Up Next... College

Well, it seems my baby has moved into the next stage of life... the stage where she no longer tugs at my shirt and begs to be nursed by climbing up in my lap and cuddling into my body (she is so much like her father... I digress).

I have been slowly weaning baby Mary because she will be going off to College next year and I thought it was time for her to grow up a bit. Ha ha... relax, she is only 19 months. I was not planning on taking out the final feeding before bedtime until next week but tonight after she had her bath and pj's on she all but dove into her crib without even a howdy do to me and my nursing self.

Part of me wanted to celebrate because now I can do all of those things my mother told me I couldn't do while nursing like drinking... and making prank phone calls. I look forward to getting completely hammered this weekend and calling my mother at 2 a.m. and asking her if her refrigerator is running because I no longer have a little person sucking all of the bad things from my body into hers. What a relief!

The other part of me was really sad. I was rejected and tossed aside like a cheap date on Saturday morning by my youngest and favorite child. I bet by tomorrow night she won't even remember the long nights we spent together where she nursed every 2 hours and was only calmed by my mother's milk. Weep.

Would I have felt better if I laid her down and she screamed to be nursed for 3 hours before I finally gave in? You betcha! At least then I would know that she still needed me. Before you know it she will be potty trained and dating the boy down the street and getting married and having a child of her own!

Motherhood is hard. We dream of having independent children who will be capable and successful, but when it happens our hearts break a little don't they? As a mother, I want to hold on to my children forever and with each year they take steps further and further away from me.

It is days like these that I think of having another baby so that I can feel needed again... but then I remember what it is like to nurse the little maniac every 2 hours and I grab a beer out of the fridge and call my mother and ask for Jacques Strap.