Celebrating St. Nicholas

It's finally here! I have been waiting for St. Nicholas day since summer! Every year I bake 1st. Initial cookies. The kids put out there shoes. I fill them with candy and put the cookies on top.

My family has a traditional sugar cookie recipe used for St. Nicholas day. This year I made cookies, filled their shoes with (chocolate) gold coins and gave them candy canes, and I made traditional Speculatius.

St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra in the 4th century. Story has it that a poor widow was with out food and money and St. Nicholas at night filled her shoe with gold coins. The candy canes recall the shepherds staff, which the bishop uses to lead Christ's "sheep". 

I'm not sure that the initial cookies have any religious associations, they are a tradition in my family. My Mormor, Swedish for grandma, made the cookies for her 13 kids, each with a different color frosting. My mom made them for me and my 6 siblings. I make them for my four little ones. I made a small cookie for the baby.

I am so happy to have a small respite from Advent, even though we are only a few days in.

Advent: The Journey to Christmas

A woman, when she is in labour, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. (John 16:21)

During Advent, I and many of my brothers and sisters in Christ, will be giving something up. This is a tradition that goes back a long ways. I'm not sure how far back,. but the Church has a tradition of fasting before feasting. It is an allegory of the world. We suffer now, only to behold Christ our King later.

Israel fasted and prayed and underwent much tribulation as they waited for the Messiah. Mary and Joseph journeyed to Bethlehem as they anticipated Jesus' birth. And Jesus says to us in Luke 5:33-35, 

"And they said to him: Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees in like manner; but thine eat and drink? [Luke 5:33] To whom he said: Can you make the children of the bridegroom fast, whilst the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days."

We are remembering the time before Christ, and we are anticipating his second Coming, so now we fast, preparing our souls for heaven. We fast to strengthen our spirits and teach them that we do not need things like coffee (what I'm giving up), but we need Christ.

The fasting can be from anything we enjoy. We can abstain from tv, or candy, anything really. Just to remind ourselves, it is not yet the time for rejoicing, but the time for preparations.

God Gives The Greatest Good

I was talking to my son last night. I was trying to explain to him about how God loves him. Earlier that day he had asked me what a miracle was, and I thought this moment was the time to explain.

"God loves us so much that sometimes He shows us with a demonstrative sign, a sign that we can see or feel or touch, called a miracle. Like when someone is very sick and doctors have tried everything, but they can't cure the illness and then suddenly that person is well. That would be a miracle."
John responded,
"If God loved me so much, why did he give me three sisters?" John loves his sisters. He just doesn't understand why he has sisters and not brothers, which would be much more like his vision of a perfect life.

After some thought, I tried to explain to him something that most likely some church doctor has explained, and I'm just a little slow on the uptake. God gave him sisters because that is the greatest good for John.

I don't know why I never thought of the will of God like this before. We make choices, we make good choices and bad ones and even a-moral ones, and God takes those choices and gives us the greatest good from them. And we can choose how we perceive what God has given us.

I will never forget a story from a book I read in High School. I don't remember the title, but the true story happened in a concentration camp during world war two. Two sisters were suffering with bed bugs in one of the bunkers of the concentration camps. One sister insisted that they both thank God for everything, even the bed bugs, every night. They found out later that those bed bugs kept the guards from coming into the bunker and discovering their bibles. Those bed bugs were the greatest good.

But more than that, sometimes we can't even perceive what great good God has in store for us, because ultimately every thing that God gives us in life, brings us to heaven. If one chooses to take everything that is given him and loves God for it, imagine how easy his path to heaven, because that is the ultimate good. That is all God wants. He wants us to live forever with Him in heaven, and He gives us constant opportunity regardless of how many times we reject His will.

The mind of God is a mystery, but know that He only desires you, and this life is your path to heaven.

**********
My friend Jess reminded me the book was The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

Pain in Child Birth and Original Sin

I want to make clear that this post is not an attack on anyone. I firmly believe that people have the right and responsibility to make their own choices regarding medical care. I writing this to spark thoughts about these issues and understandings

It seems to me that women in America want very much to have painless childbirth. I can't say I blame them. It hurts... a lot. Women that are not part of my weird little tiny circle of homebirthers, say they want the drugs, there is no way they would go through that, without drugs. Obviously drugs are available and sometimes necessary, so fine. However there is a definite child birth culture that seems to demand painless child birth, and I'm a little puzzled as to why.

First of all you most likely will not get drugs up until you are almost done anyway, which means you will still have to go through hours of pain building up to that point. In my mind the contractions that are too painful to talk through are still pretty easy compared to the ones that come after the ones that are too painful to talk through, but I would never know that if I didn't go through them. That almost has nothing to do with my point.

Women have been having painful child birth since man was created. So now suddenly we have a choice to have painless vaginal childbirth, or almost painless, I think it's a case by case basis, or be totally knocked out and have a C-sec. I am only discussing these in elective cases. But are these choices truly painless, or even dramatically less painful?

The other thing is that from a Judeo-Christian stand point the pain of child birth was a specific punishment for original sin. World wide suffering and a tendency to sin are also consequences, but pain in child birth was pretty specific. In high school a girl in my religion class asked, it was more of a statement, "Because now we have epidurals, does that mean we have over come the punishment for original sin?" Though no, we haven't, it is interesting that she would make that jump. Don't you think?

Please, don't misunderstand. I am absolutely not saying that having an epidural or a C-sec or interventions for pain relief are some how sinful, or that they are a violation of the natural law. No. I am only pointing out some realities, some which may not be relevant to everyone. Just things to think about.

Because child birth is such a very personal thing. I really want to mention one more time. This is not a criticism of any person's choice in how she delivers. I just thought it was an interesting collection of thoughts.

Smart Mouth

When I was 16 I was a babysitter. At night sometimes a child would complain about monsters. I would reply monsters aren't real. Of course children are much smarter than older people and they know this just isn't true, so as a way of distracting the children who were stuck in a nightmare of where monsters lived and what they believed them to look like, I tried to convince them their imaginations where wrong and that monsters where actually afraid of children and afraid of the dark, because they were scared they couldn't see the children trying to get them. This was somewhat effective. Usually the kids started to talk about something else and then fell asleep.

Now when my eldest suddenly discovered a fear of monsters and the dark I elaborated on the myth. I told him that not only where monsters afraid of the dark and children, but they are made out of chocolate and they are afraid that children will eat them, because children love chocolate. Oh and they only eat chocolate which is why they are made out of chocolate. This wasn't as effective as it was with children who were not my own, but it was better than trying to convince him that there where no monsters.

Last night my 2 year old and 4 year old girls where telling me that they are afraid of the dark and monsters. I replied to them  that monsters are made of chocolate, and they are afraid that children will eat them. My now six year old son replies, 

"Oh yes, and they are made of chocolate, and they have razor sharp candy corn teeth," And I looked at him, as he was ruining the harmlessness of my creation. I replied,

"No, John, they don't need razor sharp teeth all they eat is chocolate. You know they eat chocolate and they are chocolate. You are what you eat." He looked at me in disbelief and with a snarky tone said, 

"Oh yeah, Mama? I'm made of Broccoli?"

Going "No 'Poo"

After searching the web for a natural solution to my new overly oily scalp problem, I stumbled upon a Crunchy Betty post about going shampoo less. considering the years of trouble over my scalp, and recalling a friend of mine who went no 'poo and has fabulous hair, I have decided to take the plunge.

First I would like to mention that my husband was far less excited about my new journey into the realm of 'pooless hair. I'm sure he's thinking, "I didn't know I married a hippy." But he is supporting me, as he sees I am desperate for a long term solution.

So I have gone 6 days with out shampoo. The first day I used Coconut butter wash on my hair. It's just coconut butter and castile soap. That relieved the itching and the flaking. The next night I used a baking soda was, one table spoon baking soda 3 cups water, Which left my hair beautiful and unitchy. Then I didn't wash it for 3 days. That was difficult. I kept telling myself my hair didn't look gross. I really hope it didn't. If it did, I'm sorry to all the people I encountered. Then my head was itchy again, so I sort of over did it. I first did a baking soda wash, the greasiness was killing me, and then a coconut butter wash, then rinsed with Apple cider vinegar, 1 tbl spoon acv and 2 cups water. I am back to a moderately tolerable look, but my scalp feels great.

I'm giving my scalp three weeks to get used to this. If it works, I will never go back.

How to Breastfeed

When I had my first child I did not know how to nurse. I am a very independent person, and I think that I can just figure things out as I go, but somethings are difficult to do if you were never taught. My mother breastfed 7 kids, most until 2 or 3 years old. My sisters breastfed their kids, and my sister-in-law breastfed hers, so I thought breastfeeding would be easy and come naturally. It didn't. I had no idea what I was doing, and to make it worse, I didn't seek out help from my sisters until a terrible latching habit was already formed.

 The truth is, as much as I was exposed to breastfeeding, I never experienced it the way  that women in other cultures experience it. I never watched a baby latch on, at least not since my mother nursed my brother when I was four, and that had hindered my ability to latch a baby right. A lactation consultant can help you and tell you what to do and how to do it, but if you don't see it, I think it's pretty difficult. Unless the lactation consultant has experienced nursing herself, I think she is at a huge disadvantage.

I have 4 children. All have been, or in the case of my newbie are, nursed. From my limited experiance here are my suggestions.

1. Use a nursing pillow. This will be a lot easier if you don't have other kids. Sit up straight propped with pillows (on a bed or feet up on the couch) and sit cross legged. make sure your back has a lot of support and then snug that nursing pillow around your waist. Then have someone hand you your baby. Have some extra pillows handy you may need them.

(optional) This may seems silly but it will help with bonding, take off your shirt and your baby should be in only in a diaper with warm blankets to wrap him to you. The skin to skin contact will help you bond.

2. Cradle the baby's head in the crook of your arm, and turn his body so that his tummy is touching your tummy.

3. Lift him up to your breasts. ( At this point your baby should be cradled his tummy against your rib cage right under your breasts) The nursing pillow helps with this. Prop more pillows under him and/or under your arm, if you need to, for comfort.

4. Hold your fingers in a V, first and middle fingers. (It's common to do a C hold with finger and thumb, if that's more comfortable use that. I just found the V hold more comfortable for me) Hold your nipple.

5. Use your nipple to gently push your baby's bottom lip down to open, then pull him on to your breast getting the entire areola in his mouth. Always bring baby to breast not breast to baby, this is something I did not do with my first, which is one of the reasons I had such incredibly painful breastfeeding run. 23 months of varying degrees of painful breastfeeding.

Repeat step five until baby's latched on to complete nipple and the latch feels 'right'. I know it's hard to tell if it's right with your first. There should be a general lack of pain, though you might have initial pain if you're nipples are cracked or sore. olive oil and coconut oil are good treatments. Lactation consultants and doulas know of other things that might work even better.

Once Breastfeeding becomes more reflexive you wont need to do this in such an elaborate way. All you will have to do is sit, lift, and latch.