kim through
   the looking glass

Here’s a list of the interesting things I’ve been reading over the last week!

• On Seeing Children as “Cute” (John Holt) describes how if adults were as clumsy and inexperienced as children that we would never treat them so condescendingly:

” Children do not like being incompetent any more than they like being ignorant. They want to learn how to do, and do well, the things they see being done by the bigger people around them.”

• Information about car seats and infant safety. An excerpt:

“The studies on infant car seats and hypoxia (below) all come to the same conclusion: leave the car seat in the car. While manufacturers have made it easier than ever to go through a whole day with the baby in the car seat (including travel systems and snap-on stroller bases), they are not doing so based on the available research (and why should they, when it would hurt their bottom line?).”

• Toronto Police lie about “weapons” seized during G20 protests:

“Chief Bill Blair, who told reporters the items were evidence of the protesters’ intent, singled out arrows covered in sports socks, which he said were designed to be dipped in a flammable liquid and set ablaze. However, the arrows belong to Brian Barrett, a 25-year-old landscaper who was heading to a role-playing fantasy game when he was stopped at Union Station on Saturday morning. Police took his jousting gear but let Mr. Barrett go, saying it was a case of bad timing.”

• The Yarn Harlot’s Canada Day Post about what Canadians are:

“Canadians are unaware that labelling “homo milk” (homogenized milk) is unique. (Tip for Canadians. If you’re in the US, homo milk is called “whole milk”. If you ask for homo milk they’ll giggle.)”

Enjoy!

I’ve been doing some reading on co-sleeping and found a great article called “The Con of Controlled Crying”. Here’s an excerpt:

Controlled crying and other similar regimes may indeed work to produce a self-soothing, solitary sleeping infant. However, the trade-off could be an anxious, clingy or hyper-vigilant child or even worse, a child whose trust is broken. Unfortunately, we can’t measure attributes such as trust and empathy which are the basic skills for forming all relationships. We can’t, for instance, give a child a trust quotient like we can give him an intelligence quotient. One of the saddest emails I have received was from a mother who did controlled crying with her one-year-old toddler.

After a week of controlled crying he slept, but he stopped talking (he was saying single words). For the past year, he has refused all physical contact from me. If he hurts himself, he goes to his older brother (a preschooler) for comfort. I feel devastated that I have betrayed my child. - Sonia

Can you imagine? I can’t. I’m so glad that I read this article - on the nights when it’s the hardest, I’ll be able to remember that quote.

For more articles on baby sleep, co-sleeping, baby training, etc. check out this page. Enjoy!

I’ve had some requests to update my blogroll, and honestly, I’ve been wanting to do it for a while but I didn’t know how with my new wordpress.org blog. I finally figured it out! I’ve cleaned out some of the blogs I don’t read anymore (or who update very rarely) and added some of my new favourites. Check them out:

• Adventures of Being a Mommy - my friend, Jen, who write about her life as a mom to her gorgeous son, Anderson
• Breastfeeding Moms Unite - written by the mom of two little girls, this is a great blog about breastfeeding - she’s actually in the midst of writing a book about it!
• Hathor the Cow Goddess - another breastfeeding blog - this one comprised of mostly breastfeeding, attachment parenting comics which are sometimes hilarious, sometimes serious and ALWAYS thought-provoking, written by Heather Cushman-Dowdee
• Mama is … - written by the same author as the above blog - more comics, with a bit of a wider range of topics
• Stand and Deliver - I’ve actually been reading Rixa’s blog for ages and I still love it - she’s got a tonne of information on childbirth in those pages!
• Tammy Is Blessed - a blog about Tammy’s family … I’ve known Tammy online for a number of years
• The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog - is exactly that … a breastfeeding blog written by the folks at Motherwear

Happy reading!