Bad Mother Hair

After reading Chez Miscarriage yesterday, I began to have my own fantasies of what I’d say to someone  if I was criticized for extending breastfeeding:

Scenario 1:

Rude Person:  Are you still nursing?

Me:  Nursing?  Oh, no!  No, no.  I’m a doctor.** 

Scenario 2:

RP:  When are you going to wean that child?

Me:  What?  He doesn’t have wings?

RP:  No!  When are you going to stop nursing him?

Me (either the doctor scenario above or):  When he’s finished eating.  He an efficient nurser and it will only be a few more minutes.

Of course, to be honest, I don’t think anyone will say anything to me.  A few folks have made comments about how much we hold him, but honestly, I know they are working off a different parenting paradigm and depending on how close we are to the person, I’ll say something or not.  But a random person coming up to say something to me?  Unlikely. 

It’s the hair.  Curly hair in intimidating.  At least on me.  I think people must look at me and realize it comes out of my head that way and to watch out.  “She could go off on anyone at any point.” Those of you without curly hair may have this romantic notion of it; something sweet and kind and relatively Helena Bonham Carter about it.  But at least for me, it’s wild and wooly and I think people imply something about my personality by it.  They are not completely off. 

But the really bad mother hair I have comes from an embarrassing but true fact:  I hate when Conor pulls my hair.  I. Hate. It.  Perhaps it comes from deep seated pain from when I was a child and people made fun of my hair (“you look like a poodle/squirrel/freak”).  But honestly, it drives me nutty.  Especially when he goes for the short, tight curls on my neck.  It hurts!  And I feel guilty.  Growing up, one of my neighbor’s son’s would always hold her STRAIGHT long hair in his hand and suck on it.  That looked cute on her.  But my freaky-ass, bad mother self is having none of this curl sucking. 

Although he sneaks it in anyway.  I found one of my own hairs in his poop last week.  That’s not the sort of solid food we were thinking of starting him on. 

**BTW, if I were actually a nurse, I'd respond:

Me:  Oh, about 20 more years, until I retire.. 

And that would probably cause the RP's head to pop off their body.

7:44:38 AM