Well, you’ve probably noticed this blog has fizzled to…zero posts per week. Although this is a common thing that happens to blogs, in this case, the fizzling is actually intentional. Because….deception! Ah hem. That is, I realized I deceived myself once again. You see, I’ve wanted to be a writer since 3rd grade, and I’ve written in different capacities since then. My main jam, though, is fiction. And poetry. My plan A has always been to be a writer. You know, when I grow up. Well, in the years following 3rd grade, I became an adult and realized the importance of being able to pay your rent. Because I had yet to earn any money as a writer (despite only submitting work a handful of times), I determined I ought to find another career path. A Plan B career just to do “on the side” of writing until I could earn enough as a writer to support myself. Enter: working as a field staff in wilderness therapy, where I found my other calling as a mental health therapist. This sent me back to school to finish a B…
I’m currently reading The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality, and the author, Kimberly Ann Johnson, puts forth the radical idea that the best way to heal from childbirth is… to rest. Not to hit the gym, not to get back into your skinny jeans asap, not to push yourself to exhaustion trying to prove that you don’t need help, not to keep an immaculate house… To rest. Unfortunately, I am a solid 4.5 months postpartum with Grace Girl, and only just now reading this book. I really could have used this information after my first baby was born and I headed back to grad school 2.5 weeks later. Or after Grace Girl was born and I inadvertently fooled everyone into thinking I was doing fine by going about fully dressed with brushed hair when in fact I was really struggling and crying about random stuff everyday. While I’ve considered the radical idea of taking a break before collapsing from exhaustion before and considered that just because I can push through to do more doesn’t always mean I…
Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thanks for supporting Home In Wonderland! I want to start this post out by saying something a bit wild. Here it is: not every woman can exclusively breastfeed. Yes, it is true that the vast majority of women are capable of breastfeeding, given the support, resources, and information they need (which some women simply don’t have). However, there are a few medical conditions that cause low milk supply. Sometimes breast trauma, surgery, hormonal imbalances or endocrine conditions can prevent a mother from producing enough milk to exclusively breastfeed her baby. So if you try all the things in this article and find you are still not producing enough milk, you may want to speak with a medical professional. I just wanted to put that out there for the mamas who are unable to breastfeed. You are still a woman, and a mama, and you can still form a secure attachment with your baby! **Hint: if you’re short on time, scroll to the bottom of this post for…
I’m not sure what tastes better than a big old bite of smug certainty. Go ahead, try to think of something. Chocolate? No. Artisan-roasted coffee? Uh uh (although my best friend does roast some amaaaazing coffee). A field of wildflowers in an alpine meadow? Not even. Watching a hummingbird drink nectar from a wildflower in an alpine meadow while sipping an artisan-roasted coffee and eating fair-trade chocolate? With fresh, organic raspberries? Hmm… that might be about on par with the deliciousness of smug certainty, but I do not believe it surpasses it. Certainty says, “do x and y will happen.” It says, “Do z and q will not happen.” It says, “oh, that bad thing only happened to you (other person/other people/other country) because you did x.” It feels superior because y has happened, because q has not happened, because of doing all the things. You know, the things you are supposed to do? To earn merit in heaven/the mommy forums/your family/your social group/on facebook/in the blogosphere? You know, the things you are not supposed to do? (Which hugely vary depending…
I was thinking about my love for my daughters…how fierce it is. How it permeates my being, exists in every particle of their beings, how it made them and grew them and nourishes them. I inhale love on the scent of their skin, their downy hair, their big doe eyes, their drowsy heads on my shoulders. It has made me into a person who sacrifices, who protects, who keeps vigil over sick children with a soft voice and a cool hand to feverish foreheads. It is fierce and present in each moment I breathe, when they are with me as well as when I’m working, pumping milk for my baby and trying to teach my clients about this force I don’t understand, which moves us and molds us. And someday soon, that fierce, tight, protective love will have to move and be molded as well. It will have to soften, open, become pliant and yielding. It will have to become a love that allows, a love that trusts, a love that lets go. I will have to become a person who allows, who trusts, who lets go. That’s the game, isn’…
**This is the second part of a 2 part series. Read Part 1 on the good reasons to nurse for comfort here. I’ll wait. Reading part 1 is important because without it, you don’t get a balanced look at the positive aspects of nursing for comfort. ***Also, this post is not about the question of whether you should nurse your baby when they are hungry. My view on that is: yes. No pros and cons, no questions asked. I am in favor of feeding hungry babies always. This post is about feeding crying or fussy babies who are not hungry. As we discussed in part 1, there are many excellent reasons to nurse your baby for comfort. There are also potential downsides. So what could possibly go wrong, when it can be such a lovely, cozy time together? Well, let me tell you a story. Warrior Girl was born weighing a whopping 6 lbs, 14 oz. At her 5 day checkup, she was down to 6 lbs, 5 oz. Her weight loss was normal and my proud husband and I merrily brought her home from the pediatrician. I nursed Warrior Girl frequently in her newborn days…
Many times I have read or heard people say that you need to breastfeed your baby for comfort because comfort is a need for a young baby. I absolutely agree. And disagree. Allow me to explain…
Most of you know I work as a mental health therapist in addition to my infinite unpaid hours clocked in #momlife. Thus, in school we had to take classes on behaviorism, or essentially, how to “predict and control” human behavior (lol x infinity). Said classes involved training pigeons to peck red dots and turn in circles, but I digress.
They make it sound so simple: to increase the probability of a behavior occurring, reinforce it (preferably at random intervals rather than every time). To decrease the probability of a behavior occurring, the most effective way is to ignore the undesired behavior and continue to reinforce the behavior you do want.
Most parenting articles I’ve read take the behaviorist approach to whining and tantrums. Stay firm, they say. They just want attention, so ignore them. Or alternatively, stay firm and punish whining and tantrums.
And because I most certainly would like to decrease the probability of whining and tantrums for my kids, I have been trying to follow this advice. It has failed miserably, largely due to human error. On my part…
…If you were the type who got terribly sick immediately after the last final of the semester literally every semester in college, you might know what I am talking about…
Well I’ve fallen off the interwebs for a few weeks and I will tell you why: I have been occupied.
Occupied with trying to pull it together and be okay, occupied with facing that I am not doing so well, occupied with confessing tearfully to my husband and a good friend, and for the last couple weeks, occupied with taking action to make my life and mood more manageable (because that’s just my personality…