Good resource for all those expecting and expecting to expect...oops and a little bit of a rant

Oregon Environmental Council has launched the Tiny FootprintsTM program – a new website and baby shower kit to support parents and their communities who are interested in raising their children in ways that are good for the environment AND their children’s health.

I had a look, and whilst it does refer to lots of Portland based companies etc it gives lots of practical ways of how to minimise impacts through pregnancy, in baby showers, and when bub arrives. Also interesting for the non-expectant.

On the topic, I have been reading some very very interesting breastfeeding stuff recently - for example, an article discussion the way that breastfeeding is not currently valued as a good or service in coming up with a countries GNP/GDP. You might think - yeah, fair enough, after all it's a natural process that shouldn't be given a price and put on the national accounts. And that's a reasonable thing to think. But what is interesting, as the article proposes, is that because of this style of accounting, when parents put their babies on formulae and bottle feed it that way it actually adds to GDP - making the country look more prosperous. If babies are sick and people buy lots of medicines, that also adds to GDP. So in effect, what the article was discussing, is how what is good for children's health (breastfeeding) may firstly not be promoted because it is a natural service and therefore can't make someone a profit and doesn't have an advertising budget; secondly not be valued because it is a 'free' service that doesn't show up on national accounts; and thirldy that the huge drop in breastfeeding that happened in the 1960's/70's may have added to GDP but subtracted from community health.

As for the stats,
World Health organisation recommends two or more years of breastfeeding, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends one year and beyond.

At the moment only about half (49%) of all Aussie babies are still being breastfed at 6 months. In Brittain it is 20%, in US it is 33%... but in Norway it is 80%! Norway has apparently, over the last decade or so, reversed the trend away from breastfeeding that arose in the 50's/60's (where bottle deefing was seen as 'hip and modern'), they have government policies to promote breasfeeding and have backed it up with a 99% initiation rate, pro-breastfeeding return to work policies (which allow mothers a 2 hour break each day to nurse their children) and ten-month maternity leave at full pay.

Uni of Western Sydney also did a study recently on attitudes & practices in extended breastfeeding (eg up to 2 years and beyond) which was very interesting and clearly highlights the huge impact of culture/attitudes to breastfeeding practice. ie while inability to feed is often cited as reasons for not continuing, there is a very real force of spouse/family/community attitudes which also shapes the practice.

As a final aside, I do think it is interesting from a consumerist perspective that we as a culture have bought the line that 'bottle feeding is as good as breastmilk' and that it's really everyone's right to choose because after all it doesn't have anything to do with us... I find that interesting because the research just does not support this - the content of the milk is demonstrably chemicallly and immunilogically vastly different, and the health stats of infants who are breastfed or bottle fed are also demonstrably different. I think it is, like with many aspects of modern western life, easy to think that how we do things is 'normal' and forget to take a broader historical perspective (weaning at 12 months became faddish in England only as recently as the 1800's and is the exception to the global and historical rule) and also to overlook the role that cultural norming plays in all of this - ie we are preceded by nearly 3 generations of women for whom bottlefeeding was the norm. I think it's fine for people to have different opinions on the topic, but regrettable if those opinions are not at least informed by history, scientific evidence and a self-analytical approach to our own cultural context.

If any one wants proper referenced texts I can pass on.

First mango of the season

I ate my first mango of spring today - had it for breakfast, and what was meant to be a casual moment of eating and walking around grabbing things and getting ready to go out became a moment of rapturous concentration on mango eating alone. It demanded my full attention with its sour and sweet and almost salty flavour which stopped me from moving away from the kitchen bench or even thinking of anything else except mango. I think I may have moaned.

Kevin the Butcher's Dangly bits*

Today was warm and beautiful and I thawed out when I got home from work and shed the office gear and got into my jeans/polyester mini dress /skivvy/slippers combo, which was *very* mountains and very comfie and VERY glam in the tree print green, scarlet rouching and leapord print that these various items were decorated in. As opposed to the 'little black dress' plus long grey jacket I had on today. My newly returned from O/S boss said 'you're looking nice, all in black...' as I was making a cuppa. So what did I do? say 'oh this? Thankyou' looking slightly puzzled slightly pleased with myself... or did I laugh and say 'all my washing is wet and the only things I have left are the corporate gear!'. I'll leave you to guess. But lets just say that indeed I fibbed, because the washing is not wet, it's all over my bedroom floor in semi sorted piles waiting for someone to take pity on it and wash it. But no one has, and nor will they (probably) 'til every last sock and knicker has been worn, and every last skivvy has failed the snifff test and I have run out of suit coordinates and tights to pull me through. Goddess knows what I'll be getting my self to life drawing in tomorrow. hey, if I was the model I could legitimately go in a dressing gown and nothing else! (except for the fact that I walk there of course...). That said I am no-where near brave enough to get all my lumps and bumps out for strangers to mimic in ink and charcoal. Oh no thankyou. Especially the couple of older creepy-ish (not actullay creepy mind, just this side of creepy) men who go to class and might get a little too much aesthetic joy out of said lumps and bumps, and worse, who might say to me like they did the model last time 'oh you're looking well, have you been going to the beach, you look more tanned' and 'yes you've lost some weight around the middle.'...like, hello, the girl is baring her curvy bottom for our drawing pleasure, standing still in highly improbably poses for long silent minutes, braving the fact that we could all draw her with hairy hobbit feet and witchy face, and then to top it off they think they can just casually appraise her physical form?? Like where do you draw the line? Would it be ok to say 'hmmm, I see your boobs are looking big this week, are you pre-menstrual?' or 'gee, I see your pubes have really got quite bushy, do you get hairer in winter?'... Anyway, lets just say that mismatched crap clothes will suit me just fine tomorrow and I am not tempted to rip them all off. Just one final debrief (ha ha) about life drawing - putting it to the board here... I asked whether they ever have male models (not because I particularly want one, although a bit of sinewy back and different shaped arms would be a good challenge from a shading perspective) and they were all a bit 'oh, well, you know, in theory...but we never have', a woman said 'they're quite hard to draw you know... the dangly bits' and one guy even had the nerve to say 'I just don't find men very sexy to draw' to which I snorted/scoffed in a way that I like to think said quite clearly 'hello, you are bordering on being dirty old sexist perves here, don't you think you should even up the power balance here and deal with looking at and appraising the male body as well??' with a touch of 'well maybe you're scared you will find it sexy and don't want to grapple with that' and then a post script of 'and anyway, if Michaelangelo could carve a giant marble David, I think you should be able to do a crap sketch of Kevin the butcher with hobbit feet don't you??'.

* Not his real name.

I really should be at work

Ok so sitting in pj's and checking emails is not quite the up tempo start to day I had planned. Nonetheless. Shameless plug for friends gig as follows:
I'm throwing a comedy night on October 17 as part of the Kings Cross Arts Festival. Huzzah! Bookings can be made at http://www.bloustien.com/kx
For all you friendly souls who live a little closer than me, this is likely to be a very fun night. And let's face it Monday nights are crap for tellie - may as well squeeze in an exciting cultural event??

like ham but not

Wow, blogspam, who would have thunk it. I mean I've heard of such things but never actually experienced it before. Do you think it was the mention of unclothed women in my last spiel that somehow opened up the portall to junk mail central?? I feel like there I was, a happy little community tv station or at my most glorious, an early Sunday morning on the ABC, when bammo, through some mix up in reception I started channelling late night channel 7 and the free ab buster with every set of steak knives sold ads.
***

Enjoyed long weekend, caught up with Guitar boy and Ivy on their brief but well utilised tour of the emerald city. They were here for family wedding, which sounds like it went well if a little too well endowed with mother of groom tears, and possibly not of joy (pure conjecture, please no one pass that on to the happy couple!). Despite my shitty head cold very much enjoyed sitting in an upstairs city pub (renovated recently, you know the one) and sipping a theraputic shandy, looking at dig pics of their trip to the zoo. Hilarious, I thought, was that very pub had been chosen for a green drinks do, which of course being deliberately completely out of the loop on alll things career related at present, was blissfullly unaware of until bumping into someone I knew once in another role. Was funny then to play guide and get oh just ever so slightly lost as we wove our way through Haymarket (it was that shandy, seriously, must have been strong lemonade) looking for *that* noodle place (you know the one - fake grape vines hanging fromthe ceiling - oh that doesn't actuallly narrow it down, there are several like that...) but fortunately in the midst ofturning it into a very educational if somewhat impromtu study tour (oh, lookee here, UTS library, yes, very good for getting books I have heard, and um, for..) bumped into C-chan and passed the guiding baton as he wove us back on the path to all things noodles. Allso had little beer in a local establishment prior to noodles and was astounded at the affrontery of the decor ( 'I didn't know they still made heels like that..'), but kind of pleased that tile styled lino has maintained its hold on a patch of wall somewhere and that that colour red sits next to dark wood as it was designed to.

Combined catch up with Friday workshop whilst 'in the city'. Took a chance on a wkshop just outside of sphere of theory that I am conversant with. Was a bit taken aback by the alarmingly inhouse school of thought - what another one? It occurs to me that if you think professional buzzwords there will be a journal and an association out there for it. Someties the scale at which the world operates staggers me - from so broad to so narrow. There are people out there who have stuck like some little molecule to just about any topic you can think of and who have made it their own. Who bond over their allegience to this set of thoughts (no matter how purile), who have self congratulatory in-house jokes on it, who conveniently forget their overlap or contradictions with other schools of thought, or the shared history that grounds them, or the bigger picture, or the smaller picture. Really, I am constantly surprised at this patriotism to ideas, themselves brought in and pulled out again each day by the tides of human reflection. Perhaps it all comes from that tribal urge to belong, and the need to make the world smalll enough to feel cosy in, our village small enough that we might stand out, be known for something, feel we have contributed something, maybe that explains this endless carving and defining of sets of values and ways of approaching our work. Maybe the tasks we do are really too simple to engage us so we construct endless towers of theory to amuse ourselves, not even realising that this is why we do it. I might just write an article about it and present it at the next conference of the... of the... association of reflective blogging practice...? The Australasian association of critical non-alignment...The ridgline towns and villages symposium on manufatcured meat products and their implications for on line journaling and identity. Something like that.

let me draw your hairy hobbit feet

Went to life drawing last week and struggled with those first few moments of self-consciousness where your arm is like lead and your pencil a lump of rock and you make awkward lumpy marks on the page like your hand and eyes are on a first date and all is not going well. After time you stop feeling so rude for staring at a strange woman's breasts and hairy bits and start to see patterns and shapes that make sense to your hand, start to try and interpret them using different techniques (shading dark! scribbly shading! no shading at all just soft shapes!). Once or twice out of a whole sheath of drawings you will catch something and think 'shit, where did that come from? I didn't know I could do that!'. And of course you didn't do that, per say, you just allowed it to happen when you stopped hanging on so tightly and judging yourself so harshly and instead got out of the way and let it come through. The regrettable pictures that look like hairy hobbit feet drawn by someone who's never seen a foot before and the one where the model looks 15years older and has a witch face, well they are just part of the wonderful crazy mix!