I have hair growing in weird places

I feel like I need to explain some things. As I look back at the last few weeks of posts, I realize that all of them are rather self-centred. I have not written a babywearing post since the one I wrote about why I don't do 'forward facing out' went semi-viral (in my world that is) or a breastfeeding post since my journey, (Oh hell, let's call a spade a spade. At this point, 5 years, 9 months and 12 days, I think it is more of a breastfeeding odyssey), is finally coming to an end.

This past week I attended a wonderful Modern Mama event in our city called Mama Blogs. The expert panel consisted of Tanis Miller from Attack of the Redneck Mommy, Jennifer Banks from Techmommy and Make Jen's Day, Felicia Dewar from Single Mom of Two and Jenifer Shaefer of City and Baby fame.  These fabulous bloggers talked to a room full of women about the why, what and how-tos of blogging in today's hyper-connected world. Through it all the one key message that kept coming up (for me) was about "knowing your voice" and "finding your voice" through your blog.

All of it got me thinking about my blog even more than I usually do.

So let me lay this out for you...

In the beginning, I did not want to blog.

True story.

If you know my old business partner, you can ask her. It was like pulling teeth to get me to write at least once or twice a month on our little business blog. I mostly wrote about our new products, why I loved them and why you should too and all other kinds of things hoping to drive more business to our little online natural parenting store.

And then, in the summer of 2010, something I like to call "The Twitter Effect" happened. Although I had opened my Twitter acount in December 2009, I really did not start using it much until the Spring of 2010. At that time I started to interact and connect with like-minded people and became a regular at the #BFcafe chats on Thursday nights.

One day I got an Direct Message that changed my {online} life. Claire, aka @lactating girl sent me a tweet asking me if I would like to participate in the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival of blog posts for that year. I was flabbergasted! Really, I was. And I was not sure that I could do it! 14 days of blogging about breastfeeding. I mean, really, how much can one person say about it!

As it turns out, quite a bit actually. I blogged about breastfeeding at work, I blogged about breastfeeding under special circumstances, I blogged about nighttime breastfeeding and I blogged about what breastfeeding meant to me and for my children. For 14 days I wrote all about breastfeeding and in the end those two weeks taught me more about myself and the Internet and the power of words than anything else in my life so far.

Those 14 days turned me into a BLOGGER.

Perhaps it was the community I was becoming part of on Twitter and through the Carnival and on my blog. Maybe it was the comments that I was getting and the emails thanking me for my posts and asking me for advice. Maybe it was the thrill of capturing and remembering moments with my children that were long past. Whatever the reason, something awakened in me that summer and it felt amazing!

And the more I read of others blogs, the more I wrote. I discovered amazing blogs like Enjoying the Small Things and Phd in Parenting and Adventures in Babywearing  and Mom 101 and I started to see the potential and the kind of blogger that I wanted to be when I grew up.

Keep in mind that at this point my blog was still a part of my online retail business and while my focus was mainly on the store, the seed of writing had been planted and was starting to take root. And while I still wrote posts meant to drive traffic and business to the store, more and more the posts that meant the most to me and as it turns out, resonated the most with YOU, where the ones that were more personal and the ones that delved deeper into the parenting and world issues that concerned me.

Some of them were funny (in retrospect) and some very raw and soul baring. I started paying closer attention to the world around me and realizing that my voice just might have some itty little bit of power and that I could use it to advocate for change and awareness or even to just rant a bit! I used my blogging voice to chronicle the building of our dream home and to capture moments with my children.

In 2011, I decided it was time to attend my first blogging conference. And then I went to two of them in a span of two weeks. And boy oh boy, did I ever get an education about blogging! I learned so much from so many great people at these conferences. I met the wonderful and insightful Alex from @clippo (who was a business and personal blogger at that point as well) and spent some quality time with some of my blogging heros like  Tanis the Redneck Mommy and Elan "Schmutzie" Morgan.  To say that these conferences where eye-opening would be the understatement of the decade for me and I blogged about that whole experience here!

I continued to hone my blogging voice and took on a few 30 day blogging challenges to really get the creative juices flowing.  In the winter of 2011, after MUCH deliberation and discussion with Natural Urban Dad, I decided it was time to close my store. And yes, I blogged about that too.

After the store closed, my blog suddenly became less a place for me to talk shop and more a place for me to talk straight. To get all the rambling thoughts that were in my head out and onto the screen. It became a place for me to share more personal posts, to fully explore this creative and expressive part of me that was starting to take over and it became a place for me to let this process take it's natural course.

I was growing as a blogger and {dare I say it?} as a writer too.

As in all things in life, this is an ever evolving process. My blogging goals from three years ago are VASTLY different than the ones I have now. My writing style has improved tremendously (in my opinion at least) and I want to continue to work even harder and make it even better.

At the Mama Blogs event the other night, I mentioned to my new friend Sarah that I felt like my blogging voice was changing yet again and she said to me,

"That's OK, you are just going through blogger puberty."

And I couldn't have said it better myself!

So yes, in case you may have noticed, my voice IS changing. It may be a bit pitchy for the next little while, as I am sure I will hit some high notes and some low ones too. It is time to start using the grown up deodorant and deal with all the changes that this "coming of age" stage of my blogging career entails.

Trust me, it can {and will} only get better!

Bloggingly yours,

Natasha~

P.S. I started this post last night. I woke up today and read THIS wonderful post from Liz at Mom 101 and am even more resigned now to truly understand that if I LOVE what I am doing, my purpose will reveal itself.  It's all very, "If you build it, they will come!" up in my head today!

P.P.S Here is an actual picture of me in the throes of puberty! It's not pretty and by the looks of it, I was maturing into some kind of feathered being!! {It was the eighties, what can I say.}

Feminism.. you are doing it all wrong!

I am one confused woman... and mother... and, dare I say it... feminist. And I apologize ahead of time if this post goes a bit all over the place {see statement above} and if I am about three months late on this band wagon! .

I have been trying for the past week or so to read Elizabeth Badinter's book, The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women. And I just can't do it anymore.

It is hurting my head and my heart and my very soul reading her words.

And it is doing so on so many levels.

It hurts me because of her blatantly condescending attitude about pretty much everything that I value, hold dear and practice as an attachment parent mother.

It hurts me because of her "look how wonderful WE the French women are at everything we do". From having the highest birth rate in Europe to, you know, getting perineum therapy after having a baby to make sure everything gets all nice and tightened up again 'down there'! {I am serious!! This is a THING people and French social insurance COVERS it!!}

It hurts me because of my own French heritage {my mother was born in Nice} and the beautiful extended French family that I have and love and how it is skewing my view of all things French.

And it hurts me in my feminist heart. Because she is basically saying that I am doing IT {feminism} all wrong.

And she is not the only one.

According to Elizabeth Wurtzel, who wrote how 1% Wives Are Helping Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible for The Atlantic this past June,  I am not a REAL feminist either. Her reasoning for this?

Let's please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don't depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own.

So that's it I guess. I must hang up my feminist hat because my husband and I made a decision for our family that I would stop working. A decision that made sense to us both financially and emotionally. And I'd like to point out that although it was ultimately my choice to leave my very well-compensated and highly fulfilling career  to fully embrace motherhood, it was Natural Urban Dad who had a harder time wrapping his head around the idea of someone else beingthe primary caregivers for our children during the day.

So, I love the earth, am a breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, organic baby food making, babywearing, stay-at-home-mother, and I don't earn a living. Therefore...

I am NOT a good feminist.

Wurtzel argues that feminism is not something that you FEEL. That it is an absolute and that if you are not living up to the definition by doing all things equally to men than you are ruining it for all women. Badinter pushes this even further and implies that if you are not only not working and earning a living , but also are not getting yourself all back to your pre-baby sexy self and self-indulgent lifestyle in a matter of weeks (Psst, she is the heiress and Board Chair to the PR firm that has contracts with Nestle, Pampers and such, so consider her position in this with a boatload grain of salt!), then you are a slave to that anti-feminist movement she likes to call modern "naturalist" motherhood.

This is what I find highly amusing about both of these women going on and on about what is or is not killing feminism. Wurtzel is saying that it is the 1% super-rich mamas who have nannies and are stay-at-home parents who get pedicures and go to Jivamukti classes (I had to google that one. As one of my daughter's favourite book characters would say, it's a fancy word for YOGA!) who are to blame. And Badinter, herself one of those 1% (if not the 0.1%) of the super-rich, who truly believes that sending children off with nannies or to daycare (with the help of the state who picks up the cost of this) so as to pursue other ambitions (career or social) is the perfectly logical and very French way to go about being a mother.

Neither of these arguments really make any sense to me, and I am not sure that either of these ladies has a clue as to how the majority of mamas out there in the real world manage our day to day lives. Some of us working full-time, some part-time, some from home, some out of the home, and some of us fortunate enough, YES, fortunate, to have the option to stay at home with and for our children.

Cécile Alduy, Associate Professor of French Studies at Stanford and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, wrote an amazing review of The Conflict. It is a long and detailed analysis of the book and in the end she says that,

Not surprisingly for the heir of existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, Badinter seems to posit that a woman’s existence precedes her essence. You are what you do, not what your XX chromosomes tell you to be. It is unfortunate that second wave feminists like her tend to limit the range of worthy self-defining actions to the mandated “work as self-fulfillment” imperative that serves a capitalist economy so well.

Wurtzel seems to be of the same opinion and for me, I tend to believe that it is THIS kind of thinking that continues to fuel the "Mommy Wars", the war on women and is what is destroying feminism for my generation and likely the next as well.

Trust me, it is not me breastfeeding my child, hiring a babysitter a few times a week to hit up a yoga class and not having a 'real' job.

AND for the record, my sense of self-worth is not defined by what I do...

I am defined by who I am.

And I am a woman... in every sense of the word!

Natasha~

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And here is Day 7 of the Summer Blog Challenge. It's starting to get a bit easier... I think.

Check out what the other participants have been up to today...

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

A letter to my daughter.

My dearest L, We've started talking about it.

About you growing up and getting to be a big girl now.

I see you taking so many steps and leaps into life that only a few short months ago, I know would have been impossible for you to navigate.

Today, I dropped you off for your first ever day of summer camp and I was SO worried. I was worried that you would not want to participate. That you would not let me leave you there with your camp leaders for the few hours of fun and learning.

But I was wrong.

You put that bike helmet on, told your Bike Camp instructor your name and with a big smile and a wave back at me, took off with the rest of the kids.

I stuck around for a bit, just to make sure you settled in OK {and to be honest, more for my peace of mind than yours}. But there was really no need, because you my girl, ROCKED IT!

And I am so proud of you.

We have also started talking about you going to preschool in the Fall and how when that happens and because you will be such a big girl then...

...that we are going to stop nursing.

And I know that you my beautiful girl will likely be far more OK with this decision and transition than me, the grown up. For you it is another milestone. A stepping stone on your amazing flower strewn path of life and a beginning of a new phase of self-discovery. For me it is going to be something a little different.

It is an end of something for Mommy. Something that has meant more to me than I ever, in my wildest dreams, could have imagined it would mean. And I may be a bit sad about it.

But I know in my heart that it is time. It is time that we both take those big girl steps and grow up a bit. You into the super-girl preschooler that I know you are going to be and me into the mama of two KIDS and no longer the mama of babies.

I hope that one day we can both look back on these days fondly. That you will remember nursing and how it made you feel. How you liked to snuggle into me, take a deep inhale and say that I smelled like boobie-breasts - your sly little hint that you wanted to nurse.

I want you to know that this experience with first your big brother and then you, has shaped me in more ways that you can imagine.

Nursing you has made me a more patient mama. A more present mama. And a more pragmatic mama too. YOU made me just BE in a way that I wasn't doing before you. And I am not sure I can ever thank you properly for that.

I see so much of myself in you my girl. We look similar, we have similar mannerisms, and yet, there you are, your own little person. Your creative spirit, your sillyness, the way you thank me every night without prompting for "making a delicious dinner" and for the way you hold my hand so tightly when we are out and about.

There are so many things about you that make my heart swell and I know that this is a list that is just going to keep on growing as you do too.

And although you are leaving the realms of baby and toddler-hood behind and taking me with you, know this my child...

You will always be my beautiful baby girl!

Love you forever and ever and ever,

Mommy~

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This is my Day 6 post for the Summer Blog Challenge. Yes, yes I know.. it's a day late.

Please visit my fellow bloggers and Psst... we all REALLY enjoy your comments!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

Nothing in life is ever really 'FREE'

I am confused. And I don't want to add fuel to the fire of the ridiculous and never ending how you feed your baby Mommy Wars, but I am serious. I am really confused.

New Your City has a new initiative called "Latch On NYC". It is aimed at promoting breastfeeding in the city's many hospitals. In order to do this, the plan is to limit access to "free" formula samples and any advertising and marketing materials from the formula companies that are distributed to new mothers and their babies in the first few hours and days after birth.

And there is a lot of hulabaloo about it all over the interwebs this week. Especially because it is World Breastfeeding Week.

A lot of people are quite upset about it and like in this article from Cafe Mom think that this is removing a woman's choice in how she feeds her baby (it is NOT). Some media outlets are sensationalizing their headlines and falsely interpreting it as a BAN on formula in hospitals (again, it is NOT). Some are using all those ugly words again, like bullying, breastapo, etc.... to describe the initiative and the counselling that mothers will (and should always) receive about breastfeeding while still in hospital.

The source of my confusion in all of this goes back to my first paragraph. You see those airquotes around the word FREE?

Yeah, that.

You know that old saying that if it something seems to good to be true, it usually is? I think this applies here.

Because in the long run, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING  "free" about the formula samples that are given to new moms in hospital. NOT. ONE. DAMN. THING.

Here is just a short list of what is the COST of these freebies:

1. The average cost to formula feed an infant for the first year of life is in the range of $1350.00 to $2160.00 and can be as high as $5000.00 if the child needs a specialty formula. NOT FREE.

2. Research PROVES that giving formula in the first few hours and days after birth can significantly compromise the breastfeeding relationship between mom and baby. No more breastfeeding = more formula = NOT FREE.

3. On most cities Food Bank MOST NEEDED ITEMS List you will ALWAYS see Baby Formula. And this one really gets to me. So often it is the lower income families that seem to get the least amount of support and information about breastfeeding. They leave the hospital with samples of the most expensive brands of formula and then can't afford it on their own! DEFINITELY NOT FREE.

4. The public health and economic savings that could be had with more breastfeeding versus formula feeding are well documented as well. For most working parents (especially in countries with no paid maternity leave), babies who are sick more = parents who have to take time off of work = lost wages = NOT FREE.

5. The only thing that IS free here is the free advertising and marketing that the formula companies are getting from hospitals and health care workers. This is a quote from Dr. Laura Sinai, from the American Association of Pediatrics 2012 Leadership Forum taken from the ammendment to divest from formula marketing in pediatric care.

"There is no “gift” in a “gift bag” except that  from the healthcare system applying a seal of approval to the formula manufacturer without compensation. Research reveals that when a health care provider distributes a formula manufacturer’s goods, the recipient interprets that action to indicate that formula feeding is superior to breastfeeding and that the brand distributed is superior to the alternatives."

So Mamas, here is my request.

Before you believe all the hype and crying foul about New York's new breasfeeding initiative, lets really examine who is getting what for FREE here and see this initiative for what it has the potential to be. A really good step in the right direction for moms and babies everywhere!

OK?

Thanks,

Natasha~

P.S. If you would like a bit more perspective on this issue, I highly recommend that you read AskMoxie's post and also Dr. Jay Gordon's guest post from Susan Berger, IBCLC on the Huffington Post.

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This is the Day 4 post for the Summer Blog Challenge {31 posts in 31 Days}.

Check out these great posts from our other participants too!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom's Got Something to Say

and Aramelle at One Wheeler's World

World Breastfeeding Week: Reason #576...

...that {extended} breastfeeding works for us.

Instant comfort for little Miss L after her first wipeout on her new bike.

Before:

After:

It is always more than just food.

Especially now.

To find out more about World Breastfeeding Week 2012, please check out the site HERE.

Now what about you? How has breastfeeding made parenting easier for you {and your babies}?

Natasha~

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This is Day Three of the #31Days of Summer Blogging, AKA the Summer Blog Challenge. 

Check out the contributions of our other participants today.

April starts her alphabet-inspired posts over at This Mom's Got Something to Say.

Meaghan is the daughter of a cop... and is thankful for the job they all do for US at  MagzD Life.

Zita is probably still writing... check her post out soon at The Dulock Diaries.

And Liam is trying to recruit more suckas to do this crazy challenge!!

I'm Sexy and I know it....

I have big boobs. It's true.

They kinda popped out the summer between Grade 8 and Grade 9. Like REALLY popped out!

And boys, men and some women too have been staring at them, talking about them, and trying to {and the privileged few getting to} touch them ever since!

I have know of the power of my boobs for a long time and yes, I was and am kind of obsessed with them. {Seriously, ask my friends, I really do love my girls!}

I spare no expense when it comes to housing them in the finest European bras (the ones that actually fit a gal with a 32 E bra size) and I highly recommend that all women go and get a proper bra fitting and a proper bra (I thought I was a 36 C before that!). None of this, buy 2 get 1 free {insert mall lingerie store here} cheap lingerie for my mammaries. ONLY the BEST!

I have always known the power of sexy that my breasts possessed, but I had no idea of their true powers until I birthed my first child. These two amazing appendages MAKE MILK! Amazing, nurturing, nourishing milk for my child!! And man, did he need it. At a mere 3 pounds 13 ounces he was a skinny little monkey. And my boobs? Well, they where easily twice the size of his tiny little jaundiced head!

See!

Breastfeeding a preemie is hard work. Heck, breastfeeding any baby is hard work. And it became abundantly clear very quickly that the sexy that I was feeling about my breasts a mere 9 months before this moment, while lounging on the beaches of St. Lucia (where said preemie child was conceived), was quickly replaced by wanting them to feel comfortable, not chafed or cracked or bleeding or thrush-ridden or plugged or all the other things that happened to me and my girls once we wholeheartedly embarked on this breastfeeding journey.

For a while, sexy left me. I wore the most basic of nursing bras and tank tops and focused all that I could on this little baby boy and making sure that my breasts and I were doing what we should and could to help him grow and thrive.

Around the 6-month mark, we finally got into our breastfeeding groove and had a good thing going on. Little C had grown enough so that boob and baby head were about equal in size and we found a position and a way to breastfeed that made us both happy. (Side-lying FTW!) It was around this time as well, that I started to lose more of my baby-weight and needed to update my wardrobe a bit.

And then... sexy started to creep back into my life. I was still fully committed to this breastfeeding gig, but now I wanted pretty nursing bras and matching undies. I wanted nursing tops that were not just over-sized t-shirts with a not so well-concealed or flattering boob flap or cut-out.  The search was on. I managed to find a few brands that I fell in love with and proceeded to buy a bra or top in every color or style that they had (Big shout out here to BOOB nursing wear and the amazing selection of nursing bras that they have at Milkface.com.) Having a nice nursing wardrobe serves two purposes in my mind. Number one, it makes a mama feel good about herself and the way she looks. And two, it makes it a lot easier to just keep on nursing for the long haul.

At this point you may be asking yourself, "Why is Natasha going on and on about her boobs again? And what is with all this 'feeling/looking sexy' talk?"  Well, it has recently come to my attention (HA! Insert sarcasm font here) that SEXY and BREASTFEEDING are two words that when placed together in a sentence (or a thought) make a lot of people VERY uncomfortable!

Case in point, THIS amazing photo.

Taken by a very talented Russian photographer, this image captures a wonderful breastfeeding moment with a beautiful and dare I say sexy Mama and her cute little chubster of a baby. Is it an art piece? Yes. Is it 'real life'? No, not for the majority of us. It is a photo shoot. Just like those newborn babies wrapped up in gauze and placed in a bowl pictures are not "real life"... this to me follows along those same lines. It is a shot taken to be shared or cherished of a time in their lives that was special and beautiful. End of story.

Or not...

There has been some talk over the interwebs that photos like this one, of an obviously very attractive woman nursing a child (and perhaps in a posed and not a "natural" position) only serves to perpetuate society's obsession with the 'sexualization' of breastfeeding. Just take the Time Magazine cover shot with the lovely, tall and gorgeous Jamie Lynn Grumet. Would the reaction to that particular cover photo been as dramatic, had the image they printed been one of what more people would associate with all us "crazy hippie"  attachment parents?  A barefooted, cross-legged sitting, hemp-skirt-wearing, no make-up, hair in a long braid (or better yet, in dreads) breastfeeding earth mother!!??

I just don't know...

What I do know is this. I LIKE to feel sexy.

Nothing gets me out of a frumpy, dumpy mood like having a shower, putting on my favourite {nursing} bra and matching undies and wearing something that really makes me feel and yes, even look sexy! And while I am out and about looking and feeling all sexy, chances are my daughter is going to want to nurse at some point. And wherever and whenever, I will nurse her. And perhaps because I am looking so fine, someone is gonna glance over and see me and think, "Damn that is one fine mama...oh, wait... What?? Is she nursing that baby? WTF? OMG!"

It really is a bit of a mind-fuck if you think about it.

And it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the mother, the baby or the breastfeeding and EVERYTHING to do with the observer, or in the case of photos on the internet or on blog posts or on magazine covers, the reader.

It is a juxtaposition of two seemingly conflicting ideals that society holds.

That of the WOMAN and that of the MOTHER.

If you see a beautiful woman, your mind thinks a certain way. If you see a mother, your mind thinks a different way. (I am no student of psychology, but I am sure Freud or Jung or one of those guys had a lot to say about this whole topic!)

And herein lies the crux of the matter.

Mothers ARE women! Women ARE mothers. They are one and the same. They are beautiful, sexy, hot, smart, sassy, intelligent human beings. They are also caring, nurturing, loving, tender and protective beings.

They... WE, are all these things and then some. Just because someone can't wrap their head around the fact that a mom can be or look sexy or sultry or what have you AND be the mother that her child needs (and in this case and a lot of cases, a breastfeeding mother) is just a very sad state of affairs.

And it all really just comes right back to the boobs.

And yes, yes, we hear over and over again the same rhetoric, "Breasts are made for feeding babies." My question to everyone then is this? Have we forgotten that those same breasts probably had a lot to do with all that...ahem... fun stuff that was done to actually MAKE all these little nurslings?

Let's be real Mamas. Breasts are sexy!  YOU are sexy! And your breasts, well they make milk too! And sometimes you are a sexy mama feeding your baby with your breasts!

Nothing wrong with that!

Cheers and chest bumps Mamas and Happy first day of WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK!!

Natasha~

I'll  leave you with my favourite cover of LMFAO's 'I'm Sexy and I know it.'

Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsvlsuLau5c[/youtube]

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Today's post is Day ONE of my Summer Blog Challenge!

31 Days of posts coming your way this month!

And I have convinced at least one of my friends to join me.

Check out Meaghan's first post today at MagzD Life.

UPDATE at 10:30 PM:

Three more lovely bloggers are joining in on the fun!

Check out April's Day One post over at This Mom's Got Something to Say,

Liam's post over at In The Now,

and Zita's post on her blog, The Dulock Diaries.

{breastfeeding} Ignorance is not bliss.

I have been good. Really. I have.

No ranting, no attacking, no blood boiling posts written in haste.

I have applied the way more than 72 hours rule here and I feel like I can now reply to the whole TIME magazine cover photo and extended breastfeeding ridiculousness with somewhat of a level head.

But here is the thing...

I am not going to go on and on about the benefits of extended breastfeeding. You can read THIS or THIS for more on that.

I am not going to go on and on about why that particular photo of Jamie Lynn Grumet and her son was chosen for the most shock value on the cover of TIME. You can read Jamie's own words HERE.

I am not going to go on and on about what attachment parenting is and is not and if I or anyone else is MOM enough. {Psst, we all are and then some BTW!}

What I am going to do is provide some clarification on a few points. Points that have been made in some common and ignorant comments I have read on my own Facebook Page and on quite a few other blog posts and articles written on the topic since the TIME cover was revealed to the world.

Last week I posted this picture on my Natural Urban Mamas Facebook page. It is of my little L nursing and I captioned it,

"In case anyone was wondering... THIS is what a 3-year-old nursing USUALLY looks like!"

Common Ignorant Comment #1. "Get that kid a t-bone", "Why can't she drink out of a cup?", "2/3/4 year olds should be eating solid food and drinking out of a cup." And other variations on this theme.

Really people?? Do you really think that because a toddler or a child is nursing that THIS is their only source of nutrition? Wait! Maybe this is the case and this is really what people think! And perhaps this is why people are so weirded out by it. Because they have only ever seen infants nursing they just assume that if an older child is nursing, they are not actually eating other foods as well.

Okay, so let me clear this up then. Children who are nursing beyond a year are doing so IN ADDITION TO eating solid foods and drinking other liquids (water, juice and/or milk) from a sippy cup, regular cup or other implement for drinking. To be perfectly honest, I am not sure that I or most nursing moms could keep up with the nutritional demands of a busy, constantly moving and growing toddler. So YES, these babies are eating food, YES, they can drink out of a cup and NO, contrary to popular belief and a lot of comments, it really is not easier to pump some breast milk into a cup for them. It is far easier to let my daughter nurse for a few minutes, get what she needs (be that a drink of mama's milk, some comfort or just a check-in with mama) and then happily go on about her day.

Common Ignorant Comment #2: "You are doing this for your own needs, not those of your child."

This one I find interesting and I sent it out to the Twitterverse for more clarification from my peeps. Some of them agreed with the statement and others said things along these lines from @kimliving:

"I'm thinking those folks haven't watched my toddler insist on breastfeeding during those moments I'd rather not...

Here is the thing, I don't completely disagree with this statement. I do think that when the nay-sayers are spouting off this one they mean that as mothers, we are trying to extend the baby phase for our kids so that we can keep them 'little' longer. That we are avoiding the inevitable and not letting out babies grow up.

Is there an element of truth to this? Perhaps. L is my last baby. And while I love watching her grow and learn and discover new things about her world, I would be lying if I said I did not feel those tugs at my heart every time she seems to not NEED me as much anymore. That being said, I have to also say that breastfeeding her is not something that I NEED. It is something that SHE needs. She is the one who asks to nurse once or twice during the day, she is the one who crawls into my bed in the morning for our routine snuggle and nurse.

I DO NOT spend my days chasing her around saying, "Come on L, it is time to nurse now." QUITE the opposite actually, I will often deflect her requests to nurse because I simply do not want to, or because we are in a public place or I am not wearing the right kind of top or any number of other reasons I can find.

You see, I am ready for her to be done breastfeeding, but SHE is not. So continuing to nurse at this point is indeed her NEED and not mine.

But just so you know, I do happen to get a whole lot of benefits from her continuing to breastfeed, like a reduced risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer, protection against osteoporosis and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.  Not bad perks if you ask me. I'll take 'em!

Common SUPER Ignorant Comment #3: "You are psychologically, emotionally, and/or sexually abusing your child!" or "This is not normal."

I find this whole line of comments and opinions frustrating, laughable, disrespectful, mean AND SO WRONG!

There is plenty of research that shows that children who are FORCED into independence prematurely are the ones who suffer more both mentally and socially, NOT the kids whose needs are met in a warm and loving way like breastfeeding.

My children do not have an unhealthy attachment to me. They feel safe and confident to explore their worlds and know that there is always a comforting and safe place (ME) to come back to when they need to.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics,

“There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer.”

And also the American Academy of Family Physicians says that the natural age of weaning in humans has been estimated to be between 2 and 7 years, and that

“There is no evidence that extended breastfeeding is harmful to mother or child.”

These rather large bodies of medical experts can't be that far off base on something like this and I am pretty sure that they need sound research and studies to back up what they say in print.

As for the sexual abuse comments. I seriously don't even know where to start with these and I will fully admit that it was one particular comment that got me riled-up enough to write this post. This is what one young mom wrote to me... (Yes, I creeped on her FB profile to see just who would say this kind of thing. This is also a good reminder to you all to check your privacy settings!)

"After the age of 2 years old, I consider breastfeeding child abuse. All women know that when a child is suckling your nipple, you have what they call a "mini orgasms" in order to produce your milk. So after a certain age, regardless of stress, you are creating a orgasm with your child. Try going for a "bath" you will get the same destressed results."

Do you see the magnitude of the ignorance and lack of education about breastfeeding that we are up against here Mamas?

I can only assume that she was talking about the feeling of a milk 'let-down' and I don't know about you, but mine where FAR from orgasmic!! Physiologically, the same hormone (oxytocin) is involved in both a let-down and an orgasm, but that really is about as much as the two have in common.

All I can really say is that the over-sexualization of EVERYTHING in our North American society is so far gone, that I don't know if we can ever go back. We live in a world where it is more shocking for a mother to be shown breastfeeding her three-year old (in whatever position and on whatever piece of furniture required) than it is for a 4-year-old to dress up like a hooker and parade around a stage for money. Can someone please tell me how this makes sense?

In the end...

Breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, discipline, parenting, MOTHERING.

These are all highly personal decisions that we all have to make for ourselves and for our children. I just hope that we all have the strength and conviction to stand by what we decide and not let all the ignorance and sensationalism that surrounds us cloud our own judgement and confidence in ourselves.

Stay strong Mamas. Let the haters hate themselves into oblivion.  Be the example and the change you want to see. Show that to your children.  And stay on the path of LOVE.

Natasha~

Confessions of a lazy breastfeeder.

I have something to confess. I am a lazy, lazy breastfeeding mama.

Case in point. My three and a half-year old daughter still nurses at night.

Which means 2-3 times a night she gets out of her bed, walks to our room, crawls in to bed with me and nurses for anywhere from 1 minute to 30 minutes depending on how sleepy I am. And since I am usually quite sleepy, it's closer to the half hour mark than not.

I know she doesn't "need" to nurse at this time, I know I "should" have night-weaned her months/years ago, but I didn't.

Oh, I have tried, more than a few times, really I have, but two happy sleeping people always seemed to be more important to me than one crying and then fitfully sleeping baby and one miserable mama.

I am also quite the lazy breastfeeder in other ways. If Princess L gets hurt, either physically or emotionally, the quickest way to soothe her is with a quick pit-stop at the boob. If she is bored, she will come over, tell me I smell like "boobie-breasts" and ask if she can nurse. 95.7% of the time I will oblige her in her requests to nurse where and when ever she wants.

Now, given that my daughter is three years old and we do communicate quite well, we do have some breastfeeding rules. We don't nurse at my in-laws place anymore (out of respect for my MIL, who has never said anything directly to me, but I just know that she is not comfortable with us still nursing). I also often place a time limit on nursing, especially when it is one of those "I'm bored" moments. And L knows that I don't want everyone to SEE my boobs and will now cover them with her hand or my shirt if we are nursing out in public. You know, 'cause she is a considerate little nursling like that.

The past few months have been quite the upheaval for our family with selling our old house, packing, moving and then unpacking and settling into the new house. I am pretty sure that nursing has provided Princess L with A) some much-needed Mama time and B) a sense of normalcy amongst all the chaos. It has also given me a moment to stop during our busy days, look at my beautiful girl and really appreciate her and all her little quirks as I stroke her super soft hair and just breathe her in.

Last weekend I thought we were near the end of our breastfeeding relationship. And we still very much might be. In the past week she has stopped asking to nurse before bedtime. This was exactly the way weaning happened with Little C. Just before his third birthday, he stopped all nursing except his morning nurse and cuddle, and then the day after his birthday we were done. (He still comes in for his morning snuggle though and it is one of the best moments of my day!)

Weaning Little C just didn't seem as bittersweet. I was tandem nursing at that time and L was just over 14 months old, so my mama milk was still in high demand. This time around it is different...

When my girl finally stops nursing, so too will I. There are no more Natural Urban Babies coming into this house, my body will no longer nourish a child and my >5 years of breastfeeding will come to an end. That is a long freakin' time to be making milk for my babies and yes, I am damn proud of it. I feel that it is one of the major accomplishments in my life!

So you know what, I am going to continue to lazily nurse my child, still not bother with any kind of 'night-weaning' and let her have her 'booby-breasts' when and where ever she wants if that is what makes her happy.

Because it IS coming to an end...

And I am not very good at good-byes.

Not to the breast milk, nor to my beautiful breastfeeding boobs either!

{BIG Sigh....}

Natasha~