I think Baby Evan reads my blog, because some time between when I wrote this post and yesterday he totally weaned himself. I am thrilled and horrified and brokenhearted and nervous and happy and relieved and so, so confused. Technically he’s not TOTALLY weaned – he still wants to nurse first thing in the morning and occasionally asks during the day – but if I want to I could get him to drop those feedings without a single tear.

I just don’t want to. Not yet. As much as I would love a break before the new baby comes, I can’t even remember what life is like as a non-breastfeeding mother. I don’t remember how to wear clothes that don’t offer easy access to my chestal area. I’m not sure I can make it through a whole day without flashing some unsuspecting mall shoppers. I have very few “oh no the baby is upset” coping skills besides boob. I’m afraid I’ll start offering to nurse anything that cries, including stray cats and random strangers. I think that’s the sort of thing that gets you banned from Stop & Shop. I know I’ve only been breastfeeding for 1/27th of my life but it’s been such a huge part of every single minute of the last 14 months it feels like much much longer.

I’m really not even sure how this happened. One day he screamed if you so much as showed him a sippy and the next he signs “milk milk milk milk” but points to the cup on the counter like I’m a crazy person if I unhook my bra. If you’re looking for advice on how exactly to go about weaning your child, here’s everything I got:
Step 1: Get pregnant with baby #2.
Step 2: Give baby #1 sippy cup of rice milk.
Step 3: There are no more steps.

Really, I can’t take credit for this at all. I did nothing besides stop making gallons of milk that let down strongly enough to squirt across a room. I didn’t stop offering, I didn’t try to distract him, I didn’t give him a lot more solids than I was previously. Which makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing, since I was very close to forcing him to wean whether he was ready or not. Now I spend a great deal of time asking “Do you want milk? Mama milk? Please come here and try some nursies! Baby Evan, stop running away from meeeeeee!!”

As conflicted as I am about not making it to the two year mark, I think I’m happy where we are now and won’t do anything to intentionally alter our nursing relationship for the next few months. I’m going to be away from him for at least 12 hours in August and probably even longer in September (for a friend’s bridal shower/bachelorette party and wedding, respectively) and I feel like those will probably be the stepping stones to total weaning. And then I can be a non-nursing mother for at least a few weeks before everything starts all over again.

OMG I’m going to have to start ALL OVER AGAIN.

What, you didn't see that one coming?

While my husband and father did demolition in the basement, rewired the family room, fixed our plumbing problems, added gutters to the house, and hauled literal tons of crap to the dump (both cat and human ACTUAL CRAP as well as a zillion pounds of junk, trash and a treadmill I swore I would use every single day if only I could have one please pretty pretty please please), my mother and I took the baby down to Mystic. I know, my life is so hard. Let me tell you though, with the way the baby’s been acting recently I would rather be knee deep in poop than get smacked in the face one more time.

Luckily, my mom was with me and she has the patience of a saint. Or of a grandma. Same thing, really.

Also luckily, Baby Evan likes ducks so a 99 cent bag of duck feed and a few friendly quack quacks earned me 30 minutes of scream-free time.

Yes, this is my child running shoeless through Ye Olde Mysticke Villageeeeeee

World's most patient ducks. I feel like I owe them all writen appologies.

He really liked calling them "duhs! duhs!" and he tried to say "qwah!!" a couple times. Of course maybe he was saying "Dog" and "What is wrong with you woman, don't you see how dirty this ground is?"

My child looks even more hobo-like next to his MorMor (Swedish for grandma) since she always looks so classy. For the record it was 90 degrees that day so I thought his outfit was appropriate.

It’s times like these I am really really sad we live so far away from our family.

"No don't worry Rory, she's not dead. This turtle just suffers from a condition known as Bubble Butt.*"

*Non-made up condition. Swearsies. It was caused by an accident with a boat propeller.

Not so much.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that the son of a Navy Chief and the grandson of a Coast Guard Officer (official motto: Semper Paratus, which is Latin for “why aren’t you wearing your life jacket????”) would hate the water. And yet Baby Evan has gone from perfectly happy to be placed in large, questionable bodies of water to refusing to even stand near a sprinkler. It’s also unfortunate that his parents wasted an enormous amount of money on a boat they can’t really afford thinking it would be a fantastic way to spend time as a family. Now “spending time as a family” consists of alternately clutching a thrashing screaming child and shoving a boob in his mouth to try and calm him down. (That last one is mostly me.)

I seem to have accidentally stumbled upon a solution to our problem though. Or at least, found a cause/effect relationship…

Shorts + shirt + infant life jacket = WTF is wrong with you people??

Swim trunks + rash guard + boat = SRSLY GUYS GET ME OUT OF HERE.

At the lake, this combo is still unpopular.

This was a major breakthrough, accomplished with LOTS of coaxing.

Look Evan! LOOK! DUCKS! Quack quack quack quack!!!! Duckies!!! Isn't that EXCITING? Don't you want to SWIM like the DUCKIES?!?!

Haven't you give up yet woman?

OK. I touched it. Almost. Good enough. And now I am DONE.

Phew, finally part of this water park thing I can get on board with.

Have you seen the trend yet? The one thing all these pictures have in common and the one thing we could change to try and make the baby happier?

Can you see it now?

How about now?

So I guess our current choices are join a nudist colony or just invest in LOTS of sunscreen.

I am declaring WAR. An all-out battled to the death from which no one emerged unscathed and the casualties will be severe. The target of the impending attack: MY FLOORS.

With a dog and two cats, pet hair has always been a problem, but the kind I could generally solve with a broom and the occasional damp paper towel. But add a baby to the mix and suddenly the pet hair dust bunnies grow into tumbleweeds of Cheerios and Goldfish crackers and bits of sandwich and half chewed fruit and sticks and leaves and the kind of foot-blackening dirt that sticks to the floor unless you scrub it with straight bleach and a toothbrush. If I don’t sweep, dry Swiffer, wet Swiffer, mop and vacuum EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. the baby gets so covered in dirt he looks like that kid from Charlie Brown who vibrates with grime. I can’t take him out in public after 3 pm out of fear someone will call CPS. And if CPS comes to my house I’m SCREWED.

I took up the rug this weekend (sidenote: what the HELL was I thinking when I picked out a shag rug for the family room? It’s basically a giant upside down yarn mop that traps every crumb and hair and is IMPOSSIBLE to clean) thinking it would be easier to do a quick mid-day sweep of just the hardwood floor but all it did was create a barren desert for the dirt tumbleweeds to tumble across. Plus my problem with sweeping wasn’t so much rug-related as 300-wooden-blocks-two-dozen-chuck-the-trucks-four-sippy-cups-and-a-partridge-in-a-pear-tree-scattered-acr0ss-my-floor-related.

The most permanent solution to my problem is to get rid of the pets, although I don’t think I can bring myself to actually do that. (A quick Google search for “how long do cats live” reveals no hopeful results.) I suppose the other thing I could do is restrict snacks and meals to the high chair but the idea of making Baby Evan sit still for the 7 or 8 hours a day he’s eating something is laughable. I think he would rather give up food than be strapped in a chair that often – and since I JUST got him to eat I’m not doing anything that might hurt his love of stuffing his face.

So I’m left with war. The kind of furniture moving deep cleaning usually only reserved for the holidays or right before my mother comes. (CRAP. My mother is coming TOMORROW.) I’ll buy stock in Swiffer and reacquaint myself with my Dustbuster. I will pick up toys three times a day instead of once. I will not rest until the baby can strip naked, dump a cup of juice on his head and roll across the room without a single speck of dirt sticking to his body.

Ok, maybe that’s a little too ambitious. But I’ve got to do something.

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They reset the list on Top Baby Blogs so all that begging I did last week was useless. If you could take a second to click on the link below – and then click in the middle of the screen where it says “Vote here!” – I’d really appreciate it. The click is your vote, you don’t have to find me on the list but I encourage you to check out the other blogs over there – TONS of awesome moms (and dads).