get that rabbi out of my bra

I’m almost bored with myself on the subject (how’s that for an attention-getting first sentence?), but I just could not, could not, let this go.

Naturally, someone sent me a link to this beliefnet article
Sigh. Okay, with a leetle spin, you can see that he’s making a good point: nourish the marriage as well as the baby. Yes, that’s important. But he’s also offering a line to the jealous husband (more on that jealousy in a moment), to say that the marriage trumps the baby’s need to breastfeed.

What irks me is that this wolf is wearing halachik (Judaic law) clothing. It is a common misconception among religious Jewish women that either, a. you cannot use an electric breastpump on the Sabbath/jewish holidays or b. if you do use one, you must ‘pump and dump,’ tossing out the milk that you produce, instead of feeding it to the baby. The reasoning behind a. is that using electricity is forbidden on the Sabbath, but b. it’s okay to use electricity because it’s a matter of the mother’s health to pump, as unemptied breasts become engorged breasts, and there is a risk of mastitis (shudder).

But what about c.? C. is the part where we say that the mother should not only pump on the Sabbath with the electric pump, but feed the milk to the baby, because the baby’s health and well-being depend on it, too. Some rabbis have ruled that, based on ‘pikuach nefesh,’ or the preservation of life, that c. is acceptable. More so, where pikuach nefesh is concerned, c. is actually necessary - it's (wait for it) the law. So ruling c. means making a big statement about the significance of breastmilk, and don’t kid yourself – religion’s stance here says a lot about the social positioning of the rabbi in question. The first guy to really give c. credibility was a major rabbinic figure – anyone lesser ruling c. ran the risk of being called a hippie radical. I know of one major rabbinic figure in NY who is considering the halachik witness protection plan because an infuriated lactation consultant lives (and worships) in his area. He has all but admitted to c., but won’t rule publicly – thus the ire.

Okay, so is the marriage more important than the preservation of life? I refer you now to the question of jealousy. And this delightful response to the rabbinic busybody by Armin Brott, an author whose book I happily bought for the partner when we were expecting the Eldest. The father’s adjustment to the baby is a tough one, make no mistake, especially when the mother is breastfeeding. He was sidelined during the wedding, during the pregnancy he was support staff and local punching bag, and now he’s what, the water boy? Yippee ki yi yay. So yes, this will make a man southernly limp – and give him a sense that he’s being badly done by.

If, of course, he’s unprepared to grow up and be a parent. Because, of course, as the mother has long since discovered pre-baby-arrival, babies are ruthless about extracting their due. Get kicked in the liver enough by your unborn child and you come to realize that it’s not all about you, you are just the chauffeur. For fathers, I suspect that the physical reality of having to dramatically shift priorities and foci comes later, and most harshly when the baby is out and all she wants to do is….sleep?

A brief pause here, while we review the significance of sleep. I refer you to this blatant exhibition of greed, with specific reference to item three. Sleep has trumped food in my house, and I've walked away from mouthwatering meals to...dream about them. Oh, ye gods and little diapers, what I wouldn't do for five consecutive hours. No, for four.

Given the immaturity and selfishness of this hypothetical male attitude (and I do respect a good bit of selfishness, don’t get me wrong, even grumping about said selfishness – it’s when you take it out on others that it irks me), I really, really regret this next part: because, of course, the rabbi is right. Marriages do need to be nourished, and when there’s a new baby is when they are most likely to be starved, as well as most likely to be fragile.

What’s that irritating Johnson and Johnson ad? Babies change everything? Okay, they do. Ruthlessly. Let’s summon the echo of my man here and talk numbers: 50% of marriages end in divorce. With kids, the stakes rise, you have less time to communicate, greater need of support – this is the great flaw in having children right off the bat after you pop a ring on each other, because your support systems aren’t fully developed, you haven’t got strong habits of nurturing and caring for each other, solid communication strategies – all of which is going to be hit by Tsunami Baby, so if it’s not strong, it’s toast. Strong just gives you good foundations on which to rebuilt, anyway.

With a baby with a major chronic medical issue, the numbers are worse: 70% of those marriages end in divorce, post-diagnosis. If the stakes go up with a baby, they are high beyond conception with a baby with medical needs. So, okay, here it is: if the marriage survives, it’s because of the foundations you laid before the baby was born, healthy or complex. Especially not because some whiner imposed his needs between the mother and child – not only is that not a great choice, medically speaking, it’s pure idiocy where the lifespan of the marriage is concerned. Trust me that as grudges go, He Made Me Stop Nursing So He Could Get Laid – it’s a doozy. I’d rather send him down the hall with a box of tissues and a magazine, but when you wrap that whine up in religious excuse, who can argue with you?

Apparently not Reb BusyBody's poor wife. Jeez.

Sex is dead in the American bedroom, they say, and oh no! We must resurrect it, apparently even at the cost of the relationship. Oh, no, wait – it was the relationship that we were trying to protect all along. Oh, no, wait – it was the American family. Phooey.

I can only speak for myself here, but post-baby sex? With the man who supported me, the man who stepped up to parent a fragile, complicated child? Who backed me to the hilt through a second pregnancy and VBAC? (I can feel the MIL cringing, so I’ll be a good girl here.) Oh, it’s good. It’s better than it’s ever been, and ooh yes I'll stay awake for that.

Mneh. Words are cheap, navel-gazing words the cheapest of all. I think I’ll just go off and prove it, instead. Again. Heh.

the mama's wishlist

My apologies to anyone who actually reads this blog, while I take this opportunity to post my birthday wishlist.

The history of the wishlist goes like this:
What on earth made you think that brass dachsunds were a good anniversary gift?
(infuriated shrug)
(infuriated shrugger produces other frustrated gift-givers, all of whom indicate similar irkedness or boredom)
Fine. What do you want me to do?
Create a wishlist. (infuriated shrugger stomps out of the room)

This was three years ago. I have never created a wishlist a. because they seem kind of crass and b. because I don't really tend to crave things. However, with the arrival of the babes, I have discovered that I don't tend to crave things because I have hitherto engaged in commercial happy-happies, and bought moderately priced things first at whim and then (after the Eldest came) at carefully timed whim.

Having said that, I actually have a problem with birthday gifts. I think that giving children lots of presents on their birthday obscures the celebration, turning it into loot-day, thinly excused by it's being a birth-day. In my family, we gave one gift from the family, more or less, and had a nice dinner. Years on, we'd have the obligatory birthday party, but I have no real recollection of presents piling up. Just kids having fun. It's a good way to go, and I'm delighted to say that we just started the babes' college fund, courtesy of the grandparentals. Happy happy, kiddo, here's to your future. How can you beat that?

However (listen carefully here - this is the clever bit) I feel that as a responsible adult, I can probably handle it. Yes, I, as a mature, responsible (did I say 'mature?' snigger) adult (definition of 'adult': person who for some ungodly and probably ill-considered reason is responsible for the health and general well being of others), can handle greed. Er, gifts.

So, anyone actually wanting to read this blog, I suggest that you move on to here or possibly the more disorganized offering here. Anyone else, here we go (in no particular order):

West Elm credit. I've been longing for some of those black, sleek photo ledges to replace a big space hog, and can't quite decide on what length and how many...at least two of them, maybe 3 feet long? maybe one 3 feet and one 2 feet? I'm fairly certain that I could make up my mind if I had the funds, though!

A new Circulon pot, sized for pasta and smaller batch soups. Mine died this past year, and I do miss it so.

a full night's sleep. No, really. Preferably sans the guilt from knowing that the babes will be furiously howling for his favorite snuggle toys. This might require some gentle sleep training first, so a prerequisite would be reading the damned sleep book.

a stick blender. Mine died trying some months back, and we're doing kashrut (laws of kosher) dances trying to use the DE one we've got left. It's complicated, it's occasionally got me mincing. bad things happen when I mince. Stop the mincing!

anything from a spa. Facial, massage, sitting in one of their waiting room chairs and drinking their lemon water.

working wireless internet. My laptop can't find our home wireless network when I'm sitting in the same room. What the hell?

cuddles from small people. Preferably with kisses. Sticky, if possible.

A professional photographer for family photos. I adore those gentle, black and white portraits, capturing people being people, instead of people on display. Besides, the Eldest has conceived of a hideous camera smile, more akin to a rictus. Oy.

Window shades. Ours are vinyl roll ups, and one is missing. Okay, it's not missing - it used to fall on my head whenever I opened or closed it, and finally I gave up on the thing and shoved it in a closet. I'm imagining cream Roman shades, maybe even insulated? Hey, a girl can dream...

Time with dear friends. My week with Auntie A has spoiled me. Now I want to spend quiet time with the Mirrie, R, the Gnome and j.i.c (and baby Ben) and and and.

A romantic, impossibly delicious meal at a kosher restaurant with the partner man (plus babysitter). Will accept that this is not available in Boston. Will grump about the lack of decent restaurants in Boston.

Okay, so this is all way too elaborate for a birthday. Let's try something else:

• credit at Pandemonium, a store where I'll admittedly be dropping some cash over the next year.
• credit at Starbucks, because hey, they make a damn good chai. Does Cafe Zing offer gift cards?
• sushi! Preferably Fugakyu...mmm that sweet potato roll. But not the ikura - search me. And company with which to engage in my gluttony.
• one night a week off from making dinner. Okay, one night every other week? A certificate for a couple of nights off?
• backrubs. Foot rubs. Long bubble baths...hm. Where is that man, anyway? Some of this need not wait for a birthday.

the conspiracy blog

There is a conspiracy to make me clean my apartment.

Those who know me will laugh, because I am a neat freak. I tolerate piles of untidiness, confined to baskets, placed in specific corners. If your home is a bit tidier after I leave, well, I do apologize. And I do apologize - often - until the SIL told me, kindly, that she was prepared to tolerate my obvious neurosis. The FIL invited me to stay for a week…

And now we have mice. First one mouse, now two. The Eldest, entranced, spent some time singing ‘come out, come out little mousie’ songs to the pantry, while I grimly collected exterminator phone numbers (from Angie’s List, BTW, a wonderful resource) and chasing the boys around with a dustpan.

Two days later, my kitchen is spotless, my pantry organized into barracks made of plastic or glass, and the floors gleaming. I spent a Martha moment wishing the pantry’s containers all matched, then moved on.

To the dining room. Earlier that day, the Eldest had managed to bonk his head with a childgate. Okay, I’d bonked his head with the gate – I opened it, only to realize that his head was at ankle height (how? when? what the hell?) and bumped his forehead with it. It wasn’t a hard whack, and I managed to overlook that today he has no clotting protein in him. None. For lo, it is Wednesday, and on Wednesdays we assume that the Mama can keep the boy from sufficient harm.

Whoops.

But back to the diningroom, where the Eldest was amusing himself by demanding toll each time I passed while clearing the table. In the kitchen, I heard a swish and a thump, and came back into the diningroom to see the Eldest lying on the ground, the tablecloth hanging down, and a glass shattered around him. He looked shocked – and oddly glittery.

Hold still, I barked, and he burst into tears. I settled him, picked glass out of his hair, vacuumed up the halo of glass shards around him until I was able to let him sit up and climb out of the mess. Twenty minutes later, the glass was vacuumed up (a wonderful thing, the Miele!), the table cloth was removed, and he and I were companiably sitting and washing off the chairs. One by one, he handed me paper towels and I scrubbed his chair, the baby’s chair.

Ouch, he said meditatively, putting a hand to the top of his head. Not, I noted, to the spot where his head had met the gate. Oh, dear.

I called the hematologists to discuss dosages (no head CT necessary, I told them – and made it sound good). There was glass on him, glass around him, I said giddily, but none underneath! Oh, my, said the young doc, you’re going to need to coat the floor in foam for that one. Surprised, I stopped. And then carefully explained that perhaps even this child needs to fall, once in a while?

We agreed that I had to give him points for drama, and I hung up. Walking up to the bath, where the Eldest was complaining of pain in his right hip, I noticed three single sheets of paper towel, laid neatly in a line under the table. It looked like an ellipsis. Oh, I thought, so something is next, is it?

Five minutes later, I was putting the last of my carefully packaged, mouse-resistant pantry items away. I hoisted the last, the sunflower seeds for our bird feeder, an item much adored by the mice, and felt a gentle yet solid rain.

The sunflowers poured down on me, on my stepstool, coating the floor and scattering happily into the next room. Giggling somewhat maniacally, I pulled out the vacuum cleaner again. Five minutes later, the floor was sunflower-free, and I sat on it. Next to me, the vacuum burped happily.

I need chocolate.