Summer Cloth Diapering

I am not a hot weather girl. The sun is amazing, beautifully warm weather is to live for and getting a glowing tan is gorgeous, but hot, sweaty, humid weather is pretty much the worst. What makes it worse, is how it conflicts with using cloth diapers on my babies. If I myself am feeling wretched in hot weather, what does my baby feel like in the same weather plus a plastic diaper cover. It must be so hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. Just imagine what it would be like to wear a plastic bag, with holes cut out for legs, in really hot weather.What a joke! It's almost a sort of cruel punishment. So when the weather gets extremely uncomfortable, I put away the reusables, and whip out the disposable (chlorine and chemical free) diapers.

Still I can't shake off a bit of guilt about using disposable diapers. Just the idea of billions of diapers piling high at the dump makes me feel super irresponsible for using them. I could learn elimination communication (infant potty training) and have my babies out of diapers around age one. Or figure out what they used before disposable diapers were invented. Sometimes I just let a diaper-less Teddy lay on a blanket  to let him air out and cool down.

I would love to know the rest of you cloth diapering mama's do in hot weather. Do you also keep a stash of (contraband) disposables on hand?

xo, Yana.

First Bath at Three Weeks

Hello there! We gave Theodore his first bath. Finally! At the time it was three weeks after he was born. No, he did not get an immediate bath after birth. He got wiped down a little bit, but a lot of the vernix on him got rubbed into his skin as the perfect moisturizer.  Babies really do not need to be bathed immediately after they are born, as many hospitals do. I remember watching an episode of Giuliana and Bill, of when their son was born. He was given a sponge bath and he just cried and cried. The sponge turned his new skin bright red. . The nurse giving him his bath seemed to think that the baby was really dirty and had to be rubbed clean till he squeaked. You could tell that he just hated it. If you think about it, it must be terrible. After all a newborn has never felt any kind of artificial texture, so even a soft towel could feel awful.  Anyway, I remember thinking that I did not want to do that to our newborn.

Then I saw some pictures of birth stories which showed a different approach to a baby's first bath. The babies were given their first bath in a normal bath tub in the arms of either mom or dad. They looked so calm and peaceful, some were even asleep. It was so much more gentle than rubbing down a baby, that I decided that we have to do it this way too. You can see these pictures here and here. Well three weeks after he was born, we did just that. Teddy really liked it and was very calm through the whole process. I just let him float in my arms in the soapy water, (we used Burt's Bees Bubble Bath), making sure to keep his body in the water as much as possible so that he wouldn't get cold. For now that's how all his baths are going to be. I want to buy a Puj Tub soon though, to use until he is big enough for the toddler bath which we use for Jude. Tell me have you tried getting in the tub with your baby? Did you like it? Did your baby like it? XO, Yana.

Weekend Bake / Fudgey Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Naaman and I are taking parenting lessons from the French. Do we know any French people? No. But I have come across some fascinating French parenting books which we have been devouring lately. And when I say French parenting books I mean American parents who firsthand have observed French parents with their children and asked them a million "what would you do" questions and received satisfying answers. They really have a completely different view of parenting and what children are capable of doing and understanding. My latest revelation is that there is no such thing as the "terrible twos" in France. According to French Twist: An American Mom's Experiment in Parisian Parenting, the author Catherine Crawford, had to explain the concept of the "terrible twos" to her French friends. One friends reply was, "Really? You have this with your children? I have never heard of this condition." The French may not have the answer to every question, but from the books I have been reading, they seem to handle parenting a lot better than us Anglophones.

One of the things that we are adopting from the French is letting Jude bake on a weekly basis. The French have a tradition of letting their children bake from a very early age. They don't just mess about in the flour, they crack eggs and make simple desserts all on their own. But there's more to it than just having a lot of cake and sweets to eat. Letting a child bake on their own is a big big lesson in patience and self-control, something that we have been having a hard time instilling in Jude. The kid has to measure out the ingredients, mix them together in the proper order and then sit and wait until the cake is done baking. The French then take this a step further by not eating it as soon as it comes out of the oven. French families more or less, follow a similar eating schedule which includes, for the kids only, a goûter - (pronounced gootay) the afternoon snack, which is served around 4 pm, coincidentally when French school gets out.  So after a child goes through the whole process of baking a sweet, they watch their mother puts it away on the counter and has to wait until 4 o'clock to actually eat it. Furthermore, mom says when they've had enough.

It's amazing to me that such a simple project can teach a child so much. And if done on a weekly basis, with goûter on a daily basis, I can see how it will have a real impact on the child. I wonder though if the French sought out to do this in the first place, or if it was a part of their culture that ended up having a positive impact on their kids. Whichever it is, I think it is brilliant. Jude had a really good time mixing these brownies, and I (surprisingly) wasn't tense about getting everything right. Probably because I am adopting another French quality, for myself, being more calm about the little things. Jude was rather proud of cracking the eggs by himself but asked me to mix up the batter when it got too stiff. He's even adjusting to the fact that we didn't eat the brownies immediately. We remind him that he can have his goûter at four zero zero, and he calms down after that. Knowing that there is going to be a sweet at some time during the day is reward in itself.

I will post a weekly update on what we bake together, or let him bake on his own. Hopefully I will be able to find enough uncomplicated recipes for Jude to have fun with. I'll also post updates on how we "Frenchify" our lives in attempt to have a happier, or dare I say, a pleasurable parenting experience. Lately I've been wanting to pull all my hair out with Jude's purposeful disobedience and over-all craziness. I am determined to banish the "terrible twos" from this house!
These brownies were delicious and really rich by the way. Try them out with your kids or by yourself. I found the recipe on Pinterest, from this website.  xo Yana.

Fudgey Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups chocolate chunks

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x9 baking dish with parchment paper.
2. Beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a stand mixer bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
3. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix in the baking soda.
4. Mix in the chocolate chunks with a wooden spoon or spatula.
5. Once the batter forms (it will be thick), scrape it into the prepared dish and spread evenly.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, until brownies begin to pull away from the side of the pan.
7. Serves 9-12.

A Romp in the Leaves

 It has been ever so cold here lately and I have been reminiscing on Fall. When all the trees are turning gorgeous colors and the weather is still really sunny and comfortable with just a hint of chilliness. It's such a beautiful time of the year. We had the fun of stopping by, of all places, a business park that had really beautiful trees and just piles and piles of leaves, and even a small artificial pond full of ducks. What did we do? Have an impromptu play in the leaves with Jude. I'm sure that more than one passersby thought we were peculiar for doing that in public on a busy street, but when the opportunity presents itself, why not? Jude had such a ridiculous amount of fun with the leaves, I was a bit surprised. Kids really are so much simpler than adults. Maybe I should take a few lessons from him.

I'm so glad to have captured this leaf-throwing fun in photos. If the northwest has anything going for it, it's the really beautiful autumns we get here. But now I am looking forward to Spring!! xo Yana.

Theodore Naaman: A Birth Story

Hi everyone, I just had a baby. He's so new and it's still so fresh. It has been an easy transition into having two kids instead of just one. Jude has taken to his brother very well and coos at him "oh, its a baby, so sweet".  Naaman and I really adore him, and it feels like he has definitely made our family feel more complete. I want to remember as much as I can from this birth, so I will share it with you and it will be permanently written down for me to revisit. I'll warn you now, this might be long, I've never been one for shortening things.

I have never felt braxton-hicks contractions when I was pregnant with Jude, but this time around I had felt them a lot, a lot. So much so that I started to tune them out. It didn't seem like I was going to go into labor anytime soon because I had been having regular braxton-hicks for five days leading up to the birth. They'd even last a while and came in a pattern, but kept stopping. This wasn't that big of a deal because a Christmas Eve or Christmas birthday would really suck, and the 26th was already taken up with my mom's and brother's birthdays. If the baby wanted to stay in longer, I felt I could try to not get excited (or annoyed) over the braxton-hicks that kept coming.

Christmas morning we had our own little family Christmas (pancakes by Naaman and presents!!!) and then headed to Naaman's mother's house for his family's Christmas celebration.  I had had rushes at night and ended up staying up really early into the morning. It wasn't my best decision because it made me so tired. (From reading a lot of birth stories I decided to refer to my contractions as "rushes" or "surges" because I did wanted to keep this birth as positive as possible. Just the word contraction has so much pain and negativity associated with it, I did not want to use it too much.) We got there at almost two in the afternoon and settled into the day. I kept having rushes but thought nothing of it except "I hope don't go into labor and the baby is born on the 26th". I started having to focus more on the rushes during a game of Bezzerwizzer, needing to stand and sway through them. Still I didn't think that this was labor. I started timing them around 6:30 pm and they were one minute long coming every 6 or 7 minutes.

Then soon after, I lost my mucus plug. TMI I know, but hey this is a birth story, not every part of it is beautiful. (I actually don't think any of it is beautiful). I told Naaman and we sort of giggled and thought "well if this is it, then let it come". By the time we opened presents all I wanted to do was go home. If this was labor I needed to rest and anyway the rushes were getting stronger and needed a lot of my attention and I was getting overwhelmed by Jude and all of the noise of the celebration. Jude had managed to make his eyes really swollen from rubbing his face on the carpet and just cried and cried. It was just time to go home and rest. We left around 9:30 pm.

As soon as we got home Naaman and I started cleaning. My rushes were very manageable but very consistent. If this was it I wanted to come home to a semi-clean apartment. We got into bed and tried to sleep. I woke up around 3 in the morning and lay in bed and listened to my body. I noticed that I was rocking my body back and forth in order to focus on the sensation of the rushes. I got up and had a date with mr.john. My body decided it was time for a quick clean, and apparently this happens to a lot of women when they go into labor. After a bit of that, I woke Naaman up and lay with him in bed. He listened to how I was going through rushes and decided to get up and start getting ready to leave. I was still in denial.

I kept telling him that I didn't want to call the midwives in case this was false labor or it took so long that we ended up wasting their time and ours. With Jude I had gone to the hospital too early and I did not want to do that again. Soon enough, I had to moan through rushes and hold on to Naaman to get through them. We called our midwife Chelsea and she said to come in to the Alma birth center. At one point Jude heard me moan through a rush and said that I sounded like a lawn mower. Naaman and I had a good laugh at that.

We dropped off Jude at my parents' house and took the 35 minute drive to the birth center in Porltland, and were greeted by Chelsea, Cassandra and Cory the midwife on call for our original midwife Melissa.  We settled into our room. It was very calm and relaxing, candles everywhere, fire in the fireplace. tub full of warm water, and the blinds drawn closed. So completely different from being admitted into a hospital. My rushes kept coming and I had to rock, breathe, moan through and hold on to Naaman to get through them. Not once did I get a cervical check of any kind. Chelsea said that I was definitely in active labor and that a cervical check wasn't necessary to make sure. I labored on the couch, chair, desk chair, standing, and on the birthing ball.

It was amazing to me that when I was having a rush it would take my complete attention. Then as soon as it was over, I was completely normal again and even laughing about really bad jokes and sayings from Friends.
Getting into the tub was amazing, it was like a big giant warm hug all around me. I got in and stayed in for the rest of the birth. I really have no idea as to how long I was in the tub until my water broke. My rushes were getting insanely intense and I started to have self-doubt feelings and even cried after several of the rushes. Naaman held on to me during a rush and I all but fell asleep in between them. I started to feel a tingling in my birth canal and thought that my water might break soon. I was in the middle of a rush and my water broke. It was such an insane feeling. It literally felt like how a cannon explodes, immediately and powerfully. Right after that I had to push. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The feeling had taken over my body, I had not control over it at all. It was so powerful!


There was such a huge pressure in my butt I had to put pressure back onto it in order to feel like I wasn't going to completely rip apart. Each time I'd have a rush all I could do was push into the sensation and vocalize my attempt. That is the part that really surprised me. I was not expecting to be loud at all, but I just could not be quiet. I yelled and screamed and grunted (I thought I sounded like a baboon) and kept saying over and over "I'm sorry". It was all very embarrassing to me, but my midwives were not phased out at all and just kept telling me I was doing great and that I didn't have to be sorry for anything. At one point I swore, said that I didn't want to have this baby anymore, asked for anything to make it stop and of course the only thing I could do was finish the job.


I carefully was helped into a squat position and held on tight to my midwives and Naaman. I kept thanking everyone for being there to help me and even kissed one of my midwives on the head! The ring of fire was ridiculously intense but I managed to not push to hard so that everything stretched properly and I ended up not tearing at all. The baby's head felt so huge and it just stung.  With another two rushes I pushed out his head and did not care to touch it at all. Another two rushes and his body shot out of me. My midwives realized he had the umbilical cord around his neck once and had to unwrap it first and then made me hold him. I was very relived to be done and felt so ridiculously sore that I didn't even think about holding him right away. He was covered in a lot of vernix and it was surprising. I think it was about eight contractions from my water breaking to baby being born. How long it took timewise, I don't know but he was born at 11:09 am. They made me get out of the tub immediately to help his breathing, and we moved onto the bed. I delivered the placenta there and Naaman cut the cord once it stopped pulsating. It was such a relief to be done, but all I could think about was how sore I was! We got to see  the placenta which was really cool. Cassandra said it was very healthy. This was probably why it took so long for it to break and why it broke with a bang.

The baby was not a cone head. He came out more straight on with the full circumference of his head, which made pushing him out more difficult. Probably what made me need to vocalize my pushing efforts so much.

I checked to see and found out it was a boy! We had another son! And I had the natural water birth I wanted, albeit a much louder one that I had anticipated. It was still very crazy to process and I was still flying on some level of denial. It was so so intense that Naaman and I started wondering whether we were going to have our desired four children or not. I don't know if I could do that again, and Naaman didn't know if he could watch me go through that again. Overall I'm really glad that I did it this way and I know that it technically makes me "Bad-Ass"! Maybe I just need another two years of healing and processing before we try for a third child. But for now we have Theodore Naaman, 7lbs 1 oz, 19 or so inches long. He didn't want to stretch out all the way. He looks so much like Naaman it's cute. I am thrilled and ecstatic to have him added to our family, even if he was born on the 26th, I guess I can find some sort of humor in that.


We had excellent food while at the birth center.They have a stack of menus from restaurants in the area from which we ordered our food. Our postpartum doulas would go and pick it up for us. It was so so much better than hospital food, which really is a bunch of crap. Looking back now, it was a great experience, wildly intense but great. xo Yana.