Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and we have survived yet another family holiday - this one with a brand-new baby ( well , ok -not brand new - slightly used ).
The lovely thing about Thanksgiving is that it reminds one what to be thankful for . I have a lot to be thankful for this year , becoming a mother , becoming a wife and most of all for proving to myself that i am worthy of a deep and abiding happiness.
Colin is just turning eight months old , my mother just turned 67 years old ( on Thanksgiving, ironically) and my marriage is a little older than a year.
Somehow , we have all made it to this point . God help us.
And now about the turkey...

I decided to make our first Thanksgiving dinner this year at home( for six ) even though it would have been much easier to go to my sister-in-law's house like last year. But the turkey was calling and i felt i needed to do it all- not out of obligation but out of a sense of adventure - haha! Actually , believe it or not , i truly enjoy cooking and the holidays are a great excuse to go crazy and cook up a feast fit for King Henry the Eighth. What i wasn't thinking about is that I HAVE AN INFANT !!!
Duhh. How on Earth was i going to shop, prep, cook and cater all of this
ALONE ???
I guess i assumed my husband would take the day before the holiday off as he usually does but you know the old chestnut about those who ASSUME. ; )
I ended up in a panic-state in the middle of Whole Foods , " there is no bloody way in hell i can pull this off, what was i thinking??"
My husband, W. somehow managed to talk me down after i stormed off to find the Free-Range turkey desk ( i kid you not , they had one of these ) to order a last minute bird - Bird Under the Wire , so to speak.
It was decided that our niece would babysit while i went about the business of re-enacting Martha Stewart's last stand. Yeah , that will work, it's all clear to me now...
Needless to say , i did manage to pull it off - the turkey and all the trimmings ala Fine Cooking magazine and W. and the kids loved it , right down to the last drop of homemade mushroom gravy. They all loved it so much in fact that the entire family fell head - long into a post-turkey coma and slept for two hours when we were supposed to be on our way out the door to my sister-in-laws for dessert. And Colin slept like a little lamb after tasting the first ground turkey of his little life thus far. He gave new meaning to 'Gobble Gobble ' !
So , we missed dessert and snored our way into oblivion instead.
Ahhh, the pull of the Tryptophan fairy is not to be trifled with.
Nightie nite.
zzzzzzzz.

In Solidarity with the brave women of Vermont

Yes , That is me breastfeeding my baby boy.
Some of you may have seen all of the hullabaloo on the boob tube ( pun definitely intended here) earlier today about Mothers for BREAST FEEDING in public. One of the women in question was holding a sign that said " Stop being a pervert- Nursing is natural and necessary" while nursing her child at the same time. ( We all knew mothers are great multi-taskers! ) So , i , too am nursing while i write this editorial. How ironic. ; )

Apparently some troglodytes out there are still offended at the sight of a woman giving sustenance to her child. Considering that you can usually see more skin on on a thirteen year old just walking down the street these days ( think ass-crack , cleavage, whatever) I find the whole idea of the infintesimal possibility of seeing a small slice of a nursing mother's nipple deemed offensive to be , well , offensive. And ludicrious. Our whole American society is based on freedom and family values , supposedly. Unfortunately a small, but growing number of small-minded people would like to spell out what they think constitutes freedom and family.

Considering that most of today's media is driven by sex and the prurient ( yet repressed all the same) i find this concept of banning nursing in public to be heinous and unconstitutional. Hey , if it offends you - don't STARE> it's a breast , not a weapon of mass destruction. Look the other way , hum the star-spangled banner and go about your own damn business. We are trying to feed a kid here . And that means less crying and impingement on your ( and our) right to a peaceful day.
That's why i posted what heretofore was a private photo .To show that if something as beautiful as sustaining a new life is somehow icky or distasteful or even uncomfortably sexy to you , then it is YOUR problem . So , deal with it. We nurse.