www.rockinheart.com

Phew! It's been a long but super enjoyable day.

Miss Nora let me sleep in (Thank you, baby!) I didn't have to get up until almost 8am today! Yay!

I debated going out to the ranch today because 6-8 inches _and_ a wind storm were predicted. Which could have meant we would be stranded. But the weather predictions have been so off- I decided to chance it.

Did I tell you that Nora has now graduated to a big-girl seat? She is still in a "car seat" but no longer the reclining ones. It looks like a mini "real car seat" but with a 5-point harness instead of the 3 point harness that adults use. It is so cute to see her in her seat and she really seems to enjoy it!

Anyway, we got a late start as I once again need to fold laundry so I had to hunt in the baskets for appropriate clothing for us both. We finally had it all together. We stopped for gas and munchies at the corner gas station and off we went. Once we got to the ranch, we chatted for a while before Loren, Bryony, and I went up to the upper barn to finish stalls and lunch time feeding.

It was tons of fun. The people on this ranch are just absolute gems. They have hearts of gold and would give you the clothing off their back if you needed it. We talked about dogs and horses and even did some knitting. A perfect day with people you care about!

I learn so much whenever I am out there. Nancy, the main ranch owner, has so much knowledge about so many topics. But she is really sweet about always being willing to learn more or new things.

I love seeing the horses. They are so beautiful and kind. I have never been around anyones horses that are kinder and more sweet. There are sweet, gentle and kind horses- and then there are RockinHeart horses.

Nora loves going out there. She loves everyone at the ranch and she especially loves playing with all the dogs too. Speaking of dogs, they breed rare dogs. You can find out more about them by visiting their website, but the Cirnecho Dell Etna dog is amazing. They are about 25lbs of red love. They will jump into your arms and would be happy if they could just crawl inside you and live with you forever. Seriously though- they are amazingly calm house dogs that are completely driven by their stomachs. They would build you a rocket to the moon if they thought you might give them a treat for it. So smart!

I was a bit worried about the roads a few times during the day because snow did start falling, but the temperature stayed pretty high and the roads stayed wet, but clear.

Nora, who has been going to sleep at 6pm didn't want to go to sleep and really didn't settle down until 8:30pm when we headed for home. I bet she sleeps in tomorrow!

Well it is late and the caffeine is starting to wear off...so I will chat more later.

Essay Contest

I am going to host an essay contest.

I want you to write me an Essay about what being a Farmgirl means to you, and what knowing about MaryJane and her ideals has meant as well. If you don't know who MaryJane is, please go to www.maryjanesfarm.org

I want the essay to be at least 1 page long, typical essay format. I am more looking for heartfelt writing than anything else. The top 3 essays will be sent to MaryJane.

Your reward coming in on the top 3 for this contest is your choice of some MaryJanesFarm food!! Just let me know which two food items from her website that you would like, how many are in your immediate family, and I will send it to you right away! The grand prize winner, in addition to the MJF food, will get some glass milk bottles as well!

So write you essays and email them to me alee@maryjanesfarm.org

Bad to Good

Do you ever have something really bad happen in your life? And when you are dealing with that situation it seems like only bad things are happening? And then a little while after, you look back and realize that the bad thing was actually the start of something good?

That seems to happen quite a bit in my life. For example, when I found out I was pregnant with Nora, I was pretty depressed. I was horribly worried that I was going to have another miscarriage. I had gone through two miscarriages at that point. And to top it all off, my friend at the horse ranch who I was working for at the time decided that I probably shouldn't work around the horses anymore. It was a sad loss to me.

But as my pregnancy progressed and I moved out of the icky morning sickness stage, I really enjoyed being pregnant. Birth was hard, but I was even amazed at how quickly I recovered and was back to normal again.

Well once again something bad turned to good for my family. Doug was in a horrible car wreck in early December. He is very lucky to still be walking the earth with us today. And while he is still stiff and sore from the accident, he is pretty much back to normal again. This last week we received the first of two checks to pay us for his "pain and suffering". These checks are such a blessing in our life right now. It is giving us a chance to catch up on some bills, fix some broken computer equipment, and just all around get back to where we are supposed to be at again. Thank goodness!

Keep looking for those good things in life that help build us up. Sometimes it is easy to get "road dazed" with all the stumbling blocks that life can throw us. Maybe they aren't so much stumbling blocks, but stair steps that we didn't see and stumbled over. Perception is everything. I would much rather perceive my self steping up on all of life's problems and using them to get higher than perceiving myself stumbling over them and falling down.

Learning to Knit

I have been teaching myself to knit. At first it was frustrating, but as I am getting better- I think I like it better than crochet! The scarf I am making for my Farmgirl Merit badge is going to be so warm! I love it already!! I will post pictures tomorrow. Here is the link I used to learn how to knit:
http://www.learntoknit.com/instructions_kn.php3

Parenting

I guess I have to be the first to admit that I am not an expert at parenting. In fact, I am the opposite. Nora is our first, and doesn't everyone say you make all your worst mistakes with your first child?

But somehow I don't think we are doing to badly so far. I honestly can't think of too much I would change. Okay- so that one time I didn't put my fingers between her and the diaper pin...I would change that. That was a bad bad night.

Even the _way_ she was born (in a hospital with induced labor) I wouldn't change. I was the one that made the decision to induce labor since I was barely even having Braxton Hicks contractions 8 hours (and counting) after my water had broken.

During labor, Nora's heartbeat started to crash and we needed an injection of epinephrine to revive her. I, the woman who is phobic about needles, was ecstatic to see the epidural guy. He's my best friend, okay so I wouldn't know him from Joe Smith if I met him on the street, but he's my best friend.

Then once she was home we had a bassinet in our bedroom and we co-slept a little bit. She spent a lot of time in my arms until she became "aware" of the world, at which point she spent a lot of time on the floor or in her swing. The swing has got to be one of my favorite baby items. I highly recommend one for all new parents. We also made frequent use of front carriers and slings. Some days the only way to get Nora to sleep was to nurse her in the Snugli pack and then very very carefully go and lay her down in the swing/bassinet/ or crib.

Nora did get used to a bottle at about a month old since I had to return to work outside of the home briefly. I pumped a lot, but I wish I had pumped more when I was engorged. Note to self: If you want to donate breast milk (as I had wanted to do) pump during those horrible days of engorgement as much as you can. Without having of pumped during those critical days my milk supply was only ever slightly more than what Nora needed. I think the highest milk reserve we ever had in the freezer was 108 ounces. And you would be surprised how fast you can burn through that much breast milk.

But I am so very happy that I was able to pump. Doug was able to take care of her on the nights when I just really needed that extra sleep, as well as we were able to let a friend watch her when we both had to work. It also was super sweet to be able to let parents, grandparents, and adopted grandparents feed her. Those are memories that I will always treasure.

I know I have mentioned it before, but cloth diapering has been a huge economic boon to us, as well as making me feel better about our impact on the environment. Doug even tries to convert new parents to cloth diapering now too! And Doug is very much the easy route guy. Which isn't a complaint or a put down, it's just his personality. We love cloth diapering and how easy it is for us. We constantly have friends exclaim when they see us diapering Nora "Wow! That looked easy/fast!"

The biggest thing we are working on right now is "No!" She knows what it means, but doesn't always follow through. She especially likes to bite toes. And those little teeth hurt! We are in the stage right now where we are labeling everything for her. "That's the table" etc. I guess around 10 months is when the language area of the brain really starts absorbing word and syntax.

Doug and I work really hard not to have pet names for things. We do say "Binky" instead of "Pacifier" though. But we don't say "BaBa" instead of "Bottle". That is another recommendation that I have read is that speaking in full sentences around babies is helpful as well.

I feel bad because I haven't started to put her scrap book together yet. Luckily I have shared every milestone with the ladies over at www.maryjanesfarm.org/snitz so all I have to do is go and look at my posts about Nora for the last year to make up the memory book! lol

I think the best thing that both Doug and I have done is-read. We read all the time about babies and development. But mostly we let Nora explore her own world at her own pace. It is so amazing what she finds entertaining.

For example, today I had carelessly left the cabinet door to the rags open as I washed dishes in the kitchen. Nora came along and proceeded to pull about half of the clean rags out onto the floor one by one. This made her really happy and it delighted her to watch the rag fall open as she pulled it out. Who could deny such simple and innocent fun? And it also helps her learn about cause and effect.

Well more parenting musings another day perhaps. I am sure Doug and I mortify some people with our parenting styles, but it seems to work for us and for Nora as well. And I will leave you with a cute picture that Nora took of herself (with minimal help from Mommy)

What do you want to see on my blog?

I love finding and sharing information with people. Please tell me what you would like to see on my blog? What information do you look for? Parenting? Animals? Just more of the day to day stuff? Let me know!

10 months old and going on a Schedule!!

Well I think it is time to start getting Miss Nora onto a schedule. Our lives are going to get all topsy turvy in the next couple of months, so if I get her onto an iron clad schedule now, hopefully it will make the transitions easier.

Right now she wakes up between 6am and 6:45am. I can't really control when she wakes up if she wakes up earlier other than just ignoring any non frantic fussing until "getting up time". I like to take her out of her crib at 6:45am so I can just slip her into the car seat and away we go to work.

Once we are at work she normally plays for about half an hour to an hour before getting breakfast. Some days this doesn't work, but it seems to make her concentrate on the food more when she does eat so I like this. So breakfast will now be at 8am.

Then she plays for a bit more and goes to sleep anywhere from 9am to 11am. This is the first thing we are going to work on. Nap time is now going to be 10am. No excuses or exceptions. If she isn't tired yet, she will get quite time in the playpen or crib alone for at least half an hour, if she isn't fussing then I will let her have quiet time for an hour.

Then she can play until noon which is lunch, play until 2 and then down again for a nap or quiet time if not sleepy. Then she can stay up until 7pm which is going to be bed time.

So:

Awake at 6:45 am
Breakfast 8am
Morning Nap 10 am until awake, minimum 30 min.
Lunch at 12pm
Afternoon nap 2pm until awake, minimum 30 min
Dinner 6pm- bath, lotion, clean diaper routine
Bed time 7pm- might get changed to 8pm.

I know this seems pretty structured, but that is just what I am going to work towards. I am first going to start enforcing the morning nap/down time. Today I put her in the portacrib and let her put herself to sleep. She is pretty good at this if the house is absolutely silent. Once she is asleep, noise is okay, but it's getting her to put herself to sleep that is the problem!

Wish me luck!