The Mom Crowd

As we are knee-deep in the holiday season, I am realizing something kinda important: Lucy has learned who Santa Claus is.  (She’ll be three in a couple of months.)  When we were decorating our tree a week ago, she said, “That’s Santa!”  We think she picked up on it from an episode of “Dora the Explorer”.  She is no longer an oblivious baby with no need to know about Santa one way or another.   We’re now faced with the question:  What do we teach her about Santa?  People are always asking us at Christmastime if we “do Santa” with our kids, especially friends and people we know from our church.  Apparently, it’s a tradition still embraced by most of the church-going folks in my own community.

[Until now, I think my husband & I just looked at this issue with a mixture of ambivalence and laziness.  The older we get, the wearier we become with the whole commercial Christmas machine.  It just seems somewhat insignificant in light of our world's greater troubles: the poor, the homeless, the sick, the dying, the starving, the oppressed - the people who live on next to nothing and struggle just to survive.  I hate to be Debbie Downer and all, but the more I learn, the less I care about presents or Santa.  My husband and I have pretty much decided not to give each other anything this year - we don't need more stuff - and donate our Christmas gift budget to a bigger cause.  We did buy small gifts for Lucy and Eli.

I grew up with the magic of Christmas - I think I learned the truth about the jolly fat fellow when I was about nine years old.  I loved Christmas season for the magic it brought with it, especially the gifts.  As a child, the presents are all that matter!  And well into my twenties, I tried to preserve that magic with gift giving galore.  After awhile, though, I realized it was quite a job to shop for people who already have everything they need (or who can go buy what they want any other day of the year).]

But back to the question at hand: what and how do we teach our kids about this time-honored tradition of Santa Claus, Rudolph, and the naughty & nice list?  Ultimately, it is a matter to be decided by each parent or set of parents.  My husband and I need to sit down and decide how much we want our kids to believe, and how much we want to make it about God and the world and its brokenness, about Jesus’ birth and the Giant Rescue Plan God created to bring mankind back to Him.  We also need to agree on how we’ll show the spirit of Christmas to our children – if we make it all about ourselves, the cookies, the parties, the fun, or if we balance it with a concern and compassion for others in need.  (We don’t have it figured out yet, believe me.)

Then we have to figure out how to raise our kids in a culture that preserves and celebrates this annual tradition.  No, I don’t want to be the “mean family” who spoils it for all of the other kids – I would hope we’d show our kids how to have discernment and keep certain things to themselves.  But kids will be kids – they are more honest than anyone.  I really can’t help it if my child wants to share something true with another child, especially if it’s an accident or in total innocence.  It’s not my goal to correct the thinking of other children or to throw another family’s Christmas tradition under the bus.  I’d rather our family be known for its commitment to serving others and being a light in the darkness.  And I have a feeling we’ll be learning what that looks like through a lot of trial and error in the Christmases to come.

I recently read a couple of other articles on this topic, and was somewhat stunned by the extreme points of view people have about the tradition of Santa, especially when I hold them up to my own.  “To each his own” I read a few times on comment boards, and I have to agree.  Read at your own risk, and then decide for yourself whether or not it’s worth your precious time and energy to jump in on an argument that will ultimately lead nowhere.  I say, let’s channel that energy into helping someone in need this season.

• I Refuse To Let My Kid Believe In Santa from the Momlogic Community
• Emily’s next-day response, also at Momlogic
• Should Kids Believe In Santa Claus? from Kaboose
• What a Family Therapist Says from Kaboose

Here at The Mom Crowd, we’d love for you to weigh in on the Santa tradition – I just humbly ask that we be nice to each other as we share our ideas and strategies.  So let’s hear it: To what degree is Santa important in your family’s Christmas tradition?  Are you annoyed with parents who don’t teach their kids about Santa?  Are you annoyed with parents who do?  Like me, are you somewhere in the middle?  Is it possible to teach our kids how to keep a secret in order to protect another child’s innocence?  Is it possible to teach our kids to be passionate about social justice and compassion for others as much as they care about gifts under the tree?  

As many of you know, our family is adopting a child through Reece’s Rainbow and a while ago, The Mom Crowd hosted a raffle to help bring another child from Reece’s Rainbow home.  You can catch up with this beautiful family and their new daughter, Addison {AKA: Nika} at their family blog.  Is that enough “hyperlinking” for ya?

I wanted to take a moment to share with you about Reece’s Rainbow and their mission.  Reece’s Rainbow is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise awareness regarding the plight of children with Down syndrome in foreign orphanages and their availability to be adopted, to raise adoption grants for waiting children, to seek out adoptive families for these children, to help adopting families during their adoption process with fund raising opportunities and paperwork assistance {and emotional support-I threw that one in!}, to provide humanitarian aid to foreign orphanages, to facilitate support groups for birth parents of children with Down syndrome to help decrease the number of children placed in orphanages, and to enact social change abroad about children with Down syndrome and other special needs through the testimony of adoption.

In 2006, Reece’s Rainbow expanded from an outreach program for families with children with Down syndrome in Atlanta to an organization promoting international adoption of children with Down syndrome.   In the short two years since beginning this new focus, over 120 children with Down syndrome and other special needs have found forever families with the help of Reece’s Rainbow. As of June 2008, they have dispersed over $86,000 to adopting families and have waiting children with substantial grants ready for their prospective parents.  Many orphans around the world are not receiving adequate nutrition and health care.  In Eastern European and other countries, orphans with Down syndrome are commonly transferred to mental institutions if they are not adopted by the age of four. After they are transferred, most die within the first year from lack of basic care.

There is a special way you can help Reece’s Rainbow fulfill their mission.  Every year, Reece’s Rainbow hosts a Christmas Angel Tree Project.  Right now, you can see every child with Down syndrome waiting for a family through Reece’s Rainbow and sponsor one or more of them for Christmas.  With every $35 donation, you will receive a special ornament with a picture of the child you are sponsoring for Christmas.  Will you consider sponsoring an orphan with Down syndrome this Christmas?  In order to receive an ornament, donations must be received by December 15th.  Please visit their site today and help bring an orphan home for Christmas!

When I had my daughter I knew I would be traveling to the Philippines 7 months later and breastfeeding would be the easiest way to travel with her. So in those first few months I had to become proficient at breastfeeding in public places, because I didn’t know where I would be when I had to nurse Annabelle.

I am an incredibly modest person and I didn’t necessarily want to nurse in front of other men on a mission trip, but I had to learn how to nurse modestly. After the research I had done, I was surprised to find breastfeeding really common in the Philippines and some women would nurse while sitting in the church sanctuary. I wasn’t quite that brave.

Here is what I learned about nursing in public in the 14 months I nursed my daughter.

1. Be Confident. If you aren’t ashamed, then every one else will pick up on that vibe and they won’t be weirded out either. Besides, there is nothing to be ashamed about anyway!  I never made a big deal about it and I tried to be as discreet as possible.

2. Wear the right clothes. I never wanted to show my tummy gleaming with silvery lines on my stomach, so I would strategically wear clothes that I wouldn’t have to pull up my shirt. I would often wear a nursing bra or a nursing camisole under a shirt I could button down or had a large V-neck. Or I would wear a nursing camisole under a t-shirt and I could lift up the t-shirt without exposing my belly.

3. Use a nursing cover. I don’t think I ever nursed in public without one. I always felt confident that I was covered up and if my boob was out no one could see it. I used a cover that had a wire on top that bent to create a u-shape that I could look down into and make sure that my baby was doing alright. I bought mine here, but you can also buy some beautiful ones at Tot-to-Go.

4. Find a chair in a nursing room, restroom, or a changing room while traveling around town. I would sometimes plan my outings around Babies R Us, because they have a comfortable nursing room with a rocking chair. No one ever noticed that I wouldn’t buy anything. I would also scope out and make mental notes of restrooms that had a chair or couch in the ladies room. Sometimes I would just find an out of the way bench or nursed in the car. I think the more I nursed the more bold I became about where I nursed.

5. Practice! It took me a few times to practice holding my baby, putting the nursing cover on, and getting my boob out of my clothes. I would practice at parties or at homes with men around, so I could become more comfortable with it. I remember practicing at Ikea and it was one of the first times I had used my cover and I flashed my boob to Ikea somehow in the process.  I don’t think anyone cared.

Here is a very blurry photo of me nursing on a Jeepney…

…with about 20 other people on board. I think this is the weirdest place I ever nursed.

Need more information? Check out this awesome video by Susanne Carvin. I watched it when I first started nursing and I found it really helpful!

Did you (do you) nurse in public? Are you shy about it or was it not a big deal? Where is the weirdest place you ever nursed?

Earlier this week, I was discussing with my hubby the definition of “preppy“.  It all started because I called our son “Mr. Preppy” – he was wearing a polo-shirt style onesie and the collar was “popped” for a second.  So cute.  In fact, it was his outfit for fall pictures at pre-school a few weeks ago.

It got me thinking about all the different fashion statements we like to make with our children.   For the first several years, they are definitely wearing what we choose for them.  In a way, we make them little reflections of ourselves.  Have you ever dressed your child in clothing that:

• represents a favorite sports team/alma mater/band or musical act?
• makes some kind of political statement?
• matches your own outfit to a tee?

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this; it’s part of the fun of having a child, in my opinion.  We’ve all done this in some form or another, either by choice or because the clothing was a gift from family members, right?  (My children have been wearing more than their fair share of Philadelphia sports teams gear for the past 2 years, that’s for sure. ) 

I’m curious: do you think about what style you want your baby to wear?  Do you seek out certain plaid, button-down styles?  Do you gravitate toward the frilly stuff for your daughter?  Are you prone to stocking up on shirts that have the latest Disney characters screened on them? 

I work in our church nursery each Sunday, so I glimpse a little bit of everything: kids in hand-me-downs, kids in linen overalls and white-collared shirts, kids in Baby Gap from hat to socks, kids in cartoon-related clothes, kids in garage sale clothes.   

The picture above is one that I took of my daughter’s closet when she was first born: stocked with precious dresses and outfits that were ultimately only useful one or two times.  I loved dressing her in them and I miss all that frilliness.  But she’s going on 3 now.  She’s in pre-school two days a week.  It’s all practical, all the time for her.  Jeans, tees, sneakers, and a jacket.  We can’t afford much more than this.  We get everything at Target and Wal-Mart, and we’ve become huge garage sale fans, scoring scads of good clothing at a fraction of the cost.   

Other moms’ thoughts on this subject:

• Junior High, Revisited 
• How to Dress Up Your Kids In Style
• Do  You Have a Problem Dressing Your Children In Wal-Mart Clothes?
• Dress  Your Child For Success: 5 Steps to Building Confidence Through Appearance

What do you think? What habits have you formed in acquiring your kids’ wardrobes?How important is your child’s clothing to you?  Is this irrelevant in our troubling economic times?  Weigh in below.

I finally figured out how to keep all the baby socks organized.  I think I read somewhere that you can make your own non-slip socks by getting some puffy or slick fabric paint and putting some on the bottom of the socks.  I even found a site where you can make your own puffy paint but I thought it might peel off quicker than store bought paint.  The homemade puffy paint was made with glue and shaving cream–didn’t seem like it would last through several washes.

I had an “AHA!” moment when I figured out that I could use the slick paint to not only make socks non-skid, but I could also put what age range they are for. Some stores (Baby Gap, Old Navy) label their sock size by age range on the bottom with non-slip paint which comes in handy–but I have a lot of socks that aren’t labeled.

I have been somewhat organized by putting them in labeled ziplock bags so I can keep track of the sizes.  But often when I am switching over from one sock size to another the socks get mixed up into the wrong bag. If I label my socks with fabric paint, then I will be killing two birds with one stone.

My inspiration came from my desire for Graham to have warm feet in our chilly house AND for him to gain confidence in his walking abilities.  I thought if he felt like he was slipping all the time it might discourage him from walking.  No slipping=Less falling=More walking.  Graham is 14.5 months old and still prefers to crawl although he does take several steps throughout the day.  I added a picture to show you my little sock creation.