This past weekend, my dear husband got my new location all up and running for me. I noticed that there are quite a few people still subscribed to my old RSS feed, and I don’t want to lose track of any of you, so here’s a little reminder to come visit me at my new site.

Blessings!

Free. It’s so familiar, a gospel fundamental. The Lord saves us and sets us free from sin. We don’t have to obey our former master anymore.

This morning, cuddled up with my nursing baby, and prepping for a Bible study, I came across those words again, “freed from sin.” I don’t have to serve sin. But I could. I could still obey sin, otherwise there wouldn’t be any words of warning against letting it reign in my mortal body. But in order to obey, there has to be a command. And that made me wonder, what does the command sound like? How do I hear my former master’s voice?

I hear it in my flesh, my “mortal body,” “in the lusts thereof.” It is the overwhelming feeling that I must do something wrong. The anger welling up within me when I do not get my way, the jealousy that taunts me when I see what others have that my flesh desperately wants, the selfishness, dissatisfaction, the compelling frustration, the feeling that I just “can’t help” being closed in on myself and joyless, the sin, like instinct; these things that seem to come from within me, that whisper that this is who I am, inescapably, without hope of control, that tell me I can’t, I can’t say no, I must feel this, and maybe scream, or yell, or make someone else feel as bad as I do–they are the commands, they are the sound of my former master’s voice. Authoritative. Powerful. To hear is to obey.

But I am free.

This is nothing more than shouting in the street. I do not have to listen. I can simply walk away.

I used to be so bothered by these attempts at returning me to slavery. I was torn, squirming, guilty that I was feeling this or that, and yet feeling such compulsion to wallow in it and act on it. “I’m having a hard day.” “I’m sorry I said that, but you just made me SO MAD.” “I can’t help that. I’ve always felt like that, ever since I was a little girl.” “If you just knew what this person or that person did to me, then you’d understand why I have to be this way.” But lying there with my Bible study, I realized that what freedom means is that I actually can just turn away. I don’t have to be upset about all these feelings and compulsions anymore. My flesh can shout all it wants. I do not have to obey.

Obviously, there is no hope of rejecting my former master’s commands if I am not clinging to my new Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, who set me free to serve Him. It is only through His power that I have any hope of escaping. But through His power, I can reject even the sin of my own flesh, the voice of my former master.

I am free.

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin….If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. –John 8:34,36

YES. I was frustrated. Certain childish behaviors were getting worse and worse and worse until I was feeling like throwing a tantrum of my own. The dawdling. The forgetting. The bickering. Little needles of irritation pricking me again, and again, and again.

And then I realized it. I was supporting all those bad behaviors, feeding them, letting them grow the deep roots of entrenched habit, and doing it all in the name of virtue. I was failing in my job as mother and destroying the tenor of my home, and I was doing it by being “patient.”

In my renewed effort at being longsuffering, I had instead become tolerant, clenching my teeth a little tighter as I smiled and reminded my way past every offense, and my children figured out that they could get away with just a little bit more, a little more sin, a little more unhappiness, a little more selfishness in our home. All because I’d tried to crack down on my own grumpiness and become more “patient” with the children.

There was a time when I imagined myself an expert on immediate discipline, on sweetly asking once, and then meting out consequences if my request was not swiftly and cheerfully obeyed. I was firm. I was steadfast…. And then I had kids. And somehow the waters got muddied by my own desire not to be harsh and unbending, to be patient. But this created cycles. And at the bottom swing of each round, I was very harsh and unbending, and also ungodly. It’s really easy for me to be a firm disciplinarian when I’m motivated by frustration, when I’ve had it up to here, and “you all had better fall in line, or else.” But then I feel that guilty nudge of conviction, resolve to be more patient, and often wind up suffering until I get frustrated again.

But patience is not “putting up with.” It doesn’t mean that we overlook it when our children run wild, push our buttons, and are inconsiderate of each other. A patient mother is a faithful mother, dutifully, calmly, joyfully correcting, and disciplining, and stopping immature and inconsiderate behaviors again and again, tirelessly nipping them in the bud. It means that while I’m correcting, I’m not losing my temper, not that I just don’t correct.

Jennifer Fulwiler of Conversion Diary did a guest piece over at Inside Catholic reflecting on last year’s March for Life and her own journey from being militantly pro-choice to lovingly pro-life. In it, she makes a very strong case for exactly why our culture necessitates abortion. Check out The Two Lists.

How do you and your baby communicate with each other?

My baby communicates with me by fussing and squirming, and I communicate with her using the phrase, “Would you like to go potty?” Most people who do EC use some kind of little noise, like “psh psh,” but that just didn’t fit my personality. I’m a word person. I wanted to use something real. I did realize, however, that it would be a long time before my baby was parsing the individual words in the sentence, so I’ve been careful to use the same tone and inflection every time. She had clearly learned that this was her cue by the time she was only a few weeks old. So far, she has been willing to go potty in a great many different places just based on having her diaper off and hearing me say this phrase. (I do have to be careful that the location isn’t too interesting, though, or she’ll just look around and forget to relax and go.)

I learned the hard way not to give her the cue until I had everything completely ready. When she was a couple of weeks old, we were heading into the bathroom to go potty and found it occupied by my three-year-old son. He was just finishing up, and I started taking off the baby’s diaper so we’d be all set when our turn came. Absently as I pulled it off, I said, “Would you like to go potty?” meaning it literally that time, and not as the cue. But my little girl immediately let fly–right on her brother’s head.

Is there a reliable timing of when your baby needs to go potty, and how did you figure it out?

The timing is fairly reliable. I started with my EC-ing friend’s advice that I should take my baby immediately when she woke up. And when she was a newborn, she slept so much that this was very nearly the only timing I needed to know. As she has grown and spent more time awake, I have simply observed the times that she had wet diapers and watched for a pattern. The times I’ve found she often needs to go are upon waking, immediately after eating, and right before a position change. (These are quite similar to the times when older children and even adults need to use the bathroom as well.)

Do you experience times when you catch the right moment, not through signs and timing, but simply through intuition?

This terrified me before I started. I kept reading stuff that made EC sound mystical, like you “just know” when your baby has to go. People would even talk about hearing words in their heads. That pretty much killed the whole idea of EC for me right there. I thought, “there’s no way. I will never, ever ‘just know.’” But it turns out, you don’t have to. Maybe, maybe once or twice I’ve caught a potty need on intuition alone, but it could just be that I realized it had been awhile since my baby’s last trip to the bathroom. For me, it hasn’t been any more mystical than any other area of baby care like figuring out that my baby is hungry and needs to nurse. Simple, straightforward pattern recognition, cues and timing, nothing magic.

Are your husband, your children and your close friends also involved in your baby’s potty training?

My husband is my cheering section and the head of my PR department. Nothing could be more motivating than hearing him tell people about how our baby goes potty in the bathroom. And at the beginning, when I was still getting used to my baby’s signals, my children were good helpers in listening for that special grunty fuss. Friends have been a big support, too, and if it weren’t for my friend who actually let me see her baby going potty, I don’t know if I would have ever even tried EC. But as far as actually taking my baby to the bathroom, except for a handful of times she’s gone for her Daddy, I’m the one who gets the joy of doing it. My baby actually gets pretty distracted when there are other people watching her, and the one time a friend tried to take her, my baby didn’t go.

Does EC support good health?

The main health benefit of EC that I have seen has been that my baby has virtually no diaper rash. My first three children were going through tube after tube of Desitin, but now that I’m doing EC, my baby’s skin is dry nearly all the time, and we’ve gone nearly nine months on a partially used tube of Desitin left over from my third baby’s diaper rash days.

Do you believe that EC is having a positive influence on the development of your child?

Well, I think it might be. This baby is certainly much happier than my first three and more communicative. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but it seems like it would make sense that being more comfortable and having more chances to meaningfully express herself would make a little person happier and more willing to reach out. In fact, my baby learned her first word at eight and a half months old. She very clearly says “Mama” when she wants me to nurse her. It’s possible that she got some heavy-duty linguistic gene and would have been talking early without EC, but success breeds success, and I can’t help but wonder if having me treat all her little babbles as meaningful gave her a jump start.

Is your decision to practice EC in coherence with your Christian convictions and lifestyle?

I certainly don’t think that all Christian mothers must practice EC. The Bible never says a thing about it, so in a very large sense, it is just a personal preference. But in that I am a Christian and my faith permeates every aspect of my life and thinking, there is a sense in which my practice of EC is touched by my Christianity, particularly my Lord’s command to treat others the way I would like to be treated.

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. –Matthew 7:12

If I were unable to walk myself to the bathroom, I know I would much rather have someone take me than put me in a diaper and change me at their convenience (like I did with my first three children). That’s a big thing that keeps me going on this strange path. I’m treating my baby the way I would like to be treated myself.

An article giving some historical context and quoting second century sources

A photo history of Christian women’s headcoverings from the third century down to modern times

A few weeks ago, a sweet young woman in Switzerland, who has dropped by my blog from time to time, contacted me and asked if she could interview me for a paper she was writing as part of her medical assistant program. (After e-mailing back and forth a few times, we discovered that she actually goes to the same church as our very dear friends in Switzerland–small world!) I was glad to answer her questions, and she graciously agreed to let me post the interview on my blog. I have divided it into parts, and her questions are in italics.

What was your motivation to start EC?

My original motivation for starting EC was that I hoped it would make potty training easier. As a mother of three, going on four small children, I was deep in the throes of potty training trauma, facing the laundry, the carpet cleaning, the wet footprints leading away from puddles, and worst of all, the awful frustration of having a toddler oblivious to messy pants. Proponents of EC claim that babies are born with the same aversion that older humans have to soiling themselves. It’s just that we train it out of them by forcing them to sit in their own waste for two years or so while they’re wearing diapers. Then one day, we decide it’s time for them to hate going in their pants and prefer going to the potty. But why should they? We just spent the last two years teaching them not to care.

After struggling through potty training two older children the traditional way and facing an upcoming third round with my toddler who was still in diapers, I was very interested in seeing if I could improve things the next time around by avoiding making my baby get used to going in her diaper.

But now, after nearly nine months of EC, I have a different motivation (though I’m still very curious to see how potty training goes). When I started EC, I was focused on the “E,” but now my focus is more on the “C.” The feeling of needing to go potty makes my baby uncomfortable, and I can help her feel better. It’s another need I can meet, another call I can answer. She talks, in grunty little baby words. And I understand, just like when she needs warmth, or food, or cuddles. I can’t imagine not doing it.

How is it possible to practice EC along with your busy daily routine?

Before I started, I was really concerned about the time investment. But usually, it only takes a minute to take her to the bathroom and let her go, and it slips easily into my day like nursing and changing diapers. If she finishes nursing, or wakes up from a nap, or is about to change positions (from baby sling to playing on the floor, for example), I take her to the bathroom to see if she needs to go. I don’t really notice the time loss any more than I notice the time loss from helping my older children in the bathroom.

Has the fact that you started EC changed much in your habits of caring for babies, for example, how you dress them?

My baby clothes preferences have changed a bit. I try to keep my baby in clothes that allow quick access in the bathroom and that also allow me to check easily to see if my baby has already gone in her diaper and needs a change rather than a trip to the potty. In the summer, dresses were ideal, but now that it’s cold, I mostly use sleepers with snaps on both legs that can be quickly opened on the way to the bathroom. And most important are old fashioned cloth diapers (not the super-absorbent modern varieties). The baby needs to connect the feeling of wetness with going in her diaper.

But the bigger change has been in how I respond to my baby. When my older children napped, I would usually wait until they cried before I went in and picked them up. Now that I’m paying attention to pottying, I’ve learned that my baby wakes up and lies quietly for a minute or two, goes potty in her diaper, and then cries. So, whenever I can, I try to get her before she cries. This is harder to catch, of course, but if I see her little eyes open, I scoop her up and take her to the bathroom.

I also try to pay better attention to fussing. My baby will fuss and squirm just a bit before she goes. If I don’t notice that, eventually she will go in her diaper, and then she will really cry. With my older children, when I heard the early fussing, I would often just give them a little bounce in my arms as if they were bored and needed a distraction. Now, I’m trying to take my baby to the bathroom. Old habits die hard, though. And I frequently will discover that she’s wet, and then look back and see I had tried to bounce her without even thinking.

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To be continued…