i considered weaning tonight

while many of my friends were nursing their babies at the la leche league meeting tonight, i was getting you to sleep and considering if my life would be easier if i were to wean you. since you were a few months old, i have always thought i would let you lead the way with weaning. but the past few weeks have been so hard.

you have been snotty and weepy and whiny and clingy and you have not slept well at all. during the day, you rarely let me put you down and even when i hold you you are whining. you ask for milkies and as you nurse you pull away and start crying and screaming MILKIES!!! you are having milkies! why are you crying? then you go back for more.

i have not been able to do anything without you erupting into tears on most days. i am exhausted. your dad wants to help but when i am around all you want is mommy and milkies.

so maybe it would be nice to have my boobs back to myself. maybe it would be nice to sleep on my belly without the every 90 minute to 3 hour interruptions for milkies. and the last couple of nights it's been every 20-40 minutes. those are the nights i want to freak. i have no patience with you on those nights and then i feel like shit in the morning for being such an ass and for having so little compassion. your dad tries to help and to keep me calm but all it seems to do is make me more angry.

but without your milkies, i know that you won't sleep better. you won't be less whiny or clingy without your milkies. you will still be every bit of you. but without the milkies i won't have a magical way to soothe you. i won't get a break. ever. not that i do now, but at least i can sit down when you want to nurse.

you are a super-charged kid. i have used many words to describe you over the past year and almost half. fussy. intense. sensitive. high-need. active. curious. demanding. but let's face it -- you are difficult. it has such a negative connotation, but you are. some of my friends have easy babies. so if they are easy and you are the opposite of them, you must be difficult.

it doesn't mean i love you any less. or that it's harder to love you. i appreciate your difficult-ness. but lately people have asked me if i believe that you would be different had i done things differently. in other words, is it my fault that you are difficult. the answer is a resounduing NO. you are you. and i am the mom i am because of you.

you hated the car. i entertained you. now you always have to be entertained in the car. but you always had to be. that came first. i couldn't put you down to sleep. you wouldn't have it. so i held you and rocked you. and now you have to be nursed to sleep and back to sleep over and over throughout the night. but that's because you always needed it that way. i couldn't put you down. ever. not that i ever really wanted to. no one else could soothe you. or calm you. just me and your dad. but mostly just me. i met every need often before you had to ask for it. because the price that you and i and your dad would pay if i didn't was too much to handle.

your cries are not cries. they are screams as if a limb is being ripped off of your body. your mouth opens so wide and your eyes look as if you are absolutly terrified. you begin to cough. you nearly vomit. your little body gets so tense that it hurts me. you were always like this. always.

i love you, baby boy. and though i can't promise i won't think about it on days like this, i promise not to wean you.