Yesterday

 At 8.30 AM, we kicked things off by breaking the lid to the butter dish.  Butter is a theme in Nathan's life, so he did the honors. 

Shortly after, I shut the oven and the outer part of the oven door fell right off onto the floor. I kid you not.

Then I changed two poopy diapers.  Breakfast happened at some point. And it wasn't very healthy.

And then my favorite hair clip broke.  And the guard gate.

Thankfully by that time it was time for lunch and then naps, so the crazy level went down considerably.  :)  

And stayed mostly down for the rest of the day.  

Micah got home earlier than usual, fixed the oven door, then blessed me and made dinner (!) and then hung out with Nathan so I could do some writing.  Very relaxing, especially since it challenges me in a very different way than broken butter dishes do! :)

Some Favorite Children's Books

 Scuffy the Tugboat and His Adventures Down the River

I LOVE Scuffy. It has been one of my favorite read aloud books for many, many years... our copy is one I gave to one of my brothers many Christmases ago, and he passed it on to our little ones so it could give more enjoyment.  I love the storyline -  Scuffy is discontent where he is, so he sails off to find adventure, and then realizes that he really does need the man with the polka dot tie and his son, and wishes that he were back with them... and just as he is entering the ocean, which has no beginning or end, the man and his son scoop him up and he is safe again.

 

                                  One of our board book favorites is Barnyard Dance!  It was a gift to Nathan when he was born, and we've loved it ever since. It has a fun rhythm and shows all the different farm animals dancing.  It has a lot of "moo" and other animal noises, which makes it a toddler favorite, and the fun pictures also make it a good book to entertain the baby during church.

 "Bounce with the bunny.  Strut with the duck.  Spin with the chickens now- CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK!"


We also have another board book by Sandra Boynton called The Going-To-Bed Book- it is fun and is our current diaper bag book, for distracting and calming a wiggly little one in church or elsewhere. :)


It has a really fun cadence to it as well...

"And down once more, but not so fast, they're on their way to bed at last.
The day is done.  They say good night, and somebody turns off the light."


And of course, we love the classic kid books...
- Green Eggs and Ham,  Bears On Wheels, Make Way for Ducklings, The Little Engine That Could, Corduroy



As you can see, we're bookworms, and it seems to be passing on to the next generation!  I think we better get some more bookcases soon, because these are all  full already...  are any of these your favorite stories too?  Have any others we should put on our library/wish list? :)

(contains affiliate links, FYI)

Wednesday reading...

I haven't really written at all about tandem nursing, but it has been a huge part of my experience mothering two, so I'm glad to be working on getting some of that down on paper this week.

So today, giant mug of tea and peanut butter toast by my side, I'm reading, skimming through looking for good quotes, and trying to pull all my thoughts and experiences together into one coherent stream. Kind of like trying to braid tangled hair at this point, but I'm slowly detangling one thought at a time.  I think it has been too long since I could whip out a good paper in an afternoon and late night back in high school...plus of course at that point I could go into a room and lock the door and have no distractions.  I have two cute ones now!  Yesterday I was curled up with the above books and Nathan brought me a book of nursery rhymes.  :)  After we read that we read Bears on Wheels, and then he was satisfied and ran off to play, and I got back to it... and I should get back to it now, since they're both playing happily at the moment!

Embedded Comments issue...

For some reason, I can't comment on any blogger site that has embedded comments!  I did a few Swagbucks searches, and it seems like I'm not the only one having this problem.  I can comment on blogs that have their comments set to pop up, or to full page (which is what I have), but not embedded.  Hmmmm... : /
Anybody else have this issue?

Comment Form Placement

Full page
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Embedded below post

The embedded comment form can not be used if you have Post Pages disabled.

Some Favorite Birth Books

• The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, by Henci Goer

I love how Henci Goer looks at specific interventions, specific research, specific risks... and gives you information to help you decide whether you're willing to consent to having your water broken during labor, for example.  During my pregnancy with Nathan, I read most of the book, but I read and reread the section on breech birth... the risks, the pros and cons of a vaginal delivery vs. a c-section, and the importance of an experienced care provider.  It really helped as we pondered our options.  I knew that I didn't want a c-section, and her helpful comparison of the risks showed that with an experienced care provider scheduling a c-section wasn't mandatory at all.  Thankfully he did turn before birth so we did not end up having to change our birth plans (our wonderful midwife wasn't comfortable doing a planned breech homebirth, although she encouraged a vaginal breech delivery if that was what we wanted), and he was born, head down, at home.

• Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

The person who loaned me this book (I have my own copy now, since I liked it) felt the need to give the same caveat I'm about to give- some of these birth stories are a tad odd.  You may not (I certainly didn't!) plan to give birth in a camper trailer with your children, spouse, and multiple midwives present.  You may not look at birth as an opportunity to bond with a bunch of other women over the shared experience of childbirth.  However.  I found it very encouraging and helpful to read the many different birth stories in this book, which all affirm that women are meant to do this.  Our bodies were in fact designed to give birth, and when allowed to do that in their own timing they usually do a very good job.  I also found it helpful to read them because it reinforces that labor is not the same for every woman.  It was especially helpful to me as I prepared for my first labor to read a variety of birth stories and know that there were lots of different labor patterns that were all within the range of a normal, healthy labor.

• Emergency Childbirth 

Written for police officers, firefighters, and others who might be called on to assist a woman giving birth, this book has very clear, simple directions on what to do and what not to do to assist the birth process.  I liked having this book around especially before our first, in case for some reason the midwife wasn't able to make it in time.

• and not a birth book but on birth and I watched it recently...  I enjoyed it and found it very interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.  Much of it isn't really very husband friendly, in my opinion, due to some of the footage of women laboring and birthing, however.
  
• The Business of Being Born
  
• and not a birth book, but I love it and it is on a related topic...  
• The Nursing Mother's Companion (Kathleen Huggins, R.N.)

  
FYI: I'm an Amazon affiliate now, so all these links are affiliate links.  I had been meaning to work on updating the book list on my sidebar and adding links to it anyway and decided to go through it and categorize them and post them in separate posts that I can link to from the sidebar.

What are your favorite birth books? :)

Edited to add... I ran across this today and thought I'd add this in here since it is about labor:

"Since the evidence shows no benefits or harms, there is no
justification for the restriction of fluids and food in labour for
women at low risk of complications. No studies looked specifically at
women at increased risk of complications, hence there is no evidence to
support restrictions in this group of women."

Nice!  With a 25 hour labor with Nathan, I can't imagine having to push at the end without having eaten in 25 hours.  I'm so glad I was encouraged to eat as I wanted, and stay hydrated.

Shiny New Button!

 Thanks to the help of my sweet husband, who rescued me when I was banging my head against the keyboard thoroughly puzzled as to why, why, why, the image wasn't showing (double quotation marks!), and fixed the code so the image wasn't waaaaaay bigger than my sidebar, I now have my very own shiny new blog button!  I must say, having a button of my own makes me feel very cool.  ;)  I said as much to my husband, and then we went and worked out and I felt like a very wimpy person, instead... but anyway...  here it is!  Feel free to snag it and put it up! :)





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Lewis quote

"He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself." C.S. Lewis

Some of my favorite Lewis books...

and...
... and I better just stop myself since I could go on!