7 Month Stats

Well.. I am a week and a half late but here are his 7 Month Stats as promised!

18 lbs and 28.25 inches.

Tomorrow we are travelling on a quest for a new car seat since he is officially 0.75 inches away from outgrowing his current one. Crazy.

First middle of the night ER visit

Well it had to happen eventually, I took Eli into ER tonight. Fortunately, he is fine. Just a mild case of the croup. But I promised myself that by choosing not to vaccinate I would be very careful with any kind of sickness to get him checked out promptly in case he needs care.

Unfortunately, I am also sick. So now we have the window wide open and I'm a little bit freezing to be honest. Winding down from the hospital visit too. It's definitely an adrenaline rush, much like when we were rushing to the hospital to have him 4.5 weeks early. I love how quiet it usually is first thing in the morning, makes me have hope that not too many people are hurt or sick.

On a separate note, I think I mentioned Eli is crawling everywhere and getting into everything. He really began to crawl 2 days after his 7 Month birthday. I count real, actual crawling as being able to crawl a couple feet without sitting or lying on his tummy. It's so amazing to watch him go from sitting to crawling to sitting, rolling onto his back and then to his tummy and then sitting. He's a lot happier now that he can get to the things he wants too (whether mommy wants him to or not).

Crazy thing is, he's starting to pull himself up. He was sitting next to his Daddy (who was lying on his side) and he wanted the kleenex box which was on the other side of Daddy. So he gets a grip on his legs and stands up. A bit wobbly but wow! I'm in for trouble with this one. He's just been ready and early for everything it feels like. Except getting a darn tooth! Not that I'm in a rush to have teeth in certain sensitive areas but I would love if he had something to show for his teething pains.

Well it's both late and early at the same time so I will go back to bed. Wish us both a speedy recovery!!! There is no rest for sick moms after all!

The paths are many, the truth is one.

Hello friends! My little guy is 7 months old!!! No stats to speak of at this moment, maybe I will weigh him next week.

Now that we have the logistical stuff out of the way, I want to get to more of a spiritual topic. The title of this blog post is "the paths are many, the truth is one." This means things to me on many different levels. I came across this quote in my yoga teacher training and the all encompassing definition is of course there are many paths to God but as long as you're trying to find him/her/it you will be just fine. I don't love all encompassing definitions however because I think that defeats the purpose of this quote all together. I think each person's reality or how they see the world is totally different from the next person's so that quote could mean a million and one different things to any given person. But I'm getting kind of off track here on a spiritual tangent and will reel myself back in.

Parenting. It's tough. It's the hardest, most rewarding, trying, incredible, joyful, emotional, heart-wrenching journey. The ups and downs are many. The love is more than any love I've ever felt before. The fact that one tiny person can make you want, or even NEED to be a better person just blows my mind. This little tiny being has flipped my life on its head so fast, making me question every decision I make, always eventually coming back to the fact that I need to just trust my gut all along to make the right one.

I've come across many situations lately with many people on my decisions as a parent. Some for my decisions, some against, some neutral, some nothing to do with me at all but make me really think about my decisions (and the people's they are concerning). One particular one that struck a cord with me today was "Peaceful Parenting's" blog post highlighting an Old Navy onesie that boasts "Formula Powered". I usually agree with this organizations posts and opinions but I often disagree with how they go about displaying said opinions. Let me get one thing clear first of all:

I am a babywearing, non-circumsizing, inactivist, co-sleeping, non-vaccinating, attachment parenting, baby food making, cloth-diapering, mid-wife using, vegetarian, breast is best, breast-feeding, Mama!!!!! And I am very proud of these decisions!

Let me get something else clear:

I will never make you feel bad if you choose not to do any of this things I believe in.

Who would I be to tell you "you should be breast-feeding"? Or "You are hurting your child by vaccinating them?" There's no possible way that I can tell you you are living your truth wrong. There is a path for each and every one of us and we need to follow it. All we can do in this world is respect each other on our journeys. If one of these topics comes up, I am more than willing to give my opinion on it but I have realized I need to speak in a particular kind of way as of late. "I believe" works. Or "I feel" or "I try to do this". Perhaps if I was in the majority section of these topics such as vaccinations I wouldn't be able to keep this frame of mind. It is difficult to argue with established systems such as the medical system where we've been taught to respect opinions of Doctors and studies done. I have a different view on health than the majority, although I do believe this demographic is changing.

Back to the Old Navy Onesie post. It really discourages me that the simple term "Formula Powered" has caused so many posts saying "that is sad" "that is wrong" "I'm boycotting Old Navy" etc. A lot of babies are formula powered. And how is this different from the onesies Peaceful Parenting pushes all the time stating things like "I'm a breast-feed, intact, co-sleeping, lucky guy" (or girl)? To me peaceful parenting should be concentrating on issues of respect. Peace to me is respecting that everyone has their own rights. You can definitely post information but to have such a blatant bias slant on everything is just ridiculous. Someone commented on this post saying that "the breastfeeding mafia" is getting all rallied up which made me laugh. And it's true instead of trying to push what they believe to be best perhaps they should respect that Mom's have a hard enough time with their own little inner nagging voice and they don't need anyone else telling them how to be a "proper" Mom.

At any rate I do not ever think I know better about what to do for your child. I can only know that I am doing what's best for mine and hope you respect that. If you ask me I will tell you what I do and why even if my only reason is because it feels right for me. If this influences your decision then maybe you were ready to hear that bit of information and it was part of your journey. At any rate the paths are many and we each need to make that path towards our own truth, whatever that is and whatever "truth" means to you.