Tonight's post brought to you by the letters "B" and "L" and the number 3....

Apparantly there's a breastfeeding brouhaha over at blogging baby.... courtesy of L who blogs Homesick Home, (note the link over there---->) and has the audacity to feel that breastfeeding your kid should be a choice, not an imperative. Oh the Humanity! (or huge mammeries, which - I wasn't going to go there, but it's late and I'm lame. :oP)

So, anyway, She's started an informal poll, that I wanted to respond to, but I don't want to take up her entire freaking replies section, so I'm answering here, then I'll do that totally awesome html linking thing. 'cause I'm that good. (like 500,000,000 other women. meh.)

I'll start off by giving my breastfeeding creds:

I breastfed all three boys. The oldest, I pumped, because he was a preemie, and he never did get the hang of actually nursing. After a horrendous session of sleep deprivation on my part he went on formula at around 3 months or so. Midkid had to be pried away from my breast at the age of three or so, and he was the only one who was still nursing after he learned to talk. Cute kid, figured out how to climb out of his crib in the middle of the night and toddle into my room, climb up into my bed, and grab a snack well before he reached his first birthday. When I was feeding his little brother, he'd come up , gaze at me with his great big adorable blue eyes and say "sip a nipple?" which makes me a really bad mommy, because not only did I cave, but I thought it was really funny. Babyguy decided that cups were better when he was about a year old, and just stopped. my breasts didn't get the message for another 6 months or so, so THAT was fun.

So L had two questions:
How many of you tasted your own breastmilk?
How many of you tasted your wife/partner`s breastmilk?

which are sort of only one question...so here goes:
I not only tasted my own breastmilk, I tried feeding it to my dog. Said dog was a beagle, and anyone who has ever owned a beagle knows that they will eat/drink/chew on ANYTHING that's not fast enough to get out of their way. This is a dog that thought cat poop was a tasty snack left just for her.

She turned her nose up at the breastmilk. This may explain why my oldest son never got the hang of nursing. At the time, I was 21, my younger brother was 18, and he thought the dog dissing my breastmilk was freaking hysterical. I was hurt, I really was.

>insert sad face<

I tried again, the tasting that is, when I had my second baby, and really.. if memory serves correctly, it just tastes like sweetened milk. very sugary, kinda thick, like cream. and warm. I never tried it cold, though. Husbandguy refused to try it, but he got a taste anyway. Let's just say that hormonal urges turn on the spigots, and we didn't stick to missionary all the time. (think spraying fountain. gives a whole new definition to the term 'water sports" which is fine by me.)

yep. the joys of motherhood.

oh, and on the whole breastfeeding issue? I've got a proposition. Let's all leave women who want to nurse their kids the freak alone, whether they're doing it at the mall, in a restaurant, at the beach, or in their own living rooms, and likewise not get all gestapo on women who would rather not nurse for whatever reasons that it's none of our freaking business to get all in their faces about, Okay?

Cool.

I never got around to making that breastmilk sourdough starter I saw recipes for....