It is a sacred rite It is a sacred right It is a maddening career It is a controversial choosing It is an extension of your woman-hood It is a teaching of the totality of Life in too few semesters It is a heart-wrenching loss of control It is a seething curse of protective urges It is a withering of hope with age It is a longing for timelessness It is a longing for less time It is unsettling It is grounding It is everything It is separate It is pain It is grief It is light It is life It is love It is hurt It is silent It is deafening It is hard It is hardening It is softening It is soft It is. Mothering is mine. -Moni Padula copyright 2016

Last year, I asked a photographer friend of mine to take some photos of my son and I, who was still breastfeeding to celebrate a year of breastfeeding and also to follow up after having a picture of my pregnancy with that same son entered into an  art exhibit by an artist friend who had painted a portrait of me after giving her a picture my husband had taken. I find in this society the beauty of how the woman's body was created to grow a child, give birth, and nurture and nourish the baby is vastly underplayed. I wanted to capture that beauty and celebrate it. This year, to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week from August 1-7, I contacted that same photographer who agreed to do another shoot for me, with the same son and my infant. My son Kendrick is tandem nursing, meaning nursing at the same time as or together with his baby brother. I never knew about tandem nursing before seeing it on Instagram and reading about it on Facebook breastfeeding support group forums...

I feel like I keep writing the same thing over and over again, possibly because I'm thinking the same things over and over again. The same thoughts and questions about existence, God, spirituality, raising children, being a good partner, what to expect from my partner, how to resist being unhealthy in mind and body...these thoughts pervade my mind constantly, and I never know if I find acceptable answers to them, or find peace about them. Take the first three for example: If everyone has a thought about What Is, about Who Is, and about inevitable death and the afterlife, the question remains as to who is right? But my question has been, does it really matter who is right? We all end up at Death's door in the end, and we will all have to pass from this life to another, where we don't really know what will happen from experience. After our spirit passes, we will all find out one way or another, but we won't be able to share that with those who are still on this side of ...

I am writing this subjectively, which is good, because it shows just how much a woman can be shaken to her core when her womanhood is questioned, threatened, demoralized, and abused by other woman because of exercising her right to physically breastfeed in public...without a cover. Let me begin by getting out all of the things that have been freely said to me as I voiced my questions to the common social mores of today regarding this highly-uneducated area of sensitivity. "Women have a responsibility to stay modest while they breastfeed." "I'm all for public breastfeeding, but I don't want to see your breasts." "It's fine, but she shouldn't let it all hang out." "That's what blankets are for" (from a gay man). "That's private." "You will cause men to lust" "How would you feel if a woman just walked up to your husband and exposed herself to him?" These are all generalized statements...

I have so missed writing in my blog. I think about writing all the time. It's just that most of my outbursts are focused on Facebook; it's quicker, easier, and I get a quicker social fix since people respond more quickly than they do to clicking an outside link and then commenting. But I do realize the need to compartmentalize the busyness that goes on in my mind and direct more to my blog. That way people can have a choice in the verbal vomit I subject them to. Mothering has been very tiring recently. Still one of my top fav things to do, but being 20 weeks pregnant and experiencing the lovely fatigue that goes with that is pretty limiting. For example, a month and a half ago, decided to try preparing for a piano competition that is in my current state of Texas. The only issues I saw were that I had JUST found the competition, and just shy of two months to prepare for it. That means an entire 40 minutes worth of memorized music by a composer I have habitually avoided in th...

This was a requested blog topic:  America's (tainted) view of the Mother's Body.  I have a couple of websites I want you to go check out before you read the rest of this. A complete visual guide of mothers and their body-battles BabyCenter polls 7,000 who "tell it like it is"...the truth about the postpartum body Check out this comment from a body image expert about what women think about themselves postpartum: Joan Chrisler, a body image expert who teaches at Connecticut College, isn't surprised. "Lots of studies have shown that women think men want them to be thinner than men really want them to be," she says. "Researchers will show women sketches of female figures and ask, which do you think men believe is the ideal? Men always pick significantly bigger sizes than women think they want." So if your mate says you look great, believe it. Check out this comment from the BabyCenter article about what OTHER people think about women p...