It's not that I don't like fall, I actually appreciate living in an area with four distinct seasons, but I often appreciate it more in theory than practice. The first few weeks of fall with the sunny, crisp weather is great. Who doesn't love that? Bake up an apple crisp and watch some football (if you're not me), great, but then too soon we get into real fall weather and it's rainy and cold and gray and we won't see the sun in any reliable way for months. That's not weather I actually appreciate on a day-to-day basis. Same with winter, it's all well and good at first. Snow is fun, in theory, but then January hits and it draaaggggssss on and everything is so bleak you feel like you'll never see the sun again. I'm really much more of a warm weather person so I'm kind of sad to start down this path of cold, sad weather. It does make me appreciate spring and summer all the more though.
Friday through Sunday I was at a postpartum doula workshop. It was fun learning the postpartum side of doula work. It seems that more people are aware of what a birth doula does than what a postpartum doula can offer. Postpartum doulas are experts in the transition that happens once you add a new baby into the mix. They help assist you through that shifting dynamic whether it's your first baby, or your fourth (or more!) They help you get breastfeeding established in those early weeks and make sure that your needs are attended to while you're caring for your baby. They help you figure out how to do this whole parent thing and balance it with the rest of the areas of your life. Think back to your first baby especially, how amazing would it have been to have a knowledgeable, comforting presence sitting with you on the couch reassuring you when you wondered if breastfeeding was going ok, or standing there encouraging you as you gave baby their first bath, or throwing in a load of laundry, bringing you a nutritious snack, and refilling your cup of water while in those early days of all encompassing parenthood? Pretty awesome, right?!
When I started my journey as a birth doula I wasn't all that interested in postpartum work, but to be honest I see such a need for it that it made me interested in offering the service. I'm really looking forward to providing continuity of care that extends past birth and into the early weeks of parenthood. New parents deserve support!
Jack didn't have school on Monday, which I actually forgot. I was tiiiired from being in this training all weekend and I dragged myself out of bed first thing Monday morning. Made breakfast. Packed lunch. Pulled out the folder from his backpack to sign his weekly progress report and saw the calendar for the week that no one else had laid eyes on that said a big old NO SCHOOL on Monday. Ugh. I actually had previous knowledge that there was no school on 9/14, but at that point I didn't realize what the date was and it just wasn't something I was thinking about. So anyway, that was kind of annoying, but it was nice having him home for the day. The weather was gorg, but Mark accidentally took the carseats to work with him so we couldn't go too far. We decided just to walk to our little neighborhood park, which is such a nice thing to have. Because school was closed there were other kids to play with there and a good time was had.
I feel like this past weekend with the workshop was kind of the unofficial end to a crazy busy month to six weeks that I've had. I say unofficial because I do have kind of a busy week this week into the weekend with miscellaneous things, but next week things should slow down considerably for about a month. Looking forward to it!
Dinners for the week:
Sunday: Post-workshop pizza with friends
Monday: Skillet Eggplant Parmesan with Salad
Tuesday: Grilled Burgers w/ Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Wednesday: Salad w/ Chicken, Apples, Cranberries, Blue Cheese
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday & Saturday: Out
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