Going to go put up more shelves at my bookstore. My sons came with me and helped me out. Driving! This blog entry written by Trula. Thanks for visiting Trula Kids!

T-bop is in 5th grade this year, the year kids get to be in band in our school district. He decided he wants to play the saxophone. He practices a lot and is getting good! This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

We got hit with the tail wind from Hurricane Ike yesterday. We lost power late afternoon, and the power was out until early afternoon today. We watched the storm from the balcony until it got very bad and we had to go in. The wind speed got as high as 70mph, and it was very [...]

Photos of my children over the years. More pics here! This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

I’m changing things around again, please bear with me! This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

I first saw Dr. taj anwar (she prefers lowercase spelling of her name) on the photo site flickr. I was looking for photos of tattoos on brown skin. These lovely photos of her came up, along with info about her organization M.O.B.B (Mothers of Black/Brown Babies). I delved a little further into her web presence. [...]

By the Fire May 31st 2008, originally uploaded by .Mercury. We had a long day of housework, yard work and garden work the other day. It was awesome to sit by the fire and relax. This post by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

There are a few books that cover this topic and there has been extensive research on the emotional effects of not breastfeeding your baby. I remember reading somewhere that it can be considered ‘maternal deprivation’ sort of. Why? Because when you breastfeed you have to hold the baby or have the baby close to your [...]

T-bop was helping me turn the compost the other day. He was fascinated by how much the pile has changed since last fall. We use the compost for the garden. Subscribe to Mama Specific Productions by email This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

I have a knee-jerk response to the idea of male teenage babysitters as well as a distrust and fear of grown men being child-care providers. When I thought about why I felt a male teenage babysitter was ‘wrong’, my initial concern wasn’t that they would sexually abuse my children, because in my experience most teenage [...]

This is interesting…hardly news, but interesting: A combination of nature and nurture may make some children more likely to develop behavioral problems, new research suggests. In a study of 138 children, researchers found that it wasn’t only the children’s exposure to stress, but their bodies’ reactions to the stress, that affected their future behavior. Young [...]

I let my kids on the internet. I don’t do so because I think they need net skills to be ‘competitive’, I do so because there are a lot of interesting, educational, and just plain entertaining sites out there for kids. With my two younger children I am in the same room with them and [...]

Cast my vote today in the Ohio primary, yay! Barack Obama for President 2008 Subscribe to Trula’s blog by email

A woman I know told me once that her partner said that feminists need to be careful to not abandon their sons to patriarchy. I certainly agree, but I wondered what this man meant by ‘abandonment’. Because to me, as a mother of sons, their growing up feels to me like like being left behind. [...]

I saw this question recently: Do you just walk out for an afternoon and leave your husbad with the kids, and not think about the dirt on the floor, or diapers being washed, or that you haven’t changed your pants for three days? YES!!! Basically, that’s it. Isn’t that what your husband does? He just [...]

I had an interesting exchange on a black-oriented message board a while back and thought I’d share it with you all. A woman posted that she was tired of seeing young mothers mistreating their children in public. Her words are in bold, mine in plain text: I feel that the next time that happens, I [...]

My husband and I have been going back and forth about having another baby for going on 2 years now. I turned 35 in January and really feel like it’s now or never. I had one child at 17 and 2 more at ages 22 and 25, so it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve [...]

If there is one thing that brings me the most happiness as a mother, it’s that I freely express my love for my children and joy in their being in my life to them. My children are deeply treasured, respected, and well-loved. And they know it, they know I love them and want to be [...]

I decided to turn off the comments feature on this blog, here’s hoping it will spur me to concentrate on writing great content instead of obsessively checking to see if anyone posted a comment yet. Subscribe to Trula’s blog by email Every donation helps keep my blog available! You decide the amount, and know it [...]

Let me say upfront: I do think most teens can’t handle parenthood due to the culture we live in i.e delayed childhood. But this is extending well into the 20s, so much so that there is a perception that women in their 20s are ‘too young’ to have kids. It’s gotten to the point where [...]

I have been working on this goal for over a year and I feel I am now a gentle mother and have been for some time. Speaking calmly and gently to my children when I am upset is now something I do automatically. I also no longer get myself triggered into being upset when they [...]

I read this book several years ago, ‘Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the meaning of Liberty’ by Dorothy Roberts. This book changed my life in so many ways, it had a profound impact on how I see birth control and truly led me to take charge of my reproductive health and freedom. The [...]

About this Blog: I started an online journal in May 2002 on one of my old sites. I hand-coded the site design. It took me a long time to see the time benefit of using a blogging site such as blogger, and to understand the blogging craze when it hit. It also took me a [...]

I’d love to get suggestions and feedback about this blog including what you’d like to see. I’m going to start posting this query for feedback monthly, so if you don’t have any suggestions right now but think of some later you can always let me know next month. I’m so excited about this blog because [...]

I’m so sad about this. For reasons I can’t publicly disclose I had to cancel going to the Allied Media Conference this year. I would have been upset to miss it if I was just going but I’m especially upset about it because this year I was co-presenting on a workshop, Women of Color Zines. [...]

It’s almost about that time! It’s June 22-24 in Detroit. I’m part of a panel doing a workshop on Women of Color Zines. About the AMC:The Allied Media Conference is an annual, weekend-long gathering of influential alternative media-makers and committed social justice activists. The AMC brings together a unique cross-section of media workers, community organizers, [...]

I missed BlogHer last year and it seemed like a cool event. I checked it out and I’m planning on going, if only to their first-ever “Un-Conference” session: BlogHer Open Space. It’s just $21.75, so it doesn’t cost much besides transportation. I have friends in Chicago I could crash with too, it’ll be fun.

Flossing goes a long way in helping to prevent gum disease. Gum disease is so nasty because it can affect your heart. I think dentists over time noticed that patients with severe gum disease had other non-dental issues. and physicians with patients with those same issues noticed that many if not all of them had [...]