Smart Habit Saturday

My SMART habit this week is daily prayer. I have had this link saved for a while but only ever used it sporadically - I will now want to make a habit of using it daily:

SACRED SPACE

This site is run by Irish Jesuits and provides on-screen guided meditations and a short passage of specially chosen scripture each day. It only takes about 10 minutes to do and always makes me feel wonderful afterwards. Here is an excerpt from the end of today's reading, which turned out to be very appropriate:

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

At the end of the reading, the guided meditation prompts you to ask: "What are you saying to me, Lord?" Sometimes I really have to puzzle over the answer to that - but not today :D

The rest of this post is WAY too longwinded and contains WAY too much information. You are very welcome not to read it!

Positive Parenting: Good. This week I have been concentrating on giving positive feedback and rewards (hugs and kisses) for all the little things Wombat does well, ignoring minor misbehaviour, asking for his cooperation (that really works! It's amazing how much Wombat understands, and how much nicer things can be if I explain what I'm doing and why, and then do it WITH him instead of TO him.)

It hasn't been all smooth sailing - he has suddenly become afraid of the dark - or perhaps it is just the awful teething making it harder for him to settle? We have had some screaming tantrums at bedtime but it seems better for him if I don't turn the light off until after he has been asleep for a few hours. I am going to invest in a night light & see if that helps.

I have sidestepped napping battles by watching for his 'sleep window' instead of insisting on two naps a day (and am getting hardly any work done as a result). I have also sidestepped the nappy changing battle by using a cloth nappy folded into a pad in a pair of training pants - it doesn't work for sleeptimes, but it makes him feel more grown up during the day - and this week he is finally using sign language for potty! (I have been trying to teach it to him for 6 months - ever since he decided he didn't like pooping in his nappy.) All poop goes in the potty now - and he makes the potty sign when he is sitting on it - now the next step is to get him used to the idea of telling me when he feels the need to pee.

(EDIT: When am I EVER going to learn??? Every single time I have made a comment online about my wonderful Wombat consistently pooping in the potty, I will spend that day changing dirty nappies. Every Single Time. I think that boy can read my thoughts...)

One thing I have found in my reading which has really helped is not actually to do with positive parenting, but it has made a big difference. A while ago I read about St Therese and her 'Little Way'. I immediately sorted out some beads from my stash to make a set of sacrifice beads, but never went any further. This week I found myself reading about St Therese again, and discovered we had something in common:

Every time Therese even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn't appreciate her, she burst into tears. Then she would cry because she had cried! Any inner wall she built to contain her wild emotions crumpled immediately before the tiniest comment.
(Catholic Online: Saint Therese of Lisieux)

I can SO relate to that! I read further and rediscovered her concept of using beads to count her 'little acts of love'. Nothing heroic, nothing huge, just everyday good deeds - making Wombat smile... cleaning up a mess... smiling at my mother-in-law... it doesn't even have to be something you don't like doing - just something God would approve of!

Basically, when you do a good deed, or offer up some little sacrifice to Jesus, you move a bead towards the crucifix. When you do something wrong (grumbling to myself about hanging the washing... losing my temper... leaving a mess for someone else to clean...)* you move a bead back the other way (towards a Miraculous medal of Mary, or a medal of St Therese, or some other saint/inspiration to do better). I have found this really helps me keep track of my day - I don't despair after a bad day, because I know I have done good things as well, and if I am having had a good day, I am also more aware of the little things I do that hurt others. The beads are very easy to make - here are some clear instructions and here is some more information on how to use them.

*(to quote Sandra Boynton's song 'I like to Fuss': "I like to fuss, I like to moan. I like to stand on my chair and say leave me alone... I like to gripe, I like to brood, I like to stomp all around in a truly terrible mood..." - that's the main bad habit that has me pushing beads in reverse ;P )

Exercise: excellent! WOOHOOOOO! I was so inspired and feeling so good about exercise this week that whenever I missed a session, I did double the next time so I could still tick it off. The secret is in setting such small, manageable ten minute sessions! Having said that, I am on hold for this week. It is that time of the month, and I have discovered an unexpected and unwelcome side effect of weaning. While I was breastfeeding, it seemed that my body had finally settled down into having normal manageable periods instead of my usual bloodbath. I was incredibly happy! Now that I have stopped, I am suddenly plunged back into the dark ages of a huge mess and cramps. *sigh* If I'd known that was going to happen... oh well, I guess it's just more incentive to get pregnant again :P (though Yeti insists on us waiting until I am under less study stress...)

The end result is that my exercise plans have ground to a shuddering halt. I have been reaching for the chocolate, and the second spoonful of sugar that I had happily been doing without has somehow crept back into my tea. The big challenge will be taking up where I left off once this week is over - and that is the challenge I have failed in the past. Still, I was really enjoying the exercise this time, and definitely feeling the benefits of it, even if they weren't externally visible. Rather than push myself in a weakened state, I am going to spend a week doing less strenuous stretching activities and make that part of the exercise habit so I can cope with times like this.

SMART habit progress:

• Positive Parenting = good


• Exercise = excellent (but on hold)

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Thankful Thursday

I would have made this an official Thursday Thirteen, but I couldn't be bothered working out all the blogroll & reciprocal commenting requirements... I just want to start making a list of positives each week!

1. it is now three days since I last breastfed Wombat. He is officially weaned. He listened to me telling him about babies (& puppies & kittens & calves & foals) drinking mummymilk, and looked at the pictures I showed him, and the pictures of older animals drinking from bowls etc, and he listened while I told him he was my big boy now & would only drink bottle milk from now on, until he was able to drink from a cup like Mummy & Daddy... he loved looking at the photo album that contains weekly photos of him from birth onwards (there are lots of gaps which I must print photos to fill in for him)... I thought he hadn't understood, but when I took him for his first non-feeding nap, he didn't even try to nurse... he didn't sleep either, but I was impressed at his understanding. When I pretended to be asleep to see if he's join me, he tugged his special blankey over & tucked me in (big grin!!!) I think he thought it was just for that nap though, because he got quite upset when there was no feed offered at the afternoon nap. I repeated my explanation of how much I loved my big boy and he wasn't a baby any more, and he stopped crying straight away! It hasn't been smooth sailing by any means, but I think we're over the worst, and it was nowhere near as traumatic as I'd feared.

2. it is raining

3. When I was feeling very sick on Tuesday, Yeti sent me to the doctor (and stayed home looking after a Wombat screaming with separation anxiety while I spent two hours reading Ulysses in the doctor's waiting room - my doc is never on time). Doc gave me fluid tablets - basically they help dry up the milk by pulling any excess stores of water to the kidneys for excretion. It may not sound very delicate, but it's an awful lot more comfortable than engorged boobs (and I want to be able to remember it for next time/advising friends)! It also reduces the chance of infection, which I was worried about - the last thing I need is another bout of mastitis (the way he explained it, imagine a dish of powdered formula and a dish of made-up formula - bacteria is going to grow in the wet stuff, but not in the dry.)

4. Wombat is napping! So he's only having one nap a day, and he's more teary than usual (which is also due to the teeth) but he went to sleep without feeding - only took singing Away in a Manger, Good King Wenceslas, and Morningtown Ride as lullabies! (He really likes Christmas Carols ;P)

5. Wombat is sleeping through the night. He wakes up crying in the mornings while I'm studying, but goes back to sleep before I go in to him.

6. the electricity bill arrived - at $925 it is more than I hoped, but less than I feared - and at least now I know the damage and can pay it & concentrate on saving for the accommodation we'll need for the onsite school.

7. Wombat had a perfect potty day yesterday - dry nappies & full potties all day! (Today has not been so good - but then, I was out teaching this morning & that always mucks up his routine, plus being cooped up inside doesn't help).

8. did I mention it's raining? (we are still technically in drought - though there has been flooding all up the coast in the last week... anyway, washing nappies on tank water means we need all the rain we can get)

9. Wombat discovered that - in the absence of a sandpit - he likes digging in the dirt. I was able to redirect him away from the tree root he was trying to dig out near the chook pen, and convince him to play in my garden - while I weeded! Doesn't sound like much, but the last time I had a chance to weed was before I fell pregnant, so a LONG time ago (while pregnant I was paranoid about coming into contact with cat poop). I had resigned myself to losing my garden completely beneath the jungle of weeds & grass... now I am resurrecting it a little at a time

10. my boxes from officeworks arrived - 20 lovely big archive boxes to play with... now I only have to find time to fill them with all the uni notes stored under the house, and the sewing stuff in the caravan... and find somewhere to stack them... hopefully I can get more organized before we are ready to move house (which may happen in a year or so) - I was going to separate Wombat's toys into daily boxes & rotate them like my sister does, but I realised Wombat doesn't really have enough toys to do that - and he knows all his toys and goes searching through for the one he wants - it is amazing the connections he makes now. He sees a horse in a book and collects together all his toy horses... sees a rooster and points towards our chook pen (from inside, which shows he has a great sense of direction!)...

11. I bought a new book on eBay about making cloth books for children... it looks great & I can't wait to start

12. after paying the electricity bill, & saving for accommodation, I won't have enough left over to buy new 'professional looking' clothes... but I am doing reasonably at making exercise a habit - have done at least 30 minutes every day, so far this week - and even managed the full 40 minutes on two days (that's 10 minutes each hour between 3am & 7am)... if I keep it up, I just might manage to fit into some of the clothes I had to put into storage! Especially since my appetite has decreased now I am not eating for Wombat as well! (His appetite has increased correspondingly - he is now eating almost as much as me each day - if I dropped back to what I was eating before I got pregnant, we'd be eating the same! lol... I'll have to have a highly paid job by the time he's a teenager - he'll eat us out of house & home!!!)

13. it's still raining and Wombat's still asleep (that's two hours!!! can't last much longer)! Tomorrow I will finish Trust & Office Accounting - finally - I have hardly had any time to work this week. But I am holding at only a week behind, which is great!

Handmade Tuesday & more about weaning

I have a pile of things I have made recently (while sitting with Wombat in his playpen) which I want to show off, so I will make Tuesday my day for displaying my handiwork.

Remember the Mummy Wombat I showed you a while ago? (Or guinea-pig, as my niece insisted.) I promised that a Daddy and a Baby Wombat would be forthcoming. Here they are!



I didn't have quite enough felt scraps in one colour, so Daddy Wombat is a combination - as Yeti said, male Wombats often have a darker stripe down their backs. They are still pretty guinea-piggy, though I did try to get the ears into more wombat-like positions.



My Wombat has seen neither real wombat nor guinea-pig, so he does not mind the similarity. If mummy says they are wombats, then wombats they are. (He likes to hold two of them and bump them together... and he giggles when I make them give him 'wombat kisses')

I am quite pleased with how the wombats turned out as my first felt toys, but the real star of the show is Rosie the Hen.



If she looks a little bedraggled, it is because Wombat has already chewed on both her head and her tail!



Not only is she a chew toy, she is also my first FINGER PUPPET! The elastic is a little tight on my finger, because it was made for Wombat - she pecks and 'boks' around with a very satisfying realism. Wombat puts her on his finger and wanders around showing her things ;) couldn't manage to get a photo of him with her, though - he would stop as soon as he saw the camera...



Rosie comes straight from the book Rosie's Walk. This is one of those wonderful books with hardly any text in them - where the parent/reader explains the story as they go - these kind of books are Wombat's favourites. (Another really good one is Hug - I have linked to the Amazon.com pages for these books as they have good reviews. If you are in Australia, I don't suggest buying from Amazon as the exchange rate is a killer - check out the Huggies book club instead - with free postage & member discounts, it is my favourite place to buy Wombat's books.)



Next, I guess Wombat will want me to make the fox! Now that will be a challenge!

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In other news, tomorrow I am going to have to tell Wombat that there will be no more mummy-milk from now on.

Since I have started cutting back on feeding him, the boobs have decided enough is enough, and their days of bounteous production are over - for this baby, at least. They ache like a bruise and I feel like I've been belted in the chest. He has been really good about not biting me, but nursing is just not the pleasant experience it used to be.

I wish the timing was better, as he is already upset with his premolars erupting... but I shall just have to try to explain it to him and get his cooperation and understanding. I'm constantly amazed at how much he understands, and the connections he makes between things in his books and things in the real world. He has a number of books with pictures of baby animals drinking milk from their mummies, and slightly older animals eating & drinking from bowls, so I will spend tomorrow discussing those with him and telling him he is not a baby anymore, he is my little boy, and while I still love him very much and that will never change, it is time for us to move on to the next stage.

Of course, I will have to come up with a new way to settle him to sleep. What's your tip for getting Wombat to snooze? Do you have a tried-and-true technique for toddler naptime?

He would much prefer to be giving up nappies! He is pretty much potty-trained for poopies, but he still hasn't worked out how to tell me when he needs to pee - and he is wetting a lot, especially at night and nap time. It is a half-hour struggle to get a nappy on him now :P He cries and squirms off the bed, runs around the room, insists he needs to sit on potty instead, and then bounces off again after a few seconds. I lost my temper tonight and forcibly held him down - once the nappy was on, he was perfectly happy to be dressed in his pyjamas. I guess it's just that with winter here, he doesn't get as much nappy-free time as he would like, since it is too cold to run around with no pants on. I am investing in some fitted cloth nappies with velcro fasteners so I can do a quick change without asking him to hold still while I fuss with pins - but at $25 a nappy, I can only afford two a fortnight. I have a hemp fleece one which is great for night-time and two different brands of bamboo ones are on the way. At least buying them piecemeal I get to try out a wide range of styles.

As time goes on, I will review them - and a pile more children's books - over at What Wombat, where I shall also try and write every Tuesday. This week's review is on the Fisher Price Link-a-doos Infant to Toddler Rocker.