Daddy Dearest

Well, I suppose that no matter now much you mentally prepare for the day when your fatherless son will start talking about having a daddy, it still catches you off-guard. Recently, Theo has been noticing daddies of all kinds---mostly because on his favorite show, Caillou, "Caillou has a mommy and a daddy." S. and I are straightforward, simple, and direct answerers of kid questions, so we simply said, "Yes, Caillou has a mommy and a daddy. You have two mommies," and go on to explain how some families have a mom and a dad, two moms, two dads, etc. Now he seems accepting of the fact that he has two moms and Caillou has a mom and a dad. (He also makes sure to mention that besides a "Mommy" and a "Mama," he also has a "Maxie-Jo" to throw into the mix.) Thank goodness we know other two-mom families so I can reference "so and so has two mommies, too." Of course this just reinforces the fact that we ought to make much more of an effort to make play dates with other queer families with kids that we know.

But the dad thing is stuck in his mind, you can tell. He mentions other people he knows who have daddies (us, for instance, or his cousin Jackson). I know it's natural and I know that the more direct we can be about this now, the more prepared we'll all be to tackle different questions later, specifically about donors, but still. We know he couldn't go on living in his little two-mama bubble forever, especially since he's going off to pre-school in the fall. But this marks a pretty significant step forward in Theo's consciousness of his existence in the world.

I am consistently in a state of wonder about how much children pick up from their environments without us never having directly taught them. It is so true that children are natural learners.

So, everyone--who has dealt with this issue? What did you say to your child?

three. which will probably be the amount of times i post this summer.

I would be quite remiss if I didn't take a second to reflect on the fact that the reason we actually began this blog turned 3-years-old yesterday. Three. Years. Old. Three, and the few weeks preceding it, have been challenging. Theo is growing, changing, exploring, and becoming more and more independent each passing second. "No, me do it" is our new favorite phrase. "I help you, Mama?" a close second--in the kitchen, the garden, the playground. Potty training---oh yeah. We're still very much in the "training" phase of it. Pee in the potty? No problem! Poop has been much more elusive, as he still prefers to poop in his, ahem, pants. (Any solutions for that? Anyone?)

Ah. He exasperates us and amazes us all at once with this growing up business. He loves his little brother (except when he borrows his Matchbox Cars to chew on), singing, cars, puzzles, Caillou...the list goes on. But lists are boring. And since my blog is St. Nowhere lately, I guess I'll continue my trend of photo posting interspersed with occasional ranting by showing you what three looks like around these parts:

Happy Birthday Theo!

Flying kites in RI

Oh, brother

Swimming

Guitar hero

The Big Breastfeeding Post

I've talked about breastfeeding here and there, but it is about time to talk about it for realz.

Max is 7-months-old. I never gave myself a limit, minimum or maximum, for how long I would breastfeed him. I figured, if I was able to do it, it would happen. If he still wanted it, and I could still do it, it would continue to happen. Now that we're on the other side of six months, we figure, let's make it to a year, right? Sounds like a good, round amount of time to be able to say, "I breastfed my son exclusively for the first year of his life."

Except, breastfeeding is really, really difficult for me, and maybe not in ways that other people have difficulty. Or maybe my experiences are common and people just don't want to talk about it because it's supposed to be all natural. But the truth is, I do not love to breastfeed a lot of the time. Since the beginning, I have had issues, be them oversupply (and a Max who isn't really hungry), undersupply, or most often (as in, every other week practically) plugged ducts and nipple pores and infections. Right now I am nursing a double-breast infection and a serious supply drop and a baby who apparently hates the taste of the antibiotics I have to be on because he hasn't nursed well in two days. Yet, he has not tasted formula. While this is a point of pride for many mothers, for me it just is what it is. We even tried to feed him formula once and he would have rather sucked on my empty boob, so that was that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have bfing issues but I've worked through them. I pumped religiously at work and at home to freeze enough for Max and even enough to give away to a mom and baby in need. I hope in the end I will be proud of all this, because right now, all I feel is annoyed at the whole process. BFing is supposed to be so beautiful, so natural, so lovely, but I have a hard time seeing that from this place I am in.

And yet, look what my milk has done. Oh, he does make my heart melt sometimes: