I am done with writing all my poems for the breastfeeding book!
I thought I was done.
I am done with the poems, but after talking about it with my wife last night I am not ready to move forward just yet. She suggested I take another pass at the same topics, so the book can be more informational and educational. I worked hard on those poems, but she is right that free myself from the constraints of poetry would allow me to be freer to get to make the book more factual. I was taken aback when she suggested that, but I am comfortable with the idea now. Earlier today I went through my documents and organized them so that all the poems are in a single document with the topic posted at the top of them. Starting tomorrow I will get back to working on them starting with the first.
The goal of this breastfeeding book is to normalize all sorts of breastfeeding relationships (between a mother and her child or children) that are not currently talked about much in modern America. Breastfeeding rates are so low in the United States that a kid who has a younger sibling who will be nursed might feel like an outsider. We want to alleviate that by showing how breastfeeding is just a normal part of family life.
Most kids recognize bottle as pacifiers as symbols of babies. We haven’t had a bottle or pacifier in our home for eight years. Our eldest turned eight before the end of 2018. And before my eight-year-old corrects me, we DID try a pacifier for a week or so for our second so she wouldn’t scream in the car. It didn’t work, so we tossed it. To many that sounds radical, but it isn’t. It is what works best for our family. My wife and I have pushed through a lot of negativity and judgement to stick with it, to continue doing something that we knew enriched our lives because other people saw fit to put in their two cents. This book is an answer to all that negativity and misinformation.
MJ Muñoz 