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On Saturday past Sally and I thought it would be fun to take part in the 5km Walk against Breast Cancer held at the Johannesburg Zoo.

We pre-registered, I thought this would make things easier in terms of just being able to show your registration papers and going in vs standing in lines to pay on the day. And I have to admit the promise of a goodie bag for pre-registrations also appealed. (Ironically it would have been much less stress and faster to have simply paid on the day)

We took our kids (brave Sally took 4 – her own and 2 friends) with because it was at the zoo, would be a fun family day out (I had done the same distance with the kids before at the Pretoria zoo so knew it was doable as the animals kept the kids entertained and motivated) and we would be supporting a worthwhile and close to home cause. I kindly invited husband dear along as it was going to be nice to do as a family …. bliss.

Sadly the reality fell a bit short of our ideas and intentions. There were 1000’s on 1000’s of people that attended. We got stuck in very slow traffic around the zoo, ended up after lots of driving around having to park 3 blocks away on a pavement and walk to the registration area.

Sally was already in the lines to get their entry tickets and bags (thanks to her beautiful pink hair, we found them in the masses quite easily). The sign in process had been divided into groups according to your surnames and Sally was right at the back of an incredibly long 3 person deep line for A-D’s.

We pushed, maneuvered and probably pissed people off with our 2 kids and a pram through the aimless milling crowds to first go to the toilet (desperation called) before searching for the end of the line of our own long line of 3 people deep j-l group. Thankfully our line was not as long as Sally’s and we were well ahead of her.

More than an hour+ later – about a half hour past the walks starting time; after some crying and moaning (mostly by the children) and a placating sucker each for breakfast we got to the front of the line to pick up our little pink tickets, have our names checked off their list and get our goodie bags which basically were Avon & Justine Marketing material, an old edition of Shape magazine and a T-shirt each (not even in the size requested in the preregistration) we were done – amazingly at the same time as Sally.

Once inside we realised that the walk did not even take place within the relative safety of the zoo but was actually out on the road, we decided that we had done our part (the hardest part) for charity and were going to simply take the kids around the zoo than torture them further – they were already tired and miserable a 5km walk would not go down well.
The kids had fun in the end, was a nice enough morning BUT next year I will pay my fee and NOT go to the walk. Maybe when my children are all grown up and out of the house I will brave that experience again.

Breast Cancer Walk at the Zoo Fail
Female to Female

When I first thought of writing this blog I was thinking maybe I should just make Earth Babies the author and then people could look at Barbara and I and wonder who actually wrote it, but we have such distinct writing styles and really I am not embarrassed at all. So you can all look at me and wonder…

The topic of sex after birth and particularly natural child birth is a very sensitive one. Barbara and I have discusses blogging about this for a while. Today I got a delivery in the post which motivated me to actually write this, but we will get my delivery later. I can’t imagine one woman who has not wondered about the effect having a baby has had on her body, but most of us are too afraid to ask our partners if they feel a difference. I am sure any partner who values his life would not dare answer anything other than ‘No dear of course it has not made a difference’. Any deviation from this answer warrants castration with a blunt spoon. I know I never asked my husband when we were still together.

Nagging doubt, the general rock bottom sex drive that happens post kids, and server sleep deprivation can leave a woman feeling anything but sexy and actually rather vulnerable. I wonder if all these lost sex drives are off on a beach somewhere enjoying themselves, maybe they are with the missing socks, unlikely combination but you know anything is possible. Or perhaps they just go and find some teenager to torment.

Slogan like ’save the beaver have a caesar’ don’t help much either. There is even a Facebook group dedicated to this! I have seen some pretty vicious nasty debates on the topic thrown around parenting chat forums. The truth is that it actually does not matter what type of birth you have the process of pregnancy, vaginal birth , aging, being over weight and major abdominal surgery such as cesarean section, often result in the weakening of the pelvic floor muscles. During pregnancy woman are all told to exercise this group of muscles, commonly known as Kegel exercises, and because it can be done discreetly you can do it while waiting in a queue in the bank, driving, sitting at your desk at work, brushing your teeth, you can even do them while talking to your church minister! In fact the idea is to have one set place that you always do them, like when brushing your teeth as they then become part of your normal routine, but if you are anything like me you forget.

The aim of Kegel exercises is to build up muscle tone by strengthening the pubococcygeus muscles of the pelvic floor. Kegel exercises are said to be good for treating vaginal prolapse and preventing uterine prolapse. They may be beneficial in treating urinary incontinence and best of all also increase sexual gratification.

This article explains Kegels’s in deatail How to strengthen pelvic floor muscles

At home school group this week we got talking about sex and natural birth and one of the moms talked about the Ben Wa Balls otherwise known as Luna Ball, geisha ball, love balls. She was just saying how they really do help and that your control of your orgasm is better and can even lead to multiple orgasms.

I decided to get some, seemed worth a try and these are what I got

I ordered on line from Matilda’s the services was very good and they arrived the next day. See me as your own blogging guinea pig, once I have tried them out I will let you know how easy they are to use.

Today I was given a compliment, one of those I want to remind myself of often over the years to come as it was positive, lifted my spirits and is the first ambiguous compliment that i have received that had a more positive than negative effect on me.

This got me to thinking of how children don’t at first seem to need compliments to validate themselves, this only comes later as society pressures, disappointments and failure cause self doubt to creep in.

If I tell my children they are beautiful, so very clever, handsome, special, gorgeous they accept it as if it is a given there is no modesty just a simple “Ya I know!” … I love this about them and sometimes wish as adults we could maintain that same sense of self love.

The compliment I received today was from Laura (Harassed Mom) who said ‘I am like an unopened jewellery box’ … nice hey Ü! Thanks Laura it is honestly going to be that little sentence I say to myself when I feel self doubt as just the idea puts a smile on my face and a lift in my spirits.

Female to Female is involved in a very worthwhile project – Laura is working on to be able to organise a Christmas party for children who need to experience that feeling that others care, the excitement of Christmas and the joy of receiving (lets be honest giving is wonderful but receiving ‘rocks hard’ =P).

BUT we can change that for 60 children of the Othandweni Home by organising a Christmas Party for them!!!

Please read about the Christmas Party
at www.female2female.co.za and if you are able be a part of this.

I have learnt a good lesson this year about my child, his ability to remember and his determination.
In December last year he got to interact at a party with a Roboraptor and fell in love. The young owner of this raptor was very kind to allow my then just turned 4 year old to play around it, control it and carry it – (much to the detriment of my ‘how will I afford to replace it if it breaks’ stress levels – it was big and heavy and way too expensive for a little guy).

Rafe asked time and time again that evening and the next day that I buy one for him – so eventually to stop him asking I said that it was very expensive and he was actually still too small for it but if we saved some money every month then maybe by next Christmas we would have enough to buy one. I thought he would obsess about saving for a day or two and forget all about it. How wrong i was – it is 10 months later and he still picks up every 5 cent he finds to put in his money box so he can buy his dinosaur. He may have no concept about monetary value BUT he definitely understands the value of money and saving. I am very proud of him and rightfully shamed at assuming his dreams are fickle.

He will be getting his Robot this Christmas – it is not new out of the box, I have managed to buy one second hand at what I feel is a good deal and the price is one that I think we can relax about and let him play with his toy rather than moan at him the whole time to be careful with it etc.

I am excited about this Christmas for the first time in very long – I know my son is going to not care what everyone else got and just be in love with what he got. Christmas is about more than the cost – I do know this but the cost of Christmas and not being able to take part like so many around us has always been a rather dark cloud of stress and disappointment over me.

This is not a rehash of the age old debate, but rather the thoughts of a mom who struggles to be all she expects of herself. I read this article someone linked to on twitter about smacking lowering IQ and it got me thinking – smacking article

If only it were as simple as a decision and that was all it took, but like with most things on the parenting journey it is not that simple. My reasons for not wanting to smack don’t really matter but some that spring to mind are I really like the idea of trying things that might teach my child a future skill and the ability to handle situations better next time. I do really feel like a hypocrite when I say don’t hit and yet some times I do. I don’t like that it invades their body space. I have however smacked both my kids before and it is not that I think the occasional smack is bad or that I even agree with the article, it was just something I did not really wanted to do.

The big deal is not the smack, the big deal for me is that it represents my not coping as well as I had wanted to. I know a lot of people that can use a smack, not out of anger like me but, in a controlled way. The times I have done it are when I have just been so frustrated and overwhelmed that it was almost a reflex not controlled at all, in fact teetering on the brink of not being very controlled at all. Now for others it might be something else: shouting, moaning, being impatience, wherever – that thing you landed up doing that you said you would not do or the behaviour that you do not like in yourself that seems to surface more frequently than you would like.

I have learnt that this usually has so much more to do with me than it does with them. My stress, tiredness and issues that I am dealing with bubble over into my parenting and leave me often very far from the ideal that I had set for myself. It is also not about the method that you use but rather the way you do it. I think sometime words said in anger can hurt and damage a child more then a smack.

What I have learnt about myself:

- I need to get enough sleep, without it my ability to manage my temper reduces greatly.
- I need to have realistic ideas of that I and my kids can manage at any given time.
- I need time away from them to recharge so that when I am with them I can give them my all.
- I need alone time with each of them to bond on a closer and more personal level with each of them.
- I need a support system and part of that is me supporting other, as by feeling like I contribute to making others lives easier makes me feel worth while and I can accepting love and support in return.
- Counting to 10 is simple yet is still often a really good idea.
- Watch my breathing and how tense my muscles are, when I start getting annoyed or the kids are pushing my buttons, just relaxing my jaw taking a deep breath and relaxing my shoulders can help avoid a huge conflict.
- Remember that I am the example to them of how to deal with frustration and anger, and while a smack might work now, it is not a skill they can use as an adult in a stressful situation.
- Be a good enough parent and accept I will never be perfect
- Be kind to myself, messing up is a given but guilt does not help me or them. This does not mean that I just have to give in and accept my short fallings it means making sure my ideals for myself are realistic and when I fail to see if there are things that I could have done differently.
Always be willing to learn and open to change.

I will add to this list as I think of more things, and in another blog I will try cover REALLY practical tips of things help when dealing with kids. Again I am not saying that a smack is always wrong, sometimes it might feel warranted, but for those like me that would like to limit these times I want to find some other ways that might help us cope. I have read a lot of books on more gentle discipline approaches and so often the theory is wonderful but in practice it does not go as smoothly.

Do you as a parent ever struggle with not meeting the expectations you had of yourself?

How important is it to you as a South African consumer that products you buy are made in South Africa? Imports are often a lot cheaper but how much extra are people willing to pay to support industry in South Africa or is price the bottom line? These questions have been going around in my head as we once again face this dilemma ourselves as we source fabric for our nappies.

We try as far as possible to make Earth Babies as South African as possible and to support other businesses here in South Africa. It has not always been easy and especially with the fabric we use to make our nappies it has been hard to keep it local, but we did find a SA weaver and were proud that our nappies are made start to finish in SA. But even this might be a thing of the past soon as very few local weavers survive at the moment and most fabric is imported. Price and ultimately if these small weavers close might force us to import which is sad.

Please fill in our poll as I would love to see what motivates you when buying.

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
I think I’ll go eat worms!
Big fat juicy ones,
Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm!
Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm!
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm!
I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice,
And throw the skins away!
Nobody knows how fat I grow,
On worms three times a day!
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
I think I’ll go eat worms!
Big fat juicy ones,
Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm! – www.bussongs.com

Wow that song is a lot more gross than I remember as a child! But when I started this blog the beginning few lines were going round in my head and so I have added it for fun Now while I do not advocate cruelty to worms and am not sure of their culinary value you really do need to get some Eisenia Fetida in your life! They will enrich it in ways you did not even know were possible.

Eisenia fetida as I learnt on Wikipedia , known under various common names, including redworms, brandling worms, tiger worms and red wiggler worms, are a species of earthworm adapted to decaying organic material. They thrive in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure; they are epigeal. They are rarely found in soil, instead like Lumbricus rubellus they prefer conditions where other worms cannot survive.

So I know after you read Eco Tips 1 that you have all rushed out and bought your lidded bin for the kitchen scraps and are merrily composting away – you have right? Don’t let me down, do it today, this is one of the easiest Eco tip to do, just wait until I get to the 5 minute showers later in the series! So now you need worms! Well you can do it without worms but these lovely little critters are going to help turn all that kitchen stuff into compost in double quick time. They have a thankless job of eating through rotting stuff – yuck.

Now see if I was a red wiggler I would also think that evolution was a smashing idea after all who wants to eat rotting stuff all day? But I guess since these wiggly worms are not capable of pondering their lot in life and are quite happy to be in a warm compost heap minding their own business with no worries in the world but munching and crunching all day – actually come to think of it that sounds quite nice. Maybe it is reincarnation I need to believe in and ask to come back as a red wriggler (do they come in pink?)

You can get a worm farm here fromMother Earthworms
All about vermicomposting (composting with worms) at Red Wriggler Haven
A composting blog – believe it or not
And the You Tube worms: G Word – Red Wigglers

touch… is the mother of all senses upon which our baby depends

In many ways touch is our most important form of communication. It is the most basic communication, the one we first get to experience and understand as babies. Of our 5 senses touch (touching and being touched) is the one that develops us physically, mentally and emotionally – it is this that the other four senses support.

There is always a lot of talk about bonding when it comes to babies – it is often attributed to the way you birth or feed your baby … which leads to arguments galore from those who do not choose the natural route and still feel they bonded.
In truth the only thing that bonding can be attributed is touch. Think about it in terms of people around you – if you have no physical contact with a person whatsoever, it is near to impossible to feel any form of emotional connection to them.

Breastfeeding forces you to put physical contact first.

This is where the argument for natural birth and breastfeeding being important for bonding stems from. Both of these allow for and require immediate and ongoing physical contact.

Thinking of breastfeeding, there is no option of putting that baby down or having someone else hold them during feeding. In the first few intensive weeks until your milk supply is properly established and baby has grown enough to go longer stretches between feeds the two of you HAVE to sit down and be in close contact for at least ½ of the day (newborns need to feed on average 12 times a day).
This allows for a lot of time for them to receive that all essential physical stimulation, to be physically close enough to see their mothers face (a newborn can only see clearly for about 20cm – the distance from your face to breast) and for you to settle in to actually spending time being still and simply holding them rather than doing all those things you feel you ’should’ be doing.

Love is founded in touch

In terms of natural birth the same applies – you are able to sit up and comfortably hold baby immediately after the birth, there is no need for them to be taken away while you are stitched up or taken to recovery etc.

I will admit after my first birth having a quick peek and having baby swept away for all the checks etc would have been quite welcome at the time (I was exhausted) – in retrospect though I am glad for that time I got to hold him close and marvel at the result of the unpleasantness I had felt moments before.
It was a very special time and which altered my birth-experience from too much, to a fantastic one. It changed my thoughts immediately from never again to “hope the next one is also a waterbirth” – not simply feeling able to go through all that again, but actually hoping to go through it all again … that it had all been so worthwhile.

These experiences however are not needed to bond – they simply help it along. It is never too late in a relationship to reach out and touch, to strengthen and re-establish that bond and love. Children and adults alike need those little touches – the pat on the back, stroke on their hair, sitting close, wrestling and tickling, being carried/held, hugs and kisses.

Did you know? Each parent has his or her own way of touching. Research has shown that when mothers touch babies, they are usually soothing and calming. Moms most often touch gently – they stroke softly, rock slowly, and hold their babies tenderly. Fathers, on the other hand, tend to engage in more physical forms of touch – they bounce babies on their knees, hold them playfully in the air, or roll around on the floor with them. Your baby benefits from these two different styles of touch. Together they contribute to your infant’s healthy development.
http://johnsonsbaby.com/article.do?id=9

Babies benefit immensely from massage and it is not something you need to do a course in, or pay someone else to do. It is something you can do yourself – here is a link to a lovely online video guide in How to massage your baby video

“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers…strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” -Barbara Katz Rothman

The week-end past I attended a birth as a Doula and was once again in awe of women and nature and new life. I love having the opportunity to be present and help in the beauty of birth – not only the birth of a baby and new life but more so the birth of a mother and new love.

“We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful; it’s that women are strong.” -Laura Stavoe Harm

At a wedding, have you ever when the bride walks down the isle turned to look at the groom (it is the best part of a wedding, to see his sharp intake of breath, the wonder and love in his eyes). Well at a birth I do the same, my favourite part at a birth is not seeing that baby being birthed but looking up and watching the fathers wonder, respect, amazement and love for his wife at that very moment that their child enters the world … makes me cry every time.

The whole point of woman-centered birth is the knowledge that a woman is the birth power source. She may need, and deserve, help, but in essence, she always had, currently has, and will have the power. -Heather McCue

It does not matter how a woman looks after a birth they have a glow of achievement, self-respect and pride around them that they alone carried that beautiful child for 9 months and then brought them into the world safely and perfectly. Even exhausted and sore a new mother glows with that inner excitement at what they have achieved – they have done what no-one could do for them – birthed their child. Watching it I always get this warm self-wonder and think “I did THAT!”.

300,000 women will be giving birth with you today. Relax and breathe and do nothing else. Labor is hard work, it hurts and you can do it. – Unknown

When i decided to become a Doula my plan was to do post-natal assisting but not to attend births (I had not wanted to be at my own birth so could not imagine wanting to be at someone elses). To become a Doula though irrespective of how you want to focus your services, you have to attend 3 births – after my first birth my whole focus changed. I am meant to be a Doula, I love it and I am good at it.

Benefits of having a Doula at your Birth
beautifully explained by Mayan Healers Daughters of Ix Chel
* Recognizes birth as a key life experience that the mother will remember all her life…
* Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a woman in labor…
* Assists the woman and her partner in preparing for and carrying out their plans for the birth…
* Stays by the side of the laboring woman throughout the entire labor…
* Provides emotional support, physical comfort measures, an objective viewpoint and assistance to the woman in getting the information she needs to make good decisions…
* Facilitates communication between the laboring woman, her partner and clinical care providers…
* A doula perceives her role as one who nurtures and protects the woman’s memory of her birth experience.

More information on Doulas
Find a Doula