Mothering 101

I had a lovely visit from a sweet young mother-to-be yesterday. She wanted and needed more information on breastfeeding, and I have MORE INFORMATION! She also got (as a free bonus!) information on labor, childrearing and mothering, since those are my passions. I really feel our society has lost a lot of traditional wisdom on how to be a truly good mother. Some of it is how you interact with the child, but that is only one portion, actually.

So, that being said, here is the first of my "lists of wisdom":

Wisdom for having a baby:

1. Your body was designed for this. RELAX and let it do it's job without interfering too much.

2. You can stop worrying about whether you can/will provide enough milk for your baby. You are a mammal. So is your baby. WOW--SIMPLE! That means, your body is designed to make the 1 PERFECT food for YOUR baby. Since it would be unwise to feed tiger milk to baby dolphins or gorilla milk to baby kangaroos (as those species are completely different, and have totally different growth needs), what baby humans need is human milk, perfectly customized for their own needs, by their own mommy.

3.The baby will automatically set it's breathing, heartbeat and temperature to match the person who is holding it, so bare chest to bare chest contact is VERY important to help your baby stabilize (and a great thing for daddy to do for baby while they clean mom up). It is important to continue skin to skin contact for the first several weeks.

4. The baby does recognize the voices of the people it heard in utero, and will prefer those people.

5. Babies need a lot LESS stuff than the stores would have you believe. Millions of babies have turned out fine without a crib, nursery or diaper genie. Babies prefer to sleep with their parents (or very nearby if you have to). After spending the last nine months listening to the sound of their parents breathing, heartbeat and talking why would they want to be locked away in a dark room by themself? They need to spend more time OUT of the car seat than IN it--a baby on a clean blanket on the floor is learning about spacial relationships and preparing to crawl (and it won't need a helmet to reshape it's soft little skull that has flattened from too much time in it's car seat!)

6. A baby sling or (even better a baby wrap) will help you have a happier, calmer baby, and a happier, more productive mom.

7. Babies can (and do) smile very soon after birth. Studies have shown that if the parents respond the baby will continue to smile, but if smiles are ignored, the baby will stop smiling until they are about 3 months old. (and honestly, when was the last time gas bubbles made you smile? Honestly, Gas Bubbles?)

8. All 5 senses are firmly in place by 17 weeks in utero. That means, when the baby is still the size of a billiard ball, it can feel pain and tickling, prefers sweet tastes to salty or bitter, and can hear the sounds of it's world--parents voices, mom's heartbeat and digestive system (which is a LOT louder than you would think!) and other sounds.

9. No cute little brightly colored or black and white toys are as exciting for your baby as your face. The more you play with and interact with your baby, the better you will get at understanding them, and the smarter your baby will be. Talk about a win-win situation!

10. You are wiser than you think. It will only take a few days for you to become the world's leading expert on your baby. Trust your heart. But find a wise mother (whose children you like, and are turning out well!) as a mentor.

The best book on raising a wise, happy child is "The Mothers Almanac" by Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons. There is a great companion book, also, "The Fathers Almanac" by S. Adams Sullivan. Your personal library should have both--and you should read them.

The next best book is "The One-Minute Mother" by Spencer Johnson.

And your "go-to" book should be by William and Martha Sears (they have GREAT books on attachment parenting, breastfeeding, discipline and more!) He is a doctor, and together they have 8 children (which makes him much wiser than the doctor part!)

The Long Promised Pictures!

I apololgize for the focus issues, but this one shows the chicks cute coloring. They will grow up to be lovely glossy black hens, but now they are just cute!



Here are several of them demonstrating how well they can stand in their food dish (which is why it gets washed out so often!) Chicks are not fussy about their personal cleanliness issues.




Here are the easter eggs my creative crew colored. I wish you could see the incredible detail on EACH egg! My favorite is the TMNT Michaelangelo made by LargeBoy.



When we had colored every possible egg, I stuffed bits of wool into the leftover dye cups and look at the gorgeous rainbow of softness that emerged! Sometimes I just love happy accidents.

Easter thoughts:

Dying eggs always makes me wistful, because my little (next younger) brother is the all time genius of egg dying and Jack O'lantern carving (not at the same time, though!) He is now far, far away, and it makes me miss not only him, but all the rest of my scattered family.

Must stop posting and go attempt to remove the egg dye from the carpet. Thanks SmallDaughter. Glad we still have the wierd old carpet. And the steam cleaner. Sigh.

An ounce of morning is worth a pound of afternoon.

The chicks are fine, thanks for asking. I am trying to round up a camera to document their cuteness (QUICK--while it lasts--I know what is coming!)

Today, I nobly resisted the urge to crawl back into my fabulous, warm bed (after fixing MFG's lunch for work, a little before 5 am). I am sewing on a massive project--a first communion dress for a friend's daughter. I am actually using a pattern--which is good, since this dress is much more complicated and intricate than either of the wedding gowns I have sewn! She will look like an angel, though!

It is spring break, so we have fun company for the week in the form of our spiffy cousin, ExtraLargeGirl (same age as LargeBoy, but a couple of inches taller than BigGirl) and SmallDaughter doesn't have school, which really makes working on projects difficult. And, since I am up to my earlobes in projects...early morning is my only hope. And, since they were all up SO late last night---I should have quite a bit of quiet morning.

In SUPER FUN NEWS: In the mail yesterday, I got 2--count them, two!--pieces of real mail! One was a wedding invitation (for a neat wedding I am decorating in June, congrats to S&G!), and the other was a letter from the Spinners and Weavers guild--I won a scholarship to take a felting class! I am so excited!!! The class is in October--and the only caveat is that I have to teach the guild members about what I learned (whee--I love teaching! At least I love teaching fun stuff...to grownups!)

Also...still snowy. However, since we live in an interesting little weather spot, we noticed yesterday that while we had a nice sugary dusting of snow on our grass, at the hatchery (17 miles away) they had actual drifts.

I hope the weather forcast for a dramatic warmup is right--we are having an easter egg hunt/barbeque potluck on Saturday! (I like the idea of the easter bunny coming on Friday night, so that the sugar high is on Saturday, and Sunday we can focus on the actual meaning of Easter!) Some years I am even on the ball enough to have that happen!

Escaping Tyranny

I think all homeschool moms experience feelings of doubt, guilt, and occasional panic, wondering if we are REALLY doing the best thing for our precious children.

Every morning, I watch the school bus go past my house without stopping for my children, and every morning, I feel like we have escaped from prison. We aren't scrambling around making sure everybody has a lunch, a backpack (which, incidentally, for a middle schooler weighs about as much as your average senator) and any stray notes or homework. Whether we were in an organized phase (thanks, FlyLady) or a disorganized phase, there was always a scramble.

Now, we get SmallDaughter onto the van for her school, and then the rest of us go tackle our day. This morning was fairly typical. I got up with My Favorite Gentleman at 4:45, packed his lunch for work (it makes him feel loved), he wheeled the trash dumpster out to the curb (it makes me feel loved!) and I had my early morning seminary class at 5:15. (I am teaching New Testament this year, to some EXTREMELY awesome high school students--who attend this extremely early class every day, and then go to school and do great things!

After class, I invited BigGirl and LargeBoy in for "Snuggle Time" in my room. Snuggle Time is a long-standing tradition, born back in the day when they HATED to get rushed out of bed straight into the school chaos. I realized that their schedule was: get up-get ready-go to school-come home-do homework-eat dinner-go to bed-do it again. These are FIRST GRADERS! When did we have time for fun? For Love? For knowing that they are the most important things in my life? So they started coming into my room before they had to get up, for snuggles, reading aloud, back and foot massages, movie watching and, occasionally, sleep. When I am old, what I will look back on with love and nostalgia, is snuggling with my beautiful children every morning.

So, this morning, LargeBoy (who slept very well), was not sleepy, and wanted to be productive, but both of his sisters were still asleep. What to do? He went and got his scout notebook, wrote several thank you notes, and worked on memorizing the Boy Scout Oath and such. While he was snuggled up to me. When he finished, he went back to sleep. When he gets up, (I know from past experience)he will have a great day. He is very sleep dependent, and lack of sleep makes him a very grouchy guy.

When BigGirl was having a hard time with math, we started doing it snuggled in my bed, where it was warm and we could reduce her stress. Ironically, she is very good at math, she just gets frustrated and panicky (just like her mother!). Since I am doing math with them (I am learning and RETAINING more than I ever have, thank you for asking--I really love the Saxon Math program), we just got comfy and worked through the hard places together.

We are no longer under the tyranny of other peoples schedules, other peoples expectations, and other peoples ridicule. Why can't math be learned in bed?

So, my observations about "am I doing the right thing" and other guilt and panic?

I love to spend time with my kids. I would rather be with them than most other people--they are funny, kind and intelligent. I don't need to send them off to school to have other people babysit them because they drive me crazy.

In a typical classroom of 25, a teacher can only give each child 5-7 minutes of individual attention per day. Now, even on a crazy busy day, when I am rushing between projects, I can give them at least 15 individual minutes.

15 minutes doesn't sound like very much, does it? But consider this--it is three times more than they would be getting! And that is on my worst day!

In my school, we have no bullying, no harrassment (well, except from me about room cleaning!), no peer pressure to try drugs, sex or tobacco (let alone steroids given by overachieving coaches, etc.) AND if anybody in my school has a gun--it is because we are doing target shooting!

How can I possibly do WORSE for my children than the public Junior High Schools?

I am going back to bed, to snuggle my beautiful children and to lovingly face the future!