More Silly Songs: For infancy

With WIllem, I've had a lot of fun using the melodies of songs that I know and changing the words to include themes from our day to day life, or names of people we know. To see some of them that I came up with when Willem was younger, search "silly songs" on my blog and you'll find other examples.

When Belle was born, I felt like I needed some that were more specific for non-mobile infants and the following are what I came up with.

Rock and Roll (the baby!)
tune: Raffi's Shake the Sillies Out

You gotta rock, rock, rock until you roll
Rock, rock, rock until you roll,
Rock, rock rock until you roll
Rock till you roll all the way over!

I sang this while rocking Belle's body from side to side and then at the end rolling her over unto her stomach. She thought this was great fun and then enjoyed being able hold her arms out to prevent me from rolling her over (and who says babies don't have other ways than crying to communicate!) Of course, Willem wanted to join in on this game so I'd take turns. First with the baby, and then with the 2 yr old!

Tickle Tickle
tune: Alouette

Tickle, tickle, tickle tickle tickle
tickle tickle tickle tickle tick
Tickle all the way up to the neck
Tickle all the way down to the hips
Tickle up here,
Tickle down there
Tickle Tickle

As suggested by the lyrics, I tickle all over and then specific parts. My favorite is tickling the feet on "tickle down there" and making sure I sing with a deep voice as I do so.

Intervals at 6-7 months

ECing with intervals is a way to understanding the frequency in which a baby pees. Sometimes, they don't communicate with a fuss or a squirm or the blank look or whatever, or mom/dad misses the cue. When Belle is busy playing, she will often not given an indication that she needs to pee, but I can use another clue to know that its time to put her on the potty.

I can know when she peed the last time.

Between 4-5 months, she was peeing every 20 minutes. I figured this out using an iPhone ap where I can record pees and poops and their times. Its designed for diapers but I use it instead to track eliminations, wherever they occur, in the potty or otherwise.

Around 6 months, the interval switched to every 40-45 minutes. Now I find that I need reminders or I get distracted or engaged in something else and I miss it. Using my iPod Touch, I set a timer to go off. This has been helping.

Its been fun choosing the timer sounds too, right now we've using the old car sound-- a horn that sounds like like "Oh-oooo-gah!" Sounds perfect for a poop sound!

Must mean something!

I've been meaning to get around to an Introduction to EC post and its not going to happen at this point. Maybe I'll get to it, but at this point, I'm jumping in where we our in our journey.

Belle is 7 1/2 months. We've been ECing for 3 months or so. We get a good number of pees and most poops into the potty. And like this blogger I agree that some is better than none and poops are especially weighted to be better in the potty than smeared on a bum. Those are so worth it!

One thing I've been noticing recently is how sopping wet a diaper gets when a pee is missed. They get taken off pretty quickly after a pee so most of the time only one or two pees in a row are going to be into the diaper. Unless she just has big pees most of the time (which I know she doesn't because I see the volume of those that go into the potty), she appears to be holding her pee for longer so when she does release into a diaper, the volume is higher than if she were pee whenever.

At least I think that's what it means.

And if that case, its an indication to me that even though it seems like her cueing has quieted down and more pees are going into diapers, that the process is still moving forward. She is holding it for a while and the volume is building so when she does pee, its a big one.

Because of that, a diaper gets really soaked even if its just one or two pees because she's holding it!

That means that I can make efforts to pay more attention to intervals and arrange our situations to have potty-tunities available more of the time.

Those are other posts I'm hoping to write: Intervals at 6 and 7 months and ECing/Potty around the town

The Mythological Midwife

In her PhD dissertation, Rixa Freeze (Stand and Deliver) includes a discussion of the mythological midwife. Ever since I read it, I've been formulating what my mythological midwife would be, or what I would do if I were to become a midwife and could do/be all the things I would want to as a midwife.

I have considered becoming a midwife. Ancient Arts Midwifery Institute is very appealing to me. And if I could apprentice with any midwife, it would be with Suzanne Thomson of New Life Midwifery in Seattle. I worked with her during my pregnancy with Belle. She's offered to let me attend births with her but I haven't taken her up on it yet.

The one reason why I will likely never become a midwife for hire is: I really don't want to run a business and be responsible for keeping it profitable. I want my passion to something that is not tied to money, which in a way negates pursuing any passion...

But I enjoy dreaming and my dream to become the mythological midwife would be to:

• Complete a midwifery training program
• Become trained in prenatal massage
• Become an herbalist specialized in women's and children's health
• Learn naturopathy
• Be supportive of unassisted children, provide educational resources to families seeking it and back-up care if needed/wanted
• Learn chiropractic, especially the Webster Technique
• Assemble a lending library of the best books, CDs and DVDs to prepare for normal birth
• Provide Mother Blessing Ceremonies for mothers I work with
• Pray over and perform energy work for pregnant women at each appointment
• Learn traditional and cultural birth practices from around the world in order to be able to recommend them to clients
• Remember where I come from as a birthing mother and ALWAYS provide adequate informed consent
• Write, publish, present and advocate for practices that support and encourage normal birth in the overall population of women and families
• Provide family life education to families that would prepare parents for the transition to parenthood, enhance their communication skills, and marital attachment
• conduct research on birth issues, and how it relates to human development, individual and public health, and connect it to public policy (PhD)

I've tried to figure out how much the training to become this might cost me. These are approximations of programs in my area:

Midwifery program: $5,000 - $40,000

Chiropractic degree: $90,000

Herbalist degree (through Bastyr University): $90,000

Massage Therapy Certification: $10,000

Naturopathy training: $90,000

PhD: probably could be paid for with Teaching and Research Assistantships

Based on that alone, and the years of training. Its not going to happen.

In fact, if I were to be the mythological mother, I'd do all that training and education too.

Friday Fill-ins

I need some help to keep my blog going so I'm using this exercise to help me along.




1. The lesson I learned yesterday was the Zoomazium at the Woodland Park Zoo is a cool place to take little boys to play.
2. The airport is where friends and family meet.
3. All these years my husband and I both may be gluten sensitive.
4. Nothing happened when I arrived, just how I like it to be.
5. The truth is nature works really well, most of the time.
6. The laughter is what I remember most from that day.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Peter coming home from school, tomorrow my plans include yoga and Sunday, I want to have a discussion about A Mother in Heaven with my Relief Society class!

End of An Era

A recent Facebook status of mine was:

Jenne's family has reached the end of an era. No more sidecar crib. Its nice to have a place to put my books, a reading lap, a glass of water, etc now. Maybe when I find my phone, I'll have a safe place to keep it!

This came after it was determined that Belle sleeps more soundly when she is not bedsharing or cosleeping. My movements in my sleep disturb her at night. After 4 sleepless nights and some profound stress and exhaustion (and help from neighbors and my Relief Society sisters), we tested a new sleep arrangement where she sleeps in the second bedroom. We tried it out first with a pack and play because we didn't want to move the crib, rearrange two rooms just to find out we were wrong.

It was a sad and difficult decision to reach this point because we are still happily bedsharing with Willem, and I was looking forward to sharing that special nighttime connection with my newest child. I've really loved bedsharing for the most part.

One of the hallmarks of attachment parenting, of course, is bedsharing. But I had to remind myself of the wise words of Dr. Sears "Wherever all family members get the best night's sleep is the right arrangement for your individual family....Attachment parenting implies first opening your mind and heart to the individual needs of your baby, and eventually you will develop the wisdom on how to make on-the-spot decisions on what works best for both you and your baby." For us, it was a matter of finding out our individual child needed.

I believe that the default parenting practices ought to be the 7 B's of Attachment Parenting but there will always be need for adaptation to and respect for the individual.

Our sleep problems aren't solved. Belle, although she had been sleeping through the night and I hadn't been sleep deprived at all--until she was six months old, is still frequently nightwaking. I'm not sure exactly what is causing this although I suspect its a developmental stage. I find that swaddling helps. She may also be a light sleeper so I'm planning to cover the window with dark fabric to keep light out.

However tempting it is to bring her to bed with me, or to lay down with her on the twin bed in the "nursery," its not as effective as nursing her back to sleep in my arms and then laying her down again in the crib. Its not my ideal because not only do I love cuddling with my babies, but it means I have to wake up more fully to attend to her needs.

Update: 7 months

Belle recently turned 7 months old. Early in her sixth month, she started crawling. Now she's really good at it and can get where she wants to go. Except up the stairs. She hasn't attempted those yet.

She also started cruising right before she turned six months old and can now stand on her own for upwards of 20 seconds. I've been able to see how she thinks things through before acting (so unlike her brother!). If she wants to sit down, she prepares for it and sits. She doesn't fall like one would expect. I've seen her contemplating picking up a foot to try to take a step but she quickly changes her mind and then sits down.

Before Christmas, I thought walking might be pretty close, but she's so content with crawling that I think it will be a couple of months before she decides that walking is worth it. Once spring comes around and she's having to crawl on concrete, she'll decide that walking is better.

ECing is progressing. Most poops are into the potty instead of diapers. We have been able to take some outings to the shopping center nearby and she's stayed dry the whole time we are gone. I'm having to rely on more intervals than cues. She's now peeing every 40 minutes or so. I've recently started putting her in training pants and that's working well.

Table foods were introduced and after exploring with her fingers and tasting for a few weeks, she finally gets the concept of food and enjoys whatever we put in front of her. Yay messy baby, and of course, the prerequisite soiled clothing and the multiple baths a day.

Willem has started pretending extensively. He has 3 imaginary pet dogs and an imaginary Tiger. The dogs are all named Angie and they are Australian shepherds. Yesterday I noticed him playing with words for the first time. A Campbells soup commercial was on (Mmm, mmm good) and a few minutes later, we heard him dancing around singing "Mmm, mmm bad." Its one of his first jokes!

He is starting to recognize letters and is learning to operate the touch pad on the computers. He'll tell you that W is for Willem, B is Belle, C is Cookie and M and is for Lighting McQueen. That one bothers me because I was trying to teach him that M was for Mama and he connected M to McQueen first. No good! Now he'll say that M is for Mama and McQueen.

We've been having difficulty getting along recently. Sometimes I've felt like my life is being directed by a 3 foot tall dictator. Some days are better than others, but I've gotten pretty frustrated with his constant demands and impatience. I try to be patient and teach him more appropriate behavior, but its challenging and I've been finding myself in need for more time for myself.

I'm still taking yoga classes every week. To relax, I've been learning about Nature Based Spirituality and sustainable living. I recently started No Pooing and I like it very much. I'm hoping to start some patio gardening and getting organic produce delivered weekly.

Today we took a lovely walk through Ravenna Park and went to the U-District Farmers Market where I tried Raw Milk for the first time. That might become standard in our house and part of our weekend routine.

The applications to the University of Washington are in. I applied to 3 PhD programs: Women's Studies, Public Health and Public Affairs. We'll see if I get in and if I'm able to accept.

If I'm lucky, I will be getting an article published in the Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering for their violence against women issue. I should find out next month about that.

Willem is turning 3 later this month so the birthday plans are underway.

Consider this a New Year's Resolution

A couple of weeks ago, I considered deleting this blog because I have been neglecting it. I have been trying to figure out how I want to record my thoughts, and add my voice to the blogging world, especially as it comes to birth advocacy.

I *think* at this point I'm going to redouble my efforts to keep this blog going. I just discovered how to schedule posts so that may be helpful for me to get more consistency. Then I can give myself deadlines too!

I'm considering combining this blog with my spirituality blog because I've been finding it very difficult to separate my experiences as a mother from my spiritual practices and ponderings. So this is your warning, readers, you may find more religious themes on my blog. Its all apart of my journey as a mother and woman.

Part of what has been keeping me from blogging is insecurity. There are so many other great blogs about birth out there on the internet that either I feel I'm inadequate to add anything more or I would only be posting links to other blog posts of other authors that I found interesting or informative.

I'm going to give it a try to post more regularly. I know some bloggers have goals to post daily, or weekly. I'm going to try for weekly.

We'll see how it goes. No promises.

You know how New Year's Resolutions are...

This is the only one I'm making, so maybe there's a good chance it will work.

My Review of Dri Days Training Pants

Originally submitted at One Step Ahead

When your child is toilet training, he shouldn't be distracted by bulky, scratchy, uncomfortable pull-ons! Our design team performed months of research to bring you these remarkably soft, leak-resistant cloth pants (a great alternative to expensive disposals!). Very slim, and more absorbent tha...

Dri Days Training Pants

Great for potty training, and ECing!

By jenneology from Seattle, WA on 1/8/2010

 

5out of 5

Gift: No

Pros: Portable, Playful Design, Easily Stowed, Easily Cleaned, Lightweight, Easy Setup

Best Uses: Traveling, Toilet Training, Potty Use, Hygiene

Describe Yourself: Parent of Two or More Children

We used these with my son when he was potty training and still sometimes find them useful for traveling, just in case we have a hard time finding a place to go.

With our second we tried another way and are using Elimination Communication with our 7 month old. I tried put these training pants on her just to see how they fit, and surprisingly the 2T fit just fine. We have been using them successfully if we miss an potty opportunity.

They are great because they hold in any pees and even poops (with the gussets) and don't leak easily. They are a perfect in between diapers and underwear. I'm glad I tried them with the baby too!

It would be nice if they were made in a 18M size because some families are able to start pottytraining at that age. More petite toddlers could also benefit from a smaller size, but like I said, they are fitting an infant just fine.

(legalese)

Stand and Deliver: FuzziBunz giveaway!

Stand and Deliver: FuzziBunz giveaway!