mommapalooza

little tummies

I get really excited whenever a mail truck pulls up outside our house! Maybe it's a stay-at-home mom thing, but it's thrilling to be home when packages arrive! Yesterday a truck pulled up here and dropped off a package containing my complimentary copy of Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler.  I was part of Ann Douglas's book panel. What was really neat, though, was looking in the acknowledgements section of the book and recognizing the names of four of my friends as well :)

I've been getting once-a-week emails from Today's Parent as part of a Toddler nutrition series, and there have been several recipes that I have bookmarked to try out. I thought I'd share the links:

• mini latkes
• triple grain apple muffins
• perfect guacamole - has more veggies than we usually make it with
• meatball tortellini stew

merci beaucoup

I just wanted to post two shout-outs today - first to Holly and Jennifer at JamTots for repairing a broken snap on one of Madeline's Fuzzi-Bunz for me at no cost. It was totally awesome and once again I am thrilled that there is such a terrific place to order cloth diapers from in Canada. I'm happily a four-time repeat customer :)

Second shout-out goes to parenting author Ann Douglas, who sent me a free copy of her new Sleep Solutions book in exchange for me sending her email after email of mindless blather on Madeline's sleep habits as part of the book panel.  Very tickled to see a direct quote from me on Page 92 (and one from my friend Johanna - how cool is that to be on the same page as one of my friends???)!

Random Updates

This post is just going to be a mish-mash of things ...

First, the long-overdue makeover. Madeline was very cute at three months when the photo in my old banner was taken, but she looks more like this now:

Considerably more hair!  (And the lobster and little bottle of champagne were just fun photo props for New Year's Eve).

I also updated the archives and the books she's currently enjoying, lest anyone think that she only owns five different books :)

Am once again pleased with Pedoodles. Madeline's first pair wore out in the toe area in about six weeks, which I was quite dismayed about:

I emailed their customer service about this and they happily replaced the shoes for me. The new ones arrived in the mail today and Madeline very excitedly had to try them on. I guess she's tired of wearing her winter boots everywhere.  I'm currently trying out life sans diaper bag ... I treated myself to a Diapees & Wipees tote for my "grown-up" bag and it fits two disposable diapers, a travel pack of wipes, and travel-sized hand sanitizer really well. I just wish it was made out of a heavier fabric than cotton broadcloth.  The new product I'm intrigued by? Two similar things - Babylegs and Baby Spats. They would have come in handy when we took Madeline to the Calgary Zoo last weekend. Her calves were getting pretty chilly ...

I'm trying to figure out what's up with the comment I got to my rant about the Conservative Party's $100/month for families election promise. I want to believe it's genuine, but would someone really use "webstuff81" as the prefix for their personal email address? Still wondering ...

reading from the naughty stool

A few weeks ago I borrowed a copy of Supernanny: How to Get the Best from Your Children from the libary.  Yes, that Supernanny. One of the other moms on a parenting board I lurk on recommended it to another poster asking for strategies on dealing with some frustrating toddler behavior, and as I'd recently been disappointed by Baby Hearts, I thought I'd look it up myself.  I am surprised at how much I like this book - it's like Jo Frost inhabited Madeline's 16 month-old brain while writing many of the sections. Or maybe I should say my brain - I totally agree with her feeling that it's hard to truly discipline a toddler Madeline's age and that it's more effective to have age-appropriate expectations about behaviour and routine. And yes, there is a section on the "naughty stool" ...

Hoping creativity isn't genetic!

I took the book Baby Play out of the library this week, and I kind of wish that I'd done this a lot sooner! I've been feeling rather sorry for Madeline for months. It's quite unfortunate, really. You see, she has a really boring mom. Her mom doesn't remember many children's songs and rhymes (rub a dub dub, three men in a tub - surely there's more to it than that!), and doesn't know many games. I try hard, really, to amuse my daughter, but I'm good at being creative with numbers, not with babies! I love this book. I will admit that the ideas are probably obvious to some, but I'm the kind of parent who actually needs to learn new songs to memorize! Am excited to try out some of the other playtime suggestions with Madeline. This book has suggestions for empty paper-towel rolls that I never thought of! I wonder if I should order a copy of the toddler version so I can prepare in advance?

The other new book I've been reading with Madeline is called Everywhere Babies, and I'm really glad that we have it. It depicts all of the stuff that my baby does everyday (sleep, be carried, eat, get dressed, play, etc.) but with infinite variations. There are babies in the text and illustrations being toted around in slings, strollers, and backpacks ... and babies being breastfed, eating with spoons, and drinking from bottles (all the illustrations with the bottles depict a dad, too). The illustration of two men with their arms around each other in the background of one of the scenes led one reviewer on Amazon to decide that this inclusiveness is a hidden agenda, but I like that it's there along with a few multi-racial families and a mention that some babies come from afar, which I mean to be adoption. The photos are lovely, and each paragraph starts with a mantra-like "everyday, everywhere" - Madeline likes repetition!

Never too young to be a gourmet

This past weekend, I made four batches of baby food for Madeline. I pureed the pears, peaches, green beans, and squash with my immersion wand, and then poured each into an icecube tray. The freezer section of our fridge was so full of frozen baby food cubes that Chris asked me to transfer half of it to the deep freeze in the basement!

I started off using Ruth Yaron’s "Super Baby Food" book as a reference. There are some things about this book that I love, particularly the index of different fruits and veggies that explains when to introduce, how to select, and provides several suggestions for preparing. What I don’t like is the emphasis on feeding my baby a "super porridge" that contains all sorts of stuff that I don’t normally eat, like kelp, desiccated liver, and brewers yeast. There is also scant mention of meat, as the author is a vegetarian. The thing that bugs me most is are the "helpful hints" like sticking wool socks and freezer bags over your kid's shoes instead of buying winter boots. There are so many "helpful hints" that I swear the author never throws anything out or buys anything new. Ever. This book is supposed to be preparing nutritious food for infants and half of it seems to be about pushing a secondary agenda. It’s worth the $7 I paid for it at Once Upon a Child, but not more.

I currently have a copy of The Healthy Baby Meal Planner out from the library. It’s by Annabel Karmel and I really like it. It has directions and recipes for chicken and fish, as well as produce, and a lot of them sound tasty enough that I’d try them myself. I am exciting about preparing Mango Chicken for Madeline. This book is more our family’s style and I’ll probably look for my own copy of it.

Accepting Applications for Night Nurse

On Monday night, Madeline slept from 6:15 pm - 12:30 am, and then from 1:00 am - 4:40 am, then from about 5:00 am - 6:30 am on Tuesday morning.  Any stretch of sleep of more than 3 hours I'd deem record-breaking and certainly a nice change.

I've been thinking a lot about Madeline's sleeping habits, and how much of her night-wakings are about hunger and how much are social calls.  I've been doing more reading about infant development in this regard, and the lastest book I've pored over is The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg.  Her advice to parents to deal with their wakeful infant is to comfort and calm them, then replace in their crib.  Repeat as often as necessary, until the baby falls asleep.  Even if that is 143 times in a single night.  One thing that I noticed is that all of the success stories about this techique involve her camping out at the house with the parents and baby, and it's her who does the "replace in the crib" routine, not the parents.  Maybe I'd do this too if Tracy Hogg would come over to our place :)   Oddly enough, this is reminiscent of the sleep regimen promoted on Supernanny, although Nanny Jo makes the parents tough it out ...

Maybe I'm kind of harsh on the Baby Whisperer, but I was a little irritated from the beginning with the author's comment that demand feeding leads to a demanding baby ... and the instructions to watch the clock whilst nursing.   I will admit that I don't know if that advice is the best, but it contradicts everything else that I've read and been advised.  That's just frustrating.

Well Traveled Reader

Shortly before taking off for our crazy Australian holiday when a then-four-month old, I had the idea that a few picture books would be the best type of souvenir to buy Madeline.  Even though she won't remember ever being to Australia, she'd have these stories to read at bedtime that mom and dad thought she'd like.  Chris and I had a lot of fun in the bookstores, and ended up bring home:

• Possum Magic by Mem Fox
• Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French
• Kangaroo Played his Digeridoo by Nigel Gray

Thank you to Claire of Loobylu for recommending Possum Magic and the website for the Children's Book Council of Australia.

Another reality check ...

Two weeks ago, when I was up in Edmonton with Madeline, my friend Ada lent me a copy of The Kid by Dan Savage to read. It's the true account of Dan and his boyfriend's quest to adopt a baby, and it was hard for me to put it down. One part of the book has stayed with me in particular -the author notes that it's ironic that couples who cannot have children together via biological means must go above and beyond to prove their worthiness to be parents, while parent-worthiness is never questioned in couples who have no difficulty having children. It isn't fair, is it?

Book Review: The Baby Book

About a month ago, Chris mentioned that perhaps we should start reading up on life with babies. We've amassed a small collection of books on pregnancy and borrowed a few others from the library, but we had nary a book on what to do with the baby once it starts life on the outside. We decided to start this phase of book-collecting with The Baby Book, by Dr. William and Martha Sears, largely because I also have their Pregnancy Book, and I found it to have a good amount of information, clearly laid-out and explained.

Now, it seems to me that quite a few baby-rearing books are just not about relating information about signs of colic and what normal baby poo looks like - everyone has a gimmick, whether it's Babywise or the Baby Whisperer. The one that the Sears family promotes is attachment parenting, but I've honestly found that it's possible to skip over the AP chapters without compromising the value of the book. Granted, there are references to co-sleeping and babywearing sprinkled here and there in the other chapters, but it's minor, really, and it's not like the authors pretend that bottle-feeding doesn't exist and not provide useful advice on that topic. They're more impartial than I expected, actually, suggesting that instincts and cue from the little one will lead parents to develop their own appropriate style.

Overall, I am glad to have made this purchase. Not sure if my parenting style will turn out to lean towards the AP end of the spectrum, but the sections on what typical behaviors are for infants of varying ages, physiology, health concerns, bonding, introducing solid food, etc. are all easy to read and informative - certainly not overly rigid or fright-inducing. It's not a fluffy read, but not overly scientific either.