I Miss My Husband

So I was reading this issue’s poll in Brain,Child and they ask parents what they miss most about their pre-mama/papa life. Though I could write a list, the very top thing on it is that I miss my husband.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re together and he’s a very present father. It’s just that I’m home with our son while Mike works 70+ hour weeks to support our family. When he is home, we try to give him as much time as possible to be with our son, especially since Cavanaugh gave up naps and has an early bedtime now. He’s usually asleep within two hours of Mike’s arrival home. And after Cavanaugh’s asleep we’re both tired, often too tired to chat much about our days much less engage in some of the things we did for fun pre-baby: dominoes, backgammon, jigsaw puzzles. Most nights, we’re both on our laptops–maybe sitting next to each other on the same couch–working and watching some show we’re streaming off the internet.

This past Thursday night I went out to see Ellis Paul, a singer/songwriter I like a lot and Mike and I have gone to see before.  This time Ellis was playing about an hour’s drive away. We decided Mike would stay home because it was bedtime and though we have a new part-time nanny, we still don’t know anyone in this town who can put our son to sleep but us. Also, we had no idea how long the show would last, and Mike was leaving town the next morning to go to the Individual World Poetry Slam for 3 1/2 days so he didn’t want to miss one more bedtime with Cavanaugh.

The show was sold out but I went on the off chance someone wouldn’t show. Besides getting in, I picked a seat from the 105 available in the room, put my ticket down to reserve it and wandered around before the show started. I came back to my seat and there was no one next to me. In fact, it was the only empty seat in the whole place. It felt like Mike was supposed to be there, holding my hand.

Even though I’m aware I miss Mike on other occasions, his absence at that show and his being out of town this rainy and perfect for cuddling weekend has me thinking about the man I’ve been with for the last 15 years.

Being parents is hard on a relationship, at least it has been for us. One of the great strengths we’ve always had going for us has been our differences: he’s diplomatic and I’m frank, he’s a big picture guy and I deal in details. It’s not just that though, it’s that even if we have a similar belief or desired outcome, we just go about it in such different ways. Before we were parents, that meant we were able to offer each other perspective and help each other with outside difficulties. As parents, it has caused a lot of clashes because our days are spent in such different worlds and when he is home from work the collaboration required in taking care of and dealing with our child makes our differences into conflicts instead of ways we can aid one another.

A lot of this is improving as Cavanaugh ages. My friends kept assuring me that around two or three, it would be Daddy Time. Cavanaugh would be equally or more into Mike as into me. It’s started happening and I love it. I’m getting a much needed break and Mike’s getting much more love and attention. Having a nearly-three year old also requires significantly less trading of tasks i.e. you finish dinner while I nurse the hungry baby. As parenting together becomes less of a struggle, we’re finding our way back to each other too. And maybe that’s what’s got me missing him the most. I really like hanging out with him these days. We have deeper conversations. It feels like we’re on the same team. So I miss him when he’s not around and I’m looking forward to him coming home.

The reality though is that so much of the focus of every day is on our child that it’s hard to have a lot left to give to each other. We’ve figured out a few things that help. When we go on a date, we don’t go out to eat because we just end up talking about Cavanaugh, home, money. Instead, we’re trying to go to things we can talk about afterwards: the Beat exhibit that traveled through town, the So You Think You Can Dance tour, a movie that will really get us talking  (Synedoche, NY), or a walk around Town Lake. Since most often, we’re not on a date, we are limiting show watching and talking more even though we’re tired, some nights we’re making special dinners to eat together after Cavanaugh goes to bed.

How has parenthood changed or affected the dynamic between you and your partner? With stay-at-home moms in particular, I wonder how you bridge the gap in how different your days are and the disproportionate amount of time you get to spend with your child(ren).

How was ACL?

Last Friday, we finally braved taking our son to ACL (for you non-Austinites, that’s the Austin City Limits music festival, which boasts about 70,000 concert-goers a day).I hadn’t been since 2005, the year before Cavanaugh was born.

Throughout my pregnancy, my husband reminded me periodically that we weren’t going to go. ACL was in mid-September back then and I was due November 14. I kept trying to convince him that I could handle 100+ degree weather and the dust-bowl that came with all those feet tramping the grass to death bits. He didn’t go for it. The next year and the next and the next, we talked about going so long that tickets sold out.

But as the festival loomed, I wanted it, wanted to be out in crowds listening to live music, wandering booths of cowboy hats, hippie dresses, and kettle corn. Since Cavanaugh was no longer napping, we could take him. Mike managed to score a couple of free passes for Friday.  I studied the list of allowed and prohibited items, made a trip to the bike shop to get the stroller tires patched and Anna’s Toy Depot where we found a school bus toy with people in it and Anna gave us a blow-up Spiderman ball. We loaded backpacks with two extra sets of clothing, one long-sleeved and pants, one with clothes in case it didn’t rain. We packed the umbrella, a tapestry to sit on, diapers, a notebook and crayons.

So, how was ACL? It was okay. Soon after we got there, we set ourselves up for the SVIIB set. I needed to pee so I headed for the port-a-potties (surprisingly clean and un-smelly at the beginning of the day, but can you ever be prepared for that strange sensation of wind blowing up from below?). I came back to my husband and son in a staring contest with tears pouring down Cavanaugh’s cheeks and boogers on his upper lip from uber-sobs in the three minutes I was gone. He wouldn’t let Mike pick him up or console him. In a crowd that big with noise that felt as if it were pushing on our bodies, it was a mama day. Every synthesizer swell sent Cavanaugh into a new round of tears. Soon he was asking to get back into his jogging stroller “Percy” to go ride around. We made it almost all the way through The Knux set since Cavanaugh’s prefers thumping bass to a keyboard any day. The chocolate milkshake from Amy’s booth didn’t hurt.

We tried the kiddie stage, and though he didn’t care to listen to that music (nor did we, really), have his hair styled into a faux-hawk, don a temporary tattoo, or engage in most of their reindeer games, he was thrilled to dig in the huge covered sandbox and make castles out of the cement mixer and dump-truck molds. And if your husband accidentally leaves his wedding ring on the sandbox frame when he removes it to slather himself with sunblock, it might actually be there an hour later when he notices its absence.

So here are my tips for anyone considering ACL with a young child:

1. Get your kid psyched up for the show by playing the bands they’ll hear. That way when the music is blasting at them, at least it will be familiar.
2. Take hats, sunglasses, lots of sunblock and earplugs. You can even get huge earphone things for if your kid will consent to those.
3. Pay for parking. It’s $10 and you have a flat walk for a couple of blocks instead of trekking up the hill to free parking.
4. Friday is a good day for a toddler. Until late afternoon, the crowds weren’t too bad. We headed out by 6:15 p.m. because the cigar smoke and conversation made it hard to enjoy the music and navigating with a toddler and gear was no fun.
5. Stop at the Tag-a-Kid booth so you can get a call on your cell phone should you be separated from your child (thank the gods, we weren’t).



6. A blow up ball is a blast.
7. Our own refillable Nalgene bottles were great, but a camelbak with ice would have been nice.
8. Don’t go to the kiddie stage unless you’re willing to risk missing the next few sets or you can trade child watching so you can go catch a show on your own.
9. On your walk back to the car, call Homeslice Pizza for a large pie to go. They have an outdoor walk up window so you won’t have to take your sleeping kid out of the car to get your food.
10. Better yet, leave your kid at home, trade days with your partner, and go to the festival with a friend. Even though we all had fun, I would have been bummed if we’d spent nearly $200 on tickets to not hear a full set, leave early, and spend my day playing with my kid since I get to do that for free every other day of the year.

Tip Tuesday: Clipping Kid’s Finger & Toenails

Since my son was an infant, he has hated having his nails cut. He pulls his hands and feet away, kicks, and generally does anything he can to stop the process. The result, I’ve cut the tip of his finger so there’s blood and a little pain. I’ve gotten to the point where I have to hold his fingers tight to be able to make sure they don’t slip away, which just makes him feel trapped or scared. Overall, the nail-cutting is a huge ugly power struggle.

I don’t want to hold Cavanaugh down, not to cut his nails or brush his teeth or give him medicine. It’s important to me that he has sovereignty over his own body. When he says no, I don’t want to just force him. That feels like a horrible violation.

When I was at wit’s end about how to deal with his unrelenting resistance to nail cutting, my friend Jaimee suggested this tip, which I’m passing on to you: cut the finger and toenails while your child is sleeping.

At some point Cavanaugh tries to brush the clippers away as if a fly were flitting about and landing on him. No problem, I just wait a few minutes to cut a couple more nails or I stop until the next night. Fights are avoided and nails are cut.

I don’t expect to still be doing this when he’s ten, but for now, with my not quite three year old, the reasoning about how nails grow and get sharp and dirty so they must be cut really isn’t cutting it. So, I clip the nails (and his hair) while he sleeps.

Food Friday: How to Set Up a Food Tree

Food trees are a way of providing a person or family with food when they could most use some help, like when a new baby enters the family or someone has surgery or another kind of health emergency. Setting up a food tree is easy and the benefits are enormous: more time to spend with new baby or recovering from surgery, less time in the kitchen both preparing and cleaning up, less time at the grocery store, less cost for food. Beyond that, people can experience an outpouring of love and generosity at a time that could normally be quite isolating.

How to Set Up a Food Tree

• Offer to set it up.
• Send person/family the food tree questionnaire (below) and ask for an email list of family/friends/co-workers who might be interested in participating.
• Set up a yahoo group

1. Upload the completed food tree questionnaire.
2. Invite everyone from email list to join.
3. Adapt this message for the group’s home page: “This group is for the purpose of organizing a food tree for the _________ family following the birth of (baby’s name). Click on the Files link to your left then on the file “Food Tree Questionnaire” for details of the foods they would like and  contact information to schedule food drop-offs. Please add the dates you’ll provide food so people can schedule their drop-offs for different days. Thank you!”
4. Check in with family for start date (since baby’s not always born on the due date and family may want to start earlier or later than they’d originally thought).
5. Add a note on Sundays (since that’s the default start of week in yahoo calendars) saying, “The family will benefit from # (possibly 2 – 3) meals this week.”
6. If you’re contributing, you might want to be the first person to drop off so that you can model how to add drop offs to the calendar. You add date to the calendar saying, “(Your name) will drop off (type of food)” and list your phone number so family can call you.
7. Send message out to food tree group asking people to add their drop off dates.
8. At end of period family had originally indicated they would like food tree to continue, contact the family to ask if they’d like to keep food tree open and for how long or if they’d like to shut it down. Send info out to group.

The Person/Family Who Will Be Receiving Food Needs to Do Three Things:

1. Give you a list of emails for people who might like to help (friends, family, co-workers, neighbors)
2. Fill out the questionnaire below.
3. In the case of a new baby, contact you once the baby is born to confirm the start day for the food tree.

Food Tree Questionnaire (Adapted from Austin Attachment Parenting)

• What is your address?
• What phone number or email address should people use to schedule their delivery?
• How many people in your household will be eating the food tree meals?  What are their names and what are the kid’s ages?
• What kinds of foods should we avoid? (Include allergies, intolerances, and those that are not liked.)
• What kinds of foods do you prefer? (Include favorites of various household members, organic, whole grain, and any other preferences.)
• If you have older kids, what kind of snacks do they enjoy?
• When there is a choice, would you prefer a casserole be precooked (so it can be microwaved in individual servings) or frozen uncooked so that all you have to do is put it in the oven and have a hot meal on the table?
• If someone wanted to pick up a “take-out” meal for you, is there a favorite place/food that you would like?
• Do you anticipate needing some non-food help? (Help with errands, laundry, play dates with older kids, etc.)
• How often do you think you would like to receive food?  (Some families like to have more help for fewer weeks while others prefer fewer meals per week for more weeks.)
• When do anticipate wanting the Food Tree to begin?  (Some people elect for immediately after the birth of the baby, others prefer to wait a few weeks, perhaps until their families have left or until they feel more settled in.)
• Although it is hard to picture at this time, how long do you think you want to keep your food tree open?  (Don’t worry, we will check with you before closing it – this just gives us some idea when to check back with you).
• Do you anticipate looking forward to having people stop in to help or keep you company for a bit or do you prefer they drop the meals and run?
• Anything else we should know?
• Please send completed questionnaire to _____________ (whoever is managing the food tree).

Photo by hoho3121

Morning and Evening Routines with a Toddler

I went to an Attachment Parenting meeting today that focused on morning and evening routines. Our guest speaker, Bethany Prescott, asked us where the trouble lies or where we’d like the most help. I had a hard time choosing.

Morning Challenges:

• Cavanaugh is ready to wake up before I am (because I am having a really hard time sticking to the midnight bedtime I’m trying to give myself
• He doesn’t want to play independently so our first two hours of waking time may include one episode of Blue’s Clues (or whatever show we’re watching on Netflix instant play at the moment)  while I brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, fix coffee and breakfast, and get myself dressed
• If we’re leaving the house, we need snacks, water bottles, and maybe some kind of gear (diapers, change of clothes, swimming stuff, toys/activities for on the way or while we’re there). Insert one more episode of something here, or Cavanaugh knocking on the front door as he says, “Ready to leave now.”

Late Afternoon/Evening Challenges:

• If we have playdates, run errands, or do anything out of the house, we don’t have enough time to make dinner and either end up going out to eat or eating something that doesn’t take time to prepare. Either way, it’s expensive because we’re paying for a restaurant or our produce rots in the frig since I didn’t make time to prepare it.
• If I try to make dinner before Mike gets home, Cavanaugh wants attention. In the late afternoons, he’s not in a space to help in the kitchen.
• If I wait until Mike gets home from work to fix dinner, our blood sugar is low. Fights and sadness ensue.
• After dinner, we have to go upstairs immediately to start bedtime routine: brush teeth, change clothes, read stories, and get Cavanaugh to sleep, but he hasn’t had enough time to wind down.
• Bedtime just got a lot earlier since Cavanaugh gave up nap.  Any hiccups in the routine cause a later bedtime. For every minute later Cavanaugh stays up past 7:30, he wakes up that much earlier in the morning.

My favorite suggestion for mornings was that I make a morning routine chart. I’m going to take pictures of Cavanaugh doing all of the things we need to have happen in the morning: wake up, brush teeth, take diaper off, get new diaper, have breakfast, get clean clothes on. I’m going to make it into a laminated checklist that Cavanaugh can use a dry erase marker on to check off what we get done. He loves clipboards and to say, “Check.” I will also add a picture of an “Early Riser Basket” with toys that Cavanaugh has access to play with only in the mornings he wakes up so early that I can’t/won’t get out of bed. It will be at the top of the list so he can look at it as his first daytime option after waking. Also one of the women in the meeting said she just keeps containers of crackers, nuts, or other things that won’t go bad in her purse or car so if she doesn’t have time to pack snacks, she’s still got something on hand. I’m going to put a bag in the car with an extra outfit, special car toys, and non-perishable snacks. I had one when he was an infant but got out of the habit.

Bethany’s tips for creating a peaceful evening that were most applicable to my challenges included limiting afternoon activities, creating a 15 minute period to give your child a super-focused connection with snuggling, playing, or a lot of direct eye contact so that their cups will be full enough to give parents time to fix dinner. She also suggested focusing on giving kids a full healthy meal as kids’ afternoon snack  because that’s when they’re most hungry and it takes the pressure off of dinner. I’m also going to set 5 p.m. as the time I start dinner so there’s no waiting for Mike to get home and we’re not pushing bedtime back. And I’m going to start keeping some staple foods in the frig like a crock-pot of beans and a grain like rice or quinoa so Cavanaugh will get enough protein that he’s not waking up in the middle of the night to eat or asking for another snack before bed. I also realized maybe we could start brushing teeth downstairs right after dinner instead of waiting to go upstairs and fitting it into the wind down time before bed.

Bethany had tons of suggestions and if any of you live in the Austin area, I would strongly recommend all of her workshops. The one she gave us a sampling from today was her “Sun Up, Sun Down” Parent Workshop, which also focuses on sleep challenges.

I’d love to hear both your challenges and what works for your family with morning and evening routines.

Five Things I Learned Traveling with a Toddler

1. Plane trips: Take snacks.
2. Pack what your toddler needs to sleep (in our case a soft throw pillow and small white stuffed kitty).
3. Two-year-olds share their emotions with no concept for social niceties.
4. If someone tells you to pack warm clothes, think of pajamas.
5. If your kid is afraid of dogs in your hometown, he’ll be equally scared on vacation.

Highlights of the trip:

1. Cavanaugh holding his stuffed kitty up to the plane window to show it the view.
2. Watching Cavanaugh and Gilly together. They took turns, shared, and actually played together instead of just engaging in parallel play. She brushed his hair, fed him, and picked him up when he pretend “crashed” on her scooter.
3. Walking trails around Chicago Botanical Gardens while Gilly and Cavanaugh napped in strollers. Good weather with great company.
4. Leaving Texas summer to be in 70 degree temperatures with cool breezes. We even had to wear sweatshirts. Coming back to 101 in Austin made me want to get back on the plane.
5. Cavanaugh, Paul, and Gilly singing songs in the living room. Cavanaugh having so much fun that he told me to go away.
6. Kristin’s delicious cooking. Sorrel pesto. Homemade hummus, taboule, falafel, and pita. Enough said.

Lowlights of our trip:

1. Flight to Chicago Midway on Southwest Airbus: 25 minute stops in Dallas and Little Rock to change passengers. Cavanaugh wants to know where those people are going and why we can’t get off.
2. After Little Rock layover, when Cavanaugh’s saying, “No airplane. Go home,” I turn on borrowed DVD player. Batteries die after ten minutes.
3. “Me no want to be here. Want to go home.”
4. “Want normal food.”
5. “We no like dogs. We like cats.” Our hosts had three dogs that they diligently tried to keep away from Cavanaugh as he would cry in fear at their approach. I thought maybe exposure would help so tried asking, “Are they barking? Are they running?” and then having us both pet them as I explained the dogs were soft just like cats. Mostly, it didn’t help.

How to Say “No” to Your Kid and Let Him Say “No” to You

I just read a great article from Dr. Sears on “18 Ways to Say ‘No’ Positively.”

The two I relate to the most are #3: create alternatives to “no” and #11 “no” is a child’s word too.

#3– Cavanaugh’s a real risk taker and likes to climb and jump. Along with “hot” when he’s nearing the stove and “danger” as he approaches the street, we instituted “gravity” for all those times when awareness of Newton’s bump from the apple would keep our boy safe.

#11-Cavanaugh turned 2 1/2 recently and has been very creative with his use of the word “no.” I realize he’s interested in establishing some control over his world, so when I’m not exasperated or exhausted by being told what not to do all day, I am proud and/or amused. Here are some of his greatest hits:

1. “No say no.” He especially likes to use this one when he’s going to ask for something he knows he’s not likely to get, like a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast. We use Dr. Sears’ suggestion #9, a positive sub: “You can have a bagel or an egg for breakfast.”
2. “No like this one.” Man, does this apply to a lot of things. We frequently just ask, “Which one do you like?” Often, it’s the one we just offered.
3. “No go this way.” Talk about a backseat driver. It cracks me up to look in the rearview mirror as I’m driving and have my little one navigating us out of the neighborhood. He doesn’t react if I go another direction. It’s just one more way for him to say he wants to have a voice in where we’re going and what we’re doing.
4. “No be here. Go away.” Mike gets this one a lot right as he returns from work. It really hurt Mike’s feelings at first. We quickly realized it was an extension of a toddler’s need for transition. Even though Cavanaugh refers to his daddy coming home throughout the day and is excited about what they will do together, he needs a few minutes to transition from Mama Time to Daddy Time.
5. “No want pajamas” as he throws them off the bed, along with his nighttime diaper. We started letting him pick out his outfit for the next day and dressing him in that instead of pajamas. The next morning, all he needs is a new diaper and he’s good to go.

He’s been a great communicator since he was born and isn’t shy about saying what he wants.

We’re trying not to be shy about saying what we want either. It’s hard to feel in conflict with our boy and exhausting to practice boundaries all the time. It feels like the most terrible part of two’s to me. I heard an analogy years ago that absolutely sums up my beliefs about “no”: “No” is like a wall. If you know where the boundary is, you can lean on it, derive support from it, and relax within the limits. If you don’t know where the boundary is, that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent. It just means that you can run into it and get hurt.

Need Family Time Management Tips

Things aren’t working so well around here and it’s not because we have a toddler. In every apartment or house where Mike and I have lived together (we just celebrated our 15th anniversary, so there have been many), we’ve tried to make a schedule. We write a list of chores and errands and divvy them up. We try to figure out how often they need to be done, when the logical time to do them falls within the day, week, month, or year, and we write them down. We have purchased dry erase boards, bulletin boards, and special calendars on which to record our great plans. We have gone to time management workshops, bought expensive planners, and we have made sincere efforts with our color-coded good intentions.

We’re just not schedule people and so far that’s worked to the extent that we mostly shower, eat, sleep, and get where we’re supposed to be sometime near the time we were supposed to be there. But we’re finding that if we don’t create some sort of predictable structure for our sweet little boy, he’s not so sweet–because he’s hungry or sleepy or we’ve had too many outings and he needs some down time, or we’ve stayed home too many days in a row and he needs some stimulation. I’m tired of feeling like every day I’m starting with a blank slate and trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. I don’t want to have our only predictable activities be based on what someone else has scheduled: a playgroup at the park, our music class, or the days someone else is available for a playdate. I want a schedule to follow, a schedule I made myself.

All I’ve figured out so far is that Mondays we’re staying home. Mike being at home on weekends means Cavanaugh gets lots of Daddy-time in a row, not just what can be fit in between the end of a workday and bedtime–which is filled with dinner, not enough play, maybe a bath, reading, and at least an hour to wind down before sleeping. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do on Saturdays and Sundays. And I need to rest, have time to myself, get to the gym, feel productive. So on Mondays, Cavanaugh is sad that Mike is at work and he wants lots of attention from me, the house is a mess from our busy weekend, and I’m tired simply because I’m starting another week with a toddler and we don’t have a schedule–no school to attend, no babysitters, just me and him making up every day as we go along. It’s a losing way to start a week. I want to try something new.

Today is Monday and what I want to make up for Mondays is that Cavanaugh and I get time to reconnect. We get time in our house. We hang out and clean up. We don’t have to get dressed or get out of the house or see anybody else. We start off slow and easy. That’s it, all that I’ve figured out so far.

So, I’m open to suggestions: what kind of routines and structures do you have in place to help your household run smoothly?

7 Ways to Recover From Mama Burn Out

Last month I wrote Running on Empty about feeling mama burn out. It was a hard blog post to write. I felt ashamed. I felt like a failure. I felt worried that motherhood was going to turn out like so many other jobs I’ve had: fun and interesting at first. then drudgery. It took me two days to write the post because I kept editing my feelings. If I just cut the words, maybe I could delete the feelings too. I wrote while my toddler son napped in the next room. I kept walking in to look at him, so peaceful while he was sleeping. I kept willing him to sleep longer, give me more time. On the second day, right after I’d clicked the button to submit my post, he woke up sad. He clung to me and cried. Maybe he’d had a bad dream. Maybe he’d picked up on all of my conflicted feelings while he slept. I was sure that if he were old enough to read what I’d written, he would  feel betrayed. Maybe all of that was true, or maybe I was just finding one more way to not give myself a break.

I needed a vacation from my mama job, which wasn’t realistic. Getting a vacation from my state of mind, however, was absolutely possible. Just admitting to myself (and those who read the blog post) how burned out I was feeling helped. It helped me to understand what was contributing to my exhaustion. It helped me acknowledge my feelings and give myself some space to actually feel them. The comments on the post offered me some great suggestions to renew balance. I tried those and some more. And I’m really starting to feel good again, having fun with my son, being more creative about how to spend our time so our life together doesn’t feel like the movie Groundhog Day. Maybe some of what has worked with me will work for you.

1. For mamas of those still young enough to nap, try No Nap Days — On days when your child is fighting nap, stop fighting for daytime sleep and get the catch up at night. Get up and play, then put them to bed early. The additional hours after they go to bed at night offer you a much longer block of time to yourself or with your partner.
2. Mama Happy Hour — Dinner and drinks, crafting together, a walk, book club, personal renewal group using The Mother’s Guide to Self Renewal, or a group movie date.
3. Movies with your partner–no conversations about the household, nothing stressful. Just popcorn, a coke, and all the action of the new Star Trek.
4. Saturday Morning Mama Sleep In– Daddy and child(ren) get the chance to reconnect and Mama gets to recharge.
5. Spending your breaks differently–try leaving the house instead of staying home, taking a cool bath in the middle of a hot summer day, or sitting quietly for fifteen minutes while you visualize being in the most relaxing and beautiful spot on Earth.
6. Potluck with other families: a great dinner you don’t have to fix all by yourself and a chance to hang out with the whole family so one parent can chat while the other played with the kids, then swap.
7. Read Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood.  It’s beautifully written with easy to read short chapters that offer ways to be a mindful mama and give yourself permission to be human.

I’d love to hear even more suggestions for refilling  our mama cups and recovering from mama burn out.

To Cloth Diaper or to Dispose?

A friend of mine contacted me recently because she was about to have a baby and was trying to figure out whether to use cloth or disposable diapers. She wanted to know what we’d done. The truth is, I wish I had cloth diapered and feel guilty that we didn’t. I did some pretty basic research and thought the issue that I was deciding was disposables filling up landfills versus the amount of water or chemicals cloth diapers used to be cleaned. Apparently, that’s not even close to the complete issue.

My many cloth diapering friends informed me about various factors I hadn’t considered; the most compelling to me were the natural resources (including water) needed to manufacture disposables and the health risks to my child because of the chemicals in disposables. Those factors are explained quite nicely on Parenting by Nature’s Top Ten Reasons to Choose Cloth,  Mothering magazine’s article The Joy of Cloth Diapers, and the Why Choose Cloth Diapers? page on Real Diapering.

By the time I started figuring out that maybe we should have made a different decision, Cavanaugh was over a year old and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to switch to cloth. Now, I’m worried that the chemicals in the gel may have a carcinogenic effect.  Also, the kids I know in cloth diapers are potty training much earlier than the kids in disposables, partly because they can feel the moisture when they pee.

I started to say that if we had to do it over, I’d choose to cloth diaper, but I don’t know if it’s true. I think I would have at least tried to cloth diaper,  though I’ve loved the convenience of disposables especially Target brand diapers, which are inexpensive and don’t leak. Besides all of the logical and measurable reasons for choosing cloth over disposables though, the real reason we decided to go with disposables is that neither Mike nor I really liked the idea of dealing with washing poop. In fact, though I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit it, when we’ve had poop blow-outs and had to use washcloths or towels to clean up, I’ve thrown the cloths away. I know that’s wasteful, but everything feels dirty, tainted, just not possible to get clean. The idea of poop floating in my washing machine totally grosses me out.

Hopefully, not everyone shares my wimpy poop sensibilities and the resources listed above will help you choose a much more environmentally friendly, inexpensive, healthier option for your child than we did.