Oh, I’m just so proud of myself though. A year ago when faced with the prospect of buying a birthday present, I totally would have scoured Amazon or trekked to Scholastic for something, and ended up buying way more than I intended. This year, I hit Etsy and, using their awesome ‘shop local’ option, picked up two handmade tote bags! Lucy is going to make each girl a necklace and bracelet, and voila! All done. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment when I think of how many habits I have changed over the past year, and how the new ones are already second-nature. I think this was the most important part of the Riot For Austerity for me, and this consumer spending piece is the last big change I need to make. That is, assuming I can get the veggie containers really going, but that’s a whole ‘nother post that I don’t have time for right now.
And with that, Buy Nothing month commences. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting every day to brag about how I bought nothing 
There’s a really interesting discussion going on over at Thor’s about the judgments surrounding how we feed our babies. It’s bringing up all sorts of conflicting feelings for me because I am more judgmental of formula feeding than I should be (since that’s how I fed Lucy). I’d like to explore this more, but I’m still too close to it. Suffice to say, Lucy is a perfectly intelligent, healthy, beautiful and wonderful child, but I do feel like I am giving Chico a better start by breastfeeding him. I guess it will even out some since Lucy definitely got more one-on-one time than he will, and was exposed to far fewer germs than he will be. I do plan to nurse Chico until he wants to stop, and I have been a strong proponent of extended bf-ing since my aunt did it back in the ’80s. See, it all comes out garbled because the mere thought of it sends me straight into my brain. I don’t know. Breast is best, but formula is better than insanity, resenting your child, and a host of other problems. In order to be able to make a well thought out decision, we have to remove the stigmas and misinformation about both. And we all have to accept that sometimes nursing is a pain in the ass even when we love it, and that formula-feeding is not akin to child abuse. And seriously? If you feel like nursing means you love your child more than someone who formula feeds? That’s something you need to talk about in therapy.
He’s a boy. She’s ahead of the game anyway.