Dear Boy - 15 months young #flashbackfriday

My dearest gorgeous boy,

this week you've turned 15 months - that is 1 year and 3 months in regular people's money ;) - but both you and mum were too sick, so this letter is, in fact, a bit late. Still, you are at such a lovely age that I couldn't let it go by without writing you a few lines.

The day you turned 15 months, we had a friend visiting with her lovely boyfriend and we took them to two of our favourite places; the park and Lilly's - our local tea shop. We all had a lovely time and mummy was super proud with her friend's comments, they kept on saying how lovely, beautiful and smiley you are and I know R really wanted to be able to spend more time with you. Unfortunately that evening you came down with the same cold mum had and from there on I have tried my best to make sure you have some fun but still get some rest to get better soon.

Cold or no cold our days are always filled with loads of laughter, dancing, cuddles and tantrums as well, why not? This is what you look like when you get a bit cross - usually because you can't get your own way:

One of your favourite things to do right now, is rolling around with mum and dad, laughing and being silly. You like TV time - why wouldn't you if your parents are addicted to it? - but you also look forward to reading your books at bedtime. You will pick up whatever you want to read - at the moment the favourites are All Aboard and Letter to the Zoo - and bring it to daddy or to me so we can read it for you while you sit and watch the pictures, sometimes you will simple run around the room whilst listing to the stories.

Lately you have started to eat on your own like a big boy, however, the mess is too big so we are taking baby steps on that one. You have also turned into a big muncher, you don't eat EVERYTHING but most times you're seem willing to try most foods. This is what meal times look like:

On Sunday we went to our local park to the End of Summer Festival and you had such a lovely time, we found you a balloon and from there on, all you wanted to do was to play with it. You also seemed really excited about the bouncy castle, unfortunately even though you are a biiig boy now, you are still not big enough for this amazing bouncy experience, in fact you haven't learnt how to jump yet - you very well try but instead your feet won't leave the floor and your knees bend giving you a a springing  motion...which is really cute!

Mummy and daddy are always so proud of you for being such  a good boy and so determined to learn new things and explore the world around you. As you grow, your speech is coming along at great pace. Since you are learning two languages at the same time, it is normal that you don't say actual words yet but you do chat all day, I have notice a few "words" that you say over and over again and I'm sure one day they will make sense to us as well.

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Harry is a big boy now - Flash Back Friday

I took a few weeks break from certain things in life, mainly to look after myself but also because I lost the space bar on my laptop :) I will write about the ME time part soon but for now a nice little post for Flashback Friday!

So my last post here was about Harry turning 14 months, what I didn't know was that he really was growing into a big boy. The day after my boy became one year and two months young, the one thing I have been waiting for, has finally happened; my gorgeous little boy stopped breastfeeding.

I never had a set time that I intended to breastfeed Harry for, I hoped I could do it for at least 6 months but never really planned when to stop.

When Harry was very little I used to pump milk and leave it with my mum whenever I had appointments to go to, breastfeeding was really stressful in the beginning so that was a big help. Looking back I realise that even then and even being my milk, he was never a fan of the bottle. If I left him milk on a Monday he wouldn't even try a bottle on the Tuesday. Basically he would take a bottle of my milk when needed but of course, wasn't too keen on it.

For some reason, I decided that whenever Harry turned 5 months I would start replacing his bed time feed by a bottle of formula and as you can probably guess, easier said than done. A couple of months later we found out that lill guy had an ear infection.

At that time both formula and food were no no so I had no option but carry on breastfeeding. That wasn't a problem then, I was working my KIT days from home and my gorgeous boy was sick for months so I was glad there was something I could do for him.

Once He was better from all the non stop ear infections and finally started to eat some food - not until he was 9 months old - we tried the bottle malarkey again, no success. Lill guy would scream and kick at the mere sight of that stuff. I knew then; weaning wouldn't be all that easy.

A whole lot of attempts and a bunch of months later, Harry turned 1. At 12 months of age milk is no longer a baby's main source of nutrition so we decided it was our best chance to give it another go.

It took us about a month and a half from start to finish and our little guy done so well with his new routine, he is such a good boy! I will write a post on how we've done it to share our experience and to hopefully help other parents out there, who might have the same problem - but that will be another day.

At this point I am still trying to get used to the idea of not breastfeeding my gorgeous little boy AND since we don't plan to have another baby, don't ever breastfeed - ever again. It was such an amazing experience and it thought me a lot about the kind of person I am. I had my reasons to stop  - a number of them - and am glad we've managed to do it in such a swift way but if I am 100% honest, I will miss those lovely unique moments. No nostalgia though as I don't believe in that!

Letter to Harry

My dear Harry, for a long time now I have been meaning to write you some letters, so I can keep them here and who knows, one day you might read them.

When the time comes, hopefully you will be reading in Portuguese and this is the reason why I created this .page for the Blog Sometimes life is hard and rushed, and it is easy to complain or just talk about our problems and we can forget to talk about the good things that happen in life. To stop this from happening I will write you letters about the incredible things that you bring to our lives - mine, Dad’s, and the whole family too.

If you are teenager when reading this then you will probably be a bit embarrassed about the theme but you needn’t be, breastfeeding is a beautiful thing. For a whole year mum breastfed you on demand and I do hope that by doing this I have given you the best possible start in life.

In this past month, Dad and I started to change our routine and wean you off the breast - I know I am the one who feeds you but Dad is always there helping by keep us calm or letting me take a nap in the afternoon after a sleepless night.
 

Weaning you is a slow process as both you and I have always enjoyed our little moments during the feeds so we both need to learn letting go.. Instead of your milk we give you a snack. Initially you got a little upset as you preferred  but I would pick you up and give you lots of cuddles and gradually you are getting used to.

Before, when I came home from work you would come running, asking me to pick you up and would nurse for about 15 minutes straight. It was something lovely to do, specially as we have been apart for a whole day so it gave us time to catch up. Now when I come home you come and give me a hug and kiss and then go back to playing with Dad. After that you spend the rest of the evening coming up to me with lovely hugs until bedtime.

You are only one year and two months old but you’re already so affectionate. I beg God every day that you can grow with this affection and hopefully, in return, life to be good to you.

In the last 3 nights we stopped feeding you at bedtime, you will only wake up once for your milk so I think you are ok with it.

My baby this growing up and turning into a beautiful little boy. Mummy loves you very much, and she always will... no matter what!

open uuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!!

I have always -as in since Harry was born - said that when the time came to introduce solid foods I would go for the baby led weaning approach. After all everything has been baby led for the last 5 months and it hasn't been that bad so why not keep on going? I have been anxiously awaiting for little guy to get to 6 months and dreaming of amazing myself whilst watching him munching on bananas, sweet potatoes and what have you not.

There has been some pressure from my family - mainly my mum and a couple of my sisters which is understandable as things were different when they had kids - for me to start offering him fruit and veggie since he was 4 months but right now it seems my stubbornness has paid off. Advice and people sharing their own experiences are always welcome but if mum knows best and I'm now a mum I do hope people will understand that in the end I will just go with what feels best for little guy, daddy and I.

It was that same determination that got me a bit annoyed last week when, failing to feed Harry a bottle I decided to try giving him some baby rice. i was really just too tired and in need of some sleep and started to think that maybe he was too hungry as he is too busy to feed properly during the day. If he won't take the formula I'll give him some other grub. Nah.

This little boy who up to a month ago would accept anything that went into his mouth - dummy, bottle, spoon the works - has now decided nothing would enter his little gob but mum's boobies and his pacifier. I have always planned to introduce a bottle of formula at bedtime whenever he did reach 5 months I just never thought of the possibility of him not taking said bottle.

Day one with baby rice - it looks and smells revolting. Harry finds it all very funny but hardly takes anything.
Day two with baby rice - Harry actually opens his mouth when he sees the spoon, he still spits most of it as he still has the reflex to stick his tongue out but I can tell he's eaten a bit.
Day three with baby rice - here comes the spooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn......er... he just shut his mouth closed and wouldn't take it at all. And later it was the same thing with the spoon full of gripe water and the syringe with formula and the little envelope with powder for teething. He even refused his precious dummy for a little while, of course he was happy to make peace with the dummy once he started to feel sleepy again.

After a few days insisting on the bottle and sippy cup I've given up. In a few weeks We'll finally start with some solid foods and I'm hoping that by then he'll be more willing to take different drinks. I must admit there's a part of me - the part that has been planning the whole baby led weaning deal - that was actually happy he didn't take the baby rice after all that part of me has been planning on feeding little guy proper food and not the wall paper looking thing they call a cereal.