# Happy New Year Sept '04 Mamas!



## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Rabbit Rabbit!







Welcome to 2006! Jen


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

shoot....I wanted to be first...hehe







....well I'll be first to say ribbet ribbet
















Happy New Year Mamas!!!!


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Doh! Mama Bear, you stole my thunder!

Happy New Year, Everyone! We're off to Winnipeg today, so I don't know how much I"ll get a chance to post in this next week, we're staying with our friends. The week after that I"ll be staying with my sister and then my brother, both of whom are very computer saavy, so I assume I"ll get to sneak on the computer and post, but probably not read.

Well, Andrew seems to have pretty much fully recovered. Last night he kept waking up screaming, and I thought he was having tummy troubles, but then I found out that his legs were caught in his too big sleeper and he couldn'ts strech them out. And we've decided to do most of our driving at night anyway, so it should be all good.

Well, the lure of the post-it notes has worn off, I must be off!


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Happy New Year everyone!!









DH's job is taking us to Houston. I don't want to go. My family is here and my friends are here. But, I don't have a choice.







His family is there and they are M-E-A-N to me in the biggest way.

We got Kate the handled 2 step stool for Christmas and she uses it to help me cook and get snacks off the counter.

Her latest thing is whining for me to follow her into the kitchen and then going to the fridge. Even though I have 2 other snack options out she wants something else. Something that she undoubtedly will not eat once I take it out. When I say no, you need to eat your snacks on the table if you are hungry, she has a complete meltdown. This is happening about 5-6 times a day!







:


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Happy New Year!

We're celebrating here by doing as little as possible. Cecilia is finally feeling better and sleeping better.

Last night we went to a little 'kids' new years party. It was fun to celebrate with other folks with little kids.

Jen, I know what you mean about $- didn't mean to insinuate that you guys were rolling in it-







. We make just enough to not qualify for anything, but it costs us any extra we might have just to keep up with our lovely crappy health insurance. I'm still pretty bitter that we had to cover the birth of Cecilia ourselves because we hadn't had our insurance for two years. It took us a year to pay off a totally drug free birth. Grrr.

Oh, Leomom, you must be bumming. It's really nasty that dh's family isn't nicer to you.

Okay, my brother sent me an ipod nano for Christmas (he's got extra cash to burn!) and I am downloading music onto it for my run this afternoon.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

well, I responded at length earlier today, but robin somehow delelted it (again)

Jilly - hope you have safe travels

Leomom - I hear you on the move - we moved from atlanta to a smaller town where I know one person plus my in-laws (although I went to high school in this town - all my friends and I moved away and never came back, except one girlfriend). My in-laws aren't mean to me, per se, but they make me crazy and if we weren't related they are the people I generally see as my enemy in the world - the people who believe things I think are evil, who I think are wrong, immoral, the cause of many social problems, etc. So it eats my soul to spend lots of time with them and have to bite my toungue when they say things that I NEED to respond to. I was willing to move, but it has been so much harder than I than I thought - especially b/c we moved with a 2 day old and I didn't go back to work FT, so I had no community of like-minded women. If I had, I think I would have made the transition so much better.

Well, over the past 8-9 days, Robin has basically stopped nursing during the day. She's done it 1-2ce when she needed a nap, but otherwise she's been falling asleep in the car for naps or letting clint rock her down. SHe generally nurses to bed at night (although clint has put her down a few times). But she's still waking up 2-4 times a night, and I nurse her at least once -twice int he night, then when she tries to wake up for good at 6:30 I nurse her for a while in a desparate attempt for more sleep. So I guess this is the weaning process in action. I'm not pushing it - doing the don't offer don't refuse tactic. But CLint is pushing it, in that he is getting up with her, taking her to run errands, rocking her down, etc. so that she and I aren't together when she had normally been nursing (she is totally fine with this, very adaptable child that she is, and just falls asleep with him no problem - whereas with me she of course wants to nurse). I'm torn about his actions - I don't want to try to wean her earlier than she's ready for, but she really seems fine. I can tell my supply is way low. We planned to nightwean b/c we are ridiculously sleep deprived, but we havent been consistent about any plan, so that hasn't happened. But we are both increasingly frustrated by my absent period. We've been hoping to TTC for 8 months, and I know that is Clint's main motivation to reduce Robin's nursings. I;m frustrated about it too - at least if we were able to TTC for real I could feel like I had some power over the situation - but I don't want to push RObin or regret anything.

Anybody else with a declining nurser? Anyone planning to or thinking about a gentle weaning process? Sounds like a lot of folks still have frequent nursers.

Happy new year!


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

Jilly - wishing you safe travels

leomom - ((((hugs))))

Becca - yup, I've got a declining nurser over here. He'll nurse 3x/day. Usually before naps and at bedtime and he sleeps through the night (10-12 hours) almost every night. If he does wake up, I nurse him and he goes back to sleep. But, each nursing its like 15-20 sec each side and then he's done. If we're out running errands, he'll fall asleep without nursing. I'm not trying to wean him, but I notice on days when he drinks more from his sippy cup, he's not very interested in nursing. Part of me is saddened b/c this is such a precious time - but the other part of me realizes that he's getting older and his needs are changing. He still needs me, just in different ways now.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Oh, Becca- I feel for you! I know EXACTLY what you mean.... when Cecilia really backs off nursing during the day, I go through all kinds of emotions about it. However, with this last round of sickness she's been nursing exclusively for the past few days. But before that, we were really declining on the day nursing. Of course, she still nurses before bed, once when we get into bed and then for a little while in the morning. Somewhere along the line I got enough sleep to lose my momentum for total nightweaning.... and now that she's changing I am kinda glad I have that time. And Greg does the same thing with Cis; keeps her busy and takes her out and about and does the car thing, visits his folks, etc. and it makes me nuts.... I'll say 'she needs me' and he looks at me like I'm nuts and tells me she ate lunch with them just fine. It's hard to let go of my 'baby'..... But if you think about it so many moms have their kids totally weaned by one; so we've already gone longer and if you're ttc it might make the difference. hugs...


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Hi all, I haven't been around for awhile. I've been dealing with a nasty flu that would not leave me alone. I had it off and on (mostly on) for 4 weeks which culminated into strep throat for Christmas.

Leomom ~ That sucks that you have to move away from the people you know and love. And it really sucks that you have to move to a place where family members are mean to you. Is your dh going to at least get paid more? Is there some good that can come from this?

My girl is up'ing her nursing, she nurses all the time. Day and night. It's not a big deal to me. I'm a really heavy sleeper so I barely notice her nursing at night, only if it's one of those nights where she has to be attached ALL night long. But I want to nurse her until she is at least 2, so there is no rush to wean.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Tristan, despite my very low supply, is a very ritualistic nurser - he wants to nurse when he gets up in the morning, around 10-15 minutes, usually; if I am the one putting him down for a nap, he wants to nurse then, 10-20 mins; and he wants to nurse to go to bed at night *sometimes* - and then not usually so long. Overnight sometimes he will want to nurse too which is a big pain because those are usually because he is hungry, which means i have to use the SNS. If I give him a sippy cup with milk, he's just unhappy about it and it wakes him up more. He wants both food AND comfort. So I think he's definitely a long way from weaning despite how much he nurses during the day. To me the fact that he still wants to nurse at 15 months is a big triumph given the difficulties we have had with nursing.

Stacey - bummer about the move and I know nothing about Houston, sorry to say... have you tried the "Finding your Tribe" forum?

Meg - yeah, insurance takes a big bite out of our checking account too. I'm still on COBRA from work and I carry Tristan as it's actually cheaper because family coverage where Jo works is ridiculously expensive.







btw what size shoes is C'lia in now? We're trying to find some 20s for T and the Ecco outlet only had GOLF SHOES. Yes, no kidding, golf-style shoes for little babies. He's not too hard on shoes and if you were willing to loan us any that she had outgrown, that'd be swell... how are those boots working out?

ok, gotta hit the hay so that I've had at least an hour or two before Mr. Teething Man wakes me. nigh-nigh, j


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Happy New Year, all!

Thor has become a rituatlistic nurser too, I guess you could say, and I'm sort of encouraging that. Since I've been off for winter break, he nurses when he wakes up in the morning, at his nap, and then at bedtime. Although he sometimes wants one more nurse in late afternoon. So he's down to 3-4 times a day but I must say I feel so ready to wean, and I feel guilty about it because I'm sure it's from being pregnant. Some nights I just can't bear the thought of nursing him for 20-30 minutes to sleep... it's irritating and painful sometimes. But he is certainly on the slow road to weaning, so I'm just trying to be patient.

Leomom -- Sorry about your move... I hope that you can quickly find a good group of mamas there!

Becca -- I bet AF will return soon for you! (It's funny, normally we're not hoping for that for someone...







)


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

subbing...


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Jen- Cecilia has a pair of Ecco's, size 20 that she has outgrown that I would be happy to loan you. Then we should be able to do a 'swap-back' sometime this spring.... the Ecco's are the little blue ones like Tristan has right now. The shoes seem to be pretty durable, which is nice because I do like them and figure on putting another baby in them. I would be happy to send them to you- I think I have your address somewhere and I'll toss them in the mail this week. We are using the boots- Cecilia can walk so much better in them! My sister got her a pair of purple boots from ebay, so she's been wearing those too, but we couldn't have gotten through December without yours. Thank you for that.

FF; sorry to hear about the sickness.... being sick is SUCH a drag with a small person to care for.


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## Cuddlemama (Jan 12, 2002)

I'm subbing to this thread because part of my new year's resolution was to become more community minded, both offline and online, and this group of women (Sept. Mamas) are my favorite online community.

So, I may not talk much, but I'm here if anyone needs anything. Always listening, that's Leigh.

~L


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Leigh


















T's little buddy Oscar is FINALLY home and we picked them up from the airport... happiness abounds.

bath time for yogurt-head...


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Harmony, good to have you back! Well, dh will actually be training to take over his dad's business. So, yes, it will be more money but...ugh...I'd rather be poor.

Jen, I do need to check the finding your tribe forum. Thanks for the reminder!

Kate nurses at 4am, upon waking, before her afternoon nap and after. Some days she doesn't want to nap before that nap though. It's funny, if I try to nurse her when she doesn't want, she will give me a look and pull my shirt down.







Sounds like she's got her own routine, like Thor!

Becca, I know what you mean on the ILs..mine are way, way different, too, and my opinion is not welcome. We especially clash on my parenting style..well, we clash on everything, but parenting is the one thing I refuse to bite my tongue on...I just found out that they are coming up to "talk" this week so we can try and iron out our differences. I'm hoping it will help, but also wary b/c we've been trying to work some stuff out over email and they have been doing lots of character bashing. It's so exhausting...









Ok..let me ask your opinions on this...I have a chance to move to Houston proper, where dh's entire (HUGE) family lives..or to a coastal town like Kemah. I'm leaning toward Kemah for obvious reasons, but then I'm worried that it will be harder to meet like minded Mamas in such a small place...and dh will have a commute...but it would at least give me a 30 minute buffer from the ILs...what do you think???


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

leomom - I think you need to do what's best for your family (meaning you, dh, and dd). You need an environment for dd that is safe & loving. If being close to dh's family is gonna cause tension and problems, I wouldn't do it. I am sure you will be able to meet plenty of moms - start asking around here on Finding your Tribe. You may be surprised!


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Leomom ~ I vote for the coastal town, mostly because most of the coastal towns I've been to are so lovely. I don't know how that Kebah is, but I think that if you are having good feelings about that place, that might be the place for you. You can always move if you hate it, right? And that gives you some space between the in-laws and you. At least you know they are less likely to just pop over any time they want.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Leomom; I would go for Houston proper.... better houses, more 'community', more urban and less suburban. But that's just me and I've never seen Houston







, but I do know that I love older, more established communities vs. 'burb living. We are pretty isolated, which is great for DH b/c this is his homeplace, but when I'm on my own here I go nuts. You have to drive to go anywhere.

As far as IL's, yours sound pretty darn tough; but I do think you can learn how to be near them and still put your relationship with your dh and kids and parenting style first. My IL's are pretty traditional and I am oh-so-not and I have learned 1) how to communicate with Greg and stress that we have to be a team- us first, extended family second, unless he wants to end up living with his folks.... 2) sometimes I hold my tongue, smile and call a friend to b#%@h afterwards 3) I WILL stand up for myself and that scares them, a little, so I've found a bit of fear brings some respect. But most of all, I'd say that Greg's learning to understand how to balance his family (me and Cecilia) with his folks and siblings makes the biggest difference. And sometimes I take a break from his family and he'll tell them I'm at a 'meeting' or 'working'. That gives me some space.

How can they bash their son's wife and family? Don't they realize that affects him? Will the money be worth it?!! Maybe Mama Bear has it right; don't move!

Hi Leigh!


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Forgot to ask, do any of you have the Kinderzeat? I'm thinking of using xmas money to get one for Cecilia, but I'm still kind of choking on the price. But it's something I'd use everyday.....


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Meg - we do, got it as a shower gift. If you are not too concerned about color check eBay, you can sometimes get them in raspberry or grape for cheaper









One Step Ahead has a knock-off version but it doesn't hold as much weight as the Kinderzeat.

Christine, how awesome that you're trying to go TV-free! Turn that TV into a black mirror!

Just got a phone call from my friend, T's best little buddy had his 15-mo check-up today and my friend's husband off-handedly mentioned that "sometimes the tip of his penis gets red" and the doctor proceeded, without asking, to forcibly retract the little guy's foreskin







mama was yelling, baby was screaming in pain. GRRRRRR!!!!







I feel so very horrible for both the baby and my friend!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Oh man, I'd be so furious if a doctor ever did that to Thor!!! I feel so bad for the little guy (and his mom!). ARGH!

Oh, Thor was so sweet this morning. Slept comfortably on me with his little mouth by my face and hugging me from about 3-7am. Sooooo sweet...







He was very needy last night, and woke up many times but would go right back to sleep once he felt I was nearby (I kept going into his room until finally I brought him into ours). For some reason I didn't mind too much though.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Hi mamas!
I'm hanging at my mom's today in order to get a little lovin... had some sort of nasty flu or perhaps food poisoning. Was up in the night violently ill and spent all day yesterday sleeping. Thank god Jerome got his schedule switched so he could stay home with Mielle and I. So, I'm recuperating at my mama's house and doing laundry (about a month and still no washing machine!)

Spent the weekend with my IL's, actually traveled to Illinios with my FIL and his wife to visit the extended IL'S... without Jerome. It was kinda weird going without him, but Mielle had so much fun it was definitely worth it! There were about 6 toddlers for her to play with. It was great to connect with all Jerome's cousins that are our age and see all their kids.

The only upsetting part of the visit was in suspecting and then later confirming that one of the "kids" is pregnant! She's only 14 years old! How heartbreaking! Ironically her mother became pregnant with her at age 15... so her mom will be a Grandmother at age 30.... and her mom has a son who's only about a month younger than Mielle!
My heart simply aches for the whole family. Jerome and I are discussing how we can help, if there is any way we can support the girl. (He's always been really close to her) I am intending to offer her maternity clothes and books, but am hoping she will come visit us this summer so I can tell her about my birth experience and other stuff....

So that's what's been on my heart and mind, if you ladies could send out a little prayer to whoever you pray to.... she's in need.

Love to all


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Oh Anna, Sounds like a tough situation. We found out that my aunt's new husband's 13 yo daughter is pregnant, and it makes me sick to think of it. They are still deciding whether to terminate the pregnancy. It makes me so sad both for these girls who lose their childhood to being sexually active too young and their fun youth to the responsibilities of motherhood. Plus, i think it's hard enough to be a good mother when you are mature, ready, and willing - I wouldn't wish it on anyone who isn't those things. Such a hard situation. I'm sure she appreciates your support.

Welcome Legh!! Jump on in!

Leomom - I prefer the city to the burbs, so I'd go for houston unless the coastal town has a nice small-town feel to it. You should rent for a year maybe to make sure you are happy with your choice. It's definitely a buyers market for houses, so you don't want to get stuck in a place you don't like.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Hey - I haven't posted Pix in a while, but here's our latest pre-xmas album:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLan...fromshare&Ux=0

It includes shots of the doll Jilly made (tres cute!), and for the uninitiated, you can barely see a glimpse of divinity airing out on the counter in the last picture!


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

Poor little baby. If a doctor ever did that to my son, I'd beat the crap out of them. grrrr....
When I first started seeing our current ped, I told her that ds wasn't circ'ed before she ever touched him b/c I had read so much on retraction here on MDC. She said not to worry, her son's aren't either and she would never retract it. I still keep an eye out though when he goes for check-ups. I am a fierce Mama Bear









I will be praying for the 2 pregnant young ladies. It's a very difficult situation.

Cute pics Becca! And what a cute puppy!!! I love the pic of your dh and Robin snoozing


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Cute pix Becca! I love the one of Robin looking up through the gate (at Santa?)..

Anna, that is so sad! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help.

I can't believe that doctor did that to the poor baby!









Kate got this for Christmas and we love it! She uses it to wash her hands and to help me cook. I also sometime keep her snacks on the counter to keep the dogs from getting it!









http://www.onestepahead.com/jump.jsp...781&change=117

I wish dh wanted to go for only the money. That would be so much easier for me to say no to. He wants the opportunity to work with his dad before he retires. The money will only be marginally better at first.


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## mum2tori (Apr 7, 2003)

Hi all!

Don't have a lot of time to post right now, need to start getting the herd ready for afternoon naps.









Leomon-
Sorry to hear that you are having to move. Houston is a great place through. There is a TON of great stuff to do there. There are several great AP groups. The Houston API group is very chatty.

I've lived all over the Houston area for years. We moved there in '81, I went to High School up on the NW side in the 1960/Klein area. Lived in the "Katy" area, lived down in Clear Lake (which is "right next" to Kemah), lived down on Galveston Island (my favorite place, loved living a block from the seawall) and we lived "in town" in the Bellaire/Meyerland area. Houston is SOOOO BIG (its 50 miles across from east/west and over 70 miles across from north/south) that there is pretty much any kind of "housing area" that you could ever want to live in.

Just one caution on living down in the Kemah area... it does flood with tidal surge in some areas and the areas that don't... are very expensive. It is a great small community and its only a few minutes up the road from Clear Lake City proper and everything you could ever need. Baybrook Mall (and a huge shopping area) is at I-45 and BayArea and only takes about 10 minutes from Kemah. Kemah has tried to really embrace the tourist scene down on the waterfront pier. There are lots of big chain restuarants and a small amusement park there. Besides the tourists the main source of revenue for Kemah... tickets. You don't drive ONE mile over the speed limit there and they are great about suddenly dropping the speed limit at the drop of a hat too.

Much like the Dallas area, you'll get use to driving 15+ minutes to get to just about anything.









We love living in Austin but do miss some of the things about Houston. Biggest thing is the culture. There are SOOOOO many awesome museums in Houston. We would spend the day at the Nature History Museum and the kids loved it. There is a wonderful Children's Museum (one of our old playgroups would met there once a week during the hot summers). And the Zoo is wonderful too. They have done an amazing job at creating a very animal friendly and kid friendly zoo. A family membership is a godsend, we used ours lots.

I miss some of the amazing restuarants there. I'm seriously craving my favorite Mexican taco place 100% Taquito (610-Buffalo Speedway). We would met DH for lunch there a lot since it was right across the street from his old office. And if you live down in the Kemah area you have access to the FRESHEST seafood on the planet. Most of the gulf shrimp comes in right there at the docks in Kemah. And the fish... amazing. We really miss that too.

Don't miss the humidity and heat though.









Let me know if you want to know more about an area. Like I said I've lived there most of the last 24 years there. DH is one of those few native Houstonians too. We've still got lots of family there (both mothers live there though my MIL is moving up here soon). That was one of the biggest things to keep us in Houston as long as we did was because family was there. But we are only 2 hours away and we see everyone pretty often. Before the gas prices skyrocked for a while I was still going to Houston every 6 weeks or so.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Stacy, I vote for the coast! But Samantha's post sure makes the city sound great... And I was wondering if you'll get to keep running Scrappy Sisters when you leave your sister? Or is it already a long-distance venture?

Wow, great to hear from you, Leigh!!! Glad you're doing well.

Glad to hear everyone seems to be recovering from their sicknesses. Ugh.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I had some families over for BBQ and board games. Great fun! We are planning to do it again soon.

Oh, is it odd that dh and I have recently taught my 7 yo little son to play poker? LOL


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Just wanted to let you know we have a heartbeat!!









Because I had a traumatic, late- first trimester miscarriage once we requested an 8 week ultrasound to find a heartbeat in our new little cupcake.

My DH, Lulu and I went in. Lulu munched cheddar bunnies and stared at the screen. I held my breath. It was mainly transvaginal ... which is intense!









Finally she showed us the pulsing heart. I nearly started to cry.

The heart rate is 175 ... what do you ladies say? Another girl??










Just had to tell you the good news.

Liz


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Aww Liz







I'm tearing up - What a special moment. Although I agree, you deserve dinner and a drink before the transvaginal U/s. Congrats and hope you can rest easy now. (and I fully support more girls in the world)

Savannah - Glad to hear you are surrounding yourself with some positive people! We had the in-laws over for New Years Eve AND just HAD to have the big traditional New Years Lunch with them. Does everybody do that or is it a Southern thing? We never really did it in my family but it's like a religion for my in-laws

Leomom - that looks like an awesome stool. Is the seat high enough to sit at the table too?

Robin is getting totally out of hand with the climbing. SHe's discovered the tops of counters and there is no stopping her. SHe is strong enough now to pull the kitchen chairs out from under the table - we used to tuck them under and the table top was a safe zone, but no longer. And she is pulling the chairs out from the bar too - which gives her access to the cat food (she trhows it down to Barbara one handful at the time), my laptop, and a kitchen counter - I've caught her playing in the compost bowl (crushing eggshells) and eating a raw potato. If I take away her step stool to keep her from wreaking further havoc, she pulls out the bottom drawer in the kitchen and climbs into it (after flinging the contents across the kitchen). She's just a total nut and leaves a trail of destruction in her wake. Her fave is to feed Barbara - so she climbs to the kitchen table looking for the last few bites of egg to throw to the dog, etc. The other day I caught her in the laundry room - she had opened the big bin of Alfred's food to scoop it out for Barbara, and Barbara had half climbed into the bin. Just her hind legs were hanging out, and she was chowing down. Robin was just giggling.

So I don't know if a nie step stool would solve problems or just cause more.


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Congrats on the hearbeat, Liz!!

Becca, the stool is the size of a regular chair. So it would be perfect for an adult to use at the table, or to use with a booster. The idea is that the child can use it as a desk chair later. The step flips under. Can't believe Robin is such a little monkey!









Savannah, actually my sister is most likely going to follow in a couple of months.







So, we'll probably just only take 1-2 clients a month until we're back together.

Well, I think I'm leaning toward the coast, but we're going to look at houses next week. The ILs are coming in today to air our grievances. Wish me luck...my stomach is already in knots!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Leomom -- Good luck with the IL's. I know I'll have to do the same "airing the grievances" thing with MIL sometime in the next several years. I about lost it during our last two visits with her but instead I just abruptly left the room, which I know she noticed both times. I sort of think she doesn't even want to go there with me though because she KNOWS what my issues are with her (her daughter and son - DH - have them too). I know how stressful it can be. I hope it goes well!!

YBecca -- Sounds like the same stuff that Thor does. He can crawl INTO his high chair, which is like 3 feet off the ground! Also, he does the same pulling the chairs out from underneath the table, climbing on them, and then on the table. And he'll do it when I'm not looking. He also loves to climb on tiny end tables, which is so dangerous. At least our living room is carpeted. Oh, and his favorite thing to do lately is to walk around the edge of the bathtub while he's supposed to be taking a bath. We have a big bathtub, with arm rests, and he climbs on the armrests, and then onto the edge of the tub, and then nakedly and precariously walks around the tub (with DH right there, of course). I just have to shake my head. DH always says, "THOR, why can't you just SIT in your bath!?" I hear him through the door all the time.

We find out the sex of the new baby on January 19th. Liz -- congrats on the heartbeat. I can't wait to see our ultrasound, it's the coolest thing ever. At my last midwife checkup the HB was 168. I was 16 weeks along. I wondered if that meant another boy? But I've had three dreams where the baby was a girl. I wonder if it's for real or just wishful thinking... though two boys would be fine with me.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Ohhhh... the new babies are exciting! Congrats on the heartbeat, Liz and Augs, I'm excited to hear boy or girl!

The way my husband and I are using FAM, we might as well be crossing our fingers. It turns out I have no restraint. I really do want another baby, but I also have promised myself I will finish my stupid $#%* thesis first.

Becca, if Cecilia and Robin could play together they would get in so much trouble! Cecilia fed Nigel ALL of his dog treats this morning. She can climb stools, highchairs, chairs, trashcans, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. It's cute, for awhile, then just challenging. Cecilia is pretty stubborn and does not accept redirection well at all!!

Leomom, good luck! Tell us how it goes....

Oh, Anna, I hope everything goes okay with the girl in your family. I grew up watching a lot of women become mothers WAY before they were ready, and it's hard. You will be great support for her, good for you to offer a hand.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *midwestmeg*

Oh, Anna, I hope everything goes okay with the girl in your family. I grew up watching a lot of women become mothers WAY before they were ready, and it's hard. You will be great support for her, good for you to offer a hand.

That's Alaska for ya, right?







Highest teen pregnancy rate per capita in the town I grew up in. I remember many girls at my high school getting pregnant in 10th grade and dropping out. Scary.

Oh and Meg, same thing with DH and I practicing NFP -- the crossing your fingers thing. That's how I ended up pregnant!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AugustineM*
Oh and Meg, same thing with DH and I practicing NFP -- the crossing your fingers thing. That's how I ended up pregnant!










Don't you girls know - you're supposed to cross your KNEES, not your fingers!


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Yo Becca*
Don't you girls know - you're supposed to cross your KNEES, not your fingers!

















:

When I tried NFP, we got a big surprise 9 mths later....


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## mum2tori (Apr 7, 2003)

Well, I guess you actually have to open the NFP book for it to really work... right?

















It certainly looked nice sitting on my nightstand where I would be just sooooo likely to open it up and read it.







Yeah right.









I'm thinking #4 is going to be a girl. I haven't had the horrible m/s (overall general queasyness feeling) that I had with both boys. More like I had with Tori. And I swear I've got almost teenager breakout skin again!







: I wish the general exhaustion would go away too. While we are happy with a healthy baby... I am leaning towards another girl for the last one. While it would be "easier" to have another boy... all three could room together...







It would be nice to have another little girl. I've still got a bunch of Tori's old clothes that hardly got worn because she had so many.







And we have a girl's name picked out since... oh when we were pregnant with Jack.







Tori told me the other night that she wants a little sister... and another little brother... sorry honey I think there is only 1 in there. So, she wants a sister then.









Well, there's Aidan making noises again, time for some more medicine.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Yo Becca*
Don't you girls know - you're supposed to cross your KNEES, not your fingers!


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Oh, I hope the teens will opt not to -- this message has been edited -- their baby... Please encourage adoption if they won't keep the babies. I've been asked twice in the past to keep my ears out for any young mothers who need to place a baby up for adoption; for an infertile couple hoping to avoid the red tape and delays of typical adoption channels. Let me know, OK?

Congrats on the new babies, and exciting ultrasounds! How fun. I hope you'll keep us posted on the pregnancy progress, and not just post in a new due date club or something. We can live vicariously through you. I want more children, but not yet! I'm glad I haven't resumed my cycle yet.

McKenna climbed up into her high chair the other day for the first time. And William figured out he can climb up the folded stroller I have leaning against my junk counter (by the laundry room door)... and take down all my junk. Ugh! I'm really going to be in trouble if I have to suddenly become a Cleanie and keep my counters and tables clear of clutter. IMPOSSIBLE!

So my son and I continue to play Poker after lunch, LOL. I have no problem with it, since we don't actually spend any money for our chips...

And a twin mom of 23 month old b/g twins is looking for one or two days a week babysitting, and I'm thinking of doing it. AM I CRAZY?














I told her I'd need a couple of weeks to get my house in order and to try to get a better nap routine down for my babies. Dh and I have been wanting to bring in a few hundred extra dollars a month; this would help. I think it would be pretty fun.

William is biting and scratching and yanking toys from his twin, and pulling her clothes so she falls down, and pinching... Ugh. Now I remember why this age is so hard. Cute as a button one minute, aggravating terror the next!

OOooh, tomorrow we're skipping homeschool park day to go to an API meeting where the theme is Babywearing. Which reminds me, I need to go find my wrap! Ciao.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Savannah - (1) yes you are crazy for babysitting twins, at least it's only 2 days a week! lol (2) does that couple you know of have sound legal advice that what they want to do is even possible? As obnoxious as it is, all that red tape unfortunately exists for a reason... I know a lot of it is just crap, like the exhaustive home studies, but around here, the agencies have to provide gobs and gobs of documentation to lawyers to make the adoption legal. Just curious after having watched and supported C+B through Estella's adoption. And (3) when you and Nicolas are off of your poker streak, you should teach him how to play cribbage, if he doesn't already know. Stupendous mental math game, right there. It's how I learned to do addition up to 31.

Jo and I have a terrific family planning method going but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't work for the rest of you







(that's how I knew I liked my midwife: when I filled out a form for her about my sex life I wrote "lesbianism" into the blank for "contraceptive method(s) used" and she laughed out loud) unfortunately, it works a bit too well - when you *do* want to get pregnant, it's tedious and expensive. Oh, the trade-offs...!









I'm so glad I don't have as much of a climber; Tristan climbs onto the couch with the aid of a step-stool, and that's about all.

Well, I'm expecting an old college friend - ack, how have I gotten old enough for "old" and "college friend" to go together? - to come over today, so I'd better give her a call and then start to clean up this disaster area of a house so she's not shocked at what an abyss we've fallen into now that this little fellow has joined our family... xo, happy weekends, jen


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## StacyL (May 4, 2004)

Well, I'll add my latest for the vicarious preggo desires...

I'm 19 weeks now, and thankfully past the m/s and bad teenager skin episode. The baby is swishing around a lot whenever I lay down or sit to rest. It's nice to feel so much movement, because we likely won't do an U/S until around 24 weeks. Haven't had any thoughts or dreams on the gender yet. I haven't gained much weight so far, but boy, is my belly big!

Alex is doing great. He has four molars and twelve teeth all together. He is close to weaning, only nursing now when he wakes and before bed at night. I can't wait because it has become sooo painful! He loves playing with Maggie, our Boxer, and helping Mommy around the house. He's very helpful and sweet. DH was on vacation from med school for two weeks, which he loved. When dh went back to school the other day, he kept looking around the house for Daddy. We are trying to pull off a cruise for Spring Break, which would be awesome. I will be nearly 8 months, so I am sure I will look like a beached whale - haha.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Savannah ~ I'm thinking that you don't mean that you hope the pregnant teens don't murder their babies, but are instead talking about abortion. If this is true, I think that you should probably keep the pro-life semantics out of this topic out of respect for other mamas around here that might have had abortions. As far as I know this is a natural family living forum and not a pro-life forum.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *FeministFatale*
Savannah ~ I'm thinking that you don't mean that you hope the pregnant teens don't murder their babies, but are instead talking about abortion. If this is true, I think that you should probably keep the pro-life semantics out of this topic out of respect for other mamas around here that might have had abortions. As far as I know this is a natural family living forum and not a pro-life forum.

Thank you.... It is important to respect others and the difficult life choices they may have had to make.









Arrrgh! Cecilia can take her stool EVERYWHERE and it's making me nuts!









Oh great, where were you NFP flunkies when they told me this system worked! Of course, I suppose it's ME who failed and not the method. Jen, you make me laugh!


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Our friends who first told us about NFP now have 5 children and one on the way (they are 30).

Well, Winnipeg is going great, except for Andrew's sleep, which has been really erratic. (he's on my lap right now). It's been super relaxing, and its good to hang out with friends who know you and who you have a history with, KWIM? Plus these friends are super laid back, and good conversationalists. It is wonderful! And Andrew and their dog have been tons of fun to watch.

I finally got a visit from AF! I'm so excited, because now we can TTC! I should have went on vacation earlier.









Andrew is not climbing at all yet. He will lean on something and sort of lift one leg up as if he's trying to step onto it. BUt his arm development has always been signifigantly behind his leg development, so I'm not really surprised. He's finally clapping up a storm, though.

Also, he's saying "Kym" and "Chester" (my friend and her dog) and when we were at my brother's last night he was naming and pointing to all three of his cous ins. In fact in the middle of the night last night he stirred in his sleep, muttered "Josh" (his cousin) and then fell back to sleep.

Have a good week, all.

HOpe those teen moms get lots of support. THat is a difficult place to be. I wish there were more programs like the one at the school I used to work at -- there was a daycare right in the school, and the girls' first class of the day both semesters was a parenting / support class. It was awesome, and got lots of girls through highschool.


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

Quick question - The only shoes ds has worn are Robeez, but with him being more active and playing outside when the weather's nice, the Robeez are getting beat up and are not protective enough. I was curious which toddler shoes do you like?


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Christine - we love Eccos! Are also game to check out other European brands such as geox, Primigi and Naturino...


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

Happy New Year, mamas! Trying to catch up while my mom has BOTH boys for the night!









Quote:


Originally Posted by *leomom*
DH's job is taking us to Houston. I don't want to go. My family is here and my friends are here. But, I don't have a choice.







His family is there and they are M-E-A-N to me in the biggest way.

Woohoo!! That means we get to meet you and Kate!







(Though I'm sorry to hear about the ILs! Eek!







) When will you be down here? Any idea what area? Just finished reading the thread and realized that YOU were the one who posted recently on the FYT thread! How long will you have to look around? I know alot of people are going out to the Pearland area, and past that is the coast, Kemah, etc., but it's not a place that's ever appealed to me personally. Of course, I've been to Kemah exactly once, and that was to go to the touristy stuff! (Took DH as a surprise for his birthday.) I was in the general area recently to drop off an order and it was pretty nice, though. We're in Sugar Land, which is southwest, off of US-59. Pretty easy route in, though lots of folks heading that way (can't remember where your DH's job would be). Then there's northwest, which is growing and just beautiful out there. I know quite a few folks who have recently moved to that area, and it's full of big tall trees and such. Let us know how the searching goes!!









SAMANTHA!! OMGoodness!! Congrats on the pregnancy!







I have clearly been away WAY too long! How exciting!

I can't believe there are so many little siblings on the way, and even soon enough to find out the sex! Wow! I'm hoping we'll have one more, but not anytime soon! :LOL (Guess I better remember that crossing the knees thing, then, eh?







)

I don't see Savannah as having made a personal attack on anyone. Perhaps we can avoid personal attacks altogether, eh? Certainly terrible situations no matter how you see it.

Iain is being finicky nursing lately. He'll nurse on one side for a few minutes, then sit up and cry and fuss and try to find the other side. Back and forth, back and forth. I'm wondering if my supply is decreasing a bit. Maybe AF is finally coming back?

We took a week long trip (4 days driving, 3 days visiting) to see DH's dad's family after Christmas. Overall it was good, and Iain ate a LOT more tablefood than normal, because we rarely sit down to three meals a day at home. That and the driving meant he nursed very little. On the way home we got to a hotel midway and and one side was getting painful it had been so long! Of course, he was happy to run around the room, eat a quesadilla, and play - until I laid down to read a book! Then he screeched and nearly jumped into the bed for his milk!
















My birthday came and went while we were gone, so my mom offered to take the boys tonight so DH and I could go out and have some time alone. (So now we're both at our independent computers!







) It will be Iain's first night without me, and I don't even have milk pumped for his mid-night wakings, as I haven't pumped in ages! I hope he sleeps well for them, but they do live VERY close, so they'll call us if they can't get him to sleep (or back to sleep!).

Well, I just wanted to check in and say HI to everyone! I'm busy with so many things that I haven't had time for much of anything else lately. I'll check in periodically, though!


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

OUch.

Thanks, Heather, that was what I thought, too. Wanting to say something else just now but am deciding instead to just move on...









Heather, dh and I are currently at our independent computers having "quality time" together, too. hee hee.

Jen, you made me laugh, too.

Speaking of af, (TMI alert...) I'm noticing I'm needing a pantyliner all of a sudden these past few days. Hmmmmm....

Aaah, babies are asleep. They've been doing much better this past month or so! Only waking once or not at all in the 8 hours we sleep. Finally, hallelujah!


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Hi everyone! Happy Saturday!

Well, the IL talk went unbelievably well. It just goes to show there really are two sides to every story. I had gotten to a point where I thought they were truly evil people. During our talk, I couldn't believe how much pain of the last 8 years has come from simple misunderstandings on all our parts. I think we are really on the right track.

But I'm still sad to be leaving my family and friends. I'm trying to focus on the postives, though.

We're driving up to look at houses early this week.

We've never bought a home before and it is really stressing me out. I don't know what to do first...liquidate our down payment, get a loan offer, find a house, find a realtor....it's making my head spin.








For the first time since Kate was born, I'm unable to sleep b/c my head is going, going, going. That hasn't happened in sooo long b/c I'm usually soooo tired that my mind gives up and I crash.









I bought Kate some stride rites and I like the flexibility, but they sized her wrong. They are waaaaayyyy too big. So I pulled out a pair of pedoodles that we bought a long time ago in a co-op and I love them. But I don't know how long they'll last..some Mamas have had them fall apart...

Heather, I think we're thinking Clear Lake area...on or near the water. But we are going to make the commute during rush hour to make sure it isn't too much. He'll be working downtown most likely.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Leomom - SOOOO glad to hear you have ironed things out. I wish I could do the same with my IL's, but as they fear any sort of conflict or honest disagreement, it ain't gonna happen. I hope it makes you feel better about the move.

My recommendation on the moving bit: find a good realtor first. Get recommendations. They can show you houses in your price range, area, etc. You can even call a realtor who is the listing agent on a house you see for sale - but you never want your agent to also be the agent selling the house (b/c then it's in her best interest for the price to be higher). A good agent can help you find a mortgage broker, figure out what you can afford, etc. When we bought our first house, our agent was a lifesaver. It is an intimidating process, but don't get oo stressed.

Mama Bear - Robin has stride rites - pricey but very sturdy and high-quality, and Bee Squeaky's - cheaper, cute, fun and don't show wear much - but they are velcro so she takes them off in the car. We like both.

Happy Birthday Heather!!

Savannah - all those kids will probably entertain each other pretty well - you just have to run herd on them all!

FF - hope you are back to healthy and over your holiday sicknesses!

Regarding NFP: one of my great friends is an NFP instructor and devotee (she's on here as NFPmom) and she and her DH planned to TTC exactly 1 year after marriage so they could "prove" to the doubters that it worked. ANd they did just that. But that required daily temping and mucous checking and cyclical abstaining, or course. She tried to sell me on the method, but there's no way I'm commiting to working everyday to then have to NOT have sex when you are at your most horniest. I think NFP contradicts nature







. There's a peak in libido for a reason! (really, I'm just lazy).


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Becca









I had to share this with you and with all of you for a good laugh: one of the German books you sent me has some of these big Where's Waldo?-esque pictures - with tons of details to pick out, things to notice, look for, etc. Well, one is of a harbor and on the pier sits no one other than a hippie with a headband and long hair and round john-lennon-ish sunglasses and sandals sitting on his luggage *smoking something rather suspicious-looking*. No kidding. He's tokin' up right there in that kid's book. Well, after I noticed it one day (it took me several months to notice it!) I pointed out to Tristan "look, a hippie!" and now darned if he doesn't get to that page in the book, look, point and say "hippeh". It is SO funny.

OK, I'm being called (mama? mama? mama!?) so I'm off... xo J







likin' that smilie


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

O.k., that totally cracked me up, Jen.

Leomom- glad the talk went well!

Glad you're feeling better, FF!

Feel like I've finally recovered from the holidays. Our trip to San Diego was great, though exhausting.

Raney bit M yesterday - really hard. There's still a big purple mark. Mieke was devastated - and hurt! I have to say I immediately took R back to the girls bedroom (or playroom, as they don't actually sleep there







) and shut the door while I took care of M for a minute or so.

Man, they can be little monsters at this age!


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Almamiel ~ LaRue can be a little monster as well. Poor Chloë has had her fair share of being bit and scratched and having her hair pulled. LaRue seems to not like the idea of gentle touches these past few months. It's exhausting. And Chloë's feelings really get hurt, when LaRue hurts her, it's really sad.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

I've actually never read any of the GD stuff on this site, so I'm ready to go check it out tonight... William is getting out of hand.

The Posting Police have contacted me about my previous and unintentionally incendiary post (can you tell I'm starting to read a John Gatto book? They use that word a lot in the preface)... But I am noticing that now Harmony and Meg ought to edit their posts, too, or else my editing is all for naught. For what it's worth.

And Anna, I also remembered another thing you could mention to the girl to encourage her... Didn't one of you ladies here post awhile back about a nice support network on the web for teen moms who choose to raise their own babies, and do a fine job of it? Like some that actually WANT to be young mothers? It was in a sad context that we were told about the mother who started the group (or maybe was just active in it), but it seems a young pregnant mother could still benefit. It seems very "attached" to offer another option to a young mother (who's obviously physical ready in God's eyes) besides the whole scare tactic of other options, based on all the "life" the young mother will miss out on if she keeps the baby. Darn, I wish I could remember the name of that web site...

Not sure about the adoption legal issues, Jen. But I do know of a couple of friends who ended up adopting babies of their friends' or acquaintances' daughters, without trouble. Actually it turns out to be a really nice open adoption, one in particular fascinated me because it ended up being like a parenting training ground for the young mother, who could visit and babysit her now adopted child often, getting great experience and confidence for the next time she has a baby.

I need to get off that topic now and go read some Gentle Discipline stuff and go to bed. Zzzzzzz.

I do love you all!! While I have definite opinions on certain THINGS I believe are wrong, I will forever love, care for, pray for and help when I can the PEOPLE who are involved in those things. Even try to slip in some insight, words of wisdom, educational tidbits now and then if I feel brave. Hmmm, kindof like how we like to treat people who aren't parenting in a way we feel they should. But I digress.

Which reminds me, kudos to Leomom's ILs!! I am hoping to be able to have a talk like that someday with mine, but apparently dh and fil and mil aren't really interested in it happening. At least not yet. So we continue to be cordial for now. Too bad. I would want something more real and engaging.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Msrog ~ It was my friend who had started and been active in empowering teen mamas. She ended up dying from a seizure related to Wellbrutrin at the age of 22. The organization was called Empower, but it looks to me as though it's not around anymore. Another great resource for teen mamas is www.girlmom.com, they have a forum which is great as well. The forum is decidedly pro-choice, for they support all choices that women make, whether it is to become a teen mom and go down that path or not. It's a great resource which was geared toward natural and attachment parenting. I haven't read through the site in awhile so I'm not sure what it's like nowadays.


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Harmony, can you tell me more about the seizure and Wellbutrin?


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## chrissy (Jun 5, 2002)

howdy mamas! like leigh i'm hoping to stay better in touch in the new year. just got caught up on the thread but will have to come back to post later.

been missing you girls,
c


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

The information on wellbutrin and seizures/side effects are here: www.livejournal.com/users/arielfiona/?skip=20 the date it was written was 7/13/05 which is around the middle of the page.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Hi, chrissy!

Went hiking w/ the girls today - was a really nice day in the high 40's low 50's.

Gave the dogs baths afterwords with both girls thought was totally hilarious. The dogs didn't agree...


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Hi there ladies!

Just got home from the last of our holiday gatherings with family. I'm so tired of celebrating Christmas! The last one was with my MIL and her partner who live up north in a very unique home they built themselves. He is a carpenter and there home is something of an experiment in energy efficient design. It is one large room with an upper loft that you reach via ladders. The only truly private space in the house is the bathroom which contains a composting toilet (that sits about 3 feet up in the air).

After two days and nights spent with 4 other couples (11 people total!) I was so overstimulated! My MIL has a series of curtains set up to create individual sleeping spaces, but sound sure does travel. It was very challenging getting Mielle to sleep at night or for naps. She slept so poorly waking to nurse hourly last night. My back aches from being in nursing position on a horrible mattress. I was so freaking grumpy this morning, every thing was making me seethe with annoyance! It's good to be home!

Thank you all for the concern and helpful information to pass on to our pregnant relative. I appreciate the loving thoughts, it's been weighing on my heart. Hubby and I have even discussed the idea of approaching her regarding adoption.... (meaning, us adopting her child) But honestly I know nothing about what she is planning or if adoption is even a feasible option for us. Or, if we are truly prepared to accept the long term consequences of being related to the birth mother of an adopted child. I know that the idea apeals to me now, it feels like a significant way to make a difference in someones life... and we want more children and have discussed adopting rather than adding to the burden of population on the planet.... despite my desire to experience pregnancy and birth again (it was amazing).
I suspect that her mother is intending to take on a lot of the burden for her daughter, and that they have a plan in place. I don't even know how to approach them about it, don't want to insult anyone or anything... I guess the first step is just to reach out as loving and concerned family members and see what happens. So please, send good vibes and prayers our way.

Well, thanks for listening! I better go play with some photos from this weekend, I'm hoping to put up a new post in my blog yet tonight...

Love to all


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Anna ~ When I was pregnant with Chloë I was 21, a college student at UCLA, and my now dh was just my boyfriend back then. I told my employer that I was pregnant, the employer was a very wealthy Beverly Hills lawyer (was Monica Lewinsky's lawyer during her affair with Clinton, she was called on to testify). She was an older lady and had 2 adult daughters. One of her daughter's had adopted children. When I told my employer I was pregnant she later came to me and said that her daughter would probably be interested in adopting my baby. Well, can I say that I was completely offended? I still get offended today just thinking about it. First off, I wasn't planning on giving my baby up for adoption, but also I would never let them have my baby even if I was going to have someone adopt my baby. Her daughter's childrens were raised pretty much by their nanny. They are poor little rich kids. All this to say, I don't think I would bring up the idea of adoption first since it's possible that you will offend them. Instead, wait to see if they are considering having someone adopt the baby. If you know they are looking into adoption, broach the subject then.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *FeministFatale*
All this to say, I don't think I would bring up the idea of adoption first since it's possible that you will offend them. Instead, wait to see if they are considering having someone adopt the baby. If you know they are looking into adoption, broach the subject then.

We are definitely just thinking about it, and wouldn't want to upset anyone in trying to help. It just seems that my husband and I have a lot to give to a child and would possibly be willing to make a life long commitment. That's a huge thing to offer or have offered.... I can only hope it would be appreciated. But thanks for the gentle warning, I'd hate to hurt her feelings. It sounds like that woman was awfully insensitive to approach you in that manner.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Anna ~ Just in seeing pictures of Mielle, one can see how much you have to offer a child. Mielle just radiates with love


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

It's taken me several days to figure what I wanted to say in response to a post here that labelled pregnancy termination as murder. I was suprised that someone, on a site primarily for women, would do this. I did not want to prolong this discussion, but following the unapologetic post by the original poster, I wanted subscribers to this thread to know that it is NOT how all of us feel.

I don't want women at MDC to feel afraid to post, from time to time, about any topic relevant to motherhood and our reproductive lives. And, whether we like it or not, abortion is part of *all* women's lives. Either we ourselves have had one, we have considered one, or a sister/mother/dear friend has had to do the same. If you think that's not true, I respectfully suggest you may not have looked hard enough.

If, as happened here a few days ago, someone brings up abortion and it gets labelled as murder, this creates an environment that is very hostile to open, honest and respectful discussion. Yes, when you label someone's (possible) actions as "murder," it IS inflammatory. And doesn't belong here.

I hope that no one in this group feels reluctant to bring up, as needed, this serious topic. It is our right to feel free to discuss it without being afraid of being attacked. And yes, to reiterate, when you label an action as "murder" that is an attack. I have no problem, and encourage, a woman to say that it may not be something she'd chose. But that was not what occured and that is why I felt forced to say something.

Liz


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Liz:









Anna- Clint and I had a similar situation recently. We have a very distant relation (my side) who has 3 unwanted (by her) children by 3 different fathers. One lives with his father and has no contact with the mother. One (a newborn) has been adopted by some cousins. But the middle child, who is 2, is currently in the custody of her grandmother - who is single, in poor health, and can't handle the little girl. She recently had a stroke and has real problems physically keeping up with the demands of parenting a sweet toddler. I still want to offer to foster the girl, or at least bring it up to the grandmother. But Clint and I can't agree on the issue - mostly b/c the mother still has some contact with the child and DH is intimidated by that. We are going to offer to keep the girl for a week or so at least to give the grandmother a break. I feel the same - we have love and security to give, but the situation is very complicated legally, practically and emotionally. My sister was adopted from a very complicated and sad background (her teenage birth parents had 2 kids they decided they couldn't/didn't want to care for and when their grandparents couldn't care for them they went into foster care, where my sister's brother was beaten to death at age 3, and my sister was physically abused and witnessed her brother's murder). She had and has severe emotional baggage, but unlike DH, I've seen the other side - that complicated families can work it out. I'm much more open to fostering/adoption than DH is - but I'm working on him. Of course, I do want to birth one more...

And FF - I can totally get why that would be offensive - especially from your boss and with the class issues involved.

Anyway on to happier tales...

RObin has learned to open her palms flat and say "all gone!" We don't know where she learned it (the magic of her school is the crazy new words she brings home), but last night she threw down what she was holding and said "gone!" and clint and I laughed so hard - so of course she went around picking things up, throwing them down and saying "gone gone! all gone!"

She's also developed an obsession with us putting her shoes onto her new best friends Cat, Cow, Baby and Santa. (We can't go anywhere without Kitty kitty! Cow cow! and either Baby! or Santa! We try to ditch one of them, but at least 2 have to go everywhere) She got Santa last week from BRU - after taking all the big santa stuffed dolls off the shelf and hugging the pile of them, she wouldn't let go of one of them - so we brought it home







.

Tonight was my first night of classes at my new job (teaching evening classes at a technical college - like a cross between psychology, study skills, and how-to-get-a-job). I'm looking forward to teaching adults for a change!


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## chrissy (Jun 5, 2002)

Liz, I totally agree and I really respect you for having the guts to say it.


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## chrissy (Jun 5, 2002)

Becca,
How cute about Robin's new buddies! Lilah totally digs Santa. She doesn't talk a ton yet, but she often walks around "ho ho ho"ing.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Liz, thank you for writing this. It is my hope that through this we can be, as you say, open and honest _and_ respectful of other people's lives and choices.

Becca ~ Just hearing about the poor situation of your sister and her brother is enough to make me cry. Why do things like that have to happen? Poor babies







It makes me think of situations like what happened at the Superdome in New Orleans, and the crimes against children that occured. It's too much to bear. The situation of your distant relative is so sad. I think that is really a nice thought to take the little 2 year old for a week or so and see where it goes from there. Sadly, a situation similar to that has occured in my dh's family. His cousin, who is 20 years older than us, had a baby almost 2 years ago. Him and his wife were (are?) drug addicts. His cousin's mother had been severely abusive to both him and my sil, who unfortunately stayed with her for awhile and came out of that situation almost being purposefully drowned by this mother and loss of hearing in one ear due to the abuse. I had never met this cousin, Jimmy, until I went to his daughter's baptism. I came in and was immediately handed the baby, I had no clue who the mom or dad was, and nobody around me seemed to have any attachment to the baby. Well, that was one clue that something was off. The mother ended up in a mental hospital a few months later, then abandoned the baby, the father abandoned the baby, and the baby ended up with the horribly abusive grandma. We haven't talked to them in awhile, but the last we heard the dad was trying to get custody of the baby back and started dating a new woman that he said he wanted to be the mother of his baby.

*************
LaRue also has a new obsession with putting her shoes on her little babies. As a matter of fact, one baby doll is sporting her shoe as I type. She also loves wearing her shoes all the time. Soon after she wakes up she wants her shoes on. And she is already choosy about which shoes to wear. She prefers the Gymboree green turtle ones she got as a Christmas gift from her grandma over the black maryjane style shoes I've gotten her. I guess the black ones are too boring









Becca ~ Good luck on your first day of class


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

I found out today why William has been biting the crap out of his sister, brother and me every chance he gets... And why he screams and cries to be held, then fights to be put right back down, etc. He popped his two top eyeteeth some time recently. I hear those are really painful (which doesn't make sense to me, since they're sharpest and seems like they would be easier to come through than a molar). Only 2 more to go and then maybe he'll be better behaved. =O) I've been trying to catch him assaulting McKenna so I can fold his hands together and remind him to keep his hands to himself... And I've been putting his hand to his mouth as he leans in to bite someone and saying cheerfully (ha), "If you want to bite someone, bite yourself." I had forgotten how well that worked with Nicolas. They actually try it, LOL.

So I searched around and I don't see a place on this forum where abortion can be discussed... Wasn't there a "hot topics" forum?? I thought that was weird, since all the uber crunchy natural mamas are OK with flaming people for cutting off the foreskin or for injecting odd chemicals into infants' bloodstreams, but apparently have banned any balanced discussion about terminating a pregnancy? Do these natural, unconditional, attached parents just not consider the baby a baby? I was curious to see the Mothering "take" on this issue, since that's how I learned new things about vaccinating, cloth diapering, gentle disciplining, etc., but I'm not seeing anything. I guess I could do a search and find the threads? Or do the moderators just delete them all? I'm being genuine here, not sarcastic, and if any of you know where I could go to find those discussions, I would appreciate knowing it.

Anyway, I was done bringing this up until Liz made her post and drew applause (HI, CRISSY, BY THE WAY! I was wondering how you've been!) on something that is false. To clarify, I did not use the word "murder" -- Harmony did. I did just check the dictionary before posting, and it said what I thought was true -- There is a big difference between saying a baby was killed versus murdered. Kill is "to cause the death of; to put an end to." Murder is "to kill unlawfully and with malice." VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. While I will be happy when it does become unlawful to "put an end to" a tiny, forming human, I will never believe that any of you wonderful, loving moms could ever make such a difficult decision with MALICE. No way. And yes, I do have a sister (maybe more) and friends who made the choice to abort. And actually, as a student, I wrote papers defending abortion and even marched in Pro-Choice rallies. I am compassionate and loving and fair. But I also will try to do what I can to save a life, even just one; and maybe by calling something by its dictionary definition instead of using Politically Correct euphemisms, someone might decide on life. So if that's unapologetic, I'm sorry. But I do apologize for unwittingly salting any wounds or causing anyone to despair. I take comfort in knowing my friend and sister will be able to meet their baby after this life. Maybe that can help others, too??

I also don't believe the universe is any older than about 10,000 years. (www.icr.org) Any other interesting topics out there for debate?


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

OH! I forgot to mention that when I logged on tonight, I got a cool message from Karen Gromada asking if I would be willing to have some of my twin nursing/slinging pictures on her site (www.karengromada.com, see the photo gallery). I was excited and honored.

But ya'll probably don't care to hear anything more I say again, ever, anyway, so never mind.


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

Savannah, thanks for sharing that site!! Though now you've created (or perhaps stirred up?) an intense case of twin-baby lust!







If there's anything sweeter than cuddling or nursing one infant, it must be two! Especially the identical ones - oh my!









Sometimes I wonder if my fondness for twins is God's way of preparing me for the future - but then I think of reality and realize that is probably NOT what I'd really wish for! But, ya know, if God gives them to me, I'll adore those special moments!







(And, Savannah, I'll probably have your number on speed dial! :rofl )

I was thinking there was a Debate forum, but perhaps I'm thinking of another board... At any rate, I do hope that ALL discussions will be "open, honest, and respectful," including those in which ideas are mentioned that are clearly not the status quo for this board. I am reminded that while we all have certain things in common (being a mother perhaps the most obvious), we have all arrived where we are via somewhat different paths, and have made the choices that have brought us here for different reasons. Every one of us has a list of good reasons that we believe everything we believe, whether it be personal experience, faith, study, etc. Some have more in common than others, but, regardless of who each of us is and what forms us, and even what we believe, we each deserve respect from the others.

-----
Iain's been super-fussy and I can't figure out why. He'll nurse on one side, then cry and want the other, back and forth, back and forth.. Especially bad when trying to get him to sleep. Sometimes he'll want me to turn over, and then he'll want to sit up and nurse on the same side as he'd been on, just sitting up and leaning on me rather than laying down.







I'm befuddled. I'm just grateful he DID get to sleep tonight, though!

I recently discovered that you can set up a Buying Club with Frontier Co-op and get wholesale prices on the brands they carry. I am SO excited and am forming a local group now. I've heard from several other families that are interested (you have to have 5), and more I'm still waiting on, so I've applied for an account. There's a Frontier co-op going on here right now, but I'm afraid it'll be huge! The catalog is enormous - 230 pages! And they carry most of the major brands of natural products. I can't wait to actually start ordering!









Gotta get a gift packed up for a friend's 1-yr-old tomorrow... I actually have to take Gabriel out of school to attend the party. He's excited, though!


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

As far as I understand, we are not allowed to debate abortion at Mothering, though after a quick look through, I couldn't find a rule prohibiting it. We are also not allowed to critisize the user agreement, so I'll just shut up







I'll just say that mothering was a different place back when I first started reading (Oct of 2002!!!).

Savannah, even though I am avidly pro-choice, I would never disregard what you have to say just because I disagree with you on a subject.

Liz, thanks for your input - ITA!


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

In the spirit of moving on..









I've been meaning to ask this group where their babes are with language. I read some are so advanced ! Like Tristan seems to have English and German words already!! I wondered if others were more where Luli is.

Luli is extremely talkative, always has been, full of inflection and meaning (to her and us). However, it's all in Lulu-ese. The cutest, most adorable language! Her English words sort of surface and then fade out. She's got maybe ten English words (the "standards"). But she's so expressive in her own language and with sounds, she tends not to even use those English words much.

Her understanding seems very good. I'm amazed at how much she grasps (especially given she's not speaking herself ... in English).

I'm not worried at all, my mom didn't speak til she was 3, but I am at times wishing for the added understanding we could share if she spoke my language!









Where is everyone else's kids?


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## Cuddlemama (Jan 12, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *CatskillMtnMama*
In the spirit of moving on..









I've been meaning to ask this group where their babes are with language. I read some are so advanced ! Like Tristan seems to have English and German words already!! I wondered if others were more where Luli is.

Luli is extremely talkative, always has been, full of inflection and meaning (to her and us). However, it's all in Lulu-ese. The cutest, most adorable language! Her English words sort of surface and then fade out. She's got maybe ten English words (the "standards"). But she's so expressive in her own language and with sounds, she tends not to even use those English words much.

Her understanding seems very good. I'm amazed at how much she grasps (especially given she's not speaking herself ... in English).

I'm not worried at all, my mom didn't speak til she was 3, but I am at times wishing for the added understanding we could share if she spoke my language!









Where is everyone else's kids?


Anna is a massively prolific talker. She inherited that from me, I'll admit. Early talkers run in my family, though, among girl babes. Boys, on the other hand, talk much later than average so I guess it balances out.

Annie's vocabulary is probably in the hundreds of words now, in English. She also dabbles in Cantonese and Mandarin, but is only messing around with them and has "cartoon" vocab-the words used frequently in her videos and on her meditations cd's.

Her best friend, Adam, is 21 months old and has a 10 or so word vocab. It's funny to listen to them play.

Anna: "Come on Adam-ant, we're playing ball."
Adam: gibber-jabber, gibber-jabber "ball?"
Anna: "Yup, lets play in kitchen. You want juice, brother-son?"
Adam: gibber-jabber, gibber-jabber "dooce?"
Anna: "Red cup? Sure, you get red. Anna gets pink. I LOVES pink."

They do this sort of thing all the time. Anna seems to understand all of his gibber.

And, yeah, in Anna's world right now all little boys are brother-son and girls are sister-friend. I think she's trying to figure out relationships and she's slightly confused.

~L


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Cuddle mama!! I can't believe Anna!

It must be so much fun!


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Oh, Savannah, just you hush, silly.







Congratulations on being included on such a fun site. Speaking for myself, I would be very sorry if your voice disappeared from this forum. Although I am sure there are many things we do not agree on, you have never been judgemental or dismissive, nor have you ever proselytized. In the words of our friend sistermama Sarah (Sarah? are you lurking? We miss you!), "She may be a conservative evangelist Christian, but she's *our* conservative evangelist Christian." Or something to that effect.

Yes, yes, Liz, I will be moving on in a second.







I have been sort of watching this debate from the sidelines and was thinking that I wish that more public debates were along the lines of this one. I have found it very respectful. I believe too that the original hackle-raising may have come from the use of the word "killing". The logical thought process that probably ensued was that one who chooses an abortion is a killer, and someone who chooses to kill is a murderer. However, it is clear that you, Savannah, took great care in choosing your words, picking a word that both meant exactly what you wanted to say and probably tacitly conveyed your opinion about the subject, given that a lot of the debate rests in when people believe that life begins (i.e. one cannot kill a baby if one does not believe that it is a baby). That detail right there is one that is probably variable from person to person and a debate on *that* most likely wouldn't go anywhere.

Having put in my two cents, which I cannot keep from doing in any situation







, I will now go on to respectfully ask the moderators of this forum to not lock us down as I think this discussion has been honest, open, and mostly a model of how adults should communicate with one another. Although there was some fire underneath some of the words, it for the most part has not been bitchy, snipy, rash, flame-y or mean. Fire is not bad. People should have fire as long as they're not spewing it at others. And now I will go on to brag about my bilingual son...









Yes, Tristan is a yacker. We discovered this at a playgroup yesterday. Both of his best buddies were there along with 2 new kids - one of whom is actually Tristan's birthday buddy and lives a whole BLOCK AWAY on the same street! How does this happen? They were born within an hour of each other. Anyway, Tristan is the communicator. All the others grunted except for the littlest, who is a girl, who has mastered "whazzat?".

Tristan's baby-ese: dow-doh (shovel/Schaufel), mau (cat), wow-wow (dog), moom-a (moon), a-tee (alligator pull-toy), wa-wa (water), au-gah (all done or all gone or German for eye, if he's poking you in the eye!)

shared German/English vocab: mama, mommy, shoe/Schuh, hi, baby, pizza, ball, nana (banana/banane), kee-kee (kiwi), Mauf (mouse/maus), boat/Boot (German for boat, not what you put on your foot)

Tristan's vocab, English: up, uppeez (up, please), down, date (as in the fruit), mouf (mouth), eeeeah (ear), eye, arm, gug (hug), socks, shoe, boots, bye, hi, night, cah (car), guck (duck/truck), gak (quack), moo, baa, lalala, nono, neigh (gee what book is that from?!), hat, boo, Eddie (one of our cats), hippie (snicker!), Oh-f (Os, i.e. Oatios/O-shaped cereal), keek (keys), cup, poon (spoon), kah-kee (either coffee or his friend Charlie, depending on context!!), Ozzy (his friend Oscar), blocks, nice

T's vocab, German: Mund (mouth), Ooooooohr (ear), Tay-nuh (Zähne/teeth), Kopf (head), Na-na (Nase/nose), Bauch (stomach), Auge (eye), Affe (monkey/gorilla), Mulsch (Milch/milk), nahn-zha (Orange), Oma (grandma (Jen's mom)), geeks (Keks/cracker), daaaaaaaaaa! (there! or look!), Bohne (bean), Mango (German pronunciation, with long ahhh sounding a), Eich-hoo (the best he can do for the gigantic German word Eichhörnchen, which means squirrel), bah-de (baden = to bathe), Gabel (fork), Tee (tea), heiss (hot), kalt (cold), kay-uh (Krähe/crow), aua (ow), nein-nein (no no), ja ja ja (yes yes yes), Buch (book), Eier (eggs, despite the fact that he won't eat them)

However, he has yet to string any of these together into a two-word sentence, like "mommy bye" or "nein-nein Milch".

OK, enough bragging. but that was fun to get listed! Crud, I hear him rolling around. I hope he's not waking up. He's been taking really short naps and being a real CRAB in the evenings. I haven't even showered yet.

Oh - if you haven't looked at Anna's blog, you should. I'm not into Schadenfreude but the picture of Anna diligently nursing Mielle while sick as a dog has some sort of sweet and yet hilarious quality to it!

xo, Jen


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JenInMpls*

Having put in my two cents, which I cannot keep from doing in any situation







, I will now go on to respectfully ask the moderators of this forum to not lock us down as I think this discussion has been honest, open, and mostly a model of how adults should communicate with one another. Although there was some fire underneath some of the words, it for the most part has not been bitchy, snipy, rash, flame-y or mean. Fire is not bad. People should have fire as long as they're not spewing it at others. And now I will go on to brag about my bilingual son...









ITA, Jen. I have to admit, I was confused by Savannah's original post when she said that she hoped the girl didn't "kill her baby" because I thought, wait, kill their born baby? Like leave it for dead or murder it? But then I realized that she meant abortion, and just thought: Oh, she is pro-life, obviously.







Even though I am very pro-choice, I also think that abortion is one of those topics that can really not be debated successfully because it hinges on religious beliefs. I am not religious, so I don't come from the same background of belief of most pro-life people (though not all of course!). Anyway, I do agree that this discussion has been quite honest and open and it has shown me the intelligence and respectfulness of the women on this board.







And Savannah, I wouldn't want you to go away! Even though we might disagree, I definitely don't think that's grounds for shutting each other out!









As far as language, OMG, I cannot believe Anna and Tristan. HOLY COW.







Thor's language is like Lulu's. He has his own Thor-ese, which often sounds like: (While pointing at something) Dat-dat-itz-za-dat! He does say the word "throw" most commonly, which is hilarious. Other than that, his vocabulary is "muma," "down," and (this is funny) "titty" for "kitty." Ha ha. I have no doubt that he'll be a late talker. He's so focused on motor skills! He feeds himself, he climbs everywhere, he loves to manipulate objects, he "throws" perfectly, and he is so dang active all the time.









On the nursing front, he nurses very rarely now. In fact, he hasn't nursed in almost 24 hours, which is by far the longest it's ever been. He nurses to sleep at night, but only for about 5 minutes, after which I say, "Let's cuddle." and he whines a little but then I give him his paci and cuddle him and he goes to sleep. He sometimes nurses when he wakes up but that's starting to drive me crazy, so I don't know how long that will continue. I feel bad for him, poor guy, because he loves nurses so. He'll nurse for a second in the morning and say, "Dat!" while pointing at my nip, and sort of smile and admire it, and then nurse aagain for a while and then give me a kiss and do the whole process over again. I have no milk anymore, though. It's bittersweet....


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Wow, great discussion about a difficult topic. I have lots of friends who are different then I am in many ways.... and that's what I love about them. We can still have different personal opinions and be friends, and be supportive of each other.







Life has meaning at all points- at our essence we all believe in life. However, I respect each woman's right to make their own choices. Now, I better move on before I fall into my political tirade....









I've always wanted to adopt older children. My sister lived with us while she was in high school and it was challenging, but very very fun.







Plus I really like parenting children who are old enough to get their own cereal and use words!! I don't mind teenagers.

Which brings me to Cecilia's speech, of which she doesn't have much. Kitty, dog (sometimes sounds like god), mama, baba (papa), 'get,get,get' (what I say to the cats on my chair). Other than that, she feels that shrieking and screaming work well for her- she tested the limits of my patience with THAT this morning.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JenInMpls*

Oh - if you haven't looked at Anna's blog, you should. I'm not into Schadenfreude but the picture of Anna diligently nursing Mielle while sick as a dog has some sort of sweet and yet hilarious quality to it!

xo, Jen

Thanks Jen! I thought the pictures Jerome took were simultaneously sweet and funny, but I couldn't put some of them up, too much flesh if you catch my drift...

My turn to brag about my little linguist!

Mielle's vocab probably includes close to 300 words in English and about 50 in Spanish. There are a lot of things she can identify in either language, although she prefers one or the other, such as bacca for cow, and luna for moon.
I will admit that I understand alot more of her words than anyone else, as some words get pretty garbled, but she amazes other people regularily with her speaking skills.
It seems to me that she picks up about 5 new words a day. some days more, some less. This doesn't include the first names of all the people she can identify correctly. After the holidays spent meeting and greeting about a million relatives, she's gotten quite adept at "naming" people. Although she has recently stopped using words like Grampa, Gramma, Aunt and Uncle and calls everyone by their first name!

She is an amazing mimic and will repeat the last word in a sentence or any word that's given particular emphasis, such as when I was telling Jerome that something "pissed" me off. Much to my horror she repeated the word about 8 times in a row with increasing volume as if to assure me she understood! Jerome unwittingly taught her the F-word in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. The kitties had knocked over an entire gallon jug of water and he was stumbling about in the dark trying to clean it up. Mielle was nursing at the time and popped off long enough to teach her father a lesson!

What most amazes me, is her strings of words such as "Wanna take a bath" or "Where's da doggee?" or "Up!, high chair, Oats..yum!" or "Take a walk, Look! luna." or "Dipey dirty, Wipe! please." or "Go see Nonny, Taco! sit car" or " Hi globo! Up! Red globo, Hi!" (referring to the red balloon tied to a hanging plant.)

I could go on and on, I know she sure does! However, it is time for me to get off the computer, my husband is cleaning house with me today and he's cleaning while i'm typing.... better skeedaddle.

Oh, and one last thing, hugs to all mamas, please don't feel rejected or unwanted for having voiced an opinion recently regarding abortion etc. I value all opinions and voices and would miss anyone who withdrew due to this. My opinion on abortion has nothing to do with the value I place on this group of women.


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

Hi all! Just a quick post to subscribe. David is quite the talker. Half of it you can't understand and the other half you can.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Oh, I am so jealous of you ladies with big talkers! (though now that I think about, my 3 year old talks and talks and talks and talks...so maybe I better enjoy R's babble







)

I don't think I mentioned that M started preschool last week. I really felt ambivalent about it but she is the most social creature I have ever been around. She just shines when she is around other kids. She's the kid on the playground who runs up to your kid, kisses them, grabs their hand, tells them her name and asks to play. She really seems to be enjoying it - it's 3hrs a day 4 days a week. And Raney and Daddy are enjoying their one on one time, too.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Cuddle Mama and Anna Banana ~ That's pretty amazing that they both have such an advanced vocabulary.

LaRue is on par with Tristan, but instead of English and German, LaRue talks in English and sign language. My dh's parents are deaf, though his mom has a coclear and is now considered hard of hearing, so it's important that the girls learn sign language. My dh's parents weren't born deaf so they are the only two people in his family that are deaf. My fil choked on a small bell when he was a baby and lost his hearing when a nurse grabbed it out of his throat (it was either between death or fishing it out of his throat however she possibly could) and my mil lost her hearing from an illness when she was a baby.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Thanks, I love all you mamas! And the debate shows that my brain hasn't completely turned to Mama Mush yet, LOL.

Today was the first time I noticed William and McKenna mimicking... I snarled a "NOOOOOOO" to the dog for something, and immediately heard a little "Nooo!" from William, ha. Then later McKenna was imitating some odd sounds NIcolas was stringing together on a drive in the van.

For Christmas, we got 3 of the www.signingtime.com ASL DVDs (vols. 4-6) and Nicolas and I are learning lots of new signs! McKenna signs quite a bit, but I've been too busy lately to really work with her. She signs grapes, apple, drink/cup, kitty, Daddy, cereal, milk, bath, dog, duck, bird, ball, stinky, dirty, all done, more, and a few more. William does about 5 signs.

I think I just posted this verbal list last week, hmmm. Sorry for the repetition! Anyway, William says up, dooooowwwn, out! (new word they learned last week when I would shoo them out of off limits areas they were getting into, like the dog bowl or the toilet, LOL), ball, whee (slide), juice, apple, Mama, maybe a couple of others. McKenna says all those and like a dozen or two more, like Daddy, Neenee (Nicolas), goggy (doggie), kitty, ball, mouth, stinky, 'siiiiiide (outside), cup, etc.

I can't even believe the little genius talkers! Is it possible ours will be doing that soon, too? LOL Wow, the SENTENCES... McKenna said her first two phrases last month: spoken -- Hi there, Doggy! and sign: Daddy finished.

I'm wiped. Must go to sleep. And still reading a scheduling book I'm excited about, to try to bring out my inner domestic goddess. Ha.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

I thought my days of posting in the middle of the night because the kid won't sleep would be over by the time he was 16 months old. After all, my mom told me that I was sleeping through the night by 4 months old. Then again, she told me labor lasted 5 hours, too.

I really, really don't like this aspect of parenthood. Would those *&$&@ing teeth just come in and get it over with!!??

UGH. I sm going back into the bedroom now, where I am sure that he will now be hungry and need to be nursed.

Gah, J.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

What are you doing posting in the middle of the night, woman!

R's been really restless lately, too - maybe it's a stage?!?


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

I was awake, I had been awake since 1:15 when he woke up crying tears, and I was p-ed off. I get so mad at him when he's obviously so tired and fights going back to sleep with every fiber of his being. And then I get so mad at myself for being so mad at my helpless little creature who is in pain and just wants the help of the people who love him most. It's a vicious thing. I usually cannot get him to sleep because I get so anxious to lay him back down that I must have tension in my muscles and he senses that.

OK, he's taking something apart in the bedroom, so I had better scoot. Maybe he'll sleep all night tonight? haha! I will be checking for tooth progress, there had better be something big after last night. xo j


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## chrissy (Jun 5, 2002)

where oh where has my time to post gone??? i think it is the most i can do to keep caught up on reading and pop in with little tidbits here and there.

a very important tidbit that i must post right away (not too late i hope) is, savannah, please don't go! of course we don't want you to go. i apologize that my last tidbit was so brief. i care about you and would miss you if you left.

okay, tidbit over. back to crazy life. hope to come back to post more later.

wait one more tidbit, i am totally impressed with all your







babies. poor little lilah! she says "mommy," "i-yah" (lilah), "yeah," "mo" (more), "no", "da da", "dog" and "ho ho ho."


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Jen - isn't it humiliating to get so mad at a 16 month old? It's like, what the H is wrong with me - especially at night, when I am SO not my best.

Ideally, we'd all be living w/ menopausal women who couldn't sleep at night and THEY'd take care of the restless kiddos!


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## mum2tori (Apr 7, 2003)

I also was a bit taken aback by the original "post"







and it was something I was trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to respond to it. I do think Liz did a very good job. While I can understand that Savannah's intent wasn't to come across as inflammatory, unfortunately with the written word (without the ability to read body language and tone) and some topics... that can be very difficult. I think abortion is a topic that is considered "taboo" on MDC because of the polarizing effects the discussion can have. Honestly in the last 5+ years I haven't seen a "public" parenting board have a calm, coherant and and level discussion on the topic yet and I've been a member of most of them at one point.







It almost always descends into a heated and usually negative and foul name calling screaming thread... from both sides of the issue.







Which causes it to be shutdown and locked. And depending on the backing of the board (i.e. has a corperate company supporting it) it is often deleted. I personally love a good debate and hate to see a discussion loss all credibility when it becomes just negative and often *very* personal attacks on those posting with nothing to do with that actual topic.







But alas, there seem to be a few parenting topics that are that way... ie. formula vs. breastfeeding (see that turn down right heinous and almost violent







before), vaxing vs. non-vax, circumcision, disipline/corporal punishment and of course there's CIO too just to name a few. And lets not even go the "who's crunchy" topic.







Even here on MDC when those topics do come up, they are VERY closely monitored and often end up being







in some form or fashion. It's kind of like those "taboo" topics you shouldn't discuss with friends and family... sex, politics and religion... though who else are you suppose to discuss these things with but the people you "know".







Certainly don't walk up to the nearest stranger on the street and strike up a debate with them.







:










Now Savannah,







don't get in a tissy.







We can all agree to disagree on certain topics.







That doesn't make anything else that you have to say any less important.









Okay on to lighter topics...

Aidan is chattering... but most of it is still in Czech.







He'll say a few things that are very clear as to what he's saying but most of the time... we have no clue. I still don't get "Mommy" or "Mama"... I'm "Da".







DH is "Daddee" and I'm "Da". Why do my sons fill the need to call refer to me as an Irishman's father??? Sigh. Jack was almost 2 before he started really calling me Mommy with any regularity. Tori was my motor mouth (still is







). She was talking at 10 months and hasn't stopped yet. Jack was a much slower talker and still is. He's almost 3 and we still have trouble understanding him sometimes. His syntax can be a riot sometimes.








But we've definitely seem some big leaps in the past 6 months.

I've been trying to keep up on the boards but I just don't have the time lately. In some ways I've been trying to limit my online time so that I can focus on the kids more... but then I'm also just exhausted so much of the time lately. Evenings use to be one of my big online times and I just haven't had the energy to sit at the computer... find myself sittin on the couch folding the neverending stacks of laundry and watching tv. Not that there is that much great tv on lately either. I've got a stack of about a dozen books that I've been wanting to read, maybe I'll start trying to do that instead.









Okay need to get the kids into "nap mode". Wish me luck.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Gee, Samantha, I wonder why you're so tired







I wish I could ship you some of my kids' energy


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Samantha - you SLAY me - you are the icon queen. I have this very vivid image of what it would be like to have a face-to-face conversation with you and it involves you pausing to make faces like your icons!

Regarding our abortion discussion- I too have very strong opinions and am very pro-choice- but I guess I've had the debate so many times I'm done with it







. Like, I can't put anymore energy into it (Although I do send my check every year to folks who'll do the work for me). It's been interesting to me that motherhood has only made those beliefs stronger - I feel even more commited that a child must be wanted, loved, chosen, prepared for, committed to now that I know what an incredible commitment it is to do parenting well. I think being a teacher and coming from a family fraugt with teenage pregnancies and seeing the effects of teenage pregnancies has an effect. Anyway, I certainly respect everyone's right to their own opinion. But I do think language is an issue. Obviously, the 2 sides of this debate are based on value judgements and the language used by both reflects those judgements - so if you want to avoid putting that judgement on others we all have to be intentional about the language we use. But I agree - I think it's remarkable for folks who disagree on such a polemic topic to have any discussion that's respecful.

I personally would like to see some real effort put into sex ed that is effective at preventing unplanned pregnancy! And I want young women to respect themselves enought to not feel that sex is all they have to offer, to demand protection when it happens, and to refuse to become sexual objects prematurely. And I want young men to give young women they respect they deserve. and I want older men to stop preying on young women. and I want our culture to stop pressuring very young girls to think of themselves as sexual objects intended to please boys. Where's that wish fairy, dammit?!?!

Language: I'm amazed at some of our little talkers. I guess Robin is in the middle. She can understand EVERYTHING I say and loves to play follow-directions games. The other day she was underfoot inthe kitchen so I asked her if she wanted to sit on her stool to have a snack. SHe sat herself down with her water and bowl of popcorn and snacked away. Now she wants to do it everyday. It just amazes me what she understands - picks up what I tell her, puts it where I say, etc. SHe also knows all her body parts and everybody's name (not that she says all of them, but she'll point it all out). Our new thing is I say "Where's your fanny?" She smiles and points to it, then I tickle it and she laughs. It's so funny and she knows she's in on the joke!

RObin's vocabulary:
Mama and mommy, Daddy, barbara, Alfrie (alfred, the dog), dog, puppy, kitty, cat, cow, baby, baba (the baby's bottle







: ), fish, turtle, oga (frog), bath, out, down, up, no, go, this, where's (where's barbara?), toy, play, choo choo, gone, Loes (MIL), Jess (SIL), shoe, urse (nurse), juice, poppop (popcorn), cookie, cra-kar (craker), Oh (As in, of course), orse (horse), book, Obin (Robin), car, uck (truck), duck, chick, chicken, eyes, want, mine.

There's a lot she can almost say. But I'm very impressed with her clarity - most folks can understand what she says - it's like she doesn't even try until she's got it down. She's speaking in 2-3 word sentences like "where daddy at?" or "want juice". Lots of "want cookie" . I think she's about to have a little explosion and use mroe sentences - she's been working on it for the past few days.

I went to Ikea yesterday to try to get the table/chairs again and they are still sold out. But MIL got a lot and I got a few things. then we found the pod chair robin wouldn't get out of in the as-is section for $20 off (without a cushion) - and MIL talked me into it! So I got it for RObin instead of a table for now. MIl says she'll give me a schooldesk, but I still think we need to just get a table set. The stinkin' dogs won't leave robin's stuff alone, so she can't play with her puzzles, instruments, wooden fruit on the floor. And she's getting more interested in coloring. Here's the chair: http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/store...67*15659*16116 She likes to close the hood, as in the 2nd picture.

BTW - we got Robin the take-along Doodle pro and it has been a BIG hit in the car. TRU has a set where you can get the little and the full-sized for the price of the full sized ($20) - we got both and put the big one away. I highly recommend it.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Becca - I am so jealous!!! I've wanted to get a pod chair for the girls since I first saw them a year ago! Next time we go to Pittsburgh, it's MINE (or their's, as the case may be...).


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Becca - TELL me about it with IKEA not having stuff in stock. Argh! We have been waiting for our couch to come in since late November, and every time we go to check on it, the arrival date has been pushed forward by 2 weeks. It's supposed to be in this week - we'll see... the reason why they've been having problems with stuff being in stock is that their main US distribution center was in Mississippi and got smacked by the hurricane. Now everything for the whole continent is going through either Vancouver or Montreal. (HA! an excuse to use the Canadian flag icon. I've always wanted to have a reason!)

Happy Thursdays - tomorrow is Friday, then is the weekend... ah, the potential of sleeping in...!

off to find kah-kee (coffee! Does anyone else's child - besides Meg, I know Cecilia does - like coffee?!), xo j


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## Cuddlemama (Jan 12, 2002)

My three (nearly 6, nearly 4, and Anna) have "cof-pee" nearly every winter morning. Their Daddy gets up early and leaves it for them at the stairs when he goes to work, so their first thing when waking up is to walk downstairs and grab their cups off the rail on the way into the kitchen. They have the coffee (which is heavy on the milk and vanilla sweetener) with chinese crullers for "first breakfast".

In the summer, he leaves a smoothie in the same manner. This gives me a 10-15 minute morning break to brush my teeth, wash up, start some laundry upstairs, etc. while they're occupied by their morning nosh.

We get to regular breakfast later because of that (around 8 as opposed to 6), which is fine with me.

~L


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Cuddlemama - what a great tradition! That's very kind of daddy! Is it decaf?

Jen - nice to know there's a reason, esp. since I have to drive like 2 hrs to get there!

Things I forgot to put on Robin's word list: Hey, bye, button (the kind you push), key and my favorite....Ticky ticky ticky!! Which is what she squeals when she tickles us!


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

David spoke his first sentence yesterday! I was in the process of getting the dog to go into her crate so we could leave and he points at Sara and says "go crate!" I almost cracked up because he had a look of "NOW" on his face. LOL!

His favorite word nowadays is "uh oh".


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Ok, so, here's what I really wanna know:









For all you momma's with articulate babes, do you think that they cry/whine less? Are they indeed happier?

Luli, who as I mentioned is fluent now only in Lulu-ese, gets so frustrated when I can't understand her. She uses whining quite a bit to express a need. My theory is it'll all go away







just as soon as she learns to talk.









Is language the key to calm and happy babes?
Enlighten me!

Liz


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

With all this intense personal discussion, I feel like we should just share EVERYTHING; like, do you wear thongs or are you a granny-panty person?!!







NO, NO, just kidding!! DO NOT share that; I don't want to know.... unless you've got some really great ones- no, no still kidding!









Wow, that was a lot of smilies, mum2tori. It does make the reading interesting.

Becca, Celia does that too! She loves following directions and it's so fun to work with her now that she understands so much. I guess she is saying a little more than I gave her credit for, but she is no where close to putting together two words or trying to make a lot of new word sounds. She does say 'thank you', however, in a super cute way that only Greg and I understand.

Cuddlemama, your dh is SWEET! That is so nice. My brag about Greg is that he always brings Cecilia downstairs with him and gets her dressed and then eats breakfast with her. Except sometimes he gives her cookies or donuts or something sweet... just like he enjoys with his coffee.

Oh, I forgot to mention- I got the Kinderzeat and I LOVE it. Cecilia likes it too; except I need to put her in a trough or something, she gets a lot of food on the floor. She insists on doing all her eating with utensils.

Okay, back to writing the agenda for the boring board retreat I have next weekend.
-meg


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

I don't *want* to know who wears skimpy butt-floss PLEASE!!!







although... I have to put in a plug for Fruit of the Loom boy-legs.









I don't know if Tristan counts as particularly articulate; he can sure say a lot of single words and has a lot of really useful words - he can say when he's all done (au-gah), and when he wants to eat he runs to his chair, shakes it and puts a finger in his mouth... he can make known when he wants milk, water and to nurse, but there is still a fair amount of random unhappy squeaking, squawking and whining.

At least he's not like his best buddy Oscar who really sounds like he's saying something really important - "jibber jabber gobbledy goo, jabber JABBER jabber jibber bla bla!" with inflection and everything, and you just WISH you knew what he was saying.

night night, j


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Whew!







You go out of town to look at houses and an entire debate ensues.







I love all of you. Part of me feels like I should add my two cents on abortion, but I won't. Bottom line, it's a difficult choice and one that a woman should be able to make IMO, even if I wouldn't make that decision myself. Ok, I lied. I threw my two cents in.







Ok, let me add this. It's also easy for me to say I wouldn't have one when I was never put in a scary situation. So, I'll never know. And THAT is why I would never be able to judge anyone for their decision. Besides, it's their decision.









I have to say, this is the most respectful debate I've ever read. Kind of like our debate long ago about what constitutes CIO. Everyone managed to say how they felt without alienating. We pretty much rock.









Ok..Kate's speech. She signs more/want, eat, water, all finished, and please. None of the signs look like the ASL versions, though that's what I've taught her.







Her please is really funny. She rubs her torso with both hands..if she REALLY wants it, she REALLY rubs. It reminds me of MOnica on Friends when she rubbed herself and asked Chandler, "You mean you don't want to get with this." Anyone remember that?









As far as words, she says:
Mommy
Daddy
Mimi (sounds almost exactly like Mommy, though)
Tia
Bubby (for her Uncle Bubby)
aqua (water in spanish)
ball
yes (but I have to prompt her)
and names all most by the sounds they make

She follows commands (more like requests







) in English and Spanish.

She can also pick out about 7 upper case letters. Why, oh why would I teach her letters before colors or anything else more useful at this age??







Because we have the magnets and she loves to play with them.







I really need to start working on more relevant things though.

Oh, and no two word phrases here.

Was going to tell you moving updates, but she's up and very demanding!







:


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *CatskillMtnMama*
Ok, so, here's what I really wanna know:









For all you momma's with articulate babes, do you think that they cry/whine less? Are they indeed happier?

Luli, who as I mentioned is fluent now only in Lulu-ese, gets so frustrated when I can't understand her. She uses whining quite a bit to express a need. My theory is it'll all go away







just as soon as she learns to talk.









Is language the key to calm and happy babes?
Enlighten me!

Liz

As a mama to a very articulate baby, I guess i had better respond... well, in some ways, I'd say yes being able to communicate REALLY helps.

For instance the other morning I made Mielle outmeal for breakfast, (a regular meal for us)
"Up, up high chair" she demanded while tugging at the seat.
I put her up in her chair and dished some oatmeal onto the tray.
She took one look at it and started fussing and pushing it away when I put it in front of her.
"What's the problem?" I asked her.
"No, no! want yum, yum..." she said followed by the sign gesture for "more" while repeating "Mas, mas" (more in spanish)
"Mas what?" I asked."What do you want?" "Fruta? raisins??... Water?" I questioned.
"lick, poon (spoon)... soup!" she answered.
"You want soup???" I asked, surprised.
"Soup, soup, soup!!!" she repeated excitedly with increasing volume.
"Ok. soup it is then!"
So, if she hadn't had the language to tell me she wanted soup... how in the world would I ever have known what she wanted? There's lots of times that she starts crying about something and i tell her to "use your words" and she does.
Not, that she doesn't cry whine and fuss! Sometimes she wants things I can't or won't give her and she cries. And without fail, she cries whenever i leave the room to go to the bathroom or something, even if i tell her where I am going and invite her to come with. It drives me crazy! I mean really, life is not unbearable just because she's alone in a room! jeepers!
So, dont go thinking that communication is everything, or that words equal communication. I'm sure you all can read your babies body language perfectly well.

however, my mom says that Mielle's ability to speak makes babysitting her Soooooo much easier. for others, being able to understand her makes a huge difference.

anyway, those are my impressions on the subject.

gotta skedaddle, going shopping with my mom
Love to all


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Oh, i almost forgot the best thing is how much she loves to follow directions... If i explain step by step what we are about to do, or what I want her to do, she's soooo happy.
Earlier today Jerome and I were paying bills and we kept giving her small peices of paper to throw in the garbage for us, it kept her busy for about 20 minutes! back and forth throwing peices of paper in the garbage can! She was so proud to be helping!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Liz: I agree with anna and with your suspicions. Robin seems less fussy since learning language better - for the most part. SHe is also REALLY resisting sleep/naps more, so when she gets very tired and beside herself all bets are off. But other than those times, she fusses very little and when she does we can usually "talk"/figure out what she needs. Compared to my less-verbal nephew, she's like night and day on the fussing.

That being said, she's getting very toddler-ish when she does fuss- throwing herself to the ground very dramatically, etc.

My mom is visiting under this VERy thin pretense of wanting to make my SIL casseroles to freeze for when her baby comes...in May. The real reason is to visit RObin, and she brought my brother and dad with her. She brought xmas gifts we literally couldn't fit in our extended cab long-bed Ford 350 deisel truck - if that's any indication of how overboard she/my aunt and grandma went (of course, there were 2 dogs and a matress set in the back also. My VERY uncrafty mom and dad bought a wooden rocking horse and finished it themselves. It is so homely. they painted it white, sponged over that with hunter green - so it looks mottled - and then put on white yarn hair (Robin has already ripped it off though) and giant googly eyes that are too close together - so it looks crosseyed. I'll just have to hide it when company comes









My mom also bought robin yet ANOTHER awful dollar store doll. It is so plastic with awful crap to go with it (magnetic pacifier, "magic" bottle, etc.) This means RObin now has 4 cheap-o dolls (in addition to the ones that are nicer/cuter/we like). I tried to gently discourage buying anymore without being ungrateful. Robin's favorite thing is to get someone else to take care of her baby, so after my mom had to feed the stinkin' thing she agreed with my view a bit. I'm so sick of giving toys the bottle so this morning I nursed Cow and Kitty (Robin's best pal)

The funny thing is I rarely let her play with the doll Jilly made other than in the car b/c i'm scared the dogs will mess it up!

Robin loves spending time with Nana and pops and her uncle, so I'm glad to have them here, quirks and all!

Meg - does C. STAY int he seat? was she a high chair climber? I'm interested in a high chair alternative - but Robin is too squirmy for a booster, I think. But I don't want to spend money on something that won't solve my problems, you know?

Leomom - So....how was the house hunting? You guys are moving quick!

Heather - RObin has tried bossing our dogs around too! It's funny. And she LOVES getting into the crate like barbara and trying to shut the door. I literally have to pull her out (she always sneaks in there when we are running late getting out the door. then I can't talk her out!)


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Oh dear, Becca - a green horse? Green? If my horse were green, it would either be in Oz, painted special for the St Paul St Patrick's day parade, or been lying in a corner of the pasture way too long without anyone figuring out it was dead









I wish I could give you my mom for a few gifts for a while - she's really good with gifts, her favorite thing to give Tristan is socks. Good, nice-fitting, socks. And frequently high-end clothing she finds at the discount store. And if we swapped and you gave me your mom, I would have no hesitations about bringing some un-used toys to the thrift store, but that's just me, ungrateful cuss.

ok, I think T is taking off down the stairs, I had better go catch him. bye, j


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Becca- Hahahaha!!! Cecilia doesn't stay in ANYTHING! Little Ms. does her own thing, pretty much 24/7 except for when I've HAD it and I hold her down until she gives in to exhaustion. Actually, while Cecilia first used the kinderzeat as a handy ladder, she will stay at the table in it- especially when I strap her in!







She likes being at the table with us and is at the right height, so those are big pluses in my book.

The green rocking horse is funny!! Cecilia would love a rocking thing (no, I'm not hinting that you should send the horse to MN!) but I haven't been able to find one I like at the right price. I had a rocking elephant made for me by a family friend that is supposed to be shipped down from AK- presumably before Cecilia is 18.

Anna, Celia loves to follow directions also! She can really comprehend a lot and she loves routine. My favorite at night is when we get pjs on and I say, 'okay, up to bed' and she climbs the stairs, then goes to the rocker and pats it so I can nurse her.







Everyone is always so impressed. I have a feeling it's a lot like when I speak sentences to the dog, the dog doesn't understand the sentences, he just knows what's next. But at any rate, everyone is always impressed!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

I love the following directions thing, too! Thor really doesn't say much but he definitely understands basically everything, and likes following directions. For a while his favorite thing to do was take his (sposies) diaper to the garbage after I changed him. I sort of off hand said, "Here's your diaper, take it to the garbage." And he walked over and stood by the garbage and waited for me to open the childproof lock. Then he tossed it in! I was so impressed. Now his favorite thing to do with poopy diapers is stare at them while I wrap them up, then he holds it to his nose and sniffs in and out really loud, then with a disgusted face tosses it to the ground. I say, "Stinky!!" and he nods. I don't know where he learned that, since I don't regularly sniff his diapers... ewww.

Well, tonight DH and I are going on our first overnight hotel adventure!! A whole night alone! ANd sleeping in!! Oh my gosh... I can't believe it. My mom and aunt and sister are all going to stay over at our house with Thor, I just know he'll love it, they're his three favorite people besides his parents... maybe even more than his parents (ha ha). And he's so easy to get back to sleep at night now, TOny just cuddles him in his bed and he's out. So I think everything will go fine.









27 straight days of rain in the seattle area. If we get 6 more we're breaking a more than 100 year old record...


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## StacyL (May 4, 2004)

When I take a poopy diaper into the bathroom to dump the poop into the toilet, Alex loves to comes and watch and he giggles loudly as the poop splashes in. I'm not sure why he thinks it's SOOO funny to flush his poo!


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Hello, all! Well, here I am on my last day of my trip.

IT has been an adventure! This second week we have visited my sister in Portage la Prarie, who lives with 5 of her 6 children and 5 foster kids and 2 other people who they are helping out in a big complex that they were fixing all up, but then there was a flood this summer, so it is a disaster. NOt only that, but eveyone was doing a week long fast, so there was very little food in the house, so I was scrounging for food for us to eat. It was fun to visit my family, though, and my older nefew and niece took me out to dinner while my sister and younger neice watched Andrew, so that was fun.

Then this weekend, I've been back in Winnipeg visiting my brother and his wife and 3 teenage sons. It has been fun, too. Andrew loves his cousins, he thinks they're great.

Who was it that said their dc was fighting sleep? We have had serious sleep battles this last few weeks. HE actually will almost be asleep, then he will sit up and start saying "no. no." until he is awake again. Or he will be lying with his eyes barely awake shaking his head and saying "no" while fighting sleep. IT is pretty crazy. He was better yesterday, but other than that he has been terrible to get to sleep inthe last few weeks. There are a few nights when I have actually held him on my lap and rocked him and sung to him until he fell asleep.

Anyone else have babies that have become incredibly negative in the last while? Andrew's favorite word lately is "no", usually accompanied by a shake of the head. Any question at all is answered by "No." IT's kind of cute, but I'm worried it is going to get worse.

Well, I should go and hang out with my nefews and then give Andrew a bath.


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

Hi everyone! Just dropping in at 4:45 a.m. as usual to say I haven't dropped off the face of the earth (or been drowned ... AugustineM, I have to say I am a little sorry we had a no-rain day today in Seattle, losing our shot at the record. After 27 days, it seems like we had a lot invested in the streak ...).

The "no" thing, Jilly -- "no" is one of Lucy's favorite words too. She shakes her head hard & grins. It used to be the answer to any question; I would even ask her "Lucy, can you say 'yes'?" And she would say "yes," while shaking her head "no." Increasingly, though, she will say "yes," like in response to "do you want some hot chocolate?"

She has become a kissing bandit. Loves to give kisses.

She has been cracking me up the past few days by trying to call the dog. Our dog's name is Astro (which dates me as one of the oldest if not the oldest mom in this group). Lucy calls him "As'" and has for months. Now she has started calling for him to come to her: "AAAASSSS!! AAAAASSSSS!!" and patting any surface, insistently, mimicking how I pat my leg for him to come. She works really hard at it, but he hasn't quite figured out what she's doing yet.

Have I mentioned her favorite book? "Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders," about the Holocaust. She extracts it without fail from the bookcase & brings it to me to read. It is hard to find passages that are not too disturbing to read to a little kid. She is very serious about it.

Tonight she was saying "cool." She had been turning a light dimmer switch on and off with DP's help, and he said "cool," which she thought was wonderful, so after that for a while, everything was "cooooool."

The other day while walking, I counted the words she can say, and I would say it's about 70-80 now, but no sentences except for "Mom. Down. Mom. Down. Down. Mom." She does say two compound nouns: "ornjus" (orange juice) and "cotsheeze" (cottage cheese).

I know this is old news now, but wanted to comment on the abortion discussion a ways back. I too was struck by how respectful it was on all sides, and really welcome that. I'm ardently anti-anti-abortion (I have always thought "pro-choice" was annoyingly euphemistic) but I certainly understand what would move someone to feel differently, and I thought Savannah handled the whole discussion admirably, as did everyone else.

OK, off to read a novel for about 10 minutes before the second half of my sleep ration ...

Lisa


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

I have had so little sleep that I'm actually feeling really hyper and jittery, I hate that feeling. My friend and I have joined together to create an ebay boutique group where we can sell our custom made clothes. Today was the launch and I'm happy to be done with it. With making the set, taking the pictures, and spending a long time setting it all up in html for ebay, I'm wiped out. I know that a few of you like the clothes I sell so I thought I would add a link: http://cgi.ebay.com/Boutique-Violets...QQcmdZViewItem


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Harmony, your work is seriously the bomb!


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Thanks Sarah, I appreciate the compliment


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

FF -- Soooo cool!!







Love the skirt!

Lucy's Mama -- We didn't have rain yesterday? I missed that!!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

No is heard a lot around here. Even when she means yes. She used to say No for yes and No ma'am for No, but now it's all just No, with a big smile









SHe was pretty funny today. Clint had a friend over to play with his new money vortex (AKA the Xbox 360). They were playing against each other and the friend was kicking DH's butt. RObin started going up to our friend and flirting with him, bringing him teacups to sip, etc. and basically throwing him off his game. He started asking here "where's daddy? where's daddy" to try to shake her off. She would look at him and say "huh?" like she didn't get it. He kept trying, she kept looking at him like was speaking another language and asking "huh?" and it just got ridiculous. I said, "that's right Robin, play dumb." We all started laughing, and when she saw us laughing she started laughing hysterically. It was really cute, and it helped her daddy rack up some points. It was like she was trying to help him out.

She's also started more clearly saying "I want" when she wants something.

So, we are having NIGHTMARE get-to-sleep issues. I actually had a breakdown and just started crying saturday afternoon b/c it was so bad trying to get her down for her nap. I feel like it's my/our fault. We've been trying to reduce night nursings or even nightwean. towards that end, Clint has been getting up with her at night b/c if I get up with her she asks to nurse and I don't want to say no. But she'll let clint rock her. Well, he has also given her a milk bottle some in the middle of the night wakings, so that is off her usual routine. He has also been putting her to bed most nights for the past 2 weeks or so. He likes to put her down, and he has to some nights b/c I'm working 4 evenings a week now - 2 nights I don't get back until after 10. So apparently his routine with her is bath/lotion and pj's - usually next she just nurses and is out, and he used to be able to rock her and get her down. Well, now he reads her a few stories, then she gets down and plays in her room with all her "friends" until she starts laying her head down, then she sits with him and they watch TV together (yeah, I know), get a little bit of milk bottle, and eventually she sacks out. Between all these routine changes and my mother plying her with bottle-having dolls, she now asks for a bottle sometimes when she gets tired, increasingly refuses to nurse, of course wants to hold Cow, Kitty and Baby (and anything else she sees), wants to get down and play, wants to jump in her crib,etc. SO getting her down (which used to just mean nursing, and she would always jump at the chance to nurse down) means juggling untold numbers of toys, giving them their bottles, giving her a bottle (grrr.), trying to convince her to nurse, fighting her to prevent her from getting down and playing, giving up and letting her down, abandoning hte nap, delaing with a fusspot who is just beside herself, then repeat until she knocks out. I just don't know what we ought to do. DH does have to be able to put her down and deal with her some in the night.

How does your partner help with bedtime/midnight/naptime care? Any great tactics to prevent it from becoming a nightmare? We want to drop the stupid bottle, but now she'll refuse to nurse and beg for the bottle. We don't want to cave to her "2nd wind" b/c it's just a fighting sleep tactic - she's so tired and ready to drop. What is your naptime and bedtime routine?

But tonight when I tried to put her down - bath, failed attempt to nurse, played on the floor, played in the crib, failed attempt to nurse, begged for the bottle, back in the crib, THEN she asked for me to get into the nursing chair, but wouldn't get into my lap, then she pulled me out of the chair, climbed into it herself, asked for Cow, then started pulling up her own shirt! She wanted to nurse Cow! It was so sweet. she hopped down, then hppoed back up and nursed COw and Kitty. The second time she asked me to put the boppy on her lap! (eventually she begged for the bottle and clint brought one, then she begged for daddy but wouldn't sleep for him so we brought her back downstairs and she played for about 30 minutes before she pulled me up and led me upstairs and fell asleep nursing! WHew! By then it was 9:30 - she went up for the bath at about 7. B/c clint has put her down so much lately she asks for him when she's tired.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

fantastic ensemble Harmony! I actually have a skirt just like that - I got it at Old Navy a few years agon







I love it.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Becca -- Sleep, I must say, has gotten easier here (which I'm sure is NOT what you wanted to hear). I'm not sure why. Thor has started not needing/wanting to nurse to go to sleep, but oddly enough it's not the bottle he wants (like Robin) it's his paci.

Here's what we do with a few tips for what I think works particularly well: Bath abt 7pm, then a little quiet play, brush teeth, read a book (well, look at and fling a book), some songs in bed, rhymes, etc. I put him to sleep at about 8 at the latest. I lie in bed with him (in his room on a mattress onthe floor), in ALMOST complete darkness (if it's not dark he often wants to get up), nurse for about 5 minutes or as much as I can take, then use cue words like, "snuggle with mama, night night" and "get cozy with mama." He knows what these mean now. I give him a drink of water (this helps a lot) and give him his paci and he snuggles up with me like a monkey with his arms around my neck and goes to sleep in about 10 minutes. I wait till he's deep asleep and then leave and put a pillow next to him. He sleeps there till about midnight, then he wakes up and cries or walks into our room. DH gets him and lies back in his bed with him, does the same water & paci & snuggle routine, and he goes back to sleep within minutes. Sometimes DH sleeps there the rest of the night with him, sometimes not. Then he might wake up once more briefly before 6:30 when he's up for good.

So far it's working really well, but nightweaning hasn't eliminated nightwakings, that's for sure!

Oh -- I forgot to mention naps. Normally during the week he naps at daycare from 12-2pm very well. When we're at home I do the same routine as bedtime... without the bath of course, but lie in his bed w/ water & paci and snuggle. Either that or I rock him and hold him. DH doesn't really have anything to do with naps anymore.

I hope it gets better for you soon! I swear, sleep struggles are the worst!!


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

sorry if typos, typing without glasses

sleep struggles? up since 2:30? won't allow us to put him back down? Mommy swap twice? Nursing interesting but when we put him down his bed is just too cold? I can hear our doctor saying "put him in bed with you!" yeah, this is what happened:

"mommy? (that's Jo) mommy? da!!! da!!!! mau!!! holy cow. holy cow. holy cow. holy cow. da!!! mommy? mommy?" - wide awake. then I picked him back up to rock him AGAIN I can't stand this rocking anymore! and he was wide awake and patting me, hugging me and kissing me and I told him to stop because it was trite and Jo said "He's 16 onths old, he doesn't know what trite is." I KNOW THIS, of course, but it was spoken out of irrational, sleep-deprived emotion. So I told Jo to go to hell







and go back to sleep. And then I burst out bawling. 2nd x in 2 days. This sleep thing is a nightmare. On top of it I have my period and since having T I seem to bleed like a stuck pig so I'm probably low on iron right now, which isn't helping. We can't let him cry more than a minute because then he starts really, truly CRYING, sobbing with tears and everything. We don't have a bed big enough to put him in the middle and when I do out of desperation I throw my neck out of whack and it is painful for a week. Did I already say that? I need to go back to bed now. I have no idea if this is full of typos but I don't have my glasses on and can't see the screen. Let's hope he lets at least me have some sleep. Jo has to go to owrk in about 4 hours. argh. night. j


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

I can TOTALLY relate to these sleep nightmares!! DH is out of town, as of Sunday night, so of course I'm left to put them both to bed myself. Not too big of a deal, right? Well, Iain's been SUPER fussy about nursing - wants both sides at once, back and forth, back and forth, and seems to drain my milk supply before he's satisfied and - most importantly - asleep! So I can't have distractions if that's my only way of getting him down. I ask Gabriel to stay out of the room, let Iain go to sleep. Gabriel becomes *hysterical* - eventually he's sobbing so hard he's making his preexisting cough worse and he's about to throw up. Why? Because he doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to be in the room, either. He says, "I don't want to sit, or lay down, or stand up." Those are the choices I gave him, BTW. I ask him, "you mean you want to stand on your head?" He doesn't see the humor in it. Ah, well. So Iain's not sleeping, Gabriel's not sleeping, and at some point they're BOTH screaming and sobbing in my ears! I can't take it!! So I yell at G to GET OUT of the room so I can lay the also-hysterical-by-now Iain down, and G comes right back saying, "I'm uh-c-uh-alm n-uh-ow-uh..." Uh-huh. I finally tell him to get the phone, call Grandma, and talk to her while I lay Iain down. Of course he continually comes to tell me what's going on. And even Iain figures out that, at midnight or whatever time it is by then, Grandma's coming over. Woohoo! So in a few minutes, Iain sits up and starts saying his version of "Grandma," smiling happily and clearly ready to be up!









Repeat tonight, except I get DH to talk to G over the computer. Iain goes down easily, I gather laundry, come back out to find G saying "I can't figure out what I did." Uh-oh!







There's a "force quit" dialogue on my screen, and several applications open that WEREN'T when I left, and I'd been hearing the beeps of keystrokes that weren't registering, for most of the time I'd been in the bedroom. Oh, and I later discovered DAYS worth of email is missing. *poof* So I'm putting G down and Iain wakes up. G knows that under NO circumstances is he to rouse, wake, or otherwise disturb Iain, including and *especially* by getting upset, while I go in to settle him again. (Heartless?







) Iain's clearly not wanting to be awake, starts to go back to sleep, going well, then G's putting toys away NOISILY. Across the house, but clearly audible.







Then he comes to the bathroom. The one next to MY room, not the one next to HIS room. And then come the tears.







I command him back to his room, which amazingly barely disturbs Iain (I did have the foresight to cover his ears!), and Iain goes to sleep. As I sneak out, Iain eventually rouses. UGH. No chance he'll go right back to sleep now. Gabriel has flat-out disobeyed me, and gets the promised spanking (yes, we spank, but rarely! today was a BAD day!), and that really gets his attention. Of course, now Iain's wide awake.

And so it goes, for HOURS... Iain got back to sleep at FOUR O'CLOCK!! (Gabriel passed out in his bed before that, then joined us in the living room and was asleep on the couch. Now, he's finally back in his bed but upset because I didn't read to him at 5 in the morning!) The really bad thing is G has school in the morning. So I have to be up in, oh, 2 hours!! And that's barely a nap for me, let alone a night's sleep!









Oh, yeah, and I'm counting on having tomorrow to finish cleaning the house for this Do-Re-Me&You (http://www.drmy.com/) party I'm having. Ugh. And DH was supposed to be home for it. But he's gone. And you know what? *HE* is the one who put on an adult movie (Hitchhiker's Guide), and decided it was okay for G to watch. And THAT is what has G so freaked out that he won't be alone. He is terrified!! We've talked it through a ton, and G knows he's okay, but he's still killing me!









Anyhow... Maybe it's the... I dunno, something! All these kids with sleeping problems. I just can't believe that Iain isn't sleeping well, then G is having trouble, so neither is sleeping, so they have a harder time getting to sleep, so... on and on.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

That's sleepy dust, btw. There's nothing worse than bedtime or middle of the night woes. Becca- you might try having Robing in bed by 7pm - I know with our first, if we got her into bed by 7 (no later!) she'd go to sleep. If it was past seven, she'd hit a second wind and be up till 11pm.

I hate to say it, but both my kids stop taking naps at this age. So no naps and really early bedtime usually works ok.

Good luck, all









Anyone else have a wild child on their hands? Raney now SCREECHES all day - wants everything that Mieke has all the time and just screams, screams, screams. It's rather annoying...driving dp nuts.


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

Holy Cow! Trite! Jen, your domestic dialogues are a riot (probably not to you, I know).

Argh. Lucy, usually a good little sleeper, was a nut last night. She conked out on my lap sweetly at 7:30 but had not had her dinner yet so I did not put her down. I think Almamiel is right about getting them to bed early or encountering the second wind. Well, it was a gale last night. Talk, talk talk. Crawl over to the dog -- "ASSS!!" -- sleeping on the bed. "Bay-BEE!!" to the baby I was unwise enough to let her bring to bed. Up, down, up, down. When I told her it was stormy outside & snug inside & time to sleep, she had to look out to see for herself that it was rainy and windy. Then she discovered the book light above my head to be used when (if?) she ever went to sleep. Had to inspect that, figure out how it works, turn it on, off, on, off. And on and on, for about two hours. Finally gave it up around midnight. Now I'm late for work waiting for her to wake up on her own. I've GOT to get her to bed earlier ... the problem is during the week, I don't get home till 6:30 at the earliest, which leaves us just an hour for dinner, bath & bed if we are to get her to sleep by 7:30 -- so little time to spend with her parents.

OK, really do need to go to work. It's comforting at least not to be experiencing this alone ...

Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Lisa


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Oh good! I'm so glad we're having the sleep talk! I was just going to write that I've accomplished my goal for the day; to get Cecilia down for a nap before noon, so she can sleep for several hours.

I'm glad to know that some kids phase out of naps, Cecilia is leaning towards that.

We visited friends in the cities this weekend and C slept on the way down (I knew she would) and then was tired in the afternoon but I knew she wouldn't go down someplace different, so I just let her go, then she fell asleep on the way home at 7 pm, woke up at 8 pm when we got home and then was wide awake (and screaming) at 10:30 pm when we all tried to go to bed. So now I've been trying to recover from messing her schedule up. BUT when I try to make it all perfect for her and give her opportunity to nap, she WON'T. I, however, do fall asleep and she gets up at plays with her puzzles. So maybe it isn't a complete waste of time.









I do think that it can be kind of a downward spiral that is hard to pull out of. A messed up bedtime equals a bad night, bad night makes for frustrated mommy, tired baby, hard to nap, no naps equal overtired......









Becca, big hugs to you!







Robin just sounds so super independent and very smart. I don't know what I'd do in your situation. Probably scream and then cry.

Jen, you are suffering too! Tristan is so sweet, I can just picture him being 'trite'.... does not sound like a fun night over there, either.

Heather, at least Grandma can help!!! Cecilia's grandparents all think her parents are nuts for not crib training her.







Maybe we are....

Celia goes down for bed at 8 pm, wakes once around midnight and sometimes I nurse out of habit, but I've been trying to just cuddle because that's really all she needs and then she sleeps until 5:30 or 6 am, when she wants to nurse, but I've been trying to hold off until 7:30 when we wake up. She accepts pats and rubs MUCH better than she did several months ago.... I don't know exactly what I'll do different with the next baby, but it will be something because there must be a more organized way to go about setting up sleep schedules without CIO.

I must admit, I was a little jealous this weekend when our friends just laid their 11 mo old in his crib and you could hear him play for awhile and then just fall asleep. But when I asked about it, they said they had to let him CIO for several weeks and 'he only vomited once!'. Yeah, yeah, there is NO WAY I could ever do that to my kid. End of story.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *lucysmom*
... the problem is during the week, I don't get home till 6:30 at the earliest, which leaves us just an hour for dinner, bath & bed if we are to get her to sleep by 7:30 -- so little time to spend with her parents.

Lisa

This is tough, I agree. In an ideal world, when I get home from work at 5:15pm (which is relatively early, I'm lucky), it would be all fun and games and I would enjoy hanging out with the girls and playing lovely games until we all went peacefully to bed at 10pm or so. In reality, I get home to a crazy eyed dp (SAHD), scoop up the girls and try to give him some "alone time." Meanwhile, the girls are pretty tired by this time, Raney's in screech mode and Mieke just wants me all to herself. By the time we eat dinner and bathe, it's 7pm and I am quite frankly thrilled when they're both asleep by 8pm. I do feel guilty that I am not with them more during the day, but my guilt is my own issue. I'm reading "When Mothers Work - Loving our children without sacrificing ourselves" by Joan Peters right now and really enjoying it. I do get up early with both girls, dress them and feed them breakfast, so that helps me feel a little more connected.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Sigh... We had an unusual night the past two nights, too. Thankfully, the twins have been easier sleepers lately; falling asleep together in their pack n play in the living room while Raffi or some other video is on, or a CD playing, then actually sleeping through the night! or one wakes up once. Aaaahh.

BUT -- The last two nights, McKenna was a wild woman and was screaming her plum head off if we tried to put her in the pack n play (William fell asleep no problem). Eventually I just let her out and she roamed around the room quietly for the most part while we watched Grizzly Man (interesting! disturbing though for the next 2 nights while I couldn't stop laying there trying to envision his demise).... she ended up pulling out a big pillow, putting it on the floor, and conked herself out on it. Very cute. But both babies woke up for a nurse that night.
Then last night, William was the bear. He woke up once McK fell asleep, then wouldn't nurse back down. He was completely asleep in my arms, asleep when I transferred him to the pnp, but woke up to scream as I walked away. Three tries! So I finally gave up and brought him to bed. (I didn't want to do this, because I found he sleeps better in the pnp, and basically chews on me all night if he sleeps/nurses with me in bed.)

Lucky me, this morning both babies sleepily and accidentally bit the crap out of their respective nipple. OUCH. And last night, William was pissed at me because I dared to change his diaper and put on his pants, so while I was wrestling him, tummy down across my lap to pull the pants on the rest of the way, he took his first real bite of me. OMIGOSH, did that hurt. He bit my leg and kindof hung on like a pit bull, LOL; I was gasping and screaming; dh is like, what in the world happened? Somehow I did not reflexively smack him (I did the first time he chomped down on my nipple, instinctively trying to smack off the source of intense pain), and suddenly I felt SOOOOO sorry for McKenna who has been bitten (left mark) twice by him at least, and for Nicolas, who actually got bitten by Wm. once on his privates!! (trying to thwart William from going somewhere, standing at the perfect height for Wm's "attack" LOL). And I pulled down my pants to check out my wound, and not only did he leave teeth marks, but he bit smallish bite of flesh so that there is a long, narrow blood blister type thing inside the teeth marks. Poor me. =O)

So, back to sleep. I was just saying to dh during the scream fest that our next baby WILL be sleep trained better. Good golly. Nicolas was Sooooo much easier, especially for naps. That's my next fear. The babies are still napping in their car seats in front of a movie. Um, NOT my ideal! I'm not looking forward to working out whatever plan might be next. It will probably involve separate cribs (so they don't kill each other) and crying and gnashing of teeth.

I think next time I will make a point to wake the baby after it nurses (change the diaper, for instance) and then lay it down drowsy in its crib to fall asleep on its own. BEFORE the baby learns to roll over. Once they are mobile, especially standing and cruising, it's pretty much impossible to train them to sleep without screaming fits, I'm guessing.

OK, long post! egads. Off to try to make my family a schedule that we can work with. We need some order.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Hugs to us all! What a bunch of crazy babes! Savannah, I would pull my hair out if I had this times 2!

Robin was up late last night, then up at 12, so I didn't get to bed until after 1:30. I finally put her down with daddy and slept inthe guest room - and she slept from 1-6, which is great!

Then, today for her nap she was a wreck again. SHe wouldn't nurse or take the bottle, just wanted to get down and play (but, then would cry and fuss b/c she's TIRED). SHe fixated on books - we read 2 that she loves. Then she nursed, but broke off to beg for books. I tried reading to her WHILE she nursed (I'm really not that flexible), letting her cuddle the book, etc. But every time she realized she was about to drift off, she wanted to run around. We ended up getting into my bed, where I whispered to her and sang and hugged her while she screamed and tried to crawl out of bed. It took 15 minutes of screaming - and 1 mnute before my self-imposed limit she fell asleep. THat was over 2.5 hours ago and I still haven't heard a peep. I just don't see how that is any different from CIO except that I was there.









Alright, gotta put this time to work. I'm working on a baby quilt for a friend who's pg and I'm super excited about it. It's great colors (pink, purple and green - sound sawful but looks good) and lots of fabulous batiks. Leomom - lemme know if you are still interested in getting a quilt made for Kate. My turnaround is slow, but I have lots of ideas.


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

Savanah you should try reading the No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers. It might help you out.

David goes down easily for sleep but then he loves to wake up at 11pm and scream for a bloody hour while I am holding him, trying to get him to calm down. I think his teeth were bothering him. The motrin kicked in and he fell asleep. He is currently trying to cut two molars and his top eye teeth have swelled up. Total teething HELL!


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

I must admit that we don't even try to go to sleep untill around 10 at night.... We take long, long, long baths at night and read books, usually ending with "Goodnight Moon", which morphes into saying goodnight to all the pets, the books, the plants, toys etc while laying in bed nursing. We go to sleep in nursing "position". I tuck both of her legs in between my legs as I lay on my side. Sometimes we sing songs, and talk about papa (at work) or quote from her books.
In the last few weeks I've been spoiled by 3 hour stretches of sleep, but last night was back to nearly hourly wakings..... grrrr....
I was quite sick a few weeks ago and Mielle and her Papa had to deal with each other in the night, and that seemed to help a lot. I'm not sure what finally worked for him, I know he talks to her quietly and monotonously about all the animals that are sleeping, like the cows, the horses and the birds... etc.

Well, I'm leaving on a big trip tomorrow! I will be spending nearly 4 weeks in Georgia with my sister and her kids! The good news is that i'll probably be online more than I am now, since there is a computer right in the bedroom i'll be sleeping in!!!! I'm all packed and ready to go, but missing my husband in advance of leaving. He's been all mopey and depressed for the last few days, I know he will be fine, in fact he'll probably enjoy parts of it. He's gonna have guy time with his friends and is planning on working out a lot. It's too bad he's being so glum right now. It's silly things like him getting all teary eyed over Mielle's antics. I mean, I know she's gonna learn new things while we are gone, but he's acting like she's gonna come back all grown up, and he'll have missed it....
For my part, I'm looking forward to the trip. I'm gonna be visiting a warmer climate and spending time with my sister. I'm excited to see Mielle playing with all her cousins. We are planning on trying to do more potty training while I'm there. Mielle seems really interested, I just don't seem to make the time for it. I figure with the warmer climate and all I can let her run around bare bottomed more... I also got her some panties to help "inspire/ encourage" her to pee in the potty.
We are planning a trip to Savannah overnight and to go to an Aquarium in Atlanta... anyway should be a fun change. I get home the day before Valentines day and am looking forward to our reunion!

So, whose watching American Idol tonight???? My sister and I have plans for the evening... pizza and idol. 2 full hours! Jerome is gonna take Mielle over to his parents house, so I get 2 child free hours on top of it all! Yee haaaa!

Love to all

P.S. Is anyone located in the Atlanta area? We could set up a play date or something.......


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Yo Becca*
So, we are having NIGHTMARE get-to-sleep issues.

How does your partner help with bedtime/midnight/naptime care? Any great tactics to prevent it from becoming a nightmare? We want to drop the stupid bottle, but now she'll refuse to nurse and beg for the bottle. We don't want to cave to her "2nd wind" b/c it's just a fighting sleep tactic - she's so tired and ready to drop. What is your naptime and bedtime routine?

Yo Becca -- you've hit the nail on the head: I believe the non-nursing partner can be KEY to making this sleep thing OK. Lulu is a great sleeper, and I believe it is the peculiar sleep/bedtime arrangement we have with my DH.









Lulu goes to bed around 7PM, up at 6-7AM. Doesn't nurse at night. She's been sleeping through the night since around nine months, consistantly so for the last two months. She naps 1-2 hours a day. Pretty good, huh? Believe me, she compensates by wearing us out in her wake hours









Here's how we did it. Not for everyone. For starters, we are total softees and can't stand even the notion of Lulu crying without someone there, so no CIA. Second. We don't use a crib. We did not plan on co-sleeping, but it has turned into an amazing experience of us all, particularily my DH (who is out working, so limited time with Lulu). I think co-sleeping made this whole sleep something Lulu looks forward to rather than fights. Third, my DH and I don't sleep together regularily as it is because of his snoring and my light sleeping. SO:

1. Lulu sleeps with the non-nursing spouse (my husband). His soothing tool is: MASSAGE. He's learned to rub Lulu's back to sleep, at night if she is restless, etc. It's powerful stuff. It is at least as good as nursing in terms of soothing/sleep vibes for her now. It took her awhile (a month?) to "get into" the back rub, but now it is key. Have you tried this?

2. I sleep separately from them (different room). This is key. No temptation of the breast to keep waking the babe up. You may not want this permanently, but you could do it for a few weeks to help the babe get into easier habits (waking less).

Yes, it is bliss, to have a whole night sleep. Yes, I am still, considering Lulu's energy level and my first trimester of pregnancy, as **exhausted** as you. Oh, and there's the insomnia I've got from preg. So don't be too jealous!

3. A few months ago, DH and I decided he would no longer bring her down to nurse at night (would happen 3-4 nights a week). Instead, he rubs her back. Result: Lulu doesn't wake up anymore during the night without the incentive to nurse.

4. My husband was very wise about bedtime. He gives Lulu a large measure of control on exactly when she goes to sleep. As a result, she chooses it and rarely fights it. He lets Lulu decide when she goes upstairs. We'll offer, but often wait for her to go to the stairs when she's ready. (Other nights, if she's tired and cranky, he'll carry her up).

Likewise, he plays upstairs with her off their bed for as long as she wants. Eventually she crawls in to bed. Then he rubs her back for 1 t0 30 min (depends on how tired she is).

When she falls asleep, he gets up and is free to hang out with me for as long as he wants. Then when he goes to bed, he sleeps upstairs with her. He treasures this time with her, and I treasure my aloneness, if not a whole heck of a lot of sleep (see #2).

5. We have the standard, simple routine. Bath around 5:30pm, playtime, come down to say goodnight to mom (last nurse), upstairs to bedroom, play, message, bed. Takes aprox 2 hours.

This all evolved, with MANY hard nights, LOTS of crying (when Lulu was first denied a night nurse ... petered out after a few days), lots of experimentation. But after all these months, this is what has worked for us. I have to give most of the credit to my DH.









Does this help Yo Becca, or is this just **too* different from your routine? I think your DP is really the key. He sounds like he is really into bedtime, baby care, so you are really lucky.










Liz


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Savannah- I'm reading 'The Grizzly Maze' right now! Most Alaskans call Timothy Treadwell 'Snackwell'.... but you probably know that by now. The book is pretty good; but really, WHY would anyone try living with bears?! If you want a challenge, live with a toddler or two!!!









So does anyone have an idea where I could find a child size uniform (coveralls) for Cecilia? Not bib overalls, I'm looking for an unlined coverall she can wear in the shop over her clothes. She and her dad ruin so many of her clothes grubbing around in the shop.







: Any ideas?

Oh, today I met a mom who I found on the 'Finding your Tribe' board and she's AWESOME! She just moved here. It was so great to meet a new friend and know that she's living in St. Cloud!

Anna, have FUN!! Liz, great sleeping advice.








Meg


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Liz: that's very helpful. I think you were the one who suggested moving to another room a few months ago. It has been very efective when we do it. I think if we can get into a regular routine it'll get much better. We used to be in one (Bath, nurse, sleep) - but then DH and I were doing very dfferent things so now she's not sure what she can do - so she's trying to push for doing whatever she wants to resist sleep. The big obstacle is that we either travel for a few nights or have visitors (My folks coming to spoil Robin) which disrupts our routine formation every few weeks. DH and I are going to make some plans for a regular approach, no matter which of us is putting her down. Tonight was an improvement - She refused to nurse until half asleep then asked for it. She also demanded that I turn on the TV, so she wound down to wheel of FOrtune









I do follow her cue for naps and bedtime - Bedtime comes at basically the same time every night (b/tw 7-8) - she'll ask for a bath or try to lead us to the stairs or if she's obviously tired I ask her if she wants a bath. But naps are more random. She still really needs one and usually takes 2 a day. If she drops one, that's fine. But they vary from day=to-day. I wonder if she would do better if we got more routine with naps - I definitely think she needs clear cues and steps. SHe likes to read, but she never wants to stop and then wants to cuddle with her books.

Also, it's now apparent that she has a cold, so that's making it all worse.

Anna: I'm 90 min. from atlanta! Is your sister in town? I'd love to get together while you're here. We lived in Atlanta 10 years until RObin was born, so I love any excuse to go back to my favorite haunts. The new aquarium is supposed to be awesome, and Savannah is fun (especially at St. Patricks day, when it's like a mini mardi gras, flashing and all). So sorry Jerome's missing some daddy time.

Jen and Heather B - Hope you both get more sleep tonight! Hope we all do.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Meg - Carhartt makes toddler sized clothes, try them.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Meg - try Cabela's or store like Mill's Fleet Farm - I bet they'd have something.

Well, we got really spoiled by our neighbor being gone to Hawaii for 3 weeks - she is a massage therapist for a college swim team and accompanies all of them every year for a swim meet. Of course her dog was boarded somewhere and we had nearly a month of blissful, bark-free living. But she's back... and so is the blessed dog. (I'm trying to train myself to say 'blessed' instead of *#$([email protected](@#$&#$*ing! or even 'damn' lest Tristan see our neighbor walking her dog some day, point and say "damn dog! damn dog!") Today I napped with him and not more than an hour after I managed to fall asleep and probably 1.5 hours after Tristan did, the dog starts barking. Not just a couple of barks and then done, but woof-woof-woof-woof-woof-woof-woof etc etc... Tristan stirs, I will the dog to shut up... woof-------... T wakes up. He was grouchy all day. Got a little nap in the car on the way home from my mom's but wouldn't stay asleep. We are going to ask our neighbor if she will look over through her kitchen window at our dining room window to see if the "baby asleep" sign is up before she lets her dog out. Then hopefully she will accompany her dog outside and control the barking instead of just letting the dog out and getting on the phone. Man, I want to buy her a bark collar for Valentine's day...

I commiserate with everyone on the biting front, Tristan chomped both of us over the weekend, leaving marks. Savannah, I've got that blood blister thing, too. What I really dislike is that he knows that he's doing wrong because he's learned that when you hurt someone, you say you're sorry, and in our family, we give each other hugs to show that it's all ok. So he will hit, bite or scratch and then give a kiss. That kiss-makes-it-all-better thing kind of bugs me.

OK, I have deserted my family for way longer than I said I would, so I'm gonna scram. xoxo, j


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

Anna I live about 4 hours from Atlanta.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Meg -- Katchemak Gear Shed in Homer (have you been there?) sells toddler size work clothes, including Carhartts (Thor has an overall pair) and ExtraTuffs (he also has a toddler size pair). My dad can't resist the toddler size commercial fishing gear. It's hilarious. Of course with a name like Thor and parents and granparents like his, he's destined for some kind of commercial fishing... I wonder if KGS has a website? If you know any Homerites you might ask them to look. My dad lives in Homer and is always there, I'll ask him to look too.

Well of course I bragged too soon about Thor's sleeping being great (at least, better...). Last night he was awake from about 3-5. He was happy during it, too, which is soooo weird. He woke up and cried at about 3, so I went in to get him, which is a change... normally DH goes to get him. He was just like wide awake, lying on me, giggling, talking, getting drinks of water, trying to look out the windows... I was like... what the heck??? Finally at 5 I took him out in the kitchen and gave him some yogurt and crackers. Then I took him back to DH who lied down with him and Thor instantly fell asleep! Of course. I think that I need to stay out of it for a while! Liz's advice is great.

On a different note, Thor is SOOOOOO fussy during the day the past 3 days. Today I was seriously going berzerk. I've been home four days in a row because I took today off. He's had a cold, so I know that's part of it, but this is insane. He wants to be carried and held constantly. Wants to rock for hours. Wants to go outside, then come inside, then drink water, then throw it on the floor. He is so sensitive, too. If he's hitting the cat and I say NO, he crumples into a ball on the floor and sobs like I've hurt his feelings terribly. ACK! What is going on??? I'm worried he has an ear infection, and also have thought maybe he's getting his 2 yo molars, since that's all he has left. Any thoughts?? Help!


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

popping in real quick to say that I am in Atlanta! I will pm you when I get a chance Anna


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Meg, Becca, Jen, Heather, I hope you all get sleep tonight.

We had a bad night last night, as well, but I think it might have something to do with the fact that we just got home, and Andrew was in a different place for the fourth time in two weeks, and that he is definitely getting his last molar, and I think his top eye teeth are pushing down as well.

After this batch of teeth comes through, I am going to start night weaning. It's hard, becuase dh is having sleep problems so I can't really ask him to help with night time parenting, as that would further disrupt his sleep. Well, I could ask him, but I don't have the heart to. But before these molars started coming, Andrew had been sleeping 5 hrs straight with just a cuddle when he woke up, so I think he will go back to that eventually. It seems to all be related, oddly enough, to nipple twiddling. when I let him twiddle, he wakes more at night.

Also, during parts of our trip I would hold him and let him cry for about 15 min. because he was doing the same thing as Robin -- really overtired but fighting sleep. In Andrew's case he was crying because he was mad becuase he couldn't get his way. I saw it as closer to a tantrum than to CIO. How is wanting to stay awake when you are overtired and can hardly keep your eyes open different from wanting a chocolate chip cookie when you will just throw up the chocolate?

Anna, have a fantastic trip! I found it so refreshing to get away and reconnect with people again. I feel like I have found myself again, rather than just being "mommy" and "wifey".

I am so glad to be home, though. Not only for the sake of Andrew's routine, but because both my ciblings have nothing but processed food in their house. I have not had so much white bread and mac and cheese and such a lack of veggies and whole grains since . . . well, since I lived at home, I guess. I was seriously craving whole wheat bread. I wonder if I will notice behavior changes in Andrew once he has got back to a more wholesome diet.

Well, goodnight ladies! Pleasant dreams!

ETA: Cute outfit, Harmony!


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## lucysmom (Oct 17, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *banana girl*
to go to an Aquarium in Atlanta...

Anna, we got stuck in Atlanta coming home from Kentucky over the holidays, & went to the new Georgia Aquarium. It really is awesome. Lucy still pantomines whales swimming up and down when we discuss whales (they have four belugas) and sharks ("'ark!") swimming overhead in the tunnel. One caution -- make sure to get tickets ahead. There are incredibly long lines if you have not reserved a time, and you can't count on walking up to buy tickets. Have a great time, & let me know what creatures Mielle likes!


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

My apoligizes for the previous quick post, I had a super-fussy babe in arms.

So I am finaly caught up with all the posts. We've had family here for the past week and I haven't had much time to read/post. Ds has been super fussy and resisting sleep for the past week. At first we thought it was his food sensivities (b/c the visiting guests like to feed him food he's not supposed to eat














Then, we thought it was b/c of people being here. So finally last night I was just so frustrated that again he would not go down that I brought him downstairs so I could *finally* eat my dinner (after 9pm) and I put him down in his chair next to me. He freaked out. And while he was freaking out and screaming I happened to look into his mouth and saw something white - I freaked out figuring he was picking things off the floor. So I stuck my finger in his mouth to clear it out and what do I find - MOLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!














:









I should be awarded the Worst Mama award - I can't believe I didn't realize he was teething. Poor thing - he's been in pain all week and I didn't even think. I actually didn't know that the molars come in before the canines until I looked it up in my baby care book.

Now that he's gone down for a nap, I have lots of housework to catch up on.


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Yo Becca - I agree, our naps are not at a regular time, and it does make naps much harder. I just like having the flexibility during the day. But you pay: Like Lulu cried HYSTERICALLY for 1/2 hr. before falling asleep for her nap today. All the while, I'm thinking, I am such an arse, I just posted this post about how easy it is for us ...

Jen- Can you use a white noise machine in T's room? Like the professional one from Hammerkershlemmer (sp?) ($50). We have one blasting all the time while we sleep. I feel for you though. Man, that is incredibly annoying. I would definately try to work with her with the "sleeping baby" sign

Liz


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

While Thor is in his room with DH screaming about going to sleep, or something, -- and I already gave it a good half hour shot, and am tired,







thought I would post about the yet NEXT babe....
















: It's a GIRL!!























Right at this moment, though, I don't know how I'll handle two.........


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

It's Freya, I'm telling you, Freya!!!









Congrats. A girl! I am sure Thor will be a wonderful big brother.

Here's hoping for a good night's sleep. Tristan at least got us up at 4 yesterday instead of 2:30. I still can't figure out why he wakes up and cries sounding absolutely devastated.

nigh-nigh, j


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Congrats, Augustine! How exciting. Thora... LOL

Anna, I'm so jealous and irritated that you are going to be pulling a meeting together in Atlanta AFTER I leave there. Waaaaah.


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Hi everybody!

I haven't been on the computer much this week- been busy looking at houses. I've found 4 to show John. Of course I have my favorite and am hoping he'll like it too!!









I haven't had a chance to read and catch up, but I just wanted to say hi to you!









Congrats on your girl, Aug.mom!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Augustine - Congrats! Girls are so special! Hope Thor is feelingbetter.

Jen - hope your night went better. Another white nose option: a humidifier (good benefits as well) or putting the receiving end of the baby monitor in his room, with the transmitter near a fan.

Last night I came home from work to find robin and DH asleep - then she woke up at 11:30 and I just couldn't get her down. so, I ended up having to sleep withher and DH to keep her asleep - every time I'd sneak out she'd wake up crying. So another night derailed - although she then slept from 1ish until DH got up and rattled around a bit - then got her back down until after 7. But then I found out this morning that Clint didn't give her any decongestant - she kept waking up b/c she couldn't breathe. I had left very clear instructions...







:

Robin has gotten into some TV shows, I confess. I tend to turn on PBS kids when I'm trying to do something and need her to play independently - SHe's never watched it, but it makes for kid-friendly background noise. She smiles a bit at Barney, but now she's gotten interested in Teletubbies enough to actually sit for a few mnutes and watch. I need to decide on some limits and impose them, I suppose. My sister mailed me her collection of teletubbies videos a few months ago and I actually put one on Tuesday when I was trying to work on dinner, and RObin sat in her chair watching and laughing for about 10 minutes. Teletubbies is so freakish and bizarre - I don;t really want to encourage her to like it. But she thinks it's hilarious.

GOTTA GO - SHE'S ASKINFG TO NURSE


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Our bedroom has pretty much perpetual white noise because we have a HEPA air filter in it. But thanks for the tips. The problem is really that our neighbor's house is 15 feet away, and our bedrooms are on the side of the house closest to her house. The dog runs along that side of her house, since that's where her patio/walk is, and barks at birds, squirrels, etc. Don't know what we'll do for extra noise in the summer without the window air conditioners, although I'm really looking forward to the possibility of having central air! There was the small advantage, however, of not listening to the neighbor's dog.

Becca - I wish you good luck in having the strength to turn off the TV if *you* want it off - there are plenty of things in life that our children will love, love love, but that doesn't make them appropriate for them. It will be a lot easier to turn it off now than it will be in even a year! If you need any more convincing articles/research/etc, check out the link in Christine's sig...

I hope the sun is shining where you are - because it's not here - j


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

The joys of living with young computer users.... I had most of a post written when screaming crying children required my assistance. When I came back to the computer my 5 year old nephew was busily clicking away at some kids website with animated doggies and such..... my post was gone... I'm just glad that he hadn't added something strange to my post and managed to put it up!

Anyway, I have arrived in Georgia, safe and sound. Traveling with a toddler pretty much.... sucks! I dragged along our gigantic new Britax car seat which I was able to use on the plane, however Mielle just wanted to be held, so she only spent about a half an hour in the seat itself. seemed like kind of a bother to bring it along as my "carry on" considering how little use it got. However, that said it sure came in handy when she BARFED all over during landing. That's right, complete and total vomit mess.... her clothes and the carseat were a disgusting mess. (Cheesey crackers as an inflight snack) yuck. Thankfully I brought an entire change of clothes... for her. And we were seated at the waaaaay back, close to the bathroom, which I immediately headed for once the plane stopped. By time I got her changed, it was finally time for us to debark AND my Dad (who is staying here a week) had gotten the car seat itself cleaned up. So despite the embarrasment (and the smell) of having a child barf on a plane, it was relatively painless. If I had been alone.... and she was in my lap during the vomit incident... it might have been truly awful.

So, those of us near the Atlanta area, lets get together and watch our kids fight over their sippy cups! P.M. me if interested.

Mielle just filled her drawers... gotta go!

Love to all


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JenInMpls*
It's Freya, I'm telling you, Freya!!!









Congrats. A girl! I am sure Thor will be a wonderful big brother.


Hey Jen, isn't Freya the name of the german chick who writes the books about making toys?????

And let me add my congratulations,







girls sure are sweet! Have you thought about names?? are you willing to share them??

hummmm.. baby fever is mounting!


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Augustine, way to go







!

I hear you on that deep fear that you will be utterly unable to handle TWO when you can barely manage one!







It'll work out great.








Liz


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Anna -- Oh gosh, that's one thing I'm SO afraid of is travelling with Thor anytime soon!! Good thing you got there relatively un-traumatized...









Names: Yes, so far my favorite is Nova. Nova Margaret (Margaret is my 90 year old homesteading granmother). Nova is just so stuck in my head. Although we've also thought of Evelyn, Eva, Eve, Fiona, Aislin, and several others. I never really tell people IRL what we're thinking about for names especially after naming Thor, because people would either go "OH THAT'S AWESOME!" or they'd say, "Hmmmm, Thor, interesting..."







But let me know what you think about the names, or any cool girls names you've heard lately.

Robin -- Thor also loves Teletubbies. And, Jen, totally agree, I feel SO guilty about letting him watch TV. Teletubbies are weird, too!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Oh, and thank you all so much for the congrats and good wishes on the new babe!


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

I like your name choices. Nova was a name that I put in my list of baby names that I kept in high school.

So anyone else having trouble with your babes being gentle? LaRue's new thing is that if there is a kid nearby her she will squeeze their arm roughly or smack their arms. It's so frustrating, she's been doing it more often. She knows what gentle touches are and understands what we talk about, but she doesn't seem to want to listen to giving kids gentle touches. Today we had to leave two play areas because she was being rough with other kids. Argh!

Oh and speaking of my girl I wanted to share a new picture of her that I took today: http://static.flickr.com/36/88681520_4f83c6b3ba_o.jpg
Can you believe that this little sweetie can be such a rough kid?


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Jen - Good luck with the neighbor. If you have even a reasonably good relationship, I can't imagne she'd be upset. We lived really close to our neighbors in Atlanta. The lady right next door had moved into her house in 1924. SHe had this crazy dog who stalked and treed squirrels then sat directly under the tree barking - forever. The stupid squirrels would go up the one tree where they had no other escape route and then it was unending. At 9 months 1 week pg I had to go drag that stinking dog into her house at 3am. It just wouldn't come when she called - But if it didn't get into the house and shut up I was going to do something drastic.

I have definitely put up signs on our door threatening anyone who dared knock or ring - b/c our beagle has the worst bark of all.

Augustine - I like Nova a lot and have a friend with a stepdaughter named Eva - it's beautiful. Aisla and Fiona are also pretty. You set the bar high with THor - now you have to name this babe somehting that will stand up to Thor. Nothing mundane will do.

Anna - glad you made it! Welcome south! This weekend was perfect short sleeves and jeans weather - hope you didn't bring the cold stuff with you! I'll pm you.

Mama Bear - How's the teething?

Heather - how did your party go? That looks like a neat line of stuff.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

a quick note to say that a treaty has been reached with the neighbor - the dog barked during T's nap today and woke him up and after nursing him for 1/2 hour I called her and asked if I could put a sign in the dining room window (faces her house) that says "baby asleep" when he was napping and she could look out of her kitchen window before letting the dog out. She said she would. Let's hope it works.

Anna - you are right, Freya Jaffke is a world-renowned Waldorf kindergarten teacher and has written scads of books, my favorite being toymaking with children.

Becca - Beagle? baaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooooo-roooooooooooooooooo!









Harmony - I can totally believe that little girl can be so rough - what an impish look on her face! tee hee

OK, we got T to bed a little earlier tonight so I'm off to try to catch some







xo j


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

FF - laRue is sooo cute. I don't believe you!

Our puppy is very rambunctious and getting bigger - so she and alfred (the beagle) do a lot of playing - some of it rough and lots with teeth. They are having fun, but it's very physical. So now what has Robin started doing? Biting the dogs! Putting their toys in her mouth! Trying to get in the mix when they are playing! That's really her only rough play - and I guess the dogs can take it. SHe still hugs other kids a lot - like it or not!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Jen -- We have a dog close to us that barks constantly, too. I HATE it. I just don't see how someone can let their dog out at like 10pm and leave it out to bark bark bark bark bark bark. aggggggh.

FF -- Thor is just now starting to sort of nudge other kids out of the way when they have a toy he wants. He's never been very aggressive with other kids, though other kids have been aggressive to him at daycare. I always worry that he's going to pick up on "negative" behavior from others, but really I think it's more just a developmental stage and possibly temperment related -- not necessarily learned. He also gets into this spastic thing where he waves his hands at me, trying to hit me, and then laughs about it. He also throws toys at the cat regularly, then when I say NO he crumples and cries. I guess those are his violent streaks...

Becca -- One of Thor's favorite games is to feed the cat. So anytime I give him a snack he finds our fluffy white cat, Winston, and says, "Titty!" (Kitty) and attempts to shove whatever he has into the cat's mouth. Sometimes the cat obliges and nibbles a bit. But sometimes Thor will have, like, a banana and the cat runs away. Then Thor will eat whatever the cat hasn't eaten. I know, totally unsanitary and I'm sure THor will grow whiskers at some point. DH says that WInston and Thor have a symbiotic relationship. Winston also hovers around Thor's highchair and Thor gladly tosses off gardenburgers for him to eat.... sigh...

Savannah -- It was funny, right after you posted about seeing Grizzly Man, I went to the mailbox and it was there from Netflix. DH had ordered it. You're right, it is creepy to think what happened to him. DH is now obsessed with finding the audiotape of the mauling. Ugh, morbid!

Leomom -- Good luck on the house search. It's sort of fun in a stressful kind of way.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Your right Jen, the more I look at the picture, the more I see that impish look. Like all sugar and sweetness, but if you get too close she will go kung-fu on you.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Yo Becca*
SHe still hugs other kids a lot - like it or not!

I find that other kids always seem to want to hug Mielle when we are out and about... like today at the Georgia Aquarium. A couple different times little kids hugged or kissed or just plain came up to Mielle to touch her. I think it's sweet and don't understand why other Mamas are so quick to apologize when it happens. It seemed like the other Mamas were really embarassed when it happened.....
I'm not bothered by it in the least, why are they? Do they think I'll get mad that my child is being touched? Are they scared of germs? Do they think my child might hurt their child? Are they bothered by their being affectionate to a "stranger"??? What's the deal? It seems to me you should praise a child for being loving to another child, not apologetic or dissaproving... what do you guys think?

Does it bug you to have a "strange" child hug or kiss your little ones?

BTW. I've put up new photos from the aquarium on my blog (link in my signature)

gotta go, Mielle just woke up!


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

Anna, glad you got there safely! Eek! What Britax seat did you get? I'm in the midst of muddling through what seats to get for the boys... Iain will be moving to Gabriel's Roundabout, but then Gabriel needs new seats (one for our car and one for Grandma's)! Wish I were in Atlanta to come to a get together!

Augustine, Nova goes well with the name Thor! I also just love the classic feminine names like Eva. Aislin is beautiful, too! That doesn't help much, does it?









Becca, the party went well, and we all had fun. They have got such cute toys! Well put together, too. I've been very impresses with the "Noodles from Scratch" set we got. The boys just love it, and the music is all well done and not annoying, you know?

Iain is definitely getting more "aggressive." Argh. I need to dig out all of my parenting books and figure out what to do! He'll just get rough, really, when he's frustrated or over tired. I'm sure being the 2nd child makes that more likely! I'm not really sure how to curb it, as telling him, "be gentle, that hurts!" just garners grins. :eyseroll I've tried holding his hands on his tummy and telling him to keep his hands to himself (I think I got the phrase from Savannah or someone here!), which succeeds in making him stop and frustrating him, but I'm not sure long-term if there are results... yet.

FF, that picture is adorable!! Doesn't hurt to have the cutest clothes to dress her in, either!







Oh, will I be in trouble if I ever have a girl!









Anna, that's a hard thing to figure out... I think the biggest issue for the parents is probably crossing those social bounds of personal space, kwim? There are times (and certain children) where it might bother me, but I also totally understand what you mean about encouraging and applauding children for being gentle, sweet, and appropriate. I'm sure Mielle is just too cute to pass up!







I don't remember particular instances where other kids have touched/hugged/patted my boys, but I think it's happened. As long as they're being sweet, it definitely shouldn't be a big deal! But I probably oughta tell myself that when grimy-handed kids come up and touch Iain's golden curls.









I've started up a Buying Club for Frontier Co-ops recently, and I'm so excited! I've just looked through the whole catalog and am a bit overwhelmed by all of the choices of products! Does anyone have favorite natural products, maybe things like toothpaste? Deodorant? Vitamins? I'd love recommendations! I also need to choose some homeopathics to have on hand. Both of my boys seem prone to colds/viruses/upper respiratory infections, and I'd love to find something effective that's not the standard OTC fare.

Stacey, did you like the area you looked at? Clear Lake? Any idea on a time frame? You gotta fill us in!









Take care, mamas!


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *FeministFatale*
Your right Jen, the more I look at the picture, the more I see that impish look. Like all sugar and sweetness, but if you get too close she will go kung-fu on you.









That's exactly what I thought when I saw the adorable pic!!!

Jen, what a great idea! I hope it works.







I keep the radio on static in Kate's room when she's sleeping and some days I have to turn it ALL THE WAY UP b/c she is so sensitive to sound. For my next one, I'm going to bang pans everytime they go to sleep so I won't have to tiptoe during naps anymore.









Anna, Kate hugs a lot. I think there are sometimes moms who freak out about it, but I can totally tell from their body language. Not that I stop Kate anyway!









Heather, I know it is really important to keep Kate turned backward as long as possible. But these trips from Dallas to Houston and back are killing me. Her little legs are so cramped back there. She hates it! Of course, she's not even 20 pounds yet, so I don't have a choice. Any ideas on making the Marathon more comfortable for her?

I'm going back to Houston on Saturday to show John the houses. Two are in Houston and two are in Clear Lake. I am leaning toward the waterfront community in Clear Lake, but we'll see.....

Nova and Thor. I like it. It totally lives up to Thor.









Well, we're making the drive back to Houston today..







...so I will be out of range until next week. Maybe I'll have chosen a house by then!


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Augestine - I







Nova!! Also, just heard an NPR interview with Werner Herzog. He said that he heard the audiotape (one of the few people who have) and that it is locked away and will never be released publically.

In terms of all these people with barking dogs, as a dog owner, I can say they may not be aware how much disturbance it is causing. Probably they would be mortified and be far more careful if you just let them know. A certain amount of barking is just life, but there is no reason a dog should be left barking outside endlessly. Or be allowed to bark outside late at night. And Jen, good plan w/your neighbor. She sounds like a good one. We've got good neighbors and are very grateful for it.

Liz


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Anna - I love it when other kids are friendly with RObin. But I have a good friend with 2 kids who's very AP and into NFL, but is a total germaphobe. She calls other kids "germ factories", compulsively washes hands, HATES it when strangers touch her or her kids, etc. SHe even avoids places that she considers "germy". So, even though I am like the total opposite she has scarred me. Everytime Robin touches or hugs an unknown child I do apologize and move to pull her away - if the parent says it's fine, then I let her hug. But if they don't say it's okay I gently separate RObin (although I do it slow enough to let her enjoy the hug for a few seconds







). I have no problem with her affectionate nature, but in this culture of fear I don't want to overstep personal boundaries.

I LOVE bigger girls - like 5-8 year olds just flock to RObin. They want to hold her and play, and she just loves it. They'll play ring-around-the-rosie, try to pick her up, etc. Their mothers are always afraid they'll hurt RObin, but I let them go - she's a tough cookie.

Stacy - good luck house hunting! I hope your DH likes the ones you like!


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

AugustineM -- I like Fiona. In fact its my top pick if we have a girl. Eva is good too, very dramatic. I'll be honest and say that when I hear Nova I think Super Nova, which might cause trouble in elementary school.

FF - what a terribly cute and mischevous little girl you have.

Anna -- Andrew likes to go up to other children and put his hand on their knee or hold their hand. I do feel the need to appologize because it seems like something really intimate to do to a stranger, but people generally seem ok with it so maybe i should stop appologizing.

we finally got our mei tai and we love it. i especially like that it distributes his weight a bit more evenly, but i can move it up so he is high enough to peek over my shoulder. the only sad thing about it is that it is most comfy for me when i make an X across my chest and it just emphasizes my poor breasts. oh how the mighty have fallen. sigh.

Andrew is getting his last molar and i think his eye teeth are coming too, so he's really clingy. in fact he's sleeping on my arm as we spaeak. thus the ee cummings impersonation. well, i should set him down and finish supper. it would be good if he woke up, since its 5:30. sigh.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Jilly -- Ha ha, Super Nova. That thought crossed my mind as well. I wondered if most people would know what a supernova was, and if so, if it is a bad association. They're kind of cool I think. Thor is also super clingy lately. I mean insanely clingy. I'm starting to get worried -- I can't figure out what's wrong with him. He has been sick but seems to be better, just a really runny nose. He won't eat much, and whines all the time to be picked up.

As far as names, now I'm starting to lean towards Eva.... I think part of the reason is that I really want her middle name to be Margaret. And Nova Margaret just sounds weird (do you all think so, too?). Eva Margaret sounds very nice though. And I love the name Eva.

Anna -- Thor tries to hug other kids too. It's so cute. He doesn't quite do a full hug, but acts like he's going to. I usually just laugh and say, "Are you giving him/her a hug? That's sweet." So far I haven't had any moms/dads react negatively. I haven't really even tried to seperate him from the other kids, though. I don't hover over him unless it looks like he might kung fu chop them.









Liz -- I think Werner Herzog was the one that did the movie Grizzly Man, right? It shows him listening to the tape on the movie and he has the woman turn it off becuase he is so disturbed by it. He tells her to burn it or destroy it.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

I have to say... and this is horrible, but I... um... well, when I hear Nova, I think of salmon. Nova lox. I guess kind of appropriate for someone who's from Alaska...?







that being said I do think it's a pretty name but you know which name I like best!

So far so good with the baby asleep sign in the window!

nigh nigh







j


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

just popping in to say I like Evelyn









Jen - glad to hear your getting somewhere with the dog situation

Anna - I sent you a PM

...as far as teething, I think it will be a LONG week coming up. He's already cut the bottom left, the top left is not far behind and the right side is swelling...poor thing....<sigh>...he's been draining us like crazy and I want to write more but I must go to sleep...zzzzz.....


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

I have a quick favor. Are you all familar with the state quarters have that been coming out each year? I know I am such a dork, but I have been collecting them and I have a map that I put them into.
I am missing some from 2004 and 2005 and thought I'd ask you all to keep an eye out and if you come across one in excellent condition, if you could send it my way.
I am looking for:
2004 - Iowa & Wisconsin
2005 - Oregon, Kansas, & West Virginia

Thanks!


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Augustine: Yes, W. Herzog is the director.







(I haven't seen the movie yet, but want to).

Super Nova -- I love it! It's a huge explosive star, right?

Liz


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mama Bear*
I have a quick favor. Are you all familar with the state quarters have that been coming out each year? I know I am such a dork, but I have been collecting them and I have a map that I put them into.
I am missing some from 2004 and 2005 and thought I'd ask you all to keep an eye out and if you come across one in excellent condition, if you could send it my way.
I am looking for:
2004 - Iowa & Wisconsin
2005 - Oregon, Kansas, & West Virginia

Thanks!










I guess I'm a dork too - we have a big quarter map too! Actually, we have 2 b/c we got my grandmothers when she passed away 2 years ago. But we haven't been keeping up with it lately, esp. since the move and having RObin. I'll check our stash though!

Robin is all about flipping light switches lately (she can reach hers from her crib and plays with it when she wakes from naps). She wanted to play with the ones in the den today, so CLint set up the step stool so she can climb up to play with them







Very safe. Good thing she has monkey skills.

Clint has had quite a day - he also vacuumed up a burning ember while vacuuming the den (he was cleaning up the hearth too) so I got called to help remove the burning bag from the vacuum. As it was full of dog hair, it smelled delightful.

She also has a new word: Pocket. Don't know why - but she was pulling mine and saying it. And she is officially speaking in little sentences: I want cookie, where is barbara, get down, let's go, etc. even if she doesn't have all the words down, she makes noises as "filler" around her words.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Hello All!

FINALLY some quiet time to post!! I had a LOVELY post ready the other day and then that little monster I live with was unleashed and ran right over to hit the power button on mommy's computer, the one that ALWAYS gets her attention and BAM- post was gone. Mommy was not happy.







:

So my post said all these lovely things like, congrats Augustine, totally hear you about dogs Jen, and some other stuff... Like I'm reading Grizzly Maze right now; my mom got it for Greg for xmas- what was that guy thinking?!!

So Augs, what about Margaret for a first name? I love Maggie....







I just looked at the St. Cloud Hospital top 10 names and Ava and Ella made the list for girls and Tristan was in there for boys. Jen, you were right, Tristan is pretty popular these days. Also Peyton/Payton/Peighton. I've heard it a lot for boys and girls. I like Evelyn! And we know a young Ester, which I think is cool.

Okay, ready? I need you guys to hear my rant.

So we were in the cities on Wednesday, sitting at a coffee shop and Cecilia is sometimes sitting, sometimes standing on her chair eating her lunch and this lady comes around the corner and tells me that when her girl was that age, she stood on a chair, fell off and cracked her vertebra. I say, 'wow that must have been awful' and go back to my sandwhich.

The lady comes BACK and says 'didn't you hear what I told you?' and I say, nicely, 'yes, but I don't have a problem with what my daughter is doing and this is how I choose to parent'. So I guess that pisses her off because she says to Cecilia 'well if your mommy won't protect you then I will' and proceeds to stand-close- behind Cecilia 'until I get her out of harm'.

Okay, now I'm mad! I'm not 12, darnit! I probably would have sat Cecilia down awhile ago, but now I'm not touching her because I'm not going to be bossed around by some stranger! I ask her 'um, exactly WHO do you think you are?' and she says 'I'm a child advocate' and I tell her she needs to leave NOW and that I'm not moving my kid until she gets out of my face. I finally must have gotten enough umph in my voice because she left.

So what would you do? I felt like I was a 'bad mommy' but I don't think I was exactly doing terribly irresponsible- I mean, my kid is part goat! She climbs everything and has only fallen off a stool- once. I felt so, I dunno, violated. That woman was totally in my personal space. It just bothers me so much that total strangers feel like they can shape my parenting and that I should just comply with any request. I mean, I wasn't BEATING her and since I really do love her I always make sure she's strapped in properly in her carseat (cars being much more dangerous that solid chairs with four legs, in my opinion).

Okay, thanks for listening.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Yah, Megan, Um... that lady was totally intruding and not helpful. Sorry for you guys! How DARE she say that to your daughter. ARrrrrgh.

Oh, and we know a little Ester, too.

I like Nova!! Eva is beautiful too. Heck, they were all great name ideas. I still vote for Nova. The first thing that comes to mind are those gorgeous star explosions. The second thing is that Chevy Nova; I remember thinking it was a funny name for a car, since in Spanish no va means "it doesn't go". LOL

I swing both ways on the issue of whether other kids should touch mine... For instance, Thursday I met some mom friends at the mall play area, and there were several cute little 2 and 3 year olds who would "herd" my babies and want to "help" them and cuddle them. I smiled and let them be gentle. (Except I did speak up when they tried picking the babies up. I don't like that. I didn't even let my 6 year old do that.) But a couple of weeks ago at a park, there was this incredibly boogery, oozing child about 2 who was wanting to play with my babies. I kept cutting him off at the pass and telling him to "Please stay away from the babies; you're sick. Go see your mommy..." Oh, he was hacking and sniffing and wiping his nose with his sleeve. Ick. It was most irritating because his mother was a ways off, on the cell phone or talking to a friend, not paying a lick of attention to him. Sooooo.... boogers and sneezing and coughing, BACK OFF, JACK. Clean bill of health, proceed with your gentle sweetness. =O)

Oh, and William will run up to mothers sitting on the bench and lay his head on their lap, or go up and kiss some other little baby. I usually allow it if the kid isn't sick, but I do check for mom's reaction to see if the "love fest" needs to be cut short.

Babies and I are sick now, actually. We probably got it from the mall, LOL. It's just a cold, with sneezing and stuffy nose, but it made for a couple of rough nights. Now that I have it, I can commiserate with the munchkins. I just want to lie in bed propped on pillows and rest all day. Waaah. And my throat hurts now.

Good night!


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

The little girls in Christopher's preschool class love to mother David. They are usually playing in the Gym when I come to pick up Christopher so I will let David play with them for a few minutes. Usually they try to hold his hand and walk with him or they try to steer him to one of the ride on toys. I constantly hear "Come here baby!" LOL! Thankfully they haven't tried to pick him up yet. He is pretty good at fending for himself though. When he doesn't want to be touched by them, he will shoo them away with his hands like he is trying to brush a fly away. It is the cutest thing! They also love to push him around when he is inside one of the Cozy Coupes.

Now is a kiddo is sick, I try to keep David away from them. Also I have issues when a 5 year old tries to pick up David.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *midwestmeg*
So what would you do? I felt like I was a 'bad mommy' but I don't think I was exactly doing terribly irresponsible- I mean, my kid is part goat! She climbs everything and has only fallen off a stool- once. I felt so, I dunno, violated. That woman was totally in my personal space. It just bothers me so much that total strangers feel like they can shape my parenting and that I should just comply with any request.

This totally reminds me of something that happened to my sister recently... she wrote about it in her blog. here
It seems to me that the truly offensive part lies in the stranger's inability to accept the parents right to ignore their ever so helpful suggestions. Not in their suggestion itself, some parents might actually welcome advice from a stranger.... For instance, if I was struggling with a wriggly toddler and a experienced mama came over and offered up a gem of wisdom that was actually helpful, like telling me about a great baby sling or helping distract the baby while I load something into my shopping cart.... that might actually be appreciated. However, when a random stranger gets it into their head that they know better than you what your child needs..... man is that infuriating!

gotta wander off, breakfast time is apon us and Mielle is begging for "oats! Mama... high chair, oats!"


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

I swear, whenever I have easy access to a computer, it seems like nothing is going on here.... BUT, let me stay away for a day or two and BAMMMO! there's like 3 pages of posts to read! What's up ladies? Where are you all hiding at?

So, today was my niece's birthday, she turned one year old today! I have really enjoyed spending time with a littler baby than my own nearly toddler... My niece Ribh is so darn funny, she's just so enthusiastic and impulsive. She lurches around here so very determinedly, it's hysterical watching her tag along after the bigger kids. It is really touching watching my older sister react to her last baby's first birthday..... I took some really great photos of her snuggling Ribh sleeping in her arms. I can't wait to see her post them on her blog!

On a totally off topic note, my sister and her family have a friend of theirs living here with them, who I've known for years. He and I have been out of touch for years and It's been really cool re-connecting with him. However, I almost feel quilty for enjoying his company so much, what with Jerome being back home in Wisconsin pining away for me and all. It's not like anything has happened or anything, I just have to admit that I'm really drawn to this man and it's weird to be feeling this way. So, I guess I'm wondering if any of you have words of wisdom regarding dealing with feeling such attraction/ interest / connection with someone who is not your partner? It seems unhealthy to dwell on my reaction to him, however should I limit myself from enjoying spending time with him? It's not that often that I connect with someone this deeply and it seems like a damn waste to not honor that..... (I guess the real "problem" is that the interest is definitely reciprocated... and that feels akward)

Well, night night and love to all!


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Anna -- Hi, I'm here! And I had a totally similar experience with a guy who I met through my teaching program several years ago. It was RIGHT before DH and I got married. It was so confusing. I felt so guilty and thought, gosh, I shouldn't be getting married! I was attracted to this other guy, he was very different than DH, and I could tell he was attracted to me as well, even though he was married too. So, this was probably several months that this went on for. Of course, nothing ever happened, even though there were many nights of barhopping with all the future teachers...







:LOL. Long story short -- I talked with lots of my good friends about it, and every one of them said: TOTALLY normal to have "crushes" on people throughout your life/marriage (especially for some people who are love crazy, like me...). You can't stop it. You just have to keep it in check, is how I feel. And I do think that I just sort of kept my distance from said guy and eventually we both went our seperate ways and now I have that feeling like I couldn't ever imagine "being" with him in any romantic way. It was just a weird connection/interest and it fizzled. Now I see how different we are and how it would never have worked out should I have gone that route. It sure is weird when you're right in the thick of it, though. So I guess you just have to keep in mind to enjoy the connection (distantly, of course) and realize that life will go on happily with Jerome.









Meg -- I got angry just reading what happened to you with that woman!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Meg - I got ENRAGED reading your post! How nosey, parental, obnoxious, paternal, bossy. Grrr! I had a similar experience a few years ago with my dog actually - a stranger deciding that my dog needed protection from me and going to far as to call the police - who sent the fire dept. and animal protective services, both of whom agreed the dog is obviously spoiled rotten and that their time was wasted. The woman only left us alone when I began calling the police on her! The most annoying part was the woman was wearing leather, with leather interior on her car and talking about how she had to advocate for animals. I wanted to ask how she advocated for the cows that took a bolt gun to the head for her fashion.

You handled the situation better than me - I have no compunction about getting into loud public arguments when necessary







Too many protests in my youth, I suppose.

Another ENRAGING situation: Yesterday Clint put on a load of Robin's laundry - stuffed to the top of course. He dried it then when I went to take it out he said there was peanut butter on some clothes. I was confused until I went to check - There were 2 exploded tubs of to-go peanut butter that had been put in her pockets and every single thing was COVERED in peanut butter and little grease spots. So I had to spend the entirity of her nap scraping peanut butter off all her clothes - when I had several other things that I can only do while she was asleep that had to be done. And I knew it was the IL's b/c they have a stash of peanut butter tubs. I couldn't resist calling and telling MIL to please inform us when she puts such things in her pockets as we are not in the habit of checking them - as Robin can't even find them on her own. The stuff did clean up - after scraping every item, spot treating and re-washing on hot. I looked like this:























Anna: I've had similar situations, both with guys and girls, in the 11.5 years Clint and I have been together. I have a similar take on it as Aug. - I think crushes are very normal, healthy, even fun. But for me, when I am in the situation, I think about what I want in the long run. It is heady and exciting to meet and connect with someone new. And it's even more exciting when you know it is reciprocated. But ultimately Clint is who I want for my life partner, and neither one of us is interested in an open relationship (although I have known one couple who have had a sucessful open relationship). So that makes it very easy to not go too far down that path. I enjoy the excitement of the crush, but never even consider letting it go farther. It hasn't happened in a while. I think if you look at the family you have made and know that is where you want to be, it's easy to step back a bit, set some emotional boundaries for yourself (as well as physical, of course







).

I finished the baby quilt I made for my friend- it turned out so beautiful and cool - I'm very proud. I guess I should have taken pictures before i gave it to her but I was so excited! I went with her this morning to pick out fabric for a more traditional quilt and bumper pad she wants to try to make. I hope we can do it justice - she's got ambitious plans but has never made a quilt before - the devil is in the details.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Briefly -

Becca - wow, I can't believe you got those stains out. btw, how did things work out with your ILs and the hospital bill for Robin? And how has she healed? (Jo was wondering. She hears all of these stories from me...)

Anna - I know what you're saying. I still - still! - have a crush on a very dear friend of mine whom I've known now for nearly 10 years, ever since she was 17, at which point we pretty much had a crush on each other but I told her that 6 years difference was too much at that point. Well, in the meantime I met my Joey Jo and although I'm still totally crushed out on this wonderful woman, I agree with becca - Jo is the person I am meant to be with for life. My friend - we would have driven each other crazy by now. She has personality traits and habits that I can deal with as a friend but as a partner they would have sent me around the bend. She has a partner herself now. The way I look at it, the human heart has a great capacity... you just have to make sure that you take all parties into account. For some couples, a polyamorous relationship works. For us, it would just be jealousy and badness. But I believe that it's all right for me to have a crush on my friend, because I'm not going to act on it - but I can't change how I feel. She's got a corner in my heart and has for a long time. Guess it won't be going away anytime soon. But that's all right. Good thing the heart is a stretchy muscle







ok, I gotta go to bed. xo j


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Thanks for the words of wisdom ladies, I guess I mostly just needed to get it off my chest. It's weird talking to my sister about it, as he is her good friend and knows us both really well, and while Jerome knows that in the past I've reacted intensely to this man, I somehow don't think I should go saying so to him, over the phone, with him being so lonely and blue.....
However, I am considering having a tactful discussion with Jerome when I get home. He IS my very best friend and I don't like "keeping" things from him.

Mielle just found the power button on the computer and turned it off! Thankfully I managed to post before it shut entirely down. Toddlers!

Speaking of toddlers, Mielle is picking up some very bad habits from her older cousin (nearly 3) who has not be modeling very good sharing behaivior. The snatching, crying, whining and knocking each other down is driving me mad. Mielle watches as her cousin takes toys and hoardes them protectively, snatches things from Mielle and then Mielle in turn does the same to her little cousin who just turned one. I can't stand it. However, it almost seems like the more I interfere the worse it gets. Just letting them work it out seem to cause less screaming, BUT now Mielle is acting in a way I hate seeing....
So, experienced mamas what do you think, my sister seems to feel it is age appropriate, and mostly takes a hands off approach. She does use positive reinforcement (when possible!) and alot of redirection. I must admit, it really steams me up to see things being snatched out of Mielle's hands. I want to get all authoritarian on them and make it clear they MUST SHARE! So, what has worked for you?

kisses


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Hm. Mostly Steph and I (whose sons play together at least once a week, if not more often) leave the boys alone to figure it out, we've been doing this for at least a year now since they've started showing any interest in toys and each other. Lately if a scrum threatens to break out over a toy we try to give the "snatcher" a similar toy or point out that there are other toys just like that one they can play with... or we've gone so far as to ask the boy who has the object of desire if he would share it. This works especially with Tristan who is very (surprisingly) willing to share. He's not a pushover - he doesn't let things be taken from him, but he will happily hand them over and find something else to play with in most (not all!!) cases.

I say 'surprisingly' willing to share because a lot of people tell me that I am doing Tristan no favors keeping him out of daycare, ECFE and other programs, and not taking him to big playtimes at local parks, etc because he will "never learn to share". Frankly I think he does much better sharing than most of his friends who are involved in these programs. Maybe he has an innate desire to see people happy...?

Tristan, however, plays mostly with his age-mates. I think in your case there is an onus of responsibility that rests with your sister to point out to Mielle's cousin that he/she (not sure if it's G. or Q. - I thought G. is older though?) is the "big kid" and needs to show the "babies" how to share with one another. If this behavior that Mielle is learning is really bothering you, then I think you should tell your sister before it goes too much further - or you can step in yourself and tell older cuz to model better behavior and what you want to see. Your sis might feel her parenting toes stepped on, though.

My two cents. I agree with both of you - there has to be a limit, but you also have to strike a balance.


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Becca, Augs, Savannah... thanks for letting me know that would have made you mad too! I am just glad I could get it off my chest to all of you. My dh thinks it's funny, but I'm sure that's just because I'll bet you all my coffee money that no one would ever do that to HIM. Becca, I honestly thought of you when I was searching for more backbone.... I just know you would have read that woman the riot act.

So how 'bout the toddler whining?!!! Oh my goodness, it's driving me crazy.

Cecilia plays nicely with older kids and tolerates a lot, but isn't very into younger kids.... we've been talking alot about 'bebe's' so maybe she won't freak out and cry so much when they approach her and touch what she's playing with. I must say I love my friends with the older kids (and the ones close to her age) because they always do such a nice job making sure their kids play nice. I was raised with no hitting, so the idea of doing so ever, for anything is just stressful to me, I'm not sure I could ever deal with my kid doing it.... although I bet I had better realize that it happens, eh?









Greg and I have some great male friends that I just love being so close to. One guy in particular is just my fave. But it's easy for me to keep it all in check, I just remember; the exact reason why we all have little crushes is because we don't REALLY and truly know each other! Crushes are fun, but your partner is the real deal.









Okay, we're setting up the big bed for Cecilia today, I'd better go clean.
-meg


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## StacyL (May 4, 2004)

Just thought I'd post about my u/s today. I'm 22 weeks tomorrow.

The new baby is another boy!









Everything looked good on the u/s and I hope Alex will be excited to have a little brother.

We are naming him Gabriel Paul.


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Oh, Stacy! Congrats! They will be the best of friends!


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Congrats, Stacy. That is so neat.









Meg, the whining is driving me crazy!!! Oh my goodness, it is constant here.







I don't even know how to respond. I find myself reasoning with her as I would an adult, but then I feel siily because she is just a toddler. How do you guys respond to the incessant whining?

Oh, and that lady had some nerve!









Gosh, I haven't gotten on in forever b/c I have been house hunting non stop in seems. The house I loved turned out to have a utility pole in the backyard. I hadn't even noticed, but dh did. I didn't really think much of it but it really bothered him, so I did some research and found some disturbing info. so we decided to pass on it. Now I've found some other really great ones. My favorite house, of course, is not in my favorite neighborhood. I think I'm leaning with choosing based on neighborhood b/c the other house I like is nice, too, and I think we can make it ours...anyway, it's a big decision and I'm ready to go ahead and make it and move on already!


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Stacy, congratulations! I LOVE Gabriel.... very handsome name.









Yes, the whining is rough. For someone who doesn't use many words, Cecilia certainly can whine well! Sometimes I find myself just standing there, staring at her as she goes into the whine-and-meltdown routine. But she says a cute little version of 'thanks' now for everything that only Greg and I understand.

House hunting sounds like it's going pretty well, Leomom! Must be exciting. I don't think we'll ever be doing something like that, my dh is a carpenter and we're pretty firmly planted here.... so I have very romantic ideas about 'house hunting'. It sounds fun!


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Meg -- I hate it when people do that to me. Partially because my mother is one of those crazy women who does that sort of thing to people.







: It is tres embarassing to be out with her. She has no internal censor.

Anna -- I agree with all of the above peoples. I know that I am a really intense person and I FEEL everything, so whenever I really connect with someone it feels like a crush. I generally just take care not to let myself be left alone with such people to avoid temptation. About . . . 7 years ago I had such an intense crush on this one guy in my university drama program (there were only about 50 people in it, so you can't really avoid people) that I was in agony for a full 6 months -- and did not act on it. Of course, dh and I'd relationship was also rocky, so it was almost the end. But by the grace of God and by our sheer stubborness, we kept it together and lived happily ever after.

Andrew loves the older kids at church, especially this one set of boys, age 6 and 9. The 6 year old will lead him all around and carry him around (I am fine with this) and play chase games with him. ITs great. When they are running around the church during coffee time he tags along behind them. This Sunday we had a LONG meeting after chruch and some of the kids were there and then they went home, and Andrew was wandering around saying "kids? kids?" for the rest of the meeting.

Today Andrew and I went to visit my friend Sharon who has a girl 2 weeks younger than ds (plus a 4 yr old and a 9 wk old), and she insisted on kissing him non-stop. Um, the other toddler, not my friend. So he started to retaliate by hitting her on the head. BUt THEN he discovered that becuase she has very little hair he liked the noise it made to hit her on the head. So I had to remove him from her presence about 10 times and then carry him around in the mei tai for a while until he got the message that it was NOT a good thing. He even hit her with a toy guitar.









I met another mama at play group! She only comes to town once in a while becuase her dh has a contract job teaching at the local college. I went over to her house for tea. It was kind of hard to be there, though, because she let her boy CIO (for reasons that I could understand, but still) and she kept going on about how much easier things were now that he had CIO. IT was really hard to know how to respond. When she said that she didn't know how people got their kids to eat / sleep / sit still, I said that I thought maybe our society just expected too much of babies and that they were just doing was was appropriate for their age. She said she had NEVER heard anyone say anything like that before! I felt bad because she was obviously distressed that her son didn't fit into the "norm".

OH, congrats, Stacey! I'm glad everything is all good.
Well, I should wash dishes and go to bed. Goodnight, all!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Stacey - I've been wondering how your Pg is going. COngrats on another Boy!!

Whining...yep, we have a little. But then I look at my nephew, who is still very clingy, fusses a lot more than Robin, and I feel like I can't really complain. I think our problem is that RObin is "over" all her toys - except her cuddly ones, which she only wants for car/sleepytime. So, she gets bored and wants me - she leads me by the finger and whines until I do what she wants - sit and read, open the door to the back porch (where there are funner toys), turn on PBS/video (I think it's just more entertaining than her toys right now), etc. So, I'm trying to figure out ways to build in more entertainment for her - being intentional about going outside to play/on the porch, going to playgrounds, sitting and reading more, etc. I really don't want to rely on tv and am setting limits - but I have to make sure she has other things to entertain her or else the whining begins!

Which leads me to another question: what does your toddler just LOVE to do/play with right now? I've been trying to sit and color with RObin and sit and do play-dough. SHe liked the play-dough okay, although coloring is too tricky still. She still loves to read books. Anybody having fun with puzzles? play kitchens? what?

Jen - Thanks for asking about Robin and the stinkin' IL's. RObin's scars are actually starting to look a bit lighter. The big ones are now like a dark pink instead of red and the smaller ones are a medium pink now. The little ones actually bother me most, I guess b/c they are in the middle of her face, so I'm really glad that they are fading quickly. I also still worry a little about the one near her lip b/c it's been really thick and tough (that was the cut that went all the way through her cheek) - but I felt it the other day and it's still thick but getting better. The docs all said they would fade a lot, but after months of not seeing that, I had my doubts. But I;m starting to believe. As for the bill situation....Still no pay back! But, I found out tonight that when we had our furnace replaced they paid for it and we are supposed to pay them back. So I think it's in order to leave the $400 off our repayment







. I'm going to discuss with DH and have him ask them if that's an acceptable plan for them. But at least now I feel like we have some power - we owe them money instead of vice versa. (Although I really wish the IL's wouldn't presume to pay our bills for us - I feel pretty strongly about not being in the debt of others. But the heat/ac guy is a friend of theirs and for some reason billed them for our furnace)

It's funny you get that pressure to put T in a school program - I have heard comments about how playschool makes kids more aggressive. I guess you can't win, huh? RObin is in a half day program 3 days/week and I have to say that she absolutely loves it and I absolutely have to have the time to work/plan lessons/get stuff done. But it's not for every family. Robin doesn't look back when I put her dwon at school - I try to call her back to get a kiss and most days she won't come!

On rough play: It's not a big problem now, but a few months ago we had BIG problems with my neice snatching, grabbing and occasionally hitting. It just wasn't okay with me - especially b/c she's 2 years older than the babes. We tried a lot of different tactics. The things that worked: when it was VERY bad and the little ones were younger, I would put out a bowl of something and an emplty bowl. Every time my neice got rough or mean, I moved some of the stuff (like cereal or dried beans) from one bowl to the other. If the first bowl got empty, she had to go to time out. If it stayed full, lots of praise. When she shared or was nice, I put a few pieces back into the first bowl. It was a good "token" reward/punishment - so she wasn't getting put in time out for every little thing, but there was a cumulative consequence. When she saw my hand in that bowl, she straightened right up. As she got better, I ditched that and When she got rough or grabby, I told her she needed to take a breather and led her away from that toy. SHe wasn't in "trouble", but she couldn't play with that toy for a few minutes - but the babies could. It showed her gently there was no reward for her behavior and that if she wanted to play with the toy she had to play nicely. At the same time, if the babes grabbed from her, they couldn't get the toy either - so she saw that it wasn't just her getting picked on.

Hitting is just not okay - my neice gets time out immediately. The babes get told very seriously that it's not nice, then shown how to be nice instead. I now also ask RObin to hug and say she's sorry (she can't actually say sorry, but she does hug). Of course, most of her hitting is directed towards alfred (the beagle), so thankfully he is very patient and lets her beat him up then also hug him.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

The toys that keep LaRue's attention the most is probably one of our least "natural" toys. She LOVES the Little People area and she plays for awhile, making the toys talk to each other and things like that. I got four small rectangle tables from IKEA and put them all together. Then I got the Little People House, Farm, Amusement Park, Playground, and we have a hospital but it's not a part of the Little People toys. So the whole table is a little town full of lots of things to do. It is the single best toy station in the whole playroom and it's the one thing that both my 5 year old and 1 year old always go and play at. We have a little chair set up there and they will both play forever with the toys. No other toys keep their attention as well as those.

As for puzzles, we have two jumbo puzzles from Melissa and Doug that are fun. LaRue likes them and will play with them for a few minutes.

But LaRue's favorite things are books, Little People, and drawing.

As for whining, both LaRue and Chloë whine A LOT and it's super annoying, no solutions here







:


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

I forgot to say...

Leomom ~ How exciting house hunting must be! A few years back I was house hunting, now the market is crazy and we can't afford anything. But the thought of doing that again makes me happy. I love looking at house and imagining their potential. In my city, the CRAPPEST houses in the scary neighborhoods are almost half a million dollars, it's very sad. I live in a nice area (not the nicest, but a very nice family neighborhood) and a small 2 bd., 1 bath house next door to the one we are renting went for over $600,000. I think the sq ft. of the house is like 900sq ft or something. Even renting over here is horrible. 1 bedroom tiny apt. are $1,100/month. We lucked out and got a big 3 bedroom house for $950/month. That's literally unheard of around here, but our close friend's grandma owns the house.

StacyL ~ Congrats on your second son! The name is very nice.

I had to take some pictures for another auction that I put up and I just wanted to share one of the pictures of my sweetie. She is just such a little love








http://harmonywear.com/images/popfloral2.jpg


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Me again







Yo Becca, I was wondering if you got my pm that I sent you a few days ago?


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

Harmony she is a cutie! I love the dress!

Congratulations Stacy! I love having two boys.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

FF - sorry - I got it and haven't replied ye t- I couldn't make a fabric decision!

I've been going crazy this week and last week. DH has been working crazy hours - gone before I wake up, and home after I have to go to work - which means I have to take robin to my IL's, which adds 15 minutes to my travel time, plus getting her ready and making sure I have everything she needs before i leave the house. Plus then I have to put the puppy up when I leave and make sure both dogs have been outside, etc. It makes going to work a huge ordeal - on top of having to get showered and dressed professionally - no small feat with a toddler underfoot. So in addition to missing him, I am feeling insane.

Then, Robin got sent home from school after only 1.5 hours today because she had a runny nose and eye boogers. Are you kidding me? She's been like that for months! I guess I understand why they did it, but it sucks that this morning wsa my only time all week to not be caring for her or working - and I needed it!! I have to plan for my evening classes and her school time is my only gauranteed chance - Naps are not bankable anymore. SOmetimes it takes me 45 minutes to get her down for a 45 minute nap. I did get her down for a nap and got my lecture and lesson prepared, plus diapers dried.

But I'm ready for a change. RObin hasn't seen her dad in 2 days - he's gone when we wake up and doesn't come home until she's in bed. Of course, he's got to put hre to bed tonight, but he won't be home before I've got to go to work again - so gotta run get dressed and take her to the IL's. The worst part is he is "on call" meaning they call our house at 2 am and he has to get online and fix stuff. Like we aren't up enough at night! Grrr...


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

CONGRATULATIONS, Stacy!! LLLLLOOOOVVE the name Gabriel Paul. How exciting!

Harmony, that dress and headband are so precious. I like the 3/4 sleeves on your chubby-armed cherub. Are you having good response to your new eBay boutique?

YBecca, I'm sorry to hear your life-without-dh schedule is so tough. Will it be over soon?

Harmony, that Little People station sounds amazing! Your house must be enormous.

The babies have discovered a new fun game ... filling and emptying bowls of water outside with rocks from the yard. Started when we visited a friend with a little quail bath on her rocky ground. They also like to climb on our castle slide (I brought it inside for the winter), read books, play with blocks, watch big brother dance or be silly, and especially, love to play with electronic sounds and lights stuff like Big Brother's Star Wars light sabers, our cell phones, etc. They also love to watch Pooh, VeggieTales, Raffi, and Signing Time (www.signingtime.com -- amazing). Oh, the pots and pans and Tupperware are always a huge hit, too.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Last night before I went to sleep I composed an enormous post in which I actually responded to individual posters... it was witty, it was sweet... I was about to submit the reply after one last spell check, WHEN.... Mielle pressed the glowing green button of computer death!!!! My howls of fury resounded through the house. Not kidding. It mad me so ANGRY! I want to hit her, to bite her, to pull her head off and eat it!! O.K. just kidding. But, I did get so mad I had to walk away from her lest I strike her.
Isn't that stupid? It was just a post... nothing irreplaceable and precious. just blather, really. I hate when I react like that.

I am currently working on my temper, I have been becoming more and more aware that I become unreasonably angry with her and I don't like it. There are times when I am ashamed of myself for being so explosive about things.... I know I'm allowed to be angry,(from time to time, in appropriate ways) it just seems like sometimes I don't give myself the time or space in which to be sad, but if I'm feeling upset I can always be MAD. It's like anger creates space for itself, but sadness needs to be given space, or permission or something. I can't tell you the last ime I had a good clean restorative cry, but I guarantee I've had a powerful surge of temper within the week.... How do you cope with your emotions while caring for your children? Sometimes it seems like us mamas are expected to sacrifice everything for our kids, including our deepest feelings.
Any advice or good books to share?


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Thanks Msrog







The boutique group is going good, esp. for just starting out. Hopefully it will keep getting better as we get known by more of the boutique buyers.

Our house is a nice size for the price, but it's not huge. About 1600sq ft. But the playroom is the biggest room of the house. The Little People station doesn't take up _that_ much space though, esp. when I think about how they are the most played toys. Here's a picture I took of it: http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...e/misc2123.jpg


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Harmony, I the Little People town is so neat! I'm going to do something like that when and if I get a playroom!









Anna, parenting can be very trying on my patience, too. Sometimes I roll my eyes at Kate when she whines and then I realize that I absolutely wouldn't want her to behave like that to me and I feel horrible. But, I mean, we are human. And we are supposed to be "on" pretty much any hour of the day, which is impossible. When I do something I don't like, I take mental note of it, forgive myself, apologize to Kate if necessary, and move on. It's a constant struggle to be patient in the midst of all the needing, wanting, and whining, but if I just pick her up and hug her it helps a little...


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Anna -- I so hear you on the temper issue. I have a temper of my own -- I am also not by nature a highly patient person. So Thor's whining and tantrums really try me. Daily sometimes. There have been times when I set him down on the living room floor and went into the bathroom, lest I do something totally stupid, like yell at him, or shake him, or whatever my crazy self might do at that time. Just sitting in the bathroom taking deep breaths on the verge of tears for a few seconds (and listening to his very sad cries) generally makes me cool off. Lately I have also been trying to figure out how to control my feelings of anger/frustration. One thing I have tried to do is really catch it early, like when I start feeling my blood pressure go up, or when I start to feel like I'm going to lose it, I instantly take deep breaths -- it really helps!! Also, reminding myself constantly that "he's only a baby, he's only a baby, he's only a baby" REALLY helps too. Sometimes I even say it out loud! I hope that helps a little... I know how terribly hard it can be to deal with, and how guilty I feel sometimes. I don't even really like to talk about it with anyone because often I feel like such a bad mama for getting angry with him.

Becca -- My DH is gone too, and boy is it tough. He'll be back tomorrow night, but still just getting Thor ready in the morning by myself is a serious undertaking. I tried to take a shower this morning and shut him in the bathroom with me. It was like a 5 minute shower and in that time he: put all the shampoo bottles in the toilet and flushed them, pulled all the toilet paper off the roll and tore lots of it up into tiny pieces, practiced brushing his teeth with 3 different toothbrushes, found an ancient stash of tampons and threw them all over.

At least he was having fun!!! I'm begging my mom to come over tonight...









Savannah -- Bowls of water and cellphones are a big hit here as well!!


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Anna - I hear you LOUD AND CLEAR. Boy howdy. I used to think that I was patient and in control - turns out that's only with other peoples' kids. With my own I would find myself fed up, angry, shouting and ready to cause damage. I usually would take out the damage-causing frustration on inanimate objects - never on T - but if I would raise my voice at him or be sharp with him I was usually immediately in tears of shame. Burning, horrible shame at being so caustic to an innocent little boy who didn't intentionally do anything wrong, and who trusts me to solve problems for him and take care of him. I'd get mad at myself for squelching his innate curiosity (gee, what happens if I turn my sippy cup of water over again? oh yeah, the water goes all over the table!) and particularly for my assumption that he somehow is making a conscious decision to wake me in the middle of the night purely to interrupt my sleep and would be able to go back to sleep himself if he just put his mind to it and stopped being contrary. Lack of sleep makes me feel even worse and more short-tempered.

I combat it with a variety of things: 1, I asked for an amber bracelet for Christmas, as amber reminds me of patience, and its golden color reminds me of the golden rule - I am trying to remember to treat Tristan the way I would want to be treated if I were in his shoes - who knows, maybe some day he will be wiping off my face and hands after a meal...! - and the peridot beads the amber is set with in the bracelet are supposed to be good for mood-lifting, helping to release negative energy and ridding a body of resentment. Second, Jo's aunt gave me a gigantic antique amber mala (string of prayer beads) for Christmas. When I am totally p.o.'ed I just sit and hold them and try to breathe evenly. The amber seems to absorb a lot of negative energy out of me. I always find myself trying to distill what exactly is bothering me and whether my expectations are reasonable. Usually what I come up with I end up saying to myself over and over in my head (homemade mantra of sorts) until I feel better.

Oh, and I cry. A lot. I'm glad I have an understanding partner because last time I cried in front of my midwife (on a grey, rainy day, 6 weeks pp, inadequate milk supply, bf'ing around the clock, baby losing weight and taking no solid naps, having to feed baby formula, missing my career etc) she automatically assumed that I needed drugs. Well, maybe I did need drugs... but my dad used to work across the hall from a scientist who spent his entire career researching tears. He used to pay people to come watch sad movies, or come sit over chopped onions, or collect tears at home when they're angry, frustrated, if they cut themselves, etc. He found that tears that are cried in frustration, in anger, in fear and especially during pregnancy, post-partum and PMS are LOADED with hormones. Tears are the body's way of releasing excess amounts of hormones that it can no longer deal with. That's why you feel so much better after a decent cry - your body can handle the amount of hormones left behind after the purge.

OK, post way long. Must go do things. And don't think that I don't still find myself mad at my son and madder at myself. Every night before bed I pray "Lord, help me to be the mother I want to be." And I manage it maybe once a week. This is gonna be a really, really long haul.

As Sarah (sistermama... miss you) put it: it's really easy to be a mediocre parent and really, really hard to be a good one.

xoxo, j


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AugustineM*
I know how terribly hard it can be to deal with, and how guilty I feel sometimes. I don't even really like to talk about it with anyone because often I feel like such a bad mama for getting angry with him.


Exactly!!! Seriously, why is it so hard to admit that I get THAT mad about stuff?? Are we supposed to be perfect?? And why is it so hard to ask for help?
I swear, there are times when there are other people around, like my MIL or my mom who would love to take Mielle off my hands for an hour or so, but I'm not willing to admit how badly I NEED a break. Considering that I spend nearly every minute of every day with her, it's not unreasonable to want some time without her.... why can't I admit to my family that I need help? It seems like I don't want to "look bad" and I don't want to be criticized... but it's so much worse when I lose my temper and some one witnesses it.
My mother recently asked me about my temper and it prompted this introspection... I'm trying to find ways to express my anger more appropriately and to give Mielle warnings that my patience is being tested, rather than suddenly exploding with anger. That seems to be part of the problem, I find myself working so hard to not get angry that when I do get angry.... it's ugly.
Anyway, thank you all for being a part of a support system where I can admit my short comings without feeling judged. I have known some of you for 2 years now! It's amazing to me that our group has changed so much and yet retained the feeling of community and support. From the early pregnancy morning sickness, To us results, to amazing and heartbreaking birth stories, to struggles breastfeeding, to celebrating all the "firsts" and now the struggles of adapting to toddlers... it's so great to have you guys to share with.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

BTW Harmony you're clothing is SOOOOOO gorgeous! I was absolutely drooling over you're newest set (once I found it!) I love the design of that dress, it looks like you could get a ton of use out of it. Maybe someday I'll actually get something from you... it seems silly to get a sling at this stage, what with Mielle walking so much. But, if I get pregnant again.... oh yeah!

Are you still taking on clothing or is the new boutique keeping you too busy? I would be interested in seeing your girls clothing line again.... I couldn't find it through the sling site.


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Thanks Anna! I appreciate the compliment







I'm mostly sewing for the boutique group. I'm keeping myself to one new set for ebay ever week. Which ends up meaning that I'm sewing 2 sets each week just for ebay (one for the new auction and one for the winner of the previous auction). I still take custom orders, but the wait might be a little long. Both YoBecca and Leomom are next on my list and they've both been waiting for a over a month. And of course, I don't take money for custom orders until I'm ready to make it. The surest way to get my clothes quickly is through ebay. Here is my sewing gallery which has most of the clothes I've made: http://flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/994488/


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## FeministFatale (Dec 16, 2004)

Oops, I forgot that some of my pictures were listed as private so only I could see them







I made them all public now so that they can be seen now.


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## Mama Bear (Aug 4, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *banana girl*
Anyway, thank you all for being a part of a support system where I can admit my short comings without feeling judged. I have known some of you for 2 years now! It's amazing to me that our group has changed so much and yet retained the feeling of community and support. From the early pregnancy morning sickness, To us results, to amazing and heartbreaking birth stories, to struggles breastfeeding, to celebrating all the "firsts" and now the struggles of adapting to toddlers... it's so great to have you guys to share with.









ITA!!! I know I don't post as much as I used to, but I feel the same way. I totally feel like you all know me better than some of my IRL friends. And I am so glad to have you all here for support. I also deal with the same feelings and needing to keep my temper in check. It's awesome to know we are all here for each other.









ETA - FF I







your outfits! You are SO incredibly talented. If I had a girl I would be all over them.


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

I hear you all loud and clear on the anger thing! In fact, just tonight I made the (idiotic and irrational) decision to try to take the girls shopping so I could buy a suit for a board meeting next week. So I drive 40 minutes to get to the closest mall and (big shock) the girls are cranky because it's 8pm and (next big shock) they have no interest in patiently watching me try to pick out something that'll make me look halfway decent in my first big meeting.

You'd think I would have learned by now.

My worst moments are sleep deprived middle of the night moments and kids out of control in public moments.

In any case, Jen, maybe I'll try the amber thing.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

ANother "amen" on the anger issue. Anna, I think you hit the nail on the head about anger coming out easily and other emotions getting bottled. I think that's why the anger comes out so easily. I feel like I have been so suppresed since having RObin - No social life, no professional life, no intellectual stimulation, no romance (well, maybe once or twice), etc. No time with friends to vent. Too much time with both my family and the I:s SO it all blows up when I just can't take the little things that drive me nuts - much less the big things.

My mom has a very short and ugly temper, but my dad is a fount of patience. I've always been a pretty even mix - I can be very patient, but definitely have a temper, and then I always try to be intentional about apologizing and calling myself on my crap. I live in fear that as I get older I'll fall into a pattern of snapping and being short-tempered. It's my biggest parenting fear actually - that I'll perpetuate that cycle and Robin will be afraid of me.

Every time I lose my patience - usually when I am exhausted and frustrated or overwhelmed byt the long to-do list ahead of me - I feel so bad, disappointed in myself, sad for RObin. I really need to have a system for handling those moments better. I try to remind myself what I want RObin to remember about her childhood, and that it isn't me yelling. It seems especially critical as she's getting older and wiser and is starting to show some more aggressive behavior - I need to model being "nice"

But I think it would be a LOT easier if I didn't feel that pressure of being "on" 24/7.







Gosh, it would be lots easier to be a mediocre parent!


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

PS - I went to the consignment store today searching for a new fun toy - hoping to find a weeble or little people barn/farm (RObin loves Cows = we hear about them all the time and those are her fave books). Pickings were slim, but what did she insist on leaving with? A teletubbie doll. Or, as she says "Taytay! Taytay!" I indulged her - plus got her a little firetruck and a Melissa and DOug big knob animal puzzle (a good find for this town).

I hope they'll provide some good entertainment - but also she spiked a fever today so that mght explain some of the restlessness. I was giving her decongestants at the height of her cold and then stopped when it seemed better, but now it's much worse! SO now she'll miss school tomorrw and it's Pajama Day, when the kids all wear pj's and the little ones eat breakfast-for-lunch with the 3- and 4 year olds. Poor Robin would LOVE to go eat with the big kids. Now she's gonna spend tomorrow with MIL while DH and I work all day


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

_Anyway, thank you all for being a part of a support system where I can admit my short comings without feeling judged._








:








I totally agree, Anna! I find it very helpful and therapeutic in a way to get daily realizations that I'm totally not alone in this whole mommy thing. And while my friends IRL are helpful and fun as well, they're not a daily support network... working part time has really cut into my social life, unfortunately. No time for anything but work and family, which is really OK with me right now.

I have a question I've been meaning to ask people who are either TV-free or trying to go TV-free. Do you still watch movies? I myself almost never watch TV, we don't have cable and get like 4 channels, but we're Netflix addicts. Does that veto our chances of TV freeness?


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## Almamiel (Dec 24, 2002)

We get pbs and do the netflix thing, too. It works well for us. M and R watch maybe 1/2 hr to 1 hr of TV (clifford, maya and miguel)per day, depending on how far at the end of his rope DP is,







, and we don't feel too guilty about it. I grew up the same way (TV with PBS and movies only) and give it my vote.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Jo tries to talk me into watching movies. I'm not big on them. We mostly watch the hour of british comedies on PBS between 10 and 11 central. We watched the Frontline documentary "Country Boys" but we had to tape it (on too late!). I don't watch anything else on purpose lest I get completely sucked in - I turn into a total zombie. Jo wants to get netflix and get all the movies and shows she thinks we "need" to see (The L Word, etc). I can't get too excited about them, unfortunately... shucks, what can I say, I've never been into watching the tube much. I love re-watching shows that I know I like - I could watch "The Full Monty" once a week and not get bored with it. But about the only time I'd feel lost without the tube is during a severe storm.

Now... the computer? that's another story







g'night, j


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Oh, I so hear you all on the anger issue. I get so mad at Andrew -- especially when I'm trying to get something done and he's bored and clingy, or when I'm trying to change a poopy diaper and he leaps up and starts spreading it all over the bathroom, or when he just won't stop whining. Somewhere on MDC (I don't remember where) someone suggested the book _Giving the Love that Heals_ by Dr Harville Hendrix. I'm going to see if I can find it next time I'm at my library. I get really nervous because my Mom was physically abusive to one of my sisters. I really don't want to go down that route, but I know I have a bad, violent temper. It just hasn't surfaced since I was a kid.

I talked to DH about this recently, and we decided that I need some time out. So he is going to take Andrew 3 times a week -- twice so I can go swimming (excersise is such a stress release for me) and once so I can do something creative in the basement. This last Tuesday I did some oragami. It was amazingly refreshing.

I find it so hard, because usually by the time I get Andrew settled and the house tidy and spend some time with dh and catch up on my email / MDC, it's way too late for anything rejuvenating. I feel so boring and uncreative, and I'm so sleep deprived that all my wit and charm is gone. I feel like the real me is permanantly watching my life from inside, going "What happened? This is pathetic!", but I'm so tired and tapped out that I can't change anything. It is very frustrating.

OKay, that's my vent for the week.
Harmony, I love your Little People corner. I am so yard saling for little people stuff this summer, because it is awesome. I remember it from when I was a kid.

Favorite amusements: "playing" (really dumping water out of) at the kitchen sink while standing on a chair. Andrew would do this all day if I let him. Also shovelling and sweeping the house or deck. Reading, especially early Dr. Seuss books (Hop on Pop, ABC, Mr Brown can Moo . . someone save me from iambic pentameter and little furry people!). Distributing various kitchen items from the cupboard all over the floor and then hitting them with large spoons, or trying to fit them inside each other or pouring water from the sink on top of them . . . we spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

We have been tv free for . . . 12 years now, but we've rented movies for the last 5. We would like to get CBC again, but can't get our antenna to work. We listen to a lot of CBC radio. DH watches movies every Sunday night as a brain drain, and I sometimes join him. We try to keep Andrew away from tv, because when we started letting him watch kids' movies he would do nothing all day except say "t . . t. . .pooh . . .pooh . . t" and then scream if he didn't get to watch Winnie the Pooh. So now we don't get anything for him except on very bad teething / sick days or when we're with other people. I think when our kids are older we might do a weekly movie night as a special treat, or just get PBS. I grew up with a lot of tv, but dh grew up with none.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Jilly, I was going to say something similar... I have found that being creative is my most effective anger reducer. So I try to sew or crochet or write almost every day. I've been much calmer since I started sewing again this week after a few weeks away from it. And "hiding" in my bedroom under the covers with a book. Aaaaaaaahhhh. Sometimes I just have to tell my dh, "OK, I'm disappearing for awhile, tag you're it" and lock myself in the other room.

Anna, I am soooooooooo with you on the anger issue. It's like pretty much every mom's secret pain. I heard a radio program once where the author of "She's Gonna Blow!" was speaking. I ran out and got the book!! I've actually not read it through, though, because I almost immediately stopped having the anger problem. I had finally realized I had too high expectations in my life, and needed to end some activities and commitments that ate my quiet family time and that were stressing me out. So de-busying myself helped a lot, too. And I think just realizing other moms were dealing with the same stuff was cathartic.

Dh and I had an especially sexy evening today.... Hmmmm, I wonder if my cycle is trying to start? The babies just turned 17 months, and blissfully have been sleeping through the night for about a month. (Aaaahhh) They also nurse less before nap, since they usually eat a decent lunch beforehand.


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## Subhuti (Feb 18, 2005)

Anger and pregnancy. I'm just finishing my first trimester







and I've really been confounded by anger much more so than at any other time. The hormones and fatigue just are not a good combo. So I resonate with losing my temper. It's just not fun.

I've found nursing to be a great antidote to irritability with Lulu. When we nurse, she stops all the crying and I get a rush of that (hormone-ladden) calm. The only problem is, my milk has given out so no more let down, no more oxytocin.







But nursing used to help with anger! Keep on nursing, moms!

Liz


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Liz -- I also lost my milk right at the end of my first trimester. I think I have a few drops now when Thor nurses in the morning, but almost nothing. He still LOVES nursing, though, and still does it twice a day or more.

UGH, I'm having sicky issues with Thor... he's been sick for 2 weeks, went on antibiotics (the first time he's had them) and then seemed to get better. THEN he got pink eye, though very mildly. Yesterday he seemed a lot better. Today I took him to daycare for about 4 hours and they called me to tell me he had a high fever!? ACK! Sure enough, his fever was about 102. WHAT is going on?? Now I'm worried... I mean, it seems so weird to be sick for so long, go through antibiotics, then have another high fever right away? What do you all think? Should I be worried or is this common?

At the moment he is fairly happy, running back and forth in the room, but I gave him ibuprofin about an hour ago, so I suspect that's kicking in...


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Augs, sorry about the sickness! It's hard and confusing. I'm sure what a dr. would say is to take another round of stronger antibiotics. BUT if you can keep his temp in check with tylenol or motrin for a while, then it will probably pass and he will start to mend. At lease that's what my MIL says.

On anger, I really don't experience too much of it, but that's possibly because I was a VERY militant teen and young adult. Somewhere around 25-26 yrs old I finally realized the world wasn't out to get me and that it was much easier to just stay calm. So now, I do. Like mostly super-calm.... UNTIL I go over the edge and feel much rage.







I learned that I should not go near the computer at home when Cecilia is awake because when she pushes the power button, I kinda go over the edge- why is it always the stupid stuff?

I do have a dh who helps a lot... that makes a big difference. He's got Cecilia right now and they are 'working' in the shop. I did find a little uniform for her and its a little too big, but it's made just like a 'big' persons; she looks like a midget in it!! Greg is pretty good about giving me a break b/c otherwise I become very short with him.

Savannah, I hear you about the dh time!! Greg and I just had the nicest evening together, just so sweet and warm-fuzzy feeling. We even discussed what we were doing and agreed on it and then in the morning I got up and: OMG what was I THINKING! I guess not about the practical side of things. Oh well....


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Oh, and we use Netflix and love it. We're on the no-limit plan. Sometimes we watch like 6 movies in a month; other times only 1 or 2...

My sister's family had a no-TV house the entire time her kids were growing up. They disconnected the antenna and cables, so there was still a nice big TV for watching movies and cartoon videos. When the kids were in jr. high, they got a cheezy little black and white TV in the master bedroom with rabbit ears and let the kids watch an occasional staticky baseball game or presidential address, etc. The video-watching TV was in the basement family room. Their main focal point in the living room upstairs was the fireplace instead of an entertainment center. There was always nice music playing when you went over there; either on CD or tape, or one of the kids would be playing amazingly on their piano or guitar.

YUCK. I ran out of my hand lotion, and after washing dishes went around frantically looking for some lotion to put on... I found a tiny bottle of that pink bottled baby lotion everyone likes to give you as a gift. MAN this stuff is soooo strong; I can hardly breathe. Poor babies! Can you imagine how overwhelmed their sensitive little noses must be when Mommy lotions them up with this crap? Egads...


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

We don't do TV when Kate is awake. But John and I are a little addicted to a few shows at night.







I was thinking of not putting a TV in the den when we move and just putting one in the game room and our bedroom. But I can't decide whether to put one in the game room or not, since Kate doesn't watch it. I could put the extra one in the guest room....hmmm....

I get the bad mom award this morning. Yesterday afternoon Kate and I went for frozen custard. And I let her have a kid's scoop of peach. She NEVER eats sugar or sweets and it didn't even occur to me that it might make her sick.







Poor thing threw up twice last night.







I feel awful and so stupid. Right after she threw up I remembered all the moms who told me their child threw up after having their bake and ice cream on the first birthday. I made her a sugar free (almost) cake and then I went and gave her this months later without even thinking!









So, we were supposed to go back to Houston today to hopefully finalize which house..but we had to postpone b/c poor Kate was sick....


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## StacyL (May 4, 2004)

Speaking of anger, yesterday Alex dropped my cell phone in the dog water dish and ruined it and I lost it and yelled at him. I feel so bad, because it was 100% my fault for being dumb enough to let him play with the phone, which I should not have done.

Then this morning we were coming in the back door and he was standing near the door and I thought his hands were clear, but they weren't and I closed the very tip of his pinky finger in the door. He howled like crazy! It just bruised the nail, but I feel like a bad mommy.

My milk has dried up too (I'm 22 weeks) but I still let him nurse at night and when he wakes up.


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## jilly (Feb 14, 2005)

Oh, I also have a classic dumb mom story! On Tues. we went into Prince Albert for the day, and Andrew was wearing 'sposies because I hadn't done laundry, and I changed him, then we went into a store to look at stuff. And I was watching him run around the kids section, thinking "Wow, he looks so grown up, it must be the jeans and new shoes (his first non-soft soled shoes) and the trimmer diaper" So he runs around the store and we buy our stuff, and I drive him back to our car in the cart,a ndhe's happy, happpy, happy. THen we get to the car and I leave him int he cart to look at some people in a resteraunt while I pack the car. When suddenly he starts SCREAMING. So I think its just seperation anxiety and I leave him for a few min. while I finish loading the car (thankfully it was only -2 or 3). Then I go to pick him up and he is soaking wet. I"m trying to figure out what happened with his diaper. Then I take his wet pants off only to realize . . . he's not wearing a diaper. That was why he had looked so old! So I had to peel all his clothes off, and he spent the rest of the day (we were there for a service in the evening too) and night in the new jammies I had bought him, with his shoes stuffed over the feet and his hoodie on. Oops.


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Well, it's starting to kick in. I miss my hubby, I miss my silly puppy dog (will be one year old next month) I miss my purring kitties, I miss my refridgerator, and I really miss my gigantic bed.

don't get me wrong, I am loving getting to see my sister so much, we go on walks and play witht he kids, watch lots of tv together, while eating fudge... good times, I'm telling you... it's just that I'm getting homesick for my own life.

The first week or so we kept really busy going to cool places like the Georgia Aquarium and The High art museum, we visited a really kick ass organic dairy farm, and we played in mud puddles at her best friend's house.
I just put up new pictures in my blog if you're interested (link in signature)
I have really enjoyed spending time with the kids, and getting to see Mielle play with her cousins, BUT... I miss my mom and my other sister, my Dad and especially my darling hubby.

Mielle is starting to share better than she was earlier this week. I've been trying to explain that we don't take things out of other people's hands. Having a bit of a guide line to work from seems to help. If it's on the ground it is fair game, but if it's in someone's hands then "No take".

Hope you are all having a nice weekend,
later


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Anna -- It sounds like a fun visit, but I would be homesick too. I can't be away for Tony for more than a week without being quite miserable. Then again we haven't been apart for more than a week since we were married... but before we were married he lived in ALaska and I lived here in Seattle. We did the long distance thing for a while.

Thor is better, I think. I decided not to take him back to the doctor because I knew they'd just give him more antibiotics. The fever seems to have gone away and his nose isn't running anymore. And he's in a great mood. But his sleep is all messed up. He refuses to sleep alone AT ALL, even if it's for like 15 minutes. So either I or tony sleep with him or I bring him into bed. Gosh, all that progress we made!! Ah well, we'll work on it.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

My child is making me nuts.

He is in this hitting-pinching-biting-hair pulling phase right now and everything, from gentle parenting reminders like "kisses! hugs! pet mama!", etc, to "no bite!", "we don't hurt each other", "that's OW!", don't work. He bit me HARD at IKEA today and everyone in the cafeteria stopped and looked when I shrieked in pain. And he's perfectly sweet with other kids, and much sweeter with Jo than with me. It is making me









Anna, I can imagine you're homesick. a month away from home is a long time.

Jilly I'm sorry but I had to laugh at your post - I've left a cover off of Tristan before, but never an entire diaper. I bet he really did have a trim little bum!

OK, I have to go stare off into a dark corner for a while, my eyes are starting to swim... j


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

Jen, you are SO not alone!! I have no idea what to do with Iain. He is usually SO sweet, he picked up "gentle" very early and would pet Gabriel, gives lots of kisses, etc., etc.. But lately he gets very frustrated and just lashes out - he grabs at things and scratches (with his nails that are too long - bad mommy!), pushes, hits, screeches, etc. It's awful!!







And it's not just to me, actually it's alot at Gabriel (who gets his hair and shirt pulled), but he even was scratching (not menacingly, but enough to hurt, regardless) at other adults that were nearby.







A friend that was with us the other day said, "we're testing our limits, I see!"

Anyhow, glad Iain's not the only acting out. I think it's mostly when he's really tired - or mad. I just took a pen away from him, and he threw the drumstick he was holding. So I put that "away" and he threw the baseball. So it goes away, too. Anyhow, now he's happily eating Mighty Bites in one hand and Acidophilus in the other in his highchair...

I keep telling him, "that hurts!" when he does those things, and I've taken to holding his hands, either on him "keep your hands to yourself," or just plain holding them, "if you can't be nice with your hands, you don't get to use them/mommy has to hold them." He'll give Gabriel kisses now when he's been mean, but no sign in slowing down the behaviour. Sigh.









Anybody figured this one out yet?

Found out on Friday he's got a double ear infection, too, after having a cold for 10 days. It was a bad cold, too, with a nasty cough, so I guess I'm not TOO surprised that more came of it. But bummed. Hence the chewable acidophilus tablet he's eating in his high chair. Since it's cold it kind of works as a teether, too! He's getting even MORE teeth!!

Well, I haven't kept up enough to post more







... I just saw what Jen posted and had to respond!! I've been meaning to catch up and post on just that.

Take care, mamas!


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Jen, Heather... I think it's a pretty fast phase. William was being sooo mean and doing all those things last month, but I'm noticing that he's really not so wild these days. But McKenna is starting to flail and scratch when mad. She'll probably get past it soon, too.

Aaaah, everyone in the house is sleeping. I'm reading through No Cry Sleep Solution (library had one, but not the toddler/preschooler one. I think the regular book is still going to help me)... I'm looking forward to getting a more normal sleep routine. The whatever-works-for-twins approach has been nice as far as them and I getting rest, but it involves TV and I'm looking forward to phasing that out. Plus I'd like to be able to move them out of the family room for nap and nighttime, into their own room, so we can have our family room back. Plus they can go down earlier that way.

I sure wish I were still in Atlanta, Anna. =O( I'm sorry you're feeling homesick. Mielle probably misses Daddy, too, huh?

LOL about Andrew's diaper mishap. That's so funny! Good thing he was able to "hold" it until you had already purchased the PJs and left the store... =O)

StacyL, if it makes you feel any better... I managed to drop the (heavy) cordless phone on William's head yesterday. Poor tough little dude paused a moment, but didn't even cry. I certainly felt like Bad Mommy of the Week!

And try leaving your cell phone outside for 3-4 days. DH actually went swimming with his cell phone in his pocket (doh!)... It was toast. We let it air dry out on our covered back patio and 3 days later it was working perfectly! One key stuck a little. I've been using that phone ever since (dh bought a new one right after the incident) and it has not had any problems, even the key no longer sticks.

Stacey -- Sorry you had to delay your house hunting! I'm interested to find out if Kate's sickness turned out to be a bug... My kids have been having a little bit of cookies and juice and fruit snacks and ice cream and other sugary things lately (ugh, seems worse when I write it all out like that, LOL) and have never thrown up. They also didn't throw up after consuming waaay too much frosting on their birthday carrot cakes...


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## leomom (Aug 6, 2004)

Wow, Savavannah, I wish I would have know that cel phones dry out and work again. DH dropped his in the toilet months ago and we tossed it.







:

Well, Kate had a low grade fever on Saturday after throwing up but other than that she doesn't seem sick. She is getting 3 molars and I don't know if that is what is making her not eat well or if it is residual of the vomiting.

Does anyone else have to work to keep from obsessing over how much food their dc eats???







Kate is so tiny and I feel like I am constantly watching her to see how much she eats. I really don't want to cause an eating disorder or even make meals dreadful. To make matters worse, when she diesn't eat well, she doesn't sleep well and so neither do I. Any ideas on not stressing about what she eats? Any mantras I can repeat to myself during mealtimes?


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## Cuddlemama (Jan 12, 2002)

Happy New Year Everyone...Gong Hey Fat Choy!

Well, New Year to those of us in Asian-American families, anyway.

I meant to post yesterday (the first day of the NY celebrations), but between cooking and celebrating and kid wrangling, I never made it to the boards.

Anna was so cute. She ran around singing Gong Hey Fat Choy all day long, and carrying around her red envelopes saying, "Nana's rich. Nana's money."

http://www.hereticscircle.com/photos/forheather.jpg


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Dang, do they come *any* cuter, Leigh?! Happy new year to all of you too!

I have little to say. Was up with Mr. I-need-to-nurse from 4:30 - 6:30. Couldn't take his crabbiness so I took him to play group where of course he was goodness and light with the other baby. Really pushed him beyond his usual naptime and I hope it makes for a better afternoon. He has been going to sleep around 10 AM and napping til around noon which would make the afternoon and evening very hard.

T has begun naming all of his friends. Tet-ta (Estella), Cah-key (Charlie), Ozzy (Ozzy aka Oscar), Gus (... Gus! he has 2 friends named Gus) and 'ky, which is Sky without the S. Sounds more like Kai, but we understand. And as of yesterday he began saying his aunt's name, Heidi. We called her and had him say it into the phone. Now he can say "Tante... Heidi!" (Tante = German for aunt). Too cute.

Happy Monday - j


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## AugustineM (Mar 21, 2005)

Leomom -- Thor definitely didn't eat for a few days when he was getting his molars. I kept wondering why, but then realized it after they poked through. I think food really hurts to chew. I started offering him applesauce and yogurt more, which he did eat. I also sort of obsess over what Thor eats, but really try not to. I'll start stressing during dinner if he throws it all on the floor, then take a deep breath and ignore it. There's no way he's going to starve, so it's all OK. The thing is, he's not getting milk from me anymore, so it's sort of weird to remember that i have to give him all his nutrients from other sources. He doesn't drink milk much at all, because I don't think it agrees with him, but he eats tons of yogurt. He also loves eggs, now cheese, and other protien rich things like that. Normally he eats pretty good but it is touch and go. He hasn't gained much weight at in the past several months, so he's a pretty tall skinny guy. Though I bet he'll be that way his whole life!









Savannah -- I also give thor the occassional cookie, ice cream, etc. He loves cookies. Perhaps way too much. He also loves crackers and salty snack type things. I really have to watch it that I don't give him too much of those because otherwise that's all he'll eat during the day. Yeah, that's nutritious! He started to like cheese again, especially quesadillas, so I'm offering more of that. He was on a cheese hiatus for about 3 months, apparently.

Jen -- That's so cute about Tristan calling his friends by name.


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## Yo Becca (Apr 17, 2005)

Happy New Year Cuddle mama - Anna looks so tall!

I've been MIA too - Robin got sick at the end of last week - really it was a sinus infection that came at the tail end of her cold (that she'd had for 2 weeks). I took her to get checked (in case it was her ears or something bad) and htey gave antibiotcs. I only agreed to give them to her b/c I get sinus infections frequently and know they are AWFUl and for me antibiotics are the only thing that works. Well, she had an allergic reation to the stupid antibiotics - a bad rash all over her face! I was so pissed. But she's all better now and just a few pink spots on her cheeks. And we're meeting up tomorrow with Anna and Mielle and her fam to go to the Atlanta Zoo, so I'm super Psyched!!

ROugh play - yep, we have that some here. Mostly directed to me and Alfred (our older dog). When she hits me (or mostly bonks me with her head), I say "that hurts" "I don't like to be hit" "please stop" or some such thing - I try to be direct but polite. If she does it again, I remove myself from her - walk away, put her down, whatever. This makes her cry/mad - and I say "I'm sorry but you are not allowed to hurt me". If she doesn't immediately recover I comfort her after a few seconds. I'm just trying to be consistent and to extinguish the behavior. B/c every now and then it's directed to her peers, and that is NOT okay.
It's definitely more common when she is overtired or about to poop.

Eating - yep, I have to force myself to let it go. She does eat some crappy food (ritz bits, chicken nuggets twice last week) and BOTH sets of grandparents sneak her m&m's. No negative effects that I've seen from that. But she's not a great eater period (hence my resorting to ritz bits at times). But we are working on it! Her favorite thing of all is pineapple. Her weight has dropped - she's 19 pounds and about 33 inches - but she's active and happy, so I try to not worry.

The best every tip for drying out cell phones is my DH's tactic - put them behind the refridgerator. It's a dehydrating environment. It's saved several phones in our circle. I don't know where he heard it, but it's pretty golden.

Jen - good luck getting some sleep tonight, mama

Robin's new trick is animal sounds. She can tell us what a duck says (cack cack, with a hand signal) and a monkey (ooh ooh ooh) and an owl (who who who - but really it's the same as a monkey) and as of yesterday, a cow (mmmmm). It's very cute, and very appropriate considering her love of animals (espcially cows - she keeps breaking off while nursing, half asleep to tell me "cooow, mama, cow". And she asks me to kiss her stuffed cow...15 times.


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## msrog (Mar 28, 2004)

Oooh, I love all these cute baby anecdotes. I do believe our group has the most adorable toddlers in existence...

Leigh, Anna is sooo pretty! I love her Chinese New Year attire.

LOL about Robin getting feisty before a poop... hee hee heeeee.


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## JenInMpls (Jan 18, 2004)

Today's pearl of wisdom:

Do not brush off your friend's inclination to dump the cream down the sink instead of into your coffee because she thinks it is too old to serve you.

She is right. Or even if she's not, give her the benefit of the doubt.










lucky jo could take today, or at least the morning, off...


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## midwestmeg (Jul 10, 2005)

Oh Jen, thank you so much for the little bit of wisdom.... Sorry you had to learn about that one over the bowl of the toilet!









Celia and I are at an impasse: she is only interested in nursing between 12 am and 6 am, and I only want to nurse during daylight hours. She wakes to poke my eyes at night and say 'nu, nu, nu' (and then fall back to sleep) but during the day when I offer she smiles, and shake her head 'no'. I'm ready to do a gradual wean b/c we're pretty much ready for another babe, but it's still hard (for mom!) kwim? I have no objections to nursing during a pregnancy, but I am also aware that she very might well wean during that, so I guess I just want her to be okay with it, or not totally freaked out.

That said, I try not to obsess about the eating. Celia is pretty tall (2T pants!) and looks good, so she must be doing okay. I just try to remember to offer and remember that eating and growing goes in spurts.

Becca, Cecilia gets sinus infections! The best thing for them is sudafed for babies, called pediacare. I give it to her when she has a cold along with some ibuproferin and then she doesn't get to the ear/sinus stage. Hope Robin is feeling better....


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## banana girl (Jan 9, 2004)

Hey ya'll! (hear that southern twang, creeping into my voice?)

Hey Jen darling, sorry to hear you are sick... hang in there mama!

We had such a fun time today at the zoo. Despite arriving significantly late My sister and I found Becca and Robin, horray! Robin is such a little spitfire, so much personality in such a little person. She kept lovin on Mielle, tons of hugs and kisses, too bad Mielle wasn't appreciating the gestures of affection....
After viewing such wonders as elephants, lemurs, a blue tounged skink , panda bears and many stautues of animals (which the kids seemed to like more than the actual animals!) we headed up the road to a local pizza joint. Us poor mamas were outnumbered by children and made quite the scene wrangling 4 children under 3! It was great getting to meet Becca, (she's as cool in person as she seems online) and Robin absolutely cracked me up. What an engaging spirit she has. I'm so glad to actually meet an MDC mama while visiting Georgia.

My nephew Gabe came home today with a picture and handwritten acount of he and I playing "Star Wars" He has a number of plastic swords and we had had a swordfight the other day, well I guess it made quite the impression cause he wrote all about it while at kindergarten toady. His silly spelling and sloppy printing are so darn sweet! In the drawing he is twice my size and his hands look like wings! He spelled Star Wars....strewors! I'm totally keeping it! That is definitely one of my favorite memories from this visit. Especially when he was playing with Mielle (quite gently actually) and Mielle kept shouting "Hiyaa!" while the sword dangled from her hands. Too cute!

Here's the link to the February chat thread!
Good night ladies, bed beckons....


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## HeatherB (Jan 30, 2003)

Hi, mamas! Up late, after another stamping "event" here (we were making Valentines cards), and of course I'm wired even though I'm awfully tired! That seems to be when I find myself here with a few minutes to post..

Savannah, I'm so glad it seems to be just a phase! Is there anything specific that seemed to help William?

Becca - thanks for the tips! I've been trying more of putting him down if he won't be nice, etc. Surely something will click eventually and he'll turn back into my sweetheart!

Iain was being very rude to my mom the other day.







He wouldn't give kisses or hugs, and turned his face and pushed her away!! I couldn't believe it. He kept refusing, so I set him down while we were at the door saying goodbye, since he wouldn't be nice. He, of course, threw a fit, and laid down on the ground to cry. It just lasted a minute, though, and then he wanted to get up and walk outside (the door was partially open still). I thought maybe he'd gotten over it and wanted to be sweet, so I walked him out (he in t-shirt and diaper, chilly as it was) to my mom. But did he say goodbye or give kisses? Nope.







He was rude again. So I carried him (throwing a fit for being picked up now!) in.

Tonight, though, my mom and sister were here when DH brought the boys home (he took them for a daddy's night since I had this event). Mom was in the kitchen when they came in the back door, and when I walked into the kitchen, he was snuggling with her and being sweet! He was quite nice the rest of the night, and sat with her several times. So, I have NO idea why he's been a punk, but at least he doesn't "mean" it!

Anna and Becca, how cool to have met and gone to the zoo! I know what you mean about being outnumbered, Anna! We had lunch with friends recently, 3 adults and 7 kids!! Under 5!! A man stopped at our table and said some snide things about us getting out of the house or whether we had televisions... ugh...

Happy New Year, Leigh! Anna is a doll!! DS came home from "school" (preschool/MDO) today telling me all about the "Chinese parade" they had today, in celebration of Chinese New Year. He's only in school Tues/Thurs, hence it being a little late!

Phones and water: Try leaving your digital camera outside in a RAINSTORM for a whole day!







I did that last Easter in Santa Cruz. I was rushed by DH and the family and didn't get back to the deck to pick it up before we went out for the day. I was so upset when I found it, cold and wet and dripping! Thankfully, after leaving it out overnight, it DID dry out and work! It never took videos again (you'd put it in video mode and it'd take a still picture







), but at least I had a camera. Until I dropped it. With the lens out. Bye-bye camera!









I just got a replacement, though (finally!), which is great! It's so nice to be able to take pics of my boys again! Now maybe I can actually update web pages and all of that.









Speaking of pics, there are a few that might be recent here.. though I think the newest might be of Gabriel, only. Hrm... Anyhow, DH is toying around with his photography hobby, so there are some interesting shots here: http://www.jeremey.com/
Some of my favorites on there are of Gabriel playing on the beach in NC.

DH gave me a hard back book with pictures of both boys, all B&W, for Christmas. It's so awesome! It's alot of the pics that are in the b&w gallery on his blog, but with some extras added in, too.

Okay, I feel myself babbling...

Jen, hope you feel better! Ick!

Oh, and I guess we're into February now! Thanks for the link, Anna!


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