The Vaccine Book: Review

Check out my latest review of Dr. Sears' The Vaccine Book over at DC Metro Moms today. There is an open book discussion so please feel free to jump in or leave a comment here if you like.

Summary: I thought the book was full of good, objective information. Sears provides a wealth of information on each vaccine and everything from details on the disease, how serious, treatable and prevalent each one is. He gives thorough detail on what is actually in each injection, discusses side effects, and gives his opinion on that vaccine. This a great book for a new mom's library, and I hope pediatricians will read it as well. Definitely recommended for those with questions regarding their children's vaccinations.

Breastfeeding in a Perfect World

Today is Breastfeeding Topic Day at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, New York City Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog and DC Metro Moms (where I write). Check out the differing views on breastfeeding.

Before children, breastfeeding always seemed like the most peaceful moment shared between mother and child—mom cuddling baby, baby eating so nicely, never any mess to clean up. But those of us who have gone this route know there are some less-than-perfect things about breastfeeding. We can hope that in a perfect world things could be as they are in our imaginations—before we were all inducted into the breastfeeding mom’s club—but most of us know that as modern women of American fast-paced society, breastfeeding is what it is.

In a perfect world . . . Breastfeeding would be easy to do. For those of us who struggled with one child or another breastfeeding can be a daily or sometimes hourly struggle. One kid can take to the breast like a duck to water and with others it's like mixing oil and water--it can break a mom’s heart. In a perfect world, a baby would pop out, latch on and eat for 10 minutes and be done.

In a perfect world . . . Moms wouldn’t feel nervous or ashamed about breastfeeding their babies in public. We’ve all been there in the situation where you think I have to do it now, right here. Baby is screaming, people are watching and waiting for you to quiet him down. You know that all he wants is the boob. Do you rip your shirt off in the airplane and give it to him or let him cry? Do you risk nipple viewing in a family restaurant? The reality is that most people would probably you rather quiet your baby in a restaurant or plane, and if a breast is what does it then I say go for it. New moms sometimes have anxieties about nursing in public. I remember my friends taking the time to show me in a Starbucks how to drape the blanket over my shoulder and baby’s head. By my second child, I didn’t even care about the modesty.

In a perfect world . . . Moms would get six months or maybe even a year of maternity leave. Part of the reason Americans don’t breastfeed as long as Europeans is that we give our news moms only six weeks maternity leave. We’re not even sleeping through the night by that point and no established milk/feeding pattern has really taken shape. It wasn’t until three months into the new mom gig with my second child that I finally had the breastfeeding thing under control. Which leads me to my next point . . .

In a perfect world . . . Moms shouldn’t have to pump at work in a bathroom. For those that used hospital grade pumps, you know this can be one of the most awkward positions. Here you are tired, hunched over and hooked up to a machine like a dairy cow. Nothing says professional like the wump, wump sound of a breast pump in the ladies room. In a perfect world, if moms had a little more give on maternity leave, perhaps this would simply be a non-issue.

In a perfect world . . . People wouldn’t make you feel bad if you chose not to breastfeed or struggled with it. There is a lot of pressure for moms to breastfeed these days, and while I admit wholeheartedly that breast is best, it may not be for everyone. When I sat up at nights nursing my son hour after hour, I would crying thinking I was the only one feeling this way. My heart was in it 100 percent, but I just couldn’t make it work for me, and I felt like I had failed my baby. Every magazine I read made me feel like switching to a bottle meant neglecting my son.

In a perfect world . . . Breastfeeding wouldn’t be about watching the clock. With all the books I had read prior to breastfeeding, I thought babies ate 20 minutes on one breast and 20 minutes on the next, and then you have two hours to put up your feet. But those of us with older kids know that feeding the baby is not a time to sit, relax and watch TV. It can be a time when you’re entertaining another or thinking of all the things that we could be doing instead of sitting. In a perfect world, we’d just sit down and let the baby go to town until he/she was done.

In a perfect world . . . Babies wouldn’t spit up the milk you just produced. There is nothing worse than completing a wonderful feeding session with your sweet infant only to have him spit up all the milk you just produced. It’s not like you can just mix up another batch. And for those of us who didn’t produce much anyway, it was hard lesson to learn that we were no longer in control.

In a perfect world . . . No one would look at you while you were breastfeeding. I could never tell if the looks I got from passersby were looks of horror, pity or empathy. I just assumed that people knew what I was doing and were looking my way to smile or check out my newborn baby. (Isn't she cute?) I try to do the same. In a perfect world, you could to offer a new mom some compassion via eye contact without having the look/smile misconstrued.

In a perfect world . . . Nursing shirts and bras would be cute and stylish. I’m sure there are some cute outfits out there for nursing and I know they put lace on the bras, but it just seems like in a perfect world someone would recognize the demand for cute, affordable post pregnancy nursing clothes.

In a perfect world . . . People wouldn’t make you feel bad if you decided to breastfeed into toddlerhood. I was not one of these moms, but I think those women who breastfeed into toddlerhood are true heroes. Making moms justify nursing a two year old is highly inappropriate. In a perfect world, people would just mind their own business.

In a perfect world . . . Breastfeeding should be about just that--bonding with and feeding your baby. Many times it can be, but unfortunately unless it’s a late night feeding or the wee hours of the morning, pastoral it is not. We’re probably making a snack for someone, dodging an older child’s toy, trying to cover up our other nipple, making mental lists, talking on the phone, bargaining with someone or counting the minutes until the feed is over so we can get in the shower.

This is not a perfect world, but breastfeeding is like everything we do as moms. You take the good with the bad. For me, breastfeeding my children was a bit of challenge on many levels. I don’t regret doing it. I even loved it at times. And I would totally do it again.

AMENDMENT: Today is a snow day

Our little snow turned into beautiful Christmas snow. (Perhaps a justified snow day from school after all.) I wiped off my sour face and took a look around. What's not to like? It's snow in December, which is rare in Northern Virginia. We don't usually see it until January or February. We're setting out for an afternoon of play in the snow. No errands, no chores, just fun. My kids have been asking for snow since September so here it is. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Today is NOT a snow day

This morning I woke up ready to face the day. My son goes to school today, but my daughter is home with me. Even with one child around in the morning, it still allows me the flexibility to run my Christmastime errands.

As I walked down the steps, I was greeted by my daughter's enthusiasm, "Mommy, it snow'ng outside." Yay, but all I could think of was how I had my morning planned to get ready for an upcoming Christmas get together, run some errands and pick up the house. None would be accomplished with both kids home if school was cancelled because of snow.

I look out and assess. Looks OK. Not too much on the ground.

In my sleepiness state, I staggered down the steps to the basement and check the public school announcments. No announcement meant school was open today. As I perk up, I sit down to enjoy my cup of coffee.

As I'm cajoling my kids to brush their teeth later in the morning, the phone rings at 8:45 (we're supposed to leave in about five minutes) and it's Alex teacher telling me school is closed because of the snow. "You're kidding me, right?" I ask, looking outside and seeing only a light dusting of snow, almost none of it is on the road.

So, once again, foiled by mother nature and home with two wonderful children who are always on the wrong side of the door--10 minutes of bundling up to play in the snow, after five minutes outside they are done. Ten minutes inside of toys and begging to go out again. Repeat.

I really have to get my head in the right place and try to start the day over with a smile. Snow day means built in fun for everyone. They did discover you can clean snow off the car with hair brushes. How very inventive!

Puzzle crazy

My son is addicted to puzzles. I’m not taking the wood ones where you plop in the shapes already cut for you, I’m talking real 48-piece plus jigsaw puzzles. (He's partial to the Melissa and Doug floor puzzles. He has at least seven he can do on his own in 15 minutes--each that is.) Before he was two, he could sit down, with a little help…LITTLE help…and do a whole puzzle. We were amazed at his method. Simply trial and error with each piece. Today, I watched him do the same puzzle (48 small pieces) three times. He’s fast and very methodical when he works. He doesn’t want distractions and he’s proud when he’s done. He’s also a math guy who can add and subtract basic numbers.

It makes me wonder what a kid like this will be able to do down the road in ten years. He’s three and a half. He can’t draw or construct anything out of blocks that we can identify, but puzzles and numbers are his thing. I just can’t help wonder . . . .

The season of chocolate

My son, especially, has a terrible sweet tooth. I attribute it to the one-a-day chocolate muffins I ate when I was pregnant with him. Probably why my blood sugar was borderline gestational diabetes and I had to cut out all sugar. Apparently, we can mess up our kids before they pop out. Alex will eat an ungodly amount of chocolate and sugar without so much as taking a breath. He will wake up in the morning, with his eyes not even opened, and start bargaining for whatever sweets we might have in the house—hidden or not. He always know where they are.

My solution since I have absolutely no self-control (my friends will admit to this) when it comes to sweets, wine or chips is to not have this stuff around. OK, except for the wine. Everyone needs their vice, right? You don’t find cookies, brownies, chocolate, candy or anything even resembling that at my house unless I’m baking for an event.

The Halloween candy was gone long before we started running into Christmas holidays because of this. Halloween was on Wednesday this year and the candy was either thrown out or sent to work with my husband by the following Monday. I had put on five pounds from all the yummies that didn’t get taken by kids. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.

Somehow close to Thanksgiving, our house started filling up with chocolate and by Thanksgiving day we had pounds, quite literally, of chocolate in our house. Not to mention the giant pecan pie and cake from dinner.

Now into December, the chocolate has multiplied threefold, and we have the chocolate Advent calendars. Very traditional for our family, but so annoying for the chocoholics in my house. Again, before Alex even gets down the stairs he’s talking about opening door # (insert day of December). How did he know this morning it was December 2. After eating it he was already asking about #3. Then he asked about the cookies in the freezer. What about the candy Uncle Dave bought? He remembers seeing some chocolate turkeys somewhere, what about those? And, hey, what happened to the candy cane Santa gave him yesterday?

So I groaned back at him: For the goodness sakes, go to the bathroom, wake up, eat your breakfast THEN we’ll start negotiating on sweets. Mommy cannot do negotiating without coffee in the morning.

So you see what has happened to our house. The chocolate has turned my son into a little greedy sugar monster and me into a fat one. Anna is apparently the only one with self control. She only eats a nibble of it. Please, please stop sending us chocolate.

Christmas trees: It's just our place

Seems every year, people speak of their place for getting a Christmas tree. This morning we were trying to figure out the best place to journey for our tree shopping experience. Every year we go to the same place, but this year I thought we needed more—Santa visit, music, hot cider—you know festivities for the kids. I looked in the paper and online and finally when the question came up: where are we going? My response was simple: We’ll go back to Krop’s Crops.

On the way there, we passed by several Christmas tree shops, and my kids are crying out “Mom, stop, there are Christmas trees.” But we keep driving. My parents, who were visiting, wanted to know the reason behind my loyalty to Krop’s Crops. The answer is simple. It’s local, it’s small and it’s tradition. Krop’s Crops in Great Falls, Virginia, is very small shop nursery. There are no frills to this outfit though—it’s pretty plain and simple with a few extras for the kids. They have a cast-iron stove inside to warm up, refreshments to purchase, chickens and goats to feed and dried corn for the kids to play in.

And every year, despite the fact that neighboring and competing farms offer more, we still go here to get our tree and every year it looks more perfect. While the trees aren’t cheap, the service is amazing and I love the idea of support small local establishments. Today, Santa was helping load trees on the cars—after taking Christmas present requests and handing out candy canes. That was really the highlight for my kids. Nothing beats having Santa talk about his elves while strapping the tree onto your car.

Every year the tree selection is beautiful and fresh. In fact, we’ve had trees last well into mid-January and still be alive and well six weeks after we bought them. In addition to the cut Christmas trees, they have a “cut-your-own” option as well. Also available, of course, are beautiful wreaths and spectacular poinsettias.

I'm curious about your favorite place for Christmas trees and what makes it special for you.