i have vacillated terribly on the weaning issue. but with squam just around the corner i wanted harmony to feel happy and healthy without nursing for a few weeks before i left, so we started the process. first, lil Harmony wouldn't take milk from anything but me, even pumped milk. i worked daily with her to just try the bottle out, but she wasn't having it. days passed by and i become increasing more anxious about the subject. finally my bestie asked me if i had prayed for direction... hmm, what a novel idea! so i prayed for help in the weaning process and the next day she took a bottle of pumped milk. case closed.

oh wait. then we tried switching over to formula. which she gagged on. (i can't blame her)

and then we tried cow's milk with about an ounce of rice milk, for sweetness, which she totally loved. until i accidently gave her sour milk, and then she went a full day without eating again, refusing to even look at a bottle without screaming. up to this point i had been gradually thinning my own milk down, nursing her only when the pain got too bad. but i knew after the sour milk fiasco that if i nursed her again she would never take the bottle back. so we suffered together until she finally trusted me and the bottle again.

but my heart was aching, i hadn't had a chance to truly say goodbye to my baby-o; my bouncy, joyful infant had moved past me without saying goodbye. one morning she woke up to eat and i knew that i needed to put nursing to rest for real. so i cradled her and nursed her one last time. my normally quick nurser happily guzzled for over 30 minutes. when she was done she sat up, waving, and said:

"bye, bye"

and that, truly, was that.