This story started my blog.

I have been wrestling with whether to keep writing my blog this month. Not because I don’t like it. I do. Unfortunately, I just can’t find the time. I am focusing on other goals, and can’t do it all. Blogging has taken a backseat for awhile… and most likely it will continue to be a sporadic love affair vs. my past daily love affair.

However, today on Baby Bunching, they asked about your best or worst breastfeeding experience. And it reminded me of the following story. This story I sent to my family shortly after Justin was born. I was struggling with the ins & outs of baby bunching… and my struggle ended up to be highly entertaining to all who surrounded me at the park (and my family who read it later). And from then on, I didn’t email my stories… I blogged them.

Here is the one that kicked it off in Dec of 2005 - Andrew was under 1.5, Justin was a month old:

I had decided we needed to try to get out of the house since Andrew was wired up. My girlfriend was coming over the next day to exchange Christmas gifts for our kids… and I still hadn’t managed to get her child a gift. So I loaded the boys up and off we went to Toys R Us.

When we got there, Andrew decided he didn’t like the new double stroller & proceeded to try to escape from the strapped in harness & howl at the top of his lungs the whole time. Needless to say, the trip was as fast as I could go (considering holiday lines at the store) and I was majorly embarrassed as my son grabbed hold of the plastic bags at the check out line and proceed to rip them off one by one & throw them on the floor.

Then I decided, we need to get his energy out… so we should go to the park. I knew Justin would need to eat, and Andrew would like the sand. So my thought was that he would play in the sand, while I fed Justin.

When we arrived at the park, I got his toys out of the car and got them in the stroller.. and again there was a fit about the stroller. He wouldn’t get in it. He threw a tantrum in the parking lot, but it was too late to turn back now. I kept muttering… just get him to the sand & it will be fine. So I pretty much corralled him like a herd of cats to the sandbox, dumped his toys, got him shoveling… and sat down to feed Justin. I was appropriately discreet with the blanket over my shoulder & Justin hidden with the boobs.

That was when Andrew decided that he was going to take off. There I was, struggling to get up with my baby attached to the boob, so that I could run after my other child. He headed straight to the steps up to the slide which he hadn’t mastered yet. So I said “No Andrew!” Of course he acted as if he was stone deaf. After he got up 3 steps & my repeated no’s were hitting him like a brick-wall… I was forced to grab him with my one free hand. Picture Justin, attached to the boob in one arm, and Andrew screaming like a banshee in the other. Frankly this scenario was repeated 4 times before I literally had to sit on the stairs of the slide & block Andrew & every other child in the park from using the slide. At this point I wondered… how can I ditch Justin to stop Andrew? Well, I couldn’t. So I just had to keep him attached to the boob because where was I going to leave him … on a park bench? Of course not… so I trudged after my horrible child of 1.5 to follow him to yet another destination.

This time he was taking off over the grassy knoll, away from the park, towards the street. So I ran after him, trying to grab his hand and drag him back to the sandbox. You know this is impossible. because who can get a toddler to turn around when you don’t have the use of both of your hands. Clearly I was losing the battle. So I just let him go & directed him to the grass. Which by the way was no grass… just a semblance of grass growing in a half foot of mud. Thankfully, I had diverted him from on-coming traffic when he finally decided to head back to the middle of the park.

At this point the wind was blowing the blanket off my shoulder. I hadn’t been discreet about Justin on my boob for 10 minutes now. I looked like a wreck running after my toddler with the baby on the boob…. but did I have a choice? Justin at this point was not even really eating. He was sucking on my boob in a way that I knew was going to create blisters. I tried to detach him, but what was the point, he just rooted around until he could find a millimeter of my breast and started sucking again. So I let him have at it.

When I got Andrew back to the sandbox, he proceeded to start stealing kids toys. So I had to go around apologizing with my half-dressed body and two children. I was sweating at this point and surely looked like I had the worst day of my life. I started looking around and I SWEAR that people were laughing at me. It’s like the dream when you imagine you are naked and everyone is looking. Well in this one, I was half-naked, with two kids who clearly hadn’t learned to mind their manners yet. Much worse.

By the time Andrew settled down playing with a girl in the sandbox, and finally Justin decided that feeding on the move was for the birds… so he refused to eat any more. There went one feed. Then he pooped. I knew I needed to change him… but Andrew started running after a squirrel (which I believe was about to attack him because he was tired of my child harassing him). So I saved the squirrel, changed my kid’s diaper, watched Andrew harass yet another child, and then decided that I couldn’t take it anymore … we were going home. I threw Justin in the carseat. Grabbed Andrew and threw him in his ‘favorite’ place … the double stroller. And hauled my exhausted butt back to the car where I swear I could have curled up & slept the rest of the week away.

And just to top it off… in the middle of this scenario a lady wanted to talk to me about how she was trying to have a second child and how great it would be…..

In my head I just screamed, “HONESTLY LADY HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING ME FOR THE PAST 45 MINUTES?” I just looked at her and said, “today is not the day that I would be a good source of encouragement on that topic.”