Mesh Madness

I got a mesh feeder, despite mixed reviews from my friends. Hey, it was on sale. I wasn't overly excited about it, given that the boy has no interest in self-feeding. Also, he's really not terribly oral. I know some babies put everything in their mouths, and he'll give some things an experimental chomp, but the default move for him is grabbing and thumping, not grabbing and biting.

Also, I'm afraid to give him chunks of anything with more texture than an avocado. And he is his father's son, and hates avocado. If the moment of his birth wasn't seared into my brain forever ("you forget the pain of your dainty bits stretching beyond all recognition" is a total LIE, just so you know), I would question his being mine. How did I make a baby who doesn't like avocado? Anyway, I'm nervous about choking, and I'd feel better about letting him try more stuff if it were in something safe like a mesh feeder.

Oh, my goodness, but this is the most fun thing since putting peanut butter on the dog's nose. Not that we did that more than once and we're very, very sorry, please do not tell me how horrible I am.

The first thing we tried was carrot. I keep carrots in the fridge, so they're nice and cold. This one was peeled, which seemed to help him figure out that the end result would have the same smell as the stuff in the jars.

You would not think someone with three teeth could damage a carrot by much, would you? Listen, wolverines do less damage to weak, drugged cows tied to a stake.

He made these little "narf narf narf" noises, and had this vaguely feral expression on his face the whole time.

Next we tried apple ("honey crisp" apples from the farm stand). He loves applesauce, so we figured this couldn't go wrong. The look on his face at the crispy crunch noise that his three teeth made was priceless. I was a little surprised that two tiny chunks of apple could create enough liquid to soak the onesie from the neck all the way to the waist of his pants. But he was thrilled.

The next night I gave him some refrigerated apple. He was totally uninterested until it warmed up, and then he dove on it like a starving jackal dives on a discarded hamburger. All that was left in the bag was the peel.

We took him to the pediatrician yesterday, and I mentioned our adventures in mesh feeding. She told me to try... pickle.

What?

She swore up and down that she'd never met a baby who didn't adore a dill pickle. She said she recommended cold whole ones for teething.

All we had at home were dill slices for hamburgers. But I popped two of them into the bag, and handed it over.

He grabbed it with a gleeful shriek and bit down. Clearly he had been expecting fruit or vegetable - you know, the only stuff besides breastmilk that he'd ever eaten in his life? He took it out of his mouth and looked at it. Tried it again. Stared again. And then he went to freaking TOWN. He managed to get every molecule of pickle out of the bag, too.

Try it!

What Would It Take To Make Breastfeeding the Norm?

I've posted before about breastfeeding, and how it's okay not to be all delirious with joy. I mentioned in that same post that La Leche League kinda bugs me. However, as part of my job today I was explaining that in order to win a fight, you must establish your position as the norm, and the opponent's position as substandard. It helps if your opponent's position really IS substandard.

Then I remembered I GOT that from LLL. It was an essay on making breastfeeding the norm.

I haven't changed my mind, by the way. I ended my last post on this topic by pointing out that formula isn't rat poison. If you really tried breastfeeding (REALLY tried, with support and helpful books and lactation consultants), sometimes you still gotta choose formula - and you have the right not to feel guilty about it.

But you have the right to feel angry about not being allowed resources to learn, and the time to do it. I was talking with another friend today about how our society fetishizes motherhood, but only if the mother in question asks nothing of society in return.

It took THIRTY DAYS for me, a brand new mother who had never seen regular breastfeeding, and only two friends in the universe who'd even tried, to establish a nursing relationship that didn't make me want to scream. It took longer to figure it all out, to learn the holds and the positions, to learn the baby's cues and my needs, to find our rhythm. As a consultant who works from home, I had to be back at work after three weeks, but I didn't have to disrupt the nursing process. I had the luxury of being able to offer milk every time he asked for it, and this developed my supply and our trust in each other.

He was four months old before I had to leave him for more than an hour.

You think I'd still be exclusively breastfeeding my eight month old without all those advantages? I don't.

And yet maternity leave is six weeks long if the mother is lucky. She can have three months if she's willing to go a month without pay. Any woman who suggests that a European model is healthier for the infant, for the mother, and for society is a scumwad pinko commie who wants higher taxes and to eat bonbons at the expense of the working man.

My breastfed infant will get sick less often. He and I will both have long term benefits that have accrued from nursing. If we only consider our lessened impact on health insurance premiums, we've given back to society the money it would have taken to pay me for a real maternity leave. If I'm spared the various cancers that breastfeeding wards off, society could have taken the money it would have spent on the treatments and given my husband another week to get to know his son.

Breast is not best - breast is the norm. And parenthood is not a fetish, it's a societal benefit.

The current financial market situation explained to children

...and Chicken Little ran into Henny Penny... Henny Penny, Henny Penny, the sky is falling the sky is falling....

Fear of Flying, Vanquished

We went to visit Gramma and Grandpa. I would normally call them "Mom and Dad," except that I no longer exist for my parents. My function is strictly to accompany The First Grandchild to their home, and then allow them to snuggle him and pinch his fat little cheeks.

If you think this bothers me, you did not see the speed at which the mate and I raced for the door and out to a restaurant sans offspring.

Unfortunately, Gramma and Grandpa live a four hour plane ride from here. The prospect of flying with a baby horrified me when we first contemplated the matter. I am told I screamed bloody murder from Bangkok to LA as a six month old, and I was pretty sure karma was going to kick my ass and use my eight month old as the foot.

But it went pretty well, as it happens. It helps that the flight home was absolutely packed with infants and toddlers - count 'em SEVEN rugrats under the age of two within five rows of each other - so when our little miracle decided to see if the Shriek button went to eleven, no one even noticed.

Here's what we did:

- We did not buy him a ticket. Instead, we took his birth certificate to the airport and got a "non ticketed passenger document." That's the airport term for "lap baby." In hindsight... we should have shelled out the dough for a seat. He finally started sitting unassisted a few weeks ago, and as you know, any time they learn something new, that's all they want to do. Sitting on laps is for babies. We spent some time standing in the aisle so he could have the seat.

- I wore him in the Ergo from the minute we got out of the car until the final, preboarding diaper change. That got him all warm and relaxed, instead of amped up and ready to party.

- I skipped a feeding on the ground to make him hungry in the air. Wearing him and walking around distracts him. It doesn't work for long, but it worked long enough that when I offered him milk as the plane was taking off, he hit it like a starving trout on a handtied fly. Between the Ergo and the milk overload, he was out for ninety minutes. And if he noticed his ears popping on the way up, he didn't say anything about it.

(Bonus tip: Wear nursing pads. The pressure changes cause even my non-leaky breasts to squirt.)

- I told our seatmate not to worry about noise, because I was going to be nursing the baby. I asked the person in front of us to please tell us if his seat got kicked, because we were teaching our son not to kick seats. This was to establish a friendly connection, lay out our plans, and let them know that we were doing our best. It certainly pre-empted any angst.

- Restaurant toys were in the seat pocket. We have three little toys that only come out at restaurants, so they're always super awesome fun. The mate fastened his wallet leash onto one of them for bonus fun.

- Everything is in fact a toy. Crinkly peanut packets are swell toys. So is a partially flattened water bottle with a few peanuts inside and the cap screwed back on. I'm not ashamed to admit that the flattened, rattling bottle was my dog's teething toy of choice. That's how I knew it would work for my son.

- Trips to the galley are great fun. Also, gleeful shrieking and gabble are cute in the galley in a way that they are So Not Cute in your little narrow coach seat across from another baby who has finally fallen asleep.

- As soon as the pilot said he was descending, I started nursing. Again, if he noticed his ears popping, he didn't mention it.

A Food Confessoin

I love raw eggs.

Well, they might as well be raw. I like my eggs so undercooked that there's barely a thickening of the coat on top of the yolk.

If my white isn't slightly less than firm, and my yellow isn't running like a river over my toast, it's cooked too much.

Yes, I eat dangerously.

Brilliant dinner ideas!

During the week, you'd think a mom who stay home would have time to cook dinner.

HA!

So, for those moms who don't stay home, and who do stay home, and who live in a constant state in between home and somewhere else, here's my latest brilliant idea!

It always involves the crock pot, mind you. The crock pot is a great invention, whoever thought of it deserves to be sainted.

Anyhow, we always do a Sunday Crock Pot Chili, and then eat the leftovers another night.
So, on Saturday, I can prepare a crock pot meal and NOT eat it... then, I have two weeknight meals in tupperware in the fridge waiting for the day when I realize it's 5:30, and I've just BEGUN to think of dinner.

Anyone else have any better, or good, easy dinner ideas that don't involve processed foods? :)

Wall Street -- why moms should care

Okay, okay that sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

Moms should care about Wall Street. Everyone should care, and I believe most people do, but we're in a watching state. We are aware of the giant catastrophe that is our financial sector, we are aware that it got this way only because of gross mismanagement, greed and incompetence. And we're about to give the industry 700 billion dollars. But, this post really isn't about Wall Street.

It's about what moms should take from this financial garbage heap we're in. It's about how to shape our children's future, and how we need, some of us, to reconsider how we handle our money.

We need to rethink how much we give our children. We want them to have all the best, fun stuff, we want them to enjoy the luxuries of modern technology -- from Ipods to MP3 players to lap tops to game consoles -- we want them to enjoy the clothes they own -- designer clothes, pricey tops, the 'in look,' we want all of that for them. Maybe it's not so good for them, though. Lets face it, one of the top target markets are our children. Yes, our children! Not the moms who shop for them (and any dads that may) but the children themselves.

Maybe, just maybe we should take that power back. Now, I'm not saying this is going to save Wall Street. But it just might save our children. Which, in turn, might save America, because it's our children, with the financial lessons we instill in them (or don't instill) that will one day be working on Wall Street.

Lets look at what our children do to earn their extras. Lets look at the financial responsibility we place on our children (be honest, I know some people do marvelous jobs of teaching their children finanical responsibility, but if alll of us moms did, frankly, companies wouldn't be targeting our children). Lets teach them now, the lessons that we keep getting slapped with by our government, Wall Street, and our own financial habits.

Lets teach our children to take care of their finances now. Lets redefine American consumerism. Lets not be such blatantly easy targets for corporations to market stuff we don't need or even really value. Then, when our children grow up, maybe, when the ones who go to Wall Street get there, they will take with them sound financial principles taught in their own homes.

What do you say?

And, now, returning to the topic of Wall Street, do you think they could spare about 15K for me? You know, maybe one of the jerks who got us into this mess could take a 15K hit on what is sure to be a whopping compensation package funded by us, the taxpayers, and just hand it over to me. Since we're stuck with helping them stay comfortable as they leave Wall Street. And, just one more small thought... could we exile them from Wall Street, and put restrictions on how much money they are allowed to handle? You know, to keep them from jumping right back in and destroying our financial markets some more?