Crunchy Mama

I think I can officially call myself a crunchy mama, at least according to urbandictionary.com:

1.	crunchy mama
	Mother who supports homebirth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, etc. One who questions established medical authority; tends to be vegetarian and/or prepare all-organic foods.

Yes, I support homebirth. I don't know that I will ever have one but I completely understand why a woman would choose to do it. Obviously I'm a breastfeeding advocate- I hope to nurse Luke a little longer than Beth since she self-weaned during my second trimester (a common thing I hear). I absolutely love baby wearing, in fact I still wear Beth when I have the chance but it's getting more difficult for obvious reasons. I really miss wearing her when she was tiny and I could just peek into my pouch and see her all curled up in there. Gooood memories! We're switching to cloth diapers (duh) and I'm really excited about the environmental impact and the ability to save money as we use these diapers as long as possible through our hoard of children we hope to be blessed with. Co-sleeping was also one of my favorite things about early childhood. Life was so much easier when Beth was nursing and she'd wake up in the middle of the night, and I didn't even have to lean over to reach for her in the bassinet. It wore on me (well, us) a little but I firmly believe that it made a positive impact on all of our lives. We will also practice (well, already are!) gentle discipline, which is a non-punitive method of parenting. That means no spanking! We will focus on natural and logical consequences, "positive" timeouts, and no yelling. It's going to be a heck of a challenge, I can already see that as she's developing her own personality and as her temperment begins to show through, but I feel deep in my heart that this is the right choice for us for several reasons. I do tend to question medical authority, especially now that I have children of whom I am completely responsible for. Why should I follow someone else's recommendations when these are my kids? What if something were to happen to them because a doctor lumps them in a category with other kids? Hence our decision about delaying and avoiding certain vaccines and my decision to give birth outside of a hospital. Now, I do not ever plan on becoming vegetarian- NEVER! I love meat waaay too much! I am of the belief that God gave us animals to take care of, but also to eat. ;-) I would love to buy organic everything, I'm starting out on that path by having our own garden but it's just incredibly difficult to purchase everything organic. I do tend to use homemade cleaning solutions like baking soda and vinegar but I don't buy organic meat or eggs. Milk I will occasionally buy organic. I really want to. But we can't afford to, despite my best efforts to trim our weekly grocery bill even further. Something else I want to add to the list is homeschooling, something I hope we can consider in the future. I know there are a million misconceptions about homeschooling- the biggest concern being socialization for the kids- but I think it's what you make of it. Sure, it's possible to have unsocialized homeschooled children. But it doesn't have to be that way, and there are many outlets available to socialize, teach, and expose kids to new things as they grow up. It doesn't have to be through public school. We'd love to be able to send our children to our awesome local Catholic school; we'll have to see about funds once we get to that point. And of course, natural family planning. Because who wants to put synthetic hormones or other icky things in their body?

I like doing these things because they feel natural. All of these things, to me, feel like that's how God intended things to be. And these things make me feel like a good wife and mom when I can get them done- so maybe there's a little bit of selfish motivation in there. (On the other hand I feel like an incompetent wife or mother when I don't get those things done!) I am definitely not as crunchy as some and I'm completely okay with that! I like eating meat! For me, I do tend to judge the way other people live their lives. It's not something I'm proud of- a big fault of mine actually- but it does help me to re-evaluate the way I'm living my life and question my practices and beliefs. And while I am trying my best not to judge people (Luke 6:37!) I do like the motivation to make sure I'm doing the best I possibly can for my family!