Misc. Updates

I wanted to go into more detail about what I meant when I said, “I have realized in a big way that “adjusting” to having two kids is not about me but about helping Max adjust.”

I have found that having a second baby is not as difficult as I thought it would be. I have that feeling of, been there done that, when it comes to Bella. In fact, it is even easier this time around having an infant than it was the first time. All she does is poop, eat, and sleep. Oh, occasionally she cries to let me know that I need to attend to her needs. Now, with Max, this is all new territory. I’ve had to learn how to set new boundaries with him, teach him how to touch his baby sister, and help him to adjust to sharing ME with Bella. Every new parenting challenge has been set by Max’s needs and me having to figure them out. As Bella grows, I’ll face the challenges of figuring out her personal needs as well. Some of her needs will be drastically different than Max’s were at the same age. However, right now, in her infant stage – she’s pretty easy. Well, that was a lot easier for me to explain than I thought it would be.

Nursing News:

I’m down to nursing Max before and after naps and when he wakes up in the morning. Nursing him less hasn’t made me like it any more. I’m still gritting my teeth and barely bearing it. One reason I can’t stand it anymore is because Max, being the toddler that he is, can not sit still as he nurses. In fact, the only time he can sit still is when he is sleeping. Another reason… I just want to see some actual steps to getting my body back. I’m working on it… I envision Max being completely weaned within the next two months.

Grieving News:

I mostly mourn the loss of my friend while by myself. I don’t want Max to see me crying. Sometimes I cry in Hal’s arms but mostly I’m alone. The pain is still as intense as it was the day I found out she died. However, I’m noticing that the crying is becoming less frequent. Memories just flood in uncontrollably and a deep feeling of loss and sadness follows.

Potty News:

Max is using the potty almost full-time, now! Woo Hoo! He still wears a nappy when we go out (I‘m not ready to brave the public restrooms with him, yet), during naps, and at night but other than that he uses the bathroom when he’s got to go. When he wants to go by himself he’ll look at me while standing at the bathroom door, hold his pointer finger up and say, “hold on one sec, I’ll be right back, mommy.” He’s getting so big.

 

 

Bella is growing fast, too.

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weaning update…

Max is doing well with the weaning process. The first night was tough but even then he didn’t cry. He just wined and tossed and turned and climbed all over me to find a position he could fall asleep in. Last night – night two – he fell asleep within ten minutes without even asking to nurse! I feel good about this decision to wean him now. And it’s nice that he is so accommodating… and ready – which I think is the real key to this going so smoothly. We’ll continue to work on morning, naps, and the afternoon “pop-in’s” but I’m not going to really focus on those nursing times until he is completely night weaned.

I’ve got about 4 loads of laundery that I want to get done, today. Tomorrow, Hal and I are purging some of our book collection. I’m tired of all the media clutter in our house.

I’ve started nesting.

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I think i’m ready to admit… it’s time to start weaning Max.

Just today I was talking to a friend of mine about all the reasons why I don’t want to/am not ready to wean Max from nursing. I went on and on about my idealized perception of what I would like to happen and it goes something like this… my milk dries up in the seventh month of pregnancy and Max naturally weans himself. Or, he will miraculously decide one day that he’s a big boy and wants to stop on his own. “One day” meaning… soon. Heh. But, the reality is this… my milk dried up a month ago leaving my boobs with only colostrum and he still hasn’t given up on the num-nums. He just holds my nipple in his mouth and plays with it using his tongue. At this point, it’s just a way to be close to mommy because he’s not getting any milk out of me. And let me tell you… it’s annoying.

I realized after thinking about all the reasons I’d like to keep nursing Max that I probably shouldn’t keep nursing him. My reasons don’t match my reality. Our nursing relationship is just not working for me anymore. This will undoubtedly translate to it not being a pleasant experience for him. Every time he nurses I find that I’m correcting his latch, telling him (quite sternly) to open his mouth wider, and cutting the session short by saying, “no more.” It is ALWAYS an unpleasant experience for me and it has been this way for almost a month.

Tonight I helped him go to sleep without his beloved num-nums. The alternative to the waking-up-several-times nightly nursing sessions has been for Max to lay on top of num-nums. He’s now gotten to a point where he knows he won’t be getting any boob juice in the middle of the night. If he does wake up he either just falls back to sleep or asks to lay on top of me. However, he is getting to the point where he rarely wakes at all.

Well, I’m bringing that alternative to the beginning of our nightly routine and not letting him nurse to sleep. It was rough tonight and he was upset but eventually he fell asleep right in my arms laying next to me – without nursing. Tomorrow we’ll do the same thing with nap time. I think the last thing I’ll cut out is our morning nursing session because I think that will be the easiest for him but hardest for me. Easy for him because I can offer food instead and hardest for me because that means I will probably have to get up between 6-7am. Unless, I can get Hal to get up and feed him. Which is very realistic.

My goal is to have Max fully weaned by the end of December.

And then my boobs will have a break before Bella gets here.

The thought of it is just titillating!

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Nursing Whoas…

Although I love nursing Max I can’t deny that there are some idiosyncrasies about it. For instance, I have nicknamed him, Wandering Hand. He thinks this is funny but I can assure you that I do not.

Some of his tactics that have gotten him this name (and a few other names, some which will not EVER be mentioned in public) are:

1.) He likes to take the skin on the soft part of my breast and pinch it between his baby-sharp fingernails. I’m constantly shoving his hand away telling him to stop it. But, like I said, he thinks this is funny and in goes the hand again.

2.) If it’s not the pinching that’s irking me it’s the “I must go for the other nipple when-ever mommy leaves it open,” mentality he has adopted. When I slack off for even a moment and leave my poor other boob bare to the air here comes Wandering Hand ready to pinch it, pat it, and push it in as far as it can go with the palm of his wee little wandering hand. Grrrr.

3.) Every time I shove Wandering Hand away from my exposed nipple he starts whining. And, while still nursing (he ain’t letting go of THAT nipple) he is slapping me.

4.) Whenever we nurse while I’m sitting up and he’s in my lap (as oppose to both of us lying on our side in bed) he HAS to be barefoot. No matter where we are I have to take his shoes off. Then, instead of calling him Wandering Hand, I refer to him as Kicking Face, because that is what he likes to do to me. Believe it or not this isn’t as bad as it may sound but when we are not at home he typically only nurses for like, one millisecond. Then I have to struggle to convince him that his shoes must go on again.

5.) This last complaint isn’t a problem… anymore. I nipped it in the bud RIGHT AWAY. See, once nursing babies become mobile, they like to be moving all the time – including when they are latched on to mama’s boob. It is also usually around this time when they get their first set of real piranha fangs in. Max would always try to do flips and dives around me while he nursed. This was where I drew the definitive line for him. This was a big NO-NO for me. That is why now; we only nurse in two positions – either lying down together or him lying down on my lap. Any time he gets a little bit of that crazy energy I make him stop nursing. Of-course, he’d rather nurse than do a flip so it was easy to teach him this boundary.

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Eat Monky Poop Num-Nums

I’m drinking a cup of coffee. Something I said I would not do again because it makes me hate my son. Well, I think I can work around that. If I don’t drink this coffee, I won’t get off the couch today. I am highly unmotivated to clean and that is exactly what I need to do, my house is a disaster area. I’m sipping a very small amount, just enough to get the caffeine high that I need to move. Then, I’ll guzzle a gallon of water and drink a cup of Oat Straw Tea, which is what will save my son from being growled at again and possibly eaten.

Oh, I should probably confess here that my growling at Max the other day wasn’t a normal, I’m standing here and he’s over there, growl. No, that would be acceptable and wouldn’t induce guilt in the least. My growl was the, in your face – my nose just about touching your nose, kind of growl. Now you see why he was so freaked out?

It seems both Hal and I are at least the same species. This morning Max was looking at one of his coloring books that have a picture of a monkey wearing horned rimmed glasses. He was really trying to say, monkeeeee, but no matter how loudly I emphasized the “K” sound all that kept coming out was, moMieeeee. I’m a monkey and Hal is a sloth. At least we both like climbing and hanging out in trees. It’s important to have some similar interests with your spouse.

So, I guess that makes Max a Slonkey.

Random Thought:

I really miss being able to take a shit alone. And reading on the can is now a fantasy of mine. Now, when I won’t pick Max up as I’m doing my thang he simply pulls his potty in front of me and climbs on my lap. Keeping him at bay when I have to clean myself is not easy. He cries, yells, “nononono”, and relentlessly slaps at me. I never feel clean enough anymore unless I take a shower right after. Yeah, it’s a hard life I live.

Num-Num News:

As of four days ago I pretty much had Max weaned from the boob juice at night. I would nurse him to sleep and he could – for the most part – make it until morning. He’d wake up, still, but accepted that his beloved num-nums went nite-nite and he couldn’t visit them until morning. Well, the little boob monster got sick four days ago. Nothing major, thank the stars, but never-the-less he had a little cold. I ended up nursing him when he woke up because I could hear him coughing and he sounded miserable. Now, he’s feeling much better and I’m back to square one. Last night was pretty painful because he cried his little eyes out for at least half an hour – which is longer than he ever did the first time around. My only consolation is that with each night it does get easier. And, at least he is in bed with me so when he finally accepts that num-nums went nite-nite, he can flop his weak from crying body on top of mine and snuggle in real close. He managed, after the first time he woke up (around 11pm), to fall back to sleep until 6:30 this morning. Only a few more nights to go and we’ll be back to where we were when he got sick.

When he gets sick again I’m gonna have to keep my No Nursing In The Middle Of The Night Policy. I think it is much worse to go back and forth with it than to keep firm and not nurse. I just have to remember (because it won’t be easy) that I can comfort him without whipping out the boob.

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Night Weaning

My original plan for night weaning has been changed. Instead, I am going to be the primary comforter when Max awakes to nurse (armed with a shirt covering the num-nums). It didn’t feel right to throw Hal and Max into the fire by excusing myself from the process all together. It seems gentler for me to be the one to teach Max “no num-nums until morning” because I’m the one who has been giving them to him. We started this past Wednesday and so far it has been going pretty well. Last night he only woke once. Hal is in the room so if I ask him to comfort Max he does it without gruff or hesitation. He seems genuinely available to help. For Hal, it will get harder tonight because he has to get up and go to work tomorrow. It’s understandable why he would want to get a full night sleep when he isn’t able to lay down and take a 2-3 hour nap at work like I’m able to do. But, he gets it that sleep will be his sacrifice to remain available to help and to be a part of the transition. I was able to get Max back to sleep within about 20 minutes – after he screamed his head of like someone was pulling out his nails, of-course. Yeah, it pisses him off that the num-nums have gone nite-nite until morning (which is what I diligently tell him). But, unlike when he was younger, my heart doesn’t ache to hear him cry and want something that he can not have. I can’t even imagine taking away his beloved “nursies” one night before I actually did it. This calmness has everything to do with my readiness.

Once Max is at a steady point where he no longer expects to nurse when he wakes the plan is to wean him from using the boob juice to get to sleep. At this point, Hal will start to lay Max down to sleep at night in his very own big boy bed which will be set up away from my bed and next to Hal’s. Now, I’m thinking, once he is okay with this, then I will wean him from nursing to sleep for his naps. But, this is certainly unknown territory for me. I may change my mind about it later. We’ll see!

I like staying in tune with what my family needs to a point where I’m not afraid to change a plan – even the most well thought out plan. Remaining flexible with children and their needs along with incorporating my own needs into parenting is a valuable ability. Life is not only a learning process for them but for parents, too. I think all too often parents will read something in a book and want to believe so badly that it will work for them that they will neglect their intuition when it’s telling them, “try something else!” It’s also hard to remain flexible when you have a work schedule that your family life has to revolve around. I certainly understand that even though I’m not in that position. This is another case in point where I can feel the privilege I’m living with. To have the desire and the ability to remain 100% flexible with parenting is no doubt an advantage of being a SAHM – which in our society is a privilege. I know even parents who work full-time outside of the home skillfully adapt to their children’s needs as they change. But, there is no doubt that they are limited to what they are able to do because of the 8+ hours of parenting they lose everyday. I guess what I’m trying to say is that both stay at home moms and moms that work are able to remain flexible if they chose but I’m only able to talk about how I’m flexible. I never want to come off as saying one way of living with family is better than another. I’m a firm believer that individuals are capable of determining what is best for them and their family based on their personal lives.

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