My blog

For the past couple of months I have been trying to prepare McBaby for his new sister. He refers to himself as a baby, and even though he can talk and walk, and sleeps in a big boy bed, he really still is a baby. I have been pointing out smaller babies to him. He likes to see other babies, and likes to know if they are a boy or a girl, but this may have caused some confusion. McBaby seems to have decided that: I tried for weeks to explain it. Things seemed to go pretty well. But this Sunday, in church I saw him thinking very hard about the family sitting next to us. I think that he thinks there is a 50/50 chance that we will bring a fun woodland creature home with us in a few weeks, and then we will put bows and dresses on it, and then maybe it will become human sometimes??? He might be disappointed...

A friend of mine recently wrote this blog post about " body shaming ". This is something I have been thinking about for a few weeks now, and reading the article has kind of crystallized some thoughts for me. I started thinking about it when I saw an article praising Kate Middleton for showing herself and her fully-clothed post-baby-belly to the world, like a day after she had her baby. Genevieve's article talked about negative comments, but I have started to notice more subtle shaming. I was struck by the negative message that was conveyed in praising the duchess. Someone whose body is not shameful does not have to be brave to be seen in public. Making a big deal about her post-baby-body, even in a supposedly positive way, actually suggests that she has something to be ashamed of. I have also paid more attention to messages about women on TV: I have paid particular attention to how pregnant women are represented on TV:  Not to mention that women in labor are apparently ho...