101 Things I Have Learned From The Little Man.

#100 A Little Sand Never Hurt Anyone.

When I first gave birth to the little man I'm ashamed to admit that I was one of those moms. You know the kind I'm talking about. The whole, "I'm going to breast feed my child until he is at least one, he is only eating organic and not processed food for the rest of his life, please wash you hands prior to handling my precious baby," kind of mom. Yeah, I'm sure you can guess how well and how long that worked for me. I would say that lasted about 3 weeks. If you ask The Husband he would say it was 3 months. So for argument's sake let's just assume it's somewhere in the middle. 

When the little man was about 8 weeks old I completely lost my milk supply. I won't bore you with the details, but in our household you would have though someone died. Like someone who was very, very (VERY) close to us died. I would cry all day and all night while I fed the little man frozen breast milk from a bottle. I would count ounces, micro ounces, literally drops to determine just how much of the "liquid gold" we had left. I went to lactation consultants, drank herbs, drank tea, pumped non stop, and cried..... did I mention I cried a lot? At the time the thought of giving just one sip of formula to my precious little baby made me not only feel like a failure as a mother, but also like I would be in some way making him "less healthy" for the rest of his life. His ENTIRE life. 

The Husband and most of those around me thought I had gone completely off the deep end, and I too was questioning my own sanity when miracously, about a week later, I woke up and had enough milk to feed a starving village. (seriously, I should have sold that stuff on ebay) All was again right with the world and I felt like supermom for being able to fend off the "devil juice" aka formula for the time being.

That lasted about another 4 months. When the little man was about 7 months old the following conversation took place. 

Me: Breast feeding blows. I am so over this.

The Husband: You have got to be kidding me.

Me: Why?

The Husband: Don't you remember how you carried on a few months back about the "devil juice?"

Me: I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

The Husband: That's how you're going to play this?

Me:  He eats sand out of the sandbox, how bad can the formula really be?

The Husband: The sandbox that all the neighborhood dogs pee in?

Me: Yeah, I probably should stop letting him do that.

Cut to me mixing bottles while wearing a REGULAR bra smiling as I look down and once again see my A Cup chest. The little man? Never got any sicker than any of his breast fed friends and finally slept completely though the night (like a gift from God that was!) No longer being a milk cow and finally getting a full night sleep can really put things in perspective. Like everything else I unfortunately had to find this out the hard way. 

Back to the sand. What can I say the kid loves the sand. He used to eat it by the mouthful and I would be less than shocked when, the day after we went to the beach, his morning diaper would contain at least two buckets worth of the stuff. I stopped letting him eat out the neighborhood litter box aka the sand box when he was about 9 months old but every now and again he sneaks in a little shovel full, when I'm not looking. 

What made me think of this was when, today, we were eating watermelon down on the beach. The little guy got so excited that he dropped his whole slice right into the dirt. He was so upset, and without flinching I gave it back to him. He said, "Yucky?" and I responded....no it's cool, a little sand never hurt anyone.