Parenting, etc. (with a lot of etc.)

Today marks the end of mine and Rob's first full year of parenting.  This year has, by far, been the best year of my life.  Completely and altogether different than any other year, but still, by far, the best.  Our daughter is amazing.  She is beautiful and funny and well-behaved and smart... and she's only a year into this life of hers. 

As for the birthday part of the day, it was relatively uneventful.  I mean, really, what do you do with a one-year-old for her birthday?  We did birthday pancakes this morning and then played around naps.  This evening after she went to bed, I got all the decor in place for the party on Saturday.  I also did some Susie-Homemaker-ish things around the kitchen.  Then, I got sucked into the black hole that is the internet.... and that's when my mental wheels started turning.

So as with all things online, one link led to another, and I found myself reading the archives of a random blog that I came across.  It started off great.  (The information I was actually looking for... slow-cooker recipes that can be prepped and frozen ahead of time.)  Then, I couldn't stop myself from reading all of the back-logged posts with alluring titles, such as "breastfeeding fanatic," "42 days of pumping," "all-natural parenting," etc.  Many of these posts expressed thoughts on parenthood that I myself hold.  Then it got weird.  It wasn't the right-off-the-bat weird.  It was the slowly-ease-into-the-weirdness weird.  It started with some issues where I just thought to myself, "this lady is trying WAAAY too hard."  By that, I mean this woman clearly had certain ideas of the type of parenting she wanted to practice, and she was determined to follow through on these "philosophies" regardless of how much she had to fight and struggle against the way things seemed to flow naturally.  (She even had a post acknowledging this herself.)  Examples of what I mean:
-Mom was determined to breastfeed, despite her daughter's physical limitations to do so.  Her initial solution was to pump and then bottle feed.  Completely reasonable solution.  One that requires an unbelievable amount of personal dedication, but given the dedication, still completely reasonable.  Mom was eventually able to get daughter to nurse some of the time, but still used bottles for the bulk of the feeding.  Enter the trying-way-too-hard part: this wasn't good enough for mom.  Baby, obviously, was getting the nutrition she needed, but mom was determined (at like 10 months old) for baby to start nursing full time.  And she went to extreme lengths to try to make this happen.
-Mom was convinced that co-sleeping was the best option for their family.  (This example will be short because I think it speaks for itself.)  Baby fell out of bed at least 5 times, receiving bruises on several occasions.  Mom has resorted to putting the mattress straight on the floor, moving the night stands clear across the room, and lining the floor with pillows.  Trying too hard (in my humble opinion).

And then it happened.  The this-is-officially-weird-now part.  She decided to eat her placenta.  No, this is not the first time I've heard of this.  The thing that made this weirder than usual was that this was not an early postpartum (read: crazy hormones) decision.  No, this woman had it in her freezer FOR A WHOLE YEAR, planning to bury it in her back yard and plant a tree above it, but she never followed through on the original plan, and it all of a sudden came to her that she should eat it.  WHAT???

***

Now, switching gears, in relation to all of this, what does my current life look like?  What kind of parenting do I "practice"?  What areas could I be labeled "weird"?  Well, here it goes.

Parenting: I am spoiled.  I have the best baby ever.  I don't just say that because I like her; she really is a good baby.  She is an AMAZING sleeper, she eats well, she is generally happy.  She has made my job pretty much as easy as it gets.  All that being said, I'm sure whatever Rob and I did from day one certainly has had an influence on her being so good, even if we were just winging it as best as we could!  So what did/do we do?  It's hard to summarize a lifestyle, but here's my attempt at condensing the key points.  I breastfed Aubrey from the beginning.  We had a rough start, but I stuck to it.  I did not try to schedule her feedings.  I just fed her when she was hungry, and that always seemed to work out well.  After a while, she pretty much fell into her own schedule.  Sleeping is a similar story.  We never really tried to schedule nap time, and really not even bed time.  It just all started to fall into a rhythm.  We tweaked things here and there to find out what worked best, but it hasn't ever been a fixed schedule kind of thing.  However, getting to sleep is a different aspect than the timing of sleep.  I do not rock my baby to sleep.  She puts herself to sleep.  I really believe this is a huge part of why she is such a good sleeper.  She is not dependent on me (or Rob) to fall asleep because that is not how we have conditioned her.  We have a routine that we follow every night (which includes rocking) that signals that it is time to get sleepy, but her eyes are always open when I put her into her bed.  We do not force her eat a certain amount, or strictly limit how much she eats.  If she doesn't want to eat any more, we stop.  If she is fussing for more food, we usually give it to her.  And like I said, she is a great eater.  I wouldn't consider myself and Rob to be "hands-off" parents, especially considering a recent conversation I had with a friend about what the extreme of this looks like, but we do allow for a lot of freedom.

Home life: There are some things that I do in a non-typical way.  I make my own baby food (which these days is pretty much "normal people" food, just frozen into small portions), I use cloth diapers (which are semi-homemade), and I have just recently started couponing, using dried beans instead of canned, cleaning with baking soda, etc.  Is this "weird"?  Maybe.  Is it eat-your-placenta weird?  No.

I started this post with an all together different idea of where I was going with it.  I was going to talk about how we are in the process of weaning, and how if I didn't work outside of the home, I would probably be one of those moms who kept breastfeeding for a moderately long amount of time (not four years or anything, but probably two).  I'm a little sad that this time is coming to an end, although it isn't completely ending, as I will still nurse morning and evening.  I was going to talk about how I am having some anxiety about the idea of my baby being in full-time child care this coming school year and how many other things that has got me thinking of.  I was going to talk about my latest decision to start putting together a bunch of freezer meals that can be pulled out and cooked with ease.  But all of those ideas sort of morphed into the stuff I babbled on about above this paragraph.  Good night.

Sew Addicted

It's no secret that I'm broke this summer.  (Maternity leave ate up my summer pay checks this school year.)  However, I feel like we here at the Stone home have done a pretty good job of living within our means, and making the most of the down time we currently have.  For me, that has entailed taking on several new sewing projects... sometimes to the neglect of housework!  All that to say, my favorite latest project has been making baby dresses from old t-shirts.  I used this pattern/tutorial.  Some tutorials on blogs are poorly written, and I find myself re-reading them several times to get past the poor grammar and awkwardly phrased sentences.  However, this one is really great and easy to understand/follow.

I've learned several things that make sewing t-shirt material a bit easier.  First, STARCH.  Especially when a narrow strip of material is required, starch the heck out of the material BEFORE you cut it.  It makes life so much easier.  Then you can cut, fold, iron,and/or sew the material without the edges curling up. Speaking of which, you can make your own starch.  Just use one heaping tablespoon full of corn starch mixed with one pint (two cups) of water, mix well, and put into a spray bottle.  You will need to shake the bottle a bit between uses, as the corn starch does settle to the bottom.  The second thing that helps when sewing t-shirt material (also known as jersey knit) is to make use of the stretch stitch patterns on your sewing machine, especially around arm holes and other areas that will receive a lot of stress.  Even the straight stitch on the stretch setting (there's some alliteration for you!) makes a big difference.

Here are some pictures:

This is the first attempt.  I left the arm holes and hem raw, as the jersey knit won't unravel anyway.

This is how you prep the "yoke" for the top of the dress.  2.25" strip, folded in half, ironed, opened up, and then folded in on each edge, ironing as you go.  This is the part where the pre-starching really, REALLY helps.

This is the second dress, prior to adding the yoke.  (I finished the arm holes on this one.)

...and here's the yoke added.

And here's the finished product.  I decided to add a band at the bottom of this one.

I really like the way these have turned out.  There's another t-shirt dress pattern that I want to try out next, but that will probably have to wait until after the birthday bash (which, by the way, is coming up very soon!)

Here are some other recent projects:

This one is a button-down shirt turned baby dress.

And this is baby girl's birthday present!  I'm really happy with the way these turned out!

Baby shoes.  I got the pattern from this blog, but it looks like she has changed some things around, so I can't seem to find the same one any more.  (Lucky for me, I have it on paper.)

Birthday decorations.  Pennants (pictured), as well as fringe garland and fabric "lanterns."  Still planning to make tissue paper pom-poms, also.

A knitting needle "case" for friend Melissa.  It unfolds and has little individual pockets for various pairs of needles.

The Sippy Cup Cunundrum

We have started the weaning process in the Stone home.  If I did not have to go back to work in mid-August, we would not be at this point yet.  I am totally content not to pay for the liquid nourishment that my daughter needs.  However, I will be returning to work, so we need to get her to a place where she is not dependent on me, at least during business hours.  All that being said, we are learning about the world of sippy cups.  I first purchased this one by Munchkin:

I bought it because it was the cheapest one I could find (that looked decent), figuring we could try it first and upgrade later.  This works great for the YoBaby yogurt smoothies that Aubrey likes.  It is a very simple design: no weird valve parts inside to worry about, just the rubber nipple part, the handle-and-ring part, and the cup itself.  And, remarkably, it doesn't leak.

Recently, I decided we definitely were ready to have more than one cup in the house, especially with the weaning process on the horizon, so I went in search of more cups.  The only complaint that I had about the Munchkin cup was that there was no cover or cap for travel purposes.  I found this style cup from Avent:

The ones I bought have a flip cap instead of this style cap, but the rest is the same.  I thought it would be the best option for the diaper bag.  I liked the idea of the flip cap so there would not be a removable cap to lose.  We have used them several times now, and the only down side is the valve inside:

It's hard to see in this picture, but on the under side of the sippy part, there is a clear disc that attaches to the little peg thing in the center.  Number one, you have to take it off for cleaning... and it's clear, so it is invisible in the bottom of a kitchen sink full of soapy water (and fits in the sink drain if you forget it before pulling the plug).  Number two, while it does its job of keeping the cup from leaking (sort of), it also prevents the liquid in the cup from flowing nicely when baby sucks on it.  When the baby sucks on it, it does this weird straw-with-a-hole-in-it thing where too much air gets in.  (Yes, I tried it out to see for myself.)  And while baby is drinking, it tends to leak out the air hole!  Way too complicated for a not-so-impressive result.  And, more importantly, Aubrey gets frustrated with it.

So I plan to stock up on the Munchkin ones, and hopefully I can find some with the same top plus a cap.  If anyone reading this has found another cup that works for your little one, please comment letting me know which one and why you like it.

A Day in the Life of a Stay-At-Home Mom

No, I am technically not a stay-at-home mom for most of the year.  But for the summer, I am.  That's the beauty of teaching.  I get to experience both versions of parenthood.  The have-to-leave-your-baby-all-day-but-get-to-do-something-else version, and the my-whole-day-revolves-around-this-little-person version.  The latter goes something like this, for me:

Wake up when baby wakes up.
Nurse baby.
Play with baby.
Try to eat while baby plays.
Feed baby.
Play with baby.
Put baby down for a nap.
Shower and try to get something done around the house before baby decided nap time is over.
Get baby up when nap has come to an untimely end.
Play with baby.
Nurse baby.
Try to eat while baby plays.
Feed baby.
Play with baby.
Put baby down for another nap.
Pray that baby will stay asleep!
Try to get the thing done that I didn't get done during the first nap.
Get baby up.
Play with baby.
Nurse baby.  (Or recently, replace nursing session with whole milk.)
Try to have family dinner.
Play with baby until bedtime.
Go through bedtime ritual.
Put baby to bed.
Veg out on the couch.
Go to bed later than planned.
Repeat.

It's exhausting, and I completely love it.