Dear Matthew,

This last month has been a total blur! You started out the month relatively still - I mean, you’ve always been wiggly and squirmy, as all babies are, but we could sit you down and be fairly certain that you would stay in that spot. Or we’d put you in bed on your back and you’d wake up - on your back in the same position.

Yeah, that totally didn’t last:

Let’s start earlier. Right after your eight month birthday, we celebrated by moving out. Baba and I realized that we were really disrupting your sleep, so we moved (well, Baba did most of the moving) our bed and dressers out of the room so you have your own room now, and slowly, over the course of this past month, you’ve gotten better and better at the sleeping biz. For the last two nights (knock wood), you slept straight from 7:30pm-6:30am - with a couple of blips in the radar, but you quickly put yourself back to sleep. Your napping has slowly gotten better too, although sometimes it seems like if you have a good night’s sleep, your day’s sleep gets a little funky, and vice versa.

You went to the park for the first time and really liked the swings - but you were just fascinated with all of the other children playing and running around. I think you realized that there are other people who are as small (big?) as you are out in the world, and you just soaked them all in. You still really love interacting with people - and have only shown very minor instances of stranger anxiety, but after inspecting them for a few minutes, you warm up to others quite nicely! Your baba told me once that on the train, Baba was carrying you in the meitai and realized you were busy smiling at someone and reached out to pat them on the arm.

We took another trip this month - to Orlando, Florida, so Mama could go to a conference, and you and Baba could meet with Grandpa and Grandma and hang out with them. Our trip down was a bit hairy - your carseat got lost in the abyss of Midway Airport, so we ended up borrowing a carseat from a supervisor at the Southwest counter, and you got a very slight head cold from the plane, but I think you enjoyed yourself! We went to Disney World on one day, and you got to swim in a pool with Grandma and Grandpa the other days. While we were in Florida, you didn’t sleep well, but that’s probably because you were working on the shiny new skills you showed off to your grandparents: you rolled from back to belly and then propped yourself up to a seated position (all while I was trying to change your diaper - so your poor genitals smashed into the carpet, ow), you started clicking your tongue, and you learned about kissing (although you would only kiss your baba by licking his lips, to his dismay! “Stop french kissing your baba, Matthew!”).

Once you got home, though, all bets were off: your mobility is strong and in a forward-motion and we are in trouble! You are so good at crawling and look like you’ve been doing it forever! You love crawling over to the bookshelves and dumping out Baba’s books. One time when you did that, Baba picked you up and deposited you elsewhere so he could put the books back on the shelves, to find that you had pulled yourself up to a standing position.

Side note - we are in so, so much trouble:

We are still breastfeeding, although my milk supply has really dipped. I am committed to nursing you until you decide to wean, and I hope that’s not for quite awhile. The time during the day when you and I cuddle up and you nurse is probably the most meaningful there is, and the one that really reconnects me to you every day. We have so little time together during the week and it’s those small, quiet moments that really make a difference.

Foods you’ve eaten (you’ve pretty much liked them all!): sweet potatoes, butternut squash, multigrain rice cereal (to thicken up the other foods), acorn squash, green beans, carrots, pears, chicken, turkey, avocado, banana, cheerios, raspberries, blueberries and a few others I’m not remembering. You really like eating (shocker), and you love mushing your foods. Ava, for one, is THRILLED about your food.

Nine months - you have officially been alive as long as you were while you were in utero. It amazes me that you were once so small that you could barely be seen as a bump on my belly, but are now a strong, interdependent, charming and happy little boy who is so curious about everything and anything. We are enjoying you so much - you are such a fun person to spend time with! I hope that as the months and years pass, your love and curiousity about other people and things stays as rich as it is now.

All of my love,

Mama

(Pictures from this last month - get your daily dose of chunk right there)

One more amusing thing on PumpGate’07 - a comment I received that amused me for the irony, oh the sweet irony:

If Marriott had any business sense, it should dump you as a customer – you are unreasonable, unstable and an endangerment to its guests and employees.

Christina is right - I am unstable. I tripped over my shoes today like four times. I think I’m learning how to walk just as much as Matthew is.

Last week, I walked to the post office to drop a package off and while on my way out, I picked up a Change of Address packet, in preparation for our move. I should also note that the only thing we’ve done so far to prepare for our move is to dance a little once we found out we’d gotten accepted for this apartment, and then I picked up this Change of Address packet.

Tonight, I opened up the packet and figured I’d peruse the coupons and fill out the actual change of address order, and realized that I have to go get another packet - because apparently to change your address for an “entire family”, you have to do it for individuals if anyone has a different last name.

I have to go to the post office anyway, so I’ll pick one up, but man, how annoying. We must be the only family who has more than one last name.

Matthew is one day shy of 9 months. Holy crap!

Swiped from Stacie:

9th Month Developmental Milestones

90% of babies can…
bear some weight on legs - yes
look for dropped object - yes, and shout indignantly if it is not replaced ASAP OMG MAMA OPPRESSES ME

75% of babies can…
pull up to a standing position from sitting - yes
creep or crawl - yes
get into a sitting position from stomach - yes
object if you try to take a toy away - the tears, man. The TEARS!
stand holding on to someone or something - yes
pick up tiny object with thumb and finger - when he wants to. Other times he doublefists Cheerios with abandon.
say “mama” or “dada” indiscriminately - yes
play peekaboo - loves this game!

50% of babies can…
play patty-cake or wave bye-bye - no
walk holding on to furniture - no, but we have no real space for him to do this yet.
understand “no” - yes, but I think he is trying to play innocent!

25% of babies can…
roll ball back and forth to parent - no
drink from a cup - yes, but not neatly!
pick up tiny object neatly - when he wants to
stand alone momentarily - no
stand alone well - no
say mama or dada discriminately - didn’t I just answer this? yes
say one word other than mama or dada - not yet
respond to one step command with gestures - I’m not sure we’ve ever tried this. Must work on it.

I closed the comments to the first post that caused TEH DRAMAZZZZ OMG. Others might have their own opinion, but that’s why God created blogspot.com. Feel free to post yours there.

I would like to also note that I posted every single comment that came in (well, except for the ones about viagra and something about a grandmother and a donkey), even these:

“I think you are over reacting and all breastfeeding Mom are tainted by your hysterical sounding stance.”

“And I might add, your second correspondence to Marriott is completely unprofessional, hysterical and over the top….Sad thing is, overreactions such as yours are what give folks such a bad taste in their mouth for “breastfeeders”.”

“Oh for god sakes. It’s people like you who give other women a bad name. Making such a damn fuss about something — seriously, get a grip.”

I think that should be my new tagline - Giving Women A Bad Name Since 2007. I live to give. At any rate, I don’t need to pay for others to share their opinions like that. So I closed it.

I also can’t help but think that this entire situation would have been vastly different if the manager for the hotel had written back with something less trite. I would have been posting an entry about what a wonderful response I’d gotten.

However, enough about me. Let’s talk about me.

I pulled out my film SLR the other day and have been taking some pictures of Matthew with it. I’d like to get a DSLR but that’ll have to wait until after the move (we’re moving to a two bedroom apartment - hallelujah!) and after we save up enough money to do so. At any rate, I’m just waiting for the weather to stop sucking ass long enough for natural sunlight to come in - even with the flash and all the lights on here, there’s still not quite enough light.

Do you have a digital SLR? What kind do you have? Do you like yours?

First off, thanks for your support and solidarity. It is muchly appreciated. I am a little agog about the comments and emails that have come in.

There were a few people who thought, apparently, that I should have done more work before going to the conference. Sure, I could have. Next time I go to a Marriott and if I am still pumping at that point, I will have the manager’s name in the ready in case I can’t get somewhere private to pump.

A few points of clarification…

- I did ask the “help” station at the conference (for lack of a better term). They referred me to the hotel’s front desk. As I wrote to the Marriott below, a copy of this letter will certainly be sent to the organizers for the future.

- I never asked for a guest room to pump in. All I wanted was somewhere private that wasn’t a bathroom. If I was at one of the other conference hotels, I would have simply gone back there, or since my son was with me, I would have had my husband bring him to me so he could nurse. However, since I wasn’t staying at any of the official conference hotels, it was just me and my pump. I was at a conference center once and when I asked if there was anywhere for me to pump, the woman thought for a moment, and then jumped up to give me her office for the 20 minutes I needed. Now, THAT is customer service.

- I expected more from the Marriott because I have in the past pumped at a Marriott and the front desk clerks were MORE than accommodating.

- Some people think I should have pumped in the bathroom. One also thought my second letter was hysterical. I was ready to pump wherever I could - my pump adapter had fresh batteries in it. That’s not the point.

The point of the matter is that we should not have to. I shouldn’t have to relegate myself to a bathroom to pump because of the lack of courtesy and training from these people at the Marriott. Working and pumping mothers deserve better. It is not too much to ask for, as I said below as well as to the person, “A door, an outlet, and some privacy.” It is not too much to ask not to listen to people urinate and defecate. Don’t we deserve better? That’s all I want.

And if I sound hysterical, well, maybe I was. I have been battling supply issues for the last few months. I just defrosted my last bag of frozen breastmilk. I donated over 266 ounces of breastmilk (that had dairy in it) and as things happen, my son probably doesn’t have a milk protein allergy. I am staring down formula supplementation, and it is killing me.

Forgive a little hysteria for wanting to do well by my son AND not degrade myself in the process. What the hell was I thinking.

The Backstory.

I was recently at a conference down in Orlando, Florida. This was a pretty big conference - over 9500 registered participants in my field, and because it’s a family-friendly locale, a lot of participants brought their families.

Because of the size of the conference, official conference activities were spread out over two hotels, with sessions at both, and participants staying at both hotels as well. I was at the Orlando Marriott World Center when I needed to pump. I went to the front desk and explained that I was a breastfeeding mother and asked for a space for me to pump milk. The front desk clerk hemmed and hawed and said, “Oh, you can use a restroom.”

Oh, snap.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse to use a restroom. It’s an inappropriate place and I just won’t. All I need is an outlet and a door,” I said. She hemmed and hawed and asked another clerk, who shrugged her shoulders and told her to find a supervisor to ask. The clerk disappears behind the desk and reappears a few minutes later.

“I’ll call down to the spa and see if we can find you a place.” She dials and is on the phone for a good five minutes - in the meantime I spot a friend of mine and go over to talk to him. “I’m sorry, the spa is entirely full and there’s nothing I can do.”

“There’s nothing? All I need is an outlet and a door. I just need twenty minutes - tops.” She shook her head and repeated herself lamely.

I walked away, fuming silently. My friend saw me and after me telling him what was going on, gave me the key to his room so I could go up and pump. By this point I was about an hour after I’d wanted to pump - before coming to the hotel, I was stuck on a shuttle bus from the other conference hotel that broke down and overheated. It was not a fun afternoon.

The first letter.

The more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. So I wrote a letter and submitted it to the main Marriott website.

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently visited the Orlando World Center Marriott, not as a guest of the hotel itself but as a member of a conference.

I am a working mother. I am also a breastfeeding and pumping mother. Imagine my surprise and horror when I asked the front desk for a private place to pump, and first being offered a bathroom, and then being told that in the entire hotel, there was no place at all for me to pump. I told the front desk clerk that all I needed was some privacy, a door, and an outlet to plug my pump into. Ten minutes and several phone calls to supervisors and to the spa later and it was determined there was nowhere for me to pump.

I am pretty dismayed. On a practical level, I have specific time limits in which pumping is productive and pumping outside of those time limits hurts my supply. On a personal level, I am deeply offended that my decision to work full-time, support my family, and provide breastmilk for my son, was thwarted by the ignorance and unwillingness of your staff to assist. I find it pretty outrageous that in Orlando, Florida, a family-friendly tourist-heavy city, that at the Orlando World Center Marriott I could not be deigned a small room to pump. I find it difficult to believe that in a conference of nearly 10,000 participants, I was the only one who needed a place to pump. The expression of milk is probably one of the basic things a working mother can do to demonstrate her family commitment. The Orlando World Center Marriott did not permit me to do so.

I am not asking for any financial recompense for this, since I paid money to the conference organization for my conference registration, and they in turn paid you for use of your facilities. I will be writing them a letter describing this incident and urging them to investigate and use more family-friendly and certainly more breastfeeding/ pumping-friendly facilities from now on. I would, however, appreciate an apology from the staff or an acknowledgement regarding what policies or procedures will be put into place to make sure that this experience is not repeated again by any other working mother.

A prompt response to this concern is appreciated and expected.

Best regards.

I sent that on Friday. I received a confirmation on Saturday, the 7th, and a response from the general manager of the Orlando World Center Marriott today.

The Way Not To Write An Apology Letter.

The letter:

Thank you for taking the time to share your recent visit to the Orlando World Center Marriott; and more in particular, our inability to provide you with a place to pump your milk. As you know, your comments have been shared with me so I could directly respond to your concerns.

I regret our associates appeared to be insensitive to your request, however, the hotel was sold out and a space to meet your needs was not available. While we strive to positively respond to our guests, it isn’t always possible. I regret the unpleasant feelings this matter caused you and extend my sincerest apology.

Sincerely,

Phil Coffey, General Manager
Orlando World Center Marriott
8701 World Center Drive
Orlando, FL 32821
Phone: 407-238-8571

At this point I think my head has exploded. I was annoyed before, but now I am outraged and upset.

My second letter.

Dear Mr. Coffey,

Your associates didn’t “appear” to be insensitive, they were insensitive. Do you know what it’s like to provide nourishment and food for another human being? Do you know how working mothers pump breastmilk? Do you know how it’s done? Do you arrange your expensive food for your guests to be catered in your facility bathrooms? Do your chefs have to work in an environment where they hear people urinating and defacating?

Orlando bills itself as a family-friendly city. This one insensitive act may have hurt my breastmilk supply, which I’ve been working so hard to maintain for the benefit of my family - my son. Not providing a family room, which the OTHER hotel involved with this conference did provide, strikes me as a very family-unfriendly act.

You do not regret the unpleasant feelings this caused me and I don’t believe your apology at all. I have an incredibly hard time believing that at the Orlando World Center Marriott I was and am the only mother to ever need a place to pump breastmilk. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that your hotel has never had an employee who chose to breastfeed and pump their milk for their child. I have a hard time believing that there was no space anywhere in your entire hotel where I could have pumped in private. Do you not have offices for your employees? Meeting rooms for your employees?

Actually, I take that back - if your employees’ experiences were anything like mine, I can totally understand why they don’t breastfeed, what with the lack of support and resources.

At any rate, your apology rings hollow and false, content notwithstanding, because of your use of the word “however”. That small word negates everything preceding it. As described by my husband, “Ah yes, the old, ‘I accept total responsibility but it wasn’t my fault at all.’”

If I were in your shoes and had received a letter from a mother like me, I would have written something to the effect of the following.

Dear Ms. Working Mother:

I am truly sorry to hear about your negative experience at the Orlando World Marriott Center. We strive to respond positively to our guests and in this case, we did not meet your expectations. I will be reviewing our policies and procedures and training our staff to appropriately respond to the needs of all of our guests, and provide appropriate facilities for working mothers to pump breastmilk.

If you do have a chance to visit Orlando again, please give us another chance.

That’s all. I don’t want a room comped for a visit, I don’t want a gift certificate, I just want an apology that doesn’t have conditions attached. I want a working mom to go to a conference and be able to maintain her breastfeeding relationship with her child. I want a working mom to be able to balance it all and more, and not have to do it in a bathroom, as if she had to be ashamed to pump milk or to nurse her child. I am not ashamed. I am proud of the work I have done.

I will be sending this letter along to every executive at the Marriott I can find, as well as passing this along on my website. I have a feeling I am not the only one who feels as outraged about this pithy response and reaction.

Yours sincerely.

There.

Matthew’s moving forward.

One guess as to who has not babyproofed.

So, we went to Florida, and came back again. Nothing too terribly remarkable about the trip, to be honest - I went to a conference, Josh and Matthew spent time with his parents. Matthew slept for shit on the trip.

I am tired, but I am going to spare anyone the effort of typing into a comment box - you win. You are more tired than I am, okay?

It’s easter Sunday, and as heathens who are not celebrating, we have very little planned. It’s a regular weekend - Josh is working, I am babywrangling. In a little bit I am thinking of taking Matthew out to get some pastries for lunch.

We asked Josh’s parents this weekend to be Matthew’s guardians if something fatal should fall upon the two of us. We also asked a friend of mine here to take charge of Matthew (of course, if we’re still in Chicago) until Josh’s parents could come and get him. I cried both times. I have become such a sap. I can’t imagine not being here for Matthew’s future.

Matthew is such fun right now. He’s figured out how to crawl - just enough - to get to the books and pull them down from the shelves. He’s fascinated with Philip K. Dick right now and aims just for those books. He clicks his tongue a lot now, and the latest fun thing he’s done, from the annals of “The Joy of Breastfeeding,” is that when he’s nursing, sometimes he’ll unlatch, I’ll be distracted, and I’ll feel a sharp pinch. It’s not his teeth - it’s his fingers. He’ll be concentrating and poking at my nipple, and then grab it. His fingernails are like razors.

My milk supply is decreasing daily. I think I’ve come to terms with it. I have only 14 ounces in the freezer saved up. Since Friday I didn’t pump any (I forgot my pump parts, and Josh and Matthew came up for lunch so he could nurse), I have to make up 8 ounces for Monday. And for some reason, Mondays and Tuesdays are my lower pumping days - it’s like my body readjusts and realizes it has to produce later in the week. I’m just afraid he’s going to really hate the smell and taste of Alimentum, even if we mix it with breastmilk. I will worry about that later.

Also, what you’re probably really here for, pictures from our trip to Orlando.