It’s almost funny, now that I have over 2 years of experience in this parenting gig, I can spot a growth spurt a mile away.
His normal food intake throughout the day consists of 6 specific mealtimes:
- breakfast at home
- a second breakfast/early-morning snack at daycare
- lunch at daycare
- afternoon snack at daycare
- afternoon snack while driving home from daycare
- supper at home
While normally it’s like he grazes all day, lately it’s more like Little MPB is a ravenous lion with an empty pit for a stomach. In fact, right now he’s added a seventh meal to his list – bedtime snack.
Keeping up with his food demands at the moment is almost comical. For example, yesterday for lunch as we walked through a farmer’s market he reached up to a fruit vendor and helped himself to an apricot. The vendor laughed and offered it to him, but we of course bought a small basket full of apricots. Upon purchasing them, Little MPB proceeded to eat 7 more apricots! There was no stopping him as that’s all he’d eat, try as we might to get him to eat something a little less likely to cause future digestive angst. Eventually, he decided it was time to eat diversify his lunch and some sausage and 2 fruit pouches. Then, once we got home, no more then 20 minutes later, he demanded pasta. Again, he dove in like it was the last plate of food on the earth. After that, he napped. When he woke up, he proceeded to eat more of everything we have in the house.
I swear you can literally see him growing right now – as if he grows an inch over night. All the sudden he’s even leaner and taller – I’m not sure there was much doubt about his toddler status left, but if there was, it’s now completely gone. I’ve even had to pull a bunch of his clothing out of size 2T wardrobe as all the sudden a tonne of his t-shirts no longer fit him. Heck, in some photos from this weekend, I swear he looks like a 7 years old.
And interestingly, linked with this growth spurt is a clear jump in cognitive language skills. A few weeks ago he started with I Wuv You (which just melts my heart) and he’s been using multiple word sentences for a while. But now he’s playing tricks to get try to get his way (after being tucked into bed he’ll announce that he’s pooped as I’m walking out of his room, just so I’ll come back to check so he can steal my arm as I reach into his crib for another hug), he’s telling us stories he’s making up (he had to take his pants off because of an oweee on his leg) and he’s getting mad at us when we don’t actively listen to him (there’s nothing quite like having a toddler shout from the backseat of the car: Mommy, You’re Not Listening To Me!!!)
Temper-tantrums aside, I just cannot believe how much fun he is right now!
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow.
Note – comments on this post will be moderated. Negative or hurtful comments will be immediately deleted.
.
In just over a month’s time, I will mark one of the hardest days of my adult life – the day we made the choice to terminate a pregnancy for medical reasons. Due to the laws where I live, I was forced to go to an abortion clinic to end the life of a baby we desperately wanted to save my own life. I was forced to endure a humiliating ultrasound and I was treated absolutely horribly by a radiologist.
I am still furious that I was put through the hell of having to choose to end my child’s life and that I was treated so horribly that day.
The entire experience still makes me bitter, to the point where just thinking about it brings literal tears to my eyes and pain to my heart.
.
And so, I fully acknowledged that for the last 2 years I have refused to basically even think about that day or the little girl we lost that day. I always was pro-choice and as a result of this experience have become even more so. But otherwise, I’ve really done my best to avoid thinking about it. Basically, I’ve refused to spend my precious time with my living son giving much though to the fact that I chose to end my child’s life to save my own. It’s not so much that I’ve been denying that it happened, just that I’ve been refusing to think about it when I just want to focus on the happy that our living son brings to our lives.
.
The specific date of the termination, the day we said goodbye to our only known daughter, is etched into my mind – August 14. Yet, I had to actually look up what year it happened. (As an aside, yes, I still have the list of all my infertility dates and procedure results – confirmed pregnancy, HSG tests, follicle counts, beta results, ultrasounds dates and results including fetal heart rates and sized, cytotec/misoprostol doses, confirmed not pregnant beta results, fetal genetic testing, etc).
It happened in 2013. It has been 5 years since I chose to end my child’s life. 5 years.
Life has changed so much. I have a son now, who I am absolutely beyond thankful for. My focus is on him, and always needs to be on him.
The few people who know about the termination don’t talk about our experience or our little girl. Mr. MPB and I used to talk about it from time to time, but it seems with time, even we don’t talk about it anymore. Which is sad, because blocking out the whole termination experience has basically made it so we don’t talk about our little girl. In some ways, it’s as though our little girl never existed.
Yet, if I’m honest, I think blocking the termination out of my life has been the easy option. I truly don’t think I’ve given myself the time to heal from the entire termination process and I definitely haven’t grieved the loss of our daughter. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve given myself permission to heal. In some ways, it’s almost like I need to carry around the anger, the guilt and the hurt, as if it’s my cross to bear.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow.
My Perfect Breakdown 