Breastfeeding bliss

As I relax into my seat and let out a gentle breath, my babe slows her sucking and I look down to see her eyes are fixed on mine. She studies me, learning and relearning my features and expressions. She pauses mid-suck to smile and make one of those lovely contented gurgle sounds.

My heart rushes and in that instant, I know.

I know She knows...

She knows that I am hers,

and that She is mine...


I feel so blessed to have this little soul with me on this journey. I am so grateful she chose me to be her mother.

It's all in the eyes

Every mother knows the feeling...

You hand your baby to someone, or put them down somewhere while you're doing something, and you can feel their eyes just following you around the room... KNOWING you're their mother, wanting you by their side, WAITING... urging you to look over at them so they can connect with your eyes.

When you first notice your baby recognising you, it rocks your world. It's the stuff that makes mums want more kids :D

I get completely lost in M's eyes. I'm addicted to her gaze and just want more and more of those crystal clear loving exchanges we share through simply looking at one another.

It's so much like falling in love... like looking into the eyes of your beloved and just completely putting your heart out there to them, baring your soul to them... willing them to love and cherish the vulnerability you're willing to offer them while exploring the depths of your love.

I had a lightbulb moment about this just the other day. I was falling into the depths of M's eyes, looking up at me so adoringly the way babies do, and I saw just how much of her beautiful SOUL she is showing me and it dawned on me that we're all born like this, with unlimited potential and pure openness and love for all that is.

In the first few months of our lives, we're strangers to what we are or aren't, what we can or can't do, who we can or can't be. So we are open. We are endless potential. We are soul.
We ARE.

It is only through our 'life lessons' that we gradually build up a complex system of shields and walls to surround our vulnerable all-loving soul in order to protect it from the harsh judgements of a world gone mad.

Perhaps when we're looking into the eyes of a baby and allowing our heart to soften, what we're seeing is ourselves, and we're falling back in love with ourselves remembering that unlimited potential... Recognising what is core to each of us and remembering to cherish it.

the tree

"When too impulsive feeling, which expresses itself in an exaggerated extraversion, is given up, the freed libido returns to the soul from which it sprang, revives the symbols, which are the source of thought and of feeling, and brings the masculine principle to constellation, which is the principle of knowledge and of self-assertion.

When too intensive thinking, which expresses itself in a too intellectual attitude to life, is given up, and the freed libido returns to the soul from whence it sprang, it revives symbols, which are the source of feeling and of thought, and brings the feminine principle, the principle of love and of mediation (or of religion) to constellation.

The consciousness of the masculine principle leads to the tree of knowledge, - the consciousness of the feminine principle to the tree of life, - feeling as well as thinking have been again united with their origin or with their roots."

Cult Fictions: C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology - Sonu Shamdasani.

Joyous Booby Book

Here are some of my contributions to the Joyous Booby Breastfeeding Book...

This one is an oldie! This is a pic of J breastfeeding at i guess around 5mths of age, so this is from around Dec 2003.... The first baby I nurtured in my breastfeeding career... my firstborn.

This pic of TA on my lap having a snack feed is from around September 2005 and it's a photo that I consider to represent the modern breastfeeding mum - working from home with the flexibility to breastfeed on demand :D

My littlest baby a few weeks ago - having a feed with big brother J looking on. Feb 2008.
My cheeky lil womyn smiling on the booby! Feb 2008

Namaste

Yesterday I went along to my first Home Midwifery Association (HMA) meeting. There were, I'd guess around 40 women sitting in a large circle facing one another. Some were in full bloom with pregnant bellies, some were midwives, some were yet to be mothers, some were mothers nursing new babies and others were keeping an eye on their older children who were playing and wandering around the hall.

HMA meets fortnightly, and after yesterday's experience, I intend to make it a regular thing.

Since leaving the gathering, I've been thinking a lot about my experience there and about how i felt a profound connectedness with all the women present.

Several faces were familiar to me because of past experiences with Friends of the Birth Centre and Maternity Coalition... and other friends from on line forums were there for me to meet in real life for the first time, so i was amongst friends... but apart from the people I knew before walking in the door, there was a strange sense of recognition that i felt for people that I felt i knew and recognised but didn't actually know. The feeling made me think of the word Namaste -

The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you

Perhaps this is the best way to describe how i felt after leaving the gathering. That i was amongst people of the same spirit and our lives had led us all to this point... to meet, to gather, commune and share and hold space for one another.

I shared my birth story with the women, and in hindsight my only disappointment of the day is that I left out describing how spiritual M's birth had been for me, and for some unknown reason I focussed on a clinical type explanation! Unusual for me, particularly amongst this circle of women, as I could have completely let go and noone would have raised an eyebrow I don't think... but I skimmed over it.

It made me think about my shield and how i hide my spiritual side to a lot of people unless I know them well enough to know they're a receptive audience.

Overall, the gathering left me feeling very blessed, which is always a nice feeling, and one I like to reflect on. Times like today leave me feeling refreshed, joyous and excited for the future births I will someday have.

recipe compilation post

Vegetable lentil dish

1 onion
1 red capsicum
1 zuccini
2 mushrooms
1 tbsp of green curry paste
1 tsp vegetable stock
1 can of lentils
1 shoot of eschallot
1 tbsp oil

dice all vegies
heat oil in pan, add onion and eshallots,
add curry paste and cook till fragrant
add capsicum, zucc, mushroom
stir and cook for a while
then add a splash of water to get curry paste off bottom of pan
add lentils
add some vege stock
stir well and serve


SUPER MOIST EGG FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE

1. 5 cups of all purpose flour
3 tablespoons of sifted good quality cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white or vegan brown sugar
0. 5 teaspoon salt (optional)
5 tablespoons canola oil (can substitute with any veg. oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cold water

By far the most surprisingly deeelightful cake. This recipe is great for adults and for kids ages 3 and up.
1. Put your flour into mixing bowl, add cocoa, baking soda, vegan sugar and salt and mix well.

2. Make three deep holes in the dry mixture. Into one, pour the oil, into the next, pour the vinegar into the next, pour the vanilla.

3. Pour the water into the bowl, over all of this--- making a great big mess.

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until there aren't any more lumps and pour into a 9 inch by 9 inch baking pan, two inches deep, that has been greased and floured.

5. Bake at 350 for about half an hour, test with a fork.

Enjoy this delicious cake. You will be surprised at its moistness and richness!!!!! It can be cooled and iced with your choice of icing or can be enjoyed on its own. The batter can also be used to make cupcakes!!

TIP OF THE DAY: for an instant cake, have the premeasured, premixed dry ingredients at hand, then simply add the wet ingredients when you want a fresh treat! It makes a great birthday cake! Hey, it even freezes well!

Preparation time: 15 min. + 30 min. baking

Oatmeal chocolate chip

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (6 oz)
1 cup chopped pecans, if desired


1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir brown sugar and butter until blended. Stir in vanilla and egg until light and fluffy. Stir in oats, flour, baking soda and salt; stir in chocolate chips and pecans.
2. Onto ungreased cookie sheet, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart.
3. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Eggplant, tomato and garlic (cooked with organic ingredients)
4 or 5 ripe tomatoes, cut in half
1 medium eggplant, sliced
1 can of organic 3 bean mix, drained
1 large clove garlic, diced
spag bol herbs
Maldon salt
1 cup or so of Vege stock (liquid)

Heat oil in oven proof pan
Preheat oven to 250degrees C
Place tomatoes cut side down and fry - sprinkle with salt
Dice garlic and add to tomatoes
Place slices of eggplant in and sprinkle with salt
Fry for a little while and then turn vegies over.
Salt again.
Add some stock, enough to moisten vegies and continue to cook on medium heat for 5mins or so with a lid on but not completely closed.
Add the bean mix
Add enough stock to nearly cover eggplant slices, with tomato not completely covered then take the lid off the saucepan and place it in the oven.
Cook at 250 for about 5mins and then turn it right down and take it out of the oven after another 5mins.
Check how moist or dry it is - the idea is that the stock should evaporate and flavour the food as it does. If it's dry, add more stock after taking it out of the oven and stir and place the lid back on.
so so so so so delish...........

Conscious eating

I have had some really bad eating patterns lately, and it’s been on my list of things to tackle on a self awareness level for a while now.

The time has arrived!

I have been working through the why, when, where and what I eat to try to make sense of my patterns, and really I’ve just discovered that there isn’t that much of a pattern apart from it all just being senseless!

I’ve recognized that almost all of the time I am eating without thinking first.

It’s not like I don’t know that I am making bad food choices; I know how to cook and prepare healthy meals, I know all about nutrition and what my body needs for fuel and I grew up with a very nutritious diet - largely without junk food, yet I find myself with a serious addiction to eating food that just doesn’t do me much good.

If there is chocolate in the house, and by some miracle it makes it through the night and is still there in the morning… I HAVE to eat it for breakfast. Actually, if there is chocolate anywhere in the house at any time, I find myself drifting to wherever I have hidden it from myself, and methodically getting through gargantuan amounts, sometimes in secret from those living with me. Now THAT rings alarm bells!!!

I’ve been trying to get a breakthrough in this area to put an end to what is largely habitual behaviour, so I have been doing my self-awareness thing of observing my patterns, and I have been asking myself for help with this. What has come to me is simple and to the point. Before ordering something, making something, grabbing something from the kitchen cupboard, I am contemplating “Does this serve me?”

In the first couple of days, more often than not the answer was NO… and I was noticing how often I drifted into the kitchen looking for ‘naughty’ food.

It’s been 4 days since I’ve bought any chocolate and even when one sneaky little block found its way into my trolley on Thursday night, I found it EASY to put it back on the shelf after hearing my question.

I’m a little bemused at what has been a fairly easy transition. I’d expected a real struggle giving up chocolate – just the way it has been every other time I’ve tried. Could it really be so simply solved? That I just need to be conscious in my food choices by asking one YES or NO question before making a decision? I’m hopeful that it is as simple as that, now that I am actually asking and listening to my Self.

It comes back to responsibility for self I believe. We are born with a guidance system built in, but we are taught not to trust it. Society, media and advertising bombard us with and tempt us with millions of different products that rely on us being needy and unconscious in our consumption.

If we stop to think before consuming, whether it is eating food off a plate or buying items off a shelf, we can alter our pattern of being unconscious consumers.

So hopefully in getting over my chocolate addiction, it’s also a step towards me being a more conscious consumer.