In case you were curious as to whether or not Jesse and I were really mature enough to become parents, let me just go ahead and answer that for you with a story.
Last night, we went to a breastfeeding class on the Army post. Neither of us wanted to go, but breastfeeding is apparently pretty tricky and kind of important and worth taking a two-hour class on. So we went. Plus, it was free.
When we got there, I signed in on the sign-in sheet, which asked for, among other things, the mother's date of birth. Upon scanning the rest of the list of people who had signed in for the class, I noticed that I was the oldest mother there -- by three years. Please note that I am 27.
One girl listed her birth date as November 1994.
1994.
Like, I REMEMBER 1994. Jesse was in middle school in 1994.
After vomiting for 15 or 20 minutes about that, I returned to my seat and got out my notebook so that I could begin to learn. Learn about the magic of breastfeeding.
The first hour or so of the class went well -- we absorbed a lot of information and sat quietly and behaved ourselves. But then it was time to grab our practice dolls and try to master the cross-arm cradle hold.
And that's when things got silly.
You see, each couple got to grab two props. One was a little doll, and the other was a stuffed boob with an exaggeratedly large nipple on it. I asked Jesse to grab our props for us while I ran to the bathroom, and when I got back I discovered that he had sat the doll upright on the seat next to him with the stuffed boob in its lap. The doll's hands were both on the enormous nipple like it was trying to make a clay pot on a potter's wheel.
I immediately started to laugh.
Then I picked up the baby and took a closer look, and was immediately horrified. It was incredibly realistic, but had the deadest doll eyes I've ever seen. I was mesmerized and terrified at the same time. I couldn't look away. I started moving the baby's face toward Jesse, and he pushed the doll away. "Knock it off!" he laughed.
Then I did it again. "Quit it!" he said, only smiling this time.
I took the baby around the side and slowly brought it into his field of vision. "Stop!" he demanded, with some panic creeping into his voice.
I made the baby dance, and Jesse grabbed it away from me. "I don't want to look at that thing anymore!" he cried. "It's creepy!"
And he was right. It was creepy.
I really wish I had taken a picture of our baby, which was infinitely creepier than this one.
Then it was time to turn our attention to the stuffed boob, and really practice some breastfeeding techniques with our dead-eyed doll baby.
We practiced four techniques in particular that I think will really come in handy once our real baby arrives. Please read this entire section in your best impression of famed British documentary narrator Richard Attenborough:
The Pie Smash:
Here we find the tittie out for a hunt. He appears to have found a dead-eyed doll baby playing in the grass. This is very unusual -- dead-eyed doll babies are usually holed up their dens by this time of night.
The dead-eyed doll baby is completely oblivious to the approach of the hungry tittie, as dead-eyed doll babies have terrible night vision and rely almost solely on their acute sense of smell to detect threats. However, the tittie has rolled in mud to mask its scent, making it as good as invisible to this dead-eyed doll baby.
The tittie stalks the dead-eyed doll baby, getting incredibly close without any reaction whatsoever from the baby.
Suddenly, the tittie strikes, smacking its enormous nipple directly into the face of the dead-eyed doll baby. Stunned, the dead-eyed doll baby is unable to react as the tittie smacks it in the face a second time, rendering it unconscious.
The tittie begins to eat the dead-eyed doll baby alive. It is the first meal he's had in days, and he will likely devour the entire carcass within an hour.
The Smother:
The tittie has found another dead-eyed doll baby and is approaching silently from the north. The dead-eyed doll baby is distracted by waving its arms around, and does not notice the tittie's approach.
Ah, the dead-eyed doll baby has finally spotted the tittie! He begins to run, and the tittie gives chase.
Unfortunately, the dead-eyed doll baby is no match for the adult tittie's superior speed and agility. The tittie lunges at the dead-eyed doll baby, knocking him to the ground. The tittie then leaps onto the dead-eyed doll baby's face, covering his mouth and nose with his enormous nipple and slowly smothering him to death. The baby struggles at first, but eventually his struggles subside and he is suffocated by the immense strength of the tittie.
The tittie then drags his kill back to his den, where it will be shared with the rest of the pack. If any of the other titties have also managed to make kills today, this will be a great victory for the struggling pack.
The Reptile:
Here we have the unusually aggressive female dead-eyed doll baby. She has cubs to feed, and will kill anything she can catch -- and today it appears she has set her sights on a tittie.
The tittie is napping in the afternoon sun, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. The dead-eyed doll baby approaches silently, staying hidden behind tufts of grass and moving so slowly it seems she hardly gets any closer at all.
She is now mere inches from the tittie. She stops, perhaps to inspect her target.
And then, in the blink of an eye, she strikes at the tittie, grabbing it in her powerful jaws and immediately breaking the tittie's back. The tittie struggles briefly before succumbing to the dead-eyed doll baby's superior strength. The dead-eyed doll baby will spend the next hour swallowing the tittie whole, and will turn its nourishment into milk for her cubs.
The Zombie:
A particularly desperate male dead-eyed doll baby has not eaten in weeks, but has just spotted a young tittie that has been separated from her mother. Recognizing his opportunity, the dead-eyed doll baby does not hesitate. He sprints toward the young tittie at full speed.
The tittie sees the baby just before he is able to grab her, and tries to run, but alas she noticed him too late. The dead-eyed doll baby snatches the tittie in his jaws and immediately begins to tear her flesh away in ragged chunks. The tittie's mother can only look on in horror -- there is nothing she can do now.
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By the time we had finished smashing the doll baby's face into the boob at full speed over and over again, I was laughing so hard my face was purple and I had cried all my eye makeup in rivulets down my cheeks.
That's when Jesse pointed out that another dead-eyed doll baby appeared to be watching us from across the aisle -- this baby's mother had apparently finished practicing and had set her baby on her armrest with its creepy doll face smirking at us.
And I started laughing again.
I thought I was going to die. I laughed so hard I almost threw up.
And that girl that was born in 1994? She mastered the cross-arm cradle hold while we were still busy trying to smother our baby to death with a comically large stuffed breast.
So ... yeah. I think we'll be pretty good parents, no?
