Outdoor Giggles and Poppin' tags

This work week consisted of crazy weather, loads of stand still traffic, and a lack of hearing JT's song Suit and Tie.

It ended with a sweet child o' mine coming to the office, cupcakes and ice cream, and a very very very good friend coming over for grocery shopping, shrimp fajita, the "big tub" of Guac, the "big bottle" of white wine, and Ted Talks.  Ahh life is so good.

Also important to note, Mary Margaret for the last two weekends has slept until 7 am. That is 12 hours, bam. I love her so much.

Saturday morning we went to downtown Raleigh for the ALS walk.

We had great weather and a great time, and can say that we contributed to the largest group of strollers at the walk. We had about 32 adults, 7 "older" kids and 9 babies and has a group raised $8,135 for Sophie's mom who was diagnosed with ALS recently. 

Post walk we wanted to be those "cool downtown parents" who take their kids to bars and drink micro brews beside guys that look like Anthony Bourdain. We then canceled out the coolness by wearing matching t-shirts and tennis shoes.

We love our "taggie" pup

I also nursed Mary Margaret in the middle of the walk, not actually walking, and at the cool downtown bar, on the sidewalk both times without an "utter cover". Charlie was slightly concerned about the second, but then I gave him the stink eye and he got over it.

I should note that I made a serious first-time-mommy-i-don't-know-what-i'm-doing move today. I hadn't gotten our Ivory Princess a hat for this spring, nor did I have the foresight for sunscreen for anyone.  Yes, you guessed it, MM may have her first slight sunburn.

No need to send mommy guilt my way, it was delivered first class this afternoon around 4 PM.

Final note, our AC, as always, is on the fritz and Charlie made the executive decision to open all the windows in the house with the pollen shower that rained down on Raleigh. Hence, it brought out the crazo mommy with large large amounts of cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, wiping, worry, and wine drinking.

Ok, I think that is a fair recount.

Accidental Hippy Mommy

Apparently, I'm a bit more hippy-attachment parenting-granola mom than I ever expected to be. In my mind, as many and hopefully all moms do, I did what felt good and right for me and my baby and I fit the hemp paper bill with a few exceptions, including not co-sleeping (only because I am scared out of my mind of SIDS) and implementing Cry It Out (with frequent "settling session" so I'm not sure if it is really CIO but it was the best thing ever ever ever in our parenting lives).

I had a natural birth, did baby wearing "baby wore?", I did exclusive exclusive exclusive breast feeding (and only kinda give some food to gnaw on now), I frequently co-bathe, I (sometimes) cloth diaper, I feed on demand... for the most part, and [here is the big one] I bite Mary Margaret's nails off.

I know, "Gross" "weird" "they make things for that", but it made perfect sense to me to bite her nails. I really only got the idea from a pediatrician friend who would bite his own son's nails off. To which another mutual friend thought was gross and then got all pretend "judgey" on him, and now me.

Hippy Momma Don't Care

I recently read an article, ok most of an article, about the breast feeding practices in Mongolia. I was so impressed by the comfort and ease in which they adopt breast feeding. They go so far as to encourage breast feeding way past the American recommendation of 1 year of age, the record in the article mentioned 9 years. The article makes note of not surrounding your child's nutrition with "what is he/she eating (which I'm known to do) or how many feedings your child is down to" but to let nature and self weaning take it's place. At 20-23 months 65% of Mongolian children are still nursing, and apparently the last child usually nurses for the longest (hence the 9 years).

Honestly, I completely understand. I LOVE. L.O.V.E. nursing Mary Margaret, will I nurse her until the next baby is conceived? I can't tell you, but I might. I know she loves eating "real" food and watching her grow and develop is so amazing. But having this connection with her is something I will never get back once she weans. The times of her playing with my hair and pulling on my lips and mouth, they sometimes really hurt, but they are also wonderful.

I never went into parenting thinking I was going to be this way, I come from a non-hippy family of straight laced and somewhat conservative minded parents. I didn't know I would become so "I-want-to-have-her-with-me-every-second" but I kinda am, and I kinda love it. Now, when #2 comes along in a while I may have a different outlook because I'll be slammed with more attention to give out. But who knows, I was described by one friend as a little more "Mother Earth" than she was, and that was doing me a Solid.