All the Pretty Horses...

Horses are magic. I think this is because they are closely related to the unicorn, and while they weren't blessed with being able to time travel, or sneeze rainbows, they do seem to possess the charisma of their magical cousins. Also, possibly their mind-reading abilities - when a horse is looking you in the eye, you can rest assured that it is indeed searching your soul, and if you did take that $20 from your brothers wallet, or talk smack about your best friend behind her back, you best confess your sins and repent right smartly, or the horse might just stomp you to death. Horses are good like that.

So imagine my delight when Connah announced one day that he wanted to go horse riding. He is pure of heart and intention, therefore is perfectly safe from the stomping, so I quickly went about making arrangements for him to ride and found a place that had lead ponies available for beginners.

This seemed like a good place to start. Ponies are just small horses really, so they must also be related to unicorns. We packed up the boys and set off for our pony adventure.

When we arrived, we were shown to the ponies and given a few instructions on how to lead them, and how to get them going again if they decided to stop, (to which I responded with a silent condescending snort. I mean really, if they stop I'll just beam my wishes directly into their magical brains. It's not rocket science people.) and with that, our instructors pointed us in the general direction of the "beginners trail" and galloped off into the sunset.

We adjusted the stirrups to ridiculously short, got Connah mounted atop a bay gelding named Elmo, and set off along the path which would lead us to the trail.

Connah took to riding well. After a few initial wobbles, which involved intense concentration and a death hold on the saddle, he learned that it was not a motorbike, and if you moved with the horse it was a lot easier and less bumpy.

So, along the path we went, occasionally sinking up to our ankles in mud, until we reached the gate that marked the start of the beginners trail. And it was here that Elmo dug his hooves in, refused to go any further, and I learned that ponies are in no way related to unicorns.

First I tried beaming the thoughts. I beamed hard, and all I got in return was a steely stare, and the definite impression that I was gonna get head-butted if I didn't get out of his face. Mortal tricks didn't work either, and after about twenty minutes of standing in a mud puddle, no closer to the elusive beginners trail than when we started, I sighed in defeat and turned him back the way we came. Surprisingly enough, he happily started down the path, so I quickly turned him back towards the gate to see if we were on a roll, but alas, he stopped again. Turn towards the path: Go. Towards the gate: Stop. Path: Go. Gate: Stop.

This was when I realized that he was happy going down the path, because that would lead him back to where he gets tied up. So he can just stand there. Like a lump.

Now, I'm not a fan of stubbornness, but I can understand it. Laziness however, is just not something I tolerate well. My own stubbornness kicked in and thus sparked an hour long struggle between Elmo and I each trying to force the other to go where we wanted. This involved lots of "talks" which basically consisted of me stamping my foot and saying "Seriously?!" a lot, and him jerking his head up in a ridiculously lazy attempt to rear up like a mighty stallion, except, you know - without putting in the required effort to get his feet off the ground.

Eventually we ended up back at the arena, where I tied him to his fence and left him sullenly standing in the dirt staring off into space. (How is that more fun Elmo?! How?!?!) He wouldn't even look at me by this stage, and I kinda got the impression that he felt violated by the whole experience.

So, the pony adventure did not go precisely the way I had planned, but it was still an adventure. Connah had a fantastic time, he didn't seem to mind that we were mostly going in circles, and I gained a valuable piece of knowledge: Ponies are most definitely not related to unicorns - they are related to sloths. And ink stains.



xox

Dinosaur king...

Connah usually has an obsession. I'm pretty sure he was born with the tendency to obsess, but it didn't became noticeable until he was around 10 or 11 months old. His third word (about six months before "mama" or "dada") was "Digger".

Digger.

This sparked a year long fixation which included stopping the car every time we saw a excavator working on the side of the road, digger toys/books/clothing, buying eleventy billion bags of flour a week because diggers working in "snow" were way better than diggers working in dirt, the beginning of his you-tube fascination, and sleeping with a little die-cast digger in each hand every night.

Next came trains. We became very familiar with the local train station, and our house resembled one of those train convention shows for about eight months.

A variety of interests followed: Hot air balloons, Spiderman, Motorbikes, but none of them developed into a full-blown obsession.

Until, at three and a half years old, he discovered dinosaurs.

I am writing about this now, because I feel like this dinosaur phase is coming to an end, and I need to remember it. Because it was an awesome one.

Connah devoured all the information I could provide him on the subject within about six minutes, so we have been learning together this time.
By the time he was four he could recognize and pronounce all the commonly documented dinosaurs. His attention to detail means he can easily identify the similar looking dinosaurs from each other.

Have you ever had this conversation with your four year old?:

Me: "Connah, check out this Triceratops!"
Connah: "No, that's not a Triceratops, it has horns on it's neck frill, and it's nose horn is longer than it's head horns - it's a Styracosaurus."

I have that conversation in varying forms every day.

His favorites have included Velociraptor, Pachycephalosaurus, Spinosaurus, Allosaurus, and of course, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
He is able to distinguish the carnivores from the herbivorous and the omnivores. He can tell you the difference between a palaeontologist and an archaeoliogist. And he will patiently and repeatedly tell his father to stop referring to Pteranodon as a dinosaur, as because it is a flying creature, it is not technically considered a dinosaur - it is a Pterosaur.

It's pretty fricken cool.

Unfortunately, he refuses to be a show pony, so I have no video evidence, you just have to take my word for it. My child is a genius.

Yes, yes I know all parents think that about their children, but in this case it's actually true. No, seriously, it is! - He's better with numbers than a lot of adults I know, and his reasoning skills are fairly epic. If you can just discount the fact that watching him try to do a puzzle is like watching a unicorn try to use a knife and fork, the genius theory is totally sound. (And really, puzzles were only created to make people feel like idiots anyway, so I'm completely down with destroying them all and pretending they never existed.)

And I'm starting to flail about off-topic, so I'll just end this here by hitting the high points: My child is a genius. Puzzles should never have been born. Dinosaurs rule. Feel free to tell your friends.

xox

Serendipity...

Connah: "What's a wife?"

Me: "Well, when you get big, you might find a girl who's so awesome that you want to live with her for your whole life, and if you marry her, then she would be your wife. Do you know those pictures on the wall at home of mummy and daddy at Taitua before you were born? That's when we got married, which is where we told everybody that we chose to spend our lives with each other. After that day, I was his wife."

Connah: "And Daddy found you? Out of the whole world?"

Me: "Yes"

Connah: "And he didn't want to find anyone else after that, aye?"

Me: "No"

Connah: "Hmmm..... That's so lucky, that he found you then, so you can be his wife, and our mummy."

Me: "Yes Connah, that was so very lucky."

xox

The Space Between...

I know that we are not supposed to compare our children to one another. It is bad. It will lead to all sorts of super-evil stuff like sibling rivalry, jealousy and issues with inferiority and self worth.

I'm pretty sure most parents do it all the time. I secretly compare my children at least once a day. I love the differences, and the best way I've found to highlight their individuality is to compare them to the only other child I know well enough to comment on - their sibling.

Connah is my oldest child. He introduced me to the world of parenting, and everything he experienced was new and exciting.
He is thoughtful, intense, and introverted. He likes details, and once interested in a subject, will seek out relevant information with a single minded ferocity which borders on obsession.

Ashden is my youngest child, so everything he experiences is my last chance to do so too.
He is exuberant, astute, and extroverted. He demands attention and participation when preforming an activity, and gets quite upset if things don't go the way he plans. He is sensitive to external disturbances, especially loud noises. And he loves to make people laugh.

Connah glows.

Ashden sparkles.

They do share some similarities which are celebrated alongside the differences: They are both insightful. They both have elephant memories. Their eyes are the exact same shade of blue - the same shade as their father. They both stick their tongue out when they're concentrating really hard. They can both throw an award-winning tantrum when properly provoked.

They are both vital to my world.

But it's their differences that I find fascinating. They are miles apart in personality, and it sometimes feels as though I'm raising two totally different species of mammals - the learning curve was pretty fricken steep with Connah, and it ended up not helping much at all with Ashden as they respond so differently to the same information. But I could never wish that one was more like the other, because that would make him less than exactly who he is. Exactly who he's supposed to be.

So I will continue to compare them, because they are growing up so very fast - changing daily - and it's my way of stopping and looking at what's really there, instead of assuming it's the same as what was there yesterday. All too soon I will be watching them forge there own paths, separate from my own, and that will be celebrated too.

But for now, I exist somewhere in the space between them, in the wake of the glow, with the light of the sparkle shining in the distance, and there is really no better place to be.

xox

The Terrible Twos...

I seriously thought it was a myth.

With Connah, we sailed through his second year in a blissful sea of learning and adventure. The amount of knowledge that was packed inside his head during that year was epic, and he quietly analyzed it all and stored it away for future reference.

The Attack however, seems to think that being two is something that the universe has done specifically to irritate him.

He learns. He learns a lot. But he does it loudly. There is no quiet contemplation with the Attack - he works through his confusion emotionally, verbally, and right smack in your face.

One of his biggest tantrum inducing conversations goes like this:

The Attack: "Carry me."

Me: "No Ash, you don't need a carry, that's why you have legs."

The Attack: "No! I neeeeeeeed a CARRYYYYYYYY!!!" AHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AHHHHH WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

This continues until he gets distracted. Sometimes two minutes, sometimes an hour. Fortunately, this list of things capable of distracting a meltdown of this magnitude is fairly long, but nothing works every time. It's a matter of making your way through the list until something clicks:

Me: "Ash, do you want to play cars?"

The Attack: "WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO!!! CARRY ME!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. *Stamps foot repeatedly.*

Me: "Do you want to hold Koko?

The Attack: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WAAAAAAAA EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! *Throws himself on the floor.*

Me: "Do you want to hide in the cupboard?

The Attack: "O.K." *Picks himself up off the floor and smiles, which is adorable even though he is covered in tears and snot and dog hair from rolling around on the ground.*

This happens 17 times a day.

These episodes are interspersed with bouts of intense hyperactivity, (he likes to run at you at full speed and then launch himself onto you while screaming BOINGGGG! It's more fun if you're not expecting it,) and slightly exaggerated accusations tossed in Connah's direction, (he once woke up in the middle of the night to tell me that Connah had just kicked him in the face. Connah was sleeping in his own room on the other side of the house.)

He loves trying new things. As long as they go exactly the way he imagines they will in his head.

His first trip to the snow was awesome, for six minutes. Then he slipped over. He stared at that snow like it had just committed an unimaginable act of betrayal, his brain couldn't seem to accept the fact that snow is cold and slippery. He then spent the best part of the next two hours crying that he wanted to go home.

The beach was the same: Yay! Sand! Sand castles! Water! Digging holes! Fun!!! But wait... The sand is hot, and the water moves! TOWARDS YOU! HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!

He is still very sensitive to loud noises, (unless he is making them,) so will often be seen trucking around with a pair of earmuffs on.

Reasons to wear earmuffs:

1) Someone is vacuuming, or mowing lawns.

2) The scary part in Shrek is coming up.

3) A bird is singing too loud.

4) Connah wants to wear the earmuffs.

If earmuffs are unavailable due to them falling in the toilet / the dog eating them / leaving the house without them, then I must cup my hands over his ears really tight. This is a little disturbing to do in public places, as the way he likes me to have my hands kinda makes it look like I'm trying to pull his head off. I'm not, just so we're clear on that.

During the times when he's not melting down, or being betrayed by the world, The Attack is hilarious. He picks up adult speech readily, and easily incorporates it into his own vocabulary. When asked why he wasn't eating last night, his response was: "My capsicum tastes a little funky - it's probably rotten." Awesome.

"That's OK, though" has become his catch phrase as of late:

Me: "Ash, we need to get your shoes on, we're already late."

The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Me: "Ash, don't put your cup upside down on your head, you just spilled water all over yourself."
The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Me: "Go to the bathroom before you pee all over the floor!"
The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Ashden is funny, cheeky and adorable - which is a fairly lethal combination. He makes the whole world grin like a idiot dancing in the whiskers of baby kittens.

And then he'll realize that the car he is holding in his hand is the blue Porsche, when he actually wanted to play with the blue Lamborghini, and he'll explode. Like a bomb. It. Is. Spectacular.

He turns three in September. I'm kinda hoping three comes with a tantrum switch, or at least a touch more logic.

Four more months...


xox

The Birds and the Bees...

I am a thinker. I like to think things through before I speak.

This makes me fairly incompetent in social situations, because people generally don't like to wait for extended periods of time to get answers to questions such as "How are you?" or "What have you been up to lately?".

I have adapted somewhat, because the future I once envisioned for myself - the future that involved me shunning human companionship completely, and frolicking off into the forest to live with the fae and be at one with the universe (don't laugh, I know you think it sounds awesome) - no longer exists for me. I have chosen to live here, in all the messy mortal glory that comes with being a wife and mother.

Unfortunately, It also comes with responsibilities like small talk, because lets face it, you're not gonna let your kid go for a play date at the crazy mute lady's house.
So I lie. I tell people what they want to hear, but often just end up rambling because I really don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Dealing with questions from my boys however, demands more effort.

My unwillingness to lie to them, coupled with my possum-caught-in-the-headlights reaction to questions, makes for an almost inevitable disaster. But, I've found disaster can be avoided with a few simple techniques:

#1. Immediately upon hearing it, repeat the question back, preferably rephrased.
This has two benefits, the first being that you are showing that you are listening and interested in the question (and also making sure you have it right. If I had implemented this earlier, I could have avoided the long racial conversation I had with Connah when he asked why his friend was a different colour to him. Seriously, I was rambling about genetics and DNA for twenty minutes, which was pretty hard, 'cause I know crap-all about genetics and DNA. Also, completely unnecessary because as It turns out, his friend had really bad sunburn.)
The second (and probably most important) reason for this is that it buys you time to gather your scattered thoughts and come up with a coherent answer.

#2. Do not offer candy and / or cookies as a ploy in order to distract the child and buy yourself more time to think.
By the time they finish eating (and you've come up with an explanation worthy of an award of some kind) they will have lost all interest in anything you have to say unless it directly relates to them getting more candy.

#3. Whatever it is that you come up with to say, simplify it.

Expanding a small child's vocabulary is great, but expecting them to understand you when you're explaining about the moral and ethical dilemmas of lying is unrealistic. To avoid becoming a human thesaurus during your speech, save vocabulary lessons for another time

#4. While it's important to tell the truth, it's fine to omit things that are not age appropriate.
Is it really necessary for your toddler to know the exact blood spatter pattern of the possum you hit with your car last night?

How about why your neighbor, Mrs Jones sneaks out of her house every night that her husband goes away on business trips?
This is where editing comes in handy. The possum died. Mrs Jones is visiting a friend. Unless they specifically ask for details you're pretty safe.

However if the child has a genuine interest in something you deem inappropriate, you would have to judge whether they are mentally / emotionally able to understand and cope with the information, and go from there. Just try not to raise a serial killer - that would be bad.

So, keeping in mind my complete inability to answer questions like a normal person, and the subsequent list of rules I need to refer to in order to make any sense at all, this is what I came up with during my first attempt at answering one of the most feared questions of parents everywhere:

Connah: "Where do babies come from?"

Me: (Repeat. Maybe this has something to do with sunburn too...)"Do you mean how are babies made? Or where do they come from?"

Connah: "No, I mean how do you get one?"

Me: (The cabbage patch. No, stalks bring them! Crap! No lying! ) "Well, when you're grown up, you have to find a girl that you want to share one with and then she will grow it in her belly until it gets big enough to be born. Then you have a baby.

Connah: "I have to share it with a girl?! Can't I just grow one in my own belly?"

Me: (Well with the advances in medical technology, it is actually possible for a man to carry a baby to term... Edit: Unnecessary information at this time...) "No, only girls grow babies in their bellies. Boys don't have the right parts inside them to grow one."

Connah: "What if two boys want to share a baby?"

Me: (Not the time for an adoption or gay rights speech... simplify...) "Then they have to find a girl who doesn't want to keep her baby, and ask if they can look after it."

Connah: "But only girls grow the babies?"

Me: "Yes."

Connah: "Mummy?"

Me: "Yes Connah?"

Connah: "When I'm grown up, will you ask a girl to grow me a baby, cause ummm, I'm gonna be busy that day."





xox

Breastfeeding: A Mothers Choice, or her Sentence?

All new mothers are advised to breastfeed. We're told that there are so many benefits to breastfeeding, and that it is the best thing we can do for our child.

We're told it's natural, it has just the right nutrients for your baby, it promotes better bonding between mother and child, it provides antioxidants to keep them from getting sick, it's environmentally friendly. It's a magic potion of rainbows and unicorns that can rid the world of evil whilst simultaneously doing your taxes.

The medical profession, the media, family, and strangers in the street, all eulogize the benefits of breastfeeding.

This makes me want to choke them a little.

The doctors, nurses and midwives are especially frustrating to me - they should be providing new mothers with information and support regarding their preferred method of feeding their child, not ignoring bottle feeding entirely, and using guilt and pressure to 'encourage' breastfeeding.

It is completely ridiculous to think that if you pretend bottle feeding doesn’t exit, then all mothers will breastfeed.

The number of mothers who start breastfeeding but then go on to formula is very high, particularly in the first week. It is vital that they get basic information on how to prepare it properly, and the importance of sterilizing.

Promoting breastfeeding as being the best option if you are able and willing is fine, but villanizing mothers who bottle feed is not.

You are looked upon as selfish if you choose to bottle feed. You are given sidelong glances, and the occasional snarky comment if you dare to be seen in public with a bottle. Breastfeeding fanatics imply – when they don’t just say it outright – that you are either too callous or ignorant to do the 'right' thing by your child – you obviously don’t care about it's well being if you're feeding it formula! (gasp). You may as well be dressing it in plastic bags and letting it play on the road with rabid dogs.

Contrary to popular belief, baby formula is not in fact poison.

Today's baby milk formula is the closest it has ever been to breast milk. It also comes fortified with many nutrients that are low or absent in many mother's milk. Formula milk is fortified with iron and vitamin D and contains two essential fatty acids found in breastmilk, DHA and ARA. It is a nutritionally complete food for babies.

During my research for this post, I asked the people around me what they believed the benefits of breast feeding to be, and if they chose to do it, Why? Interestingly, convenience and the fact that it was free was high up on the list. But there were four other benefits that were present in most peoples minds, so I wanted to look further into them. This is what I found:

#1: Breastfeeding promotes bonding.
Many people who did not enjoy breastfeeding speak of only bonding with their child once they stopped. Many people who do enjoy breastfeeding speak of it as being the most bonding experience of their lives. In short, people are different and therefore will not always find the same activities bonding. Breastfeeding does help some woman form an attachment with their children, but if you are unable or unwilling, it can be very detrimental to bonding. If this is the case, the good news is that you do not need your baby to be physically attached to your body in order to bond with them. Spend time with them. Hold them. Play with them. Love them. It works really well.

#2: Breastfeeding passes antibodies to the baby.
Most mammals are born without any antibodies (or only the tiniest amounts) circulating in their blood. This leaves them defenseless at birth against viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. If a kitten is deprived of it's mothers colostrum after birth, it will probably get sick and die. Fortunately, the antibody molecules in colostrum are easily able to pass through the bowel walls of these baby mammals and protect them.

Human babies however, are able to absorb antibodies into their blood before birth via the placenta. Unlike other mammals (except monkeys) human babies are born with all the maternal antibodies that they will ever have.

Colostrum and breast milk are full of antibodies, but babies are never able to absorb them into the bloodstream except maybe in tiny amounts. The antibodies in breast milk do protect against infection, but they only work locally - inside the baby's gastrointestinal tract.

#3: Breastfeeding your child increases it's IQ.
If we are working on statistics (Which most of these studies do) it is worth noting that mothers who elect to breastfeed tend to be more intelligent themselves. Intelligence is genetic.
Experts originally believed that an acid called DHA which is found in breast milk, was responsible for the slight increase of IQ in breastfed children. But when they adjusted the results to take into account factors such as the mother’s own IQ and level of education, the difference between the intelligence of breastfed and formula fed babies disappeared.
There is also no statistical difference between the intelligence of siblings when one was breastfed and one wasn't.

#4: Breastfeeding reduces the risk of SIDS.
Yes it does, but that has nothing to do with anything in the breast milk. More likely it has to do with the frequency of which the child wakes to feed, or the fact that statistically, more mothers from higher income families choose to breastfeed and they can afford to buy new bedding for their children. Protective covers for bedding eliminate the risk of SIDS. Buy one today: http://www.babymattresscovers.com/

There are so many studies and reports out there showing the vast superiority of breastfeeding, but most of them share one glaring fault: Researchers can not ethically tell a woman how to feed her child, so they are forced to simply compare groups of babies being breast fed, against groups that are not.

Statistically we know that many mothers who choose to breastfeed are relatively intelligent, are more educated, come from higher income families, tend to provide more stimulating home environments, are more likely to use attachment parenting, and are slightly older than bottle feeding mothers. It is almost impossible to distinguish which benefits come from breastfeeding and which come from genetics, environment and parenting choices by simply observing these mothers.

Thousands of these observational studies have been published claiming the undeniable benefits of breastfeeding, but most of these claims have never been proven in the lab.
Connections between breastfeeding and obesity, allergies, preventing leukemia, cognitive development, heart disease, diabetes, (the list goes on...) are brandished about as if they are fact, but the science does not support these claims.
The studies are just comparing one group against another without taking any other relevant factors into account.

Does this mean that formula is better than breast milk? Not at all, there are many benefits to breastfeeding, this is only intended to make people think, and not judge others based on something that they've been spoon-fed.
Breastfeeding is a natural function and if you are able and willing, a really good choice. However, circumstances exist where bottle feeding is the better decision for some families - this decision is not child abuse, and shouldn't be treated as such.

You can not decide if another persons reasons are valid. Some may find breastfeeding to be an enjoyable / spiritual / rewarding experience, but that doesn't mean everyone will, or that they are even capable of feeling that way given their personality or history. Trying to force someone into it by making them feel as though they are inadequate, or a bad parent is cruel and irresponsible. You are not them. The breastfeeding movement is supposed to be a positive empowering thing, and instead it attempts to take the power of choice from mothers by providing inaccurate data and bullying, and it is hurting babies through lack of information.

When it comes to how you decide to feed your baby, no body else gets to have an opinion.

The best thing you can do for your child is be the most awesome parent you can. Look beyond conception, birth and nursing to the world into which they are born, where everything they see, feel and hear starts to shape the person they will become. Your children need you to be happy, confident, and capable much more than they need breast milk, and having a stressed, overwhelmed or resentful mother is far more toxic to them than anything found in formula.


xox