So for years, we've joked that my breast pump has a voice. My Medela motor makes a whirring and thumping sound that vaguely sounds like the word "whacko" chanted over and over. I have sometimes felt whacko over the 18 months I've pumped (13 for Natalie and the past five for Z) for my kids, both for buying a $250 pump and for going to extremes to make sure my kids have the immunity-building milk only my body can provide. What extremes, you ask? How about pumping every morning after nursing my son so that his increasing need can be matched by my dwindling supply. Or ducking out of an important meeting so that I can pump and stay on his nursing schedule for when we reunite at the end of the work day. But it's all worth it.
The other day, Natalie was in the room while I was pumping. I didn't think anything of it when she started chanting, "Wagon! Wagon!" at me. She frequently comes up with things out of left field, so I was prepared for whatever crazy and/or imaginative scenario her 2.5 year old mind was conjuring. But when I asked her what she was talking about, she gestured to the pump and said, "It's talking!"
Where we heard "whacko", she heard "wagon". Oh, what a beautiful, sweet little mind.
