It is okay to cry

I woke up this morning and read today's affirmation:

It is okay to cry.

I thought about this all day. It is okay to cry and I've definitely done my share of crying over the last year. But today I didn't feel like crying. I thought a lot about last January and how much I cried then. I cried when L. was nursing and my nipples hurt. I cried when I had to go back to work. I cried because I was tired. But today was okay. We've come a long way in a year.

J. was home today and he went grocery shopping and cooked dinner and did a lot of the dishes. I ate lunch and napped with L. for the second half of her nap this afternoon. It was a good day and I didn't feel like crying. It was cloudy and gray and I realized how much the sun influences my mood but I still didn't feel like crying. It's supposed to be sunny again on Thursday.

So there I was, thinking about what a good day it had been and how I would write a nice post about how I didn't feel at all like crying today. And then it was time to get L. ready for bed.

L. was a little clingy toward bedtime. She pulled on my clothes while I brushed my teeth, she cried every time I tried to have J. hold her. She had a good dinner, she played with her toys, she nursed several times, she had a clean diaper. All she wanted was for me to hold her and to nurse.

But she didn't just want to nurse--she wanted to do extreme nursing. She wanted to nurse on one side while pulling on my clothes, doing downward dog sideways, and pinching the nipple she was not currently using. When I tried to move the pinching hand, she would pull away (almost taking my other nipple with her), unlatch herself (roughly, I might add) and yell and fight to grab my nipple again. Seriously, you'd think she wasn't able to get milk out of one side without pinching the other.

So we did this for a while. I was getting exhausted when she suddenly hopped off the side of the bed and staggered down the hallway (as only a one year old "drunk on the boob" and half asleep can do) to the living room to play with her toys. I gave her a few minutes before hauling her back to bed. Once back in bed we spent another 33 minutes wrestling before she finally fell asleep.

Around 28 minutes I considered crying. If she'd still been awake and trying to pinch my nipple at 35 minutes, I would probably be crying right now.

P.S. I'm not sure why it says I posted this at 7:42pm. It's definitely 10:15pm.