Five Questions, A Poem & Thou!
1. What is the most ridiculous piece of parenting advice you�ve ever received?
�Let her cry it out.� Followed by �Put her on her back to sleep.�
God, really, you do not want to get me started on bad parenting advice because what I have figured out from reading copious books and magazines (esp a very scary book about child rearing from the 1930�s that recommends potty training at 6 months old. I ask you!!) is that advice about how to raise children is all about making things more convenient for the adults. If you don�t want to be inconvenienced? Don�t have kids.
This �let �em cry it out thing� is a load of shit. Why can�t people realize that children never cry for no reason? That, when they cry, they are in need of something or are in pain, sad, uncomfortable, alone and lonely, etc? And that this is the only way they have of communicating this information to us. I am really hoping I live long enough for researchers to discover what really causes colic and that YES, babies are actually in pain. You don't cry like that, for hours on end, just for kicks.
Why must we persist in making babies suffer? Why can�t we just pick them up and take them to bed with us? Why can�t a baby snuggle with her mother rather than be forced to lay lonely and alone in a crib on the other end of the house? And cry until she pukes out of rage and frustration? All that teaches them is that whatever the problem is, tough shit. Nobody's coming to rescue you.
If they need to suck, who�s it hurting to let them? If they are having trouble sleeping, haven�t we all had this problem? Babies can�t turn on the light and read a book until they�re sleepy or pad into the kitchen and fix a bottle of warm milk for themselves if that�s all it takes to go back to bed.
And all that sleep advice is also crap. Eventually, your child will sleep through the night even if that means they�re sleeping in your room. Why should they be kept away just because it�s easier for the parent? Why did you have kids? I mean, yeah, I�d like a decent night�s sleep as much as anyone but I�m now the mother and my job is to help my children sleep as best they can on good nights and bad (and last night was a bad one. Thank you f*&king pollen!). And to comfort them and feed them and whatever else it is they might need that I can give.
The whole paranoia over SIDS and sleeping on their backs? Prove the link to me because I�m not seeing it. Both of my children sleep on their stomachs and always have since birth because they find it more comfortable, especially when Dusty had reflux as a baby. She was miserable on her back. Why should I force her to sleep that way when a) she�s NOT going to sleep that way and b) her crying tells me that she�s trying to communicate this information to me and I should be listening rather than doing what some propagandist literature that has drawn NO conclusions about the causes of SIDS tells me to do. I slept on my stomach and somehow lived to adulthood.
2. What�s the best piece of parenting advice you�ve ever received?
Trust your instincts.
See my rant above. This was the conclusion I drew from experience and trusting that my children knew best what they needed and all I had to do was LISTEN and find a workable solution. My instincts tell me that children know when they�re full so we are not having any of that Clean Plate Club crap in our house.
I also let Dusty choose what she wants to eat because a) I don�t like wasted food and b) I can�t expect a young child to have the same tastes as an adult. As long as she�s eating healthy food, it�s all good. Do I mind fixing a number of different meals? No. She�s a kid. She can�t be expected to like pesto and tomatoes. But, she does eat a variety of nuts, fruit, cheese and olives, hummus sandwiches and broccoli (yes, she does like broccoli). I refuse to have battles over food. This leads to bigger problems later on.
3. If you could live anywhere (realistically), where would it be?
Well, I don�t know about realistic because what�s realistic is where I�m living now, which is as good as it gets around here. London would be nice except for the weather. Otherwise, I�d love to live at a beach that is not full of fundamentalist Christians like Virginia Beach is (despite being the Edgar Cayce headquarters of the universe), preferably oceanfront but not where a mudslide would destroy the house. A private island would be nice as long as my living there didn�t destroy the ecosystem.
4. What is your favorite room of your house?
Either the family/tv room because of my comfy couch and the lovely dark colors of the room or my kitchen because it gets a little more sunlight and it�s where the food (and beer) is located.
5. What would win in a fight: a gnome or a leprechaun?
Oh, a leprechaun would totally beat the crap out of any gnome any day of the week. Leprechauns are evil � haven�t you seen the Porky Pig cartoon where he�s harassed by two leprechauns? Leprechauns are also part possum. Which explains everything, doesn�t it?
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Here�s a bad poem I wrote yesterday while driving down I-95 in the pouring rain to pick up Dusty:
Spring is the morning of the year�s day.
Summer, the long hot afternoon,
Endless while it lasts.
Fall, open the windows but close the doors.
I feel a chill.
Winter is the dark hours of night
That go on and on and someone�s coughing
And sleep walking into closets.
Until the horizon is pierced by
Promise again.
As Dusty might say, I�m a poet-er!
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And, I don�t know what the hell is going on with Diaryland but it refuses to update my reading link. Here�s the most recent stuff I�ve read:
15. Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins
16. Nat Tate: An American Artist by William Boyd (a bio of a fake artist)
Currently Reading: (for real)
The Sitwells by John Pearson
