i hate me some people.

i'm just gonna do a giant copy and paste from 'the lactavist' blog, cuz her post has all the info in it straight up, and i don't wanna fuck it up in translation. but let me just say this--i hate people who are stupid on purpose. and this here? this is a classic example of stupid on purpose. how much you wanna bet the daycare owner formula fed her kids, and has that whole guilt/hate thing for moms who breastfeed. anyway. here's the blog.

Now if this one won't get your feathers ruffled, I don't know what will. It's about ten times more important that we spread the word on this than it was to spread the word about the Pork incident ladies, so please help me out.

Here's the deal...

There's a mother named Robin Neorr here in the Columbus area. After her daughter was born late last year and she went back to work, she enrolled her daughter in one of the City Kids Daycare in downtown Columbus.

Robin was told that she would need to pay an extra $50 per WEEK because her 3 month old daughter is breastfed. You read that right, an extra $50 a week to feed that little girl the best food available for her.

Why?

Well, Robin was given several reasons.

She was told that her milk was a hazardous body fluid that had to be kept separate from all other food. As such, the day care center kept the prepared bottles of breast milk in a separate refrigerator in the director's office. (They even labeled it with a "bio-hazard" sticker, apparently confusing breast milk with, I don't know...uranium?) They also claimed that they would have to purchase a separate warming pot for heating up the breast milk. In other words, they had to go through SOOO much extra trouble that they would have to charge her an extra fee.

What was their reasoning for needing all this extra fuss over breastmilk? Well, Robin was never really able to find out the answer to that question.

The Centers for Disease Control does NOT consider breast milk to be a fluid that requires "special precautions." The Ohio Department of Health also does not consider breast milk to require any special handling. In fact, when I searched the Ohio Administrative Code, I stumbled across Chapter 12, which covers the Rules for Licensed Child Care Centers. I found it VERY interesting to read the section on "Infant formula and food."

Here are a few snippets from it...


Center policies and practices shall support parent preferences in infant feeding, including breast feeding and introduction of solid foods as long as developmentally appropriate and not detrimental to the health of the child.

Infants shall be served food in conformity with dated written instructions from the parent or guardian or physician. The instructions shall include amounts of food, type of food, and feeding times and be updated as needed based upon the child's needs and parent's instructions.


Now, it gets more interesting if you keep digging. Here's what it says about the requirements for day care centers as they handle bottles of breast milk.


If breast milk is provided by the parent or guardian, it shall be labeled with the child's name and the date of receipt and immediately refrigerated or frozen. Refrigerated breast milk shall not be stored for more than twenty-four hours. Breast milk shall be kept frozen no more than two weeks.


and...


If formula or breast milk is to be warmed, bottles shall be placed in a container of hot (not boiling) water or be placed in a commercial bottle warmer. The container of water shall be emptied and cleaned each day. The bottle shall be shaken well, and the milk temperature tested before feeding. Frozen breast milk shall be thawed under cold running water or in the refrigerator.


and...

The unused portion of formula, breast milk or food remaining in a container from which the infant has been directly fed, shall not be reheated or served again.

Now, that doesn't really seem so tough does it? Take a gander at what's required for the handling of formula...


Bottles prepared at center: when infant formula is prepared by the center, it shall be prepared in conformity with written instructions from the parent or guardian, or physician. All powdered or concentrated formula shall be prepared according to the manufacturers' instructions unless written instructions from a physician or an advance practice nurse certified to prescribe medication are on file at the center.


and...


The center shall clean and disinfect all counter surfaces and equipment needed to prepare the formula. All equipment shall be washed in a dishwasher or scrubbed with hot water containing soap, and be thoroughly rinsed. Equipment not washed in a dishwasher shall be boiled for five minutes or more just prior to filling bottles. Handwashing facilities shall not be used for formula or food preparation or for rinsing or washing dishes and bottles. Handwashing facilities shall not be used for formula or food preparation, or for washing dishes and bottles or rinsing for reuse.


and...

Open containers of ready to feed and concentrated formula shall be covered, dated and refrigerated. Prepared formula and food shall be discarded if not used within twenty-four hours.

and...

Any formula or food to be stored at the center for any period of time, whether prepared by the parent or guardian or the center, shall be labeled with the child's name and date of preparation and shall be used only for the intended child.

and...


Until used, all formula or food shall be refrigerated immediately after preparation or upon arrival if prepared by the parent or guardian. Formula or food that is commercially prepared may not be required to be refrigerated until after opening. Formula and food shall be stored no longer than twenty-four hours.


Now tell me...which one do YOU think requires more work?

Exactly.

Here's where it gets even more interesting. One of the posters on the AP Village discussion forum called City Kids to ask about enrolling their own child. According to her post, here's what she was told:

"Well, I have to see, I think there is a new policy about breastmilk. We might charge extra or maybe we aren't taking them any more. It's nothing with me or the director but the owner has a problem with breastmilk."

When asked by the caller if they were serious she stated that "all day care centers are going to this policy soon."

Yeah, can you even believe it?

Now Ohio does have legislation giving moms legal protection when they breastfeed in public but it currently has no laws on the books in regards to the use of breast milk in day care centers. In fact, only the state of Louisiana has a law (House Bill 233) making it illegal for day care centers to discriminate against breastfed children.

Robin understandably wanted to avoid negative press while her daughter was still being cared for at the center. However, her daughter's last day was Tuesday and Robin is now on a crusade to not only spread the word about this day care center that has chosen to discriminate against breastfed children but also to push for new Ohio legislation that would keep this same situation from happening to other breastfeeding moms.

So, what do we need you to do?

First, help spread the word. It took all of two days for the National Pork Board to change their course when faced with the onslaught of phone calls and emails from the Lactivist community. If we can mobilize to protect one web site then we sure as heck can mobilize to show day care centers that we will not stand for this type of discrimination against breastfed babies. So please, blog the article, post it in your favorite discussion forums, get the word out.

Second, make your voice heard with the parties involved. Patricia Elam has owned and operated the downtown Columbus and Hilliard City Kids centers since 1989. If you'd like to contact her to let her know what you think of her center's policies, you can email City Kids at citykidsdaycar@aol.com or you can call either of their centers at (614) 464-1411, or (614)777-4320.

If you are a Central Ohio mom and would be on board for a potential nurse-in at City Kids Daycare, please drop me an email so that I can start building a contact list. If you are a mom anywhere in Ohio, please give serious thought to contacting your local representatives and your state senators about the need to push through legislation that would protect breastfed children.

If you are a lawyer or know one that might be interested in taking on a civil suit against City Kids Day Care, get in touch with me and I'll get you in touch with Robin. If you are a reporter that would like to cover the story, drop me a note and I will DEFINITELY get you in touch with Robin.

We can not let day care centers dictate what we feed our children.

knitty

happy vd!

so it was a good day today. i woke up to this
which was really nice. balloons and a card are a fantastic way to start a day after a night with a snotty baby who wasn't all that into anything but nursing all. night. long. until 430am, that is, when she decided to wake up and be adorable. she sat up and crawled over me to get to her daddy, and laid her head on his shoulder. i thought she was going to sleep there, but about 2 minutes later, she popped up and started to sing the bull frog song. and tickled us, and hopped on the bed, and hopped on us, and sang more songs, and asked 'daddy, want some apple juice please?' and then proceeded to chug down like, 2/3rds of a sippy cup. (that was one hella diaper, i tell you what.) so we slept in today. and then we made valentines cards for daddy and nammah. gene made dinner tonight, and it was fantastic. chicken with capers and olives and lemonbutter on rice. that right there, is why he's my babydaddy. and then he unloaded the dishwasher. and now, he's in bed with the peanut, and i'm thinking about how glad i am, that he's in my world.

so, peanut has hit a new milestone, in that she's very certain about what she wants to eat. if you ask her, she will tell you exactly what she wants. she has odd taste. this morning, she wanted dwy cheeweeos, and fries. yesterday, it was eggs. tonight, tho, she was all about that capery olive chicken rice thing. and when i laid her down tonight, she stirred a little bit, and said in her sleep 'want chicken! want RICE!' but then promptly started snoring, so i haven't made it to the kitchen yet.

i have other cute things to post, but that'll have to wait, cuz i have a playdate, LLL thing tomorrow, and it's early, so i should sleep.

yeah. what he said.

punk knitters remix

koolaid dyed with black cherry koolaid. here's what i did..

presoaked in hot water with half a tablespoon of ecover dishwashing liquid

brought 4 packs of koolaid and 6 cups of water and half a cup of vinegar to letting off steam temp

added soaker

accidentally let it start to boil...turned heat WAY down

pulled soaker partway out with tongs to see if i'd effed up and felted it.

sighed with relief when my stitch definition was still there.

let it simmer for like, 25 minutes, till the water was close enough to clear

used tongs to move the soaker into a plastic bowl of cold water for like, 45 seconds

rinsed with ecover and warm water

lanolinised with lansinoh and monkeyfarts baby bath from northernessence.com

hung to dry

took it down to take pictures

hung back up to dry.

and that is how i made my punk knitters soaker even punkier.

then, i took it down again, and felted the crotch to better waterproof it. cuz my stockinette is big. word.

sweeeeeeeet

punk knitters diaper soaker.

this is the soaker i started after i finished the sweater. it's a superfast knit, i started it day before yesterday, and finished it this morning (well, i finished the i-cord this afternoon). i might koolaid dye it, but i haven't decided yet. it's either that, or knit the butterfly from the 'butterflies are free' scarf in SnB nation. i'm torn. maybe i'll do both.

new finished knitting! w00t!

this is the easy baby cardigan from vogue knitting baby knits. it still needs pockets, but other than that, BOOM! it's a sweater. my model is napping, so these are just pix of the sweater.

six weird things

i got tagged by kidlets mum to do the six weird things. i lurve getting tagged. it makes me feel all special. so. here goes.

1. i HATE having my knees touched. totally skeeves me out. i can't deal with it. not even when peanut does it.

2. the sound of styrofoam makes my brain feel like it has a thousand paper cuts. that squeaky sound, you know what i mean? i abhor it. more than any other sound. if i had to pick between listening to styrofoam squeak or nails on a chalkboard, i'd pick nails every single time.

3. i count gene's moles. he's really pale, so i'm always worried that he's going to get skin cancer and we won't notice.

4. i could eat nothing but french fries and diet coke for the rest of my life, and be totally okay with that. (unless i have PMS, and then chocolate of some sort would need to be included.)

5. i narrate stuff in my head. so like, if someone says something to me with a lot of added drama, in my head, i'll say to myself, 'she said, dramatically'. i also have musical soundtracks for stuff in my head. currently, my soundtrack for peanut is fine young cannibals 'she drives me crazy'.

6. i take an absurd pride in never having googled myself, or any significant other.

i am too lazy to tag anyone, but if you feel like doing this, then comment me so i can come learn about you.

tatted meme!

courtesy of WD&I2. you can play here too--if you've got ink, post pix on your blog, then comment here so i can come ogle your tats. here are some poorly shot pix of mine. the first one i got was the butterfly on my back, with the chinese characters which mean 'illuminate life' (or, beef and broccoli, who knows.) then i got the arm band, then the kokopelli, and then the drummer (the words underneath her say 'the rhythms never change').

are ya ache'n? for some bacon?

Behold the lamest move yet by a corporate Goliath. my hotdogs were all beef before, but i guess i'm switchin over to turkey bacon now. join me in a lil piggy boycott, eh?