baby W rocks halftime

make sure you turn on the volume. there was originally a more edited version, but we uploaded the wrong one. ah, well - we're amateurs.

deck the halls

here's baby W decorating her first xmas tree. i'm doing my best to support both the holidays that are represented in our little family, but i'll spare you the 10 minute video of lighting the menorah and opening the hanukkah gifts. you can see how thrilled she is about ornaments; she was equally as excited by lit candles. will she always be this easy?

J Lo update

well, the station wrote back and i felt the need to respond again. here is my response first, followed by the station's initial response:

Hi Chris,

Thanks so much for responding. I realize now that I
should have directed my email to Dina; I've only
started listening to the station this holiday season
and so I'm still not familiar with who's who.

I am sure that Dina is a very nice person and wouldn't
want to hurt anyone. And I'm sure that the celebrity
gossip magazines are indeed talking about J Lo's weight
gain. But we still all make choices about the way we
relay information and I felt that this could have been
an opportunity to challenge the notion that women
should be ashamed for gaining weight (particularly
while pregnant!). The link you provided suggests that
Jennifer Lopez is going to hide out for the rest of
her pregnancy because of her weight gain....I think
Dina's story could have been just as titillating if
she had challenged the ridiculousness of this.

I work with college-age women who are constantly a
source of inspiration to me as they build their
confidence amidst a world that sometimes seems
determined to thwart their efforts. I just wish there
were more people who were on their side, and it seems
like a local radio station with a public platform
could contribute so much by really doing so little.

Again, thanks for responding.

Deborah

Hi Deborah:

Thanks for listening to the show!

Sorry that the story hit you the wrong way. I know Dina very well and
I know that she wouldn't do ever do anything intentionally to offend
anyone.
I think she was going off the stories and information online that had
sources concerned over J.Lo's weight, like this story:http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
I'm not sure who the "sources" are, but they say they're concerned.
Having no kids of my own, I'm not sure what's a normal "weight" for a
woman to gain.
I hope you keep listening, and have a great holiday,

Chris :)

in defense of J Lo

so i am neck deep in final paper writing, grading and general last week of the semester cuckoo-crazinesss. there isn't much that can draw my attention away at the moment. but in an effort to find some holiday tunes on the radio, i happened to catch a "celebrity gossip" piece on a mainstream radio station this morning. the part where they were lambasting jennifer lopez for gaining too much weight too early on in her pregnancy. some ill-informed woman arrogantly repeated the sooo out-dated notion that you are only supposed to gain 20-25 lbs during pregnancy. i think she even cackled afterward. there isn't much that can get me more riled up than ignorant sexist remarks like these...and spoken by a woman! so much for solidarity. soooo, for the very first time in my life i wrote in to a station to complain. of course now that i've sent it, i've thought of a million more things i wanted to say. but if i took any more time it never would have gone out. for what it's worth, here's the letter:

Dear Chris,

I have never written in to a radio station in my life, but I just heard your celebrity gossip bit, and I am compelled to respond. I’m not sure who the woman was who was doing the reporting, but I was frustrated by her discussion of Jennifer Lopez’s pregnancy. I could care less about Jennifer Lopez, but in a culture where women are constantly being scrutinized and criticized for gaining weight, where so many women suffer from devastating eating disorders, to reprimand someone for gaining weight during pregnancy is unconscionable. Most doctors today will tell you that the range of healthy weight gain during pregnancy depends on a variety of factors, and every woman gains weight at different rates. Do you know there are women who are so terrified of gaining weight during pregnancy because of the misplaced values in this country that they actually starve themselves (and their fetus) so as not to gain too much?

Furthermore, the woman who was reporting had her facts wrong. Jennifer Lopez is indeed having twins, and you are supposed to gain more weight when you are pregnant with twins. It is maddening to me that instead of trying to combat sexism your radio station took the sleazy, trite route to reproduce it. Why not try something new next time?

Sincerely,

Deborah

carnival of breastfeeding: book and media reviews (holiday gifts, anyone?)

welcome to the 12th carnival of breastfeeding! i've so enjoyed reading all of the previous carnival blogs, and i am excited to be a participant this time. this month the theme of the carnival is reviews of books and media on parenting, breastfeeding and birth. be sure to check out the links to all of the reviews at the end of this post. enjoy!


Blindsided by a Diaper: Over 30 Men and Women Reveal How Parenthood Changes a Relationship, edited by Dana Bedford Hilmer.

After I read this book, I was the person you didn’t want cornering you at the cocktail party…I couldn’t shut up about it. I was able to work it into every conversation I was having. “Oh, that’s interesting, because in this book I am reading….”

Blindsided by a Diaper is a collection of essays that examine parenthood from every emotional angle and are refreshingly honest, sometimes brutally so. What if you aren’t as good at nurturing as you thought you might be? What happens when you are jealous of the relationship your partner has with your child? What if, after having a child, you better understand that the decision not to have children?

I picked up this book thinking that it would be a quick fluff piece to read before bed and instead I found it to be both thought provoking and therapeutic (really, who could ask for anything more?). There were countless times when reading this book that I was shocked by the author’s profound articulation of an experience I had or was in the midst of. It was a relief to discover that I was not alone in my ambivalence about parenthood, and not only did it allow me an opening to bring such issues up in discussion with friends who are parents (hence the cocktail party warning), it gave me permission to be a little less hard on myself for feeling that ambivalence in the first place.

While the book does a good job of including dads’ perspective (much of parenting angst memoirs seem to be dominated by the moms), a criticism is that these essays represent a very particular section of society: middle to upper middle class heterosexual couples. I think that complicating the notion of what it means to be a parent even further by including even more diverse perspectives would have enriched this work. In addition, if you find parenthood to be clean, serene and utterly uncomplicated, then this book probably has very little to say to you (unless you want to know how the other 99.9% of people feel).

Finally, a logistical point: The book is a collection of stand-alone essays, grouped in six different areas: The Roles We Play, Seeing Each Other Differently, The Communication Challenge, Making Time for Intimacy, Learning on the Job, and Not What We Were Expecting. For those of us who are lucky if we have the time to read our mail, let alone a book for pleasure, the structure of this book makes it easy to pick up and read one essay when you have a few spare minutes.

Happy reading!

And for even more happy reading, check out these other carnival participants' reviews (I'll be adding more throughout the day):

Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog reviews books for every mom on your list!
hobo mama reviews Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent.
Mama Knows Breast reviews bOObs: A Guide to Your Girls.
BreastFeedingMums reviews A Child Is Born, The Fat Ladies Club, Facing the First Five Years, NCT's Breastfeeding for Beginners, Mama Knows Breast, The Breastfeeding Cafe, The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers, and Mum's the Word.
James and the Giant Moose reviews Having Faith.
Breastfeeding 123 reviews Baby Matters, Revised 2nd Edition: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Your Baby .
The True Face of Birth reviews Mama Knows Breast.
International Breastfeeding Symbol reviews The Baby Book and Unconditional Parenting.
Crunchy Domestic Goddess reviews the video What do Babies Want?
Tales of life with a girl on the go reviews The Best Gift

reality vs. fantasy? consume and be saved!

i was talking with my friend Shannon, tonight, about the reality of our aesthetic life. she was standing in the kitchen, cooking dinner with her toddler at her side, in the midst of what she described as complete disarray in her kitchen. i can completely relate…at the end of my day (with my 9 month old who can’t even walk yet) my house looks like a tornado has run through it. scratch that, it is as if a tornado has run through a discount furniture store/storage facility/pawn shop/laundromat.

cut to this evening, after baby W goes to bed, when i pick up the Better Homes and Gardens catalog my mother has left me (is she trying to tell me something?) that i have coveted all day long. this, despite mounds of academic work and intellectual reading piled up on my desk. and in the corners of all of the rooms. fine, in the middle of the floor of my bedroom, too.

Better Homes and Gardens. it isn’t even Martha Stewart, for god’s sake (and thank god b/c a Martha Stewart catalog wouldn’t make it to after baby W went down and i’d have to start desperately flipping through the pages with abandon in moments where she was distracted). and there is one part of me, the academic anthropologist, who is shaking my head in disbelief. this is crazy…everything about this magazine is playing on my identity as a mother and homemaker with the goal of getting me to buy the things that would make my life as beautiful and serene as they are pictured in these pages. and who wants beautiful and serene when you can have colorful and chaotic, anyway? mmmmm…after a day like today? that’s a tough question to answer. in theory or in practice?

here’s a quote from this issue of BH&G, from someone named Holley:

“My mom always made Christmas so special for my sister and me. Now that I have my girls, I wanted to create a special tradition that they would love.”

This “special tradition” happens to be “a flurry of iced cookies, glass stars, and miniature ball ornaments” cascading from a glass chandelier, overlooking a table set with gorgeous matching tableware. apparently Holley has also managed to “set a small winter scene at the table’s center,” thereby allowing the “playful design to distinguish itself from the more formal table setting while paying homage to Holley’s love of gardening.”

and despite myself I’m drawn in…i, too, could be as caring of a mother as Holley. all i have to do is become smitten with gardening, completely redesign my home and get myself to the nearest Crate & Barrel or Pier 1 Imports, and my children will thank me this Christmas and on every Christmas from here on out. forget the fact that M is Jewish and i’m half Jewish, which technically means that only ¼ of baby W even celebrates Christmas.

what the f%@&, Holley?

but there is something more, here. why is it that despite my understanding of the ploys of marketing, of the despicability of rampant consumerism, of the fracturing of any feminist solidarity by holding moms up against one another, with the only goal being an increase in the sale of table linens and ornaments, why on earth do i dream of a home where everything looks that perfectly placed? is this something i seriously aspire to, or is it kind of a fantasy escape, like watching trashy TV? do i question my quality, my efficacy as a mother when i see this? does this, on some level, influence my purchasing habits?

honestly, i’m not sure. i’ll let you know the next time i pass a Pier 1. in the meantime, i’ll still covet Martha Stewart while attempting to create special traditions in the midst of my comfortable and worn chaos.

super cute and super cute x 2

baby W was SuperBaby for halloween. the cutest SuperBaby ever, that is. Her friend, Lucia, was also pretty darn cute.