Babywearing

I have become totally obsessed with babywearing. Oh my goodness. Why didn't I do this with Raegan? Actually, I did have a sling when Raegan was tiny, but it hurt my back so I barely used it. Thank God too, because they've since been recalled due to infant death while using them. I had that exact same one picture in the link too. I've never been more thankful that pregnancy gives me such a weak back and core. :)

But babywearing with good quality wraps and carriers? Magic. Pure magic. A friend of mine sent me her Moby Wrap and once I figured it out, it was amazing. Perfect for a tiny new little squishy that just wants to be on her mama all the time. The website says that you can use a Moby up to 35 pounds, but I cannot see how that is possible (neither can anyone else in the babywearing world, from what I've read!). Already at 11 pounds Ava is almost too heavy for it. The stretchiness makes it a great wrap to learn with, but the passes don't hold very well because of that same stretchiness.

About a month ago I purchased a Baby Hawk Mei Tai off of the Babywearing on a Budget page on Facebook. (Side note: this page and The Babywearing Swap are addictive. I limit myself to only looking at them for a few minutes each time I nurse. It's a rabbit hole, I tell you.) I got a really good price on my MT, and it's as good as new. I love it. Loooooove it. I'm curious to see how it holds up once Ava is a toddler, and I'm eager to try a back carry with it, but for now I am super happy with it with the front carry. It was a much easier learning curve than the Moby (seriously, Ava and I were both in tears the first few times I tried her in the Moby) and it doesn't sag hardly at all. The back panel comes up high enough that I don't worry about her head flopping at all, and she was starting to hate me tucking her head into one of the pockets of the Moby. I really want to find some material that contrasts well with it so I can make some strap protectors, because Ava already loves to suck on the side straps. I can't see me wanting to sell it anytime soon, but I would like to keep it in good condition and not have to wash it constantly.

Next up I'm going to get a woven wrap. Oh, if only we had money so I could Buy All The Wraps.

 

There are so many options. So, so many. I've decided that since we don't have All The Money I can't buy them all, so I'm going to get one of each. Meaning, one Mei Tai, one ring sling, one soft structured carrier (preferably a Tula) and one woven. Actually, I've decided it's completely acceptable for me to get two wovens, because I need a shorty too. HA! Justification, thou art my friend. :) So here's the long wrap I desperately, desperately want:

 

Erna im Wunderland  = one true love

 

This wrap. Oh, this wrap. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I really really hope that it's as beautiful and vibrant in person as it is on screen. I have someone to buy it from, so it will be mine soon. I am going to be crushed if it's not All That. What I really want to do is wrap with it for like a year then send it off to be converted into a Tula-type carrier. With ears. ;)

 

So yeah, babywearing. It's my jam. And Raegan really likes it because it means she gets to ride in the stroller. Silly girl.

 

 





Go Me!

I don't know if you all remember my plan that I posted about in here last month. I just wanted to update, because I'm so totally pleased with my self control with my credit card! :)

I've been using my Old Navy card to get gift certificates to use in store. The deal was that you had to buy groceries, gas or dining out to get the triple points. Every!single!time I've used my card for one of those things, I've instantly gone to the ATM and pulled out cash to put in an envelope to go towards the credit card bill. We just got the bill yesterday, and it was insanely big. Like, I would never have that much on a store credit card. Ever. But I had every single penny of it covered with the money I had been setting into the envelope. AND, we got a $10 gift certificate with the bill, thanks to how many points we racked up with our purchases. Pretty sweet.

The triple points deal continues through the end of the month, so I'm hoping to get at least $5 more in gift certificates before it's over. Now that I've proven to myself that I can handle a rewards credit card responsibly, I'm contemplating signing up for the rewards card that gives you an extra 5 cents off per gallon at Kwik Shop gas pumps. I already get pretty good savings by using my Dillon's plus card, but who doesn't want to save as much as possible on gas these days? :)

Writer's Workshop - 6/29/11

4.) Name a pet peeve you have about how other parents raise their kids. Go on…stir the pot.


Oh, man. Oh man oh man oh man. I could write a book based on this topic. So maybe I'll just narrow it down to my top five pet peeves. I see a lot of different parenting styles from working with families as a teacher. I get to see a lot. Honestly, seeing some examples of not-so-fine parenting has helped me as I parent Raegan. I have thought of specific children from my classroom and it motivates me to not let her get away with x-y-and-z because I know what can come from permissive parenting.
 
(1) It drives me craaaaaazy when I see people giving their small (I'm talking babies and toddlers here) children soda. I hate it! I have had so many children come through my class with the most horrible cavities, and it usually comes from a combination of sugary drinks and not enforcing brushing their teeth. Raegan to this day has not had a sip of soda (that I'm aware of, and she better not have!!!) and it's going to stay that way for awhile. I am a soda drinker. I drink a looooot of soda. I really need to cut down. But I'm an adult, and I am making that choice, knowing what it does to my teeth and my body (and I do brush my teeth - ha! - and I drink diet, so thats a smidge better). There are plenty of other much healthier alternatives for kids (even school aged kids) if they're thirsty. Raegan loves milk and water. She just doesn't need pop.
 
(2) Another parenting pet peeve of mine is parents who enroll their child in every activity under the sun, and don't allow their child any downtime. I've read several articles about how it's not healthy for children to play sports non-stop from a young age, because of the damage it can do to their joints and muscles. Sports aside, I think that children need to learn how to entertain themselves. I think that there is a lot of benefit to extracurricular activities and sports. I think children should try out their interests and be introduced to teamwork and fair play. But I don't think that they shoul be going, going, going all day every day. They need time to use their imaginations and learn to just be.
 
(3) One more would be letting your child stay up all night. I know a lot of parents who keep their child up late at night (11:00, midnight, sometimes even later) so that they will sleep in the next morning so the parent can sleep in too. Kids need sleep. It's how they grow! It's how their minds develop!!!! Raegan goes to bed at 8:00 (sometimes earlier in the school year if she doesn't get a good nap at child care) because (1) she needs her sleep, and (2) I need Mommy time. I think it makes me a better mom to get some time to myself. I can love her and not need to spend every moment of every day with her. And I can be unselfish and an adult and go to bed at a decent hour so that I can get up with her in the morning. Part of the decision to have children, I say.
 
(4) And my last one (I couldn't really think of a fifth one, at least not a major one). If you know me very well, you should know this one - excessive television. Turn off the dang television and send your child outside! Do you know that the average preschool aged child (meaning ages 2-6) has 32 hours of screen time a week? And the average school aged child is getting about 6 hours a day of screen time (including about an hour and a half daily at school!!!)? And about one fourth of children under the age of two have a television in their room!!!! IN. THEIR. ROOM!!!!!!!! Ludicrous! I think it's nice to watch cartoons all morning on Saturday morning. I certainly laid around in my pajamas doing that when I was a kid. But it wasn't an all day, every day marathon of television, video games and computer. Talk to your child! Read to your child! Have them entertain themselves with their imagination and toys! Ooooooh, it drives me crazy! Can you tell by my excessive use of exclamation points?!!!!!!!! :D
 
Ahhhh, that feels kind of good just to rant it all out. Good prompt this week!

Thoughts

My husband pointed me to this article earlier this week. In a nutshell, it's about a couple from Toronto who haven't told anyone the sex of their child. They say they want to "give Storm (the baby) the freedom to choose who he or she wants to be."

I'm sorry, but no. I'm not one to believe that you HAVE to dress your girl in pink and your boy in blue. I think that boys can play with babies and dress up just as much as girls can. Raegan has some trucks and she loves to crawl around and pretend to be a monster. As a teacher, I put out dress up clothes and trucks and My Little Ponies and make it clear to the kids that they ALL can play with any toy, regardless of if they are a boy or girl. But to me personally, keeping your child's gender a mystery is just a bit much. I feel almost like it's a science experiment for these parents, with their children at stake. And while most people seem to be focused on the issue of gender, I have other problems with this article.

The quote from the article that kind of put me off was this one from the father: "What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It's obnoxious." Yeah. That, my friends, is called being a parent. I think as a culture we have become so worried about what is "right" and what is "PC" when it comes to raising children that we've forgotten some of the basic principles of being  parent. I am not at all against letting your child pick their hairstyle or their clothing. There are much bigger things to battle with your child over than that. But I think that as a parent, it is your responsibility to make choices for your child. The unschooling thing, where the children get to choose their own learning based on their interests, is perfectly acceptable for the older two children at the age of five and two. That's actually called developmentally appropriate practice for early childhood. That's what I do in my classroom every day. However, even though the children's interests dictate what we focus on in the classroom, the children aren't in charge. I have a schedule. We have small group learning time, and the children are expected to sit and do learning activities. Some children don't want to sit, but they are learning to follow rules and directions.

And when those two children get older, they need structure to their education. What if they are never interested in math concepts? Are their parents just not going to teach them math? There are concepts that you have to learn in school in order to be able to function in the real world with a job. It's a basic life principle. Everyone has different learning styles. Regardless of how you feel about society, it is the society that your children will someday live in. You have to prepare them for a life as an adult. As a parent, I assume that you want your child to be successful. That you want them to become independent and not reliant on you or the government to support their needs. The dad in this article is a teacher at an alternative school, which I assume requires some form of post-secondary education. These children are not going to be prepared for the kind of education is takes to have any kind of successful job if they are always allowed to dictate their own learning. There comes a point where you say, "*I* am the parent. Here is what you need to do."

I'm all about giving choices. Raegan doesn't get to choose her own bedtime (dear God, that would be a nightmare!) but she can choose who she wants to tell goodnight first. She has to pick up her toys, but there's the choice, "Do you want to pick up the blocks or the babies first?" Give children choices gives them a sense of control and teaches them not to blindly follow. I want Raegan to be able to think for herself. I want her to be able to make the right choices when she's faced with difficult situations. But it's my job as her parent not to let her go along willy-nilly making all the choices.

Maybe the article doesn't explain it all. Maybe these parents plan on homeschooling/unschooling their children in a way that allows them to explore their interests while learning basic concepts that they need to have the equivalent of a high school diploma. I hope that's the case. I just see too much these days of parents being more worried about doing what's PC, or trying to be their child's friend, instead of being The Parent. As it should be.

Just stop already!

Little girls' fashion pisses me off.

I felt this way before I became a mom, when I saw some of the things LITTLE girls in my class were wearing. Now that I am a mom, I feel that way even more strongly.

I don't want my under two year old wearing a bikini this summer. I don't want her wearing halter tops and itty bitty shorts with writing on the butt. She is still a baby, for crying out loud. Why is it okay for companies to manufacture this crap?!?!?!?!

I've been searching for a swimsuit for Raegan for weeks now. I wish I would have bought the SPF swim shirt and bottoms that I loved from Babies 'R Us a couple weeks back, but unfortunately I decided to wait and see what else there was. I have no problem with a two piece swimsuit that completely covers my daughter. Last year Raegan wore a tankini. No tummy showing. None of this baloney:

When I looked on one website, out of the 26 swimsuits they offered for toddler girls, 9 were bikinis. And only 7 were one piece swimsuits. Come on. Seriously? She's a little girl. Let her be a little girl. And don't even get me started on the fashion choices for Raegan when she gets older. Ugh ugh ugh. With Zane, we just had to avoid the plethora of t-shirts with annoying obnoxious sayings on them. You don't have to avoid sexy clothing when you have a boy. I shouldn't be having to even think about this kind of thing until she's in middle school and high school. If Raegan cares at all about clothing, I could be having the "you can't wear that" fights with her when she's in kindergarten. Or before.

This rant brought to you by my annoyance with the oversexualization of our culture.

Stop judging already!

Why do so many people feel the need to comment on a baby's size or weight? Most people don't do that once your child gets older. I've never gotten a comment from a stranger at the mall about how skinny Zane is. :) But I got plenty of comments from total strangers when Raegan was a baby about how little she was, how tiny she was, how she didn't look like she was as old as I said she was. Drove. Me. Crazy.

In our society, it seems to be considered "better" or "healthier" by most people* to have a baby that is chubby. People comment positively on chubby babies or babies that eat a lot. Babies that are petite don't get those same positive comments. Raegan has always been tall and slender. While we tried to get her acid reflux managed when she was a newborn, she became more slender, but she never dipped down to an alarming percentage. Our pediatrician assured us that as long as she continued to measure in at about the same percentile range at every well check, then she was fine. And she consistently stayed in the 30-40% range until she was about a year old. I knew she was fine. I knew that she was nursing well and that she was meeting all of the cognitive and language milestones on time if not early. But I wanted to make her a onesie or a sign or something that said, "I'm a skinny baby and it's OKAY. Not everyone has to be chubby."

*I say most people, but it does seem to go the other way. I have a friend who is currently getting some negative comments about her baby being "too" chubby. The beauty of babies is that they know how to regulate their own eating, which makes them so much smarter than the majority of us adults. Babies know when they are hungry, and they know when they are full, which is why it's just ignorant to put any young infant on a 4 hour (or whatever hour) feeding schedule. So if a baby is slender or chubby, it's probably just genes coming into play. I'm a big fan of not forcing Raegan to clean her plate. I want her to continue to keep those signals of knowing when she is hungry and when she is full. I hope to avoid food or weight issues when she is older by not making meals a battle now.

Spring has sprung!

Tomorrow marks the first official day of Spring. Finally! For whatever reason, this winter seems to have been especially long this year. Maybe it was the SNOW we had in MARCH this year?

Next week is also our Spring Break. Zane and I have always taken a little trip over the break every year, usually to a zoo. Last year I took the kids to Rolling Hills here in town, because with Raegan being so young I wasn't sure how well she would tolerate a longer car ride. I haven't really decided what we're going to do this year yet. Zane and I talked about maybe going to Tanganyika Wildlife in Goddard this year, or maybe the Topeka zoo since we haven't been there yet. We're forecasted for a lot of rain today and tomorrow, but I'm hoping that the weather will cooperate with us and we can go either Monday or Tuesday next week.

I'm just glad for the break to refresh and recharge for the last couple months of school. I've had some very challenging behavior problems in my classroom this year, and it's kind of been a draining year. It had been a blessing that the year feels like it has gone by quickly though! I can't believe that we're already halfway through March, because I'm pretty sure that Luke and I took our trip to Kansas City just last weekend! :) I really need to start planning our summer vacation, because I think that's going to be upon us before we know it. I've been diligently saving money every month since November, so I think we'll be able to do something pretty nice this year.

This post has kind of turned into a ramble, so I think I'm going to stop here. Hopefully I'll have some time to take pictures of the kids the week and get them up here, because I haven't been doing a very good job of that lately.

What a good little Mama

Today's was Reed's funeral. Since Luke and Zane were gone last week for their ski trip, neither one could really get off of work or school, so I was the only one who went. Raegan stayed with my mother-in-law for the time I was gone, then I took the rest of the day off work and we stayed home together. I debated going to work after, but I'm glad now that I didn't. It was the most draining thing I've been through in awhile, and I'm glad that I went home and made some memories with my baby. Please continue to lift the Krones up in your prayers right now. The have a strong faith in God, but they still need prayers for strength and peace in the days to come.

Raegan is definitely getting a little more girly. She still loves chasing games with Zane and making growly monsters puppets out of her socks and shoes, but she also is starting to LOVE her baby dolls. She's started asking for her baby at nap if it's not in her crib, and she was saying "my baby" as she played with her babies this afternoon. Raegan's able to give actual smacking kisses now (instead of the open mouthed slobbers she gave before) and she might tell us no when we ask for a kiss, but she is always willing to give one to her babies. :) I have always been so thankful for everything that God has blessed me with, but never moreso than today.

Writer's Workshop - March 2

Sometime this week I plan on looking over my goals for February and letting you all know how I fared. I can tell you now that I didn't hit the 100% mark that I did with my goals for January, but oh well. Still better than breaking my New Years weight loss resolution by January 2nd. :) In the meantime, I'm finally getting back around to participating in the Writer's Workshop for this week. I've realy been neglecting my poor little blog lately.

4.) What inspired you this week?

Without a doubt, the 5K run/2 mile walk that was put on for Reed Krone last Saturday. I mentioned it in my last post, but I'm writing about it again because it was inspiring. And heartbreaking all at the same time.

Reed's family was told a couple weeks back that he couldn't go to St. Jude's because he is too weak. He's starting to have a harder time breathing because the tumor on his liver is expanding so much in his stomach. The tumor on his lungs in growing, and there is a new spot on his other lung as well. At this point, there is nothing left to be done but chemo at home in the hopes that it can shrink these tumors enough to open up other options. I shouldn't really say "nothing else to be done" because there is one other thing. Prayer. It was amazing to see all of the people who are praying unceasingly for Reed and his family. Reading all of the signs along the 5K route where people wrote out their prayers for Reed. It was so inspiring to know that God is finding a way to work in all of this. We may not see His hand in all of this right now, but I believe He always has a purpose.

Raegan and I still continue to pray for Reed every night when we say her prayers, but we've also added a prayer for Reed's parents too. I can't even fathom how they are feeling right now. Angie said that they have started sending Reed's 3 year old brother back to child care this week so that they can express their emotions and grieve and not scare Reese. My heart aches for them daily. Please include this family in your prayers in the days to come.

Debt Payoff Calculator

I found this super handy Accelerated Debt Payoff Calculator last night, and I HIGHLY recommend that you check it out. It's very encouraging if you are trying to pay off debt quicker by adding more to your minimum monthly payment. If you plug in the principal balance, interest rate, and monthly payment amount into the calculator, it will show you how much longer you have until the debt is paid off and how much interest you will be paying over the life of the debt. Then at the bottom, you can plug in an amount that you would hypothetically add to your debt payoff plan - what you might choose to pay above what you have to pay. Hit calculate results, and it will show you how soon your debt would be paid off by paying that dollar amount more per month. It will also tell you how much interest you will save by paying off sooner, and how many months you have saved in paying on that loan.

I plugged in my undergrad student loans. Just the undergrad loans. I have grad school loans through a different loan provider, and the total amount is just depressing, folks. If I follow Dave Ramsey's debt snowball, then I want to start applying extra money to our smallest debt first. I guess I should consider it a blessing that as soon as I pay off the small balance on Luke's credit card by the end of this month, our next smallest debt is my undergrad student loans. Really, we don't have debt in a lot of different places. We have my undergrad student loans, the payment on the Mountaineer, my grad school student loans, and our mortgage. It's just a LOT of debt in those four payments.

So back to the calculator. I plugged in the information from my student loans, and found that if I keep paying at the rate I am now, it won't be paid off until 11 years and 7 months from now, and we'll pay $1855.11 in interest during the payoff. (Lucky me, I have a really low interest rate on this loan!) BUT, if we start paying an extra $100 a month on top of what we already pay, the loan will be paid off in 4 years and 6 months, and we will pay $702.71 in interest. For a savings of $1,152.39, along with 7 years and 1 month of being in debt to this loan.

Just seeing it all spelled out like that makes me feel like, "Yeah, I can manage to find an extra $100 a month to get that bad boy paid off THAT much sooner. That's huge. Like, Raegan would be in kindergarten instead of middle school when we got that loan paid off. Like, Zane would be in high school instead of getting ready to graduate from college. And if I could manage to scrounge up some extra money on some months, we could get it paid off all that much sooner.

So check out that calculator I linked to, plug in your numbers and see what you get. I hope it's encouraging for you like it was for me!

A little different this week....

I've decided to do things a little differently for the writer's workshop that I've been participating in for about a month now. Normally, I write the blog, then link to it on Mama Kat's website. I'm not going to this time, to keep it a little more private, since it's kind of work related.

5.) Read the following quote and respond: “Sometimes you have to break the rules around you to keep the rules within you.” -Martha Beck (O Magazine)

This is the prompt that stuck out to me immediately. I wasn't going to blog about it, but I decided to just go ahead. I absolutely agree with this quote, even though I'm a rule follower. I think that there are rules in place for a reason, and I'm not someone to flout them because I think I'm above rules or anything of the sort. But there are certain moments when you have to go with what you know in your heart is right, even if it contradicts a rule that is in place in a setting you are in. Immediately when I read this quote I thought of a particular instance in my own life that I felt like it really applied to.

I've had an employer with a lot of rules about fraternizing with parents. There was a long line of rules about what I should and shouldn't do when it came to mingling with the parents I worked with. One in particular was always a source of contention for me. Teachers were not supposed to receive gifts from families. Big huge no no. I guess if a parent were to present us with a gift at Christmas, or during teacher appreciation week, we were supposed to suggest they donate it to the Goodwill or take it back because I just couldn't accept it.

I broke that rule to smithereens. And not for a half a second have I ever felt bad about it. Because how can I, while professing to care about this student of mine, look that child in the eye and tell them that I can't take their gift? Explain to me how that fosters my relationship with the parent or the child, please. I've never gotten an expensive gift. I've never felt bad about taking a gift, like I was taking away from the family's ability to provide Christmas for their own family. I've taken every gift with gratitude. And not an ounce of guilt for breaking a rule. Because it was more important to me to feel good about how I was treating a family or child than it was for me to be a rule follower.

Procrastination, ahoy!

I won't lie - having time off of work is nice. The timing of 2011's Snowpocalypse? Not so nice, from a work-related standpoint. Our tri-yearly child assessment tool is due this Friday. This means that I have to assess 31 children on 64 different developmental objectives. Do the math, that's a lot of work! I also have parent teacher conferences starting next Tuesday, which requires quite a bit of prep work to have all 31 children's portfolios ready. Luckily, this year I was seized by a very abnormal urge to get things done ahead of time, so I'm pretty much ready for conferences. What I have left involves printing off reports related to those developmental objectives I mentioned above. Which requires me to get them done.

I was a good little employee and made the decision to work from home this morning. So off Raegan went to daycare for the morning, and I cracked down and didn't let myself get too distracted by the internet. At this point, 17 out of 31 children are completely finished, and I feel like I have some breathing room on Friday now. I also came to the realization that because we will only have one day with children this week (I'm assuming that we will be back at school tomorrow, and I don't ever have children on Fridays) I can simply recycle this week's lesson plans into next week, and just come up with new small groups for next Thursday. My Friday is looking a whole lot better now.

All of that being said, I decided to spend Raegan's nap writing in my blog instead of working. My good employee skills only reach so far. :) And since I've already bombarded this blog with photos and videos, I decided to do some actual writing instead.

As I am slowly getting the house more organized by going through closets and purging, I'm faced with my own clothes closet. I think one of the things I would really like in our next house would be a walk-in closet, but in the meantime, I have to make do with what I have. It's not pretty. I have a lot of clothes. And shoes. And purses. And yet, I wear the same rotating 7 or 8 outfits and never change out my purse. So, obviously, it's time to tackle my closet.

What is it about clothing that makes it so hard for us to get rid of it? I absolutely know that I am not the only woman who has this problem. I've mentioned my need to purge my closet before to co-workers and friends and have gotten the same responses about how they need to do the same. Why do I hang on to t-shirts from high school? I don't really need a rotation of 15 different t-shirts for working out - we *do* have a washer and dryer. Obviously, there are things you hold onto because you love them. They fit well, you feel good in them, they're super comfy. My K-State sweatshirt falls into this category. I wish I could clone it so that I would have it to wear every day of the week and it would never wear out. Some things you keep for the memories. I still have my wedding dress in it's garment bag, and the souvenier shirts that I got on our honeymoon to Cancun. Some things you keep for practicality. I have all of my maternity clothes packed away in an under-bed box, for if we decide to have another baby. But then there are items of clothing that I have no idea why on God's green earth I've held on to for so long. Like the above mentioned high school t-shirts. Or the khakis from 8 years ago that I seriously doubt I will ever fit into again.

I think a lot of women hold on to clothing in the hopes that it will motivate them to get back down to a smaller size that they used to be. I know that's why I still have those khakis, and some other various items taking up room in my not-walk-in-closet. But as I think about it, I don't know that it's actually motivating to hang on to those clothes. Instead, doesn't it kind of beat you up? When month after month you still don't fit back into those clothes. Or on the other hand, maybe hanging onto those items holds you back? Keeps you from being happy with your body the way it is now, instead of wishing for what used to be.

Having a baby can be hard on your self-image. I've pretty much gotten my pre-baby figure back, but there are still some signs of pregnancy. I was all stomach when I was pregnant, and I have the stretch marks and lumps all over my stomach to prove that I'm not just saying that. The rest of me has bounced back fairly well. (Although let's not talk about how hard nursing can be on your boobs....) I fit into all of my pre-pregnancy jeans and dress slacks for work. It's the shirts that are a different story, because I no longer have the smooth stomach that I did before. Most days I'm okay with that. I've bought some new shirts that cover things up, and I just shrug and figure that I got something pretty spectacular in return. But somedays I look at some of the clothes that are still in my closet and get kind of negative about my body. So maybe it's time to get rid of all of those old clothes, and be happy with the here and now. (Or at least box them up with my maternity clothes so that I won't have to look at them every day.)

I read a post at the blog Kendie Everyday (which I found through my old college roommate Kim) with rules for purging your closet. I don't think I'm quite ready to do the 30 for 30 remix like Kim is, but I think a good start would be to get rid of some things in my closet. It might free up a lot more than just some closet space.

Miscellany Monday

Finally! Something to participate in that makes a jumble of random thoughts okay. :) I love being random.....

1. Snow day
Or ice day. Whatever you want to call it. Zane said last night that he was really hoping we wouldn't have school today. I poo-pooed him and said that the weather channel didn't even put a percentage amount on the sleet we were supposed to get last night, so I was sure we would have school. I even put my phone on the nightstand, and when I looked at the clock and it was 6:05 I said, "Guess we're having school today." (District is supposed to make a decision by 6:00 a.m.) My supervisor called me at 6:12. Awesome.

2. Zane's grades
I don't think I mentioned it on here yet, but Zane made the honor roll. He finished out the semester with 6 A's and 2 B's. Which is exactly what his grades are right now a couple weeks into this quarter. For the rest of the year he'll be taking General Music instead of Art, because that's how they do optional ninth hour in middle school. He wasn't too thrilled about the thought of General Music at first, but he's really excited about it now because they're going to learn to play guitar for a two week period after Spring Break. He's thinking about taking Guitar as one of his electives next year. If he really likes it this spring, we may look into getting him lessons for the summer.

3. Running
I'm up to 1.25 miles on the treadmill now. Which I know that being able to run a certain distance on the treadmill doesn't always translate into being able to run that far outside because of wind, weather, etc. But before I took this up I couldn't run at all, so I'm pretty pleased. There's going to be a 5K fun run here in town on February 26th to help raise money for Reed (the little boy from Raegan's daycare with the tumor that I blogged about in this post. I've been saying for months now I want to finish a 5K (and wasn't able to at Thanksgiving because I got sick and it messed up my training), and I thought this would be a good way to support Reed's family and it would be really motivational for me. For anyone local, there's also a 2 mile walk, and registration is by donation, so you might consider doing it. Let me know if you want more details!

4. Organizing....
....sucks, but I sure do feel good when I have things all in their place. :)

No New Years Resolutions

We all know that most people break their New Years resolutions. I always do. Mine are always the same vague resolutions every year - I'm going to lose x number of pounds, I'm going to organize this room and that, so on and so forth. So I decided this year instead of making big sweeping goals, I was going to set smaller, monthly goals. My goals for last month were:

January's Goals
* Start Zane's college account
* Look into refinancing my student loans
* Put $x in our vacation fund
* Start going through basement closet
* Go through Raegan's clothes and sort out items that are too small
* Give clothes back to Olivia
* Change out the picture frame in the living room

I'm happy to note that there's one day left in the month of January, and I have accomplished every one of the goals I set for myself this month. Zane has a college account, and we have a plan for putting aside money for it monthly. I looked into refinancing my student loans, and decided that I didn't want to stretch my loan out even longer, so I'm going to stay with the one I have. I transfered money into our savings account specifically for our vacation this summer. I started going through the basement closet. It's not finished but I consolidated several boxes and only have a few more to go through. I cleaned out Raegan's drawers, and gave my mom the bag of clothes to get back to Olivia. (Thanks again Olivia - you saved us a TON of money last year!) And just today I picked up pictures at Wal-mart and put them into our big frame in the living room. So with all of this success, I decided to make myself another list for the month of February. All things that need to be done, but not too many so that I (hopefully) won't feel overwhelmed.

February's Goals
* Put $x in our vacation fund
* Switch car loan over to GPFCU (for a lower interest rate)
*Pay off Luke's credit card
* File our tax return
*Clean out Zane's drawers and closet and get rid of all clothing that's too small
*Mail Zane's registration for Salina Soccer Club
*Make my eye doctor appointment
*Clean out and straighten up my cookbook drawer in the kitchen
*Go to the gym/do a real workout on the Wii Fit four times a week

The last goal is something that I just kind of said outloud to myself over Christmas Break that I would like to get in the habit of. I didn't formally commit it to paper last month, but I managed to get to the gym four (and sometimes five!) times a week all month, except for last week, when I went three times and did the Wii Fit for 30 minutes one other day.

So I'll check back in at the end of February and let you know how I did. Some of them are easy (mail Zane's soccer registration - I'm just waiting on Luke to get it notarized) and doing our tax return is a given. It's just a matter of cracking down and doing it - taking five minutes away from everything else I have going on to get some important things done. Wish me luck!

Second Shift

It's that time of year again - cold and flu season is at its worst. (Actually, the peak appears to be in February, but let's not split hairs here, people.) This means lots of germs passing around, and inevitably lots of sick children. That leads to lots of parents taking time off work to stay home with their sick children. Seeing as I work in a building of 100+ employees with all but 7 of them being women, the subject of working mothers figuring out what to do about having sick children is something I am very aware of.

The unfortunate thing about sick leave is that you only get so much of it. Obviously, this is because our employers are not made of money and cannot afford to continue to pay someone who is not working. But it does make things very tricky for a working mom. You only have so much sick leave, and you feel like you need to guard it with your life because you never know what kind of emergency might come up where you need a lot of time off. I am fortunate to be someone who rarely gets sick, so I was able to get my entire 7 week maternity leave paid for because I had the sick leave saved up for it. (I'll save my thoughts on the United States' ridiculous maternity leave policies for another post...) But what do you do when you run out of sick leave? Do you send your still sick child back to school, feeling like the worst parent in the world for doing so? Or do you take the time off without pay, and then later find yourself unable to afford the things that you and your child need?

Working and being a mom is difficult. Really, to only use the word "difficult" downplays how much of a struggle it really is at time. I came across the concept of The Second Shift through a friend's blog last year, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Even though Hochschild wrote this book over 20 years ago, I think what she had to say is still applies today. I guess in a way that's sad, because even though more people are aware of how working mothers are trying to juggle everything, things still aren't changing. According to this book, the extra work that a woman does in the home after working at her paying job adds up to one extra month's worth of work each year. Even when a woman has a full time career, she is still seen as the one who is primarily responsible for the couple's children.

Why is that? I can give an example from my own experience that illustrates this very well. Being Zane's stepmom limits some of the things I can do when it comes to him. I don't have the same "legal" status in his life that his mom and dad do. I couldn't make life-altering medical decisions for him, for example. I am on his emergency contact list at school. Anytime that Zane has been sick at school in the 7 years that I've been helping Luke to raise him, I am always the first person the school calls. I know that Luke and Zane's mom are both listed on his emergency contact form. I know that the school has Luke's work number, and Zane's mom's cell phone number. I know that the form clearly states that I am Zane's stepmom. Yet I am always called before Luke. (I assume they don't call Zane's mom first because she is non-custodial and lives 45 minutes away.) Perfect example of how the mom (even the not-quite-a-mom) is seen by everyone as the person mainly responsible for the children.

As I mentioned above, part of the reason this has been on my mind lately is because of all the illness floating around this time of year. Two women at work told me this week when they came back after being home the day before with their sick child, "I told my husband if Little Johnny wasn't better by today I was going to *make* him stay home with him so I could be at work." And this isn't the first time I've heard that statement. I've worked with another woman for a couple years now, and she is just now to the point where she actually asks her husband to stay home with their son if he's sick. (Note the "ask" instead of "tell" - Zane's school or Raegan's daycare don't "ask" me if I'll come pick up a sick child, by the way.) Why do working women still assume that they need to bear the full responsibility of taking care of the children? If you are a stay at home mom, then yes, by all means. You have chosen to raise your children as a career (and P.S. I am very jealous of you!) But I chose to teach as a career, just like my husband chose to assemble farm implements as a career. Why should I always be the one to set aside my career for my child?

Two things that I would like to note. One, I do not begrudge my child the time I miss from work if she is sick. I always *want* to be home with her if she is ill, but because I have chosen to have a career, I have to figure out a way to balance both responsibilities. And that's where Luke comes in (along with Point Two.) My husband does a wonderful job of trading off with me when the kids are sick. We discuss who has what going on at work and figure out how to make it work to the best for both of our jobs. We are very blessed to have our mothers both close by, so we also have backup if neither of us really can miss work. I know another woman whose husband was okay staying home when one of their kids was sick, but when the second kid got sick in the middle of the night and he was going to have to stay home with both, he assumed his wife was going to be the one to stay home now instead!

I'm not a feminist by any means, nor am I old fashioned. I do think that roles within the family structure have not yet caught up to the changes brought about in the last 40 years or so. I think that women should be able to have a family and a high powered career if they so choose. I also think women should be able to make being a stay at home mom their career, and the world should recognize it as such. I just wonder how to change things so that the inequality in the second shift isn't nearly as big as it is now.

Irresistibly Sweet

My friend Samantha keeps passing on all of these really cool awards and surveys to me. I'm a bad blogger and I don't always do them and pass them on, but I really liked the questions on this one, so here goes. I don't know how many people who read my blog like to do this kind of thing, so I'm passing it on to anyone who reads this and wants to post it on their own blog.

You get a cool little button too! :)

1.If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?
I started this blog mainly because I wanted a way to document Raegan's milestones and accomplishments, and I am crap at keeping up her baby book. (Seven years from now when I decide that I would like her to have a finished baby book I can come back here and fill in all the details. I don't fall into the "bad mom" category as long as I get the baby book done before she goes to college, right?) So for that reason, I really don't have a need to blog anonymously. Occasionally I wish that I did blog anonymously, so that I could talk more about stepparenting and issues related to that. I feel like I can't touch too much on this topic in a public setting because there are certain people within my stepparenting relationship that I wouldn't want to take my words and twist them.

2.Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.
Just "an" incident? If you know me at all, you know I am S-T-U-B-B-O-R-N. :) Going 100% drug free for Raegan's birth. It was one of those things where I told everyone that I really didn't want an epidural or other drugs, because I knew if I had put it out there to everyone I would want to stick by what I had said. My labor was not easy - I was in labor for 28 hours total, I pushed for about 2 hours, and I was stuck at an 8 forever. Forever. But I had said I didn't want any interventions unless completely medically necessary, so by God was I sticking by that. Will I go the same route if we have another? Let me get back to you on that one....

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror? Overall I'm pretty pleased with what I see. I have a few lingering pounds from Raegan, but other than that I think I bounced back fairly well. The only thing I really don't like is all of the stretch marks that being pregnant left me with. I've discovered that since I started running I have a better self-image. I'm proud of what my body is able to do and that helps a lot with any body issues I have.

4.What is your favorite summer cold drink?
I like strawberry lemonade, but I'm not someone who thinks you have to drink cold drinks in the summer and hot ones in the winter. I'll drink hot cocoa in the summer if we have it. :)

5.When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Go out of town and go shopping. I love to go shopping by myself, much moreso than I do with anyone else. If I don't have *that* much time to myself, I like to read, mess around on the internet and bake. In the spring and summer I love to putter around in my flower garden.

6. Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?
Run a 5K. Ultimately, I would like to run a half marathon or marathon someday, but let's start with the easiest race first.

7.When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person or always ditching?
I have always been an overachiever. And super shy. When I started taking smaller classes specifically for my major, it was hell because I had to actually SPEAK and participate in front of people that I didn't know very well.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?
It's definitely not a moment that I *want* to see, but it's one that's been on my mind lately after going through old photographs. There was a span of a couple months before I went to college that was a very crappy time because of some select kids in my church youth group. There were a couple kids who were very involved in the church and very well liked by adults, who treated me, quite frankly and honestly, like shit. I had a few good friends in that youth group, and a few from the grocery store I worked at, who made life bearable, but it was horrible to see these supposed "great leaders" turn around and be hateful and backstabbing when adults weren't around. The ironic thing to me then was that some of the people who treated me the best were kids I worked with who were not Christians or had no church affiliation. I learned that the world is not all black and white - "good" people can do hurtful, cruel things, and people that are considered not good to hang around can be much kinder than the "preferred" kids.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?
I'm a pretty closed person, so not always. I can blog easily about my feelings on current events or parenting topics. I won't share my feelings about everything publicly. Stepparenting again is one area that I keep pretty closed up about, just to keep my family safe. I don't really write to please anyone, so I would say in that sense I share my true self in my writing style. Things like what I just wrote above are very hard for me to share. I'm discovering that sometimes it's easier to just let it all out that hold it tight against you. When you hold onto something tightly for a long time, you might think that it's gone and buried and then a box of memories lets it all back out again.

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?
I don't really like talking on the phone. I make that exception for my mom and a couple friends, but beyond that I much prefer texting. If I had the time, I would love to lose myself in a book. I love reading, and always have. When I find a good book I can read it over and over again, but I love finding the treasure of a new book also.

Thoughts on exclusive breastfeeding

Today is my day to write about headlines from the news apparently.

My friend Claire mentioned on her Facebook a couple days ago that a newspaper in England (where her family lives) ran an article about why you should NOT breastfeed exclusively for the first six months. While reading news articles on Google, I came across something similar in the L.A. Times. I assume that the small group of experts quoted in this article from the Times are the same ones from the article Claire's father told her about. Luckily for me, the link to the actual article from the British Medical Journal was in the Time article, so I could go straight to the source.

The article does not say that you should not breastfeed at all. Good start. Breastfeeding exclusively for six months is associated with no apparent growth deficits, although infants who are breastfed exclusively for that long have lower iron levels. Children who are breastfed exclusively for six months have lower risk of pnuemonia, ear infections and stomach problems. I liked that the study pointed out that children who have been switched over to formula were more likely to be admitted to the hospital with infections than those who were started on solids early. The possible concerns from the study are that waiting longer to introduce solids can lead to higher incidence of food allergies and celiac disease, along with iron deficiency. The research itself is actually very good. The article summarized the information well and looked at both sides. It's always good to go to the source if you can, because the media tends to sensationalize information.

Now for my own personal experience, which obviously is not going to be everyone's. I breastfed exclusively for six months. Raegan didn't have a drop of solid food until her sixth month birthday. She never had formula. Raegan doesn't have any food allergies (or food aversions like the article also suggests may happen) and at her one year blood draw she wasn't anemic. I'm not saying, "Well my baby is fine, so that means all babies are fine." Wouldn't that contradict what I just said in my previous post? :) My pediatrician noted that since Raegan wasn't really all that interested in solids (espeically iron fortified cereals) until she was 8 or 9 months, that I should be giving her a multivitamin with iron to combat anemia. Which is exactly what I did. So there's one way to combat the worry of iron deficiency from breastfeeding exclusively.

I don't know what the right answer is. One pediatrician in our practice says to wait until babies are six months old to introduce solids because of how it can affect future obesity rates. Another says you can start at four to six months, but not before four. (Which is what this article is saying.) For me, I felt best waiting until six months. For other parents, they may not feel so strongly. I guess the point of this post is that it's always a good idea to go to the original source of information if at all possible. The title "Breast May Not Be Best for the First Six Months of Life" from the L.A. Times article is kind of misleading, if you ask me. If you go to the original journal article, it's pretty clear that breastfeeding is still preferred over formula feeding. Which I agree with 100%! :)

Wherein I write a book about autism

My guess is that unless you live in a completely child-free world you are at least somewhat aware of the neurodevelopmental disorder known as autism. If you are a parent of a child under the age of two, chances are you've probably freaked at some point over something your child does that seems a little atypical, because the words "autism" flashes through your mind. If you work in the field of early childhood education, as I do, you are obviously aware of the disorder. Autism is on the rise. For years now the rate of autism has been 1 in 150. Just last year the CDC revised the prevalence rate for autism to 1 in 110. That means that if your children are in a mid-sized elementary school, there is going to be at least a couple children in that school who have autism, if not more.

Since I started working at Heartland Programs in August of 2006, I have worked with five children who have been formally diagnosed with autism or one of the other four disorders on the autism spectrum (Asperger's or PPD in my case). I have also had three other students who I would be my salary on as being somewhere on the spectrum, based on their behavior and symptoms they demonstrated. 

Autism is still such an unknown disorder. No one has discovered what causes autism. Regardless of what certain celebrities say, there is no cure for autism. There are interventions that can be beneficial to a child with autism, and can help a parent or educator to minimize their symptoms, but there is not a magical cure. Specturm disorders manifest different in every child. Some children never speak. I worked with a child my first year at Heartland that did not speak. Some children are very delayed in speaking. Some children abhor physical touch or eye contact. Some children self-stimulate (stim) by hand flapping, rocking, jumping or twirling. These children are a little easier to pinpoint. And some children have less severe symptoms. They talk, they learn at a typical rate, but they just can't quite figure out social situations or body language. A child with autism can be very challenging to work with, and I can only imagine the struggles that their parents face every day.

As I said earlier, autism is on the rise. There is much debate in the medical and scientific community over what has caused this increase. Some say it's just that we have become more aware of the disorder, and symptoms that were once attributed to a child being MR are now being classified as autism. Some say it's new toxins in the environment. And some say it's from mercury/thimerosal in vaccinations.

The vaccination/autism link has come up again in the news very recently, due to Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study on the link between autism and vaccines having been proved fradulent. This is not necessarily brand new information, because Wakefield's study from 1998 has been under investigation for well over 3 years now. If I remember right he was struck off the medical register sometime last spring. I did several research papers focusing on autism during grad school, and autism is a personal interest of mine, so I've been keeping up on the information. A lot of the reading I have done is professional research. Obviously Wakefield has proven that even professional literature can be untrue, and it's always important to look at the sample size and makeup before you take findings at face value. But I do put a lot of stock in research, especially over my friend Google. You can find some wacky information on the internet if you're not careful. :)

Through my reading I found overwhelming evidence over and over and over that there is not a proven link between autism and vaccinations, even the MMR that everyone focuses on. The whole mess of Wakefield's study being found fraudulent makes me sad. I'm sad for all of the parents of a child with autism who felt like they had an answer. Who felt like they had something to hold on to, something to point the finger at and say, "This is what did this to my beautiful baby. This is what changed our life." It's a tragedy that Dr. Wakefield published a study that was full of holes that most believe now was for financial gain, and it's a tragedy that no one caught the fradulence behind the study before it was published. Where was the board that reviews research papers then?

If Dr. Wakefield truly did engineer facts for his own gain, then it angers me that so much time and energy has been spent since then trying to replicate the study to prove or disprove his theory. Time and energy that could have been invested in finding the true cause, or finding new interventions to minimize the symptoms. As Paul Offit so eloquently put, "We are more compelled by our fears than our reason." I am sickened to think that this man may have struck fear into so many parents hearts just out of desire to make money.

Now. All of this being said, I have done a somewhat delayed vaccination schedule for Raegan. I did a lot of research. I knew the facts. And I still chose a delayed schedule. I would like to think that it wasn't fear that compelled me. I believe in the need for vaccinations. I also believe that some children have reactions to vaccinations. Some hypothesize that there is something in the biological makeup of some children that causes them to be more susceptible to things that would not cause harm to the majority of children. Such as vaccinations. Although the incident is small, some children do have reactions to vaccinations. When Raegan was 6 months old, she had four shots at her 6 month well check. She ran a slight fever. That's a pretty common reaction to vaccines, so that didn't concern me. But she absolutely was not herself for the next day or two. She was irritable, she didn't sleep or eat well, and she wasn't Raegan. That was when I decided to start breaking up her vaccine schedule.

I appreciate that our pediatrician is well aware of which vaccines are live virus and their schedule is such that Raegan would never receive two live viruses at the same time. I looked at the CDC's schedule, and I looked at our pediatrician's schedule to figure out what I wanted to do. Raegan has still gotten all of her vaccinations within the range that's considered necessary by the CDC. Our pediatrician usually gives the vaccine at the beginning of the range, so I break them up so that she gets one vaccination a month. For example, the CDC's range for the MMR is 12-15 months. Raegan got it when she was 14 months old. Two months after our pediatrician's schedule, but still within the range. The only vaccinations that I will not get her are the flu shot and the varicella (chickenpox). I know from experience with Zane and myself that we are no more or less sick the years we get the flu shot. The flu shot is kind of a crapshoot, really. Developers try to predict what strains of the flu will be most prevalent that year, and that's how they make the vaccine. And with chickenpox, children build a better immunity to the disease if they actually have it. Of course, chickenpox is a lot harder on a child the older they get, so if Raegan is 7 or 8 and hasn't had it yet, she'll get the vaccine then. I am blessed to have a pediatrican that hasn't argued with me. I know there are some out there that will belittle parents for making this choice. Mine never questioned my decision, which I am thankful for.

I do want to wrap this up by saying this. I believe in research. But I also believe in parents and their knowledge of their child. I believe that there are some children out there whose biological makeup does not react well to environmental factors, be it vaccines or something else. And there is much more to vaccination related injuries than just autism. There have been some other really serious adverse reactions to vaccinations.And how do you know if your child is the one with the ticking time bomb inside of them?  So by no means in this post am I belittling or demeaning any parent who choses not to vaccinate their child, or who chooses a delayed or very delayed schedule. At the end of the day, you have to do what YOU feel is the best for your child and your family, just I did what I thought was best for my child. I just hope that people will be able to take their focus off of Dr. Wakefield and focus their passion on finding the cause of autism. And a cure.