Three years of growing babies

My body has been growing a baby for three full, consecutive years.  For the past three years, I have been pregnant, nursing, or pregnant and nursing!  I became pregnant with Claire in July 2008, nursed her until May 2010, became pregnant with Max in February 2010, and am nursing him still!  I will continue nursing Max for another four or so months.  After that point, my body may be done physically nourishing a baby for forever.  Since this is all I have known for the past three years, it's just strange to think that it will be over, likely for forever. 

On one hand, it will be nice to have my body to myself since I've been sharing it with a little one for so long.  On the other hand, I will miss the purpose and intimacy that come with being pregnant or nursing.  With a petite, 5'1'' body, I like how 'womanly' or 'motherly' it feels. 

It's hard for me to give up the idea of ever carrying a baby in my tummy again.  Or never giving birth again, because, (oddly?) , I love that whole process.  Or ever nursing a baby again.  But at the same time, I really, really don't want to live in the in-between because I have been doing that for all of my adult life.  I just want to be content with where we are in life and not have thoughts run through my mind of whether this is our forever family or not. 

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On a different note, we had a great fourth of July weekend.  It started off on a sour note with my iPhone 4 getting stolen on Friday but brightened up from there when we went to the cabin Saturday morning.  It was a full place with us and our two kids, my Mom and Brad, Chris and Becky and their two doggies, Shayla and Garrett with their two kids, Brody and his doggie, and then Laurie and Andrew and their baby and two doggies on Sunday.  Whew.  Claire and Max napped pretty well but slept horribly Saturday night.  It was one of those nights where you consider packing up in the middle of it and going home.  Of course, it meant that I had little energy and Claire was extra emotional on Sunday.  We left Sunday night at 8PM because I was not about to subject myself to another night of torture. It was already an hour past their bedtime so I was hoping they would both sleep the whole way home.  Well, Max slept for all but 20 minutes and Claire didn't sleep a wink.  That meant she got to bed at 10:30 (3.5 hours past her bedtime) and of course didn't sleep in any later today (she was actually up a bit earlier than normal- at 6AM). Needless to say, our mission for today was to help our children catch up on sleep.  Claire took two naps for a total of 3.5 hours, Max took 4 naps, and they were both in bed promptly at 7PM. 

Between the naps, we had a great day as a family.  We took a bike ride with the Burley (first time this year) this morning to the local Dunn Bros coffee shop.  It had actually closed down for good, so we biked over to the nearby gas station and Claire got to enjoy her very first orange juice.  She thought she had died and gone to Heaven!!  After all four of us took a nap, we ran an errand and got lunch at Noodles.  Later they napped again while I got groceries.  This afternoon we played in the backyard in the pool and grilled chicken for dinner.  It was a fun, summer day (best weather we could ask for!) with our angel baby and sweet two year old, who had the highest of highs and lowest of lows all in one day.  It wasn't a complete surprise that the headache I had all afternoon long went away the instant I put Claire to bed! 

Hope you had a fun holiday weekend as well!