You know what I like about being a grown up? I know there are lots of negative things, like taxes and having to pay for your own stuff, and getting fat and old, but guess what?

You can grab the entire container of ice cream and spoon, dive in, and nobody is going to tell you NO because YOU are the adult. And you can eat it until you are sick if you so choose! Isn't that awesome!

C'mon, I gotta get my kicks somehow :-)

Breastfeeding has many benefits. Babies are supposed to receive the mother’s antibodies and maintain better health. The rest of the family will get sick and the infant will stay healthy- all due to the miracle of breastfeeding. Everyone told me that if I breastfed I would not only lose the baby weight faster, but I would be so fortunate as to not menstruate the entire time I was exclusively breastfeeding. Pretty good perks, eh?

Well, I am here today to tell you that it is either a hoax or I have defective hormones. Maggie has gotten every bug the family has thrown at her. None of them have totally wiped her out, but she has been boogery just like the rest of us. I am perpetually picking little crusties off of her teeny little nose. She has been congested for over a month. It doesn’t seem to bother her too much, thankfully. She does, however, snort when she cries. This is quite amusing, although not very girly. It is getting her extra attention. We were out shopping yesterday when she started to fuss.

The whole store heard, “Waaaaaaaah! SNORT! SNORT! Waaaaaaaaaah! Snort!”
One mother finally asked incredulously, “Was that her?”
“Um, yeah, she’s a little stuffy.”
“Do you breastfeed?”
“ARGH!”

So, clearly, not helping me out there. Let’s discuss the weight issue. Now, everyone said that I’d get skinny faster if I breastfed. The truth is exactly opposite. I am incapable of losing weight when I breastfeed. It refuses to budge, and for good reason. Once I realized I wasn’t returning to my svelt self I did a little research. Apparently, really healthy women will retain five to ten pounds to help them better feed their infants. It protects the mother from illness and depletion. So, apparently, I am oh so healthy. Darn! My mother had to stop breastfeeding because she couldn’t keep any weight on. Why couldn’t I have been like that? To heck with healthy, I want my size six back thanks!

And now for the final blow. Yesterday, as I was rushing to get out the door I realized I had a very full bladder, I ran to the bathroom, dropped my pants, saw red, and actually jumped from the shock. That’s right, Maggie is only three months and unwelcome Aunt Flo is back in full force. I ask you, is there no justice? I suppose I should be grateful, Jonas was only two months when I got it back. But still, do you know what this means? This means that my body is capable of getting pregnant again. It is ready and rarin’ to go. Oh. No. Hell no. I love babies, but I abhor being pregnant. The fact that my body is now ovulating and is capable of getting pregnant is not a good thing. I really don’t want to get pregnant again. Birth control is not good enough to prevent this. Abstinence is the only answer that gives me any comfort. . .now I just have to convince my husband.

Ok, so why is this woman still breastfeeding, you ask? Clearly, the most exciting perks have been denied her.

I do it because I love breastfeeding. I love the snuggling, I love the attachment Maggie and I have. I love the convenience. Blessings of health, birth control, and skinniness denied, I still love breastfeeding.

Jonas has decided to start biting again! He bit one kid when he was one and the kid screamed os loudly he never bit another kid again. Now, out of nowhere, he bites his friend! I am so skeeved. He had a time out the first time, then an hour later he tried to bite him again! He is in serious time out.

If you decided to come meet me at the local McDonald's PlayPlace how could you recognize my child? Oh, he'll be the one covered in blood, zooming through the various tunnels and slides dripping type A negative to mark his path. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it is clean blood, hepatitis and HIV free (I haven't caught him sharing needles or engaging in unsafe sex lately). I'll be the mother standing helplessly with a wet wipe hoping to get him cleaned up, but unable to catch him.

Jonas has been getting bloody noses again. He had one yesterday and another today. Once he gets one he bleeds off and on for a month. I have no idea why. Sometimes he actually gets bumped and sometimes they are completely spontaneous. Today's event caught me totally off guard. He came down from the tunnels to eat some french fries when I noticed he had blood all over his arm. I started cleaning him up, trying to figure out if he had picked a scab or cut himself somehow, but I couldn't find the source of the blood until he used his arm as a Kleenex again and wiped his nasty, dripping schnoz. As soon as I went to help his nose, which had mostly bled out while he was playing, he zoomed away from me and went back up into the maze of tunnels. Bloody noses don't phase Jonas a bit. They are only a minor irritation and only because I usually interrupt whatever he is doing to clean him up.

I have never had a bloody nose. I am pretty sure he got this from his dad. Chris gets bloody noses at random and, like his son, barely notices. I always notice! Imagine being a young bride, waking up in the morning and looking over at your new husband who is laying in the bed next to you, drenched in his own blood. I swear I though he was dead. At any rate he ruined our sheets.

The first time Jonas got a bloody nose he was about twenty months old. I wasn't home. Chris said Jonas tripped, landed on his face, and started to bleed. Better Chris dealing with it than me I figured. I had no idea what to do for a nosebleed, having never had one myself.

The following day marked one of the darkest days in my career as a mother. I was pregnant, very sick, running on almost no sleep, and Jonas had woken me up by taking off his diaper and tracking poop all over the cream carpet. He then started to throw huge tantrums. After about two hours of these colossal meltdowns interspersed with trips to the bathroom so I could vomit up the lining of my empty stomach, I cupped my hand over his screaming little mouth in a desperate attempt to get him to shut up. In retrospect, I didn't do this too hard. I certainly didn't smack him a smack worthy of any real concern, but I did aim just a wee bit too high. I bumped his nose. His sensitive little nose, with barely closed off, thin as phyllo dough veins and capillaries. Instantly it started bleeding like I'd turned on a faucet. I couldn't believe it. I had given my child, my dear little baby boy, a bloody nose. I was unfit to be a mother. I had no idea how to fix a bloody nose. I was ready to call CPS on myself.

He was dripping blood all over himself, the carpet, me and my bed. And screaming. Not because of the blood, but because he wasn't finished with the previous fit of temper. I grabbed a roll of toilet paper and tried to stem the bleeding. Was it tip the head forward or tip the head back? What exactly was I supposed to pinch? Which position would make him choke on the blood and die? Which one would make him swallow the blood and throw it up? Even if I did stumble upon the correct blood stopping stance was there any way to get him to stay in that position? Was there anything I could do to make the bleeding stop? I was literally sitting on the floor shaking, trying to deal with the blood and the guilt of having caused it, and the morning sickness that was making me dry heave every time I looked at him.

I really believe that God isn't going to give you more than you can handle. He knows your limits. And I was at mine. At this moment, Chris walked in the door. He was home for lunch. It was a totally off schedule lunch. He rarely came home to eat. But there he was. My knight in shining camouflage.

He took Jonas, had the blood stopped in a matter of seconds and listened to me sob and confess that I was a horrible mother. I had made our child bleed his own blood. He gently explained to me that it doesn't take much to start a bloody nose bleeding again.

He was right. I think Jonas had about six more bloody noses in the next four days. Each time I became more blasé toward the entire situation. Now when he starts bleeding, I just strip him down, toss him in the tub and figure as long as he doesn't pass out he's probably fine. I've come along way, baby.

Well, Janine tagged me so I figured I'd best humor her. . .I'm not sure if it will be interesting or not. I don't read nearly as much as I used to and when I do I tend to favor mindless stuff and children's books.
1. What book would I like to be?
That is an odd question! I would like to be Max in Where the Wild Things Are. Commander and cheif of my own fantasy world, and them still able to return home to people who love me. I could have a wild rumpus whenever I felt like it too. Can't beat that now can I?

2. Have I ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I guess that would have to be Colonel Christopher Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. Desperately devoted, patient and madly in love. A sad figure, yet ultimately triumphant. If anyone deserved to be lucky in love it was Colonel Brandon. Cyrano DeBergerac warmed my heart too. Homely chap with words to melt a woman's heart.

3. What is the last book I bought?
The Time Traveler's Wife, which was exceptional in every way. Absolutely a must read. And The Secret Life of Bees, which I really don't understand what the fuss was all about. I found it dull and I thought the writer strained to make her point and just generally tried too hard.

4. What is the last book I read?
I think it was More More More Said the Baby. . .Ohhh- you mean read for myself. . . I plowed through the latest Harry Potter book in the tub the other day. It is probably my sixth time through, but I enjoyed it. It is nice and fluffy, no real thought required. I am dealing with so much sleep deprivation and have so much on my plate these days that I really have no desire to read anything that is going to try to make me think. I used to read deep, meaningful, classic pieces of literature like The Awakening and The Great Gatsby (I was an English major you know), but now I read mostly periodicals and light reading. Oh, wait! I lied! I just remembered I read the book You Grow Girl at Barnes & Noble Saturday night. It's a gardening book. Pretty good. Useful.

5. What book am I currently reading.
Nothing right now. I'm working on a quilt and it is taking up my spare time.

6. What five books would I take with me if I was stranded on a desert island?
hmmm. . .Edible Plants and Fungi, Cooking Over an Open Flame, How to Build a Raft Out of Debris. . .Ok, ok , I know what you mean.

To Kill a Mockingbird ('nuff said), Quest for a Maid (wonderfulwonderfulwonderful READ IT), Collected works of Willa Cather (That way I get My Antonia and Oh Pioneers in one shot), Collected works of Erma Bombeck (she is so totally my hero), and the Holy Scriptures.

7. Tag, You're it. . .hmmmm. . .Mom???

We visited the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco today. There are hundreds of gopher mounds on the boulevard where we parked the car. This little guy was hardly even afraid of us. He would pop out, poke around a bit, stuff some greenery into his humongous cheekage and dart back into the ground. He didn't seem to care that I was quite literally inches away with my camera. Seriously people, I didn't even use my zoom! The little guy didn't have a very well developed sense of self preservation. He did, however, get pretty mad when Jonas shoved his hand down his hole to catch him. He shoved a bunch of dirt up and burrowed away. Good thing too, I really wasn't in the mood for rabies shots. . .or whatever gophers give you.

The trouble with not really having a lot of control or awareness over your body is that when you grab the shock of hair right over your fontanell and pull really, really hard and start screaming, you don't understand that you are causing yourself pain, so you don't think to let go. You just pull harder until mom has to force your chubby little fist open so you stop pulling your own hair. Poor Maggie!