One more milestone down.

I’m usually not that open about this, but I’ve known this time was coming for awhile and I felt compelled to write about it.

I nursed Kansas for the last time today at the DFW airport. My breastfeeding journey has lasted one year, four months and nine days. I am back home in California now, while she and Susan are back in Wichita for the remainder of the week, which we will use to facilitate the weaning process.

I never thought I would last this long. At first I said I'd stop nursing the moment she cut teeth, but that didn't happen until she was 11 months old. Incidentally, the addition of teeth brings a new… sensation… to nursing. Thankfully, it was one that I didn't mind too much, so I said I would continue to nurse until she bit me. Well hey! Guess what happened next!? I remember when she bit me for the first time. I screamed in shock and agony, which scared her in the process. She unlatched, looked up at me, started crying. WAILING, in fact. "Aww," I thought, "it was clearly an accident, she didn't mean to bite me. I'll keep nursing." And, of course, she kept biting me.

But the biting is not why I'm choosing to stop nursing. It's just time. I've put in a good run. I've pumped thousands of ounces of milk so Kansas could be bottle fed breastmilk while I went back to work. And I'll admit, well into a year of breastfeeding, I was still thoroughly enjoying my 500 calorie meal pass that it allowed me. I am a foodie through and through. I LOVE TO EAT. Unfortunately, this is also the reason why I am still significantly overweight (for me). I need to reclaim my figure and my energy so I can at least keep up with this quick, rambunctuous, curious little girl.

I'm so thankful for this time I've had in all of its rewarding and exhausting glory. I've learned so much about my body and what it is capable of, and I've seen it perform in ways that I never could've imagined.

I would say the diet starts tomorrow, but I just remembered I have one more frozen bag of breastmilk in the freezer, and also a box of banana Jello pudding mix in my pantry. I'm SO going there. Dude, whatever. Breastmilk is delicious.

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