My Babies Eat Dirt

The other day or a few days ago my colleague and I had a conversation about kids and hygiene. I told her how I am with my kids and our family does the five second rule. I just think it’ll build up their immune system better. She agreed and she shared this story that I believe she heard on NPR where this woman would let her baby pick up food from the floor. Even in the mall – the baby would be crawling next to her and food would be tossed on to the floor for the baby to pick up. Later on I was informed that this woman has a doctor husband and her husband believes that it’s important to expose children to dirt/bacteria at an early age.

I am going to stick to my 5 second rule. But while I’m here eating my lunch I did a bit of reading and found some interesting info. The latest are “Let Them Eat Dirt” and “Dirty Babies Get Healthier Hearts.” Both based on the hygiene hypothesis which proposes that inadequate exposure to infectious organisms leads to immune dysfunction. In the recent years we’ve really bought into sanitizer’s ads (sounds as fishy as the “fake” food ads) and a lot of people really obsess about this. If you really think about it, how can our body know what’s good/bad if all bacterias or almost all are taken away? Read the articles, they’ll make more sense than my few sentences here.

The readings made me think of my childhood. I spent a few years in the U.S. but the majority was spent in Indonesia where like many third world countries are not the most hygienic place. But while it wasn’t the cleanest environment to grow up in I believe that it helped me be the person I am now in terms of health. I do get the usual cold, ALWAYS when the weather is changing, but I can travel to many places, eat the local food, and not get sick. I can pick things up the floor, 5 second rule, pop them back in my mouth and so far I haven’t gotten typhoid fever or the sort.

I want to protect my kids but at the same time I don’t want to put my kids in a bubble. One of my biggest dreams for them is to be able to see the world and experience life to the fullest. To do that they need to be healthy and in my little simple mind giving my kids dirt is one way for them to be able to adapt. So we do wash our hands before we eat and when there’s no water we do use the sanitizer but in general if the cookie falls down on the ground next to the worm I’d tell my kid to pick it up, give it a good blow and eat it.

Some other articles that I found related to this topic:

• Too Clean Parents are Damaging Children’s Health
• Getting the Dirt on Germs

Need a Teether?

Check out what we got for Jovie:

The company name is Vulli. It’s a French company and this thing is suppose to be safe for babies. No BPA, Poly-whatever, etc. This thing squeeks. In a way it’s like a baby doggy toy. It’s soft and rubbery (you can smell it too). Jovie loves it. The loves chewing on that top loop. If you Google Vulli you’ll get all sorts of stores selling this. We got ours from Diapers.com.

Now, reading the reviews some people got turned off by the squeeker. Makes it JUST like a doggy toy. But ya know babies love noises and so far she’s too little to really get into squeeking. If it get too annoying we’ll tell her to stop but the dogs squeek too so another squeeker for us will be ok.

Compare to the other teether this is a lot chewier and it’s probably why Jovie loves it. Now this is suppose to be a Christmas present but I’ve been letting her knaw on it — what do they know, right? {::SMILES}

The Gift of Savings

It’s been really hard trying to find the perfect gift for a 6-month-old, especially since this is our second and another girl. Jovie’s has a lot of stuff since we kept everything that I used for M that I thought was worth keeping.

We did though decide on one thing: a piggy bank.

When I was pregnant with M I got this huge piggy bank as a shower gift. All the gifts I got were very nice but this piggy and the set of Beatrice Potter books were the two best things. The books we still read and the piggy… that thing is full and it’s still going.

Tomorrow I should get a piggy in the mail. The one I ordered was a Mud Pie piggy bank. I actually forgot which I ordered. I just remember that it’s suppose to be 7×8 inches. The same size as M’s. I’ll take a snapshot of it after Christmas! But, check out one of Mud’s cuteness:

Go ahead and Google “Mud Pie Piggy Bank” and you’ll find all sorts f them!

Babies don’t understand gifts and I think this is the perfect time to get them money gifts from all. I’m no financial expert but to you mommies/daddies who has a bit of extra money, start a college fund if you haven’t done so or if you did do that and have a little more cash in hand start a wedding/house fund. We’re lucky that hubby’s in the military and his G.I. Bill is now transferable (and I do hope to still be working for a university with family tuition benefits) but we still have college funds for the girls and what I call a wedding fund. What’s this wedding fund? It’s what it’s called. It’s a fund to help pay for the girls’ wedding. Just like most parents we hope that the girls will grow up to be great individuals, get some higher education, meet nice boys, pick one, get married, and build a family of their own. Kids uses up a lot of money and the biggest lump sums are education and weddings.

How much to put in? The college fund should be discussed with your financial advisor. There are different options and of course it all depends on where you’d like your child to one day go to. The wedding fund… well we put $30/mo per child (two separate accounts – ours are in the form of mutual funds) since they were born and in 25-yrs we should have enough saved for half or most or even all of their wedding day needs (8% interest with 3.8 inflation rate based on this saving’s calculator). We don’t have cable/satellite subscription because we think it’s better for the kids to not be exposed to a lot of TV watching and commercials and so that’s where our $60/mo comes from.

According to The Knot, the average wedding cost about $27,800. To me that’s a bunch. I think a nice wedding should consist of very close family and friends, a great photographer, a nice (natural) location, ambiance, and good food. If done right the biggest cost would be the photographer and food, $15,000 tops. I’m hoping by then we would have raise our daughters right (be reasonable, help out a bit financially and work together to make pretty hand made pieces together) but if they want something more, they either need to have a good job or got lucky and found a nice high earning husband/future in-laws.

There might be a time when we can’t keep this account up but while we can the idea of not having to figure out how to raise $10,000-$20,000 in 3-12 months (hopefully our kids have long engagements… just to make sure he’s the one) for a one day event is nice. If  the money doesn’t get used on their big days (or they went low key and there are leftovers) the kids can use it for down payment on a house or if we get lucky and they’re both able to afford everything on their own, us parents can use the money for an African safari {::SMILE}.

Signing With Jove

If you look at my web addy you’ll notice that it says LilSigner. Well I got this domain name ages ago thinking I’ll be using it to post info on baby sign language. We did this with our first, M, and it was great. At around 6-months M could sign milk and by 14-months she knew 30+ signs. That girl rarely cried because we didn’t understand her.

But, life took over and the domain name stayed dormant.

Years later there are tons of sites with baby signing info. But I still kept the name because I like it and like M we started signing with Jovie when she was 4-months old.

Is she signing yet? I think so but it’s still vague. I see her raise her hand and somewhat make the milk sign but not so sure. I know that she knows the word milk. She gets very excited!

Unlike M, Jovie’s physical development is a tad bit slower. M was on her tummy at 4-months old. Jovie just got comfortable doing it at around 5.5-months. Jovie is still trying to sit up on her own and M at this age was already a sitting pro. Every baby’s different and so we’ll just see what happens.

Some babies don’t have full control of their movement until they’re 8-months old so we’ll wait. But, while we wait, we’ll continue to sign milk and lately I’ve added mom and eat too (don’t overwhelm, pick 2-3 most used words with milk being one of the first).

After she signs her first word we’re going to start watching some videos. Our favorite is My Baby Can Talk. I think this video is a perfect first video for babies. It’s slow and the images entrance these little people. After she knows a few more and a bit older we’ll move up to Signing Time. Signing Time has more songs and dance. The graphic is fun too but a lot faster pace.

Which videos do we have? We have the first and second My Baby Can Talk videos and Signing Time Vol. 3 and Vol. 5 ABC.

As you can see we didn’t invest in a lot. M learned lots of words from the above DVDs and from me showing her words that were not in the DVDs. My Baby Can Talk has a nice video dictionary of words and Michigan State University has a nice video catalog. I also noticed that there’s a new one when I was Googling for the MSU site and it seems quite nice too, ASL Pro.

If you do research on sign language you might notice that there are two different types. One is American Sign Language or ASL and the other is Signing Exact English or SEE. I took SEE and although a lot of words uses the same signs there are differences. Most if not all of the baby signing instructions uses ASL.

When your baby starts signing you’ll notice that she will not sign perfectly. This is ok. Babies don’t start to talk in perfect English either. You’ll also notice that she will start coming up with her own signs. This is ok too. Just go with the flow! The point of baby signing for hearing children is to be able to communicate before the child can speak. Even after the child starts speaking it’s not a bad idea to keep signing up. One day M wanted a banana and I could not understand what she said. On the third try she looked at me crossly, said the word again AND signed. I said, “Aaaaah, banana” and I gave her one. Another reason to keep signing is that when in public it was so much nicer for M to sign “poop” than say it out loud {::SMILE}.

Before I leave I want to share one more thing. We think Jovie has already said her first word: mom. She only uses it when I’m not around and she’s upset and wanting me. She’s been doing this the last few days. A bit early, no?

Food and Diapers

I don’t know if it’s cause Jovie’s our 2nd child or if it’s all the sickness in the household or us being occupied with moving or just plain forgot but I forgot to make a 6 months well baby appointment for Jovie. We do have one now but it’ll be a 7 months appointment instead. Oh well, better late than never, right?

It’s 6.5 months now and Jovie’s been eating tons of food: veggies, fruits, and rice/oatmeal, that I make (although the oatmeal I buy because the commercial ones has extra iron). I still go by the book, Super Baby Food, I had when our first was first eating and the Wholesome Baby Food website. She loves each one and just like her sister not so into sweets. Last month Jovie had pretty bad constipation and since then I’ve been regularly giving her fruits mixed with her rice/oatmeal + veggies. So far so good! In a little bit we’re going to do chicken liver. We love liver and so it’s not something terrible but I know a lot are turned off by things like that. We love to eat and we eat anything and so liver’s no big deal. Liver has a nice iron content which babies need more of starting at 6-7 months of age.

Which oatmeal have I been using? I’ve been using Gerber’s, Earth’s Best, and Happy Baby. Taste… Gerber and Earth’s on its own is just ok. Mixed with veggies + fruits and sometimes rice the taste gets better. Happy Baby is yummy by itself and yummier with the different mix. Container… Gerber is the worst, the spout doesn’t close well. The Earth’s Best hubby hates because oatmeal flakes would go everywhere. Happy Baby seems to be the cleanest and easiest to store. There’s no chance of bugs getting into the container because it has a lid top. Our favorite? Happy Baby because not only does it taste good and the container is better than the rest Happy Baby is the only one that has probiotic and DHA in it. Yes it’s a bit more compare to the other two but if you can you’d give your baby the best, right?

Diapering… We’re still using Nature’s Baby and gDiapers but we’ve moved it up a notch in terms of green living. We… or I should say I cause hubby wants nothing to do with it… have added cloth inserts to our diapering system. gDiaper now offers cloth inserts and I’m also using BumGenius’s inserts and they work very well with the gDiaper outers. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the BMs but so far they haven’t been bad. Jovie’s #2 are not like they were when she was just months old. They’re more solid and with the help of some liners, cleaning have been a breeze. Since I only cloth diaper part-time (Jovie goes to daycare) I only bought 6 gDiaper outers and 12 inserts (6 gCloth and 6 BumGenius). The outer part doesn’t get dirty and so I’ll use it a few times a day. The plastic insert I’ll rinse off after every change and they dry so quickly (you can buy extra from the gDiaper site) and we haven’t done any extra load either. I’ll just rinse, wring, and air dry and it’ll go into the regular laundry. We do a load every other day anyways and I’ll throw the diapers in with whatever color and they still look nice.

Overall we love our diapering choices and so far our average monthly diaper expenses have been around $50. I know cause we buy all our stuff from Diapers.com: 3 Nature’s Baby diapers #2 and Earth’s Best wipes.

Happy 4-Mo!

Yesterday was Jovie’s 4-mo birthday. Yeah yeah yeah!!! She’s been such a great addition to our family and we couldn’t be anymore blessed.

We did do what our doctor told us to do when she turns 4-mo. Try baby food. But nope, Jovie’s not ready. She still has the little tongue-thrust reflex which is normal for babies, up to more less 6-mo, since this is their way of protecting themselves from choking. We’ll try again this weekend and see how she does. We’re not in too of a hurry and plus, babies her age get enough nutrition from nursing. For more info on when baby’s ready, you can read this little article on BabyCenter. Of course before stuffing food down baby’s throat, always consult your doctor. Ours said it’s ok for Jovie to start at 4 months but every baby’s different.

What was I going to feed her? Well, from what I read, the best food for baby is brown rice. So I found this easy recipe:

1/4 cup fine brown rice (I use a mixer to grind)
1 cup water

If this is baby’s first time eating, I’d cut the rice to 1/4… so about 1/16 of a cup to 1/4 cup water. You’ll be wasting a lot of rice if you don’t. BUT, if baby takes to the food (and remember, most will be out of baby’s mouth than in), you can store your home made rice cereal in little containers for later.

TIP: Once your rice is done, mix it with a bit of breast milk/formula and feed baby when she’s not starving. So nurse/bottle feed baby first and then do the rice. Baby’s first meal should always be the milk. The food is just a tool to help baby practice eating — for now that is.

When M, my first, was a baby I’d cook once a week and store everything in the freezer except for a day’s worth. This worked out really well for me, the working mom. There are tons of websites now (like the link above with the recipe) that can help you with baby food making but if you want to get a book, I still think the Super Baby Food book is still a great reference… even if you’re not vegetarian. Oh, always remember to NOT feed your baby food that can cause allergies until it’s time. This page has a great list.

I Actually Had a Baby :)

Yes yes, Jovia Therese came right on her due date. I have two due date babies!!! My midwife said that only 6% or something like that babies come right on their due dates. She was amazed that I have two of them!!!

Well, Jovie’s doing AWESOME and today I want to share what has made our 3-months oh so nice.

1. The Miracle Blanket. This thing IS a miracle!!! Jovie never really like the blanket swaddle. She’d be so mad but she does like the swaddle concept. She’s always slept better when swaddled. My friend told me of this thing and it’s the best $30 we’ve ever spent! Once swaddled she’d take to the crib just like that and now I can even lay her down in her crib wide awake and she’d go right to sleep on her own soon after. SWEEEEEET!
2. The Boppy. This and the blanket combo makes Jovie sleep from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Talk about good night sleep at 2.5 months!!
3. The Beco carrier. Not only is it gorgeous, it’s comfy too. Jovie loves loves loves this thing. She’d sit and look around and if it’s a longer ride, she’d eventually fall asleep and stay asleep for quite some while. She loves napping inside there. I’ve also gotten a lot of compliments on how pretty it is. Hey, can’t beat functional and stylish!
4. The products I mentioned in the last post. They are AWESOME! The changing pad is so easy to clean. Nursing babies are so messy. I can’t imagine having a pad with a cloth cover on it. I’d be washing that thing every day!! The California baby butt cream, despite its price it is so worth it. You only need a tiny bit and it works like magic. Jovie had signs of a butt rash and I’d put that thing on and the next morning they’re gone. Three months later and I use it here and there and the bottle still looks like new… you really just need a tiny bit! The Mustela nipple cream. Again, it’s a bit more but two days and bye bye blisters. It was bad!! Jovie had problems latching on and I was in pain but Mustela saved me!

Well, that’s that for now. Next post… the gDiaper and Nature Babycare diaper review.

Some Shopping

Wow, I’ve been pretty bad at updating this blog {::SMILES}!!

We’ve done some shopping and I just want to list the things we got for baby…

• For diapers we decided to try the gDiapers and Nature Baby Care. Since they only start at size 1, we also purchased some Huggies organic diapers for the first few weeks.
• The baby wipes will be Earth’s Best. From what I read they seem to have the best reviews so we’ll see.
• For rashes we will use California Baby. So far this works on chapped lips… very fast too!!
• The lotion will also be California Baby and the bath soap Burt’s Bees.
• We did splurge a bit on the changing pad. We got the BabySmart Cooshee changing pad but I think it’ll be worth it. There’s no need to buy any sort of covering for it and it’s so easy to wipe clean. We’ll be able to use it for changing diapers and to give baby a nice sponge bath the first few days she’s home. We just received this pad the other day and it’s so so soft. I love how not cold the pad is.
• For feeding time, I am ordering this Mustela product. The first time around I was so chapped that nursing the first six weeks were terrible. The Lansinoh didn’t quite do it and I did visit a lactation consultation to make sure M and I were doing it right. It was just my skin so this time around I’m spending a few more dollars to get something more potent he he he….

Besides shopping I already have my hospital bag all ready to go. I purchased a nursing bra from Motherhood Maternity to add to what I already have and purchased three nursing tank tops from Target. The tank tops got great reviews and I hope they’ll work well for me too. I don’t have these tanks yet but hopefully this week!!

Baby will sleep with us for the first few months. It’ll make it easier for me to nurse in the middle of the night since our bedrooms are quite spread out. The crib is set up and ready for use. The same with the carseat although we need to hook it up to the car.

Now, I haven’t gotten to getting another stroller or carrier. We’re going to see how it’ll be like when we go on short trips and go from there. We already have M’s old stuff so they’re not a must-have-before-baby-is-born items at this time.

Quite exciting! I’m sure we’ll forget something but I’m not too worried about it. Have a great one!!!!

Baby Tote

No, it’s for reals and I think I’ll try one: Eurotote.

Been looking at strollers more and I think we’ll go for the Joovy. It’s a lot cheaper than the Phil & Ted and seems like people are a lot happier with it than the Phil. We’ll see though.

Baby… still nameless

It’s a…

Well, you can read all about it here {::SMILES}.