The Mom Crowd

Some of you moms scrapbook, others dabble in photography, others lead book clubs, others garden for your “me-time.” My “me-time” is spent in a classroom as a college student and I love it!

When I became pregnant with my first child, both myself and my husband were college students and working full time. I was majoring in education and my husband was a business major. During my nine month pregnancy, all of our energy was poured into getting my husband finished with school so I could stay at home when our child was born.

When my daughter was born, I was able to become a stay-at-home-mom like we hoped for. However, our lives were not filled with play dates, breastfeeding, library visits and pajama days as I expected. They were filled with physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, doctor appointments, and tube feedings. Her health issues and developmental delays opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed! Before her arrival, my knowledge of speech therapy was for people who stuttered or had lisps, or elderly people who suffered from strokes. Through first hand experience, I learned that speech therapists not only help with language delays, but they also are big time players in children who have feeding disorders like my child did. As my daughter grew and developed, we walked through some major feeding difficulties. We also introduced sign language to her to help her be able to communicate and are still working very diligently on verbal language. After the birth of my son, it became very clear to me that I wanted to be a Speech and Language Pathologist. Through talking with new moms going through similar feeding difficulties and sharing our experience and watching my child’s language develop, I have developed a passion for child development, specifically language and feeding development. I spoke to my husband about going back to school and received an enormous amount of support and encouragement from him. Darah’s speech pathologist, Angela was so sweet to give me all the nitty gritty details of the education program, tell me what speech pathologists were paid, and has cheered me as I have dived into finishing my degree!

Going back to school has been important to me for many reasons. One reason being that I really don’t like leaving things unfinished. I started college and it’s very important for me to finish it. I also want to set a good example to both of my children. I expect both of them to go to college (Darah too!) and I want to make sure they know that I do as I say. Another reason this specific degree is important to me is I really feel like it will help me parent Darah. Her speech is one of the most important things to me and I really want to give her every opportunity to be well spoken. It’s also important for me to be able to work if I ever needed to. I am watching my mom have to enter the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for 25 years and have been sad at the difficulty she is having. She doesn’t have the option to stay home anymore, but finding a job that will balance out child care costs for my very young siblings still living at home has proven to be nearly impossible.

It’s amazing how much better of a student I am now that I have some age, wisdom, discipline, and experience on me that I didn’t have as an 18 and 19 year old!

Here’s some tips that have helped me as I finish my degree:

• You’re a mom first! Just like with any extra curricular activity, I have had to make a conscious effort to not allow my school to take over my responsibility and privilege of parenting Darah and Connor.
• Online! Online! Online! I had about 38 hours that I needed before I could start my true speech pathology courses. I took all but 8 hours of these online in a span of a year. Unfortunately, of the 14 classes I have left, I can only take 2 of these online now. However, there are plenty of degrees that you can finish completely online!
• RateMyProfessors.com! By going to this website, you can type in any school in the country, the teachers name and find out the nitty-gritty of the teacher by student reviews. If you need to take a hard course, you can use this tool to know which teacher will be the easiest! Way valuable!
• Sleep when you’re dead! I’m kidding. Make sure that you don’t push yourself too hard and you recognize your limits. I’m an “all-or-nothing” kind of gal, and have had to try to pace myself. I’m really not good at pacing myself, but have a husband who has said “slow down” when I’ve needed it. If you have been out of school for a long time, or are just starting college, start out by taking one course online and start gaging what you can handle
• Apply for financial aid! Even if you will not qualify for free assistance, a lot of schools use the government’s FAFSA to determine scholarships that are based on academic merit and not financial need. Hunt for local and national scholarship opportunities!
• Be careful about loans. We are having to get loans to pay for my college, and while I believe that college debt can be a smart investment, do not take more than you absolutely need. If you cannot afford to go back to school without taking out lots of loans, then maybe you should take less courses at a time and pay cash for them. The luxury of being a stay-at-home-mom college student, is there really isn’t a hurry for me to finish, other than the rush I have placed on myself.
• Recruit some cheerleaders! My husband has been my biggest cheerleader through this process. I also have some amazing friends who have been cheering me on as I take finals and check off more courses necessary to finish my degree. Without my support team, I think it would be very easy to give up.
• Just do it! I talked about going back to school for two years before I finally did it. I had valid excuses, however it took that first trip to the counselor’s office to really get me to start. Making that decision was the hardest step of this whole process.

McKenna recently wrote an excellent post about finding a great nanny.  Right around the same time, my friend Jaimee mentioned she recently fired hers!  I asked her to tell her story as a helpful follow-up, as I know it’s something we can all learn from.  Ja imee (pictured) is a way-talented mom of two precious sons, and she posts incredible pictures of them on her blog, These Small Wonders.

L. seemed like the perfect summer nanny on paper. She was 26 with 10 years of nanny experience with great references, had a degree in child psychology, was an elementary school teacher and working toward her PhD! I was equally impressed with her in her interview.  She spoke of all of the different education methods she would use and the different games and educational experiences she could provide for our 18-month old son.  I was so excited to have someone to dedicate quality time to our 18 month-old son so I could work a few days a week, care for our newborn son, and feel good about the care he was receiving.  We had a fairly laid-back approach to the whole process because we were only hiring for the summer and we did not have to worry as much about the safety of our kids because my husband and I both work out of the house and would be around to supervise their care. We didn’t even interview anyone else for the position. 

But, it only took a few days for my bubble to burst.  We quickly found out that she was very lazy and immature, and not the perfect “teacher-like” nanny she had presented herself to be! 

She did not play with our son, or come up with activities to educate or entertain him…she just sat in the recliner in our playroom and turned the TV on cartoons to entertain him while she text messaged her friends or used my laptop to play on the internet.  When I would suggest an activity for them to do, she would do it once for a very short time and then never take the initiative to do it again.

She almost never helped with the dishes or laundry as we had discussed…even when the kids were both sleeping, she would just sit around.

In the 5 weeks she worked for us, she called in three times at the last minute to tell us she wouldn’t be in the next day because she had other things to do. She also showed up 35 minutes late one time and did not even bother to call to tell us where she was or if she was coming.
 
She acted very annoyed and even angry at our 18 month-old’s toddler behavior…He’s a perfectly normal, active toddler, she just thought he should be perfectly behaved at all times.  And, if he wasn’t a perfect angel, she would blame it on our parenting skills.  I think she thought she was “Super Nanny” with the job of correcting our parenting.  She really believed that any toddler that was raised” with her “techniques” would be perfectly behaved at all times.  She even had the nerve to tell my husband that we just needed to follow-through with what she was trying to do so our son would be better behaved.

One of the things she was trying to do was to get our son to talk by coercion.  She would leave him in his highchair until he used “his words”.  The problem was, he didn’t have any words to use in that situation and he ended up getting so frustrated that he began having temper tantrums anytime we put him in his highchair…something he had never done before. I have a degree in Speech Pathology…coercion isn’t the way you get a child to talk!   His behavior began to get worse and worse the longer she was around.

When she did help with our newborn son, she did not follow my instructions.  One day I walked in to find the baby sleeping on his stomach on top of a fluffy quilt.  I told her that he could not sleep on his stomach because of the risk of SIDS.  She told me that was “old school” and that it was fine.  I corrected her and explained that every medical professional will now stress the importance of back sleeping.  But, a week later, I walked in to find the baby on his stomach on top of a loose blanket.  He was awake, but unsupervised, and he had worked his head back and forth enough to get the blanket stuck in his mouth!  That was the end of my patience!

We decided we needed to fire her, and we were going to tell her at the end of the 5th week.  But, on Tuesday of that week, she did not show up or call us until 50 minutes after she was supposed to be at our house.  Since this was the second time that happened, we felt we had clear justification for letting her go immediately. 

The entire experience was horrible.  I was so relieved when we finally fired her!  I learned a lot about what not to do when hiring and managing a nanny and hope that the next time we go through this process, we will be wiser, stronger and more prepared.  I would do a few things differently next time:

• Interview several different nannies even if the first one knocks my socks off!
• Schedule a trial day with two to three of the nannies/babysitters that I am interested in to see how they react to an entire day of being with my kids.
• Be more direct about my expectations up front.  After you’ve put up with laziness for even a day or two, it is harder to correct that behavior.
• Fire quickly.  We waited way too long to let our nanny go.  We wanted to give her a chance to get better and do the right thing, but we should not have put up with a lot of the things we did for as long as we did…it wasn’t the right thing to do for us or our kids!
• Setup video monitoring.  Even though we were home at all times, I still felt uncomfortable about what our nanny might have been doing when we weren’t looking. Before we hire another nanny we plan to have a monitoring system set up so we can look in on our kids at any time.

Fortunately for us, we won’t have to go through the nanny hiring process any time soon…my mother-in-law asked to be our next hire!  So, for now at least, we have the perfect nanny!

You may recall that I am pretty sentimental and highly detail-oriented.  I’m all about saving ticket stubs and programs from events, and I carry my camera with me everywhere I go (funnest example: after my son was born, I had my baby and my camera on my lap when I was being wheeled from the delivery room to my recovery room.  How many moms take pictures from their gurneys? See picture below.) My children are 2 and 1, respectively, and that means f or the past couple of years, I have been deliberately keeping up with their first-year baby books.  I received both books as gifts when I was pregnant with each child. 

It was fun to have the baby books while I was pregnant, because they contained pages about life before the baby was born.  So I already had a lot that I got to “fill in”.  (Are any of you out there giddy “filler-inner-types”?)  There are also lots of spaces for pictures and clippings, scrapbook-style.  So I spent a bit of time at the computer, printing out different-sized pictures to include in our family’s stories.

Then, in order to make sure I didn’t forget any details, I took the books with me to the hospital for each birth experience.   When I wasn’t spending time with my new baby, I had lots of down time to fill in information about the nurses and doctors who helped bring my child into the world.  I got to share how I felt in those moments, which I’m convinced I captured with more clarity than if I tried to remember when I got home.  And the excitement and emotion in my words is palpable.

Throughout the baby’s first year, I filled in pages about each month of their lives, and took pictures on their one-month birthdays.  Like most baby books, there are also pages that help me keep records of important firsts, doctor visits, teeth, etc.

I was also vigilant about keeping important momentos for the pockets: church announcements, baby announcements of our friends/family, wedding invitations, newspaper articles (ie. the Harry Potter phenomenon when the 7th book released happened right around my son’s birth), stickers, and notes.

Looking back on this exercise, I feel it was very valuable.  If I didn’t already enjoy doing this kind of thing so much, I would have found it tedious or time-consuming at times, but worth it, for sure.  It is something I know the kids & I will treasure for years to come.

If you are looking for a way to capture your baby’s first year, here are some resources on the topic:

• Hallmark products (both of my books are Hallmark)
• Blog books from blurb.com (turns your blog into a published book!)
• More cute baby books at BabySakes.com

Are you a “giddy filler-inner type”?  Do you keep up with baby books on a consistent basis?  What are some tips or ideas you have read about or done with your own children?

My baby turns one in a few weeks. One year ago I was very ready for him to make his appearance into the world. As I plan our celebration for his first year of life I have been thinking a lot about his birth and how he made his entrance into the world. So, I thought I’d share my story with you all. I love hearing other women’s birth stories so feel free to share yours in the comments section if you like!

Graham’s Birth Story:

Graham was due during the last week in August 2007. His due date came and went so I asked people to make suggestions and bets on when this baby would come. My friend, Sharon (also a frequent reader and commenter here on The Mom Crowd), recommended eating some eggplant parmesan. She sent me a link to a recipe from a restaurant that guarantees to get labor going. I was ready to have this baby and willing to try anything. I had been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions and knew that my body was probably ready to kick into gear. I didn’t want to go through all the work to make the meal so we went out to dinner on Sunday night.

We had a lovely dinner at a place called Bravo!. The boys were soooo well behaved and we had a great waiter. Ewan was feeling very snuggly with me and wanted to sit right next to me all night at dinner. Normally he wants to sit next to daddy. Maybe he was picking up on some motherly hormones about to go off or something.

I went to bed around 11 and woke up at 12:30 with a fairly strong contraction. Normally, contractions had been waking me up at night when I had to pee but I didn’t feel like getting up since I had just gone to bed. I went back to sleep and at 1:30 I woke up with another strong contraction. That time I decided to pee so I could get back to sleep but I did notice that the contraction was much stronger than what I had been waking up to previous nights. I thought that something might be up especially when my bladder wasn’t very full. I laid back down and waited to see if another contraction would present itself. Sure enough, 7 minutes later it did. Hmmm…I thought…could this be it? 7 minutes later another one came and something told me that this was labor beginning and it would probably go fast. I woke up Jon and told him I was having some strong contractions. 5 minutes later another one came. He said he thought we should pack up. The part of me that thought it would be a fast labor wanted to agree but the other part of me that didn’t want to wake up the midwives and go to the birth center too soon wanted to wait. My husband said he thought we should get ready to go. As soon as we got up my contractions were 3 minutes apart and moving along quickly. I was already pausing during the contractions and not wanting to talk. I don’t think my contractions ever were longer than 30-45 seconds. How nice was that?! I decided it was a good thing we were getting ready to go.

We woke up Ewan as we were on our way out the door since he wanted to come to the birth. We left the house at 3:15am. This was my first labor where I wanted to really be upright instead of laying down. I used the birth ball to lean on while we were at home and at the birth center.

As we were driving in the car I started feeling “pushy” and was about ready to jump out of the car and walk to the birth center since sitting down was miserable. Every contraction in the car was so much more painful than when I was at home and able to stand up and sway or lean on the birth ball. At one point I said, “I WANT OUT of this car!!!” Jon decided to pick up the pace in the car and (cautiously) ran a few red lights. I kept imagining getting pulled over by the police and yelling at them to let me get to the birth center. Ewan was very chatty in the backseat with me. I told him that I may not be very talkative during a contraction but he kept the mood light and I welcomed that.

We got to to the birth center at 3:45 and got settled in. The nurse, Gretchen, checked Graham’s heartbeat which sounded great. My favorite midwife, Anne, was on call and I was thrilled! I wanted to enjoy the wonderful jacuzzi bathtub for labor. Before getting in the tub she asked to do an initial exam. I was already 9ish centimeters! I thought briefly about going ahead and breaking my waters but on Anne’s recommendation decided to enjoy the tub first and to get used to being in the birth center environment. I relaxed in the tub for a bit and then started to feel like pushing a little. It felt really good to have warm water poured over my belly while I was in the tub. I got out of the tub and asked Anne to break my water. When she broke it she said I still had a little lip left on my cervix and was going to try to move it out of the way when I felt like pushing next. We were all pleasantly surprised that the water was clear since he was already a week late. It is pretty common for meconium (baby’s first poop) to be present when babies are late. It made for one less complication–especially later. This was my first birth where I had that overwhelming urge to push early on after being completely dilated.

After getting out of the tub I got on the bed on my knees and leaned over the birth ball. As I felt like pushing, I did. At one point I said to Anne, “I’m afraid I’m going to fart on you!” Everyone laughed and she said, “Please do!” I had to say it out loud otherwise I would have kept thinking it and it would have gotten on my nerves. After a few contractions leaning on the birth ball I decided to sit up in the bed and lean back against Jon. I knew that this baby was probably bigger than Ewan (9lb 6oz) and I could tell it was taking more work to get this baby down. I was thinking that he was going to be a 10 pounder.

For me, labor has always been the easier part of birth. Second stage (pushing the baby out) is more challenging for me both physically and psychologically. It is more challenging physically because I know the “ring of fire” is coming and it is a very uncomfortable feeling for me. Having your skin stretched, even though it is only minutes long is quite the challenge. That is what makes it psychologically difficult for me–to welcome the burning and to work with my body during that process.
I took my time to get the head out-it felt like years to me and I was the most vocal this time letting out grunts and little sobs to work through the pain and work with the contraction. It was awesome to feel his head moving down and to touch his head while it was emerging. Ewan, my oldest son, was watching me push out the head and decided after seeing a little blood that he wanted to go upstairs and watch a movie. Up until this point he was around and in and out of the room excited about everything going on. I was a little sad but wanted Ewan to feel the freedom to do what felt right to him. I think it ended up being a good thing.

I don’t remember how it came up before I started pushing, but Anne had mentioned something about how flipping over on hands and knees is helpful when the shoulders get stuck. I can’t remember if she was just being informative or if she mentioned it because we all agreed that this baby was probably bigger than Ewan.

After Graham’s head came out it was obvious after a few pushes that his shoulders were stuck. Anne said calmly, but urgently, to get on my hands and knees so I flipped over and pushed with all my might. Flipping over or moving really, when a baby’s head is between your legs is quite the feeling! Anne hopped on the bed and pulled and pulled while I pushed and pushed to get that shoulder out from under the pubic bone. It was 2.5 minutes after his head came out that the rest of his body came out at 5:10am. There was not really any time for waiting to cut the cord. She immediately cut the cord and took him to the table to rub him down. Thankfully his heart never stopped beating but it did take him a minute to breathe. They also had the oxygen running near his face. As she was rubbing him down she told Jon to start praying. It was a fairly intense 4 minutes after the head came out. We were all thankful when he started crying and it looked like his collar bone was not broken.

Interestingly, when I had been imagining this birth–listening to my intuition–shoulder dystocia kept coming to my mind. I think that perhaps God was preparing me because when she was pulling him I was very calm and peaceful even though I knew the outcome could be grave.
After he started crying I finally got to hold my little boy and spend some time bonding with him. His precious little face was bruised but he was beautiful to me! We were taking bets on how big he was. Anne kept saying she thought he might beat her record of 11lb6oz but he didn’t look that big to me. Sure enough when we finally put him on the scale he was 11lbs 12.5 oz and 23″ long. Labor was from 1:30am to 5:10am start to finish. She said she thought he might be the biggest baby born in that birth center! (Turns out he wasn’t the biggest.)

I couldn’t believe that I had an almost 12 pound baby and was sooooo thankful that I was in the birth center surrounded by people who believe in birth.
The other thing that amazes me is that that I only had a couple of skid marks (minor abrasions) and didn’t need any stitches at all! No tearing! I think taking my time to push out the head helped but also I couldn’t believe that I didn’t tear when the midwife was pulling with all her might with my pushes while I was on my hands and knees. What a blessing to not have stitches! I tore with both Ewan and Isaac so I was completely amazed.
Ewan came back down after his movie was over and was so into his brother. I was so happy that he was there even though he chose to go upstairs during the birth. I think being able to come and see the baby on his own time table was good for him. I think it was good that he was not in the room during the critical time of getting the baby out. He would have noted the tension and I didn’t want him to remember birth that way.

So, I don’t know if the eggplant Parmesan was coincidence or not but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to add to your list of natural ways to get labor to come.

This was my first birth center birth and I loved it! Each of my 3 births have had their own challenges and they are all dear to my heart. I’m almost sure I can’t wait to do it again.

I am still calling in sick this week, but today has been a much better day. I didn’t throw up once today! Here is a guest post from Katie at Mighty Munchkin Maintenance  about planning her first birthday party. She has a great blog full of helpful blog posts. Enjoy!

In our house, there’s cause for celebration, we’ve almost survived the first year! Everyone is still sane, healthy, and happy! So I’m thinking, ponies, clowns… the works! No, not really. I’m terrified of clowns. And I’m pretty sure Kaylee might not be fond of ponies yet. We came across a horseback rider once while hiking along a path and Kaylee was decidedly uncertain about the large four-legged creature. I was absolutely thrilled (I’m easily excited), but she just gave him the hairy eyeball. Ah, but I digress; back to the topic at hand, planning that first birthday party.

I jest about ponies and clowns, but when I started looking into first birthday parties one of the resources I found was a mom describing her journey along the first birthday party planning process and a friend of hers had a carnival party with ponies and clowns. I wasn’t sure at that point if I should laugh or feel woefully inadequate. You see my research was primarily focused on what to do about a birthday cake. Kaylee hasn’t been introduced to egg whites yet, and I don’t really feel like trying to bake a cake (because if I bake it, it definitely won’t pretty or picture worthy). And I don’t think introducing her to egg whites is the best idea at her birthday party. But now I’m heading down the dark path of what else goes on at a first birthday party. I never would have guessed that ponies were even an option. I thought that only happened in the movies.

After doing some research, I’ve come to terms with the fact that like babies, that first birthday party can come in all different shapes and sizes. It seems lots of people have themed parties and often invite playmates. Kaylee doesn’t really have playmates though. I do belong to a mom’s group, so she does have an opportunity to interact with other children but we don’t actually know them very well. I guess I could do a themed party regardless of no other little munchkins being present. Hmmm, now I’m picturing my Uncle Peter in a Strawberry Shortcake hat. Interesting…the idea has merit, if only for the funny factor.

Seriously though, I just don’t think I have it in me to plan a huge birthday bash, and I don’t honestly think Kaylee would enjoy it. What we’ve decided to do is have two small parties, six to eight people each. Our reasoning for two small parties is that Kaylee is extremely shy, and too many people all at once throws her over the edge. We’re also opting for the more casual BBQ scenario, which makes my life considerably less stressful. I still don’t know about the cake though. Tomorrow I plan to visit the bakery and ask if I can have a cake made without egg whites. I know, I know, wishful thinking on my part. I don’t think Kaylee will actually eat any cake. We’ve been offering her finger foods since she was eight months, but she doesn’t eat them. She likes to feed them to me, mush them, or throw them on the floor. Every once in a while she places something on her tongue and then quickly removes it (she thinks it’s game). I’m just worried that the day she decides to actually shove food in her mouth will be on her birthday. Ah well, I’ll figure it out.

For those more experienced parents reading along, do you have any party planning lessons learned, suggestions, or funny stories to share? We’d love to hear them!