Baring our Breasts

This button came from The League of Maternal Justice, I think, although there are several good sites and posts in other places. ( See Major Bedhead and Her Bad Mother, which my computer will not allow me to load this morning.) The problem? Facebook is categorizing pictures of breastfeeding as obscene. The answer? We're bugging them.

I looked, but I don't have a pic of myself breastfeeding. In the 1960's you did not get your picture taken while nursing the kid, in my family. In fact, my MIL always ushered me into a bedroom when I was visiting her and firmly closed the door. The 'Flower Children' might have been exposing their breasts on the west coast, but in Ontario and Quebec, no concessions were being made. Which brings me to my favourite breastfeeding story.

We took the younger daughter to Expo '67, the 'we' being JG and his parents. She was two months old. In the whole Expo site there was one (1!) child care station. And it poured with rain while we were touring. I had the YD jammed into a backpack and had made a raincape which tied over the backpack and her fuzzy little head. Mostly she slept contentedly, but when she got hungry she could be pretty noisy about it. So we took to stopping in restaurants so that I could feed her. One stop was in the Russian Pavilion, which had a huge cafeteria. We got our lunches and settled down in a quiet corner while we all ate. I always wore a jacket and blouse and to nurse and so I unbuttoned these and stowed breast and baby under the loose cloth. And I had a paper carton of milk with a straw in front of me.

YD was very hungry and took to gulping and swallowing air, giving herself an airbubble. And, of course, started to scream. I hiked her up across my shoulder to get the airlock fixed but she was pretty cross about it and it took a while. Meanwhile a waiter, observing this, came trotting over and asked me politely if he could warm the baby's milk for me. (Paper carton and straw!) My FIL burst into gales of laughter, the poor miserable waiter finally figured out what was happening and slunk away in disarray, poor man. And the baby finished her lunch.