Super long birth story!

This birth story begins a while before the day that labor started. During this pregnancy my biggest fears were: Not going into my own labor by 42 weeks (thus needing a hospital transfer and pitocin), having my water break early and risking infection and/or not going into labor (again, with the pitocin!), and not being able to relax and vocalize/move in labor the way that I would need to. These fears were all based on repeating the experience I had with Abe which, although it resulted in a healthy baby, was disappointing as I felt a pressure to perform and had set so many expectations for what my labor would be like. The pressure, build-up, and subsequent let down led to a lot of postpartum mood issues. 

Mothering the Mother with Michelle Hardy

Well, folks, I finally spent a night (two nights!) away from my sweet little guy. There were moments of sadness here and there, but he had a great weekend with Matt and I was thoroughly absorbed and distracted by the workshop I attended!

I am partway through the process of becoming officially certified by ICEA to teach childbirth classes, though I have been doing so through the hospital for 9+ months now. One of the requirements for my certification pathway is to attend a 2-day in-person training with a certified teacher trainer. I have been looking forward to this for almost a year, and this one finally coincided location and schedule wise. I am so glad that I chose the workshop through Mothering the Mother and Michelle!

continue to read more...

Food budget project

I have been challenged this week to create a food budget plan for 3 people that would be sufficient in protein for a pregnant person (no, it's not me...it's for a workshop). The respondents to my pre-class survey had varying amounts of food budgets anywhere from $80-$125 for an average of 3 people. Getting down to $80 for 3 people using the plan I did was not possible...though I got close! I think it would be possible if you assumed that you had some of the things on the list in your cupboard already or used non-organic produce and dairy products or more conventional meats. Just one note: I did forget to include canned tuna in the calculations because we already have it in our cupboard from Trader Joe's. Oops!

As usual...get ready for spreadsheet mania!

Nunamoochie Retro review

This past week, I had the pleasure of hosting a traveling wrap! The wrap is a beautiful size 6 handwoven called Retro, made by Nunamoochie. Nunamoochie is a small, fairly new company based in the US with production in India by the US owner's family. I had already really enjoyed their Mehndi wrap, which I ultimately converted to a soft structured carrier. We are at the end of our wearing days and I wanted to give wrapping (specifically back wrapping) another go with a different style of wrap. I already have a Natibaby Hemp Odyssey and just find it is a little too stiff even after lots of washing, twisting, wearing and ironing. Mehndi was wonderfully soft right out of the package and didn't need much breaking in - it was just *slightly* too thick for us, and ever so slightly too narrow for my big, tall boy by the time we got it. But Retro...oh, Retro!! It makes me want to wrap again!

Tablecloth Mei Tais!

This is a post to share some of the resources and fine-tunements I've used to make my new, absolute favorite carrier. I am sharing a link to a shop on etsy from which I bought a pattern for a soft structured carrier, and I know it might seem obnoxious to withhold information about how I completed THIS one, but since a lot of it is from her, and I respect her time/work/intellectual property, I am not going to give out tons of details about my waistband and body panel design, just some specifics on things that are unique to this carrier - a tablecloth mei tai with padded-to-wrap style straps and a ring waist that is fully reversible :) I love this style because it has the look and feel of a woven wrap but I find it MUCH easier to do back carries with the structure of the waistband and body panel. The long and wide straps make it so that you can still tie it off like a woven wrap (Tibetan finish, chest belt, ruck, etc), spreading the stress points across your chest and shoulders to more evenly distribute the weight. So here we go! More details after the jump. Scroll way down if you want to skip the background information :)

I have made a number of mei tais with and without wrap style straps, one of which was reversible (the purple one) but super duper heavy, using this amazing tutorial - I have used osnaburg (khaki-colored one), tablecloths (green & blue with hood), curtains (the white one with blue flowers), twill (the black one with music notes), brushed canvas with quilter's cotton for decoration (purple one), and home decor fabric from Joann's (not pictured).

Very first attempt at the DIY thing - decorated with fabric markers, using osnaburg from Joann's

Green fabric is from a heavy, woven cotton tablecloth that was $1 at Goodwill. Blue, zigzag and cars fabric are twill from fabric.com, if you search "Premium Prints Felix" you will find the fabric. It should be 100% cotton and medium to heavy weight

Target Tablecloth found new at Goodwill for about $10. Inner supportive layer is duck/canvas from Joann's

Black medium weight twill from Joann's (inner layer is duck), with quilter's cotton for decorative panel and hood lining. Hoodie hood was a pattern I made myself, but a pretty similar tutorial can be found here

Purple brushed canvas from fabric.com with Michael Miller fabric for hat and decorative panels. This is fully reversible. Padded straps with layers of fleece and waistband made from retired yoga mat. The beginnings of the waist straps are also padded with fleece. I used Fine and Fair's tutorial for padded straps for this carrier. 

Then I moved on to soft structured carriers, just in the last few weeks. I have made two so far though one will not be pictured as it's a surprise gift for someone. I used Sew Toot's Little Pick Me Up pattern from Etsy...it is well worth the purchase price. She is much better at explaining things than I am and must have busted her butt for hours to put the pattern and tutorial together. The Mahogany carrier was constructed using the waistband pattern and method of construction from the LPMU pattern, and that is also how I learned to sew the darts for a deeper seat.

I guess it makes sense here to put another jump that just skips directly to the details of the Mahogany carrier. Here we go.

Goat's Milk Formula with Kaitlyn!

Lovely Kaitlyn is the one who originally termed the coin "oatmeal", and here she is to share the recipe she found for goat's milk formula for babies, with a little bit about her feeding journey with her adorable son Theo! Fun fact: Kaitlyn and I met while both wearing our babies in the produce section at Wegmans. It was friendlove at first sight!

Two pink lines. I was simultaneously thrilled, terrified, and pregnant. As ecstatic as I was to be in the process of creating a human, I was also a new mom to a 5 month old baby boy. One of my first thoughts turned to my milk.

Cultural Appropriation with Parenting

          Cultural Appropriation typically means taking something from another culture and using it ourselves. Usually we are using that "thing" (fashion, art, belief, idea, practice) out of context or as some would say, "picking and choosing" parts of a culture that we like and implementing them in our own lives. This can have moral implications depending on how you use it. But I believe that even with the best and most open of intentions, it can be used to make parents who read about cross-cultural parenting feel bad about themselves, or feel that they are not measuring up to a certain standard.