Calling it

I'm officially calling it. After 17 months of breastfeeding, Agatha is weaned. Whew! I have not nursed her for two full weeks as of today. Aw, that actually makes me a little sad.

My original breastfeeding plan was to make it six weeks and see if I wanted to continue. When I made it to six weeks, I set a new goal of 12 weeks. Then six months. Then a year. Then I thought I would let her wean herself or wean her at two years.

However, I am now 15 weeks pregnant with Baby Number Two (yay!) and I was feeling very anxious about possibly breastfeeding for FOUR years straight (two with Agatha and two with the new baby). I decided for my own sanity, I needed to work on weaning Agatha. I had also heard that some pregnant women who are nursing an older child start having nursing aversions during the middle of pregnancy, and I did not want to experience that. Nursing aversions can be anything from feeling itchy or uncomfortable while your child is nursing, to feeling actual anger at them while they are nursing. It is not a reflection of how you feel about your child or anything like that, just another weird thing the human body does.

At the time I got pregnant, Agatha was only nursing 3 times a day. In the morning when she woke up, when I got home from work in the afternoon and before bed. After doing some research, I decided I did not want to cut off all nursing sessions at once, but wanted to take it gradually. I chose to eliminate the afternoon nursing session first.

The first few days were tough. I wasn't even able to sit down, because she would come up and sit on my lap and immediately ask to nurse. And by "ask to nurse" I mean paw at my shirt and cry. I would tell her, "No, we aren't doing that now." I learned to have a snack ready for her as soon as we walked in the door and to have plenty of other distractions readily available (such as books to read together or toys to play with on the floor). After about a week, she showed no interest in nursing when we got home.

I wanted to give Agatha plenty of time before eliminating the next session and I wasn't sure which I wanted to tackle next. I thought the night one would be easiest, since sometimes she only nursed for a minute or two, but I really wanted to get rid of her long, leisurely morning session, which usually took place while she laid on top of me in my bed. I knew the morning one would be the hardest for her to give up, so I decided to stop offering the night session next.

Eliminating the night session was extremely easy, I don't think Agatha even noticed. She may have turned to me the first night and asked to nurse, but after that she never tried again. We just read extra books and went on with our bedtime routine.

The morning session has been the hardest to stop. She would not nurse for a few days and then nurse for three days straight, then skip a day. She seemed extremely crabby the days she didn't nurse and I just wanted the mornings to go smoothly. Agatha has also been an early riser, and Chris and I have kind of let her be our alarm clock. Chris would normally start his day while I laid in bed nursing Agatha for however long she decided to that day. I wanted to start a more regular morning routine (and hopefully get her to sleep longer) but I didn't want to make the rest of the day harder.

A few weeks ago my parents came to stay with us for the weekend and Chris and I slept on an air mattress in our living room. In the morning, Chris brought Agatha out to me and I nursed her for a few minutes and then laid her between us and gave her a pacifier. Agatha stopped using pacifiers (except for car trips) about 4 or 5 months ago, but I thought it might give her some comfort.

That was the last time I breastfed her. Our routine now is to bring her in our room and let her cuddle with me (usually laying on top of me (and usually with her hand down my shirt, to be honest)) while she sucks on a pacifier. After about five minutes of cuddling, I roll her over between us, where she usually sleeps for another hour or so. She doesn't get the pacifier at any other time of the day. I have tried to not give her the pacifier in the morning, and after about 60 seconds, she goes for the breast. So we are not at the stage where I can cut out the pacifier yet.

I do think in another few weeks, she will outgrow the need to cuddle in the morning and will sleep longer in her room, but for now, I am happy.

With that said, I am a little sad that our breastfeeding relationship is over and I do feel a bit guilty that it was my decision instead of letting her self-wean or waiting until she was two. I know plenty of people will say that I breastfed her for an incredibly long time, but I did think I would do it a little longer. However, I did need a break and needed to have my body back to myself for a while. Or at least, as much to myself as I can, since I am currently growing another human inside me.

So....Yay, me! Yay, Agatha! Yay, boobies!

Pain, worry, joy

The pants I am wearing today are making me feel very thin, even though I am at my heaviest weight (not counting the nine months I was pregnant with Agatha). I think it is because the pants I was wearing yesterday were much too TIGHT, to the point of being painful. There is some residual pain today from the pants cutting into me, actually. Probably a good time to start exercising, huh?

My family had quite a health scare last week. My older brother was experiencing very bad pain in his abdomen and went to the ER, thinking it was his appendix. After some x-rays and CT scans, they told him they found a large mass in his small intestine. The next day, he had surgery to remove a GRAPEFRUIT sized TUMOR and about 10 inches of his small intestine. Thankfully, we found out that the tumor was benign and he is now out of the hospital. It was a very scary situation, though and I am so thankful for everyone’s health.

In way behind news, Halloween was fun. Agatha dressed up as a fox, in a costume made by her extremely talented grandma Bonnie. Our brother-in-law, John came and took photos of her playing outside in her costume. It was adorable.

Let it be

I'm feeling very overwhelmed today and this song felt appropriate.

October Goals: How am I doing?

So October is almost over. Let's see how I am doing on my goal list.

1. Make homemade laundry detergent. I haven't done this yet. To be fair, I haven't needed to, we still have a few loads worth of Method concentrated laundry detergent left. But as soon as that is gone, I will be mixing up a batch!
2. Repaint the dining room. Currently a purple-gray, I was looking for a traditional light gray. Nope. Too lazy.
3. Get rid of several boxes of books that I purged. hopefully, this will help me with my years-long goal of buying new bookshelves. They just aren't that high on my priority list, though. Yes! Chris and I headed to Half-Price books and sold 6 diaper boxes of books for a sad amount of cash. I also took a bag of baby clothes to Once Upon a Child. Go, me!
4. Print and organize pictures into albums. I've been okay at printing pictures but none are organized. Hmm. I forgot this was a goal. I did print some more pictures but have not even THOUGHT about organizing them. Are we sure I wrote that goal? It doesn't sound like me.

All in all, that's pretty sad. BUT maybe if I do lots of laundry in the next 8 days, I will run out of detergent and have to make my own. Then I would be done with 2/4. Which is still pretty sad.

Goals for October

I know October is a few weeks away (already?!), but I need something to motivate me to do the things I've been meaning to do for a while. So here are the things I want to do in October (or before!):

1. Make homemade laundry detergent.
2. Repaint the dining room. Currently a purple-gray, I was looking for a traditional light gray.
3. Get rid of several boxes of books that I purged. hopefully, this will help me with my years-long goal of buying new bookshelves. They just aren't that high on my priority list, though.
4. Print and organize pictures into albums. I've been okay at printing pictures but none are organized.

Very exciting, I know. I am definitely a planner, and I like to have lists of goals and tasks. It makes me feel good to see a bunch of things checked off. When you are busy running around after a little one, it's easy to feel like you never get anything accomplished. These lists (however big or small) help fight that feeling.

Tips for Husbands

1. If the item was not refrigerated in the grocery store, it does not need to be put in the fridge upon arrival at home. I kept wondering where all the pasta sauce was. Oh, in the FRIDGE! Of course!

2. The hamper I bought for $39.99 is not a decorative item. It is not a stand for you to display clean and/or dirty clothes on like some kind of art piece. It does not need a layer of boxer briefs and dress shirts strewn around it to protect it. Simply lift the lid and place your dirty clothes inside. 

3. If the direction that the toilet paper unrolls matters to you, you may place it whichever way you like. I am going to just throw it on the holder, because I am not a weirdo who MUST have my toilet paper unroll a certain way. It is not magically fused to the holder, you can turn it around. I don't mind.

4. Look with your eyes before you ask me where that thing is. It is probably right in front of you.

The Pressure of Perfect Parenting

Hey, friends. Let's be honest. Parenting is hard. It isn't sunshine and giggle fests all the time. Especially bringing home a newborn. Especially being a mother and being home with said newborn 24 hours a day.

But I've noticed among my friends who are new parents (like I am old hat at this game) that more and more of them are putting on a "Everything is GREAT! I love it! SO MUCH FUN! So easy!" face that is leaving me depressed and a little self-conscious/squirmy about my own "parent of a newborn" experiences, and tales thereof.

I think that when Agatha was born, I was honest about my struggles. The first days and weeks at home were spent being exhausted, worried and panicked that I had changed my life forever and tied myself to this other human being. A human being that was making me sore and crabby with every feeding. It was hard. I didn't sleep. I cried a lot. I thought, "I never want to do this again." Nevertheless, I loved her. So much. And grew to love her even more every day, even when I didn’t think it was possible. (And for the record, I do want to do it again.)

However, my love for her did not mean that it wasn’t hard or that I wasn’t afraid of making the wrong choices or even that I didn’t find parenting a little boring and I just wanted TIME for MYSELF. You are up all night with them, bouncing them, feeding them, having poo squirt directly at your face if you are unlucky, watching them, worrying about them and desperately wishing for thirty minutes to take a shower and eat chocolate.

Am I alone in this? Or is everyone else just trying to put on a front that they are the perfect parents?
That their baby makes them perfectly content and they KNOW this is what they were MEANT for and it’s all been so easy and la di da. Dream come true.

And I am happy for them. If that is the case. But if it is NOT the case, don’t be afraid to say it. You are just going to make the next friend anxious and paranoid that her perfectly normal feelings are all wrong and SHE IS THE WORST. You don’t have to pretend with me. I’ve been there. I’ve had a baby spit up IN MY MOUTH, for Pete’s sake.

Let’s all just agree that we won’t try to out-Super Mom each other in the future, okay?