Thank You, Thank You!

Update on the nursing strike--Otis is fine.  He has sucked on a frozen washcloth and been fine.  When he really pitched a fit last night after a hot sticky day, we just gave him a bottle and he fell asleep.  I am not going to fret about it. 

I just want to say thank you to everyone who commented--it made me feel so much better knowing I wasn't the only one to go through it and that it was a small setback and not the end of our nursing!  Isn't it funny how you can get yourself so worked up thinking the worst case scenario?? 

I really don't know what I'd do without a computer.  My first thought when this happened was to write a blog post.  And I posted in a mom's group on Facebook.  And I went to some websites people had recommended.  It's amazing how a few hours later I had some feedback and felt so much better!  Thank you.

Homeschooling

Lyndsey over at Motherhood Moments wrote this blog post about unschooling.  I am so inspired by it and had to write my own ideas down about it. 

My schooling was okay, there was nothing majorly wrong about it, but it left me uninspired and even though I could have gone to whatever college in Michigan I wanted to on a great scholarship, I didn't go to college.  I was burnt out on playing the game of school.  I was always getting negative comments on my report cards about bothering other kids who were still working.  I would whiz through whatever we were doing and I'd be bored, so I would try to help my friends along so they could be done, too.  Teachers didn't think oh here's an intelligent kid, they just said oh, here's a nuisance, we need to shut her up and slow her down.  So I began to think I was doing something wrong.  Teachers would tell me I was going too fast, I wasn't reading the directions clearly, I wasn't double checking my answers.  Yes, I was!  I was just really fast! 

And don't get me started about middle school!  As a girl it is hell.  Absolute pure hell.  I would not wish that on my daughter for anything.  The gossip, the dirty looks, the backstabbing.  I had a group of friends in 6th grade, one of whom was a neighbor girl I would play with often.  One day she decided she didn't like me, so she talked all the other kids into not liking me, either.  Suddenly I was left floating in a class with no friends and no idea why it had happened.  Luckily I was switched to another class and found girls I am still to this day friends with!  But how awful to go through that, right?? 

High school was not much better.  I was "good" at school because I would do the work, but I wasn't interested in any of it.  Most of the classes were spent trying to quiet people down, then teach a little, then make us regurgitate what we were told.  If you had a good memory, you were "smart."  If you didn't, then you weren't.  By my junior year I was over it.  I stopped playing the game, I stopped going to class, I was this close to dropping out.  Everyone thought I was on drugs, or hanging out with the wrong crowd, they never stopped to think that a 16 year old could just be sick of school and all the drama that went along with it!

One thing I remember is that older friends that had graduated would say stick with it, college is so much better!  You know why they thought it was better?  Because they had freedom to learn what they wanted, take classes they wanted, and people were there because they wanted to be there.  There are those classes with people that have to take a requirement, but most classes are filled with people who chose to be there because they wanted to learn that subject.  You know what that sounds like to me?  Homeschooling!  Why make my kid wait until she's burnt out with "normal" schooling?  Why not just teach her that way all along?

I remember our family friends switching their kids to a new charter school.  They went to an info night and when they got back with folders of the new curriculum, I was so jealous!  Sixth graders were expected to read the classics!  They got to take interesting science classes!  I said that if I had a chance to go to a school like that, I wouldn't have almost dropped out of school, I would have gone to college right away, I would have enjoyed learning.  I still remember that, and if I can't find a school like that for Ingrid, I don't want to send her anywhere.  She can stay home with me and read whatever books she likes, and we'll go to museums and movies and look stuff up online.  She can take music classes or dance classes or whatever she wants to do. 

Yesterday we were at the park and there were some older kids playing on the merry go round.  They were going a bit fast and Ingrid wanted to join in.  I thought for sure the girls would give her dirty looks and not let her play but right away they said HI!  Do you want to play with us?  We'll go slow, come on, let's play!  I was amazed, and completely happy.  Then I met their mom--she has seven kids and homeschools.  The kids aren't raised to see kids as younger and therefore inferior, they just see...kids.  That want to play.  How lovely!

This is a bit of a rambling post, but it's stuff that is on my mind so much.  Part of me wants to "get rid" of Ingrid at 5 so I can focus on sewing and stuff, but that's a small selfish part that comes out on the days she acts up and is a true 2 year old!  Another part wonders if she's learning enough social things, and if she'll be okay with other kids if she's not in a preschool or whatever.  Even though I know she's learning social skills from me, I wonder.  And she's just turning 2 so I have time to figure stuff out, but Lyndsey's post inspired me, so here you go!

I've Gone All Hippy

Thanks to all the wonderful blogs I've been following the past year or so, I have gone all hippy.  Cloth diapering, cloth mama pads, thinking of homeschooling, using slings, breastfeeding baby #2 if I can (and for longer than six months, thank you very much.)  It has been so gradual that I hadn't noticed it much.  And then I talked to old friends and realized how much I've gone over to the crunchy side!

Number One:  Slings.  A friend of mine is very pro stroller, and I respect that.  I was trying to tell her how awesome slings are and how babywearing is so great for the baby.  She just isn't into it.  And then she found the warning about bag slings and said for sure no.  Not for them.  I thought back to when I was pregnant for Ingrid and I'd never even heard of a sling.  I spent hours and hours researching strollers, it was an obsession!  And then we got a front pack and I never used our stroller anyway...And then we got slings and carriers and I just loved them so much.  I loved the feeling of having Ingrid right there, she'd lean back and look at me and smile, I'd kiss her every five steps. 

Number Two:  Cloth Diapers.  I have tried to convince so many people that it's really not that big of a deal!  Again, when I was pregnant I thought about using cloth but the upfront costs really made it seem impossible.  It wasn't until I started really looking at things that I realized that you can do it pretty cheaply, and you can do it part time, and you can get a stash little by little, you don't have to have all 20 diapers at once.  And washing and poop, they are not a big deal.  You get used to it.  And after spending $600 on disposables, I cringe thinking of how many awesome organic diapers I coulda bought with that money!!

Number Three:  Paper products in General.  I use cloth pads now.  It's just a given that with using cloth diapers I suddenly saw how silly it was to use disposable pads.  We also don't use paper napkins--I have cheap washcloths we use, and I just started thrifting some cool old cloth napkins.  I used to think they were for fancy dinners, I don't know why it never occured to me to use them every day!  We also don't use paper towels, which doesn't seem like a big deal to me.  We haven't used them in years.  But a maintenance man came to fix our dishwasher and asked for a paper towel.  I said we don't use them and he gave me such an incredulous look!  But I thought about it and duh, why would you use papaer to soak up a spill?  We don't dry ourselves off with paper bath towels do we?? 

Number Four:  Breastfeeding.  I did not breastfeed Ingrid.  I don't regret it one bit.  She grew and grew and she's smart as hell, and she hasn't had a lot of sickness at all.  But...for baby #2 I am going to do everything in my power to breastfeed him/her.  For one, it's so much better than shelling out $20 for a can of formula that smells and stains everything!  And it's easier to stick a boob in the mouth than fumble around for a bottle and measuring the formula at 2 in the morning.  And one thing I got defensive about with my friends was extended breastfeeding.  I have to admit that when I first saw people nursing their toddlers and tandem nursing, I was freaked out.  I just never saw it before.  It was weird to me, it was different, and I just didn't get it.  But after seeing it around it seems normal to me.  Like why not nurse past six months?  Why stop it at one year exactly?  What's wrong with nursing past what someone deems normal?  This was something not one single friend of mine agreed with me on!  They all thought it was gross, and the mother being selfish not wanting to give it up.  And unneccesary, why not just give the kid "real" milk?  I was really quite surprised, as my friends around here in MI nursed their kids as long as they wanted, they never seemed in a hurry to stop, and were actually sad when it did stop.  It seems strange to me to just stop it and give a kid cow's milk instead of human breast milk...

So there you go, I'm a crunchy hippy and I am proud of it!!  Thank you so much to Sarah and Gina and Sunnymama for showing me a different way of being a parent.  It has helped me be the kind of parent I want to be!