Pump Pump Pump Pump Pump Pump Pump Pump Your Milk

Pumping breast milk at work isn't perfect under the best of circumstances. But of course, not everyone enjoys the best of circumstances, as discussed in this New York Times article. Law professor Ann Althouse has some interesting thoughts on the subject as well.

As for me, when I return to work following the birth over the summer of Metro Baby #2, my pumping options will be more limited than they were at my prior employer. At Prior Employer, I enjoyed the availability of a dedicated nursing suite with a telephone, fridge, and fairly comfy chairs. New Employer definitely wants to be nursing friendly, but isn't terribly equipped for it. My office manager has promised to install a set of shades to cover the glass door of a conference room so that I'll have a bit of privacy, but it's not optimal. Even so, it's infinitely better than perching atop a toilet in a public restroom.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

So how exactly are we all supposed to explain to our children that Pluto is no longer a planet? "Sorry, sweetie, Pluto was too small to be a real planet." That should go over big. Clearly the community of astronomers neglected to consider the impact of its decision on the toddler and preschool population.

Gender Equality My Ass

I'm a daughter of the 1980s. I believe that girls can be good at math and science, that I can bring home the turkey bacon and fry it up in a pan, and that men can be fantastic stay at home dads. I want my son to grow up knowing that girls are smart and fun to be around and that it's not a threat to his manhood to marry a woman who makes more money than he does. I want him to know that his Daddy is not only not less of a man, but more of one, because he cleans the house better than Mommy ever could or would, and that Mommy worships the ground Daddy walks on for his spectacular, homemade, from scratch, Sweet and Sour Chicken.

So why is the American toy industry conspiring against me?

My kid doesn't yet know that the world thinks that there are boy toys and girl toys, or boy colors and girl colors. But the world knows that if something is pink, it's for a girl. And if it's frilly, it's for a girl. I don't really mind that too much - I don't have a burning need to put him in a frilly pink shirt.

But I DO have a burning need to buy him a doll stroller.

He plays with doll strollers all day at school. When the little girls bring them to synagogue on Saturday all he wants to do is play with them. He puts his teddy bear in them and pushes them around the room. When a doll stroller is unavailable, he'll push around his umbrella stroller, no matter how unwieldy it is. I really, really, want to get him one.

Every last one I can find is pink. Really pink. Majorly, monumentally pink. We have had this problem once before, when we wanted to get him a play kitchen. They were all pink. And frilly and stereotypically girly. (Thank goodness for Step 2.)

Here's a word to the toy industry. My kid is 18 months old. He doesn't know that kitchens and strollers are for girls. I know I should be enlightened enough to get my kid pink toys and not care, but I'd like to get him something that says it's ok to be a snips-and-snails-and-puppy-dog-tails kind of boy and still like to cook and play with dolls. (Have we learned nothing from Free to Be... You and Me?)

Pregnancy Parking

Nightline recently did a short piece on a proposed New Jersey ordinance allowing pregnant women to park in handicapped spots. While I certainly agree that there are issues with labelling pregnant women handicapped, I also agree that waddling all the way across a huge suburban mall parking lot in my 9th month left me too tired to even remember what I'd come to the store for by the time I got inside.

What to do? The story showed a grocery store that had parking for pregnant women or parents with infants or toddlers in tow. I think grocery stores could gain a loyal following of parents that way. And the Babies 'R' Us that's semi-near me has "Stork Parking" for expectant or new mothers, which I was thrilled to take advantage of and kind of miss. So long as daddies with infants in tow get the same treatment, I think these stores have the right idea. But do I think it should be mandated? There I'm not so sure.

Your thoughts?

To TV or Not to TV

So Sesame Street has entered the Baby Einstein age, releasing a series of Sesame Beginnings DVDs aimed at the 6-24 month demographic. Children's health and psychology experts are apoplectic.

In a world where there are zillions of videos aimed at the baby crowd, I really don't have a problem with the Sesame Street gang entering the fray. I will confess, though, to being a bit conflicted on the whole No TV Before Age 2 debate. On the one hand, I find it appalling when people park their children in front of the TV for hours at a time. But I will be lying if I said that I didn't turn on a Baby Einstein video or Sesame Street to permit me to take a shower when Metro Girl (I can't really call her the Metropolitoddler at this point, can I?) was a baby, and she now watches Dora or Blue's Clues or a Disney movie pretty much every morning upon awakening so that Mommy and Daddy can (a) shower or (b) squeak in a bit more sleep. And then there's the odd half hour of Noggin she watches as an activity at some point or another during the day, plus whatever TV is employed by nannies and mommies out of my control when she's out on a playdate . . . . granted, she's above two and therefore outside the scope of the edict, but it wasn't like she never watched any TV before she was two.

So I guess I'm obviously not a big supporter of withholding all TV -- but all things in moderation. All that being said, I still don't have a problem with Sesame Street getting into the act.

Formula Fed and Ivy League Bred

Here's an enjoyable and sensible piece on breastfeeding from the Boston Globe. Apparently it spawned a fair amount of debate -- sadly, however, the Globe's archives are pay-only, so I can neither read nor link to the resulting firestorm.

Already Past Our Prime

It seems that we're already passe. The hip, new thing is podcasting, of course, and parents are podcasting everything from conversations on parenting techniques to live recordings of births. Makes what we do here seem positively tame. There's a full article about it here.

Now it seems that "Mommycast" has a $100K sponsorship from Dixie - making it the first non-technology-oriented podcast with major sponsorship. Hm. Double Hm.

Some Songs are Too Damned Catchy

Hey Victor (hey Victor)
Hey Freddie (hey Freddie)
Let's eat some (let's eat some)
Spaghetti (spaghetti)
Hey Victor (hey Victor)
I'm ready (I'm ready)
To eat some spaghetti with Freddie!

Damn you, Laurie Berkner! I have been listening to Laurie's Under a Shady Tree since Felicity Metropolitan got me a copy when Baby Banana was born. And sure, I've wandered around singing the title track, I'm Gonna Catch You, Song in My Tummy and others. Catchy, but at least I don't find it insipid or mind-numbing, like some other children's singers. Then a few weeks ago we got Buzz Buzz, which they also play a lot at BB's day care, and I wandered around singing Pig on Her Head and The More We Get Together. Still not a problem. The More We Get Together is featured in BB's music class, and singing Pig on Her Head at work gets me odd looks that I kind of like.

But then BB got the other two Laurie albums for Chanukah. Upon our return home I popped in Victor Vito. I want you to know that I have listened to this album precisely twice. Twice. That's it. Apparently, that was more than enough to find me singing the above lyrics perfectly, over and over and over again in my office today. This is despite the fact that I have listened to four different recently-purchased Christine Lavin albums at my desk today in hopes of driving Victor and Freddie out of my head. Four. And still Victor and Freddie haunt me. Catchy does not begin to describe this song, never mind the rest of the album. Yeesh.

I'm afraid to go home tonight and put in Whaddaya Think of That?

Embarrassment of Riches

Happy holidays to all (both?) of our readers! We here at UM hope that you are enjoying a joyful and relaxing holiday season, and that the New Year brings you health and happiness.

I am very much enjoying Baby Banana's first Chanukah. He loves candles (which is sure to cause me serious problems later) and so Chanukah is a big thrill for him. And latkes have been a major success - fried potatoes and onions, what could be bad?

Of course, not only is it Baby Banana's first Chanukah, it is both sets of grandparents' first Chanukah as grandparents. So there are presents. LOTS of presents. Baby Banana's aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, and, of course, grandparents went a little overboard. BB, needless to say, really only cares about the wrapping paper and is a little unhappy that I won't let him ingest it. Thankfully, boxes are endlessly amusing. I have to say, I'm amused by all this. At this age, gifts are just as much for me and Mr. Banana as they are for BB. I am thrilled to death that we have some new board books and toys that skew a bit older for BB, since Mr. Banana and I are going a bit batty playing with the same stuff with BB day after day. It never occurred to me how much WE would want some new toys after a year!

But the absolute best part of this holiday has been realing that when someone asks me what BB likes, or how he likes a particular gift, I have an answer! He's showing actual preference for certain toys (like his new Elmo cellphone) and types of toys (things that make noises, things that can be taken out of and put into containers), as well as certain activities, like banging on things, opening and closing cabinets, and pulling books off of shelves. A year ago, this kid was inside me. Nine months ago, he couldn't sit up or play with a toy. Six months ago, he wasn't mobile. Three months ago, he wasn't interested in specific toys. And now, this little person lives in my house and has likes and dislikes, and eats latkes, and laughs, and babbles, and chases cats and dogs. Amazing.

Happy holidays to all, and I wish you a year of amazing discovery with your children.

Two Red-Letter Days

I was perusing one of the more-than-a-few blogs I read regularly and happened upon this company called Red Letter Days, over in London. Basically, they organize all sorts of cool experiences -- you can buy them for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Helen over at Everyday Stranger received a gift certificate for her choice of a range of experiences from her employer as a thank-you for her good work on a significant project. Take a look -- the experiences are pretty cool. Everything from a full day at a two-Michelin-star county restaurant to a Wedgwood master class to a day of jousting to a two-night teepee retreat to a day of spy training -- and that's not even the so-called "VIP Experiences," which are just cool.

Reflecting on the niftiness of Helen's reward, I got to thinking. Working as I do in financeland, I receive the lion's share of my compensation in a single bonus check at the end of the year. This tends to be a little nerve-wracking, as the base salary is insufficient on which to support my family -- bonuses are multiples of base salary, not a percentage thereof. I myself had an okay year for an organization that itself had a decent-but-not-mindblowing year, and as such my bonus was all of the above -- okay, decent, and not mindblowing. (I should note, however, that it was an improvement over Prior Employer, and thus should be regarded as a success.)

I bring this up as background to what was a more interesting turn of events: on the day of our office holiday party, the head of the company handed out envelopes to every single employee -- envelopes containing a not huge but certainly noteworthy amount of cash. I was thrilled. I immediately called Mr. Metropolitan, who was equally thrilled with the news.

Thinking about it later in the day, I decided it was kind of weird to be so excited about the cash relative to my level of excitement about my (rather more significant) bonus. I think it's because it was an entirely unexpected windfall. I know what my bonus is being used for -- mortgage, school, nanny, insurance, other living expenses, some savings -- but this little pile of money had no designated purpose other than to make me happy. And so it did.

Helen's Red Letter Day and my envelope tell an important workplace lesson, I think: doing random nice things for one's employees gets one all sorts of brownie points from said employees. I think it speaks well of both our bosses that they understand that. Speaking for myself, a bit of cash got my boss much more in the way of employee goodwill than would an additional 5x that amount in my bonus check. And Helen? Well, Helen's going to ride the Orient Express. I think that warrants a warm fuzzy or two, don't you?

TiVo: The New Generation Gap

Interesting article in WSJ Online today: The basic gist is that our kids experience TV completely differently than we did because of TiVo (assuming we have it). I'd never thought about it before, but it really will change things in any TV-watching home. Kids growing up in TiVo households will never experience the frantic call of the sibling, "Hurry up, it's on!" when they go to the bathroom. They'll never experience sprinting to get something from the kitchen or clean up part of the room during a commercial. They'll never tell their parents that they'll do something at the next commercial, nor will parents tell them that they have to go to bed at the next commercial. Kids won't have any need to complain that they need to stay up late because all their friends watch St. Elsewhere and they'll be left out in the discussions at school the next day. And it's possible to let kids watch commercial TV without watching commercials.

It's fundamentally different than when we got a VCR, or when we got cable. It's a change in the way kids experience televised media. Is it for the better?

Books, Books and More Books

Went to Baby Banana's school book fair today, and was pleased to see that I'm up on the latest kid books, even if Baby B isn't quite ready to be read to without chewing on the book yet. They had the usual complement of Mo Willems (who has a new one coming out in April), If You Give a..., Caldecott winners, etc. i dont' look forward to when my son wants books about Captain Underpants, but so be it.

Got me to thinking about what off-the-beaten path books I'm missing. It's easy enough to populate the library with recent award winners and the stuff everyone else is reading, but what am I missing? What are the books from your childhood that are must-reads? What book is your great little discovery that no one knows about? Mine is a book called So Do I. It's one of the few books I actually remember my mom reading to me. It's by Barbara Bel Geddes (yes, Miss Ellie) and it's a delightful, if totally dated, book about friendship. The pictures are colorful and wonderfully weird. I bought a copy from a used book dealer so Grandma Banana can read it to Baby Banana. Well worth your time if you see it in a used book store.

Oh, and for your amusement (I hope), this warning about the dangers of Goodnight Moon from the New York Times.

Cool Non-Kid-Related Gadget

This really has nothing to do with kids, but I have to plug this gadget! I have an iPod, and I adore it, but my use of it has been limited since I had Baby Banana, because I don't listen when I go out shopping or walking anymore because I've got him with me and, after all, I wouldn't want to prevent our fabulous conversations. (Me: "What do you see?" Him: "AhgaGAgaGAGA! Uh oh!")

I wanted to use my iPod at work (I need background noise), but it's formatted for the Mac and my work computer is a PC. I've been listening to internet radio (WTMX's 80s station is great, but after 2 months, I've had enough 80s for a while). And speaker systems for the iPod have, until recently been fairly expensve things concerned with great sound quality. While that's great, I keep the volume quite low in my office, so I care very little about sound quality - I just want to be able to listen to the darned thing.

So I bought this cute little device. It's called an iTopper, Brookstone makes it (or has at least branded it), and it's perfect for a little bitty personal speaker. It plugs right into the top of the iPod into the earphone port. The sound quality is what you'd expect for something that costs $35, but it's just right for what I need it for. I've been happily using my iPod all morning to listen to music that wouldn't be broadcast on Noggin!

See? I managed to work in the kid several times.

Cookies are Yummy!

In general, I find parenting magazines to be a little, well, wholesome. A quick scan of this month's covers include stories on turkey-themed craft projects, how The Apprentice's Carolyn juggles work and family, how to avoid turning into a stressball when your bundle of joy has the sniffles, how to make sure you've hooked up your car seat properly, fabulous baby shower ideas, seventeen different perspectives on co-sleeping, and so forth. Yawn.

So imagine my surprise upon receiving the inaugural issue of Cookie magazine in the mail yesterday. It's got everything an Urban Mommy could want:

• Reviews of various strollers, ranging from reasonably-priced to super-duper high end
• Suggestions for chic haircuts for one's child, including what to tell the hair stylist to ensure that you get the look you want
• An essay on the national obsession with celebrity pregnancy and childbirth
• Three top chefs' suggestions for uncomplicated kid-friendly recipes incorporating spinach
• Twelve recommended family beach vacations, including some in places considerably more exotic than Orlando
• Unique gift ideas for both children and adults
• Pilates-themed exercises for pregnancy
• All kinds of amusingly high-fashion kids' clothes mixed in with cute-but-less-outrageous selections -- including store names and (more importantly) lesser-known websites from which to purchase said adorable items

I read Cookie cover to cover in one sitting (something I don't do so often) and found myself dog-earing pages and making mental notes all over the place. Finally, a magazine about motherhood for the slightly less wholesome mommy.

Go forth and subscribe while the subscribing is cheap.

The Gift That Keeps On Confusing

The holiday season is upon us, and I'm left with an interesting question about gift giving. What is the appropriate gift for my son's day care providers?

A bit of background. My son has been attending since July, and it's five days a week, all day. It's a day care center (as opposed to a home based business) with multiple teachers, some of whom are full-time, some part-time. There are as many as eight teachers, and there are often subs from other rooms. To complicate matters, Baby Banana only moved into his current room two weeks ago - for his first 4 months he was in a different room with different teachers (6 of them). It's a Jewish day care, but most of the teachers are not Jewish.

I know that the rule of thumb with nannies involves giving them an extra week (or more) of salary as a holiday bonus, but I wouldn't know how to begin to translate that into this context (not only do I have no idea how much these folks make, and needless to say I can't give each of them a week's salary!). Is this a cash situation? A gift certificate situation? A gift situation? Some combination? Does everyone get the same amount/thing regardless of whether they are part or full time? Do I get something for subs who I've gotten to know? And perhaps most importantly, how do I deal with old room teachers and new room teachers? Thankfully, this year timing is not an issue as Chanukah starts on Christmas.

Thoughts are appreciated. Keep in mind that I want to be generous, but I don't want to go overboard and be seen as one of "those" parents.

I May Be Urban, But I Ain't Hip

For those looking to do a little holiday shopping, Babystyle is doing a sale right now - 20% off everything on the site plus free shipping. Code is TWENTYOFF. (I feel totally comfortable posting this since you'll see it the minute you go to their site.) Babystyle's emails are worth signing up for - they're forever having good sales and they carry things you rarely find on sale anywhere else, like Robeez shoes.

Anyway, one of the products on Babystyle's "Top 5 Books" list seemed apropos for this blog. It's a book called "Urban Babies Wear Black" by Michelle Sinclair Colman. The description is this: "For hip mamas and urban babies everywhere! This adorable board book takes a sneak peek at the average day in the life of babies who eschew goo-goo, ga-ga for the Guggenheim instead! Posh babies and little latte drinkers will appreciate the fine dining, gallery-going, yoga-practicing babes in this book, as well as the fresh and fun illustrations throughout." If anyone buys it, let me know how it is... we're not even remotely hip enough to own it.

And confidentially wishing good luck to one of our regular readers who will, with any luck, be welcoming baby 2.0 to the family sometime today!

EDITED TO ADD: OK, the sale isn't quite as good as I thought - the aforementioned Robeez are excluded from the sales, and already-discounted items don't count either, but it's a great deal on their regular priced stuff, and you get free shipping on everything regardless.

A Love Letter to Flea

If you're not reading One Good Thing, you should be. Written by Flea, who is simultaneously the mother of 2 boys and the owner of a (now only mail order) sex toys shop geared toward women, this blog is a nice mix of perspectives from both of her worlds. The content is often very adult (of the "don't click on at work" variety), but the stuff she writes about parenting is both hilarious and heartbreaking. Her older son has sensory integration disorder and while he's doing quite well now, he's been a challenging child. Flea writes such passages as this:

I got an e-mail from a woman whose son got kicked out of preschool last week, asking if there was some club we could join, a club for mothers who cringe every time the phone rings, thinking it will be the school administrators telling us to come remove our hellion from the premises. A club with her, me, and Neal Pollack, sitting around saying things like:

"A biter. Yours?"

"A non-talker."

"Mine flips the light switches on and off until other children fall into seizures."

(Pause.)

"Other people suck."

"Yup."

"More beer?"

"Yup."

She makes me laugh all the time, and often makes me cry. Go enjoy Flea.

How We Gonna Pay . . .

From yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

"Renting Baby Gear
November 8, 2005; Page D1

"The Problem: You want to avoid schlepping a crib, highchair and car seat aboard an airplane.

"The Solution: Most travel destinations now have rental companies for baby gear, and not just in resorts like Orlando, Fla. There are baby-gear places from Lake Tahoe to Rhode Island, and most will deliver to an airport or your hotel room or rental apartment. Car-rental companies often rent a child's car seat, but they don't guarantee availability. And a folding stroller may be convenient to carry around, but parents can rent a jogging or beach stroller on arrival. Some rental agencies offer familiar brands, and for an extra fee many will drop off diapers and formula with the baby gear. To find a baby-gear rental store, travelers can ask their hotel ahead of time, or look online at sites such as www.BabyAway.com. Caveat: If you don't pay for set-up, you may find yourself erecting an unfamiliar crib without the original instructions."

I haven't decided if this is brilliant or ridiculous. Parts of it are fraught with problems. First off, the two big items that are safety crucial are car seats and cribs - the items that seem to be most dealt with here. I'm not sure I'd feel all that safe using a rented crib or car seat for an infant, although I might for an older kid. Also with infants, you're mostly going to be taking a car seat on a plane anyway so you have a place to put the kid during the flight. And if you don't have a car seat with you, there could be serious problems getting to and from various airports.

On the other hand, this would be great for pack and plays, jogging strollers and the like, and there's a lot to be said for not schlepping diapers and formula. The cost of all of this starts to get prohibitive pretty fast if you're expecting to rent baby's entire gear set - $12 a day for cribs, $7-15 a day for strollers, $7 a day for high chairs, etc. - but if you really hate schlepping, it might be worth it, and the prices to rent things like a jogging stroller for a fun day out are pretty reasonable. And they're smart about it - providing things like gates (great for rental houses), buckets of toys, beach items, and the like.

What do you think?

My Mommy Takes the Morning Train

The Metropolitoddler has recently discovered the joy of playing "work." I knew this would happen at some point. The visuals are hilarious -- she pulls her little chair over to one side of the room next to a big storage tub containing outgrown clothes and the like, sits back on her chair, props her feet up on the tub, and settles in with a book.

"What are you doing, sweetie?"

"I working. Please don't talk to me right now."

"What are you working on?"

"I doing work. I very busy."

A variation on this is tub as actual desk, with markers busily scribbling important work notations on construction paper. "I writing work things, Mommy."

I'm just waiting until she gets to be old enough to have some concept of what I actually do for a living. Then I'll get to hear her shouting things into the phone like "Sell, dammit, sell! Hit that bid and get back to me!" I can't wait.

Economics 101

I read an article not too long ago talking about how many farmers, faced with declining prices for their crops, have turned to farm tourism as a supplement or even a replacement for regular-way farming. Corn mazes, petting zoos, and the like have become big business. Being an Urban Mommy, I can understand this -- we are willing to drive long distances to take the Metropolitoddler for a little agrarian interlude.

So I was a little surprised today when we took our daughter to pick a pumpkin. We drove about 90 minutes outside the city and arrived at a nice kid-friendly pumpkin patch / petting zoo / corn maze / food stand. We asked if we needed to buy tickets for the hayride that would transport us to the pumpkin patch. Nope, the proprietors said, just climb aboard. We hopped onto some nice friendly bales of hay and rode off to a very sweet pumpkin patch, where we selected a pumpkin of appropriate size and took the requisite number of cute photos. Then we rode back to the farm house where the Metropolitoddler played on the playground and oinked at some pigs (and a cow) while Mr. Metropolitan went to pay for the pumpkin. When he returned, he was shaking his head.

"Guess how much the pumpkin cost?"

I thought back to the article I'd read, and looked around at the playground (free), petting zoo (free), and corn maze (free). Clearly the purchase of the pumpkin would be subsidizing all of these other freebies.

"I dunno . . . ten bucks?"

"Nope," said Mr. Metropolitan, "a buck fifty."

This would explain why farmers are having a rough time of it.