Reflection & Rejuvenation: June

Ah, summer has arrived in Texas. We've transitioned from hiking every weekend during our family time to swimming in fresh spring water. So fun! Austin, you're growing on me.

I'm officially a month and a half pregnant, which seems crazy. Adding on the two weeks before actual conception feels weird, but that's how it's done on the 40-week calendar, so I will officially be two months pregnant on June 14. 

I intentionally set light goals for the month of May because I wanted to honor my body's needs in the first trimester. I've definitely been more tired than usual, and I try to nap every day during Henry's afternoon nap. Let's see how I did.

• Read books! I just renewed the library books that I didn't get to last month: I did! I read a fiction book and a bunch of decorating books. I like this book about designing a family home.
• Attend the Positive Parenting Book Club Meeting: I decided not to attend this meeting because the book didn't really resonate with me at all.
• Finish the book I'm writing with Kylie about cooking with children in a Montessori way: Almost! And you all, it's awesome! I'm so proud of our collaboration. So, so proud.
• Take naps as needed: Yes! This was my most successful intention this month...
• Work through Purposeful Conception to get my mind, body, and life ready for pregnancy: I've been reading the posts every day. Some posts require me to really think through them and put in a lot of work (like the Wheel of Conception Readiness), while other topics are still in pretty good shape since the first round with Henry.
• Move forward with purchasing land and starting to build a house: Yes! We are officially land owners! We are going to meet with the architect on Thursday. It sounds, though, like there's going to be a real back-up with the building part. There are already seven houses in the queue to be built.

So, June, you are upon us. Let me look back at my goals for the year to see what I need to schedule into this month. I also want to think about more fun, summery goals, and I need to look at some of my to-do lists that don't get looked at on a regular basis (related to preparing for the sweet baby). 

And we're off! Here are my goals for the month of June:

• Find a regular babysitter so we can start going on date nights.
• Switch to a less expensive car insurance.
• Make a gift for my friend who is having a baby this month. 
• Get outside as much as possible.
• Promote our new book, Kids in the Kitchen: Simple Recipes that Build Confidence and Independence the Montessori Way.
• Go on a day trip out of town inspired by the Backroads of the Texas Hill Country.

It looks like I have another light and easy month ahead of me! That feels right, given the fact that I'm still in the first trimester and it's the start of summer!

Photo Courtesy of the Nikki McClure Calendar

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Natural Deodorant Recommendation

One of the recent Purposeful Conception topics--Detoxifying Our Lives--inspired me to once again focus on natural beauty products. I was doing well a while ago, but my deodorant stopped working (so I switched back to my go-to antiperspirant with aluminum in it), and we ran out of shampoo (so I just grabbed some Burt's Bees stuff off the shelf at the grocery store and later realized it's not actually very good for me, according to the Skin Deep database).

I worry a lot about antiperspirant with aluminum in it because of the links to Alzheimer's. I'm frustrated, though, because I sweat a lot and every natural deodorant I've ever tried has failed me. Then my friend recommended this product off Etsy. I think she's on to something! I've only used it for a few days, and so far, it's working well. It's easy to apply (not as easy as a stick, but still pretty easy), and I think it does absorb moisture. It's expensive, but it seems like a little goes a long way.

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Backyard Dreaming and Scheming

During our meeting with the architect, we had the chance to look at how our house will be situated on the land. It helped me realize that we will actually have quite a bit of land. Even though it's a 1/2 acre, lots of that is in the creek, and the flat part of the lot looks pretty small. But based on the survey, I think we'll have a pretty good chunk of land to work with. Before I jump into the specifics of what to do with that land, I thought it might be better to "start with the end in mind" and focus on the vision piece:

1. We want to develop the outdoor space in a way that aligns with our lifestyle: playing with kids, eating dinner outside, relaxing/reading, growing food, etc.
2. We don't want to put a lot of time into maintaining the aesthetic parts of our yard.
3. We want to cultivate our yard in environmentally- and geographically-responsible ways.

Here are some of the things I'd love to put in:

• A large deck for eating, relaxing, reading, entertaining
• A swimming pool for nearly seven months of water fun
• Raised beds for growing food
• Fruit trees
• A chicken coop
• An herb garden
• A fire pit
• A grassy area for playing
• A large fence around the perimeter so Hoss and the kids can roam freely
• A welcoming path to the front door (maybe with native grasses taking up the whole front yard?)

Two books have been particularly helpful in guiding my thinking:

1. The Edible Front Yard
2. The Backyard Homestead

Despite the great guidance in the book, I'd like to meet with a landscaping guru to develop a plan (that we can implement over time). A woman was recommended to me who charges $50 to develop a vision for the site. Hopefully I can meet with her this week to talk through some stuff. 

We recently had some friends from Houston stay with us, and it's awesome to imagine what it will be like when they come visit us in our new house. We can spend the afternoon in the pool. Cook dinner together around the large island in the kitchen. Eat outside on the deck. Watch a movie on our sectional couch. Then go out and cook some S'mores around a campfire late into the evening. 

Woo-hoo!

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How to Prepare for Conception

I don't want this post to come off the wrong way. I'm going to share the things I did to get my body ready for conception, but the underlying message is NOT: "Do these things and you will get pregnant." Unfortunately, people could do all of these things and still not get pregnant, while other do none of these things and get pregnant right away. 

As someone who likes to plan and orchestrate things, I have to remind myself of this simple truth all the time: I can control the inputs, but not the outputs. 

But embracing that message doesn't stop me from working on the inputs. With Henry, there were about eight months between the time I picked up some free pregnancy and conception books at a public library sale to the time Matt and I decided we would start trying. I used that time to prepare my mind, body, and life for pregnancy. 

Here are some of the things I worked on:

• Making sure my BMI was in the right range.
• Scheduling a pre-conception physical with my general physician.
• Eliminating harmful substances from my life: alcohol, medicine, caffeine, etc.
• Eliminating toxic substances from my life: in cosmetics, cleaners, etc.
• Learning how to track my cycle (by measuring temperature and monitoring cervical fluid) to ensure I was ovulating each month (I love this book and this book).
• Meeting with midwives.
• Increasing my exercise, water intake, and relaxation.
• Eliminating unwanted commitments and stress from my life.
• Taking prenatal vitamins religiously.

The left-hand sidebar includes a list of all the conception books I recommend.

In terms of preparing for Bambino #2, there were about two months between when I decided I was ready for a second and when we starting trying. I was in pretty good shape on my list above, except that I didn't feel physically strong. I did some running and exercising in those two months, but not as much as I would have liked. My plan is to walk for an hour every day during pregnancy and go to prenatal yoga once a week. I didn't start tracking my cycle again because I learned during my research that the best indicator of ovulation is cervical mucous. I pay attention to that indicator and can tell when I'm ovulating.

Definitely let me know if you have any questions!
 

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Bye, Bye Pacifier

If you've been around a while, you might remember that I was torn about whether or not to introduce a pacifier into Henry's life when he was infant. The pure Montessori books recommend against it, but the only way to soothe Henry to sleep was walking (since I decided early on not to use breastfeeding to soothe, due to nipple soreness) and walking wasn't a good option for me because of my prolonged lochia. 

When he was four weeks-old, we took him to an outdoor silent film event at the park downtown, and a family near us had a son just four weeks older than Henry. While Matt wore Henry in the Moby and took laps around the park to get him to fall asleep, they gave their son a pacifier and he fell right to sleep. I was sold. We started using the pacifier at that point (since the likelihood of nipple confusion had already passed). 

When we started a "Mommy and Me" Montessori class, the teacher explained that some babies need extra sucking, and so she thinks pacifiers can be necessary and useful. Her guidance, however, was to try and limit their usage to when they're really necessary (i.e., not using them to placate a child who is bored, hungry, etc.).

When I saw two and three year-olds at Target with pacifiers, I panicked a little that we would get to that point with Henry. I worried that it would start to delay his speech, affect his mouth structure, and become an addiction. I decided that we would try to eliminate the pacifier using the techniques described in the No Cry Sleep Solution around six months. 

Ha! Six months came and went and Henry still very much needed his pacifier. We wanted to meet Henry's needs, but we did so with a very watchful eye. As much as possible, we limited its usage to naps and bedtime, and we stopped bringing it with us when we left the house. We tried to give him books or toys to keep him occupied in the car, rather than defaulting to the pacifier. 

This approach--Give the Child What S/he Needs but Look for Opportunities to Help the Child Grow into Independence--has been a common theme in our parenting. It's definitely the approach we took with sleeping and weaning. 

The hardest thing about this approach is remembering that children can change so much from day to day. It's hard to notice that they're ready for the next stage. I didn't realize that Henry was ready to stop using a pacifier. His daycare happened to mention that he had been falling asleep without using a pacifier. We stopped using it at home, and voila! Henry no longer uses a pacifier.

I'm thankful the transition was natural and happened at a young age.

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Dwelling in Possibility Update: Meeting with the Architect

This morning, I suddenly re-remembered my mantra for the year: Make Dreams Happen. 

That's what I'm trying to do, one step at a time. With the school, we already have almost 200 families interested in enrolling their children in 2014. 

On the community front, we had to compromise our plan a little bit, but we are still forging ahead with building a house and connecting with and creating community. I put a hold request on Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods. I also joined the neighborhood list-serv of our new neighborhood, and I proposed that we apply for a Keep Austin Beautiful grant to implement a community-building project in our neighborhood. I also got the e-mail address from one of the neighbors on our cul-de-sac (there are only four houses total, including our future house). The neighbor I met is a pianist, and his partner is a professor of music at UT. 

Matt and I met with the architect on Friday to talk about the modifications we want to make to the Luna plan. We are going to widen the living room/kitchen/bedroom mod by three feet. We need to hurry and find a sectional we want to buy, so we can give him the dimensions and we can make sure to design the house in a way that fits the furniture we want.

We picked out the color of the bamboo floor (it's light), the color of our kitchen cabinets (birch), and the color of our countertops (gray). We still have to pick out the color and size of the tile on the backsplash. We're also going to enlarge the master bedroom/third bedroom mod by three feet, which will allow us to fit a king-sized bed. We are lengthening the closets in every room, so we have plenty of storage, and we are adding a built-in bookshelf in the corner I was talking about last week. The exterior of the house will look like the Ford model, although we are debating between stucco and hardi-plank. We're trying to figure out how to position the pool so we still have a nice large deck (with a trellis type cover for shade). The deck will probably have large, wide steps leading into a grassy play area and the pool. The orientation of our house on the lot will be perfect for solar panels. Woo-hoo! We want to get as close to net-zero as possible.

The architect is saying it will take two months to get through the design phase and nine months to build, so it doesn't look like we'll be able to move in before the baby is due, but that's okay. We'll still be able to drive by our rental house and say, "That's the house you were born in." I'm still hoping we can expedite the process a little (e.g., I don't really think it will take two months to modify the plans because we are pretty clear about what we want). But we'll see. I'm expecting this process to take longer and cost more than we think.

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The TV Dilemma

Growing up, I watched a lot of TV. From the time I let my latch-key kid self in to the time I went to bed, the TV was pretty much blaring in the background (oh, how I loved watching Gem and Three's Company!).

At some point (about a decade ago?) I realized that I didn't want the TV to be a distraction or a focal point in my life anymore. I stopped subscribing to cable and only kept the TV around for DVD movies. And then Hulu and Netflix streaming came along, and we found ourselves watching stuff on our computers. Now we watch about two hours of TV a week.

As we raise our family, I want to make sure we keep the TV on the sidelines. It's too easy for me to get sucked into the TV, even if nothing particularly interesting is on. As we prepare to build a house and move at the beginning of next year, I want to have a plan for how we're going to handle the TV situation. I definitely want a TV (or maybe a projector and a screen?) because it's uncomfortable to watch everything on a computer. But, at the same time, I don't want the TV to be the center of our living room. 

The picture above is from a Ma Modular living room that will be very similar to ours (without the stylish people, of course). We want to have a sectional couch that faces outward toward the views of the backyard. So where do we put a TV? We can't just put a giant armoire thing in front of the sliding glass doors (even though that would be a good option for closing the TV up and keeping it out of sight). What about putting the TV in a cabinet on wheels over on the right side and rolling it to the center whenever we want to watch TV? Or what about setting up a screen and a projector every time we want to watch TV? I love the idea of making it a little bit of a hassle to watch TV (to prevent us from doing it mindlessly), but this is also our lives we're talking about. I don't want to get annoyed every time it's Friday Movie Night. 

Do any of you regularly watch TV on a screen and projector? If so, how's the quality? It seems like it would pale in comparison to watching an HDTV. However, one benefit of the projector and screen would be that we could move it outside for neighborhood movie nights on the lawn (or pool!). 

But! Replacement bulbs are really expensive...

(Just for the record, I feel pretty silly contemplating these trivial problems out loud; I just wanted to hear your insight.)

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