attachment parenting and building our kid's relationship with God

why it's important to introduce your kids to God and regular church attendance.

i have parented conventionally.  and i have parented in a more attached manner. 
i was thinking of the difference at church one sunday this month.
i tthought back to when something odd, different, crazy, loud, bright, fast, or new came into my toddler's sphere of space or attention.  their reaction depended on where they are in relation to me. 
if they were in my arms(or babycarrier/sling), their initial reaction iwas leaning into me.  if they noticed that i was ok with whatever was going on then their secondary reaction was one of curiosity- an intense alert stare, maybe even a smile(if i was smiling) and not an ounce of fear.
if they, however, weren't in my arms- their reaction to something new tended to lean to the fear and panic side of the spectrum.  they were NOT curious.  they were NOT intent on figuring out why this thing is so loud(a train at a crossing during a walk or an automatic toilet in a public restroom), or furry and perhaps slobbery(an unleashed neighborhood dog), or cold (shallow water at the lake). 
they make a beeline to me(and i to them) making a panicked crying "pick-me-up PLEASE" sound.  once they get up into my arms it takes some time and consoling to bring their spirits into a more curious and less fearful state.  and most of the time, by the time they are curious enough to soak in and learn from their surroundings the new thing is gone.

and this is alot like life and our closeness to God. 

when we are close to God- when we communicate with Him often- when He knows our hearts and we live in His, trials aren't so bad.  we lean harder into Him.  we look to Him and realize- "hey, this isn't so bad" and we open our hearts to the trial- and how, maybe there is more than just pain from this trial- maybe there is learning and growing to be gained from this new experience. 
but, on the other hand, if we are far from God- maybe we thought, "hey, i can do this on my own" and took a break from prayer, or going to praise God with other followers, or reading His word in the quiet of the morning.  and BAM- a trial comes along and has you scrambling for something solid to cling to.  where is He???  frantically checking about for Him?  it's hard to build a relationship in a storm.  it's not the time or the place.  it's not impossible- but having that shelter there in place before the storm began to rage would've been more ideal, right?

and this came up while on a walk with my neighbor.  she confessed that they don't go to church and haven't been since their son was born. 
it is hard bringing little kids to church or introducing them to quiet contemplative prayer.  i get that!!!  they don't know what all of it means.  they don't sit still and they make noise.  and the more stressed i get, the more stressed they get.  but it's building blocks.  it's introducing them to their God.  and maybe it isn't pretty- but step back and look at the big picture- it will be.  i have to remember that right now maybe i'm not getting alot of superficial grace and fluffy feelings out of mass and family contemplative prayer but on a deeper more hidden level i'm getting loads.  it doesn't have to be pretty.  it just has to be.  usually remembering that lowers my stress levels quite a bit. 
in stacking these building blocks now, while they are young, i hope to have kids that are attached to God.  kids who, in hard times, aren't scrambling to build a shelter.  kids who lean harder into their Refuge , their Fortress, and their Rock and come out on the other side strong, compassionate, and wise- and not bearing the marks of the world- the frazzled, worried, and stressed. 

kombucha- a tutorial

kombucha- when people ask me what it is i say "it's this fermented green tea drink that i LOVE!" and i hope they don't immediately google it on their smart phone because the images of the "scoby" are kind of frightening. 
scoby- noun- an anacronym for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast".
it's this kind of rubbery layer of stuff that sits in the tea and helps it ferment. 
it's to kombucha what a starter is to sourdough- kind of.

the above picture shows several layers of scoby going on- the topmost layer being the newer "skin" forming at the top.
but i admit that i fell in love with kombucha even before knowing how it was made or seeing what a scoby looked like- thank GOD. 
believe me- it's SO yummy and it's good for you too!  it's probiotic.  it's energizing.  it is good for the metabolism.  in short it cures wot ails ye.

so - to make kombucha you first must secure a scoby from a hippie friend.  you know, that friend that if she doesn't smell of patchouli she smells of something because she probably doesn't wear anti-perspirant.  her kids *probably* wear shoes- at least they are optional.  and she excuses herself to pee her 10 month old son off in the woods during a conversation.

once you have a scoby- you must feed it.  what does yeast eat?  sugar. 
so the imporant ingredient in this is sugar.  i use green tea because it is super tasty.  i use a tad bit of black tea because the scoby likes it. 

so to feed the scoby you must make a sweet tea.  i make approx 3 litres of sweet tea for one scoby. 
here are my measurements-
3 litres boiling water
3 bags kombucha tea(i use yogi brand)
2 bags of black tea (ceylon)
1 cup sugar- ***important***  you MUST use the devil's handmaiden.  you CANNOT use honey or agave or stevia or xylitol or anything more holy. 

ok- so then you let this sweet tea reach room temp.  pour it into your gallon sized fermenting vat(costco sized pickle jar or not- it MUST be glass).  place your scoby in the sweet tea and pour the brine the scoby sat in (should come in about 6 oz of brine) into the fermenting vat.  cover with some fabric.  i cut a t-shirt up.  cut a square to cover the top nice a good and then cut a long strip of t-shirt to secure the square down over the top.  this is important because fruit flies LOVE this stuff. 
now wait.  in the summer it ferments fast(one week).  in the cooler winter it's slower(two weeks).  you will see a nice layer growing on top- another scoby to share with a friend who now thinks YOU are the hippie fringe. 

taste it.  when it reaches a nice balance between sweet and vinegary then it's ready.

you can bottle it and throw it in fridge to stop the fermentation process, or....
you can do a second ferment(yummmmm!)
my kids love second ferments because i flavor it. 

i pour the kombucha over jelly (made only with SUGAR! not high fructose corn syrup). 
sometimes i pour it over some fruit puree that i have mixed with sugar and heated up(to dissolve the sugar). 
mango is my kids favorite!  and adding shredded ginger makes it so carbonated you have to watch out when you uncork!
i have also tried adding chia seeds.  it works.  i pour chia seeds into a cupcake liner- fill it up! and then pour them into the bottle.  it's amazing watching them form their little gelatinous shells.  it's got an interesting texture, but my kids don't go for it.
i do the second ferment in ikea stopper bottles.

 or these bottles of french soda i found at kroger in the health food section.

the second ferment takes only 2 or 3 days.  i sit them on the shelf in the pantry.  right now i have two grape(from jelly), two mango, and two peach sitting on the second ferment shelf.  i also currently have about four first ferments in various stages of stew going on.  i'm thinking about expanding my kitchen just to accomodate my kombucha fascination.

converting a dress to a nursing dress

i bought this dress years ago for chris' best friend's wedding. i
thought it would make a good nursing dress since it can just be pulled
to the side and away. but it wasn't discreet enough and besides not
too modest even when not nursing- as you can see it is so low cut that
you can spot my white nursing tank peeking up over the top.
so i decided to convert it to a more modest nursing dress by adding a
panel.
first i put the dress on inside out.
then i pinned the panel to the spots i needed to sew it to- at the
seem on both armpits and along the waist. every other area is just
floating.
i then cut away until i achieved the shape panel i desired. kind of a
top-heavy hourglass.
then i tacked it down using the stretch stitch because the panel is a
cotton knit and the dress is lycra.
i did hem the panel with the stretch stitch before pinning it to the
dress- it provided a more finished look.
another good option would be using the bottom hem of a lacy tank-
cutting a panel from the bottom and using the lacy edge as a more
decorative panel- like a camisole?
anyhow- thought i'd share:)

thoughts on EC- the early days

john was 2 months on sunday.
- he fusses more before he pees than before #2.
- i had an EC dream last night- where i was helping him in a public
restroom and whatever came out of him made THE most horribly
disgusting sounds- and more than being embarassed over making the cue
sound in a public restroom i was embarassed that my neighbor in the
stall next door thought it may have been coming from me- and then i
was praising him- and what did neighbor lady think of that? i hope
she notices that my shoes are facing the wrong way! but that thought
somehow wasn't comforting either.
-EC needs to be more widely known so i can avoid the embarassment of
the previous mentioned dream becoming reality.
- he wears kaidangku most days around home and they are just too cute
that i wish i could share a picture with most of you! but alas- this
blog is pretty public.
- i don't miss too many of his cues but when i do it's always #1.
- when his personal space gets too small(aka- the doting big sisters
are smothering him) i offhandedly bring up the previous point and his
space is magically enlarged.
- someone once mentioned that potty training a baby is mostly potty
training the adult. and? parenting involves responding to ALOT of a
baby's cues(hunger, need to burp, tired, sick, etc). in fact, we are
pretty well trained well into the baby's first day of life! so why
stop at elimination?
- his cue sound is getting stronger. today he cued to pee and i held
him but forgot to make the cue sound. he fussed a bit- until i
remembered and RIGHT when i began makingthe cue sound he quieted and
focused on his task.
- he gives absolutely NO cues before peeing if he is sleeping and i am
wearing him on a long and brisk walk. that is if you don't count
snoring. the feeling reminded me of what you do when you are out
surfing for a long while and it's cold and you are wearing your
wetsuit and you drank about 46 oz of water before leaving home for the
beach. yep- a warm feeling.
- i am getting the hang of ECing a boy. you have to have aim.
- and we are not hardcore ECists. i still do diapers for bedtime and
for going out for long periods(more than an hour). but if he insists,
i am willing to be flexible on those points.
- he is such a good baby. if he fusses i know that he either is
hungry or needs to go potty.
- his cue for hunger and his cue for potty are still seemingly very
similar. BUT if i try to nurse him and he needs to go potty instead he
half-heartedly tries to latch. however- if he is hungry he will latch
like a champ.

my anti-group beta strep (anti- c-section) protocol

i am doing some of these things already but the whole shebang will go into practice next monday. i will be 23 weeks and a few days.

to see how this protocol will help me avoid a c-section go read this post first.

to fight a group beta strep infection i believe i should have a stellar immune system.
the following steps are what i am undertaking to boost my immune system and therefore kick GBS.

- no refined sugar. not even honey or maple syrup(i already do this). limited grains and fruits(i don't really do this yet).
- fermented cod liver oil 2 ml in am, 2 ml in pm (the pm dose will be new- must take it on an empty stomach though or i'll likely toss my lunch).
- yogurt, kefir, and/or homemade saurkraut at EVERY meal.
- homemade kombucha, 6 oz in am 6 oz at lunch.
- probiotics daily starting at 30 weeks.
- raw garlic orally twice a week starting at 30 weeks- at night since it takes about 8 hours to get stench to subside. guacamole anyone?
- 1000 of vitamin c daily.
- try not to go into labor before 40 weeks. studies have linked babies that have acquired GBS infection to early birth. i'd love to know the rate of GBS infections in induced babies as compared to those who weren't induced and allowed to bake.

i may add some or subtract some as i progress but this is the core of it.
wish me luck!

at the VERY least i hope to have a baby with awesome teeth and less colic.

i felt the need to edit this post to add my theory as to why thses dietary changes will help kill off a GBS infection.
in microbiology i learned that your body has an optimal pH- it works best within a certain range. there are normal bacteria or "flora" that live in your body (called microbiota). they thrive in the optimal pH and help your body with MANY functions. for example, without certain microbiota in your large intestine the body cannot absorb potassium. that being said- when your body is out of the normal and desired pH then systems go whack, nutrients are sapped, normal microbiota are killed off and harmful opportunistic pathogens(that live in your body to a certain extent) take over. this happens when we take antibiotics or have a diet that results in an acidic body response.
i hope that with this diet- my body will achieve an optimal pH and provide such a good environment for my microbiota that opportunistic pathogens will be forced to pack up and leave.

popoluar and rising trends- attitudes towards parenting

i took this survey last week sometime. if you'd like to take the survey and don't want the research to be tainted STOP READING- and go take the survey.

if you don't want to take this survery continue reading my mindless ramblings;)

SPOILER ALERT BEGINS HERE------------






so i took the survey and questions like "do you think your style of parenting is better than everyone elses?" or "do you feel like parents should make large sacrifices to offer tutors and special assistance to their child so they can be the top of their class?" or "did you make your infant's food or buy it from the store?" etc. and i am paraphrasing because my memory is shot.
at the end of the survey they told me what it was for. that they were studying the recent trend of "intensive parenting" going on in our culture.
so i looked it up. intensive parenting. because i hadn't heard of it. it turns out i have heard of it. or maybe it's better to say i have observed it. i just didn't know it had a name.
it's also called, more appropriately "over-parenting".
it's just a new movement or trend to provide EVERYTHING for your child- music class for your unborn child, yoga class for your newborn, reading lessons for your 8 month old, and spanish lessons for your two year old. expecting mothers are encouraged to make an extensive baby registry- signing up for the latest and greatest in baby toys to improve their baby's IQ. parents must provide everything, because the happiness and success that will come to them for the rest of their lives depends on it. it depends on your parenting and your parenting alone- nothing else influences your child's life but you.

i have observed it at the playground. watching parents shadow their children everywhere. cautioning all the time "be careful" "oh, you may fall" "don't run, you'll trip". i keep thinking soon they will be putting a helmet and knee pads on their kids just for a trip down the slide

but i find it within my own style as well. i buy whole foods including raw milk, i don't vax, i limit TV and video games, i co-sleep, breastfeed, cloth diaper, and communicate about elimination- maybe i am over-parenting in a natural way? but at the same time, i in no way look down on people who do not do these things. that's why when the question was asked "do you think your parenting style is better than those of other parents" i put "disagree". i think it's a struggle to find what style suits your family. i think parents nowadays have SO many people adding their two cents that it's often hard to know which side is up. i don't know what instincts drive other moms. all i know are the instincts that drive me. and when society stops pressuring parents to "keep up with the joneses" then i feel parents will be left alone to follow their instincts without all the white noise to confuse them.

so i am an intensive parent in some areas but in others i am not so much. to most "overparenting" parents my kids probably seem feral. i like the way one lady put it in an article- "benign neglect". i argue that it's the freedom to just be a kid that makes them happy. it encourages them thrive, grow, think, be creative, dream, etc. it helps them to know natural consequences and therefore learn concretely from their mistakes.

this feeling of parenting competition is so poisonous. i remember really feeling down on myself because of something my neighbor shared with me a few years ago. she happened to know the family of max's old baseball coach and finally when 2 and 2 were put together and the six degrees of kevin bacon were played they both found out that each of them knew our family. the mom went on to say "oh, the family that doesn't wipe their baby's nose?" what a shot? i mean, she's two, she's active, her nose was running like a faucet at one game- do i have to pin her down every two minutes? or put a feed bag under her face to catch it constantly?
and i retaliated- "well, at least she isn't still in diapers like her kid!" i thought. but here i was, on her level now and that didn't make me feel ANY better.

but parents are up against this- this new society driven desire to be the SUPER parent. and i don't think it's healthy for the kids at all. it's even creeped up into government and do we need government legislatively encouraging us to become intensive parents? intensive parenting is even now prefered by the court system here in america. i can't help but feel that our government is crossing a boundary and making tom jefferson roll in his grave. our founding fathers prided themselves on ingenuity, decisiveness, and action. the very attributes that over parenting or helicopter parenting squelch. this governmental trend is making me mad and scaring me at the very same time. it was one of the reasons why we pulled the kids out of school. they are OUR kids and when you tell us when and how we are "allowed" to educate them, that's when we draw the line. it's like being "allowed" to vbac. or being "allowed" to ride your bike.
what country are we living in again?

african babies don't cry

fr kevin texted me awhile ago and asked "what is that potty training thing that christina does with mariana called?"
i told him it was called elimination communication. i also told him that in easter europe, africa, and asia "elimination communication" and "attachment parenting" were words that weren't used. the two philosophies (relatively new to the western world) are housed under one practice- and they simply call it "parenting".
i just read an article this morning called about why people say "african babies don't cry". i think my favorite quote is "read your baby, not books" and it will be the advice i give new parents from now on.

a nerd and her crunchy essential oils disinfectant

last thursday we did an exercise in mircobiology lab where we streaked two plates(or petri dishes containing nutrients needed for bacterial growth) with bacteria. one plate was streaked with escherichia coli (or e. coli, a gram negative bacteria). the other was streaked with staphylococcus epidermidis (a gram positive bacteria). once we streaked the plates we moved over to a station where there stood several beakers of antiseptics and disinfectants. soaking in the beakers were little paper disks. we placed the soaked disks onto our plates. when i looked at our lab schedule and saw that we were doing a disk diffusion lab with antiseptics and disinfectants i was psyched(ok ok i AM a nerd- get over it!). i really wanted to see where thieves cleaner (the stuff i use at home on counters, sinks, toilets, lightswitches, doorhandles, etc) stacked up. when i got to class my teacher helped me dilute my thieves cleaner to a 1:30 strength. thieves is made from a blend of essential oils and smells so earthy and spicy and warm. i used to clean with vinegar but got so sick of the scent. my friend maryann turned me onto the thieves oil for ingestion(i use it whenever i get a throat tickle-ZAP it away). once i was a believer she shared the cleaner with me- and i LOVE it! anyway,
so- the key to the pictures below is this-
the antiseptics-
1-triadine
2-95% ethanol
3-listerine
the disinfectants-
4-lysol
5-0.28% envirocide
6-1:128 cidecon

and 7....THIEVES.

ignore 8- i got overexcited with my sharpie:)

the clearing around each disk indicates that the disk is efficient in killing off the organism. gram negative bacteria such as e. coli are pretty resistant to most antiseptics and disinfectants- hence the smaller clearings. anyhow- if anyone shares the trait of nerdiness that i do, i hope you enjoy this little glimpse into my lab.

wwmd? My journey to responsive parenting

After Samantha was born I had about a year of spiritual dryness. Such aridity that my prayers seemed hollow. If it weren't for the habit of saying them(instilled by my parents) I would have stopped saying them altogether.
When max was born I started second guessing myself. My parenting style was pretty main stream. I has heard that babies would try to manipulate you. So you had to establish your role. If you picked them up when they cried, that was an example of them using you. If you fed them when they asked and not on a schedule, they would become gluttonous and would not be able to reign in their appetites. If you slept with them your marriage bed would become unsacred and your relationship would falter.
And yet, I felt unfulfilled as a mom. It all felt counterintuitive. Staged. Contrived. Unnatural.
I began questioning all these pearls of advice. And I adopted an altered version of that famous wristband asking "wwjd?". I woul ask myself "what would Mary do?". Would Mary let baby Jesus cry it out? Would Mary sleep in a different room altogether from her precious son? Would Mary feed Jesus only every three hours on the hour?
Albeit, Jesus was divine, even in infancy, but I believed Mary would raise any child, divine or not, in a similar vein. Simply because she was Mary.
So- my life changed slowly. At every parenting decision- big or small I aksed myself "what would mary do?"
the result? Cosleeping, babywearing, nursing on demand, cloth diapering, whole food preparation, and eventually homeschooling.
I can tell you it wasn't easy. It still isn't. But I feel so fulfilled and know without a doubt, that I am doing God's will for my life.
I love how paradoxical God can be.

the way we do ec

i wouldn't consider myself to be an elimination communication purist. we put diapers on our kids more than not. but it seems to work out anyway. this is what happens. for the first six months of life baby is almost totally ec'd. days and nights. when teething hits we take a break. for some reason, our babies have no patience for pottying during this developmental time. when teething wears off we pick up right where we left off. then for another month ec is smooth. once they start walking and exploring it is not as effective. they are branching off and adventure seeking away from me, so it's harder for me to read signals. franky is well into the exploring stage. she's seen the world as she knows it- and wants to return to comfy dry pants. she has been dry at night for four nights running. and has been dry all day. i think this stage is always a welcome surprise. she sits on her potty playing with her thomas the tank engine sticker book. pealing stickers off and putting them all over her legs. i really like that I found out about kaidangku pants because i think it gave her added confidence without the chill of going naked.
babies always amaze me.

breastfeeding psa's from around the world

link to the blog here.

now here is a good birth analogy

It really is a case of studying the options and then deciding what risk/benefit weighing you feel most comfortable with. To use an analogy - most of us wear seatbelts in a car now, for safety reasons, even though we don't plan on getting in an accident. That's kind of like going to a hospital at all for birth. Then there are other safety-related things you can also use - front airbags, side window airbags, moving the seat as far back as is possible are some other now common ones. To be even safer, you could wear a helmet, possibly even some thick vests or suits that could make sure you don't get cut if the windshield ends up shattering. In some cases, though very rare, you'd probably be very glad to have those. But I personally wouldn't choose to wear the helmet or heavy suit - the small possible benefit wouldn't be enough for me to outweigh the other considerations, like the inconvenience of putting those on every time I was driving somewhere. In fact, it would probably make driving a bit harder, possibly even less safe if the gear interferes with your ability to see or react to road conditions. On the other hand, I recognize that there may be some situations where extra gear would be very recommended (like race car drivers, for instance), and I wouldn't look down on someone for trying to be extra cautious. But if I had a friend who did regularly suit up for a simple trip to the store, or even a drive to downtown Atlanta, I'd probably encourage her to take a real look at likelihood of the risks she's preparing against. If she then still wanted to go ahead and protect herself against those anyway, that's OK - it's her choice. But I'd want to be sure she was making it based on sound information.
- cassia beckman (fellow ICANer)

people are finally losing the "low fat" mentality

it's been a long while coming. it was kind of like waiting for people to realize how dangerous soy is. i picked up experience life magazine. it's a free subscription that you get when you sign up for a lifetime fitness membership. but, the saying is true in this case as well- "nothing is free".
they had an article in there about how low fat dairy has not been the great thing that the industry has claimed it to be. my favorite part of the article is this...

in 2003 the national dairy council began aggressively promoting the claim that consuming three servings of low-fat dairy products daily would contribute to weight loss, deploying photographs of slender celebs like david beckham and kate moss in milk moustaches to drive it's message home.
*not surprisingly, this message was quickly co-opted by several large manufactures of cheese and yogurt, and soon the idea that low-fat dairy could aid weight loss seemed like established fact.
of course, just saying it doesn't make it so, and in this case the dairy council seems to have been bending the truth.

*it doesn't surprise me. the national dairy council has big agra dairy's pockets in mind, not the health of the nation. they have no desire to run a study before claiming this as fact. it was just a campaign to sell more watered down reconstituted milk product.

the article goes on to say that full fat dairy will help aid metabolism by stabalizing it. full fat milk will also help the body absorb fat soluble vitamins, which pass through the bloodstream if they aren't consumed with fat. and cholesterol- the bad word in the health nut world- actually controls our reproductive ability. the reproductive hormones- testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone are made from cholesterol that our body makes and receives from dairy and other animal fats.
i'm so happy that the myth has been revealed. albeit experience life isn't exactly mainstream, but it isn't exactly fringe either, which i think w.a. price still remains.
so- love yourself today. go buy some whole milk and drink a cup. don't feel guilty. and someday everyone will learn the truth about RAW milk and come to love it as well as we do.

forbes "healthiest foods" list

here it is. raw milk is on there. it also could be the "tastiest foods" list.

we call them psychotic sticks

high fructose corn syrup and food dye. what more could you want?

i just read out to the kids from wikipedia about mercury poisoning. they are utterly shocked. so while immunizations are on the mercury poisoning list- let's add high fructose corn syrup and follow that with the "green scam" florescent light bulbs. i'm trying to picture the future of the kids in america. what exactly are they going to look like? what host of problems is going to plague them the most?

you gotta fight for the right to vbac

i was musing about this last night while looking out of the car window at the darkness. i think sometimes of the chuckles God must have from time to time. i can just imagine this conversation between him and eve.
"so, you guys really screwed it up. now i've got to kick you out of the garden and what's more, you'll have to succomb to some pretty excruciating pain when you have babies."
"alright God...if you say so."
"you know what's crazy? sometime in the near future- say 2008 years after my son comes and cleans up this mess you've made, women will be fighting for the right to succomb to these labor pains?"
"WHAT?!?! you mean they want to suffer the penalty?"
"well yeah, but i guess i should also tell you of the alternative. it seems there will be a shift in society to favor the medical model of care; one that doesn't follow evidence based care. they will stumble upon a discovery during an emergency that allows them to deliver the baby through an incision. the yahoos will then flock to this false light like fireflys to a bug zapper- i'll have to tell you about that later. they will start to believe that THE best way to deliver a baby is through this surgical incision and not through the way i've designed."
<>
"tell me more about this bug zapper. these prehistoric mosquitos have become insane since we fell."

the soft structured carrier

i had a pattern for one but decided to just tear up my existing OLD OLD ergo and replace all the worn fabric with a fabric of my choice. the straps and belt are canvas and the body is some upholstery fabric i spotted in the remnant bin at hobby lobby. i started sometime around 5 yesterday evening and finished at about 9pm the same night. i was working feverishly because i feel so outnumbered without an ergo to carry the bean in.
now this carrier is going to my good friend so far away- just as soon as i make one for myself. i thought of her the ENTIRE time i was making it. it somehow made me feel just a little bit closer.

like mother, like daughter

a bit about bedsharing on the road

cosleeping takes on a whole new light when we are on the road. at home we sleep on a IKEA mattress on the ground. when i lay on my back, the wall guards the left side and the frame for our sleighbed(the one i don't sleep in) guards the right side. the foot of the bed is free for crawling on and off of. the head of the bed has a window and a nightstand with a glass of water, an alarm clock and a soft night light. sleeping on the ground not only gives me peace of mind (i don't worry about anyone rolling off the bed), it makes better use of the space on the bed (since noone is worried about rolling off, the edges aren't so uncomforatable).
on the road i've been known to take mattresses off of boxsprings and put them on the ground. i've also pushed beds against the wall, even slept on a couple of blankets spread out on the ground. here at my in laws it's difficult. the bed is HUGE and fixed and the floor space isn't big enough for sleeping all of us. so i can't wait to get home and have some deep sleep interupted only for nursing and calls for water and not for falling off the bed and getting wedged between the bed and night table.

solar power

i've been trying to get outside as much as i can- hence the lack of posting. i've been sitting on a quilt, reading, knitting, picking weeds, listening to music- but most importantly, getting that base tan. in high school this was important because when you came back from spring break you didn't want to be red like a lobster, but an even brown. well, now that i'm a mom, it takes on a more healthy twist. there is so much to take from the sun. i've learned alot here from love your mother blogwriter. i'm putting some of her suggestions into practice. so hopefully this summer we will be sunblock free and burn free.