All Things Supercinski

It feels like Christmas for me–at least the part about getting a really cool present. I started teaching another Bradley series last week. Not sure what we were thinking in scheduling classes with a not-quite two month old, but it’s too late now. I have five couples attending, which is a completely different experience from last time. They are a fun bunch, and since they are paying me a little bit, I’ve been ordering lots of new teaching aids.

I was most excited about this one. Now I just need to find a baby doll with a head that fits through there easily. Who wants to go to Toys R Us with me to find one? I’ll bring the pelvis!

Josiah decided to pretend “the bones” was also a birthday cake and kept singing “Happy Birthday” and pretending to blow out candles. Right…

I also ordered The Business of Being Born DVD to show bits of in class. Any random reader know of a tame, but good birth video to show in class?

Is once again our treasure!

This is a very exciting find, and makes our backyard all the more fun. It’s fun for everyone–I get to cook dinner without a helper sometimes, Thomas gets another thing to move before he can mow, and Josiah, well, I think you can tell he enjoys it.

We managed to make it to the Farmer’s Market last week, and Josiah loved every second of it. I let him pay the farmer and carry home our finds. Here he is showing off the longest green bean I had ever seen.

These were delicious green beans, though amazingly long. I also stocked up on the best honey ever from a local beekeeper who sells unprocessed honey while sporting a cool beekeeping hat.

Sorry grandparents and great-grandparents! I’m writing this post with one hand, the reason I am not posting as often.

Annalise is growing like crazy. Her smiles and coos melt my heart. She is fairly easy-going and content unless she is hungry or tired. She is fattening up nicely, and she stays awake for about an hour or hour and a half before it is time to sleep again.

I remembered the activity mat hanging in the nursery closet last week. It is a hit for all the little ones. I think that singing star gets more smiles and coos than I do!

Annalise also gives a lot of smiles to her adoring big brother, who often adores her far too much. If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Hi Anna-WEESE!” I would make a decent wage. He is learning to speak softly, not put his hands all over her face and to not put his head on her face when hugging. He keeps me on my toes! He is never malicious, just very, very interested.

We have also been spending as much time as possible with some of our best pals who are moving later this week. We have stayed quite busy hitting the backyard kiddie pools, splashpads and each other’s houses to enjoy them as much as we can before they leave.

I don’t know if Josiah will ever find a wrestling buddy who can make him laugh as much as Dean can, not to mention one with as great of a mom.

These are some links for July 10th through July 18th. Enjoy!

• 10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas - 10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas - TIME -
• Shareholders turn to sharecropping - International Herald Tribune - Decentralized food production and delivery is an answer to the insecure and unsafe, centralized and in many instances irresponsible production practices of the US.
• SciGuy: Is “black hole” a racially insensitive term? -
• Obama’s frequent regrets may make us sorry | ajc.com -

You would do well to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma (BCS Library). Along with everything, you’ll get an introduction to Joel Salatin. The quotes below are taken from the latter half of the book.

Joel, who had described his politics as Christian libertarian environmentalist, wanted nothing to do with “institutional anything,” but especially the institutions of government. Daniel and Rachel had both been homeschooled. There were plenty of books, but, aside from the Staunton daily newspaper, which devoted more space to local car crashes than the war in Iraq, little media (and not television) penetrated the Salatin household.

… whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that with our food all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water — of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food. - Joel Salatin in The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Grass farming done well depends almost entirely on a wealth of nuanced local knowledge at a time when most of the rest of agriculture has come to rely on precisely the opposite: on the off-farm brain, and the one-size-fits-all universal intelligence represented by agrochemicals and machines. Very much on his own in a very particular place, the grass farmer must continually juggle the various elements of his farm in space as well as time, relying on his powers of observation and organization to arrange the appointed daily meeting of animal and grass in such a way as to insure maximum benefit for both.

Check out the What’s For Dinner? series posted here last January and Polyface Farms.

If you are in the BCS area, check out these local farms (there are others, feel free to let me know of those producers you are aware of.)

• Star Haven Farms
• Sand Creek Farm and Dairy
• Yonder Way Farm

When Josiah was a newborn, I wore him in a ring sling, the first baby carrier I ever made and have made many, many more since. I liked it okay then, but better when he was bigger. It wasn’t very comfortable for long periods of time for newborn sleeping.

Since then, I have found the most perfect baby carrier for newborns - the knock-off Moby Wrap. Doesn’t she look cozy in it? This makes caring for a newborn so much easier, especially since we are out of the house so much and at home I am doing things with Josiah. Annalise falls asleep within minutes of being in it and her weight is evenly distributed over my entire back. No straps digging in your shoulders like with a Baby Bjorn, and no one-sided pain like with a sling (though I think both are useful at times, just not when a newborn needs to be worn so often). The only downside of it is that there is a bit of a learning curve in learning to put it on correctly, but with some practice, it is really quite simple.

Here are some easy instructions for how to make your own wrap:
Purchase 5 yards of thin, lightweight fabric with a slight stretch to it. You can get knit fabric, cotton jersey or cotton gauze in whatever color or print you want. A little stretch is all you need - too much stretch and it can get too lose fast. I have one that is more stretchy, and no matter how tightly I put it on, Annalise sags lower and lower, especially if I’m up and down off the ground with Josiah.

Take your five yards of fabric and cut it into widths of 20-23 inches, depending on the width of your fabric. If your fabric is 45 inches wide, cut it in half, making two wraps, five yards long. If it is 60 inches (the $1/yard fabric at Walmart usually is), cut it into thirds and you’ll have three wraps. Get it?

That’s all. No sewing, no hemming, nothing. Knit fabrics roll up on the edge and don’t fray.

You can learn how to wrap it and wear it in all kinds of ways here. Your wrap won’t have a tag in the middle, but a very savvy friend of mine embroidered a little design in the middle of hers so she’d find it easily. Brilliant.

If your local Walmart has a fabric section, be sure to check their $1/yard bin–they often have thin fabrics with some stretch and you can make 3 wraps for $5. So find a friend and go make some wraps together!