first glance seem so, but evolution is not as simple or as black and white as it appears.

A woman who has a lifetime of reproductive years ahead of her and has a baby that is unhealthy, sick or disabled, or for whom she is unable to care for due to life circumstances such as poverty, lack of support, or ill health herself (including mental illness), may 'choose' to kill that child (or children) and try again for a healthy one or postpone having children until her situation changes so that when she does have another child, the child will have a better chance of actually surviving long enough to reproduce. By doing so, she cuts her losses and saves wasted energy.

Rarely do other animals continue to care for sick or disabled offspring. And, there are examples of animals, primates even, that postpone their reproduction until their circumstance becomes more favorable for reproduction. Tamarins are a great example of this. Often, the reproductively mature offspring of these small South American monkeys stay with their parents and take care of their younger siblings instead of moving away to start families of their own. They could move away from home, get 'knocked up' and try to take care of those babies on their own in an area where they cannot adequately defend enough territory to have food to eat and a safe place to sleep, but they don't. And they don't go off to have those babies, realize they made a mistake, kill the babies and try all over again when they can find a place with food and shelter. Instead, they don't even bother moving out; they stay put and become adult babysitters. They invest in the genes they share with their siblings and bide their time until they can successfully raise a family of their own.

We humans don't seem to be very good at delaying reproduction until better times even with access to condoms and birth control. There are plenty of news reports of babies found in the toilet and in garbage bins, and of course, humans have plenty of abortions. There are also plenty of examples of women who wait until they're done with school and have a career and an established social support system before they start a family (and sometimes they wait a little too long and find their fertility has dropped, making this strategy not entirely foolproof either).

My point is that people kill their own kids, more often before they are even born, and while it seems counter to evolutionary theory for them to do this since it kills their genes, it doesn't kill their ability to produce kids. They can still reproduce in the future and if being motivated to kill your kids under the right circumstances means that your reproductive success isn't zero, i.e. you still have a child that survives to reproduce later, then the genes that contribute to that motivation haven't been selected against. The only thing that would truly be inexplicable from an evolutionary perspective is why people would get a vasectomy or have their tubes tied before they ever reproduce. And even that can be predicted by evolutionary theory if those people tend to contribute to the reproductive success of their relatives, with whom they share many of the same genes.

In any case, evolutionary theory would predict that a woman would be most motivated to kill her own children if:
* They are severely sick, injured, or physically or mentally disabled to the point of being unlikely to reproduce as adults,
or
* She lacks the financial, emotional or social resources (social support) needed to effectively care for them,
and
* The woman is young enough to have a better chance of successfully reproducing later than if she continued to care for the child/children.
In such cases, the benefit could outweigh the cost. For the behavior of Andrea Yates to be a perfect example of this, she would have had to be younger than 45 (an age at which there is a significantly reduced chance of being able to become pregnant) and be poor or depressed or socially isolated or have ill or disabled kids. She was 36 at the time, young enough to be able to reproduce again, and from the Wikipedia account on her, sounds as though she had little social support to help care for the children, and was convinced the children were defective.

Steven Pinker, a respected evolutionary psychologist, argues in his book How The Mind Works, that post-partum depression is a mechanism that motivates a woman to kill her newborn in just these circumstances. It has been said that Andrea Yates had been experiencing post-partum depression.

I don't think Andrea Yates is a perfect example of the 'kill your kids to bide your time and reproduce again when conditions improve' strategy, but she does fit the bill for an individual who would be expected to be motivated to do so.

Felt Food: Meat & Other random stuff

I made some more felt food! It's slow going on account of nearly always having a baby in my lap but I think these turned out pretty well.

A bowl of udon noodles, braised tofu and carrots:

A steak, tuna rolls and slices of mikon:

A fillet of salmon, cinnamon roll, deviled eggs, fruit slices and crackers:

Bacon and a T-bone steak:
The bacon has wire in it so it can be bent and stay that way. The steak has a cooked and un-cooked side so it can be flipped and 'cooked.' She has an amazing collection of felt food now — it fills 9 shoebox sized containers!

My baby looks like a Francois Langur!

You'll just have to take my word for it, because I lack photographic evidence, but Baby Field Notes looks just like a newborn Francois Langur.

She gets the same drowsy, relaxed look on her face. She's got the pointy little monkey ears, the plump upper lip hanging over a receding chin... the almond eyes, the fluffy red hair. A hint of a spike mohawk.

There's no way to get around the superficial resemblance of baby humans to baby monkeys, but one thing you may not know about is another way that human and monkey infants are alike — the presence of a natal coat. A natal coat is the term for the different coloration of primates during infancy that later changes. Only about 10-20% of primate species are born with different hair color than they'll have as adults.

These francois langurs are relatives of silver leaf monkeys. Like the silver leaf monkeys, they give birth to bright orange babies that stand out in stark contrast to the significantly darker adults. Black and white colobus monkeys also have babies with a conspicuous natal coat. Theirs are completely white. Chimps are born with tufts of white hair on their rears (I think it makes them look especially cute!), and some human babies and toddlers go through a blond phase before they become brunette as adults. The natal coats that chimps and humans show are less conspicuous but no less noteworthy.

Primatologists, admittedly, don't know why primates are sometimes born with a different hair color, but they have some decent hypotheses. One is that the different coloration provides a signal to others that the baby is indeed a baby and that elicits extra care from elders. Another is that the stark contrast helps adults see the babies better in a dark forest and this may help the troop better protect them from predators (who could also see them more easily, but this cost is presumed to be smaller than the benefit of adults being able to readily see the baby). Both hypotheses propose the coloration denotes the individual is young and needing extra attention. Perhaps in the same way that little blond ringlets are cute on toddlers, orange fur on these primates makes them look especially cute to adults.

No one has studied the natal coat thing among humans, and it has really not been well studied among other primates, but I think it's an interesting subject for research. Some evolutionary psychologists think that the reason that blondes are so attractive in our society is that blond hair is a trait usually seen naturally only in the young and therefore blond hair on an adult woman signals youth and therefore, fertility.

Right now Baby Field Notes has golden red hair. In the sunlight it's the color of the baby francois langur pictured above. It will be interesting to see if she developes blond hair as toddler like Mr. Field Notes had. I never did.

SAHM vs Working Outside Home: How do other primates solve the work vs childcare dilemma?

Before I ever got pregnant, I knew I wanted the early experience for my baby to be consistent with how most primates have grown up for eons. Lots of body-contact, including sleeping together in a 'night nest,' nursing on demand, prompt and appropriate responses to her needs, i.e. nursing on demand, grooming baby to sooth her, and exposing her to developmentally appropriate stimuli.

Being a stay-at-home-mom, SAHM, was the foundation of that plan. I didn't, and still don't, think that working outside the home (if it entails having to be away from your baby for long periods of time) is the best way to raise a baby from a primatological standpoint. Looking at other primates, it's akin to leaving your baby with someone else, often completely unrelated to you, while you forage all day for food. No other primate does this. And there ought to be no surprise as to why this doesn't happen. Leaving a baby with someone else has its hazards: Others are never as careful or as attentive as they would be if the baby was their own.

But, it's a risk we humans accept out of necessity. Unlike our primate relatives, humans can't usually take their kids to 'work' with them so we face the difficult choice of what to do about childcare. While there are certainly jobs that are unsafe to perform around infants and children, the jobs most women are engaged in are office or retail jobs that aren't dangerous. If allowed to, I have no doubt that women could, and would, bring their babies to work with them. And, some do indeed get to do this, but it's largely a privilege reserved for few women.

For moms who must work outside the home, the myriad ways they solve the childcare problem is actually mirrored in some other primates, which I think is really cool.

When in need of childcare help, primate moms can sometimes rely on one of the baby's blood relatives. A natural first choice is the baby's father because he shares more genes with the baby than anyone else does besides the mother. But, there aren't many primate dads who assume the bulk of childcare, mainly due to their lack of paternity certainty. Yet, where males can be reasonably certain they are the father and when mom needs help, they lend a hand. Guys who shoulder much of the burden of infant care can find company with the tamarins and marmosets of South America.

These monkeys, like humans, have infants that are so energetically demanding to care for that two, and sometimes more, helpers are required. Mothers of these monkey species usually give birth to twins that are rather large compared to the mother's body size. Put together, the twins are equivalent to a 120-pound human mom giving birth to a 30 pound baby! That size of baby is both metabolically costly to carry and to feed. Human infants are also difficult to care for, not because they are particularly huge, but because they are basically born premature and consequently are far more dependent at birth than any other primate.

Tamarins and marmosets have, for similar reasons as humans did, settled on the very same solution about how to take care of such demanding creatures. The dads of these monkey species carry the infants whenever the mom isn't nursing, two babies at a time. This spares mom the energy so she can save it to forage and get enough calories to make enough milk to feed two babies at a time. These monkey dads also scan the trees looking for predators — birds of prey and snakes. They even hand over small bites of food to older infants. This sort of food sharing is something almost completely unheard of in most other primates, except humans.

This need for two parents to 'work' to provide for the infant is very unusual. Most primate moms do quite well without the help of the infant's father, but many still get help. Most often it comes from other related females such as sisters and the maternal grandmother. Getting help from female kin is typical among the langurs of India. Among langurs there, males leave the troops they are born into at puberty to avoid inbreeding. Females stay and and breed with newcomer males. The females in the troop are blood relatives, kin, who help each other with infant care. Other related female langurs carry a mom's baby for her at least half of the day. This gives younger siblings valuable parenting practice before they have babies of their own. Even so, first infants die at a much higher rate than subsequent ones, mostly due to the inexperience of their mothers.

As a rule, primates rarely, if ever, allow a stranger to hold their infant. So hiring a daycare center, nanny, or babysitter to watch one's child is a distinctly human pattern. It's no surprise really, that there are so many rules of operation for daycare centers so parents can trust that strangers will take care of the child appropriately.

Nevertheless, nonhuman primates do occasionally 'take care' of stranger's infants. This is especially true of high ranked females without their own infants. Higher ranking females have a penchant for snatching the infants of lower ranked mothers — to carry around, play with, and inspect. They don't keep them for very long, and that's a good thing, too, because sometimes they are so careless the babies wind up injured, if not a little traumatized. Their mothers are frightened, too. They also don't let the infants go willingly. But, being lower ranked, they don't have much choice.

Infant-snatching is an especially smart strategy for higher ranked females who haven't yet had babies of their own — they can practice on someone else's baby.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it daycare, because it hardly qualifies as care, and is rarely chosen, but it is paid for. Lower ranked mothers do often wind up having their baby handled by a relative stranger whom they have 'paid' in the form of grooming (lower ranked primates tend to groom higher ranked ones more so than the other way around). It's just not really a beneficial arrangement for the mother of the infant who is snatched willy nilly whenever a higher ranking female feels like it. And, infants are really attractive to them.

The last strategy for infant care is an unusual one seen among bushbabies. They park their babies in a tree cavity at night while they go off to transact the important business of being a primate, all the while leaving their baby completely alone. It is thought that bushbabies can get away with this because the hiding spots are relatively secure and their milk is fatty enough they can be away for long stretches. It is pretty bizarre though, for a primate mom to basically leave her kid in parked car to disappear for hours to 'shop' and 'chit chat.' If a human mom did that, she'd be arrested. But, it works quite well for the bushbabies.

Although there are a few different strategies for childcare that primates have adopted, one thing I didn't consider was that being at SAHM would be a departure from the usual primate pattern in one regard: I'd tend to be alone most of the time, cut off from socializing with others. That's not a big deal for me personally, because I like alone time — a lot. But, at some point, Baby Field Notes is going to have to regularly play with other kids so she can develop some social skills!



Species top to bottom: emperor tamarin, silvery marmoset, gray langur, bushbaby

Visual Development - Part 3: Handmade Boppy Cover

Baby Field Notes has finally started to track moving objects regularly now with her eyes and shows interest in objects she sees. Her eye contact is more steady too. The other day I caught her looking over my shoulder at my sock monkey collection, so now it is officially time to break out the things I've made for her to stimulate her eyes and more importantly, her brain.

Recently I finished a cover I sewed for the Boppy nursing pillow I have. It's got the same bold black, white and red fabrics I used for her fabric book and the taggie blankets. I used left over ribbon to edge the cover so she has something to tug on and finger during tummy time.

The thing is, I don't use the Boppy pillow anymore. A bunch of jumbled up blankets stuffed here and there around her is way better. I just could never really figure out how to fit the Boppy around my waist and position her on it to permit easy, comfortable breastfeeding. It purports to conform to 'all body types' but it doesn't work for me, or her, so I've abandoned it in favor of blankets.

But, I still have this awesome cover for the Boppy so I am hoping to discover a way to use it for something else.

p.s. Here she is with our newest sock monkey. Can you believe that grin?!?

Primate Parenting - A Stark Difference?

When I saw this product, the BéBé Bottle Sling, at first I thought, hey cute! Monkeys! Then I thought, hold up a sec — that is weird and maybe a little wrong.

The bottle sling hangs from the handle of an infant carrier or car seat and positions the bottle right on front of the babies face. Babies learn coordination and figure out on there own how to take the bottle into their mouth and drink when they want. After they're done, the bottle returns to a spot right in front of the baby's face. It permits hands-free bottle feeding.

Cool concept.

I thought I could make one of those, how hard could it be? But then I realized, perhaps wanting to save myself from yet another project or perhaps recalling all of my many childhood pet hamsters, that this is like sticking your kid in a cage and hanging a bottle inside so they can drink/eat. A flash of a baby in a wire cage with cedar chips, running wheel and a bottle full of milk mounted to the side of the cage briefly flashed in my mind.

While I think this product is potentially interesting, and useful, it also highlights a major difference between nonhuman primates and human ones, especially those in western, industrialized countries anyway.

Nonhuman primates (most often moms but there are plenty of exceptions) have their babies with them all of the time, even at night, often in full body contact. Not until the babies are old enough to crawl on their own are they away from mom and even then they stay within arms reach. Ape babies can be in full contact with their moms for 3-4 years on average, nursing on demand the entire time, even at night while mom sleeps.

But human babies, especially those in the US, get bundled up in infant carriers, motorized swinging chairs, strollers and cribs in separate rooms starting in their first days of life.

I wonder what effect all of this 'baby parking' has on human attachment — the affectionate social bonds shared between baby and parent, and later between romantic partners. After all, it has been shown that it's a warm, responsive caregiver to cling to that young primates need for normal social development.

When that soft, warm, responsive body is taken out of the equation and replaced with a cold, hard nipple hitting you in the face, how can you possibly develop normally?

When primatologists who study parenting point out the stark difference between nonhuman and (Western) human parenting, they rarely come right out and say what effect this lack of constant body contact has on us as a species. Does it make us more prone to be solitary jerks as adults? Is that why we needed to invent stuff like religion to remind us to be kind?

I don't know what the answer is, but it is reasonable to ask.

Now, really, an argument can be made that this product allows a more natural approach to feeding if you're using a bottle. When nonhuman primates feed, they can cling to mom by themselves, riding along and nursing while she forages. Her nipples hang down and baby can latch on and drink whenever. The only real significant difference between this and and the BéBé bottle sling is the nipple and the temperature of the milk.

As long as baby gets interaction at other times, as most babies would, this product could come in very handy. I just can't envision myself using it, but they ..almost.. got me with that darling monkey design.

Handmade Gorilla-Adorned Taggie Blanket

Although I am still obsessed with making felt food for junior, I sense I am also bound to become obsessed with making taggie blankets.

I've already made three. They are all in a black, red and white theme. One for us, one for my sis and her baby on the way, and another is a surprise for someone who might read this blog. Each blanket has 9 quilted squares and on the reverse, red 'minky' cloth with a black felt applique — heart, butterfly, and a gorilla - all shapes I have a die cut for which makes it easier. Guess who gets the gorilla =D

Between the appliques and the 'minky' fabric, I put some crinkled cellophane for sound effects. Babies like the sound it makes when it's touched, in addition to the tactile stimulation all the ribbons provide. They give them something to clutch and suck on while mom's not immediately available. The bold black and white and red patterns are stimulating for infant eyes which is why I chose them. So it's an awesome design concept from a sensory standpoint. And, eventually it will have that smell than babies love to sniff on too. There you go — four senses in one piece: sight, sound, smell, touch. And, I suppose, taste too!

I could, in theory, sell these but they are so much work that I'd have to charge $75 for them and I think hardly anyone in the whole world would pay that price for them. But, you never know. If someone wants one though, for that price, I'd do it.

I keep buying fabric (and ribbons) to make more even though I rarely have time to work on them. And, I keep piling up more sewing projects! What am I thinking?! I still haven't made the curtains for Baby FN's room!

I caved and bought more fabric for them because I decided my original plan is unfeasible because it's too complicated. So now I'm just doing curtains in all chocolate brown except for a border of animal print at the bottom. I'll use the other fabric I bought and won't end up using to make her some alphabet pillows. I remember my kindergarten class had plastic blow-up letters. I thought they were cool. I must have anyway, because I remember them! I figure she'll be able to display them on her shelves and may even still like them as a teenager. At some point, she's bound to get ridicluously upset with me and spell out some fuck off message.. (maybe I will only make her one F). Yeah, she's going to swear. I don't care so long as she uses her curses judiciously. And I do have a plan for the swears.

A jar. You put in some amount of money or something your kid likes to play with and they earn it back by doing chores, or other desirable things. But never homework. I don't believe in rewards for doing your homework. Education is its own reward.

Education is its own reward.

Barkfest 2009 will go down as Barf-fest 2009

No wonder it stunk.

A cowpie the size of a dinner plate was deposited right in front of my desk. So goes the start of day three of Barkfest 2009, otherwise known as the extravaganza of festivities surrounding the addition of a new roof on our house.

Barkfest 2009 began with a bang at 7 o'clock in the morning Monday with two giant, and scared, Newfoundlands barking their heads off. However, what began as Barkfest 2009 soon morphed into Barf-fest 2009. Both dogs were so nervous about the goings on overhead and all the attendant bangs, rattles, and nearly constant thuds, that they developed upset stomachs. Even Yuki, Miss Big Tough Bossy Bossins, ran around the house with her tail firmly curled between her hind legs. Katy was much cooler about it all by the end of day one, but it has all caught up to her. She's been barfing up green bile.

I had hoped that she would be able to blow it off and acclimate to it, but nope. Poor kid. Just what she needs, numerous strangers surrounding her house, and wrecking it too. If I were her, I suppose I'd barf too.

And it was she who left the enormous, foul smelling dump by my desk, I know it.

But this afternoon, it wasn't a funky fart left by a big nervous newf that perfumed the air, it was instead — another giant saucer sized dump. In the kitchen, and diarrhea no less, with all the little air bubbles and splatter surrounding it. A foot from it was the most enormous puddle — no pond — of urine I have ever seen.

Oh very wonderful. Just what I needed with a crying baby who isn't ready to go take a nap yet. I can't hold her and bend down to clean up poop goop at the same time, so I compromised.

I put her in her swinging chair, gave her a few shots of pumped breast milk from a bottle, popped the pacifier in and hoped for the best as I went to the kitchen to clean it up. To clean poop goop expediently, all you need to do is scrape it up between two pieces of cardboard (cereal box cardboard is ideal), wipe the area with TP, then scrub and dry.

Piece o'cake.

Well, not when you have a screaming baby who either wants:
A) to be held
B) to be fed or
C) her diaper to be changed (oh goody! More runny poo!).

I chose B.

Feeding her always buys me about 10-15 minutes, so I went for that route since changing her diaper means I have to do that, then feed her for 10 minutes to get her to quiet down and nod off enough to set her back down in her big comfy chair (that's what we call her swinging chair). And I can't clean poo goo one-handed.

So there I was going back and forth between the mess in the kitchen and the swinging chair to give her hits of the bottle. That breast pump sure comes in handy. It is definitely on my top three baby essentials list.

It took several trips back and forth, and eventually Baby FN fell asleep. I think it was the vacuum that pushed her over the edge into milk coma land. And, once you clean one floor, they all need to be cleaned. And windows washed, and surfaces dusted... and and and...

That's what you have to do when you finally have a sleeping baby: Clean house.

I feel for the dogs. They are having a right well rotten time of it now. It's too hot for walks most of the day and they can't go out for yard time because the roofers need to keep the gate open to get their work done. I know the newfas don't want to crap and pee in the house. They are good girls, but when their person can't help them, there's not much point in sitting on your tail very long I guess.

Needless to say, I think the floors in the house are now the cleanest they have been since the day they were installed.

I hope I figure out a solution to the dog needs to go out immediately, on a leash, to the backyard problem soon, because we have at least 2 more days of this. Leaving the baby inside to scream her head off is not a solution. It takes the dogs far too long to get relaxed enough to do their business with all the scary people and equipment around.

........ Be thankful I did not post pictures ........

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Monkey

The classic movie starring Clint Eastwood as the 'Man With No Name' inspired this awesome sock monkey - another superstar monkey created just for us by Siansburys on etsy.





Sian is a whiz at creating movie star monkeys, so long as they come with weapons.

She's done Capt. Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Carribean, William Wallace from Braveheart and Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. She's also done a Die Hard monkey and Indiana Jones.




When my dad was here last I showed him the William Wallace and Jack Sparrow monkeys. He suggested a Man With No Name monkey. It took no time to figure out that was a killer idea for Sian's next movie star monkey. I just had to pile up the cash to pounce, and I am so glad I did. She turned out another awesome monkey. I love the cigar touch, that is typical Sian. She always finds a way to capture the essence of the character.

Now, which monkey will she have to do for 2010.... ?

"Monkey Park" CleanUp

This is what happens to your nice white kitchen floors when your two Newfoundlands let themselves back inside after spending an hour outside unsupervised (I was working and ..babysitting.. and admit to completely forgetting about them).

The entire kitchen floor looked like this. And the kitchen is huge. I've never really appreciated or wanted to have such a large kitch, but it's the one we've got for better or worse. And today it was definitely for the worse.

Here are the beasts at the scene of their crime.


They always hang their enormous pink tongues out when excruciatingly proud of themselves. I couldn't get them both looking at the camera together, but trust me, it is almost enough to make you instantly forget all hints of their naughtiness. Almost.

Fortunately, all traces of the crime scene were cleaned up ..by me.. in about ten minutes.

It's days like this that make me feel like I'm cleaning up a zoo.

Monkey Park CleanUp

When we visited the Jigokudani Monkey Park in Japan last January I never gave a second thought to whether or how the hot springs the Japanese macaques bathed in got clean. I just figured it was a natural feature of their environment and one that was left to 'nature' to deal with.

However, after regularly clicking in to view the monkey park's web cam, I've learned that their hot springs pool does get cleaned — regularly. Every week, if not every other day. When I check in during the morning hours, Japan time, I frequently see the pool drained and workers mopping up.


That surprised me. The other thing that surprised me is that there are large rocks inside the pool that come nearly to the waters surface. So, the monkeys I saw hanging around in the center of the hot springs while I was there were not treading water, they were lounging on rocks!

The other thing that surprised me, after watching the monkeys via web cam off and on for the last 8 months, is that they still go down to the hot springs during the summer. I wouldn't have guessed that. The water is rather warm and Japan is a hot, muggy place during the summer. But these highlander monkeys do live in the mountains where it is always cooler.

Even if the monkeys can be seen there year round, I still think it is far superior to see them in the winter with snow all around. After all, they are nicknamed Snow Monkeys.

Visual Stimulation, Part 2

Nursing shirts ought to be made out of cloth with funky, bold black and white patterns. Or, burp cloths need to be. I concluded this after observing that Baby Field Notes spends a significant amount of time each day staring at my inner elbow, which has got to be utterly boring. She does eventually fall asleep, which can be welcome, but for a baby who is having trouble gaining weight, not something that is welcome after 5 minutes lazily munching away. Something more interesting to look at would be a good idea... not that I need yet another project.

I finished the visual stim cloth book, and although it isn't truly useful yet, it will be. You can check it out here. I've also finished the tag blankets, three of them, one for BFN and one for her soon-to-be-nephew and another one for her other nephew.

She's already using hers. I drape it over the ugly plastic tray on her swinging chair. She hangs out in there while I try to get work done after she's fed but before she's ready to fall asleep. Today it kept her quiet for 15 minutes before she crashed out on her milk induced coma.

New Baby = No Time/No Hands for Blogging!

I was going to write a real blog post, even if it was going to be short and sweet, just to get a new one on the record so it looks like I haven't abandoned blogging, but just when I get a moment to myself — finally — I go back to having no hands available for typing.

I have for the sake of getting work done, figured out how to type one handed, albeit incredibly painstakingly slowly and even more pathetically with my left hand only, however, I lack the patience to blog one handed.

So, off I go to answer the call of nature. The hungry, crying baby that is.

Neeeeeeeeeh.

Planting a Crown Imperial Flower Bulb

Native to Iran, Afghanistan and the foothills of the Himalayas, the Crown Imperial is not your garden variety flower. Before being gifted three bulbs, I had never even heard of them. They were among a huge lot of bulbs a work colleague gave us and I had to check it out to learn how and where to plant them — but also what they look like.

Showy, that is is. The flower grows 3 to 4 feet tall on a stalk that ends in a tuft of green fronds somewhat like palm trees with bright, vivid flowers hanging below. I have no idea what color ours will be but the orange ones certainly are pretty. They will look great with the purple hyacinths we have.

The Crown Victoria bulbs stink to high heaven. Until I figured out where the stench was coming from, I swore one of the neighborhood dogs surprised a skunk. The bulbs are said to repel rodents.

The bulbs resemble cinnamon rolls, with an indent on the top that can fill with water and rot the bulb so it's advised to plant them on the side so water won't collect there. The plant's shoot is still able to find the surface, which given that plants grow through streets and sidewalks, is no great shocker. But, good to know, because I would have planted it in the ground wrong. Well, actually Mr. Field Notes would have. He's outside gardening on my behalf. Darn it too — if it were my choice I'd be out there with him! But until I recover completely from surgery, the weather cools off, and Baby FN is big enough to ride in a sling, I am kickin' it indoors with the AC and the whining pooches, who really resent being stuck inside while one of their people is outside 'having fun.'

I hope the Crown Imperial flowers will survive and come up in the spring. They appear in April or May and bloom for about 3 weeks, allegedly. Fingers crossed!

Labor & Delivery

How I went in wanting a completely natural, unmedicated birth and came out with my worst nightmare: a C-section.

On July 13 we went to the hospital around 5 pm to preregister. My due date was still a ways off (July 27) but I thought we were long overdue for preregistration and also for installing the car seat. So we headed to the hospital to take care of the easy one. I had already been having contractions but didn't realize it. The menstrual-cramp like contractions were not the same as the Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been having but I thought these new ones were just my body's way of prepping for the big day in advance. Well in advance.

After the incredibly easy check-in, we went up to the maternity ward to look around and said we were just visiting. I asked to see a birthing room. A nurse at the front desk asked whether I was having contractions and I said no, just cramps. The birthing room was surprisingly nice. It was spacious and looked comfortable. The only weird thing was the crucifix mounted on the wall smack dab on the wall facing the bed. I didn't like that, but it is a Catholic hospital and as I found out later, I had my eyes closed during the vast majority of my late labor anyway so I wasn't going to be weirded out by the presence of a little metallic Jesus anyway.

When a nurse showed us the room she asked if I was in labor, and I said no but then we got to talking and my answers to her questions resulted in me getting checked in. They hooked me up to monitors (fetal heart rate and contraction) and we waited for about an hour. As coincidence would have it, my OB was in the hospital and came by to check in on me. That was a nice surprise. He was leaving for vacation the next day and wasn't coming back until after my due date so that was probably the last I'd see of him. I asked him to check my dilation because I was curious. I was 1 cm and -2 station. He thought it could be another week or two, no way to know and said we could all go home but to come back if things get more serious. He wasn't super specific.

So we went home. As it turned out, I had contractions all night and morning and got no sleep but I didn't think much of the cramps, really. Having experienced severe endometriosis for years and years plus an ER visit due to a ruptured cyst, these cramps were no big deal. I wasn't feeling up for work in the morning so I bagged out of that. Although I didn't realize I was in labor, I was.

I called my mom in the morning around 9 am and had some three-way talks with her and my sister (who had recently had a baby) but nobody thought I was in labor. I had been timing the contractions/cramps on a my iPhone through an app called "Labor Mate." That made it super easy to find out how long contractions were, how much time passed in between them and also what the average time was. It's a really neat app. I'm glad I used it. And, you could email the log! Awesome. Not that it helped me figure out ..when.. to go to the hospital. The app should have a pop-up screen that asks: Have you lost your mucus plug? Are you having 'bloody show'? Then go to the hospital woman! Go!

I called my OB nurse sometime in the morning and asked her how regular the contractions had to be to go the hospital. She was equivocal but said if I have a bright pink discharge, it is time to go. I called Mr. Field Notes at around 11am (while he was on deadline at the newspaper) and told him it was probably time to be thinking about going to the hospital. He got the voicemail around 11:30 am and finished out work for the daily paper then came home. I think he might have even gone swimming after deadline and in between coming home. That's how convinced I was that I was having false labor. Ha ha ha. Was I ever wrong.

I got the bright pink discharge after Mr. FN got home around 1pm. I packed my bag for the hospital.. hadn't even done that yet! And we left. It was a short, short drive to the hospital. If I wasn't well on my way into contractions-land, we could have walked. And, really, that probably would have been better for my delivery but as far along as I was, I may have ended up giving birth on the sidewalk halfway there, assuming we could even have made it that far. Yeah, I am just that crazy — thinking I could WALK to the hospital while in labor. Overachiever? Yep.

But we drove.

I had been laboring on my left side, on all fours, bent over a counter, table or chair or leaning up against a wall.

I got a ride up to the maternity ward in a wheel chair pushed by the front-desk lady. I recalled it was quite a ways to go to get there and I was tired. I hadn't slept since Sunday night (it was Tuesday afternoon).

We got settled into the birthing room and asserted myself by not putting their stupid hospital gown on. I stayed in my T-shirt and just took my skirt off so I'd be more comfortable. Two nurses came in to start an IV line. And, just like last time I was in the hospital (to have surgery for endometriosis), they had a hell of a time finding a vein to get the line started. I didn't want to be hooked up, but it was hospital policy to at least open the line. They didn't actually hook me up to an IV until much, much later. I had poke marks all over both arms and hands. I think they eventually used the smallest bore needle they had. I did not enjoy being a pincushion.

I was definitely in labor now. No doubt about it in their mind. I thought I was going to have my mom there with me, but I was 2 weeks early and she was 500 miles away still. So it was just the Official Help You Labor Nurse (OHYLN) and Mr. FN in the room with me, besides Dr. WooooooJ (who was much cooler than his nickname). He wasn't my regular doc because mine had ..just.. left for vacation. Dr. Wooj and I clicked instantly so I felt good about the whole new doc I've never met before looking at my hoo ha. OHYLN did a quick check and found out I was at 8 cm.

8 cm dilated.

I got to 8 cm dilation at home — alone.

Yes, I am that bad ass.

Everybody thought I was within two hours of delivery. But from that point (around 1:30 pm) until around 10 p.m., I stayed at 8cm despite the contractions getting stronger. I labored on my left side (at home, too) for a long time, because that's what felt the best but the OHYLN had me use other positions to try to move my dilation along. I did the birth ball, hip rocking on the ball, on all fours, leaning over the back of the inclined bed, etc but nothing was working.

My cervix was swelling too and I reverted to 6cm dilated.

An apologetic Dr. Wooj said it was really time for me to try lying on my back, which I really did not want to do, both because I knew that would be a lot less comfortable and because we'd lose the effect of gravity, but I listened to my doc and did it. The point was to get my swollen cervix to ease up, and that would theoretically be helped by taking some of the pressure of the baby's head off.

By this point, my breathing changed to the deep breaths in and out and the moans and groans and animalistic grunts associated with late labor. I went into meditation mode for the next god-knows-how-long. My eyes were closed most of the time and I kept seeing the game Zip Word. It's an iPhone game like Boggle. I had been playing it for the previous week.

Yep, it wasn't the image of 'Our Savior Jesus Christ' that got me through labor, it was...

Zip Word.

At some point, maybe around dinnertime, 6pm or so, my water broke. I barfed at the time, right immediately before or right after — I can't recall. However, the sensation of my water breaking, the explosion, was Intense. I don't recall it as being painful, but it must have been to make me barf. My water breaking was the coolest, most unexpected neat-o thing that happened during labor and delivery. I can't really describe how it felt, just that it was like nothing else I'd ever experienced and was intense. It was not even remotely similar to any waters breaking I had ever seen in the movies. Not even close. And, I would totally love to experience that again because it was so intense, but it's never ever gonna happen, ever, ever again. Humpf.

So, I eventually got back up to 8cm after being down at 6cm.

At some point prior, but after my water broke, Dr. Wooj hooked me up with an internal sensor to measure contractions. It showed weak contractions that weren't doing anything. Also at some point prior but after my water broke, the baby's heart rate slowed too much for the doctor's comfort, so Wooj administered a drug to ease the contractions, which were doubling up and too close together yet also not achieving any progress. The contractions started intensifying a bit after the drug wore off, but never fully recovered and made no impact on dilation for hours, so Dr. Wooj suggested a C-section. I had been stagnate at 8cm for six to eight hours at least.

I asked if there was anything else we could try to move things along. He said we'd tried re-positioning me and that didn't work but we could try an epidural and pitocin. The epidural was to relax me / my uterus, which he thought had been under stress for too long. I got the pitocin to re-kickstart delivery-stage contractions.

Lurch, the anesthesiologist with the iPhone, administered the epi, and then the pitocin was infused, but only for about 20 minutes or so. At that point, Wooj said he thought it was time to cut bait because the contractions were not strong enough according to the internal sensor. As much as I didn't want to have a c-section, I knew that if I wanted to have this baby it looked like the best option given the fact that for a good ten hours I showed no increased dilation.

The baby was in a good position, not posterior or anything like that which would have made labor slower and harder — nope, just my god-damned back fucking luck.

At one point after we decided to go ahead with the section, Doc Wooj remarked, "You may look like you're 15, but you have a 35-year-old uterus and it just doesn't know what to do." It seems he was right.

Upon arriving at the hospital and finding out I was at 8cm, I had been so excited. So excited! I knew that baby was going to be here soon — and on Bastille Day to boot. Bastille Day is like the Fourth of July but for France. I taught myself French after college, to read St. Exupery's Terre des Hommes (Wind, Sand and Stars for all you non-Francophiles) and also to prepare for doing field work in Africa where being able to converse in French makes the job easier. I never made it to Africa for fieldwork, but I retained a fondness for French stuff and did got to France a couple times after college. Although my accent was terrible, I am sure, I still got around splendidly. A fondness for France and French stuff is something I share with Mr. Field Notes' mom. For the longest time, I actually thought she was born on Bastille Day and I thought that was pretty cool. But she was born two days prior. When it came time for Baby Field Notes to be born, I was stoked that she was actually coming on Bastille Day!

So after the writing was on the wall for the c-section, I told Dr. Wooj that if I had to have a c-section I was cool with that if it could still happen that day, on Bastille Day. It was getting on toward 10 or 11pm at the time so they wheeled me down to the OR.

There, Lurch (he really did resemble the dude from the Addams Family), the anesthesiologist amped up the epidural and Dr. Wooj and another doc did the C-section. There were some other dudes in the room too, who may have been docs or just surgical nurses, I don't know, but in addition to me, there were at least 4 maybe 5 doctors who had to be there to get Baby Field Notes into this world. That's a lot of god-damned doctors!

Mr. FN had to disappear for a while to change into scrubs. I wish I had actually seen him in his scrubs, that would have been cool, but I never did. He sat up by my head and hung out for support, which was nice, but then as soon as Baby FN was cut out (11:05 pm, July 14) he was gone. He got to cut the umbilical cord. I didn't get to watch that, which makes me sad, really, but oh well. It's not like I had a choice. The tears rolling down my cheeks as I write this suggests it still matters a lot to me that I was robbed of that experience. Humpf.

For the next three hours — that's right — three painfully long hours, I laid alone (pretty much) waiting for my body to 'wake up.' God that was torture — mental torture. To lie there virtually motionless and with no one besides the wanker nurse to keep me company for three fucking hours was worse than labor. Much, much worse. I couldn't get the dipshit nurse to talk to me. Until I could wiggle my toes and bring my knees up, three hours later, I had to watch her stare at a computer or my chart. Or, I watched the clock. I wasn't even remotely tired and I was fucking paralyzed. Could they not get a fucking TV in the recovery room? Or a ream of paper and a basket to throw wads at? Anything for entertainment. Good god. Or at least a nurse who was talkative? She was brain dead. BRAIN DEAD. I just could not get her to talk to me. Even when she was right next to me staring at my god damned chart. And I am not a talkative person but I needed some social support then, even a modicum would have been nice. At one point, I must have been beyond frustrated at this point, I asked her if she was asleep! She said that's not allowed while working or would be bad while working, or something like that. Fortunately I realized quickly this lady was responsible for giving me meds and for ultimately getting me the heck out of there, so I recovered by saying, "Well you had a very studious look about you." Then I went back to hating her and atrophying from boredom.

I thought I was going to die of boredom, literally.

Why on earth I have not yet signed a DNR order is beyond me, because that lovely experience taught me I will be better off if someone just pulls the plug on me than to let me live paralyzed and helpless. I am no Steven Fucking Hawking. Let. me. tell. you. that. So, yeah, I hated that part.

While I was being sewn up and 'recovering,' I mean dying of boredom, Mr. Field Notes and Baby FN went up to the nursery for weighing, bracelets, other health checks, her first bath, plus lots of suctioning of meconium - yuck. Grandpa Field Notes arrived about 5 minutes after they got to the nursery.

I wish things had gone differently, but I am at peace with what happened. Yes, parts still make me sad, but I'm no longer blaming myself for having to have a c-section. I am no longer crying because "I didn't get to push" and therefore "don't deserve the push pressie" that Mr. Field Notes has for me. Instead, I didn't have to push. I didn't have to have an episiotomy or tear my perineum. My vagina isn't stretched out to kingdom come and back. Some things are not so bad about having a c-section. Some things. I still am not yet approved to drive anywhere and I can't lift anything over ten pounds. And that means I cannot walk those doggies, not for a very long time. But, I am recovering and it wasn't that bad. I can imagine doing it again.

One day Baby Field Notes will learn it took two scary surgeries to bring her into this world.

Whether she appreciates that or not, I am just relieved she's actually here now and so far, apparently healthy as can be!

Easy Early Language Immersion

Developmental psychologists say people must be exposed to (hear and speak) all the sounds of a language in order to be able to speak it without a discernible accent later in life. People who learn a second language as an adult miss out on the important early sounds so they always speak with an accent, it is said. I don't know if I completely 'buy' that or not. But, I still want Baby Field Notes to grow up with some foreign language familiarity so she's confident in learning new languages.

At the FN's house we speak English and ... newfie. Which is to say, barks and groans and yowls and yelps are regularly heard and we're pretty good at communicating back. I really don't want newfie to be her second language. If all goes well, and we get to stay living here in this awesome town, Baby Field Notes will grow up being exposed to lots of Spanish — mainly in elementary school where the school she'd attend has a funky dual language immersion program. Mr. FN and I both know a smattering of Spanish from having taken it in high school and college so that will help us learn with her, theoretically at least. Mr. FN also speaks some German and although I can no longer speak it very well, I can still read French and plan to improve my speaking and reading skills over the coming years. Mr. Field Notes also does reasonably well with Japanese and me with Arabic.

One of the first ways Baby FN will be introduced to foreign language is through music. She's already started listening to Outlandish, a hip hop group from Denmark that performs in English, Spanish and Arabic. I've also got a good collection of French pop music: Mister Gang, Isabelle Boulay, and Teri Moise.

We've got loads of kids books too, mostly in French for later and for me now. Some are from the series Le Petit Ours Brun (The Little Brown Bear), another is Les Oeufs Verts au Jambon (Green Eggs and Ham) and of course, Antoine de St. Exupery's Le Petit Prince. We've got that on audio too — an unabridged version. Dessine-moi un mouton! I've already been having fun with that.
We'll have no lack of language resources. We just need to find some native speakers and travel a lot along the way.

Our supply of Japanese immersion material is pretty limited, but what we do have is awesome — some flash cards, dictionaries of kanji, a neat iPhone app, and a conversational language learning program by Pimsleur. I found it was very helpful for learning some Arabic. I also commissioned a special quilt with letters from the Japanese hirigana alphabet from a Japanese quilt maker I randomly found on etsy. When I saw the alphabet quilts she was making, I knew I had to have one for Baby Field Notes to use as a play mat. Here's what we came up with:


Hirgana is used for Japanese words for which there is no kanji. EmiShimosato is the place to go to get your own quilt. She has excellent craftsmanship, is very friendly and also makes non-Japanese quilts. Perhaps eventually I'll have her make us a katakana quilt too. I am still kicking myself a bit for not buying the magnetic alphabet set I saw in a dollar store in Japan. I should have. Every kid needs magnetic letters for the fridge and Japanese ones would certainly be unique. I figure she'll have this in case she wants to learn Japanese.

I think people not exposed as a child to a foreign language can learn, albeit with difficulty, to pronounce unusual sounds from a foreign language that are not present in their native tongue. But it takes practice, a good ear and a keen sense of muscle coordination between the mouth and tongue. It's much easier to just be exposed early and regularly to the sounds so they don't 'fall out' of the lexicon in the first place.

Feeding the Babe ~ The Case Against Breastfeeding?

When I first read Hanna Rosin's article "The Case Against Breastfeeding" in the April 2009 issue of the Atlantic, I walked away thinking she was just making excuses to justify her decision to not give her baby the best possible nourishment she could. In less charitable moments of reflection on the article, I thought she was weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.

Now I have a new appreciation for why Rosin was compelled to write about the difficulty, and lack of necessity (in her opinion), for breastfeeding.

In a nutshell, her argument against the 'breast is best' mentality focused on 1) there's a lack of real evidence that children fair better with breastmilk than formula, and 2) women who breastfeed (which can take 8 hours a day) don't apparently value their time.

That last one was the real head-scratcher for me, that is, until I found myself nursing on demand and spending the equivalent of a full-time job doing it (without pay, too boot). I can't say that I agree with her or support her decision. I couldn't care less if she nurses her child or not, but I do care that she sets a bad example for other women who can breastfeed their baby but choose not to. Her article gives all of us newly nursing moms an ally in the decision not to breastfeed.

But, I don't want an ally in the decision to give up and switch to formula because 'it's easier,' or 'pain-free,' or 'just as good in the long run as breastmilk,' or would free up time I wish I had more of.

No, instead, I want to tough it out. I want to find ways to type one-handed effectively and to type left-handed and to actually accomplish stuff while nursing. I know I can do it; I've always appreciated a good challenge and an excuse to multi-task.

However, I recently found myself rethinking that position after numerous daily bouts of trying like mad to get my baby to latch on, suckle for real and swallow (!) and escape .. somewhat.. the insane torture without too painfully sore nipples and boobs. Seriously, labor was a cakewalk compared to this. Really.

I am hanging in there though. I am determined to make it work. There's no way, and I don't care what the research Rosin found suggests is best, I will not give my baby anything other than what evolution has crafted over millions of years to be the ideal food for the early years. That is, if I have a choice.

So, to make my job more enjoyable, and to make sure I have other outlets besides Facebooking at 3am, I snagged some new books to read:

• Parenting for Primates ~ written by a primatologist turned clinical psychologist who spent the first part of her career hand-rearing cotton-top tamarins — monkeys that co-parent their babies, usually twins.
• Our Babies, Ourselves ~ written by one of my favorite primatologists, Meredith Small, whose other books and articles I've used in class. She talks about co-sleeping, breastfeeding, infant crying and other topics from a cross-cultural perspective. Much of what she has to say I am sure will come as no surprise to me, but it will still be fun to read. It will also probably reinvigorate my desire to 'go native' with babycare — once I get my strength back, and my abs.
• Riddled With Life - written by Marlene Zuk, a biologist whose research and sense of humor I fell in love with during one of her talks at a conference I went to. Her work is a prescription for 'Darwinian medicine' and reminds us all that a too clean house is unhealthy. One of her memorable points? A trace amount of dog crap in the bed is ideal. That's good news for this house, let me tell you. Gross, but good for the immune system.

Awesome Baby Cow Quilt

When Mr. Field Notes and I visited Japan in January, one of the more unconventional things we did was go to a quilt festival.

Although we saw quite a few traditional patchwork quilts, it was the unconventional quilts that caught my eye.

This cow themed quilt continues to be one of my favorites. It had upwards of 40 different cloth cows of various sizes, shapes and expressions. At the time I walked away from the quilt, I thought it would be wonderful to have one like it but with monkeys. I could adapt the OrnaMonkeys I've made for the purpose. That was the idea, anyway. My travel companions were enthusiastic about the idea, I think because they thought this whimsical cow quilt was fantastic too! They thought I should make the monkey quilt and enter it into the 2010 quilt show. I could compete for the prizes too and maybe win some big bucks... to pay for another trip to Japan??
Maybe I will make that quilt one day.

Until then I wanted to share the crazy clever cow quilt. Here are some close-ups.

Button Nose & Eyes

Rope Tail

Ring Nose & Alphabet Body
(I like the one to his right too!)

Metallic Mama & Baby Moo Moos

As you can see, the quilt is three-dimensional in a way most quilts aren't. I really like that aspect of this one.

An Academic Dream

A few nights ago I awoke from a dream — the kind I love; the kind that makes you think hey, what if Freud was right and dreams represent wish fulfillment, what if this is what I subconsciously wish to happen?

Mr. Field Notes had taken a couple of classes in psychology at the community college (Intro and Developmental) and loved them so much that he decided he wanted to go to graduate school and get a PhD in psychology too. He wrote his dissertation on the degree of bonding between dads and their newborns in c-sections versus vaginal deliveries. Then we moved to Maine where we shared a position in the psychology department of a small liberal arts college.

That would be freaky.

Of course now, I want to plan that study (I have an idea for the general hypothesis and an inkling of an idea on how to test it). I think it could reasonably get grant funding given the topic. This may be my new direction rather than his! And, this is also so like me. Once I have too much to do, I pile on more. And I thought an academic career didn't appeal. But then recent life experiences prompted me to realize a nifty study that could actually get some grant funding and would also be a nice extension of my own dissertation research, and I suddenly find myself wanting to sit down and do some background research to write up a proposal. Huh. How about that? One can get A LOT of background reading done while nursing.

Back to work!

According to my present employer, I need to get a note from my doctor to go back to work. I've decided I'm ready to go back to work. I see him Tuesday and hopefully he'll sign off on the plan. I have no idea what to expect as far as my chances; I had a c-section so I am thinking he might think it's too early. BUT —

I have already gone back to work in the job of my own creation, selling my handmade paper. I've bundled up and sent out several orders since returning home. I've even collected '09 seeds for use in cards and paper for planting season '10: arctic poppies, bachelor buttons, dianthus and snapdragons so far. The zinnia will be ready soon.

It was a relief and highly gratifying to spend time outside gathering seed pods from my plants. I even took photos of a new product and listed it for sale online. Click the pic to see it up close! The flowers are confetti you can plant and use to grow flowers. The paper flowers are chock full of seeds I gathered from my garden plants. They really do grow too.

That's how I got these beauties at the left. I tell you, I cannot wait to teach Baby FN about plants!

I am ready to go back to work! I need it for my mental health. I hate being cooped up and cut off. That is a killer. So getting back to my former routine as much as possible will be good for my mental health and ultimately my physical health too - that mind/body connection is bona fide. That's the argument I will be making if my doc balks at the idea of me returning to work. I have an easy desk job that I do from home so I can't imagine I'll need to argue much, but I am prepared in case he does.

My doc (me, LOL) signed off on me going back to my papermaking job the first weekend I got home, about 4 days after delivering (and having a major abdominal surgery). I have been taking it easy. Really, I have.
I promise.

More on the labor and delivery soon. I am really eager to share the saga, even if no one is really interested, I need to write about it soon while it's still fresh in my mind.

I labored at home by myself and reached 8 cm dilation without needing pain meds or anybody around me. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, really. It just didn't hurt as much as I thought it would and the contractions were coming 2 weeks early so I didn't even think I was in real labor. Boy was I wrong!

It turned out to be a big week of work: The butterflies I make with seeds I embed in the pulp made an appearance on the front page of etsy. Click the photo to see the butterflies close up.

They didn't sell out, but several other things did that day! What a nice surprise to have. The last time I got that level of free advertising was a year ago. What timing! Fortunately, I have been teaching Mr. Field Notes how to press the paper so I can still make paper for orders. He does the hard, physical labor part while I do the creative, technical end. It's a great division of labor. I will really miss him when he's no longer taking leave time!