Large Families and Paragraphs on Nurturing

While starting a short piece of writing about why I have so many kids I ran across this interesting little article about big families from the point of view of a rabbi with 8 children: The contempt shown to parents of large families

My favorite part was; "By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free. I work hard to support a large family and I give up no pleasures in doing so because my children are my foremost pleasure."

But this was also my favorite, because it reminded me so much my my husband :) "A man who loves children is playful. He will spend his life joking with his wife because he loves to see her laugh, and will flirt with her because he loves to see her smile."

Mothering Children
I also recently began receiving Wondertime Magazine. It's much more mainstream than my usual fare, but it's pleasantly refreshing and balanced. It's not Mothering Magazine, but it's not
Parenting Magazine either. It boasts that it "celebrates your child's love of learning."

There was an article recently that I was especially touched by about nurturing. (It contains such themes as co sleeping, comfort of both younger babies and older children, breastfeeding etc..)

Three separate memorable paragraphs from the article titled "Destiny's Child" by Shoshana Marchand include:

"I once awoke from a daze of exhaustion to find myself sitting on the floor with my infant in my arms and my toddler hitting me on the head with a long spatula. I heard myself saying out loud, over and over, "What do you want? What do you want? What in God's name do you want?" I no longer believe babies are pure and simple. They are miraculous not because they're blank slates, but because they're just as complex as we are- only with smaller fingers and toes, and smaller vocabularies."
~

"Everyone told me to put him down, to get the kid a newer, better bottle, to get a babysitter, an electric swing, a nanny. And me? What everyone told me was to get a life. But this was life, this was life itself, his and ours and why would it be better to make him cry his way through it? Maybe he should be able to cope alone, but for some unknown reason, he couldn't. What could I do but take care of the kid the way he was? He was, from the first, himself."

~

"I swear my kids were each fully themselves from the moment they opened their eyes. Some kids are just born with the power to self-soothe with rituals or comfort objects, and bless them. But let's also bless the ones who can't quite, for whatever reason, do it on their own, who don't yet know how to make the world go away. And let's bless the parents who do what they can until their kids are old enough to handle the bright, loud, crazy place into which we are born and in which we all must survive."

Putting Positive Parenting Into Play

The kids and I have been standing in a circle together and having moments of reflections and affirmations. Yesterday we asked the question:
"Who wants ___[insert a name here]________ to talk nicer?" We filled in the blank with each of our names, and we raised our hand if we wanted them to talk nicer. Everyone wanted everyone else to talk nicer and communicate better. We then all vowed to talk nicer to each other.

Today we will be focusing on the moments that make us happy and releasing moments that make us angry or stressed.

Thursday we will be saying one nice thing about each person.

This weeks affirmations for myself:
-they will follow my lead, so lead by example
-they will talk to each other the way I talk to them (i.e. yelling, frustrated, stressed, short tempered, huffy.)
-Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all the small stuff)

Everything A Baby Needs To Know

As I bathed with Penelope today I watched as her thighs and little butt swayed and balanced her upright as she sat in the tub of water. As the tub filled with each inch the water tried gently to carry her weight away and knock her over. The slippery tub is no match for her, for she learned long ago how to stand up and keep from falling (though I keep telling her it's not a good idea.)

It was while watching her balance (both sitting and standing) I thought to myself that babies are at the most important and crucial stage of life. It is when a human learns absolutely everything that is essential to live and thrive. Trust, warmth, food, security, love, balance, walking, communicating, and eventually care of ones own self.

This is no new realization. There have been many studies about how from birth to 6 is what sets up a child for his or her whole life. But once in a while it just hits me. The wonder in her eyes and the newness everyday brings. Penelope is pointing, waving, taking wobbly first steps, and communicating her needs. She is learning everything she needs to ever know. She curls up warm against my breast every day and every night (all night) to sleep, and that is also how she knows I'll always love her.