Alexis - Happy 4th Birthday!

Dear Lexi,

Happy 4^th birthday! Four years ago, you burst on to the scene – all 6 pounds and 6 ounces of you. Four years later, you still enter most rooms the same way, as a tiny spitfire, with big brown eyes and a loud, adorable voice. Only now you have the best hair I’ve ever seen. We say it’s crazy hair, but really, it’s one of my favourite things about you and I hope it never, ever calms down. It matches your personality in the best way – unrestrained, uncontained, and infinitely smile-inducing.

I am so proud of the wonderful human you are growing into – caring, considerate, giggly, funny, smart, adventurous, and snuggly. Although you’ve always loved playing with your brother and sister, it’s so fascinating to watch those relationships change and mature over time. You worship the ground that Mercedes walks on, but you stand up to her more these days – insisting on which role you want to play in your make-believe game of ‘family’, or saying no when she tries to direct a game a certain way. But you also get along so much better with Holden now, which delights me. Your relationship with him has always been a bit tricky – being so close in age, and being so young yourself when he arrived, it’s easy to see why there might have been a bit of animosity as he quickly progressed into toddlerhood. But now, with him being so verbal, and you being nearly the same size, you seem more like equals. You find him just as amusing as Mercedes does, and you treat him with compassion and consideration, and more like a true playmate than you ever have before.

You have only a few months left of full-time daycare before you embark on your next great adventure, full-time school! You are super-excited about Junior Kindergarten, and getting to go to ‘big school’ like Mercedes, but I know you will miss all of your friends and teachers at Learning Jungle. You have learned so much in your time there – progressing from the Junior Preschool Room to the Senior Preschool Room, dropping your nap, learning basic literacy skills – right now you are even teaching us sign language! I love hearing about the fantastic things you do at daycare – adventure walks and theme days and catching frogs and learning about the ocean and pirates and building tiny towns. It’s a fantastic place and they love you almost as much as we do.

Thank you for being such a delightful presence in our lives – everyone who knows you agrees that there is just something extra special about you. Some spark, some fire, some impish-ness that I hope never dulls. You glow, and I vow to always nurture that glow, ensuring it forever shines as bright as it does now.

Happy 4^th Lexi-Doodle!

Love,

Mama

Holden - Weaning

Dear Holden,

Seven years ago this month, I got pregnant with your big(gest) sister. And since that time, I have been either pregnant or nursing (or both!) continuously. That’s a total of nearly 30 months pregnant, plus a total of over 65 months nursing. Yes, that’s right, SIXTY-FIVE MONTHS.

I haven’t regretted my choices, or the unexpected path that our life has chosen for us – to have all three of you within four years has been a blessing. An exhausting blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. To be able to fairly effortlessly breastfeed all of you has marked some of my most joyful, peaceful moments in the past six years of being a mother. There have been hard times in my breastfeeding journeys, for sure – I vividly remember how slowly my milk came in after Mercedes was born, and having to pump with a hospital grade pump after each feed for a few weeks. I remember the night after Alexis was born, when she basically nursed ALL NIGHT LONG to bring my milk in. She was tiny, but feisty, and very vocal about her desires! (Not much has changed about that in the past four years.) I remember the only real nursing strike I ever experienced, and that was yours, during a pretty serious set of illnesses (strep throat, double ear infection, pneumonia). That was a week-long period of agony and doubt for me, which ultimately culminated in a brief hospitalization for you and the beginning of your asthma diagnosis.

Thankfully though, I weathered all the hard times and the growth spurts and the TEETH, together with my babies. I’ll never forget coming home after a week-long business trip just a couple of months ago, and being SO worried that you would not want to nurse anymore, even though I knew you were over two and of course, would be fine. But the first words out of your mouth when you saw me were “Hi! Hi Mommy! I nurse now peas!” It was heart-warming and made me feel so incredibly glad that you treasured our breastfeeding relationship just as much as I did.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. It appears, after 29 months of nursing you, my final baby, we are on the resolute path towards weaning. It isn’t exactly your choice, and it isn’t exactly my choice, but we seem to be making the march together, which is exactly what I always wanted to experience. I stopped nursing both of your sisters, fairly abruptly, as I was pregnant each time with a subsequent child. It didn’t bother them, but it did bother me a little – pregnancy hormones and guilt are a horrible mix! I always longed for that slow, gradual weaning process and now, years later, here we are!

Before you started daycare at 15 months old, we were down to about 4-5 nursing sessions a day. Once you started daycare, that became 2-3 sessions a day – always in the morning and before bed, and then sometimes an extra session thrown in overnight, or on the weekends. More recently, we’ve moved down to one session – the eternally-helpful bedtime session. It has always been a great way for the two of us to reconnect after a day apart; some quiet cuddle time, just mama and her little boy. Of course, it always had the added benefit of making you sleepy, which I have to admit was a sanity-saver!

However, your bedtime routine is taking longer and longer (particularly since I returned home from that business trip) – you seem to be about ready to drop your much-beloved nap, you are far less tired than your sisters in the evening, you want to do everything they do (including PJs and stories in Lexi’s room), you want to help tuck your sisters in, you want an extra story in your room after the girls are already in bed, you want me to sit on your floor for a few minutes in the dark, etc, etc. And you seem less and less interested in maintaining that bedtime nursing session, and truthfully, so am I. We still have quiet cuddle time in your room, just you and me. We read a quick story, with you snuggling up in my arms in your chair. We rock for a few minutes. You give me a sweet kiss and a big hug and we exchange ‘I Love Yous’ and ‘Goodnights’. Truthfully, it’s pretty perfect.

So I am sad, but also happy. It’s a bittersweet time for me – to know that such an ingrained part of my day, my life for the past six years, is coming to an end is hard for me. It’s yet another sign in the expanding pile of them that my babies are growing up. But, yay, it means that my babies are growing up! My babies are turning into big kids – with voices, and distinct personalities, and their own thoughts and wishes and interests and likes and dislikes. My babies are becoming independent, and confident, and growing into themselves. How can I be sad about that? And of course, I have to admit, that I am a little relieved to finally be getting my body back after all of these years. I gave myself over fully – to growing three wonderful humans, and to sustaining them for months on end. And I will never regret it. But I am happy to be just me again. To not be tied down to a nursing infant, to not have to worry about the fact that my babies don’t take bottles or soothers, to not have to worry about being gone overnight (or multiple nights!). There will never be a time that I don’t feel grateful for all of the experiences I’ve had being pregnant and breastfeeding. But now, the time has come for new experiences, and I am excited about what the future holds.

Love always,

Mama