Just a little bit more summer

Fall is happening, and I am over the moon about it. So many of my favourites happen in the fall (Rosh Hashanah, Thanksgiving, Halloween, my birthday (!), wool, cool air, pumpkins, back-to-school) that this time of year makes my heart burst. The official start of the season is this week, and I thought I would offer just one more shout out to summer. The end of our summer found us heading north to the camp of some very good friend. They offered us a trailer to rest in (since camping in tents isn't quite Matt's thing, or in his words, the next time I'll sleep in the great outdoors is when I'm buried in the ground. Charming, isn't he?) and were the loveliest of hosts.

I met my friend Liz at a mom and baby yoga class when Alyce was six weeks old. We were living in the west end of Toronto, and I was feeling a bit isolated after having a new baby in the deep of winter. I remember stuffing Alyce into the biggest snowsuit I could find and heading to a class where I hoped to reacquaint myself with my body, and just maybe meet some new friends. It was one of my better decisions. A whole group of us ended up getting along and meeting once a week to walk around the park, but even better than that was my getting to know one woman in particular, Liz and her baby Simon. Simon had me at hello, and Liz and I immediately hit it off. We were both in some relationship with academia, we both enjoyed good food and good coffee, and as it turns out now, we both want to be midwives. Liz is currently breaking ground as a midwifery student in Toronto, and she's keeping a place warm for me.

Like I said, Liz was a good decision. Have I ever mentioned that she flew to Delaware with a four-month-old baby to be there with me when Shira was born? Yeah, she's that kind of person. It turns out that she's also the camping kind of person, and I'm so glad we took her up on the offer to join them for a night at camp. Liz, along with her husband Chris, introduced the girls to their first lake, their first campfire, and most importantly, to their first roasted marshmallows. It was lovely.

This has been a strange summer. I thought I'd be working, getting used to a new job, but instead I found myself looking for work all summer long, without any success. But with this unexpected time has come extra visits with good friends, and I'm always grateful for that.

P.S. If anyone is interested, Alyce's ruby red sparkling camping shoes are available at Target. Oh, Target, I miss you so.

Photos by Chris.

Our week so far

Applesauce. Delicious. Everybody is a winner. But there are still thirty pounds of apples in my kitchen. Back to work.

 

Going through some old boxes at my mum's this week, I found my old tutu. She's feeling the magic.

Shira's been nursing. The usual.

And everywhere I turn in this house, I find another princess. Please, send help.

And your week?

On boobs, breastfeeding, and not breastfeeding

Yesterday, for the first time since 2007 (with the exception of a few short months when I wasn’t nursing Alyce during my pregnancy with Shira), I wore a grown-up, sexy, underwire-supported bra. Fancy, I know. I’m nursing Shira a lot less (only four times a day) and I figured that I might not want to wear one of my old nursing bras to the job interview that I expect I’ll one day have. Amidst the sparkles and the neon yellow choices, I made my purchases, happy to once again give some well-deserved support to my nursing boobs. They’ve earned it.

As soon as I tried them on, I knew. I love my nursing bras and if I’m fortunate enough to have more babies (yes, please), I’ll run to the local pregnancy shop and buy myself some new nursing bras. They are comfortable and easy to use. Amen to that, since learning to breastfeed is difficult enough without having to wear an uncomfortable bra. But, wow. A real, live bra does wonders for your cleavage. I hadn’t realized just how, umm, low things had gotten. Do you know who else hadn’t realized? My husband. Because the look on his face when I walked downstairs yesterday morning, wearing my new bra under my shirt, was worth all the effort.



He blushed. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.



***



Boobs. 

I never imagined how much my life story would be populated with obsessing over my breasts, making sure that they work, and that the right people get enough of them (there is a lot of competition in this house over who gets priority access). Sure, I expected a preoccupation with their size between the ages of twelve and fourteen, but I didn’t expect this. I thought only teenage girls (and boys) gave such thought to the habits of breasts.

Turns out that I think about boobs all the time. Mostly mine, but sometime I think about the ones that belong to other women, mostly other mothers. I get phone calls from friends wanting to talk about them, I have books on the shelf teaching me how to feed my babies with them, and many a blog post makes reference to them. And then there is all that time I spend watching Mad Men, wanting to hand out awards for Most Impressive Defiance of Gravity to all the women on that show. They sure know how to wear a sweater. (Joan, I’m looking at you.) Sometimes, though, I don’t give enough thought to boobs, like when I realize that I’ve been out all day long with only one side of my nursing bra done up. 



I love my world populated with breasts. And as someone who has been nursing for the better part of four years, most of my boob-related conversations have something to do with breastfeeding. I am addicted to breastfeeding. I loved nursing Alyce, and I still love nursing Shira. It’s been one of my favourite things about having young babies and I could list a hundred things that I love about it. Instead I’ll give you this many: babies are warm tucked in bed with you while you breastfeed, they have chubby little fingers with which to poke you (yes, in the boob) while they enjoy a meal, breastfeeding makes all most of their problems disappear, and it’s easily accessible. I know that breastmilk is the absolute perfect food for my babies and I’m more than impressed that my body knows how to make this perfect food. But breastfeeding is not all about the glory. Sometimes it’s really hard and annoying, and here’s why: in the beginning it can really hurt (like the kind of hurt that involves blood and blisters), babies eventually grow teeth and mine have always liked to test them out on my nipple, just to see what happens (I get really mad, that’s what happens), and breastfeeding is not always conducive to working outside the home, especially in countries with crappy parental leave. (U.S.A., I’m looking at you.)


I happily call myself a breastfeeding activist. I think all mother’s should be encouraged to breastfeed, and encouragement means more than just a nurse or doctor suggesting that it might be a good idea at a prenatal appointment. I could list a hundred things that mothers need to support happy breastfeeding, but instead I’ll give you this many: mothers need to see other mothers breastfeed, access to non-bathroom like places to nurse when they are out of the house and want some privacy, reliable access to board certified lactation consultants, and extended parental leave. And one more thing: they need to live in a culture where breastfeeding is normal, where mothers aren’t asked to leave public places or given the stink-eye for feeding their baby. Mothers need our support. They need your support.



But do you know what else mother’s need? Choice. They love choices. I love breastfeeding and I want everyone to love it as much as I do (yes, I actually mean that), but if a woman chooses to feed her baby formula, for whatever reason, that is her choice. Do I want her to have had access to as much information about breastfeeding? I sure do. But should she be ashamed of her decision to feed her baby formula. Absolutely not. Motherhood is hard work. Let’s not add shame to the mix.

Catherine Connors over at Her Bad Mother brought our attention this week to a debate going on over at Babble, regarding Babble's decision to allow formula advertizing on its site. Critics have declared that such advertizing stands in the way of breastfeeding and as such should be removed from any responsible discussions of parenting. Connors points out that that such a call to remove formula ads insults a mother's ability to view these ads as advertizing, somehow tricking mothers into believing that formula is the best choice.  "I’m a grown-up, you guys," Connors reminds us,  "I know what commercial speech is. I am capable of parsing information from advertisers. I am not stupid. I can make up my own mind." Demonizing formula feeding demonizes those who choose to feed their babies formula, and no matter what anyone says, demonizing formula demonizes the mother who feeds it to her baby. There is no separating the sin from the sinner here. Calling on Babble to remove all formula ads is harmful to mothers because it shames them. As Connors writes:

It shames working mothers who have to bottle feed because they can’t be with their babies all day and it shames mothers who are unable to breastfeed and it shames mothers who truncate their breastfeeding relationship with their babies for the sake of their mental health. It shames any mother who has paused and wondered, even for a moment, whether things wouldn’t be easier for her, whether she mightn’t be better able to cope, whether she mightn’t be happier (because isn’t a happy mom best for baby?) if, maybe, just maybe, she didn’t breastfeed. It shames any mother who regards the method by which she nourishes her babies as her personal choice.

I haven't loved my own experiences with formula companies. I was furious that my name was given to a formula company after the birth of my first daughter, resulting in a free sample can being mailed to my house. I think we need to stand up against misleading formula advertizing.  But I don't think they way to promote breastfeeding is to shame mothers away from formula. I love the community of mothers I've found online since having my daughters, and I've often relied on their conversations while learning how to parent my kids, or just to have some company on those days when the hard work of being a mother feels especially hard. There is such a population of intelligent, thoughtful, and hilarious parents out there. Let's give less room to shame and more room for reminding each other that children are awesome and ridiculous.

So head over to the original article here and see what you think. I'd also suggest that you check out the comments, which are for the most part, a balanced conversation with many different opinions--not something you often get when this topic shows up. I've left out so many important issues about promoting breastfeeding versus formula feeding, and this complicated issue deserves so much more space. But I was so happy to see someone calling out this shaming of mothers that I needed to give this conversation some space all of its own.

Plus I just love talking about boobs. Whether you use them to feed your baby or not.

Four things about my weekend

1. Yesterday morning it was my turn to sleep in, so after nursing Shira at 5:40 I returned to bed and let Matt monitor the morning chaos. It was heaven. But even better was when Matt woke me up at 8:15 with my coffee, toast, and the computer in hand. Here, he said, I thought you might enjoy some breakfast and computer time without the children. That's right, he sneaked past The Children on his way upstairs, so not only did I get breakfast in bed, but I go breakfast in bed by myself. It was not Mother's Day or my birthday. I'm sorry, you can't have him. He's all mine.

2. After killing my body with a hot yoga class later in the day, Matt sent me upstairs for a nap. Enough said. No seriously, I slept in and had a nap.

3. This morning, with the help of my good friend Kaylie, I crossed yet another thing off my Life List. It's a small thing, but I've wanted to pick my own apples for years. I have such romantic notions of fall and the idea of picking my own apples sparked big dreams of making pies and applesauce. I have to tell you: picking our own apples was everything I dreamed it would be. Me and the girls met Kaylie at a local orchard between Cambridge and Toronto, grabbed a cart, and spent the next hour getting lost in the apple trees. The sun was brilliant and the apples numbered in the thousands, though we held ourselves back and picked only a bushel each (the internet tell me that a bushel equals around 42 pounds of apples!).

Now I have plans to make a few pies and a lot of applesauce. I will use the the recipe and canning instructions from Simple Bites (it never lets me down), and for the pie crust, I'll use Martha Stewart's recipe for pate brisee . It's been years since I made pie crust from scratch and I haven't tried Martha's recipe before, but some of of the people I trust most follow Martha's instructions on this, so I feel confident that it's the way to go--see here and here for some other pie crust inspiration. I'll return with some evidence of my apples later this week.

4. Alyce wore her princess gown while she picked apples. Of course she did.

How was your weekend? Did anyone attend an apple festival? The last time I attended one I was pregnant with Alyce. I can't even begin to comprehend how fast the time goes.

Are you all preparing for the weekend? I expect it will be beautiful (thank you, fall), and I'm celebrating with some apple picking on Sunday (and knocking something off my list at that). For this afternoon it's just me and Shira cleaning house. I've kicked Matt and Alyce out to the library and park so that I could wash the floors and bathrooms. I've got Shira set up in her high chair colouring while I scrub. Cleaning the floors makes me happy. The bathrooms? Not so much, but it needs to be done (especially when one's mum is coming over to baby-sit this weekend).

A few interesting things from the week:

A cookbook club. Mine is already in the works, thanks to some good friends who like to eat as much as I do.

A birthday celebration fit for a cat. Trust me, this is worth the crazy.

I'm still waiting (impatiently) for my copy of Design Sponge at Home.

Another blanket I would like to knit.

The zucchini bread I just made (it's still in the oven), though not for the first time. This one's a keeper.


Hope you have a delightful fall weekend! And for those of you on Canada's East coast, I hope the storm is kind to you.

Wee One

 

 

You might think with all this talk of school, that wee Shira has disappeared. But she's still here, growing, chasing her sister, and indulging in some celebratory ice cream (we all rejoiced in a good first day of school). She's changing so much lately, playing with her own babies, tucking them in the baby crib, marching around the house with favourite things in hand. She's not talking yet (except for calling Mama all day long, which I adore), but we can all see the understanding behind her eyes. I look at Shira and I see how she takes us all in, watches our every move, and then usually snuggles in for whatever ride we're on that day. 

No matter how utterly exhausting this all is, I really wish they'd stay little for just a bit longer.

Our house, after school

We made it.

The whole gang of us showed up at her Kindergarten class at 3:30 yesterday. Alyce didn't see us right away because she was too busy listening to her teacher and lining up against the wall with her backpack. But when she did spot us she ran over immediately, throwing caution and classroom rules aside, and landed in my arms for the most intense hug I've ever experienced. She didn't say a word for a two or three minutes, just hugged. I could feel all the tension of the day, both good and bad, melt away. I was so very proud of her.

We celebrated the only way Alyce knows how: ice cream. Then slowly, very slowly, we learned about her day. Did you know that she's not allowed to go in the jungle (the woods around her school)? Did you know that she ate lunch at a big table with her friends? And that she walked in a long line to visit the school library? I'm glad to know these things.

Thanks, everybody, for all your good thoughts yesterday. I needed all of them.