More Things I Never Thought I'd Say as a Parent....

"Because I'm the parent" seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Benevolent dictatorship and all. However, some of the things that pop out of my mouth truly do surprise me:


"No, you are NOT going to mummify your sister" (to Chana)

"Markers go on the paper, not in your mouth" (to Ilana, after a market went SPLOOSH all over her teeth. She was distraught and wanted to nurse. EWWWW!)

"STOP READING!!!!!!!" (to Batsheva)

"You may not use permanent marker to write on yourself" (to PB)

"You may not use permanent marker to write on another person, especially not a mustache" (ibid)

Oh What a Night (part 2)

Backround info:

our car is in the shop today, so I'm driving my mom's car. Tomorrow (HOORAY!) my parents return from their 7 month self-imposed exile in Florida. At which point they expect to find their car in their driveway so they can do necessary things like go grocery shopping.

The night:

Tonight was supposed to be my big night out with my old friends (not that we're "old"), Heidi and Jodi. We went to elementary school together, and, despite being pretty different people, we have made it through thick and thin and still actually like to hang out with each other. Like it a lot, in fact!

Jodi went to college at UMass Amherst, then moved to Texas, and then lived for a number of years in Singapore (!). She moved back to MA about 1 1/2 years ago with her husband and two children, and now lives about an hour away from Heidi and me. Heidi and I see each other all the time. She and her son came over for dinner last night, in fact.

Last month, after working for what felt like weeks to coordinate schedules to find time for "Ladies Night", we had a great time together and got Heidi ready to testify (in 60 seconds or less) before a State Senate subcommittee on education.

This month, I felt way too swamped with preparations for the holiday of Shavuot and our friends who are coming to stay with us for 5 nights. So I bowed out of dinner but said I would meet up with them at Starbucks. After giving everyone dinner and putting PB to bed, I made it to BJ's with 20 minutes to shop before our meeting time. I even survived the horrendous checkout line without needing store personnel-assistance in self checkout (now THERE'S an accomplishment!).

I got to my mother's car in the lot (ours being in the shop) and the darn thing wouldn't start!

Well, off to put Ilana to bed. Tune in later for the ending....

One small step for baby....one giant step for....well, Ilana.

On Shabbat, Ilana took one teensy tinsy very wobbly little step. Chana and I, of course, flipped out and she fell down BOOM while smiling. Our wonderful friend Janet who was here for Shabbat with her husband, Mark, is our witness that the historic event really did take place :)

B'sha'ah tova to Janet (CLKL--remember her?), who is due with her first in about 3 weeks! SO neat!

What's new with Ilana?

Why, funny you should ask! Starting Saturday night, she began to stand up on her own without holding on to anything. Soooo cute to see. By the end of her practice time, she was even able to clap for herself for being so clever!

She can walk holding on with one hand.

She can (still) climb like a monkey.

She can do a terrific "Shema": covers eyes and says "ahhhhhh".

She can now say "Eva" for "Batsheva" (her first word was "Ana" for Chana).

Current signs: more, all done, "gotta make", nurse. We also use eat, drink, and "thank you" with her, but she hasn't done those yet.

"Happy Bratska Fartska Tushka Day"

A card that the "oldest of my girls" made for a certain 4.5 year-old who says that comment raw-ther a lot (actually, what she really yells is "you stupid bratska fartska tushka"). OY.....

Someone please remind me that she will (G-d willing, soon) get out of this phase!

SCD food as artistic statement

on left: homemade yogurt with a layer of baked apples in the middle and fresh blackberries on top.

next: black bean salad with shredded lettuce and tomatoes on a tortilla made entirely of cheddar cheese

next: the same ingredients, but the cheese is made into a folded tortilla (hint: melt cheese in a nonstick pan. wait for it to cool [put in fridge to speed the process if child is very hungry]. Blot oil off. Fold. Enjoy the fact that, gosh dang it, you finally made something that looks NORMAL.




Next:If child refuses to eat yogurt that took 30-something hours to make, put in fancy shmancy glass and artistically top with honey. Hope for the best....

Last picture: "SCD Mac and Cheese", made with spaghetti squash in place of noodles. Tastes pretty darn good, except nothing like what my kids really crave, which comes in a package and has flourescent orange powdered cheese.

Oh what a night....

It all started way back when, on Mother's Day (i.e. yesterday). Now you have to know that, although our house is really bonkers during most days, once we get the kids wrestled into bed at night, it's pretty calm around here. I've worked darn hard this year to get PB's bedtime to 7 pm. Still working on getting Batsheva and Chana into bed around 9. But I digress. Back to the wonderful day where mothers are feted and their children behave like little angels....

Sam was working on work stuff. I was working on soap company stuff. I needed help. By the time he could help me and we worked out what the heck was the problem with our printer, it was 1 am (hi Fern! Which explains why I was writing to you in Israel then. How could I pass up the opportunity to speak in almost real-time?).

And Batsheva was roaming the upstairs very upset about not being able to sleep well, and would we PLEASE come upstairs (needed her across-the-hall teddy bears, I guess).

So we finished and got into bed. Only to find that Goldilocks, er, PB was already there. And would not leave for love, money or threat of all potential for a goodie the next day being taken away. So Sam and I went into the guest room. But that bed was toooo little, being only a single, and had a lack of pillows. So we made our way back into our room and tried to move PB into her sleeping bag on our floor. Which worked for a little while, until she half woke up and discovered our nefarious scheme....

Then Ilana woke up. It was now 4 am. Nursed her, which took a surprisingly long time (maybe it was close enough to daytime for "first breakfast") and put her back in her crib at the foot of our bed (no room for her to stay since PB was already there). She wasn't having any of it. Have you ever gotten to the point of exhaustion where you find it totally possible to fall asleep with a screaming child less than three feet from you (I bet most of you have, actually....)? She finally stopped screaming and took a different tact. She stood up in her crib, looked over the edge endearingly and said, "All Done" ("Ah Dah"). So we smushed her into our bed and got the final 1.5 hours of sleep until it was time to get Batsheva up for school.

On the bright side: Chana slept the whole night. And the birds.

p.s. from the next day: in a totallyn pathetic display of exhaustion, I fell asleep on the floor of the YMCA during PB's gymnastics lesson (Ilana was having a snooze in her carseat, and Chana was only too happy to take a break from doing her math with me). Sure felt better after, though!

Standing

Saturday night, after working towards it for a few days (getting into a squat, but not being able to stand up), Ilana began to stand! She was so thrilled with her new skill that she did it continually for an hour, even progressing to being able to stand and clap for herself without falling over (at least at that moment).

Batsheva, Chana, Leah and I were there to cheer the big accomplishment on.

Ilana's busy, busy day

Today, let's see, she spent quite a while pulling out the "baby protective" covers on an electrical socket (and, EEK, trying to put them back in). Maybe I should give her some prescription medicine containers to practice on next....

She helped me unload the dishwasher by standing in it (I'm beginning to see why I can't get a handle on the mess in my house!). Is that a picture of a kid saying "I'm busted" or what?!

Climbed up the stairs a bazillion times.

Helpfully unloaded all the plastic forks onto the floor and then chewed on them (box of plastic utensils is now away inside a cabinet)

Was discovered trying to eat a screw that had come loose from the baby gate at the entrance of our schoolroom (I was only about a foot away from her when it happened, but she was facing away from me). The gate is now fixed :)

Tried to sit on Chana's skateboard scooter and fell off, getting her first-ever facial boo-boos.

Yelled "HIIII" at the appropriate moment at karate so that the teacher stopped what he was doing and asked "did she just 'ki ahp'?!"

Climbed into this small plastic chair that holds kids' books in our bathroom. Did I mention that she did it without taking the books out? That was one precariously-perching toddler!

Spent almost the whole day diaper-free at home (two misses at home [one she crawled into the bathroom and banged on the potty, but I didn't make it in time to help her actually get *on* the potty. I don't think that one really counts as a miss!], one when she was diapered at karate)

She also ate several spoonfuls of homemade organic apple sauce (see SC Diet posts below), opening her mouth reaaaally wide and then smearing it in her hair.

I'm exhausted!

Lactivism!

Wow. I am so amazed at the incredible "lactivists" (breastfeeding activists) on Mothering magazine's website (http://mothering.com/discussions/forumdisplay.php?f=25).

Recently, a mom posted there about how she and her sister are staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Houston while her sister's son is recovering from brain surgery. AND THEY WERE HARRASSED ABOUT NURSING IN THE COMMON ROOM! How insane is that?! The poor kid is 17 months old and healing from brain surgery and people are kvetching that they're "uncomfortable" with that baby nursing in "public"?! Have these idiots heard of turning away? Reading a newspaper? Not being so interested in other people's business? Leaving the room? Do they have a CLUE that this is what breasts are for?!

RMH has gotten an earful from pro-nursing folks (we live in a bizarre world that there can possibly be people who are anti-....), and today there was an article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19nurse.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin

Diaper-free Baby

Yay! We took the plunge a week ago. We have used Elimination Communiation with Ilana since her birth--listening to her cues (like getting squirmy or more verbal) and our intuition, and taking her to the potty or toilet to make. She has been in cloth diapers full-time, but as a backup to EC. She's been about 50% for dry diapers.

Well, it's a week now for us where she is diaper-free at home and in a backup cloth diaper when we're out, and I am so proud of her and us for doing this. She's doing great! And I am getting the hang of NOT putting diapers on automatically! It's nice that we really think about when we want her in diapers (like during dinner last night, when she hadn't peed in forever, it was late, and I was reeeeally hungry).

On Friday, I took her many times to make with nada coming out. Then she crawled to the potty on her own and did make! This happened twice and was very heartening.

I'd say we have about three misses a day, but with a fair bit of "communication" going on. Yesterday, for example, she was playing with her toys and stopped and looked at me with a very concerned look on her face. "Oh, do you have to make?" I asked, as I picked her up and carried a very pishy baby to the bathroom. Well, at least it doesn't happen too often!

She also sometimes uses sign language to say that she has to make. It's very cute to see. The sign is the letter "T" for toilet shaken back and forth, but she holds her hand in a very specific, curved way and shakes it. I love the inner genius in our very young kids :)

One Year Old....

Wow. This past weekend was Ilana's Hebrew birthday. So, while the right number of suns have not yet passed since her birth, the correct number of moons have! She was born on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat right before Passover, and it's funny how I have such a strong connection to that time this year, and almost none to the date of April 7....

I love how this year the timing is very similar to last year (except I think that the first night of Pesach last year was a Tuesday, not a Monday like this year). No matter how late we stay up dealing with the kitchen, it feels like such a piece of cake (SCD Pesach cake?!) b/c we don't have a newborn, I haven't been ordered by the midwife to stay upstairs except for appearing at the sedars, and Chana is not sick!

So Miss Ilana celebrated by climbing the entire staircase with me in back of her, climbing three stairs (without me in back of her) and falling down (I was in the other room and a friend here for Shabbat lunch forgot to keep an eye on her 100% of the time) and getting her first facial bruise (aww, good for her!). She also ate homemade apple sauce and some rice cake crumbs. She can pull herself to standing and has six teeth now.

We all wore party hats for Shabbat dinner and Shabbat lunch. Batsheva, Chana and PB gave brachas to her on Friday night. It was so sweet to hear the blessings they said. PB said, "I hope you always have good sleep", while B and C wished her "another 120 years" with all good things in them.

Richard and Leah came for lunch and we all talked about last year, and how they heard about her birth. Batsheva and Chana went to shul to tell Leah, and B. tried to fool her that the baby had been a boy. Leah just insisted that it was a girl, though :). Richard remembered going over to Sam as soon as he came into shul and asking what happened. Sam said that he ignored everyone and concentrated on davening. Then, when it was time for announcements, he sidled up to Andy and asked him to announce a mazal tov to our family!

After Shabbat (last year), my brother and Sis-in-law, Jay and Kim, came over. Then, around 11 pm, Sam's mom, Chellie, and his stepfather, Joey, came over. I was so tired, but there's nothing like seeing a grandma coo over a new grandbaby.

The next morning, Kim came back with Joshua and Rebecca. Josh put Ilana on his hand and held her. (Which brings me a flashback of Jay holding Josh like that, except that Josh [who is now something like 6'3"] was in his little lamb coat with the ears and tail!). Later, Heidi came, and Nancy, Efraim and Chana Nasia. Chana Masha was just lying in bed next to me, kind of zoned out. Efraim (http://www.emk.jamminweb.com/) made a wonderful vegetable lasanga. Nancy and Heidi, who had just met, even bonded by going to Costco together.

I definitely have been thinking about how our friends and family saved us with their wonderful cooking. Rissy, Suzi, Tova R, my aunt Paula (AP)....So many kind people sent over kugel or matza lasagna or soup. AP even kindly accepted my family descending on her erev Pesach so that my kids could see her grandkids. Then, of course, they got hungry, which is really a bother erev pesach! But she dealt with everything with such grace.

And then Jen and Shmuley took the girls to the Big Apple Circus during Chol HaMoed....And Chana Milman and Menucha took them to the zoo. What amazing friends and relatives we have.

It's been quite a year. Couldn't have made it through without such great love and support.

What do I feed this kid?!

It seemed daunting way back when, but now it feels pretty darn normal to deal with the SC diet full-time. Here's today's menu:

Breakast: Peanut butter smoothie, made with PB, frozen banana, honey, apple cider and homemade yogurt (more about that later!)
Baked apples sauteed in butter and honey

Snack: poached egg

Lunch: breakfast redux (her choice)

Snack: umm, I can't remember, but I'm sure there was one

Dinner: artichoke with melted butter
organic broccoli
Taco Fillings (corn or flour tortillas are not allowed on the diet, so we came up with the idea of eating just the fillings. This is THE dinner that most feels like old times for all of us).

So we ate refried beans (red beans and black are okay on the diet, as long as they've been soaked overnight and then cooked for at least two hours. True confession: I know that I'd been a vegetarian for, well, forever, before this, but I had never cooked beans from scratch before--only used canned). Ate the beans with lettuce and shredded cheese. I've also become creative and begun to make "cheese tortillas" by melting cheese in a nonstip pan and then letting it get cool enough to lift out in one piece and roll. THAT, my friend, is a triumph of creativity over restriction :)

Dessert: homemade apple fruit roll and dehydrated orange slices.

I also made apple sauce, since Chana has trouble swallowing pills, but can do it with the pills mixed in apple sauce.

Food appliances I've used today:
Foley Food mill (for the apple sauce)
blender (twice. Once for the peanut butter smoothie and once for a soy butter one that Penina could eat).
immersion blender (for the refried beans)
yogurt maker (for the yogurt :))
dehydrator (for the fruit roll [made by dehydrating apple sauce. Came out great! Only problem is that it's like 9 hours since I started making the apple sauce] and the oranges)

I'm beginning to see why I'm so tired at night. And why I need help keeping my house from spiraling into utter chaos. And....

And Yet Another Follow-Up....

The upshot of all the "is it a flare or isn't it" is that it was/is, but is not a crazy, out-of-control one. I am reminded of being in nursing school and being told repeatedly to "trust the mom". That is definitely born out in this case, since the clinical evidence of Chana's labs being off is only now coming out, several weeks after I called and said, "I think she's having a flare".

I spoke with Chana's doctor 1.5 weeks ago when he called to tell me that one of her inflammation markers was very high (17.7 for C-reactive protein, when normal is less than 1). So now, instead of being on one pill a day, she's on 6 (well, 7 if we count the iron).

Labs get drawn again tomorrow, so, hopefully, we'll find out good news at her next appt. on Thursday. She seems totally back to normal, and I'm hoping we can ditch the extra meds ASAP.

Yeah...What She Said

PB comes into the kitchen, crying about her big sisters' treament of her:
"They're outcluding me!"

A follow-up

Weird what happens when one comes back and revisits old posts. I didn't even recall putting the "flare" post on here.

So here's what happened: Chana had labs drawn and....they were fine (whew) and the dr. said "go to Florida!". Cutting out the nuts and seeds did seem to be a big help, as her stomach eventually stopped hurting so much (oh yeah, she also went back on super-duper antacid, so now, should she so desire, I suppose she really could "eat the whole thing" like those old commercials used to say). Her iron count was still low, but the two main markers of inflammation were okay.

Had more blod drawn last week, and the iron count was eek-scary lower (add in iron pill [which, since it's very difficult to digest, is technically a no-no on the diet, which is why we didn't start it earlier]), and one of the inflammatory markers is creeping up. STOP!!!! Do not increase! Do not give my child a flare. Do not show even an inkling of my child having a flare.

Did I mention that the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) sent both Chana and me separate fundraising letters today?! I'm totally disgusted. Chana's letter was already in the recycle pile when I fished it out. I want to know from them how they got her name. Does Mass General sell the names of the newly-diagnosed?! It's bad enough that when Chana was in the hospital, the Clinical Nurse Specialist (which is technically what I am, so I really wanted to like this woman) handed me this huge pile of info from CCFA including what felt like numerous membership appeals and donation opportunities. I didn't join. (Which leads to the question of why *I* am getting these letters as well, but I don't feel anywhere near as outraged about my getting them as I do my 9 year-old). And, yes, there is probably a bit of denial mixed in to these feelings....

I hate Crohn's disease :(

Crohn's....Flare....Argh.....

Unfortunately, it appears that Chana is having a "flare" of Crohn's. Her stomach hurts in the same way and place as it did when she was first ill, she's very tired, and, in general, just feels lousy. We thought it started this morning, but, looking back, I see that she hasn't been 100% since Tuesday.

When she saw her dr. a few weeks back he thought that she might need to go back on iron supplements, but gave us one month to try to deal with it nutritionally. So I've been encouraging Chana to eat tons of nuts and seeds. Those can be very hard to digest, and aren't even used on her diet until a person has been symptom-free for six months. I think I "pushed" the seeds waaaay too much over the past week or two, and I am now wondering if this is seed-related, or just the nature of this beastly disease.....

I spoke w. her doctor today and he said to make sure to keep her 100% on the diet, but take out nuts and seeds (of course) and beans. Unless she has a dramatic turnaround, we will go in tomorrow for blood work to see if her inflammation markers are up. She's also seeing the acupuncturist tomorrow.

Please send some good thoughts her way. Aside from feeling lousy and being scared about what's going on, Chana is also worried that our trip next week to Florida will get messed up.....I'm hoping that we've caught this early enough to nip it right in the bud.

Wish I was writing about something more fun.....

40 pounds....

That's how much soap base got delivered to my house the other day. The poor UPS guy. For a moment I couldn't remember what I had ordered that would be in such a large box. Then I said, "Oh, that must be the 40 pounds of soap base!". He gave a little grunt of confirmation and asked if I wanted him to put it on the floor :)

In the past, the largest amount I've ever ordered for our company (www.4sisterssoaps.com) is 25 pounds, and never as a huge block, always in 1-, 2- or 5- pound bricks. But this was SUCH a good sale that I couldn't resist.

Glycerin soap isn't hard to cut. But the thing about 40 pounds is that it's rather more like chopping up a small glacier than gently cubing soap bricks into 1-ounce bits.

I shall return tomorrow to cut again! And again....And again....

The kitchen (before)

We've known since the first time we stepped foot in our house that the kitchen needed to be redone. Despite being quite large, it had almost no counter space or cabinets, and the ones that were there were chipped, cracked, and didn't line up or close well. Did I mention the kitchen was pretty ugly as well?

But we didn't get motivated to actually do it until Chana started on the SC diet (add two yogurt makers, a food dehydrator and pounds upon pounds of raw ingredients) and we added meat into our previously-vegetarian lives (add second set of dishes, pots, utensils, etc to kosher kitchen). That plus my father deciding that finding us a contractor was one of his part-time jobs for the summer (I think it turned more into a full-time job, but he was still a good sport about it, even when it got to the absurdity of him letting himself in to our house and meeting with contractors when I wasn't even home!)

Lotus Birth

This is another in a long line of "p.s.'s" to Ilana's birth story...

So, in case you're not up to date on the latest in left-wing birthing, let me explain that a lotus birth is when the umbilical cord and placenta are left attached to a newborn until they naturally fall off.

For us, it was just a logical step in trying to welcome our babies as gently as possible into the world. We had tried it with Penina and chickened out and ended up cutting the cord before leaving the birthing center a few hours after her birth. We had a home birth with Ilana, so we didn't need to deal with fitting baby plus placenta into a car seat!

After the placenta was delivered into the birth pool she was born in, we floated a plastic strainer in the pool and put the placenta in that until I was ready to get out. We then put a "chux" pad in the bottom of the strainer when Ilana, placenta and I moved to the bed (we did make jokes about it being "just the three of us"). Later, the placenta was wrapped in an all-in-one cloth diaper after we sprinkled it with salt and rosemary. We made sure to wrap the cord in a wide circle around her future belly button.

So, that first day, all was well. Over the next few days, things got less
than fabulous, although never dangerous or awful or anything like that.
Despite my efforts, the cord fully dried one night while we slept, and it
dried sticking straight out. This caused Ilana some discomfort if she/it
got jostled. Also it did start to smell a bit, perhaps b/c we kept it
covered pretty much all the time inside a diaper. Or perhaps just b/c
drying placentas smell! My kids were really grossed out by this, so they
would run screaming from the room when it was time to salt or flip the
placenta, which we did several times a day.

It did make it harder to hold and nurse her as well, esp. once the cord
dried in that funny way. We would pack it up like a little package, but it
was still a bit harder to nurse with said package needing to be moved
around.

Lastly, it was hard to find any clothes that fit! I had to rustle up some 12 month clothes and put "little sister" (as some call the placenta)inside the clothes with her.

Her placenta came off four days after her birth leaving her with a perfect "innie". We've frozen the placenta and are planning to plant it on her first birthday.

Lots of people DO have very positive experiences withLotus Birthing, but
this is probably the one left wing thing that I wouldn't do again.