___1___

When I was pregnant with Alex, I was all about natural childbirth. I was one of those people that annoys the doctor by clarifying again and again and again that I DON’T want an epidural, I DON’T want forceps and episiotomy, and so on. Of course, all that assumes that the body is capable of laboring, which mine apparently isn’t. And after I became the classic case of spiraling interventions leading to C-section, I sighed and shrugged and said, “Oh, well, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. People should stop freaking out about C sections.”

___2__

I held that opinion until the third trimester of my pregnancy with Nicholas, when I realized that the damage and weakness done to my abdomen was the cause of all the pain that made walking excruciating–I could barely support my own weight. And realized that I had to restrengthen before I could have another baby. From the 6-week mark in 2009, I did Pilates 2-3 times a week and added exercises from my massage therapist, and we got by this time.

___3___

What I wasn’t counting on was that the fourth C section recovery would be as difficult as it has been. The pain has been stubborn, the bleeding has hung on, and then of course, we had latch issues that made nursing excruciating for several weeks. I can feel the difference in my body. The six and a half years since Alex’s birth, with three more C’s, have really taken their toll. I’m more aware of the incisions, the weakness in my own body. And the end of the incision rubbed raw and opened up in the last couple of weeks, defying all my attempts to heal it.

___4___

So yesterday I had my postpartum visit. The day dawned with snow that canceled school. Suddenly I was looking at a two-hour drive with ALL FOUR CHILDREN, with nothing but a doctor’s office at the end. I panicked and called my mom. She stepped up to the plate and kept the older three at home so I only had to take the baby with me. And the doctor found that there was a stitch hanging out there, refusing to fall off (because of the distance, he actually sews me up with dissolvable stitches instead of using staples). That was actually a relief to know; I thought I’d done something wrong.

___5___

However, yesterday was a rough day on the nursing front. Two hours, a quick doctor visit, and two hours back home = lots of sleeping baby interspersed with cranky baby. We nursed int he car at a rest area, and we nursed in the car in the doctor’s office lot before starting home. And what I thought was simple engorgement on one side (because he hates nursing that side) turned out to be my very first really nasty plugged duct.

___6___

Now, I have a history of plugged ducts. It comes with the territory when you have abundant supply and, ahem, abundant space. Usually these would be considered a blessing–certainly every mother in the NICU looked slightly green when I walked in having pumped four ounces in ten minutes. I have twenty-nine vials of milk residing in the deep freeze at present that I have no idea what to do with. In the NICU they called me the “Milk Maid.” I have been holding my breath these first six weeks, chowing on lecithin, massaging tissue, not multitasking much while nursing, to try to avoid plugs, because they’re such a horrid experience. I’ve had five or six already, but they were partial plugs, ones that, while achy, never caused me that panicky sense of lack of control. This one is one of those. I haven’t started panicking yet, but having three quarters of one breast blocked off, producing ridiculous amounts of milk that can’t get out…I’m getting there. Warm water, massage, and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to go pump. I just keep praying that the blockage will break quickly this time, and not hang around for three days like they’re wont to do.

___7___

Breastfeeding moms…if you’ve never had a plugged milk duct…fall on your knees and thank God.

Now. Off to the mechanical pump. (Envision me gagging.)

Luke 2:19, NAB

When I went into the hospital on November 30th, I gave myself permission to take it easy for a while. I was supposed to have a whole lot more done before that happened–a proposed table of contents for a new book, a couple of columns, some music. The early delivery rearranged my plans; the NICU stay gave me time to get done more than I thought. But when I came home, I gave myself until the first of the year to rest, to recover, to adjust…in short, simply to be.

Some of it has been stressful, some of it sublime. I’ve handled it with grace, and without. But at all times, I’ve tried to stop and really be present to the moment–to feel it in my body, not just in some compartmentalized corner of my brain, or with my eyes through the screen of a digital camera. In the past month, I have sat in my nursing corner in the darkness and watched Orion trek across the night sky. I have sat there on bright mornings, with the newborn sun aglow on the walls while my other children play on my bed, reducing each other to helpless, jelly-kneed giggles while they wait their turn to hold Baby Brother. I have gotten back under the covers with my family, three, four, five people lined up across two pillows, and run my hands over each one, glorying in the distinct progression against my palms as I touch arms and faces: adulthood, age six, almost- five, almost-three, and infancy.

I have watched yet another baby work his magic on everyone around him.  I have tiptoed around an umbilical cord stump that refused to fall off, tried to soothe him through very cold baths on a towel on the bathroom floor. Changed diapers that smell cheesy and yeasty, and didn’t hold my nose, admitting softly to myself that I actually kind of like that breastmilk-diaper smell.

I have slept in, napped in the sunny (and not-so-sunny) afternoons, watched movies, done very little housework, occasionally overdone it and paid the price in my incisions. I have gone to way too many medical appointments and never bothered to take work with me, choosing instead to hold a baby and be still instead of productive while I waited in overheated waiting rooms. The last two days, I have lounged back to enjoy the solid, warm soft weight of a child against my chest, pressing my nose to his head to breathe in that scent of Heaven, the smell of chrism, while my lips press against silky eyebrows and satin skin.

And now it is January third, and time is up. The baptism and extended holiday visits from family members have gifted me with some extra days, but now reality begins to settle back in, bit by bit: cooking, cleaning, laundry, lessons, deadlines. But the experience has taught me that I need a new balance for a new year–one that achieves fewer words or notes on a page and more moments. One that involves being present when my children are filling my soul instead of keeping my brain busy in the background working on some problem to be solved at naptime.

Today is bath day, and I think when I put Michael in the tub for the first time (his recalcitrant cord finally gave up the ghost on the last night of the old year), I won’t wash his hair. Maybe not the next time, either. The smell of chrism won’t last forever–the scent of Heaven will fade along with the inner hum of stillness found this past month, as normal life settles in once more. But while it lasts, I can use it to anchor myself in the resolve for this new year.

I’ve been through difficult nursing times, but I have never faltered in my commitment.

Until now.

I feel terrible. As if everything that could plague a new mother postpartum is hitting me all at the same time. My neck, my shoulders, my back, the headache; the incision; the nether regions; worst of all, nursing is excruciating. I mean excruciating. All.The.Time. This week I’ve had diagnostic work, a chiropractic adjustment, conversations with the doctor’s office, conversation with the lactation consultant, and tomorrow I’ll have an appointment with her. I think it’s a ductal yeast infection. I’ve gotten through that before, I can handle it for another 36 hours, right?

Except I was in tears at 3:45 this morning. Michael has a habit of chewing on me without drawing any milk out. I keep thinking there’s something wrong with the latch…or maybe he’s just not awake enough…or the position’s wrong. I mean, this is my fourth child. I’m an expert breastfeeding mom now. I ought to be able to problem solve my way through most things. And I did…he got his feeding, it just took almost an hour. An hour of experimenting with latches and positions, and a lot of chewing on skin that was already raw. I thought about the several dozen vials of breastmilk pumped out during the NICU stay. How long will that last? Can I just quit?

Sore, stiff neck and headache greeted me this morning, heaping insult upon misery. It was getting better for several days, then suddenly took a turn for the worse. Every single time I sit down to nurse, I do neck stretches. I really thought it would be improving by now. I knelt in the hallway folding clothes and crying. Julianna came over and gave me hug after hug, shaking her head and signing “cry,” to say: Don’t cry. Don’t cry. What I really wanted was a long, comforting cuddle with my husband but he was trying to get out of the house with Alex.

Three ibuprofen later I feel marginally human, but life seems pretty overwhelming. I can recite verbatim everything everybody’s thinking, about taking care of yourself, taking a nap, asking for help, etc. etc. I am taking naps, and how much more help can I ask? I’ve already hit up two people for chauffering services this week, and a dozen more have either brought or been loosely scheduled to bring food. We could stock our deep freeze and not cook for the next three months—and it’s wonderful, it will be so helpful to only cook half as much for the foreseeable future. But how can I ask more? I’m not the only person in the world with difficulties, and I’m sure mine are less severe than most.

More than likely this freak-out is post-NICU-stress related. Life keeps marching on, I keep trying to take care of kids and take back all the overwhelming burden that Christian had to carry by himself for ten days, and it’s almost Christmas and I’m having to say no to the kids’ school parties because I just don’t think I can do any more, which makes me feel horribly guilty. I’m not writing, I’m barely cleaning, just trying to keep up with the dishes and the laundry, and when I look around me I see people carrying burdens truly crushing. I don’t have any justification for flipping out over perfectly normal postpartum blues and ordinary health concerns. It just seems like there’s no end in sight, no time to just sit down on the couch and simply be. Be with my husband, mostly, just be, not crisis-hopping, not problem-solving how to get child care so he can work, not working out grocery lists long distance, not trying to communicate the latest unjustified bilirubin flip-out the doctor had today, not trying to figure out why they want to do yet another PKU test, not trying to work in another doctor appointment or diagnostic test, not tearing our hair out because Alex can’t seem to get himself together and we can’t juggle one more thing for him, not gnashing our teeth because Julianna’s lost some of her verbal skills and maybe it’s because we ran out of green tea three weeks ago and can’t seem to get any more made.

Life right now just feels like too much. It’s not just the last two weeks; the crisis of early delivery and NICU blindsided us on the back end of a long period of stress. I just want a few days to breathe, without crisis, without chaos, without the phone ringing twenty times a day from Sirius XM radio and the pediatrician’s office. I just want to be for a while. Is that so much to ask, God?

Christian & the kids were at a concert on Saturday night when I walked into my kitchen and stopped dead, staring at the piles of papers waiting to be filed, gifts and school projects no one had had time to sort and put away, and toys—the toys that are supposed to stay in the basement—on every level of the house.
“Oh…my…gosh,” I said.

My mother went upstairs to start folding more laundry. My dad pulled Michael out of his car seat and started goo-goo-eyeing him. I hung up my coat and tore into the mess. It didn’t really look any better when I had to cease and desist for the night, in part because of the extra clutter my homecoming had brought into the house, but I did as much as I could.

What a difference six days can make. Every previous baby homecoming has involved a two-hour drive on a very sore abdomen, every bump causing me to wince and hold my incision. It’s involved the panicky not-feeling-good of engorgement. This time? This time I lit into the household tasks with an energy that amazed even me. All I could think was I had to do as much as I could before the kids came home and I needed to minister to the people in my household instead of the household itself.

I am way more interested in nesting now than I was in the last two weeks of my pregnancy.

Transition is tough every time. Thirty-six hours in, I’m already almost wild; Nicholas looks hurt when I shush him—because he never, ever, EVER shuts up. He just keeps repeating the same things over and over, right in my face while I’m trying to concentrate on making sure Michael is actually nursing and not simply tearing my breasts to shreds without getting anything out of them. Why is it that every baby is a stellar nurser in the hospital and then decides to be a fit-and-start-er upon arrival home? Julianna wants to breathe her runny nose and phlegmy cough on him, and everybody wants to hold him all the time. And ten days of hospital stress and nursing in a cramped corner beneath a vitals monitor that was beeping every minute and a half finally took their toll; I woke yesterday with the crick in my neck to end all cricks. Splitting headache, agonizing pain in my back.

Let’s just say it’s not conducive to house cleaning.

Transition, I whisper to myself. Just keep your cool. This, too, shall pass.

Besides, there’s this to counterbalance it. I just have to discipline my attitude.

Image via Wikipedia

Two hours after Julianna was born, I was chomping at the bit, feeling irritable that they hadn’t brought her in for her first nursing, and trying to be patient. Then, of course, the doctor came in with the news of her chromosomal giftedness, and I don’t remember a whole lot after that.

I think we were already in our postpartum room before she came, and I had already received a visit from the stellar lactation consultant, who was guarded in her words. Kids with Down syndrome, she said, could probably nurse, eventually. But not to be discouraged if it didn’t work up front.

I was a trembling nervous wreck when my daughter came into the room at last, with backup in the form of nursery nurse, there to help with latch. Not at all what I had expected as a second-time nursing mother. But I drew my fragile baby into position, and Julianna latched on as if she was born to nurse. (Which, of course, she was.) The nurse’s jaw dropped, and she turned and dashed out of the room, returning two minutes later with the lactation consultant to crow and cheer. I felt a hard gleam of pride in myself and my daughter. Take that, Conventional Wisdom. Score One for my child. Teach you people to tell me what my child can and can’t do.

And then we went home, and it got a lot harder. My milk came in, and there was plenty of it, but she couldn’t stay latched, because she couldn’t breathe, thanks to the holes in her heart. She fell asleep almost as soon as she hit the breast. The girl slept all the time. Being well-experienced in plugged milk ducts, I was kind of a freak about the whole thing. It feels counterintuitive to work as hard as I did to keep her awake, to wake her over and over again. Dr. Sears says to aim for ten minutes of nursing—actual nursing—with kids with DS, and so I became a clock watcher. Often, I spent more time waking her up than I did nursing her.

Through sheer stubborn determination, I managed to do it–through a week of around-the-clock pumping when she was 5 1/2 weeks old and on a ventilator with RSV, through the weak oral muscles that meant that nursing = latching…over and over. I once told my mom that we latched a couple dozen times in a “10-minute” nursing session. “Ouch,” she said. I thought about what I was claiming and realized it sounded patently ridiculous. So I counted. I reached 18 latches in the first three minutes, and decided it was time to stop counting.

I share this because, despite the difficulties, we did it. She nursed exclusively until solid foods, and then she continued nursing until, at 16 months, she weaned completely.

It was really hard, but I don’t regret the experience one bit. For one thing, it gave me an intense confidence as a parent—more even than nursing Alex had given me. But more importantly, she needed all the health and developmental boost she could possibly get. That alone made it worthwhile. Nursing was a gift I could give her, one that she needed more than most.

I’d like to ask you all to share your stories now. I know there are those who have had beautiful experiences, as well as those who struggled more than we did, even some who have decided that the gift wasn’t worth the struggle. Please share your stories with us today.

Related Articles

• East Tennessee Children’s Hospital embraces initiative to make breastfeeding priority (knoxnews.com)
• Breastfeeding tips – All Information (umm.edu)
• What a boob: My breast-feeding failure (salon.com)

It’s January when everybody gets “serious” about weight loss, but I have a better idea: keep it under control as you go.

Now, there are the really obvious things—portion control, diet, exercise, and all that—but here are three evening techniques that I find helpful:

1. Eat early, & go to bed hungry. It seems like the dinner hour is 7, 8, 9:00 for a lot of people. I grew up having supper promptly at 6, but now, with three nights a week taken up by lessons and choir, dinner is at 5:30 (or as close as I can make it). This means that I’m finished eating for the night by 6:15 p.m., which lets me run off some of the meal before bedtime. For people who work, I have three words: CROCK POT—LEFTOVERS. You may roll your eyes at the stay-at-home mom, but I teach three afternoons a week, and I can’t cook on those days. So I cook on the days I can, and when I can’t, it’s CROCK POT or LEFTOVERS.
2. Go to bed a little bit hungry. Whenever I do that, I find that my weight inches downward the next morning.
3. Brush your teeth. In college I had a roommate & best friend who brushed her teeth every time she got ready to practice. If you are like her and don’t mind brushing your teeth often, I can’t help you. But I hate brushing my teeth. I do it in the morning and at night, and I will pass up food and drink if I’ve already brushed my teeth. So if I know I’m baking bread or working in the kitchen at night, where there are cookies lying around, brushing my teeth saves me a lot of calories.

Now, let me share one other nugget: it’s not all about real weight loss. Sometimes it’s about perceived weight loss.

I am 8 ½ months postpartum, and flirting with my pre-pregnancy weight. I haven’t made any significant progress in about two months…and yet all of a sudden, in the last week, everybody keeps saying, “Kate, you look great!” How to explain this?

(Disclaimer: In real life, I am a very down-to-earth person who has no problem talking about earthy subjects. After all, I teach Natural Family Planning. We use words like “mucus” all the time—without blushing. However, in “print” I usually try to be a little more circumspect. So I apologize for this, but…)

It’s the bra.

Out of the last 5 ½ years, I’ve been pregnant for 2 ¼ and nursing for well over 3. And I have three nursing bras. One for exercise, one for wearing in the early days of engorgement (meaning minimal support); and one that I wear every day. I mean every day.

I needed a new bra even before Julianna weaned, but I didn’t want to waste the money just in case we never managed to get pregnant again. Plus, I wanted to wait to replace it until I had another baby, and the milk came in, because that’s when the breast size is the biggest. I know from unhappy experience that tight bras cause plugged milk ducts. So I waited till Nicholas was born, and I could drive again…and then, Julianna was in the hospital, and then I didn’t have the money in my budget, and…well, you get the idea. Here I am, 8 months in, wearing the worn-out Medela nursing bra with holes in the band.

And then, last week, I cleaned out my drawer and discovered a nursing bra buried in the bottom. I bought it while I was still pregnant with Alex, and it turned out to be WAY too small for the early days of nursing. But at this stage, it fits great. I put it on, and suddenly…well, rather than get too explicit, let’s just say my body shape has improved dramatically.

And that is what Works For Me.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, visit http://www.wearethatfamily.com/.

At times like these, I am so painfully aware of my own weakness, my own brokenness. Yes, I enjoyed Christmas shopping with Christian yesterday…but I’ve spent so much of the last few days not feeling good. Why, oh why won’t my body go on and adjust to this stupid metformin? It’s worse when I don’t sleep—so much worse. And what is going on with Nicholas? How can a child go from sleeping peacefully from 7:45p.m. to 6:30 a.m. to waking up six times a night? How can a child suddenly decide that he isn’t going to sleep at all, day or night, for longer than an hour at a time? Doesn’t it stand to reason that at some point, he’s just got to crash? Why, oh why isn’t he reaching that point?

I’m tired, God, and whenever I’m tired, the metformin reaction is so much worse. And we’re at the end of Christian’s vacation now, and I feel more worn down than when we started. This should have been a week to relax and renew. Instead I feel more than ever like I’m scrabbling at the edge of the cliff. I haven’t even tried to write this week…I’ve barely kept up on my blog. On this side of Thanksgiving, all those January deadlines seem a whole lot closer. How can I be stretched so thin when I’ve accomplished so little?

Well, I know the answer to that one. Family visits are enjoyable, but they are also frequently stressful. There’s the disruption to the routine, and the staying up late, the lack of down time, the extra noise, the kids’ excitement and subsequent refusal to sleep…though that still doesn’t explain Nicholas’s lingering agitation.

And why isn’t he feeling better, anyway? It’s been three weeks since Nicholas has acted like himself. Is it that rash? Is the rash indicative of something else? Something more than penicillin reaction or food reaction?

I keep thinking that by the time my third child is 8 months old, I ought to have some idea how to problem solve these things. But the reality is that things just keep getting more complicated. With the first two, I could stick them in their rooms and teach them to put themselves back to sleep in the night by just closing the door and refusing to pick them up. But Nicholas is sharing a room with Julianna. I can’t just walk out and let him cry himself back to sleep. But I want to be done with night nursing, and the last two nights, he’s nursed and still been awake! If even nursing doesn’t put him back to sleep, where does that leave us?

And he is so clingy. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. He’s so crabby all the time! Angelic, smiley, as long as he’s being held, or if I’m sitting on the floor beside him…but my gosh, if I go to grab a pencil, he starts shrieking!

I want to feel better, God. And I know that at least part of it has to come from me…but I feel so powerless right now. So helpless. So angry and overwhelmed. And guilty for feeling so. After all, I chose to have my kids close together; I feel like I need to be a model of with-it-ness. A bad day is one thing, but a month?

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come to dwell in me. Please. In my darkness, I really need to feel the light of your presence, leading me toward the dawn.

In the early morning gloom, I sat in my nursing chair beside the window and said a prayer before gently, oh so gently, drawing Nicholas down into nursing position. When he opened his mouth and began to nurse, I almost cried. Six squares of dawn crept up the wall, brightening from rose to copper to molten gold, and my baby held tight to the breast, drawing peace and comfort from the touch of skin to skin. And I, too, drew comfort from that touch…afraid to move, for fear of shattering a fragile moment.

I never really appreciated nursing as  the gift it is to me. I rear up like a mother bear in its defense; I deliver impassioned orations on the subject… But until a few days ago, the full import never sank in. Not until Friday afternoon, when Nicholas saw me coming and arched his back, screamed, and pushed me away. And repeated the performance at 7:30 p.m. And at 9:30. And in the middle of the night. And Saturday morning, and noon, and afternoon, and evening, and all day Sunday. But long before then, I knew what was going on. It’s called a nursing strike. I knew it from reading Dr. Sears, and it was a textbook case: “They’re not very happy about the situation, but nevertheless they refuse to nurse.”

From Friday evening to Sunday night, I pumped every drop of precious milk and fed it to him in cups. Pumping is not a life-giving activity. Actually, it is for the baby. For Mommy…no. It takes twice as long for electricity and mechanics to draw out the milk as Baby does, and in the meantime, instead of cuddles and soft skin to hold, I had hard plastic, and a baby sitting in front of me screaming, desperate to be held. I called lactation consultants and friends, my mom and my sister, seeking advice. I found myself staring down the next four months, going, What if he weans himself? Am I going to have to spend this extra time every day for the next four months, pumping, and then turning around and having to feed it by cup? I don’t think I can do this!

Plus, there was the emotional toll. I knew he had an ear infection, and it probably hurt him to suck. I didn’t feel rejected…but I felt bereft. I have come to take that cuddle time for granted…to wish it away in pursuit of other activities. But now, as I held him against me, as I felt him growing more and more clingy by the hour, until I felt that I was being strangled by it…as he demanded the reassurance of closeness to Mommy while simultaneously refusing the best comfort Mommy has to offer…

Let’s just say it was a rough few days. There were some expletives. Some tantrums (the adult variety). Not my best days as Mommy. Or wife. Or human being, for that matter.

And so today, two days before Thanksgiving, I am so thankful. The strike is over. Hallelujah!

Note: for other thankful moments in the everyday, see “Tuesdays Unwrapped” at ChattingattheSky.com.

In some ways, it is much harder to write this third letter than the first two. For one thing, five a.m. came far too early this morning, and I’m having trouble thinking clearly. But mostly it’s because babyhood is a time of great simplicity, and virtually your entire life still stretches out before you. You haven’t yet revealed much of the boy and man you will become.

Your grandma Sander once told me that a baby’s nursing habits predict his later personality. In your case, that would be lazy. So far, she’s been right. When, at five months you were still lying contentedly on your back staring at the world, we had to invoke the aid of your sister’s PT to remind us how to teach a baby to roll over. As Charlie Brown would say, Good grief.

On the other hand, it’s not such a bad thing to be easygoing, to be satisfied with being adorable and having women of all ages going gaga over your long, come-hither eyelashes.

Hammin' it up for the camera

Although I must admit, you are capable of just as much drama as your sister. You suffer from the misfortune of having a mommy who has a much higher tolerance for whining and crying than she once did. I have a lot more to do these days, and it takes a lot more to force me to your side if I’m otherwise committed. But you rise to the challenge admirably.

On the other hand, being the third in line means that we’ve really mellowed about some things. TV, for instance. Alex was not allowed to face a TV screen until he was two years old. You are already drawn like a moth, lying on the floor and craning your neck to see behind you…and it’s a battle we just don’t have the energy to fight. Especially since you are so cantankerous about going to bed at night. We have enough battles as it is.

In seven days you will be six months old. How is that possible? I actually have the sweet potato that you will eat for your first meal sitting on the counter.  You’re ready to eat and have been for ten days or so, but I groan at the thought of even more food prep…nursing is so simple…so I’ve been putting it off. Things are coming to a head, however. I bought a few days by putting you in your high chair at the table, so you felt like you were part of things. It was just as well; that allowed us to go ahead and rearrange the seat assignments at the table so that everybody was settled in when it came time to start feeding you solid food. (I had to expend several minutes’ worth of creative energy to come up with a new seating chart, one that allowed me to deal with both you and your sister, who still won’t use a spoon. She can…but she doesn’t. Stinker.) But the last two nights, you’ve been sitting on my lap, your head twisting wildly as you watch every bite travel from the plate to my mouth. Depending on logistics, you will get your first solid food either today or tomorrow.

And last night you got your first haircut. It had reached the point where even I had to admit that the poof of curls in the front of your head looked ridiculous (I mean, they were standing three inches off your crown!), so I let Daddy take a scissors to them.

Well, it’s Saturday morning and the cinnamon rolls are calling. There are no deep profundities in this letter, but that’s what makes the baby stage so nice…it’s time intensive, but it’s simple. Your needs are simple, and the most complicated part about filling them is juggling them with the needs of your older siblings. If the last six months are any indication, that will change soon enough.

KATE retreats to a park bench out under some trees, a little removed from the family and friends opening baby gifts, and covers up to nurse Nicholas.

Heedless of privacy, NOAH COPPLE AND COUSINS come running over. NOAH yanks the blanket back. “Aunt Kate!” he gasps. “Nicholas has got his mouth on you!”

KATE (chuckling): “Yes, I know.”

NOAH: “Yuck! That’s gross!”

KATE (trying to be cool aunt and not crack up): “Um, well, this is how Nicholas eats.”

NOAH (jaw drops): “What? Does he bite your skin, and then you BLEED all OVER THE PLACe?????”

KATE: 

The cousins had a great time together, but they were only so-so about having their pictures taken:

Eva Williamson, Alex, Julianna, Noah Copple (holding Nicholas)

At the end of a long day, I pull into the garage and open the doors to find this:

Ah...peace and quiet, at last....