iPhoneography, Just because Natasha Chiam iPhoneography, Just because Natasha Chiam

Me and my camera getting to know each other better.

I have a fabulous new friend.  Her name is Linda Patterson of Timeless Edge Photography and she is great!  Not only does she take amazing pictures (have you seen my new avatar?), she is my new photography mentor.  She is also the kind of photographer who makes photo shoots fun, never goes for the canned shot and truly loves what she does.  And she gets goosebumps when she gets "THE" shot! Every time I am with her, she gives me little bits of advice and tips about how to improve my picture taking.  Like did you know that you can use a tissue over your flash to give that diffused light look?  Or how about the "S-curve"? That oh-so-flattering way that movie actresses and supermodels always stand when getting pictures taken on the red carpet.  Or the one that has made the biggest difference for me is placement of your subject in the picture. Never in the middle, always in the upper or lower corners of your view frame.

So that being said, here is a sampling of my 'work' lately behind the camera.  A few nature shots in my mom's garden and a couple of shots of my little muses.  What do you think?

Say cheese, Natasha~

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Natasha's Pick of the Week

I love Twitter!  It has opened up a world of opportunities for me and I have met some pretty amazing people in the Twitter-verse. One of these lovely people is the mama behind MamaPear Designs.  Lara Audelo is mom to two little boys and she is a breastfeeding advocate and soon to be Lactation Education Cousellor and her company has the most wonderful Lactivist t-shirts and gear for moms, dads and kids alike.

 

She is also a mama on a mission.  That mission is to get Oprah Winfrey to do a show in her last season all about breastfeeding.  And she wants YOU to get involved too!  You can find all the Breastfeeding Blitz info here and sign the letter and send it to Oprah herself!   Heck, if Ellen can get on the cover of O magazine with her, then maybe, just maybe hundreds of mamas all with one common goal, can get the fabulous Oprah Winfrey to put the much needed spotlight on breastfeeding and the global health benefits that it has for our children and ourselves.  And maybe, just maybe, help to remove the stigma that nursing a baby in a public place has these days, help to educate the people who complain about it and get mothers all over North America the support and resources that are so needed to help breastfeed their children successfully.

Here is what Lara has to say in her own words:

My ultimate goal is to raise breastfeeding awareness and help change the culture of breastfeeding here in the U.S.  I think it is safe to say we need some work in the society-at-large acceptance and education area!  I had an idea a few months ago and that was to see if, through a letter writing campaign, I could convince (with the support of hopefully hundreds, if not thousands of others) The Oprah Show to feature breastfeeding as a topic on a show in its final season.  I have never seen Oprah do a show on breastfeeding, but it really is time, and there are so many aspects that need to be discussed.  A variety of people could be invited to talk about benefits of breastfeeding, where moms who struggle can find support, why we need MORE support, discrimination for breastfeeding in public, breastfeeding and the workplace, the potential breastfeeding has to save money for tax payers, and the list goes on.  If breastfeeding is discussed by Oprah, it will get people talking, and that is what we need.  If people take the time to write her and let her know why they think this show is necessary, I believe it will happen.  Every mother must make a choice about how she is going to feed her baby, and I know that a lot of mothers tune into Oprah! We are not looking just to gain the attention of pregnant women, but everyone, so we can educate them about why more mothers should breastfeed.  So I am "building it" and hoping "they will come!"

You can find Lara on the web at www.mamapeardesigns.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MamaPearDesigns and on Twitter @mamapeardesigns.  And if you visit her site right now, you can also see the lovely Spotlight she did on Natural Urban Mamas and the conversation we had about babywearing and breastfeedinng on her Favourites page.

And that is my pick this week peeps.

Natasha~

 

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Natasha's Pick of the Week

>Welcome everyone!  This is my first "Pick of the Week" post and so I am going to pick the new and improved Natural Urban Mamas website!!  I really hope you like it!  My fabulous designers and gurus at Syncopate Media have done an amazing job of putting together my 'vision' of what I wanted for the new site. Please take a minute to browse through the shop, check out the INFO pages (updated as well) and please feel free to leave comments with your feedback and any suggestions for further improvement.  As a gift to you all, for the rest of the week we will be having a "Welcome to our new Home" Sale.  All purchases from now until Sunday, August 15th will receive 15% off (including sale items).  Use Coupon Code "OKKH82OJ195" upon checkout to apply the discount.

Thanks everyone and I really hope you like our "new home"!!

All the best, Natasha~

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babywearing, breastfeeding, motherhood Natasha Chiam babywearing, breastfeeding, motherhood Natasha Chiam

Breastfeeding Thoughts: A Letter to my Kids

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today's post is about breastfeeding thoughts. Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

My dearest son and daughter,

This is MOmmmeeee here.  I thought I would write you both a letter to express what I have been feeling lately.  Mommy has just finished two weeks of writing about our breastfeeding experiences and it has made me think a lot about this time we have had (and still have, my little lady) together.

For you my son, I would like to thank you. Thank you for teaching me patience, the kind that you need to have at 2 o'clock in the morning and you are a brand new mommy trying to nurse a premature baby who technically should still be in the womb and is having a hard time 'getting' this whole breastfeeding thing.  Thank you for learning to sign "MILK" so early, so I would always know exactly what you wanted and when!  Thank you for showing me the kind of mommy that I was meant to be, one who listens to her child and knows his needs (versus-all the nay-sayers and 'schedulers' and 'baby-trainers') and one who is willing to go with the flow of motherhood and let it take us to where we are naturally meant to be.  My little man, you and I shared EXACTLY three years of breastfeeding and I would not trade one of those 1095 days for anything else.

To my daughter, my little me.  You are a lucky, lucky girl.  Your big brother paved a very nice path for you.  Despite all the concerns everyone had, including me, about Mommy having another baby - YOU were and are perfect!  And because of what I learned with your brother, you are getting a much calmer and a much more confident Mommy.  Your brother showed me the kind of mommy I was meant to be and you, my dear are honing my skills.  I am a better breastfeeding mommy, a better babywearing mommy, a better EC'ing mommy and....well, I am just better.  You were my sensitive baby, my never-could-I put-you-down baby, my mama's girl and that was OK, because I was a better mommy.  You still are my baby girl, even though you are growing every day, saying new words and sentences, figuring out your puzzles and games with your brother.  I don't think I knew it before, but I am sure now that I needed you to be the 'needy' one.  And I love that you can now ask for all the great things that we have done and continue to do together, like "Mommy nurse?" and "Mommy piggy back?"

Nursing both of you has been one of the highlights of motherhood for me.  It makes me feel special, even though it is the most natural of our mothering instincts, and for that I can't thank you enough.  I have written here about our time of nursing and I hope that through our experiences or maybe because some other mommy saw us nursing or read about it that the three of us can be an example and encourage others to seek the joys that we have known together.

I hope that one day you read this and know how special and wonderful you both are and that you have made me a MOTHER in more ways that I can say.

I love you forever,

Mommy~

Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

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Mutual Weaning - My New Terminology

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival! This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today's post is about child-led weaning. Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

At first I said six months.  I would breastfeed my child for six months.  Then he was so small and that did not seem like enough and so it was extended (happily) to a year.  After all, I'd be going back to work after that.  Then, I did not go back to work and he was still such a little guy and was in no way showing any indications of stopping, so we kept on nursing.  Then I got pregnant again, and I thought for sure he would want to stop.  Nope, kept on going.  And then his sister was born and I could not deny him what I was also giving her.  We were at the two year mark here and I think I was getting ready to be done, but my son had other ideas.  He really loved (and still needed) that cuddle with me first thing in the morning and his five minutes of nursing, so we kept going.  Nursing into his third year was interesting.  We usually only did it at home and for very limited time (he would ask me for 1-5 minutes of nursing).  It was our way to connect, for him to check in and get some one-on-one with me and I was OK with that.  As we approached his third birthday we started to have more and more talks about his continuing to nurse and what it meant to be a big boy.  At this point he was nursing maybe once every other day or once or twice a week.  We kept talking about it every day until his birthday and then..... we nursed no more.

Neither one of us was sad about it and I think that was the most important thing for me.  I needed to be able to let go and not feel like I was missing anything or had left him missing or needing anything.  And I needed him to feel like he had 'graduated' to a new chapter in his little life and be proud of what he had done.  I think we accomplished this.  I never pushed him to stop and I never forced myself to give up something that I felt was always one of the most important gifts I could give my son.  Our journey ended on a high note, and it ended mutually.  I was ready, so was he and so we stopped nursing together.

If you talk to him now about nursing, he will tell you that he nursed when he was a baby, but now he is a big boy and big boys don't need to nurse.  He told me this less than 2 months after we had stopped!  Oh, how their little minds work.  Yes, he is my big boy now, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't still need that extra close cuddle, the one where he rests his little head on my breast and just breaths in the smell of mommy.

And I still need that too.

Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

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breastfeeding, family Natasha Chiam breastfeeding, family Natasha Chiam

Family and Breastfeeding

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival! This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today's post is about family and breastfeeding. Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

My husband is Chinese.  He has two sisters, a brother and his parents.  Now don't get me wrong, I actually really love my in-laws, even though it took my MIL a good four years to love me back.  They are SO, so good to my kids and at least once a week I don't have to cook a meal. But, to be honest, they are kind of an uptight bunch - DH included!  Throw in a dash of crazy white chick breastfeeding your grandkids FOREVER and well....

...actually, they have been great about it!  I was and still am sensitive to their needs, ie, to NOT see my boobs and they, in turn, have been very supportive of me breastfeeding my kids for an extended length of time.  Maybe they say things to each other when I am not around, but never do I hear any of it.  I have breastfed my babies at our monthly (sometimes weekly) family dinners at our favourite Chinese restaurant, at dim sum Sundays and at their home. I think it is more important to them that we have family time then it is to make a big fuss about me nursing in public.  So they don't question me, tell me to stop or seem otherwise bothered by it.  Now granted, at first my poor brother-in-law could not even handle being in the same room when I was nursing one kid or the other, but he has come around and is way more mature about it these days.

My family is likewise very supportive of my decision to breastfeed my babies for a long time.  My sister has an 8 month old baby too and when we are all together, the boobs are being popped out and into someone's mouth left, right and center!  We are also an EC'ing family (my sister too) and so there are also potty breaks for the baby girls in the middle of the living room when we all get together.  We are just not a shy bunch.  (For those who don't know, EC=elimination communication.)

So here's the thing, I have plenty of things that I could complain about with regards to my in-laws and my own family (and who doesn't), but their acceptance and I believe genuine respect for my breastfeeding practices is NOT one of them.  And because I know that this is not the case for a lot of mommies, I wholeheartedly thank each and every one of them for that!

Peace out my mama peeps, Natasha~

Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

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babywearing, wordless wednesday Natasha Chiam babywearing, wordless wednesday Natasha Chiam

Wordless Wednesday: Babywearing Photos!

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival! This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today's post is Wordless Wednesday: Babywearing Photos! Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.
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Natural Urban Home - Here we go....

We've done it again.  I went looking on MLS one day and two months later we have bought a new house/lot.  Not that we NEED a new house, I mean really, we just built the house we are in three years ago and it is a beautiful house, in a great neighborhood.  But like any great life experience, you learn as you go and what we have learned is that this house is not going to grow with our family.  As the kids get older (and bigger) we are all going to want our own spaces clearly defined and there are countless other little things that we would like to do better. Then there is the green aspect of things.  We are a pretty eco-conscious family, my kids know that we need to turn off lights and water to 'save energy'. They know that veggies from a garden or the farmers market taste WAY better than store bought and my three year old is pretty good at knowing what goes in the blue garbage bags versus the white ones.  This new house is the fulfillment of our dream to build a "green" home to match our green lifestyle.

These Natural Urban Home posts are to document the whole experience, for us and for others too.  I hope to learn A LOT during this process and I plan on sharing as much as I can with YOU!  We are planning to implement a fair amount of eco-friendly materials and incorporate as many energy alternatives as we can.  Solar water heating, recycled glass counter tops, bamboo flooring, concrete floors, ICF walls, and the list goes on and on and on....

Here are a few pics of the new lot.  It is a corner lot in a fabulous mature neighborhood, faced a ravine and is just about 13,000 square feet. It is HUGE and The Hubby is not looking forward to all the street shoveling (I think we are going to be hiring a 'guy').  I am interviewing our local green builders and architects right now and will let you know as soon as we have decided on who is going to be helping us realize our dream.

Off we go!!

Natasha~

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