I’m down to nursing Chiara twice a day, in the early morning and immediately after I come home. I’ve managed to wean her from her nurse-to-sleep session around 8 pm, which was a relief and much easier than I thought it would be. But these last two sessions are going to be near-impossible without a lot of tears shed, perhaps some of them my own.

Chiara is very attached to nursing. She nurses for comfort and to relax, which is something I promoted to her when she was really young, so all I can say is, I should be paid for my marketing skills! When she got her first few immunizations at the pediatrician’s, I brought her to my breast immediately. When she fell off the couch head first, then feet over head, landing face down on our rough sisal carpet, I picked her up, brought her to my breast, and stroked her head until she calmed down and drifted off to sleep. So, the fact that she burrows into my bosom, lifting up my sweater, then pulling off the straps of my camisole to get to my breast the moment I come through the door at the end of the workday is not unexpected. But, now that I’ve changed course and no longer want her to think of nursing as an essential part of her life, I’m frustrated!

Nonetheless, the weaning, although excruciatingly slow, is not going badly. Yesterday evening when I came home, she began her nursing demands, which consist of repeating in a plaintive tone, “Mamma? mamma? mamma?” the Korean word for “food.” I sit down on the ottoman and raise her to my lap. She starts heavy, rapid breathing that gets faster as she grabs and claws at my clothing and gets closer to my breast.

Finally, she reaches her goal and relaxes her body into me as she nurses hungrily. I can hear her swallowing and feel her temperature rise and her head get warm and damp with perspiration. She doesn’t settle in exactly, however, as for many months now she has been what I call grazing, alternating from breast to breast every two minutes or so. It’s irritating, but somehow I’ve gotten used to it and just move her body from side to side on cue.

But on this night, she stops after nursing once from each breast. She sits up on my lap, facing me and looks deeply in my eyes. She seems to be questioning me. “Can I keep nursing?” she seems to be asking me silently. I meet her gaze and am so moved by my daughter. For several days now I’ve been cutting her off before she’s been ready, because the more we cut down on the number of nursing sessions, the longer she’s been making each session, stretching on past an hour in the morning. At that hour, I’m nursing half-asleep and lying in bed so it isn’t the strain it would be at any other time of day, but makes me worried for my baby and whether I’m letting her learn the wrong lessons through my behavior.

Oh, how much longer will Chiara be the sweet chubby-cheeked, brown-eyed, babyfat wonder that she is? How much longer will our communications be through grunts, tugs, murmurs and spontaneous acts of lucidity like this? I can only look at her and say, “Chiara, yes, you can nurse a little longer, but just a little bit, okay?”

She leans forward, then, and nurses again, a little stiffly at first. Then she swings her legs to the side and nestles sideways in my lap. The familiar position I first cradled her into many months ago when she was just a few hours old and could nearly fit in the space between my palm and the crook of my elbow.

How much longer will I have moments like this? I feel they are fleeting so I savor this one. My baby and me.