If extended breastfeeding causes dependency, why do my babies keep weaning themselves before they’re two?

No really. I wanna know. I keep gettin’ gypped.

It appears Georgia is moving on from the nursing relationship (at 21 months).

And the thing is…I want to nurse her more. I want to keep this going. But she’s only vaguely interested and gives me a passing glance and asks for “gook” (milk) occasionally and I offer repeatedly…but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that she’s pretty much, well, “over it,” as they say.

WHY? WHHHHHHYYYYYYYY? I’m not ready.

Today in the grocery store parking lot I saw a woman sitting in the backseat with the door open, nursing her baby who was probably about 8 months old. And as they do at that age, the little one was just intent on it – pulling her nourishment with vigor and interest and focus. My toddler? Half-assed nursing at best. Any little something – any little noise – any action in the room – boom. she’s done. Off the lap.

“I got things to do and people to see. I’m out.”

And she takes off to terrorize the house and squeal and climb shit.

It probably has something to do with the fact that she takes a bottle because I went back to work when she was 4 months, and often I’m not here when she goes to bed. So it’s my fault. Obviously. I know that. I accept that.

But it still makes me a little sad, this moving on. The new stage. Clearly it’s fine. And yes, I know 21 months is a good, solid time to nurse your baby.

But she just seems so little still, just a little thing stompin’ around and raisin’ hell. Just a little thing exploring the world, checking it out, venturing into life with strong and sure, but tiny, vulnerable, and innocent steps. She’s little. I can enfold her in my arms. I can pull her into a ball against my chest.

She still smells like a baby.

People. She smells like a baby.

swoon.

But I’ve vowed to trust her and me and the process, and if she’s done, she’s done. I get to let go. I get to feel the pang of detachment and watch her walk along, in her new independence.

There are times as a mother when I have to put my money where my mouth is. Do I really believe in child-led weaning? Do I really believe my kids will let me know when they’re ready to move on? Well…do I or not?

Cause a part of me wants to fight her on it…wants to keep it going…wants to force the issue (not that you can “force” a baby to nurse) – but you know, ignore her [rather obvious] dismissal, pretend she still wants it — NOT LET GO.

But it’s a selfish move. It’s for me.  I want it. She is clearly quite undisturbed by the whole thing.

But when it gets down to it, I know my job is to provide a foundation, not BE the foundation. I build a solid ground upon which she can grow, in whatever direction that takes. I don’t get to determine HOW she grows. I don’t get to mold her into what I think she should be. She already is.

She is already complete. Everything she needs is within her. I nourish what’s there. I do my best to create a setting in which she can thrive. Find herself. Find herself.

Not find me.

It’s my job to find myself, and keep looking for me when I can’t see me — and if I ever, EVER start looking for “me” in my kids – looking for “me” in another individual, well then, I know I’m looking in the wrong place, expecting a child to make me whole, placing on them a responsibility for my well-being – demanding of them, taking away their freedom, making my existence their problem.

And I won’t do that.

So go, little Georgia. Go on, baby one.

I’m here when you need me. In whatever form that takes.

And I sure loved it while it lasted.

there she is

xo

1. So the freeways lately have been featuring these giant electronic signs that say “Texting ticket, $159,” and then beneath that it says “Not worth it.” And every time I see that I’m like “oh, good, thanks for putting that last part in there because I wasn’t sure about the message you were trying to convey. I thought maybe you were trying to tell me what a good deal it is.” Dude wah?
2. Pretty much every time I’m walking into the gym I’m thinking “Damn I don’t feel like doing this,” but I have YET to walk out (after having actually exercised) and think to myself “Damn I wish I hadn’t done that.”
3. The gym is pretty cool that way.
4. You know, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Getting unfriended on Facebook would be a LOT MORE FUN if the person were required to give you a reason. Don’t you think?
5. I got unfriended by like 3 people this week. I think it was the homeschool post. Maybe? Oh I don’t fucking know (because FB is all obsessed with TIMELINES and shit and completely misses the boat when it comes to important things – like requiring a 1-sentence explanation of why you’re unfriending somebody. or maybe a questionnaire!). Of course, the fact that I have no idea WHO it is that unfriended me probably indicates that I’ll survive the whole ordeal (I just noticed the numbers). But really. That would be hysterical…”I unfriended you because you say “fuck” too much.” “I unfriended you because you’re too liberal.” “Your husband looks like this dude I used to know and I hated him.” or whatever.
6. Anyhoo, I would like to cordially invite the horrid scorching summer days to please come my way. I need the death of pollen. I need the plants to wither. I WANT TO RIP MY FACE OFF. Worst allergies I’ve ever had in my life. I say that every year, but I mean it this time.
7. Grad school is over this week. Then it’s summer. That’s some good stuff. Except that all 3 kids will be around ALL DAY LONG and I’ll have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and it’ll be hot. But it’s summer. And it’s better than this springtime shit.
8. I’m 90% sure that we’ve sat down together as a family for an actual family meal about 4 times in the last 6 months. I don’t love that. I really don’t. I’m blaming it on baseball practice and games – as opposed to any deficiency on my part as a mother. Yes, let’s go with that.
9. Last night we went to a Black Keys concert in Sacramento. It was amazing. Hands down one of the 10 best shows I’ve ever seen in my life. Real rock and roll. A dying art.
10. Also, because I’m an amazing mother who makes sure her family eats together every night AND gets stimulating playtime, I made Georgie a white-trash water play table (pictured below). Yes, indeed it is a pan of water with a bunch of plastic and metal utensils placed on a rusty outdoor chair. No, nobody’s putting that shit on Pinterest. But OMGdoesSHELOVEIT. Precious.

Have a great week, all.

white-trash water table

at the concert. fun.

Alright. I’m gonna let something outta the bag. I hate homeschooling. No, rephrase: I hate homeschooling at this particular moment of my life with the particular arrangement I’m facing.

Allow me to paint a picture for you.

It’s 8am. I have just dropped older kid off for school. We are now home. I have managed to feed the kids, get them dressed, have a cup of coffee and we are ready to start homeschooling. I excitedly tell Rocket “Okay, it’s school time!” There’s so much enthusiasm in my voice I make myself nauseous. But I want him to feel excited. He looks at me with disdain and BEGS me not to make him. He whines. I tell him “We’re gonna have fun!” His body contorts into a position that speaks his mind “I’d rather die than do homeschool with you, woman.”

“ROCKET. NOW.”

He reluctanctly rises. We go into the homeschool room. He’s dragging his toys. I make him leave his toys. He puts them down and kicks them. They knock something over. I get annoyed. Georgia is stomping with her standard frightening determination.

Georgia goes straight to the work table, climbs up the only chair Rocket will use and begins chucking things off the table. I move her, try to entertain her with one of the SEVENTY-FIVE FUCKING THOUSAND other toys in the room. She has no interest in them. That’s because she’s 20 months old. She must be with us. Near us. ON US. I know today is going to be like every other homeschool day – HELL.

We sit down. He rolls his eyes. We get the books out. We work on our letters. Every step, every activity, every moment feels like dragging a loaded wheelbarrow through knee-deep mud in the pouring rain. He resists everything. The only thing he wants to do is science projects. We can only work in 5-minute intervals because he can’t focus longer than that on shit he doesn’t care about (if one of you tells me he has ADD I will in fact HUNT YOU DOWN).

And while he’s resisting, while he’s ignoring and flailing and daydreaming and fidgeting and selectively listening and zoning out…Georgia is going batshit crazy. She’s climbing up my lap and tearing things off the table. She’s scaling his chair. She’s biting his knee. She’s pulling the trash can on her head. She’s drawing on the dollhouse with permanent marker. And if I divert her? She’s screaming.

So I have this kid who would rather stab himself in the eye than do schoolwork and this toddler who would rather stab him in the eye too, and neither of them are budging and the moments are crawling and we’re making no progress and my patience is waning and I’m trying to keep a 6-year old engaged and a toddler away from him and not dead and I am failing on every front and putting out fires as they come. and BOOM! One minute I blow. I can’t fucking take it.

I walk out to breathe. I walk out to gather myself lest I run full-speed out of this damn house FOREVER and quite possibly, into oncoming traffic. But we’ve only got two hours because in two hours I have to leave for class or work and I’ve got papers to write and classes to prepare for or maybe a conference call and oh yeah, a shower to take. OMG it never ends. I have to do this. I don’t have time to do this. I don’t have TIME TO DO THIS.

And yet, I must do this. I committed to do this.

I think I made a mistake.

I’m not cut out for this homeschool thing. I think that’s the truth. I think I could do it if I weren’t in grad school and working, if I could do it in the afternoons when Georgia naps – if homeschool/home-making is all I did.

I feel like I failed my son. Like I made him a promise and broke it. Like I thought I could serve him well as his teacher but I just could not. And now I’ve wasted his time and mine and my heart is breaking, as usual, with that feeling of remorse for letting time pass and not quite cuttin’ it.

It’s breaking because I already miss it. And yet my GOD I won’t. We only have a couple months left. He’ll be going to regular school in the Fall. And I KNOW that as I drop him off each morning I will miss him, miss him hanging out, missing him by my side. Miss him.

But there is this thing I try to live by called “honesty” and sometimes it requires facing some facts about yourself. What I’m facing now is that I’m not a good homeschool mother.

In the interest of honesty, though, I gotta admit, there is one area I haven’t failed in. And that area is fun. We’ve gone to 10 plays together. We get discounted tickets through his charter school, and we haven’t missed one.

And so we’ve gone together, just he and I. And he sits on my lap through the whole thing and we watch theater and we laugh and I kiss his head and ruffle his unruly curls.

And I love the time I’ve had with my son. And I’ll never regret it. And someday I’ll accept that old saying, that old truth that feels like a copout until it fully sinks in, the honesty of it, the truth of it…that I did the best I could.

And maybe, inside, deep in his little soul, he knows it.

And he’ll remember moments like these…

xo

1. Okay, y’all are going to think I’m lying when I tell you this, because it’s totally freaking unbelievable, and frankly, respectable humans just don’t do this sort of thing, but I did it, and I’ll admit it: I completed a project I pinned on Pinterest.
2. I’ m not lying. I did. Well, of course, by “I” I mean “my husband,” but still. Impressive, right?
3. “We” built a raised bed out of cinderblocks. Then “we” got soil and put it in the bed. Then, we put plants in the soil (I actually helped with that part). And now, we have a garden. Can you believe that shit? The whole thing blows my mind. Photographic evidence below.
4. Speaking of food, that Georgia character can put some AWAY. That kid eats I tell ya. Last night she ate four pieces of pork, about 9 heads of broccoli, and rice. Two hours later she ate chicken and more rice. This morning she ate TWO WHOLE eggs (scrambled), half a bagel & cream cheese and a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal. And an oatmeal cookie (which of course I didn’t give her because I don’t feed my toddler sugar, obviously). I am trippin’ with this kid’s eating habits. All I know is, she didn’t learn that shit from me…bird-eater that I am. HAHAHAHA.
5.  My allergies are so bad I want to rip my face off.
6. The kids are playing baseball/softball again. We’ve already been over my feelings about extracurricular activities, but I just wanted to let you all know that my getting-ready-for-baseball skills have not improved. In fact I believe they’ve degenerated. Even further. Who knew that was even possible? I’ve gotten so bad my 6-year-old son defied all laws of the nature and the universe by putting his own uniform out the day before baseball. When I was shocked and elated and full of joy and wonder at his behavior, he looked at me and said “Well, mama, there’s no way YOU’RE ever gonna find it in time.”
7. So that confirms there are now TWO – count ’em – TWO children in this house who are more responsible than I am.
8. Georgia, however, continues to dump trash cans on her head, so clearly I’ve got her beat when it comes to sound decision-making.
9. Yes, I am strangely comforted by that.
10. Speaking of comfort, school’s out in two weeks. For three months. And then, summertime. When the livin’s easy.

You see those green things? Those are PLANTS.

Georgia likes to "help."

So last week I didn’t write any blog posts because my computer broke, but the week before I didn’t write any blog posts because I was too pissed off to write.

And what, you ask, happened to piss me off to such an extent?

Well, now, that’s the fun part. Because nothing happened. Nothing at all. Nada.

Unless you count THAT THING. That thing that happens once a month. That thing that turns me, within seconds, into a stark raving mad specimen of humanity – a walking nutjob.

I’m fine. And then OMG I’M NOT.

That thing that makes me want to punch strangers in the throat for chewing too loudly, cry, scream, and eat all simple carbohydrates in a five-mile radius. That thing that makes me question the meaning of life while weeping at a car commercial and screaming at my kids to please STOP MAKING NOISE. To which they respond “Mama, I’m reading.”

Oh yeah. You know what I’m talking about. They call it “PMS.”

For the record, I think that is the stupidest name IN THE WORLD for such a thing.

I have some better ones. More descriptive. Accurate.

Such as: “Pissed off, Maniacal and Starving” or “Pending Marital Separation” or “Psychotic, Melodramatic, and Seething,” or “Pardon My Satanic-nature.” Those are just some ideas.

You think I’m kidding? You think I’m exaggerating? I’m not.

“Pre-menstrual Syndrome…” Bullshit. That sounds so innocuous, like it ain’t that big of a deal. Well I’m here to speak for those of us women who TURN INTO MONSTERS for a few days each month and pretty much have no capacity to change it. I’m always slightly amazed my husband hasn’t left me after that “special time.”

Men, listen up. This shit applies to you too.

At any rate, check it out: once a month, about a week before my period, I’m sitting there minding my own business when all the sudden, out of freaking nowhere, drifts into my reality a dark, cold haze. It enters every cell of my skin, right through to my bones. I feel it sinking in, a discomfort. An irritation. Like a fly buzzing just outside my ear. I feel it course through my veins. An anxiety. An angst. And I want to break things.

When it hits my ears they become more sensitive. When it hits my brain it becomes confused, scattered, anxious. When it hits my eyes they begin to only see the shit that annoys me. They see only negative.

And when it hits my heart, my heart gets heavy. It becomes a thousand pounds. My emotions burst from it in quick flashes of pain and agony and existential contemplation. What IS the meaning of life? Why AM I here? WHY do I yell at my kids so much?

But mostly…WHY IS MY HUSBAND SO FUCKING ANNOYING?

Why am I married in the first place?

Why did I ever get married?

Why do I have kids? Do I like my kids? Why am I so fat? I wish I were 20. Why aren’t I 20?

I need a scone.

And always there’s that FLY. It’s buzzing. It won’t shut up. It MUST SHUT UP.

FUCK ME.

It’s never shutting up.

It’s here. “People Must Surrender,” because I’m fucking insane. For a few days, I am insane. Women who get PMS like me should get a break from their lives. We should get a handicapped parking spot. We should get special pills and massages and a camp or something with nothing but silent people, trees and hot tubs.

Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because once a month:

1. I am not responsible for the shit that comes out of my mouth. I don’t even know who the fuck is saying it but I KNOW IT AIN’T ME. That bitch is crazy.
2. I am not responsible for the shit I put into my mouth (which makes me not responsible for the stuff going in or out of my mouth, which is slightly alarming).
3. I want to crawl in a hole and weep and die, though it’s unclear to me exactly why.
4. I cannot recall why anything in my life is the way it is and I’m pretty sure it’s ALL WRONG. (But there’s nothing you can do to fix it so don’t even try because it’s never getting better and that’s just the way it is you fucktard.)
5. I am no use to my husband (because it’s all his fault).
6. I am no use to my children (because they’re so irritating I can’t spend more than 5 minutes near them).
7. I am no use to my boss (because it’s hard to think when you suddenly realize your life isn’t worth living).
8. I am no use in class (because my neighbor’s face is irritating me somehow).
9. I am bloated. And nobody likes that. But I can’t drink water or get to the gym or do anything other than eat simple carbohydrates and sugar and caffeine because I’m comforting myself with food and beverage even though I’m going to regret it and I’m getting fatter by the fucking minute but OMG there’s that FLY and it WON’T STOP BUZZING PEOPLE.

Dude. No really. Let’s start a PMS camp.

Some medical site describes the emotional PMS symptoms as follows: “tension, irritability, mood swings or crying spells, anxiety, depression.”

I can summarize this in everyday language, and it pretty much summarizes my whole PMS experience, played out repeatedly, day after day, until suddenly, as fast as it came…it’s gone.

“Fuck you you irritate me please don’t leave me ever my GOD why are you so annoying no wait I’m sorry I’m such a bitch I want to move to Borneo forever oh my god I’m hungry.”

It’s good to be back. In more ways than one.