So it happened.  I’m no longer the mom of a baby.  My youngest is now three: not a baby, not even a toddler… a real big boy. 

It's not like it happened overnight, but man, the last three years sure have flown by. I clearly remember the day he was born: we drove leisurely to the hospital for a non-stress test… and left two days afterward with a baby.  Now, three very short years later, we find ourselves putting our bed back up on its frame and clearing out the baby toys, to make room for the new big boy toys. 

Sigh.

That’s both a sigh of relief… for the years of night waking and diapers being over; and, a sigh of wistfulness… for the time when he was tiny enough to hold in the crook of my arm.

My big boy: He’ll talk your ear off.  He loves building and singing. He’s always been a super cuddle hog. And he still thinks his big sister is the best thing on the planet.In the blink of an eye, twelve seasons have passed, and my little baby is a big kid.  Parents: hug your babies.  Time goes by so fast. 

I've given birth twice.  There are moments of both of my births that feel somewhat unsettled and disempowered, moments that feel triumphant and strong, and moments that are simply amazing.  While I feel mostly at peace with my birth stories, something in me wants to share what I did differently from one birth to the next, or what I could do differently, if I could do it again (note: two children is just the perfect amount for Adam & I!) Maybe it’s the birth activist in me.  Or, the natural-minded mama.  Or maybe it’s simply that hindsight is 20/20. I just wish that every woman could feel successful and glorious and proud no matter how she gives birth.  I’m hoping that by sharing some of the things I’ve learned, I might help another woman reach that place of peace with her birth.

So, with no further ado… the things I’d do (or in the case of my 2^nd birth, did) differently:

#1 – Study up on & practice birth positioning. 

I think one of the most important factors in an easier labor is having optimal fetal positioning.  That is, having a baby who is heads-down, facing mom’s back, with his back lying along one side of the front of mom’s tummy – in other words, Left Occiput Anterior.  Why is fetal positioning so important? A baby who is occiput anterior will have his chin tucked to his chest, and be able to present the smallest part of his head to the cervix.  What this means is that a baby in the right position will likely be born more quickly and more easily – less pain for mom, and less stress for baby.  A baby not in the correct position (malpositioned) won’t put as much pressure on the cervix, so labor may not start naturally.  Malpositioning may cause labor to be more painful, and baby may have a difficult time exiting, because their head isn’t presenting in a fully flexed position.

Case in point:  My first baby was Occiput Posterior after being frank breech for the vast majority of my pregnancy.  She turned in the week before she was born.  My labor was long, extremely painful, and ended in a c-section for failure of decent – due to malposition (posterior brow presentation). I understand now this is a very rare position.  Online I found an interesting case study in which the baby was previously breech, turned via ECV (external cephalic version – which was attempted with my daughter, unsuccessfully), the mom went into spontaneous labor, the baby descended in a forehead presentation, and was delivered using a vacuum & repositioning. I found this study interesting because it was done in Australia in 1998, and even then the author mentioned that the decision to rotate baby & deliver via suction (as opposed to c-section) was a tricky one, not easily reached.  In my case, I’d gotten to 10cm (or nearly so – my midwife indicated that I had an anterior lip) pushed for hours in many different positions, and my midwife had attempted to reposition my daughter, but she was “stuck”. A c-section was decided on after much deliberation – part of which included my doctor not being comfortable with suctioning due to my daughter’s forehead presentation, and the other part being that my water had broken 31 hours previously, and I had developed a fever.   

I want to clarify that I do believe, after much research, in spite of the best efforts given by myself, my midwife, the nurses, my husband, and my doctor, the c-section was warranted.  Unfortunately, I still feel a lingering sense of disappointment and “what-if-itis”:  what if I’d been able to hang on just a bit longer and try a few more positions again (we’d tried hands & knees, standing, birthing stool, lying back with stirrups, half-sitting with a birthing bar, kneeling & leaning forward on my elbows on the drop-end bed… you know, everything), what if I’d waited a little bit longer before getting an epidural (I got one somewhere around 20hrs after my water had broken – my detail memory is spotty throughout my birth story with my first – because it was so long, because I was in so much pain, because my midwife didn’t do many internal checks, and because I don’t have my medical records in front of me), what if I’d stayed home a bit longer (I headed in when my contractions were about 5 minutes apart for an hour – the hospital was 45 minutes away), what if we’d hired a doula who could have helped me understand that staying home a bit longer was okay, or who could have helped me hold out a bit more before getting an epidural, what if baby had been correctly positioned in the first place… the latter the cause for my listing optimal fetal positioning as my #1 do-over.

There are many ways to affect fetal positioning before labor starts – walking regularly, practicing prenatal yoga (which I did the 2^nd time around), chiropractic visits, doing inversions, sitting on an exercise ball, sitting forward instead of lying back in the couch with feet up,  doing regular pelvic tilts.

Some awesome resources, which I found during my second pregnancy, after learning about the importance of baby’s position in-utero:

http://www.homebirth.org.uk/ofp.htm

http://www.spinningbabies.com/

Take your baby’s position seriously.  It really can mean the difference between an easier or a more difficult labor and birth.

(on my birthing ball during my labor with my daughter – still smiling)

#2 – Hire a doula. 

With my second pregnancy, nearly the first thing I did after realizing I was pregnant was hire a doula. The first time around, I didn’t really understand what a doula did, why they were so important – so CRITICAL – to birth – particularly when you have no previous birth experience yourself, and you’ve chosen a hospital birth.   I remember wondering why a doula was necessary if you had a supportive partner.  Wouldn’t your partner feel left out?  What exactly would a doula DO if you already had a husband there?

I now know differently.  Firstly, a doula is familiar with birth – with the stages, the process, the pain and how to cope.  She’s familiar with hospital staff and policy (and which “rules” can be bent or broken). She’s there to help navigate the turbulent and unfamiliar waters of anxious soon-to-be parents, impatient doctors, pushy nurses, and crowding friends & family members.  She can help a mom dedicated to a natural birth plan remember, in the midst of the worst pain of her life, why she wanted to go natural in the first place.  She helps a dad know how best to help.  She’s able to help the laboring mom clarify and state her needs and desires to staff.  She can help a new mom latch her baby on – and this is critical, especially in hospitals who don’t have full-time lactation consultants on staff.  Perhaps best of all, and what I missed the most by not having a doula the first time around, is the certainty with which an experienced doula can tell mom in the midst of a very long labor: “yes, this is normal”, and “yes, you CAN do it”.  Though my second birth ended with a necessary emergent cesarean (olighydramnios + breech + previous C) at 36 weeks, I was still grateful for my doula.  She helped me make clear my needs post-surgery, and helped me with nursing. She set the stage for making me feel empowered in my birth, even while the best laid plans for a natural VBAC were quickly and unexpectedly unraveled. Hire a doula – you won’t regret the money spent.

(me and my doula - before my son's birth)

#3 – Put EVERYTHING in your birth plan. 

Not just the good stuff, but the not-so-good stuff too.  From early labor right through to the days after baby is born.  While creating my first birth plan, I barely scratched the surface of things I didn’t think would ever happen (i.e. an IV, constant fetal monitoring, pitocin, nubane, epidurals, and a c-section).  Naively, I really didn’t imagine anything would go any way other than as planned. While that type of thinking may have set my mind for success, by doing so, I unfortunately missed out on educating and preparing myself for the “what ifs”.  I didn’t fully research the process of c-sections because I assumed I’d never need one.  I didn’t look into alternatives to pitocin, nor the side effects of it, because I assumed labor would move along just fine.  Yes, I’d read about the “cascade of interventions” and how consenting to meds could lead down a path more likely to culminate in a c-section.  Yet, in my head, I wasn’t going to have a cesarean section, and I wasn’t going to need any interventions, so I needn’t put any further thought into it.  Why plan for a disaster when it’s not even on your horizon, right? Except… when I hadn’t slept for 24 hours, and hadn’t made any progress… in spite of my “birth planned” walking, standing, bouncing on a ball, showering, breathing, visualization, all without continual monitoring… and when the pain in my back from my daughter’s posterior position became unbearable… only then, I realized I really had no game plan.   I hadn’t thought of the what ifs.  Because they weren’t going to happen.  Yet… there they were.

To put it simply: being informed of the side effects of pain meds when you’re nearly out of your mind with pain and anxiety and tiredness isn’t really being informed. It’s certainly not the optimal time in which to be making decisions. And being completely immobilized on the operating table doesn’t lend itself well to making your desires and needs known for post-surgery care for yourself and your new baby.

So make your plans – all of them – ideal birth AND less than ideal – beforehand.  Put them in writing, and share them with your support people.

(getting sewn up, with my son on my chest)

#4 – Be ready with lactation support. 

I was lucky the first time around. The hospital where I gave birth was working on “baby-friendly” designation at the time, so, there was a lactation consultant on staff at all times.  Rooming in was strongly encouraged – they didn’t even have a nursery set up for non-urgent care infants.  There were no free formula samples, no bottles or pacifiers given, and all the neonatal nurses were educated and supportive about breastfeeding. But personally, I had only read a few things online and in books about breastfeeding.  I knew my mother and mother-in-law had breastfed, and I planned to do so myself.  But that was the extent of my preparation for breastfeeding. Again, like with the c-section, I never imagined that things could or would go other than “as planned” – so I didn’t have any alternate plans. Had I not had the amazing support of the staff lactation consultant, I’m not sure I’d have been able to make it through delayed milk coming in, an extremely jaundiced baby (due to ABO incompatibility) in the hospital for a week, and the complexities and frustrations of using an SNS and pump.  At the time, I didn’t know anyone in La Leche League – in fact, I’m not sure I’d even heard of LLL.  I didn’t have any friends in real life who had breastfed.  So, really, in the case of successful breastfeeding, I was just plain lucky.  The second time around, I was prepared with a doula, my LLL contact, a lactation consultant, and friends in my phone.  Not to mention the experience of successfully breastfeeding my first.  Don’t leave your breastfeeding relationship to luck.  Be prepared.  

(my milking machine & SNS - my constant companions in the hospital after my daughter's birth)

What I’ve learned through two pregnancies and births is that you can’t control everything.  There’s always an element of the unknown; the unknowable.  Yet the more information you have, the stronger you will be.  The more able you’ll be to make real informed choices; to feel empowered; to have a plan and make your plan known.  There’s a sense of calm that comes from preparation, and with that you’ll be better able to craft your birth in a way that is more altogether more comfortable, safe, and satisfying in the end. Here’s to better birthing!

I’m a crunchy mom. Really, I am.  Wanna hear my credentials? Well, there’s the prenatal stuff: I did prenatal yoga, had a doula, and a midwife.  There’s the parenting stuff: I breastfed (even tandem nursed), coslept (didn’t even set up the crib with our second baby), and  babywore.  Our kids attend Montessori school, we practice gentle discipline, and we selectively vaccinate. There’s the green stuff: we recycle, use natural cleaning products, we're vegetarian, and nearly all the food in our house is organic.  Have you ever heard the song, “Hippies Lament” by Wally Pleasant?  There I am (ha, ha)!

The thing is, I have a confession to make. It’s something that separates me from crunchy mamas everywhere.  Are you ready? I didn’t cloth diaper my kids. Nope. In fact, with my first child, we used straight up Pampers Premium (I’m ducking as green and crunchy things are being thrown at the screen). I suppose I have excuses: I grew up helping my mom cloth diaper my sisters and remembered the folding, the pinning (the poking my fingers), the stinky diaper pails.  Cloth diapering seemed old-fashioned, and quite literally a pain. Plus, I run a business with my husband – so never was a full-time stay-at-home mom (I’ve done a combo of WorkAtHome/BringBabytoWork/WorkWithaNanny).  When I did a little research into cloth, it seemed like such a large up-front investment. And frankly, I’m horrible at laundry. It just didn’t seem like cloth diapering would work for me.

But, really? These are just excuses, not justifications. 

Because the thing is, all excuses aside, I should have cloth diapered.  I should’ve done my research. I should have realized that the growing pains associated with starting cloth, were likely to have been short-lived. I believe now that had we stuck it out and found a set of diapers that worked (we did try – very briefly – cloth diapering with a few Fuzzi Bunz on loan from a friend, and a bunch of gDiapers, which I later returned), we would have ended up saving some money in the long run (we used mostly Pampers premium & 7^th Generation with our first child and solely 7^th Generation disposables with our second child – in other words: expensive) particularly with reselling the used ones, we would potentially have avoided the seemingly endless succession of diaper rashes our daughter had (did you know that Pampers Premium diapers contain the additives: Petrolatum, Stearyl Alcohol, and Aloe Barbadensis Extract?), and maybe most importantly, though certainly most assuredly, by cloth diapering, we would have kept pounds and pounds of stinky non-biodegradable waste material out of landfills and out of the ground water. Waste materials, mind you, that will be there for hundreds of years.  Soiled diapers that will still be decomposing long after we and our conveniently-diapered children are no longer earthside. 

To put it plainly, the clean air council indicates (I’ve decided to cut & paste the exact text because the numbers are so startling that they need repeating): An average child will use between 8,000 -10,000 disposable diapers ($2,000 worth) before being potty trained. Each year, parents and babysitters dispose of about 18 billion of these items. In the United States alone these single-use items consume nearly 100,000 tons of plastic and 800,000 tons of tree pulp. We will pay an average of $350 million annually to deal with their disposal and, to top it off, these diapers will still be in the landfill 300 years from now. Americans throw away 570 diapers per second. That's 49 million diapers per day. [source: http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html]

Back to my words: 49 million diapers a day.  That’s disgusting. And it’s not fair to our children, nor to our children’s children’s children.

Why am I telling you this?  To assuage my guilt?  Maybe that’s a little of it.  But mostly, I think I’m confessing to let moms - crunchy or not - who might be leaning towards disposable diapering, know that while the potential “convenience” of disposable diapers is tempting, it just doesn’t compare to the inconvenience to our environment. The amount of trash you’ll leave behind (that I left behind) for those years of convenience just. isn’t. worth it.  Everything I’ve read and understood and seen firsthand from friends who made the environmentally-friendly choice, is that choosing to cloth diaper your babies is nearly as convenient as disposables (especially with the advent of AIO cloth diapers), less expensive than disposables, leaves far less of a carbon footprint (especially if you line dry), is eons “greener” than disposable diapering, and, means you don’t have to end up writing a crunchy confession post like me.

So do/did you cloth diaper? Or do/did you use disposables like me?  Confess... it just feels better.  :)

I’ve been lactating now for nearly 6 years.  Six years of being able to nourish and nurture my children with my own breast milk.  I feel lucky. 

Because although the U.S. government indicates that “Breastfeeding is Ideal for Infants”, according to the CDC’s Breastfeeding Report Card from 2006, only 73.9% of US babies have ever been breastfed.  Only 43.3% of U.S. babies were still breastfeeding at 6 months, and a mere 22.7% were still breastfeeding at 12 months. 

The exclusively breastfeeding numbers are even lower (and much more startling, considering the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation for exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life – meaning, baby needs no additional foods or fluids other than breastmilk) at 33.1% exclusively breastfeeding at 3 months and only 13.6% exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months.

So, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, and the World Health Organization recommends breastmilk ONLY for the first 6 months of life, only one seventh of the babies in this country are doing so. When you look at the individual states, the numbers are even more shocking.  In Mississippi for example, of babies born in 2006, only 4.6% were still exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months. Only 4.6%.  A tiny fraction of infants. In spite of the recommendations.  In spite of the fact that human milk is species-specific (meaning, our human milk is tailor made for human babies, whereas cow milk is tailor made for calves), in spite of research that indicates human milk feeding decreases infectious diseases such as bacterial meningitis, respiratory tract infections, UTIs, ear infections; in spite of studies indicating reduced rates of SIDS, insulin dependent type 1 and non-insulin dependent type 2 dibetes, cancer, obesity, and asthma (both in older children and adults who were breastfed compared with individuals who were not breastfed); in spite of the association with enhanced performance on tests of cognitive development in individuals who were breastfed; in spite of maternal health benefits – like decreased post-partum bleeding and decreased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. (Source: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;115/2/496)

What’s wrong?  Why aren’t more women breastfeeding their children?  And why are so many supplementing with formula so early on, or quitting altogether?  I believe it’s a combination of factors. Perhaps foremost is the lack of understanding and support from the general population with regards to normal infant feeding and sleeping habits.  How many articles have you read which indicate women should breastfeed only under cover or in private, should have their infants sleep separately, should feed them on a specific schedule, should give them pacifiers instead of the breast for comfort?  How may advertisements in parenting magazines are there for formulas? How many free samples of formula are sent home with new mothers, instead of easy, free, consistent, and friendly access to breastfeeding counselors and lactation consultants (both in the hospital and at home)?  Far too many.

In combination with the lack of public support for breastfeeding is the general feeling towards the act of breastfeeding.  I believe that while many people may feel “breast is best”, in reality, breast is just normal.  Breastfeeding shouldn’t be seen as an ideal (which makes it difficult to reach for some), rather as a normalcy.  Unfortunately, breastfeeding is often seen as shameful.  When new mothers feel they have to put their breast milk into a bottle, or to nurse under a tent in order to feed in public, the act of breastfeeding, and with it the breastfeeding mother herself, is marginalized; not normalized, not supported.  How can a new mother stand up to that? 

When formula companies suggest feeding formula offers “healthy growth patterns similar to breastfed babies” (Infamil) or their formula contains “unique blend of prebiotics, nucleotides and antioxidants nutrients naturally found in breast milk” (Similac) and offer “$250 worth of free gifts” (again, Infamil), breastfeeding is further marginalized, and formula feeding becomes more accessible and more normalized.  When formula feeding is presented as just another way of feeding infants instead of something to be offered only when medically indicated by a physician (as per the AAP policy on breastfeeding), when its presented as easy, healthy, and free; when real breastfeeding support is lacking, what else can a mother do but formula feed?

So why aren’t more women breastfeeding their children?  Because society and big business says formula feeding is easy, bottle feeding is normal and acceptable anywhere & everywhere, and breastfeeding is difficult and something to be hidden or kept private. 

So, here I am, breastfeeding for nearly six years. But I understand that this is primarily because I was lucky enough to have had support from day one in the hospital – a hospital which was working on “baby friendly designation” which meant all of its lactation consultants and nurses and doctors were familiar with and fully supportive of making the breastfeeding relationship work. Lucky enough to have had no bottles or pacifiers offered to my newborn, even while in the nursery.  Lucky enough to have my baby room in with me when possible, and brought to me each & every time she awoke to nurse (when she was in a special care nursery due to ABO incompatibility jaundice).  I was lucky enough that when I had to supplement with formula, the formula was given to me with an SNS (supplemental nursing system) so that I could keep baby suckling at the breast.  I was lucky enough to be given a free pump and consistent instructions and encouragement to bring my milk in and get my baby off of formula and back on to breast milk.  I was lucky enough to have support at home from my husband, parents, and phone support from the hospital’s lactation consultant.  I was lucky enough to have had support from other mothers in La Leche League.

Yet, it shouldn’t be luck for women to have support in breastfeeding. It should be normal. We need to work towards normalization of breastfeeding in this society so that more than 22.7% of the population of new babies can get the benefits of breastfeeding to (at least) one year, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

Please tell me your stories of support.  How you were able to be successful in breastfeeding.  Or, if you weren’t successful with breastfeeding, please share what circumstances led you to formula feed.  Thank you so much for listening & sharing.  I believe we can all learn from each others’ experiences in order to better support all women and babies.

I remember the first day we came home from the hospital, a week after the birth of our first child.  We walked through the front door, so happy to finally be home! We nearly skipped our way down the hallway, right to our daughter’s newly and beautifully painted & decorated room. Daddy unstrapped the sleeping bundle from her carseat (Stop, read that again. Yes, we moved a peacefully sleeping baby?!) and proudly laid our new baby girl in her new crib. We stood back and smiled our biggest new parent (read: completely clueless nincompoop) smiles down at her. 

We took a few photographs that first day home, right as we laid her in her crib. What a big bed for a little baby, we thought. Oh, doesn’t she look precious?  And then…  the arms started shooting out, the legs started kicking, the eyes cracked open, her face started twisting up, and then… the wail.

What!? We looked at each other; concern & confusion reflected on our faces. What was wrong?

Surely she could feel & appreciate all the obvious effort that went into planning for her arrival, and drift happily off to sleep in her princess’ palace (oh yes, the wallpaper we picked out did say princess), while we proudly watched from above?  I mean, babies sleep a lot. In their cribs.  Right?

Now it wasn’t that we hadn’t experienced her crying in the last week.  We had.  In fact, we’d been told by the nurse that our baby seemed to cry A LOT (See: Colic… another post, another time). But, we’d assumed she cried so much in the hospital because she was in THE HOSPITAL, with bilirubin lights, isolettes, nurses & doctors poking and testing, SNS & formula & breast pump ministrations at every turn.  Heck, I felt like crying myself.  But once she was HOME, well… how can she not be happy in her own bed? A baby’s bed: extra-firm mattress, completely & plastic-encased dust-mite protective covered, no extra padding (per the instructions to avoid SIDS, of course), no blankets (also to avoid the dreaded SIDS), enclosed with bars.  Wasn’t that doing it for her? Come on now, we followed the baby proofing bedding steps to the letter! Okay, maybe the crib mattress wasn’t that comfortable (I’d never want to sleep on it, personally), but, the MOBILE? Surely that would help. It was black, white, and bold primary colors – just what we’d read babies like! We turned it on, and waited, hopeful.  Nope. She squirmed, and wailed, and was, well, obviously extremely displeased with being placed where we’d placed her.  I picked her up. On to plan B.

Now, to be honest, our plan A wasn’t just baby sleeping in a crib in a separate room.  We DID have Arms-Reach co-sleeper too, because, from my research while pregnant, I determined that I wanted my baby to be close at hand for nursing at night.  And, in general, I felt like I liked the idea of co-sleeping (small letters), though not necessarily CO-SLEEPING (you know, the kind of thing that hippies do, where you give up all your personal space to your kid, and where you’re irresponsibly endangering them by obliviously rolling over on them in your sleep - hey, I've come far since then).

In reality, once we started co-sleeping, I wanted the easy access; I found it extremely difficult to sleep when I couldn’t hear her/see her breathe whenever I opened my eyes, yet the converse of that reality was the equally present and looming SIDS worry in every magazine & pamphlet I’d read, (further encouraged by the constant urging and requesting of my mother to put baby back in the bassinette, on her BACK after I finished nursing her, and clucks of disapproval as I created a space next to me on the hospital bed for her to sleep with me), that kept me from fully launching into CO-SLEEPING (big letters).

Anyhow, after about three weeks of night after night of struggling out of bed (I had a c-section) every 3 hours (to the alarm because my daughter had severe jaundice at birth due to AB/O incompatibility, so I was instructed to wake her every 3 hrs to nurse once home [for the first 8 weeks], so we wouldn’t have to return to the hospital again), picking baby up out of the co-sleeper, walking to her room, changing her diaper, sitting in the rocking chair in a sleep-deprived stupor to nurse, burping her, switching sides, changing her diaper again, rocking her till she was asleep, trying to lay her down, having her wake up, rocking her, nursing, changing diaper again, trying to lay her down again, I sat bewildered and frustrated and just plain tired in the rocking chair sometime in the middle of the night. You know that time of night when even the crickets don’t make noise anymore. This is the new mother hour. Man, it was lonely and quiet and dark and all I wanted was to be asleep like the little baby in my arms. But, awake I was, sitting straight up in a chair (because, you know, that’s how I’d been taught to breastfeed, and if I tried to move to put baby in her crib or co-sleeper, she’d wake, so I just sat & tried to fall asleep that way, only, didn’t want to fall deeply asleep in the event that I might fall out of the chair). So there I was, reading & re-reading Dr. Sears Baby Book, trying to think of why this nighttime stuff was just. So. Hard. When suddenly, bleary-eyed, I stumbled on a page about the side-lying nursing position. To this day, I owe Martha Sears a debt of gratitude.  After processing the drawing a few times, I felt a ray of hope.  Maybe I could sleep, if I tried this CO-SLEEPING? I shed my boppy and three other positioning pillows & blankets and brought baby (and the book, for reference) into bed, re-latched her on while LYING DOWN and… she fell asleep. (Asleep! Thank you universe my baby is asleep IN A BED.) And here I was, actually LYING DOWN. And would you believe folks, I fell asleep. And when I awoke, I realized that I hadn’t rolled over on my baby. No, in fact, she was still peacefully sleeping beside me.

The very next thing we did was buy a king size bed.

So there we were, a CO-SLEEPING family in a king bed with an unused crib, and unused arms reach co-sleeper (though I did realize quickly that it held diapers & wipes for middle-of-the night changes without getting out of bed, very handily! It also prevented the need for a bedrail.) finally getting some rest at night.

Of course, nap time was another story.

During the day, we couldn’t put my daughter down; because in the event that she did fall asleep in-arms, she’d immediately wake up as soon as she felt her position move towards horizontal. I tried leaning precariously over the edge of the crib (we got a non-drop side crib; again, I believe nincompoop fits the bill here), my feet off the floor, precariously see-sawing over the bar on my waist to ease baby onto the mattress (which I’d pre-warmed with towels fresh from the drier, per Dr. Sears suggestion), to no avail.  The moment she touched down, her eyelids would flutter open & she’d immediately begin protesting. What’s a mom to do? 

Well, I wore her much of the time - once I found the Snugli.  (Yes, unfortunate as it may sound to crunchy parents everywhere, the Snugli is what I had because the only place remotely close to us was a Walmart, and the only thing they had remotely like a baby carrying device was a Snugli. So, the Snugli it was.)  And the Sungli DID work to help PUT her to sleep – so long as I was doing full deep knee bending squats while singing.  So, I was able to get some work done while she slept on me that way.  Unfortunately, I could only do standing work; since as soon as I’d stop moving (say, to sit down at my computer, can you imagine?), she’d wake.  Being that my job at home required computer time, this wasn’t the most convenient solution.  So, there ensued my adventure to get my daughter to lie down for a nap. I tried every way possible to ease her out of the front pack and into her crib, asleep. In fact, some days, I’d spend hours on the Sungli to Crib Transfer, only to have her wake up and start the whole process all over again.  I’d have fantasy scenarios as I was walking & bouncing her for hours, where I’d be able to nurse her to sleep by leaning over the bassinette, and then sneak away.  Or, somehow climb myself into the crib & do the same (and yes, I DID try that). Unfortunately, none of these ideas worked out so well.  Until one day, around four months, (yes, you read that correctly, I endured THREE MONTHS OF THIS) I laid down with her, completely exhausted in the middle of my bed, after myriad of failed nap “put downs” (as Adam & I referred to them), and nursed her to sleep. I had given up.  I couldn’t work at home with an infant.  I’d just lie in bed staring at the ceiling (I’ve never been able to nap well during the day) whenever she napped. Yet, somehow, between her drifting off to sleep, and myself trying to drift off, bravery (or commonsense) hit me, and I instead decided to roll away.  And… she stayed asleep.  I cleared the bed of any & all pillows & blankets, turned on the baby monitor, and - blessed be - she stayed asleep.  I think I checked on her every 5 minutes that first time, but every day, and every night, for the next three years, my daughter slept in our bed full-time.  And I was able to work successfully at my desk while she slept. And man, did life with a new baby get easier.

Every milestone brought new co-sleeping challenges.  We went through plan A, B, C, D, and on through Z over the years.  For example, as she began to roll, we put our mattress down on the floor; box springs stored away, and completely baby-proofed the room.  Once she was crawling, we taught her how to back off the end of the bed, feet first.  Once she was walking, we’d leave the gate up in the doorway.

After her brother was born, we all shared the king bed (we never even set up the crib for my son), which presented its own set of unique challenges (like, keeping two-year-old asleep when newborn noisily wakes and starts to root).  But in spite of the challenges, and occasional sleepless nights, and bed reaarrangements, we kept on keeping on co-sleeping, because... it worked.  Until one day, just after turning three, my daughter, the very same one who would never be put down, asked to start off the night in “her” bed (which was a full size mattress on the floor. From that point on, she'd start off in her room, then would join us sometime in the middle of the night.  Once my son was around 18 months, we added a twin size mattress along side of her full size mattress, and the two of them have co-slept for the last year and a half.

So...what’s the moral of my story? Well, my bed sharing babies were far happier, far more rested babies than when not bed sharing.  My co-sleeping self was far more relaxed once I brought baby to bed than when I was getting up every three hours to nurse in a rocking chair (and then trying unsuccessfully to replace baby in her crib), or, when she was (in the very rare occurance) asleep in another room, and I’d still be waking every half hour to check on her. And though we had to work through some less than restful nights of elbows in the rib cage and feet in the small of our backs, my co-sleeping husband and I loved the morning time waking up with the kiddos. And, my co-sleeping children are well-rested, happy, and so close to each other, and to us.  I'm not sure I can attribute all of this to co-sleeping, but I CAN say that sharing sleep with our children as babies and young toddlers had far more benefits than drawbacks. I wouldn’t change the experience, even for a better nights’ sleep, and only wish I’d have figured it out sooner – doing so certainly would have made those first few weeks with my first newborn much easier!

If you’re thinking about co-sleeping, I encourage you to do some research!  Find out why sleep sharing is so good for babies and moms.  For information on co-sleeping, bed sharing, and the family bed, and how to share sleep with your baby safely, visit these fabulous sites:

PhD In Parenting: Co-Sleeping Safely

Dr Sears: Sleeping Safely With Your Baby

KellyMom.com: The Family Bed

Dr. Jay Gordon: Safe Cosleeping

And, please tell me your co-sleeping stories!

One of my resolutions this year is to more effectively & consistently use peaceful, positive discipline with my children.  I strive to connect with them, and teach (the right message) with every interaction; even if that interaction is one of a corrective/disciplinary nature.  Teaching children a certain behavior is undesirable doesn’t have to include anger, punishment, shame, or isolation. And it should include empathy, kindness, and natural consequences. I don’t achieve perfection every time, and do make mistakes. But I strive to learn from my parenting mistakes, to forgive myself for those I make, and move on with better tools in my toolbox (and leave the ones that don’t work in the garbage).

Positive discipline is so important to fostering not just good behavior in children, but more importantly, in developing a fully functional internal guidance system. What distresses me, is that for the overwhelming attitude of adults, “well behaved” is the penultimate goal for children. And because of this belief, any and every method should be used to achieve this in your children.  Punitive or not. Logical or not. I believe it’s a misguided objective, and leads ultimately to frustration. Unfortunately, it begins in babyhood with most - with the unreasonable expectation of producing a “good” baby: one who doesn’t fuss, and who sleeps through the night – and continues on through childhood with the “good” child who doesn’t talk back or tantrum or rebel. It’s as though people have forgotten that when babies cry, and children test limits, they do so from a natural, normal place of need: needing to be held, needing attention, needing to be gently guided. They are asking to be taught, not punished. They don’t come into this world knowing anything. And so, every interaction we have with them teaches them something.  Don’t we want to make sure that what we’re teaching is what we actually want them to learn? 

I fear that in an effort to make children more convenient, parents are resorting punishments and techniques aimed at quieting instead of actually parenting, and teaching: getting to the root of what the baby is trying to say or what the child is trying to learn or express.  Take “cry it out” for example, used rampantly by parents as a means of “teaching” babies to sleep.  While it may work in the short term – and achieve (at least temporarily) the goal of the quiet sleeping baby, it hasn’t actually taught the baby the intended lesson. Baby didn’t learn that sleep is a peaceful state, or to willingly go to bed.  Instead, baby has learned that no one comes when they cry, so stop crying.  That nighttime is a time of loneliness and discomfort.  What this translates to in the long term is a sense of defeatism, lowered self worth, and detachment from parents.  It may achieve a quiet “good” baby, but at what cost?

The same goes for the typical punishments of childhood: spanking, parent-determined consequences, and coerced/enforced/isolation timeouts. Don’t hit, or I’ll spank you.  Don’t talk back or I’ll put you in a time out & I’ll tell you when to get out.  Certainly, the hypocrisy of hitting as a punishment for hitting is obvious. But what about the less obvious parent-determined punishments like timeouts?  I say that punitive discipline (as opposed to natural/logical consequences) only serve to teach children this: Don’t do what parents don’t want you to do; with one big caveat: while they’re watching.  You see, unless you teach children WHY hitting isn’t an acceptable form of expressing frustration – and unless you give them alternative methods of expression, they WILL continue to hit, they’ll just do it when mom isn’t looking.  Kids may appear to behave, but unless they have an understanding of why, and how, the “good behavior” is in appearance only.  Wouldn’t you rather a child have the ability to self-control, instead of behaving only due to external control? A kid who can understand that we don’t hit because it hurts another person, and hurting another person feels awful to me, and to them, and instead I should walk away before I hit, or use my words to express my frustration, is SO MUCH better prepared for life than the child who doesn’t hit because Mom is in the room & doesn’t want to get in trouble. 

To this effort, I strive for more thoughtfulness, and less reactivity in my responses to my childrens’ unwanted behaviors. I keep a keen eye on my own actions and responses, as children learn most from what they see & do than from what they hear.  I DO tolerate more that perhaps is typically expected, because I don’t think just “being good” is good enough for my kids, or for me as a parent.  I expect my children to learn from their behavior as I learn from mine. In my previous post, I mentioned the Positive Discipline parenting cards.  The one I chose for this week seems appropriate to this post:

If you're interested in positive discipline, and getting away from punishment, you may find these articles & sites helpful:

Positive Discipline Methods
What is Discipline?
How Children Really React to Control
The Case Against Time-Out

But I  -
I love it when you sing to me
And you -
You can sing me anything

~Peter Gabriel

And to my children, I have sung pretty much anything & everything to help them to sleep.  As a teen & 20-something, I sang in several choirs.  Many of those songs stayed with me; so naturally, when I became a lullaby-singing parent (to a colicky infant who required constant motion & song) my favorite English Madrigals, Sacred Songs, and Spirituals came right to mind. I admit, to not only not knowing (or bothering to learn) many “lullabies”, but to preferring interesting lyric & melody over repetitive humdrum (think Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star – ack!). As a result most of what I’ve sung as stand-ins are neither particularly light nor baby-related.  Not that rock-a-bye baby is light of lyric. Baby falling from a tree – sheesh.

Yet, certain songs I love to sing, and as a bonus, over the years I’ve found really work well to help baby (or toddler, or child) sleep. (Babies don’t care one lick what the words are; just keep singing.  And toddlers think my Latin is hilarious).

I’ll share with you some of my most beloved bedtime songs (random choirs on you tube just so you can get the tune – I do not vouch for the quality!):

Ride The Chariot (my son’s favorite)

I'm gonna ride the chariot
In the morning Lord
I'm gonna ride

Ride the chariot
In the morning Lord

I’m getting ready for the judgment day

My Lord, My Lord

Are you ready my brother/sister?

Oh yes

Are you ready for the journey

Oh yes

Do you want to see your Jesus

Oh yes, I’m waiting for the chariot ‘cause I’m ready to go

I never will forget that day
When all my sins were taken away
My feet were snatched from the miry clay

Blow The Candles Out  (my daughter’s favorite)

When I was ‘prenticed in Plymouth

I went to see my dear

The candles they were a-burning, the moon shone bright and clear

I knocked upon her window to ease her of her pain

She rose to let me in, then she barred the door again.

I like your good behavior darling, thus I often say

That I cannot rest contented while you are far away.

The winds they are so cold, that we cannot stay there out

So roll me in your arms, love, and blow the candles out.

Now Father & Mother in yonder room do lie

A-hugging one another, so why not you & I

A-hugging one another without a fear or doubt

So roll me in your arms, love, and blow the candles out.

Psallite! 

Psallite unigenito
Christo, Dei Filio,
Psallite Redemptori,
Domino, puerulo
jacenti in praesepio.
Ein kleines Kindelein liegt in dem Krippelein.
Alle lieben Engelein dienen dem Kindelein
und singen ihm fein.
Psallite unigenito...

(English Translation: Sing Your Psalms!

Sing your psalms to Christ,
the begotten Son of God,
sing your psalms to the Redeemer,
to the Lord, the little Child
lying in a manger bed.
A small Child lies in the manger.
All the blessed angels fall before Him
and sing.
Sing...)

The Silver Swan

The silver swan who living had no note
When death approached unlocked her silent throat
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore
Thus sung her first and last and sung no more:
Farewell all joys oh death come close my eyes
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise

If Ye Love Me

If ye love me,
keep my commandments,
and I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may abide with you forever,
e'en the spirit of truth.

Please share with me YOUR favorite bedtime songs!

Last night, my 2 yo had his first night terror. My 5 yo has not had them.  She’s awoken scared, had nightmares before, but last night was something different.  My son came running down the hall, screaming.  Blood curdling scream, like the kind that rips you out of a deep sleep in a sense of complete panic. I didn’t know where I was, where he was, I just knew he was terrified and I needed to save him – NOW. He was silhouetted in my bedroom doorway – the hallway nightlight illuminated behind him – he was rigid in fear – looking behind him and I ran to him & picked him up.  He was so terrified, gripped my neck in a panic & didn’t even cry for a couple of minutes – I believe he was still sleeping.  I just held him & let him know it was okay.  In a few minutes, I could tell he’d fully awoken and I helped him back to bed.  I told him he’d had a scary dream.  I asked him if he remembered it. He said yes.  I asked what it was about & he said: “Something was coming.  Something scary.”  My heart ached for him. I laid next to him while he settled back into sleep – and thankfully he slept peacefully the remainder of the night.

I have had night terrors my whole life.  My father had night terrors. I’d always assumed my children would.  Yet, when my daughter had not, I thought: hey, maybe we lucked out!  Maybe this peaceful, attachment parenting thing really works!  You’d think I’d have been ready for this.  Yet, when it happened last night, I didn’t feel ready.  I empathized with his terror, yet I felt so helpless.  I don’t want my children to have night terrors yet I can do nothing to stop it. Its not a good feeling to have.

I’ve posted on message boards & on twitter, sympathizing with & trying to reassure mothers who have experienced night terrors in their children; thinking somehow that my own personal experience would offer some help to them.  However, I’m not sure, now, having experienced one with my son, that anything really helps you get comfortable with being awoken by the panicked scream of your child. Experiencing it makes you want to know why & what. All those things that I’ve just gotten used to in myself, and dismissed as just part of my life, now I want to FIX for my baby. Yet, I know this isn’t something to be fixed.  It just is what it is. Its not damaging, and its not indicative of anything other a hereditary propensity towards an overactive mind in sleep. There’s some comfort in that.

Over the years, I’ve done some research into night terrors.  I’ve wanted to know why I have them, or at least know if other people have had them & what they are like for others. 

Unfortunately, the “why’s” of what really causes night terrors are still mostly unknown. Here’s what I do know about night terrors:

They are most common in young children, and usually go away on their own with time (typically by age 12, though many adults have them as well).

There is a hereditary component:  Parents who have/had night terrors often have children who experience night terrors.

They occur only in stage 4 (non-REM) sleep (which makes them different from nightmares which happen in any stage of sleep)

They don’t signify an underlying psychological problem.

Some people remember their night terrors after waking, some do not.

People having a night terror are typically not aware of what’s going on around them, and may not be able to be awakened.  They may appear awake, breathing quickly, high heart rate, but are still sleeping.

Many people see animals or people threatening them; but the things they see (spiders, etc.) are not the things they are typically afraid of during waking hours.

They tend to happen more often when a person is overtired or over stimulated.

Night terrors on their own are not harmful though they can occur with sleepwalking – so room should be safe from objects on which children could hurt themselves; top-of-stairs gates should be closed.

There is some evidence of a link to hypoglycemia.

Some tips from my own experience:

Comfort & hug the person having the night terror – speak & move gently.

Gently waking is okay, though never force a waking – its sometimes even more frightening to be woken during/after a night terror, because at least in my experience, it takes me time to reacclimatize to “reality” vs. dream state, I’m very agitated (heart rate can get up between 160 – 170 in studies done on night terrors) and I can’t fall back to sleep easily.

Sleeping with an air purifier (for white noise), and no nightlight helps me immensely because my stage 4 sleep is not interrupted by sudden noises or light (these are both triggers for me).

Unfamiliar places tend to trigger my night terrors (say, on vacation). Before sleep in these instances, I make sure to familiarize myself with the room. 

I try to eat something small before bed – some yogurt, a banana, etc.

I do hope that my son will outgrow night terrors – he’s only had one so far.  And maybe it will be the only one! In the meantime, I feel comfortable that they aren’t damaging, and from my experience, as annoying as they may be long-term, there are certainly worse things someone could live with.

A few sites about night terrors that may be helpful:

Night Terrors Resource Center

Dr. Sears – Night Terrors

Wikipedia: Night Terror/Pavor Nocturnus

National Institute of Health

“The secret is that you are already a completely whole, perfect person.” – from The Secret by Mavis Karn

In 2004, while in my 9^th month of pregnancy with my persistently frank breech daughter, I was in a chiropractor’s office, waiting to be seen.  I couldn’t believe I was there, but there I was. Up until that point, I’d tried everything under the sun to encourage my daughter to turn around: elephant walking on hands & feet, standing on my head, doing somersaults under water, putting cold peas on her “head”, playing music to & having Adam talk to her “butt”, shining a flashlight from the top of my belly down to the bottom, doing shoulder stands for entire lengths movies, visualizing optimal fetal position, moxibustion, praying, begging, hoping, and wishing she’d turn, even 2 failed external cephalic version attempts (don’t try this, ladies, trust me – its horrible). I’d done everything except seeing a chiropractor. In my 38 weeks, I was beyond the time that I was told she’d even have a chance of turning on her own, and with a heavy heart, I’d even consented to seeing an OB at my last midwife appointment, and scheduling a c-section. I felt defeated. We'd planned a natural birth.  We'd done everything right.  But things just weren't going as planned.  So, feeling I had nothing to lose, I decided to call this chiropractor.  I’d read something about the Webster Technique but, I’d never in my life been to a chiropractor. I didn’t really know what they did, and had this feeling that it wasn’t “real” medicine (just so you know where I was coming from 5 years ago), so I’d just been all around hesitant to see one.  Yet, I tried moxibustion – a smoldering herbal stick millimeters from my little toe while standing on a block – go figure.  Anyhow, the week before the section was scheduled, I looked online for a chiropractor in my area (which, at the time, was extremely rural) who also happened to be certified in the Webster technique, who would also accept a patient who was about to have a baby any day now, and lo & behold, I found one right away, and she told me to come right in. So there I sat, in a state of doubt, disbelief, and nervousness.  Couldn’t believe I was there, didn’t believe it would work, and worried about what she’d do to me. As I was obsessively mulling my thoughts, I looked up, and there was a yellow poster on the wall:  THE SECRET By MAVIS KARN it read. 

I read on:

…I have a secret to tell you.  Nobody meant to keep it from you… it’s just that it’s been one of those things that’s so obvious that people couldn’t see it… like looking all over for the key that you have in your hand….

Intriguing, right? Anyhow, I read the whole thing through, waiting there. And reread it. And as I read, I felt a lightening of my heart. That maybe everything really was going to turn out okay.  

I was called back to the exam room, and over the next hour (it seemed) the doctor talked to me, listened to me, educated me a bit about chiropractic, and eventually performed the Webster Technique.  She told me of other patients she’d had who experienced immediate turning of their babies, some whose babies turned soon afterwards, some who took a few visits, some who didn’t. When my visit was over, I thought to myself, at least I can now go into my C-section in three days knowing for certain that I’d done everything I could do.

And as I was leaving the office, the poster caught my eye again, and again I read:

… The secret is that you are already a completely whole, perfect person.  You are not damaged goods, you are not incomplete, you are not flawed, you are not unfinished…

I asked the receptionist if she knew where I could get a copy – which she didn’t, though she offered to send me a copy (which I remember not really believing she would). 

As I climbed back in my car & headed home, I remember feeling my daughter move around.  A lot. And if you know what it’s like in those last weeks, there’s not much moving going on anymore.  Movement that does occur is more contained, crowded, confined.  But let me tell you, she was MOVING on that trip. And moving all evening long.  And all night long. 

Two days later, the evening before my scheduled C-section, I went to my OB’s office for a final check of position.  Lo & behold, my daughter was HEADS DOWN.  She actually was so excited for me, she told me she’d put her knives back in the closet & go away & I can have my midwives back (yes, she did actually say this, ask Adam)!

My daughter ended up being born only 2 days shy of her “due date”, 31 laboring hours after my water broke.  I made it mostly naturally & then later medicated (and let me tell you oh doubters, it IS possible for an epidural NOT to work, and for the needle to cause MORE pain than a contraction) to 10 cm, and had pushed, and pushed…  But she was posterior for my entire labor (OW!) and was presenting her forehead to the world.  My midwife said she could feel her eyebrows with every push, but just couldn’t get a good hold of her. Vacuum was out of the question due to position, and forceps were not used in the hospital where I delivered. So she was delivered via C-section after all. The doctor actually got the vacuum out during the section because my daughter was so completely stuck in my pelvis (though in the end, it wasn’t used, thankfully).

The birth of my daughter was the most amazing, scary, and incredible experience of my life.  She was so perfect & just how I'd dreamt how she'd look.  But I’d say my transition from pregnancy to parenthood wasn't exactly a smooth ride. She was born with ABO incompatibility (basically, she was allergic to my blood; Dr's were stymied & no one seemed to know exactly what was happening).  My milk didn’t come in for several days, we were in the hospital for a week, and the C-section made just sitting up hard work. But with the help of a wonderful lactation nurse (she's definitely gaining points in her karma bank), I was able to work out a system to keep my daughter & her incubator in our room, wake her every 2 hrs (extremely jaundiced babies have a hard time waking & latching, and need around the clock light therapy in addition to timed waking to feed in order to move the bilirubin out of their systems so as to avoid a transfusion or other serious complications), nurse her with the help of an SNS filled with formula & whatever miniscule amounts of colostrum I could produce (liquid gold, I tell you.  Even 10 drops was worth celebrating.  I recall the joy I’d feel each day being able to put just a bit more of my milk in the SNS, and just a bit less of the formula in), put her back in to the isolette, hook myself up to the pump, and perhaps catch a couple moments of rest before the next waking.

Needless to say, were we ever so happy to be given the green light to go home at the end of that week!  But getting off of formula & the SNS over the next couple weeks, and getting on to nursing certainly wasn’t a party.  I spent HOURS in my rocking chair.  Literally hours. Reading & rereading Dr. Sears. And my dear baby was colicky as well. And wouldn’t lay down without waking (What is a crib used for, again?  I really don’t know, though at the time we thought that's where babies were supposed to sleep - silly parents!). So if I wasn’t marathon nursing, I was walking, and bouncing, and shushing, and singing, and doing every possible thing one could do to soothe a screaming baby.  It wasn’t pretty.  I don’t remember much very clearly in those early days.  Except that I didn’t sleep. At all. Until I figured out how to nurse side-lying, and cosleep.

One day I remember sitting in my chair, feeling more than a bit sorry for myself & how my life had changed so much & how hard it was being a new mom, and thinking I should go get the mail, but not willing to move, because, oh thank all that is good & holy, the baby was ASLEEP, and she did have ultra Mommy is moving radar. But this day I risked it, and there, in the mail… Well, that receptionist, she DID actually send me a copy of “The Secret”!  And that simple poster did SO MUCH GOOD for me in those early weeks of physically recovering from a C-section, emotionally recovering from not getting the natural birth I’d planned on, learning to breastfeed without an SNS (and without family or support - we lived hundreds of miles away from our families, and in the middle of the woods), and adjusting to life as a mother of this amazing little person, no longer just a woman & wife who can do whatever she wants whenever she wants, but a MOTHER (this deserves all caps) of someone who depends completely on me and doesn’t care one lick about my routines or desires (nor should she).  It was an amazing, difficult, and not always happy or smooth transition. But reading that poster always managed to bring me back to what was important in life: my beautiful daughter & my wonderful husband.  Brought me back to the realization that I had the ability to change my thinking; to feel good instead of bad, to appreciate all that was amazing about our new journey into parenthood instead of lamenting over what life used to be like or how I thought my birth could have gone. I realized that I was, and am, every moment, in control of choosing to feel positive & grateful over negative & unappreciative. I wish I knew Mavis so I could thank her.

I still have that photocopy hanging on my desk to this day. I’m writing it word for word here because I truly think it’s worth sharing (forgive any typos, please – they are entirely my fault).  Thanks for reading & hope you enjoy:

Dear Kids (and former kids),

I have a secret to tell you. Nobody meant to keep it from you... It’s just that it’s been one of those things that’s so obvious that people couldn’t see it... like looking all over for the key that you have in your hand.

The secret is that you are already a completely whole, perfect person. You are not damaged goods, you are not incomplete, you are not flawed, you are not unfinished, you do not need remodeling, fixing, polishing, or major rehabilitation. You already have everything you need to live a wonderful life. You have common sense, wisdom, genius, creativity, humor, self-esteem... you are pure potential... you are missing nothing.

The only thing that can keep you from enjoying all that you already are is a thought. One thought. Your thought. Not someone else’s thought. Your thought... Whatever you are thinking at the moment that feels more important to think than feeling grateful, alive, content, joyful, optimistic, loving, and at peace.... that’s the only think that’s between you and happiness.

And guess who’s in charge of your thinking... guess who gets to decide where your attention goes... guess who gets to write, produce, direct, and star in the moment you’re in the middle of ... you. Just you. Not your past (stored thoughts), not the future (did you notice that it never, ever, shows up?), not your parents (they all think their own thoughts), not your friends (ditto), or school or television, or situations or circumstances or anything else. Just you.

Thinking is an awesome capability. Like any capability it can be used either as a tool or as a weapon against ourselves and others. And just like with any other tool, we can tell whether we’re using it for or against ourselves by how it feels. When we think against ourselves or others, we get in trouble. When we don’t, we usually say out of trouble.

FEELINGS EXIST TO WARN US AWAY FROM USING OUR THINKING TO CREATE TROUBLE IN OUR LIVES AND TO GUIDE US BACK TO OUR NATURAL, HEALTHY ABILITY TO LIVE OUR LIVES TO THE FULLEST.

So,… please remember that your thoughts are not always telling you the truth. When we’re in low moods, feeling down, our thoughts are not to be trusted… Our IQ’s drop. When our thoughts pass we lighten up, our thinking is once again creative, positive… our IQ’s go up. The only way you can feel badly about yourself and your life is if you think badly about them… it’s up to you, every single minute you’re alive. It’s always up to you! This is the best, most liberating secret I ever learned, and I want you to know it too.

With Love,
Mavis

(1999, Mavis L. Karn) 

When talking about my childhood, I have always (somewhat proudly, I’ll admit) said my mother never let us eat junk food. Perhaps more truthfully, what I really mean is that we weren’t allowed to have Kool Aid or Froot Loops (to the detriment of many a juvenescent friendship: yes, in the 70’s/80’s that made me just, plain, weird.). And, instead of Fla-vor-ice, we had homemade orange juice Tupperware popsicles (more weird).  However, I clearly remember we had tins of Charles Chips delivered to our house on a regular schedule.  So, never say “never” to junk food, I guess. But my mom DID teach us to read food labels.  And as such, we learned that “artificial colors” and “artificial flavors” were to be avoided at all costs. “All natural” was the way to be.

Around age 15, I decided, rather abruptly, at a family picnic in fact, to become a vegetarian. As in, “What do you want on your hot dog, Kel?" "Hot dog?! I don't eat hot dogs, that’s disgusting!” (Oh the grace of a teenager).  Of course, back then, (late 80’s/early 90’s), the only vegetarian “meat-replacement” item out there was tofu dogs.  One brand: Utterly Nasty, I believe they were called. So my vegetarianism, for many years, equaled cheese fries and grilled cheese. I didn’t actually learn that cheese wasn’t a valid substitute for all things flesh until several years later into my herbivore travels.  My mother was constantly concerned that I wasn’t “getting enough protein”, and in her defense, the conventional wisdom of the time was the vague notion of protein combining which stated that you had to combine several sources of “incomplete proteins” at each & every meal, meal in order to achieve nutrition perfection. Needless to say, back then, I lived under the constant hazy apprehension that I would keel over one day from LACK OF COMPLETE PROTEIN. I am, as a side note, for those concerned, still thriving nineteen years later, sans “complete protein”.

Shortly after the vegetarianism decision, I met my (then meat-eating, now nearly vegan) husband, Adam. We have since continued on this journey towards all things more natural together, and when I refer to I as we on this adventure, from here on out you’ll know who I mean. :)

We took a big step towards “all natural” when my daughter was conceived.  Suddenly, scanning food labels for the dreaded ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS/COLORS became less of a habit and more of an obsession.  I started questioning OTHER ingredients, like, say for instance, glycerol ester of wood rosin (yes, this is an actual ingredient) in our drinks or BHT in our food.

And I started looking at other labels too, not just at what we ingested, but at the potentially damaging ingredients in what we put on our skin (and how all of these things might potentially affect the growing baby inside of me!). We began the slow but satisfying process of getting rid of the items we were used to using every day like antibacterial soaps or saccharine-laden toothpaste, and replacing them with more natural substitutes.

About 6 months after our daughter was born, once she started tasting things other than breast milk, we realized that she had some food sensitivities.  We had inklings of this from just a few weeks old – angry patches of eczema on her otherwise perfect baby skin, and stubborn cradle cap that wouldn’t go away (for years), and oh yes, how can I forget (seriously, HOW can I forget; Hello McFly): colic. When she was around 10 months old, she went back to all breast milk, and I went on an elimination diet (a la Dr. Sears – pediatrician extraordinaire) and switched all baby products to California Baby, and the eczema, and colic, drastically improved.   

That experience, in fact the whole of our last nearly 5 years of parenthood (an amazing journey in itself) has introduced us to some truly scary things, such as the presence of synthetic hormones in dairy (rBGH), the controversy surrounding soy milk & hormone disruption (in light of that info, we ditched soymilk altogether, and switched to organic grass-fed milk), the presence of phthalate, lead, and BPA in toys and food/drink containers, and the prevalence of indoor air pollution (in light of those frightening revelations, we've been working on choosing safer plastics, using zero-voc paint to paint the kids' room, and choosing only toxin-free cleaning products). But it's brought to light some awesome things as well, such as the amazing abilities of probiotics and herbs/essential oils in healing & cleaning! 

Join me on my travels as I blog about what I’ve learned so far & continue to learn about natural living, vegetarian & healthy eating, and greenifying our lives overall... with a little attachment parenting, breastfeeding, Montessori schooling, perennial gardening, serious puzzling, music, art, & literature thrown in. Namaste!