Happy birthday to me

With the best (and most talented) husband ever, the brightest and most charming almost-three-year-old, the very sweetest almost-one-year-old, the most meaningful job I can imagine, and loving extended family and friends near and far, I already have everything I ever wished for, and more.

Happy birthday to me. (And thanks, Mom!)

Happy new year!

2011 has been a crazy year. We settled in Iowa (having moved the previous December 28th), became a family of four, started two jobs, started a business--and countless other moments that were no less significant. So here at the beginning of 2012, what does life look like?

-Matt is still working at the co-op. After a disc injury to his back this fall, he's now trained in multiple departments to avoid the overuse that led to his original injury. Despite having re-aggravated it a few times, it does seem to be on the mend. And in spite of having very little time to devote to it, he's becoming an amazingly skilled hand tool woodworker.

-I've had several births in the past year, and actually rang in the new year at a birth last night! While it's been stressful to try to learn the ins and outs of running a business on the fly, while at the same time keeping busy with our family life, I love what I do and the clients I serve. I also continue to work at the hospital during off months for midwifery, and feel incredibly fortunate to be able to both keep my skills up and supplement our income this way.

-Eden is two and a half, (mostly) potty trained, and beginning to talk a blue streak. She's bright, funny, and generally sensitive to others' needs, including Eve's. As a toddler, she still battles frequent impulses to do things like kicking and throwing, but we admire her high spirits and energy level. She still has the most insane food preferences I've ever known anyone to have, young or old. Favorites include cod liver oil, brussels sprouts, tuna fish, meatballs, broccoli, carrots, lemons, and dried mangos.

-Eve is 8 months old with a lovely, sweet personality. She's sitting up and starting to babble. She loves playing with toys and watching Eden's antics (though is very sensitive about being roughhoused if Eden gets too close). She's really not eating any solid foods yet, as when we've tried them she hasn't seemed quite ready yet.

The less-than-glowing report is that neither girl is a stellar sleeper. And of course, like all good parenting problems, it's a moving target. Sometimes Eden goes down like a dream and sleeps all night. Other times, it's fighting bedtime (with shrieks and screams you wouldn't believe). Still other times it's frequent nighttime wakings. Eve, on the other hand, is adopting Eden's abbreviated nap schedule and still gets up every 2-3 hours to eat or pee. So between the two of them, we're often up every hour throughout the night--not exactly restful. We've tried troubleshooting it every way we can think of--and just wind up feeling like we're chasing our tails. Potty training has taken a similar circuitous, one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of a route, which is similarly exhausting and frustrating.

For our own part, Matt and I entered this winter feeling bloated and sluggish and out of shape. Our clean, lean, primal eating habits have really taken a hit this past year, and so between the weight gain and back pain and overall low energy level (since sleep isn't an option), we knew we had to do something. I'm pleased to report that the following regimen seems to have us back on the road to good health:

Green smoothies every day. We invested in a refurbished Vitamix blender and for lunch every day we have a mixture of spinach, carrots, apple, pear, lemon, and ginger--all thrown in whole. It's surprisingly palatable, and both girls actually love it.

Yoga every morning. We love the Living Arts yoga series for being approachable for everyone, beginners on up. Matt has long been a huge fan of yoga, and after trying it the past couple of months, I can't believe it was under my nose all this time. I FEEL FANTASTIC after doing yoga, in a way I thought was probably behind me forever. We shoot for at least once a day--two or three times is even better.

Healthy, primal, low-carb eating. No sugars or grains, minimal natural sweeteners (like honey) and moderate amounts of carbs and starches (such as potatoes and corn, though I know the latter is technically a grain).

Next up on our list of constant experiments: trading in our morning coffee for tea. We'll see how that goes...

Anyhow, some recent pictures:

My cloth wipe solution

Cloth wipe solution

Ingredients:

-2 cups water
-2 squirts Dr Bronner's liquid castile soap (I use unscented)
-1 squirt natural baby lotion of your choice (for now, I use Burts Bees Milk & Honey, which I think has been "reformulated," and the reformulation is not worth buying--but the old version makes my wipes smell divine. You could also use a drop or two of essential oils if desired, or a plain unscented lotion.)
-Empty jar

Combine in  jar and shake well. Place 5-6 fleece wipes (=cut a cheap fleece blanket into squares; or can serge your own, or use baby washcloths) into a ziploc or other waterproof bag, and pour a small amount of solution over. Squish to equalize coverage. Use within a few days, and replenish as needed. Cute label optional!

I love this because:

• the ingredients are customizable to what your baby does or does not tolerate well (Eve's diaper area looks stellar since we switched back to cloth wipes)
• they're easier to keep "juicy" than disposable wipes, which kept going dry on me
• no questionable or unpronounceable ingredients (even 7th Generation wipes seemed to me to have way too many ingredients)
• there's no more sorting disposable wipes out of the cloth diaper pail
• it's cheap and easy!

Latest challenge: No-spend month

Ever on a quest to save money, we had gotten a bit lax as of late and so with no births on the horizon for November, we've resolved to make it a No Spend Month to try to keep our budget balanced. Well, no extra or nonessential spending. Gas and food are non-optional; as, I've found, is parking if I'm to make any money by working at the hospital. (Getting dropped off would be the only other option, but would cost more in gas than it would save in parking.) But anything else strictly nonessential is out. I meant to keep a tally of how much we've saved, but ha! In my free time, right? So I'll just rattle off a few of the things it's occurred to me to buy, and how I've circumvented it:

-Baby wipes (I know, I know): switched back to cloth.

-Greeting cards: called or emailed instead.

-Groupon, LivingSocial, et al: did without.

-Ditto for eating out (a particular Achilles heel) or getting coffee.

-Buying lunch at work: brown-bagged it (the usual, but tempting to skip when I'm running late, which is always).

And the month isn't even half over yet. Stay tuned for updates, including a fantastic recipe for a natural solution to use on cloth wipes!

We're still here

In more ways than one. It's hard to believe it's been two months since I've posted! In the meantime, we've been through a variety of challenges as a family and had to make some major decisions. Perhaps the most visible of those is that we've decided to stay put for the time being. Thinking it over carefully, alternating parenting round the clock just so we could pay our rent didn't feel like the right thing for our family or the best thing for our girls at this point in our lives. We feel really lucky to have a branch of the family that is happy to have us and our girls camp out with them as long as needed--as well as another branch within a few hours' drive that love us and are happy to lend whatever reinforcements we need as well. We've spent several days this summer with three and four grandparents on deck, and I have to say it's been a lot of fun and very gratifying to see how well everyone works and gets along together. We're grateful and humbled by all the love and support everyone shows us on a daily basis, and it's really reaffirmed for us that there's nothing more important than our family.

So for the foreseeable future, we're going to continue to function as one, big, happy, multigenerational, four-pet, two-business household. (Sounds a little crazy put like that, doesn't it?) One that note, midwifery is starting to take off, which is a little overwhelming but extremely exciting. I remember doing my training in Pennsylvania and spending beautiful fall days with my favorite midwife, driving around the countryside and visiting expectant families in their homes, and thinking "This is the life." Well, it's now at least partially my life as well. And while there are definitely things we miss about the various towns and landscapes we've occupied in the past, being near family is definitely right, and Iowa is starting to feel like home.

Eden is definitely moving into a more settled phase of being as well. She's definitely still intense and energetic, we're all finding our way together and learning to relax and enjoy one another more in the process. She's also learning to channel her energy and focus for longer periods of time. We spend lots of time playing and climbing outside, building with Duplos, and playing with Play-Doh. She's now potty trained and continues to be a spectacular big sister to Eve--who's morphed from a sleepy sack of a newborn into a curious, smiley and easygoing baby who loves watching Eden's adventures from the safety of the sling or Bumbo.

Matt and I are feeling like we're really beginning to hit our stride, in our marriage and as parents. Much of this is due to deliberate reflection and effort on each our parts, and I think it's also helpful to feel like we're finally in a settled spot for awhile. As opposed to our various moves in the past few years, we can make friends or find a restaurant we like without thinking that it's too bad we'll be leaving soon. Even if we don't live at Belmont Hill forever, we feel like we've found the region we'll be calling home, and that's a tremendous relief for everybody.

Easing up

Things with Eden were 1000% better today. While we still had our share of tantrums, potty accidents, and other standard 2-year-old fare, and she is still "declining" to take a nap, she was actually very sweet, cuddly, and affectionate most of the day, did like she was told more often than usual, and spent most of the day using the potty and wearing dry training pants. 

I felt like I'd been let out of jail.

Rough

Is how things have felt lately. With regard to the last post, Eden is still on a hardcore napping strike, and bedtime isn't going well either. (Except for tonight, when we skipped out to a movie and my mom was kind enough to put her down--of course, she went willingly and easily). As a result, she's sleep-deprived and irrational, generally a kicking, screaming, sobbing mess most of the day, making it impossible to get anything done and nearly impossible to keep oneself in check after awhile. We've tried it all to get her to sleep more--longer bedtime routines, shorter bedtime routines, staying with her until she falls asleep, NOT staying with her until she falls asleep...all to no avail. So our nerves are more than a bit frayed from that.

Also, I've taken a nursing job while I work on getting midwifery going, so that we can pay our bills in the meantime--especially with a move in the works. (The idea of flying solo with these two kids (well, mainly the one, to be honest) while Matt is at work, without my parents as backup, is daunting--but we'll see. It had to come sometime, right?) The nursing gig is something I'm thankful for, and only disappointed about because it means I'll be away from the girls more. Probably not a ton, hopefully just a night or two a week--but still, it isn't what I'd planned on. And for us both be pulled away from family life more than we'd like, and still be struggling a bit to make ends meet-- well, again, it's not exactly the picture we fantasized about.

But still. I took Eden to the library today, and I left the diaper bag (and her monkey harness--how I love that monkey harness) at home, and so she was running, yelling, jumping, and climbing like a how-NOT-to-behave-in-the-library video. Then, with my patience running a bit thin with the stresses of the day, in the checkout line was a mom with a little boy confined to a wheelchair. And I realized that that mom would probably give ANYTHING to have the kind of library visit I'd just sighed my way through, even just once. And I remembered that Eden won't always be two, and that money problems are just money problems, and that we're all healthy and together and that those are the two most important things. So I'm able to end the day feeling kind of like I've been pulled through a knothole, but on the whole, grateful, nonetheless.