Categories Parenting

Baby Hacks: Tummy Time and Cloth Diapering

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We all know by now that the only thing better than sustained tummy time is frequent tummy time. But who has time and energy for that?

It’s enough work to feed (breastfeeding and pumping and bottle warming, oh my!) and diaper (change, rinse, wash, no-time-to-fold, and repeat) and clothe (spit-up, blow-outs, and big-sister-drool) your baby without having to remember to put baby on the floor on his tummy multiple times a day (supervised – don’t forget that tummy time should ALWAYS be supervised [Sarcasm alert].)

But you can’t do tummy time when baby is hungry (read: half of the day) because then by the time you get around to feeding he’ll be too frustrated to latch well. And you can’t do tummy time right after feeding (read: the other half of the day) because then he’ll spit up everything you just fed him (anyone else need to keep their babies upright practically until the next feeding to avoid the dreaded mouth-nose-gasping-for-air-and-crying-like-he’s-dying-whenever-he-does-get-a-breath-spit-up?)

Getting frequent tummy time in is almost impossible.

Or is it?

Our solution is to turn unavoidable “can’t be on mama” time into tummy time.

Louis "enjoying" tummy time

I use a washable throw rug in our bathroom (actually, it’s two vintage bath towels sewn together to double thickness). After diapering, when I’m rinsing those cloth diapers, I lay Louis on the rug with a clean burp rag under his head.

Voila.

At least 4 or 5 (if not 8 or 9) little tummy times every day.

Categories Pregnancy

Skydiving, C-sections, and Control

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A little over five years ago, I jumped out of an airplane.

It’s never been something I particularly wanted to do – adrenaline is not my thing. But a couple of friends (who didn’t know each other but both knew me) wanted to go – and one of them had scheduled a dive. So I signed up too – and brought my other friend along.

Preparing to jump

I was nervous leading up to it, but I wasn’t scared. We’d be diving tandem – hooked to an instructor who would do all the hard work. We could just relax and enjoy the ride. Which is exactly what I did.

A little over a month ago, I had a repeat c-section.

It’s never been something I particularly wanted to do – in fact, I did everything in my power to avoid it. I exercised faithfully, I ate like an angel, I took a baby aspirin. When Louis wasn’t in position, I contorted myself into funny positions in an effort to get him head down. When that didn’t work, I had our maternal-fetal specialist do an external version – trying to manually reposition Louis using his hands on the outside of my belly. When that didn’t work, I had no choice.

We scheduled a c-section for 3:30.

I wasn’t particularly nervous, or particularly scared. I’d done this before and made it already.

But then the spinal anesthesia took effect and the anesthesiologist asked me to wiggle my toes and lift my legs.

I couldn’t.

It was exactly what was supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to be in control of my lower body. If I were, I would be able to feel as they cut into my abdomen and lifted my baby out. I knew that.

But that didn’t keep me from freaking out.

I had lost control.

As I told my skydiving story, I wrote of the one fearful moment – the moment when my instructor loosened the straps between us so I wasn’t in direct contact with his body.

“He told me he would be loosening the connections that held us. I’d drop a bit lower, so inches would separate our bodies.

Now, here, I felt a glimmer of fear. I knew it would be safe, I knew I’d still be attached. But it wouldn’t be the same. Once he’d lowered me, I wouldn’t be able to feel his presence. Would I be able to make it without that sure sensory feedback reminding me that I was safe?

I would choose to trust, I told myself–and so I did.”

I had the same choice to make when my legs no longer followed my commands.

I wasn’t in control, didn’t have the sensory feedback telling me that my body was there, that my baby was there. I had to choose to trust that God was there and that my body still obeyed His commands.

I repeated the affirmation over and over in my head as I willfully relaxed the muscles I could feel:

“I and my baby are fearfully and wonderfully made.
God sees us and knows us.”

I’d chosen my relaxation phrases carefully, wanting to fix my mind on unchanging truth rather than fickle probabilities.

No “I trust my body” or “My body knows how to birth” for me. I knew that my body could fail. I knew that, while most bodies know how to birth, not all do.

I had determined beforehand to fix my trust in God instead of in my body.

But when I couldn’t control my legs?

I had to determine it all again.

My first glimpse of Louis

My relaxation music, playing from the phone beside my ear, reminded me of the truth:

“Be still my soul, the Lord is at thy side
With patience bear the cross of grief or pain
Leave to thy God to order and provide
Through every change He faithful will remain
Be still my soul, thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways, leads to a joyful end.”

I chose to trust when I lost control – and God was more than capable to guide and sustain.

I know y’all are just dying to revisit my skydiving story now – so I’ll make it easy for you. Part 1: Geared Up, Part 2: Missed Opportunities, or I’ve always wanted to fly, Part 3: The Jump, and Part 4: Safely Falling.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Milestones

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Thankful Thursday banner

It seems this week has been a milestone week. Life is resuming after the recent crazy pause. So many good changes, so many wonderful firsts.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a switch to demand feedings
Unlike Tirzah Mae, Louis did not come home from the hospital giving clear hunger cues. Instead, he seemed perfectly content to just sleep until we woke him up to eat. As a result, I maintained the hospital schedule of every 3 hour feedings. And let me tell you, scheduled feedings are exhausting. But over the last week, Louis has started giving better and better cues. This weekend, we switched to demand feedings – which gives me a lot more flexibility with my own schedule and Tirzah Mae’s.

…for 6 pounds at 6 weeks
I weighed Louis on a whim, the day before he turned 6 weeks old. Actually, I weighed Louis three times the day before he turned 6 weeks old. I couldn’t believe my eyes, which is why I kept reweighing him. Our little boy is getting big (he’s ready to move out of “preemie” sized diapers to “newborn”!)

Louis looking cute (as usual)

…for restrictions lifted
Since Louis is six weeks old now, that means I’m six weeks out from my c-section – and am officially okay to resume normal activities. Which means I can lift Tirzah Mae onto the changing table. Game changer, people.

…for meeting with small group
I haven’t met with our small group from church since we met in my hospital room the day before we had Louis. But this week, our group brought snacks and gifts and met at our house. Each member of our group has been so supportive during my hospitalization and this postpartum period – taking care of Tirzah Mae, bringing meals, asking how I was doing. But it was delightful to be back with everyone all together again.

…for an outing
I took Tirzah Mae and Louis to my 6 week appointment, but otherwise haven’t taken the both of them out of the house without Daniel’s help. Until this Tuesday. It was time for Kansas’s primary elections and I had items due at the library, so we suited up and took off. It wasn’t easy, but I’m glad to know that I can do it!

…for grass
After almost two months of waiting for our grass to be planted, the fellow with the seed drill finally came out on Tuesday and planted our grass – which means I’m watering like crazy to keep the almost 30,000 square feet we just planted wet in this hot Kansas weather. But it’s planted! No more waiting. Now we’re just working, working, working. (I’m better at working than at waiting.)

The seed drill ready to plant our grass

As I write up my thankfuls this week, I’m reminded of Ecclesiastes (sung to Pete Seeger’s tune and echoing with The Byrds’s voices in my head):

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (ESV)

I am thankful for these seasons that God has given. But most of all, I am thankful that, in every season, God is faithful. He holds us in His arms in the stormy seasons and in the calm. He is forever worthy of praise.

Categories Louis, Pregnancy

It’s a Boy!

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Even though I’m not into routine ultrasounds in pregnancy, we’ve ended up with plenty of ultrasounds for both our children (let’s just say that there hasn’t been anything routine about how my pregnancies have progressed!)

With each of the ultrasounds, I’ve been careful to inform the ultrasound tech that we aren’t interested in knowing baby’s sex, so could they please keep it to themselves.

I didn’t think to tell our maternal-fetal specialist when he rolled in the ultrasound to check where baby was lying to determine our course of action the day my condition declined such that delivery was indicated.

Our little boy

Doctor W moved the wand across my belly, confirming that baby was still lying in the transverse position he’d so favored all throughout the pregnancy.

Doctor W explained what I already knew. We couldn’t deliver a transverse baby vaginally. I listened patiently as he explained the different ways a baby might be lying and the relative risks of vaginal delivery with frank breech, footling breech, transverse (the most dangerous is transverse with belly down, since the umbilical cord would almost certainly be delivered first and then be compressed as the rest of baby tried to make his way out.)

And once Doctor W was done explaining, I said my piece. I still wanted that VBAC. I wanted to try everything we could. Yes, I wanted the external version we’d discussed.

Doctor W’s hands moved across my abdomen. He pushed and prodded. He pulled out the wand to see what he’d done. He pushed a little more. He grabbed the wand again.

He’d succeeded at getting baby head down.

He narrated what we were seeing on the ultrasound screen – “There’s the head”. Down in my pelvis.

Just a bit above the head. “And there are his little boy parts. And there are his feet down with his head.”

Such a LONG little boy

I looked at Daniel as we acknowledged what we’d just learned.

“Louis,” I said his name in my head, acknowledging our son.

A while later, my nurse was working on her charting and Daniel was off doing something, collecting Tirzah Mae perhaps.

“Do you have any sense of whether the baby’s a boy or a girl?” the nurse asked.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter whether I had a sense or not – Doctor W told us,” I replied.

“Ah shoot,” she said. “I’d hoped you hadn’t noticed.”

I assured her that it was fine, really

And it was.

But now I know, if I really want to wait until delivery to find out, best to let my doctor know in advance too!

Categories Reading My Library

Animal Books: Farmyard Sounds

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Since moving to Prairie Elms, Tirzah Mae has been enamored with our neighbors’ animals. First it was the dogs (Woof, woof!) belonging to our neighbor to the south. Then it was the chickens (Cluck, cluck!) belonging to our neighbor to the north.

Not one to waste an opportunity to check books out of the library, I rushed off to find as many farm animal books as I could – a great many of which were centered around the sounds farm animals make.

Tirzah Mae chases the chickens

This is a record of what we read, and what we thought of what we read, ordered from favorite to least favorite (give or take.)

Does a Cow Say Boo? by Judy Hindley
Tirzah Mae didn’t really know her animal sounds yet, so I figured the silliness of this book – asking if a variety of farmyard animals say “Boo” – would be over her head. Just goes to show that mama ISN’T always right. While she may not know ALL the animals sounds, she DOES know that neither a cow nor a pigeon nor a goat says “Boo”. The rollicking rhyme scheme and continued questioning is just exactly what it takes to keep Tirzah Mae engaged for the entire book. And when we get to the end, when Tirzah Mae covers her face with her hands and lets out her own “Boo!”? It’s perfect. We highly recommend this book!

This Little Chick by John Lawrence
A little chick goes to visit a variety of different animals – and what do they hear her say? Not “cheep, cheep” as I might have expected. Instead, she speaks to each group of animals in their own language. But when she gets home to her mama at night, she’s full of all sorts of cheeps and oinks and quacks and moos – telling her mama all about her day. I thought this book was just darling.

Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming
This one isn’t entirely animal sounds, since it includes “Pigs in the wallow. Muck, muck, muck.” – but it’s no less delightful for the occasional non-sound inclusion. The text follows the basic formula seen above (“[Animal] in the [location]. [Sound], [sound], [sound].”) with rhyming pairs of sounds (“muck” rhymed with “cluck”). Fleming’s illustrations are handmade paper poured into molds in the shapes of the animals (I want to try that!) Children will enjoy finding the goose hidden in each double-page spread.

All Kinds of Kisses by Nancy Tafuri
In this board book, a selection of baby animals feel that their mothers’ kisses are the best: “Little Piglet loves Oink kisses. Little Lamb loves Baaa kisses.” Not all the animals are farmyard animals, but most of the farmyard ones are represented. This is also a good book for learning the names of the “baby versions” of animals – ducklings, chicks, kids, etc. In a day and age where cartoonish illustrations are all the rage, the more careful but not quite photo-realistic illustrations are a real plus for me.

Honk, Honk! Baa, Baa! by Petr Horacek
A board book with very simple text beginning with “Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw says the donkey.” Each physical page of the book is shorter than the one before, and the left-hand side of each spread ends up forming the figure of a cow on the very last page. It’s a clever little illustrative technique, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bob by Tracey Campbell Pearson
Bob, the rooster, only clucks until the coop cat (since when does a chicken coop have a cat?) informs him that he needs to learn how to crow so he can wake the girls up in the morning. Bob sets out to find another rooster to teach him to crow, but finds plenty of other animals along the way, each of whom teach him their own sounds. The additional sounds come in handy when a fox tries to get into the henhouse! I’d really like to like this story. The plot is fun, as are the illustrations. But I have a very hard time getting over the initial technical error: Pearson has the cat tell Bob that he isn’t a chicken, he’s a rooster – which is why he should crow instead of cluck. Did you catch that? Roosters are chickens. A male chicken is a rooster, a female chicken a hen. Bob oughtn’t cluck like a hen. I rather hate that this is a deal-breaker for me, but it is.

Pete the Cat: Old MacDonald Had a Farm by James Dean
The lyrics to “Old MacDonald had a Farm”, sung by Pete the Cat himself (apparently he’s a thing?) Complete with really hokey illustrations. I’ll pass.

Everywhere a Moo, Moo, a Scholastic “Rookie Toddler” book
Abbreviated lyrics to “Old MacDonald had a Farm” (sans the “E-I-E-I-O” and the titular preamble) superimposed over photographs of various farm animals. Except that the farm animals are photoshopped onto the same unrealistically green field below the same generic sky with an equally photoshopped barn or farmhouse on the horizon. This could have been a book with really nice photos of animals IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT, but it isn’t.

Categories Parenting

Lazy Parenting: Help with Housework

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“Training your child to help around the house will make the job harder now; but it’ll pay off down the road.”

It’s such common advice, it’s become something of a parenting axiom.

The implication is that lazy parents avoid doing the hard work of parenting – that is, training their children in the way they should go – and end up with more pain and work in the future when their children haven’t been trained to do x or y (or to have z or a character traits).

The axiom tells parents to do the hard work of including their children in housework now so that they can offload some of the housework to their children later. Or, less cynically, parents should do the hard work of including their children in housework now so that their children can be responsible for themselves as they grow into adulthood.

Tirzah Mae helps with wiping chairs

The training task of parenthood is often hard – which is why people find it necessary to remind parents to do the hard work now that will pay off down the road.

But I contend that, at least for toddlers, involving your children in housework does NOT make the job harder now. Involving your toddler in housework can pay off in the here and now – not just down the road.

Now, you are probably thinking “Have you seen how much longer it takes to [insert chore here] when my toddler ‘helps’?”

Yes, I get what you’re saying. My toddler tends to smear food around the chairs when she wipes them, which means I have to re-wipe them. My toddler drops the dustpan before she’s emptied it, which means I have to re-sweep a section of the floor. My toddler puts things in the wrong places when she’s picking up, which means I have to re-sort everything multiple times.

Doing a task with my toddler takes 1.5 to 2 times longer than doing a task myself.

But have YOU seen how much extra work my toddler can create when I let her play independently (not right next to me) while I’m cleaning up?

While I’m saving five minutes by cleaning up after lunch without her help, she’s creating ten minutes worth of work in the living room, bathroom, and bedroom.

The reality is, involving your child in your work right now will have benefits both in the future and in the present.

So, if you want to be a really lazy parent, involve your child in housework now.

Categories Louis

Snapshot: Happy Due Date

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If Louis had arrived on his “expected date of delivery”, he’d have arrived today.

As it is, he’s two days shy of six weeks old.

Louis and his elephant

While I was in the hospital, Daniel read an article that suggested that people who are chronically late are optimists. It makes sense. Optimists assume they can make it to their location more quickly than they can. Optimists fail to take into account traffic, children, and losing their keys. And, if they’re optimists in the same sense Daniel and I are, they assume they can get just one more task (and another and another) done before they leave.

Like I said, the article makes sense.

I am an optimist – and I was two weeks late to my own birthday.

But if being late is a sign of optimism, Daniel and I are raising a couple of pessimists.

Either way, we’re glad to have our early birds.

Happy Due Date, dear Louis.

Categories Family

In which we have…

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a baby boy.

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I am pleased to introduce Louis Anthony Fyodor, born a little over a week ago on June 21.

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Louis experienced some growth restriction and was just 6 oz bigger than his sister at birth, despite having an additional 2 weeks in the womb. Nevertheless, he has been growing well. He’s already passed his birthweight (3 lbs, 11 oz) and is getting full feedings of his mother’s breastmilk by tube – with a few good breastfeeding sessions sprinkled in.

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We are so glad to have him.

Categories Following Christ

He will deliver thee

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I’ve been slowly reading through C.H. Spurgeon’s Spurgeon on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare after my morning times in the word – and this week, his text has been Psalm 50:15 “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee.”

The morning before we were admitted to the hospital, I read the following words:

“I write this with all reverence: God Himself cannot deliver a person who is not in trouble… The point is, my reader, your adversity may prove your advantage by offering occasion for the display of divine grace… When you are in adversity, then call upon God, and you will experience a deliverance that will be a richer and sweeter experience for your soul than if you had never known trouble.”

I did not know the trouble that would come – but I knew the trouble I had experienced in the past, and I knew that it was indeed an occasion for the display of divine grace. While I would never choose adversity for myself (would any of us?), I know indeed that God’s deliverance does prove a richer and sweeter experience for my soul than had I never known trouble.

I remembered those words as we entered the hospital with a pregnancy in trouble again, rejoicing that my God is present, inviting me to call upon Him, willing to deliver me.

Yesterday morning Spurgeon reminded me of God’s promise: He will deliver me.

“Hear Him say, ‘I will deliver thee,’ and ask no more questions.

I do not suppose that Daniel knew how God would deliver him out of the den of lions. I do not suppose that Joseph knew how he would be delivered out of prison when his master’s wife had slandered his character so shamefully. I do not suppose that these ancient believers even dreamed the way of the Lord’s deliverance. They just left themselves in God’s hands. They rested on God and He delivered them in the best possible manner. He will do the same for you. Simply call upon Him, and then ‘stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord’ (Exod. 14:13)

…God may likewise subject us to many trials. Yet if He says ‘I will deliver thee,’ you can be sure that He will keep His word.”

And that is the promise in which I can trust – not that I know God’s means of deliverance or the timing of his deliverance or any such details. In fact, I am reminded of Hebrews 11:36-38

“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whome the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (ESV)

In this life, these saints, commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised.

But in the life to come?

Deliverance.

Today, that great cloud of witnesses – the ones who received their deliverance in this life and the ones who received their deliverance in the next – urge me to look to Jesus, the truest testimony that God will deliver me.

For

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Romans 8:32 (ESV)

He will deliver thee.