modern primitive mom

Every election in my lifetime has seemed pivotal, and this one is no exception. As Tom’s first election, this has more weight to me than any previously. This really could effect the quality of air he breaths, the wilderness he can camp in, and whether or not he will be proud to be an American when he grows up.

So, in case McCain’s policies were not scary enough, he goes out and chooses Sarah Plain for VP. Will the Democrats make her scary ideas, lack of experience and pregnant teenage daughter into a big deal, pointing out that if you can’t even help your own family to make good decisions how will you help the president? Probably not. They’ll probably be the better people and let it go. But that’s not OK. The Republicans would not be the bigger people if the situation were reversed, and it has been.

Look at zippergate. Even in the face of that investigation, Clinton should have had his press secretary come out to the reporters and say over and over something like ”this is their private business, shame on you for asking about it.” (I’m sure a Republican press secretary could polish that up a bit) But instead it was a big huge deal. Since then information about George W going MIA, drinking and driving, and doing drugs in college come out and the Republicans just ignore it or say “that was a long time ago; let it go.” And the public does let it go.

The Democrats need to take a good lesson from the Republicans in making issues disappear; in making the public let things go.

I’ll need to teach Tom about this in a couple years – what to do if other kids tease you. And what do you do?

From the Republican’s example, you look down your nose at the other kids and say “you are such a dork for bringing that up” and then go on with whatever you were doing as if nothing happened.

The country and the whole world will be a better place if we can get some clear thinking Democrats in the white house, so please Democrats, learn how to defend yourselves! And please everyone, vote for Obama! I’m a green party member, but I desperately want the Republicans out of the white house and I do believe that Obama will be a good president. Here’s a link to his site, where you can get a sign for your car or yard: http://store.barackobama.com/

Win a ready-made SnugBaby baby carrier in their fantastic Autumn competition

http://www.snugbaby.co.uk/information/competition.html

In today’s Mothering magazine online the question to the expert “How do I live with the deep regret of having our son circumcised? He is almost 10-months-old now, and I am still struggling with this. Sadly, I did not find out the facts until it was too late.” really struck home with me. I feel exactly that same way, even though Tom is now 15 months old. I don’t know if other mom’s have the same physical response to seeing their child in pain, but I have noticed that whenever I see a cut or scrape or bruise on my beautiful son, my skin literally feels like it is crawling and my chest tightens. And whenever I think about his circumcision (when I pick fuz or cat hair out of it during bath time, or sometimes just when I’m changing his diaper and see the scar), I have that feeling along with the terrible knowledge that he had to go through it without me or his dad just days after coming into this world, a horribly painful experience in a terrifying environment with his arms and legs tied down like a frog for dissection… and I not only allowed it but paid for it and thanked the doctor! It breaks my heart. 

When I found out about female genital mutilation in Africa I was horrified. I never considered that we have male genital mutilation right here in America! It may not make their genitals non-functional like the FGM does, but it is a barbaric and pointless thing that we do willingly to our newborn babies.

Anyways, it was extremely gratifying to read that the feelings I am dealing with are shared by other moms. Thank you Marilyn Milos for writing about this!

An article in Science Daily explains why breastfeeding helps with IQ. Apparently it helps raise IQ for 90% of babies, which is pretty cool! One more reason to feel good about our decisions to breastfeed.

“In two studies of breast-fed infants involving more than 3,000 children in Britain and New Zealand, breastfeeding was found to raise intelligence an average of nearly 7 IQ points if the children had a particular version of a gene called FADS2.

“Ninety percent of the children in the two study groups had at least one copy of the “C” version of FADS2, which yielded higher IQ if they were breast-fed. The other 10 percent, with only the “G” versions of the gene, showed no IQ advantage or disadvantage from breastfeeding. “

we watched the dnc last night while Tom played, clapped with the crowd, snuggled… I hope we get a democrat in office. With the way the republicans are wasting all our money, racking up debt, selling off our natural resources, it seems like the world (or at least our part of it) will be so much better if we can get the republicans out of office as soon as possible.

there’s an article today in a South African news site (iol.co.za) called Play-back time, where they say that 79% mothers polled, from 10 countries, believe that ”people in my country have forgotten the importance of learning through play and other unstructured experiences for children.”

I’ve heard other moms here with school-aged children complaining about this, but that somehow doesn’t stop them for signing up their kids for tuns of extracaricular classes. I wonder if it’s just pressure from other parents to be a super-parent that makes this happen, or…?

Today at the children’s gym was the first time someone commented on Tom’s height and then wouldn’t let it go. Almost everyone feels compelled to either say “he’s tall” or “what a great smile”, for, in fact, he is tall and does have a great smile. He’s also very clever, curious, and sweet… But mostly people comment on him being tall.

Anyhow, for a while there I would say something like “yes, he is so strong and tall!” or “he is tall! He’s clever, too!” for fear that his whole identity will get wrapped up in being tall… But now I just say “yes he is.” If anyone reading this is also raising tall children, I would love to hear how you address this issue! (please comment)

This morning I scanned the gym looking for kids about Tom’s age, and finding one that looked right I tracked down his mom and asked how old the child was. “16 months” she said. “15 months” I said, jesturing to Tom, and then a woman said “15 months??? He’s so tall” “Yes he is.” I said. “I mean, he’s really tall” the woman said “he makes my Logan look like a shrimp. He’s enourmous. Is his father tall? <etc>”

I have been so happy up till now that even though Tom’s the height of a 2 1/2 year old, he has a baby face, so it’s obvious to everyone that he’s a baby. And although a lot of peopole comment on his height, it’s not a big deal to anyone. People give free advice warning me to expect adults to treat Tom like he’s much older than he is, but so far that hasn’t happened…

The only time I really feel awquard is when I nurse him in public, since no one can tell he’s still a baby by looking at the back of his head (and it doesn’t help that he gets distracted easily, pulling his head away and exposing me to everyone), but I’ve had hangups about nursing in public from the beginning, being way too concerned with other people’s perception of me. So I just try to hide my embarrasment and pretend to be confident…

this morning we got up and going early so that we could get to an open house at a new ‘children’s gym.’ I couldn’t tell if Tom thought it was too noisy and busy, or if I was just projecting… It really was noisy and busy. At first it seemed fun, but then the actual ‘class’ started, and the music got louder and all the balls (which were the most fun part for Tom) went away…

Anyhow, I managed to break a toe, and Tom thought it would be way more interesting to look through the drawers of the staff members than to play the organized games. Interesting business idea (there are two different play things like this for toddlers within 1/2 an hour of our house) but not really for us.

We’ve spread out Tom’s vaccines just a little bit, and mainly because I didn’t want him to have vaccines in the hospital when he was a month premature, and then I didn’t like the bedside manor of the nurse who was going to give him his 12 month shots so I said no, we’d come back later… But it looks like a lot of people are spreading out their children’s vaccines on purpose (or just not doing them, or not doing them all). I’ve read that doing the vaccines on the schedule that the doctors recommend is way to hard on small children, and unnecessary. But on the other hand it seems better than dealing with Polio or Hepatitis or some other awful disease. What a difficult decision for parents!

There has been a lot of conversation lately about whether to feed babies whole milk or low fat milk. Tom’s still nursing, but he does have cow milk with his cerial and smoothies…

Someone sent out a link to new APA suggestions that babies prone to obesity get low fat milk, but there’s a lot of evidence that that’s backwards…

Here’s a New York Times article about that: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/weekinreview/12kolata.html

And here is a huge list or resources and articles about that: http://cravingcontroldiet.com/obesity-research.htm