Frye Fam Happenings

When people hear that our 8/9/10...12 month old is not yet sleeping through the night, they often drop their jaw to the floor in astonishment. "WHAT?! Your 10 month old isn't sleeping through the night yet? WHY?! Oh my goodness, you poor thing." (etc.) This is one of those times I find myself saying, "We just do things a little differently!" so I thought I'd post about it :) Let's start with this: I don't have big babies at birth. Our two biggest were 7 lbs. 4 oz...whoppers I tell you :) That is to say I never had the experience that some of my friends with gigantic babies have...a baby who "sleeps through the night" from night #1. (Although, can I just say that doesn't even make sense to me. Wouldn't a big baby need to eat MORE to fill their large bellies? Also, I never even gave my babies a chance to sleep through the night, because I was always advised they needed to be woken at least for some stimulation....ANYWAY, my kids, my d...

We are trying our best to raise our kids to use their imaginations, appreciate nature, learn things in every moment of the day, and be responsible for themselves, their family, and their things. This means that we have to strive daily to keep the TV off, keep them busy with activities and ideas, and expose them to things they might not have thought of on their own. I would love to be a TV-Free family, but that is just not happening right now for various reasons. The little boys don't watch much, if any, but Justus gets "TV Time" once a day. I actually think it is benefiting him getting to have that one-time-a-day, because he's learning how to create his own rhythm. If he chooses to have that time in the morning as soon as he gets up, that means no TV the rest of the day. Tough for a four-year-old, but it's definitely teaching him responsibility, control, and moderation. So what do our kids do all day? Arts and Crafts Play with cars and trains Chase each other arou...

Time for another "We do things differently" post :) This time, I want to talk about our outstanding parenting skills...JUST kidding (any advice on how to deal with a rebellious almost 3-yr-old is welcome!) No really, a few friends have asked me recently what we do when our babies/kids have snotty noses, coughs, and the common cold. First, what we don't do : Give them decongestants or any other cough/cold medicines (although I'll mention one homeopathic favorite of mine in the list of what we DO do) Take them to the doctor (their immune systems are already down, so they're more likely to catch something else PLUS there is no need for a prescription for a common cold...just like my post on fevers , we like the symptoms and try to embrace them as our bodies taking care of business) Keep them inside all day. Worry. If I am sure it is a cold (yellow/green snot, yucky eyes, etc. etc.) there is nothing I worry about. I believe in how we treat our kids' colds, and ...

I have wanted to write this post for awhile now. Derek and I often hear a lot of the following: "Your kids don't hardly ever get sick, do they?" "Tell me about your natural childbirths." "Where is child xyz on the percentile charts?" "So what do you do when your kids DO get sick??" "What kind of supplements do you take?" "How much did child xyz weigh at his last well-child visit?" etc. I have been wanting to write this post for awhile, because, well...we just do things a little differently than a lot of people and a lot of those people don't know that about us!! Some of you might assume things about us since Derek is going into the field of Chiropractic. Or maybe you see the cloth diapers on our children and think, "Oh, brother...she's one of those moms!!" Well, maybe a lot of those stereotypes about Chiropractors and cloth-diapering moms are true about us...the Frye's!! I wanted to write this, thou...