Lopsided

I think I can say with almost 100% certainty that CC is now officially weaned.

*throws salt over shoulder*

*knocks wood*

*beats on a rabbit's foot with a horseshoe*

After ten months of exclusive breastfeeding and then slowly and painstakingly trying to get her to accept a bottle on a regular basis, it's time.

My goal with CC was one year, which is two weeks from now, and I will admit that date is purely selfish. I'm done. I'm ready to have my breasts back, though admittedly much more beaten and battered than they were a year ago, and I want to wear a bra with no snaps on the cup. I want to tuck in a shirt if the mood should strike. I want to not have a small, rabid badger hanging from my nipples by her teeth.

Yeah, CC is a biter. Moving on.

I have to admit though, it happened a lot more quickly than I imagined it would. I figured she'd fight me for months, so I started a couple of weeks ago in preparation for going to Blogher in July. It must have coincided with a growth spurt because my supply didn't seem to be enough for her and she finally realized that taking a bottle? Not such a bad thing after all. Did you know milk came out of these things? Lots of it? Who knew?? You'd think we were holding out on her.

So consequently, I'm in a bit of pain. Not to mention she favored one breast over the other... and I'll leave the rest to your imagination. And for the record, you're disgusting. Stop thinking about my boobs.

With Chicky I didn't have an end date in mind, I figured we'd go as long as we could and that would be that. However, she was very different from her little sister in that she took a bottle at five months. The weaning happened naturally, organically (if you can call it that, using non-BPA free plastic bottles), and over much time and on her first birthday, when we were down to one nursing session a day, she simply pushed me away, gestured to her crib, and went to sleep. That was, in fact, that.

If I had known then it was the last time I would have tried to remember it all. I was much more sentimental about the whole process with Chicky. With CC, I'm more practical and I think it's because she has always been so practical in her approach to nursing. She never really nursed for comfort and toward the end she barely nursed for sustenance. She's just not interested in working for it or sitting still long enough because there are places to go, people to see and other, more dangerous things to put in her mouth.

But my baby girl is a creature of habit. I would bring her to bed and we would have to sit down and have a little nummy nummies session (for the record, I never called it nummy nummies, I'm just sick of writing "nursing"). She would lay there biting and chewing and hitting (she was always a hitter as well as a biter and next week I'm signing my almost one year old up for kickboxing classes. By three she should be ready for Ultimate Fighting.) and then she'd freak out because my let down was too slow for her liking. Almost every day it was the same. It's no wonder I was ready to be done with this breastfeeding thing.

However, I do feel like I should be as sentimental about the whole business of weaning CC as I was with Chicky. She's my last baby. No more feeding a little person from my bosom. No more sweaty head in the crook of my arm while little hands flutter around my chest. I don't think I even got any pictures of me nursing her...

Okay, now I'm weepy. Also, leaky. And I smell like cabbage.

What I said about not being nostalgic about weaning? Disregard please.