Trialogue: Infant Potty Training

M: A few days ago, I bought a potty for my two-month-old. That's right, my two-month-old. I've decided to follow the examples of my wabisabi sisters and attempt infant potty training, also known as elimination communication, with Olive. I know I'll be encountering lots of work and probably many accidents, but the thought of having a diaper-free baby by 18 months rather than the more common three years sounds delightful!

Q: I am thrilled you're attempting this route, M. I had never heard of EC until my friend, Ginger, told me about it a few years before Mayumi was born. Then I read Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene by Ingrid Bauer. It was so enlightening and made the entire process much less intimidating. Because having a baby, especially your first one, can be overwhelming and I didn't want to make myself go crazy. But when Mayumi was three months old I started holding her over the toilet after she nursed and after her naps. She pooped in the toilet the very first time! She got it right away and virtually never pooped in her diaper. It was tougher "catching" all the peepees, but I didn't stress about it. She still wore a disposable diaper, but by the time Mayumi was 12 months old she was wearing panties during the day and by 18 months she was completely out of diapers.

Mayumi at 7 months. She loved (loves!) to pee outside!

M: She is not exaggerating. I took a trip to visit Q when Mayumi was almost exactly 12 months old. I remember being super impressed when my niece would make grunting sounds to signal she had to go. Of course, Q had to rush to get Maya to a toilet (not always an easy task when you're out and about), but I don't recall there being any accidents.

D: I, on the other hand, have had my fair share of accidents with Lucy. I was always a bit skeptical of EC, even though I was on that same trip with M and witnessed 12-month-old Maya on her potty. I just assumed that because Q practiced attachment parenting and tends to be an overachiever in general, that EC was only for those who were hard-core disciplined. But when PapaD heard about it, he was excited to learn more. We borrowed The Diaper Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative by Christine Gross-Loh from the library and started reading. By this time, Lucy was about 2 or 3 weeks old and I just thought I would randomly put her over the potty to see if anything happened and she immediately pooped. Of course, when you have a newborn, it seems like they are pooping all the time! But that started our adventures in EC.

Q: The philosophy behind Elimination Communication is that when the parent becomes more aware of and responsive to the baby's needs, the baby feels secure and empowered and will grow up "in tune and in touch with his or her own body and its functions" (Bauer 44). If a baby can communicate when she is hungry and needs to eat, it only makes sense that she has awareness of when she needs to eliminate as well. Right? If you take the time to help her be "potty trained" as an infant, then she never learns to be comfortable sitting in her own waste and you don't have to re-teach her to use the potty when she is older.

Mayumi at 13 months, going potty on her own.

D: One of the things that I love about EC is that you don't have to be hard core disciplined about it - you can do it as much or as little as you like. In our case, I am a very part-time EC-er. I'm not super interested in catching pees but since Lucy started solids, it has become much more apparent when she is going poo. When it is convenient, I quickly put her on her potty and cue her with a grunting sound. We do pretty good with recognizing the poos, although a ninja poo sneaks in every once in a while. There are no obvious signs that she is peeing so I usually try to use timing and give her potty-tunities right after she wakes from a nap or gets out of her car seat or her baby carrier. I occasionally give her diaper-free time but it seems that every time I do, it has resulted in pee puddles on the floor -- and I have carpet. I'm hoping that once the weather warms up, we'll have more diaper-free time outside...

Q: I know it seems gimmicky at first, but this truly is a lovely method for strengthening your relationship with your child and contributing to her health and well-being. It may seem difficult at first, but the truth is, you aren't investing that much more time than the traditional diapering method -- I mean, once you know your child has wet herself, you need to change her anyways! (Don't even get me started on moms who let their kids just sit in their own filth until the diaper is ready to burst!) Might as well catch it before it gets into the diaper. You can do it! For more info about infant potty training, there's a good overview at BabyCenter. You can also check out Ingrid Bauer's web site and the Diaper Free Baby Support Network.

Trapped...

By MamaD

It's past midnight and I'm having a hard time getting to sleep even though I'm exhausted. I have a floor full of used tissues next to my bed from simultaneously blowing my leaky nose and wiping away tears. It's been hard couple of days. Lucy has been sick since this weekend and has been sleeping horribly (and not sleeping so well for a while before then too). I've been sleeping with her every single night which for seasoned co-sleepers, may not sound so bad but for me, really disrupts my quality of sleep. Especially with her waking up frequently during the night from who knows why - earaches? fevers? stuffy nose? teething? And being separated from PapaD is no fun either.

Today was the worst. I thought I had a lot to look forward to - a rare midweek date with hubby and friends to go get Indian food for dinner followed by the US National Womens soccer game versus Mexico. I don't know if it was the crappy, cold, snowy weather all day. Or maybe the stress (from procrastinating) of submitting the last 2009 expenses for our flexible spending account. Or that Lucy has been sick and experiencing a lot more separation anxiety. That I haven't been getting much sleep. That I've been missing the gym. But it was a bad day. I got frustrated. And I yelled at my sweet, little daughter. And I said some things that I'm ashamed to write. And I know that she didn't fully understand what I was saying and she won't remember her mommy's angry face from today but at the time, she was probably confused but could understand the negativity of the tone of my voice. It also doesn't change the fact that my innocent baby was still yelled at because her mommy couldn't control herself.

How could someone yell at this face? It's easier than you might think...

Following this came the guilt. Guilt that such terrible thoughts crossed my mind - thoughts that I'm ashamed to write. Guilt that I'm not more grateful for having a healthy child and a home and a husband and wonderful family and security and on and on and on. Guilt that this thing called motherhood is so hard for me and doesn't come more naturally. I read some of Q's posts on here and maybe just with my personal circumstances, find them a little inapplicable because I feel like I should have that song, "Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere...." running through my head (no offense Q - I love you but we must be in very different places right now and it was just one more thing to tip the scales today - I'm sure that everyone else loves them). And I keep meaning to post a different perspective on here so I can give myself a voice and remind us all that it's okay and normal to struggle and talk about it but it's just another thing on my list that never gets done.

I literally wept today. Scratch that - I was sobbing. Because I felt so trapped. Like I would never escape from this world of messy home and fussy baby and worrying about everything and never getting anything done that is fulfilling. Like I was going crazy. And all the while, I was telling myself that I have to pull it together because I don't want to freak out the babysitter when I pick her up or our friends that we are hanging out with tonight. Just feeling helpless. I mean, I know that in the end, we'll remember the trips to the zoo and the social interactions and not whether the house was clean but remember here, I'm the practical one so clean house, good dinner, and saving money are high priorities for me and that takes a lot of time.

No one tells you about the challenges of being a mother. About how isolating it can be or the crazy feelings that you might experience. But we probably wouldn't really understand the more seasoned mother's warnings until we actually experienced it ourselves. But I guess we all need something to test us. Perhaps we can let it unite us together and strengthen not only our own will but the relationships with the people around us who support us. I was able to fight back the tears when I picked up the babysitter and when I left my baby wailing with her and all the way to the restaurant. And then I forgot about things for a while.

Trying to look on the bright side. Although Lucy cried for half an hour after I left (this is a new development - I've left her many times before with nary a tear), she went down for bed in about 5 minutes and hasn't woken since (cross your fingers she sleeps through the night). I had some delicious Indian food. US beat Mexico 1-0 (although it was only an exhibition game) and the players made snow angels on the field after the goal. I got to drink hot chocolate and eat churros in the cold, cold open stadium in the snow (but at least we got some precipitation in the dry state of Utah).

As I was lying in bed with my husband, I asked him if I was going crazy. He replied, "Yes - but all the best people are." So here is to all the other trapped, crazy, helpless mothers out there who sometimes scream at their children for no good reason. Tomorrow is another day. Let's raise a glass to the babysitters who stay with our wailing babies so we can have some time off and the husbands who support their weeping wives. A good night out can do wonders for the weary soul. And don't worry if you're crazy - cause all the best people are.

And yeah, we just watched Alice in Wonderland - didn't want you to think that PapaD was totally ripping off the movie.

Yellow

Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And everything that you do

Yeah they were all yellow

  

Yellow just caught my eye today.  Must be spring!

Homemade: Flannel Board

By MamaQ

Flannel boards always remind me of Sunday School as a child. I have distinct memories of one of my Primary teachers telling us the story of Noah's Ark while letting us put little animal figures up on the board. When I was leading a storytime playgroup a few months back I remembered that flannel board and thought it would be fun to incorporate it. I looked them up online and found they could be a bit pricey (I like things to cost nothing, generally). So I did what any self-reliant girl would do. I made my own.

I tried to find some guidelines online, but most sites recommended using something like cardboard and I wanted something a bit more durable. I found some stretched canvas on sale at Michael's - two for $5. I picked up a couple of yards of cream-colored flannel. My first try came out just fine - I cut the fabric large enough for the board and stapled it on. Easy enough. But for my second one (intended as a gift), I wanted to create a little storage pocket on the back to keep those little felt figures organized. Here's how I did it.

Place board on felt and fold half the felt over the board and cut out around it, allowing for 1 inch seam allowance.

Cut a piece of cotton to whatever size you want your pocket to be (mine is about 1/4 of the flannel).

Press both the flannel and cotton to remove any wrinkles. Fold over 1 inch of cotton around each edge and press.

Top stitch one long side of the pocket (the top of the pocket), then pin in place to flannel.

Top stitch the other three sides of the cotton to the flannel to create a pocket.

Attach the flannel piece to the board using a staple gun (I didn't get a photo of this because I couldn't hold the staple gun and camera at the same time!).

Voila!

Meditation: i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

~ee cummings

 

I am trying to carry only good things in my heart and purge the negative and weighty things that have no place there.  Thankfully, it is spring and this is so much easier to do when the sun is shining, birds are singing, daffodils are nodding, and children are laughing as they play outside. Breathe in all that beauty as deeply as possible, then exhale all the pain, worries and frustrations out.  They just kind of dissipate into the spring air.  And tucked away into my little heart is my sweet little girl, and her like-a-rock father.  And there's even more room in there for M and D, and all of you.  What a happy burden that is!

 

Thank you ee cummings, for your beautiful words that make today so much more wonderful.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate

That is not the question--not for me anyways. I believe that vaccinating kids protects them and others from potentially harmful diseases and has also been the root cause of the eradication of some diseases in recent history. That said, I'm concerned about the Centers for Disease Control's immunization schedule because it loads kids up with these vaccines as early as birth and with as many as six viruses at a time.

To learn more, I read Dr. Robert Sears' The Vaccine Book, which I believe takes an unbiased, comprehensive and in-depth look at vaccines. Some things I learned:

• Mercury (aka thimerosal) has been taken out of virtually all vaccines, as mandated by the government in the late '90s. Some argue that mercury is one cause of autism, though no studies have proven this.
• Several of the diseases are most dangerous in the first year of life, so it's important to get certain vaccines during infancy.
• Some shots contain aluminum and with combination shots, babies are exposed to as much as 1200 micrograms at one time, which far exceeds the FDA's safety limit.
• Vaccines do not undergo extensive testing before being released, so problems are often not found until after the fact. In the past 20 years, three vaccines have been taken off the market due to a high rate of severe side effects.
• Some vaccines are currently made with controversial ingredients, including toxins and carcinogens, though they are present in such tiny amounts that it is believed our bodies can process and eliminate them without harm.
• Based on some rough statistics, there is about a 1 in 2,600 chance during the 12-year vaccination schedule that a child will suffer a serious vaccine reation; however, the risk of a child having a severe case of a vaccine-preventable disease each year is 1 in 600. This indicates it is safer to vaccinate than to not vaccinate.

Dr. Sears provides an alternative vaccination schedule that covers all the shots, but spreads them out over more visits so that a child receives a maximum of only two shots (one of which might contain aluminum) per visit. Theoretically, this minimizes the potential risks of vaccines.

The alternative schedule makes sense to me, yet I'm hesitant to use it. Not because it doubles the visits to the pediatrician, but because I wonder if I'm being too alarmist. I already know my pediatrician (and the vast majority of pediatricians out there) firmly supports the CDC schedule, which has never been proven to be unsafe. She'll work with me if I feel strongly about using an alternative schedule, but will do so reluctantly. I would hate to be a nuisance...

I've already skipped out on the Hep B shot when Olive was born (really? a shot to prevent a sexually transmitted disease at birth?) to buy some more time to learn more about vaccinations. Now I've done some research and I'm still on the fence. The problem is, Olive's two-month appointment (when her first round of shots is scheduled to take place) is tomorrow.

I know there are strong feelings about this issue and I don't mean to spark any type of debate. I just wish I had more answers.

Oishii! Sesame Tofu Stir-fry

PapaD and I are not vegetarians, but we often like to cook vegetarian (or rather, experiment with vegetarian). To be honest, I'm a meat-loving girl, but in moderation. It's nice to take a break from meat every once in a while and it also tends to be nicer on my wallet as meat can be so expensive these days (especially when we try to buy local, organic, humanely raised meats and poultry). However, as much as my husband tries to encourage my efforts, it can be hard to find satisfying meals that are meatless and delicious. He's made a request that I use more tofu so that he can get enough protein, so here is one of my efforts that I thought turned out pretty good. This recipe was adapted from The New Stir-Fry Cookbook by Bay Books.
Sesame Tofu Stir Fry

Preparation Time: 20 minutes + 30 minutes marinating
Total Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
10 oz firm tofu
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
2 tablespoons oil
3 zucchini, sliced (I only used 2 'cause that's all I had)
5 oz button mushrooms, halved or quartered (I omitted 'cause my husband hates button mushrooms and substituted a carrot instead, cut into matchsticks)
1 large red pepper, cut into squares
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 cups of cold, cooked brown rice (All I had was white)
1-2 tablespoons soy sauce, extra

Here is my prep work:
MamaM and I have the same rice cooker and I don't know what I would do without it (even though I don't know what all those buttons mean - I just push them until it turns red). We eat rice with our meals at least once a week. For this particular recipe, I made the rice in the morning and put it in the fridge to cool off but I wish I had made the rice several days in advance so it could dry out - I think that my stir-fry was too mushy because the rice was too moist. So if you are planning on trying this dish, make your rice ahead of time if you can.

Prep work is what takes the longest time for me. But I'm pretty meticulous in my chopping, slicing, and cutting because a good stir-fry needs the vegetables (and meat if using) to be a uniform size so that they can cook evenly. In this case, because the carrots take the longest to cook, I made them matchstick size (with this cool little slicer thing my mom brought me from Japan) so they would cook as fast as the peppers and zucchini. I hadn't even originally planned to use carrots but because I omitted the mushrooms, I felt like I needed something else and carrots add some nice sweetness to the dish. A good knife makes prep work easier; I use Wusthof Classic knives.

1. Drain the tofu and pat dry with paper towels. Cut into cubes, place in a glass or ceramic bowl and add the sesame oil and soy sauce. Stir to combine and thoroughly coat the tofu. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.




2. Heat the wok until very hot, add the sesame seeds and dry-fry until lightly golden brown. Transfer to a plate to cool.
This is my very well used wok. It is a really cheap one (Joyce Chen, I think) that we got at Bed, Bath and Beyond for about $15. I hated it at first and was about to throw it away so I could buy a really expensive stainless steel wok (this one is carbon steel) but then it started to season really well and didn't smoke as much (it used to smoke like crazy). I have heard that the cheaper the wok, the better it is. We do a lot of stir-fry so I am really glad that we have it.

My wok was extremely hot and I think that I browned my sesame seeds a little too much (some may have even been on the verge of burning). So next time, I would add them as I am heating the wok.

3. Reheat the wok, add the oil (I use Canola because it is good for high heat and doesn't have much of a taste) and swirl it around to coat the side. Remove the tofu from the dish with a slotted spoon and reserve the marinade. Stir-fry the tofu over high heat, turning occasionally, for about 3 minutes, or until browned. Remove from the wok and set aside.
Although I really like silken tofu because it has such a nice texture and consistency, I think that I might try an extra firm tofu for stir-fry next time because mine was falling apart just a little...

4. Add the vegetables and garlic, and cook, stirring often, until they are just tender. Add the rice and tofu and stir-fry until heated through.

5. Add the toasted sesame seeds, the reserved marinade and the extra soy sauce, to taste. Toss thoroughly until the tofu and vegetables are well coated, then serve immediately.

So this is how mine turned out...

...compared to the picture in the recipe book.
PapaD gives it a thumbs up...
..and eats heartily.

Happy Birthday Wabisabi Brother!

Q: Another March birthday and we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge our favorite brother in the universe, Wabisabi Brother.

M: Of course, he's our only brother...

D: But we wouldn't trade him for any other brother in the world!

Q: We had intense sibling rivalry from the beginning. When Wabisabi Brother was born I was two and I was so jealous of the time my mother spent with him that when she would nurse him, I would jump on the bed or pull clothes out of the bureau to get her attention.

M: Always the drama queen. I, on the other hand, was rather fond of Wabisabi Brother. And despite his rough-housing with me, I think he kinda liked me, too. When I was a freshman in high school, he was a senior and was always looking out for me. We also got to be at the same college at the same time and Wabisabi Brother was so nice to always let his little sis use the car, even after she got into an accident that maybe was mostly her fault but she might have maybe made it sound like it was mostly the other guy's fault (I've since repented).

D: From childhood, I remember Wabisabi Brother relentlessly teasing me. I see a pattern emerging here -- embarrassing memories first from M and now from bro. Was it because I was the baby of the family or just a big wuss? Anyway, he's quite gentlemanly now and for whatever teasing he rained upon us sisters in the past, he has made up for it in his showering of love and affection on his little nieces.

Q: Wabisabi Brother always had a natural gift for athletics. Baseball, basketball and football were his sports of choice and he excelled at all of them. He was always off playing with his friends in the neighborhood or at some league game. Though I was usually excluded from the fun, occasionally I was allowed to play, too, and it always made my day. Imagine a big sister tagging along after her little brother.

M: Wabisabi Brother recently sacrificed an established lifestyle on one side of the country to move to the other side of the country where he is taking care of the home of my parents (who live out of the country). And since doing so, he's spruced the place up, building a mudroom, fixing windows, painting walls, doing yardwork--the list goes on and on.

Q: He's wicked sweet like that.

D: One of the parts that I love most when visiting home (besides all the swanky home improvements) are all the family pictures that he has framed and displayed. It would be obvious to anyone who visits him that family (and his sisters) are very important to him. What girl can resist that? He's thoughtful, intelligent, handy, gainfully employed...come on, do we have any takers out there, girls? He's still single!

Happy Birthday Brother!