Sunroom Interview: Lola Moon

Lola Moon 9 years old

Tell us about yourself.

I love sports. I love art. My favorite soda is an Izzie. I love playing with my Mom and my sister. When my sister smiles it always brightens up my day. I don't like talking about tsunamis. My favorite book series is Junie B. Jones. I have a club called the Sparkle Buddies. I love going to the park and playing with my friends. My favorite toys are my lizards and dragons. My favorite colors are orange black purple and white.

What is love?

Something that aches in your heart. I think.

What do you think the best thing about your family is?

How loving and caring they are.

What do you think your family needs to work on?

Communication. Talking more about our feelings in family talks.

What do you think makes a good parent?

Someone who is nice and compassionate to their kid and calms down when they do something wrong and doesn't just let their emotions out really deeply. Someone who is very loving to their kids. A fun person, an active person, someone who likes to learn. Someone who has had experience with kids so you know how to handle it. Most of all being fun and creative.

What do you think the meaning of life is? Why are we here?

To learn and experience things and to make more people on this Earth so we have more solutions to things. And your family and the people you care about.

Tell us something about being a kid that's really hard.

Understanding things. Kids don't understand things...that's why we have teachers, because we don't understand things...and when we don't understand things in school it's very frustrating. I've had three friends who got held back in school because they didn't understand, and that's hard because you can't see your friends then.

Tell us your favorite part about being a kid.

You get to do a lot more fun stuff than grownups do. You have playdates, clubs, activities, you don't have to worry about rent or bills or anything. You just worry about your life and learn and have fun and be a kid.

What do you like about yourself?

I'm a caring person, I don't criticize people. I care for the people around me.

What do you think you need to work on?

Listening to my parents. Not having them have to tell me things 500 times.

How do you get through hard times in your life?

I ask people for advice and try to see if they can help me. I try and talk it out when I feel sad or upset. I think of things I can do to make myself happier. Like I'll draw a picture of a happier environment when I feel depressed.

Who is the prettiest mom you've ever seen?

I'm not sure. You're one of them. You are in the top three.

Spring Is Here, Even If The Money Isn't

self portrait in pastels

A small surge of energy. Our family is stirring. Spring is here. I feel it because I want my husband. Because last weekend I dragged Lola soaking wet out of the shower, threw a towel around her and ordered her to watch her sister who had fallen asleep in the baby swing, while pushing Mr. Curry toward the bed with the other hand. 8 to 10 of the best minutes I've had in a long time. When you have an infant, and a daughter on the couch announcing to her brother that Mom and Dad need to be alooooonnnneee, quickies have to be quick.

Lola has taken to leaping around the house doing dance moves that defy explanation. Last nite in the shower she was singing at the top her lungs " life is good / life is good / oh baby, life is so good " and when she hopped into bed, hair soaking wet, she announced that marrying daddy was the smartest thing you've ever done ! She also informed me that after thinking about it a lot, she realized that my childhood was really good. I haven't had any major things go wrong. I have a family that loves me and just keeps growing and getting through hard times. She's nine, so I hope we can keep up this impression until puberty hits.

I started back to work yesterday and received some bad news. My hours have temporarily been cut in half. Not only mine, but all the girls who work in the baby room. We only have a handful of babies and too many teachers, so the solution was to give us all reduced hours until May, when one of our teachers is leaving. Meanwhile, we're royally screwed. We meaning Mr. Curry and I. Anyone need a writer to write? I'm up for hire.

This weekend Mr. Curry and I are working out a schedule for me to finish my novel. I hate schedules. But I hate not finishing this novel more. So something very mature and structured will occur, where I write from 5-7 four days a week or 6-7 five days a week etc.

The dogs are starting to scratch their arses again, which means fleas, probably. Sometimes you have to have a pain in the arse to signal a change for the good.

Successfully Breastfeeding Newborn Babies

This is not a particularly good shot- it's not flattering, it's from a month or more ago, the elements weren't arranged to be aesthetically pleasing- but it is beautiful and important because it illustrates a perfectly working breastfeeding relationship between mother and baby. Myself and Ever.

I am not an activist. I breastfed my son when I had him at nineteen because it never occured to me NOT to, something that I attribute to the action not words attitudes of the women in my family. My mother breastfed my sister and I, and I grew up watching my Aunt E extended nurse both of her boys. No one told me how to do it. This could have backfired- if the baby hadn't latched on properly and I wasn't sure how to teach him to- but he did latch on properly, and because no one had told me any different I nursed him whenever my guts told me to nurse him, which it turned out was about every 45 minutes. Or when he got scared, because he told me that's what he wanted. And no one told me I was wrong. No one told me that my instincts were wrong.

This, above all else, is why I'm writing you tonight. As a young woman, I thought women didn't breastfeed just because they didn't want to. And sometimes, that is true. It's also true that many times a mother wants to breastfeed her baby- or at least try it- and she ends up bottle feeding. Why is that? I read this amazing essay at The Feminist Breeder and as I took in her words about women being told how much and often to nurse I had the strange, visceral experience of the voices of mothers I've known echoing in my mind in one, long stream I tried to nurse him but I didn't make enough milk I wanted to nurse her but she was too fussy every time I tried I nursed him but not for long because he still cried too much


and in the sound of those voices I realized that I was hearing the political become personal.

At Ever's one month checkup her pediatrician marveled at Ever's weight, her beautiful fatty fat self. You must make a lot of milk, she said. Sure, I shrugged. Only afterward did I stop to think why my pediatrician thought it notable to comment on how much milk I made. Ever is a perfectly normal weight and I make just the right amount of milk for her. In order to 'successfully breastfeed' there exists a symbiosis between mother and baby that is not created in rule books, guidelines and recommendations, but in the baby's cues to the mother, and the mother's trust in her instinct and in her baby's ability to communicate what he or she needs. Not what a book says the baby should need, or what you should insist on so that the baby doesn't end up clingy/underfed/overfed/demanding/lacking in Vit D/unable to cope etc, etc, etc.

This cue based relationship between the mother and baby begins the moment the baby is born. A baby who is placed, immediately, naked onto his or her mother's chest has a greater chance of successfully breastfeeding. The stimulation of the mother's skin, scent and heartbeat against the baby's is important for both the mother and baby. All kinds of studies have been done to prove what common sense will tell you: babies and mothers do better in a myriad of ways when pressed against each other, as soon and often as possible after birth.

After Dakota, Lola and Ever were born, all of them were immediately placed with me- Ever wasn't placed naked on me because she was the sole CSection baby, but I insisted on having her in my arms as soon as they wrapped her, and immediately let her latch on, as they were stitching me up. This begins the connection of skin on skin that probably sends signals to our brains that we don't even understand yet- a most primal of acts in a society removed from our primal selves, an act that biology made workable for the continuation of our species.

After Dakota was born I saw that he was fussy, and I held him. He still fussed. So I rocked him. He still fussed, so even though he had just nursed 20 minutes ago, I placed him again to nurse, and his face relaxed, his little body relaxed against me, and as I smiled down at him I knew that I had made him feel happy and safe. Dakota was a colic baby, for reasons I didn't understand at the time, and he still cried often and I still often felt crazy and impotent and frustrated. But I watched him- his mouth, if his head was rooting, if he moved his arms and legs a certain way, and the look on his face that all of my babies seem to get when they want nothing more than to breastfeed- a certain far away longing that ends with closed eyes and mouth open and then a look around that is saying where is my booby? Not every baby acts this way. The point is that is what this particular baby needed, and no one was telling me it was wrong, so I did it. If I had done a scheduled feeding with Dakota I would have thought breastfeeding was 'not working' and I 'wasn't good at it' and given up.

Because I nursed him whenever he asked me to, I made milk- a lot of milk. This is one of the most crucial steps in successful breastfeeding. I've watched many an episode of A Baby Story since I went on maternity leave, and seen too many women stick carefully and diligently to a 2 or 3 hour lapse feeding schedule and then wonder why it's not working. The last one I saw was a week or so ago, and the mommy really wanted to breastfeed, had been excited and waiting for it, and cried when deciding to give up. It broke my heart! It was obvious to me that the reason the baby was fussy when nursing was because she was waiting way too long for the infant to nurse, and by the time the little guy got there, he was too miserable and hungry to properly latch, and her breasts weren't making enough milk because the nipple/milk ducts weren't being stimulated enough.

I had a C-Section with Ever, and again this could have been a situation where I gave up on my body and bottle fed. No one explained to me that after a C-Section it is common to have a delay of milk production. Ever was fussy and irritable and my milk wasn't coming in. It was because I have a deep sense of trust in my bodies ability to do it's job that I let her continue nursing, often every half hour, until my milk did come in. And because she kept nursing so frequently, it finally built up to a solid supply; so I went from milk-'deficient' to Ever's pediatrician saying I made ' a ton of milk '. I didn't add a bottle of formula just in case, and if I had, statistics show that our chance of successfully breastfeeding would have been greatly reduced.

Of course sometimes women don't make milk. I have a friend who just didn't make more than a slow, paltry trickle even after trying and trying. BUT. And it's a big but. This is not a commonly naturally occuring problem, although so many women are under the impression that it is. Every other woman I personally know ( who I talked to regularly and saw nursing ) who believed they weren't making enough milk were doing one of these things:

1 Scheduled feedings
2 Supplementing with formula
3 Not holding the baby skin to skin

These reasons are much more likely to be the culprit behind a failed breastfeeding relationship between a newborn and his or her mother. And this is why, when I heard the voices of these women I've known in my head, that the 'political' became 'personal'. Having faith in our bodies and our instincts and our babies communicating what they need is a key component for women feeling confident that they can and will successfully breastfeed their babies.

Welcome SPONSOR: Peekaboo Kozy

Welcome Flux Capacitor's newest sponsor: Peekaboo Kozy's are leg warmers with retractable footies attached- patented and rightly so, what a cute and wonderful idea! Made in adult and kids sizes: I must have these star ones for Ever....

She makes a wide array of patterns, beautiful stripes and color combinations in addition to these charmers

Oink! The grey piggies are too cute

Come ON. Ridiculously cute. Buy some or bookmark here

baby's got a new hat

101 Ways To Smile: Keep A List of Inspirations

She overcame panic attacks after witnessing the death and brought-back-to-life accident of her young daughter.

She makes secret notes for strangers

A like minded community

A blog dedicated toward one awesome thing to be happy about every day

The website of a man who is now a motivational speaker and writer after surviving a plane crash in the Andes.
" Love is the opposite of death"

The Dude Abides

twilight by nick higgins

There is a pause that began when Ever went into the hospital with RSV and has not let out it's breath. I had a baby. I had a sick baby. She wasn't all right. She's all right now. For now. As long as I keep a close eye on her breathing and make sure she's not moving toward not all right. She rubs her open fingered hand across the front of her brow and the side of her ear until she covers her eye with five fingers and in that tiny fat hand my heart is and she has smashed it all over her face and there it remains. There is a tethered balloon of my head smiling and I carry it around with me and people talk to me and I want to pull the balloon in front of my face and say talk to the balloon but that would be weird. My hormones are bad because I have wacky female hormones, worse than your typical girl, hence the endometriosis, and after I have a baby I get sad and silent. A great vacuum comes along and sucks all of my brains out and it's mouth is shaped like a breast feeding baby. I think very little. Yolanda encouraged me think Maggie think because she is a passionate artist intellectual poet goddess and sometimes, so am I, but after a baby I am something else. I am porous. This is part of the seasons. I have seasonal osmosis. I am not responding because I have not been given the proper weather conditions. I am buried but the soil is very rich.

Mothers, good mothers, create richness for their children to experience. Richness can be created in many ways but the important factor is that it exists. Not it's face or it's accent or if it has two dollars or two hundred thousand. After I have a baby I am creating richness. I am tilling. I am absorbing. I am abiding in a body. I am working out and walking and - I am resting so that when the moment comes along when the sun opens at a certain shining angle and hits the top of my head so that a circular portion of my scalp begins to rise with astounding heat I can respond in the way intended by springing open with the rest of Nature and beginning the months of creativity.

Meanwhile I am reading. And bringing flowers to M across the street whose father died; she is my favorite neighbor and I've been bringing her daughter R home from school with Lola and I watch their house quiet down for mourning. And praying for many people because illness and death seem around every corner lately. Katie Mcrae is very ill with her cancer and her parents covet prayers so please pray for her small shining self. Lola's friend's dad just died of pneumonia and so we pray for their family and I am thinking I want to bring them a meal but we have no working oven so I have to think what to bring. Dakota's new girlfriend's mom has terminal breast cancer and I keep feeling like I should.... something- but what? What is appropriate for your son's new girlfriend's ill mother you've never met? Maybe nothing but prayer. Kate, Henry's mom, is working in a veritable frenzy for justice for her son and I hope you all continue to leave comments on her blog because it's such a small thing we can do that might really help her. As Robert Stolorow said here in what is now one of my favorite quotes:

I have long contended that the mangling and the darkness can be enduringly borne, not in solitude, but in relationships of deep emotional understanding. In such relationships, we do not encourage the traumatized person to "get over it and move on." Instead, we dwell with him or her in his or her endlessly recurring emotional pain, so that he or she is not left unbearably alone in it.
Because this is one of the exact principles that saved my marriage when Mr. Curry got sick with Bipolar, and because Mr. Curry abides with me in the darkness when it comes, we have found in each other a great sanctuary. Of course no one can stay all the hours and feel all the feelings. But a lover or a friend who will go there with you and hold space with you, even if it's uncomfortable, painful, scary? Irreplaceable.
Thank you for the title of this post.

Ever Elizabeth 3 Months

13.6 pounds of looove
* holding her head up high and proud
* laughs when i zerbert her neck
* stops crying when daddy sings Nirvana to her
* open mouth laughs in happiness and wiggles when laid down for nursies
* looks at her sister with wide eyed love from her carseat in the car
* sleeps long and hard when Ian holds her
* pumps her arms when Dakota takes her on walks in her stroller
* is teething! chews on her hand/fingers constantly and is beginning to drool
* was told by Dr R. her pediatrician that she is one the happiest, prettiest babies she's ever seen ♥

the milkmaid

take this nested breast
flower cream, or blood colored nipple
watch our bodies make these ripples

over sheets so white and clean.

my love i know i am far away
the babies squall mouthed suck
always before your hands

always before your eyes.

the house is a jungle forest
water steams from teenage dreams
showers that last longer than dinner

cooks with tears and breastmilk.

but between us
there is a non calculated symmetry
between late and never made it at all

a collective groan of longing

her cries rise like tiny balloons
popping over our heads
she is the queen

i am the milkmaid in your bed.

maggie may ethridge