Doctors ALL DAY!

Today was relatively uneventful, unless you count spending all day a the doctors office eventful. I should not say that really. My grandmother had a doctors appointment today and I often take her to these appointments. The doctor's assistant did allow me to call in and find out what the wait was before going in. She saved us about two and a half hours of sitting in the waiting room. This would have been unbearable with my 89 year old grandmother and my 11 month old child. So my grandmother and I spent the morning here at the house. This was nice. She got to play with Sammy and we spent some quality time with one another.

We got to the doctors office at 12:00 noon and got home at around 3:00pm. This feels like all day. And this dominated my day. No worries though, Sammy was a champ the whole time. We did have one major milestone this afternoon. When we got to my grandmothers house, after the Dr.s apt. we decided to stay for awhile and have pizza. My wife was just getting done with school and called from the house for me to pick her up. So I got int eh car and drove off, without my child. I left him with my sister and her boyfriend for the few minutes it took to get to my house and back. I know I know! But this was the FIRST time I have EVER left Sammy with anyone other than my wife. He, as expected, did wonderfully. He didn't cry or fuss. He just kept being his awesome little self till we got back. HOORAY for attachment style parenting! :)

This is your infants brain on caffeine

This evening my wife, Alicia, and I were getting some things done and left Sammy to his own devices for a bit. We do this pretty often. He seems to enjoy the freedom and trust that it entails for short periods of time. The way our house is set up we have basically sectioned off the front of the house as childproof and the back as adult room. The front is the living room/play room and the bedroom/Sammy library. Then the back of the house is the kitchen and study.

Well, I left for a moment to go get some creamer for some afternoon coffee. When I got back I went into the study to speak with Alicia and left Sammy in the front room to play. We heard him making his normal giggling and googling sounds when of a sudden we heard him make a new sound. This was a very sad sound. Not an upset cry or a holler to get our attention, but a kind of sad whimper, as if he had seen something sad in a movie or just finished reading a tear jerking novel. I wasn't in a hurry but I did begin to make my way to the living room door to peak in on him. AHHHH, I had forgotten a cup of coffee that i left on the coffee table earlier. Double AHHHHHHHHHH! Sammy had the cup to his mouth and was leaning back. I rushed in and he looked up at me as if he knew that he was not supposed to be doing that. He has often gone for my cup and just as often I have deflected his attempts. He knew this was not within his realm of allowed activity. I believe that the expression of sadness that we heard was his knowing, his cognitive dissonance with what he had just done. That to me is the truly amazing thing about this moment.

Then came the wait. We had no idea how much coffee he had actually consumed and were anticipating the worst. Shortly after this episode Alicia had class and I was left trying to get dinner prepared. Sammy began to wail. I was unable to comfort him at all. This is the worst feeling, not being able to comfort your child. He did eventually go to sleep but not before I held him for a good hour, crying in what seemed to be agonizing pain. He did break a new tooth today so this may have played a part. I put baby ambasol on his gums to no avail.

After he woke up and we had dinner, of which he ate precious little, he went wild! Alicia usually does the bedtime routine and he was all over the place. Crawling at comically top speed, standing and falling in the bed, leaping forward to fall into his mothers face. I played with his a bit too. He laughed uproariously when I swung him to toss him lightly into the pillows. He chased the dog, almost over the edge of the bed. He finally asked to nurse by pointing at Alicia and smiling, then nestled in frantically. I left them to it. It must have been another good hour before Alicia came back into the study frazzled and exhausted from the effort of this nights bedtime rituals. Moral of the story, infants react fairly strongly to caffeine! Keep it away from them at all costs.

My Parenting Paradigm (and 2 recipes)

There is nothing more beautiful, nor painful, than watching your child's development. Sammy has cut another tooth this weekend. One of his top teeth. So now he is going to have one bottom and one top tooth. He is standing on his own and of his own volition now. Walking is around the corner. I anticipate that my life is going to change significantly when this occurs. It is strange how the parenting experience comes with such yin yang occurrences. I will be on the run and much busier in one respect, but then in another we will be on our way to all kinds of fun adventures. I look forward to Sammy being able to walk beside me on the trails. I also look forward to his new levels of exploration, but this will come with an added responsibility.

Perhaps I should spend some time thinking in text about the paradigm from which i am coming as a parent. First and foremost my wife and I practice attachment style parenting. Dr. Seers is a great source for those who may not be familiar with the basics of this style. For a mroe in depth study look into Bowlby and Ainsworth. Second I am an evolutionary psychologist. So where does this leave my philosophy of parenting?

Attachment style parenting is very focused on attentiveness and responsiveness. This means that when your baby cries you pick them up. You don't leave your baby to cry for hours in her crib. Remember that your baby is brand new to this world, they have not formed associations between the physical things outside the womb and themselves. Your baby has entered the world having had nine months of consistent and instantaneous needs met. Why should their most formative years be any different? A baby should trust the world, and most importantly babies should trust their parents. This cannot happen if a baby's experience indicates otherwise. Speaking from an evolutionary perspective a child that has been left to "cry it out" has been abandoned. The child eventually stops crying, not because she has learned that she will be okay, but out of a learned helplessness. This baby has learned that there is no use in crying, no one will help them. This learning is then hardwired in the brain and is continues to influence the development of the child into adolescence and beyond.

There is also the parents urge. Most parents will report that having to hear their baby cry is the most painful heart wrenching experience they have ever known. The immediate urge is to pick their baby up. And well they should! There is a reason we have evolved such boding techniques. A child with a secure attachment style is a happy child. A happy child is more often than not a well behaved child. The parents of a securely attached child are likewise happier and more secure in their parenting. There is a trust between the parents and the child that extends well beyond the traditional parent child roles. This mutual trust creates a feedback loop, and parenting as well as being a child, becomes a wonderful experience of exploration and learning.

It is not our job as parents to force our children to conform to our wills. It is our job as parents to create a safe environment in which our children can experience their lives and learn how things work. To include experiencing their own personal interactions with their environments (i.e. to learn who they are).

There will be more on this subject. For now, I just wanted to get some thoughts down and out.

I also wanted to share a couple of finger food recipes that I came up with. These I am sure are not new to the world, but they were certainly new to my kitchen!

Apple toast

1. Toast some bread
2. smear organic apple sauce all over the bread
3. Allow to soften
4. Cut into strips
5. Serve

Cheezios

1. Using organic cheerios and organic sliced cheese
2. Squeeze the cheerio and the cheese together squishing the cheese into the cheerio
3. Serve

My boy likes the apple toast and loves the cheezios.

catching up

Well there is quite a bit to catch up on. I will do my best. I have been working nights on my writing. making a modest but respectable bit for a stay at home dad. I am happy with it. But this has kept me up late and I haven't been fulfilling my obligations as a blogger. Sorry about that.

Halloween was AWESOME! There will be pictures up on Garcia Family Productions this evening. I will also be posting a video diary of Sammy and I's first solo hike up at Pine Mountain (11:03:2008). This one will need some editing so it may be late this evening or tomorrow evening.

So Sammy was a frog, Alicia borrowed a witch dress and cape costume from our awesome neighbor, Dana, and I wore a black robe. The three of us, the two witches and their toad offspring headed down the road to crash the costume contest in the ritzy subdivision across the street. We carved pumpkins before we left and had a blast! Halloween is absolutely the coolest holiday.

So we only trick or treated two houses. It became quickly apparent that Sammy was a bit tired and not willing to tolerate being given something cool and having it taken away too many times. But he did Trick or Treat. His first ever trick or treat candy was a Three Musketeers candy bar.

Sammy has been perfecting the art of handing things to us when we ask him for them. It is a fun game of pass the toy back and forth. This only works with toys however. It does not work with finger nail clippers or anything else that he is not supposed to have.

His Memaw came by and visited today. Sammy was very excited about this. I was too, it was nice to just hang out with my mom and son.

Ahh what else. Oh yeah, Sammy stood unattended spontaneously and without prompting this evening for near 30 sec on several occasions. He discovered that he could manipulate objects better with both hands if he balanced a bit. He honestly looked a bit surprised but his own ability.

Oh yeah one last new development. Sammy has perfected the art of scarring the hell out of me. He has discovered that pretending to be choking gets my attention. And I am going to tell you, he is good at it! He holds his breath and his face turns all read and he makes noise as he strains his inhale. When I panic and straighten him up or pat his back, or begin to respond in any fashion he begins to laugh. I am gonna get the little booger one day for this one. So I have a panic attack about twice a meal now due to his excellent acting skills.

That's it for now.

Peace In Xaos