goodbye breastfeeding

last night was the last time nursing harper. i'm pretty happy that i got thru an entire year of breastfeeding. granted, she had to have some bottles of formula/breastmilk during day for a few months, but overall i am happy i was able to provide for her for so long. when i nurse her at night, she basically gets super relaxed and half asleep by the time we are finished. it is extremely easy to put her to sleep. and so begins a new bedtime routine. will she sleep? will she miss nursing? is she even going to notice? guess we will find out tonight. the last two nights she has not been very interested in nursing, so i have had to lay her down pretty much awake. she fussed for a few minutes but realized she was pretty tired and laid down to sleep. so maybe it will not be so bad. lots of people and books say that the dad/partner should put them to sleep so she will not associate me with nursing and bedtime. again, i don't think she will really notice.
what in the world will i do without having to breastfeed anymore? shots? happy hour here i come! maybe she will even let others put her to bed so amy and i can have date nights. it's a pretty big change.
i was able to go out on my own last night while amy stayed home with harper. she is part of the slow readers book club that meets once a month, so ms. kerry had a wonderful idea of us starting our own club. it is a perfect way for me to be able to get some mommy alone time. we went to the whip in for a drink. i realized last night that it has been a year since i have been out without amy or harper (minus a concert that i went to with auntie jean). cheers to ms. kerry for thinking about me.

sign language

We are trying to teach harper sign language and it is so amazing that she understands what you are saying. Right now we use the sign for more, milk, change diaper and water. She recognizes the sign and completely understands what we are saying. We haven’t seen her sign until last night. The daycare she goes to taught her how to say please. It was awesome. She was pointing to her water as she was grunting. I asked her to say please and she put her tiny hand to her chest and made the please sign.
She is a mess these days. So fun to be around because she totally understands what is going on. Last night we went out to eat with her daddy and papa across the street at the Indian restaurant. She was flirting and being completely silly, doing things we have never seen before. We couldn’t help but just sit and laugh at her. At least she was in a good mood? Overall we had a fun weekend, including going to a children’s music show and swimming at deep eddy. I can’t believe she is going to be 1 year old in 2 weeks. We are trying to plan a bday weekend extravaganza. Nothing fancy and hopefully not overwhelming for her too. Anywhere there is music and/or food, harper is always happy.

milk is good!

she is officially drinking milk! she had no problem switching over too. we had to find the right sippy cup, but otherwise it was pretty easy. she is such an easy baby. we have to remind ourselves of this.
she also has a tooth and a half on the bottom. it is super cute. i think the second bottom tooth cut through the gums this week. again, we are thankful she did not get up in the middle of the night crying in pain. i've heard lots of horror stories.
i really really really can't believe she is going to be one year old in a few weeks!!

change is a good thing

lots of changes happened over the weekend. i stopped the morning nursing session, which is really strange. now we give her a sippy cup of milk and formula along with a snack cup of cheerios. she LOVES her snack cup. she seemed to be ok with the changes. we bought a few new cups for her to try out too since we are officially done with bottles. yay! no more bottles to clean. wait, now we have to wash sippy cups. oh well. the switch over to milk seems to be going well too. organic, lactose free, whole milk. over the next few weeks the amount of milk will increase and formula will decrease. eventually, i will also wean her of the nursing session at bedtime. i really can't wrap my head around trying to put her to sleep without nursing her, but we will have to deal with that when the time comes. hopefully bath time, a book and some milk with make her just as sleepy.
we also bought a new car seat this weekend too. the convertible seat is a more comfortable and larger seat for her. when she turns two, she will be able to face forward too. this will be helpful instead of both of us carring the infant car seat in and out of the car when we drop/pick her off at school. i actually pulled a muscle carrying it the other day. that was fun. perfect timing with my coughing pneumonia fits.
she was in a really good mood this weekend. her appetite was back. bath time was so much better without the screaming and she got some good quality time with her daddy and papa too. harper amazes us every day.

harpsichord

harper is changing ever minute. physically and mentally. sometimes we will look at her and say, "she looks different today." from being able to eat on her own to crawling around, we can't keep up with this little girl.
she has been on a few trips since i last wrote. we flew to kansas to see our dear friends get married. it was a challenging weekend with our first stay in a hotel. we didn't have any fancy toys, high chairs or swings to entertain her. we made it through with the help of the framily entertaining her and helping us out in every possible way. she also went on her first long road trip. we drove to destin florida. it was a long trip, especially since i was sick the ENTIRE time (i had pneumonia). don't get me started. i will need a separate blog just to talk about how sick i have been this year. even though we were in the car for up to 6-8 hours, she did well. poor amy had to entertain her a lot in the back seat since i drove most of the way. i get car sick and it is really hard for me to entertain. it was nice spending time with amy's brother, wife and the twins. i can't believe they are 3 years old already! we even drove thru new orleans. it was my first time there, but i really was not able to enjoy the food or scenery with a fever of 100 degrees and constant headache. destin beach was beautiful as well. harper didn't like the feeling of sand between her toes though. i hope that will change.
little miss has been extremely picky with her food. so picky that she likes to spit things out that she dislikes. funny for a second, but then frustrating the next. she loves her carbs though. that girl could eat an entire baguette if we let her. i think the pickyness has to do with her teeth. she decided to cut her first tooth while on vacation too. she seems to eat a lot at school, but not very much at dinner. soon she will be drinking milk and breastfeeding and formula will be a thing of the past. lots of changes coming up!