Energetic Baby Quotes

In the Russian Orthodox Church there is the concept of the Holy Fool. It means someone who is a fool to the ways of the world, but wise to the ways of God. I think that Ted, from the moment he saw the baby, knew that he could not possibly be the father. ...Perhaps he saw in that moment that if he so much as questioned the baby's fatherhood, it would mean humiliation for the child and might jeopardize his entire future. ...Perhaps he understood that he could not reasonably expect an independent and energetic spirit like Winnie to find him sexually exciting and fulfilling. ...And so he decided upon the most unexpected, and yet the simplest course of all. He chose to be such a Fool that he couldn't see the obvious.

It almost seems un-American, at times, to have kids who are slow to warm up. Other people tell us to push them—to force them to jump in—and they reprimand us for babying them. When your child adapts slowly, remind yourself that you will appreciate it when he is an adolescent. While all the other kids are running off on some ridiculous impulsive venture, yours will be thinking, moving slowly and cautiously. There are strengths to every temperamental characteristic.

Parents of spirited children who are learning to manage their intensity well are talking about intensity and naming the emotions. They soothe the wailing baby by telling him that they understand it’s frustrating to wait for the bottle to warm. They tell the toddler that they understand she is angry. It’s hard for her to stop playing outside and come into the house. Soon, the children will be able to use these words themselves. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And according to John Gottman, from the Gottman Institute, the research demonstrates that children who receive these types of messages are “emotion coached” and are more effective at soothing themselves and focusing attention. As a result, they do better in school and with peers, experience fewer behavior problems, and demonstrate more positive emotions.

Nursing an infant, in the first few months, really sucks up the day. I never get over and am always totally taken aback by the amount of time in a day it takes to nurse a baby. When you are all and solely what they eat in the beginning of their lives, which I am in the habit of being for about the first year—Marco a little longer, Leone a little less—it could be, if you were a less driven and energetic person than myself, about the only thing you accomplished in a day. Certainly in a vacation day. But I imagine the total sensory pleasure for the kid—to pass out at the tap, belly full of that rich, sweet good stuff, and then he is in a little incomparable sleep coma with his cheeks still smashed up against the warm boob firmly and securely held in the arms of his mother—and so I tend to give my kids their twenty minutes of nursing and then their twenty minutes of post-hookup nap, undisturbed, in the very position they fell into it in, regardless of my own discomfort, arm cramps or list of shit to do that day. If you do the math of that, in pure forty-minute increments, factoring that an infant needs to be fed every couple of hours … well, an eight-hour day can really fly by, and what I used to accomplish in that time gets reduced to a maddening fraction. A whisper more than zilch.

7. ENERGY: The tales of spirited kids I hear from parents are truly amazing, like that of the two-week old baby that “crawled” the entire length of a queen-sized bed and was about to land on the floor when his father found him. Or the toddler who opened the oven door, used it to crawl onto the counter and from there to the top of the refrigerator. Not all spirited kids are climbers and leapers. But they do tend to be busy—fidgeting, taking things apart, exploring, and creating projects—from the time they wake up until they finally fall asleep. Although sometimes viewed as “wild,” their energy is usually focused and has a purpose. It may surprise you that not all spirited children have a high energy level because for those who do, it is often the energy that first catches a parent’s attention, and that is why I have included it in the subtitle of this book. However, if you look more closely, it is usually the intensity of the motion or the persistence of it rather than the energy itself which is at issue.

7. ENERGY: The tales of spirited kids I hear from parents are truly amazing, like that of the two-week old baby that “crawled” the entire length of a queen-sized bed and was about to land on the floor when his father found him. Or the toddler who opened the oven door, used it to crawl onto the counter and from there to the top of the refrigerator. Not all spirited kids are climbers and leapers. But they do tend to be busy—fidgeting, taking things apart, exploring, and creating projects—from the time they wake up until they finally fall asleep. Although sometimes viewed as “wild,” their energy is usually focused and has a purpose.

Humans no longer eat merely to satisfy energetic requirements, any more than we have sex just to make babies.

The womb is where babies are created, and grown, and from where they are birthed. It is the home of our creativity, the wellspring of our vital feminine energies. The womb is the matrix from which our life force rises and to which it returns. It is the hub of our energetic and physical bodies. The womb is also where we experience death. Our moon blood, our menstruation, is a sign that an ovum (...) has died without being fertilized by the sperm (...); it passes out of our bodies with the now unneeded uterine lining that the womb created for the possibility of growing a baby. Without fertilization, this living-nourishing matrix dies and leaves our bodies in our monthly flow (which by the way is one of the most concentrated forms of śakti in our bodies).

He was the biggest fool pup I ever saw, chuck full of life and spirits, always going at racing speed, generally into mischief; breaking his neck nearly over some small matter; breaking his heart if his master did not notice him, chewing up clothing, hats, and boots, digging up garden stuff that he could not eat, mistaking every leg of every chair and table for a lamp-post, going direct from wallow in the pigstye to frolic in the baby’s cradle, getting kicked in the ribs by horses and tossed by cows, but still the same hilarious, rollicking, endlessly good-natured, energetic fool pup, and given by common consent the fit and lasting name of “Silly Billy.

More importantly, a child needs you to be energetically present with them, to play with them, to listen to them and to show them you care. Look them in the eyes and say, “You are so important to me.” Then with your actions demonstrate your reverence for them by spending time interacting with them and mentoring them. Even if they do something ‘wrong’ be gentle. They are just learning how to be in this world. If they ‘act out,’ it is always a call for love. If they make a ‘mistake,’ it is always a call for love. Teach them how to make better choices by mentoring them lovingly.

This happened one afternoon after I had set out some old National Geographic magazines for the Pirahãs to thumb through. They love pictures of animals and peoples, whether from the Amazon or other parts of the world. Xiooitaóhoagí (i-owi-taO-hoa-gI) sat on the floor, looking through the magazine, with her baby suckling at her breast. Her legs straight out in front of her, dress pulled down to her knees, in the normal Pirahã manner, she was humming rhythmically to the child on her lap as he nursed energetically. I watched for a bit before I realized that what she was humming was a description of the whale and Eskimos whose pictures she was examining. The boy would look away from her breast to the picture from time to time, and she would point and hum louder.

Kristy Thomas is the president of the BSC. She’s something else. When I first met Kristy, I was a little intimidated — she’s very straightforward (sometimes she’s even got a big mouth) and energetic. But now I like her, and admire her, a lot. She’s always having these great ideas — and she acts on them, too. She’s not just a dreamer.