Unwellness

weaned

So here's what happened:

Two and a half weeks ago, Beck was coming down with a cold and had some mysterious cold sores. He would never let me see them, but his teachers kept smothering him in Vaseline and I frankly believe that he allows them to see things he just won't let me mess with. So fine.

Latching just wasn't going well for him - it seemed to hurt and it was hard to breathe, as it always is when he is congested. So fine.

We were doing this thing where he'd try to latch and then get frustrated so I would ask him if he wanted to try the other side and he would grin and switch sides. And get frustrated.

But instead of going all ballistic like normal, he just said, "It not working." And then, "No, dat one not working eeder."

Each time he would try less hard. Until we were quickly at a place where he would lightly brush his lips past the nipple before throwing up his hands in this strange mockery of the whole endeavor, saying faux-perplexed-like, "It not working! Let me twy dis one. No, it not working eeder!"

And then he added this little gem, "I twy and I twy and I twy but it not working! I go in my bed."

And with that, we were weaned. Within 2 days he wasn't even asking.

I would never in a million years believe that this child would have weaned himself. I remember, as I entered my second year of nursing (and then my third), that I would read that kellymom site and wonder about whether to wean him or how it would ever happen. And there were all these studies and things that talked about how the majority of kids self-wean somewhere between 2 and 3. And I GUFFAWED at this. I seriously did not believe that would EVER be Beck. I thought I would be prying him off me screaming when it came time to wean so he could attend my school next year (not wanting to risk him, you know, latching on while passing me in the hallway - can you say awk-ward!?).

But here we are. It was sudden. It was rather unwelcome, what with the new toddler bed situation and my new, total lack of ability to lull him into drowsiness. But it is a relief that it was easy and his idea. It is a relief, of sorts, to have my body back so that I can contemplate things like prescription drugs and a tattoo.

I definitely need a tattoo now, folks.

Current front-runner:

But something like this might be good, too:

 

Still. The relief is pretty small. The larger part is all this headachy grumpy sad sad sadness. I am holding you all to your word that it will go away within a few weeks. Right now it just feels achingly separate and lonely.

If anyone had told me three years ago that I would breastfeed for two and a half years and then cry out of the blue constantly when it was over... I would probably have punched that person the nose.

Or maybe just not believed it.

Did I mention the grouchy, violent outbursts?

please spread the word

i seem to be sad

I am soooooo working around the edges of the issue this week. Crying over all the wrong things. But here is a list of those things.

There is all this death a few steps removed from me lately - a co-worker's husband, another's great-aunt, a high school acquaintance.

I am feeling frustrated at work, as though I have come up against a totally imaginary brick wall of my own invention and as though everything I have been working on all year is misguided and impossible.

I suddenly realized I am still being peer freaking reviewed. Another round to go before the thing is finished in April.

It's taking forever for our crib to sell because the lovely old-timey Canadian company that made it went out of business and no one wants to trust it now. And there's a big shelf in the minimal hall outside our bedroom waiting for someone stronger than I to come along and help Wes move it to the basement. Our dishes aren't getting done speedy fast lately because we are both exhausted. The house feels yuckier than normal, disorganized. We have an extremely low tolerance for this around here. It makes us cranky.

The getting of financial aid for Beckett to attend my school was a far more hideous and vulnerable-feeling process than I expected and left me feeling exposed and raw walking around my workplace. And I get to do it every year.

There are a lot of fun conferences I want to attend and I can't.

Um. What else? I have to work on Saturday but there is supposed to be a snowstorm so I highly doubt anyone will come to the event and this will be awful.

I hate winter. My body hurts like crazy. I need to do something about it but everything seems to cost money we do not have.

But I could get a Flexeril prescription pretty easy. I could. But I haven't. I can't even talk about it.

The reason I cannot even approach the whole situation is the reason I can take the Flexeril now. It is also the reason I can (and do) have a beer each night at 5 pm lately.

Er. Um.

Blergh.

Beckett seems to have weaned himself.

Twelve days ago.

I can't go on typing about it. A deeper explanation of my emotions will have to come in the next post.

Blergh.

my top ten

Seeing as I was threatened with violence if I did not reveal, I am doing so promptly as the polls closed.

1. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

2. Holes by Louis Sachar

3. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

4. The Trolls by Polly Horvath

5. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede

6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

7. No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

8. Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry

9. Mandy by Julie Edwards

10. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Books That Were in the Running and Would Potentially Make My Top 20 or 30
Blubber or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Island of the Aunts or Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson
Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Time Stops for No Mouse by Michael Hoeye
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
(Golden Compass) by Philip Pullman (IS my number 2 or 3 favorite book but is really considered more YA so I didn't include - may have been a mistake, as if enough include it in their list, it might have gone on)

ten things about my top ten (middle grade) books

So this library/book blog that I love, Fuse #8, is doing this amazing poll to round up the Top 100 Middle Grade Readers (chapter books you read in elementary and early middle school, up to age 12 or so) of all time. And everyone is invited to send a list of your top ten books, in order, to the blogger to be compiled into the big list. It is awesome. She did it with picture books last year but the chapter books will be much less predictable. You only have a day left to participate in this extremely teacher/librarian/author-centric activity.

Anyway, this other cool blog posted a fun list about her top ten - she didn't give away the books she voted for but posted information about the books. I decided this looked fun to copy.

1. Like the list I am copying, one author is male and nine are female.

2. Two of the books have been made into mainstream movies, but I only saw one of them.

3. Half of the books were things I read over and over as a child. The other half I found in graduate school or my school library internship.

4. Four of the books are part of various series, though two others have sequels or related books.

5. Two of the ten were published in 1999. None are newer than that. The oldest book was published in 1962.

6. The top three are all Newbery Medal winners. They cover a span of 36 years (though two of them are only 4 years apart).

7. I read the tenth book on the list 27 times in a row when I was seven years old. Most children do not read it at seven years old, though.

8. I read the fourth book on this list to my Fourth Graders every single year.

9. I consider the second book on this list to be one of the finest examples of plot I have ever read, in a kid or adult book.

10. I never owned a copy of the seventh book on this list. I used to check it out of the library over and over but could never remember the title but I knew just where it was in the kid's section (a true librarian already). Many years later, during my internship with the librarian who is now a close friend, I walked into her library and saw it sitting there and knew immediately it was that book whose title I could never remember. And then she told me about how she had also loved it as a child and then forgotten its name and then refound it when she first started working in children's books. And then we were bonded forever. Which is what happens with awesome books.

something that drives me crazy and something that drove Wes crazy

My crazy-maker:

Does anyone else see it? I will give you a minute.

Yes. That book is fricking out of Dewey Decimal order. Kudos for putting the SuperWhy characters in the correct, 398.2 section of the library. That is where fairy tales are found. But OH MY GOD it makes me cringe each and every time we start the show (which is OFTEN) because WHY IS THAT BOOK OUT OF ORDER? Who is not shelf-reading the Super Why library? You may claim "realism" or something, I suppose. You may claim real libraries, my own included, are rarely in perfect order thanks to idiots and children. But those excuses will not sway me. This is just wrong wrong wrongity wrong wrong.

---------------------------------------------

Last night, I realized mid-diatribe that it was the second night in a row that my pillow talk with Wes had focused entirely on this week's Apple announcement. My hopes, my dreams, my fears. Each night as I went to sleep, I wanted nothing more than to hash them all over with my beloved. He, however, found this strangely irritating. I cannot imagine why.

"Honey, I am so excited for the announcement. I wonder what it will look like. I wonder what it will do. Do you think it will really kill the Kindle? Do you think it will have word processing? Do you think it will team up with the New York Times? Maybe it will save the publishing industry! Just think of it...!!!"

"Good night," he said forcefully, putting in his ear plugs, pulling down his eye mask.

I texted (or can breathless Apple excitement count as "sexting"?) him as I watched the closest thing I could get to a livefeed (streaming, updating bloggish quotes/posts with photos).

"IPAD!" I texted.

"Ushering in a new age of digital media!" I texted.

"Can we talk about it tonight in bed?" He texted.

I will state for the record, though, that HE was the one who immediately wrote I WANT IT after viewing the video.

Which I assume you have seen. But just in case you haven't YOU SHOULD.

orange

FYI: all photo credits, unless I boast otherwise, are always, always Wes'