I LOVE breastfeeding. I just have to say it. Gosh, it's just the coolest thing in the whole world. I was putting Levi to bed tonight with our usual routine. I rock him and nurse him, then lay him on his tummy {GASP!} in bed and put his pacifier in his mouth and he goes to sleep. Some nights though he's a little more restless than others and I pick him up a few times and just hold him until he's comfortable enough to go back to sleep. Anyway, tonight he tossed his head back and forth a bit and seemed like he wanted to be held so I picked him up with his pacifier in his mouth and held him cradle style like always. He turned his head toward my face as I was putting him in position and opened his mouth to let the pacifier fall out and with eyes closed, and parted lips started to ever so gently pace his mouth back and forth across my lips, thinking that my lips were my nipples {ooooooh if all men could have their way!}. So I sat back down in the glider and nursed him {again} even though I know for a fact he wasn't hungry, he'd just nurse five minutes before that. I sat there and just relished how good that made me feel; that he wanted me. The latex thingy in his mouth was just that to him. A latex thingy. But he wanted me. The real deal. He knows where comfort lies. He knows where to go for safety and familiarity. He knows that when he calls for me, I come. When he calls to be nursed, I nurse. I provide. I give. I surrender. I let every guard down for him. All for him. And he knows it. I LOVE that.

It's what a mother was meant to do. Give all. No matter how many women take offense to that, it's true. We were born to birth, to nurse, to nurture, completely, in pain and in joy, in loneliness, in comfort, all of it, not just the easy parts but the hard parts especially. It's what we do best when nature is at it's best; unobstructed, untouched, left at it's own, no lights, no machines, no man in a white cloak telling us stick there or push it out or suck it in. Just us all by ourselves. Two people alone in a dark room, telling one another without words how much they love each other. Giving all that one has...receiving the world in return.