The Mom I Want To Be

July 19 was when it started--just a month and a half ago. I have a photo of Baby 1, my firstborn son at two years old, nursing to sleep. He fell asleep holding a banana and I thought it was adorably hilarious. We called it an "emotional support banana" because sometimes he liked to just hold onto food and not eat it, as if he were hoarding it for later, or just liked the feel of something in his hands. I took the picture, not knowing this was the start of the end of our breastfeeding journey. We've nursed him to sleep since he was born because it worked for us. I was so proud to make it to a whole year of breastfeeding, and then remarkably lasted another whole year. But lately, slowly, he started dropping his morning feed. And then the afternoon feed. While I was at work, my parents, brothers, or my aunt would rock him to sleep. On weekends, he stopped falling asleep when we nursed so I started trying this nap technique swaying in the dark bathroom or rocking him in our d