I’m surfing the net while my daughter plays with stickers, and she sees an article I’m looking at about a woman breastfeeding in this month’s Italian ELLE.  Here’s the pic, courtesy of Babble:

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Here’s one for the “I Can’t Believe We Needed A Study To Tell Us This” file: an article I read this morning from lactationmatters.org, entitled “Do Interruptions Interfere with Early Breastfeeding?”

I don’t mean that the article was stupid (at all!), and in fact, there’s something validating that someone actually recorded how frikkin’ often new moms and their babies are interrupted while they’re still in the hospital.  Want to know how many times? 

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New moms in the MOMs group often ask about airline travel with their babies.  It’s challenging to deal with the packing, and the logistics, and figuring out what to do with the car seat, and pouring your mouthwash and shampoo into those ridiculous little 3 ounce bottles.  But for nursing moms, TSA anti-terrorism rules have sometimes made it even more confusing and complicated.  I think we’ve all heard of moms who were told to pour out the expressed breast milk they’d worked so hard to pump, or moms who had to “prove” that their breast milk was real (and not a bomb?  WTF?) by drinking it in front of the TSA Official.  I don’t think there’s anything inherently nasty or wrong with tasting your own breastmilk, but somehow being forced to do it while a snickering Security Dude watched always seemed totally humiliating and just weird and wrong.

But! here are new rules from TSA which seem to clear things up, and which specifically say you don’t have to drink your own breastmilk to get on board.  The new rules say that moms can bring breastmilk on the flight, even if the bottle has more than 3 ounces, as long as she follows a few procedures:

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Here’s a funny post about what we yearn for during pregnancy — she calls it “Porn for Pregnant Ladies” but it’s totally safe for work and it’s a little hilarious — images of famously hot actors saying just what you want to hear when you’re great with child.  I think my fave is Jon Hamm:  

but this one is a close second:

what’s your favorite?  See them all at http://pregnantchicken.squarespace.com/pregnant-chicken-blog/2012/1/17/porn-for-pregnant-ladies.html

Hi folks!

There’s space available in both my Chelsea new moms’ group (which starts today!) and the Tribeca new moms’ group, which starts next Tuesday.  

New moms’ groups are a great place to meet likeminded people, relax a little with your baby, and learn a few things.  Here’s an email I got from one of the moms just last night!

Thank you for a great class. I thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie, as well your insight, knowledge, humor and overall delivery (you are so articulate!) And, I am now a regular reader of your blog, which I really enjoy.

 So, recently I wrote an essay about a time I was given a sex toy, instead of cash, in exchange for teaching a class.  (Funnily enough, just around the same time, there was an article on TDB about sex toys not only going mainstream but even being marketed for Extremely Religious People.  Isn’t it weird how a topic gets into the ether?

 Now, my essay wasn’t an x-rated review of sex toys, nor was it in any way explicit about my own sex life.  Really, it was about navigating the way one’s identity changes over the course of a long relationship and after parenthood.  Nevertheless, the Surprise Guest Star of the essay was a vibrating cock ring, and in response to publishing it, I got a lot of reactions that basically boiled down to:

“!!!”

One of the reactions was from a friend who expressed concern that using sex toys would “desensitize” a person to “regular” sex, become addictive, and, generally, transform something that should be wonderful and natural into something artificial and bad. 

I found I had an immediate, visceral reaction to this, which was, just, NO. There are lots of things can be used in a harmful way, but that doesn’t make the thing itself bad or dangerous. 

I said to her, “I think it doesn’t have to be that way.  Like, usually, I make roast chicken plain, but sometimes I change it up and use lemon and oregano.  The fact that sometimes I use oregano doesn’t make me not like having it plain anymore.”

My friend looked at me like I’d just thrown the easiest out-of-the-ballpark homerun pitch ever and said, “Mer.  Sex is not like chicken.”

I thought about that for a long time.

I concluded that in fact sex is quite like chicken:

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I mean this in the most loving way, but:  Toddlers are crazy.  

Like babies, they are inconsistent, irrational, and loud, and they can’t really do anything for themselves.  Unlike babies, they can move around, talk (back) to you and leave a path of destruction through your home.   

Once you know how to deal with them, though?  They’re actually a lot of fun.

SO:  Come to this Toddler Parenting Workshop and we will discuss:

• why your child resists getting her teeth brushed and what to do when she shuts her mouth tight and you’re standing there feeling useless.

• why your iPhone is the most appealing thing to him, and how to navigate his desire to use it 24/7.

• what to do when she screams in an attempt to prevent you from having a conversation with your spouse. Ever.

• how to cope with the daily throw-down when you tell him it’s time to put on his coat.

• dirty secrets about bedtime and nighttime.

• picky eating and food-fights.

• playground politics, navigating friendships among toddlers and their parents and caregivers, and

• new-sibling issues.

Fun stuff, right?  But I tell you — when you can understand what’s going on inside the Toddler Mind, you can make sense of it and have a little of your sanity back, without worrying that you’re creating a future monster.  It can even be really delightful.  

Here are the details:  Toddler Workshop:  Saturday, Feb 11, 2012, 10-12noon, Kinected Center, 151 W 19th Street, 2nd Floor.  $50 or $60/couple.  To register, click the paypal link to the left that says “Older Baby Workshop.”  

Discount for former students who bring a full-paying friend!  Email me for more info at meredith (at) amotherisborn (dot) com.

Kinected is a wonderful resource for pregnant women and new moms:  find out more here.

You may bring your child, but most parents find it easier to concentrate if their little one isn’t along.

My friend Jessica Lang Kosa, PhD, IBCLC, a lactation consultant in the Boston area, and general new-mom-bad-ass, recently linked to this great post from Bay Area Breastfeeding, LLC, which tells new moms when to seek help for a breastfeeding problem.  It’s a good check list, and reminded me that I’ve been meaning to blog about how new moms sometimes need help sorting out what kind of help would help.

I find that new parents’ needs tend to fall into three categories, in ascending order of prevalence:  clinical help, information, and general support.  Let’s talk about how you can get all those needs met.

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