Time for Change

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Breaking News

Whatever your politics, you have to admit: hi.lar.i.ous.
You gotta love the snark factor.
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Positions

Leonardo da Vinci
Italian Painter, Sculptor and Architect (High Renaissance)
1452-1519

Madonna Litta , 1490-1491

(Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia)

I suspect there is something trinitarian in the depiction of the Christ child at the Madonna's breast. There must be theological justifications for Mary's devoted gaze toward the Christ child and the baby's averted gaze from her breast. The baby's posture evokes Christ's naked body being gently removed from the cross as it contorts and needs support, cleaned up of any blood or gore. The baby practically nurses himself as he supports Mary's breast with his hand. The Christ child's hair must be a sign of the times. Who can't resist a curly-haired tot? It also shows that this is no bald-headed infant. This is a toddler. Why this is important, who knows. Perhaps because it hints at Jesus' power. He is no baby. He can do it himself.

Personally I love that Mary is wearing a nursing shirt. (Did those exist in the Renaissance?)

I went in search of breast-feeding images because I have been thinking about how such depictions influenced my own practice. To be fair, the Leonardo image above is not primarily about breast-feeding, of course. Nursing serves a larger purpose by telling a story about Mary and the Christ child. Yet before I had Iza the dominant image I had of breast-feeding involved something similar to what you see above: the baby cradled in the mother's arms and the requisite adoring gaze of mother toward child. The baby nicely, quietly-dare I say serenely--rested in the mother's arms. The mother's arms felt no fatigue. Rather she was suffused with motherly love and gentle thoughts.

I am not quite sure how or when I developed this romanticized notion. Certainly I grew up exposed to nursing mothers and have fond memories of attending La Leche League meetings as a young girl, primarily because they had a buffet, which I found terribly exciting at the age of four. My naiveté ironically may be the product of my wordly experience. I waited until I was thirty-three to have my child. Perhaps the years intervening between my childhood immersed in a nursing culture and the time that I become a mother allowed my imagination to turn breast-feeding into a caricature. Seriously, the first six weeks of learning how to breast-feed were more difficult than labor and delivery.

Forget serenity. (Well, those moments do happen. Hooray for prolactin and oxytocin, calming hormones produced while nursing.) What I learned is that those little, hot bodies are first and foremost hungry at the breast. There is commotion. Rooting, drooling, dripping, gagging, crying, whimpering, etc. As the baby gets older and her hunger is both for food and comfort, there is rolling, pinching, scratching, tugging, and let-me-take-your-nipple-with-me-as-I-turn-my-head-and-check-out-who-just-walked-in-the-door fun.

In the beginning, mama must sit until the sitting takes on a new, possibly unexplored, state of Zen.

Hooray for the iPhone. Mama can read a novel! read the New York Times! Facebook! all while nursing.

And then mama discovers nursing while lying down in bed. Wow. And she thinks: I will never sit up to nurse again. And then she discovers that you can do the "lean down" and offer the top breast too without having to get up and move to the other side of the baby.

And then mama discovers that you can nurse with the baby in a sling while waiting in line to board an airplane. Hands-free.

And then mama discovers that you can nurse with the baby in an Ergo carrier. In this carrier the baby sits up and straddles your waist. The baby nurses while sitting up. I had no idea this was possible. Leonardo did not portray this. Possibly the trinitarian symbolism would have been thwarted.

If I were an artist, here is the composition I would arrange:

Mama calming baby before they get into the bath. Mama sitting on the edge of the bathtub, water running, a few select bath toys bobbing around, baby sitting on her lap so that they are belly to belly and the baby's face is breast level and nursing, both delightfully in the buff, naturally. There is forgiving lighting, perhaps. The mother may look (gasp) tired or (gasp) bored, but hopefully looks powerful and protective. I am thinking white ceramic bath with baby blue tile work, the grout a bit mildewed.

OR

Mama walking down Newbury Street, baby nursing in the Ergo carrier while Mama reads from her iPhone. Possibly she is holding the hand of her toddler too. She is definitely wearing a hat to cover her atrocious hair. It should be near dusk, after nap time and before dinner. The light a definite golden-pink, gentle, and forgiving.

Unlike Leonardo's painting, these images would be first of all about nursing. If they manage to evoke an awareness of grace and a glimmer of love made incarnate, so be it. And if they break open a new mom's imagination about the possibilities of breast-feeding positions, well, Amen.

The Tooth Heard Round the Dinner Table

Miss Iza has a tooth. On the way. I heard it.

Iza Biza was enthusiastically dining this evening. Her first course consisted of a puree of carrots, always a pleaser. The second course was an artful blend of quinoa and butternut squash. There was also an avocado chaser added as the meal progressed. She reached for her own spoon. Fine. I keep a spoon for Iza and a spoon for me. She reached for the bowl. Note: she reached for the bowl, not the contents. I held the bowl as she began to gnaw around its edge. Both hands began rooting in the quinoa-squash. This was fine dining. And then. . .the gnaw became a chomp. A tiny clink registered in my brain as it pinged again and again. This was no soft gum meeting pottery. This was bone on not-quite-bone china. Hooray!

So the mild fever, the frantic perusal of teething snake oil medicines at CVS, the regression to newborn crying patterns, the need to deploy the bouncy ball as a soothing technique, the middle of the night tears, the increased saliva and consequent gagging were all, indeed, the path toward the inevitable orthodontics she will don in twelve years. Mama had four teeth removed and wore braces with rubber bands. Tata grew up in Transylvania (Romania). If he had grown up in Grosse Pointe, he would have had braces, rubber bands, and the dreaded head gear. Miss Iza B., poor girl, is an orthodontist's brand new BMW ready to drive off the lot.

I rubbed her gum just to be sure. There it was: a jagged point. A rough edge. Elation followed by the realization that there are 19 more to work up through her sensitive gums. Teething, I know, is hardly the hard stuff. But it is portentous. Nevertheless,

I am gigantically, abashedly proud.

A tooth. I heard it first.

*please note how carrot puree acts nicely as an organic pomade for her coiffure in above photo

8-Months-Old on the 8th!

Miss Iza B. checking her email.

Things I have learned about Iza:

Miss Iza B. loves to get her wiggles out just before bedtime. This is important because prior to learning this I had been trying to establish a "calm and serene" bedtime ritual that entailed warm bath, warm pajamas, warm breast, and off to sleep. (Not to mention dimmed lights and soft music.) Night after night Miss I. would enjoy her bath and then promptly cry in a desperate sort of please-don't-torture-me way as I attempted to diaper and dress her for bed. One night I had to step away for a moment to retrieve the forgotten diaper cream. She immediately began to kick her legs as fast as possible and smile and shriek-with-glee. It turns out that she loves being in her birthday suit, warm from the bath, with mama and tata there to see her wiggle and roll and show off her newest tricks. As she plays we finagle her into diaper and jammies. Soon she is ready to nurse and fall asleep. Lesson: a girl needs her wiggles before she can get down to the business of sleep.

Miss Iza B. learns. The neighbors loaned us their exersaucer--a contraption that allows the baby to sit up and rotate around a saucer of toys while bouncing on her newly discovered legs. I had heard mommies extol the virtues of these devices. I placed Iza in it and she was all smiles for about 45 seconds. Then she hit a toy--a noisy thing that rotates. She did not approve. Subsequent attempts went like this: smile--loud noise--cry--removal to another diversion. So we set out to learn to love our excersaucer. I sat with Iza in my lap and we touched and "played" with the toys from outside the saucer for a few days. Sure enough she learned that the loud noises are just what she loves. Now she plays happily in it while I drink my morning jasmine tea and provide an audience.

Things I have learned:

EC. Elimination Communication. I admit that I had never heard of this until Iza was about 3 months old. I didn't believe it. This is the practice of going diaper-free. (Read more about it here: http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/) You observe your baby and allow her/him to pee-pee or poo-poo in a receptacle. You can start this when they are a few weeks old. Mommies and Daddies, I have see this in action. A friend practices this with her three-month old. When we returned to her apartment after tea, she noticed that her baby's diaper was dry. She held her over a tiny potty and said "pish-pish" (a pee-pee sound) and she did just that. This is cool. Saves on laundering cloth diapers for sure. Not to mention that it is an intense way of really being tuned into your baby's cycles. We are vigilant about what we put into them. Some parents are just as vigilant about helping those things go out.

I admit: I don't think I have the energy or will to practice EC. But I do admire it. Concession: I finally ordered cloth diapers. Yes, I will now, after 8 months, attempt to give up my Pampers habit and switch to cloth. (Al Gore sheds a tear of joy.) Some say that it is an environmental wash (so to speak) between cloth and disposable due to the fact that cloth diapers require more laundering, i.e. more water and soap introduced into the environment. Yet, 1) I like the idea of less plastic/fewer chemicals used on my baby's bottom and, 2) I also like the theory that she will potty train sooner/easier because she will not like the feel of wet/poopy diapers. Never mind the fact that cloth diapers are damn cute and user-friendly these days. Check them out: http://www.wildflowerdiapers.com/

I have also learned that sometimes, despite all your talk therapy, you have to break up with your pediatrician. It was painful. I had interviewed three pediatricians before Iza B. was born. I chose a woman who was professional, worked nearby, and seemed well connected to the community. It was a private practice of three woman doctors. I liked that.

I had prepared a list of questions that I asked each pediatrician. But truthfully I had no idea what I needed/wanted in a pediatrician. In Boston the number of good doctors is overwhelming. So I just went with my gut feeling--I liked her style. It turns out, however, that we clashed on some issues. She recommends cry-it-out and starting solids as soon as possible, among other things I came to disagree with. The final straw concerned vaccines. Long story short, she was unable/unwilling to discuss an alternative schedule for vaccines. A significant part of me wanted her to convince me this wasn't necessary, but she responded to my questions with an attitude of impatience and contempt. Contempt, as we all know, is a relationship poison.

I am happy to report that I easily found two other pediatricians that will work for us and so the transition has been smooth. Breaking up is hard to do. Really hard. At least for me. But, parent lesson number #777: You must buck up and act in the best interest of your child even if that means breaking up with your pediatrician.

Palin: Folksy Maverick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSdFIDygFwM