Manic Monday

As I sit at my desk this afternoon and reflect back on just what this morning has held for me I realize how much I have done. I woke up slightly before the baby and made myself a cup of tea. Fed breakfast to the baby, then bundled her up, laced up my running shoes, and took off for a short run. We returned, she played a little before settling in for her nap. I then showered, ate, crocheted a little bit, and am now writing this post. That's a lot of variety (though not much depth into each activity) but it got me back to thinking about the priorities I have now as a stay and work at home mom.

The house needs to be kept stocked, cleaned and presentable.
My daughter needs to be kept fed, cleaned, presentable, and engaged in meaningful activities.
I need to be kept fed, cleaned, presentable, and ideally filled with a feeling of accomplishment without feeling overwhelmed.
The cat box needs to be cleaned daily.
I need to have nutritious meals available to my family.
Ideally I need to be working on building my two businesses (I am working on the assumption that saying this will keep them in the thought rotation).

What that boils down to is: cook, clean, mother, self (wow that's a broad one), knit design and sharing the awesome doTerra essential oils.

What that tends to look like is: mother, run or yoga, maybe make progress on a baby blanket (my goal is to finish it before that baby is 6 months old), and have dinner at least planned out.

Right now my daughter is napping, so I rated the necessary activities in order of importance. Shower was first since I ran this morning, followed closely by lunch. I put on a show to watch during lunch, and since I started a second episode and it wasn't finished yet I decided to crochet on the baby blanket until that episode was over. During that time my mind was wandering thinking about this idea of priorities, leading directly to this blog post.

I generally think of my priorities in order of importance (with mothering ending up default at the top of that list, one year olds are not patient creatures). And while I have big ideas for essential oil classes, learn to knit parties, and dinner extravaganzas making those ideas come to life takes a bit more concentrated time than I have the luxury of lately. So things like run 2 miles and crochet while my daughter plays with blocks tend to take on a greater active priority. Heck, today I have been going to the dryer in the garage when we need a new diaper, because really that's not so hard.

When it comes down to the nitty gritty of my daily priorities, I would really rather not deal with them (you can ask how many loads of clean laundry I have to fold, but I will probably lie about it). Because in the end, I would rather enjoy time with my daughter than fold laundry. I would rather be able to bless friends with blankets for their new babies, than have a lovely pile of stuffed and ready cloth diapers. Heck, I'm really enjoying taking the extra five minutes to sit my daughter on a potty at diaper changes and read her a book.

So what it comes down to, I suppose, is while I can have my exciting and fun and big picture priorities laid out all nicely and logically, spending time with my daughter, doing things for others, and nurturing my soul are going to win out. And, for the most part, I am totally okay with that.

Now I'm going to go get those diapers out of the dryer :)

Fleeting moments of independence

Its amazing what happens to my psyche when my little one takes short naps. This week she decided to nap for only one sleep cycle at a time!! Yikes!! That's about 45 minutes. In that time, I have about enough time to wind down and figure out what I'd like to accomplish during her nap. Then she's up.

I have found that in that short amount of time I generally refresh my cup of coffee, check Facebook (yeah, totally shouldn't be) and start cooking lunch for myself. Maybe I get to eat my lunch before she awakens, but sometimes not. You can imagine what my housekeeping, personal hygiene, running, and business building pursuits look like lately. Currently, I'm listening to a podcast about essential oil chemistry, crocheting on a baby blanket for a 5 month old, drinking my coffee, and pretending like I'm actually inviting people to Evelyn's first birthday party. Oh yeah, and writing this blog post. So unless anyone can let me know where I can have additional arms installed on my body, I need to figure something else out.

Having routines for some of my personal care priorities has helped. Like having to drink a full water bottle before I get to have coffee. Or Evelyn and I take our supplements at the same time after breakfast, then get dressed. But that order of operations doesn't help when I have time to myself to work on whatever I please. If that was the case, then I would knit a sock, contact 3 people about essential oils, then write my blog posts. How long would that take?!? at least a day. Not a helpful solution.

Mind you, I could begin associating some of my regular chores with other common daily activities. Like after we get dressed in the mornings, we get a load of laundry started. Or after the baby is napping I pick up the kitchen, dining room, and living room. In addition to this, Paul had the idea of a physical chore chart (yes, this seems fully appropriate to me right now) that I can check things off as I go, then when he gets home he can see what needs to be done without trolling around the whole house. Isn't that a neat idea for how he can support me as our daughter becomes more and more destructive mobile.

So that just leaves my personal and professional projects. Yarning activities, blog writing (let along yarning writing), and sharing and educating about essential oils. All of those things seem to need to fit into the scant 90 minutes of nap time midday. That's not a lot of time to devote to these things, and she is awake now, so apparently this will be a 2 part blog post.

Sleeping Through The Night

Getting a baby to sleep through the night is a huge accomplishment. The problem is in the wording of that phrase, "getting a baby to sleep" makes it sound like there is some special formula. In my experience the proper phrase should be "facilitating your baby to sleep"*

I have two stories to share, the first my own and the second that of a family I know (so I have changed a couple things to keep it as generic as possible.

Last weekend, I woke up to deal with my own biological needs and heard Evelyn fussing. So once I was done with my business, I went into her room and nursed her like normal. This was not an uncommon event, and to be honest I liked it on more than one level. Everything was quiet and cozy in the house. The two of us snuggled close and dozey. Knowing that she would eat for at least a solid half feeding and get some much needed nutrients and calories** this night was no different than any other, except that she wasn't settling back down like normal. I feed her 12 minutes*** on each side and rocked her a bit. She still wasn't calming down like normal. So I layed her in her crib to see what would happen and went back to my room (have I blogged about how her sleeping in her own room dramatically improved her nighttime sleep??). My husband was up, so we discussed this wake-up a bit, then he decided to give it a try rocking her to sleep. Twenty minutes later, he returned a bit confused by her behavior. Normally both of these things would help her relax and fall asleep, but no luck on this night. So we did something that never seriously crossed our minds or appealed to our parenting style. We just let her fuss. And you know what happened? She went back to sleep. It's almost as if our assistance was getting in the way of what she wanted and needed**** Since that night she has slept soundly for 12+ hours a night. 

The second story has been an inspiration to me while Evelyn was sorting out her sleep. It is about twins and it is short. These two babies, parented by the same parents, in the same environment. One of them slept for a solid 12 hours a night from relatively early, the other would awaken to eat twice a night. While a part of me was envious of that second child only waking twice a night, the larger part of me really appreciated the non-advise bit of EVERY BABY IS DIFFERENT and clearly there was no secret to "getting" a baby to sleep through the night.

Sleep ALWAYS comes up when moms talk about their babies. In fact, if I want to strike up a conversation with another mom I don't yet know I tend to start with sleep. I believe it is because no matter how gross a diaper is or how frustrating feeding can be, neither of those systems affect OUR biological cycles like the nighttime cycles of our precious babes. Even once those previous bundles are sleeping at night, it takes some time for us moms to remember how to sleep through the night (I had one solid night's sleep the first night, and it's slowly getting better). 

I felt compelled to share this mainly because once baby does sleep through the night, it changes everything. Mostly for the good, but I do miss those midnight snuggles. I also wanted to put it out there as inspiration to the moms out there desperate for sleep, because I tried all sorts of things from full bellies, to every common essential oil scent in her room to keep her relaxed, grounded, happy, etc. the two things that actually made a difference were: us moving out of her room, and not interrupting a nighttime fuss. That second one we only discovered on accident. So really our girl wanted to do it on her own, and we, as parents, had to figure that out by trial and error. Luckily I still get bedtime snuggles :)

*sounds super nerdy, I know.

**my girl is mobile and curious. Combine that with a cat who loves to come in and snuggle with us and she's not a stellar daytime eater.

***12 minutes was just the magic time for the two of us.

****we don't personally think she has 'wants' per se, only needs still (even if the need is to put non-food stuff in her mouth)

:) for us the advise of "how your baby falls asleep when they go to bed is how they will expect to go to sleep when they wake up throughout the night" is utterly false! I nurse then snuggle Evelyn to bed almost every night. Thank God because I do really miss our midnight snuggles.

Sleeping In

The move to our new house has been hectic and busy and that just kept continuing as the months went on. We finally finished the master bedroom, and moved out of the nursery. Leaving Evelyn in her own room to sleep was almost bittersweet. She had been waking up to nurse and cuddle way too much with me right there, and I was ready to just rip the bandaid off and get on with our milestones. So one day while she napped in her carseat, I moved the big bed out of the nursery. Then after her bedtime, I moved our dressers out of the "closet room" (which I may miss even more than sleeping right next to my baby girl, if I'm being honest) and that was that. Separate rooms.

So far 2 out of 3 nights have been excellent, with only two wakings/feedings. The last two nights, I have brought her back into my room and the big bed for some snuggles. Once to get some extra sleep after a not so magical night of sleep, the second just to snuggle. Both were excellent. Though today I am reminded of a daily habit I started a while ago and I wanted to share about.

Every morning I drink a full 24 ounces of water before I eat or drink anything else. I try to make this the first thing that I do even. That's why today's snuggles reminded me about this habit; I snuggled first to the detriment of my water drinking! On the days that my water waits, I find that I feel much groggier, sluggish, and take longer to actually drink my water. Most days I am able to get myself into gear and drinking my water first thing. On those days I find myself quickly energized (yes faster than a cup of joe), refreshed, and ready to start on productive activities (making breakfast, dealing with the dishwasher, playing with Evelyn).

What I can't quite wrap my own mind around is, if I feel this good after one bottle of water in the morning why don't (or can't) I drink more throughout the day? My hunch is that my morning water is set into a routine with other cues and motivators involved. I wake up (cue) then get my water and drink it before I can eat breakfast (motivator). So I just need to find similar cues and motivators throughout the day.

The advice that I am able to solidly share is this. Yes a full bottle of water will seem like a lot the first couple of days, and yes you may need to use the facilities soon after. However, after a couple of days it will get easier (plus you've got that motivation of getting to your coffee or breakfast to help). So do what I am going to do once I find my next little set of cues and motivators, give it a try just for a week. If you're anything like me, by that time you will be feeling so good after your morning water that you won't want to give it up!

So you want to buy a fixer...

I have been even worse about blogging since my summer project got started. We sold our downtown condo for a house in a beautiful little town. Now we have large trees in our large yarn, an extra large 2 car garage (i.e. it will hold 2 cars and a bunch of stuff), and plenty of room for our cat to roam and leave his towns around (the baby is still mostly stationary). I also have a quick list to help you determine if buying a fixer upper is something you may be up for.

1. Are you prepared for the unexpected?
We took possession of this home on a Friday, then moved all of our belongings in on Saturday. I arrived at the property Saturday morning before the moving truck to do a little prep work. Instead of getting right to starting on the clean up, I went to the store for buckets and rags to contain/clean up a leak from our master bathroom. Now I was excited about eventually remodeling and updating this little room, so  having this project moved up on the list is not the worst thing that could happen. It was certainly a surprise though.

2. How comfortable are you with unidentified messes?
In a lot of cases, houses on the market at great prices and in need of work are also in need of a lot of cleaning. My husband urged me to keep this portion of the post vague, so just know that if the walls haven't been painted recently, then the kitchen appliances and bathrooms probably haven't been kept sparkling clean either.

3. Are you willing to keep most of your possessions in the aforementioned garage for an indeterminate amount of time?
We have been bringing our belongings into the house slowly because that just makes the cleaning/painting/other work easier without the clutter around. In fact, our master bedroom was kind of gross (see #2) so we didn't even both moving anything in there. We are sleeping in another bedroom and the smallest bedroom in that bedroom cluster is our closet (because if you unpack into a closet you will never paint it!). Its really not so bad heading out to the garage to pull a fresh towel out of the linens box.

4. What is your level of comfort at learning new things?
So far we have learned about measuring for kitchen appliances, replacing electrical outlets, determining what all those wires in the electrical box are, mailbox regulations in the US, hooking up washer/dryer combos, replacing kitchen faucets, and how to decommission a leaking shower so that you don't need to dump out a bucket of water everyday. Some of this was done without internet even!

5. What is your level of comfort at thinking you've learned a new thing only to realize that you messed up in a way you couldn't have foreseen?
Luckily, most places take returns on almost everything. So we have bought and exchanged bolt cutters and electrical wire because they were the wrong size. Nothing like coming home from the store thinking you're set to work only to discover you bought the wrong thing. Similarly, there was a lot of trial and error while replacing the electrical outlet in our bathroom. Luckily, most of what we have taken on so far has worked out fairly well.

6. Do you have enough funds available to just call in a professional if you answered "low to none" for either of the last two questions?
We are kind of stubborn, so just calling in a professional is not our first choice (unless its something heavy or awkward, or something that could catch on fire). But if you are someone who just wants to have it done, you're going to end up paying a premium if you hire that work out. Part of our sale involved having an HVAC contractor come in regarding air not blowing into the bathroom from the system. We paid $80 to have a guy come and pull some foam out of the vent, apparently its very common for families to do this because AC in the living room may feel good, but AC in the bathroom is another story.

7. Does every adult in your household work full time?
I don't work full time, I stay home with our daughter (which is work, more than full time). It allows me to work on the cleaning and putting away on week days. I am also on site to just be tracking what projects are how far and what I need my husbands help doing (i.e. carrying furniture up from the garage). While I'm not home painting or rewiring the place with my daughter in my arms, I am here to manage other contractors that we are bringing in, keep a running list of what needs to happen next, and do the little things that make the bigger projects go smoother (can you say blue taping up EVERYTHING?). Its certainly not a requirement for there to be an adult not working full time, but it is important to consider the time you have available for the projects needed around the house. A fixer isn't a good deal if you are never able to get the work done to create the home of your dreams.

Split Pea Soup

Lunch is a hard meal as the mother of an infant. My best bet has been having leftovers, which doesn't always happen when trying out a new recipes. Enter a recent favorite of mine, Split Pea Soup. At first I followed recipes to make this dish, then I figured out which ingredients I liked at which ratios, which apparently makes it my recipe. I love this stuff!

Ingredients
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celery
2 large cloves of garlic (or more, I really like garlic)
1 cup dry lentils (any color will work)
1 cup dry split peas
1 cup brown rice (or barley)
6 cups water or the broth/bullion of your choosing, plus 1.5 cups water

Method

Saute your onion, garlic and celery until soft and fragrant over a medium-high heat
Add in 6 cups of water or broth, bring to a boil.
Once the water boils, add in split peas and lentils, bring water back to a boil. Once boiling, cover and turn heat down to a simmer. I leave this alone for a while, stirring very occasionally as the peas and lentils will fall to the bottom.
Once you have a nice split pea style mush, add in the rice or barley and another 1.5 cups of water. Now I leave it alone for about 40 minutes (think cooking rice). When I come back to it the rice has settled and there is a layer of liquid. This bit threw me off for a while, until I realized that if I take it off the heat and stir everything together it will incorporate into a nice consistency. I let the nice consistency sit for about 10 minutes (the amount of time it takes me to get boxed brownies in the oven, super helpful time right?).

Now this may come out a tough bland, but remember this is a go to lunch meal for me. So I like to have it made up, then season each bowl depending on my daily preferences. At least salt and pepper make it in, but this allows me to play with other herbs, spices, maybe even some cheese. Plus, it may be obvious that I am not great at measuring out what I do, but I know exactly how much salt and pepper to shake on one bowl of soup. I bet you do too!
 

Determining Food Sensitivities aka Why am I so gassy?

I love experimenting. Not in the "which hair color looks best" way or in the "follow these steps" in science class way. I mean really collecting data, manipulating variables, and testing hypotheses. (Quick side note: what is that was what high school science classes were really about? In hind sight those classes were almost closer to history than the scientific method) I am sad to say that this post has been ear-marked in my blog queue for quite a while. Today I found it while scanning some documents (please don't ask me how I found it while doing that) and even though my little lady bug is awake, I really want to write about this (which is the case of almost everything on this blog, hence why I started a second blog instead of shoving all of these into my design blog). 

I still do not know if my digestion is more sensitive after having my daughter, or if I am just so tired that I'm less willing to subconsciously block out the symptoms.  I do know that I have more data points to use as a result of breastfeeding. So many times when chatting with other mamas I have heard things like "I never would have guessed, but I tried it and it worked" and now I have several instances of that myself. The first was detergent related (who would have thought the sensititivty rash would only show up on the babe's face?!) and then I heard it with milk specifically. I never would have thought cutting it from my diet would eliminate virtually all the spit ups. I assumed spitting up was part of baby's job. So that got me thinking, what else could I be eating that I'm not really digesting well. And if I'm not digesting something well, wouldn't that mean that my body isn't getting all the available nutrients from said food item.

So with that thought in mind and the full support of my husband (he accepted the challenge of giving up eggs at breakfast time) I went on an elimination diet. Well first I went in search of a good resource to support me. I had the general idea of what an elimination diet was, and I knew that I needed A) recipes and ideas to fill me up, B) a really clear game plan to follow not just general guidelines, and C) support for what I do after the elimination diet and challenges are complete. There are plenty of resources I found online and really didn't know how to distinguish between them all. So I found one that supported a non-profit organization my cousin is involved with (at least that's a bit rational) plus I was able to download the PDF (there is something about having to wait any amount of time to begin that really didn't work for me).

I am now in the challenge stage of the elimination diet, where I am adding in foods for a day to gauge my reaction (I will admit that I'm not testing milk, because the though of drinking 3 cups of milk in a day grosses me out). I am also able to gauge Evelyn's reactions. During the elimination period, she ONLY spit up extra breastmilk. I was amazed. I also felt great (assuming I had a plan and food ready to eat, sometimes that didn't happen). There were a few notable exceptions that made it difficult, but I think that we have found some excellent new recipes that give us greater freedom in what we eat. I honestly would not mind always eating on the elimination diet.

What I enjoy the most is being in control.  I was able to set up my own experiment to test my own food sensitivities, in my own home, without any additional equipment. Just a new kind of grocery list and some new go to recipes. I didn't need to schedule a doctor appointment, deal with expensive lab tests, or defer to any expert's opinions. It was just me taking control of what I put in my body and then testing a few foods to see what happens. I feel like I have a much better sense of how my body (and my daughter's body) works now. I know that modern medicine has its place, but gosh is it empowering to be able to make these discoveries on my own!

The book I used as a resource can be found at EliminationDietRD.com