But, there are some topics that are so generic that I feel I can post about my experience. Sleeplessness, yes! I have a whole crew of infant mom friends and we are all talking about it, working on it and dealing with it every day.  The moments that we are not thinking about it are joyous, indeed.

I read the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child”, which I loved and really changed how I do things.  Sleep improved immediately and within a month was fantastic. We had removed the swing and the swaddle and the kid was only getting up once in the night. After being up most of the night for 3 months of an underweight and colicky baby, this was an amazing step for us. A number of times, I even put her down awake below her mobile and she put herself to sleep. Wow, that wasn’t so bad!

I imagined this kid to be a great learner, a self-soother and to be, just generally, a good sleeper.  I read on a message board yesterday, something like this, “They tell you that your kid should start sleeping “through the night” at around 4 months. What they don’t tell you is that it won’t last.”

As her energy and alertness has increased, she has been fighting sleep more and more. Catching her at the right time is tricky business. One minute, she is happily playing and exploring her toys, the next, she is letting out manic screeches that indicate she is tired and wanting to stay awake.  We are still experimenting with the best way to bring her back down, a walk almost always does it. Usually if we try to put her to sleep when she first exhibits signs of tiredness, it is not to a good end. Unfortunately, this is not only true for naps, but also in her middle of the night waking.

So, we have slowly added back things that used to help her sleep that she didn’t need for a while. Her swaddle, her cushy bouncy seat and the last two nights even her swing.  Our doctor suggested that it was time to start letting her fuss for 5 minutes to help her learn to put herself to sleep, but we can’t really handle it and it is hard to imagine sleep actually happening in 5 minutes. The fussing seems to just work her up even more.

The hardest time is the afternoon. She pretty much refuses to go down for her afternoon nap unless she is so wiped out that she passes out.  We try everything and it always seems that she just wants to stay awake in an overtired state.

The bright side is that (in part because of the sleep training that I learned in the aforementioned book), she has one nap a day that is quite long.  I think she is on a quest to come down to two naps a day and this is the cause of this sleep havoc.  But, once that stabilizes, I am now quite certain there will be something else.

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I appreciate the congratulations that people are offering me.  I am thrilled to have S- with us and I know that others are happy for me.  It is another step forward in our journey as foster parents and the first time that I have been this close to a newborn infant.  I also appreciate the visitors and gifts that have been so generous and wonderful.

On the other hand, it is important that people understand that currently, I am only mom temporarily, foster mom that is.  So, it isn’t congratulations on your new baby. It is closer to congratulations on your babysitting gig.  Of course, I am being flip. It is really something in between.

Any joy that we are experiencing with Baby S- is because her birth mom is having a rough time. Rough enough that she is not able to take care of her daughter right now.  I have met her and witnessed how devastatingly sad this is for her.  It is my job as a foster parent to be an ally to the birth mom and to support Baby M- in whatever decisions that the courts make about her future even if our role in it will be limited or non-existent.

It is natural to be curious about the kid, her birth mom, where she came from and the likelihood that she will be able to stay with us.  Unfortunately, each question, even those as simple as her name are hard for us to answer.  Sure, the birth mom gave her a name, but if she is adopted by us will we change her name?  She is 15 days old, does she really need a name?  And other questions, we don’t know what the answer is or the answer just feels complicated. Questions about what will happen from here involve taking guesses based on details that constantly surfacing. I am afraid that sharing those just begin exposing how vulnerable little S- really is and open up her and her birth mom to judgements and speculation.

J- and I have decided that what I have written above is all that we will say about Baby S-’s situation.  Anything else that I may have heard is yet to be confirmed or is simply none of anyone’s business, to be crass. Any additional information can only taint people’s impression of the baby or mom rather than give any real sense of what the kid’s future will look like.

In general, CPS cases have several phases.  In the initial phase, CPS investigates. They assess the birth mom and decide if she will be offered reunification services and which services they will be. They learn about the family.  If they can, they will track down the birth father and look into his family. At any time, the baby could be moved from our care into the care of the birth family. If the birth mother is offered reunification services, she will have a certain amount of time to meet the criteria set out by the court. If she does not satisfy the case plan, the court has to decide what to do from there.

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It started with the first phone call.  We hadn’t fully thought through what to do when it came. We were reacting to our last experience where we felt so prepared and confident and thought we had everything planned out and ultimately all o fthat preparation didn’t make much of a difference.  This time, we’d take things as they came. We would invest and plan less.

We have also talked about the possibility that we will “just” be foster parents for some time.  We will try not to be attached to permanency and adoption. We will go with the flow.

We assumed that we would be able to talk about it.   I was giving a massage the first time the phone rang, so J- asked if he could call them back. By the time I got out of my session, they had found another home for this 3-week old baby.  There was very little information about the kids situation, but if we had a chance to talk about it, it would have probably been a “yes”.  It is hard to imagine turning away a 3-week old baby for any reason.

So after that call, I realized the panic that I would experience if we got another one of those phone calls and we didn’t have a crib or diapers or a single bottle.  We got furniture from craigslist and went down the baby aisle of Target and got one of everything.

Since then, we have received 3 more calls. They have all been between 9 and 11 am and they have all been about children under 2 years of age.  3 of them have been for children needing immediate, emergency placement.  They haven’t worked out for a number of reasons, primarily because we took week-long vacation right after we became certified.

We are looking forward to more calls and are ready to say “yes,” even if it is just to get this process rolling.

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The other important thing that she said was that we are responsible for screening the call.  We are responsible for deciding whether the kid is the right kid for us. It is nice that this is so out in the open and obvious this time. Other than the number and age of children that we could take, we gave little other information to the county about our criteria.  On the other hand, the last time that we went through this it was our impression that the social worker’s would have some role in ensuring a good match.  I was never really able to recover from the frustration and disappointment with our agency when this did not happen.

So, we are currently lining up resources of people that we can talk to in an emergency about the situation.  Our therapist, our good friend the social worker, our friends who are also fost-adopt parents.  I do feel certain of my criteria, but I don’t feel very certain of my ability to determine whether that child meets my criteria or whether I can say no if it is not certain.

Then, I think of how much more experience that we know have in our understanding of a child’s history and behavior and attachment.  I also remember that this time around my mantra is all about staying calm, no matter what.  So the next time the phone rings, I will take a deep breath…and say “Hello…”

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Big includes just about anything that involves a crowd, crossing bridges or nights later than 11pm.  Writing that makes me feel old and boring, but I actually think I am just discovering my comfort levels and where I find satisfaction. I can have fun at big events, but many times I do not.  Many times, I spend the time hopping from one person to another that I haven’t seen in a long time and don’t really get the depth of contact that I really enjoy.  It is also pretty likely that if I go to a big event that I will get a cold or flu after or at least need a day of recovery from exhaustion.

Another category that I have struggled with is “new”.  I have also been increasingly feeling like I want more time for the the things that I am already doing rather than inviting new projects all the time.  I do crave new things, but I have begun learning to contain them. I now try to start new things as a short-term project with a specific scope and completion time or projects with built in limits.

So, focusing on work, self-care, music, home and friends has been the order of the day. Especially as it is winter and I am preparing to be a mom again.  Keeping it simple is actually all I can handle.

I have also been working on being under-committed rather than over-committed. I remember my friend Chance being available to help me out on a moment’s notice and that being such a relief so many times.  He said that he was available to help because he actually really didn’t do anything himself, but being available for others IS doing something. I am grateful that I have the stability and availability to be Chance for others.

I put off making any Thanksgiving plans, partly because I just couldn’t decide what I wanted to do.  We had plans with our friend Al- the next day.My family seemed coll with skipping it, but I was invited to my good friends who lives a little over an hour North.  J-and I have been really burnt out and I wasn’t sure about the driving.

Turns out that Al- went into the hospital with sepsis.  She was really scared and I got really scared .  All I really wanted to do is hang out with her and luckily, she needed me to.  So, I got to spend part of Thursday and Friday with her at the hospital and I was so happy to just to chill and have her know that I was in the same room (she slept most of Thursday).  Her partner made an awesome dinner, I helped her eat and then took the rest home to share with J-.

Instead of stressing out on the road and stuffing myself sick, I spent a sweet time with someone that I love and haven’t gotten to see too much lately.  I did miss my other loved ones, but I know I will see them very soon.

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“We have to fill out the paperwork, which should be pretty easy since we have done it before. The paperwork includes references which may take a few weeks to get back.  We also have to go down to the county and get fingerprinted and it takes a while for those results to come back.  When we decide to, we could be ready for a placement within a month or so.  But, it is possible that there will not be a good placement for some time.  The most important thing for us this time through is to not feel too rushed or worried about anything.”

So now, our references and the fingerprints are in process, probably nearly done. We could receive a call any day saying that we are ready for our final home inspection.

Another part of the answer that we were sort of leaving out is that we have a house guest, N-.  We have never been sure how long she would be staying with us, so we have been waiting to see how her situation evolves.  She is great to have around, in general, and as a nurse and mother of 3 would be a great person to have around with a baby.  Unfortunately, she has been pretty ill lately.  So ill that she has had to be in and out of the hospital.  It has been touch and go and hard to imagine having a baby or kid in the house.  Until now.

Late last week, my friend ZM called saying that her beautiful daughters have a brand new biological sister who was born on the 17th in an area about 4 hours away from us.  That county had called her to see if she could take the new baby.  Although she would like more kids, hers are 2 and 4, plus she has a very active business and is a single mom.  She decided it was too much for her.  Although she told the county about us, the county is first trying to place the baby in a home within their county.  There is a slight chance that those homes won’t pan out and ours will become an option.

Meanwhile, our roommate is improving and willing and able to live with a baby. We feel lucky for our spacious house which could allow N- to recover even with a baby in the house.  It does add a variable to our certification process and we remain unsure whether all of these things can be worked out if the little one does become a possibility for our family.

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This is actually not really news.  The UK Daily Telegraph released the details in an article in August, 2009.  A local tribal leader saw the kidnappers crossing the border from the Iran side, and noted cell phone records of the call that alerted the kidnappers to the hikers presence. The article also notes that, at that moment, the tension between the US and the Iranian government was high because of US protests of the 2009 election in Iran.

So, why didn’t this information come out in the US before? Iran covered up this information and their official story was to allege that the hikers crossed the border and were going to be tried as spies.  Anyone that knows Sarah, Josh or Shane, is aware that this is complete B.S., but maybe this is the only way for Iran to save face keep them in Evin.  I am guessing here, but my sense is that there has been a tension between using official means to try and release the hikers and using the media to build public support.

I am still speculating when I suggest that nobody really knows WHY Iran is holding the hikers and this is responsible for creating this tension.  Is it because of the protests that the Daily Telegraph mentions? If so, why do they continue to hold them, wouldn’t this only strain the relations further? Is The Iranian government waiting for an opportunity for an exchange? (This came up in the media throughout the time that the hikers have been held. Most recently, it was  reported in February  that Ahmadinejad proposed a prisoner exchange and then, earlier this month, that Iranian officals said it is not in their practice to “exchange people”.) Is Ahmadinejad just looking for a way out that he can save face?

So because nobody knows why they are actually being held, since they are clearly not spies and clearly did not cross the border, it is completely unclear what the right tactics are to pursue their release.  As has been stated by the Free the Hikers campaign many times, this is a historically safe area.  It has only been within the last month that tensions between Iran and Kurdish rebels have begun heating up.  The border crossings of Iranian troops were distinct enough to be newsworthy. Outside magazine notes that Europeans and Americans regularly travel in this area and that at peak times, this trail does have significant use.  The article also notes that Iranian-US relations are at an all-time low due to “Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials and anti-Israel diatribes, the surging power of Iran’s anti-Western Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the regime’s suppression of the country’s pro-democracy movement”.

It seems that the few hateful American’s that post comments saying that they deserve their fate for being so stupid may be the only ones that have ever thought that their jailing makes any kind of sense.  And now, with the public release of this border information, not only can I send a big FU to those self-righteous people, but it is the final piece of a puzzle that points to the fact that is was not a stupid mistake that the hikers are paying for, but is instead an international hostage situation, and one that has been downplayed for too long.

But here’s the rub, and how the situation is turned upside-down version of  a simpler hostage situation.  The hikers “are the opposite of ugly Americans” (as Outside puts it). They can’t be held up as models of imperialism. Instead, they are warm and generous people wanting to bridge gaps between cultures and advocate freedom, information and education for everyone.  They are pro-Palestinian.  While it would certainly be a stretch (and an incorrect one at that) to say that they are supporters of Ahmadinejad’s, they are not even close to his worst enemies and  are even farther from being enemies of the Iranian people.

Because of these personal qualities and the consequential journalism, teaching and activism that they have done here in the Bay Area and internationally, I have hope that international allies in Europe and the Middle East will step up and ultimately mount enough public pressure to lead to their release.

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East Bay Alternative Medicine-A collaboration of local alternative medicine practitioners that is just getting going.

Insurgent Summer- This is a “guided” summer reading of one of the greatest pieces of  anarchist literature of all time.  Starting this week, it will take place over 10 weeks.

The good news is that we expect to be back in matching by the end of the summer, so I may have a whole lot of new material coming up soon. This will be especially exciting for those following my parenting/fost-adopt life.

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I had noticed that my body tended to feel better during the summer, but I attributed that to dryer, warmer weather and being more active.

There has certainly been a buzz about Vitamin D over the last few years.  I have been hearing about it from my father-in-law, who is an MD, my L. Ac. and have also seen articles about it in alternative medicine journals.  I heard that there had been an increase in rickets, links to cancer prevention, and cardiovascular disease.  What I didn’t know is that it has also been linked to fibromyalgia and back pain.

A few months ago, I was sick-sick-sick, in order to kick it, I decided to start taking a few extra supplements, including Vitamin D (in higher amounts than the RDA).  Once I was better, I continued for good measure.

I had noticed a major reduction in shoulder and back pain-about 85%, actually. I attributed this to the fact that I had been working less, but as time went on and I got back up to a normal workload, my shoulder pain didn’t come back, they were still sore, but the pain remained relatively low.  I was also sleeping better because my lower back (which had me turning regularly) was also much better.

My back problems are old and chronic.  I have had episodes of pain since I was in my early 20’s, but I have also been seriously athletic since then, participating in either long distance cycling or serious running and hiking for most of that time.  Less activity and two disc herniations later, I have had a weak, numb and achey left leg for the last year.  My back was getting generally better before I started taking D, but the trajectory of improvement has increased and so has my quality of life.

About a month after I started supplementing my D, I had my level tested and it came out at 40.  That number is adequate, but not particularly high, so I suspect that I did start out with a deficiency that was leading to my body’s inability to deal with the inflammation brought up by my physically challenging lifestyle.

The image is borrowed from the Pine Street Foundation, I highly recommend taking the time to read and understand their longish article on Vitamin D.

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I did come home frothing after seeing an offending slogan and posted on facebook. Some of the ideas from this post are from my funny peeps there, and are duly attributed with their first initial.

Bumper Stickers that I hate:

Electoral

I am an anarchist. I do not believe that voting actually works. Publicizing that you vote for someone that I fundamentally do not trust fails to impress me.  It is kind of rubbing my nose in how bad the system is.  Additionally, as N- so eloquently said, “Girl I am with you… Mainly that people don’t take the political ones off after the election…Go Dukakis! :)”   You know those crusty looking worn away ones that are either half chipped off or so faded you can barely read them…

My Dog is Smarter than Your Honor Student

Why dis people that are all proud of their kids? Okay, you like your dog, a lot.  It isn’t really funny and it certainly isn’t true.  I see that the parent of the honor student is making themselves vulnerable for some sort of a class attack. They are almost inevitably middle class white people driving a Subaru Outback less than 2 years old.  You, on the other hand, with your beat up red pickup expose yourself as a young, unattached guy (well, you are attached to your co-pilot dog) from Connecticut who will probably be driving your kid around in an Outback in less than 10 years.

Do No Harm

Just explain this. It is on a car, which is basically a harm machine.  You can just add any sort of environmental message to this part of my list.

The Mystery Spot

I went to the Mystery Spot, when I was 8. Isn’t that when we all went? My favorite part was the painting that had eyes that followed you while I walked in the room. Second favorite was water that ran up hill. I stopped being charmed by this little gimmick shack when I was 9.  But I must not be all cool and retro.

A fish of any kind

If you have a desire to compete with Christianity, more power to you…but it isn’t funny anymore.

Bumper Stickers that get a pass:

Cheney-Voldemort ‘08

Even though I usually don’t like Electoral stickers, this one is funny AND true.

My Other Car is a…

You’ve got a schtick and you are excited about it, there is nothing there to offend anyone.  That is cool, dude. I would love nothing more than to see you hanging 10 down Shattuck Avenue someday.

Hang up and Drive

We’re all thinking it, anyways.

Found cache, Lost car

A little self-deprecation is always appreciated.  Considering this has happened to me more than once when I have wandered away from my car, with my nose in  my GPS…and the fact that this seems pretty hilarious, this one gives me a chuckle.

As long as you are riding my ass, at least you can pull my hair

Okay, so not only does this get a pass, but it may go down as the best bumper sticker I’ve ever heard of. Thanks S-…hahahaha.  If kids weren’t required to sit in the backseat, it sure would be a good intro to the birds and the bees.

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