Don't Breastfeed in Public Because People are Crazy!

The whole trend of blog-to-blog response is totally in so I'm going to try it. Go read this gem right here. Then come back to read my responses. I certainly have nothing better to do at 4:45am on a Saturday morning than to blog-back to a random article on cafemom.


1. Children are the ones who are being breastfed. I've never met a child that was the LEAST bit disturbed, alarmed, or bothered by seeing a baby or toddler nurse.  Many who have seen or met me while I was nursing just point out the baby and say nothing else. One time a ~5 year old stayed true to the awkwardly honest nature of a 5 year old and blurted loudly "What's she doing with that baby?!" Mom's response? "Feeding it." (Tada! End of story!) At first I thought the sentence "I wouldn't want him splashing around and . . . " was going in a different direction like say "I wouldn't want him splashing around and disturbing the mom and baby by covering them in chemically water in the middle of a feeding." Nevermind. Just another typical no-nipples-please post.

#2. Nipples turned you off your appetite? I hear this. I think . . . I bet it doesn't turn your appetite off when you see them in a sexual setting. Just in the biologically nourishing setting. I mean, I get it, nipples are kind of random and squishy. Boobs are generally rounded and squishy too. But, do bottles gross you out too? It kind of looks like a bottle with skin color, a boob. At least, I'm pretty sure that was the whole idea behind the design of bottles. Stay away from the baby aisles at Target they have hundreds of nipples displayed all over the wall. Some are clear but some are tan or pinkish!!

#3. I get the logic here. I really do. But,  I have a better solution. Start kicking perverts (aka creepy men) in the balls, poking them in the eyes, and taking them off airplanes. If they must travel tie their hands under their butts, buckle them in, and put duck tape down on their closed eye lids. Yay.

#4. See my answer to #1. I can totally guess what my three year old would say . . . "IS THAT A BAAAYYYBAYYYY!?" or "Is that LADY feeding that BABY over there mom??" My answer: yes, thanks for talking so loud because now I have no ear drums. I mean are you taking your 7 year old to hooters regularly and teaching them to scream "TITTIES!!!!" at the sight of a boob? I could see how that might be totally embarrassing for you. Don't go to the beach with them.

#5. Yes, elaborate. I guess your logic is that all the repentant perverts are at church so we should cover up so as not to disturb their time of worship. Yes, no, maybe? I personally think it's much less noticeable to dip a top down and latch a baby then to throw a cape made of dazzling, eye-catching fabric over your head. It's super rude to passive aggressively announce that you're a superhero in the middle of church.



No really, I hear the concern for mamas and babies. Please, grab that mama a glass of water and a snack. Go buy her a gift certificate for a back massage. Offer her a more comfortable seat. Punch a pervert. Those are much better ways of showing your concern IMHO.

In case you wondered . . .

      Probably not but just in case. I'll be slow in the coming weeks posting. Things may seem relatively random. I don't know if I ever mentioned it but financial aid DID come through for us so we are enrolled this semester (yay!) so that is taking a lot of my attention. We're also preparing for the new arrival! There's a lot to keep me busy and blogging is skipping down lower on the priority list.

     I do have several posts in the making. I pretty much half-write something the moment in comes to mind but I hold off on posting it until, you know, it's legible. If anyone is out there I'd LOVE to hear suggestions or questions for future posts. Right now I have drafts for an art project, night lights, my first real experience with freezer meals, toy reviews, and some details on my grocery-list-making process. Yeah!

     To keep up with me in the meant time go check out the facebook page and follow on pinterest! Links for both are here on the sidebars.

xoxo

What's in YOUR freezer?

     Oh, hormones and craziness. I cleaned my freezer out just before 7am this morning. Because, I felt if I didn't something tragic would surely happen, I guess. The fridge in our apartment is just your average, ugly-tan, mid-90s variety. The freezer is small and obnoxious but hey it discourages the purchase of too much crap food, I guess (not really but I tell myself that).

     For everyone's sake (mostly mine) I only have after pictures. We'll pretend I forgot and that I'm not intentionally being coy with the innards of our fridge. hehe Anyway, it was uber nasty. Some black eyed peas had fallen out of the bag and stuck to the back wall. Something brown (ice cream or . . . coke?) had congealed in one spot on the bottom. Colorful pink and purple splatters from either popsicles or fruit were on the inside of the door. It looks better now. I threw out a lot, unfortunately: 2 cornish hens (oops, they were buried so I forgot), unopened package of boca burgers, a half bag of baby shrimp, a bag of lima beans, that bag of black eyed peas, and a bag of blueberries. Oh well.

  But have you ever seen those posts about the contents of people's refrigerators being totally indicative of their entire lifestyle and personality?

     Fascinating, right?  So what the heck. I have a blog. I do what I want. I'll post a picture of the freezer and the fridge even if it's gross, embarrassing, and pathetic. We'll pretend I "forgot" to take a picture of the inside of the actual fridge and didn't feel like going back. It's ok. We'll pretend this is just about the freezer! YAY!

 In the freezer door: 

• small ice pack
• two cans of OJ concentrate
• box of popsicles
• three boxes of butter

In the freezer:

• bags of homemade waffles
• chicken breasts
• boneless leg of lamb
• ground turkey
• green beans
• broccoli
• sliced carrots
• asparagus spears
• kidney beans
• black beans
• raspberries
• blueberries
• strawberries
• mango smoothie blend (mango, pineapple, strawberry)
• mango
• fresh local spinach! 

In the fridge door:

• 2 sticks of butter
• ketchup
• mustard
• mayo (the real stuff!)
• raspberry hazelnut vinaigrette
• ranch dressing
• kikkoman soy sauce
• sweet baby ray's
• grape and strawberry jellies
• sliced jalapenos

In the fridge: 

• half a jar of salsa
• 3 blocks of cheese (sharp cheddar and colby jack)
• hot dogs
• applesauce
• pickles (vlasic, not claussen or homemade, sadly)
• a little less than 3 dozen eggs
• half gallon of almond milk
• half gallon of dark chocolate almond milk (for me!)
• partial gallon of skim milk
• one orange vitamin water
• one kombucha canned drink
• two monster energy drinks (eww) 

     So this is the contents of mine (after cleaning and before a big grocery shopping trip). Don't think anything of it. We totally ate digiorno, hot pockets, and loads of icecream last week. Not sure why I'm saying that. Frankly, the total lack of bacon makes me very sad.

 What's in yours?!

SMILE! A Few Incredibly Helpful but Super Quick Tips on Potty Training

1) Lower your expectations. Whatever they are. Lower them. A bit more. A bit more. Ok good.

2) Get over it. The inevitable mess I mean. The pee in the car seat, the sudden accident right after your offer to go to the potty is vehemently turned down in the middle of Target, and the surprisingly large pile of poo left in the closet that you had to sniff-search for. Now go buy some stock in Febreeze and carpet cleaner. You're welcome.

3) Do the slosh test. That kiddo is gonna wanna carry the potty seat full of pee into the big toilet all on their own and you certainly wouldn't muffle their independence by saying no (riiiight?). Fill that potty seat up with water and go ahead and see how far you can make it go in a small area. Now you'll be prepared to identify the height and width of splashes when it's a potty full of pee. Just tell yourself that pee is sterile. It'll be ok. (Calm down. Don't really waste time doing this. If you do, while you're busy doing this your sweet child is probably going to be ripping a poo-filled diaper off or squatting happily on the rug.)

4) Giant feces. Surely by now you're over poo. You've probably seen a variety of colors, shapes, and textures. (Oh hush with the "Ewwww" you whiner.) Somewhere between 2 and 3 years old kids begin to develop a talent. This talent is creating the most gigantic turds you've ever seen in your time on earth.  This is why parents take their kids to the zoo. The dung in the elephant exhibit makes every parent feel better about the commode-clogging feces from their own talented spawn.

5) Lose the attitude. I don't care where anyone is on the potty training spectrum. From newborn elimination communicator pro all the way to the parent saying $#!& my kid is now 62 months old and is still scared of the potty. Knock on wood. Hold your tongue. Speak not. Ever heard of karma? Potty training regression is like karma for know-it-all potty trainers that think the fact their kid plopped a pile on the porcelain at 18 months means they win a prize. The only prize is that you did NOT have to fully change that would-be nasty diaper. This is a participation game people. Accept your "participation award" and move along. Let's all be glad that one day our kids will at least be too embarrassed for us to wipe their bums so surely they'll manage to figure it out by then.

6) Be prepared to accept a high five and a proud hooray every time YOU use the bathroom. It's a perk. Nothing wrong with that. Until your 3 year old is declaring "GREAT JOB POOPING, MAMA! You gotta flush! Did you wash your HAAAANDS?!" in the echo-prone public restroom.

7) Do whatever the heck works for you kids. We're teaching beings that would biologically prefer to squat by a bush alone to instead sit awkwardly on top of a large, cold ceramic bowl that makes a loud flushing sound. THEN we push it further by limiting the amount of time they get to splash in the sink and make bubbles. And we expect this to go well! So, by all means: bribe, reward, sing, dance, make a chart, and give yourself a cookie and when you've accomplished this task publish it on facebook!! (Muahaha now all the non-parents are freaking out about their feeds being covered in potty-success announcements accompanied by turd-in-bowl pictures. Calm down. You'll likely be giddily filling in your status bar with something similar one day. Really though people: turd-in-bowl is unnecessary.)

8) This is really a close follow-up to #5. Don't lick your fingers. Ok, really though. Poop and pee won't hurt you, friends. We don't rub our eyeballs or pick our noses whilst disposing of a certain toddler's mess, right? Feel free to make a face and congratulate the kiddo on their impressive odor but don't freak out over every (inevitable) mess.

9) Give yourself a *high five* if you thought I was building a potty training acronym for the word "SMILE".

Love Reading: Find Reading Resources on a Budget

   All right, I said I would do these three posts. I'm gonna do it! A lot of this post will be oriented around the local library. I know some people may be in rural areas or their closest library may be small, old, or underfunded. I'm assuming if you are reading this that you have internet access too. I'll do my best to cover all the bases on this topic because I think it's very important for everyone to have access to literature. There are so many free or very cheap resources out there! There is absolutely no need to spend a fortune at Barnes & Noble on new books.

For starters here is a list of awesome online resources:

• Scholastic has a wealth of free information for parents as well as free printable activities and coloring pages for kids of all ages. Go here for their information on age-based language and reading development. And click here for a number of book lists and reading challenge plans.
•  The International Children's Digital Library and We Give Books are free websites "stocked" with hundreds of books that you and your kids can read online.
• The Veggie Tales (I love them!) website has digital books with fantastic moral stories.
• There is an incredible assortment of free educational material on almost any topic you can imagine (Biology, Civics, Weather, etc) for PreK up to 12th grade on the PBS LearningMedia website.  There are videos, learning modules, and printable labs and worksheets.
• Crayola also has a ton of free printable pages. You can find anything from basic letters and numbers to Presidents of the United States. 
• Jump Start has several resources available for new readers. You'll find a lot of school curriculum possibilities here from spelling to public speaking. There are worksheets and short stories as well. 
• Go here on Read.gov to search for local book fairs and related events in your area. 
• World Book Online and Brittanica.com have kid's encyclopedias.  
• Don't forget to look through Amazon's Kindle eBooks, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and Apple's iBooks websites or apps for very cheap or free digital books.

 
     More than likely, your public library has a website. Google it or call them up and ask.  This is going to be your best bet for local resources, reading material you can borrow, and free or cheap programs for your kids. Even our modest library has an incredible selection of books, audio books, DVDs, and research media. Many libraries have story times and art activities for different age groups throughout the week. They may host summer reading contests for kids that anyone in the community can participate in. Here is another example of a sweet reading program at the Rogers Public Library (it involves a dog!). If you need help finding a library in your area go here.

    To find low priced books for your own collection go to Goodwill or other local thrift shops; spend one Saturday looking through yard sales; search Craigslist and your local Freecycle group or create an ad with specific requests; call the library or public schools or check the newspaper for information about local book fairs and festivals. Through these avenues you should be able to find lots of books for under one dollar.

   This Noob Mom's Tips:

     1.) I have found it really easy to do simple things like pointing out letters and sounding out words on signs (and the numbers, colors, shapes, etc) while we're out and about. It's not anything extra in that we don't have to make time for it. I don't have to buy anything. It really turns into quite the game. Now, Bitty Bug (3.5) will even point out signs and colors of things as we drive down the road. She's beginning to recognize familiar logos and signs. This is great since it makes those connections with the words and sounds!
 
     2.) Don't be afraid to read or explain things that are slightly beyond their capability. Adding words into your vocabulary within the context of things they all ready know can be an effortless way to help them learn. The more I think about approaching my kid's reading and writing as if they are learning a brand new language the simpler it seems. It can take a couple years for an adult studying avidly to become fluent in a second language depending on the language itself and the context of their learning. That perspective has helped think about this in a new way.


     In the end, the highest expenses you may have will be printer ink, any fees for a library membership, and possibly a few extra bucks in gas if you go to the library often or go in search for new books. Budget accordingly and you'll find it is very easy to access a lot of literature for nearly nothing!

    Don't forget to have fun reading with your littles. Reading is not only the key to escaping into whole new worlds but also to being capable of learning about almost anything we can imagine!
   
And for your convenience (and mine) here are the links to the first two posts of this little series:

Love Reading: Teaching Kids to Respect Literature

Love Reading: Printed Books vs. Electronic Books