Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Certified Infant Massage and Early Bonding Specialist


I took a course this past weekend to become a CIMEB Specialist. It was such a great class!
Did you know that many cultures massage their infants on a daily basis? It wasn't until 1980 that infant massage made a big showing in the U.S. After a bunch of research it was found that massage had amazing benefits on infants. No wonder people have been doing it for hundreds of hundreds of years, right. It was just instinct. In the 80's there was a study done with premature newborns that showed that infants given massage everyday for 10 days gained 47% more weight than infants given no massage. Both groups had the same formula, and care other than the massage. Massage helped their bodies absorb more insulin with helped them retain weight. It saved the hospital $3000 which today would be over $10,000! All because those babies were able to be released sooner from the hospital.

Infant Massage also helps with growth and development in the brain. Skin sensitivity is the earliest developed function and is the most crucial for all sensory system's overall healthy development.  Massage helps to activate the formation of synapses between brain cells. These connections will form pathways that will determine the childs ability to learn.

My favorite thing that massage benefits is the attachment and bonding between parent (or caregiver) and infant.  Prolactin is released when the mother touches the baby. This hormone is what starts the milk production and also it what gives the mother a feeling of nurturing.There is even a rise in the fathers prolactin levels when he is involved with touching their baby and this invokes his nurturing feelings as well.
For adopted or foster care children massage can be amazing for the bonding between the family. Infant massage on a daily basis can be a powerful tool to begin and re create the elements of bonding. Many foster/adopted children have numerous attachment traumas due to having many different caregivers and situations. Its important for adoptive parents to learn how to slowly integrate touch and massage for a child or baby who doesn't like touch.

I learned so much and in such a short period have grown a passion for the work. I have always loved massage and how it can truly heal people. Now I love it even more! Children need massage even more than adults do. The skin is a pretty amazing organ. I can't wait to put this new knowledge and skill into use. I have decided that I am going to direct my focus for my massage career in Prenatal and Infant Massage. I also some day want to be a Certified Childbirth Educator. I have such a passion for family and the bond we have. I want to help all families to strengthen that bond. I know that massage can do that. I am doing a class next month for friends and then soon after will start doing classes for the general public.

What do you have a passion for? I hope you are able to fully utilize your passion for the good of the world :) Go out there and live your passion!


DeanaSigcopy

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Preggie Sisters!



Guess what!? Both my sisters are pregnant! Isn't that so fun? haha. So my oldest sister Amanda has 1 daughter, Cortney, that is now 2 1/2. She tried for her for almost 2 years! Now she has been trying for this pregnancy for over a year and was starting to think that maybe she just wasn't going to be able to get pregnant again. Turns out she is and did! Amanda and Corey couldn't be happier. We are all elated. Cortney doesn't really understand that she is getting a sister or brother yet but I'm sure she will soon.

My second older sister is also all preggiefied too! Our family found out about both of them on the same day. Robyn lives in Wyoming. Her and Carlos have been trying for a couple months now. They wanted their babies super close in age. Guess they will have to settle for a little under 2 year gap. She is the sister that was pregnant at the same time as me last year. Now she and Amanda get to share a pregnancy. Its such a fun way for sisters to bond. Both getting fat and uncomfortable and having each other to complain and vent to and share in all the wonderful things of pregnancy as well.

Amanda is about 8 1/2 weeks and Robyn is 7 1/2 weeks. I think? So the due dates are in April and March. Its going to be a great Spring filled with babies!! Yay! Us Rogers girls make super cute babies.

DeanaSigcopy

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Fuzzy Blanket

Does your baby have a security blanket or toy?

Sean and I talked about this long before we had Noah. We didn't want our child to be attached to any certain item so much to the point that he needed it. We didn't want to have to have that burden of always bringing that item where ever we went. Goodness forbid we loose it and then have to have an all out search rescue to find it that ends up taking 20 minutes every time we leave the house. Also actually permanently losing said item would no doubt be a huge ordeal with tears and sadness. We have done a pretty good job of making sure Noah didn't grow any strong attachement to a security blanket. We wanted him to be able to sleep without having the same item with him every time. To ensure this we always change out the toys and blankets he  has in his crib.  We thought we had completely skipped out on the whole security blanket fiasco.

Until now. . . But its not half as bad as that situation we tried to avoid. Noah loves his fuzzy soft blankets. He has 4 of them and we have a queen size one on our bed. He loves to cuddle them while he falls asleep. He will wrap his face in it and snuggle and groan and make silly noises until he just goes out into dreamland. If we go somewhere new or need him to fall asleep some where other than his crib we know how to handle it. The answer is always : Give him a fuzzy blanket. It makes for an easy night. He will still sleep with out it most nights with no problem. But if he is having a tough night or has a bad dream and can't get back to sleep then it's security blanket to the rescue!

So we are pretty grateful he has made an attachment to those blankets. Best thing is, its not a certain blanket. So if we forgot to bring one or lost it or whatever we can just get another one no problem. Fuzzy blankets are basically lovely. We are happy that Noah has something to help make him feel safe and secure.


He is almost pacifier free. He still has it on occasional nights. He never has it during the day. The only reason we haven't taken it from him completely is because we don't want him to find a replacement with his thumb instead. We were given this advice from a wise parent of 4, Grady Werner. He has a son who when they took away the pacifer too soon started sucking his thumb. This is a much worse habit seeing as how you can't take away a thumb. Also the thumb is hard and messes up teeth worse than what a pacifer can. One of the nights we took away Noah's pacifer we saw this evidence. He was sucking his thumb! My first thought was something like "aww what a sweetheart. Thats adorable!" Yes it may look so sweet and adorable and precious but then you think about the damage to teeth and its no longer any of those things. Instead its just a bad habit that ends up costing loads of money in the end. We think Noah is losing interest in the pacifer on his own anyway. That will be so great if he stops using it on his own. I can't believe how much he is growing up already.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Noah the pre-toddler

Noah is growing such a big personality lately. He is really able to show more of who he is and we are loving every minute of it! He is in the stage in between a baby and a toddler. I think the definition of a toddler is a child that is more active and walking? Maybe? Well Noah is on the verge of walking but not quite there yet, so I refuse to call him a toddler yet. Also its just sad to think of him as no longer a baby. He will always and forver be our baby. So what has he been up to lately? Here ya go:

He clicks his tongue all the time. Its so stinkin cute. I have to get a picture of the face he makes when he does it. Also he makes this nose and eye scrunched up face sometimes and breathes heavily. It makes every crack up! Its mostly when he is trying to do or get something and its not working out how he planned.
  
Noah did pull ups with daddy yesterday morning! Seriously!! Sean was doing pull-ups and Noah stood up against the wall reaching for daddy and the bar. So Sean decided to oblige and help Noah out. He held him up to the bar and Noah actually grabbed and held onto the bar. The he made motions with is arms like he was trying to pull himself up, just like he saw daddy do. He wants to be buff like his daddy :) Such a sweet baby. I love how he is learning so much from Sean. He is the worlds best daddy.

Noah also likes "reading" books. He will hold the books just like mommy and daddy do and stare at the words and pictures on the pages and turn the pages one by one. He can be entertained with a book for minutes on minutes. May not sound like long but for a child thats a pretty long time. They tend to get distracted easily.

He climbed out of the playpin at grandma's house recently. He is such a little James Bond, always up to something. It looks like we will have to lower the crib again so he doesn't do any surprise escapes in the middle of the night.

He still loves climbing the stairs and does so in Olympic fashion. If there was a gold medal for fastest stair climbers Noah would win hands down. The boy has no fear! He also just recently (last night) learned how to climb down the stairs. He goes down on his belly. I haven't seen it yet but Sean was there to witness the awesomeness that is our Noah going down those stairs.

He loves to kiss and cuddle mama and dada. We in return love love love it! He is such an affectionate soul. He loves to be loved and loves even more to show it.

Everyday Noah learns a new face to make. He is so expressive. He moves his eyebrows and nose and even his checks and ear seem to move according to his current mood.

Noah absolutely loves MUSIC! He responds so strongly to it. If its a beat he enjoys he will dance to it. If not he just sits there. Most music he enjoys, especially daddy's music. He loves Train, Matchbox Twenty, Mat Kearney, Mumford & Sons, Zac Brown Band.  He bobs his head back and forth and side to side to the beat. He sways his body and has a big grin on his face. Man we love our little musical boy.

He still shakes his head whenever we say no. But then still goes for whatever we were saying no to. He loves to test his boundaries. Rebel baby. He is getting better at it though. Its now for the most part down to us only saying no twice until he stops and goes for something else.

Growing Vocab! - Words he says now include: Mama, Dada, Dad, Mom, Again, Ball, Cat (once), No, Hi.  He also has a lot of unofficial words too. He will mimic things we say but not really the word, just the sound of it. Sean will grab Noahs nose and say "honka" and Noah will say "honka" back! So funny to watch. Noah now likes to grab mama's nose too.

So thats Noah in a nutshell lately. We are excited to see more and more of him show through as he learns to express himself even more.


Thursday, August 2, 2012

Family Fun in Florida

You know you love the alliteration. We had a great time on our vacation! On fathers day Sean called his dad and wished him a happy day and at that time Mitch, Sean's dad, offered to fly us out to spend some time with him and his wife Joan. We very happily accepted. Joan had never seen Noah in person and Mitch had only seen him once. We were so excited for Noah to see his Grandpa and Grandma. And of course to have some time off work and just have fun as a family. Yay for relaxation!!

Our flight left at 9:55pm on July 25. It was a perfect time because Noah slept the whole way there. If you ever fly with an infant I suggest you do a night flight for sure. He didn't even need to suck on a bottle or pacifier, his ears just popped on their own. He was a lucky baby. We were even more lucky parents and had a nice relaxing flight. It was a 4 hour flight but went pretty quickly.

As you can see, Noah was tired and already getting ready to go to sleep even before we boarded the plane. 

Mitch and Joan picked us up and we basically slept the whole hour it took from Orlando to Vero Beach. We were so tired! Its pretty hard to sleep on a plane if your not a baby. We stayed with them from the 26th to August 1st. I'm sad Noah wont remember it since he is so young but I know he will like being able to see pictures and read about it later. Sean and I had such a great time and really enjoyed the time spent together and getting to know Mitch and Joan better. They are pretty funny! I see so much of Mitch in Sean. Joan just cracks us up too. She just says whatever is on her mind. Noah took a couple hours to warm up to them but when he did he just loved him and would even reach out for them sometimes. They were great hosts. When we wanted to just sit and chill we did, then when we got restless and wanted things to do we did.

Things that kept us entertained:


  • Watching the Olympics
  • A treasure museum





  • Naps, Playing on facebook, ESPN, Netflix and other various technological fun things

  • Kayaking 

 We had a race, I won! But as you can see just barely. Sean tried to attack me. 
Funny side note. I asked how to spell kayak at one point and Mitches response was "its like Mississippi but with k's and y's."  



  • The Botanical Garden


 So Beautiful right?!

This leaf was as big as Noah. He thought it was pretty cool. Even tried to eat it. 
  • Feeding the Sandhill birds. Sean liked to call them giant turkeys. 




  • Watching Noah play and just be cute

 He loved the tall lush grass!






Noah loved playing horsey on Joans foot. 


  • Talking about old times of when Sean and his siblings were growing up



  • The Beach of course! 



 Noah loved loved loved the beach! He kept trying to crawl into the ocean! haha silly baby
 Noah's hair even looks good when its wet! Still standing up to the sky. lol
 Father Son walk on the beach
 Sean was boogie (?) boarding. He was pretty good at it after awhile. 
Sean and Mitch stared at these crabs for a good 20 minutes talking about them. They thought they were just the coolest thing. Men are funny. 




  • Chick-fil-a 
 Supporting the Traditional Family and First Amendment Rights! 
 The wait was 45 minutes so Sean and I took Noah to the kiddy carousel. He was all smiles. 



 We stopped by the Temple in Orlando just in time to snap a photo and then rush to the airport. 


The flight back was even more of a breeze than the first! The plane left at 8:35pm and landed in Arizona at 9:50pm. It was a 4 hour flight but there is a 3 hour difference. Noah slept on the seat between Sean and I they whole way there. Well almost. We had to take a few pictures first. After take off he went to sleep.  The lady that had a seat next to Sean asked to be moved. She was really nice about it. I think she might have been worried about Noah making a lot of noise but also she wanted us to have enough space. We were very appreciative. 





We were so grateful to them for having us. It was so great and just what we needed. Some family fun and relaxation. 


The Small One

We are back from our vacation in Florida! It was a blast! More on that to come in another post. (hint, there will be lots of pictures)

So on our first day home Noah had his 1st year check up and shots. I unfortunately needed to be at work so Sean took him alone. He was as always a trooper for his shots.

Now for the stats. He is 29 1/2 inches long and 17 pounds 14 ounces. That puts him below the 3%. He has been in the the 3% pretty much his whole life so there was never a big issue with it but now that he has dropped lower than his own growth chart the doctor is concerned. He said no more juice or water, only milk or pediasure. He also wants us to put butter in his food to help get more fat on him. He said that he wants him to see a stomach doctor and take an allergy medicine that has the side effect of making him hungry more often. The first two I'm fine with, but putting him on a medicine makes me a little uneasy. I hate all the other side effects medication tends to have. I put Noah's health above all but if the medicine isn't a must for him I don't want to do it. If he can gain the weight with out the extreme of a allergy medicine than thats what I prefer. Sean and I discussed it and decided that we want to first try the other stuff  and see how that works before moving on to other solutions.

Maybe Noah is just going to be a small guy. I'm pretty small and Sean was always small growing up. He has since bulked up with eating more and weight lifting. He could just have a fast baby metabolism. We shall see. He is otherwise and happy healthy baby. He eats quite a lot, two big jars every meal and on top of that what ever we are eating. He always has loads of energy and loves to play. We will pray and talk to the doctors and see what would be best for our small baby man.

Can you believe Noah is 1?! It seems to have just gone so fast. We are so grateful for him in our life. I love my Noah bug.