You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2007.
April 28, 2007
April 27, 2007
April 26, 2007
Tonight I located a CD with a bunch of good old stuff to share. Scans of the slides I made from a college show, essays, photos I took as I attempted to start a business in candid portraiture… I will share more as we go along.
April 5, 1999
Everyone around me seemed to own an expert pair of hands. The nurses washed and diapered my new baby efficiently and casually, and my mom knew just how to swaddle her up in a receiving blanket. Over me loomed a middle-aged nurse with unnaturally black hair and a permanent scowl. She barked orders as I tried to nurse my baby for the first time, my hands and heart shaking. Despite her disdainful looks, I was determined to breastfeed. My mom had made it eight weeks with her first baby, and if I could just make it that far with mine, then I figured that I would prove to myself and to everyone else that I could be a good parent.
The words “teen mom” rarely escape a negative connotation. I was a junior in high school when I became pregnant. Even though I was only 16, I really wanted to be a good mom. Not because I was living some fantasy about how I needed a baby “to love me unconditionally,” but because I wanted to take responsibility for my actions.
I got my hands on every piece of literature I could find about baby care and child development. In my little independent crash course, I learned that breastfed babies are healthier and have fewer developmental delays. I also found that babies with teen moms were more likely to be affected by SIDS and other emotional and physical problems. It also happens that teen moms are the least likely to breastfeed. I was determined to prove the studies wrong; I would nurse, giving my baby the best start I possibly could.
Learning to breastfeed was clumsy, messy, and painful. My nipples got chapped and blistered. Although I didn’t have to carry bottles around, I had to wear easy access clothing all the time, and I had to deal with having my breasts out in public. When engorgement hit, all I could do was cry and wait for A. to get hungry enough to relieve some pressure. I got so huge that her tiny lips couldn’t make it all the way around the nipple unless I expressed milk into the sink first. If she happened to disconnect herself after the milk had let down, it would squirt all over, leaving little beads of milk on her face and all over the rocking chair and tiled floor, as I scrambled to grab a receiving blanket or towel.
An emotional and financial dependent, I was still living with my parents. Even though I had done research on baby care, I had no practical skills with babies. My mom had experience, and A’s dad was a quick study when it came to her physical care. I was glad for the help and for the connection that he was making with our daughter. But their expertise intimidated me. I second-guessed myself when it came to deciding whether her cries meant hunger or wetness or a request for affection. My impulse was to ask Mom or A’s dad, the experts, to tell me what to do. The problem was that I couldn’t ask anyone else to keep track of feedings or the time she nursed on each side; I was the only one who could do it. If breastfeeding was going to work, I had to make a real commitment. I had to be in charge.
Being a mom was enough to worry about, yet I still had to finish senior year at my Catholic high school. I kept an extra uniform shirt in my locker because the milk would let down at the mere thought of nursing, soaking me with breastmilk. The problem was that I owned only three uniform shirts. Once I had leaked through all of them, I would have to dig out the ugly polyester uniform sweater. I would spend the rest of the day hot, wet and smelling strangely sweet.
Even on days that I didn’t leak, I hurried home to feed A. She was my only extra-cirricular activity. As my peers played sports and went to prom, I rushed home to take a nap and express another feeding so that I could go to school the next day. Needless to say, I felt disconnected from the other kids at high school.
Breastfeeding didn’t let me feel like a teenager. A. was a slow nurser; a feeding took about 30 to 45 minutes, leaving me with an hour and half-maximum-to be away until the next feeding. I had to live my life according to the last time she ate. When my physics class spent a day at Valleyfair, I had to prepare by expressing an extra feeding into a bottle every day for a week. Then I brought a pump along to the park. Halfway through the day, I left my friends and stood inside a steamy bathroom stall, squeezing out a few ounces to relieve the growing pressure. I had no way to store the milk and use it later; I ended up flushing it down the toilet. Being responsible for every drop of liquid she ate ruined the fun of going anywhere. I couldn’t just hand her off and forget about her. Most of the time, I just stayed home.
I agonized over my loss of freedom, but being the “only one who could do it” was both an inconvenience and a blessing. The experts could pin a diaper and bathe her better than I, but she depended on me to eat. No one else could take my place and enjoy the half-view of her face as she nursed. From my exclusive angle above her, I could see just a slice of her upper lip. Her nose and cheeks would press against the skin of my breast. Being that she was a slow nurser, I gazed on that view for sometimes eight hours in one day. I would stroke her wispy blonde hair, and her tiny fist would curl around one of my fingers or tug on my shirt. Sometimes she would look up at me and smile, breaking the suction. My nipple would glide out, still shaped like the inside of her mouth as her smile grew. Being forced to stay home for feedings gave me real time and a physical connection with her that I might not have had if I were busy off being a teenager. Breastfeeding made me “the mom.”
I nursed A. until she was thirteen months old; when she weaned herself, she had teeth and could walk. By then, breastfeeding meant more than beating my mom’s record. I had become an expert at nursing. Every day when I got home from school, A. would nuzzle down into my chest, signaling my body to let down. I could whip her into position and get her latched on before anyone in the room even realized that she wanted to nurse.
My growing feelings of expertise spilled over into other areas of parenting. As she began eating table foods, my confidence in feeding her was already solid. Staying home with her, I practiced changing, bathing, and dressing her. I did manage to get the hang of it. Being with her every day and being physically close for huge portions of the day, I couldn’t help but get to know her well. She’s an incredibly flexible and observant child, healthy and developmentally right on target. She seems excited to start kindergarten next year, and I’m looking forward to being a grade school mom.
I can’t claim that she would be any different if I hadn’t breastfed her successfully, but I think it’s fair to say that I would be a much different parent today. Handing her off more easily, I would have missed many moments of physical and emotional connection. I didn’t have the experience or motivation to connect with her in other ways. Breastfeeding forced me to spend the time with her that we needed.
When I decided to breastfeed, I knew that the odds were stacked against me. I was determined to break the bad teen mom stereotype, and I thought that nursing would prove to everyone that I could do a good job. What it did, instead, was prove to me that I could do it. I’m not a good mom because I chose to breastfeed. Breastfeeding made me a good mom.
As I rearrange the top navigation bar, I am scrapping the Gratitude page, but I didn’t want to lose my thoughts on this. It’s also reminded me that I have a bunch of other gratitude posts waiting in the wings.
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I decided to make a commitment during Lent this year to pray with each one of my kids every day. It’s something I’ve squirmed about for years. I want to share a sense of spirituality and faith with my kids, but I don’t want to assault them with it in any way.
My Catholic grade school experience was filled with intense and positive prayer experiences and I felt very close to God, especially as I prepared to receive sacraments. Even with the positive experiences, though, guilt had its barnacle-like way of attaching itself to my psyche, and I’ve allowed my kids to experience their prayer formation in Catholicism with some hesitancy.
I don’t know what I was expecting to come from my Lenten commitment to prayer, but a wonderful surprise has emerged: an incredible sense of gratitude.
Kids are great at this. It seems like we are thanking God each night for everything just the way it is. If it snows, we are thankful for beauty of the snow. If the snow melts, we are thankful for the warm weather. If we have strep throat we are thankful for medicine. As we feel better, we are thankful to be healthy again.
Every occasion, a chance to give thanks.
Great teachers throughout history have told us the value of gratitude, and I’m experiencing that truth for myself. It is my Catholic influence that motivates me to pray using a “formula” I recall from grade school that includes first foremost, thanks and praise to God. Recently, my sister Becca shared with me that Buddha taught that when we are feeling grateful, there is no room for want. Synchronistically, last week my neighbor Blane lent us the DVD “The Secret” which recommends gratitude as a way to bring more positive feelings into our lives.
I intend to bask in it.
I’ve had this idea for a project in my head so long that I don’t even know if it’s an original idea or if I’m stealing it from someone else. I intend to photograph my dining room table daily for one month, and as you can see, I’ve already started. It’s not going to change the world but it sure feels good to be making the commitment to making at least one picture everyday.
Perhaps this is the answer to “what should I photograph for my July exhibition?” And as Laurie so encouragingly pointed out, I don’t need to bog myself down with the pressure and expense of fancy framing. I like the idea of mounting photos onto foam core and calling it done.
I would also like to display a small grouping of portraits that I still need to sort out. I’m still considering the landscape thing. Maybe I haven’t quite made my peace with that.
April 25, 2007
April 24, 2007
April 23, 2007
April 22, 2007
April 21, 2007
April 20, 2007
Historically speaking, money has never been all that plentiful around here.
But I foolishly underestimated some upcoming expenses and we spent a portion of our tax refund on a trip to Vegas instead of saving it and we went for too long without medical insurance and now have medical bills from a couple rounds of strep throat. Oh yeah, and there are the payments now for the camera that I just had to have.
I hate to be sounding negative here, but I don’t have $1500 to spend on framing for the show in July. I don’t even have like $100 for doing it.
Crap.
And how far I’ve strayed from feeling gratitude.
I took a class over the weekend in “Fundamentals of School Food Service.”
The instructor was terrific. Starting out as a substitute dishwasher, she has gone on to become the president of the MN School Nutrition Association (SNA). I’ve taken several SNA classes and have gained a ton of respect for the complexities and impact of school meals. The SNA is a terrific organization that promotes professionalism and education among school food service workers.
I’ve flirted with he idea of taking this lunch lady thing up a few notches. Last summer I passed my ServSafe food handler license test with a 98%. It actually felt great to take a class (paid for by someone else!) and do well on a test.
I could do the rest of the schooling and stage a food service takeover in my school district.
The path is laid out for me; all I have to do is follow it. There’s nothing wrong with being a professional lunch lady. I like being the friendly one who tells jokes and shows up with a guitar at school programs. I’m good at understanding the big picture of menu planning and the nuances of regulations. I’m good at communicating ideas to others.
But there’s a nagging (LOUD) voice that says:
You’re SETTLING!
You’re BETTER than this!
You’re taking the EASY way!
You’re WASTING your TALENTS!
You could make more MONEY doing SOMETHING ELSE!
Consider how different these statements sound: 1.) I can write best-selling, award-winning children’s books. 2.) I can become the director of food service at a small rural school district in MN.
While ambitious and potentially very rewarding, number one sounds unrealistic to me. What the hell can I do to make a goal like number one even begin to happen? Maybe spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on an MFA? Stay broke for many more years and make my family sacrifice so that I can go off and be artistic? Organize and discipline myself to write and create and submit and get published? (Shut up, I know you’re laughing at me; you’ve seen my desk.)
Like it or not, number two sounds realistic. It’s a measurable goal with a clear path. I know that I could do it and I could be great and I bet I could even manage to make a positive difference along the way.
But the truth is that I still cringe inside when I tell people my job, especially people who know how hard I worked as a young wife and mother of two to earn my B.A.
At my core, I’d rather have big dreams that sound great. The problem is that it’s too easy to make excuses for not accomplishing big goals. So what’s my excuse for not taking on the smaller, more realistic ones?
An overinflated sense of superiority?
Why can’t I just get over myself already…
I’m not so twisted that I would purposely set up a shot like this. I’m just twisted enough to capture it when it happens on accident.
It’s sick. The moment I decide to quit letting the stupid excuses keep me from accomplishing my goals, an ACTUAL excuse for being unable to concentrate surfaces.
I’m going to play this by ear and see how it goes. My family has started a private online forum elsewhere to post updates and thoughts and prayers and the like for the aforementioned “family member,” my dad. For now, I intend to keep the bulk of my thoughts about that separate from this blog.
(I will reserve the right, however, to change my mind.)
Back on task it is, then. According to my exhibition timeline I should have already chosen an area to focus on, and I will soon be reaching a deadline for ordering a first round of prints. Uh, like tomorrow.
I know, I’ve been slacking on the posting and picture making. Last week, we received the worst of news.
A close family member has been diagnosed with a serious and life-threatening illness. As the shock wears off and I get more information about how this will affect my life in the months and years to come, I will figure out how to get back at my blog. For now, I need to excuse myself officially and temporarily.
I also need to decide just how much it’s appropriate to share in this venue. I want to respect my family member’s privacy. At the same time I can’t continue to post my cutesy little thoughts on life and gratitude and all that bullshit without acknowledging the spiritual, emotional earthquake that has just shaken up my world.
See you later.
I didn’t like this one until about 5 minutes ago, when I realized how much I felt like I was leaning I into the middle as I looked at it enlarged on my screen.
The funny part about taking photos in Vegas was my awareness that I was taking pictures of things that are photographed hundreds, maybe thousands of times a day.
Burn: There’s not enough time in the day.
Replace with: There is time for getting everything done that needs to be done today.
Birth of a new category (or two)! I intend to remind myself regularly that I already have many wonderfully talented people in my network.
I’ve been living a bit vicariously through Laurie McGinley for some time now.
I respect her work and love her dearly. I own two Laurie McGinley photographs, purchased at her silent-auction-going-away-party thrown before she left to work in the Peace Corps in El Salvador a bunch of years ago. At that time, she shed nearly every one of her earthly possesions. I wonder if she can sense my awe and admiration.
