So the other day at Target...

First and foremost, nothing against Target. In fact, I really love that place. 

I mean, I'm a Target RedCard holder. I bleed Target red.

BUT.

The other day, I had a very odd experience there. 

My baby had her vaccines on Thursday, so on Friday things were still just a little off with her. She had been great all through my errands, and we were buzzing around Target looking for some jeans (sigh) because my chubby jeans are getting a little baggy (yay!). The woman working in the fitting room was very nice and let me take in six items instead of the usual five "because of the baby!" so she and I become pals right away. I maneuver the stroller into the big handicap fitting room. None of the jeans fit. Leave fitting room, head toward grocery area. Baby starts crying. I tell her (and myself) that she will make it for another ten minutes while I grab bread and milk and check out, and then we will happily be in the car where she will sleep. Even though I knew she was hungry and this plan likely would not happen. I sprint through the store grabbing diapers and bottles and by now baby girl has lost it. I decide, poor kid, I'll just feed her in a fitting room. 

I feel the need to briefly insert my stance on breastfeeding here:

I'm all for breastfeeding in public. If covering up is your thing, great. If not, great. Sometimes I cover up, sometimes I don't. It 10000% depends on my kid and what seems like it will work best for her. Nursing is something I really enjoy (now that it doesn't hurt anymore--I'll openly confirm that it hurt like the dickens the first two weeks, and I cried almost every time she ate because it was seriously like going to battle for my boobs). Sometimes, I like that it's a thing that's just mine and hers. And sometimes I want to do my part as a mom who does not live in the privacy of a cabin in the woods, and nurse my baby out in the world. And frankly, I think people who get offended by it (guess what, everyone, it's 2014 and people having been using their boobs to feed babies for a while now) can put a blanket over THEIR head. I'm not the girl who goes boob out in front of her husband's friends or in the middle of a church service, but I'm not squeamish about feeding my child when she's hungry. Anyway.

So there we are, baby howling, mother ready to feed child in dressing room. 

Because there are seats in there!

And also because I was wearing a bra less conducive to nursing, which meant that I had to take my shirt off and really make a production of it. Which I would just rather not do in the furniture section of the store, even though they have seats there also.

So in we go, baby and me, and my fitting room lady sees my screaming child and offers to hold my basket of groceries. I like her.

There is a very very big woman in front of me in line, and she heads into one of the three handicap fitting rooms. The other one is occupied by a person in a wheelchair, which I can see through the three-inch crack between the door and the ground. A man who appears to be the manager of the store looks at me and my howling daughter and asks me loudly, as he could see I didn't have any clothes I wanted to try on, if I was there to nurse her. I said "Yep! If that's okay!" He says of course. I look past him and notice the last big fitting room, which my stroller and I had occupied twenty minutes prior, is now full of three people: a grandmother-looking person, a child, and a young woman with no shirt on. I can see this because the door is wide open. They are snapping at each other and sitting on the fitting room benches eating some candy. They look over at me to see where all the noise was coming from (Eleanor has got some serious pipes). I kind of make eye contact with them, one hand on my stroller, the other grasping my noise-maker, thinking that perhaps they might realize that I want their fitting room so I can feed my kid. The grandma looks me up and down and glares, but leaves her door open. I quickly realize that I needed to choose another option so I back up my stroller, park it next to my friend the fitting room lady, grab my diaper bag, and head toward a small fitting room. The manager guy asks me if I wanted a big fitting room, but I point out that all three are occupied, and he looks at the two closed doors and frowns. Then he walks over to the open one and mentions that I need to feed my baby and are they almost done so that I could use their room. The grandma glares at him, looks at me again, and loudly says, "UM, NO." Manager awkwardly turns around, shrugs at me, stands there speechless. I shrug, step into my small room, and smile ironically as I realize there is no bench, stool or chair, and not even a hook on which to hang my bag. I wrangle Starving with one arm, whip my shirt off with the other, and proceed to nurse her standing up.

As I left Target, fifteen minutes and one killer arm/ab workout later, I wondered to myself how it could have gone differently. The manager did what he could. The fitting room lady did what she could. Maybe I should have just gotten in those other people's faces and demanded that they put their shirts on and give me that fitting room. Maybe not. Either way, my baby was fed and it all ended fine. But I realized how selfish it is of me to use a handicap fitting room or restroom just because I feel like it. Rooms like that are meant for people who truly don't have any other option! I would never compare myself to a person in a wheelchair, but now that I push a stroller around with me everywhere, I understand what it's like to have to choose a different route than the average pedestrian. And I have so much more respect for people who have to put up with rude grandmas on a daily basis.

Am I being ridiculous? Feel free to comment anonymously and put me in my place. I would also love to hear other nursing-standing-up stories because I kiiiiind of feel like I just joined some club and I'm a little bit proud of it. But I never want to do it again because feeding an eleven pound baby leaning against the wall would probably make even Jillian Michaels tired, I'm pretty sure.

And now, for a little dose of positivity, because the internet needs that just as much as the rest of us, here is a photo of the beach.