I've had a few ongoing jokes to explain why Baby El cries and screams when I leave the room without her. The jokes go like this:
She's smart, she knows where the food comes from and gets nervous when it walks out of the room.
She's just worried the food isn't coming back.I've also taught her the handsign for milk. It's a fun party trick she'll pull out, climbing into my lap, staring at my chest very intently and signing "MILK" with both hands. She's very serious about her food, if I could remove my breasts and leave it with whoever is watching her she'd probably be happy as can be. So it's an understatment for me to say that weaning is going to be notfun, a process that I've already started. Baby El has always nursed on demand durring the day and at eleven months has been known to nurse almost every two-three hours. Most days she averages nursing six times a day. I've started cutting back to four times a day, through distraction techniques or to be completely honest by me personally not being so lazy. Once you get over the newborn hump breast feeding is such a lazy mom's way to parent. Seriously. It goes like this:
Oh, you're bored? I'm bored too. Want to nurse? Hello facebook
Here, mom wants to sleep more come into bed and nurse while I pass out for a bit.
I really do not know how you bottle feeding mother's do it, I cannot imagine all the extra work and stuff to carry. Even if I wasn't so lazy, baby girl is and always has been a comfort nurser. Sometimes she wants to nurse and that's the only thing she's going to take, I'm so excited for her to be a teenager. No really. The introduction of solid foods has proved that she's a mooch. Bring out a tupperware container at a playgroup and she's on you in the blink of an eye. There is no shame, you'll see that cute little bow mouth opened like a birdie waiting for a worm, and those little hands going up to grab what she can reach. I've even been somewhat ashamed when she whined at someone for not giving her food quick enough.
With my weaning goals in mind, yesterday I met with three of my closest friends for group pictures. You know it was all the rage at one point to take pictures with your BFF's, we just kept on the tradition. Baby El was already on her third nurse of the day and I was holding out the last one for right before bed. Something she wasn't too thrilled about but easily distracted by her exciting new walking skill. We were there for probably an hour and starting to finish up the pictures when the smallest of the babies decided she was hungry. My friend T sat down with her baby and started nursing. I think at that point Baby El's mooch senses started tingling, as the next thing I knew she had climbed up T's lap and was staring T down. With angry eyebrows and all, she started making Milk signs and then used her other hand to PUSH T's baby away. Eleven months old and ready to rumble over someone elses food. She was like a drug addict trying to get her hit. Clearly I was right.
