So I read a book...

Ha.  Actually, I've read tons of books lately. I mean what else are you supposed to do when you spend countless hours nursing a baby?  The latest book was The Little Way of Homeschooling by Suzie Andres. It was a good read, and informative to an extent.  But it wasn't a 'how to' book, instead it was a pump you up book. I'm not sure I was thinking that I was going to come away with what I did.  But I am glad I did.

You see, I'm a choleric by nature.  And I know we aren't supposed to put labels on ourselves, but this is what I am.  I fight it a lot and sometimes being a choleric is good, it makes things happen when they need to, it helps me be decisive and such.  But well, sometimes being a choleric can have some set backs, like my need to control so that there is a sense of balance at least in my head.  It makes me play a lot of woe is me games in my head, and maybe well I try to control others too, and well yeah, they don't really like that so much.

The Little Way book pretty much pumps you up about unschooling, and rightfully so.  I love the idea of unschooling, to learn for learnings sake versus you have to learn this because its on a test and you need to pass a test.  I spent the majority of my education doing things like so, the memorize and dump method.  There were definitely exceptions, but I think I failed to really learn a lot of the time within the system, and dude I have a PhD.  I must be crazy for saying that then. Oh well, its been said.

Well, unschooling, then. As Mrs. Andres put it, its "Confidence. Love. Gentleness."  And wow, as I look at myself, I see that I struggle with all of this.  I am so used to wanting to please others, thus, I lack confidence more than I'd like to.  I do want to love, but sometimes in trying to love I miss the target by a landslide and then in gentleness, I am so hard on myself that I fail completely at this most days.

Here's the thing, the best path isn't always the easiest.  And really these are things that I want my kids to have: confidence, love and gentleness.  I'm not even sure that we will be 100% unschoolers, and probably not if I let my nature take over too much.  But these three things, these are what ultimately I want for my children. To have confidence in themselves because of Jesus.  To love always and freely. And to be gentle with themselves and those around them as God gives us great mercy.

Unschooling may work for my benefit to grow in virtue, but I do believe that it will be of the utmost benefit for my children, the learners, to be happy in who God made them to be.

So if unschooling is the way that we achieve these things, then I guess we might as well consider it so.

WIWS, Mothers Day Ed.

Finally another WIWS post!

And it was gorgeous out today, at least temperature wise.  So here is the outfit and the kiddos that make me be able to participate in Mother's Day festivities. 

As for the outfit, everything I'm wearing except the shoes are hand me downs, so for a breakdown, I'm worth nothing. The shoes are Teva.  Ben is dressed as the typical pre-schooler, a wild collared shirt, black sweatpants and rain boots.  Ephraim has an Elmo collared shirt, hand me down shorts from his cousin and he managed to wear his brother's shoes at least 3 sizes to big. The sling is Eddie Bauer, it seems to be Helena's favorite, so I wear it a lot. And since you can't see Miss H, well here are some closer shots.

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 Helena's outfit is a gift from Gymboree. And now for a close up...

Nothing better than a peacefully sleeping baby. 

Check out more Sunday attire at Fine Linen and Purple.

If only

I'm sitting here with a baby asleep on my lap and a 2.5 to running around in a diaper with out pants and a 4yo outside digging. I'm supposed to be cooking dinner. But I'm sitting here heart broken by the world and its brokenness I'm encountering.
There are so many hard situations around me. So many people I just want to reach out and at the very least give them a hug and tell them they are loved.

But I started thinking about this all on a way that may finally help me sleep tonight, as long as the baby lets me, right? And here's the thing, I'm not at all trying to undermine the toughness and the hurt and the pain of things, life is hard. But I wonder for myself, as I get angry that my child had slammed the toilet seat down again, so loudly it wakes his baby sister every time, or that my husband's job is super stressful right now and I just wonder if it's ever going to not be. I wonder if I can just accept this and say this is where we are at. Instead of wishing for a time where the anxiety of motherhood ceases or that I can consistently sleep well again, I'm wondering if I can just be accepting of where I am at.

It doesn't mean that I shouldn't strive to do good or get better at dealing with these things. I just think that part of at least my problems are that I'm never content with where I'm at, especially if it's a struggle. And I'm not even sure if that's the right word. Because I don't want it to seem like I'm settling or telling you likewise. But I think I'm missing out in the here and now sometimes in my frustrations. In my can't shut my brain off moments.

It's more so that God really is there, he's here right now add I'm writing this exhausted and trying to manage life with three little kids. And I think I just need to know that, especially when the 4yo body slams me and the baby for the 100th time in the day, or the boys are kicking themselves silly in the middle of mass.

So folks that is where I'm at. Have a blessed weekend.

7 Quick takes...on Saturday am

1. Helena got baptized!! Hooray! Girl was a pro and basically slept through the whole thing. The lovely Emily of Fine Linen and Purple/ Emily Runs and her husband Jim are her awesome godparents.

2. It actually hit 60 degrees three times this week, so we have been trying to air out the house and rid of us of the germs.  I still have no voice and am full of junk every morning, so I'm not sure it really worked.  But the warm fresh air does feel good!

3. Amongst the warmer weather, there were crazy winds. One of these winds managed to knock over a storage shelving container in the garage and blow out everything into the driveway, which included old rat poison that was behind it.  Ephraim, our lovely 2yo, found said container and I caught him playing with it.  He potentially ate some, so I called poison control and now he is on watch till next Thursday for any random odd bleeding, at which we rush him to the doctors office for treatment.

4. Ben has been struggling with some essential concepts this week, waiting his turn for something/waiting in general patiently and thinking every little injustice is the end of the world. I'm hoping we learn how to deal with these things and he outgrows them quickly.

5. In a random mom thing that won't make sense to non-parents.  Ben finally figured out how to snap in the bottom buckle of his car seat.  This will make my life 5% easier in general, and probably 20% more easy when it comes to getting everyone into the car.

6. Helena turns 6 weeks old today! It does finally feel like we are in a semi-routine finally and that I am able to do things with all three and not want to cry through every moment because its just that hard.  So here's to another six weeks we can do this!

7. My partner in crime, DH, RHL, Keith, or @llamaluvr turns 31 today.  Wish him a very happy birthday if you know him. And if you have any crazy obtainable beer suggestions for a present for him, let me know. I'm a bit behind on the present getting for him.

Check out more quick takes at conversiondiary.com 

Pregnancy week to week

I've been meaning to get this together for a while now. So here goes, an approximate week by week slideshow of my pregnancy with Helena.

New baby things...the third time around.

I always see posts for what is actually useful for a baby. I don't think I've ever done one, or at least I have forgotten if I have.  So I figured I'd try one of these out because well, my brain can't handle much else these days, and maybe just maybe it will help me to blog a bit more. So here goes, I consider myself more on the minimalist side of buying things since we live in a small house and I don't have that much room to store all the stuff.  Then, on top of that I tend to be more granola than not, so take those in to account when you check out this list.

1. Mei Tai Carrier  - my go to when I need both hands, works with bigger babies too, but the little ones get frog legged and just bury themselves into you. (A lot of times I just zip her in my coat for extra support when out on a walk)

 Mei Tai :annacarriebaby

2. Bouncer - I don't usually use that many devices anymore, my kids just seem to not like them.  But this is the one that they do. It works well for siblings to interact with baby and give your back and hands a break

3. kissaluvs, prefolds, diaper covers, and a package of spouses - I'm a cloth diaperer, but the first few weeks, I give myself a break.  The cloth diapers while awesome in many ways, are hard to fit on a brand new baby. Those legs need some chub for the diapers to work well.  So I allow myself to slowly ease into it for the first month to six weeks or so. Then the kissaluvs and the pre-folds come into play and I don't want to go back because I usually am hating on the disposables and their lack of holding poop at that point.

Kissaluvs

4. Sling - There are many different type of slings, mine is from seven slings, and it works great with a newborn to keep them tight to your body and gives them that mama reassurance baby likes as a newborn.

5. sleepers - I don't dress little babies much, this might change with a girl now.  Eh, probably not, but what I do use are sleepers.  They are easy and they are warm since I seem to have babies born in colder weather.

6. swaddlers - My babies don't like to be swaddled forever, but for the first few weeks they really do like it.  We have a few miracle blankets for this and a kidapotamus one that has velcro and makes it easy.

Diapers.com

7. foam bed rail- This makes me feel at easy with bed sharing.  No one falls or gets stuck in a crack.
They are apparently called magic bumpers, found on amazon here.

8. a few receiving blankets - these have many uses, whether to catch spit up, swaddle, soak up extra breast milk, or as a semi nursing cover for those folks who aren't comfortable around nursing mamas.


9. Nursing gear - breast pads, and nursing tanks or bras. I'm more of the nursing tank gal, but again I have cold weather babies and exposed stomach means I get cold.  Lanolin is also good to have around those first few weeks or if you get a cracked nipple.

target.com

10. Prayer - I've been known to sing an Our Father for a lullaby and when I'm feeling like I'm a mess and everything around me is overwhelming, I pray the simple prayer, of "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I put my trust in Thee." It's really good in the middle of the night when the anxiety hits me like a rock sometimes.

Helena's birth story

So we have a baby girl now.  It seems crazy, I mean I felt like she would be a girl, but I think I was setting myself for having another boy, and not that I would be upset with another boy, its just that I couldn't fathom that things would be be different.

Now on to her birth...Monday night I had a lot of lower back pain and it didn't really go away until the next morning. It snowed about a foot Monday into Tuesday morning, and while Keith decided to work from home all day, I'm thankful that his job allows him to do this, I had a midwife appointment at 1pm that I was set on going to no matter what.  So crazy kid me shoveled half the driveway with the boys semi helping and then let Keith do the rest.

I had my appointment and my midwife told me that I was contracting. I just didn't feel it at this moment. Fast forward to Thursday and I while I was making dinner I started having a few contractions that I actually felt but they stopped when I sat down for actual dinner.

Friday night, I didn't have any more contractions, but for some reason there was so much pressure and baby felt so low that I just couldn't sit.  I found myself hanging over an exercise ball just because it felt better and then I went to bed hoping to get some sleep.

At 2am I was woken up by contractions that continued every 7-10 minutes till about 5:30.  But nothing really picked up and actually around 5 they slowed down. So tried to sleep and got about an hour or so of sleep before the kids woke up.

This whole week Ephraim had insisted on staying as close to me as possible. I think he could tell something was about to happen.  So he stayed up later than normal watching the olympics with us and slept on the crib mattress beside us or on the floor if he rolled off looking like this.

It was like he was my own little watch dog. He refused to be moved, so we just let him be. 

Things slowed down for a few hours in the morning, but I still called my midwife to give her a heads up because well, I haven't had false/warm-up labor to that extent before.  So I figured I should at least let her know what was happening. She said she had one appointment to go to and then would be at her MIL's house, which happens to be about 4 houses away from ours. 

I figured I was in labor at this point, but I just felt like it was going to take awhile, so I sent Keith to Target to get some things we were missing in the house, and since I hadn't gotten my GBS result back, I needed the rinse that prevents GBS from becoming an issue. I haven't been GBS positive before, but I know it lives in your system and can present itself at anytime and causes major issues with baby. Thus, better safe than sorry.

Keith came back and at this point I had started a puzzle and the in-laws were called to come get the kids. So around 10:30-11am the boys were picked up and oddly contractions started getting closer again. I watched a whole bunch of house hunters on Amazon Prime TV and by noon or shortly after I again called the midwife, because well things were more intense. I got her voicemail but within a few minutes she called back and said she was in the neighborhood and would be there in 2 minutes.  And a good thing she was because apparently active labor was pretty short for me, about an hour.  

We tried to set up the tub, but well, it takes more than an hour to do.  I think next time if we do water, I think I will tell Keith to just start it as soon as labor starts because well otherwise its useless with me since there is not enough time. 

The midwife was cool about everything though and Keith and her just quickly made up the bed for birth because she knew I was close.  I remember asking to use the bathroom, because well, I just think for me its natural with all the pressure to want to bear down over something.  But she reminded me if I did that, there was probably going to be a baby born in a toilet.  And while she was okay if I wanted to do that, I thought it might be a nicer story to tell baby later that she wasn't.  

So in about 3 pushes I had a baby girl out.  I was totally amazed she was a girl, despite the feeling the whole time that it was a girl. It took about 20 minutes afterward for the placenta to deliver itself, but it didn't matter because I had a baby girl in my arms. All the mess went away quickly and nothing was ruined or stained in the house. 

It was honestly not highly dramatic like last time and I think I needed that.  I know God was still looking out for me though with the uncertainties of short active labor and him putting my midwife right in the neighborhood when I needed her to be. I am thankful to have a healthy, beautiful baby girl in my life now and I am enjoying all the shenanigans her brothers are causing in the chaos of a new baby.  Now if only could get the boys to call her baby Helena or Lena instead of baby Gaby which they insist on calling her. 

Helena Perpetua