It is just a breast. It makes milk. Get over it.

ZOMG!  It is a BREAST!  Right out there for everyone to SEE!

And… And… THAT BABY HAS BEEN ON THIS EARTH OVER ONE YEAR!!!

Oh look.  Another picture on the internet of my boob.  One of many, many pictures out there in the internetty world.  I wasn’t always so “out” about breastfeeding my babies. I used to be painfully shy. I would hide in backrooms- I would nurse standing in a stall at bookstores and restaurants.  I was so afraid to let anyone see just a glimpse of my flesh.  I was embarrassed to even nurse in front of my family.

That was four kids ago…  With my first child, Hannah.   I’m surprised I managed to do it at all.  I lasted a year.

The only picture of me nursing Hannah.  One of the only ones of me even HOLDING her.

I was so shy.  The high school I went to had a nursery, and I would breastfeed Hannah during my study period and my lunch period.  I quickly figured out that if I whispered “I need to nurse my baby” to the teacher I could also get out of classes.  So I did.  It was great for our burgeoning breastfeeding relationship,  but hell on my nerves.  When I got to the nursery, I would take Hannah from her cot or bouncy chair, and drag a rocking chair into the corner of the room. I would swathe myself in a receiving blanket or two, and curl my body around my baby.  I would nurse her in that awkward position, my back full of stabby pain, until it was time to go back to class.  Sometimes I would just be relieved to be done and free.  We almost made it to her first birthday, but when she was eleven months old she went on a nursing strike.  In my ignorance, I thought she was self weaning.

With Patrick I loosened up a little.  I don’t have any pictures of me nursing him- except for in the hospital…  But by the the summer he turned one I was nursing with just a burp cloth tossed over my exposed flesh.  We discovered we could nurse anywhere.  I can still remember sitting on the beach, watching the waves and nursing my little boy whilst he napped and Hannah played. We made it almost eighteen months.  I stopped because he was a high strung, high needs little boy, and still waking up every hour or so throughout the night.  The huz worked sixteen hours days and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I thought it would make my life easier, not realizing until six months later that my high needs little boy was that way because he had food issues.  I thought weaning would make life easier.  Boy was I wrong. I regret weaning him early. Poor baby.

With Willow the bonds of embarrassment were finally broken.  Pictures of Willow nursing would occassionally show up on myspace, and then facebook. I nursed that baby proudly, wherever we happened to be. Our nursing relationship lasted two and a half years.  I think it could have gone on longer, but the huz and I wanted to try for another baby, and I just can’t seem to get pregnant when I am nursing.

Nursing Willow on the beach, on her second birthday.

By the time Cooper was born I was an out and proud self-proclaimed lactivist.  Seriously, my breasts are in more pictures floating around the vast depths of the internet than most porn stars.  These gals of mine get around.  You can see them on twitter, my blog, and facebook, in movie theaters, grocery stores, bank and post office lines.  They’ve been “out” in truck stops, parks, zoos, museums, and every darn restaurant I’ve stepped foot in over the last four years.

See? Baby feeder.  And sleepy-maker.

This one was my twitter profile image.  Oh look! Nipple!  Nope- Nothing sinister here.

Although… If I remember correctly, that last picture caused a big OUCH for me. For future reference, flashes startle babies…  And when babies are startled they BITE and PULL.  Consider it a public service announcement.

And now my baby is crying…  Time to go soothe him back to sleep with warm, perfect, breastmilk.  Nothing wrong with that at all.