Ideas

I have had so many new ideas on my mind lately! I feel like I really need to sort all this stuff out and write it all down!

*The Raw Food Diet
I've looked into this diet before, about a year ago, and I was pretty interested in it. It's all about only eating fresh fruits, veggies and nuts. Seems a little crazy and I've never wanted to be a vegetarian, but something about this diet seems right. My diet right now is so UNHEALTHY! I'm a sugar addict. I love soda! I never/rarely eat fruits or veggies. Heath also needs to find a diet that works for him that we can do together. I also feel like Haven could use a better diet. I feel sad that she didn't get to breastfeed as long as I wanted her to. If we went on this diet, I think it would be so good for her. I just feel tired all the time. I also have floating anxiety. I think my poor diet contributes to these symptoms.

*Baby Led Solids
I've been reading up on Baby Led Solids (also sometimes called Baby Led Weaning) and I'm really liking the idea. The idea is to never spoon fed the baby, but give him regular food from your plate that he can pick up and eat on his own. What I'm wanting to do with Logan is 1)only start solids when he clearly is interested in trying solid foods. This means I will not push anything on him, he may just have to grab it out of my plate, lol. 2)make sure breastmilk is about 90% of his food source until he is 12 months old. I think people overdo the solids before it is healthy for the baby. I think I made this mistake with Haven, causing her to wean way too early. I am not starting solids in order to wean the baby as a lot of mothers might do because I don't want the baby to wean at 12 months -which is the norm.

*Breastfeeding for Birth Control
This idea is what led me to Baby Led Solids. I couldn't figure out why this didn't work for me with Haven. I think maybe the answer lies in the amount of solids I started giving her at 6 months old. She was eating so many solids and so little breastmilk, that she essentially began weaning at 6 months, causing my period to return! I've heard a lot about people who exclusively breastfed and yet their period returned before they ever started the baby on solids, so I'm not sure if my thinking is correct on this, but I think it's worth a retry since normal birth control methods are not for me.

*Minimalism
I've done a few things in the minimalist area lately, but their is more that I want to do. I want to minimalize my clothes again. I still have so much that I don't wear and it's just getting in the way. I also just have other random junk in general. The more I minimalize, the easier my life becomes.

*Elimination Communication with an Infant
I've been doing this with Logan and have had great results. I love the fact that he know how to poop in the potty and he rarely ever has to sit in his poop. He hates to have a wet diaper, so I change it frequently! I wish I could take it to the next level and have him do all his pees in the potty, but I'm afraid that it might mean being in the bathroom all day long! I'm still taking it easy in that regard.

*Rental Property Business
We have finally bought our 2nd rental property -a duplex. I'm pretty excited about closing on it and getting it ready to rent! Eventually, we hope that Heath can quit his job and the rental properties can be our sole income. Once we get renters in this duplex, our income from our rentals will exceed our income from Heath's job! However, we feel that we will need at least two more rentals to feel comfortable with him quiting his job.

*Exercising for the Baby Belly
I'm afraid of not losing my baby belly this time around and I need to do something about it!

Well, now my mind should be clear!

Yobaby!

I bought the Yobaby yogurt for Haven (Heath wasn't with me when I went shopping, lol). I got the 6 pack with vanilla and banana flavors. I mixed the banana with rice cereal and she liked it pretty well. It took three meals to use the whole 4 oz. Tonight, I decided to just feed her the vanilla without mixing it with the cereal. She LOVED it! I decided to taste it to see what the big deal was -it tasted like icing! LOL! She ate almost the whole 4 oz. I finished off the rest. It was delicious. The nutrition facts says it has 13 g of sugar including natural milk sugar. Seems like a lot for a baby. I will probably mix it with cereal from now on.

Embryo Adoption

Wow, I never thought I'd really be thinking seriously about something like this! I remember hearing about Snowflakes on Christian radio 5 or 6 years ago. Of course, I probably hadn't even met my husband yet so I really didn't think about it at all. In fact, yesterday was the first time it came back into my mind. I was talking to my oldest sister on the phone and she suggested that I might adopt an embryo with a negative blood type.

For those of you that don't know, I have Rh disease, which means that if I carry a baby with a positive blood type, antibodies in my blood may attack the baby's blood. My body created the antibodies during the 3rd trimester of my first (and only) baby. I had refused the Rhogam shot at 28 weeks and had planed to get it after the baby was born. If you have negative blood, get the shot at 28 weeks, the alternative is very difficult if you get antibodies like I did.

Right now we do not know if my husband has positive/positive blood or positive/negative blood. If the former is the case, we will never have a child with negative blood. If the latter is the case, we have 50% chance that each of our children will have negative blood.

As for now we have decided to try to have another child -praying for a good outcome! I still fear the worst, although I know I should give it to God. He is the one who opens and closes the womb. He is the one who knew I would have antibodies. He is the one who kept Haven safe from them while she was inside me.

I keep going back the the option of adoption. I've always wanted to adopt, since I was a teenager. I never imagined I might HAVE to adopt to have more children. I wanted to choose adoption just because I wanted to adopt.

From what I've learned about embryo adoption, I think it's amazing. You get to carry the child, give birth to the child, breastfeed the child... I was just curious if they would even let me into the program since I do have Rh disease and the embryo MUST have negative blood. So I sent them this question:

Hi, I have a D antibody that could cause harm to any child I carry that has a positive blood type. However, if I carry a child with a negative blood type, it will be a normal pregnancy. I was wondering if you work with women like me who would like to adopt an embryo with a negative blood type. (If both the parents have a negative blood type, the child will certainly have a negative blood type.) My husband and I are going to try to have another child on our own (we have one child already), but if the outcome is bad, we are thinking about adoption. A friend of mine just pointed out that I could possibly adopt an embryo with a negative blood type and I would be able to carry it myself and breastfeed it and have all those wonderful new baby experiences. Please let me know if you think this is even possible. Thank You, Summer

This is the response I received:

Hi Summer,
Thank you for contacting us. From the information that you have provided us, I see no reason why you would not be an eligible candidate for our Snowflakes Program. Our only requirement would be that your doctor provides a letter stating that you have no contraindications to pregnancy. I have attached our information packet for you to review if you would like. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
We wish you the best on your next pregnancy and hope that everything goes smoothly. In the future, if you do decide you are ready to adopt, we would be pleased to work with you.
Warmly,
Sierra

I am really excited to have this option and I plan on learning as much about it as I can. These embryos are frozen in time, waiting for life. Their parents have decided not to have more children. I think it's an amazing program. What do you think?

BumGenius Diaper Giveaway!

Go here:
http://www.clothdiaperblog.com/feed-your-stash-friday-3-bg-os-baby-legs/#comment-11824

comment and you could win 3 BumGenius 3.0s and baby leg warmers!

Here's Havey in her blue BG

Here she is in her pink ones!

Diaper washing

I just put the diapers in the wash and there were 25 used diapers. That means over the past 6 days, Haven has used an average of 4 diapers a day. That's about half of what she used to wear.
plus I used to have to wash diapers every other day. This is great!

Another Dry Spell

No, I'm not talking about the weather.

August 5 misses: 0
August 6 misses: 4
August 7 misses: 0 (so far)

This includes night time. She hasn't peed in bed in 3 nights.

Let the Misses Commence!

We had 3 misses within an hour (or maybe a half hour) while I was washing the dishes. Discouraging, but it was bound to happen. They were easily wiped up off our laminate floor. Actually, it was way easier than changing a diaper...

Haven was giving me vocal signs with 2 of the 3 misses. I took her to the potty, but she was arching and whining. I must be more persistent in the future.

Amazing.

We are still on our accident free 2 day streak (well, it hasn't been exactly 2 days yet...). Very exciting.

Can you believe this?

0 accidents! All day long!

Diaper Free? Isn't that gross?

Today, Haven has not had an accident (it's 12:47 pm). She has used the potty 6 times already today!

This morning I had an "aha moment." I've been reading http://www.tribalbaby.org/ and she is so inspiring! She talks a lot about "part-time diaper free." I have been very skeptical of diaper free. The first time I ever heard of diaper free was about 5 or 10 years ago when I saw a special about it on the news. My reaction was "That is so gross! I would never let my baby pee all over everything like that!" Of course, I didn't have a baby, or even a husband, at the time.

Starting Infant Potty Training was not planned at all for me.
Haven was about 4 and a half months old when I was about to put her in the bathtub. On the way, she pooped on the floor -right next to the potty! I thought, "She could have pooped in the potty..." And that's how it started. You can imagine my shock when, after only setting her on the potty about 3 or 4 times, she actually peed in the potty! I was hooked!

However, I did not want to try diaper free. I was so scared of my baby peeing all over everything! For 3 months I just took off her cloth diaper to potty her and put it back on when she was done. This became an annoying task, especially when she would refuse to go. Then there was the problem of misses. I wanted to change the misses as soon as possible so that she wouldn't get used to being wet. I was getting sick of diaper on-diaper off-diaper on-diaper off!

Suddenly, I thought, "Hey, she could go diaper free while I wash dishes or cook. She would be in the kitchen and any misses could be quickly wiped away. Taking her potty would be a cinch, since there would be no diaper to mess with." So I tried it this morning and I couldn't have asked for better results. Thank you, part-time diaper free!

Misses

I just got done putting the diapers in the wash and we've had 27 misses in 3 days. That's an average of 9 misses a day. Most websites say that a 6 month old wets 6-8 times a day. She's obviously wetting more than that. The website that had the highest number of wets for a baby said 12-15 times per day. If Haven is wetting 15 times per day (which is very likely), then we are catching about 6 wets per day. That's not half, but that's pretty good. I guess I should start counting the catches. I'm good at counting the poopy catches. We've had 2 today. Those are the ones that matter the most anyway.

UPDATE 7: Training up a child

Baby's condition: Fussy
Put her in crib: 11:53 am
Head raises: 3
Kicks: about 25
Baby's reaction: whining and crying
Asleep: 12:01 pm

UPDATE6: Training up a child

In the middle of the night last night I put Haven in the bed with me to nurse. She nursed for a while then she started patting me with her hand. I read yesterday that that could be a sign that she needs to potty. I took her potty, but she had already used her diaper. I took her and laid her in her crib and said, "Go night, night." I only had to lay her head down once at first (my memory of this is hazy). I had to stop her kicking several times, then she tried raising her head a few more times. Finally I was satisfied she wasn't going to try to move anymore. The light was out so I could see if her eyes were closed. I don't know what time it was because I didn't have my glasses on. I laid down in my bed (which is right next to her crib) and waited to see what she would do. I couldn't go to sleep. She was tossing and turning a bit. Finally, after about 5 minutes, I bent over her crib to see what she was doing -she was looking right at me, lol! So, I picked her up and put her in bed with me... I couldn't resist.

I would call it a success because she didn't get up or cry, even though she was still awake.

UPDATE 5: Training up a child

Condition of baby: extremely sleepy
Put baby in crib: 10:46 pm
Number of head lifts: 2
Number of kicks: 7
Baby was asleep: 10:49 pm

UPDATE 4: Training up a child

Very Hard Session!

It was 4:23 pm when I laid her down for a nap, she was obviously very sleepy. She only tried to raise her head about 5 times. However, she started kicking her legs. I knew this was going to keep her from going to sleep, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it. First I thought, maybe she needs to potty. Kicking can be a sign that the baby needs to go. So set her on the potty, but she did not go. I took her back to bed and started over. The kicking started up again. I decided to treat it just like her raising her head. Everytime she kicked, I stopped her legs from kicking and said, "NO, no. Go night, night." It was just as hard for her to give up the kicking as it had been hard for her to stop raising her head the first time I trained her. She didn't give the kicking until 4:45. She was asleep by 4:47. I stayed by her crib until 4:50 just to make sure she was really asleep. If you subtract 5 minutes for the potty break, this session took about 17 minutes. That stinks.

UPDATE 3: Training up a child

AMAZING SUCCESS!

Haven was very sleepy so I took her to her crib at 1:19 pm. I said "Go night, night" and gently pushed her head down and said, "No, no. Go night, night" every time she lifted it up. Haven stopped trying to raise her head in 2 minutes and was asleep 1 minute later!

This is 1000000 times better than the crying it out method! I like it because I am right there with my baby, comforting her by little pats on the back and laying my hand lightly on her noggin. I'm letting her know that I want her to go to sleep, instead of being far away in another room hoping that she will finally get the idea, stop crying and go to sleep. I have to admit, I have tried crying it out 2 times before and it broke my heart to hear her crying. It sounded like a cry of "mommy, why did you leave me all alone? I need you!" The crying (mostly just whining) she does with this new method is more like "mommy, I don't want to lay my head down and go to sleep. Let me get up and play!" That's a cry that I can deal with.

UPDATE 2: Training up a child

Another 8 minute success at 1:15 pm today! Boy, do those 8 minutes seem like an eternity! I'm thinking, "She's never going to give up!" But she does and sooner than I expect.

I've been reading what people think about traditional discipline online and it's quite sickening. Some parents say, "I never make demands of my children, I simply ask them to do something and if they say 'Do I have to?' I say 'no.'" THAT IS INSANE! Imagine this scenario:

Child is standing in the street when parent sees the child is in danger.
PARENT: Johnny will you please get out of the road?
CHILD: Do I have to?
PARENT: No, but what if a car comes and you get hit?
CHILD: I don't see any cars.
PARENT: If a car comes you will get hit by it. Do you want to get hit by a car?
The child thinks for a minute. The child is too immature to understand the consequences of being hit by a car.
CHILD: Yes.
Parent sees a car approaching.
PARENT: You have to get out of the road, there is a car coming!
CHILD: NO! I don't want to!
Parent grabs child. Child becomes limp and begins throwing a fit. Parent drags screaming child out of the road just in time.

How could that parent FORCE their child to do something?!?!? How cruel to break that little spirit!! How cruelly authoritarian of that overly traditional parent!!

You get my point.

I think I may know the cause of all this.
1. People want to do what they want to do.
2. People know that God made laws for them to obey.
3. People decided that God's laws do not matter.
4. People decided they are better off without God's laws.
5. People decided that obedience to laws (commands) is a weakness.
6. People do not want to make their children weak by forcing obedience onto their children.
RESULT
1. People suffer because they break God's laws (example: the adulterer losses his family's trust, the fornicator losses his purity and gets sexual diseases)
2. Children suffer (become spoiled brats) because their parents refuse to make them obey.
3. Parents finally must force obedience in desperate situations.

UPDATE: Training up a child

Heath and I are now proud parents to almost 7 month old Haven Norah. She has been the best baby I could have hoped for. Such a sweetie. Most of my days are consumed with feeding her, diapering her, training her, and loving her. I can't imagine my life without her. Getting her here was quite a journey, which I'm sure you'll hear about later.

As a parent, I am determined to have well-behaved, obedient children. I don't think that is too much to ask. I think, if I expect unruly children, that is what I will get! I am aiming much higher.

I mentioned "training" Haven and that may sound strange to most. How do you train a 7 month old baby? Well, I'm still working it out myself, but I will share what I have learned:

According to the Bible, a child must be trained. I have been quite worried about this in the past because, I had no idea how to "train up a child in the way he should go." I was sure to fail with no plan. I mean, I did have a plan kind of.... I knew that I would spank my kids if they disobeyed me. But that didn't give me peace. There must be more to know. I finally found a website
( http://www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com/ ) written by the mother of 10 children that explains how to train children. It was such a revelation and relief to find!

She starts with the very basics - from day 1. This is just my paraphrasing:

0-about 6 months: Love, hold, cuddle, comfort your baby. No need to train, just make them feel secure and loved. Plus, you are still recovering from delivery and probably have no time to think about training.

About 6 - 12 months: Start teaching your baby the meaning of the word "no." It is time to start teaching your baby that you are the authority that must be obeyed. It is kinder to teach them now, rather than wait until they are older and more independent and resistant. This isn't full-time training, just a time to basically teach that when you say "no" they will not get their own way. In my opinion, there should be no painful spanking in this stage. Ultimately, according to the author, if you begin training early and consistently without painful spanking, you will rarely have to spank in the future.

This is about how all I have committed to memory, since Haven is still 7 months old. Let me share what I have done so far.

July28, 2009
11:15 am Haven was sleepy so I put her lying on her stomach in her crib. She lifted her head and I gently pushed it back down and said "No, no. Go night, night." After about 5 repeats of this, she started whining. after about 5 more repeats, she started crying. After about 10 more repeats she started sucking her thumb. After that, she only lifted her head about 5 more times before going to sleep. This whole process took about 15 minutes (although it SEEMED much longer to me!). I was so amazed and excited! Can you imagine? Your child is only 7 months old and you've already won your first battle of wills in just 15 minutes? (By the way, I do not HOLD the baby's head down. I want her to choose to keep it down on her own.)

11:30 pm Haven was sleepy so I laid her on her stomach in her crib. She lifted her head and I gently pushed it back down and said "No, no. Go night, night." There was barely a whimper of protest this time. She continued to try to raise her head for about 5 to 8 minutes before falling asleep. Another success!

July 29, 2009
11:30 am Haven was kind of fussy and I thought she might be sleepy so I laid her on her stomach in her crib. She lifted her head and I gently pushed it back down and said "No, no. Go night, night." She begin to fuss and continued to lift her head for about 5 minutes. Then she became calmer and I thought she was about to doze off. However, she suddenly begin crying more loudly than before and lifting her head more often. (I believe in psychology this is called spontaneous recovery.) This continued for about 15 more minutes, when I had to go finish Heath's Lunch. I was pretty upset that I had to stop the training before she went to sleep, since consistency is the key here. But I did wait until there was a pause in her crying before picking her up and putting her on the living room floor.

1:00 pm Haven was tired and sleepy so I laid her on her stomach in her crib. She lifted her head and I gently pushed it back down and said "No, no. Go night, night." She resisted MUCH less than before and was asleep in about 8 minutes. Progress!

The only other area that I am currently training Haven in is associated to her IPT (infant potty training). I have been noticing for a few weeks that she has become resistant to being held over the potty and arches her back a lot. Since learning more about child training I have started saying "No" and putting her back over the potty whenever she arches her back.

She's been really good about using the potty. She usually uses it about... 4 to 10 times a day. I NEVER get upset if she uses her diaper (maybe a bit discouraged, if she does it all day long), becuase I don't expect her to know how to hold it yet. I just praise her everytime she uses the potty instead of her diaper. People seem shocked when they find out I take her to the potty, but why not? I believe that children can learn things very early and I don't plan to wait around and let her "learn" that the diaper is the only place to go potty. In the same way, I don't want her to "learn" that she can do whatever she wants all the time and no one will ever make her do anything she doesn't want to do.

I will try to keep posting about this, mainly so I can look back to see what works and what doesn't.

~Summer

Update

We finally closed on the house! We have started painting it - just priming right now. We plan to paint the entire house a light tan or beige. Our next project is carpet and laminate.

Over a week ago, I went to the health department and they told me I was 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. She said I should have the baby by new years. Last night I had contractions for over 2 hours. They were between 3 and 7 minutes apart. They weren't painful though. It just felt like a gradual tightening... squeezing... hard to breath. However, after I woke Heath up and told him I thought I was in labor, they stopped. (His response -"no, you're not" how did he know?) I'm still a little nervous, but I want to have the baby before monday so I don't have to have that beta strep test done.

I had a great christmas and got everything I wanted, including 2 nursing bras, underwear and socks. It seems so silly that I don't just buy these things for myself when I need them - it's just so hard to buy new things when you know you could make due with the underwear and socks you have been wearing for the past 7 years. Are we too cheap? I seriously still wear underwear I bought before I met Heath (almost 6 years ago).

The sweetest thing Heath has said about the baby:
Me: I wonder what she looks like....
Heath: I'm sure she's beautiful.