The little things

Kate: Fast approaching her first birthday (in 3 1/2 weeks)

• The other day when I came home from work, she waved at me without any prompting, and when I waved back, she flashed me a huge smile! Those moments are the real "keepers"!

• She did peekaboo herself this morning, with a towel. After I held it over her face a couple of times and took it away saying "Peekaboo," she took the towel with both hands, held it up over her face, and then brought it down with a smile!

• So close to crawling! She sits on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but doesn't know what to do next.

• My husband swears she says "row row row" when she hears the rest of us singing Row Row Row Your Boat. I only partially heard it, but I think she said it too! She also imitates me when I say "No no no no no no" (like when I see her reaching for a cup of yogurt I'm holding--it actually sounds more like nuh-nuh-nuh; it's not a sharp "No!").

Recent incident to remember: When the whole family went to Pittsburgh for a Psych conference, we had a beautiful trip out. We drove to Central PA, stopped in Lewisburg and stayed the night with friends, and then drove the rest of the way the next day. Both kids slept well that night and did great in the car! Then, 1:30 in the morning our first night in the hotel, Kate starts throwing up and doesn't stop until 5am. We were totally psyched out by our kids, too, because as they went to bed, Finn was the one who was coughing in the way that sounds like it might become throwing up. Hubby and I were both sitting there in the mostly dark room with our fingers crossed thinking "Don't get sick, Finn... don't get sick." Ha ha on us! Luckily, Finn slept through the entire ordeal! Kate didn't get sick the rest of the trip... but we were braced for it the whole time, so it wasn't particularly a great trip.

Finn: Coming up on 4 years old in a bit

• We signed him up for preschool next fall, and he knows that he has to be at least somewhat potty trained, so if you ask him about the potty, he says "When I use the potty, I can go to school." Still not using it too much, though.

• He makes up conversations between characters--e.g., he has two pirate guys and he has an imaginary conversation between them. I love catching little bits of that from the other room.

• He still uses his pacifier ("paci") a fair bit, but it seems less compulsive to me lately. He'll ask for it, but he doesn't feel lost without it. I even got him to go to bed without it once. His daddy doesn't seem ready to have him do that regularly, though.

• While still capable of being horribly broody, I feel like there's been a turn for the better lately. After we got back from our Pittsburgh trip (during which he was pretty temperamental), he seemed to turn a corner and has been much more pleasant and polite. There's still some of the normal 3-year-old striving for independence, but it's as if he's found a place to stand where the sun is shining on him, whereas before he was in a constant cloud. I'm not crazy enough to think that it will never go back to that grumpy place again, but I have to write it down when it's like this, so when it is miserable, I can think about the sun coming out again someday!

• Still no fruit besides juice, and next to no vegetables, but lately he's begun requesting shredded cheese. I know he gets enough dairy without it but I'm just so excited to have him voluntarily work something back into his repertoire that had been eliminated for a while.

• He loves to play baseball with me when I get home from work. He uses a variety of things for bats (a paper towel tube, a Gerber's puffs cylinder, a pretend cell phone, whatever!). He's actually pretty good at it. We're thinking of giving up on gymnastics (which he sulks at and doesn't want to participate in, for no reason that we can determine) and going back to one of our earliest principles re: Finn--anything goes as long as a ball is involved!

And so it ends...

Breastfeeding, that is.

After a much harder job maintaining breastfeeding with Kate than we had with Finn, we finally decided to end it. It was a mutual decision between Kate and myself, with my hubby's guidance, as well, on the final decision to end.

That makes the very last time I will breastfeed one of my children Saturday, Feb 28th, 2009--approx. 7:30am. It was a nice last time, at least.

I've talked with some of my playgroup Mom friends about the desire to know when the last time is going to be so that you can really enjoy it. Well, I have to say that I really haven't enjoyed breastfeeding Kate over these last few months. I'm happy I've done it, but it's alternated between being painful (and bloody--yuck!) for me, and being okay for me but upsetting for her, as if she didn't want it or wasn't get what she wanted out of it. I don't know why that would be--everytime she would start nursing and then break off wailing I would check to see if there was any flow and there certainly would be. I can't explain it. Lately we've wondered if she's had an ear infection and the pressure from the suction has been bothering her, but we can't find any other evidence of an ear infection (no fever, no prolonged crying). We were at a loss.

She's fine with taking a bottle, and since she's only about 11 months old, we will probably be doing some bottles of formula between now and when she turns 1 year. My preference would be to minimize that--I feel like these deadlines that the doctors make sound so hard-and-fast really don't need to be that black-and-white. She's almost a year; she eats plenty of pureed baby food, she loves yogurt, and pretty soon we'll go ahead and start her on whole milk. I really think that should be fine.

I'm not sad per se, but I do feel frustrated for not being able to finish out the year, which is what I wanted for her. I haven't actually brought up at playgroup that she was so close to being weaned, and it might be because I feel a little like this is a failure. Not necessarily one that rests squarely on my shoulders, but still... My hubby, my Mom, and a couple of other people who I've talked to about it have been very helpful in subtly reminding me (or not so subtly telling me right out) that this is not a failure, not a problem. This is a child who is very healthy and who benefited from breastfeeding for 11 months... quite a bit longer than the majority of moms nurse their children (if they do at all). I've always maintained that I don't have any concerns about mothers who choose not to nurse at all--so it might seem hypocritcal of me to be a bit sad now that we're starting up with formula. Really, though, my concern is not with Kate's health and the so-called "evils" of formula. I'm just a little frustrated that it didn't go as smoothly as with Finn. I'm still planning to get some nice bonding time with bottle-feeding for the next month, and by writing all of this out, I'm hoping to get the 1-month-short-of-a-year frustration out of my system.

And as I mentioned, the last time was nice. Kate took one side pleasantly (after wailing when I tried to give her the other side for no reason that I could figure out). We had a short but painless and fuss-free feeding and I watched her intently while she nursed and tried to make a mental moment out of it--having the feeling it might be the last time.