Don’t worry, he’s here!

Just realized that in all the excitement of the last few days I forgot to say that Baby Larms did make it here safe and sound and adorable as all get out. Everyone is doing well and we’ll post a pic soon!

I’ll be back with a real post tomorrow, but for now I’m still trying to recover from all the excitement. It’s HARD WORK waiting for babies to be born, people.

He’s coming! He’s coming! (And also, can we have our earth-friendly cake and eat it, too?)

That’s right. Baby boy Larms is on his way into this great wide world of ours as I write this post, I believe. Woot! And cheers to Larms for making it through the longest 48 hours of her life, no doubt. We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy! Next time you see Larms be sure to say to her: “But it was ALL worth it!!” with a smug, all-knowing “I’ve been a mom for a while now so I understand these things” smile on your face. I’m sure she’ll really appreciate the sentiment. And she won’t be tempted to punch you in the throat AT ALL.

Even though I’m too wired to see straight from all the excitement, I wanted to get this out tonight so you’d have some leisurely Sunday morning reading available to you over what I trust is your organically grown, free-traded coffee.

It’s Lesson 3 in our ongoing lifelong learning series which maybe I should give an official title to: “Environmental Econ 401: Now that we botched everything beyond imagination, how are we going to fix it?” (Really, can’t we get this course accredited by University of Phoenix or something?)

I started following Grist recently since it seemed like a hotbed of environmental bulletins that I should keep up on if I’m s’posed to be knowing something about these things. David Roberts did a couple of good posts responding to Krugman’s article from last week and basically lamented two missing aspects of the whole debate. First, he wishes the analysts would acknowledge that the energy market is muddled beyond belief with interventions already–it is in no way a “free” market–so why do they discuss the theoretical impacts of policy decisions as if it were?

Second, and more centrally, he wants to know why the choices presented to us are always and only about making some sort of painful economic sacrifice in the name of the environment when there are countless “win-win” policy ideas already out there that can be good for the environment AND the economy simultaneously. Why do they get no attention?

Why, indeed? NOW I NEED TO KNOW.

Would you like some boric acid while you wait for that baby?

So no baby yet, in case you were wondering. Round 2 of “Bring on the Birth!” begins tomorrow. Larms is “resting up” right now, or whatever one does whilst confined to an uncomfortable bed, contracting intermittently, and trying not to move too much so as not to disturb the growing collection of wires attached to one’s body. I’m sure she’ll have a GREAT night’s sleep!

In the meantime, I will distract and amuse you with this amazing natural remedy taught to us by our baby sitter. (She is that kind of experienced caregiver who’s seen it all in her 30 years in the field and whose advice you kinda sorta trust more than your pediatrician’s. You know the type.)

A few weeks ago our daughter was beset by something that I’m sure was technically termed a “cold” but more accurately should be described as a “mucus plague from hell”. Seriously, she had had a few “colds” before and you know, there was a stuffy nose, we threw a vaporizer in her room, and badda-bing, badda-boom, in a few days all was back to normal.

But this thing. This thing started in her nose and then just sort of mutated and morphed until it had taken over her entire face and mucus was literally streaming from everywhere, including her EYES, at a near-constant rate. When she was awake they were almost completely glazed over with freshly-squeeze gunk, and when she managed to sleep she would wake up with eyes completely glued shut by layers upon layers of the dried, caked-on yellow crud. I’ve never seen anything like it, in myself or anyone I know.

And I’ll admit, it had me a little concerned. The pediatrician said to give her Zyrtec. Which we did. I have no idea what, if any, effect that had on her sinuses, but it did nothing to alleviate the eye-goop. So we just lived with it for an entire long weekend, trying to wipe it away with warm water and a cloth whenever we could, but never able to clean her up enough so that she had better than say, 50% visibility at any given time. Not surprisingly, the whole situation really started to wear on the little lady.

Then finally she headed back to the sitter’s when the week started and arrived home that day with beautifully, mercifully, clean and clear eyes. The crust-monster was gone and my child was back! WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Boric acid, apparently. It seems you can easily create this solution at home and voila! Totally alleviate a whole array of eye problems. The sitter had performed the simple cotton ball cleaning in step 4. Magic.

In summation, while Larms was busy discovering all the ways that boric acid can help make her toilet clean and sparkly, we were discovering all the ways that it can keep your child from looking like a spawn of the Swamp Thing.

If it keeps this kind of versatility up, vinegar is gonna have a fit.

In honor of Larms and her nearly-here bundle of joy!

That’s right. In about 48 hours give or take (I’ll cross my fingers for take!), the more accurate title of this website will be “Our Simple Green Babies”. Go, go Larms!

I thought it only appropriate, then, that we spend a moment reflecting solemnly on what is completely backasswards about giving birth in the grand ol’ U.S. of A.

As usual, this was picked up by Larms, who never met an informational link she could resist clicking, and is no doubt reading and re-reading it right now (Step away from the computer, woman! Find your happy place!!), and fuming on behalf of all moms-to-be who are not served well by our current, broken-from-start-to-finish system.

VBAC’s ahoy!

While I don’t have time to delve into the entire topic of “birth in the American culture” right now, someday (after we have proven we can follow through with our existing projects!) Larms and I will give it a properly thorough treatment, since we each have SCORES of pent-up rants about the over-medicalization and de-simplification of childbirth waiting to be unleashed upon you, our innocent readers.

For the moment, let me just point you to the newly-released NIH findings regarding vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). (Full panel statement here, for those who like primary sources!) This is a subject near and dear to my heart, as I was my mother’s first child and born of emergency cesarean, but because she had her 2nd two children in the mid-80′s during the great VBAC revival (and with the aid of a forward-thinking OB), she was easily able to choose NOT to have a c-section for the births of my siblings. (I should note, however, that although this male OB was radical enough to steer her toward a vaginal birth for my brother, he was not, apparently, aware that a woman enduring 20 hours of back labor with no pain medication might benefit from more range/flexibility of movement than FLAT ON HER BACK IN A HOSPITAL BED. Props to you, Mom. Seriously.)

Unfortunately, that option would most likely no longer be readily available to her today (to varying degrees depending on where she lived), possibly leaving her consigned to two more automatic c-sections and exposing her to the additional and increasing risks involved without giving her a real choice in the matter. So I was thrilled when my husband, alert-Morning Edition listener that he is (good work babe!), told me all about the new study and its findings. Score one (I hope!) for treating each birth on a case by case basis and, when possible, letting women decide for themselves how they’d like to bring their kiddos into the world!