Strive for Balance – Page 34

Getting Out with a Baby

Having your first baby is a huge adjustment. In a very short time period you go from a young child-free working woman to being alone at home with only an infant for company. For many of us it’s the first time we’ve even held a baby this small, and now we’re solely responsible for keeping the wee bundle alive. It’s sort of mind-blowing if you think about it.

I spent most of my early days with my firstborn Hannah breastfeeding. She would sometimes nurse for 45 minutes or more, so I fed her on the couch while I watched TV. A high point of my day was visiting the bathroom by myself or having two free hands to eat. It was amazing to be totally at the mercy of my baby. I lived and died by her whims (or my best guess as to her whims) in spite of how completely defenseless she was.

I realized very early on in parenting that I had two choices. I could spend my days at home alone watching reruns and feeling sorry for myself. Or I could get out of the house and find someone, anyone, to talk to. Someone who could understand how my world had been totally upended and why I sometimes secretly wondered if was even cut out for motherhood. Given those two options, I chose to get out of the house.

I went online and searched out activities. Pretty soon I set up an informal routine that had me doing something almost every day of the week. We went to library baby time, mom and baby yoga, strollerobics, swimming lessons, church, La Leche League, and community mom-and-baby groups. We went on playdates with much older kids, and visited friends almost any time we were asked. I seized almost any reason to get out of the house and interact with others.

It saved my sanity, it really did. I was still sleep-deprived and unkempt, but I was no longer alone. It wasn’t always easy for me to get myself out the door, and it didn’t come all that naturally to cultivate new relationships. New moms are sort of like 13-year-olds at a school dance. We all want to get out on the floor, but no one really wants to make the first move, so we end up stuck on the sidelines looking at each other. Which is why I think playgroups help, because they provide a low-risk way to interact and meet people.

I still feel like playgroups are saving my sanity 4 1/2 years later. I’ve made some really great friends and cultivated a fabulous support network. I feel like I have more balance in my life – that I’m meeting my own needs along with my children’s needs. I believe we are all the happier for it.

Amber’s daughter Hannah is now 4 1/2 and joined by her 13-month-old brother, Jacob. You can read more of their adventures at Strocel.com.

Following the Principles: Use Nurturing Touch

Part 4 of a series of 8: Carrying our little LF#5 (Loin Fruit Number Five) in my body is the ultimate in nurturing touch. A tiny body wrapped up inside of mine. Bouncing. Rolling. Rocking. Swaying. Swirling. Surrounded by warmth. We are hoping to have another gentle homebirth for our new little one . We will enjoy our Babymoon as long as we can, remaining in bed and nursing for 2-3 weeks while my body heals. Of course we have made preparations (as much as anyone can prepare for the unknown at any rate) in case of an emergency need to transfer our care to a hospital and are prepared to do whatever it takes to make even the most medicalized situation a high-touch, high-compassion one. No matter what happens with our pregnancy and birth, we know that we are committed to our attached and connected parenting principles. We trust that our new baby will be lovingly connected to our family even if that means finding new ways to apply the attachment parenting principles to whatever circumstances LF#5 is welcomed into the world under.

A Rare Moment: Everyone together! T-Bird, Sir Hubby, Bug, Brent, Ella

But what about the rest of us? We are already dealing with situations which are challenging our ability to stay connected. It seems as if the past few months could be defined by one word: Distance. Distance keeps our family apart while Sir Hubby attempts to balance his business, his father’s health, and our family. Distance has my son several hours away at college. Our older girls are both at ages where they are pulling away (in healthy ways) to explore independence, self-directed learning, and social pursuits without holding our hands. But the biggest distance I feel is the one between my little T-Bird and I. Continue reading “Following the Principles: Use Nurturing Touch”

The long-term goal

I was browsing my birth board on a site where I have visited since I found out I was pregnant back in the summer of ’07. One of the titles caught my eye, it read something like this “AP parents are you sorry that you did it? I AM!” the rest of the post read more or less the same. The writer was sorry that she had ever practiced APing. She states that she has a “monster” on her hands (at just 15 months old) and that it is the fault of APing, the fault of breastfeeding, baby wearing, non-CIO, and responding quickly to her child. She stated that “they” (other people, friends, doctor etc.) had said this was the “best” way to do things and now it was backfiring, and she is angry. Continue reading “The long-term goal”

Separate but Attached

DSCN2261a I slipped into the apartment at 5 pm, kicked off my sandals, and looked around. “Where’s the baby?” I asked my husband.

“She’s in the crib. She cried herself to sleep.”

My heart froze. “She did what?”

He looked as uncomfortable, unhappy, and upset as I felt. “She cried from the moment you left until she finally fell asleep.”

I shouldn’t have left the house, I thought. Without another word, I swept into the bedroom and lifted her out of the crib, holding her tight against my chest and burying my face in her thick, dark hair. “I’m so sorry, little girl,” I whispered, guilt welling up in my chest, my throat tight as I fought back tears, “I’m so, so sorry.”

My husband walked over and wrapped us both in his arms. Our daughter woke up, looking up at us, her dark eyes serious and her brow furrowed for a moment with sleepiness. I felt judged. Then she smiled, raising a hand and pressing her fingers to my lips, and I smiled in return, gently biting her fingertips to make her laugh.

I felt forgiven. But there’s still a lump of guilt in my chest every time I think about those words: She cried herself to sleep.

You see, at seven months old, our daughter is going through a serious separation anxiety phase. A lot of the time, I can’t walk away without her starting to whimper and whine, and as soon as I exit her line of sight those little sounds of discontent grow to full-blown wails. I never try to slip away from her stealthily; I kiss her forehead and tell her, “Mama will be right back,” before I walk away. There are things I need to do — use the washroom, get dressed, pour some coffee, feed the dogs — that are infinitely easier and faster without having to hold her in my arms.

When she wants me, she doesn’t want her Daddy. She doesn’t want her blanket. She doesn’t want her teddy bear, or to listen to music, or to be read to; she wants her Mama. Now. I could be standing on the other side of the gates we use to block off the kitchen, talking to her about what I’m doing, and she’ll start screaming and bashing her hand against the gate because I am not holding her.

But on that day, I had to leave the house. Right now, my husband is unemployed and so am I; I needed to get out and apply to some jobs. I made a plan as to where I’d go, plotted out the most time-efficient route between them, and made certain she was nursed and happy before I left. I knew she’d be upset when I left, but I had no idea that when I walked into the house an hour later, she’d have cried for fifty-five minutes straight as her Daddy tried desperately to comfort her.

She loves her Daddy. Every few days, they leave the house together for awhile and go out to the park, mall, or library for several hours, and she’s giggling when they leave, just as she is when they return. They have a great time together! When we take her to playgroups, she’s the baby wandering everywhere, exploring everything, and greeting everyone, not once looking over her shoulder for her parents. I know she knows we are always here for her.

So why did she cry so relentlessly, exhausting herself, that day? What am I supposed to do when I get a job and I need to leave her at home with her Daddy? This guilt, this sickness in the center of my chest, knowing that she suffered, makes me cringe.

Can someone out there help us?

Healthy Fear and Careful Responses

We have arrived home again. I can’t believe the difference it has made. Allow me to give a little background information.

My son has traveled for 8 of the 15 months of his life. We have just recently come back from a 3 week trip. My community travels very often, the trips anywhere from several days to several months in length. We are a performing arts team, a work crew and an extended family (which includes family +).

My son is constantly surrounded by close people that he knows and trusts. He is not a particularly social child. Even though he is chatting and usually fairly smiley, the smile and conversation are not an invitation to play!

Our most recent trip, the one we just returned to home base from, was to Kansas and then a couple of weeks in Sioux Falls SD for a music festival. My boy is very busy and kept me chasing him all day, every day, with the exception of nap time! Thank goodness for my community at these times as people are happy to give me short breaks when necessary; it sometimes saves my sanity. We had many people in and out of our camp during these couple of weeks, old and new friends. Of course who can resist the crazy smile, dirty hands and face, tousled blond hair and the hearty laugh of a toddler?

When my son is approached by someone he does not know he is shy and hides behind whoever is close to him that he knows well. If the subject is pushed he starts to cry. Sometimes hysterically. I was told many times this week by, I am sure, well-meaning people that he “needs to get over it” or “needs to get out more” (which is an amusing statement considering how we live). I, on the other hand, am not concerned. I am actually happy under our unique circumstances that my son does not go to complete strangers. I do not have to worry that he will be overly friendly or that I will have to warn him about people he does not know. On the other hand I do not want him to be afraid of people, especially friends, I have to calmly reassure him without pressuring him to “get to know” someone. To him it is instinctual to steer clear of people he does not know. It is a healthy fear.

Now, on the other hand I have no idea what happened in the self preservation section of my son’s brain because “healthy fear” did not seem to come installed there. While on this last trip we spent a good amount of time on concrete which those of us who have small children know is not an ideal situation for a toddler. There were also a pair of concrete stairs leading down to our camp, a completely fascinating item for my little guy. The most common response from my son to these falls? “Ops.” That’s it. Now in this area I have had to carefully contain myself. I have to measure my response to these events and wait on how my child is responding to the event before I do. If it is as “ops” situation I have to swallow my initial run and cuddle response and allow him to continue his play, lending him a reassuring smile. I have to put my own reactions and emotions to the situation aside and learn from my son how he needs me to respond.

Sometimes it is necessary for me to take action, then it is comfort and cuddle time and I am rewarded for the newly acquired stress-moment grey hairs by chubby little arms around my neck and his newest response, sopping wet baby lip kisses that he reserves, just for mom.

All in all I am happy to be off the concrete and we are both happy to be surrounded by those we know and love. We are happy to be home.

Unconditional Love

When we were moving a few months ago, I stumbled upon an on old journal from my childhood. I sat down, amidst a pile of boxes, and ignored the surrounding mess to go back to a place that I hadn’t visited in a long time. The pages were laden with my 12 year old scribbles. There were entries about my loves , my friends, and trivial problems, but in between those pages were some hauntingly poignant entries about the abuse that filled my childhood. As I read, it wasn’t the entries describing the latest attack, it was a simple statement, ended with a question, that I think I sent out to the universe:

“I feel like I will never be good enough. Like I will never measure up. I feel like unless I do what they want, and only what they want, they will never love me fully. They call me names, they insult me, they punish me when I stray from their beliefs. Is this how a parent is supposed to treat their child? Is this normal?”

As I grew up, I spent a lot of time asking that question over and over again. It wasn’t until I had my own child and pulled out this journal that I recognized the answer to that question was supposed to be a resounding “NO!” I’d like to say this discovery has ended any self-doubts, but daily, I still ask “Is this enough? Am I enough?” The impact of this emotional abuse as a child has left a permanent mark, even so many years later.

Continue reading “Unconditional Love”

The Creativity of Children

I’m always amazed at the creativity of children … which happens, frequently, in spite of my best efforts. Let me explain.

Sometimes I’m just too helpful for everyone’s own good. On those occasions when we have small day-to-day hurdles, my first inclination is to make everything better. Over the years, however, I’ve learned that the best solutions to these little life strifes is to let the kids work things out for themselves, with as much guidance as is needed, but only as much.

Like everyone else, I work to maintain family harmony. But when we have these little obstacles–and yes, we do have them (shocker!)–I try to remember that these opportunities allow my children’s stunning ingenuity to shine through. They remind me that if I just close my mouth and listen to what my children have to say, they’ll frequently astound me with their creativity.

Their ideas are fresh and honest and not shackled by memories of failures and expectations of future success. I find that I, by contrast, am hampered by constraints in my adult thinking, and if I simply let them brainstorm–and get the heck out of their way–the results are frequently startling and spectacular.

Case in point …

Here in Texas we have a tax-free shopping weekend just before public school starts. I try to save up my shopping for the year and do it all in this weekend to take advantage of the sales that go along with it. Like many other people this year, we’ve been watching our pennies and stretching them as far as they’ll go without snapping.
Continue reading “The Creativity of Children”

Mellow Monday?

This past May, I instituted Stay at Home Mondays at our house as a way of easing into the work week and my husband being gone after the weekend. We’ve been missing them lately. We went on a trip, then my husband was out of town, then I got a kidney infection. These were my particular circumstances, but I’m sure you could make your own list of reasons why your schedule doesn’t stay on track

This past Sunday night I lay in bed thinking about getting to have a dedicated Monday at home for the first time in about six weeks. Then “Manic Monday” by The Bangles started running through my head:
“It’s just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
‘Cause that’s my fun day
My I don’t have to run day
It’s just another manic Monday”

Each day I try to decide if it’s a fun day, run day, or if we can somehow combine the errands and play, the housework and time to just hang out with each other. Thankfully, staying at home on Mondays erases most of the questions about what we’re going to do. If I have any household to do lists, I put them away on Mondays. We aren’t available for checking off tasks. So I went to sleep thinking about how peaceful Monday would be, even going so far as to consider mellow Mondays a great substitute.

My Monday was not mellow. Giving a nearly-three year old attention all day long and just following his lead makes for a lot of activity. First, he lay on my chest facing up so we could both raise our arms and legs in the air and wiggle them. Then we hid under the sheet and I’d ask, “Where did Mama and Cavanaugh go?” to which Cavanaugh would respond by saying, “I don’t know. Where is them?” Next the under-sheet turned into a rocket ship so we could fly back to New Mexico.

Muffin I mentioned the possibility of baking something at some point in the day. “Let’s bake something now” was Cavanaugh’s response, followed up by pushing his Kitchen Helper over to the table and instructing, “You get the ingrements,” then, “You get cups and spoons,” and “Where’s the brown fleura?”

After guessing brown sugar and baking powder, I scored with “Vanilla?”

By the end of our pumpkin muffin mixing, Cavanaugh was leaning over the table pointing to indicate which muffin cup to fill up next. “Them need pumpkin in them. They feel very sad. Give them some nice pumpkin and them feel happy.”

After breakfast, we pulled out the supply of glue art materials: pom poms, beads, metal confetti shapes, googly eyes, glitter, a popsicle stick for spreading glue, glue, and construction paper. We did that for two hours, interrupted by Cavanaugh needing to poop, which he did on his potty as I read Not a Box (one of my favorite toddler books because it encourages pretend play and turns cardboard boxes into robot costumes, race cars, and elephants to ride). After more muffins and three times of Not a Box, Cavanaugh had successfully pooped and gotten red glitter on his penis. Of course, that was a fine accompaniment to the green glitter on his arms and gold on his chin and cheeks. Glue Art

In his room, we measured his height on the growth chart and hung up a memory board I’d made over the weekend. We put pictures of Cavanaugh’s cousins and grandparents on there and went to look on my computer for more photos. He had an hour of quiet time that he narrated as he did puzzles and hid under the sheet. Then we looked on the computer for more photos to a Jellydots soundtrack. That was all before three in the afternoon.

So my Monday was neither mellow nor manic. Instead, I got to hang out with my kid all day, play pretend, make art and food, laugh, and watch my son turn like a dog chasing his tail as he tried to see the design on the bottom of his brand-new big boy underwear. This may have been one of the best Mondays of my lifetime.

What happens in your house when you put the to do lists away and just follow your kid’s lead?

Sonya Fehér love love loves glitter and blogs at http://mamatrue.com.