Tuesday, August 30, 2011

My Child is Bacon

My child is bacon.  My child is bacon.

It is very strange the kind of mantras I use to get me through rough patches.  Emily has been going through a rough patch recently so that means so have I.

She won't be put down.  I am not allowed to speak on my phone, put the dishes away, or brush my teeth.  Mostly, Emily wants to nurse.  I don't mind that, but she pinches when she nurses.  Hard.  She won't be distracted to pinch a blanket or doll.  She needs flesh.  My flesh.  It hurts, makes me cranky, and is incessantly annoying.  If I fuss at her she cries and demands more milk.  Which means more pinching.

This is a difficult phase.  We'll figure it out, but it's hard right now.  So I tell myself:  My child is bacon.

One of Emily's preferred snacks are theses corn puffs that are flavored with cinnamon and maple.  She eats them with cheese or yogurt.  Sometimes just by themselves.  She enjoys them.  It makes her smell like maple syrup.  All the time.  No amount of washing gets maple syrup smell out.  It has absorbed into her skin.  My little baby is cured in maple.  Correction, my fat little baby is cured in maple.

Though she's lost a lot of that infant fat, Emily is still a breastfed-fat baby.  She has chunky thighs and soft cheeks.  Her tummy sticks out like a little kwepie doll.  I love it.  When I hold her, even as she pinches me, I admire that happy, baby, fat.  It reminds me of fat, dirty, little piglets.  I reminds me of bacon.  And with the smell of maple seeping out of her I can only imagine that she tastes like bacon too. Fat, thick, sweet, bacon.

My child, my pinching, biting, fussing, child.  That child who gave me a fat lip last night throwing a fit about sleeping a few hours in the toddler bed.  That child is bacon.  Fat, thick, sweet child.  Fat, thick, sweet bacon.  The kind that makes me happy.  It is what gets me through till nap time.

My child is bacon.

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