Anyway, as always, I would love it others have more data/details on this abstract concept. I finally get what 15 year-old boys knew from the get go…boobs really are so fascinating.

Apparently this parenting strategy was not going to pan out. I went for another learning opportunity and told her that when people get into the shower, they do so naked and that we needed to take her clothes off. I took them off and washed her off a bit, to at least get a bath for her out of the “learning experience.”

I cannot believe I am going to do this, but I am going to talk about milk, ONE MORE TIME. That’s it. Other than making a mention of when Belén is 100% on cow milk, I promise not to talk about milk again for the rest of the year. Do you ever find yourself in a conversation about something and take a moment to view the conversation from the outside rather than simply participate in it? While doing that, do you ever hear yourself talking and get annoyed with yourself? That is TOTALLY how I feel about writing another milk most, the third in one week, in fact. If I am annoying myself, I must be annoying all of you. But…I know there are a couple of soon-to-be weaners (what a great name!) so alas, despite my annoyance, I forge ahead…but it will be short.

Being the overachiever I am, we are working hard on all six vectors. I used to strive to do things like get my MBA and become a project manager and run a 50K. Now I strive to drink from sippy cups full time. Funny how that is.

Belén likes the Nuby sippy cups we have been using for awhile now, but she doesn’t love them and they most often end up on the floor fairly quickly. This weekend while grocery shopping, I bought two new types of sippy cups at the grocery store, a taller version of the Nuby and a Dora sippy cup with a straw (Amalah and others recommend the straw kind for oral development.)

NOW THE TIME, THE TIME IS NOW! I am weaning Miss Belén. She is almost 13-months old. She is working on six additional teeth to add to her existing six. She really didn’t seem all that interested anymore, at least not any more interested to be drinking from my boob than a bottle. She actually makes this cute little noise every time she sees milk or a food she really likes. She used to just make that sound for me when I would walk into the room, tit(s) exposed, but now she makes it for a lot of different things. She is over me, or my breastmilk at least.

I am mostly over it too. I thought I was going to have a really hard time with it emotionally, but it honestly really feels like NOW THE TIME, THE TIME IS NOW!

Have you ever walked into a store with really empty shelves? It is kind of strange really. It is like, I am serious enough about this business to rent some retail space, but I am not serious enough about it that I want to fill my shelves with product you might be interested in. If you think about it, those teenagers who work at the grocery store bringing all of the products to the front of the aisle every night have a really important job because it makes their store look serious about selling you what you need.

By this point, if I would have allowed myself to vocalize what I was really thinking, TSAEs #8 and #12 would have heard a few f-bombs dropped. Luckily they were very cool guys, especially TSAE #12 AND I make it a point not to take out my frustrations with polices on the mere implementers. TSAE #12 and I joked the whole time he and #8 were searching literally every nook and cranny of my two remaining bags. I will chalk up the need for the search to the dirty looks being captured by airport security.

I will tell you what I decided to do by Wednesday of this week, plus if I am still worked up about it, explain how ridiculous it is to go through the U.S. Checkpoint in a foreign country now. R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S! It is truly amazing anyone bothers to be a tourist in America nowadays.

After a good 15 stressful kilometers on the Express Way, I saw the light of tall skyscrapers in the distance and knew I must be arriving downtown. We (GPS lady and me) took the correct exit and then somehow managed to get pretty lost trying to get on the street the hotel is on. At one point, the GPS lady told me to take a left turn on a street that does not allow left turns between certain hours and this took me in a direction in which I eventually became way off course trying to stay out of the way of the other competent drivers on the street, electric trolley cars and the stream of pedestrians.

Belén is used to formula and has it most days while at daycare. Her breastfeeding is relegated to mornings and nights and even at that, I notice she is starting to drink less and less. My instinct is to pump more to capture the extra milk she is not drinking…but then I look at her standing on her own two feet, smiling at me with a toothy grin and think, “This kid might be done breastfeeding.”

I need to come clean. I am a total freak about formula. Why, you may ask? ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON! It is one of those things that I got in my head I wasn’t going to do and haven’t thought much about it since until now when I am only pumping 5-7 oz. at lunch and each day that I do it I have been wondering how much longer I can really keep it up.