Links and a Nursing Update.

Just a few links for now. I'm hoping to find the time to write a meaningful post today. We'll see if the little ones can manage to nap at the same time.

Rhythm of the Home has posted their Autumn edition. I haven't gotten to look through it yet. I plan to savour it in pieces. I can't tell you home much I adore RotH.

Mama and baby Love is hosting Itsy Bitsy yoga classes again! I really want to to take the Beast and/or the Imp to her sessions. Unfortunately, even the reasonably priced $10 a class is just way too much for us right now. She is giving away a five class pass on her blog. You can enter here.

I seem to have won a copy of this month's Herbal Roots from MamaRoots. I'm super excited about it. I love flipping through the issues and setting aside ideas for the Elf. I'm going to buckle down and find the time to try and engage him in more herbalism.

Having won that giveaway, I feel even more that I need to host another giveaway of my own. I made that little tree stump but didn't think it was quite enough. A teeny mushroom house is in the works. I hope to finish it up in the next day or two so that I can post it.

And an update on the toddler breastfeeding issues I was having (because the older two are playing happily and the Beast is sleeping). I remember reading somewhere once that around two years of age a child's jaw starts to change to accommodate the growth of larger, adult teeth. The Imp (who will be two in 26 days!) has been chewing on his fingers a lot and exhibiting a lot of teething signs. So I'm thinking that maybe was causing a weird latch. It wasn't painful, just uncomfortable. It seems to have passed. But there's more to it, I think.

I've been very, very stressed out. A lot of it is me. I let things get to me. Things that shouldn't make me blink seem to make me completely insane. So I've been working on calming down. It isn't easy. I'm a very tightly wound person. But I'm working on it. Deep breathing and many reality checks. I've come to realize that I expect too much from my kids, but that's a post I don't have time to write at the moment.

Nursing the Imp doesn't bother me so much now. It's frustrating when he has to have it and can't wait a minute or two. But I don't get those terrible (and scary) feelings of complete resentment. I know that a lot of it is stress and feeling overwhelmed. I know this because if things start to get hectic while I'm nursing the Imp, those feeling begin to surface. It's a warning that I need to step back, ask for peace, and breathe for a minute to let the tension drain.

Right. This post was a bit longer than I'd planned. Hopefully, though, there will be more (and pictures!) later today.