Category: Parenting

40 Days

In many cultures around the world there is a tradition that, for 40 days after giving birth, a mother is to remain at home with her baby, to be tended to by family and to be left to rest, connect, bond and restore her energy. I remember my midwife telling me a story of a client who insisted on keeping this tradition with her children (I believe she had four or five); she lived in a large house in central London and was fortunate to have staff to cook, clean and tend to her other children as she remained in her attic room for the duration, with each new child.

I wonder what you felt when you read that? I know that, whilst I didn’t judge it negatively, I certainly framed it as being a ‘luxury’, a nice ideal but far from most people’s reality. Then I took this principle of honouring our need for rest, that perhaps we once held traditionally but is now fading fast, and explored some other areas: a woman’s monthly menses is one such moment that used to be a sign for a woman to withdraw and recharge; fever and sickness offering a reminder to take time for oneself; fire-gazing as a space for relaxation and restoration.

I look at my world and my life and see there is very little ‘space’ left, very few in-between moments and ritual recharging going on.

Let me divert for a minute….. This week I left my boy with his grandparents for a few hours whilst I went to take a yoga class. This was really the first time that he had such a break from me since he was born over 3 years ago. It is the first time I have had a break like that since my daughter was born, nearly 6 years ago. Some people find these time lines shocking, inappropriate, perhaps even indulgent and it was huge for me; I cried as I walked away, feeling vulnerable and alone and anxious AND also exhilarated and anticipatory.

As I returned later that afternoon, I had a deep sense of peace, knowing that I had supported my children in holding secure attachment until such time as they were ready to explore the world a little more for themselves. It was this experience that reminded me of the lady in her loft in London taking 40 days to honour the arrival of a new soul and brought this awareness of how lacking our western society is in relation to taking time to be with what needs to be. It is never going to be easy for a family to announce its 40 day solitude, but if we all start to reconsider the importance of interludes, however they relate to our lives, if we can reframe our fast paced lives and find a few more spaces for fire gazing and moon watching and occasional napping and silence and allowing and, not forgetting, parenthood as an interlude all of its own…. oh how much more blissful could this life become?

Crushed

I have learned a lesson today. My tummy is still flipping at the uncertainty of my own actions. It was a moment of parenting that I had to wing, no guidance, unknown territory and so praying to do the very best.

My 5 year old daughter had spent the afternoon with the neighbour’s boys (age 6 and 8). They often play together and we keep our front doors open and they move between the houses for hours. I like that freedom and confidence they gain from it. At supper time, my little girl started to talk to me about how she was going to be a vampire later with the eldest boy, she was not going to go to bed, but instead would stay out all night drinking blood; she had not learned to fly yet but he knew how and he would let her hold onto his wings. It was a fairly typical reveal of their role playing and imagination but the difference being that she spoke as if she really intended to join him later for this night time journey. So I just listened and heard her story and we moved through the evening from supper, to tidy, to bath…

As the bath was being prepared she prepped a bag, with some clothes for morning time, her vampire dress up outfit, toothbrush etc. I was rolling with it and a little mystified in wondering how much she really believed and how much she understood she was playing. After her bath, she dressed in her pjs, picked up her bag and said goodbye (my little mite who will not go upstairs by herself!). She went downstairs and put on her coat and boots and left to go on her vampire adventure. She left and I waited. Trusting, trusting and also feeling a little bit nauseous at what I was ‘setting her up for’.

I knew, of course, this was not going to happen. I knew that at some point this story would come to an end, that there would be some disappointment, some confusion perhaps and maybe more. Earlier in the day, I had caught myself warning her about dipping her party shoes in the mud in case they blackened, not because I minded but because I was trying to manage her future disappointment in case she didn’t like them dirty; I was trying to control a potential fallout. I do this a lot. And in these moments of ‘managing’ I so often see how I crush; crush stories, crush hopes, crush imagination, crush experience; crush magic. I am involving myself to avoid my daughter being crushed by an outside experience and instead just doing it myself.

And she returned. In just a few moments she banged on the door and cried; his mother would not let them go on their vampire adventure. I picked her up and offered how disappointing that must be and we had a big cuddle and that is when I knew my allowing had been ok. She stopped crying; it was so short and brief and more often than not her tears and emotions are long and exaggerated. For once, she had gone out and braved the world and been a little bit crushed, but she was able to come home to where it was safe, where her dreams had been protected this time, not spoilt; where she had been trusted and listened to, not dismissed.

I have learned a lesson today. And I still feel a little bit nauseous.

 

Time Stands Still

One of the things that fires up my internal pressure cooker is when time is a ticking and I have a commitment to be somewhere / do something etc. There is nothing like watching my teenies daydreaming whilst attempting to put on their coat and shoes to send my temperature soaring and my best parenting intentions out of the window.

No matter how much I have chatted to myself about this; how much I have reminded myself that being kind is more important than being on time; or how their slow pace is so blissful and wise; I can get triggered over and over.

Then I read ‘Outrageous Openness’ by Tosha Silver, a stunning reminder of the perfection of divine flow. Jam packed with anecdotes and stories, each one a jewel on its own yet, from this book, they have also become part of the glittering aura that has surrounded me since.

I have been here before, I have sat midstream in total trust of the universe and I have watched and felt all unfold in perfection around me. But for some time now, I’ve been sitting on the bank of the river, knowing it’s there and also forgetting how to swim. Tosha brought it all back and more, not only am I swimming again but aided by a life jacket that enables me to float should I ever forget again.

And now? Now what happens when I wake late and need to get two kids fed, dressed and out the door?

Now, time stands still.

I am trusting the timings of the divine and I am rewarded with extra minutes, extra moments. All is well.

Hazel’nuts’ – Touching The Humour

Yesterday my 3 year old dropped an entire pot of organic, personally activated & dehydrated (!), hazelnuts on the floor. They went far and wide, as little balls do, and my hands went to my head in horror.

I bent down and started to collect them and my son stayed silent, sitting up on the counter munching on his other hazelnuts, as he watched. Now previously I would have huffed and puffed whilst picking them up and most likely wound myself up into a sense of, at least, annoyance if not actual rage. This time I calmed myself with each nut, I talked to myself about how worried my son is currently feeling about me being angry; about the fact that they, after all, are just nuts; about trusting the Divine and knowing that this is how today is meant to unfold; and about taking this opportunity to heal. And by the time I had collected half a kilo of nuts from the floor (and boy I am keeping them all!) I could almost touch the humour.

I turned to my precious boy, who was posturing his own shrugs of defiance (or rather defence) and said ‘are you feeling worried that mummy will be cross?’ To which he just threw his arms around me, so relieved that I wasn’t.

Now, whilst I know I’m not a tyrant, I also sadly realise how just a few cross moments a week can create a sense of dread, fear and anticipation in my children, in most children. Theoretically I know this, theoretically I’ve tried so hard to measure and adjust this. My hazelnut reaction is how I want to be, but is certainly not how I am, I also know that I managed it this time because I’ve been unravelling me, peeling the layers of my anger and rebuilding my understanding. These articles and theories of how to respectfully parent our children are so valid and wise, but also totally unattainable if our emotional pain levels are bouncing; and we can be bouncing for so many reasons – arguments with loved ones, work crises, friendship misunderstanding, tiredness, lack of support etc.  It is no wonder mothers are angrily posting articles pitted against each and every opinion & theory, when some of us are having days of just coping and being advised to bring more to our parenting. The truth is, only when we self care and self love can we possibly start to parent the way we wish to.

What does that look like?

This evening I watched a horse whisperer guide a boy with Aspergers to approach a horse – it consistently moved away. She asked him to think of something he liked about himself, which he decided was his hair. Next, he had to approach the pony again whilst inner dialoguing about his lovely hair. The horse stayed still. Just a moment of self love translated and received energetically by another.

So next time the nuts go for an outing, instead of trying to measure my reaction and ‘hold it together’, I’m going to mantra some loving words to myself, remember the Divine order of action and get myself closer to that goal of humour – I can almost touch it.

BLW

I had a lunch date with my 3 year old son last week, we often go for sushi together after our Steiner parent and child group. He adores sashimi, could eat raw fish until it was coming out of his ears, where as my daughter, who is unusually not the least put out by our outings without her, ‘hates’ sushi! ‘Yuk!’ Each child is different, each adult is different. Tastebuds, sensory perception, olfactory reactions – they all, and more, play into what we as individuals like to eat.

Yet, there are still ways we can aid our children to develop expansive and curious palates and to offer them a foundation of eating experience that provides a framework to live by.

Baby Led Weaning….

From our sushi table I watched a mother feed her baby some puree – organic, well considered etc, but as I was watching I suddenly realised how sweet all of those packaged foods are, even without added sugar, they’re stuffed with sweet vegetables or fruit to make them more appealing. I was struck with the realisation of how narrow that introduction to food becomes when, even healthily done, the only nourishment offered is sweet. And that’s what I love about BLW.

It is totally messy, crazy, exhausting, messy, initially nerve wracking and did I mention messy? But totally worth it. I started my eldest on purees and thankfully she wasn’t at all interested so after just a few weeks we discovered BLW and I haven’t looked back.

Many will know about it already but to lay out the bare essentials:

Baby

Learns to eat from you
Sits on your lap at mealtimes
Chooses from your plate
Uses intuition to decide what feels right

Parameters & Concerns

Age: BLW allows the baby to know when they are ready to start with food, if they are sitting on your lap at mealtimes they will reach a point of needing to grab your food that becomes intense and necessary. For some this maybe as early as 6 months, other 9 months to a year. Breastfed babies do not need any other nutrition for their first year so there is no pressure for them to eat solids (BLW mantra is ‘food is fun until your one!’).

As they develop at different rates, some babies take longer to be able to digest certain foods. For example orange foods like carrot & sweet potato can be tough on an immature liver (my daughter was way over 1 before she liked orange veges!). If you leave them to explore, including trying for size in their mouth, they will animally and instinctively leave (or spit out) what their body is not ready for. This includes meat and fish. Both my kids were past 9 months before they became interested in meat & fish.

Different textures and hardness all play into their experience and pleasure. The fear of choking can be hard to overcome as it is so drummed into us, but once I trusted their animalness, I soon observed how amazing their regurgitation reflex is. Anything too big or unchewed came back up in a baby bird sort of way. It looks like being sick but actually is just a reflex and, not only do I understand is not at all uncomfortable, but never seemed to phase them. My midwife wisely guided me that if I was ever concerned, to hold them upside down and pat them sharply on the back. I only had to do that once for a sharp piece of apple, and that was fine too. Messy yes, natural yes.

So that was it for me, I didn’t have to make anything separate or spend hours whizzing. Just cooked my regular (healthy) meals and allowed my children to explore and discover food in a totally organic and natural ways. They have their own tastes and their own preferences but I also see their willingness to try new things, their large palate, their ease around what can become such a pressured and emotive place – mealtime. I am utterly convinced by BLW.

Best ‘Licious Way!

Be prepared for mess and sit back and enjoy the ride.

I Emerge

Before having my own kids, I was great with children. (Bear with me a moment…) Before kids, I would spend hours hanging out with other people’s children, they would be my company when I felt out of place at some adult shindig; they would feed my endless desire for motherhood; but mostly I just really enjoyed their honesty and refreshing energy. Then my own children arrived and the strangest thing happened, I went off everyone else’s children. I was not interested in getting to know them, or in cuddling the babes or really connecting with them on any level unless it was related to my own children somehow. I almost felt ashamed about it, such was my aversion.

Then just last week, I felt it again. I had the time and energy to think about and consider some other little mite and reignite that pleasure of interaction with some joyful Littles, besides my own. This is not the only thing that has changed recently, I have started to delve back into my wardrobe and pull out some old gems and special favourites; I take time to consider my outfits in the morning – only a few extra moments mind, but long enough to become a conscious decision rather than a flurried debacle. My husband took both my kids out for the morning last weekend and for the first time in almost 3 years I had more than a snatched moment to gather my thoughts.

I am emerging back into the world.

Why the shift? Because my youngest is 2years and 9 months old and his last tooth just came through.

Through observation, I believe that 2.5 to 3 years old is a major developmental turning point in our children. I noticed it in my eldest but was already heavily pregnant with my second so was unable to reap the rewards for myself. This time round, there is no baby in my belly and I feel myself returning. My youngest can now be distracted or delayed from a boob appointment if I need to do something else; he can spend time with Daddy because he wants to not because I’m trying to off load him for a moment; he can communicate with me to a level high enough that we can actually resolve some issues with relative ease; he is still attached but he is beginning the slow transition out into the world himself.

I write this because it feels so great to emerge again, to breathe the air of my own needs and desires, and because I know for all those mamas out there wanting to parent naturally having a long term guide is actually so helpful and reassuring. I know I’ve got at least another year of breastfeeding, but lay that against the 5.5 consecutive years I have done already and that’s a walk in the park. I know that, if I had known that once all the teeth come in everything shifts and relaxes a little, I wouldn’t have spend months wondering if I was doing the right thing with this, at times intense, demand feeding. I know that when I told a friend recently, with her 6 month old, that she only had a couple of years till the crazy nights settled down, I could hear her sigh with relief, because it sounds like a lot but actually it’s just knowing that feels better, feels manageable, feels able to surrender to.

So I emerge back into this world, enjoying my few moments of fresh air when I am welcoming back myself and feeling so grateful for having trusted my kids needs and instincts in letting our attachment unfold quietly, gently, slowly, peacefully.

 

 

100 days

Last weekend was one hundred days since my daughter started coughing. Whilst others in our community also had varying degrees of whooping cough this summer (vaccinated and unvaccinated), my little family definitely signed up for the full version, classic style!

My kids are better, they are finally off the high vitamin c (an amazing therapy but exhausting in its own right, keeping the levels high and cajoling the kids to take it for nigh on 100 days! Oof!), there is no more vomiting and although there is still the occasional spasm, when over exerted or at night, they are 99% better.

I have found the duration wearing. The 7 weeks of confinement at home were filled with a gracious swirl of gifts (see my previous blog ‘Cancel Everything‘) to balance out the intensity, but with my kids energy back up and champing at the bit to be out in the world again, trying to measure their energy levels, monitor their exertions and still be without proper evenings to myself, as between them the occasional spasms intrude, I have been hard pushed not to feel a little ‘over it’!

I remember a friend sharing that even years later, whenever she heard her kids cough she would shudder and feel drawn back into the emotional maelstrom of that time.

I am never going to deny that it’s hard but, despite the hopes of some thinking it would change my mind on vaccines, it has only confirmed and upheld my beliefs and research on our health choices.

I have understood childhood illnesses to be an indicator, precursor and factor in developmental shifts and growth spurts; I am aware natural endurance promotes lengthy immunity; and I trust a healthy body’s ability to process an illness and use it as a tool to detox physically and emotionally. All of these I see to be truths in my experience.

This experience has not made me question our decision not to vaccinate our children, it has totally affirmed it. And whilst I sit out these last days of tickles and spasms, I find this validation to be yet another of the many blessings on this journey.

Second Nature

When I think about the early years of parenting, the physical exhaustion pales in comparison to the psychological wipe out. Whilst I know this is the case for many, I don’t believe it has to remain this way for our future generations. I certainly want to make the transition to parenthood easier for my kids.

What has been, and still remains, the most shattering aspects are the parts that were once second nature, were once instinctive, in our ancestors. Having to retrain myself to think, perform or react differently to how I was raised myself or how modern society has moulded me, is a mammoth task.

My energy really needs to be focused on the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of my children rather than me scrambling to catch up on providing foundation nutrition; researching modern medical strategy; decoding educational mantras; and, most basically, tuning in to becoming a more respectful and compassionate parent. Once upon a time, all of these were either entirely irrelevant or intrinsically second nature. As I teach myself to make bone broths, ferment sourdough and sooth aches and pains with natural remedies, I am aware that long ago, this knowledge would be in my blood.

When I started the journey in my twenties to heal my emotional wounds, I did it for my future children. All I ever wanted was to be a mum and I also knew that without some serious therapy, I would be an appalling one. I’ve made great strides and have come a long way but I wish I’d known about all the other parts too.

My cousin, who passed last year, a beautiful soul who, despite still being a way off from becoming a parent, was doing intense research on early years parenting needs. His motivation was also self-healing but at the same time I was awed by how prepared he was going to be when he got the opportunity to become a dad. He was making short films on the importance of secure attachment and bringing together the links between addictions, and other current societal ailments, and our parenting foundation. We were both passionate about the subject, but I wished I known earlier.

I can’t change what is and I’m glad that I love reading and learning, because it can also be exciting when those eureka moments hit and I realise just what I need to do for the next phase of mummy hood. I am also hoping that the hours of my kids sitting up on the counter helping me cook from scratch; the memories of our cosleeping and breastfeeding; the awareness of their robust and healthy immunity will all enable them to concentrate on just ‘being’ a parent. Not thinking it, not questioning it, living it as part of their souls.

Let Sleeping Consciouness Lie

There is one thing that my husband does that bugs me. Imagine, we are sitting on a beach at sunset, feeling the heat of the dying sun and spending a quiet moment together. I am absorbing it all, the smells, the sounds, the feeling of my breath in the silence and my husband pipes up ‘Isn’t this beautiful? Look at the colours of the rays as they hit the sea? Can you imagine anything more glorious? We’ll have to come back here some day, what do you think? Isn’t this the most perfect place on earth?’  Then he’ll do it with the kids too, ‘aren’t they fabulous’; ‘don’t you think H has great vocabulary’; ‘it’s so sweet the way G says slugs’…..

Sometimes I murmur in response and sometimes, if pushed, I’ll shrug and say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’. And it bugs me, I’m happy in my own little quiet world soaking it all in and I don’t want to talk about it; words aren’t good enough, expressive enough, important enough. Occasionally this ends in one of those typical junctures of marital disharmony and we conclude fractiously that we are just two individuals expressing ourselves in different ways.

That is, until just now.  I have started reading ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ by Bruno Bettelheim. I thought it was going to be some dry tome on the importance of fairytales and retaining them in our children’s lives and I judged that I’d better read it as I’m never quite sure where my editing of fairytales should begin or end or not at all.  So past the first few pages, which are quite parched, and I’ve been thrown into the rich depths of my children’s unconscious and how little I have understood it thus far. It is absolutely fascinating and shows just how much we, as a society, over expose our child’s consciousness to anxious-making adult reality. And I totally get it, because it’s exactly like how I feel when my husband wants me to verbalise my thoughts. I feel put out, I feel pushed into a mental direction that feels uncomfortable and unclear and I do not want to ‘talk about it’, I just want to be in the feelings of my world rather than the thoughts of them.

Yet, this is what I have done to my children so far, I have talked a lot. I have verbalised feelings and tried to draw empathetic comparisons when I now see that instead they need subtle redirection and stories full of their complex, deep, confusing emotions revealed in a tale that is far from the reality of their everyday home life, which speak to their subconscious and gives their feelings permission.

I wrote just a few weeks ago about my daughter’s burgeoning anger (Curiouser & Curiouser) and with this new understanding, I am clear now how she had no outlet for those confusing feelings that arose in her. Those moments when she really hated a playmate, her brother or me, was it ok to hold these strong feelings? Already, in a short space of time, having quit all editing, all nice-making in our stories, I can hear her imaginative play is full of the outlet from these prose. She can now talk about killing in the context of removing the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty or the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, rather than a girl she met camping. She can express her violence in a safe context of reliving and replaying the tales rather than test the frightening feelings in our safe home environment. Her preconscious can be displayed without the need for it to become truly conscious and she learns and begins, through her subconscious, to explore the gamut of her emotions.

Bruno Bettelheim explains so poetically how these ancient and pertinent tales are a crucial part of our personal development and how we can use these messages to move through the stages of our emotional growth without the need for excessive discussion or conscious process. The conscious can rest, can sleep and our subconscious can do the work as it absorbs the understandings. Raising our consciousness too early can lead to anxiety and displacement, feelings I know all too well and what I hope to ease for my children.  So with thanks to Mr Bettelheim, and a swift addition to the Christmas List of the Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tales, I aim to learn to let sleeping consciousness lie…

Cancel Everything

A little over five weeks ago, my daughter developed a cough. Nothing out of the ordinary, except it just didn’t shift, didn’t progress, and was violent in its dry, hollow call. We kept her at home, with a growing suspicion that it could be whooping cough and sure enough, 10 days in, the whoop appeared.

It is not called the ‘100 day cough’ for nothing and we are still in the midst of it, though the very worst is behind both of my children now. (Poetically interrupted by a dash upstairs to sit with my youngest during a coughing episode.)

I have been itching to write about the journey so far, and have finally found a moment, because it really has been extraordinary. Gratefully, I have known three families who have been through the experience, so was armed with the knowledge that accepting the lengthy duration of confinement is absolutely key.

So I cancelled everything. All the summer swimming classes, the playdates, the daytrips. Stopped. Life outside of our house has stopped. And there is a part of that which is blissful.

Please don’t misinterpret that last sentence. Whooping cough is epic and exhausting and violent and distressing for everyone AND it brings with it a spiritual unfolding, a forcing of presence and of letting go. There have been so many silver linings to this journey so far that I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Beyond the pragmatic joy that both my children will have a healthy long immunity and come out the other side of this in fighting form; my youngest decided it was time to try out the potty and without any additional stresses of carrying around potties or panicking about little early day accidents, it was a casual, easy process; my eldest informed me that when she wasn’t sick I could be grumpy but that whilst she was ill I was not grumpy – clarity, from the mouths of babes, I need to get a handle on my grumps; with everything cancelled and no pressures to be anywhere at any time, my grumpiness reduced by 75% and highlighted to me how much I ‘stress react’, projected pressure becomes grumpy mummy, time for some serious lifestyle shifts; with lots of gentle hours factored in I suddenly found that I did have time to read a few pages here and there and in the last five weeks have read three books, which must be a record since the beginning of the ‘mummy years’.

The list can go on, we have spent hours in our garden looking for worms and slugs and casually weeding as we go; we have drawn, painted, weaved, glued, beaded, cooked, danced, sung, hugged, stopped.  We have noticed how an episode can be triggered by the slightest upset, the beginning of a cry, the shock of a shout, and are learning through this the importance of calm, learning to calm ourselves with breath, learning to choose our upsets.

I know as the next few weeks pass and we begin to emerge out into the world again this path will twist and turn and reveal more secrets to me. I have loved the time with my children, just connecting, seeing and being with them. Despite the media hysteria that builds over this illness, I have witnessed it to be an offering of intense and unswappable spiritual dimensions, a rite of passage.  Whilst I don’t wish this illness onto others, I do wish everyone the chance to Stop for a significant stretch, it makes for a beautiful segue.

 

Addendum: Practical Tips for Whooping Cough

We have followed the High Vitamin C Protocol which has significantly reduced my children’s coughing episodes. Here is the information from Suzanne Humphries, MD.

We have been supported through this by our homeopath who has stayed on call to be front line with changing remedies as the pictures have changed.

We have practiced breathing exercises to stay calm and also noticing that holding the breath in the midst of the episode can reduce the violence and regain control.

We have used every muslin, towel and tea-towel in the house for catching vomit and mucous. Be prepared for the requirement and extra laundry.

We have cancelled everything…