Miracle of life

 

Isn't this an amazing pic?

Parenting

The Dictionary defines the word Parent as:

1. a persons father or mother

2. an animal or plant from which new ones derive

3. a source or origin of a smaller or less important part

4. an organization or company which owns or controls a number of subsidiaries

and it defines Parenting as :

1. to be or act as a mother or father to someone

If only it were that simple.

Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't simpler way back when before the onset of the Technological age or should I say the age of information, aka the internet.

Back then you only knew how you had been raised and maybe, just maybe you had access to Dr Spock's book about parenting.  (That's Dr Benjamin Spock author of the 1946 best seller "Baby and Child Care" not Dr Spock from Star Trek fame.) He claimed mothers knew more than they thought they did and that parents should be more flexible and affectionate towards their children. This was a huge contrast to the conventional discipline your kids and don't spoil babies by picking them up when crying mentality. 

Todays parents are inundated with contradictory information regarding all issues involved in raising a well adjusted kid via books, articles, forums, antenatal classes, not to mention mothers and mothers-in-law and of course don't forget the fellow first time parents (I say first time, cause usually by the time you have a second you realise its best to just follow your gut when it comes to raising your kid - and nothing gets done by any book anymore) 

Breast or bottle. Schedule or demand. Co-sleep or cot. Cry-it-out or pick up. Dummy or no dummy. To smack or not to smack. These are just some of the heated debates and choices we are faced with. 

To many choices. 

Now if you know me at all, you may realise I might have a slight problem. You see I love absorbing new information, I loooooove reading and I am pretty interested in psychology. So you can just imagine how much parenting related info I have accumulated so far.   To give you an idea here are some of the books I have read so far. (I can recomend the red ones) Secrets of the baby whisperer - Tracy Hogg How children learn - John Holt Seven spiritual laws of success for parents - Deepak Chopra Living simply with children - Marie Sherlock What all children want their parents to know - Diana Loomans The emotional Life of the toddler - Alicia Lieberman Love and logic magic for early childhood - Jim Fay Baby Minds - Linda Acredolo Baby Hearts and Baby signs Baby sense and Feeding sense - Megan Faure Secret Spiritual World of Children - Tobin Hart Birth and Beyond - Yehudi Gordon The A to Z guide to Raising Happy Confident Kids - Jenn Berman Children are from Heaven - John Gray Anyway I believe in order for me to make up my own mind about something it never hurts to learn what others think, that way I can take what I like, discard what I don't and be left with my very own opinion. After all there is no right way and there is no wrong way, as long as you love them and are there for them everything will be OK.  So for me parenting is made easier by the knowledge I have tapped into. I think I would be totally lost if I had to go by gut alone. Or ironically maybe I wouldn't, maybe it would have been easier as the only voice I'd listen to then is my own. I'll never know.  To sum up - "To read or not to read" that is the question, and the answer is follow your gut. P.s. I must add I am the type of person who will read the manual - as my dad would say "no need to invent the wheel again".

Ups and Downs

Over the years I have learnt that it is precisely the downs in life which help make you stronger, wiser and more appreciative of what you have. And its the ups in life that pull you through the downs. The ups are the light at the end of the tunnel. They are what make you hold your head high and move forward.  

And when you close your eyes they are the things you will see.

So when 5 o'clock rolls round and the the kids are both screaming, or I get woken up at 2 am, 3 am and then again at 5 am or Lucca joins us in bed and sticks his cold feet down my PJ's...I close my eyes and see their angelic faces as they sleep, hear their infectious laughter as we play and see the love in their smiles and feel the gratitude in their hugs and kisses.


Then I remember "This to shall pass". 

Thank goodness nothing lasts forever and you can always count on change. 


 

Catch 22 of me time

Yes you get to chill relax and rest but as soon as you get back the chances are great it will all get wiped out in a matter of seconds.....

.... it's always worth it though. 

You know what they say about needing to look after yourself in order to look after others and if you don't respect yourself how can you expect your kids to respect you and your needs. 

Well guess what "they" are right.

Remind me - Why did I have kids again?

I cannot remember ever asking my parents why they had us. I’m not even sure I ever really wondered about it. I do remember my brother and me threatening each other with being adopted. At the time that seemed like the worst “insult” to dish out (kids and their imaginations – gotta love em).

Anyway a few weeks ago, while enjoying a peaceful moment under the shower, I found myself trying to remember what possessed me to have kids in the first place? You know those moments where you have to remind yourself of all the blessings they bring ;-) so that you can look past all the sleepless nights, the tantrums and the lack of me time. I wondered will they ever think to ask me and if they did what would I say. 

Well at that moment in the shower I had an epiphany: we have kids so that they will grow up and have kids, so that they will finally know what they put us through and at the same time give us a chance to enjoy the wonders of childhood without all the downsides.

Now I just hope my sons pick good woman who will be happy to share their kids with their mother-in-law. Ok I better rephrase that… I better make sure I am the best mother in law in the world :-)

From laughter comes tears

Recently I overheard a granny telling a mom she better go check on the kids (who were playing/roughhousing upstairs) as they were laughing to much so soon someone was going to be crying.

My first thought was why are you getting involved and my second was so what?

Of course I remember hearing the saying "tears follow laughter", or was that "from laughter comes tears", from many different grown ups when I was little and yes more often than not their predictions came true.

But does that mean we should stop kids from laughing in the first place? I mean, really?

OK ok it's parental instinct to want to protect your offspring but are we being true to them if we are always stepping in to rescue them? Trying to protect them from pain or sorrow is futile because at some point they are going to run smack bang into it.

As much as I remember the saying I remember the fun and laughter we enjoyed as kids but for some reason the teary bits are pretty blurry. Because that's the beauty of tears... you can wipe them away.

So let your kids play till they cry, pick them up dust them off and before you know it the owey is all but forgotten and laughter will fill the house once more.
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On sleeping through

It would seem one of the first questions most people ask, when they see you with your baby, is "does he sleep through?"

What a question. I would bet most moms dread this very question like they would the bubonic plague.

If you say no you feel like a failure as a parent and quite often to make it worse they may retaliate with "O my little one slept through from 6 weeks". Ja right, you probably just put earplugs in and took a sleeping pill.

And if you say yes they probably won't believe you or they will brand you a bitch for bragging about it.

So I find myself wondering whether this tendency is preprogrammed into our genes or whether it's a non parent (or I was a parent so long ago I've forgotten what it's like parent) way of trying to relate. Or is it simply a automatic small talk response like talking about the weather.

If you really are curious rather ask "how are the sleepless nights going?"
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