modern primitive mom

Today was a huge milestone for me. Tom and I were standing next to a slide watching a girl, maybe 5 years old, use it as a jungle-gym. Then quick as could be her hand was on his water bottle trying to take it from Tom. I said “no, that’s his” and she withdrew her hand and went back to playing. Only then did I think about the encounter!

For the last 6 months every time older kids are around us I dread the moment when they try to grab something from Tom and I have to say something. The first two times that happened I said nothing at all and felt bad for Tom and like a complete failure. Since then I have practiced different things to say in that situation in the car as we drive to the playground, and have (whith a huge amount of effort) managed a weak “please don’t take that” a few times. But today there was noting weak about what I said and while it seemed ordinary on the outside, I’ve been celebrating on the inside ever since!!

 I think what really helped was, besides practicing in the car, reading a book that a good friend of mine recommended several years ago - Feel the Fear… and Do It Anyways! by Susan Jeffers. I recommend it to anyone who has something in their life that they would like to deal with better.

By the way, I’ve never had any problem telling Tom not to grab other kid’s toys. It was just hard to say no to other people’s kids… Not any more! Yeah!

My mom told me about a group called the ‘holistic mom’s group’. I wrote to one of the chapter leaders, and she told me about a great online forum for natural parenting called http://www.mothering.com/.

As I mentioned, I’ve been pretty hard on myself for eating stuff that I wouldn’t want Tom to eat. I’ve been buying a larger proportion of organic food and have been splurging on the cageless chicken eggs (although I really want to see exactly what environment those chickens are in. Not being in a cage is good, but do they have access to sun and grass?) and organic milk. I’ve started a little garden outside. Tom helped as much as a 10 month old baby can as we planted lettuce and carrots and a few other things.

I really want  to learn how to eat healthier, and have gotten into a pilot of a nutrition class (http://www.realfooddietrevolution.com/)starting in a couple days. I’m pretty excited about that.

Tom is walking all over just holding onto my fingers. Every once in a while he tries to take a step on his own and falls forward, but he only does that when I’m right there to catch him. He is so close to walking on his own.

He is so eager to explore everything, and desperately wants anything that I have. Yesterday I had a craving for chips and pulled the bag down. I ate one or two and then Tom wanted to try them as well. I gave him some cheerios and told him they were similar and then tried apple sauce and then apple pieces (cut paper thin), but he pushed those aside and made it clear that he wanted the chips. I’ve been pretty hard on myself lately for eating things that I wouldn’t want Tom to eat, for not having the childproofing done on the house, for being tired and not focusing on him as well as I think I should… Last Monday Tom got a fever. In the morning he felt a little toastier than usual and by the afternoon he felt extremely hot. His temperature read 100.4, with him taking the digital thermometer out of his mouth several times while it was reading his temp. I called our doctor’s office and the nurse said not to worry unless it got up over 101. Monday night it read 101 and I was so worried about him I hardly slept. The doctor saw him on Tuesday and said that she didn’t think it was anything too serious, that we should just give him children’s Tylenol and put a cool rag on his forehead. Wednesday his temperature got up above 102 and Tom seemed really out of it. His eyes were glazed over and he just wanted to sleep, and when he woke up he just wanted to be carried around and hugged. I was really stressed out.Thursday he was back to normal. I took him out to a friend’s art opening Thursday night and he was in a good mood, walked around holding my fingers quite a bit and expressed his normal strong taste for strangers. And then Friday he developed a rash all over his body, which the nurse explained as some sort of harmless expression of the virus that was causing the fever. It looks terrible and while he is thankfully not scratching himself he has been in a really bad mood. The least frustration sends him into fits of yelling and crying. He’s also really clumsy bumping into everything (and then crying). I need a little vacation! (That’s why I’ve been up playing on the computer since 2:20 this morning.) I’m thinking of staying home from the Easter celebration today so that we can just hang out and relax without thinking about cleaning or homework or any other chores.    

While I was at the library getting The Discipline Book, I also checked out The Idiot’s Guide to Assertiveness. The title really turned me off, but it was the only book on assertiveness geared towards adults that just never learned how to be assertive with other adults. Serendipitously, both books had a similar message for me - and not the one I was afraid to hear. They both told me that I need to pay more attention to other people’s feelings. One thing that was in the discipline book that had a profound impact on me was that I should not grab things from my baby because it is extremely rude. I have been taking things away from him quite a bit, sometimes because of safety issues but sometimes just because of convenience… I have pledged to plan ahead more so that when bath time is over and the tub is empty but Tom will not let go of the faucet, I have something else to distract him with. I have always thought of myself as a thoughtful person, but the assertiveness book described me to a T, and I have a lot of passive aggressive behaviors! I’ve started trying to be direct by saying things like “I would like to watch Scrubs, do you mind?” instead of “Would you like to watch TV?” in order to elevate that “he said “no,” but did he really understand that I wanted to watch, or…” conversation that has been going on in my head so often over the last ten years. Anyhow, I have noticed that I am extremely unclear quite a bit of the time. But since I have been trying to rectify this I have received flowers, and a variety that I like, from Aaron for the first time in years - and he was happy to give them to me - and have had better conversations and improved intimacy! Holy macral! Now the real test will come on Easter, when I am going to assertively respond to my grandmother when she tells me what is wrong with my parenting choices. I’m nervous about that encounter, but I have been practicing on my mom and am actually not dreading seeing her!

I was having a problem with Tom hitting me, and not knowing what to do about it, or even knowing if a 9 month old baby is old enough to know what he’s doing…. Anyhow, I got a few books on disipline at the library, one of which was The Discipline Book by Dr. Sears and I was quite happy to learn that there is a name for my parenting style and it is “Attachment Parenting.” I was also very pleased with their definition of discipline, which is more about teaching the child that you love and respect them than anything else (which is actually what I wanted to do). It also gave me some great perspective about some things I do (like taking things away from Tom when he gets ahold of something I don’t want him to have) and how they effect my relationship with Tom.

I just found out about an online store that sells used diapers: http://www.kellyscloset.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=777

And a forum where people sell their diapers: http://www.diaperpin.com/forum09/

 And of course http://craigslist.org occasionally has used diapers (although ebay does not).

I’ve also heard that baby diaper services will sell their worn out diapers, but that’s after they’re… worn out.

When I talked to Tom’s pediatrician about her thoughts on supplementation, she said that “of course exclusive breastfeeding is ideal, unless there is an issue…” and she went on to say that breastmilk is lacking in some vitamins, and that there haven’t really been any studies showing that exclusive breastfeeding is better…

I was terribly dissapointed to realize that my pediatrician is uneducated about child nutrition, the immunity and other benefits of exclusive breastmilk feeding, and the issues with formula. There have in fact been a lot of studies on the issue and both the WHO and the American Academy of Pediatricians recommend exclusive breastfeeding.

I was unable to trust the other advice she gave me, knowing that she was willing to give out bad advice and defend it.

While I appreciate all of the caring she put into her work and the loving way she has treated Tom, I am currently trying to decide whether to find a new pediatrician or to just research any advice she gives us before putting it into action.

Another mom passed this website along to me. 

http://www.mykarmababy.com/pages/BabySlingPattern.php

When Tom was about 2 weeks old I asked our pediatrician on a regular visit if he was getting enough food. This is a common concerns for first time moms who are breastfeeding for the first time. It does not help that by that point I had been asked by a few different doctor’s assistants how much Tom was eating at a time, as if I had a gage. It also did not help that pumping does not remove the same amount of milk that a baby does, so my estimate of how much Tom was eating was most likely off.

Anyways, I asked Tom’s pediatrician if it seemed like he was doing well and getting enough to eat. She compared his weight to his birth weight and his lowest weight. Then she weighed Tom before and after he breastfed. Her conclusion was that he was getting plenty to eat and was thriving.

But what she actually said was, he seems to be doing great but you should supplement him with formula just to be safe.

I recently talked to the pediatrician about this advice. I’ll write about that dissapointing conversation in my next post.