A nourishing Summertime salad that combines crunch and tang. Kids love it just as much as adults!

Ingredients – Salad

• 1 cup fresh green beans
• 2 medium carrots
• 2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely diced
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
• 2-3 slices red onion, finely chopped

Ingredients – Dressing

• 2 TBSP sesame oil
• 1 TBSP chia seeds
• Juice of 1 lemon

Directions

1. Trim ends off 1 cup fresh green beans and cut in thirds.
2. Julienne 2 medium carrots.
3. Place in a medium saucepan with 2″ boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. When done, drain hot water, and cover with cold water and some ice. Set aside.
4. In medium-sized bowl add the apples, celery, cucumber, and red onion. Gently mix together.
5. Add the green beans and carrots and stir to mix.
6. In small bowl, mix together the sesame oil, chia seeds, and lemon juice.
7. Drizzle juice mixture over green apple mixture and stir to coat evenly.

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Nourishing Treasures was founded in 2006 by Lea Harris, just a mom passionate about her family’s health and well-being. Lea is now a Certified Health Coach graduate from Beyond Organic University. Encouraging others to take baby steps in the right direction of health for their families, Lea believes education is power, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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Feel free to share your thoughts on this article, Sesame Chia Green Apple Salad

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This is a joint giveaway with African Babies Don’t Cry and Natural Parents Network. You may enter at one site only. Please find the section marked “Win it!” for the mandatory entry and optional bonus entries.

Karen Ranzi is offering up one copy of her book Creating Healthy Children, Through Attachment Parenting and Raw Foods, a value of $25.

Karen Ranzi is a leading expert in the field of nutrition and child development, with over 15 years of experience. Her book, Creating Healthy Children, Through Attachment Parenting and Raw Foods, is an informative, and empowering book; giving you all the knowledge you need to raise healthy and emotionally supported children.

From our reviewer, Christine at African Babies Don’t Cry:

Karen Ranzi is an author, lecturer and raw food consultant. She has appeared on TV and radio, talking on topics such as vegetarian and raw food parenting and attachment parenting. In addition to her work in nutrition, Karen has been a speech therapist working with children of all ages for over 30 years, specializing with autistic children for the past 10 years, and she holds a master’s degree in speech pathology from New York University.

I was super excited to receive my copy of Creating Healthy Children as it encompasses two of my passions, raw food and attachment parenting. I realised long ago that it is pointless perfecting or researching only one facet of bringing up healthy and emotionally stable children. Both physical and emotional health are of great importance, equally. In my opinion, you could be the most devoted and attached parent in the world, but if you do not address your child’s diet and give him the nutrition that he requires, your efforts will be fruitless. I have seen this with my own son. Jesse radiates warmth and happiness and is a secure and confident little person, who has a clear head and is not bogged down by typical childhood complaints such as earache, runny noses or tummy trouble. This freedom from ‘normal’ complaints has ensured that his development is never hampered and he is always full of joy.

This book addresses both aspects, your child’s physical health by providing optimal nutrition from conception, and also your child’s emotional health through the gentle parenting philosophy of attachment parenting. Most readers of Natural Parents Network are familiar with attachment parenting, and most have adopted attachment parenting philosophies such as co-sleeping and babywearing already — a raw food diet, however, is still foreign to most. It will be difficult to argue with Karen’s research and recommendations, even for the most sceptical of readers. This book is chock full of expert opinions.

I have often written on African Babies Don’t Cry about my son’s impeccably healthy start to solid foods with only raw fruit. This gradual and easy start set his digestive system up for success. We have slowly started introducing more and more foods, starting with the fruit, then raw vegetables, seeds and a few nuts, and finally cooked vegetables. I have not been able to commit to a 100% raw diet myself yet, and so find it difficult to feed Jesse only raw; however, this book is full of inspiration as well as the facts as to why I should make this transition soon.

“Karen Ranzi has written a most important book, Creating Healthy Children, that is a must read. The scientific evidence is now clear that a plant based diet means optimal health, and the sooner young people are started on this diet, the better. The storyline in this book is personal, professional and very, very sensible.”
 — T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Co-author of The China Study.

This book is a wealth of information on every topic a parent should read up on before having children: from pregnancy, homebirth and breastfeeding to the vitamin B12 controversy. Karen goes into much detail with every chapter, quoting many scientific papers and respected authors, giving you, the parent, all the information, and allowing you to decide which is best for your child. A few readers may find this book a bit too long (over 400 pages), but I thoroughly enjoyed how in-depth and informative it was.

She starts at the beginning, before conception, addressing the mother’s and father’s diets. Karen advises a detox before planning a pregnancy, and although not all of us have the foresight or opportunity to plan (myself included here), I can totally see the benefits of doing so. Karen broaches the topic of morning sickness as a sign of the body getting rid of toxins. She coaches the reader on how to have a healthy pregnancy, free from any complaints; after all our bodies were designed to carry babies — it’s a shame that so many of us suffer so much whilst doing so.

Many mainstream readers, although they may be practising attachment parenting, may balk at the thought of a raw food diet. Karen clearly outlines the benefits of a diet high in raw fruits and plant matter, but even better, Creating Healthy Children also has a whole section of success stories from a bunch of raw foodists. I loved this section. It is so inspiring to read the drastic changes people have made to heal illnesses and overcome challenges to become so successfully healthy. Karen also writes from a place of first-hand experience — she cured herself of gynaecological problems and freed her son from his constant asthma, ear infections and allergies.

Karen also broaches the more testy subjects of circumcision and vaccinations. She tells her admirable story as a Jewish mother who chose to keep her son intact and gives the ins and outs on vaccinations.

I recommend this book for all parents or parents-to-be who are striving to raise healthy, happy and stable children. I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, and consider it a valuable addition to any library, as so many parents are in the dark when it comes to the right nutrition for their children.

BUY IT!

You can purchase your own copy of Creating Healthy Children by Karen Ranzi at Super Healthy Children for $24.95 excluding shipping, or the Kindle ebook version is available on Amazon for $9.99.

Just for Natural Parents Network readers, Karen is offering a 20% discount off her book at her site for the duration of the giveaway. Simply email karen@superhealthychildren.com and reference NPN to receive your discount.

WIN IT!

For your own chance to win a copy of Creating Healthy Children, by Karen Ranzi, enter by leaving a comment and using our Rafflecopter system below.

Contest is open WORLDWIDE.

MANDATORY ENTRY: Visit Karen’s website, Super Healthy Children and tell us which one of the chapters of the book you are most wanting to read! You must enter your name and email address in the Rafflecopter entry system for your entry to count, after leaving a comment on this blog post.

Leave a valid email address so we can contact you if you win. Email addresses in Rafflecopter are not made publicly visible. Please leave the same valid email address in your mandatory comment so we can verify entries.

This is a joint giveaway with African Babies Don’t Cry and Natural Parents Network. You may enter at one site only, and we’ll be recording IP addresses to ensure that there are no duplicate entries. That said, please do visit and enjoy both sites!

BONUS ENTRIES:
See the Rafflecopter entry system for bonus entries to increase your chance of winning after completing the mandatory entry. All bonus entries are entered directly into Rafflecopter. Give it a try, and email or leave a comment if you have any questions!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Contest closes June 9 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

_________________________

Information About Our Reviewer:
Christine is a teacher turned work-at-home mom to her beautiful son, Jesse. She lives in South Africa and is passionate about bringing up her son as naturally as possible. Christine blogs at African Babies Don’t Cry, where she often writes about natural nutrition and toddler health.

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Feel free to share your thoughts on this article, Giveaway: Creating Healthy Children by Karen Ranzi — $25 ARV {6.9; Worldwide}

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Of course, to raise a self-sufficient adult, you have to start young. I am a firm believer that children should help around the house, either for payment or simply because they are part of a family. As soon as my babies were able to toddle, I showed them how to pick up their toys. They couldn’t clean a whole room yet, but any “help” was met with praise. They followed me around the house, shadowing my movements and watching as I did my work. Soon they wanted to help, and would hand me plates from the dishwasher or clothes from the dryer with a smile. As they got older, they graduated to loading the washing machine with their own clothes and doing bigger chores around the house.

Children as young as 18 months can have their own “chores.” They need to be supervised closely, but helping a parent with household tasks can bring a sense of pride and accomplishment. I keep the kid-safe plates and sippy cups in a drawer that is within reach of my youngest two, so they can easily unload their own items from the dishwasher directly into the drawer. They also love to hand me clothes from the washing machine. Yes, it takes so much longer, but they are so proud to be helping me!

My school-age children are able to perform almost any chore the adults can, but with supervision. They vacuum, load and unload the dryer, dust, mop, sweep, and so on. They don’t always do these willingly or with a cheerful attitude (then again, I don’t either…), but they do them!

When the kids and I do our chores, I have to remember a few things:

1. Safety first! — Always supervise children when they clean, especially if they are using cleaners. Keep cleaners locked and out of their reach until you are ready to help them. I use natural cleaners (mostly various combinations of Dawn, vinegar, water, and Eos), but my kids know not to touch the cleaners until I give one to them. Any screwing around, and I take the spray bottles away.
2. Model, model, model — I need to show them what I want done, from beginning to end, multiple times before they can do it on their own.
3. Work WITH your children — It’s important to be close to your children not only for safety reasons, but also because working together strengthens the parent/child bond. Sometimes we work in peace and quiet, sometimes we rock out to iTunes, but we are always together.
4. It won’t be like you do it — It might not be perfect, but if they put in solid effort, it’s good enough for me! Work that is obviously sloppy has to be redone, but a few streaks in the mirror, where the child can’t reach? Fine. (And, yes, I resist the urge to redo their work because I think it sends the message, “My best isn’t good enough.” If I need something done perfectly, then
   I do it.)

I don’t love chores. In fact, most days I wish my family would become nudists so that I wouldn’t have to do one more load of laundry! However, I love working with my children to keep “our” house clean for all of us!

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This poem was among a few others on mothering that I read at KGB Bar in New York City a couple years ago. I started drafting it when my older son was six or seven months old. Nothing in my prior life had prepared me for the intensity of his dependence on me — nor for the intensity of my love for him — nor for the strange isolation of life as a stay-at-home mom in the city. Looking back at that time, I want to tell the woman who wrote this poem just how much everything changes, and how very quickly. Day after day, the seven-month-old baby becomes a mostly weaned three-and-a-half-year-old boy. Then, there’s a newborn in your arms, and you start all over again, happily….

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(Read more about natural learning in our resources.)

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Feel free to share your thoughts on this article, Wordless Wednesday: Best Friends

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Parenting is a challenge, no doubt about it. We spend a lot of time considering each and every decision in an attempt to help our children grow up to be strong, confident individuals. We teach them how to play, how to eat, and how to be polite. We help them learn to control their toddler impulses and not jump on the sleeping pug.

How many of us teach our children to say no? Not the screaming I-just-discovered-this-word-that-gets-attention-and-I-want-to-just-spout-it-off-all-the-time, but an actual no that is the result of self-awareness. Teaching our children to say no may be something that isn’t often considered, but is a necessary skill if we hope to raise children who are confident in themselves and their personal boundaries.

My son is 2 and has his own personality. He wants to have his own space and really doesn’t like to join in with whatever everyone else is doing unless he feels comfortable. Over time, I’ve noticed that often well-meaning family members will try to convince him to play what they are playing or hug them or follow them away from what he is doing. At first, I considered that I should teach him to just be polite and do what they wanted. But in time, I realized that he is aware enough of himself to say no when he doesn’t want to participate. I’ve had a hard time letting go of my hopes for adorable photos of him loving on his little sister as far too often, it ended with him in tears because she was touching him. If I’m completely honest with myself, though, I’d rather have sweet photos because everyone is actually happy, rather than being bribed into smiling.

There’s a fine line between a polite, self-aware no and one that is whiny and unpleasant. It does take time to develop this skill, and we certainly aren’t there yet, but the main lesson I want him to learn is that he can speak up for himself. Children who have milder personalities or those who are natural-born pleasers can easily fall prey to bullying. In this world that is hyper-aware of bullying, we can often forget that some of the worst offenders are adults: teachers forcing the issue of a differing worldview, a coach demanding too much, or a grandparent who disproves of the choices you’ve made as a parent.

Saying no is a hard task for many people, me included. Far too often, I find myself wishing that I had stood up for my decision or not buckled to the pressure of people who do not live my life but still choose to have an outspoken opinion on it. I hope that by teaching my children to say no when they feel pressured or uncomfortable, I’ll be saving them a good deal of drama later in life. For me, I want my children to live a life they are committed to; regardless of career, religion, or creed. I want them to be proud of who they are, even if it means telling me no and making a decision I wouldn’t.

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Welcome to the Carnival of Weaning: Weaning – Your Stories

This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Weaning hosted by Code Name: Mama and Aha! Parenting. Our participants have shared stories, tips, and struggles about the end of the breastfeeding relationship.

Weaning. I have thought about, started, restarted, forgotten about, discussed, and then started again, writing about weaning. I am flat out terrified of the idea. Other than a brief period, lasting less than a year in 1997, I have been nursing since 1993.

For 18 years I have nurtured a child at my breast; the intensity of the newborn period, the unbroken daily ritual of the next one to two years, followed by the gradual decrease that accompanies a new pregnancy or an aging child. For most of my experience this decrease has been joined by a new newborn where I would struggle to balance the demands of two (or once three) children who seemed to feel most connected, most satiated when mothered at the breast.

Not only has breastfeeding defined my mothering journey, it has defined my adulthood. My oldest was born months after I graduated from high school. Just as I was beginning to understand the autonomy that was associated with choosing what you did and when I had another person who was depending on me for care and nourishment. I’m not sure who I am if I am not a nursing mother.

When I’ve shared my experience with other mothers they are sometimes horrified, commenting about wanting “their body back” from a nursing baby. To be sure, I have been known to stamp my foot in protest when a toddler demands to nurse for the umpteenth time while I was trying to make dinner. I recently participated in a discussion with my four year-old that went like this:

Me: Please stop twiddling.

Her: Why?

Me: Because it’s my breast, and it bothers me.

Her: No, they’re my breast.

Me: I don’t think so. They’re attached to my body.

Her: Well, we shaaaare them!

But the experience of having my “body back” is so long ago that I have no memory for which to wish. It would be as foreign as suggesting having one’s body back from teeth brushing or showering or any of the dozen other things that we do with or to our bodies on a daily or semi-regular basis.

She will wean. I want to erase that sentence.

She will wean. All of the others did. I always limit nursings at some point – I am really bad at nursing during pregnancy and tandem nursing and even without those externalities somewhere close to age three things simply start to be uncomfortable. But I’ve never actively weaned a child. In fact I don’t remember the last nursings of any previous children. In some ways I’m really sad about that. However, I don’t remember that last time I carried any of my older children, either. Or the last time I cut up their food or tied their shoes. I suppose that when breastfeeding becomes so intimately intertwined with mothering, it loses some of the distinctiveness and mystique with which it is associated in our current culture.

She will wean. As difficult and physically uncomfortable as I find nursing an older child to be, it is nothing compared to the identity crisis I fear facing when I am done breastfeeding for good.

Breastfeeding taught me how to mother.

It connected me with the women who had come before me and let me reach out to the women who came after. It showed me that responding to an infant’s needs was easy and did not mean that I would subjugate my own. I nursed as a single parent, while dating, and in a traditional marriage. I’ve worked full-time, part-time, and not at all. I’ve gone to school and completed two degrees (working on a third) while breastfeeding. I’ve spent months in close, constant physical proximity to my breastfeeding children and have been separated from them for a week or more at a time. Breastfeeding enabled me to quickly find like-minded mothers when moving to a new town for the first time in my life, and now it helps to pay the bills as I help other new mothers.

She will wean. And I will still be her mother. I will still be a mother. I will still be a breastfeeding mother.
None of what breastfeeding taught me or gave to me will disappear when I am no longer nursing a child.

_________________________

Jessica is honored to share this life journey with her five children, her partner, and an amazing assortment of family, friends, and random folks who make it all so very interesting. Most likely due to being exposed to 1980s issues of Mothering Magazine during her impressionable childhood years, she has been known to engage in such devious activities as homebirth, home/unschooling, breastfeeding past infancy, and otherwise questioning the dominant paradigm. Jessica blogs in random spurts at Instead of Intuitions.

Thank you for visiting the Carnival of Weaning hosted by Dionna at Code Name: Mama and Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting.

(This list will be live amind updated by afternoon May 21 with all the carnival links.)

• On Breastfeeding, Weaning, and One Mother’s Identity — Jessica at Natural Parents Network has been nursing one or more of her children since 1993 – breastfeeding is wrapped up in her concept of mothering and herself. She shares her thoughts on weaning.
• two tales of weaning — Aspen at Aspen Mama writes about their countdown to wean.
• Wean Me Gently — Tam at Please Send Parenting Books shares a beautiful weaning ceremony.
• You say potato, I say bleeeuuuuch… — Anelie at Mindcradle had read the books and knew just how to introduce her baby son to solids—unfortunately, he had other ideas.
• A Post Called Weaning — (Not) Maud at Awfully Chipper writes about how weaning her son took longer than she expected.
• On Weaning, Pregnancy and Emotion — Shannon at The Artful Mama talks about her mixed emotions as she allows her son, Little Man, to guide her through his weaning process.
• half of her life — Staci at Springpatch Jam looks back on her nursing relationship with her first born.
• Is it just this After Forty Mom or is it harder to wean when its your last? — Amanda of After Forty Mom shares her emotional journey towards the impending self-weaning of her toddler daughter.
• Nursing Limits — Jorje of Momma Jorje shares how she has weaned her toddler down to minimal nursing and her guilt about the decision to do so.
• Weaning Video Series #1: Preparation for the Weaning Process — Why is weaning such a taboo topic? Dionna at Code Name: Mama got mamas from across the blogosphere to start talking about weaning – on video. Come check out the first video in a series of five that she’ll be posting this week.
• Weaning due to anxiety — Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes talks about how she had to wean to preserve her mental health.
• When Will I Wean? A Guest Post — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama hosts a guest post from a mama who contemplates when her breastfeeding relationship will end.
• On His Own Terms — Momeeezen shares her heartbreak from when her son weaned much earlier than she anticipated.
• Our Weaning Story – Sudden, Surprised, and Embracing a New Season — Weaning doesn’t always go how we imagine. That Mama Gretchen shares the story of her daughter’s sudden weaning and how she has embraced this new season of motherhood.
• A Tale of Two Weanings — Valerie at Momma in Progress shares the similarities and differences of how her nursing relationships with her now six-year-old and four-year-old daughters came to a close.
• She Doesn’t Remember — Alicia at Lactation Narration finds that her 6 year old no longer remembers nursing, only one year after weaning.
• It’s The End of the World As We Know It — A story about the end of a tandem nursing relationship on Never Mind The Rain: A toddler moves on to a new phase in her life before mom is fully ready.
• A Natural End To Our Breastfeeding Relationship — With two self-weaning children, Jennifer at Our Muddy Boots does not know when the end will come, but that it will be natural and without regrets.
• Child-Led weaning: It’s Not Extreme; It’s Biological — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children explains why child-led weaning is based on biology rather than social constraints.
• 6 Years of Natural Weaning in 5 Steps — Jess at miniMum shares how and why she let her first child stop when he was good and ready.

• Is This Weaning?: A Tandem Nursing Update — Sheila at A Living Family bares all her tandem nursing hopes and fears during what feels like the beginning of the end for her toddler nursing relationship.
• Memories of Weaning: Unique and Gentle — Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife shares her weaning experiences with her two sons, each one unique in how it happened and yet equally gentle in its approach.
• Weaning Aversion’ — Gentle Mama Moon shares her experience of nursing and unplanned weaning due to pregnancy-induced ‘feeding aversion’.
• Three Months Post-Mup: An Evolution of Thoughts On Weaning — cd at FidgetFace describes a brief look at her planned (but accelerated) weaning, as well as one mamma’s evolution on weaning (and extended nursing)
• Weaning my Tandem Nursed Toddler — After tandem nursing for a year, Melissa at Permission to Live felt like weaning her older child would be impossible, but now she shares how gentle weaning worked for her 2 1/2 year old.
• Every Journey Begins with One Step — As Hannabert begins the weaning process, Hannah at Hannah and Horn‘s super power is diminishing.
• Reflections on Weaning – Love Changes Form — Amy from Presence Parenting (guest posting at Dulce de Leche) shares her experience and approach of embracing weaning as a continual process in parenting, not just breastfeeding.
• Weaning Gently: Three Special Ideas for Success — MudpieMama shares three ideas that help make weaning a gentle and special journey.
• Guest Post: Carnival of Weaning — Emily shares her first weaning experience and her hopes for her second nursling in a guest post on Farmer’s Daughter.
• 12 Tips for Gentle Weaning — Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting describes the process of gentle weaning and gives specific tips to make weaning an organic, joyful ripening.
• Quiz: Should You Wean for Fertility Treatments? — Paige at Baby Dust Diaries talks about the key issues in the difficult decision to wean for infertility treatments.
• I thought about weaning… — Kym at Our Crazy Corner of the World shares her story of how she thought about weaning several times, yet it still happened on its own timeline.
• Celebrating Weaning — Amy at Anktangle reflects on her thoughts and feelings about weaning, and she shares a quick tutorial for one of the ways she celebrated this transition with her son: through a story book with photographs!
• Naturally Weaning Twins — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings discusses the gradual path to weaning she has taken with her preschool-aged twins.
• Gentle Weaning Means Knowing When to Stop — Claire at The Adventures of Lactating Girl writes about knowing when your child is not ready to wean and taking their feelings into account in the process.
• Weaning, UnWeaning, and ReWeaning — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy discovers non-mutal weaning doesn’t have to be the end. You can have a do-over.
• Prelude to weaning — Lauren at Hobo Mama talks about a tough tandem nursing period and what path she would like to encourage her older nursling to take.
• Demands of a Nursing Kind — Amy Willa at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work shares her conflicted feelings about nursing limits and explores different ways to achieve comfort, peace, and bodily integrity as a nursing mother.
• Breastfeeding: If there’s one thing I know for sure… — Wendy at ABCs and Garden Peas explores the question: How do you know when it’s time to wean?
• Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Two, Three? — Zoie at TouchstoneZ discusses going from 3 nurslings down to 1 and what might happen when her twins arrive.

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Feel free to share your thoughts on this article, On Breastfeeding, Weaning, and One Mother’s Identity

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Serve this dish with a wholesome whole-grain side dish and a green salad with a citrus dressing. You will feast on a budget.

Baked Chicken Thighs Ingredients

• 8 chicken thighs

• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 teaspoons of fresh mint, finely minced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

• 2 dozen dried apricots, cut in half
• 3/4 cups green olives

Baked Chicken Thighs Steps

1. Liberally salt and pepper the chicken.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan until the oil shimmers.
3. Fry the chicken legs in oil, turning the legs until the skin is brown all around.
4. On a second burner, sauté the onion, garlic, mint, and red pepper flakes in the rest of the oil. Cook until the onion is tender.
5. Add the apricots and olives. Combine the mixture thoroughly to coat the apricots and olives with oil.
6. Arrange the onion-olive-apricot mix in an oiled casserole dish.
7. Place the chicken thighs on the onion mix with the skin-side up.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Do not cover the casserole dish. In thirty minutes, the meat should be cooked and tender but not dried out.

_________________________

Amanda Rose writes about food science and healthy eating at the Traditional Foods website from her homestead in the Sequoia National Forest of California.

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Feel free to share your thoughts on this article, Chicken Thighs With Olives and Apricots (gluten free, dairy free)

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When my son Adam was a wee bitty baby, I found myself facing what felt like an impossible situation with his diapers. He was allergic to every disposable diaper in creation. His poor bottom had a constant rash, which often broke open into great weeping wounds. My heart broke with every diaper change.

I asked parents from many arenas and got a lot of advice that I was wholly dissatisfied with. Many told me that their child could only use [insert name brand disposable], and surely that should work for me. I tried to explain about our intensely sensitive skin and how prone we all are to eczema and dermatitis. They would then suggest balms and solvents to barricade his skin from the harsh chemicals of the diapers.

And then a dear friend wrote to me and asked if I would be open to trying cloth. Cloth? Cloth, you say? What is this? Anybody who knows how frugal I am might be wondering why I had not thought of cloth diapers myself.¹

I began shopping around online for cloth diapers (because I could not find any in stores) and found that while cloth saves loads of money in the long run, you often need a fair chunk of cash to start all at once from scratch. Many parents spend their pregnancies building a sizable stash, but I needed a full set of diapers right away. At roughly $14 for one diaper (this is for an All in One or a Pocket diaper), I would have spent $280 – $420. I knew my husband would tell me to slather the baby in A&D if I were to bring that sort of total to him.

I was pretty desperate, because I knew my friend was right and cloth would solve our problem. I needed to find a way to cloth diaper on the extreme cheap. So I went to my closet to see what I could find to make some diaper covers out of the material I already owned. I had read that flannel receiving blankets make excellent diapers. They do! I had many on hand, as most parents do; I think it’s the token gift people give to you when you’re pregnant.

I took an old newspaper and traced out a disposable diaper, leaving an inch extra all the way around, and Bingo! There was my pattern. I found a bunch of fleece shirts in the back of the closet that my husband had outgrown (I mean shrunk in the dryer) and a water resistant sleeping bag. Now, pretty much anything can be used to make diaper covers. Wool works best, but since the flannel is going to do most of the absorption, you’re just wanting something to keep the diaper in place. Sweatshirts, flannels, even old T-shirts. Even though I used water resistant fabric to line them with, I don’t think that it was necessary.

I cut apart the seams on all of the shirts and the sleeping bag, so that I had flat pieces of fabric to work with; then I cut out pieces for my diapers. One piece of water resistant fabric and one piece of shirt for each diaper cover. I sewed them together around three of the edges leaving a half inch seam allowance, and then turned the cover right side out. I pinned in the unsewn edge, pressed it flat, and top stitched all the way around it. Easy peasy. I went to the store and picked up a package of pins for a dollar, and there you have it. I diapered my child for over a year with that set up, and only spent a buck. The rash cleared up with in days with no creams.

Since that first foray into the cloth diaper realm, I was hooked. I have since had great fun designing different diapers and diaper covers for my little ones, and it’s one of the things I am most looking forward to whenever we make a new addition to our family in the future.

Destany has graciously agreed to share her Diaper Cover Pattern PDF with us. Feel free to download and create your own, but please do not use this pattern for diapers you may sell.

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Destany Fenton is married to her highschool sweetheart and is a mother of four kids. She enjoys a great many hobbies and pretty much anything to do with making. Whether she is making art, jewelry, food, clothing, or simply making the most of her time and resources, she shares her love of life and family at They Are All of Me and her crafts and hobbies at Another Artful Mama.

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As our children’s capacity for learning grows, our parenting philosophy must evolve in turn. My parenting motto lately is to tell my almost-four-year-old daughter the truth, even in the face of challenging questions. I’m learning that I can’t avoid any question with an inquisitive child around, so I am embracing her thirst for knowledge and making an attempt to answer every question she asks. I say every question with hesitation because there are a few but’s to that statement. I’ll get to them in a minute.

Vivi asks zillions of questions on a daily basis. Her curious nature is a positive trait that will serve her well in her life, so I nurture her desire to learn. Sometimes I become frustrated at hearing “Why?” dozens of times in a day, and “Why?” occasionally becomes a tic that she asks automatically without thinking. I am focused on getting to the root of what she wants to know by responding to the “Whys” with “What would you like to know?” and encouraging her to construct more direct questions.

After reading NurtureShock, I’ve gradually developed a pattern of trust with Vivi, so she knows she won’t ever get in trouble for telling me the truth; as a result, her fibbing seems to have almost completely ceased. I want to develop a relationship that encourages her to ask any and all questions she might be thinking. I want her also to consider me a source of information, not of euphemisms and “Ummm’s.” I want her not to ask me about sex. Yet.

Even without the big S talk, I’m learning that direct questions can migrate into other challenging ones. It isn’t always easy to craft an honest, thoughtful response. Adding another challenging element, most of her questions come on the fly, like when I’m walking across a parking lot, juggling groceries, a toddler, an umbrella, and my keys.

“Is God a boy or a girl?”

“Why does everyone in Annie say shut up so much if it’s such a bad word?”

“When are we going to get another baby?”

“What does it mean when someone dies?”

When she asks me a difficult question, I bristle and automatically want to change the subject, but I always first ask myself what would be the purpose in skirting the answer. I’ve developed a list of potential reasons not to answer her, and it is a short list:

1. The information has the capacity to increase her anxiety level without probability of a good lesson to be learned. This is a lesson from Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids. For example, I choose not to discuss the details of global warming, war, and natural disasters with her. Ditto our family’s finances.
2. The information has the capacity to hurt others if I don’t shush or ignore her. For example, I run head-down out of the room when she yells “Why is that man so big?” or “Why didn’t that lady say ‘Excuse me’ when she burped?” (I don’t really run. It’s more of a slink).

Before I answer, I find out why she’s asking the question (it may tell you what she really wants to know), and I ask her what she already knows about the subject (you might be surprised at the answer). My basic guidelines in my explanations are to keep my response simple, short, and honest but age-appropriate.

My truthiness with Vivi is extending into our talk of human anatomy. For example, the baby does not grow “in Mommy’s tummy” but in her womb. I am throwing talk of hoohas, ginees, and pee pees out the window (hello, accidental Lorena Bobbitt reference). When you have a toddler, you can get away with calling a belly button a “bee bo,” a stomach a “tummy,” and such. Baby talk only happens once in your life, so live it up! Toddlers can’t say most words correctly, so I’d prefer my 18 month old can tell me her stomach hurts without having to navigate a challenging word.

Having said that, for how long should that baby talk continue? And for what purpose? When I realized I couldn’t answer that question without using words like tradition and decorum, I knew I had made my decision to use anatomically correct words. Is this a feminist decision or just a practical one? I do not know, but I do wonder the following: What would be the point in my admonishing Vivi for saying her vagina hurt instead of her “lady bits”? It’s not a four-letter word, after all.

Mind you, if she shouts it in a room full of people, we’ll have a separate discussion in which I teach her that she can pull me aside for talk of our bodily functions and private parts. By the way, I feel the same about her announcing loudly that she has a booger on her finger, which is one of her favorite things to shout at the present time. Let’s not share it with the world, okay sweetie?

I’m not going too overboard with my methodology; for instance, I’m not going to tell her she needs to call a booger “mucus.” I won’t be asking Vivi if she needs to “defecate” or “urinate.” Folks, there’s no need to take this philosophy to the extreme. I can’t see the point in using such formal language, especially when she can’t say those words without a struggle anyway. At three years old, we’re still at the age where she needs to get the point across quickly. When you gotta go . . . well, you know.

A while back, Vivi asked me to pinpoint the exact location of heaven. I chuckle at the seemingly unique problem solving skills she possesses for a three-year-old. I appreciate the questions like “Where is heaven?” because I can always just say “Where do you think heaven is?,” and usually my counter-question causes the conversation to veer off down some or other tangent. Perhaps I needn’t be overly concerned with how detailed my explanations are, when I consider Vivi’s only just reached the age where she attempts to put together an explanation for her own behavior.

What are your experiences with handling difficult questions? Do you attempt to be frank and honest, or do you feel like it’s your role as a parent in the information age to guard your children from learning too much too fast?

Yours in candid lady-parts discussions,
~Justine

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Justine Uhlenbrock is an urban homesteader, a minimalist mom, a writer, and a doula-in-training living with her husband and two young girls in Arlington, Massachusetts. She is passionate about sustainable living, health, frugality, and her quest for real food and family heirloom recipes. She blogs at The Lone Home Ranger. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Goodreads.

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