Work

Dear Julian,

So here we are waiting to make a decision. I am at a crossroad in my life. I had always thought my career was the greatest part of my identity. My work is a part of who I am. My identity in a way. The work connected to my values and beliefs and politics . My identiy has again shifted, morphed and developed into much more. You are a part of me now, and now I have to discover what work means in this new identity.

I feel so much sadness to think of you being raised by someone other than me or your Dad. A stranger. A hopefully kind stranger. Who won't be a stranger much more. But what is life if you have to leave others to raise you for 10+ hours of your waking day? wake, eat, rush, drive, drive drive, work, eat, work, rush, drive, drive, drive, kiss good night, sleep.

I struggle to process this and it just doesn't jive with what I want for you. This is the norm in our society. This is n-o-r-m-a-l. Do I want to be part of the norm? But I don't want to lose my place in the norm. My mind plays tug-of-war with my wants and desires and in the end I am pulled to you. For now I need to stay close to you. I have my whole life to move up up up in my career dreams, but for now I need to keep that place for you. For all the material wants and needs we'll find a way to not sway to the norm.

How do you nurse your baby?

Dear Julian,

I am visiting my sister in Montreal and we've been having a lot of discussions about discrimination against mothers who nurse their babies with formula. The message out there is
"breast is best" for babies...which you can't contest, but what happens when you have problems with breast feeding and can no longer nurse by breast? Or if you havfe to go back to work and struggle with the pumping, or your baby is allergic to your breastmilk to name a few reasons. I have had so many friends who have shared the shame they felt in having to pull out a bottle to feed their baby, even in spaces meant to be all supportive of mothers such as a mom's group I was a part of. They have managed to move on from this as strong women do, but I wonder how much of this shame is constructed by society and reinforced by our public health policies.

We were discussing the prevelance of post partum depression being highest in mom's who couldn't breastfeed and had to have a birth that wasn't part of their birth plan ie. c-section, next in prevlence are mom's who struggle with breastfeeding. It's like this feeling that your body is working against mother nature, that your body might not have been meant to be a mother. I know I shared these feelings when I had to have a c-section after my son wouldn't turn his breeched bum around, and to have added breast feeding challenges I would have been beside myself. So, why does the education that is disseminated to mothers feel so aggressive towards moms that have to formula feed. I heard the term "lactavist" recently and I thought that was a brillent term to identify the type of mom who will come up to your child in the grocery store and say something like "look at those beautiful breast feed cheeks," or "your son's eyes sparkle you must be breastfeeding" to then "oh they would sparkle so much more if you breastfed him dear" or every public health nurse who opens with "how is the breastfeeding going?"

Also, why is it that all my friends who needed to see lactation consultants felt unheard, misunderstand and unsupported? This happened in Vancouver, and now I am hearing it from Montreal. How can this be? I mean here a woman is at her most vulnerable, especially as a new mom, and she feels unsupported in the process by people trained to supposedly help her? I find it unbelievable. However we nurse our babies we are connecting to them through nurishment and security. Breast or bottle we are caring for our babies, meeting their needs and spending countless hours a day focused on meeting those needs. It is wonderful that the pendulum has swung in the direction of encouraging breast feeding as a first step in feeding your baby, taking the stigma of the breast out the feeding process and de-sexualizing the image of the breast in our society. However, the pendulum has swung too far in that we have aliented our own sisters who need to formula feed for whatever reason. This must change.

xoxo

How do you raise a young man?

Dear Julian,

Tonight as I tuck you into bed, and watch you sleep I can't help but wonder how will we guide you and will our guidance be enough? I believe that we are all born good and evil slithers its way into some people's lives and makes them bad people. There have been recent events that have involved young men and their violence against women. This is nothing new and the types of crimes happen all the time unreported, but the media has once again shon a spotlight on the issue. The first thought I come up with are who raised these boys? What happened to them where they can so easily hurt and destroy another human beings life? How does violence against women become indoctrined in some people's lives, so that it is habituated, normalized and trivialized? How is that other young people can stand by and watch someone be victimized? How is it that other young women blame their sisters and not help when they are in danger How can they lay blame on the victim and exclude themselves from the blame by just being a passerby.

How will we encourage you to risk to be the one to stand up and intervene, to risk the wrath of social pressure and isolation, how will you just know what is right and wrong and stand up for your beliefs and lead others to do the same? I know in my heart you would never be involved in the evils I am talking about...but smaller injustices happen every day. I guess we model to you how to have empathy, to have respect for yourself and those around you. I realize I too need to raise the bar in my own life, to watch my behaviour in my relationships, and to recognize that everything I do reflects on you. I hope I will be able to teach you humility in recognizing where I have gone wrong and the hard work of making things right again. I hope that my ideals are put to action so that you don't grow up talking but grow up in action.

As I go to bed myself all I can think of is play, play, play. Our world isn't going to let you be a child for too long....xoxo I love you forever

10:59pm and I miss you

I'm supposed to be off to bed, and

All I want to do is sit a little longer holding you in my arms.

Your little chest rises up and down and your body feels so warm.

I can't believe someone so precious was created by our love

Even though I can be so tired, I miss you when you sleep.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I am living my baby you'll be." Robert Munsch

night night my little love.

Cribs vs. the Beds

This is an awesome article from Salon that had us laugh post sleep training time. We too were stuck. We found somewhere in the middle where Julian learned to fall asleep on his own and is now a very well rested baby.

Bringing baby home...a new beginning.

COMING OUT OF THE FOG: LIFE SPARKELS

I can't believe that we are 7 months into this incredible journey of parenthood. We had little to no training for the job, no past experience, zero references yet somehow we've managed to create the most beautiful little person out of our chaos! Julian is now 7 months and I am realizing I have 5 months left on my maternity leave. I spent the first 6 months figuring out how to be a parent to this little bundle, I learned to throw out those damn books and start trusting my intuition, to trust the strength of my relationship with Rob, and learned that if I could just chill out a bit my baby would melt into mellowness. I thought I would spend the last part of my leave sharing my journey with friends and family who aren't around to walk it with me right now. Like the African proverb - "It takes a village to raise a child"...my village is pretty global and I thought a blog would be a fabulous medium to do that work. So thanks for visiting!