What a long strange trip it's been...

I never thought I'd be a crunchy mom.

Hell, for a long time, I didn't think I'd be a mom at all. Growing up, kids never really figured into my plans. I kind of assumed maybe I'd get married or something, but kids were...meh.

And then my sister had kids. And they were cute and stuff. But I still didn't, you know, want any. Maybe if I was 30 or something. But when you had kids, you had to take care of crying, pooping babies and bratty two year olds. Really, there was little appeal. At least when I was the aunt, if they were bad, someone else got to deal with them. I could leave.

Then Mike and I got together. And suddenly, I wanted a baby. I have no idea why. It's not like there was some amazing moment where I held a baby and my heart exploded with longing. Hell, to this day, I don't like to hold other people's babies.

It took Mike and I a trillion years to conceive Rhi. When I found out I was pregnant, I was over the moon. I had all these plans. I was going to formula feed. I'd pop the kid in a daycare at 6 weeks, have a career, do it all. I planned baby rooms. I told my new ob I wanted an epidural, like, instantly - women who were drug free were fucking crazy.

I have this tendency, though, to research things, almost to the point of compulsion. Also, I was on maternity leave and I had the internet. It was better than soaps. So I started reading.

The first to fall was formula feeding. I read the benefits of breastfeeding, and I wanted to do that for my baby. I was blown away by how amazing the milk created by the human body was. And when I went out in public, I could totally pump beforehand, so I didn't have to publicly nurse.

When I felt Rhi move for the first time, I had this thought out of nowhere that I could never, ever, ever leave her at a daycare at 6 weeks. This tiny little thing in my stomach needed to stay with me. She needed me. And I needed to be with her. So I told Mike I wasn't going back to work right away after I had her. Luckily, he was supportive and did not think I had lost my mind.

Then I found some articles on something called HypnoBirth. To make this short, it's a drug-free birthing method. So I decided to try that. (I won't lie - part of my urge to try that came from an intense dislike of the idea of a catheter.)

Oh, and the bedroom? It was painted, decorated, ready. She never slept in it. Rhi's crib was right next to my bed. Right until the day we moved. Quite simply, I couldn't imagine her so far away.

Then, I got crunchier.

I nursed in public all the time, and still do. Pumps suck. Pumping is boring, and hard; bottles have to be washed and warmed; and I'm lazy. Much easier to pop out my boob than do Bottle Wars with a baby. And figuring out exactly how much a baby will want to eat at a certain time seemingly never worked for me.

At some point post Rhi's birth (where I distinctly remember saying, "If she comes out as a boy, we want her circumcised") and pre-Keira's conception, I decided that circumcision was pretty silly. There was no real point, it could be harmful...it was pretty much a cosmetic procedure. If I had a boy, and they wanted it done later, they could go for it. But since I couldn't undo getting it done, I decided it wasn't my decision to make.

And now...Keira is cloth diapered (usually,) she co-sleeps, I plan to make her baby food, we do a lot of babywearing (something I never quite got the hang of with Rhi.) I've also started buying more local and organic foods, we're going to build our green, dream home...

The me from my early twenties would be horrified, lol.