by Martha Kimmel
Martha Kimmel & her husband David are the authors of Mommy Made and Daddy Too! Home Cooking for a Healthy Baby and Toddler.
At about nine months, you might like to introduce baby to something different an avocado! It’s high in vitamins A and C, and potassium.
How To Choose An Avocado
Select avocados with unbroken skins that are heavy for their size. Ripe avocados are soft to the touch and fragrant. Ripen hard ones at room temperature on your windowsill. Store ripe avocados in your refrigerator. Although the shiny green avocados look inviting, try the bumpy, thick-skinned black Haas variety from California; they have more flavor. Avocados will keep in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator from 10 days to two weeks.
Avocado Puree ½ ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
In a small bowl, mash avocado flesh with a fork, adding a little formula or other liquid to adjust consistency. Makes about ½ cup puree or four 1-ounce baby portions. For Bigger Babies (over 10 months): Avocado spears make great finger food. (This shape makes its slippery flesh easier for baby to hang on to.) Variations: High in nutrients, avocaado is a good fortifier. Mix it with butternut or acorn squash purees, any fruit puree, or yogurt.
Avocado flesh browns when exposed to the air. But if it’s consumed within a reasonable amount of time (2 hours), browning does not affect its nutritional value. When your baby is big enough (10 months), a squeeze of lemon juice will keep it bright.
Guacamole: Table Food for Toddlers and Grownups Too
When mashing up half an avocado for your baby, turn the other half into a quick avocado dip for everyone else. This dip is so popular in our house, we always add another avocado to the bowl—just to be sure there’s enough to go around. 1 ½ ripe avocado, peeled and pitted 1 ½ tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice ½ teaspoon minced onion 1 small garlic clove, minced 1 4-ounce can green chilies, drained and chopped Tobasco sauce to taste (a few drops go a long way) 1/8 teasppoon salt ¼ cup yogurt or sour cream (optional) 1 small tomato, diced Corn chips or vegetable dippers
Mash avocado flesh with a fork until smooth. Add lemon juice, onion, garlic, chilies, Tobasco sauce, and salt. Mix well, adjust seasonings to taste, and let sit, covered, for 30 minutes in your refrigerator to blend flavors.
To serve: Garnish with a large dollop of yogurt or sour cream, if using, and chopped tomatoes. Accompany with corn chips or vegetable dippers.
Makes 2 cups.
Hi. My name is Andrea and it's been two years since my last breastfeeding.
I still miss it. There are moments everyday when the urge is so strong I feel I could break down and start breastfeeding all over again. Like when a newborn whizzes by in a snuggli or when I'm watching an 'Intimate Portrait' of say, Dolly Parton or Cherry Bomb on Lifetime TV.
I miss having cleavage to spare. I miss wearing those cool T-shirts with the flaps. I miss those easy access nursing bras. When I started wearing those my husband was ecstatic "Whoa baby! Where were THESE in high school?"
And then he would document my breastfeeding travails by following me around with a camcorder. When friends came over he couldn't wait to say "Who wants to see our Popping-Up video tape?"
I even miss the breast pump machine. Honey, those things are mean. I used to plug it in, let my hair down, and boogie "Pump! Up the Jam! Pump it up! Let your body move on the dance floor."
Ohhh, how I miss those double D cup days! But I have learned to move on. I am on my way towards recovery.
I used to be one of those women who couldn't stop breastfeeding. Breastfeeding was my life.
I joined breastfeeding groups, hot lines, book clubs, fundraisers like 'Breastfeeders for the Blind'. I went on breastfeeding yoga retreats and power walks, took cardio-breastfeeding classes, and boxing and bungee jumping for breastfeeders. I got a shiatsu breastfeeding massage and a mud-wrap that eliminated all the toxins from my breasts! I lit special aromatic candles while I was breastfeeding and was one of the first breastfeeders for Buddha. I learned to breastfeed in Spanish, marched in the annual breastfeeders parade and took cooking with your breast milk classes. I even became shortstop for the breastfeeders baseball team.
There was nothing I wouldn't do and nowhere I wouldn't breastfeed. I breastfed on the bus, at the movies, in the elevator, dressing rooms, bathrooms, office cubicles, fancy restaurants like Le Cirque (no, I didn't use my breast milk for creamer), on the ATM line at Citibank, you name it. I was devoted. Obsessed. Addicted.
I was hitting bottom. And so were my breasts.
Then my friend Donna suggested I supplement with bottles of formula. Oh my G-d! I thought. Give the baby FORMULA?!? But he's so pure! Won't that contaminate him? No, I can't! I can't ruin my bundle of perfection with that bad formula. I can't! As I contemplated supplementing I felt such pangs of guilt that I imagined myself to be a cross between Eve committing the original sin and the Wicked Witch of the West; "here's your bottle of POISON!" I'd say feeding him the evil potion. And then I'd hop onto my broomstick and be off in a puff of smoke.
Why did I feel so guilty? I wasn't breastfed. None of us were. Our mothers never held a baby to their breasts. No way. They shoved bottles of poison formula into our mouths without batting an eye. Not only that but they took heavy drags off their Salem and Marlboro 100's while doing it. And here I am at the millennium in my PJ's with a guilt complex over supplementing that won't give me a moments' peace. And it didn't help that there was all this peer pressure ("So Andrea you ONLY breast fed exclusively for six months? I'm in my second Year!") and breastfeeding propaganda out there.
Like this article I read that said if you give your baby the bottle after he/she has breast fed that they will experience nipple confusion. Nipple confusion? What the hell is nipple confusion? I walked around In a fog for days. NIPPLE CONFUSION?
I envisioned the Temptations strutting onto the stage singing "Nipple Confusion! Nipples coming here, nipples coming there, all because of the color of their skin! ahhhh! uh huh! Nipple confusion!" I mean what? The baby's gonna start sucking the baby bottle and freak out? "Whoa what is this? This isn't a breast nipple! What's going on? Breasts or bottles! I can't take it man! I'm confused!(back to the Temptations) "Nipple Confusion!"
When I showed this article to my friend Donna she said "Oh that's a bunch of crap!" and shoved a bottle of formula in my face. So, I tried it. Guilt trip and all. And eventually, as my son made it to his first birthday I began to wean him and ME. Yes, after 'much ado about nothing' I found the strength to stop breastfeeding (this child anyway) forever. I never would have found the courage to let my big breasts go if it hadn't been for my Grandma who always believed in me and bought me my first training bra. Or my sixth grade teacher Al who instructed me to fight all forms of male chauvinism and to burn my bra. And of course, my first boyfriend Mickey who always reassured me that I had a great rack.
When is the best time for a woman to stop breastfeeding? When her child develops a strong set of teeth or wears a gold tooth and beeper to school.
Sorry Girls. You can't be a double D cup forever.
copyright 1999, Andrea Kolb
by Lois Nachamie
Excerpted from So Glad We Waited! : A Hand-Holding Guide for Over-35 Parents by Lois Nachamie, Debra Winger .
At the Metropolitan Museum's weekend series for elementary-school children, while the kids sat on the floor in a circle, listening to the lecturer, I sat on a bench next to a woman from New Jersey.
We began to chat, as most women do in the way that amazes our husbands, and discovered quickly that we had both just turned fifty, and had both just begun the mood swings and wobbling irregularity of what were once Swiss precision periods.
She mentioned she was here with her granddaughter. I pointed out my daughter. They were both eight.
We had a good laugh.
And then, we began The Inevitable Conversation.
She said she envied me. That she'd stayed home to raise her kids and now here she was, at this age, having to decide what to do next. I felt for her. I really wouldn't want to be starting a career now. I couldn't bear to be considered a beginner. I know too much.p>But on the other hand, from where I sit, there is something undeniably appealing about how free and unencumbered she is. She can take her granddaughter to the museum on a Saturday afternoon if she feels like it. Or not. She's not responsible for her granddaughter's entire enrichment. She has already raised her kids, and she and her husband are planning cruises to exotic spots. The most exotic spot we're likely to see in the near future is the Tiki-Tiki Room in Walt Disney World.
She felt that if she had it to do again, she would have waited longer. I wish I'd been a little more together so I could have started sooner. I wouldn't have minded having a couple of kids, and that is probably no longer in the cards for my biology. She wished she could have gotten a leg up on a career, but she was grateful that she didn't have to take part in the chronic balancing act between family and work that most of us are up against every day of our lives. I'm happy with my career, but I wouldn't mind being a bit freer from the constant race to keep up with my daughter's schedule as well as my own.
Judging from her polished appearance, her morning had been different from mine. Lipliner, eyeliner, perfectly blended eye shadow, and hair that holds its outline all take time in front of a mirror. I could picture her leisurely reading the paper with her coffee, then slipping into her tailored red jacket and lint-free black slacks before setting out to pick up her granddaughter.
Instead of looking "put-together," like my museum friend, many of the women I know who have young children lean more toward a "thrown-together" look when not at work. We favor looser, more casual clothes. The kind we can wear when we're down on the floor and later throw in the wash. Many of us opt for a sunscreen-tinted moisturizer combo so we can slap three things on at once. We tend to rely more on a good cut than on a hairstyle that needs too many grooming aids. Our idea of personal luxury in the morning is an uninterrupted shower.
She carried a smart, small bag for her essentials. I carried a big "mommy's bag" for all my daughter's essentials.
She wore beautiful, shiny well-heeled boots that matched her outfit. I wore the shoes I wear every day, no matter what I'm wearing. French, fabulous, a muted green Nubuck, they are so expensive that I won't reveal their price because then my husband and mother will learn how much I paid for them. But more to the point, they have soft, thick soles and are comfy. Comfort in a shoe that is not a sneaker is one of any older mom's main goals in life. Because we and our mommy shoes do a lot of walking in places you'd have to be incredibly vain, or nuts, to wear shiny tight boots to.
Although she and I were exactly the same age, her style, though not matronly, said "lady." My style, if you can call throwing on whatever is relaxed and on top of the laundry basket a style, said "built for comfort, not for speed."
We both looked like what we were. She was a grandmother, albeit a young one. I was a mommy, albeit an old one.
I met another woman on a northbound train from Florida. On her way home to Boston, she was traveling with her eleven-year-old, a delicate girl with braces, knobby knees, and the skittishness of a prepubescent. My eight-year-old was still blithely confident, too young to be a prime candidate for the heartbreaking descent of Ophelia. Seated together in the dining car, the four of us shared the immediate ease of long-distance traveling.
After lunch, we went back to our sleeping car. The girls played in one roomette. We moms settled across the aisle.
She was a beautiful woman in her early fifties with straight blond hair, high cheekbones, a simple black linen traveling dress, and understated, serious-money jewelry. When she smiled, she looked like Diane Keaton. She had just a trace of an English accent left over from having come to this country when she was ten. She was a psychotherapist.
As the train rattled along through the southern countryside, and the girls became involved in a game, it wasn't long before we began The Inevitable Conversation.
She wondered whether we'd been sold a bill of goods. Women of our generation were all so convinced that we could do it all. She confessed, as if being on a train with a stranger allowed her to say something that maybe she hadn't said or couldn't say to those close to her, that she had missed most of her daughter's infancy and childhood. She'd returned to work a month after her child was born. She had to, she said. Or at least she felt as if she had to. She was building her practice. Looking back, she wondered why she had felt compelled to go at everything so hard. Why couldn't she have taken fewer patients? Why, in fact, couldn't she have stayed home full-time with her child? Why had that option never even presented itself to her? She was, after all, a nurturing type. That was what had led her to her chosen profession, at which I suspect, after spending many hours with her, she was very good.
Empathetic, smart, comfortable financially, happily married, there she was. Questioning the path she had taken. Wondering whether she might have done it differently.
Is one path better than the other? Is it better to have your children young or when you're more mature? Is it better, once you have them, to stay home with them or keep up with your career? It is the discussion of the day. I haven't met a woman in close to a decade in her late thirties, her forties, or her early fifties who hasn't examined the timing of motherhood and its effect on her life.
Some of us conceived our children easily, others went to great pains economically, physically, and psychologically. Some adopted our children. Some of us are married, some divorced, some single. Some of us are straight, some gay. Some of us work full-time, some part-time, and some are stay-at-home moms. Some of us are well-off, some struggle to stay afloat. Yet few of the women I get the opportunity to talk with as a leader of parenting groups, and as I go about my life centered in the "mommy world," don't question the decisions we made.
There are no right or wrong answers. There are only different choices.
But when you come to parenthood later in life, there are some special joys and challenges.
Okay, I admit it: I am a "parenting wimp." My little ones can whine for cookies before breakfast and get them. If my toddler pleas fervently enough, I'll hand him the phone to say "hi" to a business associate; and I've never "Ferberized" anyone.
I have two sons. The first one weaned himself at six months, going from breast to bottle without missing a beat. Naturally, I felt somewhat abandoned, but my family assured me that I was re-gaining independence.
Three years later, I had baby number two, Zachary, who nursed for a full hour and a half immediately after delivery. He really liked it.
And so it was that I found myself nursing a twenty-month old! Oh my goodness.
The first twelve months I had an answer to all naysayers: the American Academy of Pediatrics advises all new moms that it is beneficial to baby's health to breastfeed for a full year. Thanks to the AAP, I could gaze into my baby's eyes and feel that special bond a bit longer than any other mother in my family had dared to.
At one year, I gave lip service to wanting to stop. It was inconvenient. My relatives were beginning to feel embarrassed. My nursing bras were disintegrating. But truthfully, I wasn't ready.
And either was Zachary. He categorically rejected bottles, but he'd been drinking water or juice from a cup since he was six months old. He wouldn't drink anything else from a cup—not breastmilk, not formula and not cow's milk. He wanted the comfort of Mom.
I used to make fun of people who nursed for so long. Philosophically, I would defend any mother's right to breastfeed as long as she wants, and anywhere she wants, but I'd always joked that if a baby can ask for a cookie with his milk (or if he can have a reasonable debate about it), it's probably way past time.
So-- I put on a regular bra, so it would be harder for me to accommodate Zach, especially outside. Then, I tried all the "gentle tricks." I prolonged time between feedings (which didn't much help because his feedings were irregular). I snuggled with him and offered him a cup instead of a breast. I gave him ice cream when he really wanted to nurse. I reasoned with him (What a big boy you are…).
It wasn't working.
My pediatrician told me it takes two to tango, two to wean. If you really want to stop, just stop, he said.
Sure, my feelings were ambiguous. Zachary is likely to be my last baby. What's a mother to do?
My mother discussed my "problem" with her friends. Soon, other Boca grandmas talked to their nursing daughters, using me as a cautionary tale. Wean soon, or this will happen to you!
It had to stop. I was ready. I'd heard about rubbing sour lemon juice on nipples. Zachary was unfazed. He likes lemon.
It was time to get tough.
My mother told me to put Tobasco sauce (it's food, right?) on my breasts. She said, "Tell Zachary that you have boo-boos and that the sauce is medicine, but that it makes Mommy's milk taste bad." He understood the concepts of boo-boos and medicine, but he wanted to nurse. One "sip" and he immediately made a face and said "Gucky!"
"Gucky," the most beautiful word.
And that was it.
If there is a moral to this weaning tale, perhaps it is to set your own pace, no matter what anyone else says; you'll find the strength when you are ready.
Now if only I could wean Zachary from putting his hand up my shirt…
1/2 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water with Food Color in it
2 TBS Cream of Tartar (typically found in supermarket's spice section)
2 TBS Vegetable Oil
Combine the above ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it pulls away from the sides of the pot. Done! Store in "tupperware" or zip-lock baggie. This play dough is softer and has a nicer feel than commercial dough, and it lasts longer. If it dries out, knead a little oil into the dough. Makes amount equal to 1 1/2 to 2 large tubs of commercial dough.
by Bethany Kandel
Journalist Bethany Kandel, the author of "The Expert Parent: Everything You Need to Know From All the Experts in the Know," will return to New Mommies' this winter.
Once upon a time, grandparents lived upstairs or across the street. These days, it's just as likely that they live thousands of miles away. But out of sight doesn't have to mean out of mind. Here are ways to keep in touch.
For Parents and Children
Suggest These To the Grandparents
Send contributions to a dress-up box: your old scarves, ties, hats, gloves, petticoats and jewelry.
The Expert: Sunie Levin, founder of the Young Grandparents' Club (913 642-8296).
There is a long tradition in Western society that views children as inherently antisocial and needing to be civilized. But the scientific evidence is that infants are born social. They come into the world loving you and wanting only for you to love and care for them. While you may feel uncertain and anxious when you find yourself at home alone with your new baby, it helps to remember that your baby enters the world adoring you and possessing abundant good will toward you.
All parents experience moments when their newborn seems inexplicably inconsolable. The knowledge that your baby cries only from discomfort, and never as a way of angering or manipulating you, will help you to persevere in the attempt to uncover the source of your baby's unhappiness and to continue the effort to make your baby as comfortable as possible.
The most important rule for new parents is always try to comfort a crying child. Because of her immaturity, your infant can express unhappiness only by fussing or crying. Try to respond to your crying baby as though she were articulately asking for your loving help rather than as though she were trying to manipulate you by imperious and irritating demands. When you do your best to keep your infant happy and comfortable she will copy you and learn to be generous toward herself and others. So when you comfort your infant, you protect her from acquiring needs for unhappiness and secure her emotional health. The inner happiness you make possible for your child will also improve the quality of her physical, social, and intellectual development. Therefore, try to ignore all advice that tells you to be rigid about schedules or to worry about spoiling your child with too much attention.
Parents who are not aware of the importance of responding immediately, gently, and positively to their infant's discomfort unintentionally teach their infant to cry hard the moment she feels unhappy (for example, when she feels hungry, overstimulated, or tired). When a baby's tears are regularly ignored, her subsequent unhappiness reminds her that help does not come when she is upset, with the result that this baby responds to discomfort by crying more intensely and more disconsolately.
Eventually, babies will become withdrawn if their tears don't predictably evoke a caring response. They become convinced that their misery is what their parents desire for them, and therefore, that it is desirable. You cannot prevent your baby from experiencing some kinds of unhappiness, such as indigestion, colds, or the pain of teething. But you can help your infant avoid the more costly emotional misery she will feel if you follow popular advice to let her "cry it out." Babies who are left to cry feel powerless and incompetent. Whether or not you can determine the exact reason for your baby's misery, by responding to your crying child, you show her that everyday difficulties do not have to diminish her inner happiness, because she can always elicit your loving assistance.
You may have been told that picking up and soothing crying babies will either cause them to become too tender emotionally to handle frustration, or teach them that crying gets attention. Many parents find the experience of allowing babies to cry miserably "for their own good" heartwrenching, and they are enormously relieved to hear that deliberate unresponsiveness is actually harmful, not helpful, to children. Because the crying infant is not manipulating you, responding lovingly will build rather than