Two weeks after pushing out Son No. 3, I found myself in a barn at the Minnesota State Fair. My parents had come to assist with the adventure. Holding the hands and cajoling the wonder of their ambulatory grandsons No. 1 & 2 on a trip to the Fair was their sheer delight. They bought tickets, fed them sticky things and pronto pups and all the cold milk they could drink. I limped along pushing Son No. 3 in a stroller packed with all gear required for the day. Happy, but still sore and exhausted, it was great to be out in the world.
My mother breasts were in high production. As much as Son No. 3 needed to eat, I needed him to consume and relieve this food factory I had become. When he started to get fussy, the Grandparents proposed a mood management strategy: they’d take Sons No. 1 & 2 to find a bathroom and get cotton candy; I’d find a place to nurse. Son No. 3 and I wheeled into a corner of a dusty, aromatic animal barn. I found a large overturned farm-sized bucket to sit on, got my fussy little guy out of the stroller and discreetly opened the milk bar.
As he suckled away, I gazed about the Nanny goats, Mommy Sheep and Mother Pigs and suddenly felt a profound kinship with them: we were all just feeding babies, swollen teats and breasts as Nature designed. In one end, then out the other, attending to all the essential functions of new life.
A Nanny Goat raised her head above the pen to engage me. Keen rectangular pupils and a wily under bite of a smile, she seemed to say, “You too, huh?”, then returned to her post without question.
Written by Brita DeRemee Taracks, Class of 1983