Life in the Cheerios Garden

Now what?

2011-10-21T22:00:00.001-04:00

Some of you have noticed the sharp decline in posts over the past year. I've scarcely managed to put out anything. Why is that, you wonder?

Let's take a stop in at the Cheerios Garden and find out.

Rewind back to December 2007. I did that whole birthing thing on the last day of the year. A week later, my darling husband went back to school to work on finishing his Bachelors degree. He worked full time and took 1 or 2 classes every semester until May of 2010. It was difficult, but we managed it. We thought we had it hard then.

Over the summer of 2010, Andrew (that's DH) attempted to job hunt and interviewed all over the country. We had no idea what we were going to be doing in a few months. We had an upstairs neighboring family that repeatedly came home late at night and allowed their young children to use the Wii Fit at insane hours. We traveled to Georgia with our child for several days. And after enjoying all that stress in his first semester off in 2 and a half years, Andrew came down with shingles, hardcore, and spent the worse part of a month in painful agony.

What does that have to do with my blogging? Well, I kept up okayish during that time. I made some posts as I could, despite spending a good deal of my time picking up the parenting/household maintenance slack and being in chronic pain (n.b. I had been suffering from a spinal injury to my neck from December 2006 still).

And then in the fall of 2010, Andrew started graduate school. He disappeared even more from our lives. Shortly thereafter, my pain level had finally subsided, miraculously, after nearly 4 years of chronic pain. I actually had some days each week in which I felt human again. (That's also gone again; I was rear-ended again this May, with new injuries, and I'm still in physical therapy twice a week.)

And a couple of weeks later, Jackson stopped napping.

Guess which had the most effect on my blogging?

He was about 2 months shy of his 3rd birthday, and Jackson went from napping 3 hours a day while I rested and blogged, to zilch. To make matters worse, he sometimes would really need a nap, and I would let him take one.... If I woke him after a short nap, he turned into a gremlin. If I let him sleep a full 2 and a half or 3 hours, he woke refreshed and didn't feel the least bit tired until some time after midnight--at which point, I started turning into a gremlin.

This cycle continued for a few months. MONTHS. Do you understand how long that is? We went from a predictable, easy, daily schedule that was naturally maintained and preserved as sacred to this horrid cycle of unpredictability. There was no winning. No matter what we did, someone was going to lose, and it was usually all of us.

But mostly, and this may be me being egocentric, I feel like I was the one who lost. I lost my time to myself. I lost peace and healing rest. I lost my blogging hours. Right now, I'm trying to write this with Andrew sitting next to me, and I had to ask him to STFU and not interrupt. But I feel like a jerk because this is nearly 10pm on a Friday. It should be OUR time.

But it's never my time anymore. Ever.

I didn't realize just how little "me" time I'd been getting until about a month ago. I was scheduled to go for a moms' night out (MNO) with some other mom friends. And much as I love their company and our little infrequent gatherings (usually about 3x per year at most), there was this selfish little homonculus talking in my head, saying, "Don't go. Just find a quiet place to sit and do nothing. You'll love it!"

Well, I did go, and I really did have a great time. But what about me? Well, I took the advice of that homonculus, finally.

Last week, we went to a pumpkin patch as a family. It's a fairly lame one, so I'm told, but it has a bounce house and a hay wagon pulled by a tractor, which is plenty enough for Jackson to be content. The pumpkin patch, such as it is, gets held by the church on whose grounds it occupies each year. This was our 3rd year attending and the first time I'd noticed a "Meditation Walk" sign at the edge of a woody area.

I informed Andrew that my phone was left at home and that he was going to be on duty while our spawn enjoyed shaking his brains in the bounce house. And I went to explore this Meditation Walk place.

I was expecting more of a walk in terms of distance, but what I got was much better. There was a stream that was partially underground, partially exposed. There were dead tree branches suspended in midair by their living compatriots. There were enormous Tarzan-swing-able vines hanging ubiquitously. And I was all by myself. It was delicious.

I had no clock, watch, cell phone, computer, or anything of the sort. I sat and thought about my life. I thought about things that were making me happy. I thought about things that were stressing my brain. I thought about things I wanted to change or to be able to change. I allowed myself not to worry about my son. I allowed myself not to worry about my husband. For a brief span, it was just about me and how I felt.

Then I heard my name being shouted irritably, "Jessica!" I got up and brushed off the dirt and dragged myself back out of such a glorious place.

I'd had my 45 minutes. It was time to go back to the Real World.

I hadn't really resolved anything other than that I need more time to just breathe and be me. We have 14 more months until Andrew finishes his masters degree. I have forbidden him to even consider a doctoral program. Jackson will be nearly 5 when Andrew gets this degree, having known his father as a perpetual student and part-time figure in his life, his entire life.

What will I do when I no longer have to be a parent and three quarters? Will I write more? Will I meditate? Will I learn French (which I've been putting off)? Will I learn guitar? Will anything change?

I'll have to see where I am in another 14 months. Until then, I'm sorry for the limited posts. I know some of you have depended on me to demonstrate the grossness and absurdness of parenting. Some of you have even told me how helpful I've been by writing this blog. You guys are awesome. Seriously.

So please, baby, understand, it's not you, it's me. It's just that I've got this thing in my life right now, and all, and it's not that I don't love you, baby. It's not that at all. And if it really bothers you...come babysit my kid so I can get some writing time! <3

The Girl Effect

2011-07-27T22:05:00.000-04:00

This is a blog post that I wrote back in October of 2010, and for some reason, I never posted it to the blog! Here it is, in all its delayed glory!

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I spent a huge portion of my life involved in Girl Scouts USA. For those of you not in the United States, this is the same group as Girl Guides. Growing up, we learned a lot of delightful things about how to be empowered women. We learned about leadership and different skillsets that we could pursue. We learned self-sufficiency and a whole host of wonderful ways to be a positive influence in the world.

Yet, after watching the videos at The Girl Effect, I am forced to recognize that not everyone had that kind of background. Starting today, this page will be sporting the banner ad for The Girl Effect. Their message is simple: empower young women, and the whole world will benefit.

The simplicity of it makes it feasible. There are so many humanitarian efforts out there that overcomplicate the issue of how to help others. Even those who seemingly know that it's better to "teach a man to fish" rather than to just "feed him for a day", these same folks still often get it wrong. How can we help?

As armchair philanthropists, many people feel the simplest way they can help is to write a check or swipe a credit card. We don't all want to go to Bangladesh and get involved on a personal level. And what this site is telling us is that we don't have to do that at all. What needs to happen, they claim, is that we need to foster a situation in which teenage girls are encouraged to stay in school until at least 18 years of age.

There are myriad ways of making something like this happen. Funding a school, providing school uniforms for students who can't attend because of an apparel requirement, micro-lending, etc. These are just some random ideas off the top of my head. And if you don't feel like going it alone, get a group together of people who feel that the women of the world are a worthy cause and pool your efforts. It doesn't have to be anything formal.

Go watch the videos on the title link above (if you haven't already) and come back here.

Done yet?

Okay.

I'm going to make it easy for you to help others. My blog is really about helping parents to raise their children in the best fashion they possibly can manage. Parenting doesn't stop at your own children. And who knows? Maybe by helping children in other parts of the world, you'll have a net positive effect on your own child. It could very well be that you manage to empower and inspire a young girl to grow to be a future world leader that does many great and wonderful things to improve the world. And in the process, you can tell your child(ren) about the idea so that they can think globally as well. And you can tell your friends, so that maybe they will be interested in being proactive as well. And pretty soon, all those little efforts build up to great efforts with great effects.

How can you start?

Micro-lending is a fairly new phenomenon. It helps people worldwide to afford to start small businesses. Rather than just throwing money at a problem, you instead invest in someone who, in return, pays you back with interest. Here are some places that do micro-lending:

NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with these sites, nor have I personal experience in these particular ones. They were what came up in a Google search.

Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/ "We are a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world."

Accion: http://www.accion.org/ "Accion's mission is to give people the financial tools they need--microloans, business training, and other financial services--to work their way out of poverty."

Prosper: http://www.prosper.com/ "We want to connect people who want to invest money with people who want to borrow money."

And because I've focused on The Girl Effect, here are a couple other great links:

Women for Women: http://www.womenforwomen.org/index.php "Helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives."

Center for Effective Philanthropy: http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/index.php "The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) provides foundations and other philanthropic funders with comparative data to enable higher performance." [Disclosure: I have a friend who works at this company, and she LOVES her job. What a great idea for a business!]

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So, apparently I hadn't posted this last October because I didn't have the links, so now they are there. Enjoy!

Truthiness

2011-07-12T23:18:00.000-04:00

I've just had several encounters with a youthful personage (not my own spawn) that have got me thinking on the subject of honesty. So, given that it's on the brain, here goes.

I'm a big advocate of honesty being the best policy. Sure, sometimes, there are situations in which it is best not to reveal the whole extent of the truth (i.e. telling young children how long they will be stuck in a car on a road trip; telling a squeamish child the intricacies of how their sausage was made; revealing too far in advance details of plans for something really fun that have a very real chance of getting canceled, etc.).

Then there are times when it is inappropriate. Unfortunately, adults have a bad habit of teaching children to lie. We do it from a very early time in a child's life, and unless a great deal of care is taken, kids will perpetuate this handy trick and expand upon it significantly, refining and polishing skills at falsehood until fibbing becomes a well-practiced art.

How do adults do this? Well, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman actually discuss this is their book, NurtureShock. You can read their findings on the subject here.

And I quote:

Kids lie early, often, and for all sorts of reasons—to avoid punishment, to bond with friends, to gain a sense of control. But now there’s a singular theory for one way this habit develops: They are just copying their parents.

So, indeed, we are teaching them by example. And moreover, we encourage the continuance by our own behaviors. I know some of you right now are reading this and thinking, "Bulldoody! (You know you thought that word.) I never do any such thing, and I'm an adult!" But, oh, think again!

Let me ask you (as one perhaps ought not to ask a child):

Do you ever ask a child things like: Did you take Ava's toy? Did you hit Jeremy? Did you draw all over the wall with crayons? Especially when you know darn well the child did in fact do those things?

How about this: If the child says yes to any of those questions, do you get angry? Do you yell? Is there a punishment?

Riddle me this, Batman: What incentive is there for the child to admit to doing wrong? What benefit does she gain by this questioning process? She's more likely to lose by it. Every time. Eventually, some fragile little part of one's precious little snowflake snaps, and the untruthful homunculus saunters out and spreads the seeds of dishonesty.

Bronson and Merryman claim that the studies they read indicated lying to be a measure of intelligence, in very young children.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child’s paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn’t require. “It’s a developmental milestone,” Talwar has concluded.

So, is it a good thing that we teach our children to lie to us? Should I be pleased that my not-quite-3-and-a-half year old son is getting quite adept at making up stories? [A recent favorite: "My grandfather is fierce! He used to make toothbrushes!" I suspect this one was related to a dream, as it came just after he woke from a reverie.] I want to encourage him to write stories of his own, but then am I encouraging him to blur the boundary between truth and fiction?

On the other hand, one of the books on my Amazon Wish List is Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten. Up until now, my thoughts regarding the suggestions of the authors revolved around whether or not the activity would impede or improve my son's progress toward learning and loving to read and write. The authors assert that children should write books and draw pictures associated with the "words", even before they know how to read and write or even know their letters. This is a similar notion to one in the Tools of the Mind classrooms, which assert that even such young children who scribble fake writing will remember what they "wrote" and can "read" it back to others. By using such methods, am I helping or hurting my child's honesty skills?

Having read NurtureShock when my son was very young, I made early attempts to curb behaviors of my own and my husband's that I thought would contribute to the development of untruthfulness. Truth has been a big issue with me for most of my life. I'm not perfect, though: I still fib often enough. But I try to avoid an outright lie as much as possible. When I see a friend's child whom I am expected to praise, and to my own eyes, the child isn't anything my eyeballs care to focus on, I will not exclaim over how insane beautiful said child is. I've seen people make absurdly effusive comments on the issue of beautiful babies when there is clearly no such element to the baby in question. Sure, it's better than saying, "Hey, um, are you sure you put the right end of the kid in the diaper?" But isn't it also possible to make comments other than on the beauty (or lack thereof) of a child? How about how sweet, adorable, happy, cheerful, fun, playful, calm, rambunctious, fiesty, gentle, bright-eyed, quick, observant, mobile, strong, or clever the child is?

Bronson and Merryman talk about these kinds of white lies as a way in which parents encourage their children to lie. Parents look on their efforts as teaching children to be polite. But aren't they really teaching insincerity? How about instead, we teach children to find the silver lining? Or to tactfully tell the truth?

I am reminded of a rant I wrote several years ago (April 2003) in a vent of frustration about Being Nice:

It’s difficult to live the life of a nice person. You have to be caring and considerate and cannot voice the thought “Fuck you!” when you are upset. You have to listen and be mild, patient and courteous, even if you don’t give a damn or aren’t really interested in the effects of what you’re told. Being nice involves time and requires some amount of dedication. It’s often a falsehood, a mask we don to maintain the illusion as a return favor for those who similarly appreciate how it makes the other feel to believe we are nice, yet sadly the rarity of veracity in nicety, a thing of scarcity, is of a quality that may cause one to believe in more amity than exists in reality.
Hooray, huzzah for nicety!

The end result of this analysis was that I discovered a very key distinction between being nice and being kind. Being kind is honest. It's genuine. Someone is kind because of something intrinsic to themselves. However, being nice...well, it's an affect. If you have to be nice, it means you are not already disposed to be kind. It means you prefer to do something else, but for the sake of making life easier in some regard (possibly by not offending someone), you do what is needed to appear kind.

I read a lot of pre-20th Century fiction, and the word nice as it was used then is different from how it is used now. Niceness has changed in meaning a great deal over time. Women were "nice" with their apparel being arranged just-so. Manners were "nice," and "disaffected" and "disinterestedness" were good things.

So, if one avoids being "nice" and aims to reduce punishments that reward the parents with dishonest children, what kinds of consequences result?

The average Pennsylvania teen was 244 percent more likely to lie than to protest a rule. In the families where there was less deception, however, there was a much higher ratio of arguing and complaining. The argument enabled the child to speak honestly. Certain types of fighting, despite the acrimony, were ultimately signs of respect—not of disrespect.

Hmm. The child will argue? Well, I guess that's something different.... But is it a bad thing? A worse thing?

Consider what it means for a child to argue: one, we already know the child is being open with the parent. There is a certain level of trust there. Two, teens are developing their reasoning skills. To argue with a parent or another adult is to practice this newly developed surge in logical deduction. Three, children of all ages learn by testing their boundaries. Does no always mean no? How about when your back is turned?

If the child is arguing about a rule or a decision, it really is a sign of respect that should not be ignored. Some parents get this far and then mess it up by throwing out an ultimatum like "Because I said so." Some others prefer to wade in vagueries and hope the child gives up the pursuit. This is not helping the child to understand the reasoning the parent is using, so if the teenager cannot comprehend a sufficient reason to follow the rule or decision, he is far more likely to do what he wants anyway and try not to get caught.

From what I've read by those who have really studied the matters of parenting and child development, it seems like honesty with your children is the best policy. But only so much as they need. (For example, when your 5 year old child asks about things like sex, only answer the questions that are asked, and answer them honestly and briefly. No bees, flowers, gardens, or other confusing metaphors.) Ultimatums and waffles do not help develop your teenager's burgeoning rationality but rather fight against it. A child is much better protected against vice when she understands the reasons behind avoiding it. Because I Said So only teaches the child that she shouldn't do something because her dad is mean and won't let her, even though she really wants to do it. And dad just "doesn't get it". It's like throwing a crowbar into a relationship and dividing things between the overbearing authoritarian parent who merely wants to be obeyed (and cannot understand how the world makes sense otherwise) and the child who merely wants to be granted some power in her own life, to be allowed to make mistakes and learn and grow (and can't understand why her authoritarian parents never listen to her).

A waffle parent that just avoids conflict and never gives any kind of response is just as bad, if not worse. "Maybe" that never turns to a solid answer, never gets explained, never gets discussed becomes a source of frustration for a teenager, and disincentivizes a child from even bothering to ask permission. "Well, mom is just going to ignore the question anyway, so I'll just do it and hope she doesn't get mad later." This leaves the kid floundering, drowning, with no spring board for rational development.

Open, honest communication about the reasons (or most of them) for a parental decision will help the child to understand early on in life that his parents do not just randomly decide things--that there is a basis behind the choices parents and other adults make and this basis is often very important. Understanding, too, that arguments do not have to be detrimental to a relationship, can go a long way. In Formal Logic, an argument is merely how a position is framed for asserting something. The child can bring an argument to his parents without it being a fight. A conversation may begin about whether or not the child can stay the night at a friend's house. Rather than say "Yes, because that's okay with me" or "No, because I said so" or "Maybe......", a discussion of the idea and its soundness could result. "Well, if Mason's parents didn't have to go into work on the weekends, I wouldn't have a problem with it. How about Mason staying over here instead?" or "Not this weekend, because we have other plans/haven't met Mason or his parents and would like to do that first." or "Yes, but I need to speak with his parents first to discuss the details and make sure everything is in order before making a final determination." Whatever the situation calls for.

Let's help our children become the best adults they can be by helping teach them by example. Let's demonstrate honesty as an effective policy. Let's establish trust between parent and child by not demanding that our children curb their own feelings. Let's avoid pushing our progeny into situations where they feel compelled to dishonest responses. Let's cherish the ability of our children to come up with solutions to problems and share them with us, without considering such an affront to our self-considered superiority. Let's remember that the end-game of parenting is to have a fully-functional adult come out of the process and provide the tools that will help such an adult evolve.

And let's be honest: we're not going to be perfect about it!

In Which I Use Boating as a Metaphor for Parenting

2011-02-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

Avast, me hearties!

Ahem. First, a pet peeve: not all boating is about pirates. Yes, I have often fallen victim to the modern notion that sailors=pirates, but I know it isn't true. My own father has been a marine mechanic for over 20 years, repairing inboard and outboard engines on personal crafts. I grew up within a mile of the Gulf of Mexico, and as my father had his business based out of our backyard for many years of my childhood, my sister and I were often put in the position of having to go along with Dad while he went about his employment.

When you are 8 years old, and your father takes you out on a boat with an engine that needs repairing, there is a very familiar circumstance that often occurs. It's called, "Hold the wheel, and point at that shore." Then Dad hangs out fiddling around with engine-y things in the back of the boat (a.k.a. aft of you) while you hold the wheel, nervously aiming it faithfully at the concrete sea wall ahead, crashing through the waves at whatever speed the throttle was last set to obey. My dad liked to drive at uncomfortably (for me) fast speeds. There would always come a point at which a panicky, thin voice would escape my throat, beckoning, "Dad! Dad! DAD!" My half-deaf father would eventually respond and steer the boat into the channel, then abandon me or my sister at the helm again.

(Incidentally, he did this while driving, too. I can't tell you the number of times we were on the highway while my dad wanted to finish his latest Western novel and asked one of us elementary-age daughters to hold the wheel for him.)

Among the things I learned about boating was that the steering isn't the same on a boat as it is in a car (or my dirt bike that I had back then, either). Steering a boat, you rely on the rudder and propulsion, the waves and the direction of the boat, along with a number of other factors. It can feel like a frictionless environment, inspiring fear and panic because you can't seem to get a grip on anything.

Being a parent, one thing is certain: there is always a first time. And no matter how prepared or unprepared you may be, your own parent is going to toddle off to the background while you are left in charge of steering the boat on your own, like it or not. And that boat of yours will want to go its own way. Sometimes that's okay. Out on the ocean, there are huge, wide open spaces with a vast variety of locations. The choices are nearly limitless. But near land, near other people and structures, more care must be exercised. And even out on the open ocean there are dangers: predators, unseen shoals, storms, and a multitude of other, perhaps unpreventable or unforeseeable consequences.

Few boats will be guided precisely. They will slide and skid, and most with outboard engines will spend some time dredging and will lose paint below the prop because the boat pilot ignored the tilt/trim of the engine.

How does one pilot a boat? How does one get the boat to obey a command? Boats are not commanded. They are guided. The pilot's job is to provide direction and redirection. A boat cannot understand "do not go there". A boat can only comprehend, "Here is where we must go to be safe.

So, how does this relate to parenting? Well, imagine you are the one piloting the boat...and the boat is your child. When near to shore, the water is shallower and there are a great number of people nearby. There are also a greater number of islands and structures, etc. In other words, there are a multitude of ways to be in harm's way--or to put someone or something in harm's way.

Sure, you can go out to sea and avoid nearly all the obstacles, and sometimes, perhaps even a great deal of the time, that is practical. But you have to spend time near shore. And near shore, there are channels. If you know the area very well, you may be familiar with places that are safe to steer your boat that are outside the prescribed channel, but generally speaking, you'll need to keep your boat aligned between the posts where the ground under the sea is regularly dredged. The path most traveled is the safest path.

Some people do foolish things while out on the water in their boats. They get drunk or high and think that they can do the same things they can do sober. They get a bit reckless. Some get extremely reckless (and, potentially, wreck-ful).

Depending on how you treat your boat, a variety of outcomes are possible. Often, as I mentioned, people neglect to note the disposition of the engine. They end up doing some dredging of their own by not adjusting the tilt sufficiently when in shallow waters. Correspondingly, if you neglect to attend your child's feelings, particularly during stressful situations, scarring (both physical and emotional) can occur. For a boat, the problem is typically a wearing away of the paint on the bottom-most portion of the outboard engine. Sometimes bit of the metal are dinged from hitting hard surfaces on the ocean floor. But sometimes, in very bad situations, the propeller itself is irrevocably damaged.

Everyone is bound to get some scrapes and scratches along the way. We all have times when we are lost in ourselves and forget to consider the feelings of others. But our children rely on us as their parents to make the effort to consider them. Oftentimes, no one else is there to do so.

However, parents can sometimes develop habits of continually dredging with their children-boats. Perhaps it's a continual barrage of fault-finding. Maybe it's physical abuse. Could be it's the act of giving so much space to the child that there appears to be no parent whatsoever. And very often it's the continual authoritarian attitude that "I'm bigger and therefore I know better, and you need to listen to me and respect me because I said I'm right and therefore I am."

All of these parenting behaviors leave children feeling a reduced sense of self-worth and even have some seeking to do the ultimate dredge.

What I ask, then, is for you as the boater (maybe the vessel is only a loaner; the request is the same) to perform regular maintenance checks. How is the tilt of the engine? Does it need maintenance? You won't know unless you look. However, as my father the marine mechanic will tell you, all boats require regular maintenance. The reason? In our case, living by the ocean, he says that people do one of the most ridiculous things: they take an engine and put it in salt water. It is GUARANTEED to have issues merely on the basis that it is an ENGINE in SALT WATER. There are parts that wear out regularly and need to be changed (i.e. anodes, cathodes, oil change, etc.) or damage will certainly occur.

So do this: take regular stock of your child. Every day, make an effort to actually look closely at your child. You'll be surprised at how seldom you really do. Try to make eye contact, to ask genuine questions, and to LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS. This is regular maintenance. Attend to your child's feelings and desires without belittling them. Don't assume that just because the ground looks far away to you that the boat's engine won't strike it in a damaging way. Other people's problems are the easiest to solve--because they are not one's own. And children, alas, are in a position of near powerlessness. Empower them. Recharge their batteries by giving them your time and attention, even if you only have a few minutes of real connection time a day. Do it. You'll be happy with the results--and so will your child.

Other Blogs

2010-12-02T17:14:00.000-05:00

I've left the Circumcision post up long enough as my last post, so I guess it's about time I revisited and posted again.

I've got lots of ideas for things I want to post here, but I'm generally not a quick poster. I like to think about a subject for a good while before I make a post, to be sure that I say what I really mean. And also, I just get tired of clutter on the web. Making a blog post that is just some random picture doesn't really do it for me, and it's like cheating.

Anyway, I also run two other blogs, which you may not know. One is a literary blog called Becoming Salinger. I write what I feel like writing, when I feel like writing. Some of it is fiction, some of it is meta-commentary, some of it is more like a memoir--it refuses to be pigeonholed by me, and I like it that way.

But what I wanted to talk about was the other blog, which we've dubbed Schoolosophy. This is a group blog that I share with a number of my friends and acquaintances, all of whom are college-educated and many of whom have graduate degrees. In case it's not obvious by the title of the blog, it's a sort of forum we've generated for the discussion of concepts relating to education. Some of us are interested in started a school; some of us are keen on home school; all of us are interested in the present and future circumstances of education. We often post links to educational articles, school websites, or just general talking points related to schooling and education.

Today, I came across a link to a video that really irritated me and spurred me to write a semi-lengthy post at Schoolosophy on the subject. (To read that post, click the title for this one, and it will redirect you there. Or you can click here.)

Well, I just wanted to share that and point out that a large part of a parent's job is to help a child to develop mentally. Hope you like the post, and I'll try not to go so long between writing here; but I make no promises--it's the holiday season, after all!

Circumcision

2010-09-05T23:17:00.000-04:00

***Warning! This post is full of words your boss will not want to see on your screen! NSFW! I have, however, not posted any photos in this blog post, so for visuals, you're safe unless you click a link. Many links in this post contain visuals of male genitalia. You have been warned!***

***Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I'm just an educated woman who wants to share some rather important information about penises.

Congratulations! You've just given birth to a baby boy! He's alive! He's healthy! And everyone in the hospital keeps asking if you want to cut off part of his sexual anatomy!

Wait, what?

Circumcision (Warning! Wiki link has pictures of penises!) is the process of severing the foreskin (more penis pics on Wikipedia) from a male's penis. In recent history in the United States, a vast majority of the population received a circumcision as part of the normal order of things: Birth, wiener whacking, go home. However, lately, as young folks are starting to recognize the pointlessness (ahem) of circumcision in 1st world nations, a fairly recent and encouraging trend is emerging: Only about a third of baby boys born in the US are now getting their one-eyed snakes violated permanently by the knife.

By now, some of you are indignant. Some of you have stopped reading. Clearly I'm some uninformed person who can't understand the so-called benefits of a circumcised penis. Well, if you made it this far, please do continue reading. You may change your tune. Or you can have something to whine about later. Possibly to your parents.

Proponents of circumcision will tell you that it's "necessary" for hygiene purposes. This is utter nonsense. Millions of years of evolution did not produce a protective layer on a man's penis that was likely to cause his means of reproduction to rot off. The two main drives of all life are to survive and to reproduce. Consider that if this notion of the foreskin being unhygienic is true, men would have died very often of urinary tract infections or have been unable to reproduce and therefore not share their genes with the rest of us. But guess what? These men continued to breed so successfully that every man on the planet is born a tiny baby boy with a protective coating on his glans.

Oh, but you may protest that nature is an ignoramus. Men will get a greater number of infections if we don't mutilate their genitals, you say. And now the latest bit of trollop is that it's more difficult for men to contract and spread HIV if they have no foreskin. [Yet this has been shown to be untrue for men who have sex with other men (anal sex, to be more explicit).] The message of the notion of circumcising to avoid AIDS seems to be, "Well, we know that everyone is pretty skanky and ignorant about safe sex, so instead of trying something in the way of social education, we'll just give you surgery." Gee, great, huh?

For those of you who don't know, the foreskin is a sort of skin organ on the head of the penis (boy, there are a lot of explicit words in this post; penis, penis, penis!). It's a natural extension with no obvious endpoints or dotted lines which indicate to "cut here". Those of you who see your wang's head when your penis is soft have had your tallywacker whacked. (I share this because I've discovered that even many college males are unaware of their circumcision status and are afraid to ask.) Before you were circumcised, you had a foreskin that acted like a little tent just for your trouser snake. Many men have a ring imprint or embossing (if you will), below the base of the glans (penis head). If I had a guess, it's scar tissue or granular tissue, but your doctor could tell you that.

I'm quite well acquainted with the circumcised penis. And before meeting my darling husband's genitalia, I was admittedly nervous about the prospect of interfacing with an intact foreskin. I wondered if it would be icky. After all, most men get rid of that "unnecessary" bit of skin, don't they? So, let's talk about this fear.

The general conception many parents have is that the son's penis should be made to look like the dad's. We actually spoke with one nurse at the hospital (who applauded us for not wanting to get Jackson's dong damaged), who told us a horrific story about her own daughter. Apparently after several years, she had never accepted that the original circumcisions done on her 2 sons were good enough because they didn't look enough like their father. So at ages 6 and 8 years, she had them redone. I hope these boys later sue for emancipation from their parents. They are doomed, otherwise.

Please just consider for a moment how relevant it is whether or not your son's penis looks like his father's. You done yet? It's ridiculously silly, isn't it? I mean, what, are they meant to have some competition later in life where someone tries to determine whose is whose by photographs? My only guess on this one is that, like my former self, these moms and dads who are ignorant of the experience dad underwent as a newborn are wanting to do what they think is best for the child by trying to make his genitals as appealing as possible to the opposite sex. Follow me now to the next paragraph.

You'll have noted by now that the man whose phallus initially intimidated me to even consider is now my husband and that I have opted not to have my own son circumcised. What changed for me? Well, I discovered that a natural ball buddy (I had to look that one up on a list of synonyms; I'm running a bit dry) was not only not scary, but it turns out to be a lot more fun.

Fears I had: Oral sex: would it taste icky? like trying to mouth a flaccid man-cannon? Would it feel different in a way I didn't like inside me? How would I know how to hold it and treat it? Would I be more likely to get an infection? Would I need to help clean it? How?

So, let's talk about erections. (If I don't talk to you about erections, who will?) In the "standard" butchered gear of the modern man, the head of the penis is always exposed. When a natural penis is erect, it looks (and tastes) virtually indistinguishable from the chop-shopped sort. The head may actually be softer and smoother for the man with his penile protector intact. However a major difference is present when stroking is performed. The man with a severed foreskin requires some form of lubrication in order to perform duties on himself. Snipped men resort to all sorts of measures, from saliva to lotion to soap to apple pie to I don't want to know what else in order to smooth out the experience of jacking off. For a man to receive a hand job, it's more of the same. (Yes, some circumcised males can successfully masturbate without the assistance of foreign objects, but it's less common. In fact, mitigating a man's ability to masturbate is one of the main reasons circumcisions are performed in the world.) However, the normal cock is perfectly capable of being stimulated without additional aids. The foreskin slides with the hand in a smooth motion, gliding over the head (man, this sounds like a porno, not a parenting blog!) and transitioning back down to cover the shaft. It's a fluid motion that involves no chafing and requires nothing but a practiced hand. Or, I suppose, a willing vagina.

Now that I've mentioned the V-word, let's head on down there. With the fashionably scarred dick, a woman's vagina (as opposed to a man's? sheesh) must be thoroughly lubricated. This isn't strictly a bad thing. But when you just want a quickie without a lot of foreplay or spitting on hands or KY, it can be frustrating. However, the original model requires far less lubrication when Tab A is inserted into Slot B. The handy dandy foreskin can be thanked for smoothing matters over and acting as a sort of diplomatic emissary in foreign lands. Ladies, you'll love it.

Men, so will you. Or you would, if your parents didn't ignorantly snip off your bed snake's hat (thank you again, thesaurus). Your meat thermometer is a much more sensitive apparatus when all of its nerve endings are intact. However when doctors barge in demanding that "it must be done", and parents are of the mind that you're "just going to have to deal with it", some of the most sensitive parts of your body are removed before you are even old enough to know what to call those jerkwads who are always hanging around your crib, fawning over how cute you are. In time, your body heals and your brain develops and grows and eschews unnecessary information from the formative days. So you have no recollection of how it felt or could have felt before nature's efforts were thwarted by modern science. But consider: if all those highly sensitive nerve endings in your third leg had not been severed, you might be capable of sensing a great deal more physical pleasure.

If you'll allow me a moment to cite Wikipedia: (Warning! There are photos of penises on this wiki link! Also, prepuce is used in lieu of the word foreskin.)

Taylor et al. described the foreskin in detail, documenting a ridged band of mucosal tissue. They stated "This ridged band contains more Meissner's corpuscles than does the smooth mucosa and exhibits features of specialized sensory mucosa."^[3] In 1999, Cold and Taylor stated "The prepuce is primary, erogenous tissue necessary for normal sexual function."^[2] Boyle et al., state that "The complex innervation of the foreskin and frenulum has been well-documented, and the genitally intact male has thousands of fine touch receptors and other highly erogenous nerve endings—many of which are lost to circumcision, with an inevitable reduction in sexual sensation experienced by circumcised males."^[18] The AAP noted that the work of Taylor et al. "suggests that there may be a concentration of specialized sensory cells in specific ridged areas of the foreskin."

Nerve endings! This post is getting long, so I'm just going to tell you to go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_effects_of_circumcision and assume you can sort out the intent of that link.

With a last little parting plea, I insist that whatever your position is at this point you make an attempt to visit
http://www.intactamerica.org/ and watch the video with Dr. Dean Edell on Circumcision. (At press time, the video is on the bottom of the main page of that site.) It's a very informative video, and if you know anyone at all who is considering circumcision for their newborn son, PLEASE have them watch it.

In doing research for writing this blog post, I learned some interesting facts. One of which is that the majority of the world's circumcisions are performed around adolescence. What this tells me is that in other cultures (primarily, it would seem, Muslim) the right of the male to choose the status of his penis is retained by that male. Moreover, because he is an adolescent, his foreskin would be fully retracted and thus not nearly so dangerous or insidiously painful to remove. I'm not saying it would be any kind of picnic, because there would still be all those nerve-endings with which to contend. However a boy of 12 years is much more capable of understanding the situation than a boy of 12 hours or 12 days. So, if you are concerned that your son might decide later that he so very much wishes to have a more difficult time masturbating, be assured that he can still retain that option at any age. Preferably when it's his choice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, carefully consider the message I am attempting to convey, and look at the links I provided. And just in case you need me to say it one more time....PENIS!

P.S. And I didn't even cover the horrid notion of female circumcision. You may find yourself very angry reading that link.

The Grossness of Parenting

2010-08-27T23:14:00.003-04:00

People talk about the joy of having a new baby. They talk about their pride in the child's first steps. They emphasize cheerfully the good grades and high school and college diplomas. But there is a dark side to parenting that often goes ignored.

Yes, I'm talking about poop, and its relations in the bodily functions family. Children, particularly below age 4 years, are horribly disgusting creatures. We mistake them for being human beings because they look sort of like us. I assure you it is a ruse. Children do not really become civilized or human until at least 4 years of age. Right now, you may be thinking, "Oh, she's full of it. I know of at least one or two kids who don't fit her overgeneralized statement." Their parents lied. If you are the parent, you lied to yourself. Or your forgot, due to the trauma of the experience.

When first most people learn they are with child, it's usually one of two ways: through pissing on a stick or excessive vomiting which induces them to piss on a stick. (I do acknowledge that the first often occurs by a surprising lack of seemingly pointless bloodletting on a lunar basis. Because of the strangeness of the female body suddenly NOT being gross and unwieldy, women become suspicious and suddenly desire to urinate on their hands to check for alien invaders.) It's kind of gross, and the vomiting can stick around a long time. Some moms actually experience morning sickness for the entire duration of a pregnancy. Isn't that a joy?

As I also outlined, and my darling husband Andrew phrased so eloquently, the female body's pH can alter and cause "cock rot" to result after a man has intercourse with a pregnant woman and does not wash immediately afterward. (This is not true for all cases.)

And then there's birth: a gruesomely painful, often deadly experience in which a Cadillac tries to drive into a parking space intended for a motorcycle, metaphorically speaking. For some of us, that Cadillac is an Escalade. Anyway, it's a gory, bloody, flesh-tearing, mucous-spewing, sweaty, and sometimes vomitous experience. And if you're really unlucky, mom and/or baby has a bowel movement in the process, further complicating matters.

Oh, but the little dear is so cute and "tiny" and makes the most adorable little faces. Ah...wait, he's...oh, yeah, he's just shat in his diaper. It's your turn to change it.

For the first few months, on a liquid diet, baby poop can rocket out the back of the diaper to shoulder blade level. (I have photographic evidence.) In some bouncing bundles of joy, iron-fortified baby formula can cause serious unpleasant side-effects like projectile vomiting and projectile poop. At least one little boy who shall remain nameless (*cough*mynephew*cough) fell victim to this experience as a baby and fired off some blasts from his changing table that hit the wall over 4 feet away. But don't worry, whatever didn't hit the wall landed in his crib.

Things start to settle down a bit after baby starts on her solids. Her poops (while more disgusting in odor and consistency) are seldom spewing out the back of her clothes onto her car safety seat's fabric. She's just always covered in baby food somehow now. But look how cute she is trying to walk! No, don't touch that! It'll fall and break--

Eventually, parents get tired of changing diapers. They start to think that maybe it's time the child took matters into his own hands. Aheh.

And then, the poor fools, they allow children access to their own privates. We call this "potty training". Some people affectionately deem it "toilet learning". At this point in the process, I'm referring to it as the perfect justification for buying that Bissell SpotBot for the carpet.

Do I dare to share with you the experience of potty training thus far? I think you will have to wait. I'm still too traumatized after having to inform the restaurant tonight that my son shat on the floor under the table and smeared it on the seat on his way back up. But don't worry, we got our fair share of clean-up work to do on him in the parking lot afterward. Maybe someday Bissell will invent the SpotBot for cleaning fecal matter off toddlers in public places.

So, I say to you, children are disgusting, filthy creatures. In part, I blame the way we raise them. After all, if we never used diapers, and didn't have to worry about furniture and flooring (and disease), we'd have been more like our ancestors in finding ways to avoid many of the problems modern parents face. But as it is in our modern society, we are left to muck about in the mire that is child-rearing.

[Seriously, I love my kid. I just don't believe he's human yet. I'm hoping he will be by age 5. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will ya?]

Where have you been?!

2010-08-24T15:16:00.000-04:00

So, I know I haven't posted since May. I'm not dead. I haven't lost interest in the blog. But I did lose interest in the stuff I'd been posting to the blog. Turns out that I'm bored of doing toy reviews. Much as I'd like to continue to share them, I gotta take a break from them for a bit.

Besides that, life's been pretty crazy here in the Cheerios Garden. My mother and stepdad were both in hospital since my last post, and we've taken several trips this summer to see them and other family. My darling husband Andrew has also been trying to do his wonderful best to make use of his newly acquired bachelors degree (Manufacturing Management with an emphasis in Quality). His search included locales both domestic and abroad, and finally culminated in a promotion at his current company. This could not have happened at a better time as Andrew begins graduate school at The Johns Hopkins University this fall in an online program for a masters degree in Systems Engineering. We've also been planning to move at the end of our lease regardless. (Ironically, I just got called by the office now to schedule a walk through of our current place.)

So, why haven't I been posting? Surely I'd have some time, right? Well, back in February, our upstairs neighbors changed out from the previously only moderately irritating couple of young men with stompy feet to a family from South Korea with 2 children and limited skills in English--and no apparent need to sleep EVER. I gave them a month after they moved in before I said anything to them about the noise. I wrote a letter which I posted on their door, figuring that they may have an easier time understanding my intentions if they had time to read and process them--or put my words through a translator. The mother, Sook, acknowledged receipt of it cheerfully and for the next 2 weeks, things were pretty good. Well, then I guess Spring Break occurred, and after that, they were back to making noise of all kinds at all hours.

About now, I should explain the sleep situation. We live in a large apartment building, by Florida standards. I have a neighbor above me, a neighbor below me, and the unit adjacent to ours is the model unit which also rents out as a guest suite for residents' friends and family. Occasionally, I hear the downstairs neighbors playing piano. This is beautiful and lovely and not in the least disruptive. Every once in a while, their young son throws a tantrum and is made to sit outside their open front door while he screams his head off (also in Korean; we have an astonishingly large population of South Koreans and Japanese living here). But it's rare and during acceptable hours, so no big deal. We also try to respect them as our downstairs neighbors by being quiet during sleeping hours for children. Given that we have a child ourselves, this is something we recognize as important.

To help Jackson sleep, we gave him the master suite. While his window is the one exposed to the sounds of parking lot traffic, it also is the most insulated for sound from any other location. We have dark curtains on his windows to mitigate the street lamps outside his windows. We use a white noise generator (a sound machine) on full volume, and when he goes to sleep, we retreat to our bedroom for the evening. Jackson is a fairly good sleeper, but he's also a light sleeper. Certain noises wake him readily and cause him to be scared, now that his imagination is fairly active. He sees faces and turtles and fish in the curtains and claims fears of all sorts of bizarre things. However he was never afraid of the dark or the curtains, etc. until the upstairs neighbors moved in.

From what I gather, they have a Wii system set up in the living room of their unit upstairs, just outside the master bedroom. And their 6 year old son likes to jump like any other boy (and many girls) in his age group. When he jumps, not only does our ceiling shake, but our floor shakes as well. And from what I can tell, he has no enforced bed time, especially not in the summer.

So once school let out for the summer, not only were the children no longer on anything resembling normal hours, but the father, who teaches at the university, did not work this summer, so the entire family was keeping odd hours. They were often stomping about until after midnight--and up again just after dawn. Jackson's sleep was so often disturbed by all the noise (and it scared him so much), that we were having to help him fall asleep 3 to 5 times a night, every night, for a couple of months. I had made other complaints in person to Sook, but nothing really seemed to result from them. Finally, I knocked on her door at 11pm. My floor was shaking so much from her family that I was afraid my own downstairs neighbors were going to come knocking.

Sook answered the door looking very confused and offered for me to come in before realizing that I wasn't just there for a visit. Every light in the apartment was on, and I could clearly see her son and daughter romping playfully about the living room while the husband slinked off into a hiding place. I calmly but firmly told Sook that her family needed to be quieter. And then I got my favorite response from them, the one I always get: "We just got back from out of town!" The previous time she used this excuse, they had been gone for about 2 weeks. Jackson had just finally gotten used to being able to sleep uninterrupted again by the time they got back and ruined it. Apparently they have done a lot of traveling this summer on the same weekends as ourselves. However I explained to Sook that I didn't care that they just got back, and that I was WELL aware of the fact they had just gotten back because of all the sudden door slamming and luggage dropping, but that it was irrelevant to my interests as someone who did NOT just get back from being out of town and had a family who was desperately in need of sleep. I explained that my son was losing more than 2 hours of sleep at least each day due to the rudeness of her family. I told her that they were very loud and inconsiderate at late and early hours--and didn't even bother to bring up naps!

And then I got her response: "Your son is...how to say...he is too sensitive." I told her that he is NOT too sensitive when there is that much noise and that he was terrified of going to bed ever since her family moved in (which is completely true: he became afraid of the dark just after they arrived). He's not just unwilling to sleep but terrified of being in his room with that scary booming noise. She reiterated her belief in his oversensitivity, and I informed her that I would be filing a complaint with the office.

The following morning, I called the office, who told me they would "put a note on their door" with the hours of 10pm to 8am being explicitly stated as quiet hours. Well, something must have gotten through, I judged, because for the next 2 weeks we had very few issues with noise. I ran into Sook at the stairs and thanked her for her efforts to keep things quieter. She told me that she had felt so bad the night we had spoken last that she had been unable to sleep. I informed her that I hadn't slept that night either (though I'm sure my reasons were a bit different, as the injured and angered party). She said it was very tiring and frustrating because her family was home ALL THE TIME and gave her no peace. Ironically, my family suffered exhaustion on a continual basis because SHE was too tired to deal with her own. Of course, she didn't tell me this until after we'd already put in our 60 day move-out notice.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Jackson and I had gone to visit my in-laws, just the two of us. (Apparently Andrew's coworkers think this is weird. My response back was that with us not owning a television, I don't learn social norms like "you're not supposed to like your in-laws". My bad?) He failed to nap for 4 days in a row, at which point I decided to head home. He zonked in the car, and that night, around 3:30am, he woke up screaming. There was some kind of music playing that seemed to be coming from above.

The music had a deep bass to it and played all night and all day the next day. I complained to the office, thinking it was the upstairs neighbors, and they promised to "put a note on the their door". It wasn't until the evening that Andrew finally determined that the very regular beat was the white noise machine on the baby swing in our outdoor storage unit, which had somehow activated itself. I went upstairs to apologize for making the false complaint. However I'm not sure they accepted it because ever since then, the noise has returned.

At least we move next month!

Second Year Toy Review, Part I

2010-05-19T12:00:00.166-04:00

Cons: Despite that I want to trust Melissa & Doug as a brand, my really big issue with them is that their stuff is manufactured in China. Nothing against the Chinese, but they really do not hold their manufacturers to high enough standards, so I put the age here at 18 months+ because "just in case" I'd rather not have recommended to you a toy that may contain toxic chemicals if your child is still at an age where everything goes in the mouth. (After initially writing this section, I discovered this statement on the Melissa & Doug website regarding the safety of their products.)

Knowing that children are really interested in mobility during the second year, it makes sense that some of their favorite things after turning a year old are things that involve using their newfound ability to get around. Toddlers are also increasingly fond of doing whatever it is they see older people doing. Eating big-people food and manually manipulating objects (i.e. using fine motor skills) are two of the biggest things they see us do. Below are some toys that can help encourage the new toddler in developing these skills.

Lever Box

Price: Less than $20
Size: Medium
Age: 9 months+
Durability: High

This particular version is made by Playskool. It comes in all different colors depending on where you buy it: ours is purple.

Pros: Teaches children how to manipulate various common levers: turning dials, flipping switches, rocking switches, pushing buttons (though many kids seem born knowing how to push buttons), and sliding switches. When the child successfully manipulates the lever, a surprise springs up. The child learns cause and effect this way, and also learns a very basic understanding of having to reset the game by closing the compartment for the surprise (usually an animal figurine). Makes your child giggle with delight when she is successful.

Cons: Your child may become a little too adept at things like unlocking the deadbolt or doorknob on your front door, turning off switches on power surge strips, or reprogramming your electronics. Yet another plastic toy, but it's a very durable one that can handle a fair bit of smacking about.

Educational Value: Great for developing fine motor skills. Helps demonstrate cause and effect in a more real and mechanical sense (as compared to electronic toys).

Play Tunnels

Price: Varies $20 - $40
Size: Large
Age: Crawling+ (Manufacturer recommends 3yrs+)
Durability: Medium

Pros: Can be used indoors and outdoors. Helps promote active play. Flexible and easily positionable. Stores easily in smaller form.

Cons: Spring form can lose shape if used too roughly. In less-rugged brands, metal ends of spring can break through fabric and pose a scratching risk. (I recommend the brand I have pictured and linked to, as it has held up well despite rough use by older children, though the coils are not fully round.)

Educational Value: Promotes gross motor skills. Helps child learn to recognize perspective variances, e.g. Mommy can't see me, but I can see her!

Pretend Food: Fruits and Veggies (Melissa & Doug)

Price: $20/set

Size: Medium (set)

Age: 18 months+

Durability: High

Pros: Familiarizes kids with foods. They can play with the fake stuff rather than the stuff you want them to eat. The Melissa and Doug brand foods are much more durable than most pretend foods and look more realistic in size. They also feel very similar in texture to the foods they copy. All pieces are large enough not to be choking hazards.

Educational Value: Great for initiating pretend play in a way your child can understand. She can cook for you, feed you, show you how she likes to eat her corn, and clean up afterward. Helps develop imagination while subtly promoting healthy food choices!

Knob Puzzles

Price: $10

Size: Medium

Age: 12 months+

Durability: Very High

Pros: This particular puzzle pictured (by Melissa & Doug) is one that I have. I have seen this same puzzle in the house of every other toddler my son's age. It's that great a puzzle. It's made of hard wood, it only has 5 pieces. The backgrounds behind each piece exactly match the piece. Each piece can be fitted into its proper spot in more than one orientation, so the child feels more success. Big wooden knobs on top help the child to control the piece.

Cons: Not easily stored. There are puzzle storage racks available, but many already come with puzzles of their own or do not accommodate so large a puzzle, particular with the knobs on top. The pieces are also rather painful when your child throws them at you.

Educational Value: Develops fine motor skills. Helps children learn to sort by shapes and colors. Promotes focus and concentration on a task.

Toy Review: Toys for the Second Year

2010-05-12T14:30:00.000-04:00

We've already covered some great toys for the first year and general attributes of toys that are appropriate for those under 12 months of age. The second year is full of wonderful amounts of physical and mental development, so of course we can expect all sorts of new toys to correspond to the burgeoning skills of a toddler.

Around the end of the first year or shortly after the start of the second year (i.e. around the first birthday), most children begin walking. My son wasn't necessarily a prodigy for beginning to walk unassisted at 9 months, nor is any child necessarily deficient for delaying this ability until 15 months. As children grow and develop, their interests become apparent, and depending on the environments they have experienced and the activities that have captured their foci, different skillsets will appear at different times. Generally, girls will speak earlier and boys will walk sooner, but there is so much variation here (and over so few months of time is it relevant) that if the roles are reversed there is really nothing abnormal about it. I did notice in Jackson and many of his friends that a MAJOR mental growth spurt was readily apparent right around the first birthday. Coincidentally, it was also not until that same span of time until I was even remotely convinced that I might be willing to go through the effort of spawning another human.

So, now that the child is ambulatory and at the early stages of verbal development, as well as having some more neurons firing in her brain, it's time to find something suitable for new forms of play. After all, a cardboard box and a plastic bottle no longer seem to satisfy her, so to keep her from fishing around in your computer desk for paper clips to gag on, you need to get more creative. After all, it's far cheaper to buy toys than pay an ER bill.

There are many toys geared toward the 12 months+ crowd. Many of them are riding toys or musical toys. In fact, many of the toys I profiled for the first year are still rather relevant, only now instead of gumming them with teething mouths full of drool, your little darling can start to try some of the uses for which the toys were intended.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the following toys for the Second Year:

Board books with large pictures, simple stories
Books and magazines with photographs of babies
Blocks
Nesting toys
Simple shape sorters and pegboards
Beginner's jigsaw puzzles
Toys that encourage make-believe play (child lawn mower, kitchen sets, brooms)
Digging toys (bucket, shovel, rake)
Dolls of all sizes
Cars, trucks, trains
Unbreakable containers of all shapes and sizes
Bath toys (boats, containers, floating squeak toys)
Balls of all shapes and sizes
Push and pull toys
Outdoor toys (slides, swings, sandbox)
Beginner's tricycle
Connecting toys (links, large stringing beads, S-shapes)
Stuffed animals
Child keyboard and other musical instruments
Large crayons
Toy telephone
Unbreakable mirrors of all sizes
Dress-up clothes
Wooden spoons, old magazines, baskets, cardboard boxes and tubes, other similar safe, unbreakable items she "finds" around the house (i.e. pots and pans)

[Citation]

I agree with much of what is on this list and would also like to point at that there is NO MENTION at all that children should have toys that make electronic sounds or music or have any sort of graphical display. It's not that it's strictly a bad thing to have those kinds of toys or that your child will not enjoy them. The problem is that they often teach the wrong lesson: Children need to learn causal relationships. If you give a child an electronic keyboard that makes noises not correlated to the action, the child fails to learn how sounds are made. However if you give a child a piano that plays notes when he pushes the keys, then the connection can be made that the act of depressing the key causes a sound to be made. Remember: toys are the learning tools you give to your child to teach him about the world. This is his first education, and no matter how much YOU know, HE is still unaware of the fundamental laws of the universe.

Check out some toy suggestions next week! :)

Toy Review: Toys for the Third Year

2010-05-12T12:00:00.120-04:00

One of the greatest joys of the third year is the sudden increase in verbal skills. Kids start yammering away with words you might be surprised they know how to use. They'll quote movies and songs and familiar phrases used by those around them. (A personal recent favorite was Jackson's shouts of "Fire in the hole!" as he repeatedly defecated in the bathtub, post-bath. Classy, eh?)

More fun still, however, she'll be developing her ability to pretend in play. This faculty begins to gain some small strength in the second year, but by the third year pretend play becomes more important. Over a gradual period or even perhaps overnight, she will begin to mimic behaviors familiar to her, trying activities that she is used to seeing others do. Perhaps she will pretend to vacuum or sweep or do dishes. She might pretend to drive or care for a baby. And if you encourage this behavior, not only are you taking part in her play, which makes your child very happy, but you are helping to stimulate her mental growth.

For example, if the child has fake food toys that he likes to feign to eat, you can help him expand the imaginative play. Maybe you set up a fake restaurant area. One region is the "kitchen", another is the "dining area", and he has to cook and serve the food. You can help him add seasoning or adjust the cooking temperature. Perhaps he has chosen some rather unique food combinations: "Oh, I've never had onions with my bananas before!" You might also show him how to set a table or hold a pan so he doesn't get burned. Meanwhile, he learns about the experience of cooking and proper dining behaviors as well as improving his gross and fine motor skills--with the added bonus that he is spending time with one of his absolute most favorite people of all time.

The third year focuses a great deal on skill refinement as well. Her crayon drawings on your furniture will be more accurate with their circles. When she knocks her stack of blocks off the table onto your toes, you can bet it was a much higher stack than she used to be able to make; and just look at how much farther those pieces can fly!

Interestingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not include a list of toys appropriate to the third year of life in its hallmark volume for parents: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age Five. While it may or may not be present in the Fifth Edition, this is not explicitly indicated in the penultimate "revised" edition, which is the version I have and use. Instead there is a box detailing ways to help develop your child's burgeoning intellect.

For some more ideas on how to help your child develop his natural drive to learn and improve, check out this list provided in the AAP book (referenced in the paragraph above) on page 330. To save on space, I have only transcribed the first sentence of most of the bullet points:

Encourage creative play, building, and drawing. Provide the time and tools for playful learning.
Be attentive to your child's rhythms and moods.
Give consistent warm, physical contact--hugging, skin-to-skin, body-to-body contact--to establish your child's sense of security and well-being.
Talk to or sing to your child during dressing, bathing, feeding, playing, walking, and driving, using adult talk.
Read to your child every day.
If you speak a foreign language, use it at home.
Introduce your child to musical instruments.
Play calm and melodic music for your child.
Listen to and answer your child's questions.
Spend one-on-one personal time with your child each day.
Offer your child simple choices in appropriate situations throughout the day.
Help your child use words to describe emotions and to express feelings such as happiness, joy, anger, and fear.
Limit your child's television viewing and video time; avoid violent cartoons.
Promote out-of-home social experience such as preschool programs and playgroups in which your child can play and interact with other children.
Acknowledge desirable behaviors frequently.
Make sure other people who provide care and supervision for your child understand the importance of forming a loving and comforting relationship with her.
Spend time on the floor playing with your child every day.
Choose quality child care that is affectionate, responsive, educational, and safe; visit your child care provider frequently and share your ideas about positive caregiving.

Next week, I'll begin showcasing some of the toys that I've found to be great for the third year. See you next Wednesday!

First Year Toy Review, Part II

2010-04-24T12:00:00.001-04:00

(This post was originally scheduled for April 7, 2010, but I've been having trouble getting my camera to upload photos and kept delaying it. In the end, I've just decided that you'll have to use your own imagination for a couple of these. Hope you can handle it!)

Last week, I profiled a few toys that I had acquired for my son when he was just learning to sit upright. While it may seem a little backwards, I'm going to cover some toys today that do not require the ability to sit unassisted. These are toys that a baby can play with during the first year of life at any point, so they are also all good toys for infants in general who are confined to a seat.

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Plastic juice bottle with jingle bells

Price: $2

Size: Small/Medium

Age: 4 months+

Durability: Variable

How it's made: This is a toy you make yourself. Ideally speaking, to create this you would buy (or reuse) some small jingle bells from your local craft store. Put 4 or so into a plastic bottle (preferably Simply Orange, as they use very durable plastic, and OJ is easy to rinse out) and recap. Be sure the cap is on very snugly or use a small amount of superglue to be extra sure the cap will not come off. If you use glue, use your common sense as well: don't overglue so that it drips below the cap; don't let the child come into contact with the glue.

Pros: It's cheap and easy and VERY entertaining. Also, if you lose it, it's easily replaced the next time you empty a bottle of orange juice.

Cons: Kids may fight over who gets to play with it. Guests may mistake it for trash. Can be fairly loud.

Educational Value: There's nothing really easily described about the educational value of a large rattle like this, but I still maintain that a baby learns from playing with it. A child's environment is his first teacher, so this is probably one of his first physics professors. Primarily, the value in this toy is that it allows kids an opportunity to experiment with physical consequences in a fairly safe environment. "When I turn it this way, these things in the middle move over here! And they make noise when they move! Whee!"

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Plastic water bottle, half-scrunched and recapped

Price: $0

Size: Small

Age: 4 months+

Durability: High

How it's made: When you finish a bottle of water, remove the label. Uncap, squeeze about half the air out, and recap tightly. (Be sure that the region near the cap isn't warped so that the cap does not fit properly!) Glue the cap shut as in the above toy, if desired. Some parents like to leave the bottle unscrunched or with some water in it or both. You can try out multiple variations to see which your child prefers.

Pros: This toy is easy to make instantaneously. You can create it anywhere you are, so long as you have a bottle of water with you. GREAT teething toy. When scrunched, the plastic makes fun noises that correspond to your baby's actions. The reflections and remaining water/water droplets inside capture an infant's eye. It's lightweight and fits well in a baby's hand. And of course, it's ridiculously cheap. If you suspect signs of wear or it gets too dirty, you can just toss it in the recycle bin and make a new one.

Cons: Guests may think it's trash.

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Links

Price: Varies, Under $10

Size: Very small

Age: Birth+

Durability: High

Pros: You can do soooo many things with links. You can use them to hold toys in cars (suspended from OSHs or infant carrier handles), strollers (hooked to frame), chairs in restaurants, etc. You can use them as pacifier clips. You can connect two toys together to make a new toy. The kid can chew on them as toys in their own right. Most links come in a variety of colors, textures, and even shapes. They can be used for parent toys, as well, for clipping cell phones, keys, or water bottles (w/carabiners) to diaper bags, purses, or belt loops.

Cons: Many brands of links lose their strength after a couple of years of hard use. They will not always stretch around what you hope they will.

First Year Toy Review, Part I

2010-03-31T12:00:00.007-04:00

My husband Andrew has a great mindset that he has shared with me about making purchases: When you buy something, think about the day you will one day have to dispose of it. Children are not babies for very long, though it may seem like it at the time. Because I am keen on helping my family save money, I try to purchase toys with high standards of quality that will last a long while. Because my son is Herculean, I try to ensure that all of his toys are built to withstand something akin to a nuclear blast. And because I recognize that children are in a continual state of development, I try to find toys that will grow and develop with Jackson, rather than be discarded as "too young" before the purchase price of the toy has been validated.

The toys I am highlighting today are ones that I bought for my son when he was 5 or 6 months old. He is now 27 months old, but we still find time to play with some of them. What I like about each of these toys in particular is that they have many developmental stages of play for a child.

Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack

Price: $10

Size: Small/Medium

Age: 5 months+

Durability: Medium-High

Pros: The simplicity of this toy is what makes it great for babies. They can actually hold the individual rings; they can chew on the support stand; it's "rockable" so it doesn't tip over too easily when an uncoordinated tot bumps it accidentally. They also have modified the top ring so that instead of being strictly a hollow, red donut, it functions as a semi-clear, semi-opaque red rattle.

Cons: The tower of the stack can fit into a child's mouth up to a point. If you have a child with a particular large mouth, she may be able to hit her gag reflex, though I haven't yet seen this become a problem. The tower and stack can be used as a hammer, so your little Bam-Bam may reek havoc on your toes as you walk past.

Educational Value: Standard colors make it easy to identify color names to your child. Helps teach order of operations for stacking, since the base is wider than the top and limits how the rings can be stacked. Helps develop fine motor skills for placing the rings on the stack.

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Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics, Baby's First Blocks

Price: $13

Size: Small/Medium

Age: 5 months+

Durability: High

Pros: There are numerous parts to this, but not so many that a parent can't keep track of them. The toy is a container and is designed to help children put the blocks through the right shape hole. Who doesn't love a toy that encourages kids to be neat? The blocks themselves are very durable and are well-designed to avoid injury: All edges are smooth; the pieces are VERY well structured so that babies can chew on them and slobber on them and not bust them, plus they can hit them on anything without making even a dent. While each shape is hollow, there is a vent hole in the center to prevent the child from accidentally gaining suction and getting the toy stuck on any body part. The pieces all fit easily within the container, which has a convenient carrying handle. The yellow lid is a great attractant (and may be the only part the child wants to play with for a long time), too!

Cons: This is really nit-picky, I know, but one of the shapes is really hard to name. When I play with my son, I like to be able to identify the shape, color, texture, etc. The triangle, star, circle, and square are fairly simple. But the fifth shape could be called a plus, an X, a cross, or whatever other name you might imagine for that shape. Ideally speaking, anyone who plays with this toy with your child will be in agreement as to what shape-name to associate to that piece.

Educational Value: This toy is great for helping a baby learn basic colors and shapes. Each shape will only fit into its own shape hole in one particular orientation, so there's no cheating there. Believe it or not, it's a tough concept for a baby to learn that convex and concave shapes can match one another. (Think about it: you wouldn't give a 4-month-old a puzzle.) Each shape comes with a matching piece that is the same shape and color, so you could help teach matching skills as well. The hole in the middle of each shape matches the exterior shape (e.g. the star shape has a star hole) to help parents and caregivers guide children to learn how to sort shapes.

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Fisher-Price Stack & Roll Cups

Price: $10

Size: Small

Age: 4 months+

Durability: Very high

Pros: This is the most cleverly constructed simple toy I have ever encountered. The Stack & Roll Cups have been a favorite not just with my son and his compatriots in babyhood but also with parents. They are that awesome. Like the old school stacking cups (which I also recommend but am not profiling today), these can stack on top of one another into a tower. They also nest well within one another. But what the normal stacking cups can't do, but these can is to join together to make balls. Each cup has a hole in the end that is about an inch in diameter, and the smaller ones have extra ventilation holes, "just in case". There are 10 cups in all, which can make 5 balls simultaneously, but each "cup" can form a ball with both the next cup larger and the next cup lower. AND you can stack any smaller cup on the back of any larger cup. As if that weren't enough, they included another little ball with a smiley face and a jingle bell inside. (For a while, it seemed like the jingle ball was enough for Jackson and friends while us parents and other adults played with the cups. They really are fun!) Kids can smack them around, fit them together, stack them, and roll them around as balls or even bring them in the bathtub. The favorite, of course, is to stick the jingle ball inside a ball made from the cups and set your child loose chasing it, fingering the ball inside, and shaking it around. WAIT! There's more! I've saved the best for last! Not only can your runt gnaw on these things (and get great little cup-shaped red marks on her face), but they store up really compactly. Because of the way the jingle ball fits into any of the cup-balls, and the way that any cup can form a ball with the next larger and next small size, you can make one big nested ball out of all the pieces. This whole set can be stored neatly together in an area the size of the two largest cups forming a ball.

Cons: The sophistication of the toy is lost on babies. Also, because there are 10 cups, the manufacturers had to use more than the standard set of readily name-able colors, so there can be some awkward moments as you try to encourage your baby to chase down the "ummm...yellow-green cup".

Educational Value: Each of the standard rainbow colors is represented in a cup, plus a couple of extras to show that not all color names are so clearcut. The colors are also ranked in size by rainbow order with the smallest cups being in the purple portion of the spectrum and the largest being red. The cups have numbers on them, as well, concatenating the order in which the cups will stack as a whole. (Of course you could also make a stack with all evens and another with all odds. Or you could nest the evens and nest the odds. Or....) When you make the cups into the 5 simultaneous balls, other patterns are apparent: each in the pair of cups forming it has the same shape (e.g. a star) engraved in a ring on it; each in the pair are of the same or nearest color name (though the red and orange ball gets a bit awkward to explain). There are soooo many educational opportunities with this toy that even through much of elementary school it can be a useful demonstrative tool.

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That's all for today, folks. I've got lots more to review, but I'm tired. I promise they are not all Fisher-Price toys! It just so happens that Fisher-Price has some high quality toys for children for the first year. Playskool and other brands dominated the ranks for many of our toys for the second year, which I'll get around to profiling when I finish up with first year toys. Stay tuned for more baby toy fun!

Toy Review: Toys for the First Year

2010-03-24T12:00:00.002-04:00

Many parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, friends, and guilty-conscience acquaintances want to buy toys for children but have NO IDEA what to get them. At some point, we've all been that person shopping for the kid whom we rarely see and have little to no idea what she'd want for a toy. When the child is a baby, finding the "right toy" can seem even less clear-cut for some people. So, what I've decided the world (heh, I flatter myself) needs is some idea of what to get for children of different ages, based on my experience with my own son and other children in his general age group.

When you plan to purchase a toy for a child, the first consideration needs to be: is the parent going to be happy with this toy? Maybe the toy is a gigantic Tonka truck for your newborn (yes, my MOM did that to me); maybe it's a robotic dinosaur that roars (and terrifies your 2-year-old). In these situations, the toys are not unwanted in and of themselves, but they are really age-inappropriate.

Of course, the gift might be something that is categorized as being for a child's first year and have so many bells and whistles that it annoys the crud out of anyone who is sane enough to like a bit of quiet (including the child). Maybe it's visually overstimulating to the point where your child just avoids it (like this Discovery Elephant from Infantino).

Other considerations are the child's capability to play with the toy and what the child is likely to do with it. Most babies can't even hold things with their hands for about the first 3 months, so anything they use for entertainment before that has to be automatic or parent-controlled. Also, for the first year and often beyond, pretty much anything the child holds has the same destination: the mouth. If you suspect lead paint, barium paint, small parts, sharp edges, easily broken bits, or any other method by which a child could get hurt by breaking something or putting it in his mouth (such as choking!), then DO NOT give it to a child who hasn't reached the 12 month mark yet. Ideally speaking, a child under age 3 years should have NO ACCESS to anything that is dangerous, including pen caps, loose change, Legos, and Barbie shoes.

Also, believe it or not, expensive does not mean good. Yes, generally speaking, higher quality children's products do have a higher price. However, just because you spend $80 on a rocking giraffe, do not expect that the child will necessarily get $80 worth of enjoyment out of it.

When it comes to toys for the first year, simple is ideal. Most children under 12 months are happy most of the time with a half-crumpled water bottle to squeeze and chew. Aim for that mentality. In fact, for the first year there is very little need for toys at all except as a distraction technique. Babies will play with whatever surrounds them in their environment. Give a baby a solid wood drink coaster with concentric grooves in it, and she will chew on it, bang it on furniture, and touch its various textures. To give a child this age a toy that plays 50 digital songs and "teaches" a foreign language that the parents do not speak is overkill--and runs a serious risk of overstimulation.

Overstimulation is the technical term to describe a lot of seemingly different behaviors in young children. An overstimulated child will tend to be crankier and more withdrawn. If a child experiences too much overstimulation (such as excessive television and movies and video games), she will eventually come to expect the world to entertain her instead of finding her own entertainment. A baby is seldom troubled with the feeling of boredom. Everything in life is new and exciting (like that electrical outlet you forgot was under that table and that fork that went missing recently), and the most interesting things to a baby are those that help the child learn about the world she has joined.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has some great guidelines for parents on age-appropriate toys and activities:

One- to Three-Month-Old

Images or books with high-contrast patterns
Bright, varied mobile
Unbreakable mirror attached to inside of crib
Rattles
Singing to your baby
Playing varied music from music boxes, CDs, records, or tapes (and I'll add in mp3s here)

Four- to Seven-Month Old

Unbreakable mirror attached to inside of crib or playpen
Soft balls, including some that make soft, pleasant sounds
Textured toys that make sounds
Toys that have fingerholds
Musical toys, such as bells, maracas, tambourines (Make sure none of the parts can become loose.)
See-through rattles that show the pieces making the noise
Old magazines with bright pictures for you to show her
Baby books with board, cloth, or vinyl pages

Eight- To Twelve-Month-Old

Stacking toys in different sizes, shapes, colors
Cups, pails, and other unbreakable containers
Unbreakable mirrors of various sizes
Bath toys that float, squirt, or hold water
Large building blocks
"Busy boxes" that push, open, squeak, and move
Squeeze toys
Large dolls and puppets
Cars, trucks, and other vehicle toys made of flexible plastic, with no sharp edges or removable parts
Balls of all sizes (but not small enough to fit in the mouth)
Cardboard books with large pictures
CDs, tapes, music boxes, and musical toys
Push-pull toys
Toy telephones
Paper tubes, empty boxes, old magazines, egg cartons, empty plastic soda/juice/milk bottles (well rinsed)

[All the above bulleted data was pulled directly from Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, Birth to Age 5, Revised Edition (link goes to 5th Edition, newer than my copy) which is a publication put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This book can be obtained free of its $20 price tag by joining the Publix Baby Club, which sends you a free copy just for joining.]

You'll notice that nowhere in all of that was a recommendation that you overload a child with glamorous, flashy toys. Many people have remarked that if you give a child a toy, he will spend a greater amount of time playing with the box it came in. Save yourself the money and just give the kid the box!

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll highlight some toys that have proven to be good all-around buys. I am not affiliated in any way with toy manufacturers or distributors, so I'm completely unbiased (and unfunded, heh). All toys that I will include for recommendations for the first year are durable and will easily tolerate a slobbery, strong, teething baby and "survive" with barely any signs of wear.

Stay-at-home parenting, Part 2

2010-03-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

Many people wonder: what do "stay-at-home" parents DO all day? (Some people also like to refer to the practice as "work-at-home" parents, which is excessively vague and confusing, methinks.) For one, I'm rarely home! About 3 or 4 mornings a week, Jackson visits the gym's Kid's Club while I get my exercise or physical therapy time. In the early days when I started taking him to the gym, I would just relax in the hot tub and try to melt away the pain and stress of never having down time. I progressed over time to where I was regularly attending Zumba class and then added in more weight-bearing exercise. Jackson, unawares, merely enjoys time with children in a variety of age groups.

We go to parks a great deal and explore the variety of playgrounds and parks available here in Gainesville, FL. We visit other families with young children and have playdates. On days when we'd rather not be outside, we go to the play area at the local shopping mall or the natural history museum, which has free admission and is well-geared toward children. We have picnics together for our lunches after the gym, sometimes joined by friends. He has also just started a new gymnastics class and has regularly attended a weekly open-play event at a local play-place for kids. (http://www.suncountrygymnastics.com/) We have regularly attended as a fun activity for a Friday morning that gets us around other parents and young children as well as exercise in an environment where Jackson can fairly safely play however he likes.

Jackson is also learning the basics of household management. He likes to pretend to vacuum and has learned most of the ins and outs of vacuum usage, though so far he's too scared to operate it himself. He loves to sweep with brooms and dustpans. He loves to pretend to cook at his kitchenette, custom-built by my step-dad. (Ric is available to build and ship custom-made all-wood kitchenettes and toys: reraddas (at) gmail (dot) com; the man is an awesomely talented journeyman carpenter!)

Jackson knows a good bit of geography, too, so he can often tell me how to get where he wants around town on the days when it's not too pressing that I go where I intend. He likes to walk around the mall, feed the ducks at the pond by the hospital, play with the display toys at Toys R us and Target, and will point out (and demand to visit) when we are passing the home of a good friend of his. Because so much of his life is decided for him, I try to allow him a certain amount of autonomous decision-making. But of course, there are boundaries in all things: we do not go to the playground if it is time for lunch or too close to naptime. We do not watch a movie while after he has his bath and is calming down for bedtime.

At this point, our day is well-regimented. We wake each weekday morning, eat breakfast, and go somewhere by 9 or 9:30. Typically around 10:45 or 11 we're starting our lunch. Afterward, we have some low-key play, brush teeth together, read a story, and Jackson naps at around noon. When the world isn't conspiring against us, 2.5 to 3 hours later Jackson comes out of his room with a big smile and tackles me with a hug and a kiss and tells me he loves me. We spend a little time playing or cuddling while he adjusts to being awake again, then we have a snack. Afterward we typically either go outside to play or run errands or both, if time allows. Andrew gets off work around 5:30pm or 6:pm most days, so we do dinner then as a family. Jackson usually finishes eating first, excuses himself from the table with an "All done!" and plays independently while Andrew tells me in a burst of excitement all about his day. The two of them then go do bath time while I clean up the dishes. Shortly after I finish, Jackson comes tearing out of the bathroom, naked but for his lion towel (which makes him feel like a king). We try to wrangle him into a diaper and some pajamas before he gives us reason to use our Bissell Spot Bot. He gets a little more quiet play time, then we brush teeth and floss as a family. Andrew reads him what seems an interminable number of books while I listen through the baby monitor, then Jackson goes to bed. There's very little different on the weekends, especially since Andrew is still finishing up some college courses to prepare for graduate school.

I'm planning some more posts in the future that will talk about some of the toys and games that we highly recommend, so stay tuned!

Stay-at-home parenting, Part 1

2010-03-10T12:00:00.001-05:00

One of the great opportunities afforded me in this life is the chance to spend time in my child's earliest and formative years focused on helping develop his potential as a human being. Many people refer to this as being a stay-at-home parent. Some very wrongly assume that it's only women who fill this role (and are just flat out wrong; women merely dominant the group is all).

In ancient times, before we had running water and electricity and other things that we believe simplify our daily lives, tasks needed to be divided in order to keep our social groups alive and well. Because men are sadly not endowed with the capacity to provide nourishment to babies, women naturally filled the role as caregivers of babies and children. Men went off and did the other fiddling bits such as chasing down food and trying to sort out what makes good plants for eating grow. Somewhere along the line, women got stuck doing the cooking and the cleaning, since clearly they had so much time on their hands, sitting around trying to keep the children from maiming themselves. Then the Industrial Revolution changed things, as people became more interested and more capable of finding ways to make a job simpler and more automated. Suddenly clothes did not all need to be hand-washed. Electric sewing machines replaced the vast amount of time women spent with needle and thread in hand. And over time, more appliances came into being that were designed to lessen the work a woman had to do at home. Even baby formula was created, allowing many women complete freedom from their prior role as a housebound person.

Suddenly even women who previously would not have been financially well-off enough to avoid doing their own chores had time to follow many of their aspirations and indulge in the frolicking larks that many men enjoyed. They demonstrated that they were equally capable (or in some capacities, superior) to men in the workforce. And many of them liked it so much, they stayed there and encouraged other women to follow their lead.

One day, however, things had gone beyond the point of no return. Women were no longer really in a position to choose whether or not they wanted to work outside the home. To afford the rising cost of living (induced in part by the doubling of the workforce), women now formed a staple portion of the workforce market. Instead of being locked in a cage at home, they became locked in a cage at work. (To read more about this, I highly suggest this excellent work by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Parents are Going Broke.)

So, it's no great surprise that I grew up under the impression that women and men who "stayed at home" were lazy or insufficient contributors to their families. My own mother had a great deal to do with me developing this impression. She's a hardcore work-a-holic, checking in on work email regularly throughout the day even when on paid vacations. My father was also working, but for many years he ran his business out of the house. Being that his income varied seasonally, mom was the primary breadwinner for our household. She was a great role model, and my sister has followed in her tracks as much as possible--even to the point where she works at the same company which has claimed my mother for over 30 years.

Didn't he know that children are best raised in herds of their peers by total strangers?

My brother-out-of-law stayed home with the kids for several years. They were not a rich family by any means, so mentally I judged him negatively for not working full time and putting the kids in preschool to give them more "social interaction." Didn't he know that children are best raised in herds of their peers by total strangers? While he could have done more to help them socially in the early years, I've come to realize that he was taking on a far more challenging task than I could have possibly imagined at the time.

Our society is not set up for families to have daytime custody of their own children. As bizarre as this sounds, it's demonstrably true.

When I finally gave up the dream that I could work from home 20 hours a week and still watch my newborn, I felt like a failure. But I was nursing 12 hours a day, sleeping about 4 or 5, and the other time I spent trying not to be a complete and disgusting slob. Living in a college town, I have found many other parents like Andrew and myself who have no family or social support system in place to help us care for our child. Having been physically "disabled" from a car accident a few months before my surprise pregnancy, working for any duration is very painful, so a full time job is out of the question until I can find a way to stop hurting all the time. Working part time doesn't cover enough to make up the costs of outsourced childcare. So, all things considered, it's been the most ideal option for us for me to stay home with Jackson and drag him to nearly all my medical appointments. (Thankfully my physical therapy sessions are at my gym, so I can pawn him off on the gym's lovely day care girls while I get abused back into feeling human again.)

Many moms I know would have loved to spend more time at home with their children, but by the time they were considering getting pregnant with a second child, they needed to go back to work to make more money for the family in order to pay the bills. Jackson's first playgroup, formed in his first months of life, has been decimated by this effect. All but one of his friends from the original dozen members is now in the care of someone other than Mom or Dad during the day while both parents work. These children who enjoyed special time throughout the day with their mothers (as we all were) have been shunted into a classroom directed by a stranger whose attention is divided among many children with the same abilities and disabilities. Luckily, society has managed to convince these parents that this is the normal order of things, that it's somehow more natural for a child to be kept away from her family all day while surrounded by those who know almost nothing more about the world than herself.

Don't get me wrong: childcare availability outside the home is a great feature of modern society. My son regularly spends time playing in the daycare at my gym while I exercise. There are many single parents in this world who do not have the luxury of staying with their children all day. There are very good benefits to a preschool, such as the ability to teach children a foreign language or let them play with toys and materials that are not likely to be found in a traditional home setting. But I do not believe for a moment that foisting my child off into the world before he can fully communicate is really the natural modus operandi.

I believe in equality. I believe that men should be allowed to stay home with children just as well as women should. I believe that women should be allowed to work just as well as men should. But I will not suggest that a parent is doing a disservice to a child by spending quality time focused on the child himself. The emotional well-being of a family should not be sacrificed because of the selfishness or pig-headed ideology of any one of its members.

I stay at home for my health. I stay at home to focus on my child. I stay at home because my husband is overwhelmed with work and school and has very little free time--that I'd prefer was spent with us as a family, not doing chores. I stay at home because I enjoy the physical and emotional freedom. We don't spend much time at home, but I'm happy and proud to be a Stay at Home Parent.

Oh, wow, he IS big for his age!

2010-03-03T12:00:00.013-05:00

If I had a penny for every time I'd heard people exclaim over how large Jackson is, I would have his college savings taken care of by now.

It started when he was born. My midwife had been in doubt that Jackson would be much more than 8 and a half pounds. I insisted otherwise. A few days before birth he was projected to be 9lbs. And then when he arrived (Thank you, Mr. Stork!), it turned out that I had been carrying a watermelon of a child when he weighed in at 9lbs, 15oz.--an ounce shy of 10lbs! For those of you on the metric scale, that's 4.5kg.

He only lost 2 ounces over our time in hospital post partem, and had regained 5 ounces by 2 days later. By 2 weeks old, Jackson weighed in at 12lbs. At 2 months, he was 14lbs. When he was just about 5 months old, we found ourselves scrambling to find a larger car safety seat because he had nearly hit the maximum of 22lbs for his infant car seat. (The legal requirement in Florida for turning a child's car seat so that it faces forward instead of backward is that they child must be a year old and at least 20lbs. We had to wait more than half a year to complete the first requirement after the second was reached.)

Clothing-wise, this translated into him outgrowing 0-3 months apparel by 3 weeks old. A few weeks later, 3-6 months clothing was also too small. He managed to last until about age 7months in his 6-12 months clothing. And then things slowed down somewhat. He was in 18 months clothing until after his first birthday. He spent several months in 24 months accoutrements and then a stint in 2T. Around 20 months of age, we began gradually upsizing his wardrobe to incorporate 3T clothing, which are now the only ones to fit--and some are getting small now that he's hit his second birthday. (This is in part due to the fact that he's still in diapers, whereas it's assumed by clothing manufacturers that no room needs to be left in a 3 year old's apparel for anything more substantial than briefs.)

Jackson was also an early walker. We had never bothered to put anything other than socks on his feet until Andrew and I judged that Jackson was competent enough to try his skills outside. His first pair of shoes were Robeez for children up to 18 months. He was 10 months old. Shortly after his second birthday a few weeks ago, I took him shoe shopping (as I've done about every 2 months for over a year now), and he was sized into 10.5 shoes. He now wears the same size shoes as many 3 and 4 year old children.

Around 20 months old, we also found that (yet again) we were going to need to put Jackson into the next size higher diaper. He was then moved up to a size 6--the largest size available at the regular store for baby diapers that are not training pants. Now that he is 25 months, even those are getting small.

As you can imagine, having a larger than average child can be dramatically more expensive in the early years than a more petite child. He has not been able to wear most of his clothing into oblivion along the way, and his shoes barely show any signs of use by the time he outgrows them. Diapers are progressively fewer in number in the box with each size increase (at the same price), which means that we spend more money on diapers than others with smaller children.

And yet for all that, my son is not fat. I've always felt a little defensive about the accusation of his being fat, I suppose. The fact of the matter is that Jackson is in the 97th percentile for both height and weight (EDIT: Since I originally wrote this post, he has elevated to the 100th percentile for weight; can't get accurate height measurement myself, so that is unknown but still at least 97th percentile). This means that he is taller and heavier than 97 percent of children his age. To me, this also means that he is proportionate. A child who is 50th percentile for height and 97th percentile for weight is certainly worthy of being accused of packing on the pounds. Yet, a child who is 50th percentile for both height and weight would be proportionate. The same is true of my son. Only rather than being built like a waif, he's built more like a gladiator.

From hour 1 in the hospital, we knew he was a strong child. I had my suspicions about what he was getting up to in utero (to the point where I started wondering if my midwife hadn't missed a second child in the making), which were confirmed when he came out with excellent muscle tone and already lifting his own head. By the time he had perfected his ability to grasp objects at a few months old, he was able to inflict some serious injuries to us. His hands could really pinch hard--and he proved it every time he nursed for a while, screaming like a bansidhe if I tried to stop him from injuring me.

His perfect posture as a new sitter confirmed his amazing back strength, which was surprising since he was swaddled for nearly every sleep instance for the first 7 months. (Just TRY to imagine tightly swaddling a 23lb baby. Just try!) He was pulling himself to standing by the end of his 7th month, and a few days before he turned 10 months, he was walking unassisted. Does this sound like a butterball?

When Jackson was at an older friend's birthday party, he was 22 months old while the others were almost all over age 3. He was able to hang suspended by his arms for 15 seconds or more (and then had to be pried down to the ground) while his size-mates who were at least a year older could only manage to hang for a second or two before falling. He also loves to be placed near the top of a pole to slide down in a slow, controlled manner.

Yet for all that my son is practically an Olympian athlete for his age, his chubby baby cheeks have always seemed to give others the impression that he is fat. He never has been excessively fatty for his age. Despite that he's entirely made of thick, lean muscle, a Salvation Army worker collecting donations at the mall still had the gall to sweetly call him "Fatty". That's right. She called him Fatty, like he was some adorable little ball of flab. I was so irritated by this, though I didn't say anything to the inane woman herself. Never mind that he was not the least bit overly fleshy anywhere but the cheeks of his face; never mind that he had just been running around the mall with me, getting all sorts of exercise and climbing and jumping like a wild man at the children's play area. She was determined to judge him as being a fat older child, rather than recognizing him as the chubby cheeked baby that he really is.

I wish I could say she is the only one to misjudge him, but I know it's not true. With his height, Jackson is often judged to be older than he really is. Preschool age children believe him to be a peer of theirs, then get very confused when he speaks like a child who is just learning how to express himself. He follows them around like a happy, oblivious little puppy because he wants so badly to try to make friends. They feel uncomfortable by the disparity between his size and behaviors and often estrange him or berate him for acting so bizarrely.

Even older people who know his age are still confused by him on occasion because it is so easy to forget that he's as young as he is. Often I find him held to a higher level of judgment, intentionally or otherwise, because people expect him to behave like a 3 or 4 year old. Strangers give him looks that clearly show they think his behavior to be wildly inappropriate.

As a result, Andrew and I have developed a habit of outright mentioning his age at every opportunity. We emphasize how tall and strong he is for his age, how accomplished he is for someone so young. We're quite proud of how smart, healthy, beautiful, strong, tall, and socially knowledgeable Jackson is--and feel pained when he is misjudged by others.

By now you may be wondering why I am writing all this. Am I just venting? Am I complaining? Do I have some idea in mind that will fix this? Well, it's actually all three, to be honest. So, now that you've endured my venting and complaining, consider some of these thoughts that I've had as the mother of my mammoth-baby.

One thought I have had is that there ought to be a Big & Tall for babies and toddlers. If one brand were out there making clothing for all the kids who are above the 75th percentile in size, that company could make a lot of parents and their children some very happy customers. I can hear you now: "Why can't bigger kids just wear a large size?" The thing is, kids (like adults) come in all different shapes and sizes. Some children are long and lean. Some are squat and wide. And some have crazy beefcake arms that don't fit the sleeves of shirts that are otherwise the right size. Perhaps no specific Big & Tall line needs to come together as a result of this problem, but our societal expectations are very clearly demonstrated when it's impossible to find pants for a larger than average toddler that don't assume he's a prodigy in toilet training. Other dimensional assumptions are evident as well. By the time Jackson gets to where the waistband is too snug on his pants, he is only just fitting the legs. He's got stubby little baby legs compared to his wide hips, so no matter what stage he's achieved in a set of clothes, he looks goofy. Unless I start sewing all the clothing for my kid, he's going to be stuck in a continuous cycle of looking and feeling exceedingly awkward until he reaches adult clothing sizes.

Another reason I am writing this is because I want to make people aware of larger children. They exist. I married a giant of a man at 6'2" with some broad shoulders and hips that would make him look like Atlas if he deigned to visit the gym. While I may have lost all 50lbs of baby weight, I'm still no tiny slip of a girl at 5'8". Clearly our offspring are not likely to be described as tiny. I've known other children like Jackson, whose parents' combined features resulted in a standard-obliterating child of god-like proportions. The moms and dads of these children all show the same symptoms as Andrew and me, including the defensiveness of the darling little one's age and size.

One mom I know with a son in the 100th percentile (that's right, he's off the charts because he's so tall) and a daughter who is also above average in size, said that she often finds herself asking how old other children are so that the parents will ask the ages of her children. Both her spawn are well above average intelligence, so they are (again, like Jackson) that much more confusing for people's brains to classify. As an example: Jackson and this boy, Dane, were playing together. Dane was 2 and a half; Jackson was 19 months. Dane was frustrated by Jackson's presence and wanted to keep him from playing with certain toys. He fought with him and was angry about having to share, so he was repeatedly getting put into time out. After the third or fourth time he was sent to time out, he climbed up onto his dad's lap and whispered into his ear: "Dane needs to share with all people alike." His verbal skills were sufficient to express this idea that he knew was the truth (though he did refer to himself in the 3rd person). Yet because he really was only 2 and a half, his emotional development and self-restraint were still developing at a reasonable level for his age.

We live in a judgmental society. People naturally have a tendency to try and classify what they see. It's one of the ways in which we file away information we receive from our senses. What I ask is that rather than making a superficial judgment based on the size of a child, the world at large should consider other factors. Far more telling than height is a child's physical development. Does she have teeth? Can she sit unsupported? How skilled is she at walking? Climbing? Running? Jumping? What are her inclinations when surrounded by other children? The answers to these questions help develop a much better picture of the age of a youngster than by an assessment of the distance from head to toes.

Meta-Post

2010-02-17T12:00:00.003-05:00

Hello, all!

It's been a while since I really checked in and just spoke without a sort of lecturing feel to my post. I started this blog just over a year ago. At first I really didn't know how the blog would develop and evolve. I'm not entirely sure of the direction it will follow even in the near future.

When I began writing about Life in the Cheerios Garden, my son Jackson had just turned a year old. My plan had been to write something along the lines of a documentary, from conception to childbirth and gradually catching up to the present day. By the time I reached the post-partem discussion, however, I floundered. The things I wanted to discuss were less event-specific and more concept-specific. Eventually I settled into a more pedagogical stance. Last summer and fall seasons were so ripe with things for me to say as I developed a written Parenting Philosophy Toolbox.

One of my goals, it occurred to me, was to share insights that I had as a parent. Some may feel that I couldn't possibly be a valid source for such information when my child wasn't even 2 years old. But as time progresses, the points I enumerated in the PPT are still very much relevant now as they were when my son was a newborn, a new walker, and at every point along the way.

Jackson is now 25 months old. One thing I have not really discussed much is my child in particular. This might seem a bit odd for a "mom blog", don't you think? Perhaps that will change over the course of the next year.

Over the holidays I tried to consider what direction to take the blog, now that the PPT is done. I shared some home-made books, illustrated with the smallest amount of practice and created during Jackson's naptimes. Many blogs include a variety of posting types all under one general concept: some images only, some long rants, some quick commentary or quotes. Part of me believes that I should follow suit, randomizing my entries more and concerning myself less with self-imposed (and lately, scarcely met) deadlines.

I haven't really felt any great epiphanies about what to do next. Part of me believes that I could be reasonably reliable if I were just relating individual stories of experiences in the world of at-home parenting (which is a serious misnomer, as we are seldom truly at home). Part of me feels a sense of guilt in doing so, that I would not be really benefiting anyone by imparting such stories.

For the next while, I imagine I will attempt a hodge podge of ideas as I try to feel out where it is I want to go with the blog. Wherever that path leads, I hope you will follow!

Thank you all for making me feel like my time and effort is valuable. Stay tuned for...whatever may come next!

~Jessica Adams

Books for Babies & Toddlers: Potty Time

2010-02-03T12:00:00.001-05:00

The first book I drafted for Jackson was designed to help introduce and/or clarify how to use the toilet. He was a little young for full-scale potty training, but he had begun pre-training him already. I recognized that it would be helpful for him to have some predefined understanding of exactly what was going to be expected of him eventually.

I had recently taken an interest in learning how to improve my drawing skills, but my first sketches were overly complex and not particularly easy to interpret for a toddler, I judged. Then inspiration hit: I could study someone else's drawing technique and try to mimic it. Remembering how much I enjoyed the illustrations by Caroline Jayne Church (CJC) in one of Jackson's books, I used I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rosetti Shustak (illustrated by CJC) as a template for practice. The style is very basic, and the young boy character was already a very good model for Jackson. With some moderate amount of fiddling, I managed to determine how best I could get my own hand to create an image that looked passingly similar to CJC's artwork.

My main motivation for drafting my own potty learning book was because I could not find a book online or in stores that modeled exactly what I wanted my son to see. I did not like the flashier books with the flushing sounds which distract from the images and (I imagine) are designed to help children acclimate to the potentially scary sound of a flushing commode. Jackson had been enjoying flushing the toilet since before he could walk, so that was not a concern--and therefore merely an unwanted interference. Another popular book shows a little boy using what looks like a large bowl for a potty. I wasn't planning to teach my son to squat over a bowl, so that one was out. Yet another common book for kids to learn about elimination is entitled Everybody Poops! Well, this was no surprise to my son who was fairly well aware of the fact already, and no other useful information is imparted in the book. Nothing I found beyond that really fit the bill, so it was up to me.

[Some of you may be thinking: But wait, couldn't your husband just as easily be the one to write/draw the book? Not so. I've seen his artwork. I think it might physically kill him to attempt to draw anything that wasn't in perfect rows and columns. Plus as the one most eager to see the goal achieved and most interested in the particulars of the book, as the one to stay home with our child, I was the very obvious candidate of choice for the task.]

And so, without further ado, I present to you The Potty Book, by Mommy Adams.

"Hi, I'm Jackson!"

This first page drawn was before I considered that a cover page would really be a good idea. It scanned reasonably well despite being taped back together.

"I am learning how to use a Big Boy potty."

I was feeling pretty good when Jackson was readily able to identify this as a toilet. I think the tank and the handle helped more than the bowl itself.

"I used to wear diapers when I was a baby."

This page scanned far worse the first go around. Because the potty book was so well loved before I thought to scan it, several pages were a bit curvier than my document scanner approves of them being.

Additionally, this page may have actually caused me some grief due to its comparison to the next page. Jackson had noticed that the Big Boy didn't get a pacifier, and since we are still working on weaning him of the paci, this is a bit of an issue for him.

"Now, I'm learning to wear underwear like a Big Boy!"

Apparently I was still thinking "baby" and not "toddler" because I drew the Big Boy as bowlegged instead of knock-kneed. Regardless, it got the point across.

"When I feel like I am going to make pee or poopy, I say, 'I need to go potty!'"

Another page the scanner didn't like so well. Also, there is an unfortunate (if mild) contrast in terminology here between this page and another. My suggestion to anyone who attempts to do something similar is to consider that changing a phrase even slightly can become confusing for you (and Little Bits) during the reading process. Try to remain consistent.

"Then I go to the bathroom."

Sometimes it's a bit tricky, I've found, trying to decide how to depict an idea. There were a number of ways that I could have illustrated the concept of physically moving to the bathroom, but in the end, drawing a bathroom door partially open was what worked best for my limited artistic development.

"In the bathroom, I take off my pants and underwear. Sometimes I only have time to pull them down to my ankles."

Apologies again for the bad scanning. This book really has seen a fair bit of love since its creation. However, it's paid off. Just today, Jackson knew two of his older friends were going to the bathroom, so he asked to go (which he never does; ordinarily he just shows that he is about to pee). Sure enough, he went like a champion racehorse. (He also really likes to point out the boy's penis in this picture.)

"When I get on the potty fast enough, I can sit on the toilet when I make pee or poopy."

I recently decided to see if Jackson could tell me the story, knowing that he's very familiar with this book by now. He was able to identify all the important aspects of each page, though he was a little less sure with this one. With a little prodding, however, he decided that the boy in this picture was peeing.

"When I pee or make poopy, I clean my privates with toilet paper and wet wipes. Sometimes I need help."

This is another bad scan, yes. This is also where I accidentally changed the grammar order slightly, which has made a small amount of confusion in the reading process. Another point of confusion here I realized was that I used the term "privates", which isn't something we normally say to Jackson, so I find myself continually adding a verbal definition of what privates are.

"When I finish, I flush the potty. That's my favorite part!"

I really had a tricky time deciding how to depict a flushing toilet. I thought about drawing an arrow showing the handle depressing, but I considered that might be difficult for a young toddler to interpret. In the end, I decided to try to show the swirling water, but as you can see, it looks like the water is not alone in the potty.

"Next, I wash my hands in the sink with soap and water until they are clean. Then I dry them with a towel."

Rather than figuring out how to show him washing his hands, I decided that a sketch of hands up close with the sink and towel visible should suffice. This page I consider invaluable to the book, as I am not aware of hygiene being stressed as a part of bathroom usage in most potty training stories. My goal was to capture the entire process, not just the bit with the toilet itself.

"When I put my underwear and pants back on, it's time to play!"

Another thing I felt important was for Jackson to know that just because he needed to take time out to go to the bathroom, he wasn't going to have to stop playing. He could still return to play again once his potty trip was complete (which of course, includes hand-washing). We tend to punctuate this final page with a cheerful, "Hooray!"

I hope that this has been helpful as a demonstration of a home-made potty training book. As you can see, I'm not a skilled or well-practiced artist, but I knew that with a little effort, I could convey exactly what it was that I feel is most important for my child to learn about the toileting experience. By sharing, my fervent wish is that any other parents or childcare providers who attempt this will be able to benefit from the lessons I learned in the process of writing such a book and thereby make their own even better.

I expect to keep writing more books as issues arise. One idea I have in mind at present is to help show the aging process. It occurs to me that very young children are not aware of the fact that they are growing and changing and that someday they will become adults. Another book I have some thoughts about writing one day is about siblings. That one I'll wait to write until we decide to try for another monster-in-training!

Books for Babies & Toddlers: Mommy is Going Away...And Coming Back!

2009-12-31T22:45:00.004-05:00

Below is one of the books that I made for my son Jackson. This one was designed to help him understand (as best as a 23 month old can) that Mommy was going to be going to Boston for a few days without him. Since I stay home with him, I was concerned that he was going to have some serious difficulty with this. Rather than just worry, I created this story to try to demonstrate the flow of things for him. Hopefully the images will be readable when I post it, but because blogger has a really awful preview mode, I'll transcribe in text what each page says.

Book Title: "Mommy is going away...and coming back!"

This is my family. [I used the first person, so that it would be as though it were Jackson telling the story. This was a little awkward, as it turned out, when we were reading it to him.]

This is my Mommy. She is going away for while. [I don't wear skirts all that often, but I did such a mediocre job conveying myself in the photo, I guess I tried to make up for it by adding some feminine apparel.]

She is going to ride an airplane. [This was one of Jackson's 2 favorite pages. I was really glad that the windows were there because until I added them, the airplane looked very much like a shark with a misplaced dorsal fin.]

While Mommy is gone, I get lots more play time with Daddy! [I think I overstretched my drawing bone here, but at least it's identifiable what's going on in the image...I hope. It was at this stage in my trip that Jackson apparently got confused and when the real time came for me to fly out of town, he completely forgot about this and the next page.]

I'll sleep for naps and bedtimes for a few days. [Apparently this page was so poorly drawn that it never really was attended by Jackson in the process of reading the book. He was always so anxious to get to the next airplane page.]

Then Mommy will come home on an airplane again. [After my plane took off, Jackson and my husband Andrew were going to go home in the car. Jackson apparently was confused and upset when my plane didn't fly right back again with me in it.]

Daddy and I will give her Big Hugs! [Jackson loves big hugs, especially family hugs where we sandwich him between us and pretend to squish him. It's rare that Andrew and I can get a hug with just the two of us while Jackson is awake and we are in view of him.]

Mommy is very happy to be home again. [I really wanted to put a lot of emphasis on the notion that, while I was going away, I was most going to enjoy getting to come home again. I preferred to keep the story upbeat in the hopes that Jackson would allow himself to feel more upbeat, with his emotions upon my return informed by the dialog in the story. This seemed to work.]
I am very happy that Mommy is home again, too! [It couldn't hurt to hope that he would internalize this rather than holding a grudge against me for going away for 4 days. This was a realistic possibility, too, considering how much time it took for Jackson to get over all of the traveling, overtime, and schoolwork away from home Andrew had been doing in recent months.]

Hooray! [I apparently got really tired by the end of writing this story. Besides, it's fun ending a book with a big Hooray!]

[The End.]

Overall, I would say that this book was a great help in getting Jackson to have some concept of what was going on when I left town. We were careful to send communications between Andrew and me via text messages and email so that I did not call and disturb the calm he was trying to maintain with Jackson. Remembering that children experience time as event-based rather than duration-based, I figured that Jackson would handle it better with little or no communication from me. The third night I was gone he broke down crying and wanted me home. He was so distraught on the phone after making Daddy call me that I could hardly make out what he was saying. I caught some concerned words about his toy school bus (his constant companion since it had been bought a few weeks prior, which even enjoyed a special place in his arms at bedtimes). The bawling and shrieking into the phone abruptly ended, and I got to hear all about "My school bus!"

Despite knowing there was a blizzard (Blizzard 2009) heading straight for us and that we had fought all day to get my ticket moved up as early as possible to avoid "stranding me" in Boston, I still found myself promising my crying toddler that I would see him in the morning. Luck was on my side, and I made it home to Florida the next morning, as promised. Jackson was indeed happy to see me and gave me big hugs.

What I did not expect, however, was that he was fairly nervous for a few days about both Andrew and myself being out of view. His concern had extended to being abandoned for long durations at any time by either parent. Unfortunately, while I was gone, Andrew was afraid to abide by the usual limitations I set on Jackson. He allowed (and perhaps even encouraged) Jackson to bring his blanky, Husky (stuffed dog that sleeps with him), and paci with him anywhere they went while I was gone, as well as his school bus. A week and a half later, we're still trying to get him back on the old system which had strict policies on what was allowed to go with us when leaving home. This was exacerbated by a trip to see my in-laws for several days shortly after I returned from Boston.

All in all, the book was a success. He had something tangible that told him how things were going to happen and our individual roles to play in the process. He had been assured that Mommy was going to be back and that she would give him a hug and be happy to be home when she returned. I expect to write many more of these over the next few years--and maybe when Jackson is older, he'll write some of his own!

This book was the second one I had made for him, and we had it bound for only a few dollars at a local print shop. Next time I'll see if I can disassemble and scan the potty training book I drew for him, which I had bound using a hole punch and some thin rope. No promises, but there WILL be another post in 2 weeks. (ish. Don't give me that look!)

Also, I'd just like to give a shout-out to my awesome little boy because today he turned 2 years old! Congratulations, Jackson! You're 2 fingers!

Books for Babies & Toddlers

2009-12-16T12:00:00.002-05:00

I'm a control freak. I know this. I've accepted it. My husband Andrew is a control freak. The good part of this is that we are controlling of the same things in the same way a vast majority of the time. Some things I can just let slide, because not everything needs to be controlled. But when it matters, it really matters.

What does this have to do with "Books for Babies & Toddlers"?, you ask.

Simply, the issue is that there are a LOT of AWFUL books out there for young children. The same is true for older children as well, but since my current focus is on books for the younger years, due to my small person being in that age bracket, my controlling nature is being unleashed upon the awful books for toddlers and babies.

Some books I absolutely love. For example, a classic book from my own childhood that Jackson adores is Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton. I have less than charitable feelings for a great many other books I've perused at the local bookstores, as well as others I've heard read aloud at various story time sessions held for children.

Typically the issue I take with most books I find unacceptable is that the lessons taught by the story are not ones I want my child to adopt. For example, I am quite content with Found You, Little Wombat by Angela McAllister and illustrated by Charles Fuge. The lesson taught (however implicitly) in that book about staying put when lost is a good one. On the other hand, when the illustrator of this book branched off to do Where To, Little Wombat?, I found Mr. Fuge's writing sub-par. The young wombat is whiny, willful, and irritating to his mother, so she tells him to see if he can find somewhere better to live, since he's "bored of living in burrows." He proceeds to effectively run away with permission and gets constantly abused by his environment, only to come home like the prodigal son with the house all clean now (thanks to his mother) and be rewarded by having a sleepover. Say what? According to one product review I found, Little Wombat's "search and final discovery that his own home is ideal with resonate with readers." I'm sure some people would find this book completely acceptable. But to a toddler who has never been bored, I'm loathe to introduce the notion of ennui into his life, let alone the idea that it's okay to try to run away and live on a lily pad with his frog friend.

I admit that I've been too quick to judge some books that we have. One book we have (It's Raining, It's Pouring, by Kin Eagle) still chafes at my nerves when I get to the line, "With ants in their pants, they started to dance, and ended up doing the Lindy." Exactly how these people accidentally managed to perform a dance I've never managed successfully (despite a fair bit of trying) escapes me. I know that it's meant to be silly. But it irritates me every time I read it, so for a long while I refused to do so. And I can only imagine what my son will think when he's old enough to think of other connotations for the line, "He ate so much one day for lunch, every part of him was showing." How does this stuff ever make it to print?

When I read a book of fiction for myself, I expect a certain level of quality. I prefer to have some semblance of realism so that I can buy into the story but without going out the other side into the realm of cliche. Believability is high ranking just as much as the intent of the story. If I cannot keep from saying, "No one would DO that!" then I'm disinclined to continue reading. So why should my standards for what I read to my child be held to any less of a degree of scrutiny?

By now you may be thinking, "Man, she's being all whiny. Why doesn't she do something about it instead of complaining?" I will have you know that i have been doing just that. Lately I've been trying to learn how to draw at least well enough that my not-quite-2 year old son Jackson will be able to interpret. (Luckily for me, he's pretty sharp at identifying things in poorly crafted drawings.) So, to finish out the year, the next couple of posts I make will be scans of the two books I have created so far.

The general idea behind posting them isn't so much that I enjoy embarrassing myself by demonstrating my mediocrity as an artist. The real goal is to show that it's fairly simple to write a children's book that is geared specifically toward introducing a particular idea to your child in a way that is best suited to your own family. The two that I have created thus far (and yes, I do intend to write/draw more) are informational stories. The first one I did was on the subject of toilet training, which has really seemed to help clarify what's expected in the bathroom for Jackson. The second one I recently completed is to help Jackson to understand what will occur next week when I fly out of town for a few days to visit some friends. He's never had a day without Mommy, so to help quell my over nervousness over the matter, I drafted and bound the book to read to him. So far, he's mainly focused on the pictures I drew of airplanes--but I can't really blame him, because airplanes are pretty awesome.

{Also, apologies for those of you who showed up looking for a post last week. I have been reading MLIA way too much lately and lost track of the time.}

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Summary

2009-11-25T12:00:00.006-05:00

Over the past few months, I've been sharing some ideas on parenting that my husband and I use on a regular basis. Many of you have told me that you have found this information very valuable, which makes me quite pleased. What is especially pleasing is that a large percentage of my readership for this series on Parenting Philosophy are not yet parents or even necessarily in a relationship.

I'd like to take a moment to commend those of you in the non-parent-as-yet category for taking the time to read on this subject. Very few people are fully prepared to become parents. In the United States, it is becoming a standard that first time parents decide to take a class on how to be a parent. If you have not yet had children of your own, it may be difficult to visualize some of the points I have been referencing, but you have an advantage now in that you have exposure to some ideas that have been designed to prod the mind into thinking about the process of parenting. You have been given an opportunity to receive insight from at least one parent (two actually, as Andrew helps me edit all my posts) with the hopes that your future work as the guidance counselor for your own progeny with have some basic foundations--that you will THINK about the kind of parent you want to be for your child.

Those of you who already are parents and who are reading this blog, bless you! Too often many of us get to a point where we feel we know what we are doing and no longer bother to read up on ways to improve our parenting skills. I feel this is folly. There is always room to improve; quality professionals call it kaizen, which means continuous improvement. This is not just applicable to manufacturing but to everyday life as well. Maybe you agree with the points I've highlighted in this series, and maybe you do not. But at least you have taken the time to consider them, so kudos to you for caring enough about your role as a parent to want to do it as best as possible!

And to make life a little easier for us all, I am posting a list of the gist of each of the 10 points of the series as well as linking the list items to the corresponding posts. I could have added others, but I really wanted to focus on the core concepts to start.

A part of me especially wanted to add an 11th element to the Parenting Philosophy Toolbox under the heading Be Respectful. I feel that it should be obvious if someone reads and follows the other 10 ideas, but it may need to be explicitly made its own tool in the kit for some parents. I still may do this because I feel it is a very important consideration for a parent: that children deserve respect and need to learn how to be respectful through example.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this series. If in the process of reading this you have some idea(s) you would like to share to expand on or refute a concept I've outlined, please feel free to place a comment below or on the comments section for the post in particular. I read every comment made on and about my blog and greatly value feedback.

Thank you to all of you who have been regular faithful readers. I've been stalking you with Google Analytics, so I have a pretty good idea who has been reading and who has not.

I'll be starting a new project with the blog soon. It's still in the early development stages, so bear with me. Also, if there is anything in particular that you would like to see discussed or elaborated in the blog, let me know!

~Jessica Adams

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 10

2009-11-13T12:00:00.004-05:00

10. It takes a village to raise a child. You cannot and should not attempt parenting without a support network. This portion of the series I hope you will read as a call to arms. By that, I mean you should embrace all those around you, literally or figuratively.

Do not push people away for their lack of social graces: perhaps you could help them learn--and in the process learn some things for yourself. Do not reject offers of assistance just because you are afraid of being seen as weak. Accept help that is offered, even if you suspect it may not have been wholly offered in earnest. Thank those who help you and invite them to do so again--and offer your own services in return. Do not be afraid to ask for help where you need it.

The Nuclear Family: Aptly Named
Somewhere along the line, some idiots thought that the best configuration for a family was simply a mother, a father, and their offspring. Now, after many years of struggling to make that nuclear family a reality, people are waking up to the idea that it's just a fantasy. We have to work so much harder to hold this notion true (and to a large extent, I count myself among the guilty here), to uphold the lie that we can do it all without help. Some countries have done better than others at avoiding the pitfalls of the nuclear family. However the United States seems to be crumbling under the weight of its own high demands.

And do NOT allow yourself to look down on those who have the courage to ask for help. We live in a society that considers any inability a weakness. I know so very many mothers (and fathers!) who stay home with their children and struggle to be the one to do all the household chores, myself included. I almost feel obligated to leave heaping messes about when company arrives so that I do not present a false picture of what is standard. Yet I've had moms of younger babies ask me how I keep my place so clean. What they don't see is that sometimes I hide dirty dishes in the oven when I'm expecting company. They aren't looking closely enough at the filth that has congealed on the tile and the broken bits of chips, crackers, and (of course) Cheerios that are ubiquitous in our carpeting. They obviously haven't seen the hard water stains that are practically permanent in our toilet bowls. All these women can see is that my place looks cleaner than theirs. What they do not see, in essence, is the failure of the nuclear family to provide a sufficient structure to accomplish all the goals it sets.

Knowing this, I strive not to envy others whose homes shine with cleanliness because I know at what cost it must come. To accomplish what minimal chores I do manage around the house, I have to surrender quality time with Jackson. In order to have a home that glitters and gleams, I would need to sacrifice a great deal more quality time with him (and possibly my husband as well). The value of the sparklingly clean home does not offset the loss of time spent focusing on my child. Given that he's my priority, my main responsibility, it seems ridiculous that quality time with him should get rejected because someone else might notice it's been a couple of weeks since I last vacuumed.

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When I made the decision to move away from family to be with Andrew, it was initially under the assumption that we were not imminently going to have children. That assumption turned out to be waaay wrong. Having no family nearby, we have no easy place to turn when we need a spare hand or some time off just to breathe for an hour or to get things done that require both loud noises and two sets of hands. Instead we have had to construct a new network to take the place of a familial tribe.

As it stands now, we are in a much better position than when I first moved to town as a newly pregnant, very sick (iron poisoning which subsided as morning sickness began), and physically injured woman (disc-herniation in my neck; no fun). I joined a playgroup as soon as possible after Jackson's birth. I take every available opportunity to befriend other moms who I feel are people I could respect--and who may one day be someone I could call in an emergency to help me with my child. And I have continued going to the gym, partly as my "time off for good behavior," as the gym offers free child care for up to 2 hours a day for members. On particularly exhausting days, I will drop Jackson off at the gym's daycare so he can get playtime in with other children while I relax in the spa and try to recoup some energy.

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The cliche of elderly people complaining about "kids these days" is somewhat ironic. The genetics and the environment handed down to the "kids these days" is given to them by the elderly and aging. As the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, non-child-bearing adults, and any other person whose life impacts children in any way (which is EVERYONE), we have a responsibility to teach our children in word and action. We also have a responsibility to protect them. No longer is the world comprised of isolated tribes. We are all interconnected and the lines between borders of countries are diminished; the barriers between cultures are blurred, and slowly but surely we are becoming a world of one tribe.

People are social creatures. We function better together than we do apart. Sadly much of our modern culture serves to emphasize our individuality to such an extreme that we all feel isolated from one another. A worldwide culture of lonely people who are forgetting their origins. Luckily we have the power to change that negative trend.

We need to quit comparing and start sharing. If many hands make light work, then why aren't we dining in groups more often and sharing the workload of the cooking and clean-up? Why aren't more parents helping watch their friends' children while they clean house? Let's make it happen. Let's build our networks of friends and families in a genuine way. Let's acknowledge that being a parent is a difficult and worthy challenge that does NOT have to be borne alone.

It takes a village to raise a child. Let's all do our parts to see children raised well: happy, healthy, loved, and cherished by all.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 9

2009-10-28T12:00:00.012-04:00

(This is part 9 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

9. What lesson is my child learning from this? This question should continually play in the background of your mind with everything you do. Ultimately the decisions that you make in life regarding your behavior (as perceived by your child) should be guided by the answers you derive from this constant line of questioning.

When you do something and then tell your child that it is forbidden for him to do the same, you send a mixed message. When you allow the television to be the child's best friend and babysitter and then complain that he or she is poorly behaved or having nightmares from watching scary images or has limited or vulgarity-filled speech, it's time to take a step back and wonder how those behaviors came about.

When you cave into a demand that your child makes after crying and begging for that demand for several minutes, what lesson has the child learned? "Hey, I may have to whine for 5 minutes and listen to Daddy say 'no cookie' over and over again, but eventually I always get a cookie anyway!" "Hmm, Mommy wants me to do this, but I know that she gives me chocolate chips if I hold out for them, so I'll wait and see if I can get some candy!"

I've heard all kinds of stories where parents neglected to consider the lesson(s) the child would learn by certain behaviors. I know of more than one father who has had a toddler girl awaken and have difficulty falling back asleep during the night and has plopped down in front of her favorite movie at 2AM. Guess what happened the next night? And the next? The daughter learned that she could get up for 2AM movies every night, and so the negative behavior was reinforced, rather than extinguished. The inconsistent behavior by these fathers led the children to ignore the notion that when they awaken during the night they should return to sleep.

A few months ago I was faced with a dilemma: the sprinklers were still spraying the lawn when I took my son to our neighborhood playground one morning, and some tempting puddles had formed on the sidewalk. Another mom was there with her two children who kept trying to convince her that it wasn't a problem for them to get wet. I had to consider the issue: would it be acceptable for my son to play in puddles in the future? How much of a problem would it be for him to jump now and expect the same opportunity down the road? In the end all 3 children had a soggy morning romp in the water and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Jackson got soaking wet, with pruned skin, and while he has had some puddle exploration opportunities since, we haven't had any problematic issues as a result. (Of course, having typed this now, that is sure to change!)

In the above situation, I analyzed the issue before acting. I recognized that puddle jumping was something I was willing to allow to become a consistent game for Jackson. However sometimes I forget to ask myself what lesson my son is learning, and much corrective action later becomes necessary. One issue I have struggled with adjusting is table standing. Traditionally, I have disallowed standing on tables indoors. However in my own mind, I found that outdoor tables are distinct in many ways and generally less of a threat of danger for standing. My son, on the other hand, merely became confused by this distinction which was not as clear to him as it was to me. Sometimes standing on tables was okay, perhaps even encouraged; sometimes he got yelled at for doing it. How confusing! Who is to blame for him standing on indoor tables then? Certainly not Jackson. He was merely applying his preferred of two states of table standing rules: the one in which he got to be on the table!

Unfortunately, there are other situations of a sadder nature that need to be addressed here. Some parents have been raised under the impression that hitting a child (or even an adult) will be educational. I'm no neuroscientist, but to me it makes little sense to spank a child for peeing on the floor or for hitting another child, etc. The part of the brain that reacts to violence would be our more primitive side, our hindbrain, which has very little capacity for reasoning. Expecting that a child will learn the correct lesson from hitting is very strange indeed, particularly in the example of a child being violent. "Wait, Mommy says 'no hitting, hitting is bad', but then she hit me!" It's a very confusing statement to make to a child. It also does not correct the behavior, as with peeing on the floor. Children instead learn to hide the unwanted behavior (or lie about it) if they perceive they will receive punishment, rather than to learn the lesson not to perform the unwanted behavior in the first place. Kids whose parents have often resorted to physical punishment are prone to lying, hiding evidence of soiled underpants, blaming others for knocking over plants, and in one particularly memorable case I experienced recently, a child was unable to locate the garbage can in my bathroom and hid poopy paper behind my toilet so she would not get "in trouble" for making a mess.

The above instances are all ones I have pulled from personal experiences I have had with children, and it takes considerable time and retraining to correct for the behavior of children who learned the wrong lessons from their errors. Rather than trying to help kids gain an understanding of the reason to do or not to do something, many parents and caregivers resort to authoritarian commands that dictate rather than guide or suggest. As a result, these children may behave better, but they are not developing their own reasoning skills. Some recent articles explain this phenomenon in more detail, demonstrating that slightly wilder, less well-behaved children may actually have a scholastic advantage if their parents are prone more to reasoning with kids than to issuing a series of mandates.

After all, if a child runs out into the street without looking, and he is struck by and yelled at by his father, what lesson is he learning from that experience? "I run into the street, and Daddy hits me and yells at me! Ouch! I thought Daddy liked me?" However, if a child is consistently helped with reasoning skills, he can (like my 21 month old son) learn that crossing the street is something to be done with care. Jackson understands that cars are dangerous because they are big, fast, and heavy. When he comes to a street, even if he's been running ahead of me, he waits, holds my hand, looks both ways, and crosses the street when no cars are coming. Since he could walk, street-crossing skills have been practiced and discussed, so that he knows how to be safe. Of course, on occasion he will get distracted by an airplane flying overhead and need a reminder not to stop in the street. That's part of being a kid. But being abused by the people you love and trust more than anyone, being taught that making mistakes is worthy of being hit, the only lesson that is learned is that mistakes and problems must be kept a secret from parents--which is hardly what I think these parents are hoping their children will learn.

So, while keeping the notion in your mind, "What is my child learning from this experience?" you should also consider the correlate question: "What lesson should I be learning from this experience?" It is largely through asking ourselves these two questions that Andrew and I have developed the ideas I've been presenting in this Parenting Philosophy Toolbox. If you take nothing else away from reading this series of concepts, please take this one! When we make time to consider the effects of our behavior on our children and ourselves, our self-reflection helps us to become better parents and more thoughtful people.

Please come back for the next installment in this series in 2 weeks!

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 8

2009-10-14T12:00:00.015-04:00

(This is part 8 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

8. Be creative. This is often a challenge for parents. We spend so much time becoming "grown-ups" and giving up on childish pleasures. We work hard to get organized and maintain regular schedules. We emphasize intellectualism and crave reason.

Then we have children--and we are totally at a loss for how to deal with them! We wonder why they do things that make no sense. We simply get to a point, somewhere along the line, in which we can no longer sympathize with the joy of riding a merry-go-round. Seriously, I used to love those things, but since my son started enjoying them, I have discovered that my adoration of the merry-go-round has been replaced by discomfort when I feel the loss of control and head-spinning craziness that whirling about in circles induces. Kids LOVE that stuff. Adults...not so much.

In order to get in tune with how children experience the world, we have to go back and try to remember what it was like being young. With more and more people waiting longer to have children, this only becomes more challenging. The boring adult rut is tough to bust out of, but to truly relate to a child, we have to walk a mile in shoes that are way too small for us now. Which just looks ridiculous--yet that's actually part of what we need to do. We need to embrace a level of silly that helps us connect with our children.

I didn't know I had lost my touch. I had retained it for a long time, even up until about halfway through my 20s. But by the time my son Jackson became a toddler, something was very different in me, and I felt I had to relearn old ways of relating to children. Thankfully he has developed some small level of patience and understanding that sometimes Mommy and Daddy are a little dense about certain "obvious" concepts.

For example, when Jackson was 12 months old, he began behaving very strangely in relation to food. He would be quite clearly hungry, but lacking verbal skills, he simply could not articulate to us why it was that he was refusing to eat food that he obviously wanted to ingest. Out of desperation, we began to try to discover what would appease him. Andrew and I learned a LOT about toddlers from this sort of behavior. Why didn't Jackson eat his food? He was learning about lids. He wanted to take the lid off his baby food and put it back on. Between EVERY bite. EVERY time. For MONTHS.

Sure, we could have argued. We could have tried to tell him he was being ridiculous. But truly, had we forced him to get upset over something so trivial and easily accommodated as covering and uncovering his food between bites, who is the more ridiculous? He was asserting power in his largely powerless life. He was developing fine motor skills. He was learning about his environment. And more than that, he was eating without a fight.

Being creative with your interactions with your child can help in numerous ways. Say your child is hungry. You're on your way home to get food but have run out of food with you in the car. She's upset because she wants food and keeps asking for it, but no matter how much sense you try to use to reassure her that you understand she is hungry and that you are making strides toward acquiring sustenance, all she can focus on is the sensation in her belly. Crack the window. Talk about the wind. Sing a silly song. Point out words that she's been learning: "Look! Trees! Bicycle! Running! Ambulance! School bus!" The important part of this, of course, is that you first acknowledge the desires expressed by your child and reassure her that you are actively working to resolve the sensations in her belly--then you can try a distractionary technique.

Kid won't eat something you call broccoli? Call it a little tree. Want your child to learn about road safety as a pedestrian? Teach him about the Road Fairy/Ferry who has to be with him to help make sure there aren't any cars coming. He asks for a banana and refuses to eat it? Get him into a silly place and call it the Banana Zone.

It's okay for kids to splash in puddles once in a while. It's okay for them to treat curbs as balance beams. It's okay for them to do silly things and for you to join them. But remember: if you do it once, they will expect you to do it again. And again. And again. Begging may be involved. Whining as well, if you do not bend sufficiently to allow the game to happen again. So whatever you allow, whatever silliness or creative game you decide to play, consider whether or not it's one you'd be willing to do with any sort of regularity. If it's any kind of success, your child will want to repeat the fun time with Mommy and/or Daddy.

Also if your child has some issues that need resolving, be they significant (traumatic event) or minor (afraid of monsters under the bed), you may want to consider flipping through a copy of Dr. Lawrence Cohen's book Playful Parenting. I acknowledge that his writing could be better organized than it is, but for those looking for some ideas on where to start, it's a place to go. Dr. Cohen is a child psychologist who uses play as a form of therapy to help children recover from incidents ranging from violent behaviors to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to a fear of riding on swings. He describes play as many researchers today do, which is the main form of learning for children, particularly through about age 7. Play is how they study the world around them, how they make sense of what they perceive, and therefore play is the most critical aspect of childhood as well as the most educational.

The main thing for you as a parent is that you connect with your child. So you have to get down on the child's level. Get on the floor and roll around. Pretend to be a train or an elephant. Make silly noises and encourage your child to copy them or make up his own for you to repeat. Discuss ridiculous hypothetical situations with your older child (e.g. What would happen if you launched a water balloon into space? Whose house would it land on?). Life can be fun if we allow it to be so. Be creative, and enjoy more of life as a parent.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 7

2009-09-30T12:00:00.010-04:00

(This is part 7 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

7. Raise the child(ren) you have. Every child is unique, so parent to that child, and trust your instincts. Some children are petite and perpetually "too small"; some are too tall and heavy before they can take full advantage of playthings designed for kids in their age group. Some develop social skills faster; others focus on expanding physical development first. Some children follow growth charts precisely, and others continually yo-yo above and below the expected growth curve projections.

Some children are rambunctious and excited about life. Others are more sedate and prefer calmer activities. Some have great propensities for focusing attention while their peers are incapable of focusing seemingly at all. Some children have developmental abnormalities that prevent them from following the normal growth schemes they might otherwise have managed.

There are very few things that we can unequivocally state apply to all children other than that they are young. Even siblings, even so-called "identical" siblings, can be radically different from one another in temperament, personal preferences, physical talents, and viewpoints on the world. One child may be mild-mannered and inclined to follow the directions provided by a parent or other caregiver; another child may be wild and rebellious, prefer to lead rather than follow, and prone to violence when a parent or caregiver does not bend accordingly to the child's mandates. These two disparate children may be reared in the same home, by the same parents, and yet demonstrate wildly different characters.

Often, however, what you will find is that each child has a blending of personalities within him, sparring at any given moment for which shall be expressed. Is today the day he will be complacent? Or is today the day to tantrum like a wild beast when mommy leaves him at daycare? Will he cheerfully agree to consume what is offered for lunch? Or will he demand something other than what was prepared for him and refuse to eat unless his "request" is satisfied.

So, when I say that you need to parent to the child you have, I don't mean even just the child you prefer to have when she is well-behaved--I mean the child you have in the moment. We've already covered that children are in constant flux, ever-changing. Once you can accept that she is a developing individual, you can then focus on the individual she is being and your role in parenting her.

Tune into your child. Is he standing on the table wanting you to yell at him to get down? (Yes, this is a game my son occasionally initiates.) Consider what he would be feeling in order to ask you to "get him in trouble." Typically, children want our attention. They want to know that we recognize things that are important to them. They want our validation, our love, and our play. When we (for example) do not take enough time to focus on him, the child will often try to enforce his need for attention by getting it any way he can. Cue the toddler standing on the table shouting happily, "Get down!" He knows he will get into trouble for it (thus parroting our usual admonishment for the action) and may even understand that it's because Mommy and Daddy fear he will fall and become injured. What he wants may be to demonstrate his prowess in table-standing; but what it also shows, when I have the presence of mind to recognize it with Jackson, is that he is feeling neglected. Sure, I can be feeding him, providing toys for him, but if I'm not engaged, if he does not feel that he has my full attention and eye contact, we get games like "Get down!"

Being in the same room is not enough. Children need to feel special. They need to know that when they need some emotional fuel, they can fill up at the parental station. Dr. Harvey Karp refers to this as Feeding the Meter. Dr. Lawrence Cohen calls it Filling the Cup. Either way, it amounts to the same thing: your child needs a piece of you to feel whole. When interpersonal connections are continually denied to her, eventually she will turn elsewhere to try to refuel her emotional lows--and it may be a path you'd prefer she doesn't follow.

One thing you need to recognize is that your child is effectively the same as a child born 200 or 2,000 or perhaps even 10,000 years ago. So just because you, as an adult, understand certain realities of the world, you cannot expect your child to instantaneously grasp all the developments of technology and societal interaction that have come into play throughout the entire history of humanity. You need to recognize that you are raising a savage.

Dr. Harvey Karp talks in his book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block (which I highly recommend), about how toddlers are effectively primitive people. When you watch your child with the idea in mind that you are raising a caveman or cavewoman, suddenly many things that were puzzling or aggravating before can become easier to comprehend. Why does your young child act so feral? Well, because...she is! It takes a long time to civilize a human being. I believe it is for this reason that we do not grant people rights as adults, who are theoretically capable of making informed and rational decisions, until a certain age is achieved. We have a lot of mistake-making and learning to do before we can comprehend the rules in place in the world around us.

So, when you feel like your child is pushing you, testing your limits, that's exactly what he's doing. And it's his job to do it. It's your job as a parent to let him know what those limits are.

It's also your job to recognize that your child is an individual, not a statistical normal distribution of data points. Maybe you see your daughter speaking a little later than her friends. Maybe your son takes seemingly forever to potty train. Maybe your older child struggles to learn spelling and how to sit still in school. These are developmental milestones that cannot be forced and that every child (excepting those with specific developmental disorders) will learn in time.

The phrase, "Why can't you be more like _____?" comes to your lips. And there it should be swallowed, choked back, and maybe a glass of water drunk to dilute it in your stomach. Do not allow yourself or your partner to constantly compare your child to other children. Growing up is not a competition, though sometimes (particularly in the first 3 years) it can seem like it in our culture that obsesses over intellect and ability. After all, your child needs to grow and develop as an individual before intellect and ability have any usefulness in life--so treat her as the individual she is and cherish her for it.

Therefore, if your child needs nap time at noon and his friends nap at 2, then give him his nap at noon. If he wants to eat his banana in the specially designated Banana Zone, then let him, and enjoy his assertiveness and willingness to engage you in a game of his own making--as well as a chance for him to still feel powerful despite eating healthy food. Do not concern yourself with the opinions of others when you know best how to treat your child. If he's too young to hold still for an hour while you go out to eat, then let him have some time to roam so that when the meal is there, he can use his calmness reserves to eat before dashing off on some new adventure. Do not allow the (perceived or imagined) negative judgments by others to stop you from doing right by your child.

I'm giving you permission to be the parent your child needs you to be. I grant you permission to let loose with laughter. I absolve you of any indignity that rolling around on the floor with your child may provide you. If your hair is not perfectly coiffed, if your clothes are often covered in baby spit up or fresh smears of snot or cheese stains, if you wear comfy house clothes to the grocery store, you are not a lesser person. You're a parent with your priorities in order. And being a parent, you are making what we all hope to be a valuable contribution to the future, so any efforts you make on behalf of your children, we all appreciate.

Raise the children that you have. Take care of yourself, but remember what's most important: family. Your child's happiness is more important than the smirk the bagger boy gets on his face because he saw you yesterday in the same outfit. Whose smile deserves more attention? Your daughter who wears her princess costume to the grocery store with you; that's who.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 6

2009-09-16T12:00:00.006-04:00

(This is part 6 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

6. Cooperation is essential between parents; there must be agreement. If I haven't drilled it enough yet, it's time to do so. You as a parent are responsible for helping your child develop a certain and defined sense of the world. However, if Daddy says one thing, Mommy says another, (and any other caregiver says yet another), then the system falls apart.

As an example, most parents have cell phones these days. And most babies and toddlers are fascinated by anything with buttons, lights, colors, motion, sounds, etc. As such, there will often be times in which a baby or toddler will come into contact with a parent's cell phone. There are many parents who are dead-set against their children biting on, drooling on, or otherwise manipulating their phones. Many other parents are more lackadaisical with regard to how their children treat their phones. Conflicting messages occur when these two distinct types are parents of the same children.

That's not to say that things don't change. This is where communication becomes very important. When the kid goes to bed, it's time for parents to talk. (Adjust for plurals accordingly for parents of multiple children.) Discussions need to occur about behaviors the child is exhibiting. What new developments are in progress? Is the child showing signs of illness? Teething pain? Growth spurts? Emotional or mental spurts? Is the child practicing a new skill that may soon radically alter his regular behavior?

Important at this time, too, is that both parents get time to vent. Frustrations they have at work or around the house need to be expressed and resolved, preferably on a daily basis, so that maximum peace and happiness can be maintained. If one parent feels that the other just "doesn't understand" what she's going through, odds are good that there's a communication breakdown somewhere. Ideally speaking the venting of frustrations should be enacted out of hearing of the child. Babies, toddlers, and even older children often cannot distinguish between someone speaking heatedly about an argument or difficulty from earlier in the day and a presently occurring disagreement.

This can be challenging to ensure but valuable to pursue. One thing I have noticed is that men, on average, are very poor at multi-tasking. Much as I love my husband, I need to acknowledge this aspect of his character and remember that while I may often act like the queen of ADD, his ability to focus is dramatically greater than my own. The challenging aspect of this is when he comes home from work after a particularly nerve-rending day. He often immediately wants to divest himself of the weight of the thoughts he's been carrying throughout the day by sharing his aggravations with me. Typically this will happen while I am washing dishes or making dinner in the kitchen, which is sectioned apart by a baby gate from the foyer/living/dining space. Meanwhile, Jackson sees "Daddy!" and lovingly runs to him, glomping onto his leg and begging for attention. Andrew will be so focused on relating his tales and making eye contact with me that he will be oblivious to the wailing, sobbing, shouting, or otherwise attention-seeking behavior Jackson attempts to shift Daddy's gaze downward. With my own self being rather easily distracted (and deeply entrenched in my role as primary caregiver of our son), I often feel torn between being an active listener and participant in conversation with my husband--whose feelings and thoughts I value highly--and my darling little boy who just wants some love from his father whom he hasn't seen in 9 hours or more.

Because of situations like this, I often find myself in a position to tell Andrew what to do. Luckily he is willing and able to observe Jackson's needs when I remind him in cases like the one described above. Often one of the main pieces of information I have to convey to my husband is how our son's day developed. Kids change so quickly, and the events of a single day have significant impact. Andrew relies on me to keep him up to date on Jackson's latest abilities. For example, when he learned to drink from a cup or suddenly demonstrated greater skill at using a fork. These are important things to share so that Andrew knows what to expect when he's doing his part as a parent, since he's not as lucky as me in getting to spend all day with Jackson. I'm also the little man's interpreter so that he can be better understood. Any new vocabulary or signs that Jackson develops I relate to Andrew because when our toddler stands at the window shouting "Ah eh! Ah eh!" it's not really all that obvious that he is hoping to see an airplane.

Raising children is a long and complicated process. While young children are generally fairly good at making their needs known, the ability to express confusion or distress when parents disagree is not always there. A child's egocentric world cannot fathom that Mommy doesn't know Daddy taught him a new word or that Daddy doesn't know Mommy showed her little girl how to throw away trash. Communication between parents (and other caregivers) facilitates the knowledge of a particular child, helping that child to be better understood, which in turn can help the child to feel more secure and joyful as she goes about her job of being young.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 5

2009-09-02T12:00:00.009-04:00

(This is part 5 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

5. Children, even very young babies, LOVE a predictable schedule. Be consistent 95% of the time with the schedule, with only minor deviations, and you'll be golden. Andrew and I fought this at first. Oh, no, it won't work with our son yet, we thought. He's too young for it to matter, so we'll go out late anyway. Well, I can't vouch for the first 5 or 6 months, since we resisted a schedule, but I can say this: as soon as we started being consistent with our habits, Jackson became a much more consistent child--and a much better sleeper!

People in general do better when they follow a daily pattern that coincides with the cycle of the sun. Babies and young children instinctively rise around the same time each morning regardless of the time they go to bed. My niece (who is 7 and a half years old) awakens at 7:30AM all throughout the summer months despite lacking the regulation that the weekdaily school schedule provides, no matter the amount of rest received. In order for her (and all other children) to get sufficient sleep, a bedtime must be set that allows for the child to catch enough Zs before her natural morning alertness.

Just about every parenting book these days discusses the importance of a bedtime routine. I've often heard it simplified to the alliterative phrase: Bath, Book, Bed. The general idea is that you provide a quiet, calming atmosphere for at least half an hour before sending your child to bed. No television, no roughhousing, no energetic or wild antics. As part of this, your darling dear would likely follow the 3B method of bathing, reading a book on your lap, then going to bed with a "transitional object" (which you might recognize as a favorite blanket, doll, stuffed animal, or other lovey). And as I said above, I resisted the truth of this for a long time. Like many other parents I know, I was convinced that I could reregulate my child's inner clock so that he'd sleep from, say, 9PM to 9AM, rather than 7PM to 7AM. To some extent, this is possible, but only if you make use of a significant amount of artificial light and curtains. It takes years of fighting our natural alertness cycles for adults to lose their innate sleep/wake programming, but for children the Circadian rhythm is still the ruler.

However sleep isn't the only aspect affected by the regularity of a routine. Your child's behavior is highly influenced by the level of predictability in his day. Babies, toddlers, young children, and older children all like to be included in knowing what is going to happen to them. Having a sense of order and chronology helps the younger portion of the population feel more secure and confident. Something that I continually hear parents say is that they never realized just how aware babies are and just how much they really apprehend of what is said and done around them. Even if a baby or toddler is too young to verbally express her knowledge, she may still have far more mental capacity than her parent credits her.

An example of my own naivete in this was discovered while we were moving to a new apartment when Jackson was just 9 months old. I had noted at our old place that Jackson very often got upset at the traffic light for our street whenever we were coming home from an outing. I used to work very hard to soothe him and assure him that we would be home soon, knowing that he highly disliked being in his car safety seat. What I hadn't recognized, however, was that that particular irritable reaction to the traffic light was because he did not want to be home. Even though the drive time was the same to the new apartment, he never complained when we were bringing belongings to the new place. However each time we neared the old apartment, he was upset that we were going there, ostensibly afraid that we would be going back to staying there again. I knew he loved our new home, but it had completely failed to catch my notice that he was aware of our driving patterns at such a young age that at just 9 months (and probably for a month or two beforehand at least) my baby was able to derive that we were heading to the old apartment. At 12 months old, Jackson led Andrew and I on a walk, which turned out to be a very well-directed journey the quarter of a mile to the playground here at our complex, which cannot be seen from our apartment. We soon learned that he clearly knew several different routes to take to the same location without needing to spy the playground itself to guide him there--as though he had a map in his head of all the local landmarks and could identify them from any angle.

As it happens, children are very prone to noticing patterns (such as common paths parents take when walking and driving). This is because their brains are working in overdrive to learn, and the easiest way to learn what is important and what is not seems to be by paying attention to things that occur with frequency. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to be consistent in parenting so that your child infers the correct rules from your authoritative personage.

Another way in which a daily routine helps your child is by having a planned schedule so that everyone gets happy. If you are a work-at-home parent, you may recognize the essential nature of a predictable day fairly early. For example, if your little one requires a nap around mid-day, you know that you need to accomplish breakfast, morning activities, and lunch and be home in time for a nap. Then afternoon activities and snack and dinner, followed by the bedtime routine will fairly well absorb the rest of the day. Considering that play is the single most important thing for a young child (through about age 7) to do outside of basic biological functions, a large amount of time must be delegated every day to allowing children to play. If you plan your day in advance this is easily accomplished. Playdates can be planned with other children; fun activities to do around town are typically abundant, even in smaller cities; and fall-back activities to do at home are all part of the play regime. A good mix of playdates, parks, indoor activity places, and home time will help keep things diversified enough to be interesting to your child--and allow him to burn sufficient energy to take a solid nap. He will also need a certain amount of "face time" with both parents each day, which involves nothing but Mommy/Daddy and the little dear snuggling, roughhousing, stacking blocks together, or some activity that necessitates participation by both parties--done without distractions such as television or phone conversations, and with the focus put solely on the child.

If your rugrat gets plenty of time to be queen of the castle, she will be far more willing to be toted along with you to the grocery store once in a while. But the important part here is that you understand that this isn't just a matter of appeasing the angry god your child becomes when she doesn't get her way: it's an issue of treating your progeny as a person worthy of respect.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario, if you will: You have had a stroke that has affected your ability to speak properly and which has perhaps impaired some of your faculties for interpreting the speech of others. In addition, your motor skills are simply not as functional as they once were. However you still have emotions. You still have desires and preferences. Yet your ability to express them is inhibited by the effects of your stroke. More than anything you just want some control in your life, some say in what to do.

This is how your child feels. People tend to ignore babies, believing a large part of their behavior to be irrelevant. And yet there are moms and dads out there who do pay very close attention to their children and are able to communicate so much earlier that even children too young to support their own heads can signal an impending bowel movement with the intention of letting their parents know.

So, what am I saying, you should hold your kid over a sink every half an hour and make pissing noises? No. What I am saying, however, is that babies aren't just little roly polies with googly eyes. They aren't dolls, puppets, stuffed animals, or pets. Their methods of communication are significantly limited, but what they do understand, what they respond very well to, is being treated with respect. This can be as simple as maintaining a regular schedule so that your child can predict what happens next. It can be as minimally challenging as informing your child of your destination each time you go to leave the house or each time you bring him to the diaper changing table.

The point is that by keeping a predictable atmosphere, you can provide your child with a host of benefits. From sleep regulation to educational inferences to self-confidence, routines help children (and parents) to form an alliance that works in everyone's favor.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 4

2009-08-26T12:00:00.003-04:00

(This is part 4 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

4. Life will never be the same again. Heraclitus said that you never step in the same river twice. This analogy is so true when applied to childrearing. Once you become a parent, you will always be so (even if you outlive your child). The lifestyle you experience before having children will change and never fully revert to the same it once was. There is a constant forward march that keeps your offspring moving through the stages of growth and development, and to truly be a wise parent, one must recognize this universal truth about living.

The life you have before becoming a parent is not the same life you have after the baby hatches. It never will be again. The sooner parents can acknowledge and deal with this reality, the better. Fighting it does not help and is more likely, in fact, to make matters worse. Accepting that life will never have the same level of potential spontaneity that it once did (and implementing a regular schedule for yourself) will go a long way toward easing a new parent into the new regime.

This lesson was a struggle for Andrew and I to incorporate into our own toolbox. We fought the idea that life would never be the same. In the meantime, we gave ourselves a lot of trouble trying to make the old regime (two adults, no kids) mesh with the new regime (two adults, one newborn). Even habits that we had adopted during the 9 months before we were "officially" parents were tough to break, such as staying up late watching rented DVDs or going out at night to play trivia at the local pizza place. Our attempts to combine two paradigms into one were leaving us strained to an unsustainable level.

We had to change; we had to adapt to the circumstances that were unavoidable all around us. We had to accept our new roles as parents, for one. I had believed I would work from home and spent over 4 months trying to get 10 hours a week done--and rarely succeeding. I had to accept that my body was not going to be the same shape after gaining 50lbs, giving birth, and losing a total of 50lbs again. I had to accept that I was at the beck and call of a small, helpless creature for whenever it needed nourishment. I had to try to sleep as often as possible because the sleep that I was getting was minimal and only for short durations.

Life changed for Andrew as well. He had to understand that my anatomy was altered, and that another person now had first dibs on my time and attention. Not having even held a baby until having one of his own, the newborn phase was very difficult for Andrew. He had to learn a whole new set of behaviors and eschew others that were highly ingrained in him.

But then slowly, gradually, babies grow into toddlers. Then the rules change. Every step of the way, things change. The home that was safe for a newborn is suddenly not safe for the crawler. The home that was safe for the cruiser is no longer well-suited for the new-walker. The new-walker is suddenly a climber, and then before you know it, your child is defeating all your baby-proofing.

The newborn nurses when upset and it's calming. But by 6 months, food is insufficient to calm the child and he will often rebel if provided breastmilk when he's hurt or scared or sad. After all, he's trying to tell you there's a problem, and you're telling him to shut up, that you don't want to hear about it, rather than letting him know that you understand his problem.

Nursing babies eventually start on mushy solids. Then tiny bites of solids fed by hand. Then they feed themselves, on their terms. The rules keep changing.

Down the road, perhaps another child comes along, and everything is different with her. Her personality may be a complete 180 of the first child. Different sleep habits, different behaviors, different preferences all present variations of their own. And life just keeps changing, always flowing, never the same.

The important part to remember at any point along the way is that it's just a phase. While some phases may last longer than others, nothing stays completely static because we cannot stop time. Children grow up, parents grow old. Children are not children forever, so we must accept this and do what we can to appreciate each stage along the way. If a child is currently in a period that is aggravating to the parent (i.e. incapable of verbal communication), this will not last an eternity--though it may seem it at the time. Kids eventually develop skills and minds of their own that are capable of making decisions. However, it takes a lifetime to become a fully developed individual.

With each new phase we have to learn to adapt. If your child is ready to move out of the crib or feed herself, you as the parent need to acknowledge that and make it possible. If your child is not ready to potty train, you as the parent need to be patient and wait until your child is ready. If your "baby" is 12 years old, then he needs to know how to do laundry and dishes and receive lessons in cooking. Your 16 year old daughter needs to learn how to use jumper cables and replace a tire if you are going to let her drive.

A parent's job is not simply to babysit children until they are 18 and assume legal responsibility for their own actions. We have a responsibility to the future (including our own) to see that the kids we raise develop the skills they will need to survive on their own. They will need to learn critical thinking techniques and decision making processes. They will need to know that they are allowed to make mistakes--but that they have also been given the tools they will need to succeed.

The specifics of parenting necessarily change at every level. Your interactions with your progeny must allow for your burgeoning little one to grow as a person. Life is always in flux, and it will never be the same again. This is a good thing! No one wants to spend 60 years changing diapers. In time your child(ren) will become the people their genetics and life experiences have helped them to be. And as a parent our job is to help, not hinder, and sit back to watch the show as the life we created metamorphoses into someone truly unique--and always changing.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 3

2009-08-12T12:00:00.013-04:00

(This is part 3 of a series. To start from the beginning, click here.)

3. Parenting is a full-time job. And by full-time, I don't mean just 40 hours a week--I mean 24/7/365.25. There is no time off for good behavior. Even if you hire a babysitter, you are still the primary caregiver of your child. Going to work is great (someone has to pay the bills, after all), but parenting still needs to be done when you get home. Ultimately and primarily, as the parent(s) you have to make all the decisions regarding your child. It's expensive. It's time-consuming. It's emotionally and physically draining work, both for a parent who stays with the child throughout the day and for the parent who works outside of the home. No one has it easy. And just because you're having a bad day or not feeling well, just because your back hurts or you're mad at your boss, just because you're exhausted from not getting much sleep the night before because a certain someone kept waking you--none of that excuses you from your duty to be a good parent.

Just because you go to work to earn a living, it doesn't mean that all you are expected to do when you get home is to vegetate in front of the TV or the computer. (Alternatively, just because you've been home with your child all day, you're not off the hook just because your partner is home from work.)

Furthermore, if you and your spouse/sig-oth separate, the time the other parent is due to have custody of the children is not "ruined" if they cancel and you learn that you will have the child(ren) with you after all. TOO BAD. I feel a need to include this because I have known people in this situation who will complain about their ex not being able to take their scheduled time with the kids. What they forget is that for the rest of us who are still together or who are families with only one parent at all, we do not have disposable children. They are ours year round. They are a challenge, and at times they may feel burdensome, but they are a fact. Making your kids feel unwanted by whining about how you missed your chance for some freedom from them is no way to foster a positive conception of relationships in your progeny.

What is more: you only get one chance to raise your children. After that, they are grown and your job is done, regardless of the level of parenting they received. Do it right the first time. Take the time to appreciate each phase of your child's life. Give your baby face time instead of sitting together watching Baby Einstein or Sesame Street. Interact with your child. Teach them by example how you expect them to behave. The old saying about practicing what you preach is very key here because despite what we'd like to believe, children are not so good at listening to what we tell them to do--but they are very good at copying what we do. In my own experience, I've found that my son Jackson has been far better at saying "thank you" than a lot of other children whose parents are continually telling them to say it. The difference? He pays attention to what Andrew and I do, which is to be polite when he hands things to us by saying "thank you" to him. He knows it's what we do so he does it, too.

This same concept is true even in the behaviors we don't want children to mimic. If you don't want your children to use foul language, don't use it yourself. If you don't want them to smoke/drink alcohol/use drugs/become a lawyer, don't do it yourself. If you don't want your children to be violent or promiscuous or slovenly, don't do it yourself--and what's more, provide them with the tools they will need to succeed.

Teach your child about your decision-making processes. Talk to him/her about financial sense and the importance of saving for retirement (but don't go overboard and scare/bore the kid). Show your offspring how to develop systems of organization so that they can succeed at having an orderly room when you bellow for them to clean it--and provide the physical framework to make it possible. Let your children see that there is more to a relationship than bodies grinding together; demonstrate your positive relations with your partner through word and action.

By being a proactive parent rather than a reactive parent, you will find that you will achieve far better results, regardless of the age of your child. Plan ahead for things that you can regularly expect to occur (like meals and bedtime). Communicate with each other and your child. Be consistent in your parenting and in your exemplification of what it is to be an adult. Your children are relying on you ALL THE TIME for this. Do it right the first time--because there IS no second time.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 2

2009-08-05T12:00:00.004-04:00

This is Part 2 of a series on Parenting Philosophy elements to be used in an overall toolbox of ideas. By having a mental framework in place for how you believe situations should be handled, raising children becomes a much more attainable goal. To start at the beginning of this series, click here.)

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2. Babies (and children) are emotional, not rational, beings. Yes, babies will cry for rational purposes. If hungry, thirsty, wet, soiled, tired, cold, hot, etc., they will let you know in the only way they know that works. They will also cry at loud noises or because they miss you. They will cry because they don't understand that you are preparing the food, just that they want it now and it's not in the belly, which by the way, is very unhappy and wants fooooooooooooood!

Some are more sensitive than others. Jackson's friend Corinne would often cry if he looked at her or just said anything while she was around. Jackson, on the other hand, would cry if he was on the floor while I was standing. It's not something changeable about babies, so it's something that has to be accepted and treated accordingly. Again, by validating Jackson's emotions, rather than by making him feel that he is wrong for having them, he has developed a very strong sense of independence and is a highly secure child for his age. This is a good thing!

This same element was particularly evident with Jackson when it came to applying consequences to his behaviors. As babies begin their toddler stage, they test their boundaries. Sometimes Jackson would misbehave (i.e. play roughly with the vertical blinds) and so we would scold him. But he didn't respond to just saying no, and eventually we tried giving him time out. That worked very briefly, but we found that what was actually causing him to play with the blinds was that he felt in that moment that he wasn't getting enough attention. He knew that playing with the blinds would work. He would get yelled at, then go right back at it, be put into time out, even cry and protest wordlessly that he didn't want to be in time out. But then as soon as he was free again, he would run right back to the blinds, full well knowing that another time out was to follow.

Dr. Harvey Karp addresses this sort of phenomena in his book The Happiest Toddler on the Block. (I highly recommend you read this book, even if your child is no longer a toddler!) He stresses that the biggest key to avoiding behavioral problems is to give your child plenty of face time. In the above scenario, I applied that idea, and it's largely worked. So long as Jackson receives sufficient time with Mommy and Daddy every so many minutes of play time, he's happy and far less likely to get into trouble.

The general gist is this: while you may think your baby is overreacting or being irrational, and you're probably right, to him or her it's important that you respond. Moreover, it's important that you as a parent respond in a way that acknowledges and validates (or at least appears to) your child's feelings. Responding quickly and sincerely, and giving your child plenty of your love and attention on his terms will make for a much happier household all around. Let's face it, if the baby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

This is also an important consideration for children who are no longer babies or toddlers. Around the time of puberty a person's reasoning functions start to really kick into gear. Until then children are still primarily emotionally-charged individuals. They will do things without knowing the purpose (if any), even if some part of them is at least vaguely aware that they could get into trouble for doing them. In preschool, my sister and I felt a sincere need to utilize an entire box of Band-Aids as stickers. We were so excited by the fun of the experience that getting yelled at for it was just some distant thought that hadn't really occurred until it was too late.

My nephew Gage had not spent much time outside of school with kids his age, so he spent as much of his time at school as possible socializing with other children instead of doing his classwork. He knew that Mommy would be furious with him for doing poorly in school, but he couldn't help himself. His emotions took over and demanded to be appeased. When asked in front of about a dozen family members why he was doing so poorly in school, then-8-year-old Gage could only crawl into his Auntie's lap and snuggle up to me in defense. He could not explain his actions in words. He could not justify his behavior because he did not have the vocabulary and the reasoning skills to recognize that it was an emotional need he was attempting to fulfill.

Meet the emotional needs as well as the physical, and trust that, in time, reason will grace your child with its presence! It's a long, arduous process that cannot be forced. You cannot yell your way into making a kid more rational. But you can love and respect him so that he will willingly learn from your example--rather than be repelled by it.

Stay tuned next week for the next installment of the parenting philosophy toolbox!

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 1

2009-07-22T12:00:00.051-04:00

Childrearing is tough. In case no one has yet informed you, I'm telling you now: It's TOUGH. Andrew and I were diligent about reading books on parenting in the first year because we had some idea that it might be at least somewhat challenging. The problem with most of the relevant books available on the market is that everything in them is fairly situation-specific: books on nursing, books on sleep training, books on survival gear, etc.

Somehow in all of that literature a cohesive, explicit philosophy of parenting is sorely lacking.

Over the past few years, we have distilled a lot of our parenting ideology to a dynamic set of principles which we use to guide our decision-making processes. Life would have been so much simpler in the early days had we already had a solidified groundwork of parenting tools. Much as we had discussed during the prenatal months how we would deal with difficult situations, the problems we had envisioned were mostly ones of older children. And we really did not know what sort of real world problems we would encounter, so most of the work of forming this toolbox was done on the fly.

A lot of time and thought, however, was put into our decision to continue with all of these essential guides. Some of them challenged beliefs I had had before being a parent because, as it turned out, once I had a child of my own my feelings toward certain parenting issues evolved. My ideas about what was reasonable or ethical or sensible--even humane--were in flux for a while as Andrew and I moved toward a settled feeling of "this is how we do what we do."

This series of posts is going to focus on generalities rather than specifics. The concepts are ones that I suggest others include in their own parenting philosophy toolboxes, to use as guideposts for making decisions about how to be a parent. This first element to include in the philosophical toolbox is one that Andrew and I recognized early on, because it was highly relevant early in the childrearing process:

1. Babies cry for a reason. This seems like a very obvious statement on the surface, but I assure you it is not. One of the biggest things Andrew and I have focused on since having Jackson is trying to resolve what the reason is when Jackson gets upset. We haven't always been successful, but we've tried--and there's always a reason. Sometimes the solution would come to us well after the fact, and we'd realize: "Oh, he was cold!" or "Oh, his teeth were hurting!" or "Oh, he can't sleep because he has a poopy diaper!" Particularly during his first year, we were often asked, "Is he always this happy?" whenever we would take Jackson places. (Another mom even went so far as to instruct her infant to take lessons in cheerfulness from Jackson.) Most of that radiant happiness I attribute to a feeling of safety and reassurance that he'd received from having parents who recognized and validated his concerns. (Most of the time. Let's be honest: nobody's perfect!)

The really weird thing about this item, and part of why I put it at the very top of the list, is that this is a surprisingly controversial point. Many parents and grandparents are of the opinion that babies cry and that that's just the way it is. Statistically speaking, young babies cry an average of 3 hours per day total. Jackson, on the other hand, cried an average of about half an hour a day for the first several months. Why? Because he had responsive parents who didn't ignore his attempts at communication. It's not because he had a lack of complaints--far from it! He was upset by the same things and just as often, if not more often, than other babies in his age group. The primary distinction is the response he received to the complaints that he made.

For example, he hated being in his car seat to the point of screaming and crying. The main difference between him and other babies I've known with the same issue is in the reaction he received from us as his parents. First of all, I never took him on long trips when I was the one driving because I recognized that he was the least pleased when he felt alone/abandoned. (Keep in mind, he was in a rear-facing car seat.) When Andrew and I went anywhere together, I rode in the back seat with Jackson, or occasionally Andrew would, though he barely fit in the back being the giant that he is. We would talk to him, entertain him with toys, and sing to him. If we were traveling to visit family, we stopped frequently to let him out while I nursed him to sleep, then carried on again. On the other end of the spectrum, I have known moms with children under 6 months of age who refused to stop or even acknowledge the crying and continued driving. Perhaps they turned the volume up on the radio to drown out the sound, but often the end result was a very unhappy child who had screeched displeasure to the point of vomiting.

Are these moms necessarily bad people? No. Are they bad mothers in other regards? No. It's simply as I stated, that many parents just believe that crying is a fact of life. But it doesn't have to be.

Resolve the issue. Your only method of modifying your child's behavior is to modify your own. If the child is complaining, deal with the problem directly. Don't wait. If a child thinks that it takes a lot of crying to get a parent to respond to anything, they tend to cry MORE often and for longer because they have learned that that's what it takes. Children also form a stronger bond and have greater trust in parents who respond to their needs. You cannot spoil a baby through giving your attention and love.

Beyond babyhood this is still an important aspect to being a parent who is focused on the emotional health of a child. Studies have shown that children whose parents are responsive to their questions and desires (even if just to acknowledge them) are less prone to nagging, whining, tantrums, etc. Children whose parents do not acknowledge them in a reasonably brief period of time are far more likely to develop irritating habits in order to gain attention--because that's what they know works.

Make your child's happiness a priority early on in the parenting experience. You will reap the benefits for a long time to come! Who knows? Maybe they'll even put you in a nursing home with TWO shuffleboard courts!

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This is a continuing series, so the next couple of months will see more entries like this one. Feedback would be very much appreciated from any and all readers, either in the comments section below or by emailing me at random(dot)adams(at)gmail(dot)com.

Things I Never Expected Before I Was a Parent

2009-07-15T12:00:00.003-04:00

Among the many things one does expect to encounter when becoming a parent there are sprinkled a great many other things that are completely unexpected. Every mother or father has moments of exasperation or shock that "this is really happening to me" or "I really did just do that!" Here are some of the things the pre-pregnancy me would not have guessed I'd find myself doing a short while later:

Enjoy changing a diaper
Become violently ill from changing a diaper
Stay at home beyond 6 months postpartum without working
Sit on the toilet with diarrhea while nursing a baby
Completely change lifelong sleep habits
Not be able to sleep at times just because I was expecting my child to wake during the night
Enjoy snuggle time with a sick baby
Buy my kid a loud and annoying toy
Eat food that had been half-chewed by someone else first and then spit into my hand or on the floor
Nurse a baby for 13 months without pumping bottles
Go for more than a year before hiring a babysitter--and even then only for a doctor's appointment
Co-sleep with a child
Give birth to a nearly 10lb baby with no drugs
Allow an almost-12-month-old baby to transition from crib to queen sized bed
Surrender the living room furniture (futon) to the baby's room
Put the baby in the master suite and take the "other" bedroom for my spouse and me
Go an entire year only trimming the baby's fingernails 3 times total
Have complete sympathy with parents who rage out on their kids--just takes sufficient additional stress in one's life to push someone in an already trying situation over the edge
Write a mom blog
Allow my child to regularly eat food from the floor
Allow my child to use a pacifier that had been on the floor without first cleaning it in some manner (other than to dust off the big chunks)
Spend an entire 3 hour napping period for the baby just looking at pictures of him in his photo albums
Teach my child basic sign language
Let my kid scream at restaurants without acknowledging it
Begin potty training my baby before he could speak two-word sentences

There are so many other things to add to this list, to be sure, but in all honesty this is really just a filler post to help me while I build back up a buffer of posts. Comments made on this post expressing opinion (positive, negative, or neutral) or similar thoughts about unexpected parenting behaviors would be much appreciated.

Present Day

2009-06-10T12:00:00.012-04:00

Life has gotten crazy lately. There has been a lot of drama in my family of the health AND relationships variety. A few weeks ago I had a surgical procedure performed on my neck and have had a lot of visits to health professionals besides. A week later baby Jackson and I contracted some yucky flu that clug to us for about a week (and had me hanging over the toilet), which we then lovingly shared with my darling husband, Andrew.

Essentially, I have used up my buffer of posts that I have created, and I've been struggling to make posts by my self-imposed deadline the past 3 weeks whereas I had previously been completing them a week or more in advance. Ordinarily I advertise my posts after they are up so that my facebook friends can click through on a link, but I've been somewhat displeased with the quality level with all the rushing these last 3 posts that I have not wanted to share.

I still have lots to write. I still have the drive to write. But I don't want to write things I'm not proud to share. And the next few weeks are going to be challenging enough for me as it is.

In addition to handling my rambunctious little guy, I've talked my way into borrowing my niece and nephew for a few weeks while their parents sort out their differences. So now I get to temporarily be mom of 3!

My darling niece Alana is 7 and my exceedingly handsome nephew Gage is 10. We are renting a monstrosity of a bunk bed for them for a month and hoping to make use of it as much as possible. The bunk is a loft bed, and the bottom "bunk" sits perpendicular to the top and has wheels on the bottom. It's got several dresser drawers built into the frame. It has a full desk with corkboard. It has a large shelving unit. In short, it's an entire bedroom crammed into one massive and complicated hunk of wood.

And this will be in my living room. Luckily we have a massive living room, with not a lot of furniture in it, so it's doable. But for a couple who hates having too much food cluttering the refrigerator, I just know we are going to be doing some deep breathing in order not to freak out with this bedroom beast suddenly transplanted to where our rocking chair ordinarily resides.

Yet Andrew and I are looking forward to the experience. We don't get much time to exercise our nepotism, so it will be a good way to waste lots of money on someone else's children. No, wait, um....

Their first week here they'll be going to this daycamp, which sounds like a blast! It's called Camp Invention. We are going to send small appliances with them to take apart and make things with them. I wish I could go to this camp, rather than just be the boring old adult who signs all the paperwork!

Another thing is that our apartment complex has just recently begun a community garden, of which I am the treasurer. We'll be starting all of our garden plots over the next couple of weeks, so that will also be taking a great deal of my time and energy. I'm expecting the kids to enjoy it, so let's hope they do!

Believe it or not, but I actually do paid work (as a contract bookkeeper) as well, though probably I will not be doing very much for the next month. Good thing it's all on my own schedule and not on that of my current clients, or else I'd really be struggling.

Overall, I'm not expecting to have lots of time to spare for working on this, and I want to give a lot of face time to Gage and Alana as well as Jackson (and of course, Andrew), so I will be taking a hiatus from the blog for the next few weeks.

In my head I imagine the experience being a lot like the old saying about the two best days in a man's life being the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. I love these children like my own. They love me, too, but they've never had to live in a home with no television or console games. They will be encouraged to make new friends with kids in the neighborhood. They'll be sent outside to play. They'll have enforced quiet time during Jackson's naps if they don't want to go outside, in which I will probably have them read or do puzzles or play board games in my room with me. Who knows? Maybe they will love it. Maybe they will beg to go home. Either way, I expect to enjoy it when they get here and enjoy it again (only differently) when time comes for them to return to their biological parents.

Until that time (and perhaps a week later, let's be honest), I officially place the blog on hiatus. Thank you to all you wonderful folks who have been regular readers. You totally rock! If this were Roshambeau, Scissors would be quivering in the knees.

Silver Nitrate, A Cautionary Tale

2009-06-03T12:00:00.021-04:00

At one of Jackson's first pediatric appointments, Dr. Judy asked me casually if I wanted her to put silver nitrate on his umbilical cord stub. She said it would help to remove it more quickly. Like any new (and ignorant) mom, I cheerfully agreed.

Very shortly thereafter, she asked me to help hold him still while she administered what looked to me like liquid silver (NOT mercury) onto his belly button with a cotton swab, swirling it around the base of the slowly rotting cord remains that once served to link my little dear to me and life-giving nourishment. Jackson squirmed some but he showed no signs of being bothered beyond a brief bout of crying before returning to his Mommy's embrace.

A side effect of the silver nitrate, she told me, was that he might have a temporary stain of silver on his navel. I could live with that. In a way, it was somewhat pretty. I would still need to exercise caution in keeping the recess clean with rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab.

Within a couple of days, sure enough, his umbilical cord had withered and fallen off, looking strangely identical to a raisin. I did not know what I wanted to do with it, so I set it on a shelf near his changing table and remained pleased that I would not have to expend extra care any longer in maneuvering clothing around the temporary appendage.

________________________________________

About two weeks postpartum, I asked Andrew to inspect my nethers to be sure that everything was going properly in the area. He had not been willing to look at my stitches previously, and I can't say that I blame him with the red ocean within me receding via my vaginal orifice. I had been too nervous to really investigate my healing progress for myself.

Andrew expressed some concern that the perineal area may not have been healing as it should and suggested I make a visit to have it expertly examined. I contacted the midwife group and arranged to meet one of the women, Jackson in tow. She took a quick peek and told me everything looked great--for someone who just gave birth to a 10lb baby two weeks prior.

________________________________________

Four weeks later, we couldn't wait any longer. I was due to get my 6-week postpartum exam by my midwife. Andrew and I had our first conjugal visit since the day I went into labor.

You might expect things to be loose after a woman has stretched to accommodate the exodus of another person. For me, this was not the case. I was tight. It was painful. Andrew said I felt like a virgin and jokingly commented that maybe we should wait 6 weeks every time between coitus. He is lucky that I'm a pacifist rather than a flying fist.

At my 6-week check-up, Shana (the midwife from the birth) examined me and declared all in order. She had me schedule my annual exam for July, prescribed me with the mini-pill (POP: progesterone only pill), and sent me out the door.

Sex continued to be painful, but it was fairly rare (too tired), and I had convinced myself that it was normal and would go away eventually. Or at least, I hoped so!

________________________________________

July. Shana was my examiner again. Something didn't look right. My stitched area had some extra (granulation) tissue. Where the flesh was trying to rejoin, a small pink tree of me-bits had formed and was hanging around the opening to my progeny hatchery. This was beyond the realm of midwifery, and she arranged for me to meet with an OB/GYN in the practice.

I had never been to a male gynecologist before, and I wasn't particularly thrilled when I learned that was to be a changed aspect in my life. Sabrina the Magic Doula and I had become friends, and though she was near to her own due date, she agreed to watch Jackson (who had begun cruising voraciously) in the waiting room while I showed my privates to yet another stranger--only this time, a man.

The triage nurse was rude despite my attempts at friendly conversation, reminding her how she had taught my newborn care class. Then she put me into a room and made to wait in a stupid paper gown. After a while of getting some time to feel humiliated and vulnerable, as well as scared and anxious about the unknown proceedings about to occur, the doctor finally arrived with a seemingly mute nurse in attendance.

He examined me roughly, taking little care for my comfort and seeming confused when I protested that what he was doing hurt. Dr. Oblivious finally came to the conclusion that he would help me with my little pink flesh tree. He explained what needed to happen to ameliorate the situation.

I was informed that he would need to cauterize the excess tissue. My response was, "You mean you need to burn my crotch?"

He responded in the affirmative and set to work before giving me a chance to decide if I were even ready or willing to have anything done to me that visit. While he sprayed some surface anesthetic he called Hurricaine onto my delicate lady bits, I immediately began to feel a burning sensation almost as though pins and needles were trying to work their way to the outside world from within my skin.

I was so focused on the pain of the anesthetic (ironic, I know) that I neglected to see how he cauterized the pink tree. Some part of me believed it was accomplished via some kind of surgical blow torch, though admittedly I have no recollection of the actual means employed at the time. Only a guess.

When I was done, I was told to come back the next week for a followup appointment. I felt like limping, though when the injury is where your legs connect, limping doesn't really do much good, does it?

Sabrina had her baby by then, and no one else was available to watch Jackson, so I had my little cruising baby strapped into his gargantuan stroller at my next visit. I waited an eternity again in the paper gown, this time with a little boy who was not at all thrilled about being confined. Finally, the same doctor with the same seemingly mute nurse arrived.

He remembered me, evidently, and when time came to examine me, he said, "The Crotch needs to come down a little further on the table." Shortly afterward, without consulting me, he independently decided that the Crotch hadn't endured enough pain by his hands, and Doctor Oblivious proceeded to Hurricaine and burn me yet again. Greeeat.

Only this time, I found out what he used to burn me: silver nitrate!

Was it agonizingly, unbearably painful? No. But it hurt, and it hurt for days! I decided then and there that I was not going to go back to that doctor, for one, and for another, I would be certain to remember the experience next time I was flippantly asked if I wanted silver nitrate put on my kid!

The good news in all this, I suppose, is that I haven't had any problems with stitches, pink trees, or burnt-area sex pain, nor has Jackson had any side effects of his belly button removal. But if I had it to do over again, I would just let nature take its course with the umbilical cord and be patient, rather than unnecessarily causing my dear little newborn son any more pain than necessary.

Let the burn victim beware..?

Newborn Care

2009-05-27T12:00:00.015-04:00

There are some things about having a baby that seem so obvious that you prepare for in advance of the child's arrival. And then there are other things that you might not have been expecting.

I was not at all nervous about nursing when the time came, so Jackson and I were able to immediately establish a good relationship via my engorged chest. Most infants lose about 10% of their birthweight within the couple of days postpartum. Jackson only lost two ounces out of his nearly 10lbs of babyness (about 1%). On his fourth day in the external world, my MIL and I took him to the pediatrician's office where I got my first lecture on childhood obesity. In the two days since leaving the hospital, he had gained back the lost ounces and another three more ounces to boot. This is not typical. I was then told that he didn't need a breast in his mouth every time he cried.

Way to make me feel like some kind of pervert, right? I was proud of myself before that visit because I had realized that I had initially been holding him to a timed feeding schedule rather than letting him indicate when he was full--which was when the hour-long nursing sessions began. Twelve hours out of the day he was hungry and nursing. About midway through each meal he would blast his diaper with a previous meal that had been processed. Over time he got gradually faster at nursing. By 4 months he was down to about 40minutes per nursing, and by 8 months or so, he was down to about 10 minutes a feeding.

After the first visit, I have always tried to schedule Jackson's pediatric visits with the doctor who was there at his birth, since she wasn't quite so excitable about infant weight. Besides, Jackson was a 95th percentile baby. He has stayed consistently in the 90th and 95th percentile range for both weight and height, and he is a healthy, proportionate child. I figure I did the right thing to ignore the other doctor's kneejerk reaction to Jackson's scale measurement, and I feel good for trusting my own judgment on that call.

At any rate, I didn't have much choice about nursing him. All he had to do was cry and I was a milk geyser. Hot showers turned me into a fountain. Intercourse practically necessitated a shirt for the protection of Andrew's eyes--on the rare occasions that we were energized enough and willing to try some physical intimacy. If it had been 2 hours since the start of Jackson's last nursing session, I would get let down so hard that I would practically be begging to let him nurse to ease the pressure. Sometimes this was even strong enough to wake me from my occasional bouts of slumber.

I was getting about 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period for the first 2 months. By 4 months I was up to about 5 hours a night, and that continued and slowly grew to about 6 hours by Jackson's first birthday. I was a walking zombie. I had intended to work from home, but it became clear that I was not able to perform more than 2 hours a week and not at the level of quality my employer had come to expect of me. After a few months of valiant efforts, we agreed to call it quits, and they were nice enough to wait for me to be the one to say it first.

Changing 8 to 12 poopy diapers a day was fairly time consuming in its own right, but not because of any particular issue with smell. Sometimes it was because Jackson liked to spend half an hour talking to the painting I had hung above his changing table. But quite often it was due to an unfortunate consequence of an all-liquid diet--the diaper blowout.

Diapers are designed about as well as they can be to contain the things that babies excrete. The problem is that it's ethically irresponsible to duct tape the dang things to the child at the edges. Jackson was a pro at blasting his breastmilk poop, in that fantastic mustard yellow shade, all the way up to his shoulder blades.

Occasionally we were unlucky enough for this to occur while we were out at a restaurant or in the car.

He seemed especially prone to a blowout if allowed to lounge on my Boppy maternity pillow, presumably because he knew what a joy it was to try and clean it. But the worst part of diaper blowouts is the part no one talks about.

Let me say right now that your own hygiene is NOT something you should allow to slide. Andrew was unfortunate enough to come home for lunch one day just as Jackson massacred a diaper, an outfit, and some pieces of nearby furniture. We removed the material he had offended and cleansed it. We bathed the baby. Apparently somehow we were not careful enough with making sure our hands were sufficiently clean, and soon after we spent a rather unpleasant night missing sleep together. As we took turns vomiting and having diarrhea over a span of 6 hours during the night, Andrew and I recognized the source of the problem and vowed never to allow it to happen again. (n.b. Pros and cons here: one bathroom meant having to try to "hold it" when sick, but at least we weren't alone....)

Still, I much preferred the "dates" we went on during the early days to worshipping the porcelain god. I didn't leave the apartment for 2 months other than to go on a walk with Jackson from time to time, so Andrew and I used to take the trash to the Dumpster together and hold hands on the way back when the rugrat was napping. Romance had taken a backseat to life--as opposed to occurring in the backseat.

More Newborn Literature (An Overly Serious Post)

2009-05-20T12:00:00.018-04:00

The baby is born, brought home, and the fun begins! I've already compiled one list of literature that is pretty helpful to have before the baby arrives. Yet that list is hardly complete.

When Andrew and I were preparing for our little guy to hop out, we had been attending classes at least once a week at our local hospital. One class was on Newborn Care and lasted for two sessions. The first session should have had its own name as the Harvey Karp class because nearly all we did in that class was to watch the video version of Dr. Harvey Karp explain his 5 Ss of newborn soothing. Our initial impression of him was something along the lines of "Is this guy a pedophile? Does he own any non-blue shirts?" In time, though, I've come to see him as something of a Baby Whisperer. Watching the video it was hard to deny that the man seemed to have supernatural powers for calming colicky babies. The most wonderful part, though, is that he teaches others the tricks he uses--and there's a book that you can buy that talks all about it.

Now, I will be honest. I never bought his book, "The Happiest Baby on the Block," though I did later go on to buy "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" because I was so impressed with his methods and how well they worked with Jackson. Andrew and I learned enough to follow Dr. Karp's 5 part system for soothing newborns just from watching the video, so we thought the book would be extraneous. After all, it was working just fine. Jackson was responding very well to the shushing and swinging and swaddling and side-lying and sucking prescribed. Our ignorance really showed, however, when our giant baby kept growing, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that at some point Jackson was going to need to be able to self-soothe--and we weren't allowing him much opportunity for that.

Andrew and I had become expert swaddlers. Moms who saw me swaddle Jackson used to watch in amazement and inform me that either they were not good swaddlers themselves or that their children didn't like to be swaddled (which was almost always them not knowing they were bad at swaddling). Andrew had developed a great technique which I adapted for my own. Given that the weather was nice and cool for the first few months and that we kept the A/C set low, we found that using a double swaddle worked best: two blankets swaddled individually around Jackson did the trick. He was a VERY strong baby (think Superman as an infant; I do not exaggerate here), so this double swaddling helped increase friction and limit his motion. Even still, with as tight as we used to wrap him, Jackson would manage to get his arms out almost every time, especially as he got older, but typically by that point he was either waking up or was sufficiently drowsy that he fell back asleep.

Jackson cried very, very little compared to the average. I had heard statistics that say the average young baby cries about 3 hours a day in total. Jackson was more on the order of half an hour a day (until teething began in full force and we weren't prepared to address it). Why would we want to spoil a system in which we wrap the child in a blanket and he zonks out, almost instantaneously unconscious?

If I had it to do over again, I would have bought the book. As it was, I found myself holding a 5 or 6 month old baby at the book store and hurriedly scouring The Happiest Baby on the Block for some idea of how to wean ourselves from the 5Ss while still maintaining a happy baby. And there it was, a small unassuming paragraph, briefly delineating how to cut down over a period of time from using Dr. Karp's methods. We were months behind this schedule, not having previously known that there was one.

It took us until Jackson was 7 months old (and about 23lbs!) before we were finally able to put him down without full-on swaddling, which was only accomplished via the use of afghans as an intermediary stage. Since the afghan blankets (crocheted for Jackson by my wonderful mother!) had a lot of stretchiness to them, Jackson had some freedom of movement, but he was still restrained slightly, so it was comforting to him. He also had a hard time unswaddling himself from the afghan because his little fingers would catch in the holes and end up holding the whole thing around him.

This brings me to another issue: how to get your kid to sleep. Andrew and I were very spontaneous people before we were parents. We kept odd hours and traveled whenever we liked. A lot changed for us when our little man hatched, and for several months we resisted changing our ways. Jackson was giving us a heck of a time about staying asleep, and we couldn't figure out why. What it boiled down to was that we did not have a bedtime routine. Jackson napped sometimes 5 or 6 times a day toward later infancy, and there was nothing to distinguish between napping and bedtime for him. There was nothing we were doing to signal to him that naptime or bedtime was approaching, so putting him down eventually became a struggle.

Then I read The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. Everything she wrote just seemed so much like common sense, and a lot of it was stuff I had heard before. I guess you could say that reading it finally guilt tripped me into recognizing that Jackson was not the one who was the problem: his parents were. With time and dedication, we were able to steadily make progress toward a bedtime routine. Now that Jackson is 16 months old, he brings me his favorite Green Blanky and a pacifier to let me know he's ready for his story and snuggle. Most naps and nights he is asleep within 2 minutes of going to bed. And he sleeps in his own queen-sized futon bed (a story for another day!).

The main thing to get here is that kids have specific needs. By recognizing what they are feeling and what you can do to address those feelings, your kid can be more responsive to your desires. Overall, you can have a much happier child with no need to suffer the heart-rending sounds of a screaming child; no need to leave your baby shrieking, retching, and miserable in a crib because you are at a loss for what more you can do.

That being said, I want to take a moment to discuss colic. The standard agreement most medical practitioners use these days for defining colic is crying more 3 hours straight, 3 days a week, for at least 3 weeks. Most also agree that it's somehow related to the digestive tract. Dr. Karp's methods can help soothe a colicky baby, but they will not address the root of the problem.

Through some research, we tried to resolve some issues Jackson seemed to be having, which I would call related to colic. He didn't meet the criteria, because he didn't cry that often--but perhaps it's because we were using the 5 Ss to soothe him all the time. But there were many, many times that we could not comprehend any other reason for him to be cranky other than something digestively related.

Consider this: when a baby is born, he or she starts off with only what came through the placenta to the womb. During birth, some bacteria might be contracted, but hospitals do as best a job they can of cleaning the child's orifices to prevent infection and irritation. If the mother is nursing, the baby can potentially derive some bacteria from her skin--but only if she does not wash her breasts. When babies go on to consume solids, they will need bacteria in their intestines to digest the food. This is just how the system works. Our world is so sterile that often children do not get exposed to enough germs.

Enter BioGaia. My MIL serendipitously sent us some information on probiotic drops for infants, and we obliged. It cost us about $37 for a bottle, which lasted about a month, and we did it for two months beginning when Jackson was just about 6 months old. It helped him noticeably. I can only imagine what these drops could have done for a colicky baby like Jackson's friend Corinne had been. The poor little dear screamed her head off almost every night from 7pm until 1am or later until she was about 4 months old. There are lots of remedies out there for colic that simply do nothing for the hurting children--or their parents who are rapidly going insane! Check out these results for the BioGaia infant probiotic drops. (I also have some PDFs saved somewhere after we requested more literature from the manufacturer, so if anyone is interested I can dig those up and share them.)

Hopefully you will read the literature I have recommended above. There is much to be learned in the way of perspective from reading Dr. Karp's book, such as the idea that toddlers are essentially cave people and that they are emotional rather than rational beings. Elizabeth Pantley's book provides some great insights into the idea of baby sleep cycles, as well as a great metaphor for helping parents to understand how a child feels when being put in a crib after falling asleep in a parent's arms.

As always, trust your own instincts. You know your child better than anyone else does. And whatever problems you are having now, remember that it's just a phase. They will grow out of it--eventually!

Post Partem, Part II

2009-05-13T12:00:00.023-04:00

Jackson and I finally met all of our requirements and were given notice to head home from the hospital. We had had to stay an extra night because one of the doctors who examined Jackson was not going to be happy until my newborn son had pooped. Apparently what he had done at birth was not enough; it had to be the real deal. Our pediatrician came the next day and said that was ridiculous and that we could always just come back if he didn't have a bowel movement, and anyway, at that point there were only 2 days until his first office visit with her.

He appeased us all by defecating massively while we were still preparing to leave. We had the nurse on duty "teach" Andrew how to change poopy diapers by example.

We soon learned that his BMs would nearly all be highly audible (often from 15 feet away, even) for the next several months--and very frequent. Your own results may vary, of course, as every child is different.

They also will not allow a baby to leave the hospital unless it is within a carseat. So, we buckled him into it for the first time, and the little dear fell asleep. Awwww, how cute! (And yes, he was fully buckled before being placed in the car, despite the status at picture time.)

I was sufficiently ambulatory though not precisely enjoying the experience of motion. We loaded ourselves into the van and drove toward home. As we passed the Women's Center building where I had birthed Jackson, a sudden pain struck me. In time I became familiar with this new form of pain: my milk had come in.

For my whole life, I'd never really been particularly well endowed. I was not flat but "athletic" and had been reasonably content with knowing that I would never have to experience being whapped in the head with my own breasts. I enjoyed that there were many things I could wear that allowed me to forego wearing a bra. No more.

Somewhere in the process of leaving the hospital, my own body was swapped with Dolly Parton's. In the middle of worrying about all the extra skin I had and how I could not pull on pants designed for someone much heavier than I was postpartum, I was strutting around the apartment checking out my new voluptuous profile.

[n.b. In time all good things (and bad things) must come to an end. Stretch marks faded mostly. My hips rejoined one another and allowed me to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans. And my boobs deflated. Two out of three ain't bad, right?]

I imagine that part of the reason my first let down was so soon and so intense was because Jackson had been nursing very well since shortly after birth. The first few days, newborns feed on what amounts to a milkshake. Colostrum is often described as being thick and hard to coerce out of the nipple. Jackson was a champ. He nursed a great deal, and at first, I was feeding him on a timing schedule. After several days I recognized that this was wrong, that he should eat until he tells me he is done. Nursing began to take longer, and for the next few MONTHS, I was nursing him for an hour straight EVERY OTHER HOUR.

So, how does one get anything accomplished when being enslaved as a dairy cow 12 hours a day? Having a larger than average child was a bigger challenge than I might have thought. Still, I had made attempts to mitigate the difficulties. One way was having my mother-in-law stay for as long as begging would convince her.

During the first 10 days, Jackson's Nana spent most of her waking hours helping cook, wash dishes, and do the laundry. She left the rest up to myself and Andrew, who was back to work as soon as we were home from the hospital. Now, I love my MIL, but should I be in that situation again, I think I would try to be more explicit about my needs.

It was GREAT that Nana did the cooking. It was NOT great that she kept cooking foods I do not eat. Sure, I'm a picky eater, but there are foods that I do it, and many of them had been purchased well in advanced just for the postpartum period. She spilled and charred foods all over the inside of my oven, which had been kept scrupulously clean, and removed some clean-keeping measures that I had had in place inside the oven, so that afterward it was more prone to messes. She went out and bought new foods, cluttering my kitchen with extra containers of things we already had and various other items that would never get used--practically a crime for control freaks like Andrew and myself who have our own food buying system. I ate fairly little food for the time that she was there.

She washed the dishes, bless her! She cooked and cleaned up after herself; wonderful woman! But...she only washed dishes while I was trying to nap. The head of my bed was only about 10 feet from where she stood, clanging metal pans around a stainless steel sink. I didn't sleep much while she was there. She also would either leave a gigantic and precariously balanced pile of dishes in the drying rack or would put the dishes away in the wrong places, rather than asking for clarification. It took me more than a month to get everything back in order afterward.

She did the laundry! She folded it, too, and she refused to let me help even if I wanted to. But she left the piles stacked all around our small living room and did not put anything away.

Having someone else run my household was making me very tense, particularly as it was not being run to my standards. And her payment? My dear MIL got plenty of eyefuls of about as much of her daughter in law as her own son had seen. She bought me some postpartum clothing to help me cut down on my maternity-wear. (GlamourMom nursing bra tanks are the best invention in clothing since underwear!) She endured my complaints about stretch marks and concerns that I might remain hippo-sized in the hip region for all eternity. Andrew and I were tough to please, and Nana bore it well, but eventually she left and I think we all felt some relief. The lesson here is that postpartum doulas are wonderful; just be clear as to your expectations, and if you want things done your way without feeling guilt (self-imposed or otherwise) about being demanding, a paid doula may be a better bet than family.

Another week or so later I had finally allowed myself enough rest that the bleeding was slowed down and had turned the banana yellow color I was told to expect. I finally braved some of the other measures provided to me by the hospital staff, such as a Sitz bath and the "epi" bottle.

The Sitz bath fit into the toilet and used gravity to spray warm water on my nethers. It was a highly overrated experience that was overly complicated to implement and minimally beneficial. Far better was the "epi" (episiotomy) bottle. This little thing is still used in our home on a daily basis. During my postpartum period, the little squeezable spray bottle helped keep me clean where my tearing had occurred and helped to flush out the area some. Afterward, rather than tossing it in the trash, we repurposed it. Turns out those bottles make great tools for helping bathe babies, especially for wetting and rinsing hair. They also make entertaining noises when squeezed empty against baby bellies and are wonderful fountains for toddlers at tub time.

Post Partem, Part I

2009-05-06T12:00:00.019-04:00

Since a few people have complained that the last few posts weren't gross enough...let's talk about postpartum issues.

Everyone tosses around the phrase "postpartum depression", but you rarely get the joy of hearing about the other stuff. Perhaps because it's considered impolite? Pardon me while I go off in a corner and laugh. You know what's impolite? Not telling the truth about the facts of life to those who are yet to experience some of them.

People have babies around just at the time they are least capable of handling them. Consider the following: Women spend months on end in discomfort, gaining weight and feeling exhausted, losing sleep and then, when pregnancy comes to a halt, there's labor and delivery and/or a C-section. It's a grueling, painful, scarring, traumatic, and gory event. When all that work is done, suddenly there's a cranky, crying little weasel of a thing demanding food about every two hours around the clock--for months on end! And what's more, if the child accidentally oversleeps that two hour period (as long as 4 hours between feedings), the doctors say to wake them and feed them! This little weasel also wants to be kept free from its own excrement, yet it insists on continually soiling itself.

And through all that, somehow Mom and Dad have to figure out how to care for themselves. Mom is expected to try and remember to continue to nourish herself and get sufficient rest, and Dad is expected not to go insane while Mom is greatly incapacitated--and has comparatively paltry recourse for calming the child due to a lack of mammaries.

And Mom is sore. Maybe she tore. Maybe she was cut. Maybe she had a large surgical incision made through her abdominal wall and has a belly full of stitches. Walking is painful. Sitting is painful. Perhaps just moving at all is painful. But that is secondary to the child because even more painful is listening to the sound of a crying baby.

And what's more: the blood just never seems to stop flowing. During pregnancy, Mom's blood supply increases by nearly half again what she had. Well, she doesn't get to keep it all. Sure, some goes with the baby, and some leaves at the birth, and some more leaves with the placenta and cord. But there's more. Lots more. And it wants to come out as soon as possible.

Some wonderful people along the way designed some very long, hygienic, disposable pads for postpartum bleeding. They are too small. In order to be useful, they need to be chained so that one goes in front and overlaps somewhat a second that goes further toward the back. If you are a particularly large woman, it's conceivable that you might need three at a time. I'm not kidding. At 5'8" (1.73m), I'm hardly what you'd call petite, but I'm not fat either, and to cover the span of gore, I needed this doubling. Later, after 4 days or so, I was able to start substituting Poise and Serenity incontinence pads, which hold more fluid than the traditional feminine hygiene options.

And then there's the groin pain. The hospital offered me pain killers. I was allowed a strong dose of naproxen sodium (Aleve), and while it helped, it was more of a numbing than anything. Same with the canister of pain-relief foam and the tube of hydrocortisone cream they gave me. I was continually aware of the pain. Thankfully, the hospital staff were also innovative.

Part of the pain in the groin is from swelling. Anyone who knows much about first aid knows that ice helps to reduce swelling. But who wants to put ice on their feminine delicacies? Well, I did, though obviously doing so was tricky with all the red tsunami issues in the region. The nurses did something very smart: they took a disposable newborn diaper (which is, of course, absorbent and somewhat designed to prevent leaks) and found one end of the crotch region which was open like a pocket. Ice was crammed into said pocket, and the diaper was introduced to my nethers. Relief!

Now, another consideration. We civilized folk understand that having blood all around is something of a health hazard. And we aren't keen on handwashing a bunch of the stuff out after all that other work. What does one wear?

While still at the hospital for recovery, I wore the Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty again. But obviously that wasn't going to hold my pads to the area of interest, nor was a newborn diaper going to fit around my thighs and hips. Some genius whom I could kiss a thousand times over created some totally awesome underwear. This underwear is purely a mesh of gentle elastic material. It's lightweight and net-like, and super stretchy. It's just strong enough to hold things together but sympathetic enough not to remind a new mom of her injuries. I took home as many pairs as I could acquire and even managed to send them through the wash a few times and reuse them before finally donating them to a mom planning a home birth. Part of me was tempted never to wear any other kind of underwear again...until I stopped needing pads. Turns out the comfort level was dramatically reduced when mesh meets tender flesh.

The hospital staff gave me certain requirements before I could leave. Immediately after I was done with the octopus and pony show, I met my first requirement: peeing. Owing to the extra hydration from the saline drip, I more than made quota there. They also kept asking me if I had any gas. Apparently you can't leave the hospital until you are farting properly. Let me tell you, it's very strange to be regularly asked by strangers if you are passing wind.

One benefit that I experienced (and I'm not sure how common this is) was that I didn't have to have a bowel movement until 4 days postpartum, and it was relatively easy since I had stayed well hydrated. Andrew and I drank an entire 24 pack of bottled water during our vacation at the hotel--er, I mean, our stay at the hospital.

Showering was tough, but I was not allowed to take a bath, nor did I want one given that I absolutely did not want to try getting back to a standing position afterward. For the postpartum mom, I suggest disrobing (and rerobing) while in the bathtub. I did not realize how keen gravity was to help me make a mess and ended up smearing blood on the floor in a vain attempt to clean up my drippings before more exited my person. At least it wasn't my floor, so it was somebody else's problem in the end.

The Aristocrats.

Okay, just kidding, but seriously, the whole experience was full of all sorts of nastification. Still, there were bright spots. I was up and walking around immediately after giving birth. I was able to take pictures of Jackson napping on Andrew for the first time, just a couple hours afterward.

My mother-in-law (MIL) and then, shortly thereafter, my own mother traversed their separate drives (each in excess of 2 hours) and gladly snuggled with their new grandson. My mom had already been made a grandmother twice over via my sister's reproductive habits. My MIL had not, as Andrew was an only child, and she dubbed herself Nana.

Nana and I had not had a great deal of time to get to know one another in the less than a year's time we had known one another, but she soon got more than her fair share of time with her only daughter-in-law as she stayed the next 10 days to help us adjust to our own new roles as Mama and Dada.

Next up, a review of nursing and postpartum doulas, and (I promise) an end to the postpartum grotesquerie. We'll start a new kind soon enough.

Labor & Delivery, Part V

2009-04-29T12:00:00.027-04:00

***Potentially gross photo alert below. If you aren't digestively stable, don't scroll down!***

Hurray, I had given birth to my little baby Jackson! But the fun doesn't stop there. You know the old saying about a woman's work never being done? While there are arguable feminist issues to be made with that statement, it seems true when it comes to Labor and Delivery...and even more so in the time following when there is suddenly a child who needs constant care and attention.

So, after I got to hold my crying little purple octopus, Jackson was conveyed to a special table with purple lights and had all sorts of poking, prodding, measuring, and cleaning perpetrated on him by the staff. As far as he was concerned, he had been abducted by perverted aliens (or was being recruited by the military).

Andrew and Sabrina got to go over to the table then and ogle the cute little thing I had made while I was stuck on the Transformer bed still. This gave the staff time to inject something into my IV without asking me or any of that informed consent "nonsense" that hospitals are supposed to employ. I noticed and asked as coherently as I could what was being put into my bloodstream and was informed that I had just been dosed with pitocin.

Apparently the staff was impatient? I don't know why they didn't ask me or at least tell me (or my husband, or my doula, or...) beforehand that this was something they might do. Since pitocin helps stimulate uterine contractions (which, I'm fairly certain, were still doing just fine at that point), I can only assume they were doing it to expedite delivery of the placenta.

Before this whole experience, I had wondered how aggravating it would be to be stuck waiting for the placenta to come out, and now...I have no idea what the standard duration post-baby-delivery would be. (Is it sufficiently obvious that I'm irritated by being drugged with pitocin? Okay, good.) Suffice it to say that I did not have to wait very long, and I barely felt anything when the placenta and cord were born.

I say "born" because I was surprised to find myself somewhat emotionally attached to these inanimate organs. As part of my attempts to assuage my

desire not to waste anything, we had already

planned to donate the cord blood, which was done by a needle being inserted into the umbilical cord and draining the awesome, stem-cell-rich blood into containers.

Because the placenta was so large, we had well more than the standard quantity available for donation and were later thanked in person by a representative from the cord blood bank. In fact, the placenta was so big that the nursing staff all crowded around to gaze at it. Though with a nearly 10lb child, it was hardly surprising that his source of nourishment should scale up so much above the norm as well.

The size of it was something of a blessing for me, too, as it meant that much more of my 50lbs (about 22.6kg) gained during pregnancy was already gone! But...emotionally, however, I felt a strong sense of guilt about the placenta itself going to waste. For a long time afterward, and occasionally even now, 16 months after the fact, I felt as though I had had another life in that placenta that had just been treated like so much garbage, just another piece of "hazardous waste" for the hospital to handle. My guess would be that if I were from a very primitive culture and had just endured labor and delivery on my own, I probably would have been pleased to find a nice big hunk of nourishing food made available until I was recuperated.

But in this day and age, and living in the United States, I'd feel like some kind of pervert for making a meal out of my own placenta though if I look for a reason, a valid and incontrovertible reason, I cannot see what problems there would be other than: how do I cook this? and How does one season a placenta?

Alas, however, the placental delivery was not the end of the journey. I needed stitches. Andrew had returned to my side for the final part of my additional organ ejection and was now enjoying his new son some more. (Note my leg in the background as Andrew held his son for the first time--also the first time he ever held a baby!)

Shana was calm and focused, carefully sewing my perineal tear before I got too much more sensation back in the area. I cannot remember if she used any anesthetic, though I know it hurt somewhat. Andrew was curious but I forbade him to watch her sewing my flesh because the expressions on his face were making me feel uneasy. More than ever, I was vowing to be better at doing my Kegel exercises if ever I should find myself impregnated again.

As for Jackson, life wasn't a great deal better. He was naked. His cord had been cut and clamped. His limbs were no longer cozily squished into a very small container and (if I had a guess), he probably had some serious "pins and needles" going on in them. Because his color at birth was something akin to what you would expect to see on a choking victim, he failed one of the points on the APGAR test, but otherwise he passed with flying colors.

Our pediatrician, Dr. Judy Banks, had come into the room. (Why not? It was a party, right? Never mind the naked woman spread-eagle with the needle and thread hanging out her privates.) She gave a very thorough examination of Jackson's abilities to make sure there was nothing of concern. I was somewhat busy at the time, so most of what I have to go on are the photos that Sabrina the Fabulous Doula had taken.

And Labor and Delivery was done. The post partum period was beginning, and I was very shortly given the opportunity to nurse my very own child for the first time ever. Stay tuned next week for some postpartum fun!

Labor & Delivery, Part IV

2009-04-22T12:00:00.021-04:00

While I was not thrilled about being confined to the bed for the final portion of my labor, I realized that it was completely unfeasible to deliver in the Jacuzzi bathtub. What I didn't realize was that the ingrained Westernized medicine practices were going to cause the nursing staff to depersonalize the process more than I felt was necessary. Despite that I opted for no pain medication and had a doula present as well as a midwife delivering, it seems the general idea of natural childbirth was somewhat lost on this crowd.

Early in my visit to the hospital, I was outfitted with an intravenous (IV) catheter for attaching whatever fluids might be necessary later in labor. Once I was in the bed to stay, this was then connected to a bag of saline. Later I was able to feel justified in believing this to be a wholly unnecessary procedure as I overflowed the urine collecting "hat" in the toilet after labor. Too much info? Maybe so, but perhaps if another woman out there feels it is an extraneous addition to the process, she may, having read this, feel emboldened to say so (or at least try!) when the time comes.

Still, the saline was doable, despite that it was somewhat more confining and a distraction. After all, I now had a cord attached to my wrist--which was covered in blood as the IV catheter was poorly inserted and had leaked a small but annoyingly dispersed bit of my 40-50% bonus life juice, aka blood. More annoying was that noone seemed to notice or care that I was dribbling bodily fluids from my hand, and this was not corrected until several hours after L&D was through and we had been switched to a recovery room.

Chronology got a little hazy for me by this point. I know what things occurred, but I would be hard-pressed to sort out the order. One thing I do know is that there was a man, a stranger to me, that came into the room with a complicated bit of machinery. I was acutely aware of his presence, and it took a small amount more willpower to remain uncaring as I was still naked on the bed and writhing with near-constant contractions, with only a thin sheet covering my groin region. He seemed familiar with the idea that his presence might not be welcomed and took care to avoid eye contact or even to look much in my general direction.

I had to retain the fetal heart rate monitor elastic band and the contraction monitor (which still amazes me that it even does anything, considering it's a wholly external device) throughout the remainder of labor.

With my doula Sabrina holding my left leg and my darling husband Andrew holding my right, I focused on my musical bear and eye contact with Shana when she instructed me. There were at least 3 other nurses in the room: one watching my monitors and two serving as the first cheerleaders I ever appreciated.

As the contractions were building up steam, I began to "push". This was probably one of the more awkward elements of the ordeal, as I was expected to keep my knees near my chest and make internal gestures VERY much akin to those of excreting a bowel movement. It was at this point that I found myself immensely grateful for having expelled much of my intestinal contents after that Cajun lunch, prior to beginning hard labor. Shana seemed surprised when I would begin pushing each time because I could feel the contractions beginning before the monitor ever registered them. Later I was told that she and the nursing staff had also been amazed at how well I was handling what looked on the monitor to be very rapid and very strong contractions. Not having any idea what the standard was, of course, I simply and (blissfully?) ignorantly kept chugging along.

Pushing seemed very slow going. Jackson's fetal heart rate monitor kept indicating that his heart rate was dropping during each push. Some genius decided that I therefore needed to wear one of those things that shoves plugs in your nose to push in oxygen. This I did not like. It was bad enough that I had a cable in my veins pumping water into me. It was bad enough that two people I trusted were pulling me into a very uncomfortable position, against which I was forced to push--all the while feeling certain I was going to poop on the table. And then they complicated things further by impairing my airways, despite best intentions to actually increase my blood oxygen (and therefore Jackson's, as well). I felt I could not breathe and repeatedly removed the offending plugs until they finally agreed not to keep cramming them into my nostrils.

As of this point, my "bag of waters" had not yet broken. My midwife, Shana, examined me and early in the pushing process asked me if I would like her to "rupture my membranes." Now, given that I was a little mentally challenged at the time, I was unable to comprehend her meaning. Erring on the side of caution, I said no, considering that any membranes I had, I would like them kept intact, thank you very much! I also declined an episiotomy, despite that I had been less than diligent about my Kegel exercises--a mistake which I hope not to make again, though it was hardly the end of the world when I tore, given that it was precisely where Shana would have cut me had she done it herself.

As I continued grunting along and demanding my musical bear be played, word came to me that the baby was visible, at long last. There was an awkward sensation all throughout my pelvic structure, as though unusual pressure (which of course it was) was being put upon places that were unused to such sensations. Then progress seemed to stall.

Shana looked concerned and kept having me contort to various tilts to keep Jackson's fetal heart rate up to acceptable levels. Now I was laboring and pushing at a 30 degree angle in addition to all else. Finally Shana all but begged me, with a plaintive look on her face, to be allowed to break my water. Apparently when I pushed, the amniotic sac appeared to her as though a giant water balloon were being squeezed--with the business end aimed at Shana's face! I acquiesced to what I then understood her to mean by the rupturing of my membranes.

The soothed midwife then carefully inserted an amniohook, and the fountain began to flow. Pushing became "easier", or at least, more productive. Around this point, I felt something warm and liquidy dribble down my nether-regions. I was certain I had just defecated on the bed, but I forced myself to ignore that "fact" and focus on the task at hand. In fact I had not pooped--that was when my second-degree tearing occurred in my perineum. The liquid I had felt was blood.

Shana then instructed me that, once the head arrived, I should not push again until she gave the word. Andrew had begun to get very excited at the sight of Jackson crowning. All around me people were cheering, encouraging me to hold tight and keep pushing through just that little bit longer. Perhaps if I had it to do over again, I would ignore them more and trust my own instincts (and possibly thereby avoid tearing), but at the time their constant exuberance was very motivating.

Suddenly, there was a baby head hanging out of me, and Shana alerted me that it was time to pause my efforts. Andrew looked on curiously as Shana swiftly slid a finger inside and gently pulled a loop of umbilical cord out and around Jackson's neck. And again a second time. It had been wrapped around his little neck twice and might have caused problems had I kept pushing. (Oddly enough, one might have expected this part to be some of the worst pain, but those who had informed me in advance were right--the constant pain and efforts numb the opening to the vagina before the kid's head has a chance to escape, so this event was largely inconsequential to me, sensationally speaking.)

If memory serves me correctly, it was at this point that Shana also cleaned out Jackson's mouth. Babies generally do not begin to breathe air until the umbilical cord is cut, so it would have been easiest to clear any debris from his airways at this point. What I had believed all along was confirmed now: I was having back labor (significantly more painful/uncomfortable than traditional labor), as Jackson had been oriented facing my front instead of my back, so his hard skull was pressed against my spine during the entire evacuation process.

I got cleared to continue, and a couple pushes later, something that felt like and looked like a slimy purple octopus slid out of me. Shortly thereafter, it was crying and as they asked me if I wanted to hold my baby, I felt like there could be nothing in the world I would want more. Ever since becoming impregnated, I had felt more complete than ever before, and I was afraid that now that Jackson was a distinct entity from me that that feeling would leave. (In truth, the feeling of completeness remained until he was fully weaned from nursing, and only then did I begin having "withdrawal" symptoms.)

I know he felt the shock of it more poignantly than I did (though I confess I often forgot that at the end of the ride a new person would be around!), but already it seemed strange and sad to be disconnected from him. So, gross as he was with birth matter all over, and naked as I was, I hugged onto my slithery little baby. Well--at least he was littler than me! He looked like he was a month or two old! His arms were nice and chubby, his cheeks were good and fleshy, and soon after birth he was already spending much time with his eyes open and lifting his own head.

My baby was born! I was a mom!

Jackson Edward Adams was born at North Florida Regional Medical Center on December 31, 2007 at 8:19am, with no drugs and after 12.5 hours of labor. He weighed 9lbs, 15oz and was 22in long (roughly 4508g and nearly 56cm long, for those of you on the metric system), which is about the size of the average 1 month old. The above image was taken by Sabrina the Magic Doula just as Jackson was making his way into the outside world--which is why you see my right leg in the picture, taken from my point of view, as Shana the Awesome Midwife deftly catches my little bundle of joy.

The fun was not over yet, though: I still had another organ to deliver. Stay tuned next week for the placenta and immediate post partum discussion!

Labor & Delivery, Part III

2009-04-15T12:00:00.024-04:00

We've all seen movies where the woman is laboring in the hospital bed, looking pathetic or screaming in pain. When I was brought to the L&D room, I was pleased to find it exactly as I remembered from the walk-through our birth education class had done: a well-designed bed with all sorts of configurable, Transformer-like parts to facilitate labor and delivery, a rocking chair, a comfy couch, a private bathroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub, and other little touches here and there that really made it seem more like a hotel with easily cleaned floors. The lights were kept appreciably dimmed, particularly given that by now it was after 11pm.

My contractions (which almost completely ignored the standard durations and frequencies they lie about in prenatal education) relented slightly so that I felt brave enough to try a little food and drink. I knew I had a ways to go to get to 10cm dilated before my beast of burden would be experiencing the New World, and I wanted to be sure I was sufficiently hydrated and calorically stable. I downed a bottle of water and some small snack foods.

Now, they say that women don't remember the pain of labor or that they forget the experience afterward. I felt that I had a very clear memory of the flow of events, though my ability to estimate duration was admittedly impaired due to more pressing matters occupying my everything. When I initially set to writing down the story of my labor and delivery a matter of weeks after the fact, I had somehow forgotten entirely (until reminded) about this next development as my segue into the Jacuzzi bathtub.

For the first time in nearly 5 months, I vomited. It was not expected. It was not pretty. It was ALL OVER my Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty and the Transformer bed's sheets. Well, I didn't like the gown anyway, and I wasn't keen on laboring in the bed either, so off came the hospital gown and, naked as the day I was born, I climbed into the tub to rinse off and continued to labor there a while.

By this point, I no longer cared who saw me naked, so long as they weren't taking pictures. I was ginormously pregnant and in pain and trying to maintain focus on the task at hand. Sabrina, the Fabulous Doula, had brought a small kit of battery-operated tea light candles, and we turned the lights down low in the bathroom. She and my husband Andrew traded turns providing counter pressure on (i.e. pushing a fist hard against) my lower back while I writhed about in the water. Sabrina occasionally had to escape to relieve her stomach of its contents (morning sickness knows no time/place boundaries), and Andrew often had to trade out because his knees dislike him and kneeling on the tile floor by the tub was not helping them to like him more.

They also tried as best as possible to obey my commands and to take them seriously--despite that I was undoubtedly difficult to interpret. Sabrina was able to discern my gestures (mostly a lot of grunting, vague hand motions, and attempts to speak through gritted teeth) with considerably better accuracy than Andrew, who is most definitely not a multi-tasker, despite how appreciably calm he seemed to remain throughout the process. Besides being made to kneel beside the tub and essentially maintain a fist pressed against my low back, my labor assistants were also tasked with two other annoying efforts.

One, the Jacuzzi tub had problems. The tub had 2 jets on either side, which were both weak and irrationally placed, but still they were better on than off. An unfortunate side effect of the jets was a perplexing inability for the tub to retain water. Many various measures were attempted to keep as much as possible from draining; however, despite all valiant efforts, frequent refills were still required, which were made all the more obviously necessary by the horrendous cacophony of the jet intake when the level dropped too low. This helped me, in a way, as a distractionary technique, despite being a somewhat aggravating development.

The other major task I imposed on Sabrina and Andrew was to continually restart a musical pullstring teddy bear. The entire time I was laboring at the hospital, this bear needed to be played for me to listen to the soothing sounds of Rock a Bye Baby.

Occasionally, I was forced to leave the tub and get checked for my "progress" on the bed. Still I managed to get most of my monitoring done in the tub. For those not in the know, during labor the hospital staff put these elastic bands around your belly with measuring instruments attached to them. One is for measuring the baby's heart rate, and the other is for (mysteriously) tracking the mother's contractions. During this eternal and hazy period of labor, I was grateful for the lack of a clock in sight. All I could do to track time was to tolerate the occasional 15 minute bouts during which the staff insisted I don the elastic bands--and with only moderate petitioning, they let me use the waterproof ones (boxed region) so I could stay in the tub!

So, looking like some horrible science experiment, I writhed naked in the bubbling, cacophonous tub while wireless electronics were strapped to my insanely swollen midsection and teeth-grindingly painful contractions wracked my body. Good times. I once hinted at the idea that I might need painkillers after all, but Andrew quickly reminded me that I did not want them and sternly indicated that I should not ask again. I didn't. And I thank him for it, though I know if I were more insistent, he would have relented.

At 7cm I had still been lucid but my communication skills were rapidly diminishing again. By 9 cm I could scarcely say "bear" to indicate that my focus needed restarting. My nurse had a shift change, and a new crew came on. These women flowed into my room and took up positions all around me. Shana (remember my midwife?) had been hanging by the sidelines most of the time, often whispering inaudibly with the nursing staff (which I later learned was to show amazement at how I was laboring). Now she informed me that I could no longer leave the bed.

Lying naked in a roomful of strangers would ordinarily be unnerving, but I had some scant coverings on my lower half, and anyway, I reasoned, these people see this sort of thing all the time. I made up my mind that I did not care: there were more important things imminent.

The time to start pushing had nearly arrived.

Labor & Delivery, Part II

2009-04-08T12:00:00.014-04:00

****Warning: This blog entry is somewhat graphic in its descriptions. Do not read while eating lunch! The author accepts no responsibility for food in your sinuses or sprayed on your friends, family, coworkers, or electronics.****

Labor contractions had begun at 7:45pm on December 30, 2007--which would have been my grandfather's centennial birthday had he not followed his own advice that "no one should ever live past 95." The chart we had drafted in MS Excel was being used, and we learned that my internal twinges of pain were running 7 minutes apart. Not so bad!

[Well, they were bad. Still, I have a high tolerance for pain, it seems, so I was doing well enough, given that I was in labor. What did it feel like? That was always my concern when considering the pain of labor. I knew it would hurt, but I didn't know how it would hurt. For those of you who wonder the same: the pain is primarily in your cervix. It's a frustrating sort of pain because you cannot touch it. You cannot massage it or poke it or access it directly to alleviate the sensation. Your cervix is surprisingly similar in appearance to the head of a penis (gross picture of extracted cervix available here). When the male gives birth, it's just to a swarm of sperm, which are well suited to zoom on out of his penis. But imagine giving birth to a several pound child through a similar hole? Granted, the cervix is "designed" to expand a bit more than the male urethra.]

After a few steady contractions at 7 minutes from start to start, we contacted Sabrina the Magic Doula, who turned out to be at a small gathering a ways away. Expecting several hours of labor, and not wanting to yank her from fun to work so early, I told her she could take her time coming over. After we got off the phone, my contractions immediately changed to every 2 minutes. Andrew called her back to say never mind, please come now! She was already en route.

The next step was to inform my midwife. Since the midwives in our practice worked on an on-call basis, I wasn't sure who I would get and was a little disappointed that Shana was the one to answer and not Jane, my preferred practitioner. Andrew called the hotline and Shana asked to speak to me. She asked me how my contractions felt, presumably to ascertain whether or not I was just experiencing Braxton-Hicks, and then proceeded to tell me not to bother coming to the hospital yet since I could still talk.

By this time we had assembled an arsenal of belongings to bring to the hospital, including what turned out to be an extremely useful case of bottled water. Trusting Shana's judgment, we decided to stay home awhile so that I could spend more time in a comfortable environment. Given that I was decidedly UNcomfortable, I put on some loose and modest clothing and sank myself into a nice bath, just as Sabrina arrived at the door.

My friendly stranger sat down calmly on the toilet and helped soothe me through my tubby time contractions. Between the rapid fire agony, she shared some great news with me: she was pregnant! I tried to feel happy for her at the moment, but I have to admit, my mind was literally trying to be elsewhere.

Shortly thereafter, I had my "bloody show." I had thought I'd already had it when something small and snotty and pinkish had ventured out of me a day or so prior. People talk about the mucous plug and describe everything but the size. It's BIG. You will definitely notice when your mucous plug exits!

Leaving the tub and drying myself, I changed into a maternity tank top and some comfy bottoms--an outfit which I naively believed I would be wearing during my remaining hours of labor at the hospital. We called Shana to say that we were on our way, and Sabrina followed us to North Florida Regional Medical Center in her own car.

As often as women give birth, I can honestly say that I have never seen a woman laboring in a car. I was a little embarassed by the experience, not to mention worried about the upholstery in the van, so I tried as best as I could to hide my personal agony from those in neighboring vehicles. Andrew later told me that it was of no use as people were still looking in the windows at me like I was some deranged lunatic.

Arriving at the drop off for the Women's Center at the hospital, Andrew left the van for Sabrina to park (at her offering) and came upstairs with me to check in. I wasn't fond of the desk clerk, though I suppose it's not really her fault--she was just doing her job. Still, I felt like she was so cold hearted when she looked at me skeptically and asked how close my contractions were. At that point, they were so close together that I could barely gasp out an answer of "very" before the next one started and was clinging onto Andrew for support in standing.

Skeptical Nurse directed us down the hall to triage, where I was told I had to wear the Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty. Andrew waited with me, trying to be a comfort at a time in my life in which comfort was just a distant memory.

After an eternity of probably 15 minutes, the triage nurse arrived, and for what seemed the millionth time since becoming pregnant, a total stranger became intimately familiar with an area of my body not meant to be shared with such a variety of people. She confirmed my contractions were true labor ("Good job there, Sherlock") and announced that I was 3cm dilated and that the baby's heart rate was fine.

It was time to get a room.

Labor & Delivery, Part I

2009-04-01T12:00:00.019-04:00

I was more than ready to give birth, so Andrew and I set about being proactive in instigating labor. We were doubly motivated: not only were we (mentally) through with the whole pregnancy thing and waiting, but the new year was looming. If we wanted to be able to claim our little bundle of joy on our taxes, we were going to have to get crackin'!

My due date arrived, and Andrew took off work for the December holidays and a pre-babymoon spent at home. I finally stopped going to work as well after having astonished my coworkers that I was still working up until my expected launch time.

...And my due date went past. We knew it was most common for a first pregnancy to go 10 days past due, but that was cutting things awfully close as I was due on December 20.

So, tired as I was, and in pain and discomfort as I was, we started walking as often as possible. In all, I had gained 50lbs with my pregnancy, and my joints and feet were really unhappy about that.

I started to worry about whether or not I would survive childbirth. Odds are much better these days than in bygone times, when women had some ridiculous death rate in childbirth of around 25% or so. (Feel free to check that statistic; it's unverified by me as of yet.) Just in case something tragic occurred, I wanted Jackson to know his Mommy and to have something that was just for him from me.

Thus, I wrote "A Letter to my Unborn Son." Rereading it now, it was terribly written, to be honest, so I won't reproduce it here except for the closing:

"Thank you for making me a mother. And thank you, in advance, for doing your chores as you were told and for respecting your parents, as I'm sure you will, or you'll be grounded until you're 40, young man."

Well, that didn't instigate labor. Then Andrew, my darling Quality Engineer husband, had a great idea: He pointed out that goals are best achieved when they are written down and made specific.

So, I wrote down my goals, which mainly stated that I hoped to have a safe labor and delivery, that Jackson would be born healthy, and that I would pretty please start having contractions as soon as possible. As in now.

That was at 9 days past due. This kid was going to owe me late fees!

On the 10th day past my due date, we did more walking. And more walking. And more walking. We then tried spicy food. It seemed less crazy than the old "drive down a bumpy road" idea. Our cajun food was annoyingly bland but sent us rushing home to fight for the bathroom.

Still not in labor, we tried the often suggested approach by many of the informed people in our cadre of medical prenatal caregivers: sex.

There are scientific reasons for which sex is suggested as a method of inducing labor. But when one partner is shaped like an inverted camel, humping becomes less fun and more like solving a Rubik's Cube.

The science: The cervix is the enemy that must be conquered. Jackson showed some prescience in utero because any time I said the word cervix, he would find some way to hit it painfully as a way to indicate to me that he knew what it was: the way out. In order for the gestated little squirt to achieve escape velocity, the cervix has to soften and stretch open. Conveniently, human male semen has some ingredients, known as prostaglandins, that facilitate this ripening process. The same sort of chemical mechanism is used in artificially stimulating labor, only it's way less fun that way and greatly increases the pain of labor. Sex would be simpler and gentler.

So, what the heck, right? Well, we did our part and managed to enjoy each other--which we did not get a chance to do again for another 6 weeks afterward.

But still no labor. My sister called and woke us from our post-coital snooze to nag me about hatching her nephew. "Hurry it up, already!"

Tired and ready to give in to defeat for the day, Andrew and I ventured out into the world to rent some movies and buy some Publix deli sandwiches. (Something about Publix deli...there were almost always swell-bellied pre-mamas hanging around there.)

Watching the old movie, Blown Away, with Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones, I ate my turkey sandwich and felt surprised that Andrew had never seen the film before.

Then I felt something that wasn't surprise. This was not a Braxton Hicks contraction, ohhhhh no, sir. This was the real deal. I was finally in labor!

And the cause? Maybe it was just time at long last, or maybe it was just a 24 hour delay from my goal writing, but Andrew likes to say that all we needed to instigate labor was a dose of Tommy Lee Jones!

ToBP

2009-03-25T12:00:00.015-04:00

Toward the end of the pregnancy, moms-in-waiting are encouraged to make more frequent visits to the OB/GYN or midwife. During one such visit, the midwife I saw indicated that she wrote in my file that I was suffering from ToBP.

ToBP (or TBP) is a very common condition and nothing too serious--or at least, nothing anyone else takes seriously. It's an acronym for Tired of Being Pregnant.

And she was right. I was very tired of being pregnant. I was also just very tired. And sore. And constantly having heartburn. People kept telling me I would have relief once the baby "dropped". Not so. He was so large that it was almost indistinguishable when he did hang a little lower inside my belly. And he kept kicking me. Hard.

It's not unusual, therefore, for women to start feeling a little resentful of their wee one. I began asking the little dear to hurry up and come on out, as I was sure he was sufficiently done cooking in the oven.

About a week before my due date, I wrote a diatribe denouncing all the "evils" of pregnancy that a woman experiences, even when things go perfectly well. For example, the worse a woman's morning sickness, the better, they say. (I kept track on a calendar of every time my nausea turned productive. Jackson was VERY healthy.)

My conclusions then were somewhat superficial, though I still support them more than a year since:

Women deserve to be thanked for enduring an entire pregnancy, regardless of whether or not they were good parents afterward
The only reasons women willingly get impregnated subsequent to the first time are either induced by alcohol or the result of some form of amnesia, possibly both
The first child was probably the result of alcohol or amnesia, too

Sure, there are couples out there who naively seek to deliberately create their own temporary opaque human aquariums. These people are also usually the ones who have a difficult time conceiving. Coincidence? I think not. These types remind me of the beer called Celebration, put out by Sierra Nevada.

The back story: A completely awesome group of people gathers each Saturday night at a house in Tampa. One night, while I was a regular attendee, an unsuspecting member of our group purchased a 6-pack of Celebration. He took a sip of his bottle and pronounced it foul and undrinkable. Of the 10 or so of us there that night, nearly every one proceeded to then attempt to try a taste of something so putrid it needed to be experienced first hand. A final assessment of Celebration deemed the flavor reminiscent of beer that had been regurgitated and strained through dirty pantyhose before being rebottled.

"Oh, it's terrible!"

"Let me try!"

Now, I'm not essaying to tell people not to have children. Far from it! But it's not all roses and sunshine. For a year and a half, I never once slept a full night through. For the first 6 months of Jackson's life, I spent a great deal of time wearing clothing covered in spit up, since he had reflux issues. Conception, pregnancy, birth, and infancy are not for the delicate of manners. They are gross. Period.

And then...well, I have historically been a typical Floridian, feeling chill at 72F. I used to keep my thermostat set to about 80F or 82F in the summer, and was quite fine with it. However, the last month of my pregnancy was spent burning hot. In December. With the air conditioning running. Poor Andrew, my darling husband, suffered manfully while I pushed the thermostat down to 62F at night, kicking off the blankets because it was sooo hot.

We were ready for Jackson to find the light at the end of the tunnel and venture forth into a brave new world.

Useful Prenatal/Post Partum Literature (A Serious Post)

2009-03-18T12:00:00.013-04:00

Living as we do in the so-called Age of Information, those with unfiltered access to the Internet no longer have any excuse not to know or be able to discover just about any piece of knowledge we desire. There are some who take this to extreme and insist on knowing the ins and outs of the anatomy of every person willing to provide a visual demonstration. Others prefer a more cloistered lifestyle, sequestered from carnal knowledge until marital vows are pronounced. Still others are generously populating the Internet with all kinds of useful, useless, or incorrect information, so the seeker of wisdom may have to rely on his best judgment to determine what advice or principles to follow.

Good friends to those making a quest for details on pregnancy, labor and delivery, and child rearing are the well-matched pair of Google and Amazon. I scarcely need inform my visitors of the existence of the magical realm Google has invented, infecting the world wide web with a notion of purifying websites and webtools down to their clearest and most efficient forms, and providing a search engine unparalleled by any guru or librarian in the history of the world. Amazon long ago learned to be molded by the will of the people and has become a reference tool with a variety of measuring sticks on hand for evaluating as well as purchasing literature, among its many other traits.

Additionally, Andrew and I made use of our spare time during my pregnancy at local bookstores. We felt then and maintain now, with our son currently 14 months old, that for us to be successful parents and maintain positive relations with one another, we needed not only to comprehend the imminent future but to have some glimpse of further horizons.

For a relationship to survive the strains of the first year with a child, both partners must be committed. As much as possible, they need to agree in advance as to how to handle given situations that might arise. They need a plan: Who will care for the child? Breastfeed or bottle feed? Who will handle night wakings? How will chores be divided in the new regime? What sort of allowances will be deemed acceptable? What behaviors are deal breakers?

Yet in order to know what things to discuss and attempt to resolve as best as possible in advance, it helps to have a guide (or several) indicating what issues you are most likely to encounter. This is where the Age of Information becomes your friend. Andrew and I were fortunate in that the literature we selected to aid us in our pre-parenting and early parenting processes were all very helpful in their own regards:

What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff is the more modern equivalent of Dr. Spock a generation or so back. One of the greatest aspects of this book is that it is frequently updated to include newer information and insights into the experience of pregnancy. A wealth of knowledge pervades the text, derived from reputable sources and even including an acknowledgement that pregnant women are not always occupying the status of married or even necessarily heterosexual.

Great Expectations by Sandy & Marcie Jones provide a weekly update on what experiences to expect throughout pregnancy. Each week is numbered in several ways including fetal age and number of days remaining until your due date. Each also indicates the size of your baby, the stage of development achieved, what is happening to you as the mother, and some basic tips for the general time period. The book is very clearly arrayed with lots of graphics that include periodic glimpses at the changing shape of the mother's belly and the growing and changing shape of the uterus and its bundle of joy. Great Expectations also shares a good deal of information and planning help for the birthing side of things as well as that often ignored post partum period.

The Modern Girl's Guide to Motherhood by Jane Buckingham is a much better guide than the cover leads one to believe. She uses a lot of straight talk that is great for those who really want to know what to expect. An excerpt:
I don't know if it's some unspoken mother's code, or if mommy veterans are simply trying to protect us delivery virgins from the inevitable, but for some reason, no one--and none of the books for that matter--told me how downright painful recovery is. ... Everyone tells you about labor. Somehow they forget about recovery.
The bulk of the material, though, is best directed toward offering suggestions for how and when to do things. The timelines for what to expect with your child were GREAT. I still use this book to help keep track of what vaccines Jackson will be getting and for what milestones he should be expected to achieve at each stage.

Be Prepared, A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden is an excellent primer for parenthood--and it's hilarious! The drawings are wonderful and the diction is well directed at the male brain. This book has some great and innovative ideas for those "Now what?" moments. One section provides a breakdown of the distinctions in infant cries for hunger, fatigue, colic, etc. while another gives useful suggestions for remaining upright at work. For each age bracket of infancy, the text offers ways to entertain a child that cost little or no money, as well as ways to use your child as a source of (deliberate) exercise.

These are just a few of the resources you can use to help prepare for a wee one. But if you lack the funds to buy anything but the barest of essentials, consider that most of the information provided in any book is derived from publications by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP is considered the authority by most Western pediatricians and prints a large number of books for helping parents do their job. Many places offer their books for free. The most common publication of use is Your Baby's First Year (available for purchase here). If you live in the southern United States, you can apply for the Publix baby club, which is free through the grocery store chain. Publix will then send you an expanded version of this book, entitled Caring for Your Baby and Young Child for free (USD$20 value), in addition to a bunch of great coupons and a wonderful regular newsletter with tips for your child's current age group. This expanded volume contains helpful information from the AAP for children through age 5 years.

In the end, you as the parent are the one who has to make all of the decisions. Being informed can help you make better decisions: To breastfeed or bottle feed? Natural childbirth or epidural? Co-sleep or crib sleep?

I hereby give you permission to make your own (informed) decisions, regardless of societal or familial pressures. As a parent and caregiver you are in a position to know and understand your child's (and your own!) personality, preferences, and abilities better than anyone else. Raising a child is tough enough, just trying to keep the little things alive and healthy despite their best attempts to the contrary. If you can learn to trust your own instincts for what is best for your baby, then you are well ahead of the curve.

Doula Selection

2009-03-11T12:00:00.017-04:00

After reading about doulas in our prenatal books, Andrew and I decided that a labor doula would be very helpful to have. Our reasoning was that:

We could afford one (in the end, we paid about $575)
Outside of ourselves and hospital staff, we had no local network of support during labor
With my hip malfunctions (from that cruel hormone relaxin) and my cervical disc herniation (from a pre-conception car accident), we wanted someone who could help me be as comfortable as possible
Andrew's general level of sympathy is not very, shall we say, "developed" and he was honest about that upfront -- he wanted me to have the best possible experience. (n.b. Andrew entered this one; it does not mean he was wanting to shirk his responsibilities as a father at the birth--just wanted help!)
Given the stress of labor and delivery, it made sense to want someone a bit emotionally removed who could remain clearheaded and help to enforce our preferences and rights as parents-to-be

So, I queried my midwife for suggestions for a doula. At first she was reluctant to offer any, stating that whichever midwife from the practice was on call would stay with me during my labor. (Ironically, she turned out to be the midwife on duty, and perhaps it was because I had a doula and perhaps not, but she was NOT around much at all until close to pushing time!) Eventually she surrendered the name of a local midwife named Daniela.

I called Daniela and scheduled an informal interview with her at our home. Andrew researched online for appropriate questions to ask her, and we added a few of our own: just what exactly is it that a doula does? After we had a chance to interrogate our prospective doula (who turned out to be a midwife as well, specializing in home births) about any manner of things, including the name and number of her hairdresser (her hair was fabulous!), my husband and I conferred.

While Daniela was perfectly agreeable, she was also somewhat mousy. She seemed affronted by our unusual questions (which were likely the result of a certain amount of anxiety on our part) but tried to hide it while remaining reasonably cheerful. Then we struck gold: she had a back-up doula!

As Daniela was both doula and midwife, she seemed overly qualified to the point where it was practically insulting for us to hire her as "only" a doula. Her back-up doula, however, was a doula AND a massage therapist, which was exactly what we had hoped to find. We politely requested Sabrina's contact information so that we might interview her as well, and in the process I fear we may have offended Daniela--though I suspect she was secretly glad not to have further dealings with us, the "crazy" couple with the odd sense of humor!

Andrew and I were nervous about a second interview, but we were better prepared this time around. Still, we felt little need to pretend to be people we were not since our true personalities were likely to resurface in the excitement of labor and delivery.

Sabrina was a godsend! From the moment she arrived I felt very comfortable with her, almost as though she were my own sister. She even bears a strong resemblance to my actual sister! While at first she was rather uncertain of how to interpret our strangeness, Sabrina quickly warmed to us and seemed to even enjoy our often unexpected injections of humor into the whole process.

One thing that was very impressive to us was her apparent level of organization. She had paperwork for us to complete with basic information about ourselves and what restrictions and allowances we wanted to have in place at Jackson's evacuation from my uterus. Her payment plan was very straightforward and reasonable--and it included a free prenatal massage! For control freaks such as ourselves, Sabrina was the ideal candidate.

As we only met her a month before my due date, she returned on only 2 or 3 other occasions before the birth itself for training sessions. Sabrina had recently learned some new techniques for helping laboring moms to cope with the pain. Andrew and I accepted our tutorials, which included an emphasis on changing focus.

One lesson in particular involved us holding a piece of ice inside a closed fist for a given duration. We had to look around at various objects and focus on basic concepts about them: green couch, wood chair, the feel of carpet on bare feet, etc. while trying to maintain steady breathing and minimal awareness of the ice.

Any laboring mother can tell you that ice is no substitute for the real deal, but for learning a basic trick to use in labor, ice sufficed quite well. [Please, if you try this yourself, exercise caution as prolonged exposure to ice can severely damage your skin!]

Everyone has their own individual preferences and comfort levels. When it came down to it, Sabrina was chosen by us because not only did she exude confidence, but she also helped us to feel relaxed and comfortable. Giving birth is stressful enough an experience that anything that can be done to mitigate that stress rather than exacerbate it is much appreciated by all those involved. Andrew and I knew that we could rely on Sabrina to help serve as an ambassador to hospital staff, someone who would state and reaffirm and enforce our individual preferences in dealing with both medical professionals--and ourselves!

Learning to be Natural

2009-03-04T12:00:00.017-05:00

Bill Cosby famously joked (see video below) about how he and his wife went to classes to learn how to have natural childbirth. Andrew and I experienced a journey somewhat similar to Bill Cosby and his wife--conceivably because we are also "intellectuals."

One of the main reasons we wanted a midwife was because we didn't want a hospital experience similar to the example shown in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life:

When I delivered, I wanted it to be a personal event, not a personnel event. I wanted things to be calm and focused and as uncomplicated as possible. After taking our classes on how to have children (after the conception bit; we had figured that part out just fine), I had determined I wanted to deliver naturally: no drugs at all.

This came about as a result in large part of learning about the distinctions between natural vaginal childbirth and medicated vaginal childbirth. Our instructor, Tina, was a mom 3 times over. She had been present at many more births beyond those of her own children. She also knew a fair amount of statistics, which are about on equal footing with anecdotal information to any mom looking at squeezing out a kid for the first time.

In birth, Tina said, any medical intervention tends to lead to further medical interventions. For example, if a woman were to receive an epidural dose of pain medication, she might potentially have difficulty knowing how to maneuver in order to expedite delivery. She is also confined to the hospital bed and cannot move around very freely to even be able to attempt such maneuvers. She may have, therefore, a longer labor.

Additionally, it may be difficult for her to know how to push or even to be able to push, thereby increasing the likelihood of a Caesarean birth. However should she still manage to try vaginal delivery, she will have a far greater chance of needing help to get the baby out via

the "salad spoons" or the suction cup or an episiotomy. Vain as I was for my unborn child, I wanted him to have a well-shaped head, so a quick delivery with no use of forceps or suction was optimal to me. (Image above obtained here.)

Another issue with medication was plain and simple fear. I've known enough kids born when their mothers used drugs to make them comfortable in labor to recognize that any effects are inconsequential in the long run. My sister and I were both born Caesarean (bless you, Mom, you were a trooper!) just 18 months apart, and we are perfectly fine. At least, any defects we have we can't blame on the birth medicines, anyway!

No, my fear wasn't for Jackson so much as for me. In our childbirth class, Tina showed us a video of an epidural injection. In order to get the most common method of pain relief in labor, the mom-to-be has to be turned onto her side and made to hug her knees. Then, despite being continually wracked with pain, she has to hold very still as an anaesthesiologist spends about 15 minutes putting things in and out of her spine.

Needle in the spine? Wasn't going to be mine.

We learned all the techniques for breathing and noise-making. (Came in VERY handy!) We learned about how the baby might be oriented at the time of departure. (Also very handy.) We learned distraction methods so that I might have a focus other than OH MY GOD THIS HURTS WHAT THE (BLEEP) DID YOU DO TO ME?!? (Which would have come out as "Omgrrdfkdym!?!!")

We also learned about this mysterious doula concept that had been floating throughout some of our literature of pregnancy and labor. And the search began for a person to substitute for the drugs I would not be taking!