a brief post before bed...

congrats to jason and leita on the arrival of the wee baby Hank!

last week was basically defined by sunday's migraine. once every six or so years i get one of these bad-boy, ass-kicking aura migraines that destroy me. it's pretty scary when you realize you can't recall a certain word, or even pronounce it correctly... dysphasia is just one of the many gems the aura migraine offers.

so eight hours after it began the pain finally stopped. monday was kind of a blur but today i was pretty much back to normal.

bon voyage to terry -- have a great time in paris, my friend!

now.... to sleep. must... sleep....

a visit with em and family!

emily, one of the lovely leingirlz3, had a wee boy five days before our oskar was born, and last night we went over to visit!

look at those kiddos! plotting our demise already.

oskar has brute feet.

even their moods were in sync.

abbey and ellie bonded.

we've acquired a bumbo seat for oskar...


oh, and look below to see what came in the mail today for oskar to wear... (note the defiance in his left hand...)

but even a hard-core badass like oskar needs a tubby.


he likes the warm towel on him to keep him toasty...




awww, cheeks mcghee.

good stuff.

when i nurse oskar, he'll sometimes fall asleep with his fingers in my belly button.

what a lad. takes after his awesome sister.

so pensive as i kiss him.

terry, wearing this year's fashionable Oskar.

a great article on the myth of spoiling babies

dr. sears is the best, and it's great to have an expert actually confirm what i feel in my gut as a mother. so if you are interested and have time, take a read...

SPOILING

Few parents make it through their offspring's babyhood without being told that all their efforts to nurture and respond to their baby will surely spoil her. And if it's not spoiling that they're warned against, they're told not to let themselves be "manipulated" by baby. Attachment parenting is not the same as indulgently giving your child everything she asks for. We stress that parents should respond appropriately to their baby's needs, which means knowing when to say "yes" and when to say "no." Sometimes in their zeal to give children everything they need, it's easy for parents to give their children everything they want, and this is indeed harmful. Parents must learn to distinguish between a child's needs and a child's wants.

Yet, telling the difference between needs and wants is not a problem that parents have to wrestle with during their early months of parenting. In the beginning, wants and needs are the same. During the first several months of life, a baby's wants are a baby's needs. A consistent "yes" response teaches babies trust, which will make them more accepting of "no" later on, when they start wanting things they should not have. If you learn to know your baby by responding readily to his needs in the early months, you'll have a good sense of when it's appropriate to say no later on.

New parents often ask, "Won't holding our baby a lot, responding to cries, nursing our baby on cue, and even sleeping with our baby spoil her?" Or they ask if this kind of parenting will create an overly dependent, manipulative child? Our answer is an emphatic no. In fact, both experience and research have shown the opposite. Attachment fosters eventual interdependence. A child whose needs are met predictably and dependably does not have to whine and cry and worry about getting his parents to do what he needs.

Dr. Sears suggests: Attachment parenting implies responding appropriately to your baby; spoiling suggests responding inappropriately.

The spoiling theory seems scientific. At least it seemed logical to the childcare "experts" who popularized this idea, beginning in the early part of the 20th century. They thought that if you rewarded crying by picking the baby up, he would cry more, so that he would get picked up more. It turns out that human behavior is a little more complicated than this. It is true that if you carry a newborn baby in your arms much of the time, the baby will protest when put down in the crib. This baby has learned how to feel right, and she lets you know when she needs help getting that feeling back. However, in the long run, this rightness within her will make her less likely to cry for attention. She gets used to feeling right most of the time, and her parent's responsiveness shows her how to recognize her own needs. Spoiling happens when a child is put on the shelf, left alone, forgotten about--the way that food spoils. There was no scientific basis for this spoiling theory, just unwarranted fears and opinions. We would like to put the spoiling theory on the shelf � to spoil forever.

The attachment style of parenting is not the same as overindulging kids or creating inappropriate dependency. The possessive parent, or "hover mother," is constantly in a flurry around her child, doing everything for him because of her own fears and insecurity. Her child may become overly dependent, because he has been kept from doing what he needs to do. An attached mother recognizes when it is appropriate to let her child struggle a bit, experience some frustration, so that he can grow. This is why we continually emphasize putting balance in your chosen parenting style. Attachment differs from dependency. Attachment enhances development; prolonged dependency will hinder development.

Science Says Attachment studies have spoiled the spoiling theory. Researchers Drs. Bell and Ainsworth at John Hopkins University studied two sets of parents and their children. Group A were attachment-parented babies. These babies were securely attached, the products of responsive parenting. Group B babies were parented n a more restrained way, with a set schedule and given a less intuitive and nurturing response to their cues. All these babies were tracked for at least a year. Which group do you think eventually turned out to be the most independent? Group A, the securely attached babies. Researchers who have studied the affects of parenting styles on children's later outcome have concluded, to put it simply, that the spoiling theory is utter nonsense.

Pick them up quickly and they'll get down quickly. Or, as one sensitive mother of a well-attached child said proudly, "He's not spoiled; he's perfectly fresh!" Spoiling does become an issue a few years from now, when overindulgence or permissiveness signals a parent's inability to set limits and provide boundaries. This happens most often in children who are materially bonded or whose parents are still trapped in dysfunctional patterns from their own childhood.

Oskar's first mohawk...

oskar chats with his dad

ahh! ahhhhhh! eeeeeek!

HOLY MOTHER OF F**K!

it's about time!

note to self: begin babyproofing...

it's good that crawling doesn't happen until 7-8 months of age, b/c we have babyproofing to do. sure, every house has these:


and these:
but what about this found art?

and this box of tacks and other sharp things?

and a bowl of safety pins?


and FIREWORKS?


and this is JUST IN THE LIVING ROOM...

we've got some work to do.

stacey!

i miss you, stacey! come live here already!

ahem...

why was i not told of this sooner???

happy belated birthday to me!

hurrah!

schtuff.

newest video (long), courtesy of husband.
no time to write, just long enough to hit an upload button...