Night Weaning, A Critical Mass

We wake.

nightafternightafternightafter

My eyes drag crescent-shaped shadows

beneath them--

the dark smudged proof that

I have an infant child.

We are So Sick of It.

In a way I never thought we would be--

rising to meet his cries

hourafterhourafterhour

Last night,

I got scared when

neither of us wanted to comfort him--

You curled fetal on the floor;

My body and breast felt resent as

I nursed him anyway.

I whined into the dark to your dark shadow on the floor,

"I don't want to act emotionally, I don't want to make decisions

out of exhaustion. It feels too cold."

We discussed again

letting him cry.

I fear the intangible. I fear his personality

hinges on our exceptional attentiveness thus far.

I fear ruining him. Scaring him. Scarring him.

I don't want to act without Sureness.

Do I want to let him wail it out? I don't know. (But not really.) But

What I do know is

I'm ready to stop nursing in the middle of the night

Like so sick of it I want to cry because I haven't had a good night sleep since October 4, 2010.

What I don't know is

How to get there.

Insert suggestions here.

We. Can't. Keep. On. Like. This.

The Greatest Show on Earth

I had this whole post ready to write last night in my head. It was all about how fabulous I am, you know, as a mom. How we, my lovely husband and I have our baby down pat because we had a couple of days in a row where he did what we wanted of him:

1) Not out of sleep until 8:30 a.m. when the alarm goes off and
2) Two lovely naps through the day, adding up to approximately five hours of daytime sleep and
3) Down to sleep at 9:30 p.m.

We've been kind of working our schedule with him lately. We've been trying to find a balance between:

1) What he naturally tends to do and
2) What we'd like him to do

And that is how we came up with the aforementioned times noted above. And once we sat down and wrote these things on paper, we figured, They Must Be.

And so, off we went--running into the sunflower-covered meadow of parenthood with our whistles blowing such joyous tunes as we worked our schedule. And the sun shone brightly upon us. Yes it did. Oh yes it did.

As a few days went by, our little boy just went with us like a little perfect angel baby. And so we figured we had Cracked The Code. And we were Like Totally Awesome. And probably The Best Parents That Ever Lived.

And last night I wrote the best blog in my head about how Like Totally Awesome We Are.

And then,

Today Happened.

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

(Needless to say, when my angel baby awoke at 5 a.m. without any urgency to return to angel baby sleep, the rest of the day followed in a similar non-conforming to our perfectly laid plans way. Naps were 20 minutes or worse, 5. Nighttime was a fussy mess. etc. etc. etc. and so on and so forth.)

That blog post will be in Draft form for awhile. And as parents,

So will we...