Yikes

It's been a while.

Just a quick update, since it's ass crack of dawn:30

Maddie is now 3 months old and just the most amazing thing. I am so in love with my smiley, wonderful, happy baby.

Miles is taking ice skating lessons. His favorite color is pink, so he has some spiffy pink ice skates. He's going to be 7 in December. He's in LOVE with electronics and figuring out how things work. He adores the game Spore & the game Crazy Machines, where you put together Rube Goldberg type machines.

Max is still 9, and just got his white stripe on his green belt in TaeKwonDo, which he is really proud of. He's also currently obsessed with Pokemon. His Pokemon obsession comes and goes, but it's been on for the last few months. I don't know that he is currently capable of having an entire conversation without getting distracted and bringing pokemon into it.

Both of the boys voted in the Kids Vote thing on Nick. Obama, of course. They also dig talking politics. They are both in chess club at the library. They both love being homeschooled. Their eyeballs obviously have extra sparkles.

Maddie is smiling, drooling, loves to be held so that she can stand, learning what hands are for, contemplating her legs, considering her body's ability to roll over.

I am happy, no PPD, which is good.
I think my meds could be working better, though, cause I am having some issues with mood swings and general bitchiness. I am also over the top with anxiety lately, but I think that's just kind of in the air. The election, the economy, etc.

I cannot wait until the election is over.

My husband is, as always, awesome. I love him with all of my heart and I am so happy to be married to him. He is also an amazing daddy, parent to the boys, and just an all around great guy. Not to mention Teh Sexxy.

My BFF had a hysterectomy today, her husband called to tell me she was out of surgery and doing well. So Yay! I will go see her next weekend, once she's out of the hospital and chillaxin' at the 'rents house.

Halloween is Friday! w00t! It's my favorite holiday! Some friends are having their 10th wedding anniversary party, so we are going to go to their place, the kids will do TorTing, and much fun will be had by all. Can't figure out a costume for me or Chris but whatever, I'm sure I'll come up with something. Maybe.

Anyway, it is 4 in the morning, and I have no business being awake.
This is the most boring post ever, but I am too tired to try to be entertaining.

An Update!

Wow, I haven't updated in a while!

I have just been enjoying my new baby girl immensely. She is such a sweet little thing, and each day Chris and I are in awe of this beautiful little creature.

The boys both admit she's pretty cool, too :)

Madeleine Anaise

I'm just cutting and pasting the post I made on the Mothering boards:

Pictures!

Early Saturday morning, July 19th, 8 days before my edd, around 4am, when I was finally going into bed for the night, I went to pee first and because of all the talk of obsessive toilet paper checking, checked my paper, which I had just started doing, and it looked pink tinged. So I wiped again to make sure and yup, it was a bit of light pink.

I told dh as we crawled into bed.
I fell asleep fairly easily but didn't sleep well. I think I was a little excited. I woke up a few times through the night, but was able to go right back to sleep, though not deeply.

At just before 10 I woke up and it felt a little weird down there, and I was wondering if I had mucus plug trying to come out or what. After a few minutes of trying to decide if I wanted to get up to go pee and check there was a little pop and warm fluid. Not a whole lot, but enough that I was pretty sure my water broke (this is the first time it's broken before way late into labor).
I told dh and we got up to put in a load of baby clothes and the new sheets in the laundry. (That day was supposed to be laundry day so it hadn't been done yet!) I had a few mild contractions going to the laundry room and knew that this would be picking up pretty quickly.

When we got back to the apt I lost my plug in a big way. I called my best friend because I suddenly thought I might like to have her there cause we had a bit of stuff to get done. I also called one of my closest friends who lives in my apts who is a professional photographer, and she wanted to at least get some early labor shots if I felt like letting her. So she came over at about 10:45 and my contractions were picking up. My best friend got here around 11:15 and things were already starting to get very intense. My friend A needed to make a battery run, so she left to do that, and my best friend K came into the room with me while Chris went to switch over laundry. She had filled up my birth ball for me, but I wanted to lay down cause I was starting to feel nauseated.

When Chris came back I was starting to feel kind of panicky, cause things were getting very hard very fast and I just didn't feel like she was positioned well. I could tell she had gone completely head down, but wasn't moving down in a good way. I wasn't worried about her, I was worried about me, to be honest.

Contractions were still spaced a ways apart, so I knew it wasn't transition yet, so I knew when I was SURE I wanted to go to the hospital it wasn't just me freaking out, it was more than that.

At this point they were coming about 3-4 minutes apart and lasting a minute or so, and I couldn't keep my focus through them at all. That wasn't a good feeling, and I told Chris to grab a few things (my robe, and the camera, I think) and shove them in a bag and that I wanted to go NOW.

The hospital we decided to go to is only about 4? miles away, and I had about 4 contractions on the way there. That was BAD. I was leaning over into the bad seat just dry heaving and screaming, and COULD NOT GET IT TOGETHER. I think that was the worst part. I was able to keep it together in my previous births. I may have been quite vocal but I KNOW screaming tightens, etc. But I could not manage.

We got to the hospital, and I had a few contractions getting into the room and changed. At this point I think it was about 12:30. When whoever it was checked me I was only at 6cm. It wasn't a surprise at all, I knew I wouldn't be farther than that. I had a really hard time getting through things for the next while, and I had just a bit of a lip and was fully dilated close to 2. At this point I was nominally better at vocalizing in good ways except during peaks, but it was still impossible to stay focused through. I was a mess.

She was posterior, kinda badly positioned, but started at some point to have a major issue with decels, and I was fully dilated. They wanted me to push since she WAS starting to have those decels and my water was broken, and so I did, but not well at all. That was really bad. Her heart rate evened out, though, and I pushed for close to half an hour, and she kept going right back up each time. And I could FEEL her head hitting my pubic bones. It just didn't feel right. I told them this and told them I HAD to stop pushing, cause also at that point I literally thought my back and tailbone were on the verge of breaking. So the ob said ok, we'll wait, cause I obviously was NOT going to keep pushing

I told them I really wanted an epidural (again, actually), (I felt ok with this since I would NOT have pit and I was already fully dilated). The nurse I had who was wonderful, got the anesthesiologist in there for me, and somehow I managed to love through getting the epidural put in without moving during a contraction. He didn't hook me up to the drip since they figured I would have the baby any time. One contraction, same awful. Next one, ok. The next? I was just fine. I could still feel them and was completely aware of what my body was doing, but there was no pain. It was amazing. I NEVER thought I would be in a hospital again, with an epidural! and happy about it, but I was. Oh boy, I was. I guess circumstances make all the difference. A posterior baby stuck on pelvic bones with broken water? Yeah... That made the difference to me!

The ob (some random guy I'd never seen before, but he was ok. The obs are really quite superfluous really, ime, as long as they're not jerks) saw that now that I was comfortable and the baby was just fine we could take however long we needed and try to let the baby turn. So I would lay on my right side, then my left, for about half an hour each, then my nurse would ask me to turn again. Which was amusing seeing as how I had an epidural and had a heck of a time maneuvering my legs!! But I managed.

The epidural was done perfectly, too. I really could feel what my body was doing every moment, I could tell when she had finally turned, and just felt her descend really well, in the perfect position this time. They were really hands off, and trusted me to just tell them what I was feeling. My nurse just told me they would check again when the pressure starting feeling almost constant. The epidural was starting to wear off so she called the guy back to just put me on the drip. He was surprised to see me again
During this time dh & I sat listening to a podcast sharing my ipod headphones just holding hands and waiting to meet our new baby girl. That is a wonderful memory. I let my bff come in for a bit, too, then she ran to get her and my dh some food.

And the pressure just got stronger, and my body was pushing. I was still able to breathe through it, though for a little bit longer, and when I was just pushing and I felt like I could poop out the baby any time, I told her I thought the doctor should probably come and check me, she was thinking the same thing.

So he came back in and asked me just to give a little push, and yup, sure enough he told me she had hair and to try to breathe through so as not to push so hard for just a minute so he could change the bed bottom

I didn't even care about being in the stupid laying down position then, she was so far down and perfectly ready to come out it didn't make a bit of difference. I pushed once, knew her head was starting to crown, pushed again, out came her head, then they reminded me to go slow and let her come out , which I was able to do, and there she was! 3 pushes! The cord was wrapped around her neck, (explains a lot of things) and so they cut it soon, which I was totally ok with at that point. Then they handed me my baby girl. (No tearing, barely any swelling, a little bit of a skid mark, but it's nothing really. I can't believe how fine I feel!)

She was so covered in vernix, it was amazing! And she was so small! She was very mucusy, so I actually wanted her suctioned well. She came out pretty fast overall once she actually got down there, so I don't think it all got squeezed out.
(She also choked a few times and puked the first night, too. I had a bulb syringe and actually used it a few times.)

She was born at 5:45pm, 7-19-08. 7lb1oz. 19.5" long. So little!

Wow, I just realized how long this is getting.

Anyway, things went exceptionally well. I had planned a UC, and never thought I would go to a hospital ever again. And while under most any other circumstance I wouldn't have I am very very happy with my decision to go. I listened to myself and made the informed choice when the time came.
I was there on my terms, and I was also there knowing that making the decision to go would make it necessary for me to pick my battles. I think that made all of the difference.

I was open and vocal on my feelings, had a fantastic nurse, even if we didn't agree about hospital/homebirth on some issues, we had a great dialogue and I just enjoyed talking to her.

I was pleased that I didn't have to fight with them not to do anything I wouldn't have wanted to do. They were all overall great.

And I am still fully supportive of UC. homebirth, natural birth, all of it in a big bad way, but I am more appreciative of other circumstances in which a well informed decision can make me in wonder and awe of the magic of a well done epidural.

I feel wonderful, the baby is a marathon nurser and I certainly hope my milk comes in sooner rather than later because she's nursing for HOURS and my nipples are sore I got a fantastic night's sleep last night, though. I am so glad to have been able to go straight into nursing while laying down and sleeping!

Anyway, it wasn't the way I planned to birth, but I am SO HAPPY with the way it went.

Baby Toys

There are tons of icky plastic toys out there, but I don't like that sort of thing for babies. They chew on them like you wouldn't believe and I don't think phthalates and such are great for chewing. And how many toys do babies actually need? Not many! Just a few interesting things to look at and drool on. They are as happy with a washrag with frozen water on a corner to chew on as anything else when they are teething.

And so, in that vein, I'm going to post what I think are some of the best baby toys out there!



This is the Bonita by Haba. It's colorful and full of chewy fun! And it's awfully girly and cute, which totally gets me every time.







This is probably my favorite, cause it's a whole set for a really great price. Sassy has a really great line of wooden infant toys that I really like, and they are all very reasonably priced. I plan to get a few of these if nothing else.












I love this thing, too! It's another one by the German company Haba. Look at its bright simplicity, and how wonderful must that be to chew on while teething for a baby?







To be honest, I love nearly all of the toys put out by Haba, though they are kind of expensive.

Oh, and my love for Vulli natural rubber toys from France is pretty deep, too. I NEEEED this little thing:

This is one of the Chan Pie Gnon teethers from Vulli. Hehe! Chan Pie Gnon! Get it? This is Pink Pie. And I would really like one of these for Madeleine.
Sophie the Giraffe is Vulli's most famous toy apparently, but screw the giraffe, I want this one!











As I said before, babies don't need many toys. And I would rather put more money into something made with certified sustainable products, safe paints, are positively lead free and plastic free, so my own baby can chew and drool to her heart's delight and I can keep my peice of mind.

Where does the time go?

34 weeks & 2 days. Only 40 days to go, my counter says. Wow. All of a sudden this last bit is flying by!

Things to do:

• Clean the house - It's a never-ending thing! It's never perfect, which is what I want. And I achieved perfect while nesting with #2, seriously. I went all Fly Lady on that shit and I shined my sink 3x's a day the last week or so cause there wasn't anything else left I could possibly do. I had even painted the rooms in the house! Hurting and miserable this time doesn't allow for that.
  
• Make food for the freezer - lasagna, whatever else? Casseroles of various types. I REALLY WISH we could afford a small chest freezer. ARGH!
  
• Laundry- been pretty good about keeping up, but never have enough quarters on hand! Have many loads to do right now, all sorted already, but no quarters. Frustrating!
• The Back Bathroom of DOOM - We've pretty much abandoned it to the cats. We haven't even used the shower in there for months, we use the front bathroom. The litter box is HUGE, and takes up so much space. I hate walking around it to the bathtub/toilet part of the bathroom, so only the front part gets used at all. I will definitely want the shower and all available for labor and afterwards. Don't know where else we could put the litter box, though, and with only one box for 2 cats we can't really go smaller. Here is the monstrosity we have for them.
  
• Clean the hall closets? Haha. The front one is FILLED with crap that I want to get rid of but have not had the energy to deal with posting on Craigslist to sell or Freecycle to just make it go. So back into the closet it went. The front closet is quite bothersome. Then I opened the back hall closet and realized it's in about the same shape. Argh!
  
• Our closet - It' s becoming as filled with crap as before. Argh! Again!
  
• The kids' room - Oy. That's a project for them this weekend. They do ok cleaning it and it's really not that bad. I wish the rest of the house were as easy to clean. Everything has a place in their room. Makes me jealous. That's my goal with the rest of the house.
• Living room - bookshelves, books, there is still the giant pile of books next to the couch that needs to GO, etc.

Ok, I realize I should be cleaning instead of blogging, ha!

Hatred of the clutter! It doesn't matter if I can't see it, it's still there and I know it. Just as bothersome.

I will be doing some cleaning shortly, then try to go swim for a bit.

Things left to obtain:

• Birthing Ball - Need this! My bestest buddy during labor.
• Fish Scale - Wish I knew someone who fished often and had one I could just borrow

I know there's more, but mostly I have everything or it's being shipped to me today.

Birth Preparation

I know there aren't a whole lot of things I *need* for the birth, I mean, we'd manage with a towel and our teeth for gnawing through the cord if it came down to it.

But I do plan to get a few things together before hand. The main things I really want to have on hand are the herbs and tinctures. I really really need to start the EPO and RRL and all of those things. I can't believe I have neglected even buying RRL tea. Going to get some before the weekend and take it with me.
I really want the herbs and such for bleeding. Just in case I hemmorhage again. How awful would that be to have my perfect birth, then have to go to the ER because of bleeding. That would piss me off a whole lot.

I think I decided to once again not to bother with a tub. My last few births I would have not used a tub. I had one to use the last time, and it never got set up, and the entire thought of it sounded hideous to me. I don't think it will be different. If it is, oh well.

Standing in the shower for a bit with water on my lower back helped last time, till they made me get out since I kept falling asleep between contractions. They didn't want me to fall. I hated them so much for making me get out. I understand their concern, but this time? Guess what? No one there to tell me what to do! I'll stand there all I want if I am so inclined! Ha!

I want a cheap shower curtain for under old sheets on the bed, some chux pads so I don't have to do towels (special matching happy birthday to me towels, remember?), an aspirator, and a digital fish scale and sling for it. Everything else? Meh, I think I will survive with or without it. There are probably a few other things that I am forgetting, but that's the gist of it.

This evening the kids had some questions about meconium and what happens if the baby does poop before birth, can that happen, etc? Max asked if I was having an unassisted birth. I told him I was in the sense that I will know how to have this baby, my body knows and the baby knows, but that I would have assistance from the people who will be there and love me and support me. I told him about how the Emergency Childbirth book says that any reasonably intelligent 8 year old could assist in the birth of a baby. Oh goodness. The boys' eyes lit up! They are now wanting to cut the cord at the least, but are ready to help out with the birth all by themselves :) I love those kids SO MUCH. It's indescribable. I am so happy they are getting excited about the birth and new sister. It's taken a while, but they are both seeming excited about it now.

Gosh, it doesn't look like it, but I did manage a little cleaning this morning. Nesting! Where are you?!? Where is my energy? Where did it go?

Update of Random

I haven't been posting regularly for a few reasons, #1 is I have been on the mothering boards a lot lately, and then trying to catch up with my rss feeds. (I sub to 126 blogs currently and some of the blogs, like BoingBoing, Consumerist and TreeHugger are pretty prolific in their posts).

Another reason is it's frustrating to post so often to next to no one.

And there's just so much I'd like to post, but I'm lazy sometimes.

So, where to start? The baby shifted so the SPD pain is significantly better the last few days, even though my back and stomach muscles hurt.

We spent the weekend being lazy and at the pool, which was very nice. But the house, oh I can't even deal with it. I plan to clean some in a little bit cause I feel a bit better today than I have been.

I ate too many carbs over the weekend and woke up feeling awful yesterday :( Concentrating on upping my protein intake and no more processed carbs like that. UGH.

I have wanted to post about thrift stores finds, but haven't yet. I also took some new pics yesterday of my pregnant self and want to put those up soon, but haven't cause both sets of batteries need to be recharged.

I don't want to talk about Mother's Day, other than to say I totally give up. It's been nothing but utter disappointment to me since my first Mother's Day while pregnant 9 years ago. I am hurt, depressed, angry, all of those things. I'm going to give up on this. My kids were awesome, at least. Made me GREAT cards and of course make me feel so loved every single day. SO loved.

We implemented pizza night on Friday and making a note here, Huge Success. I'll post specifics later on. I'll probably just copy and paste a post I made on Mothering earlier.

Been watching Season 2 of Dexter. LOVE it, just as good if not better than the first season. On the edge of my seat with it right now. Nail Biting nerves. Is it wrong to be rooting for the sociopathic serial killer?

I may get to work part time again doing the same thing that I was soon. That would ROCK hardcore! Money is tight and stressful right now, and it sucks.

What, what? In the butt. I said, What , what? In the butt!

Have found some cool things at thrift stores. That's why we purged our books, you know. To buy more. Ha. I've had to have bought at least a dozen since we purged. But I love books, reading, as do Chris and Max, and Miles is getting there with his reading, too.

Both kids are homeschooling and thrilled about it, as am I. VERY happy with it. Wish I had better communication with the ex and his spouse, but I am happy with the set up. They are not doing the homeschooling personally, they have someone hired full time with all 4 of the younger kids in their household. Each kid got to make their own decision on whether they wanted to. Max was the longest holdout and he's just been doing this for about 2 weeks.
I've wanted hsing for them from day 1. I am a big believer that homeschooling with a committed family is by far the best option for kids. However you do it, unschooling (my preference), curriculum based (VERY strongly pro-secular, though), co-op schooling with other like minded families. Homeschooling comes in all shapes and flavors, and peoples silly questions about it bother me. Had to field the mil on Mother's Day about socialization, etc. Argh.
I wish people who don't really want to be educated about a subject feels it's ok to give me the 3rd degree with no intention of really listening. There's a ton of different subjects this can apply to in my experience.

I really want to go see Iron Man this week when the check gets here.

I am going to the Kerrville Folk Festival with a friend this year. Yay! Primitive camping at 7 months! I just know what life will be like for a while after the baby, and getting to laze around, sleep during the hot day, go down to the river to swim and cool off, then stay up late around the fires listening to music and chilling out? I can do that for 3 days! Unfortunately I don't think Chris can come :(

We really need to plan a weekend thing for just us before the baby gets here. I was hoping hoping hoping to be able to afford to go to New Orleans for a long weekend and stay at the B&B where we spent our honeymoon, but financially that just won't happen. Sigh... Maybe just a trip to Austin to hang with friends, that would be nice, too.

We should plan that now. Maybe a midweek trip would be best. Who knows, I need to look at a calendar.

I also need to finish my list for the (bwahahahahaha!!!! I just realized, since i didn't want to call it a shower I was about to type "baby bbq"! Hahahaha!) Baby shower... (cause I guess there's not a better term offhand!) and get it to my best friend so she can get to work on invites. She's been on me, and I've worked on it, just need to finish it.

And really at this point I'm really hoping that no one else gets onesies! We have SO MANY :) I love thrift stores.
I am going ask people for things like frozen meals, dinner, laundry, dishes, those types of gifts :) Those are the best type! I do still have a registry for those who really want it, and there's some stuff I on there I wouldn't mind receiving at all but we can live without them. Well, except for diapers and more bottles! I'm so glad I was able to get the basics already, though.

What else? I'm sure there's more but this is turning into a long random post.

On Being a Good Enough Parent

Cathy over at Chief Family Officer participated in the My Life in Six Words meme, and I think hers is a great one: I'm not perfect, but good enough.

She also asked other people out there reading to talk about being a "good enough" parent.

This was a very hard place for me to get to in my life. I have an unusual situation among most of the mothers that I know in that I am not the primary custodial parent to my boys. It took me four years of very difficult processing to get to a place of being as ok with this as I think I can be. Of course, it sucks more than you can possibly imagine, and it's not something that most mothers can even fathom. I couldn't either for a very long time.

I've blogged before about my very difficult time with severe PPD after my 2nd child was born, along with undiagnosed and spiraling out of control bipolarII. I was also in a relationship that I didn't feel supported in and putting that and the decision to leave that marriage in the midst of all of this going on made things impossible for me to be a full time mother as I had been since the birth of my oldest child.

I felt completely lost and helpless and like I was simply a bad person in my inability to communicate with my spouse, take care of my children perfectly all of the time, and to deal with my severe depression over it all.

I had a bit of a mental breakdown and could not sustain that life. I still stayed home with the kids full time after we separated, for nearly a year, and I still just felt overwhelmed and incapable of taking care of myself well and exhausting myself in every way struggling to care for the kids. When he filed the divorce and the custody arrangement came up, there wasn't anything different I could have done at the time. That was my biggest obstacle, accepting that it was the best decision at the time. Especially once I was treated and could see that it was the mental illness and not me simply being a bad person.

Since that time I have had to do a lot of work to forgive myself, to stop blaming myself, and to come to terms with the impact my mental illness had. For a long time I wanted nothing more than to go back and do anything I could do to change the way things happened.

But I had to rethink that, because I did do the best I could, and I did do everything that was in my capability at the time.

This is something I have to live with now. While I could attempt to change it around and take it to court and all of that, not only is it beyond my financial means, but I feel like it could be detrimental to my children. I have just recently seen what kind of stress a parent can put on their children by just this very thing. It isn't fair to the kids and it can be a selfish road to take.

If I felt that my children were suffering greatly in this situation, I would, but while there are definite difficulties in the situation (mostly involving me and their father at times), things are ok for them. Not ideal for me, but they are ok. My children are well taken care of and happy, they have two sets of very loving and involved parents who make them their priority, they have lived their lives in this way for nearly 5 years now. I would jump at the chance for things to be different, but not at the detriment of my kids.

This is the way my reality of mothering is, and I have come to accept it.

I did what was the best I could do, and it was good enough. My kids will undoubtedly have some things to work through as they get older, but I think to a certain extent most people do. Even if they have an "ideal" childhood, there are things that will crop up, and will need to be worked through.

I am not a perfect mother, but I am an awesome mother. I kick all kinds of ass when it comes to parenting my children, and I know that I do.

It also took me 4 years of adamantly denying even the thought of ever having another child. I sincerely did not believe I deserved to raise another one, since I felt so much like I failed the children I already had.

After a lot of work in dealing with my feelings about my situation, I finally got to the point of being ok with having done what I could and that it wasn't my fault. I didn't choose the mental illness, I didn't choose the PPD, I didn't choose to be unable to care properly for my children for a period of time.

And once I worked through all of this, lo and behold, I was finally able to also realize that I did want another child. Another child with my husband,, my life partner, my best friend, the awesome step parent to my children. And of course, a month after we started talking about it and we decided to try in about a year, I felt a little funny and peed on a stick, and here I am, at 27 weeks pregnant with our daughter.

With this preganancy, there has been the acceptance of not being able to breastfeed due to the medications I have to take to control my illness and be able to be a good mother. And that I don't actually want to co-sleep for 3 years this time. I just don't. And I am not doing cloth diapers this time.

I had a little bit of mourning over the breastfeeding thing, but I know that this is what I need to do. It still hits me sometimes, and makes me a little sad, but I know that my mental health is the most important part of my ability to parent. The other things are just my own decisions and wisdom of my own limitations and what causes me undue stress, etc. Well managed mental health care for is the best thing I can give all of my children and my family and myself, this is the first priority always.

And I also have had occasion bouts of guilt when it comes to my two oldest children. They have been less than thrilled with this baby, and I know that it comes from (because they have told me) them not being here with me all of the time like this baby will be. That's hard. But I do everything I can to allow their feelings, to try to reassure them that they will not receive any less attention from me because of the baby, etc. There is only so much I can say to them to make them feel better, so they will just have to see it to believe it.

I also drink more caffeine that I should while pregnant sometimes, and other times all I eat is cereal and soymilk. Meh. Don't sweat the small stuff, I say.

Wow, this has become a long post. I'm sure there are some other things I would have liked to have touched on, but brain melty and it's late.
I also wanted to add in a six word thing, but haven't thought of one for myself. I will think about it some more and post it another time. It's 4am and I want to go to the farmer's market in the morning. If only I could sleep!

I Can Live Without It, Too.

Rebecca over at Green Baby Guide has a post about Baby Gear I Lived Without. I was just going to leave her a comment telling her how much I agreed, but it was far too long, so I decided to go ahead and post about it over here.
I know I have mentioned before my dislike of baby "gear" and all, but I figure I'll make a post more focusing on what I DID use.
As many of you know, this is baby #3 for me, but with a 6 year gap in between my last this time it's starting all over with baby stuff collecting.

I've made some different decisions this time around but let me tell you, with my first, there were very few items I needed and I was one of those moms sucked in to having a registry based on the infamous checklist. (I've become a lot wiser in the nearly 9 years since I became a mother for the first time!)

The things that came in handy with my first:
bouncy seat to put him in when I needed to pee or eat (didn't have a moses basket)
a sling,
exersaucer once he was a bit older (I personally love these things)
a $20 umbrella stroller after he could hold his head up well.
I could have done without anything else! Seriously. Nothing else was EVER used, including the crib (well, it was used to hold unfolded clean laundry). I used cloth diapers and breastfed and co-slept, so that was pretty much it. Oh, a very small black Carter's diaper bag that looked like one of those square lunch bags. That was a great bag! Big enough for a few cloth diapers, some wipes and a dirty diaper sack and it doubled as a purse for me so I didn't have more than one bag to carry.

With my 2nd I did get a glider, because I didn't have anything that rocked and thought it would be really nice to have and it was. Some friends chipped in and got one for me, and it lasted for about a year then fell apart. I don't have anything that rocks now, either, so I am going to see if I can find one free from anyone I know or Freecycle. It can really be anything that rocks and is comfortable, not necessarily a glider (the gliders really are totally ugly, aren't they?)

With #2, I knew what I wanted to add to the mix and what I didn't, and I've figured out even more now with #3 on her way. All of my shopping has been at the thrift store, and the majority of everything else has come free from friends.

Which means overall I have a few additional things that I may or may not use already, but I didn't shell out for it, nor did anyone else, at least not recently for new prices. I plan to use the crib this time around, and I got one for free. I did shell out $50 for a new mattress but I was offered a few. I just felt better knowing it was new. I did get a monitor that I will be able to use this time, too. If I am outside then it will be nice to have.

So, basically these are all items that I have put thought into and didn't just follow those silly checklists that seem to be everywhere. Of course I've had babies, so have first hand knowledge, but I think any first time moms can benefit from knowing these things.

I frequent the motheringdotcommune boards and in my due date club we have an ongoing thread about this very thing. It's very nice to hear what other mothers are finding useful and what was a waste of money and resources, especially for those first time moms who can really use this information. And it's funny, because there is very little variation across the board on what was needed and what wasn't.

What items were your necessities with your child(ren)? What could you live without and what came in useful?

Wow, this ended up rambly (Baby stuff stuff)

So, this is baby #3 for me, but baby #1 for my husband, and there is a big gap in there between my youngest and this one. So this means that I no longer had any baby stuff left over. I really didn't think I would have any more and didn't want to hold on to all of that stuff even if I eventually did.

Starting out with absolutely nothing for a baby I have managed to amass a giant pile of stuff already (FREE! mostly). And I still need to pick up the crib and a few various other things people have for me. Another friend randomly texted me the other day saying she had a bunch of girl clothes for me, too.

I am planning on having at least one shower and one blessingway, based on friends who have asked to throw these. I don't mind at all, though I am trying to figure out the best way to make sure that anyone who will attend these events knows that "reduce, reuse, recycle" is really our thing. I don't anyone to feel obligated to bring a gift, though it's generally a given for showers, but I do want to let people know that if they would like to gift us with something what types of things would be really useful.

I registered at babiesrus.com and I think I can put a note on my registry. I'm not sure how long it can be, though, right now it just says "it's a girl"

I don't know, I always hate the idea of those cards you stick in invites letting people know where you are registered.

I was thinking of maybe having my hostess make cards to add into the invites that says something like "Gently used or thrifted clothing and blankets, chlorine free disposables and BPA free bottles, Similac Organic, or a yummy meal for the new parents freezer are all very welcome gifts. If you are stuck for ideas you can also visit the registry at babiesrus.com"

Ugh, I don't know. I don't want to sound pushy, either. But I really don't want to end up with things like bottles or diapers that are not the types I plan to exclusively use. I do feel strongly about only using certain types of items for health and environmental reasons.

My first choice is hand me downs, in order to make less of an impact in the use of materials and pollutants, the exceptions to this being bottles that are not BPA free and plastic toys, I really don't want plastic toys that will be chewed on, unless I know the grade and manufacturer. The things that can't be gotten used, like the diapers, I feel strongly about adding as little waste as I can (ha, of course, not doing cloth that I wash myself this time is kind of the antithesis of this, no?)

I don't know, I have this weird feeling about having a shower or 3 this time around (mom friends from my original AP playgroup that I've know since Max was born is doing the blessingway thing during a weekend getaway that us moms are having this summer with the kids) (a couple's thing with my friends from our day to day group of good friends that my goodest friend wants to throw) (possibly a separate for family, I generally think a family one is good separated, I would like to have a small traditional girl kind with Chris' step-mother and her mother, his step-sister, etc, and invite my mother to this one... ugh, that stresses me out to even think about, yeah, better separate)... But I've always been this way. AND heck, I had a wedding shower for my 2nd marriage (my first actual wedding, though)

But I think if I can get our message across on what we need and would like then I don't feel like anyone would be put out and it will give everyone a lot of flexibility in finding us something without feeling pressured to spend a lot of money.

I have a couple of things on the registry like the car seat and stroller that are a little more, but we have the initial stuff we need already so it's not a big deal if we don't have it when the baby is born. Those things are for the benefit of specific family members that I know all too well to have money they would like to spend on this baby and by all means if they're going to do it anyway I figured I would give them something to get :p

I know people will get what they get anyway, but I just want to gently nudge people in our preferred direction.

Thoughts? How would you do this?

Baby Update!

I am so happy! The baby is doing well and guess what!! I'll give you a clue:



Hee hee! It's a GIRL, if you can't figure out what that blob up there might be! (Feet legs and booty!)

There she is!

She says hello!

Baby stuff

So I went to see an new ob/gyn yesterday and I really liked her. She is at Memorial SW where my other gyn is, the one who stopped doing ob work last year. The new doc said she has been sent several of my other gyn's ob patients and knows her, so that's a good sign, too.

I still have mixed feelings about a hospital birth, but my new doc seems to be really receptive to the way I feel about my birthing experience and said that the nurses there are also very good and let you labor in whatever way you like, walking around, they have rocking chairs, etc. They have wireless monitoring, so that makes it easy.

One thing my ob is firm on is having an iv in just in case they need to put something in quickly, which I understand completely. As long as they don't force something on me like in my first AWFUL experience, the one that has really made me wary of hospitals in general.

Also, I will be going for one of those "4d" ultrasounds in a couple of weeks. That is so weird to think that we'll be actually SEEING the baby.

The kids are having a really hard time with the idea of the new baby on the way... That's a post for another time, one I don't have energy for right now. I just hope we'll be able to work through this.

Since I cannot travel to the Pac NW this summer, as is our regular summer vacation, some of my friends and I are renting cottages in Rockport, TX and will be spending a few days on the beach with the kids, sans spouses or partners. I cannot wait. I will be 8.5 months pregnant, but I'm sure it will be awesome.