Happy Lady Bugs

We finished this a few weeks ago, but I never got the chance to take a picture. Zeb designed it and I did the uphostering. It turned out pretty fun :)

Mei Tai Prototype

Here we are in my first mei tai attempt.

The strawberry shortcake fabric was on super sale, so I got it with the intention of making some p.j. bottoms for me. Never quite got around to that particular project, but then it turned out to be a good amount of fabric to try the mei tai! It is definitely wearable and it gives me a long list of things to try different for the next one.

The bebe loves it too. It is really handy now that she can't be trusted to stay in one spot. The past week or two she has been really getting around by doing a toes and elbows kind of army crawling.

Customizing Natural Parenting

I really like the idea of natural parenting. I love the idea of minimizing the environmental footprint of this new human we've brought into this world.

Unfortunately, I just can't live up to the ideal model of natural parenting. Like much of motherhood what we end up with is a compromise between the ideal and the practical.

Breastfeeding - I'm actually very surprised that we've made it this far. I was hoping to go 6 months, but I was mentally prepared to stop to go back to working full time. Here we are almost to that goal! It definitely got much easier after the first adjustment period. Originally I had said that we would go to a year maximum. I guess we will have to see when we get there. Pumping is really not as bad as I had imagined. Incredibly, I'm still using a manual pump. I can consistently get about 4-5 oz in about 20 minutes. Plus I get a great hand workout! It will really come in handy if we ever get back into climbing!

Co-sleeping - This went hand in hand with breastfeeding. It was amazing how much more quality sleep we all got with this arrangement. It also eased a lot of anxiety. It was really hard in the beginning to tell if they were breathing when they were in deep sleep unless you get really close... (or give her a little poke!) Now that she has started rolling more and getting much more mobile we are starting to put her down in her crib, then moving to the bed when we go to sleep. Again, not sure how long we will continue...still taking it a day at a time.

Diapering - We love our cloth diapering service. The cotton is really gentle on the bebe's skin, and really not that much more trouble in terms of diapering. Our service is located in the same town just a few blocks away so there isn't much transportation overhead there either! When we are out of town or out on the town we tend to fall back on disposables. Primarily because we got a warehouse sized box of them at the baby shower! I think we are going to outgrow the size before we even get through half of the box...

EC - I got really excited about trying this after reading about other parents' experiences on a natural parenting forum this Tuesday. I picked up a training seat on the way home and started trying out a 'timing' catch when bebe woke up yesterday. She is usually dry as a bone all night and then goes like crazy in the mornings so I figure it is a good time for a catch. I caught both a #1 and a #2 my first morning! It was quite exciting. This morning there were a few misses but she still had more to go. I plan to continue trying some basic timing catches going forward. I don't think going totally diaper free is a real option since I'm working full-time and bebe is at daycare 3 days a week, but I am hopeful that doing some of these timing catches will maintain her elimination awareness and help us use fewer diapers in the long run!

Baby wearing - We are on and off with this one. We have a bjorn that is fun to use occasionally when shopping or around the house, but she grabs EVERYTHING and it is difficult to do stuff, so this really only works when one of us wears her and the other does everything else. I recently finished making my first mei tai last week! I just made it out of some clearance fabric I got a while ago to try out the sizes. The waist straps were way too wide (8 inches...oops), but it does work pretty good otherwise. The bebe loves being on my back when we are up and about. Not so much when I'm trying to get some work done on the computer. I'm planning to make a nicer one to wear when we are out and about. Zeb has a strange aversion to wearing anything with strawberry shortcake and friends...

Plastics - We haven't really done much on this front. We have bought cloth and wooden toys when we could, but there are quite a few plastics as well. They are cheaper and much easier to wash when they inevitably end up on the floor. I'm planning to try to make some knit/cloth/felt toys, but like most of my projects, they exist only in my head for the moment.

Organic clothing - Again, the cost here was somewhat prohibitive. There are some crafty projects I want to make, but again they are fantasy for the moment.

There have been some projects that we have finished...I have been very slow to actually transitioning pictures to our home computer, but will definitely post when we finally get around to it :)

All in all we have managed to do some of what we had wanted to do and even some we hadn't planned to do. In the end, you do what works for you.

Hello, brain? I miss you. Please come back.

There have been many unexpected things about motherhood. Some of these things are great. For example, gummy baby smiles are one of the best things to wake up to. Other things, not so much.

When I was pregnant, I truly expected to be back to my normal self after birth. Especially near the end, I was so excited about not being pregnant anymore. Heh. That didn't happen. We are now over 5 months and while we are making progress toward normal, I'm starting to suspect that my former self is completely out of reach now.

The biggest issue recently has been the kidnapping of my brain.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't always been good about remembering things. However, I was always able to get by somehow. Maybe I just didn't have so many things that needed remembering that the 5% that got lost wasn't so noticeable.

Now, it is different.

This morning was a prime example. I forgot to move the milk I pumped yesterday (almost 11oz!) into the refridgerator. For 2 seconds, I contemplated sending the Bee to daycare with the milk anyway...after all, it had been in a lunchbox with an ice pack that had been frozen at 5pm yesterday that was almost still cold this morning. I couldn't do it. There was also no backup. I haven't been long-term freezing any milk since the Bee prefers fresh stuff... So, we had to pump 4oz this morning (hopefully enough with the leftovers from daycare I did remember to refridgerate), and dump the 11 ounces from yesterday.

Sadness...