Hands Off The Baby

Do you ever feel like putting an invisible force field around your baby when out & about?

In particular – The Supermarket!

Ah! The ‘My Baby has far too many Fans” situation.

The peril of every parent who has a beautiful, gorgeous baby that draws attention like a bee to honey, which makes around 99% of the entire baby population. No wonder celebrities get narky at times.

The other day, waiting in line at Michel’s Patisserie (who make the best shopping mall Chai Latte by the way) 

I was playing Peek-a-boo with a fractious baby while mum was trying to order a birthday cake and some other delectable items.

There she was, looking so sweet, so adorable, sitting in a grocery filled shopping trolley…. I just couldn’t help myself. 

Actually I thought I was helping her mum, while I was locked in waiting for my own Chai.

Well, she had stopped crying and started giggling so I thought I was doing mum a favour in those few seconds, till she scolded me 

“CAN YOU STOP TALKING TO MY BABY!”

Oops. Gulp.

Red faced, grab now finished Chai, exit promptly, baby returns to crying.

 I was one baby entertainer too many for her mum that day.

OK, as parents we do enjoy the ego boast that comes with the compliments and the attention, why not? don’t we love our children?

But when its every aisle, every stop to study products, at the register, it does get too much, especially when it involves staving off wondering hands.

Elderly shoppers tend to be the worst in my experience, followed close by clucky women and the ‘grandparents in waiting’ crowd.

‘It may take a couple to make a child but it takes a village to raise the child’ primal instinct going on here, but do they have to suck on my baby’s first, just because she is so delicious they could eat her! Ewwwwwww!

I warrant that type of experience is a little too ghastly for words!

I encountered this when my first daughter was 3 months old. There she was laying on the baby seat of a shopping trolley, looking all things perfectly angelic, a full mane of little black ringlets, a pristine white frilly dress, I was gushing with all the maternal pride & deep joy I’m totally entitled to, when an elderly man stopped us in the bread aisle.

Nothing unusual, she had already developed a fan club following from the previous 4 aisles.

She had curled her little fist around his finger, smiling up at him; he started to kiss her little fingers then by surprise, started to suck on her hand. Um, Um, Um……. Excuse me mister,…..um……could you let go of my baby please…um sir…mister please…

“HANDS OFF THE BABY” even with that outburst,  I still had to  literally wrench them apart!

Up until that point I admit, I enjoyed people complimenting me on my beautiful, darling, drop dead gorgeous baby girl. She was!

However, I did feel uncomfortable when strangers proceeded to pinch her cheeks, pull at her toes (I thought leather moccasins might have stopped this from happening), poke her chest, play with her ringlets, rub her head, tap her nose (sometimes a tad too hard) or kiss her adorable arms. I also wanted to get my groceries done.

There were times I felt I needed to add ‘personal bodyguard’ to the growing list of parenting duties.

There seems to be no personal space when it comes to children.

By the sounds of it, most parents I’ve spoken to, can recount at least an ‘odd moment or few’ from their experiences.

I remember one mum in a our playgroup wanted to pin a sign on her baby’s chest “Nice to Look, Not Nice to hold” or “Warning – Baby bites”

I stopped placing my babies in the shopping trolley seat, or the pram and used my Bubba Moe sling permanently out in public.

When it comes to the effectiveness of adult personal space, Slings take on a wonderful subliminal brilliance!

An invisible cocoon shoots up when babies are carried in a sling. Strangers very rarely cross the line of adult personal space, which stops the ’I must touchy-feely the irresistible baby’ habit dead in its tracks.

I’ve often noticed a finger head towards a baby then stop as if repelled by some unseen force field!  Works every time!

Basically, if you want to stop all that uninvited physical attention that your superstar baby draws, carry your precious cargo in a sling.

In managing your baby’s public appearances, positioning is very important also.

The 2 positions I recommend for baby’s public engagement is the Lap & Hip Position.

There are specific reasons why!

Babies from around 6 months and hitting a peak at around 9 months of age, babies become very aware of familiar & unfamiliar faces.

Having a baby locked in a full frontal forward position (like most upright carriers) can be very intimidating for baby at this stage. Your baby can feel you, but cant quite see you fully and this can cause quite a lot of distress. Babies will, when socially distressed, ‘push’ their backs to their parent’s chest, turn their heads and almost force their cheeks to their parents, like a vertical stiff plank, before they start to cry. Crying is the last resort emotional resort.

This is why the Lap & Hip positions shown here, is the most developmental ideal.

Babies can still be chest to chest with their parent, yet still look forward as their confidence allows them at their own pace. So in strange & unfamiliar places, baby will turn to their parent’s chest for comfort before facing forward again. 

They seek reassurance from mum or dad that everything is ok.

If baby becomes too distressed or overwhelmed, a quick slide from the Hip or Lap position will have baby in the Snuggle hold (chest to chest) within a few short seconds with out having to remove baby from the sling.

Snuggle hold is often called the ‘comfort hold’. Unfortunately this quick manoeuvring can’t be achieved at all with stagnant or stationary uprights such as the Baby Bjorn or Ergo carriers, which means parents should consider their lifestyle when choosing a baby carrier that will suit them best.

If parent’s lifestyle involves lots of people congestion, such regularly using public transport or many social events, the benefit of using a hammock sling such as a Bubba Moe Sling would be an ideal choice.

Enjoy!

all photos either gratefully sourced from the web or from Bubba Moe's own gallery.

A Day in the life of a Supermum. Oh really!

How do Super Mum's live anyway?

Every morning at around 3.30am I wake up embracing the day, though it's still dark outside and the birds haven't started their morning song as of yet.

Drink a relishing tasty health tonic and escape into the shower.

Don my sport clothes for a 5km jog, travel another 2km power walk, add a 30 minute course of cardio aerobic exercise finishing with a dessert topping of a 4 lap swim.

Shaking my wet hair into a 'naturally dried, I don't need to do another thing to my hair because it's already awesome as it is'. Slip easily into my size 8, superlicious jeans, cup my boobs into a 10B bra and top that off with a stylish, 'you look yummy mummy hot' top.

With enthusiasm and gusto, make every one's lunches, pre-prepare tonight's gourmet dinner, unload and reload faithful dishwasher, clean an already clean looking house, lay out children's daily clothes, make son's power shake, hang out the laundry, pre-program the next load of washing, feed the pets, sit down with a cuppa to answer personal emails, answer online comments, finish social media strategy plan by the last drop of tea and head to work for morning start of 6.30 am.

SLAP!
Sorry about that, I was dreaming again.

Is life really that simple to traverse, yet we seem to think that other mums do.....the idealistic super-mum. The mums that seem to sail through life effortlessly, with beautiful well mannered children, vogue styled home, and an impressive income of her own. She has the Midas touch, everything is easy.

Last week, a friend asked me to watch a web-video on a 'Mogul Mum" who seemed to have it all, she is by all accounts on the surface a super-mum. Watching this well known personality speak about her success, I noticed her body language, her shoulders were hunched a little and her eyes, well, a little less than smiley.This is a woman with some personal troubles or just plain tired, but the talk was there, the hype was there, smacking of "Look at me, look at me, I am so successful". Oh really.

The last time I spoke at a parenting conference I was introduced as an inspirational super-mum, which took me back a little. Liking the compliment anyway, but I am as ordinary as the mum next door.

In reality, I wake up at around 3.30am with a groan. I'd love to meet 7am, I hear its a really good time.

Turn the light on, gasp at the state of the kitchen, make a cup of tea and turn the computer on.
Read emails. Lament at the still dark exterior......
Basically everything else above is the same minus the enthusiasm & gusto, the over achieving exercise routine, the size 8 body, preferred boob size, the hair and clothes thing too, but as soon as there is light, I do go for a 3km power walk and ho hum the joggers that zoom past me each morning. I wouldn't dare jog out of fear that my hefty cleavage will give me a set of black eyes. I'm still not trim.

Today's society expects all mothers to be superhuman, super trim and super good looking and super talented, super committed and super financially independent. No excuses.
Women everywhere are trying so hard to meet these standards and they are secretly killing themselves emotionally & physically to meet the demands.

I think about the generation of women that came before me, like my mum.
My mum's generation were the stay at home wives. Girls who worked in their youth to be typists, secretaries, check out chicks till they married and had kids.

The conversations that mum & her friends used have on their regular get togethers; the lounge room would be filled with ladies puffing away on their cigarettes, drinking their coffee and chatting about how stressful their lives were.
Guaranteed each mum in that lounge room spoke about their daily dose of Valium or diazepam (something that sounded like that), who's husband was having an affair, gossiping about who didn't clean their windows last week, what type of roast to make, the latest in knitting techniques and had anyone tried the latest craze, macrame yet.
No one spoke about their gym routine, because gyms didn't exist then.

It intrigued me as to why all of these women were on Valium or similar in the first place. Valium is a calmative, sedative, that was often prescribed to help the then modern mum through the day without breakdown.
Were children so hard to raise in those days?

The only hardship I can possibly think off for my mother was that I asked more questions than she could ever possible answer, but basically we were all kicked outside to have our own adventures till dinner time. It was great.

Fast forward to the now generation of mums, life is far more complex and convoluted, the demands so much higher, all striving to reach the super human everything, and we are doing it without the aid of Valium.

Conversations now centre around who has found the latest apps, their careers, latest business technology, cloud computing, dropbox, latest google find, FB updates, diet & exercise regime, websites, new retail stores and cafes, best new parties, music and sometimes if you listen very carefully or look at the body language, there is a little subtle hint of "I'm drowning in competition here".

Majority of mums work, so career paths are critical to reach supermum status rather than just jobs. One dear friend returned to work once her children started school as a 'check out chick' at a local supermarket, rather than her previous corporate role. "I love my job really, it's the school hours so I'm free to be mum to my boys, I dont have to worry about after school care. I leave without taking work home with me, it's ideal in every way but I'm embarrassed to mention what I do in the company of other women that have executive positions, because they look down their noses at me as if I'm not important".

In reality, women in front line roles such as retail & customer service are far more important to us on a daily level than one woman at CEO level of a major corporation that we would not normally affiliate with. Just imagine if there was no one working in the supermarkets, or no supermarkets at all, we'd be back to growing all of our own veges (which is fun), slaughtering our own chickens & cattle (which isn't fun) ourselves or standing in long, long queues.

Many mums have also become business owners. The new breed of mumpreneurs, have the added stress of single handedly building the entire infrastructure of their company from the ground up, continually pursuing business education. Elements outside the initial product or service, such as employees, marketing, social media expertise, presentations, meetings, sourcing, business & retail relationships; the list is endless.
Yet every week the benchmark lifts a little higher and the mumpreneur has to work yet harder.
Last week someone mentioned I wasn't on Pinterest. "Huh?"

No matter what society expects from us, as mother's we are still in charge of doing the same motherly duties of looking after our children and partners as our predecessor did plus a whole lot more.



Take the outside work mum, who has to get the kids up and ready, the partner too sometimes, so that she can get to work on time. I have watched mums struggle into the day care centre in our home street, holding a tearful baby in one arm whilst dragging a defiant, cantankerous toddler in the other, come back out brushing a tear a way or wait till they get in the car and thump their head on the steering wheel, taking deep breaths. Their stressful day started a while ago and they haven't even arrived at work yet.

As our children reach primary school age, there's the struggle to get them to school on time, only to have the little darlings say at the school gate "Mum did you get my bag?"

  
Not to mention the plethora of after school activities, when mum becomes the taxi service, circumnavigating afternoon traffic across a couple of suburbs if she has more than one child or maybe a few to cart around.

Juggle the taxi service in between the second most important meal of the day, which is also the most time consuming and complex meal to make - the evening dinner. Add a few rounds of homework supervision (or battle standoffs), the bath time, the kitchen cleaning, folding the laundry, the bedtime routine (or war), it's not surprising to find many an overwhelmed mum not yet out of their work clothes at 9pm, trying to make it all fit in.






Mums seem to push themselves at the expectation to perform at a top knot rate endlessly throughout their day & night in all areas, to prove 'I am woman, hear me roar! I am woman, I am invincible" as Helen Redding sang the song that inspired women to change their lives from that day forward.


In hindsight someone should have put gaffer tap over her mouth!!

Something has got to give? but what?



Aside from the the secret wishful thinking of a few hours of 'free me time', as mothers, we wouldn't trade our children for anything.

Weekends are lost on the catch up of domestic chores, leaving most working mums without the option of critical battery recharging that the kids and non helpful partners enjoy the abundance of.
We're supposed to do it with a smile to!



As we battle the 'must have clean nest' syndrome internally, we endeavour to make our lives easier; we look, we search, we share tips, ideas, suggestions. As women we do that well, we also set the benchmark, the standards, we compete, we show off, because that's what women do. We are our own most significant 'frenemy'.

A friends daughter will be turning 10 at the end of this month, so she was scouring the bowels of google, blogs, websites and Pinterest for fab ideas and came away completely disheartened, somewhat depressed, if not impressed with her finds.
Looking on one blog site, her eyes feasted, her creative juices flowed and her heart sank
"Is this the new standard for little girls parties" she groaned "I can't compete with that, now I feel lousy that I can't, not only do these things, didn't think of them in the first place and just don't have the energy to coordinate it all?" she sighs.
It seems that Mcdonalds parties are no longer acceptable for that age group.

So the hangup begins again...... 'why can't I be a better mum like that mum'.....or 'mums like that make mums like me look real bad'..

Honestly, children really don't care if their mum can't master cloud computing, spreadsheets, diverse applications or make fancy sugar iced dolly clothes for dolly cookies, they love mum for who she is; their mum.

All mums are awesome in their own right!

Laugh at the chaos,

Take a 'good' break weekly (locking yourself in the toilet for half an hour, counting to 10 over and over again isn't considered a good break)

Don't stress about having to make the beds before you go to work in the morning; an empty house doesn't care. I have never known a house to have a sign on its front door "My owner didn't make the beds today"

Baked beans on toast for dinner is more than perfectly acceptable, we just don't get enough legumes in our diet anyway.

Don't compare yourself to other mums, they are probably doing the same to you.

Toys and baby paraphernalia scattered around is a sign 'My Family lives here'

Have an FFYD (Fend For Yourself Dinner) night at least once a week if you can. I've started to partake in that great invention.

If your are totally overwhelmed (and who isn't at times) find another mum to talk with and get things off your chest. She might need it too.

Believe in yourself, your kids do.



and,

"No one ever says on their death bed, I should have spent more time in the office"

Enjoy!

WAHM of Note - Emma Cook of 'Wired to the Moon'

This is a guest post from Emma Cook, founder of the wonderfully named photography business 'Wired to the Moon'
Emma, a newbie flying soloist, has a business that allows her to juggle kids & family life, definitely the envy of most WAHM's & GTWM's




 Whilst Emma has turned her passion into a business, like many new solo businesses, she has done so with some learning, discovering, hurdles & triumphs in between the good & the bad days, along the way.
As Emma says, its all very exciting and daunting at the same time.

I've been doing photography as a hobby on and off for around 10 years. And started taking it seriously 3 years ago just after my daughter was born. I am completely self taught, and everything just clicked and I started with just taking LOTS of photos of my kids, and in February I decided that I wanted to take my passion, and start a business. I realised life is too short to be doing something you don't love.

I love taking my camera and creating beautiful images. Portraits are what I love doing, I love capturing those moments when a child is playing and exploring, and just doing what they naturally do.  I steer towards doing natural light and outdoors sessions as I find I capture the persons true essence as they are not posed as such in a studio. I specialise in portraits - children, families, couples and adults. Working in western Sydney and the locations I shoot at are good for people who live closer to the city or north west and also people who live in the Western Suburbs.

I worked in customer service before I had kids, then when I had kids I found I lost myself to being a mum, which I love, but I also needed something for myself, to get my creative juices flowing and photography is the perfect thing for me.

The struggles I have come across is getting my name out there, and getting clients. I learnt very early on that marketing is a huge part of being a photographer, which led me to designing flyer's and business cards, and actually branding my product so that it is a distinctive Wired to the Moon Photography product. 
This includes my site http://www.wiredtothemoonphotography.com>  my flyer's, business cards, CD presentation etc. So I'm proud of how my brand looks, as an artist, how I present my work is very important, and I did it all myself so that has been a triumph in itself!

I guess some unexpected things have been that there is a lot of help out there if you know where to look and who to ask, I was always really apprehensive about contacting other photographers but I have found them to be really friendly and helpful and encouraging which has been lovely.

The thing I recommend about being in business are:

 - Start from the beginning. Figure out what you want your business to be, who your target market are and know your product or service before you start charging for it. Be confident in yourself, and your abilities and as a photographer I know that every photo I take is for my portfolio.

My worst day since being in business is when I've had a challenging session and I come away from it feeling deflated and the best day is when I do have an awesome session and I click with the clients and we have a great time shooting, and the images the come from the session are gorgeous!

I do most shoots on weekends so that dad can have the kids, and I have a lot of late nights of editing so that I get the most out of the day with the kids. But so far I haven't found the work/life balance to be a challenge, and because I love my job, I don't find it hard to balance it!

My clients have found me through word of mouth and my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/wiredtothemoonphotography <http://www.facebook.com/wiredtothemoonphotography> ) and a few through the flyer's.


Emma