Baby Dickey

Ryan thanks twitter!

Today Ryan told me that he’d like to take a few minutes to thank Twitter. It’s true, if it weren’t for Twitter and some of the lovely people on there, things around here would be a lot different.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d still be breastfeeding. Would I be as aware about the benefits? Would I have given up when I hated it at the beginning?

I definitely wouldn’t be switching to cloth diapers. I’d be all hell no, that’s disgusting. But right now, I’m disgusted with myself for having him in disposables for so long and I’m so excited to be switching to cloth!

I wouldn’t have found ICAN and started my own chapter in Rockford. That’s huge. That is life changing.

I wouldn’t have found the LLL (La Leche League) group and attended meetings.

I’d probably be feeding rice cereal and pureed baby foods. But Twitter made me learn about baby led-weaning.

Would I be co-sleeping like I am now? Or would I have let Ryan cry it out?

I wouldn’t have 2 successful blogs, or attended BlogHer in NYC, or have met some amazing women. Seriously, I owe it to twitter.

Twitter has been an incredible tool – not only for marketing and promotion, but for conversing and sharing ideas and learning new things and getting other view points. For answering ALL of my random first-time-mom type questions!

Ryan’s had a snotty nose for over a week, what do I do?

Ryan fell off the bed, I’m freaking out! Do I call the doctor?

Help! Ryan’s only pooping once a day now, he used to poop 3x a day! Is that normal?

Ryan won’t.stop.screaming. I’ve tried everything, what do I do?!

Everyone is telling me I should be feeding him solids by now, help!

Reassure me Ryan’s OK on bmilk and I’m not starving him!

How do we do baby led weaning?

What the HELL is an aio and a fitted and a pocket and an ai2 and an insert and a doubler and a wet bag and a.. aHH!!!!

My boobs are so sore I swear they’re going to fall off, what can I do?

Ryan refuses to nurse, help!

Ryan won’t stop BITING me, how do I get him to stop?!

That can’t even be half of them. Seriously, I have NO IDEA what I’d do without a resource like Twitter. I know I can google these things. But I swear you can’t get info as accurate as from the mouth of other moms. From people who have been there. Searching for that online would take precious minutes moms don’t have – twitter is instant. It IS the new google. And my life (and Ryan’s) are forever changed.

Ryan’s newly chemical-free bum thanks you

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Ryan's famous!

Ryan’s crankiness during picture taking has paid off. He won the Bad Mouth Baby of the Month contest!!! We got to pick out a free shirt and of course I choose the onesie that says “i <3 boobies” Some of their shirts are hilarious! Go enter a pic of your babe, they pick a new one every month!

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Extra Credit for Cora

As I was planning my classes for this fall – intro to human biology – I had a great idea. Always thinking about Cora, I decided to get my students involved. I have about 140 students… if they all know about Cora and go tell their families and friends – actually, if they even only tell 1 person! Look at how many people are now that much more educated and aware.

It was WAY harder than I thought.

I wrote “C.H.D.” on the board. No one knew what it was. I explained that it means congenital heart defect, told them what some of the defects could be, and that it affects 1 in 100 people. I heard lots of “wows” across the room. They were amazed that it’s SO COMMON, yet they hadn’t heard of it. Tell me about it.

I wrote “www.corasstory.org” so they could read it for themselves. Then I gave a brief overview on Cora. I was shaking. I was sweating. I took a lot of long pauses. I think it made for an awkward moment because my students didn’t know how to react. And they didn’t know if I was about to burst into tears. I urged them to check out the website to see the amazing things Cora’s parents have done and to get more information on the cause.

Then, I told them they had a chance for extra credit. Once a month, on the 30^th. I said: 1) wear pink for Cora (and showed them my pink bracelet that never comes off). 2) tell someone about CHD and 3) do a random act of kindness. I explained some of the things Cora’s parents have done. I told them they could simply call an old friend, buy coffee for the person in line behind them, buy their mom flowers.… anything!

I realize not everyone owns pink, so I gave them the option to do 2 of the 3 things for extra credit. Two of my classes are on Tues. and Thurs. so I won’t see them the 30^th of this month. But they still get to participate, they just write down for me what they did and turn it in sometime. Honor system.

I had one student tell me her son was born with 6 CHDs. SIX. He is now 2.5 years old and only has 2 left. And luckily, he hasn’t needed any surgeries. I asked how and when they detected it and she said right away – he was born by c-section and was breathing REALLY fast.. so they did a pulse oximetry test and it was at 60 (I think that’s what she said). I believe it should be at 90 or above? Ryan’s was 92.

I had another mother come up to me and tell me she wants to participate and help out, but she doesn’t want any extra credit for it. How sweet is that? Her son was born with a heart murmur that they have to check him once a year, but at the time, they weren’t sure what it was and were really scared. Today yet another student came up and told me that she told her friend, who is 8 months pregnant, about it and said she’d be getting her baby a pulse ox test after birth. Win.

I think it really touched a lot of the students. I have many mothers and fathers in my classroom.

Cora is saving lives.

(I love my job.)

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Our poor attempt at babyproofing

Ryan started crawling a few weeks ago and shortly after he started pulling himself up to stand. Just the other day he started scooting along the side of the couch while standing. We have a mobile machine!

And we totally weren’t prepared. I figure you should probably babyproof BEFORE your baby is able to get all over the house, so you don’t run into problems like this:

Little stinker! And outlets are even more attractive to little baby fingers when they’re low to the ground and baby can crawl right up to them. How do they always know what they aren’t supposed to do? We learning quickly that outlet covers were a MUST HAVE.

Depending on the layout of your house, baby gates are allow probably a must have. We have a pretty large room and we’re able to close a sliding door to the kitchen and french doors to the porch. That leaves us with one opening – to the main hallway. Problem is, it’s like a double-sized doorway… we’re going to need one of those jumbo sized gates. We haven’t gotten around to buying one yet (any tips?!?!) so we’ve been using couch cushions! We have a MASSIVE couch (an “L” shaped one) so a few missing cushions don’t really matter. But I can’t say it looks very nice, haha.

Furniture? How do you handle desks and tables with all those sharp corners? Most things we just watch out for – we keep an eye on him, but now that he can stand, it’s a little bit harder. He’ll use our ends tables to pull himself up and unless we go pull him away, there’s the danger of him falling or hitting his head when he plops back down. (Yes, once he did this and I saw blood and I FREAKED OUT, but he had only scraped his gums (or something) and was totally fine and back to playing about 2 minutes later.

We have totally removed our coffee table. It was too big of a target for him! But I’d love to have one, so I’ve been looking. Even if you get a round or oval one, it still has edges, you know? So I’ve discovered ottomans. Anyone else use these as coffee tables??? There are some cute ones! This one has storage too (toy box?!) and is only like $70..

Not bad, right? And soft for Ryan!! But I need to find a matching one… I’ve seen bumper-like things?? That people sell to babyproof corners of furniture. But — ugly! Right? I’ve also seen corner protector things you can snap on? But I’ve heard (and I’d imagine!) that the baby can pull those right off!

Cabinet locks. We don’t have any of those on yet, mainly because Ryan doesn’t really go anywhere with cabinets. Sometimes we let him crawl around the kitchen, but only when we’re in there – and our cabinets are kinda babyproofed already! I mean, they snap shut, so they’re pretty hard for him to pull open (so far).

WHAT ELSE?! What else do we need, what’s unnecessary? Like the toilet lid locks… really? I suppose I’m thinking of Ryan as he is right now – but I guess when he’s a bit older and way more mischievous, we’ll want a toilet lock?! Haha.

Tips and stories appreciated!

*sponsored link from overstock.com*

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to teach in the best way possible

I started my new job on Monday teaching 4 sections of introductory human biology at a community college (2 classes MWF, 2 classes TTh). I passed out a questionnaire and told the students they didn’t even have to write their name on it because I wasn’t grading it; it was just for my own curiosity. I wanted to know where they were coming from – how much background knowledge they had. I also included some questions like “what’s your favorite area of biology” and “what are your expectations of me, as your instructor?” I got a lot of similar answers on that last one.

Teach in the best way possible. Teach in a way that we can understand. Be fair. Answer all our questions. Don’t talk down to us, we’re here to learn. Help me pass the class. Help me get a good grade. I want an A+.

Mainly reasonable requests. I can only hope to teach in the best way possible, right? That should be a goal of mine. Having never done this before, it’s a learning process for me, too. They of course don’t know that I’ve never done this before (unless they googled me and came across my blog and are reading this right now, haha. HELLO!)

That’s my classroom. I went to check it out a few days before classes started and I brought Ryan with me. He is chasing after my bottle of mountain dew, haha. See how he crawls? With one knee and one foot, lol. My classes are packed – just about every single seat is taken.

It’s 30 – 40 students per class… for a total of around 130 – 140 students. I will never learn their names. As of right now, I could pick out about 3 of them. The ones that keep asking me questions. I wonder if I’ll ever learn them all.……

Not your average teacher? On the first day I asked if they knew who this was (at least 1 person in every class did):

I announced my leadership with ICAN (and had 2 women talk to me after class about it).

I gave them my cell phone number.

I let them go 20 minutes early on the first day.

I don’t assign homework outside of the classroom.

But I also…

Don’t provide them with my class notes.
Give them a quiz every week.
Have three exams + a final.
Allow them to make up missed (in-class) assignments at only half credit.

And…

I give extra credit for Cora.

And? I pump between classes in an office with 3 other people (a mix of males and females), behind only a cubicle wall. Today someone walked in on me, I wasn’t wearing a cover. I kind of put a hand up to hide myself? and we continued on our conversation. She didn’t say a word about it – not sure if she didn’t even realize what I was doing or if she really didn’t care at all. Wait till the day a student comes in to talk to me and I’m pumping. Ha.

My first day of pumping, when I used my shirt as a “cover.”

So far? I love it. The first day everyone was pretty silent, but they’re starting to relax a bit and get more comfortable. They’re answering my questions instead of staring at me. They’re laughing at my jokes (thank god). And today? I did an entire lecture on how to question everything and be a skeptic. It’s a skill that takes practice. But I hope I made them aware of how important it is to learn that ability. My challenge? To not use birth related examples for everything, haha!

My first day.