I’m allowed to change my mind. AND, Ivey is now 8 months old. AND, she is the most distractable baby on the planet, except for all those moms who have reached out to me and have told me THEY have the most distractable baby on the planet, which I wholeheartedly believe. I’m not sure if they made the decision I did, and for those reasons I am, but my decision now, since I am allowed to change my mind (and I like a sentence full of conjunctions apparently, and to fill my blog paragraphs with anapodotons), but I’ve decided to wean Ivey.

In fact, she is weaned.

I know, I know, I said just two short weeks ago that I would not stop breastfeeding Ivey when she hit 6 months – that was the proclamation I’d made when she was a mere two months, or one month, I can’t remember. The time was hazy and I was severely lacking sleep. Much like now, but worse really, because I also had cracked, bleeding nipples then, so there’s that.

My excuse now is lame. It’s just really, really lame. Don’t judge me, but I weaned Ivey. 8 months is a good run!

It was just that… I was just sort of done. Ivey has always been more interested in what’s happening out THERE rather than looking at my bare chest or into my loving eyes. Oh, sure, we have our mother-baby loving moments, and they are super wonderful and special. But with two 5 year olds running around, and a husband who brings the non-stop funny to them like, always, you can image all the pretty, shiny things there are to look at that you actually CANNOT see while breastfeeding.

Ivey would latch on, unlatch; latch on, unlatch; latch on, unlatch; latch on, unlatch – literally over and over and over until one of us just became really DONE with that process, and we’d both move on to the giggling and playing that ensued around us with sisters and dad. But then of course, she wanted to eat again just 2 hours later, and you know what, I’m sorry, I don’t play that. She’s 8 months old, and where at 2 months I was semi-okay with round-the-clock feeding because it was expected, it’s so NOT expected at 8 months, and I’m just not going to do it. I’m just not.

And OH! Let’s not forget that I work. And I get like 5 minutes between clients IF that, to hook up my breasts to the ole pumper. It’s not glamorous even a little bit.

I’m just piling on the self-guilt here. Listing all the reason’s I’m done breastfeeding my infant, which are all self-absorbed and me-focused, I see that. I feel bad about it. But not bad enough not to stop!

And so there, it’s done. I fed Ivey from the breast one last time this week. While I fed her I knew it would be the last time she was at my breast. I felt sad about it. I feel sad as I write it. But I also know, she is fine. She is FINE. And I’m moving on…

Yes, I am allowed to retract my earlier retraction where I proclaimed I’d be breastfeeding my child until she was 3. Or at the very least 1. So I’m 4 months shy of my goal.

Please excuse me while I go have my coffee WITH caffeine – I’ll probably even have TWO cups today.  No one can stop me, now!

Signed,

Your Guilty, No-Breastfeeding, Bad-Momma Shrink, Who’s also hyped up on caffeine, so it alllll evens out.

Related articles

• Self Weaning (momentsofexhilaration.com)
• I’d Like To Retract My Earlier Proclamation, Please (ashrinkslife.com)
• Sure-fire trick on weaning off breasts (lannieseanpatel.wordpress.com)
• Breastfeeding: It’s Emotionally Complicated (blogher.com)
• Whining about weaning (welcometothemotherhood.com)

I had a little “buyers remorse” after hitting “publish” on my last post.

I regretted being so open and honest about my brother, who’d just landed himself in rehab. I wondered if I’d revealed too much, and with a story that wasn’t mine to reveal.

This blog consists of a bunch of random, boring ramblings about my life in the motherhood mostly. I rarely talk about things outside of ME because I’m not interested in telling other people’s stories.

The truth is, there are many things I DON’T say here. Many things I want to say are too personal for the blog. Like, I don’t talk about my sex life, because that also involves my husband, and it’s not okay to involve him in that way on this blog. And I don’t talk about my clients because it’s not only unethical, but their lives and stories are their own and I leave that at the office.

Even though I consider myself a pretty open, straight forward, and tell-it-like-it-is person, there are still some things that I just don’t feel ready to put out to the internets.

At one time, I made myself anonymous on this blog, because I thought it might be easier to spill everything that I needed to spill (such as the way I just blew up like an irrational baby at my husband or how annoyed I am with THAT person because of THAT thing).

But anonymous didn’t feel right. The truth is, I WANT to be open about who I am. I want to use this space to reveal the true life of a shrink – that I’m just as much a wack job as the next person. But it’s precisely because I am a shrink that I hold back some.

When I’ve written about Jason in the past, I’ve been sure not to use his name. I only said “my brother.” And, when others have found the blog, they reference him as “your brother,” which felt anonymous enough. I’m not interested in screwing up someone else’s life because of the image *I* portray of them. My story is afterall, MY story, and their version could be much different.

And then there was the post of Jason and his first love, beer (which really isn’t his first love…but that’s one of those things I won’t talk about here, because that’s not my story)…

It was time, I felt, to break down that secret barrier I’d put up between me and this very emotional part of my life. I needed to divulge. I’ve written about him in the past, but this time was different. This time was more cathartic. I needed to be heard in a very bad way!  And I was…

When people started responding about Jason, I instantly felt regret. I wondered what Jason would want, and if how I portrayed him was too embarrassing or shameful. Although is MY story of him, it’s still an image that is … not pleasant.

So. I did the only thing I felt I could do at the time, since I’m told you can’t hit “delete” on the internets! I let Jason know what I’d done.

The day after posting about Jason and his slow assent into alcohol oblivion, I called him on my way home from the office for truth-telling. The conversation went a little something like this(after he spent the first 5 minutes telling me about his new love affair with chocolate bars. And how he’s thought of begging the counselor to take him to the QT on the corner, not for beer, but for more chocolate candy. He said he eats so much of it, he envisions himself grabbing handfuls and just burying his face in it trying to stuff enough into his body to cure his craving. And when dinner came to his room the other night, which consisted of lasagna and chocolate pudding, he could do not one thing else until he devoured his pudding, and then he proceeded to go person to person in his house asking if they were going to eat THEIR pudding. He’s been obsessing about chocolate, obviously, which is strange since he’s NEVER eaten sweets. He was totally cracking me up, in pure form for Jason…):

Me: Sooo… I have something to tell you. (pause)

Jason: Okay. What’s up?

Me: So I keep this little blog about my life that like NOBODY reads. Like, nobody. Because I talk about breastfeeding and homeschooling and just my feelings which are like, so boring and like, no one even cares but me because I’m a big ball of a emotion and I’ll explode if I don’t bare my soul on a regular basis, even if nobody reads it, and I wrote about you. Aaaannd, a few people found…

Jason: You can talk about anything you want. Tell my whole story, 110%, whatever you want, I am an open book.

Me: …aaannnd people you KNOW read it, and they’re being really supportive and some of them want to talk to you to you to show their support, and…

Jason: That’s fine! Anybody can call me – it’s perfectly fine! I am liberated. I won’t ever have another drink. And I intend to be brutally honest about everything from this point forward.  The truth isn’t pretty, but I’ll tell my story to anyone who will listen, and maybe I’ll save someone’s life…maybe I’ll help someone. I’m no longer ashamed. I have a lot of emotion, I am feeling many things I haven’t felt in a long time, but my counselor is helping me work through those things. I’m not holding anything in. I’m not lying, not even a little bit.

Me: (Holding breath…trying not to cry…exxxxhale….) Okay. I love to hear you say those things.

Jason has always been so uber-private, not sharing his life with anyone. To hear that he’s willing to be an open book AND that he thinks it’s the only way to be, is… hard to believe.

More than anything, I want his words to really MEAN something this time. I want for him to say what he means, and mean what he says. Never before have I ever had the reassured feeling I have when I talk to Jason now. Never before have I had the hope I have for Jason like I have now.

But…what happens in two weeks…when he’s out of rehab? What then?

I’m scared.

For now, I need to talk about my story of Jason. My brother. The first man I looked up to. The one man I admire more than all others for his strength and courage.

With Hope,

Shrink Sister

This post started out differently. I started it yesterday, but didn’t get to finish because Mommy-duty called (I have a lot of drafts started, and most of the time I don’t go back to them). But this one is different… I’m going back to the top of the post because I need to convey one feeling: anger.

The previous post (which is below), conveyed another feeling: sadness.

I’m still sad, yes. But today, my anger is really, REALLY coming up.

Here’s why…

The BACKSTORY:

(other post beginning now)

My brother is in rehab for alcoholism. He hasn’t had a drink in 16 days. He hasn’t been sober for 16 days straight for 25 years – since he was 15 years old.

I’ve been watching my brother spiral for years. In the last 4 weeks, his life took a turn, and he asked for help.

I’ve wanted to write about this, shout it to whoever would listen really, every single day for the past 4 weeks. I haven’t because this disease is his. This recovery is his. These problems are not mine.

But here I am, finally getting out what is mine. And that is…

Sadness.  A sadness so heavy in my heart for this man, who has lived with this pain for more than 50% of his life, I could crumble at the heartache.

I visited my brother this weekend, and it’s only now that I feel like I can get out at least SOME of this story (because most of the story is his to tell). He gave me permission to talk about it. He said, “Talk to whoever you want to talk to. I am not ashamed anymore. I am free.”

I am free?

My brother said, “I am free.”

Those gut-wrenching words almost brought me to my knees in both a mixture of agony and joy simultaneously.

For 3 solid hours this weekend, my brother recounted story after story of  just how horrible a disease he has been living. Images of Nicholas Cage in the movie “Leaving Las Vegas” came up again and again. At one point, I thought I would run to the restroom to vomit.

Have you seen it? It’s a movie of a charming man who loses his job because he can no longer perform at it, and he drinks himself into an oblivion hoping, consciously seeking, death. Death, because he can’t think of anything else. He doesn’t know how to get out of his unhappiness. And he doesn’t know how he could possibly spend another day in it. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and drinks…

As I listened to my brother tell these stories of drinking himself into an oblivion, even as I’m having flashes of this movie pop into my head, I hear myself saying, “This is just in the movies. This isn’t REAL. There’s no way this could possibly be real.”

Could it?

In fact, it is real. In honest, real, gut-wrenching words, I was told just how real this disease has been for him.  Sad doesn’t come close to describing how I ache for this man.

But that’s his story…

My story, is about me. A sister.

He called on me when he said he knew he finally needed help. He said he knew the day he called me would be the day he would have to get help, and he was right. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him otherwise. When he called, he knew I would help him get treatment – the only kind of help I would offer him.

When the call came, I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer the first time. Or the second time. Or the third time.

The fourth time he called, I rolled my eyes and thought, “What the hell is he calling me for? I’m NOT getting sucked in. I’m NOT.”

He called a fifth time, and I answered.  He said he was ready for help.

And here we are.

And here I am…

Scared. Worried. (end of previous post) And angry.

Man, I’m pissed.  I’m really, REALLY pissed.

He’s never received treatment before. Like so many others who would try treatment again and again, this is his first time.

He’s asked for help before, but never like this.

He’s admitted he drank before, but never like this.

All my brother asked for NOW, compared to all other times before, is help. He told me he was ready to throw in the towel. And I said back to him, “Don’t start that shit with me.” He said, “I’m not starting shit. I need help. Please help me.”

I rolled my eyes.

But…I called someone. I do have hookups. I am thankful I have hookups.

I knew he needed help because the week before, the police were called out to take away his gun. He had threatened to lay in a bathtub naked, put it to his head, and pull the trigger.

I knew he needed help because  the week before he lay in the bathtub naked ready to pull the trigger, he texted my mother and his ex-wife and told them he was going to end it. (I only later found out about this.  I guess they thought he was joking. And that brings me to the pissed part…)

I knew he needed help because Jason hadn’t talked to me in 2.5 years. 2.5 years ago, I confronted him heavily. I told him, in no uncertain terms how he needed to get his effing shit together. He was a bad father, a bad brother, a bad son, and a bad boyfriend (I assumed, since I hadn’t met his girlfriend of 3 years at the time. BUT, I knew the stories he was likely to tell about his family, because we’d been down this road before).

After that confrontation, and the seriousness he heard from me – my ultimatum to him – he stopped contacting me. He did not call, he did not text, he did not send a note. Except to my mother, who he was horrible with, but continually told, “I don’t like Jennifer.”

It hurt. It REALLY hurt. But I got it. I understood it was the disease.  I understood that he was not the man I knew he could be.  He may not like me, but his core loved me.  I had the wherewithal to know that.

So, it was a waiting game.  For 2.5 years I waited, wondering if he’d ever call.  Wondering if he’d ever turn his life around.

When the call came that late night, 10:39pm, I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t want to to sucked in again. I didn’t want to hear his stories of woe. I wouldn’t help him. And I didn’t want to feel guilty for not helping him.

When he asked for help, I decided I would have an intervention for him.  Have you seen the A&E show “Intervention”?  Just like that.  I wasn’t sure that he would listen to what I had to say, to actually get help. I wasn’t sure he was serious. So, to drive things home, I contacted everyone I knew in his life, and asked them to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE be part of this intervention with me.  Sit in a room, confront Jason with me, tell him we’re on to his lies, tell him you won’t take it anymore, and tell him he needs help. Tell him you will not have ONE single thing to do with him, unless he got in the car and went to treatment right NOW. Please tell him.  Please confront him.  Do it now.  He is going to die.

Not one effing person would do it.  Not ONE.  And granted there weren’t many to asked.  My brother has isolated himself from many people. And he’s a private person, so I don’t even know who is friends are. But the people I did know about, I asked.  NO ONE WOULD HELP ME!!

But Jason was still asking for him, and I couldn’t turn him away, so I held an intervention for three. Me and a wonderful therapist I’d found sat in a room with my brother, ready to confront him, ready to drag his ass to a treatment center. But here’s the thing…

We didn’t have to beg. We didn’t have to coerce. We didn’t have to drag. We didn’t have to do anything, but drive him to treatment.

My brother was the lowest of low. He said he was done with the game. He threw in the towel before my very eyes, surrended to what he could not possibly manage, knowing he could not possibly manage his life any longer, and he went to treatment. He got in the car, and went to treatment.

He’s been there two weeks today. I’ve talked to him more in the past 2 weeks than I have in the last 5 years combined. I am leary, sure, but I am hopeful. Hopeful more than I’ve ever been.

The day he left for treatment, he shook so badly he couldn’t write. His eyes were so red and bloodshot, like he’d been crying for a week straight, but he hadn’t been. He was visibly nervous. His lip quivered. He cried in shame. He held his head low.  But he went.

When I visited him this weekend, the first thing I noticed were the whites of his eyes!

The whites of his effing eyes, man!  I had not seen the whites of his eyes in years!  I had not seem him LOOK ME IN THE EYE, in years!  He didn’t shake. He didn’t stutter. He didn’t bat an eye when he told me the horrible stories of his dreadful alcoholic life over the past 20 years. He teared up. He was visibly shameful. But he boldly went where he has never been… to his soul.

Where once Jason said he hated AA meetings because it was filled with drug-hazed smokers, and he was better than them, he now said, “I am one of them. They are me.”

Where once he said he thought it only took willpower to quit, he said, “This is a disease. It’s baffling, but I am surrendering to it.”

Where once he lied through his teeth about what he drank, when he drank, and all the damage he caused in it’s wake, he now said, “I messed up. Bigtime. I’ve hurt a lot of people. I am ashamed.”

Where once he said, “Counseling is stupid and for sissies,” he now said, “I depend on my counselors. I wouldn’t be where I am without them. Ask them anything you want.”

He described yoga classes he is taking now, where he has twisted his body into this position and that position. He told about meditating, and thinking at first that the people saying “OHMMM” next to him were weird, but embracing it, and trying it himself. He goes to several AA meetings a day. He dug up a garden so he could plant healthy food. He is writing in his journal. The counselor told me he’s the first one to group EVERYTIME, not just one time. And when I asked her, “I want to make sure you’ve picked up on his lying. He is a compulsive liar. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear. He’s manipulative.” She said, “I didn’t have to pick up on it, it’s the first thing he told me.”

I. Weep. With. Joy. For. Him.

Weep

With

Joy.

And still…. I’m pissed.

I’m pissed at the people who AREN’T there.

In conversation with my husband, this is how I described where I am….

Addiction is like having a hole in your heart.  It’s a spiritual malady; a deficient. It’s  feeling like something SHOULD be there, but you don’t know what it is, and so you stuff it, and stuff it, and stuff it with all the wrong things, until you finally kill yourself, or figure out another way to stuff it.

We all have a hole in our hearts, but some of our holes are bigger.  Some of our spiritual deficits are deeper.  Some of us are stronger.

I am stronger.

I am stronger than my brother. Others are stronger than me.

I have a hole, like everyone else, but I don’t fill it the same way. And, I’ve done a loooooot of work on my hole.

And since I am stronger, I have a moral obligation to BE THERE for him.

When someone asks for help, I am there.  No matter what, I’m your girl.  Call me morning, noon or night, and if you need genuine, honest help, I am there!

My brother has called on SO many people for SO long. He’s borrowed money from SO many people. He has emotionally drained SO many people. But that wasn’t the help he needed!

And for years I’ve been saying to myself, to my husband, and sometimes to others he called on…. STOP HELPING!!!  Just STOP!!  The only way my brother is going to get help, is if he hits rock bottom, he has no more money, and he decides to get the RIGHT help.  But giving him $50 for food is NOT how to help him.  The reality is, he wasn’t using the money for food.  He was using it for beer!  How do I know?  Because I just know (I’m in the field to know), and because he told me.  He admitted it when I saw him this weekend.  He didn’t eat.  His body wouldn’t let him eat.  He only drank.  He had to drink for survival.

Jason burned bridges.  But why the HELL weren’t the people around him strong enough to GET OFF THE FUCKING BRIDGE BEFORE IT BURNED??  If they’d got off the effing bridge, they would be able to help when it matters most – now.

People aren’t helping because they’re tapped out.  I get that.

People aren’t helping because they feel like they’re being lied to. I get that.

People aren’t helping because they don’t want to get sucked in. I get that.

People aren’t helping because they aren’t educated, they are ignorant, they don’t have a CLUE what addiction looks like, and they want to live in a world of drama.  I don’t get that.  I soooooooo don’t effing get that.  I so fucking don’t get that.  I do not get ignorance.  I do not get it.  I do not get it. I do not get it.  I hate ignorance. I hate it.  I hate the person who embraces it.  Hate.

I’m not naming names.  But I am saying, if you’re a family member, and you’re a parent, you better fucking help. Why?  Because you have a moral obligation to help someone in need!  And you can’t tell a lie from a truth, figure it the eff out.  

When is it ever okay to cut your son out?  When is it ever okay to cut family out?  When is it every okay to cut a father out?  When is every okay to cut a friend out?

There are reasons it IS okay.  There are absolute, definite reasons.  But this is not that time….

I operate like this:

You lie, you cheat, you steal, you beg, you borrow, you manipulate…you don’t have my support. Not even a little.

You want genuine help?  I. Am. Your. Girl.  And it’s not just because I feel a moral obligation, it’s because I’m a sister.  And family sticks together. I won’t help when your toxicity is seeping into my life, but I will help when you want to stop being toxic.

This is that time.

And yet, some very KEY people in Jason’s life, are absent.  And it’s wrong.

There are no two ways about it, it is wrong.

This is my opinion. I own it. It’s wrong.

It’s wrong to skip out NOW, when he needs you most.

Okay, so there’s my anger, and I have to move on from it……….

Because, what I want to feel, what is important for me to feel, is the absolute JOY in the depths of my being, for my brother.  I feel joy for him.

No matter what, when he is helping himself, I will be there for him.  It’s what I CAN do, and therefore, it’s what I SHOULD do.

Amen.

I’m going to take a nap.

A not-at-all crazy Shrink

P.S. In the car ride to the treatment facility, 4 hours away, my brother said to my husband (it was just the two of them in the car), “I’ve been to AA before. I guess it didn’t stick.”  It’s good to see he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

Related articles

• The Saddest Story (theorris.com)
• How Drugs and Alcohol Affect a Family (addictionts.com)
• Review: Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (fatbooks.org)
• Addiction (infinitedive.wordpress.com)
• Breaking The Bottle: Part Trois (johnbalaya.wordpress.com)
• You: A&E’s ‘Intervention’ returns with more pain – Macomb Daily (macombdaily.com)

Dear Universe,

Hello, and thank you for your abundance, kindness, and ability to always provide exactly what I need at exactly the right time, almost always.

I have to put the “almost” in there, because I think there’s been a slight mix-up.

You see, yesterday, Ivey took two 2-hour long naps. In fact, one nap was 2.5 hours. She ate well all day, she played well, and then she slept. Like a baby. You know, like babies should sleep: Soundly, long, and hard.

Oh, thank you, Dear Universe, for providing this very wonderful sleep time to Ivey. The poor one has bags under her eyes from being so tired, as you well know.

But, Universe, there’s been a mistake.

You see, I worked yesterday. Long, hard hours. In fact, when Ivey woke up early yesterday at 7:00am, we played hard until I left for work at 10:00am. And then, I am told, she went down effortlessly for a nap, and resided in her sleeping state for, well, 2 hours!

And then she awoke, and played, and ate, and then slept again!

In 7.5 months, this child has never, ever taken two 2-hour naps. She rarely takes one 2-hour nap, nevermind TWO of them in THE EXACT SAME DAY.

And so, you may be wondering, what is the problem here?

In fact, you probably aren’t wondering. You already know. And you’re laughing at my plight, aren’t you?

Dear Universe, oh wise he, she, it that I love to call on during these times of woe, there has been a mix-up.

I wasn’t HOME to experience the joy of those two 2-hour naps yesterday. I was working. Remember? I left at 10:00am, and I got home at roughly 9:00pm.

Oh, how I love my job, and I am thankful for the gift of being able to assist people in the way that I do. I long to hear their stories of woe, their hardships, and their pleas for help. I love offering my knowledge, my education, and my giving heart to them in all the ways I have graciously obtained myself through the years. Paying it forward, if you will. You know this about me.

Except that, after working for 11 hours straight, I am … oh so tired. So tired, that, I, too, would enjoy two 2-hour naps. In fact, I would enjoy one 2-hour nap. Or, one 3-hour nap. I would, in fact, enjoy a nap.

The mix-up here, as you may see, is that I wasn’t home to ENJOY Ivey taking a blissful nap. I was slaving away in my comfy chair, my tail end developing butt sores, if I may be so bold, hearing story after story of sadness, anger, loneliness, guilt, shame, anxiety, fear…and for what, Universe? To be graced with Climbing Ivey all day today? To chase her all day as she has an incessant need to walk even though she is yet a wee infant who should only be sitting and… taking long 3 hour naps each and every day?

Alas, the day is young. It is yet 8:00am as I write you with my own story of woe, and there is still hope. And, as you do provide with exactly what I need at exactly the right time, might I gently suggest that today, I might possibly need…a nap?

Oh abundant, gracious, loving One, do not think I am questioning your offerings.  Should you think I need to be awake from 6:00am until 10:00pm, constantly moving, crawling, holding, rocking this lovely, loving, baby, then so be it. I will do it, of course. You know me – I am ready for any task.

But…

On the very off chance that there was in fact, a mix-up, would you please be so kind as to correct that mistake, and offer up naps for ME on this day, instead of the babysitter?

From the gracious pits of my being,

Tired Mom Shrink

P.S. Is it possible she was drugged?

Related articles

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• I Vant to Sleep Alone (insanityofmotherhood.com)
• All my love to the sleep-deprived tonight (bluemilk.wordpress.com)

For this post, I’d like to turn your attention to Exhibit A:

http://www.ashrinkslife.com/breastfeeding/

Exhibit A says this:

If I breastfeed for 6 months, which is about all I think I can handle, I will commence on January 27, 2012. I will have breastfed exactly 184 days, which means I have exactly 144 days to go.

As I write this blog post, it is March 5, 2012, and I am still breastfeeding.  Which means you see my point, right?

Today, I am 36 days PAST the day I said I would discontinue the painful act of breastfeeding, so my breasts could go back to normal size and shape (which is nothing at ALL to write home about, and so let me be clear at this juncture that I quite like the size of my breasts while I’m breastfeeding, but they don’t stay that way, and in fact they even fluctuate in size throughout the day based on when feeding time is. Which makes this a moot side note anyway, but I at least wanted to state that for the record. And now you know.).

My desire to stop breastfeeding 36 days ago, which was 144 days from when I wrote my post in Exhibit A above – exactly 6 months to the DAY when Ivey was born, is because I was in so.much.pain.

As I write this blog post, I can still feel the burn of my nipples as Ivey latched on one more time, tears welling up in my eyes as I bite my tongue just WAITING for the pain to stop. And it did, inevitably, until the next feeding that is.  Then would come the burn again.

Okay, so here’s my confession:

I don’t know how to quit.  And how on God’s green earth am I to stop breastfeeding anyway?

See, with my twins, I pumped only which means stopping at 6 months only meant that I just stopped pumping and started giving them bottles of formula instead.  They HATED it. But I was okay with that. And within a week that were eating it just fine.  It took a full 2 months for me to stop producing milk, and I swear a year later I could squeeze a little bit of milk out of one breast. Although maybe that’s just a nightmare that won’t go away.  That journey was PAINFUL.

Which is exactly my point.  How DOES one stop breastfeeding?  It’s not like I’m just going to STOP while Ivey still eats.  I’m not going to just STOP while she looks up at me as if to say, “Milk time?”  It’s not just about the seering pain that happens with weaning.  Man, it HURTS.  You’ll have to trust, if you’ve never weaned that NOT emptying your breast when it’s full of milk is like carrying a canteloupe in your boob that wants to be popped out of a pin hole.

But this isn’t even about the pain of the canteloupe. This is the emotional JOY I get from breastfeeding Ivey.

Okay, I said it.  There’s joy here.

I am experiencing joy with her because there’s only one of her.

I had IMMENSE JOY with my twins, don’t get me wrong.  But so many things about this experience is 100% totally different.  Like dressing her up.  I couldn’t find the time nor inclination with my twins to care about hair bows, patching pants and cute tutus.  Furthermore, I didn’t splurge on any expensive items with them the way I do with Ivey.  Now that I have just ONE baby, I am excited to dress her up like a doll.

Also, I can hold her.  Which sounds strange, because we all hold our babies, yes. But I mean, carry her all.day.long.  Okay, that’s exhausting. I admit it. But Ivey doesn’t have a built-in buddy, so it’s me and her against the world!  I *AM* her buddy.  We go everywhere together, just like Ayla and Lily go everywhere together.

And then there’s breastfeeding her. Which is an experience completely different from my twins, when feeding two at the same time is just not as personable as with Ivey (nevermind that she’s distracted and comes off and on and off and on the breast at least 10 times during her meal, milk smeared all over her face every.single.time.)

The whole experience of having just one baby is really incredible.  I am tearing up just thinking about it…

And so this breastfeeding thing.  Really?  Do I have to stop?  Do I have to stay true to my word and quit just because 180 days ago I was wallowing in self-pity about achy nipples, and couldn’t see the forest for the trees?

I’m quite enjoying breastfeeding, if I do say so myself. I love that I can feed Ivey anywhere, anytime, without interruption of my current activity.  That means, I breastfeed EVERYWHERE, people. In the grocery store, in the car, in the mall, and on the bench at the zoo.

For now, I won’t stop breastfeeding.  I don’t have a desire to stop. I retract my earlier statements that I would remove the boob from Ivey without any input from her whatsoever, and that would be that.  Not today. Most likely not tomorrow. And not for the foreseeable future.

Don’t be surprised if my next breastfeeding post starts with…. “365 days, and still going strong…”  I can’t imagine it any other way.

Related articles

• Moms should breastfeed for a year, says American Academy of Pediatrics (vancouversun.com)
• A Corner Has Been Turned (ashrinkslife.com)

I don’t know quite how we managed to do it, but we turned a corner!  Ivey turned a corner. Here’s the skinny…

Two weeks ago, I decided it was time for her to be in her own bed.  Not a big issue, since I’d setup a bed in there, too.  I was prepared to sleep in there all night, or have Ivey sleep with me in the bed.  Whatever we needed to do to get both of us out of the marital bed, and transition to Ivey’s room.  (There’s story there, too, about a needy husband, but I’ll leave that to you to ponder.)

Ivey slept through the night the first night (and by “through the night” I simply mean, she did not wake up every hour needing to be soothed back to sleep with her pacifier. She still woke up 2-3 times to eat. That’s still progress!).

The second night, she was back to her old ways.  She woke up every hour or two needing to be turned over to her side; her pacifier wedged back into her mouth.

I was so tired – a zombie. I am not kidding. Duct tape crossed my mind.  WHY would this child not GO. THE. FRICK. TO. SLEEP. <—That’s my nice language.  Honestly, I wanted to jab myself in the eyes.  It would have been painful at first, yea. But I would have promptly passed out from the pain, and shipped off to the hospital once someone dialed 911. At the hospital, I’d get sleep. And the recovery would have been a long, long time, I’m sure. And I mean, who could take care of their baby, traipsing up and down the stairs in the middle of the night when they had no eyes?  I couldn’t! So, rest would be inevitable.

Gouging my eyeballs out didn’t seem like the best option. But I can tell you that I had a moment last week where I literally lay on my bed, sat Ivey in the middle of it, and wept. The pillows called to me. The blankets were in a heap and dirty since it’s been…God knows how long…since I’d washed them. I could have wrapped myself up in them, covered my body head to toe, closed my eyes, sank into my pillows, and slept for a good 17 hours straight. Tears fell. My husband watched as I said, “I’m just so, so, so tired. I need a nap. I am so TIRED!” And he said, “Mmm Hmm.” I could have gouged his eyeballs out, too.

I put on my smiley face and went about my day.  But then… it happened.

I had an epiphany!  My HUSBAND and I could take shifts!

I recalled a conversation a friend and I had recently when she said, “My husband used to take the late night shift, and I got to sleep until 4:00am.”  I don’t know what she said after that because I was stuck on the phrase, “…husband took the late night shift.”  Really?  Like, he just said, “Honey, you need the rest. And I can help!  Go, sleep. Dream. Enjoy.”

My husband didn’t say that. But he DID SAY he’d take the late night shift after I said one night, “So, I have a new schedule. We’re working in shifts. You can take before 2am or after 2am. You decide which one you want.”

He stared at me like a deer in headlights. He sat in silence. So I said, “I’m going to take a shower. You let me know when I get out.”

I washed my hair, shaved my legs, shaved my arm pits, and I may have even plucked my chin hairs.  I don’t even remember!  What I do remember is being giddy as I skipped out to the living room and promptly asked, “So?? Which do you choose?” And he said, “Before 2am.”

And with that, I turned on my heels and went to bed! It was 9pm and I was going to DREAMLAND, Suckas!!

When I’d put Ivey to sleep that night, I sat in her room, in silence, as I always do, rocking and rocking and rocking, and she fell asleep promptly asleep in my warm, caressing arms, boob still in her mouth. I looked at her tiny little face, knowing if I swaddled her she would wake up immediately, just like every other night. AND, with my new found freedom (i.e. Husband would be the one putting her back to bed tonight!), I put her in her bed UNSWADDLED.  I’d tried it before but it was a no-go.  Her arms would get to spinning like pinwheels. She couldn’t be stopped!  But tonight….was different. I laid her down, she rolled over onto her belly, and that was that. We turned a corner.

The next morning, I read a text that my husband had sent me in the middle of the night, and it read: “Ivey’s awake and she’s pissed.”

Want to know why I didn’t get that text?  Because I was SLEEPING. Sheesh. That was the whole point! And when he woke up the next morning, I said, “So Ivey woke up, huh?  What did you do?”

He said, “I fed her. She was hungry. But it wasn’t easy because I had to bring her downstairs and make her a bottle, and she was wide awake.”

Awww. Poor baby. That must have been so hard on Ivey.

But since that night. Since my new schedule implementation. Since I decided I would no longer swaddle. Ivey has SLEPT.  I put her in her bed, she rolls over, lays on her tummy, and zonks out. I gaze at her for awhile to make sure she’s breathing. I make sure her nose isn’t buried in the covers. I make sure I can feel her chest moving up and down. And then, I Go. The. Frick. To. Sleep.  And I’m not bothered until AFTER 2am.

Can I get an amen?

Over an out,

Your newly rested Shrink

…are a mark of the beast. I know they are. They get worse with age, and with each new birth.

And what is the answer? Stop aging? Stop birthing? Stop raging hormones? Those hormones keep me sane. The chin hairs make me crazy.

Even worse? Not being able to find my tweezers. And not just any pair will do. I need the ones with the little light at the end. Age. My age giving me hell again. Damnit.

The best gift I could possibly receive would be laser hair removal. I may have to give that to myself though, because my husband wouldn’t thouch this with a 10 foot pole. Which is smart, really.

Today, I had 5 free minutes. Just 5. And it was my chance to attack those chin hairs.  And I couldn’t find my tweezers!  Oh, the horror.

Tweezers are my MUST HAVE beauty product.  What’s yours?

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A previous client sent me am email with the above picture that said this reminded her of me and my “diagrams.”  It was a good laugh, and so true!  And, it so eloquently depicts what I’m feeling RIGHT NOW.  My mind is in “should I or shouldn’t I” mode.

I made a pact to myself once that when I hear a voice of doubt in my head, I will take that as a “No.”  Not maybe, or yes, but no.  I forget that rule.  Or, I override it, thinking that my own pact was silly. I mean, who AM I, God? (Inside joke with my husband.) I talk myself out of my own rational thinking and rule.

The world works so perfectly, it seems. Something cool happened last night, here’s how (okay, I admit, it will be like, really boring to most anyone that reads it, but I still need to purge)…

I was looking through the NPR website trying to find an article I’d stumbled upon on Facebook (read it here, it’s a good one).  I found the article, but then I clicked a link I didn’t mean to click, and a book title flashed up on the screen, “Welcome to Your Child’s Mind.”  And so, of course, I HAD to download that book asap to my Kindle, because I just love going into debt with books and books and books that I get so excited about but couldn’t possibly finish in my lifetime.

I started with a sample of the book (that’s the great thing about Kindle, you can read samples before you decide to buy the whole book – genius.) which started with the Forward, which said this:

“…self-control and other executive functions of the brain (like working memory, flexibile thinking, and resisiting the temptation to go on automatic (UH, ADD, anyone?)) ‘contribute to the development of children’s most important basic brain function: the ability to control their own behavior in order to reach a goal.’ Noting that self-control underlies so many capacities, from socialization to schoolwork, they state that ‘preschool children’s ability to resist temptation is a much better predictor of eventual academic success than their IQ scores.’ … we promote self-control not by making children sit still, chained to their desks, but my encouraging them to play.”

Can I get an amen?

But THEN, here’s where I started seeing signs from the Universe…the forward was WRITTEN by the same author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs.  And why is that a sign?  Because that book was on the Kindergarten teacher’s desk at a little school I just toured where I’m thinking of sending the girls.  AND, it was read almost all the way through.  AND, the teacher said all the things I totally believe to be true about play and learning and learning and play and being chained to desks.

But there’s more…

The friend that went with me to tour the school made mention of the “Mind In The Making” because she went to a book signing / talk of the author of “Einstein Didn’t Use Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn — and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less,” which is sitting on my side table as I type, and at the book signing, the author mentioned “Mind In the Making” as a resource to ALSO read for further review of the same great topic – educating kids and their wonderful brains.

All of these books, which I now have in my possession, thank you very much Kindle, all point to what I believe in my heart and soul and every shred of my being, which is this (from “Welcome To Your Child’s Brain”):

“There is a simple way to summarize much of the research on child development: children grow like dandelions…Children are not passive recipients of parenting or schooling, but active participants in every aspect of their own development.  From birth, their brains are prepared to seek out and make use of experiences that suit their individual needs and preferences. For this reason, brain development requires no special equipment or training, and most children find a way to grow in whatever conditions the world has to offer them…Genes provide the blueprints for your child’s individuality, but the plans are certain to be modified during construction depending on local conditions – not only your actions as parents, but also your child’s culture, neighborhood, teachers, and peers.  All this leads up to the major theme of this book:  your child’s brain raises itself.“

Heavens to Betsy.  I like the sound of that!

So there’s the pact to myself, the signs that tell me it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to educate my own kids, and the voice of one friend that keeps ringing in my head.  She said, “Jennifer, figure out what experience you want your own kids to have, and create that for them.  That’s all you have to do.”

My gut says no, I don’t want to do public school.  The signs all around me tell me I’m on the right track, and the voice in my head is saying, “Fucking do it!!”

And so, guess what I’m going to do?

Yep.

Signed,

Me

P.S. Don’t you just LOVE that visual – dandelions and kids?  I could cry a little bit.

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The jumbled thoughts in my head about the education of my children is all-consuming.  Morning, noon and night I’m thinking of how they should be educated, what schedule I should keep, what curriculum I should use, or whether I should put no thought into these things whatsoever and cart them off to public school like most all other parents.

And I ask myself…

Am I homeschooling because I have something to prove?  Like, I’m too GOOD for public schools?  Like, I think *I* could do a better job teaching my children than a trained, qualified, degreed teacher?  What gives me the right to think I can do this?

Here are my perceptions of public schools:

• Kids spend all day, 8am to 3pm, in a building packed with other kids, vying for the attention of their teacher.  They rarely get one-on-one attention. They are just part of a bigger whole, and shuffled around from here to there, all day long.
• The curriculum is chosen for the children without any input from the parents.
• Little time to play.  In fact, play time can be used as a bargaining tool for kids.  ”Since you threw dirt in Sally’s hair, you won’t be able to play outside any longer.”
• Field trips (i.e. real life adventures) are few and far between, and sort of a joke.  When you’re herding 10s of kids, can it really be educational?
• Girls begin to worry about their clothing or their friends way more than the education they receive.  Just taking a stroll through the local mall makes me want to lose my lunch.
• There are extra curricular activities like art, choir, band, and sports – something all children need!
• Teachers are teaching to the test.  Without high test scores, the schools don’t get funding, and without funding, there are low-quality teachers, out date textbooks, too-little textbooks, special programs and salaries are kept low.  But…aren’t these pretty true even without the test scores?
• There is little freedom to just BE.  The kids are shuffled here and there all day long, which translates as lack of imaginative playtime!  Don’t kids need to play?
• If your child doesn’t fall within the bell curve, there’s a problem – for the child, parents, teachers and everyone involved!  One-on-one teaching to the child does not exist; therefore, no child is unique.
• There’s too. much. homework!  Children are already at school for hours on end, only to be sent home with loads and loads of homework!  Kids aren’t able to just. be. kids. *sigh*

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