(If I can get a lit­tle help from my tech­nol­ogy mas­ter hus­band over the week­end, I will replace this sen­tence with the Spring Read­ing Thing button.)

Kat­rina at Cal­lipid­dar days is host­ing a read­ing chal­lenge!  Check out her page to find out how you can be a part of the challenge.

Because I love to read more than almost any­thing else, when I have an excuse to read more and read LOTS it gets me very excited.    The Spring Read­ing Thing goes from March 20 to June 20.  I am already par­tic­i­pat­ing in the TBR Chal­lenge, so my list for this chal­lenge will include those books, too.

Gen­er­ally, I am plan­ning that each book will take me about 2 weeks (although it has proved to be much shorter in the past), so for this chal­lenge, I am aim­ing for 2 books per month.  One is from my TBR list and one is a new book.
Here is my list:

1.  Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

2.  Moth­er­ing Your Nurs­ing Tod­dler by Norma Jean Bumgarner

3.  Mem­ory Keeper’s Daugh­ter by Kim Edwards

4.  Fire­fly Lane by Kristin Hannah

5.  How Wean­ing Hap­pens by Diane Bengson

6.  How to Talk so Kids Will Lis­ten By Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

This is prob­a­bly pretty opti­mistic for me, but I’ll take any excuse to read more!

Wel­come!

This week, I am tak­ing part in the Ulti­mate Blog Party that is being hosted at one of my very favorite (and most talked about sites) 5 Min­utes for Mom! How fun! If you want to host a blog warm­ing party at your house, you can sign up on the Mr. Linky and start blog hop­ping. They are also giv­ing away many amaz­ing prizes. When it comes to free stuff, I really am not picky, but I do think that I wouldn’t mind #1, 2, 17, 19 (Who could not use $50 at Tar­get???), 21, 22, 26, 30, 44, 45, 58, 91, 103, 106, 118, and 119. I think I will stop there. I don’t want to appear greedy. How fun! Have I said that yet?

Here is a lit­tle bit about me, my fam­ily, and my blog for those who don’t know me.

I am Casey. I am a 29 year old stay at home mom. I taught spe­cial edu­ca­tion before I made the choice to stay at home. I have a 3 year old boy (K) and a 1.5 year old boy (A). I am mar­ried to their won­der­ful father, Jason. We have been mar­ried for 6 .5 years now. It def­i­nitely doesn’t seem like it has been that long at all.

If I were to host a party at my house, it would be a family-friendly, easy going get together. There would likely be kids run­ning all over the place rid­ing trac­tors or play­ing with legos. The adults would be sit­ting around hav­ing a snack and wait­ing for the taco bar to be ready. (That is my favorite enter­tain­ing food.)

My blog cov­ers many dif­fer­ent top­ics from breast­feed­ing to cloth dia­per­ing to read­ing to healthy eat­ing to run­ning to asthma and eczema to hav­ing two chil­dren less than two years apart. I often write blog posts in my head only to have them dis­ap­pear for days or weeks in my mind before I get them down in writing.

Come on in! Have a look around, and make your­self comfortable.

“Mod­est” and “Discreet”

Those are two words that cause many breast­feed­ing moms to cringe.  Breast­feed­ing is a sen­si­tive topic for many women.  It is also one of those top­ics that can be eas­ily sen­sa­tion­al­ized.  How many tv news reports have you seen about the lat­est breast­feed­ing study, the lat­est for­mula study, or some sort of extreme breast­feed­ing behav­ior?  It def­i­nitely makes news.

It has been mak­ing news quite a bit in North Dakota in the past month or so.  North Dakota is one of a small hand­ful of states that does not have a law to sup­port a mother’s right to breast­feed in pub­lic.  There is a bill which has passed House and is wait­ing to be heard in the Sen­ate.  Great, right?  End of post.

Unfor­tu­nately, no.  The bill which was intro­duced pro­tected a woman’s right to breast­feed in pub­lic and gave women the right to pump on work breaks.  After mov­ing through com­mit­tee and being heard in the leg­is­la­ture, the bill was changed.  It now allows a woman to breast­feed in pub­lic in a “mod­est and dis­creet” fashion.

There are those who think that we should take what we can get.  Not every­one under­stands nurs­ing or nurs­ing in pub­lic.  This might be the best that we can do.  We should sup­port it because some­thing is bet­ter than noth­ing is what they are say­ing.  Unfor­tu­nately, the bill as it stands now doesn’t pro­vide the pro­tec­tion and sup­port a breast­feed­ing bill should pro­vide.  What is mod­est?  What is dis­creet?  Is pub­lic nurs­ing itself immod­est?  Should a mom be required to wear a nurs­ing tank top?  Should the mom and baby have to be cov­ered with a blan­ket?  Should the mother be fac­ing away from the room or any peo­ple who might walk past?  Should the mother be using the bath­room?  Who defines mod­est and dis­creet?  Is it the mother, the busi­ness owner, the leg­is­la­ture, or in an extreme sit­u­a­tion the police?

Let me be clear that while I think the words mod­est and dis­creet are inap­pro­pri­ate for a breast­feed­ing bill, I do not think that women should actively work to be immod­est or inde­screet.  Women should be focused on their babies and the needs of their hun­gry chil­dren.  Breast­feed­ing is not a show nor is it a lewd act when done out­side of one’s house.  It is an act of par­ent­ing and a mother choos­ing to feed her child.

I do not think that the North Dakota leg­is­la­ture should pass some­thing that is as open to inter­pre­ta­tion and unclear as this bill is in its cur­rent state.  It is a dis­ap­point­ment to say the least, and it does not do much (if any­thing) to sup­port moth­ers or babies.