Well-meaning strangers

A funny thing happened on the way out of an Arizona Costco last week. The cashier (who was maybe early 20s) looked from my 2% milk to 18-month-old Spot on my hip and asked, Are you buying this for your daughter? When I said, Why yes, he persisted: You asked the doctor and he said it’s okay?

Huh? (So many things wrong with that question; not least of which is assuming that my kids’ pediatrician is male.)

Actually, no, I didn’t ask the doctor. I decided on my own that it was okay.

He looked pretty disapproving but rang me up anyway. I wondered if he would feel better knowing that I still breastfeed Spot 2-3 times a day. But then he might feel worse if he saw Spot drinking out of my 55-cent Coke fountain drink. Or really worse if he knew what I was contemplating two short days later, in a crappy hotel just far enough from the Grand Canyon to be cheap. Where we had two queen beds for the five of us.

Dick got kick-you-in-the-head Susan. I got teeth-grinding, nose-picking, knee-you-in-the-face Sally, and Spot, who, when she wasn’t sitting on my head screeching, was doing her best to gnaw my nipple off. Remind me again why you like to co-sleep? And nurse until your kids are seventeen?

As I lay there I wished for a fifth of whiskey which I would have fed to Spot from a chipped, dirty jelly jar if only I knew how to procure whiskey and knew why anyone would only want a fifth of it. Wouldn’t a whole whiskey be a better value?

I think we can only be grateful to that cashier’s mother for breastfeeding him (which I assume because I too like to make snap infant-feeding-method judgments about complete strangers, though I usually try to be slightly more discreet) as he is obviously making good use of every bit of those two extra IQ points. Similar to how Dick likes to tell me just think how smart you’d be if you didn’t have Downs Syndrome.

Here’s a picture of poor, underfed, neglected Spot.

And here’s another one where you can see how that missing 2% of milkfat has led to a serious dearth in cute creases on her neck and arm. That is one starving child!

And the Grand Canyon? Merely a footnote to a great trip Tara has documented so well here and here. You can even read about what great guests we are. Do you want us to come stay with you too? We’d be happy to grace your guest bedroom. Anything to avoid more cheap hotels.

I thought we’d hit the nadir with that awful hostel in London during Spring Break 2000, but even strangers having sex in a single bed across the room (while we, the cheap marrieds, kept to our lonely berths) wasn’t as bad as sleeping in unfamiliar environs with three children.

Sally said she was sick of looking at the Grand Canyon after ten minutes. Susan liked it a lot too, as you can tell from her rapt expression here.

I guess I should be glad that Costco cashier didn’t see all the DVDs and fruit snacks we took on the trip. Our kids will be lucky to have any brain cells left after multiple viewings of Blue’s Clues Shape Searchers. But then maybe he would be glad to know we coached our kids well before the Easter egg hunt. Don’t let the boys take all the eggs. If they’re there first, fine, but If you’re reaching for it, you get it.

Or maybe he thinks Easter egg hunts are pagan and inappropriate. Aaack. What to do? Maybe I’ll have to go back to get his advice.

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I submitted this to Tickle-Me Tuesday, because it actually was Tuesday when I wrote this, despite my computer’s intransigence, and also, it really tickled me.