Healthy Mum, Happy Baby

And just a little jetlagged and discombobulated…after a day of flying, a day of PR, a day of hanging and way too many good meals and good wine, I’m back again. I felt a bit like Alice as the entire trip other people were taking care of me and had itineraries and plans and I just had to follow them around, which is hugely contrary to being a mother when you’re the one with everyone in tow. It was hugely relaxing in an odd, jetlagged, nervous-about-aceing-pr kinda way!

When the articles etc come out I’ll keep you posted. And if you’re in Toronto and want to buy the book, I’ve signed every copy at every Chapters in downtown Toronto, so if you want a signed copy you know where to find it!

Well I’ve picked a TV-ready outfit that does its best to minimize my blubby mummy tummy and that can go from TV to radio to print…it makes the idea of office to evening dressing seem positively easy. I’ve packed my bag, put all my in-flight toiletries into a resealable plastic bag, stuffed the rest into my suitcase, made numerous lists for everyone at home. Now all that’s left is to go…I’ll report back when I get back (if not from there).

A few Healthy Mum, Happy Baby links I found while trolling online today:

• This site has tonnes of good breastfeeding info & links plus a hitherto unknown hmhb plug
• Amazon.ca has a list of recommended books for Mother’s Day & hmhb made line two! Yeah!
• My mum also sent a link to an article in the Globe with Dr. Jack Newman answering your breastfeeding questions, and the article links to another article called Breast Friends – which would have been on my alternate title list had I been clever enough to think of it – but which is actually about a growing trend in wetnursing and co-nursing…I always wondered how it would feel to nurse someone else’s child but never went there myself.

I just got my TO itinerary today – in addition to the CH Morning interview – which may be cancelled – I’ll also do an interview with Jennifer Williams of 680 News Radio but I don’t think it’ll be live and two print interviews with the Hamilton Spectator and also with CP journalist Judy Creighton.

Judy Creighton also reviewed Whining & Dining which I recently blogged about and she’s got some other interesting articles on kids & eating and bottled water vs. tap water.

Then I’ll hit all the Chapters/Indigo stores and be geeky all over again. It’s going to be whirlwind!

So I went to my local Chapters store this morning and signed all the copies of my book that they had in stock. A good friend came with me and not only bought two copies, but also suggested they put them on the table with the mother’s day books, which they’re going to do.

We also took some pix, but alas, I’m new to my camera and this was the only one that turned out. This is us “faking” the book already being on the table (aka – out for the whole word world to see and buy, which is only a little scary!) and I used the pink outline to highlight Healthy Mom, Happy Baby. And the blue sticker you can see on it says, “signed by author.”

So geeky that I called my local Chapters today to see if my book would be on the shelves and hot off the press tomorrow as promised…and I was lucky because a very charming associate answered the phone and has put all 16 copies that their location has behind the front counter so I can go in tomorrow and sign them before they put them out with little ’signed by the author’ stickers. I only feel slightly lame, but also VERY excited to see my book for sale in a real store for real people (ie. those that I’m not related to or friendly with) to buy. I think I will have to take pix and post them.

It looks like there’ll be a launch party for Healthy Mum, Happy Baby on May 17 @ 7:30 pm at Vancouver Kidsbooks, one of my favourite local bookstores. That’s all I know so far except that I’ll for sure be there! So hold the date and hope to see you there!

…I am holding a real copy of my book! It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it live and in person in all its glory and it’s very exciting! It’s so weird to think that months (okay, years) of work have resulted in this slim little book that soon will out in the big wild world for feedback. I still can’t believe it’s real! It looks almost exactly like the cover in the right-hand margin except it has a great quote on the front:

As a family physician who has been delivering babies for twenty-five years, I have no hesitation in recommending this well-researched book to my patients - Healthy Mum, Happy Baby should attract an appreciative audience.
Dr. Janet Green

And on the the back is a quote from Ann Douglas (quite possibly my favourite pregnancy and parenting guru – and she’s Canadian!):

Baby’s getting fed thanks to your on-board milk factory, but what about you? It’s hard to come up with meal ideas let alone healthy meal ideas when you’re living in the new mum zone. Fortunately, you’ve got Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit on your side, ready to help you come up with menus that are easy to prepare with a baby on the breast. She’s got the recipe for breastfeeding success!

Ann Douglas, author of Mealtime Solutions for your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler

Thank you Janet & Ann!

Andrew’s thrilled because now he can start using the book as a cookbook instead of pulling 8×11″ unformatted print outs of the recipes out from a ratty old folder in amongst our cookbooks.

Other book titles that I considered but were rejected by me (or my publisher) for reasons that will be obvious. It’s hard to try working the word breast into the title of a book and have it not sound like porn! Mind you that might sell more copies…

• Milking It
• Milk Made
• Got Milk? (are you sensing a theme here?)
  
• Boob Food (this is my sister’s suggestion and we all love it but for some reason it just didn’t fly)
• Best of Breast

This was one of the first recipes to be included in the book and it’s still one of my favourites. Tina and I gravitated toward each other in prenatal yoga class because our due dates were one day apart. We both went hugely overdue and our kids were born two days apart (and two weeks late). Her big fear was of tearing during labour, mine was having a C-section. She tore, I had a C-section, we both survived…

1 can (19 oz/540 ml) chickpeas
6 tbsp virgin or extra-virgin olive oil (with olive oil the more virgin the better!)
4 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (or concentrate is fine too)’
1/4 cup tahini
4 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
Cayenne to taste
c. 1/4 cup water

Drain and rinse the chickpeas (apparently with tinned beans when you rinse off that gloopy, opaque liquid they’re packed in you’re also rinsing off a lot of the salt, which is good). Place the chickpeas in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, cumin, salt and cayenne, and process until smooth, adding water until you reach your desired consistency. Makes 3 cups.

Variations: You can totally adapt this to your taste, we’re big garlic fans in our house so I’ll often add extra. You can also try a splash of hot pepper sauce or substitute black beans for the chickpeas.

Hummus is super versatile. Use it as a dip for baby carrots, celery, pita bread or corn chips. Try is as a sandwich spread, or spread inside a pita bread stuffed with cucumber, tomato and lettuce. I also like dipping cheese toast into hummus.

So the whole time I was writing the book Health Canada was promising to update their Food Guide, it was coming out in the fall of 2006. Well, that’s exactly when the book was due, so I was hoping it would come out before my deadline so I could include up-to-date recommendations. Don’t quote me but I believe the previous recommendations were from 1992 and there’s been a lot of knowledge under the bridge since then. Anyhow, the long and short of it was I had to use the old guidelines if I actually wanted to meet my oft delayed publication date (you try writing a cookbook when you have morning sickeness and a toddler and getting it in on time!). So here’s a link to the updated info (which includes more specific recommendations for pregnant and breastfeeding women): Canada’s Food Guide to Health Eating