Hello Downward Slide

Yesterday I turned 35. Does any age say "adulthood" with more resounding authority than 35? As much as I hate to admit it, I guess I am now a real adult. Or at least people expect me to be a real adult. I don't know if that will be a bigger problem for me or for them. I'll keep you posted. I am not alone in considering this a milestone age. The founding fathers took 35 to be an age of maturity and responsibility. As of yesterday morning I am now old enough to make a bid for the presidency. Not that I will. Probably for the best too, but I digress.
For some reason 35 has hit a cord with me. I didn't feel old when I turned 30. I have only occasionally felt old since then, and usually it isn't age related. For example, I have felt old when I realized my babysitter was born just before I graduated high school. Yikes. I am old enough to be her unwed teenage mother. If she had one, that is. At any rate, I hadn't felt old. In fact, quite the opposite. I usually feel young, then have to reset my frame of reference when I realize 34 is not especially young. Still, for whatever reason it sounds so much younger.
Well, as I start checking the next age bracket on questionnaires, I have to come to terms with the fact that we all get older. Each day is one more step in our slow march toward death. And on that happy note, I'm off to mourn the loss of my youth.

Confessions of a Breast Pumper

I have to come to terms with the fact that I have actually quit pumping at work. It wasn't a decision I made, just a lack of time, conflicts with meetings and a general inability to pull it together for my three pumping sessions a day. I had a promotion at work right when I came back from maternity leave and it was a struggle to keep my pumping sessions free from conflicts, even though they were in my public calendar. In my rush to leave the house in the morning with two kids, lunches, bottles, required daycare bedding and an assortment of favorite trains (Big Dog's, not mine) I'd forget pump parts. I started skipping one session, then two, then I'd miss a whole day. Then two days. Well it has now been over a week. I guess that is quitting.
I had committed to pump for my son's first year. He is 11 months now. His birthday is Feb 9th. I almost made it, just fell a bit short.
We still nurse at home and on weekends. I plan to continue this. I guess I just feel like I lacked the willpower to keep it going at work.
Either way, I know he will be just fine. He got a lot more breastmilk than many kids do, and I was a formula fed baby and turned out OK. I know that it doesn't make me a failure as a mother or anything that extreme.
I think part of it is the realization that my last baby is growing up and I am letting one of the infant rituals go before I thought I would.
Who knew I'd feel slightly sad at the thought of putting my brutal titty tugging machine away for good?
Bye bye breast pump. I knew you far too well, but our relationship has come to an end.

My Anti-Resolutions.

I have decided to try something new this year. Instead of making a huge list of resolutions to change all of my undesirable traits, (then ultimately failing to change them, beating myself up over my failures and adding that lack of follow through to my list for next year) I have decided to have a smaller list of what I am calling "anti-resolutions". Here they are:

In 2007,
-I resolve not to set unrealistic expectations for myself.
-I resolve not to add things to my plate of tasks unless I really want to do them.
-I resolve not to be disappointed if I don't find time to get to them.
-And most of all, I resolve to worry less about all of the things I didn't get done, and focus on the huge list of things I already do right.

Screw the magazine articles telling me my house isn't clean enough or my thighs aren't thin enough. Yeah, my house is a bit of a disaster, and my thighs are a little on the "generous" side, but really, I am not likely to follow their "5 Easy Steps to an Orderly Kitchen" or "10 Fool Proof Moves for Movie Star Thighs". Let's be honest, these are not my top priorities and even if they were, I'm not much of a rule follower. If I get around organizing the closets, it will on my own terms damn it! (And probably only because I have been crushed in an avalance of sweaters, but that's really a whole different issue.) I choose to abstain from a rigerous campaign of personal upheval this year, since I know that ultimately I'll end up in the same place either way. This isn't as defeatist as it sounds, really. I like to think of it as accepting myself as a person with limited time who chooses to shirk the responsibilities and goals set out for me by magazine editors hell bent on making me a better me. I'm just fine the way I am. Or at least that's the story I'm peddling this time around