It is really cool being married to your best friend, and raising a family with him is even better. I know the "I married my best friend" thing is wildly cliche, but Kyle really really is my very best friend. Maybe I feel a tad more entitled to say it since we actually were friends for a loooong time before we rekindled the romance. Regardless, I love him as a husband AND I like him as a friend and that is simply wonderful.
We got to spend the first part of the week as a family, both of us on vacation. Christmas was great, time with both our families and our own family tradition of gifts and splendiferous breakfast a la Kyle here on Christmas morning. He picked out the very best coffee maker for in-home use that there is, with all the science and jazz about brewing the perfect cup of coffee and all that. I picked Apple TV for him, and we are both having a beauty of a time with our respective gifts.
Yesterday we had set a 10:00 AM date for Reclaim the House from all the Christmas crafting and gift giving/receiving. I would imagine most households go through something like that during the holidays. With all the baking, gift making, gift wrapping and other holiday-cheer spreading tactics, your home just kind of gets taken over. It was great to work together to do a top to bottom, left to right declutter and clean of our home.
We also got to babysit our niece Avery yesterday while her parents (Kari and JB) went to a State basketball game with Frank and Annette. She came over at 3 and we had her until about 11. Things went swimmingly well, and I feel pretty encouraged about having 2 of our own in the house. I know it won't be that nice temporary feeling that a babysitting gig gives you, but between Kaleb not completely falling apart over me taking care of a baby and Kyle being helpful and just generally aware and intelligent about the things it takes to care for 2 kids, well, I'm encouraged.
I am a very blessed individual, to have landed the partner in life that I did!
About Me
- Miss Madly
- My husband, Kyle, and I are the proud and busy parents of two little boys, Kaleb and Jacob. Kaleb joined our family in December 2009 and we welcomed Jacob in April 2012. We both work full time outside the home, I am in the field of Learning and Development. I have a passion for studying the brain and how we learn, which translates beautifully to watching my boys grow up and discover their worlds. I'm also into learning about nutrition, herbalism, food-as-medicine, natural alternatives, and homeopahtic remedies. I hope to provide an uncut view of what life is really like as a working mom, minus the instagram filters and facebook bragging...I'll save that for facebook ;)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Mommy Always Comes Back
It's been a while, and a very busy while it has been! I will do a catching up post in the near future but tonight I wanted to capture some thoughts.
There is so much uncertainty in raising kids. How are you supposed to know if the decisions you are making are the right ones? How do you know if the parenting choices and styles you implement are going to have positive outcomes for your children? For the past 2 years now I've been making decisions for my son, and let's be honest, they are little more than well researched stabs in the dark based on what I've read and what 'feels right'. And even the "what I've read part" isn't all that useful because for everyone arguing one style or method there is someone else out there with just as much research arguing the exact opposite. It is maddening and, if you let it, will take much of the joy out of raising up little ones.
There are plenty of 'debates' or whatever around raising children, and one of the big ones is how you get your baby to sleep. Do you rock them to sleep as infants, allow them to fall asleep while nursing, allow them sleep when they want to sleep and eventually work their way into a sleep schedule that works for them? Or do you follow a routine as a newborn and progress into a schedule as an infant, not allowing them to use eating as a means of falling asleep? Do you go to them as soon as they cry or do you let them cry for a bit so they don't become dependent on your assistance to fall asleep?
Anyone reading this with a child born in the last 5-10 years has no doubt read and/or heard all about both of these approaches. I was no exception. I decided to go with what my mom told me, and that was to trust my own instinct. She told me that God gave me Kaleb and gave Kaleb me as a mother for a reason and that I was uniquely suited to care for him in the way in which he would thrive the most. She advised me to not do anything that went against what I ultimately felt was right, that if it made me uncomfortable on a gut level then I probably shouldn't stick with it.
So, I co-slept. I nursed Kaleb on demand and let him fall asleep after he was done eating. When he cried I went to him and picked him up. I wore him in a Moby wrap or baby carrier. A Lot! If you were going to put a label on it, my methods aligned with the parenting style that grew from attachment theory. I found myself very agitated when Kaleb would cry in his crib, the act of not going to him made me feel slightly ill. So I went to him and I picked him up and I sang to him, bounced him, rocked him, shushed him, whatever he seemed to need until he could rest.
I didn't know if I was making him completely co-dependent on me, making him a weak person because he didn't learn to self-soothe. Once he developed the ability to be bored, I quickly learned the difference between his bored cry and his others. When it was a bored cry I would let him be for a bit. When he got old enough to call for me, I would always go to him if he called for me. I still do. Some nights he just cries because he's mad and doesn't want to go to bed. I tell him it's okay to be upset and he doesn't have to sleep right now but that it is time for him to be in his room and I'll be here if he needs me. Some nights he calls for me, and I go to him. To me it is my way of instilling in him the understanding that Mommy is here for him always, and that when he needs me I will be there for him. Most nights he just lays down on his pillow when I put him in bed and that's the end of it.
All that background to share tonight's experience. It is Christmas Eve and we celebrated at my parents house. It was loud and rowdy and Kaleb was plenty wound up. We didn't get home until 9:15, 2 hours past his bedtime. He was having trouble calming down, even after his normal bedtime routine. I read his story, turned off the light and placed him in his crib. He stood right up and told me it wasn't time for bed, it was time to go play. I let him know it was time for quiet rest, he didn't have to go to sleep but he needed to be in his bed. I told him I would come get him when it was time to get up, and then I left the room while he was angry crying. About 2 minutes later his crying changed and he started saying "I need my Mommy". So I went back in. I patted his back and same him one of his songs a couple times then told him I was going to go back to what I was working on. He started crying again and after a few minutes he again said "I need my Mommy." This time I went back in and picked him and we sat in the gliding rocker. He laid his head down and I started humming a song. He picked his head up, looked at me, and said "Mommy always comes back."
This statement, said with absolute certainty, validated all the sleep decisions I've made over the past 2 years. This was exactly what I wanted to ingrain in my son. The firm belief that Mommy will always come back, always be here, always love him and take care of him.
I replied that Mommy always comes back and then sang him the little song we sing about that very thing (chorus of this song, starts at 39 seconds). I felt him relax in my arms and within 3 minutes he was asleep.
I don't presume to say my style is "right" or "wrong" in any absolute sense of the word. Others reading this post may say I am being manipulated by my son. Some may not agree with any of this at all. I also don't at all believe that mine is the only way to go about teaching a child that a parent is always there for him. I'm not writing this as a means of justifying anything other than this: I made a decision based on my relationship with my son. I made this decision with very little to go on, since I've never been a mother before. I stuck with my decision, although I regularly re-assessed my motives behind it to make certain I was following this path because it was the right one for our family, not just because it was what a book said to do. I had plenty of moments of wondering if I was doing more harm than good.
Tonight, I got to finally hear from my own child's voice that my choices were yielding the results I had hoped for. That was such a satisfying thing to hear him say.
There is so much uncertainty in raising kids. How are you supposed to know if the decisions you are making are the right ones? How do you know if the parenting choices and styles you implement are going to have positive outcomes for your children? For the past 2 years now I've been making decisions for my son, and let's be honest, they are little more than well researched stabs in the dark based on what I've read and what 'feels right'. And even the "what I've read part" isn't all that useful because for everyone arguing one style or method there is someone else out there with just as much research arguing the exact opposite. It is maddening and, if you let it, will take much of the joy out of raising up little ones.
There are plenty of 'debates' or whatever around raising children, and one of the big ones is how you get your baby to sleep. Do you rock them to sleep as infants, allow them to fall asleep while nursing, allow them sleep when they want to sleep and eventually work their way into a sleep schedule that works for them? Or do you follow a routine as a newborn and progress into a schedule as an infant, not allowing them to use eating as a means of falling asleep? Do you go to them as soon as they cry or do you let them cry for a bit so they don't become dependent on your assistance to fall asleep?
Anyone reading this with a child born in the last 5-10 years has no doubt read and/or heard all about both of these approaches. I was no exception. I decided to go with what my mom told me, and that was to trust my own instinct. She told me that God gave me Kaleb and gave Kaleb me as a mother for a reason and that I was uniquely suited to care for him in the way in which he would thrive the most. She advised me to not do anything that went against what I ultimately felt was right, that if it made me uncomfortable on a gut level then I probably shouldn't stick with it.
So, I co-slept. I nursed Kaleb on demand and let him fall asleep after he was done eating. When he cried I went to him and picked him up. I wore him in a Moby wrap or baby carrier. A Lot! If you were going to put a label on it, my methods aligned with the parenting style that grew from attachment theory. I found myself very agitated when Kaleb would cry in his crib, the act of not going to him made me feel slightly ill. So I went to him and I picked him up and I sang to him, bounced him, rocked him, shushed him, whatever he seemed to need until he could rest.
I didn't know if I was making him completely co-dependent on me, making him a weak person because he didn't learn to self-soothe. Once he developed the ability to be bored, I quickly learned the difference between his bored cry and his others. When it was a bored cry I would let him be for a bit. When he got old enough to call for me, I would always go to him if he called for me. I still do. Some nights he just cries because he's mad and doesn't want to go to bed. I tell him it's okay to be upset and he doesn't have to sleep right now but that it is time for him to be in his room and I'll be here if he needs me. Some nights he calls for me, and I go to him. To me it is my way of instilling in him the understanding that Mommy is here for him always, and that when he needs me I will be there for him. Most nights he just lays down on his pillow when I put him in bed and that's the end of it.
All that background to share tonight's experience. It is Christmas Eve and we celebrated at my parents house. It was loud and rowdy and Kaleb was plenty wound up. We didn't get home until 9:15, 2 hours past his bedtime. He was having trouble calming down, even after his normal bedtime routine. I read his story, turned off the light and placed him in his crib. He stood right up and told me it wasn't time for bed, it was time to go play. I let him know it was time for quiet rest, he didn't have to go to sleep but he needed to be in his bed. I told him I would come get him when it was time to get up, and then I left the room while he was angry crying. About 2 minutes later his crying changed and he started saying "I need my Mommy". So I went back in. I patted his back and same him one of his songs a couple times then told him I was going to go back to what I was working on. He started crying again and after a few minutes he again said "I need my Mommy." This time I went back in and picked him and we sat in the gliding rocker. He laid his head down and I started humming a song. He picked his head up, looked at me, and said "Mommy always comes back."
This statement, said with absolute certainty, validated all the sleep decisions I've made over the past 2 years. This was exactly what I wanted to ingrain in my son. The firm belief that Mommy will always come back, always be here, always love him and take care of him.
I replied that Mommy always comes back and then sang him the little song we sing about that very thing (chorus of this song, starts at 39 seconds). I felt him relax in my arms and within 3 minutes he was asleep.
I don't presume to say my style is "right" or "wrong" in any absolute sense of the word. Others reading this post may say I am being manipulated by my son. Some may not agree with any of this at all. I also don't at all believe that mine is the only way to go about teaching a child that a parent is always there for him. I'm not writing this as a means of justifying anything other than this: I made a decision based on my relationship with my son. I made this decision with very little to go on, since I've never been a mother before. I stuck with my decision, although I regularly re-assessed my motives behind it to make certain I was following this path because it was the right one for our family, not just because it was what a book said to do. I had plenty of moments of wondering if I was doing more harm than good.
Tonight, I got to finally hear from my own child's voice that my choices were yielding the results I had hoped for. That was such a satisfying thing to hear him say.
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