The Books She Chose to Read

When I think of reading books as a child, I think of all the things I liked to read.  I wanted books with stories in them.  If it was too obvious I was learning something, they were no fun.  I always thought my daughter would likely be the same way.  She would choose books that are full of story and fun to read.  I guess I'm a bit surprised that she didn't do at all what I'd expected.

For the past few days Bunny Boo has been reading by choice.  She grabs books and magazines and actually reads them.  She's been trying to teach Link how to read too, though that's not going over so well.  He's not so keen on the idea of learning, mostly because his sister keeps him up all night and then gets him up at the crack of dawn every morning.  I'm just happy she's reading at all.

However, I have to admit, I'm surprised at what she's reading when it comes to things that aren't magazines!  She's been gravitating towards the same two books for the past couple days.  What are these incredible books that she loves so much?  She's been reading To Root to Toot to Parachute: What Is a Verb and Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective.

Looking at the books, I guess I can't really blame her.  They may be educational, but they're fun little books.  They have crazy writing, cute pictures, and look like a great read.  I can understand why she might be drawn to them.  They're simple, educational, and kind of silly.

I've got to admit, I'm glad she's chosen these books.  Not only is she getting reading skills out of them but she's also getting a good education.  She's actually learning a lot more than she thinks she is, not that I'm going to tell her that.  I'm smart enough to realize that she'll stop reading them if I tell her they're educational too!  She seems to hate anything that makes her any more intelligent!

That's one thing I can give kids who are homeschooled.  They seem to naturally gravitate towards things that help them learn.  It's almost as though they've got the natural inclination to find out about the world around them and the way it works, imagine that!  And it seems like my kids are already proving that they'll eventually span the range of every subject matter if you give them half a chance to do it in their own time.

Nasty, Nasty Weather

Many areas of the country have snowfall right about now, but not here in Texas.  Here we have rain.  Normally I love rain, but in Texas, rain just makes for an icky mess that no one wants to deal with.  Either it's so light it's barely worth calling rain, or it's so heavy that everything floods.

I can't complain too much.  Texas has had a severe lack of rain over the past couple of years.  The first year I was here we got so much rain in May and June that the lakes were overflowing and the dams had water flowing through at such a high rate that it felt like you'd be swept away just by standing near it.  I thought this was normal for Texas, but that's not normal at all.  Apparently I've never seen a normal year in Texas.  Every year since has been dryer than normal, as though the environment around here is trying to make up for giving too much in 2007.

As a result, water prices have skyrocketed.  Everything looks dead and dry earlier in the year than it usually does.  The lakes and ponds are smaller than they used to be.  All of the river beds and run off areas have been bone dry for quite some time.  Many worried that with each continual year things would just get worse and worse.  It's been getting to the point where conserving water isn't just something good for the environment, it's necessary, unless you intend to be paying a small fortune on your water bill.  Even my very conservative family was paying about $100 per month in water over the last summer, a huge step up from when that winter where we were spending half that much or less.

Unfortunately, as much as Texas needs it, the state really isn't set up for rain.  The ground is so dry and clay-like that the water pools on the surface.  Roads flood all over the county and cars hydroplane more than I've ever seen.  A friend of mine called me in a frantic fit of desperation asking if she could put some stuff in our fridge because the water was running down her street like rapids and they had the road closed off.  She was terrified that her house had been flooded as the water hit the bottom of her street, but thankfully, when the rain cleared, it turned out the water just rushed past her home.  I can't blame her for being concerned.  Her possessions weren't the problem.  She was more worried about her dogs that were kenneled in her absence.

So in light of all of that, I can't really complain about the rain.  It was necessary, even if it woke everyone up in the middle of the night.  It's what we really need for the health of the world around us, so hopefully the fire bans will be lifted and stay lifted.  We need this rain so it will be available when people need it over the spring and summer.

I'm sure the kids and I can find something to do on this rainy day when no one feels motivation to do anything.  This miserable weather isn't enough to keep us down, but even the kids are suggesting we relocate to somewhere with a more normal season pattern.  They want somewhere with snow.  At least then they could go out and play in it.

They're All Getting So Grown Up

Last night Chesh and I were hit with a striking point.  What are we going to do when the kids are grown up and out of the house?  It's something I guess most parents don't think about until their kids are older and likely to be moving out, but it just hit me.  It may be years off, but there's so much evidence that no matter how much we enjoy the moment, it's still going to happen sooner than we realize.

Thinking about that made me realize just how grown up all of my kids have gotten.  I'm not going to say that it seems like yesterday that Bunny Boo was just a baby.  Thankfully, it doesn't!  But it seems like not that long ago that she was my curly-headed girl that would bounce around with all the sass that her brother has.  She was so much shorter then!

Bunny Boo has proven how brilliant she really can be.  She's pretty good at problem solving, when she chooses to be.  She's got a wild temper and a selfish nature, but she's also got the capacity to be incredibly protective of her brothers and her friends.  Sometimes she's really too smart for her own good!  Often that ends with her making smart alec comments that make everyone roll their eyes.  She loves math and has a logical mind for science.  While she's not very good at art (which is normal for her age) she has a passion for it.  She enjoys learning about everything, as long as she doesn't have to read about it.  Even then she's starting to come around and is actually enjoying magazines.  She loves the Kids Discover Magazine and we're getting her a subscription to National Geographic Kids as well.  I kind of wish we had more to spend each year because I think we'd probably load up on magazine subscriptions!  Thankfully, the Kids Discover magazines were a gift from her aunt.

Bunny Boo also loves history and we're finding out day by day it doesn't matter much what kind of history it is, as long as it helps to explain why things are the way they are today.  The American Revolution is interesting because it's how our country became a country.  Women's suffrage is interesting because she sees it as the start of the feminist movement, and she's decided she's a modern feminist.  Her newest historic interest is inventors.  She loves hearing how science was discovered and who it was discovered by.  She also likes to know about things like who made the first car, who made the first vacuum cleaner, or who made the first cell phones.  It's amazing the things that interest her now.

Link has turned into such a comedian.  He's always looking for ways to make everyone laugh.  He loves to run around the house pretending he's a pirate, or Link (hence the reason he asked me to call him that on this blog!) from Legend of Zelda.  He's decided he likes to clean his own bowl for cereal and gets upset if anyone else wants to pour him milk or get his juice.  He's very determined to do everything he can without help, aside from writing.  He's got a serious love for music and is slowly learning how to play guitar, though it's not easy when dealing with the attention span of an energetic four year old.  It's not easy with his tiny fingers either.  It's going to take some time, but maybe we can get him some lessons before long.  He's decided he wants to grow up to be a mechanic, but he wants to work on robots, preferably transformers.  He's even decided he wants to have a car that's like a transformer when he gets older.  Of course, you know kids and how their opinions change.  While Bunny Boo is very interested in history and art above all (though science is cool too), Link is all about science and engineering.  He loves to build things.  He's becoming more and more my little scientist and engineer with every day that goes by.

It's not just taking control of his life that Link's been up to.  He's also decided he likes reading.  He's still barely reading, and it's only a few words he recognizes here and there, but he's learning.  For the most part he's been teaching himself how to read.  I'm really impressed with how far he's come!  Before long he'll be on to whole books without help, mostly because he doesn't want any help.  He just wants to do it all on his own.  He's a very independent child.

Of course, we all know with kids that what they are now may not be what they are ten years from now.  Bunny Boo may want nothing more than to be an artist now, but she may some day be a doctor.  Link might show all the signs of a budding engineer, but he may go on to be a great musician or an archaeologist.  I'm certainly not going to limit my kids to what they become in the future, but it will definitely be exciting to see how their interests evolve over the years.

Even the littlest one has really grown a lot, possibly the most.  He's talking up a storm, though sometimes he's not the easiest to understand.  "Boo" can mean just what it sounds like, "Boo!"  It can also mean broke, book, boat, and boot.  "Moo" generally means milk, but can also mean move.  "Go" is pretty clear, but sometimes also means "grow".  Even "Mama" can have an alternate meaning.  Typically he's talking to me, but sometimes he's really saying, "My, my" or "mine, mine".  We haven't quite figured out which it is.  "Ow" can mean he's hurt, but he also says it to tell us when something is hot or cold.  It's also become the way he says "out", which sometimes, confusingly, actually means in or uo.  He's decided "poo" means poop as well as pee.  "Ha" means hat and have.  "Cu" means cup, which is the only word that seems to have a single function in his vocabulary at this point.  He also likes "uh-oh", "no", and "pleesh!"  He's also decided to say "Eww..." when it comes to anything he might find icky.  He says it any time he hears someone fart or burp.  He says it when he sees something that looks icky, even if it's not.  He says it when he finds a piece of old food that he's hidden from us, or trash.  It may not be a flawless system, but at least he communicates better than he did a few short months ago!  It's a start.

I know it won't be long before all of them are moving on to even greater things.  Bunny Boo will be reading without challenges.  She'll probably be pretty good at art by then.  She might even find she likes a kind of art that isn't drawing or painting.  Link will be working on crazy inventions of his own, this time ones that aren't imaginary.  The little man will be talking like a pro and reading before we know it.  It will be hard to believe that it wasn't so long ago that they were all right where they are now.  We'll look back and think it was forever ago, but at the same time, all to little time.  It's amazing how fast they're all growing.  It just seems to be passing by all too quickly.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I never realized how much time my family would be spending out of the house this year.  I always heard about homeschool families never being home, but I never thought my family would be like that.  We're living on a very limited budget right now, so we can only afford so many extra expenses.  I figured being a family that's never home would be something that would only happen once we were a little more financially stable, and probably when the kids were older and more involved in activities of their own choosing, like sports and classes and things.  I'd never thought of the possibility of that happening so soon.

Thinking about our opportunities to get out, I've realized there's a lot of things for us to get out and do, even if they're just park days.  Monday we'll have the co-op.  There usually seems to be a local park day on Wednesdays.  There's another park day on Fridays.  I'm going to see if I can set up another play date on Tuesdays or Thursdays, maybe both.  That would give us something to do every day of the week.  Already this  is the start to having pretty busy weeks!  Once we're a little more financially set my my son wants to take guitar lessons and would love to get into baseball or soccer.  My daughter has asked about piano lessons, martial arts, and art classes.  She thinks soccer might be fun too.  Thankfully my littlest is too young to have much interest in classes, but it will only be a couple of years before he's wanting to do stuff as well.

I'm really looking forward to getting out and feeling pretty busy.  It's going to be good to spend that time in the fresh air.  It will be great to see other moms.  I'll have some socialization, and so will the kids.  Sadly, we've been cooped up most of the time since we've moved.  It's made everyone really irritable and unpleasant.

All this getting out, playing, and running around will have a great benefit too!  The kids will get a lot more exercise, which means they'll be a lot more tired come bed time.  Maybe it'll be less of a fight to get them to sleep!  I'll know they'll be getting in shape too because of all the running around I know they'll be doing at the park.  On top of it all, they'll be getting a lot more fresh air than they do around the house.  Without a fenced yard and knowing the reputation of some of the local kids, I'm not terribly inclined to send the kids out to play without a lot of supervision, and that means watching them all like hawks and trying to wrangle them as they all run off different directions.  As a result, we don't spend too much time out of the house.  It'll be good for all of us to have a little bit of time in the sun!

It's Project Time, Automotive Style!

For those of you who know us well, you know that we've been in the market for a new car.  We've been looking for something we can pick up for a very inexpensive price, knowing full well that we'd have to put some work into it.  If you've planned to spend $1,000 or less on a car, you're going to have to plan on doing some serious work to it if you want it to last out the test of time.  Otherwise it ends up being just a beater car that you plan on running into the ground.

We ended up with this car, something others might consider a hunk of junk, given how torn up it is.  She needs a paint job.  She needs some serious loving.  We're going to need to replace a lot of parts in it over time, but it's something we can do a little at a time.  Chances are we're going to put some serious money into it in March and April, possibly even May in order to make it really what we need it to be right now, but it's definitely worth it.  Chesh gets to have a project car and though it's not the greatest thing in the world, we managed a car that fits within both our timeline and our budget requirements.

This poor car has been abused.  It's been sitting in a back yard collecting dirt and dog scratches.  She needs some serious love.  She went from being well loved, babied even, to being cast off and neglected.  Now she's getting a new chance at life.  She's going to be loved and put back together.

Now, I know a lot of people would consider buying a car like this to be a waste of money.  Cars are bad for the environment and aren't all that sustainable.  However, in Texas, even if you never take the kids anywhere in the car, a car is necessary.  You need a car to do the simplest of things, from grocery shopping to working.  True, we probably don't need to put the kind of work into it that Chesh wants to put into it, but what's the point in having a car if it's not going to be something you love, right?

All in all, Chesh is looking to put at least $15,000 into this car, including the purchase price.  I know you could buy a new or nicer used car for that price, but that's not even thinking about all the other benefits you can get from an older car.  This isn't just going to be a car, but also a learning experience for the kids.  With all the money he's looking to put into the car, we're looking at effectively gutting the whole thing over the next ten years or so and replacing it all.  He's been looking at body kits, performance parts, and even what it will take to rebuild the engine entirely.  He's even planning out the perfect paint job for the car when it's complete.  By the time he's through, this won't just be a nice car, this is going to be a performance car.

You might be wondering what this has to do with homeschooling, or anything else on this blog.  At first we didn't put much thought into this car as a project car for anyone but Chesh.  With the amount of time Chesh plans to spend on this car alone, just in simple care and maintenance, this is a cheap source of entertainment that's also very practical.  However, it's evolved into something so much greater.  He and I have talked about what we're going to do with the car when it's finished.  It's going to have a lot of hard work and love in it.  Now, a lot of people will turn their project car into their son's first car, but when all is said and done, "first car" is definitely what this will be for anyone.  Performance cars are a dangerous first car to put on the road, especially if the driver doesn't know how to respect the power behind it.  Performance cars are fast and handle well, but they can also be deadly for an inexperienced driver that wants to push the car to it's furthest limits.  Driving a street-legal performance vehicle requires a sense of discipline, self control, and a great respect for the vehicle you're driving.

After a long discussion, Chesh and I have toyed with the idea of offering the car to Bunny Boo as a graduation gift from college.  If she doesn't go to college, then perhaps for landing her first job in a career field she's interested in.  We've also talked about other great accomplishments where the car might make an excellent gift, however we haven't set anything in stone.  Bunny Boo is still much too young to think about having a car any time soon.  She's not even nine yet!  However, this offer comes with a very big catch!  If she wants to have the car when she's older, she needs to earn it!  As for the cost, since Oz is going to be driving it as his car as his daily driver until it's time to hand it over, we're not going to ask her to earn a cent for parts and everything else.  We may have to reassess that when it comes down to time to get project cars for each of the boys.

Part of the whole discussion of a project car in general included the kids.  We've been talking about a project car for Chesh since he and I got together three years ago.  One of the benefits he's always listed with a project car was the potential to teach the kids about vehicle maintenance by working on the car.  Knowing how to work on cars is a valuable life skill, even if you're not going to be a mechanic.  It's nice to know how to do minor repairs when something goes wrong, and when it's something bigger, it's nice to have some idea of what the mechanic is talking about, especially as a woman.  Most mechanics will try and get as much over on a woman as they can, just because most women don't know what their mechanic is talking about.  Instead of telling them exactly where the problem is, they go through the laundry list of repairs that can be made, not all of them even necessary at that point, and try and convince the woman to do them all, not just the ones she really needs at the time.  Knowing about cars and car care is a vital life skill for anyone.

When we picked up this car, we knew that's exactly what we were getting, Chesh's project car.  One of the first things he suggested was to have Bunny Boo help him out because she's old enough.  Car care is a vital life skill, like I've already stated, and she's been begging to spend more time with Chesh.  Since she's decided official or not, he's her step-dad, she's wanted to do more stuff with him.  They have their Pokemon league, but that's not enough for her.  He thought this would be the perfect thing to give them something else to do together, even if it's just washing the car every weekend to keep it in as pristine condition as they can.  The boys will likely get involved and help where they can too, but they're a bit on the younger side and won't be able to do near as much as she will.

Bunny Boo is already hitting the point where she's really loving her time working on the car.  She's decided she likes Mazdas, so she's happy to know that it's a Mazda Mx6.  She's even named the car.  Her name is Tasha.  She's more excited about this car than she has been about many of the other projects we've started, games we've played, and things we've done.  It's a chance to learn.  It's a chance to get dirty and fix things.  It's also a chance for her to do things that boys usually do and girls are usually left out of, though she may not know that.  We haven't talked much about gender roles in our family.  Most of all, it's a chance to share something with someone she cares about a lot, but isn't quite sure how to connect with.  She's been looking for things they can have in common, things they can share, and she's very excited having just found one more.  This car could mean so much more for her than something she can drive when she's older.  This car could mean standing up in the face of gender stereotypes, learning vital life skills, and special time to share with someone very important in her life.

There are so many other lessons this car could create that it's more than just a car.  It's more than just a project that they can work on together.  This car is a life lesson, on friendship, teamwork, planning ahead, financial planning, design, mechanics, and so much more.  While we picked it up as just a cheap car to get us to the things we absolutely need to do, she's proving to be so much more!

Time Flies...It's Going to Be Co-Op Time Soon!

It didn't dawn on me until today that the co-op is sneaking up on us.  We've had so much going on lately that we didn't even stop to look at the calendar beyond the date!  A week from Monday will be our first day back to the co-op, and I can't even begin to tell you how happy that's going to make me.

The co-op is good for our family for a lot of reasons.  It's not just good for the kids, but for the whole family.  We all enjoyed the experience last time, but we didn't get to make it through to the end for a variety of reasons.  This time our luck should be much better.

Socialization is the biggest and possibly most obvious reason for loving the co-op.  You hear everywhere that the big concern with homeschooled kids is the social aspect.  They don't get the interaction with other kids that most kids get in school.  Now, I remember back when I was in school we were always told that school is not a place to socialize, but I do get it.  Most classes have kids work together on projects, there's interaction in the form of class discussions.  Things like gym class offer a chance to work as individuals and teams, but still be social.  Then there's recess and lunch where kids get another chance to interact.  Homeschool kids aren't exposed to that.  While they do enjoy play dates, park days, and "afterschool" activities like classes and sports, it's good to have another chance to get out there and be social.  The co-op is just one more excuse.

At the co-op, the kids get a chance to learn things they're not learning at home.  Both of my older two are going to have an art class this year.  Bunny Boo is going to have the second part to her chemistry class.  Link is going to have a science class too.  My littlest is going to have some arts and crafts project during snack time, or so I've been told.  Link will have P.E. and Bunny Boo will be taking a theater class.  While a lot of this is stuff they could do at home or through other classes and activities, it's still good for them to get out and spend time with other homeschool kids, make friends with other kids who understand what it's like to be homeschooled.  It's also good for them to take classes that are designed for the co-op, so they travel from class to class with their friends and learn from other moms, moms that aren't me for a change of pace.

It's good for me too.  I'm getting a chance to teach a class this semester.  I'm going to be teaching theater.  It's been a while since I've done anything with theater, so it should be fun.  I can't wait in some ways, but at the same time I can only imagine how teachers must feel on the first day of school facing a whole bunch of kids they've probably never met.  It's exciting, but scary.  Thankfully, I think the class will be fun for everyone.  It should be a good chance to adjust to teaching a class with something a little more loose and fluid than a more standard subject, like science or history.  Theater is great because you can just go with the flow rather than follow a lesson plan.

Going to the co-op is an excuse to get out that I can't really talk myself out of.  It's not free, so I feel a lot worse about missing out on it.  It's easy to make excuses not to go to something when it's free.  I can't count the number of times I've said "I'll go next week" about park days when we were low on gas.  Most of the time we could work gas into the budget, but it was an excuse.  "We need to put gas in the car and we really didn't plan for that.  We'll just go next week."  However, I always made sure we had the ability to go to the co-op if it was at all possible.  We'd already paid for it, so it was far more worth it to find the money for the gas we needed to get out there.

The homeschool co-op has also been a great place for me to socialize.  I get to talk to other moms, which is great because I often don't get a lot of social time myself.  A good deal of the people I know are a lot of drama.  They've always got some problem or another in their life, which makes them so much less fun to be around.  These moms are so refreshing.  We talk about kids, learning, traveling, and so much else.  It's relaxing to be around them.  Sure, I'm sure they have their own dramas, some of them possibly with the other moms at the co-op, but they don't really show it on the outside.  It's not exposed for the world to see, which allows the environment to be calm, a place where I feel like I can let down my guard and really be myself.  I know I look like the odd one out with dreads and piercings, especially when most of these moms tend to be so conservative on the outside at least, but none of them seem to judge me, or if they do I haven't noticed it.  I just get to feel like a normal person, even if I am a little more obvious and outlandish on the outside.  It really seems to be a place where what's on the inside matters.

The kids love it too.  They can't wait to go back.  The co-op has given Bunny Boo incentive to read.  Link has started to work on his writing skills, even if he is just starting with his name.  The littlest isn't really at the point of caring too much, but he's starting to become really social.  I'd like to think that he's going to start making friends at the co-op this year, or at least other kids his age that he likes to pal around with.  He doesn't play with others so well yet, but he's getting there.  The co-op really has encouraged him to work on his own communication skills.  I bet part of it is learning from all the other kids and seeing what they can do.

Then there's the simple mark of growth.  I know when we go back everyone's going to be at least a little bit taller than the last time we saw them.  Some of them might even seem a good deal more grown up.  Especially the little ones are going to show a noticeable difference in the way they talk and how clearly they express themselves.  It's going to be especially striking for my own kids, to see how much taller they are when standing next to the same tables and chairs, or on the stairway.  I know they've all grown from the way their clothes fit and everything else they do, but the things at home are a hard mark of growth.  They're around this stuff all the time, so their slow progression of growth isn't as noticeable as it would be in a place they visit less often.

I just can't wait until we're back at the co-op.  It will feel so good to get back, even knowing it means getting up early to get everyone dressed and fed.  It will mean fixing our current lack of routine.  Baths will go back to being on regular nights instead of the "whenever's convenient" thing we've got going on now.  Bed time will be enforced instead of this, "oh, I forgot and got dinner started late, so I guess everyone's going to bed late".  It's been easier to have a schedule with the little one I'm caring for during the day around.  She makes remembering to have lunch on time easy, and most days I start dinner not long after she leaves, but with nowhere to go in the morning it's a lot harder to be motivated.  It's funny how having somewhere to go on a regular day makes it so much easier to build a schedule.

As much as I can't believe it's almost time for the co-op to start again, I'm also shocked at how fast time has flown!  It wasn't all that long ago that the year started, or so it seemed.  Now we're already about to dive into the co-op.  I somehow seemed to think it was so much father away.  At least it's something we're all eagerly anticipating!

Public Breastfeeding: Legally Protected, yet Still Persecuted

Normally I don't get all political on this blog.  It's about being a parent, raising children, and trying to be a little bit more sustainable in the process.  Politics really has no place here, but when it comes to a mother's rights, maybe this is the perfect forum.

Just the other day a friend of mine posted this article.  The article is about the popular educational show for children, Sesame Street.  I'm sure most of my readers remember watching the show when they were little, if not watching it with their own children more recently.  Sesame Street has covered a good deal of topics, not just in the standard educational format, such as letters and words, but also in aspects of life.  I remember being in high school when everyone started talking about Sesame Street covering the concept of death.  In the '70s and '80s they also apparently covered breastfeeding as a topic.  While I don't remember these clips as a child, I don't doubt that I saw them with how much Sesame Street I watched.  I guess it should say something that I don't remember it because that means it didn't stand out as abnormal, strange, or uncomfortable in any way.  It must have seemed normal to me when I was a very small child.

Some time in the 1990's, Sesame Street stopped showing clips of mothers nursing.  They removed them from the show in it's entirety.  Given that the clips of women nursing showed off less skin than your average teenager, it's hard to imagine what the problem is.  It shouldn't be surprising that twenty years later mothers everywhere are calling for a return of nursing on Sesame Street.

Unfortunately, this movement has come under some opposition.  While the rights of mothers nursing in public are legally protected, it seems that nursing mothers are not protected in the media.  Facebook removed countless pictures of mothers nursing their children, as noted in this article.  Television still refuses to show images.  A picture of a baby nursing on a breastfeeding edition of of Babytalk Magazine was condemned for being inappropriate for a magazine cover, as seen here.

One would imagine that breastfeeding images would become more popular, after all, images of celebrities nursing their own babies are now featured on magazines.  Redbook Magazine had an image of a breastfeeding mother on the cover of one of their articles as far back as 1997.  The breastfeeding cover only appeared on newsstands while subscribers got a different image, but it still proves that the media doesn't see anything wrong with publishing images of breastfeeding women.  Angelina Jolie was captured by her own husband nursing their child for the cover of W Magazine.  The image is so discreet you might not even know she was nursing if you didn't look for it, or know beforehand.  This article also shows numerous pictures of nude or near nude pregnant mothers as well as nursing mothers appearing in the media.  If these covers are appearing on newsstands, then why do we have a problem with children having these images explained to them on television?  After all, they're going to see these images in newsstands.  It's not like these magazines will be wrapped in plastic and hidden away like pornographic materials.

If you think about it, there's this huge surge to encourage women to breastfeed.  WIC encourages women to breastfeed and offers a good deal of support and assistance.  Breastfeeding is all over the WIC office.  The American Academy of Pediatrics shares it's stance on breastfeeding here.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention also lists statistics for infants that are breastfed in the United States on this page.  Their current report card shows an increase in breastfeeding.  This report lists that currently 81.9% of babies in the United States are breastfed for some duration.  By six months of age, that rate drops to 60.6%.  In other words, over half of all babies in the US are breastfed for the first six months of their lives.  Breastfeeding is everywhere, and on the rise.  This is the direct result of medical encouragement and breastfeeding being brought into the public eye.

If we want this trend to continue, for moms to do what's best for their babies, wouldn't it be best to start exposing our children to this natural, normal, and healthy behavior when they're young?  Shouldn't we be exposing children to the act of breastfeeding before they get some sexual concept of what breasts are for from television shows and movies?

More importantly, shouldn't we help our children understand that they shouldn't feel ashamed for being exposed to nursing mothers?  With rates of breastfed babies rising so significantly, it's becoming more and more likely that a child visiting with a friend may be exposed to a nursing mother.  A child at the mall or the park may be exposed to a nursing mother, especially if there is any significant gap in the ages of the mother's children.  The reality is children are going to be exposed to breastfeeding at some point in their life, and someone needs to teach them how to handle it.

For many of the children and teens I've talked to, they don't seem to have much of an opinion of images of a mother nursing her child.  Some of them think it's a beautiful bonding moment for mom and baby, but most of them just shrug and find it no different than feeding from a bottle.  At most the response I've gotten is it's "a little weird" because they haven't been exposed to it before.  If this is how children feel, then why should we be so concerned about how they're going to feel about the act?

More importantly, how are they going to feel if they are exposed to people who condemn images of women nursing, or nursing in public.  How are these children going to feel when they've got their own baby in their arms and are considering the choice of breastfed or bottle fed.  If breastfeeding is something to be embarrassed about, something that can't be talked about, which one do you think they're going to choose?

This isn't the Victorian era anymore, where people simply don't talk about those kinds of things.  Women are now encouraged to speak openly and share their experiences in pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding.  Women are encouraged to take their infants out of the house because fresh air and sunlight are good for them.  Gone are the days when new moms are cloistered away in their homes.  Life goes on, especially with women with older children.  Baby is dragged along to play dates, school events, and grocery trips.  Women are encouraged to go to support groups, and to speak to new mothers to encourage them to become educated on all options before making a decision on how they'll raise their children.

Let's face it, it's time that we see breastfeeding as an educational segment back on Sesame Street and other children's shows.  It's time we put the information out there for everyone, young and old, especially as it's the most highly recommended way to feed your baby according to medical experts.  It's time to change the public opinion and help others become comfortable with the idea of breastfeeding mothers.