Roughly 90% of the time, I love nursing Noah.

The other 10% of the time, I feel like I’ve been run through a meat tenderizer.

Tonight, I came home later than usual, because I got my hair cut after work. Jill had given him a bottle, and he’d had a good nap in the late afternoon. Noah was awake and in a good mood when I got home. Maybe half an hour after that, I checked to see if he felt like nursing.

Well, duh! He settled in for dinner happily, and then dozed off for 20 minutes or so. After he woke up, and I changed him and put him in his pjs, he started rooting around again, like he still wanted to nurse.

I think he must have gotten a bad latch his second go on boo6ie #1. I didn’t realize it at first — sometimes when he latches on, the first minute involves eating like a starving maniac. But after a couple of minutes, he started flailing his whole body in frustration, so I moved him, and noticed that some of my skin looked unusually raw.

The only time he stopped eating during the next 2 hours — seriously, actively, eating — was when he’d doze off. Let’s say 40 of those 120 minutes.

Ow! Ow! Ow! Usually 2 hours after he’s eaten, I feel pretty well recovered and like I could even feed him again if necessary. I even decided to bring the pump home from work, because the last couple of nights, I’ve thought I might want to pump before going to sleep myself.

Uh, NO.

On top of that, Noah had a rough time getting to sleep tonight, only staying asleep after the second time I took him upstairs to try to fall asleep. And during the second trip up the stairs, he screamed a full-throated, no-holds-barred, she’s-trying-to-kill-me scream like we have never heard before. Well, 4 or  5 of them, actually.

And then he fell asleep.

Completely, deeply, utterly asleep.

Babies are weird.