It was in this post where I originally described the fun of nursing an infant.
Nursing a "waddler" (not quite a toddler, but certainly a walking infant) is just as hilarious, if not more so. Let's walk through it.
10 AM: Gianna walks over to where I am picking up blocks for the 11 billionth time that morning, and smacks me on the chest. "Nurse?" I ask her, signing as well.
She responds by doing the "nursing chuckle," "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh..." She flings herself into my arms, and we proceed.
10:01 AM: Gianna's eyes squint, and suddenly her pointer finger looms into my peripheral vision. In an instant, my nose is being picked. I remove her hand. She casually zooms in again, and I remove her hand again. Repeat.
10:03 AM: She's disinterested in the nostrils now. Right now, she wants to rest her foot on my cheek. "Rest" is actually the wrong word. She wants to kick my cheek repeatedly while asking, "Dis? Dis? Dis?" Only, she's nursing, so it's more like, "Mish? Mish? Mish?" All of the above is dissuaded, as talking while nursing involves way more teeth than are comfortable.
10:05 AM: What to do... what to do... Ah yes! Gianna grabs my hair and pulls gently. Then, she lets go and pulls her own hair gently. Her eyebrows furrow. She has an idea. She grabs my hair, this time not so gently, and gives it a yank. Then, repeats on her own hair. Back and forth, she tests the tensile strength of each of our tresses until I actually reach my own breaking point before my hair. I encourage her to pull on my nursing necklace, a gift from my mother when I described the black and blue marks I was getting from my interactive nursling.
10:06 AM: I am strangled by my own nursing necklace. Examination of the nostrils resumes.
10:07 AM: Gianna leaps away, ready to play. I grab some tea, and cherish all the fuzzy hormones that nursing releases. Oxytocin, where would we be without you? Probably not nursing, that's for sure.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Return of Saturn
Epilogue (of sorts) to the car crash and subsequent mirth and merriment of living in a "No Fault State." Apparently, if you detest someone badly enough, you can ram some junker of a car right into their family-mobile, and give them three weeks of headaches and phone calls.
No matter. After hemming and hawing, and waxing and waning, and switching frequently from cat pose to cow pose, our insurance company decided to total the car after all. We then had a whirlwind week and a half of looking at used and new cars, weighing our options, deciding if a lease was a good idea or a bad idea (we voted, "BAD") and finally landed on a Saturn. A fairly nice, new Vue that will get the whole family too and fro, Doula-Dog and all.
When we bought the car, we did it at the last hour of the last day of the month, and as a result, didn't get the whole washing and detailing process, as the service center had gone home for the day. I went back the next day with one-year old in tow, and crossed all my fingers and toes that they could get me in and out of there.
At 9:00 AM in the morning, many very extremely elderly people converge upon Saturn dealerships for coffee and TV. I had no idea. Fortunately, they seemed delighted that a baby was in the vicinity, and cackled and encouraged her in her raucousness. "What a handsome little guy!" bellowed one man, as my pink-ruffled-with-flowers-frocked child swept all magazines from the coffee table to the ground. Two women, who had initially sat down next to each other and started to talk about various maladies, cheered on the bambina's attempts at walking. Gianna mistook this friendliness as an invitation to peel brightly painted, but seemingly necrotic toenails off one of the women's toes.
In between treating one and all to some good old fashioned lactation-phobia exposure therapy and the mayhem and madness of letting a near-walker loose around some caffeinated seniors, I frequently popped Gianna into our pouch sling and wandered over to the door that led to the service center. There, service personnel would cheerfully wave and continue to not detail and wash my car. In fact, I suspect that as soon as I'd leave their sight, they were taking turns changing all the pre-programmed stations on my radio and mooning one another from the back windshield.
Around and around we circled. Checked out the autos on the showroom floor. Peeked at the tiny, spoiled pooch that someone was wearing in a dog-baby-carrier (Gianna shouts, "no No NOT!" or sometimes, "Woof!" at strange dogs). Took a break at the waiting area, in order to completely dismantle the daily newspaper all over the floor (which delighted the caffeinated seniors). Peeked at car, wondered at the service people who were now playing a good old fashioned game of "Cram as many workers as possible into the car."
Finally, after hovering close to a salesperson trying to make his sale at a table, and allowing Gianna to add her two cents as necessary, they were able to get us out of there.
Without our free tank of gas.
We would... have to...
GO BACK ANOTHER DAY.
No matter. After hemming and hawing, and waxing and waning, and switching frequently from cat pose to cow pose, our insurance company decided to total the car after all. We then had a whirlwind week and a half of looking at used and new cars, weighing our options, deciding if a lease was a good idea or a bad idea (we voted, "BAD") and finally landed on a Saturn. A fairly nice, new Vue that will get the whole family too and fro, Doula-Dog and all.
When we bought the car, we did it at the last hour of the last day of the month, and as a result, didn't get the whole washing and detailing process, as the service center had gone home for the day. I went back the next day with one-year old in tow, and crossed all my fingers and toes that they could get me in and out of there.
At 9:00 AM in the morning, many very extremely elderly people converge upon Saturn dealerships for coffee and TV. I had no idea. Fortunately, they seemed delighted that a baby was in the vicinity, and cackled and encouraged her in her raucousness. "What a handsome little guy!" bellowed one man, as my pink-ruffled-with-flowers-frocked child swept all magazines from the coffee table to the ground. Two women, who had initially sat down next to each other and started to talk about various maladies, cheered on the bambina's attempts at walking. Gianna mistook this friendliness as an invitation to peel brightly painted, but seemingly necrotic toenails off one of the women's toes.
In between treating one and all to some good old fashioned lactation-phobia exposure therapy and the mayhem and madness of letting a near-walker loose around some caffeinated seniors, I frequently popped Gianna into our pouch sling and wandered over to the door that led to the service center. There, service personnel would cheerfully wave and continue to not detail and wash my car. In fact, I suspect that as soon as I'd leave their sight, they were taking turns changing all the pre-programmed stations on my radio and mooning one another from the back windshield.
Around and around we circled. Checked out the autos on the showroom floor. Peeked at the tiny, spoiled pooch that someone was wearing in a dog-baby-carrier (Gianna shouts, "no No NOT!" or sometimes, "Woof!" at strange dogs). Took a break at the waiting area, in order to completely dismantle the daily newspaper all over the floor (which delighted the caffeinated seniors). Peeked at car, wondered at the service people who were now playing a good old fashioned game of "Cram as many workers as possible into the car."
Finally, after hovering close to a salesperson trying to make his sale at a table, and allowing Gianna to add her two cents as necessary, they were able to get us out of there.
Without our free tank of gas.
We would... have to...
GO BACK ANOTHER DAY.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Hot Topic is NOT Punk Rock
No matter how "anti-establishment" or against the grain, back to nature, outside of the box, or any way you term "different" you think you are as a parent, you always can fit into some sub-group. I happen to belong to the group of anti-consumer, anti-commercial, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, non-vax'ing, CSA-belonging mamas who heft around Robeez-wearing, organically fed children with amber necklaces around their triple-chinned necks. There are actually enough of us that we probably almost equal in numbers the Disney-and-Kraft-Mac-n-Cheese crowd, at this point.
What I'm going to do is causing me no small amount of cognitive dissonance, therefore. I'm about to do something that goes against my typical self, and I think I've come to terms with it. I think I'm going to go ahead and click the "Google AdSense" button, and add some commercialism to my blog. I've questioned myself and my motives long and hard, and what it boils down to is- if you want to click on an ad, click away. Click many times a day, if it makes you happy. If not, some servers will cut out ads, and you don't have to click on them at all. It will be a trial run, at the very least. It may mean more blogging, if Gianna will just sleep long enough for me to crank one out without saving it to draft, and then losing my vibe when I try to rev it back up!
A commercially driven blog, by an anti-consumerism mama. Wrap your heads around that one!
What I'm going to do is causing me no small amount of cognitive dissonance, therefore. I'm about to do something that goes against my typical self, and I think I've come to terms with it. I think I'm going to go ahead and click the "Google AdSense" button, and add some commercialism to my blog. I've questioned myself and my motives long and hard, and what it boils down to is- if you want to click on an ad, click away. Click many times a day, if it makes you happy. If not, some servers will cut out ads, and you don't have to click on them at all. It will be a trial run, at the very least. It may mean more blogging, if Gianna will just sleep long enough for me to crank one out without saving it to draft, and then losing my vibe when I try to rev it back up!
A commercially driven blog, by an anti-consumerism mama. Wrap your heads around that one!
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