Keian update
My tiny little baby boy, who I refuse to believe is turning 2 next month has totally weaned himself! I guess I am glad it was so easy and completely self-led, but I was totally happy to let him nurse for a few more months at least.

I noticed he was nursing less and less over the last couple months. I would occasionally offer him to nurse but more and more often he would shake his head and say no with a grin.

Today it occurred to me that he hadn't nursed in several days, maybe even a week. I offered him to nurse, to see if he would, and he actually opened his mouth and put it on me, but didn't seem to remember how to nurse anymore. I remember Zeff trying the same thing after Keian was born and you can tell that the instinct or reflex or whatever is just completely gone. I was shocked that he could forget in just a few days though!

So I am happy and sad I guess. I nursed him for almost two solid years. He did have 2-4 bottles of formula a week since I wasn't able to pump very regularly at work, but he got the most breast milk of any of my kids yet, so I am satisfied with that. He has been very healthy too.

I wish America was like those European countries that have national health plans and pay moms to stay home for the first 6mos-2 years. :( Then I wouldn't have had to go back to work when I had those little tiny babies at home.

Gulp!
Today our neighbor came over. He is the one who started Ryan and I thinking about this moving to the country thing. Turns out he has a verbal agreement to buy the place he went to look at last week. They are hoping to move by mid September!

And today we made appointments to go look at three places next weekend. All are within 100 miles of the city. All have over two acres of land. All have some trees around them and all are in our projected price range.

But we are not moving till Spring. We are just looking.

I have also put in an online application to a hospital closer to all of these houses and submitted an online app for morgtage preapproval.

This is all feeling very real. And very much like something that grownups should be handling, not jme! Don't get me wrong, I'm excited and happy but I also have about a million butterflies having convulsions in my stomach when I think about actually packing up and leaving my home of seven years and embarking on a whole new kind of life.

Gulp.

Heading for the hills!
Well, not much going on here besides major life changes. R and I faced reality and decided that we really need to move. I love our neighborhood, I really like most aspects of our house and enjoy living in the city. But this house is small and getting smaller, as the kids get bigger. We originally had hoped to remodel some day but that is a very, very big project both in terms of time and money.

We started talking about trying to find a slightly larger home in the city, hopefully our neighborhood or something better. (Thanks Kate for the phrase) We had just started kicking around this idea over the last week.
On Friday a neighbor of ours mentioned that he was going out to look at some property in western Wisconsin. I originally thought, "well that's fine but who wants to live in the country. I used to think I wanted that, but not anymore, I'm a city girl now!"

Dangit though, I started thinking about what it would be like to have a few acres. To have woods for the kids to explore. Maybe try raising chickens or rabbits. Have a big pole barn for Ry to do his gearhead boy stuff. Possibly have some big OUTDOOR dog. Maybe even raise a pig and try not to fall in love with it before we kill and eat it!

Just for the heck of it we started looking at properties within 100 miles of the cities. And we were really surprised at how far our house $ would go out there. Seems that we could get a MUCH bigger house on some acreage for less than we should be able to sell our place here for.

So, we don't know what we're doing yet. We may still buy another place in the cities. We are definitely not doing anything before next spring. It is sure fun to dream anyway!

First post in almost a month!
And I am too tired to say much but... My work is going to send me to a week long breastfeeding education conference!!!!!!!!!! I am so thrilled! It is in town so I won't have to be gone overnight but will be very busy with the full days of speakers and other education and three hours of homework a night!!!
I will get the credential of certified lactation counselor at the end. Which doesn't mean much as it is fairly poorly defined, but the big thrill will be a full week learning more about my most favorite thing.
Yay!
Peace.

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