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From my sister-in-law, a vintage picture. I don't know much about it, except that all these kids are wearing Purim costumes, and that one of them is Anne Frank.
(Which, yes, calls up all these feelings -- both the feelings caused by her amazing book, as well as this article about my book about her...)
On the Kveller blog, and in our personal lives, I've been freaking out a bit. Cholov yisroel formula has been embargoed by the FDA, and I've been doing some of my rare journalism to figure out what's going on.
One thing that parents are best at -- and yes, readers, I'm talking about you, and I'm talking about myself as well -- is trying to tell other people what to do.
Maybe it's natural. Maybe it comes from being parents. You're forced to order your kid around. So, why shouldn't the rest of the world do what you say, too?
Kveller recently ran a story on a shortage of baby formula in the Hasidic community. As can be expected, it was summarily attacked, on here and on my way-too-sharey Facebook page. Mostly, it was that knee-jerk "a-ha!"ness of parents who see a mention of bottlefeeding and leap to point out the wrongness inherent in a parenting style not their own.
Breastfeeding has become a badge of honor. A few months ago, when a brand of formula started advertising itself as "the healthiest choice," tons of parent bloggers (myself included) pounced on it. In parent-heavy environs like Park Slope, there's a type of bottle that actually advertises that the milk inside is breast milk -- which is so self-righteously snotty, conceited, and straight-up ill-willed that it's a good thing I wasn't drinking breast milk when I heard about it, or I would've spit it across the room in shock.
My wife is an ardent supporter of breastfeeding. And our baby drinks formula.
Both of our babies started out on a boobs-only diet. In both cases, however, we had at one point to face the reality that she just didn't have enough milk.
My wife was the first to admit it. The fact that I'm saying this is a testament to her openness and honesty. Not to get all sexually-bifurcated on you, but if this happened to men, we would never talk about it. I mean, the male gender invented the term "pissing contest." If someone were to tell us that a part of our bodies were insufficient? A check-outtable, oversexualized part? Forget it, we'd never step outside again.
But my wife, she knows how to face reality. Her mother is one of the top lactation consultants in Australia and a mother of seven, and she had to supplement feeds for all but one of her children. There are a million things that can cause a situation like this -- stress, exhaustion, genetics, or simple dehydration. Or it could be something more sinister. For us, it was one of each.
When our daughter was 6 weeks old, my wife got a virus. It led to her becoming dehydrated, which caused her milk supply to crash. She was in bed for days. I had to get all Michael Keaton on her, playing at being a single father, jumping rooms from the baby to her and back again. I can't imagine how my mother-in-law (or anyone else) dealt with newborn twins. (Actually: Maybe by getting stressed out and losing some of her milk. Duh.) It was hard. She recovered, but her milk supply took months of hard work to build up again. For our second child, the reason was less dramatic, but we had to face facts. There simply wasn't enough.
We were hard workers. We were vigilantes. We only wanted what was best for our babies. We had homebirths, only fed our kids organic food (my wife made most of it herself), and I read the bejeezis out of every parenting book I could get my hands on. That was the hardest part of this recent formula shortage, and the frustrating lack of answers from the FDA -- we'd decided to only give our baby cholov yisroel formula, since we believe it's especially important on a spiritual level.
So yes, breastfeeders and overachievers, I'm with you all the way. I'm on your side. I hear what you're saying.
But sometimes, you need to just shut the hell up.
Oregon is exactly the kind of place it is in The Goonies: clean and pleasant and charmingly run-down, like a well-lived-in shack or a fraying pillow. I came here to do poetry and ended up falling in love. That 12-year-old adolescent love, just like Goonies, where you'll do anything, just because it's there. I'll tell you all about it.
But first, let's get some mood music. Play this loud:
This week, we got ready for our new Purim video, which we're getting prepared and mixed and psyched to show you. It's a big first for MyJewishLearning, where diversity is always important. We've worked with actors and filmmakers from all types of backgrounds before. But several of you have complained that we've been conspicuously human-centric in casting for our videos, and that we've never used puppets before.
Well, we've heard your voices and we've decided to do something about it! Together with Ora Fruchter and Chistopher Scheer, we're putting puppets back on the map. Follow the jump for some behind-the-scenes shots from the making of our Purim movie, starring the classy Mr. Dingo...and an adorable little troublemaker named Joey.
All puppets have a union-mandated coffee break every 15 minutes.
If you haven't noticed, I've been even more random and scattered than usual, working on the G-dcast Purim movie, one article that might be as long as a book, and a book that's actually going to be shorter than that article (yes! new book! at least, I think so, which is why I'm mentioning it inside parenthesis inside a post about something else instead of writing it in five-inch-high letters across the main page of my website), and then Jewniverse, the daily email for my day job, which I really should start talking about more than I do -- considering I work on it for 8 hours a day and all.
While writing new stuff, the rest of the world sort of does its own thing. Which is why I only find out weeks later that there's a big old feature on the movie I wrote.
They interviewed the three principals of C Malo Producciones, the company that made the movie, including Gerri del Castillo, the director, as well as Berwin, the producer, and Bruno, who we called the ninja but was officially the assistant director, even though he really was more of a ninja.
Here's my favorite quote:
“The objective was to build a rebellious film, very independent, but at the same time innocent, which rescues the lethargy of living in the periphery where the most interesting thing a person can do is to cut her hair into an intricate mohawk or build an inescapable internal universe to escape violence and total alienation.”which comes from Gerry, who kind of talks like that. And his first language is Spanish (his second is Castillian). He says these things in English that I hear the first time, but take my brain about ten minutes to digest.
Just in case you weren't ready to have your mind blown, turn back now. You might think Darth Vader is narrating, but it's my uncle. (I mean that as a compliment, I promise.) And you can spot glimpses of my brother-in-law as well as my soul brother, local (Melbourne) Jewish celebrity Bram Presser, ex-lead singer of YIDCore.
OK -- I laugh, and you kind of need to laugh, but this video is awesome. Partly that kosher cooking has gotten sophisticated enough so that a competition like this (a) exists, (b) is taken seriously, and (c) people are paying money to go to a swanky theater (that isn't even a Jewish theater) to watch the competition. I mean, sure, they do this kind of kosher cooking contest in New York (and my wife reports on it)...but in Melbourne? Go you people.
I really should be rooting for my bro, but DL, the wife of my chevrusa, is also involved. It's hard.
