When you have a sore throat and the only thing that makes it feel better is Ben & Jerry's Heath Bar Crunch, the ice cream magically has no calories right? It is medicinal and all that.

Who the brain was that booked us on a 6 AM flight to CO when we live about an hour from the airport, I just don't know!

My son has no idea what a scarf is, despite being born in Boston and living in NY for two years. To him winter is "manatee season" Ah, Florida boy.

As a SAHM. No, no one was injured, no runs to the ER. This is an emotional crisis, the soul searching kind, the searching for self kind.

I've been a SAHM now for 3 years and 4 months. WOW! Where has the time gone and what have I done with it? Well lets see I moved twice, had a second baby and was constantly pregnant or nursing the whole time. Yet I am feeling like a slacker, an incompetent one at that. Now I love being a SAHM, love it. For all the ranting and raving and how the kids do drive me nuts and I sometimes will kill for just a moment of peace, I do love it, monotony of the dishes and all.

But this weekend at a party for one of A's classmates I talked with many women who I thought were also SAHMs, but who aren't. All of them have some sort of home business or job and I felt overwhlmed just talking to them. Overwhelmed because I feel like I barely keep my head above wtaer on some days. I have so many home projects and other things I am trying to get done, I am behind in so many categories of my life I wonder how they do it. Is it just me, what is worng with me that I can't get more done? Too many playdates, too many errands, too much internet? Just lazy? Just incompetent? Bah, feeling very down about this. I love being a SAHM but wonder if I am really any good at it and what really is the point if so many can do SAHM plus other things as well.

And of course that opens up a whole other can of worms - what exactly am I going to do with my life? I have a Masters degree in International Affairs and Russian. Now WTF am I supposed to do with that here in BFE Florida? I love it here, but international epicenter of the world it is not. Life takes you on a different path than you expect and I don't regret anything, but this is not where I thought I would end up and I now find myself severley limited career wise. Time to go back to the drawing board. But despite my feelings, I am in no hurry. Just feeling a bit lost, a bit inept, a bit confused.

I am so sad about this whole Barbara Walters "breastfeeding scandal." Having nursed one baby until 19 months and currently nursing my 12 month old, I am no stranger to the delicacy and controvery surrounding breastfeeding in public. But to have it brought up negatively by one of the nation's most prominent women on one of TV's most poular talk shows makes me sad. Just sad. It's a baby. It's eating. GET OVER IT. I'm sorry you are uncomfortable. Perhaps you would prefer sitting next to a screeching, hungry baby on your flight.

And then to watch CNN and have one man on the street compare nursing to urinating, and another say he was all for it because it turns him on, well that just turned my stomach.

The letters to the editor in today's New York Times said it better than I ever could. I related strongly to the woman who feels pangs when she sees a baby bottle fed, and I couldn't agree more that we should just call it "feeding" - maybe if we drop the breast part it can lose some of it's taboo.

Did you ever have one of those super bad hair days when your hair doesn't even look good in a baseball hat? Now how sad is that.

Why is it that when I see other moms in a baseball cap I usually think, "oh, she's hip, stylish and fun in that baseball cap. Doesn't she look cute." But when I put a baseball cap on, I feel like it is a huge red flag announcing, "Hey look at me, my morning was so freaking crazy I did not have time to shower or even brush my hair!"

At least I have clean underwear on.

My husband was right about something. Shocking I know, and it did pain me to admit that he was right, most especially to him! But moving O to the crib was the right thing to do. And after that first awful night, it has been relatively easy ever since. Nurse my baby, rock my baby, put my baby in the crib. He cries a little when I put him down but is easily soothed by a bit of rubbing and singing. What a novel concept.

I loved cosleeping, loved snuggling my baby. But it was time. Another milestone, another reminder that my baby, isn't a "baby" anymore. He is a toddler and I don't think he is going to let me forget that anytime soon.

Sleep training sucks. Horrible gasping, chest clenching sobs escape from O's little body, he clings to me, hot and sweaty yet clammy. Cruel mother that I am I lie him back down in the crib, over and over and over again. I think my heart is breaking.

And the screeching. Oh, the screeching.

This sucks. What sucks worse is knowing I am probably going to have to go through the same nightmare in just a few short hours, all over again.

The child can not sleep in our bed forever, but damn, there should be an easier way. But when you marry the world's most stubborn man, you should expect the world's most stubborn offspring. Said man is now in the nursery trying to outstuborrn his son. We shall see who wins this battle.

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about what life was like exactly a year ago. Those torturous weeks leading up to O's birth - I was comically huge, achy, crabby. I was a nervous wreck wondering if I could really do this whole birthing thing. I was anxious to get the show on the road, to put into practice all I had been training for for the past 7 or so months. And then came the big day, easier, yet harder and crazier than I ever imagined.

I could go on and on about the birth, what it meant to me, how it healed me. I never thought I would be so upset about A's birth, about having to have a c-section. I didn't forsee that actually having a vaginal birth would erase all of those feelings of loss and inadequacy. I had thought it would make the loss stronger - see what I missed out on with A, see how needlessly extra-rough those first weeks were when I was so mopey. But I was miraculously healed. No more second guessing. Just a lingering wish that I had known more, had been more informed. But what's done is done. I am at peace with my birthings now, with both of them.

And I know deep, deep in my heart that O's birth was meant to be. A strange confluence of events, a bringing of people into my life in Ithaca. I found my Blessingway necklace the other day when I was going through O's baby box (A babybook just can't hold it all!). I think of all those women who put their love and strength into the wishes the charms on the necklace, and I smile a bit through a few tears. I could not have done it without them, Danielle who was my rock and healer who loves birth and women without bounds, Linnie, who listened to all my questions and moaning and leant me her strength and watched my first baby, Vivi and Tiffany who also showed me how to be strong and powerful through birth. I am grateful for all of them b/c I needed every ounce of strength they gave me to get through O's birth. And like Linnie, I now believe there is also a touch of magic in Cayuga Lake, that helps those birthing there at the hospital above the lake.

Now to decide if I have the strength to do it again, if a baby #3 is in our cards. I know I could carry it, birth it, but some days I wonder if I could parent another child. These two boys take all I have to give and then some on our worst days. But that is for another post, another day. Much to think about, lots of time to decide.