All Things Hippy-Dippy

For those of you who don't know, the confluence of two factors in our lives has caused us to become all Pioneer Valley Hippy-Dippy. Specifically, Minh's new-found love of gardening and our recent foray into the sub-culture of natural childbirth worked together to make us decide to save, and plant, Tai's placenta.

Last night we purchased The Placenta Tree. It's a variety of Japanese Maple that will eventually be 6-10 feet tall. Right now it's only about 3 feet tall and very adorable in a Charlie-Brown-Christmas-Tree kind of way.

The placenta, of course, has been residing in our freezer since December. Our intention is to bury the placenta in the yard and then plant Tai's tree just next to it. The sentimentality behind it is that the placenta nourished Tai for 9 months and now it will nourish the tree. And that this one tree in our yard will always be "Tai's tree" and we can watch it grow as he grows. It doesn't hurt, either, that I've always wanted a Japanese Maple and that Minh is always searching for rich sources of Nitrogen for his garden :)

We're not quite ready to plant it yet, but we should be getting to that in the next month or so. Until then, the tree will live in its bucket, on the spot where it will eventually go (kind of like putting the goldfish in the bowl, but keeping it in the plastic bag for a while). The placenta will remain in the freezer until the big day. I'll post a picture of the tree once it's in the ground.

In other hippy-dippy news, we've somehow made friends with a local Lactation Consultant (yup, that's her job. She pretty much does what you'd imagine a Lactation Consultant would do, including teach breastfeeding classes at the hospital). Anyway, she has asked Minh and Tai and I to come to her next class to answer questions about breastfeeding and also give a live demo (assuming Tai is hungry). I'm pretty excited about it!! Breastfeeding (especially at first) is not as easy as you might think and I'm looking forward to sharing my experience with folks and giving them tips to help them succeed. I'm such a dork.

PS -- Coming Soon....pictures of bulbs in bloom!