happy birthday and happy new year

Benjamin turned three months old today, and to celebrate, we took him to Babies R’ Us and bought him a baby toy. He even let me walk him around in the front pack for a few minutes before he got angry. We rang in the New Year at the Bartletts. Ryan and I (well, mostly Ryan) won Trivial Pursuit and Ben woke up almost exactly at midnight, red-faced and screaming for food. (By the way, he sleeps to the sounds of the rainforest because he is so very spoiled.) Every so often, Ben goes through periods where he sleeps almost all day, wakes up pissed off to eat, and goes back to sleep. Then, after a couple of days of this, he wakes up a different baby, and the change is tangible. He starts looking around a little more. He holds the rattle longer and puts it in his mouth. He went through this cycle again this week, and I believe the new skill that will emerge is the ability to roll over. Because he FINALLY lets me place him on his tummy. He FINALLY let us photograph him smiling. He even rolled over today (though I’ll admit he was on an angle already).

I’ve been going through some depression because my hormones are completely out of whack due to weaning. I’m wearing cold cabbage leaves on my rock-hard, throbbing boobs and I’m wondering if the milk will go away or if my boobs will simply explode. Either way, I’ll be out of my misery soon. I’m glad I made the decision to wean him. It’s been relatively stress-free for Ben, as he eats anything that’s given to him, but it’s been kind of a rocky road for me emotionally. Today was the first day that I’ve felt normal in over a week, and I think it is because I’m exercising vigorously every day (thanks for the advice Mary). Back to boobs, I came across a website today that showed pre-pregnancy boobs and post-pregnancy boobs. It was just a mix, you know, of photographs of average people’s boobs. It was a breastfeeding website, not a sexual one, and it was very fascinating and a tad distressing. What was worse, as I scrolled down, I found a box on the side of the website that contained a message about how if you formula-feed your baby, you are setting him up to be twice as likely to die. This is a totally manipulative use of statistical information, almost to the point of being fanatical propaganda, and it really made me angry. Although nearly 60% of women stop breastfeeding by the time their babies are 3 months old, no one talks about it. There are reasons that people stop that go beyond being poor and uneducated. For me, there was a psychological factor, and I haven’t seen anyone anywhere discuss this in any meaningful way. In fact, the very real depression I’m experiencing is only dealt with in a cursory manner. Anyway, sorry to rant, but I’m going to definitely write more about this and try and get it published somewhere, because, it’s really absolute bullshit.

I’ve gotta go now—It’s nearing midnight and I’m gonna wake Ben up and feed him before I go to bed. But I want to say just one thing: This new year, in the wake of the giant wave that killed so many people, I’m so grateful to have so much love in my life, and so sorry for those who’ve had that taken away from them. My new year’s resolution is to not take what I have for granted.