Using Glass For Expressed Milk

We have a minimal-plastic home, so when it came to pumping milk for our little ones, I wanted to find a minimal-plastic option. Ultimately, we decided to go with Ball's quilted canning jars in the 4 ounce size. These are also called jelly jars.

Quilted jars are different than other glass because they are designed to be freezer-safe. Other glass can get microscopic cracks through freezing and defrosting or even completely shatter. Many folks are fine with freezing food or drink any kind of glass jars, but I wasn't comfortable with that for breast milk, especially.

 

I pump into the plastic bottles that came with my Ameda Purely Yours pump and then immediately transfer the milk to a quilted canning jar. (I do have some small glass bottles that fit on my pump, but it makes it too heavy for my super-amazing Made By Moms Pumping Band to support comfortably.)

Once the milk is in the jar, I top it with the typical canning band and lid paired with a piece of unbleached parchment paper or a BPA-free plastic lid, also made by Ball. (Yes, it is plastic. Yes, they are worth it.)

With either kind of lid, it is easy to write the date on the top with a grease pencil or put the date on a piece of tape.

The milk defrosts at a reasonable speed in the fridge or quite quickly when placed in a bowl of hot water.

Best of all, when our nursing days our over, we're left with something perfectly usable. These little jars are great for packing dry snacks (like nuts or trail mix) or something wet, like yogurt dip for raw veggies.

While you can find canning jars online, I've found that hardware and grocery stores have better prices. In Northern Virginia, check at Ace Hardware and Wegmans year-round.

Babywearing > Allergy Test

I recently took V (2 years, 4 months) to an allergist for a skin prick test as we navigate the cause for his persistent eczema. While this test isn't supposed to be painful, it is definitely unpleasant to have 30+ needle pokes on the back followed by 15 minutes where you can't touch the itchy poke sites.

The possibility of getting a two-year-old through this without a major tears and a huge temper tantrum seemed small. But, I hoped that babywearing might just save the day. I had already taken V in for muscle testing/applied kinesiology with alternative medicine practitioners and found that wearing him made the sessions more pleasant than holding him (albeit, it is a gentle form of testing). 

When I asked the allergist if I could wear V on my back during this test, he didn't know what to make of it. He said that most parents just hold their kids down face-down on the exam table. I balked. That mentality is exactly why we'd ruled this test out for a year. A battle-of-the-wills or making my child feel voiceless is the opposite of what I work for everyday in my relationship with him. I said that if it came to that, we would skip the test. Then he suggested I hold V on my lap. I liked that idea better, but my intuition was that wrapping V was going to be best for everyone. Doc admitted that a calm child is the best kind, so I should work it out with the nurse.

When the nurse came in to administer the test, she was willing to give it a try. As the mama of a two-year-old herself, she got it. I chose a double-hammock carry because I could keep the fabric low on V's torso. She watched as I wrapped him on my back and shared that in her country, women use a short wrap (rebozo) to wear babies, carry groceries, etc., but she'd never learned how.

V was very calm for the first 10 pokes; he started to cry for the next 10; and for the final 10 he whimpered. So, it wasn't tear free. But, it was an atmosphere of awareness and instant comfort. Because he was at adult-height, V was able to look in the mirror (his choice) and understand what was happening. I could reach around and pat his bum in comfort. To help manage pain, I started doing deep, rhythmic breaths which V could feel through his whole body via our bodily contact and so he started doing them, too.

As soon as the pokes were done, I reached back and handed him a toy and started walking around. Had he not been wrapped, it would've been tough to pick him up without touching any of his poke spots, let along trying to manage that for the whole waiting period. For the next fifteen minutes we paced, talked, looked in the mirror, and watched the construction site across the road. With hands and mind occupied, he never once tried to scratch his back.

When time was up, the nurse was able to read the results and clean V's back all while he was in the wrap. When the doctor came back to finish things ups, he said that they have never had a child be so calm during the test. He said he'd never seen a "contraption" like our wrap, but now he was a believer. Babywearing for the win!

As for the allergies and eczema, we didn't learn anything revolutionary. Everything was in-line with my observations, intuition, and the muscle testing. That said, the experience gave me the confidence to continue on the holistic path we'd been on. I guess I'd better get my wrap ready for our next appointment...

Freezing Whole Eggs

We switched to buying local, pastured meat via monthly pick-up earlier this year. While we are very happy with this choice ethically, we are still navigating keeping costs down. One way we do so is by taking advantage of sales. Each month, the farm runs a different seasonal special. This month's special was discounted eggs, but only with a minimum order of six dozen.  Our refrigerator is only so big, but with the power of a chest freezer, we decided to go ahead and place the order knowing that we could freeze the eggs.

OK, it was only theoretical knowledge. I'd heard that it could be done, but not tried it myself. What I discovered is that it was quite easy, once I figured out our setup.

I decided to wrangle one dozen at a time. I cracked a single egg into each silicone muffin liner. 
(I used the edge of a bowl to get a good crack, the silicone is too squishy.)Once all dozen were cracked, I covered the eggs with wrap and then laid it flat in the chest freezer. (I'd previously prepared a flat spot for the tray.)

After a few hours, the eggs were frozen.

It was easy to flip the silicone liner inside out and pop the egg pucks out into a container. At first, I put the egg pucks in Pyrex, but there a lot of wasted space in each container.  (More on that in a moment.)

Rather than cleaning the liners, I started with the next dozen and got everything back into the freezer quickly. V was eager to help, so I put him in charge of putting the empty shells into a compost bowl. he liked getting "juicy" from the tendrils of egg white. Ah, two-year-olds. I love it!

Anyway, back to the storage issue. I decided to move the egg pucks into a plastic bag. We rarely use bags, but sometimes they really do fit the bill. Ultimately, I got three dozen eggs into a one gallon bag.
 

Next up, we need to decide how we'll use them and see how easily they defrost.

Using a Baby Carrier To Support the Belly During Pregnancy

As much as I love using baby carriers to wear my boys, I also appreciate that they can be used for other things. For example, when a wiggly toddler doesn't want to be worn and every cart has broken safety straps, I can tie him in.

Wrap as a shopping cart strap

Or, when you go to a fancy anniversary brunch and it turns out the restaurant doesn't actually have high-chairs, you can create a baby-safe seat, instantly.

Mei Tai as a high chair  

I also discovered that carriers can help support the belly during pregnancy. With baby E., I wrapped my belly starting at 20 weeks to help with my chronic pelvic instability. (Pregnant women may also know this as symphysis pubis dysfunction or pelvic girdle pain. The difference with mine is that it may never go away).  I decided to use a woven wrap to lift and support it and give some compression to my back. I wore the wrap for half the day and a Prenatal Cradle Plus, leftover from my pregnancy with V., for the other half of the day.

A woven wrap is like the  sophisticated older brother of the Moby. They both are long pieces of fabric designed to wear a baby, but a woven wrap only stretches on the diagonal which means it gives a much more supportive fit than a stretchy Moby can. Woven wraps are often made by hand or with intricate designs. They have a higher price point, but also have a longer, more versatile life.

 

20 week belly--KoKaDi Forest Birds, 4.2m

Verdict: the wrap was more breathable and comfortable than the Prenatal Cradle Plus. Sometimes I felt rather bold wearing my support outside of my clothes rather than underneath, but it was worth it! 

Zara Black, 4.6m

After this Zara picture, I decided to get the tail around me one more time. Since Zara has long tapers, the top layer ended up creating a panel of farbic that I just pulled down to cover the rest. It lost the pretty, intricate look, but it look more like part of my shirt.


Want to see how I do this? Here I am 38.5 weeks pregnant, using a Neobulle Simon 4.6m.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpgsaPj9n0

 

 

Some women like to do the same kind of thing with a ring sling. Personally, I found that the ring sling could not actually lift the belly or stabilize my pelvis and hips, but it could give some compression to the belly.  At the end of my pregnancy, I wanted to coax baby to flip face-down, and out of that pesky occiput posterior position, so I used a ring sling to apply gentle-but-firm pressure my belly. It didn't persuade my little guy to turn, but maybe it will work for some other mama out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc48d6NE7wY

 

 

 

Kombucha Homebrewing Kick Off

I was at a Holistic  Moms Network (HMN) when I first drank kombucha. I had no idea what kombucha was, but the bottle said it was ginger and lemon flavored, so I gave it a try. Surprising! Zingy! Yum! It had some effervescence to it and a light sweetness but also a slight vinegar taste (a good thing in my book).  Then I found out what kombucha is: fermented tea.

 

On the one hand, that freaked me out. It makes it sound like I am going to get food poisoning. On the other hand, fermented foods (e.g. kimchi) and drinks (e.g. wine) have long been a healthy part of many traditional diets. I actually had been looking to add fermented foods to my diet to help with acid reflux and it seemed that kombucha could fit the bill in a delicious way.

I bought a couple of bottles at the store but at nearly $4 a pop, that could only be a special treat. Inspired by some fellow HMN members, I decide to try brewing my own. I got a one-gallon glass pickle jar off Freecycle to be my brewing vessel. A new friend from the group gave me a SCOBY (the living part of the kombucha) along with a crash course. 

SCOBY is short for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. The SCOBY digests the sugar from the sweetened starter tea and turns it into the fermented kombucha. The SCOBY looks really slimy, flimsy and disgusting in pictures. I find it less gross in person. It looks wet, but is fairly dry to the touch and it sturdier than I expected it to be.

 Armed with tea, SCOBY, bottles, and some courage—I gave it a go and am now on my fourth batch. I am shocked at how easy brewing it is. I spend just 20 minutes per week of active time with the brewing, flavoring, and bottling. That said, I just ended up with my first truly yummy bottle today. Needless to say, I need to work out some more of my kinks before I do a full tutorial.

 

 In the meanwhile you can learn from some of my early mistakes...

·       Starting off with a good non-herbal tea really is key. Believe the internet on this: herbal tea can lead to funky kombucha. Getting so excited about brewing kombucha that you grab the remainders of a box of a coconut chai, red tea/herbal tea blend and just go for it gives instant satisfaction. But you pay for it when the kombucha is ready 10 days later and tastes utterly vile. In this case, water your compost pile with it or offer it to a non-discerning two-year-old who will (shockingly) ask for more.

·       In the case of bad starter tea, do not retain 1/3 gallon of the vile kombucha to help ferment the next batch with a superior tea, as it will make the next batch taste gross, too.

·       Do not freak and think your SCOBY has gone moldy when really all you are seeing is the new baby SCOBY growing on top.

Healthy Baby SCOBY