Our CC week

~ Lesson of the week: ALWAYS bring a ring sling.
We went to a babywearing meet-up and as a total first-time-mother I thought the little hike in the beginning would consist of a continuous walk. Haha! Dd (15 months) was by far the youngest child, and we stopped all the time so the older kids could explore the beautiful park. Which resulted in me wrapping her, then taking her out, wrapping her again, taking her out, wrapping her .... you get the picture. I normally always have BOTH a ring sling and a longer wrap with me, just in case. For long walks (sometimes dd falls asleep and I just walk by myself) I prefer the wrap because a ring sling hurts one shoulder after a while. For shorter periods of time, the ring sling is just so much quicker. Oh well, next time.

~ On that same hike, I started to take a little pride in my trust in dd's abilities to watch out for herself. Several times someone warned me about dd being about to fall. The sweetest was a Turkish (?) father of two who seemed genuinely concerned about dd falling down a slide. By now I pretty much know that sometimes she crawls / walks somewhere quickly, but stops when she has to. I've rarely ever seen her being incautious, at least not that I recall. It's a really empowering feeling.

~ We watched a documentary about Thor Heyerdahl, the big adventurer who sailed from Latin America to the Philippines with nothing but a raft and a small crew. I had heard his name before but wasn't aware of his accomplishments, especially in experimental archeology. I couldn't help but find an analogy to the CC when they explained how he build the raft, based on old knowledge from the ancient cultures he studied. Everyone advised him not to do it as it was obviously a very dangerous endeavor, but he trusted his instincts and did it anyway. He trusted that if it had been working for people centuries ago, he could repeat their experiences (and he successfully arrived in the Philippines after more than 100 days, with the entire crew alive). How cool was he? Simply figuring it must work, but having no example of something similar in his current life, and just trusting the process.

- Just a detail, but nail clipping went really well today. Dd was half asleep and nursing, and didn't mind me clipping her nails at all. Normally I try to be as gentle and quick as I can, but she often fights it and it's not exactly a fun moment for her.

~ We went out for lunch on my mom's birthday, and dd was really easy to be around. She sat in her chair, on my lap, and my husband took her out for a little walk. Even the ride there was easy. My mom was sitting next to her in the car, and judging by the grandmother & baby laughter in the back of the car, they both had fun.

~ This isn't specifically something I wanted to mention for this week, but I wanted to write it down anyway: Brushing teeth is always fun for us as dd virtually begs us to give her her toothbrush. She "brushes" her teeth herself and hands me her toothbrush to clean as soon as I clean mine. I will be careful to never mention to her that most children don't like brushing their teeth. I always act like it's a big treat.