Polite society

My 22 month old child likes butter. He likes it in a way that seems shocking to me. Until I read, in many online forums, about the other toddlers who eat sticks of butter. Sticks. More than just the one time.

I've been resisting this butter-eating because we don't do that "in polite society."

In an email (I write him emails because I have to be honest about my poor scrapbooking skills) I wrote K that his butter cravings were insane and that people don't eat butter like that in polite society. And then I wrote, "Who am I kidding? We're not in polite society."

So it got me thinking about all the things I resist because "normal" people don't do them. I also thought about all the things that have come to me while needing to solve a problem, that no one told me about, but that were GREAT ideas and far from normal (getting on a trampoline at 1am, to bounce out K's insane gas, or putting him in the tub to relax him enough to fart, so he could go back to sleep, or asking him telepathically what he needs from me and getting a very helpful/true answer, etc). If I was still holding on to the idea pipe dream that I, or my family, will become normal anytime soon, I should now officially let go of that.

Polite society is a place where my grandma lived. In her world she needed to keep up appearances, be everyone's friend, or at least not be seen as rude, uneducated, or uncultured.

Honestly, I think that caused some suffering. How many times have I acted in ways that were really about image management and not wanting people to think I was 1) a heathen, 2) an irresponsible mother, or 3) uneducated? I'm still fairly new at this, but I've probably done (or not done) countless things because of the way it looked to others. Polite society, as it were. What people likely won't see, or won't immediately give me/us credit for is that our kid is engaged with us. Yes, he is himself, engaging, but we are also responsive. We work hard to listen to, and work on, the things we don't understand for whatever reasons.

I guess it's unacceptable to me to write things off just because of development ("It's just a phase," or "Toddlers just do 'x'.") or age or culture or whatever else. I am trying hard to listen to and witness K with compassion. I research, ask other parents, pay closer attention to K's motivations, actions and timing, ask his teachers, ask my own parents and siblings about how I was, and listen to my intuition. Polite society, be damned.

This butter thing was a lesson to me to keep paying attention to my kid. Sure, he is typical in many regards, but much of the time he does things that I can't find easily in books and online (which makes sense, looking back at my pregnancy). I was that way, too, as a kid. I'm still kinda that way. And no, I don't often mix well with polite society, so rather than shove myself and my family into that confining "polite society" of my grandma's era, I'd rather co-create a society where love and compassion rules the day.

In the case of the Butter Resistance, I eased up. I bought K some special, organic butter that's just for him and we had a little moment, mama and babe, enjoying the letting go together.

NOTE: Since buying him his OWN butter ration, and offering it up easily with every meal/food item, strangely, he has said 'no.' It was like the allowing was really what he needed. Funny, that.