Friday, July 25, 2008

Stuffy nose and internal battle

Nothing too exciting happened today. More smiles, but more fussiness too. His nose is a little bit stuffy, and he HATES it when I get out the drops and nose sucker thing. (Nose Sucker Thing is a technical term, btw.) But he has trouble eating with his nose stuffy, so he deals with it.
I'm arguing with myself over whether or not I should make a post about circumcision. Any moms on here who have spent any time at all on parenting boards know how heated this topic can get. Half of me wants to just leave it alone, but the other half of me wants to spread information to those who might not have gone looking for it on their own.

*sigh* Tough decisions.

Here's a picture of Connor taking a nap a couple of days ago. Don't worry, we only let him sleep on his tummy when we're right there in the room.

6 comments:

Jen said...

We call it a snot sucker!

Circumcision - something we are going to have to think about! My first instinct is not to do it - I don't think it's necessary.

I'd love to hear the reasons why you guys choose to or not too circumsize!

Donna said...

I have a HUGE opinion on circumcision.

My first boyfriend (in that way) was not circumsised. I spent 2 years...the amount of time I was with him...with pretty much a constant urinary tract infection.

My sister opted not to have my nephew circumsised. Unfortunately, he ended up with an adhesion and had to be circumsized when he was 11.

Circumsision prevents cancer of the penis, as rare as it is.

I know that you're doing all this new wave mom stuff as is your right and it's kinda cute to this old lady who was raised in an era where no on attachement (??) parented, did the whole family bed thing, cloth diapered, used organic fucking everything including clothes (um, what?) and in general were happy because they came up with onesies.

I do believe that you can truly go over the line from 'new wave mom' to weirdo mom from hell.

There are some things that today's moms can learn from the previous world worth of mothers.

And if you want to get into it...which I will, it is my express opinion that all plastics, microwaves, and pretty much everything that we...my age people...did not have should be banned from use for or near a child.

We didn't have autism. We didn't have adhd. And seriously, it's not a "you just didn't recogise it' thing, I new no one with any of those issues. We had slow readers and people with cerebral palsy and down's syndrome.

I use only glass and stainless steel. Everything that comes in plastic, immediately leaves it for a glass home.

What I'm saying is, I would way more worry about what effect "new" (as in since the electronic age - 1985+) stuff might have rather than should I have my child circumsised.

I went to bed late, got up like an hour ago, still on my first cup. If I sound like a shrew or mean or whatever, I'm not trying to be...it comes natural...I totally would not and am not critise(ing) your parenting. He's your baby and he will be loved and safe and that's the bottom line.

I just have to weigh in on the weird shit (to me) 21st century parents do.

PS: it was a nose sucker thingy back when I was doing little babies too.

BurleysGirl said...

Miss Ann,

I'll get into the circumcision thing later. Othewise this will be a total book.

Now, to anyone reading this who might get nervous, Miss Ann and I have been friends for several years, and we respect each other not only in spite of our differences, but because of them. We're both the kind of people who can disagree, sometimes feverishly, and still walk away shaking hands. So don't get worried, it's all good.

Now, Miss Ann, you do realize that, to some extent, you're contradicting yourself, right? I don't do attachment parenting (at least not to the extreme that many people do) because I'm the Mommy and therefore I know better than the baby does. We also don't do a family bed not only because that is NOT a habit I want to deal with breaking, but because I have night terrors and that makes me truly dangerous. I also don't do organic anything, let alone everything, basically because I'm cheap.

But some of the new age stuff, like cloth diapers, are going back to the old school way things are done. Did you know that there are chemicals in disposable diapers that are known to cause cancer? Technically speaking, you aren't allowed to throw them away with household trash in most states because of those chemicals. A lot of doctors believe that disposables are responsible for the increase in male infertility in my generation. Disposables don't breathe, and they're soooo absorbent that they generally stay on the baby longer. This means that his testicles are kept at a really high temperature all day long, which is really bad for sperm production. That said, we use disposables too. We just use cloth more.

As for plastics and microwaves, alot of that is what this new age mommy thing is all about. People grow their own food to make baby food. They use glass bottles to get away from PBA. (I use drop-ins, which are PBA free) It's not vaccinating (which we are doing) because if you look into it, all of those scary diseases were declining on their own due to advanced medical care BEFORE the vaccines were introduced, not to mention the insane amount of horrible things that are in those needles. It's birthing without drugs (which I didn't do) so that the baby is born sober instead of letting medical science treat mother and baby like guinea pigs. (Watch The Business of Being Born. Scary stuff)

I just think maybe you are misunderstanding what many (not all) new age moms are trying to accomplish. They are trying to get rid of all of the poisons that today's society is shoving down our throats.

I like to take things one issue at a time. I'm a research junkie, which is sometimes a bad thing, but for the most part it stops me from going overboard with things. If I was a bandwagon jumper (which I know you're not accusing me of) then we would be doing a LOT of things differently. Like that picture I just posted of Connor sleeping on his tummy. Tons of people will FREAK OUT over that, I'm sure. I'll have to do another post of things that make me a bad mom by today's standards. Things like propping his bottle when he's in my arms so that I can type one handed. Or acutally allowing him to happily sit in his swing instead of tying him to my body like so many new age moms do 24/7. Or making him sleep in his crib every night. Or swaddling him when he's overtired and fighting sleep because when I do it, he passes out in about 7 seconds.

I'm just trying to say that some of this new age stuff is a step away from the new and a step toward what the old school moms have been trying to tell us for 20 years or so. We're finally listening, but my generation likes to do things to the extreme, so from the outside it looks like we're wierdo mom's from hell.

Donna said...

Firstly, I really do know how to spell circumcision. I cannot believe I spelled it like 9 different ways LOL!

No! I wasn't saying you did any of that. I was talking about how mothers these days are like that. I have no idea if you're into any of that stuff.

I think women having children today take themselves way too seriously and honestly, I really think the internet has made young mothers even more crazy (yeah, I do think a lot of the crap I read them say and do is pretty freaking over the top) because they have every single person and their brother telling them they're wrong for spanking, wrong for not making homemade babyfood, wrong for not breastfeeding, yaddayaddaya. So a lot of them are way defensive. I call them the mommy blogger brigade.

I know one thing though, my mother and grandmother both said the only reason they cloth diapered was because there were no disposables. They didn't WANT to cloth diaper, they had no choice.

While pampers might not be good for the earth (which I totally should blog about my opinions on "being green"), they've been around since before I was born, which goes to say, I don't believe they cause problems. They've had 50 years to give us cancer, make us retarded and whatever else...so far they haven't.

I am up in the air on immunisations. I was immunised (for smallpox too), all the kids were immunised, hell, everyone I know was immunised. But then all this autism-immunisation stuff started going around. I have my doubts that immunisations cause autism but I do think that many of the diseases are gone or rare. And even though I was immunised for measles, I got them anyway and wanted to die...but I didn't. I also believe immunisations, like antibacterial everything just makes us less like to produce our own antibodies...which is not a good thing.

I seriously wasn't saying you were attachment whatever, family bed, whatever. You are definitely a new wave mom though.

All I really wanted to say, which I just got way off on other crap, is that I think circumcision is cleaner and obviously still done for religious reasons as well as reasons like mine. My experience with my newphew and 2 years worth of bladder infections makes me think it's a good thing.

I would absolutely never TELL you waht to do with your baby, I'll just tell you my opinions...cuz I can.

Unknown said...

I know you weren't saying that I did all of that. Since we've never really talked about it before I don't see how you could. I was just playing devils advocate. I do understand alot of the attachment parenting, family bed stuff. So I was taking that side because I can.

I also know you would never tell me how to raise my son because you're cool like that. I'm totally open to opinions because there's always the chance that I'll learn something new along the way. It's the people who give their opinions with the air of superiority like they know better that bug me. Like I know a girl who has a son 6 weeks older than Connor. This makes her think that she can teach me how to be a mom, even though she's 16. Now if she was just comparing notes or sharing what works for her son, I'd be fine with it. But I am NOT going to let a 16 year old tell me how to take care of my baby. Not going to happen. I wouldn't take it from a 40 year old so I surely won't take it from someone who can't buy cigarettes.

As for immunisations, I'm still on the fence with them. I've looked at the ingredients list on those, and common sense tells me that they are not as good as "they" want them to seem. But I also know that the anti-vax brigade takes things too far as well. In the end, Connor will be vaccinated according to schedule, but it still makes me nervous.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.