a hippie with a minivan

Pre-Natal and babywearing classes

I completely Forgot that I am giving a Pre-natal tonight… I Just went over my notes again about the advantages of Breastfeeding for Mom and Baby and the Myths that commonly surround breastfeeding… I could say all of them by heart but I get nervous infronf of a group of people…
Colin is coming with me of course.. I can’t leave him yet with Simon, it’s not that I don’t trust him of course, I just can’t stand the thought of leaving him…

When I went by the Org. that I work with today to get some photocopies done I talked with the directror about giving Babywearing Classes in the Fall and she thinks that it is a great idea… So I might be doing that in the Fall and selling slings and wraps to the moms that attend…

Anyways… wish me luck for tonight…

Weight…

Everyday I get up and say that I need to lose weight but then I get so hungry and I just need to eat… I don’t know if it because of the Tandem nursing or it just in my head but I have never been hungry like this before…
A few years ago, about 6 months before I got pregnant with Xavier I was at my highest weight and one day things just clicked inside and on a Sunday night I bought a series of 12 coupons for Weight Watchers and made my way to the meeting the day after… I was ready and I was willing to lose weight… 6 months later I had lost 50 pounds and fell pregnant with Xavier…
Now. After 2 kids, I am about in the middle mark between my highest and my lowest weight.. I really want to lose more again but I can’t even imagine how I would do it this time around… I would love to lose more before I get pregnant again.. I think my body would appreciate it…
I need to get my motivation back.. I need to find people that will help motivate me… I miss the group of women that I used to see every Monday night… I have since moved about an hour away and the group that is here just doesn’t interest me… I can talk more openly in English, I feel better in an English setting and that is not available here…
Why won’t it just click the way it did a few years back… Why can’t I get that same feeling that I just have had enough and things have to change and they have to change now…
If I want to succeed I need that feeling again…

LLL Conference

I went to the LLL Conference in Montreal Yestersday and it was fun… I took 3 “classes” that I thought would be interesting and fun… Baby-wearing, Tandem Nursing and Homeschooling… I got to the Baby wearing class and the girl was just another Mom that loves babywearing (which is great) but the problem was that I knew more about babywearing than her… So a few of the things that people has questions about I answered… I didn’t learn anything about babywearing except that I should start giving classes too which I think I will bring up as an idea at the CLSC Tuesday when I give the Prenatal…

The Tandem nursing class was pretty much a summary of the Book “Adventures In Tandem Nursing” which seemed to be a big discovery to her because it hasn’t been published in French… However, I have read it cover to cover a few times so again I didn’t really get to learn anything new… but it was fun to meet other Tandem nursing Moms…

The third class… Homeschooling was the best… It was inspirational and It confirmed by decision to Homeschool… I couldn’t have asked for more…
The thing that stuck with me the most was that on average a Homeschooling student does about 1 and 1/2 hours of school work a day (about the average homework time of any other student)and not only that but that with 1 and 1/2 hours of work a day an average student can finish the school year in about 4 months!
There was a women in the group that was there to know more because she often got questions about homeschooling but was completly against the idea and at the end she said that she understood things in a very different light now..
Anyways… it was great and very informative…
So the day wasn’t a loss… and I got to show off my beautiful Ellaroo and I got proffesional pics taken free with Colin…. (can’t wait to see them!)

Ramblings…. About Sleep….

Last night I has trouble going to sleep… Maybe it was the Coffee that I took mid afternoon that I am just no longer used to having (DH and I stopped drinking Coffee regularly because we don’t want the addiction) Anyways… I stayed up and checked Homeschooling sites… I am still debating with my self about how I want to homeschool but keep on reminding myself that it is ds that will take the lead and show me how he wants to be taught…
Anyways… I finally went to bed and was starting to fall asleep when Colin woke up… Dh got up (without even waking up I think) went to get him and brought him into bed… I nursed him and fell asleep right away… Something about being cuddled to a little ball of warmth just makes me relax completely… I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t co-sleep… I can’t imagine if at that moment I would have had to physically get up and get Colin back to sleep.. How do parents do that? Why do they do it?
Someone on a newsgroup I read mentioned something that really made sense to me… It is not our children that have sleep problems… it is the parents… the kids are getting enough sleep even if they wake up during the night, it the parents that are the ones losing out on sleep because they go to sleep later, and they get up at night and wake themselves up completely in order to get their kids back to sleep….
A friend of ours has two micro-preemies… born at 27 and 28 weeks (11 months apart)… her daughter born at 27 weeks is a very bad sleeper… she wakes up many times a night and they have lost so much sleep… they have tried everything to have her sleep better and longer and nothing has woked… The leave her CIO, they rock her, they have sleep therapy, drugs etc but have never brought her into their bed… I wonder sometimes how much sleep would have actually been saved if they would have done this… Why is it a bad habit for so many people? Why do people expect a newborn, or even a toddler to be in their own room in the dark and alone while they are snuggled next to the one they love… Why do they expect their children to be so independent….
Don’t get me wrong… I know that co-sleeping is not for everyone… but it is not a bad habit! It is a great tool… there are some nights that Colin wakes up quite frequently especially during a growth spurt and I don’t lose more sleep because of it… I just give him the breast without even really waking up and both of us are back asleep within seconds… Call me lazy or call me brilliant but I am just not able to accept that I have to get up during the night to tend to the needs of my children… I would rather do it from the comfort of my own bed….

So what’s the missing link?!!?

We have been working on Potty Training with Xavier for a little while now… Bare bottom he can go without any accidents for quite a long time but the minute he has underwear on it’s like he forgets completely and has tons of accidents…
Then pull-ups and diapers are of course in he same category…
So what do I do… How do I get him to do the same thing in underwear that he does bare bottomed? If he had his way he would go bare bottomed everywhere… (What is it with kids and running around naked even if their lips are blue because they are freezing?)
So what’s the missing link… how do I start leaving the house without having to put a diaper on him? When does Potty Training actually Click?

longing to go outside on this rainy day…
(bare bottomed of course)