Owen My Nursing Three Year Old

So when are you going to wean him? How long do you plan to nurse him?

I started hearing questions like this when Owen was a tiny baby and far, far to young to wean. As Owen approached a year, the questions peaked because surely I would wean him soon (*they* supposed). He could walk and talk and was eating a variety of solid foods (though no grains yet), surely he would be done nursing soon.
I don't know if the people who asked those questions finally got the message that nursing was good for babies AND children and that I had no intention of weaning him because it provided excellent nutrition and antibodies as well as physical comfort and the World health organization recommended a MINIMUM weaning age of 2 years old. Or maybe they heard that the natural age for weaning human babies from the breast was between 2.5 and 7 years old. Or maybe they finally decided that I was just SO WEIRD that there wasn't any use in asking me once Owen passed the magic age after which he *should* have been weaned. Maybe we crossed into such uncharted territory, that they thought we would never return to any kind of normal existence - like going into outer space and coming back somehow *touched* by an alien encounter.
Whatever, the reason, I have only been asked a handful of times in the past two years when Owen will wean despite the fact that we continue to NIP (nurse in public) regularly.
I have been told that certain people are uncomfortable with me nursing Owen, but, you know what, there were people who were never comfortable with it, and there are people who are ignorant (and I mean that in the nicest possible way - simply that they don't know), and there are people who have hang-ups (see also people who were never comfortable). I can't control other people's issues, and I can't make health decisions for me and my child based on them either.
And so, we have nursed these three years and a day. Now Owen nurses much less frequently than at first, and he no longer nurses to sleep at night, but it is still an important part of my parenting him and good for both his health and mine.
Do I think I'll be writing a post a year from now about my tandem nursing 4 year old? Who knows? If I am nursing Owen at 4, you can bet big money that I will be shouting it from the roof tops because I think the fact that it is natural and healthy for children to nurse at that age needs to be normalized in our society. If he's done nursing by then, that's great too. Nursing can be both physically and emotionally exhausting, and when Owen weans, I know that he will be better prepared for life after full-term nursing.

Birthday, Take Two

Yesterday while Abram went to work, Owen and I took a trip to the Lancaster Science Factory. We had gone for the first time a while back, on Abram's birthday, in fact. While the weather was beautiful, the pollen seemed to be heavy in the air, so an indoor trip for my sneezing coughing boy was in order. He'd been asking to go back.

Owen had a blast building with Kinex, making a earthquake proof building (well, part of one at least - he had to turn the shaker on before the structure was complete!), playing with the minimal surface bubbles (you can't tell it here, but the bubble forms with planes that go in from each of the three lines of the three parallel lines in this one - very cool),


building with hex nuts between two really strong magnets,

filling the pendulum funnels with sand (and the sand table with more sand as the pendulum swung attempting to make a pattern which was obscured by the artistic efforts of Owen),

playing with the colored lights, rolling balls down slopes, and testing which things (wood, plastic, brass, and aluminum) conducted electricity and complete a circuit to make a light bulb glow. He actually didn't want to try to plastic or wood the second time he went to the table.

Since Owen as not in top shape but still wanted sushi for dinner, after we picked up Abram from work, we got take out and came home.
After dinner Owen enjoyed opening scrubs, overalls, and sticky notes from Anne and Granddaddy; a wooden pirate sword and hat from Grandma and Pa Billy; a pop-up Castles book from Daddy; and a jogging trampoline and small kitchen scale (which has weighed EVERYTHING in sight now) from me.

Here he is before bed time which we surprisingly well despite the excitement of the day.

Happy Birthday, Owen!

Three years ago tomorrow, Owen was born after, um, well quite a labor. This year we celebrated the anniversary with friends and an egg hunt.
Owen enjoyed helping with the preparations from making the invitations

to making

Orange Goo
1.5 cups water
1.5 T. borax
1.5 cups white glue
1.5 cups water
red and yellow food coloring
Mix 1.5 cups water and borax. Mix glue, remaining water, and dye. Combine borax and glue solutions and stir. Store in an airtight container (such as plastic easter eggs).





to dying lots of eggs,

making multi-colored crayons, and stuffing the goody bags for his friends (and him too) with the crafted loot.
While we were shopping, I told Owen we were looking for food dye for the eggs and goo. He very seriously asked me if it was food and could we eat it. That was complicated to explain that while it is meant for dying food, it is not food, and we don't really need to eat it.
I bought 5 dozen with the intention of saving part of them for craft projects during the party. Only after the fun of decorating them all did I realize I had to head back the store to get ones for the activities. Oops!
Here they are before they were hidden Saturday morning:

We did some regular dyed ones in primary and secondary colors, "tie dyed" ones (to the right), and a few cracked ones decorated with tissue paper to look like stained glass.

Owen and seven friends with accompanying parents and infant siblings hunted eggs in the back yard of our apartment building.

We also had crafts:
"stained glass" tissue paper eggs,

egg dying,

and egg head planters with marigold seeds (which sprouted in 3 days in our tester - that's 2 days faster than the package said!).

As Owen requested we had prosciutto and fruit. We also had veggies with soft goat cheese and hummus, deviled eggs, and goat cheeses in addition to the GF brownies (from a mix ;o)) with raspberry sauce.

Owen enjoyed opening the gifts his friends chose before they all headed home.

Not pictured are Owen's friends (in close-up), the crayons, or the dozen orange balloons.

Spring Break 2

Owen started the day by doing a bit of washing - all the measuring cups.


After Abram got a couple of days work done, he was ready for some fun today in the nice weather (high around 70F and sunny).
We took a drive up to northern Lancaster County to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area where there were supposed to be lots of snow geese stopping over on their way north. (Thanks to Sue for telling us about her family's adventure up there last week!)
They have a very nice (and free) little museum with lots of preserved animals including deer, many water birds, a bobcat, an elk head, and a bear head and rug. They also have a display of pelts you can sort onto hooks to match them with pictures of their animals, bones and antlers, and bird eggs. I really liked a display of antlers arranged by the age of the whitetail deer and their nutritional status - poor, robust, and average. The poorly nourished deer antlers were not only smaller but also less symmetrical.

We took a hike through some of the management area and learned about different things they do to encourage wildlife to live and reproduce there.

We found some of our own deer bones

and skunk cabbage blossoms.

Then we had a picnic in a field. Owen ate a whole tin of smoked oysters.



Here is a view of the reservoir from the top of the hill on our hike. The white stuff on the water is birds - mostly tundra swans and snow geese.

We saw tundra swans from the highway. They are on their way from the warmer east coast regions back to Canada for nesting.

We got to see the snow geese up close after a short walk to the reservoir. All the geese in this picture are snow geese. Most are the white morphs or snows with mostly white feathers and black wingtips (visible on the second goose from the front of the picture). There is a single blue morph here too. They are migrating north to their nesting grounds above the timberline in Canada.

Spring Break

Saturday we went down to see Tracy and Martin. We enjoyed the rainy day visiting with them and taking the train into DC to see the Air and Space Museum and the Botanic Gardens. Owen enjoyed sitting in a tiny Cessna airplane (this and the blurry version of this were the only pictures I got the whole day),

looking at the astronaut suits, moon lander, and rockets; watching a thermal view of himself (He was RED while everybody else was mostly yellow!), and seeing the astronaut toileting facilities. (Sunday morning, he made his own astronaut potty in the comforter, and he and Daddy spent the morning washing it at the laundromat with Owen's quarters.)
Tracy claims Martin was on his best behavior for us, and he really was a super pleasant little companion. He enjoyed riding on his mama in the Ergo carrier. He looks SO MUCH like a little Ben.
We enjoyed ourselves, Tracy! Owen says next time we'll see Ben.

Sir Owen

Here's a little story from Aunt Lauren who is so sweet for sending Owen his VERY heavy chain mail shirt in the mail:

Once upon a time,
There was a boy named Owen. Owen was a wonderful boy, and everyone who met him instantly fell in love with him. His mommy and daddy loved to help him grow and learn and pretend. One day Owen's daddy gave him a very special shirt. It was chain mail, and his daddy had made it just for him. From that day on no dragon was safe when Owen was around, and Owen and his shirt took many adventures together.
One day Owen and his mommy and daddy went on a long journey to the land of Tennessee. Owen wanted to share this journey with his shirt, and so they all packed up and went to the land of Tennessee.
While in the land of Tennessee they all visited the castle keep Jernigan. The Jernigan keep had a sneaky and hungry monster named recliner. The Jernigans had lost many treasures to the monster. While Owen wasn't looking the monster gobbled up his shirt.
Many rescue attempts were made, but the people of Jernigan could not find the shirt.
Meanwhile Owen's shirt fought valiently against the monster and one day the Jernigans heard a clinking. Could it be? Yest it was! The shirt had defeated the monster!
The Jernigans celebrated and did a dance of glee.
At long last the shirt came home to its beloved Owen, and together they defeated dragons once again.
THE END

Thank you very much for finding and sending the shirt and most especially, making a story for Owen. He has had us re-read it several times already.

Dare I Say It?

I think spring is on it's way!
Sunday, we took a walk to the North Museum. On the way we still had to dodge some piles of snow here and there, but we saw crocuses by the sidewalk.


Monday was a bit warmer, and we stopped at a park on the way out to the Amish farms to get eggs and milk. Owen enjoyed making a river in the sand,

and we saw daffodils coming up

as well as some little purple wild flowers.

This afternoon was warm and sunny. There were lots of kids at the park right before we all headed home. We could get used to this weather.