Feeding Time

I have to go on a business trip next Tuesday. I'm leaving on the 8 AM flight, returning on the 6 PM flight. I have a freezer full of wee milk bags. Daddy's taking the day to work from home. Everything will be fine, except for the part about my living heart ripping itself out and leaving its lurching, bleeding tracks on my pantsuit. Oh, and pumping milk in an airport bathroom.

We gave the boy a few bottles months ago in preparation for this day. We haven't done it since because I am so, so lazy. (Rainy is my hero in this regard. Before spawning, I read a lot of books. While immersed in Breastfeeding Propaganda, hearing all about the deep spiritual bond I would naturally form with my semi-divine offspring and how he would never weep and be a gazillion times more brilliant and eventually save the whales from all the empathy he would suck out of my nipples... while I was freaking myself out with all this pressure, Rainy calmly said, "I breastfeed because I'm lazy. I can't be bothered hauling around all that stuff or getting up in the middle of the night to mix things." I almost died from the sheer sanity of it all.)

But because I've been too lazy to pump more that what I needed to in order to build my freezer stash for the upcoming trip, he's had very few bottles since the introductory weeks. We decided we'd better make sure he still remembered how, after a panic a few weeks ago where he wouldn't take the fake nipple until he was really hungry. So, last night, I pumped right before he would normally feed, and Daddy administered the milk.

However, I forgot to warn the mate of certain... changes to the feeding routine.

Baby: (flips head around looking at the ceiling, the dog, and the bookshelf)

Daddy: (chasing baby's mouth around with the nipple)

Mama: Oh, that's normal.

Baby: (sucks frantically for two minutes, then pops off to complain)

Daddy: Son, what's wrong?

Mama: Oh, that's normal.

Baby: (sucks greedily, while emitting UHLUHLUHLUHLUHLUH noises)

Daddy: What the hell?

Mama: That's perfectly normal.

Baby: (digs tiny claws into stomach flesh)

Daddy: YEEARGH.

Mama: Yep, that's normal too.