The Family Patch

Our Cloth Story - Battles with a Heavy Wetter (Real Nappy Week 2013)

As it's Real Nappy Week in the UK this week, I thought it a good time to write about our ongoing issues with trying to find nappies that can cope with our super heavy wetter.

Please see bottom of post for disclaimer regarding links within the text.

Although, as you will read, I was determined to use cloth for a variety of reasons, we have never managed to go "full-time" and still use disposables as night time and when out and about (eg at the childminders). It pains me that we still have to buy disposables when I would have loved to use cloth all the time, but as you'll find out it has not been easy finding nappies to suit our Little Man.

I knew I wanted to use cloth a long time before I had Little Man. I had come across some of the most gorgeously soft bamboo nappies whilst working in my first nursery and I was sold. As the mother of that particular baby once said, "don't you wish your own knickers were that soft?" 

And for several years I was convinced that when I had a baby I would opt for bamboo nappies just like the ones I had seen.

However, during my pregnancy I became aware that even in the years between my working in that nursery and falling pregnant there had been huge advances in the styles of cloth nappies available. I was suddenly thrown into a whirlwind of prefolds, pockets, fitteds, all-in-ones (AIOs), all-in-twos (AI2s) and wool soakers as well as the good old fashioned waterproof wrap. 

I didn't know where to begin and as I felt pretty darn rough during my pregnancy I just bought a budget box of prefolds and wraps for a newborn and we went from there.

We only used the prefolds a couple of times, as I just didn't get on with cloth from the start. There were too many things I had to contend with as a new mum and washing nappies wasn't high on my agenda. So by the time we did get around to using cloth, Little Man (who had been 9lbs 6oz at birth) had outgrown the newborn wraps and needed something bigger.

We opted to try some pocket nappies, as they were supposed to last from birth-to-potty (BTP) due to some nifty poppers designed to help adjust the nappy to each stage. However, as money was tight at that point and we didn't want to buy lots that might not suit us, we bought some eBay cheapies. 

The nappies were really cute and a lovely fit, but there was just one problem: Little Man was outpeeing the microfibre inserts far too quickly.

We continued trying to use them, even putting the cotton prefolds in for an extra boost, but as Little Man continued to guzzle his milk (by the time we started introducing solids at 6 months he was up to 6 x 9oz bottles each day) the problem only got worse.

So, upon one of our trips to a local health food store, we discovered some bamboo fitteds by Motherease on offer. We thought we'd give them a try as again they were supposed to fit from birth-to-potty and we were glad we did. The extra absorbency of the bamboo seemed to really help, and the Motherease wraps were quite simply "bomb-proof". 

After a shaky start we began to realise that cloth nappies may well be possible for us after all, and when Little Lamb had their bamboo fitteds on offer (this time sized instead of BTP), we bought 20 of them to build up a working stash. 

It turned out that we did end up using the bamboo nappies, just like I always thought we would... only this was through necessity rather than choice. The bamboo fitteds were super soft, but I'd been introduced to the gorgeous designs of modern cloth nappies and I was sad that we were missing out somehow.

Still, a few cute wraps from Blueberry cheered up the mix a bit!

I was lucky enough to be given a snazzy Itti Bitti Tutto to try on Little Man for my very first Mother's Day but unfortunately despite trying several of these on various occasions they just do not cope with Little Man's mega pees. Such a shame and we are looking to sell ours on very shortly.

So it seemed we would be stuck with the fitteds forever and whilst this was okay (we were happy to be using cloth), using a two part system (nappy and wrap) was a little difficult with a boy who was learning to love his freedom of movement and would rarely lay still long enough for a nappy change.

And as he was growing at an alarming rate he also seemed to outgrow his Little Lamb size 2s by the time he hit his first birthday (the Little Lamb website states that size 2s usually fit most kids until potty training, although they do sell a few size 3s!) 

At this point, I didn't want to have to buy another 20 nappies in a larger size, so we took all the boosters we had (as even with bamboo fitteds we had to add extra boosters) and found all the eBay cheapies and other pre-loved pockets we had bought early on, and gave them a try. And for a while, it seemed like we might have cracked it!

The last 6 months have been spent trying to find the most absorbent combination of boosting for Little Man's pockets without making them too bulky. Anything less than 3 layers is useless. We've tried 3 layers of bamboo. We've tried 2 layers of bamboo and a zorb booster. We've tried 2 layers of bamboo and a hemp booster. But mostly we have struggled to find anything that can cope with 2-3 hours of usage. 

I'm not sure if the issue is just that he is still peeing loads (sometimes all 3 layers are soaked through) or whether it is a fit issue as occasionally only 2 layers are soaked but he still leaks and I think this is because the extra boosting makes the nappy so bulky it doesn't fit as well around his waist and legs, so we get leakage there.

Basically, we're looking at having to return to the bamboo fitteds. 

And that would be fine... if it weren't for the fact that Little Man has already started to try and make himself pee whenever we take his nappy off, making me wonder whether he's going to want to start potty training within the next 6-12 months. Do I really want to buy 20 new nappies for such a short time, especially as he will be our only child and therefore they will not be used again?

I know you can sell nappies and recoup some of the initial outlay. But it is a bit of a gamble as to whether the fitteds will work any better than the pockets. And I'm not quite sure what to do next.

We are going to get our Little Lamb size 2s from the loft to give them another try for absorbency before making a decision... I'm actually hoping that maybe he has changed shape and they may fit him well enough for a trial run. Who knows? 

But for all the troubles we've had, I'm glad we chose to try cloth and stuck with it. It makes me happy, and that's what matters.

So, tell me, do you use cloth? What are your favourites styles and retailers? Do you use WAHM (work-at-home-mum) designs? Do you make your own cloth? I'd love to hear from you!

Disclaimer: links provided in this post are for example only, so that you can see the type of nappy I am talking about. You can buy these nappies from many different online retailers and local shops, so please do have a look around to find out all your options. This post has no affiliation to any product or retailer and is simply the experience we have had as a family.

Thoughts on Mother's Day

I cannot describe to you just how much I love this boy of mine.

He means the world to me. Every single day. But I cannot help but think about how truly blessed I am to be his mother on Mother's Day.

Being a mother is hard work. It is exhausting, relentless and sometimes the hardest thing in the world. And yet, it is also one of the most beautiful and rewarding things and for that I shall never lose my gratitude for the opportunity to be somebody's mother...

And, boy, did I get one gorgeous boy to mother!

But it isn't always so simple. Mother's Day can bring about so many raw emotions for so many women (and those who love them). Women who have lost their own mothers. Those who are desperate to become a mother but for one reason or another cannot. And for any mother who has lost a child, the day must be full of emotion too.

Then there are those children in care who are desperate for a mother to love and cherish them, to be all a mother is supposed to be, to have someone to call "mum" whenever they want or need to. And yet, even following adoption, there must be complex feelings revolving around their birth mum... I've been reading a few blogs lately that have highlighted that to me.

So today, whilst I am enjoying the welcome break from motherly duties, lovingly provided by TJ as a treat, I cannot help but reflect on how truly lucky I am to have been given the opportunity to enjoy Mother's Day this year and last without any heartache mixed in. 

We've had to make some tough choices about our future as a family and we still don't know what the future holds. We may never get the joy of sharing our lives with another child, or we may open our hearts and homes to a child for whom Mother's Day can bring up some very real and raw emotions. But either way, I shall endeavour to always remember how incredibly blessed we have been and keep everything in perspective as much as we can.

We've had a rough ride as a family, but for today I am living in gratitude for all that we have been given.

E-I-E-I-O

One of Little Man's favourite songs at the moment is "Old MacDonald Had a Farm". Every time Grandma and Grandad call us, they have to sing it and at the end of each verse Little Man will promptly shout out "E-I-E-I" to tell them he wants another verse please and thank you very much!

It has even got to the point where he associates the song with Grandma and Grandad and so when I asked him the other night what song Grandma and Grandad always sing to him he was very speedy in his "E-I-E-I" response.

So when we went for a walk the other day and saw some sheep in a neighbouring field, Grandad had to take Little Man to look at them. And I got to try out our new camera as well.

I don't think he was quite sure what to make of them, to be honest. But they were definitely most interested in what we were doing...

Especially this one!

It wasn't just sheep we saw. There were also ducks and geese on the lake.

There are ducks and geese (and chickens, and pigs, and cows, and turkeys, and dogs, and cats, and even sometimes mice and always a tractor) on Old MacDonald's farm too, so it was good to know we can take Little Man there to see them as he grows older and better able to associate the animals with the names and sounds in the song.

What a lovely day we had!

5,4,3,2,1... Blast Off!

Little Man has an obsession with numbers at the moment. He's 16 months old and the first words he has said consistently and in context are the numbers 1-5. Except he prefers to count backwards. What gives?

It started a few weeks back with him shouting "dee, bore, bive" (3, 4, 5) over and over again. We started repeating the numbers to him and over time he has started to develop his pronounciation and add other numbers into the mix. We had the odd attempt and six, seven and eight, but mostly he preferred the numbers up to 5.

Then he started counting backwards, and we'd get "bive, b-four, deee, T..." and he'd look at us to finish his countdown. So I would extend the vowel sound and try to show him clearly what shape my mouth made as I said "one" and eventually he got it. We now get "bive, b-four, dee, T, waaahn" which is so very cute, especially as he has taken to whispering it!

He'll count down while he's playing. He'll go find his numbers book and point at the pages and count down. He even started counting down and pointing at the puzzle book I was using the other day because, guess what, I was doing a Sudoku puzzle and he either recognised the numbers on the page or heard me muttering the numbers to myself as I was working it out. Either way, he was fascinated by it.

His very favourite thing is to whisper his countdown to me and then be lifted up and spun around as I shout "Blast Off!" and make out he's an astronaut flying into space. Quite apt, really, when you see the look of sheer joy on his face every time the opening sequence of Star Trek: The Next Generation comes on TV.

(He's just started counting down whilst trying to climb on my lap and help me type the rest of this post!)

Talking of TV, we've cancelled our cable subscription and will soon be without TV (we have an aerial but it isn't connected to our TV). It's a scary prospect, but something we felt we needed to do for ourselves as a family. The thing is, I had planned on buying some of Little Man's favourite programmes on DVD, the main one being "Numtums". So imagine my surprise when I realised there were no Numtum DVDs.

There are Number Jacks ones, but I personally can't stand that programme and as Gem blogged about recently, it can be quite a scary programme for some kids! But even so, Number Jacks holds no interest for Little Man... but as soon as Numtums comes on he squeals with delight and stops whatever he is doing and tries to count with them. How are we going to cope without our daily dose of that?

Thank God for the CBeebies website is all I can say! They have clips of Numtums (and all the other shows) as well as games to play. Little Man quite enjoys playing the Bouncing Numtums game as he is able to click the mouse button on the laptop quite happily and is very appreciative of the chance to actually play on the laptop without being told off!!

I do hope his interest in numbers continues... it is such a fun thing for us to explore together and will stand him in such good stead for the future. So long as he starts counting forwards at some point, that is...

Faith without Religion

I've been thinking a lot about faith and religion lately. Until earlier this year I didn't really feel like I belonged to any specific community. I had my faith, but it was my faith which kept me from fitting in to many more "mainstream" religions. And though I missed the community aspect, this wasn't a big deal for me. Until I had Little Man.

It strikes me that by having no religion as such I am "going it alone" in terms of introducing the idea of faith and God and everything else to Little Man. There are very few resources available (that I have found) which offer suggestions and age-appropriate stories and games which could introduce the thoughts and ideas to him, without coming from a very specific religious background. And as I believe faith is unique and do not want to push any one path upon Little Man, this concerned me.

So I was immensely glad when I found out more about the Unitarians this year and that TJ has shown a real interest in Paganism. I guess these two come under the umbrella term of "religion" but still they don't have the same religious concepts as many others do. The Unitarians believe you should actively seek your own experience and understanding of the Divine, whilst Paganism is such a varied path that to define a Pagan is quite challenging. 

There is no "standard teaching", no tagline which defines these two. And that is what makes me feel so comfortable with them. My own experience of faith and God has been that it cannot be squashed into any human terms, not fully. We can try to define the Divine in our own way and I think it is an important thing for us to do personally, but we cannot define it for another. For me, no one religion or person has the whole "truth". We all find aspects of the Divine that are important and appropriate for us in our current circumstances. To me, God is so huge that to claim we know exactly who and what he is and what he wants from us is to limit the unlimitless. 

But then, that is something I have come to understand over many years of experience and thinking. How do I express that very thing to Little Man? How do I show him that this is what mama believes, this is what daddy believes, but what he believes is more important for him? He isn't old enough for that kind of understanding just yet. So where do we start?

And yet, when I think back I realise that religion didn't really play a huge part in my early childhood either. My family weren't religious. I heard the odd Bible story at school but that was about it. And yet I have always had this immense faith that God was there, I was never alone, and that there was a purpose and flow to everything even if I couldn't see it at that time. This has obviously evolved and developed as I grew older, but the basis has always been there.

So maybe as children we are more aware of the Divine than we realise and faith develops anyway, whether we offer up teaching through a religion or not. Perhaps I need not worry so much about how and what to teach Little Man and just concentrate on living life through my own faith and seeing where that leads us. 

What do you think? Do you belong to a religion? How do you/did you raise your children? What resources have you found which help you in this?

Let's Talk About Cloth Nappies

I LOVE cloth nappies. Truly I do. I have loved them since the moment I first saw the early versions of Kushies and Bambinex in a nursery I worked in way back in 2006. I swore at that moment I would use cloth if ever I had a child.

Fast forward 5 years to 2011 when I was pregnant with Little Man and I began my search for cloth nappies and discovered, to my absolute joy, that the range had grown beyond imagination and there were some truly gorgeous designs out there. And you'll understand why I fell in love with cloth all over again.

Except, it wasn't so simple for us. First of all we didn't have the funds to spend on the intial outlay, so we did some shopping around and bought lots of lovely pre-loved nappies and eBay cheapies to start us off. Using cloth nappies can save you a bundle, but if you fall into a cloth nappy addiction your bank balance can seriously take a hammering. And even if you avoid the lure of custom made nappies and buying far more than you really need for a full-time stash, that initial outlay can be pretty darn hefty.

Of course there are incentive schemes here in the UK where you can claim back some of the expenses from your local council. And there are so many places where you can buy pre-loved nappies. I'd always advise a certain amount of caution when buying second-hand, especially if over the internet rather than in a shop where you can see the state of the nappy. But if you take your time to get to know the sellers and make sure you aren't paying over the odds for a second-hand item  you can have a good experience.

A good general rule for buying second hand nappies is this: you  should expect to pay a decent amount for a decent nappy - if you pay £2 per nappy you need to accept that they may be rather grey and well-used. Most second-hand nappies will be described in terms of EUC (excellent used condition), or GUC (good used condition) with a description and clear photo of any fraying or stains (which are generally very rare!)

Despite our initial issue, we managed to build up quite a nice stash of pocket nappies, prefolds and fitteds to try and I was very excited about the thought of putting something as cute as this on Little Man's bottom every day...

Except he turned out to be a very heavy wetter. I kid you not. He could outpee almost every nappy we tried, and eventually we discovered that the only way we could manage cloth nappying was to rely on bamboo fitted nappies (from Little Lambs), with an extra bamboo booster inside, and a waterproof wrap. And only in the daytime. Night time was a nightmare. 

And whilst that was okay, it wasn't my ideal. Our stash was very "samey", all natural coloured bamboo nappies and none of the gorgeous prints that so many others enjoy in their stash.

It wasn't all a loss. We did manage to buy some super cute waterproof wraps, such as this one we received as a gift in a "Easter Fluff Bunny Swap" (like a Secret Santa). 

But still, fitteds were not my ideal, not after seeing the gorgeous pocket nappies that exist these days. 

And further to the whole "pretty" issue of the nappies, there was also the inconvenience of them. Bamboo fitteds take longer to dry than those that come apart completely for washing. And they were bulky with all the layers needed to keep in those mega pees of Little Man's. And when he started crawling, keeping him on the changing mat long enough to put on the nappy and then the wrap was an unwelcome task.

So imagine my joy when we tried some pockets the other day, with three layers of bamboo inserted and discovered that it worked. Either Little Man is peeing less or we've just hit the right level of absorbency for him. And just in time as well, as his fitteds are getting far too small, what with my baby being 28lbs already at the grand old age of 1!!

So I've been on eBay looking for some more pockets to try and rebuild our stash, and we're going to try some Zorb and maybe hemp inserts as these are supposed to be even more absorbent than bamboo. After a bit of a "bidding war" we've come away with 3 Ittis, another BumGenius, some eBay cheapies and a Happy Bum. And I have another hour or two to decide whether we really need the two FuzziBunz  have my eye on!

I've always loved cloth and I always will, but this next wave of cloth nappying is definitely the most exciting by far! I shall be sure to post photos of our newest Fluffy Post once it arrives. 

If you fancy chatting about Cloth Nappies, then please do consider joining me over on Cloth Nappy Natter as it's mightily quiet over there these days. 

Happy First Birthday Little Man

It's hard to believe, but this time last year we had just met our beautiful baby boy. 

It was the end of 9 very long, hard months with a pregnancy that threw us challenges from start to finish. It was also the end of a difficult labour and I spent the next few hours throwing up, sleeping, being whisked off to theatre, and being monitored and gradually unhooked from everything I was attached to as my body stated to recover.

But to be honest, the thing that remains with me the most is the feeling of shock and awe as the midwife handed me my (massive) baby and I realised that the dream I had been holding on to for so much of my life had finally come true.

I don't think it sank in at all to begin with. It was so strange. I mean, I loved him with all my heart from the very first moment I saw him, but I didn't know him. And I certainly didn't know what being a mother truly entailed. I felt out of my depth and rather baffled by it all to be honest, especially when I was taken up to the post-natal ward at gone 11pm and suddenly left on a darkened ward with my sleeping baby. I sat and looked at him and thought "well, what do I do now?" 

It's so hard to think back and realise that we didn't know him then and he didn't really know us. We fell into family life very quickly. I mean you have to, don't you? But it was far from plain sailing.

This year we have had different challenges to face, but we've made it through the first year of Little Man's life and it seems so strange to think that there was a time when he wasn't in our lives. How can that be? 

Though I would never say that anything is worth the trauma of HG (because nobody deserves to go through that!), there is a big part of me that looks at my baby boy (who is outgrowing the title "baby" far too quickly for my liking!!) and feels that he really is worth absolutely everything we went through. I can't put into words how much he means to me and how blessed I feel to be his mother.

I'll try and post up a slideshow of his first year sometime soon. That's if I can figure out how to make one! But for now I thought I'd leave you with a photo from the day he was born.

Happy Birthday, darling boy!

Life at The Patch: We're still here!!

 

"Mama! You have neglected the blog for far too long. People need to see how awesome I am!"

Okay, okay, I'm sorry!

It has been far too long since I updated the blog with a proper post but the past couple of months have just flown by. 

It seems to me that the older Little Man gets the more comfortable I feel simply enjoying being in his company and not worrying so much about everything else. And that is good, but it does mean I have also not had the impetus to actually come online and write a blog post (or read many others for that matter).

The small amounts of time I find myself on the computer nowadays is split into the following order or priority:

1. Quick check of emails etc
2. Sorting out bits and bobs like car tax, insurance etc (the boring, but essential, stuff)
3. Commitments such as the iVillage community boards and the craft blog
4. The HG book (research, writing, promoting)
5. Everything else (read: blogging)

To be honest numbers 2, 3 and 4 are all very interchangeable depending on how busy the boards are, what point I'm up to with the research and if we even have bills to sort out (who am I kidding, there's always something to sort out). But even so, blogging has definitely come very low down on the list.

I know it's bad when my sister starts complaining I haven't put any recent photos of Little Man online for her to see!

So, for all of you who may want to see what Little Man is up to in this final month of his first year, here are a few photos. 

"Mmmmmmm s'ghetti!"

"Mama, why did you let daddy dress me? Have you seen what I look like?"

"Hey, I match my friend Pudsey! Maybe this outfit isn't so bad after all..."

"Mama, you don't need a shopping list. Look, I have it all memorised, you'll see!"

"Mmmm. Daddy always shares a quick snack with me on the way home from the supermarket. That's the best bit about shopping"

All that shopping tires my boy out though... isn't he sweet?

Here he is sitting and quietly watching the "CBeebies Bedtime Story".

He is growing up so fast these days. He is much more able to entertain himself and as he is now walking he loves to toddle around after me most of the day as I go about my business. Sometimes I look at him and can't believe he is almost a year old (how can that be?) and other times I look at him and wonder how he can still only be 11 months old when he seems so grown up already. 

I'll be back with some more updates soon. Or at least I promise to try and be back soon!

We're Getting There...

I thought it was about time that I wrote a follow-up to the post I wrote a few weeks back about our decision to never have any more babies of our own. 

When I wrote that post I knew it was the right decision but I was going through some major emotions in reaction to it. 

But slowly and surely something is happening deep inside that I cannot quite explain. I am beginning to truly accept the decision and am feeling far less pain around the whole thing.

I didn't really understand how far I had come though until we recently went to a couple of conferences. On the Thursday I saw some beautiful babies at the PSS annual conference. Then on the Friday I got to meet and hug our nephew for the first time, before heading off to BritMums Live where there were rather more bumps and babes in arms. And surprisingly this overload of babies didn't break my heart!

I still find it sad sometimes, but mostly I'm beginning to find the joy in our life as a family of 3. I'm not saying that maternal instinct won't kick in several years down the line and make me wish desperately that things were different for me healthwise, but right now I am happy. And right now is all we have. I get that now.

Little Man is becoming the more joyous and amazing thing to ever have happened in our lives. He was always a beautiful blessing, but recently his little personality has grown so much that I think my heart melts a million times each day. 

He has this funny little grin that makes me want to squeal with delight every time I see it.

He has begun to snuggle in, even crawling across the room mid-play just to lay his head on our laps for a few seconds. And it makes me want to hug him and never let him go when he shows such affection.

He has even started trying to eat  *ahem* kiss us which is the most darling thing ever.

In the past 3 weeks he has cut no less than four more teeth, taking his total up to 6. He's also mastered crawling, standing up, cruising and is trying his hardest to walk with just one hand holding on to something so he has his other hand free.

He likes to "help" me with my chores these days, making them so much more fun (even if it does take three times as long!) 

And he sings along with me in his own beautiful little way. We love to sing in our house and it's wonderful to hear him practising changing the tone of his own voice. 

And compared to all that, everything else seems to fade away. Life isn't perfect. In fact we have several things that are rather stressful and challenging going on in our lives right now. But Little Man has brought a whole new focus for us and when I realised I was missing out on the absolute joy he brings us by worrying about the future and a family we may never have it was the easiest thing to let that go.

This is my family... and it means the world to me. 

Spirituality and Kids

Okay, so this post is a biggie for me. I generally only write very vaguely about my spirituality on the blog (and other places online, and in person, to be completely honest). It's a combination of not knowing quite how to explain what it is I believe and being afraid of sharing it and gaining negative reactions and/or getting myself into theosophical debates with people who have very specific sources of information to refer to when I don't. 

TJ bought me a book called "Pagan Parenting" for Christmas and there is a section within it that sums this up very nicely:

"[...]This raises the question of whether to be totally honest or to pretend to be like everyone else. It is a question faced daily by anyone on the fringes of the majority [...] Children growing up with metaphysical beliefs will often not share this side of themselves with mainstream friends for fear of rejection and ridicule.[...] A large part of one's public profile is deciding what should be encompassed within that role. For most followers of mainstream religions, this is not even a question that comes to mind. Unless the individual is extremely devout, religion is not often a part of their public persona. They neither hide it nor broadcast it. It is like skin color, hair color or anything else that is an integral part of who we are without needing to think about it."

In many ways I'm like the child mentioned in that. I have an instinctual urge to be honest and open about who I am and what I believe, but there is that fear of ridicule or rejection. And if I feel that myself, it is only to be expected that Little Man will pick up on this and learn by my example how to fear these things too.

So being honest, first to myself and then to others, is essential if I truly want Little Man to grow up knowing it is perfectly okay for him to explore his own spirituality and choose his own path. I can't tell him to do one thing when I am doing something opposite myself. 

TJ is much better at living his spirituality than I am. He likes ritual and "being a part of something" and it was his idea to dress up for Beltane when we were in Glastonbury this year (in fact he bought the dress for me because I was taking my own sweet time to decide on something!)

But I don't really like ritual. I feel embarrassed when doing it, and personally find it takes my mind and heart away from the matter at hand. I love the idea of it and know it works well for so many people, but I'm just not very good at it. 

So whereas TJ finds quite a lot of help and ideas in various Pagan sources, I continue to find myself falling somewhere just on the outside, not quite sure of where I belong. There is no uncertainty in what it is I believe, that's a mistake people sometimes make when I say this. I know quite strongly what is essential to me and those things that I haven't quite figured out yet, well that's what life is for, right? But expressing it and living it is another matter.

You may wonder why I feel this need to be open about it all. Surely the quotation I used at the beginning of the post points out that a lot of people do keep their spiritual and public lives separate. The problem for me is that although I can quite happily keep them separate for the most part, there are times when my spirituality is essential for explaining my outlook on life and how I get through certain things.

For instance, before we started trying to conceive I had come to a certain "peace" with the thought that if we were "meant" to have our own child we would but if not it meant that there was a different path for us to follow. This "peace" wasn't easy and of course my heart desperately wanted to experience carrying my own child. We were incredibly lucky to have that opportunity, but the hell of a HG pregnancy (further complicated by Obstetric Cholestasis) means that there were times when I truly wondered what I was meant to "learn" from this and what it meant for our future. I still don't know the answers to those questions, but my spirituality still helps me by reassuring me that even if I don't know the answer, someone (or something) does!

And so this reassurance is something that I want to share with Little Man. I want him to know that even when he feels at his most vulnerable and most alone, there is someone he can turn to. I want him to see beyond what is obvious and look to the deeper meaning behind things, to see the connection between all life and all living things so that respecting nature and our environment and other people is more than just something he is "expected" to do. 

I want him to understand that mummy and daddy do certain things for a reason. That we choose to use cloth nappies, try and eat healthy, locally grown foods when we can, and want to do all we can for those around us because that is our way of honouring the life we have been given and the life all around us. 

And the only way I can do this, truly do it, is to live it. Which means stepping out from the fear of rejection and ridicule and being true to myself and my spirituality. And this also means honouring and sharing TJ's own individual spirituality (which is different to my own) and in turn honouring Little Man's too. 

But how do you do this without risking that same rejection and ridicule for your child? What if something I do, some choice I make or some post I write on here has a negative reaction that comes back to Little Man? Judgement waits around every corner and although I believe in being as open and honest as you can be, I do know that sometimes holding back is a good thing. 

Where is the balance? How much of yourself do you share, to avoid confusion and to have trusting relationships with others based on honesty and truth? It's such a difficult thing to know and if I was scared about it before, I'm even more scared about it now that my actions could negatively affect Little Man. Without a "mainstream" understanding and image to guide and support us, where do we start?

I don't know if I'll ever know the answer, but I do know that it is an important question to ask!