In time for the Christmas season (and in time, too, for the celebration of the Feast of Mary as the Mother of God later this week), the Inquirer published a story this morning mentioning the Vatican's approval of images of Mary breastfeeding Baby Jesus.
According to the article, the Vatican in 2008 announced that it wanted more breastfeeding pictures of the Virgin Mary. 
by Andrea Solari circa 1507.
Apparently, such images were more common in pre-Reformation years of Christianity. However, sensibilities began to change with the arrival of the modern age and the Protestant movement. A Catholic News Service report from June 2008 notes pictures depicting Our Lady's naked breast were deemed too 'unseemly,' and paintings of a nursing Mary disappeared in around the 16th or 17th century. Christian historians lament that this attempt to make Mary seem less "carnal" also "diminished her human, loving and tender side."
The article from CNS also quotes Salesian Father Enrico dal Covolo, a professor of classic and Christian literature, who points out an interesting paradox in the image of a nursing Mary: "He who gives nourishment to all things, Mary included, now lets himself be nourished by her.... The Virgin Mary who nurses her son Jesus is one of the most eloquent signs that the word of God truly and undoubtedly became flesh."
As a nursing mom and as a Catholic, I find it comforting to know that Mary probably went through a lot of the same breastfeeding woes that we go through. This includes the good old baby-distracted-in-the-middle-of-nursing episode depicted perfectly by 15th century painter Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio here:
I'll end this post with this painting from 1628 by Orazio Gentileschie. It's timely, because it depicts a scene from the Flight to Egypt, which happened shortly after the birth of Christ. And if you're a nursing mom, I'm sure you can relate to this middle-of-the-night experience:
Happy Christmas to all!
(Thanks, too, to Jowan for mentioning the Inquirer article in an email to us!) 
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The answers to these questions might surprise you, as they did me. I came across these questions and the answers to them in NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
NurtureShock
I've only finished reading two-thirds of the book, but it has already opened my eyes to a lot of mistaken presumptions I'd had about parenting. It has also provided evidence-based support for some of the notions about education I had intuited before, such as the importance of teaching young children how to think and how to become learners, rather than teaching them to memorize letters and numbers.
If you've already read the book and want more from the authors, they maintain a blog at Newsweek.com.
Now, as for the questions I enumerated at the start of this post, here are the answers:
(1) Very unreliable. The correlation between tests taken before kindergarten and achievement tests taken two years later is 40%. And the success rate for identifying gifted children based on tests taken at kindergarten is even worse: for every hundred students who are identified as gifted in kindergarten, only 27% of them will still deserve that label five years later. You're better off flipping a coin.
(2) It isn't talking a lot to your baby that most helps her develop language skills. Rather, it's responding to your baby when she tries to communicate--such by touching her immediately whenever she babbles, or naming objects that she is looking at--that helps the most.
(3) Also very unreliable; after hearing the story, some kids lied a little more than usual. "George Washington and the Cherry Tree" is a better story to tell your children.
(4) No; children who are praised for their intelligence tend to become underachievers later on in life. Children perform better when they are praised for working hard. Share
A friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to this beautiful article. The title: what should a 4-year-old know?
"... She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.... She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she's wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvelous. She should know that it's just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practice phonics...."
"But more important, here's what parents need to know.... That every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and that it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra.... That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books... That being the smartest or most accomplished kid in class has never had any bearing on being the happiest. We are so caught up in trying to give our children 'advantages' that we're giving them lives as multi-tasked and stressful as ours. One of the biggest advantages we can give our children is a simple, carefree childhood...."
It's sometimes difficult to remember these things, so this reminder is refreshing. One thing I tell myself is that Waldorf-educated children don't learn to read until they're seven, and they turn out fine ... if not more artistic and more creative than children in more traditional schools. :)
The full article is here.
I love the final line. "What does a 4 year old need? Much less than we realize, and much more." Share
My friend Toni over at Wifely Steps gave birth just a few months ago, and she wrote an amazing blog post about the struggles that come with being a breastfeeding mom.
"While I did read up a lot on breastfeeding, I still wanted needed support from others," she writes. "It was surprising how comments like 'Matutuyuan ka rin, mga two weeks.' ('You’ll dry up in two weeks.') or 'Are you sure you’re giving him enough milk? You should give him formula already' could be so demotivating. I felt like nobody believed I could breastfeed at all.... What worked for me ... [was declaring] 'Look, I want to try this out okay? This means a lot to me, and I would really appreciate if you could help me out.'"
Her blog post enumerates several different sources of stress, and she shares terrific tips on how to deal with them if you're going through something similar. You can read the rest of Toni's post here. Share
Two nights ago, my son woke up at 2:30 AM, crying and calling "Mama, mama" over and over again. He refused to nurse. He wouldn't pay attention to me when I tried to speak soothingly to him. He kept pointing in the direction of the bathroom door, but when I brought him into the bathroom, he continued to cry. I tried changing his nappy, but it didn't work. I tried distracting him with toys, with singing, with talking; nothing calmed him. He was inconsolable for almost 10 minutes. The only thing that worked was me taking him outside of the room and putting him in a new environment.
It was the first time that that had happened. He has had nightmares before, but never one that was this upsetting. This was also the first time that breastfeeding was not enough to comfort him.
I felt bad for him, and I feel bad, too, that there is no way for me to know what his dream was. He's only 13 months old, so he has less than 10 words in his vocabulary.
I was comforted to find out the following day, however, that nightmares are common among toddlers. I had just bought a copy of Smart Parenting's Guide to the Toddler Years and purely coincidentally, I read it yesterday and stumbled upon the section about toddler nightmares. Toddlers still have difficulty distinguishing between dreams and reality, the book explained, and this is why nightmares can be so upsetting.
The book's advice was to assure the child, validate his fear, and find out the possible source of the nightmare. These weren't applicable to my son, though, since his language skills aren't that developed yet. But bearing in mind the explanation that young children can't distinguish between dreams and reality, I suppose the best thing we can do for our children is to help them feel that the reality they are in is safe and filled with love and comfort, and not with whatever scary things that are upsetting them.
Photo by Mehmet Goren.
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Pinoybaby Store products are now available at Spoiled! Store at Goldland Millenia Suites in Ortigas Center.
The complete address is: Mezzanine floor, Goldland Milleniua Suites, Escriva Drive, Ortigas Center, Pasig. The official launch isn't until next year but it's already on soft opening beginning tomorrow. Store hours this weekend are 11 AM to 8 PM, but beginning December 7th, it will be open Mondays to Sundays except Thursdays, from 10 AM to 8 PM.
Aside from Pinoybaby Store items you can also browse through hard-to-find nursing and maternity wear, baby clothes, diaper bags, toys, and other products for the new/expectant mom and her baby, all brought to you by Pinay mompreneurs!
If you have any questions about the stocks we'll be carrying at Spoiled! Store, please feel free to send me a message by clicking here. Share
