Picture Tuesday

"This is a song about that feeling that I think we all get sometimes... where you feel like you're the smallest doll in a babushka doll."

And because it's been that kind of day for me, I decided to upload some feel-good imagery. Even if you're not having that kind of day, maybe this will still make you feel good anyway. There's not enough "feel good" in the world, so let's add some more...

P.S. If you can think of a better title than my silly "Picture Tuesday" title above, let's hear it. Ideally, something with alliteration... like Twonie Tuesday, minus the chicken from KFC. :) 

I'm not a mother first

"Heart bursting leprechaun" ---Ummm... I had the idea for this post in the middle of the night and decided to make a draft of it so I didn't forget. This line was all I found when I opened it up again and I'm not at all sure what it means. I have no idea how leprechauns factor into this post, but maybe it will come back to me again while I start writing. If not, I'll go eat some Lucky Charms, I guess...?

Anyway. As anyone who has been around me lately can tell you --- whether that is in person, or over some social media finagled go-go-gadget like the facebook or the instragram --- I LOVES this whole new parenting gig. It's better than chocolate, better than that other thing (which is funny, get it, because that's what lead to the parenting...?), and GODDESS even better than Coke and Buffy (and I love me my Coke and Buffy). This has been the most thrilling, exciting, magickal, awe-inspiring best almost-5 months of my life and while Bean is growing up so fast, I am loving living in the moment with her and am sucking up the essence of this time when she is still such a teeny tiny person.

When I wasn't researching school stuff, I was researching house stuff, cool projects to do, things to make, etc. Now I research cloth diapers. And baby carriers. And which solids to start first. And how to make our co-sleeping arrangement even safer now that she's getting more mobile. And cloth diapers again. FOR HOURS. And it's actually FUN.

As one of my wonderful doulas said, "drop-in groups for parents and babies are basically there for you to talk about your baby. You talk about your baby, and then you wait patiently while half-listening to other parents talk about their baby, and you can't wait until they're done talking so you can talk about your baby some more."   ... Total.Truth. And I actually *do* try to be cognizant of the fact that not everyone wants to hear about your baby all the time, or see 10 basically-the-same pictures-but-with-a-slightly-different-angle-but-it-was-just-too-cute-not-to-include-in-the-facebook-album. But still, yeah... my brain is babyfied.

BUT as much as I am loving this mommyhood gig, I've also got to say: I'm Not A 'Mother First'.

I recently read an article on this subject (and same title) from Jessica Valenti:

"It’s understandable that some women would embrace motherhood as their primary and most important identity. When you have little power, you take it where you can. ...
Fathers are never expected to subsume their identity into parenthood the way that mothers are. If President Obama were to tell us that he is ’father-in-chief’ first, America would balk. How could a man be an effective president if he put the needs of his children above the needs of his country?
Yes, we are mothers and sisters and daughters and wives. We’re also much more. And declaring our individual importance as people and citizens does not diminish the depth of love we have for our children or the central role parenthood plays in our lives.
When we tout ourselves mothers first, women give those who would enshrine their dehumanization more firepower and assure that their domestic work will only ever be paid in thanks, not in policy or power. Until that changes, I’m a mother second."

So even with this mad-motherhood-love I've got swinging, I'm also a mother second. And I'd like to think that when Bean gets older, she will agree with that sentiment.

What would a 'Balance' look like?

Baby cuddles + housework + family free time + work out + thesis = no sleep.

Sleep + baby cuddles + housework + family free time + work out = no thesis.

Thesis + sleep + baby cuddles + housework + family free time = no work out.

Like the Unicorn and the Phoenix, I believe the Balance is a mythical creature that does not exist.

Maybe the noise it would make sounds similar to "lies". Or maybe it just laughs like a hyena. Either way, tomorrow I'm asking my husband to sketch me a picture of what it might look like.

Upon inspiration from a sign reading "Huge garage sale!", he did in fact conceptualize and draw the cutest little creature called a Huge. I would def want one.

We already know that this Balance creature must be damn cute for everyone to want it so badly...

Dream-feed defined.

Dream-feed (definition taken from my personal experience):

When you decide your baby is going to wake up soon so you pull yourself away from thesis work at 3 am (although you know you shouldn't really call it thesis work because you haven't really done anything but fool around on the Internet) and sneak quietly into the bedroom. You pull the just-starting-to-stir baby over to you gently and encourage her rooting reflex. Mouth opens, head moves around in search. Insert nipple. Baby sucks. Let-down results from sucking. Baby feeds vigorously and stops when the milk stops flowing. Baby re-enters deep sleep without ever waking. Momma slips out after a cuddle, assuring herself that now she will do at least SOME thesis work. Resumes fooling around on the Internet. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The world we live in...

What's the saying... five friends could compliment you (on your sense of humour, mad style, whatever) and one person could say something critical, and it's the critical thing that sticks in your mind? Or something like that. I know there's a similar statistic about it.

So I know it's also really easy to get down in the dumps about this world. This world with its hate, intolerance, wars, feeling devoid of warmth, general meanness to one another, SUVs killing the planet, and it goes on and on until you just want to sit in the corner of a dark room and brood (by the way, whenever I hear the word 'brood', I always picture Angel from Buffy. King of the brooders).

But this makes it all too easy to forget that this world --- and specifically, at this particular time in history in this world --- there are all kinds-of-good happening.

Something my partner and I have talked recently about (and often) in this regard is LGBT rights. The quote "we've come a long way, baby" comes to mind...

When I was in high school, I was one of the only kids in my classes that fought vehemently for same sex and same gender marriage, that gay men/gay women could raise children just as damned well as any other family out there. For my psychology class, I wrote a paper about research confirming biological origins on the side of "being gay is not a choice".

But I was one of few who (openly at least) thought this way. There were a few out gay and lesbian kids, but not many. And most of the ones who were out lacked social support.

This is so different now, in the span of only (8? 9?) years. There is Camp Aurora, for LGBT teens. Gay-Straight Alliances in schools.

Ohhh, and the media! I'm not a Glee fan personally, but I know of one episode where all the high schoolers lost their virginity. One couple consisted of two gay men. And their first times were treated with just as much respect as the straight couples' were. And this is on a national, primetime, basic cable network.

I actually remember when Roseanne kissed another woman on her show (the other woman was a lesbian, Roseanne was not, and it was just a friendly kiss) and their was So. Much. Outrage. And I remember when my favourite show ever got flack in the year 2000 for wanting to show a lesbian kiss between two important female characters in a committed and loving relationship.

Now there's The New Normal, Modern Family, and I'm sure others I'm forgetting. The part that I love the most is that in many cases (although not all) it is treated as exactly what it is--- normal.

I had a discussion with someone a couple years ago about whether we would care if our kids turned out to be gay. The other person had said that even though they are fully supportive of LGBT rights, they would not wish their child was gay simply to save them the hurt that would accompany that status. I understood that position, but I disagreed, and now I feel more adamant about it.

The times they are a-changing. There's still a long way to go, but there's so much that has improved over the past few years and it is still improving- more rapidly than ever before. I have high hopes that by the time all of my children do identify with a sexual and/or gender orientation and make that identity known, that not only will they be met with acceptance, but it will just be perfectly normal.

Like how the teen boy came out to his Dad on United States of Tara, and the Dad just basically said "cool. So, do you want to go get a burger?" (or something to that effect).

We're almost at that point! The world isn't ALL bad after all...

Where you lead, I will follow...

Loving you the way I do,
I know we're gonna make it through.
And i would go to the ends of the earth
Oh, darlin', to me that's what you're worth

Okay... so those lyrics above are a rewritten version of the song Where You Lead, changed for Gilmore Girls to be more mother-daughter-closeness-y than subservient-girlfriend-follow-her-man-anywhere... y.

Where my daughter leads, I will follow. I'm writing this post in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week, but the expression (or lyrics?) hold true for my feelings about more than one parenting topic. With a number of things, we've decided to 'follow her lead'- like not doing Cry It Out, following her sleepy/awake cues instead of mandating scheduled nap times, doing on-demand feedings instead of scheduled, etc.

With breastfeeding, people have asked me when I'm going to stop. When she's six months? One year? TWO years?! My answer is that I don't know- I'm following her lead. Of course, I DO want to breastfeed for a year at the very, very least, because that's super duper healthy for her. When people ask this question, it's never been a concern about breastfeeding too little- most would correctly assume that if you've started out breastfeeding successfully, you could easily continue for a long time. The concern is over breastfeeding for *too* long.

This has been in the news lately, with a recent Time magazine cover showing a Mom breastfeeding her (four year old? Six year old? Can't remember) child. It's all kind of controversial, trendy, media-grabby, mommy-wars-propagating nonsense really (the cover shot at least). I've personally only received one negative comment- that if I let Bean breastfeed for as long as she wants, my boobs will be "down to here" (imagine a cooky aunt gesturing to her knees). My response was of course, "...so?" ....but I won't get started on THAT right now.

The plan so far is that I will follow where Bean leads, and when she's ready to wean, she will. I'm not worried. Just like I don't know any 16-year-olds who go to sleep with Mommy and Daddy, I also don't know any 16-year-old kids asking to borrow the car keys, but could they "please get a quick snack first" and start sucking on Mom's teet while the two settle on curfew times.

 

I believe in breastfeeding for as long as she wants to because A. nutrition and immune benefits; and B. bonding. Ohhh, let me talk about bonding for a minute...

 

I LOVE breastfeeding. I love the relationship we have. I cherish it deeply. You might think, "sure! You're a Kraft crunchy mama, of course you do!". And yes, while pregnant and before pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed and I would do what I could to make that work. However... things don't always turn out the way you'd planned...

 

I knew not to make a birth plan, because yeah... things will happen differently than what you want. But I never truly thought about breastfeeding, other than a passing, "we'll do it. If it's hard, we'll push through."  Our labour experience with Bean ended up with tons of interventions that I didn't originally want (which I'm totally fine with and positive about, by the way... but more on that later). These interventions unfortunately also had an affect on breastfeeding.

Bean wouldn't quite latch correctly, so I was left with painful blisters that healed and reappeared over and over again. I never felt hormonal in my pregnancy, and I didn't and still don't even regard my 36 hour labour with 3.5 hours of pushing, a vaccuum aspirator, scalp clips, and episiotomy as really all that difficult... but breastfeeding was! For the first few days, I WEPT like a baby--- errr, worse, actually, because my baby really didn't weep!--- while trying and failing to breastfeed. I had no idea it  would be that hard. And 'weeping' is such an appropriate term- I've never experienced it before. Those post-partum hormones are really something! I was so stressed out that this wouldn't work for us. At one point, I realized I was actually dreading each feeding. I would grimace and ask "again, already?!".

This went on for about a week. But then it got better, bit by bit, with the help and support of my amazing midwives, doulas, and family members. My midwife stayed with me an hour one time trying to force a correct latch. Once it did get better, I also realized something amazing- while feeding Bean, I would simultaneously pinch my breast so hard it was painful. I did this subconsciously to take away the pain from the breastfeeding. I only began to feel it once the latch was pain-free. I still think of it to remember not only how painful it was at the beginning, but also how committed (apparently!) I was to breastfeeding.

But even after that week, I felt a bit guilty, because even with the now pain-free latching, I wasn't feeling some intimate bond or connection with Bean. Sure- I loved looking at her, daydreaming about the future while I held her, and tried to savour the moment. But that ooey-gooey mushy endorphin lovey feeling? I didn't have that until a few weeks after birth, at least. I didn't feel that bonding and I was disappointed.

 

I'm not sure how much of it was the hormones, or because I was more recovered, but I did eventually get those feelings. I've never smoked, but I imagine a similar feeling of pure "Ahhhhhhh....". It's like having a hard day and then getting into a hot tub with your favourite beverage, book, and/or person. It's like getting up- ever so slowly- after a therapeutic massage. It is perfect relaxation. Perfect love. Perfect trust. Perfect unity. It makes the clock go by slower- but only in the most wonderful way- and you do savor every single minute of it. It's never a chore or a pain. I look forward to it every time.

And for the past few weeks, something new has happened during feeds. I'll be lying or sitting there, enjoying the "Ahhhh....", when I'll notice Bean isn't sucking anymore. I'll look down, and see her- head turned up away from the boob, milk drops on her chin- staring up into my eyes with the most content grin on her face. And we share this "look", eyes locked... she coos... time goes slower still... Of course, she will still have this "gaze" happening in other times during the day with her Dad and myself, where you both become engulfed in this cyclone of love-goo, but it is never quite the same as during breastfeeding. I can't put my finger on it or begin to explain the difference, but it's there. I know she feels that same closeness, bonding, and happy "Ahhhh" feeling as I do. My science-brain tells me "of course! It's biological. Promotes attachment, more protective instinct of the infant, better survival for the species" and etc. etc. But I don't care. The biological is spiritual.

So... no. Come her one-year, or two-year birthday, I'm not gonna take away the boob and force cake in her mouth instead. Just as this special bonding and relationship developed stronger over time naturally, so will the weaning--- naturally--- following her lead.  

Half Kraft Crunchy, half Kraft Smooth

There are quizzes that make the rounds on the Internets, asking Moms, "how crunchy are you?". No, this is not asking how you would taste to a dragon. The more "crunchy" you are, the more hippy-ish you are, in regards to your beliefs and practices - i.e., crunchy = granola-eating = hippies eat granola = you're a hippy. Or something along those lines.

If crunchiness was somehow related to peanut butter, I think I'd be a piece of toast that had half Kraft Crunchy, half Kraft Smooth peanut butter. (I'm not crazy about granola, so just go with me on this one...)

For the Crunchy side of toast:

• We practice co-sleeping, and more specifically bed sharing. While pregnant I did lots of research on the subject, and I knew we would probably end up in some co-sleeping arrangement (Note: co-sleeping usually means having your child sleep in the same room with you). We started Bean out in the bassinet. She learned very quickly that sleeping with Mommy and Daddy would be much more comfy! Then we switched to co-sleeper insert for the bed, but it was too bulky. Finally, we've settled on side-car'ing, wherein the crib is attached to the bed. I know, I know, you've seen those advertisements with the baby basically hugging a knife in Mom's comfy bed, but... there are mucho problems with the accuracy of this. While there aren't tons of studies done on the plus-side to co-sleeping, there are some (increased arousability for infant which reduces SIDS, etc.) - but the same can be said for studies indicating the downside. Statistics unfortunately do not break down the deaths that occur "due to co-sleeping", such as what the co-sleeping situation was? Was a sidecar crib involved? Was baby sleeping next to Mom, or next to Dad? Was parental narcotic use involved? How high was the bed? Were their guard rails up? How soft was the bed? Were there many blankets and pillows around baby?. Ultimately, we are happy as this works for us.
• We breastfeed, and will do extended and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for some time, as we follow Bean's lead. I'm not even going to talk on here about how much I love breastfeeding and for so, so many different reasons (because I will make a whole post about it one day!), but yeah... LOVE for breastfeeding. This also means no other baby foods for at least the first six months, no formula, etc. I do not have specific goals such as breastfeeding for one year, two years, etc. I am going to just follow Bean's lead and go from there.
• We cloth diaper. Or at least, we are starting to. This boils down to two reasons: 1. it's cost-effective (saving an average of $2000 per child over course of the 'diaper years'), and 2. it's more environmentally friendly. Since Bean was in utero, I began giving a lot more thought to environmental sustainability, and what kind of world we will be leaving for her. Global warming is real with real human causes, and even if my cloth diapering will only have a teensy tiny effect, it's worth it to say to my daughter and kids one day that we tried to do what we could.
• We don't circumcise. This is something that is very important to me. And yes--- I know Bean is a girl. Just like we wouldn't cut off healthy genitalia from a baby boy for no reason other than cosmetic, we will not do this for our baby girls, either. Same goes for ear piercings- not as big of a deal, for sure... but to us, it is a procedure that inflicts pain (even momentary) for no other purpose than ascribing certain culturally defined gender roles onto an infant that cannot consent, and on an infant that we do not know if she chooses to identify with this type of gender expression. When Bean is old enough to take care of them herself and when we feel she can critically decide for herself whether she wants this done, we will deal with it then.
• We do the midwife route with doulas. I'll be making another post talking about this awesomeness in more specific detail, but just know we are all for the benefits they can provide over here.
• We babywear. Because it's developmentally healthy for Bean, and because it's so helpful for getting things done during the day!

Now for the Kraft smooth:

• We eat animals. This is probably the biggest one. I enjoy eating meat. It's not purely because of tastiness, but also because I am a lifelong picky eater (like--- the pickiest), and without meat, my diet would be even farther from balanced than it already is. That said, I do often feel conflicted about it and have some very interesting inner soliloquies in my head. Funny enough, this almost never happens when talking to vegans or vegetarians, but usually when I'm watching something like the Simpsons. I ultimately decide that humans are meant to eat meat as our ancestors did (and don't tell me we don't "need" to anymore... I know that. I also know we don't "need" to enjoy the outdoors, to engage in human reproduction, or a whole host of other things, but we still do...). I also decide that when and if I ever make more money, I will put aside more money for our grocery budget in order to buy more free-range organic products. Because no one can deny what happens at Big Business Bovine University is horrifying.
• We vaccinate. Probably the second biggest to break the crunchy streak, and also something I feel a little conflicted about. I don't feel conflicted because of the science - I DO think that the science is on the side of vaccinating, and that the speculated side effects like autism is just people grasping at straws when their kid gets such a diagnosis, in order to make sense of their world. Understandable reaction? Absolutely. Reflected by science? Unfortunately, no. It would be nice if that was the answer, but so far it doesn't look like it. The only reason I feel conflicted about is that I HATE to see my daughter in any degree of pain, even if it's for a good reason. She cries, I cry, it's a cry-fest. I wish we didn't have to, and I don't feel great knowing that we don't even have all the answers about these vaccines, but ultimately we do it and feel generally good about it.
• We don't use "all-natural" and organic stuff. Because let's face it, if you did, you'd have: A. no money left for anything else, ever, because that shit is expensive, and B. you'd have smelly armpits and a smelly mouth (natural deodorants and natural toothpaste is made from like, tepid water or cow spit or something because it does absolutely nothing of what it's supposed to do).
• We're not super spiritual, or into homeopathy. I'll agree that there are tons of natural remedies that DO work, however, as a favourite comedian/songwriter Tim Minchin sings: "Alternative Medicine ... Has either not been proved to work, Or been proved not to work.
  You know what they call "alternative medicine" that's been proved to work? Medicine. Before we came to tea, I took a natural remedy derived from the bark of a willow tree. A painkiller, virtually side-effect free. It's got a weird name, Darling, what was it again? Ma-Ma-Masprin? Basprin? Oh yeah, Asprin! Which I paid about a buck for down at the local drugstore."   And regarding spirituality, I think this is brilliant: "Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved... Isn't this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex wonderfully unfathomable world? How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters? And fine, if you wish to glorify Krishna and Vishnu in a post-colonial, condescending bottled-up and labeled kind of way that's ok. But here's what gives me a hard-on: I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon. I have one life, and it is short
  And unimportant... But thanks to recent scientific advances I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses. Twice as long to live this life of mine, Twice as long to love this wife of mine..."

So, that about sums it up. Half Kraft Crunchy, Half Kraft Smooth. One kind of peanut butter would just be boring anyway.