Learning As We Go

Lately, a big part of my life involves learning and preparing.

Things I’ve been learning about lately:
(most learning has been alongside my partner in crime – having a learning buddy helps)

–Hypnobirthing. We’ve been taking a great class in this really logical approach to birth that focuses on relaxation and doing away with fear. I won’t go into the details here, but just ask me if you want to know more. It’s fantastic.

–Bread baking. We’ve been working our way through the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. So far we’ve made loaves of bread (wheat, basic white, and peasant), pizza crust, and rolls. To be honest, the last several batches haven’t been made by me, but the learning process has been a joint effort – and the rewards have been very tasty.

–Caring for an infant. I feel like I know nothing. The book Heading Home with Your Newborn has helped me to feel more prepared and more aware without too much of the panic-inducing stuff.

–Baby-led weaning- Patrick first heard about this in a story on NPR. Since then, one of the blogs I read (Cooking with My Kid) starting discussing it. Fascinating, and something we’re seriously considering for the little one when he/she is ready.

-Cloth diapering – A dear friend of ours has cloth diapered her 8-month old most of his life and she did a ton of research leading up to it. She’s been amazing at teaching us all about it, sharing resources, and helping us figure out what can be a very confusing world. I’m very excited about our decision to cloth diaper, and glad to have a great resource!

-Re-painting furniture- This was a divide-and-conquer effort at refreshing the dressers we got off Craigslist for the babe’s room, but we both did our reading and YouTube-tutorial-watching beforehand. I sanded – by hand and then with the power sheet sander, which is awesome. Patrick primed and painted. I think we did pretty good.

And this is only the beginning!