Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

For the past few years I’ve been trying to get a sense for how breastfeeding is seen in this country.  My mom works in an office full of young mothers.  Talking about feeding their kids, taking breaks to pump at work, filling the office fridge with little labeled bottles–it’s all completely normal.  A bit embarrassing, yes, if you’re new and childless, but a great place to learn all sorts of things that may come in handy when you have your own kids.  Because it affects the office environment it’s a topic of office discussion.

If that is your starting point, you might find it a bit amusing (and discouraging) to encounter other views of breastfeeding as you do a bit of traveling in different social classes, different cultures, and different lifestyles.  My college students would freak if they saw a woman breastfeeding; for my colleagues, it’s something where they “just don’t go there.”  For people who talk of sex and gender all day long neither group seems terribly interested in the female body in quite that way.

And from mothers themselves I’ve heard two different lines of thought: a) breastfeeding is a private moment between mother and child, never to be fully understood by anyone else b) breastfeeding is an issue we should be talking about in our legislatures as we decide what’s protected in our public spaces and in our workplaces.  Sometimes I hear both lines out of a single mother when she’s thinking of two different contexts.

The thing is, I don’t think you can have it both ways.  You can’t speak of the special, sacred bond that is that of the breastfeeding mother and her child, something employers would never understand, if you also want your employer to understand why you slip away from work at various times.  Employers won’t get it, and neither will anyone else.  If you want publicly-recognized exemptions from normal standards of public modesty or work-day length you have to be willing to talk about it and engage other people who raise questions about the fairness of such exemptions, the value of supporting breastfeeding as a society, etc.  You can’t play shy and demanding at the same time.

Most of you know that I tend to be a bit on the brash side of things.  Although reasonably modest in general, I feed Katherine at my dinner table (whether or not we have guests), on front porches, and even, though it took a bit of steeling myself, while sitting next to a fifties-something man (bless his heart) on a small airplane.  Frankly, the first several months of feeding Katherine were trying enough to make me very much inclined to enjoy the ease of feeding her now.  But I don’t think it’s helpful for breastfeeding mothers to adopt a crude “Get over it, people,” attitude when the rest of our culture teaches that that part of a woman’s body is there for only one purpose–and that one is not breastfeeding.  It would be nice, in other words, if one could feed one’s child without having the creepy sensation of having accidentally taken part in a line-drawing cultural skirmish.

Erin

Sleep is a bit of an issue these days.  Mom goes with baby to bed between 10 and 11, leaving Daddy to work.  Sometimes Mommy joins Daddy in working after baby’s asleep.  Then both parents go to bed.  Then baby decides that that’s the night to wake a bit more often than usual, not just at 5:30 and 7:30.  Mommy rises early to work, leaving Daddy not to sleep but to guard baby, who is (we hope) sleeping.  Although the time we spend in bed is sometimes long enough (7-8 hours), the sleep is usually cobbled together from bits and pieces left over from the interruptions in those hours.  Not the best preparation for long days of work and Katherine care.  Kudos to those of you who mix a toddler’s sleep schedule with an infant’s: an early-to-bed but horrifically early-to-rise would just be a bit much for us right now.

Katherine is currently 17 pounds–a good 5-7 more than our cat, who is starting to look a bit worried about her competition.  Poor thing: kind of sad to realize in the middle of life that you’re all fluff and nothing solid, right?

Erin

I am generally a fan of big fat books, but my teaching has recently made me reconsider short stories and the like.  I mean, how many 900-page novels could you assign in a freshman class, anyway?  So out of that has grown two book recommendations:

Lightman, Alan.  Einstein’s Dreams.  A beautifully-written book about different conceptions of time.  If you’re a physics brain you’ll love it; if you’re an art brain you’ll love it.  Each of the sketches of time is something like 3 pages, and there 30 in all.  And did I mention that it’s short?

Lennon, J. Robert.  Pieces for the Left Hand.  A collection of very short (2-3 pages) stories about weird stuff that happens in life.  Very funny and very enjoyable.  Oh yes, and short.

For those of us who don’t have time to do much reading these days . . .

Erin

P.S. Any recommendations to throw my way?

I decided to delete my facebook account today.  I don’t do much on it, but kept it open to keep track of friends who don’t regularly send out Christmas cards or keep me apprised of addresses when they move.  But it’s easy to lurk, spending some time each day checking up on my friends who are much more active.  Now that life’s getting pretty busy around here I decided it was high time to streamline.

But Facebook doesn’t want me to leave.

I knew it was creepy, but now I’m really creeped out.  In selecting my reasons for leaving, little notes would suddenly appear, assuring me that no, it was indeed a safe place to be if you adjusted your settings or no, there need be no reason for it to suck up your time.  Creepy.

And even when deleting I had to log back in (for which it thanked me!) to choose another option to make sure my account was permanently deleted . . . which will take place in two weeks, in case I change my mind between now and then.

I couldn’t have come up with a better way of ensuring that I would run away as fast as I could.

Erin

Katherine’s new thing is learning about all the different sounds she can make with her mouth.  The wet buzzing of lips is something she’ll do for hours at a time (with a look of fierce concentration).  If we’re not careful she’ll be a trombonist.  But she also gets  a kick out of watching us make sounds.  So pops, fizzes, clicks, the dramatic rolling of “r”s, and all manner of strange sounds can be heard around our apartment.  It’s too bad we don’t know more languages.  And it’s too bad we have forgotten how to be silly little kids who spend hours making rude sounds when their mothers aren’t around–not that we would have been the best examples of that, anyway.  I’m tempted to get out my phonetic alphabet from long-ago linguistics classes to remind me of more things to say.  But that might be just a bit too nerdy.

Erin

After four hours, two trips to the post office, nearly a hundred dollars, and a lot of standing in line, we have now submitted the paperwork for Katherine’s passport.  She, naturally, remained sunny throughout the whole affair while her parents seethed silently as we watched all kinds of inefficiencies unfold before us.  When asked if she, an American citizen, was submitting this form with full knowledge and having never committed crimes listed in some code or other, she demonstrated her latest trick: she made wet fizzing sounds at the postal official.

Erin

Many thanks for the birthday wishes (by phone, facebook, email, card).  I now have one more year separating me from my students.

Sydney began the morning by telling me we’d be taking the day off.  We had a nice, leisurely morning at home (with much hugging and squeezing of Katherine and the cat, who both loved the attention).  I now see why the parents get the big bed: it ends up housing the whole family!

Sydney then led us on a walk in the woods near where we live; I’d never been on the trail before, and found myself smitten.  I loved the beech trees that seemed to be everywhere, and Sydney looked hard at a lot of the wild mushrooms that showed up in various textures and colors–he’s been on a portabella kick recently. I have been begging for family walks and hikes, so this was a real treat for me.  And Sydney carried Katherine in the backpack, so I got a free and easy walk.

On the way home we stopped by the orchard store to pick up another big load of peaches and plums, and we stopped by the garden, where Sydney collected two gigantic bouquets of gladioli and zinnias for me to take home.

We then had a bit of time at home to give Katherine a bath and dress her up before we headed to the philosophy start-of-the-year party.  As you can imagine, Katherine was a hit.  Her funny facial expressions and her good grip even got a few laughs out of the young, single guys.

And then we headed to the grocery store and loaded up on as much good food as we could find to help us get through the next few weeks of craziness.

The best birthday present?  Christi came in pretty close by giving me a beautiful, whimsical teapot that was made by a friend of hers and that I’ve admired numerous times.  But Katherine wins out: rather than leaving me sprawled out on the couch with morning sickness as I was for my birthday last year, she was for me yesterday the picture of health and happiness.  After our first week of splitting parenting duties in order to get some work done, I was very, very glad to have a day with both members of my little family and be able to just sit back and enjoy their company.

Erin

Katherine is currently enjoying her first afternoon playing with Jenny Pastor, a good friend who will be babysitting one afternoon a week for us.  I asked Sydney as we pulled out of the driveway, “I’m supposed to cry now, right?”  He was horrified at the thought  🙂 But no, no interest in crying.  I know Katherine will get more attention and more patience from Jenny than she will from me, so it’s great that she gets to spend time with good people!

And it was kind of nice to drive to school and walk the campus with Sydney again, just like old times.  It’s hard to forget that classes start tomorrow: the students are all over campus, and we heard various forms of the whine, “Eww, it’s raining!” as we walked down the street.  I’m currently rewriting a dissertation chapter in the library, where I can hear the marching band drumming up (literally, and loudly) new members in a performance on the quad.

Erin

Life as we know it has ended.  They always say that to you when you have a baby, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the life-ending comes a bit later, when your child begins to be mobile.  Until just recently, I could lay Katherine on a blanket on her back on the counter (I’m RIGHT THERE, so don’t worry) and entertain her by washing dishes, cooking, and playing with her feet.  Talk about cheap entertainment!  She especially liked the flashing knives.

But yesterday I came back from a meeting to be greeted with “She’s learned a new trick.”  Now Katherine, if put on her stomach, pushes up onto her forearms, slides back a few inches, and then collapses onto her chest.  When she repeats this over and over again (which she does with maddening intensity) she can move herself backwards across the floor.  So much for putting her on the floor on a cute blanket and watching her play.  And, given how close she is to rolling over, no more counter time.  In fact, no more fun for Mom and Dad, who very much liked being able to play with their little girl on a surface higher than the hard floor!

I also ran into a bunch of colleagues yesterday, many of whom haven’t seen me in six months or so.  I got lots of excited, “Is there a baby?”  It felt very odd replying “Yes!”; I didn’t want to give them a heart attack, but I don’t think we have a baby on our hands any more.  One look at those tense little legs and it’s pretty clear that we’re well on our way to a much bigger problem.

Erin