Jasmine Carlson – Page 5

Rolling With the Punches, or Falls

It does not seem to matter what kind of discipline, direction (or redirection), or discussion I use with my son he refuses to remain seated while at the table. He has just recently started stacking all of his toys on the table and climbing on the long bench that we have drawn up to the side of the table. That is the only thing long enough to hold 10+ people at the dinner table; of course since they are benches there are chocolate_candies no backs. He has now fallen off the benches multiple times and I have tried everything to keep him from standing on them.

He does fine while on his knees or sitting, but once again tonight he just had to stand on the bench and off he came, again. This was one of the harder times that he has landed and when I picked him up he continued to breath in and in…before passing out. He has done this before but even though my logical brain knows that he will breath again for one tiny instance I see my world without my child in it. For one brief moment I feel the terror of losing him and then he came to.
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Adjustment

My son has gained a mind of his own. Not that he has ever been much of a compliant child, but it seems that all of a sudden I have a full blown human being with his own opinions and ways of doing things.

The other morning I was trying to get ready to go grocery shopping and to have a much needed chiropractor visit. Of course, the days I plan on actually being productive seem to be the days that my son decides he needs a say in things. So we spent over half an hour repeatedly returning to the corner for a little refocus time (on his part) while I hurriedly attempted to shovel food in to my face; while he was eating breakfast I had been busy cleaning up and then getting him down and cleaning up after him… the list goes on. By the time we were finished with our little struggle I was close to being late and desperately needed the adjustment that I was headed in for.

After this little episode I realized that maybe it wasn’t just my back and neck that needed adjusted but also my perspective and maybe some of the ways I am doing things.
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Community Baby

Our community is about to welcome another member in to its midst. One of our couples are expecting their first baby any day; at the moment they are a few days past her EDD. I think babies being “late” is a good introduction to being a parent and how a baby is going to turn your life upside down and how your schedule is about to be arranged, permanently. This baby will be welcomed in to the arms of his/her mom and dad and in to the arms of the whole community in the main community house.

The last baby that was born in that house was my niece. I have been wondering how this baby will be different. Honestly, I have never really liked other people’s kids. Well, it’s not that I don’t like them, it is just that I have never really been one of those types who enjoys everyone’s kids and who can always be found holding or playing with other people’s children. My niece is different. She is just a different kind of mine. My attachment to her is very different from the attachment I have with my son, but it is also very different from any other child I have been around; she is also mine.

This baby that is about to arrive is not mine at all, he/she is not my niece/nephew. I have no relation to this child but at the same time I feel invested in her/his life. I have been at all of the prenatal visits, I will be there when the baby is born, I will hold him/her. and I will watch as the baby grow with my child(ren), my nieces, and my nephews. This baby will be different because I will make a commitment to this child, I will choose to be attached and from the moment that child is born throughout its life I will need to be there.
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Positive Holiday Discipline

Discipline is a hot topic in my house right now. Since I live in an intentional community and my son is the oldest of the children, it is also something of a fishbowl environment.

My now 18-month-old son is testing the limits in all new ways, challenging, finding his boundaries, and seeing how far he can push me. At the same time he is very mom-centered, demanding, and clingy. We are definitely going through another season where I frequently tell myself “this too shall pass”.

I am all about savoring the moment. To me Christmas is all about flavor. It is the culmination of the flavors of life, food, fun, family, friends, and sometimes even fights (come on it’s like the cayenne of flavors). And gifts! I am not really a huge gift person but when it comes to Christmas, I love giving and receiving gifts. There is something about it that just makes me want to squeal, which is not really a normal Jasmine-ish response to life in general. Back to flavors. Flavors all come together in the Christmas cookies, candy, traditions, dinner, games, and music.

Christmas can also be a tricky season as far as discipline goes. Come on now, I know that you know what I am talking about. There are presents stacked under the tree, there are cookies and sweets everywhere, there is family, noise, and activity. It is very hard to stay disciplined during this season and it is the same for our children.
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6 tips for sleepy safety during your holiday travels

travelsafesleep Holiday season in many of our vocabularies is synonymous with travel, and travel means messing with our child’s normal routine. Not only our child’s routine but also our own as well. This is often most visible in our sleeping patterns.

When I am traveling, I either sleep lighter or heavier. Sometimes I have a very disturbed sleep and sometimes I am so tired I sleep abnormally heavy. I have been prone to wake up in a panic, wondering where I am and whom I am with. This is also true of our children.

So how do we make sure that this holiday travel season remains safe and sane? How do we avoid a sleeping tragedy with our young child or baby? How do we avoid those over-tired meltdowns, or at least keep them to a minimum? How do we make sure that our child continues to feel, and be, safe and secure during this time? Learn how to avoid these pitfalls with the 6 tips for sleep safety during holiday travels.

Traveling can be a very unsettling time in the life of adults and children alike. it is when we need extra security and comfort, especially at night where we are more likely to be sleeping somewhere strange with new sounds, smells, and on an unfamiliar surface. This is how do we safely engage in sleep, nighttime and naptime, parenting while traveling.

Since wintertime is prime cold/flu season it is imperative that we do not sleep with our child if we have taken any form of cold/flu medication that may make us drowsy or in any way impair our judgment. The same caution should be applied when taking anti-nausea medication. This is also true of holiday drinking; be cognizant of your intake!

“While infant suffocation as a result of overlying by the parent in a bed sharing environment is not unheard of, unsafe conditions such as parental intoxication with drugs or alcohol…” (Bass, Kravath, and Glass, 1986; Gilbert-Barness et al., 1991; see also Carpenter et al., 2004; Gessner, Ives, and Perham-Hester, 2001).
Your baby should not sleep unattended in a place that he/she is unfamiliar with. Young children can become easily frightened when they awake to find themselves in a location that they are not familiar with. This may cause them to panic and possibly fall or become entangled.
Don’t disrupt your normal sleeping arrangements. If you normally cosleep, continue to do so. If you do not co-sleep, this is not the time to start! Your body is also used to its “normal” routine and while you are traveling it is best to stick with it.If you cosleep, remember to follow some of the basic safe sleeping “rules”.

“Infants should sleep on firm surfaces, clean surfaces, in the absence of smoke, under light (comfortable) blanketing and their heads should never be covered. The bed should not have any stuffed animals or pillows around the infant and never should an infant be placed to sleep on top of a pillow. Sheepskins or other fluffy material and especially beanbag mattresses should never be used. Waterbeds can be dangerous, too, and always the mattresses should tightly intersect the bed-frame. Infants should never sleep on couches or sofas, with or without adults wherein they can slip down (face first) into the crevice or get wedged against the back of a couch.” Dr. James McKenna
It is very important that if you are traveling by car or in a private jet from Jettly that you are mindful of how your baby is going to sleep. Especially with airline travel make sure that you have a plan! One option – Bassinets

“Bassinets are provided, free of charge, on all international aircraft (747, 767 and 777). When confirming your reservations, you may request a seat in an appropriate location for bassinet usage. These bassinets are large enough to hold a child up to approximately six months old. They may not be used for takeoff, landing, or any time the fasten seat belt sign is illuminated.” United Airlines, Infants and Toddlers
A good choice for parents of a newborn or very young child is to be the holiday host home. If you are able to communicate the safety and comfort benefits to your family, they may be happy to acquiesce for a season.
If travel is in your holiday future, it is especially helpful to have another adult along. This can eliminate many travel difficulties, as there is another pair of arms and eyes to care for your child. This allows you to catch up on your sleep and make sure that your needs are met as well during this holiday season.

API’s “Infant Sleep Safety Guidelines” page a great resource, it states as follows: “Be mindful about sharing sleep and settle the baby safely next to mom in a planned environment rather than falling asleep from exhaustion on the couch, a recliner, beanbag chair, or other unsafe place to share sleep.”

This point is driven home to us every time that we read about a new sleeping accident. We must be especially mindful while we are in complicated sleeping situations like cars, airplanes, and other small spaces.

It is easy to forget to take our usual safety precautions while traveling. If you need a refresher course there is some great information available. You may want to consider reading, or re-reading as the case may be, the API “Infant Sleep Safety Guide” or the pamphlets that are available on Dr. James McKenna’s website Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory. These are just good refreshers on safe sleeping practices as it is easy to get lax while traveling and vacationing; there is no vacation from safe sleep practices!

I thought Dr. James McKenna’s conclusion was quite fitting, “I do not recommend to any parents any particular type of sleeping arrangement since I do not know the circumstances within which particular parents live. What I do recommend is to consider all of the possible choices and to become as informed as is possible matching what you learn with what you think can work the best for you and your family.”

And with that I will wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, safe travels and even safer sleeping!

Jasmine C.

Photo: kennymatic/Flickr

A Foundation of Trust

There are all new considerations and choices to make when you have a child during the Christmas season. Like what kind of gifts to buy, should they be educational? Homemade? Eco friendly? Wood? Plastic? Should they make noise? How much should you spend? Should you give gifts at all? What kind of holiday foundation do you want to lay for your child? And not only holiday but what kind of foundation do you want to lay for gift giving? For being financially responsible? For being a giving person all year round?

And how about honesty? How about things like trust? This is what I ask myself around the holiday season, especially now that I have a child of my own because now, unlike when I was a child and my parents made these choice, these choices are my own and they will form the next years of my child’s life.

I choose honesty and trust because of the Santa Claus issue. Now I know that this is a very personal choice but I will give a swing at it from my perspective.

Every year thousands of children are told the story of Santa Claus though it isn’t told as a story, it is told as truth. There really was a “saint” Nicolas and he really did give children toys but as we all know he did not cover the globe, he surely did not have a pack of reindeer and there were/are no elves working in a shop of eternal Christmas at the North Pole. And yet thousands, millions of children are told this story each year, they are reminded that this is why they must be “good” so that they can receive presents.

Young children are so impressionable and with this “story” we (as Americans) indoctrinate very early. I was blessed as a child to not have this story told to me, I received presents from my loving parents whether I was “good” or not, we didn’t have lots of money but I always received a few nice gifts, I never thought because I didn’t receive as many as some other children that I was not as “good,” I actually pitied children who believed in Santa Claus, I pitied them because their parents were lying to them and I knew it and they did not.

Why I ask myself when I have and am working so hard to build a relationship of trust, a foundation of truth in my child’s life would I, “just for fun” and not to “deprive” my child of a cultural norm, lie to my child, why would I after requesting that he obey me because he trusts me, because I provide consistent and loving care for him day in and day out while being consistently truthful and trustworthy would I destroy that with one little “white” lie?

I have heard parents tell stories of when they had to tell their children the truth, or worse yet when children were sneeringly informed by another child that there is no such thing as Santa Claus. How horrific. Children are then supposed to move on because they are now in on the adult secret that has been kept from them for years, they are now a part of the holiday lie, they are not even allowed to mourn the “death” of a man that they have cherished for years because then they would uncool or less grown up. And somewhere in a child’s heart a seed of doubt is sown. Why did my parents lie to me? Don’t they trust me? Do I trust them? Why should I trust them? What else do they lie to me about? And these doubts become buried in a child’s heart and mind never to be expressed for fear of not being “good” not measuring up to their new grown up status.

I am looking forward to this holiday season. I am looking forward to making cookies, candy and a gingerbread house with my son. I am looking forward to buying and wrapping him presents, of stuffing his stocking. I was thrilled to see his look of delight as we lit up our Christmas tree, it made me smile to hear him say “pretty.” And as I snuggle him as he falls to sleep tonight, his trusting arms wrapped around my neck I know that I could never betray his trust just over a little bit of fun that we won’t miss anyway.

Self-Pity and Me.

This past week has been something of a challenge as mini-man and I try to recuperate from our Texas trip; now we have been joined by this lovely long-lasting cold. We are both miserable.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was looking fondly back on the time when I could be sick by myself, where I could take a long shower, sleep until I couldn’t sleep any more, rest, read a book, maybe watch a movie. And I could do all this alone. Instead I am wiping snot off a clingy child while trying to change another blow-out diaper as he sobs hysterically because… I don’t know. Continue reading “Self-Pity and Me.”

Average Big

I am tired today. So is my son. The problem? He doesn’t know it and I do.

I have a very lively child. He has been that way since he was born. His head was never floppy, and he wanted to do everything early: he ate early, he rolled early, he was an early talker, he was walking at 10 months, he quit nursing (against my wishes) at 12 months. He has a mind of his own and a will of iron.

I have spent this past month chasing him everywhere, picking up after him and learning to deal with his new found temper tantrums as well as enjoying his ever growing ability to communicate; his verbal abilities are growing by the day.

We just arrived home from our two week vacation. We were driving every few days. He did amazingly well. He was very busy. My community jokes that he is a wild man. I am trying not to label him and roll with the creative energetic punches of my spirited child. Continue reading “Average Big”