First Friday: The circumcision issue.

I read a lot of blogs that really touches me like this one for example, and they inspire me to write these long and awesome posts about things like the perfectness of W's wrists or the way his hair falls. But I also read a lot about other things like circumcision or natural birth advocates and the whole breast vs. formula debate, which inspires me to write about these issues. Unfortunately it turns out I am not only inspired but also lazy so all these posts I write in my head tend to stay in my head and never see the light of day.
In order to better myself and be less lazy and more motivated and proactive I have now decided to do at least one proper post a week, every Friday about something inspiring with the appropriate links to the person who inspired me of course.

Today's topic will be circumcision.

I read a few days or weeks ago (who keeps track of time anyway) about this doctor in the USA who is specialized in circumcisions and who has taken it as his personal quest to ensure that all little boys in the US gets circumcised. He points to all these benefits of circumcision as better hygiene, reduced risk of STD:s, reduced risk of penile cancer and so on and so forth. I have read about these benefits before and maybe it's true but I think that the marginal difference it makes is redundant in comparison to the fact that you are in fact surgically removing a fully functional piece of your son's body. (Now you know where I stand) I understand the benefits of circumcision if you live somewhere where there is no access to condoms or clean water to clean yourself, but on the other hand if you have no clean water to clean yourself with then you probably won't have any better hygiene down there than an uncut fella.
Circumcision is still somewhat the norm for little boys in the US which is strange since it's the only place in the world who uses the procedure for non-religious reasons. In Europe where I'm from the norm is the opposite, and in all honesty I don't think that European men are stinky, disease ridden people just because they still possess their foreskin.
When my son was born we did not even have a conversation about it because it was never an option for us. I think my reasons and opinions are stronger and more emotional than J's but he never considered it either. For me the thought of cutting a piece of my newborns penis off just seemed barbaric. And besides who am I to chose for him weather he keeps his foreskin or not. At least like this he can chose to cut if off himself in the future, the other way around is way harder.
I watched this thing on TLC a while back about a boy who was turned into a girl after a doctor botched his circumcision and subsequently burned most of his penis off. It didn't turn out great and he eventually reassigned himself back into a boy and later in 2004 killed himself. Watching that reinforced my belief that we should not cut fully functional pieces off our bodies because you just never know if there are going to be complications. The fact that circumcision for the longest time took place without any anaesthetic, mind you that still happens today, is just scary. Did you know that before the 1970's surgery was performed on infants without anaesthetic because it was believed that they could feel no pain. Crazy!

Well that's all for me on this subject, feel free to post your own beliefs on the subject.

Playing in the snow

Don't know what to think of this new year yet. So far it's been a bit up and down. It's been very cold too.

Since I hadn't taken W out in like over a week or so to play I decided to take him to the park even though it was like -15°C (that's 5°F for all of you who know that scale better). I could not feel my toes when we got back in and W had deliciously red cheeks. We stayed out for like 15 minutes all in all and I swear it took longer getting dresses and undressed before and after. That's life with a toddler.

I finally booked mine and W's tickets to Sweden this week too. We're leaving here on January 29th and land there on January 30th and we go back on February 9th so mark your calendars and send me your requests for days. I'll be making our schedule shortly and I would really like to squeeze as many of my lovely friends in there as possible.

I'll leave you with a browsing tip and an old photo of W from last winter since I didn't have any recent ones of him sitting in snow.