Holidays Ahead!

I like Thanksgiving. Food and family, what's not to like? But when it comes to holidays I really have to give it to Christmas. First and foremost it is about celebrating the birth of Christ. I really don't care that Jesus was not actually born in December, or that the Christian church only chose to celebrate during this season to keep people from participating in a pagan fertility holiday. I don't care that the Christmas tree, the feasting, and the gift-giving are all carried over from said fertility holiday. That doesn't change the meaning of the season for me. No matter what the circumstances of my life as a whole, Christmas always leaves me feeling fulfilled and blessed. It's hard not to feel God's presence when you are surrounded by people who love you.

If there is any one tradition that I'd like to pass on to my daughter and any future children, it is simply that they be surrounded by family. I can't imagine a Christmas season without going to three or four family gatherings, minimum. Sometimes it seems overwhelming to schedule them all, especially now that I am married and we have even more family members to see. I imagine that if we lived far away from family I would scrimp and save all year to travel home. I love having everyone together.

Do remember though, I am a nerd. Not all of my holiday memories are pulled from Hallmark cards. Whenever my parents claim that they are not nerds, I remember a holiday tradition that, sadly, stopped when I moved out. My parents worked at school so we had a vacation all the way through the new year, and in the vacation days after Christmas we would watch the original Star Wars trilogy. With the movies fresh in our minds, we gathered around the table to play Star Wars trivia. My dad was always Darth Vader. Still, they won't label themselves nerds... I suppose I'll let them slide since I won so often.

Even my nerdy memories are about family. They're not always cool, or easy to put up with, but if I didn't have family I might as well have nothing.

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Mama Drama!

I wanted to make a Thankful post tonight, but instead I feel like I should write on a topic that has been bothering me.

I've seen it all over the place lately: mothers putting down other mothers, women insulting women, and always over petty issues. It's ridiculous. And I don't care if you do it without naming names, or if you hide it under the veil of "just your opinion". Your opinion, when you express it in a way that is derogatory, inflammatory, and self-righteous, can hurt people. And if you're okay with that, all I can say is that I'm sad for you.

I say 'you' not because I have anyone in mind, but because we have all been guilty of it. I have, too. It's so easy to sit in judgement, to pretend we know best. But what's the point? Who are we helping when we raise ourselves on a pedestal? And how will it ever change the world for the better?

If I were to bring my past self forward in time and tell her to give her opinion of my life, I think she would judge me harshly. After all, my daughter barely naps, gladly ignores the word 'no', climbs like a maniac, and sleeps in our bed despite my best efforts. I never thought this would be me. The only thing separating the two of us is the experience of raising the offspring, but it makes a world of difference. So how can you possibly criticize someone without knowing what they have gone through? What makes you think that your so-called success could repeat itself in their situation, or that your choices would make them happy?

I do have something to be thankful for. I have met a unique community of women with low doses of drama, gossip, and general unpleasantness. Some of us have nothing in common other than having children born in the same month, but we get along. Every woman should be able to find that kind of support system, but too often someone decides to be catty, or worse. It can ruin a woman. Words hurt.

Next time you decide the internet is your personal high horse, think again. If you really want someone to hear you, try treating them with respect. Educate instead of lecture, think instead of rant. Remember that your words have power, but with power comes responsibility.

Yes, I had to make that reference. This is a nerd blog after all.

One Year

Tomorrow is the offspring's first birthday. It seems like it has been a short year and has gone by far too quickly, but I know all parents say that. All day I have been remembering the twenty four hours leading up to her birth. I had been having so many contractions, and I was more than ready to lose twenty pounds or so. I love my daughter immensely, but pregnancy, especially that last month or so, is not really appealing to me. I was done. I was so lucky to have a relatively short and easy labor. I had time to chat with friends and family, make a number of facebook posts, and play a little Mario Kart to distract myself from contractions pre-epidural. I was able to genuinely enjoy my labor and delivery and all my memories are so great!

Even though I love to reminisce about those early days, I am glad the offspring is getting older because she is so much fun. Every day she learns and her personality grows. When she was tiny I could admire her tiny face, ears, nose, hands and toes. Now she can tell me where all of them are. I used to have to wave toys in front of her face to get a smile, but now she can fetch them for herself, often retrieving the one that I ask for. Many times she will wave them around to get our attention instead! There is not a single moment or memory that I would trade to reverse time, even the days of reflux and teething. I've discovered some of her favorite activities while trying to soothe or distract her.

Happy birthday to you, little one, and may the years to come be as blessed as the first!

Creating Creativity

Even though I'm making this post as an entry for a giveaway from Cotton Babies, it's something I've been meaning to discuss for a while. Creativity is very important to me, and I want to see the offspring blossom into an imaginative child. At eleven months (four days shy, how time flies!) it's impossible to know what talents she will have, so right now it is all about creating a mindset.

Right now, she loves to dance, so we dance every day! Whether it is just singing silly songs or playing CDs to see what she likes, there is a lot of music in our house these days. She loves it all, from mommy singing the alphabet to rocking guitars! She definitely has her own moves and I don't know where she got them, so she is already getting creative there.

I think making independent choices is very important to creativity, too, so the offspring helps choose her clothes almost every day. For now her choices are limited, but she gets to pick from two or three options. She is showing preferences towards bright colors and bold patterns, which of course I love. It's great to dress her and know that she likes her clothes, and thinks she looks good.

Most of all I try to get her to use her imagination every day. She is welcome to play with some of my plastic bowls, and she takes the offer gladly. Some days they are drums, other days they are baskets for collecting smaller toys, and still other days they are hats. And some days, they are all three! I want to keep buying her toys that will encourage her imagination instead of just flashing lights at her. She does love gadgets like a proper little nerd baby, but there is so much more to life. For her upcoming birthday she is getting Megabloks so that she can build whatever she can dream up. For Christmas I plan to get toy food so that she can pretend to be a gourmet chef, or run a grocery store, or be a mommy cooking for her baby doll. And when she is old enough to hold them she'll get crayons and I will draw with her every day, because even at 23 I think crayons are one of the best things on Earth.

Creativity is a muscle, and if you don't nurture it, you can atrophy. I'll keep exercising the offspring's creativity every day!

Educating the Offspring

So, while I don't like to brag about it, it's easiest to start off this entry explaining that the offspring seems to have above average intelligence. She is hitting milestones early and has very high comprehension skills for her age. 1337 D4ddy and I aren't exactly slackers in the IQ department so I can't say I'm shocked, but even knowing it's likely doesn't fully prepare a person to raise a gifted child.

I worry about whether I am stimulating the offspring enough to help her reach her potential. We talk and I teach her words every day, we read pretty much every day, and we are already introducing the alphabet and colors into her daily play too. But the world throws lots of early education "opportunities" at parents these days and it keeps me curious. Do I need to get "Your Baby Can Read"? Do I need to buy sign language DVDs? Do I need to make baby lesson books?

Right now my answer is no. The offspring is learning really well without any formal lessons and I don't want to interrupt it. I want her to grow into her brains and talents naturally, without being pushed too hard in any one direction. This isn't to say that I disagree with any parents that do choose baby education. I haven't completely ruled out doing it in the future. But the offspring has so far shown a fondness for learning in her own way and I'm not going to make her change. I want to encourage her imagination, too. After all, she will have years and years of school to teach her, but only five years to stay home and play!

Not So Granola

Recently I came to realize that, on paper, I sound like a bit of a "granola mom". I breastfeed, babywear, co-sleep, and cloth diaper. I still don't see myself as being too granola, though, probably because most of this was completely unplanned.

Breastfeeding was the one thing I chose to begin. However, the offspring is nearly ten months old now, and I honestly believed that by this age I'd be doing more pumping and bottle feeding than nursing. She had other plans. She hates bottles and is very picky about what she'll drink from a sippy cup. We still nurse at least six times a day, often more.

Babywearing was sort of my choice, but like breastfeeding the offspring expanded the scope of my plans. As an infant she never wanted to be set down, so into the sling she went to let me do dishes and laundry. Even now she becomes impatient in a stroller and I've upgraded to a hip sling for traveling.

Cloth diapering came in later, and while I enjoy it now, I thought I'd be happy using Pampers for however many years we took to potty train. I'm not going to get into details about the Dry Max because there has been such a huge controversy on the internet. We did not have a rash, but I was dissatisfied, and the other disposables just didn't measure up to the old Pampers. I'm happy that we're not throwing out gallons of diapers every week, but the environment was hardly my highest priority in the switch.

And last, but certainly not least, we have the co-sleeping. Not only was this unplanned, but I have done everything in my power to avoid it. Unfortunately the offspring has never been a good sleeper and after months of getting four or five hours of sleep at best, I have (mostly) given in. And just let me say that I know why I "shouldn't" be doing this, from safety concerns to toddler discipline. I've read about it, I've heard it, I've lived it, but none of it has been able to change my situation.

So I guess that I have a bit of granola in my life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have a granola baby, since it is her attitude that has led to most of my decisions. But mostly I am just doing what nerds do best: living my life apart from what society expects, and being happy whether they like it or not. I'll do what I need to do!

Bento, Revisited

For a few months, early in my pregnancy, I was making bento lunches for 1337 D4ddy. I never really tried to do art bento, since D4ddy could care less whether or not his food is cute, but getting up in the morning and preparing any kind of lunch that is more intricate than a sandwich takes time. I have never been a morning person in my life and fibromyalgia makes it even worse, so the bento making dropped off late in my pregnancy and stopped altogether when the offspring was born. For a few weeks I have been looking with dismay at the drawer full of bento supplies currently going to waste, and thinking on the reasons that I started bento in the first place. I wanted something to encourage me in my ongoing quest to make our diets healthier, first and foremost, but a thoughtfully packed healthy lunch was also a way to send a little extra love to school or work. This school semester promises to be the busiest yet, so anything I can do to make it easier is good. I have resolved to start making bento again.

The time required is definitely the biggest turn-off in bento making, at least for me, but thankfully there are others with the same dilemma who have become dedicated to the speed bento. Over the last couple of days I have been dutifully combing over Lunch In A Box for tips, recipes, and resources. The author, Biggie, packs bento lunches for her son in what seems to be an average of about 20 minutes every morning. 20 minutes is a great window for me. The offspring can eat her breakfast or stay happy in the swing for that long. Even if I stretch it out to 30 minutes when I'm getting the hang of things, she will probably tolerate it.

The only real disadvantage to making bento again is that it tempts me to buy all kinds of gear that I don't strictly need. I adore kitchen gadgets and my brain has apparently filed bento boxes and accessories as kitchen gadgets because it can't get enough of them.

The bento making will not begin immediately because I'm going to build up my freezer supply first. Freezer foods can be key in speed bento. D4ddy can manage in the meantime and a few days' wait will be worth it, if all goes as planned. I'll make sure to keep an update on how it goes!