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HELP: BECAUSE YOU CAN
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Meat and Me
I've been thinking a lot about what I want to teach Jack, particularly when it comes to food. A lot of the turmoil I feel is the conflict I have within myself about eating meat. Now, I have gone vegetarian twice and suffered immensely nutritionally. It doesn't help that I dislike eating vegetables, although I do try to eat at least a portion a day for health's sake.
I love my burgers as much as the next person. When I take a tally of what I eat every week, it comes up mainly fish. I am not ecstatic about chicken, pork, or beef. I don't touch duck, deer, quail, or any baby animals (I used to love baby squid when I was a kid but stopped when I decided it was cruel to eat an animal that never got the chance to live out its life - read: no suckling pig). I have not touched shark's fin since I was in my teens and have never failed to tell people why.
Yet making the permanent transition has not been successful.
There's been much documentation about the cruelty of many slaughterhouses. In fact, there are many images of the fact I'd like to erase from my mind. Still, I truly enjoy ham, bacon, and the occasional KFC or burger - food that has become depersonalised from the animals they came from. I go into denial when I eat. That's nothing to be proud of.
Now, onto the most popular food I relish: fish. Asphyxiating is not the best way to die, not on a hot sunny day on a fishing boat, or any other day. I looked into the eyes of several catfish and groupers in a seafood restaurant recently and it saddened me greatly. They travelled miles from their own home in the sea in undoubtedly what must have been a tiny transport and now swim in a small tank waiting to be eaten.
All that is said, I need to eat to survive. Plus I need to stay nourished enough to continue breastfeeding my son. My humane eating plan has always been to limit the number of lives that have to die to sustain me each day, but there are a few more things I can do.
So this is what I have decided.
1. Stop eating LIVE seafood - those fish in the tanks. 2. Be informed about slaughter methods of the food I eat. 3. Don't order meats I don't enjoy eating anyway. 4. Don't waste any part of the animal. 5. Eat more nuts and cheeses for protein instead of meat. 6. Eat more fruits instead of meat.
It's not perfect but it is a start. Only by reconciling with myself my stance on meat can I sufficiently teach it to Jack.
Since Blogdrive doesn't quite have a monthly archive script yet for us and I hadn't been able to find one online, I figured out the only way is to do it manually.
1. Go to "Blog Configuration" in your Admin.
2. Go through your blog and locate the last post of every month.
3. Create a link to each last post and label it [Month] [Year].
4. Place them under the Calendar.
It's not perfect, granted, but it allows visitors to access the archives faster than clicking Next at the end of each page.
Maintenance is low. Once a month when you write your first post of the new month. Just follow steps from 1-4.
It was a shock to hear that Anna Nicole died so soon after her own son Daniel died in her hospital room after she gave birth to her daughter Dannielynn. As a mom now too, I can't even begin to imagine the grief she felt.
I remember seeing a picture of her a long time ago scrubbed and looking very young, innocent, and beautiful. That's how I will remember her. Rest in peace, Anna Nicole.
Jack loves his plastic bottles. He gives me the excuse to buy those 500ml Pokka Green Tea (and assortment of flavours) just so I can quickly drink them up and he can play with them. We have the Green Tea Jasmine, Honey Lemon Green Tea, and Lemon Tea. He is however, most fascinated by the 1l bottle I keep by my bedside - very important for nursing moms at night.
My Mom mused that he must be wanting to emulate me drinking water and truly, when I remove the lid and let him drink, he chomps the water down. A bit messy, but he always rewards me with a toothy grin after. Even now, a couple of months or so after the fetish started, he is still fascinated by them and will sit there for a while patting the bottle on his lap.
Stuff Jack has sunk his teeth into lately: a plum he grabbed out of the fruit basket, a small organic carrot, my shoulder, my knee.
The bags and cat pendant I ordered from The Animal Rescue Site Store on 22 January arrived. Great quality gifts for friends and myself and in buying, the order gave 56 bowls of food to to a rescued animal in a shelter or sanctuary.
The aesthetics of this carrier were enough for me to give it a second look, and then a third look. But as a Bjorn user, I contemplated the financial wisdom of buying another carrier. Baby is now 9kg and carrying him in the Bjorn feels like being 9 months pregnant again. My knees ached and I felt tired and unwieldly. After a conversation with several moms, I decided to give it a go.
The purchase process through MummysMilk was fast and very pleasant. Lulu, the owner of the cool online establishment, herself an AP (attachment parenting) mom with 2 kids, was a delight to talk to. Her articles on AP are a must-read.
After I paid last night via Internet Banking, the Ergo arrived the very next day via courier. Mom was surprised how small it packed into (as a packing genius herself). It is light, comes in a clear A4 pouch, with clear instructions in print and in a DVD. I wasted no time opening it up.
Like kids under the Christmas tree awed by the lights, Mom, Jack, and I gathered around to have a look at it and oohed and ahhed. Visually it is as beautiful as it appears on the picture. No boring navy Bjorn or tired navy triangle hip carrier, this is jet black with a maroon trim. Definitely the epitome of cool.
While my Mom carried baby, I strapped the Ergo on and sat baby in it. I felt no weight at all! No sigh of weight like when I put baby in the Bjorn. Jack was rather amused by the new experience and beamed widely as I played with the straps. We danced around with it for a while. Then I decided to try putting the poncho on him. He brushed it off three times (okay, I put it on him 3x) and began to fuss.
Removing Jack from the Ergo (reach behind, unstrap + undo arm strap) is way faster than with the Bjorn, which is a three-action removal (undo button x2, undo long pin). I just undid the neck strap, undid one arm strap, and off he went chasing after the DVD box and the other papers in the pack.
For me, the Bjorn felt safer when baby was small and now, when bending over to pick up something while carrying baby. It gives better head support too without the use of a poncho (for fussy bears who hate stuff on their heads) and you can turn baby outwards. I'd been concerned about him being held by the crotch for a while on the Bjorn and am pleased that the Ergo carries him by the rump instead. The Ergo also allows back carrying and is certainly better for Mom's back.
"I reckon we're pretty lucky kitties to have been rescued by Mom and Aunty Mini when we were mere kittens. Mom's always taught us to help others if we can (well Tuxie still demands food but I think the rest of us got the lesson).
The good kitties at the Paw Pledge Shelter need your help. Please pop by their website and blog to say hello. They've got cats up for adoption and neat merchandise you can buy to help the shelter."
Although he's been doing it for months now, especially when he was first learning to crawl, he would wake up crying on all fours, puzzled and upset why he was in such a position. I used to think he got himself there, but according to Moxie:
"All that physical development also makes it really tough for babies to sleep, and they often wake themselves up in the middle of the night with movement. It's a little funny when your baby wakes up and is shocked to be up on hands and knees rocking. His or her body just did it without any conscious effort."
Now he also stands and does a little "I put my right foot in, I put my right foot out, I put my right foot in..." but stops short of "shaking it all about". It's really cute to watch!
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." -- Bertrand Russell
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison (Harper's Magazine, 1890)
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