River + Lamby = LOVE!

In an effort to be able to get a job or even just leave River with someone else for a period of time, I've been trying to get her to bond with an object or a 'lovey'.

At first I tried carrying, nursing, and napping with a certain crocheted blanket that I made her while I was pregnant and desperate for crafts I could do on top of a giant belly. While she loved being snuggled in a blanky, it held no particular importance for her. I then switched to a fleece blanket, thinking that maybe the crocheted texture was throwing her off and that the crocheted blanket was really too large for her to be lugging around with her when she started going places. She didn't bond to the fleece blanket either.

I think I assumed that she was going to be a blanky-baby mostly because I was one and because I still love snuggling up with a good blanket. What I don't know, is why I stuck to trying blankets for so long! Seriously, nine months and my brain never said "let's try something else!" I can be so dense sometimes.

Well, last night, during her 9-11 pm wakeful time, I pulled out one of her particularly adorable stuffed animals, a lamb that isn't much smaller than she is. INSTANT BONDING! Her eyes got all big, she grabbed it by its adorable little ears, and proceeded to kiss it.

At one point, while nursing River, as she was on her way to dream land, she even grabbed lamby and put him/her/it on my other boob >.< as awkward as it felt to be nursing a stuffed lamb, it was so sweet that she wanted to share nursing boob-time with her new friend.

Today I've been doing everything I can to keep 'lamby' (my name for it until she's old enough to name it herself) within view.

River and Lamby in front of the window

Bullet points = FUN!

Here's some news / random observations... IN BULLET POINT! because I'm awesome.

• We signed up for a diaper service. WEE! I don't think I need anywhere near the amount of diapers they give you for the first month, but we can adjust after he doesn't use them all.
• River is strangely sick. Unable to eat any solid or solid-ish foods. She gags and throws up (not spits up, I know the difference). Other than throwing up, she's totally fine. She's been on a boob and watery oatmeal diet for three days. We're taking her to the doctor today because, if it's serious, I don't want to wait all weekend of find out.
• Libraries RAWK! seriously. I think I go to the library 3 times a week, at least! Any day I don't have something else to do is an invitation to check the programming schedules of all the local libraries and pick something, or just go and let River play with the toys and watch the other kids. 
• I'm in a crafting rut. Nothing has sold from Etsy, so I stopped churning out cross stitches, and it's too hard to work in my mother's basement, where the sewing machines are, with River... 
• I applied for three jobs... haven't heard anything from any of them. :-/ sad panda.
• The Weather Is Awesome. (or at least it was yesterday, I haven't been outside yet today, but I think I'm going to be disappointed)
• Going to see the ex today. I'm so emotionally drained from all the visits, but at this point he gets supervised visits with River, so I suck it up.

Well, I'm off to the library for story time! Adios!

ETSY

Since the divorce, I've been trying to find ways to stay at home and make some money to supplement the child/spousal support I've been getting. It's been hard dealing with the fact that I may have to compromise on some of the parenting plans I had for River in order to stay afloat. One of the things I've been trying has been an Etsy.com page full of dorky cross stitches :-)



Take a look, comment, buy if you'd like. It'd be really helping out a mom! If you'd like something else or something you see there on another base, let me know and I'd be happy to wip it out ^.^

Short

I find myself sitting on the post screen pretty often since I started blogging again. Sometimes I'll write a few sentences, sit for a few minutes, and then close everything. I'm not sure why I do this... Maybe I'm not sure what to say, or not sure that what I have to say is interesting enough to be a meaningful contribution to the blogosphere. But that's where I'm at right now, and why there haven't been any updates.

Going Back To Work

Thanks to the uber-fun divorce (the meat of which is fodder for another post at another time), it has become apparent that I need to get a job.

After the initial move-out, my ex agreed to provide River and myself with a pretty decent bit of child-support/spousal-support.. which is enough to cover food and gas (and not much else). While this is great, if I felt I could expect any sort of lasting commitment from my ex, even regarding money, and I was planning on living with my parents until River was 18, but that's not the case.

When I was a teenager, it became apparent that living with my parents was NOT a good environment for me. I chafed at their restrictions and intrusiveness, and things have not changed. My parents and I get along fine when I'm not living with them, but for some reason we just all need to have our say about everything, and that just doesn't work well for a living situation.

The original plan was to supplement the child/spousal support by selling things on Etsy.com... but after a few posts on there and a couple months of waiting nothing sold. I've tried advertising my etsy on other sites and even sending all my products to a convention with a friend to be sold there. Well... One thing sold... For $7. Not exactly income, and after buying business cards and supplies, it doesn't even start to cover expenses. So, I guess I'm done crafting.

~~~

It's on to the world of a working, single mother.

The biggest hurdle I see is what to do with River while I'm working. I looked into child-care options in my area that fit with my parenting philosophies, and they cost more per month than I would pay for rent! Way more than I can afford. My parents, while helpful when it's convenient for them, are not willing to give up their activities (my mother sews in guilds and such) on days that I would need them to watch River. The ex is less than helpful (his work schedule is erratic, he have a living situation that can accommodate a baby, and I just plain don't trust him with our daughter).

It's hard enough to find a job right now, without having scheduling issues that need to be worked around.

So far I've applied at a tea store that I've worked for before and I'm hoping would want to hire me enough to deal with my crazy schedule, and at the library for a really limited hour shelving position. I'm also forwarding my resume to a friend who might be able to get me a paid internship at U of C and would share childcare duties with me (which would be AWESOME!).

~~~

While writing this whole post I managed to ignore the extreme anxiety I feel about leaving River to get a job. It keeps me up at night. Just last night I managed to leave River with my mother for an HOUR to get dinner with a friend. The whole time I couldn't stop worrying about her. My biggest fear is that she's going to be crying and hysterical and I'm not going to be able to do anything.

I hold very strongly to the philosophies of attachment parenting. I think that children tell you what they need and that it is unethical to cause them undue stress by denying it. We had decided that River would always have a parent home with her, but thanks to the actions of my ex, that isn't possible anymore. It's hard when the situation changes and your philosophies don't.

I know that if I could find a legitimate work-from-home option, I would take it. If I could bring River to a job with me, I would jump at the opportunity. I'm so worried and scared and stressed about this. I just don't have a choice.

Product Review: Ikea play fruits and veggies

Even before River was born, I had very strong intentions to surround her with hand-made fabric and wooden toys instead of the typical mass-produced plastic toys. I have not been able to stick to this as much as I would have liked, having received a lot of plastic toys and being unable to afford hand-made products.

One of the toys I intended to buy for River was a good set of play fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, sets on Etsy run about $30, and are pretty limited. During one of my random visits to Ikea though, I found THESE:

Veggies

Fruits

Each set is $7.99 and come with a good selection. Plus, the lettuce leaves velcro on and off, and the banana can be peeled! The sets are standing up really well to River's chewing and don't have any loose fibers that she can eat.

My little hobbit loves the mushrooms!

In the same product line, Ikea also has a breakfast set and a dessert set, both of which I was not incredibly impressed by and didn't buy. Specifically, we didn't purchase the breakfast set because I plan on raising River vegetarian, so play meats aren't really encouraged, and I didn't really feel the need to encourage a love of sweets...

Then again, if you can afford buying handmade, this products looks great: Handmade Eco Friendly Felt Play Food by MsMagpieGirl on Etsy.com

River's health concerns

Recently, I took a hiatus from blogging that lasted longer than anticipated. It began due to some scares we had with River's health. Specifically, she fell off the weight charts. Not like she was low on it, not like she was just a little underweight, she had NO CURVE. She was growing in length, she seemed ok mentally and was developing well, but she was SKINNY.

River in October, 2010

Now, I'm no large person. Actually, I have a pretty standard explanation that I have to give doctors along the lines of, "no, I'm not anorexic or bulimic, I'd love to gain weight, but I just can't seem to." That said, I didn't really panic when she was seeming skinnier than most.

It took some pretty, in my opinion, immature behavior on the part of my family to make me finally see that there was a real issue with her weight. Specifically, during a family trip, my entire extended family apparently 'had a discussion' about River's weight, and while they were all perfectly fine with critiquing my parenting decisions (specifically attachment parenting) none of the talked to me about her weight. Instead, after everyone got home from the trip, my grandmother called me and my mother had a discussion with me about it.

They were right, she was underweight and was starting to look sick because of it. So I took her to the doctor. The doctor wanted us to see a specialist, but during the wait for my (now) ex to get insurance, I changed her diet and she started gaining weight regularly again. We still don't have insurance (thanks to the ex), but she's gaining so steadily that our family practitioner is satisfied with just keeping a close eye on her to make sure that she doesn't plateau again.

More recently, look at those cheeks!

I'm not going to get into the whole ex thing yet, that's a post all its own.

Anyways, after the first visit, my mother decided to tell me that one of my uncles had actually threatened to call DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) on us because of her weight. There is some disagreement about whether he was actually earnest or was just offering to drop the shoe to get me to take River to the doctor (which I guess they didn't think I would do for some reason). Either way, he seemed to think it was a valid threat to make, and my mother seemed to think the threat was needed even after the fact.

Needless to say I WAS LIVID. It was a medical issue, we took her to the doctor as soon as someone talked to me about it in a serious way and I realized that there actually was an issue, and in NO way should that warrant a call to DCFS. Not to mention the fact that my uncle's son has ALWAYS been larger than normal, so he doesn't exactly have a standard basis of comparison.

Setting all bitching aside, River is now steadily gaining weight and is approaching a normal weight, looking healthier, showing no developmental setbacks, and has some amazing chubby baby cheeks! Now I just make sure that she's eating at least three big meals per day, getting a variety of foods, and continuing to gain.

(only a couple days after the first doctor appointment, when we were still terrified, was when I found out my ex was cheating on me >.< it was quite a blow)

Book Review: Elusive Moose

River and I are avid library goers (ALA | Campaign for America's Libraries). We're there AT LEAST twice a week, sometimes as often as every-other-day! River is a big fan of preschool story time and I love playing Scrabble with the older folks.

Part of our library habit includes checking out a certain number of things once per week: 2 child-friendly CD's, (at least) 1 adult nonfiction book, 1 adult fiction book, and 3 board books.

This week I was particularly impressed by Elusive Moose, by Joan Gannij and Clare Beaton.

Front Cover

The book features pictures of mixed media (mostly felt and embroidery) art. It identifies multiple woodland animals with a hidden moose on every page. There are no pronouns or any other identification of sex/gender other than the fact that the main moose has antlers.

Random page

I think that the part of me that wants to live in a cabin or yurt in the woods is what really draws me to this book. I also love all the pictured textures and the creativity that must have gone into making the original art.

My only wish is that this book came as a felt or soft book. While it would definitely need to be simplified (no buttons or sequins), it would be fantastic to be able to feel all the pictured textures. A soft book would also be great to guard against my child's voracious apatite for eating board books when I'm not looking >.<

In conclusion, Five Stars! Two Thumbs Up! Bravo! Buy this book or borrow it from your library!

Slow Return??

My daughter, playing with fruits, veggies, and a toothbrush. She's going to be better about her health than I am!

I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think I'm going to return to the blog-o-sphere. A lot has happened in my life since my last post, most notably River had a medical scare, which has been nearly resolved, and I am now a single mother.

I can honestly say that my life has been very hectic lately, which is not the norm for me. I'm usually very chill and laid back.

I will not be linking to every post on my facebook, mostly because I don't want a lot of people that I know IRL to be reading this.. But I need to vent. I need somewhere that I can let go and talk and feel like maybe, somewhere, someone has heard me.

I also intend to keep reviewing books, movies, products, etc... So check back often! I really hope this blog doesn't just turn into some personal journal full of my bitching...

Hiatus

I'm sorry for the long hiatus from this blog, I did not mean for it to last this long. There are honestly two reasons for this; one of our computers (the one I use most often) randomly stopped accessing certain websites, including this one, and I have been debating what exactly I want to put on the site.

On one hand, I say some things that I'm not quite comfortable sharing with certain relatives and friends, things that I would rather keep anonymous. But I'm pretty convinced that if I didn't share the blog with people I know, I wouldn't have any readers.

One day I'll come back to this, but it's not today. Sorry.