1. Maybe I should just officially start writing my Sunday posts on Monday.
2. Well, no, maybe not, since yesterday was obviously an exception being the Super Bowl and all, which means of course that I was too busy eating to write. Or do anything, for that matter, except wish I would stop eating.
3. I realize this makes me lame and stereotypically female and a variety of unpleasant adjectives, but I still don’t understand football.
4. No really. What the fuck are they doing out there?
5. At any rate the half-time show was, well, a giant media spectacle as usual. There was some serious genre-mixing there. I particularly appreciated the sudden Vogue magazine advertisement, thrown in for what? 15 million dollars? God American consumerism makes me want to vomit. Though let’s be honest, I engage.
6. I was so sick last week I wanted to pummel myself with a sledgehammer. As if the flu wasn’t enough, it morphed into a sinus AND inner ear infection, which, just in case y’all have never had the pleasure, feels similar to the sensation caused by 8 hours or so on a deep-sea fishing boat in the Pacific. Vertigo. Nausea. Sea sickness. No really. That’s what it feels like.
7. It isn’t the best experience in the world. (Much like deep-sea fishing, I might add.)
8. Speaking of good feelings, sometimes I look at my dog and just say “I’m sorry,” since he sits there all distraught and lost and sad as I race around ignoring him day after day, wishing I could cuddle with him and be a real pet owner.
9. Oh dude. That’s sad. I’m a bad person. (But I called him over and he’s sitting next to me now, so I feel a little better.)
10. Today Rocket said “Mama, sometimes I think some weird thoughts, but that’s okay because I don’t have to do what my brain says. It isn’t the boss of me. I AM THE BOSS OF MY BRAIN.”

I told him some people spend their whole lives never figuring that out.

And I was thinking that things like the SuperBowl advertisements are banking on hundreds of thousands of people not knowing that they are the bosses of their brains, so the day after watching the half-time show, they stand in the grocery store check-out line, and some way somehow, for some reason, hear their brains telling them to “BUY VOGUE MAGAZINE.” And without thought, they obey.

And I might too, were there not so many skinny ass women in it (telling me to buy more crap to make me feel, become, or look more like a skinny ass woman).

Anyway, here’s to a week free from sea-sickness, over-eating, and, with any luck, skinny ass women in Vogue.

Cheers, all!

On a ridiculously more happy note, here’s a picture of Georgia doing something unsafe, saying “Ta-DAH!”

That was hands down the stupidest title I’ve ever come up with.

In.My.Life.

So let’s move on, hopefully to better things…

I would like to clear something up, publicly, on the internet. So there’s no confusion…and maybe, just MAYBE, people will stop asking me the following question, which is of course nobody’s business and shouldn’t be asked anyway, but somehow keeps getting fired in my direction…

“Are you STILL nursing your baby? When ARE you going to WEAN her? “

Let me answer this question with all kinds of clarity: I plan on weaning my baby…NEVER.

Or TOMORROW.

Or, when I freaking feel like it.

Alright. Real answer: I will wean my baby when I no longer feel like nursing her or she no longer feels like nursing.

How is that complicated?

Why don’t I worry about this issue? Because I’m lazy.

Also because I don’t know a single adult who still nurses. Therefore, I’m pretty sure this particular relationship will end AT SOME POINT.

Now don’t start giving me that bullshit 1950s Dr. Spock “your kid will end up too dependent” theory. That’s such a load of crap.

“Okay, Sally, to help you become independent, I’m going to withhold from you that which you need to feel safe and secure and confident, which in turn makes you clingy, needy and more dependent.”

HUH?

Independence is a byproduct of feeling safe. Dependence is a byproduct of feeling fear. Meeting my kids needs as best as I can helps them feel safe.

Now leave me alone.

But don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that weaning your child is “not meeting their needs” or causing “fear.” Come ON…would I do that? Nah.

What I’m saying is that I don’t buy the theory that not weaning a baby impedes her independence (based on that old-school kids-shall-not-cosleep-or-nurse-past-6-months-because-they’ll-never-grow-up-to-be-good, strong, strapping-Americans theory).

In my opinion.

Does this mean I think a mother should nurse her baby as long as the baby wants even if she’s miserable and “over it” and wants her damn nipples back?

HELL TO THE NO. That is some irrational crazy mama bullshit. If the nursing relationship ceases to work either way, then it should end. Don’t ya think?

I mean why nurse your baby in resentment? That ain’t cool.

And maybe, the reason the mother no longer feels “into it” is because the relationship is ready to evolve – maybe it IS time for the baby/toddler to move on – maybe the mother feels that intuitively and therefore the nursing no longer feels natural and good and right…and SO…she weans the kid. Right?

But for now, for me and for Georgia, we have a pretty nice thing going and she enjoys it and I enjoy it and we reconnect and play and cuddle. So what’s the freaking problem? Why would I end something that is cruising along just fine for both of us? Because I’m making her dependent?

Yes, I can really see her stifling dependency in the way she runs away from me fifty times a day to explore new territory, meet new people, tackle new obstacles…or walks into new places and says “bye!” and forgets my existence entirely unless she falls, gets tired, gets pissed…or wants a drive-by nursing (you know exactly what I mean, right?)…to reconnect, to reassure. To maintain that independence.

I guess I’m just getting pretty sick of hearing that Dr. Spock throw-back crap because I still nurse my baby girl who is 18 months old. Eighteen months!! A baby! Even if I nurse her til she’s four. Even then. WHO CARES?

Oh holy crap there’s no way. I wouldn’t like it that long.

But I nursed until I was four.

And look what a winner I turned out to be.

Damnit. Perhaps not the best example.

Okay but seriously, can we all just agree that nursing a baby past one year doesn’t cause mental and bodily harm? And neither does weaning?

Although… nobody ever sees Georgia with a bottle and says “She still takes a BOTTLE?” They only ask about the nursing…which leads me to believe the issue is still based on that “A CHILD MUST SEPARATE FROM HIS MOTHER AND BE STRONG!!!!” crap.

What’s weird is that it isn’t that I’m NOT weaning, it’s that I don’t have a PLAN for weaning. Maybe I’ll wean. Maybe I won’t. And somehow, in that, I’m guilty of some crime. I guess it’s the crime of trusting my gut. The crime of trusting the radical notion that I know what’s best for my baby and myself,  that I know how to nurture and raise the baby I birthed. And trusting that if the time comes when nursing feels wrong, I will know that too and will act accordingly.

Screw the books.

Screw the theories.

You know what’s real? This:

HEAVEN