Cecilia; The Muncher

So how can I compete with my sister’s blogging when she is writing from Eqypt? All my stories are going to sound rather droll. Another breastfeeding story. Can you tell what my days consist of?

Breastfeeding a one year old is a whole new experience. Whatever happened to my tiny little suckler, cuddled motionless in my arms, while I stroked her newborn baby fuzz? Now I have this moving, pointing, grabbing, biting entity to deal with. I come out of feeding sessions feeling more like a momma sow nursing a litter of piglets. Yes she’s cute, and I want to feed and nourish her, but do I really want to let this thing near my boob? Not exactly. For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to lactate, imagine bearing your breast to a 20 pound being, a cross between a gremlin and a bear cub. Here, go on, put this in your mouth. She even gnashes her two little teeth at me in apprehension. My nipples come out of the experience numbed and aching. Really, if you saw what she did to them, you’d be surprised that they are still there at all.

It is not just my nipples that have been the brunt of her mastication aggressions. Like a little reverse beaver she digs her two sharp bottom fangs into whatever she can find; the metal bathtub rail, Grandma’s antique wooden arm chair, her brother. She even randomly bites different parts of my body, like she is systematically checking my body for milk production at alternative locations. You never know when the main source might run out.

I believe I had what one might label as a Freudian experience at Superstore the other day. It didn’t dawn on me until later, that I might have been inadvertently seeking my revenge on the little muncher.

Cecilia uses a soother (what my three-year old calls a “sou-sou”). Once a nickname has been entered into your mommy brain, it would take a nuclear bomb to get me from using it. “Baby want her sou-sou?” How lame is that? I digress. So Cecilia uses a sou-sou, and I have a little leash thing that attaches to her shirt with a metal clip to keep her from experimenting with gravity and throwing it over the edge of her stroller.

When I went to clip the sou-sou onto her shirt on this particular day, I clipped it onto her nipple (over top of the shirt). For the first few seconds, I don’t think she knew what happened. She was just looking at me like I had just dropped the bomb on her. Then the screaming started. Poor little thing. I quickly detached the offending device, but the damage had been done. Her little nipple was all bruised and sore. I felt really bad. It is only now that I was thinking that perhaps I had been acting on a subconscious level. I mean, how many times has she made my nipple bleed? Countless. How many times has she grabbed my nipple and attempted to sheer it off with her razor sharp finger nails? Many. Many times.

So, yes, I’m sorry. Like any good mom, I felt bad for hurting my baby. You are all probably thinking, “what a terrible mom”, and I sure as hell felt like crap after that experience. But something inside me thought, “hey, maybe this will be a small preparation for her future breastfeeding experiences?”