As Indy’s first birthday was approaching, we started to talk a little bit about night-weaning her. I’m not into pushing babies around at night, it’s a very vulnerable time for tiny people. And actually, I don’t mind nursing her during the night. Most nights she’ll come up into our bed after the first time she wakes up, and she’ll spend the rest of the night there. I don’t even have to sit up to feed her, and come morning I don’t remember a darned thing. To be fair, I can’t say that her night habits have never bothered me (especially at times when she was at peak feeding frequency), but often the real burden is the pressure I sense from others that she should be sleeping a “certain way”. Indy and I have a symbiotic relationship, and the whole thing works pretty well for us. Night-weaning wasn’t even in an attempt to get her to sleep through the night, since many night-weaned babies still wake at their normal frequency, especially if they weren’t ready to be weaned. No, we wanted to night-wean in the interest of one thing and one thing only: more babies. A night-nursing baby makes for a not so fertile mama. And while studies show that its the total time spent nursing per day that matters when it comes to fertility, rather than time of day that nursing occurs, I figured that cutting out night-nursing was the logical way to lessen her total nursings.
Based on Dr. Jay Gordon’s recommendation we waited until she was about a year, then we tried several different gradual methods, but none of them really seemed to make much of a difference. I decided to attempt it cold turkey and just deal with whatever may come. We tried it for about five nights. Five nights of listening to Indy crying in the dark while sitting on our bed between us, or endlessly walking her back and forth in the apartment trying to soothe her back to sleep. As the nights went on, her behavior at night and during the day became increasingly more unsettling. Several times during the night she crawled off of our bed and went stumbling out into the living room. During the day she started crying practically constantly. She became clingy but unaffectionate, she wouldn’t play by herself, she stopped giving Alan and me hugs and kisses, and she went from only occasionally nursing during the day to wanting to nurse constantly and for extended periods of time (sort of defeating the purpose of the whole thing). She was not like herself at all, and seemed nervous and irritable. Initially we were hesitant to insist night-weaning was to blame, but it was seeming more and more likely that it was, and I think I can safely say now that it was the cause. On Tuesday night I told Alan I was quitting trying to night wean her. It was a difficult decision to make. It’s not a secret that we want to have a lot of kids, and we have always said that our ideal age gap is about 2 years. I’ve been feeling the weight of my own expectations heavy upon me, along with a  consuming desire to add to our family, but I had to take a step back and ask myself if I was willing to go against my parenting philosophies and neglect to care for Indy in the way I believe she needs in order to have another baby as soon as I would like. It was something that I really had to surrender before God and to His timing. The thing is in His hands, and right now my thoughts should be on the little blessing asleep in the other room, and nurturing her tiny spirit and body. This time is so fleeting, and I don’t want to regret a single decision that I make for her.
Wednesday morning she woke up and gave me a kiss. Oh! What welcome little lips! She still seems a little hesitant, and I think we'll have to build trust back up a little bit, but the improvements in her demeanor were undeniable. She’s a a hundred times more jovial, independent and affectionate than she was for those few days. She just wasn’t ready. We might try again in a few months, but maybe not. For now it feels a lot lighter like this, and I’m just going to enjoy my giggling firstborn.

Yet another month has passed, folks. Time goes by both very fast and rather slowly in different ways. The frequency with which I find myself writing these posts always makes me feel as though each month is merely a week, but our days are full of so much learning, and goodness, and precious moments (no, not the collectible figurines. . . if my days were full of Precious Moments I think I would need many more cats than the zero that we have, and maybe some puff paint sweatshirts, and a nineties era china cabinet and a feather duster. . .to dust them [because what exactly else do you do with collectible figurines other than dust them], and if you happen to own Precious Moments I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. . .that goes for you too Mom, I like your nineties era china cabinet.) Um, anyways when I reflect back on all that happens each month it doesn't feel too fast, it feels just right, as long as I take time to enjoy and appreciate the goings on. Now, on to the good stuff!

(Indy normally prefers to eat her avacado with a fork, and does so rather delicately and cleanly, but this time, for some reason, more seemed to end up on her face than in her belly.)

Eats

Indy has been exposed to so many of our normal family foods at this point that there isn't a ton of new things to add. I wil say that the pickiness issues that I mentioned last time seem largely resolved, and I suspect they might have been tied to the illness she was battling at the time. She is much more open to at least trying new foods these days, and enjoys many of them.

• kombucha (she acts like it's so tart, but she keeps coming back for more!)
• shrimp
• crab
• she's had cheese on and off before but now she LOVES it
• hotdog (100% grassfed beef)
• pork rinds (a GREAT alternative for cracker loving peoples of all ages, not super nutrient dense, but they offers healthy fats and protein, and they're grain-free/low carb, whichever you're looking for) - Indy loves the texture 
• almond butter
• coffee (ok, obviously we don't let her drink coffee, but I let her have a sip from our iced coffee the other day and she liked it! Why does she like bitter things? She also eats citrus rinds, which always confounds me)
• spaghetti squash with marinara and chorizo
• (she still loves most fruits and veggies, but no new varieties that I can think of off hand)

We've been trying to introduce a little raw cow's milk into her diet. . .she's just not having it. She doesn't hate it, but she doesn't really like it either. She'll accept it when she's ready, I suppose.

Also, we've started giving her a multivitamin with iron in it. I'm cringing a little right now. I'm still unsure of the decision. The addition of elevated lead levels into the equation makes me feel like bringing her iron levels up is more imperative and immediately important (which it is, since anemic children absorb more lead), and it's causing me to feel unconfident in my ability to do so in the natural way which I would prefer (if lead were not an issue, it would feel more straightforward to me). In this case, I'm not sure if the supplemental iron is a modern saving grace, or one of the mistaken medical mores. The line is fine, and I'm not sure wether I'm on the right side or not. What makes it worse is that she hates the stuff. . . so giving it to her involves holding her down and force-feeding her, which I hate, and all for something I'm not even sure I think I should be doing (I'm not completely against supplements in all cases, I'm just selective about the supplements and the cases). There seems to be very little information out there from the natural resources I usually turn to, so I feel a little lost. If anyone can shed any more light on the issue for me, I would be greatly appreciative.

Feats

• she has mastered going up AND down stairs
• she can identify her and other people's belly button, and eyelashes (a parlour trick we can get her to do at home anytime, but which she almost never repeats in front of other people)
• she might be saying "hi" (this one is still undetermined, but it really does seem like she might be picking up on this one)
• she pretends to talk on the phone
• she shakes her head no. . . grrrr
• she has two more teeth coming in on the bottom which are being slower than molasses in January (does the teething ever stop?), she's been awfully grumpy lately and I wonder if it's related
• okay and this one is not really a feat. . . and it also might have been more than a month ago, but this story must be told. I heard Alan yelling the other morning, and raced out of bed, positive that Indy was currently eating some highly poisonous substance, to find that she had picked up a poopy diaper that Alan had momentarily left on the ground, and was carrying it across the diningroom and into the hallway, leaving a sloppy trail of poop as it tumbled from the diaper as she toddled. Not as bad as dying from ingesting rat poison or something. . . but I can understand the yelling for sure.