Sunday 28 September 2014

Man and boy time

Man and boy time: park, playground, walk in the woods. Packed off with water and snacks, sling, nappy bag. Maybe buying the boy a helmet.

Me time: garlic toast with avocado and two fried eggs. And (hot) tea. And chocolate with hazelnuts. While reading. Bliss! And what a treat! :-)

Friday 26 September 2014

First

First birthday. First child. First time mother.

My heart is full of pride and amazement at this child who didn't exist even as a bundle of cells just two years ago. He is so full of wonderment and delight with his world, curious to investigate and explore how everything works, whether natural or man made. He is full of excitement towards everyone he meets, wanting to feel their noses or poke at their eyeballs, testing out his theories and exploring new textures...or simple to hug or kiss those he loves or another child in distress. He loves company, happiest in a social environment, but we are, after all, social creatures. He loves bashing and hitting things to make music, to dance, to be lively and boisterous, but he can also be gentle, stroking cats with the lightest touch, a delicate nature reserved only for animals so far!

My heart is bursting with love for this little person who has already made such a strong and determined mark on his world and on those he meets. My independent little adventurer.

Happy first birthday, my beautiful son.


Delighting in the falling rain
Curious about grass blowing softly in the breeze

Wednesday 24 September 2014

My new life

Almost exactly one year ago, to the hour, my labour commenced, and so my new life began to make himself known.

I am so much more relaxed - and so much more physically comfortable, it must be acknowledged - than I was this time last year.

I was almost a mother, then, now I have just become a mother, odd as it may sound, but it has taken me almost a year to fully become a mother, to feel as a mother, to be fully and totally in love with my child.

What a wonderful gift we were about to receive this time last year. Odd to think I had never met him, then, and had no idea what his face would look like. What is now so familiar, was then so unknown.

Beauty

Came across a fascinating link - a journalist sends her photo around the world and asks them to 'make her beautiful' using photoshop. These are the results: http://www.estherhonig.com/#!before--after-/cvkn 

I found most interesting how little some countries changed her face...and how much others changed her (e.g. USA), but also how some changed her to look more like those in their own country - beauty for some is clearly defined by "looking like us" while for others it is "looking different". Beauty - a subject that gives me endless fascination, especially since becoming a mother and seeing beauty of babies through the eyes of their mothers.

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Investigations

Kind of self explanatory.

Today's adventures

Most of the day has been sleeping and eating, but we have a minor adventure/mishap.

Picture the scene: me standing outside in bare feet, no keys, no mobile phone, my child in his nappies and t-shirt in my arms, both of us waving "bye bye", the front door slams shut behind us and my friend has just pulled away from the kerb in her car...

...thankfully she spotted my horrified face and realised that my waving arms were no longer saying "bye bye" and she returned. Also thankfully, it turns out she is able to effortlessly scale back fences and was able to come in through the back door (also thankfully left open) and open the front door for us. So many small pieces of luck.

And she made us some delicious dark chocolate and ginger cookies. If luck were cookies, these would be luck too. :-)

What a lovely friend!


Monday 22 September 2014

An evening of comedy

Usually he poos once a day, early afternoon, before his afternoon nap. Today he did three and the third was just before bath time and I wasn't expecting it.

You have to understand that he *never* poos around bath time. Not since his second bath when he was just over a month old and pooed in his towel - that dribbly newborn poo that is bright yellow and trickles everywhere, so it dribbled down me and onto the carpet. Anyway, since then, he never poos around bath time. Except today, the bath beautifully bubbly and warm, all set up for a nice cosy wash, I took his clothes off while he stood next to the bath, and he held his arms in the air for me to pull off his top, and stepped out of his trousers once I'd pulled them down...and then as I took off his nappy, I saw a big brown lump stuck in his bottom...as I realised the only thing to do would be to remove it with my hands and put it in the toilet...my left hand up to the task (now covered in poo) my right hand rescuing the nappy he was about the throw into the bath...I somehow (did I have a third hand somewhere??) managed to wash my left hand while holding the nappy in my right, ran to the bedroom, chucked the nappy in the bucket, grabbed some wet wipes and a nappy bag and wiped the rest of the poo off his bottom before it managed to spread anywhere/everywhere, like the pink stuff in the Cat in the Hat Comes Back (I think it's that one)...success! Only to find he'd thrown his towel into the bath.

He's now asleep and I'm almost done. Just have to clean poo out of the sink, retrieve the wet towel from the bathroom, put all today's snot covered clothes into the laundry basket (because wiping his nose on me or him is better than in a tissue, despite my best efforts at explaining that tissue use would mean more mama-baby time, because I'd spend less time cleaning everything else).

And, very soon, a well-deserved cup of tea.
 

Friday 19 September 2014

I know my son

So the boy slept 11 hours last night, with a solid, silent six-hour stretch in the middle (11pm to wake up time at 5am). I was amazed, then realised it probably meant he was poorly...and indeed I was greeted with a snotty cough monster. I know my boy. When he sleeps 'properly' it usually means he is ill. He's now been 'napping' almost two hours too.

Health visitors tell me this is how he should sleep all the time, but a sign of a healthy child in our house is one who doesn't sleep that much. :-)

Thursday 18 September 2014

First tomato

Hurrah!

Clarifying my reality as a mother

Following a conversation with a friend recently, I've been pondering the issue of me blogging and posting my experiences online. It seems that (at least to her), I give the impression of my approach to parenting being exhausting and unsustainable. That I'm really struggling. At least, that was my take on her comments to me. And to clarify, the key elements, for me, of this approach, is on demand exclusive breastfeeding (for now, weaning also being baby led), co-sleeping and babywearing (as much as possible). It is also hearing my child's cry as a way of him trying (sometimes desperately) to tell me something and hearing it as a sound that should be responded to as if an adult were trying to tell me something (i.e. that I respond to immediately).

I had no idea I might come across as someone struggling in the depths and starting to drown. I have plenty of float left in me, rest assured! I still have no idea if this is a common perception from my posts. It is not my intention. I don't want pity - I don't need it. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me - yes, it was my choice to have a child, yes, it was my choice to take the approach we have taken (in some ways maybe harder than other approaches in the early years, though I am hoping it pays off in the long run!), but no, it wasn't my choice to have a child who is very demanding - he is wonderful, adorable, delightful, a beautiful soul, and I wouldn't change him for the world, but he is demanding and exhausting, wanting constant attention. Without yet speaking, he is as a child (as I was) that asks questions incessantly, without pausing to think, sometimes without pausing to hear the answer, somehow multitasking in hearing the response while thinking up and asking the next question. He gets bored easily and is intensely interested in the world around him - how it works, how to disassemble it. This is partly why I feel our chosen parenting approach works best for him - it calms him and makes him feel happy and secure and attended to.

Many things in life have, at times, felt unsustainable to me. Parenting is one of them. Some of them I could walk away from. Others I couldn't or chose not to. This is one I will never walk away from (except the occasional ten minutes to calm down or take a deep breath). A million times a day I question whether I am good enough, whether I can be the mother he needs, whether I take the best approach with my child to give him the best chance in life of being who he wants to be - not because I am necessarily unsure (though sometimes I am), but because everything in life needs attention and adjustment from time to time; a million times a day I also know I am the best mother he could have, I rejoice in his achievements and I laugh just because he is smiling or reaching up to me or snuggling or climbing over me with his spiky little fists and toes digging into my ribs.

If I give the impression I am struggling, maybe I am, or maybe I just need to share and hope for sympathy or support or empathy from others, especially from mothers who take the same approach to parenting as I do. What I don't want is anyone to assume I would do things differently. I have no desire to change how those around me parent and I am happy for them that their approach works with their child and for their family, but I don't want to be converted to their way of thinking or doing or being. I am not interested in parenting in someone else's style. This is my style. I can't do it any differently. What we do, works best for us. I am a fairly melodramatic person - at least, that is how the unkind might describe me. I describe myself as someone who feels intensely - the ups and downs are far apart. My approach to everything is deeply thought through and I am passionate about how I approach things - especially something as important as parenting. So please, don't get me wrong. Yes, I struggle (doesn't everyone?), but I am not drowning and I wouldn't change my life for anything. I am not always happy - this is not possible - but I am as happy as I wish to be with what I have. This, in my mind, is amazing.

Thanks for listening. :-)

Monday 15 September 2014

Words

He said "cat" today. Repeatedly. Starting with "ca", then "at" and finally "cat", quite a few times.

He was saying "cat" excitedly while stroking next door's cat. Nicely too, not smacking it like he smacks me.

This is his fourth word, after mama, milk and dada. Though milk is sometimes "meh" and sometimes "na na", presumably because I say "Let's go for a nap nap" then offer him the boob. Poor child confused by his mama. Must explain to him that "nap nap" is the sleeping bit, not the milky bit.

Friday 12 September 2014

Dinner

Salmon and pea risotto. Yum. Pak choi with garlic and ginger. Yum. And this. Double yum. Yes, it's jellyfish. :-)

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Feeding to sleep

Can anyone tell me why it's bad to feed a baby to sleep?

This was a recent post on a La Leche League page yesterday. I was asking the same question myself a few months back, when (it seemed) streams of health visitors kept telling me I shouldn't feed my child to sleep and that he really should have learned to self soothe by now (this was at six months!). My response was, "Why not, when he obviously finds it comforting and it works?" It still is, with my infant almost 12 months old. I can't for the life of me understand why you wouldn't use a method that works and makes everyone happy. He falls asleep usually with ten minutes or so (though sometimes up to half an hour after feeding, now he's bigger, with a little crawling around and flopping on his belly), but he's peaceful and contented.

Anyway, someone else shared this quote, which I also wanted to share here (it is apparently from this site: http://kellymom.com/).

"Breastfeeding is obviously designed to comfort and help a child sleep. Breastfeeding calms a child and can even help your child handle stress better when not breastfeeding (Beijers et al, 2013). Sucking releases the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) in both mother and baby, which results in a sleepy feeling (Uvnäs-Moberg et al, 1993). In addition, breastmilk also contains sleep-inducing hormones, amino acids, and nucleotides, whose concentrations are higher during the night and may actually help babies establish their own circadian rhythms (Sánchez et al, 2009, Cohen et al, 2012)."

I've recently been reading Attachment Parenting by Sears and Sears, which shows evidence that co-sleeping, babywearing (carrying baby in a sling) and on demand breastfeeding (which for us includes feeding to sleep), can help with all sorts of things, including preventing anxiety and depression (not just as children, but into adulthood), obesity, late onset diabetes...and in the short term, they all make baby happier, calmer, more confident, more secure and, possible counter intuitively, more independent...but only when baby is ready to be independent.

Another book I'm in the middle of reading is called What every parent needs to know by Margot Sunderland. This looks at the relative immaturity of the human infant (in comparison to, for example, other primates), including the immaturity of their brains. They are born immature, due to bipedalism and narrower female hips. Regardless of the hows and what you believe, human babies are born as external foetuses - they cannot survive on their own physically or emotionally. They don't have the physiological ability to self soothe, in terms of how their brains and bodies work. They need their mothers (and fathers) as an external regulator and soother of their emotions, because they can't yet do it themselves - and don't know how to either. This is exactly what I do as a counsellor (for adults who did not receive enough of this as infants, presumably) - I hold and contain their emotions for them, in a way, allowing through just to the limit of what they can handle and cope with and process, and allowing more to flow through once they are ready. A supervisor once said to me, as a counsellor, that I should empty my body of myself and become an empty vessel in which I can feel the other person. I am never fully empty of myself, but myself gets perhaps put in a little box in the corner of my mind and heart, so I can fully focus on the other. As with an infant, he cannot cope with the overwhelming feelings he experiences and so he gets into mini rages, frustrated crying, bawling with shock or fear...so I hold him and feel what he is feeling, and I help his body to calm and explain to him what he is experiencing and, by holding him and being soothing, I show him how to re-regulate his inner world. Leaving a baby to cry it out may stop him crying, but this is because he has given up - he has learned there is no point in asking for help (which is what crying is), because he won't get it. 

Anyway, I remain of the opinion that why shouldn't I feed my child to sleep if it works for us all? He's not even a year old. He still has so much to learn. He is still only very young, in the big scheme of things. 

If he were 18 and off to college, then we'd be having a different conversation! For now, I remain in full disagreement with all but one of the health visitors I have spoken with. That one being a woman from Africa who told me she carried each of her children on her back until they were at least one and helped them to sleep (by rocking or feeding) as long as they needed it.