Just Another Milestone…
Posted By PB Rippey On 22. August 2010 @ 07:50 In Vitals, BABY BABY | 9 Comments
Around 8:15p.m. this evening, my son realized he was not going to be breastfed before night-night time.
T never did pacifiers. He never did bottles (except in the middle of the night the first few months, when S would take over the night-shift feedings). We nursed. And nursed. And nursed. And it was fine with me—and I was going to wait on the weaning until he was 3, but the first major Mama/son milestone of me leaving for an extended stay out of the house for the first time in 2 3/4 years happened—and for the 2 nights I was gone on my Mom’s Weekend Out, I told myself I was ready for the 2nd major Mama/son milestone in 2 3/4 years: weaning.
However, listening to T’s devastated sobs coming from his room as I cringed on my bed feeling like a monster? Like Nurse Ratched? Like Mary Poppins off her meds? Agony, of course. “Arrrrrrgh,” I whispered, which is the gut-sound of the actual gut actually turning itself inside out.
This 2nd year of T’s life has contained so many changes—growth spurts, chattiness-spurts, so many new words, sentences, songs, identifying the letters of the alphabet, shapes and colors, making his first egg carton caterpillar, finally sleeping through the night—such a tremendous year. And now this. My baby. My not-so-baby. My bigger boy. I rejoice in the changes! I celebrate T’s progress. I’m excited to get my boobs back to myself again. I am joyful. I am—arrrrrrrrrgh…
The problem: Over the weekend, T’s naps and night-nights were initiated by car rides—he fell asleep in the car and transferred to bed without waking up. Therefore, his dad never had to explain about the boobs, that they were on permanent hiatus, that Dadda was now on night-night duty, not Mama. Tonight marked the explanations and T was not, as I’ve stated, happy about the news. With his red, teary face and down-turned mouth he kept pointing pitifully at my chest. “All gone,” I told him with a shrug I was terrified seemed callous. “The milk’s all gone.” Yeah. I lied to my little boy. And then I left the room, the back of my hand pressed to my mouth, choking back my weeping.
For a while my husband rubbed T’s back as our son lay on the floor confused and crying, refusing to get into his big-boy bed. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I knew T was exhausted and needed to go down. I went in the room, picked him up and placed him on his bed, all the while saying soothing things. S slipped in next to the flailing arms and legs as T’s protests became more vigorous. “Dadda’s doing night-night,” I kept repeating and, once again, left. I closed the door quietly, then fled down the hall and into the kitchen, hovering before the squeaky refrigerator, the empty sink, the dubious stove, guts twisting.
I don’t know if my husband and I followed appropriate weaning-procedure. I told this to S when he emerged from T’s room after about 15 minutes, T completely passed out. “Listen,” my husband said, hugging me as I sobbed. “Whenever you feel like you weaned him too soon, or should have waited until he was 3, just remember that British comedy where the grown-up son says to his mom, BITTY? BITTY?”
I will miss nursing T, miss rocking him as I gazed at his face and stroked his sweet fingers. I don’t regret nursing him as long as I did. It was right for us, according to my now thoroughly-twisted-up-into-tiny-unreleasable-knots gut-instinct. It’s time. It’s time. I know it’s time.
We’re all growing up around here. It should be an interesting week.
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