Milestones & Genetics, Motherhood, Respectful Parenting, The magic (in the mess). ♡

She’s got this.

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A milestone happened in our house on Tuesday night. M rolled over for the first time! ⁣
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All babies eventually turn over, and milestones are meaningful for every single one of them. I get that. This moment holds something more to me, though.⁣
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O has had gross and fine motor delays for much of his life, starting from when he was very young. PT and OT have been a part of his journey (and mine — there have been many, many, many appointments). On paper, he’s still quite a bit “behind” for his age based on what other kids of a similar age can “typically” do. In time, he’ll get there.⁣
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I have long felt mom guilt over his delays, however. Many a time I have wondered if my well intentioned parenting choices caused them. We didn’t really do tummy time as I didn’t believe in pushing him to be in positions he couldn’t get into himself. I let him be the lead, and I continue to do so to this day. Eventually, we found out he had low muscle tone, and that it was likely the culprit.⁣
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But, despite knowing that, my anxiety doesn’t let me hear it.⁣
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I don’t want that same journey for M. I don’t want those same struggles. So, I keep doing with her all that I hardly did with O… as if in some kind of hail mary attempt to avoid it. But, as hard as I try (and try do I ever), her tolerance for it is achingly minimal. Many a day she makes it happily on her tummy for less minutes that I can count on one hand.⁣
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This, of course, has lead my worries to be convinced we are again on the same trajectory.⁣
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And then on Tuesday she just rolled over out of the blue, as if it was the world telling me to calm the hell down.⁣
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I hear you, world. I hear you.⁣
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She’s got this.⁣
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Happy five months, sweet girl. 💚⁣ ⁣

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Motherhood

We need better books. (You probably do, too.)

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Due to the ongoing/never-ending state of the world and my recent foray into #kidsbookstagram, I’ve been taking a MUCH closer look at the collection of books I have amassed for my children. In that looking, and to my shame, I have noticed something.⁣
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The majority of our collection gets a FAILING grade on diversity and inclusion.⁣
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I could blame this on the fact that 95% of the books we own are second hand. Furthermore, 90% have come from thrift stores like Value Village and Talize. In those instances, you pretty much get what you get. But, for the other 5% I purchased second-hand online, the same cannot be said.⁣
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What it truly boils down to is this, however:⁣
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I come to this realization in a position of privilege.⁣
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As a white person, I’ve never had to sit down and ponder if there were enough books in our collection that represent us.⁣
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I’ve never had to purposefully purchase or borrow books that represent us.⁣
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White people hold this position of power.⁣
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We are already in every book of nearly every type — to the point of over-saturation.⁣
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People of differing colour, beliefs, abilities, sex, gender, sexual orientations – are not.⁣
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All of this were things I already knew. But, did knowing it change or effect my children’s book collection? Nope.⁣
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‘Cause as a white person, these are all taken for granted luxuries of our hegemonic identity.⁣
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My beliefs in a socially justice world may be strong, and I have been strongly educated as such (thanks, @douglascollege and @capilanou) but I still have so so SO much more work to do — both on myself, and in the raising of my children. ⁣Part of this is reexamining the books we own, the books were read, and the conversations that come from these books.⁣
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I humbly accept this moment of learning, and am committed to making a change.

Thanks, @nwplibrary, in helping me take a first step forward today.⁣

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Motherhood, The magic (in the mess). ♡

Asking the REAL questions.

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Here are the questions I asked myself as I attempted to make sense of this gong show of a board book collection:

  • Why do we own this many board books? W H Y?⁣
  • You know you can’t even fit all the ones we own on this shelf and you should probably stop buying them, yeah?⁣
  • Where the hell is our Gruffalo book?! I guess I’ll have to get another. ⁣
  • You know what makes for great photos, Sarah? A black bookshelf in a hallway that has dungeness lighting AND it’s a dark + dreary night. Bravo. ⁣
  • E-readers are so much easier to sort. How old can O be before he starts using one?⁣
  • Wait. No. Never. I have to have a reason to keep buying him and M pretty books for all of eternity. RIGHT?!⁣
  • None of how you’re organizing this makes sense, I hope you know. Do you?⁣
  • Why do we still own Rainbow Fish? Donate that nonsense.⁣
  • You didn’t buy “such and such” when you were out thrifting last. Why? Next time, next time. ⁣
  • WHYYYY DOES NOTHING FIT LIKE I WANT IT TOOOOOO?⁣
  • Have you ever heard of a damn library, woman?!⁣

I am a mess. No lie.

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Motherhood

Nothing has changed.

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I still love board books (and #kidlit in general!).⠀⠀
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Why? Here’s the history.

The first board book in our collection was purchased around five and a half years ago. In a thrift store and pregnant at the time with O, I came across the classic, Where’s Spot, and knew that I HAD to buy it. As an early childhood educator, I had seen first-hand how much joy Eric Hill brought to children in those pages and the magic hidden below the flaps, waiting to be lifted. The hunt and success of finding Spot was always such a celebrated ending, and one that brought smiles to all children alike. ⠀⠀
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As an avid reader and book appreciator, it also dawned on me then and there how much I wanted to pass that love on to O. So, over the years, one board book turned into ten, fifty, one hundred, and two hundred. I’ve lost count at how many we’re at now. The bonding experience through board books with my him has been incredible, however, and the structure of board books got me hooked. Sturdy, colorful, strong and meaningful, board books became a treasured part of the fabric of my relationship with my child, and followed us everywhere we went. ⠀⠀
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O is now nearly at the age of moving past board books now (*sad sigs!*). This past August I had M, however, which means at least another five years of board books to bond over, fall in love with together, and learn through. Luckily this means for me all the more opportunities to scavenge thrift stores for new and great (board book) finds, and opportunities to again reminisce with my children over my favourites. Some may say the birth of this second child was serendipitously timed. ;)⠀⠀
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There may or may not be more on this in the future, here in this blog. If there is and starts to be, now you know why!

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Motherhood, Respectful Parenting

Educaring? What’s that?

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When O was born, I worked on the floor as an ECE (I also did so [exhaustingly] for awhile after he was born, but that’s a story for another day). While pregnant, I deeply nested and dove into my ECE books (I spent a lot of time with this wonderful one), and in doing so, I became grounded in the tenements of RIE.

If you have no idea what RIE is, see here.

If you want to know what RIE means when it come to parenting, see here.

The more I learned about RIE, the more it began to shape the majority of my interactions with the children I worked with. Once O was born, it was my go to. It continues to be to this day. It hasn’t always been easy, and sometimes it asks of me to do things a LOT differently on this parenting journey than what is typical, but it has been SO worth it. D too follows RIE, and while at first I think that was due to my insistence, he has long come into his own with it all.

The bases (at least to me) of RIE lie in respecting, trusting and genuinely hearing the child(ren) in your life. This sounds simple enough, but it asks of you to turn SO many parenting standards directly on their head to really, really follow it through. Your language, actions, intentions and purpose? They all change. Seriously. Think about the process of authentically trusting and respecting a newborn, toddler, etc. Everything modern society is taught to do when parenting goes *exactly* against that, much without realizing it.

How so? I’ll leave that to the “experts” explain. One could first read about RIE through Magda Gerber. These days, Janet Lansbury is big on the scene with RIE, and she shares a lot of really great resources on how to go about making it a reality in your home and/or child care. Lisa Sunbury talks about it a lot, too.

(Note: I know that in the topic of respectful caregiving/parenting as a whole, there are a LOT more resources than these two, and it’s also called a lot more things now, too (i.e., Resptecful Parenting). Janet and Lisa were just my fallbacks as I learned, initially struggled with and came to strongly find my footing with RIE.)

I bring up the topic of RIE, as it matters immensely in my journey of being a parent. I’m not here to preach about it. I’m terrible at writing in this blog, so I likely won’t write about it, either. I rather wish for it to be known that in what I do post in this life, be it personally or here, RIE is the direction from which I’m/we’re working. It’s important, and it matters. RIE might not always make sense to you or perhaps seem a bit peculiar to you, and that’s okay. For our family, it works. Remarkably so.

And, if you’re curious, RIE might work for your family too! Let me know if you’d like to know more.

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