Jackson at 3 1/2

Weight: 32 pounds
Height: 38"

My favorite J words/phrases:
Eww, Mika poot. (Eww, Mika pooped).
Fink um... (I think, um..)
How he uses f instead of s- fandals (sandals), foos (shoes), funglasses
Mika, fay... = Mika, say [insert word]
bofe eh fame = both the same
gickle/kickle = tickle
doe downdairs = go downstairs
Wook, Mom! = Look, Mom!
kiger = tiger
Mikas = Mika
tolater (because he thinks "later" is like "tomorrow, tonight, today")

Funny things he does:
-He "pays" to open the car door. (We keep loose change in the cupholders for the second-row seats. He takes a coin from it and puts it in a little compartment in the door every time he gets out.) When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "It's ok, just regular money, Mom."
-He says, "Goes this one?" when he is asking me if he's putting the shoe on the correct foot.
-He likes observing differences between boys/girls/men/women. I don't know if he meant to be a smart ass at the library, but the librarian helping us was OBVIOUSLY a man, and Jackson asks, "Mom, that a woman?" But of course he was loud enough for everyone within twenty feet to hear. I was half mortified and half trying not to bust out laughing in the guy's face.
-He loves to draw me and he does it all the time.

That circle is me (also notice my eyes and legs), the little arm-looking thing on the right side of the circle is poop coming out of my butt, and the lines to the right of the circle is the toilet.  I can't even type this without cracking up! 

Annoying things he does:
-He regressed to be all terrible two-ey again and it sucks. He was doing so well for a few months around the time he turned 3 and then...he stopped doing so well. It's so hard to get anything done around the house because he's always making Mika cry and come running to me because he hit her or stole her toys. I can't wait to get him in preschool so he can be around kids his own size and Mika can have a break.
-He is potty trained except for sleeping. He almost never has accidents during the day. We recently stopped doing pull-ups at night. I recently started doing twice as much laundry.
-He says "eh-eh" a lot like Mika. Two kids "eh-ehing" at me gets really annoying.

It is really interesting to watch him grow up and become more independent.
-He buckles himself into his car seat now.
-He doesn't need help getting dressed and undressed except for some snaps and buttons.
-He insists on picking out his outfits and sometimes like to match the colors I'm wearing.
-He puts on his own shoes almost every time.
-And the most annoying- he likes to walk around stores by himself.
-When he walks down stairs he likes to jump off the bottom step. Or when we're stepping off the curb he likes to jump off.
-He eats so well and hardly gets himself messy.
-He loves letters and numbers and is always spontaneously counting and saying the alphabet.
-He likes to steal phones and cameras and take pictures.

Most of his pictures are random body parts or blurry, but he got a good one of Mika.

He likes to take Mika's hand and lead her <3

He is a seasoned traveler and has been able to manage his own suitcase and back pack for the past year. I have lost count of how many planes he's been on.

Other things:
-He eats all. the. time. Why is he still so skinny?! It's so frustrating! He and Mika are like frikkin hobbits and they're both so thin! I guess they got those genes from the mail man ;)
-He sleeps for about 9 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap.
-He engages in dramatic play all the time with his trucks. He makes up all kinds of scenarios and "talks" for both sides for whatever he's imagining. Usually it's one truck hitting another truck. He tries to engage in make-believe play with Mika, but of course she's not developmentally there yet.
-My MIL is awesome and buys the kids nice clothes and books and stuff. He always asks, "Oma bought it?" now.
-He makes me so much more aware of things I do and say. I realize now how much I've been talking to myself because he'll ask me what I said and I'll say, "Nothing, I'm just talking to myself." So now sometimes when he talks and I ask him what he said, he says, "Nothing, just talking self."
-And if he's in the other room and it gets quiet (if you're not a parent, quiet = kids getting into trouble) and I ask him what he's doing, he says "nothing" really fast and guiltily.

Mika at 18 Months

Weight: 22.5 lbs
Length: 30.5"
Teeth: 12
Favorite book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Favorite Song: ABCs

She has about 35 words, I have 33 listed here and I feel like I'm missing a few:

• uh-oh
• Mama
• Dada
• Yaya
• Oma
• Opa
• ba (bird)
• abbi (water)
• uh-uh (yes and no)
• gob gah (thank you)
• ga-gie (doggy)
• bye-bye
• hi
• ba-da-da-da (belly button)
• ba-ba-ba (peek-a-boo)
• help
• hat
• Hi Didi (Hello Kitty)
• up
• Jackson (she babbles the same sound for his name every time but I don't know how to type it out)
• gock (sock)
• boap (soap)
• guck (truck)
• puh (please)
• yay
• beep
• boop (boot)
• this
• amen
• bup (poop)
• guck (duck)
• gock (milk)
• baby
• She speaks in two-word sentences, usually addressing us and asking for help or saying hi.
• She mostly says "eh-eh" to communicate.
• She is very polite and almost always says "please" and "thank you."

• She loves to "sing" the ABCs and yell "YAY" and throw her hands up at the end of the song. Sometimes she sings herself to sleep.
• She is very particular about which shoes she wears and always wants to pick them out.
• She LOVES her Hello Kitty clothes and shoes. When I ask her which shoes she wants to wear or which pants she wants to wear, the answer is always "Hi Didi."
• She loves trying on my shoes and purses.
• She loves to blow kisses.
• She "sings" and does the hand motions to "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and "The Wheels on the Bus." She likes to sing along in church. She loves to dance and kind of booty dances.
• She is ready for potty training. She takes off her diaper when she pees and sometimes she'll pee in the potty. She also tells me "bup" when she poops. Not excited for potty training round 2.
• She likes using Mega Bloks. 
• She can stack 4 regular blocks.

She thinks she can do anything J can do.

• Sometimes before she goes to bed she pretends to eat food out of my hand. I lay next to her on the floor and she'll open my hand and pretend to grab food off of it and put it in her mouth and chew. She also likes to hold stuff on top of her head and pretend it's a hat.
• She loves "This Little Piggy" and will shove her foot back in my face for me to do it over and over again. She attempts to do it to my toes and J's toes.
• She puts random stuff on her head and says "hat."
• She thinks she is hilarious because she always takes off her left shoe in the car and then I act like it's funny every time I go to get her out of her car seat and I have to put her shoe back on.
• She likes turning pages in books but she almost always holds them upside down. She likes picking out books to read for naptime and bedtime.
• She LOVES babies and gets really excited when she sees them.
• She "helps" me do the buckles on her car seat.

How to Travel on Planes with Small Children

This post is for my poor husband who has to take both kids on planes by himself to see family this weekend. Meanwhile, I'm going to be flying to Auburn for a GLORIOUS child-free weekend :D

Anywho, I've flown quite a bit with the kids so I wanted to write him/anyone interested a blog post with tips and tricks on traveling with hellions.

A week or two prior to trip:

• Think about the logistics of the kids and your stuff. Think about what luggage you can handle, if you need a baby carrier, if you need a stroller, what luggage your children are able to handle on their own, what car seats you have to bring, if you want a car seat travel cover, etc. Sit down and actually picture yourself every step of the way. Will you have to park far away and ride a bus from the parking lot to the airport? Can you handle getting the children and belongings on and off buses? To the check-in counter? Do you need to pare down the amount of stuff you want to bring? Should you arrange to have a car seat at your destination? Which is easier, rolling luggage or a duffle bag? 
• Doing this a week or two in advance gives you enough time to shop in stores or online for items you need.
• If you are travelling alone with an active one-year-old and you are not buying him/her a seat, I would highly recommend spending a little extra on premium coach seats with extra legroom, especially if it's a long flight. Your child will need space to stand and move around. 

Two days before:

• Do laundry and pack. A good rule of thumb for me is two outfits per child per day. It really helps to check the baggage with clothes and only have a diaper bag. Have at least one outfit per child in the diaper bag, plenty of wipes, and two diapers per hour (so that you have plenty in case there are delays). Don't forget all the food and bottle stuff. You can bring as much formula and baby food as you want. You can even bring full water bottles and just tell them it's for the baby bottles. (I have used this excuse to bring water even when I didn't have bottles.) TSA will test everything without breaking any seals. 
• Make a list of stuff you absolutely can't replace, such as passports or vaccination records if the airline requests those for the kids, your glasses or contacts, your cell phone, your driver's license, etc. 
• Buy snacks for the kids. Salty snacks will make them salivate more and therefore make them swallow more, this is important for helping them pop their ears. 
• If you haven't flown in a while you might want to check your airline's website to brush up on the luggage fees, liquid policies, baby food and formula policies, etc.

Day of:

• Gather all your stuff and mentally walk through every step you have to take again. You can actually get out the stroller/baby carrier/leash, luggage, and kids and actually try to navigate around the house or driveway, just to make sure you can handle everything.
• Plan on getting to the airport at least 90 minutes early so you have enough time to go through security and use the bathroom before getting on the plane.
• Don't give your kids anything to eat less than three hours before take-off because you want them to be hungry so they'll eat and pop their ears during the ascent.
• Load up the car and don't forget to check your list.
• If you have to ride a bus from the parking lot to the airport, the bus driver will probably help load your stuff if you load your kids. If they don't, just put your kids on the bus and then load your baggage. Don't forget to write down where you parked.
• You can check car seats either when you check your luggage or at the gate. Car seats are checked free on every airline.
• Line up in the security line. Feel the glares burning into the back of your head and the silent groans from everyone behind you. You can look and see if they have a special family lane for people with baby food and bottle stuff. Kids younger than 12 (I think) don't have to take off their shoes. It helps to keep your bag of liquids in an accessible part of your luggage where you can just whip it out and stuff it right back in. You should have your quart-size bag for regular liquids and a separate bag for baby food/formula. As soon as you start putting your stuff on the belt notify a TSA agent if you have baby food to check because this takes a couple minutes and you want them checking it immediately so you can get out of there. If you have a little baby in a car seat, set the car seat on the ground and put the stroller on the belt. Then get out the baby and flip the car seat upside down onto the belt. If you can't handle this by yourself, just handle your kids and a TSA agent will come put the stroller and car seat on the belt for you. It also helps to wear shoes that slip on and off with zero hassle. 
• Locate your gate. If you have time, I would highly recommend finding the nearest bathroom and using it. It is infinitely cleaner than the bathroom on the plane. Do a last diaper check. If you baby/toddler can stand well, I would highly recommend learning how to do a "standing diaper change." This will come in handy if there is a line for the changing table and you don't have time to wait. It might also come in handy on the plane.
• The best part of flying is breezing past the first-class passengers as you preboard. The flight attendants will give you plenty of help getting settled. Remember that they are not supposed to lift luggage into the overhead bins, so if your baby isn't a sitter yet you will have to either hold the baby while also putting luggage in the bin or give the baby to a flight attendant. I usually get out my wipe case, a few diapers, and the food and put it in the seat back pocket for easy access. 
• Don't get out anything to eat or drink until the second the wheels leave the ground. This might be the most important tip in this post. Once I thought we were about to take off, so I started giving Jackson his bottle. Well...we didn't take off. We were just moving up a space in line for take-off. By the time it was our turn, J had sucked down the whole bottle. I had nothing else for him to eat for his ears. It was bad. So learn from my mistake. Now, as soon as the wheels leave the ground, get out the food, but think about landing. If it's a short flight (30ish minutes), cut off the food while they're still hungry so that they'll eat again on the descent. Remember that a little hunger is not nearly as painful as a nasty headache that they can get from not properly clearing their ears, so don't get yourself worked up about how little food they are eating today.
• Don't order any drink except water. The kids will spill it everywhere. 
• I really hope you have a tablet loaded up with movies or something. If you have a toddler and you are a germaphobe, please just let it go for the flight. Your kid will be probably be rolling around the floor at some point. Deal with it. They are not physically able to sit still like you can, so don't yell at them to stay in their seat. 
• If you have to change a diaper on a plane, good luck. Your plane probably doesn't have a diaper changer. You have a few options if it doesn't: (1) ask for a blanket and put it down on the toilet seat lid, (2) do a standing diaper change on the toilet seat lid, (3) do the diaper change on the kid's seat, or (4) change the diaper on your lap with the kid either sitting or standing. Please don't change the diaper on the tray because (1) that is disgusting, people eat food off of that and (2) the trays are not made to hold the weight of babies and can break with your baby on it. This is the one time I would say to just let your kid wallow in a pee diaper if you want. If your kid poops and there is no diaper changer...good luck. If the plane is about to start the descent, just wait until you land and can change them in the airport. 
• If you have a tiny baby, he/she will probably have the most horrific blowout on the plane. I would HIGHLY suggest purchasing some type of diaper blowout blocker if you have a little baby. Older infants and toddlers probably won't have blowouts.
• If you have to use the bathroom, have the flight attendants watch your kids. 
• When the plane starts the descent, break out the snacks again. 
• If you have a long layover, it might be worth it to buy passes for the first-class lounge. You can usually find them on Ebay for half of what the airline charges. Usually children under 2 are free. You will find food, drinks, comfortable chairs, and clean bathrooms. However, if you child is being really disruptive you may be asked to leave.

Delta Skyclub was an absolute LIFESAVER on our seven-hour layover in Japan

Pro tip- How to keep track of small children:
Stroller
Baby carrier
Leash
Squeaky shoes
Tying a string of jingle bells around the ankles

Another tip- I have found that many people would love nothing more than to help out a struggling parent. If you need help, ask for it. Especially older women who look like grandmothers.

Mika at 15/16 Months

21.5 pounds
29.5" long
Sizes: 18 month/2T, shoe size 4
Still only 6 teeth
Words: Uh-oh, Mama, Dada, Yaya, ba (bird), ahh bi (now she uses it for "water"), uh-uh (she uses for yes and no), gob gah (thank you), ga-gie (doggy), bye-bye, she attempts to say a lot more. HOLY CRAP is it nice to not be stressing out about speech like I did with Jackson.

-Still nursing, don't really have any plans on weaning yet.
-Her hair goes halfway down her back and I have no plans on cutting it.
-She loves to try to put on pants. She sticks one of her legs through a hole, stands up and holds up the pants/shorts, and walks around like that. She gets mad when I put pants on her because she wants to do it herself.

-She knows to sit down so I can take off her shoes when we come in the house.
-She can do the big kid swings at the park, but we only put her on those when we go to the elementary school park (no baby swings there).
-She kisses me all the time! I love it! Although she is pretty clever and usually does this to procrastinate taking her nap.
-She loves finding her bellybutton when we ask where it is.
-She loves putting on Jackson's shoes and shuffling around the house in them.
-She "sings" all the time in babyspeak.
-When we ask her to find her nose, she puts her hand on it and snorts like a pig.

snort snort

-She loves shoes and purses and is basically turning into a little diva. Jackson likes to pick out her clothes and diapers and gets really upset when I don't let him.
-No plans on potty training any time soon.
-She drinks really well from regular cups, she's never used a sippy cup. She can also drink from stemware.

Mika at 13 & 14 Months

13 Months:

still has 4 teeth
She has four words: uh-oh, Mama, Dada, apple (aba)
I don't know how many words she understands, but I think she's starting to understand a lot of it.

future LPGA champ

She is obsessed with the stairs and always trying to go up or down.
She looooves her dolls.
She loves climbing in the Jeep powerwheels thing my housesitter has.
Her favorite book is "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and will crawl super fast to get it when I ask the kids what they want to read for bedtime.
She loves birds and will "EH!" and point at birds on walks.
She is still nursing.
She can walk halfway across a room, still mostly a crawler.

Driving and talking on the phone...tisk tisk

14 Months:
Now has 6 teeth
more words: rabbit (ahh Bi!), YaYa (one of our housesitters)
Not many words, but I can tell that she understands most of what I say to her.
100% walker!
Still nursing, but she gets cow's milk during meals. I buy the kids Shatto Farms, which isn't organic, but it is hormone free, pastured, local, and bottled in glass bottles. It is also $7 a gallon which is hard for me to stomach, but I still think it's worth it.
She will eat almost anything except eggs.

She knows to put her hands together when we say we're going to pray.
If I open the door she will toddle over to get her shoes and then sit on the bottom step and wait for me to put them on. She sticks out her feet to "help." She also likes putting shoes on her feet herself (bigger shoes, like mine or Jackson's).
She's very opinionated and never fails to let me know if I'm doing something wrong by screaming her head off.
She nods "yes" for stuff.
She loves to get into cabinets, play with Jackson's potty, and pee on the floor and play in her pee. Fun times.
She loves to go to playgrounds and do the swings and slides. She loves going really fast on the swings.
She is a little tattletale and will immediately start whining and come running to me the second Jackson touches something she's holding.

Walking to the park!

Jackson at 3 Years

Weight:  30.5 lbs
Height: 37"
Shoe size: 9
Shirt size: 3T/4T
Pants size: 2T/3T

He had his three-year appointment today. When his pediatrician said he is in the 45-50th percentiles for both height and weight I broke down crying because I've been waiting so long for the day he wasn't behind.

His vocabulary has exploded the past six months, and I can't even give a good ballpark on how many words he knows. I wish I hadn't stressed so much about his language skills. He parrots everything we say and consistently uses 3-6 word sentences.

My favorite words:
yes = wes
milk = mok
sister = sssss
ok = otay/ oday
Santa pj's = Fanta pieces
truck = guck
doughnut = dont
chicken = chichin
tablet= tabet
Wreck It Ralph = Meck Ick Walph
Cars/Lightning McQueen = Vroom
TV = TVV
eat = E eat
oatmeal = umpmeal
animal crackers = oatmeal cutters

last day of being 2

He counts 1-20 but skips 13-17. He started singing! It melts my heart. He loves singing his alphabet, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Happy Birthday." He sings "Happy Birthday" like this: "HAP pay...to whew....HAP pay...to whew...HAP pay...uhh Mika...HAP pay...to whew." He sings the end of the alphabet song like this: "T, V, V, Double, X, Y, Z. Now Iiiii...(high pitched) ABC!...next time...ME!" But I think it's the cutest, especially since I've had to wait so long for him to start singing.

We are encouraging him to "read" books. He has memorized a few simple board books and can "read" those, but we're trying to point out words and spell some of them now. Not because we expect him to start actually reading, we just want him to start understanding that words exist. He has partially memorized some of his books, like "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and "Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site" and can recite the words as we read.

Potty training is going really well, especially considering we had to move twice and go revert back to diapers for a two-week vacation while he was two. He wants to pee in the potty so he can be a big "peeschool boy" (preschool boy). He usually has an accident every day, but sometimes he can go a whole day without one. He still wears pull-ups at night. He likes to flush the toilet and wave bye-bye to what's being flushed. He will also pretend to flush his potty.

His favorite toys are still trucks, but he loves doing puzzles and other things as well. He can do twelve- and twenty-four-piece puzzles on his own. He can do matching games and stringing beads. Lacing cards are still hard for him.

Other randoms:
We taught him to say, "WHAAAT? OH DAY" like that Lil' Jon song.
He knows how to use the PS3 for Netflix, he knows how to use the tablet to play games and watch Netflix and Youtube, and he knows how to use our phones. He also knows how to click the little rectangle for "Skip Ad" on the Youtube videos on the computer and tablet. He loves to take pictures on my phone. It's kind of annoying but kind of funny to pick up my phone and see twenty pics of his fingers/the floor.
He doesn't have a "lovey," but he likes to go to bed with a car or truck.
I want to say something about the terrible twos, but I don't want to jinx it.
He does the "big boy swing" at the park and screams at me to go "be be be be fast" (very very very very fast).

He took this duckface selfie when I was alseep. Just about died when I found it.

Mika at 11 and 12 Months

11 Months:

She can turn pages in her board books. I can tell she is starting to remember books because she'll laugh when I pick up "The Belly Button Book" by Sandra Boynton.
She can stand for up to a minute. She can cruise.
I think she's trying to talk, but she doesn't have any real words yet. I can tell that she tries to say "Jackson" and "Dad," but she can't actually say the words.
Ok, she really is saying "Dad," but I'm trying to pretend she's not because I want her to say "Mom" first.
Her two bottom teeth came in! She started drinking out of a cup. I give her two ounces of formula with each meal for a little supplementation.
She still takes a two-hour morning nap and a two-hour afternoon nap, just like Jackson used to. I finally got Jackson to be quiet in the morning by bribing him with apple juice. (We only give him milk and water, so juice is a special treat if he's good and he almost never gets soft drinks.)
She loves playing baby games and singing. Her favorites are "If You're Happy and You Know It" which she can clap to and "The Wheels on the Bus." She plays a game with Paul where they both look at each other and then look away, repeat. It's so cute. She'll wake up in the morning and see him and immediately start shaking her head. She also thinks it's funny to pinch us.
She waves hello and goodbye on command.

Not ready for her to look like a big girl!

1 Year!

Weight: 19.5 lbs
Height: 28.5"

She can stand up without furniture and take steps!
Still has two teeth.
Her hair is so long that it goes half-way down her back when straight.
She can stack two blocks and other objects. Also likes putting things in containers and taking them out.
She can correctly identify objects if I tell her what two things are and then ask where one of them is (she'll pick it up and hand it to me).
She has started to use objects the way they're supposed to be used instead of just mouthing them and banging them around. She rolls Jackson's cars along the floor as she crawls. She flips through books and pretends to read. She holds phones to her ear. She brushes her hair. She pretends to drink from a cup.
She is showing an understanding of causality- when her elephant stops playing music she hands me the elephant to start the music again.
She shakes her head for "no."
She is assertive when I do something she doesn't like and will have a short tantrum.
She follows more directions than the simple, "Wave bye-bye" and such that she's been doing for several weeks. She will point to people if I tell her to and hand me things she's holding that she shouldn't be playing with.
Fun fact: Mika had moved twice and been on twenty-four planes before she turned one.

a few minutes after turning one

The day before her birthday was so hard for me because I'm not ready for her to grow up and I didn't want to let go of Baby Mika. And while Toddler Mika is amazing, I'm still having a hard time accepting that her infancy is over. 

eating breakfast the day before her birthday

Mika at 10 Months

Mika is still about 18 pounds and 27 inches. Her pediatrician told me not to worry because she's a breastfed baby and they tend to not gain much weight after they learn how to crawl. Or in his words, "It doesn't exactly look like she's missing any meals."

yup.

Mika loves eating and will eat anything I give her except eggs. She has a great appetite and I never have to try to cajole her into eating more.
She has started using spoons and forks and is pretty successful at getting them in her mouth and sucking the food off.
She is really good at the pincer grasp now.
She can also drink out of a cup if I hold it for her.
Still no teeth, but the pediatrician told me he doesn't start to worry about that until 15 months

mmm...yummy steering wheel

Mika knows some things that are no-no's, like playing with shoes and crawling into the kitchen and bathrooms. If I catch her doing something she's not supposed to, she stops for a second and looks at me and laughs.
She shouts, "AH!" to initiate social interaction.
She imitates some actions we do, such as coughing.
She can turn pages in her board books. She will do that when she's "reading" alone and she'll also follow directions when told to turn pages while we read to her.
She loves music, and she'll bounce up and down to the beat so hard that sometimes she'll fall over.
She has stranger anxiety, but she also doesn't need me next to her every second like Jackson did. Sometimes she'll just crawl away into other rooms without me or Jackson and play by herself.

modeling in my old pj's

Mika can wave.
She pulls up and sits down so easily now.
She loves bath time and tries to eat the washcloth when I clean her face.

waving skillz

She is still very easy and fun. My life would be a piece of cake right now if I didn't have a two-year-old terror running around the house :)

Valentine's Day <3

The Travesty of Childbirth in America

I'm sure everyone heard the news story about the Manhattan mom, Polly McCourt, who gave birth on a sidewalk a week ago. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but that story has been bothering me so much and I just need to do (another) blog post rant. I'm sure most people who read the story thought the woman who stole the taxi was a ***** and/or that it was wonderful that the baby and mother did so well concerning the circumstances of the birth. But my reaction was disgust of what the culture of fear surrounding childbirth has done to her and other women. People can talk crap about my homebirth or homebirthing in general, but wouldn't it have been better for Mrs. McCourt to have her baby in the comfort of her own home instead of on a sidewalk in thirty-degree weather? Wouldn't it have been better for the baby born in the car in the Atlanta snowstorm to have been born at home?

I have nothing against women who want to or need to birth in hospitals, obviously it's their choice, and I had Jackson in a hospital so I'm not casting stones here. But what if women in America weren't brainwashed with this culture of subordinating women to the knowledge of the Hospital Gods instead of being embraced in a culture of knowledge and empowerment? From the moment we are born in a hospital, we are being brainwashed that it is the ONLY way to have a child. We are taken as children to visit siblings, relatives, or friends in the hospital. We watch medical emergency shows that feature frantic parents accidentally birthing at home begging 911 operators for help. We watch movies that show everyone in the house going into a panic the second the first contraction hits. We read news stories about women preferring to risk birthing their children in cars on the side of the road instead of just birthing at home and calling an ambulance. We watch shows about birth on TV that only feature hospital births. We make sure we sign up for the hospital tour so we know where to rush the second we go into labor. The culture of fear has made childbirth seem so complex and dangerous, when actually a low-risk pregnancy and birth is very simple.

"Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, thought control, or thought reform) refers to an indoctrination process which results in "an impairment of autonomy, an inability to think independently, and a disruption of beliefs and affiliations. In this context, brainwashing refers to the involuntary reeducation of basic beliefs and values"^[1] The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making."  
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control 
(Don't act like Wikipedia isn't a good source for information when you used it to write every paper in college.)


Those women who gave birth outside the home and hospital, and indeed most women in this country, do not have an ability to think independently and be autonomous during birth. We have been indoctrinated to get to the hospital at all costs, even if it means your child may be born in freezing weather or your whole family could be stuck in a car in a snowstorm with possibly no food, heat, or help. We need to get to the hospital because we are not competent enough to birth our child. We need the Hospital Gods to do everything for us and just hand us our neatly wrapped bundle of joy.

Maybe if we all decided to start to understand how we are being brainwashed and seek more knowledge about childbirth, then we wouldn't have to panic if we knew we should probably stay home because we can't get to the hospital in time. Maybe we would know that there is usually no need for panic or interventions in low-risk pregnancies, and that all we need to do is make sure the mother and baby are warm, fed, make sure mother isn't hemorrhaging, and make sure baby is responsive. Maybe we would know the baby won't spontaneously combust if we can't find that shoestring RIGHT NOW to cut the umbilical cord. Maybe we could want to birth with assistance, yet birth without fear when none is available.

Our Application for "Extreme Cheapskates"

I was wondering if we were cheap enough to be considered for the show...so I wrote out our application and it was 1.5 pages long, single spaced. I figured we have a good chance of being considered.

Here it is!

How we save money with children:

I have a two-year-old son and a nine-month-old daughter. I use cloth diapers and cloth wipes. I also had a home birth with my second child because it’s so much cheaper than a hospital birth. (I also tried a home birth with my first but ended up going to the hospital.) I breastfeed. I buy their clothes from the thrift store, but sometimes I find clothes cheap enough on clearance racks in real stores to buy. I also buy all of their books and most of their toys from thrift stores. I bought my son $15 worth of toys from Craigslist for his first birthday and that’s all he got from us. I found a name train toy that spelled “Alan” for $3 and I bought it for my son, even though his name is Jackson. He’s two, he doesn’t know! We potty trained our son by bribing him with mints. Any time we ate out and there was a bowl of mints at the restaurant, my husband and I would each take huge handfuls of mints and put them in our pockets so we didn’t have to buy them at the store.

How we save money around the house:

I hate spending money on paper products so I use cloth wipes instead of paper towels. I make my own cleaning solutions. I wash and reuse Ziploc bags. We try to make all of our food from scratch, even salad dressings. If there is leftover food we save it for our next pot roast. Even the juices at the bottom of the crock pot get frozen and saved for next time! We only drink water from the tap and our son gets milk. If we have any other drink in our house it’s because someone gave it to us. If we need furniture we look for used first before we go to Ikea or Walmart. I have dumpster dived for furniture before. My husband vomited on our mattress and we didn’t replace it because we didn’t want to spend the money. I haven’t been to a hair salon in three years, I just have my husband cut my hair. I always get so many compliments on my long hair. It's only long because I'm too cheap to cut it! I didn’t even get my hair done for my wedding, I just tied it up in a ponytail and put the veil over it.

How we save money on entertainment:

We like to do free things, like go on walks (with our kids in the jogging stroller we bought on Craigslist) or go to the library. We do go out to eat once in a while, but we stick to our budget. Once we walked out of a restaurant after we had been seated and served drinks (water, of course) because the prices were too high. If people want us to eat out with them, we make them wait while we scrounge around in our coupon book for a good enough deal. Once we wanted bagels from Einstein’s but had already spent all of our food money. So we searched all around the house until we found enough change to go buy the bagels. If we go to a restaurant and my son is given crayons and paper, we will take the crayons home so we don’t have to pay for more. We took our son to Disneyland. And by “took our son to Disneyland,” I mean we took him to Downtown Disney and not into the actual park because we didn’t want to pay admission. We also parked two miles away so we wouldn’t have to pay for parking. And, needless to say, we didn’t spend a dime in Downtown Disney. I don’t go out to bars or clubs as often as I used to before kids, but when I do, I fill up a water bottle with vodka and put it in my purse. I order regular sodas at the bar and then go to the bathroom to mix in my alcohol.

Transportation:

We have a 15-year-old Toyota Corolla with a big rusty dent in the side worth less than $2000 and a 13-year-old Toyota Sequoia that is worth about $5000. We love these cars and have no plans on replacing them until they totally die. Which isn’t unusual for some people, but my husband is an engineer with a great salary and could go buy a car in cash if he wanted to. The Corolla has some kind of issue where if it sits too long in cold weather without running, the battery will completely drain. My husband wants to get it fixed. I said no, and I make him take the battery to Auto Zone to get charged every time the car dies. Our son also scribbled all over the back bumper of the Sequoia with a Sharpie and we are not buying anything to fix it because we don’t care enough to spend money on a cleaner to scrub it with. We lived in LA for six months, and we used the third row seats of our Sequoia as a couch for the first few months until we caved and bought a $189 futon from Walmart. The futon has since broken twice, and each time my husband has found a way to screw the parts back together. If it breaks for good, we are going to use our Sequoia seats as a couch again.

Mika at 9 Months

• She weighs 18 pounds and measures 27.5 inches.
• I was giving her purees, and she loved them at first. After a few weeks she started hating being spoon fed, so now I just put her food on her tray. She loves food and yells at me if I'm eating and she doesn't have food. She takes for.ev.er to eat. She spends about an hour eating teeny tiny bits at a time. She loves to throw food over the edge of the tray and watch it fall on the floor. She also can eat out of those puree pouches. She can do the pincer grasp well enough to pick up Cheerios.

• She can smoothly go from sitting to crawling to sitting. She used to just flop onto her stomach. She also does this sort of plank thing where she holds her weight on her hands and feet. She does "real" crawling now. She also started pulling up.

First day pulling up!

• She is a little troublemaker, always crawling where she's not supposed to (bathrooms) and taking wipes out of the case. She follows me around the house now, and sometimes she will follow Jackson around.
• We don't tie her hair up in the "waterspout" anymore, we just clip it to the side. Jackson likes to pick out her bows.

Every eight-month-old girl needs bows and furs...right?

(Not showing off, the fur vest was $7 from Babies R Us on clearance.)

• She loves playing games. She made one up where she pushes my face to the side and then I turn back and look at her. She does it over and over and thinks it's hilarious. And she thinks it's funny to crawl around the bed when she's supposed to be sleeping.
• She still loves to blow raspberries. She also loves to make zombie noises.
• She is a lot more interactive with Jackson and can sort of play with him. 

  Mika pooping by an open fire...Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

5 Reasons Why Northerners Aren't Being Assholes About This Storm

I have an interesting Facebook newsfeed going on right now, most of it horrifying, a little of it funny. I've also enjoyed (sarcasm) several blog posts centered around how anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line is an asshole for making fun of people caught in the snowstorm because they just don't understand what it's like.

I have experienced twenty-two Alabama winters, three Kansas winters, and I'm currently experiencing a Colorado winter. So I think I can fairly write this blog post about how I'm not an asshole for rolling my eyes about certain things Alabamians are saying about this snowstorm. So here are five things I'm tired of hearing:

1. Northerners think everything about the snowstorm is so funny, so they're all assholes.
I'm not an asshole. There's a difference between smirking at this meme

and thinking it's actually funny that people have died, thousands of scared children are separated from their families, and that people can't get medical care, drugs, and food they need. That is disgusting to put those words in our mouths and to say we are that callous. Just because Joe Shmo from Maine commented on a post that he drove his Subaru through ten feet of snow doesn't mean the other millions of us think we're superior to you and that what you're going through is funny. Most of us think what everyone is going through down there is awful.

2. You can't afford the infrastructure costs of snow and ice control.
This is hard for me to believe when I'm constantly bombarded with Facebook pictures of vacations, restaurant meals, designer handbags and jewelry, new cars, Starbucks, hundreds spent on Christmas presents, iPhones, iPads, and other luxury expenditures. Really, people?
Yes, snow and ice control costs a lot of money. It costs a few hundred thousand up to millions of dollars a year, depending on how many miles of road and how many times they need to be serviced. Equipment and materials have to be purchased and stored, people have to be trained, etc. However, it doesn't snow enough down there to need plowing, just salt brine pre-treating and salting during snow (not needing plowing cuts a lot of cost). I tried to research how much it would cost per person in each metro and it came out to $1-$5 a year. You can't afford for your taxes to be raised a dollar or two?

3. You don't get bad weather often enough to need snow and ice control infrastructure.
I seem to remember being out of school due to icy conditions maaaany times growing up. I remember my dad lecturing me about the black ice on the road and not letting me drive when it was dangerous. I remember it snowing in college. I've heard about icy road conditions every year I've been gone from Alabama.

4. You are STILL defending the fact that you don't need salt trucks.
I'm sorry, what was the death toll again? How many thousands of children are stuck in the schools? Carrying these infrastructure costs is insurance that this doesn't have to happen again.

5. "The one inch of snow hit us so fast that salt trucks wouldn't have been out in time."
No, the fact that you don't have snow and ice control hit you so fast. When it snows in a city that has snowplows and salt trucks mass chaos doesn't ensue because people know they will be able to drive on the roads. Pre-treating roads with salt brine is a cost-effective measure that can be done in advance of snow.


What makes Northerners roll their eyes (or just me) is that Alabama can be prepared for this, it just refuses to do anything about it, year after year. It's better to let people die than buy some salt trucks, right?

Mika at 8 Months

This post is so late because I went on two trips and then got sick the day after I got back, so just writing about her up until she turned 8 months. 

• My highly unreliable scale says she is 18 pounds. She measures 27 inches long. 
• She sleeps about 11 hours at night, 1 hour in the morning, and 2 hours in the afternoon.
• She started army crawling! 
• She says "Dada" all the time, but it's just babbling, not her first word.
• However, she knows who different family members are because I'll say, "Where's Jackson/Daddy/etc?" and she'll look for them and then smile when she sees them.
• She dances (bounces up and down) whenever music comes on or she's really happy. 
• She tries to pull up, but can only get herself on her knees.
• She "helps" me dress her by sticking her arms through the clothes.

Seem to remember Jackson posing like this too :)

Next in line to see Santa!

Teaching her how to shop at Neiman Marcus ;)

(And how does a Burke shop at Neiman Marcus? We ate free candy samples and then spent $16 on candy for my family for Christmas. The clearance purses were all over $1000, so no real shopping for me.)

She was so happy about getting a tiger for Christmas that she started dancing! 

Wish I had caught a video of it!