Someone is having a laugh

For Sebastian's birthday, he was given a very cool new toy. It is a set of thing-a-ma-jigs that fit together. I'm not even sure what they are called, but they are a lot of fun and very easy for a toddler to use.






They also ended up being something that Spud and Sweetpea both enjoyed and played together with.



However, my husband pointed out a couple of the shapes. Do you ever wonder if toy designers are having a laugh at our expense?

Clingy or Cuddly?

I have 2 children that are fairly clingy children.

As a baby Spud always wanted to be held. It was pretty much the only way he would sleep and whenever I put him down, he would wake up and start crying. I hear people talk about how their baby cries all the time unless they are held. That was true of Spud. Except he didn't cry all the time. I held him. I would spend hours with him on my chest surfing the internet or reading books.

At night time, it would take me a long time to get him settled enough to sleep. This was back when I was still very opposed to co-sleeping. So, I would sometimes sit with him for 30-60 minutes after a night time feed until he was in a deep enough sleep that I could put him down. Even then, it was still iffy as to whether he would sleep on his own.

Now when Sweetpea came along, I was a little more prepared for this, and it was a good thing because, if anything, she was more clingy then her brother. I couldn't just let her lie on my chest while sitting around, but I did put her in my wrap from the very start. This left me with free hands to deal with toddler Spud. Spud still wanted his Mommy though. I became very skilled at contorting my body in such a way to be able to breastfeed Sweetpea while still cuddling Spud.

Now there are times where I find this dependance on me exasperating. When I leave the room and Spud bursts into tears. Or I hand Sweetpea off to Daddy and she starts to wimper. Sometimes I feel like my personal space is constantly invaded. Who am I kidding though? When you become a mother, you give up all rights to personal space.

It also goes against my parenting philosophy to just put one of my kids down and let them deal with it or work it out. I realize one argument is they need that to become independant. I side with the other side of the argument. I believe that human touch and contact is a need. When my children want to be held, there is also a need to be held. Because of this, I will do what I can to accomodate that need. If I allow them to learn that I am there for them when they need me, they will gain the confidence to venture further out on their own.

Hence the reason I spend so much time with two children attached to me.

It has gotten gradually better though. Since Sweetpea started crawling, she's liking being put down more. And Spud isn't clingy all the time. Mostly when his teeth are hurting, he's tired, or we're in a new place.

And, I consider the fact that they are going to become more and more independant as they get older. Then the day will come when one of them pulls their hand out of mine while we are walking. Or they'll get embarrassed if I hug them in front of their friends.

Suddenly, the cuddles don't seem so clingy. I don't mind so much that Sweetpea needed to be in the wrap to fall asleep. I find it endearing that Spud grabs my hand to put my arm around him.

It's a oft quoted phrase, but they are only little for a short time. I'm going to take my cuddles when I can.

My newest item

So, I haven't been adding alot of new things to my store lately, but the wheels have been turning and I've had some things in the works.

My newest thing: Mini clippies!













I've had people mention that they find the full sized ones too big for little baby heads. I've wanted to do it for a while, but shied away when I found instructions on how to make my own smaller clips. Basically, it said to cut down the regular ones, but be sure to fully line because of the sharp edges! Now, even though I do fully line my clips, that was enough to scare me off.

Until I found a source for little clips! Now, I have these small clips, and they are still safe, and BOY are they ever cute! See the final picture for a size comparison.
Stay tuned for more new items coming in the next few weeks!

Homeschooling

Homeschooling is something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. Yes, admittedly Spud is not quite 2 yet. Also, given the time of year of his birthday, he will be one of the oldest starting his grade level. So, there is actually 3.5 years until Spud starts School. Sweetpea will be starting one year later.

However, I don't know if it is ever too early to start considering something as important as your child's education. Let's face it, even if they don't attend post secondary, most children will go to school from kindergarten through grade 12, so 13 years of their life. This is more time then many adults spend in a career. I don't think it is ever too early to consider how to approach it.

When we were children, there wasn't alot of thought given on "how to approach" school. You registered your child in their designated school and they attended it. If you were in a city, like we were, maybe you had a choice between public and catholic school. If you were rich, like we weren't, you might have considered private school. Home schooling was only for the kid who was so badly behaved that he got kicked out of school or for the family that was really really religious and didn't want their children exposed to heathen culture.

So I went to regular, public school. And I turned out alright. I had various challenges while attending school, socially, academically, and less often behaviourly. Challenges exist in all aspects of life, so in and of itself, I don't consider this a reason not to enter the school system.

I have 2 main reasons why I am considering homeschooling.

1. I truly believe that the school system is broken.

Really, truly broken. I'm not going to go into detail on the reasons why I believe this right now. (that would be a whole other post... or perhaps a book.) Suffice it to say that I firmly hold this opinion.

Having said that, I think that there are many people that can function well in a broken system, learn to play the games, get what they need academically and come out of it with glowing success. This brings me to my next consideration.

2. I don't think that Spud is one of these people.

Spud already doesn't like to follow the "rules".

I bring the kidlets to a weekly playgroup that meets at a community centre. One of the things that often occurs are group activities.

A few weeks ago the activity was a parachute activity. A group of children very close in age to Spud (some older, some younger) enthusiastically participated in parachute games, waving the parachute, mushrooming it, bouncing balls on it.

Spud ran on top of it. Spud pulled on it. Spud had no interest in following what the rest of the group was doing. I tried to convince Spud to participate in the fun the other children were having. But, Spud was having fun. He was quite happy with his activities. His fun only stopped when I had to pull him away so as not to disrupt the rest of the group.

Now, I realize that Spud is a toddler. It is very early to make large assumptions about how he will function in school based on one activity. However, it is just the biggest example of a tendency that I have been noticing over and over. Spud likes to do things his own way. He likes to explore and discover. If something can't be done, he is going to try to do it so that he understands why it can't be done. I already forsee the inability he will have to believe or do something just because a teacher "says so".

And I don't see this as a bad trait. But, I also don't see it as a trait that works well with conformity. I do think that our school system is all about conformity.

And so, I am considering whether home schooling might be the option that works best for Spud. I will certainly have to consider it all over again once I start seeing how Sweetpea grows up.