15 minutes at a time

We are bringing Linnea's bedtime back to normal.

Something someone said lately made me think this: No matter how much thought a mother has put into her childrearing decisions, hearing someone else (especially a stranger) state that they do it differently feels like criticism. I'm pretty sure this is true for those of us who practice "attachment parenting" type stuff - lots of carrying and cuddles and snuggling to sleep and always responding to crying and so on - and I wouldn't be surprised if it's also true for the other end of the scale, the cry-it-out gang.

"Oh," says the observing parent as you pace the garden with your infant talking about the moon in a soporific tone at 9 o'clock at night, "We always put Jim-Bob down at 7 pm and he just sleeps. Of course, we never went to him when he was little unless he was hungry." Oh, says the pacing parent, well that's just great, but it wouldn't work for Susie-Mae. So just drop dead, and mind the gardenias.

"You're giving him chocolate? We didn't let any artificial sugars past her lips until she graduated highschool."(You sent her to high school? Why didn't you educate her yourself in a yurt?)

... and so on, and so forth.

Of course, the online journal circle is a particularly fine place for this kind of interaction to spring up, because the tone of interested, non-judgemental surprise doesn't appear in the words as typed. And there's always lots of support for anyone who declares that breastfeeders are perverts creating Oedipus complexes or that formula feeders are child abusers creating eating disorders. But I'm interested to know whether this criticism - defense reaction is as prevalent as I think it is, or whether I'm just overreacting to vitriol in snark communities, or whether I'm just too defensive and need to learn to relax, man, and have faith in myself. Yo.

Today, by 10 am, I had washed, dressed, breakfasted, self and Linnea. Put on and hung out a load of laundry. Hoovered one floor and washed three others (all small). Washed the breakfast / late night snack dishes. Played in the garden with Linnea and played in her bedroom - I gave her the ball-pool balls and we had a great time. And I'd written a pome, and put dinner in the slow cooker, and tidied up and stuff.

I really, really need to stop feeling like I don't do enough. That's not half bad for a morning's work, especially when you consider that I involve Linnea in all that I do (from a sense of sharing and caring, you understand, not because I have no option - it's a parenting style decision so that she grows up a well-rounded individual, not an eardrum-preserving decision so that I grow up without tinitus in the key of whinge).

What I Did On My Ordinary Day

Once we'd finished the houseowrk today, Linnea and I sat and watched Teletubbies while eating our snack. Then I put her in the buggy and we went into town. She sat patiently for about an hour while I looked in Woolworths and Boots for a CD player, and in Boots for various nappy bits that they didn't have.

Then we went to the Forbury (a park) for our lunch, and now we both have grass-stains on our knees and mud on our shins. Linnea also has grass-stains on the rest of her trousers, and mud everywhere, but I'm a little more restrained. She saw a football and promptly appropriated it from a boy called Pablo who was a little older than she but not much. He kicked it to her, she ran after it, picked it up, and handed it back. Then they started to play chasing, which got a bit hair-raising as they headed off around corners and towards gates and so on. Linnea didn't eat her egg, because she found her muffin instead. She did eat some cucumber and pine nuts and rice cakes though, so she's not solely existing on junk food. Homemade organic junk food.

After the Forbury and a little pigeon-chasing, we went to the library where we sat on big fluffy cushions and read books. I picked up my reserved Bujold and changed her nappy, and by the time I'd reached the centre of town she was asleep again. So I shied off into a bookshop and bought a peppermint tea and sat down and read my book. Never exert self while baby resting. That way lies utter devestation. Must try to remember this.

OK, OK, I did pause in the shop to check the gift books an note the details of some good-looking publishers doing the kind of thing I think my pomes would fit nicely. I haven't done anything with the information but at least now I have it.

When she woke up I fed her, and we went to some more shops for more exciting things. In the end I chose the CD player from Woolworths because it was cheap and adequate. It's for her room, as we're currently using a personal CD player and a couple of computer speakers, and if the baby monitor is on the computer speakers pick up the most awful noises, and anyway it's in three seperate parts and needs a lot of plug sockets and wire-running and so on. The new one is a "boombox" (a boombox? I ask you!) and has only one wire.

Then we came home, arriving about 3:30 pm, and were promptly visited by my friend and her husband and their toddler and a 9-day-wonder weighing about 8lb 8oz at a guess. Linnea wanted to hug and cuddle the other toddler, who is a month older but considerably less - ah - robust, shall we say (my child is robust, yours is tomboyish, hers is a thug) and she knocked him down. So we turned the telly on to make her freeze transfixed, and to stop him crying. It worked.

They left, Rob came home, we had dinner, did the bath and bed bit, and here I am.

I have a smidgin of housework to do, but I'd like to note for official purposes only that I have had a really, really wonderful day. And I'm exhausted.