My how they've grown..

I recently went to a christening.  A friend of mine has a little two and a half year old boy.  He was bimbling around, content playing with the baby toys.  He was talking in stilted disjointed sentances.  He was popping out of the fire engine toy's roof and shouting 'DADDY, DADDY' until he was acknowledged.  I looked down on my lap where my three and a half year old sat.  He was grumpy because the toys were for babies (or so he claimed).  He chatters on all the time.  He has friends that he made himself.  He was disappointed that it's the school holidays because he wants to go to nursery and play all day with his new friends.  He is too big to go to toddler groups and has to be enticed with 'you can show your sister what to do'.  Yet when his sister was born he was like this other little boy.  Still in nappies, still not talking properly and happy spending all day playing with the same toys over and over. 


That same day my daughter took 4 steps.  4 steps!!  She can say mama.  She knows what she wants and asks for it.  Last night she went into her big girl bed.  We have been having issues at night as she wants to feed continually and my tolerance only goes so far.  However we have foud that if she isn't hungry she is just as content to have a big daddy cuddle. So, in her big girl bed, either I can cuddle her and feed her until I sneak away while she snores.  Or daddy can sneak in for a cuddle to soothe her tears.  She looks so tiny in her big bed.

It is so bittersweet.  Much as I love tiny babies they are just such heart rending hard work.  I am more comfortable with chatty playful toddlers.  Or even older (I teach at a secondary school -  a class full of teenagers doesn't bother me).  But I feel nostalgic for the old times.

  I am going to give away my rocking chair.  The place where I have spent countless hours nursing my babies.  Sleepy and dreamy and snuggly.  That feels like a big milestone, me saying that I don't need a place to feed my babies.  But I still have a place to feed my littlest toddler.  In her big girl bed (she is far too busy and grown up to feed in the day).

I know my breastfeeding days are numbered now. I know I am unlikely to ever hold my very own little newborn again. But I will have first steps, first words, first days at school, first friends and so on to make up for my unending sadness for the babies who are growing up.