I was walking down the street today, minding my own business, when I heard a woman laugh.  I looked up and realized she was laughing at me.  How did I know she was laughing at me? Well, the fact that she pointed at my stomach and said “You’re going to explode!” sort of gave it away.

WTF?!?!?!!?  Who says that????

I have found that when you’re pregnant, you suddenly become “public property.”  People feel like they have the right to touch you, to make comments to you and to tell you exactly how to raise the child(ren) you are about to birth.

Most of the time, I just try to grin and bear the ridiculous comments.

And then, every once in awhile, you get a gem.

This is a fabulous email I got from my friend, Brenda, who has three kids (Michelle, Larissa and John).

Amy,

Okay, okay, I know you are not supposed to give advice unless it’s asked for, but I have to give you some words of wisdom from a Mom whose first baby just graduated from high school this week (insert gasping and sobbing here).

I just read your Baby Blog post about the breastfeeding classes, and I have to put in my 2 cents worth.

I LOVED BREASTFEEDING!  It was one of the joys of having a newborn.  Now, admittedly I didn’t breastfeed two at once but if you get right down to the nitty gritty, it is actually the ONLY thing you as a mom can ONLY do.  After all, Grammas and hubbies can change diapers, rock to sleep, and all the other stuff, but breastfeeding…not so much. It is also a great excuse to sit down and do nothing, because, really, what else can you do with a munchkin munching on your boob?  And once I and the babies got the hang of it, it was great.

HOWEVER…one thing I noticed with some people who encourage breastfeeding is they forget to mention a few things. So here they are:

1.  It hurts.  A lot sometimes.

2.  It is NOT a natural instinct a baby is born with.  They have to LEARN to feed.  (Who knew…)

3.  Expressing milk is NOWHERE NEAR AS EASY AS THEY MAKE IT SOUND!!!

Now, you may have had the above wisdom gifted to you by others, but I wanted to have some input into your mothering days!

And now, one other bit of wisdom, which relates to breastfeeding and everything else to do with children…YOUR children.

DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILY.

Any number of well meaning people (me included  ) will tell you when and what things are SUPPOSED to happen.

“You are supposed to breastfeed within 6 hours of delivery.” (Michelle didn’t “eat” for almost 24 hours – she’s now taller than me.)

“Your children is supposed to be speaking by one year.”  (Larissa didn’t have much of a vocabulary until well after a year. God, those were the good old days…)

“He/She should be potty trained by 3 years old.”  (I tried to train the girls before they were 3, and it was a horrible trauma for all of us.  With John, I waited until after his third birthday, told him when the bag of diapers ran out he would be wearing big boy pants…and that was it. A couple of small accidents, but really…that was it.)

But basically, all this advice is summed up in what I said before… DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILY.  I really believe it’s the stuff we do that others expect from us, but that we don’t really believe in, which causes the most stress.  And right after you DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT, remember to RELAX.  If I had my kids babyhood’s to do over, that’s what I would do…RELAX more!  (Repeat after me…they won’t go to college wearing diapers, they won’t go to college wearing diapers…)

Anyway, this is a very long message, but I just wanted to pass on some thoughts that I wish people had told me.

Lots of love to you, Mark and the babies… and good luck!

BC

Emails like that make it worth dealing with the random comments on the street.

Thanks, Brenda