Ahhhhhhhh......

I took my own advice and went fishing. It was most superbly awesome. We saw no fish, but something did make a pass at my pink leech. I was fishing for Coho and it felt like a trout, but Coho are known to sometimes be very light biters, so you never know. Nonetheless, the real highlight was that the whole crew came along. Kari put Elsa in a little sling and we hiked in to a spot mostly off the beaten path, we had a big stretch of river to ourselves and soaked it all in. We were out from about 1-7 and Elsa proved herself to be a champion of the riverbank at a mere 17 days old! Hopefully this is foreshadowing things to come...I have high hopes :) ...on to the pictures already!

Deep thoughts, by the leech

This whole parenting thing is throwing my mind for a loop. I don't have a journal, this is sorta my journal, so I am writing this here even though it is sure to piss a couple people off.

Additionally, parent how you want to parent and I will do the same, but this is my blog so I'll write what I want......feel free to criticize, I'll let you know if I change my mind.......

People's cynicism and skepticism is mind-boggling. Anything that so much as presses a finger to a wall of the happy box of existence is chastised. Where did common sense go, was there ever any? You would assume, evolutionarily, that common sense would be universal...do you think it ever was, and in which case, systematically dismembered, starting at birth, for nearly everyone? Or do some people just have it and others don't?

Having little Elsa around has, for me, renewed thought about these questions, and many more. For example, there is an obsession in our society to "control" our children, right from birth and I found myself acting out these hidden traps culture has set. Like feeding the baby on a schedule, what the hell sense does this make? If you were really hungry and someone had your next meal, but withheld it because you just ate 1.5 hours ago and they thought you should only eat every 3 hours...isn't that some form of torture? Yet I found myself pacing the house shushing and bouncing and swaddling the baby to calm her because I thought she should wait another 45 minutes for her next meal, even though she was obviously ready to feed again. It teaches your child, right from the start, that communication is worthless! Her only methods of communicating are showing restlessness, sucking hands, rooting behaviors (searching for the nipple) and finally crying, when we ignore all of these the reinforcement is that communication is completely useless!

I am very pleased that we realized this as soon as we did and not when we had a 12 year old on our hands that wouldn't talk to us because from the start she learned communication was pointless. Instinctive parenting makes sense. Also, if the goal for everyone was to create an open-minded, thinking, communicating, caring child, rather than an "obeyer", would the whole world not be exponentially better?

(note: I clearly need to go fishing.)