free piano!

I was the first to claim a free piano (in allegedly good condition!) on Freecycle! Woot woot!! We'll be renting a UHaul to bring it on over--and then we have to figure out how to get it into our house (which has a million stairs and is built on a hill) but FREE PIANO!!!

I have my music corner all ready for it. It'll have the piano, the guitar, my flutes and fifes and other woodwinds, my psaltery, the dulcimer. SO EXCITED!

random Nathaniel notes

Also, important for people who like to get Nathaniel stuff:

He is currently wearing 6-month clothes, but he is over 15 pounds. If he keeps growing at the rate he has been, he will be in 9 month clothes in about two weeks, or sooner. I've been saving clothes smaller than that for his future baby brothers (assuming he has those one day).

It's safe to get him clothes for 12-18 months, and larger.

Okay, Carl is telling me to get off the computer. Bye!

halloween decorating!

On Friday my mom had me and Jacque go down to her work to help decorate for a community Halloween party. It was the day after Nana fell and cut open her head. Here are some pictures.


Nathaniel in his fun Halloween onesie with his special cowprint-and-orange Halloween blanket Nana made him:



Nathaniel with his beloved Nana (complete with post-fall bandage!):


Slightly blurry picture of him with Grampy:


Nathaniel and his girlfriend, Elli (Jacque's baby):



The hall we were decorating:



On Saturday, Carl and I and Jacque and Nathan and our babies and Heather all went to go help out at the Halloween party. It was a real interesting time--longest two hours EVER. x.x;;; The community Mom manages now is super upscale, and filled with the sort of people who chose to work first and have kids second. So pretty much Jacque and I spent most of the time assuming that kids were with their grandparents. Nope. But the parents of these kids just waited until they were almost done with middle age to have kids. There were a few other babies our babies' ages, but they all had parents like twice my and Jacque's age. It was so sad.

Since it snowed, we had to do the entire party inside. The Halloween parade route was supposed to be like an hour long and outside, but instead the kids all just walked in a big circle inside the community clubhouse. Poor Carl and Nathan had to shovel a walkway into the building and neither was wearing waterproof shoes. Whoops. But they were good sports.

Heather kindly took bunches and bunches of pictures! So I'll have to post some of those later. We got some cute pictures of Nathaniel in his Halloween costume. He was a cow (hence his matching Halloween blanket featured in pictures above).

a day of miracles

Today was a day of miracles.

It all started when another darling friend named Emily--not the one who gave us the hat--invited me out to lunch. I wanted to go, but I had some errands to do beforehand. I hadn't gotten ready for the day at all, so I ran upstairs to put on REAL clothes (as in, not sweat pants). While I was up there, I found my phone, which I had misplaced earlier. My nana was calling.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Allie, honey, I'm in trouble," she said. She had fallen down at the mall and cut open her head.

Fortunately, Jacque and I were on our way out to do the errand anyway, so I just finished getting dressed and the two of us and our little babies were on the way to the mall in minutes. A lady was standing outside the mall waiting for me. Jacque was able to take the car as I ran out and assessed the situation.

Nana was sitting against the door, surrounded by blood. She was sitting kind of strangely and at first I assumed she had broken her foot or something too. But no, her foot was fine, and just her head was bleeding.

Bleeding like crazy.

We got her to the car and drove off to her doctor. She hadn't lost consciousness, and she was well enough to direct me to the doctor. We got there a few minutes later, but the doctor was out to lunch. We called the answering service but they weren't able to get through to the doctor.

We were going to just stand there and wait, but we decided to walk back to the car. On the way, we ran into the receptionist. She had "randomly" decided to come back a half hour early for lunch. I guess she assessed my nana's wound and announced that they were not qualified to deal with the problem. So they sent us to the local walk-in clinic.

Where we walked in, only to have the nurse pull off the bandage on Nana's head and gasp. Audibly. No, not audibly: freakin loudly. "You're gonna need a plastic surgeon!!! We can't deal with this here! You need the ER!" she squeaked shrilly. I was about ready to throttle her. She tried to throw the bloody bandage back on to shield her eyes from the wound, but Nana held out her hand.

"STOP," she said, strangely regal and commanding. "I want my granddaughter to see it."

So I braced myself and had a good look.

It looked as though when she landed on her head, the skin just split. The gash was in the shape of a star, with visible bone in the center.

I'm looking at her skull, I thought.

"How bad is it, Allie? Can't they just fix it here?"

Skull. Skull.

"Uh, you know, it's not TOO bad, but we should probably go to the ER," I said, grateful that I have probably seen worse on my brother James. "This clinic looks lame. If I were you, I'd want a real surgeon to fix it."

Nana sighed, and while she was getting her head rewrapped I called Grampy and told him to meet us at the emergency room.

Now, this whole time, Jacque was in the car with our two babies--two babies under 15 weeks. Nathaniel HATES the car he will usually just scream forever and ever, but instead, he just slept. Another miracle. And Jacque, the hero of the day, was able to take the car so I could just get out with Nana everywhere we went. It was amazing.

Also, even though my car wasn't totally empty in the morning, I felt like I should fill it on up (yet another divine intervention, I'm sure). We didn't have to worry about gas at all.

We went to the ER and got all checked in, and my mom and grandpa met us there. Carl was able to get off work early to help Grampy give Nana a blessing, and Jacque stayed with me while I went home to care for James.

At this point, the missionaries showed up at my mom's house! I'd left them a voicemail asking them to come to the ER to bless my nana, but they came to the house instead--and just in time. They got James off the bus for me and carried him from his wheelchair to the hospital bed in our living room.

Then hospice showed up, along with everyone from the ER, including Nana. She needed 30 stitches right on her eyebrow. Ow. But she was fine.

Basically, that is the long story of what happened. It felt like the whole day was set up from the beginning to handle my nana's fall. Everyone was in the right places at the right time to handle it all. The whole day I just felt so completely that God was watching us and making everything work out.

Other miracles that happened:

- Carl had a dental appt for later in the evening so he was already planning to come home early (unusual for him)

- We were uncrowded in the ER waiting room we went to

And I believe there are more but I can't think of them at this time. But let's just say, it was a day of miracles.

crunchiness and conservatism

Last night I had a dear friend come over, and we talked about our mutual crunchiness, and our mutual conservatism. I'd kind of felt alone in being both, but my friend had a really good point:

Conservatism is all about taking responsibility for yourself. So is crunchiness. Both of those philosophies are about taking responsibility for your body, your health.

Conservatism is also the philosophy that everything is best local--same as crunchiness.

Anyway. I thought that was a great point. I no longer feel quite as weird being a cloth-diapering, breastfeeding, bedsharing, babywearing, former-vegan conservative. All of those things go hand in hand with being responsible, staying local, and being a good steward of the earth.

pictures!

Here are some pictures of my darling baby! Finally got around to uploading them.

First, here are some pics of him in the CUTEST hat we got secondhand from our darling friend Emily:





[I was shielding him from the light of the flash in one of the pictures]

Here are some pictures of him in his chair:





And some of him from this morning in one of his several Halloween outfits. He gained a bunch of weight while I was in Utah and I think it shows.

babies and airports!

We got back from Utah on Saturday night. I left my laptop at home and had internet access only once during the whole week, for about five minutes. So that's why I didn't blog. But we had a good time with family. My aunt's funeral was sad, but it was so good to see everyone.

Now, obviously Utah is like 5 hours away by air from Maryland. It's a long flight. Also, with the restriction on checked bags, I was a little concerned.

If you ever have to travel with an infant-in-arms, this is how I did it.

First, you have to call the airline and let them know you'll be carrying a baby. They need to put the baby's name on the manifest.

Now, when we went to the airport, I brought my carseat-stroller combo. Basically it's a stroller base that the carseat hooks into. I didn't realize (though I should have) that I would need to put the whole stroller through the metal detectors. So I had to take it all apart. If I hadn't had my super nice baby sling that I love, it would have been very, very annoying. But the security peeps folded up the carseat the right way and I managed the stroller with my baby in my sling, and it worked out. I think then I had to put the sling through, too, but again, it worked out.

We went to the gate and they checked the stroller and carseat planeside--hooray! So convenient!

Nathaniel slept during takeoff, and then during the flight we nursed a lot. But he was very good. On the way down he nursed and dozed. No tears. We picked up the stroller planeside as well.

On the way back home from Utah it was the same, except I was "randomly" selected for an extra screening by the TSA. So, so, SO stupid. I was holding this tiny baby in my arms--okay, he's like 14 lbs, so NOT that tiny--and they wanted to swipe my hands while I stood in this tiny plastic box. They kept on telling me to hold out my hands... um, how was I supposed to do that without dropping my baby? They were not very understanding or cooperative. If I'd had the stroller right there to drop him in, I could have done it all more easily, but I didn't, because they made me put it through the metal detector. Ugh. TSA = fail.

But we did that and lived, and the return flight was the same. I read that the most important thing is to keep babies sucking on something during takeoff and landing, so their little ears don't pop so much.

Anyway. Maybe you guys already know that, and about checking strollers planeside, and all the rest of that stuff, but I didn't! I only hope this can help someone who was just as clueless as I was originally.

going to Utah

My great aunt Lorraine just died. She had a fatal brain tumor and succumbed to it this morning.

Nathaniel and I will be flying out to Utah for the funeral, along with my grandparents and mother. We are leaving on Sunday, and we'll be returning to MD on the following Saturday.

The week is jam-packed with stuff, but if you're out there and want to hang out, let me know so I can try to make it work.

on food, UPDATED

UPDATE: This post posted prematurely due to my weird computer doing bizarre things I don't understand! But I finished it. Here it is, finished.

Over the past week, I've found myself redefining my relationship with food.

Food is a funny thing. We all need it. There isn't anyone alive who doesn't eat, who doesn't need to eat to live. Sorry to be controversial, but the Breatharians are lying! We all eat.

But we all eat different things. And in different amounts. And at different times. We've got vegans and vegetarians and fruitarians and straight up carnivores and people who only eat at Subway and people who only eat at McDonald's. Then you have the people with eating disorders: people with bulemia and anorexia nervosa and compulsive overeating.

The way we relate to food really colors our entire lives.

A few days ago I was watching one of my friends eat--we were eating together, PS, I don't just like watch people eat--and I noticed how when everyone else got up for seconds, including me, she didn't. She just wasn't hungry for more.

That was the first time it ever occurred to me that I, myself, might eat more than I need to at mealtimes, just because. Maybe that makes me stupid, that I never thought about it before. But oh well. I'm twenty-three years old and I just realized that at dinnertime, I usually eat more than I need.

And then I came across an article in the NYT about how junk food is actually way more expensive than home-cooked food, despite the rumors to the contrary. Honestly, I'd heard the same lines over and over myself: that junk food is far cheaper than healthful food. But it turns out, that's a LIE! And when you think about it, of course it's a lie. You can make healthy food for cheap, if you actually bother to make it.

I know in my life, I've had strange relationships with food in the past. For the first six months of my first pregnancy, I couldn't keep down a single meal, pretty much. I lost 15 lbs from the whole ordeal. I had to force myself to eat in the hopes that my body would absorb a few nutrients before the morning-afternoon-night sickness kicked in.

In high school, since my schedule was jam-packed from 5:45 am until 9 pm at night, with literally no breaks (I skipped lunch to take extra class... yeah. not my whole high school career, but a significant portion of it), I would do nothing but eat from 4:45 am until 5:45 am. Then I would snack a little around 1 pm in between classes. That was pretty much how I dealt with food. Tons and tons of food in the morning, and then nothing all day.

Then I went to college, and had an opposite problem: as the opening baker, I had to be up too early to eat before going to work (on campus, the cafeteria wasn't open when I left... for obvious reasons. I was the one opening it, basically). So I had to put off eating until the afternoon, and that changed up all my eating habits, also for obvious reasons.

One year for Lent I gave up sweets: chocolate, sugar-based things like cake and cookies, anything with corn syrup in the first five ingredients. For the first week it was killer but then after that it was so easy. I was going to do it forever but a few weeks after Lent I got back into my old habits. A few candies was all it took to bring back the "need" for them in my life again.

I've always had the problem of when I get super stressed, I stop feeling hungry--but then I force myself to eat more than I need, because I know starving isn't healthy but I can't always sense when my body is satiated.

Now that I'm a stay at home person, it's both surprisingly easy and surprisingly hard to eat whenever I want. Most of the time when I'm hungry, it feels like, Nathaniel gets hungry too, and he comes first most of the time. So there are days when I spend all my time nursing and don't get my first meal in until the afternoon, sometimes even late afternoon. On the other hand, I am the captain of my day now, and if I wanted to tell my baby to suck it up and take a binky, I could probably spend the whole day eating if I wanted to.

Food is complicated.

Our relationships to it are complicated. And even worse (or better?), they change over time. It's kind of like reading your scriptures every day. Some weeks, or months or years, you can be really good at daily scripture study. And then sometimes you lapse and forget to be intentional about it, and the lapse can last just as long as the disciplined times did. With food, sometimes we're good about it, and sometimes we're not. As we saw in the last season of The Biggest Loser, a person can go from being an Olympic athlete to being hundreds of pounds overweight in a single lifetime. That is amazing to me. Every person has the potential to go to extremes with food. Just because you took care of your eating habits for the first 25 years of your life is no guarantee that you'll continue for the next 25.

This whole synchronicity of food thoughts popping up in my life has got me thinking: I'm going to be more intentional about what I eat. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thoughts, anyone? Do you have any thoughts about food you'd like to share?

important news

Oh yeah: Carl is growing a beard.

Three months old

Over the weekend, something happened. Nathaniel is different.

I'm not sure what it was, exactly, but last week he had no interest in toys, and this week, he does. Now he will grab at them, and explore them, and try to play with them. I guess I'll have to put a toy in my diaper bag for him to mess with when we're out and about. It's weird to see that change in him. Weird in a good way, of course. But still strange.

He's been cooing more and more, and very conversationally. We talk back and forth for probably half an hour at a time or so, and usually 3-5 times a day. It's a lot. Even when you consider that he is gestationally three and a half months old, instead of just three, I guess typically babies don't start babbling until they're more like 4 months old. He's actually been vocalizing since he was three days old, and he's usually done it at least a few times a day since then, but now he's really getting good at it.

He makes "oh" sounds and a lot of schwas, which I decided is probably because of his tongue muscle that needs to get stronger. As far as consonants go, he makes "g" (and has since he was 3 days old), and occasionally a "buh" or a "muh" sound. He's figuring out his bilabials! What a good boy. One of these times I need to pull out my Flip and record him talking. It's pretty cute.

He smiles a lot. He really like the Renaissance Festival on Saturday; people were playing him private concerts, and bowing to him and pledging allegiance, and cooing at him and so forth. He just thought it was awesome. He was a very smiley boy (except when we were watching the Danger Committee. I don't know why he hated that so much--he couldn't even see them!).

At the RennFest, he was also exposed to a lot of loud noise, in the form of screaming and clapping and cheering. He didn't love it, but he was calm through it. I held a hand over his ear and smiled at him while everyone was so loud, and he was fine. Confused looking, but fine.

Also, I weighed him recently, and he is now up to 13.5 lbs (clothed). I'm pretty sure he's over 25 inches long now, too. Carrying him without a sling is getting pretty difficult for me (although when he's in the sling, it's fine).

He still sleeps pretty well. He knows that darkness and the bed = time to sleep. Usually he gets up when we get up, around 7-8 am, and then he'll go back to sleep around 9:30-10. He takes another nap from 1 until 2:30, and then stays awake for the rest of the evening, more or less, until bedtime.

My baby is three months old on Thursday!

Baby's first laugh

Nathaniel just laughed for the first time for REAL today (he laughs in his sleep sometimes, but that doesn't count). At 4 pm today I rubbed his tummy after putting his pants on and he laughed and laughed like I was tickling him. It was the cutest thing. I can't get him to do it again, but his first laugh was so great I don't even care.

5 MORE Reasons We Cloth Diaper

I posted that last post and immediately thought of several more reasons why we do it.

6. The eco-friendliness of it all. I'm definitely not a tree-hugging hippie or something like that, even though my BS is in environmental science, but I do believe in being a good steward of the earth. When we transitioned to cloth diapers, all of a sudden the only thing we were throwing away per change was a wipe or two (and I'm thinking about moving to cloth wipes, too). It makes a big difference in trash generation. Again: I'm not a hippie. But I do like being wise with our resources.

7. I read that diapers contain the same stuff in them as tampons did that cause Toxic Shock Syndrome. True, diapers don't go up inside a person, but it's still gross. This is what one source states:

With the exception of the pricy natural disposables with extremely limited availability (we only know of the Tushies brand at this time), disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate which absorbs liquid and turns it into gel. Many parents who use disposable diapers will recognize the polymer as the shiny gel-like crystals that often make their way onto your baby’s bum. It was banned from use in tampons in 1985 after it was linked to toxic shock syndrome*. Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.**

So basically when you diaper with disposables, you're putting toxic pollutants right on your baby's skin. Which, eh. We disposable diapered our baby for a month and a half before switching. And everyone I know, including myself, pretty much wore disposables as babies. We all turned out awesome. So there you go.

8. To go along with #7, disposable diapers are bleached white with dioxin, which is apparently really gross and bad for people. Here, just read this blog post about the random stuff they use to make disposable diapers. Gross.

9. To go back to #1--what I forgot to mention is that not only will the diapers eventually be basically free after we use them to diaper our future children, BUT THEN we will be able to resell any diapers still in good condition, for almost as much as we bought them for. Even used cloth diapers can command a good price.

10. They're easy. At least the brand that we use is easy. If they were harder to use than disposables, I might let my inner laziness take over, but actually these Best Bottom diapers are super simple, and easy to use. They maybe add an extra 5 minutes/day of diaper change time, just from me rinsing pooey diapers. But over time, that will save me thousands of dollars, so it's like getting paid thousands of dollars to spend 5 minutes a day rinsing diapers. I'm willing to do that.

5 Reasons We Cloth Diaper

1. The math dictates it: cloth diapers are FAR cheaper than disposables. We use Best Bottom Diapers. By my calculations, we will end up paying only $0.05 per diaper change with our first baby alone. When we have more kids, that number will go down. Disposable diapers cost an average of $0.36/change, to compare.

2. They are so CUTE! Just look at this Blue Giraffe diaper:



3. My baby likes them.

4. I love not ever having to worry about diapering. If we run low on clean diapers, I just toss the dirty ones into the wash and I have a fresh supply two hours later. If I'm super desperate, I can use the small inserts I have left over from when he was smaller, or I can try and use the large inserts he'll need when he gets a little bigger. Either way, no worries.

5. This kind of goes along with #4, but they are a great emergency resource. If, say, a blizzard came through this winter and we weren't able to get to a store to get new diapers, that would be okay. It's nice to know that bad things can happen but my baby will still be able to have fresh diapers.

pictures from conference weekend

Courtesy of my grandpa.

I LOVE Nathaniel's outfit here.

Twelve weeks!

Nathaniel was 12 weeks old yesterday--which means it's been 12 weeks since I gave birth. If I were working, that would mean my maternity leave would be up. I can't imagine leaving him every day to work. I don't think I could do it. I am the only person I could trust to bring him up with all the love and support he needs.

My recovery has been all right. I have learned not to judge the fashion of brand new moms as much as I used to. Going shopping has been extremely, extremely depressing. Nothing I used to wear fits like it did before, and a lot of stuff I can't even fit into. I'm almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight but my body is shaped differently than it was a year ago.

One of the worst things has been my post-pregnancy stomach. No one told me that after the baby comes out and the excess water and goo comes out, you're stuck with stretched out skin. It's SO hard to find pants that fit, because of that stretchy skin. I'm back into my normal 4/6's, but they fit strangely. I really don't know what to do about it.

Twelve weeks after birth, I'm back into working out: some friends have been doing the Insanity workout with us every night. So I (and all of them!) are extremely sore. It's sad because the workout is supposed to be done centered around your core, but my core just got stretched out for 9 months and is still getting back to where it used to be, so I am basically a workout wimp. For good reasons. But I hope to get normal abs back soon.

We've slipped into kind of a routine: every day Nathaniel and I get up to drive Carl to the Metro, and then we come home and I clean things or work on projects or read until the baby falls asleep, and then usually I try to fall asleep too, since I don't get tons of sleep at night. Even if he doesn't wake up hungry I wake up wanting to feed him. Then at 2:30 we go over to my mom's house to get my older brother off the bus, and we take care of him until my mom or dad gets home. Then we're off to pick up Carl again, make dinner, and finish cleaning or projects before bed.

Life with my silly baby is way better than it was before. I thought being married was the best thing--and it partially is--but being married with a kid is even better. My opinion twelve weeks in.

best bottom diaper giveaway!

As some of you know, my baby LOVES his Best Bottom diapers from Nicki's Diapers. This week they're giving away a free diaper in a cute owl print. What I haven't blogged about on here is my adoration of owls and all things owly. I've still been unpacking all my owl paraphernalia, but once it's all out, my house will be owlicious indeed.

So, even though I've blogged a million times today, here's one more time. Nicki's Diapers is having a giveaway and I want that owl print! :o)

the worth of souls

The other night, I visited a friend and her mom. They asked how many kids I wanted. I said four or five (even though I wouldn't mind more. Or fewer). The mom looked shocked and asked why, if I felt like a particularly maternal person or something.

I told her that no, not really. I don't FEEL particularly maternal. Even though I've had roommates in college that would call me "Mom." She asked if I really like kids or something. The fact is, I don't like kids anymore than I like anyone else. I gave this really bizarre answer that even confused me, but this is what I MEANT to say:

I want a bunch of kids, biological or otherwise, because the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. That idea has colored everything about the way I view the world. It's not that I love kids: it's that I love people. And the best way to influence people is to influence children. A person's youth can define them for the rest of his or her life. And every person deserves a childhood that is full of love and security and peace. If I can provide that, I want to. And I want to do that for as many people as I can.

That's what I meant to say.

general conference thought: trials

I had a lot of thoughts from General Conference, but we might have to wait for most of them until the November Ensign comes out (with all the talks printed in it).

Baby D was sick all through Conference weekend. On Saturday night I had to suction out his nose like 5 times just so he could keep breathing, and then I did it all of Sunday, too. He hates getting his nose suctioned, a lot, but while he would wiggle until I got the piece in his nose, he would hold still for me to use it. At least, he would most of the time.

This year, one of the themes that stood out to me from Conference was the idea that trials are sent to make us better and stronger. They are for our good. This scripture in particular stood out to me over and over again (my emphasis in bold):

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

As I listened to one of the talks on this subject, I felt very clearly that sometimes, Heavenly Father just needs to suction out our proverbial noses. It's uncomfortable and gross to get out all the figurative goo from our lives, but it's worth it in the end. It makes everything easier.

That imagery is helping me understand my trials more clearly. I would never suction out Baby D's nose just for kicks; I only do it when he needs it, because I know he hates it. And even when he wiggles, I hold him still so I can get it done, because I know he will be happier once the discomfort is over with. He might cough and cry as I do it, even if he holds still, but once it's over, he can breathe freely and he's much happier.

It's the same with us. Heavenly Father doesn't send us trials that we don't need. And He would never send us any trial that were not ultimately for our greatest good. We might wiggle and cry and be uncomfortable or hurt, but in the end, once it's over with, it's made us better.

answer to breastfeeding question

Over the weekend I discovered the answer to my question: it's eggs.

I've still been eating the leftover pasta carbonara, but I drink a lot of water with it to dilute it, and I give him some simethacone drops before nursing. He hasn't freaked out since I figured that out.

two more pictures

Curls from the shower (see? It does curl!):


Baby and Nana:

pictures of Nathaniel!

Turtle face:



Daddy and Baby:



Me and Baby:




Baby boy and Baby Cat with Grandma:


You might not be able to tell, but he's doing a full superman here:


Tummy time!