I checked it out, not for me...for sure. I am too passive, and just like to talk to my friends that are easy going. I don't really feel so strongly about anything that I am willing to get hot headed. Just me. Never knew the Hot Topics forum existed, but glad I had a chance to visit. Thanks for sharing. Trin

Actually breastfeeding is a great time saver. No formula to buy, no bottles to wash and prepare. You can do it anywhere and once a mother and baby are in the groove it is easy to multitask. I ate dinner,shopped,cooked and read to my DD while nursing. Plus cuddling your child is the most important job you will ever have. It's funny. My DD were talking just last night about this. She is having some pretty strong pre-labor contractions so we are on the phone a lot. She said "mom I am so looking foward to having this baby and I feel so empowered". "I'm glad I'm breast feeding too cuz I'm feeling too lazy for bottles" LOL I told her I felt the same way when i had her and her brother. Natural childbirth with minimal intervention is keeping it simple and breast feeding is a no brainer IF you ignore the advice of anyone who hasn't done it for at least a year themselves. Now I know a bunch will chime in and say they tried but couldn't. I'll be blunt -- 99%+ of failing to breastfeed are due to poor advice or not going with your own instincts. Many breast fed babies are leaner than formula fed ones. Many lose a bit of weight in the days following birth. Some nurse frequently but for short periods of time and others are titty monsters. LOL It is not like bottle feeding. there is no right schedule other than demand feeding. You cannot see how much the baby is getting so young mothers panic. There is almost always enough milk unless the mother has an underlying health condition. Doctors and pediatricians have mixed advice and are not the best ones to listen to. (unless they themselves have breastfed for a least one year) I was told I couldn't breast feed through mastitis (milk fever), I did thanks to a wonderful book I'd read with real advice from nursing mothers. I was told to give it up when I got torticollis due to the drugs I would have to take. I found a c doctor who offered an alternative treatment with drugs that wouldn't enter my bloodstream and milk. I had a pediatrician who wanted me to stat solids early. I didn't and after several visits of being told by him that DD must be eating very well and to keep adding more, ignoring my telling him she was exclusively on breast milk I dumped him. I threw away the pacifiers (gift) and dumped the formula the hospital sent home with me. Had I used them maybe things wouldn't have worked out as well . Who knows but I wasn't taking any chances of anything coming between me and my ability to breast feed.

And it won't hurt to stand up and refute actual lies. Remember in 2008 when John McCain corrected a woman who said Obama was a Muslim? He said, no, he isn't. The current candidates refuse to stand up for what is right. So if the woman at the Senior Center is repeating obvious lies, it won't hurt to say, "I'm afraid that you have your information wrong." "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Edmund Burke

I can't find my old photos at the moment but at our last home we also put on a large screened porch that resembles SMH's photo. The porch had 5/4 mahogany flooring and the roofline was extended to help keep rain off the furniture. We installed 2 skylights to enhance the light both on the porch and inside the family room. Turns out that they really weren't needed. The large bay window in the family room wasn't included in the porch, just the French doors and the roof and windows were high enough to let in lots of natural light. We did have our contractor include a narrow decorative ledge that ran around the top of the walls where the roof starts to slant and then installed low voltage cove lighting. It was a great choice since it offered a little mood lighting and highlighted the beautiful wood ceiling on the porch. (darn I need to find those photos!) We also had 2 ceiling fans, speakers and a cable outlet. The kids would put a TV on a cart and place it next to the screens and watch TV from the hot tub or pool deck. Now that we've moved I do miss it. Our new place seems to have a lot more mosquitoes and when we sit on the bluestone patio in the evening we have lots of citronella candles and an electric fan to keep those little biters at bay.