It's Late

I have now stayed up way too late but I managed to add a hit counter and a guestbook to this blog. Houston doesn't like it when mama pays attention to the computer and not to him so things like these must be done after he goes to bed. We watched (slept through, actually) the Gator basketball team beat Georgetown (did I spell that right?). I woke up around 1 am to find Brett and Houston asleep on the recliner and I had a thought .... ice cream and the computer! So here I sit at 3:30 am (well rested from my nap) with a pint of Cherry Garcia, looking for cool things to add to my blog. And even though I was out gardening a couple days ago in a tank top and shorts, I just had to turn the heater on ... it's really cold out!
Several of you have emailed me about Houston's ability to fall asleep anywhere ... on the couch, on a dog, on the couch with a dog (or two), on the kitchen floor with a dog, etc... and i've realized how lucky I am that he does such a thing. Being an "attachment parenting" (those of you who don't know what this is .. Google it) kind of mom, I have had to hear plenty of comments from the child raising peanut gallery about my choices. Yes we co-slept. Yes he breastfed until he was 16 months old and it would have been until he was two or so had we not decided to have another baby. Breastmilk usually dries up around your 20th week of pregnacy ... we made it to week 18 and there was just nothing left. I've heard lots of concern about Houston not sleeping "on his own" meaning that I let him nurse to sleep and sleep with us so he could latch on in the middle of the night while I continued to sleep. People seem to think that teaches a baby to keep waking up at night and that he would never sleep away from us or sleep through the night. I always felt that I was doing things in a way that felt natural to me and that eventually it would pay off and everyone would see that I wasn't really crazy. After a long phone conversation with a friend of mine yesterday it hit me ... I did it! He falls asleep when he is tired. He has now been sleeping in a big bed (not a crib) in his room on the other side of the house for close to three months. Most nights he falls asleep between 8 and 9, usually on the couch, and I put him in his bed. He hears dad moving around in the morning getting ready for work around 7:30 or so and he comes and crawls into bed with me. We usually snuggle for close to an hour and then we get up and start our daily routine. Now that seems pretty well adjusted to me. The way I see it, my attachment parenting has given him the confidence he needs to be independent enough to do this. I think it is the natural progression of things. Milk dries up in pregnancy for many reasons i'm sure, but I think a big one is so that the previous child falls into a routine that makes way for the new baby. (like the natural spacing of babies due to lactation amenhoria .. or however you spell it) I worried about it a little at the beginning of my pregnancy but then I decided to stop being a worry wart and just be a "natural mama" and believe that things would work out. Now there is room in our bed for the new baby (along with us and the three or four dogs that sleep in our bed). As I just typed that dog comment I realized that some of you may freak out thinking the dogs would smother the baby. Just so everyone can breathe easily, the dogs all have their own spots on the bed that they always sleep in ... and none of them sleep between Brett and I where the baby will be.
I realize the circles this post is going in but it's almost 4am now and I have a Cherry Garcia sugar buzz going ... so bear with me!
One more comment about the breastfeeding thing. I got lots of questions as Houston neared his first birthday about when I was going to wean him. Most people would ask if I was going to wean him at 12 months. I would usually just "smile and nod", depending on who I was talking to because most of the time it's just not worth getting into. Then as he was 13, 14, 15 months old people really started to question me. I got comments like "he's never going to give that up now that you let him nurse for so long". And to be honest, I didn't know how it was going to go either. Turns out I had a harder time letting go than he did. I had to wean him cold turkey after about a week of him sucking like a wild banchee to get whatever was left in there. I just couldn't take the pain anymore. Well the first three days were rough at night ... took about an hour of fussing and tossing around to get him to fall asleep ... but the next night was like magic. He crawled up into my arms and just fell asleep ... and so it has been ever since. Now when we are with our breastfeeding friends I sometimes feel a little left out as all the other 18-or-so months olds are still nursing. Houston will even try to get under my shirt on occasion after he has seen his friends nursing. He gives up pretty quickly though ... almost as if he's saying "well it was worth a try anyway". I'm very curious to see what he does when he sees the new baby nursing all the time ... that will be interesting. Houston has definitely always loved his "milkies" and I just don't know what he's going to think about having to share them with a little brother (or sister)!
Okay, now that I have rambled on about all that ... I think I will try to get some sleep. One more note before I do, I noticed that some of the pics I have posted are very blury ... not sure why but if you click on one of them they will open on a page all by themself and they are not blury ... just so you know. Also, i'm not sure where this blog gets its timestamps because they are way off of the time I actually post them ... and not by an even amount of hours either as if they were using a different time zone than I am in. Interesting ... I posted something at 4:08 and the blog said I posted it as 12:30. Not that it matters ... just something I noticed.