The funny side of parenting a baby

Okay, it's story time. Let's admit it--having a baby can be challenging. Diaper explosions, never getting a full night of sleep, unexplainable crying, and if you are a stay at home mom, the feelings of loneliness and desperately wishing there was another adult in the house to talk to besides the ones on Netflix. However, there is definitely comedic relief, and I would like to share a couple of those shining moments with you, both of which happen to revolve around nursing.

1) This happened in December when Caleb was still only a few weeks old. He was refusing to sleep in his bassinet, and so in an attempt to get more sleep for everyone, we had him sleep in his swing until we could get him used to sleeping horizontally. The swing was on Brent's side of the bed, and so during this time it was his job was to get the baby when he cried and bring him to me so I could nurse him. One night we awoke to the hunger cries of our wee one, and my bleary eyed husband rolled out of bed to collect our child.

I waited. It was taking Brent an unusually long time to unbuckle our baby out of the swing, and Caleb was letting him know it. But I waited still.

Finally, my begroggled (yes I made that word up) spouse came over and I held out my arms to take Caleb from him. But imagine my surprise, when I saw that in Brent's delusional state, he was not cradling our infant, but his pillow.

I tried not to laugh, because clearly my husband was not fully awake. I also didn't laugh because I was also tired and was trying to figure out if maybe I was the one that wasn't awake and the pillow I was looking at was actually a baby.

As I could still hear Caleb screaming madly from the corner of the room, I determined that the pillow was, in fact, a pillow.

 Our conversation went something like this:

"Uuuh....Brent...go get Caleb."
"He's right here..."
"No....he's still in his swing."

Brent looked at the package in his arms. I think it took him a full three seconds before he registered that, contrary to his beliefs, he was holding something other than Caleb. He looked startled and then he went back to the swing and got Caleb and brought him over. Once I started nursing, Brent quickly fell back asleep, while I sat there chuckling to myself.

The next morning, we had a good laugh about it.

We still aren't sure at what point Brent grabbed the pillow.



2) This happened yesterday at a family gathering.

I was attempting to nurse Caleb at my brother's house, and his little boys, ages 3 and 4, were quite intrigued with what I was doing. I was trying to use a cover, but Kyle and Lucas wanted to know what was going on.

"What's the baby doing? Is he drinking?....Is he still drinking? He has milk? Is he still drinking?"

Lucas in particular kept trying to peek under the cover to see what exactly was going on under there.

Meanwhile, Caleb was having a hard time staying latched on, and with a cover and two overly curious children within an arm's reach, breast feeding was becoming difficult. I finally thought, forget this, these kids have seen their mom do it and they won't be scarred, and I stopped worrying about the cover so I could get Caleb latched on again. 

Upon seeing the source of Caleb's milk supply, Lucas cried, "Wow! You have a lot!"

I about died. 

He then added, "My mom has a little."

And then he lifted up his own shirt to inspect his own milk makers. I had to explain that only girls made milk. Shortly after, he went up to my dad (his grandpa) and started to lift his shirt up to see his too. 

The body is a wonderous thing...especially to a three year old.