Note to blog readers: for some reason I can't make it stop highlighting the word "the." Sorry
Of course, it isn't really like that.
Nursing is an interactive event. Sure, you might get a few days of soothing bliss right after your baby comes. Those are the same few days that you get in which you think (foolish you) "Gee, my baby just sleeps all night!" It's before your baby really wakes up, see. They haven't realized yet that they've joined the world. Once that realization hits they wake the HIZZY up, and along with that comes your introduction (or, sometimes, REintroduction) to the sport of competitive nursing.
First of all, babies do not, I repeat, do NOT come with a GPS locator that tells them where your nipple is. Recently Charlotte's preferred method of finding my nipple is to ignore it completely, and instead attempt to dive headfirst into my armpit. I don't know who told her there was breast milk to be found there, but whoever it was should be found and shot. Anyway, where ever YOUR baby thinks your nipple is, be it shoulder, armpit, or naval, you will find yourself wrestling with your baby to get them back to breast level. Once you've got them correctly located you will, of course, have to let go of them in order to grab your boob and steer it into their gaping maw. And, once you let go of them, they're going to dive right back into your armpit. Or naval. Whatever.
Let's say you actually get them latched on. Hooray! They're gonna let go. That's right, as soon as they get thebeloved nipple they have been so arduously spelunking for they are going to spit it out. Why? Well, because you haven't actually had let down yet (aside for all the non-nursers out there - let down is when all the water in your body suddenly rushes into your boobs, rendering the stored milk fats therein drinkable, and rendering you, thenurser, totally thirsty. Babies can't get much out until let down occurs) so they think you've given them the wrong nipple.
"Not THIS one, Mom!" They say in their tiny baby minds "THIS one doesn't have any milk in it. If you would just give me that one in your ARMPIT I could get somewhere!"
So you stick your nipple back in, because, after all, it is the baby sucking on said nipple that causes let down to occur (unless you're in public with no breast shields, then EVERYTHING causes let down to occur, thus soakingthe front of your shirt.) But your baby is disgusted with you.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOM. I SAID that there's not MILK in this one. Knock it off!"
You, being an idiot, start to reason with your baby, who cannot speak English, only tiny baby Gurgles.
"Sweetie, I know you're hungry, if you'll just stay on there a minute the milk will come out."
"Bleghcrassssssssspth."
Which means "You can't fool me lady. Stick me back in that armpit."
Sigh.
If you're unlucky let down will take so long that your offspring will begin shrieking in rage at you. Then, when all of a sudden your boob starts squirting out milk, the poor thing will drown. It sounds roughly like this.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Baby, just latch on."
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Sweetie, I promise the milk is coming."
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Let me just stick this right back in there for you."
"
Perhaps what you should take away from this is that nursing is rarely calm, advertisements lie, and babies are dumb.
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My back has been giving me trouble recently. Those of you who have known me as an adult are probably thinking that this isn't really news, but my recent back issues are more than my typical gripe. I seem to have overstretched or under flexed or wickey wonkied my lower back somehow with all the lugging about of small children that I've been doing. It's getting worse and worse, and now it's to the point where I can't stand up without taking 15 seconds and forcing my back to go fully upright. It's like my back is about 80 years old. ANyway, Wednesday I have an appointment with a chiropractor, who I hope will tell me something like "The only way to fix this is for you to go to Greece for a month" but is far more likely to tell me something like "I'll realign you, and then you really need to spend less time lugging kids around." Keep you fingers crossed for the greece thing, though.
Fast forward like, a month. Hey, I've been busy. Turns out it WASN'T Greece and it WAS more serious - I really messed myself up sneezing in the wrong position, and I've been to the Chiropractor about 15 times in the past four weeks trying to get everything straightened back out again.
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Sometimes I look at Charlotte sleeping in my arms, and I think how comfortable it must be to be a baby and have a mommy. As we grow older mommies are still good - after all, we love them and they love us - but no longer can they fix every ill in the world. Eventually we become sufficient unto ourselves, and our mommies are sad but proud that we don't even truly need them anymore. But as a baby - how awesome to have a mommy. Mommy fixes everything. Mommy makes all the hurts better. Mommy comforts, consoles, and brings joy.
Of course, Mommy also straps you into the car seat and leaves you there to suffer, but that is beside the point.
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ZOMG!!!! I started this email in October of last year. Now it's January. I knew I would be busy of the holidays, but this is a little re-donk-ulous, isn't it?
I'm feeling a little guilty about my lack of emailage. Not because of you guys - after all, most of you never write me, so I only think it's fair when I don't write you back. :) No, I feel guilty because of the perponderance of email I sent out detailing Elliot's little advances, and I haven't been good about doing the same for Charlotte. I keep imagining conversations with my daughter when she's in her teens, in which I hand each of them a stack of print-outs, and Elliot's is several inches thick and Charlotte's is four sheets of paper, and she looks at me and says "What the HELL!?" and I say "Sweetie, you gotta understand, two is a lot harder than one. Less alone time on thecomputer." and she looks at me in disgust and slams the door to her room and turns the stereo up to manslaughter and I go have a glass of wine.
Of course, if she doesn't do it about the emails she's bound to do it about something else, so there's not much point in worrying, is there?
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Alright, this is getting ridiculous. It's now April I haven't sent one of these out in, like, 8 months. So, real quick, before I get distracted again, here are the familial updates:
Charlotte is a crawling, standing, cruising, shrieking velociraptor of wonder these days. She very happy, very energetic, very on course developmentally, and very, very loud. Takes after her mommy like that. She's adorable, and she has some of her own made up signs that morph depending on what is most important to her atthe moment, but I understand her so that's okay. She gets into everything, and I fear for the day she figures out how to climb stairs. She adores her big brother - he is the light in her universe and the joy in her daily life. She chooses to express this adoration by pestering him no end, wrecking all his train tracks, and shrieking at the top of her lungs if he refuses to grant her the attention she so obviously deserves. :)
Elliot is a little delicate these days. He loves his "baby sister, Miss Charlotte" but he fiercely resents the fact that Miss Charlotte gets carried and he has to walk like a big boy. He mostly didn't want to be carried, or held for long periods of time, or snuggled with during the day, before Charlotte was born. Now it seems like every time I sit down I have one baby and one toddler attempting to turn me into the world's crankiest bean bag. I feel compassion for him, but somehow that doesn't keep me from wanting to tear my hair out every time I hear "Mommy, pick me up, put Miss Charlotte down and Pick ME UP!"
Aside from his realization that he is not the center of the Universe, and his ensuing crisis of faith in Mommy's love, Elliot is doing well. He's bright and creative and really super cute. Also a pain the butt, but that kinda goes with being a three year old. Good days are the days when he is less of a pain then he is adorable, but I will tell you frankly, not all days are good days.
Waxor and I are both doing really well, within certain strictures. I've had some health problems, mostly related to being post partum. We're both having some tired issues, mostly due to having children. Aside from those two very significant things we're great, though. We're mostly handling the crazy 3 year old issues well, as well as theshrieking velociraptor. We've got games to play and friends to hang with and places to go often enough that we don't go stir crazy, but not so often that we never get to be home. All in all life is just fine.
I hope everything is fine with all of you, and I seriously would type more, but Elliot is throwing a fit about going outside and Charlotte is pointing to her mouth and Waxor just took off upstairs (like a coward. :)) Gotta go. Hopefully it won't be 8 months before I send another one.
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