Just checking in

I don't really have anything in particular to talk about tonight so I'll just check in and share a new picture of my little monster. We were playing around on the floor and he was being silly so I got out my camera (iPhone) and got a few good pictures of him attempting (and sometimes succeeding) to climb all over me. He's such a little goofball sometimes.

We've actually had a busy past week. Last Friday was my birthday (yay 28!), Sunday we had a family potluck, then Monday my little man turned nine months and I also went shopping with a friend. The rest of the week has been fairly uneventful. Tonight I escaped for coffee with a friend after putting the monkey to bed. It's so nice that he generally goes to sleep and wakes up around the same time now.

Tomorrow we're meeting my family for dinner (a belated birthday dinner courtesy of my parents) and possibly buying a new ottoman/table for the living room. I love furniture I can store things in! Especially now that there are so many kid things in my living room. Another eventful day!

I'll leave you with another picture of my monster from this afternoon. I can't believe how much he's grown. He's becoming such a little boy. Soon he'll be walking and talking! I'm a little sad that he's not a tiny peanut anymore but I'm excited for everything that's still to come.

Yup, another blog post about parenting

So, I've been a parent for 9 months now (well in a couple days I will have been). That makes me an expert right? No? Well, surely at the very least it entitles me to an opinion. So here goes:

A friend recently posted a texting conversation where a new bride was thanking her wedding photographer and said something along the lines of "wow, those pictures were amazing, you must have a really great camera!" To which the photographer replied "no problem, you were really beautiful at the wedding, you must have had on really great makeup!"

I think this same concept applies to parenting. I have a really great kid, and I get comments all the time from friends and strangers alike telling me how calm and well behaved he is. He really is. He can sit through an entire meal in a restaurant and entertain himself (and others) without getting all crazy and emotional (I know fully grown adults who can't make the same claim). He has his moments, but for the most part he IS really well behaved.

That's great, but I also get comments that go something like "oh you're so lucky you got a good one, mine can't go five minutes without acting out." These ones I sometimes take offense to. No I didn't get a good one, I believe I made him this way. I'm not trying to say I'm the perfect parent, but I do believe we mold our offspring with our behaviour from very early on.

I think I'm generally a fairly reasonable person, and as a result I subconsciously expect the same from the people around me, including my child. I hear stories all the time about babies his age crying and whining when a parent leaves the room. Mine did that too, for a couple of days. He quickly learned that mummy will be back when mummy is finished whatever she is doing. Usually in a minute or two, no big deal.

Most of the things I've done different weren't conscious decisions. I didn't think "okay, I want him to sit still in restaurants and be happy in his stroller so I'm going to do this!" It just happened because I knew it could happen so I didn't settle for anything less. I didn't even think about it, I just expected more out of him.

I love cuddling and playing with my baby, but when I need to do something--be it use the washroom, get groceries, or have a conversation with a friend in a coffee shop--I expect him to behave, and he does. I made him this way, and I'm proud of it. I believe that how well behaved a child is has very little to do with genetics and even less to do with "luck."

That is all. For now.

P.S. I'll revisit this post when he's 2 or 3 if he hasn't eaten my computer by then and we'll see if I still feel the same way. For now though, I'm taking credit for my kid's awesomeness. No arguments.

It's a lonely planet

Let me be clear, being skeptical (although I'm new at it and still learning the ropes) is something I am very proud of.

That said, it's becoming a very lonely planet. People don't want to hear that their religion, diet, or vitamin supplements are deluded, potentially dangerous or unnecessary. I'm finding most people are perfectly happy in their ignorant little bubble believing whatever they hear on TV or read on the first page that comes up when they perform a poorly composed internet search. Nobody wants to know that what they've been believing is simply not true or has little or no evidence to back it up.

I know I don't always approach these issues in the best way, but I'm trying. I'm trying to avoid the "um, actually..." but sometimes I don't know what else to say. I'm hoping that even if they don't believe me right away, that what I tell them will leave behind a sticky note in their brain that they may uncover later on and decide to check out for themselves.

My mission in life: To leave little yellow sticky notes in people's brains (not literally of course).

The Great Debate

I had a different topic I wanted to talk about today but something just came up that I feel I need to address: The ongoing and increasingly insulting debate over breastfeeding vs. formula feeding.

First off, I don't even understand why this is talked about at all, let alone so often. How a woman chooses to feed her baby is her business as long as her baby is healthy. And guess what? Both breast fed babies AND formula fed babies grow up to be healthy.

Why not focus on women who smoke and/or drink or do other recreational drugs during pregnancy and while breastfeeding? Surely their breast milk isn't better than formula.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against breast milk and breast feeding. I agree that women should be able to breast feed wherever they like, in restaurants and public areas. I also agree that more businesses and public establishments should provide private and comfortable areas for women to retreat to if they're not comfortable breast feeding in public. Breast feeding is a wonderful thing, I'm not arguing that.

What I have a problem with is women being made to feel guilty and second-rate for feeding their babies formula, for whatever reason. If a woman isn't comfortable breast feeding her baby, for physical, emotional or any other reason, how should that concern anyone else? Why should formula be an absolute last resort? If that's what the mother feels is best for her baby, for whatever reason, then she should be supported in that decision, not shunned.

Here's my story, and why I take all this so personally:

When my son was born I intended to breast feed. It's free, it's handy, and obviously it's good for him. My goal was to breast feed for 6 months and then see how I felt about it after that. 

He was born in the evening, and because he was quite small the nurses made me wake him up to feed him every 3 hours. This meant we got quite a lot of practice, but it also ensured I was thoroughly stressed out when I went home. I was so concerned about him not eating enough.

We went home on the 3rd day around noon. It was quite a shock being home alone (well, with my husband) with my baby after having so many people bustling around in the hospital. The first couple feedings went okay. I'm quite a shy and private person, so I felt uncomfortable breast feeding around my husband. I know this would have gone away eventually, but at the time it was a really big deal to me. I would go "hide" in the nursery and feed him there by myself. Although it was my choice, it made me feel like a recluse.

That first night was awful. I slept in his room with him because we didn't have a baby monitor yet (he never slept in our room, which is another debate I won't get into right now). He woke up a lot, which I expected (after all, we conditioned him in the hospital to eat every 3 hours), and I just felt so alone. I know I could have woken my husband up and asked for help, but it's not in my nature to do that. He was heading back to work the next day and I wanted him to get a good sleep. The first few feedings were okay, but around 3am I was so exhausted and couldn't get him to latch and he was screaming and screaming. At this point I had to do something, so I gave him a pacifier and I got out the manual breast pump I had purchased in case I wanted to store some milk in the freezer for a night out. I pumped about 2 oz and he took the bottle like a champ and drank the whole thing!

I realized 2 things at that moment: First, breast pumps are amazing. And second, all of the stress that had built over the past few days had just dissolved. I felt great. I felt like a great mom, I just fed my baby and he was happy and after a good poop fell right asleep. Life was great! 

The next day I tried latching him a couple times and he wouldn't have it, so I pumped. I pumped several times that day and it was great. It didn't take very long and I didn't have to stress over whether or not he was eating enough, I could see exactly what he was eating!

I bought a better pump within a couple days and decided this is how I would feed my baby. It worked great for about 4 weeks. After that my supply started to dwindle. I know that can happen when exclusively pumping, but I also have a close family history of losing milk supply so I can't be certain which factor was responsible. I didn't know what to do, and when he was about 5 weeks old I gave him formula for the first time. I felt horrible about it, but I had to feed my baby. 

The next day I went to the doctor and asked for help. He immediately gave me a prescription for domperidone, and within a few days it worked, my supply was even better than before! After about a week I was able to feed my baby breast milk exclusively again. 

This post has gone on longer than I expected, so I'll try to cut it short. I pumped until my baby was 6 months old. It may have been what took my stress away at the beginning, but after just a couple months it became the source of a whole new level of stress. I hated pumping. I resented that thing like you wouldn't believe. I thought about quitting almost every time I used it. I almost did a couple times. I started to get lazy with it, I'd go longer and longer between sessions and my supply started to drop again, despite taking domperidone. I was a stressed out mess. Finally at 6 months I made the decision to stop, and we switched to formula. The guilt I felt was unbelievable. I felt like a complete failure. First I "gave up" actually breast feeding my baby and compromised by pumping and still feeding him breast milk. Then I quit that, even though I was physically capable of continuing on indefinitely. What a horrible mother! How could I essentially give up on my baby? It took a long time to come to terms with it, and that's why I have a problem with this debate and way of thinking.

I won't deny that I wish I had tried harder to breast feed at the beginning, and I've vowed to myself to try harder next time. My issue is the guilt I felt. I shouldn't have had to feel guilty about not breast feeding, and I should have been okay with quitting pumping as soon as it started to cause me stress. Why did I choose to stress myself out pumping when I could have just fed my baby formula? Because society made me feel that way. Society says formula is bad, you're a horrible mother if you feed your baby that "garbage," "poison," or whatever else they're calling it these days. I questioned my ability as a mother because of this debate, and I know I'm not alone in this. Is that what these people want?

I'm personally grateful for the formula companies, and I hope they continue to improve their products, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with formula as it is. In fact, I was a formula fed baby over 27 years ago and I turned out just fine. I have no major health issues and rarely got sick as a kid. Surely the formula has only gotten better since then, so I don't see what the big problem is.

Skepticism and Motherhood

Now I'm not a professional blogger so don't expect this post to be all intelligent and informational. I do however have some observations.

I joined the wonderful world of "mom" in November and as anyone else who lives in this world knows, that means I receive buckets and barrels of unsolicited parenting advice from almost everyone I run into. Everyone from family to the elderly woman in front of me in line at the coffee shop. This doesn't surprise me; I've seen this happen to almost every one of my friends in the past few years. What HAS surprised me and concerned me lately is the type of advice I receive.

With the internet being so readily available these days, I'm honestly shocked at the type of things people (parents) still believe in. Homeopathic remedies such as "teething tabs" and "camilia" for example for teething (obviously) and other ailments. The first time I had these things recommended to me I had no idea what they were so I googled them both. It took me less than 5 minutes to discover both were homeopathic remedies, and another 60 seconds or so to confirm that yes, that means what I thought it meant; companies selling (at inflated prices) sugar and water solutions with no actual active ingredients in them. Fantastic, and this is what people are recommending for everything under the sun nowadays!

Another great new fad I've come across is the "baltic amber teething necklace." First I noticed one of the babies from one of my mom groups was wearing one, and I thought it was cute but didn't know what it was. It wasn't until a couple months later when I saw another baby wearing one that I asked the moms, thinking it was a cultural thing. When they mentioned it was an amber necklace for teething, I thought it sounded interesting. Then I googled it. Of course there's no actual evidence to support any of their claims.

I guess I'm just shocked what people are willing to do or believe in when it comes to their kids. Why don't they do any research? Why just blindly follow the masses? What if the teething tabs or necklaces were dangerous? In fact, maybe they are. The teething necklaces supposedly contain a drug in varying concentrations (although most of them don't even contain the right kind of amber, let alone any actual concentration of the drug), so it seems the masses are okay with potentially exposing their child to an unknown concentration of a drug that hasn't actually been reliably tested as a pain reliever. I'm not okay with this.

If anyone is reading this, don't take my word for anything I posted here, just look it up. Always check out both sides of every coin, it's as simple as that.

Early birthday present!

I got a new laptop for my birthday from my amazing husband :) I love it, it's exactly what I wanted. I do have to get used to the keyboard though, a few keys aren't where I'm used to them being so I have to think about it when I hit them. The shift key for example is a little too far to the left so instead I hit the slash key, which  makes for some interesting typos. I suppose I'll just have to write more blog posts to practice! It's strange too because the shift key on the right side is HUGE but on the left side is the same size as a letter key. If they'd made the left one a little bigger maybe I'd have an easier time hitting it.