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Toward a new relationship

It seems my electric pump took pity on me. It up and broke on me last week. One day - pumping, however meager the results. The next - losing suction, and then refusing to pump more than three times in a row. Turning the pump on and off, over and over again, was not doing it for me.

It was the kick in the butt I needed. For the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking it's time for MrMan and I to forge a new relationship. One that's not reliant on milk and the boob. But with the various other changes going on, such as spending our days apart, it seemed like too much. I envisioned a half-bald son - like the child on DrPhil a while ago, whose parents decided to wean her and get her out of their bed when she hit twelve months old. So she pulled her hair out. Or maybe I feared a half-bald me, responding poorly to my child's tears as I denied him the one thing that, in his almost sixteen months of life, he never seems to tire of.

But the pump broke. I'm not going to shell out several hundred dollars for a replacement, especially since it will soon sit on the shelf for a while. And the manual pump was giving even more depresssing results than the electric one. So, when we're apart, MrMan will have a bottle of soy milk. I'm not too keen to make him reliant on a bottle, but I figure it's a transitional thing. (In case you're wondering, no, we're not vegans - he and I - but cow's milk is a weird thing to me. I'll do the milk products, but I'm not into drinking that which is meant for calves.) And when we're together in the daytime, I'm keeping him busy and keeping us out and about, so he doesn't have time to think about the boob. It means missing out on some of our snuggling, but I figure that will return.

A year ago, I was in the mode where I was counting down the months until MrMan hit one year old and I would stop nursing him. Not constantly, because nursing is something I strongly believe in, and have enjoyed for the most part. But there were times when I was frustrated with the constant milk leaks and feeling "tethered" and waking up feeling drained (which I guess I was, literally). Somewhere along the way, things evolved and I stopped counting the months because I knew we wouldn't stop nursing at twelve months. I'm guessing Sam's arrival helped. As did MrMan's transition toward solid foods.

But I've recently started feeling it was time to wean him. Maybe it's my continued weight loss. Or his trying to pull my shirt up when my hands are full and we're walking down the street. Or just the feeling that I'm ready, and that he is too, even if he doesn't realize it. Yesterday, I boxed up both pumps (in case the electric one returns to life), the majority of the bottles, and the food grinder. I figure in a few weeks time, we'll start to tackle the nighttime nursing. Maybe by the time he turns 18 years months old, we'll have figured out this new milk-free relationship.