Civilizing Preschoolers?

We've decided for several reasons not to put 3-year-old Bella in preschool in the fall. This has encouraged me to be a bit more intentional about helping her learn civilized skills at home, like hanging up her coat and washing her hands on her own before eating. Acquiring these skills is supposed to be one of the great things about preschool--very young kids learn these habits easily in a group setting with kids their own age, under the direction of a teacher rather than a parent. Surely we can achieve this in our household, too!

How have you ordered your home so that your young kids learn these grown-up skills? Examples I'm thinking of are, as I mentioned before, hanging up coats and handwashing. Also, clearing the table after meals, knocking before entering doors, things like that. What would 3 year olds be learning in preschool that I should be replicating at home? What skills are age appropriate for preschoolers, and what can be saved for later? Should I implement them all at once (as in, OK, this is home preschool and here are the ways we're going to start doing things), or one at a time, and how often do we start on a new skill? Do you use charts and rewards or just launch right in and expect them to pick it up?

Thanks for helping me think this through!

Prenatal Testing

B-mama,

Thanks for addressing this topic and I typed up a very long comment and decided to change it to a post. I've had a really busy week, otherwise I would have written about this sooner. I'm sure Kat will have some thoughts as well. For our new readers, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, as I had a daughter Therese, who died of a fatal birth defect called anencephaly in 2002. Kat also had a daughter, Lucy, with anencephaly. Anencephaly is a fatal neural tube defect easily detected via ultrasound, and it is one of the 4 things for which the Quad screen (also called and AFP or Triple Screen) tests.

Everything for which the Quad screen tests can be detected via ultrasound, the main reason to get the Quad screen is that it is done earlier (and cheaper) than an ultrasound and therefore can alert a couple to a problem sooner, and thereby allow them to terminate the pregnancy sooner :-( Couple this with a high false positive rate for the test, and B-mama is very wise to recommend against this test. Even if your results come back indicating a problem, you then have to wait for the u/s to know if there really is a problem.

Unlike an ultrasound, CVS and Amnio are both very risky and dangerous to the baby. I'm actually not aware of any reason these tests need to be performed, other than to alert a couple to a problem and allow them the option of early termination. If these tests were for some reason medically necessary (in that they could help the baby in some way), an amnio can be done later in the pregnancy when the risk of miscarriage is small (there will be a pre-mature labor risk but that can be handled accordingly and is safer for the baby).

There are actually very few things even a good Obgyn can do prior to the birth of a baby to help that baby (other than setting you up to deliver at the best hospital and choosing a different method of delivery or pregnancy management). Knowing at 14 weeks that the baby has a problem is REALLY not necessary and not at all beneficial for the baby--you can wait until the 20 week u/s to discover problems.

When talking about pre-natal testing, I think it is really important to follow the principle of first do no harm. If the procedure can harm the baby, and the only reason you are getting it done is so that you can know something (not to help the baby in any way), then the test/procedure is immoral and should not be performed.

Second, I think everyone should think long and hard about what they will do with a poor prenatal diagnosis. Most people who plan to love their baby for each day God gives them with that baby don't want to know at 12 weeks that their baby has a fatal birth defect. Even with my history, we try to avoid the 12 week ultrasound to check for anencephaly as I don't think I could bear to hear bad news that early in the pregnancy.

I do, however, believe firmly that at least one ultrasound is best for both the parents and baby. There are conditions, such as placenta previa, that are diagnosed via u/s and necessitate a c-section for the safety of the baby. There is also very little, if any, evidence of harm from ultrasound, so it is a diagnostic tool that is usually always in the best interest of both mother and baby.

Pre-natal testing is obviously a very personal decision that each couple must make. Since the medical profession has values that are usually very different from our own, it is always best to do your own research in this area and ask lots of questions before making any decisions. In my own personal case, I interview potential caregivers and ask them how they would handle me as a patient were I to have a baby with a fatal birth defect. Would they support me in carrying the pregnancy to term? Would they treat me and my baby with respect and dignity? If the caregiver is uncomfortable with these types of questions, they are probably not someone you want caring for you or your baby.

There are a number of resources to help families receiving a poor prenatal diagnosis. Be Not Afraid is a wonderful support group. I would also highly recommend contacting a perinatal hospice.

While I hope and pray that none of our readers ever need these resources, I can say from personal experience that the life of my daughter Therese was a beautiful gift from God. While the wound is still there, deep in my heart, I can now say with confidence that I am unbelievably thankful for Therese. In her brief 9 months she taught her mama how to love, so that someday, I might join her at the feet of Jesus.

Eco Friendly Recommends from the March of Dimes

While I have some concerns with The March of Dimes (primarily their goal to have every baby be a healthy baby, a very unachievable objective in our fallen world) I do think The March for Dimes does some great work. They give women valuable information to make wise health choices prior to and during their pregnancies. Having personally suffered the loss of a baby due to a very serious birth defect, I'm all for helping to improve the health of every mom and baby. For the moment, I'll put aside some of my concerns with The March of Dimes and link to their recent online newsletter article, The Eco-Friendly Mom and Baby for the 21st Century.

Many of their recommendations are great for new moms, and a real starting-off point for those of us looking to go more "green" with our parenting. I know some of our commentors are pretty hard-core in this area, but for the rest of us, it's a good place to start--especially for those expecting new little ones soon! One of their recommendations, buying an organic mattress, is of particular interest to me, and I'm wondering where I can get one of these so as to not break the bank?

Triple Screen Query

Reader K writes:

I have a question. How do you all approach the prenatal testing that is available? I got a chill when a nurse suggested yesterday that I get testing done early so that I could "do something about it" before I'm out of the first trimester. I'm almost 37, and this is only my second pregnancy, but there wasn't this pressure with my first.

K, great question.

Just to give you some insight into my personal experiences, I have never opted to have the AFP (alphfetoprotein, triple screen, or quad screen) testing. It tests the mother's blood for the presence of AFP (and other serums), secreted by the baby's liver, which can indicate a host of anomalies, including neural tube defects, Down syndrome, kidney disorders, and others.  According to my midwife, of the AFP tests showing a positive reading, 90% are false positives, unnecessarily scaring the heck out of the poor parents! Positive AFP tests can (and usually are) followed up with an ultrasound and possibly an amniocentesis/chorionic villus sampling (CVS).  Many times an u/s is all that is necessary to confirm/discredit the AFP results.  Amnios and CVS carry risks (1-2%) of losing the baby.  

Most likely you are planning to have an u/s midway through the pregnancy anyway, so my opinion is--WAIT for the u/s and you'll have all the information you ever wanted without having to endure more tests and a potential scare!!  Present a firm "no" to your care providers and let that be the end of the story!

Now, as a disclaimer, some friends have recently been encouraged toward early testing with the promise of an additional second trimester u/s. Presented with such an option, I might go for it too! I can never see my little one too much during the pregnancy...

Additional thoughts?  Prayers, K, for a wonderful outcome and a blessed pregnancy!

For more information check out WebMD. 

Starting Over

We've moved, and are now officially Texans! I apologize for being so absent recently, but we're almost out of the last of our moving boxes and I think that we're on the road to a bit more stability...Hopefully :) 

We have some very friendly neighbors and have already invited one little boy over to play with C, which was really important for my poor 4 year-old who has spent way too much time with grown-ups for the past couple of weeks! Another neighbor brought over a banana bread to welcome us to the neighborhood, and I've been flooded with information about mom's groups that I can join in the fall. I feel very lucky to have moved into such a welcoming community, and I am excited for our family to hunker down and really invest in this community. Hopefully we'll stay put for more than a couple of years this time! 

Yet in the midst of all of the friendly welcomes, I am feeling a bit nostalgic and lonely. Nostalgic for the friends and the home that we left, lonely because I don't have any girlfriends to invite over for coffee at the last minute...And a bit daunted by the amount of energy, and a certain amount of vulnerability, that it takes to foster the types of friendships that I know I will eventually need! I feel a little bit like the new girl in school that I so often was during a childhood filled with moving around, except that the women here are much friendlier and more forgiving than the middle or high school girls were :) In any case, let's just hope that I don't say anything really dumb and that if I do, I will quickly recover and no harm will be done :)

Praise God for the chance to start over, to form new routines and organize our home in new ways, and for the chance to rely solely on Him when daily tasks seem intimidating or overwhelming. 

*On an unrelated note, any tried-and-true tips on how to clean the yuck off of the white caulking in a shower? Also, any favorite stain-removers for baby poop? Thanks!

The Joys of Expecting

While pregnancy offers more than a few hang-ups, here are some things I've been reveling in as I enter the 36th week:

* not ever having to "suck in"

* the extra TLC from my hubby (what a good guy he is!)

* the excuse of not wearing tie shoes (can you really reach your feet anyway?)

* the kind, pitiful glances from passersby (who doesn't love a little pity? ;)

* the excuse of sitting down and "propping"

* the companionship of a wee one

* the baby's feet sticking out my side (I really do enjoy this!)

* the excuse of ordering a waffle cone 

* knowing I am carrying a little miracle with me all the time

* the prospect of a new life in our family

* seeing my baby's brothers get so excited to meet him

* new baby things that are beginning to grace our home

* old hand-me-down, faithful items that are resurfacing from storage

What do you love about pregnancy?

Not What She Had Expected

"Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral story book, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn't a heroine; she was only a struggling human girl, like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless or energetic, as the mood suggested. It's highly virtuous to say we'll be god, but we can't do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, before some of us even get our feet set in the right way. Jo had got so far, she was learning to do her duty, and to feel unhappy if she did not; but to do it cheerfully, that was another thing! She had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard; and now she had her wish, for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to mother and father, trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her? And, if difficulties were necessary to increase the splendour of the effort, what could be harder for a restless, ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes, plans, and desires, and cheerfully live for others?

Providence had taken her at her word; here was the task, not what she had expected, but better, because self had no part in it: now, could she do it?"

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott