Talisa – 7/8 Month Update

 

This update is a little off on the timing. I have been tired from lack of sleep, so I was late on the 7 month update. The my computer broke don and I couldn’t do it. But I want to do it before I forget things, so this is a 7/8 month update. Talisa will be 8 months in a week. Then I’ll just do nine months. There are only a couple photos from my iPad here, I’ll try to add better ones later!

Stats – At her 7 month checkup Talisa was 7.22kg. She grew one centimeter and didn’t really gan any weight from the previous month. Actually I think they marked up last month’s weight a little, so maybe she did gain a little. Anyway she was still on the growing curve fine, so I guess a slow down in growth is normal around now.

Sleep – This has been a rough month for sleeping, AGAIN.   Reading through the month 6 update, it’s just about the same. She usually goes to sleep around 11 or 12 (sometimes earlier or later). Half the time she is still up for a couple hours in the middle of the night (like from 3-5, 4-6, or 5-7). She wakes up every 1-3 hours at night. Usually she nurses and goes back to sleep, except for the previously mentioned waking periods. She takes 2-3 naps a day and she is awake for 1 1/2-3 hours between naps. Usually the max is 2 hours, except for evenings, for some reason in the evenings she can stay awake longer. I have tried to gently get her into a better sleeping pattern, but so far it hasn’t worked. Even on days that seem perfect. Like the other day she finished her second nap at 5pm. At 7pm she was sleepy already and we were finishing supper. So we all went upstairs, did the bedtime routing, and she was asleep in bed around 7:30. Perfect! But no, she woke up an hour later and was awake until 12:30am!! And then she woke up almost every hour (going back to sleep each time) and was up at 5:30am for good!! So I was browsing my homeopathy for babies book and saw that there is a remedy called cypripedium that is good for babies who wake up in the middle of the night for a couple hours ready to play. Perfect!!! Only the pharmacy we usually get our homeopathic remedies at doesn’t have it. And others we called don’t have it. It’s not a very common remedy. The last doctor we spoke to told us to try nux vomica fr a few nights. Tonight is the second night, no changes yet. I’ll give it four nights. If no changes I’m going to see if I can order the remedy from overseas. I am TIRED!!

Food – Talisa is regularly eating food now, I usually give her something around lunch time or afternoon snack, and then she has something when we are all eating supper.  Usually her supper is oatmeal I just grind up oats myself. To make her cereal I put a spoon of ground oats in a little bowl, add water, and microwave for about 40-60 seconds, stirring every 10 seconds. I add a little breast milk (for sweetness, taste, and vitamins), sometimes some ground flax, and sometimes another grain like millet if I have some cooked in the fridge. Sometimes I take a little of the oatmeal and mix with a veggie like some puréed carrots, but she’s not a big fan of carrots yet. She loves most fruits. I make fruit (mango, banana, papaya) and coconut milk popsicles they she enjoys. She gets brown rice if we are eating it, and chopped up whatever veggie we are eating if it’s something she can have. We were in the grocery store the other day and she was quite upset that Svara was eating a cracker and she didn’t have anything, so we bought a pack of baby snacks for her. They were just little chopped up pieces of organic dried apples and blueberries. She really likes them! They were expensive, though, I’m keeping them in the diaper bag for emergency snacks. Soon I’m going to make oat and banana cookies that she can have.

Mobility – Talisa is on the move, nothing is safe!  She started crawling (on her belly, not her knees) on Svara’s birthday, just a week before she turned  7 months. Now there is no stopping her! I put away the small playmates because I didn’t have a use for them as she just crawled right off. Now we just play on the living room floor and divert her when she goes to the TV area. She is starting to pull up on things as well. If I am relaxing on the bed and she is on the bed as well her favorite thing to do is to crawl towards me, climb up on me, and start repeatedly kissing my face. Cute, but slobbery!!  I have a feeling she is going to start walking before Svara did (14 months for Svara)

Playing – Talisa is really enjoying all her toys these days. We have a basket of toys in the living room that she tips over every day. I don’t think she has any strong favorites. She will quietly play by herself for awhile on the floor, but of course we have to be nearby in case of trouble. I usually bring a cookbook to browse through while she plays on the floor. If I bring my iPad she wants it, if I bring a novel I can’t concentrate enough. She loves her big sister more and more every day! She laughs and grins when she sees her, and does the same for Naren and I. Now she also flaps her arms up and down in excitement, it’s too cute!

Other – Talisa does this huge grin now that is just hilarious. I keep trying to get a great photo of it. She does it if she’s super happy and excited.  She’ll give kisses if we ask, and often even if we don’t. Diaper changing is becoming a wrestling match as she tries to turn over every time she’s on the changing table. Not much can distract her!

Travel – It’s getting more difficult to go out, visit, etc. since she is past the age where she’ll just easily go to sleep in the sling if she’s tired. Either we go out right after she wakes up, or we just hope for the best.  She doesn’t have a melt down or anything, but she can be cranky. Sometimes I just stay home and Naren goes out with Svara. Of course sometimes when this happens she ends up staying awake late and I could have gone anyway. Oh well.

The Ninth Day of Ridvan

This post is part of the Walking Through the Garden of Ridvan series hosted by All Done Monkey, where members of Baha’i Mom Blogs are sharing ideas for celebrating Ridvan during all 12 days.  

Follow along by visiting this page!

Happy Ninth Day of Ridvan!  For those of you who have been following the series, there have already been a lot of great stories and activities shared!  If you haven’t, be sure to click on the button or link above to see all other posts in this series.

Although the festival of Ridvan is twelve days long, three of those days are considered Holy Days where Baha’is are expected to take off school, work, etc. when at all possible.  Communities often hold their celebrations on one or all of these days, commemorating this “Most Great Festival”!  The three days that are Holy Days are the first, ninth, and twelfth days.

Soon after Baha’u'llah arrived in the Garden of Ridvan the Tigris river rose due to flood waters.  His son, Abdu’l-Baha, came with him, along with another son and His secretary.  The rest of His family, however, had stayed behind to pack up their belongings.  Because of the flooding they were unable to follow.  On the ninth day in the garden the flood receded, and His family was finally able to join Him. Soon after the family arrived, the flood waters again rose.  On the twelfth day they receded again.

I can only imagine the joy of the Holy family in being able to be in Baha’u'llah’s presence once more on the ninth day.

I have really enjoyed reading about activities that families are doing to celebrate Ridvan.  Crafts, songs, baking, special tents, flowers, and more!  It seems as though this is one of those Holy Days that is so unique that Baha’is are just starting to learn how to celebrate it.  It is not a celebration that I remember a lot about while growing up.  I remember hearing and/or reading the stories every year, but that’s about it.  I am hoping that as our own family grows we will start to incorporate more special activities during this festival to make it more memorable and meaningful.

In years past we haven’t really done much for Ridvan.  Last year we attended the local celebration and on another day I read the story to Svara, but it ended about there.  This year I wanted to make sure to do more!  Honestly I couldn’t manage a LOT more for several reasons, but I had to do something!   A lot of families seem to be putting up indoor tents during this time, to simulate being in the garden.  I love this idea because kids get so much more out of things when they can actually experience (or pretend to experience) them.  We have a camping tent that isn’t often used, and we have a big dining room, so this year we decided to set up our garden right in the dining room!  By moving the table to the side there was just enough room for our tent. I would have loved to have a homemade tent made of beautiful draping cloths, but I didn’t have the materials and I know Svara didn’t mind.  We’ll just pretend it’s made of lovely white cloth instead of garish blue and yellow nylon!

I read the story of Ridvan from the book, From Mountain to Mountain twice (and I will read it a third time today) so that Svara has a good understanding of what it is about.  We discuss it while reading and talk about what it might have been like.

To utilize our dining-room tent, we had to serve tea of course!  While I was busy putting Talisa down for a nap, Naren and Svara were busy decorating and setting up the inside of the tent.

Earlier in the day Svara and I had made the roses.  I have made these rolled roses before, there are many tutorials online (here is one).  You simply cut out a circle of paper and then draw a spiral from the outside to the inside.  Cut along the spiral, then roll the whole thing up.  Let it expand to the size you want and then tape and/or glue the end shut.  They are simple enough that children can easily help.  Svara had fun throughout the day placing the roses on chairs (pretending they were bushes), then picking them and putting them into the tent.

I wanted to make some traditional Persian cookies for this special tea-time, but I just didn’t have all of the ingredients for any of the recipes I found, go figure!  One of the traditional cookies is a walnut cookie, so I made a cookie that had walnuts in it from a cookbook I have so at least it has somewhat of a link to a Persian cookie   Svara has been enjoying helping me in the kitchen the past few weeks.  For the last year or so she has not helped out in the kitchen much.  There is no fan in the kitchen and she feels hot quickly and does not like it.  Either she’s getting used to it or she has just overcome it for wanting to help out!  She is old enough now that she can start measuring ingredients and we talk about measurements while cooking, making it a math lesson as well

So we all sat in the tent, said prayers, had our tea, and talked about the Ridvan story a bit.  It was such a hit that I believe we’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow!

On a little side note, in the evening I was in the kitchen busy  making supper.  Svara peeked into the kitchen and asked me not to look into the dining room, saying that she was setting up a surprise.  I obliged, of course   She called me out when she was done and proudly showed me this:

She had taken the cloths and roses out of the tent and used them to set the table specially for Ridvan.  She used kitchen cloths as place mats and set the table for our dinner (Naren was away for the evening so it was just her and me).  She was so proud and it was so cute!  But seeing this I think we have to invest in some real place mats sometime  hahaha!

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the bloggers have to share with us for the last days of Ridvan!  Thanks for following along!

Vegan Calzones

I have been dairy free for the past five months.  I have been dairy free on and off for many years, but there is something about cheese that keeps calling me back, especially while I was pregnant!  But since Talisa reacts to my eating dairy, I am totally dairy free for now.  I know it’s healthier anyway, and there are many vegan alternatives, so I don’t mind too much.  I am always looking for new homemade cheese recipes (you can see my collection on pinterest here!)

The other day I came across a new pizza mozzarella (called Moxarella by the maker, cute!).  It’s a thick gooey cheese sauce that you glop onto your pizza before baking it.  The cashews give it richness, the tapioca starch gives it a cheesy gooeyness, and the garlic and lemon give lovely flavor!

The other day at Svara’s birthday party we ordered pizzas since we needed something EASY!  Boy was it hard seeing all that gooey pizza!  Svara and I shared a pizza with no cheese, but it just wasn’t very tasty.  Most of it was leftover, so I immediately thought of this recipe.  I made it tonight and added it to the leftover pizza, baking it until it was nice and hot.  yum!!!

I also made some homemade crust to make some calzones.  I filled the calzones with a little sauce, this cheese, some seitan “sausage”, mushrooms, and olives.  Boy was it tasty!!

This “Moxarella” really has the gooeyness of cheese, I totally love it!!  Here are a couple photos of my calzone cut in half:

 

 

I made the cheese recipe just like the original, so head on over to Vedgedout to get the recipe!   I added the olive oil as per the recipe since I wanted it to be nice and rich.  I also added the recommended amount of salt.  It was super tasty, but I had to drink a lot of water afterwards, so next time I will cut the salt a bit (if it was just a cheese pizza it’d be perfect, but I added salty olives and seitan “sausage” which is why mine was extra salty).

Treasures

There is a quote I want to share today. I’ve seen it posted by friends on facebook several times over the past few months, and I want to keep it here so I can always look back at it.  It is written by George Townsend, one of the early Baha’is and a Hand of the Cause of God.   It really captures why we should treasure our children while they are still small.  Here is the quote:

“While they are at your side, love these little ones to the utmost. Forget yourself; serve them; care for them; lavish all your tenderness upon them. Value your good fortune while it is with you and let nothing of their babyhood go unprized. Not for long will you keep the happiness that now lies in your reach. You will not always walk in the sunshine with a little soft hand nestling in each of yours, nor hear little feet pattering beside you and eager baby voices questioning and pattering of a thousand things with ceaseless excitement. Not always will you see that trusting face upturned to yours, feel those little arms about your neck and those tender lips pressed upon your cheek nor will you have that tiny form to kneel beside you, and murmur baby prayers into your ear. Love them and win their love and shower on them all the treasures of your heart. Fill up their days with happiness and share with them their mirth and innocent delights. Ere you are aware it will be gone with all its gifts forever.”

- George Townshend

I am going through a time when I really need to read this every morning.  It has been hard these past few months with never enough sleep.  I often have a short temper and feel impatient.  Never enough time to do all that I want and/or need to do.  But by reading this quote I remember that my children are the most important things in my life right now.  It’s easy to remember to take care of babies – their needs are so direct – feed, change, put to sleep, keep amused.  But as children get older some of their needs change.  Svara doesn’t rely on me 100% for her physical needs, but she still has so many needs.  I have to remind myself she is ONLY six years old.  She is able to shower, brush her teeth, get a snack, etc.  But she still NEEDS me.  She needs my attention.  She needs my love.  She needs nurturing and guidance.  So I am posting this quote here so I can refer back to it often, and try harder, organize my life better, so I can spend the time I need to with my treasures.

Happy 6th Birthday, Svara!

Dear Svara,

I can hardly believe you are 6 years old already!  You have grown a lot this past year and I am in awe watching you become your own person.  You are so full of enthusiasm and energy for life.  You want to do everything and you want to do it NOW.  I think you must get that from Papa, because I can hardly keep up with your energy!  I hope you never stop, the world needs your kind of energy!

You show your helpfulness and caring every day.  You love to do little spontaneous things to help out, like take my dishes to the sink for me, get a drink of water for me or Papa, and always always help out with your baby sister.  The way you love and care for Talisa always brings warmth to my heart.  You love to hold her, talk to her, make funny faces at her, and do anything you can do make her smile and laugh.  If it were up to you, you would be taking over all care of her including bathing and feeding (you’d probably still leave diaper changing to me).  You are such a wonderful and caring big sister!  You love to help out when I am cooking/baking as well, and I hope you are always my kitchen helper! Pretty soon you’ll be able to start cooking by yourself!

You have been working hard on developing your flexibility, patience, and respect this year.  Some days you do an awesome job, go with the flow, and find things to be thankful for even when there are disappointments.  Other days you have a rough time, but I know you are trying.

I smile when you say things like: ”Come say morning prayers with me, Mama, my soul is hungry for its breakfast!”

You have a strong sense of fairness and justice, and you wish everything would be fair.  Of course you know that’s not the way  it is, and that’s hard sometimes.  When you practice thankfulness you realize that even though not everything is the way you’d like it, you are still pretty lucky!

You have developed your friendliness this year and now you are able to make friends more easily which is great!  You got to spend time with and be great friends with your Uncle Xander, which was awesome!  You’ve also made some great friends at Feast and at Baha’i children’s class.

You have always been creative, and this year has been no different.  You have learned how to draw anything you want, color and cut carefully, think of SO many stories to act out with your dolls, and more.  If it were up to you we’d do  art and craft projects every day!  The good thing is that you are now old enough to do some art and craft projects all by yourself, so you don’t always have to wait for me.

You are, as you always have been, my funny girl. You’ll do anything to get a laugh!  This year you learned how to tell a knock-knock joke!

Your favorite color this year has definitely been PINK! Anything is better as long as it is pink!

We have been homeschooling this year and you have enjoyed lots of things, but you show the most enthusiasm for science experiments! You have done a great job learning to read, and you have quite the aptitude for math!

This hasn’t been the easiest year for us.  I haven’t had all the time to focus on you that I would like as there were many other things going on this past year.  You have tried very hard to be understanding and you have been very helpful to me.  I am hoping that this year I will be able to focus more of my time with you as you continue to grow and learn.

Happy 6th birthday, my dear Svara!  I can’t wait to see what the next year brings and to continue watching you grow in so many ways.  I am so proud and thankful to be your mother!  I love you!

Love,

Mama

Backyard Science

 

Some of the best lessons are spur of the moment ones!  The other day after it rained we went out to the porch and noticed there were some big snails by the plants.  These are giant african land snails, they’ve been in Asia for a long time and are quite normal to see around here.  When I was teaching third grade at ISKL we actually had two of these snails as classroom pets!  There are many websites dedicated to how to take care of these snails, I guess a lot of people keep them as pets.  They are pretty easy to care for.  However, one thing to be careful of is that wild ones can harbor a certain bacteria that can cause meningitis in humans, so it’s best not to handle them, or at least wash your hands well after handling them.  We just watched them.  We learned that they like eating passion fruit leaves, but they aren’t too fond of roselle leaves.

After watching these snails for quite a while Svara was interested to learn more about them.  So the next day we ventured online and watched some videos and read some websites to learn more about them.

 

Now every time it rains Svara can’t wait to go outside and see if the snails have come out again!

Cloth Diapers – Update from 4 Months

Here’s another post that I meant to put up almost two months ago and am just getting to it now!

Talisa just turned 6 months old, but these photos are from when she was 4 months old.  All the diapers fit her just about the same, though.  Occasionally I have to snap them one snap larger on the waist, depending on what insert I’m using.

The main diapers that I”m using now are still flats or prefolds trifolded in covers.  The main covers I have are from Emotibums, My Very Best, and Grovia.  I also have some AIO (all-in-one) diapers that I use for nights – those are Swaddlebee  Simplex.  I do have some fitteds and other covers, but I am not using them right now.

I thought I’d do a review of each diaper and how it’s working for us.  Note, I have not been asked to do any review and have not been given any of these diapers to do reviews on – I’m simply sharing information in case it comes in handy for anyone!

First up, Emotibums!  Emotibums is a work-at-home-mom who makes these adorable fleece covers.  She is most well known for soakers, shorties, and longies, but has recently added fleece wraps.  I prefer wrap covers, so I was excited.  These fit from 8-20 pounds and are actually the ONLY covers that fit at birth that still fit by 4 months.  Actually, at 6 months they are still fitting!  I just love the little happy face on the bum!  These covers can fit over most diapers, but I have just been using them for trifolding.  Emotibums is now offering trimmer covers just for trifolding, so I”m getting some of those for when Talisa outgrows these!  Which will probably be in a month or so. She still has an extra snap on each side for the waist, but the rise is just right now.  Talisa still has quite chubby thighs and outgrows rise before width.

 

 

Next up, Grovia covers!  These covers are my go-to covers for when we go out.  The awesome hook&loop make them the easiest to change when we are out.  They fit quite trim and are perfect for trifolding.  The inner mesh layer holds the prefold or flat in place well.  I don’t use the snap-in inserts that are sold to go with these covers, as I like the ease of washing and drying for flats and prefolds.  I always make sure to wash these covers on cool or warm, never on hot, and I always air dry. This is to preserve the hook&loop.  So far it has worked well.  At 6 months they are still going strong!  Though Talisa is a very curious girl and likes to play with her diapers.  Just last week (at almost 6 months) she learned how to take off the hook&loop!!!  These are still perfect for going out since she wears clothes over them.  But at home I reach for my snap covers first!  I thought it would be longer before I had to worry about her taking these off herself.  I’m saving up to add some Grovia snap shells to our stash.

 

 

These covers from My Very Best are the ones I always grab for first!  I have three covers.  Actually two of them are pocket diapers, but I just use them as AI2 with trifolded prefolds/flats so that I can get more use out of them.  The one in these photos is her current design and it is the most trim.  I like them all, though.  They are well made, cute, trim, and they are snaps so Talisa can’t undo them!  This work-at-home-mom mostly does custom orders currently.  Which means you get to pick your pattern, fabric, inner fabric, whether you want a pocket or just a cover, extra inner gussets, etc.  I have one with inner gussets and I really like that.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get another one of these someday!

 

 

And lastly, here are our nighttime diapers – the Swaddlebees Simplex AIO one-size!  These are great diapers for any time, but I have been using them for nights since Talisa was about a month old just because it’s easy.  So far they are absorbent enough and have never leaked.  During the day I like AI2s so that I can get more use out of each cover. I kind of feel like if I used an AIO during the day it would be a “waste” though I know that’s silly.  If I used an AI2 for night I’d still have to put the cover for washing since it’d be quite wet, so I might as well use the AIO for night, right??  The only “problem” is that it means noone outside of home gets to see the adorable Swaddlebees prints!   Oh, and another reason I use them for nights is that they have a stay-dry option (it’s optional because if you want you can tuck that part into the pocket so that you won’t have the fleece layer against the skin).  Talisa has never had irritation from wetness, but I still feel like it’s nice to havea  dryer feeling diaper for all night.  Another thing I like about these is that they wash and dry VERY easily for an AIO!  In fact, they dry just as quickly as my prefolds!!  There is one drawback and that is the snaps.  I read on some forums that some people have problems with the snaps falling off because they are so tight.  I was lucky for the first four months and had no problems with that.  Unfortunately within the past two months I have had a snap fall off on two of my six diapers :`(   If you live in the US this is no problem since you can just send it in and they’ll fix it for you.  But it’s not worth it for me to send my diaper all the way to the US to fix a snap!!!  So what I’m planning on doing is purchasing a snap pliers and some snaps and fixing it myself.  I’d like to have a snap pliers for other projects anyway.  Sometimes I think “why don’t I just have a full stash of these diapers?”  Then I remember the snaps…  But I can’t help it, I still love them!

Trim!

 

 

So those are the main diapers in use here!  I have a couple other covers that I use when I need to, but they are not my favorite.  One is a  Mommy’s Touch cover.  It’s excellent quality, but not as easy to adjust the size and it’s not as trim.  I think I’ll like it better when she’s older.  The other is a one size cover from Fluffy’s Diapers on etsy.  I loved her sized covers.  The one size cover works well and fits fine, but it’s rather large.  The waist is really big, so it’s just not quite as convenient.  Again, I think I will prefer it when she’s older.  For now it’s a backup cover.