Brittany is quitting home school. She isn't quitting per say, she is going to take her test for the GED and move on with her life. When she first told me, I was disappointed and pissed, I felt like she was selling herself short. Colleges and employers don't look at GEDs the same way they used to since home schooling has become more prevalent. Is she really selling herself short? So what if she wants to be a housewife for the rest of her life and raise her babies at home? What the hell is wrong with that? Who says that she won't be able to create some fabulous job for herself. The girl is nothing if not creative. I can't function as a WOHM, I have to be home with my kids or I get a little batty. I think *I* suffer from separation anxiety.
When I started home schooling her I wanted her to grow up to be an independent thinker and do whatever she wanted to do. lol I got that in SPADES! When she told me she wanted to get her GED I thought I failed her, that I failed at home schooling her. In reality, she is a true home schooling success. It took a conversation with my mom (who originally was very worried about us home schooling) to see that.
As a little update, Brittany found an online high school where she could take a test and if she passed they would give her a high school diploma. We checked them out, they are accredited. She has already passed their test and did quite well on it.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Elimination Communication (EC)
Elimination Communication sounds like something that would require years of training right? lol Basically, it means learning your baby's cues that tell you when he or she is going to go potty or teaching your baby cues when to go potty. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy right? How could my infant possible know when they are going to go potty? Talk to someone who has done this and they will enthusiastically tell you about the moment when they made this connection with their child.
There are some people who sit their baby on their choice of potty many, many times a day. I applaud them, however, having 5 kids and being in school, I don't have that kind of time. I take a more relaxed approach to ECing. Whenever I change my baby's diaper I put him on the potty for a few minutes. I started this with Thalea, my 4th daughter, when she was about 2 months old and she was out of diapers during the day by the time she was 18 months old. In the last few months that she was in diapers, she wasn't using nearly as many as a toddler who hadn't been EC'd.
We started with my son, Thales, much earlier since we already had the potty and the theory. He's done fairly well so far, we've caught quite a few pees and poops. He started rejecting the potty a few weeks ago, so we have taken a little break, but will be starting again.
The way that I look at it is - every pee or poop that we catch in his little potty is another diaper that I don't have to wash. ;-)
There are some people who sit their baby on their choice of potty many, many times a day. I applaud them, however, having 5 kids and being in school, I don't have that kind of time. I take a more relaxed approach to ECing. Whenever I change my baby's diaper I put him on the potty for a few minutes. I started this with Thalea, my 4th daughter, when she was about 2 months old and she was out of diapers during the day by the time she was 18 months old. In the last few months that she was in diapers, she wasn't using nearly as many as a toddler who hadn't been EC'd.
We started with my son, Thales, much earlier since we already had the potty and the theory. He's done fairly well so far, we've caught quite a few pees and poops. He started rejecting the potty a few weeks ago, so we have taken a little break, but will be starting again.
The way that I look at it is - every pee or poop that we catch in his little potty is another diaper that I don't have to wash. ;-)
Sunday, August 15, 2010
So much to do, so little time.
Here is my first real post here. lol I got all my old posts moved over, that was a total PITA, but it's done.
My boy is 3 months old and is over 16lbs. He still nurses all the time, he will space those out eventually right? lol He does every once in a while, but usually it's still pretty frequent. We've been testing the EC waters with him and caught our first poop the other day! Yay!! Breastfeeding is going SO much better now, have a lot to write about that.
Haven't been able to do a lot of studying yet, the boy just won't let me. ;-) He's pretty cute and he's growing so fast, so it's ok that he's taking up so much of my time. I do sneak in a little here and there.
Still working on my Special Scars article and presentation, have lots more work to do though. Started a website for that purpose, but it's still under construction.
There's more but it's just boring day to day life stuff. ;-) Will be posting more soon!
My boy is 3 months old and is over 16lbs. He still nurses all the time, he will space those out eventually right? lol He does every once in a while, but usually it's still pretty frequent. We've been testing the EC waters with him and caught our first poop the other day! Yay!! Breastfeeding is going SO much better now, have a lot to write about that.
Haven't been able to do a lot of studying yet, the boy just won't let me. ;-) He's pretty cute and he's growing so fast, so it's ok that he's taking up so much of my time. I do sneak in a little here and there.
Still working on my Special Scars article and presentation, have lots more work to do though. Started a website for that purpose, but it's still under construction.
There's more but it's just boring day to day life stuff. ;-) Will be posting more soon!
My son is 8 wks old :-)
This was originally posted on my old blog on July 9, 2010.
I'm such a dork when it comes to this blog. lol I fail at Twitter too. ;-)
I posted a while back that I was almost 40 wks and then didn't post anything else. My son was born May 11th at 2:24pm, his story is here - http://www.jessicas-haven.com/pgnb/thales-birthstory.htm. He's so beautiful. :-)
We've had our share of breastfeeding problems, mostly latch issues. He's really run me through the gamut. :-/ He's really lucky that I like him and that I really want to breastfeed him. ;-) It would have been really easy to give up a few times, I nearly did.
There is a lot on my mind that I'd like to post about, but can't sort it all out enough to make a post that actually makes sense. lol
I'm such a dork when it comes to this blog. lol I fail at Twitter too. ;-)
I posted a while back that I was almost 40 wks and then didn't post anything else. My son was born May 11th at 2:24pm, his story is here - http://www.jessicas-haven.com/pgnb/thales-birthstory.htm. He's so beautiful. :-)
We've had our share of breastfeeding problems, mostly latch issues. He's really run me through the gamut. :-/ He's really lucky that I like him and that I really want to breastfeed him. ;-) It would have been really easy to give up a few times, I nearly did.
There is a lot on my mind that I'd like to post about, but can't sort it all out enough to make a post that actually makes sense. lol
Respect for OBs...
This was originally posted on my old blog on May 5, 2010.
I'm sure you are all familiar with the brain fog that coincides with the last few weeks of pregnancy and how exciting it is when it lifts even if only for a few minutes. :-) I had one of those moments this morning while responding to a post on BBC forums and I wanted to share.
The title of the post was "New respect for my OB". (Oh come on, you knew I'd have to respond to THAT.) The poster just had her 36 wk appt and her OB was talking about the 5 successful VBACs he had the previous week. Good for him, I'm glad he does them. He went on to tell her that he has to be immediately available for VBACs and exactly what that meant (that he be in the hospital the entire time the patient is in labor in the hospital). He went on to tell her that he lost $3000 because he had to cancel 2 days of appointments because of all these VBACs. "And he just does it because it's the right thing to do. He did say that its getting to the point where he is going to have to limit the number of VBACs that he accepts because its just too much and he doesn't want his wife getting out the divorce papers." She went on to say that she's sooooo happy to have found such a good doc and suggested that ins cos should provide incentives to docs who do VBACs, etc. All the responses that she got were yay, cool, good for you, etc.
Here's what I posted:
"Immediately available is an ACOG rule, which many hospitals/OBs use as an excuse to have VBAC bans. I think it was bad form, however, for him to try to elicit sympathy from you by telling you how much money he lost last week by having "so" many VBACs. If ACOG would encourage OBs to lower the primary c-section rate they wouldn't have so many VBACs to worry about.
And finally, I can understand the wife of an OB getting frustrated because of the amount of time that he spends away from the family, but that is his freaking job. If he already was an OB when they got married, she knew before she married him. If he decided to go to school while they were married, I'm sure they had many discussions about his future schedule. As a student midwife, I've already had many conversations with my husband about the fact that I might be gone for days at a time, might have to leave in the middle of sex, dinner, birthday parties, we might have to drive separately if we are going somewhere and I have a mom that's due. It's part of the job and you have to prepare yourself and your family for it. If you don't it's your own damn fault and if you do and then they get resentful either they didn't fully understand or they don't get the importance of what you're doing.
Sorry - overdue and getting pissy here. I just get tired of the OBs "Oh poor me" attitude because of what their trade union (ACOG) makes them do. If they don't like it they should leave the union or fight for changes in policy. *sigh*"
I'm sure you are all familiar with the brain fog that coincides with the last few weeks of pregnancy and how exciting it is when it lifts even if only for a few minutes. :-) I had one of those moments this morning while responding to a post on BBC forums and I wanted to share.
The title of the post was "New respect for my OB". (Oh come on, you knew I'd have to respond to THAT.) The poster just had her 36 wk appt and her OB was talking about the 5 successful VBACs he had the previous week. Good for him, I'm glad he does them. He went on to tell her that he has to be immediately available for VBACs and exactly what that meant (that he be in the hospital the entire time the patient is in labor in the hospital). He went on to tell her that he lost $3000 because he had to cancel 2 days of appointments because of all these VBACs. "And he just does it because it's the right thing to do. He did say that its getting to the point where he is going to have to limit the number of VBACs that he accepts because its just too much and he doesn't want his wife getting out the divorce papers." She went on to say that she's sooooo happy to have found such a good doc and suggested that ins cos should provide incentives to docs who do VBACs, etc. All the responses that she got were yay, cool, good for you, etc.
Here's what I posted:
"Immediately available is an ACOG rule, which many hospitals/OBs use as an excuse to have VBAC bans. I think it was bad form, however, for him to try to elicit sympathy from you by telling you how much money he lost last week by having "so" many VBACs. If ACOG would encourage OBs to lower the primary c-section rate they wouldn't have so many VBACs to worry about.
And finally, I can understand the wife of an OB getting frustrated because of the amount of time that he spends away from the family, but that is his freaking job. If he already was an OB when they got married, she knew before she married him. If he decided to go to school while they were married, I'm sure they had many discussions about his future schedule. As a student midwife, I've already had many conversations with my husband about the fact that I might be gone for days at a time, might have to leave in the middle of sex, dinner, birthday parties, we might have to drive separately if we are going somewhere and I have a mom that's due. It's part of the job and you have to prepare yourself and your family for it. If you don't it's your own damn fault and if you do and then they get resentful either they didn't fully understand or they don't get the importance of what you're doing.
Sorry - overdue and getting pissy here. I just get tired of the OBs "Oh poor me" attitude because of what their trade union (ACOG) makes them do. If they don't like it they should leave the union or fight for changes in policy. *sigh*"
Cesarean Awareness Month gift
This was originally posted on my old blog on April 29, 2010
I almost forgot to post this here:
In honor of Cesarean Awareness Month my gift to all of you is the NIH VBAC New Insights Conference 2010 videos split up by session so they won't crash your computer. Enjoy and share freely!
http://birthaftercesarean.com/Home/NIHVBACNewInsightsConference2010/tabid/277/Default.aspx
I almost forgot to post this here:
In honor of Cesarean Awareness Month my gift to all of you is the NIH VBAC New Insights Conference 2010 videos split up by session so they won't crash your computer. Enjoy and share freely!
http://birthaftercesarean.com/Home/NIHVBACNewInsightsConference2010/tabid/277/Default.aspx
Almost 40 wk Update
This was originally posted on my old blog on April 29, 2010.
I'll be 40 wks tomorrow. Can't say yet if anything exciting is going to happen or not. Doubt it given my history, but this little boy acts like he's going to be doing things his own way. I just hope that my pelvis doesn't start hurting anymore than it does right now. Feels pretty good at the moment so...
Student Midwife update: I'm on hiatus at the moment. I did finish Phase 2 and had sort of started Phase 3 before I started this hiatus. I'm still working through the Midwifery Explorations class, would have liked to have finished it before the baby came, but diapers are a little more important. lol
The diapers, well that has been a long project that started over a year ago. When I was pregnant with my nearly 3yo I had bought 36 Bum Genius (BG) cloth diapers, 12 pink, 12 white, 6 yellow and 6 green. I love them, they make cloth diapering so easy! However, after nearly 2 years of use I noticed the elastic in the legs wasn't as snappy as it used to be. Being the crafty do-it-yourselfer that I am, I took one diaper apart to see how hard it would be to change that elastic. It was fairly easy, just take out one seam and the old elastic, put in new elastic (guessing how long that should be was kind of tricky) and sew the seam back up. So, winter before last I replaced the elastic in maybe two-thirds of the diapers. My daughter was only using them about half time so I didn't really *have* to fix them all. I got pregnant again last fall and new I would have to finish fixing the rest of the diapers. I heard that you could get the new BG diapers with snaps rather than velcro and was a little jealous. The only thing I don't like about my BGs is the velcro, it's just a pain in a variety of ways. I had just bought a snap press last year for some other sewing projects.
Then I found out I was having a boy. No way! Me? A boy!? Are you sure?? lol I looked at my diapers and knew I had a lot of work to do. I ordered some fabric dye, which was tricky trying to find the right dye that would stick to a synthetic material. So now, I knew that I had to finish replacing the elastic in the legs, dye at least the pink diapers, AND take all the velcro off and put snaps in. :-) At this point, I've finished replacing all of the elastic, the last four diapers that needed to be dyed are in the dye soaking at the moment, and I only have about 12-15 that still need snaps. I'm so proud of myself, they look really nice. I just hope that the dye really does hold. We still have plenty left so we can re-dye if necessary, but I'd rather not have to do that on a frequent basis.
That's where I am for now.
P.S. A little note, there are some people that comment on my blog Anonymously, can you at least put your first name in your comment so I have some idea who you are?? lol It's bugging me that someone is talking to me and I have no clue who it is.
I'll be 40 wks tomorrow. Can't say yet if anything exciting is going to happen or not. Doubt it given my history, but this little boy acts like he's going to be doing things his own way. I just hope that my pelvis doesn't start hurting anymore than it does right now. Feels pretty good at the moment so...
Student Midwife update: I'm on hiatus at the moment. I did finish Phase 2 and had sort of started Phase 3 before I started this hiatus. I'm still working through the Midwifery Explorations class, would have liked to have finished it before the baby came, but diapers are a little more important. lol
The diapers, well that has been a long project that started over a year ago. When I was pregnant with my nearly 3yo I had bought 36 Bum Genius (BG) cloth diapers, 12 pink, 12 white, 6 yellow and 6 green. I love them, they make cloth diapering so easy! However, after nearly 2 years of use I noticed the elastic in the legs wasn't as snappy as it used to be. Being the crafty do-it-yourselfer that I am, I took one diaper apart to see how hard it would be to change that elastic. It was fairly easy, just take out one seam and the old elastic, put in new elastic (guessing how long that should be was kind of tricky) and sew the seam back up. So, winter before last I replaced the elastic in maybe two-thirds of the diapers. My daughter was only using them about half time so I didn't really *have* to fix them all. I got pregnant again last fall and new I would have to finish fixing the rest of the diapers. I heard that you could get the new BG diapers with snaps rather than velcro and was a little jealous. The only thing I don't like about my BGs is the velcro, it's just a pain in a variety of ways. I had just bought a snap press last year for some other sewing projects.
Then I found out I was having a boy. No way! Me? A boy!? Are you sure?? lol I looked at my diapers and knew I had a lot of work to do. I ordered some fabric dye, which was tricky trying to find the right dye that would stick to a synthetic material. So now, I knew that I had to finish replacing the elastic in the legs, dye at least the pink diapers, AND take all the velcro off and put snaps in. :-) At this point, I've finished replacing all of the elastic, the last four diapers that needed to be dyed are in the dye soaking at the moment, and I only have about 12-15 that still need snaps. I'm so proud of myself, they look really nice. I just hope that the dye really does hold. We still have plenty left so we can re-dye if necessary, but I'd rather not have to do that on a frequent basis.
That's where I am for now.
P.S. A little note, there are some people that comment on my blog Anonymously, can you at least put your first name in your comment so I have some idea who you are?? lol It's bugging me that someone is talking to me and I have no clue who it is.
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