To wean or not to wean.

With Samina's first birthday rapidly approaching (!!!!), I suddenly find myself in the eye of an important decision: weaning her from breastfeeding or not.

Do I continue? Or do I stop? And, if I stop, why am I stopping - because *I* want to, because *she* is ready? Or because people in general are telling me I should stop?

Before Samina, I was of the "if the baby can ask for it, it's time to stop" camp. Not that I really thought about it all that much, but if I saw an older child breastfeeding, or that famous cover of TIME magazine, I would have done a double-take or even, well, cringed on the inside.

But then I started breastfeeding. And now I ask myself questions like "Why did I cringe?" and "What is it about nursing that offends the general public so much, or at the very least gives them enough angst to have an opinion about it?"

I've already started getting unsolicited input about it. My mother-in-law has warned me about becoming one of "those" women who nurses for over a year. At a round-table discussion at Samina's daycare, a couple of the other moms declared that nursing for over a year would make me miserable. At a recent check-up with my ob/gyn, she raised an eyebrow when I said I was still nursing. A lot of people seem to have an opinion on this topic.

And me? What do I want?

When I got home from the round-table discussion, I cried. Because I'm not ready. Because Samina's not ready. Because those words, those opinions and judgements, are hurtful. And, mainly, confuse me. Andrea and I have put so much stock in going with our guts - with trying to follow a *natural* path with our daughters - that it doesn't make any sense to me...it feels right. It feels ok. It feels perfectly natural. And, while I do have a lot of thinking to do, because I really do believe that only when I wean her will we all finally sleep through the night, I also already know the answer. At least for now. Because, honestly, there are so few ways that we as parents are able to soothe our children, to give them the comfort they desperately crave. And she will only be little once, and I will only be able to give her this particular gift once, at a time in her life when all she longs for and needs is wrapped up in my role as a parent. So what is the sense in suddenly cutting her off?