keep your comments to yourself

The day before Easter I decided to get my act together and do a little Easter egg hunt in the backyard for Hadley.  So my mom and I packed up the girls and headed to the San Clemente Walmart, where I don't particularly like to shop, but the nearest target is 10 or so miles a way, so the Walmart had to do.  Fortunately, it is a nice Walmart.

We popped Hadley in the shopping cart and my mom carried baby Hayden as we navigated the pre-Easter crowds who clearly had the same idea we had and put it off to the last minute. While we were in the Easter aisle, my mom bumped into a neighbor and was showing off the baby, who at the time was eight days old.  

A Walmart employee stopped me to inquire about how old the baby was...  I was expecting the typical "Oh, how sweet." But instead she said "I would never take my eight day old to Walmart," and she huffed away.  It took a minute for the comment to register.  And while I get what she was saying, it wasn't like I was laying my baby in the bottom of a filthy shopping cart. AND, I've never been one to overly worry about germs as she is equipped with those wonderful breast milk antibodies and, bottom line, kids are going to be exposed to germs and it makes them healthier in the big picture to let their systems become immune.

While my postpartum head was still reeling over the dig, my mother comes around the corner and says "A woman just told me I was holding the baby wrong."  I looked at the baby and she was just fine.  Head supported. Breathing. Sleeping happily.  This baby was perfectly content.  And my mother, who raised two babies herself, certainly knows how to hold one.  In fact, she is like a Harlem Globe Trotter with babies...  Just a pro!

I am all for giving my two cents on babies when I am asked for it.  But far be it from me to say something to a perfect stranger... Unless of course that person is hanging a newborn upside down by it's feet. I was shocked at the comments. And while those sorts of things don't normally bother me, my hormones were starting to let them get the better of me.

So maybe this is a lesson to people...  Don't cross a newly postpartum mama! Her body is changing sizes. Her nipples are leaking. Breasts are engorged. Bleeding. She is exhausted. And she is not going to put up with your digs!