APtly Said – Page 64

Revering parenthood is patriotism

By Terri Murray

While up in Washington, DC, USA, visiting my aunt and my grandma, one morning my husband and I were able to walk down the street with our youngest for a quick cup of coffee and to walk our Corgi.

The quick cup of coffee turned into a fascinating hour-long conversation with a former congressional candidate for the area. She was also a mother to 3 school-aged children and was very committed to being an active mom. She went on to tell me that she lived in France for some time and in various parts of the United States and had a very successful professional career as a Federal prosecutor that she gave up when she decided to become a mother.

With very little input from me, she went on to explain a lot of what drew her to run for Congress was that she wanted to honor and increase awareness on the patriotism of being a stay-at-home mom or the home-based mompreneur. Hmm…that was interesting. I had never thought to lump the stay-at-home mom or other committed mothers who may work outside the home with patriotism. I wanted to hear more!

She went on to explain that while living in France 30 years ago, she was pregnant and a new mom to their eldest child. She described that the French at that time perceived pregnancy and motherhood, among other qualities, as patriotic. France’s citizens revered moms, because they were raising the next generation of their society. They had a huge undertaking at hand. These moms were forged with raising and developing boys and girls that would one day be running their country and businesses, and serving their community.

And because of the gravity of this, moms were treated with respect and held in high regard. What a wonderful sentiment!

Instead of being the loathed fellow passengers on a plane, the nuisances in line at the grocery store or the disturbance at the restaurant, mothers with their children were treated like they were on an important mission and given respect and help when in public.

To her point, helping to raise and rear the children in our country–they don’t have to be your own–is as much of a moral obligation as it is patriotic. Our country is made up of citizens who were all once kids. Just as we should keep our parks clean and our roads in order, part of keeping this country great for everyone is ensuring kids are raised to become good citizens who contribute to society.

My newfound friend went on to berate a cover of TIME magazine, on which there are two young adults leisurely laying on a beach with the title, “The Childfree Life: When Having It All Means NOT Having Children.” The article described how the birthrate in the United States is the lowest in recorded American history: 1 in 5 women in America are not having kids. I think we both agreed that this was a personal choice and not all adults should or can have children. However, the point of her argument was the article’s claim of not having kids to be a prerequisite for “having it all.”

Should we really be reveling or trying to promote that not having kids in our lives is the only way to live the good life in America these days? After all, one day it is the kids that become the doctor or nurse giving us medical care, the political leader who will decide how our tax dollars are spent and what laws we must live by, the police officer or firefighter that protects us or responds to an emergency situation we may encounter, or the consumer or client for our products and services that support our economy and lifestyles.

Is it harmful to parenting or does it downplay the joys and happiness of the parents raising the next generation of Americans to headline you can’t “have it all,” because you have children. Is that really the society we want? If so, in the very simplest summations, we will have a short-lived society.

Now again, not everyone should or needs to have kids, and some want them but can’t physically, financially or emotionally have them. Fortunately, we live in a society where I don’t think childless adults are thought of as unfulfilled or living an abnormal life. But this title does imply a negative message about the undertaking of parenthood. “Having it all” is what I want! So because I have 4 kids, does that mean its not going to happen for me? I thought it already was happening!

We could further rant on as to why are others trying to define what someone’s life should be like to “have it all?” Anyone can make the case they “have it all,” and each of them will have a different life–and hopefully most of us feel as though we are living life at its best. I am focusing on the fact that it is sad that a national publication through its cover title is subtly and coyly sensitizing and normalizing the thought that children are a nuisance and an intrusive aspect of a quality adult life. They are not.

And let’s revere the moms and caretakers who decide to immerse themselves into raising children and acknowledge when they are great moms just as we would revere her as a CEO or other successful professional who made sacrifices and did what was necessary to get to her elite professional status. As a society, let’s not forget that the job these moms do at home are just as important, if not more important than a job they may do outside the home, because they are rearing and developing the future of our country.

Being a proficient mom and raising high-functioning children doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work, dedication and perfecting your actions to be successful. And their success in raising empathic and compassionate children helps better society as a whole. Thus this woman’s point: that devoted, purposeful moms are not only benefiting the children that they raise, but that America as a whole is strengthened. These children will grow up into our doctors, lawyers, police officers, policy makers, etc. The job we do as as parents and adults raising and caring for our young will dictate the future state of our society and our country. Hence, motherhood is a form of patriotism.

I hope we, as members of a society, look for opportunities to be a positive, helping hand for the children who come into our lives from our neighborhoods, communities, households or social environments as they hold our legacy and future as a great nation. I hope we do not begin to perceive children as interfering with our adult lives or as a speed bump to happiness. Let’s not start looking at them or their needs in a negative light, but look at how we can make a difference in their lives. What can we do to make our future generation into empathic, high-functioning, compassionate, thriving adults.

It just happened to be an coincidental conversation that got started, because it was with me–who is trying to help promote the benefits of Attachment Parenting in my world back home in South Carolina, and I take my role as a mom very seriously. She, on the other hand, just saw me with a feisty 2-year-old, and we were sharing space at a cafe.

I was fascinated by her thought and claim that part of being a dedicated and engaged mom in a sense is very patriotic and is good for America. And after our conversation and reflecting on it more, I have to agree.

Terri Murray lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, with her husband and their 4 children. She leads the Charlotte Natural Moms playgroup. Terri feels that her kids have changed her for the better beyond imagination and keep her on a journey of self discovery and betterment. The more she has learned about Attachment Parenting International’s Eight Principles of Parenting, the more she has found her guidepost for raising her kids. Her background was in genetics, and she is currently a Certified Health Coach and loves all things nutrition, traveling the world and meeting people.

Saved by AP and now 8 kids later: An interview with Margie Wilson-Mars

Through APtly Said, I have had the privilege of meeting Margie Wilson-Mars of Salem, Oregon, USA. A parenting writer and blogger, Margie and her husband of almost 20 years, Robert, have eight children ages 27, 25, 23, 21, 14, 12, 9 and 8—seven sons and one daughter, three of the boys who are on the autistic spectrum. Margie and Robert also have three grandchildren ages 7, 6 and 3.

Now there’s a full household! I could hardly wait to share her Attachment Parenting (AP) story.

RITA: Thank you, Margie, for your time. To begin, how did you decide to first try out the AP approach?

MARGIE: By the time I found out there was an actual thing called AP, I had already been practicing it.

I was only 19 when I had my first son. My mother-in-law had been an oddity in the very early ’60s and breastfed her boys. My mother, who was 15 years older than my mother-in-law, was in my ear constantly with, “You just have to nurse for three weeks and then it does no good.” It was simply a reflection of her generation.

Even in 1987, I was the odd one out breastfeeding and refusing to let my son cry it out. I watched Dr. Jay Gordon on “The Home Show” on ABC—so radical then! My mom told me I was punishing myself.

RITA: Your mom didn’t agree with AP?

MARGIE: For the record, she was legitimately worried about me. It’s just what she knew. She was an amazing mom.

By the time my mother passed away, she was finally comfortable with my parenting style. Acceptance means the world to new moms, to all moms.

RITA: So who did you lean on for AP support?

MARGIE: When my daughter was born 19 months later, I found La Leche League meetings. I am a very solitary person, so in hindsight, I wish I’d participated more, but it did give me validation for what I felt.

I just got “worse” from there! I met Peggy O’Mara, went Dr. Sears happy—yeah, I was hooked.

RITA: And your husband is supportive of AP?

MARGIE: After getting remarried, my new husband instantly accepted and participated in AP. In fact, I don’t even recall discussing it. When our first son was born, he slept with us. Well, I should say he slept with his dad because he was only comfortable on Daddy’s hairy chest! Most of them did the same, but our last, preemie Adam, was partial to sleeping on his brother Mark or his “Sissy Mama,” our only daughter Stephanie.

RITA: At one point, you mentioned to me that AP saved your life. Can you expand on this?

MARGIE: When my first baby Steven was born, we moved in with my parents because I was scared to death. When he was 2 weeks old, my older sister came upstairs into my bedroom and asked me what I was doing. Apparently I calmly answered, “I’m going to try and finish feeding this baby, and then I’m throwing him out the window and following.”

I honestly don’t remember how it happened, but I ended up at my mother-in-law’s house where she tucked me into bed for some much needed sleep and took Steven. She would wake me up to feed him, keeping an eye on us, and then send me back to bed.

Her gentle manner just blew my mind, the total opposite from my family. Even the way she bathed him was so soft and stress free. No more watching the clock between feedings or freaking out because he didn’t poop that day.

My depression ran deep, and it took getting pregnant with my daughter Stephanie before it totally lifted. Being constantly reassured that listening to my instincts was not only OK, but good, made all the difference. I have no doubt that if I’d continued on the path I was on, I wouldn’t have made it.

RITA: The quality of parent support can really make all of the difference. I’m glad you found support when you did.

MARGIE: There have certainly been huge bumps in the road since, but my mother-in-law set the tone for my parenting. No matter how rocky things got at times, our attachment was never affected. For example, when my daughter and I clashed through her teenage years, she told me she never felt like she couldn’t crawl into bed with me and know that everything would be OK. Her grandmother is truly the one to thank for that.

RITA: I’m thankful for her, too. The world needs more parents like you—and her! So how has AP worked out for your family as it has grown?

MARGIE: I think the best thing was the ease of taking care of the babies when they were little. When the oldest four were teenagers and the babies were little, we had a gigantic cushy spot—spots are very important in our home—in the living room where I could just be with all of the boys, yet stay accessible to the older ones. It also forced my autistic boys to be social with their brothers.

People are still astonished when they see how cuddly our autistic sons are.

RITA: What is it like seeing your oldest children becoming parents themselves?

MARGIE: Even though we still have little ones at home, seeing our daughter with her children—just wow! She’s the best mother, so instinctive and giving. Our oldest son is a newly single dad and so intensely bonded to his son.

The evolution of parenting, seeing them working so hard to correct the mistakes we made and become even better, closer parents to their children: It’s a beautiful thing to see.

We’re really doing the same thing with our younger boys—improving and evolving. It can be a struggle to stop feeling sorry for yourself and just move forward.

The bigger the family, the more you need Attachment Parenting.

RITA: You mentioned that AP seems to be helping in parenting your children with autism.

MARGIE: This is huge for us.

My third child, Mark, has Asperger’s Syndrome. He is from the first wave of autistic children born in 1990 when it started to skyrocket. When he would nurse, he would pull his entire body away, trying so hard not to be touched any more than he had to. The more I’d pull him in, the harder he would fight. Autism wasn’t even on the radar. Mark self-weaned at 8 months old, and I was crushed. He was happy as could be as long as he was on his own.

When our sixth child, Nathan, was 3 months old, our oldest son kept saying, “Something’s wrong with him.” Teens are so subtle. We thought maybe he was just sensitive because he had suffered a birth trauma when my cervix was lipped over his head for over an hour while pushing during labor. An hour after birth, his face turned nearly black from the bruising.

Months later, while I was sick, my husband took Nathan for a checkup. We say that the baby we had died that day. Rob brought home this terrified, seemingly hollow baby we didn’t know. If there was something wrong before, it was a million times worse that day. While probably predisposed to autism, the vaccines finished the job.

Having had Mark, I knew that holding Nathan, feeding him and snuggling him through his fears was the only way to go. People are amazed when they see how connected he is. If I didn’t have him, my husband did. If he didn’t have him, his big sister did. He is a little cuddle monster, and while he has full-blown autism, he shows no signs of “don’t touch me, don’t look at me.”

By the time Justin, baby number 7, came along, we knew fairly early and said, “Ah, we have another Aspie!” Sure enough, he has Asperger’s like his older brother, Mark.

The parents of autistic kids I know have them in day-long therapy, speech class, tactile class, etcetera, etcetera. We could never do that. There’s even one mom I met who put her 12-year-old into a group home when he hit her 4 year old. She brings him home on Saturdays. I cried when I heard. It still breaks my heart to think about it.

The biggest difference is in how bonded we are to each other. It’s not unusual to see 140-pound, 12-year-old Nathan on his dad’s lap or mine, or finding them all in a big “puppy pile” playing video games. Our youngest, Adam, says, “My friends never sit on their mom’s laps. Isn’t that weird?”

RITA: Thank you so much, Margie, for your story. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

MARGIE: Recently, I’ve read a lot of parents online who have left AP. Most claim that AP parents are too militant and flip out if people stray from the Eight Principles. The parents that make these claims can scare off new moms who are may be only breastfeeding and want to find out more, or can’t get a good night’s sleep but feel wrong letting their baby cry. I hope that parents think about these things before they make that [judgmental] comment to a new mom.

Confidence through motherhood

By Sarah Dubé

I suppose when I think about it I have always had a fairly healthy level of confidence even if it was a more superficial sense. I had your basic “Yeah sure…I’m okay” level of appreciation for myself and for my body and never thought I was any less or more than average. In a way, it was good because I was happy with myself but the problem was that I never strived, in anything, to be more than average. I didn’t have the type of confidence that drives a person to accomplish more.

I didn’t, that is, until I became a Mother.

From the first moments I found out I was expecting, something inside me began to change. I looked at my changing body in a different way, realizing that what my body was doing was a true miracle. I gained a newfound amazement in myself and in my body, and this feeling climaxed in the moments of my son’s first breaths. I looked over at him, a brand new life where there wasn’t one before and it was there because of me. All of the possibilities and potential of that life kind of flashed before my eyes and it made me feel like God.

Life as a Mother was a whole new ball game. I was responsible for this whole other person and suddenly being average didn’t seem like good enough anymore. I navigated through the first year doing my best but always knowing that I should be striving to do better for my son and future children. I went through tremendous personal growth during my son’s first year. I learned so much about myself and about life, and came out of that first year with valuable life lessons. My confidence was still growing.

At the end of that first year, I learned I was expecting a second baby. The thought of two babies under 2 was mind blowing. With mixed feelings of a confidence and doubt, I prepared for the arrival of a second precious life to come into this world.

Now, my first birthing experience was actually quite traumatic. It was more like a nine-day-long nightmare. This experience left me slightly terrified but also slightly determined to take a little more control, which is something I didn’t have the confidence to do before. My second birth ended up being a much more enjoyable experience for me, although I let my fear take control and agreed to be induced and eventually have an epidural. I did insist on rooming-in with my daughter even though the nurses suggested on several occasions that I send her to the nursery so I can get some sleep. I also insisted on going home early the next day even, though my doctor suggested I stay in the hospital one more night to make sure breastfeeding was well established. The instincts within me were becoming a little more defined.

The real change within me happened when I looked down at my 1-month-old nursling, all chubby and thriving, and realized that it was my body and only my body that sustained this precious life. My body did just as it was supposed to and produced the milk to nourish my baby–no bottles, no formula, just me. At that moment, I felt a wave of realization come over me: I was extraordinary.

In July of 2010, I embarked on yet another womanly experience: natural childbirth. More confident than ever and armed with more information than I could possibly retain, I began to plan my perfect birth. A lovely, serene home water birth would welcome my third baby into the world. With all that I had learned, how could I walk away from this experience?

All the preparation in the world, though, could not have prepared me for the deeply spiritual and life-changing event. I felt as if I had been let in on a secret kept by all mothers before me since the beginning of time: that I am powerful, primal, connected and creative. That’s heavy! It connects me to them, and now I have that same wisdom to pass along to the next generation of mothers to follow.

The experiences of Womanhood and Motherhood are incredibly powerful, and for some of us, they are the defining moments of our life, as without them we wouldn’t be the fierce women we are today. I believe with all my heart that, for me, this is true. The place of deep understanding and appreciation for myself that I have attained through experiencing motherhood could not have been reached any other way, and I am forever grateful to my children for giving me those experiences.

Sarah Dubé, 30, is a stay-at-home mother to 3 children: sons Hayden and Oliver (who I was pregnant with when the author wrote this), and daughter Lily. Sarah had an amazing home water birth with Oliver, but that’s a whole other story. Sarah and her family live in a small Northern Ontario town called Bruce Mines, which is just a blink along the Trans-Canada highway. The kids just love it here as they get a lot of freedom and fresh air. Sarah spends most of her time doing Mommy things, and her husband is a trucker. Sarah’s hobbies include photography, writing and star gazing.

A Different Perspective

I returned to university to pursue a second degree this past January. I am now into my second semester as a mom of two school-age kids, and a student in my own right. While there are some other, ahem, mature students in my classes, on average I am much older than my classmates. Like, decades older. Like, old enough to be their mother older.

This has been interesting, as we have studied history I lived through, and I filled them in on what life was like in the olden days. I have a different perspective to offer. I am bringing different things to the table now than I did during my first degree.

When we talk about combining parenting with work or school or volunteering or pretty much anything else, we often think about the difficulty of juggling competing priorities. And it is hard — don’t get me wrong. Right now I’m working part-time from home, I’m taking two university classes and I’m juggling the end-of-the-year concerts and school commitments of two kids. I am busy, and I can’t always do it all as well as I would like. At the same time, my experiences as a parent have helped me to become a better multi-tasker, to keep my eyes on what really matters and to accept my own limitations. The perspective on life that being a parent has brought me enriches all of my experiences.

When I was 20 years old and a full-time student, having a bunch of schoolwork due at once sent me into a tizzy. I was easily overwhelmed, and I put a lot of pressure on myself. Today, I have a different perspective on what pressure means, and I’m not nearly as easily overwhelmed. I’ve experienced pregnancy and childbirth. I’ve been pooped on, peed on and puked on. I’ve sat up at night with babies who wouldn’t sleep, with babies who were sick, with babies who needed to nurse at all hours. I’ve put aside my own needs for the needs of two little people who depended on me completely. I’ve learned how to let go of my own stuff and deal with what needs to be dealt with in the moment.

These lessons I’ve learned as a parent — and perhaps, most especially, as an attachment parent — are actually gifts. They help me to keep going when I’m having a hard time. They remind me of just how much I actually can do. They also taught me how to take my rest where I can find it, and to live in the moment. While it is challenging to juggle parenting with work and school, my perspective as a parent is actually a tremendous boon, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

It is strange to be the oldest person in class, including the professor and teaching assistants. The perspective I have today thanks to my life experiences, though, is making this university experience much richer for me. Having children really does change your life, no matter what you go on to do. The good news is that this change, while hard, is ultimately for the better in so many ways.

Parenting as a Spiritual Path

Raising children is hard work. It’s deeply trying, physically and emotionally. Many studies have confirmed the drudgery of parenting, finding that the work itself is more tiring than chores or paid work . For those of us who have little ones, whether we care for them all week long or after hours, that’s no mystery.

Parenting is an all-in occupation, with every bit of us being needed for the job, including those parts of us we’d rather forget about. Parenting pushes all of our buttons on purpose. It’s our second chance to dig up and heal all of those old traumas we’ve buried. And depending upon how many kids we have, it’s also our 3rd chance, 4th chance, etc., because with each new character in our brood those feelings emerge as freshly as we experienced them in childhood.

How do you react when you hear your child screaming? It hits you deep down, right? And you’d do anything to make it stop. And that’s by design. By observing how you handle that feeling, and your reaction to your child as they get bigger and push your buttons, we get a unique window into our own childhood, into our parents’ experience, and theirs before them.

We are the inheritors of a unique legacy. All of us come out of childhood with some form of baggage. And we spend an outsize amount of our lives burying it so that we can “function normally.” But normal functioning isn’t dancing on top of a garbage mound and pretending we’re at a beauty pageant. It’s digging down and finding out who we are under all that garbage. It’s allowing and even welcoming all the experiences of life, and all the messy emotions that come with them. And if we have children, we’ve signed up for the messiest of those duties.

Childcare is physically challenging, but as babies turn into children, we find that the emotional challenges feel far more difficult than those early months when our bodies ached from constant carrying and personal hygiene fell low on our priority list.

Parenthood holds up a huge mirror that helps us see our stuffed feelings, our ideas about what’s wrong with us and our beliefs about who it’s acceptable to be in the world. Dealing with that gracefully is difficult on a good day, much less when your charge has smeared peanut butter in your hair and peed on the carpet.

Here are three ideas to get you through:

Laugh! A sense of humor can get you through just about anything. Another benefit is that laughter is healing, in that it lets us release tension and it tells our brain to celebrate. And celebrating is definitely the correct response to useful information that will help you to free your inner child so that you can actually enjoy watching your kid splash in the puddles while wearing her sneakers. Or better yet, join in!
Take notes. I know it’s difficult to find time to journal when you have a kid, but some of us somehow find ways to send texts. So text yourself when you notice a pattern, when you’ve caught a glimpse of yourself (good, bad or ugly) or when you find something you’d like to ponder later. These truths about ourselves are gems, and it’s worth taking a few minutes to jot it down if you can.
Roll with it… Yes it’s difficult. And it’s hysterical. And it’s sad. And every other emotion you can imagine. When we open ourselves to our inner experience, we can be present to what’s happening in this moment with our child, which is all there ever is.

Set Your Summer Intentions

As excited as I was for Cavanaugh to get out of school for summer, I was also a little worried that we could spend months inside hiding out from Texas, USA, heat and mosquitoes while playing LEGOs and Minecraft. We even had got a generator from Top 10 Best Generators For Camping (Reviews) – GeneratorGrid after my husband had heard about them from a colleague and how he found it quite useful. We needed a to-do list of fun.

Luckily, one of my organizing clients was working on a summer intentions banner created by fellow Austinites Bernadette Noll and Kathie Sever. I was inspired by the banner but worried about the execution. Sewing and stamps, required by the original design, would have meant we completed ours sometime after school started this fall.

What I loved was the idea of setting up our summer is to lay down and ดูหนังออนไลน์, so we could get the most of the time with each other while without going stir crazy or bickering because our days were so unstructured (though exactly what we wished for all school year long).

So we set summer intentions and planned great adventures without locking ourselves into a schedule or spending a ton of money. Because, Getting ready for summer – and how to be prepared it’s very important if you have kids to entertain. Here’s what we did:

First, we brainstormed lists of people to see. We thought of friends from school and outside of school, plus family members and the characters from Rick Riordan’s The Kane Chronicles series we were listening to on audiobook.

For places to go and things to do, we added some of our favorites from previous summers, like going to california summer camp, see the symphony in the park and baking, but we were picking from what’s already routine and that would not keep us going through August. So we read through two of my favorite books: 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You’re 12! and 101 Places You Gotta See Before You’re 12! Cavanaugh put stickers by all the things he was interested in, then we went through the pages together to figure out which of those things we could do during this summer. They included items like seeing a meteor shower and eating a flower.

Then to see if some of the items he’d found were even available in Austin, Texas, we went to Free Fun in Austin.com and added to our list with going to a ghost town and a junk cathedral. On Facebook, a friend had posted the “50 Ideas for a Slow Summer” list from Awesomely Awake.com. They helped too! So did the email from Cavanaugh’s school librarian and the one from his kindergarten teacher with summer reading clubs at some local bookstores and the library and with different learning activities and websites.

Once we had all of our lists, we went to Hobby Lobby and used their handy iPhone app to get the ever-present 40% off a full-price item coupon to get a copper foam board. Copper is Cavanaugh’s favorite metal right now. It meant no sewing fabric for putting your art on foam boards, and the foam board will travel well so when we go visit family in New Mexico, USA, we can take our lists with us. We also used Cavanaugh’s favorite font, “Wonton,” which I downloaded for free from dafont.com for his ninja birthday party last year.

We wanted to keep our lists out where Cavanaugh and I could read them when we needed ideas. As we see people, go places and do things, we are putting checks or dots next to the items on our list. On the calendar, I listed only events that were date specific, like Mr. Popper’s Penguins being shown for $1 at the theater down the street.

We have a Summer Fun Board in our living room and enough ideas on it to have more adventures than we have time for. I’m also trying to find some entertainment near me just to have an extra option this summer. I’ll end this post with some items from our list:

Things to Do:

Make a Bast board game: The Path of Bast
Do experiments in DNA Kit
Explore backyard habitat #35
Build volcano
Host book club with school friends
Play marbles
Build a fairy home in the garden
Reading Clubs: Book People, B&N, Library
Replace front doorknob and lock
Eat a flower
Watch a meteor shower
Bake
Play cards
Build robots
Do puzzles
Make YouTube videos
Finish LEGO Ninjago Village
Play board games
Reading time in bedroom
Make up a spy name
Practice handwriting
Do 2^nd grade Word Wall Words
Go through photos
Play learning games

Places to Go

High Tea
Taos
Splash Pad
Camping/Sleep under the stars
Movies
Picnic
A famous road: Route 66
Junk Cathedral
An Artist’s Studio
Swimming Hole
Rock Art Site
Radical Rock Formation
A canyon or gorge
Ice cream factory tour

What are you up to this summer?

Cloth

As I carefully held you, my little parcel, I remember wishing the cloth away, wishing that there was nothing between us. You see, we had been linked your whole life. I had felt every hiccup and every stretch.

As soon as I had the strength to sit up, I threaded you gently in between the lines attached to my IV sites and pressed you against my chest. But the clean crisp cloth felt like thick cold walls between us.

As the weeks went on, I wrapped you in cloths of many different colours and custom ties. You were fashionable, cute and cuddly. You were pink, blue and green. Yet amid the colours and patterns, I saw only your eyes, the soft sweep of your brow and the curl of first smiles.

Then we found stretchy cloth and it seemed never-ending. It took a hundred times of wrapping and unwrapping, tightening and loosening, before one day, I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror and realised that I hadn’t even noticed completing our cloth origami. And that is where you stayed. Snuggled into me and listening to my pulse, just as you had from your very first heartbeat.

In time, I could wrap you against me with my eyes closed…with both of our eyes closed.

We would face the winter like this, snuggled together, cosy and warm.

We would breeze through outings, walks and errands in exactly this position. You, me and our cloth.

As you grew, the stretch seemed to shrink and new cotton was bought. This cloth was bright and strong…more supportive for a sleepy head to rest in. This was the first cloth that you asked for, that you spoke about and that you wrapped around your teddies.

What was once a barrier, cold and unknown, has become a link between us. It is handlebars for our journey, a shawl for warmth. It is easy. It is fun. It joins us as one, even though we are now separate, little one.

When you were born, they wrapped you in cloth, but you’ll be wrapped in my love forever.

Staying attached with more than one

As my husband and I prepare for the arrival of our second child (a boy!) this summer, I find myself thinking about how different it will be compared to when our daughter was born.

With my daughter, we came across Attachment Parenting (AP) as we started exploring different ideas around giving birth and caring for newborns. Many of the AP practices were things we already planned on doing — such as natural birth and extended breastfeeding — and others evolved naturally once we became parents, including cosleeping, babywearing and gentle discipline. This time around, we plan on doing things similarly albeit with much more confidence in our decisions after seeing how well it worked last time.

However, I can’t help but wonder how it will work with more than one.

I think it’s extremely important for the initial bonding that we are physically attached to the baby. This part, I’m not worried about. I practically lived in my wrap with my daughter and don’t expect this time to be any different. I am also a stay-at-home mom, which gives me the freedom to feed on demand and hold off on any set schedule.

The part that I worry about is staying attached with my daughter. I think it’s equally important that our daughter not feel slighted by this new little addition. I want her to continue to feel attached to both mommy and daddy. She will have had almost 2 ½ years of undivided attention and will now be sharing the spotlight, so to speak. We have been prepping her for his arrival for a while now and she seems genuinely excited about being a big sister. She can rattle off a list of things she will be in charge of as the big sister – getting diapers and wipes, singing to him, helping with bath.

What I don’t think she is prepared for is sharing my time. She has always been a pretty independent kid but I wonder if that will change when she is not the only one anymore. How will she react to me breastfeeding the baby all the time? If I’m wearing the baby, will she want to be carried?

I know these concerns are not limited to AP parents, I imagine every parent has similar thoughts before welcoming another child into the family. My hope is that AP gives my husband and I the guidance needed to foster a connected and close family, no matter how large it grows.