DAILY SNACK
Sitting on the floor with a book in his lap, his head tilts toward hers. He runs his fingers across the page and talks quietly under his breath. Smiling, he turns the page again and continues the story. Her head bobs up and down, eyes fixed on the page, mouth gnawing on her rubber giraffe. Brother and sister. My heart soars.
My Facebook newsfeed last night was filled with clips of children’s shows posted by my single friends. My gut reaction was that these people were treading on my turf. This blog is hot, after all, and clearly everybody wants a piece of the mommy action. Turns out the buzz is actually about the Spike Jonez directed film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are that is set to hit theatres on October 16th. Maurice Sendak’s story is one of our favourites at bedtime and quite possibly the last book I’d ever expected to see made into a movie.
I don’t know quite what to make of this. The screenplay was co-written by Spike Jonez and Dave Eggers! (Nobody could have guessed those two would get together.) And there are lots more superstar names to fill out the cast: Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, and Catherine O’Hara for example. The trailer looks pretty good, I must admit, and the Arcade Fire song works well. As noted by a reader on Cinematical, though, the trailer doesn’t exactly project “kiddie movie”. I’m sure grade school kids will eat it up, but it may be a bit dark for my three-year-old. (Though his first movie ever was Wall-Ewhen he wasn’t quite two and a half. I know. At least it had a happy ending.)
Check out the trailer for yourself:
DAILY SNACK
Lunch with a five month old:
She eagerly latches on, fingernails digging into skin, feet kicking. She takes two gulps, pulls off, and whips her head around. Back at the breast for 15 seconds this time and what’s that sound? Another pull from the ol’ nipple and who’s that over there? This time I’m holding her head steady while she grunts and strains and still escapes her feed. Finally, door closed, blinds drawn, and big brother placated by the t.v. she settles down to business.
Does my baby have reflux? Why do people keep asking me that? And why do I not seem to care? It is true that Li’l I spits up quite a bit at times. But she seems pretty healthy and happy to me, for one. Also, I seem to remember all the babies spitting up from time to time — Young C and my youngest siblings, too. So I refused to be worried. But then my doctor noticed her hiccuping at her last checkup and asked whether she spits up frequently. I admitted she does spit up, but brushed away the concern, assuring the doctor that she wasn’t losing much. The doc was satisfied with her weight gain (though I noticed that the rate of the gain had seemed to slow down significantly) and overall development and nothing more was said of it.
Still, I was starting to feel like maybe I should at least do some preliminary research into this. Kellymom has a clear break down of the differences between spitting up and Gastroesophegeal Reflux Disease (GERD) which are verified on many other basic websites. The upshot (ha ha ha … get it? upshot?) is that lots of babies spit up (and lots don’t) without any cause for concern. This can be triggered by eating more than their stomach can handle or a too fast and too hard letdown at the breast. (That totally makes sense for me, then.) But unless a baby is gaining poorly and/or seems to be in pain no medical treatment is required. (And there’s LOTS of anecdotal evidence that excessive spitting up is really common.) Burping a baby and keeping them upright and not jiggling them too much after a feed also help. Caffeine intake (oh no!) can exasperate the problem in breastfed babies, so I might have to cut back after all.
This whole spit up versus reflux question is an example of how medical problems surface in our collective awareness and can cause much undue anxiety. Medical conditions can be trendy (eg. autism) and we suddenly see them everywhere. My parents would not have worried about spit up apart from the mess. They’ve never heard of reflux. If a baby wasn’t thriving, then the doctor would ask the appropriate questions and go from there. Nonetheless, we are living in an age of self-diagnosis and hyper-awareness and sometimes that can help ease the pain and discomfort of conditions like reflux earlier.
To that end, you should consider reflux if your baby seems to be in pain while spitting up or just after a feed — sometimes the stomach contents don’t make it all the way up, but still cause discomfort. Be on the lookout for coughing, gagging, hiccuping, and difficulty sleeping. Frequent projectile vomiting is another story altogether — definitely talk to your doctor about that one. Otherwise, keep lots of clothes and blankets on hand and relax.
DAILY SNACK
“You can take one bear.”
“Should I take Bubba Bear, or Musti Bear, or Baby Bear?”
“Musti Bear.”
“Do you mean Musti Bear? Or Bubba Bear? Or Baby Bear?”
“I mean Musti Bear.”
“This bear?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean this bear? Or that bear? Or this bear?”
“Just take the damn bear and get down these stairs!”
Here Ye! Here Ye! The Toronto Public Library, in conjunction with the Sun Life Financial company, is giving away week-long passes to all the good stuff in the city. Every branch has passes to the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Bata Shoe Museum, Black Creek Pioneer Village, the Gardiner Museum, the Museum of Inuit Art, the Textile Museum of Canada, and the City of Toronto’s Historic Museums. Select branches will also have passes for the Ontario Science Centre, Casa Loma, and the Royal Ontario Museum.
I know: how can you cash in on this? First, take your ID and current address info and suck it up and pay those old library fines so you can get a card. (Am I right or am I right?) Next, wake up at some ungodly hour on a Saturday morning (with a couple exceptions) so you can be first in line as the library opens. The MAPs (Museum and Arts Pass) are given out on a first-come, first-served basis and there is a limit of one pass per adult library card. Each pass admits one family for one visit. Hearsay tells me that these passes will be given out every week until the end of April, but I can’t confirm that on the website. So I’ll have to wait to talk to a real person during business hours and come back with the confirmation.
Look up all the deets here. There’s no excuse to stay home now. And I’ll see you at the museum.
DAILY SNACK
Whoever invented loot bags is a genius. Nothing insures the smooth departure from a birthday party like the promise of a bag full of goodies. The ones M & M were giving out after their #1’s surprise party were especially good. Contents included: a snake finger puppet, a ring pop, a tube o’ sugar – cherry flavoured, and fake rotten teeth. The teeth are what makes it great. Not only are they lots of fun, but they double as a very effective incentive to brush your teeth.
DAILY SNACK
Minnie Mouse is a favourite character of one of Young C’s best friends. She (with help from her mom — a good friend and generous soul herself) gave this doll to L’il I when she was born. L’il I now loves it — the contrasting colours and the soft dress to grab hold of and the rattles in the feet. Just perfect.
DAILY SNACK
At its prime, Sesame Street had a little something for everybody. The educational content was foremost, of course, but there were lots of gags aimed at mom and dad, too. By the time my youngest siblings were watching (mid-nineties), though, it just seemed l-a-m-e. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to see this aired on Sesame Street this morning. It’s not comic genius, but it is a step in the right direction.
I breastfed Young C for just over 18 months and I am currently enjoying breastfeeding L’il I as well. My mother breastfed all four of us and I have always assumed that was the only way to go. (To this day I’m not quite sure if I know what I’m doing when feeding a baby from a bottle.) I have offered up tips and encouragement to new mothers struggling with latch or milk supply problems and I firmly believe that a successful breastfeeding relationship makes for a happy baby and happy mom.
Why then, when I started to read Hanna Rosin’s “The Case Against Breastfeeding” in this month’s Atlantic, did I feel a giddy kind of glee? Is it just my instinctively contrarian nature? The anticipation of an intelligent argument against the Holy Grail of motherhood being published by a prominent American magazine? Yes, that was undoubtedly a big factor. But there was more to it, too. I’d become a bit disillusioned with the pro-breastfeeding overkill that is dominant in cities like Toronto. There are mothers I know who can’t hold their babies for several hours a week because they are hooked up to elaborate milking machines. These women are so determined to do the right and “best” thing for their babies that they set their alarm to wake them up every three hours so they can pump and keep up their milk supply and then feed their babies defrosted breast milk from a bottle. There are mothers who feel incredible depths of shame and failure at resorting to formula when breastfeeding doesn’t work for them. Hell, I even felt personally responsible for Young C’s bout of newborn jaundice because he wouldn’t latch for one day and then my milk came in late. I had to feed him formula for a whole two days while my milk came in and was made to suffer the special kind of nipple trauma that only a hospital grade pump set to high can bestow. The hospital policy was if you supplement, you pump. No matter that he was feeding at the breast before I gave him the formula and that pumping would diminish the amount of colostrum he got. Women are made to feel like physically inferior mothers when they aren’t able to breastfeed. As one mom put it, “No wonder I have such a hard time conceiving; I can’t even feed my own babies.” Never mind the social stigma attached to choosing formula over breastfeeding. Surely the only people buying formula can’t be those who are unable to breastfeed for at least a few months? But I’ve haven’t met anyone else recently — or at least not anyone who admits to it.
Rosin’s article argues that the benefits of breastfeeding have been greatly exaggerated and distorted. The elixer-like claim to prevention that spans from ear infections to diabetes is tenuous at best. It is impossible for studies to fully control for the sociological factors associated with breastfeeding. Factors like education, class and race can have a great impact on the likelihood of contracting any number of diseases and, of course, on IQ scores. Yes, breast milk is better for babies than formula. But not as much as you think.
This comes on the heels of a New Yorker article that came out last month. In “Baby Food: If breast is best, why are women bottling their milk?”, Jill Lepore casts a critical eye at the state of breastfeeding in America. In a country where mothers are assured a whopping 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave — compared to 50 weeks of parental leave at 55% of your income in Canada — the breastfeeding dialogue largely revolves around pumping. A baby-friendly company is one with a pumping room in which breastfeeding mothers can express themselves. Lepore argues that there is much more to breastfeeding than the milk itself and laments the medicalization of the breastfeeding relationship. I tend to agree; breastfeeding is about so much more than simply feeding my baby. It is about continuing a physical relationship and having a subconscious and instinctive response to her needs. It demands that I take the time to hold her and nurture her in the most physical way possible, no matter how busy I might be. It regulates my moods and is a constant source of comfort and security for my baby.
Taken together, the two articles suggest that it might be time for women to put down the pumps and breathe a sigh of relief. If you can’t breastfeed, that is too bad, but formula is almost just as good. Of course, if you want or need to be away from your baby, then the breast pump can no longer assuage your guilt. (But did it ever, really?) We still want to have it all: careers and babies and home-baked goodies. But however you slice it there are choices to be made and it would be nice to have all the right information. As Rosin says, “If the researchers just want us to lick and groom our pups, why don’t they say so? We can find our own way to do that.”
Still reeling from Rosin’s accessory argument that breastfeeding makes mom the de facto go-to for all things baby-related, daddytypes.com’s post, Shapely Science-Distorting Lactivists Annoy Pump-Hating, Stressed-Out, Guilt-Ridden, Haranguing Shrew, jumps right into the name-calling with both feet. Methinks he’s missing the point. How the science is presented and how it makes mothers feel is what determines whether or not they spend countless hours hooked up to milking machines. And it is what will fuel a push toward maternity legislation in keeping with the rest of the developed world.
(Image courtesy of The Patent Prospector.)