Changing the Subject

Violet got a break from her role as model and muse last weekend when she spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa, freeing up both me and my dining room for a maternity photo shoot with my friend Leslie and her family. We set up the seamless next to Violet's play kitchen, which kept Leslie's almost four year old, Sienna, happy in between shots.

It was nothing like my sessions with Violet, who I couldn't pose if I wanted to. Typically, I wouldn't want to, because I prefer to capture her more candidly, but I'll admit it was nice (if a little nerve-wracking) to be able to give my subjects some direction. It was a great opportunity for me to work outside of my comfort zone, and so much fun to be a part of memorializing this family as they wait for their newest member to arrive!

Of course I couldn't resist shooting a few more frames of Sienna as we wrapped up the session - is this kid photogenic or what?

Thanks again, Leslie and family!

Wordless Wednesday: Change Has Come to America

For No-Cry Solutions for Common Parenting Challenges, Check with Elizabeth Pantley

I first encountered the gentle guidance of Elizabeth Pantley when I added The No-Cry Sleep Solution to the stack of books on baby sleep that grew beside my bed during Violet's infancy. As Violet grew, but the length of her sleep sessions did not, I thumbed desperately through its pages in search of a remedy to her restlessness. While in reading it I never discovered the silver bullet I'd hoped to find (I'm not sure there is such thing as a compassionate quick fix for sleep at those stages), what I did take away was what I really needed: reassurance that someday my baby would sleep longer than three quarters of an hour, without our resorting to strategies we weren't comfortable with.

Pantley's approach is the antithesis to perhaps better-known "baby-trainers" like Ferber and Weissbluth - worse yet, Ezzo - who are adamant that every baby is the same and should sleep on the same schedule. Instead, Pantley understands that babies are individuals, and should be respected and responded to as such, even at night. Since she also recognizes that prolonged sleep deprivation can be painful (putting it mildly) for parents, she proposes a plan for helping ease little ones into sleeping longer stretches in a way that the whole family can live with.

Fortunately for the child-centered set, Pantley has provided additional advice on tough topics in her other books: The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers; The No-Cry Potty Training Solution; The No-Cry Discipline Solution; and her latest - The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems. Each of these volumes adds a much-needed AP perspective to conventional parenting literature; I look forward to adding several to my own bookshelf.

Wordless Wednesday: Winter

The Sleep Saga Goes On . . .

As I was dropping Violet off at daycare one morning last week, I responded to a fellow parent's innocent inquiry as to how I was doing with an honest "I'm tired." Violet, never a sound sleeper, has been even more restless the past few weeks, and it's taken a toll on Eric and me. After a year and half of living with a baby with high nighttime needs, we can withstand a significant sleep deprivation, but the holidays (and the four new teeth that came with them) seemed to amplify our issues. By the second week in January, we were back to the all-night nurse-a-thons we thought we'd left behind months ago.

Historically, Violet’s sleep patterns have been inconsistent enough to give us the occasional reprieve. A few nights of waking to nurse only once or twice could restore us sufficiently to withstand the less peaceful episodes that were sure to follow. But last week we realized we – more accurately I - wasn’t going to be able to ride this most recent regression out. Violet had appointed me her human pacifier, refusing to sleep without being latched on. Though I am more patient as a parent than I ever imagined I could be, I have my limits, and we had reached them.

So when this friendly father said "how are you?" I told him: I'm tired. The adorable, energetic toddler you just saw me waving goodbye to is up at least every hour these days. In my experience, such confessions are often met with a well-intentioned explanation of when and how the person I'm speaking with applied the cry-it-out technique with their own child, and how well they've been sleeping ever since. This conversation was no exception. But while I appreciate the suggestion, and I certainly envy the image of uninterrupted sleep, I'm still not comfortable with the concept of "cry it out."

Eric and I agreed we needed to do something differently, but weren’t willing to resort to letting Violet cry it out alone. Instead, we decided it was time for her to (partially) nightwean. At seventeen months, she no longer needs to nurse for nutrition overnight, and though we hated to remove that source of comfort, her increasing dependence on it was making the family bed unbearable. We were familiar with Dr. Jay Gordon’s gentle approach to nightweaning, and using it as a guide decided to designate the hours of 10 pm – 5 am as “time to sleep,” during which we would offer Violet comfort in any form except nursing.

For a few nights, I left the room when she woke, so as not to further frustrate her. Eric could soothe her in my absence by letting her lay on top of him, but we soon saw that while that was effective at settling her, ultimately we weren't making any progress at getting her to sleep unattached to one of us. Last night, we took the option of Dada's chest off the table, and the nightweaning began in earnest. Denied her two preferred sleep associations, Violet protested first angrily, and eventually with heartbreaking, hiccuping sobs. But as she struggled, we stayed beside her, rubbing her back, singing softly, whispering in her ear. Eventually she fell asleep, nestled between us.

We expect it to take Violet some time to adjust to this new nighttime routine, and we are committed to working through that with her. We also understand that nightweaning may not reduce her nightwaking (though certainly that is the hope). But even if she continues to wake frequently, nightweaning will allow us to identify other ways to soothe her back to sleep that will afford us more flexibility in our nighttime parenting. In the meantime, we'll accept any peacefully sleeping baby vibes sent our direction.

For inspiration:

One More Reason Why I Don’t Rely on the FDA: Melamine in US Infant Formula

I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I admit I don’t trust a lot of the information our government offers on matters of health and safety. Of course I’m not suggesting the FDA and the CDC are out to get us, but the evidence of industry’s significant influence over such agencies is disconcerting, to say the least. I’ll save my favorite example - the story of the conflicts of interest discovered in FDA and CDC vaccine advisory committees for its own post on another day; suffice it to say, my inquiry into the risks and benefits of anything I'm considering for my daughter NEVER ends with "according to the FDA . . ."

So when I heard yesterday that the FDA says the amount of the toxic chemical melamine detected in U.S. baby formula is safe, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Last summer, more than 50,000 Chinese babies were sickened after drinking formula contaminated with melamine. Shortly thereafter, the FDA stated that it wasn’t able to establish ANY level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that did not raise public health concerns. The agency also assured the American public that there was no known threat of contamination of formula manufactured by companies approved to sell formula in the U.S. That was the last anyone heard from the FDA on the subject until the Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request requiring the FDA to disclose that it had found trace amounts of melamine in formula and nutritional supplements sold in the U.S. Consumer groups have questioned whether the information would ever have been released absent the FOIA request.

The FDA’s reticence on the issue hardly inspires confidence. Many Americans rely on government agencies like the FDA to protect them from harmful products, assuming that if it’s on the shelf it’s been approved by the FDA and so must be safe. Instead, the FDA seems to be sitting on information that may affect the most vulnerable among us. And the agency’s concurrent statement that the amounts detected in the U.S. formula were “trace amounts” which it considered to be “perfectly fine” for infants? Quite a departure from the agency’s original position that it could not identify any amount of melamine as safe for infant consumption. Color me skeptical.

Now that the word is out, the FDA appears to have been more forthcoming on the subject. Earlier this week, it revealed that melamine and byproduct cyanuric acid have now been detected in more containers of infant formula - twice as many as were reported in November. (Results of FDA testing for melamine in formula can be viewed here. Additionally, formula manufacturer Abbott Laboratories (makers of Similac) has also said that it detected trace levels of melamine in its formula. Whether the trace amounts of melamine discovered in any of these samples of formula would be harmful to a baby and how is uncertain, but I’m certainly not taking the FDA’s declaration that it is as the last word.

Melamine isn’t something I’d want to mess around with. A chemical commonly used in plastics and adhesives, it has been found in food products, usually added to increase nitrogen content which makes the protein content appear higher. For example, in the Chinese formula that made such news last summer, water was added to raw milk to increase volume, and melamine added to mask the lower protein content of the end product formula. Melamine can also get into food products through packaging or from a cleaning solution used on some food processing equipment. While no studies have been conducted on human subjects, animal tests demonstrate adverse health effects such as bladder stones and kidney stones which can lead to kidney failure and even death. Melamine has also been shown to have a carcinogenic effect on animals.

The levels of melamine in the Chinese formula that harmed so many children there were higher than those in the U.S. formula tested by the FDA (which the FDA believes was contaminated in the manufacturing process, rather than added intentionally), but it’s not clear to me how the FDA arrived at the conclusion that the levels in U.S. formula are safe for consumption by little bitty babies, especially with respect to long term effects. Hopefully more information will become available now that melamine is on the public’s radar. As to how reliable that information might be . . . I’ll be considering the source.

Wordless Wednesday á la Jaws 3

Catching Up

December seemed to blow through as quickly as the snowstorm that besieged Boise last night. Holiday preparation, travel, and the holidays themselves consumed us, leaving other activities like blogging (and posting the daily Flickr photo, and walking the dog . . . ) neglected in their wake. We're now working our way through all that was pushed aside the past few weeks - including photos of all the festivities. We managed to take the Monkey out for a long overdue stroll on Sunday, so there's hope for the rest. In the meantime, here's a shot from this year's holiday album:

Violet goes sledding.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Holidays

Wordless Wednesday: Let It Snow

Wordless Wednesday

The Way It's Supposed to Be

I’m lying on my back on a yoga mat in a dimly lit room. At the conclusion of an hour-long class, we are settling into savasana: relaxation pose. The instructor’s voice, soft and low, melts into the new-age music, a smooth melody of soothing as she guides us.

“Relax your hips, your back . . . let them sink into the floor,” she sighs. “Notice your breathing, let each breath be soft, full and easy.”

I inhale slowly through my nose, filling my belly first - and WHOOSH! that air rushes back out as my fifteen month-old daughter bounces all of her twenty-two pounds on my midsection. The instructor’s gentle cues to completely relax are quickly drowned out by our giggles. Violet sits on my stomach, grinning, and bounces again, and I grin right back at her. More giggles ensue. Mommy and Me yoga, much like the rest of motherhood, does not follow a script.

This may be the biggest adjustment I’ve had to make since becoming a mama. I am admittedly Type A; I like things the way they’re supposed to be. I’ve lived most of my adult life the way you’re “supposed to:” following college with law school and a professional career, marrying my like-minded and motivated love along the way. We planned for Violet the way we planned every other part of our lives. We meticulously designed every detail of her nursery, read up on newborn care, and imagined ourselves gazing down lovingly as she cooed in her crib. I even made plans for my maternity leave, assuring a friend from work I’d visit regularly – we’d lunch while my little one snoozed, I told her.

Enter Violet. She had different plans. As an infant, she insisted on being in-arms at all times; she certainly wouldn’t sleep any other way, so the nursery we had worked so hard on remained unoccupied. She needed to nurse nearly every hour around the clock, and during the colicky episodes she suffered almost every evening, we could only comfort her if we stood next to a very loud vacuum cleaner. I had lunch with my friend only once, and not at the park as we’d planned, but in my living room, where she found me desperate and bedraggled, a newborn wrapped to my chest. There were a lot of tears those first few months, and many of them were mine. This, I thought, was definitely not the way it was supposed to be.

I struggled with this new chaotic existence, flailed and fought to force it into some semblance of order. Although I was with my daughter all the time, and doing all the things for her I believed I should - nursing her on demand, responding to her cries, keeping her physically close - my preoccupation with regaining control over my world kept me from being truly present in much of it. Often I was too busy formulating our next sleep strategy to appreciate each of her soft sighs as she snuggled into my neck. Something had to change. I didn’t want to miss any more of my baby’s babyhood wishing it away.

Eventually I realized that what needed to change was me. I wanted to give my daughter what she most deserved, and I hadn’t yet been able to offer: my presence. I began making a conscious effort when I was with her to stop my mind from racing ahead to the next ten things I needed to do. I focused instead on letting go of what I thought should be and simply being in the moment. It’s an effort I must renew every day. It isn’t always easy, but it is absolutely worth it; I have enjoyed so much with my daughter I might otherwise have missed.

I am still the same person in many ways; I still like lists and schedules, logic and analysis. And there is a place for all that in parenting, but I now know that the most important parts of motherhood can’t be planned. Life, like our yoga routine, may not proceed as I originally envisioned, but the way it is . . . well, that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

This post was originally submitted as an entry in the API Speaks AP Month essay contest. It was voted the #2 favorite, scoring me a one year membership to Attachment Parenting International, and an excerpt will be featured in the Spring 2009 issue of the Attached Family magazine. Thanks to all who voted!

Our Little Audubon Artiste

Our refrigerator has recently assumed the nobler purpose of displaying Violet's artwork. Her daycare provides the kids the opportunity to try all sorts of art projects, from painting with spoons to creating a collage with different types of tape. This latest masterpiece was a product of painting with small sponge rollers.

At first glance, it might look like the sort of abstract art you would expect from a 16 month old. But look closer, and her true genius is revealed:

I could spend my whole life in front of an easel and never paint a more perfect talon. Seriously, check it out up close:

Of course we considered the possibility that this could be a Jesus-in-the breakfast-toast sort of fluke. But that's clearly not the case, because when you look at the whole piece, it's obviously a red tail hawk, swooping down on its prey. Look again:

See? It's unmistakable. And we're not biased . . . just the humble parents of an undeniably gifted artist.

Wordless Wednesday

This Ain't No Butterball

Though this wasn't Violet's first Thanksgiving, it was the first time she got to partake of the food that defines the occasion. So we put extra care into the menu this year, particularly with respect to the centerpiece of the meal: the turkey.

Turkey breeds (and breeding) are not a subject I'd put much thought into until I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer. An account of Kingsolver's own family's year of living as "locavores," the book brought ideas about eating locally - and more specifically, eating heritage and heirloom varieties of local produce and livestock - into the sphere of my interest in healthy eating. Starting with our T-day turkey.

The turkey on the typical American Thanksgiving table is a Broadbreasted White turkey. If you're not familiar with the Broadbreasted White (I wasn't), it's a type of turkey bred specifically to get really big, really fast. So big that, if it weren't slaughtered before it was one year old, its legs would collapse under the weight of its disproportionately large breast. Breeders of Broadbreasted Whites breed not only for this deformity, but also for complete docility (they're too heavy to fly, and a less placid bird might be frustrated by this inability) and sadly, stupidity. Ignorance is bliss, right? These turkeys are so stupid they've been reported to drown when looking up too long when it's raining. Their ridiculous size and absolute idiocy prevent them from being capable of breeding themselves, so they must be artificially inseminated and the hatchlings raised in incubators.

Ew. Nothing about that sounds natural. There are alternatives, but not many . . . and if they aren't supported, not for long. Already 99 percent of the 400 million turkeys Americans consume each year are Broadbreasted Whites. We wanted to find a local farmer raising a more natural breed of turkey in a natural, pastured setting rather than a cage. Enter Jack, at Homegrown Poultry in New Plymouth, Idaho.

I reached Jack through a contact I met at our Saturday Farmer's Market, and he had just what I was looking for - an Heirloom Bronze turkey, bred without test tubes and raised by an actual turkey in an actual pasture (until it could fly out of said pasture and required retrieval from the neighbor's several times a week). Purchasing our Thanksgiving bird from Jack served several purposes: supporting a local farmer, preserving a heritage breed, and providing a pasture-raised, organic turkey for our daughter's first Thanksgiving.

Violet very much enjoyed Jack's turkey along with stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans and carrots; she polished off a healthy portion of each, and was ready for seconds. We offered her a taste of both pumpkin and chocolate pie for dessert, and true to form, she turned up her nose at both. The rest of the crowd was less discriminating with respect to the sweets but also seemed satisfied with the bird. More gamebird than corn-fed couch potato, it was chewier than our traditional turkey, but still moist and even more flavorful. We'll be back, Jack!

Wordless Wednesday

Four-legged Family Tree

My parents lost their beloved cat, Stewball, to kidney failure this past weekend. Though we haven’t lived under the same roof for more than 10 years, Stewball and his sister Puff hold a special place in my personal pet history. They weren’t the first strays I brought home - my apologies, again, Dad, for the flea-infested spaniel I invited into your back seat . . . oh, and the sodden shepard I schlepped across the state, also in your back seat - but they were the first who stayed.

They weren’t the first pets I ever kept, of course. I had a caterpillar (for about 4 hours), goldfish and guinea pigs and other small mammals. But I longed for a dog. Also a cat. Unfortunately, my father was violently allergic to both. Moving beyond companions that require caging looked unlikely, until the third grade, when desperation drove me to threaten to kill myself if we didn’t get a dog. That move scored me a border collie mix (Tippy) and a shrink (Dr. Schwartz). My parents were relieved when Dr. Schwartz assured them I wasn't actually suicidal, I just REALLY wanted a dog.

I should have been satisfied. But I REALLY wanted a cat, too. I indulged many of my animal loving impulses volunteering with animal rescue groups and working as a kennel attendant (aka pooper scooper) at a veterinary hosiptal. When two tiny kittens were abandoned there, I should have enjoyed them on the clock, leaving them available for adoption by any one of the many families who are always looking for tiny kittens. Instead, I brought them home and hid them in my closet.

At sixteen, I wasn't quite naive enough to believe my parents wouldn't notice. I just needed my mom - a lifelong cat lover who hadn't owned one since marrying my dad - to notice them first. This scheme was a grand success.: my dad was no match for my mom, my sister, me, and two tiny kittens. We named them Stewball and Puff, after the Peter, Paul and Mary songs he used to sing to us every night when we were smaller.

Stewball was most attached to my parents, and Puff to my sister, Kristin, so when I headed off to college the cats stayed at home. (Puff and Kristin have stayed together through Kristin's many moves since.) Once out on my own, I was finally free to accumulate animals without restriction. I started with Elliott, a Rhodesian Ridgeback who slept in my bed and shared my ice cream for several years.

Elliott and I shared a small duplex with a Chihuahua mix named Charles for awhile,

After finding a forever home for Charles, we welcomed Tiberius, a Rottweiler mix, for a few months.

My best friend Ginger and her cat, Jack, shacked up with us for a stretch.

Once I learned that Elliott adored cats, I adopted Rourke.

While in college, I continued to work at vet hospitals, which made aquiring new animals all too easy. Rourke was soon joined by Seymour.

And then Keller.

With Elliott finally past puppyhood, I was ready to add another dog to the menagerie, and brought home Romney, my first Dane. Although he'd gotten along well with other dogs until then, once Elliott determined Romney wasn't temporary, he became increasingly aggresive. Despite months of work with a dog trainer to overcome some dangerous issues, I couldn't bring him around. Romney already had a number of health problems, and so wasn't a good candidate for rehoming. Eventually I placed Elliott with another family with the stipulation that he remain an only dog; he thrived with them. Romney never seemed to mind sharing me or our home with an unfamiliar furry face, so after Elliott left us, I signed up to foster through the animal shelter and another local rescue group, and we became something of a revolving-door pet hostel.

First, we fostered Ezra.

And Ezra's sister, Kiri.


Then Sophie,









and her six puppies:

Oscar,
Emmett,Linus,Roscoe,Emma,and Gus.

We fostered for friends, too. Eli, a bullmastiff, who looked like a short, stumpy version of Romney.

And Willow, a husky/wolf mix who loved nothing more than to wake me in the morning by laying his cat litter-matted muzzle on my pillow.

It was a fur-filled few years (at one point I lived with 3 adult dogs, 6 puppies, and 5 cats in 1100 square feet).Other foster animals who weren't with us as long - Annie, the Dobie mix; Bob, the Pit Bull; and Ubu, the cat who never came out from under the bed - didn't make it into the family album, but they all left their mark on my heart.

Eric and I met in the midst of all this, and his embrace of my menagerie of mutts made me love him all the more. Eventually, after graduating from law school, getting married, and moving across the country, we settled down with our permanent pooch, Romney, and two cats.

Esme

and Anthem.

About four years ago, we decided it was time to liven things up again and Atticus (aka "The Monkey") joined our family. Romney patiently endured Atticus' puppyhood, shielding us from the worst of razor-sharp puppy teeth and playful swipes of paw. He was a magnificant friend to our whole family, the gentlest of giants. We lost him to liver cancer three years ago, and we still miss him every day.

These days, our house feels full with one busy toddler, two clingy cats, and one very needy Great Dane. Fortunately, they all get along exceptionally well. Violet understood "gentle touches" early on, and she lavishes the animals with them. She and Anthem adore each other; whenever we're nursing in the same room he's in, he'll lie down beside her or at her feet, and she'll reach out and stroke him while she nurses. She's become quite attached to Atticus recently, too, and now must go and say goodbye to him each morning before we leave (he doesn't get out of bed until much later). Though even just three pets can border on chaotic when compounded by a kid, it's absolutely worth it to watch them with her. Now to remind myself of that the next time the dog slobbers on her dinner tray . . .

In memory of Stewball, 1991-2008

Think About It

The decisions we make for our daughter today may affect her for a lifetime in more ways than one, which, in my opinion, makes them some of the most important and far-reaching we will ever be faced with. And yet, it seems that many people are willing to put more time into researching vacation destinations or what car to buy than into questions like what to feed their children (and why) or whether or not to vaccinate them, and if so how (selectively? delayed? or according to the standard schedule?).

It’s easy to defer to other people with some authority – real or perceived – especially on such intimidating subjects. The pediatrician, the self-proclaimed “expert” author of a popular book, or even our parents might offer an easy answer. Certainly following their advice is convenient, and provides a sense of assurance that we made the “right” choice. But while other people can contribute valuable information to the analysis, ultimately the responsibility for decisions made for our daughter rests with me and my husband. It’s a responsibility we take seriously, and not one we’re willing to delegate.

That parenting should be a conscious and thoughtful process is very much a part of the AP philosophy. Every child is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work for each of them. Accordingly, the principles of attachment parenting don’t prescribe specific techniques or conclusions for most issues parents must consider, but rather reminds them to educate themselves and make informed choices about what’s best for their children instead of simply accepting conventional parenting practices without question. My best AP friend and I may have ultimately made different decisions about which vaccinations our kids would receive - or whether they’d receive them at all - but both were made after careful consideration of our individual children and circumstances and with all the information we could reasonably collect. What’s important is not necessarily the final determination, but the thoughtful inquiry and awareness that led to it.

My husband and have been accused of over-thinking many of the decisions we make for our daughter; I’ve been known to plow through several sources on a subject before I’m ready to settle on a course of action (my personal parenting library definitely reflects which issues I struggle with the most). It’s been pointed out to me that “not everyone reads as much as you do.” True. But we’re not talking about curling up with a glass of wine and a good novel here. We’re talking about the choices we’re making for our child. Shouldn’t those merit a certain amount of attention from parents?

Originally posted at API Speaks, November 10, 2008.