Play dough and horses

The best of my intentions to keep an updated journal of our journey in homeschooling* is beaten once and again by a general lack of time and state of tiredness. At the beginning of the week I try to stay until late preparing activities and creating materials but these past evenings I have just fallen asleep while putting M to sleep. That's ok. We have been doing some activities that were not exactly planned but which thankfully turned out all right. 

Getting ready to make play dough: the process in itself was a nice activity

I sometimes feel a bit disappointed I am being unable to keep it all up but I guess that is what being pregnant of a second child while the first one is under 2 years means. Some days ago, my dear husband took M to the National Museum of Art to give me some time to rest. When I saw the photographs I just regretted I had not gone with them. The rest did me a lot of good, though. 

Here is M staring at some paintings at the MACBA

Fall seems to be creeping in. I hadn't really noticed it was getting cooler but after some rain last night it feels like autumn today. I even got my boots out and was happy to find that unlike my summer sandals, the boots still fit my feet. Am I the only pregnant woman out there whose feet seem to have grown? I have been wanting to set up an autumn tray but as of now we only have some pineapples, a tiny pumpkin and a butternut squash. My idea is to create a nice sensory tub for M to play with. We'll see if I get it before it is so cold we can call the season "winter". I still feel comfortable with the weather but I think summer is my favorite time of the year. However, I can admit there is a special beauty in Spring and Fall that other seasons may lack. And yet, funnily, my two children will be "winter kids".

Today we had the first meeting with one of the midwives that might assist us in our son's birth. I am finally starting to visualize this birth and we feel a delivery at home is the option that would suit us three best. One of the reasons I can't bring myself to picture a delivery in a hospital is that M would be left out of the experience and we would have to be separated for more time than we have ever been. As I feel it, this is an experience we don't want to have, if we can avoid it. 

On a weekend festival last week M got the chance to ride a horse for the first time, and a really tall mare it was (notice my husband's head peeping over the horse's withers. He is 1,83 m tall //around 6 feet). I was very excited and delighted to see that she wasn't a bit scared, she just enjoyed it.

Riding a horse for the very first time

In the language department, we have seen some qualitative changes in the way M expresses herself. She is able to construct longer sentences and surprises us with structures such as Subj+verb+object or with the correct use of conjugations (gos dorm // gatets dormen). She is good at describing what she sees. While in a park she told me the other day: "that moto(rbike) falling", and some other day "boy eating chocolate". She often uses sentences including "to" for purpose, specially when she wants to do something or to go someplace "to see papa", "to see Lila -her friend".

She is starting to use some adjectives as well as in "red shoes", "soft pillow" or "black glasses". Her use of connectors such as "because" is still a bit erratic but she surprised me the other day saying "because mama". I've heard her using "enough" and"like" for comparisons, which are also novelties. But the most incredible sentences, in my opinion, were "these girls jumping to eat sausage", "aquestes noies què fan?" qui és aquest bebè?", "meves sabates són aquí sota", and "petita Marina banyat la piscina" (6.9.2012). I wrote down the date 'cause I was really impressed. She seems to retain sentences she has heard and to repeat them afterwards. Her use of pronouns is upside down, "I" being "you" and the other way round. However confusing, I think we are managing to understand her most of the time.

* After some reflection, I have considered it necessary to clarify my use of the concept of "homeschooling". I wouldn't like to trigger a debate around schooling, unschooling, and so on, so I'd better explain myself. M is only 20 months old so it is not really accurate to refer to what we do as "homeschooling". I do it only out of a necessity to give a name to what we do and the thrill of being the one who cares for M development and education. It is truly uncommon where we live for a toddler of 20 months to stay home with a parent, so I have sometimes felt compelled to justify my position. This might be silly but being able to prove all we do makes me feel I am justifying a whole way of raising kids and showing people that staying home doesn't mean "doing nothing, or letting your kids watch TV all day". Well, we don't even own a TV set, ahem...

The pleasure of bedtime

Some weeks ago I would have never imagined I would write a post under such a title. It took me a great amount of meditation to come over the frustration that giving up putting my little one to bed had thrown me in. Shortly after we weaned, we found out that the only and -at the time- probably best way of helping M to sleep was pacing up and down. Since I was generally tired and carrying weight was not the most recommendable thing for me to do, the daddy took over. For nearly two months he had been putting M to sleep and I really felt frustrated, not only because I missed those snug moments with my girl, but mainly because she had started to reject my presence during bedtime. Every time she said "mama no, mama no", my heart would break into pieces and I ended up feeling rather sad. I know these things do happen but I had never thought it could happen to me and I was determined to find a solution. The daddy was not happy with the situation either and pacing up and down the corridor, even the garden twice or three times a night was not his favorite activity, of course.
Around a month ago I made my mind up and went away for three days, that is three nights and three naps. I knew that could be a totally crazy thing to do but inside I felt a great conviction I would be able to manage it and who knew, we may be able to establish an easier bedtime routine. I nearly forget to mention that during those two months Marina dropped many naps and that, as you can imagine, didn't help at all. She was waking between one and four times a night.
The first night we were away from home, without daddy, it took me nearly two hours to get M to sleep. I know, it is a lot but I was so very happy she had not complained, not rejected me, that two hours felt like ten minutes. Although it was a bit tiring, I was able to put her to sleep three nights and three naps. Besides, she more or less slept all through the night with eventual awakenings to drink or go to the toilet. On the third day, the daddy came to pick us up and we went back home.
With some exceptions, I have been sharing bedtime with M ever since and we are all happier. We both seem to enjoy our newly adopted routine, which includes shadow play, singing lullabies, and caresses. Many nights the last thing M says before falling asleep is her "mamma" in a sweet tone. She seldom awakes during the night and wakes up very refreshed from a good night sleep.

Up to here it may sound like a love story with a happy ending but the best is yet to come.
During the first months of pregnancy I was not only feeling rather sick but also guilty. At the beginning I felt Marina was too young to have to share my/our attention and as time went by my mama-guilt feeling grew towards the other direction, I feared the tiny baby growing in my womb would feel displaced since once the sickness and tiredness was gone I didn't think much about him. All that time I was craving for a feeling of balance. It was not easy to come to terms with the fact that we would have a baby without having planned it at all. However, a good friend of mine kept repeating that a sibling was the most precious present we could give M and in the end she convinced me. I was no longer feeling guilt, which was fine but now I didn't find it easy to connect with my baby. I was so committed to preparing activities for M, being with her, teaching, bringing her places... The surprising thing of it all is that the one who has brought me back to center and helped me connect with this wonderful baby growing inside me is my beloved 20 month old daughter.
Everyday, when we lay in bed singing lullabies and whispering, she asks me to see the baby (read belly) and she caresses it while gently murmuring "baby, baby". Her sweetness and open-heartedness have convinced me it will be fine to have two to take care of. I am so very grateful for her teachings!

Fear-of-choking free

Let me start by saying that I am only expressing my opinion and it is far from my intention to offend those who think otherwise. I share openly what I believe and I really hope not to bother others who don't share my view.
Of all the possible concerns parents and people in general have regarding young children, the fear of choking features, in my opinion, among the first. I have heard all kind of different people warn me "hey, your daughter has brought a stone to her mouth", or "gosh, your daughter wants to eat this or that", "be careful, that toy contains little pieces".
To the risk of sounding like a careless, negligent mother, I will confess that I have never shared this fear. My confidence in my own daughter has always seemed to be much greater than the fear she might cause herself harm. This includes, besides the fear of choking, stairs climbing, falling off beds, and the like. Facts are that I have followed all her processes very closely but I have also given her freedom to explore things. As a baby as every other baby she was interested in bringing things into her mouth and I never objected to it. I couldn't understand how other mothers would rather have their babies suck pacifiers all the time for fear they put something in their mouths. My way of seeing it is babies need to explore their environment and this includes touching sand, eventually tasting it, getting dirty and so on. I believe this helps a child build her self-confidence and learn about body boundaries more than living in a fully sterilized place without access to the real world.
Coming back to the topic I wanted to talk about, choking fears have never been an issue in our home. Having a big garden, M had -supervised- access to sand and stones as well as pine needles, bugs, and other leaves. She quietly explored those and just eventually brought a handful of sand to her mouth. My view was that letting her explore taught her much more than pestering her and trying to take things out of her mouth. This has always seemed to intrusive and not very respectful to me.
As regards food, having followed the baby-led weaning approach, non-pureed food was what she was fed from the start. I believe eating or sucking banana from early on and then other fruits and bread was also influential in developing an ability to taste things before swallowing them. This really showed us that a baby is totally capable of eating whole foods.
Facts are that she has never ever choked. Aged fifteen months she seldom puts non edible things in her mouth but whenever she does, it is for a brief exploration and she lets them go.When it comes to foods, she is able to eat custard apple and spit out the pits.

My reflection may sound boastful. I am sorry for that!! It was not my intention to boast but to declare that babies are much more capable than what we, adults, generally seem to believe. Moreover, the fear that our babies may choke can sometimes bring us, as parents or care-takers, to create a totally safe environment where all small objects are removed. This, in my opinion, is but of little benefit to the child. On the one hand, exploring small items gives a child the opportunity to develop her pincer grasp, fine motor system, and concentration. On the other hand, and again it is only my opinion, when a child has been forbidden any attempt at exploring tiny items or things have been systematically removed from her mouth, it is more likely that the need to bring things into the mouth persist longer and the risk of choking be higher.
I know it is not easy to leave a young child the freedom to explore because it mainly implies having the time to attend carefully, observe and be patient. It may also imply overcoming one's own fears.
I am only talking from our experience with M and the experience of some of our friends but I truly feel babies deserve more confidence on the part of us, adults, than they generally receive.
Do you trust your baby? Do you panic when your little one puts a pebble in his/her mouth? I would love to hear your experience and feelings toward the subject.

Why we seldom say "no" around here

I have been writing very little lately. I always become aware of how little I write when I start feeling awkward. I find myself complaining about "this feeling of inadequacy" and then I realize of my urgent need to write. It has been like this for a long time. However, I don't seem to find the mood to write in my journal as I used to do, so I've thought I would give it a go here, why not.
Today I was wondering whether I am the only mother who has decided to quit some of her business and stay at home with her daughter most of the time. I know I am not. I mean I follow many blogs whose authors are SAHM -or WAHM. Neither of them lives in Spain, though. It seems there are so very few here I sometimes find it difficult to share. If you are out there and relate to what I say, please stop and say "hello". Even my two best maternity friends have already gone back to work and whereas we share parenting ways and many good get-togethers, I am the odd one now.
One of the issues I wanted to write about was why we very seldom say "no" around here. Without ever discussing the subject, both my husband and I have agreed that giving alternatives worked better than saying "no". If we pay attention to an adult talking to a baby or toddler, we can quickly note the word "no" is on the top ten words the adult uses. I had noticed that before becoming a mother and I found it annoying. Well, I must say I always take words very literally so I found it sort of negative. There are several ways of saying "no" without negating, without prohibiting. And this is actually what my husband and I do with our toddler.
First of all, we don't leave the items we don't thing she should touch anywhere within her reach. There are very few off-limits objects in our house, by the way. She has access to all rooms, including kitchen and bathrooms. Only my husband's camera and laptop are "forbidden" but they are never left on a reachable surface, so out of the question. This eliminates a slew of potential "noes".
When she was a small baby, we let her free to explore and never discouraged her from bringing things into her mouth. Many times I get asked how is it that M doesn't put in her mouth everything she finds along the way and I guess it is because she has overgrown this interest.
We have always let her explore. In the studio, for instance, we used to have many of her books on the lower shelves and she used to grab them, dump them and play on top. Little by little she grew acquainted with books. Our house is full of books. Our experience has showed us that children don't necessarily tear pages. This is, I believe, another of the negative opinions grown-ups have about young children. In my humble opinion, children's behaviors become destructive when they have nothing interesting to become engaged with. This may happen when the environment is not child-friendly and they don't have freedom of movement.
Something similar happens with the ever-present fear of choking. I know our particular experience can't be raised to general, but from what we have seen babies are very capable of spitting out seeds, stones, or pits. It might have been that M was never bottle-fed and hardly ever pureé-fed, but the truth is that she can eat custard apple and spit the pits out. I have also seen other children eating cherries at 10 months without ever choking. This leads me to believe that the more we empower our babies, the more capable they are. Unfortunately, I feel in our society babies are too often over-protected in a way that renders them unable to perform actions which are otherwise natural abilities inherent to human beings.

Of buggies and carriers part 2

Well, I find it surprising but here I am informing the world (or whoever is so nice as to stop by and read what I post) that my little one, M, who for months rejected the stroller every time we tried it, seems to have gone to another stage and now hates the carrier (our otherwise outworn Manduca).
As we were preparing to leave home this morning, she has clearly expressed, as she has been doing lately, she had no intention of being carried. I wanted to give the carrier another go, since we were going to a place where strollers are a nuisance -there are no elevators at the underground station, sidewalks are narrow, streets crowded...- but after a while I have realized M is now in a new stage and we would better use the stroller. Staying at home was not an option, since I had been invited to talk about Montessori at a gorgeous place called "mamás graciosas". To my surprise, I have invited M to sit in the buggy and she has gratefully accepted. We were in the garage, so I have only been able to offer her an ugly toy, one of those I won't have in the house. However, and despite my dislike for the toy, she has started playing with it, we have set out, and she has stayed happily in her seat for a whole walk to the station, around 15 minutes, and 20 more minutes in the train. In the city, my dear "hubby" was waiting for us to have lunch together. Of course, the moment M has seen her father, she has raised her arms to be picked up.
As a memorandum of our " babywearing times":

M was here around 2,5 months and we were both wearing native American costumes.

11 months there and I am afraid that's the end of a cycle.

A visit to the pediatrician

We have been scolded by a doctor today, can you believe it? I was so surprised I haven't even answered back. He said I haven't been feeding her right. She is approximately in the 3rd percentile. I knew M is small -both short and thin-, I am not a big woman myself and we have had this problem all the time. At the beginning we were told to bottle feed her in order to make her put on weight. Nobody succeeded at convincing me and time proofed it was right to breastfeed her exclusively up to the sixth month (a bit more, actually). During the first months she put on weight and grew all right, nearly reaching the 30th percentile. Lately, after the 8th month or so she has been growing, slowly, but growing.
Today the doctor, an old-fashioned, severe doctor, has scolded me and told me to give up breastfeeding "'cause the breast is not feeding her at all now". Humm, my dear doctor, let me disbelieve you. If it weren't for the breast, she would be much smaller... Since she was able to sit and showed interest in food, we have let her lead the weaning and this has meant that some times she was not eating much. Nevertheless, she kept trying new things and eating solids every day, apart of course of nursing on demand. This doctor has probably never heard of "baby-led weaning" but I don't find this surprising. What surprises me is that a doctor may still have this kind of behavior as if he were THE authority. He has scolded me as if I were a young girl doing mischief. Then, the doctor's nurse has meant to correct me when I was explaining my daughter what they would do to her next. To be more exact, the nurse's words have been: "don't tell her so many things, just say "it's nothing, it's nothing 'cause otherwise she complains more". "Oh, my!-I've thought- how many of the attitudes towards children I dislike in only 10 minutes!" I firmly believe it is healthier and more honest to explain things than to discredit a child's own experience. My baby sometimes complains, whimpers or cries but never without a reason and we have encouraged her expression of feelings. I feel to say "it's nothing" is just to repress the expression of feeling.
Well, I would like to see the positive side of this. From now onwards, I will offer M food more often and try to get her to eat more. I won't  force her, though. She knows more than I do when she is thirsty or hungry. It amazes me how doctors tell you how and when to feed a baby as if the baby would not exist.
I wish the real patients at the pediatrician's surgery, that's children, were treated more respectfully.
What is your opinion? I would like to hear about your experiences at the pediatrician's surgery.
Do you believe it is good to tell a child "it is nothing" when something is indeed happening to her?

Of buggies and carriers

Well, and today that M is turning 11 months we have assembled the stroller and used it causing a wave of opposing feelings to beat on me.
M always used to complain a lot every time we tried to use the stroller and I felt stupid pushing it while wearing her so very soon I took on to wearing her all the time and forgot about the buggy.
M is getting a bit heavier and after feeling a bit weak last week today I decided to give the stroller a go.  It felt so very odd to have her look at the landscape and me push her without being able to see or touch her face. I must say I absolutely love to carry her.
Surprisingly she seemed to enjoy the stroll -around the garden. Well, for the first ten minutes...
I have realized that this doesn't really work for us, it is not the way we relate to each other, and it makes us both feel strange. She needs me as much as I need her and it is absurd to push a baby who screams because she needs the comfort of her mother's body while feeling empty because I am used to wearing her close to my heart.
As long as she needs it and my strength is enough, we will go on using the baby carrier.

The way we parent; or reflections on daily routines

As we were bathing M last night, my husband made me notice the way he has to rinse our daughter's hair. Of course, I already knew, I had seen him doing it many times. He dips his own hands in the water and strokes M's hair a hundred times. I only laughed at him and at how ineffective the system looks. I also happen to mention that M's hair always has a sticky lock due to this so very gentle rinsing method.

How do I do it, anyway? I always start gently pouring water on her head with the best of intentions. "This time it won't pour on her face" I tell myself, but in the end it does and she starts crying and wants to leave the bath immediately. The consequence being that some shampoo remains also in her hair.
Somewhat offended my husband has looked at me and said: "We are always talking about how to parent respectfully, how to do things the most respectful way and there you laugh at my method".
How right he is! If neither way can completely rinse M's hair, we better have the one that doesn't make her cry.