Top Social

What Kind of A Mother Are You (In the Spirit of Mother’s Day)…

May 18, 2012

Not sure if you have seen the most recent cover of TIME magazine?

TIME Mag Breastfeeding Cover 

Media has gone and done it again, they are trying to define who we are.  I will admit that I have not read the entire article, mainly because I don’t have time/TIME…ha. But it did spark my interest, because according to TIME magazine I guess I fall under the category of being an attachment parent and I didn’t even know it.

In my real life, where media dose not define me, I am a mama who gave birth naturally to 4 kiddos, two of which were water births.  I breastfed all of my kids well into toddlerhood, even tandem nursed Megan and Jack, and Sophie and Megan.  I was an anti-formula mama for as long as I could be until I was confronted with the reality that our youngest needed it to survive.  I admired those who cloth diapered their kids, but never did it personally. I found the convenience and cost of LUVS diapers to fit our lifestyle well.  I own more slings and baby carriers than I do bras, and was so sad when Lucy had to have a central line because it was just too challenging for me to wear her in a sling anymore.  I buy organic when I can and when the prices fit our budget.  I love to cook healthy and nutritious meals for our family and pride myself in doing so, but will admit that it is not as easy to do given our current circumstances.  Eating is essential to living, but when you have a child who can not eat orally it essentially changes your life.  I am not anti-fast food, in fact we prefer quick service dining for oh so many reasons.  I am an environmentalist in the loosest sense of the word.  Drew jokes with me that we are environmentalists who throw away more garbage every year.  You should see the amount of medical waste we have on a daily basis.  We recycle as much as we can, but we use disposable products (minus disposable dinner ware, eek…it’s just not my thing, I don’t care how convenient, life is too short to eat off of paper plates!) now more than ever!  We slept with all of our babies when they were born because it felt right, and because who wants to physically get up in the middle of the night to nurse a baby. Yep, call me what you want, I’m lazy.   We got wise and bought a co-sleeper bed when Sophie was born.  I loved that she could sleep next to me but not in our bed, this mama needed her space and to be able to reach over and touch her husband without having a little person in between us, especially after being pregnant for nine months.  We vaccinate our kids because we feel it is the right thing to do for all of our kids even Lucy, but we along with the guidance of Lucy’s medical team pick and choose which vaccines are most important for her.  Our kids very rarely watch television, I am not anti media, I love a good intellectual, and at times not so intellectual, show or movie.  We love, love, love Netflix.  I love that I can monitor what our kids are watching and I love that we have the freedom to pick and choose the shows that we see fit and fit our schedule.  I choose to limit our kids screen time to just a few hours on the weekends(this can be a very liberal few hours some weekends, a parent’s got to do what a parent’s got to do :) this includes video games.  I do this mainly because I want our kids to be kids and use their imaginations to play, craft, create, invent,  run, jump, swing, bike, read, role play…If truth be told, we very rarely have time to watch television, we have too many other things that we need to do or would rather do. I love order more than chaos, but anyone who knows our life is laughing at this statement.  I love my husband, my kids, our family, our life, and try my hardest to give it everything I’ve got, but some days I have more to give than others.  Moderation is the key, or so “they” say, but I am a passionate person and moderation is sometimes difficult for me to achieve. I am sort of an all of nothing kind of gal, sort of. I’m not one who easily defines herself as being this that or the other, I’m more eclectic. I like to take bits and pieces from one idea or another and use them in our life as I see fit.  I admire differences, without it what would the world be like? I believe very strongly in following your heart when it comes to choosing what is right for you and your family.  I am a Christian mama who by no means has this whole parenting thing figured out, but I trust that God does.  

Post Comment