Welcome to the Sunday Surf! Here are some of the best links I've read this past week.

My little brother's been visiting, which has been wonderful — uncle-nephew bonding for the win! I was 9 when he was born, so I was Mother's Little Helper with him, and I still think of him as about 9 himself — because that's how old he was when I left for college!

I keep having these funny thoughts about how I used to take care of him — like, today we were in a toy store, and I saw an exact baby toy that he had played with himself. He's 26 now, in case you're doing the math.

It's always an adventure to have someone visit who doesn't have little kids, particularly someone who never has (as opposed to our parents, for whom it's just been awhile). I'm not sure how much spit-up he can tolerate, and he doesn't automatically hand me a prefold when he sees a geyser of half-digested milk emerge the way Sam or another fellow parent would. And it's always a challenge to balance sightseeing with naptimes!

That said, it's been a joy to see him reach out to smooth Alrik's hair, or join in with Mikko's self-created game of Fetch the Bouncy Ball. This alloparenting is the way we become familiar with children before or without having them ourselves, yes? And it's a good thing, for everyone.

These are some thoughts I collected in the first days, weeks, and now three months of mothering my second child. I'm not really sure why I hadn't published it till now.



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I am deliriously happy. And yet, at about one day after the birth, I looked over at Mikko, my dear firstborn, and thought of our former sweet grouping of three, and thought, "I've ruined my family."

I felt devastated in that moment. Why had I let down Mikko like that, bringing this interloper into his life?

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Is this a kid whose life has been ruined?

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I had heard that many parents have trouble seeing their older kid(s) as cute after the newborn comes into their lives. I don't doubt this phenomenon exists, because I experienced this with (no joke) my cat. When Mikko came home, I couldn't look at my cat, previously considered a beauty, without deriding her in my mind, "Ugh, so … hairy."

But I don't (fortunately) feel this disconnect against Mikko (yet). I think some of the problem might be that I think Alrik, while adorable, is still in that lizardy-alien-old-man phase of babyhood. And since I read in Mother Nature that we as humans have an established ambivalence toward fetuses and a tendency to value chubbiness as cuter, I don't feel so bad that I'm not taken with the scrawny newborn stage. After all, Mikko's cheeks? Alrik just hasn't risen to such heights yet…

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Who you talking about not being cute?

Alrik has perfected the concerned look.

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It's amazing how familiar breastfeeding feels. Oh, I know, I haven't stopped breastfeeding the older one yet, but nursing a newborn is a whole different ballgame. They really do just eat all the time.

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Let's just be clear that any postpartum post is going to be TMI, shall we? Because then we can talk lochia.

My midwife recommended staying put in bed for at least a couple weeks after the birth, for healing purposes. I'd had a few stitches, and of course just the normal loss of blood and fluids and muscle tone.



Not my brightest idea, but at about exactly two weeks, we went downtown to celebrate Mikko's birthday. I'd been chafing under the boredom of imposed confinement. But it was a sunny weekend in June, and we live on a beach. Um, yeah. So, for logistical parking- and traffic-related reasons, we ended up walking rather than driving most of the way to the water taxi, and then from the water taxi to the restaurant (of course) and then to the arcade, and then back to the water taxi, and then back to the car. Which, all told, was probably two to three hours of walking. With a baby strapped to me for just the wee bit of an extra challenge. When he began to cry and needed to nurse on our way back, Sam offered to stop at a bench so I could feed him. "No," I said, cradling him into position with one arm and continuing to trudge onward, "if I stop now, I'll never get started again."

In any event, it wasn't my arms that were feeling the burn. It was my decimated pelvis.

I used to be an expert on how babies should be. I knew that all babies who were raised the attachment parenting way never cried (they never needed to!), breastfed easily, coslept without a fuss for baby or parents, developed ahead of the pack, and became energetic, independent toddlers and preschoolers as they moved out of babyhood.

And then I actually had a child, and my expertise faltered.

Mikko as a baby challenged all my expectations for how attachment babies should behave. He cried more than not. He demanded constant motion. I had read in The Continuum Concept, and had bought into the idea, that babies who are worn are limp and content. We wore and carried Mikko everywhere — we had to. But he was shrieky and convulsive.

I also had this defense all ready to give to relatives who questioned our unusual insistence on cosleeping, breastfeeding past infancy, and unschooling — that giving our baby a base of attachment would make him that much more independent. Um … yeah … still waiting for that to happen.

When Sam's parents were visiting, we took a ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula, and Granddad took us all out on a rental boat. Good thing we had Mikko along to help steer and navigate.

Recently, I've seen a few pieces of advertising that have featured babywearing of the sort that we crunchy types adore. Instead of BabyBjörns and the like,¹ commercials and print ads are showing infants in stretchy wraps and toddlers in ring slings.

Witness, from ADT:



Now, I could quibble that her rings are awfully droopy and the toddler looks like he might fling himself right out of that loose and low back, but — ring sling! Arguably the least trendy sling in the Western market.² It really looks like the stock photographer just happened upon this family on the street and said, "Hey, can you stand next to each other and I'll sell your picture? 'kthanks." Very casual and real.

Jedi baby

Hoo boy. Well, computer troubles and visiting parents have kept me away from Sunday Surfing for a bit. I am making up for it with a gazillion super-quicky links.

P.S. These are the links you are looking for. That was my Obi-Wan joke. Alrik made me do it.

P.P.S. Wine is yummy.

CarNatPar time

Calling for submissions for the September Carnival of Natural Parenting!Theme: Parenting Through Play: Oftentimes, some of our most difficult parenting challenges can be defused or handled gracefully if we choose to use play. Think of a situation in your own life where you have used (or could use) play instead of lectures, consequences, or other negative reactions.
Deadline: Tuesday, September 6.

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