While it seems that much of what I see floating around the interwebs is flashy, inflammatory, and pointing out what is wrong or not going well in the world, I’m here with my own attention-grabbing headline to say that in the world of breastfeeding, not all is forsaken.

At least not in the sky or in Texas, of all places (Sorry, Texas. I should give you more credit, especially for how well you treated me and my nursing babe).

It’s no secret here on the blog that I’m a nursing mama. While it doesn’t feature in every post, I’d say a lot of my newborn posts are breastfeeding leaning because the boobs literally (sorry – I keep feeling the need to apologize for using that word, but breasts feels so stuffy and just referring to them as “where the milk comes from” like I do when my 2yo aks takes too long to type each time) take up so much space in the body and in the brain.

But as my babies grow, and the thrush fades away, the nursing posts get fewer and fewer in frequency. However, I wanted to write about how well nursing went on our little vacay because it was pretty remarkable and sometimes we just need to hear something positive, even if it is as simple as: no one harassed me for feeding my baby – yay!

On the flights coming and going to TX, I nursed Truman on take-off and landing. It’s the best trick possible for keeping a baby’s ears from hurting too much from pressure changes and if you can keep them on the boob, you can hopefully keep excessive crying at bay, leaving the skies friendly for all. Our flights were short enough that this trick worked (and worked well) all four (eight?) times. No complaints from Trumy in terms of ears and not a single flight attendant or even other passenger from what I could see, batted an eye at what I was doing.

Now, I did use my nursing cover on the planes because I was also hoping to get TJ to sleep each time (that was not so successful), so perhaps that helped, but I wasn’t covering because I felt I had to do so.

While we were actually in Houston, we were pretty much go-go-go the whole time which meant a lot of nursing-on-the-go was required. Our first two days there involved a trip to the zoo and the children’s museum (both of which are, naturally, huge and quite, quite busy), and both visits overlapped with one of Truman’s morning feedings.

At the zoo there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to attempt to cover myself while nursing because it was so damn sweaty (sorry, Texans; NE is not exactly cold, and I know I complained a lot about the humidity/sweat while I was there, but how do you do it?!?!), the baby and I both would have melted had I done so. Instead, I plopped myself on a bench next to my parents while B chased the children through a play area, positioned my stroller to sort-of block viewing space, and promptly got down to feeding my baby.

Perhaps the “natural” environment helped (we did see otters matting during our first five minutes there, after all), and the fact that pretty much everyone there was with a kid or three, but really, no one cared that I was nursing openly in public.

The next day at the CM was a little different in that I parked it on a bench in a come-and-go traffic flow and I definitely got some second looks as I sat there breastfeeding, but come on – I was this covered: 

I may have been startling but I was not inappropriate (because, duh – as all the posts out there so correctly point out, feeding your baby is never inappropriate!).

And even when I sat on the far edge of the front row Friday night, waiting for my brother’s wedding to begin, once again nursing with the cover because my fancy dress did not allow for much discretion, no one called me out or tried to shame me.

So, yay, people! Yay, Texas! Yay to my family for being totally cool and supportive of the fact that I was just doing what I needed to do for my baby!

Just as some say “the kids are alright” when today’s so-called terrible teenagers are caught doing something good, I am here to say that perhaps our society is making some strides in accepting boobs as more than just an advertising asset.

Cool.