The Mom Crowd

Before my little girl, Annabelle, came along I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to dress my daughter in clothes with cartoon characters and give into sneaky marketing schemes. I have watched one too many “What Not to Wear” shows and I know Stacy always throws out those Disney shirts. Of course, I realize that Stacy is usually helping a 35 year old woman and not a toddler. Still, it solidified the idea in me that cartoon characters are not cool. I wanted my girl to be hip and look like she is always dressed from the Gap.

I also wasn’t going to give into the Disney Princess phenomenon. I am realistic and don’t want to encourage a “princess” mentality. When I was pregnant with my first child I read “What’s Wrong With Cinderella?” in the NY Times. In the article the author is concerned that her daughter’s infatuation with princesses will lead to a life preoccupied with body image. She writes,

I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching her. I’ve spent much of my career writing about experiences that undermine girls’ well-being, warning parents that a preoccupation with body and beauty (encouraged by films, TV, magazines and, yes, toys) is perilous to their daughters’ mental and physical health. Am I now supposed to shrug and forget all that? If trafficking in stereotypes doesn’t matter at 3, when does it matter? At 6? Eight? Thirteen?

I sort of agreed with the author and was concerned about what ideals the Disney princesses were going to teach my future little girl.

I had my standards until I my daughter watched Sesame Street and became a fan of Elmo. Now she will sit on the couch point to the TV and say “Elmo! Elmo!” After we watched the movie ‘Enchanted’ together she came out of the playroom wrapped in a blanket to make a dress, with a purse on her arm and singing. I let her watch Dora and she became glued for the whole episode. She recognizes Dora everywhere she sees her image.

Now it makes me happy to see my daughter get excited when she recognizes a character. The moment my daughter sees her Elmo shirt she says “On! On!” I won’t go overboard and I get a lot of items from garage sales and hand me downs. In my plans to have a trendy dressed daughter I never thought how a TV character would bring my daughter so much joy.

Annabelle naturally gravitates to princess items. Some of that princess stuff is junk and I have some limits on what princess items I allow my daughter to have. I would love to take Annabelle to Disney World and let her run around the park dressed as a princess.

I have come to terms that this will be a phase in my daughter’s life. I grew out of my Strawberry Shortcake phase and I am healthy functioning adult. I am glad that I have given into some of the marketing hype, because it is neat to see my little girl get excited over her Dora pajamas and her Disney princess kitchen. And honestly, it is fun for me too.

Have you had a similar experience? What cartoon items do your kids love? Do you have limit on what  items you allow? Do you think the princess phenomenon is detrimental to our girls? And finally, who else doesn’t like the sassy Tinkerbell merchandise?

- top photo courtesy of Chekit

Well, it is for our family, anyway.  Preschool is just about over and I have the long, relatively uneventful months of June, July, and August ahead of me to spend with my children.  It’s confession time:  a few months ago, you would have heard me saying things like, “I’m dreading summer!” or “What am I going to do with my kids for TWELVE WHOLE WEEKS?!”  Alas.  God reminded me not so long ago what a great gift He’s given me:  time with my kids.  However long the days might become, this is a sweet age for my children, and I am wrong to take it for granted.  I have been brainstorming a few ideas for summer activities, and I’d like to share them with you.  I have resolved to enjoy the weeks with my children, not complain about the heat, and step up my creative game.   Moms (and dads?), I present to you my “glass-is-half-full” approach.

1. I intend to plan out activities for each week.  As a former teacher, this is not that hard for me to do.  In essence, I’m going to make our home something of a preschool.  Each week will have a theme, and all of our activities will flow out of that theme.  For example, cars.  We’ll talk about cars, look at pictures of cars, go on a hunt for different kinds of cars, paint/draw/sculpt cars, play with toy cars, check out books from the library about cars, listen to songs about cars (or by The Cars – ha!), watch the movie Cars, etc.   Other themes:  music, airplanes (with a field trip to the airport), balloons (I can’t wait to see my son throw a water balloon), fish, etc.
2. I plan to seek out as many air-conditioned free activities as possible.  Barnes & Noble, the public library, and lots of other places host morning story or craft times.  Though it takes energy for me to manage both of my toddlers in those environments, it’ll give us something to do outside of our house.  I will also ask my mom friends if they have any guest rate options for museums, pools, and private parks.  I’ll look for you there!
3. I am coordinating a summer playgroup with all of my mom friends, and some new ones I’ve just made.  Meet weekly, same time, rotate the location.  Easy!
4. I would like to plan at least one lunch out a week with another mom and her kids.  Gotta love Chick-Fil-A and other restaurants with the play areas! 
5. I will wake up saying, “Today, I get to play with my children!” rather than, “Today, I will try to survive another day at home with the kids.”

In my quest to be SuperMom Of The Summer, I will utilize ideas from some of the following websites: 

• Preschool Activities at Education.com
• Summer Season Pre-K Unit Study at Suite101.com (a site I know I’ll be referring to often)
• Crafty Ideas from Kaboose

What are your resolutions and ideas for managing a summer at home with little ones?  Do you have any other links for rockin’ websites that are packed with activities to keep everyone busy?  Let’s spur one another on to love and good times with our darling little ones!

While discussing my emotional roller coaster after having my baby boy 8 weeks ago with friends one mom made the comment that Postpartum Depression (PPD) is worse after having a boy. She attributed it to the higher testosterone levels while pregnant with a boy.  I have unscientifically surveyed my friends and most have agreed that their PPD was worse after having a boy than when they had a girl.

In the last few weeks I have had a few episodes of baby blues and anger. Now at 8 weeks I feel like my symptoms are calming down and my hormones are leveling out. My baby blues mostly consisted of my crying at night while watching a commercial or a t.v. show.

When I was angry I wasn’t angry at my new son, but at my husband and 23 month old daughter. My husband got sick and I was angry that he couldn’t help and I had to do everything. I know it wasn’t his fault that he got sick, but I still didn’t like it. I have been angry at my toddler daughter too. One day after I got angry with her I emailed my friend Amelia about my feelings and it read:

I do get really mad when Annabelle wakes up her brother. And then last night she was doing her usual – i don’t want dinner, but want to be in your lap while you eat – thing. In the process she swatted her plate of food away and it landed on the floor. I grabbed her, spanked her, ran her up to her room and put her in her crib and left her.  But i was so upset and upset at myself for getting so upset about it. (i hope that makes sense.)

After I had gotten angry I remembered that Amelia had written a blog post about anger and PPD here on The Mom Crowd and I went and read it. In her suggestions on how to deal with it, she suggested that you talk about it with a friend. So I emailed her and she called me back. Our conversation helped me, because it made me not feel so crazy. She told me that she had gotten mad at her husband for being sick too. She said that it was good that I put Annabelle in her crib and walked away. She encouraged me to watch my symptoms and to keep an eye on how often I get angry.

Thankfully my bouts of anger have pretty much subsided. I am normally an easy going person. I also don’t cry at every sad thing on t.v. anymore. I was also able to talk this out at my 6 week follow-up appointment with my midwife. She brought it up and asked me how I was doing emotionally. We talked while I nursed my baby. This would have never happened at my former OB/GYN’s office.

After the birth of my daughter I only had some baby blues. I remember bawling during the Series Finale of Gilmore Girls and texting my husband to come home from Target so I could have a hug. I don’t know if my Postpartum Depression was worse after my boy, because I also had a toddler to deal with.

In February the BBC reported that French scientists found a “statistical quirk” in their research suggesting that the mothers of boys have a greater chance of having a severe case of PPD.  I have also researched around the web and it doesn’t seem like their is difference in the severity of PPD in relation with the gender of your baby.

Have you noticed a difference in PPD between genders? Have you experienced a form of PPD and how did you handle it?

While we are on the subject this is a great post about not judging what form of PPD treatment people use over at Postpartum Progress (click here).

Happy Earth Week!

Cloth diapering keeps disposable diapers out of landfills and it can save money, so I decided to cloth diaper my second child. Amelia has written about the benefits of cloth diapers before and I always wanted to try it. My problem with getting started cloth diapering was spending the time researching what to buy and spending the money on them. You can’t exactly just walk into a Babies R Us and buy everything you need.

Getting the Supplies

I spent a lot of time figuring out the different types of diapers and where to buy them. There are prefolds and covers, all-in-ones, fitteds with covers, pocket diapers, and so much more. I made my list and added up how much everything was going to cost and put it in our budget. However, every month something would come up and it got moved the bottom of the priority list. Then a lady at church heard I wanted to cloth diaper and very generously gave me a gift of prefolds, fitteds, Thirsties covers, Y-straps, and two wet bags. I also gave her forty bucks to “round out my stash.” She used diaperswappers.com to buy everything I needed. I am very thankful that I didn’t have to spend the time and energy to get everything while I was more focused on having my baby.

Using Cloth Diapers

After getting breastfeeding established with my son I decided to tackle cloth diapering and learn this new skill. We quickly learned that you need to be sure to tuck the all of the prefold diaper under the cover, so they won’t wick out on to his clothes. Also, it is helpful to be organized and set up a station. I bought two dollar store trash cans. One is for the cloth diapers and the other is for wipes and other trash. I only had a few blow outs of poo or sometimes the pee would seep through the cover onto his onesie. I am not very good at changing his diaper very often so I use 2 prefolds inside the cover.

Traveling with cloth diapers is fine as long I am sure to bring everything I need – extra diaper cover, extra prefolds, and my wet bag for dirty diapers. They take up more room in a diaper bag than disposables.

Washing and Cleaning

Once I figured out how to fold them and use them I had to learn how to wash them. It seems that every cloth diaper user has their own system. I went with the one that seemed the easiest. Amelia told me to run them through a cold wash first, then a second wash with hot water and soap. I use an regular detergent like All’s Free and Clear. Washing them is easy and it isn’t too dirty to touch the diapers, because they have newborn poo which isn’t that gross.

What is gross is leaving them too long before washing them. I got sick one weekend and went a few days without cleaning them. One fitted diaper grew fuzzy mold. After that weekend when I went to wash them I let the diapers soak in the washer over night in cold water. Then I ran them the next morning. When I took them out of the washer a few diapers had black mold spots. Either they grew from the soaking or from me waiting too long to wash them. I tried oxi-clean and even bleach, but the mold spots never came out.

Sometimes the diapers come out stained with yellow spots, so I sun them. All I do is hang them outside in the sun and the stains go away. (Those are my diapers in the photo.) I have no idea how this works, but it does! They come back to being perfectly white.

Is Cloth Diapering Working For Me?

I am currently cloth diapering about 50% of the time. I may not be 100% percent all the time cloth diapering, but I still feel like my 50% makes a difference on the environment. My husband changes my sons diapers during the night and in our sleep deprived state I didn’t want to make him change a cloth diaper. Also, I think I may not have enough cloth diapers, because I need to wash them every other day to keep up. I am not very good at washing them often. Also there are some days where I am super busy and overwhelmed so I don’t want to mess with them. We were given many disposable diapers as gifts as well, so I haven’t had to spend any money in diapers for my 7 week old son yet. I think when I have to spend my own money on diapers I will be more intent on cloth diapering more often.

How about you? Have you tried cloth diapering? What were your first few weeks like? Are you like me and always wanted to, but never wanted to spend the money to start?

Happy Earth Day!

The purpose of Earth Day is to promote awareness about the environment and to inspire people to join in the cause to take care of our planet.  There are so many ways to be involved in taking care of our planet that sometimes it can be overwhelming.  It is important to remember that we can all do our part, start slowly, then keep building on the changes we DO make to help reverse some of the problems we have created by NOT taking care of our planet.

For this Earth Day, I want to highlight a book called Healthy Child Healthy World by Christopher Gavigan.  Healthy Child Healthy World is an organization founded by parents Nancy and James Chuda, who lost their daughter, Colette, to a rare form of cancer when she was 5 years old.  They felt like her cancer was triggered by environmental factors and started to research how toxic substances and environmental exposures have an impact on children.  With the help of some friends and family, they started the organization to help educate the public and be an advocate for children and their environmental health. Christopher Gavigan is the CEO and executive director of Healthy Child Healthy World and is comitted to helping families make their homes safer for children.

The chapters cover just about every aspect of making your home a safer, cleaner, greener place for you and your children–even beginning with pregnancy and what you can do to help prepare your home for the baby. First and foremost, the way you eat during your pregnancy has a big impact on you and the baby’s health.  Avoiding preservatives and additives like MSG and artificial food coloring are a good first place to start.  In my birth classes we have one whole class dedicated to nutrition during pregnancy.  Good nutrition is important for everyone–especially when you are growing a baby!

Avoiding chemicals, like phthalates, in (some) lotions and other cosmetics can also help protect the baby. The book offers itself as a guide as you think about everything from baby showers to products to put (or avoid) in the nursery. Gavigan offers specific recipes for replacing the harsh, store bought cleaners with safe, homemade cleaners.  Store bought cleaners have chemicals in them that can cause problems like poisoning, respitory difficulites, organ damage, and deteriorating the freshwater supply.

The book offers interesting information about the ingredients in our beauty supplies–it is enough to make you consider replacing some of the products you probably use on a daily basis.

The chapter on Child’s Play is helpful and a great place for new parents with young children.  We have all been awakened to the idea that perhaps not everyone has the best interests of our children at heart after all those recalls of toys with high levels of lead in them.  Choosing toys, clothes, and baby products is most helpful early on–and gets more difficult later on if you are trying to avoid large amounts of plastic toys (that is from my own experience).  We have a lot of toys in our house–many of them plastic. If I could start over I would have a lot LESS plastic, and more long-lasting toys.   The chapter even has some recipes in it for safe art supplies!

Pets, pesticides, and indoor air pollution is also covered in the book.  I was surprised at how easy and simple some of the ideas were for minimizing and eliminating pests in the household without resorting to the more toxic chemical solutions.  I’m telling you, this book covers everything!  The back of the book is filledwith TONS of resources of retailers and organizations to help you along in your journey to making your home safer and greener.

If you are interested in having a resource on hand, this is a good one to have.  As you read through it, remember: “No one can do everything. Everyone can do something.”

What “green” things do you already do at your house?  Have you read this book? Heard of it? What did you think?