Labor of Love

Let the Breast Milk Flow and Flow (or why I nurse my toddler)

It has been eighteen months since I painstakingly helped Ayla latch on for the first time.  In those first days and weeks, I was certain that I wouldn’t last past three months.  But I made it to three, and implored the gods to help me make it to six. Then six months passed.  And I set a new goal: Twelve months.  After that, I swore I would be done. 

But some things changed along the way.  To begin, I reached a point where I forgot I was doing it.  Pulling up my shirt and guiding Ayla to my breast became second nature.  It’s the same thing that happens when I’m driving on an open road for long stretches of time.  At some point, I realize that I’ve been driving (for minutes, or hours) without the help of my conscious mind.  My mind would have been watching the vast sky or reliving a special moment in my life and all the while another part of me had been driving carefully, changing lanes and shifting gears. I can’t recall exactly when I stopped keeping track of which side Ayla was drinking from or whether it was time to switch from the Cradle Hold to the Football Hold.  But when I could let go of the mechanics of nursing, it became a deeply meditative interlude in my day.  And in those moments, I felt more spiritual than I have while sitting in meditation or praying or practicing yoga under the stars.

Another change was gradual disappearance of my enormous (bourgeois) guilt about nursing.  I had read enough progressive parenting books to know that there wasn’t a bottle in the world that could compare to my breast milk.  Ounce for ounce, my milk outpaced formula in every category.  But while knowledge can liberate us, it can also erect tall fences around us.  And in those early painful months, I felt confined by my decision to breastfeed.  On the one hand, it was convenient not to have get out of bed in the middle of the night or rush home from the park to make a bottle.  But once you start nursing, you can’t stop.  I wanted to so desperately not to be needed all the time.  I wished for a few days off now and again, to gain some perspective before returning to the job.  

But once Ayla was eating solid food, need, so to speak, dried up.  And so, nursing became a choice that we each had to make.  At some point after the six-month mark, we both enthusiastically said, “Yes!” to nursing.  This time around, I found many and varied reasons to want to nurse.  Some days, when I felt enveloped by darkness, I knew that nursing would help me see light again.  Nothing grounds me more than feeling Ayla’s tiny body in my arms and listening to the soft puffs of her breath.  No matter what storms are passing through my life, I am reminded that they will pass when I’m nursing Ayla.

Similarly, I noticed Ayla seeking out my bosom when she wanted to reconnect or play with me (or my nipples), rather than when she was thirsty.  Nursing is a means for us to reacquaint ourselves if I’ve been out for the day or away on a trip.  I’ve grown to love all the gestures and movements that make up our breastfeeding body language.  I can tell when Ayla wants to nurse by the way in which she reaches out to me.  We have little rituals about how we curl up in each other’s limbs—how her head rests on my upper arm and how her toes seek out the warm crevice behind my knees.  We both heave a silent sigh once the milk starts to flow.

What I like most about breastfeeding my toddler is that the dynamic has shifted.  My breasts are no longer the great providers and cosmic soothers that they were in the early days.  Nowadays, breastfeeding feels more like an exchange amongst equals—it is something we both choose day after day, because it enables us to share and reaffirm our love for each other.  

Eighteen months ago, I thought breast milk was all about providing nutrition and immunity to my child.  But I've since learned that "milk" is another a four-letter word for love. 

My Child, My Teacher

There are moments in books and movies when a small gesture reveals a profound insight about a character.  They might decide to go barefoot, or refuse to board a bus, or turn their face upward to taste the rain.  After consuming enough literature and films, we learn that these moments matter and that the author is helping to reveal a character’s deepest self with these gestures. Recently, I was reminded that those moments aren’t limited to fiction, nor to adults.  My 1-year old daughter Ayla taught me that lesson last week when I found her asleep in the bathtub.  Let me explain.

Since Ayla is now sleeping in her own (door-less) room, she is prone to wake up in the wee hours and wander around the apartment or into my bed.  Last week, Ayla woke up and stumbled into the bathroom.  I’m not sure exactly what transpired but my best guess is that she accidentally closed the bathroom door and couldn’t reach the handle.  She was stuck.

While most babies would scream out in her situation—knowing that their light-sleeping parents would quickly come to the rescue—Ayla stayed put.  She didn’t cry or scream out. Instead, she navigated around the bathroom by the dim glow of the night-light.  She gathered a few towels.  She found a pair of my leggings.  Then she got into the tub and somehow fashioned a small bed out of them.  Finally, she put herself to sleep.

She had just turned one—only a few days before this happened. 

The next morning, unable to get out of her tiny bed, she called out to me and I came running into her room.  When I didn’t find her there, my heart started pounding, loud and fierce.  Then I checked the bathroom and found her standing up in the bathtub.  It took a second to register the salient details of the scene: Her towel-and-legging bed, the scratch on her nose (from the faucet?), her well-rested countenance. There wasn’t a trace of injury—no bruises or bleeding.

I quickly grabbed Ayla and pulled her close.  I scanned her face and body to make sure she wasn’t hurt.   Within seconds she was cooing and laughing—she was her usual, happy self.

Over the next 24 hours, the significance of Ayla’s bathtub adventure unraveled itself from the knot of worry that had formed in my belly.  I had to remind myself that I didn’t sleep through Ayla’s cries—we are too deeply connected for that to happen.  The truth of the matter was that Ayla didn’t call out for me.  Her instinct told her not to panic.  Her gut reaction was to convert a less-than-ideal situation into something agreeable.  She was creative.  She improvised.  She relied on her body and her intuition to guide her to safety.  A 1-year old infant did all of this in the middle of the night. 

In the days since I found Ayla in the bathtub, I keep the bathroom door locked at night.  But more importantly, I see Ayla in a different light.  She is no longer just a baby in my eyes.  I see her as a human being with a formidable character.  She is a tremendous problem solver.  She has the even-handedness of a surgeon.  She is a wise soul.

Last week, I learned that I admire and respect my tiny daughter.  I’m not sure that I, even today, would have handled a similar situation with such grace.  But perhaps the biggest revelation was that it was time to  reassess my relationship with Ayla.  I have evolved so much as a person as a result of giving birth and becoming a mother.  But it’s not just the situation of parenthood that is spurring my growth.  I’m finally ready to look into my daughter’s eyes and see her as more than my child, but also as my teacher. 

And if this is what she can teach me at the one-year mark, I can’t begin to imagine what she'll teach me in my lifetime.  

Turning One: A Milestone for Parent & Child

It didn’t hit me until I was sitting in the café above Loblaws (a grocery store in Toronto) that something big was happening inside.   The stroller was wet from the rain and filled with party food I had just bought—frozen hors d’oeuvres, expensive cheese, sparkling water.  The only thing that was missing was the candle—a big “1” with a wick on the very top. 

As I contemplated running downstairs to buy the candle, I started to cry.  Then the floodgates opened and suddenly my cheeks were stained with tears.  Crying was my body's way of heaving a huge sigh of relief.  Making it to one year was an accomplishment that I had taken for granted until that moment--but it is a big deal to give birth to a child and to yourself as a parent.

On the heels of the first cry came another.  This one felt like tears of joy, mostly because Ayla is doing so well and has been such a beautiful, happy and engaged baby.  Then there were tears of sadness—that Ayla was growing up and it was all happening too fast, and soon she would be all grown up.  And then tears of love surfaced--with a purity and power that recalled my tears after giving birth.  The tears were cleansing--I felt my love for her grow even deeper and wider than it had been for the past year.  I peeked inside the stroller to watch Ayla sleep and felt like I was falling in love with my baby all over again.  I knew what would happen when she awoke--she'd look for me, nuzzle my breast for some milk and then smile, or even laugh, in response to my loving gaze.  Reflecting on all of those things is when I really started to cry.  I felt reborn as my tears ran down my neck and soaked my hands.

Turning one is a big milestone—for parent and child.  I have heard parents talk about children being overwhelmed, and even a bit scared, by the gathering of friends and family at their first birthday parties.  Children are perplexed by the song “Happy Birthday” and unsure of what to do with the big cake (touch it? blow on it? eat it? all of the above!?) As I carefully planned Ayla’s first birthday, I didn’t think about anything other than who to invite, how to craft the menu and the notion that I wanted to have a “welcoming ceremony”—something to mark the occasion of her birth and her life (which I hadn’t found the time to do yet).

But the day before the big day, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion.  Turning one, as a mother, was a joy, and such sweet relief.  I could do this mothering thing, I mused. I might even be good at it.   But for me, turning one also meant that I had morphed from an independent individual to a nurturing mother, without trauma or regret.  In the past year, I had let go of my old life with little resistance.  I had moved to Toronto to rejoin my family of origin.  I had joyfully relinquished many of my career ambitions.  My worldview had shifted.  Now, at the center of everything, was Ayla. And it felt right and good to be in Toronto, with Ayla, surrounded by a web of loving friends and family.  Every strand in that web felt like spun steel--it took a full year to realize how lucky we were to have such extraordinary people in our lives. 

And so I cried and cried before, during and after Ayla's birthday party.  I didn't realize how much I needed an occasion to pause, reflect and celebrate a milestone that Ayla and I shared--one year of being fully alive, together.  And so when everyone sang Happy Birthday, it was me who made a wish before blowing out the candle.  What I wished for is a secret.  But I think you can guess what a happy mother wishes for herself and for her child. 

Is Parenting a Spiritual Path?

In the months after giving birth to my daughter, I often lamented that I didn’t have time for traditional spiritual practice.  Between nursing, changing, bathing, laundry, dishes and keeping up with my job, spiritual practice has slipped out of my life.  Most days, I wonder how I’ll ever find the time to sit quietly, go on retreat, or work with a spiritual teacher.  Other parents assured me that it would get easier to find time for myself as my daughter got older and gained her independence.  But nearly a year has passed and I can sense that my pre-parenthood spiritual life is nowhere in sight.

What to do? 

For over a decade, my spiritual role models were people who skipped town to go to India to find a teacher, people who took the monk’s vows or who found a spiritual community in which they felt at home.  As such, my definition of spirituality has always been rooted in silence, contemplative practice and withdrawal from the world.  But my life today, and everyday since giving birth to Ayla, has been just the opposite: It is loud, from the sound of laughter and tears; It is a whirlwind of activity, at a faster pace than I have ever experienced before; and It forces me to be completely attentive to another person’s needs, all day and all night, with no respite.

A few month ago, I asked myself if parenting was, or could be, a Spiritual Path, even though it looked and sounded and felt so different from the path of Jesus, the Buddha, Mohamed, Krishnamurti and so many of the dominant spiritual teachers who guide seekers in the West?

The answer, I hope, is yes.  And now I’m experimenting with this alternate path, the Path of Parenthood.  As I delve more deeply into this Path, I can see how the seeds of each spiritual practice are the same, but the expressions of each practice, look very different from what I have been taught and learned to practice.

For example, instead of a morning meditation, I’ve learned to meditate in short bursts, throughout the day.  I meditate while I’m nursing my daughter.  I’ve learned that she falls asleep more quickly when my body and mind are still.  Now, when I inhale and exhale deeply, it signals “sleepytime” to Ayla.  With each breath, I surrender into stillness and she too relaxes, and eventually embraces sleep. 

During my challenging moments, when I feel my body tensing up and enormous frustration building, I go “on retreat.”  I might steal away and sit on the toilet, or watch a kettle boiling on the stove.  During these stolen minutes, I’ll breathe deeply, still my mind, remind myself that this too will pass.

Mommy (or Daddy) meditation—as I’ve named it—has become a regular practice for me as a work-at-home mother.  I sit more frequently now that I’m a parent, but for shorter periods of time.  And I’m rarely seated while meditating—I’m more likely to be walking, lying down or standing up.  Interestingly, the mechanics of my practice are the same—pause, breathe, go inside, quiet the mental chatter and so forth.  The difference with Mommy Meditation is largely external.  I used to look like I was meditating while sitting—now, it is hard to tell whether I’m changing a diaper or immersed in meditation.

There are other differences too.  Meditation used to feel like a luxury.  Something I longed to do because it made living better and more joyful.  Now I meditate out of necessity.  I need to tap into the universal love and energy in order to sustain me, and my child, during a typical day.

Does this post resonate with other parents who are spiritual seekers but have had trouble bridging their pre-parent spirituality with their lives with children?  How are you adapting prayer, meditation and contemplation with your role as a mother or father?

The Octomom, the Media & my Mind

In less than a fortnight since I wrote my last post, the tide of media and public opinion towards the Octomom—Nadya Sulemon—has turned.  I spent part of this afternoon at the hairdresser and had a chance to read through a short stack of tabloids. To my great amazement, I no longer recognized evil Nadya—the witch-mom I had come to know via television and the Internet.   Instead, I came face-to-face with a new and improved Octomom who bought diapers at Target and frolicked in the yard with her children.

At first, waves of criticism crashed into Nadya, brusquely exposing her shortcomings.  She was portrayed as deranged and suspicious.   Now her media image softly ripples out over the airwaves.  We see her lovingly welcoming two of her newborns home, accepting the help of volunteer caregivers and leading circle time with her children.

What happened?  The media invested so much energy in ensuring that we demonized Nadya, and then turned 180 degrees, and invited us to love her.  But instead of feeling frustrated, today I was reminded that the media, like the mind itself, is fickle.  One day, it craves something, often desperately, and the next day, it wants nothing to do with it.  And just like the media, our minds are engaged in a constant monologue, issuing breaking news at every turn.  Our mind fights to stay “on,” in order to maintain control.  If we dare seek out silence, in order to better listen to our hearts, we are tempted to do something--anything--to keep our minds occupied.

The fickleness of the mind, of my mind, hit home when I attempted to get out of bed this morning and found that my eyes wouldn’t open and my body wouldn’t move.  My daughter is learning to sleep independently, in her own room, and on some nights she’s up every hour, and on others she nearly sleeps through the night.  When she sleeps well (which means that I sleep well), I think of her as “good.”  But when I’ve got to drag myself into another room six times a night, I find myself labeling the night, and by extension, my daughter, as “bad.”  Even though I know (in my heart) that my daughter is a beautiful soul (a being that transcends mere “good” and “bad”), there are moments when I allow my mind to label her behavior.  And trusting my mind is dangerous business—because the needle flickers back and forth all day long and won't decide on one extreme or the other.

On days like today, I wish for a lobotomy, or at least a brief respite from my mental chatter.  What would it be like if I woke up everyday and didn’t judge, or begrudge, anything.  What if I refused to be mad or glad about the weather, or how much I slept the night before, or the state of disorganization in the house?  What if I welcomed everyday with the same open arms, knowing that it will bring a little bit of every flavor of experience and emotion? 

Will I ever get there?  Can someone give me a map?  Because most days, I lose my way sometime after breakfast, when most of Ayla’s scrambled tofu ends up on the floor and my coffee gets cold while I scrub it clean, mumbling under my breath that she really should learn how to use a spoon.

What do you do to maintain a non-judgmental perspective on your life as a parent?  Do you have stories to share on this topic?

Are Children Really Equal to Adults?

The theme of my posts for the coming weeks will be spiritual parenting, or more accurately, the spirituality of parenting.  The posts will touch on metaphysical questions such as “Are parents and children equal beings?” and “Is it possible to find stillness in the chaos of family life?”  These are the issues that are on my mind—and I feel that they deserve a good long look, and they will hopefully inspire some good discussion.

Today, I’m musing about the first question.  For so long, we’ve equated the smallness of children will “less-ness.”  Much of traditional parenting theory rests on the idea that adults ‘know” more and therefore have license to determine what is best for kids.  It is a position that gives us power and control—so long as we view children as less-than-adults, we can rest assured that no matter how much our children kick and scream, what we decide is for their own good. This is the kind of parenting that most of us have been exposed to—directly via our parents or from a greater distance via our grandparents or neighbors or teachers.  The belief that children are lesser beings is still widely held in America.  The North American public school system is a prime example of this belief in action—children have so little power to determine how or what they should learn in our schools.  Instead, adults make all the decisions and have the power to punish or praise a child.

Alternatives to this belief can be summed up with a couple of different phrases.  Some believe that children are “Fully formed little people” and should be given equal rights and equal voice except when their safety is concerned (in which case, a parent has veto power).  A slight variation is found in the phrase, Children are fully formed souls in less mature bodies.  This means that adults may be developmentally advanced but can claim no more power or person-ness than a child, whose soul is equally beautiful and unique as any adult.

I like the idea of equality amongst adults and children—more specifically, my daughter Ayla has shown me that parenting is a gift that is exchanged between adult and child.  I learn as much (or more) from her, as I hope that I teach her.  Our life together is not paternalistic—she doesn’t “owe” me anything for the sacrifices I’ve made for her.  Not only because I make them willingly, happily…but also because of the degree to which she has enriched my life.   Most days I feel that I am the “lesser being”—the one who can’t sow the seeds of magic and joy and awe in every moment.  While I can protect her, she can enlighten me.

David Spangler’s book, Parent as Mystic, Mystic as Parent introduces a parallel idea about spirituality. He suggests turning typical religious beliefs upside-down—so that God is more like a child and human beings take on the role of adults.  What if we view God as a tiny seed that rests inside every moment—and humans as having control over whether this seed blossoms into a sacred moment.  What  if humans took responsibility for seeing the sacred in everything rather than waiting for miracles, divine intervention and the hand of God to show itself?

I like these topsy-turvy ideas.  I’m not afraid of living in a world where my child is my equal and where God is a child.  Rather, I find this world to be exactly the kind of place where I would want to live—a world where I would spring out of bed in the morning, eager to see what God and her children, have in store for me today.

In Defense of Nadya Sulemon: Mother of Octuplets

It’s almost like witnessing a stoning in Afghanistan.  When news hit that a single mother was giving birth to Octuplets, the first rocks were tossed.  Then, with each subsequent revelation about Nadya’s life, the stones came fast and furious.  

Some are disgraced with the fact that she’s not married.  Others don’t like the fact that she kept all eight children, rather than selectively terminating some of the fetuses.  Others are angry that she’s not working.  Still others blame all of this on the doctor who implanted too many embryos when she only wanted one more child (now she has fourteen). While I don’t know all the details of her situation, I take the greatest offense to the claim that her desire to love and nurture children is an obsessive compulsive disorder.  That stone was simply too brutal to go unchallenged.

When a mother adopts a houseful of orphaned children from a war zone, she’s called a hero.  Foster parents of more than ten kids are usually awarded a community citation for selflessness.  And the mother of the Brady Bunch was considered normal for loving and raising her large brood. So why is Nadya Sulemon considered crazy for wanting to mother seven children?  What would be a more noble goal for a modern woman: To make heaps of money? To work long hours in the corporate sector? Why is extreme motherhood condemned while extreme careers are not?

There is another aspect of the Nadya Sulemon case that irks me—that Nadya should have had a job, or more money, in order to justify having another child.  But I wonder, how many of us were absolutely certain that we could afford the lifetime expenses of our children when we conceived? Were we absolutely certain that we had enough money to pay for every single expense to come? What if our child required emergency medical care?  Or something else occurred that we didn’t plan for?  Were we irresponsible for having children with slim bank accounts but a bounty of love in our hearts?

Underneath all of the Nadya Sulemon fury is something much deeper than a dislike of this woman’s marital status, mental state or earning power.  To me, our collective response to her reflects a deep distrust of life.  In condemning Nadya, we’re also condemning the wisdom of the universe.  Isn’t it true that we’re never given obstacles that we won’t eventually overcome?  Isn’t life benevolent enough to provide for our children—even when we haven’t planned for all of the costs of parenthood?  Don't strange and unexpected things happen for good reason--even if those reasons are not illuminated for some time?

Clearly Nadya Sulemon took a risk when she sought to have a seventh child and ended up with octuplets.  But isn’t it interesting how this “accident” will enable her to support her children? That is, with a few well-timed interviews on ABC or Oprah, her earning power in one year will probably eclipse yours or mine in a decade!

Nadya’s life path is unusual.  Perhaps she took more risks than you or I might.  And maybe she is a little "different" from mainstream society.  But I can’t condemn a woman for wanting to love and nurture children.  To me, that’s not a disorder.  It’s a noble ambition—one that should invite respect, rather than condemnation.

Saying "Yes" to the Recession

I was born in Canada—the land of snow.  And though I grew up skiing, playing and snowshoeing in piles of it, it has taken decades for me to say “yes” to wintertime.  When the first northerly winds blow into town each fall, inspiring me to cook stews and sleep later, I resist.  

“No!” I shout out to the heavens.  “I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want to be cold.  I don’t want to spend more time inside.”

But we all know that there is a season for everything.  The earth needs time to lay fallow—to gather strength for the burst of life in spring.  And since the earth cannot resist orbiting around the sun, winter is inevitable.  If we say “no” to winter, we will only make it harder on ourselves.  

This past year, I tried to apply that logic to recessionary times—I wanted to frame the downturn as an economic “recess,” or timeout.  I wondered if we collectively needed time to step back from our careers, investment portfolios and consumption to assess what we really value and how much we really need to live happily.  

As a child, I have only fond memories of recessionary times.  In the early eighties, our family was forced to downsize our lifestyle—we lost much of our income so  we moved to a smaller house and radically cut our spending.  But from a child’s perspective, the recession meant my father worked fewer hours and spent more time at home.  What a gift! It also was a time when we played creatively because we didn’t have piles of new toys.  We spent less time talking about money or buying goods at the mall and focused on play, spirituality and gardening.  All in all, I enjoyed our family’s “recess” from the hustle and bustle of new immigrant life.

So when our economy began its downslide last April, and I lost about 50% of my income and investments, I teetered on the precipice of despair.  I wanted to shout, “no.”  I wanted to find a way to get more work and have more money.  But gazing upon my daughter, I decided to say “yes” to the recession. 

I’ve taken a mental break from a handful of projects. I spend less time shopping and more time sharing what I’ve got.  I forego restaurant meals for tea-dates at friends’ homes.   Most important of all, hours I might have spent working are now dedicated to playing with my daughter.  Because more than anything else, I want my daughter to remember the recession of 2008/9, as one of the best times in our lives.

Breastfeeding: Sexual or Spiritual?

When I read a passage in Ina May Gaskin’s book that suggested that breastfeeding can be a sexual experience I nearly fell out of bed.  Sexual? Was she kidding? I felt as though nursing was one of the least sexual experiences.  I had heard women say that breastfeeding was physically pleasureful.  While I was curious about whether sexual feelings would arise while nursing, I usually felt more like a dairy cow than a sexual woman when nursing.

But if you had asked me if breastfeeding was spiritual, I would have responded differently.  Not in the first weeks of nursing, but now that we’ve mastered the mechanics of nursing, breastfeeding is often elevated to a higher realm.

Let me explain.

At the outset, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether I was nursing correctly that I couldn’t enjoy it at all.  Breastfeeding was highly technical.  While it wasn’t devoid of emotion—it made me cry occasionally, or wince with pain—nursing certainly wasn’t ethereal.

Then Ayla matured.  She perfected her latch.  She drank more efficiently. So I tossed my nursing pillow aside and learned to nurse her anywhere, anytime. I learned to maneuver her into the right position while sitting in a restaurant, walking home, rocking her to sleep or flying in a plane.  But even with these notches in my nursing belt, spirituality didn’t figure into the picture.

Then Ayla turned 6 months old and began to spend longer stretches of time away from me.  When we were reunited, my breasts were so full that I could have squirted milk across the living room into my partner’s coffee cup.  At those times, I would thank God for her thirst.  It was a tremendous release.  But nothing more than that.

But after six months, something changed.  I began to notice a current of electricity pass between my daughter and I when we nursed.  It grew stronger and stronger.  And suddenly, we began communicating on a deeper level when I lifted my shirt and held her close to my bosom.

If I closed my eyes while nursing, I’d often see images of the two of us in the far future—she as a young adult and I as an older woman.  I also “saw” us playing on the beach, walking in a forest, taking in a sunset on the top of a cliff.  These images were so satisfying.  They helped me trust that Ayla would be loved and protected in her lifetime. 

There were other times when I could “hear” Ayla speak to me when we nursed.  When she looked up into my eyes while nursing, I could almost hear her whisper, “I love you.”  Or, after drinking my milk for a long time, I could swear that a little voice said, “Thank you mama” before falling asleep.

When Ayla was eight months old, she contracted the Chicken Pox.  She was covered in spots, burning hot and crying from the pain. Nursing was the only salve to her discomfort.  I kept Ayla on my breast almost continuously for a whole week.  While nursing her I prayed, recited blessings and sang quiet songs. 

With each passing day, the energy between and around us intensified.  It began with her pain.  Then I showered her with motherly love.  Before long, I called out to the Divine Mother, and asked if She could join us.  Eventually, Ayla and I were both welcomed into what felt like God’s bosom—a place so warm and loving that we couldn’t help but be healed. 

That was the day that I had my first spiritual parenting experience.  Breastfeeding was the act that helped me see God in the bond between parent and child.

Do you have a similar story to share? Was breastfeeding sexual for you? Or spiritual? Or both? I'd love to hear from you.

The First Note is the Sweetest

So it happened.  My daughter revealed to me that she’s a musical genius.  No, really.  I mean it. I know she’s only seven months old.  But I swear it’s true.

Ayla was sitting in her high chair and I was feeding her pureed sunset squash (which I highly recommend…it’s the best tasting squash in the world).  We were looking out over Lake Ontario and the overwhelming expanse of blue fringed with white surf inspired me to sing.  For some reason, I wanted to listen to my Labor Playlist (oh the nostalgia) and let it rip on our SoundDock.

“Ek ong gar”—I sang out.  Since those are basically the only lyrics to the song, I must have sounded like a pro to Ayla.  “Ek ong gar”—I repeated.  It’s a mantra-slash-song—so you just keep singing the same thing over and over.   Then Ayla joined in.  First, she squeaked.  (She was just warming up.)  The she screamed (I call this part, the “opening” of her voice.)  And then, she did the unthinkable.  My seven-month old baby modulated her voice until she could squeal in the same key as the song!  I sung out—Ek Ong Gar. And she joined me at the end—Gaaaarrrr, she sang.

Visions of American Idol—and Ayla as one of the final three contestants—flashed before my eyes.  Then I realized she was too good for pop music.  She would perform at the Metropolitan Opera—Carmen or, even better, Tristan und Isolde.  Or sing an Italian aria with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in front of a sold out crowd.  She would become a musical sensation, bigger than the “big three” in America. She would have the force of Whitney, the range of Mariah and the emotion of Celine.