Ramblings of a MommyI am beyond behind in my blogging these days.
Leslie posted a few days back asking about why people blog and their general feelings about the process ... I blog to allow family and friends who are far away to peek in on our family from time to time, but I also blog as a place to journal my thoughts (primarily thoughts about my children these days) and to keep an archive for us to look back on. I'm not good at keeping a written journal or, truthfully, at keeping up-to-date baby books, but for some reason this medium has been a good outlet for me. That being said, I'm finding it
much harder to find time to sit and collect my thoughts and type them out now that I have two little ones. I have at least one
un-finished blogged entry started and many more banging around in my head to get out. Being the left-brained person I am, I wanted to keep everything in chronological order and not post about new things until the old posts were written, but at this point that seems a little unreasonable. So, just know there are stories from the past month that are waiting to be told -- pictures waiting to be seen. All that being said, I'm going to go ahead and share a piece of our life from today :).
**even this post is publishing more than 12 hours after I started it...**My dad re-finished an old bed that my brothers used when they were younger (part of a bunk-bed set) for Millie and he brought it over the other night. Millie really enjoyed watching my dad and Scott set up the bed and enjoyed bouncing on it after that :). The next day Millie chose to nap on that bed and we even read our bedtime stories there last night. Millie napped there again today, AND she fell asleep in this bed all by herself (after stories and lying down with me for an hour and then lying by herself for about 45 minutes ...).
**more pictures of the house to come!**This is kind of a big deal at our house as Millie has always slept with us and napped in our bed and has always needed help going to sleep. When she was young she always nursed to sleep. When the nursing ended -- about 6 months ago -- Scott began walking Millie to sleep. That was a good option for everyone until recently when Millie grew just enough to make it difficult to walk her for extended periods of time (sometimes it takes 45 + min to get this little one to sleep!). So, lately we've been working on helping Millie to fall asleep IN bed without being walked. It's been going well, though bedtime duties seem to have fallen back in my hands. We have a very nice routine of getting in bed and reading a few books and then turning out the lights and snuggling until Millie falls asleep. Not a bad routine, though it can still take an extended amount of time for Millie to fall asleep -- so much so that I usually end up falling asleep with her too! So, the fact that we may be nearing a sleep routine that entails Millie putting
her SELF to sleep is a big deal.
Each time that Millie has slept in her new bed, she has chosen to go there herself. We aren't in any way pressuring her or forcing her out of our bed -- much like we allowed weaning from nursing to be her choice. we will allow weaning from our bed to be her choice. It looks like having a big bed of her own may be what draws her out, but if it's not, that's okay with us. And we'll continue to be there to help her fall asleep in whatever way works for all of us as long as we need to. We want her to be able to enter into sleep in a happy state -- not frightened and full of feelings of abandonment.
I know there are many people out there who would contend that Millie should have been putting herself to sleep and sleeping in her own bed/crib for some time now and that she should not be sleeping in our bed at all, etc. In fact, many of our parenting choices that we share here on our blog have been criticized heavily by people who do not agree with them -- to the point that we've been told not only that our children are going to need counseling when they are older, but that we ourselves need counseling. And yes, this was said in all seriousness. While we certainly don't expect everyone to agree with our parenting choices, we do expect to be respected and trusted that we know what is best for our family. And this blog is (should be) a safe place for us to write about our choices and their consequences -- both good and bad :).
Our choices have all been well-thought out and well researched and are based on
attachment parenting. We were attracted to this parenting style when we started reading books during my first pregnancy. Being new to the world of parenting, we didn't know how many of the tools we would use, or the extent to which we would use them, but we were open to them all. In the end, Millie let us know what she needed -- and still does on a daily basis! We are very comfortable and confident in the choices we've made and are very proud of the little girl Millie is becoming.
So, are there nights when I wish I could just put Millie in bed at 7:30 and have her instantly fall asleep? Sure. But do I also cherish our special time together at night and recognize that those times are fleeting? Absolutely. And I truly believe that Millie is benefiting from our choices everyday and that Merrill will too. We still have
a lot of learning to do as parents and I'm eager to continue reading as much as I can on the subject. I'm also eager to learn from my two little girls -- I have a feeling they are going to teach me more than any book ever could...
So, this dissolved into more than just an anecdote about the girls, but that's kind of what I'd like to be able to do here -- work through things that I've been thinking about by writing about them and giving perhaps an even fuller picture of our lives. Maybe this isn't the place to do that though -- it goes back to the questions that Leslie asked. A blog
is a very funny thing -- it's private and public all at once -- especially for someone like me who finds writing to be such a useful outlet. It's a blessing that allows people far away to know more about our daily lives and know our children, but it's also a curse because by sharing what we do we make ourselves vulnerable to the criticisms of others. And then again, perhaps none of this is of any consequence at all and it's all just the ramblings of a new mommy who needs some sleep herself ... ;)
