Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Itching for spring
This weekend I saw a most encouraging sight - spring flowers beginning to push their way through the soil in our garden!
I am ready for spring. More than ready. This winter has been too long. The boys and I all got sick over the holidays and since then it has been one thing after another with few breaks from runny noses, chilly days and rain. My energy levels have bottomed out, and I find myself wanting to do little besides sit in front of the fireplace and read a book - bonus points if I find the energy to make myself a warm drink first. Double bonus points if I replace my book with one for the kids.
It was nice for a while to slow down, stay home, gather cozy under blankets and in front of the fire, just enjoying each other's company. But now even this introverted soul is craving the company of others - if only the noses would stop running for just a little while! It's hard to know when to go out and when to stay home when the sniffles and coughs seem never-ending.
My sanity was saved last week by an impromptu trip to a far-away mall. The baby had opted for a 15 minute nap instead of his usual 2-3 hour one, and I was far too tired from a long night to try to entertain a grumpy baby and a squirrelly preschooler at home. It was nice to get out and wander (and even nicer to treat myself to some nice chocolate for the drive back home), and the baby caught up on sleep during the long drive back home.
Yesterday, we bundled up and spent some time at the park. The fresh air and movement was so good for all of us. The boys returned home with cold hands and runny noses, happy to warm up again in front of the fireplace.
We do what we need to, but the mall is no substitute for sitting down with friends, strengthening relationships and building community for us and for our children, and a chilly trip to the park just isn't the same as a stroll through a sun-warmed forest trail. Come quickly, spring. I need this winter to end.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Attachment Parenting Series
Attachment Parenting (AP) is a term coined by Dr. Sears to describe a style of parenting that promotes a strong parent/child bond. Although AP is a flexible and family-specific approach, Dr. Sears describes seven tools (listed below) as a starting point for parents. AP is the style of parenting we have chosen for our family and have used since the birth of our oldest child.
In some ways, I believe the term "attachment parenting" can be a bit of a misnomer. The natural parent/child bond is strong and takes a significant amount of trauma to break. It was a term, however, which rose in response to an increasingly common form of parenting which encouraged independence in very young infants. As the ideas of "independence" and "scheduled training" became of such importance to even babies, parent/child attachment was affected, the extent to which I believe we have yet to see. AP places a strong emphasis on developing and maintaining that parent/child bond in a very natural and intuitive manner.
For the next two months, I will be posting a weekly series about attachment parenting - what is it, what is it not, how it plays out specifically in our home, what struggles we have had, and what we can do at the community level to make this instinctive style of parenting, well, instinctive again.
As an outline, I will follow Dr. Sear's "Seven Baby B's":
At the end of each post, I'll include a Mister Linky where you can submit your own blog post on the topic. Let's call it a carnival! Share your thoughts, your information, your struggles, your best resources, whatever you like. I look forward to reading your posts and highlighting a few of them in a closing summary.
We'll start next Monday with the first of the Baby B's - Birth Bonding!
In some ways, I believe the term "attachment parenting" can be a bit of a misnomer. The natural parent/child bond is strong and takes a significant amount of trauma to break. It was a term, however, which rose in response to an increasingly common form of parenting which encouraged independence in very young infants. As the ideas of "independence" and "scheduled training" became of such importance to even babies, parent/child attachment was affected, the extent to which I believe we have yet to see. AP places a strong emphasis on developing and maintaining that parent/child bond in a very natural and intuitive manner.
For the next two months, I will be posting a weekly series about attachment parenting - what is it, what is it not, how it plays out specifically in our home, what struggles we have had, and what we can do at the community level to make this instinctive style of parenting, well, instinctive again.
As an outline, I will follow Dr. Sear's "Seven Baby B's":
- Birth bonding
- Breastfeeding
- Babywearing
- Bedding close to baby
- Belief in the language value of your baby's cry
- Beware of baby trainers
- Balance
At the end of each post, I'll include a Mister Linky where you can submit your own blog post on the topic. Let's call it a carnival! Share your thoughts, your information, your struggles, your best resources, whatever you like. I look forward to reading your posts and highlighting a few of them in a closing summary.
We'll start next Monday with the first of the Baby B's - Birth Bonding!
Saturday, 5 February 2011
The Saturday Evening Blog Post
It's time again for the Saturday Evening Blog Post, hosted by Elizabeth Esther. Elizabeth collects the "best of" posts on the first Saturday of every month, an opportunity for bloggers to gather and share their favourite post from the previous month.
Since January was skipped, this month is catch-up month! Elizabeth has invited us to share a post from December 2010 and one from January 2011. For December, I chose my baby's first birthday poem, One. For January, I chose an entry I started three years ago and finally got around to finishing: Unreasoning Fear, on avoiding an irrational fear of stranger abduction.
If you've written something you'd like to share this month, swing by her blog and add your link. It looks like there's quite a few other interesting posts to check out, too.
Good night!
Weekend Reading
- Why We Have Children @ Patheos
- How to Keep from Getting Spiritually Weird @ Stands to Reason
- Why Spoiled Babies Grow Up to be Smarter, Kinder Kids @ Healthland
- 10 Things I Wish the Mainstream Media Would Get Right About Parents Who Don't Vaccinate @ Dulce de leche
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Four years
This morning I opened my laptop to find a card tucked inside, sweet words thanking me for saying yes, for the day we took turns saying our "I will" four years ago.
Four years. It feels so much longer, and yet the years stretch empty ahead of us, waiting to be filled. With what, I wonder? More of the joyous times of marital bliss? More struggles? Both, I imagine, but in hopes of discovering far more of the former and less of the latter, I listen to the words of the ones who are wiser, who have done this far longer. I drink in Ann's beautiful words on how to fall in love again in four minutes a day. I find comfort in Katiekind's wisdom on having raised a family together as her grown children leave home. I watch his parents, happily married after three decades, and I humbly accept their proffered advice. I pray. Oh Lord, do I pray.
I pray that I will seek always to change myself rather than trying to change someone else. I pray that I will speak words of love and encouragement rather than the words I heard my father receive as a child. I pray that I will speak rather than wrap myself in bitter silence. I pray that I will seek to support and serve rather than be served. I pray that I will always hold the good far tighter than the bad.
For there is so much good. I am blessed to have married a man who speaks such kindness, who forgives so readily, who does not hold me to an arbitrary standard of what a wife should be and should do. His children adore him. The oldest loves to "play rough with Daddy!" and snuggles close for another chapter of a story at bedtime each night. The youngest delights in a back-and-forth game of silly imitations, the two of them snapping at each other like turtles or blowing zerberts on bare skin. And us, quiet evenings together after we each tuck a boy into bed, sometimes sharing an activity, sometimes sitting beside each other in comfortable silence as I sew and he builds. He has given me so many fond memories to hold dear.
This afternoon I will make his favourite, triple berry crisp, and tonight the four of us will go out for a celebratory dinner, celebrating a wonderfully full four years of marriage and the hope of the years to come.
Four years. It feels so much longer, and yet the years stretch empty ahead of us, waiting to be filled. With what, I wonder? More of the joyous times of marital bliss? More struggles? Both, I imagine, but in hopes of discovering far more of the former and less of the latter, I listen to the words of the ones who are wiser, who have done this far longer. I drink in Ann's beautiful words on how to fall in love again in four minutes a day. I find comfort in Katiekind's wisdom on having raised a family together as her grown children leave home. I watch his parents, happily married after three decades, and I humbly accept their proffered advice. I pray. Oh Lord, do I pray.
I pray that I will seek always to change myself rather than trying to change someone else. I pray that I will speak words of love and encouragement rather than the words I heard my father receive as a child. I pray that I will speak rather than wrap myself in bitter silence. I pray that I will seek to support and serve rather than be served. I pray that I will always hold the good far tighter than the bad.
For there is so much good. I am blessed to have married a man who speaks such kindness, who forgives so readily, who does not hold me to an arbitrary standard of what a wife should be and should do. His children adore him. The oldest loves to "play rough with Daddy!" and snuggles close for another chapter of a story at bedtime each night. The youngest delights in a back-and-forth game of silly imitations, the two of them snapping at each other like turtles or blowing zerberts on bare skin. And us, quiet evenings together after we each tuck a boy into bed, sometimes sharing an activity, sometimes sitting beside each other in comfortable silence as I sew and he builds. He has given me so many fond memories to hold dear.
This afternoon I will make his favourite, triple berry crisp, and tonight the four of us will go out for a celebratory dinner, celebrating a wonderfully full four years of marriage and the hope of the years to come.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
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