Aug. 17, 2009 - Our School Verse

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

I have never come up with a name for our homeschool because nothing has ever seemed suitable and the need hasn't really been pressing.  I have never made an effort toward creating a motto or vision statement or anything like that either.  And I've never been good at coming up with a "theme scripture".  Last night, though, as I was deciding on verses for my oldest to work on memorizing, I was out at the SimplyCharlotteMason website and saw Ephesians 2:8-10 listed as a verse to go along with the "I am" portion of Charlotte Mason's school motto:  "I am, I can, I ought, I will."  Part of that passage, verse 10, is a verse that forms the basis for my training of my children and has for a long time.   (I think I actually originally began using that verse with the kids after finding a reference to it in a book called Parenting with Scripture.)

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

I sometimes quote that verse when talking with my kids, reminding them that they have work to do in this life, work that was chosen specifically for them before they were ever born.  When I pray with them at night, I often pray that God would help them prepare for this work and recognize it at the right time.  When we talk about why we school, we talk in terms of how our learning helps to prepare us for life and the work that we will do when it's time.  So as it happens, I think we've had our "theme verse" for awhile without even knowing it!

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:25 PM

Jul. 9, 2009 - Baby Tam 'o Shanter

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

Here are directions to make a tam o'shanter style hat for a baby.  I adapted these from a doll pattern in the Mary Francis Knitting and Crocheting book.  I haven't proofed this particular form of the instructions, so if you use them and find an error please let me know.

Use an F hook and worsted weight yarn.

• Chain 4.
• Make a slipstitch into the first chain to form a ring.
• Make 10 sc in ring.
• Stitching in the back loop only, make 2 sc in each sc around the ring. (20 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in the first sc and 2 sc in the next sc*.  Repeat from * to * around.  (30 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first two sc and 2 sc in the third sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (40 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first three sc and 2 sc in the fourth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (50 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first four sc and 2 sc in the fifth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (60 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first five sc and 2 sc in the sixth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (70 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make 1 sc in each sc around.  (70 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first six sc and 2 sc in the seventh sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (80 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make 1 sc in each sc around.  (80 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first seven sc and 2 sc in the eighth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (90 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make 1 sc in each sc around.  (90 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first eight sc and 2 sc in the ninth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (100 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make 1 sc in each sc around.  (100 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first nine sc and 2 sc in the tenth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.  (110 sc)
• Still stitching in the back loop only, make *1 sc in each of the first four sc and decrease on the fifth and sixth sc*.   Repeat from * to * around.
• Repeat this for five or six more rounds, decreasing on every fifth stitch.
• Make four rounds of sc in each sc, stitching in both loops (not just the back loop).

To make the hat bigger, make more increasing rounds in the section where you are increasing every other round.  To make the band bigger, don't decrease as far before switching over to sc in each sc, in both loops.

You can stitch the loose starting thread into the hole from the initial ring, and cover up that opening.  If you want to make a tassel, make a chain of whatever length you like, add a tassel to the end, and use a yarn needle to thread the tail of the chain into the hat at the ring on top.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 2:51 PM

Jun. 12, 2009 - Advice to New Moms (or Dads) With a Crying Baby

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

Babies are each unique creatures and we can never know all that is going on with them. I'm no baby expert, but I've had four and none of mine were the easy, happy, eat-for-ten-minutes-and-sleep-for-three-hours kind of baby. I had one preemie with nursing issues, one high-needs, and two colicky (and the colic lasted for months).

Lots of things can go on with a baby unbeknownst to Mom, and the baby cries and Mom doesn't know why. It is never wrong to comfort a crying baby, but it is also ok to put a crying baby down in a safe place when you need a few minutes to yourself.  Slings are a great way to soothe babies and still permit yourself some freedom. (I particularly like the Maya Wrap, myself.)

There are lots of things you just cannot know with a baby. You cannot truly know what the baby is feeling physically or emotionally. If you are nursing, you cannot really know how much the baby is getting to eat with each feeding (unless you are weighing the baby with a good scale before and after each feeding - lol). You cannot know how much your particular baby needs to eat, and it can be difficult to determine *what* your baby needs to eat (or shouldn't eat). (If you're nursing, foods you eat can cause colic in your baby, and it isn't always the foods you'd expect--dairy and soy are big culprits, and soy is in just about everything. If you're bottle-feeding, it can be well nigh impossible to find a formula that doesn't cause discomfort for your baby if yours has a sensitive stomach.)

Do your best to try to find out what is causing the distress, but understand that you may never figure it out. Your job then is to comfort as best you can.  Pray, pray, pray, and seek out wise advice but don't be bound by conventional wisdom or the strong opinions of others.

With babies #2 and #3, I had to eliminate dairy from my diet. It was challenging but I did it because they needed it. With baby #3, I probably should have eliminated more than dairy but I was too tired at that point to think it through that far so we just toughed out the colic until he outgrew it.  With baby #4, a wise mom gave me some diet advice and I ended up giving up almost all my normal food and eating a severely restricted diet for many months--but it was absolutely worth it because I had a happy, healthy baby as long as I ate properly. If I didn't eat properly, I had a baby who screamed for hours at a time.

Whatever you have to do, you *can* do because God provides the strength for the challenges he puts in front of us. That doesn't make it easy, but at least we have that hope. When these challenges are behind us, we'll have new ones in front of us, but God helping us we'll make it past those too.

• 3 Comments • Post A Comment! • 3:07 PM

Mar. 15, 2009 - Hope for Colic

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

This post should not be construed as providing medical advice or any advice whatsoever.  My only intention is to share my own experiences so that others might find some hope in their own situation.

I have had two colicky babies and two others with sensitive stomachs that caused severe spitting up.  Different people define colic differently, but more or less it's a situation where a young baby cries incessantly for several hours a day, day after day after day.  Most babies outgrow colic within the first few months.  In fact, some definitions limit colic to situations where the crying stops after three months. 

The best help for colic that I found came from another mom, but the best official help I found came from Dr. Sears.  He has lots of great resources on a page called "Coping with Colic."   He calls colic "the hurting baby" so that it is less easy to dismiss.

Just because colic generally goes away on its own does not mean it should be ignored.  Colic is a symptom, not a condition.  There are some high-need babies who cry unless they are held, and Dr. Sears distinguishes them from colicky infants, but I would argue that some babies who stop crying when held are still in pain; they just cope better when held.  I had one like that, and another who cried no matter what.

 I encourage you to read all of the information on the Dr. Sears colic page.  He has many suggestions for what may be causing the crying and what may help alleviate the discomfort.  I will tell you what worked for me, and perhaps it may shed some light on your own situation.

What I have found through my own experience, and sharing it with other moms, is that many, many babies do not tolerate dairy, soy, and sometimes a host of other foods.  If you are bottle feeding, this may mean that you will have to switch for awhile to Nutramigin, a special formula that contains neither dairy nor soy.  It's expensive, but you owe it to your baby to try it to see if it resolves the problem.  If your baby's stomach is extremely sensitive, even this may not resolve the problem completely, but ask your doctor to see if it's worth trying.  If you're nursing, the solution is easier and less expensive but much more inconvenient (but it's also more possible to completely resolve the problem since you can customize what you're feeding your baby).

Nursing moms who suspect dairy, soy or other foods might be causing colic must eliminate those foods (while still of course maintaining a healthy diet).  One of my spitters got almost completely better when I eliminated dairy from my own diet.  My first colicky child improved when I eliminated dairy, but I think I probably needed to go further than I did.  My second colicky child had terrible colic, along with sometimes copious spitting up and sometimes lots of gassiness.  Eliminating dairy did not help, and I didn't know of anything else to eliminate.  I saw the food list at the Dr. Sears site, listing possible colic-causing foods, but the list seemed daunting so I passed it by.  (I did find one site that claimed that nothing I ate could possibly be passed to the baby in any form that would cause a problem.  Please don't believe anything like that that you may read!  I am amazed at the nonsense about breastfeeding that is claimed by people who believe they are being scientific.)

Enter another mom, who gave me a spreadsheet she made with her own kids identifying forbidden and allowed foods.  I was desperate, so I followed her list and then modified as seemed necessary.  In the end, I ate rice, meat, pasta, lettuce, black olives, all-natural lunch meat, cheerios, homemade tortillas, raw almonds, rice milk, and that was about it.  No seasonings but salt.  No sauces but olive oil.   I stuck to this diet for months, and it worked wonders.  When I ate something I shouldn't have, the baby got sick and screamed.  When I was good, he was happy.  Figuring out what caused him problems took time and patience because there's a delay between mom eating a food and the baby reacting to it, and there's no way to be sure how long that delay is.  In a few cases, I eliminated foods I may not have needed to because it just wasn't worth it to try them.  Each time I ate a problem food, days of screaming was the result.

Different foods were problems for different reasons with us.  Any citrus, vinegar, or other acidic food caused severe stomach pain.  Any food high in fat or sugar caused gas, and this included carrots or fruit.  Yeast or foods made with yeast caused problems because yeast is often treated with an acid to preserve it (at least I think that's why it was a problem).  Dairy and soy made him throw up.

My second colicky baby did eventually outgrow his food sensitivities, mostly.  But it took a long time.  When he started baby food, we couldn't use most jarred fruits because of the acid used to preserve them.  Even at 15 months he couldn't tolerate hot dogs, citrus, and similar foods.  However, now he handles pretty much everything except maybe the hot dogs and similar foods with lots of chemicals in them.

So don't despair if you are facing colic!  There is a reason for it, and you may be able to find it and resolve it.

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • 8:57 PM

Jun. 8, 2008 - Ham and Lentil Stew

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

This recipe is from Pillsbury.  Because of the lentils, this is another good cholesterol lowering recipe and a great way to sneak dried beans into your diet.

3 Cup Cooked Ham, Diced
2 Cup Celery, Chopped
2 Cup Carrot, Chopped
2 Cup Lentils
1 Large Onion, Chopped
2 Can Chicken Broth
4 Cup Water

In 3-1/2 to 4 quart slow cooker, combine all ingredients; mix well.Cover; cook on low setting for 7 to 9 hours.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 10:11 PM

Jun. 8, 2008 - Salmon Fillets in Chicken Broth

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

Here's another great cholesterol-lowering recipe.  Salmon is good for cholesterol levels, and I modify this recipe to use oat bran instead of flour.  The recipe as written uses red wine, which would also be good for cholesterol, but I sub more chicken broth for the wine since we don't like the taste.  This recipe comes from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

2 Tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
4 Ea Salmon Fillets (about 6 Ounces Each), Skinned, With Pin Bones Removed
Flour (For Dredging)
Salt
Black Pepper, Fresh Ground
1 Medium Onion, Diced
1 Teaspoon Garlic, Minced
1 Medium Carrot, Peeled And Roughly Chopped
1/2 Cup Fresh Parsley, Minced
1/4 Cup Broth (Fish, Chicken, Or Vegetable)
1 Cup Red Wine (Dry, Full-Bodied), Optional

Heat a large skillet, preferably non-stick, over medium-high heat for 2 or 3 minutes.  Add the butter and oil, turn the heat to high, and wait for the butter foam to subside.  Dredge each of the fillets in the flour and shake off the excess.  Place them, flesh side down, in the skillet.  Season with salt and pepper and brown them quickly, on one side only.  Remove them (browned side up) from the pan to a plate, and keep
 warm.

With the heat on medium, add the onion, garlic, and carrot to the pan and cook, stirring, until the onion softens slightly, about 5 minutes.  Add half the parsley and some salt and pepper and stir.  Add the broth, raise the heat to high, and reduce until it is almost evaporated.

Add the wine and reduce by about half.  Return the fillets to the pan, skin side down, and cook over medium heat until the fillets reach the desired degree of doneness (peek inside with a thin-bladed knife), about 3 to 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve immediately.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 8:28 PM

Jun. 8, 2008 - Morning Glory Muffins

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

This is a popular recipe, available all over the internet.  Mine is slightly modified, though.  When dh had high cholesterol, the doctor recommended a particular cholesterol-lowering plan that relied primarily on increasing soluble fiber intake to help lower cholesterol.  So these muffins use oat bran instead of flour, olive oil instead of butter, brown sugar or molasses instead of white sugar--I think those are the only changes.  He was supposed to eat three muffins a day in order to get the right amount of oat bran.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 5:59 PM

Mar. 15, 2008 - Unforgiving Servant

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

My dh and I are taking a video course at church covering the material in the book Grace Based Parenting.  In the book, Tim Kimmel encourages us to show the same grace to our children that God shows to us.  He explains what our children really need from us and what it looks like to show grace through our parenting.  As I've been thinking over my recent readings in the book, I've realized that I've had a perfect opportunity to show grace in my own home.

Last fall I had a baby, baby number four.  At least two of the other three kids had sensitivities to foods I ate while nursing, but this baby had severe reactions to almost everything I ate.  In order to allow him to sleep at all, rather than screaming while doubled-up in pain, I had to restrict my diet to chicken, rice, beef, pasta, and cheerios, more or less.  All seasonings had to go.  All dairy and soy had to go.  It's certainly been a struggle for me to nurse a baby and handle my other responsibilities while not being able to eat normally, and it was especially difficult during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.  But I've felt blessed that I've been able to resolve a source of extreme discomfort for my child.

Interestingly, I've had a couple of people express amazement that I would go to this length for my baby.  One even told me (and she has two small children) that she would just put him in his room and let him cry rather than adjust her diet so drastically!  Somehow, the thought of eating normally and just allowing him to suffer never occurred to me.  I think I did that somewhat with baby number three, but that was because I didn't know my eating was causing his distress.  This time I had a wise advisor who helped me find the right foods to eliminate.

This situation has reminded me of the parable of the unforgiving servant.  God shows me grace in many ways, not least of which is the fact that even though I was completely helpless and completely unloving and unlovable, He went to the extreme length of sending His Son to go through terrible agony for me.  How could I fail to show a small measure of grace to my own child by enduring a much smaller discomfort on his behalf?  (A friend pointed out that, although I felt very deprived, I am still able to eat more variety and certainly much more quantity than many if not most of the world's inhabitants.)

I don't know when I'll be able to return to an unrestricted diet.  But for now, every time I eat I'm reminded of the grace that has been given to me.

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:48 PM

Mar. 15, 2008 - Free Time

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

There was much to think about in this article, but one statement really stood out to me:
Miss Mason devises time-tables which cover such reasonable hours as to leave time over for this solitude, but parents are often very culpable in thinking that Tango or some other new thing must be learned as well, and the much needed time for solitude is used for plans which necessitate hurried journeys, always in the company of a responsible person, who feels it her duty to talk in an instructive way, and the thinking time, the growing time, the time in which the mind is to find food is diminished, and the child becomes restless, tiresome, irritable, disobedient, everything that a child who is reputed to be difficult can be.

Wow! Isn't that exactly what we homeschoolers are terrible about doing? When the children should have free time, we instead schedule all kinds of extra activities that we just know they *have* to have, and so their lives pass away without this valuable time for reflecting. It's hard to buck the trend and decide that they can, indeed, grow up without dance or soccer or choir or whatever worthwhile activity it is. Because the activities are generally good ones, but there isn't time for all of them. And the more children you have, the more you really have to cut back if free time is to be secured for all the children (unless you have the resources to hire a driver to take the children to their activities lol).

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 4:04 AM

Mar. 15, 2008 - Is Play Important?

Category • General Parenting and Home Life

Here are three very different articles addressing this subject:

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

Taking Play Seriously

A game called suicide

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 3:54 AM

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