The First Kiddos' First Day of School

Photos here.  Via Politico.

We're SO Down With the Young People

On a total lark last night, we went to see Twilight.  The Kiddo had just fallen asleep hard in the Ergo, and T and I were wandering around on a post-dinner stroll, thinking about how nice it would be to see a movie.  Alas, we figured we would have to wait a while for anything we wanted to see, and by the time we waited for something to start, the Kiddo would surely be awake and ready to party.  But since we were just a block away from our neighborhood cinema, we decided to check the shows and times for the heck of it.  Scanning the board, we were un-enthused by our options (Bedtime Stories or The Spirit, anyone?  I didn't think so).  But then, it hit us -- a showing of Twilight was starting at that moment!  This would be an opportunity to check out a pop culture phenomenon -- and if the Kiddo were to wake up, it would be no big loss to leave.

Well, despite our less-than hopeful expectations, we loved it!  The Kiddo slept soundly through the whole thing, the first time that has happened since he was like, three months old (granted, I had to stand in the back isle and bounce the whole time, but whatevs!).

We enjoyed every cheesy-romantic-fun-creepy-over-the-top moment of the movie.  I almost want to see it again, like all the twelve-year-olds are doing!

Beautiful Babywearing Image of the Day

From the book, Women from Finland and Mozambique.  Via the wonderful Rosa Pomar.

A Dreamy Love

My beautiful friend Joanna is getting married.  Over the holidays she and her fiancee, Alex, had their engagement photos shot by the amazing Max Wanger.  Aren't they just delightful?  Yay for love!

Tribute to a Founding Mother of La Leche League

Photo:  La Leche League, via NY Times.  Froehlich is pictured on the far right.

I'm still catching up on my reading of the last couple of weeks of NY Times papers that piled up while we were out of town for the holidays, which is why it was just yesterday that I stumbled upon this wonderful piece in the December 28 Magazine section.  A moving tribute to Edwina Froehlich, a founder of La Leche League who passed away in 2008, the article does a wonderful job of detailing the groundbreaking work of this woman and the other original members of the group, which was founded in 1956.  A couple of excerpts:

Froehlich and her six friends, all Catholic housewives, created La Leche League and called for mothers to wrest control back from the experts. They insisted that breast-feeding was better than the bottle — more natural, more nutritional, more sustaining of deep mother-baby attachment — long before the feminist health movement or the medical establishment did so.

The seven founders had 55 children among them. Their husbands worked while they volunteered for the group, toddlers at their feet. But Froehlich and her friends also read Betty Friedan’s “Feminist Mystique” and thought of themselves as early feminists. Their living-room meetings anticipated the consciousness-raising groups of the women’s movement. La Leche urged mothers to toss aside housework to spend more time with their children and to feel good in their bodies. The group’s emphasis on natural food spoke to the Whole Earth crowd. “It was very funny to us that breast-feeding was seen as a hippie thing to do, when those of us who started it were staid middle-class ladies,” Marian Tompson, one of the five surviving La Leche founders, told me.

Read the entire story here, and visit the La Leche League website to learn more about the group, and find breastfeeding support and resources.

Must-See-TV Alert

Tonight on ABC's 20/20:

Breastfeeding Beyond Infancy: A Mom Talks About Her Decision to Continue Breastfeeding Her Older Children

Mothers To-Be Saying "No" to Modern Medicine: A Small But Growing Number of Women Choose to Give Birth At Home

Labor Orgasms Called "Best-Kept-Secret": Moms, Experts Say Relaxation Is Key to Pleasurable Childbirth

Click on the above links for detailed articles based on the 20/20 stories, as well as video highlights.

I'm sure the coverage of these issues won't be 100% positive, but I still think it's progress to see conversations about extended breastfeeding and home birth in the mainstream media.  If you watch tonight's episode at 10 pm EST, let me know what you think by leaving a comment here!

UPDATE (1.3.09):  I didn't get to watch the show last night, but I am reading reactions to it in the blogosphere this morning. Check out the rather scathing review of Crunchy Domestic Goddess, here.  Thoughts?

Photo via WeHeartIt.

Breastfeeding Moms Vs. Facebook on CBS Early Show

On Wednesday, the CBS Early Show did a segment covering the ongoing bruhaha over breastfeeding photos on Facebook. It features guest Andi Silverman of the blog Mama Knows Breast, who does an excellent job of defending our right to breastfeed in public. Check it out:

Also, I found a great link to a site which is posting many of the photos banned from Facebook. It is breathtaking and angering to see what Facebook has deemed "indecent" and removed from members' personal profiles.  View the gallery of offending images here.