Milestones

All of a sudden, we've reached two pretty big milestones in the last week.

The first is that we've come to the end of our breastfeeding relationship. I had been thinking for a while that it was going to be time soon to taper off. We were already down to only 1-2 feedings a day, usually in the middle of the night and possibly right before bed. But that last few times, I found myself getting annoyed with it, and her, during the nursing, and basically not being into it any more. It had started to feel weird. And yet, it wasn't a conscious decision to stop nursing her; it occurred to me one day last week that I had not breastfed her for almost three days. And that was it. I was sad about it, for a while. I had a moment when I really wanted to nurse her one last time, to relieve the milk that had built up over the last few days. But then I realized that there was 3 days worth of coffee, a beer or two, and some wine, all mixed up in there, and I'd have to pump it out. So that idea was out. So even though I was ready to be done, and she seems to have been as well, I was still sort of sad about it for a while, more sad than I really wanted to talk about at the time. I've been denying the fact that she's not a "baby" any more, so phasing out this aspect of babyhood so suddenly and irreversibly was kind of a shock.

Secondly, last night, Little Miss went to bed at about 8:30pm, as usual, and slept without a single peep and narry a rustle until 6:45am. That, in case you were not aware, is in fact from bedtime to morning-time. The whole way. In fact, mommy's alarm woke her up before the baby did. That hasn't happened since March 2011 (yes, that would be before going on maternity leave). Of course, we'll see if she can manage a repeat performance tonight. But the fact is, she's been consistently giving me almost a full night for 2-3 weeks now, with just one wake up around 4am for a bottle and then immediately back to sleep again. And she no longer needs me to rock her until she's almost asleep, or stand there rubbing her back until she passes out. Now she has her bottle and can pretty much be laid down with her blankie to settle herself in and go to sleep. Of course, I still do rock her and rub her back and stuff, because it's our routine and I like doing it. But now it's more for the routine and less because it's the only way she will go to sleep.

Now, if I could just take my butt to bed at a decent hour, I might be able to take advantage of this sleep.

And you know what's funny? As happy as I am that she's reached these milestones, and as glad as I am to have my bed back, I just want her to stay a little baby forever. And if that meant being woken up every night  for nursing I would totally take it.

Speaking of sleep, please enjoy some photos in my ongoing "Sleeping Baby" series.

Superhero baby

with blankie

Now, if you followed me on Instagram, you'd have seen pics like this already.

I mean, seriously. Right?

Blankies and other things

How it gets to be after 10pm on a Sunday night is beyond me. I swear it was just Friday afternoon. Really, work again tomorrow? Sigh...all right, but pass the merlot, will you?

Mommy's been on a wine kick of late. I don't know what started it. When I was in my earlier twenties, I shunned wine, I thought it was pretentious and stupid and I hated hanging out with girls who were all, ooh, wine, let's drink wine, la! Somewhere in the last year, however, I've turned into that girl. So, score one for karma, 2 points for the-jokes-on-me. Maybe giving birth had the added side effect of maturing my palette, I don't know. I'm still not sophisticated enough to consider myself a wine snob, I mean, when I swirl and sniff I just smell wine, not any notes of oak or delightful zephyrs of blackberry or anything. But I do love a good glass of red at the end of the day, either while finally getting to sit down with my book for a few uninterrupted moments, or while checking back in with my writing for a page or two. It used to be I drank wine for the classy, let's play dress-up, appeal of it, since I didn't actually like it. These days, I'm enjoying the beverage for its own sake.

Score another point for karma that I finally got around to throwing out the two wine racks I'd kept in the house for years just before this new found love arrived.

***

Little Miss V was sick this weekend. It took me most of Saturday to notice it. I'm still not sure if I gave her something, since I'm convinced my sniffles were purely allergy-based. But Saturday morning she had a drippy nose, and I didn't trust my instinct at first when I knew she felt warmer than usual. We went over to my friend's mother's place to socialize and so forth, and by the time we were ready to leave, she had heated up to the point that it was plain she needed some baby meds and an early bedtime. So I took the poor little fussypants home, had Mr. S go to the store for baby Tylenol, and fixed her a bottle. She fell asleep before pops got home with the medicine, slept for about two hours, and when she woke up again, we gave her a bath to calm her down. She loves her bath. Still, she was having trouble sleeping because of the congestion, so when she woke up for the second time she and I snuggled on the couch together for SNL. I fell asleep before the musical guest, but Shawn said she laid there awake for the whole show and then fell asleep. We slept on the couch all night.

She was doing better today, got another couple of doses of medicine, and by bedtime tonight she was still a little snotty, but better, mostly her normal temp, though still pretty exhausted.

She has started showing an affinity for different blankets of hers, mostly the soft chenille-y ones. There are two, a pink and a purple, and it makes me infinitely glad to see her dragging oen around behind her on her toddles around the house, or gripping it in her little fist while I'm putting her to sleep and sucking on it, hehe. She never took to a pacifier, but I wanted her to have a blankie or a lovey so bad, everyone ought to have one, I think. I tried to get her to like the pretty blankie my mom made for her, but alas, it's the store-bought ones that she prefers. I will feel less responsible for any neuroses later on her life for the fact that I did not, in fact, force this attachment on her, only that I really wanted her to form one and I shall do nothing to dissuade her from it. She made this choice on her own, I'm just going to encourage it. :)