CoSleeping

How interesting to find this study the day our crib mattress is due to arrive!

Notre Dame CoSleep Study

The author does a good job of putting some perspective to this much talked about topic.  The study reminds us that co-sleeping has occurred for generations and it continues to occur across the globe.  When looked at on a global and historical scale, there are truly no links between co-sleeping and increased risk of death to the infant.  The study does remind us there are many different forms of co-sleeping, that are all listed under the umbrella term of co-sleeping; some of these habits have proven to be in fact dangerous, while others clearly have not.

I did not really want to co-sleep.  I wanted my bed to remain just mine and Mr.'s.  For the most part, that is how things have gone, but ideas dis change once Jr. arrived and we all found what worked and what didn't for all of us.

Jr. has spent most of his sleep time in his mosses basket.  This is where he naps and where he is put to bed at night.  When he awakes in the middle of the night, initially I nursed him in the rocking chair and returned him to his basket. Eventually, that gave way to bringing him into bed, where sometimes he is put back into his basket, sometimes he remains in bed.  It usually depends on me.  I never sleep really well with him in the bed.  So today the mattress for the crib is due to arrive, as he topples out of the basket now! We shall see how the transition goes. Since the crib will still be in our room, we are still co-sleeping according to the study.  The safest kind of co-sleeping.

Baby Food

Jr. is eight months old now. Even though most of his nutritional needs are still met through breastfeeding, he is highly interested in food and his mood is directly related to whether or not his food needs are being met.  Over the last few months, his happiness with solid food is not just reached merely through being fed.  Now he must control the process.  He has moved from pureed foods to bite size pieces that he is learning to grab.  At this point most of the control is in his palm, rather than his chubby phalanges.  This means the food is stuffed into his mouth with little accuracy.  Much of it lands on the floor, and I admit I have allowed him to later graze on certain bits of left overs...(sorry grandma)!  Only after twenty minutes or so of him feeding himself, can I come in and actually get some food into him.  He is learning though, and that is what is key.
I worry about the order of the foods I feed Jr. He started on advacado mushed up like guacamole and thinned out with breast milk.  I figured the healthy omegas would be good for his rapidly evolving brain.  Then came yams and beets.  Apples, bananas, peas, string beans, blackberries, grapes, brown rice and farro.  He likes it all.  I have been following a food introduction guideline from Emerald City Birthing Clinic.  I want more than anything for Jr. is for him to be allergy free.  I vacillate between whether I want it more for his sake or mine.
Next on the menu is pureed chicken.  I want him ready for the best meal of the year- Thanksgiving. And time is ticking as we wind our way into the second week of the best month of the year.

Bloggers Block

OK.  I haven't done this for a while. Bloggers Block is even worse than writers block.
I create this false pressure to make some spectacular entry in order to make up for lost time... So instead, I completely avoid the blog site like dancing around an elephant in the room.

I can list a myriad of excuses:

For a while, I was just trying not to turn on the computer. Period.  Besides the usual need to purge myself from this ever-increasing digital world, we were also experiencing some technical difficulties with our power supply at the yurt.

I have been sick.  For the first time ever, I am the one with a persistent cough and Mr. is remaining healthy.  Wow.  Lack of sleep really does get to you!

Then there has been the deliberation over which kind of mattress to buy for Jr.

Wow.  Sounds silly when I write it all out.  That is why I should be writing more often.  But this week, a good friend reminded me:

"Don't should on yourself".  So from today forward I will no longer should and just do or do not.

To do is to write.  No matter how trivial; how short; how exciting. No matter what.

Epicurious Recipe Box

This was yummy!

Butternut Squash Soup, My Epicurious Recipe Box

Learning Curves

When do learning curves give way to the straight open roads of life?  The ones where you can hit cruise control and just go for a while, listening to some good tunes. Recently, my life seems to be quite curvy, with new lesson popping up around every corner.  

Growing up I had my life well mapped out.  I could literally visualize the road map, and back then the road seemed pretty straight.  There were endless years of schooling ahead of me. Then marriage, and children- just like all the books told you back then.  I remember visualizing this road map as a child, and after the "have kids" turn there was this big black hole.  Because no one ever talked about what you did after that.   It was just life...grow up, get married, have kids, live. But what would the live look like?  

Everything in that colorful part of the map I had visualized actually turned out eerily close to what was laid out.  I completed my schooling in the time allotted for it.  Within a few years of graduating I had married the blond hair, blue-eyed musician I had envisioned would provide me (the athletic, brunette) with the most well balanced offspring genetics could produce.  Then, two years after marriage we were blessed with that most well balanced offspring.  I did it:  I went to school, grew up, got married, and had a child.  NOW WHAT?!

The curving path to our yurt

I had never really had any concrete ideas of what life would be like after I did what I was supposed to do.  Remember, this is where the black hole took over my road map.  Sure I had dreamt of some pretty crazy ideas, but nothing that any normal mother would do.  As far as living I had no idea what that would be like either.  I dreamt of tree houses and geodesic domes, but lets get real- I grew up in the burbs- box homes were what I knew. As a child I had spend evenings ripping our pictures from catalogues and magazines, designing my dream home.  Filling it with sofas, beds, new appliances, even a cute husband and children.  

So now, in my real life, I have to temper my dreams with my realities.  I love my yurt, nestled peacefully in our woods.  Pulling into our driveway and the birdsong and squirrel chatter takes over; ambling down the winding path, now covered with fallen maple leaves and entering the cozy, naturally lit yurt I never want to leave.  Still, I find myself occasionally day dreaming of those box houses, where heat comes on with the flip of a switch and various rooms provide seclusion.

But there are no rooms in this yurt.  Just a more recent curve in my life:  being a housewife.  How is it that the home maintained itself fairly well when we were both working away full time, but now that I am here full time, it seems harder than ever to keep up.  At the end of the day, how do I convince a husband who has been doing heavy lifting and swinging a hammer, I am as sore and tired as he is- even though I may still be in the clothes I awoke in, and haven't left the house all day.  How do you keep you self worth up when your daily accomplishment is no longer measured by the number of clients contacted or bottom lines but instead by dishes cleaned, and meals cooked?  

That’s where Jr. comes in; and the curves of motherhood.  Once you think you have something figured out, your child changes and a whole new solution needs to be found. 

We find the magic after the curves.

Now, I am experiencing the most recent curve; a totally uncharted curve:  blogging.  My journal has been the main audience for most of my thoughts since around fifth grade.  I had never felt writer’s remorse with my diary; never had to worry after putting pen to paper whether or not the ideas were worthy enough.  So, I guess what I am trying to say is, I apologize to you early followers as I get the handle of this blogging thing.  As I told my friend, I just have to get my fingers used to dancing in this keyboard.  I will try to keep it interesting, so it can be something for me and for you.  

I guess that is just it.  The curves are the lessons themselves... what would it really be like if life was so easy you could hit cruise control...seems robotic now that i think of it... passionless.

Chicken Stock...

I am having friends over for dinner tonight.  There is a bounty of seasonal produce in my fridge and around the kitchen.  Island-grown organic fingerling potatoes,  organic yams, yellow onions, organic carrots and rainbow chard grown in the Snoqualmie Valley, an acorn squash, garlic, ginger.  Plus some heirloom grains I would like to use like black buffalo barley and farro (also known as emmer).  Maybe I should try to use the chicken stock that I made over the weekend as well.

Combined with a well rounded pantry (something I get from my mother) fresh seasonal produce is key to lively meals that you and your family will look forward to. While I was looking for some inspiration for what to do with all of my lovely ingredients on epicurious.com I found this cool interactive guide to seasonal produce in each state.  I thought I should share it with you.

Epicurious.com Seasonal Produce Guide Map

I guess we can consider this my first installment of weekly recipes.  The chicken stock I make always varies a bit.  I often make it in alongside some other chicken based meal, where I use the meat and reserve the bones for the stock.  Here is about what I did last time, which was delicious.

Ingredients:
3 bone-in chicken breasts, with breast removed and reserved for another dish
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 brown mushrooms, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups of vegetable skins*
 (*You can save the skins and unused ends from produce such as carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, and herbs- or anything else else you think might be good.  If you don't plan to make a stock immediately, save them is a large ziplock in the freezer.)

Procedure:
Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot with 10-12 cups of water.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce a simmer on low for 6-8 hours.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Strain the liquids and reserve*; discard all solids.
(*I like to save some for immediate use, freeze a couple tubs of a cup or two for future soups, and pour the rest into ice cube trays to freeze.  The frozen cubes of stock add great flavor to any grain cooked!)

Don't Let the CPSC Limit Your Choice to Buy a Non-toxic Organic Baby Mattress | Healthy Child Blog

Don't Let the CPSC Limit Your Choice to Buy a Non-toxic Organic Baby Mattress | Healthy Child Blog

Sign this petition. More on it later... Jr. is stirring!

Vaccines

Where do I begin?  A little history:  I was a fully vaccinated child, yet my mother swears against (and I agree) the effectiveness of the flu vaccine.  So I have not had a needle inject anything into me for a long time.  So I am not a fan is the short of it.  Last winter, when the H1N1 was such a scare, I refused the vaccination.  Despite being pregnant, despite traveling to Mexico.  This may have been the point at which my mother would have preferred me not to follow her lead. In the end I didn't really. I did my research and followed my gut.
I don't like vaccines, but I have decided to vaccinate my child.  I am still not sure if this is the right thing to do or not.  I firmly believe, however in spacing out the vaccines, rather than the bulking that the CDC seems to recommend for parental convenience. Here, check out their vaccine schedule yourself:

Not only do early months bulk up on multiple injections, but some of those injections are combination vaccines in themselves.  This this seems like a gross and artificial overload to an infant or toddlers neurological and immune systems.  Seems like Dr Sears, a well known pediatrician, father, and author who has relased his latest book The Vaccine Book agrees.  Here is the link to his latest interview with Fox News regarding his book.

Fox News Interview with author of The Vaccine Book

What do you think?

Home Alone

My Mr. left this morning for a few days of work on another island.  That means it is just me, Jr. and the dog for the whole weekend.  Oh ya, and the ten or twelve guests that we had planned to have over tomorrow, before my mr. knew about the work gig.  He left less than an hour ago, and I miss him already.  Funny questions always seem to arise just after he has pulled out the drive.  Like today- I can't figure out where he put the TV of all things.  This is no small, table top television we own, but in my husbands mind anything is portable.  So, our 36" flat screen has gone missing, and the huge gas grill we have on the back deck is still just a base with no grill (months after he lent it to some friends for a camp trip).  Don't get me wrong.  I am not at all peeved- the TV will turn up and the grill will return unscathed.  I just find it amazing... If only you could see how sad the grill looks right now.  But that is a total tangent I could go down some other day.  For now, Mr. is gone and I am a single mom for two nights.  No big deal.
Before departure Mr. took out the trash and recycling, he got gasoline for our generator and reviewed the ever-changing system of charging our battery bank (more on that later).  He chopped firewood and split kindling, and he brought in 10 gallons of potable water. Awesome- everything I had asked for and more.
The minute he left I sat down and nursed Jr. and put him to sleep.  I took a quick inventory of what I needed to do before tomorrow and went for it.
-Sweep the floors. Check. Mental note to self:  Buy a professional dust mop. The broom sucks and the dust mop I bought at target broke in the second week of use.
-Mop the floors... What a pain.  With all the advances in technology can some one please make this easier.  Why does it always seem like I am just pushing dirt around?  I have tried in the past scrubbing on my hands and knees then finishing with a mop.  That takes forever, hasn't worked too well, and Ieaves me feeling like Cinderella.
I have to admit my ten step technique today worked well:
Step one: Move all the furniture to the middle of the room.
Step two: Sweep. Again.
Step three:  Fill up the mop bucket with a capful of bio-cleen all purpose cleaner, a splash of bragg's apple cider vinegar, and hot water.  I swear by bio-clean and vinegar- together they will clean anything.
Step four:  Mop, mamma, mop.
Step five:* Here is the critical step*  Rinse that mop out before putting it back in the bucket of clean mop water.
Step six: Open up the doors.
Step seven:  Repeat steps four and five until you have to move the furniture back in place on the clean air-dried floors
Step eight: Mop the center of the room.

Ahhhh! Clean Shiny Floors.

Step nine: Rinse out mop and bucket
Step ten: sweep off the porches front and back

The floors are clean and Jr. is still sleeping.  I just may get to take a shower today!

Now that only leaves me with grocery shopping, and a soup to make!

I have been urged by a few select people, who I hold in high esteem, to write a blog.  I must admit that at first the idea seemed ridiculous.  I have never read a blog in my life- why would anyone read mine?  How does one go about writing a blog- aren't they filled with just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, mundane details of someone's daily life?  Well, I am not really sure (remember- I have never really read a blog before) but I guess that is where I will start...


I can’t say as an individual, or as a mother, that I am exactly mainstream.  However, I am no holy-hippie either.  I believe, the best things for my family are simple:  love, sunshine, nutritious food, and laughing.  We try to get a little of all these things each day- although nestled in the woods, on a small island in the Puget Sound makes getting sunshine our biggest challenge!  


In this blog, I hope to share the fun and the wisdom that comes along with being a parent.  Well, the wisdom part- I guess- is debatable... I'll let you be the judge of that part!