Wikis related to Baby

It is startling to find out that the United States ranks 29th amongst industrialized nations in terms of our infant mortality rate…that’s right 29th! Wait-it doesn’t stop there-did you know that African Americans have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic Whites? Also-more than one million babies die each year because they are born prematurely and about 13 million babies are born too soon according to the March of Dimes. I think I will stop there for now-its a bit too much to take in all at once. The National Healthy Start Association has sponsored a campaign to raise...

This giveaway has ended. Thanks to everyone who entered! The randomly chosen winner is Jennifer!  Jennifer says, ”4th baby due in October. This looks so relaxing!”  Congrats!! You will be contacted by email.  Win an Okoa Sustainable Beechwood Stand and Organic Baby Hammock (valued at $500) from Hushamok! To Enter “Like” Hushamok on Facebook and make sure you are a fan of  Mothering on our Facebook page - and then leave a comment on this blog post for entry. For a Second Entry Share this giveaway with friends and post a second comment letting us know that you did. Entries...

  Baby Leone, who is 11 months old today, with James Last Friday’s post about Jen Starks, the 29-year-old breastfeeding mom who was ushered off an airplane by armed Memphis police officers, has generated a lot of discussion. Thank you to everyone who has weighed in. Baby Leone is eleven months old today. So instead of bare breasts and child safety, we’re talking milestones and cognitive development. Even though I have three older children, all of whom learned to crawl, walk, and talk on a unique timetable, I still worry about this baby’s development. I ask James “Is it normal...

  Today's my birthday. I'm one! I wrote this Declaration of Independence all by myself. If you don't believe me, ask my mom. When in the Course of a baby’s life it becomes necessary for one 12-month-old to dissolve the Velcro bands which have connected the front of her diaper, and to assume among the powers of the house, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of natural parenting entitle her, a decent respect to the opinions of Mom-kind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that...

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 experiences are internal, like...

  It takes a miracle . . . Yes, indeed. Tim and I were a little shell-shocked today by the awareness that our son, Reeve, is now officially an adult. He turned 21 today. We celebrated with a family road trip (Reeve’s girlfriend, Eliza, joined us) to Chaco Canyon and will continue a celebration of sorts tomorrow, as we caravan down to Las Cruces (about 4 hours south of here)—where Reeve is in school—to help him move into his new digs. . . So. A joyous day of exploration, stunning scenery, stimulating conversation, fabulous road music, lots of laughter and reminiscences—and...

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 clapped her hands with joy. Hesperus burst into...

  This baby is a good sleeper but I'm not It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m wide awake. A post on sleep was not in the line-up for this week’s blogging but here I am in a pitch black 50 degree house and all the other topics I had planned to write about (weird but normal in postpartum women, how Cheri Huber stuck a gun in her stomach and pulled the trigger before she found Zen Buddhism, more on the philosophy behind going diaper free) feel irrelevant right now. I remember my father having insomnia. From my room I would hear him go downstairs in the middle of the night and turn on...

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 mom (she has an almost 12-month-old) so she...

Yesterday Baby Leone, Etani, and I walked two miles to pick up Athena from school. The stepmother of one of Athena’s classmates was there, so I got to see her son, who was born three days after Leone, for the first time. The babies smiled at each other. “How much does she weigh?” The mom asked me. “I don’t know,” I began. “We don’t–” “She’s so tiny,” she interrupted. “Tiny?” “Well, maybe she just looks puny compared to MY baby,” she said. “He weighs fifteen pounds!” Of all the adjectives I would use to describe Leone, “puny” isn’t one of them. She’s like a sumo wrestler...

Leone, who’s almost five months old (already? How is that possible?) has discovered how to blow raspberries. She’s also started noticing her out breaths. These spectacular wonders of her natural self are particularly fascinating at 4:00 a.m. In other news, she can sit up by herself for about a quarter of a second before falling on her nose and flattening it into Silly Putty. And she grabs things. The lip of the plate while she’s sitting on my lap at the table, the bamboo flute on the windowsill, the junk mail advertisement. She holds onto what she’s grabbed but only long enough to...

#1: I love to suck on Mommy’s chin. Wait, where did it go? Ah [drool, drool], there it is. Yummy. #2: I can sit up by myself. Oops. Until I fall over. #3: I am a good grabber. #4: I grab Big Sister #2’s hair. #5: I grab Big Brother’s shirt. #6: I grab the platter. Oops. Now it’s on the floor. #7: I grab — [editor's note: I think everyone gets the idea.] #8: I like to stand on laps. #9: I like to bounce on laps. Bouncy bouncy bouncy. #10: My fingernails are razor sharp, even though Mommy cuts them almost every day. #11: Waah, something just scratched my cheek. #12:...

Leone is growing so fast that the peach fuzz on her head looks longer from one day to the next. She’s got a little bang in front now, like Tintin. And her eyelashes have grown long and unruly. But the biggest change since she turned six months old five days ago is that she suddenly has so much purpose. She knows what she wants and she tries to get it, a look of serious concentration on her face. When I have a cup filled with water and I take a sip, Leone fixates on the cup, grabs at it with both hands, and shoves it towards her mouth. She smacks her lips, water spraying out, and...

Even though it’s Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend, Dr. Judy Palfrey, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found time to call me back to discuss the press release that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sent yesterday about their position on clitorial “nicks.” In that release, the AAP made it absolutely clear that as an organization they are against any form of female genital mutilation and that they categorically retract the 2010 policy statement about female genital cutting. In their own words: “The AAP reaffirms its strong opposition to FGC and...

Leone decided to celebrate her seventh luna-versary by waking up every 20 minutes all night long. I think she’s teething. She has two little white saws sticking out from her bottom gums. Her top gums look a little raw and red. She bites everything. She’s bit my nipple twice now. I scream in pain. She sobs. I sob. Then I’m terrified to nurse her again because I don’t want to be bitten. I actually pumped a bottle of milk for her. I’ve been pumping every day for a baby in Colorado but this bottle was for Leone. I left to do a photo shoot. James tried to give Leone the bottle. She...

Hesperus and her friend Gabby gearing to do back handsprings in the July 4th parade My dad always says that “a day that you exercise in the morning is a day that you exercise.” So when the baby, who slept badly last night because she had a fever, woke up at six a.m. I decided to take her running. I look like I’m walking in slow motion when I’m running. I’m so slow that overweight men on benches laugh at me and say, “Can you turn up the speed volume?” when I “run” by. But, true to my motto that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed, Leone and I were out pounding the...

At almost eight and a half months old, Leone is all squirming all the time. Holding her when she’s trying to get somewhere (which is almost always) is like wrestling an octopus underwater with olive oil on your hands. A lot of babies her age have been crawling for months. Not Leone. But in the last few days she’s almost managed to heave her heavy self forward in a crawl-like manner. When you plop her down with some toys she doesn’t stay still. She rotates. Or scoots. Or twists. Or does something. This invariably moves her towards the only available choking hazard outside her reach,...

“When did she start talking?” A surrprised friend asked a few days ago. Baby Leone loves to have long involved conversations. She makes unintelligible noises (”Ah bah, bah dee dah!” is what she’s saying right now) and claps her hands, or bangs the ground with a pen, or flails her legs for emphasis. But our friend was noticing that she’s also consistently saying some words. She started “talking” about two weeks ago. Here’s the dictionary: “Beh” = bye “Bah” = ball “Hhh” = hi “Mama mama” = random consonant and vowel sounds strung together “Da da” = human being, daddy, mommy,...

I appreciate all the encouraging comments about my idea to take my daughters on a bike trip along the Canal du Midi. I’m still looking for affordable tickets and thinking about when—and whether—to take the trip. I spent more than an hour on the phone with an airline company but then their computers froze and I couldn’t purchase the tickets. A sign we shouldn’t go? The same day my friend Carla, who used to bike tour all the time, said she had panniers we could borrow. A sign we should go? Whatever we decide, I promise to keep you updated. In the meantime, there are new...

“Is she a good baby?” people often ask. This afternoon my friend fastened the chin strap of Leone’s bicycle helmet. Though Leone fidgeted and tried to push the helmet off, she didn’t cry. “You’re such a good baby!” my friend cooed. Leone is amenable to change, good-natured, smiley, patient, and generally even-tempered. For the most part, she’s been an easy baby. Still, I don’t like to think of any of her baby personality traits as “good.” Here’s why: If being amenable to change, good-natured, smiley, and generally even-tempered means you’re a “good” baby, where does that leave...