Planting our garden with Mema.

Playing in her sensory box when the gardening got a bit boring.

I think this face is saying “bon appetite!” 

We have (from left to right): onions, spinach, red chard, peas, cabbage

more onion, romain lettuce, spring mix, peppers, watermelon

more onion, tomatoes (planted later than this photo), more watermelon

onions, cucumbers, a few types of squash.

Our first bounty.

Homemade Playdough

1 cup flour (plus some extra later on)

1/2 cup salt

1 package Koolaid

3 Tbsp oil (doesn’t really matter what kind)

1 cup boiling water

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl (the water cools down fast, so after a second you can let your child help).

Put it on a flat surface and kneed in more flour until it’s no longer sticky (we generally use about 1/4 a cup, but add it slowly).

And play!

My initial reaction was “That’s awesome! Showing an older nursling on the cover of a magazine! I’ve always believed that the more people are exposed to nursing, the more they will accept it. But wait… there’s something wrong here.

I first noticed the camo pants on the child. He looks much older than the almost-4 that the article proclaimed him to be. Why does he look so much older? And this particular mom’s website is called I am Not the Babysitter. It’s supposed to be a play on how young she looks. So why a boy who looks older than she is an a mom who looks younger than she is?

And why on a chair? That’s a really awkward way to nurse. Being a mother nursing a 3 year old myself, I can see the problems with that. My child would bounce and wiggle and probably try to jump off the chair with my boob in her mouth! This doesn’t show a normal nursing relationship.

And, while I do it myself, nursing from over the top of your shirts is, by definition, more revealing. Most moms I see, even the ones who don’t use a cover, don’t do it. I obviously have no problem with it myself and think it’s much more convenient, but it certainly adds to the shock value of this photograph.

That’s just it: shock value.

That’s what TIME magazine was aiming for–shock value. They weren’t trying to get the message out there of this lovely relationship and older child can have with their mother. They weren’t trying to say that attachment parenting is a valid method of parenting. They were trying to shock us. They were simply trying to sell their magazines by making you either hate or love this mother based on this one photograph.

My initial reaction was excitement at bridging the gap between nursing others and those who find nursing to be private, disgusting, or even pornographic. The gap caused by a system who won’t help mothers nurse, but still touts it as “best”. A system that causes guilt and outrage and isolation.

Instead, TIME magazine was trying to shock us. They were trying to cause such a reaction that could cause more magazines to sell. They weren’t trying to bridge any gaps, they were taking advantage of those gaps and widening them. They were trying to put us against each other in order to make a profit.

Shame on you TIME magazine for causing more hate. 

Alright, enough of my soapbox.

While the system is great, my actual envelopes were not so much. I was frustrated that the change kept falling out, but ended up deciding to keep the change in a separate pouch and use it as needed. Sort of a collective give-a-penny-take-a-penny for all of the envelope pals. This realization of how much easier it is came from me also realizing I don’t need to keep a transaction sheet for each envelope. I can keep the receipts and when the cash is gone, it’s gone. The whole reason that I used to track all purchases was to determine how much spent versus acquired, which is no longer an issue with the envelopes!

So back onto the topic. I made new envelopes!

I wanted something that worked better for my little planner I carry around as a wallet. There are lots of fancy envelope systems you can buy online, but they all require that I get a new system. I like my planner. I’ve had it for over two years and it works perfectly for what I need to carry, along with writing down important things. So I decided to keep it.

My current envelope system was actually some semi-pretty envelopes that came in a thing of children’s invitations that my aunt gave me. We didn’t have use for the invitations, so I stole the envelopes from them and made these:

Our Old Cash Envelopes

As you can see, I don’t have the most pretty handwriting. Also, while they were the perfect size for my planner, the planner has rings in it. The rings were making the envelopes push forward and get smooshed by the clasp on the planner. It was also a pain to find the correct envelope. Solution: hole punches. I was in need of a new start.

So here’s a very quick and simple way to make yourself a new set of cash envelopes. It took me about 90 minutes.

Supplies Needed:

Some fancy paper- I bought this at Walmart even though I hate that store, just because I happened to be there returning some crappy charger we got for my husband that broke. The paper was alright, but not as thick as I’d like. I couldn’t use my neat machine to fold the paper because it ripped. Still worth the $5 spent though.

Some fancy letters-Came with the fancy paper in this case. Make sure that you have enough for all the letters! I messed up a G so Gifts ended up being changed to Bounty (which is more fun anyway). Couldn’t do Presents because I didn’t have enough e’s!

Pencil

Scissors

Double-stick Tape

Hole Punchers

Glue (if necessary for gluing letters on)

Varnish and Paint Brush

Step 1: Take an envelope you have already and {carefully} split it open.

Step 2: Trace that envelope onto the back of some fancy paper.

Step 3: Cut out the new envelope and fold where appropriate.

Step 4: Put double-stick tape on the bottom flap and along the bottom where you’ll want the hole punches (be sure to leave enough room for cash and receipts). I did three lines of tape at the bottom of the envelope because I needed the hole punches really deep.

Step 5: Fold it together.

Step 6: Glue on a big letter for the first letter of the word (Yeah, that’s kid’s glue. When you become a mom, you start using children’s supplies on projects. Stuff surely works though!)

Step 7: Stick on the rest of the letters of the name for the envelope (in my case, these were stickers).

Step 8: Mark where you want the holes and get to punching!

Step 9: Paint varnish over the letters (to make them stay on better).

Step 10: Repeat with the rest of the envelopes!

And here they are in my planner:

If I had it to do again, I’d make the space below the hole punches a bit smaller so they would be easier to move in the planner. As it is, they’re alright. I may end up cutting them down later, depending on if it looks awful and/or compromises the structure of the envelopes.

I put them in my planner from order of most accessed to least accessed, give or take. Since it’s kind of hard to read them in the picture (though not hard to read in person), I’ll list my envelopes for you. In the order that they’re in my planner: Groceries, Eating Out, Entertainment, Home, Clothing, Bounty, Doctors, Car Repair, Music, Miscellaneous. Groceries covers a lot more than food (toiletries, pets, etc.) and Music is for Peanut’s music class, which we’re putting away a certain amount every month for so it’s not such a bombshell when we register for a new semester. We also got rid of the Gas for Cars envelope because we do it all through debit because that’s what Costco requires and it’s the cheapest gas around, so it was bothersome depositing money back in for the gas. Instead I’m tracking it on a sheet in my planner.

I still have quite a few papers left (25 in the package and I have 10 envelopes, plus I used one to test and ruined another), so I can make more envelopes in the future if I decide we need more. I’m trying to stick to 10 envelopes, but you never know. It’s nice to have the extras, if just for future cards and other paper crafts I like to make. I love these designs too. I think I may paint one on my wall in my living room.

All in all, it was a really easy project. I’m not a super crafty type and even I made it look okay (or at least okay enough for me). If I can do it, you all can certainly do it too! Now it’s time to see if cash envelopes really are more fun when they’re pretty!

Do you use cash envelopes? How does the system work for you? Did you make your envelopes? If you’re not using them, you should try it! Seriously!

Sorry I missed your newsletter last month. I didn’t realize until the month was half over that I missed it. Life is just a little bit hectic around here! We are getting into the swing of things though. We have our little rhythm in the day and it’s working out fine so far.

Peanut, you are my best friend. You tell me that every day and I am sincere when I reply that you’re mine too. That doesn’t mean that I don’t often want to rip your head off, but of course I love you too much to do that. I am happy to share my days with you even when you get on my nerves. That’s what a best friend is, right?

We’re still doing your preschool and you love it. You love to tell me what we should do the next day. You’re pretty creative too! Out of nowhere the other day you said that you wanted to ride your bike for preschool, which you literally haven’t touched since Easter day when you got it (and couldn’t figure out how to peddle it). I wonder if you were just too frustrated to go back to it until now, but that’s your way of telling me you’re ready? Throughout the day you’ll run over to your preschool board and tell me what thing you want to do off of it (you can’t read it, but you do remember what’s on it from me telling you in the morning).

Your favorite shows right now are Word World and Signing Time. You like to spell all the animal names from Word World on the fridge and even spell instrument names and pretend to play them. Since you were interested in learning signs again (out of nowhere in the car you showed me the letter R and told me what it was), we started getting you Signing Time from the library again and you love them. You love to sign along and then as we go about our day, tell me about the signs you learned.

You love your music class and go around the house singing the songs from it. You’ll even make up tonal and rhythm patterns for us to sing back to you. Sometimes you get overwhelmed in the class, but we just cuddle for a minute and then you’re better. You also love riding the train to the city and I think we’re going to start doing that for your music class every week.

I’m constantly amazed at the things you retain. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad! We’ve had a lot of talks about things that we don’t repeat, but you insist on continuing to repeat them. I guess small children have been known to say worse things than “dammit dog!” I still don’t like it coming out of your little mouth though! I thought I was being so careful about my language. Oops!

Sometimes the things you retain are for the better though. Like you’ll tell me Every. Single. Thing. we did the day before when you wake up in the morning. Or if I tell you we can do something after your quiet time (which has replaced your nap), you never forget it. You don’t even forget when I say that we can do something when you wake up in the morning. You’ll wake up and immediately start talking about it. Last week Mema said that she’d take you to the Treehouse Museum her next days off and you bothered me about it for days until we finally set a date. You finally remembering things makes you seem like such a little person.

Lastly, you love helping me. You’ve started, albeit inconsistently, doing chores. I give you a nickel for your piggy bank every time you do one and you told me you want to buy a soccer ball with it. Even when you don’t get paid though, you like to help me cook and clean. You even help me with sister. When I’m in the middle of something and she gets upset, you’ll go make “happy faces” at her and it often calms her down long enough for me to finish chopping an onion or unloading the dishwasher. You love your sister so much. Which brings us to…

Twig, you’re growing so fast! I’m not sure how big you are now because we haven’t been back to the doctor yet, but I’m sure you’re gaining just fine. You have so many rolls! It’s delicious.

You’re growing quickly developmentally too. You hold your head up like it’s nobody’s business and you started rolling over from back to front when you were only 2.5 months old. That’s even ahead of sister! If you walk as early as she did, I’m going to be upset with you. Babies are so much easier when they stay still! Mobility is over-rated, I swear. Don’t give into peer pressure!

You’re a whole bag of smiles. Every time a stranger sees you they comment on how you’re such a happy baby. You will smile at anyone that smiles at you and it’s a huge toothless grin. Literally you open your mouth as far as you possibly can as if you’re absolutely ecstatic. Even when you’re mad, you’ll often stop to smile at me if I smile at you.

Your favorite thing in the world is to stand on someone’s lap and your least favorite is to not get milk the instant you want it. You light up every day when daddy gets home and miss sister when she’s gone. Besides daddy, you’re not very happy with people who aren’t mama holding you for long periods of time, but that’s pretty normal for a little baby. So long as mama is close though, you’ll tolerate it. And, as I said before, you’ll happily smile at everyone while you’re in mama’s arms.

Love you both,

Mom

Our current envelope system. I’m going to change it for envelopes that have zippers to keep change in and change gas (which we do through debit at Costco for cheaper) to entertainment (which I forgot to include).

I’m serious. My actual brain throbs. It doesn’t make sense, but I swear the feeling is there.

So, as I’ve talked about in the past we’re doing the debt snowball method to rid ourselves of debt, I’m awful with money, blah blah blah. Everything kind of got put on hold with having a baby. I didn’t even track our spending for a month after she was born, which is something I’ve done for the last two years. It felt like we were back at that place where we were a few months ago where we couldn’t put a full tank of gas in the car for fear of not being able to buy groceries before the next paycheck. It’s not a place that I like to be.

So I decided to do something about it. I never did start up our cash envelope system that everyone recommended. I still didn’t start it until the 20th of last month (one of the days my husband gets paid). I kept thinking that if I took our income and subtracted the bills, we’d have a number for spending and we’d just put it where it needed to go at the time. That just wasn’t working. Every. Single. Paycheck. we’d end up spending into the next before it came in. I was constantly worrying if we had enough. I was avoiding doing the math on my tracking sheet because I knew that we’d be in a deficit when I did it. Something had to change.

That’s when I saw this post by That Mama Gretchen. Probably nearing a year ago, when I finished reading Total Money Makeover, I made copies of all the sheets at the back of the book that you’re supposed to write your money information on. I put those copies on my desk with the plan on filling them out in the near future. I’m living proof of why that first page where you say when you’re going to finish each page is important. I just never did them.

After reading Gretchen’s blog post, I finally decided to take the plunge. Wow. Some of those numbers were terrifying. Seeing on paper how much we’re “worth” was horrifying. Even if you don’t count in the mortgage, it was an awful number. On the other hand, some of the pages were amazing, like the one where you take your expenses over a year in categories where you’ll end up paying a lump sum and divide it by 12. How did I never know to do that?!? I feel like I’m budget illiterate. It amazes me that this sort of thing isn’t taught in schools. I need this much more than I’ll ever need algebra (though I still think we should learn that too).

An example of the ledger I keep in the envelope to tell how much we’ve spent and where.

The most important form, in my opinion, is the monthly cash flow plan that Gretchen mentions in her post. It was difficult determining exactly what we needed where. And I’ll be honest, I’ve messed up in multiple places. I forgot my student loan payment (since I took spring semester off and one of my loans is through a different company with a weird policy, I didn’t have a grace period) for April, thinking that we wouldn’t pay it because I was starting school again and therefore would get deferment again. Yeah, school doesn’t start until May. I also didn’t expect to make some money from selling diapers and one of my secret shop companies. I also entirely forgot to put spending money in our entertainment category. Like that’ll happen!

So things have been modified along the way. I’ve had to take money from one envelope and move it to another. I’ve been wrong on how much we’ll need in one category from this paycheck versus the next paycheck (obviously you can’t put all of your cash into your envelopes at the beginning of the month if you’re paid multiple times a month). Things have been changed around a lot. I’ve gotten frustrated a lot. I’ve literally called my husband near tears telling him I can’t figure out where such-and-such money went. With work and determination though, it’s worked out.

I’m proud to say that we lived through a whole pay period without overspending. Beyond that, some of the envelopes still had money in them. We made it through two weeks without overspending. It may not be much of an accomplishment to some people, but it is to me. And we managed to pay an extra $155 to our credit card as part of our debt snowball too.

I’ll continue sharing our financial journey with you all. I know that budgeting may seem off topic for this blog, but it’s an important part of parenting. Other moms often tell me that they could never be a stay at home mom because they need the income. This world is truly not made for one income families anymore and I understand that. It’s a battle every day to make ourselves survive on less and, beyond that, thrive on less. For our family, it’s important that I’m the one here raising our children. I know that not every mom has the ability or want to do that and I have no problem with that, it’s just a priority for our family. It gives me the opportunity to do many of the things that I talk about on this blog, such as breastfeeding, gentle discipline, and so on. I also know that working moms can do a lot of those things too. That’s not my point here. My point is that budgeting does fall in the realm natural parenting because in my world, part of natural parenting is surviving on one income in a two income world. So I’ll continue to share in hopes that it helps some of you out there thrive on less money.

So how are we feeling? My husband still can’t give me a clear answer on if he feels better or not, but he complains when I don’t give him a smoothie. One day that I forgot (I have a horrible memory), he told me that was why Peanut was complaining of a stomach ache. Though she’s not drinking as much of hers as I’d like. I think I may have scared her off with a few crazy ones I tried.

How do I feel? I can describe it in one word: vitality. I just feel great. Full of life. It sounds corny to me as I type it, but it’s truly how I feel. I’m accidentally forgetting to take my placenta pill more often and I don’t even realize until the next day. I’m sure that it’s not just the green smoothies. It’s pretty much impossible for other factors to not cause an effect on real-life experiments, but I’m certain that they’re helping me. I feel better on days that I’ve had a smoothie in the morning.

We’ve started drinking bigger smoothies. I always fill my husband’s cup to 24 ounces (used to do 20 ounces) and then I fill Peanut’s cup and mine (both of which don’t have ounces written on them like his). If I’ve filled Peanut’s and mine is as high as it’ll go (which should be over 24 ounces because it fits over 3 cups), I give my husband some more. We’re also putting more greens in than we used to, mostly increasing whatever the non-spinach green is for the day. We rotate that green between collard greens (which I now add 2-3 leaves), swiss/red chard (at least 5 leaves), and green/red kale (at least 5 leaves). If anyone has some recommendations on other greens we can add, I’d love to hear them. Probably about a year ago I tried romaine lettuce in a smoothie and thought it was gross. I’m sure there are other things we can try though.

I’m also looking into what other vegetables we can add. I feel like our fruit drawer is constantly needing to be refilled, but our veggie drawer not so much. My husband really doesn’t like V8-type drinks, so a full on veggie smoothie or juice is out of the question, but I’d like to sneak other things in the same way I’ve done the avocado (which I can’t taste whats-so-ever). Maybe I’ll start experimenting with it. Toss in a carrot? How about a stick of celery? Or a tomato?!? Little bits at a time to see if we can tell the difference or not.

Now you get some recipes! (I’m not putting info on chopping anymore because you really have to do what your blender requires)

Citrus-y Goodness

1/2 pineapple including core, tough skin removed

2 oranges with pith, zest removed

1/2 lime with pith, zest removed

1/2 lemon with pith, zest removed

1 banana peeled

1/4 avocado with skin removed

6 leaves red chard

spinach to fill the container (about 2 handfuls as much as I can possibly grab at once)

ice (about two big handfuls and a little handful)

Strawberry Old Favorite

2 apples with everything included

2 oranges with pith, zest removed

12 strawberries with everything included

1/4 avocado, skin removed

3 small-ish leaves of collard greens

spinach to fill the container

ice

Holy Moly How Many Limes?!?

3 limes with pith, zest removed

1/2 lemon with pith, zest removed

3 oranges with pith, zest removed

1 apple with everything included

1/4 avocado, skin removed

5 leaves of red chard

spinach to fill the container

ice

Strawberry Banana

15 strawberries with everything included

3 bananas, peeled

1 apple with everything included

1/4 avocado, skin removed

2 big leaves collard greens

spinach to fill the container

ice

I was scared terrified of what would mean to add another child to our family. Change is good, but I was afraid that things would change in a bad way. I didn’t know how I’d handle my high needs child along with a newborn, which is, by definition, also high needs. I didn’t know how I would divide my time. I didn’t know how I’d find time to do the things that keep my sane like knitting, reading, and cleaning my house. Amazingly, at least from my perspective, we’ve made it through this so far. We’ve not only made it through it, but we’ve thrived. We’ve found our rhythm and while things are definitely more hectic and often more challenging, life is better than it was 4 months ago.

I wanted to write this for all of you out there about to add to your family of three or contemplating it. It will be hard. You will be challenged in ways you’ve never imagined. The process of taking that one person who has been your everything and making them not your one-and-only will rip your heart out. Piecing that heart back together so that it can envelop all this new love you have will be amazing.

So without further ado…

Claire,

Hope you don’t mind I am writing you about this. I look up to you as a mom and think you are amazing. Your girls are beautiful and I know how much you put into raising them in a loving way.

I have had a couple periods in recent months, so our conversation lately has turned to the idea of trying for a second child. I have mixed feelings about this. I would love another child soon and want Lydia to have a sibling. But I also remember how hard she was as an infant. I felt like she took all of my energy and then some. She nursed often, didn’t sleep much, and was high needs (my mom would have said colicky like I was, but I didn’t call it colic because I knew why she fussed, she wanted me all the time.) She stopped taking pumped bottles at 1 month, so it’s not like I could pass her off to somebody for an afternoon until recently, now that she eats more solids and drinks from cups (She still nurses 3-4 times a day but I am totally fine with that frequency in the foreseeable future). I am not telling you all this to complain, I would do it again. It was very hard though and I felt close to a breakdown many times until she was about a year.

I guess I don’t really relish a thought of another newborn! I joke that I just want to skip to a 6-12 month old. I also worry about Lydia. What in the world will I do with her in the meantime if I get another infant that is so high needs? She is not the kind that will sit placidly by and play with fluff all day, she demands my attention constantly still, just in the “play with me” way. If I even get on the computer while she is awake she gets mad I am ignoring her. (Luckily she slept in this morning!)  I don’t want to neglect her, and I also don’t want to resent a new baby.

Just thought you might have some good advice for me as you’ve BTDT. Be honest, but hope would be nice too

Thanks,

Sarah

And my response…

Sarah,

No problem at all! I wondered this a lot when I was thinking of getting pregnant again and then even more when I was actually pregnant. There were multiple times towards the end of my pregnancy that I was in tears thinking “Oh what have I done?!” because I was so concerned about the idea of adding another to our family and especially what that would do to Dea.

I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy. Speaking to other parents, it seems that the transition from one to two is much more difficult than the transition to 3 or 4 or even 8. It’s going from a mindset of one person being your whole world to having to divide your time and multitask. When you have one, you can drop everything and cuddle on the couch if they’re sick. If you have two, you can’t drop everything for one child.

Dea was also very high needs as a baby. She nursed every 60-90 minutes around the clock until she was 6 months old. She always had to be held. I couldn’t take my attention off of her for one second. All that kind of stuff. While I can definitely tell you that a lot of that was her (she went from being a high needs baby to a high needs toddler and is very type A), I also wonder how much of it was me. I know I stressed and worried much more than I needed to. So I’m sure that some of that comes from me. I think all first time parents are like that though.

The biggest change for me this time around has been relaxing about things. I couldn’t tell you how often Meredith nurses. I have no idea how many times she wakes in the night (we co-sleep, so I hardly wake myself). I don’t always know when she’ll nap and I nurse her at any little peep instead of trying every other soothing method in my arsenal before finally giving up and nursing her. That kind of stuff. It also helps that she’s a bit more laid back than Dea. I can already tell that she’s not going to be as intense of a person as Dea is as she grows, which makes me both happy and sad. Dea will be a wonderful, independent, assertive child and adult. She will be less prone to give into peer pressure and intrinsically motivated. These are the things I tell myself to get through the day with her being so intense right now. I just don’t know yet how Meredith will be. Part of me relishes in the fact that she’s “easier” as a baby. Part of me regrets that possibly she won’t be all the wonderful things I think about Dea as she grows older. In the end, she’ll be who she is and I’ll do my best to bring out the good parts in her personality.

Anyway, back to your initial question. It’s a hard transition. I know that my relationship with Dea has suffered. It’s impossible for the older child not to suffer in some way when another is introduced into your family. I just try my best to keep in mind that this is difficult for her too. Keeping that in mind makes it easier for me to handle her emotional outbursts and intense need for attention. I work hard to remember that she’s only 3. She needs me just as much as Meredith does, just in her own way.

We’ve gotten into a rhythm though. It was really difficult for me in the beginning because of my postpartum depression (which I didn’t have at all when Dea was born). I felt really detached from Dea. Ingesting my placenta helped a lot with that, along with plenty of sunshine and leafy greens. I’m feeling better every day. We’ve also just developed a rhythm in the fact of getting schedules together and everything. Meredith likes to sleep in (until generally 11 or 12), but doesn’t like to stay in the bed long without me next to her in general. So when Dea wakes up around 7-7:30, we all get out of bed. I change Meredith and nurse her and then she goes in the swing, where she’ll sleep again. I use this time to clean the house, play with Dea (we’ve been doing a “preschool” and we use this time to do the really hands-on stuff), etc. Dea recently stopped napping, but before that I would nurse them both together to get them to nap at the same time in the afternoon. Now it’s more like Meredith napping on me in a wrap while we run errands or other things. I start on dinner early (and have a lot more days where I don’t cook at all), knowing that I may have to stop to nurse a baby, something I’ve become talented at doing in a woven wrap. We all take a bath together in the evening after dinner and the girls go to sleep around 8 or 9, which is when both of them start getting really grouchy and obviously tired. I’m afraid to leave them both in the bed for a long time, so I mostly sit and read or knit in the bed while they sleep. Sometimes I’ll leave the bed for a few minutes if I know something needs to be done like switching laundry or making a loaf of bread. My husband is also very good with helping me around the house these days. I go to bed when I feel tired enough and Meredith nurses throughout the night. It’s not an exact thing, but it’s the rhythm that works best. Some days we leave in the morning and it’ll throw things out of alignment for the rest of the day. Some days we leave during a time that doesn’t normally work and we’re none-the-wiser. I do know that I can only stand leaving the house a couple of mornings a week or I start to get stressed myself.

I’m not excited to start school next week, even though it’s half-time and online only. I don’t like the idea of adding something else to my plate right when I feel like we’re getting things figured out. That’s how life goes though.

Anyway, I hope that wasn’t too long. All-in-all, things have definitely figured themselves out for the better. It’s been tough and a lot of days I have to work harder at life than I used to, but it’s worth it. Meredith is wonderful and Dea is blossoming as a big sister. Did that answer your question alright?

Claire

With my new found love of wool, I decided I should just knit her a wool cover. I also think that I might buy a couple of Green Mountain Diapers toddler-sized prefolds for her because I love them on Twig. I’ve heard that natural fibers (like the cotton in those prefolds) soak better than non-natural fibers. We’ll have to see.

Anyway, I knit Peanut an extra large soaker from this pattern, and then decided that I would knit a soaker for my friend who’s son is about 2 months old. She told me that at her 6 week midwife check-up that he was just over 11 lbs, so hopefully the size newborn/small will fit him for a while still.

Without further ado:

As you can see, the kitchener stitch seam is a bit tight in Peanut’s soaker. I didn’t leave myself enough yarn, but this link (from the pattern) is awesome for learning how to do the kitchener stitch. Just make sure you give yourself LOTS of extra. I felt like I gave myself way too much extra on the second soaker, but I still could have done with more. Peanut’s is also a bit big on her (even with me doing a test swatch). Not that soakers can really be too big, but just a little saggy on her. I’m planning on felting it a bit (extra protection against leaks!) and then I’ll post more pictures of it. The small soaker is exactly how I wanted it. We’ll have to see how it actually fits her baby.

In this project I learned the kitchener stitch as well ask how to pick up stitches to knit more (on the legs). I also learned how to make a {really ugly} crochet chain for the ties! It was fast and fun. I’d definitely recommend this pattern. They were knitted with Coats & Clark Royal Mouline Knitting Worsted 100% Virgin Wool. The yarn was nice to knit with, but had more breaks than I’m happy with, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

And now the winner of the Zinny Jane wool soaker!!! 

There were 70 entries in the giveaway and the winner was entry number 7.

Which is this comment:

Congratulations Donna! I’ve emailed you and you have 48 hours to respond. Thanks again to all those who entered!

Peanut nursing when she was 4 months old.

I’m officially there. I’m weaning.

Well, more like I’m nudging her towards officially quitting breastfeeding. Technically, you start weaning the day you introduce something besides the breast. Even for exclusively breastfed babies, this starts early. It can be when you introduce a pacifier (which has been shown to decrease the overall breastfeeding relationship) or when you give them their first foods. For us, this started over 2.5 years ago when she had that first meal of apricots and bacon. Then, for us, it moved onto what they call “Don’t ask, don’t refuse” when she was over a year old. As she got older, it moved into refusing when I was busy. Then I started refusing more when we were out and about, which is pretty much the same idea. Just too busy and moving around to stop and nurse. Plus it was more difficult to nurse her in a carrier as we used to do.

Peanut nursing at 8 months.

We stayed there for a long time. She rarely asked outside of nap time, bedtime, and morning. During my pregnancy there was sensitivity, but nothing unbearable. I expected the uncomfortable nursing to get better when Twig was born, but it didn’t. It’s getting better now, but I think the contrast from a baby nursing to a toddler nursing that I experience every day will make Peanut’s nursing never truly comfortable for me again.

Then, of course, since Twig was born, Peanut has been asking to nurse much more frequently. In the beginning it was more often than Twig wanted to nurse. Now she’s to the point of asking a few times a day. All in all, things are getting better. The problem is, for me, that it doesn’t seem like it’s enough.

Nursing I love yous at 15 months.

I feel frustrated every time Peanut nurses. I feel frustrated every time she asks and I tell her no (though generally in nicer terms and attempts to avoid actually saying no). I get even more frustrated when she asks Over. And Over. And Over. even when I have a valid reason why we can’t nurse (e.g. we’re driving in the car). I feel like nursing is putting a strain on our relationship.

Spiderman nursing at 26 months.

So we’re working on weaning. I never thought I’d say that. I’ve always been a firm believer in child-led weaning, but I need to take my own advice and realize that this is a relationship and both sides need to be happy for it to continue. Someone in La Leche League the other day told me that breastfeeding is the first place where your child learns limits and boundaries. It is important that she learns that, right? My feelings count too, right? I have to keep telling myself these things. Eventually they’ll stick.

Obviously, I feel a bit of guilt.

I know that Peanut probably isn’t ready to wean. I don’t think she’s young enough that it’s going to be traumatizing for her, but I do know her well enough to know that it will need to be really gentle. I’ve kept this in mind while looking at ways to help along weaning. For instance, some moms do a “weaning day” where it’s the last day that the child nurses, but I don’t think would work for her because it would be too sudden. If I left her for a weekend and expected her to wean during that period, I honestly think it would be traumatizing for her.

Getting kicked in the face by sister at 35 months.

I think Peanut’s weaning process will need a lot of yeses. So right now, what we’re doing is counting to ten while she nurses. I’ve heard of moms doing this during pregnancy because of the pain. I can count as fast or slow as I’d like, so that determines how long she gets to nurse. She’s already asking me not to count, but I tell her that she’s a big girl and big girls get to count while they’re nursing. I’m trying to act like it’s something fun. I’m also saying yes whenever I can, even if it’s not a super convenient time to nurse. We’re also trying to eliminate her nap time (there will be a post about that in the near future) and that’s a big time that she used to nurse. It was the only way she’d get to sleep for nap. Bedtime and morning time aren’t nearly so vital.

This is what we’re trying for now. Just like everything in parenting, we may change things if they stop working. New ideas are very welcome too.

Did you wean your older nursling? Are you happy you did? How did you do it to make it gentle? Has anyone weaned an older nursling while tandem nursing?