Being Crunchy

I find myself leaning into new ideas that have my poor husband giving me sidelong glances and wondering what he signed up for when he said “I do”!

Firstly, I am working to become more “green” – I have been clearing out my old chemical household cleaners and working on new greener, non-toxic alternatives. He is pretty much on board with this since he can see the cost savings and knows that every dollar matters with my being out of work soon. But he still has a hard time believing that I can get the house clean without the use of bleach, which is his favorite cleaning product of all time! It doesn’t help that I haven’t had the energy for much cleaning lately and things are starting to look really grody! I am going to have to spend some time working on the house after the lay off happens next week.

Next, I am trying to incorporate more veggies into Smug-Baby’s diet and to do this I have been sneaking them in via purées and new recipes that are all delicious but not food combinations that my husband is used to. I am also trying to limit, if not completely eliminate animal products from mine and Smug-Baby’s diet. I think that she is sensitive to them and since I have cut way back on the diary she eats all the little dry patches on her skin have cleared up and her nose isn’t running anymore. I know that most babies are sensitive so I need to get my system and my breastmilk clear of dairy before Little-Smug arrives. So most of the dishes I am trying out these days are hard for my darling Smug-Hub to accept. He does try to roll with it and often will just prepare some meat item on the side for himself or top whatever I have made with some shredded cheddar.

I have been reading about attachment parenting techniques and would love for him to read the same stuff that I am reading so we can be on the same page when it comes to things with Smug-Baby. Discipline is of the most concern to me right now; because that is the area we are setting the ground work for in her life. I gave him an easy book to read, but he is stuck on the home birth chapter and is feeling like maybe I am still trying to convince him to have Little-Smug at home. I told him to get through that chapter and on to the rest of the information, but it is hard for him to read something he isn’t really interested in so he puts it off. 

When I talk about trying Elimination Communication he just gives me a look and walks away J He is fully on board with nursing, delaying solids, baby wearing and many of the other attachment concepts, but EC is hard to get your mind around and really, I’m not sure that I’m there either!!

The latest thing to cause my husband a deep issue is my idea of bringing home the placenta. What I would like to do is plant it in the soil with a tree in honor of our son. It will compost and fertilize the tree and it seems like a nice way to use something that nourished my son for the better part of a year.  I know that some people keep the placenta attached to the baby until the cord detaches from the belly button naturally and some women actually ingest their placenta and frankly both those ideas seem really pretty gross to me. However, it does seem a little wrong to toss it into the trash with other waste, so I like the idea of using it in some way. Smug-Hub gags at the thought and while he says that as long as he doesn’t have to deal with it, see it, help me bury it, then he’s fine, he really is having a super hard time with it. To me, it’s just a maybe-would-be-nice kind of thing so if he really has an issue or the hospital doesn’t want to let me take it home, then its really OK. However, I don’t think that it is gross just to plant it – eat it? Oh yeah, but just to bury it? Nah, not gross.

I worry that one of these days I will want to do something or try something and my poor husband will simply wash his hands of my strange ways and have me committed J I just think that everyone has to do what seems right to them and judging each other for those choices just seems like a waste of energy. Smug-Hub however is very concerned that people will think that he married a total wack-a-do! Maybe he did! He married a home-schooled vegetarian who is now a weirdo who doesn’t eat cheese, cleans with baking soda, wants to potty train our infant and to bury her placenta!! The poor man! I need to do something really mainstream to make him feel better, like maybe give birth in a hospital – oh wait…