Triggers

In June, I went to the LLL of MO conference in Columbia. We had two great keynote speakers who both spoke about discipline. The first was Elizabeth Pantley, best known for her The No-Cry Sleep Solution book. This is one of the most often checked out books in my LLL Group's lending library. She spoke about that book as well as presented material from her No-Cry Discipline Solution book. One of the things I connected with was about your "triggers"--what tends to get you upset/angry with your kids. Here is an excerpt from her book:

What sets you off?
Most parents get angry over issues that are insignificant in the grand scheme of life, yet happen on such a regular basis that they become blown out of proportion. Some of the most common parenting issues that trigger anger are whining, temper tantrums, sibling bickering, and non-cooperation. Determine which behaviors most bother you and set about making a plan to correct each problem that sets off your anger.

Notice your hot spots
In addition to triggers, there are “hot spots” in the day when anger more easily rises to the surface. These are typically times when family members are tired, hungry or stressed. These emotions leave us more vulnerable to anger. This can happen in the early morning, before naptime, before meals, or at bedtime. You may also encounter situations when misbehavior increases, and so does your anger: grocery shopping, playdates, or family visits, for example.

--From The No-Cry Discpline Solution by Elizabeth Pantley

My trigger is whining! Oh. My. Goodness. Our "hot spot" is when we're hungry (any of us) and my personal hot spot is when I'm trying to get ready to go somewhere--I have a very short temper when I'm trying to get out the door and feel like people are throwing rocks in my path! (somtimes literally ;-)

The other keynote was Lu Hanessian (of Let the Baby Drive--another very popular book in my LLL Group's library). One of the observations she made about trigger issues is that your specific triggers probably reflect your own personal issues--so, if you have a problem with whining, you probably have an issue with neediness. And if you have a problem with not being listened to, you really have an issue with validation/self-worth. It was very interesting and made a lot of sense.

Breastfeeding as Radical...

I finished reading the fall issue of Utne a few days ago and marked the following quote to share from K.C. Compton in an article about baby boomers:

"We discovered firsthand the radical nature of simple acts: Sit in the front of the bus, ask that your husband be present during his son's birth, decide to feed your infant with your own breasts, refuse the nuclear power plant being built just up the road. We also learned how much more effective those acts can be when compounded by the hundreds and thousands, their feet on the street..."

This reminds me of a powerful editorial by Peggy O'Mara that I read once in Mothering, urging women to see their mothering as a political act.

Also, since I'm posting about breastfeeding, I wanted to mention that I got the new LLLI catalog last week. It has been *completely* redone and the layout and appearance has received a total makeover. The results are great. I love it! It is "pocket" guide style called "Breastfeeding Guide: tips & products." So, instead of being a catalog, it is actually a helpful little booklet first and a catalog second (the products come in the second half of the booklet, after the tips. 26 pages of questions answered and then 25 pages of catalog--pocket sized though, so maybe 3 x 5?). For being so small, it covers a remarkable amount of territory and gives lots of good information--from "How often will my baby nurse?" to "When will baby sleep all night?" to "Is it possible to breastfeed twins?" Like I said, it is a great little *book* not just a catalog. I love it and think it was a stroke of genius to reach out this way!

LLL of MO Conference

Last weekend I enjoyed the LLL of MO conference in Columbia. It was really well put together and I enjoyed myself thoroughly (I also got thoroughly exhausted--it was a packed schedule--and came home with a nasty, wracking cough). I "won" some cool stuff in the silent auction and raffle too--such as a Peekaru baby carrier cover and a Moby Wrap. And, the conference tote bags are cool--nice black and red with a stylized line drawing of several mothers and babies in a half circle. Really very nice. It was great to see old friends and get to know new ones better and also to meet people face-to-face who I only know through email. Face-to-face makes SUCH an important difference and is so much more real than "virtual" connections are.

I presented my session on Celebrating Pregnancy through Art and it went well. This was the first time I've presented at a conference and it was a delight. My session did not have many participants, but more than had originally signed up for it, so that was encouraging. The picture here is of the display board I made of different types of art during pregnancy (most of which hang on my wall in real-life. This was like a portable birth art wall for me! The picture below is of figurines created during this same session at the FoMM retreat in Sept. I didn't take a photo of the figures from the LLL conference session.



My favorite sessions were those presented by Diane Wiessinger. She gave an amazing session called "Watch Your Language" that was about how we talk about breastfeeding. An example, using the word "special" to describe breastfeeding--a "special bond" a "special nursing corner" etc. and also using the word "perfect" (which communicates something that isn't reasonable or that "real" people can't do or live up to). She encouraged us not to "glorify breastfeeding" like this. Breastfeeding ISN'T special, it is NORMAL. A breastfed baby has a "normal bond" with its mother! Human milk isn't the perfect food for babies, it is the NORMAL food for babies. I just loved it. I love language and hidden "messages" in our words. I could go on about this presentation for hours. It was great. She also gave a meaningful talk about "Changing Thoughts on Latch" that was really important.

I also really enjoyed a session by Deanna about "Following Your Passion While Raising Your Family." One of the insights I re-had following this session was whether I would prefer people to say after I die, "She did everything she was supposed to do, "OR, "she was joyful." I feel like much of the way I live my life would garner me the first response--I did everything I was supposed to do (but didn't have a whole lot of fun doing it...) WAH! I need to do some serious thinking and reorganizing and re-prioritizing. I'll keep you posted as to what develops...First thing might to reconsider the "serious" thinking and do some "joyful" thinking instead, LOL! ;-)

The link was made several times during this conference (by both headliner speakers--Diane & then Dia Michels) about the need to more explicitly link birth with breastfeeding. As Dia said, there needs to be a new word, "birthandbreastfeeding." Sometimes in LLL settings I feel apologetic about my passion for birth or like I need to make sure to keep it low key, so it was nice to have it affirmed that the connection is undeniable. The two are inextricably linked and it DOES matter how and where you give birth. As Diane said, "It's the birth, silly!"

LLLI Conference + The Revolutionaries Wore Pearls

I returned from the LLLI conference in Chicago on July 24th (and it was our ninth wedding anniversary the next day :-). It was a wonderful, wonderful trip. I learned a lot and just had a great time. I felt rejuvenated and re-inspired as a Leader, a woman, and as a mother. I really needed a boost in all three areas and it was great to get it. I left the conference with a sense that LLL is of *vital* importance and I felt a new and profound sense of purpose about my work. I also finally had a sense that maybe I AM in this for the long haul--I see myself helping mothers and babies in some way or another for many, many more years to come. It was also great for me to see how old so many people were (LOL!). I get this frantic sense that I need to do everything and I need to do it RIGHT NOW and so it was an awesome reminder for me to see how many people that I respect and admire (like the Sears') are pretty "mature." It showed me that I have time to work on my purposes and accomplish my goals--I don't need to rush. There's time enough for me!

Anyway, while I was there I purchased their new book The Revolutionaries Wore Pearls.
It was interesting and good, but did have a note of finality to it that I also felt underscoring the International Conference. It also was very perky and, “Life was GREAT!” and Seven Voices, One Dream showed a more realistic picture, I think, of what the founders went through. They definitely had a revolutionary impact though, no matter how you look at it. As a side note, that was another perk of the conference for me, I felt like a revolutionary! The book is "scrapbook style" and has lots of images of newspaper clippings, etc. That was fun.

I was also interested to see the phrase several times, "the beginning of a dream to bring gentleness to giving birth and joy to the womanly art of breastfeeding" (emphasis mine). So, my overlapping interests in birth and breastfeeding mirror that of the Founders. The two are on a continuum and birth practices can have such a profound impact on breastfeeding.

Speaking of the Founders, I was delighted to see 6 of them at the conference and was even more delighted to speak with and get autographs from two of them--Mary White & Marian Tompson. I also got my picture taken with Mary White (as well as with Ina May Gaskin and with Peggy O'Mara! I was so starstruck--this conference had all of my "celebrities" in one place! It was so, so cool!)

Birthing With Intensity

I just found out that my story about Z's birth that was published in Special Delivery this year is available online: Birthing With Intensity. Not sure why/how, but I thought it was kind of neat to have it available online anyway. It can also be purchased on Amazon as an digital file (again, not sure why/how, just sharing!) My Listening to My Baby article is also available on the LLLI website. Neither article has the pictures that were published in the printed versions.

Recent magazine reads...

I also recently finished reading several magazines--the May/June issue of New Beginnings from LLLI. I was reflecting on how much this magazine meant to me in my early months of mothering. It was the most supportive and validating "voice" out there! It still is an excellent magazine, but it really touched me when I needed it (now, I need it less, but still enjoy it when it comes). I was also pleased to have one of my responses to one of the Mother's Situations published in this issue--even if it is fairly small, I do so love a publication credit! :) This one was about "From Mother Mode to Lover Mode" and they took that title for the article from the body of my response (uncredited), which I thought was fun :)

I also read two issues of Ode magazine. I enjoy it usually, but I'm thinking it might clutter up my "simple" life a bit to try to keep up with it--it usually ends up in a stack of to-read stuff, instead of being devoured right away like many of my other subscriptions. That's why I had two issues to read at once (plus, today I found another one that I'd packed to read at Craft Camp in April and never read or unpacked!)

I also read Brain, Child. Now THIS, I devour. Literally. (well, I guess not literally, but you know what I mean). I often use food-related words to describe how I read. I gobble, I devour, I consume, I swallow, I drink, I eat up, I guzzle, I gorge on the printed word. I really do feel like I take it into myself, so maybe food words are apt descriptors. Anyway, I DEVOUR Brain, Child. I love it. I would probably keep my subscription to it above all others, even Mothering magazine (gasp!). I love how many ideas it brings together under one "roof," I love how it makes me think and consider and to laugh and to, occasionally, cry. It is so, so good. I read it cover to cover in a matter of seconds (well, hours) and then pine for it for the next three months...

Today, I just read the newsletter of the Missouri Midwives Association as well. Legalization of midwifery barely squeaked by this session (OMG! I can hardly believe that it is true! CPMs are technically legal in MO beginning in August. Yay!), so that was the main focus of this issue.

The Plug-In Drug

A couple of days ago, I finished another one of my birthday books: The Plug-In Drug. This book is primarily about the impact of television on children--this gist being that it has the capacity to turn them into passive, mindless little zombies "plugged in" to a screen, which is often used as a babysitting in a manner similar to parents of old would dope their kids up with opium or laudanum to keep them quiet and inert while they went to labor in the thread factory (or wherever).

I have had this book on my wishlist for some time and I was happy to finally read it. I wish I had read it prior to having that "fight" in January with the UU member about my "get rid of your TV!" simple living tip. That was the only "public" argument I've ever had with anyone and I approached it in a way too overzealous manner. Anyway, this book would have been good back up ;-) (I did mention it to him, even though I hadn't read it yet).

I had quotes marked to share, etc., but I just don't feel like it right now. So, I'm going to close with my thoughts incomplete. This was a pretty good book--I didn't love it and agree with everything she said, but overall, her hypotheses make sense to me (reading the book was a little bit of a "preaching to the choir" experience).

Yesterday, I also read Continuum, the newsletter of the LLLI Alumnae Association. There was a review of a book that sounded interesting to me--If I Live to Be 100--but when I looked it up at Amazon to see about it buying it, the reviews were poor (I actually place a lot of stock in the reviews on Amazon) and so I put it on my library wish list instead. I didn't end up renewing my subscription to Continuum this year. I think maybe it will appeal to me more when I'm retired (duh! That is who it is geared for anyway!)

Hirkani's Daughters

This morning during Z's nap, I finished reading Hirkani's Daughters: Women Who Scale Modern Mountains to Combine Breastfeeding & Working from my LLL Group's lending library. It was really, really good! In the mother-to-mother style LLL does so well, the book is mainly a compilation of women's stories about their experiences with managing breastfeeding while working (most often via pumping, but there were other creative managements as well!). I just love women's stories in general--their experiences of motherhood. I love reading and seeing all the commonalities and the differences as well. In a way, this book read like a really long issue of New Beginnings ;-)

The title of the book comes from a legend from India in which a milkmaid scales down a 1000 foot cliff in order to get back to her baby to nurse him (she is away delivering milk to the palace on top of the mountain and gets detained there). The modern women in this book also overcome many, many obstacles in their quests to continue to breastfeed their babies. This book is particularly special because it is international in scope--there are mother's stories from Pakistan, Mongolia, Tazmania, South Africa, Japan, Cambodia, etc. It was fascinating to read them all and see how many threads were *identical*, whether the mother was sharing her story from Ireland or from New York.

New Beginnings

Speaking of LLL and New Beginnings (in my previous post), in the November/December issue of New Beginnings I was thrilled to have an essay I wrote published in the "Mother's Stories" section. They also published the picture I sent of me lying down nursing L. The essay was about the challenges we went through with oversupply. I keep thinking of additional essays to contribute, but getting around to writing them is the tricky part. I was also excited to continue my "fame" by having my "Mother's Response" to an oversupply question published in the January/February issue (two publications in a row, yay!). The most current issue had my donation and tribute in the donation section and also acknowledgment of a donation made to LLLI in my honor by my mom :-) That was fun too, but not as fun as items I actually submitted for publication!

Midwifery Today (Primal Health), plus other magazine musings...

I got my second issue of Midwifery Today a few days ago and finished reading it last night. I wanted to try to make it last a while this time, since I'll have to wait 3 more months for another one. It had a great article in it called Foreskins for Keeps (the end of circumcision by January 1, 2007) and another good one about "The Midwife's Grandchild" (becoming a grandmother when you are an expert on birth and babies and the struggles therein...). I got the spring issue of Brain, Child a couple of weeks ago and just gobbled it up in like an hour--what a bummer, because I love it so and now I have to wait for a LONG time to get another one. I've been loaning my old issues to a friend in playgroup and I've discovered the joys of re-reading them, instead of lamenting the lack of a new one for the next three months...

Almost everything I subscribe to or receive as a membership perk is released on a seasonal schedule, which means I have a large bounty of fresh, good stuff in the early part of each of Winter, Spring, Summer, & Autumn, but then I gorge on it and have to wait for everything to come again (wouldn't it make sense to stagger it a little?! ;-) For example, I've also just read New Beginnings (the magazine of LLLI), Attachment Parenting (the journal of API I also downloaded some old issues from their website and read those too!!), Forum (the newsletter of Mothers & More), The Wise Mom (HMN's e-newsletter), Imagine magazine (girls' publication from American Girl), and Mothering magazine (this issue wasn't as engaging as Mothering usually is to me and I don't even have anything to share about the issue). I also got a free sample copy of Pathways (the ICPA member publication) and read it right away too.

Mother Nurture

Last week I finished reading an absolutely excellent book called Mother Nurture. I read an excerpt from this book last year in New Beginnings (the magazine of La Leche League International) and immediately purchased it from an Amazon Marketplace seller. However, it took me until January of this year to actually read it (other books kept jumping ahead of it in the to-read line). The subtitle of this book is "A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships"--this pretty much sums it up! The book is very thorough and comprehensive. I think every mother should read it! I'm planned to buy another copy for my LLL Group's lending library and also to start giving copies as gifts to new mothers. The book is primarily focused on the needs of mothers of young children (5 and under). I especially liked it because all of the strategies seem fresh, doable, and yet new--unlike some self-help books that offer the same or similar info over and over again (i.e. "make sure to take time out for yourself, like taking a nice bath, blah, blah, blah"), this book offered new ideas and things you don't read about other places. The book also explores Depleted Mother Syndrome in depth, which is a very interesting and relevant concept in itself, and gives step by step information on how to remedy the condition.

Seven Voices, One Dream

Shortly after Christmas, I also finished reading Seven Voices, One Dream about the seven founders of La Leche League . LLL celebrated its 50th Anniversary in October--how impressive! I really enjoyed the book, it was honest, realistic, and surprising. It was also surprisingly engaging, though the Q & A format was a little distracting sometimes. I really appreciated the chance to connect more with the history of the organization. These women were really radicals for their time and effected tremendous social change. For example, I had no idea people were having homebirths in the 1950's (I thought it was all Twilight Sleep and forceps!).

Learning a Loving Way of Life

This afternoon I finished reading Learning a Loving Way of Life, published by La Leche League. It is a collection of "Mothers' Stories" essays reprinted from La Leche League News (now New Beginnings). It was published in 1987 and I actually put off reading it for quite a while, because I thought it was "too old" or "dated." However, as I read it, I realized how timeless all of the stories are. If the dates on the essays were removed, you'd have no idea that some of them were written 30 years ago! There was not a single essay that seemed "dated" to me--all were relevant and had current appeal.

Attachment Parenting

Last night, I finished reading Attachment Parenting (by Katie Allison Granju). It is part of our LLL Group library. None of the content was new to me, but I still enjoyed the book for the most part--made me feel like I'm doing pretty good as a mother :) I think it would be a good book for more people to read *before* they have children, though, sadly, I think few people actually would read it before having children--there is a certain "preaching to the choir" element of the book that makes me feel like the only people who would pick it up would be AP inclined anyway. My specific critiques of the book are that it focuses very heavily on breastfeeding (did you ever think you'd see the day that I'd critique something for focusing heavily on breastfeeding?! LOL!)--I feel like there are plenty of excellent breastfeeding books out there and so a several chapter rehash in this book, though good information, wasn't that necessary. There wasn't enough information to make buying an additional breastfeeding book unnecessary and yet there was so much as to leave little room in the book for other attachment parenting information. My second critique is that the book ends very abruptly and also has no index. You get to the last chapter (Breastfeeding Past the First Year), read along, get to the last paragraph of that chapter and BOOM the book is over.

A quote that I liked from the book (in which the author is quoting an AP family):

"My partner & I are working hard to create a family based way of life. We want home, parenting, work & our relationship to all be part of a seamless web, not separate & compartmentalized boxes. It's exciting!"

I share this sentiment--we are striving for an integrated life together instead of divided up little realms.

Speaking of attachment parenting, I got a really cute magnet in the mail a couple of days ago from Attachment Parenting International (I'm an unchaptered member). I love their colorful people-all-in-a-row logo which is on the magnet (I'm not sure if it is really their logo or not, because they have a very different one on their newsletter and other materials, but this people logo is on a lot of their CafePress stuff and I just really like it.)