The Bad Mom

Blind Play-Date I guess when you have kids you need other mommy friends to bitch and complain with, who will understand where you’re coming from. My sister set me up with one of her friends who has a boy nine months older than Ozzy. It was like a game of chicken as we rolled our strollers towards one another. There was a cuteness tug of war happening. She whipped out her boob at the coffee shop and I whipped out mine.

I boarded the 75 bus crampy with my sweatshirt tied around my waist; wearing my baby’s diaper…..flow was back.  I haven’t had a menstrual cycle in…well, nine months of pregnancy and another nine of breastfeeding…carry the one, that’s 18 months of bloodless panties.   Of all the times and all the places why did that bitch show up, unannounced to a slumber party? 

     Once a month or so my very good friend Jade and I gather at her home way out in St.Johns for cheap wine and expensive cheese.  We have hours of drunken girl talk then I crash on her blow-up mattress.  The baby woke me up at the wee hours of the A.M.  As I grabbed my boob to shove in his mouth I noticed my hands covered in blood which now covered my boob and was smeared on my baby’s face.  At first I thought I had been shot as Jade was just telling me that her neighbor was threatened at gunpoint all for a measly bicycle.  I scanned my body for bullets until I realized it was coming from my vagina.  My period was everywhere as if it had been building up for 18 months until my uterus exploded onto Jade’s white down comforter.  I went to the bathroom leaving a bloody imprint of my ass on Jade’s toilet seat.  I scurried around trying to clean up the mess before she woke up.  I found some tampons in her bathroom and quickly injected one except later I realized that this was no job for a tampon as blood was soaking through my designer jeans, I needed super absorption, I needed a diaper.

I went to pick up my mom from work leaving the baby behind with my sister who was visiting from Santa Cruz. When we got back my sister was feeding the baby a bottle of something brownish. “It’s Chamomile Tea, for his stomach.”

“No, No, No! His doctor said no water until six months old, you’re diluting his ELECTOLYTES!” I yell ripping the bottle from her hands.

“I gave it to all three of my kids, don’t trust everything the doctor says.”

“Well, I guess it won’t kill him.” I say, calming myself down from being one of those overprotective parents.

“Isn’t this cute, our first parenting power struggle and you’ve only been in town twenty minutes.” I joke.

The rainy season has brought us indoors, which means no more breastfeeding in the park. I found that there is one and only one designated space on campus to breastfeed. It’s a small lounge off the woman’s bathroom with two chairs and one table. Every time I go there to feed the baby, I’m stunned to find a baby-less student hiding out using their laptop computer. Whatever, if you don’t like people and don’t mind the sounds and smells of people relieving themselves then that’s your prerogative. What fires me up is how they inconsiderately ignore and neglect to offer the space to me for what the space is intended for. I whip out my boob with what feels like an audience in such an intimate setting and feed my kid with my belongings thrown on the floor.

The other day I was so relieved to find an empty lounge to relax in. Within minutes a woman in a business suit carrying what looked like a laptop bag came barging in. She moved my backpack aside so she could place her bag on the table. Then she has the nerve to ask me to switch chairs with her so she could use the outlet closer to the chair I was sitting in. I shot her my evil facial expression, which I’m told is really scary.

She quickly changed her mind and moved her chair closer to the outlet and closer to me. My heart raced in rage I could blow smoke out of my ears. I took some deep breaths to distract my mouth from screaming at this bitch just when I couldn’t hold it any longer; the woman whipped out both of her breasts and placed them into suction cups she took out of her bag. She looked at me and said, “I have a two month old at home, how old is yours?” Ok, so now I’m the asshole.

  I didn’t realize people would be so reactive to breastfeeding, like the woman canvassing for Greenpeace, I thought she was going to ask if I had a minute for the environment, but instead she said, “thank you for not caring what other people think.”

“Wait a minute,” I thought, “what do people think?”

A woman asked if my man had sampled the goods. 

“I don’t have a man,” I replied, “I got knocked up in Paris last summer and Ewww if I did.”

An elderly woman walking her dog through the Park blocks mumbled, “get a room!”

I’m not making out with my son, I’m feeding him!  It’s no more offensive than me having to watch your dog take a shit and you picking it up and caring it around with you.

     If I’m not offending someone, I’m turning them on sexually as I breastfeed outside a coffee shop on a sunny afternoon.  This pervert stares and whistles at me, not paying attention to the road drives up onto the sidewalk inches from running someone over to get a better view.  Another pervert stood and took a picture on his camera phone, I’m sure you can now view my boobs on Utube…. if you can handle it.