mind like a steel trap

So E wants to know...if he doesn't touch his penis when he pees, does he still have to wash his hands?

fighting for milk

I guess the nurse-in at The View/ABC-TV and Barbara Walter's little faux pas are fading away from public notice. Ever lagging behind, I did send commentary to Ken Schram, the Seattle-area commentator who likened breastfeeding to peeing in a glass jar at the mall, and to Rosa Brooks, the Harvard-educated lawyer who wrote in the LA Times that breastfeeding is undoing all the work feminists have done over the last twenty years. Oh well. I am clearly finding my voice again. Here's what I wrote:

Mr. Schram:

I take issue with your statement that men cannot change from thinking of a woman’s breasts as sexual objects to thinking of them as a food source. My husband, my teen-age stepson, my father and my brothers have all made the transition nicely. I certainly hope that my two breast-fed sons remember that a woman’s breasts are first and foremost for nourishing children. Their role in sex is serendipity. Rather than throwing up your hands and saying, “Oh us poor dumb men can only think about sex!” perhaps you might better use your position to educate your fellow men as to the real ways of the world.

Regarding the issue of covering up; I am reminded of the Victorians who put shawls over their pianos lest men become excited from viewing the piano legs. The shawl drew more attention to the fact that pianos have legs. Throwing a blanket over the baby’s head while nursing can be more of a red flag than a woman discreetly holding her child to her breast. In three years of breastfeeding, I’ve yet to see a mother outside of the comfort of her home, “bare it all” to breastfeed.

Sincerely,

and

Ms. Brooks:

I read your editorial in the LA Times Online with interest. I am sorry that you chose to perpetuate the myth that a mother with a job outside of the home cannot breastfeed her child. I am a full-time librarian successfully breastfeeding my second child. I use a breast pump twice a day to insure that my son has breast milk when I cannot be with him. My intention is to pump until he is a year old, as I did with his older brother. I am very fortunate to have an understanding employer who supports my decision to pump breast milk. Legally, the state of Pennsylvania offers me no right to do this. I do use that time to answer emails, make phone calls, or catch up on professional reading. The result? To date, I have not had to call in sick due to illness in my eight-month old. I am a happier and more content employee, knowing that I am doing the best that I can for my child.

I, too, consider myself a feminist. I am a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. However, I am disturbed at the trend of some women to proclaim that feminist achievements can only come from career women. Motherhood is an important and vital role in society. Rather than seeing lactivism as a threat to “all that has been gained,” it would behoove public figures such as yourself to join with Senator Olympia Snow to create legal protection for mothers to breast feed and pump milk for their children.

Did you call me?

I think F said "Momma" today. He was playing on the bed while I got dressed, although it quickly deteriorated into fussing and grumbling. Clearly, he wanted me. I just wanted not to be naked. I heard "ma-ma" at least 3 distinct times. Not "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma," but 3 separate words. It felt great, even though I felt terrible for making him wait. Of course, as soon as I scooped him up, he wanted to nurse, which we did.

fleeting moments

The days fly by so quickly! F has two teeth and may be working on a third. E has made one of those barely perceptible cognitive leaps. I can't describe it, it just is. I first noticed it when, running into his Sunday School teacher in the hallway at church, he hollers over his shoulder, "Are we having Sunday School inside or outside today?" Two or three weeks ago they'd gone outside to blow bubbles. Keeping in mind that he's only three, it seems like a very mature moment to me. He is also very concerned with hurt feelings these days. He also wants to be sure that his apologies are accepted. "But you HAVE to accept my apologize!"

I love them so fiercely. I just want their lives to be good and full.

beware the haunting prose

Last night I skimmed through this alluring little book. It was a first novel, filled with haunting, delicate prose. The topic was motherhood; post-partum depression in particular. I shouldn't have picked it up. I should have walked away. Instead, like the ingenue in a horror flick, I flipped through and read the end. Somehow, knowing that this fictional woman survived post-partum depression would insure what? happiness, success, safety for my own children? It looked good. Our heroine was at her daughter's naming ceremony, describing the rabbi and her husband, tired but surviving. Then, next chapter, she's alone with a crying baby. The author, in her beautiful prose, describes the desperation a mother can feel in excruciating detail. The baby is dry, she won't accept the breast, she won't settle, until finally the mother has made a terrible, fatal mistake. I guess I should warn about possible spoilers for this unnamed novel at this point. The mother, carrying her dead child, drowns herself in the family pool. The book ends with her young son, returning home with his father, running towards the pool with his water wings.

I felt sick. I still do. Does every mother feel those desperate moments? Those moments of "please, I don't know what you need?" Those moments of, "Just let me alone--I can't think?" I suppose the difference is knowing when to put the baby down in a safe place and get a drink of water or pee or scream. Or persevering enough to just hold on for one more minute, one more minute, the tears now streaming down your own face, until finally the little one is calm and smiling or blissfully asleep and you wonder what all the fuss was about.

Sometimes at night, after we've finally gotten the boys settled, I miss them. E especially, with his vibrant life-force, seems like a candle going out when he's asleep. I call it, "The Elvis Has Left the Building" feeling. Something is extinguished and the world seems emptier. At first, it is a relief, but sometimes, that feeling lasts only for a minute or two and I want that commentary, that energy, to return and fill up the spaces around me. With F, it's the feeling I get when I lay him down after he's fallen asleep in my arms. I wish so often that I had more time just to hold him and cuddle.

Today was one of those days

that makes me hate working. E was asleep and F wanted to snuggle, but I had to get ready to go back to work. I hated waking E up and sending him off with my mom. I know he'll be fine, but I miss him so. In the back of my mind, that niggling doubt and fear arises: I am a bad momma because my work schedule interferes with my children's lives. The objective reality is that E had been sleeping for nearly 3 hours, certainly long enough for a small boy of 3.