Hooray for breastfeeding!

This article is exciting.

Of course, they probably include babies that nurse for a few weeks and never again...but those are still really good stats.

Nursing was a hard adjustment for me....learning process that I didn't think was going to be hard. HA! Shows what I knew. But it was WAY worth it.

Sexualizing girls

This makes me mad.

This is also the reason why I bought board shorts and a shirt for my daughter instead of the BIKINIS THEY SELL FOR TWO-YEAR-OLDS!

When it comes down to it, Miley Cyrus is neither here nor there for me. I don't know her, and if she wrecks her life it has no affect on me. The deeper issues are what bother me about this whole thing. This is, yet again, an instance in which a teenager THINKS she knows what she wants. A good number of folks, including these people, note that teenage brains aren't capable of adult reasoning...the teenage brain is still developing in terms of impulse control and decision making.

So who cares if the 15-year-old says "I think this will be a great artistic opportunity" or even "It's my body" or some such argument that (while valid in some cases) doesn't apply in this situation! Someone needed to take responsibility for teaching this girl, and keeping sexualized photos of her OUT of the hands of sex-crazed sickos.

HOORAY!

I'm excited! For two things.

1) I turned in a paper this morning. Always a good thing.
2) I JUST BOUGHT A PLANE TICKET TO GO SEE MY SISTER AND GO TO AL'S WEDDING!!

Both of these things are good, but the second is WAY more exciting, and lots more fun. :-)

Progress

I actually got some paper-writing done last night!

So to celebrate I got to go canoing (canoeing?) with Ben and BeeBoo and some of our friends this morning.

It was a little chilly, but still really fun. Here're some pictures.

I just don't know

So I've been following the story of the FLDS women and their children, the custody cases, kids being put in foster care, etc. There are lots of issues involved which interest me (protected rights, women's issues, Mormon vs pseudo-mormons etc...if you're reading this post, you know me well enough to know why I'm interested).

I may be demonstrating my ignorance, and maybe there have been exceptions made, but as I understand it, all of the mothers, even those with very young children, have now been separated from their children. As I started really thinking about that, I realized that this includes any number of women who are probably breastfeeding (since these folks seem to be all about stereotypical "good" mothering). This means that the mothers and babies involved in this intensely emotional, physical, sensory, bonding practice, have been forced to stop it. In a really short period of time. Which means not only a number of emotional issues for mother and baby, but also the practical problems of pain for the moms who can't nurse (and though expressing milk helps, it's not a truly good fix) and babies who in all likelihood will refuse either a bottle or the formula in it.

This makes me VERY angry.

I think most of my anger is selfish...I'm mad because I don't know how to feel about the whole thing, or why I feel like I even should HAVE an opinion. I'm all for taking teenage girls who have been married to old men (whether they think it's what they want or not...there are any number of teenagers I know who do really stupid things because they think they want to) away from an abusive situation. I think that a certain amount of intervention in the cases of pregnant teens who have probably been abused by knowing adults is justified.

But could it really hurt to let the nursing moms stay with their babies? Or at least give them time to wean them? But then there comes the issue of where to draw the line.

Oh, it's all so CONFUSING! I can't help but think of how I would react if someone took my nursing baby from me. And that's just plain hard.

They have GOT to be kidding

This article amazes me.

I mean, it's one thing for them to let my goofball brother into the Marines in spite of tattoos. It's another thing entirely to say "Let's give guns and access to military training to people who have violently assaulted innocent people. Oh, and while we're at it, let's send people who have made terrorist threats over to *ahem* fight against people who hate our country."

Cause THAT'S a good idea!

Final papers

I finally actually started WRITING one of my final papers (and it's not due for more than a week...more procrastination than I ever would have dreamed of at BYU, but good for me here!). As a result, I've come to a conclusion. It won't be shocking, but here it is.

I'm SO glad I'm not a woman living in colonial Mexico.

Reasons why:

I would have wanted to be a nun, so that I could read, write, study, etc.

I couldn't have been a nun, because I have indigenous (here read Native American) blood. No "pureza de sangre" (non-Spanish speakers, this means "pure blood" and was actually a legal thing in Spain back in the day) for me, so no nun-hood.

So I would have had to be married to an overbearing man, because I'm too much of a chicken to die in poverty.

And then I would have been forced to kill myself, so as not to be miserable when I realized that the poverty probably would have been better.


All told, being a PhD student, bad as it can be, is better than that. And I have Ben and BeeBoo, which is a condition I much prefer to being a colonial Mexican nun.

What society thinks women want

I thought this article was interesting.

I don't know exactly what I think of it, but I thought I'd come rant and ramble a little to come up with a reaction.

I don't feel like "society" is pressuring me to do the things I do. I think I've stumbled into them of my own free will and choice, if not while terribly well informed. "Society" doesn't tell me to be a professor...there are big chunks of it that say I shouldn't. "Society" doesn't tell me to be a mom...there are people who think that having kids is selfish, and others who think that it's foolish. So both of the things that take up most of my time, I do because I want to do them.

I agree with the idea that perfect balance is impossible. There are seasons when different aspects of life demand a disproportionate amount of time. For example, just after BeeBoo was born, had I tried to take classes, teach, and mother, I would have DIED! (Breastfeeding demanded intense attention for us...maybe other people pick it up faster, but I enjoyed the process...mostly :-) So she got a four-month, mom-is-totally-into-me phase. And she's due for one again this summer...which is good, and overdue.

I guess what I'm saying is that instead of creating a cultural paradigm shift of lack of balance, we should work on the principle of punctuated equilibrium. (Hey, if she can mis-apply Thomas Kuhn's scientific term, I can use Stephen Jay Gould's...thanks to Pratt's science and lit class for that one!). Instead of worrying about changing what anyone else thinks, we can recognize key moments at which the structure of our lives change...drastically, suddenly, completely even.
And accept them as part of our own evolution.

So, rather than make everyone think the way we do about life, why not just operate under the assumption that (barring injuring other people) we can do what we like, when we like, the way we like, and it'll be okay? Cause, usually, it is.

Spelling

I'm losing my mind. I've been writing either in Portuguese or in Spanish all day long. Just now I tried to look up "simpathy" in an English-Portuguese dictionary.

Honestly. My once meticulous English spelling has been shot to heck by wonderful, systematic, phonetic romance languages.

Americans, consumerism, and food

So this article has me thinking, and almost up in arms.

Eating out IS a luxury, it isn't "almost a luxury." I think that our country is one of the few places in the world that thinks of eating out as a convenience, or even a necessity.

And, what on EARTH are these families buying that they spend $900 a month to feed four? Granted, BeeBoo doesn't eat much, but her foods (non-hormone produced eggs, milk and cheese; juice; crackers) are among the most expensive things we buy...we wouldn't buy juice if it weren't for her. We budget $250 a month for food. Double that (which would feed four adults and two babies), and it's $500...I just don't get it.

While it is unsettling that the prices of EVERYTHING are going up, if we would change our habits it would certainly help things!

Tea

I'm writing this while I'm waiting for a cup of tea to steep.

I recently bought a variety of herbs and spices to keep in jars on my counter....I'll admit, it was largely because they're pretty, but they're also really practical.

For example, I've been cranky because of leftover kidney stone pain, girl pain, and a headache. So I went in and mixed up nettles, raspberry leaves, and hibiscus, plus some chamomile to help me sleep.

I'm really grateful for my aunt T and her teaching me about how awesome tea is, and how much stability it can bring to my otherwise bouncy mind. :-)

Home for the weekend

AGAIN! :-)

So nice to not be 2100 miles from my family. Although, since it's the end of the semester I should at least PRETEND to do some work while I'm here.

But, meanwhile, my aunt T and I have been playing on the internet. Among other things, we found this speech that MLK gave...it's a sermon, really. It reminds me of the "Beware of Pride" talk President Benson gave.

Running

This woman's idea is really cool.

So life CAN be good!

Not that my life is ever really that bad. But.

Spring is here! They're spreading mulch on campus, the daffodils are up, there's water in the little streams that criss-cross between my building and the special collections library where I have some classes...things smell like earth. And BeeBoo is getting good at flowers, bubble, tossing rocks into creeks, kicking balls, and playing outside.

Then, my transfer credits and other requirements have ironed themselves out to the point that I will indeed be able to finish all my coursework in time to take my exams in my third year. I'll have to take one class while I'm preparing for them, but I figure I can do it. So I'll finish on time! HOORAY!

And, perhaps most importantly to me at the moment, I figured out my maternity coverage. And it's actually really good. And there's a CNM that practices less than two miles from here and delivers at the hospital in town. And the doctors that practice with her look and seem nice! And they all have at least 20 years of experience. Which is good.

So, I get to nest all summer long, rest and read plays, exercise lots, and think about having another baby! This makes me SO GLAD! About so many things.

Life is really good.