My Growing girl...

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of when I found out I was pregnant!  I still remember exactly how it felt to see the word "pregnant" on the test.  I kept staring at it waiting for the little "not" to pop up next to it, because I didn't believe I was actually pregnant, but lo and behold, there was a baby inside me!  There was such an instant connection with this little being in there, it was kind of amazing.

And now, a whole year later, I can praise God for the many blessings he's poured on our family and the many ways our lives have changed!  I praise God for allowing us the special job of helping Him raise this beautiful, sweet baby girl!

And, one week from today that baby girl will be a full four months old.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  Looking back over pictures of her, I realize just how much she's grown.  And, she's starting to get such a fun, sweet personality, which is great!  So, these are some of the big milestones we've reached in the past month!

• Each morning we sing a series of songs with motions which are her "exercises."  One song we sing is "The Wheels on the Bus" and for the windows going up and down, I've always held her hands and brought her to the sitting position and then back to laying down.  She has now learned to keep her head and her body aligned when I do this, rather than letting her head dangle back.  Lot's of neck strength now!
• She's also starting to lean up, lifting her head off the ground/chair as though trying to sit up.  This is why she now has to be strapped in to EVERYTHING she sits in.  Otherwise, she'd just flip herself right out.
• She's starting to become a little mobil.  I've realized that if I lay her down on her play mat and look away for a second, when I turn around, she's never exactly where I left her.  She can use her feet to push herself around the play mat, and can move quite far and fast if she wants.
• Emma is close to being able to sit up on her own.  I can let go of her while sitting and she'll stay in that position for a bit before she starts to lean over one way or another.
• She's also close to rolling over from her back to her stomach.  She can now easily get onto her side, and chooses to do so a lot.  This is why she will no longer be swaddled while sleeping.  Since she does so by using her legs, I don't want her to end up on her stomach while swaddled and not be able get her head up. (side note: while typing this, Emma had her first full rollover from her back to her stomach!  Way to go bean!!)
• Emma has now become a little chatterbox.  She is squealing, cooing, and making sounds ALL THE TIME!  She can also blow bubbles which she loves to do!
• Everything goes into the mouth... Her fingers, our fingers, toys, books... she's not selective!  Her gross motor skill of grabbing things and putting them to her mouth is working great! (side note: as I was finishing typing this, I found trying to get her toes into her mouth for the first time. :-))
• The bean is becoming a papa's girl!  Every time she hears Danny's voice or sees him, she gets a big smile on her face, and he gets more smiles and giggles than anyone or anything else!  I even put him on speaker phone the other day and she was furiously looking around for her papa every time he'd say anything.  She was quite confused as to why she couldn't find him.
• She is giggling all the time now!  It is so much fun!
• She can now sit in her bouncer, which she enjoys.  Her feet only barley reach the floor so we have to put a pillow or some books underneath, but she does like to get it bouncing.
• Sadly, right now we are going through the first baby cold.  Luckily, it hasn't been too bad, just a stuffy nose.  Unfortunately it's been stressful for the parents, as we were concerned for the first couple of days she would stop breathing since she can't breath through her mouth that well yet.  But, she has seemed to adapt well and has taken to breathing through her mouth on occasion when she's struggling through the nose.  And, we've been using saline drops and the bulb syringe constantly.  We seem to be coming near the end of it.

We've had a couple of new experiences the past month as well.  She had her first eye doctor appointment.  We had this because not only was she still cross eyed, but she was also turning her head really far to each side a lot, which our ped said may mean she is having trouble seeing.  So, for the appointment, they had to dilate her eyes and everything.  I was so impressed at how she handled it.  No crying or fussing at all!  She even managed to fall asleep while we were waiting for the dilation to work. At this point, she's still slightly more far sided than she should be, but they expect it to correct itself.  We have another appointment in November to make sure it has.  Otherwise, she will be wearing baby glasses.  Please pray we don't have to go that route.

Also, she and I had our first experience working in the church nursery together.  We did it for four days in one week during VBS.  The first day I was in the Toddler room, which didn't work so well.  There were about 20 one- and two-year-olds.  Because she's so small, and all the two-year-olds were very interested in her, I had to wear her in the Bjorn the ENTIRE time we were there, which was for about 4.5 hours.  During much of this time, I was also leaning down and picking up many of the one- and two-year-olds who were upset, so by the end my back was in large amounts of pain.  So, for the other three days, I was put in the actual nursery.  This was much better, as there were only 7-8 kids in there each day, and 4 adults.  Still, being in there resulted in her getting poked in the eye or smacked in the head at least once a day by another child.  We survived though, and she had fun watching the other babies.  I do think this may have been where she got her current cold though...  In a couple of more months, when she's old enough to be in the nursery during church, I'll start serving once a month and she'll get to go in there the rest of the time without me.  Wonder how that will go?? :-)

Here's a couple of videos of our baby girl being cute!  Enjoy!!

This is our bubble blowing video! :-)

First time in her bouncer... sorry it's sideways.  I don't know how to fix it.

We call her our little rodent, as she tries to chew on everything! :-)

Isn't she the coolest baby on the block!! :-)

A New Way of Eating in the Brown Household...

I am trying to change the way the Browns eat!  This is no easy task I assure you.  Why is that?  Well to begin with, as Danny so rightly put it, I don't really want to eat a different way.  That is the first problem, yes!  I was angry at first when he said this to me, but in essence he is right.  I have been raised my whole life on eating few fruits, even fewer vegetables, and having many sweets right at my fingertips.  I don't blame my parents for this.  While some of it was their doing (my mother doesn't like many veggies herself and therefore didn't try to force us to eat them) it was my choice to continue eating that way when I got older.  When Danny and I got married, we ate a lot of things out of a box, processed, and full of ingredients I can't even pronounce.  We ate a lot of macaroni and cheese, hamburger helper, and sugary cereals for breakfast.  Once we were both making money, we started eating out, A LOT!

So, for most of my life, this is how I would eat.  It is much easier to stick with what you know, rather than change to something you don't know.  Also, when you eat a lot of junk, you begin to crave that junk.  You get a "sweet tooth" or you just "need" a wopper today.  I can agree with Danny in that much of me enjoys this way of eating because it is comfortable and I've learned to like that food.  I would get tired of it sometimes, and get on a healthy eating kick, but then quickly fall off the wagon.  I didn't put in the effort to learn new ways of cooking, find healthier versions of things, or practice cooking from scratch.  I would always fall back on what I knew.

Now, it's no longer about me.  Now there is this new person in our lives, who will be watching what we do, and learning to copy us.  It is my dream to raise a child who not only eats healthy, but is willing to try many new things, basically the opposite of me.  I can't do that by constantly putting crap in her body or feeding her one thing but eating something else myself.  I have to set an example for Emma and any other children we may have now, so that when she grows up and has her own family, she already knows how to have a healthy diet.

So, what am I changing you ask?  First of all, I'm starting with us.  I just finished reading the book Real Food For Mother and Baby.  Her basic way of looking at food is, if our great-grandparents couldn't eat it, we shouldn't either.  She is all about getting back to the real and basic foods.  I can follow some of her principles, but not all.  Here are some of what I learned from her that I'm trying to put into practice.

• We are working towards drinking real milk.  She would say that means whole, unpasturized, unhomogenized, grass fed milk, given no hormones.  I can't do all of those things, but right now we are drinking 2% (with a goal of getting to whole soon), unhomogenized milk.  I also believe from reading about the farm where we get our milk, it is grass fed as well, but I may be wrong there.  I know the cows are given no hormones.  I can tell you that this is the best milk I have ever tasted!!
• I think I have found a place where I can buy pastured eggs, meaning they have the freedom to roam all the time, not just occasionally get out of the cage.  If I can't afford to do that all the time, then I will try to buy organic, free range eggs all of the rest of the time.
• I'm giving up the "low fat" versions of food, and sticking with the full, original food, but in moderation.  Many of the good nutrients we need in foods are eliminated when they try to reduce the fat in them.  Therefore, bring on the fat!
• I'm trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet (at least as much as I can).  I have made a conscious effort as I prepare meals and shop to either not buy some foods that contain it or to buy the organic/pure forms of foods to get away from it.  One example is to buy 100% pure maple syrup.
• I'm trying to stop cooking with or eating foods that contain all unnatural fats such as vegetable oil. I will now cook with lots of butter and olive oil, and as soon as I can find/afford it, coconut oil.
• We are going to eat far more fruits and veggies.  The author of Real Foods says that the best way to cook veggies is with one fat (olive oil or butter) salt and one or two other flavors to add a little extra.  So, tonight I cooked organic broccoli by sauteing it in butter along with salt and chopped garlic and sprinkled it with parmesan cheese.  Danny LOVED it!  And, he's not a huge cooked broccoli fan. 
• We are going to limit the amount of times a month we eat out, especially fast foods.  Our budget could really benefit from this as well as our bodies!

Now, these are the first steps I'm taking right now to make us healthier eaters.   Please don't for a second read this and think I'm saying that I'm great at any of these steps (except maybe the milk... it is the best milk ever!) because I am definitely not.  It will be a slow process, but if I can make small changes over time, in the future we will be eating much better than now.  To give myself some extra grocery money to do some of these things, I'm trying to coupon so that I can stockpile some of our "essentials" allowing me to only purchase a few items for each meal and giving me some extra spending money for the rest.  I'd love to get to where I can purchase exclusively grass fed beef, but that is expensive, so we're not there yet!  Thus far, I have loved making some new meals, and I feel like we're having such a bigger variety than before.  I'm trying not to make things too hard, or otherwise I won't stick to it.  I have a good year to work on this before I'll be feeding a third mouth consistently.  Which brings me to my next change, which is more of a change of plans than a change of routine!

A long time ago, when Danny and I were still only dating and we were discussing the possibility of children in the future, I remember telling him I would absolutely NEVER breast feed a baby!  I was not breast fed as a baby, and I didn't think that was something I needed to do.  He argued pretty hard with me that night about how much healthier it was for a baby, but I couldn't help but point out that I was a healthy child as was my brother, and neither of us ever had breast milk (unless we had some at the hospital before we started on formula, I don't know).  Never would I have imagined I would go so completely to the other side of that argument! :-)

What do I mean by "so completely to the other side"?  I LOVE nursing Emma!  For the first 2-3 weeks of her life, we had some difficulty.  She learned to latch fairly quickly, but I was still very sore and bled quite a bit!  But, once we got passed that time, we've had no issues.  I enjoy nursing her for many reasons, and she certainly loves to nurse!  You only have to get one look at her adorably chunky thighs and arms to believe me!  Still, right after she was born, I began to dream of when she'd start solids.  I did tons of research into which baby cookbook I wanted, found the perfect freezer containers for all of the homemade baby food I couldn't wait to cook for her.  And, then I read Real Food as well as a couple of good blogs, and I discovered baby-led weaning.  After doing some research into the topic, I think this is the route this family will go.  What does that mean?

• Emma will have no pureed foods, unless she is one of those children with a very high gag reflex and just absolutely needs it for a bit
• We will not start with the "recommended" cereal, as grains are harder to digest and have less nutrients in them.  I hope to push off grains until 1 year.
• I won't begin feeding her anything but breast milk until she shows signs of wanting to try food.  It will be at least 6 months, but it may be much later if she isn't ready by then.
• She will eat whatever we are having.  I don't want to start her getting used to "kid foods" at a young age, and become dependent upon them.
• I hope I can be patient enough to not worry about how much she's getting within the first year.  Breast milk will be the main source of nutrition for her for much longer, therefore, if she doesn't eat much at the beginning, then I'm going to TRY not to worry or fret.  That's a very important part of the process but the hardest for me, as I just want to know she's getting the nutrition she needs.

As Emma grows, I will keep you updated on how we do with this.  I hope, by providing her with lots of tastes and textures early on she will be less picky than I was, but I also know that some of the pickiness comes from nature not nurture.  So, we will see how that plays out later.  I know this will equal a lot of work for me, because everything I've read on the topic says that to keep BF a baby that long, and as the main supplier of nutrients means that the mama has to eat and drink a lot of healthy foods herself to keep up the milk supply.  So, my prayer is that I will be able to do so!

After a lot of thought and prayer on the topic, I feel like this overhaul is a good idea.  Besides all of the obvious health benefits, I believe it will help all three of us to be better stewards of our bodies, as we are called to be by Christ.  This isn't a "get thin" fix for me or a new fad.  I want to know that what I am feeding my baby girl as well as Danny and myself is helping our bodies, not hurting them.  We have overindustrialized food so much that we have eliminated many things we actually need and added many more that are harmful to us.  While I will still enjoy many of the products of industrialization of food, and I'm not out to condemn it, I do hope that we can get back to some of the good, "real" food we can overall be healthier people and have a better enjoyment of food!  So, for those of you who have lasted this long with this post, thanks for reading my thoughts!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of these issues, and if you follow any of these principles, how they have or have not worked for you!