In my last cloth diapering post, I mentioned that I would be contacting CottonBabies to see about getting some replacement tabs for my BumGenius 3.0s. While the diapers and inserts were still stain-free and in great condition--even after a year of heavy use--the hook and loop tabs and laundry panels had all but given up the ghost. It wasn't unusual for a curled tab to snag the edge of a fuzzy sleeper and come open, or for me to pull a tangle of snagged covers from the washer and spend a few minutes separating them before sending them on to the next stage of the laundering process.
To my (happy) surprise, CottonBabies not only replaced the tabs on our BGs ... they gave us a whole batch of brand new covers.
Apparently, this only works if your diapers are still under warranty (within one year of purchase date). I think they also had to be purchased from the all-important "authorized vendor" as well, but since mine were ordered through CottonBabies, I didn't read that part carefully. Sorry.
It took slightly longer than I expected for my covers (they didn't replace the inserts) to be returned. When they arrived, however, it was like Diaper Box Day all over again. Brand new diapers! Yeah!
These covers are supposedly New and Improved! but I can only see some tiny changes, like the size of the laundry tab. The washing instructions, however, have changed significantly. CottonBabies no longer recommends drying the covers at all; hanging is the only method that keeps your new warranty in effect. The directions in regards to what you should and should not wash in the same load as your diapers is also more clearly defined. For example, I learned that washing flannel baby wipes with my diapers is now a big no-no. Hurumph!
I still love these diapers. I recommend them to anyone and everyone who shows an interest. But they do seem a little less user-friendly now somehow. I liked the routine I had going with washing. Air drying throws a tiny crimp in that timing-wise. But I like tabs that stick even better, so I'll play along.
Want to know the truth? Summer has depressed the yeehaw out of me for the past four years or so, and motivating myself to do much of anything has been a struggle that I've found myself unable to come out on top of. Something about the heat, the sun, the lush green all around me speaks to my soul and pulls me back home ... a place I doubt in my heart of hearts that I'll ever return to for more than a vacation. It's a hard thing. A painful thing. A "push-the-emotion-down-so-you-keep-it-smothered" kind of thing.
Mr. Blandings, Jo, Atticus, Logan ... they've all found soft, fertile soil for their roots here. The rain, the towering trees, the impossibly large mountains all took up residence in their very being within a few short months of calling these pastures home. I look into the eyes of my children and I see their easy familiarity with this climate and these surroundings. Their voices mimic the casual, somewhat clipped speech of the natives. Mr. Blandings sighs deep, long sighs when he pushes the window open on a clear day.
"The air here just smells good," he says, tossing his arm around my shoulder. "Better than coal dust, right?"
I miss coal dust, I want to say. Coal dust and cherry blossoms and days so hot your hair is wet by the time you get back from the mailbox.
Summer: beautiful, yet blindingly bittersweet ... on both ends.
This year, the tug is not quite so intense. My feet seem more solid than they have since they last felt red clay under them. I look around and sense life, wonder and growth. And like the Lord, I can finally say "It is good."
Further proof of my slow acclimation to the Northwest has come in the guise of a small domestic project. This is the first year in a long time that I've turned my hand the gardening way. Our first summer in this clime found me plopping tomato plants into pots, scattering seeds and scratching something lovely out of the raw material of a suburban lot. After a few disasters (the growing season here is pitifully short when compared to the long, hot days of of Georgia, Kentucky or North Carolina summer) I gave up. The pots became hosts to some neglected perennials whose robustness in the face of blatant neglect is almost laughable. The flowers disappeared under the feet of our overzealous German Shepherd. And our yard spiralled into a muddy tract of nothingness that served to depress me even more.
But this summer, hope has been in the air. Not only are we looking to move to a new house with property, but our family finally (finally!) feels as if the gaps are in the process of being filled. Better yet, I am finally open to what I feel God's call has been on my life all along: more mother than writer, more wife than anything else. Life is good--and our yard reflects it.
Using directions from Pioneer Woman's blog, Mr. Blandings fashioned two little beds for me this spring. The kids and I carefully started dozens of seeds in little pots. And then, when the sun finally began to break through the gloom of a Northwestern spring, we filled the beds with our hope and our love.
It's amazing how quickly those tender young plants have grown. They sent their roots deep, drew up what they needed and fortified themselves. Soft, supple stems absorbed a few shocks, but then strengthened in their new environment. Within a short window of time, they were overrunning the area, sending out leaves and tendrils and preparing an offering of delicate blossoms.
Seeing this miracle has given me peace this spring. It has given me an optimism towards the summer months that has been sorely lacking in years past. More than that, it has given me joy. Because even as I tend the little garden that my husband loved me enough to build, I am revisiting my past and carving out my own future. My hands may be far from the soil of home, but still ... they are fruitful. I may not have azaleas or dogwoods in my landscape, but I have a handful of square feet filled to bursting with some spinach, tomatoes and the beginnings of a bean bush or two. Bloom where you're planted, I hear a soft voice whispering. It's o.k. to set your roots.
So I'm doing it. With some sadness, yes. But mostly with joy.
ThyHandHathProvided!You've won the three month's curriculum from Itty Bitty Bookworm! :-) Email me at this blog's name (no spaces) at gmail.com to learn how to claim your prize!Thanks to all who entered. I'm liking this whole giveaway thing. Maybe I'll host another soon. Until then check out Karla's blog. She does a giveaway every Friday.
I finally have something to say in the realm of adoption.
Praise God, nearly 16 months after placement, I received news yesterday that a preliminary termination hearing is being held at the end of July for Oliver. Birthmom is fighting to the bitter end; her last visit with Oliver was the first week of January, but she still remains firm in her conviction that she has every intention of raising him on a daily basis. There's more I could say on this matter, but I won't. I will simply sigh deeply and watch as the facts of poor Oli's life are paraded in court. I will listen in sadness as the psychiatrist outlines why Birthmom received a failing grade on her parenting and psychological exams. I will hear a litany of pleadings and petitions. And then, at the end of the day, I will turn my eyes to the Lord and wait for a judge to make a decision.
Oliver's birthfather is relinquishing custody, and our open adoption agreement is in the works. I have both sympathy and frustration for Birthdad. He is a wreck of a man, damaged by horrific abuse in his own childhood and poor choices in adulthood. When he says he never wanted to be a father, that he freely abdicates that right to someone more capable than himself, I am grateful. When he holds Oli's hand in his and says, "Bye, buddy," at the end of a visit, my heart is softened. And when he fails to show up for yet another visit, I am angry. Ours will be a complicated, tangled relationship for life. When the signatures are placed on the agreement, we will bound forever to one another through our love of one small person and that brings me a peace both terrible and beautiful and the same time.
Manolin's case continues to be as cut and dry as one finds in the world of foster-adoption. His birthmother is still under a ten year no contact order that precludes any relationship she might desire with the little man she carried and then sought to destroy. Termination paperwork has been filed and will most likely never go to court; how does one, after all, convincingly attest in a court that she can successfully parent a child she is forbidden by law to even request a photograph of? Evaluations and counseling reports aside, Birthmom is not going to regain custody of Manolin. I hope she relinquishes rights. It will be faster and less painful for all of us.
And this, dear readers, is where one finds joy in the world of foster-adoption: at the end of one relationship, there blossoms a series of others. Our family sits quietly, awaiting hearings and judgments that will make us whole. In our hearts, of course, the truth is already there. Maybe by winter the truth will have bloomed for all to see.
Just wanted to let you all know about a giveaway that my friend Karla is holding on her blog, Roads to Learning. Check it out!
I woke up this morning with eyes bleary from seasonal allergies and a late night spent watching a Cary Grant film. ("Houseboat." It was worth it.) It was early, and Mr. Blandings had to be on the road before his normal departure time. While I lay there, waiting for the sounds that accompany my husband's morning shower (the scrape of the curtain being pulled, the water clanging through the pipes, the click of the cabinet that holds his contacts being opened) I realized that exactly one year ago I was over-the-moon thrilled because ....
I was using cloth diapers for the very first time.
My big, outrageous memory of the day involves diapers. Granted, they're still really cool and I don't for a minute regret the investment I've made in them financially or otherwise, but still. Diapers?
On this day, one year ago, Manonlin entered the world. I have no details of his birth; I don't even know what city he was delivered in. I don't know the hour, his weight or length. These are the details that will be filled in later, when the massive binder that rests on his social worker's desk is finally opened to us.
But somewhere, at some point, he was born. On this day.
I wonder sometimes what I was doing when each of my littlest boys took their first breath. Where was I? What was I doing? How could I not have known? Part of my heart was in a hospital room, being weighed, measured, swaddled. How could my day have been unremarkable?
My thoughts then invariably shift to the places where the bright, burning happiness of that little baby simply being is shadowed by the events that brought another person into our family. For Manolin, the story starts so heartbreakingly early that I know I will never pass through another summer without an ache of regret. The things you have seen and witnessed, the things done to you, dear boy ... I would take it away in an instant if I could.
But the catch-22 of adoption is that you cannot take the hurt back. Even if you could, would you want to? Because the brokenness is what leads the child to your arms. With no brokenness, there is no family. A wicked beauty, that--something like sin and the cross.
My sleepy eyes opened at last this morning when Mr. Blandings brought Manolin to me. Usually, this is the moment on a first birthday morning where I am flooded with memories of anticipation, joy and reward after hard work. Today, I felt none of that. Instead, my eyes rested on a beautiful, brown-eyed child whose DNA is as big of a mystery as the circumstances of his birth. I had nothing to do with Manolin coming into the world. His body and mine were never joined. I did not cradle his newborn head or let him coil his spindly minutes-old fingers around my thumb.
But I am the one who has been blessed to watch him learn to support his head. The one who propped him against pillows before he could sit. The one who cheered for his rolling over. The one who has shot endless hours of video of him rocketing, scooter style, across the floor after an older sibling. I am the one who has soothed his cries, coaxed his laughs and strapped him into his carseat.
There is still much to be celebrated today. Birth is only a part of it. And if anyone asks me where I was on the day that our magnificent little man reached his milestone first birthday, I can answer with confidence: I was right there, beside him. Right there, all along.
The pitfall I've found in telling parents of toddlers and preschoolers that they don't need a homeschool curriculum is that the vast majority are uncomfortable with such a relaxed approach. It's all well and good for us veterans--who have already had the fun of digging into catalogs and experiencing our first Box Day--to say, "A library card is all you need! Read, play and have fun!" We, after all, have shelves full of the most alluring and enticing historical fiction, handbooks on grammar and math games. But their shelves are depressingly bare.
It doesn't feel like they're doing anything to homeschool their child. It can't be as simple as a library card and a lap, anyhow. And even if it is ... someone must have the market cornered on the best way to do that, right?
So the newbie homeschooling parents end up falling into one of two camps: the I'll-Just-Get-A-Couple-Of-Workbooks-Because-My-Three-Year-Old-Is-Smarter-Than-You-Think-And-Picture-Books-And-Real-Life-Won't-Cut-It camp, or its equally common subsidiary, the We-Read-Fiction-Intended-For-Upper-Elementary-Children-Because-My-Three-Year-Old-Is-Smarter-Than-You-Think-And-Picture-Books-And-Real-Life-Won't-Cut-It camp.
Neither of those options leads to really good places in 99% of the families I've seen. The preschooler usually begins to balk at homeschooling by the time first grade rolls around, if not before. Often, another child or two has joined the family at this point, and the mother is feeling overwhelmed. She starts her days exasperated because the bar has been placed so high. Her seven year-old either cannot be entertained with the simple beauty of Blueberries for Sal because he has already cut his teeth on the Chronicles of Narnia and has therefore left his siblings in the dust (creating a massive gap the homeschooling mother has to straddle for years) or finds his own, far-advanced schoolwork dry and dull in comparison to the simpler stuff mom is pulling out for the younger crew.
How do I know so much about the thinking of these mothers? Well, because I was one myself, of course! Witness this excerpt from my journal, dated December 2000, when Jo was just three years old:
Finished reading Charlotte's Web again tonight. Jo is still infatuated with pigs and can't get enough of them. I got everything the library had on the shelves regarding pigs, fairs and farms and tomorrow we'll start reading through them. I printed out a writing worksheet so that she can practice the letter "p" and found a "finish the drawing" coloring page where she can try to complete the outline of a pig. It feels really good to be doing something that's tangible. I finally feel like I can account for all of the hours we spend in the day.
See? I know of what I speak, ladies and gentlemen.
Which is why I always tell parents that they don't need a curriculum. Then I wait, watch their reaction and gauge whether to go ahead and give them leads anyhow. Up until now I have really only had one recommendation to pass along. Today, I have added another to my short list of Preschool Curricula That is Worth Your Time: Itty Bitty Bookworm.
First and foremost, Itty Bitty Bookworm is a literature-based learning program. This fits perfectly with my thinking on educating very young children: READ TO THEM. Cuddle up close and read, read, read and then, read some more. Itty Bitty Bookworm helps moms give themselves permission to do this. Each month's lessons are built around a variety of excellent picture books that engage curiosity, build vocabulary and build interest in the world outside your front door. From this spring board, parents lead their children through activities as rudimentary as cut-and-paste skills and simple sing-alongs to more advanced skills like cooking and hands-on experiences. These are perfect "little guy" activities: things you might come up with on your own ... or might not, depending on how much laundry is stacked on your couch at that moment.
While Itty Bitty Bookworm isn't designed exclusively for the homeschool market, it's extremely adaptable. Each month's unit (which retail for $25 each) contains forms that remind me exactly how blessed I am to have my toddler at home under my own care. After all, I've never received a checklist letting me know when he pottied and when he ate a cracker. I guess I could fill that out for my husband, but I chose to ignore those pdf's and get to the good stuff.
Bailey's Curriculum is designed for 18-36 month old children and their very limited attention spans. Using two books over the course of a month, young toddlers are led through simple finger plays and large motor skills, as well as some early learning activities that will appeal to moms who need a little leading to feel that their child's play has value. Thankfully, Bailey's Curriculum is not centered on tying toddlers to seatwork. This is an experiential, enriching curriculum that has its priorities in order.
Bo's Curriculum is the 3-5 year-old arm of Itty Bitty Bookworm, and features four to six books per month. Tied more to early-education standards and the celebration of holidays and seasons, moms who like the idea of a more traditional preschool approach will be challenged by the vast array of ideas. This is play with a purpose: enough organization to keep kiddos on track and moms feeling accomplished. The literature is truly what shines in Bo's curriculum, though. Classics like The Little Engine That Could are interspersed with silly recent titles like Dinosaur Train, keeping the overall feeling light and the focus on fun and parent/child interaction. I love the selection of books. They are age-appropriate, engaging and necessary. I'm sorry--but if you haven't read Barn Dance or One Duck Stuck to your preschooler, you really should!
Mini-units, which I have not seen, are also available. I noticed that some of these are Bible units, which would add a spiritual element to an otherwise secular curricula.
A second year of Bo's Curriculum is in process, while the first is complete for both Bo and Bailey. Itty Bitty Bookworm allows parents to order an entire year's worth of lessons, or to select a month at a time. Because each month is a separate, self-contained unit, parents can truly customize by skipping entire months in addition to picking and choosing among the recommended activities and readings. This month-by-month approach may be a blessing to parents feeling a money crunch, too; there have definitely been years when Mr. Blandings and I would have far preferred paying $25 per month for curricula rather than ponying up $250 at one pop.
The biggest downside I can find with Itty Bitty Bookworm is simply this: the onus is on the teaching parent to collect the books and materials to be used in each week's learning. Parents with expendable income can easily purchase all of the books and supplies using the lists provided. Those with an excellent library system and the opportunity to work a weekly outing into their schedule can easily take advantage of resources as well. But a mom with many littles or older children with educational needs of their own may find the extra legwork just enough to negate the benefits of having a pre-written plan to pull from.
Tara Rison, the founder of Itty Bitty Bookworm, has graciously offered to sponsor a giveaway for people who comment on this post. Simply visit the Itty Bitty Bookworm site, peek through the Bo or Bailey pages and let me know which book listed has been a family favorite in your house. You'll be entered in a drawing for three months of either the Bo or Bailey programs.
Happy reading!
