I Sketch Germs Because I Can’t Eliminate Them

A few weeks ago I was so taken with the photograph of salmonella in my boys’ encyclopedia that I joined them as they painted something else entirely and made my own salmonella:

Screen shot 2013-06-10 at 12.14.13 PMAnd then last week, the common cold laid some of us low (which is continuing into this week) so, again, as the kids painted something else entirely I decided to create a version of rhinovirus (the one responsible for what ails us):

Screen shot 2013-06-10 at 12.14.54 PMI can’t explain what I enjoy about this, except maybe that it forces me to take a different point of view about things– forces me to see order and beauty even in something which I’m tempted to utterly despise.

{Hope your Monday is healthier than ours!}

 

 

EXTRAPOLATE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This week I really enjoyed Brittany Tuttle’s piece at the Christianity Today blog for women, about how blogs, Facebook, et. al, DO NOT equal the whole picture.

Does this sound familiar:

“Countless times I’ve logged onto Facebook, Twitter, or my favorite blogs only to see vintage-filtered vignettes of other people’s seemingly perfect lives. There are my friends, on tropical vacation (again). There are my favorite bloggers, wearing artsy duds, sitting in their homes that look like exact replications of the Anthropologie catalog. And there are their children, perpetually glossy-haired and rosy-cheeked and smiling.

Meanwhile, here I sit in my untidy home in the cold of January, wearing an old college t-shirt. My kids are fighting in the background. Reading these blogs, seeing these profiles, often feels like browsing a fashion magazine. It’s fun to look at, but afterward I feel inferior and inadequate and ugly and fat.”

That? Right there? That captures it so well. I went through a period of real distress before I realized that no, I do not have to have five kids and live on a farm in Maine and grow and preserve all my own food and either knit or sew new slipcovers/cushions/quilts/cozies for everything and raise pigs just because SouleMama does and looks darn cute doing it and it seems like her kids are always peaceful and empathetic and never screaming or creating mayhem (like mine are.)

I think all blogs, maybe even this one, should have bold disclaimers:

THIS IS NEITHER THE WHOLE PICTURE NOR THE WHOLE STORY. EXTRAPOLATE AT YOUR PERIL!

I won’t give away Brittany’s grace-filled conclusion. It’s worth going over to read the whole post for yourself.

Enjoy the weekend! I will see you on Monday!

Pregnancy as Hospitality

NYMag’s Vulture blog had this post on how the movie posters from the What to Expect When You’re Expecting movie are “deeply disturbing.” And they are, look–

And that’s one of the less-bad ones.

What’s frightening about these photos is how ridiculously skinny and airbrushed these pregnant women are, like the pregnancy is some kind of abdominal accessory.

Make no mistake, “skinny pregnant” is a thing. I get blog hits every day based on those kinds of search terms. When I was first pregnant, I read, with great interest, this article about pregnant New Yorkers who worked out like crazy and counted every ounce. I learned of this exercise program aimed at preventing and reversing the “mummy tummy.” And I also found the oddly titled Pregnancy Without Pounds.

Because, I’m ashamed to say, I was afraid of getting bigger.

A number of times now, I’ve been asked how I went from disordered in my eating and body image to joyfully (if occasionally) consuming pie for breakfast.

I’m never quite sure how to answer the question. It’s complicated.

But there is one thing that I can point to for sure. Wait, two things, actually:

Oh, I didn’t start out well. I fretted about getting a belly (will it ever go away?) and confessed to my husband that I “just didn’t want to gain weight.” And he said:

“If you don’t gain weight, our baby will die.”

{Ouch.}

And so I did the best I could. I ate. (And managed not to puke it all up.) I got bigger. And I had a really, really beautiful baby. I nursed him. And as I nursed him, I felt a powerfully strong sense of our connection. To feed him, I had to feed myself. I wanted him to get bigger and stronger. I had a context for seeing feeding and weight gain as unquestioned positives, and to make that happen, I had to feed myself so I could feed him.

Having my baby showed me my unmistakeable connectedness.

To me, that’s the thing that’s scary about the obsession with pregnancy skinniness, which I see reinforced everywhere–on Facebook, in conversations, and (certainly) among the tabloids, which seem always to be screaming about how skinny this or that celebrity just X number of weeks after having a baby, and now, these stupid movie posters.

The obsession with pregnancy skinniness spectacularly misses the point, which is that women’s bodies are capable of

making room.

hosting new life.

welcoming babies, those nearest of strangers.

Harnessing the ‘New Domesticity’ Without Diminishing Women

from my most recent post at the Christianity Today women’s blog

“In a recent opinion piece for the Washington Post, Emily Matchar, who writes regularly on the phenomenon frequently called the ‘new domesticity,’ wonders whether the resurgence of interest in canning, knitting, and generally DIY-spirited homekeeping is not, in fact, regressive–a ‘step back’ for women. Homekeeping, and all the domestic arts, are a minefield in our culture, often thought of–and treated as–degrading and menial work. The more creative domestic arts–sewing clothes, preserving food–are enjoying renewed popularity, and while Matchar concedes the pleasure to be found in making for yourself that which you’d otherwise purchase, she’s suspicious: after all, domestic work is unpaid work, and in a culture where women still earn, on average, less than their male counterparts, celebrating the domestic arts as creative, liberating fun is, for her, potentially dangerous:

If history is any lesson, my just-for-fun jar of jam could turn into my daughter’s chore, and eventually into my granddaughter’s “liberating” lobster strudel.”

For many within evangelicalism, the issue is further complicated by the ongoing debate on gender roles.

{…}

But if God keeps house, then housekeeping is both worthwhile and loosened from gendered stereotypes.”

(although one of the commenters doesn’t think so–“I maintain that Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 show pretty clearly that domesticity is the primary domain of a wife, not a man.”

Read it all here!

And leave a comment or question, if you so desire.

What Chefs Feed Their Kids

One of my favorite things about blogging is the free books. I’m not much of a book-buyer–being that my library system is well-stocked, efficient, and user-friendly–but sometimes it is nice to have one’s Very Own Copy of a book. And last week I received two lovely books for my perusal (and possible review) in the mail, one of which was this:

Fanae Aaron is an art director, not a chef, but when it came time to feed her son, she wanted more for him than rice cereal, that staple North American “first food” for babies–the “blandest and least exciting food ever created.”

She writes:

“I wondered if there was a way to feed kids that both nourishes and stimulates them. Our brains are wired to burst to life with new sensations. They light up and chemicals are released in our brains as we experience the pleasure and delight of something new and interesting.”

I love how her artistic sensibilities shaped her motivation for this project: she wanted food to be what it truly is–a creative sensory experience and an experience of love, care, and nourishment–not merely ‘healthy fuel.’ And so Fanae interviewed twenty or so very different chefs–from Ana Sortun to Zack Gross–to illustrate their strategies and attitudes in feeding their children.

Though it’s got gorgeous illustrations and fabulous recipes, this is more than another cookbook–there’s a lot of child development in there–examining why adventurous eaters suddenly become picky, for example, and explaining why certain foods and combinations simply don’t appeal to kids. Plus, the recipes are recipes that can be made for the whole family–not simply for the baby–with simple modifications for the young ones.

Son #1, with sweet potato

And there’s plenty of advice on how to get kids interested in trying new things–from cooking with them (with the aid of things like the learning tower) to reading books involving food and cooking.

(Our favorite children’s book involving cooking is Eddie’s Kitchen by Sarah Garland.)

Whether you’re a seasoned foodie with kids or a newbie foodie with kids or simply a parent who wants to start your kid on something tastier than rice cereal (we started with avocado!), I think this book will appeal to all your senses. It’s lovely.

Son #2, with avocado

“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the other.”

~M.F.K. Fisher

Amen.

Many thanks to Jessica at Globe Pequot for the review copy of this book! You can buy yours here or here.