Ok. So, I just read one of my mom's chums blog, and after the first post, I had to turn back out of the pain all of the eyeball rolling. I think it was some rot about being an insanely neurotic mother and bitching about bathmat action.
I'm sorry, I just canNOT get with that mentality (no, bathmats are good, I mean the neuroticism)...that babies are these tiny, fragile little flowers who will immediately DIE if not watched, monitored and coddled constantly. I didn't own a baby monitor, nor will I ever. I co-slept, and now that Squidge is a toddly-person, he can amble in when he has troubles sleeping or gets scared. Which is rarely, thank Krishna. But other than that? He kind of does what he wants, with emotionally detatched supervision from yours truly. Why detatched? Dude. How the hell is he ever going to learn that climbing on the back of the couch is not the smartest idea? By me freaking and ripping him off of it? No. By me saying "Now honey, that's ouchy," (insert singsong voice here)? NO. Cause and effect.
Fo shizzle. Within reason, but still.
I mean, have you ever watched a tot run full-on into a coffee table, bounce off, and keep going? Or sat there in the market, watching your child sucking on the cart handle, then cursing a week later when you're horrifically sick and they're a picture of rosy cheeked health? Gimme a break.
Don't get me wrong: No meat passes Le Squidge's lips. We avoid playing on freeways, for the most part. Seatbelts are rocked at all times in moving vehicles. Vaccinations are spaced out, and I refuse to give him flu shots or superfluous shots for the chicken pox (doctor duped my mom into that one, though..grrr...). But aside from that? Kids are going to hurt themselves. They WILL have coughing fits for no apparent reason other than to freak you the fuck out. In the bath, they WILL slip, and they WILL swallow some water, and it WILL be extremely unpleasant. But you'll be there to make sure they don't drown. Seriously, you have to be some kind of severe fucktard to screw that up.
Granted, shit does happen. Sometimes freak accidents happen, or things brought about by hyper kids and mothers flailing in the throes of sleep dep. But I think, for the most part, it's pretty hard to fuck up. Treat your kid like a little adult, a little human being, not a fucking dolly that you're scared to breathe around for fear of them perishing.
Seriously.
Get a grip.
I know babies are scary when they're tiny, but how are you going to stave something like SID off? By fretting and cultivating an unhealthy mentality about them? No, nyet, nein, neicht. Keep 'em clean, love them fully, feed with organic/hormone free food, let them learn things on their own when necessary, wash their scrapes with water, lather, rinse, repeat. What the hell else can you do?