Taking a break from alpacas to talk about asses and boobs

If you have no interest in breasts then maybe you have a thing for shoes. I have a new review on footwear up at May We Recommend. If you have skinny feet like mine you'll want to learn more about Ryka sneakers, trust me.

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By now you've heard about Bill Maher's rant about mothers who breastfeed in public, as well as the woman who was asked to cover herself up while nursing her 7 month-old son by an Applebee's manager (App-manager? Managerbee?) and the nurse-in that was organized as a result of, sparking said rant. Not to mention Facebook's claim that pictures featuring nursing infants are obscene and subject to removal from their site without prior notice. And the Harvard medical student who just today was told by a judge that she could not have extra time to pump breast milk for her four month old daughter during her 9 hour exam.

(Gotta love it when a world-renowned medical school won't bend the rules for something like expressing breast milk for babies, something the medical community has been trying valiantly to beat into the minds of new mothers throughout this country.)

I'd rather not link to the video of Maher's diatribe because I don't believe a misogynistic ass deserves any more viewers, especially after he compared mothers - including his own, because I do believe he was birthed the old fashioned way and wasn't, in fact, the spawn of satan and a goat. Though this is still to be refuted - to dogs. I wonder how Mommy Maher felt when she heard that one?

However, there is one part I'd like to quote here:

"Look, there's no principle at work here other than being too lazy to either plan ahead or cover up. It's not fighting for a right it's fighting for the spotlight you surely will get when you go all Janet Jackson on everyone and get to drink in the oohs and ahs of the other customers because you made a baby. Something a dog can do."

Okay, I added that last sentence for emphasis because it really pisses me off, but it's the beginning part that bothers me on a whole other level.

"...being too lazy to either plan ahead or cover up."

Too lazy to plan ahead? That statement really burns my buns. Let me give you two personal examples that poke big fat holes in to big Fat Head's theory.

When Chicky was around three months old she went on a bottle strike. She never really took to a bottle before then but she would occasionally drink from one if I was no where near the house... and the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. I cried when she refused to take a bottle, almost as loudly as she did as I tried to cajole her into giving Mommy's poor boobs a break. She was a constant nurser, either for sustenance or comfort, and I was always on duty. According to Maher, I should have stayed in doors with the blinds shut, never daring to go so far as my neighborhood chain restaurant for a quick meal because that would have put me into the "too lazy to plan ahead" category. Too lazy to force my kid to take a bottle or too lazy to let her scream in hunger? I'm not sure which. Perhaps he could tell me.

Maybe he could tell me how I could have gotten my grocery shopping done (nursed there), gone to coffee shops with my girlfriends and their infants (nursed there too) and kept my sanity in check until Chicky finally took the bottle again when she was almost 5 and a half months.

I'm sure he wouldn't have an answer for that, just some funny joke about how I was a new mom and I wasn't entitled to my sanity and how I should suck it up and stop thinking I deserved a medal for having a baby.

Here's another for instance: One month into Chicky's bottle strike we took her to the Cape to spend a few days at my sister's house. Now, again, according to Billy Boy I shouldn't have dared leave my home, but my husband, who works around the clock to keep selfish, lazy ol' me fed and clothed and stocked with bon bons and the Soap Network, really wanted a vacation.

I was a new mother and still very unaccustomed to nursing in public the "proper" way. I had yet to get a handle on how to keep a squirmy infant, who at that moment had learned that popping off of Mommy's nipple to give her a quick smile was really super fun, under a blanket. One day we all decided to take the ferry to Nantucket for the day (I know, I was really pushing my luck) and it was hotter than a witches tit.

I spent more time on that damn outing trying to find inconspicuous places to nurse my daughter. It was easily 90 degrees outside so throwing a blanket over her head made us both miserable. Very miserable.

But I did, not because I had any sense of decorum or because it was the "right thing to do" but because I was embarrassed.

I was embarrassed because I'd heard too many people like Bill Maher tell me that women who breastfeed in public are obscene. Now I am more embarrassed that I allowed myself to be bullied into that position. I so badly want to go back to that day and do it all over.

The sadness and frustration I felt on that day brought me so near to tears that I really don't know how I didn't break down in a big sobbing mess in front of Lilly Pulitzer. Chicky was hot and cranky. I was hot and cranky. My husband was hot and cranky. And the day culminated in me desperately searching for any quiet shady spot on that damned island to nurse my screaming daughter, which I eventually found in a garden in front of a museum after an hour of aimless wandering. Even then it wasn't private enough for me, and Mr. C and I bickered. We bickered because I couldn't get over my hangups. He was disappointed that I couldn't feel comfortable nursing, the most natural of all acts between a mother and a child.

It makes me spineless for not feeling comfortable enough to stand up for myself and my child but lazy? In the words of my daughter, "No way, Jose."

If I were to have a second child I would like to think I'd be a lot more comfortable nursing my child in public and woe to the person who dares tell me I'm "lazy" for not forcing my child to take a bottle (one that's probably hazardous to his or her health) just to make that person feel more comfortable. I am not lazy. I am a mother who would be doing the best thing for her child and I'm extremely resentful that someone who doesn't have a pair of tits would dare to tell me otherwise.

You, Bill Maher, are a boob. Do us all a favor and go cover yourself up.