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?

On our shelves this month

When the year -and the month- started I wanted to prepare a basket with winter items but I always try to follow M's current interest and as she has lately been very much into putting things inside other things and looking for animals in books, I thought this would make a better theme. Her new attraction are farm animals (one of her Christmas presents was a whole set of farm animal magnets) and looking for ideas around the house I discovered we had several hen-related activities that suited her interests.
This is what I prepared for one of her shelves.

 

The first item on the lower shelf is an imbucare box, followed by a stacking rings activity where you can find an egg hidden behind the last ring -the red one. Then we have a stuffed hen and some egg-boxes, which my mother painted for M, and finally a basket of wooden eggs. On the upper shelf I placed three books related to our theme: the farm.

 

Journal

Since M turned 12 months last December, I have been a bit more disciplined in keeping a journal. She is learning new things every day and at such fast a pace that I find it difficult to record everything.
Something she started doing last month was pointing at her right hand fingers with the left forefinger when hearing "one, two, three, four, five" (both in English and Catalan).
She spends much time putting things through holes. For that purpose I have given her different items: a box with a slot and some bottle caps; a container with a small opening and a handful of hazelnuts, a game I made with a cardboard box (putting bottle caps through the hole in the image below).

Today she has spent around 20 minutes putting hazelnuts through the opening on a small container and asking me to take them out every time she had them all inside (sorry for the mess in the background...)

She now masters drinking water from a small glass.  She started asking for water using the word "ababa" last week and we are so happy to pour more every time she is thirsty.  In a couple months I intend to set a water station and she will be able to pour herself a glass.

She is also interested in getting dressed. I left a bag full of old clothes to give away in the corridor and she has spent some time trying to put some on.

 

Other activities she is very much into are putting the caps on bottles and putting eggs in egg boxes.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the picture)

Memories

My dearest daughter,

Exactly a year ago this evening labor started, the most fruitful labor I had experienced in my life.
Your father and I had gone to my childhood's home to wait for the moment and in the evening of December, 21st I started to feel heavier. Something I couldn't really express felt like you were about to arrive. It was indeed time. You had been expected since Dec., 8th.
My nieces C and A were around and they joined me in my gymnastics and yoga. After dinner I felt like having a cup of hot chocolate and my mother made us one. I remember 'cause never a cup of chocolate has been most enjoyed and regretted afterwards. At midnight I brought up supper, chocolate and tangerines all in a tangle of pain, nerves, expectation. Labor pains got stronger as I went deeper in the night. All by myself I had to focus on hearing the noises of the house to get distracted. However, at dawn the pain grew as a hungry lion and roared and roared. Daylight welcome a pain I had never known before. Painful, yeah but full of different shades. Never a pain has caused such curiosity. I was curious to see the end of it, full of expectations. By the time children were going to school, passing under the window, my husband and I started out to hospital. My sister, a teacher, was also going to school and I recall how pain was pinning me down nearly making me cry when she greeted a pupil's mother with a cheerful "this is my sister, yeah, they are already going to hospital".
It was Dec., 22nd., an ever joyful day, the last day of school before Christmas, a day of Christmas carols concerts, the National lottery draw in Spain. We headed for hospital and the rest is history...
How beautiful were those last days feeling you so near.

Our pre-tot school in pictures

I have been so busy lately that I haven't blogged at all. Facts are I have had to read a lot for my book clubs this month and whenever I have a moment I do some research in order to prepare spaces for M. That's whay I have thought I may show you some of these spaces in pictures.

She has new skills everyday and I am so happy to see her growing cheerful and balanced. 

 

Before the cold season set in, we spent some time in the garden, experimenting with sand, flour, rocks...   

 I left a basket with wooden kitchen utensils in M's playing room for her to explore. She really played with them, taking them out and putting them back in the basket.

Here you can see M climbing to get inside one of the new bookcases we got from a charity shop while my husband was assembling them. These bookcases are intended to contain material for M on their lower shelves.

There she is making music, one of her favorite activities. For 
this purpose, we have set a wonderful tray with instruments in her nook in the living-room.

 

Another activity that we often enjoy is hands washing -and playing with water-...

 

And, this is the kitchen corner. There, M has a magnet bear on the bottom part of the refrigerator and she likes to take the magnets out and see how they stick back again. She is of course too young to change the several outfits this bear has, but I change them some mornings while we fix breakfast and I then tell M how is the weather that particular day and what clothes the bear might need. 

 

Every time the laundry basket used to be around M came to it and took the clothes one by one. That's why I gave her some of her own clothes to play with, and there she is trying to put on a coat!

 

 

For some weeks now we have had this basket full of blue items in the living-room corner. We have explored them several times together. I realize it might be time to change it now... What color shall we have next? Maybe red? Or may I set a Christmas basket now??

I hope you liked our activities!

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.