Sometimes it’s 1 AM, sometimes 3:30. Sometimes both. Hold me! Feed me! Love me! Don’t you dare leave me!  It’s exhausting. It drains me, emotionally and literally. I am left the next day having to make bottle after bottle, milked-out.

When we’re on the up and up, his tiny sneakers stay on. People on the street point and smile at his preppy plaid jacket, collar up, hair blowing in the breeze. He giggles on cue, and opens his mouth agreeably to any spoon. His hair smells delicious. We wake up at 6 AM to contented babbling, and by 8 AM he curls up in a ball and snuggles down for a three-hour nap. Errands are ‘adventures’, and daddy is hysterically funny.

So, we look for the upside. New teeth, despite the drama that accompanies them, bring his sweet face closer to boyhood. And the biggest prize at the end of the amazing, incredible, treasured breastfeeding era: no more bras with snaps. No more bras with snaps. No more bras with snaps.