Two Buckets of Dirt

Because I want this blog to be a venue for exploring the true experience of parenthood, I’m going to reveal one of my less illustrious features of motherhood. I’m very liberal when it comes to what I allow River to put into his mouth (especially since I read that taste is a prime means of exploration at this age) and it doesn’t bother me at all when he eats something off the floor.

This isn’t something I announce widely. I suspect a lot of mothers would criticize me for this. I know I’m not the only one though. At least one of my friends has told me she thinks it’s great when her daughter comes across leftover food on the floor in their house.

“Hey, it’s a snack,” she says.

I thought about this issue today due to an incident at a pizza joint. After going to the gym late this morning, I carried River, my bag and his bag of stuff out to the car. It was drizzling and we’d had to park far away. River is now in the 25 pound range and it’s truly hard to balance him and the stuff. I put the bags in the car, picked him up again and stopped in a pizza place to get myself a slice for lunch. Upon reaching the counter, my tired arms placed him on the floor. I received a couple of surprised or critical looks, but they didn’t bother me.

After a few minutes, a woman approached me. “His food is on the floor,” she said, in a very concerned tone, referring to the half-bagel he’d been working on. I didn’t think it was worth discussing my parenting values with this woman. So I faked concern and picked up the bagel. When we walked out of the shop and were out of that woman’s eyesight, I handed the bagel back to River.

“Here you go,” I said. He took it gladly. I would have liked to have seen her face if I’d told her River may well have eaten his own poop.

Doing something I felt I needed to hide from that woman made me wonder if I was treating him badly. I thought that I would eat the bagel myself so I guess it’s not hypocritical to offer it to River.

My husband has a significantly lower grossed-out threshold than I do (though it’s rising since River’s birth). But when I told him this story, even he thought it was perfectly rational to give River the bagel.

“People can get so funny about those things,” he said.

I thought back to where my comfort with a little dirt comes from and one of my grandmothers came to mind. I was lucky enough to have three grandmothers growing up. All were Midwestern, hardworking and strong. One in particular always encouraged me to eat food after I’d dropped it. “Everyone will eat two buckets of dirt in their lifetime,” she would say.

I have no idea where she got the two buckets from, but I took it as gospel and have repeated it to myself every time I drop something. Unless I drop it in a puddle of mud, I’ll probably salvage it. What is a few specks in comparison to the buckets that will be consumed? Nothing. Just now, curious to see if I could find a figure, I did a google search and found this article. Unsurprisingly, it comes from the Midwest. Then, of course, there are people who gobble down vast quantities of soil, even make cookies with it.

So yes, it’s not ideal. I don’t feed him dirt on purpose. But if a few specks happen to get in every so often, in the long run, I don’t think it will do him any harm.

The Freedom of Solid Foods

Solid foods are great. Because, on days like today, when we are running late for a morning coffee date, I don’t have to feed River breakfast. I threw a bib, a banana and half a mini whole-wheat bagel in a bag, and off we went. When we got there, I gave him the bagel and banana to munch on. He was satisfied, I got to catch up with my friend and didn’t have to spend much time on breakfast. It’s a good stage of life to be at.

We still give River mostly pureed foods. I find it easier to get a variety of ingredients in one place by mashing them together. My friend Karen though, the mother to a seven-month old, has barely used purees at all. She is having problems with her daycare provider because they don’t want to feed her baby solids, afraid she will choke. Karen says many people question her and judge her. Just because they see everyone else giving their babies purees, they think that is the right thing to do.

I’m pretty terrified of River choking, so I haven’t been giving him a lot of solids. He usually gets them when we are on the run. I’ll bite open a cherry tomato and give him half, or the same with a grape. Recently I’ve started to cut up some soft fruits into small pieces and let him play with them. But the majority of his food intake remains mush.

I’m not sure where Karen got this idea from, but she feels more comfortable giving her baby solids. As we sat together at a café, she pulled out a Tupperware container filled with boiled green beans, carrots, squash and pasta spirals. River became antsy watching little Helen eat these things, so Karen offered him some as well. He seemed to enjoy sucking the flesh off the skin of the squash stick. And he was happy chomping on the carrot and pasta.

We were recently in the market for Cheerios, but I pulled the Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios Mark picked out off the checkout counter when I saw the sugar content and the preservatives. Even the healthy brands have a good dose of sugar. Who needs Cheerios though when you can make your own veggie and pasta snack kit?

Thunderstorm

We’ve had two severe thunderstorms in the last 12 hours – the types where lightening rains down and colors the sky white, where the cracks and crashes are so loud and thunderous they feel they are coming through the walls.

The first storm was in the middle of the night. I feared River would wake up and I waited to hear his cry. When I didn’t, I was still tempted to wake him and bring him into the safety of our bed, to bring our family together to face the danger. I didn’t do it because I was the only one awake and it was only me that was feeling afraid.

This afternoon a similarly sharp storm appeared – strong enough that I unplugged the computers and turned off most electrical devices. Our babysitter stood with River by the open doorway, watching the rain pour down and the lightening flash and crackle. Yes, it was severe she agreed, and yes, the lightening felt very close by. But I was clearly more uncomfortable than she was. I wanted to protect my baby somehow, but didn’t know how.

These fairly mild events make me think back to our flight last month on a small plane from David to Panama City, Panama. We weren’t supposed to be going to Panama City. But our flight from David to San Jose was canceled and they rerouted us through Panama City.

It was rainy season in Panama and we got caught in a thunderstorm. I saw bunches of clouds outside the window, an endless puff of grey. Lightening crackled and brightened the view from the windows. I tried not to think about it until our plane dropped – straight down and suddenly. Then it did it again. By the time it happened a third time, passengers were screaming and I even let out a sound of alarm.

All the while, I held a sleeping baby in my arms. I tried not to pass my nervousness on to him, while I simultaneously gripped him as tightly as I could without waking him. All of a sudden I realized that without any restraint, he’d be the first to fly up and hit and the ceiling. I realized that in such moments, I want nothing more than to be with the people I love. At the same time, I would have removed River from there in an instant to take him away from the threat. Unfortunately, I was powerless to do so. I thought about the parents with small children who were on the planes attacked on 9/11 and how utterly terrified and powerless they must have been. Getting yourself into a bad situation is one thing. Bringing your child into danger, no matter how inadvertently, is another.

All this is to say that becoming a mother has affected my fear quotient. It’s made me more afraid than I used to be. I don’t want to do anything too stupid myself because I don’t want River to grow up without a mother. I’m sure he’d be fine. I’m sure he’d win over the hearts of whoever was in his life. But I don’t think any other woman could love him in the same way I do. For that reason, I want to be there for him. And of course, while I want to expose him to life and adventure, I don’t want to put him in harm’s way.

My husband applauds my newfound caution, saying that I wasn’t careful enough in the past. Yet, when I return from vacation telling him I was more careful than usual, yet I had a serious rafting accident and terrifying flights, he thinks I still have a way to go.

Wild Raspberries

For the past week or so, wild raspberries have been in bloom along my favorite walking path. They are almost picked off by now, but I’m able to munch on at least a few each day.

After pulling a berry off a tree, I squish it between two fingers and offer it to River. He accepts it cautiously, wrinkles his nose at the sour tartness that combines with the red sweetness, scrunches his mouth, swallows, then accepts as I offer him another.

It feels nice to be able to pull food off of a bush and offer it to him.

Is My Baby Cute? Why, Of Course!

The other night, on a rare occasion on which I was watching the national nightly news, there was a segment in which a reporter tried to determine whether or not his baby was cute. We won’t discuss here what this means for the quality of a half hour news broadcast when this is considered newsworthy. However, I did find it entertaining.

Katie Couric held the man’s baby. In my opinion, the baby was not very cute. He was an average baby who didn’t evince much personality.

So, this reporter goes on the street and shows people a photograph of his baby. Everyone coos, oh how cute! Then he doctors the photo, making the mouth wide, significantly uglifying the baby. The reactions remained the same – cute baby. He then added a brown spot to the baby’s chin and pointed out to people that the baby had a hairy mole. Still, no one said it was ugly.

He took the ugly picture to a priest, who also said only positive things. The reporter asked when it was sinful to say false things about a baby. The priest said only good things could be said about babies, because they are sweet and innocent.

So, in search for an honest opinion, the reporter took the undoctored baby photo to a representative of Wilhemina Models, Kids division. She also began with the platitudes – very nice baby.

“C’mon, be honest,” the reporter said.

“OK.” It didn’t take her long to budge, being a professional judge of baby beauty. “This is a very average baby,” she said. There he had it. Not that there is anything wrong with that. His baby might grow up to be intelligent, kind, gifted or many more important things. Or he might grow up to be a very hot man.

I have also been in the situation of being shown pictures of babies I found distinctly unattractive. However, the parent always thinks their child is cute. And if there is one thing a person cannot say, even in our free society, it’s to tell a parent that their baby is ugly.

How wonderful, I think, that hormones bind a woman so strongly to her child that she finds it beautiful no matter what. What it is that causes the father’s belief in his child’s beauty? Is it the fact that they child may resemble him and he doesn’t want to say boy, those are some ugly features? Or is it the miraculous process of seeing a life formed that causes him to consider it beautiful no matter what it really looks like? Or it is the intense involvement with the child’s life and development, allowing him to judge the beauty of the personality over the appearance?

I admit, there are brief moments in which I think to myself that my child is average looking. They occur when he puts on particular facial expressions or is in certain poses. Even when I have a flash of he-might-be-average thoughts, I still think he’s above average overall (ie. The Prairie Companion).

Most of the time though, I think he’s remarkably cute. My husband is in full agreement. The fact that he’s a smiley, happy baby certainly helps as does the fact that at six months old, he’s already posing for the camera. We can’t imagine that our baby might really be average or, gasp, ugly.

So, in order to be put in our place, we sent a couple of photos to the same modeling agency that the reporter visited. There are two potential outcomes. Either they respond with interest and we are confirmed in our belief in his innate beauty. Or, more likely, they don’t respond. In which case, I’m sure we’ll believe they just failed to recognize his incredible cuteness.