# *Our Nov. '05 independent toddlers*--July thread!



## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

I thought I'd take a turn at starting this months' thread, since nobody else has jumped on it yet!

In life here, DH is coming home tonight. Yay! I have a friend here to entertain Ella while I do work, but I really don't want to work, I really desperately want to take a nap--only got 4 hours of sleep last night. There is a portabello mushroom moussaka in process that I'm going to make for dinner--I have the whole thing layered and waiting in the fridge, I just need to make the bechamel sauce, add it, and bake. (Doing that amidst many interruptions last night resulted in the lack of sleep.) So that feels good to actually do some cooking.

Ella and I had a good day yesterday running lots of errands. I went to a farmers market yesterday, and that was nice. I also met a mom/family at Wild Oats yesterday in the baby section--they have an older kid (like 3 or 4 I'd guess) and a 10 month old, and the 10 month old was wearing a cloth diaper so I had to talk to them!







Anyway, they were really excited because I told them that I am *usually* a cloth diaperer too (although she's been in disposables lately due to moving and then problems with the washer.) Turns out that they have only been CDing for 3 months, and they don't know anyone else who uses cloth, so they were interested in talking about it. They mentioned that they had some excema problems with the sposies, which is why I think they made the switch. Anyway, they seemed really nice and we exchanged numbers and talked about making plans to get together. She sort of mentioned that her DH actually does all the diaper laundry, and that he's always tweaking on the wash routine and looking for the best detergent--so seems like he and DH have something in common too!







It actually gave me the push to get started back with cloth diapering again, so I whipped those out yesterday when I got home. (Also, it doesn't hurt that I'm down to like the last 3 or 4 sposies and am sick of buying them!)

Well, I'm off to accomplish something while I have someone here watching the wee beastie! What is everyone (those of us in the U.S. that is, anyway) planning to do for July 4?


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Hi







I'm glad your DH will be home soon (or maybe he is already by now?) and hope you get a chance to have a break soon. I'm glad you met another potential friend for yourself and Ella!

Mini rant: I am so upset. There appears to be no bras in existance that are not hideously padded, are a large stiff cone shape, massively lacey and bumpy under your shirt, or are less than a size triple-J. Am I seriously the only woman with an A-B cup who doesn't want underwire digging in, or Madonna-like pointed cones on my chest? I have been looking for months and have not found ONE bra that fits. My last two threadbare, stretched out ones bit the dust, so I literally have nothing, and stores apparently don't carry anything that's not for the very generously proportioned. Am I asking too much???????? Seriously, I'm so depressed about the state of my bosom right now- not the size of it, but the fact that it always looks bumpy and droopy because of not having a decent bra! I think there's a small-chested mamas tribe on MDC- I need to go find it! Thanks for letting me get that off my CHEST- I actually cried today.

And this is a bit upsetting but I know it'll be ok- Ez is refusing to nurse today, this is the first time this has ever happened. Of course with Ethan it happened just about daily, but Ez is so enthusiastic about it usually. He's teething, which is a rare event for him (hasn't happened since he was 11 mos!) so I am attributing it to that. It's hard to see him so upset and unable to get to sleep yet he won't nurse


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## runes (Aug 5, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Awaken* 
Hi







I'm glad your DH will be home soon (or maybe he is already by now?) and hope you get a chance to have a break soon. I'm glad you met another potential friend for yourself and Ella!

Mini rant: I am so upset. There appears to be no bras in existance that are not hideously padded, are a large stiff cone shape, massively lacey and bumpy under your shirt, or are less than a size triple-J. Am I seriously the only woman with an A-B cup who doesn't want underwire digging in, or Madonna-like pointed cones on my chest? I have been looking for months and have not found ONE bra that fits. My last two threadbare, stretched out ones bit the dust, so I literally have nothing, and stores apparently don't carry anything that's not for the very generously proportioned. Am I asking too much???????? Seriously, I'm so depressed about the state of my bosom right now- not the size of it, but the fact that it always looks bumpy and droopy because of not having a decent bra! I think there's a small-chested mamas tribe on MDC- I need to go find it! Thanks for letting me get that off my CHEST- I actually cried today.

And this is a bit upsetting but I know it'll be ok- Ez is refusing to nurse today, this is the first time this has ever happened. Of course with Ethan it happened just about daily, but Ez is so enthusiastic about it usually. He's teething, which is a rare event for him (hasn't happened since he was 11 mos!) so I am attributing it to that. It's hard to see him so upset and unable to get to sleep yet he won't nurse









hi there! i don't post much here (i was part of the oct 05 ddc but dd waited a while to make her grand appearance so she's technically a nov 05 baby) but i just wanted to let you know that i feel your pain regarding the comfortable bra issue. i was a small B pre preg and now with nursing i'm a large C, and am still having a hard time finding comfortable bras that aren't bumpy/lacy/pointy.









my favorite bra is the bella materna, i use a padded one with an underwire but they make some without. it is SO comfortable, looks smooth under clothes, clean lines, and the nursing clasp is very easy to maneuver with one hand. quality materials and they hold up great, i wear mine almost every day and i got it when dd was about 3 months old.

pricey but well worth it for a piece of clothing that you'll wear daily.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi everyone!

Mary, sorry about your bra troubles. I have bra issues too but they're entirely in the other direction - is it so much to ask for to get a nice-looking bra IN that triple J size?







Actually I think I'm a G cup but a DDD will do in a pinch. Still, not that much out there for us either. I am envious of all the C-cup girls.

Don't worry about Ezra not nursing, I'm sure he'll be right back on the boobie bandwagon as soon as his little teeth are sorted out. Which ones is he working on now?

Kavita, glad your DH will be home soon! It's hard managing without them isn't it?

It's Canada Day and the weather is beautiful but we haven't got much planned. DH just went out to the garden with some tin cans and some homemade ant-killer (borax & corn syrup) in a somewhat belated attempt to save my dill, and I think that's about as exciting as our day's going to get.









Rowan's started to say her name when she looks at pictures of herself ("Dowan") and she's just saying so many words now and real almost sentences. The other day she was at grandma & grandpa's and Daisy peed in their garden and then kicked dirt and grass over the spot, then settled down to chomp a stick into bits - MIL was NOT happy, she is a total neat freak and her garden is perfectly manicured. Rowan told Grandpa all about it later: "Daisy stick mess. Daddy clean!"

Oh, she just woke up. Gotta go!


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Mary check out Birth and Baby, here is a direct link to her smaller sizes - soft cup group. I get my monstrously huge size Goddess bras from her and I love the customer service! The really crazy thing to me is to see H or larger cup bras with padding in them WTF??? I don't need extra boobs I'd give some away if I could









I am still very jealous of the talkative girls, at least when Annette is in school. I'll admit to wishing for a few minutes silence on the weekends! Joseph did attempt a new word today while I was making rice krispies. While pointing at the bag he came out with "marmow, marmow." That's what I get for making junk food for the kids a barely speaking 19 month old learns a new word. My first new word when my sister started kindergarten was "cookie" while pointing at the container. I guess he got his acquisition of important words from me.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

I feel everyone's pain in terms of bras. I have at least a cup size difference, so I have probably one that's a B-C cup, and the other that's a D or DD cup. I have never really been able to find bras that fit me. Or rather, that fit both sides of me. Either I have a cup that fits on the left and on the right it's a boobie muffin-top, or it fits on the right and the left is all pooching out weirdly. And of course, pregnancy and breastfeeding have accelerated the pace of gravity, so the right one is drooping rather horrifically. Sigh. Maybe we should get together and design, produce and market a better bra. I can see it now--our website will be brasforrealboobs.com!









Ella is getting one of her two year molars. Yikes! She is pretty crabby at moments. She's not consistently horrible when she's teething, but it's like when she's upset, she gets *really* upset.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

No experience here with larger cup sizes, but I'm down to a 34B, and Target has some nice non-padded, but I don't think they go down below B cup. They have a new sleeping nursing bra, though, that might work for an A cup, its very thin and there's no padding and it seems to be mostly just a stretchy material. What about Bravado bras? They have small sizes - I love mine!

Ellie's saying more and more words now, too. No sentances, yet, but two-word phrases are becoming more and more commone, which is very exciting to me! Killy was 24 months and had been in speech therapy for 4 months before he started using 2 word phrases.

Well, the tough week is over finally... We had the visitation and funeral for my papa, and while it was a sad event it was wonderful to see all the family. All seven of his children were there, as well as all 17 grandchildren! That's really amazing, I think, considering that the grandchildren range in age from about 20-40 years old and live all over the country, it was so touching that everyone came in for the funeral. Not all of the 17 great-grandchildren were there, but its hard to take little kids on cross-country trips at the last minute. Everyone was totally in love with Ellie, btw. One uncle described her as "just a lump of sugar!" because she's so sweet. Everyone was just falling over themselves to get into her good graces so she'd let them hold her - it was highly amusing! Killy charmed people, too, but he's such a wild little man that its not quite the same. People don't want to pick him and squeeze him, they want to stand back and enjoy the mayhem he creates! He actually made my poor grandmother laugh out loud for about five minutes straight by running through her house, out the front door, around the yard, into the back door, and back to the house about 6 times with my mom chasing him - and of course he was naked from the waist down and it was raining outside. We all thought they were having a great time playing until my mom came running by and said, "Can none of you catch him?!" (I'm not sure I'm doing the situation justice by writing it all out, but it was hi-larious!)


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Hi all. Just a quickie to sub and say howdy!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Am I the only lucky 34 B or C in this group? The bra world caters to me, I think.







:

Neela had a mysterious vomiting spree Friday night, with several sheet/clothng changes and one mid-night shower. She seemed to have recovered by midday Saturday, and we had a short weekend getaway with an overnight trip to Portland. Our best friends from Eugene just moved to Portland this weekend, and we were planning to go help a bit with the moving but were delayed by the sickness. We went briefly anyways, but did more shopping than helping. I found some great organic cotton kids clothes on sale, and bought some cute new outfits.

I also got a haircut today, only my second since Neela was born. It's nice to have enough of a style that I can wear my hair down again!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Ick. Bras







I have a ginormous spot right between my boobs and everything is rubbing on it (including my daughter, who is nearly as much as a picker as her mother.)
Skye got out of bed without nursing this morning- first time ever. I know that nursing a 2yo (or older) has never been a particular goal of mine, but this whole weaning thing isn't great and I do have seriously mixed emotions about it. Oh, and I got told yesterday that she was too much of a little princess and we should stop letting her push Isaac around so much because otherwise she'll be horrible to the new baby ?!?!?


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Awaken* 
There appears to be no bras in existance that are not hideously padded, are a large stiff cone shape, massively lacey and bumpy under your shirt, or are less than a size triple-J.

I swear by Blue Canoe bras (when I wear one). The are very simply designed, unbelievably comfortable and they create a very natural, supported breast shape. (AND, they are very friendly to different-sized boobs, both because of the forgiving cuts and the tiny bit of stretch in the fabric.)

Flapjack,







: presumptuous people who not only think they know how to raise your child better than you do, but who also no doubt think that they're doing the world a favor by spreading their "wisdom" unsolicited! (Yours was a timely post for me--I'm getting my head in the right place and practicing my fake smile and even faker, "Oh, wow, that's good to know!" for dh's family reunion this coming weekend.)

Melanie, poor Neela! Glad it was a quickie-illness, though. And yay for the new haircut! I cut lots of layers into mine a few weeks ago just to try something different, and was amazed that I could now wear it down--never in my life had I been able to do that with medium or long hair because of how thick it was and how much it hung in my face.

ETA: Kavita, I had to laugh at your dh's quest for the perfect cloth diaper wash system. My dh, who has much more of an artist's temperament than an engineer's, relishes the "science" of a well-washed load of dipes, and has back-up gallons of vinegar and boxes of borax (just in case!).


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

That was actually my mother







who is generally so cool in so many other ways, but at times it seems she plays favourites and prefers the boys to Skye- probably because they're walking and talking and sentient, whereas Skye really is just a toddler.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Skye got out of bed without nursing this morning- first time ever. I know that nursing a 2yo (or older) has never been a particular goal of mine, but this whole weaning thing isn't great and I do have seriously mixed emotions about it.

Helen, I know exactly how you feel. Well, mostly - nursing a 2yo IS a goal of mine, but I had to be ok with weaning before that when I went off the domperidone. It's not been an issue though, and things are going pretty well in that department, but last week for the first time ever Rowan didn't run up to me as soon as I got home and demand boobies. For 3 days in a row. I thought we were done with that, but then on Friday it was like the past few days had never happened - as soon as I walked in the door, she was all "boobies BOOBIES MORE BOOBIES".







So don't count on that morning nurse being gone for good.

I'm working today. It's a holiday but I'm way behind on my last project (thanks, MDC) and I need to get caught up. It's time for a break though. DH has Rowan at his parent's place while he changes the oil in our car so I am going to pop over to the coffee shop and have a nice decaf iced coffee and some cheeeeesecake. Mmm. And pick up some veggies to make soup for dinner.

ETA: just remembered, a while back someone asked if Rowan was a serious child. (HoneyTree was that you?) She's not, she just gets this fabulously blank look on her face when we point a camera at her, if she notices the camera. Now, she is starting to get the idea when we ask her to smile, but she scrunches up her face and it's really more of a painful grimace than a smile. So, a lot of pictures with the blank face. She's actually quite lively and humourous most of the time. She has a cute giggle and she's very affectionate and kissy. I don't think she really fits the definition "serious".


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Happy Canada Day one day late (oops!) (DH is Canadian, and his mother was in town for it).

And Happy July to everyone else!

Our big news is that Finley, for the first time, has gone off with someone else! (My MIL). It has been amazing. DH and I got to see our first movie together since he was born on Saturday afternoon. Bliss. And also bittersweet. He has gone off with her with No Problem, such a difference from a few months ago, and even one week ago with MIL. We're going to FL in a few weeks to see my parents, and we're looking forward to another movie date, as I'm quite confident he'll happily go off with my parents, whom he has been more comfortable with in general since his birth than my MIL.

We are all back to our health around here, too, which is lovely. What a nasty spell we had.

And, last but not least, I'm paranoid that I could be pregnant, though I realize the chances are quite low. We have been "planning" to wait til Finley was at least 3 to TTC, but there is always a part of me that secretly would love to be pregnant now. So, I'll keep you all posted. I won't be able to test til next week. I feel completely mixed about it.
The best part is that DH seems totally fine with it if I am, so there's that, at least. Even though I"m fine either way, I"m driving myself crazy with the 2WW!

Off for now, and more soon!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
That was actually my mother







...























: Helen, I am so sorry! I should never have posted that; I'm all stirred up about dh's reunion, and that comment was much more about me and my issues than it was about your situation. I'm a rotten and judgmental person. (But I am mildly comforted by the array of choices I had of smilies that conveyed the various sentiments associated with a social blunder.)





















:


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

quickie post just to sub. not much time, sorry. good news is that we made it home in one piece from las vegas, where it was 109 degrees







:


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## zjande (Nov 4, 2002)

I am so astonished by this that I just need to post it somewhere. Xeowyn slept through the night, in his pak 'n play bed thing at the foot of our bed, for the very 1st time in his life last night!!!














He usually asks for "boo-ah" several times every night, & never stays in his bed at the foot of ours for very long at all (IF at all). It was sooooooo nice to be able to stretch out & not be in that side-lying crampy position half the night. AND, it is *exactly* what I'm hoping happens more by the time the belly babe comes!

Wow, what a milestone. Now watch he won't do it again for 37.8 months.

Which reminds me, I'd been wanting to ask you guys, now that we have talkers, what do your kidlets call the booby/milk/breastfeeding? And I saw someone ask in last month's thread whether any of us are still breastfeeding our shortlings to sleep for the night, & I just wanted to say "me!". Xeowyn's never gone to sleep without either the boob (the boo-ah.







) or being in the car seat.

My nipples have just recently started getting sore. Ouchy. And I'm pretty sure my supply has decreased now (I'm 15 weeks along). But Xeowyn's still an active nurser. I hope we make it to the end of my pregnancy just fine!







:

Bras. Hey I'm a 34b normally.







Probably a C now though. And I have such a sad collection of bras I can wear now. Actually, I only have ONE nursing bra, a Bravado. I have been wearing it 97% of the past 2 years. Blah.

Hmm. A whole post about my boobs. How nice.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *zjande* 
Which reminds me, I'd been wanting to ask you guys, now that we have talkers, what do your kidlets call the booby/milk/breastfeeding? And I saw someone ask in last month's thread whether any of us are still breastfeeding our shortlings to sleep for the night, & I just wanted to say "me!". Xeowyn's never gone to sleep without either the boob (the boo-ah.







) or being in the car seat.

Ella calls it "num-nums". This is divine retribution for me being judgmental about people on this very site who call it "num-nums"--I remember thinking that this was a rather horrifyingly stupid thing to call breastmilk/nursing. I always just said "milk" when I asked her when she was an infant, and she would sometimes say, "Mih" and would consistently sign milk from the time she started signing. But then sometimes I would give her solids and ask her, "Is that yummy?" or say, "Umm, yummy." And that was the end of it. She started asking for "num-nums" quite on her own. Thus now I will often be found discussing or negotiating "num-nums". As in, (insert calm, rational parent voice here), "Yes, honey, I will give you num-nums, but first we have to finish changing your diaper and then go brush your teeth. Then we'll go to bed and have num-nums." Argh. The weird thing is that she calls other milk (as in cow milk or goat milk) "dadoosh." I have no idea how she exactly arrived at this, other than I would call it "goat milk". My sister thinks it sounds like she's saying "dog juice."









And yes, Ella nurses to sleep most of the time at night, sometimes wakes up and nurses although mostly she sleeps through the night, and she always co-sleeps. We don't even have a bed for her anymore (we had a twin bed but gave it to a good friend of ours when his waterbed sprung a leak!) I don't always nap with her, and often she's alone in bed for the first part of the night. But most of the time I have to nurse her to sleep, unless DH rocks/pats her and I'm nowhere around, or she falls asleep in the car and is successfully transferred into the bed, or once in a great while she'll nurse till she's sleepy but awake and then turn over and go to sleep.

Speaking of which, she's awake now. Gotta go!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Teresa, you didn't put your foot in your mouth- my mother did that







: Generally, the rest of the world know better than to mess with me, but my mother, especially when she's had a drink with dinner







sometimes forgets her manners.

Zjande, Skye has no word for breastfeeding, she just throws herself into position, removes my clothes and looks up expectantly







She hasn't been doing that so much recently though. Congratulations on the sleepy babe









Barcelona







May you have the best possible outcome, whatever that may be.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Helen, weaning a child at any age will mess with your hormones. With your pg hormones already in full swing it's not likely to be any easier, sorry. Everyone knows I'm all for clw. Even when Annette weaned at 4+ after nursing through a pg and sorta tandem nursing for a bit I was still sad. It's closing a chapter in their lives that can never be regained.

On the other hand I was about ready to throw a party on her first day at summer school. An entire 8 hours without having her talk my ears off! I have to admit to being very bad and laughing at some of the advice the school gave us about dropping her off for her first day of kindergarten. Their little booklet talks about parents crying and clinging to the kids and the kids crying. First day of school mine was running in the door and barely stopped to say bye to us









We are in the middle of a mess here. Dh just got finished ripping out our old shower and is gone to the dump. Hopefully in the next couple hours he and the guy he works with will have things settled enough he can get the new one tiled tomorrow. In the meantime there is dust everywhere! I just swept up all shorts of bits of tile, plaster, wood, brick and I don't want to know what. Lots of hazards for little feet. However our landlord is proving what a good guy he is. Not only is he letting dh do the work on the shower in exchange for rent, but he put us up in a hotel last night and at least tonight so we can get cleaned up! The hotel is nicer then any we have been able to afford in a few years now so it's nice to have break that way. It also has a pool and I made Annette a tankini this morning so I am taking the kids that way to go swimming when she gets home from school. Hopefully me and 2 kids in the pool goes well! I hope all the US mommies and kidlets have a great 4th tomorrow and that everyone is having a great summer.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

*Helen*, shame on your MIL! I wish people would just keep their pie-holes shut! This morning, Brynn and I went to the post office to pick up our new Signing Time CDs, and we opened the package in the post office lobby. I showed her the cases, and she got really excited and started stomping her feet. Well, this old guy walked by right as she was doing that and said, "You'd better make her shape up!" or something like that. I didn't say anything because I totally couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and then I realized a minute later that he must have thought she was throwing a fit or something, and he needed to step in and give me advice about how to handle her!!! I wish I'd figured that out sooner because I sure would have loved to have told him to shut the fuck up, thanks. People are SO annoying.

Anyhoo! We had a busy and fun weekend. I don't remember what all we did, other than the fact that DH and I had a date on Sunday evening. It was so relaxing and nice! I am really digging this babysitting swapping we're doing with our friend! If any of you can swing it, I would definitely recommend it.









I'm not totally sure what we're doing tomorrow, but it may involve meeting up with Kavita, her DH, and Ella for an "old fashioned fourth festival" in our area. I would like Brynn to see the fireworks if possible. How bout y'all?

*So here's a What-Would-You-Do scenario for your consideration*:
A friend of mine (not very close, but someone I roommated with for one year of grad school) is getting married on August 4th in Tennessee, and we RSVP'd months ago that we would go. Since DH has started his new job, though, he's figured out that he would only be able to take one vacation day off for this little trip, making it a lot of driving and money for a wedding that I'm not totally motivated to go to (we won't know anyone other than the bride and groom). It wouldn't even be much of a mini-vacay for us, because we'd probably only have a few hours on Saturday and maybe a couple of hours on Sunday to do stuff that we want to do.

On the other hand, if I cancel going to the wedding, I could take Brynn on a little vacay to see two of my best friends; one in Chattanooga, and Littlemomma in Athens GA. Of course I would definitely prefer the latter! But I'm just wondering if it would be too horrible to back out of going to the wedding. I know my friend would be disappointed, but I also think she wouldn't even really notice if we weren't there. Ya know?

Any thoughts?

*SKristina*, so glad your landlord is being an awesome person and working with you!!

*Aubrey*, that is AWE.SOME. Seriously, that rocks!! I can't wait for us to have one of those nights!! Brynn's back to waking ~4 or more times per night, and I'm just attributing it to her two top molars coming in. Either way, it's been a hard week!

As for what our kids are calling the milk supply, Brynn calls it Milkie Time, or Mama Milkie, and she calls cow milk "cow milk." She never called it nursies or num-nums, but she does love to tell me what other babies call it. After we've spent time with Kavita and Ella, she will say, "I want num-nums, Mama. That's what Ella says."









And regarding the boob topic....UGH. Mine are about 34E, but I squoosh them into a 34DDD and still have some bubbling up out of the cup. Super attractive! My bras are pretty good - just Victoria's Secret Body by Victoria, I think. Underwire, lightly padded (so my nips don't show under t-shirts). No bells or whistles, which is how I like it. I'm just so sick of them! I told DH that after Brynn stops nursing and my breasts get smaller (which I *pray* they will), I will be able to get some sexy or cute bras! Actually though, I did see some nice plain ones at Frederick's of Hollywood (in my size, which is really hard to find) for like $24 each, so I should just get some already. I gave up on nursing bras LONG ago. I couldn't find *one* that fit me. I used to be a perfect 34C, and man I sure did have some awesome breasts in my past life! I kind of thought they were big before, but compared to now, they look tiny.









*barcelona*, that's great that you and DH had a movie date, and I *totally* understand the bittersweet feelings. It's heavy, huh? And wow about the possible







!! I hope whatever way it turns out, you are at peace.

OK, have to go unload the rest of the groceries while she's napping.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Happy 4th to you all !!!
Amy, my MIL is 6 foot under, and is Skye's guardian angel- we can feel her in Skye's bedroom. This was MY mum







Personally, I'd cancel the wedding if it's going to be that much hassle to get to, but invite the newly weds over for a weekend visit later in the year.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 

Zjande, Skye has no word for breastfeeding, she just throws herself into position, removes my clothes and looks up expectantly









Be back later, getting ready for the parade, but wanted to throw in a







: That is hilarious, Helen!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Amy, I'd skip the wedding, too. I agree with you that she'll probably be disappointed, but otherwise will have PLENTY of other stuff to be concerned with. If your conscience is tugging at you, maybe just send a really nice or personalized wedding gift with a special note? I play out in my mind that scenario you described in the post office all the time. Mostly I hope that I'll give people puzzled or "you're crazy" looks, but sometimes I imagine trying to engage them in dialogue and watching them either become enlightened or slink off to their cars sorry to have said anything. I'm finding that I'm so sensitive to carrying around negative energy lately that I have to "practice" much mellower responses than I would have had in my more confrontational youth.

So about boobs, I am having a hardish time, too, feeling like these 18mo.+ nursing boobs are "me." It's so hard to separate yourself from your body, and especially hard to de-program all the negativity associated with anything BUT young, pert breasts. And I don't know if I posted about this as it was happening (it was during my crazy schoolyear), but my sister got a double masectomy earlier this year from breast cancer. And I look at her, and think, Wow, her choice was between survial and "perfect" boobs! And I know in her situation I would have made the same decision. So I'm trying hard to love my lumpy, saggy, heavy, wonky boobs for what they are and what they do for me instead of what I remember them as.

And on a "lighter" note (ha): We are indeed trying to track down some fireworks. I love fireworks, but I love them from a distance--we're among the folks who try to find the parking lot a little away from the park where you can see everything but not have to battle the crowds.

Kavita, Woody has spontaneously picked up "numnums" too! And we ONLY say real words for each food item. I wonder if it is a version of "some," because we do say that a lot for bites and such.

And we have a little noun/verb confusion with nursing. When he's ready to nurse, Woody points to or grabs my boob (not too happy about that part) and says, "Urse?" But then he'll point at my nipple and say, "urse," too, as in, that's what comes out. So I guess that's what we call the whole nursing/milk deal.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Amy - I'd ditch the wedding too. But I'm kind of anti-big-wedding anyhow. I expect my friends to be grateful to me for saving them money when I decline wedding invitations.









Kristina - wow you are brave, tackling reno projects like that with little ones around! And it sounds like Annette is a very secure little handful









Zjande - yay sleeping!

Teresa - I'm sorry about your sister, I hope she's doing ok. And just think, however wonky your boobs are, at least they're doing what they were designed for!

More on the boob thing: my boobs actually haven't changed noticeably since having a baby. That's not a good thing. They've always been saggy droopy jungle boobies.







I'm just used to them now. Some days I think I'll get plastic surgery when I'm done nursing babies, some days I think I should accept them as part of me. But they preclude me wearing a lot of really cute clothes and that just seems mean. We don't have a very good relationship, my boobies and me.

BTW Rowan's word for nursing is "boobies". And this is totally my fault, it's what I've called it from the start. Frankly I don't care if she pipes up loudly in a public place asking for boobies. I'm all about reclaiming naughty words.









So our sort-of-news is that I have been sleeping with Rowan for the past 3 or 4 nights and - get this - actually getting enough sleep. We finally got around to pushing the bed against the wall - that certainly helps, I'm no longer worried about her falling out of bed - and I started taking a gravol or two before bed. I know it's bad. But it just knocks me out that little bit more so I don't wake up every time she turns over.

Last night was great. She slept soundly from 9 pm to 5:30 am. I went to bed at 10 and was out until 5:30 too, then we slept (more or less) all cuddled together until 7:30.

ETA: crap. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the case... gravol has a similar effect on milk supply as other antihistamines. Well, so much for that.


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## MamaFern (Dec 13, 2003)

hey babes and babes!

its july and so friggin hot. i dont think that there is any oxygen left to breathe. we are oin kamloops.. the big city around herer.. its almost a 1.5 hour drive from our small town of little fort







im wsorking a ton at the motel/food stand. i hate it...ive never spent more time scrubbing toilets and sinks and tubs in my life.. but its a job and the kiddos come see me since its just a minuite away and then they get free icecream








its weird working away from home. actual;ly i really dont mind the cooking/icecream scooping.. but i have to do it all..so yeah.

i had a very bad moment last night when ngaio dumped an entire bowl of cereal on my lap at 10pm (after many hiurs of whining and other incidents..it wasnt a great day for us)and i threw a handful of wet cereal in her face. i feel like such a spazz. i was ready to turn myself into the police station for being a child abuser. i dont know what got into me at all. elwynn and ngaio both started to cry and yeah. i feel like a pretty big bad mom today. youi all dont have to flame me since im flaming myself enough.
sheesh. somtimes i wonder where my sanity is.

so....thats my sad update. today is a better day.

love you all.

oh yeah..and ngaio is night weened!! and mostly sleeping in her own bed. YAY!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MamaFern* 
youi all dont have to flame me

No judgment, Mama. Not from your comrades! Woody stabbed me in the back of the thigh with a sharp metal edge a few days ago (which I realize I shouldn't have left in his reach) while I was at the sink doing dishes and I actually whirled around and roared at him--crazy eyed, red faced, big voiced scream--both out of pain and frustration.

Sometimes, like when I'm reading something really heady, it's easy to forget that I'm a primate doing the best I can with no tribe and no fur. Other times, mostly toddler times, it's not!

Spughy, what about a glass of wine before bed? Sometimes I do that to help me fall asleep if I can't get my brain to wind down, but I've never noticed if it helps me stay asleep...


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## spiritmomma (Aug 29, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *honeytree*
Sometimes, like when I'm reading something really heady, it's easy to forget that I'm a primate doing the best I can with no tribe and no fur. Other times, mostly toddler times, it's not!

I love this! SO true...

Fern: I've had those moments too. I think we all have. Especially when there were sleep woes or transitions happening in our life patterns. Right before Isa started sleeping through the night, we had some ROUGH days. But it's all good now, we both grew out of it!

Hi all! Happy Independence day... today, celebrate how you are personally independent... you are a happy and free being, CHEERS!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spiritmomma* 
Fern: I've had those moments too. I think we all have. Especially when there were sleep woes or transitions happening in our life patterns.

Yep. Count me in. I have had some moments that were very, uh, not gentle. I think the best we can do is try to be gentle with not only our kids but ourselves when that sort of thing happens. I think you just have to try to apologize, then kind of put it behind you and move on and parent the best you can.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

She used to call it "milk", but lately asks for "nursing". And "other side"









And we're also co-sleeping and nursing to sleep; though DH puts her to sleep on evenings that I work (or tries... the last couple evenings have been a struggle). If I'm at home, though, there is no sleep without nursing down. And since we're talking about sleep, she woke and nursed 10 times the other night. No kidding. We have "good" nights though, where we only nurse three or four times... I keep fantasizing about nightweaning, but I think I'm too tired to do anything right now.








Fern, we've all been there, I think.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Winter's word for nursing is "booby". And he emphatically signs milk with both hands, and just in case I didn't get the point with all of that, he will go and get my nursing pillow and put it in my lap for me. He doesn't nurse to sleep every night. Sometimes he'll nurse before bed but go "night night" with Jim, who rubs his head until he falls asleep. It is the sweetest thing ever. Some nights if he's really tired he will fall asleep on my nursing pillow.
I'm having a hard time being sleepy with all the fireworks still going on. I really should go to bed but I just know that everyone will be sleeping in tomorrow considering they all went to bed at 11.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

fern, you and ngaio have enough changes going on in your lives right now. She'll forgive you.








FWIW, I did exactly the same thing with one of the boys, but in reverse. They threw beans in my face, so I put the bowl, upside down, on their head. At the time it seemed like a totally rational thing to do- and he giggled for hours







:
DiD, I think it's so cool that you and Winter got your nursing relationship back.
Our news? I have a tummy bug. Can't stop throwing up, even when the other end needs to be sitting on the toilet, but it's mostly dry retching. I was talking to Alex about the morning sickness last night- he called me into his room to ask if I was OK when he heard me throwing up- and I told him about the time I was sick all over a tablefull of chocolate muffins when I was pregnant with him. So he thought about this for a minute, and then declared I was the best mummy ever







Isaac is off school today too ( with a bad case of "can't find my reading book-itis" I suspect- ostensibly a tummy bug)


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Oh *Fern*, you are so not the only one! I had a really bad moment a couple of weeks ago that still haunts me a little bit. I think we all have our limits! I just try to remind myself that the good outweighs the bad.







So are you working during the day, Fern? Is Tim taking care of the kiddos while you're gone? Sorry it's so sucky for you, at least the cleaning part.









*Helen*, sorry about your tummy.







: Is it an illness, or the belly bean? I hope you get to feeling better soon Mama.









God, *Mel* - I thought we were having it bad in the sleep department. Brynn's gotten back into the wake-every-two-hours routine over the past week and a half, and I'm starting to feel pretty crappy about it! At least we're not alone!







I thought it was the poison ivy and/or the teeth, but motrin and benadryl haven't had any effect on the issue, so maybe it's just a habit she's gotten back into. I just don't know. So I'm curious: whose kids are sleeping through the night these days? Are we in the minority for still having several wakings?

*Spughy*, that's wonderful that you are *finally* getting some good sleep.







Hooray!

We had a really nice holiday yesterday. We hung out around the house all morning and DH cleaned like a mad-man, which was fabulous! Later in the afternoon, we went to a Fourth festival, where we met up with *Kavita, her DH, and Ella*. Something unexpected and wonderful happened there too...the local Waldorf school and one of the (eight!) local Montessori schools both had informational booths set up, so I got to spend a lot of time talking with both about their different approaches and programs. I have to say, I think I had a Major Life Moment while talking to the Montessori director. We totally *connected* and even talked about the possibility of me coming to work at their school at some point after my PhD is finished. It was just so exciting and inspiring that I couldn't stop thinking about it last night!!

We're really lucky here in L'ville in that we have so many awesome choices for progressive education, but I am having such a hard time trying to figure out which of the two (Waldorf or Montessori) would be the best for Brynn. Of course, either would be fabulous, but given that we have both options, I'm totally agonizing over it! We are going to the parent-child program at Waldorf this fall, and I plan to read a lot more about both programs as well. I just hope that the choice will become clear to me as the end of the year approaches. I guess my intuition is saying that Waldorf is the right choice for this year, but Montessori is where we need to be after that. So we'll see!

Thanks for the input about the wedding. I think I am going to just have to deal with the unpleasantness of canceling that trip, and go visit my friends instead. And give the bride and groom a really nice gift.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Ellie calls my right breast "milk" and my left breast "side" (as in other side). I had never realized it, but I guess I usually offer the right breast first.









Ellis is too freaking cute for words. Don't believe me? Check it out! If you want to read the whole blog about our fun day yesterday (including more pics), its right here.

I'm off to take the kids shopping and to meet Grandma for lunch! Have I mentioned how much I love living near family now?


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Sleep is still hit or miss with us, but a million times better then Annette was at this age so no complaints from me. Last night Annette and dh fell asleep together in our bed then after she got moved I got Joseph down there. Later on when I was headed to bed I went to move him to his bed where he usually starts the night and he went nuts. So back in our bed it was for the night. I go for whatever gets all of us the most sleep. I don't think he has ever slept the entire night through, but it's not a big issue for us. I rarely notice when he gets in to our bed and there are probably times when he nurses at night that I don't notice. An interesting side effect to being so hot I was sleeping without a shirt. I've woken up a few times with a little guy latched on when I thought he was still in his bed







On the heat note I'm trying to work out schedules with a guy from freecycle to pick up 2 ceiling fans. Those should be a huge help on our electric bill and hopefully mask the sound of dh's snoring.

On words for nursing. Joseph usually goes with mmm mmm or mmm mmmies. He has on occasion also asked for more when wanting to nurse. I think his favorite is either banging me on the chest or just attempting to pull up my shirt and help himself. However both those behaviours are highly discouraged.

The shower/bathroom redo is coming along and as the worst dusty parts are done Joseph and I are at home today. I have decided that hotels and toddlers do not mix. From dinner time to the time I get him in bed I was in a constant circle chasing Joseph around the room so he wouldn't destroy things. Setting the phone to hands free and listening to the dial tone is apperantly a fascinating activity. As are opening and closing all the drawers/doors. It's important to make sure the top dead bolt is thrown, not because there might be weird people at the hotel, but so that the toddler can't escape. I also attempted to win the worst mommy of the year award while at the pool. The first thing I did once in the gated pool area was put Joseph's life vest on him then worked on getting things sorted out and floaties on Annette. Joseph decided to investigate the shallow end of the pool and I stood next to him and watched him as he fell in. As soon as he went in I pulled him out by the handle on the top of the part that goes behind his head, but I'm glad the pool was empty. I doubt most people would understand letting a toddler figure out on their own that some things simply aren't a good idea. After that tumble in we also worked on laying back so the life vest would hold him up and he learned that really quick. Both the kids had a blast splashing around and can't wait for our next trip to a pool or the beach.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
Later in the afternoon, we went to a Fourth festival, where we met up with *Kavita, her DH, and Ella*. Something unexpected and wonderful happened there too...

Oh, for a moment there I thought you were talking about the fact that our husbands are apparently falling in love with each other and planning to give up their jobs to become farmers together!







DH has always had a fantasy about having an organic farm, and since Amy and clan are also planning to buy some land and grow food, etc., my DH and her DH were totally talking up a storm about gardening and agriculture almost the entire time they were hanging out together at the festival! I overheard them having a very excited discussion about the relative merits of horse vs. cow manure as fertilizer! After we left the festival we went to the house of DH's director for a 4th of july party, then later we were hungry and went to an Italian place for dinner. Somewhere in the middle of our salad DH mentions, "I'm having lunch with Jason tomorrow." I was like, "Who?" thinking that he was talking about some work colleague that I haven't heard about yet and then I suddenly realized what he was talking about and was like, "Jason as in Amy's husband?" Yes, our husbands are doing man-socializing without us! Very scary . . . .


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
I have decided that hotels and toddlers do not mix. From dinner time to the time I get him in bed I was in a constant circle chasing Joseph around the room so he wouldn't destroy things. Setting the phone to hands free and listening to the dial tone is apperantly a fascinating activity. As are opening and closing all the drawers/doors. It's important to make sure the top dead bolt is thrown, not because there might be weird people at the hotel, but so that the toddler can't escape.

Oh yeah, been there! This is Ella's favorite--I actually ended up unplugging the phone and letting her have at it! My other hotel trick is to request a crib!! Quite honestly, it saved us from going crazy a couple of times when were were out here looking for a house! We put all her toys in it and let her sit in it and put on cartoons! Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures! lol! She was actually pretty happy in there, too. I never had her actually sleep in it, but if they give you the "portacrib" kind it also can be shoved against the side of the bed and then you can shove the big heavy chair they usually have in hotel rooms against the other side of the crib, and voila! instant bed rail for cosleeping!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
Oh, for a moment there I thought you were talking about the fact that our husbands are apparently falling in love with each other and planning to give up their jobs to become farmers together!









Bwah!!







I know!! Jason usually asks me to come have lunch with him on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but _not today_!







I think it's fabulous though because I certainly don't give a crap (pun intended) about discussing cow manure. Hee hee.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
\Yes, our husbands are doing man-socializing without us! Very scary . . . .









That is SO COOL.









What is with toddlers and phones, anyhow??? Rowan tries to "talk" on anything that looks remotely like a phone. My MP3 player, for instance, or a calculator... and whenever we ask her who she's talking to, it's always "Uncle Ashley".







. Put a REAL phone up to her head with someone on the other end, and she clams up entirely.

As far as sleep goes, Rowan sleeps mostly through the night pretty consistently now, as long as she's in the big bed with mama or dada. And has NO sheets on her.







She wakes up for boobies at about 5:30 then goes back to sleep for another 2 hours or so. My issue with sleeping with her isn't that SHE wakes up, it's that I wake up when she moves. I am a horrible, horrible sleeper. And she has a nasty habit of sleeping perpendicularly on the bed with either her head or feet in my tummy. So I need chemical help to stay asleep under those conditions.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
Oh, for a moment there I thought you were talking about the fact that our husbands are apparently falling in love with each other and planning to give up their jobs to become farmers together!







DH has always had a fantasy about having an organic farm, and since Amy and clan are also planning to buy some land and grow food, etc., my DH and her DH were totally talking up a storm about gardening and agriculture almost the entire time they were hanging out together at the festival!

OK, that's it. I am officially jealous.







All our friends with whom we can talk obsessively about sustainability and organic agriculture are older with grown children, and all our friends with young children are totally not into it!!! Who knew--in Louisville!?!? (Do y'all have a food co-op there? That's currently my main criteria for moving...)


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Teresa, we have a food co-op here







Move to England, you know you want to...


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
(Do y'all have a food co-op there? That's currently my main criteria for moving...)









No - can you believe it? There are all kinds of co-op stores, but no buying club. Which, I'm not sure what you meant. If you meant a co-op store, then YES! Move on out!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Okay everyone, help me prove or disprove my new theory. Very verbal or early verbal baby/toddler equals crummy sleeper (or vice versa). DH and I were both really early talkers and terrible sleepers. He didn't sleep through the night until he was three







:

Food co-ops here, too, Teresa. And I co-ordinate the community gardens for student family housing, so know lots of gardening geeks







Then again, maybe we should just all find a place to move to together and start a little MDC Nov 05 commune


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MelW* 
Okay everyone, help me prove or disprove my new theory. Very verbal or early verbal baby/toddler equals crummy sleeper (or vice versa). DH and I were both really early talkers and terrible sleepers. He didn't sleep through the night until he was three







:


Sorry, Rowan's sleeping pretty well now and she's pretty verbal too - not to the extent of Neela or Brynn, but still well ahead of average for this age. And I talked REALLY early and well, but slept through the night from six months on, according to my mom. My DH on the other hand was not such an early talker and was a rotten sleeper.

However, I think GENERALLY your statement is probably quite true. I bet the early talkers have a lot more going on in their little heads and part of why they wake up so much is that they just HAVE to tell mama about something...


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I bet the early talkers have a lot more going on in their little heads and part of why they wake up so much is that they just HAVE to tell mama about something...

Yeah, like "I want mama-milk, Mama!"

I keep forgetting to tell y'all some funny stuff that she's doing. One, if she is really upset about something (usually not being picked up when she wants to be) and she's crying, I will ask her to use her big girl voice. Her response? She whispers.









Oh, and she told her first joke a week or so ago - we were in the car, and she said, "I got my feet wet!" and I said, "You did? Where did that happen?" The punchline: "In a watermelon!"







What a jokester! Of course, she's re-told that joke about 30 times now. It's pretty adorable.

Oh and she's really into comparing sizes of things, but there are only two classifications: "The really big HUUUUGE [thing]" (said in a loud, low voice), or "The tiny tiny tiny [thing]" (said in a little mouse voice, with her nose crinkled). Or if she sees something that is relatively small, it's "the little bit tiny one," (which I think is her version of "a little tiny bit").

She does so many things that I try to remember to share, but never seem to keep ahold of them all.


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## spiritmomma (Aug 29, 2005)

Can I just mention quickly here how much I love Brynn?
She's really supremely cute.

Today Isa and I went on a hike. It was so good to be out exploring... she rode in the Ergo for most of the hike (and man, am I out of shape!) but walked for some of it too. I just can not say enough good things about Holliday Park. If you're ever in Indy, go play at Holliday park. They have the best playgrounds ever and some decent nature trails too.

I had a great day. Hope everyone is doing well.
Ciao


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
Oh and she's really into comparing sizes of things, but there are only two classifications: "The really big HUUUUGE [thing]" (said in a loud, low voice), or "The tiny tiny tiny [thing]" (said in a little mouse voice, with her nose crinkled). Or if she sees something that is relatively small, it's "the little bit tiny one," (which I think is her version of "a little tiny bit").

We had a great librarian at storytime who taught the kids to sing teeny tiny and BIG versions of songs, with smaller actions and higher-pitched voices for the teeny versions. Guess what we have to do all of the time now?

And everything here is "very". Very big, very hot, very funny, VERY LOUD!


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
However, I think GENERALLY your statement is probably quite true. I bet the early talkers have a lot more going on in their little heads and part of why they wake up so much is that they just HAVE to tell mama about something...

I don't know, Killy had whole language speech delays and now struggles with articulation issues, and he's a rotten sleeper. He's three years old and he just started sleeping through the night regularly. I don't think its necessarily true that kids who don't talk early have LESS going on in their heads.







: (ya'll will have to excuse me, I seem to be a bit testy and over-sensitive on the topic of speech. my kids are both quite bright, but Killy had such issues with speech that its really a sensitive topic for me)

It must have been a day for hiking! I took an hour long hike with Ellie in the Ergo this evening, while DH and Killy did some shopping. It was wonderful - there were wild berries all along the trail and I picked handful after handful for Ellie. She LOVES berries, as soon as she gets out of our car everytime we get home from somewhere she runs straight to our berry bushes at home and picks all the ripe berries she can find.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Queen of Cups* 
I don't think its necessarily true that kids who don't talk early have LESS going on in their heads.







:

I'm sorry, QofC, that was a pretty thoughtless way of phrasing what I meant. I just had this mental picture of all these exciting new words whirling around in the little heads and bubbling out through their mouths... I didn't really mean that non-verbal kids had less going on in their heads, just not so much that needed an outlet. I'm really sorry. I was typing in a hurry and my brain condensed some stuff that it shouldn't have.









Anyway, if it makes anyone feel better, Rowan's sleeping better has coincided with much MORE difficulty going to sleep in the first place. She used to conk out happily nursing for about 15 minutes after a book and a bottle of milk. Now, we read several books, then we have to go to the bedroom and "make a nest" - code for flopping around on the bed for 10 or 15 minutes - followed by protestations, calls for Daddy, demands for Daddy to sing (with almost every song vetoed with an emphatic "NO" after just a few notes), followed by some whining when she's told to settle down, followed by requests for "more boobies", during which she MIGHT nod off, but more likely followed by more of "make nest" followed by more whining, insistence on lying on Mummy, flopping off, finally not resisting being held in one place, babbling for 15 minutes or so (some of it amusing enough that mummy and daddy have a hard time not laughing, e.g. panting followed by "I be dog. I be big dog.") and then finally either dropping off to sleep or throwing a minor fit for more boobies and THEN dropping off to sleep. It takes more than an hour.

And yet, when it's naptime around noon, she's ASKING for the nap and out in 10 minutes. And yeah, I've tried just waiting until she's actually tired at night... doesn't work. It still takes an hour for her to wind down, and then she's shortchanged at least an hour's sleep for the night and it messes her up for the next day.

I comfort myself with the thought that she won't be doing this when she's 13. Then I try really hard not to think about how long she COULD do this for.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spiritmomma*
Can I just mention quickly here how much I love Brynn?
She's really supremely cute.

Awww.







: Thanks Mama.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I comfort myself with the thought that she won't be doing this when she's 13. Then I try really hard not to think about how long she COULD do this for.

Yeah, I guess I can say that about Brynn's still ridiculously-frequent night wakings too. But then when I read QoC say that Killy didn't start sleeping soundly til around 3...well....







:









But Spughy made me realize they all have different styles of getting to sleep and staying to sleep - our bedtime routine has gotten *so* easy (and also very enjoyable): after a bath, we go to her room, read a book or two, and then she nurses for a few moments while I tell her everything I can remember about our day. Then I tell her all the things I'm thankful for, and then ask her what she's thankful for (last night it was the castle at the library and the little tiny tiny dog we saw when we went for our evening walk







), and then she rests her head on my chest for a few moments while I sing or tell her a story, and then she kind of starts to crawl out of the rocking chair when she's ready to get in the crib. And then she goes to sleep!! It's really quite nice.

The rest of the night, however? Not so much. It's just so frustrating that we had made so much progress, and that we're back to this state of affairs once again. I don't even go for my morning walks half the time anymore because I'm too damn tired, and it affects our whole day when I don't get that morning time and exercise. Jason told me the other day that he's noticed that I've seemed much less balanced and more emotional the past week or so, and that kind of bums me out.

So this morning I told him, I think we're going to have to give her sleeping pills tonight. Or something. Seriously, what the hell are we going to do??!

Speaking of Ergos, I bought one of the TP, and I'm hoping to get it next week. I can't wait!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Amy. Here's hoping it gets better soon. Have you considered posting in parenting the gifted child forum for ideas? One thing I will say, though, is that I don't think bathtime is relaxing for a toddler and all of my kids have always had morning baths instead- and with her talking over and evaluating her day, there's a lot going on. Just a thought...
FWIW, I don't think there's a link between sleeplessness between the ages of 1-2 and IQ: I do think there's a correlation between early/ severe separation anxiety and verbal and empathic ability later in childhood.
QofC, I know exactly what you mean: it really bugs me when I hear people say that verbal/ literate = intelligent too, because it completely overlooks the fact that girls and boys are hardwired differently, nurtured differently and that there are many kinds of intelligence







:. One of the most beautiful, talented and creative little boys I know has his brilliance overlooked because his sister was an early talker and reader, and it bugs me


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 







Amy. Here's hoping it gets better soon. Have you considered posting in parenting the gifted child forum for ideas?


No...hadn't thought about that yet. I tip-toed into that forum a couple of weeks ago and wasn't sure about it. A friend of mine recommended a book called Living with the Active-Alert Child, but our library system doesn't have it (our library here sucks, from what I've been able to tell), so I'm interested in reading about that. I was also thinking maybe about going to Night Time Parenting to talk about it over there. Again. Sigh.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
One thing I will say, though, is that I don't think bathtime is relaxing for a toddler and all of my kids have always had morning baths instead- and with her talking over and evaluating her day, there's a lot going on. Just a thought...

I think the bath thing used to be more the case when she was younger; it really just kind of spazzed her out, so we switched to morning baths too. Brynn used to be like Rowan in that it took her a *long* time to wind down at night, but she's gotten a lot more efficient lately.

Now, I think the evening baths do calm her because she's contained in a small area, the water is warm, it's quiet, etc. She has to be relatively still. I hear what you're saying about talking about the day...but so far I think it's working for us. It really makes her settle down and listen (she's usually so wiggly, and wants to hop down every couple of minutes to "play this game!"), and then like I said, she just goes right to sleep.

I think it really is what the No Cry Sleep Solution says, which is that she isn't soothing herself back to sleep when she wakes up. There's also the possibility that she's too hot or cold (we can't keep the damn temperature in this house constant no matter what we do!!), or that her crib is too narrow for how much rolling around she does. I dunno.

The past couple of nights, though, I have not even picked her up out of her crib if it's been less than 2-3 hours since her last waking. She was mad the first time, but the second time she just flopped right back down and went to sleep within seconds.

I guess I would just think, "This crib thing isn't working" if it weren't for the fact that it went so well for the first month! But that's kind of how everything goes with her in the sleep department; we see *major* improvement for a while (like when she started sleeping in the pack and play way back when), and then gradually things just back-slide to how they always are.

Sorry - didn't mean to hijack the whole thread about this *once again.* God.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
it really bugs me when I hear people say that verbal/ literate = intelligent too, because it completely overlooks the fact that girls and boys are hardwired differently, nurtured differently and that there are many kinds of intelligence







:.

Again, SORRY SORRY SORRY I ever said anything implying that! I really ought to know better. My own DH was a late talker and grew up to be a freakin' GENIUS. I'm sure he was a genius as a toddler too. A cranky genius, but genius nonetheless.

Re: the nighttime bath - I agree that it's more of a stimulant than anything, although Rowan doesn't get one every night and it makes NO difference at all to how easily she goes to sleep. But at the moment morning baths are impossible because we're all just trying to get out of the house in the AM. Once I'm done work I'm going to switch to morning baths too. Oh, and BTW - remember Rowan's bath aversion a while back? Gone. She gets in the bath happily and drinks half of it out of her tupperware buckets. BUT her thing now is to run out wearing her towel after the bath, rip the towel off, and burst into tears. Nothing but Toopy and Binoo and cuddles helps then. Weird kid. (Side note: I admit, I am now a convert to the usefulness of TV with toddlers. I'm glad she only really likes that one show, and equally glad it is on every night at 8:30. Unfortunately there's a lot of "Binoo on?" that happens at other times too


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
Sorry - didn't mean to hijack the whole thread about this *once again.* God.

Amy, coming off of three years of multiple night wakings, I just want to say that it is very consuming. My best advice: don't get pregnant anytime soon! That makes it a whole lot tougher...







Is your hubby still traveling a lot? If he's at home now, let him deal with it for a week or two. That will give you a break, and it may improve things. When I would try to comfort Killy at night it would seriously get him more riled up (even after he was night-weaned), and when David would go in there he was more likely to go back to sleep. Ellie's fine with me comforting her back to sleep and doesn't even ask to nurse anymore. She still wakes once a night sometimes, but usually I just lay down next to her and she falls back asleep within a couple minutes (I love having her in a full size futon so I can just lay down and not reach over a crib rail). Earlier this week we had such a major breakthrough with Killy. I was in bed (David was still working) and I heard Killy get out of bed, go into the family room and then go back to bed. I went into his room and he told me he went to get his cup because he was thirsty and then said goodnight. OMG! I never thought he'd ever wake up, take care of whatever he needed to, then go back to bed on his own! It only took 38 months!!!


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Sleep is fun. I never complain about Joseph's 1-3 wakings night because I know how bad it can be and I think this is easy! I never had a night waking child in a crib though so that might be a bit rougher. It's always just been if they aren't in our bed they get up and bring themselves to our bed if they need us in the night. At age 5.5 that is very rare occurence with Annette. She on rare occasions will put up a little fuss if something looks interesting on the tv, but usually she is straight off to bed and falls asleep quickly and easily. It was insanely rough early on as it was mostly me and her for her first 2.5 years, but if the pay off is a child that is this easy about sleep I'll take the rough 2-3 years rather then 18 years of fighting about bed times. I also napped every time she did, I also nap most days with Joseph. Being able to get that extra little bit of sleep makes the rest of my day so much better! It also lets me stay up a little bit later then the kids so I can get some time to read or paint my toe nails.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Jen, I was actually speculating on whether Amy were already in the pudding club... but yeah, Amy. Seriously, DO NOT take chances on contraception at the moment.
Spughy, there are moms of boys and moms of girls. Despite one of my kids having an absent penis, I'm always going to be the person who bangs on about how the school system discriminates against boys because they can't sit still for 5 minutes together because that hits my family really really hard. It's just who I am- don't stress, huh? Society as a whole assumes that language = intelligence, which is a pretty sexist generalisation when you think about it. (i've never heard Amy talk about Brynn's problem-solving skills, though, for instance...)


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Society as a whole assumes that language = intelligence, which is a pretty sexist generalisation when you think about it. (i've never heard Amy talk about Brynn's problem-solving skills, though, for instance...)

I was actually thinking about that in one of the earlier posts today. I think language is just so easy to observe and quantify (compared to say, problem-solving skills, high-lever reasoning, spatial skills, mathematical intelligence, and other things that are not quite as obvious) that language something people really focus in on. I agree that it's not really fair to say that early talker = high intelligence.

As for the contraception issue - no worries there; I have an IUD...and all of those possible-someday-babylust feelings are totally gone. Funny how they so totally correlated to how much sleep and exercise I was/am (or am not) getting.

I just noticed today that Brynn is now sprouting her bottom canines, in addition to still working slowly on her top first molars. So, honestly, that has to be related. Doesn't it? I'm just going to believe that for now!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Amy, I definitely think the teeth could be a part of it.
Finley had been sleeping beautifully, almost through the night every night, but lately he has been nursing a couple of times a night again. I'm not sure what is going on, but from all the reading and MDC lurking I've done, it seems like it's pretty normal for their sleep to be on and off for these first two years, what with all the developmental changes going on, and teeth coming in.
I know it doesn't make it any easier, and I'm so sorry you're having a hard time. I hope you're able to come up with a solution and/or come to place of peace (and rest, the hard part, I know!) with it.

I should be sleeping with Finley now, during his nap, but I'm not too terribly tired, and just want to have some grown up time now.

Helen, are you feeling better? I hope so!

s_kristina, so glad that the 2-3 years of hard sleep paid off with Annette. It gives me hope! Not that Finley's sleep is horrible at all, but it is less than perfect, and I hope our approach will give him a peaceful relationship with sleep as he gets older.

Spughy, your description of Rowan's going to sleep ritual had me laughing so! She sounds adorable, and Finley definitely has nights like that. Sometimes he's asleep in five minutes, and other times, it takes an hour. Usually, it is somewhere in between, around 15-20 minutes. Sometimes, though, I'll start singing a song that he doesn't want me to sing, and while he nurses, he shakes his head NO, very emphatically. So funny.
oh, and Spughy, after you shared eating cheesecake last week, I was inspired to indulge in some myself...I thought it sounded so good. So when DH and I had our "coffee date" while MIL was in town, we split a slice of cheesecake. YUM.

Oh, and Finley doesn't really have a word for nursing. Mostly, he signs "bed", because we almost always go to bed to nurse. And he also signs "milk". If he says anything, it's "Mooommmmm".

So...to go to my pregnancy paranoia, what do you think the chances of me getting pregnant are with this story: (hope it's not TMI)

stopped minipill, so as to start FAM.
had discussion with DH about how we are not safe yet to have unprotected sex until I start my cycle again, as per FAM's instructions.
we agreed we'd use condoms most of the time, and if it seemed I was definitely not fertile, with no CM, etc, maybe just use withdrawal, and take that risk.
on the particular day, I told DH I thought I was fertile, and we needed to be careful.
that night, we started to DTD, without a condom (don't have them in the house yet). I assumed he'd withdraw, and we'd take that risk. I'm always reminding him to withdraw, if we feel worried/if i missed a pill or two (that's how I got pregnant the first time, missing pills), and he hates it, so I thought this time, I'd refrain from the obvious, since we'd had the discussion literally a few hours earlier.
He didn't withdraw.
I had fertile CM and my cervix was in a fertile position (soft, high, open).

I haven't had AF yet, as you know, and Finley does still nurse quite frequently.

How worried should I be??

I'm 7 DPO now, and don't really have any symptoms, except I do have some tightness/cramping down there, but it could be digestive issues/my head/or hyper-awareness.

I know this doesn't really belong in this thread, but I just thought I'd see what you all think...

I would be both thrilled and scared if I am pregnant, and I'd be both relieved and a tiny bit sad if I am not. I have been having babylust lately (especially as I've been getting more sleep and Dh and I have had some alone time...similar to your comment, Amy!), so I definitely have mixed feelings. Would love it, but it isn't how I envisioned our life going right now, and was looking forward to more of a spacing.

No need to dwell on this as a thread, just wanting to put it out there









Finley is such a joy. We've been having a wonderful time together, and he had a major breakthrough yesterday: he got into the pool!!! (The baby blow-up kind). We've been playing in it almost daily, though he's been too scared to get in. I have occassionally tried putting his feet in, when he thinks he wants to go in, but he has screamed and cried. Yesterday, I asked if he wanted to go in the pool, and he said "yeah", as he has often done before. But this time, he didn't cry when I put him in, and instead, we splashed and played and had a wonderful time! I am beyond thrilled. It seemed like he would never get over his fear of water.

Today, I tried having him play a bit in the bath with the water, as a playtime only, but he wasn't too keen on getting in the bath, just stayed outside of it, pouring cups of water in the bath. It's progress and hope though!

His constipation also seems to be getting a bit better. The only thing I've really done differently with his diet is reintroduce yogurt, one of his favorites. Go figure.

He loves playing peekaboo, buckling his high chair straps (over and over and over again, very focused, very serious), stirring water and playing with water, listening and singing to the Beatles (especially Hey Jude, She Loves you, Penny Lane, and Yellow Submarine), and reading books.

Hope everyone is looking forward to a great weekend.

My SIL is coming over, because her relationship is falling apart, and she is kinda falling apart. Talk about major drama. Don't know if I've told you all about him, but last week, he downed 15 of her percosets (sp?) that she had from her surgery (nice timing, guy...attempt suicide while your gf is on crutches, one week post-op). She called 911 and he's been in the psych hospital all week. He confessed to being a cleptomaniac and stealing a lot of things, including things from his job, (and he turned himself into the job) so he's obviously lost his job, and he has several other "secrets" she hasn't told us about, and also that he hasn't told her. He's the one that left his year old daughter back in Iowa to be with her. And cheated on his wife with her...and the divorce isn't final. What a mess!!!! It has been such a challenge for me and DH to know how to handle it. We are just trying to focus on supporting and loving her, and keeping our feelings about the guy, and her choice of guy, separate. So hard.

Anyway, thanks for reading my LONG and selfish post!

More soon, all you lovely mamas.
Have a delightful summer weekend.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 

She does so many things that I try to remember to share, but never seem to keep ahold of them all.









My favorite is last week we were having lunch and I look up and notice that Brynn, who is sitting the the booth across from me, is staring, totally transfixed, at my boobs, for like an extended period of time! And then turns to her mom and says in this hushed tone, Mama, there's milk in there!! like she was just having this epiphany! It was very hilarious!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

barcelona--ugh! sounds like quite a situation with your SIL. Hope she drops the guy and runs! (even though you can't say that, I can, lol!)

And I think that you have to remember that your chances of pregnancy are about 25% in any given cycle if you have unprotected sex while you're totally fertile. So it's not a given that you would be pregnant. But also not impossible. I know that when we were trying to prevent pregnancy, it felt like every time that we had sex we were convinced that we would get pregnant--then when we started TTC we did it like rabbits while I was ovulating and didn't get pregnant for a few months--and it was sort of funny to realize that we may not have needed to be that paranoid after all! (Of course, now we're back to paranoid! lol!)


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Kavita,
Thanks! That definitely helps the worried part of me. I'll know soon enough, and if I am...well, we'll be blessed and happy and do what we need to do.

As for Brynn...I cannot believe the things she says!!! She is TOO CUTE for words!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

barcelona, I second what Kavita said. There's probably a small chance that you might be - but I was a little confused by your post. Have you begun ovulating again since Finley's birth? You seem to know where you are in your cycle, which leads me to believe you have had at least one period? But on first reading, I thought that you were saying that you haven't a period at all yet? I hear you on the not-quite-sure-how-you'd-feel. After I got over the feelings that I would be suicidal if I were to become pregnant (like until Brynn was about 1), I actually thought that I would be slightly happy if it happened by accident.







But it can't, so that's fine. And hooray for the water-aversion-reduction! That is great!














And the cheesecake - yum! I've had such a sweet-tooth the past few days!

Kavita, I had totally forgotten about the boob episode.







That was really funny. She's been talking a blue streak today, but the funniest was when we were at a new friend's house today for playtime, and she came up to me and said (I kid you not): "Let's talk for a moment."







This kid cracks me up.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Sorry if that's confusing. I have not yet had my period, so I'm not 100% sure where I am in my cycle. But, since reading FAM, I've been keeping track of my CM and cervical positioning...and it seemed like I followed the patterns leading up to ovluation, then ovulating, and then passing it. I'm not temping, since I am still up at nights with Finley. From what I understand, I might well be attempting to ovulate, but not yet have enough estrogen to release an egg.

So, I'm sure this decreases my chances even more, and I'm being super overly paranoid. It's just that, when I got pregnant with Finley, it was like this...such a small shot, and it happened.

So, I'm probably fine. Still, I'll be testing so I can know something, esp. since I have no idea when AF would start.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Barcelona, a few thoughts:
Firstly, if you had unprotected sex less than 48 hours before day Oh, then your body may have faked you into thinking that you're more fertile than you are: semen and ewcm can take a while to tell apart, and a lot of women find that semen will also move their cervixes higher and make them feel softer, but with a hard core in the centre.
Secondly, if you only noticed one day of fertile quality CM- creamy or egg-white- then the chances are that your body is still gearing up to ovulation. If you log on to FF, there's charts on there for women coming off the minipill. It is worth temping, though, it really is- as long as every night's sleep is trashed then you should get an accurate indication on a chart of when O occurs, it's just not going to look "pretty."
Kavita, that's cute


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
My favorite is last week we were having lunch and I look up and notice that Brynn, who is sitting the the booth across from me, is staring, totally transfixed, at my boobs, for like an extended period of time! And then turns to her mom and says in this hushed tone, Mama, there's milk in there!! like she was just having this epiphany! It was very hilarious!

Too funny! Neela is currently obsessed with who nurses. We have long periods of questioning about all of our friends and neighbours. Including one little girl who recently weaned at two years old but is much smaller than Neela. Neela keeps insisting that she nurses and gets upset if I say she doesn't. My little lactivist









As for the verbal=intelligent stereotype, we get it all the time. It's easier to know what is going on inside of a verbal toddler's head, but certainly no more or less in there! But we get constant comments about how smart and amazing Neela is. I think she is, but just in the prejudiced parent kind of way


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## spiritmomma (Aug 29, 2005)

Quote:

I think she is, but just in the prejudiced parent kind of way
Whenever someone comments on how smart Isa is (due to signing or talking or whatever) I always tell people that I think all children are this intelligent, but that she has a way of expressing it that is more tangible to most people. I agree that talkative doesn't mean smarter, but that verbal children are special because they help adults to remember that they think differently than culturally shaped adults. I LOVE hearing about things children have said.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MamaFern* 
youi all dont have to flame me since im flaming myself enough.
sheesh. somtimes i wonder where my sanity is.

no flaming from me, mama! i kinda had one of those moments myself today when keagan bit me in the arse









Quote:


Originally Posted by *MelW* 
Okay everyone, help me prove or disprove my new theory. Very verbal or early verbal baby/toddler equals crummy sleeper (or vice versa). DH and I were both really early talkers and terrible sleepers. He didn't sleep through the night until he was three







:

i'm gonna have to go with the disproving the theory here. keagan only has about 3 words he verbalizes at this point. . . and sleeps like crap









Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
So this morning I told him, I think we're going to have to give her sleeping pills tonight. Or something. Seriously, what the hell are we going to do??!

sorry, amy, i can't remember this has been suggested or not. . . have you tried hyland's formula called "calms forte for kids"?

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
I just noticed today that Brynn is now sprouting her bottom canines, in addition to still working slowly on her top first molars. So, honestly, that has to be related. Doesn't it? I'm just going to believe that for now!

dunno. . . keagan has had all of his teeth now minus his two year molars for a few months and still sleeps like crap.

can you tell i'm tired? maybe i should go to sleep now since the little bean is asleep


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Amy, I was thinking about you and Brynn last night. If you're actually considering something that drastic, wouuld you think about starting with a session or two of cranial-sacral therapy (her birth was pretty traumatic for you, if I remember) and if that doesn't show results then maybe looking at something like classical kinesiology? I'm wondering if maybe this extreme teething and sleeplessness isn't actually Brynn's normal and if there's something else going on that is aggravating the teething and broken nights.

Susannah, I'm sorry for your poor bottom







- how did he reach? I'm trying to figure out the logistics here and struggling desperately... here's hoping he sleeps soon too.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

I know it's too late for this time, but for any NFPers who have "oopses" spermicide can be used afterwards (and even up to 24 hours afterwards) to reduce the chance of pregnancy. I know they offer it as an alternative to the morning after pill in some situations (and I hope I'm not opening major debate or UA violations here).

Susannah~ I want details of the bum biting, too









We had a bunch of 7/7/7 babies at work this evening. I'm tired and off to bed...


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Amy, I was thinking about you and Brynn last night. If you're actually considering something that drastic, wouuld you think about starting with a session or two of cranial-sacral therapy (her birth was pretty traumatic for you, if I remember) and if that doesn't show results then maybe looking at something like classical kinesiology? I'm wondering if maybe this extreme teething and sleeplessness isn't actually Brynn's normal and if there's something else going on that is aggravating the teething and broken nights.

Can you explain more about this? I really don't understand CST very well, so I don't know the way in which it might help. You can PM if you like.

We had a nice day yesterday. We lounged a lot, and then went to look at a model log home (we're thinking about building one, maybe, or something even more sustainable), and then went to *Kavita's* for the *most delicious* indian meal ever. Kavita is an awesome cook, y'all.

*Mel*, I realized at like 10:30 last night that it was 7/7/7. Lucky babies!!

*Susannah*, I haven't tried Hyland's. DH is realllllllly wary of herbal remedies because they aren't regulated by the FDA, so we don't really use them.
*
Spiritmomma*, I was thinking something along the lines of what you said in your post, about how all children are intelligten. My feeling is, all children *shine* in some way. For some kids, it's verbal aptitude; for others, it's physical mastery; for others, it's their awesome personalities. Jason and I have so much fun with Ella, for example, because she is SO giggly and cuddly (very unlike Brynn); she actually cuddles with me more than my own child does!







Every child is just wonderful, I think.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
Can you explain more about this? I really don't understand CST very well, so I don't know the way in which it might help. You can PM if you like.

We had a nice day yesterday. We lounged a lot, and then went to look at a model log home (we're thinking about building one, maybe, or something even more sustainable), and then went to *Kavita's* for the *most delicious* indian meal ever. Kavita is an awesome cook, y'all.

*Mel*, I realized at like 10:30 last night that it was 7/7/7. Lucky babies!!

*Susannah*, I haven't tried Hyland's. DH is realllllllly wary of herbal remedies because they aren't regulated by the FDA, so we don't really use them.
*
Spiritmomma*, I was thinking something along the lines of what you said in your post, about how all children are intelligten. My feeling is, all children *shine* in some way. For some kids, it's verbal aptitude; for others, it's physical mastery; for others, it's their awesome personalities. Jason and I have so much fun with Ella, for example, because she is SO giggly and cuddly (very unlike Brynn); she actually cuddles with me more than my own child does!







Every child is just wonderful, I think.









Homeopathics (ie Hylands) are not the same as herbal remedies, whereas herbs work through the actual constituents of the plants, homeopathics don't really contain much actual "ingredients"--they are so dilute that the remedy may not actually contain much at all molecularly of the substance, but they are supposed to work on an energetic level. (Sort of the "aura" or energy of the plant or substance, if you will.) Homeopathics are one of the things that I feel are very safe, and will either help or do nothing in a situation--it depends on having the right remedy for the "symptom picture". We've been giving Ella a lot of Chamomilla these days for teething related crankiness and irritability, and it really seems to help a lot.

Thanks for the compliment on my cooking, btw!







: DH is actually a pretty good cook too, but yesterday I wouldn't let him in the kitchen--I was just like, just get the kid and the dogs out of my kitchen and let me cook by myself in peace!!







I also like to clean as I go to the extent possible, because when things get all crazy and messy I can't think or work well, and it irritates me when I don't have a clean and clear work surface.

I agree about different intelligences in children. (well, in everybody really but we're focusing on the babies/kids.) One of the reasons I don't want to send Ella to a traditional school is that I think that the educational system focuses on a very narrow range of talents and abilities. Even mainstream early child education seems so reductionist, and about reading readiness and learning a set group of concepts (colors, numbers, letters, etc.) I think that takes all the fun and wonder out of learning right at the outset! That is what is so appealing to me about the theories that state that we don't really have to "teach" young children anything, just give them an enriching environment and appropriate activities and sensitive adult intereaction, and they will absorb and be prepared though their own curiosities and wonder about the world and their own desire to explore it. And in terms of Ella being very sociable and cuddly--she is *totally* a very outgoing and sociable girl! It is funny, because I noticed that about her when she was very, very little--she is so expressive and has a way of drawing people to her. She is very sensitive to other people--not in the sense of being easily hurt, but in the sense of being very attuned to others. I always laugh and say that when she is two I'm going to get her a job as a greeter at Walmart, because almost everywhere we go, she has to greet everybody. For example, if we turn her loose in a restaurant, she'll table to table and visit for a while with everybody! She has very high levels of social and emotional intelligence.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
I agree about different intelligences in children. (well, in everybody really but we're focusing on the babies/kids.) One of the reasons I don't want to send Ella to a traditional school is that I think that the educational system focuses on a very narrow range of talents and abilities. Even mainstream early child education seems so reductionist, and about reading readiness and learning a set group of concepts (colors, numbers, letters, etc.) I think that takes all the fun and wonder out of learning right at the outset! That is what is so appealing to me about the theories that state that we don't really have to "teach" young children anything, just give them an enriching environment and appropriate activities and sensitive adult intereaction, and they will absorb and be prepared though their own curiosities and wonder about the world and their own desire to explore it.

ITA. In fact I couldn't agree more. I used to think the idea of unschooling was pretty wacky, but now I'm thinking it's actually a pretty good idea.

Amy, homeopathics work on the principle that a very dilute solution of something that causes the same symptoms in the body will trigger the body's own immune (or other) system to act to dispel the symptoms or balance the system. Personally, I don't think they work (flame me all you like, I know that's an unpopular view here!) - I have tried homeopathic remedies for teething, headaches, colds, sore throats... and have had no measurable success. OTOH, since the solutions are SO dilute, there is no possible way they could harm anyone, so they are perfectly safe. I say give 'em a shot. There's a chance they could help (don't discount the placebo effect!) and at worst, they're just overpriced sugar pills.

That having been said, I'm a strong proponent of herbal medicine. (FDA, schmeff d a - the FDA hasn't approved domperidone for use as a lactation aid either, thank goodness the Canadian drug supervisory what-what is more sensible on THAT score.) But there's no reason to use herbs the same way as drugs anyway - herbs are meant to gently support existing systems, not override natural processes like drugs do. If Brynn's drinking cow's milk, you could try steeping a bag of chamomile tea in some warm milk on the stove for about 15 minutes, then cooling it to drinking temperature and giving her that just before bedtime. If she's not drinking cow's milk, just try giving her some tepid straight chamomile tea. Chamomile is very safe (and not bitter at all) and is a relaxant rather than technically a sleep aid. I would avoid valerian, which is the most common sleep herb - I think it is too powerful for little bodies and COULD mess up her natural sleep cycles and create a dependency. Also, a small lavender pillow can sometimes help as long as there aren't any other conflicting scents in bed (like if you or Jason wear scented deodorant/ap or colognes, or if you use linen water or scented dryer sheets on your linens, etc.) Scents are actually very important for sleep for some people (particularly crappy sleepers like myself) - I have a much harder time sleeping with Rowan when her jammies have been laundered at my MIL's house because there's a smell of air freshener in the bed. And who hasn't been woken up by the smell of coffee or bacon and eggs?








So, try to keep your bedroom entirely scent-free except for a small amount of (real, not Glade) lavender.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

First off, I want to belatedly thank everyone who offered commiseration and links to get decent bras! Teresa, Jen, kidspiration, Kristina. I looked at all the sites and they looked good. I don't know what size I am since nothing I buy fits, but I just ordered the Blue Canoe cross-over bra and we'll see what happens!! Tank tops w/ built in bras work the best for me, but I can't wear a little tank top to work or church so I need at least one actual bra!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MelW* 
As for the verbal=intelligent stereotype, we get it all the time. It's easier to know what is going on inside of a verbal toddler's head, but certainly no more or less in there!

Mel- thanks for that. Since as you know, we're on the opposite side of the spectrum- it's easy to think, or for others to think, that kids aren't as smart when they don't talk. Yet, there is so much going on inside their heads- I have little thinkers. And really, my dh and I are not talkers at all, we think and observe more- so it makes sense that our kids are the same way.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MelW* 
Susannah~ I want details of the bum biting, too









We had a bunch of 7/7/7 babies at work this evening. I'm tired and off to bed...

LOL, me too, Susannah!









Neat about the 7/7/07 babies!

Amy- I'd look into the CST for sure. We use calms forte and teething tablets and chamomilia, and different relaxing teas- I don't know if it actually helps, but at least it feels like we're doing something, and it's not harmful.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
One of the reasons I don't want to send Ella to a traditional school is that I think that the educational system focuses on a very narrow range of talents and abilities. Even mainstream early child education seems so reductionist, and about reading readiness and learning a set group of concepts (colors, numbers, letters, etc.) I think that takes all the fun and wonder out of learning right at the outset!


Quote:


Originally Posted by *Spughy*
ITA. In fact I couldn't agree more. I used to think the idea of unschooling was pretty wacky, but now I'm thinking it's actually a pretty good idea.

Only on MDC could I feel "too mainstream" for wanting to send Brynn to Montessori.









I wrote a position paper in college about homeschooling, and my position was "against," but I have to admit that by the time I had finished writing it, I had really been persuaded otherwise. That being said, though...I just don't think it's what is right for *our* family, for a lot of reasons. Even though I plan to go back to teaching someday (maybe as soon as next year), I don't really want to feel like I am solely responsible for everything Brynn learns and experiences. I mean I know that's a narrow way of looking at it, but my point is that homeschooling would feel like a burden - *to me* - and I would always feel like I wasn't doing an adequate job. Ya know?

Thanks for all of the info on homeopathics and stuff. I think at the very least, I will try the chamomile in milk option as soon as I can. I don't think we have any chamomile tea right now, but yes, Spughy - Brynn does drink cow milk, so we can try your suggestion. I did give her some teething tabs way back in the day, but it didn't seem to work for us either, so I haven't been really motivated to try anything else. One of our friends suggested valerian, and then I read about it and learned it's what is used to make valium, so I was like no thanks!

I am reading this really interesting book, though (101 To Help Your Daughter Love Her Body) that talks about the importance of loving touch during infancy and childhood, and it did make me sort-of remember that Brynn is both so active and so not-cuddly that I think we get a lot of our loving touch time in at night when she wakes up to be resettled. It gave me a different perspective last night, and I was a lot more peaceful about it. Still very tired this morning, but at least not depressed/resentful. To be honest with y'all, I really do miss her sleeping with us (and so does DH, even more than I do, I think); I just wish that it were more peaceful for all of us! When she nurses all night, I wake up with my back killing me, and no one gets good sleep.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Amy, this may sound like a silly question/suggestion - but can you nap with Brynn during the day? I think part of the reason my kids have both transferred to their own big-kid beds is because we nap together, and get a lot of cuddling and shared-sleep time that way. I usually curl up in the bed with a kid on either side of me and read to them (while nursing Ellie) until they're both asleep. And, I fall asleep with them at least half the time! We joke in our house about the massive amount of sleep-pheromones our kids must output, because it is so freaking hard to stay awake when kids are sleeping right by you!


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Hi all, this may be old news to all of you, but I was just reading another thread and noticed that our fellow DDC mama Belleweather is pregnant!







: I'm sure you've all already talked about this and I've missed it!


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## spiritmomma (Aug 29, 2005)

**Amy** I agree that the homeopathy is VERY safe. Whether or not it works for Brynn will be determined probably by her personal chemistry. Isa LOVES the tablets. I think they really work for her. The Calms Forte for kids is great when she hasn't napped all day and it is too late for a nap (ie: too close to bedtime). They calm her without making her drowsy or "drugged up". The teething tablets are also wonderful. When she starts to get a tooth, I wait to give them too her until she asks. And she usually does ask when her teeth start really bothering her.
And I agree completely with *Spughy* that a lavender pillow is a great idea. I've made one for each member of our family. I stuff it with flax seed (so it's kinda heavy and really supportive for your neck/head. I also add a bit of lavender for inducing relaxation. If you want, I'd be ever so happy to make you one for Brynn or send you my rough pattern so you can sew one yourself. PM me for details if you want.

And I loved this and couldn't agree more:

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy**
Spiritmomma, I was thinking something along the lines of what you said in your post, about how all children are intelligten. My feeling is, all children *shine* in some way. For some kids, it's verbal aptitude; for others, it's physical mastery; for others, it's their awesome personalities. Jason and I have so much fun with Ella, for example, because she is SO giggly and cuddly (very unlike Brynn); she actually cuddles with me more than my own child does! Every child is just wonderful, I think.

*Kavita*, I agree completely that traditional education focuses too narrowly on what talents/ gifts/ skills are valuable. If the talents/ gifts/ skills are so valuable, why are so many VERY educated people out of work? And why are skilled professionals (hairdressers, auto mechanics, plumbers, etc...) living so abundantly? Many of those skilled professionals did not do very well in traditional school, but are very successful in life. Kinda makes you think, huh? Go Unschoolers!

*Susannah*: Hilarious but OUCH! Unless Keagan is very tall, I can't picture how this is possible!









*Barcelona* I'm glad you and Finley had such a great time in the pool! How wonderful for you!

Isa is definitely a swimmer. She loves to be in the water... maybe because she was born in water? I think I'm going to get her one of those really silly-looking flotation suits. We went to a family gathering today and my aunt had just had a pool installed. It's a salt water pool (no chlorine







) and they had one of those suits laying around so we tried it. Isa felt much more secure in it than just with a loose tube or arm floaties. I wish I could have got in the pool with her, but I just had my tattoo worked on on Saturday!!!

Here's some long awaited pics... (keep in mind that I have one more session to finish up the green in the hair and retouch the white stars on the magic breast and milk on the nursing breast).

Have a happy week, everyone!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spiritmomma* 
**Amy** I agree that the homeopathy is VERY safe. Whether or not it works for Brynn will be determined probably by her personal chemistry. Isa LOVES the tablets. I think they really work for her.

Well maybe I have to eat my words, because I gave Brynn 3 teething tabs at bedtime, and she slept great last night - and IS STILL SLEEPING!!! I'm in shock; usually I'm lucky if she sleeps til 7:00. She only woke up twice last night, so needless to say I feel like this today







instead of this.







I even got to go walking (and see the sunrise), eat breakfast, take a shower, AND read my email and MDC threads!! It's a good day, I tell ya!

*QoC*, yep that is the obvious solution, I know. I have tried so many times to nap (both with her in the bed and with her in her crib) and it rarely works. I just lay there thinking about all of the things I want to be doing while I have some free time. Or if I do go to sleep, I end up being woken at the wrong time during my sleep cycle, so I end up feeling even more groggy for the rest of the day. I think since Brynn's been born, I've had like 3 really satisfying naps, and that's it.







I think if her sleep doesn't continue to improve, I am just going to have to make myself do it. Or meditate while she sleeps, or something.

*Hey, Spughy* - isn't this your last full week of work?








































































For some reason I have July 16th in my mind as your last day of work. Is that right, or is it this Friday (Friday the 13th, yikes!







)?

*Jaymi,* your tattoo looks *amazing*!!! I'm PMing you about the pillow.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Mary, my love, you're behind the times. The Nov 05 mamas pretty much have their own second-time DDC- zjande, belleweather, crsta33, strawberryfields, me, jillybeans and, erm, I forgot someone







: there's another Nov mama in Dec07 though, I'm sure, and everyone else is due between December and March







So don't drink the water round here








We had a fantastic day at the cirencester show yesterday- not as much fun as the other ones we've been to (too commercial) but Skye went on a carousel for the first time







She giggled and chuckled all the way round, shouting whee, horsie, whee, horsie, horsie, horsie














I always loved them when I was little, so it was cool to take her on. (We had a disaster with Isaac and the ferris wheel though







) Lots of pretty sheep, too.
Pictures will follow on the blog, I promise.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
*Hey, Spughy* - isn't this your last full week of work?









































































It sure is!!! Friday's my last day! WOOOOOT!!!! (but stresss - I have much work to do, and little time to do it in, and the guy replacing me is a friend so I don't want to stick him with it. He's also arguably a better choice for the job than me even though so I no longer feel even the tiniest bit guilt leaving







)

Amy, so glad to hear that the homeopathic stuff worked for you. It probably IS all about the body chemistry. My whole family has a long history of being unaffected by everything from herbal remedies to actual medication (interestingly, my sisters and I are all completely resistant to valerian and possibly valium as well) so it's probably genetic and with my luck my little girl inherited that as well. (I remember my mom being frustrated by cold medicines not working for us when we were little...)

Ok, I'm swearing off MDC for the whole rest of the day so I can get my work done. But Susannah, count me in among the millions who really want to know how your boy bit your bum.







:

Oh except one more thing. I had a really eye-opening experience yesterday, we went to a picnic in the park for friends of ours (an MDC momma & dada, actually) who are moving to New York. A bunch of families came, lots of kids we used to hang out with in baby groups in the good old days before Rowan started running around and making baby groups obselete... anyway - the range in abilities in these kids, who were mostly around the same age (the youngest was 14 months, Rowan was the oldest at 19 mo, but 4 or 5 were 18 mo) was INCREDIBLE. Rowan and one of her little friends who is 6 weeks younger than her were running around like true toddlers - Rowan's a bit more verbal, but Eli's much more adventurous and was there exactly 2 minutes before he ran into the water playground and soaked himself thoroughly. But another little girl the same age as Eli wasn't really walking yet, and yet another one the same age as Rowan only started walking a few weeks ago, while a little girl a few months younger than Rowan is walking well and almost as verbal as Rowan (especially if you count her signs) and is practically diaper-free. (We are so not anywhere near that yet.) And a little boy who was ahead of Rowan reaching-milestone-wise the last I saw him, who started crawling exceptionally early and wanted to stand from the time he was born, decided he's good with the crawling and has reached 14 months with no apparent desire to walk. (His mother is pretty happy about that.







) It's CRAZY. I mean, I always knew that there was a pretty wide range of normal, but to see it so vividly in real life was pretty amazing. They are all absolutely lovely children, and very much loved by their mamas and dadas.







It was a really nice afternoon.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Jaymi- WOW, what an awesome tatoo! That is gorgeous!

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
Well maybe I have to eat my words, because I gave Brynn 3 teething tabs at bedtime, and she slept great last night - and IS STILL SLEEPING!!! I'm in shock; usually I'm lucky if she sleeps til 7:00. She only woke up twice last night, so needless to say I feel like this today







instead of this.







I even got to go walking (and see the sunrise), eat breakfast, take a shower, AND read my email and MDC threads!! It's a good day, I tell ya!

Amy, I'm so happy for you! Doesn't the whole world seem different when you've had a good night's sleep and some time to yourself? I hope it wasn't a fluke and it happens again!! Last night the boys were really wild, and had had an awful naptime, so I gave them 'sleepytime extra' tea with valerian- and they both went down without a fight! I don't know if it was really the tea, but we were pleasantly surprised! I usually give them chamomile w/ lavendar and don't see a huge difference.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Mary, my love, you're behind the times. The Nov 05 mamas pretty much have their own second-time DDC- zjande, belleweather, crsta33, strawberryfields, me, jillybeans and, erm, I forgot someone







: there's another Nov mama in Dec07 though, I'm sure, and everyone else is due between December and March










LOL, I figured as much! How terrific that so many of 'us' are all in it together again! I"m going to have to start stalking DDC's just for kicks.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Mary, my love, you're behind the times. The Nov 05 mamas pretty much have their own second-time DDC- zjande, belleweather, crsta33, strawberryfields, me, jillybeans and, erm, I forgot someone







: there's another Nov mama in Dec07 though, I'm sure, and everyone else is due between December and March







So don't drink the water round here








We had a fantastic day at the cirencester show yesterday- not as much fun as the other ones we've been to (too commercial) but Skye went on a carousel for the first time







She giggled and chuckled all the way round, shouting whee, horsie, whee, horsie, horsie, horsie














I always loved them when I was little, so it was cool to take her on. (We had a disaster with Isaac and the ferris wheel though







) Lots of pretty sheep, too.
Pictures will follow on the blog, I promise.


Isn't trumpetplaya pregnant too?

Count me in for trying to TTC in the fall sometime. In the meantime, I have a very careful DH who wants to go to India to see his family before I get knocked up! And I want to get my body a little more in shape before I do it all again! I am in the midst of a yoni reclamation project--I've always thought that kegels are for people who don't have frequent orgasms, and I've suddenly realized that I can't sneeze without peeing myself because I am now in that benighted category. So, intentional muscle toning it is.

I also went to tour the Jewish Community Center here. I was all ooohs and aaahs with the workout facilities, the three pools including a small kid sized pool, a "climbing room" with all sorts of carpeted stairs and ramps and such for kids under five, until we got to the drop in childcare--I wasn't too thrilled with it. Ella and I sat in there for about a half hour. There were three kids, one of whom was coughing and seemed like she was teething and/or sick, and the other two of whom seemed a bit intermittently anxious about the whereabouts of their mothers. One kid did something like tumble over something, and one of the care providers kind of looked over, shook her head and said, "Jake, you're such a clumsy little boy." I didn't really like that. They also kept telling the parents as they arrived to pick the kids up, "He was a really good boy." They were fairly nice to the kids and paid attention to the ones who were missing their mommies and hugged them and engaged them in activities like reading a book, but overall the place was crammed with plastic toys and there was too much glaring florescent lighting and it was just kind of depressing to me. Although Ella seemed happy to run around and play with all the flashing blinking music and noise emitting toys, at least while I was there. Part of me feels like, well, it would only be a few hours a week. And then the other part of me says, well, I don't spend nearly that much time doing art or music or playdates or reading to her, and yet I hope that *that* has an impact on her developing psyche--can I really pretend that every day or every other day in that kind of environment will be what I want for her?


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

I'm dealing with some issues with the school Annette is going to right now also. I think overall it has more positives then negatives in our situation. The big ones are far too much crap food and the teacher drawing some lines between boys and girls that bug me badly. There is no need for 5 year olds to be separated by sex so that girls get care bears and boys get spiderman! From what I hear the food will be very different when she is in the regular school year which gives me hope. She'll also probably have a different teacher. The good thing is having options if this doesn't work out. There is even a public Montessori school.

On the less then fun side of things I have to figure out a way to explain to a 5 year old why she can't go to the zoo as we can't afford her ticket. She has been looking forward to the field trip for weeks now, but the teacher just gave us the permission slip and they are supposed to go Wednesday! I am so sick of money trouble. I've got a call in to 2 different places in hopes of keeping our power on after Friday. I really wish I could go to sleep and wake up when it's August







:


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Good golly! Y'all had three pages of amazing conversations in my three days out of town!!!!! Multiple intelligences, sexism in education, frequent night waking suggestions, cranio-sacral therapy, a gorgeous tatoo, bottom-biting babies!

Woody's a man of pretty few words himself. ITA about how it's the most noticeable sign of thinking; people are always saying to me, "He doesn't talk much, does he?" or, "Is he always this quiet?", or sometimes, "Maybe he just doesn't like me..." We are a language-privileging culture!

But, I can totally see how a baby could bite a bottom, if the mama is short and the baby is tall! Woody's 35 inches and I'm 5'5"--when he's really glad to see me, or is in a really good mood, he sometimes runs up to me from behind, throws his arms around my legs, leans his head onto my butt and shrieks!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

I have never felt so loved with all of the wonderment of how my babe could bite my arse








The unexciting truth of it is not only am I fairly short (5'3") and he is fairly tall but I was also leaning over. . . and he got me right where my legs meet my arse. So there ya have it. . . the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth









yippee for the last week of work, spughy!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
Homeopathics (ie Hylands) are not the same as herbal remedies, whereas herbs work through the actual constituents of the plants, homeopathics don't really contain much actual "ingredients"--they are so dilute that the remedy may not actually contain much at all molecularly of the substance, but they are supposed to work on an energetic level. (Sort of the "aura" or energy of the plant or substance, if you will.) Homeopathics are one of the things that I feel are very safe, and will either help or do nothing in a situation--it depends on having the right remedy for the "symptom picture".

Thanks for explaining that ever so much better than I would ever have been able to do!


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Susannah M* 
I have never felt so loved with all of the wonderment of how my babe could bite my arse








The unexciting truth of it is not only am I fairly short (5'3") and he is fairly tall but I was also leaning over. . . and he got me right where my legs meet my arse. So there ya have it. . . the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth









I can oh so easily see how that could happen. I'm 5'6" and Joseph is at least 36" when last checked a couple weeks ago now. I've got a horrendous bruise on my leg at the moment that if it had been on the back would have been awfully close to my butt. That was with his head tipped down as he had just run across the room to head butt me while I was doing dishes. Since everyone knows mommies should not do dishes while toddlers are awake unless said toddler is helping by splashing bubbles all over the kitchen.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Despite the fact that we might have the smallest mama-toddler height gap in the group (I'm 5'2", she's 36" at last check), I was still not visualizing the bum-biting well







I guess because she's not a biter- she prefers hitting or throwing.

I'm chiming in late on homeopathy, but most homeopathics are actually FDA regulated, unlike herbal medicines.

Congrats on your last week of work, Spughy!!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Is trumpetplaya still pregnant? She's due in July, isn't she? (and no. 1 came early, iirc) Must go stalk.
I know who I forgot...Ronna (suprgrl) who is due in September







I knew it was the other mama who had her babe the same day as me, I just couldn't remember her username.
Skye appears to be partially pottylearned. She took her nappy off this morning to go poo, after doing her first ever wee in the potty last night and has been bare-bottomed and on target ever since







She HAS to stop this growing up, I'm not ready for her to not be a baby any more







She hasn't nursed since last night, either- and that was only one boobie.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

i don't think i'm pregnant...am 11 DPO and got a BFN. plus, I am having INTENSE cramps, AF-style. it is so strange for me, because it is the first time i've had my period at all since finley was conceived...and it's the first time i'm having a non-artificially-hormone-induced period for five years!!! i forgot how yucky it feels...and yet also good, knowing that my body is getting back in the cycle. (it also explains why i've been so exceptionally irritable the past two days...actually told DH i must be about to start AF, as i hadn't felt that irritable in years, and there was no good external reason for it).

jaymi, what a beautiful tattoo!!!!! how special that you and your sister collaborated on it.

amy, yay on the hyland's helping sleep! was last night still good? i hope so.

spughy...YAY on work ending!!!!! i hope you guys celebrate. how exciting!!!

kristina, i am so sorry you're going through such a hard time financially. will things be okay come august?

DiD, how are things going for you all in that department?

helen, i can't believe how much skye is growing up either! what with the weaning and potty learning.

gotta go! finley calls.
more soon


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Woody and I have had a rough day so far. There's been a lot a lot of throwing books and cups and such and a lot of No's and exasperated sighs. I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night--Woody's been waking a lot lately, and I ought to go to bed at 10 p.m. to account for it, but I don't--and I got a long, work-related phone call this morning that was unpleasant and distracting. So a lot of opportunities for loving guidance were missed today.









I did do the last 10 minutes of diaper drying in the dryer, though (as opposed to on the line), with a damp washcloth with ten drops of lavender oil on it, and that has made my house and my laundry smell very nice. And I made a big pot of mint tea with my new favorite, Numi's Moroccan Mint. AND he just fell asleep, so I'm going to do some knitting.

Maybe today is salvageable yet...


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
Woody and I have had a rough day so far.
Maybe today is salvageable yet...


Quote:


Originally Posted by *barcelona*
i've been so exceptionally irritable the past two days...actually told DH i must be about to start AF, as i hadn't felt that irritable in years, and there was no good external reason for it

Awww Mamas.







I hope tomorrow (heck, later today!) feels better!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Amy, how'd Brynn (and you) sleep last night?
Thought you'd like to know that Finley and I watched Brynn's ABC video about 10 times today! I was feeling yucky and had him in bed with me with the laptop, and thought I'd show him the videos of Brynn. he LOOOOVEED them, and kept asking to see it again and again and again. He'd get this big smile on his face and then bury his smiling face into the pillow whenever she came up. And then he'd do his version of the ABC's which is basically "d, b, d, b, d, b, d,", and with pseudo-fingerspelling (cause that's what I always do). So, thanks to you and little Miss B (with great fashion sense!) for helping brighten our day. She is too cute!

Theresa, hope the rest of your day gets brighter. The lavendar oil trick sounds great. I'll have to try it!

I'm happily having some downtime, as Finley sleeps.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Ick. Sitting here waiting for the midwife- I'm having one of those mornings. Yesterday, the district nurses referred my FIL back to the fracture clinic at the hospital because his knee is going wrong, but said I'd have to get him up there. Fine, OK, I'll rearrange my appointment. THEN his doctor said he could arrange transport- even better, I can have the midwife round to play after all. THEN this morning the wrong kind of ambulance turned up at the door, with stretchers to take him to accident and emergency, instead of a ramp to take him to fracture clinic







I feel pretty guilty for not having gone, even though I know the day would have been horrendously difficult. Also, by the point the ambulance turned up the midwife had already left the hospital and gone out on her rounds for the day.

Steve has his presentation for his uni course this afternoon, so can you keep your fingers crossed? It's in about 2 hours time. He's nervous because one of the girls on his course actually failed hers- admittedly, this is the girl who cribs from google and the rest of the class and copied her project straight from wikipedia, but still...







:

Trumpetplaya is NOT pregnant, btw







Viola Kathleen was born on the 6th.

Barcelona









Teresa and Amy, may your days get better and your nights slip past in a haze of undisturbed sleep


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *barcelona* 
Amy, how'd Brynn (and you) sleep last night?

The past two nights have been OK; three wakings each, which I can live with. The funny thing is, the first night she ate like a little horse right before bed, so I thought surely she would sleep all night - nope!! Last night she went to bed without any snack (and virtually no dinner), but I gave her teething tabs again; my guess is they don't really make any difference, because it was the same as two nights ago (without them). My conclusion: no outside factors make any difference!!







So, there ya go.

That is so cute about Finley watching Brynn's video! She loves to watch herself too (she says, "See BIIIIIIIG Brynn on the computer!"); I think all babies just love to see other babies.









Helen, poor FIL. Sorry the timing worked out so poorly for you both today.

I had a funny dream last night that I was at a Fourth of July festival sitting on a blanket with some friends, and then Katie Holmes and Suri came and sat with us.







Katie was totally sweet and sociable, and Suri was a little darlin. I guess I dreamt that because I was noticing on the magazines at the grocery store that Suri and Brynn have the same haircut.









In other news, we went to tour our local Waldorf school yesterday, and it was just amazing. I have never seen one in real life, but it's basically a Nova Naturals catalogue that I could walk through and touch. It was really beautiful. Jason absolutely loved it; he's come so far in his beliefs about education! We are still planning to tour one of the Montessori schools, and I am still open to that being a real possibility, but it's just hard to imagine anything else being able to compare. Their current campus is on 6 acres, but they are building a new campus on a 160-acre nature preserve, where the Waldorf school will be the only structure allowed to be built. Very awesome.

I've also come to realize that I am most likely not going to finish my PhD, but instead focus my energy on what I'm really passionate about, and always have been, which is teaching. So whichever school we choose for Brynn, I will begin teaching (probably subbing or being a classroom assistant), and then work towards certification in that program. It feels so good to make that choice, for so many reasons, and kind of free myself from the feeling that I "should" finish my PhD, even though I kind of got into it for the wrong reasons, and the only thing I have loved about it was the teaching!! Anyway, I've talked to the directors of both schools, and they are both really excited about the possibility of me teaching, so I feel so amazingly blessed with opportunities. It was not just luck or coincidence that we ended up in Louisville - it really feels like this place was *meant* for us!


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

So randomly out of the blue the other day my brother shows up at my door. I haven't seen him since our grandmother's funeral three years ago. He's in the Navy and he's been deployed in Cuba. He wants to buy a big house near where he's stationed in Louisiana but he needs somebody to care for his house while he's deployed. The house he wants to buy is actually in Mississippi but is only about 1 1/2 hour drive from his base. He's basically asking us if we want to pack up our entire lives and move completely across the country. We would live rent free and the house has 6 bedrooms and he has no other family so we would be able to live there even when he is not deployed.
On the one hand this sounds like an awesome deal, especially since it includes 2 1/2 acres of freedom for my kids to run and play on, but on the other hand, all of my friends, I finally found a great midwife and we're definitely not done having babies, my family, are all here. I love the Pacific Northwest but buying a house out here will never happen for me and Jim on our own. Not to mention it's right in hurricane land.
I so do not know how to even begin to decide on this.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

We are back from our trip and it was exhaustingly amazing. We learned a lot and that was the purpose of the trip. I don't have time to go into it all but I will find time soon...

I am sooo sorry I've dropped the ball on the beads. I will be PM'ing all who've shown interest this week so if anyone missed it let me know asap~!

ooh and yeah we are 23 DPO atm with a total of 3 positive pregnancy tests....


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

Kavita, you have to start trying while you're in India with this run of luck on testing whilst on holiday...

I feel less guilty. FIL left for the hospital at 10am and we got the call to go get him at 4pm. I couldn't have spent the day there with Skye, she'd have been climbing the walls.

DiD, I think you and Jim have some big decisions to make. Even if it just gives the two of you time to save and get financially straight, there's a lot of things going for it. I think the m/w is the least of your issues, though...

Amy, I can cope with you telling stories about your amazing precocious talker, but I'm incredibly jealous of your coiffured daughter







Skye barely needs to brush, let alone cut. I am considering getting her trimmed just to make her hair look thicker, though. I'm glad you made a decision about your career- doesn't it feel liberating?

I may be able to stop planning a UC. My midwife is human, and turned up wearing the same top as me- always a good sign.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

DiD I'd jump at a chance like that, but I'm sitting here currently wearing an LSU Tigers shirt wishing I was back in LA and near family there. I can give you some basics on the area. After living where you are it would likely be culture shock to go anywhere in MS. That said there are big differences from the coast where dh and I vacationed several times before dd came along and northern MS. I'd guess that the cost of living would be a fraction of your current costs even if you needed a place to live. On the other hand you should make sure that you or your dp can get a job there. A big part of the reason we moved was work for dh. Check with some of the moms in the MS section of FYT they would be able to give you more local info if you gave them to city or county where your db is planning to build.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

*DiD,* I read your post this morning, went and ran some errands, and have been thinking about it the whole time! What a predicament!! I also lived in the Gulf South - New Orleans - for many years, and grew up in Oregon, so I'm pretty familiar with the cultural (not to mention meteorological and topographical) differences. It would be a huge shock at first, I'm sure, but considering everything it may offer....it would be hard for me to say no. That being said, I do think the hurricane risks are very high for that area, so there's that to be considered. In order to make the choice though, I would have to ask myself: What is *most* important to our family? And then let the decision-making process work from there. In any case, it's pretty cool that your brother came to you with the offer.

*Helen*, that is hilarious that y'all were wearing the same shirt. As my friend Megan always says, "That's a sign!"







Oh, and as for the hair, it's still a mighty battle to wash it every 2nd or 3rd day. Sometimes I have dearly wished for a bald baby!!

OK, I don't want to make y'all jealous, but I might be having The Best Week Ever (tm VH1). First of all, Jason came home two nights ago with this book for me because he knew that I *really* wanted it, but I've been saving every penny for my upcoming road trip - and then he did the dishes after dinner and took Brynn to the pool so I could read it in peace! I was thinking he was pretty fabulous for that alone, but he told me today that one of his co-workers has an extra ticket to see *****THE POLICE***** on Saturday night, and since he knows how in love with Sting I am (shut up), he is going to stay home with Brynn and let me go see them with a group of *his* co-workers (although I have a fledging friendship with the one who offered) because he knew it would just make my month!!!! So he's got a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for the next six months, I'd say! I







Jason!!

As if that weren't enough, we get to go see Harry Potter 5 this Friday night, and I am going to see my best friend in the world in just a few days!

So:








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I am a happy girl!


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## MamaFern (Dec 13, 2003)

ug.. i cant keep up. .maybe i shouldnt even try. i so want to read everything but 10 minutes on a library computer just isnt enough to do anything..and i can hear ngaio screetching downstairs, whicj makes it even worse..

so things are better since last time i wrote. a good friend emailed me from olympia about the news of her baby boy being born. im just so happy.
work is ok.. im thinking of not doing it much longer. i dunno. i feel like i should but i dont want to and tniothy thinks its silly because i make so little money and i work so hard.and yes, he stays home with the kids, which is great.

hmm.
amy im jealous an\bout you going to the movies.. i want to see it soo bad!
a month in and im getting stir crazy. we have been driving into kamloops once a week which is crazy since its over an hour away.. but i guess getting away fro0m little fort is necessary right now.

helen and zjande, how are your baby bumps doing??







i wanna hear all aboiut it.

love to you all..and hopefully one day ill be back again in more than a few words a week.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Wow, DiD! That IS a big decision. I'd do it, but then I already live on the Gulf, in Florida, so I have acclimated to the ideosyncracies of what my husband (from Monroe, LA), calls "the dirty, dirty South." But even if you only do it for a year and move back, what an adventure! And Helen's right--there could be hidden opportunities. Get a tarot reading done if you're really stuck. That always helps me.









Amy, hooray for fabulous weeks, and especially for adoring husbands! And I think it's wonderful that you've found your love in teaching. I plan to teach wherever Woody is, too, if I ever can't bring him to teach wherever I already am!

Helen, I'm glad your midwife seems to be a good fit; I bet that takes a load off your mind!

And YAY, kaspirant! I was thinking about you today and wondering how you were doing.

And mamas, I'm going to be testing the vacation-pregnancy clause here; my cycle's not back to normal yet, but my chart *seems* to show an ovulation while we were at dh's family reunion (which, by the way, was fun, and not at all the stress fest that I thought it would be), and if I *did* ovulate when I think I did, then I accidently timed things perfectly for a +. So keep your fingers kinda crossed for me?









MamaFern, don't worry about re-reading our ten pages of chatting--tell us about YOU and your sweet babies and we'll love you just the same! I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling disspirited about your work; that's such a hard place to be emotionally when you still have to get up every day and do it.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

kaspirant:








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Okay, that should about cover it!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Wow, I missed a lot in just one day!

Kaspirant, OH MY GOd!!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! How Wonderful! How do you Feel? We must get together ASAP. I'll email you







I'm thrilled for you!

DiD, good luck making that decision. I'm big on adventures, and with all the positives, I second that it seems like it would be fun to do, even if only for a year, with a goal of saving, etc. Of course, like Amy said, you'll have to sit down and focus on what is most important to you and your family and go from there...

Amy, what a great week you're having! Have fun at the Police Concert and seeing Harry Potter and your best friend. What joy. And how great about the Waldorf school.

My little contribution to the education talk is that I am pretty sure we'll be doing unschooling. I think it's going to fit our family best, though we'll see, and time, and Finley, will tell.

Helen, fingers crossed for your DH!

Theresa, babydust to you! When will you test?

Kavita, when will you go on your trip to India?

Hope everyone has a lovely end of the week...


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

*Kaspirant*, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!







How exciting! When I read Kavita's post, I was like, "Wha...? How did I miss that?" But then I went and looked at your post again, and realized that I hadn't seen your little announcement the first time I read it! I guess my monitor was tilted in such a way that I didn't see the gray text. But anyway:







: How wonderful!

And how exciting for you, too, *Teresa*!







: Babies all over the place!!









So how did DH's presentation go yesterday, *Helen*?

*Fern* (I made it bigger and bolder so if you are scanning, you will see this!), I just looked up Little Fort on the map, and it looks beautiful up there! But yes, very remote, and it says the population is only ~350. I must have missed it when you were talking about moving, but what made you decide to move up there? Sounds like you are not really happy with the work situation, but in such a small town, it is probably really hard to find work. Would waitressing be any better for you? Too bad you don't have more internet time...I would love to see some pictures of your area. It looks just amazing!!

As for me...I've been thinking for a while about changing my username to *ChanceToShine*. Any opinions, either way?


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Kaspirant - WOOT! Exciting! Oh and I'm still in for the bead swap, just so ya know.

Teresa - here's hoping for you!

DiD - wow, what a decision. I think you guys need to do some serious thinking about what's important for you, what's feasible, etc. It sounds like a great opportunity, but I'd be freaked right out by the whole culture shock thing too!

Amy - if changing your user name would make you happy, I say go for it. I've pondered changing mine but I can't think of anything cool.

TWO MORE DAYS of work for me! I had my last meeting with my boss yesterday, he's on vacation today and tomorrow.

It was HOT here yesterday. About 38C (I think around 100F?). I don't mind that kind of weather. Of course, nobody has AC in their homes here, so there was a lot of whining! We live very close to the ocean though and we can catch any stray little ocean breeze that flits by, so our place wasn't so bad. Rowan enjoyed running around the yard stark naked last night while mama lounged in the neighbour's inflatable pool (not stark naked, I'd like to stay friends with the neighbours). My tomatoes are growing almost visibly - they sure love the heat. Today's cooler, and the weekend is supposed to be just pleasant, but then it's forecast to get hot again next week. Yeeehaw!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Teresa, here's crossing fingers for you







: I was meaning to email you and tell you, when we were down at Avebury around the solstice we left an offering for you and Woody tied to our tree (except that it's not our tree- it's part of a small grove up on a hill, inside the henge but with a view over all of it, if that makes sense. There's a lot of power to it, a lot of animals around it and generally, it's covered in ribbons and papers and everything else. It's still cool.) We left one for me and Skye and the bean, too, asking for help that everything works out the right way for both our families.

Barcelona, any sign of AF yet? Or can we still hope for you?

Fern, so far all of my demands for this pregnancy are refusing to materialise. I'm not being sick enough to be reassured, and this babe is not an early kicker either, so really, I have no news. Then again, no news is good news, right?

Amy, I like the new username- but I don't know if it really reflects you. In the two years I've been reading your posts, you've already come such a long way towards achieving your potential, I think you need something that reflects this- does that make sense? I don't think you're right at the start of your journey to being who you want to be, and the mom you want to be, any more.

In our news, Steve's presentation was marked outstanding in every aspect except one- his tutor complained that it was 2 minutes short. The guy from the PGCE department was talking to him about it later and they said that it was a very confident, polished performance and they loved the very kinaesthetic way he presented- chopping wood boards live, jumping up and down to show kinetic energy, and all the rest of it- and think it's a great start to next year. Woot!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Fern, I'm sorry I forgot to mention you in my last post...but I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with work, and I hope you or Timothy can find something that is more fulfilling and enjoyable and fruitful and less draining. And that you can all find time to explore the beautiful area you're now living in!

Helen, I'm thrilled that Steve's presentation went so well!!! Fantastic! What does it mean exactly for the year ahead of him?

As for me, still no AF. Had some major cramping two days ago, that could have been implantation cramping. Or it could have been some mysterious thing my body is doing as it adjusts back to itself. I thought for sure AF was on the way, but she's still not here, and the cramping has subsided. I might test again today, or tomorrow. Patience is not one of my virtues...I'll keep you all posted.

Theresa, when will you test/ know?


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

And Sarah, another HOORAY for almost being done with work!!!!! You must be ECSTATIC! Enjoy the warm weekend and the tomatoes. Sounds heavenly.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Kaspirant~







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Teresa~







I think you're lucky to be able to take Woody to work, or teach where he goes to school. Though busy, too, I bet!

Helen~ Congrats to Steve on his presentation.

Fern~







I hope you can find more fulfilling work for either you or Timothy. How do the kids like your new home?

Spughy~ Enjoy the heat, and the countdown to SAHM-hood









DiD~ No advice, but good luck with your big decision!

Amy~ I'm inclined to agree with Helen on the username change.

I've been pondering frogma as a new user name for myself. Though I think I might need to post more to get up to senior membership, so my senior member title can be "not dogma". Certainly not as deep as many of your names, but I do have an affinity for frogs.

Neela's current obsession are meerkats. We borrowed a meerkat puppet from the library a month ago that she carried around almost everywhere and loved it. We also used it to wave at people in other cars on our road trip. Today at the library we found the puppet again, and of course had to check it out. Then when I was looking at DVDs for DH, she wanted to know if there were any meerkat movies. Our friendly librarian helped us find one, and a meerkat book. I've never seen the Discovery channel series meerkat manor, but I have a feeling it's in our future (it was checked out today, so we came home with another meerkat movie instead). I also think that we may have started down the slippery slope of tv with Neela, since until today we've rarely watched tv and never had kids movies. But her love of meerkats is too freaking cute! She was so excited to come home and show DH all of her meerkat stuff! And to think that only a few weeks ago I though the meerkat puppet was a possum, and she thought it was a dog







I now know more that I ever wanted to about meerkats. (I could call this learning unschooling, right? even though we're really undecided about what we'll do for school for Neela)


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Mel, that is too funny about Neela and the meerkats! They sure are cute and charismatic, but don't you wonder sometimes what it is that totally enraptures kids about seemingly random stuff? And I think that's a LOVELY example of unschooling, or at least a learner-centered "lesson"!

Helen,







,







thank you.







,







. And what wonderful new about Steve's presentation. It sounds really interesting! What exactly is a presentation equivalent to here? Is it like a thesis or dissertation defense, or something totally different?

Woohoo, Sarah! One day to go! One hundred degrees with no A/C IS something to whine about! But good the tomatoes are enjoying it. It hasn't been that hot here, mostly in the low 90s, but then then we can't hope for anything that might be described as "pleasant" until October! I have to knit on faith for six months of the year.

Amy, what does that user name mean to you? It's not striking me as a perfect fit, either, but it might help to know what drew you to it.

Barcelona, I don't think I'll test for a few weeks still. My LP is 17 days! How maddening is THAT on days 15, 16, 17!!! I don't come by patience naturally, either, but luckily I'm pretty flighty, so I often forget things in between obsessing about them.

Sidenote on alternative education: So I'm kind of reading up on some Waldorf theory, and trying to incorporate some of the ideas that resonate with me into our life--daily rhythms, simple toys, muted colors, songs and games, etc. And I'm even making a little knot doll out of one of the thousand receiving blankets I still have hanging around. Only as I'm making it--simple toys, remember--my mind absently wanders to what I could embroider around the hat and if I could tie-dye the next blanket. I refuse to believe this makes me a bad candidate for Waldorf education; they simply didn't HAVE tie-dye in 1920s Austria when this whole thing got started. I think I'm more in barcelona's camp--we're going to have to keep trying on "styles" and see what we like best as we go along!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

His project isn't as intensive as a dissertation: basically, this course gets him up to 1st year university standard in mathematics, so refreshes the school syllabus up to age 18 and then moves on to some more advanced stuff in the space of six months







: His degrees are in accountancy and financial management, so while there's a lot of maths in there there's not quite enough for him to go straight onto a teacher training degree. That's one of the reasons why the presentation of the project was so important: every single aspect of their course, they're meant to be thinking both about how they learn and how they're going to adapt this to a classroom situation to help other people learn. Next year, he does a teacher training degree (half in the classroom, half at university learning the theory stuff) and then the year after that is his newly-qualified teacher year that he has to complete in order to have qualified teacher status.
Can you tell how proud I am of him?








This afternoon, we are (gulp) leaving Skye while we go to see Harry Potter without her. I really don't know how I'm expecting this to go [fingernail-chewing smiley/]


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
Amy, what does that user name mean to you? It's not striking me as a perfect fit, either, but it might help to know what drew you to it.

Yeah - I should have explained better, but I think I ran out of time to post. Well, two things, really - to me, to "shine" is to be your best (but authentic, of course) self. I love that song, "This Little Light of Mine" because it's all about shining.







One of the things I want to teach Brynn is that we all shine in some way, and it's our job to learn what makes us feel like shining. Or shiny.







Also, when I was in college, I had this really awesome professor who didn't call our exams exams, but "Chances to Shine." So he would write on the chalkboard: "Friday - CTS #3". Melia was in that class with me, and we still remind each other that something (anything) is a Chance to Shine. So really...it's just more of a reminder to myself to rise above the mundane, not be annoyed, and be a good and positive role model for Brynn.









There are about 3 others that I'm kicking around...but don't seem like the exact right fit either. I've been thinking about it for months; I think my username is lame and boring! So maybe I'll surprise y'all when I get back from my road trip.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack*
This afternoon, we are (gulp) leaving Skye while we go to see Harry Potter without her. I really don't know how I'm expecting this to go [fingernail-chewing smiley/]

We are doing that tonight, too...but *Kavita* and Ella will be staying with Brynn, so I know she will be fine! (PS: Hooray for Steve!!)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree*
Only as I'm making it--simple toys, remember--my mind absently wanders to what I could embroider around the hat and if I could tie-dye the next blanket. I refuse to believe this makes me a bad candidate for Waldorf education; they simply didn't HAVE tie-dye in 1920s Austria when this whole thing got started.

What makes you think that's not Waldorf? They are all about playsilks, and many of them are dyed to look like a rainbow. That's basically tie-dye! They also embellish clothing and hats; I don't think you are meant to wear a flour sack and nothing else.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *MelW*
And to think that only a few weeks ago I though the meerkat puppet was a possum, and she thought it was a dog I now know more that I ever wanted to about meerkats.

OK, that is hilarious. Isn't it funny how they latch onto something like that? Brynn's current obsession is rodeos.









*Barcelona*....that has got to be so hard, waiting to know something!! I am also incredibly not patient, and remember the 2WW as some of the most excruciating days ever! I hope you won't have to wait much longer.

And last but not least....
*SPUGHY*!! Have a fantastic *LAST DAY OF WORK*!!!!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

BUh-BYE work!!!!

I'm so done. I just haven't been at ALL productive the last two days. Whatever. I am finding it hard to actually care.







Yay I'm done!!!!

And by a pleasant coincidence, the lab is hosting a BBQ today so they're even feeding me lunch on my last day. How nice.









Rowan is all about horses at the moment. And drawing. Unfortunately, she doesn't try to draw horses herself. Nope, every time I go NEAR a piece of paper I hear "draw horse mama!" which is a change from the "draw Daisy mama" of last week. Drawing is probably the LEAST of my skills. I SUCK at drawing. My horses are only vaguely identifiable as horses, and mostly thanks to the mane and tail. Hopefully this will spur Rowan into developing some artistic skills as she tires of the monotonous almost-horses that mama produces.

And we have crayon covering most of the surfaces in our house at the moment, of course. It is theoretically washable and that'll be my first SAHM task. Good times.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We wimped out of leaving Skye







I'm a bad, bad mummy, because everyone knows she should be used to being left by now (and we should have her on a bottle, make her cry it out and god knows what else.) Instead, she came with us and we sat next to the entrance so we could take her out if we needed to. We just couldn't face leaving her for that long, knowing how- erm, securely attached she is.
And my b*stard husband bought me a LARGE coke. I kid you not, you could have bathed Skye in it. So instead of me taking Skye out, she took me to the toilet at regular intervals throughout the film. She got a bit spooked at one point at the very beginning and again at the end but generally coped pretty well (and she's been exposed to all of the others, lots.) There is a truly cool scene where they fly down the Thames on broomsticks, which I love.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Sorry, cross-posted.

YAY spughy!!!! Welcome to life as a SAHM. Do you have WD40 over there? That'll shift crayon stains- at least, the ones we have...


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Hey no HP spoilers! I'm not likely to see it before it comes out on dvd or something like that. The only way it might work for me to see it is if I left both kids with dh and I'm not sure they would all survive that. I can feel this quickly turning in to a rant about why men get to go things and women stay with the kid(s). I better get back to sewing before I get too grouchy.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Kristina, if it makes you feel any better, in our house, it's usually ME who goes out and does things while DH stays home with the kid. I seriously have to PROD him into things like poker night with his buddies.

And I second the "No Spoilers Helen!!!!" motion!

Helen, we do indeed have WD40, but our crayons are marketed as "washable" so if I can't get the crayon off with AT MOST some magic eraser, I'll be suing. Or at the very least writing a snarky letter.

Oh, and Amy - your "Chance to Shine" story made me smile, but I think when I was in Uni I probably would have wanted to strangle a prof that did that.







It might well be a chance to shine, but it still counts towards your GPA...NO PRESSURE or anything









Ok, BBQ time! later my lovely ladies!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
Oh, and Amy - your "Chance to Shine" story made me smile, but I think when I was in Uni I probably would have wanted to strangle a prof that did that.







It might well be a chance to shine, but it still counts towards your GPA...NO PRESSURE or anything



















True! But he was the coolest guy. I think he was probably in his 70s, and he wore a bow-tie every day, refused to ride the campus bus because he was afraid he would never be able to get off, and brought his HARPSICHORD into class every Friday for a "jam session." He was the bomb.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 

Rowan is all about horses at the moment. And drawing. Unfortunately, she doesn't try to draw horses herself. Nope, every time I go NEAR a piece of paper I hear "draw horse mama!" which is a change from the "draw Daisy mama" of last week. Drawing is probably the LEAST of my skills. I SUCK at drawing. My horses are only vaguely identifiable as horses, and mostly thanks to the mane and tail. Hopefully this will spur Rowan into developing some artistic skills as she tires of the monotonous almost-horses that mama produces.

Oh, we play the toddler version of pictionary here, too. Where I start to draw a bumblebee, and she exclaims "A pineapple!", etc. Usually I don't get far enough into a drawing before the guesses start. Neela draws snakes and trees. I can even *kind of* tell them apart


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Oooh, I'd better not read if there are HP spoilers! I totally plan on seeing the movie, somehow!! I am really afraid I'll hear or read a spoiler about the new book! I probably won't get to read it for a while, so it will be hard to not hear or read anything! The last HP book and the last Outlander book were both 'spoiler'd' for me from accidentally seeing threads on MDC!

Uggghhhhhhhhhh, I am so not proud of how I've been parenting lately. I really do not have the two kid thing down, AT ALL. I tend to have really good times with each kid individually, but when it's me alone managing both of them I just fall apart and am totally flustered and overwhelmed and just get short with them and don't take time to explain anything and just generally feel ashamed at the type of person I've been to them. I seem incapable of meeting both of their needs at once, so one of them is always screaming or frustrated or ignored, not to mention meeting MY needs of eating and going to the bathroom, neither of which ever seem to happen without WW3 erupting if I step away for 2 seconds!

It's especially acute lately, since Ezra's two MAIN and ONLY interests are 1) Running away and into the street, no matter where we are or what we're doing and 2) dumping, smashing, and smearing any food or drink he comes in contact with. Ethan had a little show today on the last day of music camp and Ez just struggled and screamed the entire time, trying to make for the exit! I tried so hard to pay attention to Ethan and not have Ez make a big fuss but he wouldn't be distracted by anything! The only thing that kept him still for 2 minutes was smearing my lip gloss all over both of us, thereby ruining one of my few comfortable and well fitting shirts!

Anyway- I know it's all 100% normal, both for them to be acting their ages







and for me to be overwhelmed and have an adjustment period for each new stage of development! I just hope the plateau of normalcy comes again soon for us.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

....and I'm done! Wooooohooooo!!!!


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## savvybabygrace (Feb 15, 2007)

Hi, all...

My dd Emma is out. of. control. And I completey understand why, am not upset with her, but just feel like the worst mother in history sometimes.
Her little sister is 2 weeks old, we recently switched her to a toddler bed (she was jumping/climbing/being very dangerous in the crib), and we have my MIL visiting (which doesn't happen often). So there's a LOT of changes in our home lately. Understandably, Emma is having a hard time coping I'm afraid. She screams at everything, hits, and is having a very hard time falling asleep, even when I rock and hold her.

The thing is, I completely understand that this is the age where she's going to assert her independence (I'm an early childhood educator...or I was before I had two babies in two years, LOL). I also understand that she's going through a lot! I just feel awful sometimes because it's so easy to lose patience and yell, which I hate doing. I find myself doing it more and more often though and have to really calm down to redirect Emma instead of yelling.

*sigh* Anyone else in this situation? I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes, and I just want to help my dd get through this...while getting me through it, too!


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Ok, now I'm back to actually contribute instead of whine about myself!

Kier- I totally get you- see my previous post! Except I don't have a newborn baby, but a very needy 4 1/2 yr old!







to you, and forgive yourself- and welcome to the group, I don't remember seeing you before but I've been LOA a lot so maybe you've been around for a while!

Kaspirant-







:





















woooo hooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Teresa-ooooooh, exciting! Can't wait to hear! I forget if I already said, when I checked out your blog for the photos of Woody a while back, it really brought back memories of our pg days! You were so great about updating your pregnancy photos and I totally remember your smiling face and growing belly.

*Amy*- do what makes you happy re: the username, but I for one won't feel like MDC is the same place anymore, without *Amy*!! You are a fixture around here, it would take a lot of getting used to







Pretty cool about your professor, what a great attitude about exams!

Spughy- congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!! I love this one that someone else posted







I'm so happy for you!

Helen- I"m so glad Steve did well







And how great that you actually took Skye to HP and made it through- I could not even contemplate taking either child to something like that! Thinking of you with your belly babe









DiD- what an interesting proposal. I'll be interested to hear how it works out!

Have a great night, everyone!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

savvybabygrace.

Sorry, ladies. I kind of assumed that most people had read the book and knew that broomsticks and London were involved at one point







: It's quite cool for us because we know two of the locations really well (Durham cathedral and Alnwick castle) and it's so weird seeing them all tarted up into film sets.
Amy, I forgot to mention, when you were talking about the Police concert, my dad taught Sting







Apparently he never told him he was hopeless at music though.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Amy, I forgot to mention, when you were talking about the Police concert, my dad taught Sting









Shut UP! Is your dad a musician? That is so cool. I'm so excited for tonight!

Re: broomsticks and the Thames, we saw HP on IMAX last night, which was awesome, and the last 20 minutes (including that scene) were in 3-D. It was really cool. Kavita, her DH, and Ella came to stay with Brynn while we were gone, and after they had left, Brynn said, "....what Kavita said." So I said, "What did Kavita say?" and she replied, " 'Come snuggle with me!' " Awww. Kavita is so good.









Mel, your post about "pineapple!" cracked me up!









Awaken and Savvybabygrace, sorry you are experience so many parenting challenges right now. Our kiddos are at such a precarious age, it seems. But you are both awesome Mamas, and this too shall pass.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
: It's quite cool for us because we know two of the locations really well (Durham cathedral and Alnwick castle) and it's so weird seeing them all tarted up into film sets.

Hey, that must be really cool to see places you know in such a big movie!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yeah. Amy, my dad was a music teacher. And Mary, it is. There's a film called Brassed Off (I don't know if it ever really made it over there) about the closure of the last coalmines which was actually set in the area I grew up (so was Billy Elliot) which is even weirder though- the HP sets are dressed up so much that if you didn't know, you'd just assume that the set designer thought "cool pillars, must use that idea some time." Brassed Off and Billy Elliot are so real I get homesick









pic of Skye and me on the carousel


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Wow Helen that's a pretty fancy carousel! And look at Skye with HAIR now!!!! I always think she looks so very very English.









I went and picked up a few diaper covers for the stash of flats I found in my closet. Now that I'm going to be home and close to the laundry, we're going to give cloth diapering a go. Then we went to the market and got these amaaaaazing organic blueberries - we bought a pint and Rowan and I chowed through half of it at the market. So good. Rowan even decided all on her own to share them with the other babies there.







: And I ran into a friend whom I haven't seen in a long time and we're going to go for a picnic sometime next week, and I ran into another mama I know and tentatively agreed on a playdate, and had a really good chat with the bakery lady (who is goddess-like awesomeness personified - she stands at the bakery booth all morning on saturdays with her 2-month old babe in a sling, usually on a boob, EC'ing him when required.)

In sad news, the chickens got into the garden and ravaged the strawberries again. Completely bypassed all the other veggies though, and the strawberries aren't actually producing at the moment, so I guess the garden spirits were looking out for us. As much as they could.

Keir -







Sounds like a really rough patch for you. I'm sorry I don't have any advice for you, but it seems to me you've got a pretty good handle on things. Be gentle with yourself.

Am I some kind of weirdo for not being that into Harry Potter?


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Adorable, Helen! You are both so cute! And those Birks are hysterical!

So AF showed up yesterday. My cycle was WAY, WAY wacked out, so I don't think that should count against the vacation clause







! I'm pocketing all of y'all's baby dust for when the time is right.

Woody just cut his incisors. Eeee-yow that must have been painful; he nursed constantly and was up many times a night for a few days there.

I've only seen and read the first HP book. I keep wanting to catch up, but now it's like, what, 6 more books I have to read and 9 hours worth of movies!?!? That's so cool that _Billy Elliot_ was your neck of the woods, Helen. I love how the particulars of place are used in that movie.

ETA: Mary, I've been thinking about your situation, and Kier, yours, too. And I have been reading some research lately about how when stress (like the likelihood of one's child running into the street, EVERYTHING about having a 2 week old) is a dominant factor in a situation, we get a surge of stress hormones and we operate from the limbic part of our brain (the fight or flight place) rather than the cerebral place, the ratioinal, calm, thoughtful brain. So basically all our decisions and actions are filtered through that anxiety. One suggestion I read, from a Becky Bailey book for teachers, used the acronym S.T.A.R. to help with remembering the very first thing to do when you feel stress in your body, via tight shoulders, quick, shallow breathing, tense muscles, angry thoughts, etc.: *S*top, *T*ake a breath, *A*nd *R*elax. I don't know if that is helpful or if that is a "Duh! The problem is I CAN'T relax!" kind of suggestion, but the idea is that if you can just get your _body_ to move away from the stress a little bit, then your brain will follow--your thinking brain can take the front seat again.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

So I'm just sitting here doing nothing, futzing around on the Internet, when on a hunch I look up all of my recent posts, you know, how MDC puts them all in a row for you? And just as I suspected, I have a scary amount of posts between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. TWO A.M.!!!!! And since it is nearly 1 a.m. now, I am guessing that this is becoming a pattern. I think the problem is threefold: 1) I am getting a little re-addicted to the Internet (it happens), 2) I am avoiding things I should be doing but don't want to, such as laundry, and 3) I am clutching madly to the only hours of the day that I can do what I want to do because my baby is soundly asleep.

I'm not offering any meaning here, just sharing a self-indulgent observation. People are wont to do such things at 1 a.m.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Sniff. I don't see anything funny about my birks







(I live in patterned DMs for the other six months of the year.) Thanks for the compliments though- and yeah, Spughy, I know what you mean about Skye looking very english








Teresa, I think DiD is on a different timeline to you but she's the only other person who is often online just before me. I think the middle of the night thing is pretty normal, because it's time for you- precious stuff, and you get it where you can.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Hey Ladies. I'm headed out for Chattanooga and Athens GA today, so I won't be around til Friday or Saturday. I hope y'all have a fabulous week, and Spughy especially - enjoy your first week of SAHMiness!!! Oh and...

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
Am I some kind of weirdo for not being that into Harry Potter?

Um, yes.









Catch y'all on the flip side.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Happy Sunday, everyone.

I have a quick question for you lovely ladies, and will check in more later today or tomorrow, but if you don't mind, helping me out a bit in my temporary insanity of the 2WW.

did any of you, before you got your first PPAF, (or for those of you who still haven't gotten her) have intense cramps as if you were about to get AF, but no AF came?

thanks so much for your help/input.

it is probably just my body trying to get fertile again, getting readjusted.

i tested yesterday at 14 DPO (in the afternoon, diluted), and it was negative. so i am trying to wait a few more days to test again. in the meantime, want to know if it's possible that my cramping episode is normal PP-body trying to get-AF.

more soon, ladies!!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Were you charting? Are you ABSOLUTELY certain on your O-date?
IME, pp cycles tend to have short luteal phases- at least for the first one or two. If you have a LP of 14 days, I reckon this sounds promising-although the cramping could be either















:


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

Thank you, Helen.
No, I am not charting. I need to get a proper thermometer before I can start really temping (have a digital one, that isn't reliable), and thought I should wait til my first PPAF comes, but I think I'll go ahead start temping as soon as I get a thermometer.

But, I have been keeping chart of my of CM, and I had about 3 days of EWCM...and based on that, and the position of my cervix, I guessed about my possible O date, though can't imagine it being another time.

I have had a lowgrade fever since I O'd, but that could also just be me being a bit stressed or something.

I'm going to test tomorrow morning (that would be probably 16 DPO), and if it's negative, for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to tell myself I'm not pregnant. I don't think AF is going to come. I think it's just my body acting wacky.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

I'm online a lot at night too because it's really the only time I get. Sometimes I go to bed early and completely skip checking MDC and I wake up feeling great and wonder why I don't go to bed early every night and then I log on to MDC and have thousands of posts to catch up on and get sucked back in


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## savvybabygrace (Feb 15, 2007)

thanks for the support, mamas! typing w/1 hand, babe nursing, but wanted to say a quick thanks for making me feel validated in my efforts! have a great week, all!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *barcelona* 
Happy Sunday, everyone.

I have a quick question for you lovely ladies, and will check in more later today or tomorrow, but if you don't mind, helping me out a bit in my temporary insanity of the 2WW.

did any of you, before you got your first PPAF, (or for those of you who still haven't gotten her) have intense cramps as if you were about to get AF, but no AF came?

thanks so much for your help/input.

it is probably just my body trying to get fertile again, getting readjusted.

i tested yesterday at 14 DPO (in the afternoon, diluted), and it was negative. so i am trying to wait a few more days to test again. in the meantime, want to know if it's possible that my cramping episode is normal PP-body trying to get-AF.

more soon, ladies!!!

Well, uh, not that I remember. But I do remember having a lot of cramping and period-y feelings (and several negative tests) when I was pregnant with Ella.







: I was absolutely charting with temps and mucus and everything else, and definitely got a temp shift, and definitely got negative tests even at day 14, didn't test positive until about day 16 with tests that are supposed to be accurate as early as day 10 PO (sensitive to 25 mg/dl.) I was feeling like I was going to start my period for about a week, and it never started! Sorry if that doesn't help you. Really though there is nothing much that is going to help you during the 2ww, it's all conjecture until you get a positive test or a period, and it's agony! I did have definite new EWCM before my first PPAF, and thought, "oh, I must be going to start my periods again (damn!)" and then sure enough I did.

Good luck with whatever you are hoping for at this juncture, and I'll be thinking of you!

I had a very weird dream last night/this morning, so I will be anxiously watching my cycle in the next weeks too.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *barcelona* 
did any of you, before you got your first PPAF, (or for those of you who still haven't gotten her) have intense cramps as if you were about to get AF, but no AF came?

Still no PPAF, but certainly crampy feelings as if it's coming at times. Even different than cramping, but the feeling of awareness of my uterus inside my body, if that makes any sense. I used to chart and have long irregular and often anovulatory cycles pre-Neela, and often had patches of EWCM or almost EWCM, but where I wouldn't acutally O. And occasional cramping then too.

Then again, I also had similar very mild stretching/cramping feelings through my first trimester with Neela, so I'll fuel your insanity and say that either may be possible.

Saavybabygrace~ Welcome! I suggest you look for the thread here in toddlers for mamas with a toddler and a newborn for suggestions and support. It used to be near the top, though I haven't seen it for a while. Maybe DID posts/posted there?

Helen~ The carousel is almost as beautiful as Skye. And your birks are terrific









Amy~ Have a great trip!

We're working on cutting down nightnursing and towards nightweaning with Neela. Her sidelying latch has never been that good, but over the past month and a half has been *horrible*. I have not had both nipples intact in over a month, and know I need to do this to save our breastfeeding relationship. That or not nurse in bed, but I can't reasonably function if I get up more than once or twice a night. I'm hoping that short-term sleep deprivation of being up/rocking/cuddling, etc. to get her back to sleep pays off in better sleep and healthier nipples in a week or two.

I don't know why we have never been able to nurse sidelying very well- it took me two months to get it working when she was a newborn, and despite every LLL trick in the book she still pinches my nipples. Or more recently tries to chew them off







:

On a more positive note, we went for a picnic and swimming at a lake today. Neela loves swimming so much- she ran right in! And even dunked her face in the water.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

barcelona -







here's hoping you end up with a result you're happy with!









We had a busy busy day of doing not much at all. We went for a walk this morning and met friends for coffee, then visited the petting farm this afternoon (where Rowan kissed every single goat there I'm sure) and then went shopping, then I came home and made dinner and suddenly the day was over. I have no idea how it went by so quickly.

This evening while DH gave Rowan a bath I was downstairs helping our neighbour with her computer, then DH brought Rowan down because he didn't think I could fix the problem myself







:. Rowan was cuteness personified and chatted away happily with our neighbour, stark naked (Rowan, not the neighbour). Then she totally started doing a pee dance, holding her crotch and sort of dancing back and forth. I asked her if she needed to pee and she said no, of course. Then we went back upstairs and I went to get her jammies and whatnot and she suddenly started saying "clean up pee pee, clean up pee pee"... fortunately she'd peed on the plastic mat under DH's office chair. What was weird though is that while I was mopping it up, she was muttering "good girl bunny" to herself. ? I don't SAY "good girl", and nobody who would say that calls her "bunny". It was kind of odd. I think she was feeling a little insecure about peeing on the floor - I gave her a hug and thanked her for showing me where it was and generally tried to make her feel ok about it. I'm going to try keeping her naked more and next time she does a pee dance, I'll try to get her to go on the potty.

In other news, I tried to use the flat diapers I found and she won't have anything to do with them. She's all over the one Baby Kanga I have though... and those puppies go for about $20 each. Sigh. The girl has expensive taste.

Mel, can you enlist your DH's help with the nightweaning? It went so smoothly for us, Rowan accepted cuddles to go back to sleep SO much more easily from DH than from me. Even now when she wakes up at night she sometimes asks for boobies, but doesn't protest when I tell her the boobies are asleep. I think it would have been much more of a struggle if I'd been the one nightweaning her.


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

I'm still not sure I'm convinced...But I have been SOO sick. UGH! I remember being sick but it's one of those selective memory things.

*barcelona* selfishly I am hoping you are preggo...seriously how fun would it be to go through it all together







ooh and with Jacob I was 18 dpo when I was still getting negative hpt's and went to the doctor for a horrific cold. He gave me a crazy long list of prescriptions which freaked me out a little because I was just sure I was pregnant. I told him my fears and he did the pregnancy test just so I would take my meds and get better....yeah when the results came back...he took ALL the meds away and said good luck getting better









*MelW* Jacob is the same way around water...scares me sometimes. We are starting a mommy and me swim class Tuesday. I'm so excited!!

**Amy** have a great trip!!

*spughy* Ummm yes. We have full blown Potter Fever here. I'll post pics next weekend of our *costumes* for Friday...we've been planning this for over a year...and we saw Potter 5 on Imax with the 3-D fight scene...Luckily for me Jacob napped and amazingly I was able to pee before and after and didn't have to leave during. I am of the persuasion that the books are far better than the movies. AND yay!!! for being DONE! I'm seriously jealous!!!!!!!!!!!

*savvybabygrace* and *Awaken* I don't totally understand as I don't have a newborn *yet* but I'm feeling a bit of the same way...only ***I*** am the one out of control. I know part of it is what is going on with my body with the pregnancy...but I feel like a HORRIBLE mama right now because I stopped taking my meds for PPD cold turkey July 2nd because of the +HPT and I just feel like my needs have skyrocketed and while I was able to put him first so much before I am finding it harder and harder between trips to the bathroom, constantly eating, my aversion to the car and my inability to be comfortable outside in the summer heat....not to mention my poor DH who has received the brunt of my anger and frustration at just not being able to do the things I want to do let alone *need* to do. SO to sum that all up. You are not alone.

*HoneyTree* LOL at your realization of where your time goes. I thought I'd be better at keeping up with not working...but I am soooo much worse. I am trying to stay off the computer when Jacob is awake...and I'm finding that I am enjoying his naps quite a bit falling asleep with him!

*flapjack* the pic is priceless...beautiful both of you!!'

Okay...SOooo sorry I've dropped the ball on this but I wanted to throw out there one last time to make sure all who want to be involved are...I'm sending out PM's for the beads and want to make sure we have the count right. Soooo last chance to jump in mama's...and those of you who've already expressed interest watch your PM's.

Okay we'll I have a house to clean, cupcakes to bake and more cleaning to do...not to mention finishing touches on our costumes for Friday...TTYL


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Kaspirant, I want to slap your doctor. What the hell was he doing giving a breastfeeding mother meds that weren't safe for pregnancy in the first place????????? Can I? Please?

Thanks for the compliments on my gal- I could have posted pics of the boys screaming their heads off on the ferris wheel as well, but didn't think they were as cute...


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

kaspirant--have you tried taking some omega 3 fatty acids? Good for depression, good for breastfeeding, good for pregnancy. I actually like Nordic naturals DHA for kids, they have strawberry flavored softgels that are pretty tasty. (Just watch the total vitamin A levels, esp. since you're pregnant, and cod liver oil has vit. A in it--don't want to exceed that if you're taking a prenatal.) I think it's pretty common to get a bit deficient in the omega fatty acid department, esp. since your body gives it all to the baby.

We're off to a playdate with a mom I met at the grocery store in a while, so I'll catch up with y'all later!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Hi, mamas! It sounds like a lot of us had really nice weekends, with picnics, playdates, baking, road trips, etc. We went to the beach on Sunday evening--I can't believe I'd never thought of that before! Usually we try to leave super early, but of course are late by an hour at least, so end up arriving at the peak hot/sun hours of the day; I'm worried the whole time about sunburn, we're all kind of cranky and tired, and we get back in the car in moods unbefitting a day at the beach. So _this_ time, we did our usual Sunday morning stuff--went to the brunch buffet at our co-op, cleaned house a bit listening to our favorite radio show (blues for two hours followed by singer/songwriters for two hours!), took a family nap around noon, woke at 2, and were in the car headed to the shore by 3. We got there at 4, and it was gorgeous! Still several families there, but not crowded, low sun, and we were all well-rested and well-fed and so got back in the car at 8 p.m. happy happy happy and rocking out to the Who all the way home. It was a really nice time.

Helen, let me clarify: I think your Birks are hysterical in that kind of delightfully unexpected, turn-a-preconceived-notion-on-its-head kind of way, as only hot pink and zebra-print "hippie" shoes can! I myself have been in a tan Birk sandal/brown Birk clog rut for about three years; your shoes have inspired me to possibly branch out to (gasp!) purple! when these wear out.









Mel, I am insanely envious of your lack of PPAF!


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

what lovely, beautiful weekends everyone had!

and helen, i forgot to mention in my 2ww-obsessed message, how incredibly adorable and beautiful both you and skye are! thank you for sharing. i would love to see your boys too









spughy, how are you enjoying your first official day of SAHM-ness?? so exciting!!!

kavita, hope you had a nice playdate today.

and kaspirant, hang in there! have fun at HP friday! are you taking jacob? alex and i are hoping to see it this week, while we're in FL with my parents. i think Finley will be happy to go with them while we see it. i'm excited!!! i LOVE harry potter, and also can't wait for the last book to come out.

and hugs to the mamas having a hard time with two. i can't imagine. i find myself losing patience and having quite a hard time when finley is in a particular mood, which is quite often these days...the mood of resisting most of my suggestions, testing me, shouting no, etc, etc.

fern, how's it going? any improvements in your situation? thinking of you...

i tested this morning, at 16 dpo, and got a negative, so i am pretty much resigned to the fact that i am probably not pregnant. of course, if i still don't have AF and am going crazy with wondering, i will test again in a week. it's funny...i started the journey out feeling quite scared and overwhelmed at the possibility of being pregnant now, as we have been "planning" to wait til Finley is 3 or 4 to TTC. but the idea really grew on me, while i waited, and imagined what we'd do/our life would be, if i was pregnant. so, by the time i was getting BNF, i was quite disappointed and sad. ultimately, though, after getting used to the idea, again, that i am probably not pregnant now, i am okay with it, and somewhat relieved, with a tinge of sadness.

it would be more ideal for us to be a bit more in order and stable before having another.

of course, if i have news of a very belated BFP next week, i'll be thrilled, no doubt.

thanks for all of your feedback regarding cramping and PPAFs and all. i so so appreciate it!!!

happy monday to all.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Helen- I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a pic of you and Skye!! I may have already said that but can't look back now! I haven't seen Brassed Off, but we really enjoyed Billy Elliott, and I do remember the scenery well.

Kaspirant-







to you. I'm sure you are going through so much right now w/ the pg news, your changing hormones, the heat, and the stopping of the meds. I hope things even out soon.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
ETA: Mary, I've been thinking about your situation, and Kier, yours, too. And I have been reading some research lately about how when stress (like the likelihood of one's child running into the street, EVERYTHING about having a 2 week old) is a dominant factor in a situation, we get a surge of stress hormones and we operate from the limbic part of our brain (the fight or flight place) rather than the cerebral place, the ratioinal, calm, thoughtful brain. So basically all our decisions and actions are filtered through that anxiety. One suggestion I read, from a Becky Bailey book for teachers, used the acronym S.T.A.R. to help with remembering the very first thing to do when you feel stress in your body, via tight shoulders, quick, shallow breathing, tense muscles, angry thoughts, etc.: *S*top, *T*ake a breath, *A*nd *R*elax. I don't know if that is helpful or if that is a "Duh! The problem is I CAN'T relax!" kind of suggestion, but the idea is that if you can just get your _body_ to move away from the stress a little bit, then your brain will follow--your thinking brain can take the front seat again.

Teresa- thanks so much for that, really. It means a lot. While "STAR" may not be a newsflash, as with most things in life, it's usually the basic, common-sense things that work the best! It helps to be reminded that there's a physiological reason for how I'm feeling and acting! I was able to do some reflecting and I'm realizing that Ezra has all of a sudden become an opinionated toddler and harder to manage, whereas he was such an easy and happy baby, which is perfectly normal, but it makes sense that it would be hard for me and Ethan to deal with. The resultant squabbling, crying, and hectic days that this entails is just setting us both off- we need to find a new balance. things were similar when he first started crawling. And I'm so overly sensitive to noise, hunger, and lack of sleep, all of which are facts of life when you have young kids!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Kaspirant:







I hope things smooth out for you soon.

Well, so far my first day of SAHMing is going fairly smoothly. We went to playgroup, had a good time, and Rowan's asleep at the moment. She did wake up 1/2 hour into her nap but the magical boobie fixed that pretty quick









Now I'm trying to decide if I should cook the whole chicken for dinner, or cut it up and put some of it in the freezer, some in the stock pot and some in the oven. One way produces leftovers and stock later, the other way produces stock now and dinner now and either chicken strips or legs later. Hmmmm... I think I'm going to go with cutting it up. And the best part is, I don't have to run my decisions by anyone else!









Oh, baby waking up, gotta go...


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## MamaFern (Dec 13, 2003)

jayme, wow.. yopur tattoo is [email protected] tim saw it and said" is that milkurt milurt?' thats what he calls nursing








what a beautiful mothers day gift!

kaspirant: sososo congrats on your BFP!..woohoo! more babies.

helen: thats great news..i mean, its not bad news, so im happy. i loved the picture by the way. what a fabulous ride! and skye and you are both so lovely!

what have i missed.. i just skimmed..so.

nothing new here. my sil is here with her 2 kiddos so we are having kid maddness. tim started a job yesterday that starts at 5am..so he was overjoyed by the screamimng kids while he was trying to sleep early. yeah right. no one wanted to settle down, well except me and my sil and tim. go figure.
i worked 16 hours this weekend, but im getting good tips, so its not soOoOO bad. i told my boss that i dont much like cleaning rooms (the chemicals and all) and so im working more in the icecream/food stand, which i much prefer. ngaio is a monster but a sweet one.. totally getting into being all grown up. she talks so well. today she said "be careful" to her cousin who was climbing on something precarious. so cute.

i should go, but i wanted to say hi.

love!fern


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## savvybabygrace (Feb 15, 2007)

kaspirant, i too went off PPD meds after getting the +HPT. it was a scary few weeks, but i made it through. if you ever want to talk about this, PM me. i've been there and back again. you'll make it through. CONGRATS on the wonderful news!

can i just say that i don't think i can stand the suspense of Harry Potter any longer? LOL!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hi Fern!







: Glad you're still popping in now and again!

I had an extremely busy day, mostly WITHOUT Rowan as her grandparents are kind of insisting she goes over there a couple days a week - she does love them lots and is happy there, so I figure, why not? This morning I dropped her off (she barely looked up when I said bye) and hit the gym for a great workout, then I did some grocery shopping & ran some errands, went home, did a couple loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, made some stock, cleaned up two huge junk piles in our bedroom, and erased all traces of cat barf from the entryway (she likes to barf in our shoes














and got dinner mostly prepped. In peace. Ahhh, bliss! Then I went and picked her up (oh, and the dog, too - they are Full Service babysitters!!







) came home, and we went outside to play for a bit and I had a nice chat with my neighbour while Rowan managed to soak herself splashing in their pool (supervised... I just didn't feel like undertaking the struggle to keep her away from it - clothes can be changed...). Oh and I managed to change the kitty litter as well. I feel so productive, like we are FINALLY pulling ahead in the battle against the housework.

Gotta put the bug to bed now - just figured I'd post to bump our thread a bit! Where are y'all???


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

spughy, sounds like a delightful day!

and fern, so glad things are getting a bit better.

awaken, i hope you're having a more peaceful week.

i'm here, but hardly. we are leaving early in the morning to fly to florida to see my parents. i'm already kind of stressed, if you guys remember...our relationship isn't the greatest. my mom already sounds peevish, i think b/c my husband is coming. ridiculous. anyway...hopefully it'll be at least okay/bearable, without confrontation and/or too much toxicity.

thankfully, today, DH was home today and helped take care of many to-do's, helping me feel less overwhelmed in the game of life, and also took care of finley while i went to a much needed kundalini yoga class. ah!!! it was heaven. i really needed it, on so many levels. and i am much less stressed and more focused, uplifted, strong, and peaceful having gone.

i probably won't be able to post much while we're gone, but will be back home in a week and will be in touch then at the latest!


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

Our costumes are complete for the Harry Potter book release party Friday night!!!

We dyed our hair RED...any clue who we are going as?!?! OMG i can't wait to post pics of us...we went all out *drove over an hour away tonight to pick up some finishing touches to my costume. Jacob is going to be a house elf. We have a pillowcase for him to wear with just his pre-folds and a gorgeous wool soaker







...not to mention the SPEW button his babysitter made for him...oh and just for fun we sewed a sock to the back of his pillowcase *Yells 2319...ooh we've watched Monster's INC one too many times...*

OK...I'm finalizing numbers for the beads and when the pumpkin goes down for his nap tomorrow all who've shown interest will get the final bead count and my addy as a PM.

*hugs* and thanks for all the kind words. If I can just keep the naseausness at bay and keep busy I do much better!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I celebrated 12 weeks by LMP by being violently ill this morning, after nearly a month of no nausea. I think you're contagious








I've been a bit MIA, mostly because I've been really down about an incident with Alex at school. Coming on top of Isaac's report, I just feel a bit "meh. What the heck am I doing having another one? Someone should just take these three away because I'm obviously an unfit mother."


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

kaspirant, have fun with HP mania! Sounds wild!

For the record--I enjoyed the first several books. I left off somewhere with the books, and I don't exactly remember where (Prisoner of Azkaban maybe?) I saw the first movie, and didn't enjoy the it that much, I found it long and rather boring frankly, although I guess there were parts of it I enjoyed. Have seen no subsequent movies, don't entirely plan to see this one. Will probably read the rest of the books at some juncture. And my biggest HP claim to fame is that I have this flatware: http://www.gourmetsettings.com/ (you might have to look up "treble clef", if you care that much or are really bored)
which I found out after I'd already picked it, was used in the first movie as the flatware of hogwarts academy.

barcelona, good luck with the visit! Hopefully the parents will behave themselves. And if not, just remember that that's what hotels are for!

spughy--dogs AND the baby? Do Grandma and Grandpa want to relocate to Louisville, Kentucky by any chance?







: Sounds like you were able to get a lot done!

flapjack--hope you're feeling better.

savvybabygrace--









Fern--hope the job is going better!

Here things are going okay. I had a little fight with DH last night, and didn't get enough sleep, so I'm not feeling very happy/motivated this morning. It's also a very warm and humid but grey cloudy day here, so that's not snapping me out of it either! Oh well. I'm sure once I really get moving, get dressed and maybe eat I will feel better!

I'm still trying to get the house set up here. Most of our stuff is unpacked, but now it's sort of organizing and decorating. Our living/dining rooms are really small and chopped up, so it's difficult to find furniture that will fit and look nice and suit our needs. We are looking to buy a sofa and a dining table and chairs, primarily. Of course, I'm already pulled into the repeating cycle of ongoing cleaning and trying to feed everyone (by one means or another, we still eat out a lot) and that seems to take a lot of my time, and for one reason or another it seems to take me more time than it takes everyone else.

Our trip to India is shaping up for the fall, sometime in October/November. I wrote a bunch about that but it somehow got deleted. (It could have something to do with Ella sitting on my lap and saying "push, push!" and pushing the mouse button/keys!) Anyway, it should be interesting trying to get settled here and then trying to get ready to go there for a month!

And our mystery of the day--we arrived home last night to find a bag of huge zucchini and summer squash sitting on the porch, with no note, and we're not totally certain who they are from! I have a hunch but it's not yet verified. But there may be some zucchini bread in our near future!


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## StrawberryFields (Apr 6, 2005)

Hi November moms









I haven't participated in a November 05 thread in so long because I have been wrapped up in my pregnancy. I'll be 12 weeks on Saturday and I got to hear the heartbeat for the first time today so I am feeling a lot more reassured and excited and relieved.

Life with a toddler has been C.R.A.Z.Y. lately. We *just* nightweaned and I can't believe how easy it was. I was dreading it and I thought it was going to be a nightmare and that he would never stand for it and that I wouldn't be strong enough but he was just a little upset for like 2 days but then he was over it and we've had no problems since! A lot of times he'll even sleep straight through the night now from around 10 PM until 5 or 5:30 AM when before he woke at least 2-3 times to nurse.

Because of how draining my pregnancy has been on me I am admittedly thinking about the possibility of weaning ds completely. I am really not sure about that one yet, it's a new idea that needs a lot, a LOT of thought. Are all of you still nursing or has anyone gone through the weaning process already? Any words of wisdom? I am really not sure what to do about it or how to come to a decision.

I am really enjoying this age because he is learning so much now and has so many new words and ideas and thoughts that I can barely keep up. I find myself having to step back a lot because he is just so cute and smart all the time that I am just completely enamored with him and I don't want to smother him!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I'll put this on this thread, rather than in Feb: Skye is nursing twice a day now, and for us, this is working. As you know, I'm having a terrifyingly easy pregnancy but the exhaustion could easily be there, and I can manage that level of nursing without crawling out of my skin. I hadn't honestly expected her to still be on the boob at the end of July though- I thought this was it and she was weaning for good.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Why are we so slow right now? I keep having to search for our thread!

Anyway, I don't have too much to say but I'm bumping us up!









I need to really get some work done around here--houseguests coming on Saturday! Argh!


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Helen I'm so glad you've found a balance that works for the both of you. Winter only nurses 2-3 times a day right now too, mostly because his teeth drive me batty.


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## sarahcecile (Mar 3, 2004)

Just wanted to jump in and say "hi"







to everyone!

Sorry I never post, maybe one of these days DSL will come to the boonies...

- Sarah


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## StrawberryFields (Apr 6, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
I'll put this on this thread, rather than in Feb: Skye is nursing twice a day now, and for us, this is working. As you know, I'm having a terrifyingly easy pregnancy but the exhaustion could easily be there, and I can manage that level of nursing without crawling out of my skin. I hadn't honestly expected her to still be on the boob at the end of July though- I thought this was it and she was weaning for good.

Man, Andrew must nurse at least 10x per day, plus cluster nursing sessions when he wakes up in the morning and from his nap.







And he drinks cow's milk, too--and eats a truckload of food! He's only about 20 lbs. He loves his nur-nurs!


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

DiD- what a huge decision about the moving thing!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kaspirant* 
I am sooo sorry I've dropped the ball on the beads. I will be PM'ing all who've shown interest this week so if anyone missed it let me know asap~!

ooh and yeah we are 23 DPO atm with a total of 3 positive pregnancy tests....









i'm still interested in the bead swap. . . and congrats!

we went to the oregon country fair this weekend. it was a blast







keagan loved hearing all of the music and watching all of the people. the only bad part was when there was a mom and dad arguing . . . him wheeling on her, yelling, her cringing and trying to pull baby off his back. i've been trying to work through it in my mind. another fair-goer and i intervened (seriously out of hundreds of people there only we did anything) but i keep feeling like i should have done something more.

anyways. hello and happy day to ya'll


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Susannah, I'm glad you intervened. I think not saying something when people behave violently toward their spouse or child sends the wrong message. "Minding your own business" is so often an excuse for cowardice and/or apathy, I think we really need to start thinking more of everyone we encounter as neighbours and family. I mean, to a point, I'm not going to go over to people picnicking and rail on them for the bucket of KFC or whatever. (well I would if they left the bucket on the grass when they left or something... I have been known to scold total strangers for littering














But obvious stuff like violent behaviour, yeah, I'd speak out.







I'm sorry it happened though.

On the nursing front: Rowan is nursing at least 3 times a day still, more if she's with me the whole day. Yesterday she nursed about 5 or 6 times. Her nursing manners are fairly good, although she likes to pick at a mole on my neck, and yesterday she did pinch me once and I was totally zoned out and not expecting it and I yelped, which resulted in her crying, but "other boobie" solved that. Now that I'm not rushing out of bed in the morning she actually has 2 good morning nursing sessions, once at around 6 after which we both go back to sleep, then again when she wakes up for good. I seem to have lots of milk then so that's good (even with a gravol before bed occasionally). Then sometimes she'll want to nurse at playgroup, then she'll nurse down for a nap, then late afternoon, then sometimes right after dinner, then bedtime. I am actually THRILLED she is still nursing this much, and I'm encouraging her to nurse as much as possible, because it'll boost my milk supply. We have a trans-atlantic flight in September and I know it will go MUCH more smoothly with plenty of mama milk.







And I'm in no hurry to wean - we have been through SO much trauma with the nursing that I'm in no way anxious to drop it now that it's going smoothly and drug-free (well, I still take blessed thistle and fenugreek, but no prescription domperidone anymore).

Rowan's at her g'parents today so I am just doing some housework then I'm going to bike to the gym and the butcher shop. Bison steaks on the bbq for tomorrow night, yum!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

You booked the tickets, spughy?









I forgot to say, Kavita, I'm not complaining about the m/s. This pregnancy has been far too easy.

Susannah, I think you did good. It's important to get involved, but at the same time you managed to keep your family safe







Sorry you had such a scary and emotional experience.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Susannah, I think you did good. It's important to get involved, but at the same time you managed to keep your family safe







Sorry you had such a scary and emotional experience.

i actually felt a bit guilty afterward for not even thinking about the fact that i had keagan strapped to me before stepping in. thankfully we were not struck and the man stopped yelling and wheeling at the lady long enough for her to get baby off his back and walk away from him. but it made me sooooo mad that there were so many people there who just did absolutely nothing! sometimes the apathy of other people overwhelms me, and then i have to try and step back and think that perhaps, like me, they have a history of abuse and simply respond in a different way when they see it happening.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Yup, Helen, the tickets are booked. We'll be in Jolly Olde from Sept 2 - 22nd. Closer to the date we can work out when in there would be a good time to visit you guys!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

We have had a challenging several days. Woody's taken to doing this pinching thing with his TEETH that is close to biting but is mostly aimed at clothes instead of skin. He's pinched a bit of skin on both me and dh a few times, though, so he gets quite a reaction when he does it, which is when he wants us to drop what we're doing and follow him, so in his mind, it's the perfect solution. (I need to do a search on biting toddlers on this thread...) But there is probably 30 minutes total per day that he'll let me do something other than play with him. It's maddening. It's definitely a change for him, so I'm hoping it's temporary.

Our bed time is also wonky--he starts showing signs of sleepiness at about 8:30, so we start winding down then, turning off lights, reading "quiet" books, rocking, etc., but then he's up and down sometimes until midnight.

Blah. What a cheery post!







:


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

A pretty crappy day here as well.

After my morning email-and-MDC checking and a little puttering and working around the house, I went down to the basement to tackle the laundry--DH had left a load of diapers in the dryer which hadn't totally dried, (which had been put through several wash cycles already because they had not gotten clean with our normal wash routine, maybe sitting too long before getting into the washer) and they were all mildewey and stinky.







: So I had to wash them again, and just separated out the prefolds and fitteds and training pants and put them back and used (gasp!) a little bit of bleach. Anyway, DD was there and wanted to go into the basement with me. So I brought her down. Anyway, after a bit of playing around in the basement while I put together a clothes rack I'd bought to hang things from the dryer onto and got the diaper situation squared away, she decided to engage in one of her favorite pastimes, which is climbing the stairs. I sort of spotted her to make sure she got up okay, and then went back to grab the laundry basket I was bringing upstairs with me. Meanwhile, she had reached the top of the stairs and closed the door, and when I got up there I discovered that she had also somehow locked it. I think I yelled something like "Oh *hit!" and then scared her, and she started crying. So I am locked in the basement with my toddler alone in the rest of the house. The lock is the type that is a knob lock on the house side, and a keyed lock on the basement side. But I don't know where the key is or if we even have one, as you all remember, we've only been here for a month and a half. I tried calming her down from the other side of the door, but she was crying loudly in another room. Luckily I had my cell phone in my pocket and also we have a home line, and there is a phone in the basement. I called DH's cell number--no answer. I called his work number--his voice mail, no answer. I tried pressing "0" to see if I would get a live operator person or something at his work who could track him down, but there was no operator. So after a moment of wondering if there were any options and deciding that there were none, I called 911. While I was on the phone with the operator, DH called me back on the other phone, so I answered it and then went back to 911 and told them that DH had gotten back to me and he could be home in ten minutes, and should I just have him come or have 911 respond and she told me to just have him come back because if they came they would break the door down. I got back on with DH and told him, "You need to come home right away, I'm locked in the basement and I can't get out and Ella is alone in the upstairs." He kind of freaked out, and left right away. (He was at lunch with his coworkers--he just got up from the table and said something brief by way or explanation and then literally *ran* out of the restaurant and back to his work parking lot. He got home about 15 minutes later.) Meanwhile, since I couldn't get Ella to come back to the door and calm down, I called information and got my next door neighbor's number and she was home with some guests who were visiting from out of town, and I asked her to just come over and look in my windows and keep an eye on Ella. Then I finally got Ella to come stand next to the door and I sang her songs and told stories and then stuck a piece of paper under the door and then pulled it back, and turned that into a game which she thought was funny, and then finally Harish got home and came in and let me out of the basement. Anyway, Ella grabbed onto me like a little monkey. We thanked our neighbor the guests and gave the neighbor a spare copy of our key!! Then we went inside and I discovered that Ella (who had refused a diaper earlier and so was running around in a t-shirt all this time) had pooped on me where I was holding her! She was a little unnerved and wanted to nurse, and cried when Daddy left to go back to work, and even though it wasn't her usual naptime she seemed sleepy and fell asleep for a nap. I was totally unnerved too and suddenly exhausted, and abandoned all plans of doing anything productive and took a nap with her! We got up and then it started raining and then DH got home from work for real and I hadn't eaten all day so we went to a diner that is sort of locally famous but it was absolutely revolting and we couldn't even eat our food.

So that's been my day!







I was hoping to be productive. Now I'm just hoping to go to bed early to get this day over with!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Kavita. That's a pretty brutal day. You handled it really well.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Oh, Kavita, bless your heart! What a terrifying event, and what clear thinking. Forget productivity, lady, settle for a good let-it-out cry (that would be me, anyway!) and a bottle of wine!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Kavita.

Sending virtual chocolate cake your way....


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Kavita. FWIW, I think you managed the situation very well. And I hope today is a better day









More later- off to deal with a 7 am "I want a popsicle- please mummy." Not likely


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

I just had to







at the popsicle thing. I also had a request for a popsicle for breakfast this morning. Only difference it was from a 5 year old that got one yesterday as she has strep and it was the only thing she would eat. Now she is starting to feel better and I have to sit on her to keep her down. Thankfully Joseph does not seem to have picked it up from her even though he is constantly grabbing her water bottle.


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

Kavita- I agree with Spughy, I think







pretty much sums it up! What a horrible thing to have happen, I am so sorry! Thank goodness you had a phone, I was just imagining what you'd do if you had no way to call out. And thank goodness your husband was close and could come home, and your neighbor was available! I'm glad you both took a nap afterwards, and sorry about the gross dinner topping off the night! I hope today is much better!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Hey all - we're back. I am not even going to attempt to catch up, but I did read your post, Kavita, and that must have been so scary and stressful! I'm glad your neighbor was home and that Harish made it home so quickly. Thank goodness nothing bad happened to Ella. I hope you both had a better day today!

Our trip was so-so. I made the trip down without any problems and it was wonderful to see my best friend....but I guess I under-estimated how much our wee ones would dictate our schedule. I don't feel like we got very much "quality time" together, but I do have to say that just being with her and her family is always wonderful.

The trip home was pretty crappy though. Brynn developed a fever last night, which was probably the same thing that Melia's son got two days before - most likely a virus caught at the Children's Museum on Monday. Also, Brynn was just DONE and so ready to come home, and incredibly whiny and clingy last night. It was also hard staying with my girlfriend in Chattanooga because she's very not-AP, and let her 10-month old cry in his crib (off and on) from about 7:30 til 9:00pm. It was SO HARD for me not to go pick him up, and apparently it was hard for Brynn too. At one point, she said, "Cooper's crying again," and I said, "I know, I hear him." She said, "I want to help him feel better," and I said, "What would you do to help him?" and she said, "Pick him up and kiss him and give him some milk!!" It just about broke my heart. If Brynn knows what to do with a crying baby, why doesn't my friend??







After an hour or so, I asked my friend, "Doesn't it just break your heart to hear him cry and cry?" and she said yes, but that if she goes to pick him up, he just cries harder. Which, whatever. I am pretty sure he was crying because he was hungry; I got to their house at 4:30pm and the only thing I saw him eat was one jar of baby food (the bigger size, but still) and THAT'S IT! After he finished off the jar of baby food, he was *begging* for more food, and my friend said, "You don't need any more!" and I guess that was that. Ugh, it was just awful. Even though she and have been friends since college, I didn't feel like it was an area where I could really say anything, so I've just decided that I can't stay at her house anymore. It's just too uncomfortable and hard. But the sad thing is, I know she loves her kids and she wants to be a good mom. She's just been told (or has read) that that is what you are supposed to do with babies. I just hate mainstream parenting media!! Anyway.

Looking forward to tomorrow and getting to dig into Harry Potter!!!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Amy, all I'm going to say is that I love GMT at times like this. Steve got to it first (is not a reader) and he hasn't put it down yet. It's 7am.
I'm not going to question the morality of him going to get his own copy from Walmart, of course, instead of waking me up to go into town at 11pm







Wait, no, yes I am







The boys trip to their dads was called off yesterday with us today because we had torrential rain and flooding yesterday, so we're either spending the day in the car (with me reading) or else we've got them all weekend. We had 4 inches of rain in five hours. Even for England, that's a lot


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

There are Wal-Marts in England!?!?

Amy, that is such a tough position to be in. I can understand why you would want to give your friendship a little distance given the emotional toll it takes to be around that scene.









Dh is at the hardward store right now buying a plumbing snake to fix our kitchen sink. We've been doing dishes pioneer style in a tub next to the hose in the backyard for two days! Totally makes me realize how quickly one adjusts to "less" in pressing times, though.

Happy reading today, Potter fans! May your toddlers take longish naps and your to-do lists stay at bay!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Walmart bought ASDA, the second-biggest supermarket chain in England







There are four Walmarts in the country, one of which is 15 minutes by bus from my house (right next door to the library, the fountains, a park, Boots and Borders, which is why I sometimes go there. Oh, and Pizza Hut)
Finished HP. We spent the day in the car driving boys to daddy's, and so I got to read for five hours solidly whilst being stuck in traffic. Steve got to read for 4 and a half hours solidly while being stuck in traffic on the way home







It's only 100 miles, but the roads were insane because of the floods yesterday.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Amy - that's horrid about your friend. I don't know how you stood it. I don't think I could have.

It's rainy here too, but nowhere near flooding. Just kind of good-for-the-garden rain, and it's due to stop on Monday. You make sure the rain is gone before I get there, k Helen? thx.







Seriously though, it does sound fairly awful over there right now. This happened the last time I announced I was going to England - back in fall of 2000, massive floods everywhere. I'm sorry.

Yesterday a friend and her little boy came over for the morning and we had a great time, even though it was pouring rain. We had coffee and muffins and the kids actually played *together* - they were holding hands and chasing each other around, it was soooo cute. Then we took them to see the baby goats at the petting farm and a good time was had by all even though it was raining, except the dog who heartily resented being tied up at the goat pen and not being allowed inside. After they went home Rowan talked about them non-stop until she went to sleep for her nap. "Eli hold hands. Marci hold hands. Come back Marci! Eli skeee." (squeals - he's a squealer all right. Next to him Rowan is quiet as a mouse







).

DH took Rowan and the dog for the day, today, I think... he was a tad pissy this morning. I hope he feels better this afternoon.

It's market day, and I need to do some other shopping too, and I'm hoping the rain doesn't get any worse so I can do it all on my bike.

Have a good weekend everyone!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
Happy reading today, Potter fans! May your toddlers take longish naps and your to-do lists stay at bay!









OK, you jinxed me, HoneyTree! Today is maybe the second day of *her life* that she hasn't taken a nap (and it's 4:20pm). She's not even fussy or cranky; just sitting at the table having a tea party with Daddy.

Confession: We were only planning to buy one copy of HP, but we realized quickly at Borders that there was really no good way to work it out. So we bought two.







:


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Amy, what I'm doing is donating the spare copy to the local women's refuge in memory of Kundalini-mama- her sister mentioned that she loved HP too. Just a thought







We hadn't planned to have multiple copies either.

79mm of rain in one day, according to the local papers. It could be worse- the nearest RAF base had 91mm


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Amy, what I'm doing is donating the spare copy to the local women's refuge in memory of Kundalini-mama- her sister mentioned that she loved HP too. Just a thought







We hadn't planned to have multiple copies either.

79mm of rain in one day, according to the local papers. It could be worse- the nearest RAF base had 91mm









I hope you get a break today Helen. We got about 2" in an hour yesterday afternoon. Not bad since about 30 miles away they got 4-5" in that same hour. Thankfully we just got rain dumped on us and flash floods then the rain moves off. According to the weather here we are in for more of the same today. I've already got the chili going in the crockpot and plain to make cornbread later. Perfect food for this weather.


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

So I must have jinxed myself by bragging about the lack of PPAF. One week of kind-of nightweaning and it's here! Though I've suspected it's been coming for a while now, so the less nursing may have just been a coincidence.

Is anyone else's toddler VERY opinionated about what they wear? I have to hide some clothes at the bottom of the laundry so that she won't wear the same outfit three days in a row (and to bed, too







: ). I made her a summer tank dress out of my MIL's old t-shirt, and she wants to wear it every.single.day. I may have to cut up all of my MIL's t-shirts in an effort to get her to wear something else









Sending floodless vibes to Kristina and Helen







:







:

We've had a couple of days of rain and are back to sunshine here. My tomato plants are sooo full, and I've just eaten the first couple of ripe tomatoes...here's hoping that I have dozens more ripe in a few days


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Mel, Rowan's not super-choosy about her clothes but she has a real objection to overall-type things. Sometimes I can roll up the bib & straps of her osh-kosh dungarees but there's a little denim overall dress that she just will not wear, so I caved and put it in the 'recycle' clothes box.







Otherwise she's pretty easy to dress, and she seems to have gotten over her objection to the cloth dipes so that's going pretty well now.

Can I just brag for a minute? DH picked up some chinese bbq pork from chinatown yesterday for our stir-fry last night and salad at lunch. We've always called it by its chinese name, char su. So today at lunch Rowan was eating some and I said "that's char su, like we had a dinner last night" and she said "pork!" I was just amazed that she could identify the taste that well!

But on the down side of things, this morning she dumped her little smoothie on the table (as usual) and I said "oh no" and went to get the cloth and while I was clearing it up she said "bad girl!"







I really, really hope she's never heard that from Grandma! I don't really think so though. I think she's extrapolating from us occasionally (very occasionally) saying that to the dog, when she does something really, really bad, like taking food from Rowan's hand when Rowan wasn't offering it. (And yes, she DOES know the difference.) But we kind of have to discipline the dog differently than the kid, don't we? Or do GD techniques work on dogs too? Somehow I doubt it... I don't know what to do about this.

Ok, I'm hearing suspicious silence so I'd better go.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Amy - i don't know what i would have done if my friend had let her baby cry that long









Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Finished HP.











oops. . . baby crying now.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Susannah, I did cheat by spending multiple hours stuck in a traffic jam and not in the drivers seat







Skye was asleep, too.

Uck. I hate weather. Yesterday stayed dry, then today- when we need to get the boys back- more heavy rain is forecast







At this point I have no idea what to do.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Spughy, that is so cool about Rowan identifying pork!

Helen, hope the rains abate soon, and Kristina, can I come over for some chili?









I finished HP last night. It was so intense!! Thanks so much for the idea of donating it, Helen! I think I will probably offer to loan it out to friends first, and then pass it on. It's kind of hard to believe it's all over now....

On another note, can someone just put me out of my misery? Brynn went to sleep at 10:00pm, woke up at 12:00, 1:00, 1:40, 3:20, and somewhere around 5:30, and then up for the morning at 7:30. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I feel like my head is going to fall off. I really don't want to do it, but is night-weaning the only option left at this point?

So now that Rowan is sleeping well, am I the only one left with a non-sleeper?


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Amy, I've got a big thing of left over chili in the fridge, but I don't think it will be there long. If you want some you'd need to get to FL quick and I hope you like spicey. I've got a sinus thing and can't taste much so I let dh handle the spices. Bad idea to let the cajun have a free hand with the spices! Even with my sinus stuff I could taste it and my lips were tingling







I'm no helping with the night weaning issue as I refuse to let my children cry when I could help them. I know if I had tried to night wean Annette there would have been tons of screaming and crying. I just napped when she did and went to bed when she did until for several years. Now I am just grateful for a child that likes his sleep. He is usually only up a couple times a night. When he does get up he just crawls up in to bed with us and snuggles up for a snack. The one bad thing is he likes to lay sideways and try to push both dh and I out of our king size bed. We have talked off and on about getting bunk beds for Annette's room, but I would really like Joseph to be sleeping through the night before he is out of our room. We'll see what happens with that. I don't think Joseph is ready to be let loose in her room as that is where all her big kid toys are kept and he is putting everything in his mouth again.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
Susannah, I did cheat by spending multiple hours stuck in a traffic jam and not in the drivers seat







Skye was asleep, too.

i still am amazed! you too, Amy. even before Keagan was born it would take me about a week to get through a new HP book, but I would imagine A LOT longer now









Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 
On another note, can someone just put me out of my misery? Brynn went to sleep at 10:00pm, woke up at 12:00, 1:00, 1:40, 3:20, and somewhere around 5:30, and then up for the morning at 7:30. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I feel like my head is going to fall off. I really don't want to do it, but is night-weaning the only option left at this point?

So now that Rowan is sleeping well, am I the only one left with a non-sleeper?

umm, yeah. i think our babes are talking to each other - someone make them stop! keagan woke up either 6 or 7 times to nurse between 11 last night and 7 this morning. so much for me trying to get into work early. . . now i'm just trying to stay awake! he has been doing this now for close to a week (the other nights though it was "only" 5 times of waking). i am so tired! taking notes on any suggestions other than night weaning. . .


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yeah, here too







Her diet hasn't been great the last couple of days though, and the routine has been shot because the boys aren't here. I'm hoping tonight goes better







:
The sad thing is that she wakes up, has booby, wants daddy, won't settle without daddy. She'd ideally like me there too but given the choice, daddy wins







I miss my klingon.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Winter's on a nursing strike right now and I am so afraid he's going to wean. I'm so not ready to be done nursing him.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
I miss my klingon.

Ha ha, I call Rowan a klingon too!!!









She's pretty equally attached to both of us and will settle happily for either, but I have the Boobies Of Incredible Sleepiness which usually win out at bedtime.

DiD - I hope Winter doesn't wean.







Is he at all jealous of Suriya nursing?


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

This is Ellie - don't you just love when your baby's personality is captured so well in a picture? DH is great at catching that moment... Here's another, and one more.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Cute pictures!

I've discovered in backing up files that I have about hundreds more pictures of Annette then I do of Joseph and I'm talking about the same time period in the first 2 years. I'm attempting to make myself feel better about it by remembering how much time dh spent on the road her first 2 years. I was taking tons of pictures of her so he could see them. I still think I'll be







: if either of them notice when they are older.


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
Cute pictures!

I've discovered in backing up files that I have about hundreds more pictures of Annette then I do of Joseph and I'm talking about the same time period in the first 2 years. I'm attempting to make myself feel better about it by remembering how much time dh spent on the road her first 2 years. I was taking tons of pictures of her so he could see them. I still think I'll be







: if either of them notice when they are older.

My younger sister noticed and complained to my parents that they had a million more portraits of me than of her. My mom tried to explain that when you just have one child to drag to the portrait studio its a lot easier, and that first time parents want to document everything - by the time the second child is around its all more natural and relaxed. Didn't help - my sister is still bitter!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yeah. I feel bad about how few pictures of Isaac we have. Skye, we have pictures, but we've hardly printed any







:. The downside of a digital camera, I guess?


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Any future kids are in deep trouble--my records of Ella are sporadic, at best. I have the beginnings of a journal, the beginnings of a blog, and a bunch of really unorganized photos, but really we bought a video camera and there are like almost no videos between week 2 and about 6 months! DH does better with the pictures, though. I agree with the digital thing though--they are just sort of floating out there on the computer and not really many printed out, and NONE printed out well. We've never gone to a portrait studio either and gotten professional pics done of her.

We did get some photos done when she was a month old by a friend who is a professional photographer--but we didn't do any other pro photos b/c we already had done it, then it took a long time to get them back (like 6-8 months) and then when we got them back we hated them.









Okay, I have to go b/c Miss. Crankypants is having a fit in her high chair. Also--I think I may be a bit more scarce around here, I am trying to limit my computer time. I'll still lurk but may be posting less. I still love y'all though!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Totally jumping in out of nowhere... but I hadn't found this thread before....

Is it okay to jump in?

I'm Danile, married to Tj... Dominic is 18 months older than my Isaac who was born on November 20th, 2005. Isaac horribly, sadly weaned himself.... I'm sure it was due to my pregnancy... but oh well. It's up to him right? Maybe we'll make it to two next time. We live in Washington... My husband and I are Bradley Method Natural Childbirth Instructors, I am a doula and a student in college for my RN and then my direct entry midwifery. (Doubling my schooling by my own choice for more of the homebirth experience. ) So yeah.. I think that's us in a nutshell...


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

welcome, danile, just jump right in


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

Welcome, Danile!

Spughy, I'm glad I'm not the only one getting rid of perfect clothes just because she won't wear them. And when we were shoe shopping for my sister's wedding last weekend she kept taking off her shoes and insisting on trying on different women's shoes.

We're sleeping day on day off around here. Neela seems mostly okay with the nightweaning (a little fussing, not screaming when she wakes up) and some nights goes back to sleep pretty quickly without nursing. Then other nights







: Last night she decided to try to wait me out- she was awake from 2 am to 5:30. It was the temptation from the night before where she slept through the night for the first time in her life (until 5:45) that kept me from just nursing her and getting back to sleep. That and my still sore nipples that are finally starting to heal with no night-gnawing and my newfound love of traumeel.

DiD~ I hope Winter starts nursing again. He's an amazing story of stopping and re-starting, though, so maybe he'll do it again?


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Welcome, Danile - I'm sure I've seen you around these parts before though? Whatever, glad to have you with us!

Kavita, I hear you on the limiting computer time.







It's a big black hole of wasted time, isn't it? And yet, so indispensible at times... like when you need a dumpling recipe *right now*









We have gazillions of pictures of Rowan. My IL's and my mom print out lots of them, and I have a folder of my favourites *waiting* for me to print them. I just got my new laptop (it's actually at the Purolator place waiting to be picked up) so I will make that a new top priority. But yeah, probably the next kid won't be nearly so photographed. I'm the oldest in our family and there are WAY more pictures of me than my younger sister, and WAY more pictures of her than the youngest. It's just the way it is.

Funny conversation that took place this morning:

Rowan: Bees on wall!! Bees on wall!!!
DH: No, Rowan, that's a spider. Can you say 'spider'?
Rowan: Spider. Daddy pick up spider?
DH (totally not a fan of spiders): I think we'll leave it there. Spiders are good to have in the house.
Rowan: MM MMM GOOD!!!
Me: not *that* kind of good, sweetie (gently removes spider from wall, places on balcony outside)

...saving wildlife from the gullet of a toddler...

Oh, and her new record for longest almost-grammatically correct sentence: "Mummy, me help pick up Daisy poo-poo?"







:


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## MamaFern (Dec 13, 2003)

s everyone..

again im popping in and havnt read much.. i just skim. bad i know but there is so much to do in 30 minutes!

helen, congrats on your 12 weeks!!







im so happy everything is going smoothly.
kaspirant: congrats again.

mel: sorry to hear af came back so quickly..or not







but you know what i mean..







but congrats on night weeneing. we are dont night nursing too and im so glad. ngaio sleeps so much better and so do i.

sarah: rowan sounds cute as ever. and i hope that your SAHM thing is working out for you. not getting stir crazy?
and and before i forget we are heading to victoria in september for a whole week (anarchist book festival and such) so i hope that i can hang out with you a bunch.

kavita, i hear you on the photos. i have a ton of elwynn but then we got a digital camera and i only have a handful of pictures of ngaio that arent stuck on my computer thats in a box in timothies room







i actually got a roll developed a few weeks ago from when ngaio was first born, but they were really grainy







so sad. but anyways, ive been using my manual camera more lately, so ill have some of her at this cute age.

nothing much new here.. i raked the lawn today and we found a big frog/ toad?! under a tarp in the yard. elwynn is all excited and we made it a terrarium in a big tupperware container so we could watch it a bit (is that totally evil and cruel?) its so dry here but for the past gew days of rain, so im not sure where he could have come from.. but its neet to have something to talk about with him and he is going to get some books on frogs and toads from the library to see what kind it is.
he told me last night that he wants to go to school because hes lonely for friends. there are no kids his age here, but in the newxt town where the school is there are..so i think come september ill have a kinderkiddo.

ngaio is asleep on the chair next to timothy







she just nodded off while sitting there glaring at me. so cute.

ok. enough talking.

love!!!

..and did i miss the bead swap?


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

So happy to hear from you Fern!!!!!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Wow.. I think I might have introduced myself before... sorry!









My brain is like permanently lost lately.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Augh! Fern! I'm going to be in England for most of Sept.







: Pleeeease say you're coming after the 22nd? We'll be back then!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

nah, Spughy, you should smuggle Fern over here in your suitcase









I HAVE to go get Skye weighed. From being teeny-tiny a few months ago, she's looking quite tall and sturdy. I'm getting curious about how much she weighs.


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## barcelona (May 1, 2006)

I just wanted to pop on and say Hi, and I am back from our trip to see my family in Florida. I have MISSED you guys, and will catch up on the three pages of posts that have transpired since I went MIA tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow, if not, definitely by the weekend.

Just a hello, and letting you all know that your presence has meant a lot as I have felt strangely detached from myself, going through the weirdness that is a family visit. I'm so relieved and glad to be home, back to myself, to our life, and to checking in with you lovely ladies and wise mamas!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

So question....

Do any of you wonderful ladies delay/non vax?

I am worried about Isaac's two year WCC because our excuse before was "nothing before 2 years old, and then selectively at individual times". I don't think I'll have to deal with it super horribly, somehow I landed a Doc who is remarkably crunchy for a doc. He even recommended not circ'ing if this one is a boy when we'd mentioned not doing so.

I know I should slink on over to the Case Against Vaccinations, but it seemed easier to ask it from a group of ladies with tots the same age.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

We've selectively vaxed, just the ones that made sense for our area and Rowan's age. Never received any real grief for it, had a discussion with a health nurse about the hep B vax and made her admit that they only did it to babies because babies are harder to catch than 12-year-olds. (Although subsequently I talked to a friend who DID do the hep B because in her neighbourhood there was a high likelihood of her little guy running into used needles...







made me kind of rethink it, but we're good for now I think).

Don't know how useful this is, since we're in Canada and vaxing is only highly recommended, not mandatory unless you need to put your kid in daycare or some private schools.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

I think most of us do not follow the standard vax schedule.

We are 100% non vax.

What vaxes were you considering getting at age 2?


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

I'm not so sure. I know not the chicken pox one for sure... but the only ones I've considered getting were DTAP (only is seperate doses... D... T...P) and pneumococcal... but that's without researching those ones yet. I might feel differently once I research. And I definetely would not be combining any if I do. If I can find really good studies and arguments I feel more comfortable about not getting any..


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DucetteMama21842* 
I'm not so sure. I know not the chicken pox one for sure... but the only ones I've considered getting were DTAP (only is seperate doses... D... T...P) and pneumococcal... but that's without researching those ones yet. I might feel differently once I research. And I definetely would not be combining any if I do. If I can find really good studies and arguments I feel more comfortable about not getting any..

We're definitely delayed/selective leaning toward no vaxes at all, and in practice so far this has meant that DD has only had one shot of the IPV, which we want for her to have the series of b/c it seems to have minimal side effects and we are taking her to India where polio, while still not that common in the areas where we'll be, is not quite as completely eradicated as it is here. We are on the fence about whether we'll do any more. I definitely feel that vaxes are not without potential to harm, and it's a matter for us about feeling comfortable with the risk/benefit equation of vaxing/not vaxing. We're still working that one out.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

So where do you find out what diseases are not completely gone in what areas? Is there a way for me to search my area or areas we frequently travel to?


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We're completely non-vaxing for Skye. Isaac has a reaction to the DTP lodged with the Department of Health, and none of our children have had any jabs since that incident.
spughy, check the success figures for hep B. I know I'm still not immune to it, several doses and one bite from a carrier later- but then I have a freaky immune system anyhow







I'm not immune to rubella either, despite having had both the disease and the vaccine, or to T.B.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I've found vax research to be a little tricky, actually Helen - since the vaxes used in Canada are NOT the same as in the US - don't know about the UK. For instance, I don't believe that thimerosol was *ever* used in vaxes in Canada. But I need to talk to my Dr since she is way more up on the vax research than any of the public health nurses, and fully supportive of delayed vax at least, and accepting of not vaxing at all. She agreed with me on the Hep B one, FWIW.

Personally, I am not anti-vax. I don't want to get into the debate here, but I think it's a larger issue than just the potential harm to one's own child, and there's a societal responsibility issue as well. Balancing that with the potential harm is tricky, I know, and I respect everyone's decision with respect to vaxing. But all too often I find the mood around here to be very dismissive of the dangers of *not* vaxing. My own research (which has been both on the dangers of vaxes AND epidemiological/historical) has led to me accept the dangers of SOME vaxes. So, that's where I'm coming from, and y'all can keep that in mind any time we talk vaxes


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

There are no seperate vaccines for the DTaP. In fact you can't even get Tetanus without the Diptheria.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
and there's a societal responsibility issue as well.











I'm sorry I don't feel I have a responsibility to society to inject my children with toxic substances.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Ok I *said* I'm not going to get into that debate here. I was just trying to let you know where I'm coming from. I respect your point of view, please don't ridicule mine. I thought we were safe from that kind of thing here in this thread.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

My use of the spitdrink icon was in direct reference to the mention of herd immunity, and not towards you. I do not understand how people believe vaccines work on the one hand, but on the other hand are afraid of unvaxed children. If you believe vaccines work then you have nothing to worry about, and if you don't believe they work, then why get them in the first place?


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DreamsInDigital* 
My use of the spitdrink icon was in direct reference to the mention of herd immunity, and not towards you. I do not understand how people believe vaccines work on the one hand, but on the other hand are afraid of unvaxed children. If you believe vaccines work then you have nothing to worry about, and if you don't believe they work, then why get them in the first place?

Because they aren't 100% effective - nobody ever claimed that they were. About 1 in 10 vaccines don't work. So say you have 100 kids, 95 of whom are vaccinated against, let's say, pertussis. Somebody's cousin comes to visit and brings a pertussis bug with him, and causes an "outbreak". A total of 15 kids end up with pertussis, and most of them were vaccinated. Looks like the vaccinations didn't work right? Except 4 out 5 of the unvaxed kids got it, but only 9 out of 95 of the vaxed kids did. Also, the chances of the outbreak ever happening are substantially higher if that cousin is staying with unvaxed as opposed to vaxed relatives - because vaxed kids may *carry* the bugs, but they can't help them procreate.

So, with every unvaxed kid that's around, that's a higher chance that my vaxed kid will get exposed, and a higher chance (statistically) that my kid WILL get sick. I'm not particularly *afraid* of unvaxed kids, but I do know that the more of them there are, the less "well" the vaccine is likely to work for those vaccinated.

There will ALWAYS be vaxed kids getting sick in any outbreak. The more widespread the vaccinations, the fewer and lesser the outbreaks. That's why vaxed people get their knickers in a knot about unvaxed kids, because the vaccines don't offer perfect protection, and unvaxed kids do represent a real, albeit statistical, risk.

So there you go. That's the argument. Whether you buy it is up to you.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. Can we have a different direction for this thread now?


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Right there is the reason I stay away from the vax forum. I've done my research and feel confident in my choices.

On a far different note. I got a serger yesterday! While dh was working he was talking with either the lady that owns the place or her friend. He was talking about my website and the different things I sew. Some how or other they were talking about the things I would love to make to sell, if I had a serger. She had been given a serger that was sitting in her trunk collecting dust and gave it to him right then and there! I've downloaded the manual from the companies website and printed out the important stuff. I didn't think it was a good way to use ink to print out all 68 pages! Now I get to figure out how to thread the thing and hope it is all in working order. I plan to make Annette some more shorts for the start of school and will hopefully be using my new serger for them.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Oooo Kristina! A free serger! Wow! I've been trying to justify getting one, but I can't, given my current lack of progress on any sewing project... the last thing I sewed was Rowan's halloween costume last year







Have fun with it!


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

I apologize, maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry. I'll just ask at the vax forum.. I didn't mean to cause fighting between friends.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Okay--somebody explain the difference to me between a sewing machine and a serger and what exactly you would need a serger for. (Not criticizing here, sewing isn't one of my many illustrious talents and I have no clue about any of this, but have often wondered when I've heard people on here lusting for sergers exactly what the deal was with them!)


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

I am reallllly burned out on sewing, but made the mistake of leaving my webpage up and running and have gotten two orders in the last two weeks. I so don't want to do them! One is for a friend and it should be a really easy one (single layer crinkle gauze), but the other one is a double fabric with a pocket, so like 3 hours of work. Bleh. I was tempted to just refund her money and tell her I couldn't do it, but she was just so darn excited about the fabric that I couldn't bring myself to let her down. So this is going to be my last one, I think. I'd love to do a lot more sewing for myself and Brynn, but our space is so limited in this house that I always feel so *cramped* when I'm sewing...it's just not that enjoyable right now.

But Kristina, that is really cool that you got a serger for free!

Well our big news is that we are on the road to night-weaning. Wish us luck. I got Brynn a special doll (a Kathe Kruse knot doll) and told a story about how she (Heidi is her name; she's German, and Heidi Klum was the first German girl I thought of














used to nurse with her Mama during the day and during the night, but then she got to be a big girl and only nursed during the day and slept all night long. Then I started tickling Brynn with Heidi's hat, and making Heidi kiss Brynn on the face, and rub noses, and she was just *giggling* and giggling. It was so sweet!







So then we went to brush Brynn's teeth, and she had to bring Heidi with us and brush her teeth too. I also told her that if she feels sad or upset at night, she can hug and kiss Heidi, and that Heidi will tell her, "It's OK to go back to sleep. Your Mama loves you very much and you will have milky again in the morning!" I said that over and over, and I hope it sticks in her brain somewhere.

My plan is to gradually increase the time between nursing (with a max of twice per night) and then eventually eliminate it altogether within maybe 3-4 weeks. So keep your fingers crossed. At the very least, if it works, you won't have to hear my kvetching about it anymore!


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Hi, Danile, and welcome to the extended DDC! Don't feel bad about brining up a contentious topic in an honest way. We make sense of the world around us and transmute our culture by discussing, arguing, even getting a little pissed and then stewing with our own thoughts that were challenged by others'. In retrospect I can tell that I often do my best learning under those uncomfortable circumstances, even if I'm mad or frustrated at the time.

So we are nursing a four-times skinned knee. A series of unlucky trips on cement and then an ill-timed fall onto a wool rug created and then opened up the wounds. We've had many cries these past several days and many woeful looks up into my eyes with, "Ooooh, my knee!" I'm sure this is only the first of many, many falls and wounds to come...

I just tried to watch "Pan's Labyrinth." I only got about 20 minutes into it and had to turn it off for the one really violent beating scene. I just can't handle seeing stuff like that sometimes (most times). Dh swears that's the most violent scene (though he said there are other more disturbing ones), and that the movie is way worth getting past it to see, but I think I'm just particularly sensitive right now. So we'll have to return it and wait until another day.

Kristina, I just looked at your pictures; what cute kiddlets! Your girl has the sweetest curly hair! Woody's got quite the mop top right now, which I've trimmed once to tidy up those little stringy baby flyaways, but which I'm now reluctant to mess with. What do the rest of y'all do with your babies' hair? Do you trim? Cut and style? Leave alone?

Oh, and re: pictures, we've been good about taking them, but horrible with any kind of journaling. I write constantly, but for some reason I cannot bring myself to document this child's life. Every time I sit down to do it, I think that I either need to get up and LIVE it, or it's just too big and too much for me to capture.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Hee, Teresa, I just looked at your blog and LAAAAUUUGHED at that post about your DH falling out of the tree...


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## kaspirant (Apr 28, 2006)

It's been crazy. We are enjoying swim class...fun times.

DS is growing like a weed and nursing like a fiend. I don't even know what to do about it really...seems like all we do all day and night is nurse. Problem being I'm too tired to do much else.

I'm definitely feeling the exhaustion of this pregnancy...I am brought back to vivid memories of NOT being able to keep my eyes open when I was preggo with Jacob.

I got a freak of a lifetime letter last Friday which has been taken care of now but I had a bit of a heart-attack weekend. I recieved paperwork from my district office saying that my employment had been terminated on June 15th, *last day of school* I had no insurance as of that date, and that I had the ability to continue my insurance through COBRA! WTH?!?!?! Neither my boss nor I had any clue what that was all about. I hadn't been fired and I hadn't quit. So I went Monday to the HR department and they said "Sorry we can't talk to you today." So I made an appointment for 3 pm Tuesday. I showed up at 2:25 ***HELLO people my JOB was on the line here and as a pregnant wife whose husband is currently in school and who is working sporatically this totally freaked me out.***
Well long story short my 3 o'clock meeting FINALLY took place at 3:35 and I went in to this office and the guy said...everything is fixed sorry for the clerical error. WHY did I have to wait another day stressing out about whether or not I had a job when all this lame meeting was telling me they already fixed it. GRRR. But on the bright side, I still have my job and this will be my LAST year working there as we are moving next June!

And on a *I'm seriously not ready for this phase* note. I gingerly pulled a earring stud out of my son's nose today. I totally freaked out because from the angle I first saw it it looked like a little nail-tack. Not that an earring was any better...but I am going to have to double and re-double my efforts of keeping EVERYTHING out of his reach that can fit in his nose and I'm not looking forward to finding out what he's gonna try next.

Bead-swap mamas, check your pm's. Again SOOOO sorry it took so long. :sheepish:


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DucetteMama21842* 
I apologize, maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry. I'll just ask at the vax forum.. I didn't mean to cause fighting between friends.

Don't even worry about it sweetie. It's obviously a topic all of us are very passionate about. I know the vaccination forum looks scary at first but there are some really nice and incredibly smart women there and I'm sure you can get answers to all of your questions there.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Oh yeah. Winter's back to his normal self again. He had some kind of weirdo virus that made him act SO bizarre. I still don't know what it was, because other than the odd behavior, he ran a high fever for two days and that was literally all the symptoms.
Even if he had weaned, I am just so thankful he's nursed as long as he has. I can so clearly remember the day he started nursing again and my tearful post to you mamas celebrating that amazing moment. It still brings tears to my eyes because it was so healing for us. I hope we at least make it to his 2nd birthday, but of course it's up to him.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Danile, don't worry. Basically, we did the flame wars about vaxing, etc, when we were pregnant (there was another member of the group who made me swear at the computer literally three times a day) and now for the most part we don't even think about stuff like that now.
The scan went OK. Baby's measuring big (I'm at 12+5 weeks now by my dates, measuring at 13+5. They're working my dates by LMP







)


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Has anyone heard of Hand Foot and Mouth disease? Apparently it's going around the area right now and some of the symptoms sort of fit what Winter was like.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Heard of it, never seen it. It's pretty common, and it could account for a nursing strike


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kavita* 
Okay--somebody explain the difference to me between a sewing machine and a serger and what exactly you would need a serger for. (Not criticizing here, sewing isn't one of my many illustrious talents and I have no clue about any of this, but have often wondered when I've heard people on here lusting for sergers exactly what the deal was with them!)

A serger gives a nice professional looking finish to seams. I usually hate wiki, but they actually have good info on what a serger is and does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlock They also have some info no sewing machines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewing_machine A sewing machine usually works with 1 needle and makes seams from straight to zigzag and anything in between. A serger uses 2 needles and just does some things much nicer. It's also much easier to work with knits on a serger. This is the model serger I was given http://www.epinions.com/Brother_Sewi...ewing_Machines It's an older machine, but I was told it worked fine the last time it was used. I'm still trying to get time to play with it around Joseph being extra clingy at the moment. I'm sure I'll have even less time next week as Annette's last day of vpk is Friday then she has almost a month off before starting kindergarten.

As to what I need it for. I want to add some simple basic clothing to my website and didn't feel comfortable doing that without a serger. I'd like to make things like shorts that don't show off little butts and skirts that don't show off everything. I've had many complaint sessions with other moms of girls and the clothes that can be bought in most stores are not something I would want my little girl wearing. To get things looking decent I would have to spend way more money then I can afford. Being able to sew things that look decent for her and don't make her look like she is getting ready to go clubbing is one of reasons I am so glad I know how to sew.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
Being able to sew things that look decent for her and don't make her look like she is getting ready to go clubbing is one of reasons I am so glad I know how to sew.









So true!! A friend of ours gave Brynn a little white mini-skirt with a ruffle on the bottom. I'm like, um no. A toddler doesn't need hoochie clothes, thanks.

DiD, Brynn had the same thing last week. It was gone within 48 hours.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **Amy** 







So true!! A friend of ours gave Brynn a little white mini-skirt with a ruffle on the bottom. I'm like, um no. A toddler doesn't need hoochie clothes, thanks.

DiD, Brynn had the same thing last week. It was gone within 48 hours.

Oh thank goodness I am not the only mom who thinks this!























I seriously feel like an ultra conservative when it comes to little girls clothes that I see in the stores. I mean... there's no reason a toddler needs to mimic Britney Spears..


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
I just tried to watch "Pan's Labyrinth." I only got about 20 minutes into it and had to turn it off for the one really violent beating scene. I just can't handle seeing stuff like that sometimes (most times). Dh swears that's the most violent scene (though he said there are other more disturbing ones), and that the movie is way worth getting past it to see, but I think I'm just particularly sensitive right now. So we'll have to return it and wait until another day.

FWIW I couldn't get through the movie. I tried a couple of times. There were a few scenes that I just couldn't watch.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
The scan went OK. Baby's measuring big (I'm at 12+5 weeks now by my dates, measuring at 13+5. They're working my dates by LMP







)

glad to hear it went well


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DucetteMama21842* 
Oh thank goodness I am not the only mom who thinks this!























I seriously feel like an ultra conservative when it comes to little girls clothes that I see in the stores. I mean... there's no reason a toddler needs to mimic Britney Spears..









I'm really conservative when it comes to picking out my DD's clothes. I mean, she's only 5 1/2 months old and my sister wanted to buy her a little jean mini skirt when we were at Old Navy. Um, how about no?







:


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## Awaken (Oct 10, 2004)

I sooooo want to catch up on this thread, so I hope to be back soon. I just wanted to pop in and say, Teresa, you're my new best friend
















I got my blue canoe bra today and it fits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No lumpy bumpy cone boobs for me! When I saw the package arrive I didn't allow myself to hope it would fit; I've bought so many bras and every single one is droopy and bumpy. We've even tried it out with nursing and it's perfect; just what I was looking for.

I know I'm pathetic when the most thrilling thing that's happened to me in a while is getting a decent bra!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Hey all - should I be worried? We watched our friend's twin two-year old boys tonight and while she was here dropping them off, she casually mentioned that one of them has a staph infection. Then I remembered that she told me WEEKS ago about this infection, which originated in his diaper area, so it clearly hasn't been appropriately treated if he's still got it. Also, said child had a constantly runny nose and a pustule on one eyelid that he kept touching. We did our best to keep his hands clean and OFF of everything we could but you know - he's 2. DH just read today about this really resistant strain of staph that doctors aren't even recognizing right away, and one of the signs is the pustule on the eyelid. So yeah. I don't want to freak out, but we did throw the toys away that had been in his mouth, and I'm going to try to sanitize some others (suggestions?). So I'm kind of hyper-worried right now.







:


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Amy, if only one of them has it, then obviously it's not TOO virulent, right?

But yeah, I'd worry.







. This is one of those times when I, even from my firm germs-aren't-all-bad, chlorox-is-evil stance, would haul out the bleach and wipe down all the surfaces. Soft toys I would throw in a hot wash with a bit of bleach and hot dryer - some may not survive treatment, but it's better than tossing them out altogether. I'm not a germophobe by ANY stretch but for a one-time deal like this, better safe than sorry.

I have a wretched headache at the moment and a really annoying injury - I was peeling beets and hit a tough spot, the peeler slipped and took off about half the fingernail (the bit that actually covers the finger, not the part that grows out on top) on my left middle finger. I've got it bandaged but of course every time I wash dishes or cook or whatever stuff gets in there so I've been trying to keep it clean because it's flesh that's never meant to be exposed to anything.







Plus it's incredibly painful to touch. Stupid vegetable peelers.

But I have another indication that Rowan is some kind of culinary prodigy - yesterday I bought us a portugese custard tart from the deli and she took one look and said "egg in that" !!! I've no idea how she came to that conclusion - she was totally right of course - but I'm frankly amazed. Mostly she gets her eggs soft-boiled.

Oh, and count me in amongst the conservative clothes crowd. I HATE the hoochie-clothes that seem fashionable for little kids now. So disgusting. Rowan mostly wears pants - the few dresses she has all have little same-coloured undies or have onesies built in. No miniskirts for my girl.

Time to go do more laundry. Later all!


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 

But I have another indication that Rowan is some kind of culinary prodigy - yesterday I bought us a portugese custard tart from the deli and she took one look and said "egg in that" !!! I've no idea how she came to that conclusion - she was totally right of course - but I'm frankly amazed. Mostly she gets her eggs soft-boiled.

That is one of Ella's special talents too! That and she is shockingly good with a fork and spoon. But she can totally identify chicken in nearly any form. And today she was looking through a magazine at the bank and there was a small advertisement or something where there was an even smaller photo of a bowl of macaroni and cheese, and she started pointing and saying "cheese, cheese!"







I am always suprised at how much she can identify food--such as she can identify pasta as pasta even if it's a type/shape of pasta she's never seen before, etc. (Like tortellini.) The bank is another funny thing--she's been there all of once, a week ago when I went to set up an account. The lady was really nice, read her a "book" ie magazine while I looked over the account information, gave her a paper and pen to draw with, etc. And I let her sit on a swivel chair. Well, today I took her to go get a safe deposit box, so we had to see that same woman, and Ella insisted on being taken out of the ergo to sit in the chair, and then once she was in the chair started with "Draw! Draw!" and then when I refused to let her draw, she started in with "book! book!" I was suprised that she obviously remembered so much of her previous one visit to the bank and what she did there!

I haven't read through the entire thread--y'all are a chatty bunch tonight! I'll catch up later. I have been sooooo productive this past week! I'm really happy about it! I have taken care of so much of the administrative side of moving stuff and other things that I've just been procrastinating on--got my new driver's license, registered my car in this state and got new license plates, started local bank accounts and safe deposit box, changed my cell phone number to a local one, organized a bunch of stuff around the house, decluttered my pantry cupboard in the kitchen, mailed out some things that needed to be mailed, bought postage, etc. And . . . we saw an estate attorney tonight and are taking care of the business of wills, guardianship, etc etc. Obviously nobody wants to think too much about dying or their partner dying and especially the thought of both dying and leaving a little child behind







(which is probably a big part of why so many people I know who have young children "haven't gotten around to it" even though they know that they should) but it actually is feeling very freeing and empowering to face it head-on and ask the hard question of "what would happen to me/you/us" and then figure out how to take care of the situation so that everyone will be taken care of and protected regardless of the scenario. It's kind of funny because usually if you spend money on something you hope you need it or will use it--I think that estate planning and insurance are probably the only things you buy and hope that you end up wasting your money on because you'll never need them!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yeah, the question of "what happens to my family if I die?" is a constant biggie for me. Steve has the right to see the boys if I'm not around (he has parental responsibility) so at least Skye will still see her brothers, and in a few years then the boys will have the right to choose which dad they live with.
Amy, the half-life of staph is relatively short (it's something like 72 hours outside the body). Anything rigid and plastic, I'd wash with bleach and then boil, then give them a week on the shelf and wash again. Soft toys I'd freeze, then put through a relatively hot wash= 60 degrees, something like that. Anything wooden is going to be more difficult- I'd give them a good wash and consider rubbing down with lavender oil blended with vegetable oil. I'm talking to infection control at our local hospital a lot at the moment, as my FIL is still in hospital and has another MRSA infection (myo-something resistant staphylococcus aureus) in his leg- this time in the metal plate they put in his leg after the break.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It's scary stuff.

Amy, you've gotten some great advice, especially the one that mentions only one of the children has it so it must not be too vicious. I wouldn't run around bleaching everything but I would probably wash what was washable and try not to worry about it too much.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

ALright... someone had to bring MRSA up...

My little baby cousin has it... and they are moving out here. His dad is like my best friend... but I am freaked out about him bringing the baby around me (pregnant) and my kids....

Am I right? How should I handle this? How long does it last? My cousin acts like it's no big deal and they don't even practice hygienic safety protocol with the baby. (They're more "hillbilly" kind of people.







)


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

What do you mean, "has" it? The vast majority of people have one or several strains of MRSA present in their body at any one moment in time, generally in the nose, sometimes mouth, sometimes ears and often open wounds. If someone is in good health- like you and me- then it doesn't pose a problem. If, on the other hand, you're 70 years old and rarely eat proper meals, the infection stands a chance to get out of control, which is what happened with my FIL.
We live with it every day of our lives, because of my FIL. We're careful and conscientious about handwashing, etc, get the carpets steamcleaned and we will be cautious with the brand new baby around him. Being honest, though, the risks under normal circumstances appear to be pretty negligible for us. It's not a virulent strain in dad's leg, and the fact that it's bound in the exudate from dad's leg ulcers protects us further


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *HoneyTree* 
Kristina, I just looked at your pictures; what cute kiddlets! Your girl has the sweetest curly hair! Woody's got quite the mop top right now, which I've trimmed once to tidy up those little stringy baby flyaways, but which I'm now reluctant to mess with. What do the rest of y'all do with your babies' hair? Do you trim? Cut and style? Leave alone?.

I forgot this bit the last time I posted in my excitment. Thanks for the comments on the munchkins. At age 5 Annette has had her hair cut once and it was extremly traumatic. She had been chewing on her hair, I'm guessing she was stressed considering everything going on then. I had to cut about 6 inches off to get rid of the chewed up bit and even out the chewed off chunks! So far I have done nothing with Joseph's hair. His hair is really starting to frizz and curl as it gets longer just like mine and Annette's. I'm currently debating looking for something to tame the frizz or trim it up a bit. As much as he likes playing with his hair I'm rather against trimming it. The one thing that would have me trimming it super quick is if it were to start looking like a mullet. That just would not fly here. Thankfully it appears to be growing pretty evenly and isn't bugging his eyes yet so I'm just letting it go.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Well, they are currently living in Minnesota and I don't know if it centered in an open wound from the tubes coming in and out of him when he was in NICU. He was born at 28 weeks... but he's now 6 months old almost.

So you steam clean your carpets when your FIL visits? Or are you saying he lives with you and you just periodically deep clean? I'm just wondering what the proper precautions are to take if they visit after we have the newborn.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Rowan totally has a mullet







:. Not much I can do about it, it's just the way it grows, and it would look worse if I cut the back, I think.

She's still pretty cute though.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Spughy....
Wow... I just noticed Rowan was born on the same day as Isaac! What time of the day was she born?

And ladies...

My babyhawk mei tai arrived today! Isaac is in love! He cried when I put him down. I can't believe it's so comfortable at five months pregnant!


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Winter's wild hair just grows and I let it. I love little boys with long hair.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Here's the reason I ask about hair. It's super thick and doesn't really part--it just grows down and around his face, and kind of in his eyes. I'd like to let it grow out long, but I just don't know if he has the kind of hair that that style works with, and I don't want him to be the little kid who is _constantly_ pushing hair out of his face so he can see, play, run, talk, etc. I think I am talking myself into trimming here...









(Oh, and Amy, that is Woody's fantabulous fashion combo, minus the soaker, which I think got chosen because it was clean and dry!)


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Teresa, IME this is why little boys have daddies. Because they can be the ones who take their offspring on their first visit to the barbers (and seriously, ask around. In every town, at least over here, there is the barber shop who is supercool with children and can get the hair done with the minimum of screaming in very little time.) It depends how trimmed you want it, though- if you want the Hugh Grant flop, which I love on little boys, or if you just want the front kept out of his eyes.
I really miss the days of my boys having floppy hair







I keep trying to convince them to grow it back, but without success.
Danile, we live with my FIL- that's why I spend so much time obsessing about these things. He was admitted to hospital with cellulitis and an MRSA infection when Skye was 10 days old (before we lived here), so we've spent a lot of time on the phone to infection control in the last year trying to figure out how big the risk to everyone else actually is.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

So I have gigantic news I can't bear to sit on any more. Jim and I are getting *married*. And soon. November 20th.







:


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Love the outfit, Woody!!







He is so gorgeous, Teresa!!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *honeytree*
It's super thick and doesn't really part--it just grows down and around his face, and kind of in his eyes. I'd like to let it grow out long, but I just don't know if he has the kind of hair that that style works with, and I don't want him to be the little kid who is constantly pushing hair out of his face so he can see, play, run, talk, etc.

That's why I cut bangs in Brynn's hair, too. I think she would look so pretty without bangs, or with her hair pulled back away from her face, but she is *so* anti-ponytail or barettes. It's just not worth it for me to fight her on it, so I just trim her bangs every six weeks or so. Her hair is growing out a bit now, and I don't mind that, but it just gets to looking so stringy when it's long. We both have the curse of really fine, thin hair! I guess that's why my mom always kept my hair short as a baby/child too, come to think of it. I've actually been thinking of taking her to a stylist instead of cutting her hair myself this time around though, because no matter how hard I try, I can never really get it straight along the back. With the way it's cut now, it's so easy to take care of; we just wash and condition every 2-3 days, and then I usually blow it dry at her request - she hates the feeling of wet hair.







But then it's soft and silky for a couple of days, and stays our of her face, and we don't even think about it!

DiD, congratulations! Only, I guess I am behind the times because I always thought you were already married!







What ever happened with his job promotion, by the by?

DucetteMama, a Babyhawk - yum! They are gorgeous. I think I would have gotten one of those instead of an Ergo if they had clipped instead of tied. But we are still luh-huuuving our Ergo!

Well we're off to the farmer's market and then to hike. Have a good weekend, all!


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Danile - Rowan was born at about 1 am Pacific time. What time was Isaac born?

Teresa - Woody is *adorable* but I'm afraid I would trim his hair too. At some point with little ones you have to trade off "cute" for "functional".









DiD - congratulations! I thought you guys were already married too, but that's super-fabulous! I hope you have a lovely lovely wedding. I wholeheartedly approve of short engagements too - Stirling and I got engaged in July and married in October. Less time to go all stressy about it.









My darling child just slept for over 12 hours. Of course the only time she does this is when I *want* to get up relatively early and hit the market. And have playdates. She's so cute though... stumbles out of the bedroom looking like a miniature college student on a major bender. In pink pyjamas.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

Haha see that's why it's funny and sort of not a big deal because everyone always refers to us as married.
Except I am making a big deal out of it because I am totally caught up in this gigantic whirlwind of excitement.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Hey, I knew you weren't married.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

November's too soon, though, Suriya won't be walking yet, and you can't have a bridesmaid crawling down the aisle after you







So, are you going white? Coloured? Civil, or religious? What do the boys think? Is Gabriel going to give you away, or will your dad do it? Will you get snow in November??? Are you still going to be in Washington then, or are you doing the move?

Enough excitement, or do you want some more?


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

DID- CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I love that day... of course.







:

Spughy-







: My labor started at 1am.... after a nice bout of intercourse...














Isaac was born at 3:42 pm on November 20th.


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

See Helen we have to do it before the end of 2007 so Jim can claim all the kids on his taxes and pay back the IRS.
I think I'm going white. Goodness knows that traditionally speaking I'm not allowed to wear white but oh well. We're definitely having a civil ceremony as we are atheist. I guess my dad will give me away, though I hope so badly he's not serious about wearing his Slytherin tie or else it's not gonna be him







There's not likely to be snow here in November, or any other time of year simply because it's practically unheard of here. We will still be in Washington by then mostly because I just can't plan it from 3000 miles away.

I am on the smallest wedding budget ever imagined but I am still so flippin excited.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Hooray, DiD! How exciting! I think that getting married was kind of like being pregnant--you try to think about other things and being an all-around functional human being, but your mind just keeps going back to it, planning, working on details, visualizing...







And if I had it to do all over again, I'd do it totally stripped down, too; only the closest friends and family, a dozen bottles of wine, simple food, a dress I altered from one I already owned, flowers from friends' gardens, hand-made invitations, civil ceremony with blessings from friends afterward, etc. That is so NOT the wedding I had, but if I was then the person that I am now, that's how I'd do it!

And thanks for the sweet words about my boy, mamas







. I did trim his hair, just a bit, around his face. It looks OK--a little rough, maybe, but enough to pass until we go to a proper barber!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Yeah, we eloped to Gretna Green (the Brit equivalent of Vegas- it's the first town in Scotland, and Scotland doesn't make you live there for 2 weeks before you get married.) We got engaged in Gretna too, driving through it on holiday the previous year but they couldn't get us in at such short notice.
Anyhow, aside from the fact that my eldest child blabbed and we ended up with three more guests than we'd planned, it was perfect. I've been trying to talk one of the other MDC posters into it


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

It's really hard being caught up in all this excitement and then I see the prices of some things and it just bursts my bubble. My mom and dad aren't going to pay for anything and we only have a few months to pay for it all so Jim really wants to just go to the courthouse and have a justice of the peace marry us and be done with it and that just makes me so sad.







I know it's not all about the ceremony but I want the fairytale wedding. Blah. I know, I'm such a spoiled brat.


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

We were just in the starting to plan stages of things when I got pg with Annette. Since I ended up puking my guts out for 9 months that threw everything for a loop. I couldn't stand up and manage to walk down the steps at the place we had given a deposit so we had a big change in plans. Thankfully the place had other people wanting that date so we got our money back. When I was 30 weeks pg we went to the court house and got a marriage liscense. Then back to fil's house to round up witnesses. Then just up the street to the JP's house. Honestly at that point I was just glad to not puke during the ceremony! At that point we had talked about doing a nice ceremony later, but I don't think that is going to happen by now unless it's at 10 years or something like that!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

We're planning the big ceremony for 20 years







We do the party for our anniversary most years, though- we actually got married on twelfth night, so it's a doubly good excuse for a knees up.
DiD, in the end you need to figure out what bits of your wedding are important to you- do you want the gorgeous photos? The big reception? The fairytale entrance? What EXACTLY is it you're dreaming of? Because once you've figured out what it is, you can take it from there.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

We had a really nice very small wedding - we used our neighbour's back yard (which is separated from ours by just an ivy-covered fence with a gate in it, and had the benefit of nicer landscaping and no childrens' toys) and had the ceremony under the large rowan tree that spans both our yards. The only people in attendance were our immediate families, the neighbours, and two close friends. We hired a marriage commissioner ($100) and that was basically the only expense besides clothes. I made my wedding dress for about $100, my mom made the bridesmaid's outfits for about the same (we went with a pseudo-chinese theme, I was in a cheogsam dress in lace over satin and the bridesmaids were in chinese silk brocade cheongsam blouses and black skirts. So, total cost - less than $300 (DH already had a suit).

Then we budgeted a whole lot for a post-wedding dinner. But that part was just a fun party for our friends.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spughy* 
I have a wretched headache at the moment and a really annoying injury - I was peeling beets and hit a tough spot, the peeler slipped and took off about half the fingernail (the bit that actually covers the finger, not the part that grows out on top) on my left middle finger. I've got it bandaged but of course every time I wash dishes or cook or whatever stuff gets in there so I've been trying to keep it clean because it's flesh that's never meant to be exposed to anything.







Plus it's incredibly painful to touch. Stupid vegetable peelers.

ouch! vegetable peelers are evil things. i had a similar injury when i was about 10. it was forever before i was willing to use a veggie peeler again.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DreamsInDigital* 
Winter's wild hair just grows and I let it. I love little boys with long hair.









me too. keagan's hair is curly and gets sooo frizzy (like mine) but i just love it long and can't bear to cut it!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DreamsInDigital* 
So I have gigantic news I can't bear to sit on any more. Jim and I are getting *married*. And soon. November 20th.







:

yippee!!! and weddings on the cheap are totally possible. i haven't read the portland thread in a few days, but you might try posting there to see if there is anyone who would help with various things - i know that at least two mamas in that group are budding photographers. . . you may be able to get a great deal if you are willing to let them use some of your pics in a portfolio!


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

The date's been changed a little so my sister can be there. The new date is December 1st.
I think my mom and dad might help us a little.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Totally unrelated to weddings, but I just had to share: my mother has yet to come out to see her only grandchild (going on 20 months) yet she has taken 3 or 4 vacations since Brynn's birth, and she just told me today that she's leaving for a 3-week vacay to Oregon tomorrow.







Not that I really care to see her, mind you, but I find it copletely shocking that she has made zero effort to meet her daughter's daughter!

So DiD, have you decided about moving to your brother's?


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## Queen of Cups (Aug 29, 2003)

Wow, Amy, I can't even imagine that... On a kind of related note, but from the opposite standpoint, sometimes I get very depressed when I think about my kids growing up. My MIL was a SAHM and gave up her career when DH came to them (he was adopted, when they got the call from the adoption agency she gave her boss 4 hours notice and didn't work again till DH was in high school). She worked so hard to provide a really wonderful, educational, fun childhood for DH and SIL, and it absolutely drives me nuts that DH never calls, visits, or remembers to get her a birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day present unless I hassle him about it. Is Killy going to be that completely indifferent to me when he's 30 years old? Will it truly appear that he doesn't give a sh!t, unless he happens to have a partner who hassles him to acknowledge my existence?

Things are going pretty well here, I'm loving summer and cooking with fresh veggies. A friend from college came to visit my sister this weekend, and it was nice seeing her. The kids are having a great time playing outside all the time. And, best of all - DH let me sleep in this morning while he cleaned house and watched the kids!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Queen of Cups* 
Is Killy going to be that completely indifferent to me when he's 30 years old? Will it truly appear that he doesn't give a sh!t, unless he happens to have a partner who hassles him to acknowledge my existence?

Maybe not. DH is really good about making a fuss over his mom for things like birthdays & mothers day. He remembers her birthday (himself!) and always gets her thoughtful and sentimental gifts. He calls her a lot, and makes a huge effort for Brynn to know her (even though she lives like a zillion miles away). He always asks her to come up when she can, and we try to make it to Texas at least once a year - you can tell that it honestly pains him that she isn't more involved in our life. I think it just depends on the person, really. So don't lose hope!


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## MelW (Jan 13, 2005)

I am so freaking exhausted that I can barely function. Neela thwarted plans to save my nipples with nightweaning with her own strategy of getting up and staying awake playing until morning, then going back to bed with her exhausted mama for a long nursing morning nap. After getting up at 2 or 3 am for several mornings in a row, I told her we could go back to nursing at night if she would try to be very gentle with my nipples. And I asked her if she would sleep during the night- and she told me "no". Last night, despite nursing, we were still awake from 2 until almost 5 am (we finally went for a drive to get her back to sleep because she refused to nurse- and kept saying "no sleeping, no sleeping"). She rarely "fights" sleep before this whole stupid endeavor, and usually tells me when she wants to nap during the day. Here's hoping tonight is better....

On a more positive note, we decluttered Neela's "bedroom" that was acutally a laundry/storage room with a change table in it, and made it into more of a playroom for her today. I still have some work to do, but when I showed her the room she shrieked with excitement, and got down on the floor and rolled around on her quilt with her books and toys.

Sorry for the self-absorbed post. I'm off to bed and don't have time for replies, but have been following and enjoying reading about all of your lives and kids!


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

Mel. Here's sending you the alertness to get through the day, and the subliminal message to Neela: GO TO SLEEP!!!
QofC, I think we're living proof that some 30-year-olds care about their parents?


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## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

I don't think I'm going to sleep again until December 2nd. Planning a wedding is freaking hard!
Winter is having a gigantic language explosion. All of a sudden I'm able to understand nearly half of everything he says. I think he must have said over 20 new words today. Is that even possible? Crazy.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DreamsInDigital* 
I don't think I'm going to sleep again until December 2nd. Planning a wedding is freaking hard!
Winter is having a gigantic language explosion. All of a sudden I'm able to understand nearly half of everything he says. I think he must have said over 20 new words today. Is that even possible? Crazy.


Yep, it's possible!

Ella has suddenly started talking lots more too--she had a lot of words (some of them are sort of weird but consistent--like she calls chicken "ni-ni" and milk "dadoosh") but wasn't saying sentences so much. Suddenly she's started saying little sentences and putting more words together. And she's mastered the imperative tense! As in half of these sentences start with "go!" or "More!"







It's terrible--she's ordering us around like a drill seargent all of a sudden.

It's hilarious though--she's in this total Daddy phase. For a while now, she's wanted him to be lying down with us while I am nursing her to sleep. She gets upset if he leaves, and she'll start crying and saying "Daddy, Daddy!" in this heartbroken little voice over and over again until he comes back. And then in the morning when she wakes up, or if she wants him to come in at bedtime, she has started calling him like I do. It's hysterical to hear her yelling in her little baby voice, "Honey! HONEY! HONEEEEEYYYYYYY!"


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

All I hear, all day every day is Mummy, help! Help, mummy! Help!










It's like living with Suellen O'Hara







:


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

I hear lots of "mummy SO happy" - even when I'm obviously not, like when she's dumped her food on the floor again... and "go outside! go outside! take Daisy outside! go outside! go playgroup! go playground! go outside!"

And instead of "mummy help me" I get "mummy do that".

We're making ice cream this afternoon. Rowan has ice cream mixture (berries, custard base and cream) ALL over her face right now, cause it's WRONG to put the mixing bowls in the sink without giving them a prewash treatment, you know.


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## Kavita (Dec 7, 2004)

Oh, I forgot the best--"Mommy go poopy, potty! YAAAYYY!" accompanied by clapping.







: Followed by "Bye bye poo poo! Potty!" Especially fun in public restrooms.


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## HoneyTree (Apr 5, 2005)

Ha! Kavita, Woody does, that, too! Especially if he's sitting on his potty; he wants me to sit on MY potty (or really, what he calls "daddy's potty," for some reason) and go, too.

And count me in with the "help" babies! "Help, please! Help, please! Help, please!"

Mel, I'm so sorry that you and Neela are stuck in that sleep cycle right now.







The playroom sounds like fun! I've been gathering ideas for a more active bedroom play area; right now this site on homemade chalkboard paint has me interested.


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## Phoenix_Rising (Jun 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flapjack* 
All I hear, all day every day is Mummy, help! Help, mummy! Help!










It's like living with Suellen O'Hara







:


sorry, helen, i know firsthand this is frustrating but i couldn't help


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## s_kristina (Aug 9, 2004)

We are still at the point and "ahhh ahhh" stage here. He has picked up a few more important words from daddy. He can now say an almost understandable "beer" he does a really good job with "ffff" at appropriate times and was trying to sing about a bottle of rum yesterday







I still have a funny feeling the np we see will want him to have a speech eval at age 2 for lack of vocab, but he has no problems understanding a thing.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

Isaac is REALLY into animals. So most of his words are totally having to do with either his extremely independent personality, or animals.

Moot is cow, owl, pick is pig, sishy is fishy, nemo, daddy, mommy (which works for me, my mom and his aunties.







), puppy, dog, bird, bear, titi which is kitty, dut is duck. The other words are usually commands or comments. Like aw done, no, stop it, mine, up, ny-night, whats that... etc.

And he incorporates it with a LOT of gibberish/foreign baby language.









He just hit an explosion this month though.


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## spughy (Jun 28, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *s_kristina* 
We are still at the point and "ahhh ahhh" stage here. He has picked up a few more important words from daddy. He can now say an almost understandable "beer" he does a really good job with "ffff" at appropriate times and was trying to sing about a bottle of rum yesterday







I still have a funny feeling the np we see will want him to have a speech eval at age 2 for lack of vocab, but he has no problems understanding a thing.

Glad my kid's not the only one familiar with beer







Kristina I laughed so hard at this... good to see he's got his priorities in order!!!


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Here's one for the "Thank God she didn't say *that* in public" file:

Tonight Brynn and I were in the kitchen making dinner, and Jason came home from work and then left right away again to go work out. After he left, Brynn said, "I'm scared of Daddy." I wasn't really too alarmed, but I did say, "Really? What is it about Daddy that you are scared of?" Her reply? "His penis."









We talked about it more and she seemed to really be concerned about the fact that Daddy pees from his penis, so I guess that's what she was talking about. I was just thinking (in all seriousness), what if she were in school and said that to a teacher or another parent? Hello, CPS!!! Geez.


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## DucetteMama21842 (May 11, 2006)

WOW.

Yeah I would chalk that up to good timing on her part.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I think penises are generally fascinating at this age anyhow- especially for a girl thinking about the potty, because little boys accidents are so much tidier







I would maybe consider spending a day talking about "scary" and "not scary" though- it sounds like she had a very clear idea in her head but didn't have the words to express it.


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## *Amy* (Jun 16, 2004)

Oh! It's August 1st! Here's the new thread.


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