I’ve been thinking a lot about adversity lately. This week I read the book Unbroken (likely, I’m the last person in America who didn’t know it was a true story until the movie came out.) Calling it un-put-down-able is an understatement. I read it in an afternoon. I found an interview with Angelina Jolie, who […]
Pumping For Your Preemie: increasing supply and pumping output
Pumping for your preemie isn’t for the faint of heart. I started off this series on breastfeeding a preemie in NICU by talking about why doing so is crucial to the health of the premature baby. And the many barriers having a preemie presents to starting off breastfeeding. Yet after spending many hours reading preemie parenting […]
Recently Read
I made a goal this year to read “fewer books, with more intention“. This means that I’m hand-picking titles that really meet a current need in my life. (I abandoned 3 books that I started because they didn’t make the cut.) Here’s what I read in January and February. I reread these two parenting classics: […]
Breastfeeding a preemie in NICU: this thing sucks
This is the start a series on breastfeeding a preemie in NICU. If this is your first time here, here’s the short story. I gave birth to a 27-weeker preemie. Somewhere around 18-21 weeks, my water broke. The little guy survived all that time with little-to-no amniotic fluid. His story is here. Breastfeeding a preemie […]
Homeschool: What’s Working Now
A couple of things that we’re loving in our homeschool right now: Morning notes I can’t take credit for this idea, as I read about it on Amongst Lovely Things, who wrote about how spiral notebooks simplify her homeschool. I call it “morning notes”. In a nutshell, I have a cheap spiral notebook for each […]
Reducing Decision Fatigue (or, how to be nicer to your kids on grocery shopping day)
Reading the books Willpower and The Paradox of Choice convinced me that too many choices are paralyzing and they deplete our willpower. Reducing decision fatigue is a way of avoiding this problem. Hence, I’ve actively looked for ways to make fewer decisions in my life. To automate mundane things so I can be more effective […]
Josiah Update
I’ve been wanting to update on our little preemie for awhile now, but between nursing him constantly and/or holding him while he sleeps, it’s tough to have time for much else. Mostly I’ve wanted to write a series about breastfeeding a preemie, only it would have about a dozen chapters because there isn’t just the […]
What’s saving my life right now
Modern Mrs. Darcy recently posted about “what’s saving my life right now” during the second half of the long, dreary winter. In her words: “To beat back the gloom, today we’re sharing the things—big or small—that are saving us right now.” Fun – and I need a reminder of what’s working in my life. Things have […]
My Goals: 2015
It’s 3 weeks since my premature baby’s homecoming, and I’m finally getting a bit of sleep. Josiah has made huge progress this past week in adjusting to life at home and despite my current whopping case of mastitis, breastfeeding is getting easier. Things were very stressful for a couple of weeks, and I went to […]
Read Alouds 2015
There are far too many books on my shelves that my kids have never read. And there are far too many books on my shelves that I have never read to my kids. In harmony with my goal to read fewer books with more intention (more on the goals I’m working on this year in […]