This is a small addendum to today’s picture post.  Ronan was having far too much fun with this hose for me to pass up a video.

This post requires no words.  Simply pictures.

I always knew I would breastfeed my children.  Literally, always.  I remember being very young, around 5 years old, and finding out that my boobies were meant to feed a baby some day.  I was absolutely amazed, couldn’t WAIT for that to happen, and would hold all of my dolls up to my chest to ‘nurse’.  I remember very distinctly going to bed at night and praying that when I woke up in the morning, my dolls would become real babies so I could take care of them.  So I could breastfeed them.

When I became pregnant, I also became determined to succeed.  I talked to friends and co-workers who had breastfed, got advice, tips and tricks.  I read books, websites, watched videos.  I wanted to know SO much about breastfeeding that nothing could stop me, there would be no booby-trap to get in my way.

I was lucky.  I had a very easy breastfeeding journey.  Ronan was born with a great latch and a strong desire to suck.  It took very little work on my part to position him properly, to where it wouldn’t be painful for me.  I also was blessed to have my milk come in less than 12 hours after delivery, which meant very little questioning of whether or not my child was getting enough to eat, whether he was growing, etc.  Born at 7lbs 4oz, we left the hospital at 6lbs 13oz.  2 days later, at his first checkup, he was back to 7lbs 4oz already.  So many people; nurses, lactation consultants and pediatricians alike, told me it was unheard of for milk to come in that fast, but my mom assured me she was the same way.

My path on the road of nursing continued to be wonderful, and enjoyable.  Ronan was a very quick eater, which meant ten minutes or less on the breast.  I had enough supply that he only nursed one side per feeding.  When offered the other side, he would make it known that he was no longer interested in eating, thank-you-very-much.  I absolutely loved every moment of it.  I loved holding him, feeling him near to me.  I loved watching the intensity with which he ate, his little fists pulled furiously up near his face in hunger and then slowly falling down to his sides as he became sated.  I adored his little post-nursing milk coma – he looked like he was enjoying pure bliss.  The way his sweet head smelled, the roundness of his tummy – it’s all so strong in my mind, and yet faded like an old photograph.  I can see it clearly, but the reality of it is drifting away.  I wish I could hold on to it forever.

Side-lying nursing was one of the greatest things I ever figured out how to do, as it meant getting a few extra precious moments of sleep, rather than spending minutes at a time positioning pillows and trying to get comfortable.  I remember the first few nights, trying to sit up in order to nurse, with my head lolling over to the side, or slamming back into the wall.  Side-lying changed the whole situation for the better, and I no longer detested night wakings.

Further along in our journey, things didn’t stay so smooth.  Ronan cut his first tooth at 3 months old, and had all 4 of his fronts within 2 weeks.  Holding my hand up to the sky, I am thankful that he only bit me twice after his teeth came in.  Those two bites were enough for me to know without a doubt, I could not continue if he continued.  He didn’t, and we survived.

I also had less support from family members than I would have liked.  It seems to be the common opinion that children only need breastmilk for the first several weeks, and then do just fine on formula.  Perhaps that’s the case, but honestly?  We enjoyed it, both him and I.  It was easy, and quick, and required no preparation.  I didn’t have to pack or sterilize bottles, measure out formula, wonder where I was going to warm up his drink.  And best of all?  It was FREE.  I don’t know how well you know my husband Brock and I, but the cheaper choice is always the better choice.  And spending 20-60 dollars a week on formula did not strike us as the most logical option, when breastmilk, which is more nutritionally fit for our child, is also less expensive.

I continued to brush suggestions and comments like, “How much longer are you going to keep breastfeeding that child?” and “Are you STILL nursing him?” aside, and continued to nurse.  Ronan never became terrible about popping off, or being too distracted to nurse – he was such a quick eater (5 minute nursing sessions were enough by now) that he never got bored.

Our most difficult phase occurred during night time feedings, while side-lying.  Ronan had begun a habit of latching on, and then pulling back as far as he possibly could from me, stretching out boob and nipple very nearly to their breaking point.  As you can probably imagine, it is nearly impossible to have a “correct” latch when pulled so far away, and he would suckle merely on the very tip – it was incredibly painful, and terribly frustrating.  If I pulled him towards me, he would arch his back and pull away with a jerk, causing me tremendous pain.  If I moved closer to him, he would simply inch away.  If I forced him to stay close, he would stop eating and cry.  We were both angry, upset, and unhappy with the situation.  Many times in those few short nights I told him I was “done”, that he was getting a bottle and I couldn’t take it any more.  Many tears were shed.  I suspect that my hot natured boy simply didn’t like the forced proximity, as it caused him to sweat and become uncomfortable.  However, very soon after I figured out that if I prepped him to nurse with his head in the crook of my arm, I could simply keep it bent, and he could not pull his head away.  This allowed him to move his body as far away as he liked, but included no pain or discomfort for me.

We continued nursing like that for weeks, and happiness quickly returned to our partnership.

After many happy months of nursing and pumping at work, I saw my supply decline.  Ronan was only about 10 months old, and I was scared, as I wasn’t ready to quit nursing and didn’t want to start Ronan on formula.  Instead, I took some fairly drastic measures to increase my supply, and was thrilled when they worked.  But the success was short lived…  Ronan wasn’t nursing as often during the day because he was eating more and more solid foods, and I wasn’t able to pump often enough on the weekends because work was so busy.  There were entire shifts, whole 12 hour nights where I didn’t even get to pump ONCE.  My supply took a hit, and so did my confidence.  I had a hard time pumping enough milk while I  was at work to even feed Ronan the next day.  Brock had to start giving Ronan solid meals in place of bottles every now and then just to make up the difference.

As an aside, I would like to point out here that I had no ‘frozen supply’ stored up.  I had something called “Overactive Lipase”, which was finally diagnosed after weeks and weeks of trying to figure out why my milk spoiled so quickly.  We were told, as a general rule, milk could be left out warm for 7 hours, in the fridge for 7 days, and in the freezer for 7 months.  My milk?  Spoiled within an hour.  Went bad in the fridge over night.  Frozen?  We were lucky if it lasted a week.  I tried EVERYTHING to figure out what caused it – stopped working out, cut whole food groups out of my diet, stopped using ANY and EVERY beauty product with a name I couldn’t pronounce in case it was causing a reaction.  In the end, a lactation consultant brought up the lipase issue, which basically means that my body produces too much of the enzyme that digests fat; literally, my milk would digest itself as it sat.  The only ‘cure’ for it is to scald the milk, bringing it to the temperature right before boiling, which deactivates the lipase.  I tried it once, and burnt the milk, wasting the WHOLE batch.  Eventually we decided to use milk management, and not worry about saving up any milk bank.  But it meant that I had no back up option.  If I didn’t pump it, it wasn’t there.

Then, we introduced whole milk.  Just one bottle a day.  One little, simple bottle that gave me so much freedom, such release from stress that I cried with relief.  Just that one bottle of whole milk meant that I didn’t have to sweat not having enough breastmilk, I didn’t have to cry over how much I had pumped.  I didn’t have to worry that he wasn’t getting enough to eat.  And if I made even a little less, it was okay… because we could give him a second bottle of milk.  It very seriously saved my sanity, and my heart.  He was still getting enough breastmilk for it to be worth it for me to continue, but I didn’t have to constantly worry about “not enough.”

As the months crawled on, and Ronan got older, he continued to nurse less and less.  Most of his feedings were during the night, when he was waking 5 and 6 times to eat.  He nearly never nursed during the day any more, and would continue playing despite it being offered.  When 13 months hit, and we walked the path of sleeping through the night, nursing changed forever.  He no longer woke in the night to eat, so he very nearly no longer nursed.  When I would get him up in the morning, he would ask to nurse, and that was it for the day.  No evening nursing, no bed time snack, no nothing.

One morning, I brought a cup of milk with me upstairs and gave it to him instead of the breast.  He didn’t complain, didn’t fuss, and that was the end of it.  We never nursed again after that day.

Ronan was 13 months old, and I admit very strongly that I feel like we stopped too soon.  I miss nursing with all of my heart, and while Ronan doesn’t seem to be any worse off because of it, it hurts to let go of something so easily that you can never get back.

I have a video of Ronan taken just a few short days before he weaned, where I am playing with his toes while he nursed.  When I watch it, it makes me cry.

I’m proud of myself for nursing as long as we did.  I’m excited for the opportunity to raise and nurture another child in the same way.  I love the bond and beauty of breastfeeding so much, I wish I could help others have an experience like mine.  I support moms who breastfeed, moms who nurse in public, and moms who don’t get much support anywhere else.  I never once felt like a cow, or hated having to have Ronan close at hand to feed him.  I wasn’t resentful that no one else could feed him.  I was happy that something I did, some part of my being a mother was done right… that something I did was good enough.

While I laid in bed last night, wide awake for nearly 4 hours, I thought of things I could blog about.  I never really have problems coming up with ideas of things to write when I’m doing… oh, ANYTHING but writing.  But as soon as I sit down at my keyboard, my mind goes blank.  I run through a million little thoughts and none of them are something I want to put down on a page.

So last night, I made a mental list of things I could write about.  I went over them again and again in my head so I wouldn’t forget them.  I finally fell asleep, only to wake up this morning remembering nothing.

Nothing.

I need to keep a pen and a piece of paper next to my bed, to jot down my ideas.  Where the heck do they go?!

Anyhow, I have been pandering away my morning, trying to grasp on to something that I could possibly write about.  While focusing on Ronan, I realized I hadn’t really focused ON him, and started paying attention to some of the things he does.  The way they brighten my day.  The way he makes me laugh.  The way I can’t wait to see what he will do next.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Ronan has recently learned the meaning of “Hot.”  It has to do with walking outside barefooted on the pavement when the temperature is hotter than 90 degrees.  We’ve been signing “hot” at him for ages as a warning against trying to grab hot food, or putting his hands on the stove.  Suddenly, one day, amid running out on to the road in an attempt to get to the pool, he realized his feet were feeling uncomfortable.  He stopped, looked back, put his hand up to his mouth in a claw shape (the sign for hot) and said “Hot, hot, hot!” – only, our little non-speaker doesn’t articulate that well, and it sounds a lot more like “Haw, haw, haw!”

Now, whenever he touches something even remotely warm, he has to proclaim it’s temperature.  Bath water?  Haw, haw, haw!  Momma’s hot chocolate cup? Haw, haw, haw!  The carseat on a sunny day?  Surely, Haw, haw, haw!  This morning, as we sat at the back door waiting for Flint to finish his business, Ronan reached his hand down to touch the ground.  It may be 70 degrees out, if that, but the ground was warmer than the air.  He immediately pulled his hand back to his face in a claw, looked at me very seriously and said, “Haw.”

Oversharing?  One of Ronan’s new favorite things to do is elicit a similar response from someone.  Lately, it has been taking a big bite of his food, chewing it a few times, and then opening his mouth as wide as he can in order to show it to you.  As soon as he’s done so, he expects you to do the same – he showed you his, you show him yours.  Once I’ve opened my mouth and showed him the contents within, he’ll happily go on chewing with a little smirk on his face.  He usually only does it once per meal, as well, leaving me to wonder his motives – Are you eating the same thing I am, mom?  What does food look like in your mouth?  Or possibly just, can I make mommy do the same thing as me?

Stank face!  I don’t know how it started, really.  I was trying to teach Ronan to blow his nose, I think.  I started making a very exaggerated face, and sniffed in and out of my nose loudly trying to show him how to breathe through his nose.  He caught on very quickly.  Now, he walks around huffing in and out of his nose with the most hilarious face you’ve ever seen.  He scrunches up his nose, turns his mouth down into a frown, and sniffs.  Quite honestly, it looks like he’s just smelled the stinkiest fart ever, but it NEVER fails to elicit a laugh from me, nor cause me to stank face him back.  We both get a giggle out of it.  It’s something I desperately want to catch on film, because all too soon he wont do it any more, and I’ll wish I had videotaped it.

Dancing.  Ronan, having never danced as a smaller child, used to concern me.  He never jumped, either.  I thought perhaps he was creationally challenged, or something similar.  Perhaps he just didn’t like to have fun?  I used to dance like a CRAZY person in front of him, trying to get him to copy me.  I guess all it really took was the right kind of music.  Now, whenever a tune comes on, Ronan boogies down appropriately to the beat.  Today, it was to the starting music of Monster’s Inc, and I couldn’t stop laughing.  Forgive the camera shake!

Also, sorry the music is so quiet… it’s much more entertaining when you can hear what he’s dancing to!

There are quite a few more that I’ve thought of just while writing this post, but I think I’ll cut it short here.  This is already one of the longest posts I’ve written in weeks!  I never get enough of this little boy.  He continually makes me smile, despite whatever badness is going on in my life.  I love him more than words describe.

Ronan loves this dog.

The dog loves balloons.

It doesn’t get much more fun than this.

Also, ignore the full diaper.  You don’t hold off moments that make memories that last for ever on account of a diaper change.  For real.

Woo.

Need to write a blog today.  Had nothing to write about.  Until about 5 minutes ago.

I was sitting on the couch with Ronan, sharing my hummus and pita chips.  Ronan will eat just about anything we’re eating, and he LOVES hummus.  He was taking his own pita chips and ‘dipping’ them in the hummus on his own.  He really wasn’t even making that big of a mess!  I was careful to only let him have half a chip at a time, as he’s notorious for sticking the whole thing in his mouth, or as much as he could possibly fit.

Now, Ronan has all four of his one year molars, so he has no trouble chewing food.  I could hear him crunch, crunch, crunching away at his chip, and gladly going for more hummus any chance he could get.  We’d been snacking for a while, and I figured he’d be slowing down soon… he usually leaves out of boredom rather than being full.

All of a sudden, I looked at his face as he started to yell angrily in pain.  His eyes, nose and mouth were all bright red, and he started crying.  It looked like he had maybe swallowed a piece of chip that hadn’t been fully chewed yet, and it HURT going down.  I watched as he sucked in, and then started choking – the rest of the food that was in his mouth went somewhere it shouldn’t have.  He was coughing, and wheezing, then coughing again.  I left him, let him cough, until I realized he didn’t seem to be able to get his airway cleared.

Trying NOT to panic, I picked him up and dug some of the food out of his mouth – positive for TOO MUCH in there.  Once I did that, he started spitting out the rest, and began to cough more normally.  It took just a few more seconds for him to start crying, really crying and only THEN did I feel like everything was going to be okay.

He cried a sad, pitiful cry while I held him.  He put his head on my shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me.  It was scary for both of us, really scary.

I put him down on the ground, and he immediately went for another pita chip.

Sigh.  Kids.

Ronan has been doing signs for a few months now.  These are the ones we use the most often right now.

I’d want to wear them too.  They’re Steve Maddens!

This is a story, as a mom, that I just HAVE to share.

Last night, Ronan was extra tired.  We fed him some dinner and then went for an early bath.  He was with a sitter yesterday, and one of the things that happens when Ronan’s with a sitter is that I lose track of when poops happen.  Never usually a big deal, but it’s something I like to know.

Until last night.

I put Ronan in the bath as it was filling, and sat next to the tub.  We played and splashed in the water.  All of a sudden, he squatted down and made his poop-face.  I panicked a little, but picked him up and perched him on the edge of the toilet.  He finished pooping in the bowl!  But I had to fish the early poop out of the tub and let him run naked around the bathroom while I drained the tub, sprayed some Clorox clean-up, scrubbed and rinsed.  Then I started refilling the tub.  He played in the bathroom the whole time.

So… poop in the tub = fail.  But first poop in the POTTY? = WIN!

I showed him his poop in the bowl, and then we flushed and watched it go away together.  Then he closed the lid.

I put him back in the tub, and went to clean off all of the toys that were in the water when he pooped.  I had my back to the tub… well, really my SIDE to the tub for about 3 minutes.  I came over with all of his toys, ready to give them back…

… and he was playing with poop.

LOTS of poop.

There was a shit-fest in my bathtub.  I was so mortified, I froze.  Brock took Ronan out of the tub again, and I was at a loss of what to do.  “What did you do last time, Mandy?” Brock asked.

“I fished it out with my hand!  But it was just one little poop!  There are a HUNDRED in there!”

There may or may not have been less than a hundred poops.

Finally, I decided to just get the poop out.  I fished around with my hands for a while, drained the tub, re-bleached, re-scrubbed, and re-filled.  At this point, Ronan was crying because he was cold and wanted in the bath.  We did a lot of talking, “We don’t poop in the bathtub, Ronan.  We poop in the potty.  Poop is dirty.”

Finally, we got him in a clean tub sans poop.  We washed quickly, shampooed, then rinsed.  Bath time took twice as long for half the actual amount of bathing.

I used to be SO proud… Ronan had never, ever pooped in the tub, even as a small baby.  Now?  Twice in one night.

Bath time FAIL.