Inspiring?

So now I know. Tomorrow is the day. The day when Miss A and her Mama will be appearing on our local television station (for a six minute interview). I mentioned this before. I agreed to do it in honor of World Breastfeeding Week. The lactation consultant at our hospital seems to think that I may have something inspiring to say. I certainly hope so. I'm thinking she might have put a little too much confidence in me.

But now that I know when it is actually happening, I'm getting nervous. What should I wear? Should my hair be up or down? Wavy or straight? What should I dress Miss A in? A dress? Or just a nice outfit? I don't want to look pasty on T.V. but I'm so pale. Bronzer powder. Yeah, lots of bronzer. But not too much. Don't want people to say “Hey is Mama D Latino? Has she been to Cancun lately? Oh no, she just put too much bronzer on.” I want to look natural but I'm worried the lights will just wash me out. And I've been doing research. Watching the show, checking out the camera angles. I'm pretty happy about the fact that they seem to mostly film you from just below the shoulders – up. Or if the use a wide shot the chair seems to hide your midsection. This is good for me. My top and bottom half are pretty cute, my midsection? That's a bit of a 'problem area' right now. (Just ask my doctor.) (No, I won't just let it go already!)

Another concern of mine is the state of my daughters head. I was told by my LLL leader that one reason among many of why I had been asked to appear on television was because Miss A is so 'cute'. Currently she has an abundance of bruises on her forehead and one on her cheek. They are a rainbow of colors corresponding with how recently each bruise was acquired. I was slightly concerned about this yesterday as I thought about this interview and noticed what an awful lot of bruises she seemed to have right now. Then this morning just before we left for church she decided to do a quick sprint to the kitchen and back. She somehow missed the doorway, ran into the frame and fell down on her bottom. When I went to her I noticed the dent in her head right away and attempted to put a gel/ice pack on it to prevent it from looking so horrible. She wasn't too impressed to have it there so I gave up after a couple of minutes. I do think it would have been much worse without the ice pack.

Still it is quite the bump and it should be very apparent by the time we make our television debut. I'm hoping no one will think I'm an abusive mother. That's the message I want to send out “I'm an advocate of breastfeeding but I don't have any problem smacking my kid around.” I'm hoping I'll have an opportunity to joke about how many bumps and bruises she gets now that she's running around. If anyone knows how judgmental people can be it's me. I have one of the worlds most judgmental mothers. One who often seems to think that I should be able to prevent all of her mishaps. Maybe if we lived in a house made entirely of bubble wrap and furniture made of cotton balls. Of course anyone who has recently had a child her age will be able to relate.




I may also be slightly concerned that she will constantly make one of her new faces.









And on top of the nervousness about how we will look there is the nervousness about how I will sound. What questions will she ask me? What if I end up not knowing how to answer? More likely than that, what if I go on and on and on and she has to interrupt me? What if I come across as a dimwit? Worst of all, what if I'm not inspiring? That's the whole point, right?

That is ultimately the reason I agreed to do this interview. Because if anyone out there is encouraged to breastfeed or to persevere through difficulties through hearing about mine then I accomplished what I hoped I could.

I'll be recording my 'appearance' and YouTubing it as soon as possible. Stay tuned.