My Playful Parenting Hero

Over a year ago, I witnessed something at a restaurant that I still think of almost daily.  This woman, a stranger, with whom I had absolutely zero interaction, still pops into my brain, especially when I'm off my parenting game.  I don't even know if she was actually a parent herself, but in about ten seconds she managed to epitomize what I think of as ideal parenting.

I'm probably building it up to be more than it was.  That's probably why I think about it so fondly, because it was so simple.  One little act of silliness that completely changed the dynamic of the group she was in.

We were at a really popular restaurant right at dinnertime.  There is a grassy waiting area that was full of families, kids of all ages running around.  In front of us were a few kids, probably all between 4 and 7.  It had recently rained and there were a few puddles and muddy areas.  The kids immediately squealed and started to go for a mud pit - one kid jumped over it, another was poised to stomp in it.  One parent, presumably the mother of at least one of them, sighed and said, "Ugh, guys, do you really have to do that?"

Before I get to the good part, I have to note that this approach kills me, although I do it myself sometimes.  Take a second to decide whether you're going to allow or not allow something.  If you're going to allow it, allow it all the way - enjoy it!  If you aren't going to allow it, then don't.  But that - "I'm going to let you do it but also let you know I'm super unhappy about it" - it's whiney.  It brings everyone down.  It sucks the joy away, it doesn't let them enjoy themselves.  It makes the kids self-conscious, maybe embarrassed - should I not be enjoying this?  Of course they should - mud is the best!

Enter my hero:  just as the kids had gone from uninhibited glee to muted, cautious interest, this woman leapt out of nowhere (at least that's how it happened in my head), jumped DIRECTLY IN THE CENTER OF THE MUD PIT, and yelled, while stomping her feet:

"Yeah, how dare you HAVE FUN.  How dare you BE CHILDREN.  STOP IT RIGHT THIS INSTANT."

The kids obviously thought it was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.  A grown up being a kid, a grown up affirming their joy, a grown up not just allowing, but actively encouraging them to be children.  The other mom started laughing, having been shown another way without being undermined, having her anxieties over dirtiness relieved. Everyone went back to having a good time, the kids enjoying the mud and the other mom not worrying about it.  The hero stepped out of the picture as swiftly as she'd entered it, shrugged and said, "Huh, guess I'm muddy now."

It's a beautiful picture to keep in my head when I start feeling uptight about making a mess, or about Felix disrobing in the middle of the grocery store, or about all the little hassles that pop up all over every single day.  It helps me see when I'm standing in my own way, resisting something that could otherwise be joyful for both of us.  Maybe a little of what I'm feeling is envy that I don't get to play in mud anymore...except that I can, if I'd let myself.

These things are fun, and fun is good.

Let mud happen.

Which Supplements I Take

I know very, very little about supplements.  As much as I enjoy learning about real food and traditional diets, the topic of supplementation makes me go limp and pass out.  I start hearing Charlie Brown's teacher in my head and nothing that I read on the topic will stick.

I think I mostly balk at the idea of supplementation because it feeds off of the concept of nutritionism (that food is nothing more than the sum of its parts), with which I disagree.  It's that idea that all you need is a good multi-vitamin to fill in the gaps, and you're good to go.  Or that you can improve a food by adding something or taking something away.  Poppycock, I say!

Also, trying to learn about supplements on your own is a deep, dark rabbit hole that will result in you self-diagnosing a dozen deficiencies and spending a small fortune in the process.

Still, there are a few supplements that I see mentioned so frequently as being universally beneficial that I do take some.  Even though my diet is based on traditional food principles, it is still a very modern diet with definite shortcomings.  I know how important organ meats are, but I just...I just can't.  At least not in sufficient quantities.  And I know that our soils are depleted, and if it isn't in the soil, it isn't in the food.

I take:

Cod Liver Oil

This used to be a household staple.  It used to be a baby's first food before cereals came along and ruined everything.  Our parents might remember taking it as a kid.

Fermented cod liver oil is a whole, real food supplement that provides fat-soluble vitamins A and D in proper ratios.  It is not the same thing as fish oil, which is generally highly processed and rancid.

The Weston A Price Foundation strongly advocates supplementing with fermented cod liver oil.  When he studied the diets of traditional cultures, Dr Price found that their diets contain up to ten times more fat soluble vitamins than modern diets.  They are especially important for women trying to conceive.  There is a list of informative articles on their website; here is one that covers the basics.

As far as I know, there is only one brand of fermented cod liver oil, and that is Green Pasture.

I take the dosage recommended for pregnant and nursing mothers, which is 2 teaspoons a day.

A few pro tips:

>>You will save yourself a bucket of money by sucking it up and taking the liquid rather than the capsules.  Just do it.
>>You will save another bucket of money by taking advantage of their volume discounts - it saves $10/bottle to buy 12 at a time.  Go in with a friend, find a co-op, or just buy them all for yourself because they have a pretty long shelf life if kept cool and dark (I think 2 years, but don't quote me).
>>The cinnamon flavor is the best.  Trust me.  It is spicy, but does a great job covering up the fishy flavor.
>>Here is my method for taking it:  get your chaser ready.  I chase with raw milk because the FCLO actually blends with the fat in the milk and helps to not taste it.  Shoot some under your tongue and follow immediately with the chaser.  I can take a half teaspoon at a time this way.

Butter Oil

If you're going to take FCLO, you might as well take high-vitamin butter oil.  Another WAPF recommendation, Dr Price discovered that an unknown factor (he called it "Activator X," but we now believe it is the vitamin K2) found in the butterfat of animals grazing on rapidly growing spring grass, helps to activate and make useful other vitamins in your diet, particularly the fat soluble vitamins in cod liver oil.  Green Pasture offers the two as a blend, but it is cost effective to take them separately.  Compared to taking FCLO, butter oil is a breeze.

I take it one of two ways - either blended into a smoothie (about half a teaspoon, which you can't taste) or in "yellow tea" (see below).

Probiotics

Even though I do have fermented foods and/or drinks daily, I also (albeit irregularly) take a probiotic supplement.

With the constant daily assault that our guts take, even when you're trying to heal your gut, I think it's a really good idea - a necessity - to replenish your beneficial bacteria.  Good gut flora is so, so, so vitally important to your overall health.  Fermented foods and drinks (real pickles; sauerkraut; kefir; kombucha; real, full-fat yogurt) are the ideal source, but probiotics are probably a good idea as well.  I like to get as wide a variety of different bacteria and beneficial yeasts as I can.  I regularly eat fermented carrots, Bubbies brand pickles (which are actually fermented), and sauerkraut, and I regularly drink kombucha and milk kefir.

I take GutPro brand probiotics.  A tiny bottle is expensive, but much cheaper than high quality pills.  Like most things, don't bother taking a cheap probiotic.  I take it fairly irregularly...probably 3-4 times a week, mixed in a drink.  I give Felix a teeny tiny bit as well.

There are lots of good brands of probiotics.  Biokult, Natren, and Perscript-Assist to name a few.

Magnesium

Another one that most everyone is deficient in no matter what their diet looks like.  In addition to being depleted in the soils, magnesium stores are depleted in your body when you are under stress and consume sugar.  Calcium and magnesium need to be in balance with one another, but we tend to over-consume calcium in relation to magnesium.

This blog post is a good place to start reading about magnesium.

But truth be told, it was this post that got me to start actually supplementing.  Magnesium deficiency is apparently a factor in morning sickness.  Since I will likely, at some point, be pregnant again, and would do just about anything to avoid having morning sickness again, I will supplement the shit out of some magnesium.

I made magnesium lotion and use it at night before bed.  It's best to supplement transdermally, and the magnesium oil spray made my skin itch and burn like crazy.  The lotion doesn't itch at all.

Trace Minerals

While magnesium is a particularly important mineral, minerals in general are something we don't get quite enough of anymore, with purified drinking water and depleted soils and processed foods.

I use ConcenTrace, and add a few drops into whatever I'm drinking.  I don't really keep track of how much I take; I just leave it on the counter and whenever I get a drink I put a few drops in.  I don't like the flavor in just plain water, but I can add 5-10 drops into tea, kombucha, or a smoothie and not taste it.

Gelatin

Good for the gut, good for the skin, good for the joints, good for the cellulite (bad for the cellulite, rather).  I put it in yellow tea and smoothies.  Skip the Knox and go for Great Lakes.

Bonus: Yellow Tea

Yellow tea is really more like soup, but Felix calls it yellow tea, so yellow tea it is.  Bone broth is a big time staple in a traditional diet, and this recipe started out as just plain bone broth in a mug, but morphed as I tried to find ways to pack as much nutrition into a single mug as possible.

>Bone broth
>1T gelatin
>1 egg yolk
>High vitamin butter oil (I never measure...maybe 1/2-1 teaspoon)
>1T Coconut oil
>Real salt to taste (which is more than you'd think)
>Fresh garlic or garlic powder

I put cold bone broth in the mug I'm going to use (to measure how much I need), then pour it in a pot with about a tablespoon of gelatin mixed in.  It needs to sit for a little bit before you heat it up in order to fully dissolve.  While it's sitting, I add everything else to the mug.

After a minute or so, I heat the broth to a boil.  I let it cool slightly, then add it incredibly slowly to the mug.  Just a few drips at a time at first, while stirring.  This keeps you from making scrambled egg yolk.    After a few spoonfuls it's safe to pour it in faster.  Keep stirring the whole time.  The egg yolk ends up emulsifying the fat, and you get a nice silky mini soup.

Felix LOVES this stuff and asks for it just about every day.

I'm not very consistent in taking any of these except the cod liver oil.  I don't freak out if I forget something one day, and in fact, it's pretty rare that I do every single one of these in a day.

Felix also takes all of these, just in smaller doses.  He will finally take cod liver oil, about 1/4 teaspoon a day.  He gets butter oil in the yellow tea and in kefir smoothies.  Occasionally I'll remember to put a tiny bit of probiotic in a drink for him, but he drinks kombucha and kefir daily and real pickles daily, so I don't worry about it too much.  I put magnesium lotion on his back when he'll let me...which isn't often.  

No-No "No"

Yesterday I was asked if I ever tell Felix "no."  This person explained how they feel that children need clear boundaries, and then they can operate freely within those boundaries.

I don't disagree with having firm expectations and boundaries, but I also don't have a concise answer.  Is he allowed to do whatever he wants?  No.  Do I tell him no?  I try really hard not to...for a lot of reasons.

It isn't effective

It's not.  How many toddlers do you know who comply gracefully when told not to do something?  If they do eventually go along with it, it's usually because they were threatened with a time-out, spanking, or some other consequence, and they comply out of fear of what might be done to them if they don't.  A simple, "Don't do that because it's the rule and I said so" is not, in itself, an effective parenting tool.  It almost has to be accompanied by a threat (or an implied threat) to stop the behavior.  But we don't threaten, punish, or bribe.  Which brings me to...

It doesn't align with our other parenting choices
Namely, that we don't impose punishments or consequences.  Since 'no' often goes hand-in-hand with punishments, and we don't do punishments, telling Felix 'no' would lead us into a dead-end.  We tell him no, he tells us no, and then we're stuck.  We either have to back down and let him do it anyway, or forcibly make him stop by removing him from the situation, which will certainly trigger a massive tantrum.

It creates opposition and conflict
It pits us against each other and makes us adversaries, when we could be working together to solve the problem.

It invites a power struggle
Saying 'no' to a two year old is a direct challenge for them to do it anyway.  If you tell them they can't do something, they will do it more to prove you wrong.  Saying no to them is practically begging them to tell you no in return.  Then you, as a parent, feel the need to regain the upper hand and prove that you are in control by forcing them to obey you.  Imagine how shitty it feels when a toddler tells you no - it's insulting, it makes you feel angry and powerless.  You probably think something along the lines of, "OOH no you don't" or "You do not get to tell me what to do."  It feels exactly the same way to them.

It just doesn't work.

Felix is a very strong-willed kid.  He's also two and a half.  He's hard-wired at this developmental stage to resist me at every turn.  He is in the process of discovering that he and I are two separate people (literally) and is experimenting with his newfound identity and the enormous power that accompanies that realization.  An enormous power that is as terrifying as it is thrilling, which is a hallmark of toddlerhood - going from GET AWAY FROM ME I HATE YOU to mama hold me in .2 seconds flat.

I can't expect to say no without hearing it from him at least as often.  Kids are little mirrors.  They're those awful cosmetic mirrors, showing you all KINDS of shit you don't want to see.  What you give out, they will give right back to you.  If you are rude to them, expect them to be rude to you.  If you sigh and roll your eyes when they spill a box of cereal, expect them to sigh and roll their eyes (or worse) when you ask them to clean it up.  If you can't drop a task on a dime to come play a game with them, I wouldn't expect them to stop mid-play at your first call.  If you mope and resist when they ask you to play a mind-numbing game for the millionth time that day, which is the most important thing in their world at that moment, I wouldn't expect them to gleefully skip to the dinner table right on time.

Saying 'no' is one of the best ways for toddlers to toy with their individuality and power.  It's maddening, but it's a great thing.  They're telling you that they are in control of themselves, not you.  And it's true.  Open any self-help book and turn to page 137; it will tell you that you cannot control the actions of other people, you can only control yourself.  It applies to parents and children as well, because children are people, too.  You cannot control them.  You cannot force them to eat, sleep, or poop.  You cannot control what they want, what they feel, how strongly they feel it, or how they express their feelings.  You cannot force them to want to share or to feel sorry.  You can bribe, goad, threaten, and cajole them into doing things you want most of the time, giving you the illusion of control, but they are their own person and they know it.

I think for a lot of people, maybe most people, parenting is mostly about discipline, and discipline is all about control.  It's about how to make your kids do what you want them to do, when you tell them to do it.  That's what discipline is, right?  Do what I say.  Except you cannot control the actions of other people.  You just can't.

Instead of being a disciplinarian, a parent can be a mentor, a partner, and a guide to help them navigate a confusing world full of arbitrary cultural expectations that is still so, so, so new to them.  With a slight shift in expectations and a bit of crawling around inside their brains, you can parent without punishments and parent-imposed consequences.

When there's no "or else," a beautiful thing happens.  You have to get creative, and you have to start working together to solve the problem.  You have to meet them on their level.  You have to empathize and you have to reason.  You have to ask why the behavior is there, and you have to address it at its root.

Here is what we do instead of saying 'no':

Don't sweat the small stuff
I try to let go of everything that is ultimately inconsequential, within the boundaries of my own authentic limits.  That means that if he wants to do something messy, or kind of annoying, or inconvenient, I don't try to stop it.  If I feel resistant to something that he's doing, I ask myself if it's worth the conflict; if it is hurtful, unkind, or unduly destructive; and whether I have the energy to try to re-focus him onto another activity.  Sometimes I will recognize something as not being a very big deal, but I simply cannot handle it right in that moment; if I can't get myself to enjoy what is going on, then we change it.

A lot of parents probably think that I let Felix run pretty wild.  In restaurants, we don't make him stay seated.  At home, he stands on top of the table.  He climbs our 4 foot step ladder while I fold laundry.  I let him chew on the dog's bone.  He almost always in some state of un-dress - usually completely naked at home, and when we're out he usually at least wants his shoes taken off.  He's a supremely spirited little human; none of these things is rude or hurtful or unkind, so I let him do them.  Although that isn't really the right phrase - it isn't that I'm letting him do them, because that would imply that I am always in control of his actions and he only does things that I explicitly allow.  I enjoy that he is an iron-willed adventurer and knows exactly what he wants.  If I were constantly trying to get him to "behave" it would be like breaking a wild animal.  All of the traits that drive me crazy today will serve him very well as an adult.  I'm not sure how people expect for kids to be submissive and obedient and quiet, but grow up to be free-thinking, box-busting leaders.

Say yes while still saying no
This is a tip I got from the Daily Groove, that took me a long time to really understand and put into practice.  When you absolutely need to say no to something your child is doing, you can still say yes with your heart, energy, and attitude.  There will be something that you can honor in what they are doing.

The first time I did this successfully, a flip switched and I felt so good about what had just transpired that I think I actually held up my fist in the middle of Whole Foods.

We have a recurring problem with Felix wanting to play in the food in the bulk bins.  He hasn't consented to ride in the shopping cart for probably a year now (too much to explore!), so going to the grocery store is a massive lesson in patience.  He is always wanting to stop and look at things, rearrange displays that have to be put back together, and I don't mind the snail pace, but dipping grubby hands into bulk bins is not okay.

One day, with the morning's Groove still in my mind, instead of hurrying him past the bins, I squatted down next to him and we explored them together.  We opened the lid and pointed at what was inside, we talked about the color of the sun drops, we smelled the bin with the oats, scooped up almonds and dumped them back inside - we did everything with them except physically touch the food.  It took a few minutes, but we got out of the aisle without any crying, which was a first.

Every time before, I would fear the bulk aisle and the second he went for a bin, I resisted and immediately tried to get him out of there as soon as possible.  My resistance would cause him to dig in his heels as well.  But as soon as I accepted and said yes to the situation - said yes to his interest in the bins, yes to his desire to explore them, yes to his curiosity - everything just flowed.  Instead of fighting what he wanted to do, I guided him to do it in an appropriate way.  It worked like a charm, and now that he's been able to explore the bins and they are no longer glitteringly forbidden, 95% of the time we can walk right by them, with him knowing that if he wanted to explore, he could.

Honor the impulse
This goes along with the above - if he's doing something unacceptable, I quickly try to re-direct his impulse to something acceptable.  He hits the dog - unacceptable.  But rather than assume he's just being a jerk, I try to interpret what was really going on.  Usually, it's that he's trying to play with her and doesn't know that she isn't having just as much fun as he's having.  So I join in and we play a different game with her, maybe involving tickling instead of hitting.  If he's feeling bossy and hitting her because he's enjoying feeling big and powerful, then I try to turn that impulse into a game with me - maybe we start a pillow fight or I have him chase me while I cry, "No no no don't get me!"

The trick here is to avoid the urge to give the 'no' first.  Instead of saying, "You may not spray me with the hose, but you may spray the windows," just say, "LET'S GO SPRAY THE WINDOWS!"  Instead of, "Don't throw the rock at me, you may throw it at the bushes," simply, "Throw that way!"  At two and a half, I think the time for explicit rules and lengthy explanations comes later.  To him, a no followed by a yes is still a no, and still an invitation to prove me wrong.

Give information instead of a directive
This is something that I didn't think would work with Felix until later, but he actually responds really well to it.  Rather than giving him a rule, I give him information - "Ouch, that hurts the chicken.  She likes when you pet her."  Or, "This cup is very full."  It turns out that I don't always need to tell him explicitly to be gentle or careful, to use gentle hands or not run with the full cup.  When I give him information and then let him infer what he needs to do (again, a skill I didn't think he would be capable of yet), it lets him develop his own sense of judgement, it lets him know that I trust him to make the decision.  It tells him that I know that he already knows what to do.

Give space and time
After I make a request for Felix to do/not do something, and he refuses, I don't do anything for a minute or so.  I wait patiently with the expectation that he will do it in his own time, now that he knows what is expected of him.  It doesn't always work, of course, but a lot of times it does.

A great example happened just a few hours ago.  Felix was playing with my knitting, winding himself up in the extra yarn.  It started out fun, but pretty quickly it got out of hand and we had to stop the game.  I said, "Okay, back on the table" and put the in-progress blanket on the table while he still held the yarn ball.  He was still having fun and said, "No no no."  I sat on the couch and looked at him expectantly, but didn't say anything else.  Literally at the same moment that my husband said, "This is going to end badly," he walked up and dropped the yarn on the table.

It's a similar concept to giving information instead of a directive.  What is implied is that you know they know what to do, and you know they'll do it.  It gives them space to do it on their own terms and gives them some control and power over the situation.

Sometimes I make a request and then say, "I'll wait."  "Put the ball down so we can leave.  I'll wait."  Of course, the caveat is that you have to sit back and wait in confidence that they will, in their own time, do what you asked.  If you're sitting there sulking and sighing and thinking that it's never going to work, it won't.  

Of course, nothing is ever as pretty as these little lists would have you believe.  I have carried, and will carry again, a screaming child from the playground when he doesn't want to leave and none of my tactics have worked.  I have abruptly ended, and will abruptly end again, a play date after he hits a friend in the face with a bubble wand and then refuses to let the friend touch anything in the house (sorry, Brock).  He will want things he can't have.  Conflicts are inevitable, and I don't always have the patience and the energy to deal with it gracefully.  Tantrums are therapeutic, so even on the best of days there will be anguish over some terrible injustice.  

But we approach conflict in the spirit of partnership, of collaborative problem solving, and can usually get through it while maintaining a connection rather than fueling opposition.  The connection is the key.  The more tuned in we are to one another, the more emotionally invested we are in each other, the easier it is to navigate, together, this big beautiful world of ours.

"I imagine that yes is the only living thing."

e.e.cummings

On Food and Nutrition(ism)

I miss being a student.  I loved school.  I love taking notes, I love new information, I love textbooks, I love tiny desks, I love school supplies, I love learning.

One of the perks of being a grown-up is that I can study only what interests me and not be forced to sit through an hour of will-never-be-relevant calculus so I can get to anatomy and dissect a cat.  True story - cat dissection was the highlight of my entire high school career.  As I research homesteading and feel somewhat ashamed of my excitement at the prospect of slaughtering and butchering animals myself, it turns out it wasn't a wasted lesson.  My dissections were phenomenal, by the way - deemed to be on par with the pictures in the textbook.   Due credit to my dissection partner, Jenn!  We know how to skin a cat (contrary to popular opinion, there is just one right way).

The things I study these days are parenting, homesteading, birth, and nutrition.  That's what gets my gears turning.  I suppose that makes sense, since parenting and feeding my family is my job.  

With food and nutrition, I feel like I've finally reached a point of saturation.  I sunk myself into it really deeply for a long time, and I've landed at a point where I feel like no matter what new study comes out or what tidbit of information I pick up, it probably won't change much about how I eat and how I view food.  

Now, finally, after spending a few years being bogged down in the details, learning about phytates and leaky gut and specific nutrients that serve specific purposes and dairy vs no dairy and how to tell if you have adrenal fatigue/low thyroid/zinc deficiency/inflammation and other tedious minutiae, I really don't care what the science says anymore.

I have one rule that dictates how I eat:  Eat things that are food.  Do not eat things that are not food.

A simple rule that excludes the vast majority of what I see on grocery store shelves.  The dough conditioners in commercially-made bread products (with deliciously appetizing names like calcium peroxide and azodicarbonamide) are not food.  For that matter, the wheat itself is not actually food (a run-down on why modern wheat is different from traditional wheat).  Food dyes; MSG; preservatives; modern, improperly prepared grain products; improperly prepared soy; refined sugar; GMOs (which includes virtually all corn, sugar beets, soy, and canola); homogenized, pasteurized dairy from grain-fed cows; industrial seed oils (for the love, please put down the canola oil and walk away) - not food.

So I do my best to eat food that is as close to its original form as possible, food that is recognizable as actual food, food from ingredients that I could conceivably have foraged, grown, hunted, or caught myself.  Food that is food.

Food is smarter than we are.  We try to break it down into its component parts and improve upon it, by adding more of this and less of that (less fat! added omega-3s! probiotics!), and it's pure arrogance.  Well, arrogance and a lot of greed - people are making big, fat dollars off of having you believe that their enhanced food-like product is better than actual food.  If a food claims to be high or low in anything, you probably shouldn't eat it.  If anything has been added or removed, you probably shouldn't eat it.  If you've ever seen an advertisement for a food, it's probably not a food.  If it doesn't spoil, it probably isn't food.

Food is greater than the sum of its parts.  Michael Pollan talks about the concept of 'nutritionism' in this article.

I also don't worry about it when I don't eat real food.  We eat out, we go on vacation, we eat a fair amount of food that is not food.  We are very lucky that we don't have to worry about food allergies or any extreme conditions that would be aggravated by eating less-than-ideal food now and then.  So I don't worry about it.

I've stopped worrying about all of it.  I take a few select supplements to fill in some gaps (because while I think it is very important to eat organ meats, I'm just not going to sit down to a plate of liver and onions, and because our soil is depleted no matter what I choose to eat), but otherwise I just enjoy eating food that is actually food.

Eat things that are food.  Do not eat things that are not food.  Shoot for 80/20.  Enjoy feeling awesome.

Why I Disappeared

Parenting, in case you were unaware, is pretty time consuming.  There is a tiny, adorable, curly-headed energy thief either at my feet, on my hip, on my boob, or on my hip and my boob, at all times.  It's somewhat tiring.

I am an introvert.  I actually didn't know this until well into adulthood.  Part of the reason for that is that I didn't actually know what being an introvert meant - like a lot of people, I assumed it meant shy, quiet, maybe withdrawn or socially awkward.  Since I enjoy being around people and am not particularly shy or quiet, I always thought of myself as being somewhat in the middle.  I can be around people, or I can be alone, whatever.

It was a bit of a revelation to discover that it doesn't have much to do with your outward personality, but how you charge your batteries.  Since I've always had ample opportunity for alone time, until I had Felix I never stopped to realize that my alone time was what kept me balanced.  I do enjoy social situations and being around people, but social interactions drain my energy reserves and I need to be alone to recover and recharge.  My husband can attest to my tendency to suddenly and completely withdraw into myself after a social engagement.

Now that I have next to no alone time, it has become painfully apparent how badly I need down time to recharge.  All day, every day, there is someone in my presence who needs something from me, and if I don't get an opportunity to be alone, I cannot function.  At least not pleasantly.

What that means in practice is that I have to be proactive about carving out that time, and using it purposefully when I do get it.  Even though I'm alone at my computer right now, it's an outward flow of energy for me, because I'm putting something out there for other people to see.  All three of you.  This started to feel like an obligation, a commitment, that I didn't have the reserves to maintain.

BUT - maybe eight months was long enough for me to recover and MAYBE I'll start allocating some nap time towards talking about my goings-on.  When I even get nap time, which is becoming more and more rare.  I have now read several books that tell me that children need naps all the way through and beyond toddlerhood, that even school-aged children could use them, and I would love to meet the authors of those books on the street one day.  I will take off my shoes and earrings and we will have a little chat.

I have things to say.