I'm Back (Not That You Noticed I Was Gone...)

Okay, so I don't update as often as I used to, so you probably didn't really notice that anything was wrong when I didn't post anything for a few days... but I've got an update for you. In an attempt to spare you the nasty details I will attempt to keep it brief, but you KNOW why I named myself Violet the Verbose so hang tough.

Thursday things went quite well. The girls and I got all our errands done for the week. I was feeling pretty good. We had one more day of school for Sweet Pea, a doctor's appointment for both of them afterward, and then a birthday brunch Saturday morning all the way across the street. I had once again sworn that THIS would be the weekend we would go buy a larger mattress for the girls to share.

** Side note about the mattress - we did look at Costco but they only sell one kind of mattress and you can't lie down on anything there, so we're going to go to a showroom where we can try things out before deciding what to buy.

Well, once again, that dream was not to be realized. Because at 5am Friday morning I awoke feeling kinda gross, and then all hell broke loose from there. By 6am I felt like a wet washrag being mercilessly wrung out. I could not hold ANYTHING down until 7:30pm (that's PM). Needless to say Slipshod stayed home. He took care of the girls, got Sweet Pea showered and to school, kept everyone fed (except me, but he brought me drinks and ice chips), picked Sweet Pea up, and took the girls to their doctor appointment.

** Side note about the doctor's appointment - The Bug's ears got the "all clear" after that last infection. However - the doctor did not like the sound of Sweet Pea's cough, the fact that it wasn't going away, or the fact that she has been very tired for the past week. Her lungs sounded clear but he feared Walking Pneumonia, for which we are now treating her. She has 3 more days of antibiotics and then if the cough is not gone or markedly better and continuing to improve by Friday or the middle of the following week, we are to take her back to the doctor.

(Now back to our story)

I spent Friday on the couch in the living room, except of course when I made my many pilgrimages to the bathroom to be violently mistreated by some errant bacteria or something. We don't know what happened to me, but since everyone else was THANKFULLY spared this particular violent illness, we suspect food poisoning. Friday night Slipshod took both girls upstairs and put them to bed. Sweet Pea did fine - she's become very relaxed in her old age and knows (since little sis came along) that Mommy can't do everything with/for her and she understands when Daddy will be taking care of her and Mommy needs to be left on the couch. That said, it hasn't happened very often so The Bug was rather distraught and there was much screaming on her part, even though she did seem to understand about halfway what was going on. Bedtime was rough on her and Slipshod, but she did eventually settle down and go to sleep without me. I'm pretty sure that Sweet Pea slept through most of the turmoil and screaming. Do you remember when I used to gripe endlessly about how poor of a sleeper Sweet Pea was? She's come SUCH a long way.

Here's the bit of news that goes along with this story. This illness of mine has brought about an interesting side effect: The Weaning of the Bug. Yep.

The first day I was sick and couldn't hold anything at all down, there was absolutely NO WAY that I could nurse The Bug. I knew that but thought, "well, if we can get her through today, maybe I'll be able to hold down drinks tomorrow and start nursing her again." Well, Saturday came and while I could hold drinks, and even very basic food down, I felt incredibly weak and didn't want to risk it. At this point I started thinking, "hm, you know, maybe I should just run with this. Because she's actually doing okay." I sort of, kind of made my decision Saturday afternoon to go ahead and wean her and started having happy thoughts like, "omigosh, if she weans I can actually start wearing REAL bras again that actually SUPPORT my breasts," ha ha.

At first I had been saying to The Bug when she asked for "boppy," as she calls it, that I was very sick and not ready yet. Once I decided to go ahead and continue NOT giving her "boppy" I hoped that she is too young to understand insinuation, because at first I was totally going to start nursing her again as soon as I could, but never really said, "nope, we're done." I guess that's the wimpy way out, but as it turns out I'm not really having to say that to her.

Friday night she woke up a few times and did ask for boppy, and she protested a bit when I said "no" and tried to get her to just lie down and snuggle again. She didn't want me to touch her (unless I'd be giving up the boppy, of course) but when she complained too much and Slipshod reached over to calm her down she said, "NO!" and then she quieted down and snuggled up to me and went back to sleep. She played with my hair for a long time each time, but she did quiet down and go back to sleep without further request or complaint. Last night and tonight she did not even ask to nurse. She has asked during the day several times, but I noticed (and I knew this was happening before the weaning or illness) that each time she asked, she was either thirsty, or had just pooped and therefore felt hungry again. We're trying to keep on top of the drinks and food for her to keep her moving forward with this. It really seems that she will be fine with that and may even stop asking for boppy soon if we are sure to have enough stuff on hand when she needs it.

Of course, The Bug has always had a rather large appetite - she is not afraid of food, as I'm fond of saying - so since her last breastfeeding session around 5:15am on Friday, she has eaten nearly nonstop during her every waking moment. Today she also decided that orange juice (actually the kind we get is pineapple-orange-banana) is her new favorite drink, and had a bunch of that as well as other drinks throughout the day. It was fabulous to see her drinking so much from a cup!

As for me... well, the weaning became a little difficult last (Saturday) night because since I have been able to keep all my food and drinks down since Friday night. My body started ramping up milk production again and last night as I laid in bed with the girls I could feel my breasts filling up again. Today has been more painful in that department, and every time I've looked at either of the girls and had particularly maternal feelings toward them the milk has let down. OW. Then there is of course the matter of little elbows and knees and heads and books and toys and kitty feet and all manner of other things that tend to come into contact with a mama's boobs on a daily basis. So ow, I'm in the hurty phase of this right now. I didn't have to go through this part with Sweet Pea, since my body stopped milk production when I became pregnant with The Bug. Now I'm finding out what weaning is really like.

As for my feelings on the matter: Honestly I've been ready to quit breastfeeding for a while. It wouldn't have been so bad if The Bug had only been waking once per night to nurse for 10 minutes, but it has been FAR more often per night and for FAR longer chunks of time than that, and I have lost possibly years of sleep. Since she was a fantastic sleeper before she started teething, and because I know what I know from the experience of nursing Sweet Pea through her teething and how well she settled into good sleep after teething & weaning, I have been feeling like if I could just keep nursing The Bug through the cutting of her two year molars, we'd visit the idea of weaning thereafter. She has not cut any of her two year molars yet, but this opportunity is just too good to pass up. I've been sort of resenting her for the night nursing for a good long while now and she is doing so well with the weaning, I'm going for it. I thought yesterday that I might feel sad once I'm recovered from this whatever it was and can think more clearly, but you know, with each passing day I'm thinking more clearly and it feels like weaning The Bug now is the silver lining here.

Physically I am still remarkably weak. I am not looking forward to Slipshod going to work tomorrow but that's the plan. I'm going to eat again tonight before going to bed and hope that I've eaten enough today to build up some more energy for tomorrow. I keep thinking that NOT nursing should be helping me keep more energy, but man oh man did this whatever it was knock me on my ass. Slipshod has been really really great taking care of all of us. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to do more for and by myself, and that I can get Sweet Pea to school and back by myself, though I suppose I'll have time to figure that out and call Slipshod before school if I need him.