Visiting Grandma, and Why My Husband Rocks

Today Lulu visited her grandma on her dad's side for the first time. Erik is traveling with his brother, who owns his own company and has a contract to update the wireless internet capabilities at a bunch of malls across the US. His brother worked his way down to L.A., where Erik flew down to help him out. They then drove up here, worked on a couple malls around here, and then today drove up to Santa Rosa to do the mall up there. We live in San Jose and grandma lives in Santa Rosa, so the plan was for me to bring Lulu up there to meet everyone for dinner.

Well, apparently by the time it took me to get her all ready, pack her diaper bag, the camera, extra camera batteries, camcorder (which didn't even get used :P ), put petrol in the auto and get on the road, it was high noon in traffic-town. I mean, seriously bad bad traffic all the way from the very southern tip of SF all the way up to Santa Rosa. Bleck. Lulu was awesome in the car until we almost got there, at which point she decided she wanted to wake up and be starving hungry and very vocal about it. She had already made it the three hours we were sitting in traffic, so I pulled over and nursed her and changed her in the car at a gas station (I have to say "YAY" for not having to worry about bottles and insulated packs for bottles and mixing formula and all that crap. Screw that. It is soooo much easier to pull my dear daughter close and let her drink directly from the tap, so to speak. And oftentimes, like a little alcoholic, she will drink until she passes out.)

Grandma had made reservations at a restaurant for all of us, and I have to say the couple of times Lulu has come with us to dinner she was perfectly behaved, i.e. asleep. This time she woke up and fussed a little during dessert, so I tried to nurse her. I think I was a little inhibited/self-conscious feeling about nursing in front of grandma and her husband, because the mamamilk just wouldn't flow. It's weird how a) I have no problem nursing in front of strangers at a gas station, but feel awkward around family, and b) that milk let-down is controlled THAT much by the mental factor.

After unsuccessfully nursing, I go to change her diaper 'cuz it's feeling wet. Lo and behold, the restroom at this particular restaurant doesn't have a changing station. I'm new to the whole parenting thing, and I guess I just never paid much attention to baby stuff. I had no idea not all restrooms have baby changing stations! What are moms supposed to do in this situation? I mean, really? There's no way in hell I am going to lay the changing pad down and change my precious baby on the grody floor! Erik was so pissed he wanted to change the baby right there on the table in the restaurant, but calmer sentiments (mine) prevailed. When he gets in those fight-the-world moods he is like a flag-burning protester doing stuff for shock value. And most of the time his 6'4" big scary self gets away with whatever outrageous behavior he has decided is necessary. At least now his big scary self has turned into an advocate for babies' rights, as well as a hardcore lactivist. He welcomes anyone looking at me cross-eyed while I nurse in public so that poor soul can get his brand of "education" about breastfeeding! What a great guy. Seeing him get all pissed off about nursing in public and baby changing stations makes me fall in love with him even more :)