Like Tits, Milk or Controversy? Keep Reading.

 Honestly, I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw this weeks Time magazine cover.

The first thought was just "ewwww." I've always kind of subscribed to the theory that if your kid can walk over to you and ask, clearly, for a drink then they should be having it out of a cup. Also, really, a stepstool in the form of a chair? Gary Larson's classic "Inconvenience Stores" cartoon went though my head. How long until a child who practices "extended breastfeeding" just walks over and latches on without needing a boost? And though undoubtedly the mom featured knows many like-minded moms, how horrified will her kid be in middle school or high school or beyond when his friends pull up this picture and repost it everywhere? Did I mention, ewwww?

I should share that I breastfed my oldest son for a year. I hated it to start. I have never felt so awful and isolated and so much a mammal: I'd given birth to live young and could feed it milk from my body. I spent hours and days and months initially locked away with him feeding or hooked up to a breast pump. There was a horrific array of products involved: pads, salves and specially shaped pillows with insultingly cute names. But it eventually got easier, then easy, and I kept it up for a year. Plus my breasts looked huge and fantastic. 

My second son, six weeks premature with three hernias requiring surgery at three months in addition to the intial thirteen days in the NICU, was a hot feeding mess. He was born too early to know how to swallow, so he had a feeding tube. I spent hours and hours hooked up to a pump, like a farm animal, transferring the breastmilk to a bag, then a bottle, so he could be fed at the hospital and home. He eventually ended up on a hideous-smelling formula as he couldn't tolerate the breast milk. But I kept pumping and hoarding my supply in the freezer until one day a few months in the power went out and I lost it all (milk, then mind).

 In both cases I did what I felt was best for my kid. Which is what this mom on the cover of Time is doing. So can everyone just back the hell off of her? You don't have to like her choice. It's certainly not for me and, yeah, I'd probably double or triple take if I saw it in public. I'm snarky enough that I'm writing about it and judging. But like it or not she has taken a stance in this crazy complicated world of parenting and she's sticking with it. She's not caving to public pressure as she's ripped apart in comment sections across the Internet. She's not hiding out at home in the face of criticism. She's calmly and rationally making the media rounds to express what she believes is best for her family. Isn't that the best kind of mom? One who stands up for their choices? Who has educated herself on the options and choses one she believes in? Who stands by her convictions in the face of controversy and criticism? Who is a living, breathing, accessible role model for her child? I think so, even if it grosses me out. 

Kirk Cameron + NotJune = BFF

Dear readers, I am sorry I have been gone so long but I've been off becoming a conservative Christian. I know, I know and trust me, no one was more surprised than I. Previously, I'd looked upon religious 180s with a dark, cynical heart. And, in the case of Kirk Cameron, with bemusement and wonder that anyone could grow up in Hollywood and end up becoming a Christian conservative with his own ministry to boot. Evolution, schmevolution, people. It's all God's doing. HE has a plan and values that will set us on the path to righteousnous. And, apparently that latter part is now part of my parenting plan. Surprise!

A casual question by the boys the other night about our male and female dogs could have puppies, and my answer of "you don't want to know," since we'd already had "the talk," spiralled quickly out of control. Now, I'd had "the talk" with my older son when he was about five when he'd asked where babies come from. I'd narrowly avoided it when he was four when my then husband had answered "...remember in "Dumbo" when the storks dropped the babies to their moms?" (Really.) Anyways, we had a short, blunt talk about the actual process, which led to silence and no more questions. I don't blame him. I mean, when you really lay it out, it seems pretty unlikely and bizarre to me too. The last mention of it had been when the three-year-old asked when they were both in the back seat of the car. The six-year-old was only too happy to explain it to him: "The dad sticks his penis in the mom's vagina and stuff comes out and it makes a baby." This led to the younger child screaming "Noooooo! Nooooooooo!!!!!!!" No word has been mentioned since. 

 So, this last Sex Talk go around, I got to tell both boys at the same time. This led, in typical gross boy aka Oediepal fashion, to them saying "I'm going to have sex with you." After explaining that it's illegal and wrong to have sex with a parent (Really? I'm having to explain this?) they moved on to, between hysterical giggles, "I'm going to have sex with...(insert random friends names here). And that's when it happened. I had an apparent Come to Jesus moment and became a conservative Christian because I calmly explained, "You only have sex when you are married and want to make a baby." Whhhaaaat???? What just happened? I certainly don't believe that, expect that or even subscribe to it. Yet it was right there, on the tip of my tongue, to preach to my kids. And it sounded good. Solid. I've even repeated it. So, look out people, the Church of NotJune may be coming to you soon. Amen.

June Cleaver Was Not Cool. We Have That In Common.

So, I have a rap problem. I don't know what it is, but the siren song of it calls to me. Raunchy, misogynistic, whatever. I loves it. My favorite song of late is "Young, Wild and Free" by Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg and featuring Bruno Mars. It's not particularly hardcore and the radio version is pretty clean. Basically it's a song about getting high, getting drunk and wreaking youthful havoc, I love love love it not becauses of those reasons but because it's catchy and fun. Of course I can't listen to it in either radio or explicit version around my kids, so I took advantage of their being gone for the weekend so get my fill.

Cruising down PCH on a warm, sunny Saturday, I blasted the song on repeat. My windows were down, the sunroof was open and I was singing along at the top of my lungs, possibly thowing in hand gestures and upper body choreography where appropriate (all things being relative). Sounds cool, right? Except my vehicle is a Chevy Traverse, I'm a mom and chasing 40. Oh, and white. 

So I drive the coast, having a blast, relaxed and feeling good. Young. Wild. Free. Then I look casually over to my left. Pulled up next to me at the signal is a car full of young black gentlemen, laughing their asses off at me, pointing and giving me thumbs up that I'm pretty sure weren't sincere. Could I be more uncool? No, I could not. 

True Story

Seven-Year-Old Son: Mom, Madonna is sexy and she knows it.

Me: WHAT!?

Son: What? She is. She sang that during the Super Bowl.

Me: Madonna is, like, 60 years old.

Son: Ewwww. Gross. Then why isn't she all wrinkly?

Me: Because she drinks the blood of young children.

So, About That Time I Almost Died Last Year...(Get Ready for A Really Long Overshare)

The 2012 Academy Awards were a bit of a milestone for me. I wasn't up for any nominations, didn't know or have anything to do with the nominees, and had seen only two of the nominated movies (one of those being Rango- yes, that's how out of touch I am). I spent the afternoon casually watching red carpet coverage and then live Tweeting during the actual show from my family room sofa. I watched and Tweeted the 2011 awards too. But that year, I was alone, in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV with too many bags of blood, fluids, antibiotics and steroids to count, having nearly died several days before. 

I used to suffer from chronic nosebleeds after having one random and horrific one in 2006. My treatment for that in the emergency room caused even more damage, and a subsequent surgery to fix that screwed things up even more (but ultimately saved my life yet again- but that's another post). One day in February 2011 I got a nosebleed that took a while to stop while I was waiting for my son to get out of an appointment mid-morning. For some reason it just kept trickling. After hours of this, and of course with my husband (now ex) out for the evening, I became increasingly concerned. I asked him to bring me ice on his way home to put on my nose. By the time he got home, my nose had been bleeding for almost 12 hours. I believe I had strep or something else at the time too, so he went to sleep downstairs. 

At some point in the middle of the night, when I'd gone through two full, new boxes of Kleenex, I called him up because I was so scared. Scared it wouldn't stop, scared to go to the ER again where they might do more damage. He watched me for a while on a chair in the corner of our room, and apparently I feel asleep. Before I did I remember him telling me to call on his cell if I needed him. When I woke up, he was downstairs.

When I woke up I knew immediately something was very wrong. I tried to find my phone in the dark, but my face started gushing. I tried to find the landline to no avail. Blood was everywhere. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom, probably ten steps away, and fell down. When I stood up I saw a bright, white light, like a tunnel. There were no lights on in my room. I remember being too weak to yell to him to help me. I was not checked on.

In the morning, I guess I had fallen asleep or passed out, I was woken up by my then six-year-old son. I was surrounded by blood-soaked linens. I'm not sure what happened but I remember my husband coming into the room and sending my son out. I told him, calmly, that I needed him to call 911 and have an ambulance come because I needed a blood transfusion. He thought I was overreacting. He said he could take me. I told him I could not get out of bed. We went back and forth for a while. He called his mom to come stay with the boys and dialed 911. Right after I vomited a bowl full of blood.

I remember the paramedics walking in. They literally blanched. I'm sure when they heard some guy call because his wife has a nosebleed, on the west side of Los Angeles no less, they were expecting something as severe as a hangnail. But there I was, unable to move, surrounded by blood, covered in it and clutching a bowl of it too. They estimated it at a couple or more liters just in the bowl. They also said if they'd arrived much later, I would have bled out. As in died. In my home, with my kids. 

I remember them getting me onto a stretcher to get me downstairs. Halfway down I remember my oldest son looking up at me. That's all I remember until I got into the ambulance. When I came to, as they were closing the doors, I said "I can't die. I have two young sons." This became my mantra.

At the hospital I got priority. I was transfused (the first of four blood transfusions, maybe six), had my nose packed and clipped with some sort of medical clothespin. With all my new blood I felt so much better already that I remember making an obscene joke when the ER doctor told me the nose packing was going to go in quickly but not that far. Stabilized, and awaiting transfer to a bed in the Intensive Care Unit, my husband asked to go back to work as he had a deadline. And then there was one.

I think I was in the ICU just one night. I do remember that I had a fabulous visit from a therapy dog and was with it enough to take a picture to send my sons. I do very clearly though remember taking to Facebook to do something I had never ever done before: ask my friends and anyone they knew to pray for me so that I would not leave my boys without a mother. It was the only thing I could think of to do. When my six week premature youngest son was in the NICU for two weeks as a newborn, I remember nurses and friends telling me they'd submitted his name to their church prayer groups and finding great comfort in that, even though I didn't myself attend church or even pray or believe. 

I was in the hospital a full week. My boys were brought one time to see me, my husband came a few. My fabulous friends a whole bunch. Thank goodness my hospital stay coincided with Charlie Sheen's meltdown to keep me distracted. Feeling better, I was still bedridden due to the bloodloss. I couldn't do anything unassisted. I had to go under general anesthesia in the O.R. to remove the packing from my nose as they wanted everything to be incredibly controlled. Again, right before I went under, I announced to every doctor and nurse in the room: I just want to remind everyone...I cannot die. I have two young sons.