Alternative Parenting – Page 12 – a hippie with a minivan

Quebec City…

Last weekend we headed to Quebec city for a family party. It is so rare that extended family gets together is happy time (not a funeral) so I jumped on the chance…

An old friend and his wife invited us to sleep over at their house that night also which was amazingly kind considering that we are six people and they have an apartment. It was one of those weekends that everything just turned out great and we all had fun.

The party was for my mom’s cousin’s 25th anniversary. There were a lot of happy tears and catching up and meeting second cousins and relatives that I had never met before. The boys had fun running around outside and picking at the buffet and hanging out with their grandma and going to the bathroom downstairs all by themselves. All dressed up we were able to get a pic of the family… This is the first time that we are all in a picture as it is usually Simon and I who are behind the camera…

(Khéna was fixated on the fountain that was in front of us)

My grandmother was really happy to spend sometime with the kids also…

After the party we headed back to our friend’s apartment and then in the morning we headed to a flea market and then to the old city. It is amazing how you can go along the street and then meet the walls of the old city and be taken back in time. Buildings, centuries old, line the streets crowed together, and you are taken back in time. We parked the cars in the lower city and looked for a place to eat lunch.

(Chateau Frontenac, the most photographed Hotel in the world)

After lunch we decided to take the Funiculaire up to the upper city and then walk down again so that we could walk around more without us all getting too tired. The Funiculaire first went into operation in 1879 and worked on steam and counterweights. In 1907 it went electric and over the years it has been updated. It is a short ride that costs 2$ but is well worth it, and the boys loved it…

(from the street in the lower city and the view going to the top)

At the top, there are the remains of the fort that stood on that spot nearly 400 years ago. The boys loved going around in the remains and seeing where things used to be.

Of course the view from the top is also spectacular…

(another family pic!! and again, Khéna is not looking… )

After walking a bit in the upper city, we headed back down… It was a beautiful day, it was the weekend and their were tons of people, but it didn’t hinder the experience at all..

We had Gellato, we people watched and looked at murals on the walls of the buildings (click on the pics below to see in big) We saw street performers (Khéna was quite intrigued by the statue lady) and heard music and just enjoyed the history around us…. I look forward to returning in the near future for another adventure…

3 months old

Wilhelmina is now three months old..

It is hard to believe that she is already three months old, but in another light I have trouble not seeing her in our family. It was just yesterday it seems that she was so tiny, yet it feels like an eternity since the birth.

She is such an amazing little one. She is smiley and happy but don’t let that fool you, when she is not happy she is not happy at all.

The time I was away with her was great, but I have to admit that it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. At home, she cries at times, but not much… but while we were away it seemed bit hard for her. The routine was off, the noises were different, we were out a lot more, and we were in and out of the car a lot more also.

But now that we are back home, car rides are no problem again, she seems happier in the day and naps better also and continues to sleep well at night. She is a lot more smiley and doesn’t mind being in dad’s arms as well as mine and it shows that though mom is important, so is Dad, and though I don’t know how concsious it was, I do believe that she was missing him and her brothers.

EC is also back on track a bit more as things were off a bit also with the travelling. I had actually forgot about using diapers all the time and forgot them a few times when we went out. Even when we were having a quieter day, thing were just a bit more off. Now that we are at home again though, the routine is back and we are having minimal misses… Diapering is so much more work!

Willa has always been a good sleeper in the night and that is one thing that travelling did not change. She kept her routine of sleeping through the night with one or two times of waking up to potty and nurse… usually at around 1-2am and then again at about 5am… but, in the last half of the trip things started changing. When I wold hear her wake a bit at about 1-2 am I would put her on the potty as I usually did, but she would not pee and instead would either cry or just fall asleep right on the potty… and she also wouldn’t nurse. So I had to start keeping myself from reacting to her slight movements as I was doing before and she just continues sleeping until about 5-6am when she wakes up dry, pees quickly and then wants to nurse even more readily. She then goes back to sleep and wakes up a bit more often but will easily and readily stay in bed for as long as we are. Of course, we have other kids to attend to so we did need to get up eventually…

3 months…. it might not seem like a big deal to some, but as a mom that has been through this period 3 times in the past, 3 months is when a lot of things start to happen, and I am looking forward to expeirences all the “firsts” that are soon to come as well as mourning the fact aht I don’t have a ‘newborn’ anymore, I now have a baby….

Week two…

Last week was busy… friends over to visit, visit from the midwife and papers being signed to register Wilhelmina’s birth, shopping trips, bags of clothes given and sorted and put away and the more boyish clothes/extra clothes or unpractical baby clothes all sorted out and ready to be given away. It is crazy how much clothes we had accumulated and though I had sorted through it many, many times, there was still always too much.

But now… It is amazing how having a little girl now has changed my emotional attachment to the clothes that the boys wore. Though I did end up keeping two small outfits that have special memories, the rest was easily put into the bag. I am also being very careful to keep only what I like, need and is practical for EC and for everyday use. (No diaper shirts, or PJ’s with tons of snaps etc) and I am also making sure that we don’t have too much of certain clothes in the same size so that we are actually using the clothes that we have and like the most.

Decluttering is something that feels so liberating.

Thursday was the biggest day for Wilhelmina and I… she had her first Chiro appointment which went very well and then we got on the road and headed to Costco which is about a 45 min drive away. While I was on the road I decided to see if my friend Martine was home so I could go visit while I was in the area… not only was she there, but another friend was there, so I headed over and got to spend a few hours talking and having tea and cookies with two of my dearest friends. After that I headed to Costco and then a few other places I needed to got to. Wilhelmina doesn’t like the car very much but once we are moving she falls asleep so the car trip was actually quite pleasant. It was also the first time we had been gone from the house for so long and I was ECing out of the house. During the car ride she stayed dry and I was able to pee her at the Chiro and then once we got to Martine’s house. During the visit she went through one of her periods of peeing often and we went through a few diapers and a few trips on the potty and over the sink and then while we were out and she was in the wrap she didn’t pee at all and instead waited until we got into the car and then I put her over the potty. Since she was so warm in the wrap she didn’t mind at all being put over the potty in below freezing temps. I just had a blanket around her, pulled her pants down and took the diaper off half way, she went quickly and then I just pulled her pants back up, nursed a bit and then she went into the car seat.

Though I spend a lot of my time sitting and nursing and holding her, I have been able to do some more cooking done and doing things around the house. Meal plans have been easy things that don’t take up too much time or are easy, so that if I need to be with Willa, I can finish quickly, nurse her while doing it or Simon can finish up.

Having Simon around is so great. There is always another set of hands, someone to make breakfast for the boys and even for me… I am able to run out to the store quickly with just Wilhelmina or go out with everyone and have a bit of help. Though I could of course manage if we didn’t have the choice it makes things so much easier and it also is fun for the kids to have daddy around… I can’t wait for spring so that we can get out more and go places, go for walks and hang out together as a family on weekdays…

So that has been our week, just living life with a new member of the family and getting to know her. She just fits so perfectly.

EC with a newborn…

EC or elimination communication is such a great thing and so much easier than people think it is…

I started with Colin when he was about 4 weeks old, and started with Khéna when he was born…

(Khéna 7 weeks)

With both we did it with diaper backup and didn’t do it at night because honestly I am a lazy parent at night and even I thought that it would be more work, but with Wilhelmina I wanted to do it completely and I am so happy that we are. It is so much easer than even I thought it was going to be!

(Wilhelmina 2 days old)

Wilhelmina is 2 weeks old today and things are going so well. Though I am not ready to go protection free just yet, I also don’t diaper completely. I found the happy medium between both by using a prefold diaper with a belt so that it is easy to take off and potty her, but if we have a miss I feel it right away and I am able to change her quickly. For large portions of the day and night she stays in the same prefold giving clear signs such as a cry or whimper or arching her back to let us know that she has to go. Then she has other periods that she pees every 5 min and though we always get a pee when we offer the potty, she has already has had one in the cloth also… but the great thing is that though she has short periods like that, she has never stayed wet for longer than a few minutes. I do wonder though that if we just went diaper-free completely during those moments (or at all times) if I would catch more of the pees that we seem to miss…

(Wilhelmina, today… 2 weeks old)

Poos are a different story… The first few days it was harder to catch her poos since she wasn’t signalling as much for them but once she caught on that they too were to go in the potty, she now signals very clearly and in more than a week and a half we have only had to clean up one small poo and even then, Simon brought her over the sink and she let go of the rest, clearly waiting for us to catch on to what she was trying to communicate. Even if it were just for poos, EC would be worth it.

What has surprised me the most though is doing it at nighttime.

In the past, we would have them in a diaper and if they woke up wet, Simon would bring them to the bathroom and offer the potty/sink and they would go but there were other times that we just changed the diaper and that was it. Somehow I thought that consistently ECing at night was more work than that, but it is so much less. We have a great routine going at the moment. Our nights start out with me laying in bed with her, she nurses and pees a bit more often in the late evening, so she nurses and pees and burps in a cycle for about an hour and then finally falls asleep. She then wakes up about 3 to 3 1/2 hours later and I just hear her move or do a little whimper and without getting up I just get the potty off my side table, lean it against me, take her pre-fold off and put her on it. She pees without really waking up, I put the pre-fold back on her because it is still dry, nurse her and fall asleep again… then the cycle begins again until the morning.

A funny thing that we found is that besides using the potty at night, she rather be over the sink, so that though I put her over the potty in the day she will sometimes hold it in and will clearly communicate that he needs to go but won’t let go until I bring her into the washroom over the sink. She really knows what she wants!

So besides the small period she has in the evening that she seems to pee every 5 minutes, she has a very predictable pattern of needing to go when she wakes up and when she is tired and wants to go to sleep. People that visit are surprised and in awe of how I am able to read her signals but after having done EC with two babies, I can’t imagine ignoring the signals anymore.

What I love about EC is not just the elimination part it is the communication part, like when she is hungry or tired, elimination is just another need that she has that she is able to communicate and I am able to respond to. It adds to our relationship, to our connection together. Even if there are misses, it isn’t a problem, it sometimes centres me to be more attentive if I am distracted at the moment, or we just move on…

First days…

Wow… I am in love…

Not only do I love my new little girl, but seeing her brothers love just makes my heart melt. The boys are completely amazed and enamored by her… they want to kiss her, hold her, touch her…

Xavier spent at least an hour holding her hand and looking at her while she slept the day she was born..

Colin had to come kiss her at least once every 15 min..

Khéna is just in awe and wants to stay close and always wants to hold her…

Khéna is also adapting to being a big brother amazingly well… I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about how he was going to take not being the baby of the family anymore… having to share mama with someone who needs her more, losing his coveted place in the family bed in front of mama… having to share his “Maju”… but he showing me that I was wrong to be nervous… he is taking it better than I would have hoped for, he is so proud to be a big brother!

My mom came by today to bring me a chicken she cooked this morning so we can make some sandwiches with and she left with Colin and Xavier and brought them to where she is saying near the cabin for two nights… the boys wer excited to go and honestly having the house be a bit more quiet will be nice… Khéna would have wanted to go also but it isn’t the best time, so instead he is doing special things with Daddy alone which he thinks is a great alternative…

As for life with baby… she is amazing… her first night was a bit rough until she had a big poop at around 2am and then finally she relaxed and slept… nursing about every 3 hours or so until morning and then throughout the day… she reminds me so much of Colin as a baby.. she looks like him also, the resemblance is quite amazing..

It was because of Colin that I tried EC for the first time.. he hated being wet, even for a second and would get worked up inconsolably… so letting him potty somewhere else than a diaper was exactly what he wanted and needed…

With Khéna we started when he was 4 days old…when the meconium poos were finished… this time I was hesitating on doing the same, but after seeing her reaction to having a BM and being in it for a few minutes, it reminded me so much of Colin that I decided to try right away… and she has been dry all day… she gives a clear signal that she needs to go and the within a few seconds of putting her over the potty bowl she eliminates… she does cry for a few seconds before going but once she lets go, she stops crying immediately and is quiet and content again… though I have seen it before, it is amazing to see how natural it comes…

I have also fell in love with the prefold belt that I bought… and I am going to be sewing up some of my own very soon… it is such a simple concept but makes things so much easier and it looks so much more comfortable than any newborn diaper cover or diaper that I have tried on my babies…

Wilhelmina is also an amazing nurser… her latch was perfect from the start and she is efficient and just so easy to nurse… my milk is coming in also and it amazing to hear her gulp and drink and be content…

As for me, I lost a little more blood than I would have liked yesterday but I am feeling better today… still a little weak, but better… I am also in pain all over my body… my SPD is better but labour was rough and my body is definately feeling the consequences of that… All I can tell myself is that everything will be better soon…

And Simon… well he is still tired from the night I laboured and is doing so much for everyone and is being an amazing husband and father… I think he is feeling a bit overwhelmed and stretched out but he is taking it in stride… I think that having the older boys with my mom for the two nights will make things easier for him also.. he is also happy to be starting his paternity leave which gives him until August before returning to work…

So, yes, we are all in love and enjoying life with a newborn… It is amazing… she is amazing…