Friday, October 24, 2008

The Same River Twice...

Zane’s (known) allergies at 4 months: Dairy, Egg, Soy

Eily’s (known) allergies at 4 months: Dairy, Egg, Soy

My reaction to Zane’s allergies at 4 months: Crying, gnashing of teeth, feelings of complete and abysmal failure as a mother

Physical State: skinny and hungry

My reaction to Eily’s allergies at 4 months: WTF?!! I’m a good mother, yo. This m%6$f%&in bites!

Physical State: not-so-skinny, oh-so-hungry

So…I guess it’s not exactly the same river… :)

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Nursing Mother/Working Mother

Hoover and Nursey McNursesALot

With Zane I had a child who LOVED to eat. The boy was a hoover vacuum cleaner. A gourmand of the life’s nectar that is breast milk. He was a good, regular eater - predictable, even.

With Eily, I have a child who LOVES to nurse. She likes the breast milk, but more importantly, she likes to be snuggled up next to me eating directly from the Mama Tap. What is predictable about Eily is that she’ll want to nurse at any and all times and she is not discouraged by…say…a room full of colleagues…or having just eaten 10 minutes before…or her mother’s self-consciousness.

So I work with some pretty amazing people who are completely open to our nursing during meetings, phone calls, idle chit chat. But seriously, they must be thinking that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist – Eily nursed during two of my meetings last week. For the record, Eily attended exactly two of my meetings last week.

Now thankfully, I have someone coming in to provide childcare during the two days a week I work, - Memo to self: keep the working to two days a week!- but things happen. I utter things like, “I can come to the meeting if I can bring the baby.” People, say “yes”, and the next thing you know, there’s a meeting, a baby, and a partially exposed booby.

And don’t tell me that I can cover her up with a blanket. This is theoretically possible, but when you’re nursing for pleasure, your baby wants a view. And I suppose I could move her onto a schedule, but I feel like we’re already moving in that direction and I’m really comfortable (on the 5 days a week I’m not working) letting her lead the way on this. Call me child-centered.

Or a fool.

But I’m not actually looking for advice here. I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to keep nursing my child on demand. I’m going to feel a bit squirrelly about it when it happens in professional situations. I’m going to be discreet, and I’m not going to apologize. AND…I’m going to blog about it to receive affirmation and support.

(cue affirmations and support)