Friday, July 27, 2007

variety is the bane of (my) existence

breast feeding really is the only way to go. seriously.

we currently have several infants residing in our emergency shelter. their cute and predictable lives involve a simple sleep-"eat" (really a whole lot of 'drink')-poo schedule. today they drank us out of formula and provided me with an excuse to escape my desk (and the wonderful world of treatment plans and psychosocials). i took a routine excursion to the supermarket to replenish the powder supplies. simple enough.

4 shelves and quarter of the aisle was occupied by a wall of tin cans covered in teddy bears; the baby crack variety pack. regular formula with iron, organic (wonder if it comes in patchouli flavour?), advance soy with (or without) iron, lactose free (advance WITH iron), sensitive formula, 'go and grow', and advance 2 (for the overachievers). these were all then sub-categorized according to age group, by month, and finally year. struggling to locate the tin with a gold lid and picture of a bear wearing a purple bow around it's neck, i resorted to reading labels to find the matching descriptors. finally, i noticed the tiny typeface; "new design" (argh!), the bloody bear on the label was wrapped up in a yellow blanket.

american consumers can now choose between thousands of different varieties of ketchup. no longer are the options relegated to brand, size, bottle type, or colour (yes, blue and green non-holiday ketchup does exist, year round). the vanilla/cherry/lemon coca cola flavour-ization of the most popular condiment is coming to a store near you, in the form of garlic infused ketchup.

a co-worker recently told me that among the many benevolent donors in our community (money, clothes, toys, wings on buildings) one kindly lady offered her breast milk. considering each tin of formula is $13.00 and up, which seems like a ridiculous waste of money, and that doesn't even cover the cost of how many nappies ($4.50 a crap?) they are soiling daily, it doesn't seem too ludicrous an offer. if you can bid for a replacement kidney on ebay, and the american red cross will pay for your blood, this may open up a whole new section in the classifieds.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes and remember breast is best....

Anonymous said...

See jawz3's comment.

Anonymous said...

Considering breast milk contains a perfect balance of nutrition, I think they should have accepted the woman's offer.

Anonymous said...

Do you have to do pyschosocials on the infants too? I am thinking they are going to go blank on famiy history....

Disa said...

i especially like the questions:

-are you sexually active?
-do you think you might be pregnant?
-what gender do you identify with?

very applicable to a 2 month old, obviously.

Jill said...

I was under the impression that there actually were such things as "milk banks" where you could donate breast milk? Seriously.

Totally different subject. Or same subject - I noticed formula is kept in a locked cabinet at some drugstores. That just seems sad.