The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature from Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Finally, after years and years of buying gladiola bulbs and letting them languish in the mudroom, only to be thrown away, I planted a set by the compost bins! And amazingly, these flowers grew! Isn't Nature something else?
(Do you like the vase hack?)
NB: Please share this giveaway of The Little Oratory: A Beginner's Guide to Praying in the Home with your friends, from sweet Bonnie from A Knotted Life. She has information about a talk I'm giving in her neck of the woods in the greater Peoria, Illinois, area. If you are there, I'd love to see you!
This week's links:
- Despite the scratchy film reel and low picture quality, you will no doubt find inspiration in this video of Hellen Keller with her instructor Anne Sullivan, in which Sullivan demonstrates how Keller learned to speak. The intimacy and patience between these two is remarkable!
A few thoughts that Deirdre found helpful about toting babies:
- Deirdre says, “Speaking of carrying baby in the carseat: in the winter, the nicely bundled carseat seemed the best way to transfer baby from car to indoors to avoid chills. But I had to face several staircases before I'd reach the Side Pocket, and then once I was there, of course, I wouldn't want to put the baby down to go make another trip to the car to pick up other bundles and bags. So, I'd free up shoulder and hand space by draping the carseat handle over my forearm and do the whole lug in one go. A friend kindly inconvenienced me by informing me that I was risking doing damage to my arm's nerves and that whole side of my body. So I just had to find other ways to consolidate, and got back to a proper carseat hold.”
- It turns out that a baby carrier can help counter the effects of bone loss from breastfeeding!
- Any moms of new babies suffering carpel tunnel pain? Here's a guide to stretches for wrist pain relief.
Otherwise:
- Modesty as Best Policy from National Review. The author references the book A Return to Modesty, which we at LMLD strongly recommend, although be forewarned, it has “content.” I wouldn't give it to a teenager, for instance. Just read it yourself and let the iron enter your soul.
- Think that the trans-gender agenda has nothing really to do with you? Think again. Stella Morabito has been doing some writing on the topic, and what she has to say is thought-provoking. And that's the point. The agenda is aimed at your thoughts.
- Our friend Marie, granddaughter of one of the founders of La Leche League, directed us to this article on how our culture skews the outcome on breastfeeding with the words we use. It's a good piece that should be read in light of the thoughts on modesty linked above. Since I read it I've been thinking about how the standards we have for our children's bodies (that is, our standards for conduct, or modesty) will absolutely affect their health and that of their babies. The problem of how we came so far from knowing how to feed a baby is a deep one.
That brings me to the archives: we have a lot of discussion about nursing the baby. There is so much information out there, but I wanted to say one particular thing, which is that nursing a baby isn't about getting a certain kind of nutrition into him, worthy as that is. You can nurse a baby even if you are one of the rare ones who can't breastfeed a baby! You'll find good tips and encouragement in the posts and in the comments, so I do urge you to take a look.
Today is the feast of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein!
~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~
Juliana @ Urban Simplicity says
The breastfeeding article is thought-provoking, to be sure, but it annoys me when breastfeeding experts try to tout the whole “bottle fed children have poorer outcomes” baloney, because most studies that compare bottle and breastfeeding are looking at two completely different socio-economic populations, which skew the results rather severely. When you compare breastfed vs. bottle fed siblings, however, or similar socio-economic groups who bottle and breastfeed, outcomes even out exactly the same. I’m not saying we shouldn’t prefer breastfeeding as a culture, and work to make breastfeeding normal and normative, as there are many benefits, but for those of us for whom exclusive breastfeeding is not an option, it doesn’t help to give us mothers another thing to feel guilty about.
HC says
I could not agree more! I found the tone of the breastfeeding article obnoxious. Some of my siblings were breastfed, others were not, and I would challenge anyone to find a difference between us. Formula is amazing! It has saved the lives of countless babies. We are so lucky to live in a time when we do not have to feed bread mushed in water to babies who are unable to be breastfed. The way to get more people to breastfeed is to maintain the collective memory, not to imply that formula fed babies are somehow damaged.
I love the babywearing though! People raised their eyebrows when I bought a convertible car seat, but I never wanted to even have the option of carrying my baby in it. I always see moms doing such dangerous things with car seat babies! Like putting them at the tops of stairs! Or perched up on top of the grocery cart! Babywearing is great for keeping baby happy while running errands and you aren’t at risk for throwing out your back.
Kelsey says
I actually loved the breastfeeding article. I think we need more people to speak out boldly on issues like these. (And like the sundry LGBT issues – eek.) I struggled mightily to establish a nursing relationship with my daughter during the first two months of her life, and it was probably the most difficult thing – emotionally and physically – that I’ve ever done. I pumped and bottle-fed her my expressed milk for those two months, until finally, by the grace of God, we figured things out. Now, at 12 months, she’s still happily nursing, though I am 15 weeks pregnant. I am grateful for the perspective that the whole experience gave me. If I had been in a different situation – less support, the pressure of returning to work, less stubborn about nursing, etc. – I could very well have stopped pumping (which is exhausting) and just started on formula. I get it. I also get the guilt factor. BUT – I love that the article attempted to separate our desire to protect everyone’s feelings from our responsibility to provide accurate information. I was both nursed and formula-fed as a baby; so was my brother. We have seasonal allergies and such, but are otherwise healthy. I know plenty of fabulous mothers who bottle feed – human milk or formula – all for different reasons. It doesn’t determine the salvation of your soul or that of your child. Mothers who use formula are not inadequate mothers, but it does everyone a disservice when we treat the two “feeding options” as just that – equal options. Formula is amazing; so are blood transfusions and prosthetic limbs, but who would ever treat those two medical necessities as equal to or even desirable over the natural alternative?
HC says
Wow, that sounds like what happened with my daughter! Except that my body did not respond to the pump, or a nipple shield, or fenugreek, so my supply dried up when she was 3 months old. I live in the state with the highest rate of breastfeeding and I had my midwife and doula, a lactation consultant, an ENT, and two pediatricians all helping me out, but it still didn’t work out.
I believe the best way to get more women breastfeeding is to…breastfeed! Expose your children to breastfeeding in the home. Expose society to breastfeeding in public. Maybe it is because I live in such a great place for breastfeeding, but the change in thinking this article proposes seems like beating a dead horse. This is 2014! Not 1950. Nobody seriously still believes formula is just as good as breastmilk…do they?
Kimberlee says
Wow – this week is packed with deep links concerning life, the universe, and everything.
On babywearing – I can still recall the sight of my brother walking up to a family picnic carrying his infant daughter in a brand new contraption- a plastic seat device with a handle. It was so newfangled, I remember the shock of seeing him just striding casually with the baby strapped in there. Everyone sort of gasped a little, like What is that thing? And he explained, it’s Something New. That was about thirty years ago. Years later, as young parents, my dh and I would observe the Seat Babies in church – the ones not held but left to sit in their car seats throughout Mass, perhaps with a toy dangled over them. And we would marvel how they just sat there, obviously used to it. And just a couple weeks ago I was in a doctor’s office and my teen daughter was horrified at the sight of the lady who walked in with a baby in a car seat carrier, accompanied by a preschooler trotting along holding an ipad in front of the infant’s face as she went. What’s next?
The articles on the benefits of actually holding your baby were indeed interesting, but along the lines of what your friend Marie was saying in the breastfeeding article, it’s curious that everything that used to be the perfectly natural norm now has to be explained and sold to young mothers as Scientifically Proven as Best.
On modesty – I found it interesting in Something Other Than God how Jennifer linked the degenerating lack of modesty in society to the contraceptive culture.
On the trans agenda – Society is going Completely Mad now and I sure hope the Lord comes back soon. Someone please tell the king he’s not wearing any clothes…
Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini, qui fecit coelum et terram.
Thanks for all the thought provoking links, and have a great weekend!
BridgetAnn says
Re: Babywearing > car seat carrying… it also helps save money! My husband and I opted for a “convertible” car seat (non-carrier but can be used much past newborn & infant stages) as I had heard that the carrier ones don’t last too long weight-wise (at least in our “big baby” family ;), and we wanted a long life out of the car seat. I use a wrap-style carrier that I put on myself before leaving the house and just “pop” my son in when we arrive at church, the store, etc. It actually makes shopping easier too as I have use of both hands & don’t have to worry about putting him in a cart.
Shannon G says
Oh, how ironic that you bring up breastfeeding (and LLL, even) directly after Stella Morabito on the transgender phenomenon. Did you know that LLL has succumbed to transgender activism and is now allowing breastfeeding men to apply for LLL Leadership? I’ve built a little website where you can learn more & sign a petition, if you are so inclined. (And yes, that is my letter of resignation posted there.)
Leila says
Yes, Shannon, I do realize! It’s heartbreaking and just another example of how the LGBT movement will stop at nothing to advance their agenda. Their destructive actions include barging into anything and everything, just to force people to stop thinking.
It’s PC tyranny and the only thing that will be an effective defense is a clear willingness to tell the TRUTH.
Good for you to stand up against it in this corner of yours!
Mrs. B. says
I beg your pardon, but what does “breastfeeding men” even mean?? It’s an impossibility – like a flying pig…
I think this is the most frustrating aspect of fighting back: we don’t even share the same vocabulary anymore, how do we hope to communicate, how can we be understood?
Virginia says
Seriously. I’m kind of terrified to talk to new people because I don’t feel like I share the same vocabulary and I never know whether I’ll unknowingly alienate someone!
Regarding carseats as carriers, when my great-grandma began to see all the young parents bringing their babies to baptisms in car seats she said, “Why are they all bringing their babies on platters?” My understanding is that the first of the removable carseats looked more like casserole carriers than the current incarnation.
Shannon G says
It would help if I remember to paste the link! http://mothersbreastfeed.wordpress.com/
Mrs. B. says
Thank you for this! I had no idea…
Barbara says
As an older mother, I have seen the transition from carrying baby in one’s arms to carrying baby in a car seat. My first child had an early mobile car seat but it stayed in the car most of the time. I looked at babies in church, and still do, and see them in their car seats throughout the entire Mass, or until they fuss sufficiently, and think of it as a lost opportunity for mother or father to have some cuddling time. Babies need to be held, which is why God made them immobile. To young mothers, I would say, “Carry baby as much as you can, or use a device to wear him and you will have a much more contented baby.”
Mrs. B. says
Wow, I wish my baby stayed in the car seat throughout the entire Mass! How come he only lasts 15 minutes? 😉 My rule #1 is never to disturb a sleeping baby: if that means keeping him in the car seat for part of the Mass, car seat it is – a welcome change for me, actually, as I can concentrate on the liturgy much better. There are 24 hours in a day to cuddle with baby: 20 minutes in church, or even a whole hour, are nothing to worry about.
Becky says
Oh! Those stretches are wonderful! My carpal tunnel started with my first pregnancy and still flares on occasion. I’ve found it is often directly linked to water retention and is a good indicator that I need to drink more. I will even resort to the terrifyingly colored Gatorade but a couple of those and then some consistent water drinking often helps significantly. It’s just so easy to get behind on your water when you are pregnant and chasing small people! 🙂
wendy says
With this new series on nursing the baby I thought I’d click over and check out some of this old stuff. Thought I would let you know that I wasn’t able to get the LLL link to work. Thanks for what you do – this is such a great resource.