so, neither of my other kids ever took a bottle.  ever.  that meant, it was me, the dairy queen at least every 4 hours for a full year.  it wasn’t the end of the world, but it would have been nice to be able to disappear for longer than that.  but, we hardly ever needed a bottle, so it was never convenient to learn a bottle.  plus, half of me had a weird emotional attachment to nursing and it was kind of convenient that they never needed one.  i got to feed them all the time.

well, this time, i wanted lila to take a bottle.  not because i’d need it very often, but a year is a long time not to go to the theater or whatever, for a date.  and i figured, i needed to get over the emotional attachment in order to have a little freedom.  and kirsty reminded me that it’s really good for jeff and lila to have that time together too.  but still, it’s so hard for me not to meet that need personally!  granted, it’s my milk but still it feels like a loss of some kind.  i’m not saying it’s healthy, it’s just how i feel : ).

so, for the past few days, i’ve been hemming and hawing about it.  she’s 5 weeks old tomorrow and i don’t want to miss the window of opportunity, but for lots of reasons, the days keep disappearing, and we still haven’t tried the bottle.  gabe and mia both hated it, so my hopes weren’t up too high.  i figured it’s going to take a few days at least before she’ll go for it.  and it’s the fussy time of day, so she really isn’t going to like it, etc.  but tonight (with kirsty’s encouragement : ) ) i bit the bullet and jeff gave her a bottle, which she sucked down like a PRO!  i feel weird about it, a little bit of a loss, yet liberated too, and i’m so proud of her at the same time.  conflicted feelings anyone?  we’ll try again tomorrow to make sure we remember how it works, and i’m sure i’ll get used to it soon enough -  right about the time i get to go out with my hubby as long as i want to!