an EC motivator

In Taiwan I used cloth diapers for the most part. Washed them by hand mostly. No, not down by the river.

It wasn't such a big deal because I was ECing Leona and so there'd just be maybe 3-5 slightly wet inserts per day that I would rinse'n'wash. The shell could last a day or even two - though I tended not to let it go past a day. Then, for nights I'd use a disposable (so we wouldn't have to do a full wake-up and diaper change mid-sleep/grog).

I'd like to say the main motivator for the cloth diapers was the environment, but to be honest it was more that disposables cost around NTD 5 each. Of course if we look at the fact I was willing to spend NTD 30-50 a day on a yummy tea-drink, NTD 5 per diaper isn't so bad...her whole daily diaper consumption would equal my one drink or less.

But the mind works in mysterious ways.

Because we were ECing, if the disposable diaper was just a little damp, which most often was the case, it would tug at my frugal heartstrings when I'd check if she needed to go, as there's no way I'd put such a diaper back on her after. Poof, NTD 5 was gone without being used to it's full capacity. Ouch!

For some reason letting her keep a slightly peed-in diaper on until it was heavier seemed ok - assumption being a slightly peed-in diaper wasn't really uncomfortable for her as absorbancy is strong in those things.

There were no such qualms with the cloth diapers though. For one, if it was just a little damp, I wanted to get it off her as fast as possible - the aim was to always have dryness for her. And every time I had to wash an insert my heart would sing a little song "NTD 5 saved - wohooooo!".

Coming to Norway, land of the expensive, I was sure cloth diapers would feel even better for me here. But surprise surprise, if you go for the store-brands (ie. for Coop it's Xtra) you can get a schwacklaod of items on the cheapcheapcheap. Sure, for the "mega" diapers, quality is leagues below the pee-stripe and poop-catcher-band we enjoyed on the disposables in Taiwan, but that fades into oblivion when we get 58 diapers for NOK 20.

No, that is not a type-o, it really does say twenty kroner. Same as a can of coke costs. Giving us 3 diapers on the krone, and thus when comparing purchasing and earning power et al., rather than a 1:3 Taiwan:Norway ratio we're realistically at about 1 diaper Taiwan for the cost of 10 diapers Norway.

And because there's major recycling going on the only stuff that's heading to the landfill from us are the disposables I almost feel no qualms about is. Hrm. Actually I basically try to just not think about that aspect of it all, and rather enjoy being able to use disposables and EC to my heart's content, because if I do think about it qualms start to rise.

Byebye cloth diapers! Reselling them here in Norway doesn't give much back to the bank though, unfortunately. Good thing I got them on a steep sale in Taiwan then, and since they're already a sunk cost then anything I get back is good.

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Taken two months ago, Jan 21st when we were getting ready to head out on our failed sun-hunt. Long ago, I know, but oh-so cute! (Currently lacking newer pictures...will remedy this soonest.)

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blustery days

Leona's now eleven months old. Eleven!

SRFs (small-random-facts):

In the car home on Sunday (her eleven-month-day), she signed "sleepy time" for the first time. Hasn't done it again, but it's there, ready for use.

Though she still enjoys drinking directly from a glass - that we hold for her, she has now become quite enamored with putting her hand in it and grabbing the water rather than drinking it. She then proceeds to slide her fist out, and grabs at the remnants in her hand some more, then goes in for another round.

Today she morphed the activity: She put a piece of her cheese in the water so she could grab at it (and let  it go) until she was ready to really get it and eat it. Then she did the same with the next piece. I know there's some serious investigation going on in that mind of hers during all this. It's fascinating.

She bounces to beats. Our little b-baby.

Judge taught her to stick her tongue out when we stick ours out, effectively giving us access to whatever little tidbits she's picked up and is munching on. Saves us from having to go through the mouth-unclencher routine. JOY!

Other major developments are sprinkled through the previous posts.


And the blustering? That's the weather. Windy, windy days, and just enough degrees above zero for the precipitation to be rain. RAIN! Yuck. Luckily it's just supposed to last one or two more days, and then turn back to snow, so the inches and inches of slush and little riverletts on the roads can freeze back to ice, and there can come a nice cover of snow to get packed down and cover the slick (here's to hoping!).

What I really want is a return to this:

Taken on my walk to work yesterday (Monday) before the rain started. I am in love with this kind of scenery - snowladen trees, fresh powder on the ground. It is delicious.

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milk

A very (very) short clip that shows 'milk' on the fly (the sign for 'milk' is the opening and clenching she does of her hand). It's not her passionate "I want milk!!!" that she does with insane intensity in her eyes and double action hands...maybe I'll catch that another day...but it does show her speed ;)

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more on the signage

Leona is so excited about communicating. Or rather, excited that I finally caught on that she'd been signing for quite a while already! And over the past two weeks, since I've been signing a lot with her again, finally, they've become a lot clearer too; her 'water' has become so much more refined - though her bye has started to look a lot like 'water' now. Oh well.

But the signs we have are not enough for her. At all. Sometimes when there's something she wants to say, she'll go through all of them in hopes that we'll catch what she wants. Which we don't, of course, unfortunately.

So we need to add signs. For example, instead of just 'eat', we need 'eat' and then add something for 'avocado', 'cheese', 'porridge', 'orange', etc. And we need to separate 'pee/poop' into their separate ones. Actually, this is one she is not very consistent with, and I think it may partially be because she can also just go in her diaper, and sometimes needs to do just that. And she has some awesome bath toys she gets to play with when she's sitting on her potty, and so perhaps sometimes she just wants to go in and play with them...or maybe she's wanting to get a clean diaper if she's peed a little...and sometimes it's just a fart. Really. She will fart and then do the potty sign.

'Milk' is still going strong as ever. Sometimes she'll really go at it, squeezing both little fists together again and again, with an intense look in her eyes.

In other news, she now prefers to drink water directly from the glass. Used to be we'd feed it to her on a spoon (she never got a feel for sippy cups), but she'll have none of that any more. But we are not brave enough to let her hold the glass herself yet.

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commuting

There are a couple things that are surprisingly similar between my Hsinchu vs Tromsø commutes to work. The first is that they both took/take around 30 minutes. The other is that they both went/go at breakneck speeds. Oh, and then that they both occur on "twos".

Hsinchu:

• Drove scooter (two wheels)
• I lied, it was not at breakneck speeds. I drove at a rather responsible km/h seeing as I was pregnant, and because I value my life in general. However, I did have a healthy amount of momentum that included weaving back and forth in traffic in order to stay safe, rather than just cruise idly behind whoever was in front of me.
• Sometimes 100's of others on the road with me, merging in from all the side-roads onto the main road heading to the science park

Tromsø:

• Walk (two legs)
• Trying desperately to keep up with my mom (whom I realized, after about two weeks, is trying desperately to keep up with me..doh!)
• No cars or scooters in sight as we walk on the ski-trails leading down through the length of the island...but also with hoards of a total of 3 or 5 other people converging in on the main path leading to the university (we work below the uni)

[Along part of our path to work - notice how bright it is! 

Sun's staying longer by leaps and bounds each and every day.]

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admin slash hr ass

That's right folks. It's official. I've been an ass for a whole month already, again.

I have been busy ordering and arranging all our office-y stuff, though much of it is still in transit. And since we're currently only four in this office (which is a doubling of manpower since I started), that means it's started to slow down in the admin department.

Thus, this past week the overtasked HR manager has started to take serious advantage of me, which has lead to 99.9% of my busies coming from her. She's basically told the powers at be to let me loose in the HR systems. I can now technically wreck hacov in there - create and post recruitment ads worldwide for any location, move applications for any position around in the flow-process (reject, move to interview, and all that jazz), create offers, and more. The power's all mine! And considering I've just had some run-throughs over the phone (with shared screen) on how to use the systems, I have to say they have put great faith in my ability to not mess things up completely.

Of course I am responsible and just do what's asked, and do it super well (not that it needs stating), so all's good in the land of human resource management. And our HR manager seems to be super happy with her increased effectiveness and efficiency.

I have also stepped into the junior accountant role (or perhaps it's a standard admin assistant thing?) as I am the coder of all our location's invoices. I totally don't mind. In fact I am kind of happy about this. Keeping me in touch with my roots, I guess, learning a new system and some Norwegian regulations.

[Totally unrelated picture as seems to be per usual. We found this at the 2nd hand store here last Saturday. 

I absolutely love it!]

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ECing a 10 month old in the arctic north

We've been here three months today. That's a quarter year already! And a lot has happened, let me tell you. Well, to a certain degree at least.

Today we're going to touch back on our ECing journey. It's been a while since we've discussed it, I know, so if you need a refresher of where we've come from you can read the start, a bit along the way, and a six-months-old update.

Or rather than read all that, a quick re-introduction if you've completely forgotten what EC (elimination communication) is: It's basically communication with your little one about her elimination needs, so she doesn't lose touch with her body. You can do 100% diaper free or 100% of eliminations in the diaper, or like us, somewhere in between. The important part is the communication.

My previous unspoken, secret goal was that she'd be diaper free by the time she was 8 or 9 months old. I mean, that would have been super cool, no?

However, moving to the arctic threw a wrench in that wheel. There was so much to adjust to, like layers upon layers of clothes that needed to be taken off each time (not like Taiwan where we could pee in the parking-lot even), a new home- and sleeping- and everythingelse-environment, and more, not to mention all the developmental feats she was going through (sitting up, standing up, crawling, cruising, starting solids, etc) - developmental spurts are one thing that can cause ECing to take a 'step back' once in a while.

For a while she didn't even want to lay down to get her diaper changed, let alone be held over the sink or sit on her potty. So we gave it all a rest. No, we still changed her diaper of course, just didn't try to have her eliminate outside of it too often.

Two days ago, however, after having been back on the EC-train for a stable while already, where Judge, who is home with her during the days, will put her on the potty before he puts a new diaper on her and I am more proactive and try to let her not have to pee or poop in her diaper as much as possible, we had an ECing breakthrough. She signed to me/I caught the sign she had to go on the potty (we've made up our own). And so on the potty she went, and in the potty she peed!

Over the past two days she's been signing to me, it seems, every time she needs to go pee - but sometimes she is a bit too late and so we have a freshly warm diaper we take off rather than pee in the potty. But that's a-ok, doesn't diminish the excitement I'm feeling about this.

This is yet another example of how I think she's really got a sense of being more in charge of her environment. She signals (points) to my mom that she wants to be taken over to our post-card section and look at all her second-cousins pinned up there, she signals (leans forward) she wants to go to me to my mom to me to my mom to me to my mom (gets passed back and forth between us), she signals (raises her hand/swatts the spoon away) she's done eating, and she signs she wants milk (she's signed that for many a month already). I think she is feeling empowered. I love it!

In other Leona-news: Her first tooth broke through a week ago - 2 days before she turned 10 months (with the second tooth following 2 days later). And a few days ago she had her first frolic in the snow (not a super hit).

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