Yesterday I went to a yoga class for the first time since the baby was born five months ago. And I cried. It was a big deal to get out the door. For weeks, nay, months, I had been looking up schedules at all the local studios to see when they might have a class…
Holistic Health
My child is my mirror – January Carnival of Natural Parenting
Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Learning from children This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared the many lessons their children have taught them. Please read to the end to find a list…
Study says kids don’t want sweet cereals
I just learned from Nancy Piho’s My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus blog about the results of a new study on children and cereal. In a study published in Pediatrics, Yale researchers found that children will eat low-sugar options if they are offered. The gist is “If you serve it, they will eat it,” suggesting that offering…
Gluten-free, dairy-free black bean brownies
On December 13, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 to “improve” the school lunch program. Some “Real Food” enthusiasts raise questions about the fact that the school lunch program is even tied to the Agriculture Department, a point Sally Fallon made in her address, “The Politics of School Lunch” at the…
Gluten-free, Dairy-free Pumpkin Quick Bread
“Gluten-free food at Waldorf school” is something of an oxymoron; those places love their wheat! My son brings his own bread and muffins for snack to replace the homemade, whole wheat organic snacks the students and teachers make in the classroom. Last night my husband said to some friends of the boy’s school and his…
The pregnancy test, one year later
It was exactly a year ago that I found out I was pregnant. I tested two weeks after I’d ovulated and was ambivalent. On one hand, I had been told I was glowing, and I seriously felt buzzy electricity where those cells were dividing. It’s like there was a frequency, and every once in a…
Book reading as therapy: Monica Lemoine of Knocked Up, Knocked Down
I had the pleasure two weeks ago of hearing Monica Murphy Lemoine read from her book Knocked Up, Knocked Down: Postcards from the Brink of Parenthood while she was in town for a conference on perinatal and infant death. Let me tell you, Monica is no less engaging in person. Her book was already funny…
Sleeping like a baby?
My poor daughter. She gets schlepped everywhere. Plucked out of bed some mornings for preschool drop-off, with nary a nursing or a diaper change. Then either some appointment I have or preschool pick-up interferes with a nap in the afternoon. I haven’t even tried a mommy and me yoga class or anything for fear of…
(Good?) Food in schools
I was so disappointed to miss last weekend’s Wise Traditions conference sponsored by the Weston A. Price Foundation. The topic was “The Politics of Food;” I looked forward to hearing about “The Politics of School Lunches” and in participating in the food activism panel with WAPF publicist and food blogger extraordinaire, Kimberly Harkte of Hartke…
NWSA panel addresses pregnant women and feminism
I was thrilled to learn that my friend Jessica Clements, birth artist and organizer of last October’s “Perinatal” symposium on birth practices and reproductive rights, was part of a panel this past weekend on “Pregnant Women: The Outsiders in the Women’s Rights Discourse” in Denver at the Annual Conference of the National Women’s Studies Association: …
Farm to School Week underway!
As I wrote about last week, November 8-12 is Virginia Farm to School week, as made official by the Virginia General Assembly. Today I share more about the efforts in Alexandria and Arlington public schools in my column at the Washington Times Communities Family Today. Click here for my previous post about Alexandria’s George Mason…
Healing the c-section scar
I knew when I went in for my c-section in 2006 that the effects would be lasting, but I only recently realized to what extent. I tend to hold on to emotion through my body, and since the need for a surgical delivery was profoundly disappointing to me, I expected that it would take my…
Walking the talk (to slow down)
There’s so much to report on from the Freedom for Family Wellness Summit. But I have hardly had the time to go through my the messy, sketchy notes I took while my baby girl slept in the sling. And as it turns out, I missed a lot of the conference because it was just too…
Peggy O’Mara at Family Wellness Summit
I promised myself I would not stay up late since I have to get up before sunrise to make it back to Reston for the birth panel at the Freedom for Family Wellness summit. But I also will focus better if I can at least share some pearls of wisdom from Mothering magazine editor Peggy…
Freedom for Family Wellness Summit
Reporting here on this exciting event I’m attending tonight and this weekend! Wellness Summit to Address “Vitalism” and “Conscious Choice” Parents are up against a lot of choices these days. Whether the question is about vaccinations or breastfeeding, co-sleeping or where and how to give birth, today’s buzzword is “informed choice.” As International Chiropractic Pediatric…
Priorities, values, and goals… oh my!
“Priorities” pops up as one of my most used tags because this blog is essentially about my trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to accommodate them when they seem to contradict one another. Or when one supposed priority gets bumped off its seat for something I don’t claim to care about…
Blog Action Day: Water!
This Blog Action Day post addresses flouride, plastic bottles, and other issues of safety and environmental awareness related to water.
Happy Midwifery Week!
I just found out that it’s National Midwifery Week! I want to publicly thank the midwives I have worked with who have supported me before, during and after pregnancies. Thanks to the midwives at BirthCare and Women’s Health, to Tammi McKinley, CPM, of Northern Virginia Midwifery, Susan Dodge, formerly of BirthCare, and Marilee Pinkleton, CPM,…
No, I don’t think I’ll become a Bradley instructor
I remember the first time I got a message from the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth after my son’s c-section in 2006. The subject heading — “The World Needs More Bradley® Instructors!” — didn’t exactly feel warm and fuzzy to my tender belly and the emotional guts beneath it. But it was the contents of…
CNN report on high fructose corn syrup
The CNN report for which I was interviewed about high fructose corn syrup is now online. View it here! Thanks to reporters Brianna Keilar and Lesa Jansen for taking on this issue! Read more about my opinions on HFCS here.