Before I share today’s post, I have to say how much I appreciate the discussion that has started on yesterday’s post about personhood.  I very much appreciate reading about others’ views and having the opportunity to discuss and explore them.  Thank you!

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Chris may be on vacation for two weeks, but I am working away.  Not only have I spent many hours this week thinking and reading about, then writing yesterday’s post, but I’ve also been doing quite a bit of “real” work too, both for Papoose and web design/development.

In the wee hours of the morning last night (this morning?), I finished a website for Petticoat Row, a Nantucket business women’s association. I was so excited to work on this website.  Not only was it fun to try my hand at new layouts and designs, but I also was happy to help out such a great association.  Petticoat Row of Nantucket seeks to connect and empower our island’s women in business.  They offer monthly networking events with great speakers, workshops, and the best support you can imagine for someone starting or managing a business.  The founders of Petticoat Row have been incredibly supportive of me and my business ventures: besides asking me to build their website, they also have offered great support and advice for Papoose, and I was honored to speak at their November meeting.

This evening was Petticoat Row’s January networking event; as I sat in a room surrounded by upwards of 50 or 60 women, all of whom had come together to support one another and celebrate our efforts, listening to the speakers, I was so thankful to live in this community of women supporting women.

One of the speakers, Lisa Wisentaner of Nantucket Cycling Studio was amazing — she was positive, empowering, and infectious.  Listening to her, I thought I could do anything.  I was most taken, though, about her comments regarding balancing business and family.  Lisa said that she does what she needs to do to make it work, even if it means going to bed after 11 p.m. and getting up at 4:30 a.m. As I burn the midnight oil building websites (which I enjoy doing but mostly do for the income) and blogging (for both enjoyment and hopefully eventual financial gain), and as I try to work on/for Papoose (which so far makes me nothing, but which I very much want to do) whenever I can cram it in, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one coming up with creative strategies for making it all work.  All the time, I wonder how I could possibly have started so many things and how I’m actually going to balance them all as I run about my days with Nora.  Somehow it makes the crazy juggle a little easier when I get together with a room full of women who are all doing the same thing.

If you’re a woman working on Nantucket and haven’t yet checked out Petticoat Row, you should!  I can’t speak more highly of this great group of women…and their website is pretty nice if I do say so myself.  :-)

When I was studying philosophy in college, I was fascinated by metaphysical problems (how we define existence, real world objects and their properties, time and the like) and, most especially, applied ethics.  I loved the everyday life puzzles that we were given, whether in business, the environment, or medical situations, and that we could read, discuss, and debate the issues as a way of trying to pinpoint one right answer (even if it was agonizing that our professors refused to ever tell us what they thought).  That there might be one morally right answer and that we might be able to eventually find it through reasoning interested (and still does interest) me; I can’t say that I’ve found all the answers yet, but I still very much appreciate opportunities to discuss and consider when they arise, although I’ll admit that thinking philosophically generally takes the back burner amidst the daily tasks of caring Nora and helping to support our family.

This past week, I was reminded of how much more I want to be using my philosophy education.  Lisa Belkin wrote on the Huffington Post about a child with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome and whether or not a child with such a severe genetic disorder should be put on an organ transplant list.  My response was similar to the responses of many who commented and similar to Lisa’s opinion itself: in the unfortunate situation we are in, where organs for transplant are, as Lisa said, “among the rarest and most precious of the world’s resources” (which means giving an organ to one person means it does not go to another), we must consider the individual’s quality of life and the likelihood of an organ to successfully lengthen and improve that life, including possibility of rejection and side effects when determining if someone ought to be placed on a transplant list.

In the case Lisa provided, the little girl, Amelia, needed a kidney (which can be provided by a living family member or other designated donor) so she doesn’t have to be placed on a transplant list; however Lisa’s post was a spring board for a discussion on organ transplant lists and whether some individuals ought to be given precedence over others when choosing to whom to give transplants.  There is a very fine ethical line when trying to choose between persons and identifying one person as having more of a right to a transplant than does someone else, although I agree with Lisa that it is an unfortunate reality of our world until there are unlimited organs available for transplant. I think most reasonable people would agree that some choice has to be made, although we might not all agree on the criteria for said choice.

What most interested me about the comments, and what I have been mulling over for the past week, is a discussion which followed from this necessity of choice: the discussion of whether all “humans” are “persons” with the same moral rights.  Since about the eighteenth century, our political and philosophical discussions have centered around rights of two types: legal and moral.  Legal rights are those we have agreed upon as a society and which are protected by law, but which may vary from culture to culture; moral rights, by contrast, exist independently of, and form the basis for, criticizing or justifying legal rights.  Moral rights are universal, the same from one society to the next, and are generally thought to stem from our status as persons.  The right to life is one such universal right; one which seems relevant in a discussion of allocating organs for transplant — when we must determine if one human has more of a right to life than another — and which reminded me of the problem of personhood.

Both moral and legal rights are afforded to persons, who are generally identified as different from humans although how and to what degree is a subject of great debate.  Personhood arguments crop up across a broad spectrum of bioethics discussions, including abortion, euthanasia, and stem cell research.  In my comment on the Huffington Post, I shared a quote from Mary Anne Warren’s article, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” which addresses the question of whether genetic humanity is sufficient for moral humanity.  Warren states that we need to have a criteria for identifying persons as a means of determining how to act when confronted with a completely alien being.  Essentially, we have to know whether something is a chair, a dog, or a person to know if and what type of rights it has and how to act morally towards it.  The traits she identifies as central to personhood are:

1. consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
2. reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
3. self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control); perhaps derived from, the assumption that genetic humanity is sufficient for membership in the moral community.
4. the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics;
5. the presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.

These traits combined comprise a “full” person according to Warren, but she doesn’t believe that all attributes must be present to consider someone a person in some sense.  ”(1) and (2) alone may well be sufficient for personhood,” she states, and though she does not insist that any one of the criteria is necessary, she does seem to believe that reasoning is both a necessary and sufficient condition for personhood.  Notice, she does not talk about appearance or genetics, which leaves open the possibility that some thing which does not look at all like a human being could be a person and have the moral rights that goes along with personhood (like a computer or, for example, Bicentennial Man), and also allows for the fact that there can be some things which are genetically human but not persons.  The latter category would include, says Warren, fetuses, embryos, and even infants who are not yet persons but have the potential to become persons, severely handicapped or other “non functional” (her words) humans, and individuals in comas or persistent vegetative states who were persons but are no longer for one reason or another.

I’ve thought a lot about Warren’s argument this week.  It’s been quite awhile since I had this discussion with anyone; I’ll admit I’m a bit rusty on both sides of the debate, and I had forgotten how controversial is the idea that not all genetically human beings are persons.  A handful of people who read my comments on the Huffington Post were upset by it; a few of them even emailed me and, interestingly, blogged about it.  Not all of the responses I received were polite, civil or well-thought out, but I do understand how hard it must be to separate out emotion when you’re in the thick of it, and there were some people who were willing to discuss it evenhandedly; who gave me a lot to think about (especially thanks to you, Lauren!).  Despite the controversy, discussions on the definition of personhood are important to have.

What makes us who we are?

Why do we have the rights we have?

What distinguishes us from animals, especially higher-functioning ones such as dolphins and other primates?

How do we apply the answers to the questions above to ethical dilemmas, whether medical, environmental, or legal?

For a variety of reasons, I support Warren’s argument.  I believe the things which differentiate persons from non-persons are reasoning, consciousness, and the like, and I think that such a distinction is necessary because otherwise we would not be able to justify assigning different rights to humans than to animals or plants, which we do every day.  I believe that there is a hierarchy to rights: all sentient beings have them, but those that are conscious and reasoning, etc. take precedence when two beings’ equal rights (such as the right to life) conflict with one another.  None of that is to say that non-persons are not valuable; they have value because of the value we place upon them and because of the role they can play in our lives.  Someone on the Huffington Post pointed me toward this article, which is a wonderful example of how individuals who might not qualify as persons can still be very valuable in our lives.

Since I’ve been pondering the puzzle of personhood this week, I thought I would put the question to you.  Do you enjoy thinking about tough philosophical questions?  Are you interested in sharing your thoughts on what makes us persons and affords us the rights that come along with personhood?  I’d love to continue the great conversation I’ve been having with a few people, and want to invite anyone else to chime in.  You don’t have to agree with me, just please remember to be considerate and respectful in your responses.

Normally today, I would write a report card.  I’d tell you how Chris is home on vacation while the Brotherhood is being renovated and how my father-in-law is visiting, which means the house is mostly in tip-top shape and that, with Chris’ help, I even cleaned out the attic and filed the pile of papers burying my desk.  I’d tell you that I’ve been sticking to my yoga once per week plan, and loving it.  Normally, I’d spend this post talking about how proud I am that I sewed a sling for my friend, Jess, and other happy moments of the week, or maybe mention that the grocery budget (now $80/week and now including anything bought at the grocery store, not just food) went out the window yesterday when we spent over $170.  But I don’t want to talk about it.  Not any of it.  Because all I want to do is share the joy that is a wish-come-true.Yesterday, I got my snow.  The teasing flurries of last week turned into a wonderland of white, dropping almost 6 inches of beautiful winter on our spit of sand; perfect for Nora’s first experience sledding.We stopped into Marine on our way to the grocery store and bought a sled.  After unloading and settling, we bundled up and gleefully marched through the snow toward Dead Horse Valley.  There aren’t very many opportunities for sledding and snowmen on Nantucket.  Most of our winter comes with sleet or rain, and most snow isn’t more than a dusting.

I grew up in Iowa and have many fond memories of cold, snow-filled days.  Drifts would pile up high enough to dig igloos and snow forts, and we could build snowmen like nobody’s business.  I remember the magic of days when the snow cancelled school: sledding outside on the neighbor’s hill until our fingers and toes were numb, running rosy-cheeked inside to homemade hot chocolate and the sound of popping corn spilling out of the popper into a mixing bowl, then playing Monopoly and Sorry on the blue carpeted floor of our basement.  Those are memories I want for Nora.  Last year, I knew a few people went sledding, but I didn’t think there was enough snow for that.  Yesterday was a wonderful surprise — though we may not have had the 12-plus inches I celebrated in Iowa or New York, there was enough to create the joy of the winter wonderland from my childhood, something I didn’t think possible on Nantucket.  Nora was just as taken with the snow as was I, and even if it’s already melting way, one day is a great start to amazing memories.

Finds of the Week:

• Abortion ends one in five pregnancies worldwide, study finds, LA Times Booster Shots – Abortion rates were highest in regions with the most restrictive abortion laws, according to a new study in the Lancet.
• Buckwheat baby with salted caramel syrup, Smitten Kitchen — Breakfast?
• Handmade Wall Art, The Nester — a neat post about painting your own art for your home.  Not as hard as you might think.
• Local Food and The Farm Bill: Small Investments, Big Returns, Environmental Working Group – Local food bill in Congress: all you need to know about the Pingree-Brown bill to promote local food systems.
• Weighing in on Paula Dean, Food Politics — Did you know Paula Dean has type 2 diabetes?

This Week on Papoose:

• Seeking Contributions – A request for birth/breastfeeding stories, and other relevant contributions.
• A Closer Look At Cow’s Milk – Part two of my examination of cow’s milk and how vital it is in diets.
• Anastasia’s Birth Story – a great story of a mom’s journey between first and second births.

I’ve decided it’s time for a change, and instead of Etsy Love, each week I’ll be sharing 9 of my favorite Pinterest pins from the previous week.  Some of the pins will be of things for sale on Etsy, but some of them with also be things I found on blogs or other websites, and will include recipes and tutorials and the like.  I hope you enjoy this new feature.  You can follow me on Pinterest by clicking here.  Each image is also clickable to view the pins (and source links).

When I was editing the videos for last week’s film, I was struck by how much Nora’s speech and communication has changed from last year.  Now she talks in full sentences, knows more words than I can count, and is understood by pretty much everyone; then she was using just single words (which were mostly understood only by us) and relying on a lot of sign/body language to communicate.  At 18 months, her favorite word was  ”that,” although “purple” might have been a close second.

It’s funny how hazy memories can get in such a short amount of time; watching the videos reminded me of the excitement of hearing her learn to speak.  I wanted to better preserve that, so this film is a collection of a couple videos that showcase what it was like to communicate with Nora at 18 months.

So this week’s You Capture challenge was to photograph cold.  Normally, in January, that would not be a problem — however we have had an oddly mild winter.  It gets cold for a day or two, then goes right back to the 50′s and 60′s.  It feels like spring.  So springy, in fact, that someone put artificial daffodils on Orange Street as a joke.I thought they were real for a moment, so I had to stop and take a picture.

But really, when it come to cold, I thought I was going to have to photograph my freezer.  And then this morning, we got the tiniest glimpse of winter.A short, blink and it’s over, snow shower.  For about 10 minutes, they were coming down fast and we thought, just maybe, this might turn into something.  Outside we ran for a quick picture and attempts to catch snowflakes on our tongue.  Nora was fascinated and excited; she wanted to know if there would be enough to make a snowman.  But, in true Nantucket fashion, each flake melted away as they reached the ground.  What I would give for a New York snowstorm right now.

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When I was growing up, dinner always came accompanied with (what seemed like) a huge glass of white milk.  In my elementary school cafeteria, we had to drink our entire carton of milk (skim, 2%, or whole, no flavoring there) before being allowed to go to recess.  One of the commonly discussed milestones in the baby-toddler transition is the introduction of whole milk after one year of age.

Sometime around 13 months, I thought, hey, why not? And I poured some whole milk in a sippy cup for Nora.  Oh, the face she made…and that was that.  If it wasn’t water, she wanted nothing to do with it.  At that point she was still nursing during the day fairly regularly, so I didn’t bother forcing the issue.  Then, two months later, I went to my CLC training in Vermont and left her during the days for the first time since quitting my job six months earlier.  I was a little nervous about how she would do with only water through the day, so we tried whole cow’s milk again and she had zero interest.  I pumped during breaks from class and left breast milk for my grandmother to put in Nora’s sippy cup; she turned it down too, whether hot or cold.  My grandmother tried vanilla soy milk; Nora wanted nothing to do with it.  She seemed happy and sufficiently hydrated drinking water and nursing when I was around, so I wasn’t really worried.

I tried offering milk intermittently throughout the following year, mostly when I was tired of letting her nurse and looking for something different to give her.  We tried warming it up or pouring it cold out of the carton.  I bought almond milk, she wasn’t interested in that either.  Though I did sometimes want a working alternative to nursing, I couldn’t really blame her for not wanting to drink a non-human milk.  I very rarely drink cold cow’s milk, only sometimes drinking it in hot chocolate or chai, and I remember how much I hated being forced to drink cow’s milk as a child.  I remember how disgusting I thought it was, especially when it had sat on the table for a while after being poured.  Why would I force her to drink something I won’t drink, especially when she was still receiving perfect, species-specific milk?

Then suddenly, the day before her second birthday, Nora asked for a glass of cow’s milk.  I poured her about a cup, fully expecting it to go to waste, and she gulped it down.  I’m not sure what changed in her mind or taste buds, but Nora is now a somewhat regular milk drinker, drinking about 4oz most days.  She still is particular about how she takes it — often she ask for cinnamon sprinkled over the top, more often, she likes it warmed with cardamom (“hot milk,” she calls it) — but she loves it on her cold cerealin the morning.  She also is very specific about it being called “cow’s milk” and not just “milk;”  breast milk is “milk” to her and she will remind you of that if you slip up and call cow’s milk “milk”.

Not long ago, you may remember, we had Nora’s two year check up and the doctor suggested we try to get her to drink 24oz of whole cow’s milk every day since she is in the 9th percentile.  I had a momentary freak out and began to doubt my comfort with our current milk situation; I posted on Facebook and received a ton of reassuring and supportive responses, which I wrote about in one of my 30 Days of Thanks posts.  Besides talking to my family and friends about the situation, I also let my obsessive inner researcher out and I started doing my own reading on the cow’s milk and just how necessary it is.  Everything I read, from the AAP to the USDA Dietary Guidelines to Dr. Sears, told me that we were doing just fine and that Nora does not need to be consuming cup after cup of cow’s milk everyday.  I’m confident again about her diet and I’m now veryinformed about the necessity of cow’s milk…probably much more informed than any normal, non-professional would be, and that might make me a little crazy.

From the responses I received on Facebook, I realized that I am definitely not the only one who has experienced the pressure to be pouring cow’s milk, so I wanted to put my research to good use.  In case you missed it, last week on Papoose I shared a post about how vital cow’s milk is in relation to calcium and bone growth, and today, I wrote a piece about everything else I found out about cow’s milk — from potassium and vitamin D, to fat content and iron deficiency.

If you’re interested in cow’s milk and nutrition, I hope you’ll find the posts helpful and interesting, and maybe even worth sharing with someone else.  I’d love to hear what you think and what role cow’s milk plays in your family’s diet.

Everyday, Nora is getting more and more independent.

For the past two weeks, she has been all about doing things on her own.  She tells me she needs privacy in the bathroom.  She wants to brush her own teeth.  And this just in — she wants to pick her own clothes. She wore these pajamas (two tops, two pairs of long pants and two pairs of shorts — all at once) for nearly two days before I put my foot down and said they were dirty; she had to change into something different to visit Dada at work…and no, she could not wear the slippers my mom sent (which are nearly glued onto her feet) out of the house.  It took a lot of cajoling, but she finally took the pajamas off, and picked out this:Luckily, she’s cute in anything.  And clever, too.  When I tried to suggest that the tutu didn’t match her Patriot’s jersery, she got out the green and white stripe leggings and said, “Now they match, because this is green.”Needless to say, she won that argument.

Right now, I’m laughing and loving the outfits she puts together.  She obviously has her own sense of style (and matching) and she is so pleased with it.  ”Do I look pretty?” She always asks us, “Do I look beautiful?”  Or sometimes, she giggles and asks, “Do I look a little funny, mama?”

“You’re always pretty, Nora, no matter what you wear,” we say, but we also join in the giggles.  She’s really wanted to choose her own clothes for the past four days or so, and I’ve just been going with the flow.  She’s so proud of herself and enjoys the process, I can’t bring myself to say no.  Plus, at least I know she’s warm when she’s wearing five shirts, two pairs of pants, and a skirt!  Clearly, the girl likes layers.  Anyway, there will be plenty of time to argue about style and appropriateness later, and by then I’ll probably be begging Nora to put leggings under skirts.

So, for now, we wear rain boots, pajamas, two swimming suits, sock mittens, and ladybug hats all at once.

Maybe it’s time to invest in one of those “I dressed myself!” buttons.