Hop on the freight car with me!

Have you noticed? Blogger has introduced the "Followers" widget that allows fellow Blogger users to show their allegiance to a particular blog. Well, you can follow anonymously as well, but that doesn't declare anything out loud and proud.

I've been following blogs left and right lately, because I love that the new posts show up on my Dashboard page as well as automatically being added to my Google Reader.

So I decided to add the Follow widget to my own blog, in hopes of attracting some followers of my own. But I'm embarrassed to have so few public followers that I shamelessly added myself just so I could see the number tick from 2 to 3.

Please follow me. Please? I'll be your friend. I'll follow you back. I'm not a stalker, though -- honest. But I do read, and I even comment! Because what are blog friends for?


P.S. I thought it was cute when I was visiting a blog that her list of followers had the title "Stop following." (See above picture.) I thought it was quirky humor, like, "Hey, stop following me!" Then I realized it was on every blog that I followed, and I was curious that everyone had stolen the same joke. And then I realized that was Blogger's link for opting out of following. Oh.

P.P.S. Guess who found out you can add text to pictures in Photobucket. Life will never be the same.

I've been clear that I personally don't enjoy using breastfeeding cover-ups. But I've never been this hilarious about it, from One Hot Mama:

"I noticed a disturbing trend -- several hot mamas nursing their babies UNDER goofy, attention-grabbing aprons, for lack of a better word! ... [Y]ou're fooling no-one when your baby disappears under a graphic tablecloth that leaves you looking like you accidentally left the table with it tucked under your chin. You might as well get a neon sign that says, 'Bare boobies -- right under this fabric!'"

I was outright snickering when I got to tablecloth.

One Hot Mama, aka Roxanne, blogs and has a mama boutique with everything from BellaBands to hip maternity jeans to Hotslings (but no nursing tablecloths), with very reasonable shipping, which is always a plus! You can check out both and continue to enjoy her stylish writing and her wisdom. I don't know her and haven't even yet commented on her post, but I couldn't help but share the snarkiness.

One of the best things about blogging is getting to know all these other wonderful blogs out there! I put all the RSS feeds into Google Reader so I can track any updates, and then I click over to read them in context. I love comments on my blog so that I can find all you marvelous writers out there, so keep them coming.

That reminds me -- I need to go update my Favorite Blogs list. If you have any link suggestions, feel free to pass them on!

P.S. My apologies to Hooter Hiders and the like for making fun -- we're all on the side of breastfeeding, and I know you're doing what you think will help. Look, I even gave you a little link love in case someone disagrees with me vehemently and wants to buy one in protest. It's not your fault that I hate what your product represents -- I don't believe that there's shame attached to feeding our babies.

I followed a Google ads link in my Gmail account and found a company started by a nursing mama of four. She offers a product called Modest Middles, which is the tank you can see at right here. It has a deep U-shaped neckline and a long, form-fitting body.

The point is to allow for discreet nursing by covering that postpartum stretch-marked tummy (anyone?) and keep your back and sides warm. Then you can wear whatever shirt you want and just lift it up to nurse, keeping the top of your chest covered as well. I vary in how discreet I am at breastfeeding in public, but I can see this being a blessing for mamas who don't want to fiddle with a blanket or cover-up but would otherwise feel uncomfortable having chest or tummy skin exposed in public.

But -- the reason I'm writing about it is the one feature I absolutely love. It allows breastfeeding mothers to wear a regular nursing bra, of whatever size. Because the neckline stretches below your bra, you can be any cup size above that.

When I was first looking at nursing wear, I considered the popular Glamourmom Nursing Bra Tank, pictured at left. But with an I-cup chest (that's not a typo), a nursing tank bra wouldn't do anything for me, assuming it would even stretch to fit. I need an underwire (in as close to the appropriate size as I can get. Note to nursing-bra manufacturers: Consider making a 36I in an underwire so I can stop buying 38H. Thanks!).

I think the GlamourMom would provide adequate support for more reasonable cup sizes, but I would have to wear a bra underneath it anyway. The Modest Middles tank wouldn't put extra fabric across my chest where I don't need it, and would allow me to wear my regular nursing bra.

Now, for whatever reason, I've taken to writing about products I've never used. This is another of those. For one thing, it's $29.99. Granted, the GlamourMom is $39.

But for either price, I'm sticking with my tried-and-true methods of wearing a regular stretchy cotton tank or long-sleeve shirt (depending on the season) under an overshirt. Then I just pull one or the other or both up or down and stretch out the neckline(s) as needed.

But I'm curious -- has anyone ever tried the Modest Middles? Does anyone think the name GlamourMom sounds a lot more appealing? Ha ha. If you love either, tell me why I should buy a fabulous new nursing tank the next time I'm feeling the need to splurge.

Welcome to the February Carnival of Breastfeeding: Money-saving breastfeeding tips

This month we're bringing you posts on the topic of penny pinching while breastfeeding. Be sure to check out the links at the end for the other participants' posts.

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I am quite the Frugal Fanny, so I relish this month's carnival on ways to save money while breastfeeding. Breastfeeding in itself is a money saver, but there are ways to make it pay off even more. There are a number of accouterments that seem to go along with nursing your baby, and all those purchases can add up. Here are some of my finest ideas for the budget-conscious nursing mama, which I spent quite awhile compiling:

     1. Nursing clothing: Why spend lavish amounts on a whole new wardrobe when all you really need is easy access? Try on all your favorite post-maternity shirts and use a piece of tailor's chalk to carefully mark two relevant circles. Now take a pair of pinking shears and cut along the lines you've drawn. Voila! (Note: You might need a cardigan now to wear over your shirts.)

     2. Nursing bras: You'll need something to wear under your breezy new nursing shirts, of course. An Ace bandage is nice and stretchy.

     3. Nursing pads: Now's your chance to make your old teenage habit of stuffing socks in your bra useful!

     4. Nursing pillow: You don't want to have to shell out for a Boppy, My Brest Friend, or other single-faceted pillow. Try an innertube instead! If the rubber outer bothers you and you're feeling crafty, cover with an attractive fabric. Since it goes all the way around, you'll have lumbar support as well -- plus, it will double as a pool toy when your baby's older!

     5. Nursing stool: Pile all the stuffed animals and receiving blankets you accrued as baby shower gifts to the appropriate height. Functional and fluffy.

     6. Glider or rocker: These are pricey. I recommend having someone handy remove the handle off a Sit-n-Spin. Then you can place the bottom piece on any chair and swivel soothingly back and forth. It's more portable than a glider -- and more colorful!

     7. Breastpump: Learn to hand express. Then have a dairy farmer show you how to get a good rhythm going.

     8. Make money the old-fashioned way: Become a wet nurse. Then you can write off all the above expenses! (Consult a qualified CPA on where the IRS would like you to itemize your innertube.)

Ok, just a little fun... Though if you use any of the above ideas, you'll have to give me credit!

I really haven't spent very much on breastfeeding supplies, and here's truly how I've done it:

     1. Nursing clothing: Layers and stretchy cottons are your friends!

     2. Nursing bras: Target has some nice affordable ones, though depending on your chest size, you might find quality is worth it to find a bra that fits comfortably. Buying three nice (large!) bras was definitely my most expensive category of purchase, but I do wear one of them every day! If you've already found the perfect non-nursing bra, Mamas Worldwide will tell you how to convert it yourself.

     3. Nursing pads: Get a few reusable pairs (or make your own!) in whatever fabric you find comfortable.

     4. Nursing pillow: I found a Boppy at a garage sale and received a My Brest Friend as a hand-me-down and a Boppy slipcover as a baby-shower gift. These are the kinds of things that are floating around the homes of friends-with-babies, so it should be easy enough to snag one for cheap or free. Or just use a regular old bed pillow or four.

     5. Nursing stool: Mine also was a hand-me-down. I know most people contentedly do without.

     6. Glider or rocker: Craigslist! No shipping fees, and I got a gorgeous, high-quality glider at a secondhand price.

     7. Breastpump: I like my Avent Isis manual pump for occasional use. If you're hardcore, though, you'll save your energy by renting or buying an electric. See what programs your local hospital has, or ask a lactation consultant if she knows any cheap options to use or buy one. If you need a lot of freezer storage bags, you can often buy in bulk online.

     8. Make money the old-fashioned way: Well, I've never made a dime on breastfeeding, but it's been worth it. :)

Best wishes breastfeeding, and congratulate yourself that you're being so economical in these tough financial times. Not that your happy baby cares one way or the other!

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Please read the excellent posts from our other carnival participants:

Motherwear's Breastfeeding Blog suggests cheap home remedies for breastfeeding problems
Mamas Worldwide gives pictorial instructions on how to convert a regular bra into a nursing bra
Blacktating gives tips on DIY nursing pillow covers, hand expression, and hands-free nursing pump holders
Breastfeeding Mums Blog offers alternative healing uses of breastmilk
Zen Mommy shares how breastfeeding has inspired her to have a financially healthy lifestyle
Breastfeeding 1-2-3 gives a homemade recipe for a Pedialyte alternative
Milk Act talks about the impact of breastfeeding on wardrobe and food choices


Photo courtesy of Steve Woods on stock.xchng

I was trying to think of a Valentine-specific post. (Note that I'm spending my Valentine's Day night at home writing a blog post. We don't take the holiday too seriously at our house.) Marriage going great as usual -- what's to blog about there? The history of St. Valentine(s) and Valentine's Day? Too convoluted for even me to untangle it.

Then I clicked over to the V-Day site from another blog, and one thought led to another, and eventually I decided to write about genital mutilation.

Happy Valentine's Day!

V-Day is to remember and speak out against violence toward women and girls. The mention on the site about female genital mutilation aka female circumcision prompted me to think about male circumcision aka male genital mutilation, although we don't like to call it that here.

But when the rates for male infant circumcision in the US are still at 56 percent, I think it's in the spirit of V-Day to speak out against violence toward a targeted sex.

As happy wife to an intact male, I can confidently attest that the foreskin has a purpose. (That was the Valentinesy part. Here's a link if you don't mind drawings of penises.) I can't imagine why anyone thinks it's all right to routinely remove a part of the body at birth.

If you have never witnessed an intact male and don't believe me that the foreskin is useful, consider that the reason routine circumcision first began (I'm not speaking here of religious circumcision, because that is an issue I don't feel qualified to speak on) was to curb masturbation in reprobate youth (reprobate meaning, you know, all).

It seems almost silly to imagine that this was so, but, to bring it back around to V-Day, consider too that this is still the very rationale for female circumcision -- to keep those wayward sexual urges in check. See, it's not so funny when you realize that, in other cultures, we're considered the lunatic, backward barbarians, no matter how much we clean up our reasons for male genital mutilation with modern rationales that it's more hygienic or appealing to our sensibilities.

Recently a baby boy bled to death hours after being circumcised in a hospital. This irrational procedure needs to stop being routine.

If you're a parent having a boy and haven't decided what to do on this issue, please research the benefits of the foreskin and the disadvantages of the procedure. If you've already circumcised one or more sons, know that you're not alone, but don't let it stop you from doing the right thing with any future sons you may have. I don't speak about this issue out of condemnation toward individual parents, because I grew up thinking circumcision was normal, and that intact penises were what was weird. I was fortunate to have a husband who could change my mind! For most women my age, their husbands were likely circumcised at birth, so there's another step to take to choose to keep their sons intact, and I realize this.

You might visit the International Coalition for Genital Integrity, which promotes intact genitalia for all humans, or the anti-circumcision reference site NOCIRC, or read Mothering magazine's comprehensive article The Case Against Circumcision.

Our babies look to us to care for them before they're old enough to care for themselves. Whether here at home or in places around the world, the young of the world need our support and our willingness to stand up for the integrity of their bodies.

And, seriously, happy Valentine's Day.

Photo of trusting newborn courtesy of Daniel Andres Forero on stock.xchng

"People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.'" (Mark 10:13-14, NIV)

I've written before about our experiences with a baby at church. We, with our oftentimes vampirish schedule, preferred the evening service. Since it had no childcare, our only choice had been to sit with Mikko in the cry room when he got too noisy for the sanctuary, which was generally right after the songs ended and the prayer began.

For various reasons, including feeling completely disconnected from our church due to our isolation in the evening service, we've lately been seeking out one of the morning services instead. (Yes, it's the later of the two.) But, because it offers full child care, I'm feeling pressure to succumb to the norm of dropping our child off downstairs and taking myself alone into the service (with a pager should he scream for more than 10 minutes). I'm feeling very conflicted.

On the one hand, Mikko doesn't seem to mind the toddler room. He doesn't interact with any of the other kids or the volunteers. He mostly plays with a truck that's just like the truck he has at home, and he might eat a bite or two of the snack. He doesn't do the art project or listen to the story. At least he hasn't been knocking littler kids over, as has happened in the cry room. (Ahem.) Despite making him sound autistic the way I've presented it, I think he's just not yet used to being around other little kids, but he does all right with it. He's calm being dropped off and being picked up, and we haven't yet been paged. I hope this is some sort of testament to his trust in us, that we got him nice and attached as a little baby so he feels confident in going to other people we trust.

OK, but herein lies one of my multitude of problems with child care at church. I don't know these people he's going off with. I mean, I trust that they've been screened and trained and that they love kids. But it's beyond weird to have my 20-month-old making friends that I don't know! I'd feel much more comfortable if the volunteers were adults that Mikko, Sam, and I were already friends with, so that there was a natural continuum of care. Mikko would recognize them and know that we were connected. This objection I could solve by getting to know the volunteers, which I am trying to do.

My next issue is more theological or philosophical or some sort of -ical. I just plain don't believe children and adults should be separated as they worship. I don't know why the modern church segregates everyone. In the Sunday service, the adults and the children are separated, and then even the children are separated. I know that one-room schoolhouses are seen today as at best quaint and at worst (and usually) as chaotic inefficiency, but I would actually like children's church better if all ages of kids were together. How fun for Mikko to witness littler babies, perhaps some being breastfed by their mothers, and to be coddled by some pre-teens, and to screw up the courage to participate in some elementary schoolers' roughhousing. But, of course, each age is with its own. And outside the Sunday service, we segregate even more. There are college groups, and moms groups, men's prayer breakfasts and family outings. I love getting to know people who are unlike me. Well, no, I'll try to be more honest -- sometimes it makes me uncomfortable. But that's a good thing. I need to rub up against people who are other, who are at different stages in their lives, so that I can grow. How do I change if I see only people who are just like me?

To continue the philosophizing, it just doesn't seem helpful to separate out the children. The whole point of raising children in the faith is that they see what their parents do at church, that they have a place with us before God. I was a Communion server the other week, and my favorite moment was when a young girl and her mother approached together. I bent down so that the 5-year-old or whatever she was could rip off a hunk of bread, and I was able to say to her, "The body of Christ, broken for you." Because she was my sister, and we were eating at the table together.

I don't want to over-Bible verse you, but you probably got the idea that this is a post about churchiness and signed off long ago if you don't feel like reading it. That's cool. I do think it's relevant to include this quote, though, since it's from the text our faith purports to follow.

"And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, NLT)

How do I talk about God again and again with my child if the church separates us at the door?

I'm not the only one thinking of this, since Kate Wicker recently posted similar thoughts on Momopoly. But I do feel like I'm in the minority. I was talking to a friend without children last night, and she was talking about how nice it must be to drop Mikko off and be able to enjoy the service for once. And I think that's the general impression, that coming to God is primarily personal and emotive and needs to be done in solitude. But the whole point of a church service, of a body coming together, is to be messy and noisy and all sharing together. The Western church is so very much quieter than I think synagogue services were in days gone by. We're so very intolerant now of whatever disrupts us from our own connection with God, even if it's a fellow congregant singing off key or a rustling of a mint wrapper. But we're missing the point if we think it's all about us as individuals.

Here's a quote from Kate's post: "[K]eep in mind the words of a wise priest who told his congregation that construction can be noisy and that children are Christians under construction."

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately in terms of Mikko's burgeoning skills and independence. I remember the wise parenting counsel not to do anything for your child that he can do himself, whether that's putting on socks or eating soup. It means slowing down and letting mistakes happen. If I'm washing the dishes, I get Mikko up on a stool with me, take off his clothes and my socks, and lay down towels all along the floor beneath us. And then we get to it. It takes longer. He'll pull clean dishes out of the drying rack and put them back into the dirty water. I have to spirit away sharp knives and glass to save for later. It hurts my back to lean over him, and he hogs the water spout and steals my sponge, even though I give him his own. But the fact is that he doesn't learn how to do dishes by hearing me talk about it offhandedly every once in awhile. He doesn't learn how to do dishes by having a good fairy (that would be me) finish them up while he's asleep. He learns to do dishes by doing dishes.

Children learn your faith by being present with you as you practice it.

Another, perhaps more selfish, qualm I have about sending Mikko to Sunday school and children's church is that I don't know what he's learning down there in the church basement. Probably something simplistic and potentially something theologically questionable. I wish I could be part of the learning process with him, so that we could discuss it together as he grows, but what he learns and what we learn up in the sanctuary above are two completely different things.

All right, so what am I going to do? I really don't know. The cry room is stuffed full at the morning services, and there's no one in there over a few months old. I'd like to spend some time in the toddler room with Mikko to get a feel for how it works, but I'm not allowed in. (Seriously.) I feel reenergized about church in general, though, for the first time in months and months, and I think the energy of the earlier service is one reason, as is the fact that many of our friends attend that one, so I don't want to switch back to evening.

My tentative plan is to keep Mikko in the service with us through at least the opening worship songs, where things are necessarily noisy. Then we could bring him down late to the toddler room if he starts making a scene. That's a half-hearted way to protest, but it's the best I've come up with for now, short of reconfiguring the whole church culture to suit what I think is best for everybody. Wouldn't that be cool!

We're in the midst of planning Mikko's baptism. Yes, we're a little slow. Sam and I come from a tradition of infant dedication over baptism, but our denomination leaves the choice to the parent, so we had some decisions to make. I won't go into why we chose one over the other right now. I do imagine that we'll have the oldest "baby" being baptized. We put it off for so long because we felt distanced from this church, and pledging our baby to God within a congregation that felt unwelcoming just didn't sit right. We're trying to start again, and be more charitable and accepting, with hope that others will extend the same grace back to us. As we in faith give our child over to God (not as if he was ours to begin with!), and affirm God's ongoing relationship with Mikko, as we formally welcome Mikko into our congregation as a (little) brother, it makes me long even more to share our communal faith journey with him, side by side.

Here's another translation of the first passage that I enjoy:

"The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: 'Don't push these children away. Don't ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in.' Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them." (Mark 10:13-16, The Message)

Jesus sounds fierce and protective, and those disciples knew they had been put in their place. And their place was with these children.

Photo of Spanish children flocking to church courtesy of Josep Patau Bellart on stock.xchng