When Ben turned one nearly three weeks ago, I had a moment of contemplation – to which I have returned, again and again, ever since. It’s a piece of history that won’t be repeated, as two is quite enough for us.
I fondly remember breastfeeding Ben and Isobel as newborns. (I stopped breastfeeding Ben at four-and-a-half months old, Isobel at six months.) They both had a wonderful way of pulling away the instant they’d had their fill, smacking their tiny rosebud lips, chins fat with contentment.
I loved watching them, however tired I got from being a milk-cow every 3-4 hours a day. In their first few weeks, both my babies were tiny, delicate and piglet-pink, suckling so insouciantly and intermittently that sometimes, they fooled me into thinking they’d gone to sleep. That is, until I tried to get them off, at which point they sucked more vigorously than before. Oh, how I miss bonding over a milk feed.
There is a video – which for reasons of modesty I absolutely refuse to put on YouTube – of me breastfeeding Ben on his first day. Miles had filmed it close-up before panning to my face, just as I was finishing a chat to someone unseen.
“Film the baby, not the boob,” I can be seen saying/signing. (With one hand supporting Ben’s head – the other still punctuated by a saline drip tube – I am clearly unable to sign well, and I’m shattered.) Pause, then a repeat: ”Film the baby, not the boob. Carol,” I turn to my unseen companion, “tell him to film the baby, not the boob.”
I get a compliment off-screen – I think that was Miles saying, “But it’s all so beautiful!” – and I tilt and smile with a kind of tired appreciation – affection? – before gazing down at the maternal task in hand.A vaby
Well, it was one o’clock in the morning.
