A Pumping Momma.

It is lunch time.  I am in a locked office, looking out the window at the trees that are blooming lavender blossoms.  Some call them blue, but I think those people are color blind.  They are clearly lavender.  The machine next to me sings its song, always the same, kerchunk kerchunk it goes.  When I run it at home, late at night, my husband always thinks it’s a small dog, and even now 6 months into this parenting gig, he will turn and ask where the dog is… never mind that we don’t have, nor ever have had a dog.

So, I sit here and stare out the window at the flowering tree.  A hummingbird darts by, pausing to taste the nectar from the blossoms.  His pause coordinates with the traffic light just beyond him turning red, which stops 8 cars to let 1 car turn left.  I wonder how many of those 8 people are just a bit resentful about that…

I drink some water and notice that my hand is blue.  Dark chocolate peanut M&Ms are my vice, and amused I think about the old advertisement that M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand and, unrelated, the Smurf movie.  Then I think about my baby, for whom I do all this pumping, and marvel that he has been in our lives now for 6 months.  Every day I relive his birthday and how marvelously amazing and powerful we were together.  I think about how sweet my baby was this morning when I nursed him before I left for work and, how, unexpectedly, he fell back to sleep in my arms.

I sat there and looked at the way his cheek was lit by the dim light from the window, casting his eyes into shadows, but the tips of his long eyelashes were illuminated.  His lips were so pure and innocent, and he relaxed against me and sighed as his eyelashes fluttered and, centimeter by centimeter, his beautiful eyes closed in sleep .  Gradually, gradually, I felt his tongue slow its waving caress, finishing the last of the letdown he had initiated.  Perfectly timed, his latch relaxed and I pulled away from him and covered my breast.  I looked at him, his tongue pressed against his upper gum, still nursing in his sleepy haze. I lifted him and placed him in his crib, so peacefully he went… he reached his hands up in trust, his eyes barely open, I handed him his Froggy lovey.  He grabbed him from me and rolled to his side and sighed again, as I turned his AngelCare monitor on and quietly left his room.

For me, one of the absolute best parts of being a mom is having that kind of intimacy with him. I know that it won’t always be so, and for that reason, it is one of those things that I treasure the most.  There are times when I resent that it’s always me who puts him to bed, for there are times when I would like to eat dinner when it’s warm or any other number of things, but then I look at him in my arms and realize he will never be *this* age again and I continue…and the machine continues.