Urban Drool

I seem to have real trouble coming up with interesting/unique/eye-catching/at all relevant ways of staring an entry. This seems to be especially true for entries that contain actual-emotional-type-thoughts-and-emotions-and-stuff.

Important stuff.

That being said:

So! I am done nursing.

Done.

As in, all gone. No more.

I was all set to stop when the baby turned one year old. For no other reason than 1 seemed like a nice, round number and she was only nursing 2-3 times a day at that point anyway and I would kind of like my body back and etc., etc.

And then 1 year started to approach and she showed no interest in stopping and then 1 year passed us by and she still showed no signs of stopping. So, for a week or so I just let her keep on doing her thing. Admittedly, there was a part of me that was pretty content and smugly-smug about my sweet milk that my baby still craved and the general hippy-crunchy-granola-ness of it all. I was picturing a delighted 2 year old still needing me for the occasional snuggle and milk top-off. But this shiny little bulb of daydreams started to wane the more I took notice of two interesting facts:

Fact 1: My milk had dwindled down to almost nothing

Fact 2: This only made the baby nurse on me harder, faster and rougher than she ever had before.

-subfact a) a newborn’s gummy-gums ain’t nothing compared to the force that a frustrated 21 pound toddler and her 9 teeth can exert upon one’s teeny-tiny nipple.

Now, I can take the occasional nip and accidental nibble. But what I physically am finding it hard to endure is the constant chewing. I simply call it “The Chew.” At times, Lucy doesn’t seem to particularly mind that there is almost no milk there. She is cutting some serious back molars and simply wants to use me as a teething ring.

The Chew.

{Shudder}

The Chew has resulted in very badly bitten nipples, several tissues to wipe up the blood (yes, the blood) and one particular bite on my right side that is so bad that, 4 days later I still cannot put my bra on without wincing in serious discomfort.

So I thought about it and I read some stuff and I talked to the Boy and I talked to my mother in law and I talked to the baby’s pediatrician and then I thought about it some more.

And driving to work this morning I had to turn slightly to peer into my rear mirror and the steering wheel brushed against the bad spot on the right breast.

And the pain was enough to make me decide at that moment that Lucy and I were no longer going to be nursing.

This post has been written with a bit of snark and a bit of jest, but it is actually a very difficult decision to make. I am pretty emotional about it (hey! There’s something new!) and I have been told by some of my girlfriends who breastfed their children that the hormonal crash is going to be kind of bad.
But I still think it needs to happen. It might be hard on her, it might be hard on me, but I just think it needs to happen.

So, after 12 months, 1 week, 3 days and about 12 hours of feeding my child the best food I could give her I am stopping.

I shall cry (more than once, I am sure) and I shall be very angry with myself (more than once, I am sure). But then I shall also go out and buy some fantastic new bras for myself and take all the Advil and drink all the hard-core booze I feel like drinking.

Cheers.

Last night the Boy and I were getting drunk on some very nice red wine and watching “Moonstruck.”

Don’t snigger, it was Valentine’s Day, alright?

I think the breadth and shiny-ness of Nicholas Cage’s torso stunned the Boy into an introspective frame of mind and he and I began entertaining the notion that we would not have been attracted to one another and ended up together, had the circumstances surrounding our initial…assignation not been quite so dramatic and forbidden.

Put more simply: people want what they cannot have and jealously and forbidden fruit created a scenario where two people, who wouldn’t normally fall in love, fell in love.

(for the record, the Boy believes that this was the case with the two of us, and I vehemently disagree)

That aside, it actually started a train wreck of a stream of thought for me over the past 18 hours, and I find myself thinking a lot about the concept of envy. Jealousy. Coveting.

I am beginning to suspect that, at heart, I am a bitterly jealous person.

I want what I do not and/or cannot and/or will not and never will have.

I see a picture of a former law school pal on a website of a very prominent law firm. She’s a fabulously successful associate. I think to myself “I want that…LOOK at her. She passed the Bar and was able to get a snug little spot on the fast track to wealth and prestige.”

I chat on the phone with my good friend Mya’s Mommy, who works 3 days a week and is able to stay at home with her baby girl the other 4 days in a row and able to do a little shopping and go to Gymboree classes, etc and I hang up the phone and sit there and think “Damn, I want that awesome schedule where she can bring in some decent money for her household and still keep up a great stretch of days with her daughter every week.”

A friend from high school recently sent me her MySpace page and I found myself face to face with pictures of a girl who, despite the fact that she was way out of shape and much bigger than I in High School, is now a totally svelte and awesomely groomed hot chick. Single and living in Manhattan, she obviously has the time and money to spend on herself and DAMN it shows. I think to myself how awesome it must be to have that kind of luxury and to look that GOOD.

…and so it goes on. I envy moms with school age kids for not having to deal with screaming babies who insist on still nursing 23 times a night and can instead go to silly and fun 2nd grade Valentine’s Day parties, I envy brand new moms, complete with cracked nipples and unkempt hair, for being in that bliss-nirvana-dreamlike state of mind that comes with the first couple weeks after your baby is born. My sister, the Fulbright scholar, is living in Belgium for the year and spending time with International friends and drinking beer at a convent in Bruge and taking weekend trips to Paris, while I sit here in Cleveland, Ohio trying to figure out how to pay my electric bill. I envy my husband who spends his time refreshing his acting resume and talking on the phone with the Artistic Director of a regional Shakespeare Festival and planning auditions and networking and loving his career in the dramatic arts. I envy my friend here at work, who is single and goes out to cool bars and restaurants most nights of the week and can afford to spend money on funky jewelry and always looks so put together, when there is cat hair on my pants and my hair smells like the baby barfed up lasagna and grilled salmon on me last night (which she in fact did).

And I really hate to be so repetitious here about the whole “bad birth blah blah” thing, but every time, EVERY TIME, someone tells me about someone they know who “just had their first baby and MAN she was just in and out of that hospital! 5 hours of labor and she only pushed for 35 minutes! 9 lbs, 3 oz and she DIDN’T EVEN TEAR! ISN’T THAT JUST SWELL?!?!?!”

The hot little nugget of envy and anger, envy about someone else’s good fortune, just blooms up inside me and makes me see stars.

Nice, huh?

I think you get my point. It’s terrible to contemplate, really, but I am finding myself thinking the most uncharitable thoughts about folks who are doing nothing more than living their own lives. It’s not that I wish them ill in any way. It’s not even that I dislike the fact that they are so blessed/lucky/whatever you want to call it.

It’s just that, I want it TOO. I want to be a successful associate making $110,000 a year, who also gets to be a stay at home mom. I want to have a fun little 8 year old kid who needs to be driven around to Girl Scouts and soccer practice and I’m the cool room mom at her school who helps coordinate the holiday parties but I also want a newborn baby again. I want to travel through Western Europe and make my mark on the International scene but never have to leave the comfort of my home. I want to fit back into my size 7 jeans and have silky soft hair and skin and cool earrings and perfectly coordinated outfits, but still be able to eat a whole pizza and ½ a pan of brownies for dinner.

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Erg. I just went back and read what I have written, and damn. It seems a bratty little 13 year old girl has invaded my soul today and spewed all over my blog.

Sorry. I am now kind of embarrassed.

This whole think makes me sound really ungrateful and petty, and I don’t mean for it to be. I have an awesome life. I have a beautiful, healthy baby and a great husband and family that loves me and a house and good TV and a great espresso machine.

But despite all that, it’s really easy to fall into the mind-trap of feeling like you are constantly being shit upon.

OK, I feel better now. I’m going to post this monstrosity of an entry, even though I’m pretty mortified by my own thoughts.

The End.

I just got off the phone with my father, and he informed me that he had just polished off a BOX of Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mints) and a pot of coffee for his lunch.

He also requested that I not mention this fact to my mother.

Heh.

I feel like I’ve been hit with a tidal wave. My baby, my squdge, the little girl that I fretted over, barfed into my bathroom sink for, lived in daily pain for, am blown away by my love for, is my very reason for existing on this planet, is one year old.

I want so much to write a delightful, tear-provoking, Oscar-worthy post about the past year and how she has changed and how she has stayed the same and how I feel, but I cannot get the words to come through. It’s like trying to describe the most fantastic rainbow or what a hug from someone you haven’t seen in 5 years feels or what it felt like the first time you swam in the ocean or someone you loved said “I love you.”

I do not have nearly enough finesse or a sophisticated grasp of the English language, of simple WORDS, to express my emotions and perspective on the universe in general these days. I find that I don’t even want to try, because I know whatever I do produce will not do my heart and soul justice.

Can I do a bullet point list (how very lame) of some of my thoughts, with the vague promise to try and pen a more substantial, eloquent post in the next week or two?...hey know what? It’s my damn blog and I say “yes.”

- her face is the Boy’s, but her smile is all me
- she loves to eat the oddest things, like a fresh diced tomato and garlic bread
- her continuous attempts at independence are very startling, like how she insists on feeding herself and will not tolerate anyone trying to feed her something on a spoon
- her skin behind her ears and on the fattest swell of her belly are the softest places on earth
- she has recently discovered the joy of banging on the piano. I cannot even sit down on my piano bench without her racing over to me and trying to haul herself up onto the bench next to me, so she can touch the keys too. Being a musician at heart, this makes my heart burst with pride and satisfaction
- her sunny smile when she sees my mom just slays me. I adore my mom, but she and I do have our issues with one another, and seeing my mom through my baby’s eyes is an altering experience. Amazing.
- My unending determination to find a job, any job, that would keep me closer to where she is, give me more hours to spend with her, and bring in more money to take better care of her is something that I feel and use every day
- The only thing the Boy does better than loving me is loving her
- I hope the top of her head always smells the way it has for the past year. It was the first part of her body that I was able to touch and kiss 40 minutes after she was born and it’s the part of her body that I smell and kiss every morning and night. Some primal mama-bear part of me needs to touch, smell and kiss her all over her head at least twice a day or I don’t feel…right. I wonder how long she will let me do this?
- I can’t believe the Boy and I ever lived a life without her. And I can’t yet imagine a life with any other children in it except her. The three of us together are like the most perfect-fitting pair of jeans that you have been looking for your whole life.
- Her favorite thing in world right now is the “E-I-E-I-O” part of the “Old MacDonald” song.
- She also loves to lay on her back naked, bring her feet close to her mouth so she can alternately fit one foot in her mouth and wave the other foot in front of you and say “Hi!” If you don’t answer her and say “Hi” back she will wave at you and scream “HI!” at you until you do.
- When she has had a hard day or isn’t feeling well, the only thing that will soothe her is to lay in between the Boy and I in our bed and nurse from me while reaching behind her to hold the Boy’s finger of a fistful of his hair until she falls asleep

I think you get my point.

I have been alternating between laughing and grinning like a jackal and weeping like a little wussy girl since last Thursday.

I am still in the middle of interviews and paying off bills and trying to get my shit together to really make 2007 be my year. I hope that when the dust settles and I come back down to earth that I will be able to devote more time to regular blogging and reading of blogs.

For the meantime, peace to you all. And thanks for still listening.