End of Nursing

When I first became pregnant, I decided that I would breastfeed and I also knew that I would follow the child lead weaning theory. With Eli, he stopped nursing one week before he turned one. I think that if *I* had allowed it, he would have stopped much sooner. Scott had to bring it to my attention that every night I was basically wrestling Eli to get him to nurse and the nursing session ended very quickly. At one year of age, Ian was still nursing three times a day and I was very happy with that. Slowly that changed, first dropping his afternoon session. About two months ago, he was ready to go to bed without nursing. The morning session had been his longest nursing session for a while, he did very well nursing while the house was still quiet and there were no distractions. Until the other morning. He woke up, I grabbed him and his blankey out of the crib and headed to the rocking chair to nurse. He quickly latched on, suckled a few times, pulled himself off of the breast and sat straight up, looked at me and said "NO!" and started to wiggle down from my lap. I was heart broken....my baby has weaned himself. I have mixed emotions really, I am ready to be done with nursing, but I want Ian to stay little as long as possible! His weaning is just one more step towards him growing up. I am proud to say that I nursed my baby until he was sixteen months old. I have nourished his body and provided extra antibodies to keep him healthy. Our nursing session in the morning has been replaced by rocking with a sippy cup, but we still have that quiet time that it is just the two of us and I will treasure that time while I can.

Writing His Name

I have been trying to get Eli interested in writing his name, but he hasn't really shown much interest. He knows what letters are in his name, he can identify the letters and put them in order, but he has shown no desire to write it himself. The other day he came out of his room and said "Mommy, you are going to be so proud of me!". I asked him why and he said "Just come see". When I went to see him, he had written his name on the Magnadoodle. He was right, I was so proud!

Our Style

I have to say that my boys may tower over me someday, but I will always have these pictures over them!

My Sweetest Valentine

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and Eli gave me the sweetest gift. A sweet gift of kindness and thoughtfulness, a gift of selflessness and compassion.

What is this wonderful gift you may ask? Well, yesterday afternoon Eli had closed his foot in the door. As I was consoling him and rocking him I offered to kiss his foot to make it feel better. Through the tears and crying he said "No Mommy, it will stink." What a sweet boy.....

Dad Is......

When Eli was very young, Scott started saying to him in a sing-song voice "Dad is great!". Eli was about eight months old when he said what sounded like "great" when Soctt said "Dad is...". It was very cute. Very early in Ian's life, Scott started saying it to him. Ian would just smile and look at him. Ian finally started saying "great" yesterday when Scott started the sentence. Scott kept saying "Dad is..." because it was so cute to hear Ian say "great", but Ian quickly changed his answer to "yucky". So funny! Ian thinks it is hilarious to say "yucky" and loved the reaction that he got when he said it, so he keeps repeating it! Hopefully I can catch it on video!

Swimming!

Eli and Joe love to go to the Y and swim during the winter. Ian is really starting to want to go everytime that the other boys leave. He L.O.V.E.S bath time! I decided to take him to the pool when we went the other day. At first, he was any thing but thrilled! He however quickly realized that he could splash and have fun and within ten minutes, he was trying to push himself away from me so he could go get his brothers!

Ian - 15 Months

I can't believe that Ian is already 15 months old! He is catching on to so many new things every day! Scott is teaching him to shake hands and say "Nice to meet you." So now Ian is randomly walking up and grabbing your hand and saying "Meet you". So cute! I have been trying to catch it on video, but of course he doesn't want to do it when *I* want him to! We had his Well Child Check this week and he is now 30 inches tall, 21 lbs. 9 ozs and his head is 18 1/4 inches. He is still just at the 10th percentile for everything, but at least he isn't falling off the chart! He is so busy and active, I think he burns off every calorie that he puts in his body! He is such a climber! He has already pushed the chair over to the counter to try to get up on it! BUSY! His speech is becoming less of a concern for me. I have been home all week since we haven't had school due to an ice storm and I decided to record every word that he said spontaneously and I am up to 25 words. He will copy almost any word that we say, it is just that he doesn't talk much spontaneously, but we will see how that comes along. His tubes have helped his ears so much, we go back the beginning of March for a check up. I am having a hard time getting him to slow down much for a picture, so here are a few of him on the go!