New Old Post Mania

So I have been looking back through some of the Draft entries I wrote and I decided to set a couple of them free.

Go back into the Archives if you want to read some unflinching, gritty truths about MY new motherhood.

And more to come.

Six Months Old and Lovin' It!

I can't believe my baby is SIX MONTHS OLD today!

I have been quite teary about it, actually.

He seems pretty mellow about it, too. Contemplative. Sometimes when he's in a growth phase he sleeps a lot and just wants to be in my arms, like these last few days.

I always tell him: "You are my favorite person in the world!"


He went to his first poetry reading last week. My teacher, mentor, beloved Anne Waldman, came to read and teach as part of the Ransom Center's Beat Poet Exhibit.

We have yet to make it there to check out Kerouac's On the Road scroll and all the other cool stuff, but we will.

Anne was great. I loved her new work, particularly a longer piece she wrote in the spirit or as an homage to John Cage. She ended with the verses she wrote for Ed Sanders's "Amazing Grace" project. Spectacular.

We've always had a very familiar/familial connection.

I gave Bodhi some mashed up banana yesterday, which he liked a lot, but I'm not moving full steam ahead yet on solid foods.

He's also riding in the Ergo on my back, which he seems to like...and I LOVE because it feels so much better on my lumbar.

I can even blog with him in it, standing up.

It needs a little rearview mirror, though, so I can peek at him back there.

Last night we ate Annie's Mac and Cheese shells with salad for dinner. There was a weird ingredient in the cheese stuff that made our throats burn. We even called Poison Control! All is well now. Never again to eat Mac and Cheese out of a box. That's right. I said it.

Anyways.

Bodhi is getting more active and interactive every day. He loves stomping his feet, especially his right foot, and it reminds me of Mick Jagger prancing on stage. (By the time he grows up, "Mick Jagger" for him will be like "Cab Calloway" was to me!) He doesn't roll over, but he manages to scoot across the bed or turn 180 degrees on the floor when my back is turned. And he can stand for a few moments if he's leaning on something.

He vocalizes SO much I keep expecting him to just outright speak, to perhaps say in a tiny little voice, "You know I can't believe Clinton beat Obama in Pennsylvania. When's the next primary?"

natural parenting

my baby is sick for the first time...wahhh!

he has what i would characterize as a pretty mild (yet still scary) cold. he's just extra sleepy, cuddly, a little cough-y, a little mucous-y, and probably closer to the end of it than anything. i'm prescribing more breastmilk, rest, love, music, and steam. hopefully it will not progress or move into something worse. and i can look at it as strengthening his immune system instead of being terrorized by it.

so the further away we get from traumatic hospital birth experience, the easier it is for me to return to my alternative, holistic, natural parenting and living. i think when i'm traumatized or vulnerable i just fell back into what i know, which is traditional western medicine. even though i have been using alternative treatments -- acupuncture, homeopathic, chiropractic, herbs, etc -- for approximately 25 years, it's hard to trust.

and my mantra is supposedly "live in trust, not in fear" right now.

sigh.

i will have to tell you all about my past weekend of study with the awesome Mary. more yoga and parenting connections.

also about my recent studies with Carlos Pomeda.

some books i'm delving into:

everyday blessings: the inner work of mindful parenting by myla and jon kabat zinn

parenting from the inside out

the parent's tao te ching

i just find it so much more informative and helpful to turn to sources that provide context, spiritual guidance, and "big picture" principles for parenting than when i read the "baby 411" type of information books.

it's like practicing yoga with no knowledge of the scriptures/pilosophy or of even the principle of practicing out of love.

pic fix

...with handsome uncle mike


...great taste in literature

So Many Firsts

Wow! So much has happened since that last post.

Bodhi is now cutting his SECOND (as well as first) TOOTH. It alters his behavior in that he wants to sleep a lot more, cries a lot more, and wants to nurse more.

Which brings us to another first: NURSING WITH TEETH.

Sweet Jesus, it hurts.

If any of you mamas have advice about how to keep the nips from hurting when there are now teeth present, I'm all ears.

Or is it just like getting a tattoo, and I will have to endure the pain until the endorphins kick in and release me from it?

It's kind of like getting a tattoo on your nipple.

Several times a day.

He's been able to sit up by himself (with help GETTING up) for a minute or so; very exciting!

He also went to his first Music Together class, which we both enjoyed.

Now the thing is, I sort of had nightmares about this part of being a new mom, the part where I'm jumping around with other ladies, most of whom are much younger and more conservative than me, singing kiddie songs and pretending to be happy.

Well, the nightmare came true. Only I am really happy. And Bodhi boy really seems to enjoy his music class. We do a lot of dancing around and singing at home, and I've let him strum the guitar strings a few times, which he absolutely loves. I play blues for him, and Woody Guthrie, and Alex Chilton, and Lucinda Williams, and Hank Williams, and he digs all of it. And some Beatles.

But in his music class, he gets to bite on a drum, sit on a drum, play with and/or munch on little maraca-like things, learn goofy songs, be rocked to lullabies, swung around to a Jewish wedding song, and see other babies and mamas being just as goofy or fussy as we are.


Some of my dearest childhood memories are of us singing in the car on road trips. My mother is notoriously tone-deaf, but she sang for us anyway. "Oh you can't get to Heaven," "Pistol Packin' Mama," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "Old McDonald," some old Cajun French songs, silly rounds, all kinds of songs about animals, and so on.

I still love singing in the car.

We took Bodhi on his first extended road trip, first to visit my sister, who lives at a state school, then to Louisiana, so he could meet his great grandmothers.

He was a champ. On the way there, we stopped to feed him a couple of times, and on the way back, I mastered the art of carseat nursing (while still strapped in by my seatbelt). Good thing I do yoga.

We had a great time with my sister. We brought her a birthday cake and presents; she was really taken with "her baby." She is so sweet and loving, it touched me to see her connect with the boy. It is important to me that she is part of his life, and vice versa. Babies are good medicine.

He loved meeting his cousins Missy and her daughter Neri, and laughed out loud at his great grandma b's house. I hope he loves to road trip as much as his mom.

This is in the hotel room after a bath.