A busy morning

When our computer broke down two months ago most of our documents and pictures were irreversibly lost and the thought of this was truly painful. Apart from the obvious feeling of loss I could not bring myself to post about our activities because I needed to illustrate them with pictures, pictures that were gone forever. I am afraid that period will remain undocumented. In the meantime, though, I have been taking some shots, mostly of our inside activities. When we do something outside is often a water or messy activity that requires either special attention or the use of the hands. Hence, the camera is absent there. And, oh did I ever mention I am the worst photographer ever?
Today, I would like to share a glimpse into one of those "summerish" days when M was adjusting to her new schedule and got up at 6.30. By mid morning that day, we had already done three more or less messy activities.
The first one, and my first attempt at making play dough, went this way:
We set out the ingredients we were going to use. No cream of tartar or tartar powder at hand so we just gathered all-purpose flour, salt, warm water, and oil. It was just an attempt and above all a suggested scenario full of practical life activities for M. In the image you can see her using the ladle to add salt to the water. She, later, added the flour, poured a glass of oil and we stirred the mixture.
The resulting play dough was malleable and nice but since it didn't contain tartar powder or the like, it only lasted for half a week. Afterwards it got hard as if we had been using bread dough. Never mind, M enjoyed the process but didn't pay much attention to the play dough.

The following scenario that same morning suggested painting. The normal kind. I set out an old sheet, cardboard paper, brushes, and red finger paint and there came M. 

After some strokes, she wanted to go outside. It was really sunny so I thought we could give ice block painting a try. We had prepared ice blocks with a little bit of red finger paint stirred in them the afternoon before.

There she is enjoying the iced painting while sitting on the potty...

What activities have you been doing outside as of late?

Our mutual weaning

It is not easy to know where to start, since it feels ages have passed since I wrote my last acceptable post. I am a bit sad to notice I have no posts under the labels 16 or 17 months, so I am going to try and make up for this lack while I have time. M will be turning 18 months in three days. And, what have we been doing for the past two months, you may ask. Well, much indeed. Apart from feeling sick most of the time, I have been trying to keep at M's pace and although I know I am far from perfection, I have tried to keep the "guilty mama" feeling at a minimum.

When I first found out or, better said, guessed I was pregnant, my first feelings overwhelmed me. I felt it was way too early and M was too small and needed me an absolute lot. It took us some days (an wonderful words from special friends) to see the wonder and feasibility of having children 2 years apart. I can say I am really excited now and I know M will handle -and is already handling- it perfectly. There have been, in fact, quite a few things that have surprised me during this first trimester of pregnancy. 

I started out with a strange kind of wild feeling towards nursing while pregnant. It was as if I was telling the baby in my womb: "you will not steal this from your sister". And I realize now that trying to go with the flow and accept facts as they are has been something the new baby has showed me. Already teaching from inside, uh?

For the first three months of pregnancy, we kept the breast-feeding despite my uneasiness, the pain, the feeling of dizziness, and a growing feeling of impatience towards the end. Against all expectations, it seemed that the uneasier I felt, the more M needed to nurse. She was mirroring my inner self, as she has always done. The less comfortable I was with the situation, the more she needed to nurse as if to say "if you give me regretfully, once won't be enough; the more regret, the more we'll need to repeat it". It was her frequent demand what showed me something needed to be changed. Besides, my physical tiredness was ever growing and the milk supply dropping, so we came to a point one day when M started to spend nearly all night asking to nurse and after long sessions she would still cry asking for water and food. Nursing had always soothed her but now it wasn't even doing that, so after a specially difficult night on a Thursday morning before going to work, M's daddy had a gentle and clever conversation with her, which I overheard from bed. The conversation had two clear parts and one objective: weaning. The dad told M that mama was feeling too weak and the milk was going to be less and less; pointed out that the three of us were having worse and restless nights, and invited her to say "bye-bye" to "meme", the word M had invented for nursing when she started to talk. We wanted to make it real simple and easy to understand in order to  have her willing collaboration. Since M was really familiar with the concept of "bye-bye", this seemed to work very well. She responded in a very sensible way and spent most of the day telling me: "bye-bye, meme", and to my surprise, started to mention the baby every time. I was really startled by this because neither my husband nor me had mentioned the baby in the process.

For that first day, she didn't ask to nurse. Then at bed time, the dad put her to sleep and it was ok. Every time she woke during the night, he got her to sleep again. The following day, after a whole morning without asking to nurse, she started to cry desperately and since I had what seemed lots of milk, I offered her some and had a clear feeling that it would be our last session. I made my husband take pictures of it and was not wrong at all. After that, M has never nursed again. 

I must confess I was highly surprised at M's ability to adapt, as well as her understanding of the situation, in the same way I was surprised at my sudden acceptance of facts -such a stubborn girl I am. I like to call this process we've undergone "our mutual weaning". Also to my surprise, my level of tiredness began to fall after weaning and this benefited all of us. What has had me in wonder, most of all, though, is that our bonding has taken a new and delighful direction. Right after weaning, M started to come to me and hug me while saying "mahhma" in a tone full of love. It was the most incredible token of affection. Not only wasn't she bearing any grudge, but she was giving me support, at 17 months! Apart from bringing tears to my eyes, the thought of this has taught me -again- that our children are our most special teachers.

What have we been up to?

I am very happy to be back and I am back with great news. I feel I would need a whole day to write all I want to write but I will have to do with less. So, here it is, our big piece of news: M is going to be a big sister in December this year, just about the week she'll turn 2.
Having said that, you see my excuse for the lack of posting lately. I have been feeling rather sick and extremely tired. Besides, our computer broke down and we survived without computer for 3 weeks!! There is much more to be said, and I expect to be able to start writing soon. For the moment being, I will am happy to share a few of our latest pics with you.

Many thanks for being there!!