this one's for Jaye

While on vacation in Spokane a couple weeks ago, I was laying in my mother in law's bed (they were gracious enough to give up their bedroom for us) nursing Ellis before bedtime. My niece Katelyn (age 3) decided she wanted to go to bed as well so I let her snuggle in beside us thinking, how cute is this? But because it was quite early compared to Katelyn's normal bedtime, I figured she would change her mind about all this going to bed nonsense in about 28 seconds.

As you can imagine, a 3 year old isn't terribly quiet when she's not really ready for bed so I kept trying to quiet her while trying to keep Ellis on the task at hand. As you can also imagine, Ellis' schedule, limited though it may be, had already been completey obliterated on day 1 of our vacation so I'm thinking this was a losing proposition all the way around but really, how cute is this?

I was nursing Ellis, and Katelyn was asking questions, and I was saying shhhhh, we need to be quiet. I'm trying to put Belles to bed.

I continued to nurse, and Katelyn continued to ask questions, and I said, shhhhh, we need to be quiet. I'm trying to feed Belles so she can go night-night.

Katelyn asks me, she's eating? And I say, uh-huh, shhhhhh.

And this is the point where she sat upright, peered over my side, and said IS SHE EATING YOU?

Oh, man, how to you keep your composure after that? That was, easily, one of the funniest moments I've ever had in my entire 33 years, 359 days of life. And to know that that was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of funny shit to come is one reason I became a parent. The other is when she sits on the couch calling out hi! hi! to me, like she is right now. Okay, there's about a thousand other reasons, but that's a story for another day.

The rest is a bit fuzzy, but I believe I answered her with something to the effect of, ummm, well, sort of, you see, there's milk and......

Katelyn lost interest in both me & bedtime shortly thereafter, and scooted off to find one of the many other family members who were still awake and/or not dispensing milk through their boobies.

And after Ellis fell asleep, I had the pleasant task of explaining to Katelyn's mom why she may come asking if she had milk, too.