Project Tit Withdrawal

Countdown to the final wean has commenced. Chas, for many moons now a nightime nurser only, is getting turned down when he wakes up throughout the night. Reasons this makes my life crazy, non-blog-posting hard:

- You know the snotty old line about how if a kid is old enough to ask for it, he's too old to be nursing? Well, my poor, articulate kid can wail, "Nuuuurse!" in the night in a way that would break the staunchest Ferberizer's* heart.

- Ultra-clinginess during the daytime. "Handdown shirt! You, Charlie,** want handdown shirt!" Constant admiration and admiration of my tits, all day, from junior. He wants to make it clear that, no, really, I totally love them. They should not be going out of style. Can't I just keep one? Look, mama, if you let me hold them both, I can make them dance. "Nur-nur dance! Silly!"

Totally, mom, you gotta let me keep these.

- Nursing him back to sleep at night wakes me up for ten minutes. Singing/cuddling him back to sleep can take anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to oh-well-I-guess-we're-awake-now at four in the morning. I envy the mothers of newborns, for whom this zombie state of sleeplessness has at least the virtue of novelty.

Oh, ye not to far off day when I ditch my beloved son to sleep with his daddy and betake myself to the spare room bed, to loll in deep and dream-filled slumber, ignorant of, or at least ignoring, the pathetic screams of "Mama! Mama! Nono Dada! NUUUURRSE!" from the floor below. That night is nigh, my darling little leech. That night is fucking nigh.


*If you have a kid, you know what this means. If you don't, you don't need to. Still curious? May I introduce you to my friend, Mr. Google?
** What he calls himself. Kind of like "Watashi wa." "I, myself." "You, Charlie." I very much dig it.

I used to smoke like a fiend while writing.

I couldn't get anything done on any project - personal, academic, journalistic - unless I could be smoking. I was usually a pack-a-week, social smoker, but not when I had an asssignment due. It's the only time I ever chain smoked - well, that and, when I was an actor, during technical dress rehearsals, which are hellish, living-envy-the-dead days and everyone's on something.

I haven't had a cigarette since I was about three weeks pregnant; I quite suddenly went off them, and had no idea why. Since the kid's been around, there've been a few times I've been out, and my Fella steps outside for one of his increasingly occasional smokes, and I'll think, Yeah, that'd be nice, without any real urge.

I've recently been having a bit of writer's block, and I've only just figured out that the block corresponds exactly to my finishing the easter candy. I can see the office waste-paper basket from here, and it's full of wrappers of one kind or another. I have a caramel in my mouth as I write this; I bought a bag in anticipation of writing a few record reviews tonight.

I have become a total sugar junkie.