Irritants (for womanfolk mostly)

So I am going to be honest. My sadness the last few days has given way to waves of irritation. Some nonsense, some well directed. It is like a moving creepy crawly mass under my skin that is ready to explode into anger. I directed it first to a very naive, puritanical Mom who was insulted that a Mom might dare to breastfeed in front of her child and flash a little unintentional skin. Her post after mine stating I wished I'd spent less time in stalls went something like: I don't want to explain to my son that we say not to show our bodies but then see someone nursing. Can I just say the honey badger came out... she'd posted this before and you know what, I thought she was wackadoodle to begin with, but posting again after my post was saying "I really don't care about the quality of the short life of your child... heaven forbid I should be UNCOMFORTABLE". Well it's pretty freakin uncomfortable to sit on a cold smelly toilet. What will she do next? Put bras on cows to avoid exposing her pure son to mammory glands?

Now I am not an advocate to exposing ones goodies, and use a nursing cover when brave enough (or rather did... this tense stuff pisses me off too!!), but folks if a Mom is trying to be discrete and a little hand pulls aside a cover, it is not the end of the world. While I don't have the guts, women in 100 degree weather who expertly take care of business but do not use a cover that holds heat in... really, that's worth you wrath? Can't you get mad at the millions of people on this earth that do horrible mean, lewd things and leave Mommas alone?

So more than a little angrily I posted back that there is no shame in feeding your child and that I wish I would have the luxury of explaining things to my son.

It ticked me off, because even when I would hit the comfy restroom in the mall at one of the nicer department stores, and sit in an actual chair with a nursing cover, I still got 'the look'. Once from a woman with a boy who looked about the age the poster listed her son as 7/8 years (in a woman's restroom). I moved into the stall for a bit and Perry started screaming (babies sense when things get tense with Mom).

I'm done with hiding, done with it! If I have another child I will never hide like I am doing something perverted. Nursing rooms, nursing covers, ok... but toilets never again.

Ok so don't throw a pearl before swine. I get it. But what would bottle fed mommas do if someone proposed that they could only feed on a toilet? Millions of mothers for centuries have nursed in public, even in church. Sometimes 'progress' is regression.

It's a sore spot because it is something I still should be doing. Something I could have done better. Something that only a mother can do for her child.

Now this irritation I have to try very hard to keep in check. Is it anger from Perry's death? Whacked out hormones recovering from my sons death, the abrupt end of nursing and just now normalizing? I don't know. I want to scream, shout angrily, jump on packing bubbles (Emily and I did this about a week ago and it was actually sort of theraputic, released some tensions and left us in a welcome fit of giggles), break a mason wall with a sledgehammer... Something.

But can I admit that this anger is actually a welcome release from the totality of the sadness or the fog of numbness? A relief to rant angrily instead of crying quietly?

I am so tired.