Got Milk? Not us!

Our youngest son, Ben, is a strong willed little boy. From the moment he came into this world, things have been his way or the highway. Or in the case of his birth - both!

From the very beginning, he was an excellent nurser. He latched on within five minutes of being born, and never looked back. I weaned him at 13 months, but he probably would have kept nursing for another year had I let him.

Now he is underweight. Not that I put too much stock in the growth curves, but they did create them for a reason. At his 18 month check-up, he was in the 98th percentile for height and the 0 percentile for weight. Yes...ZERO! To our credit, both of the boys had a projectile vomiting plague the week before Ben's check-up. He lost five pounds that week, which for a boy of his size is a lot of weight. You could see his collarbones sticking out. I could trace the contour of every rib with my eyes. It was like watching my little boy peer out of a super model's body.

What is the connection between his weight gain issues and breastfeeding? My mommy guilt! Before weaning him, Ben would never take a bottle. We tried day-long nursing strikes, we tried bottle, cups, syringes...anything to get milk into him another way besides directly from my udders. I certainly didn't mind all of the nursing, but a girl's gotta have a break. He wouldn't take anything. I finally got him to take a few sips from one of those plastic shot glasses that comes with children's Tylenol.

Before weaning him, he would also never take milk, or formula - nothing except water - and then only if it was from the short-man's shot glass. I always assumed that after I weaned him, he wouldn't have a choice and would start drinking milk. We tried whole fat, half fat, no fat, goat milk, buffalo milk, soy milk, rice milk, chocolate flavored, strawberry flavored. It was a veritable Starbucks of dairy drinks at my house. No luck!!

I even went so far as to put cinnamon and vanilla extract into his drink thinking the incredibly unique flavor would tempt him. It didn't. And then my pediatrician reminded me that vanilla extract has alcohol in it. Granted, it was only a couple of drops, but at least he had the right mocktail for his little shot glass.

Now, I know that milk is not the panacea of children's weight gain, but you have to admit, it doesn't hurt. Especially breast milk. There have been numerous times in the last six months (as I've watched Ben's weight curve plummet), that I've wondered if it wasn't my own selfishness that caused me to wean him when he was still happily nursing. Not only does a girl need a break, but a girl's gotta have a cocktail sometimes, too! And I wasn't a big fan of those bite marks I was getting from his periodic experiments with chewing while nursing.

Life can't be full of what ifs, but this is a what if that I've been thinking about a lot since his mandatory doctor ordered weigh-in is on Thursday. We'll just have to hope that all of that mac n' cheese I've made with heavy cream and those avacadoes that I've hidden in his grilled cheese sandwiches are doing the trick.

The Song of Purple Summer...or Red Fall (as it were)

In November, Kevin and I took a long weekend to visit our friend Brian in Los Angeles. It happened to be the weekend of the wildfires that were engulfing southern California. This picture was taken in broad daylight (not at sunrise or sunset). The eerie pinkish haze was the bi-product of the smoke filled skies. It made for a beautiful pic - although not very beautiful breathing.

This picture was taken after a day in downtown Los Angeles. Although I've visited L.A. multiple times in my adult life, I haven't spent much time downtown. Our friends have always lived in Santa Monica or Hollywood. We've either hung out at their local haunts or spent time walking the Santa Monica pier or the boardwalk in Venice Beach. It was a monumental weekend for visiting downtown L.A.

First off - the wildfires. The town was hazy and smoky and abuzz with the latest news of where each fire had spread. To most L.A. residents, it must be second nature to see Ahh-nald on the news every night, but I'll admit, it's still a novelty to me to take the Terminator seriously when he's talking about a state of emergency.

In the midst of all of this, this was also the weekend of the Proposition 8 protest marches. We took the subway down to City Hall to check out the spectacle of it all, as well as show our support for the protesters.

As we walked to City Hall, the newspaper boxes were filled with pictures of Sean Penn's face. Milk was schedule to be released the following week. Brian, who is friends with Dustin Lance Black (the writer of Milk's screenplay), was reveling in how crazy it was that this group of guys that he calls friends could very likely win an Academy Award for their work. How prophetic. It also didn't escape any of us the significance of the Prop 8 marches in the wake of Harvey Milk's recent popularity resurgence. Just 30 years before (almost to the day) Harvey Milk's life was taken from him at the San Francisco City Hall. And now here we were watching a fight for the same basic human rights that Milk believed were not only possible but deserved by all. Two steps forward and one step back. The story of our world!

After the rally, we made our way to the Ahmanson Theatre a few blocks away to see Spring Awakening. Brian had seen the original Broadway production, but this was our first time. I have to say simply that I loved it. Spring Awakening is one of those shows that people either loved or were indifferent about. When I've gushed to friends in the theater community about how much I enjoyed it, some have shrugged it off with, "Oh, it was okay."

Let me qualify the "I loved it" statement. It wasn't like being that 15 year old sitting in a theater in Chicago watching Les Miserables for the first time. I loved that show with every fiber of my being. The music, the staging...everything. But I was also 15, and I loved (and hated) everything with that sort of passion.

I loved Spring Awakening intellectually. It didn't move me emotionally. I wasn't weeping at the sad ending. But the music was exciting (I'm always a sucker for a cello), the concept was unique, the lyrics were poetic. The staging was creative and the lighting was phenomenal!! Loved the blue lights that came down during the second act.

And to this day, whenever "The Song of Purple Summer/I Don't Do Sadness" comes on my ipod, it takes me back to that weekend in November. The orange skies filled with wildfire haze, the red faces of those fighting for their rights that had been revoked, and the purple summer of that small moment in Spring Awakening when Ilse still has hope in spite of all that life has taken from her.