Yesterday Mikko showed his first signs of really being ready for and interested in solid foods. He's 8.75 months old, and he's had almost all the signs of readiness since 5-6 months old -- except for that tricky swallowing bit. He tends to enjoy the feel and taste of foods in his mouth, and then gag and push them all out, often puking in the process. Delightful.

But, I figure he won't go off to college still breastfeeding (not exclusively, at any rate!), so I haven't been worried, just watching to see what he'll do.

Last night while Sam cooked our evening meal of sweet-potato goodness, I dug out Mikko's portable booster seat/high chair and rounded up an array of baby-pleasing treats, including grape bits that I partially chewed for him. Yes, just like a mama bird. What he doesn't understand is gross won't hurt him.

He was particularly taken with the grape bits, and kept dragging my hand down to his mouth to get more, which amused me. I'd never seen him so eager for food (beyond nummies) before. We gave him sundry other snacks to pick up, mush, and fool around with, which I won't list in detail here under fear of being deemed A Bad Mother, because pretty much everything I gave him wasn't on the list our naturopathic ped gave us for his age range. Her list included things like blended sprouts in water, so Sam and I gave ourselves permission to diverge.

It was fun to see Mikko squish the squishy bits into his tray, pick up small pieces between his thumb and pointer (his very favoritest new trick), gnaw on small-hand-friendly spears, and use his 6 sharp teeth to do some serious damage to his prey. I manually expressed a little breastmilk into a sippy cup (the kind that drips and doesn't have a valve), and we tried that with and without the lid. Either way, Mikko's favorite thing to do with the cup is whack it onto the floor. Good thing there's plenty more where that came from!

I really like this site for some great guidelines for baby-led solid food introduction:
http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html
It looks like it might be in Dutch, but it's mostly not.
As well as this one for some great pictures and parent experiences:
http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/

But, as to the title of the post, here's an example for how I do not want to treat food consumption.

At some point in my elementary-school days (I picked 1985 for a close-enough estimate), when a friend was over and my parents were serving breakfast-for-dinner, I asked to be made a fried egg. My parents responded, reasonably: "But you don't like eggs." And I said: "But I want one." And they told me I could have one if I ate it all. "Yeah, yeah, sure, give me my egg."

Well, perhaps you can see where this is going. I had a lot of fun poking it and swirling the yolk around, and then I was done. Because, frankly, I don't like eggs. I have now learned to stomach them, but I still don't enjoy them. Back in this timeframe, it was all I could do to gag a bite or two down.

My parents said I had to stay at the table until I'd finished the whole egg. It was a fight to see who would be more stubborn. Since I'm not still at the table, I'll admit right now that they eventually won. My friend was over, I was crying, it was horrible -- all over one stupid fried egg. I thought it might be better with some maple syrup on it. It wasn't. It was still gross, and now it had maple syrup all over it, which was incongruous. The longer I sat there, and it must have been at least a couple hours, the colder and more rubbery that stupid egg got. And the more determined my parents became that I would shovel the thing down my throat.

It's not like one egg costs that much money. We didn't raise chickens, so it wasn't like it was our favorite hen's only egg that day. My unusual request for an egg didn't mean someone else went hungry.

And, really, what a way to enforce a healthy outlook on food. Way to encourage trying again healthful foods that didn't appeal to you earlier. Way to reinforce the idea that food is an enjoyable source of energy but not something to have a complex over.

I'm trying to let the egg tantrum remind me to let Mikko do his own thing with food. With breastfeeding, he's been an absolute champ at portion control, gaining and maintaining an appropriate weight, and not being a fussy eater. I'm sure any coaching I could give him on the subject of food and eating wouldn't do him any better than just letting him loose.

Oh, but I'm sure there'll be at least one good my-annoying-parents story for him to moan about as an adult.

In case I sounded cranky in my post on mainstream parents, I just want to defend myself here.

There's a lot of complaining among the formula-feeding set of breastfeeding nazis and self-righteous cloth-diaper users and so forth, but keep in mind we're the minority. if you're in the mainstream, you can choose whether or not to be offended, because you will be surrounded by people doing exactly the same thing as you and supporting all your choices. I very rarely meet parents like me in person.

It reminds me of this video clip going around about a pastor advocating that men pee standing up, because the Bible commands it (hint: it doesn't really, but he thinks it does). My response when I saw it is that the pastor in question is just mad because white men in America have to settle for only 90% of the power now instead of the 100% they used to enjoy.

I'm trying to brainstorm ways to meet other like-minded parents so we can feel less out of place in at least some situations:

1. Sam remembered that our midwives have a get-together every year. Maybe we could network with some other home-birthers.

2. I can always find people online who think like me, because apparently we're pretty loud-mouthed and like to shoot our opinions out on the web. There are places like Mothering.com that let you "find your tribe."

3. I'm trying this one already: Educate my so-far childless friends so that they'll join our movement once they procreate.

Any other ideas?

Today's another Carnival of Breastfeeding, but I'm not participating in this one because I was so out of it until recently that I didn't check the due dates. But I'll still link to it here, and I encourage you to read all the participants' posts.

The theme this month is humor in breastfeeding, so here's my own little post for the day. Just be aware that this is not a carnival-authorized post! :)

Sam enjoys the humor website Cracked.com and often directs me to hilarious posts. Today he found one that would be pertinent to my blog (actually, both my blogs):

9 Islamic Fatwas We Can Get Behind

Scroll down to the bottom and read "#1. THOU SHALT be breastfed by your female coworker, and call her Mommy." Keep in mind that Cracked is a humor site, so we can go to the source they cite and read the cleric's reasoning:

"In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers. It means the child could not marry the nursing woman's biological children. Attiya ... argued that if a man nursed from a co-worker, it would establish a family bond between them and allow the two to work side-by-side without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relation."

Well, there you go.

Now, the cleric is facing discplinary hearings, so don't take this as Islam's final word on the subject. It does parallel other cultures' take on wet nursing, however, that children of a wet nurse are generally considered "milk siblings" of her own children, and it would be incestuous and forbidden for them to marry.

Anyway, my favorite quote from the Cracked article:

"America's paradoxical fascination with--and aversion to--the breast has a long and sordid history. We don't care to relate that story here, but suffice it to say Janet Jackson, Pamela Anderson and Howard 'Man-boobs' Taft figure prominently. What better way to get over our North American prudishness and breast-obsession with one fell swoop, than state-mandated suckling at the teats of our coworkers?"

Well put.

Others have written about this issue before, so I'll just recap -- if children, particularly in rear-facing car seats, are placed in the front seat of a car, the air bags in a crash can kill them. So laws were passed in the mid-1990s to require children to ride in back seats, away from the dangers of air bags.

As a consequence, now more and more children are dying of being forgotten and overheating in the back seats, particularly young children in car seats. Sometimes they fall asleep, and often it's because of a change in routine -- say, the father is supposed to drop the baby off at daycare that day because the mother is busy, and he forgets and goes to work as usual instead.

From 1990-1992, 11 children died of hyperthermia in vehicles. Now the average is 36 each year. You can find these statistics in various places: here's one.

And this increase in hyperthermia deaths is due to protection from airbag deaths -- so how many children are being saved? From 1998, there have been 113 confirmed air bag deaths (and granted that there could certainly be deaths that were due to air bags but not correctly attributed) -- of these, 66 were children, and only 15 were infants in rear-facing carseats.

So more children are dying with the new laws than were dying before; they're just dying in a different way, and with the blame on a different source (car/air-bag manufacturers vs. parents/caregivers).

This is not to say that children should not be placed in rear seats, because certainly they're safer in a car accident, and there should be installed some sort of warning system for children left in car seats, but it's an interesting (horrifying) unintended consequence of a safety campaign.

It makes me think of the recent crusades against cosleeping, trying to get parents to put their children in their own cribs, such as the Back to Sleep campaign from the National Institute of Health.

Even if we accept the argument that crib sleeping is safer than co-sleeping (and I don't), what are the unintended consequences of recommending that babies be placed away from parents?

I think there are several benefits of cosleeping and several negative consequences of sleeping apart, some of which are perhaps less measurable than others, such as trust in parents' care and thereby confidence and positive mental health later in life.

But I want to look at just one: breastfeeding. Especially considering that AAP guidelines recommend pacifier use in addition to crib sleeping to prevent SIDS, what are the short- and long-term effects of this "safety" campaign on children's health and development?

Speaking as a nursing mother who feeds her baby several times a night, I can't imagine how sleep-deprived I would be if I hadn't learned how to feed Mikko lying down. What are the rates of breastfeeding with cosleeping vs. with baby in the same room but a different bed vs. with baby in a different room? I would imagine that the farther the baby gets from the mother, the less convenient breastfeeding is. The less convenient, the more likely that night nursing decreases. This in turn can decrease the milk supply, and all of these factors together could lead to early weaning. (Research from Dr. McKenna bears this out: cosleeping babies breastfeed twice as long as noncosleepers.)

So, this begs the questions: Which is more dangerous, cosleeping (assuming it is dangerous) or failure to breast feed? Which causes more deaths and ill health, cosleeping or failure to breast feed? How many children are we purportedly saving from SIDS and suffocation only to lose to asthma, allergies, developmental problems, diabetes, cancer, infections, meningitis, obesity, respiratory illnesses, digestive problems, mental health issues, and other ill effects of inadequate feeding -- including...SIDS? (See: Health Risks of Not Breastfeeding and Formula Feeding Doubles Infant Deaths in America -- and bottle feeding is even more dangerous worldwide.)

Obviously, an apparent suffocation or SIDS death in an adult bed is more immediate and horrifying than an early-adult death years later from cancer, and it seems easier in a cosleeping death to place the blame than a baby who dies from an illness that possibly could have been prevented by breastfeeding. Some deaths are just considered worse than others, and when a baby dies because a parent left him or her in a car to overheat, or when a baby dies because an inebriated parent rolls on top of him or her on a couch, it's easy to point the finger. When a baby dies of an infection, it's the disease that gets the blame, not the parent.

The CPSC blames sleeping in adult beds for 64 infant deaths a year in the U.S., and this statistic doesn't consider whether the parents were safely cosleeping (many were absolutely not) or whether in fact some of the "suffocation" deaths were due to other factors, such as SIDS, which would surely have been fingered if these deaths had occurred in cribs.

Babyreference.com suggests that over 1,000-9,000 infant deaths in the U.S. could be prevented each year with universal breastfeeding.

Any infant death is a tragedy, and if you're one of the statistics it doesn't matter whether your baby's chances of death were great or slim. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should start blaming more parents or encourage dangerous practices since everything carries some degree of danger. But let's please start promoting practices that help parents give their babies the safest and best care. Just because babies die in rear-facing seats due to parental forgetfulness, we don't suggest that the babies not be placed in those carseats -- we simply need to come up with better ways to keep them as safe as possible. Since cosleeping leads to breastfeeding, and breastfeeding is what babies need, then we should be doing all we can to encourage safe cosleeping, not discourage the practice. It's strange that we as a society seek to avoid one type of death and thereby allow many more others.

So we braved church again this week, because our other options fell through. Doesn't that sound like a good reason to go? And I had been thinking that we might enjoy our time more if anyone else shared the cry room with us.

But I was wrong.

Because there were two other couples with young babies, and they just made me mad.

I really wish I didn't get annoyed so easily, and that I could make friends more readily by generously ignoring or excusing the differences in others that clash with my own values.

I guess I should stop wishing and start doing.

But I'll go ahead and let you know what was bugging me, because I'm not mature yet.

One of the babies started talking, and the mother said, "Quick, give me the pacifier" and then tried to keep it in the baby's mouth the rest of the service. For talking? In the CRY ROOM? And then they kept apologizing to us for the noise their baby was making, when ours wasn't exactly sound-free. I mean, the cry room is specifically for babies to make noise. It's like feeling guilty for being sick in a hospital.

And then both families kept giving their babies a bottle, and they discussed with each other during the greeting time how many ounces their babies drink. I wanted them to ask me how many mine drinks, so I could say, "I don't know -- my boobs don't have a gauge on the side." But they didn't anticipate my witty rejoinder and give me an opening. (Or mabye they did anticipate it...)

I don't realize that I'm different until I'm around people who are all the same. I keep thinking my parenting choices are reasonable and natural and just the no-duh option, but then every time I'm around other parents, they're doing what's considered mainstream. Bottles and strollers and pacifiers and disposables and just everything. Why does it bother me so much?

I really don't think it's because I feel out of place -- it's more that I'm befuddled that they're not making different choices. I did the research; I read the books and articles; I thought long and hard and decided that what I've chosen is the best for my baby, and by extension, all babies. It sounds prideful and naive to say it out loud, but it's a visceral feeling when I meet these other parents and see them choosing far different options. My big problem with them is, I think, not that they use bottles and pacifiers and such, but that I question whether they ever even considered not doing so.

Did they research and read and ponder, or did they just fall into line with what everyone's "always" done?

I suspect the latter, and it burns me up. I feel bad for their babies, and these aren't monster parents or anything -- just conventional. It's even more obnoxious that they're young and hip and live in Seattle -- shouldn't they be embracing the unusual?

I think what I need to do is talk more with other parents, despite my reservations. Obviously, it can't be during church (since the cry room's a sacred no-noise zone, apparently), but maybe in more relaxed situations, we could get into a discussion of why they chose the way they did, and I could at least plant a seed that other options might be available, in a gracious, nonjudgmental, non-angry way.

I tried to breastfeed in front of them, but they wouldn't look at me. Sigh.

I've never told my family I write this blog, not because I'm ashamed of what I'm writing -- I'm actually often quite pleased and wouldn't mind having them see it. It's just that I felt I could write more freely if I didn't feel I needed to censor my thoughts.

The funny thing is, though, that if I did tell them about it, I'm almost sure they'd never read it anyway. They know where my writing and personal websites are, and I still have to direct them to them whenever I post something new. I don't think the subjects on here would interest them, even coming from a daughter/sister/in-law/whatever.

I was thinking today of the time when I crossed from being a child in my mother's eyes to being an adult. And, yet, it's not like I became a peer, or at least not in all ways.

(Caveat: I hate to pick on my mother, because she's a wise and wonderful person, but the mother-daughter relationship is so loaded, and it really makes for the best examples.)

It was in college that she began telling me things she'd have hidden from me before. I don't know if there was a specific day she woke up and decided I was an adult, or if it was a process, but to me it was sudden and surprising that she started letting me in on the scandals in the family and, on a more mundane level, filling our phone conversations with all the details of her week, such as what was going on at work and church. It doesn't sound like much, but as a child, anything in the adult world "didn't concern" me, to use her phrase. (Often I was quite concerned, but she was the one who got to decide.)

What was missing from these newly minted adult-to-adult conversations was...conversation.

My relationship with my mother had changed from a parent-child monologue where the child gets to blab and everything's about the child -- What did you do in school today? What do you want for dinner? How was playing with your friend? -- and conversation about anything interesting is reserved for other adults. It is now a parent-adult child monologue where the parent gets all the lines and my mother no longer has to feign interest in all the details of my boring life and can instead unload hers. She never asks any questions about my life -- no, seriously -- and if I try to say what's going on with me, there's silence and then an "Unh-huh, well, that's all the news here, and we're going to bed. Bye!" She could never be so dismissive with an adult peer, but I guess with a daughter it's allowed.

As a related story, Sam wrote many insightful articles on spiritual matters that were published online. He transferred all of the links to his own website, in case looking them up individually would be too difficult. He directed his parents to the list, and they never read one, saying they preferred not to read things online. So Sam printed them all out, each and every one, and bound them in a folder and presented the collection as a Christmas gift. It was promptly lost. Sometimes Sam worries that his parents won't be happy with some idea or another he's written, but then he's consoled (sorta kinda) with the knowledge that they've never read a word.

See, this is why I don't want family to know I blog!

Again, though, not trashing anyone, just musing -- why the lack of interest in our life as adults? Is it one of those things where I've halted at some particular phase of development in my parents' eyes (10 years old? 14? 20?) and now my life, for their purposes, is over, and anything I do or say or believe that doesn't fit that perception is too bewildering to contemplate?

Because I run into that myself with my much younger brother. I was thinking how his girlfriend, who's younger than he is, couldn't really have been young enough to be a child when a particular children's song was popular (because that means I'm old, dang it) -- when I know full well that it was a popular song when my little brother was a baby. But, see, to me he's still a little kid (9 instead of 22), whereas to me she's always been an adult.

I wonder how this will play out with Mikko. Will I allow him to keep growing and changing and acknowledge those changes? Will I see him as he really is by moment and year, or will I see him as I want to perceive him? Is it an unavoidable consequence of caring for a young one, or is it possible to be intentional and ever create a new relationship with that evolving person?

Can you guess I don't have the answers yet?

Sometimes I worry that my parents will stumble across this blog anyway, but then I have to laugh. As if they'd ever be curious enough to search!

If you find this, family & old friends, here's the code phrase to let me know you read this far: Walrus Monkeys.