Suburban Life in a College Town

5 Great Baby Buys

2011-09-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

First, let me say that the idea for this post is old. I have read many other such lists but, since everyone has a unique perspective, I will submit my own...

1. Boppy Pillow - A great, multi-use pillow, it provides a level surface for baby to lay on while nursing and a "boost" so mom need not lift baby to the breast or hunch over to nurse. Also, a great support for babies who are beginning to sit but still topple easily. For younger babies who can hold their heads up but are still far from sitting independently, this next product does the trick.

2. Bumbo Seat - Both of my daughters love(d) their Bumbos. Many parents swear it helped their babies learn to sit sooner but I can't attest to that. In any case, it is great at holding little bodies in an upright position and allowing baby to safely* observe the action while freeing up mom's arms. *I must say that while my first daughter, try as she might, lacked the strength to get out of the seat, my second (at 18 weeks) arches her back and is close enough to pushing herself out of it that I can't really leave her in it and turn away. My advice would be to watch how your baby acts in the seat before assuming they cannot escape.

3. Moby Wrap - With my first child, I used the Baby Bjorn carrier. By the time I had my second, my social circle had changed and now consisted, almost exclusively, of other moms. Many of my mom friends raved about the Moby wrap which, at the time, I dismissed as being trendy but probably lacking functionality. Nevertheless, my friend lent me hers so I figured, why not? Well, I have to say, for 1/2 the price of the Baby Bjorn, you can have a carrier that far exceeds the Bjorn in both comfort and versatility. The Moby is just a long piece of stretchy cotton fabric but, as such, the "straps" are thick and cover much more surface area, thus distributing the weight evenly over your shoulders, back and hips, instead of concentrating it all on a narrow section over your shoulders. This allows you to carry an older, heavier child for a longer time. This said, the greatest advantages of the Moby are for newborns, for whom skin to skin contact and comfort are most important. Unlike other carriers, you can use the Moby in a variety of different positions, including the "cradle" hold, where the baby can assume the fetal position (obviously, a very natural position for newborns), instead of being held upright with their legs dangling down. Also, the Moby supports baby by pressing him/ her against your body; the only barrier between you and baby is your clothing. This brings me to the unadvertised feature I like the best- you can nurse in the Moby! When you purchase the Moby, you will see a reference to breastfeeding in the instructional guide but you will not see a claim that you can breastfeed in the wrap. This is probably because you must be very careful that there is enough space for baby to breathe while nursing and that the wrap is not pressing them too tightly against the breast. Nevertheless, it can be done safely and discreetly while in the cradle hold position, which becomes especially convenient on outings or during busy days at home. I never found the idea of nursing on the move quite as appealing until I had my second child, when long, intimate nursing sessions became a luxury. As you have probably gathered, I love the Moby wrap. I would say that the only disadvantages are a slightly longer learning curve associated with putting it on and the fact that the wrap is so long, it is hard to put on without dragging the ends on the floor. Nevertheless, I would recommend it, and do, to anyone looking for the ideal baby wearing device.

4. Medela Quick Clean Micro-Steam Bags- It was my baby gear savvy friend, Jenney, who introduced me to these. And, to be honest, I didn't see a huge advantage of using them in place of a pot of boiling water until I went back to work, where boiling a pot of pump parts in the office kitchen would be very impractical and slightly embarrassing. Five steam bags come to a pack and you can use each one 20 times. So, for just over $5, you get 100 uses. They are affordable and perfect for the breastfeeding, working mom. Munchkin brand also makes them and they are comparable enough in quality and price.

5. Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo- Ok, so I didn't exactly buy this one but if you can't borrow one from a friend as I did, I would certainly recommend it. My 4-month old LOVES this thing and could easily spend an hour in it if I let her. It took her a little while to realize what it was capable of but, once she did, well... I'll just let this video do the talking...

10 Great Feelings In No Particular Order

2011-08-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

-Waking up and realizing it is a three day weekend

-Elise is nursing and she locks eyes with me and smiles

-My husband tells me I am beautiful

-Dahlia smiles to herself after accomplishing something new

-Arriving in a country that I've never been

-Seeing my mom after being apart for a long stretch

-Goosebumps after learning of some new technology or scientific discovery

-Meeting a new friend and knowing they will be an old one

-Getting on the scale at Publix and watching the pointer stop before I expected

-Laying in bed together as a family with no schedule and nowhere to be

Upon Waking

2011-07-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

I will resist the urge to begin this with an apology. So, I am back at work after 12 weeks of bliss (and poop, spit-up, tantrums and cleaning). I sit in silence with not much to do, no baby to nurse or change, no preschooler to entertain, no messy house to clean and a paycheck on the way. You'd think I would be relieved to catch a break and make some money again but, as many of the mothers who have been in my shoes would understand, I feel no relief. In fact, I feel utterly EMPTY. Yes, yes I know - there are hundreds of people praying hard every night, desperately pleading with God that they may find work of any kind. Though I feel for them and recognize how fortunate I am, I cannot feel sorry. I live my own reality and not theirs. In this reality, I commute an hour to this place and, for much of it, the memory of my three month old's smell lingers in my mind. How I wish I could bottle it and preserve the indescribable comfort it makes me feel. Nothing smells more like home than my baby. And the eldest, my kind, beautiful, sunny child. My Dahlia, for whom the quickest way to get her to eat her vegetables (besides bribery) is to tell her how happy it would make us. How I MISS my girls! But I am reconciled to do what I know is best for my family at this point. I will try to appreciate my cushy, lax job and spend my abundant down time sitting at my desk, blogging, surfing the web, pumping and dreaming of a day when I can afford to be home, at least part-time.

Elise's birth went smoothly. Dahlia stayed overnight at the hospital with John and I for the duration of my stay, which I was a bit hesitant about at first but, in retrospect, I wouldn't of had it any other way. We had such an amazing time together. Through the haze of painkillers, lack of sleep and intense emotion, I can't remember for the life of me what it is we did other than marvel at our new addition, but I know it was the best time of my life. Even better, I dare say, than when my first was born. Because, for one, we knew what to expect and, secondly, we got to watch Dahlia meet her baby sister. Which brings me to yet another reason I love that kid more than life itself.

After I was reunited with Elise in the Mother and Baby suite, my husband went to pick up Dahlia from our sitter's. When they returned, Dahlia was wearing the "Big Sis" shirt my good friend Jenney made her. She walked right up to Elise and I and stared at her for no more than 3 seconds before reporting with a big smile, "Baby sista. That's Elli. That's my baby sista". I asked if she wanted to hop up on the hospital bed and hold her and she nodded. With my husband standing behind her, I put Elise in her arms and she smiled and kissed her. She did this with remarkable tenderness (for a three year old) and without prompting. After a while, I moved to take her and Dahlia refused! Then, any time a nurse would come to take Elli out of the room for a vitals check, Dahlia would look at me like I was crazy for letting them and say "Where's baby sista? Bring her BACK!". After we were discharged, she would follow me around the house and, still being quite the paci addict herself, insist that I give Elise a pacifier at the slightest hint of an impending cry. Since the moment she first saw her, as if she had known her in another life, Dahlia has accepted Elise as hers. Hers to protect, care for and love. There was no adjustment period for her. And, even when there came a hint of jealousy later, it NEVER manifested as resentment or anger and was never directed at the baby. Indeed, Dahlia is the BEST big sister anyone could ever hope for and if I had one dying wish, it would be that she continue to love and look out for her sister with the same intensity and that Elise grow up to return this love.

The hospital stay was not without issue (however minor in the end). As soon as I was stitched up (C/S), they wheeled me into recovery with the assurance that Elise would follow in about an hour, after some blood work. Ten minutes later, they informed me that, as is common with babies of the chunkier variety (birth weight: 9 lbs 7 oz), her blood sugar was a tad low and they would need to bring her to me to nurse right away. She nursed for about 2 seconds and fell asleep. Normal, I thought, and in about 15 minutes gave it another try. Again, after no more than a few seconds, she was out! She repeated this every time I tried to nurse her for the remainder of that day, feeding for 4 minutes at most before falling asleep. Luckily, and probably because I tried to nurse her at least twice every hour, she managed to get enough colostrum to raise her sugar to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, it was not enough to keep her from losing too high of a percentage of her birth weight (she lost 10%; max is expected to be 8%), so I was asked to stay an extra day. That, combined with the fact that my milk had not yet come in, made it necessary to supplement with some formula on the third night. Finally, she gained enough weight for them to release us with a few bottles of Goodstart. I am happy to say, however, that I did not need to use them. My milk came in the next day and, while she remained a sleepy baby until just recently, Elise soon became a nursing pro!

I am truly blessed that this is the biggest issue our family has had to face since our sweet Elise was born. She is a remarkably good and easy baby. As if she is aware that she is the younger sibling of a highly demanding and spoiled preschooler, she will basically stay where you put her without protest. She rarely ever cries and, when she does, it consist of one little roar and a long pause as if to say "I know you are busy, Mama. I'll just wait right here!". At her two month check-up, she was a healthy 13 lbs. Her latest feat is bringing her hands together, which makes her look like she is praying and compliments her angelic countenance.

Spending 3 glorious (and hectic, work-filled) months with my girls was made even more enjoyable when I met an amazing group of women who comprise a playgroup for preschoolers, organized via Facebook. A friend, who has been a SAHM for several years, knows all the best activities in town for kids and has an uncanny ability to be prepared for anything kid-related, introduced me to them and I couldn't be more grateful to her for doing so. The playgroup consists of women of every color, social status and stage in life. There are moms, grandmoms and nannies of every ethnicity. In fact, the only thing many of them have in common (at least outwardly) is friendship and the fact that they care for preschool aged children. Even through this diversity, they are incredibly open and accepting. And, in a small town (even one with a university in it) surrounded by miles and miles of even smaller, backwoods towns no one has ever heard of, this is a truly rare thing to find.

During the last 6 weeks of my leave, the girls and I had so much fun with our new friends that I asked that my husband, who is currently working from home until my mom arrives to help out with the kids, continue to take them on outings with the group as often as his work allows. And, while he is the only man there, he was met with the same acceptance as I. Knowing that Dahlia is having a blast and that Elise is safe with her papa is the only thing that makes being away from them bearable and, for this, I am grateful. Indeed, hats off to my dear John. After having the experience of caring for them both while working and still finding time to cook dinner every night, he is unlikely to make the all too common mistake of believing it is easy to stay home. Perhaps, one day soon, I will be able to test that. Until then, upon waking, before sleepily dressing and grabbing coffee-to-go, I will take a moment to smell my baby, kiss my big kid and remember to soak up every second I spend with them.

Elise

2011-06-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome, Elise Olivia!
April 29, 2011
9 lbs 7 oz

Because the birth of my beautiful Elise has, paradoxically, left me with much to write about but mush for brains with which to write, I will leave you with some photos of one of the two happiest days of my life...

Being a "good mom".

2011-04-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

"Almost there... you're almost there." I tell myself this at least twice a day. I say it aloud to my husband at least once a day and to anyone who asks how I'm doing. It helps keep me focused. And, lately, I've needed it because, like most women who've started their 10th month of pregnancy, I'm over being pregnant and am counting down the days until I get to hold my new daughter!

The fact that I know exactly when her birthday will be, as I am having a planned c-section, helps me keep this focus and plan almost every detail around her birth and homecoming. This brings me to a small rant about common attitudes concerning cesareans. I was poking around online and found a comment thread around women who choose surgical births when not medically necessary. I would say at least 75% of the comments were negative. I don't mean slightly negative or critical -but flat out MEAN.

One woman actually said that having a vaginal birth made you love your baby more. Even though this lady was an obvious idiot, her comment amazed me. And, it was not the only one that eluded to a belief that the bond between mother and child was stronger depending on the baby's exit route from mom's body. Never mind the babies that have taken the natural route out of their mother's bodies and into dumpsters or, worse still, have survived birth to live a life of abuse. I am sure you would be hard pressed to find any correlation between abuse and neglect of children by their mothers and mode of delivery. So much for that theory.

The fact is, I think it is idiotic to criticize a mother for how she chooses to bring her child into the world, or to feel superior to another mother because you pushed a baby out of your body while she laid on a table and had one lifted from hers. Similarly, some women harbor the same kind of smugness about breastfeeding -believing themselves to be so much better than those formula feeding moms. Granted, it is almost impossible now-a-days to deny that breast milk is best for babies under 6 months (assuming your milk is not vitamin deficient). It has well established immunological benefits and, having breastfed with my first, I know that the bonding experience (not to mention weight loss) is a beautiful thing. Choosing to breastfeed is choosing a healthier future for your child, I am not arguing that. However, breastfeeding and having a vaginal birth is not what makes a woman a good mother...it just makes her a mammal like the rest of us!

I think all mothers should focus their efforts on the things that do make for a good parent. It is not about how much pain you bravely endured to bring your child into the world, or how much milk your body was able to produce for them -it is about using your mind and your love for them to make the decisions that will help them grow up to be healthy, productive and happy. Among these choices could be the one to breastfeed but it is relatively small in weight when compared to the many choices parents find themselves having to make for their kids on a daily basis. Finding, sorting through and seizing opportunities to teach them, to expose them to new experiences, to give them confidence, empathy and love. All of these things should matter more, simply because they will do much, much more to guarantee the quality of your child's life in the future.

Math As More Than Algebra

2011-02-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

I recently printed out some preschool concept worksheets to do for fun and learning for my soon-to-be three year old.

http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolconcepts.htm

Having once majored in and taught math, it's not surprising that I initially gravitated toward the "pre-math" worksheets section. It included an intro to numbers and counting. Below this section was a section for worksheets that dealt with concepts such as "more and less", "small and large" and "same and different". "These sections should be combined under the "pre-math" heading", I thought (because I am a geek and take issue with such things).

If you believe that math is just about numbers, then I am sure you are scratching your head (or, more likely, never read past the title of this post). If, in addition, you cannot easily do arithmetic in your head or failed algebra in high school, you are probably also thinking "I am no good with numbers (and therefore no good at math)" or simply "I HATE math!".

I feel entitled to make these assertions because I am one of those people who failed high school algebra. In teaching and tutoring, I've met many young "haters of math" who have asserted their disdain for the discipline while taking an algebra class. So, why is algebra the culprit behind a youth in rebellion against mathematics, the most fundamental tool humanity possesses?

Well, algebra (actually pre-algebra) is the first time you really hear x = 5. WHAT?! How confusing is that? Confusing because it usually precedes a demonstration of how the rules governing mathematical operations exist independently of the values they are manipulating. It abstracts the grade school arithmetic we have all thought of as defining math, and does so through the use of symbols. It makes math about more than just numbers. It is now about the relationships and operations that exist between quantities.

This conceptual leap is quite challenging at first, probably due to inefficacy in how "pre-math" concepts are taught in American public schools to begin with. And, as is a common tendency of our species, our immediate reaction to something we don't understand is to hate it. However, if your curriculum takes you past high school algebra and into calculus, then you start to see math as describing how things change. How what changes? The position of flea on a dog, the flow of blood exiting a gunshot wound... ANYTHING. And once you understand that, you begin to see how beautiful and powerful of a tool it really is.

If you are in that small minority who agrees and goes on to study a field of mathematics in college, then you may end up taking a course called Linear Algebra. Linear Algebra is algebra applied to vectors, which describe anything having a magnitude and a direction in space. It is heavily used in natural, social and computer science (numerical linear algebra). It was this course that served to completely change the way I thought about...well... everything.

The first few weeks were dedicated to learning the theorems of linear algebra and how to prove them. A theorem, which is different from a scientific theory in that it is deductive and not empirical, has a hypothesis and a conclusion and is simply a statement of mathematical truth. A simple example is Pythagorean's theorem which says that if you square the lengths of two sides of a right-angled triangle and add them, you get the square of the length of the longest side. But what fundamentally changed my way of thinking and reasoning was the proving bit. I think Wikipedia says it best:

"The proof of a mathematical theorem is a logical argument demonstrating that the conclusions are a necessary consequence of the hypotheses".

I have highlighted "logical argument" because it is the exercise of considering a hypothesis and deducing what does and doesn't logically conclude, and repeating this day after day, that sharpens one's ability to reason. This is because "logical arguing"extends way outside the proving of mathematical theorems and into everyday life. Everyone in my class at the time emphatically agreed that, after beginning the course, they were able to catch people in logical inconsistencies more often. And, if they chose to do so and were not particularly shy or diplomatic, could provide an argument that was hard to topple.

If you are still reading this you may not hate math and may even be entertained, so I can go on to what sparked my interest in math and science to begin with. One late night, while I lay in bed watching Nova with my then boyfriend (now husband), a special came on. I can't recall what it was called but it was all about fractal geometry. Now is a good time for a quote from my favorite Mathematician and the father of fractal geometry.

"Why is geometry often described as 'cold' and 'dry' ? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, a tree..."

-Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, 1977, Ch 1

A key property of any fractal set and the reason I find them so intriguing is "self-similarity". In simplest terms, this is when the smaller parts of a thing look like the whole. Have you ever noticed that this is also a fundamental property of nature? For example, the branches of a tree, if cut from the tree and examined, look like small trees. If you then tear a twig off of the branch and examine it, it resembles the branch and, therefore, the tree. A snowflake is the same way. If you zoom in on a snowflake, it looks similar to the whole snowflake. Below, I list things whose shape can be described as fractal. I will stop short because the list is probably infinite.

Capillaries, nerve cells, clouds, root systems, rivers, lightning, seashells, broccoli, sea urchins...

The power of fractal geometry to describe and simulate so many diverse systems is seriously underexploited. But, the fact that there exist a math to describe something as intangible and complex as beauty in nature, is mind blowing and never fails to move me. Indeed, the "nature of nature", the underlying patterns that tie everything on every scale together, from cells to galaxies, is fractal. So, when people say they "hate math", I wish I could tell them there are such things as fractals. Instead, I hold my tongue because I know how it may received. I hope, however, that more and more people might stumble across these fields and start to think of math as more than just algebra.

Six Month Pregancy Update

2011-01-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

I am six months pregnant today and happily realizing that I have more behind me than ahead! Interestingly, I've noticed that some people can't help making a face (usually a rapid signal of sadness or embarrassment) when I mention that I don't really enjoy being pregnant. Maybe they interpret this to mean that I am unhappy about having another child. Quite to the contrary, like my first, this baby was enthusiastically planned and is very happily anticipated. Of course, nurturing another human being within your own body is a beautiful thing... in concept. One of the heights of the human experience, a blessing, etc.. But, for me, being pregnant is the means to an end -a baby.

It is the baby I am excited about. I get no special pleasure from the extra attention (except that which I get from my husband who claims to find me beautiful this way). And, contrary to social expectations, I don't see myself as "glowing" -just having oily skin. I don't think the added weight makes me look "cute" -just fat. In fact, the only part of being "with child" I enjoy is the "child" part; feeling her move inside of me, seeing her on the ultrasound, anticipating our meeting, buying the clothes, the gear.

The truth is I am growing increasingly uncomfortable in my own skin, having horrible heartburn and mild insomnia that only gets worse every night.Coupled with the ever present, somewhat comical and often embarrassing pregnancy brain and mood swings I am, admittedly, no walk in the park- especially for my silently suffering husband.

That said, it is a funny thing duly noted by many of my mom friends that in a year or two I, like them, will look back on the discomforts of pregnancy and think to myself, "It wasn't that bad. It was fun... I can't wait to do it all over again!"

Though, for now, all I can say is no pain, no gain. Pregnancy is hard but oh so worth it -a minor sacrifice for the unparalleled beauty and joy a new life brings. A sacrifice I willingly accept, am grateful for and will want to endure again (and again?). But it is not the sacrifice itself I enjoy, it is knowing what I will get in return.

Affirmative Action

2010-12-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

Affirmative Action: an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women.

Sounds great, right? Bigot swine aside, who wouldn't want qualified women and blacks, asians, latinos, etc. in the workforce? The problem with affirmative action and the reason I think it is an unfair practice is that it usually overlooks how qualified a person is in favor of their skin color or sex. That is why in Britain they call it "positive discrimination". LOL, this term always makes me laugh, kind of like "reverse racism".

"Positive" discrimination? What does that man? Well, basically, it means that if you have worked your ass off to be at the top of your class and have taken internships to develop skills you think will make you more qualified than the next guy, you'd better hope the next guy is not black or a woman, or you can bet that if the company practices "positive discrimination" AKA "affirmative action", you're screwed!

P.C. Disclaimer: I hate the term African-American. I use "black". If you are offended, you are probably white so I'll ask you, how many black americans do you know that were born in, or have ever lived in Africa? What makes them African-American, then? Ancestry, you say? Well then, shouldn't we all be called African-Americans? Anyway...

Luckily for me, I happen to be a woman of hispanic descent (even though you can't really tell by my skin color) in a field and industry that is overwhelmingly dominated by white males. Chuh-Ching!! I'd love to say that I have such amazing foresight that I predicted this unfair advantage but, the fact is, I love Physics - and Mechanical Engineering was just the most closely related field in which I felt I could actually make some money.

So, I graduated from college with a 3.4 GPA and a 6 month old daughter, and still managed to juggle an internship I felt would make me more qualified than the next guy. And, probably because I was not the next guy, I landed a job with a large corporation that will remain nameless.

On my first day, I realized that I was the ONLY woman in my office building, and in the one next to that, and in the entire department, made up of at least 100 employees. Then, I realized that I was the only hispanic salaried person in the entire factory (1000+ employees)! Hmmmm... I began to wonder if there was not an unlucky white guy with a 4.0 GPA and more experience who did not get the job because he wouldn't have satisfied some affirmative action plan devised to save the company's reputation from being tarnished by insinuations of sexism or racism.

If I am so against affirmative action why, you may wonder, do I not resign on moral grounds?
Why do I stick around and reap it's benefits? Simply stated, I am no fool! Affirmative action did not only (in all likelihood) help me get this job but it also makes it harder for them to fire me and, as a consequence, I get paid a decent salary for working a desk job with more than my share of leniancies. And now that I am visibly pregnant this has only gotten better (worse), to the point that my male co-workers have started to notice and leak their resentment. And, while I never expected to get any special treatment and concede that it is extremely unfair and just plain disgusting, you won't hear me complaining to HR!

Another reason, probably the most important reason, I'm sticking around is that I believe that I am qualified and that I am great at my job. Like many in my graduating class (and perhaps even more so), I worked my ass off! I have memories that will never leave me of trying to breastfeed a screaming newborn while studying for a final at 4 a.m. on two hours of sleep! And, even though I will never know if I am here because my company needed to fill some diversity gap, because they felt I was the most qualified person in their pool, or a little bit of both, knowing that about myself is good enough for me!

IT'S A GIRL!

2010-12-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

"Going Public" and The Nub Theory

2010-11-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

Today, I am 16 weeks and 4 days pregnant. A friend of mine recently asked me why I had not "gone public" yet. I assumed she meant why hadn't made a status update or new blog post announcing the good news, but it made me chuckle because I imagined myself on the cover of a tabloid mag sporting suspicious belly bulge with a header that read "Is it a baby bump?". Here is my version:)

I am thrilled to have another child and a sibling for Dahlia. This pregnancy has been almost completely different from the first, so far. For one, I have only gained 5 lbs, which is 7 lbs less than I had gained by week 16 of my first pregnancy. On the downside, I got to see what morning sickness was like with this baby and, some evenings, I am so exhausted after work that I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to put Dahlia to bed! Luckily, in the second trimester (my favorite part of pregnancy) the general malaise is starting to wane, I can feel the baby move occasionally and, soon, I will start looking pregnant instead of just overweight!

Another reason I love the second trimester is that it is the time you get to find out your baby's gender if you so choose! Having a little girl at home, I would love to have a boy next but, more than anything, I just want to be able to go shopping and buy something that isn't unisex! I've been so eager to know if I will have a boy or a girl that, at about 11 weeks, I did some online research into early gender detection using ultrasound, more crudely known as "nub theory". It has to do with the "angle of the dangle" of your fetus' genital tubercle, the protrusion that will eventually form into a clitoris or penis, and it is measured in relation to the spine. It is simple really, >30 degrees indicates a boy and anything less is a girl. It has well documented accuracy when done correctly (about 75% at 12 weeks) and is not a wives tale[1].

[1] Determination of gender - 10 and 14 weeks , Z Efrat et al, Journal: Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology 1999; 13:305–30.

Anyway, while the theory itself is simple, convincing your ultrasound tech that you do not just have a case of "I read it on the internet, so it must be true!", is another matter all together.

Nevertheless, at my 12 week appointment, I enthusiastically asked if she knew of the technique and if we could try it. I stressed that it would just be for fun and that I would not take the results too seriously. She did not address my question but instead said dismissively, "Well, I'll take a picture of whatever you want but I don't have the equipment to take those measurements". I asked her to just try to get a good shot of it and that I would measure the angle at home (with that sophisticated piece of equipment known as a protractor).

When she had completed the nuchal translucency measurements and located the nasal bone, I could tell she was about to wrap up, so I reminded her of my request. She sighed heavily and said, "You know, this really isn't accurate at this age. We are talking about a "microscopic" size here." Microscopic? I thought, almost laughing out loud, Not really, but I looked at her pleasantly and respectfully explained the theory again and that I was not trying to measure the size but the angle. "I just need a picture of it.", I smiled. "Ok. So, what is it I'm looking for?", she asked repositioning the ultrasound probe. "The genital tubercle", I repeated for what must have been the fourth time. "You can't see the genitalia this early one.", she said with an air of authority. "ARGH!!", I thought. "I know. The genital tubercle is a protrusion that eventually forms into genitalia. It is the same for male and female fetus' with the exception of the angle."

I am sure that this came out condescending but, at that point, I was ready to return some of what she'd been dishing out. "Do you do ultrasounds?", she asked sardonically. She was letting her insecurity show, so I decided to end it there and left- without a usable nub pic.

Luckily, there are only two more weeks left before I have my anatomical ultrasound and hopefully, if the baby (and the technician) co-operates, I will finally know what color onesies to buy!

Update to Picky Eater

2010-10-11T05:14:00.000-07:00

So last night, after making Dahlia one of the four dinners she'll actually eat (Grilled Cheese and Green Beans), I sat down to have my own dinner of which the main course was chicken (I know, we eat a lot of chicken). Dahlia spots me from across the room, walks over to me and hovers over my plate as she often does on the nights we don't get a chance to eat together as a family. "What's that?", she asks, pointing at my chicken. "It's chicken. Do you want some?", I ask through a chuckle, 100% sure she that, after the chicken battle of the previous week, she would run away screaming.

"Want some. Yessss!", she replied. "Yeah right", I thought, and held up a big chunk of breast meat on a fork. To my astonishment and utter disbelief, she opened her mouth wide, chewed, swallowed and asked for more! I yelled across the room to John to come over and repeated the feat...TWICE!!

I fed her nearly all of it and spent the rest of the night trying to wrap my head around it. Two days before, I could have water boarded her and she wouldn't have touched that chicken! Indeed, she demonstrated that she would rather eat nothing at all than take even a single bite. Yet, there she was, eagerly eating chicken off my plate!

I still can't explain it. Pushing a child to eat a food is supposed to put them off of it... right? I spent at least two hours last week with a plate of chicken in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other saying "If you eat your chicken, you can have some ice cream" or " Come on, just take one little bite" or "Mmmm... chicken is so yummy". By the end of it, I was sure I had put her off chicken forever. Oh well. I think I will give up on understanding this one and just be happy it is one more food we can all share together.

Picky Eater

2010-10-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

My daughter is a picky eater. In fact, I could list the only meals/ foods she will eat all too quickly: PB&J, Pasta w/ red sauce, Pizza, Grilled Cheese, Deli Turkey, ground beef, Green Beans (only if finely pureed), wild rice, Goldfish (of course) and, luckily, most fruits. Reading this back, it really isn't that bad. I've spoken to other moms of toddlers whose kids didn't have half as varied a repertoire.

Still, it is frustrating because she never used to be afraid to try new foods. We used to go out for dim sum on weekends and she would sit quietly in her high chair, eagerly awaiting the next new dish to sample. It wasn't until she was about 17 months old that she suddenly started to turn her lip at old favorites and aggressively reject anything new.

I am sure some of my readers are wondering what the big deal is. Just feed her what she likes, they might say. Well, I do. I can't starve her... or can I? More on this later. So, why do I care? I just want her to get the most out of food. We've been fortunate that the meals she does enjoy contain enough of what she needs nutritionally to keep her healthy. However, for John (my husband) and I, food is not just fuel. We enjoy it. Luckily for me, he enjoys cooking and, if I may say so myself, is damn good at it! Me, I just enjoy eating good food (which makes us very well suited to one another!). This is not to say that we both don't occasionally eat fast food that taste mostly like salt and recycled oil (Gasp! Terrible for you, I know.). But still, we want to expose our children to a variety of cuisines -to teach them about flavor and texture and how to talk about food. To me, learning how to describe what you are tasting in more detail than, "It's good" is just part of being well rounded.

I should admit that it is not only concern for my child's nutrition and for the development of her palate that makes me want to break her of her picky eating. Simply stated, John and I want to have three kids. But this does not mean we want to cook three separate meals three times a day!

As I type, I recognize that I am expecting too much of my toddler. Many two year olds are picky eaters. It is interesting to note that, historically, children across the globe were most often weaned at this age. I have read that picky eating may have evolved as a way to keep kids from accidentally poisoning themselves as they transitioned to a diet of solid foods. This would also explain why kids are more sensitive to bitterness in foods than adults (bitterness is often a sign of toxicity).

So, what do I plan to do with my picky eater? Well, like many concerned parents, I recently asked my pediatrician. She said, " Just don't offer her anything else. Serve her what you'd like her to eat and if she refuses it, take it away and bring it back the next time she asks for food." I should have remembered that this was the same woman who pressured me to use the Ferber method before I felt Dahlia was ready for it but, instead, I decided to give it a shot. For the entire day that followed, John offered her nothing but braised chicken. When I got home from work around 5, poor Dahlia was a wreck. I'd never seen her so miserable, irritable and desperate. It didn't take more than 15 minutes before we ordered a Pizza.

This experience just reinforced what I've always known. If every cell in your body is telling you something you are doing with your child is wrong, then it probably is. Starving her for a day just lowered her blood sugar and probably just made her feel nauseous and fatigued. Maybe in a year or two, she will be ready to play this kind of "hardball". Or, most likely, she will just outgrow this phase and I will have my little adventurous eater back. In any case, if it comes down to starving my child or making grilled cheeses every night for years, grilled cheeses win.

Not So Terrible Two's

2010-09-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

We have all seen it and felt both sorry and embarrassed for the mom with her hands full of shopping bags trying to drag a screaming toddler to their feet in the middle of a crowded store. My sympathies to you if you have been this poor woman because, on top of it all, you often have several people gawking at you as they would a car wreck or a street fight.

Dahlia pulled a more toned down version of this once, at J.C. Penney. She wanted to run free through the store and, having no concept of "stranger danger" or the likelihood of running face-first into a clothing rack, who wouldn't? To her, it must have seemed needlessly unjust to be restrained to hold hands and walk at a grown-ups pace. Still, when she let her knees buckle and quietly refused to stand, I found myself in that awful situation: hands full, uncooperative child and a dozen or so prying eyes watching the sweat start to trickle down my face. In the end, I lied and told her that there was ice cream waiting for her in the car (wrong, I know, but it worked just long enough for me to pay for my stuff and high tail it out of there!). Needless to say, that was the last time I braved the mall without a stroller!

Aside from this nearly isolated incident, the terrible two's have treated us quite well (so far). In fact, this stage is one of my favorites. Dahlia learns things so quickly, now. She can identify basic colors and shapes, count to seven and sing the alphabet song! She is an absolute chatterbox and very polite for a toddler, habitually saying "please", "thank you" and even "excuse me"! Best of all, she gets so much more out of her experiences. Cute example: ever since we visited the Atlanta Aquarium (which is a must-see for anyone in the area), she has been obsessed with sharks! She'll ask to see pictures of them anytime one of us is on the computer and pretends to be one when she takes a bath. She'll say "Arrrr! I'm a scary shark!" (We've tried to tell her that sharks don't roar but in her mind they still do).

I can easily go on forever but the point is that, everyday, Dahlia reveals more about what kind of person she'll grow up to be -her thoughts, what she dreams and imagines, what she enjoys and what she fears. I am now getting to know her in an entirely different way and, while I am eager to see what she will be like at 3 and at 5, I can wait because the terrible two's are amazing and not terrible at all!

Random Complaints

2010-09-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

1. There are these "pro-life" billboards by the side of the road that I take to work everyday. They read "Pregnant? Your baby's heart is already beating." and depict a blond woman with way too much make-up on holding up a positive pregnancy test with a scared look on her face. Why the lies? Using deception to promote an agenda is counterproductive. When people realize that you justify your position with misinformation, they will assume that that was the only way it could be justified, which leaves you and your claims with no credibility at all. This is along the lines of the ads that show a 16-week, fully formed, fetus and read "My heart is beating 18 days after conception". While the latter ad is much more accurate, why not show what it really looks like 18 days after conception? Well here you go...

I know it's strange but, personally, I can't help but remember being pregnant with Dahlia and feel a bit warm and fuzzy when I look at this. Still, it wouldn't do much in the way of guilting a woman into to keeping an unwanted pregnancy. Even so, it is truth. And the decision to abort or carry a pregnancy to term should be based on nothing less.

2. Why doesn't my 2 year old take me seriously when I tell her not to do something? Yet, all my husband has to do is raise his voice and she cries like the world is coming to an end! I am always consistent. When I threaten to punish her, I always follow through. I never negotiate with her. My husband rarely disciplines her at all! I think kids are naturally more intimidated by men than women- but that doesn't make it any easier!

3. Why is this religious zealot pastor from the sticks world famous now? For threatening to burn the Koran?! Come on, REALLY? If this was a bible or an American flag he was threatening to burn, you wouldn't hear a second word about it. Everyone is so afraid to offend the Muslims for fear that extremist will retaliate, that you have political and religious leaders from all around the world pleading with this nobody not to exercise his freedom of expression! Terrorists are like Freddy Krueger or the Boogeyman in that they thrive off of people's fear. It makes them stronger. Take that fear away, show some courage, and you strip them of their power. Anyway, lesson learned. If you want to be famous overnight, just threaten to burn the Koran!

The Science of Parenting

2010-07-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

In the past, I have been accused of being rigid or inflexible. I am a scientist, a physicist and engineer by training but also at heart, and, like most science-minded people, it is in my nature to seek out truth and objectivity. So, I was very pleased to find an extremely interesting and helpful new website about parenting. It covers all aspects of child development and care (i.e. breastfeeding, sleep training, social skills, etc.) but, for every claim it makes, it sites a study supporting it. And, while I have not reviewed every study for credibility, this site is miles away from Baby Center.com with its political agendas being pushed under the guise of real science. The site is:

http://www.parentingscience.com

You will often hear moms say things like "There is no right or wrong way to parent, it's about whatever works for you and your family." I strongly disagree. There are definitely wrong ways to parent. And, thanks to the plethora of anthropological, neurological and psychological studies that this website has brought together, the "thinking parent" now has a credible guide to help them make the best decisions for their child. While I don't claim that I have always made the right decisions for Dahlia, I was pleased to find that most of the parenting behaviors sited in these studies as being best for kids, were things that come naturally to me and to most parents.

For example, while it is hard to believe, there are actually women out there who purposely deprive their children (even babies under a year) of affection! Most of them do this not because the child did something wrong, but because they think it will make them independent or because they believe their infant is trying to manipulate them. This is just DUMB. But, put more eloquently ...

"By definition, securely-attached kids are not overly clingy or helpless. They are the kids who feel confident to explore the world on their own. They can do this because they trust that their parents will be there for them" (Mercer 2006).

So, as may seem obvious and intuitive to most of us, routinely ignoring a child's desperate pleas to be held or cuddled will not only fail to make them more independent, it will create an individual without the sense of emotional security necessary to ever achieve independence. Because the need for attachment and affection is innate in humans, a parent will never be successful in conditioning a child to not want this. By repeatedly ignoring them, they will only ensure that the child spends the rest of its life looking for what they chose not to give.

This is just one of the topics covered in this amazing website. I would recommend it, not only to parents but to anyone wanting to learn more about child development and human nature.

The Seven Deadly Sins

2010-07-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

I am not a religious woman. However, I feel that a few of the seven deadly sins are, to this day, an accurate depiction of the worst in humanity. That which is destructive to the "spirit" and, in some cases, to society as a whole. I have listed them, in order of severity, according to Dante's Divine Comedy and Wikipedia:

Lust: "Unlawful sexual desire, such as desiring sex with a person outside marriage."

Interesting that this was #1 in Dante's time. Taking this definition of lust, it would surely rank at the bottom if it makes the list at all which, in my book, it does not. Society has a lot more to worry about than horny teenagers.

Gluttony: "Wasting of food, either through eating too much food, drink or drugs, misplaced desire for food for its taste, or not giving food to the needy."

Guilty. Overeating is indeed a problem for me, as it is for many Americans. The prevalence of obesity in the U.S. is proof of this. Most restaurants in this country offer portions too large for people to actually consume. Still, many people sit there and stuff themselves to the point of nausea in an attempt to clear their plates. There have been multiple studies that confirm this phenomenon. They have shown that the amount of food that people will eat is proportional to how much they are served. It is no wonder why, throughout history, the idea of beauty has been tied to sacrifice. When food was scarce and having to work outside in full sun was the norm, a beautiful woman was one that was rotund and pale. Now that most of us work indoors and have more than enough food to eat, beauty is thin and tan.

So, are taxes on sugary junk foods the answer to our country's obesity "crisis"? Not likely. For one, people will not trade in their Twinkies for carrot sticks just because they have to pay a little more for them. But much more importantly, it is blatant assault on personal freedom to punish people for what they consume. Being fat and unhealthy is a personal choice that one should be allowed to make without government intervention. If the State is given the right to decide and enforce rules as to what foods are best for us, then we have opened up our bodies to their governance and, consequently, relinquished sole ownership. If we are not free to decide what goes on within the confines of our bodies, then freedom means nothing at all.

Greed: "Greed is when somebody wants more things than the person needs or can use."

There is a fine line in the minds of most people between "greed" and "ambition". Wanting more than you need, well ... who doesn't? All we need to survive is food and shelter. So almost all people would be greedy if you take that definition. I think it is important to want more. Wanting more is what keeps civilization going. If people were satisfied with just the bare essentials, there would be no invention and no technological growth. We would all live in caves or, less dramatically, we would all be dirt poor and happy to stay that way. If there are people out there who really want to stay poor, I have nothing against it. I just don't know anyone that does.

So who is to say how much is enough? Who should decide when you have accumulated enough wealth? I think the answer is obvious - YOU should! If you have reached a point in life where you are exactly where you want to be and have as much as you ever want to have, then you are part of a fortunate minority. But to chastise others for wanting more, is to claim authority over them and the right to decide the limits of their success. On the other hand, gaining wealth at the expense of another person's right to work to achieve their own is criminal. This is how I define true greed. The greedy person willfully deprives others to fulfill their own love of excess. They don't need it, they simply want it -even if they have to take it from someone who does needs it and is willing to work for it.

Sloth: "Laziness; idleness and wastefulness of time that a person has."

This is one of my personal pet peeves. Not only is sloth revolting to me, it is also infuriating. The lazy person, via their action (or inaction), asserts that they should be exempt from pulling their own weight. I see sloth as a form of entitlement. In almost every social structure, physical work is a necessity and a precursor to co-operation. The lazy person is essentially saying that they are entitled to rest while you work and they benefit from your efforts without contributing their own.

Wrath: "Inappropriate (not right) feelings of hatred, revenge or even denial, as well as punitive desires outside of justice."

Guilty. When I feel like someone has seriously wronged me, I want revenge. The problem with this is that wrath and justice need not go together. While I'd like to think that I would only take an eye for an eye, people often forget that this biblical phrase was originally conceived to inspire mercy. It is in humanity's nature (with a few exceptions, I'm sure) to seek retribution that matches the degree of misery that they have had to endure. Since events affect people differently, this will not always amount to punishment matching misdeed.

Envy: "Hating other people for what they have. Dante wrote that envy is "Love of one's own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs""

Dante said it beautifully. I cannot compete but I will start by saying that, by definition, jealousy and envy are different. Jealousy is a normal, and often healthy, human emotion. Envy is something else entirely. Courtesy of Merriam Webster:

Jealous: intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness

Envy: painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage

So "envy" implies pain or resentment on the part of the person feeling it. Most people have looked at someone else and thought "I wish I had a car like that" or "I wish my body looked like hers!". I think the difference is in what happens next. For example, the jealous man, after seeing a guy with a more expensive car, may say to himself "That's a nice ride. He must make a lot more money than I do. I need to get a better job!". But he will harbor no ill will and soon go on with his day, oftentimes with new determination to better himself. The envious man, however, will be consumed by thoughts of worthlessness and by anger.. He will feel true hatred toward the guy with the nice ride and toward himself. The envious man will experience prolonged suffering at his own hands.

Envy seems to make people see things through a skewed lens of injustice. If the life of someone they know is going well, they will find erroneous reasons why that person doesn't deserve it, or why their happiness won't last. Envy is a damning emotion. It deprives the people who suffer from it of ever achieving lasting happiness. This is simply because their happiness and sense of self worth is measured in the misery of those around them and in the failures of the people they call "friends".

Pride: "A desire to be important or attractive to others or excessive love of self (holding self out of proper position toward God or fellows; Dante's definition was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor")".

Originally, the seven deadly sins were eight "evil thoughts" from the mind of the 4th century monk, Evagrius Ponticus. The main differences are that envy was excluded and there were three additional vices, "acedia", "despair" and something called "vainglory".

Vainglory (Latin, vanagloria) is unjustified boasting. Pope Gregory viewed it as a form of pride, so he combined the two in his 590 A.D. revised version of the list. I have to disagree with Pope Gregory here.

If you take the definition of pride given above, then the prideful man would view his own life and pursuits as objectively more important than that of his neighbor's. And, while I believe that self-preservation, self-interest and self-love (and interest, love and preservation of one's own family) are the most important human drives, they should never come at the expense of someone who has done you no harm.

By contrast, vainglory makes no mention of actually believing that you are better than anyone else. It involves unjustified bragging. A person could fit that description in a number of ways. They may be prideful or their boasting may be a defense mechanism to cover their insecurities. They may simply be delusional. My point is that the above definition of pride (which is not what I would normally associate with the word) is much more nefarious than that of vainglory and the two should have never been joined.

In conclusion, the "seven deadly sins" not only sound wickedly cool, they also describe the drive behind some of man's most horrible deeds. You need not be religious to agree.

Parental Duty

2010-07-07T05:42:00.000-07:00

I always knew I wanted children. I always knew I wanted a career, as well. What I never knew was just how much internal conflict would exist between these two roles. Before Dahlia was born, I thought that perhaps many women used their children as excuses to sit on their asses all day. Having been a stay at home mom for the first 18 months of my child's life, I now know that I did everything except sit on my ass. In fact, I do a lot more sitting on my ass now, as an Engineer, than I ever did as a Homemaker. And while I still think that some moms use their children as excuses not to jump into the workforce, I am willing to bet that their fears are of anything BUT hard work.

Many of the fears I experienced before starting my career were around the welfare of my child in the care of someone else. In fact, Dahlia was over a year old before I let anyone other than her Grandmother watch her. I would describe my apprehension about leaving my child in the care of someone else as a paranoid panic. In my mind, anyone could be a pedophile or a sadist. How could I leave her alone with anyone, if I would never really know what happened while I was gone? I still recognize that anyone can be a sicko. To deny that would be to deny the reality of the news we hear everyday. But now, I drop my precious offspring off with people I barely know everyday -at a place called daycare.

I did a lot of research before choosing a daycare. I called local police departments to make sure that no incidents had been filed around a particular facility and I spoke to each and every person that worked there and found out what their plans for the future were (which, to me, translates to how much they have to loose). I made sure they were all CPR certified and on and on until I am sure they all wanted to strangle me but their reactions didn't matter to me. I did all my questioning in the most polite and non-intrusive way possible. Besides, it is my parental duty to ensure my child's safety within the confines of what my family can afford.

Still, 5 months of daycare later (late last week to be exact), I notice a large but hard-to-see bump on Dahlia's head, near the hairline. Having had no incident report from the daycare, I worried. I worried because I am almost certain that it didn't happen at home and the daycare workers claim to have no idea how she got it. So one of two things are probable: 1. It happened and no one noticed or 2. They noticed and didn't report it. I really don't know what is worse but both would be equally as infuriating, albeit not as sinister. Then comes that familiar guilt. "Because I choose to work and make money, I expose my baby to neglect" and "I will never know how that bump got there." and " What if someone hit her?" and "What if next time it is worse?", etc.. So, yesterday, Dahlia and I are headed to the potty (a new endeavor worthy of its own post) and she refuses to sit on it and starts yelling "No! No potty! Dahlia fall down!" That's odd, I thought at the time. She has never fallen off of the toilet at home. Then I remembered the mysterious bump and arrived at my current conclusion (which I accept is based on several assumptions): my child, at some point, fell off of the potty at daycare and it went unnoticed or was not reported.

Now, I consider two choices: pull her out of this daycare based on a whole lot of assumptions and force her to leave her little friends and teachers and an environment that she has grown to love and crave. Or, swallow my suspicions and assume that there was no ill intent and that it was either just a momentary (and isolated) lapse in supervision or, less likely, that it did happen at home and that she simply did not cry.

No matter what, I am left with that sinking feeling of guilt. Am I not fulfilling my duty as a parent by failing to protect her from injury, from seemingly constant illness associated with the petri dish that is daycare? The fact is that no one would care for Dahlia like my husband and I do. It would be delusional to claim that she wouldn't be better taken care of at home. However, at the same time, she would not be as socialized (if at all) and would not learn as much in the process of becoming socialized. Our family would not be as financially stable and my child's future nowhere near as bright. Would I not be failing at my parental duties then?

All in all, nothing can change that I MISS being with her. I think about it everyday. "What is she doing right now?", "What will she eat today?", "Is she happy?". I have chosen to deprive myself of that knowledge in the short-term but, hopefully, she will be all the better for it in the long run.

Differences between Men and Women

2010-07-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

This has long been one of my favorite topics of conversation. I was listening to public radio and this Neuropsychiatrist by the name of Louann Brizendine was on the show discussing the differences between the male and female brains. I was on my lunch break and caught the show after it had begun but what I did hear really caught my interest, so I thought I'd share. She made a few really interesting comments:

It's been shown that when a woman is pregnant, she secretes pheromones that fundamentally alter the neurochemistry of her mate (assuming he is around long enough to receive them). Some effects of these pheromones are to decrease his testosterone (making him less prone to violence), increase his prolactin, transmit the symptoms of pregnancy (called couvade or sympathetic pregnancy) and make the auditory centers in his brain react to the sound of a crying infant more efficiently. That means a man can actually hear a baby crying from a longer distance in his wife's last trimester compared to before she got pregnant! This is extremely interesting because it seems like nature prepares a man for fatherhood through the mother. Her neurochemistry is the source of much of his paternal instinct, as well as the sole source of her own! I've always noticed how most little girls pretend to be mommies when they play with their dolls and how this innate parental instinct, which manifests through play, seemed completely absent in boys. Now, I've actually heard the science behind it!

There is such a thing as a "monogamy gene". One type of prairie dog is monogamous, while another very similar type is not. They found that the only real difference between the two animals is that this one gene is longer in one than in the other. I can't remember if it was the longer gene or the shorter gene that belonged to the monogamous prairie dog but when they were switched, the promiscuous prairie dog suddenly turned monogamous and the monogamous one started to take on multiple mates! They found the same gene in primates, as well as humans! So, while the research is still very new, this suggests that whether or not you can really trust your mate is actually a matter of genetics.

Men are more given to solving problems than understanding emotion (big suprise, right? lol). Many times a woman will approach her husband with a problem she is having and he will jump right into trying to solve the problem. This offends many women because, in general, we want to know that he understands how we feel (or can at least acknowledge our emotions) before we get advice on how to solve our problem. Brizendine explained how the areas of the male brain responsible for recognizing emotion do not activate for as long as those of a woman do when hearing someone talk about a problem they are having. Instead, this region is almost bypassed in men and, instead, neural activity is diverted to the areas that handle problem solving. So, I guess the take-home for me was that perhaps I should be more understanding of my husband in these situations. It is not that he doesn't care about how I feel. On the contrary, his reaction is a sign of just how much he does care.

I know ... I'm a big nerd. However, if anyone is a as interested in this stuff as I am, here is the link to her website:

http://www.louannbrizendine.com/

and directly to the broadcast I refer to:

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail1565.html

From City to Town

2010-04-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

I was born in a large American city. When I was about six months old, my parents packed me into their Oldsmobile station wagon and set off for Broadway, N.C. (Never heard of it? I'm not surprised). Broadway can be traversed from one end to another in about 20 minutes and its population is now just over 1000 people. After a few months of living there, my parents decided that it was time to move on and we arrived in Miami, FL by car a few days later.

Growing up in a "big" city definitely had it's ups and downs. Overall, however, I feel lucky that my parents decided to leave the sticks. Many of the small towns I've traveled to and seen in movies and T.V. are filled with natural beauty and and a sense of community you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in Miami. What I enjoy about large metropolitan areas, however, is that you have this confluence of people from all around the world and all walks of life, as well as a variety of venues and meeting places for them to come together and bring their diverse experiences to the same table. This exchange is a prime breeding ground for ideas and invention and, ultimately, progress. This is why I hope to one day return to a city and allow my children to reap the benefits of city life.

When it came time for college, my then boyfriend and I decided to pursue a future together and, after researching various universities, we settled on the college town we have called home for the last 7 years. Many college towns (ours included) are strange in that they are like hybrids of small towns and large cities. You have the natural beauty ( and on a more sour note, much of the racism and close-mindedness) of small American rural communities and at the same time, spread amongst it all, that intellectually charged environment I so enjoy. This makes it a decent (while not ideal) place to have and raise a family, which is what we did when we married and welcomed our first child, Dahlia, into the world in 2008.

Motherhood has changed everything. Whether in the boondocks or metropolis, Dahlia makes life indescribably joyous and as long as I am with her, I will always feel at home.

Dahlia at 6 weeks

Dahlia at 4 months

Dahlia at 6 months, S. Beach, Miami, FL.

Dahlia at 9 months

Dahlia at 1 year.