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Humidifier Parts
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An email list I'm on has lately had an off-topic thread about permissiveness, discipline, etc., and I wrote in that we are introducing Paula to the concept of rules like this: when she throws food on the floor at a meal, she has to get down from the table. She has great manual dexterity and feeds herself skillfully. She also knows what she likes and doesn't like, and had developed the custom of picking out anything she didn't want to eat and throwing it on the floor. Hence the rule.
I got some flack about this from my fellow cybermoms. One poster said it was just plain mean. Well, here's my response. I'd love to know what you think about this issue. But if you flame me I will hunt you down. Just kidding (mostly).
Just like there are physical laws in the universe, there are also spiritual laws. Just like physical laws, spiritual laws cannot be broken without serious consequences. Actually they can't be broken at all, but they can be flouted. When you deny gravity, you fall and hurt yourself. Denying spiritual laws hinders spiritual development.
Now, you wouldn't praise my parenting if I let Paula repeatedly crawl off the bed until she learned through experimentation about gravity (and she is one of those babies they call "hurdlers" - she just goes right off). Nor would you probably support me letting her run into the street to find out that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, or that momentum is always conserved.
So. When it comes to spiritual laws, like the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (and its like, reinforced by every major religion), my responsibility is to actively teach Paula how to live within the protection of that law. Truthfulness, courtesy, justice, kindness are all qualities she needs to and will develop by following the Golden Rule. (Like gravity - think weight lifting - following spiritual laws wisely makes you stronger)
Another law is the law of attraction: that which you project into the world through your thoughts and actions comes back to you. How does it help her for me to let her learn this by process of elimination? Isn't it easier and just plain better for me to teach her how to think and act in ways that draw good people and good fortune to her? She has to learn how to follow the law herself in her own skin. It's my job to make sure she knows it and can see me following it.
I believe babies come into the world totally pure. Their souls are totally unblemished, completely filled with love. But this purity comes with total weakness and lack of experience. My job as a parent is to help Paula become strong and virtuous.
I know not everyone wants to make value judgments about good and bad behavior. I certainly know that Paula is very young and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She is my heart. When she does things I don't want her to do, I tell her "Hurt baby," or "Gentle touch," or something and remove the danger, redirect, etc. I don't get angry or yell or punish her.
But I want her to know from this early age, in a way that is gentle yet clear and consistent, that some laws cannot be broken. Right now, it's that food goes in the mouth, not on the floor. It's something she can understand, a "law" she can break over and over with no danger to herself, and a consequence we can impose over and over with no harm or distress to her.
I've gotten into watching this Korean soap opera that's subtitled in English. It's very soap-opera-y but I like seeing the bad lighting and overacted delivery in a culture that's so new to me. There's a plot about a young couple who adopted a baby and the birth mother is stalking them. Another plot deals with a woman who is pregnant with twins but wants to work outside the home. Her husband is supportive but her parents-in-law are shocked, horrified, think she's crazy. The same in-laws have a son who is a cheery and likeable fellow with developmental delays - special needs people on TV are always cheerful.
Anyway, there's this interesting development in the plot featuring the developmentally delayed brother. It seems everyone is reading a book about him or about his condition and it is stirring up loads of controversy. The mother feels the shame of giving birth to a "defective" son, the neighbor thinks the book is saying that the boy was fathered by someone else. Scandal abounds!
What I find interesting about this is that you see scenes of people reading this book, talking about the book. It just seems odd to me. Do U.S. soaps feature plots driven by a book? Do prime time shows? It just seems like something you don't see on American TV.
I have never been more grateful for elimination communication* than I was last night in the emergency room.
After six days of vomiting, diarrhea and fever, Paula still showed no sign of improvement by yesterday afternoon. She had refused anything but breastmilk since Sunday and had already lost a pound (almost 5 percent of her body weight) by Thursday when I took her to the doctor.
For most of yesterday she alternated between crying weakly and lying completely limp in my arms. I knew that in spite of the vomiting she was at low risk for dehydration because breastmilk is so well absorbed that if it only spends a few minutes in her stomach she still gets a significant benefit from it. Still, everything about her told me that this was not simply a stomach virus as my doctor had diagnosed.
He had told me Thursday and again on the phone yesterday that the sickness would run its course as long as she didn't get dehydrated, but he couldn't see how she looked. I felt it was time to take her to the emergency room and my doctor said to trust my gut.
We got to the ER just ahead of an 18-month-old who had vomiting and diarrhea for just one day and was already looking seriously dehydrated. His eyelids hung limp and his body looked like a wet rag, poor guy. I was so glad Paula is still nursing. She had been very sick for six days and was still able to smile at people in the waiting room and be almost her normal sociable self.
When we were called into the pediatric ER dehydration was quickly ruled out. Although Paula was not optimally hydrated, she was making saliva and tears so would not need IV fluids, thank goodness.
The next thing to rule out was a bladder infection, a somewhat hidden source of some fevers in babies. Normally a baby Paula's age would have to be catheterized in order to obtain a "clean catch" urine sample. I was terribly afraid of putting Paula through the pain of a catheter insertion, and to be honest that is why I didn't take her to the ER sooner. But because she is diaper free and knows how to control her bladder, she was able to pee into a receptacle and no catheter was necessary.
That urine sample showed she does have a bladder infection, which fits with some things I had noticed. I recently taught her a hand sign for "potty," but she had been using it and then refusing to go. The bladder infection probably gave her the urge to pee without actually needing to pee. She also seemed uncomfortable when she did pee. It fit.
I'm happy to say she is taking antibiotics now and feeling much better already. I'm just so glad we could get her feeling better without any invasive tests. I didn't know the decision to try putting her on the potty at 3 months would save us from that kind of trauma, but I'm just so glad I decided to give it a shot.
Since Paula has been sick we have been watching a LOT of TV. She has just been lying on my lap nursing, falling asleep, spacing out. Poor thing has had no starch at all. But at least today we're making good use of our time.
I watched What the Bleep Do We Know? for the second time this morning, having watched it for the first time yesterday. I followed that with The Princess Bride, which segued into a bunch of calls to the doctor about Paula's temperature of 103 and eight hours without peeing.
Once Paula had gotten some medicine into her and started to feel better we were flipping channels. That's how we found a variety show a la Korean Idol. It started out with this awesome traditional drumming that Paula got crazy into, so I'm taping it. All the following acts have been, well, not so exciting to me. Crooners, a female pop duo, an aging Cheap Trick wannabe, all Korean. But Paula is LOVING IT. I mean LOVING IT. Clapping along, bopping and smiling.
This is going to be short and lame, I know, because I keep accidentally deleting my blog entries... grrrr. So I'll just write this and post it before the evil demons of deletion can strike.
A few things:
1. I'm trying to teach Paula a sign for "potty," but I also told her "ouch" and showed her the "pain" ASL sign today when she had bumped her head. A few minutes later she bumped my lip with her head and I told her "ouch" and pointed to my lip. She then made the sign to me on my lip without any prompting from me! But she hasn't signed the potty sign to me yet.
2. Paula is now walking while holding onto my fingers for balance! She was totally uninterested in bipedalism there for a long time. A few weeks ago I made it a little game to swing her around by her hands and say, "Walking, walking, walking!" Well, she got the idea and now grabs my hands so she can walk around.
3. Yesterday I started cleaning out our back room (a.k.a. the Junk Depot) in preparation for the much-anticipated Easter visit of my brother Kit and his fiancee, Desiree. What did I find amidst the worthless old papers and receipts? The shopping list Joel took with him when we brought Paula home from the hospital a month early: Glider, premie clothes and diapers, diaper pail with lid, frozen veggies, sweet potatoes. I looked over at Paula where she was playing and started crying.
4. I have a stomach flu. Annie, bless her heart, said she'll bring over some sick supplies later. Until then I'm trying to parent from the couch.
That's all I'm going to do now because I have a feeling the delete-button poltergeist is lingering. I'm really going to try to post more. Promise.
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