I feel like I need to start with a disclaimer: This post is not part of the breastfeeding/formula debate. My choice on that matter was made a long time ago and I fell firmly on the breast side of the fence. I struggled, I cried, I fought and after almost FOUR MONTHS of problems, with a very supportive LC and a lot of luck I made breastfeeding work for us. I now attend a weekly breastfeeding support group, at which I am one of the “veteran” mothers who give advice to those just starting out. I have nursed Baby Evan successfully and exclusively for his entire life. I would even go so far as to say I am a lactivist, especially when I compare my opinions to many of the posts and articles I see online. My original goal of nursing for 1 year was extended to 2 years a long time ago.

All that being said, I NEED MY BOOBS BACK.

Did you know that when you’re pregnant, the volume of blood in your body doubles? All that extra blood flow can lead to a lot of changes – both good and bad. You can use you imagination on the good stuff. (If you need any more details shoot me an email, I’d be happy to explain.) But thanks to increased sensitivity my nipples now feel like they’re being pierced with dull yet burning hot needles by someone who sucks at piercing things every time Baby Evan nurses. Let me tell you, it’s not very fun. I’d rate it somewhere between root canal with no Novocaine and having a toenail ripped out with pliers.

As far as I know, there really isn’t any way to alter this pain level, unless I were to rely on heavy narcotics. Which I don’t think is a real option. It’s not a matter of a better latch or a new way to hold him or teaching him not to bite. We’ve got all that down. The only way to stop it from hurting would be to stop nursing.

And there’s my problem. Baby Evan still nurses like an infant – every 3 or 4 hours with a couple of 6 hour stretches a night. I don’t mind morning, bedtime or even naptime nursing – there are enough hours between those that my nipples get a chance to recover. But I both CAN’T and DON’T WANT to stop nursing Baby Evan completely. I CAN’T because despite his ever increasing acceptance of solid food, Baby Evan still doesn’t eat nearly enough to count as a meal – especially not a well balanced one. French fries, animal crackers and an occasional bean or bite of apple is not lunch. At least as long as he’s nursing I know he’s not going become malnourished or obese. He still wants his milk when he’s hungry and offering other options just gets food thrown in my face and an earful of angry screaming. He never got the hang of a bottle – he’s too old for one now – and cups are usually played with and then thrown on the floor. He also doesn’t get any other liquids (although we did convince him to drink half a sippy cup of juice* this weekend) so I’d be worried about dehydration if I suddenly stopped nursing. I don’t WANT to stop because I set a goal of at least 2 years per kid. I don’t want to end my nursing relationship with Baby Evan just because of this pregnancy. I don’t think that’s a good way to introduce a new sibling to our family – “Say hi to Baby Sandy! No more milk for you! Now don’t go resenting anybody!”

Clearly, weaning him entirely isn’t in our immediate future**, but what I need is advice on how to gently lead a baby towards solids and away from the boob. We’ve past the point where I would need to use formula – my doctor OK’d starting him on whole (preferably organic) milk – but is there an easier transition? Maybe soy milk? It’s closer in consistency and flavor to breastmilk. Do I try to shorten our nursing sessions? Do I force solids on him despite the screaming and throwing? Please help a mama out.

*OK, so it wasn’t juice. It was Crystal Light. But it was orange flavored and I did water it down quite a bit some. Go ahead and judge, things are pretty desperate around here.

**I am clinging to the stories I’ve heard of toddlers who suddenly lost interest in nursing around the 5 month mark of pregnancy due to a change in milk flavor. If I KNEW the end(ish) was within sight I think I grit my teeth through the next 3 months.

For part 2 of the Great Family Vacation of 2010, we’re visiting my folks in Northern Virgina. It’s sort of like the opposite of Ohio – absolutely no extended family but a zillion options for entertaining ourselves. We are (probably (very)(very) foolishly) going to attempt the zoo and maybe a few museums on Saturday but this morning we went in a much more rural direction. Literally. It’s sort of surprising how quickly you can reach farmland from the ‘burbs around here – just drive west for a few minutes.

We visited Frying Pan Farm Park, clearly a popular destination for school trips, possibly due to the fact that it was free. Dear Residents of Fairfax Country, Thanks for paying for all that hay and chicken feed with your taxes. My kid had fun. xoxo Suzanne.

I put my sister in charge of the camera, which is why this is such a nice shot. My pics were all of chicken butts.

Baby Evan was surprisingly unafraid of even the large animals. I hope he never encounters a bear or a lion or something more threatening. He'd be all "KITTY!" and try to pet it.

I think he liked petting the sheep because it reminded him of the yarn I never let him play with.

I think this is the most hilarious picture ever. I shall call it "Envy and Shame".

Oh mama, I totally feel your pain. And I've only got ONE.

When we got home we found our own wildlife to play with out in the yard. Baby Evan isn’t really old enough to really be into reptiles yet, but I think that phase is quickly approaching. He would have licked this poor turtle if we let him.

Poke poke poke poke POKE POKE POKE POKE

Make him come out Mama. Why is he hiding Mama. WHY MAMA WHYYYYYYYY?

After the baby got bored, I put Mister Turtle out in the woods. I hope he forgives me - he doesn't look like a guy you want on your bad side.

This pregnancy is NOT going to be the same as the first one. I don’t just mean because I can’t sleep all day and spend hours reading surprising facts about first-time motherhood since I’m too busy chasing down the fastest 13 month old on the planet. It’s going to be different because I learned my lesson the first time. I am both older and wiser now.

1) This time, I will NOT put on my maternity jeans until I absolutely cannot fit into my regular pants without cutting off circulation and/or creating a permanent dent in Sandy’s head. And absolutely no cheating and switching to full time yoga pants before the 2nd trimester!

2) I will NOT give up on any and all forms of exercise as soon as I get the least bit tired around week 8. I will keep going to Stroller Strides, participating in play groups, taking the baby for walks and going new places to ensure I don’t end up a flabby lump on the couch. My thighs still haven’t recovered from the last pregnancy and if they rub together any harder the National Park Service is going to raise the threat of wildfire to HIGH every time I walk outside. (Edit: I wrote this post at least 10 days ago. This morning I’ve been hit with full time morning sickness that had me breathing heavily through my mouth through all of SS. I may have to switch to my nice wussy gentle prenatal yoga DVD.)

3) I will NOT suffer through horribly ligament pain or sciatica or whatever the hell it was last time that had me moaning and sleepless. If the doctor tries to brush me off or tell me it’s just part of pregnancy I will kick her in the teeth until she writes a referral to someone who can help. Even if that someone is a voodoo witch doctor who sticks twigs up my nose.

4) I will NOT buy thousands of dollars worth of baby stuff I’m never going to use or need (granted, I didn’t know any better last time). New baby does not equal all new baby crap. My old baby stuff isn’t even old enough to be out of stores. Although if anyone has some baby stuff they’re trying to get rid of (say a double jogger or some newborn size cloth diapers, I am MORE than happy to take hand me downs).

5) I will NOT let the internet or my pediatrician make me feel bad for any of my choices regarding pregnancy, birth, infants, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc. Although I might not make the same choices I did the first time I am making them on my own. If you’d like to offer some advice on juggling second babies while wrangling a hyperactive toddler, feel free. If you want to tell me how drinking this Diet Coke is going to cause my fetus to grow gills and a tail then you can suck it.

What did/will you do differently the second time?

I’m hope at least one reader can finish that for me.

E’s family threw his grandmother a huge 86th birthday party over the weekend so we made the 11 hour drive out and back to help celebrate. Because how many 86th birthday’s do you get? Plus if we didn’t make it Granny might have kicked our butts. She’s pretty spry for a great-grandmother.

Once when E was little, Granny spanked him. When he cried and told his mom on her, she asked "Well, did you deserve it?" and E said "Yeeeeeees". You don't mess with Granny

I’ll spare you the fourtybazillionteen pictures of a bunch of people standing around eating hamburgers and jello salad but here’s just a few of my favorites from our trip.

Don't worry kid, they're just ONE side of your family.

Evan Original Recipe and E playing bocce. It easy to see where the competative streak comes from. And for the record, E lost BIG TIME.

Cousin Jack. I hear he had a pretty impressive birthday party this year too.

My scale says I've gained .5 pregnancy pounds, and yet somehow my FACE has gained 15.

Cool magnetic pendulum at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) Hello me!

"Your fake sink SUCKS. How am I supposed to get my clothes totally soaking wet?"

"Much better. I am appeased by your offering."

This is only the two-pully chair. Which means I'm lifting most of my own weight. Which, let me tell you, is no small amount. So what I'm saying here, is RAWR STRONG!

Real men wear babies in flowered Ergos while carrying their sister's diaper bag for her. Rawr again.

Did you bring your giant hat and your cucumber sandwiches? Are you wearing a conservative floral print tea length dress? Are you prepared to stand around in the grass pretending not to be just a liiiiittle too drunk for 3 pm on a Monday? Welcome to the party!

Ok, so it’s not THAT kind of garden party. In the spirit of the Twitter Home Tour a few weeks ago, Little Boy Green set up a garden/window box/house plant/flower/veggie/sand/rocks tour and of course I jumped on the bandwagon. Because hellooooo have we NOT learned that I am a)incredibly nosy and b)willing to post 80 bazillionty pictures of my house on the internet just to get out of writing about bodily functions for one day?

May is still really early for most plants here in New England. Well, really early or too late, since my bulbs and flowering trees have already faded and my actual flowers are only juuuuust starting to bloom. My goal has always been to have one of those continuous color gardens you see in the magazines but who am I kidding? I can barely identify half the crap I’ve planted in the past three years, and Google isn’t very much help with questions like “greenish yellow plant with sort of spikey leaves purple fuzzy flowers blooms in august smells funny”. And also, make sure you have safe search on if you ever need to confirm what a “grape hyacinth” looks like. JUST TRUST ME.

Our very tiny front lawn

My mother once told me my grandma doesn’t believe in planting flowers in front of your house. Something about it being gaudy and tacky and the only things you should see from the curb are evergreens or bushes. Apparently the previous owners also subscribed to this school of thought, since the front of our house is kind of boring, other than the ten minutes that the rhododendron is blooming. I usually make up for it with half a dozen flower pots on the front steps and some impatiens in the stone flower boxes in the front but it’s a) too early for most annuals and b)I can’t afford flowers right now because of something called MY MINIVAN. (Sidenote: I talk out of my ass a LOT when it comes to gardening. I know just enough to be dangerous and just little enough to blow a couple hundred bucks a year on plants I have nowhere appropriate to grow. Please don’t take anything I say seriously.)

Facing the house, this is the right side. The left side has an ugly chain link fence and the tiny side yard where we keep the trash cans and dog poop. You won’t be seeing that.

The vine on that arbor is a wisteria, which makes beautiful purple flowers. Or at least it WOULD if someone could remember to prune it before it uses all it’s energy double it’s size and attempts to strangle the rest of the plants. I do this almost every year.

Despite the fist-shaking I did at the previous owners regarding the inside of the house, I can’t complain at all about their landscaping. They spent THOUSANDS of dollars putting in a ton of perennials that require no effort on my part and creating a beautiful, mostly private yard in a crowded neighborhood. To tidy it up, I just use the most efficient pieces of gardening equipment ever which can be found on archute.

View through the arbor. Also, I TOTALLY photoshopped that grass to hide the big dead spot. And spelled echinacea wrong.

There’s also a hardy hibiscus plant over by the poppies. It makes huge tropical pink flowers even though it looks dead every spring. The rest of the stuff is weeds. This side is sadly neglected.

Clockwise from top left: rhododendron, bleeding heart, wisteria, honeysuckle

Worst place to plant a rose bush ever. Despite pruning the CRAP out of the hydrangea every year it keeps getting bigger.

One of the best things about my landscaping is the large number of cutting flowers – lilies, hydrangea, irises, roses, lilacs, daffodils, tulips. I can almost always have a bouquet or two in the house without spending a dime.

More honeysuckle, lily of the valley (one of my favorites, my name means lily-of-the-valley) and irises

This bed was originally totally empty (previous owners used it for veggies) but I like flowers too much to dedicate that much space. I planted the blueberry bushes in honor of Baby Evan just a few weeks after he was born.

I planted the radishes to mark the rows for the carrots, as suggested on the package. They’re the only thing I’m attempting from seed this year – seeds and I don’t really get along.

The previous owner told me this was his “friendship garden” because the plants were all gifts from friends or cuttings from their gardens. I’ve added a few but mostly left his work alone.

View from the back steps. Please excuse the EIGHTYBAZILLION helicopters (seeds from the tree) on everything.

Damn tree. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough tree, it just shades a lot of my garden and drops helicopters everywhere.

From top left: Poppy, rose (I BEGGED it to open), columbine, herbs, sweet william

LOVE my clothesline, especially now with all my diapers to sun-bleach.

The dead grass and empty space on this side of the yard is going to be a patio. Some day. It was supposed to be this year’s project but the cost of the materials might be more than we can afford this season. Luckily I have a wonderfully handy father who will come and do all 50% off the labor for free and who knows how to build patios.

This space – the back edge of our property – gets forgotten a lot. Luckily it’s pretty self suficent.

I REALLY REALLY wish I could afford a garndener, just once or twice a season, who would come in and clear out all prickly stuff.

Sad, forgotten herb garden behind the garage. My mom and I cleaned it up a couple years ago but it gets overgrown REALLY fast. I only go back there now to hunt down chives.

And just in case you needed proof my garden is just as messy as my house, here’s the back steps, “vintage” wagon, dirty grill and sad empty hanging baskets.

So there you go! My garden. And I always refer to it as “the garden”, just because I feel like “yard” is sort of a lie and, truthfully, “garden” just sounds nicer. Have you seen the cat? Oh she’s in the garden. Honey, I’ll be out in the garden reading. No Baby Evan, stop ripping up the garden! Besides what you saw, there’s also a grape arbor over the ugly trash can side yard (although it didn’t make any grapes last year) and two kinds of clematis on the ugly chain link fence. Plus probably a bunch of other flowers I forgot about/don’t recognize/can’t remember.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to visit the rest of the Garden Party participants!