I nursed three babies at once

Something popped out of my mouth yesterday, that I never thought I would say. I guess unbeknown-st to me, the "Aussie-isms" are creeping up on me... and it's kind of weird.

See, to me... "nursing a baby" has always been to breastfeed a baby. It's feeding your baby with your boobs and it's what I did with all of mine. I "nursed" them. I had nursing bras, nursing pads for those inevitable embarrassing leaks, and breast pumps made for "nursing mothers"

So, the first time an Australian mother asked me if I wanted to nurse her baby, I freaked and said "NO WAY I'M DOING THAT ... ARE YOU NUTS?"
Which actually constitutes yelling, not saying... but I'm pretty sure that's what I did anyway - and I still remember the look of shock on that mothers face!
Plus she's never let me live it down, and the kid is 12 now.

To most Aussie's, nursing... well, it means an entirely different thing. It just means to hold and cuddle. Sniff their little necks and stroke their silky cheeks. Revel in their baby-ness.
But the term "nursing" when applied to other peoples babies and not my own, still leaves me feeling kind of squeamish.

Anyhow.. yesterday I had 3 babies at once and these babies were all thoughtful, caring little souls.
If one of them cried, they all joined in in sympathy... and they joined in heartily. So you can just imagine my joy... as well as the blood leaking from my ears, as I tried to deal with 3 screaming, wriggling, little sweaty bodies at the same time.

Nobody really knew why they were crying, but they thought it was sort of fun to do, it showed solidarity to their playmates and it was guaranteed to make Tatie frantic.

So at one point, I had 3 wigglers in my lap ... there were bottles in the mouths of two of them and a pacifier in the mouth of the third... and I was singing to them.
(and of course because my hands and arms were occupied, my nose started itching like crazy. why does it always do that?)
But at least they were all calming down ( still screaming, but at least my ears had stopped leaking blood), and 3 sets of little eyes were finally going droopy.

Then the Old Guy, in his infinite wisdom, strolls in, sees me battling 3 screaming babies at once... and calmly informed me that the 6 year old was pulling the toilet paper off the roll and stuffing it in the toilet. And when I said my hands were kinda full at the moment and could he please deal with it, do you know what he said?
He said:
"But what if he doesn't want to listen to me? Maybe you should go do it."

ME???
Don't you see that I kind of have my hands full here?
You think I should just drop these little ones on the floor, start them into doing their best air-raid siren imitations again, start my ears bleeding again... and go tell a 6 year old to simply stop doing what he's doing?

Can't you see I'm NURSING babies here????

And that's when it hit me. I was "nursing". Not my own child, skin to skin, boob in the mouth kind of thing... but I was nursing other peoples babies... and I was fully clothed while doing it.

Next thing ya know, I'm going to start saying "wat-ah" for water, or ask for a tinnie at the end of the day.