Breastfeeding Friendly Businesses

Wow, I just realized it's been nearly a year since any of us have posted! I really want to apologize to everybody for that. Amanda got really busy with home-schooling, and I was combining home-schooling with 3 jobs - my store, my magazine and the census. For a while I was working 60-80 hours a week and juggling my ninth grader's schedule. My fifth grader was at a Christian school, and providentially, my husband was able to help a lot with the kids during that time.

I'm so thankful for the extra income that really helped during a time of need, but I found other things sliding a bit, and for that I do apologize.

I'm back in the store most of the time now. My daughter is, for the first time in her life, attending a public school, and I am thankful for the many blessings we've had this year.

One of those blessings on a professional level has been the recognition by Medela of A Nurturing Moment as a Medela Certified Nursing Center. We were very pleased to receive this recognition.

Now Bravado, my favorite maker of nursing bras, has come up with a wonderful site that lets moms know where they can find a breastfeeding-friendly business. This is particularly useful if you're traveling! Think how nice it would be if you're visiting relatives this Christmas and you're out and about in an unfamiliar area to pull out your phone, go to this site, and find a place where you can comfortably nurse your baby!

If you find a business that is particularly open to nursing mothers, you can add it to the site. And you can also leave comments about the businesses listed there. What a great way to reward businesses that are mother-baby friendly.

The spring rush has arrived!

I don't know about all of you, but my life has been hectic these past few weeks. Since the first of March, I have been out of town 6 times (a couple of those times were for five days), my husband has been on three business trips, my daughter has played through a season of soccer and has started on tee ball, my own softball season has started, my daughter's been going to school more than normal in preparation for the end of the year, the stormy weather has knocked a tree down into our garden and broken garden boxes and our greenhouse (and because it's been raining so much, we've had to try to fix it in spurts, so it's still not ready for us to garden!), we've celebrated five birthdays and an anniversary and Mother's day, and all the other stuff that comprises our normal lives.

And to top it all off, my allergies are bad enough that I've finally given in on taking allergy medicine, but the only medicine we have has made me feel exhausted constantly, and we haven't had the time to go to the store yet to get a different kind.

I'm tired.

But that is nothing new to any of you, I'm sure. I don't think mothers are not tired at any point in time for many years after their youngest are in diapers.

My kids are taking the rush tolerably well. My daughter, independent and out-spoken 4.5 year old that she is, has taken this all in stride and is just going about her merry way. The couple of trips I was gone for several days, she was a little whinier the day I got back, but otherwise she's been fine. I've been worried about my son who's 2.5 years old and still nursing, particularly with the travel and me being gone for so many days in a row. The first 5 day trip I took, he was fine when I came home, if a little clingier for a couple of days. The second 5 day trip I took, though, he didn't do as well at. His sleep patterns totally shifted, which was oh-so-much-fun. Luckily, by now we've gotten back to normal, and since we don't have any other long trips away planned until at least August, life will be normal for a while before I/we are gone again.

Of course, this isn't to say that life won't be hectic. Tomorrow we're all leaving for NC for a wedding my husband is in. We have another wedding next month. At some point we'll take a nice, relaxing (hah!) visit to the beach. We have another wedding in August, as well as a possible trans-Atlantic trip for me. I'm sure that we'll have pressure (not necessarily of the bad sort) to take the 14+ hour drive up to the in-laws since it'll have been a year in July since we've been up there. Whether or not we give in to the pressure is a different story.

But that's sort of the way we like it, I think. We do it every year - the hectic running around and never sitting down thing. It lasts from about March until December. I'm just glad that the kids go so easily with us. I think we're helped greatly with that because we co-slept with both of them, co-sleeping in hotel rooms is not something new to them, and extended nursing really helps my son. Despite the craziness of my travel schedule, he has come back to nursing every time I've gotten back from traveling. It might take him an hour, or even twelve, to ask to nurse again, but he has done so without fail. And while at one point, I couldn't wait to be done nursing, I find that it serves as a comfort and re-connection for both of us now when I come back after being gone for a few days. I definitely never thought that I would be a mother who nursed her child for several years, but it appears that I will be, given that my son turns 3 this summer.

Of course, it could be that he gets done this summer. All the travel may get him too busy, and we may just wake up one day and realize we haven't nursed in several days. He may potty train this summer, though I have no hopes for that. Who knows what other milestones he may reach this summer, or if he reaches any at all?

As always, I find myself looking forward to what the coming months will bring, and who we'll be when they're over.