Thanksgiving Weekend

We had fun during Thanksgiving vacation.  We went to the Zoo but didn't see much and then headed to the Wild Animal Park the next day and enjoyed seeing various animals and a soft serve cone.  It was D.'s first time walking in the petting zoo and he went and gave each goat a head butt (kiss D. style) just as his sister did 6 years ago.  Head butts must be in our genetic double helix.

Thanksgiving Day went well - in the morning, I. and I baked pumpkin bread to take to Bubbi and Bobbi's house for breakfast while she was there for the long weekend and then made a side dish for Thanksgiving dinner.  Unfortunately V. was not feeling well at all and his back was killing him.  B. had to work so the girls couldn't make it down for the day, a first since V. and I have been together.  I made D. a full scale Thanksgiving plate with turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie and he ate all of it.  Unbelievable!

I. stayed at Bubbi and Bobbi's house for the weekend, enjoying both a Legoland and Zoo visit while D. enjoyed his only child status for the weekend.  V. and I. took him to a park one day, out for linner another day and enjoyed a date night as well.  I swear if D. had been our first we would have had a second kid soon thereafter - he's that easy.

UNTIL...this morning I dropped the pre-morning 8:45am feeding.  I've been dropping a feeding about once a month since he turned a year.  Actually not because I really want to which makes it worse.  But because I've read that weaning after 18 months is not good developmentally and because V. may score on a week long trip to Puerto Rico (really, it had to be Puerto Rico?) in February if he makes all of his annual financial goals which is a big deal.  So I've been feeling a little under the gun.  This morning I cut out (I hate the term "cut out") D.'s morning nap nursing (8:40am) figuring that he had just had a good size morning nursing at 6:45am, so maybe it wouldn't be a big deal.  Well, it was for both of us.  We took I. to school and instead of coming home and nestling in the chair for a nursing and then nap, I read 2 books to him, swaddled him, sang to him and then put him down to sleep.  He looked up at me with this shocked look but remained silent until after I left the room and he realized I was gone.  Then he cried. By then I was already crying because things felt so incomplete, so not right.  Thankfully he cried for a little while and then went to sleep.

However, after we went grocery shopping this morning and I fed him lunch, he melted down, crying inconsolably and getting so angry at the sippy cup that I had to hide it away.  I gave up on eating lunch and we just did things that put him physically against me, snuggling and playing.  When it was time for afternoon nap, he was wiped out and when I nursed him, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell asleep.  For him, I think it's more of a sucking thing than an emotional thing.  I truly hope that tomorrow will go a little better.