On Friday, it will be 8 months (counting months from the 12th to the 12th) until this new baby will be here. On one hand, it seems like an eternity - a reality that I can't quite imagine. Yet, on the other, I think back to where I was 8 months ago - February of this year. It doesn't seem like all that long ago. Owen was 6 months old. I thought he was so big, and he was, but he was also so small. And another 8 months from now, Owen will be 22 months old and this little seed growing - oh-so-rapidly - will be here and our family will have gone from 3 to 4.
I always said I was going to let Owen self-wean, but I'm wondering how that is going to work. I started reading and researching tandem nursing and while it seems like it would work, I'm just not sure. I can see how it would limit jealousy and it would help Owen and this new baby to bond. I can see how it would be good. I also can see how it would be judged. And that scares me. I already hesitate to nurse Owen when we are out - I read and hear comments about how "mother's nursing toddlers are disgusting" and so on and so forth. And I - I get scared. I get scared that someone will judge me and not like me or think poorly of me. Because I'm that mom. I'm already that mom. The one who cloth diapers. The one who still nurses her 14 month old. I don't know that I can handle being that mom who does all the things I already do, also tandem nurses her almost 2 year old and her newborn. Yet, at the same time - I can't imagine taking away something that is clearly still so important to Owen. I can't imagine making him deal emotionally with all of these transitions without the comfort that he's known his entire life. Who knows, maybe he will self-wean when my milk changes or maybe he won't and tandem nursing will be one of the best experiences of my life or maybe it won't and I'll wean him whether he likes it or not.
It's amazing the fear and guilt and anxiety that a such a significant part of being a mother. No matter what I do, I'm worried that the other option would have been better. There is always someone there to say that this decision or that decision is best or worst. That if you do that you will scar your child and negatively impact his/her life forever and then there is someone saying the same thing about the opposite approach! No matter what you do, there is someone ready to tell you how wrong you are. I'm left feeling like I don't fit into any group - sure we cloth diaper and try to feed him organic, we made his own baby food until he started eating almost all table food (now we supplement with pouches of baby food), but we also followed most of the tenets of Babywise. We babywear, but we also cry it out. We don't fit with attachment parents or their opponents. I gave birth in a hospital, but did not use any pain medication and plan to do the same again.
I don't fit in. I'm a dabbler. I do a little of one philosophy and a little of another. For a long time, I felt like that made me wrong, that I was being sneaky - taking what I felt was the best of each of the sides and finding a middle ground that works for me and my family - but now, I realize that dabbling is probably the best approach. Instead of being trapped with pieces of a philosophy that don't fit our family, we used our judgement and did what we felt was right, and maybe that's the way to avoid the pitfalls that each side accuses the other of inflicting on their children. Maybe this will provide Owen and Bean (#2) with the flexibility and balance that they will need to grow into well rounded adults, who will be able to roll with the punches and handle change. Or maybe they won't get any of the benefits of any of the philosophies that we are dabbling from, but either way - this is what feels right for my family and I have to have faith that my mothering instincts are God-given and our parenting philosophy is the one that God sees as best for our children. It is what they need. Maybe another child needs one extreme or the other, and mine needs some of each and something in between. Maybe this is the only way that I'll be able to do it and maybe that's okay. Because it has to be.
I have to raise these kids in a way that I can do whether J is at home or work or travelling or just too tired to help. I have to be strong enough to be the mom and sometimes the dad. Because, no matter how much it hurts J there are now and there will always be things he'll miss - and time that I have to get through alone - like the beginning of my labor with Owen (while J was on call) - like the first time Owen had a stomach bug and was really sick and I was sick too and J was halfway across the country at a conference (and he of course got sick when he got back home just as we were recovering). Those are just two examples of the many times that I will have to be a psuedo-single parent. I've always wanted to be in control of everything, yet in becoming a mother, I'm learning more and more how little control I have. I know that God is bigger than me and giving Him control is the best option, because His design is so much bigger, more complex, and more beautiful - than anything I could ever dream of. I don't want to limit my family to my dreams. I want bigger, I want better for them - so, that means I need to let go and let God - but knowing that doesn't seem to make doing it any easier.
