More Friday Flip Offs

Welcome again to Friday Flip Offs, as envisioned by Gigi at KludgyMom. Join me as i get my weekly frusturations off my chest!

To whatever demons plague my son - i dont know whether its more teeth, or his eczema, his snuffly nose or what the hell is going on, but if his sleeping doesnt return to something resembling normal soon i may just go bonkers. I'm tired and i'm tired off having to fight him to sleep three or four times a day. My back aches, my ribs ache from holding him and rocking him and sleeping with an arm tossed over him, and i may just develop RSI in my wrist from all the patting thats been going on. So, to whatever it is that has taken him from sleeping through the night from 8 weeks old to now FLIP OFF!

To the Big W Toy Sale - i went through your catalogue, i chose the toys that would make the best presents for my son and neices and nephews....and then when i get to the store you only have 1 out of 8 in stock. Very. Freaking. Disappointing. I changed a few decisions but had my heart set on others, so i've put on a small layby with you and will now have to wait for the Target toy sale for the rest. For not having enough of sale items in stock you get a royal FLIP OFF!

To my el-cheapo Ugg boots - no, you are not the real Ugg branded thing, but you have seen me through some cold times. I really did love you once but now you are literally falling apart. If i scuff around the house in you much longer your soles will just completely fall off and i'll be left with my lower legs encased in fluffy warmth but with the bottom of my feet exposed. Its with a fond farewell and more than a bit of sadness i'm going to have to say FLIP OFF!

Tongue Tied

Despite knowing how to stick his tongue out for months now, Flynn has decided this week is Cheeky Monkey week in our house. I've been trying to catch him doing it since Monday and today i finally succeeded. I dare you not to smile...

Why No Effort?

One of Mick's friends have just had the honour of becoming first time parents. C rang last night to let us know that they had welcome a baby boy a few days ago and, amongst the usual enquiries of weight, length, and how the labouring went, he mentioned that the new baby is being bottle fed. When Mick asked why, C explained that because Bub had trouble attaching in the first 24 hours the nurses had told mum " ah, just put him on a bottle ".

What?!? Hearing this made me both sad and angry. Why didnt the nurses at this hospital make more effort to help a first time mum have a loving and nurturing connection with her son? Very rarely does any baby master attachment in the first 24 hours, so to say its just going to be easier to bottle feed is a huge cop out. I'm angry that the nurses and midwives, who are there to help mums and their new bubs, didnt think it important enough to sit down and help her out with attachment issues, to explain to her that it can take days, weeks even, for bubs to get the hang of breatfeeding. Angry that they didnt offer a comp feed while they perservered with the boob, and angry that they didnt offer an breastfeeding aids ( such as a nipple shield, which Flynn and I have been using successfully for 6 months now ). I'm sad that because of this lack of effort that this new mum and her baby boy may miss out on the joys of breastfeeding, and the wonderful and, undeniable, nutrional benefits.

Thats Flynn having his boobies right there. Oh, and me and Mick.

Of course, i understand that nurses in maternity wards are busy. Over-worked, yes, and certainly under-appreciated much of the time. But surely, on a maternity ward, help with and advice on first-time breastfeeding must be one of their most important duties. I also acknowledge that bottle-feeding is not the Devil and is not the absolute worst thing in the world - i just think that for a mum who wanted to breastfeed to be told " just put him on a bottle, its easier " is a huge cop out and, frankly, a damn shame.

Kudos to all those hospital in my state - including the one where i gave birth - that are breastfeeding friendly. ( They do have an actual term for it, i just cant remember it ). These hospital advocate breastfeeding over bottle feeding - if you want to bottle feed thats fine and they're not going to nag you into changing your mind - but for everyone else they will do their damnest to make sure mum and bub can successfully breastfeed. Because of the wonderful midwives at my local hospital, Flynn has happily been having boobies for over 6 months, and hopefully for another 6 months more. I'm just sad that C's wife, unless she seeks out a local lactation consultant that will help, is going to miss out, all because people who are charged with her care and paid to give her help, couldnt ( or wouldnt ) make an effort.....

Peace Through Strength

It’s beautiful where I live and peaceful too, most of the time. I like to sit on my back porch, smell the woods, hear the birds and animals, feel the wind, and watch the sun light everything from different angles as it moves across the sky each day and sets over the mountains. But then I’ll hear coyotes yipping and howling as they chase down some other animal to eat. I’ll see an owl and listen to the other birds cry in distress at its presence. I’m reminded that it’s a struggle to survive out there and if you’re not careful, you might be eaten up. Keeping strong, wary, and ready to fight enhances survival. Most predators are smart, preying on the weak and avoiding the strong. Strong is good.

Late one night I was woken by screams outside my bedroom window and it took several seconds to realize they weren’t human. Animals were struggling violently, but I didn’t know what kind and I still don’t. I got up and peered through the screen into the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything except movement. They were screams fear, panic, and pain as the fight moved into the woods on the other side of the road. After a minute or so, it ended and I went back to bed wondering what had happened. The next morning, I saw smears of blood on the road and leading into the woods where ferns were trampled. There were no tracks I could discern, and no remains. Either the victim got away, or it was killed and eaten somewhere deeper into the woods.

Months later, a couple of young thugs tried to invade the house across the street about fifty yards from where the animals had been fighting. One said later under interrogation that they intended to kill the elderly couple living there and take their vehicle for a joy ride. They had knocked on the door, demanded keys at gunpoint, cut the telephone wires, and then fled after the man slammed the door on them and they heard him yell: “Get the gun!” to his wife. They were arrested later for attempted home invasion and conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to prison.

Most people are harmless and many are kind, but we mustn’t forget there are predators everywhere - always have been - and the human variety is the most dangerous. Thank God these two young men happened to be stupid predators or my elderly neighbors would have died. Ever since, I’ve kept a loaded pistol within reach and encouraged my wife to learn to shoot with it. I’ve always had rifles and a shotgun around, but they’re bulky and not well suited to handle something like a home invasion. People have to be ready to defend themselves because police can’t be everywhere.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” as Thomas Jefferson said, and that applies to us as individuals as well as nations. Our freedom and our very existence depend on readiness to fight whenever necessary. What troubles me lately is that most Americans seem to have forgotten this, if they ever knew it. Our country has changed. We’ve elected a President and a Congress who believe it’s possible to discuss our way out of any potential conflict. They believe criminal predators among us are victims of poverty, poor childhoods, severe toilet training, or whatever, and that police and the courts should be the only ones to deal with them and citizens should be disarmed. They apply similar skewed logic to international relations, believing the United States has oppressed other countries and that’s why they hate us and attack us. They think that if we just make nice, conflict can be avoided.

They place more confidence in United Nations resolutions than the United States military, and the human predators out there in the wide world know this very well. They don’t understand that we must be strong and ready to fight at all times, and if we are, it’s less likely that we’ll have to do so. However, our president goes around the world apologizing for our past use of force and promising to set limits on how we’ll use it in the future. Our military wants to pass out medals for not shooting the enemy instead of killing them. We still have by far the strongest military the world has ever known but we seem to lack the will to use it, and our enemies sense that. Violent conflict therefore becomes more likely, rather than less.

Should these trends continue, we’ll have to again learn the hard way that weakness, real or perceived, is a bigger threat to peace and freedom than strength.

An Update ( For Those Who Have Actually Noted My Absence )

Nope - i havent fallen off the face of the earth. And no, unlike my last lengthy absence, i havent given birth again ( i'm not a miracle worker ). Nope, i've just had a fussy son who refuses to sleep the way i'd like him too and just not enough extra time up my sleeve.

See - remember Project SleepyTime ? Its  not going so well. Its been put on the backburner, for now. I thought we were making some headway after a week or so of going through the motions, but as we got better at our day sleeps, the nights were starting to get worse. Not that they were good - waking two or three times a night, sometimes taking an hour and half to go back to sleep - but they were getting markedly worse. And then, there was last Monday night - Flynn woke at 9:45pm and did not fall back to sleep until 4:10am. 6 hrs - and he whinged and cried and screamed the entire time. I became hysterical, crying and crying and pleading with him to be quiet. I almost took myself out of the house to just sit somewhere away from him, except that it was -4 degrees outside and i didnt want to risk frostbite. I took his temperature three times and it was normal. I gave him Nurofen because i thought it might have been his teeth ( it wasnt and the medecine did nothing ). Mick and i rocked and walked and patted and stroked.... nothing.I got so desperate i rang a medical helpline who, despite the lack of symptoms, suggested i take him to the local ER because he'd been crying consistently for more than 2 hours. As soon as i put him in the car and started driving, he laughed and giggled ( i drove for five minutes and then went home ). Finally, after 6 hours of crying and over an hour of me lying beside him and stroking his head, Flynn finally fell asleep. And so did i, on the mattress beside him, utterly exhausted - only for him to wake at his normal time of 7am, which meant i was existing on 3 hours sleep.

The next night he woke at 11pm and it took me and hour and half of cuddles and stroking to get him asleep. The night after that, when he woke at 8pm, i nursed him on my lap until Mick and i were ready for bed, and then put him in bed with us. Which is where he has stayed the rest of the week. Its only been a few days and i'm already over co-sleeping. We have a queen sized bed but i'm all cramped and my back has been killing me because i dont have the room to roll over properly ( and i spend the first few hours twisted at the waist with my arm slung across my son. ) Somehow Flynn knows if i;m not touching him, which is half the problem - you think he's asleep, he's snoring and all limp and then, as soon as i place him in his bed and my hand leaves the back of his head BOOM! his eyes open and he starts sooking. He doesnt calm down til his back in my arms or back in my bed. Its driving me mental.

So, to clarify, i have been missing in action for the past week because my normal blogging timeslot has been taken up with nursing, rocking, patting , stroking and trying to get some sleep. As we speak, Flynn is asleep beside me on a mattress on the loungeroom floor ( it looks like squatters have taken over my living room ) with his feet touching my leg. I am toying with the idea of putting him in his cot and just seeing how long he;ll stay asleep. I'm thinking an hour at the most, at which point he'll wake up and i, out of frusturation and exhaustion, will bring him to bed with us.

Any advice people?

Red or Black Clogs to Remain Secured by Obscurity

This week I received the very sad news that my colleague and friend from Kingston University and St Georges Hospital, Professor Paul Wainwright had unexpectedly died whilst I was in Pakistan. Paul was passionate about everything nursing and like myself had a real interest in the education and development of practitioners. Three years ago he started a very successful nursing research conference which enabled nurses at all stages of development to present and disseminate their work. His other passion was in exploring the relationship between the humanities and health care practice.

Ironically, I returned from Pakistan on Tuesday night and by 6am Wednesday morning I was well and truly right back in to the hurly burly world of University life, preparing to run the first of our joint Workshop Conferences aimed at bringing together the humanities and mental health nursing care in explicating Mental Health and Well-Being.

Along with colleagues from our School of English, Sociology, Politics & Contemporary History, and colleagues from University of Nottingham, University of Liverpool and University of Dundee, we had a great day exploring notions of madness, the Gothic in English Literature, tensions between psychiatry and mental health, and the works of Thomas Szasz and Peter Morrell.

My good friend Phil Barker came and gave a great key note presentation. Amongst Phil’s many claims to fame is the fact that he was the UK's first Professor of Psychiatric Nursing Practice, and at present, he is Visiting Professor at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee. In 1995 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, UK and remains one of the very few mental health nurses to have achieved this. He is a prolific author and still travels the world presenting his work (on recovery and personhood). As some of my mental health nurse educator colleagues will know, Google Scholar has him down as the most cited living psychiatric nurse theorist. I have been fortunate enough to write with and for him and he has contributed to the last book Sue McAndrew and I wrote. Over the last few years we have run into each other at mental health conferences all over the world.

Phil also has a penchant for wearing black, but not in my exclusive sense, has a long ponytail, ZZ top beard, wears silver jewellery, and red, not black clogs. Some have made comparisons between us and wondered if one was emulating the other. We are of course individuals in our own right.

All in all it was a great day, although it started badly. Just 24 hours previously I had been sitting in the Sheraton Hotel reception with a cup of coffee, and turning on my lap top it had taken 30 seconds to connect to the University of Salford home page. Now 24 hours later, and just 60 feet from my office it took 40 minutes and the help of a very obliging technician to connect to the very same home page!

It also appeared that I was not the only one dogged by technology problems this week. I noted that Anna Kushchenko, one of the 10 people arrested as being a possible Russian spy, aaccording to the FBI, was dogged by persistent trouble trying to get the computer issued by her Russian handlers to wirelessly transmit her weekly intelligence reports. She suffered trying to make the connection work, and it was only when she purchased a Mac that such problems were sorted out.

The story also gave me a new word to use: steganography. I had not come across this term before although it has been in use since Johannes Trithemius used it in his work Stegabographis in 1499. This was a book that appeared to be about magic, but was actually a treatise on cryptography and steganography. Stegangraphy is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message. It creates a form of security through obscurity. Generally, messages will appear to be something else, and its use includes the concealment of information within computer files. Media files are ideal for steganographic transmission because of their large size. A sender might start with an innocuous image file and adjust the color of every 100th pixel so it corresponds to a letter in the alphabet, a change so subtle that someone not specifically looking for it is unlikely to notice it.

This was not only the way Anna and her colleagues were using to exchange information, but it was the way they lived their lives. They appeared ordinary, normal, part of the background and therefore did not attract any attention at all. As the more astute amongst you will have realized, this is rather like Phil and I.

You Surprised Me

It's been a VERY BUSY Summer for me and even that is an understatement. In the month of June (which I'm not ready for it to be over but it is since it's July 1st) I've been a way from home a total of three weeks. One of the those weeks was Staff Week (which I wrote about) down in Alabama and the other two weeks have been at music camps at Belmont University (You should check it out. It's an AWESOME place that I'll be writing about when I finish this weeks camp.) Needless to say I have not been in touch with the blogger world.
Anyway, on to why you surprise me.
I launched blogger last night to see if I had any comments and to my surprise I see that I now have 11 followers and that made me happy. So to all my new followers WELCOME! and to my long time followers Thanks for sticking around.