Feeling Like a Wean-er

In 4 hours, at 5:30 A.M., Rain will have gone two days without nursing.

We've decided to wean her, and I feel--what's the word?--oh yeah, nauseous.

They forgot to mention the whole weaning part in the breastfeeding class I took before Rain was born.

If I had any sense back then, I would've asked my instructor this very basic, almost obvious question: how will a child react when you take away the most comforting thing she knows which you have trained her to use since the day she was born?

If I had given it any thought, I would've realized right away that the child will either try to kill herself or make me want to kill myself.

For almost 48 hours, I've had little contact with Rain. Oh, we've been in the same room most of the time, but my sister-in-law (brave soul), my sister, and Tim have all entertained Rain and distracted her to keep her from focusing on the sinister truth: her nursing days are over.

Rain's been absolutely awesome about things for the most part. She's accepted all the constant attention and not made too much of a deal of being passed around. For a few minutes today, though, things almost went to pot. We were playing in her room, and she accidentally fell against my chest. The lights in her eyes flicked on like, "Hey ... wait a minute! Those are mine!"

She started clawing at my shirt, frantic, as if she knew what game we had all been playing at for the past two days. She was a screamin' and cryin', so what did we do?

What all modern parents do, of course: PACIFY. We threw her into a bathing suit and off she went to her new baby pool in the backyard. She quickly forgot about Mommy, but with another 24 hours to go to get 3 days of weaning completed, Mommy sure didn't forget about her.