kim through
   the looking glass

It’s odd. I’ve had a hard time thinking about what to blog this last week since we came back from our vacation.

We spent a week at a cottage in Kincardine, Ontario with another family - our good friends and their two kids, who are almost the exact same age as our kids.

We spent a week playing with kids, enjoying the water and sand, talking, cooking, and eating very good food.

But to me, what was most wonderful, was the tribe-like atmosphere. Other adults to talk to - about superficial things, deep things, and everything in between. Other adults to share in the childcare, to give each of us a few much-needed breaks. To hold a baby while the other was doing something else for a moment.

To be completely honest, I felt absolutely no desire to check to see if I had new blog comments, to check out a forum I’m a part of, to check and see what was happening on Facebook. I’ll admit I did, once, think about checking my email, but that’s it.

There’s nothing wrong with social media, per se, but I can see how it’s a very poor substitution for actual human interaction. Being online leaves me feeling like I’ve wasted my time; like I’ve taken a ‘break’ but haven’t really rested; like I’d like the last 20 mins/hour/evening of my life back to do things that matter.

Being in the presence of real people who share your passions and who talk back in real time … with whom you can talk at the same time as making dinner or nursing your baby or taking a walk on the beach or setting the toddler up to colour … is just so very different than the things with which we have replaced such interactions.

And, I believe, so much healthier for not only ourselves, but most of all, our children.

Sometimes I wonder: If the people who devote so much time and energy to building online communities could put half the time into developing our physical communities … what would happen?

Today is one of those days!

Brad worked from home today and it was wonderful to not rush about in the morning in preparation for him to go to work and it was awesome to enjoy his company in short spurts throughout the day.

I needed to just write down how well my day went!

I got up early - about 5:45AM thanks to the smiley-est alarm clock EVER. I showered, headed downstairs for a couple of pieces of toast and to prep for morning smoothies, going off to morning prayer @ 7AM.

Back at 7:40AM, I made smoothies, and Gwen’s currently preferred breakfast: a big bowl of yogurt with berries in it and a thick slice of carrot-raisin-nut loaf smeared with butter. Brad decided to work from home and we enjoyed leisurely smoothie drinking

I had a fabulous visit with my friend Jen and her sons Anderson & Taiten in the morning, after which a botched attempt at ordering pizza ($34 for two medium pizzas? No thanks, Pizza Pizza!) led us to enjoy eggs and toast for lunch.

Gwen went down for her nap - for the second day in a row without me sitting beside her! What a big girl she’s becoming! After her nap, Gil was asleep, so I laid him down and went with Gwen to the library - just the two of us! It was a blast!

When we came home I began dinner prep and we had delicious quesadillas. Then, Gwen and I and Gil headed to the park.

Just to re-cap:

• two loads of laundry washed, dried, & folded
• 2L of yogurt made
• 3 large loads of dishes done
• three family meals (plus toddler snacks!)
• one mommy-daughter outing
• one after-dinner trip to the park

All-in-all, I’m declaring today a complete success!

Check out this post on the difference between a question and  a quiz …

I’m doing a  lot of reading/listening/thinking these days about trust. Today, I listened to a podcast at Whatever Whatever Amen: Trusting Children (Part One). This is an excerpt from the podcast, a quote from John Holt’s How Children Learn:

“All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.”

Here’s the comment I left on their page:

I’ve just recently started listening to your podcasts. The ‘AP sucks’ one got me hooked

So you asked some questions in your podcast, and alluded to some things that I’ve been struggling with. Since realizing that school isn’t really all that necessary (thanks to Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on schools killing creativity for getting that ball rolling!) I’ve realized that although school was easy for me and I (mostly) enjoyed it, I spent most of my schooling making my parents proud. Heck, I went into Biochemistry at University because it made my parents (and guidance counsellor) proud and happy. When I switched into Nursing, I was terrified to tell my parents for fear of their disapproval and even now at 26, married for almost 4 years with two kids, I’m terrified that if I don’t ever “use” my degree and work as a Registered Nurse, I’ll disappoint them (actually, I know I’ll disappoint them. My dad has said it on a number of occasions). So, do I trust myself? Hell no. I’ve been subtly told that I’m untrustworthy and incapable of making decisions for myself my whole life – but I’m darn good at making decisions to make other people happy. It sucks. It sucks second-guessing myself all the time. It sucks having to think “am I making this decision because it’s right for me or because it will make someone happy/proud?” every time I decide something.

I have a hard time knowing who I am and what I like to do. I mean, some things are obvious – I like to knit, I love to read, I’m passionate about environmentalism and breastfeeding, but beyond my hobbies and passions – who am I? I can’t answer that.

Do I trust my kids? Yes and no. I find it easy to trust infants/babies. Really, their needs are so few (and so obvious and so easily met, generally speaking) that it’s hard to argue that they aren’t trustworthy (although some people try *cough* Gary Ezzo *cough*. I trust 100% my son, Gil – he’s 5 weeks old. When he fusses or cries, I nurse him, comfort him, take him to pee/poo or change his diaper if it’s too late. That being said, I find it terribly difficult to trust Gwen, my 21-month-old. There’s a lot of information on attachment parenting babies – not so much on once they become little people! I find it hard not to slip into the “she’s manipulating me” “she’s testing me” “she doesn’t know what she needs” “she should eat more/sleep more/go to bed earlier” “she’s just being dramatic” “what’s wrong with her” “she shouldn’t feel that way” trap. I hate it and I try not to do it, but gosh darnit it’s HARD not to think those things and even harder, once you’ve thought them, to not take action on them.

Learning to trust is hard. We’re currently planning to unschool, and I’m learning every day to give up a little bit more control so that Gwen can learn about her environment, make messes and mistakes, and enjoy her life. I don’t want to pass on my distrust of myself, and I hope that the past 18 months of distrust in her is easily undone. I’m hoping to do things differently with Gil – for example doing baby-led solids (which we ended up at with Gwen anyways because she wouldn’t eat purees), not trying to force him to sleep separate than us, etc. I’m so looking forward to enjoying life with my kids and exposing them to different life experiences (a nutrient-rich environment – I like that analogy) and learning along with them!

Go read this post. It very eloquently explains why we won’t use any cry-it-out techniques at our house.

Interestingly, I’m finding that adding a second child to our family has not, overall, made me nearly as tired as I thought it might.

Mind you, I’m napping when I can and going to bed a LOT earlier these days than I ever have - probably since grade 7 or 8 … maybe even earlier. I was a bit of an insomniac in those grades …

Gil falls asleep sometime between 7 & 8, we normally start Gwen’s bedtime around 8, and after my part is done (pj’s & diaper, nursing if she wants it, and tooth brushing), I head to bed with Gil curled up beside me. If it’s before 9, I might read for a bit, or like one night this week, enjoy a tv show with Brad.

Mostly, though, I’ve realized that I will only need to go to sleep that early for so long … because before too long, Gil will be sleeping well enough that I can ‘enjoy’ my evenings again.

I’m find this excerpt from Conscious Transitions - Motherhood: Layers of Letting Go to be very true of myself, emphasis mine:

But the main difference between my experience this time is so simple: I go to sleep earlier! I put Asher to bed, then I put Everest to bed and fall asleep with him. Most nights, I’m asleep between 8:30 and 9 pm. So even though I’m still woken up several times during the night and am usually awake for the day by 5 am, I feel relatively rested most days.

Here’s the thing: with Everest, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my evening hours in favor of sleep. I would have rather been exhausted than give up my private time or time with my husband at the end of the day. The sacrifices as a new mother were so overwhelmingly numerous that I couldn’t bear to let go of one more thing – especially something so essential as time separate from my child. More shocking than the sleep deprivation was what felt like an almost total obliteration of my separate selfhood. I grieved many things in the first months of new motherhood but at the core of the grief was the loss of self and the loss of the freedom I had before becoming a mother.

With the second child, I’ve already adjusted to having significantly less time to myself and the lack of freedom. I don’t experience it as a loss anymore because there’s an acceptance that this is what life is with young children. And over the last 5 1/2 years, I’ve learned how to find my separateness even when I’m in proximity to my kids.

Two kids breastfed on demand.

One outing to the Ontario Early Years Centre.

One load of diapers in the washing machine.

One mother and one toddler well fed and watered.

Innumerable diapers changed and bums wiped.

Two afternoon naps coordinated and executed without crying or struggles.

One mom blissfully sleeping for an hour nestled up with the newborn.

Two loads of dishes washed and put away.

One food share divided and put away.

One fridge cleaned out.

One meal (that someone else made, thank goodness!) ready to go on the table.

I guess this is our new normal. I think I’m going to survive.

… is about to get a whole lot more difficult!

The past two weeks, I’ve had some combination of Brad and my mom here with me. An extra set of hands to wrangle Gwen into her coat. A pair of hands to get a snack ready. Hands to hold Gil while Gwen and I enjoy our special time together snuggling down for her nap.

Sadly, I will be all alone tomorrow.

And I’m more than a little scared.

Gil is a very frequent nurser. As in, when he’s awake, he’s generally attached to the breast. The. Whole. Time. He’s hard to wear for extended periods because I’m frequently switching him from breast to breast. He’s very rarely awake and settled, happy to be carried around - his need to suck is great, and I’m happy to meet it. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to attend to Gwen’s needs as well!

I know I’ll survive - goodness knows other mothers have been met with more difficult challenges (ie. twins/triplets, two closer in age that mine, developmental disabilities, etc.) and survived - even thrived! Think of me while I find my way to mother another, would you please?

Wow, that title seems odd.

While I’ve been witness to a few of Gil’s pees and have been able to make the cue sound (’pssssssss’), I’ve never purposefully caught one.

Until just now.

I’ve read everywhere about how you’re most likely to catch a pee just after a nap, since babies tend not to want to soil their sleeping area.

Makes sense to me - what other animals encourage their young to do so?

So as Gil was waking from his long afternoon nap (12-2:45PM today!), I removed his (dry!) diaper to nurse him and observe his cues. He nursed a long while on the first side with no sign of a pee and then pulled off, arched his back and straightened his legs. I held him in the basic under-thigh hold over our potty insert.

And he peed!

I made the cueing sound as he peed and aimed the stream a bit and he finished. I offered again after the second time, thinking he might have to poop, but he didn’t.

Yay for our first Natural Infant Hygiene success!

***UPDATE***

Just after I hit ‘post’, Gil came off the second side doing some fussing and leg stretching. So I figured, ‘what the heck!’ and took him over to the potty. Took off the (still dry!) diaper and held him over it in position - immediate pee! I was so taken aback I didn’t manage to cue him until pretty well after he finished. He was still a bit squirmy, so I said, “Do you need to poop?” and made a grunting sound, being sure to flex my abs. And my little man pooped! Wow. I can’t believe this crazy stuff works

I just can’t get over her great humour … check out Mama Is’ Wasting My Life in Conversation: