Wednesday, September 30, 2009

One more diaper post

Dirty Diaper Laundry is also giving away Bambino Mio Nappys. These are a really cute prefold and cover set-up, which comes in packs.

More Diapers!

Organic Girl did a review of EcoBebe Boutique, and is giving away a cloth diaper. She's in Canada, as is EcoBebe, but the contest is open to those in the US as well.

Organic Girl also did a review of diapers from the Funky Diaper Company - they've got super cute prints you're not going to find anywhere else.

LHDN reviewed GADbaby diapers with snaps, and is giving one away.

Dirty Diaper Laundry is also giving away 2 Kiwi Pie OS fitteds, thanks to the Natural Baby Company

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Random ponderings on Pagan parenting

Long before I had kids, I read a ton of Pagan parenting books (as a part of being involved in SpiralScouts locally). I need to go back and re-read them and see if there's anything good there that I've forgotten.

A lot of the bloggers I read are very mainstream Christian moms - not a bad thing in and of itself, but definitely interesting to see the times and places their faith comes into play, and how they handle it.

One is starting a new homeschooling project - every week they'll have a theme, and use Bible stories and verses to demonstrate the theme in family life, school life, their reading, etc. They'll also have a prayer journal - who they prayed for and what happened. And I find myself thinking, "look, it's a baby Book of Shadows!"  I could totally see doing this with Acorn when he's bigger - a theme, correspondences to go with the theme, a myth or two, etc....no need for it to be big drama, just something else to do, you know?

I'm not sure what else we'll do. Probably set up a toddler-friendly altar with toys for the elements...any other thoughts?

Monday, September 28, 2009

Baby Kicks Giveaway!

The Cloth Diaper Whisperer has BabyKicks diapers up for grabs this week on fluff friday. Cute hemp fluffy goodness - we can always use another diaper, right? :)

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Who's the God of insurance?

Because I probably owe him some incense and a thank you.

We have been sweating the end of Acorn's insurance benefits for physical and occupational therapy - 2 hours of each per week has helped him make major progress on getting his gross motor skills a little closer to on-target.

As far as we could tell, the insurance was going to pay for 50 visits, total, this year (where the year starts June 1 with the rest of my benefits), and then we were going to have to get another referral set up just the right way to get medicaid to maybe pay for some of it, possibly.


And if not...it's either pay out of pocket, or depend on his 30 minutes from the school each week to hopefully get us enough information to do it for him ourselves.

We have money. But not that much money.

So, this is a huge hugs thing for us. There are apparently no caps on Acorn's in-home therapy. There've been other things lately that our insurance have done that have surprised us - no arguing about approving his $75 a dose (given twice a day) inhaled meds. No arguing about supplies. No trying to cut our nursing hours. I am baffled - I didn't think my insurance was that good.

And I'm thankful every day for that unexpected blessing.

Friday, September 25, 2009

A crazy week

We've had a marathon of a week, and it just keeps getting more crazy.

The washer broke (and hopefully will be fixed today because diapers are overdue for washing).

Appointments have run late.

Work has run late, and been stressful - and some of the things I've been asked to do, while done as requested, have made other people mad (not at me, but at the person directing me).

The mother of one of Acorn's nurses passed away last week, so we've been in schedule limbo, including one very long day where PaganMama was on Acorn duty from 7 am until 10:30 pm with no other assistance.

For those of you with more normal families, you're probably thinking, "I take care of my kid all day, what's your problem?" But I assure you, taking care of Acorn is physically and emotionally draining, in a way a normal kid is not.

Normal kids don't come with 50 lbs of gear attached.

Normal kids rarely have days where they have multiple appointments to sandwich in between naps, so if a nap is off by half an hour, it's no big deal....Acorn, on the other hand, only got a 40 minute nap Tuesday, because he didn't nap on time for his first nap, and it snowballed from there. He and I are both still catching up on sleep. And that sort of schedule is a weekly occurrence.



Normal kids don't require batteries or an electrical outlet to keep breathing.

Normal kids don't come with the worry that they might pull on something, set off screaming alarms, and then suffocate....and they especially don't come with that worry while strapped into their car seats.

I took Acorn to his 15 month well-baby check up, 10 miles away, by myself. Had something happened on the way, my only recourse would be to pull off the road into a parking lot or side street, get out of the front seat, and into the back seat, diagnose the problem, and fix it....hopefully before he turns too blue.

Don't get me wrong - things are better every week. He's stronger, has more reserves, needs less oxygen, does more in therapy, he's on the verge of  crawling and walking (and this from a kid who couldn't roll over in March).

We're mostly past the stage where Acorn turned blue every time he pooped, but it's not so far gone that we've stopped worrying about it.

There was a time where I would never have even thought to attempt a car trip without help - that's a sign of how much better he's gotten this summer. If something had happened, I know I probably had 4-5 minutes before things were completely out of control, rather than the 60 seconds we had when he first came home from the hospital. We don't carry the machine to check his oxygen saturation with us everywhere we go anymore.

We actually sleep on nights we don't have nursing.

And every day, I remind my Gods and Goddesses how greatful we are for this miracle baby, and how happy we are to have this smiling, happy, whip-smart kiddo to brighten our days.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bed time

I think Acorn needs a bedtime routine.

He's at that age where he doesn't just fall asleep anywhere. And now that he's been out of the hospital long enough that we've abandoned their routines, he needs a bit more stability in his life (which is probably why weekends are so hard, because we're still learning to balance his schedule with ours, and generally doing a bad job - during the week, his nurses keep his schedule going quite swimmingly).

We've never done the nightly bath thing. It's hard on my skin, and his is even more sensitive, so it's not worth upsetting the apple cart, you know? But I'm thinking 9 pm, jammies (now that it'll soon be PJ weather here in the great white north again), g-tube and trach cleaning and new ties (we've found his nurses to be inconsistent on this front), a book or two, and then to bed. He puts himself to sleep really well, which is good news for us.

I think I'd like to add a prayer in there. Something appropriately Pagan - and I'm actually pretty flexible on that, having done everything from ceremonial magick to Wicca to hard-core polytheist to Dianic. Right now, I just want something that works for us, and something that is easy for little ones to say and remember - it's not like Acorn will be talking anytime soon, but it needs to be something that will be easy for him when he does.

Google gives lots of options, and like most things meant for kids these days (and like a surprising number of Pagan-y things these days), they mostly seem kinda hokey. So far, the best I've found (which comes with an "author unknown" attribution, so if it's yours, please let me know so I can give appropriate credit):

Day is done, it's time for bed
Goddess bless my sleepy head
Earth and Water, Air and Fire
Bring gentle dreams as I retire
When the morning sun does rise
The God will bless my open eyes

Anyways. I think we'll start with that, and see if we can make progress. The one stumbling block I see is that some nights our nurses come at 9, and most of them are obviously Christian - several wear crosses, one sends her kids to Catholic school - so I doubt they'd do prayers with him. But it'd be a start.

FuzziBunz giveaway

We haven't tried FuzziBunz yet, but I've heard they're really good. And if I win some from Just For Me and You, I'll have the opportunity to try them. :)

They have adjustable elastic - that sounds promising for a good fit, right?

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Diapers!

We cloth diaper. They're better for our wallets, better for the environment, and better for Acorn's bottom (we haven't had a rash outside of the hospital; every time he's back in there in sposies he breaks out).

You're probably going to hear a lot about diapers here, because one of the best ways to build up a nice diaper stash is to enter contests to win them for free, and one of the ways to enter is often to post about a give-away.

The Cloth Diaper Whisperer has Fluff Fridays - every Friday they give away something. This week it's a bumGenius one-size diaper. We have quite a few BGs for out-and-about usage (and occasional overnights, since a double-stuffed dipe seems to be nearly bullet proof). And a few more would be good, since I'm kinda hoping to get a diaper lending library going here at some point.

So, go read, enter, and have a good time.....and hope we win :)

Where to begin?

It's not that I haven't done the blogging thing before - I've got several, updated with varying frequency. But they've all been sort of pigeon-holed, and none of them are really about life anymore, they're about a topic. And to some extent I miss being able just to talk about what's going on, rather than trying to write on specific topics - I can't really write about religion on my son's update blog, I can't write about his medical needs and the frustrations that go with them on our signing blog, etc etc etc.

I'm trying to figure out parenting, much less Pagan parenting, with a special needs, medically fragile kiddo. He's better and better every day, but it's yet another challenge that we as a community aren't really prepared to handle.

So...for now, here we are:

baby boy is our little Acorn. He's 15 months old, and has a feeding tube and a ventilator (21 hours a day, down from 24 hours). He'll outgrow his medical issues, it's a crazy tough waiting game though.

Husband of nearly a decade (and significant other for several years before that) is Big Oak, a full-time-working geek. Do we have our issues? Sure, but they're things we can work out and overcome, just as we've done for going on 14 years now. We're poly, but not because we're Pagan.

And me, Pagan Mama, a full-time-working geeky mama (and yes, it's my insurance paying for Acorn's health). We sign with him (and I teach baby sign language).

I could say a ton about us, and our family and life, but really, I'd rather just show you who we are as I write. We live in a nice house in a nice suburb - the neighbors probably don't know we're Pagan, or if they do, we blend in well enough that it's not an issue, given the variety of ethnicities and countries-of-origins of people on our street. We have a great school district, but I still wonder about homeschooling or private schools. We pay the bills, drive decent cars, and can generally afford to do whatever we want to do, though we're still paying off "young and stupid" things. We're meat-eating, attachment-parenting, polytheists who belong to an organization that supports family-based Wiccan-based covens because they're the closest thing we've found to doing what we do.

Mostly, we're just finding our way.