Sentiments

My son is approaching his first birthday. In three weeks time, I will be sharing my household with a toddler.

My heart hurts.

I watch this little man, now walking (but still mostly crawling), as he toddles and scoots around the house. Every corner turned leads to new opportunities for discovery and adventure. Toys he once barely understood have now become new favorites. He understands how to turn the dial on the toy telephone, and that it can roll. It can roll to mom or dad, or roll underhand as he crawls. His floor gym, recently re-set up for my near-four month old niece to play with has become a baby wash of sorts. He crawls through all the hanging doodads, laughing and squealing, does an about face, approaching the gym from another angle and crawling top speed through it again. He will do this for several minutes at a time. I don't think he liked that thing nearly this much when he used it the 'right way'.

He is interacting and communicating with the life around him. He picks up the dog's toys and throws them for him, or plays tug. He says, "Dad-dee, Dad-dee, Dad-dee" repeatedly, and the occasional "Mum-ma". He will sign "eat" and "water" and waves at everyone who will look at him, and points at EVERYTHING. He makes sure you're looking at him before springing a tear when he loses his balance and falls to his butt.

He is eating everything in sight. Truly, his diet is wide and varied. I couldn't believe how he scarfed down chicken satay and cucumber salad (complete with a sweet and sour vinaigrette and green onions) tonight. He sometimes uses a fork. He drinks out of a regular cup just fine. He recently learned how to drink out of a straw and goes crazy for my water bottle. Half the time he sips the water up and spits it out. I think he just likes the fun of it.

Did I mention how he takes drinks then smacks his lips and tongue and says, "Ah". Hilarious. He also says, "Mmmmmm" when eating.

He has recently learned to climb. He likes to climb on the coffee table and over piles of pillows on the bed. And mom and dad, of course.

He played peek-a-boo with me this morning. He waited at the end of the bed for me to wake up, then dipped back and forth behind the guard rail on the side of the bed, laughing every time he poked his head around the side of it.

He likes to be naked. Much prefers it, in fact. He has even figured out how to take off his own shirt. Although, with his big noggin, he tends to get stuck with the sleeves off and the shirt hanging around his neck. He especially does this when the shower is running, because he thinks it's his cue to get in. He LOVES water.

I'm so proud of him. How happy he is. How inquisitive he is about his surroundings. How sociable he is, even with complete strangers. I love his complete lack of fear in trying new things, from food to climbing onto a coffee table from a nursing stool. (Although I'm sure his lack of fear -from his dad, not me- will lead to a lot of boo boos in the future.)

I love the idea of being a mom to an older child. I look forward to a house with kids running around just being kids. I love the idea of having conversations with him, taking him to museums and having him actually absorb and process what he's learning. I don't love the idea of him leaving for college... ah, but that's a long way off...

At the same time, I realize my teeny little man is growing... Every day! Every day he does something that amazes me, or ratchets up this love I feel for him, that I couldn't imagine could get any stronger. He's not so small that he could fit, entirely, on my chest, under my chin. Not so small that he can tuck down into a wrap or sling and snooze, and not so small that I can carry him around in a wrap or sling for long periods without it killing my back!

Now, when he lays on my chest, the top of his fuzzy head is butted up under my chin, his legs straddle one of mine and his feet dangle halfway down the couch. My 11 month old wears 18 month to 2T. He's a long boy.

In the last year, I've learned a lot. I've learned my capacity for learning doesn't have a cap on it. Nearly every day I learn something, often, my son is the catalyst for me seeking out information. I've learned my capacity for love also has no cap. I have more patience than I ever knew I could have (trust me, you should see me driving...). I can run on a lot less sleep for a lot longer than I ever thought possible. I've learned baby toys can be kind of fun. I've learned the outer part of the area rug around the coffee table can easily be interpreted as a race track. That funny faces, silly noises, fake sneezing and coughing, and sparingly-used tickling can get you a long way with a baby.

I've learned that babies are human beings. They are smart and capable. They have spirits easily crushed and minds eager to learn and absorb. They have wonderful senses of humor and an intense need for cuddling and physical contact.

I've learned that if it moves easily across the floor, it's a walking toy. No need to spend $50 on that nice, wooden walking toy with all the fun activities all over it.

I've learned that part of parenting is accepting you don't know everything and you will never know everything. I've learned that there will always be someone who thinks the way I parent is wrong. And I'm okay with that. And I'm not changing a thing.

I've learned that Saturday nights weren't invented for drinking. That I can really, really appreciate popcorn and ice cream and a good movie at home, with my family.

While watching my big boy turbo-crawling towards his basket of toys, it occurred to me that I'm actually aging. Never in my life have I been so aware of growing older. The recent discovery of three gray hairs got me thinking, but more than that, that I'm aging along with this child... For every year he ages, so do I.

Man my biological clock is ticking...

At the end of the day, when I lay him in bed, I realize how small he is still. He is still my little baby, and always will be.

The moment I knew I was pregnant, I knew I was going to love being a mom. Before that, I wasn't so sure. When he was born, my life changed forever. And not just in the 'you have a new life to care for' way, but, in the way that I felt reborn. I'm still Chelsie. I still have a pretty similar personality as the Before Baby Chelsie, but I've shifted. It's an odd thing to explain without sounding totally hokey. Within a day of his birth, I looked down at him and wondered at how he hadn't been there all along. He just fit, perfectly, he belongs with me. I've cried to Shane a number of times, if something happened to him... I feel like my life would lose all meaning.

I think some people would take issue with their children defining their existence. And that's fine, for them. But for me, my son really IS my life.

Baby Food is a Four Letter Word

Flynn, 11 months, using a fork to eat Lord-knows-what (other than that it was NOT pureed!)

My Facebook news feed has been cycling a lot of links and comments about baby food lately, so, I'm thinking it's a good time for me to rant about the stuff.

While pregnant, I decided I would make my own baby food. I could make it for much cheaper, keep it mostly organic and freeze it in small amounts for less waste.

I planned to feed rice cereal, because heck, that's what you do. I saw nothing wrong with starting solids at four months and everyone around me did it that way, so why wouldn't I?

While struggling with nursing, I did a lot of research on increasing supply, infant formula and nutrition and eventually came across baby led weaning and information on rice cereal. I was totally blown away. How could I come across all this information in a few evenings of Googling that no one else seemed to know, even doctors?

According to Gerber's website feeding guidelines, one should start feeding their infant rice cereal between four and six months of age ("Supported Sitter" is the label they apply to this stage). The typical guideline is to start slow then incorporate the rice cereal as a part of the infant's daily diet, and, if no adverse reactions occur, to go ahead with introducing oatmeal or whole wheat cereal, again waiting for an adverse reaction to move on to the next cereal. Eventually, you can go ahead and give your baby the stuff mixed with fruit. Click around a few more pages and you'll find they also recommend continuing to feed your child infant cereal until he or she is two years old. Along the way, mixing it with toddler formula starting at nine months of age (way to start selling the toddler formula before the kid is even a toddler) to add nutrition, then mixing it with pureed fruits, meat, veg or yogurt.

Who are these two year olds incapable of eating regular cereals? Like real oatmeal or other whole grain cereals?

Picking on Gerber again, their site claims that they are committed to helping parents teach their children healthy eating habits. (Although, this statement could really represent any company hocking processed baby foods).

Oh really?

Lets really look at the nutritional value of these processed infant foods.

Rice cereal is a highly processed, simple carbohydrate-rich 'food'. It is usually fed at an age at which the infant gut is not quite well developed enough to digest it. Long term, feeding these types of foods can lead to diabetes and food allergies, not to mention a propensity towards processed simple carbs. In addition, babies who are exclusively breastfed end up being robbed of nutrition as breast milk contains amylase, an enzyme which digests carbohydrates (also found in your saliva). This process ultimately degrades the nutritional value of both the milk and the cereal. Frequently, breastfed babies started on rice cereal will lose weight or plateau.

I take issue with pureed whole grain and oatmeal cereals also. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Finger foods offered by baby food companies (like Gerber) are a pretty big joke too. Sure, they're fruit or veggie flavored, but usually mixed with a carbohydrate to produce a 'puff' which is easy for a baby to handle and dissolves quickly when it hits saliva. The baby gets the flavor of that fruit or veggie, but still associates it with a simple carbohydrate and, as with pureed baby foods, they don't actually have the opportunity to discover the real taste and texture of that particular fruit or vegetable. Processed baby finger foods are just that, processed.

Toddler meals. Oi. These have been in the news lately (or, at least in the crunchy world news). Recently, a mom in Canada found an industrial staple in her child's Gerber toddler meal. If only that were the worst thing. The Canadian Stroke Network and the Advanced Foods & Materials Network awarded the third annual national “Salt Lick Award” to Gerber Graduates Lil’ Entrées. The recognition was given because the “Chicken & Pasta Wheel Pickups” dinner serves up the sodium equivalent to two orders of medium McDonald’s Fries! Seriously. That. Is. Gross.

Really. You can sum up all baby foods in two words: highly processed.

Processed baby foods, pureed in a jar, really became readily available during the 1920's. They touted convenience for parents and proper nutrition for babies. Surprisingly, in the beginning, parents just weren't buying it. But, with the onset of World War I, prepared baby foods really caught on (along with formula). With moms going to work and dads shipping out to war, moms couldn't be on demand for baby's eating needs, and they found themselves a lot shorter on time. It's a trend that continues today.

When you travel around the world, you'll find that in other cultures, babies eat what their parents eat. Babies do not get their own special food, and it is not typically pureed.

So what is the point? Sure, you save a lot of time and energy feeding processed pureed baby foods out of a jar. But what is the baby benefiting? Very little. In fact, the stuff is really only setting baby up for a life time of processed food eating.

Gerber claims their goal is to encourage healthy eating habits from a young age. So why is their foods packed with sodium and preservatives? To make it shelf stable. All this baby-specific food (whether pureed jarred food or finger food or toddler meals) is really just setting baby up for a life time of processed food eating. They become accustomed to processed simple carbohydrates and large amounts of sodium. If you followed the feeding guidelines of these companies (and sadly, so many doctors), by the time your child is two, it's all they would really know.

I was fortunate enough to come across friends in Flynn's early months who knew better. I learned about baby led weaning. I did a lot of research. I felt very confident in our decision not to feed pureed foods, rice cereal or other baby-specific foods.

Flynn started eating solids at six months, of his own accord. In the beginning, it was mostly food with a 'handle', foods he could grip and chew or suck on, like soft steamed carrots and broccoli. He also enjoyed soft, diced sweet potatoes, and avocados. As weeks went on, we incorporated more foods into his diet like beans and lentils, oatmeal (which he's not much of a fan of), yogurt, egg whites, steamed apples and bananas.

He has never been spoon fed. He has never eaten baby food. To be honest, he actually ate very little until he was about nine months old. He always got a plate of food, typically a few things of what we were eating. He would squish it around in his hands, put some in his mouth and be done with it. Just in time for Thanksgiving, he really started eating full portions of food. I have always provided him with the appropriate utensils and a cup for drinking. By 10 months, he began using his utensils appropriately (although, to be fair, not consistently and not very well, but, he seemed to enjoy mimicking mom and dad), a mile stone typically not seen until 18-24 months of the spoon and finger food fed child.

Now, at 11 months, Flynn's diet is quite varied and far removed from that of a typically-fed baby. He eats meats and veggies and fruits, including things like lettuce (yeah, he really loves lettuce), dried cranberries (another big fave), cucumbers, onions and spicy foods (like Indian and Tai). He has his very own technique for more difficult foods like tabouleh, he grasps a handful, puts one end of his fist to his mouth and uses a finger from the other hand to push the food into his mouth. Brilliant.

More than providing our son with a healthy, varied diet of whole foods, our choice in how we feed him has affected how we eat. Flynn demonstrated very early on that he wants to eat what we're eating. Several months ago, I made some nachos for dinner (I know, very healthy) but offered Flynn steamed broccoli and carrots. He took one look at our plates, swiped all the veggies off his own tray and started reaching and vocalizing towards our food. We learned early on that our plates must closely resemble his. You'd be amazed at how many more healthy eating choices you make when your child wants to have the same food on his plate. It has made me a vigorous label reader, and on a recent trip to the grocery store, I realized how drastically my shopping cart had changed in the last year. And for the better for sure.

I truly feel that babies *deserve* the opportunity to eat foods that aren't pureed to hell. Babies are people too. Would you want to eat that stuff? Really, have you tasted it? I can't wrap my brain around it. The jar says there is only bananas and blueberries in there, but it tastes like a shell of what bananas and blueberries should taste like. Do they remove the flavor some how? (And really, how much more mushy do you need bananas to be?) And, I'm pretty sure turkey without salt or seasonings still tastes like turkey. Ack. I can STILL taste that stuff that my mom used to feed my sister, nearly 20 years ago. It was horrid. WE feel that by giving our son the opportunity to eat real, non-pureed foods, we are respecting his ability to do so and his right to taste and texture.

But won't baby choke? No. Probably not. I'm certified to teach infant CPR by the Red Cross. I went into having this baby feeling pretty prepared for emergencies. I really think every parents and caregiver ought to have basic life saving skills, but, really, babies are amazing. The gag reflex exists for a reason. Flynn gagged a lot in the beginning. Eating solid foods, whether pureed or whole, is a completely new thing for the mouth to do than suckling. BUT, when provided with soft, non-pureed foods, baby will learn to gum and use the teeth they have available. They will gag. And they will gag a lot in the beginning. Your job is to keep calm and trust in the baby's instincts. The more you flip out and panic, the more likely they are to inhale and actually choke, or panic right along with you. It took Shane a while to realize this (and a lot of dads, for that matter).

Flynn figured out fairly quickly how to chew with his gums. As soon as he had teeth, he started chewing with them. He started biting and chewing raw apple and pear (pear is a good one, firm, but soft enough for them to mash with gums). I recently let him have a go at a tortilla chip he was obsessing over. He chewed the thing with his front teeth and made a huge mess. I would wager most of it ended up on his shirt, but, he didn't gag once.

You do need to make smart choices though. Obviously, handing baby a whole grape could be dangerous (I cut or bite them in half, I know a lot of people skin them, but I never have, the skins just come out the other end a day or so later). Keep in mind that baby's throat is a little bigger than your pinky.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't ever puree anything. If you feel more comfortable with that, who am I to tell you not to. I'm just saying, do your kid a favor and avoid highly processed baby and toddler foods. Who knows, you might just find your own diet changing for the better too.

Happy dining!

More info: www.babyledweaning.com

A Thank You to Those Who Have Saved the Day

I spend a lot of time dwelling on the complete lack of courtesy of others. I'm sure I could be accused of being discourteous, heck, I have been, but, I've recently realized that I don't think I have spent a lot of time talking about the random acts of kindness I've come across in my life. At least as far as this blog goes.

That's pretty freaking sad.

Ah well. I get pissed off some times and this is my outlet. It started as my outlet anyway. So, forgive me. I hope I always keep it light.

But I'm going to take this opportunity to give a shout out to the random people who have taken time out of their day, even if it was only seconds or minutes, to make my day better.

I have had a lot of help through the years. I hope anyone reading this can concur. If you can't think of at least three situations where someone has really helped you out... I'm sorry for you.

I remember a day in college, actually, just weeks into my first year of college, that I decided I was going to try rollerblading to school. I had gotten some blades and practiced all evening the night before, and I felt ready. There was this span of road that crossed interstate 94 on the way to school that never felt particularly sloped when I walked or drove over it. I never gave it a second thought until I found myself gaining speed rapidly while descending this hill of death. I tried to lower a heel to stop myself (I'm so much better at toe stopping on quads), but my legs began to shake. I knew I couldn't stop myself. The light at the bottom of the hill turned red. Crap. I reached out and grabbed the light pole, snapping my arm back and spinning myself out of control. I flailed wildly, skating every which way until finally flinging myself to the sidewalk on the other side of the intersection, landing on my back and sliding to a stop on my left elbow. My head slammed backwards against the concrete and I blacked out.

I have no idea how long I was out, but I came to slowly and watched not one, not two, but three people amble past me without so much as a glance downward. I felt like a leper beggar. I finally rolled to my stomach and lifted myself up onto shaky skates and rolled forward to a girl standing behind her car parked in the street. I started to ask if she could help me out then realized her back window was smashed in, a brick laying on her backseat.

I looked at her pathetically, blood streaming down my arm, then said, "It looks like you're having a worse day than me, but, could I trouble you for some tissue or something?"

She got me some paper towel and wet wipes out of her car and helped me to a stoop. We laughed at the absurdity of life. I took my blades off, thanked her and proceeded to class. (I sold the skates the next day).

Thank you random girl. Not just for helping me out, but helping me when you yourself needed some help. Awesome human being.

A few years later, I was helping another sub shop out by delivering for them on a Friday evening. It was summer and the temperature had to be in the high 90's. I was a good two miles from the shop, in a time before cell phones, when my Ford Taurus (the "Tore Ass") sputtered to a halt on a side street. I suspected that I had run out of gas, but really had no idea. At the time, I was a malnourished, dread headed thing in a white smock and a stocking cap (yeah, I totally sported the winter stocking cap in the dead of summer because I hated the baseball caps they wanted us to wear). I completed my delivery by walking the rest of the way up the block and passing the sandwich off to the deliveree then walked back to my car, completely unsure of what to do.

A random guy came up to me and asked if I needed help. And he, in all his very handsome buffness, helped me push my car to the gas station a full block away. I thought for sure I was going to marry this guy. But I didn't. I never even saw him again.

Thank you random guy. Not just for pushing my broken ass car, but for pushing my broken ass car in your nice clothes in 90 degree, 90% humidity weather.

More recently, I had Flynn in a pouch on my hip when I ran into Kohl's to buy a shower gift for a friend. I had procrastinated, as usual, and was running late for the shower. I printed out the registry, flipped through it and decided on on large item, and decided against a cart. The store was hot, so I stripped Flynn and me down to tee-shirts, carrying our jackets and his hat slung over one arm, the now wilting registry in the other hand, all while trying to prevent Flynn from reaching out and grabbing every bit of fragileness he could off the shelves in front of us.

I couldn't find the one big item I wanted to buy. I perused for a while and settled on two smaller items. I finally located them and started hustling for the registers. Now balancing all the aforementioned items, 26+ pound wiggling baby (who desperately wanted to get down), two shoebox sized boxes of tupperware type stuff and the registry papers, which I somehow fumbled. Papers scattered across the floor. Now I was sweating. I kicked them into a pile, cursed myself for just not grabbing a darned cart and knelt down to try to collect them. But there was just no getting closer to the floor. Out of no where, an older lady came running and said, "I'll get those! Oh my goodness you have your hands full!" She collected all the papers then removed her gloves and offered to put them in order for me. I politely declined, pointing out that I was done, and thanked her profusely.

Thank you Kohl's lady. They didn't pay you to be that nice. Without you, I probably would've kicked all the papers the rest of the way across the store to the check out.

Okay. Those are just a few specific stories. I really could name a lot more. Many can be lumped into categories; 'People who pick my son's toys, bottle, nuk, other discarded items up off the floor and hand them back to me' (of course they can be grouped with the people who chased me through the store or up the block to give me things he tossed out of the cart and I didn't notice), 'People who have held my hot coffee or tea while I put our coats on', 'People who have saved my place in line and/or allowed me to go in front of them because I only have a few things', the guy who bought my lunch at Subway after I didn't know they weren't accepting the punch cards for free subs anymore and I only had enough cash for the soda,.... Are there more? Certainly. Can I remember all the random acts of kindness? Nope.

So here it is. Thank you to everyone who has ever gone out of their way to make my day just a little bit easier. I can't remember every instance, and I'm sorry. I don't remember what you look like, and I'm sorry. I can never thank you enough for whatever it is that you did.

What can I do instead? I pay it forward. It's really an overused phrase, but, I stand by it. Any time I see someone I can help, even in the smallest way, I do it. Because as long as there are people out there doing those little things, even if it inconveniences them, my faith in mankind will remain, albeit a little shaky some days... okay, most days.

It's taking all of my strength not to start writing about the things that shake my faith... so many things... So, I'm wrapping this one up with this: Thank someone who helped you, even in the smallest of ways, by helping the next person you can.

Conversion

I wasn't always the crazy radical parenting fanatic you see today. There was a time when I was distinctly mainstream. Like, before I had kids.

Before I had Flynn, I really hadn't known any 'alternative' parents. Or maybe, that's like the guy who says he doesn't know any gay people.. I just didn't know anyone I knew to be 'alternative'. Of course I knew there were different parenting styles, but, I really thought there was one basic norm.

But, for my upbringing, breastfeeding was pretty crazy. My family scoffed when I said I planned to nurse.

I suppose a was feeling a pull towards the alternative without realizing it for much of my pregnancy, but being my first experience with pregnancy in general (not just my own, I really hadn't had any friends who had been pregnant while I knew them, and my mom's pregnancy with my kid sister is a vague memory). I got a reference for the OB I chose and went with everything my doctor said, without much question. (Other than letting her know at just about every appointment that I did not want a c-section).

We were really, really broke when I was pregnant. My doctor had told me that I probably couldn't get pregnant without medications so we just never worried about it. I lost my temp job at the end of April of 2009 and found out I was pregnant near the end of June of 2009. Naturally, I couldn't get knocked up when I had my $32,000 a year job in Minneapolis. I tried to get a job. I interviewed with several temp agencies, sent applications to everywhere from retail to office to warehouse and got nothing. When I started to show, I got a lot of "We'll call you in March or April" responses, although I insisted I could work temp jobs until my due date. It was very disheartening.

Shane's job paid well, but he goes on lay-off for the winter due to the nature of his job. There was a snafu with unemployment between Minnesota and Wisconsin and he ended up only getting $100 a week for most of the winter that a I was pregnant. I totally lost my mind over it.

We had to move in with my parents to save some money while waiting on this baby. I was so humbled. I hated telling people that we lived with them. Waiting on our first baby and we couldn't afford our own place.

I think, in the long run, it saved me a lot of headache. Looking back, had we had a place to live and money to spend, I would've spent the money decorating a nursery, buying all the requisite nursery furniture (although, it would have probably been second hand or otherwise on the cheap). But I had no way to see into the future and around 35 weeks pregnant, when we didn't even have a crib, or a freaking contoured pad for the changing table, I totally lost my mind. I threw a class five fit. HOW could we possibly bring a baby home to no nursery?

My mother in law bought us a pack and play with a bassinet. Which I set up next to the bed and waited, just waited to put my brand new baby in there. I would go to sleep at night with my arms wrapped around my belly, feeling that little guy within and imagine him sleeping next to our bed in that pack and play.

But, like I said, I was clearly feeling a pull towards the crunchy. Leaving my son intact seemed like the only natural thing to do. Then after a highly medicalized birth, I came home with a baby that needed to be held constantly. Seriously. Constantly. He hated his swing. He wouldn't sleep in the bassinet. I tried, for two weeks, I tried to get him to sleep in there. He would wake up within 15 minutes, no matter what I did. I was tired. I finally brought him into bed with us. He wanted nothing to do with the really fancy, unbelievably expensive floor gym (a gift we could have never afforded for ourselves). And his bouncer was really only good for holding him outside the open shower door for about four minutes, if I was lucky. He hated baths in the little infant tub, so I started bringing him into the shower with me. He hated his car seat and would scream as I strapped him in. I toted that thing around for about two weeks. It killed my back. He cried and fussed the whole time. And he was NOT on board for riding around in it at the grocery store. We ended up carrying him anyway. How on *earth* do people lug those things around with big babies in them? (I recently saw a guy with a big baby in a car seat on the cart and asked how old she was. Just shy of her first birthday. WHAT? I wanted to say, "You do realize she's capable of actually sitting in that cart, right?")

I held that baby all day long. I became really good at doing dishes one handed. Cooking one handed. Spreading peanut butter on bread one handed. I even learned to hold him while using the bathroom. I developed a kink in my back. And I started to feel really touched out really fast. I thought of all the TV shows and movies where the baby sat happily on the floor or in a play pen, or conveniently went down for naps on a schedule. I knew it was time to throw away all preconceived notions. I had no idea what I was doing. Some babies might be laid back, but mine certainly was not, and *we* needed to adjust, not him.

I figured there had to be a way to strap my son to me. I hated the idea of those Baby Bjorn style carriers. They looked really uncomfortable. I had picked one up second hand at a garage sale and tried it on, but it was so uncomfortable without the baby in it.. I figured there had to be a better way.

I started researching babywearing. I met a girl who is now a good friend, who helped me learned different ways to wear Flynn. I started with a Moby and grew to love wearing him. The stroller went mostly unused until he got much too heavy for me to wear for long walks. But now, at nearly 11 months and around 26 pounds, I still wear him when we run errands. Although he now will sometimes indicate that he wants to get down to the floor or sit in the cart.

When you really start to research babywearing and breastfeeding, you will inevitably stumble across pages that talk about a lot more than that. And that was it, I was hooked. I was hooked on Mothering Magazine, Peaceful Parenting/Dr. Momma, Dr. Sears... I read until my eyes went blurry. Things started to click. I stopped fighting my natural urges in parenting. It was such a quick transformation from struggling to understand how other people did things to realizing how much easier it was on me to just go with what felt right and what Flynn needed.

It was a quick transformation. Flynn was maybe three months old by the time we had swung fully into 'crunchy' parenting. I identified as an Attachment Parent until I realized eventually, API isn't nearly radical enough to describe us. But, in the end, I realize, we don't need a title or a group to identify with. We're natural parents. We parent instinctively. And while I might consult and reference certain books, studies and experts, we in no way follow one path specifically or to the T.

It doesn't mean that we're on Easy Street now. We still question decisions before we make them. We're still only on our first. We're still learning as much from him as he is from us. But, things come easier when we're not fighting to fit in with the mainstream way of parenting. Then I recently wondered, how do people do it?

Certainly, I have to wonder how some people make the decisions that they do with their children. And I won't ever say that our way of parenting, specifically, is the only way to parent. BUT, I do believe that some ways are better than others. When some people swear by certain tactics like 'cry it out' and spanking, I can't help but wonder what kind of a person can do that to their child.

And because we don't do things the way most of Western society does things, for some reason, we're often perceived as judgmental. Clearly, in some cases, sure, I judge. But, that's human nature. We pass judgment. It wouldn't be wise as a species not to judge those around us as appropriate for our children to be around. The word 'judgment' is taken out of context quite a bit, but it's little more than that: a judgment call. I think we can't help it. But don't worry, I'm an equal opportunity judger. I also judge people for other life choices. Well, at least I admit it.

I think what people don't realize when they are all up in arms about us 'crunchy' folk judging them is the kinds of judgments we face. Not just from our friends and family (and OH BOY have we been judged and criticized by my family...), but from mainstream society as a whole. Our points of view, parenting decisions, and moral convictions (religious or otherwise) are constantly under fire. Attachment parents are typically viewed as cooky, hokey, conspiracy theorists raising overly attached and needy babies. Rarely is a natural parent viewed in a very flattering light.

But, I embrace it as just another part of parenting. I suppose no matter how you parent, you'll be judged, so I figure we'll just parent the best way we know how and let all else roll off our backs.

Building Walls: The Mama Bear Complex

The moment I knew I was pregnant, I felt a very strong need to protect and nurture my baby. I was panic stricken for the first several weeks that I would miscarry. I reached 12 weeks and breathed a sigh of relief, until a few weeks later when I was reminded of my mother's miscarriage at five months, and Shane's friend's miscarriage, also at five months.

Although I knew it was normal, in those first days and weeks of feeling movement, to suddenly not feel the baby for a day or two, I would spend those days jugging juice and lying still, encouraging the baby to move, terrified he would not move again.

Even in the later months, I would awake at night to a still belly. I would wait in the dark for a few minutes, waiting for movement, before finally pushing the large lump near my right rib cage, happy to feel a nudge or a squirm in return.

After my son was born, I kept a watchful eye on him in the NICU for hours on end, often waking up to a nurse suggesting I head to my room to sleep in a bed. And since bringing him home, I have yet to go a single night or nap time without peeking in him, or waking up just to check on him, at least once, if not several times, just to be sure he's breathing. I would reach into the back seat to feel for a pulse while driving until finally putting one of those mirrors in so I could actually see him, although I still sometimes have to reach back, just in case...

Some decisions have come easily to me. Cry it out? Absolutely not. Not even a little bit. Wear him? Sure, sign me up. Circumcision? Nope. Not even up for debate. Cloth diapers? Yep, I'm hooked. Breastfeeding? No question. Cosleeping? Wouldn't have it any other way. Vaccines continue to be a tough one for me. I let them give him the Hep B in the hospital, then did some research. I find my medical training often pulling me towards the vaccine camp. My gut though, it just tells me it's a bad idea. It's a really tough line for me to walk. I hate that decision, but that's for another post, on another day.

It occurred to me, very early on, that I cannot protect my son from everything. In the womb, I couldn't see him to know if he was in trouble. I just had to rely on feeling him move. Once out, I couldn't even feel safe just letting him sleep, what about SIDS? How do you protect your child against something modern medicine barely understands? I can purchase a top of the line car seat, and make sure he is properly attired and buckled in, but, driving around with him back there is still very dangerous business.

As he's grown and become more independent, I've done a lot of reading and come to a lot of conclusions about his future and my (and Shane's) part in it. I struggle with wanting to be the kind of parent who trusts her children and allows them all kinds of liberties, and being the kind of parent who wants to keep her children close at all times.

In the days after Christmas, a few family members and I were sitting around the dining room table at my mom's house. We were discussing the proximity of level three sex offenders and checking out that website that you can check out your zip code (I can never remember what it is though.. the site, not my zip code... I've basically got that down).

I realized that I had never bothered to check that site when checking out potential rental homes. My heart was suddenly clenched with fear. What if we lived near one? A quick second on the site revealed that not only were we not living near any, our typical walking path doesn't take us passed any. Ahhh... Exhale.

I did vow, however, to always reference that site before signing a lease in the future.

My little cousin was recently telling the family all about the security measures at her school. Apparently, now all schools are on 'lock down' during the school day. Apparently, along with fire and tornado drills, schools now run bomb and gun threat drills. Not that this isn't a good idea with the past decade of random school shootings, but that it's necessary at all really puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Have I mentioned our son and future children will not be attending public school?

Although, it's not necessarily all because of the aforementioned reason, but definitely in part so. Lets just eliminate a hazard. If my children don't go to public school, there is no potential for them to be shot while at school.

Phew. Dodged a bullet (no pun intended).

Of course these are only a few examples. I hate that my mind is always racing with ways to protect my son from potential hazards, bullies, injury and illness.

Then I heard about the recent shooting in Arizona. A 22 year old crazy takes a gun with an extended magazine and shoots up a political event, hitting 20 people, and killing six, including a nine year old girl.

My heart broke when I heard this. Then I saw her picture and learned more about her. She was the president of her student council and went to the event because she was very interested in politics. Could've been me 18 years ago. But this girl was not just a face in a newspaper with a one paragraph bio, this girl has a mom and a dad who did everything they could to protect her, but never thought twice about sending her with a neighbor to see a congresswoman speak. And why would they?

Now a family is less their baby girl. I cried to Shane this afternoon. No parent should have to experience this. Can you imagine? Nine years you've nurtured a child, dreamt of their future, their wedding, their children. Everyone starts to think, at a certain point, "this might be grandma's last Christmas", no one thinks that of their healthy nine year old daughter.

But you can't keep your babies home in a jar. Because eventually, they're not babies anymore, and you have to trust them, and you really, really have to trust that not everyone out there is a bastard trying to hurt your child.

And if you can't control outside forces, no matter how hard you try, you can still feign some element of control, of belief that everything will be okay... At least for the kids' sake. And your sanity.

Then I read the story of a three year old little girl, recently diagnosed with neuroblastoma. What was a terrible tummy ache and a high fever, turned into a trip to the ER and some really, really bad news.

I stumbled across the story today when I scrolled down to a Bumbledoo post on my Facebook news feed. Admittedly, I rarely pay much attention to posts from all the random little things I've "Liked" along the way, but this one caught my eye, if only for the crocheted breakfast items pictured in the post (for an auction set up to benefit the little girl's family). I followed some links to learn the story about "Coupon Mommy of Three"'s three year old daughter. I read her blog posts. I read the Caring Bridge story. I bawled so hard, tears streamed down my face.

I didn't want to, but my mind really wanted to put me in her shoes. I could see myself in a hospital room, holding a three year old version of my son. I could see Shane, both of us with our eyebrows twisted up in worry, eyes watery. No one wants to be in that position, let alone imagine it, but it's almost impossible not to. Empathy is human nature.

I could barely talk when I was telling Shane about this one (after tearfully talking about the nine year old girl from Tucson). Three is just a baby. Not that it would be any easier on a parent to have a sick kid, no matter what their age, but three... It's just so young.

And as I'm talking to Shane about these things, weeping for others' grief, I realize, I cannot ever hope to protect my son from everything. I can barely hope to protect him from anything. I can do the obvious, and continue to follow my heart with basic parenting decisions. I can feed him good, whole foods and avoid toxins in his diet and through medicine. I can raise him with respect so that he learns respect for himself and others, so he understands kindness and sincerity. I can teach him that playing with matches is bad, the stove is hot, strange dogs are not to be trusted, ice is not always thick enough to walk on and tree branches aren't always as strong as they look.

But no matter what I do, I cannot protect him from freak incidents like the Tucson shooting, or other terrorist attacks, whether it's a mass shooting, plane hijacking or gas station robbery. I can't keep a drunk driver from hitting my car or cancer from infecting him.

I realized all of these things rather suddenly today. It hit me like a ton of bricks. How the hell have I walked around for the last 10 months, looking so closely at the painting, all I could see were the finer points? Something in these two stories today made me really step back and see the big picture.

My job only extends so far. My job is to love him, protect him however I can, then trust in the universe. And while I like to think I don't take a single moment with him for granted, I want to be absolutely positive that if something horrible should happen to him at a much-too-young age, I will be able to hold his hand and know, every day that I've been blessed to know and love my son were lived to their fullest, and that I have never taken a moment with him for granted.

The Inner Grandma

Hand embroidered blanket for a friend's wedding-Peacocks are a symbol of prosperity.

So I promised a funny story in a recent post and never got around to it. Luckily, I was scrolling through and reminded myself.

I told a friend this story while talking about my birth experience. She suggested that I add it to my post about my birth experience (Learning Curve) to add some levity, but I think I'll just make it a separate post.

I heard on the radio sometime around the time my son was born (I believe I was still pregnant) a comedian on the Bob and Tom Show make a comment about women in general. He said something along the lines of how inside every girl is a grandma just waiting to bust out. "You start dating this girl and suddenly she's embroidering and wants to have a baby, and you say, wait a second, didn't you have your nipples pierced when we met?"

Comedians on the Bob and Tom Show can be hit or miss and the show often takes a bit of a misogynistic turn, but this one made me crack up.

When Shane and I met, I had nappy dreads, approximately four or five items of clothing, and a lot of body piercings. I was once a very different person. My doctor at a recent physical noted from my history that I've "not always been the good girl (I) portray now".

That said, Shane and I have evolved together over the last nearly 5 1/2 years. Both of us still harbor the ghosts of our past, younger selves, but we have adjusted to family life.

I got my hood pierced when I was 22 years old. It seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. It hurt like a mother though and I can honestly say I remember that pain better than the pain of childbirth, and I won't repeat it. So, when the time came to pull out the barbell I'd been wearing for a few years, I was pretty hesitant.

In fact, I told myself, I would not remove it until absolutely necessary. I had ditched most of my piercings up to this point. My nipple rings gone when I first became pregnant simply because things were just far too sensitive and painful. I clung to my nose and hood ring. And one should remember, I had had this barbell in for nearly five years at this point and it was such a part of me I rarely even remembered it was there.

I planned to remove it, at home, with Shane's help, when I went into labor. Then I actually went into labor. I never gave that tiny bit of metal a second thought. My doctor had insisted that all my jewelry come out in case I needed a c-section. (It seems absurd, the things they make you do "just in case", like, go hungry.)

It wasn't until I got my epidural and a nurse and student nurse came to set the catheter that anyone remembered it was there. Neither nurse wanted anything to do with it but said it had to come out.

Poor Shane, armed with little more than shaking hands and some tissue, he went to work trying to remove the ball tightened with a piercer's pliers a few years before. Obviously, there were no pliers available in the birthing suite.

He did get it out after some time, and we all had a good chuckle. For the more experienced nurse, it was her first time this had happened. Perhaps a good reference point for the student nurse. I still have the barbell, but after giving birth to my son, I felt a certain aversion to my "birthing area" and avoided it (aside from general hygiene, of course) for a few months.

I embroider regularly, and had started that hobby maybe two or three years after Shane and I had met. I'm now learning how to knit. And when I'm cooking breakfast for my small family, in the aprons my great grandma made, barefoot in my kitchen, I have to realize my inner grandma is really starting to make a stand.

No Cutting, Thank You

Circumcision is a divisive issue, and one that I have my hands firmly planted into. The practice and the fact that it is socially accepted, medically condoned and legal makes me quite angry. But I didn't always have these strong feelings. There was a time when I just didn't see a point in it. Now I have lost friends over my views. There are a lot of "why we did" and "why we didn't" stories out there. This is my "why we didn't" story.

When I was a senior in high school, a friend told me her brother was intact (I'm not sure what the conversation was that lead to that fact being revealed). In my years up to that point, I had never really given circumcision a thought. My only sibling was my younger sister. It's not a topic that ever came up in polite conversation. She told me that her parents had made that decision because, in their minds, there was just no reason to do it. They must have had a progressive doctor, being the late 70's. Her telling me that planted a seed in my mind. There was no use for circumcision? Why do they do it then? What does an uncut penis look like?

Outside of one Canadian male 'friend' in college and an older man whom I cared for in a group home in my mid-twenties, I only knew circumcised penises as the norm. But, when I found out I was carrying a baby boy, circumcision was one of the first thoughts that popped into my mind.

I didn't broach the topic with Shane for several weeks, until I finally blurted out, "I just want you to know, I don't plan on circumcising our son."

He took issue with this. In fact, it became a point of contention for a good chunk of my pregnancy. His were the typical concerns a father has; his son won't look like him, what about being made fun of in the locker room, isn't it cleaner?, I heard it prevents HIV transmission...

His were the typical gross misunderstandings about circumcision.

For his sake, I hit up Google with some pretty basic search criteria. I came up with some poorly executed study that showed a slightly higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS in intact men. Regarding that study, even if it were true, I have this to say, "Correlation does not necessarily prove causation." I learned that in College Psych 101. Regarding that myth, I have this to say, "Safer sex practices prevent HIV, not circumcision." Sadly, because of this myth, adult men in Africa are now choosing to be cut because they think that in being circumcised alone, they are preventing HIV transmission.

(You can read more about the HIV/AIDS study here.)

I was able to quickly debunk the 'cleaner' myth. And I addressed the "he won't look like me" and "standing out in the locker room" worries like this: "If we were having a daughter, her vaginal area and breasts would never look like mine" and "If we cut him, the other boys would just find something else to pick on him for." It hardly seemed like a viable reason to cosmetically alter the boy's body, in case he might be picked on. As for the cleaner/STI prevention myth, I informed him we would teach our son proper hygiene and safer sex practices.

I did, at one point, pull out the big guns. Firstly, since we're not married, it was my consent, not Shane's, that the hospital needed to preform the surgery. Secondly, in the state of Wisconsin, it doesn't matter whether we are married or not, they won't preform the surgery without the mother's consent. So, basically, he had no choice. I had only hoped he would understand my reasoning for not cutting our son. I also pointed out very bluntly, it's his body, not ours. We really have no place in even having this choice to make for him.

Bottom line, that was why we chose not to have it done. What was the point? None. And besides, it's not our body.

At this point, let me point out that I am not against circumcision. Like any cosmetic surgery, every consenting adult above the age of 18 has the right to go to a doctor and have a part of their body altered. I AM against routine infant circumcision. That baby boy had no say in the matter. His signature was not collected on an informed consent, nor was he given the option of informed consent.

When my son was born, a lot was going on, I gave little thought to his penis, let alone his fingers and toes. He was taken away from me almost immediately. However, I can't even begin to imagine that if he had been born under the most peaceful circumstances, that I would have gone from awing over how amazingly beautiful he was to thinking "But, something's not quite right... Let's chop off his foreskin!"

So that was that. I left the hospital with a baby boy, perfect the way he was born.

It wasn't until I got home and started doing some real reading into what might have gone wrong during his birth, that I stumbled across information about circumcision. Information I hadn't stumbled across while researching it while pregnant. The more I learned, the more enraged I became that this practice has become an allowable, even preferable, part of our culture.

The more I learn, the more angry I become over this practice. This is the point in this post where we go from 'why we didn't' to 'why no one should'...

First, let's talk about the history of circumcision.

The United States is the only country that practices routine infant circumcision for non-religious reasons (Isreal is the only country that preforms it regularly for religious reasons, although it is preformed around the world for both religious and non, though on a much, much smaller scale).

It began in the US during the Victorian Era as a way to punish boys who were caught masturbating. Eventually, it became recommended to prevent boys from masturbating. Doctors at the time acknowledged that removing the foreskin resulted in a reduction of sensitivity. In fact, circumcision has been recommended as a way to prevent a whole host of diseases and malfunctions, more than any other 'preventative' procedure.

It seems, with every generation, circumcision 'prevents' something new. It started with masturbation and over time has come to prevent everything from epilepsy to mental retardation to HIV transmission and penile cancer. The everlasting favorite of medical professionals and other pro-circers is that it's 'cleaner'. Also, very much not true.

In fact, the foreskin is an ingenious piece of skin which preforms it's job well. When an intact male is getting ready to urinate, the opening at the end of the foreskin opens slightly to allow the urine to pass through, once the urine passes through, it snaps tightly shut. The myth about UTI's being less common in circumcised men? The fact is, UTI's are very uncommon in men at all. They are far more common in women. But, when a woman gets a UTI, she takes antibiotics (or, if she catches it quickly, a round of cranberry capsules and lots of water). Saying that we should remove the foreskin of baby boys because of the potential for a future UTI is like saying we should remove all appendices at birth because of the potential for appendicitis in the future.

Another common argument for the "it's cleaner" camp is that an intact penis is 'cheesy' and/or 'smelly', and that cleaning a circumcised penis is just easier. Firstly, let's address the cheese (the technical term is smegma). Circumcised men produce smegma, but more than that, women produce more smegma in their labial folds than men, intact or otherwise. Secondly, cleaning an intact penis is barely one step more than a circumcised penis. Once the foreskin detaches itself naturally (usually between three and puberty, although some can detach when the boy is still a baby, or not until the man is sexually active... more on that in a moment), all that is needed is for the boy (or the caregiver) to pull back the foreskin, rinse with water and let it go. (It should be noted that foreskin which has not already detached naturally should never be retracted for any reason).

I'm thinking, just from what I've heard about circumcised babies, that it sounds like a heck of a lot more work to care for a freshly circumcised penis during the healing process than an intact one takes over the course of a life time.

Before moving on, I'd like to point out one more reason against the locker room argument. The fact is, that all intact men have the ability to pull back their foreskin and closely resemble a circumcised penis.

Okay, let's talk about that naturally retracting thing. All baby boys are born with their foreskin fused to the glans (head) of their penis. When a circumcision is preformed, the foreskin is peeled away from the glans and cut off (A full 1/3 of the skin of the penis is removed, to be exact. This equals approximately 15 square inches of the full grown man's penis skin being removed).

That leaves a red, raw, exposed mucus membrane (much like the inside of your cheeks and lips, and exactly like the labia in women). It can take as much as a year for the exposed skin to karotinize. This is a process during which several layers of skin form to protect the sensitive area. Think about if someone removed your eye lids and left your eyeball exposed to the elements. What was once a moist, sensitive part of your body will now harden. Without the lids (foreskin) to protect and moisten the surface, it is left open, exposed to air, left to dry. Your vision would never be right again. In the case of circumcision, the boy's sensitivity is taken away. You don't even have to imagine this. Just think about when you wake up with a stuffy nose and your mouth has been gaping all night, think about how dry and leathery the inside of your mouth feels compared to how it feels normally.

I think what grossed me out more about the idea of that open wound was throwing that open wound inside a diaper. I can't think of any other situation where anyone would think it was okay to put an open wound in an environment in which it can come into contact with urine and feces on a regular basis.

What about religious reasons? Totally not valid. The historical tradition of circumcision bears almost no resemblance to the circumcision begun in Victorian United States. It was once a nick on the tip of the foreskin to allow a few drops of blood out, from which the mohel drank. It was seen as a sacrifice to humble oneself for God. Personally, this practice seems equally wrong, but, my point is only to point out that removing a baby's entire foreskin (typically without anesthesia when done as a religious ceremony) for religious reasons is just not historically accurate.

This list is not exhaustive. This is not all there is to know about circumcision. But, these are the things that stand out to me as the most commonly cited reasons for being pro-circumcision. In all the research I've done, I have never come across one compelling reason FOR circumcision. Over time, I found myself realizing more and more, it is a human rights violation.

I've heard people take issue with attaching such a strong connotation as 'human rights violation' to circumcision. But, I counter, marches on Washington have been carried out over less. The moment that baby boy's right to genital integrity was taken away, his rights were violated. Circumcision indeed meets the very definition of the term 'human rights violation'. That foreskin doesn't regenerate (although painful re-adhesion can form, another side effect rarely mentioned). There are no second chances.

Consider this, several grown men have filed law suits against the hospitals and doctors that preformed their circumcisions, siting a lack of informed consent. And they have won. That alone, in a culture with a massive fear of medical malpractice, should really get people thinking.

If I were born a boy, I would have been circumcised. And I would be pissed.

At what age does it become not okay to take your child in to be circumcised? One month? Twelve months? Two years? There have been cases of fathers trying to take their seven year old (in one case) and twelve year old (in another case)sons into be cut. Both cases went to court and in both cases the boys 'got' to keep their foreskins.

At what point does it become abusive? If it's performed by a medical professional or religious official (who by the way, are not held to any standards), it is deemed okay by society. But recently, a man was taken to court for circumcising his two sons at home (I believe one was an infant and the other a young toddler). He cited lack of funds as his reason for doing the surgery at home with a kitchen knife. The judge released him as innocent since there is no law banning circumcision of males, even outside the hospital, in our country. The judge was kind enough to point out that it IS illegal to circumcise females, and for that, the father would have gone to jail.

Three babies died in Infantino Slingriders. The product was recalled and banned from the market. Several babies have died in drop-sided cribs, so they were recalled and banned from the market. But, some 120-200 infant boys a year die from circumcision, and it continues as a legal, medically and culturally condoned practice.

How does a baby boy die from circumcision? Whether or not anesthesia is used during the circumcision, the boy experiences all the same bodily and hormonal responses. The heartrate spikes to 200 beats per minute during and for several minutes after the procedure. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is released in massive quantities, along with endorphins and adrenaline. The baby typically falls into shock within seconds of the start of the procedure. This is where you hear the old myth 'my baby slept right through it' or 'my baby didn't cry at all', because they are in shock, much as anyone would respond to a major physical trauma. Can you imagine the baby born with an unnoticed heart defect? (It is these responses that can also hamper a successful nursing relationship. Often, the baby is too traumatized to nurse or latch properly).

It takes the loss of only one ounce of blood for a baby to hemorrhage, and the loss of only 2.3 ounces of blood for a baby to die. If you can imagine, this is about two shot glasses worth of blood. The typical disposable diaper is designed to hold 15 times it's weight in water. Often, the loss of blood is not even noticed until it's too late. Most babies die within hours, or even days, of the procedure, not necessarily during.

For this reason alone, circumcision strikes me as a completely unnecessary risk. Why on earth would any parent put their child's life on the line for aesthetics?


Click here for a wonderful, to the point list of 'one liners against circumcision'.

One man sues and wins!

For a medical perspective: Not all doctors recommend or condone circumcision.

Death by circumcision:
CIRP
Circumstitions (For other complications listed on this site, click here.)

Ending Medicaid funding of circumcision (On average, in states where medicaid stops covering routine infant circumcision, the rate drops by about 25% within a couple of years).

Religious considerations:
http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.com/
http://www.circumstitions.com/Jewish-shalom.html
http://jewishcircumcision.org/info.htm
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/07/biblical-circumcision-information.html
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/circumcision-christianity.html
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/lewis1/
http://www.quran.org/CIRCUMCISION.HTM
http://www.quranicpath.com/misconceptions/circumcision.html