Subsistence Farming - Hawaii

snippets from emails i sent to my father during lauren’s first year. he saved them and recently sent them to me. i read them to lauren and her freinds at her birthday party. i was a bit shocked in reading them at how “regular” i used to be. going to the mall shopping, taking her to baby gym classes etc.

1/14/93
Lauren has a real cold, runny nose, cough (so cute), up a lot at night (ouch), cranky (double ouch), wanting to be held all the time. With all she is going through, she still has a smile for every occasion.

1/15/93
Update on Lauren:
She had a fever the past 2 nights. She felt like a hot potato! It meant her body was working to fight off whatever she has. Her fever broke yesterday afternoon. She is still coughing, but less frequently. She is happier today and I am very happy to announce that she let her dad and I get some sleep last night! yeah.

She pulls herself up all the time and is quite proficient at dropping back down onto her butt. She is very trusting that the floor is not too far away. Thank goodness her legs aren’t any longer. She still has a runny nose (mostly clear) which has caused her to run around with her tongue out and curled up ( I guess to catch the runs from her nose), all very cute!

As you can imagine, her dad thinks she has viral pneumonia and should be under the constant care of a doctor, but then we all remember how “serious” her bouts of hiccups were (to both of us).

2/17/93
Lauren does the cutest thing now (another). If you are holding her and not looking at her for a long time, she leans forward and puts her face inches from your face to get your attention. I have been practicing the word “Grandmom” with her.

Hey, I forgot to thank you for Lauren’s first valentines card and the adorable heart turtle neck. She is a lucky girl to have you two as grandparents. I only wish we were closer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3/2/93
Lauren cut her 2 bottom molars! She is still growing hair. she prefers her grandmother to both her mom and dad (except when she’s thirsty). Somehow grandmom is able to get Lauren to bed by 9:30 without any momma-moo (nursing)! Ray and I are jealous.

3/8/93
Good news. Lauren is cutting her two bottom molars and the past two days have been a bit trying! Pointing and “ah, ah, ah”ing, not her tolerant self. We miss our smiley girl. She is really drooling and constantly chewing on her fingers and has nipped me once or twice! this too shall pass.

3/12
Lauren waves bye bye now (before it was a pointing that we called waving). She also shakes her head yes and no and has forgotten a few times that she can’t stand unassisted and caught herself just standing. Tell grandmom she finally will sit thru a book (Nibs the hamster).

Its getting quiet in the bedroom, Lauren must have worn Ray down. He is probably asleep and she’s probably recharged her batteries.

3/19/93
Mom, Lauren has been pulling up the purple pansey-type flowers we planted. I guess she saw us pulling weeds and can’t yet distinguish between “good” and “bad” vegetation (and maybe for good reason)

Lauren just gagged on a wad of scotch tape she swallowed. Up it came.

Yesterday I got a call from a woman I met at the La Leche meeting (she has a 6 month old daughter and lives a few blocks from here and has had a kidney infection–you should remember hearing about her mom). She was feeling so badly (dizzy and vomiting) that she was worried about being able to care for her daughter and asked me to come by to give her a hand. Wow! 2 kids at once. Lauren was fascinated by my new “toy”. She was delighted by the 6 month old. It was really fun to see them together. Lauren would have liked to touch Katherines eyeballs, and I was tempted myself. They were bright blue (sky blue). Unfortunately, the house was baby-proofed for a stationary baby, not Lauren. 90% of the walls were filled with bookshelves. The kinds of books that come with book-jackets (read “tearable”). I sure had my hands full. Lauren is such a great kid. She makes me smile all the time. I really think she has developed a sense of humor. She knows just when to give me a devilish smirk.

Did I already tell you the story about Ray trying to wear Lauren out by making her do laps around the inside of the house pushing her wooden cart full of blocks? I was doing dishes and I heard Ray saying “yah, mule, keep-um rolling, yah, yah, move along there….” I saw Ray walking backwards in front of Lauren and the cart acting like he was keeping a wagon train going with his mock whip. He counted the laps. At about lap 10, I noticed she was on her knees pushing the cart, by lap 12 she was crawling behind it holding on with one hand while still pushing it. You are probably wondering, did she fall directly to sleep after such an exertion? no. did she sleep particularly soundly that night? No. Did she sleep late? No. Does she want to do this all the time now? Yes! In fact at gym-kids on Wednesday. She insisted on pushing their cart most of the class. when this little boy wanted to share, she wouldn’t . she did, however finally agree to push the boy in the cart over the mats. She had to push really hard and she loved it. I noticed her little calves feel like there are ping-pong ball muscles in them.

Gotta go, she is after the keyboard again.

4/5/93
Well, Lauren is doing some real walking. For those who don’t understand the distinction between walking and real walking, I shall explain. Walking is anything that resembles putting one foot in front of the other while in a semi-upright position. Real walking, however, is getting from point A to point B and remaining upright the entire time (no lunging). At a freind’s birthday party Lauren did some real walking. She loves an audience. I played dress up with her and had her in this adorable pink party dress with her patent leather shoes. She had a hard time crawling in it but she needs to learn early that appearance is everything (function follows form).

Some of her favorite things to do: play with balloons, pop bubbles, pull things from shelves and deposit them on the floor, remove the plastic index tabs from my rolodex, play with venitian blinds, stand up without any support (what a big smile), muscle her way in with the big kids (she is not at all intimidated by older children), stare up with goo-goo eyes at max, and of course SMILE.

Lauren has such straight legs. Her right foot leads and is pointed forward pretty much, while the left is more pointed out and dragged along. Not enough to be concerned that there is a problem though!

For Lauren’s birthday, we are thinking of spending the day in the park with her. I figured if she could talk she would ask to spend her birthday with her parents’ undivided attention. In order for that to happen we can’t have a lot of other people or kids.

Ray + I met with the Santa Cruz co-housing group this Sunday. A nice, environmentally conscious group who love children. Needless to say Lauren soon became the center of attention. I’m beginning to see how really special she is. She is a magnet and a joy to people. AND there were other kids there–but she was the attention getter. We got lucky!!!!! Now I’m just her mom, but I think she stole the show at her friend’s b-day party. Ray commented on the ride home, with great pride, that he has never met a child with such a delightful personality as hers!

Did you all know that I have to type with one finger when online because I am almost always nursing or holding Lauren at these times? Thats why I skip using caps. (Editors note: I have been changing them to capitals.)

4/11/93
I almost tried to blow off doing an Easter basket for Lauren since she is so young and wouldn’t remember anyway. That was until I rec’d the Easter item for her from auntie Kate.

6/9/93
I am reading the book “The Continuum Concept” (which was written as almost an anthropological study of “non-modern” civilizations and how they treat their children). I find the info. fascinating because these people have not been affected by the latest parenting “fads” and instead rely on their natural instincts. They have an innate belief that a child’s strongest instinct is self-preservation and that as long as it is not undermined (by teaching a child not to trust their own feelings, etc.) they will be safe. Hmmmm. Apparently they do not “child-proof” their huts or forest. Children have access to knives, wander around deep ditches and streams, etc. without getting hurt. And, I believe this, however I’m afraid Ray and I are guilty of undermining Lauren’s trust in herself and the world around her already! So, this is my dilemma.

I am trying to always remain as calm as possible and really think twice before I use the big NO. For some reason the big NO has the opposite effect. It feels to Lauren to be a game of intensity and she is delighted to join in. For example: Lauren approaches the TV plug and looks to be about to give it a tug (why not, she is really really into putting keys into locks and pulling them out). I use my “reserved for emergency” voice and say seriously “no, not for Lauren” I whisk her away and show her something that is for Lauren. well she is thrilled and cannot wait to get back to the TV. This seems not to be working. And, this is funny to me because there are two blue glass bowls, very tempting and very accessible in our living room that Lauren has never messed with. And I have to believe it’s because when she was much littler I just gave her a calm “not for Lauren”. I was calm because somehow I didn’t really care if she knocked the bowls over( it must have happened around the time I was reading “The Continuum Concept”) but to this day she seems to respect the bowls.

I read a lot and I have found a few authors whose philosophy feels right to me. They have a great deal of respect for the child as having complete sovereignty over their body and actions. They feel the only thing that an adult possesses that a child does not is the knowledge to know the consequences of their actions, and that is why we are around, to tell them that if they touch something it is hot and will burn. Not really to say that stoves are off limits, but to let them make their own decisions (good in theory but tougher in practice). My thoughts were that this would be really terrific just as soon as Lauren is old enough to reason. That felt to be a long way off until yesterday when I put Lauren in her car seat (on a very hot day) and she touched the side of the seat with her hand and said “ha” which I interpreted as “hot”. I believe that is what she meant! So maybe they are more present then we think.

I am always amazed at how older children start to acknowledge babies when they are about 9 months old. Before that time they really treat them as extensions of their mom’s (or whoever is holding them), or like a vegetable or inanimate object. But, when they finally see them they treat them as if they are much smarter and more aware then we do as adults. I have seen this happen over and over again at La Leche meetings or at gym kids or in the park. 4 year-olds are giving simple commands to 12 month-olds like “lets play under the jungle gym” or “give me that green ball”. They must see what is hidden to us. I’m trying to assume that Lauren can understand a lot of what we are saying and that her actions are not ever intended to defy us, they are her best choice at the time. So getting back to the TV cord, I think she just stumbled on the coolest game, it’s called touch this and you get mom’s undivided attention real fast and real intense. What fun. Who wouldn’t want to try it again?

So what do I do? I’m trying to avoid instilling fear into Lauren, fear of TV cords, fear of stoves, etc. We adults have too many things to fear and 99.9% of all the junk we think about over and over and over is just fear-related worry. I would hope that Lauren could grow up and be able to make decisions based on how she thinks and feels about something and not because she is afraid of what will or won’t happen.

These are big thoughts and again they may sound good on paper but fall apart in reality, but I have to believe that Lauren is a spiritual person and in charge of her destiny. Oh, and I’m thinking of getting a leash!

7/8/93
Hi all:
Here’s what’s new here. I had a breast infection (it got blocked) but my pal Lauren unclogged it by her relentless pursuit of sucking. I t was kinda gross to see this little clot of milk on her lip once she had vacuumed it out of the clogged milk duct.
She has several words she uses all the time:
mama
uh oh
dat (what’s that)
shit (hmmm)

She is now making sentences like ” uh oh, shit” , “shit mama”, and my favorite “dat shit”.

We just sent for a potty for Lauren, even though it is way too early to “train” her. We need a chair for her and I found in the “Natural Baby Co” catalog this chair-like potty. It’s so cute. It’s “just like daddy” because it has a toilet paper dispenser and a magazine rack attached to it. Plus it looks like a little wooden chair with a hole in it. So i plan to make a cushion for it. I figure I will get her used to her potty chair. Although, I hope when she is older she doesn’t go to other people’s houses and remove their cushions and poop there!

Lauren sometimes say “doodle” so we call her “doodle” which we shorten to “do”, which sometimes turns into “do do”, which we immediately change to “bo bo”, which eventually comes out “streudel”. So we call her “streudel” (even though we can’t spell it).

Well gang, Lauren has been sleeping across my lap while I have typed this and I’m starting to feel her stir a bit. So I better wrap this up.