Novice Parenting Mistake: Don't Buy Much Coveted New Toy For Child Right Before Nap Time

This morning, while giving daddy a much needed break, Munchkin and I went off to our local kiddo supply store to buy a baby. Originally, I wasn't too keen on the idea given the way my child thrashed, poked and dragged any doll he could get his hands on. But recently, I've noticed a change in my son. When a good friend's daughter bought a very realistic looking baby doll, Elisha gently stroked her head, rocked her and held her protectively in her arms (amidst much exclaiming: "babeeeeee! babeeee!!! menomeno [his current word for "I want"]") So I decided my son was ready to have his own baby (pun intended).



After purchasing the doll, his nurturing instinct continued, much to my pleasure. He offered baby's head gently to daddy for a kiss by way of introduction. He happily carried baby around in a sling. He stroked, coddled, pointed out body parts (with only a minimal amount of eye gauging) until mommy offered little baby the breast. Then Munchkin promptly knocked baby out of my arms and onto the floor and stepped on him in an effort to get some milk.

Should I take this as a sign?

Also, nap time wasn't a hit.

A Little Bit More, A Little Bit More Serious on Mendelsohn's NYT Article

(3 Indian women carrying water by Living Water International on flickr)

I really enjoyed reading all the responses to Mendelsohn's article yesterday evening and throughout the day whenever I had a chance to sneak away. I especially enjoyed Uppercase Woman's and Kelby Carr's as well as the ever grounded phdinparenting's eloquent, positive injunction. This conversation is rich and diverse. It has reminded me how lucky I am to have access to so many intelligent, compassionate, and inspiring women's thoughts. And I hope they all keep writing!

So there's one more thing I want to add to the conversation although it has been touched on already by some. What is wrong with Mendelsohn's article is also what is wrong with America. It is true that she belittles the mommy blogging industry in terms of its professionalism, economic impact, and "serious" content. All these things should bother us and make us stand up and say that we want to be counted like men. We want our serious, professional, entrepreneurial activities to be taken exactly as they are--not reduced to cutesy hobbies or repackaged as something uniquely feminine and thus relegated to the margins.

But this is not all that we should be angry about. We also should be disgusted that our "modern" view of work and "serious business" is still sexist and excludes a set of work that most women all over the world do and have done for most of history--that is, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, carrying and bearing children, feeding the family, preserving and transferring cultural knowledge and identity, educating the nation. These activities are also serious. They are economic. They are civic. They are patriotic. They are skillful. They require strength, conscience and agency. As I said in my last post, we need to change the conversation about women and work. We need to move beyond discussions of mothers who work vs mothers who stay at home, resume-worthy work vs housework, to a realization that all women work. Not all work is paid but that doesn't mean it doesn't have economic value--it just means it is harder to measure and quantify. We need to move forward in our feminism to something that is ultimately not fighting for a place next to men, against men, in comparison to men but something universally human.

NY Times Not So Mind Blowing Expose of the Mommy Bloggers

(Image by Lomo-Cam, "The Day she saw his other arm..." on flickr)

Just read NY Times Jennifer Mendelsohn's "Honey Don't Bother Mommy. I'm Too Busy Building My Brand." I'm sure there will be much metaphorical gasping of breath with hand to chapsticked mouth over the next few days and hey, what can I say, I want in on that action. But before you get too excited let me just tell you that if what you're looking for is some capital lettered ranting or maybe even a through the nose dismissal, you'll not find that here. I find Mendelsohn and her boss-- that is, her readers, America--fascinating and here's why.

Mendelsohn, like so many other people in this country, is so darn confused about her view of motherhood that she can't write two pages from the same angle. When we first meet Ms. Mendelsohn she is giving us the high-and-mighty "mothers today ain't what they used to be" speech. I mean, whoooweee, just look at that title! She's depicting these mommy bloggers as checked-out-laptop-addict mothers much like The Guild's character Clara. (Assuming webisodes about an online gaming guild isn't your cup of tea, I'll fill you in: Clara is a neglectful escapist mommy of three who fences in her unfed runny-nosed kiddos like goats in a pen, while she attends to the all important task of collecting orgs and stealing gold ). Mendelsohn not so subtly suggests that these mothers would be better off attending conferences on things like "Teaching your baby how to read" or "How to hide vegetables in your children's food." These topics, she suggests, while stupid (by her intonation, not mine--I would like to learn more about both, thank you very much) are more appropriate learning areas for mothers. How to find fame, audience and money while still staying home with your kids? Not so much.

Next, Mendelsohn takes her readers hands and leads them quietly into the very inside of the Bloggy Conference. Ooohh! Aaaah! What do we find here? Attendees "splay[ing] their laptops," and "peck[ing] at their BlackBerries," some mentions of "plastic sipply cups" and "tutu-making tutorial(s)." Nothing sexist or demeaning in that little description, right?

Moving on, we get to the real meat, the dark, underbelly of the mommy blogging conference: SHOW ME THE MONEY, MOMMY! In this part of her expose, she talks about the great big ugly secret of mommy bloggers. While they appear to be friendly neighborly voices, what they are really doing is making sordid dirty deals with product companys through advertising. Wait. Is that supposed to be new information? Aren't all the ads perfectly obviously visible on the blogs that have them? And don't bloggers already write about their conflicted feelings about the kinds of ads they run and the relationship between their blog content and ad content?
And just like blog content, aren't there some kinds of ads that we don't mind or even appreciate and other types we find nefarious or offensive or obnoxious? And don't we, as readers, already vote on this stuff with our clicks? Come on, Mendelsohn, move it along. This isn't 2008, lady.

Just when you're about to give up on the article all together, Mendelsohn digs deep and asks the real questions. Are mommy bloggers just regular people after all, who get lonely sometimes? Maybe. Could blogging be a way of creating community? Sure. Are some people just in it for the fun and not for the money. Yes. And in a grand flourish of a conclusion, she poses this question--Could it be that mommy blogging isn't a sign of neglectful parenting OR hair-curler Betty scrap booking projects OR greedy money grabbing but rather (get ready now) a kind of female empowerment? Are you really gonna try and go there Mendelsohn? Really?

To wrap it up folks, I think this article shows how very unprogressive our thinking is these days if we are still unable to talk about female industriousness outside of the typical stereotypes--the gold-digger, the career "bitch" and the vapid homemaker. Let's call someone a hooker and call it a day.

"Away We Go" and Yes, We Did, Right Out of the Room

The hubby and I watched "Away We Go" last weekend and yes, it was my pick in case you were wondering what kind of a man I'm married to. I'm married to the REAL kind, in fact, who, when asked what sort of a movie he's in the mood to watch has been known to answer "The kind where stuff blows up." Hence, the sophisticated my pick / your pick netflix system we have in place. Before MM, our rule was you had to sit on the same couch during your non-pick movie, but you could sleep. Now, you know, whatever. Gawking, mockery and tweeting are now more realistic descriptions of how we experience each other's movies.

So, on my much anticipated Saturday night pick, we take a journey with a young, truly uninspiring expecting couple and their search for a parenting identity. For an indie movie, it certainly didn't shy away from the stereotypes. Of course, what I really wanted to talk about is the attachment parenting-ish family that we were so lucky to encounter. Family number one, in case you haven't seen it, was the extreme opposite on the parenting spectrum, all disinterested and callous and their kids these oafish, unresponsive lumps. Now for some good contrast the vulnerable, soul searching couple meet family number two, the uber-connected, ultra-intimate hippy-dippy folks. Ok, so I have a sense of humor and yes there were some funny bits but for the most part, I was just shocked. I kept thinking, "Is this really what's happening in people's heads when I tell them I co-sleep my 16 month old?" And "Oh wow, all that crazy out there just started to make a lot more sense."

So what exactly was their picture of the attached family? A family with no boundaries, especially sexual ones, that refused to have a stroller in the house, and believed that it would be a kind of handicap if their children didn't see their parents "love-making," a father with no clear added value to the family (or world) and a mother whose main activity besides sex seemed to be nursing--both her children, simultaneously, at work. Yes, I think that describes my life exactly.

What struck me about all this (besides the fact that it was not great writing) was that in all their exaggeration they'd missed the big issues. If you wanted to draw a caricature of my life, it would be one where I was a zombie-like, gray-faced, sleep deprived woman with my child swinging from my breast like a monkey from a tree. There is no angry throwing out of strollers here--in fact, I use one, often, to lug home the pounds and pounds of garlic and onions and strawberries that my family consumes every week-- realistically, who has the time? You see, the big issues of AP are things like personal time, not having time to shower because your child takes so much from you and you keep trying to meet that need, that large, endless well of need. (Did I mention I have a high needs child?) In that scene, where they are all debating parenting over a leisurely dinner, there would be a baby there, waking up and going back to sleep again and waking up and being rocked back to sleep again and nursing and complaining and asking, in her own little way, if everyone would please just stop talking so that she and mommy could go and cuddle in their nice little bed. You see, the big stuff of attachment parenting isn't the family bed or the sling but rather the intensity, the constancy, the never-endingness with which one goes about parenting, all day, all night and especially whenever one dares to have plans.

Ways to Pass a Day with a Sick, Cranky Toddler

("Bubbles & Colours" by Esparta, on flickr )

*TAKE A VERY LONG BUBBLE BATH * VIDEO CHAT WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA ON SKYPE * GET CREATIVE WITH PLAY DOUGH, COOKIE CUTTERS & MINI ROLLING PINS * WALK AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD * CLIMB THE STAIRS * GO THROUGH MOMMY'S CHILDHOOD TOYS & BOOKS * GET OUT DADDY'S KEYBOARD * PLAY AROUND WITH PHOTOBOOTH'S CAMERA DISTORTIONS * BLOW BUBBLES * LEARN SOME LETTERS ON WWW.STARFALL.COM * CHOP SOFT FOODS WITH A TODDLER KNIFE * WATCH OLD FAMILY VIDEOS * GO THROUGH FAMILY ALBUMS & PHOTO LIBRARIES * CALL DADDY AT WORK * PUSH STROLLER WITH TEDDIES AROUND THE HOUSE * HELP MOMMY LOAD THE WASHING MACHINE * PLAY WITH NEWSPAPER CUT-OUTS * TRY ON ALL THE HATS IN THE HOUSE * BROWSE SALVATION ARMY FOR KIDS BOOKS * WASH & DRY TODDLER TOYS IN BIG SUDSY BUCKET * NURSE * TRY SOME NEW SNACKS (NEW FAVES ARE "HAPPY BABY BERRY MELTS") * TRY ON DADDY'S SHOES * COMB, BRAID & CLIP WITH MOMMY'S HAIR ACCESSORIES * WRITE A DITTY ON GARAGE BAND * HELP MOMMY DUST WITH A DAMP RAG * DIG OUT THAT SHAPE SORTER * SING ITSY BITSY SPIDER ON T PAYNE'S AUTO TUNE IPHONE APP * DRAW * TAKE A NAP TOGETHER *

Where have you been all my life, Dr. McKenna?

(Sleeping a baby by mitikusa on flickr)

Last night I stayed up late swallowing whole Dr. McKenna's Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Labratory. His article (with McDade), Why Babies Should Never Sleep Alone: A Review of the Co-Sleeping Controversy in Relationship to SIDS, Breast Feeding and Bed-Sharing absolutely blew my mind. But before I go into his discourse-exploding article, let me just give you some background.

About three weeks ago, the husband and I decided to night wean. Well, let me re-state that. I think I came home on a Tuesday afternoon and said to myself: "Enough is enough, I want to wear a non-nursing bra again and have a glass of wine with dinner and go out to a bar on my friend's 30th birthday and SLEEP, oh God, please give me sleep, for more than three hours in a row!" My brain hurt, I was having random facial muscle twitches during the day, my eyes were red and burning and I really didn't think I had another night of nursing in me. So, I decided that I was going to night wean that night. My husband was slightly surprised by my announcement when he got home but part of why we have a good marriage is he's learned to accept a certain amount of crazy from me.

So we did it. Two weeks, no nursing at night. Of course, excluding the good night nursie and the good morning nursie, in case you think we are some kind of miracle-workers. It worked. Meaning that my sweet little boy stopped asking for milk during the night after the first two days but he also stopped sleeping. After week one, the husband and I napped like crazy during the weekend, chugged sickening amounts of badly brewed coffee (courtesy of yours truly who still can not figure out how the heck to make a decent pot of auto-drip), saying to ourselves that it was definitely going to settle soon. But no . . . no, it didn't. Why? Because we just don't have that kind of baby--the kind that accepts things because we decide he should, that kind that goes along with well-laid out plans, that kind that sleeps serenely for twelve hours (or five, or sometimes even three) without a peep. So after two weeks the husband and I decided we weren't trying to win an Olympic medal for longest stretch of sleeplessness before losing your freakin mind and the best thing we could do was stop, go back to the old night nursing routine and maybe try again in another six months. The other serious reason we had for stopping was that Munchkin was seriously sleep-deprived and was hitting records lows for total sleep in 24 hours--on the worst day, about 9 and a half. We couldn't, in good conscience, or with coherent sentences, go on.

Now we are back to night nursing on demand and things are settling back into their old routines. Munchkin is still sleeping about an hour less than he should but he is taking good naps, I am back to herbal tea and the husband and I are sleeping enough to even make lofty goals like "I will exercize every now and then" again. So yes, we are doing good.

Except I had this nagging sense of failure, this feeling that we had gotten something wrong. All the sleep books I'd read (non AP) and the friends I was talking to cemented my fear that we were all going the wrong way and there were going to be physical, mental consequences for all these months of non-continuous night-nursing sleep. Then, I found Dr. Mckenna. Please, read this!

The extent to which the science of paediatric[sic] sleep
medicine and especially bedsharing research is held captive
by personal ideologies (biases) and ethnocentrism espe-
cially with regard to the culturally perceived ‘proper’ night-
time relationship between parents and their children can-
not be overstated. For at least 100 years western social and
moral values and the new sleep ‘science’ served as the basis
for defining how and where infants should sleep, rather than
what should have served as a starting point, i.e. empirically-
based anthropological research aimed first and foremost at
elucidating both human infant and maternal biological
needs, in relation to the evolved micro-environments that
traditionally met those needs. (136)

Can you believe how amazingly simple and beautiful those words are? One paragraph and there is a cannon ball through my world view. All those sleep books, all that sleep advice, all those charts and graphs on ages and hours and norms? They are all based on solitary, crib sleep. In other words, nobody has proved that eight or twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep is "normal." Sure, it happens, on average for crib sleeping infants at six months or four or whatever depending on whose numbers you're looking at and what strategies they used to get there... BUT

There's nothing clearly "normal" about solitary infant sleep, if by normal we mean "universally average." As Dr. McKenna points out:

Mother–infant co-sleeping represents the preferred and
obligatory sleeping arrangement for most contemporary
people.(141)

In fact, non-continuous, co-sleeping / bed-sharing sleep with night nursing is not only historic, traditional and natural--such terms as we are used to applying to this and other AP practices--but also modern and yes, normal.

I really should have known better than to take that sleep research at face value. I should have questioned its assumptions and starting points as I have already done with so many other aspects of today's American pregnancy, birthing and parenting. Ironically, maybe if I'd had just one full night of sleep in the past year and a half, I would have!