Today I would like to tell you a story. Wow, this is so embarrassing. I suppose this was back in 2016, Lucy would have been around 4 months old. It was probably late fall, early winter. Definitely chilly, but not snowing as of yet; I digress. I was tandem nursing the girls at this point, and we had a pretty good schedule. By schedule, I mean that nursing was still an All. Day. Freaking. Event. Essentially, we would wake up, we would sit down, and we would nurse all day. It’s just what we did at this time in our lives. Our total routine, with VERY few breaks in between. Honestly, the breaks we did manage were filled with getting Llama some solid foods and something different to drink, but most of the breaks involved a nap because, you know, mom/toddler/infant exhaustion. Mind you, my four-month-old was an excellent sleeper. I am still jealous of how good she slept because from birth, I’m pretty sure she slept like 6 hours straight. Meanwhile, I was still permanently exhausted because my almost 2-year-old was still waking up every five seconds. Okay, not five seconds, but I was chronically exhausted. Every single night, she would wake up every 2 hours. Thankfully, we’ve since learned the reason for this. Though thinking of it even at 10 years old, she’s still a horrid sleeper.
Nursing All Day, Every Day
We would take little breaks and we would do little things, but most of the time it was sitting in the chair nursing at least one child. If it was Lucy that I was nursing, then Llama always had to nurse too. Heaven forbid she get left out. You see, nursing was her comfort item. She never had a true comfort item. She didn’t have a lovey or anything. It was just me. I felt as if she would say, “Hi, my mom is my only lovey ever.” Before Lucy was born, I was terrified that Llama would be super jealous. I stressed so much about Llama being jealous, I think I mentioned more about that on the tandem nursing blog. Then one summer day, Lucy was here, and it was as if I had stressed all that time for nothing. She truly bonded with Lucy right from birth. I believe with all my heart that this happened so quickly because of allowing her to continue nursing through my pregnancy and then tandem nursing. I mean, we had talked about it a lot while I was pregnant, I would mention all the time that her new sister would be nursing as well, and that she would need to share mommy, daddy, and the whole house.
When Lucy was born, I loved the girls’ initial interaction so much. Llama came into the room before Lucy was even an hour old. She immediately exclaimed, “Oh, the baby’s nursing. Can me nurse?” She was just under two at this time. I recall the nurses all sounding amazed because they hadn’t seen that before, or at least not very often. They were all impressed. I kept hearing, “Oh my goodness, you’re nursing both of them.” It felt a little strange to me, I was just doing this to avoid jealousy issues between a toddler and a brand-new baby. I thought my supply would dry up while I was pregnant, to be honest. I say repeatedly that I tandem nursed my girls on accident.
Oh, I loved tandem nursing; the girls would hold hands, which was super cute. However, not my favorite part. You know what my favorite was? When Llama would hold my breast to allow Lucy could get a better latch. She’d notice that Lucy was struggling before I would, and I heard her say, “Here, baby.” Then help her to latch. If Lucy was getting a bad latch, she’d say, “No, no, not like that,” before I even had a chance to correct her. She just became the big sister who already knows everything and took over from the very beginning. In hindsight, this is totally 20:20 as it has continued through her life. This was just my day. We just spent the day nursing, and some days I honestly considered why I was even wearing a bra or a shirt because it barely stayed up or on all the way.
Now Enter: Unsuspecting Delivery Guy
Some additional background that is needed for this story is that my mailman had a magnificently annoying habit of knocking on the door and waiting for someone to answer it. If you didn’t answer, he would just knock more and louder. I would ask him not to knock; leave notes to remind him that I likely have sleeping babies. I also had two dogs at the time that would lose their minds every time someone knocked. This would only happen for packages, as we had a large mailbox for the whole trailer park for all of the envelopes and mail that would fit.
Every single time I had to open the door. The mailman wasn’t even friendly or wanting to talk. He would simply hand me the packages and move on. It was super annoying. The more I think about it, the more I’m wondering if this incident actually was a UPS or FedEx package. It might not have even actually been the mail guy in this instance because the mail guy was like super old, but I very very firmly remember this guy was not old. It was almost it was over eight years ago, so I have no idea.
There I am nursing my girls; I believe that I had fallen asleep, and Llama was definitely asleep. I get up, answer the door while continuing to nurse Lucy in my arms. I’m trying to keep Angelica (our dog) from running outside and attacking this poor guy. Trying to push her back with my feet without kicking her. Eventually, I just step outside while we’re doing this because I can’t have her attacking the poor guy just attempting to work. Man, this guy is giving me the stink eye hard. He is glaring at me so much. I was getting really mad, but whatever, just give me my packages. So, there I am juggling the baby while she’s nursing, trying to take my packages with my other hand. I then had to open the door to a screaming toddler and two barking dogs who had no idea what was going on. As I close the door and I turn around fully back inside. Llama looks up in admiration responding, “Oh, mama, your boob.”
Motherhood Is Not For The Modest
I look down to notice that Lucy is nursing quite well and still attached. The next thing I notice is that my other breast is equally out. Yep. My entire breast was still outside of my shirt from nursing Llama. Just nipple and everything, full on display. No baby is attached to that one.
This was certainly not on the agenda for today. Every time I think about it, I think, “Oh my goodness, that poor guy just went back to work.” Even worse, I consider that he called his wife, starting the conversation with, “You’re never going to believe what just happened to me.” I mean, my husband totally would have called me immediately. Typically, I enjoy being the chaotic element of people’s day, but that was way more chaos than I would prefer to be. I still think about that day and get extremely red in the face. That poor gentleman who said nothing. He knocked on the door so innocently. Fully unaware that he was going to get a complete show by knocking on my door.
