A MUCH BETTER BLOG

You may know her as Blossom, the main character from the early 90s TV show with the same name. Her real name is Mayim Bialik and she is back as a super crunchy, attachment parenting mom of two small boys, Miles, 3 ½, and Fred, 9 months.

Mayim recently appeared on What Not To Wear in the makeover spotlight. I saw the previews but it never occurred to me to watch it because who knew she was 100% AP? I found out after the fact when reading a post by Summer from Wired for Noise. Summer raved about Mayim Bialik and I thought “Who the heck is that?!?”…so I read it and realized “Oh yeah, BLOSSOM!”

As it turns out, Mayim was babywearing in the show, concerned whether or not the new clothes were breastfeeding friendly or not and just overall super-duper AP.

It gets better.

After the show, she was interviewed by Celebrity Baby Blog and it turns out she homebirths, has a primarily vegan diet, practices co-cleeping (bedsharing), practices elimination communication and does not vaccinate!!! I love this woman! She also breastfeeds exclusively past one year. NO solids for one year.

Tons of celebrities are vegetarian or vegan. A number of celebrities babywear because lets face it, babywearing is very cool. A few celebrities breastfeed past the first few months (and admit it) and a tiny number have homebirths. A few notables don’t vaccinate or use alternative vaccine scheduling. I have never, ever heard of a celebrity mentioning, much less practicing EC. I have never heard of a celebrity breastfeeding exclusively past one year.

Mayik started EC-ing her second child at 2 days old. She talks about elimination communication during her CBB interview:

“The entire concept is not to potty train them, it’s not to do reward and punishment, I don’t clap my hands and say, “Good job.” It’s a very Zen, meditative experience of learning the signals, being able to respond to the signals. The level of communication you can achieve with an infant is really profound.”

Mayim also discusses childbirth with CBB:

“Fred, yes, was born at home, and Miles was able to watch the whole thing from his high chair while eating granola. Fortunately it was a very fast labor because I think Miles would’ve been bored if it was longer than the hour and a half it was. He loves it, he still talks about it.”

In reading other interviews and blogs, I discovered that she obtained her PhD after Blossom ended and she is also is devoutly Jewish (self described cross between Orthodox and Conservative, Conservadox). In fact, one of the reasons she chooses the skirts below the knees and the sleeved tops is for modesty reasons. Unfortunately these explanations were cut from the final version of What Not To Wear and the end, they made her out to be a frumpy mom with no fashion sense rather than an incredibly passionate, highly educated woman who stands up for what she believes in and walks the walk.

According to Allison from Jew in the City who is a personal friend of Mayim’s and also appeared briefly on the What Not to Wear episode :

“In my five seconds of fame, I said something about Mayim Bialik not being a messed up child star and instead raising a family and getting a PhD. All the stuff I mentioned about modesty not having to equal frumpiness and how I (the Orthodox Jew) had been encouraging her (the celebrity) to put herself together and find the perfect balance of cute, confident, and covered, was missing.”

She seems to be moving back into the spotlight again with recent appearances on Bones and Saving Grace. According to her interview at CBB, she is also optioned a set of novels called Rashi’s Daughters that she is working on.

According to Jewcy:

“In the decades since she stopped playing Blossom Russo, Bialik has not sat still. She’s earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and has undertaken cutting-edge studies at UCLA as one of the top researchers of Prader-Willi Syndrome in the field….She’s also testing the waters of going back into acting, with recent appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bones. And she’s also in the middle of another big revival: she’s experimenting with being an observant Jew.”

I find that I have so much in common with Mayim’s parenting. We both even had babies born in the caul! Other than the fact that her sons are circumcised , she is hands down the best example of gentle, natural parenting in the public eye that I have ever seen.

Watch the full episode of What Not To Wear featuring Mayim Bialik.

After almost four years of bedsharing, it looks like this special relationship with Brielle is drawing to a close.

Brielle got a new twin bed last week and has been taking occasional naps in it and usually sleeping in it the first half of the night and then joining me and Bianca in my bed. Last night she spent the entire night in her own room, in her own bed.

On one hand I am very sad to lose this relationship. I treasured the time we got to snuggle while I was pregnant with Bianca. We used to giggle and talk before she fell asleep. We would hold hands or sometimes she would want me to hold her foot while she fell asleep. I would stroke her hair and listen to her breathe.

On the other hand, I have been going to bed the last few nights thinking “Is this really happening?” “Do I really get my big bed back?”. I am stretching out to the point that I have to relearn how to sleep with Bianca. I have gotten very used to sardine style sleep and now I can actually roll over once in awhile.

I am really getting the sense that my little girl is growing up lately. I was so sad the first night she announced she would sleep alone. I kept asking her if she was sure she wanted to and then I asked her what I was going to do without her in bed with me. She pointed her thumb sideways at Bianca and said “You got her!”. Wow. Attachment parenting really does create independence doesn’t it?

After almost four years of bedsharing and going to outrageous lengths to get Brielle to sleep, it looks like she is finally outgrowing her sleep troubles. This is an unexpected and utterly magnificent “side effect” of having a new baby in the house.

I have spent over three and half years laying down with Brielle for up to two hours for every nap and every bedtime just to get her to sleep. I believe in no uncertain terms that crying it out and other “sleep training” methods are cruel and that sleeping babies and children belong with their parents as long as they want to be there.

I wont say that sleep training has never crossed my mind because it has but I am just so philosophically opposed to it that I found it easier to take the time to stay with her and always know she felt loved and secure while drifting off to sleep. I even came to enjoy my time with her because much like a married couple who yaps and discusses their day before falling asleep, it gave us some wonderful uninterrupted time to talk about anything and everything that interested her. (more…)