predictions

yesterday randy told me that a friend of ours said we were going to have a boy. he said he's been 100% lately on his guesses.....

and today while i was working at the church, a fellow church employee, mr. smith, said that he had a dream. in his dream, we were up at a church function and he walked up to my husband and said: "the Lord told me you were going to have a boy." and that was the end of his dream.

crazy huh? well, we won't find out if they're right or not until february, Lord willing.

i kinda feel like it's a boy as well. that makes me happy.

there was cheese in the parmesan, and it's over.

well, this last week we were in fredericksburg, and randy's mom made eggplant parmesan for us all. i ate to my heart's content - it was utterly scrumptious. then, later, sitting with randy, i thought about eating the eggplant parmesan and burst into tears.

why on earth would that be a sad thing? well, it marked the end of a relationship for me, it put a period at the end of my first breastfeeding experience. you see, max is allergic to dairy, so as long as i was breastfeeding, i had to stay away from milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and anything with dairy in it, to keep max's skin from breaking out.

when i found out i was pregnant, i knew i couldn't cut out the dairy anymore. i'm going to need all the nourishment i can get from all sources. so that meant i had to wean max. yes, max is fifteen months and he can certainly survive without my milk, but was i ready to wean him? NO! i had planned for it to happen slowly, at his pace, and without him even noticing he didn't want it anymore.

the Lord helped us out in such a big way with the weaning, and it did happen rather quickly, pretty much from twice a day to none in the course of a week. He had to do it; i was not motivated in the slightest.

i LOVED nursing max! what a treasure! what a way to connect with him. i miss it so much, the way his beautiful big brown eye would stare up at me, the way he would fiddle with my necklace or pat my chin or chest. that pride of knowing i can always get him to sleep, that "i'll take him" attitude whenever all else has failed. he seemed like still a little baby while he was latched on, and i will say that never, not once the whole time, did i resent our nursing relationship, not even in the beginning when the pain was so unbearable.

i am still getting teary-eyed thinking about it, but i don't want to dwell on it too much. i am so excited about our little sweet pea and i don't want to let my sadness ever get in the way of loving and appreciating the new baby. even so, i will always treasure that time.



in the meantime, i am reeeeeeally enjoying the heck out of cheddar and yogurt. and thinking about an upcoming breastfeeding relationship....