Three

In the January 19th issue of the New Yorker Jill Lepore writes an article about the role breast pumps play in the current trend to nurse babies longer in spite of very short maternity leaves. Any article about parenting in the New Yorker is going to grab my immediate attention and this article, which I’ve read twice now, continues to be on my mind. What I found most interesting in this look at nursing trends both current and historical is an observation Lepore makes, “all this is so new that people are making up the rules as they go along.” She goes on to examine the role of wet nurses, the advent of formula from cow milk, and the proportion of U.S. women that breastfeed their babies “at initiation” meaning, while still in the hospital. The underlying cultural perspective in America, that determines the hows and whys of nursing today, is that human milk is a healthy medicinal fluid for babies. The human breast comes off looking like an inconvenient source of this food; our biology gets in the way of our careers and the economic reality of two incomes necessary for the contemporary family. Enter the breast pump.

The article gets very interesting as Lepore starts to ask the questions we may be too afraid to ask. She writes “Non-bathroom lactation rooms are such a paltry substitute for maternity leave, you might think that the craze for pumps, especially pressing them on poor women while giving tax breaks to big businesses–would be met with skepticism in some quarters. Not so. The National Organization for Women wants more pumps at work: NOW’s president, Kim Gandy, complains that ‘only one-third of mega-corporations provide a safe and private location for women to pump breast milk for their babies’. (When did ‘women’s rights’ turn into ‘the right to work’)”

And later, “No one seems especially worried about women whose risk assessment looks like this: “Should I take three twenty-minute pumping ‘breaks’ during my workday, or use formula and get home to my baby an hour earlier?’ Pumps can be handy; they’re also a handy way to avoid privately agonizing and publicly unpalatable questions: is it the mother, or her milk, that matters more to the baby?”

I’m not working outside of the home right now so on one hand, I feel shy about entering a dialog about nursing and pumping while working. However, supporting families needs to be all of our business if we want any change in the national attitude towards women’s ability to fluidly enter and leave the workplace as suits her family.

I hope everyone reading this post reads the article–your comments would be much appreciated as I try to work out how I feel on this topic and weigh the options in my mind of where we can go from here, nationally.

This is the time of year we start thinking about taking a mini ski vacation, usually a long weekend in the Methow Valley if we can manage it. The light snow falling out the front window as I write this is making me think about trail conditions and choosing the right wax, about fires in a wood stove and and stepping out on a chilly afternoon feeling under-dressed but knowing that I’ll be very warm after the first few gliding steps on my skis.

All this musing brings me to the Rolling Huts at Wesola Polana which we discovered last summer. There is no website for this property yet, nor was the owner around when we stayed in a hut in August so I know very little about this brilliant lodging project. What I do know, I love!

There seems to be continued development going on, mostly in a large old barn right on the cross country ski trail as it parallels highway 20 half way between Mazama and Winthrop. Behind, several huts grouped together offer mostly self-contained places for, at most, a couple and a small child to sleep and relax. The huts are on giant steel wheels; they are not rolling anywhere any time soon but the wheel design allows for the buildings to side step a traditional foundation and leave a very light footprint on river front property. Grass grows under the units, a narrow gravel path leads to the front steps. Each has a partially covered deck, modular furniture that can be moved inside or out, a picnic table down on the lawn and a private portable toilet upstairs and off to the side. No kitchen, but a water spigot out front and a lit pathway leads to a large bath house for everyone to share .We loved staying here in the summer. Now I’m looking longingly at the winter photographs.

I had a conversation with a (renting) friend earlier this week about how much more appealing the idea of buying a vacation style property out of town, with a modular cabin of sorts on it (is this what you had in mind S.&C.L.?), is compared to buying a traditional home in the city. A rolling hut would be perfect for my dream plot in the S.J. Islands, or for that matter, just a bit down the road from Wesola Polana. The trick is not finding the architect or the land, but keeping our lives similarly modular and portable while retaining a sense of stability and home.

I made heavy  use of this new Japanese crafting book (in English) over the holidays and every project was a joy to create. Zakka means something lovely like “seasonal, decorative accessories for the home to enrich you life”. I’ve been very interested in garment sewing, and before this book, hadn’t embarked on much in the way of home sewing. These projects are sewn by machine with a lot of hand work embellishments. This is the perfect sort of sewing if you think you might want to do a little embroidery but are not about to start a cross stitch sampler (did anyone else go through a major cross stitching craze in the late 80’s? what was that about, did DMC come out with colored thread then or something?) I made two cell phone cozies, two viking man key pouches, three sparrow hot pads for tea pots, and eight seasonal pin cushions in brioche tins, and a 12″ square fabric basket. (I know that sounds a bit obsessive, but it was Christmas and I know a lot of people!)
Click here to link to a free pattern from the book.

This book seemed to get me over my aversion to making things miniature. Although I need a break from sewing miniature right now, Snowden and I are churning out numerous miniature baked goods thanks to one of her Christmas gifts, miniature cookware from her great-grandparents (mini bake-ware for real cooking found after much looking at The Wooden Spoon in Edmonds!), so the theme carries on.