Nightlight: Face to face

From the August 2022 Newsletter:

My youngest child turned two this summer. I had forgotten how distinct this phase of toddlerhood is. I know the change has been gradual but it feels like it happened overnight. Her legs and neck are a bit longer in their proportions, her desires somehow more mature. She is perceptive and sure of herself. And because she, like her sister, speaks fluidly and with a complexity that belies her age it is easy to forget how little she actually is, except when she is sleeping and her face softens into a shape that I recognize from babyhood, her lips still occasionally pursing and trembling as if she’s dreaming of the boob. Dreaming of me.

In the beginning we are their worlds, occupying even their dreams. Gradually a space grows between us, at first imperceptibly, until suddenly we are face to face, looking at each other and not just at an extension of ourselves. Another limb. Another chamber of our heart. At 2 that change has well begun, both of us alternately relishing the freedom of having more room to grow and move in, and clinging to a wholeness we can’t quite recapture.

In other words, I’m starting to feel ready to wean. Sometimes. And my child is fine with this sometimes, but vehemently not at others.

It isn’t time yet. We both still need this, maybe me more than her since this is likely the last time I’ll share myself so intimately with a baby. But the change is around the corner. Some days I am aware of it the way that Autumn announces itself in an unexpected breeze in August. I’m not here yet, but I’m on my way.

Weaning was not easy last time, nor will it be this time. Even if I am ready. Even if she is ready. I will cry and grieve even as I feel relief, joy and anger. It will contain all the complexities of motherhood. A universe held in a drop of milk.

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