The amount of cliches used to describe parenting and having kids is long and overused, but until you are a parent yourself you have no idea of how true they all are. Especially those of the "kids grow up so fast" and "it goes by so fast" persuasion. I am in constant amazement of how quickly Alexandra has turned into a little girl who is 2 going on 13, and our wee babe, Nico, is no longer so wee. It really does go by at light speed, and those nights when both kids scream for over an hour at 2am on opposite ends of your 800 square foot apartment get lost in the love.
Nico just recently started eating solids. The joy of having two kids separately is that you faintly remember life with kid #1 and it can save you some pain with kid #2. I'd say about 75% of the time I don't have my flashback to Alexandra's babyhood until the current drama with Nico is over, but every so often I can see the writing on the wall and I am able to switch up the situation and come out on top.
For example: starting solid food. Alexandra started nursing about 100 times per night between the age of 4 and 5 months old. I wasn't sleeping at all b/c the kid was on my tit and hungry all the freakin' time. But, being the au natural mom I was/am, I was NOT about to give her solids. No solids until 6 months was my mantra. Breastmilk is all she needs. Blah blah blah. Why? No idea. No idea where I even got those ideas from. But after a month of wasting away b/c I couldn't keep up with her, I gave in and fed the darn girl. Total relief.
We sleep trained Nico around 3 1/2 months--crying it out, the whole nine yards--and he was awesome. After three nights he slept like a lamb...for about 2 weeks. Then he was waking, and screaming like a banshee, and my memory was jogged. Feed that boy! We started him on cereal, and sweet potatoes, and pears, and banana, and today some prunes. The first time I fed him he cried between spoonfulls because I couldn't get it in his mouth fast enough. Little piglet.
But now that watery not-so-smelly breastmilk poop is gone. He's got the real poop. It's sticky, it's clumpy, it's smelly, and it's messy. Our brief honeymoon with the less offensive poop type is over, and I'm sad. Sad because my boy is already making man poop (well, not quite--thank god--but he's on the way!) and sad because he's already left that tiny baby phase.
And it's these little things that make you realize that it really does go by so fast.
Funny how a blog about poop can make me melancholy and a little teary eyed. Wait until you have no more babies to breast feed. It's liberating and devestating all rolled into one. Sigh Sigh Sigh.
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