Emma has new glasses

My daughter started wearing glasses at 8 months old. She has strabismus and a lazy eye. We went to pick glasses for her and we fell in love with the first pair of glasses she tried on. They were simple, small red round glasses. They fit her little face so well and she looked like a doll. Now, of course, she kept taking them off during her “adaptation” period. We constantly put them back on but it did happen (4 times in 4 months actually) that she broke part of the glasses. The glasses were super cute but the end of them curled behind her ears and it often broke (she pulled on them and the ends would detach).

So we got tired… we decided to get Bam’boo glasses. These are European glasses for kids. They have bigger lenses and they seem to fit better around the eye. They are also made of plastic and they are flexible which makes it very hard to break while bending, stretching or walking on them. They also have elastic (protected by plastic) behind them which goes around your baby’s head. It keeps them more straight (no falling off their nose) and if they try and remove them, it usually sticks around their necks and not fall on the floor. I prefer them much more and apparently do does Emma. Hopefully it motivates her to keep them on! 

No poo (no shampoo) method- I tried it

I have really long thick hair. The kind of hair that you wash about twice a week (definitely not every morning) and that takes 45 minutes to blow dry. They also happen to be heavy and wavy which doesn’t make it easy to find a right shampoo to use.

In my teenage years I used a lot of different shampoos. Back then my hair was straighter but thicker. I think I tried them all, ranging from Pantene, to Herbel Essence, to Dove or to whatever my sister used to buy really. My hair was nice, don’t get me wrong. It was shiny and nice looking but after 2 days my scalp was oily, I had an itchy scalp and the only way I’d solve this was by washing my hair again. So it would create a vicious cycle.

Then, I had my children and it became hard to wash my hair. I had two newborns, I still had extra-long hair, and I didn’t have time for a 30 minute washing and a 45 minute air drying. I reduced my hair washing by half. I’d wash my hair every Sunday and that was it. At first, it was disgusting. When I got to Friday I felt someone had spilled oil on my scalp. Then, after a month or two, I was good. I no longer felt that “oil feeling.” It still felt “clean” when I’d wash my hair.

Then, I read about the no poo method about 4 months ago. I thought to myself “if my hair and scalp was about to adapt from going from 2 washes a week to 1 wash a week, maybe I can just, stop using shampoo.” So I tried.

Here it the thing, at first, you have to wash it as much as possible with water, nothing else. Whenever you take a shower, just wash that hair. The first few times I did this, I felt like my hair was still wet although it wasn’t. You kind of feel like it’s not washed at all. That’s the time when you want to braid your hair or wear it tied up. Once a week I’d also wash my hair with raw honey (very important that it’s RAW) and water (1/3 honey for 2/3 water plus a few drops of essential oil- I used lavender). You pour the mixture into your scalp, no worried about the rest of your hair. What really needs to be washed is your scalp. I noticed that after washing it with honey it felt much cleaner.

So, to make this simple, here is what you need and my recipe:

What do you need?

•          An  empty bottle to mix liquids
•           Raw honey
•           Water
•           Essential oils (your choice)

How do you do it?

•          1/3 Raw honey
•          2/3 water
•         1-2 drops essential oils (as you prefer)
•          Mix all these ingredients in the bottle until the honey is dissolved.

After 3 months, my hair was back to “normal”. Normal being, shiny, nice, soft, healthy looking, not oily. Honestly, it looks awesome. I wouldn't switch back to shampoo for nothing in the world. It only makes your hair need more shampoo and really doesn't do anything for you.

Here are some positive/negative points that I find about using the no poo method.

Let’s start with the negatives:

•           It’s longer to prepare the honey/water mixture.
•      It takes a while before you get used to using the no poo method.

Now the positives:

•           Your hair uses natural oils that you produce to clean itself (no more chemicals)
•           Your hair looks amazing and very healthy
•           I don’t have any more split hair or slip tips…
•          My hair is much less wet when I’m done washing it. So it dries itself within an hour (yes yes!)
•          It’s not expensive and you can create your own scent

 There are also other recipes online, this one is what I use and what works for me, I encourage you to look it up and see what works for you. 

Birth plan with a cesarean cut in Canada (Quebec) (c-section)

When I gave birth the first time, having a c-section didn’t even cross my mind. I ended up having one at the last minute and I was so upset because I didn’t do any research concerning a c-section. I then got baby blues, it was nasty. For my second pregnancy, I planned having a Vbac but I made a birth plan that included a c-section just in case it happened. Well I’m glad I did, because it did happen. I would like to share with you mommas some points I added to my birth plan that you might want to consider.

1. No sedatives. At my first c-section, I was given sedatives and I sincerely cannot remember my son’s first day of life.
2. Being allowed my husband and my doula in the room with me. Usually they will only allow one person but asking doesn’t hurt.
3. Keep me warm with warm covers (I was freezing at my first c-section)
4. Have a mirror so I can see my baby coming out or lower the sheet in front of me to I can see it.
5. Delaying cord clamping. Yes, it is possible even with a c-section.
6. Having the dad cutting the cord after a minimum of 5 minutes.
7. Having a skin to skin time as soon as possible.
8. Allowing baby and dad to always stay with me in the room and while in recovery.
9. Being able to nurse right after the c-section.
10. Having stitches instead of samples.

Not my entire plan was doable, but my doula told me that the more women mention the wanting to do something the more likely the hospital would be okay with it. Therefore, even if you KNOW your hospital won’t do something that you want, I’d encourage you to write it down anyway. I would also invite you to look up Vitamin K and eye ointment and just inform yourself in general. Please know that it’s not because you have a caesarean cut that you are limited to the usual procedure. 

Tandem nursing aka Superhero nursing

Today, I really feel like a superhero. Tandem nursing can be quite challenging sometimes and this is one of the "very challenging" days.

Now picture this. It's 6:30 am, your 10 month old daughter is awake. You pick her up, go downstairs to the playroom, sit on the rocking chair and nurse her. 

A few minutes have passed and she has a good flow coming out when her 22 month old brother wakes up. He's cranky and crying... Better get to him quickly to avoid a crisis... But she's latched on so well and you don't want milk all over your floor. What to do? Ah! You grab her by the waist and run up the stairs while she is still nursing.

As you are running up the stairs you see an obstacle. The gate! That strong, hard to open gate at the top of the stairs that prevents little toddler from falling down. You somehow manage to open the gate with one hand after a few trials and grab your 22 month old and go back down the stairs. You sit on the rocking chair again and take your second boob out (ok ok, more like your toddler takes your boob out for you).

Finally, you get some time to peacefully wake up while your two little ones have their morning milk and get ready for an exciting and busy day

Honestly, I feel like a super nursing hero!!!

Internal monologue of a paranoid mother

Internal monologue of a paranoid mother Baby girl (almost one year old) has been asleep for two hours in her swing. Suddenly, the mother instinct comes to live;

• “ Mother instinct: she’s been sleeping for a while… Usually she would start waking up by now.
• Logical sense: She’s fine… She’ll wake up when she will have slept enough.
• Mother instinct: Yeah, that’s true. I shouldn’t worry…”

Two minutes later;

• “Mother instinct: Ok seriously, she’s not awake? What’s wrong with her? Maybe it’s too hot in her room, I should go check.
• Logical sense: No, really, she’s fine! You know she’s fine!
• Mother instinct: She should be awake about 5 minutes ago… What is she doing? Maybe she’s just lying there waiting for me to pick her up.
• Logical sense: Nope, she’d be crying… Just relax… She’ll wake up and let you know she’s awake
• Mother instinct: I’ll just go check… I’ll do it quickly and she won’t wake up Logical sense: Oh please, you know it will wake her up! You have so much stuff to do… Both kids are sleeping, get productive, stop worrying. Mother instinct: Okay, what if she’s dead? What if she chocked on something?
• Logical sense: There is nothing dangerous near her, besides, if she chocked, you’d hear her choke through the monitor. Mother instinct: No seriously, she’s probably dead and you’re here wondering if you should go see her! How will you even explain this to her dad?
• Logical sense: She’s not dead! She was never dead all the other times you checked on her! Stop it! Go clean the dishes.
• Mother instinct: she’s probably dead… She’s oversleeping by 15 minutes. She NEVER did that.
• Logical sense: She’s tired, she had a rough day yesterday, it’s normal.
• Mother instinct: OMG! My baby is dead. What do I do? In order? I go check her… I call 911, I call the dad…what do I do with my toddler? I’ll give him to the neighbour…
• Logical sense: Are you really thinking about that? What’s wrong with you!
• Mother instinct: OMG SHE’S DEAD! runs upstairs”

Obviously, I woke her up… She’s now cranky… But I’m relieved. Silly mother paranoia…

Broken collarbone at 22 months

Yup, he did it... He broke a bone before the age of two...

Noah is active. By active I mean, more active than your average little boy. He’s curious, he likes to run, to see, to play, to discover. It’s in his nature and I have to admit that sometimes it’s hard to keep it up with him specially having to watch Emma at the same time.

Monday (the 22^nd of July), Noah climbed onto the computer desk to watch his cartoon from closer. It wasn’t the first time he did that but this time he lost his balance and he fell backwards. So he fell head and back straight into the wood floor. It was a 2 foot fall but he would not stop crying and I got worried when he didn’t even want to take the breast (still breastfeeding) for comfort. He also didn’t want to let go of us. So, we called 811 (nurse service, advice) and she told me that we might want to bring him to the ER just to make sure he is okay.

We went to the ER, he was admitted right away and he had head x-rays taken. He was all good and he was released at 2am. Then, the next day, we noticed a bruise on his shoulder and that he had a lot of trouble moving that arm. We waited another day to see if it was just swollen but the bruise got bigger and he wasn’t in any less pain. We ended up going back to the ER on Thursday (25^th of July). He took some X-rays and was diagnosed with a broken collarbone.

So, what happens now? Now much,  he’s still very young, so the bone will reconnect on his own. It will take from 3-6 weeks. They gave him a sling and a follow up appointment in another 3 weeks. It is quite a challenge to make him stop moving his arm but it’s quite the thing. We used safety pins to tie his sling to his shirt but it’s not always the easiest thing ever.

I hope he will recover fast, not too worried though!

Please keep it safe Noah! We love you!

Life at almost Two (Development 2 years old)

Hello there!

It’s been a while…so sorry, it’s really hard to jungle things with two babies, hmm more like a toddler and a baby.

Noah has been doing well. He’s been growing up really fast… Leaning a lot of new things and he is as active as he ever was. He is starting to say a lot of words and he will try and repeat what we say. It’s really and I’m very happy about that.

I’ll be honest here. I’m much more into the toddler Noah than  I was into the newborn Noah. I mean, Noah was an adorable newborn but to be able to communicate verbally with him, to know he understands my words and that he can reply to me is amazing. 

So anyway, a little bit about Noah. At around 20 months he started to become very interested by cars. Whenever he saw a car, he’d point it out. Now, at 22 months, his most important words are; car, truck, bus, “vion” (avion-plane), train, cop (helicopter) and boat. Anything that involved transportation actually. So he’s really into that…

Teething wise, it seems like all of his teeth are coming out at once. Actually, most of them ARE out right now but it all started at 19 months, his top cuspid started coming out, then a week later, his bottom cuspids. His first molars (all of them) came out at about 20 months and his molars at about 21 months. At 22 months he is having his laterals coming in. So he’s been fussy for a while but he’s doing pretty well now (teeth wise anyway).

Now let’s talk language, he’s saying words and he’s also starting to make connections between words. So, he’ll say “story-book” That’s pretty recent though. He will also start to differentiate articles. He will say “ the cat” if he’s referring to Soleil (our cat) but “a cat” if he sees a random cat in the street or in a book. He is also starting to sing to “The wheels on the bus” and “Old McDonald had a farm.”  It’s really cute.

Growing wise Noah is still tall and skinny. He likes to eat pasta, some chicken, pork, beef… Veggies aren't his favorite but he’ll eat them if it’s mixed with apple sauce. His favorite veggies would have to be carrots and his least favorite will be peas. He really doesn't like seafood but he will have fish. He’s not a big fan of sweets but cookies are always a win…

That’s about it for now. Everything else is great! Keep on growing baby boy!

We love you!!!!

Mom