Well, I had set my last post to auto-post yes­ter­day, and appar­ently I don’t have all the kinks work out of the auto-posting sys­tem. I really did have a post writ­ten, but it didn’t go up yes­ter­day. I’ll have to watch more closely until I’m sure that I have it all done.

When you have a baby, you can be pretty cer­tain you will hear a few things.  “Oh, he/she’s so adorable!”  “Oh, how sweet!”  “I bet you are lov­ing being a new mom!”  “I love those baby sounds.” and of course “Is he/she a good baby?”  What is a good baby?  What is a bad baby?  In most cases, I was able to under­stand the intent behind the ques­tion “Is he a good baby?” to be “How does he sleep?”  “Does he eat well?”  I’m sure that I have even said those words.  That was before, before I had a baby who was not a “good” sleeper or a “good” eater.  Those of you who have read this blog for a while or know my fam­ily know that baby A was not an easy baby.  He was sen­si­tive to dairy.  He had reflux pretty badly.  He didn’t sleep well.  He nursed at least every hour for the first six or seven months.  He didn’t eat many solids at all before he was 11 or 12 months old, and worst of all, he didn’t want any­one but myself or my hus­band to hold him!

Many times in A’s first year, I was asked, “Is he a good baby?”  Of course he was a good baby.  Look at him, I wanted to say!  Isn’t he one of the most beau­ti­ful peo­ple ever to be a part of the human race???  Couldn’t they see only by look­ing at him that he was obvi­ously amaz­ing?  Then, the ques­tions got spe­cific.  “How often does he eat?”  “How many times is he get­ting up at night?”  “How does he nap?”  I usu­ally gave them the answers with a smile on my face.  Even though I was going crazy with a new­born and a tod­dler who were both nurs­ing like crazy, I didn’t want any­one to think any­thing about my son that might bor­der on less than per­fect.  I vented many times to friends about these ques­tions, I almost always answered them with a smile.  I rarely showed my frus­tra­tions or tired­ness, because I knew I would get advice I didn’t want.

Now, both of my chil­dren are preschool­ers.  When talk­ing with other par­ents, friends, and fam­ily the focus still seems to be on food and sleep with added ques­tions about obe­di­ence.  “What does your daugh­ter eat for sup­per?”  “Can you get your kids to try new foods?”  (see my pre­vi­ous post) “Is your 3 year old still nap­ping?”  “How can I get my child to x the first time I ask him?”

I’ve recently started won­der­ing at what point are we going to start focus­ing on things that are going to make a life­long impact in their lives?  Has any­one ever asked you “Is your four year old com­pas­sion­ate?”  “Does she work on her prob­lem solv­ing skills?”  “How can I pro­vide a rich envi­ron­ment to fos­ter her imagination/creativity?”  Some of us may have heard these ques­tions from our friends and fam­ily, but unfor­tu­nately, these things don’t seem to get nearly the inter­est that sleep, food, and obe­di­ence get.

I don’t have any answers.  I’m not going to pro­pose a solu­tion that will end the focus on the “good” baby who eats and sleeps as the book pre­dicts.  I only hope to point out that while those things seem to be so impor­tant when our kids are lit­tle, they decrease in impor­tance as a child grows.

As many other par­ents of preschool­ers find, I have dis­cov­ered my chil­dren do not eat every­thing I offer them.  Yes, I know, not com­pletely shock­ing.  Although they are beau­ti­ful and sweet and intel­li­gent, they are not per­fect.  I have often referred to my kids as picky when I talk about their eat­ing habits with oth­ers.  I’m won­der­ing if I need to change my per­spec­tive on that, though.  Are they picky?  What is a picky eater?  Is it a child who won’t eat healthy foods?  A child who only eats a few foods?  A child who won’t try new foods?

At our house, break­fast is a sev­eral hour event.  For break­fast, the boys often start out with a bowl of grapes, an apple, or some other type of fruit that we have in the fridge.  Then, round 2 is usu­ally a grain like pan­cakes, toast, or cereal.  Round three is fruit again.  Lunch is usu­ally pretty sim­ple.  We often have mac­a­roni and cheese, sand­wiches, or soup with more fruit and fresh, raw veg­eta­bles (bell pep­pers, car­rots, cau­li­flower, or broc­coli).  The boys will usu­ally eat sugar snap peas and green beans, too, if we have them.  Sup­per is where the “pick­i­ness” comes in.  A often refuses to even try any of the meals I make.  He will usu­ally eat all the ingre­di­ents sep­a­rately (cheese, tor­tillas, lentils, salsa, chips) but won’t eat them together (lentil tacos with chips and salsa).  K will usu­ally try one bite of what­ever I make.  He often says he likes it.  Then, he pro­ceeds to eat only the fruits and veg­gies and breads that are available.

Ear­lier this week, I asked an online friend if she had any thoughts on this topic.  After think­ing about what she said, talk­ing with some other friends, and watch­ing my children’s choices, I’m won­der­ing if I am too con­cerned about this.  Many par­ents work daily to get their chil­dren to eat fruits, veg­gies, and pro­teins.  I am work­ing to get my kids to com­bine these foods into what I con­sider to be meals.  Is it really a prob­lem if I have to leave some sweet potato and some chick­peas out of the soup instead of serv­ing them as a soup to the boys?  Should I really worry if they don’t want chili but will eat the beans, veg­gies, and bread?

I’m start­ing to think that no, in fact, this is just fine, and prob­a­bly age appro­pri­ate.  I’m start­ing to think that because I don’t have to worry about my kids eat­ing fruit, veg­eta­bles, pro­teins, or whole grains, I should prob­a­bly stop look­ing for con­cerns where there aren’t any.

Are your kids picky?  Are you picky?  Should we really spend so much time and energy on things that are prob­a­bly devel­op­men­tal and are prob­a­bly a stage anyway?

Today is my baby’s 4th birth­day!  It’s hard to believe that 4 years ago, I was expe­ri­enc­ing my first hours of moth­er­hood and my first attempts at nurs­ing.  Look­ing back, it’s hard to remem­ber my life with­out him.  What did I do?  Oh, yeah.  I was a teacher.  That’s right.

As I am writ­ing this, I am strug­gling to get my words out.  I can­not even begin to put into words how much I love this kid.  He is funny, smart, adorable, and one of my favorite peo­ple in the world!

I am think­ing we may need to start a book of all the mem­o­rable things he has said to us:

• “Urine is our body’s waste.”
• “How did the oceans get salt in there?”
• “Mom, is it okay if we have a sister?”
• “How do babies come out of a mommy’s tummy?”  (Yes, we have had the begin­nings of THAT con­ver­sa­tion at not even 4 years of age.)
• “When I get a lit­tle big­ger, I can hold you some­times, too.”
• “I like my dia­pers.  I don’t enjoy underwear.”

Happy Birth­day, Sweetie!

Recently, in my Face­book sta­tus updates, I have men­tioned my deci­sion to stop eat­ing meat.  This is some­thing I have been want­ing to do for a long time.  For quite some time, basi­cally, as far back as I can remem­ber, I have dis­liked meat.  I remem­ber when I was young I would try to chew it as lit­tle as pos­si­ble and swal­low it nearly whole, because I just did not like it.  When I got into high school, I often avoided meat.  In col­lege, when I was eat­ing res­i­dence hall food, I sub­sti­tuted a bowl of cereal for meat.  I real­ized that was unhealthy, but at the time I didn’t have any friends who were veg­e­tar­i­ans, and I didn’t know where to go for resources on mak­ing my diet more bal­anced and health­ier.  Instead of con­tin­u­ing on, I decided to eat meat again.

When I was preg­nant, I was par­tic­u­larly averse to meat.  Dur­ing my preg­nancy with K, I remem­ber try­ing to get some ground beef out of the pack­age and nearly throw­ing up because I smelled it.  One night, dur­ing my preg­nancy with A, I made a sausage and sweet potato hash that turned me off to both of them for a very long time.

Over the past year, I’ve done quite a bit of read­ing on where food comes from and the whole foods move­ment.  I have also devel­oped rela­tion­ships with peo­ple in my com­mu­nity who are big believ­ers in whole foods, organic when pos­si­ble, and mak­ing food a pri­or­ity.  In addi­tion to this, Jason and I had sev­eral dis­cus­sions on an unre­lated sub­ject that led me to decide that it was time.

In North Dakota, eat­ing veg­e­tar­ian is not “nor­mal.”  I don’t know many peo­ple who are veg­e­tar­ian.  I grew up in an area that had a fair num­ber of ranch­ers.  I now live in an area that grows pota­toes.  You put those two together and what you get is a lot of meat and pota­toes.  There­fore, it stands to rea­son that being a veg­e­tar­ian  in North Dakota is abnor­mal and pos­si­bly even weird.  I finally decided I’m okay with that.  After hav­ing chil­dren and hav­ing to explain deci­sions that I have made that seem to be “weird,” I decided that I am worth it.  I can make a choice for me that is dif­fer­ent than what most peo­ple choose for themselves.

In doing so, I have enjoyed my food in a way I have not for quite a long time.  Also, I have found SO many great meals!  MeatlessMonday.com has some great food.  Friends of mine who make it quite clear they are NOT veg­e­tar­ian have sent me recipes for deli­cious meals.  We have two new cook­books that are great resources.

I have been talk­ing about my deci­sion to eat veg­e­tar­ian quite a bit more than I intended, and I real­ized the rea­son I am doing this is because it feels good to be me.  I have not liked meat, nor have I wanted to eat much of it for as long as I can remem­ber.  Mak­ing this deci­sion has been free­ing.  For me, the deci­sion is to eat veg­e­tar­ian.  What is it for you?  As much as I can, I urge you to go for it!  Be authen­tic, and make that deci­sion.  You deserve to be you and be com­fort­able in your body.

I’m doing it again.  I’m going to attempt to post once a day in Novem­ber.  This should be inter­est­ing, because I’m not sure I’ve even posted once a month lately.  I have a few top­ics rolling around in my head, so we will see if they all get put into words or if they get lost before I get a chance.

Right now, we are also car­ing for a sick lit­tle boy.  My 2 year old has croup.  My older son has had croup before, and it was sad for him, but it wasn’t too big of a deal.  Unfor­tu­nately, A seems to have a worse case.  It came on pretty quickly yes­ter­day.  Last night was a ter­ri­ble night for sleep, and today he is still run­ning a fever and hav­ing trou­ble sleep­ing, drink­ing, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with­out the cough.  Poor guy.  I’m so glad he’s still nurs­ing.  Last night, that was the only thing that I could do to get him calmed down when he was cough­ing and cry­ing.  I’m hop­ing that after 2 days and nights, he’ll be bet­ter.  K’s birth­day is on Tues­day with a party planned for Friday!

As you have noticed, I am cur­rently not “feel­ing it” as far as my blog goes.  I am unin­spired and unmo­ti­vated to write about nurs­ing, cloth dia­per­ing, par­ent­ing, or any of the other things that my tagline says this blog is about.  I still adore those things, but I don’t want to write about them.  A friend of mine sug­gested that I do word­less Wednes­day for a while until I get back on track.  Thanks, Allie!  I think I might try that along with a cou­ple other memes for a while.  So, I know I’ve said this before, but I think I might try to make another come­back.    Maybe NaBloPoMo in Novem­ber will be the key yet again.

It is that time at our house.  In fact, soon, it might be that time mul­ti­plied by two!  K is will be 4 in Novem­ber.  He had shown inter­est in using the potty on and off since he was about 18 or 19 months.  He would tell us when he needed to go for a few days, then, noth­ing for a cou­ple weeks.  We assumed even­tu­ally that he would just do it and it would be almost effortless.

Haha­haha.  Even as I write that, I feel a lit­tle silly for being so sure about that.  I’m sure that is the case for some kids.  How­ever, with K, almost noth­ing has been that easy.  He is a kid who doesn’t take change or learn­ing new skills easily.

Last week, we decided to have a bare bot­tom day.  K did great!  He ran to the bath­room on his own sev­eral times through­out the day.  He didn’t even come to me for help or any­thing.  Then, I think he may have decided that it was too much work to keep track of his potty needs.  After that, the acci­dents (and I use that word loosely) started.  “K, do you need to use the bath­room?”  “No.”  Three min­utes later, “Mom, I peed.”  “K, do you need to try going potty?”  “No.”  A minute later, “Mom, I peed.”  Today, he had an acci­dent less than 5 min­utes after using the potty.  He had another one within the next 40 min­utes.  After the sec­ond one, I went to get wipes, because he was dirty and wet, and he gave a friend of mine who was stand­ing by him a pretty mis­chie­vous smile.

My goal is to give him the oppor­tu­nity to go and be suc­cess­ful with­out tak­ing on own­er­ship of whether or not the process “works.”  It is very hard though.  I find it nearly impos­si­ble to be neu­tral after he pees less than 5 or 10 min­utes after using the potty or after me ask­ing him if he needs to go.  It seems pretty inten­tional to me.  I strongly hes­i­tate to apply inten­tion to my children’s actions, but in this case, there are times when it seems SO clear to me that he sim­ply does not want to be both­ered with using the potty.  It is very dif­fi­cult to remain calm and neu­tral about it.

I have gone over this in my head more than a few times.  Is he ready?  Am I push­ing him?  Am I expect­ing too much?  Should I have waited?  Was he show­ing inter­est?  Sigh.  I know he can do it.  I know that he is able to be mostly acci­dent free, because he did it on his own.  I don’t think I am expect­ing unrea­son­able things from him.  But, still I strug­gle with this process.  I strug­gle with my expec­ta­tions.  I strug­gle to avoid power strug­gles with him.  It is what it is, and right now, it is some­thing that is def­i­nitely test­ing me and mak­ing me reex­am­ine quite a bit about myself.

Have you ever had one of those days?  A friend of mine asked that in her Face­book sta­tus tonight.  I replied (self­ishly) by ask­ing, “Do you mean like when you walk into music class and pro­ceed to burst into tears?” Sorry, Friend.  I really should not have responded to your sta­tus by mak­ing it about me.  I apologize.

The rea­son I knew what she was talk­ing about was because we had one of those days.  We have had sev­eral of those days lately.  As I said, I did walk into my kids’ music class this morn­ing and imme­di­ately start cry­ing.  I’m not sure what exactly caused it, but I just felt emo­tional and all of a sud­den, there were tears run­ning down my face! I’m not sure who was my sur­prised, me or my friend who teaches the class.

Our morn­ing started out a lit­tle rocky. K, my 3 year old, is work­ing on learn­ing to use the potty.  A, my 2 year old, is get­ting new words at light speed and also work­ing on those stub­born 2 year molars.  Adding all that up, along with a tired mom, and putting it on top of miss­ing our music class, and there you have it.  Me.  Cry­ing.  In front of other people!!!

The day didn’t change all that much from there.  We went to a friend’s house and played out­side with some of their toys for a while.  We had lunch, rested, and got ready to play at the park.  We played with friends at the park, and we had sup­per with those friends.  All those things were good, but I still felt a bit blah.  I felt like I could either be snappy with the boys or be in tears if the right (or wrong) thing happened.

Most nights at our house, you will find Jason putting the boys to bed.  I am often putting away sup­per, clean­ing up the liv­ing room, exer­cis­ing, or doing any­thing else you can think of.  Jason usu­ally puts the boys to bed.  Tonight, our friends left our house a bit later than we expected.  We had a sec­ond round of hunger after we brushed teeth. Things just took longer, and both boys were tired and warm.  As Jason was read­ing books to them, I was walk­ing past their bed­room door, and I knew that I wanted to be with them.  K sat on my lap for a bit.  A gave me a cou­ple kisses, and the four of us sat together for a few min­utes before bed.

Then, came the most beau­ti­ful part of my day.  A laid down in his crib.  K got him­self set­tled with his pil­lows, blan­kets, and every­thing else he had col­lected.  I watched both of my chil­dren drift off to sleep.  Ini­tially, I was turned toward K.  He had asked me to rub his tummy.  As I was doing that, I was watch­ing his eyes.  They would droop a lit­tle, blink hard, and pop open.  Then, he looked at me and smiled a super sleepy smile.  Again, his eyes drooped and popped back open.  He did this a few times until when they drooped and he blinked, they didn’t pop.  They stayed shut.  After he had closed his eyes, I turned toward A.  He was lay­ing on his side.  He saw me turn over, and he gave me his super sleepy smile.  I watched as he tossed and turned a bit.  He pulled his legs up under him­self, turned his head back and forth a cou­ple times, and drifted into sleep.

After the not-so-great day we (I) had, I felt very hon­ored to have been a part of some­thing so sweet, so gen­tle, so beau­ti­ful.  What a bless­ing my boys are.

They are my new obses­sion.  Who are the Sil­ver­sun Pick­ups?  It’s okay to ask.  I didn’t know either until about a month ago.  I mean, I had heard of them, but I hadn’t heard them.  They are a band.  My hus­band, Jason, has been lis­ten­ing to them for quite a while.  He had two of their albums (are they called albums?  cds?) on iTunes, and I remem­ber see­ing the group’s name, but I didn’t stop to see what they played.  Then, he bought their newest cd called Swoon.

I still wasn’t all that inter­ested.  Then, one night after a La Leche League meet­ing, Swoon was on the stereo, and I started lis­ten­ing.  I lis­tened to the first sev­eral songs.  I got stuck on a song called Grow­ing Old is Get­ting Old.  I am sure I lis­tened to that one at least 20 times.  I started lis­ten­ing to the cd when I was cook­ing, when I was read­ing, when I was play­ing stu­pid online games.  It was so good.

I became a Face­book fan.  I fol­low them on Twit­ter, and then, I saw them on David Let­ter­man!  They were great.  They sang Panic Switch which is one of their more pop­u­lar songs.  I thought they did a very nice job.  The mix of music and voice seemed a lit­tle off to me at the begin­ning, but I thought they fin­ished well.

I have been telling every­one I know about this new band I just dis­cov­ered (a year or so after my hus­band, whoops).  One ques­tion I haven’t really been able to answer is who do they sound like?  That may be one of my favorite things about them.  They don’t really sound like any­one.  They sound like them­selves.  On their Wikipedia page, there are a few bands listed as influ­ences, but none of them are bands I have lis­tened to with any reg­u­lar­ity.  Some I haven’t even heard of.

If you’re look­ing for a new group to fol­low, I would def­i­nitely sug­gest the Sil­ver­sun Pick­ups.  I’m not sure what it is about them.  There’s just some­thing about their music that keeps me lis­ten­ing over and over again.  I hope that they don’t wait three years before releas­ing another full length cd.