The Impossible

I am trying to do something that is proving to be extremely difficult. I am trying to wean my daughter of nursing.

Over the past few months, Stella's obsession with 'boobie' has reached near frenetic proportions. I don't know if her constant pleas were due to actual hunger/thirst, boredom, or a deep need for my undivided attention and comforting. Whatever the case, I was beginning to feel convinced of the latter. Despite feeling touched by her attachment to me, I was also feeling suffocated by her clingyness. It was getting to the stage where I couldn't go an hour of work without her at my desk, peering at me with her big brown eyes, repeating the word 'boobie' like a mantra. It would be Dan's shift to entertain Stella, but I would somehow get suckered into multiple feedings on the futon, disrupting my work flow. Right around the same time that my exasperation was peaking, Daniel had successfully taught our little girl her first polite exchange - using the word, please. Now I had to listen to even more earnest and urgent entreaties for milk with the recitaion of 'pwease. pwease. pwease.' Stella turns into a broken record until she gets what she is asking for. If she finally exhausts herself of verbal repetition, she eventually crumples into a tantrum of epic proportions. Her back arches, her eyes squeeze out tears, and her little mouth widens to a rectangle with curved corners as she screams a cry that is the sister to fingernails on a chalkboard. Her fits have been truly spectacular and awe-inspiring. I find my own reaction shifting from fascination, to laughter, to commiseration, to fear. The hardest part is that I actually believe that she was feeling the serious pangs of rejection, and that is the LAST thing I want my baby to feel.

After only a few days of slowly trying to limit Stella's intake, and being met with the most pathetic sobbing, I feel like I am losing the battle. This girl is NOT ready. She does not want to give up this time cradled in my arms, satisfying her oral fixation. Both Dan and I will continue to try and distract her from multiple breast-feeding sessions, and I do try to give her lap time and loads of affection and tenderness that don't involve lifting my shirt, but I think this is going to take much longer than I originally thought. We are also concerned that she make the transition to drinking cow's milk soon, to replace the calcium she will lose from me (the calcium she is draining from her Mother's own bones), but she turns her nose up in disgust. That's my Father and my genes to blame. Despite all this sturm und drang, I will persevere. My goal is to be able to have either set of grandparents watch Stella for a long weekend, so that Dan and I can rekindle our romance on an exotic getaway. We need to feel like independent adults again, who actually schedule activities past eight at night, and have a good morning lie-in (oh jayzus, the mere thought makes me tremble with excitement and yearning).

Wish us luck.