Days since last nursing: 10
Weeks this fell before projected goal: 3
Months spent nursing Genevieve: 35
Months spent nursing Somerset: 36
Months spent nursing Joshua: 14 (he got the shaft because S was born when he was 14 months old and I'm not woman enough to tandem)
Months spent nursing Calvin: 27
Grand total of months spent nursing (drumroll please....): 112
That's 9.333 in human years.
Weeks before I got pregnant again the last time I had a weaned, diaper-free three year old: two
How sure I am that this will not happen again: 100%
Months not spent pregnant or nursing since 1997: 4.5
That's right. Four. And a half.
I just figured that out. No wonder I've been cranky!
Showing posts with label weaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weaning. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 04, 2009
The Ponderous Adventures of Cindabella and Bootie
In an attempt to act like a good mom and play with my kids yesterday, I parked myself in front of the three-story Barbie mansion with Genevieve. Delighted, she helped me pick a doll and parked her at table on the veranda with her own.
"What's your girl's name?" I asked her.
"Um...Cindabella," she replied. "You can be Bootie."
Clearly the Disney Princess indoctrination starts early. Genevieve has never even seen any of those movies. Oh well. I giggled at her interpretation of the names and dressed my brunette Barbie in a sundress that I could barely yank up over her misproportioned hips. We pondered the mystery of the stairs that go only from the second to the third floor, and the elevator that goes only from first to second. I noted that although the mansion seems spacious, Barbie is apparently the doll-equivalent of 8 feet tall. The bar-height kitchen table sits at her hips when she leans awkwardly against the stool. I guess it doesn't matter, since neither Cindabella nor Bootie was able to bend her elbow to take a drink of her "glass of line."
Barbies were a nice diversion in the middle of a day that both started out and ended up sucking. I have been working toward weaning Genevieve, with her third birthday at the end of May looming as our deadline. Sometimes she's been cooperative with the limits I've tried to set, and sometimes not so much. After she woke up at 6:00 yesterday morning and nursed without ceasing until I finally couldn't take it at 8:00, she screamed and cried and threw a fit about being denied. Then I pretty much screamed and cried and threw a fit at BD, and it was all just ugly and upsetting and the result of a lot of frustration and exhaustion and I think we all realized that we just can't do it anymore, any of us.
So we stayed in our jammies all day except when he took the kids to the book store for a brief outing before dinner, and we played Barbies and watched bad (really bad) tweener TV on Disney and tried to just be easy with each other, and when G asked to nurse and I told her I can't nurse her anymore, she handled it fairly well. Until bed time. We have never night-weaned any of our kids, because I'm too lazy and I can't stand all that crying. This is the first time in four kids and eleven years that I have not wanted to nurse more than I have not wanted to deal with difficult weaning rituals. (Usually I just take a trip or, you know, go to the hospital to have another baby.) BD had warned me not to come to her room no matter how much she screamed and called for me. It seemed to go suprisingly well for a while, then it went horribly. I read until I couldn't, and then I cried and felt like a selfish ass while SAM reassured me that she was in the hands of a loving parent who was taking good care of her, and that she was just mad and was making sure we knew it. I knew she was right, but it still sucked.
I never thought I would be anything but ready by the time she finally weaned, ending a nine-plus year nursing total, but I really hate the thought that Sunday morning will be the last time I ever nurse her, because I was just angry the whole time. And I really do have so many sweet, wonderful memories of curling around her little body, warm in the bed with the comforter around us. I can't decide if I can give us both a different last time or not without setting us back. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I definitely feel like the Bootie in our little duo.
"What's your girl's name?" I asked her.
"Um...Cindabella," she replied. "You can be Bootie."
Clearly the Disney Princess indoctrination starts early. Genevieve has never even seen any of those movies. Oh well. I giggled at her interpretation of the names and dressed my brunette Barbie in a sundress that I could barely yank up over her misproportioned hips. We pondered the mystery of the stairs that go only from the second to the third floor, and the elevator that goes only from first to second. I noted that although the mansion seems spacious, Barbie is apparently the doll-equivalent of 8 feet tall. The bar-height kitchen table sits at her hips when she leans awkwardly against the stool. I guess it doesn't matter, since neither Cindabella nor Bootie was able to bend her elbow to take a drink of her "glass of line."
Barbies were a nice diversion in the middle of a day that both started out and ended up sucking. I have been working toward weaning Genevieve, with her third birthday at the end of May looming as our deadline. Sometimes she's been cooperative with the limits I've tried to set, and sometimes not so much. After she woke up at 6:00 yesterday morning and nursed without ceasing until I finally couldn't take it at 8:00, she screamed and cried and threw a fit about being denied. Then I pretty much screamed and cried and threw a fit at BD, and it was all just ugly and upsetting and the result of a lot of frustration and exhaustion and I think we all realized that we just can't do it anymore, any of us.
So we stayed in our jammies all day except when he took the kids to the book store for a brief outing before dinner, and we played Barbies and watched bad (really bad) tweener TV on Disney and tried to just be easy with each other, and when G asked to nurse and I told her I can't nurse her anymore, she handled it fairly well. Until bed time. We have never night-weaned any of our kids, because I'm too lazy and I can't stand all that crying. This is the first time in four kids and eleven years that I have not wanted to nurse more than I have not wanted to deal with difficult weaning rituals. (Usually I just take a trip or, you know, go to the hospital to have another baby.) BD had warned me not to come to her room no matter how much she screamed and called for me. It seemed to go suprisingly well for a while, then it went horribly. I read until I couldn't, and then I cried and felt like a selfish ass while SAM reassured me that she was in the hands of a loving parent who was taking good care of her, and that she was just mad and was making sure we knew it. I knew she was right, but it still sucked.
I never thought I would be anything but ready by the time she finally weaned, ending a nine-plus year nursing total, but I really hate the thought that Sunday morning will be the last time I ever nurse her, because I was just angry the whole time. And I really do have so many sweet, wonderful memories of curling around her little body, warm in the bed with the comforter around us. I can't decide if I can give us both a different last time or not without setting us back. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I definitely feel like the Bootie in our little duo.
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