A million questions and so little time. Inspiration and support for the first year.
Well, it certainly doesn't help breastfeeding matters any when women's breasts are seen as objects of gratification as opposed to means to feed one's baby. This photograph was taken of a carnival at Shelby County Fair and Horse Show Shelbyville, Kentuckym August 1940 Aug. Baby formula had made a huge insurgence in baby-feeding by 1940. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, LC-USF33-031018-M1 DLC ] read more
The purpose of Mindful Motherhood is to provide new moms with the opportunity to engage with ideas, practices, and a community of like-minded moms that can help you navigate the ups and downs of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. The book contains the essential foundations of the practice of Mindful Motherhood, including detailed and accessible information about how mindfulness can be applied in everyday life as a new mom, based on science, theory, and ancient wisdom. The website includes supplementary information and resources, including downloadable guided... read more
Mindful Motherhood, simply put, is being present in your body, and connected with your baby even when the going gets rough. It’s being aware of your experience from moment to moment, as it is happening, without pushing it away, trying to make it stay, or judging it as bad or good. It is meeting each situation as it is, and over time, more and more often, approaching whatever is happening with curiosity and compassion. Mindful Motherhood is a way of approaching all of the experiences you’ll encounter as a mom with open eyes and an open heart. Whether those... read more
I had a boyfriend in college who was from Eritrea and had fought in the war of independence from Ethiopia. He fought side by side with women soldiers, some of whom had had their clitorises cut off when they were small children. “What does it feel like?” He asked his fellow soldiers. The women laughed at him. “How should we know?” They said. “We’ve never known anything different!” Clitoridectomy, known in the Western world as female genital mutilation (FGM) is no laughing matter. According to the World Health Organization, between 100 and... read more
Y’all, I am so excited. Our Mothering holiday staff dinner is next Tuesday evening and I am going to rewrite the lyrics to Abba’s Dancing Queen to be a Mothering-themed song! Melissa Chianta (who in addition to being a supremely thorough managing editor, has a killer set of pipes) has agreed to lead the tune , and I basically just want to drop all of my various duties and write it up. Right now I’m pretty sure that the chorus will feature lines ending in “Mothering/breastfeeding/nursing queen…” plus some kind of play on the ending sound of “vaccine,” and... read more
One of my favorite girls’ names is Ramona. According to our name books (we own several), it means “wise protector” and is derived from archaic French. I love how it sounds. And we love the spunky, willful, imaginative Ramona who Beverly Cleary writes about. Plus, there’s a novel by Helen Hunt Jackson, a little known 19th-century American writer, called Ramona. Ramona Statue, Grant Park, Portland, Oregon I also like Ramona because it’s a name few people have but everyone has heard of and knows how to pronounce. “We hate it!”... read more
Our 16-year-old babysitter, who lives across the street, hates her name, which rhymes with her mother’s. “It’s so common,” she complained. She and I were in the bathroom helping the kids brush their teeth. “I wish I had a meaningful name. I wish my mother had thought more about it. She just named me after herself. I don’t want to do that to my kids.” I’m sure my children will be upset about some (many?) of our parenting choices when they are older. But they won’t chastise us for not thinking hard enough about their names. James and I both love... read more
At first Hesperus, who is 10, did not want a baby sister Five months ago my daughters, 10-year-old Hesperus and 8-year-old Athena, came stampeding into the living room. “We’re having a crisis, Mommy,” they shouted. “Come quickly!” I followed them into my bedroom where they were folding laundry. “Look!” Hesperus held up some maternity jeans. “The machine broke your pants! They’re all poofy and stretched out.” Though the girls knew I might be pregnant, they had never seen maternity clothes. I told them we were expecting a baby. Athena... read more
I hear it from my mother all the time: “You are so lucky…when I had you thirty years ago…” and then she goes on about how maternity and nursing clothes were not readily available to her back then; or if they were they were not all that flattering. I suppose she is right. We do have quite a selection these days, but now it seems like there’s too much. It can be a daunting task to rummage through all of the catalogs and all of the websites, and quite frankly, with a nursing baby, who has the time? I recently tried out the new Long Sleeve Maternity Top in... read more
Baby Leone is three months old today. Three months already but it feels like she was just born. She likes to gurgle, look at her hands, and she has almost found her toes. She’s social and she smiles a lot but beware the friendly soul who wants to hold her: she almost immediately starts to cry with people she doesn’t know. I think she can tell by the way that they smell that they’re not me, or her dad, or her siblings. One of the only times she didn’t cry right away was when the PBS producer, Kate McMahon, held her. Kate is a lactating... read more
