what a great post!!

for those parents out there that think that they just are not cutting it some days….

here is a great post at “Syma Says”

The Voices in my Head

Article I just saw…

“Natural birth may build bond between mother, baby”

“Brain scans on 12 new mothers found that natural childbirth may strengthen the bond between mother and child.

Scientists at Yale University think the contractions during natural childbirth trigger the release of oxytocin, known as the cuddling hormone, in the mother and form a closer attachment between mothers and their babies.

Caesarean sections may not have the same effect, and could be linked to postpartum depression, scientists believe.”

read more here…

***

and the Journal abstract

A range of early circumstances surrounding the birth of a child affects peripartum hormones, parental behavior and infant wellbeing. One of these factors, which may lead to postpartum depression, is the mode of delivery: vaginal delivery (VD) or cesarean section delivery (CSD). To test the hypothesis that CSD mothers would be less responsive to own baby-cry stimuli than VD mothers in the immediate postpartum period, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging, 2–4 weeks after delivery, of the brains of six mothers who delivered vaginally and six who had an elective CSD. VD mothers’ brains were significantly more responsive than CSD mothers’ brains to their own baby-cry in the superior and middle temporal gyri, superior frontal gyrus, medial fusiform gyrus, superior parietal lobe, as well as regions of the caudate, thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala and pons. Also, within preferentially active regions of VD brains, there were correlations across all 12 mothers with out-of-magnet variables. These include correlations between own baby-cry responses in the left and right lenticular nuclei and parental preoccupations (r = .64, p < .05 and .67, p < .05 respectively), as well as in the superior frontal cortex and Beck depression inventory (r = .78, p < .01). First this suggests that VD mothers are more sensitive to own baby-cry than CSD mothers in the early postpartum in sensory processing, empathy, arousal, motivation, reward and habit-regulation circuits. Second, independent of mode of delivery, parental worries and mood are related to specific brain activations in response to own baby-cry.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121395695/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

isn’t it September?

Before I left for BC I thought that it would be the last time I swam in our pool for the year… the last years the month of August gets cool and rainy and we don’t use the pool at all for almost the whole month… and then when we get a bit of warm weather the water is too cold…

Well… we got back on Monday to a humid 30 degrees (86F) which feels like 35 because of the humidity… (95F) and not only is the weather outside warm enough… hot enough… unconfortable enough to swim… the pool itself is 25 degrees (76F) so we have been swimming yesterday and today… and the invite that Simon sent out for Colin’s birthday with a BBQ next to the pool will be very possible if the rain stays away that day….

What weird weather…

I was quite enjoying the cool weather that was taking over the BC air…

I’m home…

The flight home on Monday was umm…. interesting….

For about half of the flight Khéna screamed… and cried and just wanted to get out of my arms…

and then finally the they told the guy next to us that there was a seat at the front of the plane and that he could move there so that we would have more space… at least he did not seem phased about Khéna at all…

So then I was able to put Khéna in Colin’s seat and Colin went to the next seat and Khéna fell asleep a few minutes later and woke when we were landing…

Gen was waiting at the airport with my car and once I got all the carseats in and the kids and bags in we dropped Gen off and headed home… It was really weird being back home… everything familiar but a bit forgotten…

Simon had decorated a bit for Colin’s birthday which was nice and then with the time change in effect I had a bit of trouble falling asleep and then we got up quite late the next day also… and of course because it was the first day back I needed to get some shopping done and needed to go to the bank… so I was out a lot of the day… I am so glad that Simon stayed home from work so that I was able to get some things done..

And last night we had Taco’s according to the birthday boy’s wishes… and then ice cream for dessert with the promise of chocolate cake for his birthday party on Sunday…

Anyway… Simon is at work today and our routine is going back to normal again…

just a few more days….

In a few short days the boys and I will be heading home…

It has been a bit rough at times being alone with all three but the roughtest times seemed to be when we ere with Annie… The kids seem to love being with each other at times but then something would happen and they would just turn on eachother….

Being with Annie was great though… she is such an inspiration and she is such an amazing mom…

Here in Vancouver it is raining today and my mom went to work and I got the kids ready to go walk down to the skytrain to go somewhere… anywhere… and then realized that the stroller is in my mom’s car…. so then I thought about just putting Khéna on my back…. but then remembered that the wrap is in the stroller… so we are stuck here until my mom comes back…

It feels weird to be heading home… I felt that I left home back in Nelson so going back to Sorel-Tracy is a bit depressing for me… a house that we settled for because of price… a home that doesn’t feel like a home….

Of course I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed… and most importanly being with Simon again… and we will be waking up the next morning to Colin’s 4th birthday which is also pretty cool…

I think that this trip really made up my mind that we need to leave though…

We need to live in a place that is more family friendly… that is has a better quality of life and friendlier people…

a bittersweet return…

“AP” past the age of 3…

I have talked before on the blog how the “AP trend” seems to be instilled in the idea that “attachment parenting” is a list of things that you do.

Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing etc… all things that are on the “Sears List”… all things that are important in a infant and baby’s life…

But the lists that so many people seem to rely on really seem to focus on “Attached” in the almost the physical sense, providing a happy baby and not the emotional.

When you look at it in that light then “Attachment Parenting” and “Gentle Discipline” seem to work pretty well and easy with a baby and even with a young toddler… but when toddler hits that independent stage, babe starts sleeping through the night more, nursing less and wants to walk more than be carried… the physical attachment is harder to maintain and honestly it is normal!

The importance of being attached is not physical, but is emotional and is simply facilitated by the physical in the beginning especially because a baby’s needs are quite physical also.

So what happens later then?

It seems that so many people seem to think that AP just doesn’t work anymore after a certain age… there are no more lists… no more concrete methods or “how-to’s” and that is when the problems set in and then the ideas that work against attachment make their way into the relationship…

The problem that I see is that what seems to be missing is the “why” of wanting to be attached to our children.

I wrote this a while back on the blog when I talked about Attachment and the problem with Time-outs…
Attachment is important in any relationship and not only is it important but is required for a relationship to work well for everyone.

What does Attachment do?

• It arranges a hierarchy
• It renders the other person endearing
• Brings us home
• Creates a compass point
• Activates proximity
• Evokes a desire to be good

So the Attachment actually fixes things in a way that the child who is well attached is inclined to want to please us, do things for us, be with us, loves us, follow us, be good for us etc… They fall into being that “easy child” (most of the time)

Neufeld talks about 6 ways that we attach. These should be all done by the age of six within a good attachment, though it is never too late.

You can see the correlation with ages…. From infant, toddler, pre-schooler etc…

These stages are
• Senses (all of the physical ways that promote attachment)
• Sameness (wanting to do what the other is doing)
• Belonging and Loyalty (The “mine, mine” stage)
• Significance (feeling that we matter)
• Feeling (giving your heart away, falling in love)
• Being Known (wanting the other to KNOW you, telling all, sharing all)

A child then that is truly attached will do whatever they can to please the parent, will be good because they want to be good, they want to be with the parent, they love them, they want to share their secrets….

When you have their hearts, you have access to their minds, they are open to learn.

We learn from those whom are attached to. The teacher that we loved, that made the most impact on us, the one that we learned the most from is the teacher that has won our hearts. We need to be attached in order to teach, we need to be attached in order to learn.

However, this attachment also makes a child emotionally dependant and they are very vulnerable.

This can be seen as negative, but is important as they are not yet ready to be on their own emotionally until they step away by themselves (and not towards a peer, but really on their own two feet)

Attachment therefore, is not only important in the early years, it is important all the time.

So why attachment is so important in children’s lives and how it works is to guide them into adulthood is what the focus should be on.

And not only does Attachment parenting work after the “Dr. Sears” list of ways to be “attached” dwindle but it becomes even more important. Maintaining emotional attachment is hard though… way harder as kids grow and I do understand that at a certain age things change… but giving up on attachment is not the answer and will lead to more problems in the end…

midway vacation…

Well… Simon left yesterday morning and I have to admit that being alone with the boys is already a bit of a challenge…

We are still at Annie’s house but we should be leaving this weekend to head back to Vancouver… there is a big part of me that is happy that we are staying longer because the trip would have been too short if we hadn’t but then again I feel a bit crazy for staying here with all three boys…

I have a feeling that my mom has lined up a few things for us to do over the next two weeks…

I have also made up my mind that I really need to move out here for the sake of our family… and Nelson is still were I dream of landing… This trip opened my eyes even further to what my family needs and the fact that this is the place to find it…

Our return tickets have been bought and we are heading home on the first of September… it will truly be bittersweet to go home…

BC pics…

Here are some random pics in my Flickr set of pics that I have taken here in BC…

Pretty much all of them were taken with my super amazing new camera… the Pentax K20D !

I am loving it!!

My BC pics on Flickr!

www.flickr.com paxye’s BC photoset

Cathedral Grove…

Today the two families went to Cathedral Grove to see the majestic Douglas Firs… What an amazing place…

The walk was not too long but just long enough and the views were amazing…

Here you can see just how big some of the trees are….

playing in one of the trees…

It was a bit of a tourist trap even on a rainy Tuesday morning but I am so happy that we went…

yay! I have internet again!

I left my moms on tuesday the 29th of July and headed to Nelson BC where I grew up… We left at 6:30am and started driving and only made a few stops on the way… We got to Nelson, eager to get out of the car and stretch at about 5:30pm…

In Nelson we stayed with my godmother and godfather… it was a bit weird staying there… both of them are very abrasive with kids… at least with younger kids. My godmother works with at risk teens and knows all about attatchment and has read many of the same books, she uses attachment to get through to kids and get them on a better track and I know that she has done some amazing work… but she can’t seem to get that attachment needs to be worked on with a small child also… I did get her to see that time-outs are not the answer for certain (all) children as they hinder attachment which is the reason that they work…

I wish I would have talked to Annie more while I was there because talking with her gave me a few ideas of what I should have responded… I was in awe though that she could understand everything so well for older kids but not realize that you have to work on the attachment when they are young so that they do not end up like the teens that she works with.

Anyway… we camped out in their backyard and everyday did something different… went to the beach, went shopping, to parks and saw friends.. over the weekend of the 2nd there were a series of parties that were a reunion of sort of friends that met in Nelson in the late 70’s… 3 parties to be exact that were all pretty cool…

Then the rest of the week was meeting with other friends and beaches and more parks and fishing and canoeing and amazing sceneries…

On Friday we left Nelson at about 6:30am and headed back to Vancouver… well… we decided that it would be easier to not stop in Vancouver but head directly on the island to Nanaimo to Annie’s… after traffic, a wrong turn and waiting one sail we got the 7:30 ferry to Nanaimo…

Now I am at Annie’s and loving it!!! and I have internet access again!

A bit of a relax time before Simon heads home without us on Thursday (which I am completely nervous about!)…
I should be able to update a bit more often now and I need to get more pics up again!