In which I use an extremely clever acronym

Dear Breastfeeding Ignorant Traumatized Child Holder;

Please come back to my class so you can read this when you walk in the door:

Would you nurse him in the park?
Would you nurse him in the dark?
Would you nurse him with a Boppy?
And when your boobs are feeling floppy?

I would nurse him in the park,
I would nurse him in the dark.
I’d nurse with or without a Boppy.
Floppy boobs will never stop me.

Can you nurse with your seat belt on?
Can you nurse from dusk till dawn?
Though he may pinch me, bite me, pull,
I will nurse him `till he’s full!

Can you nurse and make some soup?
Can you nurse and feed the group?
It makes him healthy strong and smart,
Mommy’s milk is the best start!

Would you nurse him at the game?
Would you nurse him in the rain?
In front of those who dare complain?
I would nurse him at the game.
I would nurse him in the rain.

As for those who protest lactation,
I have the perfect explanation.
Mommy’s milk is tailor made
It’s the perfect food, you need no aid.

Some may scoff and some may wriggle,
Avert their eyes or even giggle.
To those who can be cruel and rude,
Remind them breast’s the perfect food!

I would never scoff or giggle,
Roll my eyes or even wiggle!
I would not be so crass or crude,
I KNOW that this milk’s the perfect food!

We make the amount we need
The perfect temp for every feed.
There’s no compare to milk from breast-
The perfect food, above the rest.

Those sweet nursing smiles are oh so sweet,
Mommy’s milk is such a treat.
Human milk just can’t be beat.

I will nurse, in any case,
On the street or in your face.
I will not let my baby cry,
I’ll meet his needs, I’ll always try.
It’s not about what’s good for you,
It’s best for babies, through and through.

I will nurse him in my home,
I will nurse him when I roam.
Leave me be lads and ma’am.
I will nurse him, Mom I am.

Thanks to Jen for the poem.
All boobies bodies are beautiful!

SICK FREAK

If you are 11 months old and you are sick, this is how it might go if you live at my house:

OHSHIT I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS - THE BABY IS SICK, REALLY SICK - SERIOUSLY, COME FEEL HOW HOT HE IS. OHMYGOD THIS IS AWWWWFULLLLL!

Did you take his temperature? I think he does have a fever.

TAKE HIS TEMPERATURE, SURE WHY DON'T YOU? WHAT ARE YOU HELPLESS OR SOMETHING? OF COURSE HE HAS A FEVER - CAN'T YOU FEEL HOW FUCKING HOT HE IS?

Okay, where is the thermometer?

OHCHRIST THAT IS JUST LIKE YOU TO NOT EVEN KNOW WHERE THE THERMOMETER IS! IN THE BABY KIT IN THE BATHROOM. GET THE BABY MOTRIN WHILE YOU ARE AT IT!

I don't see either one.

#*%!#!*+#@*!!! I'LL GET THEM MYSELF!!

Calm down, it's just a bug. Like what Supergirl had.

DID YOU JUST TELL ME TO CALM DOWN? BECAUSE I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! IT IS NOT. JUST. A. BUG.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE HAS BRONCHITIS AND THIS IS REALLYREALLYRILLYRILLY BAD. B-A-D, BAD!

He is strong and healthy. He is not weak. He is not going to die from bronchitis.

OHMYGOD I KNOW HE IS STRONG BUT HOLYSHIT HE HAS BRONCHITIS AND IS THROWING UP BREASTMILK BECAUSE HE HAS SO MUCH FUCKING MUCUS! AND THIS CAN. NOT. BE. GOOD!!!

And the decision was made to send Supergirl off on a playdate, lest she witness more maniacal screaming by her emotionally unstable mama.
Another ten bucks for the therapy jar.

Love Thursday

I couldn't decide to blog about the ridiculous birthday story I still haven't spilled, or to write about how incredible waves of sadness washed over me as I passed Elijah's beach yesterday, which is something I do every time I drive an hour up the coast to go to work.

Then I checked in on Jen and remembered it was 'Love Thursday'. I don't like to be too committed to schedules you know, so don't expect any regularity on my part. But it did help clarify what I wanted to say today.

As Bubbles approaches his first birthday (!), he also approaches the oldest age Elijah ever reached (13mos,11days). Why is that significant? HellifIknow. They don't cover what is a 'normal' grief reaction in those damn baby books. But it is significant, as was the day I realized he had been gone longer than he was alive, and the days I should have been baking him cakes - those days were also significant. And the first time Bubbles sat up unassisted or said 'Mama', or reached some other milestone that Elijah never did - those were somehow connected to Elijah and also significant in a way for which I have yet to find the words.
I know that Bubbles is not Elijah, of course I do. And yet, for me, somehow these two baby experiences are undoubtedly linked. Should it be significant that right now Bubbles has bronchitis, the last Dx given to Elijah before he died? Well, if making your mama more worried and slightly crazier than her usual jello-solid self counts as significant, then the answer is YES! Overwhelmingly, HELLYES! And usually, when I pass Elijah's beach on my way to sing happy music, Bubbles is in the car with me and I tell him, "This is Elijah's beach. Elijah was your brother. Hi, Elijah!" (the 'Hi' part is what Supergirl always says. I stole it).
So yesterday when Bubbles stayed home sick with dh, it felt a little a lot more lonely driving by Elijah's beach.
We knew when we decided to have another baby that part of the reason was because we had so much love for another child in our family, and my arms were too empty. Which is exactly what I would tell any asshat who ventured into the 'don't try and replace a baby' territory after Elijah died.
Well what I am bumbling around trying to say, is that, much in the same way as when you expand your family with another child and your love grows exponentially to accommodate that child, that growth never ever shrinks. So when Bubbles was born, my arms were again filled with baby, and my heart grew again to fit in all the swelling love I have for him.
And the emptiness that sometimes overwhelms me, the emptiness that resides in the stretched-out space of my heart that grew when Elijah was born....what it really is, is love. Because that love will never go away, and I am coming to understand that.

I love you, Elijah.

Forever is such a long time.

Little Miss Split Personality

Mama! Did you order my Halloween costume? Did it come in the mail yet?

Hmmm? Oh yes, ordered, no it's not here yet.

Oooooo I can't waaaait!
Oh! Mama! Mama!

Hmmm? Yes, sweetie?

When we go back east it will be snowy like Narnia, and I can be Lucy Pevensie for Christmas, too!


(ed/mama note: this decision was welcomed with much rejoicing as it replaced her earlier fervor to be cinderella! imho, lucy is a much better choice for a heroine!)

Sick Leave

If you are five years old and you are sick enough to stay home from school but still well enough to complain about it, this is what you might get to do at my house:
Eat Ask for tofutti crepes with strawberry sauce - no dairy for that nasty bronchial cough. Take one bite.
Take a warm bath.
Play Don't Break the Ice 6 times (the baby can not eat the pieces).
Make pictures with cool Halloween stickers that your mom bought at Target. Whine about how you hate your pictures.
Watch the latest season of Charlie and Lola.
Eat a marshmallow.
And sparkling apple juice.
Make fresh homemade playdough - color of your choice, and oh how lovely warm playdough feels on a cloudy, grey, stay-home-sick-day.
Beg for sugar and dairy products - receive and consume bag of dried mango.
Watch more DVDs because your mom is putting the baby down and totally just doesn't care anymore how many videos you watch.
Make ghosties with your mama and whine about how it is not fair that your ghost isn't as 'nice'.
Cut snowflakes while your mama catches the scraps before the baby who loves paper eats them.
Not get in trouble for leaving paper scraps where the baby can eat them.
Make chocolate cupcakes with mama.
Lick spoons.
Watch oven.
Eat chocolate cupcake.
Whine for another one.
Demand Ask for Refuse to eat matzoh ball soup.
Beg for a vanilla milkshake.
Scream "I want GRAVY!" until your mama figures out that you really mean dairy.
Watch Mama roll her eyes, bite her lip, sigh a lot.
Take another bath.
Negotiate how many books you can have read to you.
Go to sleep.

(listen, did you hear the sound of mama opening the wine bottle?)

CALIFORNIA civil code, section 43.3

I am so angry right now I can barely see the keyboard. Perhaps, like driving, I should put blogging off while feeling so emotional. Or I have another idea - perhaps you could share my outrage and join in my indignance!
In my working life, part of my job is to teach happy music and dance classes to small tykes, who are accompanied by their parents. The happy music part is why I did not teach for a long time after Elijah died. Singing happy music to other kids right after my kid died was not very happy.
So now I have thrown myself back in to that arena for the last seven months - sometimes the music is happy, and sometimes it is silly, and sometimes it is hard for the teacher who remembers singing a lullaby to a baby that is now gone, and it is tearful.
But never before has it been raunchy!
Today I was asked to meet with a director at the rec center where I teach, as a parent had withdrawn from class dissatisfied. Of course I wanted to hear why - I am not above improvement and was hoping for some constructive criticism about me or one of my teachers. I was told that the parent had withdrawn her son from MY class, after her son was (AND I QUOTE) "traumatized by seeing the teacher's boobies". And apparently, according to this mother, her son also ran around the house in a trauma-induced stupor, chanting 'teacher boobies, teacher boobies' all week.
Oh sure - have a laugh and then compose yourself, because this is hardly funny.
Translation: Her 3 year old son witnessed my son breastfeeding during the lullaby at the end of class.
The director went on to inform me, that while she of course wanted to hear 'my side' of 'the incident', she had already discussed this with the supervisor and they 'decided' that I 'can no longer breastfeed in class'.
And that is when the shit hit the fan. First thing I did was whip one out to feed the little man, who was feeling my angst and feeling a bit peckish. And then I looked her in the eye and said, "No."
"No?" was her quick echo.
"No. As in 'No, I will not stop breastfeeding my child in class'. I am inflexible about that. Period."
"Oh."
And then the conversation went on, with me explaining how I had worn a nursing shirt and a nursing bra, and the physical impossibility of unhooking both sides at once. And she exclaimed, "Oh - I didn't know you had a bra on! I just had to follow up on the complaint!"
At which point I just went jaw-agape and asked her why we were having this conversation, as I was confused why I was having to even explain to this woman that I was wearing a bra! And the full impact of being told by two women that I 'could not breastfeed' in this public place was starting to hit me. And I was not happy.
I am - on an airplane or in a restaurant - a militant breastfeeder. Five years ago, a man across the aisle from me on the plane we were sharing suggested that I nurse 'back there in one of the empty rows'. I told him to go ahead and move back there since he was obviously uncomfortable (as he stared at my breast). But when I am teaching I try to maintain some sort of sensitivity toward the masses. I purchased ugly nursing clothes to try and make the baby happy and still be discreet as all eyes were turned toward me. Do I care if they see me nursing? No. But they may not want a full frontal. So I try and make the breastfeeding discreet. Because that's just the kind of person I am.
For the record, the complaining mom also claimed that she was concerned that having my own child in class could potentially distract me from teaching, neglecting to mention that my own child has a nanny in class who takes him out as needed and that he was not even in class until the very end last week (accompanied by said nanny). So she has some issues with fabrication, as well as 'boobies'. And also for the record, my children acknowledge them as 'breasts'.
Upon returning home I felt compelled to send the director and supervisor an email expressing how disappointed I was in her support of a prejudiced position, and added the following content:

Cal. Civil Code § 43.3 (1997) allows a mother to breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, except the private home or residence of another, where the mother and the child are otherwise authorized to be present. (AB 157)

Also, when I got home, I took off my shirt and my bra, danced around flappin for awhile, then asked my baby if he wanted some nasty sexy mama boobie juice.
Because that's just the kind of person I am.

traumatized?

What else is not fair today?

Life as we know it may be over, unless by some miracle, Santa Cruz can supply me with a replacement. Which is where I will go as soon as the baby wakes from his eerily sound sleep.
And I need a replacement white noise machine, not life - just to make that clear. Yes, since a certain little peanut slept so soundly on an airplane five long years ago, we decided then and there that our family would all learn to sleep to the sound of the roar of jet engines. It also was a great solution to having babies and larger children together in our tiny house and not having to maintain an hour of silence while one of them slept. Now we are all addicted, especially Bubbles, who will wake instantly if it is turned off (who did it? i will kill them!).
And it died. After five years of faithful service, wherein I lovingly and desperately replaced adaptor after adaptor, then batteries that sent me into a shameful ecological spiral (more batteries).
And yet, now my baby sleeps soundly. Why? Why does he sleep while deprived of all that comforting roar of slumberland? Because I have the radio turned up really loud.
To static.
Oh help me, Santa Cruz.

What's not Fair Today?

That when it is your turn to be sharing day at kindergarten, you can't share everything. Just one thing.

Fun with food and mermaids

Look what kind of fun you can have when your parents take you to Hawaii and let you run around nakey and play with the cocktail accoutrements. And a rice cake.


Her life doesn't suck.

PHSD

Can't.
Catch.
Breath.

Back to work. Full force. With baby in tow, which sure adds to the fun but HELL it complicates things!
Five year old who throws screaming fits about socks and waistbands and breakfast (won't eat it) EVERY SINGLE MORNING before school and our family is so traumatized and tired of it.
Yes, we are all having a bit of adjustment period. I can speak emphatically for my own PHSD (post-Hawaii-sadness-disorder). Boohoo for me, I know.
But so much to blog about and no time or access to full time brain cells.
Because, as I may have mentioned before, MY BABY DOES NOT LIKE TO SLEEP. This includes napping for more than 30 minutes or sleeping at night for more than ONE HOUR at a time. Yes, I have an eleven month old who still wakes up hourly for a little rendezvous with the boobs. And, because I am a terrible parent who continually caves to her skinny (yes! just ask the pediatrician!) bleating baby, it continues to happen.
My baby has taught himself to cry pitifully, "Nononighnigh, nononighnigh!" And yes, I am serious.
And yet, in all other ways possible, he is perfect. Really. I would go into details more right now if I wasn't so sure he is going to wake up in the next seven minutes!
I have so much more work to do in Hawaii, I feel I did not investigate thoroughly enough and must go back ASAP. Since I have one kick-ass letter to write to a certain airline who totally owes me some cash or new tickets after that little fiasco, heh?, hopefully that will happen very soon. As I explained to Supergirl's school, relocating takes a lot of investigation and contemplation. And visits to Hawaii.
I had a blog-iversary and didn't even notice. Well hurrah for me.
I have a very entertaining birthday story to share. At least that is the way I have come to look at it.
I swam with more naia and honu than I could count.
But ah - he stirs!
For now, I leave you with this: