We visited the San Francisco Zoo this week.  It is open again  (it’s about time) and the remodeling has done absolutely wonderful things for the facility.  The animals look happier, their habitats are bigger and more natural, it’s easier to see the animals, and I got in free because I went the day after Chinese New Year, and it just so happens that this is the year of the Rooster, and I was born in the year of the Rooster.

I love to visit the zoo.  It is wide open with fresh air, nifty keen plants with little tags telling me what they are, and poop flinging chimps.  When Chris was in the first six months of his Air Force training, Jonas and I went to the zoo frequently.  At the time, Jonas was a young one year old and pretty oblivious to most of the animals.  I suppose when your view of an elephant is only of the beasts knees, it isn’t very interesting.  We spent most of our time just running around or getting butted by goats in the petting zoo.  I remember once a goat butted him so hard he knocked him flat on his back in the saw dust.  Being the good mother I am, I laughed at him.  Now he is a big two and a half year old.  It was so awesome to take him to the zoo after not going for a year and seeing him see the animals and see his responses.  He pointed at the giraffes (my favs), laughed at the flamingos, and stared pensively at the gorilla for about five minutes, which, in Jonas time, is like an hour.  He had his face up against the glass and the gorilla sat there, about two feet away and looked right back at him.  I wish I could read minds so I could know what they thought of each other.  I’ve rarely seen Jonas study anything with such intensity.  The moment felt very profound, although I’m still not sure why, or what the exact word describing what I felt was.  In simple terms, it was just very cool.

” border=”0″>

This is yet another post about one of my favorite topics. My breasts!

Last night, as I was running the water for my bath, I stood in front of the mirror in the raw. My belly is still somewhat round, all my curves are quite curvy, and milk had begun to spray from my breasts as if I had swallowed two garden hoses. I was not unlike a very Rubenesque fountain. The milk arced gracefully beyond my toes and I was reminded of the statue of the little boy “peeing” into the pond. I am truly a work of art.

The fact that breasts, upon delivery of a child, start serving up the one particular food the child likes to eat is truly remarkable. For the most part, my experiences breast feeding have been positive. I enjoy the close contact and the ability I have to soothe my child anywhere at any time by simply popping a boob into her mouth. I’ll be honest though, I am way too lazy to fix a bottle. I can’t imagine getting up three times a night to prepare a bottle while the baby yells, then have to sit down and feed it to her. It is so much easier to have her in bed with me, give her a breast when she wants it, and go back to sleep! Maggie and I have a great system going for our nighttime feeds. She gets fed, I get sleep. How is this a bad thing?

I know there are quite a few people out there who are vehemently against co sleeping, but it is working very nicely for my family. I figure that as long as she is nursing during the night, my daughter should share my bed. Of course, we do things safely, no blankies by the face (I keep her at eye level with me unless she is eating) and she has her own space. I tried the whole get up and nurse in the rocking chair thing with Jonas and it turned me into a zombie. He ate every hour and a half for at least a half an hour. When I just gave up and co-slept at about 3 months old, I turned into a person again.

Chris tried to be thoughtful again last night. I think he has it out for me. I had taken Jonas out for the evening and Maggie had a bottle. When I got home I pumped about half way empty because I knew she would be eating in about an hour. Then I went to bed with instructions to Chris to change her diaper and bring her to me when she cried. Well, Mr. Thoughtful decided to just give her another bottle so I could sleep. Being male, he doesn’t understand that a nursing mother’s breasts are going to keep producing milk even if the baby skips a meal or two. (Perhaps if his testicles swelled up and he wet his pants whenever she got hungry he’d understand or at least keep better track of when he fed her last.) Anyway, at two am I woke up completely soaked and engorged. I woke Maggie up to eat, and she took care of about half the problem. I threw a receiving blanket over the huge wet spot in my bed and then tried to go back to sleep while reminiscing about the great fun I had when I had mastitis a month ago and how being engorged ups your chances of getting it again. Thankfully it is morning now and things have evened out, so I don’t think anything bad will happen. But it made for great middle of the night anxiety. I love having things to think about while Chris is snoring away.