My favorite link for breastfeeding related information is www.kellymom.com. It is a wealth of knowledge and organized well to boot.
Posted in culture, parental ponderings
The theme of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week is breastfeeding and the family table. One of the biggest ways this affects parents is when to start solids. The American Academy of Pediatrics used to give the green light to starting rice cereal at 4 months, but they have changed their tune and now recommend a full six months of exclusive breastfeeding before starting any solids. Continue reading
Posted in culture, parental ponderings
This week is World Breastfeeding Week! As a nursing mom, I am excited about this chance to share in an event with mothers around the world. Yes, I’m 18.5 weeks pregnant and still nursing Kate, who will be 13 months old this week. There are lots of benefits to nursing beyond the first year, which you can read about here. In spite of the amazing benefits of breastfeeding and how easy and cost effective it is, it’s still looked down upon in our culture to some extent, which is a shame. Breastfeeding is God’s design for nutrition for infants and beyond.
Posted in culture, parental ponderings
I hadn’t even finished the preface to Real Sex before I breathed a sigh of relief and thanksgiving that someone had finally written this book. Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity is a book that has been needed for quite some time, and Lauren Winner was up to the task. I read and thoroughly enjoyed her first two books (Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath) and am glad that she used her gifts at bringing the theological, historical, sociological and personal together in a compelling way on the subject of chastity. Continue reading
When people talk about the difficulties of parenting an infant, the first thing that’s generally discussed is what happens at night. Having survived the first year of nighttime parenting and getting ready to go there again in less than six months, I want to record some thoughts and observations I picked up this year to remind myself as I go through it again and to share with others who are in the trenches.
Sleep has always been an idol for me. I’m not a morning person. I slept through more than one exam (and once, a final!) in college because sleep overcame me, in spite of setting multiple alarms. I’ve also slept through hurricanes and riots, but who’s keeping score? I hated the sleep interruptions being big and pregnant brought and I dreaded nighttime parenting long before Kate made her debut.
God made infants incredibly light sleepers. Not only are their sleep cycles much shorter, giving them more opportunities to rouse, they go through twice as much light, active (REM) sleep as adults do. This may be a mystery to you akin to “why do mosquitoes exist?” but God designed them this way to help them survive. Continue reading
Posted in culture, parental ponderings
All those in search of Joan, Joanne, John, Jonathan and Johann Dean, please stop calling our home. Whoever that is hasn’t lived here in over a year. In spite of the fact that I have told every single caller (a) I don’t know that person (b) they don’t live here and (c) take that name and number off your list, I get more calls now than ever before. Stop selling that name and number amongst yourselves!
We’ve only had a tv for about six months, so these are all recent acquisitions.
CSI
Desperate Housewives
Gilmore Girls (on DVD only, no WB in Richmond)
Grey’s Anatomy
House
The Scholar
Without a Trace
Posted in culture
Three other female college graduates and I have started a blog about why we appreciate higher education for women. Well, they started it and invited me to join in :o) One has a Ph.D and another has a Master’s degree; three are stay at home moms and another works outside the home. But we all value college education for women.
Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz is hard to categorize. It’s a rambling, personal memoir written about one man’s spiritual journey. The subtitle is “Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality,” and I think that’s a candid summary of the book itself. Blue Like Jazz isn’t biblical exposition or systematic theology, it’s one man’s musings on some topics related to faith. Continue reading