Baby World: Elimination Communication and Cloth Diapers

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Katya Muscat

I recently commented on a post regarding advice for new parents that I would like to expand upon, along with some reviews. I know everyone and their grandmother out there is writing about cloth diapers, but I would like to share my experience with cloth diapers that is also paired with the practice of Elimination Communication (EC), Natural Infant Hygiene, or whatever else people call it these days.

I would like to start with a story that got me sold on EC. I was still in college and not even planning to have kids when I took a communication course that had us present the types of communication between two groups of people. While most students chose the stereotypical female/male and old/young groups to compare, I was lucky enough to be in a group whose creativity allowed us to compare the communication between a mother and a child. It was one of those projects with an eye opening experience that inspired me with the ways I could have a much closer connection with my future children. After some information gathering, I stumbled upon this practice called Natural Infant Hygiene, which was how things were done in the era before diapers replaced human connections. In this busy modern world, however, there is sometimes no alternative, but I was determined to try it. I was going to listen to my baby and help him reduce dependency on diapers.

And I did just that. Continue reading →

Tagged | Leave a comment

Recipe: Homemade Pizza

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Katya Muscat

pizza1 Recipe: Homemade PizzaIt seems fitting that the first post in this new format (I upgraded from a self-scripted journal to a full-blown blog with comments) is about one of my favorite subjects: food.

Confession: I love cooking, I love experimenting with different flavors, and I love creating tasty concoctions from various aspects of other recipes. The problem is that I don’t have the time to do that anymore, so lately I have been resorting to the familiar, the recipes I can’t even call recipes because I have no idea how much of what goes into them. No longer do I count the spoonfuls (of various fullness), instead simply emptying the contents into a mixing bowl. Some might call that being an expert; others will consider it sloppy. It doesn’t really matter to me because I’ve never even followed a recipe exactly. There is always something I estimate, substitute, omit, add, or splice with another recipe. In essence, I use recipes as ideas, often reverse engineering my own recipes from pictures of dishes. Following parts of recipes seems to only be a lesson for a new technique or a dish completely unfamiliar to me (last time I remember doing that was when I didn’t know how to make the crust for an apple pie).

One of the foods that I know by heart is my own homemade pizza. Again, there is no recipe, and ingredients usually change depending on what I have in the fridge. Some have called my pizza amazing. And once I began rolling the dough (first with a glass, then with an actual rolling pin) to a thinner sheet, my family loved it and everyone always wants a taste. So what’s my personal secret? Read on for the “recipe,” or at least a guideline. Continue reading →

Tagged , | 1 Comment