Sun

Sun

Whenever I’m asked to close my eyes and go to my favorite place, I always find myself surrounded by hot, red sandstone. A breeze tickling my face as I completely relax, lizard-like, and absorb rejuvenating UV rays. It’s always a disappointment to come back to the reality of air conditioned buildings with few windows. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still been known to use the A/C and I hate sweating when I’m wearing nice clothes, but in the early days of spring I get excited when I slip into my car and am met with warm air courtesy of the greenhouse effect.

Sometimes I think the sun gets a bad reputation because it’s been known to burn people, but it generally can be avoided with a little SPF 50 (my sun protection factor of choice). Cooper’s first pediatrician told me I should be giving him Vitamin D drops daily because although human milk has supposedly been the perfect thing for human babies for centuries, modern science has found it’s one flaw: lack of Vitamin D. I found this to be somewhat irksome since I don’t have deformed bones and never had supplements (and probably because I’d been previously reading a lot of “Hippie” childbirth books), but didn’t want to chance having the kid with rickets. Cooper hated the liquid vitamins and I only remembered to give them to him about once a week anyway.

Recently I’ve been reading an interesting book (Thanks for leading me to it Lina!) that absolved my guilt for letting my child wander down the slow path of deformity. Now I make sure Cooper and I spend a little time outside every day for our Vitamin D therapy. Besides, I think it makes us both happier.

8 thoughts on “Sun

  1. I feel the same way about Vitamin D drops. I gave them to Caleb to avoid rickets, but, like you said, after reading so many natural childbirth type books, and with my lack of remembrance, I have yet to open the package of drops I got with my free samples of Similac. I have read that 15 minutes of sun per week is supposedly all a baby needs, and Isaac gets plenty of that by being led outside to tag along with his brother. By the way, what type of cloth diapers do you use? I use bumGenius.

  2. I’m very intrigued by this book. Too bad our library doesn’t have it, I’ll have to look into buying it. We’ve been trying to give Tay solids but he has no interest in being fed baby food, only in what we’re eating. I’ve just always been so paranoid about giving him something other than the pureed veggies and rice cereal. Have you started Cooper on real foods?

    1. @ Shaylah
      We haven’t officially started solid foods, but have given him a couple of tastes. We’re waiting until he can sit up on his own before we pursue it with vigor.

  3. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that a G cloth diaper on him? Hippie. I’m only jealous because you have a baby and I just have a whole stash of cloth diapers.

    1. @ Megan and Becky
      The diaper “featured” in the picture is indeed a gDiaper. I’ve got a set of those and then a Flip and a Bum Genius for nights. I’m an amateur at the cloth diaper thing, but like it for the most part. Besides, I need to keep up appearances and be more earth friendly considering Noel’s new job 🙂

  4. Audrey, you 2 just look so content! I like how Cooper is all sprawled out! Glad to see you’re enjoying your summer and new surroundings!

  5. Hooray for the sun! I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ll do when winter comes… any ideas? I have a few but they aren’t very great. I wish the Orem library had that book. I might buy it…

    1. @ Lina
      Becky sent me a great link about sun exposure. If only the face is getting sun it’s recommended that you get 2 hours/week. So maybe going on a 20 minute walk every day in the winter is enough. I guess there’s always sitting by a window and I do have a sun lamp for my orchid . . .

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