Nursing recidivist

Dick and I escaped the hooligans this weekend. My mom and dad and siblings who are still at home (including home-from-BYU-for-Christmas Karin) watched the kiddies while we went to picturesque mini-Switzerland Midway, Utah and indulged in . . . pretty much the same things we do at our own apartment.

Including our favorite new thing to do: Ping Pong, which we can’t do for obvious reasons in our midget-size apartment, but which we’ve (re)discovered at sister Marcy’s fancy house. Apparently if you have a big house with fun toys you should be doubly cautious not to make eye contact when people (esp. family members) are discussing plans for holiday party-ing. Unless you want 5000 of your closest friends and relatives to camp out at your house every time the post office closes.

Dick says we should do new, exciting, adventurous things when we’re finally free of those clinging, holding-us-back monsters. But we realized that new, exciting, adventurous things are also either scary, expensive, or require too much energy to do no matter how unencumbered you are. So, I read and Dick played on the internet (hard to believe, I know), and then we watched movies (ditto), went swimming and shopping at the outlets. Swimming: two adults lazing in the water thinking, “Sally and Susan and Spot would love this indoor pool.” Couples shopping: woman thinking, “why did I bring him? I should have brought my best friend; was I on drugs?”

The one thing we did do that was awesome and begged repeating was eating out at a couple of great restaurants, where I had the best mashed potatoes ever, which probably just means they were the most unhealthy mashed potatoes ever. But, dang. And then, for dessert, gratino. Custard, raspberry sauce, mascarpone, carmel sauce and brown sugar. It was, shockingly, a little to sweet, but soooo delicious. And I can’t find a recipe for it anywhere. Would be eternally in the debt of someone who could find me a recipe. I hope they don’t get in trouble for serving an Italian dish in little Switzerland.

Then we picked up our much-missed kids and said goodbye to grandparents who were, surprisingly, not that sorry to see us go. Spot did her pterydactyl scream all the way home (the happy pterydactyl for the most part; wouldn’t want to hear a mad pterydactyl) and I wondered how soon we could leave them again.

This morning I fell into my old ways. Oh, not in regards to never exercising; I’ve actually exercised three times this year already. I deserve a medal, or at least to lose five pounds. No, I am a nursing recidivist. Before our trip I was down to nursing 14 month-old Spot just once a day, in the mornings. And then we were separated for two whole days and nights. I thought that would do it. My greatest fear is that I’ll have a five year-old lifting up my shirt and asking for more milk. I’m not an Attachment Parenting nut enthusiast. As far as I’m considered, my kids and I are way too attached. Attachment is not the problem here.

But this morning as I did what I do every morning (nudge Dick to turn off his alarm, and then nudge him again ten minutes later to actually wake up, then reclaim my half of our king-size bed: why does snuggling sound so much better in theory?, then listen to increasing sounds of protest from Spot’s room and ask Dick to bring her in to my warm blanket cave), I put her to my breast. My little baby. Who is neither little nor a baby anymore. But she is still mine. For about two weeks more. I promise. I’ll stop then.