Feed Your Baby

I have been reminded this week of how judgmental "mothers" can be. I am not even talking about the older generation, but ourselves that are currently in the trenches. Often I find myself looking enviously at the mom who shows up to the park with neat and well behaved children who never raises her voice or yells, "stop hitting your brother with that stick". She will pull out a well balanced lunch with fruits & wheat bread sandwiches, and they will sit quietly on the blanket until lunch is over then help tidy up. Ok, I may be over dramatizing but we all have dreams of the perfect "mom" and we may even know a few that are pretty close to our ideal. I sadly am not even close at this moment. I fed my kids poptarts this morning, slept until 8:30, and let the baby sleep until 10:30 so I could chat on the phone while drinking my second cup of coffee. I had hoped to start school this week, but please refer to my prior procrastinating post, as to why I am waiting til Monday to resume classes. But I digress, I had a mom friend of mine sit and bash someone for sending their kids to a "public" school, and in the same week another friend was upset because her children would be attending school this year and some other moms' felt that was akin to child abuse? On a side note, Ethan just came in and whacked me in the leg with a wet toliet brush, I am definitely not meeting the ideal mom standard today. So my pearl of wisdom to both friends was an illustration that is close to my heart. Breastfeeding!Many who know me may laugh because none of my children breastfed beyond 3 weeks. I was very stressed by breastfeeding, I knew it was the ideal for my baby, and I also knew that my 2 liter coke bottle breasts would probably smother, or emotionally scar my babies for life. It did not come easy, in fact my lovely pediatrician with Olivia said in wonderment that I could almost lay Olivia on my lap and breastfeed her! How he thought this was helpful, I do not know. After shopping for the best support bra on the planet I resigned myself that I was going to bottlefeed and deal with it. Lucky for me I had a wonderful friend who pointed out that the method is not important, but the goal is "to feed your baby". So, I say to people "feed your baby" does it matter how it happens? Educate your child, does it matter the method that is best for your family? Is a classical approach better than Abeka? Is private better than public school? We all have our opinions, but that is just it, it is OUR opinion not the gold standard. Just as there are many methods of child rearing, coming to know Jesus, educating your child, all that matters is the goal and the supportive friendships along the way. So ladies "feed your babies" and love their mommas.