Have you heard about this?

Advocates of breastfeeding in the Philippines will lead 20 other countries in the first-ever global synchronized breastfeeding event next week. Their goal is to promote breastfeeding as still being best for babies.

Organizers of Nurturers of the Earth said the Synchronized Breastfeeding Worldwide event will gather mothers from 21 nations across the globe. On Aug. 8 at 10 a.m. in their respective time zones, mothers will breastfeed their babies.

Mothers from countries such as Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine were expected to participate in the event.

So all we have to do to participate is breastfeed our child at 10 a.m. (our local time) on Aug. 8, right? Anybody game? I hope to do it. We have tentative plans to go to my midwife’s social that morning and we may be in the car at 10 a.m., but I will try to sneak in some nursing before we hit the road. There’s always time for a little mama’s milk. :)
More info about the synchronized breastfeeding event can be found here.

I feel that something like this that draws positive attention to breastfeeding is especially important to support in light of information like this article from the Associated Press saying that more moms in the U.S.A. are breastfeeding, but they are quitting way too soon.

Nearly three-quarters of new mothers in the United States are breast-feeding their babies, but they are quitting too soon and resorting to infant f*rmula too often, federal health officials said Thursday.

A government survey found that only about 30 percent of new moms are feeding their babies breast milk alone three months after birth. At six months, only 11 percent are breast-feeding exclusively.

F*rmula isn’t as good at protecting babies against diseases, eczema and childhood obesity. Ideally, nearly all mothers should breast-feed their babies for six months or more, said David Paige, a Johns Hopkins University reproductive health expert.

Only 11 percent exclusively breast-feeding at 6 months? Ouch. Those numbers are awfully low. :(

The government announced goals for 2010: getting 60 percent of women to breast-feed exclusively for the first three months and 25 percent through six months.

Let’s hope that continued breastfeeding education and more support for breastfeeding moms, including working moms, will help the U.S. achieve and surpass that goal.

F*rmula was typed without the “o” above to protect my blog from f*rmula ads.

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Unlike the majority of July, August’s temperatures have, so far, not been nearly as sweltering. That being the case, on Friday I decided to load the kids up into the double jogging stroller for a long walk to the park (the one that’s 1.5 miles away - hey, that’s a long walk for me. ;)).

Apparently, it wasn’t as cool out as I thought it was and I soon started to sweat, but the walk was good for me, it was nice to get out of the house, and the kids were having a good time.

We made it to the park and there was much swinging to be had.

After about 30 minutes, the clouds cleared and the sun really started beating down on us, and I decided we should head back towards home. We started our walk back and I noticed something funny about one of the rear stroller tires - namely it was making a “tooting” noise that was cracking Ava up. I figured out that it was leaning in at a wonky angle and rubbing on another part of the stroller. I periodically had to straighten it back out, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. (Now that I look back at my pictures, it seems it was bent from the start of our walk. Hmmm.)


We got about half-way home when the damn wheel wouldn’t straighten any longer and I had to ask Ava to walk so that I could hold that side of the stroller up while I pushed Julian.

No sooner did I lift it off the ground did that damn wheel fall right off and the connecting part was bent too! D’oh! No more wheel for stroller. (Doesn’t Julian look pissed here? LOL)

Not excited at the prospect of having to maneuver home a busted stroller with two kids in tow, I decided to ditch the stroller next to the stream, with plans to recover it later in the day after Jody got home with the car. I even put some branches in front of it to help camouflage it. ;) LOL

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my Ergo with me, so I had to carry Jules on my hip for the walk back, while Ava happily (thank goodness!) walked and even carried her water bottle which helped me out a ton since my pockets and hands were loaded with everything else (keys, cell phone, tasty granola bars that we made on Thursday, camera, Julian’s toy) we had with us in the stroller.

After a fair bit of walking, Ava wanted to play and I wanted to rest, so we decided to take a breather at the park by our house. Refreshments were needed. Thankfully, we still had water and there was plenty of mama milk to be had as well.

After the refreshments, much playing and silliness ensued.

Despite the unexpected wheel mishap and a sweaty mommy, we had a very fun afternoon. :) I’m so glad I grabbed my camera at the last minute so I could document the whole thing. hee, hee.

Unfortunately, the stroller recovery mission that night didn’t go as planned. When we went back to retrieve it (about 4 1/2 hours after I left it), it had been moved and the wheel had been taken. Ugh! We looked all over to see if maybe someone tossed the wheel in the stream, but had no luck finding it. So now we need not only to fix the wheel but to buy a new one as well. Oh, bother.

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**UPDATE** - The winner of the Cute As A Bug t-shirt giveaway is Melody of Slurping Life. Congratulations, Melody! And thanks to everyone who entered! :) Stay tuned for more contests in the weeks ahead!

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