I am slightly less pissed at the world and its hairless monkeys today. I got my hair cut this afternoon and I'm convinced that the stylist moussed my hair in the shape of a gumdrop on purpose. That's what I get for asking for the 16-dollar cut and not adding on the 10-dollar blowdry, I suppose. I also bought thick black eyeliner and shiny pink lipstick that smells like candy. All the better to impersonate a gumdrop, m'dear.

I just might depart tomorrow with a full wedding outfit and all our ridiculous extras. Hey! I forgot: this'll be fun!

baby in a suitcase, I know, I know, it's serious.

I've been reading a lotta mommablogs lately, since all of my old reads are either crazy, stressed, hiatusing or gone (and I spent waaaay too much time reloading my Livejournal Friends page). From dooce (which was recommended by a reader), I found the Barren Bitches Brigade and Chez Miscarriage just in time for Getupgrrl to break my heart. I dabbled around her links for a bit after that, looking at various blogs, but none stuck until I found Finslippy. Smart & funny & momalicious. Oh, she makes me laugh. Especially this post about her love affair with Attachment Parenting, and the flaming end of that affair. But I really shouldn't have read the comments.

See, the entry deals mostly with the horrendous pain & suffering Alice experienced breastfeeding. It sounds like it was a tremendous ordeal, and considering all of the times I thought about switching to formula before Blake started gaining, I completely understand why she "packed away the boobs." It's not her. It's not moms who stop breastfeeding (these women get enough grief from the media, and within reasonable limits I don't really care what other people do with their babies as long as I'm allowed to do what I want with mine. Besides, if you believe all the breastmilk propaganda, my baby will have a competitive edge in kindergarten and I'm not about to rock that boat!)

It's the whining about La Leche League. To be fair to Alice & her readers, this rant's been building for some time. People talk smack about LLL all over the web. This is just the most recent place I've seen the accusations: La Leche League is a group of boob nazis who care more about breastfeeding than babies; I called LLL with my breastfeeding problem and they just told me to hang in there; why isn't there a non-judgemental breastfeeding organization?

Well, first of all, you have to understand who you're calling: La Leche League. They exist to help and encourage breastfeeding mothers. That is their mandate. They came into being because all kinds of women find all kinds of obstacles to breastfeeding, and not just the "my husband wants his sex toys back!" kind of problems.

If you're mad at LLL because when you called you were worried about your baby's health or your own, please try to remember that you're not calling your doctor or midwife or the person who has immediate access to your baby's medical files. You're not talking to someone who has any medical training at all (in most cases). On the other hand, you are talking to someone who has studied breastfeeding, and studied the many weird & wonderful accounts of real women who have real problems with breastfeeding. The thing is, when you've been collecting stories for 50 years, you see a lot of shit go down. This is why the generic advice, "hang in there" is relevant & useful: unless you are a really, really special case, there's been a woman who had the exact same problem and managed somehow to breastfeed through it. Someone can do it, you're someone, you can do it. Suddenly you expect them to say, "tough break, try some formula?"

The problem is that people call LLL because they want to hear that they should stop breastfeeding. Why bother an organization dedicated to the encouragement of breastfeeding? I'm sure that if you ask 10 random people in your life, at least one will tell you whatever you want to hear. You want a breastfeeding organization that doesn't promote breastfeeding? Wha?

And finally, now that I've pissed everyone else off, I'd like to add that if a LLL leader has no other advice than, "hang in there," she's a bad leader. What I often find, though, is that there are often many suggestions that are immediately discounted as obviously wrong. Once these suggestions are filtered away all that's left is inane encouragement.

P.S. I've felt that way, too, like I'll be told that all my problems will disappear if I "keep breastfeeding!" Like I've joined a cult of insane Stepford Mommas. The feeling passes.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/28/2004 10:50:00 p.m.