the things i find myself doing as a mom

i may or may not have flashed a large number of bay area residents saturday night as i was walking home from the stanford football game.

last week baby girl turned two months old.  she also somehow lost her ability desire to sleep when she's out and about and exciting things are going on.

so saturday she had a normal first nap and then a somewhat shorter second nap i think, i can't really remember why.  either way, she was already slightly sleep deprived.  in general, she only stays awake [happily] for about an hour before she needs to nap again.  anyways, honey and i had a barbeque in sunnyvale to be at at 5:00 and a few errands to run first so we left a while before that.  baby took a capnap in the car but woke up as soon as honey turned the car off.  i'll have to write a post about that later.  it will be titled "are we there yet?" and will reference this story.  oooo ahhhh.  anyways, she stayed awake for the entire barbeque.  i didn't care because she was perfectly happy and not fussy in the least.  even feeding her didn't make her drowsy at all.  oh well.  if you're a happy baby, we won't kick you off the island.

left the barbeque to go to the football game.  she was asleep as soon as the key turned in the ignition.  go figure.  sad part about that was that we couldn't take her carseat to the football game.  kids under two can go to the games for free as long as they stay in your lap.  that means if you bring an infant in a carseat they want a ticket.  and i'm not paying $8 for a youth ticket for my infant.  i just won't do it.  so i found myself waking up the sleeping baby to get her out of her carseat.  oh well.  still happy.  i love this kid.

wow, i am giving lots of detail for this all being completely irrelevant.  k, so basically, eventually she started to get fussy.  with the band and the lights and music and everything going on, she was not about to go to sleep and miss out on the action.  i mean, she really loves stanford football.  like me.  like mother like daughter.  this was around the time i felt like vomiting because i remembered my imminent relief society lesson so i told honey i was going to take her home at the half.  i had so much anxiety i wasn't even really watching the game.  it was just a dazed blur.

remember that great sling i told you about that my friend from church made for me?  well, i left it at home so all i had was the sling i bought online (that i keep in the car for backup)... the one that stretches and baby ends up somewhere around my kneecaps.  well we were only about twenty feet outside of the stadium before baby baby was somewhere near my belt and not too happy about it.  too bad i didn't have my camera with me so you could see that there was absolutely no where i could put her down to retie the sling.  it was dirt, cars, kegs, and a variety of empty alcohol trash.  so i charged on.

two minutes later i reached el camino. 

my route home is in blue

this is the busiest street in the neighborhood.  by this time, baby was crying.  like she was really sad because she was tired and hungry and really angry because she was somewhere near my crotch at this point.  seriously, she was eye to eye with my chest.  so what do i do when it's late at night and you're in an area where you feel like it's unsafe to nurse your needing-to-nurse-kid and you're a full 30 minutes away from home?  you pull down the neck of your shirt, scoop up your boob, and stick it in your kid's mouth!  right while a million and one people drive past you on el camino.  i 100% did not care in the least about everyone walking/driving by that would see me manhandling myself because i had a crying baby gosh darn it!  and that slinky sling had left her mouth exactly three layers of fabric away from what she wanted.

so i gave her the hookup!  instantly i had a quiet, content child.  she sleep ate the whole way home.  hands free nursing while i was out and about.  before you think that this immodesty  was long lasting i will tell you that it only lasted for probably all of 30 seconds while i was unhooking my bra.  once we got baby situated, i zipped up my giant north face jacket and gave her some privacy.  good thing because there were quite a few people that left at half time and i was walking home with them!  people were all around me and they had no idea that inside that jacket slept a sweet nursing baby.

i felt like the coolest person ever.  seriously, ever.  i felt cooler than i've ever felt before in my life.  it was one of those "i need a plaque moments" and i was so sad not to have anyone i knew to share it with.  i told honey about it later but he failed to recognize how cool it was.  he'll never know because he'll never be able to pull it off himself.  i think it's just one of those things that you won't appreciate til you've done it.  maybe... who knows?

i got home and it was still working so well so i just let her keep going.  i could say it was the coolest thing ever about 80 more times and it wouldn't even scratch the surface.  i was loving it.  so i took pictures.  well, that woke baby up.  bright lights inside our apartment with the occasional flash.  and i'd unzipped the jacket so i could see her.  so that was the other "are we there yet?  yes, we are." moment of baby's day.

you wouldn't know, would you?

yes, i'm posting a picture of me nursing my child

but still, i switched her sides and kept going!  but when she was done she got grumpy again.  10:45 pm.  reasonable.  cue the miracle blanket and crib.  then she was OUT.  poor baby.  what a trooper.