This story is in honor of World Breastfeeding Week. Even though I haven’t breastfed in a long time, I am still a huge supporter of breastfeeding women and causes.

I call myself a pseudo-hippie and even though it was a latent tendency that was sure to erupt at any time despite my Midwestern upbringing, the hippiness emerged when I became pregnant with my first child. I started eating organic food and while reading everything that I could about childbirth and raising a child, I was drawn to “Attachment Parenting”. Childbirth with minimum intervention, co-sleeping, baby-wearing and breastfeeding all made sense to me.

I had a drama-free birth (if you can call being in the worst pain of my life drama-free) and my son took to breastfeeding right away. So while breastfeeding was not difficult for me, it was still awkward and new. I was certainly not adept at breastfeeding in public yet. That would come with time…I would become a breastfeeding pro who could be deep in conversation, discreetly whip out a boob, feed my kid and not miss a beat–while talking to my pastor, no less. But not yet.

Nevertheless, a few weeks after giving birth I found myself accompanying my husband to Will Smith’s house. My husband’s friend DJ Jazzy Jeff was there and invited him to a Playstation gaming tournament. My husband was a big gamer and wanted to go, but didn’t want to leave his wife and new son at home. So he brought us along.

I can hear you gasping now: “She went to Will Smith’s house a few weeks after giving birth? Sleep-deprived, still carrying baby weight and boobs so milk-sensitive that she could leak all over his (presumably) expensive sofa?” Yeah, those were my thoughts too.

But there I was, nestled on a big sofa with Will’s friends–all guys–holding my newborn son. After the initial hellos, pounds and whatssups, everyone forgot about me and the baby as they got deep into the Playstation tournament. And that was fine with me because now my baby was hungry and I had to figure out how to breastfeed him without calling attention to myself. Asking Will–who I really didn’t know–for a private room would be calling attention to myself. Moving off the sofa would be calling attention to myself. Trying to send brainwaves to my husband wasn’t working; he was in gamer-guy heaven and oblivious to my dilemma.

I had no choice; my son was starting to fuss. I put a blanket over my shoulder (I had never done that before; at home I nursed with my shirt open), unbuttoned my shirt and thankfully my son latched on immediately and silently.

Duane Martin, sitting next to me, noticed the silence and the blanket. “Wow, he stopped crying because you put a blanket over his head?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “He’s stopped crying because he was hungry and I now I am feeding him.”

He looked confused for a minute and then I could see the lightbulb go off. “Oh!”

And that was that. The baby was fed, it wasn’t a big deal and none was the wiser except for Duane Martin (who went right back to gaming).

I learned that if I could do it there, with a newborn baby, the only woman in Will Smith’s house during a Playstation gaming tournament, I could breastfeed anywhere. And for the next several years, that’s just what I did.

School’s out and that means summertime fun.   That is, until the boredom sets in.  Then the kids tend to navigate towards the computer, handheld games, Wii and TV.  To make sure that their eyeballs don’t fry in their sockets, I’ve instituted the rule “no technology until after dinner.”

It’s working.

So far.  Check back with me in a few weeks.

If you saw the post-it that I had on my blog all week, then you know that I had special work to do.  I had the week all planned out to really concentrate during school hours and get it all done.

Monday

My agenda: Work on project.

What happened: Girly wakes up vomiting and continues all day.

The result: No work gets done, but I am there to comfort my daughter when she needs me.

Tuesday

My agenda: Make up for a lost day and work on project even harder.

What happened: Girly is still too sick for school, but well enough to talk all day.

The result: No work gets done, but I’m glad that I helped her to feel better.

Wednesday

My agenda: Take a well Girly to school, puppy to daycare and really lock down to work on project.  It’s midweek and I can still get in 3 good days of work if I really concentrate.

What happened:

9 hours in the ER.

The result: No work gets done.  For 9 hours I was cold, uncomfortable, hungry, tired and worried.  But I was blessed to be there.  Blessed to hold her hand, distract her from the needles, watch old Full House re-runs, help her pee in a cup and smooth her hair while she falls asleep.

There is no doubt about it; being her mother is number one on my agenda always.

(She’s fine now.)

*This week I’m participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop by answering the prompt: 2.) Explain a time there was an emergency. What “mode” did you go into? Freaking out, calm and collected, etc.

As a mom, of course there are several instances over the years when my kids have been in physical danger because, well, kids tend to live on the edge without regard to bodily harm.  I’m a pretty calm person anyway and as a parent I am the calm one while my husband is the “you’re going to put your eye out with that thing” parent.  He’s the one freaking out when they climb to the top of the jungle gym at the playground while I carefully spot from below without comment.    While I let my kids experience more of the (unsafe) world than my husband is apt to do without my unflappable assurance that “they’ll be fine”, he is more cautious about their health in general and is quick to assess when the kids are getting sick.   Both kinds of parenting have their advantage and the kids are lucky to have us to balance each other out.

But still, you never know how you will react in a dangerous situation until one happens (I consider a dangerous situation an emergency).   I experienced two separate situations with my son involving a dangerous dog and both times I was able to act quickly and calmly.

In the first situation, my son was almost attacked by a loose Pit Bull in front of our house in New Jersey.  I know that Pit Bulls as a breed are not a danger, so don’t send me comments saying that I am anti-Pit Bull, but this particular dog happened to be a Pit Bull with a neighborhood reputation for being pretty vicious.   I was standing on my porch talking to a neighbor and my son was on the sidewalk next to the neighbor; he was about 5 years old.  Out of nowhere this dog comes charging across the street–headed straight for my son.   Now the details get a bit fuzzy for me after that, but as my neighbor tells it, I reached over the porch railing, grabbed my son with one hand–”like the hand of God” said my neighbor– and pulled him in the house while shutting the door with the other hand.  This all happened in a matter of seconds in one soundless swoop.   With my son safe inside I grabbed the phone and called the police, because my neighbor was still outside fighting off the dog.   Thankfully he was able to use his briefcase as a shield because the dog was relentlessly jumping and biting; the briefcase was covered with bite marks.    The thought of what that dog could have done to my son, who was the perfect height to have been bitten in the face or easily knocked to the ground, is quite scary.   I guess the split second thought of it was enough for me to spring into action and use resources that I didn’t even know I had.

The other dog incident happened here in Atlanta, about a year or so ago.   My son (much older now, but still afraid of dogs because of the pit bull) and I were walking past a big grassy field where we saw a man playing ball with his off-leash dog, a Boxer.   The dog was running all over the field and not necessarily chasing the ball; just running crazy.   When the dog saw us, he ran towards us at top speed.  At first I wasn’t that concerned because I thought maybe he wanted to play, but as he got closer I could see in his face that wasn’t the case.  Meanwhile the man stayed where he was and called to the dog, who wasn’t listening, but he didn’t move to come get the dog, so we were on our own.   Unfortunately, the path that we were on was long and wide open; there was nowhere for us to go.   As the dog circled us snapping and growling my son was hopping around, but I know that is NOT what you are supposed to do in that situation, so I wrapped my ams around him to make him be still and said to myself  ”there is no way out; one or both of us is going to get bitten.”   I remember thinking this very calmly and steeling myself for the pain sure to come.   Just then the dog spotted another walker on the other side of the field and took off barking and growling at them.  The owner was still in the middle of the field calling to the unresponsive dog.    We took that opportunity to get out of there as fast as we could, still pretty shaken up.