The Mom & Baby Issue 2021
Becoming a Doula During the Pandemic; A Mom-to-Be Contemplates Baby Gear; Mother to Many Theresa Tomasi; How to Rock Maternity Style
South Burlington Students Create Inspired Portraits
Alison Treston, art teacher at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington, shared some of her students’ most recent masterpieces. Seventh-grade art students learned about the Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo and his fascinating portrait paintings. Then they created their own portraits using collage, gathering images of foods to create a face. For another project,…
A Type-A Mom-to-Be Tries to Crack the Baby Gear Code
I always knew I wanted to have children, but the thought of being pregnant freaked me out. My body changing in ways that are out of my control? Cool. Milk leaking without warning from my nipples? Sick. Peeing a little when I laugh postpartum? Fun! Yet many moms told me that being pregnant was the…
Jericho Mom Creates Books to Teach Indian Languages to Kids
Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Akshata Nayak describes her journey to New England as “quite the equator-to-arctic story.” It started when she relocated to Orono, Maine, 18 years ago to attend graduate school. Since moving to Vermont in 2010, the nutritionist has started several small businesses. But Nayak, who now lives in Jericho, has…
What Should Pregnant & Nursing Women Know About COVID-19?
Pregnancy and new parenthood can be an exciting time for families. But even in the best of circumstances, they can also be fraught with concerns about health and safety. The global pandemic and the rollout of vaccines to protect against COVID-19 add another layer of stress and uncertainty about how expectant and nursing women should…
Exploring Frogs, Flowers and Floodplains in May
Spring has sprung, and most parents I know are ready to get outside and release the pent-up pandemic energy that’s been building all winter. In May — which is still mud season in Vermont — it’s good to keep your outdoor expeditions at low altitudes to avoid eroding the land, ruining the trails and muddying…
Low-Waste Lessons for New Parents
Welcoming a baby into the home is incredible, awe-inspiring and overwhelming. When I was a new mom six years ago, I felt all those things and more. One unexpected way I found my footing was by adopting low-waste practices and becoming more deliberate about my consumer habits. I will admit that, due to clever marketing…
What Happens to School Gardens in the Summer?
The other day, a Front Porch Forum post caught my attention: “The Berlin Elementary School is looking for an individual or family to volunteer to manage the Anne Burke Community Garden, particularly in the summer, in exchange for produce. For the past eight years, the students at school have grown and harvested vegetables and maintained…
Blueberry-Rhubarb Clafoutis: A Fruit-Forward Dessert from France
When we were kids, my siblings and I loved to go out to the bushes near our vegetable garden and fill buckets with black and red raspberries. We would bring them into the house in the hopes that our mom would make her delicious cobbler. Later in life, I found out that Mom’s recipe was…
Gratitude, and a Little Sadness, After Four Years as a Mom
I gave birth to my daughter four years ago. Although I still remember every moment of it, this year the experience of birthing and holding our baby for the first time does not feel recent. As we enter into a new May, I can sense that time has passed. I do not feel our birth…
Greater Burlington Children’s Chorus Launches This Summer
There are few sounds that match the sweetness of children’s voices singing together. Whether it’s performing classics in the school musical or belting out radio hits in the back of the car, kids sing with a purity and abandon that sounds like nothing else. It’s a sound that will be heard more often when the…
How to Support New & Expectant Moms in the Workplace
My partner, Stephanie, and I welcomed our second daughter, Penelope, in October 2018. At that point, we had been parents for more than two years and had acclimated to the world of sleep deprivation, diaper changes and never-ending piles of laundry. The addition of another child to our family was certainly a transition, but we…
Portrait: Eliana & Adelaide
“We joke because I went from Ms. to Mrs. to Dr. to Mom literally in four days. Saturday, we got married. Monday, I defended my dissertation. And then Tuesday, she was born. Those were the wildest four days of our lives.” Weeks before the pandemic hit last March, Eliana Castro was finishing up her PhD…
How to Dress for Style and Comfort While Pregnant
As a young professional, my go-to outfit usually involved high-waisted pants and heels. Both those items quickly became impossible and impractical when I became pregnant. Shopping for a new maternity wardrobe sounded fun, but the style and price of the maternity brands I found online dampened my enthusiasm. Between fluctuating hormones, my rapidly changing body…
Becoming a Postpartum Doula During the Pandemic
In the early days of the pandemic, time wasn’t normal; it bent around unknown corners, broke into FaceTime fragments and sometimes stopped altogether, denying some the chance to say goodbye. More than a year later, we’re all still in it. I struggle to remember what day it is, and it will likely take a long…
Strong Like a Mother
When I was pregnant with my now-11-year-old son, we were in the midst of a global health crisis less widespread and deadly than the one we’re in now — the H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, pandemic. I remember, at six months pregnant, walking around the grounds of Shelburne Museum during its annual Haunted Happenings event…
Vermont Visionaries: Theresa Tomasi, Mother of 27
As a child growing up in Burlington, Theresa Tomasi loved being invited to dinners at the home of her neighbor, who had 12 children. Tomasi was the middle child, bookended by two brothers, and she admired the neighbors’ loving and active lifestyle. That experience must have planted a seed, she said — a seed that…
