Here and Now

It's a little too easy with babies to get distracted from the here and now.

It seems like a lot of contemporary child-rearing "philosophy" is about getting your child quickly to the next stage.

I agree that hitting milestones is important--be is physical or social or emotional.  But what I don't agree with is the idea that we should actively push our kids to hit these milestones because "earlier is better."  

(I could go on about how this idea is seriously--and mistakenly--at play in public education right now, where my kindergartener is expected to hit many more educational milestones by the end of this year than his brother was just three years ago, and how this isn't going to solve the problem of apathetic, un-motivated, entitled American teenagers who keep scoring so much lower than their international peer-group.  But today I'm talking about babies.)

One of these milestones consistently pushed early for babies is sleep, particularly "independent" sleep!  Because what new parent doesn't like the idea of getting the baby to sleep through the night so that THEY can sleep through the night?

It's tough to be the parent of a newborn.

I remember distinctly when Owen, my first baby, hit three months old.  He was still sleeping so poorly, and I was so miserable that I had a worried conversation with Jeremy about how I was afraid that Owen would end up an only child because I could not see myself ever going through this horrible period of no sleep again.

In a similar manner, one day when Rory was just a month old, I wondered if he would be sleeping in his wind-up swing still when he was a year old, because it was the only thing he would sleep in then.

The problem with my thinking in these two memories, and the problem with the advice to push babies towards independent sleep earlier and earlier, is it's based on the faulty belief that they will never grow out of their current sleep-situation (or lack thereof) on their own. 

One day when Rory was about 4 months old I was tired of it.  Tired of the stage of sleep that he was in.  I set him in his cradle and walked away as he fussed.

"It's time for you to figure out how to sleep without being rocked to bed!" I thought.

After I took a few deep breaths in the other room, I went back to him.  I looked at him in his little cradle and asked myself why I put him to sleep in a cradle?  Was it not the knowledge handed down by our mothers, and grandmothers, and great-grandmothers that babies just sleep better while being rocked?

And I remembered a common piece of furniture I had seen in the tiny homes on our trip this spring to Nauvoo.

It was these long rocking benches, where there was room for one person to sit at one end of the bench and the length of the bench had a guard rail so the mom could place her baby to sleep on the bench and sit and rock the baby to sleep while she worked on something like sewing or reading.

GENIUS!

I need one of those.

But mostly I need to remember that babies keep growing, the keep developing, and frankly they do a lot of it without any input from me, thankyouverymuch.  I can't get my baby to crawl before he's ready or talk before he's ready, so I'm not going to bother trying to get him to sleep independently before he's ready. 

None of my other three boys still needs to be rocked to sleep, so I am confident that one day Rory too will outgrow it. 

My 6 month-old boy has lost all his luscious dark brown baby hair already, and I want to soak in each baby stage he goes through before it too is gone.   I'm going to enjoy my baby right where he is: here and now. 

Are You Done Yet?

Since we decided to send the boys back to school this year, we've had the interesting opportunity of seeing people that we know reasonably well casually, but for the most part haven't seen for a whole year.

Surprise!  There's one more of us now!

That mental re-counting on the part of others has given rise to the question: "So are you guys done now?" or "Are you done yet?" or "Aren't you done yet?" or something along those lines.

I'm not offended by questions of fertility and family planning as a whole.  Although I believe the decisions of "how many and when" are made in private--there's a lot of discussion that among friends can be helpful and uplifting, and even allow us the opportunity for greater compassion and prayers on behalf of our sisters.

So it isn't that the question itself bothers me--though sometimes the tone of the question does--but recently the question has really made me stop and think.  Particularly the word "done."

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the Prophet and Apostles proclaimed:

"We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force."

So, really it's that simple.  We believe in having children.

We love our children, they bring joy to our lives.

We definitely weren't where we thought we'd be this summer when Rory was born.  I don't know where we thought we'd be, but it definitely wasn't still here, with no job, and no prospects, feeling useless, feeling like we were never going to get anywhere in life.  But Rory showed up right in the middle of it all.  A gift from God.  He brought us renewed purpose, and joy, and something to bring us together as a family during an otherwise difficult time.

The truth is, I'm only 30.  I have another decade of fertility to look forward to.  Who knows, we had four kids in ten years, maybe the next ten years will bring another four.  Or, once we're settled down with a job and a cow, maybe we'll end up with many more than that (though my pregnancies naturally space themselves at least two years, and I was pregnant six times in the last ten years, not four).

But then again, maybe the Lord will let us know that our earthly family is complete before then, through inspiration or natural laws of health.


But not only do we believe in the commandment first given to Adam and Eve to multiply.  We also believe that as children of Abraham that we are heirs to God's covenant with Abraham, specifically in this context, that our blessing for being righteous covenant-keepers will be eternal increase.  Increase like the sands of the sea or the stars of the sky. 

So knowing that we are striving to be worthy of exaltation which includes the blessing of a "continuation of seed" I don't know that we will ever be "done".  At some point our earthly family will be complete (until the grandchildren come along!) and then we will continue in faith of the blessings promised to us as Abraham's progeny.

So, as for right now, the answer is simply: no, we don't feel done yet.  I don't know when the next one will come, or how many more will come.  But we love our children, each one brings something new and different into our family.  We pray for help in raising them, we pray for them to love each other, and we trust in God.  And until or unless he lets us know that his will for our family is moving in a new direction, we will continue to follow his commandment to multiply and replenish the earth.

*    *    *    *    *

I wrote this post as another blog hop entry for celebrating The Family: A Proclamation to the World.  Find the blog hop here.

Pinterest Fail: Baby Photo Edition

Have you ever seen Pinterest Fail? "Where good intentions Come to Die"?

It's a website featuring the best crafts, recipes, and home projects that everyone adores on Pinterest, but specifically the lousy attempts of the common man (or woman) to recreate them. 

Some of the attempts are just pathetic.  People with no cooking experience whatsoever attempting to "interpret" a recipe in their own way, or adjusting ingredients based on something they ran out of. 

(Pshaw, Seriously?)

True, some most of the creations we love to pin on Pinterest are professionally done, and fall way outside a normal persons abilities.

(Understandable.)

But then there's some things that you seriously think: Hey--I have a reasonable level of proficiency in that talent area--I could recreate that!

I guess that's where the "good intentions" line comes in.

Well, regardless, I have my own Pinterest Fail to submit:

Pinterest Fail: Baby Photo Edition

Babies Eating Soup

 It's that time of year--we've started eating a lot of soup. 

 My boys really love soup, and are very good about scooping out all the delicious vegetables. 

 But I want that wholesome goodness of the chicken broth to get into their tummies too and keep them well-nourished through cold season. 

Enter: soup crackers.

After they finish scooping out their veggies we give them a few crackers to soak up the broth yet give them something scoop-able so they can eat it.  And they do.

Even the baby. 

Baby Legs, Ruffle Bums and Burp Rags

They say that good things always come in three's--or was it bad things? Well, weather we love or hate them--baby showers seem to come in fourteen's.  I've been making lots of baby gifts lately.  Here are my top three:

Here Wyatt is modeling his very own set of baby legs.  Baby legs are great because they are like pants you don't have to take off.  They make diaper changes simpler.  They protect the little knees of crawling-type babies.  And if you have a dress-wearing-type of baby they look cute under a dress.

How to Make Baby Legs:

You need one pair of adult women knee-high socks.  Cut in five pieces as shown.  Discard all but pieces 1 and 2. 

A- Take piece number 2 and fold in half length-wise with right sides facing and sew through both sides up the long side so it looks like B.

B- fold the bottom open edge up around the outside of itsself  to the next edge to form a cuff like C.  (The right side of the sock is on the outside again.)

C-Take piece 1 with the right-side facing out.  Bring it up through the middle of the cuff so that the three raw edges meet like in D.

D-Sew the three raw edges together all the way around.  A zigzag stitch will give a little bit of stretch. Then fold the cuff down.

Ta-da! Baby legs.  I think they are pretty hilarious.  I made Jeremy pick out the socks for baby Wy so they wouldn't be "too girly" for him. 

I've seen these ruffle bum onesies around and think they are pretty cute.  You can put these on a baby alone or wear it under a dress.  (I didn't make one of these for Wyatt.)

I upcycled a plain periwinkle blue t-shirt to make this.  When you use jersey fabric you don't have to hem the edges.  Just cut strait strips.  Sew a long running stitch down the middle.  Pull on the bobbin thread to gather.  Position and sew on.

My most frequent go-to baby shower gift is burp rags.  And I recently realized that ripping the fabric instead of cutting it made it a faster project and gave it more character. 

I start with prefold cloth diapers.  Rip two pieces of fabric about an inch wide and as long as the width of the diapers you're working with.

Sew a strip down either side about an inch from the ends.  Sew 1/4 inch in from the ripped edges. 

This is a great gift because it's a highly useful and functional gift but you are making it cute so that your friends are happier to drag it around in their diaper bag and sling it over their shoulder.

Happy Sewing! I'm sharing this post at:

Gifted

This weekend I had a baby shower. Actually it was a double shower for me and a friend, April, who will be having a baby here in the next week or two.

We are both pregnant with our third child. Some people think it's strange to have baby showers after your first child--it's not traditional. I, however, think that there is not nearly enough party-throwing and social entertaining these days, so if having multiple baby showers is a way to get people out and together I'm all for it!

Especially because I benefited so directly from this party. Since it was for our third children we had a diapering party, where in lieu of traditional gifts women brought us diapers, wipes and diapering accessories. (There were a few other fun gifts thrown in as well!)

As a gift for the other guest of honor, I decided to make one of these cute covered diaper wipes cases that I've seen all over the internet lately. I really was excited to do it, but the whole time I was working on the project, shopping for fabric, putting it together, I was worried about how many other women might be working on the same gift. We've got some really crafty-type friends that I was sure would have seen this cute idea before.

When I got to the party there was already a small pile of gifts started and I saw one of these covered cases on the top. "Well, it's what I expected." I thought. But you know, it would be ok to have a couple because you have different diaper bags sometimes. But you know five or six would probably be too many!

Well when we began to open presents the gift piles dwindled lower and lower until it got to the point where I realized that this other wipes case was the gift from April to me!

She even made a coordinating diaper case too--super cute. In the end we had each made one for each other, an no one else had done the same gift. Perfect! So we got a good laugh out of the whole thing. Great minds think alike you know.

And of course at that point each of our crafty-type friends wanted to look at both of them to see how we had made them.

I didn't take tons of pictures, because I was in a hurry, but here's the basic process.

Start with one of those travel wipes cases.

This isn't the one I used, but you know. . . this type of little case. Trace around the top and bottom of the case on paper to make a pattern. Add on an extra 1/4 inch or so to the outside of the pattern so that it is long enough to wrap over the edge.

Pin on your pattern and cut out your pieces of fabric.

Then use the pattern again to cut out your batting. Cut the batting the 1/4 inch (or however much you added on) shorter than the fabric so that it is the right size to cover the top but not wrap over the edges. I only did batting on the top of the case that I made, but April had thin batting cushioning the top and bottom of the case she made for me.

Then you glue the fabric onto the case. Everywhere I've seen this explained I've heard to use a hot glue gun at the edges. Since I had it, and I thought it might go faster, I used spray adhesive on the back of the fabric (and the back of the batting). Then it just stuck right on to the case, and I did a little touch up around the edge with hot glue.

Next you add your ribbon or trim to cover the raw edge of the glued down fabric. The trim I used is narrower than I would have liked, but it's all I could find the right color. Start and end the trim in the back to hide the ends, and hot glue the whole way around.

Ta-da! A super-cute, personalized baby gift. The best kind even--a useful one!

Up and Wow

We recently took Owen in for a speech evaluation. As part of the developmental information they asked me to fill out (things like 'when did he first sit up on his own?'--I was supposed to remember that? I'm failing my "tests of Motherhood!") one of the questions it asked was what my child's first words were.

After snorting over the question, I sat back to think If I actually could remember Owen's first word. And I did remember it: "Wow." Really--it was hilarious. It was followed by "Uh-oh" and then a series of object names belonging to his favorite things.

So then I wondered if I could remember--from not quite as long ago--specifically what Jonas' first word was. It was "Up." (His second word may or may not have been "wa...ch" (a movie), no actually I think it was really yelling "chi-chi-chi-chi. . ." as he chased frightened chickens around the backyard.)

But I've been pondering over those two first words of my two boys, and realizing how much those two words tell about the different personalities of my two boys.

See, when we found out we were having a second son, it was hard to think of it any other way besides, "Ok, another little Owen," because that's all the experience we had as parents. But the truth is Owen and Jonas are very much individuals and have totally different personalities that were visible from a young age.

By six months of age Owen was crawling away from me at story time to go check out what those other babies were doing. His first word was "Wow!" As in: look at all the neat things that are going on in the world around me--I want to go check them out! That's Owen. "Mr. Independence."

At 18 months Jonas is still not interested in leaving my lap at story time. He actually cries when I leave him in nursery at church, as opposed to running ahead of me down the hall to get to nursery faster like Owen would. His first word was "Up." As in: Pick me up Mom, I want to see what's going on around me. . . from the safe vantage point of your arms.

My boys are different, and it's good. Jonas--who is so much more than a second Owen--is cuddly and affectionate and shows me all the devoted love I need. (The love I only thought I'd be shown by a baby girl.) He is growing up so fast--and becoming such a little boy--so I'm grateful for the extended mom and baby time we spent together, grateful I nursed him 18 months, grateful he still loves to be cuddled, grateful he taught me how to love him, and grateful that he is a boy.

Nourish

Our bodies are remarkable creations. What I find almost as interesting as a woman's ability to grow a baby and bring it into the world is the fact that our bodies are amazing enough to know that that's not enough.

Our bodies cover for the fact that the baby it just brought in to the world cannot yet survive on its own- so the body provides milk. Milk that is made for the specific baby the body created. Milk that changes in composition based on the season of year, and changes over the seasons of the baby's life. Through the milk the body attempts to pass on the experience it has gained through all it has been through, saying Here, this is what I know of the illnesses I've suffered, hopefully you can be stronger because of my experiences and not have to suffer them as well.

I never set out with a "plan" on how long I was going to breastfeed my babies for. But I knew that breastfeeding seemed natural and right, and that we couldn't afford a year of formula anyway. Owen weaned at 11 months. I was getting ready to have eye surgery, and Owen was just as happy to take his portable sippy cup and run his busy self all around without a reason to stop!

Jonas has been happy nursing and would let us know when we forgot it. Jonas has been known to chomp on any bare skin he can find (dad and brother included) until Mama realizes what she's forgotten, and Mama has been just as happy to continue nursing as well.

It seems, though, that our nursing days may be soon coming to an end. Daddy is a great husband and has always been supportive of my nursing, but he set out a stipulation many months ago, saying that Jonas could nurse, "until he starts asking for it." And this last week Jonas has started "asking" for it, tugging at the hem of Mamas shirt.

Now Jeremy's a reasonable man, and I know that if I felt like Jonas and I should continue nursing, that he would be accommodating. But Jonas is getting older--sixteen months next week--new opportunities are opening for him. New adventures are coming his way. I think he's ready to start making some new "big boy" steps. So sometime here, not today. . . not tomorrow, we'll finish nursing.

But in the meantime, we continue to nurse, continue to spend special mom and baby time. I continue in admiration of my body, praying that life will give me more of these opportunities--more babies to nurse-- but for now taking every opportunity to appreciate the blessings I have already been given, and not take a single quiet moment for granted.

What's for Dinner?

Jeremy and I are food hobbyists. Food is what we do, it's what we watch for entertainment, it's what we think about, what we enjoy. We were determined from the start not to have picky eaters for children, if only because #1 We refused to eat mac and cheese more often than once a month, and #2 I refuse to cook more than one meal.

For the most part, we are pretty pleased with the good little eater that Owen has turned out to be. (We definitely still have arguments with Owen at the dinner table, but we can see that it's an argument about control rather than relating to the particular food that is in front of him.)

Now that Jonas is well-into solid foods, we are working on getting him to eat along with the rest of the family as well. Here's how we try and get that to happen:


If this is what the family is eating, then. . .




This is what the baby gets.

We try and give the baby everything that we are eating--just in a way that appeals to and works for him. It's hard for a baby to eat a chip or cracker with toppings, it just doesn't work, and babies want to feed themselves. So the pieces I prepare for the baby are all ingredients from what we are eating just in a separate and bite-sized finger food form(including chunks of cheese instead of shredded). That's what Jonas gets in his high chair.

Then if there is anything I can spoon feed him (in this case refried beans) I will try and do so.

Then there are some things like corn chips and lettuce that are simply not baby food at this age, but imagination can go a long way. (We introduced lettuce to Owen buy cutting the thick ribs out of the middle of green-leaf lettuce and giving him those to chew on. Leafy greens are not necessarily Owen's favorite thing, but we can get him to eat quite a bit, particularly if we give him dressing to dip it in or sugared nuts to roll up in the middle of it.)

We feel like the most important thing is them getting a variety of foods so they get accustomed to different colors, textures, temperatures, and in the end learn that a LOT of foods can taste really delicious!

The great child diet-training experiment #2 is now in full force. I hope the results turn out just as well as the first one!

Re-cu-per-ate

Baby-J did such a good job. The surgery went super-fast, and he's recuperating well. We even gave him his first bath last night with ear plugs in. Really they are cotton balls dipped in Vaseline, but I was worried he would pull them right out. He didn't even notice them!

After the surgery; however we went looking for some baby Tylenol. This kind:

Notice anything different about this package? I know the pic is kind of dark, but it's up there on the upper right-hand corner of the picture.

Yep right there. . . It says: Now in the baby aisle.

Hmmm. . . how much good exactly do they think it does us for the box, which is in the baby aisle, to say "now look for me in the baby aisle," while we are walking up and down every aisle in the pharmacy department trying to find it? I'm just askin', that's all.

Bed Head

What if the morning hairdo represented the type of night we had?



Yeah, that'd be about right.

Sweeeet Potato!

So here we go. Making your own baby food is something that I heartily endorse. It's really not very hard, and it can save you a ton of money. For the sake of example I will now demonstrate: How to Make Homemade Veggie-Puree!


I have begun with a humble sweet potato. I love them, and babies love them. My husband loves them too, although he never knew it before marrying me. (His dad hated them so his mom never served them. Our eating habits rub off on our children--let that be a lesson to you!)

I peeled it, sliced it in half, and cubed it. It's a good idea to make the cubes similar in size so that they cook evenly.

I prefer to steam my vegetables. This leaves more nutrients in the veggies than boiling would. I also think steaming increases the water content a little bit helping to make a nice soft puree.

If you've never steamed anything before here's a primer: Open your drawer of random kitchen doodads. Find that weird holey metal thing that opens up like a lotus blossom--you know the one--it's called a steamer basket. It's made to expand to fit almost any sized pot, so pick one of yours and put about 3/4 of an inch of water in the bottom and put the steamer basket inside. Put the lid on the pot and get the water boiling. Then put your vegetables in, replace the lid, and steam the veggies until they offer little resistance to a fork or knife. (If it is taking a while for your vegetables to steam you may need to add more boiling water, or turn the heat down to a lower boil. I have boiled all my water away before and it's no good for your pots, and it leaves your house smelling terrible!!!)

Transfer the vegetables to a food processor and puree! If you don't wait for them to cool then you should leave the rammer/stomper/whatever thing out of the lid so that steam can escape. If the puree is not thin enough for your baby's needs you can add some of the water left over from steaming (Otherwise you can use it in a soup).

Spoon the puree into an ice cube tray. Cover with plastic wrap and put in your freezer.

When the cubes are frozen pop them out of the tray and place them in a freezer bag or container. The little one-ounce portions are perfect. I would put one in a little Tupperware bowl and throw it in the diaper bag. Just as easy as a jar! This is one of the little things I like to do to help "offset the cost" of being a stay-at-home mom:-)

The Family Bed

Now that we are parenting our second child, Jeremy and I are being reaffirmed that we fall into a certain camp of parents. This camp goes by many names: Crunchy Moms (c'mon, really? That makes it sound like we don't wash our hair.) Granola Parents, or simply good ol' fashioned Hippies. Now Jeremy and I never decided we "wanted to be" Hippie Parents; we don't parent according to a certain hippie ideology. We just decided each issue as it came our way. Some decisions we made based on principle, and some were just based on practice, but they still landed us in the hippie camp.

We made one parenting decision based solely on principle. That is that we "sling" or "wear" our babies more often than not. Sure the car seat-carriers are great, you can take your baby from the house, to the car, to the stroller, back to the car, to the shopping cart, to the car, and back home. Pretty soon the better part of the day is gone and your baby hasn't gotten any actual physical contact from you. Weren't there babies in Romanian orphanages dying because they never got held? Yes I'm being extreme, but don't worry, this is the only parenting practice of ours based solely on hippie principle.

Consider these next few practices of ours. With #1 I breastfed for the first year until he could drink cow milk, made homemade baby food until he moved on to table foods, and we even cloth diapered on and off. Now, while I do see some of the beneficial hippie principles behind these parenting practices, that wasn't the driving force behind it. I call it parenting by practice, as in--It's just what we do ok? As in--Although I "plan" on breastfeeding all my children, I don't want to be a member of the La Leche League. (I actually don't really like those guys. They do a lot of good, but also a lot of bad because they are too stuck on their "principles" to be helpful in certain individual situations.) As it is, if you wanted to pin down our motivation behind breastfeeding, homemaking baby food, and cloth diapering, it's probably economic--we don't want to have to pay for that stuff.

There is one parenting practice of ours based solely on practice, and that is the family bed. I know there are arguments for, and arguments against, but I don't want to hear it. The point is--I'm tired dang-it! I want to be able to sleep at night, and with newborns the best sleep for us has come in the family bed. So then, why is this topic on my brain today? It's because the apartment we're renting this summer has a queen-sized bed. (We have a double bed at home.) All I know is the queen sized bed is REALLY nice. The bed isn't that comfy, but the size is great. At home our three-year-old is no longer sleeping with us, but this summer things are so crazy and mixed up that he's been coming into bed with us in the middle of the night again. Well, 4 bodies in bed is a LOT easier in a queen-sized bed. Who knows--When we get back home this fall, we may have to knock out a wall in our little house to get a bigger bed!

Washcloth Roses

I decided to try and make these for a small baby shower gift for a friend. They turned out pretty cute, so I'll share what I figured out.

Fold the washcloth in half with the fold on the right. Baby washcloths are very thin, so I found that if I folded that edge over again another inch then it made a fuller and prettier rose in the end.


Fold up the bottom corner and roll the washcloth up, tightly at first, along the folded edge so that the center sticks out a little farther than the edges.


Secure about half-way down with a rubber band.


Fold up the raw edge "tail" creating a flat base, then roll the edge back down to create the outermost petal.

Then I twisted some green pipe cleaners around the base of the roses, tied on some ribbon for "greenery" and wrapped the whole bunch up in tissue like a bouquet.