How My Daughter Made Me Cry

It happened; my daughter is old enough that she is asking me those tough questions and saying the words to make me wonder where my baby has gone.

For weeks now I have been prepared for the "where do babies come from?" question because one of her friend's mothers is about to have a baby and there has been a lot of discussion about it. I was NOT in anyway prepared for what she did say to me as I brushed her hair on the bathroom floor.

E: "When I grow up I will have a little girl and I will brush her hair too."
Me: "Oh, that will be so nice! You'll make a great Mommy if that is what you want to do."
E: "I do want to be a Mommy and have babies when I am bigger, but I don't want you to be a Grandma."
Me: "Well, if you have babies then I will become a Grandma, just like my Mom is your Grandma."
E: "I want to have babies, but I don't want you to be a Grandma because then you will get old and die."

How the hell do you respond to that?! At this point my eyes were welling up with tears! 

Me: "Well, we all die, it is just part of life."
E: "And then you are gone."

Now I'm bawling.

We got into the whole topic of dying and going to Heaven, as much as I could explain through crying any how. I told her it was time to get ready for bed while my husband laughed at me and joked about how I should read them Love You Forever as a bedtime story. I could barely make it through Hello Kitty dressing up as a princess never mind reading that parent kryptonite!

I know there will be many other hard questions and moments that will bring me to tears, this one just really caught me off guard! How do you prepare for the hard questions that your children are going to ask?

Too Many Excuses!

I recall being at home with my oldest while on mat leave, and then later on while I was pregnant with our second and thinking that things were so busy. The house not always in the cleanest state because "I just didn't have the time" or "the baby needed x amount of attention." Once our second was born that only increased as now I had two children to look after "How could I ever have the time to get everything done?!"

Running a daycare and having eight kids here pretty well every day for sure tells you a thing or two about time management! My little loves are sick today so I closed and even with making sure to take time out to give them all of their much needed snuggles I have been able to accomplish so much! It really makes me wonder what I was wasting my time on when it was just two kids here every day.

I love my job but it sure makes me appreciate these days at home!

The End of Nursing

It was roughly this time last year that I quit nursing Dillan. He had become very aggressive with me. Yanking my shirt off to get at me, biting, hitting me. I was sick to my stomach over the decision to stop nursing him. He was still a baby, my last baby. I had to remind myself that I had made huge strides and reached many goals when it came to nursing him. He was sixteen months old when we stopped, he had never had formula. I had nursed him longer than I did with Ella. These were huge things to me. Part of me was upset about it being the end but another part of me was happy that I didn't feel like I had failed him like I did with her.

One of the hardest parts about this was that we quit cold turkey. I know you aren't really supposed to do that, for us it really seemed like the only way. He was quite upset for about three days and then it just became the norm. I on-the-other-hand was in pain and my emotions were likely crazy. Matthew was very supportive. It took my body a couple of weeks to adjust while using cabbage leaves, ice packs and sage tea to help the transition along. I very badly just wanted to nurse him to relieve it but that would have been counter productive.

I only occasionally think about how I can no longer nurse him, or that I will never nurse a baby again. Honestly right now what I miss the most is the way I looked and felt! Nursing a baby takes calories, nursing a toddler takes a LOT of calories! I was back down to the weight I was before I had Ella! Now in the last year 25lbs have found their way onto my hips and ass - I'm calling this baby weight!

Sigh

This always seems to happen; I blog and blog and blog some more and then *insert crickets* Nothing. It has been OVER a year. For what excuse? Busy with life? That's lame, I just stopped for a while I guess. Everyone gets busy.

What have I been up to in that year? Running the daycare, tending the house and children; all of the usual mother and wife things. Is that not what this blog was supposed to be about?! I am going to try to pick it back up and see what happens. Hopefully I wont go on a year long hiatus as I have done, a few times now.