Milk maven

News flash: Hope has taken to the nipple.

Mo eagerly reported Wednesday that our miniature milk maniac has figured out that good stuff comes from Mom's breasts. A week ago, Mo had all but given up on the idea. The mechanics seemed off. Hope didn't seem keen on the prospect. Her mouth was too small and appetite too big.

A skeptic, Mo heard all the talk of the miraculous bonding experience between mother and child. She shrugged most of it off, content instead to harness oddly industrial apparatuses to herself and transfer the milk to bottles. But she's become a convert: "I was like 'Wow! I'm giving nutrition to my child. That's pretty neat."

Like a lot of other newborns, Hope's a chugger. She's a bit like her Dad was in college: Drink, drink, drink, forget to breathe, then pass out. But Hope's flow seemed natural with her mother. She paced herself. She took breaths. She had to work a bit harder, but seemed more sated.

So that's good stuff. We're pleased and proud that Hope is able to try new things, struggle a bit and eventually figure them out.

That's a good omen because soon the real work begins. Hope is tentatively set to come home Friday. Mo has visualized and prayed for the moment for months. We were up until midnight vaccuuming, dusting, screwing down changing tables and worrying like mad.

I feel a bit like Robert Redford in "The Candidate." We've won the campaign. The confetti is raining down. We're hooting. We're hollering. We pause and ask, "What do we do now?"