I sat down to write a post called “you never know it’s the last time”. And then discovered I’d already written it.
So I’d better write something a little different ๐
Tigerboy hasn’t weaned yet. What he has stopped doing is feeding in the day. He doesn’t seem to want my milk any more – he wants solids, lots of them, and drinks of other milk or water. This only really took off when I started offering him an open cup – up until then he thought cups were great for spraying water around the room, but not particularly useful for drinking from. Now, though, he shouts for his drink, in his peculiar, closed mouth shouting noise. (If you listen *really* carefully, it is a different sound to his talkative closed mouth sound, or his hungry closed mouth sound. I am hoping that at some point we will get some easily discernable different sounds though.)
And since he started drinking well during the day, he’s dropped off on the frequency of night feeds too. Now we’ve a late evening feed at around 10, a middle of the night feed between 12 and 1, and then a late night/early morning feed anywhere between 5 and 8. Usually he goes back off to sleep after this one for an hour or so, sometimes, like today, he doesn’t.
Napping has (touch wood) stabilised. He likes a late afternoon snack, usually fruit, a drink and a biscuit. And then he falls asleep over it, in his chair, can be scooped out and put into bed. And it was doing that today that made me realise that I’ve lost those lovely daytime sleepy cuddles. The special ones you get after they’ve fed, and then nestle into your arm as if you are the only sanctuary in the world.
It’s just as well you don’t get to see that loss coming, because I don’t think you’d be able to take it. Knowing that you’re counting down the cuddles would be impossible. Looking back on them is a wistful exercise, but it’s done.
And now I have an almost walking (four steps, twice!), considering talking, one toothed pre toddler, snuck into the place of my snuggly baby. He gives excellent cuddles.
But I still miss the milky ones.