Can I piggyback a question OP? What's the youngest and/or best age to introduce swimming lessons to a child?

Red Door in Chevy Chase is a zoo, which makes it the opposite of relaxing. There have been individual technicians there who are great, but there is also a lot of turnover. In general I don't think DC is a great spa town. Mandarin is indeed nice though as a few others have noted.

Also, sometimes DC means daycare rather than dear child (the context will make it clear but I'm often re-reading or backtracking on posts due to this one).

Thanks all -- that radio flyer looks fab!

Ours was not quite right, and I'm glad we had it checked (although I couldn't say for sure if our improper installation would have posed a material safety hazard or not). The person who checked ours said something like 90% of the seats she checks are done improperly.

Any good recommendations for push-toys for a 9 month old who crawls and stands and appears to be itching to learn to walk?

Hmm. It may be when DS is closer to school age we'll just need to go witness for ourselves (or discuss, as I guess it might be intrusive to ask to observe?) how the silent time operates. I get that Friends congregations aren't led in the same way that other denominations are, and I find most of the principles extremely appealing. I'm probably stuck on a past experience with someone I knew who was Jewish and married to a Quaker, who had said he ultimately became uncomfortable attending meetings because there remained much talk of Jesus and it just felt weird for him. I'll admit that's exactly one data point, and I probably need to think about it more.

How often do you and your kids see your great-aunt and uncle? If the answer is not very, then I'd probably not say anything to them (other than a thank you note appreciating their thoughtfulness) and just re-gift the cars to older children that you know. If these are people that are in your childrens' intimate circle and who will be giving gifts often, maybe just chatting more often about what's going on with the kids, what they are into these days, etc to help them get more familiar over time?

Anonymous wrote:Both Waldorf and Oneness have religious/spiritual ties that are out of the mainstream, some would even say cultish. You can do web searches on Theosophy/Rudolf Steiner and on Sri Chimnoy for Oneness to learn more. There is also a Waldorf critics website.

Thanks for this -- I had thought Oneness looked interesting but will now be more guarded about it. Is the school open about its connection to Chimnoy?

As for the Waldorf debate, from my limited research and exposure through other families it seems some of the principles are quite wonderful and would be a good fit for some kids. The Theosophy stuff, however, is out there and at least one parent I've spoken with was alarmed to find her daughter's teachers doing a ritual prayer before class -- the teachers ushered her out of the classroom forthwith. We might try introducing some of the principles we like from Waldorf into how we play at home on weekends and in the evenings, but probably wouldn't do a Waldorf school (we're still eons from having to make real decisions on pre-school though).

Probably with any school I'd ask as many direct questions about these kinds of issues as I could. I personally wouldn't want prayer of any sort in my son's classroom environment. (Sadly this eliminates for us the Quaker schools too.) Meditation/quiet reflection time could be great (particularly since our son is a bundle of excess physical energy and could use the skill) but I'd want to make sure it was not code for prayer.

It sounds like her immaturity in communicating with you about what happened is the bigger problem. I know you are angry but please consider not compounding the communication breakdowns -- you should have addressed it with her in person as soon as you figured it out(or via phone if she was gone by the time you noticed, but it sounds like you noticed on the way to her ballet class?). Waiting and getting more and more angry and then sending an angry email will only escalate things and doesn't give her a chance to at least offer her point of view and apologize. Is there a reason she would be so afraid of you that she'd feel compelled to engage in an obvious cover-up? Have you two had problems before?

Are there temperment/personality types that do particularly well or poorly under the various alternative approaches? It's nice to hear from someone who has researched this stuff!

I think the PP's advice is legit. It may be best to try counseling before divorce -- it's so easy to become wed to our own perspective and assume we know how and why the other person thinks and feels the way they do. It might be that both partners have valid, but conflicting, needs/wants here and they just have a completely broken communication around the issue at this point.

To echo the sentiment that your choices may depend in part on the individual needs and temperment of the child (on top of whatever your family's personal needs and philosophies are), I'd add that the child's needs can evolve over time. One of the recent PP's seems to be experiencing this (we did too) and asked about how to manage co-sleeping with an older more mobile baby. Here's what we do right now -- we have added a rail to the side of the bed that can fold down when not in use. DS goes down in his crib at bedtime, and tends to move to our bed after his first or second night waking. If he easily goes back to his crib, we try that first, and he sometimes does fine, but if he protests and seems to need the extra comfort then he ends up with us for the balance of the night. Also sometimes dad lays down with him in the night in his own room on a mattress on the floor. (We want him to be comfortable in his own room over the long haul.) This is a babe that STTN in his own bed beautifully at 5-6 months but started struggling as separation stuff and the teeth and the crawling etc began. We're seeing glimpses that it's all starting to settle back down, fewer night-wakings, etc. and for now are taking it as it comes.

Anonymous wrote:i'm thrilled on this little website there are some vocal AP type parents, it certainly isnt the norm in my day to day encounters to find like minded parents in DC...women here are very busy and schedule oriented, lots of nannies, not lots of slings, just my observation that even compared to like boston, dc area moms are not that crunchy..which personally bums me out-i dont need it completely homogenous, but it feels like AP is the distinct minority around here!

It makes me sad that there is so much "either/or" out there...I think it's very divisive and can also keep moms and dads from finding other like-minded parents. I'm a "very busy" WOHM and I have a nanny, and I am also following a lot of AP principles. I work from home a couple times a week so that I can maintain nursing instead of pumping on those days. We'll wean when he's ready. He has three very attached caregivers -- me, my husband, and his nanny. He is held and worn often. We do some co-sleeping and are experimenting with what works best for all of us on getting the most sleep while respecting that DS is nowhere near developmentally ready (in our opinion, I know others would disagree) for sleeptraining. DH and I make decisions together, and sometimes we are not on the same page at the outset so it takes some work to talk through it but that's worth it and also a wonderful learning experience about each of our own hidden assumptions and backgrounds. Why do some AP parents write me off because of my WOHM/nanny status?

My supply's been dropping too (8 months), and I just went on a combo of fenugreek and blessed thistle three capsules of each three times a day. That's a LOT of capsules to be downing, but my supply increased materially within 24 hours. Plus, all the pill-popping is probably increasing my fluid intake which is a good thing.

ETA -- I think the capsules end up cheaper than the Mother's Milk teabags, given how many bags you're supposed to consume a day, though the tea is kinda nice and fennel-tasting.

Sorry, ETA again, thinking back on the supply-boosting tricks I used right after birth: eating oatmeal might help, and supposedly so does dark beer -- I remember thinking it did, but that might have been because I liked the idea! The herbs are definitely not placebo for me, but I suspect everyone may react differently.