Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Seven Quick Takes

I have had ideas for posts this week, but they haven't materialized much past a few sentences in draft. So, I am very glad, once again, that Jennifer at Conversion Diary started the "Seven Quick Takes" idea for Fridays.

1) This week we hit a couple milestones.

My older son, who will be three in a little more than a month, started asking to go to the potty. He has had a dry diaper since Sunday! And, of course, last Friday I ordered TWO cases of 92 diapers each for him from Amazon. Because he wears a SEVEN (He is a skinny tall kid and he needs the length). So, I have $90 of disposable diapers sitting in my front hall that are still unopened. We will see if I just jinxed everything by typing this.

The second milestone is that the six month old baby slept for SEVEN hours straight last night. After I awoke, in pain from engorgement, and pumped off a few ounces, I went in and checked on him. Remarkably, he was still breathing and deeply sleeping. Since I walked over to the crib, he stirred around and kindof woke up. So, I finished nursing him and he went down again for another hour before he needed to be brought to our bed.

2) I still worry about supply issues. I am still taking some supplements, probably not as regularly as I should. Nevertheless, as we all know, demand really does regulate supply. And the nighttime demand is really important. So, if this regular sleeping continues, I am going to have to decide how important it is to me to keep my supply up by pumping at night. Of course, I have just been EXHAUSTED by the nighttime parenting, so the supply issue is weighted against a happier, more energetic mama if I can continue to get five or six consecutive hours of sleep.

3) The baby has started solids. Sortof. I started feeding him a soft-boiled egg yolk about four weeks ago, but after two or three times, he would projectile vomit a few hours after the egg. So. No more egg. He likes yogurt, slurps that down. Though I am not sure that yogurt counts as a solid. I have tried one or two fruity baby foods. He will eat them, up to a point, but looks cranky the whole time. And FORGET cereal. He looks like I am torturing him.

On the other hand, I have been supplementing him with formula. Only about 4 oz every other day or so, so it isn't really adding to his weight, I guess. I am making it. This is a very good recipe and has none of the bad junk that manufactured formula has in it. If he is the slightest bit hungry, he sucks it back. And it hasn't really changed the content of his poo yet. Which leads me to:

3) The unchanged baby poo, and the potential for being done with diapers for Number One Son has caused me to think of cloth diapering, again, for Thomas, who just turned six months old. I talked it over with my husband, who is game to try. So I am ordering some GroBaby diapers. And "paper" liners. Cause I am a wimp. And this company had really cute Baby Legs severely on sale, so I got a couple of those. We will see if how they do.....

4) I need some more Birkenstocks. Mine sandals have finally bit the dust. I bought them in 1989, though, so I figure that is just allright. Bummed though, because the style that I like was discontinued, oh, a dozen years ago. Phooey. But since I wear Birks 90% of the time now that I am a SAHM and don't wear suits, even in winter (I have a pair of cloggy Birks that I wear with wool socks unless there is more than two inches of snow), I think that I need a new pair. Any suggestions of style?

5) We are thinking of home educating our children. For a wide variety of reasons, including probably all of the standard ones. So. Hmmm. I am reading and researching EVERYTHING. So far I have found an animated series of Bible stories that I like. Heh.

6) I need to lose weight. I also have no will power or idea of portion control. And my idea of eating veggies usually includes butter and bacon. And I hate to exercise. And I have been sitting on my butt for months now nursing the baby (see point above re: supply). So, I have bit the bullet and joined Jenny Craig for a bit, to get myself under control. AND we are eating veggies from our CSA. Veggies without butter and bacon, thankyouverymuch. Have lost eight pounds so far. Lots more to go, but hey, it is a start, eh?

7) Speaking of our CSA, we have received a bunch of stone fruit this week. And therefore I borrowed my mom's food mill to make baby apricot puree. YEAH!

Huh. Reading this post, what with the cloth-diapering, cosleeping, kid-led potty learning, breastfeeding, home-made formula and baby food-making, Birkenstock wearing, potential home-schooler, it makes me seem like a crunchy lib, not the traditional conservative I am. Boy, I LOVE bursting stereotypes!

EDITED to add: I totally forgot to add all of my babywearing nonsense to the list above. I am developing QUITE the little stash of carriers: two ring slings, one pocket sling, two Mobys, two woven wraps, one Ergo, and one BabyHawk meitai.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm boring as far as my Birkies go and get the three strap in black leather:

http://www.birkenstockusa.com/products/women/sandals/florida/black-leather/5419

Congrats on the milestones! Before you know it they'll be graduating from high school... at least, that's how it has felt to me. My baby boy is going to be a senior this year. A SENIOR!

Anonymous said...

3)Is it very common to make formula in the US?You are only the second person I know who makes formula -- the other person was Mary-LUE's mom.

4) 1989! WHAT? I've had my Birkie clogs for a year, and they are already falling apart! And I only ever wear them in my house. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?!

5) I tell people the REASON we homeschool is simply b/c we want to homeschool. However the EXCUSES we have to keep out boys out of the education system are easy to list. It's so hard to vocalize the attraction some of us have for the concept of taking on that responsibility. I have just finished reading "The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do" by Peg Tyre. It's a great look at the gender bias in formal education.

6) Good for you!

Now stop messing around with stereotypes! They make the world safe. None of these 'shades of grey' please -- just strict divides of blue vs. red! HAHAHAHA!

Kimberly said...

Regarding the Birks: Mary-LUE, my folks are fans of the three strap. I liked my two strap, which looks slightly like the Arizona, but more rounded. THey don't make it anymore. SSBeacon: I don't know what to say about yours except maybe they don't make 'em like they used to?

Regarding formula: MOST people do NOT make their own. I just am generally mad at formula companies. And besides, I heard all sorts of nasty things about formula, from the pediatrician, actually, with our first son, and she said not to use ANYTHING but Nestle. But still, the copious amounts of iron in it is enough to make me cringe. And make my son constipated.

So, making it I am. And it doesn't stink. Therefore I can proceed with cloth diapering.

Unknown said...

Okay, I lied about my birkies. Mine are a little different than the three-strap, but I don't see the kind I have online now. Mine are more of a cross between the three strap and this one:

http://www.birkenstockusa.com/products/women/sandals/pisa/soft-footbed-black-suede/7594

And my mom's formula was NOT what you would want to make! It was made out of sweetened condensed milk. I blame that for my sweet tooth! I still can't believe she did that.

Julia said...

I have long been amused by how much the far right-wing and the far left-wing have in common, as far as lifestyle choices, habits, diet, etc. I dabble in most of that myself and I always inwardly chuckle at the really diverse mix of people you find.

Your homemade formula is really interesting to me as we plan to adopt and I don't know if I'm QUITE hard-core enough to do adoptive breastfeeding. Will have to remember that. Was it hard to find all of those ingredients?

Kimberly said...

Julia, I found most of my ingredients at Whole Foods. Raw milk is nearly impossible to find in Virginia, but my dairy does have non-homogenized whole milk, so I use that. You can order a lot of the ingredients from a company that the recipe links to. The only thing I HAD to order was lactose. Which I couldn't find locally, though I didn't try terribly hard. I make the whey from plain organic yogurt. If you plan on feeding an infant exclusively on this, you MIGHT try the meat formula so that the baby is getting some iron.

Megan@SortaCrunchy said...

I had no idea you could make your own formula! So cool.

Looking forward to your thoughts on cloth!

Hallie @ Moxie Wife said...

I had no idea we had so much in common! I could have written almost all of these...or something very similar! :)

(Oh, and thank you so much for the support!)

Jen said...

Thanks for your formula tip on PhD in parenting. I tracked it down here and will continue to research this hypoplasia thing. I'd feel so much better not needing formula, but the mother's milk banks virtually laughed at me when DD #2 was born and I called to see if I could get milk for my well infant.

And while I may metaphorically hug more trees than you might, it's fun to see how many things we have in common. You'd be fun to follow on FB.