To nurse or not to nurse

Joseph is convinced that the bill left by the oil-delivery man is a message for him. He and Ben are fighting over it. When asked to read the bill, Joseph says with great authority:
"It says: Ate our messages we go." Or perhaps that's, "Eight our messages we go."
I am unsure as to which ate/eight he refers.
He remains unconvinced when I tell him that the bill is actually asking us for money. He looks at me from the side of his eye as if questioning the intelligence of this woman who exercises authority in his life.
But, that's not what this post is about. It's supposed to be about nursing babies. It's just that the Ultramar man arrived just as I reached mid-nurse; and all through the house arose such a fright; the babe in a panic and the boys they did fight.

I love nursing. Well, I have come to love nursing.
I didn't love nursing the twins, except on the odd occasion. I'll leave it to you to imagine the machinations of nursing twins as a new wife and mother exiled from friends and family.
The single babies helped me to come to a new appreciation of nursing.
But, I still find it hard at times.

Hard, you ask?
Yes.
Because why, oh why, do children who still need bottoms wiped always need that bottom wiped while the chief wiper is nursing?
I have grown expert at holding the babe to the breast while leaning over to clean the little bum that sways back and forth as it waits for its cleaning.
"Need a wipe!", yells Joseph with growing insistence as I try to stage whisper, "I'm coming," all the while trying not to startle the baby out of pre-nap drowsiness.
This happens so often that Dave and I jokingly refer to Joseph as "Need-a-wipe!".

Bums aside, the phone also likes to ring when I am nursing. Strange people and vehicles also perfectly time their arrival mid-feed.
"Don't answer the door," you might suggest.
This is practically impossible as we have a near-barkless dog who likes to answer it for us. Near barkless? Yes, he only barks (and very loudly) when overcome by the desire to protect his own. As in when strange vehicles and people approach the house.

As these arrivals nearly always coincide with me sitting in a rocking chair, babe in arms, in a darkened bedroom, the chaos caused by the issuing barks is, well, chaotic.
Baby pulls from the breast in surprise only to be overcome by the sudden entrance of the dog into said bedroom. His entrance is accompanied by a single, very loud bark. This issuance from the dog's mouth inevitably transforms Isaac's visage from one of surprise to one of desperate sadness. Almost a caricature of the emotion. So sad is he that nursing becomes impossible.

All the while the dog is searching for some remnant of his master's dirty clothing. That he must smell. I suppose the need to breathe deeply of the elixir that is Dave somehow supplies this canine with the necessary strength to face the unknown.
"Dave in, Dave out," breathes the dog. Now he can bark again.
Of course the boys have also run into the bedroom by this point. They usually have magnifying glasses and flashlights which serve to light up the darkened bedroom with searchlight-like intensity. This is accompanied by voices. Very excited voices.

This situation played itself out a few times yesterday as the furnace man came to clean the hot water tank. Each time that I sat to nurse, one of the kids would bolt from the basement telling me that I was needed immediately.
When the furnace man emerged from the basement in order to present me with the bill, I had lost all inhibitions and said, "This baby has got to eat. I am going to stay on the couch. Just leave the bill on the table."
"No problem," he said.
He wrote out the bill and, standing 5 feet from the couch with his eyes carefully averted, extended his clipboard for a signature.
"Awkward times," I said.
"Indeed," he replied.