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I must be the worst mother on MKP



 
 
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  #11  
Old October 21st 04, 05:32 AM
Wendy
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Oh, ((((Hugs)))) Amy! You don't sound like a bad mother at all. You just
sound like the mother of a 3 1/2 month old infant. You are being too
hard on yourself! IMO being some kind of domestic goddess doesn't have
anything to do with being a good mom. I'd also like to congratulate you
on breastfeeding. I really admire that. : )

Wendy

  #12  
Old October 21st 04, 06:28 AM
Nikki
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Mum of Two wrote:
Everyone here is so perfect!


Nah - it only seems that way when you are going through a rough patch.

It seems you all wear your babies
constantly, co-sleep with them when you aren't wearing them, rock
them for hours on end while they scream,


FWIW I co-sleep and rock mine and most the time I wonder what the hell I did
wrong to get us all in such a predicament, lol.

Do you ever get hormonal, overtired? What is
your breaking point? Do you have one?


Sure. We all have breaking points.

I don't wear DD. She amuses herself a lot under a playgym.


Well amusing herself is a *good* thing and should be encouraged! Who cares
if you wear her or not. That is a method of meeting a babies needs. If you
choose not to use that method..so be it. You meet her needs in some other
way that works better for you two.

In fact, I
don't even think she likes me because she cries and struggles when I
pick her up sometimes.


Awww - that is normal baby stuff. 3.5 months was a hard age for me with
Hunter. Hang in there. By 6 months things were a lot better for me and
there is more positive feedback from the baby too.

She doesn't get enough tummy-time,
so she's starting to crawl upside down.


Oh goodness. That cracked me up ;-). I would say she is very advanced if
she is doing that!

I can't/won't cook nor bake -


So what? She doesn't care what you cook. She doesn't even eat, lol. She
won't care for quite some time. When she is old enough to care, you can let
her make her own food ;-) Just remember that for every messy floor and
frozen pizza there is a mom who is reading a story, grabbing a moment for
herself to recharge for her family, getting some sleep so she is more
patient, playing hide and seek with the kids upstairs instead of picking up
the toys, or spending time with her spouse to strengthen their marriage. My
house is hardly ever messy and sometimes it should be.

I am
frequently hormonal and irrational, and constantly contradict myself.
I don't make a lot of sense most of the time, even to me.


Some of this is to be expected post-partum and adjusting to life with a
newborn. If you feel like you are really spinning out of control, speak
with your doctor. PPD, mild or even suspected, is not something to fool
around with.

At least she's breast-fed and side-slept, so she'll have a good immune
system and a nice shaped head when she starts therapy.


Tee hee.

Hang in there Amy.

--
Nikki


  #13  
Old October 21st 04, 07:59 AM
Mum of Two
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"Larry McMahan" wrote in message
...
Mum of Two writes:
: Everyone here is so perfect!

Damn right!

: It seems you all wear your babies constantly,
: co-sleep with them when you aren't wearing them, rock them for hours on

end
: while they scream, and manage all this even with a dozen other children
: besides and a successful career.

Oh, for a minute there, I though you were talking about me.
And, uh, they don't scream. After all they're perfect, too!


Oh, duh, of course!

: Still others of you are _always right_ or at
: least have an annoying way of posting which makes it appear that way to
: everyone who reads you, myself included.

So you ARE talking about me after all!


Yeah, you guessed it ;-)

: Do you ever get hormonal,
: overtired? What is your breaking point? Do you have one?

So you know me personally, too. BTDT. There right now.


Can men get hormonal? Is that allowed?

: I don't wear DD. She amuses herself a lot under a playgym. In fact, I

don't
: even think she likes me because she cries and struggles when I pick her

up
: sometimes. She cries herself to sleep a lot, in her own room. I tell her

off
: when she bites me. She has cat hair in her nappy, and sometimes in her
: mouth. She doesn't get enough tummy-time, so she's starting to crawl

upside
: down. She would rather watch TV, at three & a half months, than look at

us.

And why are you telling us this? At least she's a fast learner.


To prove what a bad parent I am, I guess, in case any one had any doubts.

: I can't/won't cook nor bake - the other mothers at my coffee group

thought
: my scones were biscuits. I don't do sewing either. Actually, I don't do

much
: of anything. I am frequently hormonal and irrational, and constantly
: contradict myself. I don't make a lot of sense most of the time, even to

me.

Look at the bright side, at least you are consistent!


Yes, consistency is important or so I've heard. But just every now and again
I can be nice too, which will probably screw her up further.

: At least she's breast-fed and side-slept, so she'll have a good immune
: system and a nice shaped head when she starts therapy.

If this were mkb, I would say you added this last bit just so that your
post would be on topic. Since it is not, I'm termnially confused.


I did say I was confusing. Did I claim to make sense? No.


Ya' know. You Kiwi's have a really strange sense of humor.


LOL! Except I wasn't joking.

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


  #14  
Old October 21st 04, 08:00 AM
Jenrose
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"Mum of Two" wrote in message
...
Everyone here is so perfect! It seems you all wear your babies constantly,


Semi-constantly. The rest of the time I have a family member around who's
nuts about babies and holding the baby. This is an unfair advantage for
me...g It is also easier on me to wear a baby than to carry a baby, and
ultimately easier to wear a baby than to try to get them to accept other
modes of parenting. I wear them because I'm lazy, not because I want them to
gain more weight or grow up extra smart or something.


co-sleep with them when you aren't wearing them,

Has a lot to do with a complete inability for me to think at night. I tried
putting baby in the crib... kept forgetting and falling asleep while
feeding. Finally gave up and went with it. I cosleep because it is far more
work for me not to. This is not true for everyone.

rock them for hours on end


Nah. Never. Not that patient. Dad is the one who likes rocking babies. I
just stick 'em in a sling and go.

while they scream,


I've been blessed with parenting two babies who didn't scream much. Of
course, I attribute this to the cosleeping and babywearing, but I've been
informed by many mothers that I'm just lucky and my turn will come. Ah well,
let me hold my illusions while I can.g

and manage all this even with a dozen other children


Hah! I have a kid per decade. This helps with babysitting issues... (when my
first was born, my sister was almost 9...) DD will turn 12 when this one is
3 months old.

besides and a successful career.

Quit my job and took an income hit and we're scrimping and saving and
spending our retirement assets for me to stay home. I tried working and
parenting a baby. It wasn't my idea of a good time. I want to *enjoy* this
baby. Unless I can do a career that revolves around baby (like teaching
babywearing classes), it's not going to happen.

Those of you who don't have a career cook,

Once a week. Dad cooks 3-4 nights a week. Dh cooks once a week. Sometimes we
go out for dinner. And then there are The Nights No One Cooks. Otherwise
known as "Catch".

bake,

Mom's on South Beach. I can't eat dairy. Baking is definitely NOT on our
list.

make your own clothes, baby products,

I'm getting paid to make baby products. Now, I'm only working 1-5 hours per
week, but still. Making my own clothes--especially nursing clothes... is
simply a survival measure dictated by a) not working and b)not working.
Can't afford store-bought nursing clothes unless I get 'em at a conference
on closeout.

and are basically Martha Stewart
minus the criminal record.


At our house we have an exclamation.... "Well! Gild my pinecones and call me
Martha!" Said sarcastically any time someone gets "extra fancy" about
something beyond what others in the family consider sane. The only time I
was accused of this recently was planning for my wedding. That time, it was
probably warrented. Never again!


Still others of you are _always right_ or at
least have an annoying way of posting which makes it appear that way to
everyone who reads you, myself included. Do you ever get hormonal,
overtired? What is your breaking point? Do you have one?

Heh. I don't ever get hormonal, or whiny. Not ever. eyeroll There are some
things I do well. Parenting newborns, I have a knack for. Parenting
preschoolers... not so much. After preschool? Knack again. And pregnancy...
I know a lot about pregnancy but am *lousy* at actually doing it. I hate
being pg. I whine. I kvetch. If it wasn't for the whole birth and newborns
and breastfeeding thing, I'd never, ever get pg.

I have afternoons when I just sit and cry, for no good reason whatsoever,
even though I'm pretty generally happy about my life.

I don't wear DD. She amuses herself a lot under a playgym.


That's okay if it works for you. Both the kids I've parented spent some
floor time in front of busy boxes or under gyms. Wasn't a lot. Was really
humbling at one point when my foster son kvetched *until* I put him down. We
do what works. My daughter was happy if I carried her and not so much if I
didn't. So I carried her. It was easier having her happy...

In fact, I don't
even think she likes me because she cries and struggles when I pick her up
sometimes.

Sometimes, but not all the time, I take it. Sometimes kids don't want to be
held. There are kids who want to nurse for 5 minutes tops and spend the rest
of their babyhoods looking at the world. And there are kids who do it the
opposite way, look at the world for five minutes and then nurse for the
next 90 just to recover.

She cries herself to sleep a lot, in her own room.

Personally, my nerves couldn't take it. If it works for you, so be it. My
cousin was here a month ago, with her son, and did let him cry it out at one
point. I did NOT say one word about it, even though it's not how I'd parent,
because I have no history with her child, no background into how they got to
that point, and some kids just need some time to wind down before sleeping.
We do what works for us.

I tell her off
when she bites me.

Good. I screamed bloody murder when dd bit me, dropped her and didn't pick
her up again for a while.

She has cat hair in her nappy, and sometimes in her
mouth. She doesn't get enough tummy-time,


Cat hair is good for them! Helps 'em not develop allergies and all that! And
tummy time... Never bothered much with it.

so she's starting to crawl upside
down. She would rather watch TV, at three & a half months, than look at
us.
I can't/won't cook nor bake - the other mothers at my coffee group thought
my scones were biscuits. I don't do sewing either. Actually, I don't do
much
of anything.


lol! I can relate. Not pregnant, not wih a newborn, I get up at relatively
normal times, am active, walk for exercise, work, etc... Pregnant? I'm lucky
if I get out of bed before 2, and if I do an hour of productive activity in
the day it's noteworthy. The only reason I'm getting sewing done right now
is that someone's paying me to do it, and I conned my mother into helping
(she's getting paid too) because until I brought her in on the project, I
got *nothing* significant done.

You do a coffee group? That's more than I'm managing, socially, right now.
And you baked for it?

I am frequently hormonal and irrational, and constantly
contradict myself. I don't make a lot of sense most of the time, even to
me.
At least she's breast-fed and side-slept, so she'll have a good immune
system and a nice shaped head when she starts therapy.


My mother was watching Dr. Phil the other day and commented how she raised
both of us wrong according to him. I just looked at her and said, "Aw hell,
mom! You know that as parents we do the best we can, and then our kids work
it out in therapy like everyone else!"

You're breastfeeding. IMO, there is *nothing* more critical you can do for
your child. Do I think kids benefit from a lot of physical contact? Sure.
But breastfeeding alone will meet the majority of that need for many kids.
If your parenting style works for you, lovely.

Did I mention that I'm a *horrible* housecleaner? I take that back... I'm
horrible at keeping my own house clean. I'm pretty competent at cleaning
other people's houses where I'm not attached to the junk. Laundry? Terrible.
Mopping or sweeping? Lucky if it happens once every 3 months. Bathrooms?
Those get done more frequently, but only when there's a nasty ring in the
toilet. I don't even do anything in the kitchen beyond cook the occasional
meal. DH does the dishes once a week. DD does "damage control" on the dishes
once a week on a different day.

If this were alt.housecleaning, I'd be the one wringing my hands, except
that I'm so bad about housecleaning that I've ceased to worry about it and
don't even know if there *is* an alt.housecleaning. Parenting is one of my
schticks, something I have a knack for, and I've found a lot of things that
work *for me*. Do I care if people follow all my advice? Not really. I put
it out there in case it helps someone who finds that what they are doing
*doesn't* work for them. Most of my parenting style is based not on the path
of least resistance, but on the path of least work in the long run. I'm a
pragmaticly lazy person.

Jenrose


  #15  
Old October 21st 04, 08:03 AM
Jenrose
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"Nan" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 03:55:45 GMT, Irrational Number
scribbled:

Chotii wrote:

People do not see my living room floor, which has not been vacuumed in
quite
possibly 2 weeks.


That's it? 2 weeks? Try a few months here...
(Oops, maybe I should not have admitted that!)

-- Anita --


Hehe, you ladies are making me feel better about *my* floor ;-)


We don't have dust bunnies. They're older. They're bigger. They're Dust
Mastodons.

Jenrose


  #16  
Old October 21st 04, 08:06 AM
Mum of Two
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"Chotii" wrote in message
...

People comment to me on what a gentle, considerate, even-tempered mother I
am.

People do not see me totally losing my temper and snarling at children at
8pm when I Just Can't Take It Anymore.

People tell me what bright, outgoing children I have, and boggle at how I
juggle them all, and cooking, and sewing, and homeschooling.

People do not see how many hours of television a day my children watch.

People do not see my living room floor, which has not been vacuumed in

quite
possibly 2 weeks. In fact, if someone came here, they *could* not see my
living room floor, because it's too cluttered.


God, that's good to know. I've tacked as much as I can on the walls and you
still can't see the floor. But it does save time vacuuming.

People do see the dresses I have sewn (for $10), and compliment them.

Those
would of course also compliment similar dresses that cost $45 in a
catalogue. But I can't afford them. My daughters like wearing dresses.
Shrug.


I can't afford stuff like that either, so I shop secondhand. I'm more likely
to sew my fingers together than come up with anything wearable. I guess my
point is, you can. If I had all the time in the world and a state of the art
machine, I couldn't.

I cook. Cooking from scratch for a family of 6 costs a heck of a lot less
than pre-prepared meals. This is a matter of frugality and financial
survival, not perfection.


Well, I didn't say I could afford packet meals either. If baked beans,
frozen veg (which seems cheaper than fresh these days) and microwave
potatoes count as cooking, I guess I cook too. But somehow I get the feeling
your cooking is more exciting than that. Men & dogs will eat anything if
they're hungry enough, children won't.

Why, exactly, do you call such things perfection? Is it your idea of
perfection? It isn't mine. It's just survival the best I know how.


I guess I'm used to spending 30 hours + per week slaving away for a meager
wage and keeping lots of people happy. Keeping two other people happy
shouldn't seem such a big task after that, but somehow it is.

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


  #17  
Old October 21st 04, 08:07 AM
Mum of Two
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"Plissken" wrote in message
news:ahEdd.782612$M95.399923@pd7tw1no...
Every baby and mom is different. I'm sure you are a wonderful
mother.

Nadene

Thanks Nadene, even if it isn't true it temporarily makes me feel better.

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


  #18  
Old October 21st 04, 08:08 AM
Mum of Two
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"Tori M." wrote in message
...

I know how you feel.. Honnestly! My breaking point is about 1/3 on an inch
these days. I am a horrible house keeper and I dont make anything myself.
I must admit I can cook anything in a box though I usualy dont Well

other
then normal every day meals. I did not wear my daughter and dont really

plan
to wear the next one unless he NEEDS to be worn. I would do almost

anything
to make him not be a screamer like Bonnie was Though as I have said the
solution to that was to put her down..
I cant even claim the breastfeeding thing but to date Bonnie also has a
perfectly shaped head to carry to therapy when she gets older

Tori


At least I'm not alone :-) If you find a good child psych, send him/her over
here when Bonnie's done.

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


  #19  
Old October 21st 04, 08:10 AM
Mum of Two
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"Irrational Number" wrote in message
ink.net...
Chotii wrote:

People do not see my living room floor, which has not been vacuumed in

quite
possibly 2 weeks.


That's it? 2 weeks? Try a few months here...
(Oops, maybe I should not have admitted that!)


Mine gets done when I start to find dust bunnies bigger than Ana's feet
bound together with strands of my hair - I'm shedding a lot lately -
trailing from her toes. Who's counting?

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


  #20  
Old October 21st 04, 08:16 AM
Mum of Two
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"Wendy" wrote in message
...
Oh, ((((Hugs)))) Amy! You don't sound like a bad mother at all. You just
sound like the mother of a 3 1/2 month old infant. You are being too
hard on yourself! IMO being some kind of domestic goddess doesn't have
anything to do with being a good mom. I'd also like to congratulate you
on breastfeeding. I really admire that. : )

Wendy


Thanks Wendy, that's really kind. It's not just being a good mother, but I
feel the house is my domain now, and the pressure to be a good partner as
well. It didn't used to bother me, because I used to work longer hours than
DH, so we had more of a flatmate type relationship where the house was
concerned. I worry that now that I'm at home, he's going to want more of a
Stepford Wife personality type, after all now I'm sitting at home on my a$$
all day, it doesn't really matter if I'm smart or not.

--
Amy,
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
email: barton . souto @ clear . net . nz (join the dots!)
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/c/carlos2002/


 




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