I'm a full-time mummy

Yes, ladies and gentlemen... my almost 4 years old boy finally weaned from breastfeeding.

Yes, you read that right. Almost 4 years old. He's 46 months old now in case you are wondering. 2 months shy to being a 4 years old kiddo.

What do I feel? Oh well... it took me sometime to acknowledge this is happening. Correction, that this has happened.

It took me some time to write this down that I have weaned my first child.

I feel sad of course, Benjamin is my first child, the one who started our breastfeeding journey. One of the reasons I quit my IT job is to breastfeed him for at least 6 months and then decided to continue once I became a SAHM.

The ups and downs (well, honestly, mostly ups!), I direct latched him and demand fed him and he nursed through my pregnancy. Yes, nursed THROUGHOUT my 2nd pregnancy.

I cannot forget how disgusted I felt, how I was mad and angry at him for wanting to nurse when we brought Alyson back home from hospital. I don't understand why just months before giving birth to my 2nd child, I was so eager and anticipating a tandem nursing journey and the moment Alyson was born, I never imagined I could feel the complete opposite.

That I hated Benjamin for still wanting to nurse. That he's stealing all of mummy's milk and starving his baby sister.

I don't know why I have all the hatred and disgusted feelings until I researched more and finally acknowledging that I have nursing aversion and that I am struggling and trying to cope with tandem nursing..

And the moment I acknowledged that, I felt a burden lifted off my shoulders and realised all the hatred and disgust were just in my head. My poor boy doesn't know what he did wrong to have mummy being so angry at him everytime he asked for his feed.

I thank God it only took me 1 month to get over my nursing aversion (I read online a lot of tandem nursing mothers takes months, some more than a year to get over the aversion)

So, since then, Benjamin, Alyson and I continued on our tandem nursing journey.

I have always stressed to anyone asking me on weaning my boy that I am practising the 'Don't offer, don't refuse' method.

Meaning, I do not offer my child their feed. But if they ask for it, I will not refuse it either. It has been that way and everything is fine and dandy.

I do not believe in stopping the feeding just because I am pregnant or just because my child gets past 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and so on.

I do not believe that nursing beyond toddlerhood means the child is going to go on forever and ever.

I do not believe in all those crap.

I believe in letting my child decides when to stop.

I believe that when they are older enough, they know when to stop.

And so we come back to my post today...

My boy has finally weaned at 45 months old.

I teared when I think of him no longer needing to suckle from mummy.

I teared when I remember back our breastfeeding journey.

How I could easily comfort his pain, fears, discomforts, fuss, crankiness with my breastmilk...

How my boy falls asleep after nursing from mummy...

All by breastmilk. And no formula at all in the house since we brought him home back from hospital in March 2009.

But I tell myself this also means my boy is growing up and moving on to other exciting milestones! So yes, this full-time mummy has got to learn to let go...

Oh heck... typing this post makes me tear up too...

I just want to write this down so that Benjamin knows mummy truly cherished our breastfeeding journey together and that nothing will change any of this. We still move on with our life and continue enjoying our bonding and mummy hopes that he will understand and appreciate what we have been through.

Few weeks back, I dreamt of Ashton Kutcher.

Before I continued on, please note that I am not that crazy of him at all. I know he's the dude in That '70s Show and Two and a Half Men and he's dating Mila Kunis (Ok, I'm quite the celebrity gossip fan) and he's divorcing Demi Moore.

OK, enough about the details.

Anyway, in that dream, I found myself in a cafe of some sort, quite dingy place and I could instantly recognize him from far. I was thinking to myself in my dream 'OK, this is obviously a dream. I'm in Malaysia, how the heck could this be real?' Anyway, in my dream, he was sitting next to 2 of his male friends chatting happily.

I thought of walking away but then in my dream, again I thought 'Hey, it's a dream. What else can go wrong? Just go to him and get a photograph or something!'

So I walked towards Ashton. When I was standing right in front of him, I panicked. Couldn't say anything. Even if it's just a dream.

He asked me what's up. I asked him whether I can take a photograph with him for my dream memories.

He asked why should he agree to that.

I said 'Because I'm a blogger.' (In my mind, I can't believed I said THIS!)

To my surprise, he said 'Okay, fair enough' and stood right next to me.

I don't trust his friends to take the picture plus I prefer to hold the camera myself so I extended my left hand right in front of us and clicked. I thanked him and walked away happily thinking 'I am sooooooooooo going to post this up on my FB page!'

Then I woke up from my dream.

Arghhhhhhhh.... so for the sake of reliving my dream, the picture sort of look like uhmmm... this?

It was about half year ago since I posted about my paranoia of going out. There were some crime cases happening then (and even now still is) which added on to my paranoia!

A few weeks back, a fellow SAHM friend shared a status update in her Facebook that she is stepping out of her comfort zone by taking a public transportation (a train) to go check out a book fair and I was touched at her words.

Stepping out of her comfort zone.

I've been couped up in my house most of the time. With my 2 kiddos. Unless it is weekend or hubby has no business appointments on weekdays, it's pretty much stuck at home for me and my 2 kiddos.

Ever since I read that few words, I too planned to gather up my courage again to go out.

To drive my car (it's an almost 15 years old second hand car which used to be hubby's) out somewhere so I can experienced something new instead of the walls in my house.

So I have been slowly planning grocery trips with my 2 kiddos. And in order to bring my 2 kiddos out, I had to lure my MIL along so that she can help look after my kiddos while I drive.

So far, it has been 2 times since I managed to do that. It has so far became a fortnightly grocery trips and the first time we went out, my MIL dumped me and my 2 kiddos the moment we stepped into the supermarket. I think she went bonkers when she saw the newly decorated supermarket (which we have not frequented for almost a year). I told myself 'Nevermind. Even though I'm stuck with my 2 kiddos again, at least, it's not home and it's outside. Something new.' And in the first trip, I managed to handle my 2 kiddos all by myself for 3.5 hours while my MIL shops happily.

The second time we went to the supermarket again (last week), I decided to let my boy tires himself out by pushing his baby sister in the trolley. Don't worry I stood behind my boy watching and monitoring closely both my kiddos.

Then I was hungry as I have not taken my breakfast yet. So we parked our trolley outside the cafe and I had my breakfast before we continued on with our shopping.

And then my girl got restless and I thought it is better to tire her out now by letting her push her big brother in the trolley. The second trip lasted near 2 hours before I surrendered and rushed my MIL to finish up her shopping and go back home.

I told my hubby just the other day of my plan to bring the kiddos and his mum out maybe every fortnight so I can gather up my courage to drive out more often instead of being stuck at home all the time. He agreed with my plans and offered to give me allowance for the grocery shopping as well. Woohooo! I hope I'll be able to venture further next time!

If you are a SAHM, do you go out to have some 'me' time?

What do you do to pass time?