Playing together and making a mess in the basement.

Well, it’s done.

I’ve weaned the babies.

It was heartbreaking for me but they hardly noticed. Just another one of their many steps to adulthood.

So often we focus all our attention on the first time our kids do something new that the last time they do something fades away without notice. But this time I spent a lot of time thinking about the last time.

I can’t remember the exact last time for Jack and Ben. All I remember is being engorged and crying in a hot shower. Trying not to pump and being utterly depressed by the change of events.

I still felt that depression and sadness this time around. That feeling that we are just a little less connected than we were before.

I hope I remember that Sam was my only baby to up and refuse breast feeding. In one fell swoop, at 2am on a cold February morning, he pushed us one step further out of babyhood.

Aaron followed a week later, not by refusal but by just not getting offered and not even noticing it was gone. The last time I fed Aaron was early in the morning, around 5am. He nursed himself back to sleep and I held him in my arms until I heard Sam squawking on the monitor. It was such a tender moment, one I fully realized would be ended soon and I cherished every moment. For once I wasn’t snoozing sitting upright, the boppy on my lap and Aaron on top, with my head tilted back, face upward to the ceiling snoring loudly.

I’ll miss it, but it will be nice to have my body back. What’s left of it, anyway. These boys have completely stretched it out and abused it, so it’s really not the same body I had a short 7 years ago. I feel like I’ve gone from a body that could grace Maxim to a body that looks more like it belongs in National Geographic. Like one of those pigmy tribes in Africa that they are so fond of photographing.

Growing up – they can sit up and fit into the Costco cart now.