The Adventures of the Garden Sprites

So many of my friends seem to have problems with their children going to sleep and staying asleep. As we all know, there are various "solutions" to this problem mostly involving a cry it out approach and the so called "self soothing". Now I ask you, how can a baby be expected to self soothe after spending nine months in the womb and all of a sudden being cold and alone in a strange place! As adults, a lot of us read or watch TV as a "self soothing" approach, for want of a better word. But a baby or toddler cannot read yet and TV is not exactly the optimal self soother. When Mackenzie was born, I really tried putting her to sleep in her cot but I used to put my hand on her and sleep in a very akward position to keep it there. It wasn't long and I had her in my arms in my bed and there she slept for the first few months of her life and then graduated to just lying next to me. I breastfed her so it was just so much easier to feed her when she was next to...

After spending 10 days in a quite Free State town, the thought of returning to the busy city has the whole family down in the dumps. I keep wondering why it is that the city is so claustraphobic and I have come to the conclusion that because of the high crime rate and the amount of people in the city, there is no way we can allow our children in the streets or just going round the corner to their friends, so the result is kids that spend most of their time indoors, watching TV or playing computer games. It cannot be healthy for them and I often think back on my upbringing on the farm which was 35km from the nearest town and our neighbours were a good 20 minutes drive away. We were never inside and permanantly ran around bare foot, come rain or shine! I would love to give my children that kind of upbringing and because it is not possible at the moment, I try to do the next best thing - go for as many walks outside as you can, show your kids the tiniest beetle or the biggest snail you c...