Pictures

This was taken a month or more ago, I'd forgotten to download it off the camera. A wanted to try wearing Little Bit in a wrap, but Little Bit wasn't so sure about it, so I told A to go walk outside (both because Little Bit likes to be outside, it generally calms her, AND because I figured there's less for A to bonk Little Bit's head on out there than in the house LOL). I'm not sure how long we were out there but as long as A kept walking, and singing, Little Bit was content, and A was so proud of herself LOL.
Happy 4th of July! The shirts I had for A&L as babies still fit Little Bit (though only because they were onesies and I had mom convert one of them into a shirt (w/ wool covers I've found I prefer shirts to onesies, the tight onesie compressing the wool cover can lead to some dampness, AND not having to snap/unsnap the onesie makes diaper changes a few seconds easier, yes I'm THAT lazy LOL), I don't think a 3-6mo onesie would still fit her, in length, but mom kept the onesies-to-shirt conversions as long as she could make them, so they're still fitting. But the big girls liked the idea of having shirts the same as Little Bit, so we went to Old Navy & got them all new shirts for this year. L wanted pink (of course) but the baby sizes didn't come in pink (or they were out?) and A wanted one JUST like Little Bit's so, A & Little Bit had red & L had pink.
Little Bit's first tub bath. I generally just shower her with me, but decided to give her a quick wash while L was taking her bath last night.


All wrapped up in the (wonderfully cushy) hooded towel a church member made for her. Since L got to hold her for the tub picture, A had to pose with her for the towel picture LOL.

Elimination Communication

Warning, this is a post all about baby pee & poop & such. If you don't care, feel free to move along LOL.

Ok, so when I was researching cloth diapering stuff before I was pregnant with the big girls, I came across the concept of Elimination Communication or Inf ant Potty Training. But with being a new mom and then finding out we were having twins, "reading cues" for EC didn't seem feasible, so I didn't bother looking into it further, or trying it.

In a nutshell babies are born with the ability to hold their pee/poop, but when you never give them the chance, they "forget" so then as toddlers they have to re-learn. So with a young baby, if you consistently give them the opportunity to go potty, they will retain that ability, and over time, they will tell you when they need to go (by sounds, sign, etc), and wait for you to take them. You can also encourage them to go by making a specific sound & holding them a specific way when you want them to go (ie. I hold Little Bit over a bowl/sink/whatever facing out with her upper thighs resting in my hands and her upper body leaning against mine, and say "pshhhhh").

When I got pregnant again, I started reading abit more about it, and figured we'd at least try it. . . I got a slow start with it, and, while I'd generally "offer" her a chance to potty in a bowl or the sink when I changed her diaper, I rarely "caught" anything. The advice about baby giving cues when they need to go, I found didn't work for us AT ALL. Maybe I'm just not observant enough . . . but the signs the books, etc. say young babies use are things like "wiggling alot", and Little Bit hasn't stopped wiggling since she was conceived!! Ok, that may be an exaggeration but she was super wiggly in utero and she still is! No way every time she wiggles is an indication of needing to pee, and if it was, I'd never get ANYTHING done if I stopped and pottied her every time she wiggled LOL. . .

So anyway . . . I figured I'd keep offering at diaper changes, but not stress about it for now. I also added the sign language sign for toilet and figured if nothing else in a few months she can make that sign to let me know she needs to potty (I did this with the sign for milk, for nursing, with A&L and long before they could talk, they could make the sign for milk to let me know they wanted to nurse).

Up until now, the only "useful" thing about all of this has been in the poop department. Little Bit tends to go 2-3 days or more w/ little to no pooping, and then when she does poop, she POOPS!!! No diaper could hold all the poop when she poops, BUT if she's right with me when she poops, so I hear/feel her right away, she will usually stop and wait while I take her to a bowl/sink/toilet, and she does the rest of her pooping there, which saves clothes & diaper covers LOL. If she's in the bouncy seat or something, forget it, at the very least the diaper cover is going to have to be washed LOL.

Several weeks ago, I tried keeping her naked (on a waterproof mat with a prefold under her) to figure out when she pees, in hopes of getting on a "schedule" of sorts, since I haven't found that she cues me in any way. And the main thing I determined from that is that, at that point, she generally peed WHILE nursing. Now yes, the books/websites say you can hold a bowl under baby while she nurses, but I generally nurse on a boppy, so that wouldn't work. Additionally, I wear skirts, so holding a bowl "between my legs" doesn't work as well in skirts (most of mine are either denim, so abit stiff for holding a bowl between my legs, or a silk/satin material, that the bowl just slides right out of). So, I figured I wasn't going to try to catch pees as long as she was peeing while nursing (I'd offer the potty at diaper changes and if we caught some, great, if not, no biggie).

But these last couple days, something has finally clicked. We're certainly not "diaper free", but we went all afternoon yesterday in one diaper! Even with making a trip to Target!! I pottied her before we left, and she fell asleep in the car on the way there, and stayed asleep in the sling most of the time we were shopping, she woke up and was quiet for a little while, then started to get restless. I was trying to decide if it was worth dragging the big girls to the bathroom just to see if we could keep Little Bit's diaper dry, when L told me SHE needed to go potty. So that answered that. That Target has a "family bathroom" so we went in there and while L used the toilet I held Little Bit over the sink. Note to self, be aware of the motion sensors in public sinks, this one the faucet was off-center & a higher than normal faucet, so Little Bit got her foot wet when the water turned itself on LOL. I dried off her foot and tried again, making sure to hold her away from the faucet/motion sensor & she peed! Then again when we came home, and again later in the afternoon . . . it wasn't until I was busy fixing supper and the girls were playing with her that she wet her diaper!!!

The most consistent "catch" I'm making is when she wakes up from a nap. She generally wakes up dry and if I take her potty as soon as she wakes up, she'll pee.

So, we're using a few less diapers (though not many) and the ones we do change tend to be less-wet (a single pee), so she's staying drier overall. And I have hopes that once she reaches the point of being able to sign toilet (or otherwise signal her need to potty in a way that both I, and the big girls, can recognize) we'll have even less misses.

For our "set-up" I just use plastic bowls (the ziplock disposable containers or one of the other brands, I don't remember which). I have one on our bed (where I also have a changing station set up, at the foot of the co-sleeper), one in the family room (where we change diapers downstairs) and one in the car. The one in the car, I have the lid with it & a flatfold diaper inside it, I generally take the diaper out when I potty her in the car, and I don't think she's ever actually GONE potty in that one, but if she did pee (or poop for that matter) and I wasn't somewhere that I c0uld empty it, I figure I can put the flatfold in to absorb, and put the lid on, and it shouldn't spill even if kids knock it over. If I'm somewhere else, say on the floor in hubby's office, like I did quite a few diaper changes last week, w/o a sink or toilet, I'll just hold her over the wet/dirty diaper & cue her, that doesn't keep it off a diaper, but it puts it on one that's already wet/dirty instead of a clean one, and it keeps her dry longer. Not sure what I'll do in that scenario if she's dry . . . probably go ahead & hold her over the diaper to cue her, unless there's a sink/toilet relatively close by (though at hubby's office, he grumbles about me holding her over the diaper (Don't do that here! What if someone SEES you?!?!), so I know he'd object to me dashing off to the bathroom w/ her LOL), but even if it doesn't save a diaper (and remember, we use cloth diapers so it's just decreasing laundry, not adding to a landfill or costing money to buy more disposables), it will mean she doesn't ever have the wet cloth against her skin if I potty her on a dry diaper & then put a new dry diaper on her. . . if/when she reaches a point of being consistently dry, I'll probably just take her to the bathroom & potty her there, that's getting easier (in bathrooms w/o changing tables) as she gets less floppy anyway).

And that's where we're at on our EC journey . . . it's kind of fun, doesn't cost anything, and at the very least should make potty training easier/sooner than it might otherwise be (though even w/o EC the big girls potty trained at 27 mo LOL).

School for '09-'10

We've been reading the Little House books for bedtime stories for the last while (we're currently partway through By the Shores of Silver Lake, but we skipped Farmer Boy (it seems confusing to me to read it in the middle of all the others, we'll go back and read it once we've finished the rest of the series and know who Almanzo is!) and the girls are LOVING them. A few years ago I heard about The Prairie Primer and ever since I figured we'd use it at some point. It's geared for 3rd grade & up, but I figure we can use it now, skipping things that are beyond them, and then re-use it in a few years when they're older, and Little Bit's old enough to be somewhat interested in it (ideally in a few years I'd like to incorporate traveling to some or all of the places Laura writes about, but we shall see . . .).

So that's the main plan for next year. I'm currently watching ebay for the best deal. We'll also continue using Polished Cornerstones for Bible (though there is also Bible included in Prairie Primer, but I am assuming it will be very different so won't seem like duplication to include both.

Obviously if the girls express an interest in some other topic and want to pursue it in addition to the above, we can always do that (or even take a break from Prairie Primer to do something else if they prefer), but for planning purposes, I think that about covers it. I also recently discovered this site that has printable monthly calendars of "PE" type ideas. Most of the time the girls are good at coming up with their own active/outdoor activities, but I figure this is a good thing to print out & keep in our notebook for if/when we need inspiration.

Another Hectic Week

We got home from my parents on Monday and then Tuesday morning hubby's boss (and technically mine too) called and said he was ready to work with me on the combined financials that I'd agreed to help with, and that it needed to be done asap. So . . . I packed up the kids and we headed in to the office. Tues-Fri I worked a total of 16+ hrs!!! Am getting a couple days of guilt-free "break" from it now while I wait for information I need from others, and then once I get that information I THINK will only take a few more hours and I'll be DONE!! The girls all did AWESOME with being stuck at the office so much this week. Thankfully there were people there willing to let the big girls chatter at them, and when weather was nice, the big girls could play in the yard right outside Daddy's office windows. Little Bit nursed/napped in the sling, sat on my lap, or kept Daddy (or others) from working. Finally on Fri. we got her to nap in the portable swing for awhile (the office is closed on Fri so we were the only ones there, and the big girls were playing outside, during the week she'd be almost asleep and someone would come in and talk to her LOL).

So all things considered, it's gone EXCEPTIONALLY well, and while it's been kinda fun to pull together a financial stmt again, and prove to myself that my brain really does still work for such things, I'm ready to wrap it up and go back to being "just" a mom.

We visited Grandmom (hubby's mom) yesterday afternoon. The weather was GORGEOUS so the big girls played outside and the rest of us hung out on the porch. On our way home last night we happened to be coming through town the little town closest to us) just as they were getting ready to start their fireworks, so we stopped in the Aldi's parking lot (it's at the top of a hill where the view is good, and while still congested, was less congested than trying to get downtown) and sat on the grass and watched the fireworks. The girls enjoyed it, and since Little Bit had just slept most of the 2 hr drive home from Grandmom's, she was awake and "watched" some of it too.

I was hoping the late night (it was probably around 10:45 when the girls went to bed) would equate to sleeping in this morning, but no such luck, A was in our room at7am on the dot (7am is the earliest she can wake me up), she cuddled with me and talked for a little while until Little Bit woke up, then I brought them downstairs. L slept for a little while longer but not late at all considering her late bedtime.

This morning hubby's back at the office (working w/o his kids & wife around to distract him for a change LOL) and the girls and I went to the farmer's market, and now we're back home. I'm feelign pretty accomplished, I got the diapers washed & on the line before we left this morning and when I got home, I'd misplaced my debit card (knew it was in the car, just couldn't find it) and the car was a DISASTER after all our busy weeks (it got super messy during campmeeting week since we were gone for hte day every day, each morning I'd throw things in htat we MIGHT need, then we'd get home and Little Bit would be fussy & I'd be tired and I'd never make it out to bring in what we didn't need, and it's just gotten messier since . . .) so I took advantage of Little Bit being happy "talking" to the "baby in the mirror" while in her carseat and managed to get the car at least semi-cleaned out except for the area around the big girls' seats (they sit on the 3rd row seat of hte minivan and their floor and the seat between them is COVERED with trash and toys, that'll have to wait for anohter day, or I'll get them to do it) so feeling better about that (and yes, I did find my debit card in the process).

School's taken a back burner during all of this. We did manage to do Bible one day this past week (Tues morning before Mo called and asked me to come in), but that's been it. Of course one time when I went to make sure the girls' weren't bothering other people TOO much at the office I found a secretary teaching them all about galaxies and such, so they were still learning even if I was too busy LOL.

One thing that HAS to be a priority this week is gathering up the horribly overdue library books and get them back to the library or renewed and figure out what, if anything, more we want to do going forward with our current history studies . . . I think I might just abandon the "curriculum" and go through the rest of the American Girl books to give them a taste of "more modern" American History and call it good for this year, just because right now spending time outside is better & I have other things planned for next year (which I'll probably try to have ready to start in Aug . . . or whenever we decide we want to start), more on that in a bit.

I'm Behind Again

These last couple weeks have been CRAZY! Week before last was Campmeeting, where Adventists from all over our state (and some from surrounding states since not all conferences have campmeeting anymore) can gather for a week of meetings, and fellowship. It's about 45 min from our house, and I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to camp up there all week with the kids (hubby needed to work all week so he couldn't be up there) and was planning to just take them up for some of the meetings, some days, but the big girls begged to go to ALL their meetings, they were afraid they might miss something, so we spent all day every day up there. It re-confirmed that I'm not cut out to be a working (outside the home) mom, getting us all up and dressed and out of the house, with lunch packed by 9:30 every day, and not getting home till near bedtime exhausted me LOL.

But the girls had a BLAST at campmeeting. They went to their meetings and between meetings they played on the swings & in the sand (there's a sand volleyball court there that the littler kids take over as a huge sandbox during campmeeting), made friends, bothered people at Locating (the office where people can go to find out information about meetings, etc. It's staffed by Daddy's co-workers all week, so the girls had fun visiting with their "grown-up friends" there, and "helping" LOL), ate lunch (we packed picnics most days, but bought lunch at the snack bar a couple of days), etc. Rodney was working late every night, so we'd stop by his office for a little while on the way home in the evenings. Little Bit did well hanging out in a sling or wrap most of the time. She wanted to be facing out anytime she was awake (and not nursing) though, so she could "talk" to everyone we met LOL.

So that was an exahausting, but fun week. We all managed to catch colds though, so last week instead of catching up on stuff around the house, we laid low and worked on getting over our colds. Thankfully Little Bit was just a little congested, never got really sick.

And now we're down at my parents' for the weekend. They had a membership to the Baltimore Aquarium that expires the end of June, so we wanted to go one last time for this membership. We went down on Friday afternoon (it's open later on Fridays, and much less crowded). The big girls found a volunteer to answer their questions and probably would have stayed there all night if we hadn't told them they needed to let other people ask questions LOL.

The girls have had fun helping Papa on the roof again this trip (he's almost done re-shingling the whole thing).

We spent this afternoon at my friend, Vicki's house. She has 2 girls, a 3 yr old and a 7 mo old (give or take, babies grow up way too fast) so all our girls had fun together. Though the babies are still abit young to "play together" they did grin at each other for awhile LOL. The 3 big girls had fun in the wading pool (or more accurately emptying the wading pool . . . they decided to make "Mr. Ron" (Vicki's husband, who was at work this afternoon) think it had rained by making the entire deck and surrounding area wet), on the new swing set, playing hide-and-seek, and playing school.

And now A&L are back up on the roof. We'll head home, after a stop to visit another friend, tomorrow, and then hopefully have an uneventful week at home getting the house back together, and just enjoying being home!

The Past Week or Three

Not sure when I updated last, some of this might repeat, but here's what's been going on around here, in no particular order:

• The girls and I visited my parents a couple weeks ago while hubby was in Pittsburg. My parents are working on replacing the shingles on their roof, so the girls had great fun "helping" Papa up on the roof (I repeatedly reminded myself that my brother was only 4 when he helped put on the original roof & he lived to tell about it, so my 6 yr olds were safe up there too LOL).
• We met my friends Kim & Vicki and their kids at the park Sat. evening for a picnic and playing on the playground. Gotta love it when a group that ranges in age from 2 mo to 12 yrs all gets along well together (ok, so the 2 mo old, 6 mo old, and not quite 1 yr old pretty much sat on grown-ups' laps while we visited, but the 2-12 yr olds all got along well!
• My parents came up last weekend to babysit while hubby & I (and Little Bit) went to hubby's boss's retirement dinner. A & L decided THEY needed to have their own party since we were going to one. So they discussed it w/ Mama the weekend before & put in their order for the menu. Mom humored them and brought fresh flowers for the table, set with a nice tablecloth, made their menu of tortellini in alfredo sauce with chocolate pie for dessert (actually they requested cake, but she talked them into the chocolate pie instead, easier and tastier IMO lol (not just for my tastebuds, while my girls like the idea of cake, they generally eat the frosting & leave the cake, just like their mommy does LOL)). They also played games and stayed up later than usual.
• While my parents were here they also helped me finally get my garden planted. And it's rained ever since so hopefully my baby plants are enjoying a drink and not drowning out there LOL. We have tomatoes, peppers, green beans, sugar snap peas and lemon cucumbers planted, plus we added cilantro, dill and borage to the existing herb garden (and I'd added this summer's basil plant a couple weeks earlier).
• Ever since we moved here last summer, I've been wanting to hang a swing from a tree in our yard that has a perfect swing branch. Dad didn't bring a swing but DID throw a rope over the branch to make sure it's sturdy enough. Once the rope was there he took a piece of trim that was on the trellis thingy in my herb patch (that we took down) and set it over the rope to create a "seat" of sorts (but it's only like an inch wide LOL). And the girls have been loving their "swing", definitely need to get a real one up there sometime soon.
• We also hung a swing for Little Bit. I'd mentioned to my friend, Vicki, that I wanted to get a toddler swing to hang on our front porch, for sure for next summer, but thought it might be a good place for her to hang out while I worked in teh garden & hung laundry & such this summer too. Turns out Vicki had one she wasn't using, so sent it our way & my dad hung it while he was here too. She's not so impressed at this point (and not sure it'll ever work well for hanging laundry time since the morning sun shines right down on it & would be in her eyes) but I think she'll love it once she gets abit bigger :)
• Little Bit has fallen into a schedule of sleeping a 4-8 hr solid stretch each night, starting anywhere from 9pm to 11pm depending on how much she's slept during the day & such. She sleeps that stretch in the co-sleeper and then I pull her over into my bed to nurse/sleep the rest of the night. So I'm doing quite weSll in the sleep department these days (and am reminding myself not to get TOO used to it, the big girls did this same "schedule" but reverted to nursing throughout the night once they hit 8 mo or so . . . then again, they nursed ALL day at this age, and Little Bit is already stretching the nursings out quite abit during the day)
• I had to laugh last night, I think she decided that my boob was her security blanket &/or pillow, she had stopped nursing but was laying w/ her cheek right against it, so I pulled away, she immediately fussed, so I moved back, and offered it to her to nurse, but she had no interest in nursing, but would fuss whenever I tried to move away from her, silly kid.
• We got small laptops for each of the girls that came this week. I'm in love w/ L's 9" one! (A opted for the slightly larger 12" version). It's so tiny & light & easy to balance on the arm of the recliner while I nurse. I grab it the instant L goes to bed each night LOL. The girls are also loving them, especially L. So far we just have them set up on pbskids and they're having a blast.
• The hospital that's right down the street from hubby's office was having a "garden party" this week to raise money. Kiddie carnival games & rides, food, etc. So Wed. we went over to hubby's office around lunchtime and walked over with him to check it out. The big girls had a blast! It's been rainy all week, but that day was just overcast (much better than hot & sunny for something like this) and sprinkled off & on while we were there, but never rained hard. Little Bit slept/nursed/hung out in the sling the whole time.
• I'm officially "employed" (well, guess I haven't filled out the paperwork yet, but still . . .). Hubby's boss asked me to be a part-time/temp employee and help them with their cash flow statement that needs to be done prior to the audit, and potentially other things that come up over time. I figured it was a no brainer to accept at least the cash flow stmt, while it's been 9+ yrs since I've done one, I can still remember/figure it out faster than anyone there (who has never done it, or it's been 20+ yrs) and if I don't do it, that's just one more thing adding to hubby's work-load, and we already hardly see him. I started playing with it last night, need to go talk to people to get numbers next week, and such, but don't think it will be too bad.
  
• Little Bit has discovered "toys", She loves to lay on her playmat & watch the toys "dancing" on the arch above her (w/o really meaning to, I laid her on the mat in a position where she could kick the arch, making everything jiggle, so that makes it much more fun than just staring at stationary toys, now I make sure to lay her like that). She kicks & giggles & grins, it's too cute (must get video of it!) She also enjoys watching the blinky lights on her bouncy seat & swing, though her favorite "entertainment" is still having her big sisters talk to her.
• As yet another evidence of "every baby's different" Little Bit does NOT like having too much fabric on her in the sling. She hates the newborn nursing carry in a wrap, so I end up using a ringsling (or rebozo) alot of the time because she prefers that for nursing. She also wants her feet out in whatever carrier I'm using. In constrast, even at age 4, the big girls liked to cuddle down into a carrier as much as they possibly could. I can remember when L was around 3, I took some fabric that was still 45" wide (was planning to cut it down to wrap-width, but hadn't yet) & used it for a back carry. She was literally "giddy" at being able to pull it up all the way over her head and cuddle down inside it LOL.
• We finally tried letting one of the big girls (A) wear Little Bit in a sling. Found that the wraps they got for their birthday are just a tad too short for the carry I want them to use at this age (should work well for hip & back carries when she's older though) so we used my storch instead. Little Bit wasn't sure about it at first, but A took her outside and walked around the yard and talked to her & she was happy as a clam. L has been begging for her turn but I think the walking outside is a key element & it's been raining ever since. I took pictures so will post those once I get them off the camera.
• I've discovered that if Little Bit is overtired & won't nurse, the solution is to put her in a carrier and start working in the kitchen, she cries for a couple minutes & then falls right to sleep, generally mid-cry which is just wierd . . . because it's an instanteous deep sleep.

No doubt there are things I'm forgetting, but that's at least an attempt at getting caught up.

Book Review: Dahveed, Yaweh's Chosen

My mom gave me Dahveed, Yaweh's Chosen by Terri Fivash for Mother's Day. I LOVE Terri Fivash's biblical novels, so it's no surprise that I loved this one too. Funny how, despite claiming to have no time to read, needing to sleep when the baby sleeps, etc, I somehow found time to read this rather large novel. It's the first in a series, this follows the life of David (as in David & Goliath) from childhood until soon after he kills Goliath, now I'm anxiously awaiting the next one LOL.

It's a biblical novel, which means it's based on the Bible story/character, but becuase the Bible doesn't give us a complete biography of most people, the author then adds fictional details to "fill in the blanks" and make it a complete story. I won't go into the details of this story (in case you want to read it for yourself), it certainly points out how little I know/understand about the worldview (for lack of a better word) at that time & place.

Anyway, AWESOME book! (so are Joseph and Ruth & Boaz)