So much outdated information still out there...

This is my third pregnancy and my second pregnancy while still breastfeeding. I’ve been breastfeeding for nearly three years, and obviously will be going on for another few after this one is born. Basically, I know what I’m doing and I also know my limits. If I start feeling too tired, overwhelmed or uncomfortable, I will start the weaning process. If not we will just continue onwards as we have been. I don’t imagine nursing three children at once, but I also don’t imagine my first born all of a sudden deciding to wean. As I always say, we will see. I don’t really care what others think either, what works for us, works for us. What works for you, works for you. What bothers me is when people decide to tell me something that is first of all incorrect, and second of all, just silly.

Apparently it is the California process to make sure you see a counselor at least once during your prenatal journey, so I saw the one assigned to me by the clinic this morning. She was lovely, very friendly and engaging, and made me feel completely at ease. Until she asked me about my diet and hydration and I mentioned that it was hard to drink enough water when all I wanted to do was vomit it back up, and that I really forced myself to down 3 liters a day as I was still breastfeeding two kids.

She said: “you do know that after 6 months there are no more benefits in breastmilk for the child, right? It’s only for comfort after that.” I just responded that my doctor and nurse were both perfectly comfortable with me tandem nursing while pregnant, and while she did say that I should at least wean one, she backed down and said “but in the end you know best as the mother.” My eyes must have begun to flash daggers! I no longer feel like an inexperienced mother when faced with these types of situations, but I know that when I was I would feel upset and confused. So let’s get some facts straight here.

1). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not recommend the introduction of solids until 6 months, see here for more information, and advocate breastmilk and/or formula to be the main source of nutrition for the first year of life.

2). Solids are introduced little by little over the space of 6 months, so by the time the child reaches the age of 1 he or she will be enjoying 3 meals a day as well as snacks – although this is by no means always achievable. Some babies take longer than others. It is still important to remember that breastmilk and/or formula are recommended as main source of nutrition until at least one year of age (see above).The AAP do not recommend the introduction of cow’s milk until after one.

3). Breastfeeding AFTER one year of age provides a whole slew of benefits, listed in detail HERE. These benefits are in addition to any nutritional benefits come from eating solid food. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommend breastfeeding until at least two years old (and beyond).

Breastfeeding benefits do not magically disappear once a child starts his or her first spoonful of pureed avocado or smashed banana. Breastmilk DOES magically change its breakdown based on the age and needs of a child, even on a day-to-day basis. It just drives me quite insane that even in today’s world people who have a certain influence on what a pregnant woman may or may not do can spout nonsense. Whether you are planning on breastfeeding or not, it’s so important to be able to find out proper information from those who are supposed to be professionals. And professionals who talk to you about breastfeeding/formula feeding, introducing solids and weaning should always be aware of the latest recommendations. Granted, these do change quite often, but it’s really not too difficult to read the updated AAP website or medical papers once in a while. We now know that introducing solids before 6 months can cause issues down the road, and that rice cereal really isn’t the best first food. So even if our mothers or grandmothers or great-grandmothers may say that they did it their way and no one died, I still believe in science and research. (For example, I always put my babies to sleep on their backs even though my mother put us to sleep on our tummies. Research has proven that this is the safest way for babies to sleep). So yes, all I want to say is while Dr Google is not always the best place to go for questions, it is always good to do some research and ask different people about breastfeeding rather than listening to someone who has outdated and incorrect advice to give. Breastfeeding can be really difficult for some at first, and lack of support and/or correct information can lead to women giving up before they are really ready to.

(As a side note I have to say that I chose the prenatal clinic I go to because of how they promote breastfeeding and non-intervention birthing. Both my doctor and my nurse practitioner are 100% behind me and don’t have any issues with me breastfeeding while pregnant. I think this counselor just had very outdated views and I probably should have mentioned that to her while I was there. I’m just not as outspoken as I would want to be at times, which often leads to ranty blog posts!).

I love this information page on breastfeeding by UNICEF – it brings up a lot of important points and really provides a great overview. Kellymom is my go to website for any questions – although I haven’t found much about tandem nursing while pregnant, so if there is anyone out there reading this who has done it please get in touch!

Is 5 the Final Number then?!

I have to laugh at it all sometimes when I think about it. In early 2013 I had decided that having children was not on the cards anymore, and here I am in late 2016, with two beautiful toddlers and another little one on the way. If you had given me a view into the future back then when I was standing behind the bar indulging in a shot or 10 of Powers and chatting with my regulars I would have probably laughed in your face before pouring you a Guinness.

While I may not have a huge extended family, I come from two lines of families where the women tend to have many children. And I think I say that I don’t have a huge extended family just because we are so dispersed, having lived in different countries for many years – in reality there are quite a few of us around. I remember many a Christmas as a child in England, and then in The Netherlands and France, where we would fly home to be with our extended family. But once you become an adult you tend to start revisiting those childhood traditions in your own home, nostalgic for the past, hopeful for the future. I’ve spent a lot of Christmases alone in NYC, celebrating with close friends, missing my family. And then Christmases with my own growing family, teaching my partner and kids about my childhood traditions. I’ve written about these times on several occasions, here and here, so I won’t rehash them today, but I suppose the main theme of Christmas will always remain family for me. My mother had three kids, and all of us will be together this Christmas for the first time in years. My mother’s mother had five children, all girls, and her mother had 10 (!) children. My father’s mother also had five children, two boys and three girls, and her mother had 4 kids (all girls too!). And if you go through my family tree, (that my mother has been painstakingly researching for the past few years - more on that in the very near future), you will find that it was very common to see a multitude of sisters and brothers in each family. So I suppose I really had to do my part to continue on this family tradition!

It’s funny how things change very rapidly. After a bit of a long pregnancy with Aurora but the exact birth I was hoping for, which helped ease away some of what Luna’s more painful birth and recovery had left, I said that I was done. And then slowly but surely, once the weight started to come off and when raising two children didn’t seem as difficult as I had expected it to be, we started slowly talking about another one. Not so close as the first two, because two under two with a very high needs child is no walk in the park, and not until one had weaned. Let’s not even try until 2017 we said. As with anything in my life real planning always seems to take a backburner because events just seem to happen naturally, as if I’m not allowed to feel too comfortable for too long. I’m still nursing both toddlers very frequently and have no willpower to wean anyone, and, well, it’s still 2016… But a few days before the presidential election I realised that this carsickness feeling that had started a few days before seemed a little too familiar, especially seeing as I actually hadn’t been in a car… That week was a little bittersweet, because we were meant to be bathing in happiness, but at the same time the elections brought on a wave of disbelief, despair and sadness that I have had a hard time brushing away. It took me a while to feel “normal” again, and to be honest I don’t feel “normal” (have I ever?!), but I do feel very happy, and am completely and madly in love with this little munchkin that is growing in my tummy, just like I was with the other two.

This little one is due on July 3rd, so when he or she comes Luna will be three years and a few months old and Aurora will be just under two. Luna is already excited about “the tiny baby in mummy’s tummy”, although how much of that she actually really understands is yet to be known. It will be fun to see her actually be able to express her thoughts about my growing belly this time around, as she was so young when I was pregnant with Aurora. It will be fun to see how Aurora reacts too… Once I get past this insane 24/7 nausea that has been plaguing me since I was 5 weeks pregnant, and will hopefully start easing up now, I will be able to focus more on the future. In the meantime it’s basically been on a day to day basis, make sure the kids eat, get fresh air and are somewhat entertained, get through my work before bedtime, so that I can collapse in bed with the kids and hope that sleep will bring some relief. I definitely had all day nausea with Luna, and had it a lot worse with Aurora, but this has been even worse still. Not that it has stopped me from eating. Just from eating most things apart from bread, Brie, lettuce and pasta. Everything also tastes super salty, which has never happened to me before and has basically put me off most food. Except Brie. Nothing will ever put me off Brie.

And so there we are, 6 more months, give or take a few weeks, and we will have another one in our midst. Girl or boy, it doesn’t really matter (of course a boy would be great, just to mix things up a little, but we do have an absolutely beautiful girl’s name lined up too, and it would be such a pity not to use it…). The adventure continues and I couldn’t be happier to be honest. One day at a time, hoping that the weeks don’t fly by too fast and that we will have another happy, healthy baby.

High Needs Child Series: Trust Your Instincts, Trust Your Child

This week's beautiful words come from a good friend of mine, Ryvenna. Ryvenna was due a few months before me with her daughter in 2014, and through-out our pregnancies and way into motherhood her texts and messages would help me feel a little less alone during sleepless nights and endless days. She is one of the most patient, generous and authentic people that I know and it really makes me happy to publish her story. 

When I wake up in the morning, it’s often because my nipples are aching. With my two and a half year old still nursing and often switching from side to side every few minutes in the hour before she wakes, I rarely wake because I’ve slept enough. Eventually, her eyes will open but she’ll keep nursing as I pet her fair hair, curls slightly damp from a sweaty night’s sleep. My bladder will finally announce that it’s time to get up, and I tell her I need to use the bathroom, waiting for the first words she tells me most mornings, a predictable, “Up, up!” Resisting is futile, because frankly, I can’t be bothered to deal with a meltdown ten minutes after I’ve opened my eyes, and before I’m really fully awake myself. So my 99th percentile toddler gets scooped up in my arms, and we head off to the bathroom together. I pee holding her, and most mornings she grudgingly, laughingly accepts that I will not let her nurse while I pee. 

On the weekends, my husband will manage to occasionally bribe her with some fruit snacks and a cartoon to let me sleep for an additional half an hour. I know that half an hour later, I’ll wake to her frustrated cries as he tries to convince her to let me keep sleeping, so I rarely manage to get back to bed. I’ve been tired since I was in my second trimester. At coming up on three years old, my daughter has never “slept through the night”. She’s usually asleep by nine pm, and will wake between midnight at two to nurse, again sometime before she’s in the “waking” phase, and then will drift between breasts for her last hour, usually waking fully before seven. 

I don’t love the term “high needs”. I think of myself as a gentle parent who adapts to my daughter’s needs. A sensitive mama. But when I see mothers who are able to carry quiet infants around in a carseat, letting them calmly look around while they enjoy a long lunch in a restaurant, I don’t identify with their experience. My daughter nursed around the clock, needed to be worn in a Moby wrap, and would not sleep on her own. I remember obsessively reading “Back to Sleep” literature about babies needing to sleep on their own, solid surfaces on their backs. My daughter slept on my chest or my husband’s for the first four months. I remember about two hours in three chunk where I managed to get her resting in the Arm’s Reach cosleeper I’d purchased for her while I was pregnant. I texted my sister, I danced in my living room, and then realized that it wasn’t going to work. I could get two hours of sleep with her on top of me, or half an hour (after two solid hours of failed attempts) with her in the cosleeper. So we moved our mattress to the floor with our side up against the wall, removed my pillows and sheet and blanket, and I made do with socks and sweatpants in bed for the first year. After that, I reintroduced a blanket around my waist and a light pillow. When she turned two I let a fluffier pillow back into my life, and let myself wrap a blanket around her waist as well. She sleeps most of the night with her head on my arm, and I leave the room, I still keep the baby monitor on because I know she’ll wake shortly without me there.

My daughter is distracted by my grandmother, my sister, or my husband from time to time, but her unwavering focus directs like a laser beam onto me for the vast majority of the time. When she senses that I’m trying to let Dada run the show for a minute, she immediately rejects him, pushing him off the couch and telling him that he can’t play with us. You can practically hear the sound of my husband’s heart breaking every time. He took lower-paying jobs for the first two years of her life so that he could work from home to be near her. His lunch breaks were spent on snuggling her down for naps as she kicked and screamed, fighting sleep. If I’m not around, they’re the best of friends.
In the last month, I’ve been able to plop her in front of the TV in the morning for long enough to take a shower. Not long enough to also throw some makeup on my face, but it’s enough for now. Two months ago, each shower was a tear-filled event with her begging me to pick her up, to nurse her, to watch a show with her, to play with her, to do anything other than leave her side for the fifteen minutes it takes to lather my hair and shave my legs in steamy water. I resorted more than once to reapplying deodorant, running dry shampoo through my hair, and spraying on a layer of body oil so that I could dry shave. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve been able to poop in privacy in her lifetime. 

I’ve gotten a lot of judgement over this. If you don’t set boundaries now, she’ll walk all over you for the rest of your life. You’re spoiling her by indulging her like this. She has to know who’s in charge. But I know my daughter. I know that pushing her toward something when she’s not ready doesn’t work. She has an innate sense of what she needs, and she knows how to ask for it. And I know how to give it to her 95 times out of a 100. I do try to explain is that adapting to a high-needs child is not the same as giving in to every demand. It’s about knowing when to pick your battles. Her emotional needs are very real, and they are not wants. They are needs. She is still nursed, we cosleep, I carry her often. Because without these physical connections, her emotional needs are not being met. 

Her emotional landscape paints her perspective of the world. Many of her conversations revolve around the way she feels, and they are often the first things she wants to discuss in a recollection of her day. “I cried this morning because I was sad when you wanted me to put my shoes on the other feet” is not an unusual thing to hear from her. Neither is “I think about you all day when you’re gone, Mama”. She is able to understand emotional nuance that I find startling in a two year old. She offers to care for those around her when they say they’re sick or in pain. She initiates telling people that she loves them and enjoys their company.
Indulging a need for physical connection does not lead to a spoiled child. At two and a half, my daughter is articulate and polite, caring, and concerned. That said, she’s still a toddler. Occasionally, I’ll still get her coming up to me, grabbing at my shirt, and an obnoxious, “Nurse!” Most of the time, pointing out that isn’t the most polite way to ask will elicit another, nicer ask. When it doesn’t, I ask her where her beautiful manners went, and we explore the inside of her mouth, giggling, until I miraculously discover them, reposition them so that she can once again access them, and she happily uses the manners we both know she possesses. She helps set the table, has running jokes with the adults around her, tells me she loves “family dinner”, and feeds the cats.

What I will tell you, if you’re reading this while holding your high-needs baby, is good luck. Not sarcastically, but lovingly. Good luck, because I needed it. High needs babies do not suddenly become easygoing toddlers. I have shown up to events two hours late, and bailed at the last minute, and avoided making plans entirely with parents who have a different parenting experience than I do. Those folks who can just throw their kid in the car and show up to pretty much anything on time? We don’t have a ton in common. That said, on nights when I need to stay late at work for a Board meeting, she goes down okay with my husband. We’re finally starting to get in date nights, since we recently moved closer to my sister who is the Toddler Whisperer and can also get her down. When we need her to adapt, she often surprises us with how easily she can do so. 
I doubted myself a lot. It’s hard to ignore people telling you to let them cry it out, make them walk, force them to potty-train, or wean them before either one of you is ready. But I learned quickly that I could trust my child. She’s not making it up when she says she needs me, and she wasn’t “manipulating” me when she couldn’t sleep without being held as an infant. When I tried something that didn’t work for her, I learned that adapting to something that did (with a good amount of trial and error) was always the best solution. I didn’t have a lot of friends to reach out to commiserate with on tough days when I was trying to enforce a useless sleep schedule and it (literally) took me three hours to get my then one year old to sleep at night. But we got there. It got easier in stages as she became more verbal. It got easier once we realized that giving her space to deal with her emotions while remaining calm helped. We work, together, on taking deep breaths when she’s  upset, and on asking her if she wants to talk, or needs a hug. 

I don’t think I need to tell you that I love my daughter. That she’s the center of my universe. That she and I are pals in a way that I didn’t realize you could be with a toddler. But just in case you needed to know, I wouldn’t change a thing about her. There will come a time when I will not nurse her to sleep, when she will not want me to carry her, when I don’t wake up with the scent of her warm, toddler body filling my nose. And if she always wants to cuddle up to read a book or watch a movie together? I’m down with that. 

And kiddo, if someday you read this on whatever version of the Internet exists when you’re old enough to care about parenting advice… I love you “to the moon and to the back”. You weren’t an easy little one to parent, but you were totally awesome.

High Needs Child Series: Sleep is a Luxury

Over the next few weeks I shall be publishing stories about coping with a high needs child from different mothers' perspectives... Sleepless nights, constant crying, colic, nursing around the clock and dealing with life threatening illnesses and conditions. I shall start the series off this week with my story, one of little sleep, a lot of self-questioning and mountains of patience that I didn't think I ever had. I didn't even know what a high needs child was until Luna was around 18 months old, and then everything kind of made sense to me... We just ended up figuring things out together along the way. I hope that these stories will help other mothers with high needs children feel less alone.

I skimmed through Dr Sears’ The Baby Book right before I gave birth, looking for last minute tips on how to establish breastfeeding and how to get through labour without needing meds. I loved his writing style and how he promoted all types of attachment parenting logic, and the book actually made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Then it was put back into my bookcase to be forgotten about and never really revisited, not until months and months later when I was frantically searching “18 month sleep regressions” on Google that I came across a Dr Sears article on high needs children. For the first time in 18 months I actually felt like I hadn’t done anything wrong with Luna, or failed her in some way. She ticked every single box on his list. “High needs child” was finally something that I could use to explain everything without searching through my sleep-deprived brain for an answer to why my child never slept, never wanted to be apart from me and had meltdowns over just about anything.

No one ever expects to have a high needs child (unless you already have one and just assume it’s the norm). There are no warning bells that go off during your pregnancy, or right after delivery. I remember getting a cab home from the hospital in Brooklyn to Queens, and getting stuck in horrendous traffic on the BQE, and a 2 day old Luna screaming and screaming. That basically became our norm for many months.

I had bought an adorable little bassinet for her months beforehand, and her little 18 inch body looked so tiny in it. Swaddled or unswaddled she refused to sleep in it, falling asleep contentedly in my arms and screaming as soon as I put her down. Those first nights I wondered if it was me, was I not nursing her properly? Was she hungry like the nurse had said in the hospital? Was I an absolute failure at breastfeeding and actually starving my child? Dr Google told me to count her diapers and she was peeing and pooping more than enough, so that wasn’t the issue. Cesar went back to his 80 hour a week job and needed all the sleep he could get so I just moved to the couch where I could nurse the baby for hours and hours and watch entire seasons of shows with zombie eyes, hoping to be able to place her on her lounger for a few minutes in order to close my eyes for a while.

I followed the advice of creating a routine and sticking to it and it didn’t make one ounce of difference. She would never nap according to a schedule unless I popped her in the sling and went out for a walk, not too far mind you because if she woke up suddenly I was in for it. She had her bath at the same time every night, and loved it, followed by baby massage and a story and then I would nurse her to sleep, but about two weeks in she would start crying hysterically at that point, body completely rigid, and nothing would soothe her. I would text Cesar hysterical texts myself, not that he could do anything either seeing as he was at work… Eventually I figured out that maybe she was overtired or gassy or both and moving everything a half an hour earlier and adding a few drops of gripe water and some leg bicycling to the mix seemed to fix the regular 7:30pm on the dot hour of screaming.

It didn’t fix the actual sleeping issue. Everyone tells you to sleep when you can, sleep when the baby sleeps. You know that you aren’t going to get a full 8 hours of sleep anymore, but what happens when you actually have a baby that never sleeps? How do you actually get by on 20 to 30 minutes of sleep a night (literally) because your child will only sleep in your arms (and yes we tried everything, she even rejected the stroller). I know people probably thought I was exaggerating or doing something wrong, so I just stopped talking about it except to those I knew really understood. I dreamed of just two hours of uninterrupted sleep. There were days when I thought I would actually sell my soul willingly for just an hour of sleep.

We adapted. A friend of mine bought us a baby swing around the two month mark and Luna ended up sleeping in it for two to even three hours at a time at the beginning of the night and it saved my sanity. She even slept in it at night (not proud of that but it was the only place she would actually sleep for more than 20 minutes apart from my arms), but in the end I was so tired and after three months just couldn’t face any more sleepless nights, and gave in and took her in the bed with us. I suppose if I had done that from day one I would have saved myself and Luna a lot of tears, but I was just following what everyone said to do. Of course now I know that safe bedsharing is absolutely fine and am not worried about it, but I felt so guilty at the time! That said, at 2.5 years old Luna still sleeps with us and still nurses around the clock so they don’t just “grow out of it” like that.

I would see people mention “sleep regressions”… We never had any of that because she never slept anyway. Teething? It was apparent when she became more fussy than usual, but as fussiness was our norm anyway it was never actually too bad (and all of the molars came through without me even really noticing too much of a difference in mood). Going out? Cesar and I went out once together when she was about 6 months old and she cried for a lot of the time that we were out (three hours tops). We didn’t revisit that until her sister’s birth nearly a year later. Going out altogether? It was a struggle, but I’m one of those people who won’t give into my fears easily, so I used to push through them and learnt how to breastfeed just about anywhere in public (without a cover because if I ever tried to cover her, her banshee screams could be heard for miles). I learnt that it was OK to cancel on something if I didn’t feel like we could make it through without a meltdown (and we cancelled a lot of things the first year). I can’t praise Ergo enough for creating a comfortable contraption that not only helped us navigate trips into the city and grocery shopping, but also through simple activities like walking to the park, making dinner and vacuuming. There is no way I would have got anything done without our precious baby carriers. I used to take her into the city by myself, go visit friends, walk around with her strapped to me, always with a little bubble of fear that her mood would suddenly change and we would be stuck on the subway with nowhere to go to. She always refused to have a pacifier, which I’m happy about now, but I was always jealous of those babies who would suck contentedly on their paci in their strollers.

Luna is two and a half years old now, and still very much a high needs child. She’s extremely smart; fiercely independent in some ways and still very clingy in others. She nurses as often as her little sister and still wakes up several times during the night and fights naps during the day. She has very nervous tendencies, biting her nails when she feels uncomfortable or crowded, and has to have everything her way or she has a meltdown. She loves to walk everywhere, but if she gets tired wants to be carried instead of sitting in the stroller, and although I hate to admit it, I use a lot of bribing tactics to just get us to places. A lot of my days are spent trying to avoid a meltdown of some sorts, figuring out in my head how long we can do something, or the best time to do something… Sometimes I am surprised at how flexible she has become over time, and then other times I realize that everything can change in a second. She is an absolute delight, the sweetest little thing, and she will be a strong and determined young woman one day, conquering everything that life throws in front of her. She also tests my own abilities and patience every single day, and although at the end of the day I sometimes want to just curl up, spent, I also know that she chose us as her parents because she knew that we would all be able to figure it out together. And that’s what we do, one step at a time. There is no rush for her to be potty trained, to sleep in her own bed or to wean, she will be ready for all of these things when she’s ready, and that is fine by me.

I do understand that people don’t understand. It’s fine, I’m not asking them to. I do however ask that people respect the decisions that we make as parents, because for the most part I know exactly how Luna is going to react in any given situation and also that while she may seem fine at the time, we often all suffer from it for days afterwards. One missed nap can mean two days of tantrums and meltdowns. I have had to ask her pediatrician and cardiologist to make a note on her file that she finds visits very stressful and to be as gentle as possible so that we can work on making her realize that doctors and nurses are there to help and not hurt her. Getting frustrated with her usually just escalates any situation, and that is something that I also need to work on myself every day. It’s hard. Luna can detect my moods and emotions easily and I have to constantly check myself to see that she doesn’t notice my own anxiety or sadness.

I think that having a second child really helped me work through a lot of the feelings of parental failure I felt through the first year of Luna’s life. As babies, Aurora and Luna were like night and day, even though we proceeded in the same fashion with both of them… It just showed me that no child is the same, and that having one high needs child doesn’t mean that you will have another. And that some children actually like to sleep. All kids like to have the odd tantrum though… No one gets out of those!

I bet people wonder why we decided to have another child amidst all of this sleep deprivation… I guess I thought it would pass by the time she could speak?! We were actually more than prepared for years and years of never sleeping again, so you probably can imagine my surprise when Aurora started sleeping through the night two weeks after being born. But don’t worry, she doesn’t do that anymore, she loves to wake up at least three times, and still sleeps in bed with us too. Teething has been a real long, drawn-out pain for this poor little one and her new trick is to try to nurse for hours during the night. So don’t worry, these dark circles won’t be leaving my eyes very soon!

I wouldn’t have had it any other way to be honest. I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the past three years, my own strengths and weaknesses, and that in the end we adapt to our environments and to our young. They are only little once, and in my opinion this is the time to help them feel both safe and independent at the same time, even if they don’t make it easier for us. I’m glad that I had my high needs child first. Because after those first few months I was ready for anything, and still am. Long-term sleep deprivation and a full day of work at home while making sure the kids aren’t killing each other? I got it! (As Luna would say). I still feel like I have failed both kids sometimes, but I also know that that is not correct, and have to cut myself some slack sometimes. No one is perfect, and no one will ever be perfect. All we can thrive to be is the best that we can most of the time. 

The Dr Sears article that I came across can be found here. The checklist describes Luna to a tee.

Ramblings: Twenty Years a Vegetarian

As a kid I was one of those people who always ate what I liked the least first, and saved the best until last. I still try to do anything that way even today, although procrastination does tend to get in the way sometimes. In any case, I still remember quite clearly chopping up meat or fish into small pieces and shoveling it down my throat as fast as possible so as not to have to taste it or even chew it. It didn’t matter if it were steak, burger, salmon or squid; it was rare that I would actually enjoy anything that had to do with meat or fish. The only things I can actually remember being OK with were mincemeat (ground beef), canned tuna and chicken breast (as long as there were no “black bits” in it). In our house growing up you finished your meal whether you liked it or not (pretty common procedure back then), so I just sucked it up. The idea of eating ribs still conjures up nightmares and the texture of those little octopi in my mouth will never be forgotten. Oh, and we lived above a butcher’s shop for a while. I still remember the smells.

I suppose it came as no surprise when I suddenly decided to become a vegetarian at the age of 17. My sister used to laugh at me and talk about “delicious bloody steaks” in a loud voice around me (she was a really annoying 15 at the time so that was to be expected), but my mother seemed to release a huge sigh of relief and most of my friends didn’t find it to be very weird. To be honest, I think I just said it out loud one day and decided to stick with it to save face. And I say that not because I didn’t want to be a vegetarian, but that becoming a vegetarian at 17 in France in the 1990’s wasn’t an easy feat. It meant that I actually had to start thinking about what I ate a little more, and making sure that whatever I ate didn’t contain any meat or meat by-products in it.

My mother had been vegetarian for a few years in her youth and gave me some recipes to try. She even started to make things separately for me on Sundays when we had a roast dinner or other family meal. Sundays were the only days that we actually made time to eat together as a family at that point, as work, school and friends seemed to get in the way during the rest of the week. It’s only now when I make different meals for everyone that I really realize how much of an effort she made to make sure that I always felt included during those meals, especially during special occasions like Christmas and Easter. At restaurants my go-to meals would be “a salad without the bacon, ham or tuna please”, or ravioles (still one of my favourite dishes), or an “omelette au fromage”, or just a simple baguette with Brie. There were many times when I had to send something back because it still had meat in it, or I had to pick around something because I was too embarrassed to say anything. I went to visit a friend in Blois for a week and we ate lunch at the same restaurant every day… On the final day, after ordering the same salad minus any meat the chef came out and asked me if I was vegetarian and reprimanded me in the nicest way possible for not saying anything. He had so many meal ideas that he would have loved to make me! From that moment onwards I decided to be more confident and while I still had the odd “oh my gosh I thought I was clear about being a vegetarian” moment, I ended up eating some amazing meals. Just because a country appears to have a very meat-heavy menu, it doesn’t mean that a vegetarian cannot eat well and healthily. You just have to think outside of the box a little and not be afraid to speak up.

I never actually missed meat. Around the age of 19 I suffered from a bout of severe anemia, most likely due to growing pains, too much running around working and playing and a bad diet of pains au chocolat and ramen noodles. People advised me to go back to eating some steak, but I couldn’t stomach it. The anemia disappeared once I settled down into a healthier routine for myself, and never came back. My iron levels have been stable since then, even through two pregnancies and tandem nursing children. For me that is proof enough that we don’t NEED to eat meat, our bodies absorb nutrients from a varied diet, and I am pretty sure that it is healthier for us to not have to digest meat or meat products…

It’s been over 20 years now and since I became vegetarian I have tasted meat exactly twice. I was drunk both times and thought it would be funny. Once I took a bite of bacon. It was disgusting. Another time, I tried a cecina (salted beef) taco. It was gross. Nothing has changed for me: I still can’t stand the taste or texture of any kind of meat, fish or seafood. I’m a real texture AND taste eater, so if anything resembles or tastes like meat or fish I can’t eat it. You know how smoked cheese can smell like bacon? It tastes like bacon to me and I can’t eat it. Or if a meat replacement product has exactly the same texture as meat I have to push it aside. I like the idea of these products as it’s a great way for those who actually like meat to cut down on their meat consumption, but they aren’t necessary for me. It’s easy enough to replace meat in dishes like chili or shepherd’s pie with beans and chunky tomatoes. I’ve been using a little bit more of these products recently in dishes, just so that my other half doesn’t feel like he is missing out, but during most of my vegetarian years I have done without.

I will not handle or touch meat or fish. It honestly makes me want to vomit, the idea of eating it, the texture, the smell, so I refuse to have anything to do with it. This therefore means that as I cook most meals for the girls they also have a vegetarian diet for the most part. I say for the most part as I am a little hesitant on the subject. They have both eaten meat before, from their father’s plate, but it’s been a rare occurrence, and Luna isn’t a fan (but she isn’t a fan of much anyway). Aurora seemed to enjoy it, but she enjoys most things, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. They do eat the same diet as me, which is a bit of everything outside of meat, fish and seafood, and it’s important for me that anyone ask me before giving the kids anything to eat (I had to grit my teeth when a shopkeeper gave an 8 month old Aurora a lollipop once; and realised too late after the fact that my sister had fed Aurora meat without checking with me first, and I ended up not saying anything because it was hours later – please people always ask parents if you can feed their kids something before you do, you never know what kind of allergies or intolerances they may have. I don’t blame my sister because she was just having fun feeding things that Aurora obviously wanted to try but I obviously still need to learn to be a better advocate for my beliefs). Long story short, the girls will choose what they want to do when they are old enough to make the choice, but in the meantime we will offer them a variety of what we eat at home, which will rarely include any meat unless Cesar is cooking it for himself.

I’ve toyed on and off with the idea of becoming vegan. I like the idea of never eating anything “animal” again, but at the same time I love cheese, and appreciate other dairy products and eggs. Then again, eggs have to be fully cooked all the way through, especially the white part, and I can’t eat certain types of yogurt due to their texture. But I also can’t find anything that actually replaces the amazingness of cheese, and to be honest I don’t really want to either. So I have been thinking about reducing my dairy consumption, maybe halving it, and would love to start buying milk and eggs directly from local farms, or even own our own chickens at least. Even the dairy products labeled “organic” and the eggs labeled “free range” aren’t as cruelty-free as we imagine them to be. It’s hard to navigate through all of the products available, the prices ranging from dirt cheap to outrageously expensive, with labels full of words that make them seem fresh and organic, but don’t actually state “how” organic or fresh they are.

Aurora has not yet really been introduced to cow’s milk yet, because whenever she has a couple of sips it goes straight through her within minutes. She sometimes has yogurt, and often has cheese because she loves it (and she is my daughter), but I feel like she has an intolerance, and probably has tummy ache at times that I have possibly interpreted as teething pains (although there are a lot of them too). So I have decided to remove all dairy from her diet for a couple of weeks and then doing the Milk Ladder which is one of my allergy mum friends is using (you can check out Ally’s awesome blog for allergy-mum related articles and recipes). If things aren’t any better by her 15 month appointment in November we will see what the doctor says. I suppose this is as good a time as any to cut down on my own dairy consumption then. I shall not be changing anything in Luna’s diet as she only ever eats when and what she feels like anyway (and that’s a whole other blog post).

I do want to add that a vegetarian diet isn’t immediately healthier than a meat-eaters diet. Being a vegetarian doesn’t just mean removing meat and fish from your diet and continuing along your way. It’s important to know what you are putting inside your body and aiming for as varied a diet as possible. In my opinion this isn’t just because of nutritional needs, but also because it’s easy to get bored when you have no variety. I love an array of colours and always try to create colourful dishes. Green, red and orange always add wonderful pops of colour to anything, and as I don’t like dark leafy greens (no kale here thank you very much), there are always peas and carrots, red peppers and mixed greens in the fridge. I love lentils, beans, chickpeas, tofu, root vegetables, pasta, fruit, most vegetables, all kinds of food deemed “healthy”, and they are naturally a large part of my diet. But I also love chips and fries and candy and if I didn’t have to worry about making sure I remain somewhat healthy I could also live off of that for the rest of my life… It takes work to eat any kind of a healthy diet, and vitamin deficiencies can appear with any diet if it is not varied. 

Several completely unrelated items spurred the writing of this article. One being several people raising their eyebrows when I state that I would like my kids to be vegetarian (no, I don’t think I am depriving them of anything). Another item is the mere idea of killing off huge amounts of beautiful wild horses to create space to build places to kill huge amounts of cattle makes me feel physically ill. And last of all just because I look back at those days in my youth where I wanted to vomit and cry, but forced the food down without showing any of my repulsion, and remind myself to take the time to listen to my kids when they say that they don’t like something. It’s enough proof to me that we all have different tastes even before we can talk.

Ramblings: Aurora Vivienne's Twelfth Month

This month's photo album can be found HERE. 

Twelve months… One year… I think back on the last months and everything seems to be a little bit of a blur to be honest. I try to enjoy every minute as it comes, but I haven’t been sleeping very well, and that coupled with having quite a bit of work to do and running after the kids has left my brain resembling a piece of Swiss cheese! My brain keeps darting all over the place, focusing on three or four things at a time, and I need to remind myself that it’s OK to slow down sometimes. So Aurora finally turned a year old at the end of August and it was a very emotional time for me (and for Cesar too). I feel that the last year has been so full of changes and that in a sense it feels like it was both longer and shorter than just twelve months. Watching a tiny toddler grow into a bigger, talking-in-full-sentences toddler, and a tiny baby growing into a big, smiling toddler has been amazing. Having two children under two for 8 months was a challenge, and one that I would most likely repeat, even with hindsight. I do have to say that my brain just isn’t as fast as it used to be!

Aurora had her 12 month appointment earlier this week, got all of her shots and boosters, and now weighs in at nearly 25lbs (the same weight as her older sister), and is nearly 30in in length. She’s in great health and growing perfectly well, which I pretty much knew already anyway. She’s a great eater, will try and eat pretty much everything (including pickles and spicy salsa) and still nurses pretty frequently. She’s still not very good with cow’s milk, so we are avoiding that for a while (and there is no need for it anyway, especially as she is still breastfed). Can I say how wonderful it is to finally have a doctor who not only recognizes us and asks how the other kid is doing, but also approves of breastfeeding as long as you and the child want to. I actually realised that we never see the main doctor, but usually a nurse practitioner, and she is absolutely wonderful with the girls, even Luna actually lets herself be examined. So I’m really happy with our choice over here.

I know I say it very frequently, but I don’t think I have ever met a child as happy as Aurora is. She has her fussy moments and her upset moments, but most of the time she is just a happy, smiling little kid who loves to shake her head from side to side in guise of dancing, and walking around holding tightly to your hand. She did take her first unassisted steps really early at 10 months, but then kind of decided that it was faster to crawl everywhere (and she’s FAST). Then just recently she realised that it was also fun to walk by herself again, much to Luna’s delight (and sometimes anger as Aurora can’t yet run with her!). We bought her two pairs of adorable little shoes and after a little adjustment period of a day she seems to walk around in them just fine. A pair of moccasins and a pair of little white boots, both absolutely adorable!

Both kids are napping while I write this, for the first time in what feels like forever! Their napping schedules have been completely off recently and it’s been causing some issues sleeping at night too (nothing different for Luna, but very much off for Aurora). I think we have some more teeth coming in soon too, all the better to chew more food with, and in addition to all of these physical things some language updates too! Aurora can now say “mama”, “dada”, “cat” and “George” (Peppa Pig’s brother I am assuming), although often everyone gets called “mama” as I think it means “pick me up” rather than “mummy” (it’s OK, Luna didn’t actually start really calling me Mama until she turned two and now she says it a million times a day, although Dada was mastered pretty early on). She also tries to repeat everything you say which is really adorable! She has mastered getting up and down steps, as well as climbing up onto things and riding around on Luna’s scooter. Oh and climbing out of the crib she never sleeps in.

Last month came with a visit from my little brother where he finally met Aurora in real life (as opposed to via FaceTime, videos and photos), and four days just weren’t enough! Both girls took to him immediately and demanded to be held and played with quite consistently. I can’t wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas for Dylan and his wonderful wife Lacy to come back and see the girls (and babysit haha!). Karli, my little sister, has also been spending quality time with the girls as she will be flying off to England and France for three months next week (incredibly it will be her first time back home in 16 years). This also means that we will be taking care of the lovely Bria dog during that time. There is a lot of mutual adoration between the girls and Bria already, and I think we will be finding our family bed even more crowded in the very near future! I’m so glad that modern technology will allow my family to keep up to date on how the kids are doing and for the girls to be able to see everyone consistently even if they are far away.

I know a lot of people think it’s important to live close to family when you have kids, but I honestly don’t feel like we suffered anything growing up far away from grandparents, aunts and uncles! It’s true that most of my cousins are much younger than me (so much for some that I feel more like an aunt than a cousin), and I’m not as close to them as I may have been if we lived nearer, but I know that it was always a treat to visit my parents’ families and that we are all as close as we would have been if we had lived on the same street. At the same time, I love watching the bonds develop between the girls and their Nana, aunties and uncle. And it’s nice for me to sometimes be able to ask if one of them can babysit so I can have a shower by myself or run a quick errand!

This time last year I was getting used to having two little children, tandem nursing and working out how to get everyone to bed at a decent time without meltdowns, while working on a huge writing project. A lot of that hasn’t changed, just that now the little girls are quite a bit bigger and we live in California. This is the first weekend in a while that I don’t have any assignments to deliver, so I am going to make the most of it by catching up on writing blog posts, guest blog posts and editing photos, as well as some of my favourite TV shows and much needed sleep! I also need to sort through clothes and donate as much as I can because we are running out of room again. I think while we have kind of decided that we will most likely have another next year or so, I don’t want to keep hanging on to clothes just in case. Our thrift stores here are wonderful and really cheap.

Aurora’s birthday was really sweet, she really loves her new tricycle and I’m looking forward to the days when both girls will be racing each other around on them. She seemed a little overwhelmed by all of the attention (Luna was slightly overwhelmed by the fact that not all attention was on her at times), but it was a lovely day and balloons and cake was enjoyed by all. We are not ones for big parties just yet, I think we will save those for a few years time when they will remember them. In any case, I will remember this one my whole life!

So, anyway, one year old already! This marks the end of my monthly summaries for Aurora, moving into one every three months from here on out, and I feel a little bittersweet about it. I remember writing her first one and wondering how I was ever going to find the time to make sure that I did it every month in the same way I had for Luna. I suppose we always find the time for the things that matter. You probably realize that the sorting of the photos happens over the space of a few days and I can only thank my need for organization that it doesn’t take longer. I rarely write a summary in one sitting, and sometimes I wonder how much I have left out. But in the end that doesn’t really matter, because all of the little gestures and smiles and bites and food all over the wall moments have been captured and stored in my mind forever.

My little Aurora, so affectionate and sweet, so daring and mischievous, always looking for something to try, throw or climb on, and making sure that I always have those eyes in the back of my head open and aware. She’s taught me that it’s OK to scream when you feel like it, happy or angry it doesn’t matter, and that big brown innocent eyes usually mean trouble. <3

Ramblings: We Lead By Example

Back in 2011 I came across an article discussing the plight of a woman named Naomi Dunford who was being viciously bullied on the internet. It was on that same day that one of my sister’s friends found a photo of herself up on one of those horrid slutshaming sites. Anyway, I wrote a short post on all of that on my blog here, with a few links to cyberbullying and how to help take a stand against it. At that time, although I had been blogging for years, I was only just starting to actually take it more seriously, and was trying to finally start a real career in freelance writing. I was so disgusted by how easy it was to completely tarnish someone’s reputation or even ruin their lives by just a few well-placed malicious words and images. Little did I know at that point that the internet had started to mimic a school playground, but on a much, much higher, larger and more dangerous level, and even more so today, just a few years later.

I don’t know about you, but back in the days when I was at school, primary and high school, there was no internet and there were no cell phones. Bullying was probably just as bad on school grounds, or on your way home, but once you were away from the bullies they left you alone. Not that it made bullying any better, so to speak, but nowadays there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to hide. At school, at work, at home, in your car, anywhere in the world… And we can still say that old song of “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me”, but we all know how incorrect that is. Words can hurt more than anything, twisting and turning their way inside, embedding themselves as deep as possible. Words hurt, even when they come from a faceless stranger.

I remember writing an article about internet comments and how terrible people could actually be, hiding behind their computer screens, a while back, before my second child was born. This time I was outraged by the sheer meanness coming from people just because a woman had decided to run a marathon without wearing a tampon. You know, maybe if we all got a little more outraged by how kids have been blown up by bombs in Syria for over five years, instead of over the trivial sight of some period blood, or a breastfeeding mother, then this world wouldn’t be so bad. But then again, I suppose it’s much more “fun” to bash another person online rather than raise awareness about some real evil that continues to happen. (Insert sarcasm font).

So here we are, five years after I shot off that cyberbulling rant back in 2011, and a lot more aware of what happens nowadays online. I’ve managed to avoid most of the mean comments myself, but mainly because I am not always comfortable putting myself out there so much, and I also have a great group of online friends who are genuinely wonderful people and who fight against these waves of mean girl gangs and women bashing each other. While I was never a mommy blogger per se, From the Inside has existed since 2002 in some form or other (LiveJournal then Blogger and now on Squarespace), and I do write a lot about motherhood and my own personal journey as a mother. This also means that I spend time reading through other parenting and “mommy” blogs, often learning something or other, disagreeing with some things and agreeing with others. I also used to spend time reading through comments too, but I gave up on that a long time ago. It is horribly disheartening when you see a bunch of women just lashing out at each other from behind their computer screen, insulting each other and trying to make everyone else feel like whatever they may be doing is wrong. It feels like high school all over again, except a lot nastier and a lot more vicious. And these comments and these attacks are not reserved just for parenting blogs, they are everywhere, men and women, adults, attacking each other about beliefs, lifestyle choices, guns, whether women should be allowed to choose what they do with their wombs or not, even probably even ridiculous things like the use of soap vs. shower gel.

Granted, people have bitched about each other for ever, people have fought about things forever, but the relative anonymity of the internet, or at least the fact that you can type something into the universe and not really feel the fall-out of your words, makes bullying so much easier. I try to be very careful with my words, I have always been one who prefers not to say something rather than hurt someone’s feelings, and the idea of putting a part of myself out there for others to judge still scares me (and part of the reason why I blog because it pushes me to do so). Reading strangers criticize and insult each other’s choices makes me feel quite sick to my stomach. Not that my personal opinion is going to change anything, but I will continue to be kind to people unless they attack me.

Because we have to lead by example.

I’ve never been a model human being, and of course I have my faults, but I want to raise my kids in a world where they don’t have to worry about being bullied by both people they know and people they don’t know. And I want to also make sure that they don’t join cliques that spend their time putting others down in order to feel better about themselves. Yes, it is easier to feel strength in numbers, but how can you be a real leader if you aren’t able to see beyond the group? We all want our kids to live in a better world than the one we see around us, so let’s try and build a better one for them from the ground up.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? Our kids learn about interacting with others from us. If I am always talking badly about others in front of them, how are they going to learn not to do that? If I am constantly talking about someone’s weight or look or face or hairstyle behind their backs, then how will my kids know that that isn’t a very nice thing to do? If I spend my time telling others what they should be doing with their lives and why what I think is more important than what they think, how are my kids going to learn about tolerance and diversity? Seriously. We lead by example. I do not want my kids to fall into the hands of bullies, and I don’t want them to become bullies either. I want them to stand up for their rights, for equality, for love, for diversity and for all the good in this world. And I want them to stand up for their friends and not fear the mean girl waiting to trip them up. Nothing wrong with falling on your face now and again, but it’s important to stand up and stand tall and show everyone around you that you cannot be bullied.

You know, it’s OK to sometimes feel a little envious of someone else’s life. It’s so easy to feel bombarded with perfect stills of perfect lives on social media, but we have to remember that what people show on their feeds is not always their real life day in day out. I love photography and capture moments on my cameras all the time, but for every photo of a smiling child there is a blurry one and probably two tantrums in between. Life is so multi-layered that there is no way to know what lies beneath each photo or each caption, and that is fine. I mean, honestly, I have friends who I have spent many a day or evening with and I only really know one side of them too. So yes, it IS fine to feel a little envious, but that envy should never be translated into bitterness or anger, or just a downright mean attitude towards others. In my own humble opinion we only have one life and we should try to spend it by seeing the beauty, experiencing the world and loving as much as possible.

And that said, I adore the wonderful group of women I have “met” online who, however tired, depressed, happy, grateful, overwhelmed or just downright disappointed they feel, always take a moment to make sure their friends are feeling OK and to encourage and help others. Because in the end we are all in this thing called life together whether we like it or not.

I’m not going to change the world with my words, but I want to lead by example, empower my girls to be strong and good, and stick up for others around me. Nobody should be bullied online or offline and I feel like we should all take a stand to speak out about things that matter rather than spend time talking shit about others. Who has time for that anyway?

There are quite a few resources to help fight against cyberbullying online, one of the most comprehensive I found here. I also recently wrote an article for Mamazou where I discussed how we don’t use the words "fat" and "skinny" at home in a way to hopefully empower my girls to see beyond the physical. There are also some great Facebook pages that are dedicated to helping prevent bullying as well as supporting those who are being bullied (Suicide Baiting Prevention and It Gets Better Project). Join and share if you can, and if you, your child or a friend is suffering from bullying reach out and get the help and support that you need. There is no need to suffer alone.

Photography: Park Mornings

The mockingbird sits up on his perch every morning, right there on the electricity wires, picking up a new tune every few days, partially resigned to the routine of the days, partially trying something a little more daring. I love hearing his voice as I push the kids towards the park, a sense of common ground, a need to blend in and stand out, and a sense of recognition that routine is what keeps us all going right now. The days are either hot or even hotter, the sky is consistently blue, apart from the grey wisps of smoke that congregate on the horizon when a forest or brush fire starts closer to the city. Every morning we go to the park on the corner, walk around and around a few times to in guise of exercise and then find our special tree to sit under and enjoy the fresh morning breeze. It gets hotter as the day wanes here, so mornings are the nicest times, the time when you get everything done that you need to. The grass is usually damp from the very early morning sprinklers and the dragonflies and butterflies congregate in the air and the squirrels play in the trees, giggling at each other.

The park is part me-time, part breathing time, part place where the girls can roam semi-freely, as long as they stay where I can see them. Luna hands me flowers as Aurora takes her tentative steps in the grass; all of us roaming around barefoot, toes in the dirt and feet in the wet grass. Sometimes my mother comes along, other times my sister, sometimes Cesar when he isn’t at work, but usually it is just me and the kids and often a camera, catching little moments that always feel so important to me and to the girls. We pick up sticks and count leaves, talk about colours and sing songs. We meet the same people every day and smile and say hello, and that always makes me feel somewhat grounded. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful place where we make up stories and dream of flying with the butterflies and talking to the squirrels.

It is now mid-Autumn but summer will still be here for a while, months maybe, and we will continue to enjoy the cool breeze under the trees and the sound of nature in our ears, and I will take many, many more pictures to document all of those simple, but special moments. 

There is a full album of photos up on Flickr right here. All photographs taken using full manual mode on a Canon Rebel and a FujiFilm XE-1 with little or no editing. 

A chat with the inspiring Jenny from Mamazou

It dawned on me again this morning how many inspiring people I have in my life and how lucky I am to have crossed paths with all of these people. Jenny Raymond is one of these inspiring women that I have had the pleasure to "bump into" online. Motherhood is not easy, and can often be a little isolating; sometimes you can be surrounded by people and still feel like no one understands you. Instead of just grinning and bearing it, or complaining about it to her journal (me), she decided to actually DO something about it, and has since created a fantastic social hub online for both parents and parents to be, Mamazou. 

I became aware of Mamazou earlier this year when I finally started appreciating Instagram more than I had in the past. Jenny's posts always seemed so inspiring and friendly, and when she started her #mamazoufeatures series, featuring articles from different people on all kinds of subjects every week, I decided to join in. Since then, and via Mamazou, I have been introduced to a wonderful, and continuously growing, group of women and men, who are all in the same boat as me. It was hard for me to leave my cocoon and safety net of NYC, and thanks to all of these people, and mainly Jenny, I feel connected, understood, and listened to again. There really is nothing like having a supportive community you can count on to hold you up, make you laugh, and tell you off if needed.

Jenny is one of the kindest and friendliest people I know, and she agreed to answer some questions about herself and Mamazou for From the Inside.  

From the Inside: How did Mamazou come about? What pushed you to create this awesome spot for parents?

Jenny Raymond: When I was pregnant, I became so overwhelmed with the information Google had to offer and it sparked even more questions than I was originally searching.  I wanted to talk to people (that I didn’t know) about pregnancy and being a parent and found that the forums I signed up to were judgmental.  I then decided it would be pretty cool if I could create something of my own where people could talk openly, freely and safely.

How do you see Mamazou evolving over the next six months to a year?

I see it going from strength to strength.  There are so many paths that it could go down and so many wonderful companies that I’m starting to collaborate with.  Things are becoming very exciting.  I can’t reveal too much at the moment but watch this space.  We’re constantly working on things to try and improve Mamazou and give our users the best experience possible.

For me personally the Mamazou community has been a blessing and I am always amazed at how kind and caring you are. How do you personally navigate the constant “mummy wars” that people seem to be instigating on every imaginable parenting subject?

Thank you so much – that’s so kind of you to say!  I don’t have time for any nastiness.  If people are going to be bitchy to one another then they’re not welcome and their account will be suspended.  I have no tolerance for it.  There’s so much of that in the world, I’m all about celebrating every journey through life and supporting one another.  It’s all about #perfectlyimperfectparenting

You are based in the UK but seem to attract people from all over the world. How do you go about this?

I’m actually not so sure – they say your vibe attracts your tribe so I’ll go with that.  I wanted to tackle the US market first as they’re bigger than the UK.  Once I started with that… I thought the more that live in different countries, the better. 

Tell us more about your #mamazoufeatures

This is relatively new but as we’re a community all about supporting others, I wanted to create something specifically for bloggers (and recently companies) to get their voice out more.  To be able to share something that’s on their mind but broaden their target audience at the same time. 

Who and/or what do you count as inspirations?

My daughter, Hayley.  It’s so clichéd but she’s the reason I get out of bed every morning and in her almost 3 short years of life she has taught me SO much.  My actions will always influence her so I make sure that I’m the best version of myself, so that one day, maybe, she will be inspired by me.

My father is another huge inspiration to me.  He has always done his best to provide my siblings and I with the best upbringing possible and has worked so hard in order to do so.  He’s so incredibly inspirational.

Can you tell us what your favourite social media platform is and why?

I have to say Mamazou :D not that I’m biased or anything.  It’s a wonderful and supportive community full of so many down to earth parents.  Following that, Instagram!

You can check out the awesomeness that is Mamazou right here, and also on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. And if you feel like chatting to some wonderful people, reading some great insights, learning about all types of new and exciting products and just joining in, you can sign up on the homepage of the website!

Photo by Eskimo*Rose Photography @eskimorose_photography

Ramblings: Aurora Vivienne's Eleventh Month

This month's photo album is HERE. 

This is it, the last few weeks until Aurora’s first birthday! How did it go by so fast? Can we push down on the brakes a little, slow things down please? 10-11 months was a huge month for Aurora, mainly because halfway through the month she took her first steps! She had been pulling herself up unassisted for a while, crouching down into a squat to play, and then one Saturday afternoon while I was baking a cake with Luna, she stood up and then suddenly a look of determination tinted with a little fear showed up in her eyes. And she walked! Three steps, then three steps again and then five steps, straight into my arms! I wasn’t expecting it quite so soon, Luna started walking a couple of days before her first birthday, but it has been really cute to see her stop and start and dare a little step here and there. She is obviously taking her time and rightfully so, and she looks like the cutest little penguin every time she walks!

I still haven’t been able to get her walking on video because it’s very random when she does it, and even though Luna usually warns me by yelling “BABY WALKIN MAMA” getting the phone out usually causes her to drop to a crawl and race towards me. One day soon maybe! By the way, it is adorable how Luna is excited about Aurora walking, apart from the fact that she now thinks that she can just grab Aurora’s hand and pull her along with her. I had to teach her the concept of baby steps… That said they play together more nowadays, and Aurora stands her ground with Luna a lot more. Luna is possessive with her toys, which isn’t surprising, but it’s really funny hearing her tell Aurora to “share”. I suppose at some point they will learn the importance of sharing with each other and others.

I just weighed Aurora and she is now 23.4 pounds, so she’s put on a little over a pound since last month. I haven’t been able to measure her, but she is most definitely longer/taller! Her eating habits are getting better and better, she basically eats everything that I give her, especially cheese, and she can usually handle portions of any size now (although she does have a tendency to fill her mouth like a hamster and then attempt to chew which doesn’t always work out so well). She also has 8 fully grown teeth now, and while I hope this is it for a while, I doubt it is. Teething hell is constantly upon us, between Aurora getting 2 or 4 teeth at a time and all of Luna’s last molars coming through together. That said, Aurora is in good spirits most of the time, and is always smiling so it isn’t that bad! We really hit the jackpot in the happy baby category here, and although there have been a few mini tantrums here and there, she is usually easily placated.

July was a fun month with loads of activities, July 4th and the State Fair the main ones. While Aurora didn’t really get to participate much in the fair activities (I’m looking forward to introducing her to the petting zoo and pony rides next year), she seemed to like watching the horses. She also thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks display on July 4th. It was a lovely day all in all, and the first time that we had been able to enjoy a July 4th celebration altogether as a family seeing as one or both of us has always had to work on that day, and I will always remember how excited and amazed both of the girls were when the fireworks started going off! I was quite surprised that Aurora wasn’t scared at all, she was shrieking for joy instead, and then promptly fell asleep nursing halfway through. And by the way it’s World Breastfeeding Week again this week, so I shall be posting some photos on Instagram to do my bit to #normalizebreastfeeding and #normalizeextendedbreastfeeding (I can make even longer hashtags if you like), and just being the annoying person that I always am! Talking about breastfeeding actually, Aurora has a much easier natural “schedule” than Luna has ever had – she nurses in the morning, before naps and then maybe once or twice in between, and then during the night. Thinking about it, Luna was very similar at that age (and I was pregnant), so I suppose it doesn’t show anything about how things will unfold in the future… Another boobmonster in the making then I suppose!

I’ve always loved that moment when you can see a baby absorbing new information, letting it soak into their brains and then waiting to see when it will all resurface. I’ve been going over words with Aurora, saying them over and over again, watching her huge brown eyes take it all in, knowing that it will all come back out again at some point in the future. I love how I say people’s names and she immediately looks in their direction, or towards the last spot that she saw them in. I love how she gets super excited every time Joey Ramone the cat comes near her, and how, even though she pulls his tail and sometimes tries to flatten him, his favourite place to sleep at night is in the top corner of the bed, right by her side.

Another one of my favourite things to watch Aurora do is dance. She has this adorable head shake thing that she has done for quite a while now, but it’s getting more and more pronounced. Yesterday she was rocking out to KMFDM and it was awesome! I wish I could have caught it on camera, but I was too busy dancing too!

I’ve had to take down the baby gate from one spot and put in another as she has been able to escape despite everything I would put in front of it, and has now figured out how to climb up on things and it scares me! I just have to come to terms with the fact that she really is practically a toddler now, and most definitely not a baby anymore. It’s so bittersweet. I want to hold all those moments when she lets me cuddle and kiss her tight and never let go of them, because soon she will be running off to join her sister in her adventures… There is so much more to look forward to, I know, but why does it have to go by so fast?! Little happy pumpkin, full of smiles and so much love, she will always brighten our lives. That cheeky little smile can lighten up the darkest of days, I kid you not!

So, I shall start to prepare Aurora’s first birthday celebrations and wonder how we got here already! A year ago I was lumbering back and forth to the hospital every few days to check her wellbeing, drinking liters and liters of water with the hopes that she would stay inside me as long as possible, and now we have this big, gorgeous, bouncing toddler-baby! Life really is amazing.