Now that Elizabeth has two sharp little teeth in her lower jaw, biting while breastfeeding becomes an issue. She's not really biting, so much as seeking counterpressure on sore gums. I'm glad she waited this long to get teeth. As I recall, Peter got teeth about two months earlier.  Looking this up on the web, I am assured by an expert that

I can honestly say that in nearly 25 years of working with nursing moms, I have never known of a single case of a baby actually biting a nipple off completely. Now, don't you feel better about the whole thing?

Note that she offers no reassurance about whether your baby will draw blood. Are biting breatfeeders the true origin of the vampire legend? [David comments that I must not have read Theodore Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood, which he says is all about breastfeeding.]

Actually, I'm pretty relaxed about being bitten, since I've been through this before. It seems really ominous with the first child. I remember being worried about it and getting bitten occasionally. But babies like nursing a lot more than biting. I remember this as being a transient problem rather than a persistent problem with Peter. I nursed him until he was 13 months old.

Theoretically, we're heading down to Baltimore this afternoon. But there are many details to be ironed out between now and then. We need to confirm with Geoff that he's taking care of our menagerie. I need to put the praying mantis egg cases on the screened porch so that we don't come home to a house full of hungry baby mantids. Peter has a doctor's appointment this morning, and there is also the small matter of packing.

I don't expect that I'll be able to make entries in this weblog while we're gone.  Hotels have really been jacking up the phone rates lately, so in general I don't try to dial into the internet from a hotel room unless it's an emergency.

IN OTHER BABY NEWS: In an entry entitled bombshell Gabe Choinard announces:

Forgive me for being out of the loop for the past few days.

We're going to have another baby.

Swing by his site and congratulate him.