Happy 6 months Aurora!

Today is your half birthday! I'm going to try my hardest to write you one of these little letters every six months. I will admit to you now that sometimes my best intentions lack followthrough, but so many other things have changed about me since you've come along that I have high hopes this time.

At six months you have come so far from the little helpless blanket-wrapped baby I brought home from the hospital that sometimes I have to look back at pictures to even wrap my head around it. You are big and strong and growing so fast! Everyday you start to show a little more of this amazing bubbly little personality that I only saw glimpses of a few months ago. You are a happy energetic little girl. You are curious and interested in everything you see. There is no doubt that you are taking it all in and learning so much... You laugh all the time! You love to be tickled. You love anything that surprises you, like peek-a-boo, and bouncy airplane rides keep you entertained for as long as I can keep them up until my arms turn to jello! Did I mention you are already so big! I like to carry you in our Moby wrap when we go for walks but sometimes you are so squirmy and heavy that we have to resort to a stroller for longer excursions. You love to look at things and you try to touch everything and everything you hold, you inevitably want to taste.

Oh, what is this? A book? What do books taste like??

You stare at strangers on bus rides and everyone who sees you can't help but smile. 

It's like carrying joy around with me everywhere we go... 

you are literally a bundle of joy.

People have dropped what they are doing just to come over and look at you. Others have called their friends and coworkers over just to see how pretty you are, even at the doctor's office, and they see babies all day! People are just drawn to you, it's amazing really. I used to avoid talking to strangers and now I can't help but show you off and be so proud knowing that no one can help but love you. It seems I'm not the only one who has fallen under your charming little spell...

When you were born and for those first few precious and precarious days I thought that my life was forever changed. I knew I would never be the same, I knew that I had never loved anyone or anything as wholly and completely as I loved you and I thought I could never love more than that.

I was wrong.

In the last six months that love has grown exponentially. With every giggle and every smile you steal another little piece of my heart... but I still never seem to run out.

Happy six month birthday little bean.

Guess who's a guest?!

Go check out the InstinctualMamas blog where the guest blogger post  is from... ME. Getting some really great feedback so far! Just goes to show how positive and supportive their community is when compared to some others (BC I'm looking at you!) Give it a look-see and tell me what you think!

Judgement

So I plan to write a series of posts on my particular adaptation of attached parenting but there's something that's been bothering me since I joined this big internet co-momma-munity... It seems like every time I start to read a blog or a post on a message board, I notice people coming from all directions to bash every little decision that doesn't correspond to how they would do things. Breastfeeding, cloth diapering, cry it out, babywearing, baby led weaning... you name it, someone should be doing it but isn't, someone shouldn't be doing it but is, someone isn't doing it enough/is doing it too much, someone thinks you should do it a certain way etc. etc. etc... ad nauseam.
It's sad really.
Now mind you, there are some parenting practices that I am wholeheartedly against. There are even some that I think are morally wrong, totally irresponsible or just plain over the top and strange. While I may voice my opinion on these things (who are we kidding, I do and will inevitably continue to voice my opinion about everything) there is one thing that I absolutely will not do, and one thing that I find completely disgusting and counterproductive: I will never publicly call someone out on their decisions for their family and insult their choices and I would never dare to call someone else a bad person or parent for doing what they think is best for their family. Now obviously, there are some offenses that would be an exception to this rule but I think they are the universal don'ts (beating your children, starving your kids, et al) and they never seem to be the topics of these debates anyway.

What I think everyone fails to realize sometimes is that no one ever says to themselves 'Gee that sounds like the worst idea ever, I'm going to try it just for kicks!'

Every decision that a parent makes is a life changing one...

I'd like to think that most if not all parents understand this and act accordingly. Which is why even the most cockamamy parenting style comes with tons of 'research' to back it up and a mom who's memorized it to quote to any naysayers at will. Seriously. Google any parenting style you can think of... they are all supported by someone and come with loads of testimonial.

Everyone believes that they are doing their best. Everyone makes the most of their situation. Everyone loves their babies and wants them to be happy and healthy and smart and strong. Who are we to say that isn't enough? How dare we assume we'd do it better... and what's worse, how dare anyone have the audacity to tell someone that they are doing it wrong!

Sometimes I think that if I were raised differently, or had different beliefs or were I not the type of person who obsessively researched things, my own parenting style might be very different. Who knows? Maybe my baby parenting style which is working very well will have to adapt to a different toddler parenting style? The bottom line is, that at every step of the way, I am researching and learning and deciding what is best for me. I accept the fact that other mothers do the same, even if their curriculum is different from mine. The fact that we were all raised differently and have different beliefs and ways of doing things is what makes being human so incredible. The fact that we can observe others and choose what is right for ourselves rather than blindly following is what separates us from animals. What's more, it's how we've evolved. Without individuality there would be no innovation or invention. If we take independent thought out of the process we may as well go back to cave dwelling... and I for one like my modern conveniences.