And Then She Put Him to Bed in a Drawer (She Didn’t Get That Part from Me, I Swear.)

By Megan

“Wait Mama,”  Bean called after me as I trotted toward the elevator at a Lexington, Kentucky hotel, an overnight stop on the drive home to Chicago from coastal Carolina, “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

So we found a sofa in a quiet corner of the lobby and sat. Baby boy Peabody stood jumping up and down on my lap, his travel-weary body unable to tolerate another minute of stillness. Bean sat beside me and held her Teddy on her lap, looking into his face with a smile. And then she cradled him in her arms, carefully lifted the hem of her shirt, tucked Teddy’s head underneath it and held him close, sighing as she leaned back into the cushions of the sofa.

“Whatcha doin’, Little Mama?”

“Oh, just feedin’ Teddy. He’s tired and hungry and a little fussy.”

Bean’s had her Teddy her whole life, and he’s been a nearly constant companion to her since she was about 20 months old. but over the past seven months since Peabody was born, I’ve watched Teddy’s role in Bean’s life slowly change from buddy to baby. He now wears baby clothes, gets gently swaddled in her favorite blanket, and requires absolute silence in the house for his multiple daily “naps.” He wears his seatbelt in the car and gets his face and hands wiped several times a day because he’s such a “messy baby boy.”

He’s also breastfed.

And I would be just as proud of my “Little Mama” if she decided to bottle feed teddy – she has access to baby bottles of all varieties at home – but that she’s watching, internalizing, imitating and stands a good chance of actually remembering the simple goodness and beauty of my nursing relationship with Peabody?

Well, that just makes me proud of and happy for all three of us.

I’ve been nursing Peabody for seven months this week. That’s five or six weeks longer than I was able to nurse Bean. When she was fully weaned at just under six months old, I was devastated. I felt I’d let HER down, let myself down, and just generally failed as a mother. Time had nearly healed that aching old wound by the time Peabody came along, but all the same I have viewed our nursing relationship as my chance to finally get it “right.”

It never occured to me that as I worked through the early breastfeeding struggles with Peabody and pushed aside my occasional bouts of wanting to give up that I wasn’t just doing something wonderful for my son, I was also giving my daughter a gift.

And she’s given me back something precious, as well.

Visit Megan at FriedOkra.