enough with the boobs! or, how I spent my winter vacation, part 2

So, ironically enough, while I spent a chunk of time each week trying to help moms start breastfeeding, the much bigger project in my life this January has been trying to get my son to stop breastfeeding.

It is hard, much harder than getting the kid to nurse in the first place. At least, when we were getting into this mess, my son and I were on the same page. Now, I'm like the mama bird attempting -- feebly -- to push my little birdlet out of the nest, only the nest is immediately below my clavicles -- eye level when he's sitting on my lap.

Additionally, while I went about learning to nurse with the kind of fatalistic grimness with which I approach every task at which I have not already succeeded, now, my ambivalence is about as subtle as one of those Baby Genius toys Mac's already figured out and discarded. Given the choice between slapping Mac onto a boob at dinnertime, or:

1. heating a balanced baby-food meal,
2. testing said bland and terrible meal to ensure it's not too hot,
3. checking the label to ascertain what I am supposed to be telling Mac he's eating,
4. swooping futile airplanes of said meal towards my child's face as he attempts to shriek through clenched teeth, then
5. giving up and scouring the cupboard for foods that, when paired with La Yogurt, would be considered a "meal" for the purpose of, say, an ACS home visit,

I'll breastfeed the kid until he moves out.

And yet, Mac's needs are becoming more complex. At times, particularly those times between three and six a.m., they seem practically existential. And the Booby Solution, while still almost universally effective, isn't really keeping pace. In the past twenty four hours, in addition to the typical hungry/sleepy/soggy triumvirate of Things to Melt Down Over, we've contended with:

Not Allowed to Eat Plastic Wrap
No Aluminum Foil, Either
Can't Have Mommy's Glasses
Don't Want to Play on the Floor
Don't Want to Play on the Bed
Mommy's Not Holding Me
Mommy's Arms Are Confining
Shampoo!
Can't Eat the Bath Drain
Diaper!
Hate this Room
Hate this Room More
It's Nine Thirty, Where is Mommy?
It's Ten, Where is Mommy?
It's Midnight, Where is Mommy?
Mommy!
Are you there, Mommy? It's me, wailing!
Three-Thirty! Mommy!
Wait, I Don't Want to Be Awake Now!
It's six! Where's Mommy?

None of these problems are directly or indirectly solved by my breasts. And yet, breasts were invariably believed to be the solution. Had my son lived in ancient Galilee, his unswerving faith would no doubt be immortalized in a parable.

But I need my son to know that things are okay. Not because of my boobs. But because that is the nature of things, however fucked they seem at any given moment: to be okay.

If I could set a single intention for him, and for my parenting, it would be: I will raise a child who knows Things are Okay. Because I couldn't quite believe that, not for almost thirty years. And while thirty years is not the longest time spent deeply afraid that Things, in fact, are about to go to shit -- some people go lifetimes afraid of that -- that isn't what I want for my son.

So, during the day, I tell moms: keep going, because things are okay, and you can do this. And at night, I tell my son the same thing, and he is often as unconvinced as your average under-medicated sixteen-year-old new mom, confronted with a white lady intent on Helping her.

But that, too, is okay. This feeling, it's only right now. And we live in a world with lots of solutions. And when none of them fit just right, we can always make a new one, ourselves.