the milk monster...

greetings from the land of mommy-dom... where there is always a diaper to be changed and an upcoming feeding looming ahead. yes, my milk-makers are in high demand by my little man.  that's my life for the near future, since i've chosen to go the breast feeding route.  and i'm OK with that.  but it hasn't been all rainbows and sunshine, like i pictured a mere few weeks ago... pre baby.

i lovingly titled this entry the milk monster... with the intent to share a cute little nursing tale about my little man... mr. leif coltrane, who i had mentally dubbed the milk monster at about 5 AM last Sunday morning.   but as i reflect back on the first month with him and especially the first two weeks, i'm wondering if the monster... or, shall i say, the two milk monsters... belong to me. 

now let's get one thing straight.  i've always been well endowed.  don't think that because i haven't brought it up with you in day to day conversation, that i don't know.  i'm well aware of my... shall i say... blessings.  although i have been known to curse them from time to time... but that is neither here nor there at this point.  because now i'm well endowed... as in super-sized with a coke.  when some of my closer girlfriends have been over while i've been nursing leif, i've watched their eyes bulge and have had to chuckle to myself. if they weren't attached to me, i might be apt to clutch my chest in horror and scream a hollywood scream as well. my lactation consultant told me that size has nothing to do with the amount of milk you can produce.  there are people with large "monsters" that have a hard time producing milk, and people with mini monsters that produce a ton of milk.  but my milk production matches the size of my tata's pound for pound.  basically, i could nourish the entire block if i so wished. 

so for the first few weeks i was a sopping, wet, milky mess. 

i'm not sharing this information to humiliate myself, but more so because one day (when i'm a rich and famous blogger) a young mother will be staring at this entry with towels shoved down her bra (so that... for pete's sake... she can stop soaking through the weenie breastpads she lined her bra with in hopes of not soaking yet another bra/shirt/couch cushion/mattress) ...and she'll think "i'm not alone!!!!"   

i thought there were things i didn't know about being pregnant.  nobody warned me about this.

i remember joking with my friends a few weeks before i was due that i wasn't sure about how soon i'd want visitors after our child was born because i didn't want them to show up with me topless and crying.  in fact, we decided that would be the perfect name for a band.  however, i had no idea how true that statement was. 

because...

 i was topless and crying... 

and my eyes weren't the only part of me that needed tissues.  

well, probably something more substantial than tissues... towels really.   lots and lots of towels!  (i have never done so many loads of laundry in one week in my life!)

don't worry.  i managed to pull myself together enough for most visitors... so if you come to see us you won't be coming to your very own freak show.  only kjaer, my mother and leif have had to witness the true horror of the milk monsters as they wiped up milk that came spilling forth from me.  

lately my monsters have toned it down and settled in.  only every once in awhile do i experience thrilling, horrific moments that make me burst into laughter...  like squirting my unsuspecting son in the face with milk or trying to get a geyser under control because it won't stop spraying  over the top of my son onto our furniture.  oh yes, girlfriend, you too could be capable of such theatrics!  i had no idea... so i'm sharing it with you so that you aren't caught off guard the first time you squirt milk all over your brand new couch like i was.  

back to leif.  my beautiful baby boy.  

we are starting to fall into a rhythm that tells me that i might just be getting the hang of this breastfeeding thing.  i still haven't shared my triumphs and woes with you... those are to follow in another post.  i still have a few kinks i'm working on getting ironed out and i'd like to actually have it all under control before i tell our riveting (insert eye roll here) tale. 

my other little milk monster... the cute one... has been a wonderful adventure.  he is so sweet and angelic... but when he's hungry he has the capability of turning into Frankenstein.  if he's just starting to get hungry, he'll start snorting softly like a little piglet. usually, i find this pretty cute and endearing.  but sometimes, if i'm not moving fast enough, my little man goes from zero to sixty in 2.5 seconds.  one minute he's contentedly sitting there snorting away, the next minute he is THE HUNGRIEST BABY ON EARTH and you just can not feed him soon enough (in the world according to leif).  

this is when the milk monster suddenly replaces my sweet little man.

i experienced this on my first Mother's Day, of all days, at 4 AM in the morning.  leif had woken up ready to eat and apparently his mama was not following directions the way she should have been.  he was being quite dramatic, i tell you, because the whole debacle was totally uncalled for.  we were in his nursery and he was in piglet mode already feeding away hungrily.  however, he kept detaching himself from me and looking at me like i was a criminal for interrupting him (although i wasn't doing anything, i swear!)  i think it's because my monsters are just too good at what they do and he has to jump off to take a breather... but this is clearly something i cannot control.  if i had a volume control switch, trust me, i'd dial it down a few notches.  i'd try, patiently... like a good mama,  to put him back on.  a few minutes later, the cycle would repeat.  each time, leif would get a little more frantic.  

now i should pause here to share that leif has had the typical baby ailments that most babies have in the first few weeks... he has a clogged tear duct that cruds up his eye every morning, baby acne and dry skin.  all of these things are totally normal and most babies have them.

however, i should explain that on Mother's Day morning, leif's "ailments" were in full swing.  his eye was nearly stuck together with gunk, his flaky forehead and baby acne were there in all of there glory.  

so as this cycle of suck, detach, piglet sounds would repeat... his snorting and protesting growing more and more frantic until, i had before me, a little monster whose thirst could simply not be quenched.  his little snorts were so audible i'm surprised he didn't wake kjaer in the next room let alone the little old lady who lives next door.  

i would like to say that i, his perfect mama, looked lovingly into his crusty eyes and smiled as i patiently latched him on again for the kabillionth time.  again, i repeat, would like to say... but truthfully, i was running on about 4 hours of sleep and he kept spitting my boob back out at me and loudly complaining.  i wasn't thrilled to say the least.  

so i picked up my little 9 pound monster, looked straight into his goopy eyes and said, very matter of factly, "leif, you've GOT to WORK with mommy here!"

he just snorted like a little piggy back at me and wailed in protest. 

after the epic battle of the ages

eventually he finished eating, the both of us exhausted after an epic battle of the milk monsters.   i changed his diaper, took a warm washcloth to his little eye and changed his outfit.  i then, basically, dragged leif into bed with me and laid him next to his proud papa.  kjaer woke up, took one look at leif and sleepily exclaimed how angelic our little man looked.

"HAH!" i thought, my nerves still quivering from when leif was practically shouting at me and my chest.  

but sure enough.  there he was, as serene as could be and cute as a button...  his little frog legs pulled up to his tummy and arms stretched out above his head.  his big blue eyes just watching his daddy and me.  my little monster had been subdued and he was back to being my sweet little baby again. 

and that's how it goes here in the kirkegaard household.  i try to wrangle in my monsters while keeping my sweet baby from turning into a monster. maybe we bring the milk monster out in each other. all i know is that i can't wait for the days where leif and i know exactly what we are doing so that we can look a little more like Madonna and child during feeding time and a little less like the last 40 minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. 

 ahhhh, the glorious life of a new mama.