Wednesday, August 4, 2010

World Breastfeeding Week, Websites, Work and wots more



Instead of making a whole mess of posts ( which does in fact fill up blog space, but isn't feasible right now) I decided to make just one big one. Here's what's been going on in Aruba and my life recently;

This week is world breastfeeding week. Particularly, Aruba celebrates WBW in the 40th week of the year (the last week of septemper/ first week of october) along with Holland. Because of certain changes, we decided to celebrate it twice! YES! We LOVE breastfeeding so much, we are celebrating breastfeeding, not once but, TWICE this year. Isn't that awesome...

So, to mark it as special, our organization, Pro Lechi Mama Aruba , launched our new and improved website!




Finally it is back up and running. This website was and will be a means of dispensing information to Aruban parents in our native tongue, Papiamento. We are very excited about it, and see many wonderful improvements we will make on it. 

Even though this WBW we'll be celebrating more low-key, the one in September/october will be a huge blow out. We're holding our annual quintessence breastfeeding challenge, international babywearing week, and much much more. It's gonna be huge! So stay tuned.

On another note, you may have already noticed that my blog has been lacking a lot these past 3 months. That is because I now work somewhere else and the work load is tremendous. I barely manage to squeeze in time for my family, physical activity and my classes. As much as I love breastfeeding, it has come to the point that I must choose between spending time on my blog, or spending time with my baby (2,5 years still counts as a baby right?), and my kid won't stop growing so that I can finish a post. 

It's very frustrating because I've fallen behind on my studies and I have so little energy left that I cannot read as much as I used to, or would like to. I hope this changes soon. Soon. Soon, I keep consoling myself with that word. Soon.

On the upside, I did finally decide that I will no longer put my physical activity aside, to the detriment of my health. So, after putting Dahlia to bed, at around 8 pm, I get dressed and go to the gym. I enjoy this, and even though sometimes I have to drag myself, I feel much better, and contrary to popular opinion, I have more energy for other endeavors. 

I have also recently started giving bellydance classes to pregnant women. I must say, it's quite the rage and many eyebrows raise when they hear about it. In a good way, that is. I enjoy giving the classes because 1) I LOVE pregnancy and helping moms enjoy their pregnant bodies, 2) I love helping moms learn things they can use throughout their pregnancy and labor, 3) I just love bellydancing. It's a low-impact workout, but it sure makes you work up a sweat! I do allow non-pregnant women to join the classes too just because it's something so uncommon in Aruba and it's fun for both those with and without child. 

On yet another note, babywearing is also picking up in Aruba. I'm getting more and more calls and questions about babywearing and I am more than happy to oblige. Of course, because I own a business that offers these unique services such as babywearing classes, in-home consults and sling rentals, I profit financially, but truly, If I had to do this for free, I certainly would. I could charge outrages prices, but because my main aim is to further babywearing and not profit, I keep my prices reasonable. For midwives and others in the maternal-child healthcare workers, I invite them pro-bono to classes just to get acquainted with the act of babywearing, because I believe that if everyone knew how enjoyable it is, more babies 
would benefit. 





A babywearing client and new exclusive breastfeeding mama & happy baby



I have some nice big plans for the celebrating of International Babywearing Week in Aruba. It'll be the first official celebration of such here on our island, and I.am.psyched







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