......

......
I want to be that mother who can stand up and say I am a strong confident mother and I know what is best for my children. We breastfeed and co sleep, We listen, We include, We eat chocolate and snot smoothies, we trampoline and grow frogs, we sling, we carry and we try and understand and work with our children without resorting to punishments, threats or coercion.

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Salt of the Earth

It fascinates me that for years it's been drummed into us that salt is bad for us. Don't eat so much. Cut down. Cut out. When in actual fact it's completely wrong!!! It's just processed white table (the type that most people eat) salt that's bad for us. I'm starting to learn more about alternatives and it turns out we actually need salt! Natural salt (rock salt, Himalayan pink or Celtic grey) is totally great and needed. Of course salt is needed. Our body needs salt. Our body is made up of it, among many things. Salt.

"We all need a little bit of salt because it helps our body's cells to absorb nutrients. However, the majority of us eat about two-and-a-half times as much salt than we need." NHS

". . .all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And, when we go back to the sea. . . we are going back to whence we came." -John F. Kennedy

One of the problems is the amount of salt. Most people eat a diet that has a lot of processed foods and these foods already have a lot of processed salt in them. Add more processed salt to that and hey presto an illness waiting to happen.

Tides are changing, people are becoming more aware and foods are being made with less salt and more herbs and natural flavours.

So how much salt does the body need? Experts say 6g a day. With the natural pink or grey, these figures become less worrisome. Use what is needed. You'll soon find that once you start cutting down on processed table salt, your taste buds will rejoice and resurface!!

You know what I can't wait for? The rest of society to catch up, realise low-fat is unhealthy, diet anything is *wrong*, organic natural fat/butter is better than its highly processed counterpart and for healthy natural foods to become readily available and affordable. Soon, everyone will realise organic is just the tip if the iceberg.

I have a long way to go on the mind changing food revolution. I get it though and I believe in it. My nemesis is sugar.

I have similar thoughts on allopathic medicine. Alternatives and ancient methods are starting to seep back into our very mainstream methods. We are returning to the old ways more and more and we are realising how over medicalised everything is. Every day I read stories in the mainstream news extolling the virtues of alternatives over allopathic and I literally do a 'told you so' dance.



One day we really will all 'get with the program!' And realise what's good for us.








Some of the millions of Links used for research:













Sunday, 9 December 2012

Wrong indignation





Seriously. Unless the woman actually had HIV or hepatitis I can't see why they would need to test as a precautionary measure. Seems completely unnecessary, invasive and a major over reaction.

Another reason why mothers and babies should NOT be separated in hospital but come on. Another Mothers Breast milk (donated milk) is one of WHO's top recommendations, above formula. And there is evidence that breast feeding has a reduced risk of HIV transmission from mother to baby anyway.

I would rather my kid was breastfed by accident than formula fed. Just one bottle can rearrange gut flora with a negative outcome.

Such a shame that such a furore is made about breastfeeding other babies. It used to be common practice. The baby probably got some brilliant antibodies and immunity!

Ok. So it wasn't consensual. Ok. It was a terrible error of... Admin? Nursing ability? But it's not the end of the world.  I found it more depressing that she was formula feeding whilst lamenting that her baby had been given precious gold breastmilk.

Like I said. Mothers and baby's need to be kept together. 

Always.


Changing or taking them off?

I need to change again. I need to get naked!!! no! Wait. Haha my autocorrect changed that to naked (I have no idea how?). I am sure I was going to say, I need to get back to how I used to be. When I was trying harder, making more of an effort, to be nicer, to be gentler and more connecteder to others but especially my kids. How do I get that back? 



I mean it wasn't like I was the paragon of virtue. But I felt happier with the way I was speaking to my kids and the way we were speaking to each other. I felt more comfortable about my interactions with them and the way they were interacting with me. I was feeling less irritated by their presence and they were less annoyed with me. I don't want my children to feel unwanted. Unworthy. Unloved. Not listened to. Unhappy.


Sometimes I am Unprocessed. I need to get back on track and process my shit because I think I am passing it on to my kids. They don't need mine on top of everything else they need to process. I need to be their constant. Constant. Love. Constant rock. Constantly understood, listened to and heard. Connected.



Getting naked could be the answer ;)



Meltdowns - none. Too excited about Chanukah
Losing the plot - minor one at family gathering. All sorted.
Breastfeeding - soooooooo much. Tooth coming in.

Friday, 7 December 2012

And so it begins. Strike Two?


Ok. Friends. Analyse this :-
( be brutal. Ok no. Be whatever is two below on the scale of brutal!!!)

At mums. Been slowly building relationship back up since last mahasoove blowout in October. But in that 'not treading on toes way'.

Mum: "it's not Chanukah already is it?. We just did Ellie's birthday. "

*Sigh*

(We were talking about Maia's Chanukah present.)

Fuck me. I was a paragon. I said nothing. Except. Really I should have. Should I have? Is this my pattern? Do not say anything. Let is slide. Let it build. Pressure cooker. S.Trike threeee. Lose my cool. Have a fight. Grrrr for bit. Slowly make up. Ad infinitum.

Or am I psychologising again? Am I being over sensitive. Is there something wrong with me? Am I depressed?

" What's your problem" ?!!! (Once said to me as a greeting....erm. Hello to you too). I digress.

Actually her comment did not elicit the same reaction as it might have previously. Outrage. Indignation. Disgust. But should it have gone completely unnoticed, glossed over, like strike one? (Strike one is too heinous to divulge but...it was my birthday, I didn't hear it first hand and frankly I couldn't be arsed at the time. I had life to be getting on with)(I've not forgotten though!)

I'm certain I should have been NVC  in that situation but for the life of me I am unable to think that way around her. Think how she is thinking. Imagining where those thoughts are coming from. That simply because it was Ellie's birthday 12days ago (could seem like 4 to her because family party was 4 days ago) means "I am entitled to begrudge getting something for my other granddaughter for Chanukah".

Okay. Now I am getting angry. I'm going to stop thinking about it anymore!! Maybe I am psychologising too much.

I'm just glad Maia is a bit hard of hearing (due to cold) at the moment. What would she have heard?

'I'm not getting a Chanukah gift from grandma because it was Ellie's birthday the other day. ' ???

Now I know present giving should not be equated with love and worth and all tied up in that conditionality...but it's Chanukah. It's her granddaughter. Who doesn't love a present?

Not that she would EVER do it anyway, but why fucking say it?!

Shit. I said I wasn't going to talk about it again!!



Meltdowns : massive one in Morrisons. (Will tell that story)
Losing the plot: resounding NO!
Breastfeeding: getting out and about again. I've been missing my supermarket feeds whilst sitting on the toilet rolls in the toilet roll aisle. (The bigger the store, the comfier the seat!)





Saturday, 1 December 2012

Play the game mummy

Most days a way to connection is staring me straight in the face. I get given the opportunity and I rarely take it. I am resistant to it in fact.

The girls play babies. They want me to be their mother. I thought I already was?? They want me to baby them.
They want me to carry them and hold them and take care of their every single needs and love them like a baby.

"When we play babies and I'm the mother what do I have to do?"
"You just have to be a *normal* mother" says Maia
WTF??!!!!

They want me to treat them how a baby is treated because....because.... probably because I was nicer to them when they were babies? I didn't ask/nag. I didn't shout (much). I didn't ask them to bring their own plate through after dinner or, G-d forbid, dress themselves. I didn't make them wait.

"Do everything for them until they want to, or until they can, do it themselves but even then they might not want to so you have to anyway" Is that an accurate description of a mother? Would that be acceptable in their game? I think not.

I knew what to do then. (Except back then I felt like I didn't.) Hold them. Love them. Feed them milk. Give them my boob. That was pretty much it for a very long time!!!

Now, They are 6 and 4. Not babies. They are growing up and now, now I have no clue how to be their mother aside from the holding. The loving. The feeding. There is SO much more to it and wow it's hard. This is more than just the holding. The loving. That kind of connecting. It's way more complicated. This is a whole nother level.

This way to connection, this way to fill their cup, it's staring me straight in the face. It's so obvious. I know that. But fuck me I'm tired! I'm resistant because I already am the mother and I'm finding it damn hard. Why would I want to play *that* as a game??!



Sometimes I do play. They love it.

Other times, they want me to be the popcorn lady.







Meltdowns - special kind of growing up ones
Losing the plot - trying SO very hard at moment not to
Breastfeeding - still working!












Friday, 30 November 2012

The proof



I recently posted for help on my FB wall. 

In an effort to prove to my mother that my friends also have 'different priorities' and to help me feel better about her frequent nasty remarks about our home, I asked people to post pics of their homes. The fact is, I am constantly tidying and she NEVER comes round in that '10minute window' when the house IS tidy!

Here are the results. I must say, I DO feel better about our home! I will show these pictures to her at the weekend.

Please do keep the pictures coming!
























 



Meltdowns - on the increase
Losing the Plot - on the decrease
Breastfeeding - soooooooooooooooooooo much