Lately when meeting strangers, AJ turns away when spoken to, as if eliminating the person from his line of vision would make them disappear. I�m never quite sure what to do about this. On the one hand, I feel like I should be encouraging him to learn the basics of social graces. On the other hand, people totally invade his personal space all the time because he�s a kid and people think he�s cute.

The same thing happens to mothers too, actually. When you�re pregnant, people think nothing of asking you totally personal questions or even coming up and rubbing your belly. Even if you�ve never met them. Creepy. When you�ve got a small baby, people feel free to give you advice all the time. A friend complained that when she took her daughter out one time without a hat on a cool day, some woman on her bus yelled at her.

I had a number of weird run-ins with people when AJ was small and we were still living in the Loop. I used to carry AJ around in one of those front packs, because he would be happy for hours and it was easier than navigating downtown Chicago at rush hour without a stroller. But first of all, anyone who wants to see the baby looks like they�re staring at your chest, which is uncomfortable enough. But total strangers would stop me and ask if I was breastfeeding. Um, why do you need to know this? And not just women either. I was on the receiving end of a long conversation with a man on his way back to work who asked me about breastfeeding and then proceeded to tell me about how his mother had breastfed him and all of his siblings and how they were all really healthy and that I should keep doing it for a long time.

So in case any of you are wondering, yes I did, no I�m not anymore.

I don�t mean in any way to sound down on nursing. I�m all for it. It�s easy, portable, and best of all, incredibly good for the baby. AJ wasn�t sick a day in his life until after he stopped. Neither was I, for that matter.

And this is where it begins. Suddenly, you find out where all those advice givers come from. There must be some kind of mother thing that kicks in that suddenly makes you omniscient. There must be some kind of unwritten rule that if you�re a mom, you must be either the giver or receiver of unrequested advice. And being someone who is entirely for heading off personal comments before they happen, I�m turning into the former, after being on the receiving end for a while.

At the pediatrician�s office yesterday, I found it very hard to keep my mouth shut about how another mother was dealing with one of her kids. In fairness to her, she was trying to console her two-month old who was sick, and the older boy was clearly jealous of the attention. I don�t know what else she could have done. But the fact remains that the kid kept yanking things out of my kid�s hands, poking him, trying to rifle my bag, and doing a number of other things that kids need to know are not okay. Nothing like the monster child Lass mentions, but still not exactly the behavior you want to see, especially when it�s directed at your kid.

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We managed to have a semi-romantic anniversary dinner last night, even though we could barely stay awake and AJ was part of the celebration. AJ was a little confused by the candles on the table. He�s only ever seen candles on birthday cakes, so he wanted to blow them out right away. We had to dig up a birthday candle and stick it in his dinner for him to blow out before we could get on with dinner.

My husband observed that part of what makes AJ�s complaints so entertaining is that he shouts things that one doesn�t normally hear shouted. Usually with a quaver in his voice:

Mommy! I NEED blow candles!

For him, all requests have the same level of urgency � VERY.

AJ was also very confused on seeing me wearing hose � I decided to dress up for dinner, partly because it seemed the thing to do and partly because I wanted to make sure I still knew how to walk in heels. AJ came over to me, touched my leg, recoiled and yelled, �Oh no! Something�s on Mommy!�

Yeah, I feel kind of the same way about hose. And I�m going to be stuck wearing them for the next 4 days. In Miami. Did I mention that it�s 85 degrees there right now? I�m heading out tomorrow. I�m not sure what the internet arrangements will be. I�ll try to post from the road, but if I can�t, I�ll be back on Monday.

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