Always another way to look at things. . .

Ladybug

Last week, we were visiting the Great Lake State to see the 'rents, sisters, and cousins. Middle C and I took some of the kids out to walk around the mall.  Admittedly, the mall there is very, very small.  So, on the way home, some of the houses we were passing were also very small.  Imagine my surprise when Ladybug piped up:

Ladybug: Mom, what kinds of houses are these?
Me: Kinds of houses?  What do you mean?
Ladybug: I mean, do they have electricity?

Now, the houses weren't that small and they certainly did not look that old.  But I was curious.

Me: Ladybug, what makes you think that they lack electricity?
Ladybug: Well, Mom, the sign over there says, 'No Outlet.'

Honeypie

Let's just say that she has begun to develop her artistic talents.  Apparently, I look like a frog with lots of hair.

Lips

Last week I attended my daughter's parent-teacher conference.  She had been all excited for me to see her artwork which featured an Egyptian mummy.  This is the daughter for whom drawing is a pain.  It requires her to sit still and movement is where she finds solace.

Well, we entered the school and there, on the wall was her mummy.  It was beautifully colored and it looked like she had spent a considerable amount of time on it.  Admittedly, the first thing that we noticed were the lips.  They were fairly large, but it seemed to flow.

When we arrived home, I told her how proud of her that I was and that we saw her picture.

Ladybug: I went a little crazy on the lips, though.
Me: What makes you say that?
Ladybug: I just did.
Me: Did someone say something to you?  I thought your picture was great just the way it was. 
Ladybug: No, I just do.

Which got me thinking.  Why would she have made the lips so big?  Artistic license?  Uncertain boundaries? 

Or maybe, she feels the need to be heard! Bigger lips, more voice?  Crazy linkage on my part.  However, maybe today, I will make a better effort to hear what comes out of those lips.

Post in my brain. . .

Sometimes I am worried that I am not going to remember some of the most heartfelt moments in my life.  Things that I have really enjoyed in the last month that I want to solidify in my brain include:

1. Attending the Emerald Ball with D and staying at the Gwen overnight.
2. Watching Inside Out with my family this weekend.
3. Raking leaves with Honeypie on Sunday and playing stop and go on her bike.  She almost ran me over several times, rode her bike through my leaf piles and then laughed like crazy.  It was exhilarating. 
4. Mowing the lawn on Sunday while Ladybug attempted a cardboard box sculpture for our cats.
5. Having a dance party with H and L upstairs.  We danced to Shake it Off, All about the Base, What's going on (4 Non-Blondes) and others.  While D did not participate, he actually came into watch for a bit.  Both girls were out of control and really having a great time.  So was their mom. 
6. Snuggling with both girls at various times in the night. 

Simple Things . . Part Deux

BEING MINDFUL!

Again, I suspect that this is at the crux of my question.  Being mindful is at the crux of living what I write.  I took a mindfulness meditation class several years ago and really felt that I grew at that time.  It may be time to pull this info out again and resume this journey. 

Simple Things

It seems like gratitude is everywhere: self-help books, church, friends, sisters' blogs, etc.  I am not complaining about this in the least.  I believe that it is important to be grateful for things that we have been given, whether it be talents that enabled us to work hard for one thing or another, health, family, whatever.  I am extremely grateful. 

Currently, I am in my office.  Office, you say? Yes.  I am in my office which is housed in my basement.  To my left, my laundry assistant, the Samsung front loader is washing my clothes. To my right, is a soothing cup of mint tea that I am drinking in a enormous Bee mug from a dear friend from my Ann Arbor days. In my office resides several other very important items: a Frigidaire deep freezer that is full of gelato, gluten free and other types of bread, homemade chicken broth that D made over the weekend, and a variety of other extremely important foods. Behind me, stands our furnace and water heater which assists us with staying warm and providing us with the potential to enjoy our showers.  For all of these things I am grateful. 

The weather is getting colder.  We pass the same homeless people on the street every Sunday on our way to church.  I wonder where do these folks go?  I know some sleep on the greenspace near the Madison street exit on I 290.  Michael, one of the regulars, greets all passerbyers with a big smile, a joyous voice.  "Good Morning. God Bless."  I wonder about his mother.  His partner. Does he have even have one? Does he have children?  How does he stay warm in the winter.  How does he stay healthy.  Almost more importantly, how does he stay safe?

I have a home. I have food and warmth. I have a loving husband and family.  I have health. I am so grateful. However, simply stating how grateful I am is not enough.  What can I do to "pass these gifts on?" What is one concrete action that I could do to express this gratitude that could be embedded in my being?

Family Night . . . Inside Out

Last night was family night.  Three of us snuck into our PJs early while D cooked pasta for dinner.  I was excited because I had convinced the three of them that it was a good idea to have dinner and a movie in the basement. 
Granted, eating pasta was not easy, but hey we had a little table for the girls. 

Granted, Inside Out was rated PG, but we were going to be there to explain things to both daughters. 

The evening had a grand beginning.  For appetizers, the three double chromosomed individuals danced in our "dance room" to Four Non-Blondes, and a whole host of Best of the '80s musical scores. It was a riot.  I flipped Ladybug in circles while HoneyPie shook her rear and head.  Best of all, we were out of earshot from XY who, as I said, was cooking dinner and talking to his brother on the phone. 

Finally, it was time to move our suarez into the basement.  Needless to say, I have never heard Ladybug laugh so heartily.  It was awesome.  Her sister also seemed to either be in on the joke in some parts, or was simply laughing at her older sibling.  It was fantastic. 

However, not so comfortably both girls proceeded to create torrential downpours.  Honeypie and D ended up going upstairs to embark on some magnatile construction.  I held Ladybug in my arms for the remainder of the movie.  What impressed me so (and many others as well) was that the emotion, Joy, was so often trying to suppress her fellow emotion, Sadness.  We are not comfortable with sadness or some of the other uglier emotions.  Sadness does have a purpose. Often, it is instrumental in people coming together to ask for help.  I hugged L a little tighter upon coming to this realization.

So often, Ladybug can be pretty loud with her emotions, especially those that are less than flattering.  This always rubs me the wrong way, and unfortunately, does not bring out my best mothering.  What is hard for me is to sit with these feelings that she has.  I recall engendering some of these same feelings and not having positive outcomes as a result.  However, how terrible could those outcomes have been?  I am still here, I have a loving family, great coworkers, and a wonderful community in which I live. 

So, the thought for me today, in addition to writing more to live, is to learn to sit with emotions that are wrought with hopelessness and despair without trying to fix them.  In my professional role, I am often charged with trying to help patients solve these emotional conundrums.  Take your professional hat off, Lady, I tell myself.  Jump into your life and be.

A Family of Hope to Be Writers. . .Living what you write?

At present, I come from a family of closet writers.  Well, that actually, that is not the full truth.  Both my sisters blog and middlesis is in a full fledged writing group, edits articles for an online magazine, has won a couple of awards and is working on another novel with the hope to be published.  So of the three of us, she is most likely to be declared a writer.

Babysis also blogs on two separate blogs, but journals avidly.  The vocabulary possessed by these two women is quite extensive. Their way with words proves simply inspiring. But from where did this desire, this innate need to write and communicate through the written word emerge in our family?

Simple answer. Our mom.  Our mom.  This is the woman who would rather not entertain a confrontation and ultimately remained silent.  I am thinking about an unusual Thursday this past June. I am in the den of my parents' home, a dark dank room in the basement of their tri-level home. If I close my eyes and breathe deeply I can almost smell the faint remnants of cigarette smoke that once upon a time consumed this room.  The stained sage green carpet sulks because of the damp moist film that lightly lies on its tread.  What am I doing here, one might ask? 

The answer is simple.  I am beginning the process of clearing out the clutter that has pervaded much of this room and much of my mom's brain.  Over and over I stumble upon articles covering topics such as Alzheimer's and Diet, Alzheimer's and Mood, Screening yourself for dementia and the like.
I am saddened by this, because my mom knew what was going on and instead of communicating her concerns with her family, she felt that going into denial and dealing with her memory issues herself was the better option. I do not know if she felt that we could not deal with this or if she could not deal with it.  Confidence in herself or her family has not been her best attribute.  Why is this relevant? 

Because my mom, who occasionally wrote, wrote beautifully.  When I looked at some of her writings, I am impressed with how reflective and thoughtful they were.  I am surprised by the openness and wonder why that side of her was not on display? Why did she not write more? Sadly, I am struck by how hard it must have been to be living two selves, especially one where you write how you want to live but don't or maybe can't.  Perhaps the writing process that lead her down divergent roads was too painful, hence the reason why her writings were not numerous. Who was she so concerned about disappointing?  Her family?

I find that I am often at this same crossroads and then I think about my sisters.  They live what they write.  They are congruent in their thoughts and beliefs and their actions.  I admire them for that. When I ask myself how can I replicate this, of course I have a lot of requirements to move this living congruently into action.  None, mind you are convenient for one lame reason or another. But life is not convenient.  People encounter many things that they never would have anticipated: job loss, death, divorce, cancer, Alzheimer's. 

I read somewhere that one should write what one knows.  Both my sisters do this. Does one know how to live because they write or do they write because they know how to live? My mom knew how to live within a very confined space, but as I said, her writings were few. 

So at the very least, I am going to act on the notion that the more one writes, the more one learns how to live.  In that vein, I will use this blog to be more accountable in both the living and the writing department.  Who knows?  Perhaps I will find my truth in both.

What do you need?

What do I need?  Sometimes, I am not so sure.  Maybe sleep, maybe a glass of chilled chardonnay, maybe a good cry.Needs and wants are interesting concepts.  At the end of the day, one really only needs clean water, clean air, sustaining food, safe place to rest your weary head. 

One need that I think is highly undervalued really, is the need for touch.  I have been pondering this thought over the last week after I listened to Terry Gross interview Dr. Vincent DeVita, an oncologist and author of the book, The Death of Cancer.  To listen or read the transcript, see the link below:  http://www.npr.org/2015/10/28/452395967/oncologist-discusses-advancements-in-treatment-and-the-ongoing-war-on-cancer

In this discussion, Dr. DeVita discussed his own battles with cancer, but also bravely talked about his son Ted, who fought aplastic anemia until he died at age 17.  Aplastic anemia, is a disorder whereby all three of the major bone marrow stem cells are not produced in adequate amounts.  Without enough red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets,  a person will not be able to oxygenate appropriately, fight infection, or prevent clotting.  This condition can ensue following a toxic chemical exposure, a viral illness such as mono, or due to unknown reasons, which then we call idiopathic. 

For Ted, he was so severely compromised, he lived his remaining 8 years of life in a bubble like room at the National Cancer Institute.  I cannot even imagine what both parent and child endured.  The only touch that this young man would have had was that through plastic gloves. No touch. No hug from his mom.  No stroking the cat. No first kiss.  No physical touch for fear he would die of infection.

We take the sense of touch for granted.  How many times a day do we find ourselves touching someone.  Tousling a child's hair, squeezing your partner's hand, hugging your mom, even though she is not going to remember who you are. 

Without touch, babies would not be breastfed, or even created for that matter. People whose love language is of the more physical in nature would often feel neglected.  Research has shown that touch results in a release of oxytocin, a hormone instrumental in the feel good department as well as the let down reflex in breastfeeding.  (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763408001127)

Think of all the people living in nursing homes, whether they are elderly, non-verbal, etc.  How much better would their lives be with appropriate touch?  Today, I am going to sit here and just be grateful.  Grateful that I have this sense as well as the people in my life to share it with.  In fact, I think I am going to go hug my kiddos right now.

Be Gentle

Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.  In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
                                                               Max Ehrman

NoMoYe

Some people take a month to write a novel.  This is my month to try not to yell.  NoMoYe- No more yelling!  This will be a challenge, but such a blessing if and when I succeed.  How will I measure this success?  I would guess that I would witness less yelling coming back my way.  More later and wish me luck.

Three going on thirteen, questions, questions, questions. . .

It was that time of the month, and of course I had run out of the goods.  I headed to our local CVS to purchase both types of female products and upon my return home, I became distracted by the kitty cuteness that greeted me at the back door, leaving the plastic bag with the goods on the bench.

It was at that time that Honeypie came to say hello.

HP: Oh, good!  I need these for my birthday (holding the bag of tampons).
Me: (Turning around, almost choking on my cup of cold coffee) For your birthday?  HoneyPie, those are tampons, you do not need tampons until you are older.
HP: No. I need tampons for my birthday.
Me: Sweetie, those are for when you are older and you have your period.
HP: (Clutching her parts and in an intense voice) I am having my period.

Then, the marathon began.  There went my daughter, clutching the bag of unscented supers as she ran full speed around the house, me in tow.  How ridiculous.  So she throws the tampons to the ground, and I think to myself  "whew, this is over" and there HP goes, the baton this time  in the form of maxi pads.


Flash forward to dinner time several hours later, when to my husband's chagrin, Ladybug began launching into questions about getting your period:  how did I know I first got it? When did I get it? Do the twins have it? How will I get the tampons in and out?  Does it hurt? What do breast changes  have to do with this?  Both girls were rapt in attention at my responses.

I looked at my husband.  He was shoveling the Parmesan covered shells into his mouth at a pace where I could only wonder if he was actually employing his tastebuds.  If I had to guess, I would have guessed that he was grateful that we actually had another male I the house, even though it was the feline type.

The "Talk". . . It's coming

In the last month, we have adopted two of the most beautiful kittens.  Olaf, a snow colored cat with Mickey Mouse markings is our little man and Chita, a Hindi word for "spotted" is our little girl. Ironically, she is not spotted, but brown with black stripes bedecking her head and body.  A white vest adorns her chest and like her larger cat cousin, the Cheetah, she is very quick on her feet.

Nevertheless, our two human beans are thoroughly enamored with their feline friends.  In fact, Ladybug, our eldest has declared that she is going to have 1000 cats in her house some day.  None of which are going to be spayed or neutered. 

Which of course lead to the most interesting discussion late one night as she, Honeypie and I were all cuddled in my bed for a slumber party. 

LB: Mom, why do cats have to get spayed and neutered?
Me: Well, it's so they don't have babies.
LB: Why?
Me: Well, if there are too many cats, then there is a chance that they won't get taken care of well.
LB: But why do they get spayed and neutered?
Me: So they don't have babies.
LB: But how does this make them not have babies?
Me: (How is it that I get these discussions?)  Well, the vets do a little surgery that makes them not have babies.
LB: Well, the boy cats are lucky.
Me: Why is that?
LB: Well, they can still have babies.
Me: Actually, LB boys do not have babies.
LB: Then why do they have to be neutered?
Me: Well, (whether I am ready or not for this, this discussion indeed is happening), boys have a special cell that meets with the egg and then these two cells make a baby?
LB: Well, how does the cell get there?
Me: The boy cat puts it there.
LB: (I can hear a smile on her face in the dark) Oh, I get it. Like you and Daddy!
Me: Me and Daddy?
LB: You know, you huggle wuggle.
Me: I guess that is like Daddy and I.

Pan to our other daughter, who is now fast asleep in my bed, eyes lightly fluttering, hand clutching her pink flowered birth blanket, looking as cute  and innocent as ever.  In this moment, I realize this innocence is not long lived and like my old white tattered blankee, I am wishing to hold onto this for a very long time.

The Lighter Side. . . Naked Exercise

Envision this. . . Night Fever by the Bee Gees is blasting in the background.  I hear thuds emerging from my room upstairs.  One can only wonder what is transpiring in my house, given that the girls and I are the only ones home.  I run up the oak stairs and there, in my room, on the floor wrapped in pink and blue towels is my three year old, seated in pike position, arms outstretched with her arms, hands clutching our pink 2 pound weights.  On her face is the biggest smile I have ever seen.  I cannot help but laugh.  Not to be outdone by her sister, LB runs into her room.  Moments later, I think Jane Fonda is in my hallway doing hip thrusts.  In seeing the same big smile on her face, I realize again, how lucky I am.

The Fight Starts Now. . .

"Resolve swept through me. I was experiencing a mental breakthrough! From now on, I must concentrate on what I have, not what I have lost" (Friel, 1993, p 98).

In her 1993 memoir, Living in the Labyrinth: A personal journey through the maze of Alzheimer's, Friel  painfully describes how she has been woefully aware of her emerging deficiencies that include loss of spatial relations, word finding difficulties, personal memory gaps and the like.  These losses render her unable to work professionally, but also create a chasm with her family.  She works hard to keep these losses her little secret and her family often cannot understand why she cannot proceed with things as she has done in the past. 

Tragic flaws are inherent in being human.  We lose something over the course of our lives: our looks, athletic abilities, our loved ones, our ability to drive, something.  Can we look beyond what we have lost and lovingly embrace what we still have left?  Can we change our lives despite knowing the label of these pending losses? It is a challenge that I am posing to myself.  But this challenge is also a fight.  A fight to overcome the status quo, to do more, to be more open, and to love.   A fight that needs to fought before it is too late.

And so, today, at this very moment, the fight for living, a fight for relishing what I have begins. . .

Weaning

Weaning.  A word that has been tossed around our house like a garden salad for over two years.  As a mom who has embraced extended breastfeeding, one might think that my musing over the term "weaning" may revolve around the fact that my husband and I are in negotiations on when to fully wean our three year old daughter.  I know, I know, she is not getting fully nutrition through my milk.   But oh, the closeness, comfort and connection really are priceless.

Yet, I digress.  When consulting Merriam Webster about the term "wean" you meet up with definitions that embody my previous discourse:

1: to accustom (as a young child or animal) to take food otherwise than by nursing

However, the thought behind this post does not surround my three year old, but rather, my parents, my sisters, and myself.  I will spare the sordid details, as they say, but the adults in my family of origin are also embarking on this new "weaning" adventure. And based on the last several weeks, I am not sure that we are all looking forward to this journey. 

The second definition of "wean" is as follows:  

2

:  to detach from a source of dependence wean

ed off the medication> <wean the bears from human food — Sports Illus.>; also :  to free from a usually unwholesome habit or interest <wean him off his excessive drinking> weaning them from habits of violence — Geoffrey Carnall>

 

At this point in our lives, my sisters and I are needing to wean our parents from their independence.  We are inviting them to receive our help, our counsel, in efforts to preserve any semblance of autonomy.  Our dad, who will be 80 in August, is a former marine and top salesman.  Gregarious, social, conservative in political and religious beliefs, he seems like an awkward teenage boy not sure of the right etiquette in his senior years.

 

Mom, a shy closet writer and political thinker, is no longer able to fully recognize her own children in photos.  The clicker is that they are living far away from any of their beloved, who so desperately wish to participate in their lives. 

 

My sisters and I have functioned like a 3 person relay race team.  One of us started us out strong and fast to provide a nice sized lead, the second provided consistency and stabilization, and the third, we are hoping is going to pull us up the rear and bring the gold home.  The gold in this case is gently encouraging our parents, to wean themselves from the lives they have lived for over 28 years and move closer to one of us.  While we see it as merely a change of location, I wonder if my parents see it more as a weaning of the self; a losing of who they are, who they were, and who they were meant to become.  

 

In the case of our mom, she has already begun to wean herself from herself and her life.  Weaning.  I guess its not just for babies.  

The Unexpected. . . Part 2

We like to think that we know our parents.  The people who brought us up, cared for us when we were young, argued with us in our adolescents.  We just don't expect any surprises from them as we age.  Perhaps we look as them as these immutable, inflexible beings who will always treat us the way that they always have.  While we expect ourselves to grow and change, to move beyond who we are today and to strive to be better, more whole humans, we, well at least I, do not expect the same from the parental unit.

I expect my mom to be picky in her eating habits.  I expect her to get anxious if too much clutter is residing on the kitchen table.  I expect her to move with a lack of confidence in her being.  I expect her to shy away from people.  I expect her to take her life and those lives around her much too seriously, failing to live in the moment. 

From Dad, I don't expect much emotion, unless it is embroiled in the discussion of my errant political views.  I expect Dad to definitively direct the action in the movie of his and my mom's lives, especially when it involves managing the simple day to day activities. 

As a couple who has been together 47 years, I have come to expect a lack of intimacy.  The connection I have come to expect is based more on my mom's agreement with my dad's political and financial views. Yet, I expect that they love each other, and that they love me.

However, my expectations of them, and my perceptions of them as individuals, as a couple, and as my parents have been tossed in a million different directions.

Over the last several weeks, my sisters and I had come to help take care of my Dad after he had some ambulatory issues.  Ironically, these issues merely illuminated how severe some of my mom's memory problems were.

And that brings us back to expectations.  Would I have expected my mom to go and sit next to a woman, smile at her and make small talk at church when all other pews were open?  Would I have expected her and my dad to hold hands multiple times in church? Would I have expected both my mom and dad to start singing along with Andrea Boccelli's "When I Fall In Love" with my mom subsequently asking my dad to dance and then kiss him when they were through?  What about getting both my parents to dance and jump around with me to Neal Diamond's "America" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" in their kitchen? 

We went to church today and part of the homily was that we waste too much time dwelling on the past and worrying about the future.  The present is all we have.  Sadly enough, the present is all that we are going to have with my mom.  Holding her children in her arms, watching her grandchildren blow out birthday candles on their third birthday, or dancing with her husband in their kitchen at dusk on a humid summer night will all be forgotten. While I expect that the next few years are going to be really painful, I also expect that I am finally awake (I love you pointz) to see the blessings of the present. 

The Unexpected . . .

Ok, I admit it.  I am a child of the '70s and so, I find listening to music of the '70s, '80s, and '90s to be very moving, energizing, a great way to unleash the frustrations of the day. So, on Dance Fridays, or Thrilling Thursdays, you may hear and see my children and myself dancing to 'YMCA', 'Thriller', or
the family favorite 'We are Family'.


Today, was no different, at least that is what I thought. We were going to listen to 'Ghostbusters' to assist us with getting ourselves ready for the day.  But because we no longer subscribe to the Pandora unlimited, what greeted us first, was a Johnsons and Johnsons commercial.  Entitled "A Mother's Intuition" I was not sure what was coming next.  However, Ladybug was transfixed. She watched as a woman in her mid-thirties was relaxing comfortably on a couch, white teacup in hand, like she was sitting in your living room, with you.  She is confiding in you about her difficulties with getting pregnant, the joys of finding out about her subsequent pregnancy with twins, and then the horror of how she went into labor at 26 weeks.  She reveals that her twins were born in an operating room, a boy and a girl under bright lights and palpable tension.  When asked what her son's name was, she answered 'Jamie', to which the doctor replied "Jamie is dead." 


In shock, the woman demanded to hold her baby, placed him on her bare chest, and requested her husband join them in the bed. Cocooned, the two of them wept as they softly spoke to their son about their hopes, their dreams.  They kissed him, hugged him, bathed him in their tears, and  held onto him for dear life. Then, the unexpected: the mother noticed that he was breathing.  The midwives were summoned, but they replied that Jamie was in the process of 'passing.'  But then, Jamie, opened his eyes, grabbed his father's finger and held on. 


Today, Jamie is five years old.  He has a twin sister and a little brother.  Jamie's mother is convinced that they provided the heat, warmth, and love that he needed to be ready for this world.  J and J's message, was to hug more, love more.


I was touched by this 2 + minute video.  I was not quite sure how LB felt.  She was quiet, subdued.
Ladybug: Mom, how did that happen?
Me:  That is a good question.  What do you think.
LB: I do not know.
Me:  Well, LB.  I believe that is what we call a miracle of God. 
LB: Hmm.
Me: They don't happen everyday. 
LB:  So why didn't this happen with my babysister? (Recalling the miscarriage from 2010).
Me:  I don't know, honey.  But maybe God did not think that it was time for you to have a sister. God knew Catalina was coming, but that maybe we needed to learn somethings first.


Dealing with the unexpected.  Not so easy for a person resistant to change.  I guess this will be one of my challenges for Lent and for Life. Perhaps my affection for disco music reflects this resistance to change.  Who knows?

The "Tail"

Little boys are intrigued by it.  Big boys take pride in it.  Years ago, Ladybug informed be that it was called "Daddy's Tail."Today, upon examining her own parts, Honey Pie informed me that my husband's parts are called "wiggle parts." Certainly sounds better than some of the euphemisms that I have heard.

"Me Big Girl"

Extended breastfeeding, or breastfeeding after one year of age, is something that is not well received in this country.  I breastfed Ladybug until she was four years old and weaned her when we were trying to get pregnant.  She knows that she breastfed until then, and still jokes that she wants "mommy-milk".  When she says this, I usually joke back with her, "hey, there is some in the freezer for you downstairs."  After much reflection, though, isn't she really asking for the closeness that comes with such an activity?

What can be frustrating is that everyone has an opinion on extended breastfeeding, even if it does not concern them. Forget the fact that babies who have breastfed over year have higher IQ scores, engage in more diverse diets, and theoretically have fewer issues with allergies, etc.  Forget about the fact that when GI illnesses strike and the kid does not want to eat or drink, she can still maintain hydration because her source of comfort when she is feeling ill just so happens to be a source of fluid and electrolytes. At any rate, the discussion of weaning really, in my humble opinion, should be made by the dyad in question. 

For a fleeting moment today, I wondered if Honey Pie's nursing days were coming to an immediate end.  HP is now 2 and 1/2 years old.  She is still nursing, although, not as intensely as her sister did.  Ladybug was a gymnastic nurser, trying various positions, working very hard to squeeze every last ounce of milk out of my body.  HP, on the other hand, usually lies quietly, coaxing milk out with her hands only when necessary. 

Imagine my initial surprise when HP and I had the following conversation right before nap.  Let me set the stage first.  Usually, we will sit in the rocking chair in her room and nurse while we read a few books.  Then, I will lay her down, sometimes rubbing her back to sleep or nursing her for another minute. 
Me:  HP, time to get in the chair to read stories.
HP: Me stand right here (next to the rocking chair).
Me: Don't you want milk while we read?
HP: Mommy-milk is for babies, me big girl. 
Me:  Babies?  Sometimes girls have mommy-milk.  So, you don't want mommy-milk? (Inside I was laughing, because this 'big girl' nursed all last night because she was not feeling well.)
HP: No (EMPHATICALLY!) Me big girl.
Me:  OK. (I proceeded to read.  Then asked her to get into her bed).
HP:  (Sly smile).  Me want mommy-milk. 
Me:  I thought mommy-milk was for babies?
HP: No, big girls want mommy-milk too!

In recounting this discussion with someone very dear to me, she asked if I would have been relieved, knowing that the ending of  the nursing part of the relationship would be over, but that HP was ready for this.  I will have to think that over.  Dealing with change and transitions have never been my strong suit. I will definitely need to think this over.

A Little Egg

I don't want the birds and the bees to be a total surprise to my children, so I guess that I have begun introducing them to how they were made very early on.  The other day, Honeypie and I were driving in the car in the old stomping grounds where my dear husband and I lived together when we were first married. "The old condo" is what we fondly call it.  It was also Ladybug's first home and she still talks about how she misses her room with "two doors".  At any rate, I pointed out to Honey pie the place where we used to live when the following conversation  ensued:


Me: There is the place where your mommy, daddy, and sister used to live.
H: Me go with you?
Me: Well, actually you were not born yet.
H: Me go with you, Mommy?
Me: Well, actually, you were with me, but you were a little egg.  In fact, you and your sister have been with me my entire life. You were just little eggs.
H:  Then me broke open.  Me biddy.
Me: Well, not exactly,but I am so glad that you are here.

Honeypie's Wisdom

Honeypie is 2 and 1/2 years old.  However, if you ask her how old she is she says "two old". 

Yesterday, she told me to "shh".  When I asked her why, she said that "the baby in her tummy was sleeping."

Watching her and Ladybug, who now is 7 and 1/4 years old, interact usually brings a smile to my face.