My son is a bonafide picky eater. I’m not terribly worried about it because he is, after all, 38 lbs. I don’t exactly fear for his health. But every time Sami eats a new food, I am sort of irrationally happy about it. Tonight it was lo mein noodles. OK, so he picked out the carrots and the onions, but still. They accidentally made them spicy, and I thought that would definitely be a no-no, but he loved them, and declared their spiciness anew with each bite.

Tonight I was in one of those spectacular moods, the kind you really want to hold on to forever and ever until you realize you are doing that clinging thing again. I think some of my internal lightness had to do with the fact that I am doing a massive declutter. My office, which had been spectacularly disorganized and basically unusable for the better part of a year, now is very close to looking and feeling like an office. I got rid of four boxes of books, and what made me feel even better about that was that I found an opportunity donate them to a book sale to raise money for the local elementary school and the neighborhood library. Usually the library does not take that many books at once, but my timing was right in line with the book sale! I hope my books sell well and help out the underfunded library and public school.

I also unceremoniously trashed my tattered and beaten up Medela Pump-in-Style, which had been sitting forlornly in my closet for about 20 months. That Pump-in-Style and I were literally fused together for countless hours as I labored to extract every bit of my meager breastmilk. I can still hear the rhythmic swish-swish of its pumping action. So much time did I spend hooked up to the Pump-in-Style that I bought a kinky-looking bustier for hands-free pumping. The damn thing traveled halfway around the world with me to Syria in summer 2006, arousing a lot of confusion and consternation in security wherever we went. I envisioned the headlines: Breastmilk Bomber Strikes.

That Pump-in-Style was a symbol of the unbelievable nine months that I struggled so heroically to make breastfeeding work. At the time, it totally consumed my life. I even dreamed about my milk supply. Now, it just seems so damn long ago and I wish I had remembered that all things arise and pass away.

I’m glad that’s all over. The PIS has died a dignified death, and my once tiny, hungry baby is now eating spicy noodles and sometimes seems to grow literally before my very eyes.

Here’s to letting go of what no longer serves, and to trying new things.