Saturday, June 13, 2020

"My" Power Surge Group

I wrote this for sharing on the Friends of La Leche League Facebook page, formerly known as LLL Alumni
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When I went to my first La Leche League meeting with my four-month-old, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was given the blue copy of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding when I was pregnant. I devoured the book. I felt at home with everything I read. The friend who gave the book to me told me that if I didn’t have any bottles in the house, I would not be tempted to use them.
My daughter was born in Bangkok, where we were posted to the US Embassy. I really didn’t have anyone to talk to about breastfeeding. There were no La Leche League Groups there at that time.
As soon as I went into that first meeting, back in the States I knew I was “home”. Seeing babies with teeth and shoes who were still nursing was new to me, but I learned about all the various ways we mother our babies.
I started to work on becoming a LLL Leader as soon as I was able to. In fact, I received my Leader card in the mail at my in-law’s house as we were about to leave for another overseas posting.
I never knew back then that I would “still” be in La Leche League. But here I am. Over forty years later I am still an active Leader.
We lived in Poland under communism, and I was not permitted to form a group or hold any kind of meetings. In fact, while we were there it was even illegal to have a printing press. So I did my work by correspondence with La Leche League International. I got my husband’s Polish secretary to help translate basic breastfeeding information into Polish. I then mailed the Polish language information to LLLI in, Illinois. My understanding is that most of the requests for the Polish language breastfeeding information were ordered by Polish Americans and they mailed it back to Poland.
I have many more overseas La Leche League tales to tell. But now I want to write about the wonderful group that grew out of being a La Leche League Leader.
In 1996 we were just starting to write, send and receive email. My family and I were again overseas. This time in Western Australia. I was active with a LLL Group there, but was missing my friends back home. Plus, as much as I love working with mothers and babies, I was entering a new stage of parenting. Teens. Kids leaving home. Aging parents. And hot flashes!
There was an online email listserv for La Leche League Leaders. It was so good to connect. But several of us were in the same boat. We didn’t need support with potty training or night nursing.
Norma Ritter started a group just for “us”. We decided on the name “Power Surge”, or PS. We capped membership at a little over 40 members.
In the last 20+ years we have remained a cohesive group. We have been though some members becoming widows, losing parents, losing children and grandchildren. A few of the members of this group have died as well.
The first time a large number of actually met in person was at the La leche League International Conference in Washington, DC in 1997. I have pictures and memories of that time that I will cherish
One member of the group had an idea. She suggested that we all contribute a bead that we felt represented each our own unique personality. Then we each contributed enough beads for each member to make their own necklace from the beads. When any one of us needs support, prayers and good thoughts we spread out PS Angel wings and wear our beads.
Somewhere I have a list of which bead came from which “PSsister” and why it was chosen. Some were handmade, some purchased. Some were even made of rolled up pages from New Beginnings!


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Comments:

  • Patricia Lawrence Spanjer And because PS was full, some of us formed another group, Spice of LL Life. SOLLL OR SOUL. I am part of that group and we are still going strong/
    12

  • Edie Lindsey Eckman I love this story, and the influence so many LLLLeaders and friends had on my life.

  • Nancy McAvoy Gajdosik ♥️👍♥️ You are truly the epitome of LLL 🥰


  • Jill Levien Interesting to read everyone's LLL journey to leadership. I was not one of those moms who felt instantly at home. In fact I remember being shocked at seeing a toddler who walked and talked and wore shoes climb up onto her mother's lap to nurse.
    Little did I know that 2 years later I was still nursing my oldest when I became pregnant with our middle child. Or that I would tandem nurse my middle and youngest child. .

    • Alice Dench Ziring I think many of us were shocked/surprised to see those first nursing toddlers. ;-)

  • Barbara Mullins Loved reading this, Nancy, and I don't know where my life would have gone without this loving, supportive network of like-minded women! We've been together through family-centered life and birth - and family-centered end of life care.

  • Sarah Ostrowski Simmons 🥰 I am a LLL baby! We lived (well still do actually) in New Castle, PA we drove over 2 hours for meetings in Cleveland, OH. My mom talks about her first meetings much like you described yours. We would meet at a park and she said they would ring a bell for lunch and dozens of "big" kids would pour in! I met my first best friend in that LLL group too. I still talk to the leader from that group and many of the friends my family made in it. Fast forward to me at 25 and I walked into my first LLL meeting as a mom, the whole meeting was spent asking me questions about growing up in LLL :-)

    Sadly shortly later that group in my hometown disbanded :-( .

    Now I am almost 33 years old currently nursing my 2yr old last baby as I write this post. LLL has been such an amazing part of my life and taught me that many moms nurse long, my daughter nursed 33 mos. It also taught me to fight for it while in the hospital with a 36wker. Thank you for all of your lifetime of work to share BF around the world!

    Love
  • Sarah Ostrowski Simmons Sarah Russell i think there is one in boardman, OH. I was in MOPs and most of the moms in that group were crossovers from lll and our local nurse family partnership and wic office are HUGE advocates and have a support group too :-) my biggest personal challenge has been only having 1 car, so that I could stay home with the kids so getting to meetings was a challenge sometimes.

  • Sarah Russell Sarah Ostrowski Simmons that is hard! So much can be done online now... especially since everything shut down a few months ago. If you are interested in pursuing LLL leadership, there is definitely a way to make it happen!

  • Sarah Ostrowski Simmons Sarah Russell awesome I may! It has always been a passion of mine! Kick myself often for not applying for peer counselor at wic a few years ago... I am currently the librarian at New Castle Christian Academy... but LLL leadership is definitely on my heart!
  • Chris Weideman Newlon What a beautiful tale of your continuing journey with LLL. Beautiful and I am just so lucky to have met you in New Orleans!
  • Margie Hord de Mendez What a fascinating story! And in several countries you were able to make an impact, despite limitations. Congrats!
     
  • Babette Cohn Love you Nancy!! This was beautifully said, of course. You continue to inspire all of us who followed in your footsteps as LLL Leaders. I remember that 1997 Conference and how proud we all were to be local leaders in the host city! Angela and I were there with our "babies", with mine turning 23 years old next Wednesday - it still feels like it was yesterday.
     
  • Suki Sil Such wonderful stories, what an amazing international community you helped to build and then build again! Waving at you from Sydney, Australia. Best wishes
    Charmaine Teets I was at that conference! 🤱🏼
  • Janice Pickett Beautiful story. My first LLL meeting was like meeting all my friends even though I didn’t know anyone there. LLL Leaders make a difference because for some reason they can relate to whatever one is experiencing.

  • Kristi Caw Ramey This thread, all these messages make me so happy. My first LLL International Conference was in 97 as well, in DC


  • Kimberli Wall Hartwick What a great life you have lead so far! I would not have been able to enjoy my independent, non-sleeping, constantly nursing, first born had my neighbor not dragged me to LLL of Redlands, CA group when I was pregnant. What a life changing day. By thtime that baby was born I had read the 'blue book' several times and sent it to my Mother. She read it and became a big part of changing how babies in our family were raised from that moment on. I still am a leader too, Children 41,38, 31, and 28 (they have weaned. :) ) Grandmother to 6. Still doing this because I remember how wonderful it was to be helped by a calm voice on the phone, and a group of women who willing shared their experiences.
     
  • Helen Russ Love the connection necklace.
     
  • Jean Moneyhon Nearly thirty of us!
  • Terri Willner I was so lucky to know Nancy as a co leader in VA early in my LLL time and she was a big positive influence on me. My 3 sisters all became Leaders too, and 3 of us were active at the same time in Eastern PA, my daughter claims she was described as part of “that family” when she helped with children’s play area during a conference .... no grand babies for me yet but I think I have a niece applying for leadership now!
     
  • Alice Dench Ziring I, also, felt as if I had 'come home' and 'found my niche' when I found LLL and then became a Leader. I applied for LLL leadership without ever having been to a meeting, as I was living overseas with no local group available. However, I had the old blue book living overseas with no local group available. However, I had the old blue WAB, as well as a copy of Karen Pryor's _Nursing Your Baby_, and I had subscribed to "LLL News", the precursor to "New Beginnings". My application took what seemed to me a very long 6 months, as it was all done by snail mail from overseas. As a fellow Power Surger...named for our perimenopausal 'power surges' (aka hot flashes)...I found a sisterhood that sustains me to this day, even though I retired last year as a Leader...after over 40 years. In addition, I have a number of other wonderful long-time female friends who I met through LLL.

  • Top Fan
    Anne Marie Arsenault Just so beautiful...LLL-ish. My besties are mostly women I met and shared with back in 1970-80's.

  • Sharon Meserole Miller Such an amazing journey! I too felt such relief when I attended my first LLL meeting 46 years ago! I was a young mother ( almost 21), with no friends who had children yet. My husband worked 2nd shift, and many evenings my Dad would come over to keep me company! Back when I was born, there was little encouragement for mothers to nurse. So my Mom and Dad watched me learn to nurture my baby by breastfeeding. They became great supporters over the years as my family grew from 3-7! 5 beautiful girls that I couldn’t be prouder of! When my 2nd daughter arrived, I quickly began the process to become a leader. I moved 3 times through the years, but always found LLL moms to be kind and caring. Now the girls are all grown. And I am so thankful for the growing I had as a mother through the years... Now I have 15 grandchildren who have been nurtured with love! Thank you LLL for touching our lives with much knowledge and a legacy that I hope will continue through generations to come! ❤️

  • Marie Foley-Nielsen I remember making many beads to bring to that conf, I hand painted a gingerbread man as my trademark. My crafting business card reads "The Gingerbread Lady". Did craft shows for thirty or more years, using my earnings to offset the cost of Catholic school tuition for my 8 children. Now my age slows my skill, but will always make gifts. Still miss LLLConf. What ever happened to my necklace?
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Friday, June 12, 2020

When Loving was a crime...

The Richard and Mildred Loving Story

The monumental love story of Richard and Mildred Loving resulted in the landmark Supreme Court case that wiped away the last segregation laws in America.
By Biography.com Editors , |
But the attention would come, and it would change the course of American history.

The couple had to flee Virginia to avoid prison time

In 1958, the couple was jolted out of their bed in the middle of the night and arrested by local Virginia police. Their crime: violating the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which forbid interracial marriage. Although the Lovings were legally married in Washington, D.C., the state of Virginia, which the couple made their home in, was one of more than 20 states that made marriage between the races a crime.

 A local judge allowed the Lovings to flee the state to avoid prison time. The couple decidedly moved to D.C., just two hours away from Virginia, but for the two of them, their whole world — along with their family and friends — was wrapped up in their tiny farming community of Central Point, Virginia. They were simple people who wanted to live a simple life, and they were determined to go back home. After living the next five years in exile and raising their three children, Mildred found an opening.


The Lovings' case went to the Supreme Court

Feeling empowered by the Civil Rights Movement, Mildred wrote to Robert F. Kennedy in 1963 asking for counsel. Kennedy referred her to the ACLU, and it was there that their case eventually went to the Supreme Court. The judges unanimously ruled in favor of the Lovings with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing “the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

The historic ruling led to the overturning of similar statutes in more than a dozen states and ultimately marked the end of segregation laws in America. But for the Lovings, the ruling was simply the freedom to go home and to continue on with their lives, this time, loving without fear.
Although Richard died in 1975 following a car accident, Mildred was able to live long enough to offer her support for gay marriage. On the 40th anniversary of the Lovings' landmark case and a year before her death in 2008, she said in a public statement: “The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone, they have a right to marry.”
To look at the Lovings' legacy (along with their improbable last name), they make the saying "love conquers all" that much more believable. 
 

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Thursday, June 11, 2020

Masks & other things on my mind at the moment

In March, when my social consciousness was aroused, I wanted to do something to help the world.  Corona virus was being recognized as a pandemic and   a serious health concern.

I decided that I would sew masks.  Hundreds of them.  I called the hospital down the road and asked if they needed masks.  They gave me another number to call.  I called that  number and left a message.  Never heard back.  That's okay.  I was not bothered because I figured they were too busy to get back to me.

I got out my fabric.  Printed a few patterns from the internet.  Started cutting up mask patterns from my fabric.  I made two masks and started a third.   Then I stopped.  I am good at sewing and following patterns. But  these patterns got me all confused.

I saw that a friend needed fabric.  I took a bag full to her.   On a crafting page I am on I found that people were having difficulty finding elastic.   So I mailed elastic to a couple of people.

Today while on the phone with another old friend, she mentioned that she has been making masks, but was running out of fabric.  Nick and I drove over, kept social distancing while I put the bag of fabric down in her driveway.   She gave us a couple of masks- that she set down for me to retrieve.   It's so hard to see old friends and have to stand apart.  No hugging.

It's been easier for me than I think it has been for many people.   Nick and I are both home (and now Austin too).  Nick's retired, so doesn't have to go out.   Whatever activities I was involved in are not happening right now, so I am staying put.

I was on a real roll for a while sorting through old letters and filing them in binders.  I still have more binders that I plan to fill.

I found a little spiral notebook.  The kind what you can keep in a pocket or a purse.  There are notes in it from back in 1975 when Nick was first in the Foreign Service.   He wrote in tiny print, the names of possible overseas postings.   I wrote the names of the people I had met in the spouse's class.

There are even a couple of poems that I wrote:

October 12, 1975

The trees looked like broccoli that had gone bad.  Turning yellow and brown against the feathery sky.

Cotton ball clouds  stuck on the poster board blue sky with hunks of school paste.  Lollypop sweet.

Power lines crazing the blue paint.  Hitchhikers looking for a ride to the moon.  And getting there.

Packs on their backs and stars in their eyes.

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Early November 1975

I smack my lips at the delicious weather.  Cheeks blush, chap, sing alive at the wind.   Hair a wild animal grabbing at my eyes.

People dressed like Christmas bundles cursing
the cold under their breath- and loving every minute of it.

Leaves running across a field and into the street.  Stumbling and tripping over each other- giggling the whole time.

A grin full of birds and more crowding the naked  trees trying trying to keep them warm

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This is a sketch of the house where we lived, in College Park, Maryland.  I don't know if Nick or I drew it






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2020? Looking forward to it being hindsight!



















That about sums it up!

I feel like I am running out of the words I need to express how rotten 2020 has been so far!

Corona virus.  Pandemic.  Deniers.  Trump's idiocy first saying it's a hoax, then denying the seriousness of the disease.   Today he says :

(CNN)President Donald Trump is getting what he wants: The country is opening up come what may, despite alarming indications that the coronavirus pandemic is intensifying its assault.
Trump says the virus is now reduced to just the "embers" and "ashes" of a spent pandemic as patience for nationwide lock downs fades and states aggressively open up.
The facts say the opposite. Another 1,299 Americans died on Tuesday and more than 112,000 people in the US have died from the disease. There are now more than 2 million confirmed cases in the United States.
Trump is not marking these deaths, just as he was reluctant to immediately honor the first 100,000 Americans who passed away before that terrible milestone was reached -- barely two weeks ago. And this is well before the feared fall resurgence of Covid-19, in the absence of reliable treatments and with a vaccine still months away.
 We still practice social distancing.  We wear masks in public.  We stay home most of the time .
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Black Lives Matter.  Being Black in this country is dangerous.  Especially a Black man.
I am amazed at how little so many people know about Black history and literature.   There is much that I do not know and may never be able to understand.  But I want to know more.  I try.  I read, took a class in African American Literature.  Yes that's a thing.   I watch TV shows about social injustice.  I am sad and sorry for the way so Black many people have been treated and are being treated.   
I don't think I am perfect.  I do not strive to be perfect.  I want to and strive to be good.  As good a person as I can be.  
At times I feel like the American democracy is dying.   But, maybe the fact that there are so many protests, white and Black people together, is progress .  I can hope.
We can do better.  We must do better.  I hope we will be better.



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Saturday, June 6, 2020

New View of the White House


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Friday, June 5, 2020

such a crazy and sad time

A Black man, George Floyd, died under the knee of a police man.  He was restrained by four cops.  The one on his neck held him down for almost nine minutes while George Floyd cried "I can't breath". Until he couldn't.

Black Lives Matter.  That we have to say that, over and over and over is proof that there is an unforgivable set of social standards that is wrong.  Unacceptable.  Painful.  Change is long overdue.

I am not saying anything new.  I don't have the answers.  I am sad.

I have read so many books about Black "culture"and injustice.  I went to a primarily Black high school.  That doesn't mean I can co opt the feelings and say I understand.   But I emphasize.

African American Literature was one of the classes I took at George Mason.  It should be required for all students- especially white students.

The Mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, has been a positive force for the city and the country.   The fact that Donald Trump dislikes her so much is a testament to what a good person the mayor is.

Mayor Bowser created Black Lives Matter Square on 16th Street facing the White House.







 

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser walks on the street leading to the White House after the words Black Lives Matter were painted in enormous bright yellow letters on the street by city workers and activists Friday, June 5, 2020, in Washington.


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"All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from La Leche League" by Marie Simpson

I have been a La Leche League Leader since 1979. These words sum it all up:
"All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from La Leche League"
by Marie Simpson
People before things.
Give information, not advice.
The heart has its own reasons.
Do it gradually, with love.
Family first.
Trust your instincts.
When you have a question, ask.
Every baby is a new beginning.
Inform, educate, support.
Keep it parent-sized.
Surround yourself with supportive people.
Meet everyone where they are.
Take what you can use and leave the rest.
Even if you disagree, you can come back.
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