Don't Let The Hormones Get You Down

Look at my baby. He is really big for his age, as most of you well know. I can never get enough of him. Sometimes I avoid putting him down for a nap because I just want to cuddle and play with him for awhile longer.

I had a little bit of a melt-down last night. All of my kids were in bed, Andy was at Young Men's, and I was doing the dishes. I was thinking about my kids and pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and breast-feeding. How I would never do these things again.... it was a little surreal. And the last one because last night, for the first time, my baby had refused me. He refused to nurse last night before bed, and instead he wanted to get down on the floor and crawl (yup, the kid is crawling, even with all of the discouragement I gave him!) around his room and play with toys. I sat and watched him for awhile, gave him an encouraging smile when he glanced my way, and finally scooped him up, kissed him and squeezed him, and laid his wiggly body in his crib.

After thinking about his display of independancy, while scrubbing away at my frypan, I couldn't keep the tears from leaking out of my eyes. I realize it was late at night (please tell me I'm not the only one who gets emotional and/or loopy come 8 or 9 o'clock...) and I always seem to act irrationally come evening time, but it just really hit me. My days of baby are pretty much over. How did it fly by so fast? Next Monday my youngest child will be 9 months old. Three-fourths of the way to one year. He's crawling, and soon he'll be walking, and then... running. It made me very weepy.

How I wish I could have frozen him at 3 days old, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or now. "Stop growing little boy! Just stop it!" I would like to yell. It's just been different for me with my last. Although I would probably have 2 or 3 more if I was able, I know it's not meant to be. And although our family feels complete, it still makes me a little sad. Especially if I give myself a chance to really think about it. I have continued nursing Magnus for a longer time than my others. It makes him seem like more of a baby to me. And it's funny how something I used to not enjoy so much (from the time I had my first couple of kids) is now something I have come to love and look forward to. I really understand what people mean now when they say they love to breastfeed. Andy has asked me a couple times when he thinks I'll start weaning M and I tell him I'm just not ready to yet and then I make a lame joke about how we won't even have to buy formula this time around. Awesome, yeah? It will definitely be a first, that's for sure.

I was going to write this post last night and then I realized it would be completely out-of-control-dramatic (maybe it still is...? :). So I waited until the light of day. But I wanted to get my thoughts down, and remember my feelings for my itty-bitty babies and how I'll miss those snuggly days. I'm looking forward to the new, but I will definitely miss those up-to-my-elbows-in-diapers-and-spit-up baby days.