BIOBaby: Breastfeeding at 48 Months

My cousin had a baby in July of 2008. I gave birth to Jack in August of 2008. A few months ago we were both invited to a hookah bar and my response was, “I can’t go! I’m still breastfeeding!” Her response was, “So am I. Now, what’s your excuse?”

The big difference here is that she she was referring to her second child born since July 2008! That’s right. In the time it took her to nurse one child, wean him, get pregnant and have another baby, I’m still breastfeeding the same baby. And you know what? I think it downright offends some people. I’ve received eye rolls and head shakes and that’s from family!

When I was pregnant I said that I would breastfeed for the first two years.  It seemed like a good length of time, and I suppose part of that decision was based on the guilt I felt for weaning Kali earlier than I’d planned. I left myself open to the possibility that I’d change my mind once I actually began.

Last February, when Jack was about six months old, my mother moved in with us. She is from the old school of feeding a baby pretty much anything that won’t choke ‘em and chewing up and feeding them the things that might. I was making Jack’s baby food myself (pureeing and freezing ice cube trays of carrots, squash, and apples) and as she made sure he was eating three squares (literally) a day, he seemed to become disinterested in nursing.

Oh, hell no. I increased my efforts, offering him the boob whenever I could, and it worked. He was back, firmly nestled in my breast where he belonged. A few more months passed and I thought 18-months-old might be a good place to stop. Then one day while on the phone with Sophie she asked when I was going to stop. I told her when Jack was 18 months. And she said, “Well, he’s 17-months-old now, you might wanna start weaning.”

Well, that was two months ago and I’m still “weaning.”

We tried the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” method. I wouldn’t offer up the booby during the day, but if he went for it, I wouldn’t refuse it either. I tried nursing only first thing in the morning, before nap time, and before bed at night. The problem was, he asked all the time!

And most times, he won’t even ask! I can be on the laptop, reading a book, watching T.V., or playing Halo and he’ll come and pull one out for a little pick-me-up. The boy has even pulled one out as I carried him on my hip, walking down the stairs. He literally lifted one out of my tank top, craned his neck, and started sucking.

“OK. You may need to start getting dressed everyday. No more wearing your P.J.s all day. No more tank tops. Start wearing turtlenecks tucked into your jeans… and wear a belt,” Sophie advised.

“Um, I think I need an armored vest!”

The majority of the time, I don’t mind that he’s still nursing. Sometimes it’s caused some pretty funny moments. Like, the other night when Jack and Donny were headed up to bed, and I decided to stay downstairs and watch Idol. Jack climbed out of my lap to follow Donny up the stairs. Just as he was about to climb up the first step he stopped, ran back to me, stood between my legs as I sat on the couch, pulled my nightshirt down and sucked, sucked, sucked, then ran back to Donny throwing a, “Bye!” over his shoulder. Donny said he just wanted “one for the road.”

Other times, it can be pretty inconvenient when he falls asleep and I have to carefully detach and then pray he doesn’t wake up as I transition him. And I’m pretty sure all these hormones are the reason behind my constant need to wax my face – but that’s for a whole ‘nother blog. I think what is worrying me is that I have no idea how to stop. A lot of people have said I should just let him decide. What if he decides he wants to be doing it till he’s 3? He’s already graduated from sippy cups to child cups with lids and straws, and recently he’s been pushing those aside and drinking from a lidless cup like a big boy, but he ain’t tryna give up the “bee bees.”

A lot of Moms who really advocate nursing will say, “You know, in other countries this isn’t such a big deal.”

Yeah, well, I live in America and I ain’t tryna be the mom squirting breastmilk in his thermos as he heads off to preschool!

Donny and I went to see 2012 and this trailer was shown before the movie. At the end of it, Donny turned to me and said, “That’s gonna be you and Jack.” No, it’s not! Right? RIGHT!?

Brand New

In the span of about six months my child has gone from this:

to this:

And it’s all my fault!

Last November I had a mystery shop at Aeropostale. Prior to that, I hadn’t stepped foot in that store and couldn’t tell you what they sold. It was one of those jobs where they don’t pay you a shop fee, but reimburses for the required purchase – in this case, a shirt. Kali wanted to tag along because the store was very popular with the kids in her class.

First, we had to deal with the little matter of how to pronounce the damn name. My father called it AIR-O-PO-STAL-LAY – all fancy, like he’s Madonna or something. Kali insisted that wasn’t right. I called it AIR-O-POS-TELL (rhymes with Aristotle.) Kali insisted THAT wasn’t right either.

So, I’m doing the shop and realize that I enjoy food way too much to fit anything in that store. Also, the clothing seemed to be catered towards people that actually left the house once in awhile. After holding up a few XS tees to Kali, I decided I’d make the required purchase for her and picked out a super cute orange T-shirt with AEROPOSTALE obnoxiously plastered down the side.

As we’re checking out, Kali nudges me. “Ask him!” she stage whispers.

I look at the young man ringing up the shirt. He’s wearing a tight plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans made to look like they’re dirty when they’re really not.

“My daughter wants to ask you something.”

If looks could kill they’d have been cleaning up a Nina-sized stain off the Aeropostale floor.

“How do you pronounce the name of this store?”

“AIR-O-PO-STAL” (Stal like Stalin.)

So, Kali was right.

He then flips his head, tossing back hair cut in one of those uber-trendy styles that only white boys can pull off, and says, “But we just call it Aero.”

Oh, well, excuse the fuck outta me.

And that was all it took. It’s been Aero this and Aero that ever since. I feel like pulling out one of my mother’s old standards and asking, “You got Aero money?”

For her birthday we took her to pick out some shirts. I was very happy to see the “ALL TOPS 50% OFF” sign in the window. I didn’t want to spend more than $50. We got two t-shirts, a plaid button down, and a white hoodie for just under $50 (everything was either 50% or 70% off.)

It’ a little weird watching her style change and some of it frightens me. I mean, come on! Look at that ad again. Those kids are an eating disorder and one roofy experience away from being an Abercrombie and Fitch ad!

But as long as I am in charge of picking out and paying for the clothes, this shouldn’t be a problem. The style may be older, but we’ll always remain appropriate.

And I’m already putting the brakes on this idea that only one name brand is suitable. She wanted Aeropostale flip-flops, but they were $10.

“Girl, we can go to Old Navy and get you some flip-flops.”

“But these are better.”

“Why?”

“Because they say Aeropostale!”

“Yeah, across the bottom where no one will see it. Let’s go.”

On the bright side, when she’s old enough for a part-time job, I know where to send her.

McDonald’s Money

The other day I was at the kitchen table, paying bills and balancing the bank account when Kali looked over my shoulder, pointed at a circled dollar amount on a sheet of paper and asked, “Is that how much money we have?”

Any parent will tell you that you always pause to figure out the best way to answer your child’s question no matter how innocent the question may be. My first instinct – sometimes to a fault – is to always tell the truth. But then you have to worry about the ramifications of telling the truth. Take Kali’s question as an example – I had to ask myself, “Did we have the talk about privacy and money? Do I have to worry that I’ll see this post on Facebook:

My Mom has $1,600 in the bank!

I realized that a simple yes or no answer might not be so simple after all, so I gave the standard Mommy reply when we need time to stall.

“Girl, go play.”

As I prepared to write this, I tried to remember what my perception of the family finances were when I was a child (without being biased by what I know now.) Did I think we were poor? I’m not sure if I felt like we were poor, but I knew we didn’t have money. At least not a lot of it. My mother always attached money to our wants.

“Ma, can we have McDonald’s?”

“You got McDonald’s money?”

“Ma, can we go to the movies?”

“You got movies money?”

I was always left with the feeling that we didn’t have any money. Of course, now I realize when my mother said, “I don’t have McDonald’s money,” she meant exactly that. She had money, just not for McDonald’s. There was never a time when we didn’t eat, we just didn’t have McDonald’s.

Even though my mother and stepfather never fought about money openly (or even stressed over it in front of us) it wasn’t hard to figure out our financial station in life. Hell, just spending any time with family and friends who had more money or turning on The Cosby Show told me that we weren’t exactly the Rockefellers.

As a parent, I worry about what kind of financial message (even silently) I’m sending to my kids. There’s very little that Kali wants that she doesn’t get. But she also knows that these things don’t come magically. We’ve had the discussion about pay, taxes, and bills. She understands that going to work means getting paid. She saw me doing side merchandising and mystery shop jobs before the holidays in order to buy the laptop she wanted for Christmas.

I’m hoping this has given her an appreciation for the things we have. But there’s a fine line. We want our kids to take care of the things they have because they know they cost money and they know that money isn’t plucked out of thin air, but we don’t want our kids worrying about money. I don’t think they should have to.

I found myself choosing my words carefully when explaining our recent move to Kali. It’s an uncomfortable sentence, but I thought, “Mommy and Daddy can no longer afford that bigger house,” was appropriate. It was the perfect segue way into how much it costs to, well, live. Bigger houses are more expensive to heat in the winter and keep cool in the summer, this means bigger monthly bills and less money left over for extras or savings, etc.

Spending habits are just that – habits. If you have poor ones, your kids are in danger of picking them up. Of course, there’s also the chance that your kid may grow up to do the exact opposite. So affected by growing up in a household where utilities were also at risk of being shut up off, a child may grow up to be super responsible with their finances to simply not repeat their parents’ mistakes. But why risk it? Even if you’re faking the funk, is it better to always put on a happy face in front of your kids when it comes to money?

No matter how tight money becomes, there’s one area in which I refuse to have my kids affected. Food. Growing up, there was four of us kids and not a lot of extras. We pretty much ate breakfast and lunch in school, and things like cereal were saved for the weekends to be devoured in front of Saturday morning cartoons. And though we weren’t denied food, there was definitely the unspoken understanding that food couldn’t be consumed just for the sake of doing it. It seemed everything had to last. There wasn’t a lot of extra snacks laying around the house.

Soda was a treat. Kool-Aid was a (cheap) staple. It always seemed to me that other people had it so much better than we did. I’d go to my cousins’ houses and marvel at the amount of Sunnydale juices in the fridge or bags of chips in the cabinet. I was fascinated when school friends could go into the kitchen and prepare a sandwich without having to ask first. To me, these folks were living large! As a result, I make sure my house is filled with the things my kids like to eat. There are very few things (snacks purchased strictly for school) that Kali has to ask for before eating. I wonder if she thinks she’s living large.

Then again, she is only 11 and 11-year-olds aren’t exactly known for being rational thinkers. The other day she asked if we were poor. I told her no and then wanted to know why she asked.

“Well, I keep asking to be a premium member of that website I like, and you keep saying no.”

So, let me this straight: you live in a nice house with nice televisions, every game system on the market, tons of video games and DVDs, you have nice clothes and your own laptop and you think we’re poor because I won’t pay for unlimited access to a site where Chester Chester, Child Molesters could be lurking? *facepalm*

But maybe this means I’m doing something right. Maybe this means that she has all the understanding of money one needs to have at 11: things cost money and sometimes Mommy and Daddy will buy you the things you need/want because they can and it’s appropriate and sometimes they won’t because they can’t or won’t. Then again, maybe she was just being a smartass.

So, how much info is too much info? Should your children know what’s in your bank account? Should they be aware of exactly how much money it takes to keep the roof over their heads, the lights on, and food on the table?

Mommy Monday: I Never Thought I’d…

There are times when Kali and Jack will be cuddled up, giggling over something he just did – or sometimes nothing at all – and she’ll look up and say, “I never thought I’d have a baby brother.” She’ll further explain that she kind of resigned herself to always being an only child.

As we pack up the house for our move, she’ll sometimes say, “I never thought we’d be moving. I just kinda thought I’d always live here.”

She really does think about these things. At ten, she has definite ideas on how her life is, how it should be, and how it will be. In that sense, she’s a lot more connected to herself than I was at that age. I didn’t give the future much thought at ten. In fact, I kind of expected things to change at any moment, so when they did it was normal. When I was Kali’s age, I’d already lived in at least three or four different places.

I was too busy reading to give much thought to how many siblings I’d eventually have. My parents just kept popping them out and somewhere between To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, I’d look up to find a new baby sister.

Then again, I was convinced I’d never live past 18. Not sure why. I couldn’t envision myself in my 20′s or 30′s. I shared this prediction with my best friend once. She thought I was crazy. Not just cause it was a very morbid thing to think, but because I’d also recently confessed to being able to control traffic lights and NYC subway trains with my mind.

So, I am fascinated when Kali and I have these conversations in which she shares what she imagines for herself and our family. She seems to take change with ease. Excitement even. It’s like by having another baby and moving to a new house we’ve opened up a whole new world of possibilities for her.

Never thought you’d have a baby brother, but now here one is? Why not another? Why not a baby sister? Of course, this also teaches a valuable lesson in disappointment when I explain to her that Mommy will, most likely, not be having anymore babies.

Once, after she’d admitted that she still couldn’t believe she had a baby brother, I asked, “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah. I never thought I’d have one, but I’m happy I do. Life is so funny.”

What a funny thing for a ten-year-old to say, right? She already has this sense of wonderment about life and an appreciation for it. I hope that never goes away.

Do you talk to your kids about their expectations? Their wants? Their dreams? What are they? Do you feel a responsibility to keep things as they are for your kids or have you found that your kids adapt well to change?

Mommy Monday: Getting To Know You

Your children assume that your life began the moment they were born.

Kali is always shocked to find that I know things.

“Oh my God, Mommy. How do you know this song? I’ve never heard it before.”

“Um, cause it’s from 1982.”

Once, we were headed upstairs with our dinner and I carried both of our plates and glasses.

“You’re really good at that.”

“Well, I used to be a waitress. This is a breeze compared to some of the stuff I carried.”

“You used to be a waitress?!”

“Uh huh. In Texas.”

“You lived in Texas?!”

She asked both as if I’d just confessed to inventing ice cream.

The older she gets, I realize there’s a lot she doesn’t know about me. The other night, while driving home from the library, I dropped another bombshell.

“I have to tell you something.”

*pause*

“I used to be married. To someone else. Before Daddy.”

We’d already had the biological Dad convo a few years ago and I thought I’d save the first husband revelation for a later date.

“You were?!”

“Yes.”

“To who?”

So, I tell her about my first husband – met him when I was 18, married at 22, divorced before you could say, “infidelity abound.”

She leans forward from the backseat and whispers conspiratorially, “Does Daddy know this?”

“Yes!”

“Well, just checking. I mean, I can’t believe he married you knowing you used to be married to someone else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He wasn’t married to someone else before.”

“So? He had girlfriends and stuff.”

“That’s different.

The conversation was taking an ugly turn. I thought this revelation might make me seem worldly and mysterious to my daughter. That she would see me as someone other than the woman that worries about bills and drives her to the library and after-school book club. I wanted her to think I was cool. Instead, she kinda made me feel like The Whore of Babylon.

We get in the house and she says, “Are you sure Daddy knows, cause I’m gonna tell him.” And then, just in case I was lying, she proceeds to confirm that Donny did indeed know that he wasn’t my first husband.

Nice to see whose side she’s on now.

“When will you tell Jack?”

“Well, I don’t know now. I’m sure you’ll tell him soon enough, Ms. Judgey McJudgerstein.”

Last night, I thought she’d get a good laugh out of this pic from my 18th birthday:

“Can you believe Grandpa let me wear that out of the house?,” I asked, giggling like a fool. “It was a nightgown, but I wore it as a dress.”

“I can’t believe anyone let you out the house like that!”

It’s odd what impresses her. She’s more in awe of my past in the food service industry than my tales of hob-knobbing with, now, irrelevant celebrities or how damn hot I used to be.

“I mean, why would you wear a nightgown in public? Why not just buy a real dress? I know your birthday is in August, but it couldn’t have been that hot, could it?”

“OK. Go to bed.”

“I don’t have school tomorrow.”

“Go to bed anyway.”

So, how do you handle discussing past relationships/escapades with your children?

BIOBaby: Jack’s First Haircut

I folded like a card table. Back in November, I took Jack to get his first haircut.

Two pics of early morning bedhead.

It has since grown back.

Next up: pics of Kali’s first haircut in ten years.

BIOBaby: Baby Boner

This is quite possibly the funniest, yet most disturbing, experience of my life…

So, last night Donny, Jack, and I are in bed watching TV. Donny and I are kinda sitting up with our backs against the headboard and Jack is lying horizontal with his head on Donny’s side and his feet against my leg. I notice that his diaper is kinda crooked so I reach over and undo one velcro side strap to fix it.

Jack pushes my hand away and decides to take advantage of having a now-open diaper by sticking his hand inside of it. He starts playing with his little penis and giggling. And not just regular giggles, but squeals of masturbatory delight.

It was as if all the other times he’d found his penis were warm-up and now, well now he meant business. Attempts by me to remove his hand and close the diaper were met with swats from the unoccupied hand with a precision and speed that can only be described as ninja-like.

I tried to be stern, but not too stern. I mean, I don’t want him to grow up with some weird penis complex. But the whole thing was actually quite funny so I’m also laughing like a fool. Donny responded as most men would.

“That’s my boy!”

And Jack is no dummy. Just when he sensed that maybe I was not fooling around anymore, and would no longer be hampered by fits of laughter, he would pull his hand out from the diaper, pat his tummy and say, “Belly. Belly.” As if reminding me that he was smarter than the average bear his age would make up for the fact that he was conducting his first spank-job on my bed!

And because I am like every other mother that likes to brag when she realizes that she is indeed the mother of a smarter-than-average bear, I did what any braggart would do:

I grabbed the video camera from my nightstand… which I realize as I type this sounds incredibly scandalous, delicious, lascivious, and other naughty words that end in -ous.  While my back was turned Jack proceeded to stick his hand back in his diaper and move it around furiously, laughing like a madman. I got about fifteen seconds of footage in which Donny and I can be heard laughing in the background. Jack continued to lie on his back, hand alternating between pulling on his penis and patting his tummy. It was at about sixteen seconds that I realized that we could very well be committing some kind kiddie porn crime.

I snapped the camera closed and voiced my concerns to Donny. This seemed to make the situation at least 35% less funny to him. He got all Caucasian on Jack.

“Jack Ian (insert last name here)!! Stop tugging on your little peter!”

His little peter?

I move Jack’s hand and get serious. I’m not tryna get peed on.

“Belly?”

“No. No belly. That’s not gonna work this time.”

I undo the other side of the diaper and open it up to adjust it properly and there, staring me dead in the face was my son’s angry, swollen, dog-dick red, baby boner.

“Donny, you deal with this!”

Who knew the male penis fascination began so early?!

BIOBaby: Still Not Getting a Haircut

I will not be Delilah to Sampson. I know, I know. His hair is long. It’s curly. Everyone thinks you should cut a boy’s hair at one. Well, I don’t do what everybody else does. Everyone knows that!

I love Jack’s hair. It’s so… so… Jack!

He has years and years of haircuts ahead of him. He can be a baby a little longer. If I’m not in a rush, no one else should be.

OK, I have a confession to make: the other day he was in the bathroom while Kali took a shower and I looked over to the master bathroom and thought, “That boy needs a haircut!” It’s because the room was all steamy and his hair had kinda poofed out into a fro.

Shower Power

Back in April, I wrote about Kali’s reluctance to bathe. It wasn’t that she liked being dirty and/or smelly, she just had better things to do. She refused to slow down long enough to bathe because she would miss something happening downstairs, on TV, or outside the window. Why slow down to bathe when there were shows to watch, books to read, and video games to play? In short, she had shit to do.

But then Jack came along, outgrew his baby tub (sorry, Amy), and he became fascinated with standing by the side of the tub in the master bathroom as Kali was forced to take her nightly bath. Well, what really fascinated him was tossing objects in the tub, laughing as his sister squealed and ducked flying dirty underwear, toothpaste tubes, and hand towels, before Donny or I would drag him out of there. When he started stripping off his diaper and trying to climb in the tub with her, we realized we could kill several dirty birds with one stone – if we let him in the tub with Kali they’d both bathe, we’d get at least fifteen minutes of quiet time, and Kali wouldn’t get beaned with toilet paper rolls. Win/win/win. What we didn’t count on was Jack now tossing everything IN the tub out, and getting the floor soaking wet in the process.

Kali, sick of cleaning up after her brother and the responsibility of cleaning the tub before and after bathing, decided that she was finally ready to take her first shower. I helped her prepare by showing her how to adjust the temperature and stream of the water. I showed her how I usually draped my towel over the door so it’s ready when I’m done and told her where she could hang her loofah after she bathed. And, we were off…

Her first shower lasted 15 minutes, the second lasted 20. We are now at the point where I have to go looking for her to make sure she hasn’t drowned.

“Oh, Mommy! It’s so awesome! When you turn your back to the water it feels soooo good!”

I have created a monster. Albeit a very clean one, but a monster all the same. A monster that apparently doesn’t understand water bills or the concept of “using up all the hot water.” I find myself having to time my own showers around her schedule for, you see, she likes using my shower because it has a cool frosted door and resembles something out of an amusment park. Her own shower, by comparison, was too old school with its plastic shower liner and blue cloth curtain. Don’t ask me how one who just discovered the joys of a hot shower can be so damn picky.

But, I guess, I shouldn’t complain. My child finally, without having to be bribed or harassed, regularly, and enthusiastically washes her ass.

Nina’s Top Ten Things I Never Thought I’d Say… Until I Had Kids

10. “Please stop pulling your sister’s panties.”

9. “No, you cannot have Fruit Roll-Ups for breakfast. Because they’re not actually fruit.”

8. “Stop licking your sister’s arm.”

7. “Get your hands out of the toilet!”

6. “Don’t bite the dog!”

5. “Do not put that in your nose!

4. “You have to go to school. Because if I don’t send you to school, I’ll go to jail. Do you want Mommy to go to jail? I didn’t think so. Now, go get dressed.”

3. “No, my breastmilk isn’t chocolate because I’m brown.”

2. “Please don’t bite my nipple.”

1. “Stop playing with your penis!”

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