not_hothead_yet

please come out of your cave.... I'm getting tired of calling you and waiting.... please come out... I miss you.

I know its scary out here and it seems so nice and cozy in there but WE are all out here and we are okay with that... surely it can't be that bad if the rest of us are out here? We'll hold you up, let you lean on us, give you kind words... we miss you and we want you to enjoy it out here like we do.

Please come out.... we love you.

Trust me... just trust me.... its nice out here at least sometimes just like its unpleasant in there sometimes... please... come out.

when certain types of people make snide cracks about legal gun owners being scary, you are essentially saying that even though we FOLLOW THE LAW you equate us with criminals. If I register my gun, get my lisence, follow the rules and laws then WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM GOING TO SUDDENLY PULL OUT MY GUN AND SHOOT YOU UNLESS YOU ARE THREATENING ME? DUH. I am a reasonable, rational person. That is why when I decided to get a gun I learned what I needed to learn and did what I was supposed to do. Criminals do not have this regard for "the rules" - kind of related to their being, ya know, CRIMINALS. So those of us who LEGALLY own guns are NOT the people you need to be afraid of. Its fucking retardedly ass-backwards to say so. And you accuse us, the people who consciously decide to own a tool of self-defense as "living in fear"?!

Parse that a second... the person who decides to get an alarm system for their house is "living in fear" but their friend who makes constant comments about that alarm system magically going off and therefore resulting her false imprisonment is NOT the one who is obsessed or paranoid? Who is really living in fear? The person who owns a gun or the person who assumes anyone with a gun is going to kill them?

YES accidents happen. Stupid people abound. This can be said for automobiles as much as guns. But I do not see the same people regarding car owners with fear and condescension.

(my husband has a motorcycle, I do not want a motorcycle. I do not however make snide remarks to him or any other cyclist just because I personally do not want a motorcycle. Yet motorcycles kill people every day. And somehow I am not assuming everyone on a motorcycle is looking to get into an accident and kill me)

you can be scared of guns. Hell I'm scared of roaches. Lotsa people are scared of riding in a car. Being scared of guns doesn't bother or surprise me.

But please, stop labelling all gun-holders with "omg they are teh crazy"

If a person owns a gun for personal security, they carry it so they can have it if they need it. That does not mean they carry it just itching to USE it. If they are itching to use their gun, they carry it to the range. Gun owners do not carry their guns because they can't wait to shoot someone. Do you carry a fire extinguisher in your car and you can't wait to use it? Drive around looking for a fire? Intend to start a fire in your car JUST so you can use it? Hell maybe squirt a few rounds for the hell of it? Think about squirt fire extinguisher yucky stuff at innocent bystanders? Take it out during parties so you can let loose on the general public?

Come on people.... hysteria doesn't help anything.

Yes, I have a gun in my house. No, I do not intend to pull it out of its locked box for any reason other than 1)maintenance 2)going to the range to keep my skills up 3)in the horrendous but unlikely event I feel threatened enough to have need of it.

I own an axe too. I do not intend to use it on anyone but if I was cornered in my garage you can sure as hell bet I'd run straight to it and use it. I do not keep my axe where little children can get a hold of it. I have instructed my kids with safety rules concerning dangerous objects such as axes, scythes and lawnmowers. And despite the fact that I think chopping wood is kinda fun and good exercise, I do not pull my axe out after having a few beers and start swinging at other folks' heads. Because I'm not a psychopath and I'm also not a moron. Like most people who also own axes.

yesterday, everything was going really well for a whole 30 minutes. No fighting, no screeching, no crying, no whining. Lil Miss didn't even ask me for "ahhh-skoo-wai" once.

So, feeling really good, I lean over the bannister and yell "hey! WHO WANTS POPSICLES??"

Everyone comes running up the stairs, we all start dancing in the kitchen, clapping hands and cheering. Then I open the freezer with a flourish, pull out the popsicle box and find

ONE popsicle

Holy shit, imminent disaster of toddler-epic proportions. Why oh why didn't I LOOK first? Oy vey.

Oldest Godson, who is nearly five, sees inside box and knows what's coming. Younger Godson is not so savvy. Lil Miss is already reaching for the one popsicle in my hand. I give it to LM and tell the godsons how incredibly sorry I am, I made a mistake, I swear by all that is holy in toddlerland I will get them more popsicles as soon as their mom gets here. Godson-the-younger looks sad and pouty-ish but I think he kinda groks the situation. Godson-the-hyper chats with me about the situation and gets okay with it. I offer GtY some cantelope - no dice (and I don't blame him) and I swear to him I'm gonna get him some popsicle. I call the boys' mom leaving an urgent message "PLEASE call me unless you are turning onto my street THIS IS IMPORTANT" and feel like total crud-on-a-stick. I don't know what else to do, GtY is sad but he's not crying or actively pouting or anything like that... so I walk away hoping that their mother is either right around the corner or aboutto call me back while she's in Publix.

I hear some giggling. Walk back over and see LM sharing her popsicle with GtY. Holy crap. I don't think I've ever seen her share anything she was actually engaged with. Melted my heart completely.

Then their mother drove up. I explained the situation (while she laughed her ass off at me) then dashed to the store to restock the frozen treats. Came back, distributed frozen treats and all was well with the world again.

after more lurking and reading, I realize my rants against AP were misplaced. It's not AP that I'm so angry at, its the conflation of AP with "Unconditional Parenting". I haven't read the whole book of UP but what I have learned of the basic philosophy (because it's not even an outline of how-to parenting) I think I know enough to feel that I do not agree with it. The basic premise offends me and worries me. I think it's founded entirely upon one man's theory of child development and understanding of child psychology and I think he's mostly wrong. While I agree, working with children as opposed to working against is a laudable goal. but come on, is that something new or astounding? Managerial courses and power-thinking seminars have touted this notion for some time now. Catch more flies with honey. Utilize every talent. Root out hidden strengths. Find the silver lining. Blah blah blah. The idea that one should make an effort to resist auto-pilot parenting that leans towards the negative is a good one but Kohn premise goes far deeper than that, yet offers next to nothing in the way of practical guidance. In some ways I don't agree with his basic premise either; I do not believe giving negative consequences to unwanted behavior and praise for "good" behavior teaches our children they need to earn our love. I also find it irresponsible of Kohn to continually interchange "love" with "approval" - they are NOT the same thing. Kohn also seems to believe that children are capable of magically knowing what is satisfactory and what is not. The notion that a child, to whom everything is new and unknown, will somehow have the wherewithal to correctly assess his own actions and make subjective judgements that further his understanding and knowledge is ridiculous. If I don't say "good job!" when Lil Miss draws an "A" then how in holy hell is she supposed to know when she's done it correctly? We are not born knowing correct social behavior and proper etiquette and implement manipulation. These things are learned through practice but practice doesn't do any good if one is unsure of the idealized goal. If my travails with autism have taught me anything, its that children NEED to be clear about what their goal is... learning something "wrong" or incompletely can have disasterous consequences.

This is similar to the nebulous notion of the eradication of testing in education. The fact remains that as painful as testing may be, and as reticent as we may be to make judgements of a child's efforts, testing is a form of FEEDBACK and all animals, especially children NEED feedback in order to learn.

Let me be candid here; my parents raised me (WHEN they raised me) with the hippy-liberal idea that children needed autonomy and freedom. That's because THEY were raised in typical authoritarian fashion. I don't recall my parents ever saying "good job" or even "I'm proud of you" but instead "i like that" and "well how do YOU feel about it?"

and frankly, it STILL bothers me that they could never seem to let me know they approved of me. But I never questioned whether they LOVE me. They said it plenty. They showed it plenty. That was not the issue. getting a sense of "am I doing this right?" was the issue.

apparently I ran off a few people with my last "mini-rant"

Fine by me. If AP is so sacred you refuse to even look at criticism, then don't let the door hit you on the way out.

there's a huge industry based on profiting from parental guilt.

In this society, the fact is, most cannot realistically have their baby and feed it too; going back to work and putting baby in daycare is a source of guilt and anxiety because it feels wrong to leave the bulk of care to someone else. Yet the aftermath of behaviorism is still resonating. Supposedly everything you do will have ever-lasting effects that could possibly scar your child for life. Saying "no, you must bow to the needs of the rest of us" feels wrong because its a baby and cannot understand but more importantly, it underscores the helplessness we all feel about our social predicament. We are mired in the constrains of our culture to over provide lest our shortcomings cause "irreparable damage"

The fact that so many children survive and thrive despite dire poverty, lack of cultural exposure, and undereducation and even sometimes abuse/neglect seems to have been swept under the rug. Of course the fact that a negative environment isn't guaranteed to damage is not an endorsement of same but turning a blind eye to that truth pushes the behaviorist agenda.

The true irony of the situation is that although Watson's dismal failure with his own children helped loosen the iron grip of regimented childcare, the leaning of "nurture" over "nature" had become entrenched. Dr Spock was considered "soft" in his day because he advocated for parental instincts overriding scientific assertions and contended "you cannot spoil a baby" - a direct contradiction of behaviorists even as it agreed with the basic tenet of "what you do affects your child greatly"

So although today's modern child psychologists do not agree with the originators of behaviorism it is not that they disagree with the "whether" you can permanently indent your child, but the "how" you do so.

The very notion that children are resiliant, adaptable and have their own individual natures predisposed seems to still be ignored despite major advances in evolutionary pschology. Its astounding how far behind sociology and adult psychology child psychology lags but it does and always has.

Parenting brings a lot of guilt and anxiety as it stands in our culture and rather than find ways to mollify this negativity, science has capitalized on it and deepened it.

I'm sure a large part of that stems from the atomic age as well. Living under such a dire threat that creates a sense of impotence will turn any person,, no matter how secure and serene towards that which is controllable. and in the end, the one thing that is ultimately the most controllable aspect of life is parenting. Parents were clamoring for ways to "modernize" parenting in the atomic age and they got it. In order to circumvent a parents natural tendancy to use instinctual methods and build upon familial history, science became "authorities" on child-rearing (and childbirth even! ponder that for a second) and used natural basic guilt and anxiety (two tools "designed" by evolution to keep parents on-the-job and aware of their actions thus creating mindful parents that evolve as well) to push their theories and modes upon everyone.

Its everywhere; the media plays upon it, entertainment plays upon it, professionals play upon it, even legislators play upon it. Everyone is ready to tell parents how to "not fuck up their kids" and everyone is figuratively sitting in the wings ready to inject more guilt and anxiety at the slightest sign of parental infraction. And parents, true to their nature, fall for it because evolution has conditioned them to do so.

almadianna
The Original Texas Tornado
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: armpit of the south texas
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You have received an alert at MotheringDotCommunity Forums
Dear smibbo,

You have received an alert at MotheringDotCommunity Forums.

Reason: We are not interested in hosting discussions on the merits of crying it out, physical punishment, formula feeding, elective cesarean section, routine infant medical circumcision, or mandatory vaccinations.
-------
Hello.

I just wanted to let you know that I have removed your post in the CIO thread. We do not advocate CIO here on MDC. It is never necessary or an option. [emphasis mine]

THank you for understanding.
-Alma
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This alert is worth 1 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious alerts will never expire.

Original Post:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?p=13364740

Originally Posted by smibbo
Some of us did CIO as a last resort and how in the world can possibly believe we "don't mind" hearing the baby cry? What planet are you on? It's torture! However, a few nights of hearing her cry (max 15 mins) was a lot less torture than the 16mos we spent being woken up literally 12 times a night to culminate in my getting about 2 hours of sleep per night. I was hallucinating I had such bad sleep dep. So we were supposed to just continue that lovely trend of "I won't sleep unless I'm latched on to mom's boob with my canines, scratching on her other boob all night and occasionally kicking. And I won't sleep if you try to take the boob away at all"

After 16mos of this hell, yes, we did CIO. It took about three nights. She doesn't cry anymore.

Originally Posted by chipper26

I'm sure it was torture. I saw the tortured look on my brother's face as he let his ds CIO. I think a huge problem with CIO is that it is such a popular method and definitely NOT a last resort for many, many parents. I'm sure you've heard of or read about the "turn off the monitor " or "take a shower so you can't hear the crying" advice. Basically advise to desensitize and distance a mom from their child.

It is also done at ages much younger than 16 months. My ped, recommended it when dd was both 2 and 4 months. Many people do not try other methods and most don't last BFing until 16 months, especially through the night. Their tolerance for night waking is much lower and society says thats okay.

I'm not advocating CIO, but I bet your 16 month old was also better able to understand that mommy loved her and was coming back. Plus, there was already a strong attachment formed.


Originally Posted by smibbo

I have no idea if "most" people do it as a last resort or if they just simply know in their gut that their child won't work it any other way or if they're just insensitive buttheads who don't care about their children's crying. I tend to give benefit of the doubt to parents though.

Most mothers aren't SAHM's either. Most of them have to go back to work within a month or two and can't afford to go sleepless night after wrenching night for 16mos. I give them understanding for their predicament.

With my oldest son we did CIO at 14mos and with my two subsequent sons we didn't have to CIO because they each were thrilled to go to bed with their big brother.

Frankly I wish we hadn't waited so long to CIO. I wish we had done it a lot sooner. I think about all the days I spent in a sleep-dep haze with my daughter wanting nothing more than for her to fall asleep so I could too and maybe wake up refreshed and enjoy her more.

put Lil Miss in bed by herself earlier than last night. We've been cutting her bedtime down little by little. Because frankly, she's NOT one of those kids who will jsut fall asleep when she's tired. She fights it with every fibre in her being. And she wins too. So we've been figuring out new ways to circumvent her fighting it. Finally gave in weeks ago and started doing a bedtime routine that's SHORT but relaxing. No more watching videos. No more running up and down the hall. No more tickle fests. No more sugar of ANY kind. Then plop her in crib, give her some hugs and walk out.

Tonight I put her in at 1030. She cried, angry cries, until about eleven then went to sleep. I feel that's a big accomplishment over last night's putting her to bed at eleven thirty then she cried for a few minutes because the POINT is for her to get used to being in her bed by a certain time. If she wants to cry for part of it, so be it. I had to go outside for the first ten minutes. She was SO angry. I had a smoke. But its always the first few minutes that are the hardest. After ten or fifteen, they start to get tired and it takes the edge off the crying.

So even though I felt like the meanest mom EVAR. I was glad.

She'll probably never be the cuddlebug I wanted, but she's closer than I've had before. She'll probably never want to just sit in my lap and relax because she's not a relaxing kind of kid. As annoying as that can be, ultimately I'll be glad of it. SNTh was the cuddliest once he was mobile. SNTw was cuddliest when he was pre-mobile. SNO was never much for cuddling unless he was tired. Lil Miss has been loving but she just can't sit still. Couldn't before she walked, can't now that she does walk. So I can say I've had the cuddles in about every fashion, at every age, just not all at the same time. Can't complain.

It's just that she LOOKS so cuddly, and she is for a few seconds, but then she has to squirm away.... breaks my heart.

But we enjoy each other something fierce anyway.

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

English Genius

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 87% Expert!

for some reason, the c&p copyspot stopped there

I "left" videosift. Its basically turned into an anti-american site, and I don't mean that in any sort of Bush-war-talk way. They are really starting to make me feel unwelcome as hell. Because I'm an American. No one else (the sift is a LOT of ex-pats) has to sit there and defend or discuss their own country, but America is just fair game for nothing but "you suck" all the damned time. Hilarious considering the vast majority of videos there are of American origin.

I was about 7 years old. My parents and I lived in a little house that rested behind an apartment building about two blocks away from Piedmont park. There was an alleyway to get to our house. In the middle of essentially downtown Atlanta, we lived in seclusion. The upstairs of our house was rented out to some other couple but I believe at the time there was no one there. My parents were hippies. They didn't "believe" in guns and thus never allowed me to have or play with them. I had gone to a friends house a few days before and played with the two boys there - Chris and Carl. They were twins, in fact, but because my class had another boy named Chris this twin was nicknamed "Pistol". His choice. Pistol and Carl loved typical boy games, as did I, and we played happily that day with Pistol's collection of toy guns.

A few nights after my playdate, we were all sleeping when we were broken into. My father woke up and found a gun staring him in the face. My father wears glasses - can't see anything farther than three inches from his face and the man holding the gun stood in darkness urging my father to wake up and tell him where the valuables were. We didn't have any valuables; we were on food stamps and my mother was enrolled in technical school. My father remembers the man was very nervous and kept saying "where's the drugs man?! where's the drugs?!" My parents finally made the man realize there was nothing for him to take. He rooted around a bit in my mother's jewelry box but it was plain we had nothing for him to take.
So he took my mother.
With the gun to her head, he told her to get up out of bed and come with him. She did. He led her through the house to the front door and out. Once they were on the porch, he paused, probably surveying his escape with her. She decided, in that split second that she didn't care if he had a gun, she wasn't going anywhere without a fight. Meanwhile, My father was out of bed and trying to find his glasses. We didn't have a phone at that time.
My mother opened her mouth and screamed bloody murder. I woke up and laid in bed trying to figure out if what I thought I heard was real, my heart pounding. I heard movement outside, on the porch and a then the front door slammed. I laid in bed, trying not to move, willing this tremendous fear to go away and believing that if I laid still enough, I would wake up again and find out nothing had happened.
Then my parents burst into my room. Turning on the light they checked on me and dragged me out of bed to hold me. Then we all went outside as the neighbors came out to see what had happened. One of our neighbors came, rubbing his eyes, with a gun in his hand.
"Did you hear that scream?" he said incredulously.
My parents laughed.
Then there was police visits, questions etc, but my mom was okay.

( the real ending )

via videosift.com

I CAN'T SHAKE THE BLUES... PERK ME UP...

tell me something... good, bad, weird, thoughtful, silly ....whatever.

anonymous is allowed, but it's all screened and IP logging is on even though I won't use it unless I get another "drive-by"

here's a little test for all you parents out there (and I'm sure plenty of non-parents will figure this out too)

If a kid's nose bleeds a little trickle, then promptly stops so you send him on his merry way then he comes back complaining of nose bleed again, which promptly stops again then the whole thing happens again....

What is causing the nosebleed?

...the school nurse didn't know this. But she learned it today.

so here I am, posting.

I'm 39 weeks tomorrow and I can't sleep lying down anymore. I have to be sitting up. Actually, when I'm not having pre-labor I feel pretty good. But pre-labor happens about 50% of my waking time. Sleep is broken up into 2-3 hour blocks.

The party was absolutely wonderful. Was awesome to see all those people there and get all those presents!!

J made maple ice cream with walnuts (my new favorite) and there were two cakse and two pies! My SIL brought meat and meatless lasagne which was just fabulous (I had some for lunch today) and there were kids everywhere! LaFemme brought her two, my nephew Alex, of course, and some friends of the family brought their grandkids. So I was having a great time.

Thus far we've pretty much gotten everything we REALLY wanted for the baby. I'd still like some kind of solid wood dresser but at this point it's not imperative. (Okay so a bounce chair wasn't imperative either but the swing was!)

I read some good stuff recently:

Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

This was damned good. Pretty much what I expect from Gladwell, after The Tipping Point but actually it was a bit easier and simpler. The ending (ensconced in the afterword) was a surprise, as he ends up with a sociological challenge. It's a good one too.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

This was pretty good, but mostly, it's a travel novel about China. And I don't really liek travel novels. Amy is good at making you "see" everything though. But the injustice of the mountain folks and the dichotomies of living standards was depressing, to say the least. Amy writes well but it just failed to "grab" me like her other novels have done. Like I said, I'm just not into travel novels.

Interruption To Everything by Terry McMillan

This was wonderful. I love Terry and her novels, facile though they may be, always "speak" to me. I seem to have the luck of always reading the right one at the right time. This one is about "that time" AKA "the change" and it encompasses more than body changes, as all her work does. I love the scattered appeal of how her characters think, how art is revered always and how mothering is both awesome and aggravating. Terry doesn't keep anything one-sided although she may at times come off as simple-minded.


Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

This was Carl's first novel. It kinda shows, as another reviewer pointed out, there is more anger and less humor in this one than all his other novels. His despair and rage at the rape of the Florida environment is palpable and frightening but still he managed to use it as a good backdrop for the wackiness of his imaginations. I always recommend Carl for fun times but this one... I could see people skipping. It is almost (in light of his other books) a bare bones framework for all his other novels.

Discussing the poison ivy rash...

Baph: son, is it anywhere else on your body?
SNTh: no.
Baph notices SNTh pinching his groin area.
Baph: Are you SURE it's not somewhere else?
SNTh: ...
Baph: look, if it's somewhere else, we need to know so we can treat it... it's just going to get worse if you dont' tell us and we don't put something on it... besides, you know what happens if you just keep scratching at it?
SNTh: ...
Baph: you'll scratch holes in your skin and we'll have to take you to the doctor and he'll have to give you a shot
SNTh: I got it.. on my... reproductive organ
Baph: *blink*
SNTh: *squirms*
Baph: It's called a "penis"
SNTh: *Blushes*
Baph: you know what? almost everyone in this house has one... you can say "penis", it's okay...
SNTh: I got some on my ..._penis

My mom took us baby shopping today. No, we didn't buy any babies, but we did get some great stuff I wanted including that expensive-as-hell car seat. She did not chafe at the price, she did not try to talk me into something cheaper. She did not even compare it to a different, cheaper one. She merely looked it over, asked me "so this is the one you want?" then listened while I extolled it's virtues and then bought it.

Any of you knows me, knows this is wholly out-of-character for my thrift-store-shopping mother.

Even more so? After putting that ginormous thing into the cart, she said "what else do you really want that's probably too much for you to afford?"

I was thunderstruck, to say the least.

Not only that but, it was FUN shopping for baby stuff! I don't believe I ever had fun shopping with my mother before!

(Yes, I adjusted the registry to reflect what we bought)