Listen to my podcast!

Last May, a very lovely woman named Joanne Greene interviewed me for my first-ever podcast, which has been posted on my publisher's web site. Generally I hate to hear myself speak (I always fast-forward over myself when I'm transcribing interviews), but this one was a lot of fun. It's about 10 minutes long, and the conversation went off on so many tangents that I didn't get to cover every important point in my book, but think of this as a little sneak peek. Enjoy!

Coming to a baby event near you...

Hey there, faithful readers: If you happen to be in West Hartford, Ct, on Sept 30th, or Uniondale, Long Island, October 13-14, come hang out with me at one of these birth and baby events:

Sept 30: I'll be part of the talkback panel discussing a performance of "Birth" by Karen Brody, a series of monologues that I am told is something like "The Vagina Monologues." Should be interesting, and I'm sure I'll get at least a few more blog entries out of it! The event is sponsored by BOLD, a group that advocates for more mom-friendly birth, always a worthy goal. More info and tickets here.

Oct 13-14: I'll be a guest speaker at the American Baby Faire at the Nassau Coliseum. Something tells me there will bags full of free stuff from all the exhibitors. There are even rumors of a bouncy castle.

See you there!

The catwalk in the labor room?

Hello everyone, welcome to fall! Bellamy started first grade yesterday, and so far, fingers crossed, everything's looking good. Molly doesn't start preschool until next Monday, so trying to get any work done or updating blogs has been a real challenge this week. But I just read something I couldn't resist commenting on. The snarky guilty-pleasure blog Jezebel.com just posted this mind-boggling news: A company called Binsi has just come out with a line of skirts, robes and tops to wear while you are giving birth! Now, while I do think the thin cotton robes provided by the hospital leave a lot to be desired in terms of comfort, style, and modesty, the idea of purchasing something new just to wear while you labor strikes me as absolutely absurd. If you choose to labor at home or in a less restrictive birthing center or hospital, you probably have your own comfy T-shirt to wear through labor. Or more likely, you'll be naked. Whatever you do wear will get covered with sweat, blood, and other body fluids, so why spend $50 bucks on a "labor skirt"??? Well, this just proves that there is a market for everything (or at least someone trying to make a buck off every moment of life), no matter how ridiculous.

Is three the new two?

Last Sunday I went to a reunion of sorts with my six best friends from high school (well, one was blended in a few years later, but it just feels like we've known him since high school). It was the first time all of us had gotten together with our families in years. Among the seven families, the breakdown was this: two families had one kid; two families had two kids; and three families had three kids, for a total of 15 kids. Besides the absolute shock of seeing that my geeky little high school gang had spawned an entire village, it got me thinking: Is three the new two?

I always knew I wanted two children, perhaps because that is the size of the family I grew up in. Four is such a nice square number: We fit easily in a car or around a restaurant table. Not to mention the appealing idea that we create just enough new people to replace ourselves. And of course, if you live in Manhattan, as I do, having more than two children means either squeezing everyone into a one- or two-bedroom apartment, or spending well over $2 million for a three-bedroom. Not to mention school tuition and the logistics of chauffering three or more kids all over the city for soccer, piano, etc (though I suppose that is a universal issue). In the suburbs, I hear, three kids has become the norm. One friend, who lives in Missouri, told me that neighbors have gently inquired if she is having fertility or health issues, because she chose to stop after two kids.

Just in the past couple of years, though, I have noticed more and more three-kid families in New York (I have even heard a rumor that there is a four-kid family living in my building, but I have yet to meet them). Is this simply a social trend, is it a statement showing off how many resources the family has, or it is a renewed sense of optimism about the world?

The book-party babies are all here!

I just heard the wonderful news that my friend Meema gave birth last week to baby Django (named after jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt; he is the second or third baby Django I have heard of in NYC). This means, drumroll please, that all five of the babies who attended my book party in utero last January have arrived safe and sound! Django joins Samantha, Julia, Quentin, and Fiona. Here is an interesting stat, though, three of these four deliveries were C-sections. One of the births was planned this way (the twins), the other two were emergency C-sections after long labors--five DAYS of at-home labor in one case. Was this 75 percent rate of C-sections due to the fact that my friends are all "older" moms (all in their late 30s, which in NY mom years is not old at all, but in medical jargon is). Or because we live in New York? Or just the way the dice of childbirth fate were rolled in this particular group? Bottom line is all the babies are adorable and healthy, and I have no one to go to the theater with anymore, since everyone is home feeding or nursing. Well, I guess I'll see Spring Awakening on my own! Congrats to all the new moms.

Toddlers and TV

I’m going a little off-topic this week, but I wanted to let you know about a really interesting book I just read. As a parenting writer, I interview several authors each month who have written books on everything from toilet training to maternity fashion to donor insemination; some are insightful, some make me wonder how a publisher was conned into writing a check for such a heaping pile of crap. But this month the galley of a book called Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age Five arrived in my mailbox. It was written by Lisa Guernsey, an education reporter for the New York Times. Guernsey has two daughters roughly the same age as Bellamy and Molly, and has gone through the same soul-searching about TV that I have. The American Academy of Pediatrics tells us we shouldn’t let kids under two watch any TV at all, but then you have the Little Einstein folks telling us that repeated viewings of frog puppets dancing to Mozart will turn our babies into creative geniuses. Guernsey, like me, was skeptical about both claims, and set out to investigate the truth about what TV does—positive and negative—to kids. She did a kick-ass job combing through every bit of research that has been done on kids and TV, and found that a lot of the hysterical claims about TV turning kids into mindless zombies or causing ADHD do not stand up to scrutiny. She also visited research centers and interviewed early childhood experts across the country and found that kids under five do not learn in the same way that producers of those educational videos claim they do. The bottom line is that TV itself is neither harmful nor helpful to children. It’s all about context and content.

I remember when Bellamy was around two, a highly neurotic mom I knew was complaining to me that she could never get a five-minute break from her kid to unload the dishwasher or flip through a magazine. “Why don’t you let her play a computer game or watch a video for a half hour?” I said. She looked at me as if I had suggested she sprinkle some crack on her daughter’s Cheerios. But as Guernsey concluded, putting your child in front of an age-appropriate TV show for a half hour is not going to hurt them in any way, and if it gives the mom a few minutes to chill and revive, then it is actually a good thing for everyone. So check out the book. It’s a fun read, and you’ll never look at Blue’s Clues the same way again.

Drugs vs. natural: a wee little question

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I'm in the thick of two projects I want to complete before my birthday in September: training for a 5k walk/run (you can sponsor me and help fund breast cancer research and treatment here; and finishing all six of Jane Austen's novels. So far I can make it around the park a couple of times without collapsing, and I'm in the middle of book number 3. Two months to go, wish me luck!

Since we last spoke, I attended the bris/baby-naming for my twin niece and nephew. If you haven't been to one, a bris is when a Jewish baby boy is circumcised by a mohel, and then everyone sings, schmoozes, and eats bagels. A bris traditionally happens on the the 8th day, but since Quentin was less than five pounds at birth, it was put off for a few weeks. When my brother and sister-in-law were looking for a mohel, they waded into a debate that echoed one of the biggest questions about childbirth iteself: drugs or natural? Most mohels perform the bris with no anesthetic, just a few drops of red wine or grape juice (in the baby's mouth, that is, not on the part being circumsized). One of the many arguments against anesthetics is that ritual circumcision has been performed for thousands of years with no dugs. The same is of course true of childbirth. But does that mean we shouldn't take advantage of modern medical methods of pain relief? There are also the questions of whether the anesthetic does more harm than good. I found it fascinating how such similar questions came up with both childbirth and circumcision. In the end, my sister-in-law decided to use a mohel who is also an MD, who injected a local anesthetic before he did the snipping. Quentin was a champ. We ate bagels, we schmoozed. So, tell me what YOU think of this debate.