things I need to write before I forget them.
As much as I like to snark about it, the seven quick takes format is very handy, so here goes.
1. I really want to make a to-do list, but I feel like I have no idea how to even start it or organize it. If I just write down everything (with the idea being to write it all down and then organize it), I think I'll get overwhelmed and depressed. (By everything I mean down to even the littlest, lowest priority things like "check to see if juicer still works" and "dispose of reusable containers without fitting lids and lids that don't fit any containers".)
2. Last week I finished a free parenting "class" put on by a local community centre. I put class in scare quotes because it isn't a traditional class, but more one of those deals where there's a "facilitator" instead of a teacher and most of what you do is talk in round table with other moms. I'm not sure how much I actually learned, but it was nice to talk with other moms, and in addition to being free, they also did free childminding for >18 month kids, so it was a nice time to be able to talk with other adults with all or almost all my attention. Mary-Alice came along but they're so portable at this age that that was fine. Plus all the other women in the group were leaping at the chance to hold her if I wanted to drink some coffee or whatever.
3. Most weeks, all of the moms including me were born outside Canada. Usually the core group is me (European mix), a Pakistani, and four Chinese (including the facilitator). The one interesting thing about this cross-cultural group was the time when some of them were talking about trying to cover up freckles with make-up, and I mentioned that a lot of (white?) people actually LIKE freckles nowadays, and think they are cute. We got to talking about how freckles used to be seen as ugly in the West too (re: Pride and Prejudice). They wanted to know when Western people started liking freckles and I had no idea. I tried googling it when I got home but couldn't find anything. Why do we like freckles now? Is it like tanning?
4. When Pippa was a baby I had an opportunity to take a free baby massage class with her, and so I was really excited when I got an opportunity now to take a similar class for free with Mary-Alice. It's worked out that the classes all fall during a time when we don't have LB (for daycare) and my husband isn't working so Pippa can be with him. This class is a little different, whereas the previous class was more baby-focused and technique-focused, this one is called something like "Bonding With Your Baby Through Touch" and is more focused of the relationship and enjoying the massage time. I think this will be perfect, especially since I already know a lot of the techniques from the previous class.
5. I joined a small local co-op on Facebook for buying baby items. This has good points and bad points. The good side is that we strive not to use our credit cards, so this allows us to do some kind of online purchases without a credit card. The down side is that it's very tempting to get into buys for stuff we don't really need. So far I think I've been ok about sticking mostly to stuff that we actually do need, but I probably bought a few more leg warmers than strictly necessary, because dang some of them were cheap. $1.25! I use baby leg warmers as arm warmers for myself though so they're very useful.
6. It seems like a number of people (especially moms) I know who used to blog now only Facebook. I understand this completely because it's definitely hard to get extended computer time to write. But on the other hand, keeping up with people via Facebook statuses vs blog posts is just not the same. I don't get any sense of their lives, outside of what recipes they are trying, what political thing is outraging them, what cute thing their kid just did, and a picture of a new haircut. I don't have any solutions though, other than a resolution to keep on slogging with my own blog if I can, even if I don't know how many people actually read it. I used to pride myself on never skimming my friends blogs... yeah, that's kind of not happening anymore. I should probably update my user info at some point to reflect that.
7. The amber teething necklace! So we're coming up on almost a week now of using it, and it does still seem to be helping. The drool department is objectively better (in terms of being able to go the whole day in the same shirt with no bib and not getting changed, vs needing to go through four bibs and an outfit change), and she seems less irritable than before. No way to be sure of course if that's actually from the necklace. When I first put her to bed tonight, I had forgotten to put it back on after her bath, and she woke up twice crying. Then I put it on her, and she hasn't woken up since. I came at this, on a scale of one - ultra skeptical to ten - ultra credulous, about a 4 or 5, and I feel like now I'm at about an 8.
To me the issue is that like so much in alternate medicine for babies, the issue will never be resolved, because to the establishment it would be unethical (because, in this case, of the choking risk) to actually set-up a double blind study. Too bad, because it would be relatively easy, I would think, to actually do such a study, with fake amber necklaces. And with a nod to the German acupuncture trial, as always, I think all alternative medicine double blind trials should be alternative medicine vs. placebo vs. conventional treatment. Because like with acupuncture it could be that there is no difference between the "real" medicine and the "placebo" but that both are better than conventional treatment because the beneficial part of the real medicine isn't what the proponents think.
It is frustrating, as someone with a keen interest in scientific studies on parenting issues, that there is so much that the establishment cannot or will not even attempt to study in this way. Yeah, I know that my personal experience is just anecdata but in the absence of actual data it's what I have to go on. Plus we really know so little even now about so much. It was only a few decades ago that doctors performed surgery on babies without anesthesia. I don't have that much respect for pure theorizing without hard data, and I have a deep-seated dislike, verging on knee-jerk, for "what you're experiencing isn't real".
1. I really want to make a to-do list, but I feel like I have no idea how to even start it or organize it. If I just write down everything (with the idea being to write it all down and then organize it), I think I'll get overwhelmed and depressed. (By everything I mean down to even the littlest, lowest priority things like "check to see if juicer still works" and "dispose of reusable containers without fitting lids and lids that don't fit any containers".)
2. Last week I finished a free parenting "class" put on by a local community centre. I put class in scare quotes because it isn't a traditional class, but more one of those deals where there's a "facilitator" instead of a teacher and most of what you do is talk in round table with other moms. I'm not sure how much I actually learned, but it was nice to talk with other moms, and in addition to being free, they also did free childminding for >18 month kids, so it was a nice time to be able to talk with other adults with all or almost all my attention. Mary-Alice came along but they're so portable at this age that that was fine. Plus all the other women in the group were leaping at the chance to hold her if I wanted to drink some coffee or whatever.
3. Most weeks, all of the moms including me were born outside Canada. Usually the core group is me (European mix), a Pakistani, and four Chinese (including the facilitator). The one interesting thing about this cross-cultural group was the time when some of them were talking about trying to cover up freckles with make-up, and I mentioned that a lot of (white?) people actually LIKE freckles nowadays, and think they are cute. We got to talking about how freckles used to be seen as ugly in the West too (re: Pride and Prejudice). They wanted to know when Western people started liking freckles and I had no idea. I tried googling it when I got home but couldn't find anything. Why do we like freckles now? Is it like tanning?
4. When Pippa was a baby I had an opportunity to take a free baby massage class with her, and so I was really excited when I got an opportunity now to take a similar class for free with Mary-Alice. It's worked out that the classes all fall during a time when we don't have LB (for daycare) and my husband isn't working so Pippa can be with him. This class is a little different, whereas the previous class was more baby-focused and technique-focused, this one is called something like "Bonding With Your Baby Through Touch" and is more focused of the relationship and enjoying the massage time. I think this will be perfect, especially since I already know a lot of the techniques from the previous class.
5. I joined a small local co-op on Facebook for buying baby items. This has good points and bad points. The good side is that we strive not to use our credit cards, so this allows us to do some kind of online purchases without a credit card. The down side is that it's very tempting to get into buys for stuff we don't really need. So far I think I've been ok about sticking mostly to stuff that we actually do need, but I probably bought a few more leg warmers than strictly necessary, because dang some of them were cheap. $1.25! I use baby leg warmers as arm warmers for myself though so they're very useful.
6. It seems like a number of people (especially moms) I know who used to blog now only Facebook. I understand this completely because it's definitely hard to get extended computer time to write. But on the other hand, keeping up with people via Facebook statuses vs blog posts is just not the same. I don't get any sense of their lives, outside of what recipes they are trying, what political thing is outraging them, what cute thing their kid just did, and a picture of a new haircut. I don't have any solutions though, other than a resolution to keep on slogging with my own blog if I can, even if I don't know how many people actually read it. I used to pride myself on never skimming my friends blogs... yeah, that's kind of not happening anymore. I should probably update my user info at some point to reflect that.
7. The amber teething necklace! So we're coming up on almost a week now of using it, and it does still seem to be helping. The drool department is objectively better (in terms of being able to go the whole day in the same shirt with no bib and not getting changed, vs needing to go through four bibs and an outfit change), and she seems less irritable than before. No way to be sure of course if that's actually from the necklace. When I first put her to bed tonight, I had forgotten to put it back on after her bath, and she woke up twice crying. Then I put it on her, and she hasn't woken up since. I came at this, on a scale of one - ultra skeptical to ten - ultra credulous, about a 4 or 5, and I feel like now I'm at about an 8.
To me the issue is that like so much in alternate medicine for babies, the issue will never be resolved, because to the establishment it would be unethical (because, in this case, of the choking risk) to actually set-up a double blind study. Too bad, because it would be relatively easy, I would think, to actually do such a study, with fake amber necklaces. And with a nod to the German acupuncture trial, as always, I think all alternative medicine double blind trials should be alternative medicine vs. placebo vs. conventional treatment. Because like with acupuncture it could be that there is no difference between the "real" medicine and the "placebo" but that both are better than conventional treatment because the beneficial part of the real medicine isn't what the proponents think.
It is frustrating, as someone with a keen interest in scientific studies on parenting issues, that there is so much that the establishment cannot or will not even attempt to study in this way. Yeah, I know that my personal experience is just anecdata but in the absence of actual data it's what I have to go on. Plus we really know so little even now about so much. It was only a few decades ago that doctors performed surgery on babies without anesthesia. I don't have that much respect for pure theorizing without hard data, and I have a deep-seated dislike, verging on knee-jerk, for "what you're experiencing isn't real".