“Loving the baby you gave birth to” July 29, 2009

We’ve had a housebound life the past ten days due to a surgical procedure my husband underwent early last week (lying on the floor for the better part of nine days now, though much recovered and back to work part-time tomorrow).  As we’ll be bringing home a new baby in about three weeks, I decided I might as well try to potty-train my 23-month old daughter (because how great would it be to only have one kid in diapers?).  We were home-bound anyway which is half the battle in this arena – consistent oversight and proximity to the toilet.  Moreover, the potty-training method I successfully used with our son is a three-day process that the author recommends employing when the child is approximately 22 months.  (We underwent it with our son when he was 34 months.) I know two moms who have potty-trained their children at this age with this method so I thought – what’s to lose by trying?

My mindset going in was “this may not work but if it does, it will be awesome to only have one set of diapers to change… and if it doesn’t, I only spent a few days on it anyway and I can just table it for a few months and have at it with her later.”  Seemed like a win-win, so off we went.

Harmony is overrated… July 22, 2009

I’m working on a post about mothers’ tendency to discuss issues pertaining to their children while those same kids are present in the room with them…  but alas, I’ve not gotten very far.  It’s been a bit of a slog these past few days.  My husband had outpatient surgery on Monday and is 48 hrs into a painful recovery which has left him with the sole activity of lying on the floor (or bed) on painkillers, and I am recovering from an intense sinus infection that emerged the day prior. As well as being nearly 37 weeks pregnant – with a baby requiring more-than-normal monitoring due to an irregular heartbeat.  Suffice it to say that these aren’t our finest hours – not for anyone in our family.

By way of a self pep-talk, I just re-read a post I wrote two years ago for Gifted for Leadership called “The Trouble with Harmony.”  The topic is addressing life’s annoyances – especially when they’re piled on top of each other – with godly perspective and a Christ-pleasing attitude.  Neither of which I’m doing too well right now.

Experience, not its substitutes July 15, 2009

One week, two coasts, a 20-hour travel day, and numerous medical incidences that don’t merit going into detail about…  I’m back and blogging.  In my last post I commented on Last Child in the Woods and reflected on the importance of prioritizing the natural world in our parenting.  Here I simply want to follow up with two quotes  included in the book about experience that struck me, one from 100 years ago and one current.

This from novelist D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930):

“Superficially, the world has become small and known. Poor little globe of earth, the tourists trot round you as easily as they trot round Central Park. There is no mystery left, we’ve been there, we’ve seen it, we know all about it. We’ve done the globe and the globe is done.

Kids, nature, and God July 7, 2009

My book club recently read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. The book explores the effects of our society’s increasingly limited exposure to the natural world – particularly on children and their development. Louv uses the made-up term “nature deficit disorder” to describe the condition many American kids experience today of lacking contact with nature. Much of this is related to the rise of technology in all aspects of our life, but Louv cites numerous other factors that are worthy of consideration.

While the premises of the book weren’t new to me, I found the book to be well worth reading and Louv’s data findings insightful. Some direct quotes:

Questions from the waiting room July 1, 2009

Pretty quiet on the blogging front as we’re on vacation for a few weeks.

Last week I had my routine OB check-up a couple days before our departure.  It was my 32-week appointment and I expected the normal quick in, quick out: weight, blood pressure, heartbeat, mini-chat with my midwife.  My mind was on packing and final preparations for the trip.  It caught me off guard, therefore, when the midwife detected that the baby’s heartbeat was irregular. 

Without panic or fanfare, the midwife arranged an appointment for me with the perinatologist in a nearby town for the following morning.  Irregular heartbeats at this stage were not at all uncommon, she explained to me, but were cause for information-gathering and possible monitoring.  As I emerged from the elevator and walked to my van in the parking lot, I began mentally scanning options for childcare for our two kids for my appointment the next day — while also fighting back tears.