Oh! Baby: Breaking the gender-stereotype mold

Even when our babies are too small to know the difference between blue and pink and boy versus girl, we are already--consciously or unconsciously--steering them in one direction or another. Girls are typically surrounded by frilly and pink; boys are surrounded by blue and trucks and trains. Kids barely have a chance to explore their own likes and interests before being told that dolls aren't for boys and tools aren't for girls. Whether this steering happens at home or at school, it's inevitable. I'm doing my best to let Toddler in Chief be who he wants to be, but even then, I've made some mistakes. Breaking away from 30+ years of my own biases and experiences is a hard mold to break.

Gravy train nears its final stop

As fabulous as my super flexible part-time writing gig has been, Oh! has decided to not renew our contracts. From what I know, they are shutting the whole thing down. Or at least they decided to not pay for their content any longer. Or at least they decided to not pay for my super content any longer ;-) The juice debate is set to end mid-March.

I'm definitely bummed because it's been a great writing experience, complete with deadlines. Still, it will be a proud addition to my stagnating resume, and came complete with a sweet monthly paycheck. But I'm also a little relieved because TIC is about to go into the hospital for several weeks, which could make focusing on my writing and meeting those deadlines a little tricky (I could have totally done it though).

The good news is that I feel completely encouraged because I've proven to myself that my brain is still fully functional, even though I've been mostly removed from the workforce for the past three years. Perhaps I'll be motivated to get out there to drum up some new work after TIC is home and fully recovered. Without fully ripping off Bob the Builder: Can I do it? Yes I can!

Oh! Baby: To snip or to tie, that is the question

Just five days ago, Systems Administrator Friend had her third baby via c-section. While her belly was open, she had her tubes tied. She said that her husband will also have a vasectomy because they don't want to take any chances for a possible fourth baby. For a long time I thought Father in Chief would be the one to take on the burden of managing our birth control after we retired my uterus, since it's been my thing--from the pill, to a diaphragm, to an IUD--for so many years. I'll admit, though, that after all my research on circumcision, I don't anyone to cut up FIC's special parts either. So where does that leave us? I guess right back where we were for all those years before kids...because I'm not having a tubal ligation. From morning sickness to labor, my body has been through enough! I guess we could always resort to condoms, but they really are lame.

Oh! Baby: Diciplining our kids and others

Figuring out proper discipline for our own kids is a life-long process. Usually it's trial and error. When it comes to disciplining other people's kids, it's even trickier. Sure we don't want to tell our friends what to do, but we don't want to stop hanging around with certain friends because their kids are really annoying either.

I believe that learning to parent and discipline is a process that includes the helpful (and sometimes not helpful) advice of friends and family. And just as parenting advice in general from friends and family can be overwhelming and sometimes unwanted, I think that there are nuggets of good stuff in there that we can actually learn from.

Oh! Baby: What's on your kid's butt?

For the majority of Toddler in Chief's life, his bum has been wrapped with cloth diapers, secured with Snappi Clips. A diaper service makes this choice a little less gross, although there are lots of people who wash their own cloth diapers and don't think it's so bad either. Sure I secretly like when we go out of town and I have to use those evil disposable diapers. No soggy remains of that big glass of juice that TIC had at breakfast. No stinky reminders of TIC's dinner heavily wrapped in the diaper bag (which makes me feel like a dog owner carrying around a plastic bag of poo). I hate that I secretly enjoy those using those things. If only my conscience didn't care.

Oh! Baby: What's drugs got to do with it?

We'd all like to think that when our kids are born, they come out as perfect creatures and that they'll need nothing but love and encouragement. But sometimes, things aren't quite right. With Toddler in Chief, it was his heart. And along with heart surgeries, he takes a lot of medication. I don't like filling him with an assortment of drugs everyday, but I've gotten over that because I know that they keep him alive.

Some women I know have a hard time even giving their kids over-the-counter medicine when they are sick (although I do know at least one mom who gives her kids Benadryl when they fly, so that the kids will sleep). For us, we didn't have a choice and TIC's meds were from day one. We don't know a life without them.

Oh! Baby: Sleep deprivation for all

Now that Toddler in Chief sleeps through the night, there are limited nighttime duties. Fill up the occasional water cup. Occasionally rearrange the twisted blanket. But as any parent knows, that isn't always the case. A new baby is exhausting. Having to be on duty during the night for a new baby can throw really throw you off balance physically, emotionally and mentally. During those first several months, sleep is a commodity that doesn't come in very large quantities--I think a four-hour stretch was a glorious and rare gift. It's hard. It's hard for the at-home parent. It's hard for the parent who works outside the home.

And when we decided to have a baby, we both knew that helping out with all the hard stuff would be something we both participated in. I've been home with TIC, but being able to diaper, feed, nurse, change, and learn to care for him was overwhelming in the beginning. I needed sleep just as much as Father in Chief. Fortunately he took on some of the overnight burden so that I could get slightly bigger chunks of sleep. We were both a mess for a while. But as with much of babyhood, it was short-lived. And helping out with the good and the bad--regardless of where you work--is part of parenthood.

Oh! Baby: Is homeschooling just for religious freaks?

As the parent of an almost-three-year-old son, I am often exhausted at the end of the day. I am a mother, art director, grocery shopper, laundry doer, chef, song master, game expert, house-picker-upper, and activity coordinator, so it's hard to imagine putting on yet another hat and be a schoolteacher for Toddler in Chief as well. Especially because when TIC is five and ready for kindergarten, I'll have a two-year-old tearing through the house, causing a lot of distraction for his/her older brother during "school hours."

I really have no desire to homeschool my kid. When he's five and old enough to go to kindergarten, I'm sure I'll be anxious to have him out of the house for a bunch of hours each day. I feel fortunate to have good schools nearby. But not every parent can say the same thing with confidence. It's really sad that our country's schools aren't the best in the world, and they are often sub-par. And if I was faced with sending my kid out into a lacking school or teach him at home, I just might try and figure out how to juggle schooling a big kid and entertaining a small kid all at once. It wouldn't be the most difficult feat for a parent...labor had to be worse, no? But at least that was just one day out of my life, not a school-year's worth. Yikes.

Oh! Baby: Don't even think of cutting my boy

I usually try to be open-minded and listen to different points of view. But I have a very hard time listening to people's rationalizations when it comes to circumcision.

I used to think that what parents did to their kids genitals is there business, but the more I learn about circumcision, the more I know it's dead wrong. People have lots of excuses to justify it, but really, it's an unnecessary and brutal thing to do to your newborn. You might worry that your kid will look different from other kids, but who cares. If a generation of parents would be brave enough to say no (and they are in certain parts of the country), then the next generation of boys would never have this dilemma to think about.

Last night when I was writing my post for Oh! Baby, I was so worked up about it. Father in Chief agrees with me on this issue, but there were some difficult core feelings in there as well because he (and pretty much everyone we know) is circumcised. I was going on about mutilation and how I don't understand why people do it--especially when they are nonchalant about it--and this hit some nerves. I don't mean to say that my husband is mutilated and I don't blame my parents' generation for doing this to their sons. At the time doctors thought it was a good thing to do.

But. Now. We. Know. Better. See my full rant here.

Oh! Baby: Where is the best place to raise a kid?

Deciding where to live is a personal choice. There are benefits and negatives to living in the city and the suburbs. For years, I was a city girl…from Boston, to London, to San Francisco. Those were good times, but somewhere in there I spent six months in Boulder, Co., and those months in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains made me realize how much I love nature and hiking. That said, I never have been a big fan of snakes or mosquitoes, and I have an unnatural fear that mountain lions are lingering in every tree waiting to attack.

Anyway, after we got married we headed back into the Burbs, closer to nature and a deck for a hot tub. And now that we're raising our kid away from the city, I do sometimes romanticize about all the great stuff and never-ending excitement that we might be missing out on. But then I realize a hike in the hills is just a couple of minutes from our house and I don't mind that the city is a drive away.

What about you? Why do you like or hate where you're raising your kid?

Oh! Baby: Take your commercialism and get out of my holiday

It's the most wonderful time of the year for retailers. But for people who want to enjoy the season, the over-spend mentality is stressful and downright unappealing. In so many ways the holidays have lost their meaning and somehow gotten all mixed up with shopping and Santa and crowds. It doesn't have to be that way. We've decided to avoid the whole Santa story altogether and focus on what we believe is the most important part of the holiday season: being with family.

Join this week's debate on this Season's of Spending on the Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: When should you ditch diapers?

Diapers have never been one of my favorite parenting tasks--don't know many parents who savor it. And I've always been determined to have my kid out of diapers well before his third birthday. Is this possible? Will I psychologically scar my kid if I work to wean him off of diapers before he's ready? And can I get him interested sooner than he would have otherwise made the choice on his own? So far the reward systems seems to be working well, but what if he decides he doesn't like the reward anymore? Will my plan totally backfire?

Join this week's debate over potty training on the Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: Isn't not just about the boobs

We all know that breast is best when it comes to food choices for babies, but is it the only choice? Is making a choice to formula feed versus breastfeed really just about whether or not what's best for baby? Sometimes I'm envious of the women who choose to bottle feed their kids. Their bodies are their own and they get to share those overnight feedings. No swollen boobs. No clogged ducts. No pumping. It just seems that there are so many other factors involved in deciding how to nourish the babes.

Check out this week's debate over breastfeeding on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Is it ever enough?

Alrightly then. So it seems that I've miraculously snagged the perfect part-time gig ever, spewing my lovely opinion on lots of enthralling parenting topics. It's perfect. I love it. I feel extremely fortunate.

That said, something is still missing from my desire to work. And the only thing I can guess is that I miss grown-up banter in the kitchen and near the water-cooler. I miss work friends. I miss lunches. I miss complaining about co-workers. I miss getting dressed up in little outfits and matching my lipstick to my outfit. I even miss my bus ride into the city, while scanning the latest headlines. Last time I actually commuted to work, I was living north of the Golden Gate Bridge. And every morning, when we descended towards the Bridge, I would stop reading the paper and look out at the city and the fog and the view. Breathtaking. Every. Single. Day. I don't think many people--or any people besides me--ever looked up to take it all in.

So the view, the banter, the child-free lunches. What else is there? Collaboration. Ah, working with a team of creative people to come up with great ideas and actually bring them to life. It was fun and felt important, even though much of it was not.

Then there were the extravagant holiday parties. Father in Chief works for a start-up this year, so we won't be seeing Earth, Wind & Fire with the rest of the Yahoos. Then again, last year when FIC was still employed by Yahoo, we skipped the holiday party and missed out on my all-time favorite 80s cover band Notorious.

Mostly, I just wonder why I'm still tormented by this nagging feeling that I'm not complete. I have work. I have child. I have fabulous husband. I have friends. I have no dogs. And yet, something is still missing. Even though I'm filling in the pieces that I thought needed filling.

Oh! Baby: Where does God fit in?

Where did people come from? How do we explain tragedy--natural and otherwise--to kids? How often do you turn to God when it comes to explaining the unexplainable? It seems that when there is no answer, people turn to God and religion. But at what price? Does that just sugarcoat reality? Or do people need something to believe in to bring order to this tumultuous world?

Check out this week's debate over religion and its place in kids' lives on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: Is attachment parenting all that?

Did you carry your baby around from the minute they were born, as if that umbilical cord had never been severed? Or were you happy to set them down and hand them off to family and friends, and bond in different ways? Dr. Sears' Attachment Parenting is in style, but I'm not a big fan of the theory's unending demands on parents. Seems to me that attachment parenting sets parents up to feel guilty for not giving enough of themselves.

Check out this week's debate over attachment parenting on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: When should parents get involved?

No one wants their kid to be on the receiving end of hurtful words or actions. And toddlers really only have their own interests at heart: I need that toy. I need to go down the slide now. I need. I need. I need. And without a little guidance, kids aren't going to be kind, considerate, or fair. That's what parents are for...to help sort the sticky situations out and to help kids learn the rules.

Do you intervene if there's a scuffle at the park? Or do you take a more wait-and-see approach? Get involved in this week's debate over playground fights on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: Is a spank just a spank?

There are definitely times when Toddler in Chief really pisses me off--they don't call it "Terrible Twos" for nothing. And there have definitely been times when I've wanted to smack him. And one time I smacked his hand in an effort to get him to stop doing something dangerous. But instead of getting him to stop, he thought my reaction was worth replicating.

How do you discipline your kids? Does spanking or other physical punishment do the trick? Check out this week's debate over discipline choices on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: Give me an impersonal hospital birth

I doubt anyone likes the idea of a hospital birth, but I'll take preparedness at the hospital over a hunch that everything will be okay with a homebirth. As much as I would have preferred the comforts of home, a hospital birth--and all those trained medical professionals--saved Toddler in Chief's life.

Where is the best and safest place to have a baby? Check out this week's debate over childbirth choices on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.

Oh! Baby: A little personal space, please

I'm with my kid 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And that's plenty for me. Where is he the rest of the time? Sleeping. In his own bed. In his own room. I appreciate that he knows how (and actually likes) to sleep in his own room, away from me and Father in Chief. That way, we get a little time and space and privacy for just us. Not to mention precious, quality sleep.

Check out this week's debate over co-sleeping on Oxygen Media's Oh! Baby Opinionated Parenting blog.