Leaf Baby

Milk Baby. Leaf is the noisiest, slurpiest eater I have ever met. He doesn't allow me to be very secretive about nursing. Not that nursing is indecent or anything, but some people apparently feel a little embarrassed about it, like the waiter who came to our table the other day and spun around to face the other direction when he noticed that I was breastfeeding my baby. He managed to hand the bill back to us with his arm outstretched behind his back and offered a muffled "thanks, guys."

So, the other day, while we were waiting for prognosis on our van, my superstar husband and I strolled into the Santa Cruz Bookshop to find a place where I could feed Leaf. There were several comfy chairs, all occupied, and although Chinua insisted that he knew several ways to get people out of the chairs, I declined and decided to sit on a bench. Bookstores are very quiet places, more quiet than several churches I could name. Immediately the quiet was broken by Salif slurping and squeaking away. It really is difficult to describe the sounds he makes in writing, but he makes a sort of smacking sound every time he draws milk in. He then proceeds to belch like a 50-year-old beer-drinker and poop explosively. At the bookstore no one was reading anymore. The comfy chairs had been emptied, so I moved over and finish nursing in comfort.

Just in case the sounds weren't enough, Leaf is also a messy eater, my messiest one, I think. He has this interesting habit of getting a big mouthful of milk and then just letting it out, so it goes all over his face and my stomach and by the time he's finished eating, he's just covered. I pull him away to look at his face and he blinks at me with drunken happiness, milk covering him from chin to eyebrows.

Here are some photos of Leaf really trying so hard to talk to me.





Happy baby.