An overlooked anniversary

Forgive my posting insomnia-induced calculations, but it occurred to me tonight as I tossed and turned that Edith and I have just passed a momentous milestone...

February 1, 2008 was Edith's 1,000th day of nursing.

(It was also, if I calculated correctly, the 1,002th day of her life--figuring that there were two days before then that she didn't nurse while I was away at conferences. So we could alternatively celebrate January 30 as her 1,000th day of life. But all in all, that seems less momentous.)

I know there are plenty of readers of this blog who are disbelieving and frankly, a little disgusted at the idea of a walking, talking, storytelling preschooler still nursing. I know there are others of you, who have been privy to the emotional ups and downs of my nursing relationship with Edith, who probably find it rather hypocritical that I'm celebrating it now and who wish I had put an end to Edith's nursing any one of the last half dozen times I lamented I couldn't take it anymore. I know some of you have wanted to nurse your own children longer but found that circumstances made it impossible, who may dislike posts like this. There may even be a few lactivists among you who think 1,000 days is not much to crow about and that a nursing relationship is to be celebrated only when the mother allows the child to choose its end date (even if that's not until second grade).

But right now, in this sleep-deprived moment, I'm feeling pretty proud of us. We've managed this relationship despite the intense pain of the first ten weeks, the multiple hospital consultants who couldn't help with that, the marathon sessions in the early days when nursing comprised 30% of our waking time. We've managed with the growing squirminess, the puncture wound (ah, teeth), the belly-button poking, the belly-buttong scabbing, the prodding and fidgeting, the constant side-switching, the ten-times-a-day routine until last summer. We've managed despite my being a working mother and Edith's having had other daytime care providers much of her life. We've managed the pumping: I managed toting the extra shoulder bag back and forth every day for the first year, the search for private spaces on campus and in archives, the freezer bags, the stockpiling, the daily washing, the weekly sterilizing, the thawing; Edith managed the bottles. We've managed in stores, in church, on the playground, at weddings, and just about everywhere else.

It won't be another 1,000 days, lactivists notwithstanding. But still, I'm pretty proud of us.