4 Years Ago

This morning over breakfast, Remington was squealing and waving at Southern as he drank his milk. Southern swallowed and then told him, "no baby, no my milk, never". I then tried explaining to Southern that yes, he was right. Remington can't drink Southern's kind of milk because he's too young. But soon he will be a year old - in a little over a month - and then he'll be able to drink it. Southern just kind of shrugged and continued eating his breakfast.

Southern may have taken it in stride, but after my explanation, I was kind of shocked. My baby will be one soon! Really, really soon!! That means he can have cow's milk and will depend on breastmilk less and less. That means we can start "weaning" soon. Wow!

Southern stopped nursing at 16 months old. My goal with him was 12 months, but by then it had gotten easy, and it was so good for him, that we just kept going until he was ready to stop. By that time, we were down to nursing once a day - at night before bed. But one night, we had gotten home late from out of town, and Southern was already asleep in the car. He stayed sleeping, so I just carried him up and put him in his crib. The next night, just to see what he would do, I put him to bed again without nursing. He was fine and fell asleep. So that was that.

I only hope it will be that easy with Remington. Really, I am in no rush and will be fine going longer than 12 months with him as well. I will just continue until he is ready (so long as he's not over 2 years old!) so that it will be tear and pain free like it was with Southern. But there was also a little, teeny tiny part of me that was thinking I've had enough. And that part of me did some math... I realized that I have been pregnant or nursing (with the exception of about 4 months) for the past FOUR YEARS. My first pregnancy started this month exactly four year ago! It's hard to believe.

photo by Cindy Edwards, January 2009 (tweaked a bit by me)