The trip went well!

YAY! My trip went well, despite it being SOOO long and Shannen was pretty cooperative. There were times that were more difficult than others, since her schedule is pretty off right now, but altogether it was better than I expected.

I’m trying to sleep during the day but I simply can’t. Maybe it’s the daylight during what is usually nightime or maybe it’s the fact that the Pug Love comes up and gets me!

Yup, the “pug love” is my mother’s two pug dogs. They are just the sweetest little things in the world. Shannen adores them and wants to play with them all the time. And they love her too (of course we did teach her from a very young age “gentle with the doggie”).

The pug love likes to get me when I’m trying to lay down and attack me with kisses. My husband doesn’t like pugs, but I adore them. Aren’t they precious?

 

Tommorrow is a BIG day

Shannen and I are heading off to the States for my baby sister’s wedding.

I should rephrase it “Shannen and I are heading off to the States on 13 HOUR FLIGHT”

The good thing is that I’ve done this before when Shannen was around 11 months. It wasn’t half bad as long as I was prepared for it. That means lots of books, lots of snacks, toys and puppets. Thankfully the flight departs at 6pm and Shannen’s bedtime is at 8pm so it shouldn’t be too bad.

I’m excited about going back to the states. All the shopping, my family, the fact that everyone speaks English. I mean I love Japan but sometimes it’s hard to get around when no one can understand you (I’m sure the Japanese feel the same way when they come to US).

So probably for the next month or so, while I am in the states, you may not see much on this blog. And that’s ok, I have a life other than the blog. When I get back I should post some adorable pictures of the littlest flower girl at the Wedding.

I’m just hoping she cooperates

 

 

Let’s close this

Ok, so apparently someone linked to me from a childfree blog. Fine, fine, fine. But let me just say..

I’m tired of this issue. It’s really not relevant.

I realize I was wrong in judging the childfree by choice. You don’t need to give me a reason why you are childfree. I don’t require a reason to be childfree. You don’t need permission. You can live your life as you please.

So I’m not childfree and I really don’t care much if you are or aren’t. I care alot more about people being bad parents than those who choose to not have children. I fear those type of people are far more harmful, to tell you truth.

So can we just lay this issue to rest! Once and for all! Please!

 

 

 

Celebrating the joyful spirit of your child

Recently I came across a book. I had heard about it from a friend that it had *some* good in it. It is called “To Train Up a Child” by Mike and Debi Pearl. Unfortunately, as soon as I found out more about the book I realized that this kind of literature is dangerous for parents. 

Now, just as a disclaimer, if you have read the book and found pieces of it you liked, that’s ok. But having read the book (there is a copy online where you can read it in entirety) I found the bad strongly outweighed the good. If you liked the book, that’s not a judgement on you as a parent.I’m sure that many good parents have read the book and liked it. I’m just telling you how that book made me feel.

The whole premise of “To Train Up a Child” in the first chapter is to get your child to do whatever you want him to do on command from the time they are around 10 months old. Unfortunately, most 10 month olds don’t understand commands, apparently that plagues the Pearls because they believe a 10 month old has the comprehensive capability of a 4 year old.  The opening of the book differentiates between “good” children and “bad” children. “Good” children, according to the Pearls, leave mommy and daddy alone for 2 hours straight and mind their own business, unless they need to go to the bathroom. “Bad” children stay around their parents and don’t want to leave and whine (all normal things for a young toddler to do, which in this case Mike Pearl is referring to).

Truthfully, I wouldn’t want my daughter to just leave me alone for 2 hours straight. I think it’d be kind of strange if she did, it would probably show a lack of attachment in our relationship. What parent doesn’t want to be with their young child and what young child doesn’t want to be with their parent? God has given a mother and an infant a natural bond and attachment. To discourage that bond and to force the child away from the mother is unnatural.

Apparently, also according to the Pearls, your young toddler should be able to sit still in church for the length of an entire sermon and not say peep. Now there may be some toddlers out there who are capable of doing this, but many, including my daughter, are not. That is why most churches have nurseries because they know it’s unreasonable to expect a 1-3 year old to be able to sit still throughout an entire sermon and not make a fuss. There is no reason to punish your child for getting antsy in a sermon if he or she is not of the age where he can really control himself very well.

Another thing I found disturbing was the usage of spanking on babies that refuse to go to sleep. Babies don’t refuse to go to sleep because they are being disobedient or rebellious, they refuse to go to sleep because they can’t yet get themselves to fall asleep on their own. The Pearls advocate spanking a baby who gets up when placed in his crib. They advocate spanking the poor infant until he learns to lie still in his crib. Excuse me but, what kind of cruelty is this? Infants do this, not out of rebellion, but because they are frustrated that they can’t put themselves to sleep. Scaring your poor child into sleeping isn’t going to make them sleep any better and it isn’t going to build or nurture the relationship between parent and child.

Another disturbing motto of the Pearls is “Don’t babyproof your house, houseproof your baby”.  Hello? Don’t you know that infants and young toddlers are curious little beings? Don’t you know that their instinct is to explore and investigate their surroundings? How then can you expect a young infant to not try to grab at what is in plain sight?  Now, I do believe that you should use NO if you are at someone else’s house and they are trying to grab something they shouldn’t. Yet at your house it is a different environment. Children must have their boundaries, they must have their places they can explore and be safe. If everything is a NO then there is no fun and there is no exploration. There will always be NOs, regardless if you babyproof or not. However, if you don’t at least attempt to childproof, all you will be saying is NO NO NO.

I just found the book very saddening in that it seems like the Pearls do not much like children. I just don’t understand why a family would want to have a child if all they did was send the child to another room for hours on end while they do whatever they want. Children should be loved and appreciated by parents. We should nurture their spirits and encourage their curiousity while still offering limits and boundaries to how far they can go. Yes we need to discipline children in a sensible manner, but we also need to let them be children. After all, children are only children for a short while, they are adults for a much longer period of time.

Today I saw my daughter gleefully dancing and spinning to music. She is such a joyful little being. I celebrate the fact that God made her antsy at times, very active, and very talklative. She is so enjoyable and fun. I am grateful to God for the fact that my daughter does not want to leave my side for 2 hours straight, that she rejoices when I return from going to the grocery store, that we have such a beautiful relationship. 

Yea, she may not be a “good” child in the eyes of the Pearls, but she is every bit of a blessing to me. 

Back to the gym..

Since my daughter’s nursing habits have been slowly cutting away( at this point we vary between 1-2 feedings a day), I have noticed that I’m not burning the breastfeeding calories the way I used to. It took my body awhile to adjust to the newfound fact that I don’t need to have the Starbucks Frappuchino bottles in the middle of the day because I’m STARVING. When I was nursing over 3 times a day, I noticed that weight stayed off rather quickly and I was hungry ALL THE TIME! I was snacking, snacking, snacking.

So I’ve tried to cut my snacking habits, at least a little, although I do like to go by the mantra of “when hungry, eat”. It helps me keep from overeating and I never feeling like I’m starving. At the same time with breastfeeding I had been lazy with my gym habits. Before I got pregnant I was a complete gym-nut and somedays I would run 7 miles a day AND teach Aerobics class (mind you, I was also eating like a horse to keep up with the caloric demands of such workouts). Now, subjecting Shannen to 7 miles in my jogging stroller is probably not a very nice thing to do. 

So we began going to the gym, I’m trying to make it between 3-5 times a week  (5 is way better, because I LOVE working out).  We have the military gym here and it has a room for moms like myself (because there is no gym daycare here, the Air Force is cheap like that). The room has an area that’s enclosed where the kids can play with toys and such, and then it has exercise equipment for the moms. Now I do wish the room was bigger, but it accomplishes its purpose, so long as you don’t go during a high traffic time.  Ever since I’ve started going this week I feel so much better. I just love that feeling I get when I’m working out, it’s amazing and I know I’m doing my body good by keeping healthy and fit.

It looks like the end

Nursing that is. Our breastfeeding days here are numbered and it makes me a little sad. I’m down to 2 times a day and I’m not ever feeling fullness anymore. I used to wake up with this full feeling and now it is gone. I know I’m drying up and I guess that is just part of life.

My daughter is 14 months now so I’m glad we at least made it to the year mark. I would have easily nursed her into her 2nd and 3rd year if that is what she really wanted, but she really doesn’t seem as interested. I know it’s cutting slowly and I’m glad for that because it gives me more time to accept that this part of our relationship is coming to a close. I know it’s ok, it’s just part of growing up for her. The weaning was all led by her, not by me and she just seemed like she is much less interested in it than she was awhile ago. And that is normal, who wants a 14 month old nursing like a newborn?

We’ll see what happens because next week I’m taking a trip to the states with her for a month. My sister’s getting married and I’m Maid of Honor and she’s the flower girl. Hopefully, we can still nurse at least a little during that time period, but if she does decide to wean within the trip it wouldn’t suprise me (though I’ve heard it’s relatively uncommon for children to wean on trips). I think if she doesn’t wean then, she will probably wean shortly thereafter.

I still enjoy our moments together. I guess our relationship is just changing and Shannen is changing from a very dependant baby to a less-dependant toddler. It’s amazing to watch her grow up, but sometimes you realize you want to cling to that dependant little baby in your arms. 

 

 

Miley Cyrus falls into the Hollywood trap

How unfortunate it is to see a young female star become a role model for children and then be seduced by the world of Hollywood.

Apparently some “racy” pictures of Hannah Montana star, Miley Cyrus surfaced on the web after she did a photoshoot for Vanity Fair. They show her appearing to be topless and covering herself up only with a sheet, exposing her bare back. The star is only 15.

I’m not a fan of “Hannah Montana” or anything and I don’t know much about Miley. I do know however that I was pleased to see what I thought of as a positive role model for young girls. See, I grew up in the era of Britney Spears when she came out with a little schoolgirl outfit and made that whole “I’m a virgin that likes to wear skimpy clothes” idea popular. I saw what the marketing of Britney Spears did to young girls and how overtly sexualized her image was. Now I see what a mess marketing a young teen girl as a lolita has done to poor Britney in the years afterwards. With the rise of Hannah Montana, I saw a girl being looked up to that was NOT overly sexualized and not scantily clad. Her lyrics were not risque and neither were her dance moves, I thought to myself “this is a step in the right direction”.

How sad it is for me to see that the media has taken this young starlet, which was providing a positive role model for girls, and is trying once again to overly sexualize her. Do young girls need to look up to someone sexy? Do young girls need to be fed the message that they should take off their tops and pose seductively for magazines at only 15? Do we really want our daughters to adopt this kind of self-esteem, this kind of image, that they must from a very young age be sexually appealing?

Miley claims she is a Christian and I really can’t vouch for her on that. I can say, however, that I don’t believe that allowing yourself to become a sex symbol at a very young age is the right thing to do. I don’t believe that you are sending the right message to your young fans. I don’t believe that this is the path that you want to go down on, although at 15 the world and it’s promises seemed very enticing to me also. Don’t trade your body for fame and fortune, it’s not worth it.

What makes us feminine?

I did a post on this a little while back, but I’m going to kind of touch on the same subject with a slight deviation.

I have to say the labels of “feminist” and “non-feminist” really get me. They’ve undergone so much transformation throughout the past decades that I can’t help but be baffled.  I’m for what you would call “gender equality”, I believe that men and women should get treated the same in the workforce and earn the same wages. I think men and women should be educated the same in schools and preferential treatment should not be given to one over the other. I believe both men and women should be able to go out and vote.

Yet, I also believe men and women are VERY, VERY different. That does not mean that men are neccessarily better than women or vice versa. It also doesn’t mean that men are neccessarily SMARTER than women or vice versa. It doesn’t even mean that women are better cooks than men are, I find many men that would gladly take over the kitchen to save their wife from creating some sort of strange concoction. 

Where we get into trouble is when we like to put one gender as somehow advanced over the other. Now there are basic skills and aptitudes characteristic to the sexes we can’t ignore. One is our physiology and how we were created. Women were created with more body fat, curves (some of us more than others), and an ability to bear children (again, this isn’t characteristic of ALL women, we all know there are exceptions). Men, on the other hand, were physically made much different, they are taller, oftentimes stronger, and leaner than their female counterparts. Yet men, at the same time, do not carry a baby for 9 months and then birth him or her (believe me, if you don’t about this already, this is a very, very difficult ordeal).  So there are basic differences we cannot ignore about the sexes.

Now I remember not long ago the President of Harvard University made some sort of statement about men being better abled at the sciences then women. I remember at the time being slightly ticked off at this sentiment because I was a Statistics major. In fact, all my life I had been pretty good at math.  And I can remember I never was quite able at knitting or crafting or any of those other things that are considered to be “feminine” abilities. I was completely feminine, I just wasn’t gifted in the area of craftiness.  I embrace everything about my feminity and I love the fact that God created me to be a woman, wife, and mother but I also love the fact that he gave me abilities in the sciences. And I don’t believe God discriminates based on gender when he endows us with certain abilities and aptitudes.

So we shouldn’t pressure our girls to be able to sew and knit when they clearly aren’t gifted in these areas. Biblical femininity and masculinity is not defined by what a woman or man is talented and gifted at.  God creates both men and women with different aptitudes and abilities for a reason.  Biblical femininity is something that is found in a true relationship with our creator. A woman after God’s own heart, who seeks to serve and help those around her. A woman who exemplifies Christ in all she does. A woman who embraces every aspect of how God has created her and uses her gifts and aptitudes to help those around her, including her family.  She doesn’t need to cook well or even knit, she just needs to love the Lord with all her heart, mind, and soul and be willing to submit herself to His will.

Disordered eating

A new study found some disturbing results on disordered eating, apparently it is quite widespread among US women. The Washington Post writes:

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of young American women report disordered eating behaviors, and 10 percent report symptoms of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder, a new survey finds.

The findings — from an online poll of more than 4,000 women between the ages of 25 and 45 — found that 75 percent eat, think and behave abnormally around food.

Wait..it gets even more disturbing:

More than 31 percent of women in the survey reported that in an attempt to lose weight, they had induced vomiting or had taken laxatives, diuretics or diet pills at some point in their lives.

For those who aren’t aware all of the above actions have pretty bad consequences on our bodies. Taking laxatives and diuretics to lose weight is NOT healthy and can cause dehydration. Inducing vomiting to lose weight can ruin teeth among other things. And taking diet pills to lose weight can have a debilitating effect on the human heart by raising the heart rate above where it should normally be. Yet 31% of women engage in it.

Other interesting findings:

67 percent of the women (excluding those with actual eating disorders) are trying to lose weight.
53 percent of dieters are already at a healthy weight and are still trying to lose weight.

So why are the majority of these women who are healthy already trying to lose weight? What is it about our culture that constantly is telling girls that they could always be prettier and skinnier?

39 percent of the women said concerns about what they eat or weigh interfere with their happiness.
37 percent of respondents said they regularly skip meals to try to lose weight.
27 percent said they’d be “extremely upset” if they gained just five pounds.
26 percent have eliminated entire food groups from their diet.
16 percent have dieted on 1,000 or fewer calories a day.
13 percent smoke to lose weight.
12 percent often eat when they’re not hungry, and 49 percent sometimes do.

Skipping meals does NOT help you lose weight,it only makes you 10 times hungrier and then you binge the next time you eat. Five pounds is what most would consider water weight. Ever weighed yourself in the morning? You always weigh less with light clothing and before you’ve eaten anything. Weigh yourself at night, after you are fully of food and your clothes are heavier. You notice at LEAST a 5 lbs. difference.

And dieting on fewer than 1,000 calories a day? Do these women know what they are doing to their bodies? They are depriving their bodies of the nutrition they NEED. You cannot get nutrition from a mere 1,000 calories. Besides the fact, I’ve met women who did the calorie counting method of dieting. Many of them would not resort to eating healthy but just saving all their calories for a piece of chocolate cake or some other dessert, which offered barely any nutrition. They would skip lunch and then go and binge on dessert, but they’d say they were OK because their calories were under 1,000 or so.

Smoking to lose weight is also a ridiculous method of weight loss. Yea, you may lose weight, but you may lose a lung or two while you are at it.

I wonder why this disordered eating is so prevalent among women. Could it be because of our “diet culture”? Diets are constantly pushed through books, media, and food products not to mention celebrities which always have a new “diet du jour”. How many times do you hear other women say “I’m on a diet”. WHY do we need to diet? Can’t we just eat healthy and exercise? Can’t we accept ourselves for who God created us to be and not try to fit in to some celebrity body type?

What about the kids?

I came across an older article today about Maternity Leave in the Army (and all other forces for that matter). I was seriously disturbed. Here’s an excerpt:

Connor was three months old when Shaw and her husband, Brad, a sergeant with the military police, began a 15-month deployment to Iraq, their second tour in the combat zone. Like thousands of other new military mothers, the 22-year-old Army medic faced a stark choice: Give birth and quickly leave the baby behind, or lose her job.

Many female soldiers hoping to start families face the prospect of missing most of their child’s first year. The Army grants six weeks of maternity leave before a new mother must return to her job or training, and four months until she can be sent to a war zone.

Four months until she be sent to a war zone. Six weeks of maternity leave. Hardly enough time to considerably bond with your child.

The article continues:

The challenges are exacerbated today because far more women and couples with children are serving. Nearly 40 percent of women on active duty have children.

Women make up about 15 percent of today’s military, and about half of them have deployed for the anti-terrorism campaign at least once since 2001, and more than 25,000 are deployed in that fight now.

This seriously disturbs me because there has to be an end to this. There has to be an end to children growing up without a parent. Dual military couples face the possibility of being deployed at the same time and having to leave their children with someone to care for them. Children need parents. They can be cared for and fed by grandparents or aunts and uncles or close friends, but what they NEED is their parents, at least one parent there to nurture them and to raise them.

So how about leaving the service, if pregnant. Is that an option?

Pregnant soldiers have the option of leaving the service, although some officers are required to first complete their remaining service obligation; all are prohibited from deploying until four months after delivery, unless granted a waiver.

So pregnant officers do have the option of leaving the service, in the case of Enlisted. So why don’t the dual military couples take that option? As for Officers that still have service requirements, why not opt to NOT deploy mothers?

The military needs to take into account the large toll they are taking on families like this. If you have a dual military couple WITH children, please, please, please, don’t deploy them simultaneously. For the sake of the children! Children need at least one parent there for them. I’ll leave with this excerpt.

“We need to look at the fact that many women want to serve but they also want to be mothers,” Pollock said. “It’s a medical issue, it’s a mental health issue. Your ability to bond with your children is . . . very important.”