Grandma was Green before Green was Trendy

I must confess that I stole that title from an article in our electric coop newsletter. There is something very appealing about the idea of doing "green" in an old, as opposed to new, fashion. If pressed to describe that appeal in words I think the best I could do is to say that sometimes there was a lot of wisdom in the way things were done. Take for example drying clothes on a line. It saves energy (clothes dryers are so intrinsically inefficient that there is no Energy Star rating for them!), gives one a chance to be outdoors and get some exercise, and produces whiter clothes (sun bleaches out some stains), naturally fresh-smelling clothes.

Maria's mobility I think is ultimately what prompted me to start reconsidering some of the products we have around the house. I bought a book entitled Green Housekeeping which I like in part because many of the suggestions seem to be grandma-style green. Some immediate changes were getting rid of the kitchen sponge out of sheer terror (read the kitchen chapter!), ditching the fabric softener for similar reasons and buying some vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and spray bottles for making cleaners. I boxed up all my old cleaners and gave them away on Craig's list and was happily surprised to have freed up almost an entire cupboard of extra space! I went on Amazon and found some greener dish, dishwasher and laundry detergents that are economical (in large quantities) and work well (an important criteria!). Other suggestions like healthier types of flooring are good to know in case we ever do renovations.

The initial time and energy investment in making the change seem to be paying off. Now I'm not so worried that Maria will accidentally ingest some terrible poison. And I can actually clean the bathroom while Maria is running around upstairs because I'm not concerned she'll be breathing in something harmful. I don't worry I'm going to kill all the good bacteria in the septic system. Every once in a while I'll discover some other habit or product I could change (like anti-bacterial handsoap, see below), but continuing in the new habits doesn't take extra time or effort.

Recently I read an article on the proliferation on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a problem which is due in part to overuse of antibiotics and might be exacerbated by antibacterial soaps. Mark loves our foaming hand soap dispensers but all I could find to fill them with was antibacterial soap... quite a quandary... domestic bliss with mutant-killer bacteria or domestic discord with a safer soap?!? Then (probably from the Green Housekeeping book) the idea came to put some Dr. Bonner's liquid soap (highly concentrated) and water in the hand soap dispensers. Happily it foams perfectly, sadly Mark doesn't like the pine scent. But hopefully he'll be able to live with it until this bottle runs out.

Another grandma-green sort of idea is to buy used... used clothes, used furniture, used whatever. The idea is that by buying used items you're not contributing (as much) to the demand for the production of these items, thereby saving resouces and energy. How perfectly this works, I don't know. It can take more time and effort to buy used, and that's the challenge for me. Here's an interesting take on the whole production/consumption cycle called The Story of Stuff.

Pregnancy: the Aftermath

I've been mulling over this post for a while, but wasn't quite ready to write it until now. Maria is 18 months old and I think I've (mostly!) gotten back to my old self, but it's taken a long while.

All sorts of strange things happen to one's body while it is growing a baby. The weight gain is a given, but what about gaining a shoe size? Crazy, but true! My shoes got pretty tight toward the end of pregnancy, but I figured I was just retaining water. Yet as the summer wore on, I was wearing holes in my poor feet by wearing my old shoes. In the end I gave away all my closed-toed shoes in one fell swoop so I'd stop thinking that maybe today they'd fit. I sometimes still miss them! I guess carrying all that extra weight around for 9 months did something permanent to my feet. I just hope I don't gain a shoe size with every pregnancy or I'll be having to special order shoes!

I think the worst after-effect of pregnancy was losing my hair. Yes, about 4 months after Maria was born my hair started coming out by the handful. I think in the end I lost 1/3 to 1/2 of my hair. People normally shed a certain number of hairs every day, but apparently when a woman is expecting she just doesn't shed any hair. Then after the baby is born she starts losing hair at a rapid clip to make up for not losing any for 9 months. The hair loss rate returns to normal and usually no one is any the wiser (as long as she cleans up the drain after a shower!). Alas, for some women (like me!) the hair loss is pretty severe. I chopped my hair short and wore scarves for months. It was a very depressing time. I don't know how men feel about hair loss, but at least it seems somewhat normal for it to happen to some men depending on their genes. But for a woman to lose her hair, that' s just not expected, not perceived as beautiful, and very, very hard to accept. Thankfully it has grown back.

And then there's the weight gain. Friends told me it takes about x months to lose the baby weight where x = 6 or 9 or some other number around there. When Maria was about 8 months old I realized I had a long way to go and that I hadn't been losing any weight for the last 6 months. It didn't matter that the holidays were coming up, it was time to face reality and do something about it. I joined Weight Watchers. It took about 10 more months of going to meetings, writing down what I ate, learning all about realistic potion sizes, well-balanced meals, strategies for dealing with cravings and how to get back on the wagon after failures. A few weeks ago it all paid off. I reached my goal weight (several pounds BELOW what I weighed before I had Maria) and became a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers! Yeah! It was a very happy moment and though I suppose I could have lost the weight a lot faster, I'm really glad I stuck with it, learned some valuable lessons and reached my goal in the end.

My assessment in the end is that this was all worth it to have a sweetie like Maria in my life. She's been getting more into "pretend play" as the books call it. She found a (clean!) kleenex on the floor today and went over to the cat to wipe his nose! She put her stuffed gorilla in her high chair and proceeded to try to feed him goldfish. Her aim was a bit off because some of them were going more up his nose and in his eyes. Poor gorilla!

On Joining Facebook

Yeah, I know... I resisted for a long time. Even when Mark joined, I held out. I've got better things to do than waste even MORE time on the computer.

But then Jenn, one of our adopt-a-students from church, told me about an 80s party and sent me a link to the pictures. And I couldn't see them without joining Facebook, so I caved. I had to see that 80s party. After being in junior high and high school for a large part of that decade full of fashion mistakes, I was curious to see how people not even born in the 80s would interpret it. And they were right on, for the most part... big hair, ponytails off the the sides, legwarmers, and even sweatshirts with the necks cut out.

Anyway, since I'm now on Facebook I feel the need to report back to the non-Facebook world and say that it's been VERY wierd. A couple of days after I joined Mark mentioned offhand in an almost apologetic maner about having sent me a "relationship request" on Facebook and that I had to OK it. I was curious so I logged on and sure enough, there was a relationship request from Mark. Apparently in addition to being "friends" with someone, you can state how you know each other or even be in a "relationship"! I clicked to accept the married setting and got the oddest message, "You are now in a relationship with Mark Dewing". Now?!?! What the heck?!?! We've been married for 4 years and have a child together for crying out loud!

And that's not the end of the wierdness. Once you start becoming "friends" with people and writing on their walls, people know you are on Facebook (FB) and the friend requests start rolling in. I'm now FB friends with two of the pastors at my church. And all sorts of old high school and college friends. The crazy part is getting friend requests from people and for the life of me I can't remember who they are! I've just been saying yes and then looking at their walls and pictures to try and figure it out. I became "friends" with someone I went to high school with and then got really stressed out about it! Basically I realized we couldn't have been more than aquaintances when we were in high school because she was one of the popular people and I was a social misfit (in high school, hopefully not now!) who hardly talked to people. All those feelings of being a huge nerd came flooding back when I thought about her looking at my profile. Mark informed me that I can "unfriend" someone, but of course then she'd know and how would that look? Anyway, this person wrote on my wall about how much she appreciated me tutoring her in chemistry (I'd completely forgotted about that!) and so the whole thing morphed into something good. And I'm so thankful I'm no longer the person I was in high school!

A Mystery & Mr. Amazing

In my last post I wrote about spending time in Seattle with a good friend. This was possible only because my husband is truly amazing and was willing to be on Maria duty 24/7 while I was gone. No mean feat for someone who likes to sleep in since Maria often wakes up at 5:30am and won't go back to sleep until it's time for her afternoon nap!

Shortly before I left for Seattle Mark was getting Maria ready for bed. I came in to kiss her goodnight when I noticed something was wrong... VERY wrong. It was so wrong and so funny that I took a couple of pictures. See if you can figure out what was wrong!

A Little Slice of Seattle Heaven

Last weekend I went to Seattle for 5 days to visit my very good friend Alicia. Seattle is gorgeous in August and Alicia is everything I could hope for in a friend, but what made time with Alicia in Seattle so special is that I left Maria behind! Mark and my mom took good care of her and I missed her a bit, but not nearly as much as I thought I would! Again, no mom-of-the-year awards for me, but it was heavenly to eat food while it was still hot, have long, uninterrupted conversations, change no diapers, eat at nice restaurants without fear, stay out late, shop till we dropped, sleep when tired and wake up late!

On our first morning we walked from Alicia's apartment with a Space Needle view over to Pike Place market for a breakfast of fresh berries and pastries. We ate dim sum, talked, shopped at some favorite stores that sadly don't exist in my town, soaked up the sun and picnicked at two different beaches, talked, walked all over the place, talked, and even redecorated Alicia's living room! We got some funny looks when carrying the curtain rods home from Bed, Bath and Beyond, but overall I loved living in the city for 5 short days. Very different from my usual walks at home which involve looking at the corn and soybean fields and needing to drive just about everywhere. Living in the country has its advantages, but city life sure is attractive! And time with a good friend is priceless... thank you Alicia!

16 Months, 1 Week and a Day

Yep, that's how old she is on this very special day when she is WALKING! On her own! Not holding anyone's finger! As you can see from the pictures, she's VERY pleased with herself and so is her mommy! I was truly worried she still wouldn't be walking at her 18 month appointment and that her pediatrician would be trying to break it to me gently that she needed physical therapy. Huge twin sighs of relief and joy!

In case you're wondering why the comforter from our bed is on the living room floor, here's the story. For the past couple of weeks Maria has been enjoying attempting to walk on our bed in the mornings as her tired parents try and get a few more minutes of shut eye. I think the appeal is that it's soft and so falling doesn't hurt. She sits between us, pulls up to standing and then bounces or maybe takes a step or two before collapsing in a giggling heap. Since she frequently falls on Daddy or Mommy, we've been joking that she's perfecting some new wrestling moves like the "Dupa Drop" (If you don't know what a dupa is, go find someone of Polish descent and they'll enlighten you!).

Today she wanted to walk around on the bed in the middle of the day but I figured with just one parent the chance that she'd fall off the bed was just too high. So I brought the pillows and comforter down to the living room floor and make a sort of bed-like environment, supplemented with pillows from the couches. And it worked spectacularly well! Maria must have decided that falling down on the comforter in the living room wouldn't hurt too badly and she just took off walking and walking and walking. She went to bed early tonight!

Missed Milestones & Inoculating Children Against Advertising

Maria will be 16 months old on Sunday and she (STILL!) doesn't walk on her own. I remember when she was just a newborn and it seemed like she'd hit milestones weeks or months early. And now with the whole walking thing I'm finding it difficult to say the least. When I'm not with her, the question I get right after "How old is she?" is the "She must be walking now" one. Sometimes it's not even a question, but a statement! If I were truly a Mom of the Year, my child would not only be walking by now, but she'd have taught all her stuffed animals to walk, too!

Hopefully she will be walking soon, but for now I'm left with the unmet expectations of countless acquaintances and friends, a cranky child who wants to be independently mobile but isn't and a rather sore back from stooping over slightly while Maria holds my finger while she walks! If nothing else this has been a learning experience. (1) Never ask anyone if her or his child is _____ing yet and (2) Leave babies on the floor until they spontaneously get themselves up and start walking or you might be in for months of a back pain! (Note: If you're under 5 feet tall, #2 might not apply.)

On a completely different note, here's another interesting article about children and advertising. The author's not-yet-reading son asked if she was going to buy Chlorox at a grocery store which is a product she rarely buys. This goes to show how insidious advertising really is! I can remember as a child seeing just one ad for a Slip-N-Slide and I absolutely HAD to have one. My parents, as usual, refused to buy it and eventually my sisters and I created a makeshift one out of a sheet of plastic and a sprinkler. This article has some ideas (beyond the simple I'm-not-going-to-waste-my-hard-earned-money-on-that-piece-of-junk! technique) on how to nurture in your children a healthy skepticism for advertising.

Mathematicians, Physicists, Grocery Carts and Liars

I'll bet you're just wondering how these topics can possibly relate! I figure since I haven't blogged in such a long time I'd better come up with a catchy title.

As a mathematician married to a physicist I thought I'd share this comic that shows clearly which field is best!

As for grocery carts, Mark and I decided to run errands WITH Maria yesterday instead of having one person stay home with her supposedly freeing up the other to run errands more efficiently. Thanks to the prevalence of shopping carts at Lowe's, Sam's and Meijer, we all had an amazingly wonderful trip. Maria, who is very close to walking independently, still likes to hold onto a finger or a couch or, as it turns out, a shopping cart! When she discovered that she could push a huge, fully-loaded shopping cart and make it move all by herself, it was a moment of pure joy! She happily pushed the cart through Lowe's and then Sam's and finally Meijer, with a little steering help from mom and dad and lots of amused looks and smiles from fellow shoppers at seeing this 22 pound shortie throwing all of her weight into moving a gigantic cart! I have to say this was probably the funnest errand run I've even been on!

And finally, Mark sent me a link to this interesting article about children and lying. Fascinating stuff! Apparently learning to lie early (age 2) is a sign of intelligence because one needs to construct a plausible alternate reality. Researchers theorize that children learn to lie by watching their parents - ouch! Sometimes we even prompt them to lie such as: "Now tell Aunt Hilda how much you love the bar of soap she got you for your birthday." I think the thing that surprised me most was research showing that in families where there are more arguments between teens and parents, the teens actually respect their parents more! It's a case of attempting to change a parent's mind about a rule versus simply lying to them to avoid detection and punishment.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

February has been a tough month so far. Heavy snowfalls, bitter cold, drenching rains, flooding and lack of sunlight are enough to dampen anyone's spirits. And if that weren't enough, Maria got sick... sicker than she has been to date. Not only did she have a runny nose, cough, high fever and ear infection, but she also managed to have diarrhea, diaper rash and a terrible teething episode concurrent with the nasty cold/ear infection issues. I don't know how she managed it, but it appears our daughter is an over-achiever at the tender age of 10.5 months!

It was the worst of times in many ways. We sweated through sleep deprivation, ear-splitting wails and the dilemma of whether or not to go to the "convenient" care clinic to suffer the inconvenience of sitting in a germ-infested waiting room for more than 2 hours with a hysterical child since the high fever ironically made its first appearance on Friday evening! We decided to hang onto our remaining shreds of sanity and NOT go to convenient care.

Bright and early Monday morning I was able to make an appointment with Maria's regular pediatrician and he diagnosed Miss Cranky with a bad case of the ear-infection fussies! Armed with some liquid Amoxicillin and a medicine dropped I headed home with high hopes for a healthy child in the near future. These hopes were seriously endangered by little Miss Fussy, who does not like Amoxicillin despite the copious amount of sugar mixed into the liquid. With each dose the struggles escalated from head turning to trying to bat the dropper away to all out flailing and spitting. The medicine ended up all over her, the changing table, me, Mark and sometimes the wall. After a few days of this I was starting to worry that she would have an ear infection for the rest of her life because we, the incompetent parents that we are, couldn't get enough medicine in her!

Then along came my knight in shining armor. Since it is Valentine's Day after all, I'd like to say that I have an amazingly creative and talented husband and I am constantly thinking how lucky I am to be married to him! One morning he measured out the medicine as usual and then started to put it drop by drop in the center of some Cheerios, Maria's favorite food. He put the Cheerios on her tray and to my amazement she picked them up and ate them, medicine and all! It took a while, but she got the full dose that morning and every morning after that! Eventually Mark started putting some of the medicine on toast just to speed things up a bit.

Today Maria is finally done with her meds and has returned to her usual happy self. Sometimes she gets a little too happy and starts to scream at the top of her lungs apparently just because she can, but I'd rather have a happy and loud baby than a sick and loud one any day!