Book Club

The First Thursday of Every Month is book club. Last month we read Our Babies, Ourselves. If by "We" I mean 4 of the 11 moms who came to the last meeting (me not being one of them). I bought the book several months ago and then it got pushed and now I can't find it and didn't want to buy it again, so never got around to reading it. This is Melissa and her mom Ruby playing with Orion, Arden's son. I was shocked to have such a good turn out. The previous month, there were only 3 attendees including me, so when 11 showed up I had my fingers crossed that I could host such a large group. Holly, Madelyn and Orion, are playing with Holly's little house. It is amazing to see Orion mobile and crawling around. He is about 9 months old now. Madelyn is turning 1 this week. In the back ground here are Julia and David, Pamela and Sebastian, some of the new moms.Holly was the oldest Baby, which helped turn the chaos down a notch. I also decided to put away some of the toys, like the blocks, shakers, and Lego's. The play date we had last week made such a mess, I knew there would be enough toys without them, and it would help keep me sane to not worry about all the missing pieces. Several of the moms were ones I had not met before and it took a while to wrangle everyone and actually start talking about the book, but eventually we did get around to it. Madelyn and Melissa took some time to hang out int he ball pit and had a blast. Here we are finally getting into a circle to begin book discussions, you can see Kai in his cute little overalls, with his mom Sam. The push toys were quite a hit because of all the pre-walkers, they really enjoyed having some support.Melanie and Julian are new to the group and this was there first meeting. I hope they will be back. Melanie was eager to talk about the book and I think a little disappointed that more of us didn't read it.
Before the meeting, I tried putting Holly down for a nap around 11:00, and then again at Noon, but she never went to sleep. So when 1:00 rolled around and it was time for the play date she was just winding down, but then got revved back up. With all the kids over she jumped back into action, but by 3:30 when everyone left she was fussy and ready to crash. She was passed out 15 minutes later.

From what the other mom's said, the book was only so-so and I won;t likely read it. it was interesting, but more of a primer for attachment parenting and the mindfulness school's of thought. So in a way it was preaching to the choir, as all of us already believe in that style of parenting. Vika and Elias I don't think are new to the group as they seemed to know some of the other moms, but I had not met them before. Elias is such a cute little guy. But I didn't really get too much of a chance to chat with her. Most of the time I was hosting and watching Holly and wrangling.Chloe and Melissa are here playing. Melissa is 13 months old, but she was so big for her age. She looked like she was about 2, especially next to Chloe. The kids took a break and crawled into Holly's room to read and explore for a while. They got into just about everything, but that's the good thing about being baby proofed, there isn't anything they can get into that they shouldn't.What was interesting about the book was the discussion of all the different ways in which people parent in other cultures. The book is about how Culture and Biology influence our parenting beliefs. It seems pretty interesting, but the number of books I have time to read is limited, and there are other's further up on my list.Holly was so tired when everyone went home. She ended up getting sick that night, and it was the next day we found out about her perforated Ear Drum. She had a low grade fever of about 99 and was lethargic. I thought it was from the long day at first, but then when she started refusing bottles i worried it was something worse. Friday was a holiday, the 3rd, but I talked the doctor into seeing her, thankfully, and she started new antibiotics. Just today she had her two week follow up and she is clear as a bell all healed. I am grateful.