If you ever take your children near water and haven’t seen this article, please click over and read it. I’ve seen it posted and reposted many places now, but it’s one of those articles I don’t think can be reposted too many times. It has a lot of important information that I didn’t know. The most eye-opening part of this article, for me, was this:

To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).

A friend of mine made a comparison to labour and birth: any of us in the natural birthing community know that labour doesn’t look anything like what they try and show on TV. The same holds true, apparently, for drowning. I didn’t realize that someone who is drowning could have their head above water. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be any thrashing or yelling. In fact, he makes the point that to the untrained eye, a drowning person often looks like they are just treading water.

And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

One other point not discussed in the article but that I think bears mentioning is snorkel or scuba equipment and kids. While many kids love to don scuba masks and play around in the water with them, they can be dangerous. From what I’ve read, many of the snorkels made for kids don’t allow much oxygen to make it into the mask, so the CO2 alone can be dangerous. A mask that doesn’t fit quite right can let water in and a child who is not getting a lot of oxygen could take a deep breath and get a mouthful of water, or if they let the tube go under water momentarily the same thing could happen. Dry drowning is another potential risk. This isn’t to say children should never be allowed to use this equipment, but parents should be very aware when they are using it. After all, many children will put their heads under water face down so just the tube is sticking out above the water, and now that I’ve read the article above I can see how it would be very easy to miss that a child doing this was actually in trouble. In fact, a young girl drowned in a lake nearby last year while wearing a snorkel mask. There were life guards and many other people around her at the time. Children should also be informed about what to do if any water does get in the mask.

Living as close to a lake as we do now, I appreciate having this information, and hope it helps someone else out there as well.

Related posts:

1. Children ‘should sleep with parents until they’re five’
2. Punishments and Rewards
3. More unschooly learning

That being said, I’ve decided to split my blog into two after all. It will be easier anyway if I can choose tags for the homesteading one that are specifically to do with homesteading rather than lump it all into one category. Anyone interested can subscribe to both, or just one or the other, and then when I feel like sitting down to write (and actually have a moment), I can write whatever I want without wondering if it’s “on-topic”. Which I really shouldn’t worry about anyway, since I write mostly for myself, but according to my stats I have a surprising number of people visiting my blog each day even when I don’t write and do hope that some people will get something out of what I’m writing.

I haven’t got the new site set up yet, and won’t have time to do anything fancy. Likely I’ll just copy exactly how this blog looks but change the picture and categories and leave it at that for now. In the fall when/if I have a bit more time I can fancy it up. I’ll make sure to post a link when it’s set up for those who are interested.

Related posts:

1. Love That Blog
2. I’m Back (maybe!)
3. Continued blog overhaul

to this:

It was really cool to watch the progress. I can’t wait until it’s done and we can stick the chickens out there. We are shingling it with extra shingles from when our roof was done, and I’ll paint it inside and out with mistinted paint.

The chickens are doing well. Here they are all lined up when they saw me coming. They were ranged all over the brooder and just came to see what I was up to when I walked up.

Yes, there are eight now. We actually lost one early on, so of course I had to replace her with two more. And then we got another two from a different breeder. And later this week I still have more day-old babies to go get… Kris says his one consolation is that our coop maxes out around twenty, so he knows I have a limit. The nice people on the Backyard Chickens forums call it “chicken math”. They warn anyone new to chickens to build their coops twice as big as they think they’ll need, and joke most people will have the coop full before it’s done anyway. (Which is pretty much holding true for us, ha!) They are absolutely fascinating. I really can’t get over how neat they are to watch, and how fun. And some of them are so sweet too.

We were out in the garden all afternoon today. We brought the chickens out and let them go to town in the little fenced-in garden area near the house. We got lots of stuff planted. Hopefully we don’t get another frost. (Technically I don’t think we are considered frost free here until mid-April.)

There is still so much to do. I have planted our fruit trees (besides one mulberry that will end up near the chicken run), but still have some berries to plant. I planted the peas and lettuces in the raised beds that are already here, but I’d really like to get at least one raised bed dug this year on the other side of the house. I have a ton of potatoes (more than I remember ordering!) on the windowsill right now and need to think of where to plant them. I want to just use two long trunks from the trees that we had felled and plant the potatoes between them. Kris thinks it will look messy and they’ll be in the way. I think no matter what I decide to do with them, they’ll take up a lot of space. There are a lot of potatoes! Maybe next year they will last longer than barely into October.

We also need to finish the chicken coop and make them a run plus figure out some sort of pasture system for them, since we don’t want to let them completely free range. (Stories of poo on decks and cars, plus there is a road fairly nearby.) I’m thinking portable electric fencing, but we may just make three different pastures right near the coop and rotate them between those. We also need to finish clearing all the wood from the trees we had felled. Most of the downstairs is finally painted, though the room the chickens are in still needs to be done and most of upstairs still needs to be done.

We won’t be bored any time soon, that’s for sure.

As a side note, PhD in Parenting and HoboMama are both great blogs that I have subscribed to through my Google Reader (though I don’t know if I have them up on my blog list, I haven’t updated that in ages). They write about breastfeeding, natural parenting, etc, and are both pretty well known. Imagine my surprise when I got a pingback notice that Fiona’s birth video was linked to from PhD in Parenting, on a guest post by Lauren! I’m honoured that she likes the video so much that she wants to share it with others.

Related posts:

1. Change
2. Unveiling
3. Starting small

Have I mentioned recently how much I love this cat?

I don’t think we could have asked for a more perfect kitten for us.

He seeks Meredith out and will cuddle with her for hours. If it looks like she’s forcing him, she’s really not. She just likes to hold on to him. But if she moves her arms away he still stays.

Even Sorcha loves him. We had people over the other day who couldn’t believe that a dog and a cat would play the way these two do all the time. Sebastian doesn’t love him, but will tolerate him and even play with him.

It took us a long time to name him because none of the names we came up with really fit him. For now, he’s Casper. Nothing to do with the ghost, though the description does fit. It seems to be sticking. Just as often he’s still “Kitten”. Regardless, he’s a much loved addition to the family.

Related posts:

1. Meet Happy Birthday Cake
2. Dog-Friendly Dog Training
3. This and That

I still have some things I want to do, but other things in life take priority. I did want to point out the new categories though for anyone who might be interested.

Related posts:

1. Undergoing renovations
2. Love That Blog
3. Blog Anonymity

The recipes are being completely redone too, since the point of my recipes is mostly for me to have a place to put them, so they’re going to be separate from the blog itself. That specifically may end up taking longer than this weekend since I’m recopying them all and having to figure out formatting and such.

The point being that over the weekend if you happen across my blog and it looks funny or isn’t working well, just try again a bit later. Hopefully by Monday I’ll have it all looking the way I want it to and be back in business. I really want to start blogging again more and recording our journeys through life and learning.

Related posts:

1. Continued blog overhaul
2. Love That Blog
3. Moving

Every year so far for Meredith’s birthday, Kris has taken the day off and we’ve gone and done something fun. The first two years were mostly for us, and we chose to go to Salt Spring Island as we thought the boat ride and subsequent wandering would be fun for her even while young.

This year, we asked her what she wanted to do, and she chose a boat ride. We thought we’d do something different this year and go out to Sidney Spit. However, the morning of I thought to check prices, and we realized that the cost was almost $20 for each of us, including Fiona! It occurred to us that we could go over to one of the Gulf Islands again for cheaper than that, even with a vehicle, and that there would probably be more to do. We decided to pick a different one, and so Mayne Island it was. Click on thumbnails to see larger pictures.

So of course, a boat ride started off the day. Meredith was really excited to be on a big boat. We met a neat family from Quebec who had a daughter around Meredith’s age. The girls played most of the ride while we chatted with the parents. The mom kept commenting on how nicely Meredith played and what a great sharer she was, and asked if she was in daycare.

Once on Mayne Island, we stopped by a local grocer for a couple of things we’d forgotten to bring, then drove to a park area the family we’d met had recommended for a picnic. Meredith had a blast on the nearby playground and we sat and enjoyed the quiet and ate our lunch.

View Full Album

Then Meredith discovered the zipline, which brought a whole new level of fun to the day in her eyes. It’s not obvious from these pictures, but this thing went FAST. And she didn’t want Kris to actually hold on to her, so he just had his hands hovering around her. He had to run to keep up. At the end it kind of jerked to a stop and he’d catch her if she fell, but for the most part she was just fine on her own. She wanted Kris and I to each try too, and I’m impressed how well she held on. I found it difficult myself.

Near where we had our picnic was a huge Japanese garden that we decided to visit afterwards. The garden was planted and maintained as a way of commemorating the Japanese families who had settled on the island and been interned during World War II.

View Full Album

Afterwards, we headed back to the ferry and home. It was a long and busy day, and Fiona was tuckered out.

I had baked Meredith a dairy-free chocolate-orange crumb cake. We served it to her when we got home but she was more interested in cutting paper. I asked her to take just one bite, for the camera, and so she took a tiny little bite and stuck it in her mouth, then asked for some peaches and went right back to cutting her paper. So Kris and I enjoyed the cake instead.

Related posts:

1. Happy Birthday Meredith!
2. Meet Happy Birthday Cake
3. Random Stuff

Speaking of the two of them, it is so neat to be raising another baby after having done it once before. It’s amazing how different they are already. Meredith has been the type of kid who likes to repeat things and “practice”. For instance, she started rolling over around 4 months, and then did it over and over and over again every time we put her down. When she learned to sit on her own she actually originally fell from a crawling position into a sit. And she started doing it over and over again on purpose after that until she could sit well. She still learns that way.

Fiona is so much more laid back and seems to go with the flow more. She rolled over on a flat surface for the first time much earlier (maybe 2 months old? I have it written down somewhere), but has only done it a handful of times since then. At 5 months she still rarely rolls over. But if she wants to (like there’s a toy she wants to reach), she definitely can. She just doesn’t seem to do it unless there’s a need. She sleeps better at night but not as well during the day (the day time sleep could be attributed to a noisy big sister though).

Fiona is much less of a “boob” girl too. Meredith has always loved to nurse. As a baby, nursing would comfort her more often than not, and if she was offered a nurse she would rarely refuse. Fiona nurses for hunger, but not nearly as much for comfort. At three, Meredith still has days where she nurses as much as Fiona does! I actually find it harder for me to find ways to comfort Fiona. It was easy for me to console Meredith. Kris, on the other hand, is well-versed in soothing crying babies without nursing them so I don’t think has noticed a difference in this regard.

Meredith and Fiona cuddling in bed in the morning

EC is going really well with Fiona. I have definitely noticed a huge difference if I’ve had dairy. She has more accidents, signals less, and pees more. It really makes me wonder how EC would have gone with Meredith if we’d gone off dairy earlier. I’m not sure if I’ve posted this here, but Meredith has regressed in the potty training, and went from wearing panties full-time, to trainers, to diapers for a while, and now she’s back to panties around the house and the co-op, and diapers for out and about. She is back to basically 100% accident-free if she’s naked, and she’s starting to figure out that panties are not like diapers and she needs to take them off before she pees.

Fiona is virtually diaper free at home, and I will often take her for walks diaper free too now. She’s outgrowing the diapers we have and we’ve decided to just get trainers to replace them instead of more diapers. We have a few diapers already for overnight (though I’ve actually been putting her to bed diaper free on a pad too, since it’s so hot, and in the last week or so since I started doing that have only had one accident) or outings where we might be in the car. For a while I was doing laundry more because Meredith needed diapers than for Fiona! Though I only have 6 diapers for Meredith and 15 for Fiona so it’s not a completely fair comparison. I end up doing diaper laundry every three days or so, and lately I’ve only been doing it that often because I don’t like them to sit, not because I have a full load or need more for either of the girls. Fiona has also just in the last week started more consciously signalling the need to pee too. She does the same thing Meredith used to do (a bit of a crotch grab or pat). The nakedness has a downside: A lot of my pictures aren’t internet safe!

Meredith is changing a lot too. Her doctor told me regressions in potty training at her age are extremely common while going through growth spurts (which she has been) or learning spurts (which she also has been). Just in the last few weeks, Kris and I have noticed an enormous change in her vocabulary and, even more so, the way she speaks. She’s making complete, grammatically-correct sentences. It’s neat to listen to her now. She tells stories about her day and can remember things that happened and talk about them after the fact. (In fact, at one point I mentioned the birthing pool, and Meredith made a comment about how that was the day that the baby came and that she remembered jumping into the pool with me, and I never asked her any leading questions about it.)

She also had surgery recently for a funny looking mole on her leg that was growing and changing and we had some concerns about. I think I’ll post about that in a different post though.

Related posts:

1. This and That
2. Diaper-Free
3. Cushy Bottoms

Fiona is already over three months old. Unbelievable! She’s growing so fast and definitely not my tiny, squishy newborn any more. Now she’s my tiny, squishy baby. She’s very chatty, much more so than I remember Meredith being, though it’s hard to remember so long ago. She’s starting to be able to roll over fairly consistently on soft, flat surfaces, and occasionally on hard surfaces as well. She can sometimes balance a little bit to sit unassisted for very short periods too. She reaches for things and will play with toys. She already seems to adore Meredith, and smiles and reaches for her. Unfortunately, often she ends up with a hand full of hair. So far Meredith has been really understanding, and will normally just tell her “No grab my hair, Nona!” and pull her hair out. (Meredith calls her Nona or Nenona or sometimes Kiona. She can’t pronounce “f” yet.)

Meredith still seems to be doing well with Fiona, though she is going through a bit of a difficult (for us) phase right now. She seems to be much more sensitive to things like being hungry or tired, and as a result has a lot more tantrums. (I don’t love the word tantrums because it has such bad connotations, but I’m not sure how else to describe them in a way that’s obvious what I mean. I feel very similar to this author about tantrums and what causes them though.) And now when she has tantrums, she will often scream when we’re trying to talk to her or help her, and if we come near sometimes she will hit at us (though she hasn’t actually hit us yet) and scream at us to go away. It makes it especially difficult, because often when she’s really upset, all I want to do is hold her in my arms. Once she’s feeling better, she will usually let me hold her and I try to talk with her about how she’s feeling and why she’s feeling that way. Thankfully, so far she hasn’t taken any anger out on Fiona or the animals, though if Sorcha or Sebastian come over to see what’s wrong sometimes she will tell them to go away too. She hasn’t yelled at the kitten at all yet. These more intense tantrums are a pretty new development just in the last couple of weeks. We try and explain to her that it’s hard to help her when she’s screaming and we don’t know what she wants, and I’m hoping this phase is short-lived.

I’ve discovered too just in the past couple of days, that if we go out earlier and get home before 2 or 3, she seems to do a lot better. If we’re out around 2:30, she will often start getting upset over things that normally wouldn’t upset her, and is often inconsolable. If we’re home, that’s the time that she wants to do something quiet, like reading a book, cuddling and watching a movie, or even just playing alone in her sand box. So I’m going to make an effort to do things earlier in the day so that we can be home and have some quiet time in the afternoon.

Of course, most of the time, she’s still very sweet and I just love watching her imagination starting to take off (she’s making me all sorts of different foods and juices in her play kitchen as I type this ) and continuing to discover the world and learn and grow. We recently repeated the toddler science experiment we did last spring, and it was once again a big hit with the kids.

A lot of people tell me how much Fiona looks like Meredith. I don’t really see it. To me, Meredith looks more like Kris and Fiona looks more like me. But I’m bad at seeing those things anyway. I found a picture of Meredith around the same age Fiona is now. Fiona definitely has more hair. I thought Meredith had a lot too but hers was lighter so not as noticeable, but looking at the pictures there’s a difference in the amount too.

Fiona around 3 months

Meredith around 3 months

Lastly, our kitten is really awesome and I think he was a really good choice for us. He’s fun and friendly and loves to come cuddle on our laps. Meredith can be a little too much for him sometimes, but then five minutes later he will be following her around looking for attention. I hope he stays so friendly and social as he grows.

I have lots more to write about and some things bouncing around my head I’d like to say. We’ll see if I actually get to them or not. I’d like to start posting more regularly again. I see this blog as somewhat of a journal for myself to look back on. I want to be able to come and have a timeline of when we did things, and what’s going on in our lives at any given time. But I don’t want to spend so much time on the computer that I miss my girls’ real lives either.

Related posts:

1. Sisters
2. First Haircut

She’s having a giveaway for a brand new Beco right now. Check out her blog for how to enter. We have a mei tei and a Beco already, and I don’t know how I could live without them. I have used one or the other daily since Meredith was born. I prefer the mei tei on the front, though I’d love to try the new Beco and see how it is on the front. The Beco is really easy and comfortable on the back though.

Good luck to anyone who enters!

Related posts:

1. Organic Pouch Sling Giveaway
2. Real Food Online Course Giveaway
3. Happy Anniversary to Me