Avivah Werner

Blog

  • Processing birth experiences

    When I was a doula, the women I assisted often appreciated being able to discuss the birth and the specifics of their labors with me several days later.  I think there is an inherent desire on the part of most women to emotionally process their births, and having the opportunity to speak with someone who was there, ask questions, and clarify details that weren’t clear at the time is really helpful.  It’s important to have the time to emotionally process the labor and birth experience, especially when things are unusually challenging or when things go differently from how you imagined they would.  Sometimes it’s enough to just have time to think about it on your own, but at other times, it’s really helpful to have feedback from someone else.

    Last week when my midwife visited for a follow up check, I had the chance to ask her some questions.  I was having trouble understanding what happened during the birth, why things were so unusual (like the contraction pattern, the extremely l0ng pushing stage, copious amounts of blood immediately after the birth), and wanted to hear her perspective on it.  I don’t usually feel that there’s much to ask about or discuss afterwards, but I found speaking to her about it this time sooo valuable.  As much as I thought about it on my own, I wasn’t getting any more clarity with time or distance on what happened, and was really bothered to think about a future birth following this pattern and still having no better way to understand it.

    The first thing that was helpful was hearing her validate that it wasn’t me just being overly emotional about the labor and birth – she confirmed that it was definitely not typical.   I also had some specific questions that I hoped she might have some insight into, and found her responses very helpful.   She has seen many times that when there is a situation that could compromise the baby, the body will adapt and change the labor process to protect the baby.  Apparently this was one such case.  What is fairly certain is that the placenta was partially abrupted (began separating before the baby was born).   If contractions had followed the typical pattern, he wouldn’t have had time to recover from one before another contraction began – hence the long breaks between contractions even until the very end, which gave the baby time to recover (he needed more time for recovery because the placenta wasn’t fully functional).

    There were some other questions that I had about specific times when the birth seemed to be held up that the midwife was able to address.  Speaking to her not only answered my questions, but left me with a feeling of intense gratitude for the positive birth outcome, as well as an increased appreciation for the amazing birth process.  Not only was our baby not compromised, he received a 10 on the one minute and five minute Apgars (my midwife rarely gives a ten for the one minute Apgar) – better than any of the others, who all received 9s on the one minute Apgar.

    Avivah

  • He’s here!

    I’m delighted to share the wonderful news with you all that our newest blessing has arrived!  He was born at 1:41 am yesterday morning (Weds), and weighed in at 7 lb, 6 oz – a very nice weight, especially considering that he was three weeks early!

    The birth ended a pregnancy that’s been different than my norm very appropriately – with a labor and delivery that were very different than my norm.  🙂  My water broke three days before I actually gave birth, early Sunday morning, but since that happened last time, I wasn’t too anxious about it.  My midwife had told me then that most women will deliver within 72 hours of their water breaking.  There aren’t studies or statistics available on this, though, since most women have hospital births and are put into a situation of needing to deliver within a shorter time frame than many would  if labor was allowed to unfold naturally.  My midwife has been in the field for 13 years and has only seen this situation 4 or 5 times prior to me – and here I change her ratios by presenting her with the situation two times in a row!!

     I really believe that alot of the labor process is a mind game, and how well prepared you are mentally determines a lot of what you experience in the birthing process.  So when so much of this birth contradicted my past experience and expectations, it left me mid-labor feeling like I didn’t know the rules of the game.  For example, I had very strong transition like contractions, but only about every 8 minutes.  I told my midwife I didn’t know how to handle contractions like that so early on, since usually there aren’t more than just a couple like that at the very end.  She thought they were closer together than I thought, and that I might be much further along than I thought.  But they never got more than four or six minutes apart.  The unusual labor pattern was followed by an equally unusual second stage – you have to understand that after seven births (and being present for at least forty births of others), you get a sense that you know what to expect.  So when something is drastically different the eighth time around, it’s probably not a surprise that it caught me unaware!    

     But as different as this labor/birth was, it resulted in another beautiful baby.   The minute the baby is born, it always amazes me how quickly your mind shifts out of the laboring zone and into a totally different space of just being in the present with your newborn.  And for me personally, no matter what labor has been like, it all feels worth it the instant the baby is there (though five minutes before that I was wondering why I thought another baby was a good idea!).

    This time I drank a strong raspberry leaf tea (two doses, since one didn’t seem to be helping), which is supposed to make labor much quicker and less painful.  I can’t know what the effect was since I don’t have another birth like this to compare to, but I have to think it was beneficial.  I’ll try it next time around and see how it works then.  :))  For those who want the recipe, it’s very simple.  Take one ounce of red raspberry leaves, and pour two cups of boiling water over it.  Let it steep for 30 minutes, strain, then drink as hot as possible once labor has begun.  (My personal tip – add honey so that the strength of the flavor doesn’t upset your taste buds.)  You can get the herbs from your local health food store, though I buy mine in one pound bags online since I get terrific bulk prices and enjoy the tea throughout pregnancy (when I remember to make it).  Raspberry tea is a great uterine tonifier during pregnancy and after birth, as well, but in regular tea-like amounts, not in this kind of strength.  Sometime in the future I’ll share the recipe that I have for pregnancy tea (I planned to share it with you when I made it for myself this pregnancy, but making the tea was one of those things I didn’t get around to doing). 

     I haven’t yet taken any raspberry leaf since the birth, though. My midwife has a wonderful (in results but absolutely disgusting in taste) Chinese herbal mix that is great for easing afterpains.  I used to have such horrible afterpains that I always felt that they made labor seem minor – they went on for two weeks and are the only thing I’ve ever taken any pain medication for.  The last birth was the first time I used this midwife (since it was my first birth in this area), and the cramping didn’t last more than three days after using this herbal mix plus the tincture she recommends, which is an amazing difference.  I unfortunately don’t know the recipe, because it’s a special mix that is made privately for her to give her clients, but the tincture that she recommends is called Afterease.  The bottle is upstairs so I don’t remember exactly what herbs are in it, but the company that makes it is called Wish Garden.  She also recommends taking liquid calcium, which I haven’t had, but I’m sure is a good idea as well.  So far the cramping has been very manageable, and it’s less than 48 hours after the birth.  I’m hopeful that by tomorrow there will be just minor twinges left. 

     My mom came by and gave me a massage, which was nice, since my ‘sit’ bones are seriously sore from the posterior presentation of the baby.  But even that is feeling much better than last night.  Isn’t it wonderful how quickly the body rejuvenates and heals itself? 

    Now I’m gratefully off to bed!

    Avivah 

  • Labor Day activities

    We had a nice full day yesterday.  We started off by starting to finish off organizing all the boxes of clothes, but then needed to leave to a community fix up day.  We were there for several hours (not dh and ds14), and got a lot done.  Well, I didn’t do much except watch ds17 months while the kids worked.  I feel that volunteering is an important thing for the kids to participate in, to see how they can help others with their time and energy.  They are able to realize that they can help make a difference even if they are kids!  Not that many people showed up, maybe because it was Labor Day.  One of the organizers came over to ask if he could give the older girls a brand new stereo he had forgotten was there in the storage area they were clearing out, so I said it was fine.  I didn’t realize that he really meant a stereo system!  (Apparently he bought a load of 50 at an auction, sold a bunch, bartered a bunch more for a vehicle, and forgot that he had stored three more away.)  It is really nice, but really big!  So they ended up setting it up in the basement instead of their room, where everyone can enjoy it.

    Straight from there I took ds to a dentist appt – his dentist was very generous in offering to stay late so he could see ds, since he knew that I made the appt seven weeks ago but then got the school calendar and found out they would be having school at the time of the scheduled appt.  The entire building where the dentist was located was locked, but we found an unlocked stairwell and went up.  There was just one problem – I couldn’t remember what floor the dentist was on, so at each floor, we walked around to see if he was there, then went back up the next flight of stairs.  He was on the fifth floor – I was finding it kind of amusing picturing myself going up all these stairs (while having lots of strong Braxton Hicks), as fast as I could (which isn’t very fast at this point 🙂 because I didn’t want to be late. 

    Right after the dentist, ds and I went to the memorial service for a friend’s 20 year old daughter, who was tragically killed in a car accident.  She was a very special young lady, who left an unusually large amount of good memories behind for someone that age (or even someone 20 years older). 

     Once I got home, I wanted to get back to the job of organizing all those clothes boxes we started on earlier, but got sidetracked when we went to set up the new stereo in the basement.  When I got down there, I saw it needed some major reorganizing, so we got to work to get that done.  I was pretty wiped out by dinner time!

    I was joking to ds14 that it would be a good day to give birth, due to the name of the day, but that didn’t happen.  🙂   I actually expected that it would, due to some signs and strong feelings about it, but those feelings shifted to anxiety when I found out my midwife was an hour and a half away and wouldn’t be back until 8 am.  And since dh had to leave for work at 6 am, it didn’t seem like a good time. 🙂  People don’t realize what a major part emotions play in giving birth or going into labor.  A woman who feels emotionally ready will let go and labor can progress, but many times labor will stall or stop entirely when something happens to interrupt her feeling of security.

     As for those boxes of clothes – that became today’s job!  We have a few boxes left that were in the room where our toddler was sleeping that we didn’t yet get to, but otherwise, all the others in the house have been moved to the attic.  So hopefully I can get it all finished up today.  Though there’s always more to get done, this is a big project that I will be glad to know is finished, and will give everyone more space in their rooms, while making it easier for everyone to find/put away clothes that they are growing into or out of.

     Avivah

  • Time management and the big rocks

    Today was the first day of school for my oldest son – the first official school day in seven years!  He started high school today, and I definitely have mixed emotions about it.  On one hand, I know he will do really well, but on the other hand, it feels like something is missing when he’s not around. 

    With his school day being so extremely long, it means that his personal schedule has to change to adapt to his new needs, and I’m now easing everyone else into his sleeping/waking schedule so that they can still see him when he’s around.  If I don’t, he’ll leave before they wake up and get home when they are heading for bed. 

     I also need to change our family chore schedules since he won’t be around for the things he’s currently slotted for.  I find that basic schedules for our daily routine really help keep us all on track and helps us have a more relaxed feeling about our time, since we all know that there’s time for everything and the important things will get done. 

     I was actually talking to a relative about this last night.  She told me “I don’t know how you do all that you do.”  I told her that I find Stephen Covey’s visual demonstration of filling a container with large rocks, small rocks, gravel, sand, and water very helpful.  If you first put in the largest items, and then put in each additional item according to it’s size (ie, largest to smallest), you will get a lot more in than if you haphazardly put in whatever your hand happens to touch first, and you will ensure that the biggest things always fit in. 

     It’s the same thing with our time and priorities.  All of us have the really important things that we need to do – our ‘big rocks’.  And there are plenty of little things that we can fill our days with that don’t really matter much (that would be the sand and water) that could be fit around other things.  What happens when we just do whatever we want to do without assigning priorities to our activities?  Usually, the big rocks don’t get put in – we end up not doing the most important things that really matter the most, because we don’t have time for it – we’ve filled up our containers with the small stuff.

    What I try to do is assess what my personal big rocks are – my husband, my children, their education, regular meals and chores to keep our home running smoothly – and schedule in time for those things.  For example, I make sure to hit all the academics with my kids first thing in the day, because I know that if I take care of everything else first, the day would be over and I would never get around to working with them on the academic stuff!  All the other things I need to do I schedule for later in the day.

    Avivah

  • Premature water breaking, and thank goodness the phone is working again

    On Monday night I went out  for three hours, and when I got home, discovered that I had no phone service (apparently caused by the storm we had).   Since it was after 10 pm and I needed to immediately make arrangements for a friend to watch my kids the next day, as well as to get driving directions to NJ (where I needed to pick up ds14 from his camp bus), this was NOT a welcome realization.  I dashed out to a neighbor and used their phone and internet, then came home, relieved that though I didn’t have a dial tone, at least I had taken care of everything that would need taking care of until the next night when I got home.

    Well, I was wrong.  Once I got home, I cleaned up the kitchen and dining room, and headed for bed, so that I would get a decent night’s sleep before doing so much driving.  I almost always read something before I go to sleep, and while I was reading, I hazily noticed that my back was slightly damp.  I didn’t really pay much attention since I was so involved in thinking about my reading, but ten minutes later, it suddenly hit me that I wasn’t imagining it, that I really was damp.  I sat up suddenly, and felt the bed all around me – wet.  I have to honestly say that right at that minute I was came close to panic, realizing that my waters broke (five weeks early) and I had no way to reach my midwife, dh wouldn’t be home until the next afternoon, and since it was after midnight by then, it was too late to go to a neighbor to use their phone.

    After a few minutes in which my brain wasn’t working properly, I quickly got dressed and drove over to a friend’s house, fervently hoping that she would hear me knocking, and not ignore it if she did hear it.  I was so tense worrying about what to do if she didn’t answer that I almost cried with relief when she opened the door!  She generously loaned me her cell phone so I would have a way to make calls until my line was repaired.  I called the midwife when I got home to give her a heads up about the situation, and told her I was going to be visualizing that it was a high leak and it would seal up on its own.  I went to sleep, and when I woke up – no more leaking, no more signs of early labor!  I called my midwife and told her about it.  Of course there’s no way to know what happened without doing testing that would make giving birth essential within a very short time.  She said that there are two layers to the amniotic sac, the amnion and chorion.  Sometimes the outer layer breaks, and water that is trapped between the two layers is released, but the sac where the baby is stays intact.  That seems to be the most likely scenario to explain what happened with me.  Isn’t that fascinating?

    Today, two days later, the phone suddenly started working again (I still need to cancel the repairman’s visit, which was supposed to be tomorrow – the fastest someone could come out).  It’s amazing how much more appreciative I am for having a dial tone when I pick up the phone than I was before!

    By the way, ds came home from camp last night (dh ended up driving to NJ to get him since the midwife felt it was very unwise for me to take a chance of going into labor after the excitement of the night before and drive there myself as planned), and dd12 came home this afternoon.  It’s so wonderful to have them back again!

    Avivah

  • Catching up

    Things have been much busier this summer than I ever expected!  I’ve had so much to write about but not made the time to post.

    On the personal front, my oldest two children went to overnight camp in NY for a month (a last minute decision), and I drove up with the kids for visiting day last week.  They are having an amazing time and it’s so gratifying as a parent when you’re able to provide your children with special opportunities that they really appreciate.  Something funny happened when we visited dd, though I can’t say what the significance is.  She’s attending the same camp I went to 21 years ago, and out of the 18 bunks available, ended up in my old bunk (the bunk numbers have been changed so I didn’t realize it until I got there).  Ds8 noticed that lots of campers wrote their names on the bunk beds, and asked me if I wrote my name on mine.  I told him ‘no, I didn’t do that kind of thing’.  And even if I had, it’s been a long time since I was there, beds were moved out to other bunks, and it wouldn’t have been likely it would still be there.  Not even two minutes later, he told me, “Mommy, I found where it says your name!”  Even after he read it to me, I couldn’t believe it, but sure enough, someone else in my bunk at the time had written her name, followed by the names of three others (out of 10 or 12) who shared the bunk with her, and below it said ’86’.  And my name was one of those.  And guess which bed it was written on?  My daughter’s very bunk – out of the hundreds of bunk beds in the camp, she ended up sleeping in the only bed with her mother’s name on it!  Interesting, isn’t it? 

    Then we were home for a day, and needed every minute of the time to get ready for the two day family vacation to a family amusement park/campgrounds in PA we went on next.  We never go to amusement parks, because I generally find them artificial, commercial, and wanted to wait until the kids were old enough to appreciate it and not become jaded.  This was a great time to go since the baby is 16 months, and the next child up is 5, and tall enough for most of the rides.   We got passes for the nighttime, which was good since there was a heat wave and I don’t know how much we would have enjoyed it if we had gone during the day.  The kids had an amazing time together – I manned the stroller, and dh went on the rides with the kids.  Even though I’ve always loved amusement parks (particularly roller coasters), I was satisfied to watch everyone from the sidelines this time.  Everyone had a great, great time.  The campsite was okay – not the kind of place we would go just to camp, but good as a convenient location to access the park from – and I learned my lesson from the last camping trip.  We got the site closest to the bathrooms and water, and that was really practical!  Trying to sleep on a camping cot and being 7.5 months pregnant was not fun or a successful experiment – I tend to not be a picky person, but in this case I was in so much pain (sciatica) that it took me over 20 minutes from the time I woke up until I could move my legs enough to get out of bed. I transferred to the passenger seat of the van after three hours, and just reclined it back.   I didn’t get much sleep, so later in the morning, when the kids were up and having breakfast, I crashed on the floor of the tent and slept soundly for a couple of hours before we went back into the park. 

     We got home from that on Thursday night, and then dh and I spent the weekend at home together without the kids – we usually go away but this time we’ve had so much travelling that it seemed more relaxing to stay put.  We spent all of Friday unpacking from the trip, packing the kids up for their time away, and trying to catch up on all the things waiting for us when we got home. 

    On the business front, we’re having our new site built, as well as making changes to the business structure and product name.   The main reason I haven’t posted in so long is that the blog has also been transferred here, and I haven’t had the time to try to figure out how to post to the new site.   

    But now I’ve done it and will be back to posting more regularly!

    Avivah

  • Love is the key

    A couple of months ago, within a couple of days I had three separate conversations with three different moms in which I was asked for suggestions on how to deal with parenting challenges they were having. The ages ranged from toddlers through adolescence, but my parenting philosophy is the same for everyone, it’s just the specifics that change.

    Afterwards I was concerned that these parents might take my suggestions and apply them without the inner love towards their child that makes the crucial difference in how the rules are perceived. Parenting isn’t black and white, though when listening to specific parenting suggestions, it’s easy to think it’s just a matter of following a formula and then you’ll get results. But it’s not – it’s a matter of the heart. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of just following the instructions on how to raise your child, but when we do, we risk damaging our relationships as we place rules above people’s feelings and needs. I was afraid these parents were going to take a hard line approach with their children as a result of our conversations (I stressed with them the importance of clarifying limits and expectations) but that shouldn’t include a hard line attitude (though I repeatedly stressed this, I didn’t feel that it was absorbed the way the action suggestions were).

    There are steps that I suggest parents take to get back on track with their children, to turn things around in the right direction (and they are the things that I would do, too), but I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that it’s all orders and strictness around here. It’s not, and I wouldn’t want it to be for anyone else either. When the boundaries are clarified with love, it leaves most of the time together with our children available for enjoyable and loving interactions.

    I’ve fallen into the trap of leaning too heavily on my authority and not having enough understanding of the individual child while insisting things be done a certain way, and it’s damaging in the long and short term to interact with our children like this. Actually, what prompted this post now is that a couple of weeks ago I realized that I was doing that with a particular child. I noticed lessening receptiveness to what I said and increasing friction in our interactions. After a few days, I realized this negativity was becoming somewhat regular, and it made me sit back and think about where it was coming from and why it was happening. Though it was unpleasant to realize, I had to honestly admit to myself that I was being too demanding in certain situations with this child.

    I then made the conscious effort to get myself back into a good space, speaking from love and not speaking at all unless there was love in my heart, and almost immediately, the friction faded away. Parenting is more than barking orders and expecting immediate compliance from our children. Parenting isn’t mainly about the rules, it’s about the spirit and attitude that we apply them with, as well as the relationships we build with our children when we interact with them.

    Remember: we can’t insist on our children showing respect for us and forget that we need to show them respect, too.

  • 4th of July and birthday

    I hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July! We had a nice day, though the fireworks display that I planned to take the kids to in the evening was rained out. It was my oldest son’s birthday, and we actually managed to surprise him with his birthday party! That was more than any of us expected.

    My 12 year old daughter is the one who has become the planner and executer of the family parties. It has evolved into her role over time, probably because she really enjoys it and is so good at it. We don’t do big and fancy; we usually make a special meal and dessert for the person having the party, and we don’t always do it the day of the birthday, so the kids really don’t expect it. Some of the kids made him cards and bought him gifts (I rarely buy gifts), but the focus is really on celebrating the person by making them the center of attention, not by what we buy.

    Dd usually gets frustrated trying to do everything and keep it a surprise, since it’s so hard with everyone walking in and out of the kitchen. I told her last time that she shouldn’t try to hard to keep people from seeing, since it makes them suspicious. So this time she just went about baking without saying anything even when her brother walked in and saw what she was making, and he didn’t suspect that it was for him!

    Ds was working up in the attic doing spackling when the table was set and the cakes were ready, so I sent my 8yos to get him. He was so involved that he didn’t want to come down right away, but he did anyway. We borrowed a camcorder a few days before (what a great invention!) and dd10 caught him on camera when he came down, his hands full of spackling mud with his messiest work clothes on, as everyone started singing “Happy birthday”, not quite realizing for a minute what was going on.

    Something else I try to do that doesn’t always work out, is to do some kind of special outing in honor of their birthdays. I don’t call it a birthday trip, but it’s one more nice thing that ties in to their special day. This year it was camping for ds5, we went out yesterday morning for ds14, and I’m planning another special trip to PA to coincide with dd10’s birthday in August. They were all trips I would have done anyway, but by doing them in conjuction with birthdays, it makes it more special for them.

    Avivah

  • Teaching independence and older kids

    Hooray – my kitchen sink is finally fixed!!! It’s been a problem for a week now, something was wrong with the garbage disposale and dh wasn’t home long enough to fix it before the weekend. Yesterday morning he took the entire thing apart, but didn’t have time to put it together before he had to go to work. Do you know how fun washing dishes in a plastic box only about 1.5 times bigger than a shoebox is (because that was all I had to use in place of a dishpan)? It was really a huge effort to get the dishes done, since it meant going back and forth every few minutes to dump out the dirty water, rinsing the washed dishes, then back to dump the water again. It really makes me think about how easy we have it nowadays, and appreciate a tiny bit how much harder our ancestors had to work than we do.

    To continue with the examples I promised yesterday on older kids, here you are!

    I began teaching my kids to cook (at the stove) when they were 5 – 7. A friend once told me she didn’t feel it was safe for her daughter to learn to cook (at the time she was 8 yrs. old and it came up because she cooked with my girls when she came to visit, and was so excited and kept saying she couldn’t believe she was really cooking something). I suggested that instead of just refusing to allow her daughter access to the kitchen because of her concerns, she address the issue directly and show her daughter how to be safe when cooking (for example, her daughter had long hair, so she could have shown her how to pull her hair up so it wouldn’t be a fire hazaard, and initially stayed with her while she cooked).

    My oldest son (he’ll be 14 tomorrow :)) has independently done a huge amount of work to finish our attic. His ability to do this didn’t happen overnight and didn’t magically appear out of nowhere. I initially worked with him and showed him how to hang drywall, dh showed him how to use power tools. As he got more and more comfortable with the skills necessary, I gave him more leeway. Now he goes up to the attic when he has time and desire and does whatever he does, and I just go admire all of his work at the end of the day. This could never happen if I didn’t help him learn to be capable and safe early on in the process, and trust he was inherently competent.

    Kids have an innate need to explore their environment and it’s stifling and unhealthy to make things forbidden. Sometimes as parents it’s easier (in the short term) to just say ‘no’ instead of taking the time to teach them to do what they want to do safely. But in the long run, it’s detrimental and just makes life harder for both the child and parents.

    Avivah

  • Stair climbing and teaching independence

    Someone commented about the danger involved in allowing a baby to be in a home with stairs and no safety gate, which I didn’t agree with. Here’s my position:

    I don’t think it’s a dangerous situation for a baby to be in a home with stairs, just dangerous to be in a home with stairs without being allowed to learn to safely climb them. I’ve lived in houses with stairs for my last three babies, never used a safety gate, and haven’t found this to be a concern. The way I deal with it may not be typical, but it works well for us and we’ve never had a baby fall down the stairs.

    As soon as a baby shows signs of readiness to climb the stairs, I let him, staying close by (right behind him) in case he slips. As he gets more experienced, I give him more and more leeway (eg, staying within a step or two but not immediately behind him), until I’m confident that he can safely climb by himself. This doesn’t take a very long time, but does require the willingness to invest the time to help your baby become safely independent. My baby is now 15 months, and regularly climbed to the next floor without anyone around by the age of 12 months (probably earlier, I just can’t remember those kind of specifics).

    This is reflective of my general approach to parenting, which is to help my kids navigate new situations by staying close in the beginning while allowing them to explore, and decreasing my presence/ help until they are ready to be independent. This applies as much to babies (eg, teaching them not to swallow small items by giving them the opportunity to learn to discriminate) as it does to older children (there are lots of life lessons then!).

    I try not to say no just because I can picture something going wrong. Instead, I think about how to make the situation emotionally comfortable for me without stifling the child’s need to explore his environment. This process doesn’t stop, it’s ongoing as kids get older. My kids have a pretty good level of competence in many areas because I’ve given them room to develop competence, but that has never meant taking a hands off attitude and letting whatever happens, happen.

    (I’ll continue in my next post with some examples of how this has played out with older kids.)

    Avivah