Children’s Books Ban Breastfeeding??

I just read about this on one of my parenting forums. A woman was looking for a book about breastfeeding, or a book that portayed breastfeeding positively, to read to her children. When she couldn’t find one, she contacted a publishing group, which explained to her that they and all their subsidiary groups only allow bottle feeding to be shown in their books.  Just another example of how fearful we are in this country of depicting natural, normal behavior. Boobs = bad…unless it’s in a porno, and it’s a hot blonde. But a mom feeding her child – not ok.

So, this woman and her Le Leche League group started a petition. Here it is - sign by midnight, when polling closes.

A Beautiful Post About Co-Sleeping

I read this on the www.mothering.com message boards, and I think it is a beautiful explanation of why co-sleeping is great. It brings all the people we love into one place.

Read it here. You’ll have to scroll down a bit.

Our Illustrious Mayor

Good God, I hate Sheila Dixon. For those of you not from Baltimore, I’m not sure you can even understand why I would hate her so much, even if I explained it to you. Basically, she is the prototypical politician. She grants favors to her friends and family, makes empty promises designed to get her good press and then never follows through, takes credit for ideas that were started LONG before she was in power, and always manages to slime her way out of trouble. She just makes me sick. She gives women in power such a bad name.

She’s currently being investigated, and I really hope she gets it this time. Of course, our city council president would become mayor, and she’s totally in Dixon’s pocket…so, I’m not sure that’s much better.

Local politics are so dirty. I just had to vent.

Bumbos

I have resisted posting pictures of my daughter on the blog, just because it seems kind of strange to me that strangers would know what my kid looks like…but I HAVE to share this pic of her in her Bumbo this morning. She’s 10 weeks old, and very active, and has always been great at holding her head up, so we borrowed my best friend’s Bumbo, since her daughter has outgrown it, and we started using it about a week ago. She LOVES it! She is so happy every time she is in it, and it is one of those products I just have to sing the praises of. It’s so simple, and so ingenious. Leave it to those Kiwis.

 

And her she is checking out the dog:

 

Global Warming is just Propaganda by the Liberal Media

I can’t believe this story. Everyone should just recycle their cars and buy bikes. Or horses. or anything that won’t destroy the planet completely.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080627/sc_livescience/northpolecouldbeicefreethissummer

Attachment Parenting vs. Evil

Yes, I know I already have a link to attachment parenting, so this may seem redundant, but I got fired up about something a few days ago, and I had to talk about it.

So, attachment parenting is basically common sense. Respond to your baby when she cries, feed her when she’s hungry, let her sleep when she’s tired. They also advocate babywearing and co-sleeping, but those are the optional accessories in the attachment parenting package. To me, attachment parenting is just…parenting. Who wouldn’t respond to their crying child, or feed their hungry child, or let their tired child sleep??

Apparently, a lot of people.

On one of the parenting message boards I frequent, a poster last week posted a disturbing story about a friend of hers who was following the “Baby Wise” method of “parenting”. This “parenting” method keeps infants on a strict schedule, dictating when they eat, sleep, and play. If the child becomes hungry before it’s “time”, they have to wait. This poster talked about how horrifying it was to watch this mother tell her 10 week old child, who was screaming for food, that he had to wait until it was “time”. I was pretty horrified myself.

Well, I had never heard of this “Baby Wise” crap, so I looked into it. Of course – they’re born again fucking Christians. Nice. In addition to starving newborns, they advocate a whole array of borderline abusive behaviors, such as leaving an infant in their crib all day alone, so they can “self-stimulate”. Hmm, doesn’t that sound familiar? Infants left alone in a crib all day….oh, right, that’s called NEGLECT. And I seem to remember a whole bunch of 20/20’s from the 80’s where they talked about the neglected kids in Russian orphanages who went blind and got learning disabilities from being left alone all day. Yeah, that’s a real goal to strive for. Where’s you learn your parenting skills? Russian orphanages! Fantastic!

Ugh. As loathe as I am to give these people hits on their website, I have to share the insanity with everyone. You can view their evil Christian born again website here. And you can view the rebuttals of their “methods” by pediatricians and other sane people here.

Now I’m off to feed my hungry child and let her take a nap.

Money Sucks

Sure do wish I had some, though. It’s amazing, and pretty sickening, how much money rules one’s happiness. And don’t give me that shit about “money doesn’t buy happiness”…cause I think that’s pretty much a load of crap. Now, don’t misunderstand me – I am in no way a materialistic person. I’m not talking about having money to buy IPods and new cars, or even to eat out at nice restaurants or shop at gourmet grocery stores. I’m talking about having enough money to take care of yourself and your family without worrying about losing your house or having your electricity cut off. Why is it that so many hard working people don’t have enough money to simply live? And why the hell am I one of them??

What prompted this little tirade is my beloved dog , who has a real penchant for injuring himself and getting strange illnesses, hurting himself AGAIN, seemingly inexplicibly, in the 5 minutes he went out to pee last night after dinner. He is limping around like a three-legged something and fell down the steps today trying to follow me and my daughter up the steps, which prompted me to call my husband in hysterical tears and make an appointment for the vet on Monday, which we can ill-afford. All I want is a job that pays me enough money to take care of the people (re:dogs) in my life without worrying about which bill won’t get paid if he has to go to the vet. I know I am not alone in this, and it just seems so unfair. Money may not CREATE happiness, but it sure can keep misery and anxiety at bay.

My poor little guy, before he gimped himself up.

A Perfect Morning

Sitting by my front window this morning, a steaming cup of coffee next to me, my daughter sleeping on my chest, a good book in my hand, and the breeze tossing the curtains, I wondered if life gets more perfect than that.

So often, I find myself complaining, bitching, whining about what I DON’T have, or what I HAVEN’T accomplished, or how completely UN-perfect life can be. And I probably, like most of us, don’t appreciate often enough how great our lives actually are. And this one moment, this moment of total contentment, was a perfect moment. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a window to look out of, to have a home, a daughter, a coffeepot! Life is really good sometimes, even when times are tough.

I wish I complained less on a daily basis, but it’s really difficult to feel grateful and happy all the time. That can be fucking exhausting, actually. So, I will take these perfect moments and allow them to wash over me for the day, and I’ll complain tomorrow.

 

 

Freecycling Rules My Life

I first heard about Freecycle when I was pregnant. Someone I knew had gotten her entire nursery set from Freecycle. I thought, what is this wondrous thing? (If you don’t know what it is, check this out)And I joined our local North Baltimore group. That was in December.

Since then, I have not only gotten a lot of great stuff (a leather sofa, a Braun coffemaker, some collectible Buffy tVP figures…etc.), and given away a lot of crap I didn’t need, but I’ve recruited my hubby, my mom, and my best friend into the Freecycling fold. It’s really kind of addictive. (Have I mentioned that both my hubby and I tend to have addictive personalities??)

The problem with Freecycling is that you need to kind of troll it multiple times in a day, or someone else gets to the good shit you want before you do…so, it makes you check your email a lot more often than any sane person should be checking their email. It makes you sort of a slave to your Freecycle group. But a slave with lots of good shit, and empty closets.

Biking to Work

So, my husband has become an almost obsessive advocate of a “car-lite” lifestyle, and I think it’s catching! I can’t believe I am actually considering commuting to work on my bicycle – but it seems to make so much sense since I only live a few miles from work. I would never even have considered this a few years ago, but with gas prices, and the “green” movement increasingly influential…I feel kind of stupid driving to work.

Here’s the major glitch – I am really not a fantastic biker, and our city is a very hilly place. I have visions of myself getting off the bike and plugging up a bad hill, walking my bike next to me, huffing and puffing, and arriving at work sweaty, dirty, and smelly. Yum.

But I feel so GUILTY driving. It’s all my husband’s fault, dammit. Bicycles have invaded our lives with a vengeance, and I can’t avoid them. They’re calling to me…”Ride us, ride us, we’re environmentally friendly! We’ll get you in good shape, you’ll lose all that baby weight and do good things for air pollution…” Damned wheeled temptresses.