Help Protect Co-Sleeping – Co-Sleeping Survey

I got this in my email inbox today. We were/are a co-sleeping family and so matters like this are dear to our heart. If you have ever or are currently co-sleeping please take a minute to fill out this very quick survey and be counted. Co-sleeping is not neglect.

Go to SURVEY

Hello breastfeeding supporters and educators,

As you well know, the best food for a new child is
breast milk. You also know that not everyone believes
that fact. The formula companies have successfully
“separated” today’s woman from her breast, at least
mentally. The leaders of the La Leche League are
trying to undo this unfortunate shift of culture, and
we thank you for it.

As you may also know, many of these same “Big Corp”
interests are attacking the Family Bed saying it can’t
be done safely. They, for all intensive purposes, have
a firm grasp on America’s idea about the ONLY safe
place that a child should sleep, a safety approved
crib. Co-sleeping or bed-sharing can be an integral
part of most breastfeeding situations. It makes it
easier, which helps extend the duration. However,
there is a very real movement to officially label
co-sleeping as NEGLECT. This would be a major step
back for breastfeeding.

There are important bed-sharing guidelines that need
to be followed, and not omitted. Public health
departments and the general public are being bombarded
with news stories calling for the end of co-sleeping.
They say it’s dangerous and can’t be done safely. You
as a professional know different.

Help get the message out to save this beneficial
parenting choice. Please ask your successful
co-sleeping families to help prove something that Mr.
Big Corp would like to hide…that people can and are
co-sleeping/bed-sharing safely.

www.co-sleepingsurvey.com is a 30 second survey that
allows parents who have or are currently
co-sleeping/bed-sharing to count themselves as safe
parents. The website has been live for under a week
and over 1000 people have signed up. Most of them are
breastfeeding women. This number is desperately needed
to prove that co-sleeping and bed-sharing can be done
safely and the only thing that needs to be abolished
is the discrimination against this valuable practice.

Thanks,

Co-sleepingsurvey.com

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Just Some Family Babbles

Thought I would do a little family updating since I have a few minutes to sit down and post pictures and babble on about the family.

The Pregnancy:

Today I am officially 7 months (28 weeks) pregnant. Only 3 more months to go. All I can say is, how did that happen? It is flying by. My most recent visit with the midwife was a week and a half ago. I love having a midwife by the way. It is so nice that they come to my house for appointments. My midwife greets me with a hug every time I see her and she all ready feels like extended family. Her assistant/doula (also a former midwife) is just as warm and friendly albeit a bit less talkative. They seem to make a fabulous duo. Several times that they have come to my house for appointments I have had good friends over and no one minds, in fact my midwife loves to meet them, especially since she delivered one of my friends babies a few years ago. Babies heartrate was 144 bpm at the last appointment and was head down in a posterior position. None of that really matters at this point though because baby has changed positions about a few dozen times since then. But usually this baby prefers to be head down. My fundal height has been measuring big for dates the last two appointments. I was measuring 30 1/2cm or 30 weeks at 26 1/2 weeks gestation. At least it is not my imagination that my stomach is very quickly taking over my entire body. LOL.

This pregnancy has been really great and I’m honestly enjoying every minute of it. I’ve only had heartburn a few times and it quickly dissipates within a matter of minutes. I had heartburn constantly with Camden. Camden felt the baby move for the first time yesterday and giggled when she felt the baby kick. This baby is definitely getting much bigger because now when I can feel the baby moving and I push against him/her the baby doesn’t “disappear” but I can feel his/her body part. I can sometimes tell what I’m feeling (head, bum, foot, etc) based on kicking and feeling but I’m sure it will start to get much more obvious soon.

I also have the opportunity to have a massage therapist/doula at my labor, free of charge. My friend Emeth found out about a prenatal massage therapist that is becoming licensed as a doula and needs to attend two births to complete her certification. There would be no charge. I am still trying to decide if I like this idea or not. Our personalities didn’t quite “click” and she’s never attended a homebirth before. While there always needs to be a first time I’m just not sure if I want it to be at “my” birth. And massage during labor sounds fantastic in theory but I’m not sure how much I’ll want to be touched while in labor. Plus it is a complete stranger present at a very intimate moment in our lives. Anyway, something new to think about.

The House:

It’s still for sale. Every day I can’t help but think “if only we could sell this house life would be so much easier.” I am praying that this house will sell this summer. Mike is fairly pessimistic that it will sell. I’m a bit more optimistic since June has not even began yet. Thankfully it seems we are starting to get more interest. I am currently in email contact with a couple that is interested in the home but also has their own home to sell. Today, while Camden and I were finishing up lunch there was a knock on the door. A couple from Canada were in town for a few days looking at the area and were just driving around the neighborhood. The husband will be taking a job teaching Sociology at the local College. I was really embarrassed to let them in the house because it was a complete disaster but I didn’t want to turn them away either. There were dirty dishes because we’d just made cookies and lunch. Toys were everywhere. The beds were unmade. Dirty laundry on the floor. Ugh, you name it. But they seemed very understanding and didn’t seem to mind. They will not be moving to the Tri-Cities until August though.

Camden:

Next month Camden will be 3 1/2 years old. The time is going by so fast. She has recently mastered swinging and can swing herself! Hooray! It certainly doesn’t seem like a big deal but after about the 100th “mommy can you push me on the swing” and then battling internally on whether or not you should be a “good” mother and push your child on the swing or if you can get away with being selfish and saying “no”. I am glad I have graduated from that dilemma. Many more to come, I’m sure.

With the nice warm spring weather we have been having (70′s and 80′s) Camden is spending at least half of her time outside. She has discovered “dirt pies” (lack of water in the desert makes it hard to have mud pies) and thinks it is great fun to pretend to eat these.

There are so many precious things she is doing but of course now that I sit down to write about them I have a hard time thinking of any of them. One cute thing she is saying is during a prayer she uses the phrase “we hope for that we.” It is cute because she is so consistent with it. For example she will say “we hope for that we have a good day.” Children’s prayers are precious.

Camden has also discovered the joys of hand washing dishes. She loves it! Awhile back I was hand washing dishes and she asked to help. I let her wash the lid to a new glass container and she was head over heels in love. She wanted to do more but I didn’t have any more dirty dishes so I filled up the sink and let her wash all of her dishes, which were all ready clean but she didn’t care. She had such a good time.

Recent Pictures of Various Events:

Trip to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands

During this whole day I knew that this would be one of those days worth tucking into my memory. It was a perfect, beautiful day. Mike and I had decided that it would be fun to take the girls on a Ferry ride out to an island called Friday Harbor. We had taken Mikayla on the same trip when she was 2 and we thought of what a wonderful experience it would be to do it again. We drove to Anacortes and went to Friday Harbor as walk-on passengers and took the 9:30am departure. It was a bit cold on the ride out because of the wind but it was a gorgeous day. When we got to Friday Harbor the weather couldn’t have been better. It was in the 70′s with a light breeze and a beautiful blue sky. We decided to take the girls and find a local park so we talked to a local resident and found out that there was a nice playground at the Fairgrounds. It was about a 3/4 mile walk and the girls did great. At the park they played and we had a picnic. Then we walked back to town and had ice-cream and did some window shopping. We got the girls some cute wooden Ferry’s as a souvenir. The Ferry ride back to Anacortes was wonderful because it was much warmer and in the back of the Ferry there was hardly any wind. Such a great day. it was so wonderful to be among all things green again. The only thing that was not fun was the hour wait we had when we got back to Anacortes because apparently we got on the Ferry that had originally departed from Vancouver, Canada so we had to go through Customs and that took forever. Other than that it was such a neat and nice way to take a cheap, mini family vacation. The only other downside to this trip is that it was the final and ultimate straw in figuring out that I need a new camera. I had to delete over half the pictures I took and the shutter speed is so slow. The scenery was so absolutely gorgeous and I was wishing I had a camera that was capable of capturing it.

Mike, Camden and Mikayla on the morning trip out to Friday Harbor

Not a great pic but Mike hates taking pictures. I am almost 7 months pregnant in this pic.

Checking out the scenery

Camden being grouchy and refusing to look at the camera

Popping her head up to smile when she thought I’d put the camera away

Trying to keep warm on dad. It was really windy

The “I want to go inside out of the wind” face

Much happier. Inside the Ferry, out of the wind

Looking for “sharks”. I tried to tell them it would be more fruitful to search for a whale. We did see a Bald Eagle and plenty of seagulls.

Mikayla was trying to take a picture of Mike and I and Cami popped her head in. LOL

A really bad picture of Mike and I but there are so few of them, so here it is. And yes, he was forced to “smile” if that is what you want to call the above facial expression. LOL

Sitting on a bench in Friday Harbor

Another bench picture with Camden pretending to sleep

Swinging at the park

Another swinging pic

Sitting on a seal in the park

Rolling down the hill

Another rolling in the grass pic

Daddy swinging with the girls – they loved this

Another picture of the family swinging

Getting ready to depart out of Friday Harbor

Mikayla, she is getting so big!

Beautiful Friday Harbor – the picture just doesn’t do justice

Tuckered out

Various Other Miscellaneous Pictures:

Washing Dishes

Having Fun

Washing dishes kept her busy for an hour

HEAT WAVE: It was about 97 degrees out and Camden was the only one brave enough to be outside. I just snapped a picture and ran back into the air conditioned house.

Playing in the pool with her baby

More playing in the pool

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Dealing with My Anger

Those who don’t intimately know me might not ever know that I have an anger problem. I definitely do. I guess I’ll confess it here because I’ve decided I need to nip this in the bud and deal with it now. Kind of like an accountability confession, I guess. I have a tendency to be a yeller, a behavior I learned as a child, and it really worries me how this can/will affect my daughter if I don’t get it under control. I don’t like the way I feel when I start yelling and I don’t like that “out of control” feeling. I work so hard to teach my daughter how to reign in her feelings and learn to control them but it is completely hypocritical if I can not model that for her.

I don’t have any memories of my mother yelling at me, she did such a fabulous job being patient and kind towards my brother and I. I remember as a pre-teen and teenager seeing my friends screaming at their mothers and their mothers screaming back at them and I just couldn’t imagine how they could have such little respect for each other. My biggest fear is to have a daughter that would talk/scream at me like that because I just wouldn’t know how to handle it. My mom and I never had a relationship like that.

I have stopped and considered that if I don’t stop yelling I am pretty much guaranteeing a daughter that will treat me with the same disrespect. Yes, she drives me absolutely batty sometimes but there is no excuse to yell. I tell her all the time that yelling doesn’t solve the problem and so I need to accept my own advice. I also have never felt motivated to change my behavior, to be humble, forgiving or loving towards someone who is yelling at me. If anything I tune them out, get angry with them or plot out revenge. Sometimes I even stare at them and think how silly and immature they are being and try not to laugh at them. I assume my daughters natural reactions are the same.

I mention this because I was very proud of myself yesterday. The first time we had to take Camden out of a restaurant for bad behavior was about 3 or 4 months ago. Maybe longer? I can’t remember. Anyway, it was a disaster. On the way home she began screaming at the top of her lungs in the car and crying and pleading with me and I kept telling her to stop talking that I needed not to talk because I was too angry but she wouldn’t stop trying to talk to me. I LOST it. Bad. I screamed at the top of my own lungs and I will never forget the fright in her eyes. I well up every time I think about it. I had hurt my own ears I had yelled so loud. I also felt awful because I was pregnant and I can only imagine how much I frightened the baby. It is one of those parenting moments that you bow your head in shame over. I even knew while I was doing it that it was wrong but it felt so “good” to scream it out and it was one of those “I know I shouldn’t do this but I don’t care” moments. Only after I was done did total regret and remorse take over. I cried the whole rest of the way home and when we got home I was able to apologize to her and explain that my behavior was not acceptable, etc but since that time I’ve known that I need to get myself together.

So yesterday was a nice turning point. We went to a really great place called Smoovies with my friend Emeth and her daughter. This is about one of the coolest restauarants/hang outs I have ever been to. I’d love to own something like it someday. The owners are wonderful people that homeschool their kiddo’s. And they have green bean fries! We tried those yesterday and they were soooooo good. I couldn’t believe it. Drool.

Anyway, we were having a great time but towards the end of the afternoon Camden starting getting grouchy and defiant. I assume she was tired. She started back talking, wasn’t listening and was overall being rude. I warned her that if she didn’t do X,Y,Z (can’t remember what now) that we were going to have to go home. Well, of course she didn’t do X,Y,Z which sucks because I really didn’t want to go home but I also refuse to have a child that knows they can get away with whatever they want in public. So I grab her hand and escort her out. Major meltdown explosion. Screaming, wailing, the whole bit. I calmly explain why we are leaving. She turns off the waterworks, “I’m not mad anymore. I’m all done crying. We can go back!” she pleads. I hold firm and explain that we are still leaving. Here come the deafening screams and kicking. I put her in her carseat and I try to slow my heart rate.

Emeth can only look at me with horror filled “I hope my child never does that” eyes and says, “I’m so sorry.” I want to say, “not as sorry as she’s going to be” but then I laugh (internally) at myself. She’s 3. I’m 27, get a grip. I say good-bye and try to situate myself in the car amongst a screaming, thrashing 3 year old. I close my eyes for a minue and then in a calm but firm voice inform her that screaming will not be tolerated. I acknowledged her anger and that she was mad to leave the restaurant but under no circumstances was she allowed to scream in the car. If she chose to scream again she would be going to her room when we got home. She accepted my challenge (what 3 year old wouldn’t?) and let out a gut wrenching scream at the top of her lungs. I tried to find the humor in this all instead of wanting to naturally turn around and pop her on the mouth (we don’t spank in our house for many reasons I’ll have to discuss another time) so then I chose to smile to myself (she couldn’t see my face). It helped me. I then calmy told her that since she chose to scream when we got home she would be going to her room. Sobbing and words beyond recognition ensued from there.

I felt my own anger rising and realized I couldn’t do this on my own. The habit was too strong. At this point I decided to pray for patience and guidance (something I don’t normally do). I breathed a few times and then said some pretty neat things that I can’t recall but the general idea was that I told her that we were all done talking in the car because I needed to focus on driving so that I could keep us safe and that we would talk about our problem when we got home. She was still really upset at this point and crying so hard that she was beginning to cough and make herself sick. She wisely noticed and then screamed, “I don’t feel good!” I felt like telling her “serves you right for throwing such a fit” but instead I leveled my own feelings and calmly pointed out to her that her body didn’t feel good because she was so angry and out of control. I told her that if she didn’t calm herself down that she might throw up. I told her she should try breathing and closing her eyes and that we’d talk about our problem when we got home. I was shocked that within a few minutes she had completely calmed herself down and was no longer crying.

She fell asleep for the last 5 minutes of our trip home and when we got home I picked her up out of the carseat. She opened her eyes and immediately started to well up with tears, remembering what all had taken place. I decided she was ready for reassurance (when she’s angry she normally will not accept physical contact) and held her closely against me. She melted into me and lightly sobbed. As I started walking towards the bedroom I realized that how I acted and responded during these next few minutes were going to determine the outcome of the situation and her willingness to either understand the situation from my point of view or turn into another full blown tantrum where she would forget why she was even angry. I continued to hold her and walked into her room.

I immediately felt her body tense up and she started to protest as I imagine she felt that I was going to abandon her in her room to stew in her own anger, disappointment and shame at having lost control. Instead, I laid down with her on her bed and said nothing. I reminded myself that the only way to truly help her accept the situation was through empathy and understanding. I waited. I decided to let her initiate conversation. I made eye contact with her and squeezed her tighter when she returned the eye contact. She lamented that she didn’t want to leave Smoovies. I empathized and agreed that I didn’t want to leave either. I acknowledged that she was very angry that we had to leave. She nodded and cried a little. I waited until the moment felt right and asked her if she knew why we had to leave? She nodded and said yes. I calmly and gently told her that it hurt my feelings when she treated me the way she did at the restaurant and we talked about listening and being respectful, etc. She genuinely apologized without being prompted and it felt like a huge victory.

Knowing that there was still some unresolved feelings I assured her that there were such things as bad choices but that bad choices didn’t make you a bad person. I confessed that her father and I make bad choices too but that the beauty in all of it is that we can learn from our bad choices and we can choose to seek forgiveness and that we can choose to change and make good choices. I pointed out to her that often times we can feel whether or not we are making good or bad choices by the way our body feels. I then reassured her that I always loved her despite her choices. That sometimes I would be disappointed with the choices that she makes but that I loved her no matter what. It was very cute because she then proceeded to drill me on this. “Do you love me when I’m angry?”, “when I’m sad?”, “when I’m mad?”, “when I’m grouchy?” I reassured her, that yes, I loved her even during those times. She then told me about how the next time we went to Smoovies she would choose to have a good day and make good choices, etc. We giggled about a few things that I can’t recall and then that was that.

I did it without yelling or losing control. It was beautifully simple but amazingly difficult to carry out because of my own shortcomings. I’ve read similar stories in many a parenting book and it always sounds so easy and so “duh” but when I am in the heat of conflict with my child I realize that I myself regress to behavior that is amazingly childlike and out of control. I am realizing that parenting is less about parenting my daughter and more about parenting myself and if I am wise and patient and parent myself well that my daughter will likely follow suit. More importantly you can not successfully impart upon a child what you do not know how to carry out yourself.

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Interesting Study…Lousy Conclusion

In a recent German study, which was presented to the American Thoracic Societies International Conference on May 21st, researchers found that mothers exposed to farms or “farm milk” during their pregnancies conferred protection from allergies to their newborns.

Researchers found that the mothers exposure to farms or “farm milk” affected the babies T regulatory cells. These cells are believed to suppress immune response and therefore maintain and develop a healthy immune system.

“We found that the babies of mothers exposed to farms have more and better functioning regulatory T cells,” explained Bianca Schaub, M.D., who led the research team at University Children’s Hospital in Munich.

“The effect was strongest among those mothers who entered barns or drank farm milk.”

First of all, let’s call it like it is. A duck is a duck is a duck. I find it fascinating that through this entire press release they refer to raw milk as “farm milk.” Pasteurized milk comes from a farm too but you can be sure that this study was not looking at mothers that consumed pasteurized milk.

What is also being said in this study (albeit quite silently) is that you don’t have to live on a farm or be exposed to one to be able to confer these benefits to your child, you can simply drink raw milk. Good news for us suburban and urban dwellers since most of America’s households are 99.8% bacterial free Lysol homes.

Another noteworthy item? This study points out the benefits of drinking raw milk while pregnant. If, as a pregnant woman, you decided to mention to a health care professional that you drink raw milk (I wouldn’t recommend this) you can be quite sure that it will have a “shock and awe” affect quickly followed by a stern lecture. Raw milk consumption is hugely controversial in America and a very big “no, no” while pregnant. Me? I am guilty. Then again I am the mother to a little girl who appears to be allergic and or sensitive to about a million different things on this planet. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration. Nevertheless, if the act of drinking raw milk will help repair the damage that has all ready been done to her immune system and possibly spare her sibling the same allergenic fate then I am all aboard. By the way, we’ve been drinking raw milk for over a year with great results.

But my biggest pet peeve? That would be the conclusion that Dr. Schaub (one of the doctors conducting the study) presented:

“It is a long way off,” she concluded, “but these findings may one day hopefully help researchers to develop an effective preventive strategy, perhaps even a vaccine, against allergic diseases.”

Oh, another vaccine. Beautiful. So you take something full of simplicity and truth and you see how you can twist it into your medical model of something to sell. Shocking.

Here is the press release.

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Give The Gift of Confidence

from brendenandjulianne.b posted with vodpod

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