Trying new things.

The funeral was pretty nice for a funeral. It was great to see family. I can see why in so many cultures, the whole village raises a child. You would not believe how easy it is to have a child with a huge family around. The little man followed his cousins all over the place and got lots of hugs and cuddles from aunts and great aunts and lots of roughhousing from uncles and great uncles. Andrew loves people and is a very social baby, so it is so awesome to be with a large group of people.

Today was a pretty good day that ended kind of rough. I am trying to slow Andrew down on the breastfeeding. I am not ready to wean him completely, but just to not nurse so frequently. He wants to nurse every hour around the clock. Now before you all rush to assume that I am a bad mother, keep in mind that he is 14 months old, not a newborn.

This morning we woke up, having our morning breastfeeding in bed as we always do. We had breakfast, and as I started tidying things up, Andrew wanted to nurse again. So I dressed him in outside clothes and we stayed outside all morning. He was happy and busy and not interested in nursing. We came inside, had lunch, and I nursed a happy little man to sleep.

He napped on his own for 2 hours! (That is unheard of in our house!) I was so impressed. Usually he wakes up after 45 minutes and wants to be nursed back to sleep. After he woke up, I bundles him up, and we headed out and went for a walk with another mom and babe for about 2 hours. I went over to her house so the kids could play. Then we went home.

Cue the dramatic horror music.

All hell broke loose. He was crazy whiny, crying and clinging to me. I gave him a snack and that tided him over for, um, 2 minutes? I gave in and nursed him, only because he is used to nursing so frequently. (Mind you, when we were family at the funeral, he would nurse only every six hours or so, and has done this whenever we are out and busy)

He then started to bite. Those 10 little sharp teeth bite so dang hard. I would say no, put him down, he would throw a fit. 10 minutes later, I would try to nurse him again. Same story. This happened about ten time, until he got the hint that mom doesn't like having her nipples almost bitten off.

Then dad came home, and the sun begins to shine. Andrew is happy, eats an adult sized portion of spaghetti and meat sauce and is now in the arms of his loving dad, drifting off to sleep.

The little munchkin.