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Articles and Information
A Bumpy Ride
by Rachel Stinde
I think my husband and I were practicing attachment parenting before we even heard the phrase. We just did what felt natural with out son, and concentrated on walking the line between laissez-faire parenting and the rules and regulations of the strict disciplinarian.
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We had bumps in our road, and to be perfectly honest, we still do. Some of those early bumps were simply matters of experience. It's not fair, for example, to expect your husband to be able to wash your baby with confidence if he's never washed anything that small and squirmy before.
Some bumps are ongoing. These are two bumps, to be exact: my poor husband's mother and father, who like so many of our parents, divorced long ago, and now refuse on principle to get along for anyone's sake. Rather than welcoming baby and celebrating him, they've carried the battle to include him and his attentions. Luckily, our son has a heart big enough to encompass everyone who wants in.
Other bumps develop with age or by circumstance. There's the transitioning-from-breast-to-table-food bump, which for us was both easy and difficult. By a year and a half in age, our son was what we called a "nominal nurser," snacking and supplementing inbetween large meals. Then came a week wherein I was extremely sick, and was both unable to nurse and unwilling to let him nurse when I was taking so much medicine. He took it all in stride, letting it go and never asking for it since, which has been rather bittersweet.
Recently we had the week of time-outs. Everything we asked or told him to do had to be defied. Time out seemed to have no effect; as soon as he came back to the "world of the listeners," he'd defy us again in the most arbitrary things. Then, one day, it stopped completely, and he's now gone several weeks without a time-out. We realize there will be many more "weeks of time-outs," since children were born to question and to test. Reminding ourselves of that can sometimes keep us from getting too exasperated.
Most recent was the birthday bump. Our son was two on the 4th of July. Of course his birthday gets a little extra celebration because of the patriotic aspect of the day, but I have to admit that my husband and I in fact dreaded the day. Hubby's parents would be the only guests, and would be competeing not only with each other but with us as well for the most fantastic gift. Again, our son came to a surprising rescue, welcoming each present with the same excitement and joy, and managing, incredibly, to give almost equal time to each without provocation from any of us. He devised game after game; he put the wooden train from me into the dump truck from Grandma, then lined it up with the tricycle from Dad and the front loader from Grandpa. The dinosaur from Grandma rode on the front loader, and the little toy car from Dad rode inside the front loader. Our son positioned himself on the tricycle.
I find that our son is already a loving, gracious person, and it is everyone around him that have to learn to be better. Children are so honest, not only with others, but also with themselves. They can exhibit values we didn't know we taught them, based on love. Whatever bumps we encounter are much easier if we are all attached to each other and pay attention to the lessons we all have to teach, cum grano salis.
Rachel Stinde is a homebody with one boy; mother and son like nothing better than to sit down to an I Love Lucy show with a bowl of popcorn and fluffy pillows in their home in Rancho Dominguez, CA.
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