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Saturday morning at 6AM: the alarm goes off and I start to get ready for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk that I’ve signed up to participate in – a 5 mile walk in Golden Gate Park. The weather was gorgeous. There were tons of people there. Josh, Matthew and I headed out on BART.

The bus ride out to the park was packed; thank goodness San Francisco is only about 7 miles wide, so it wasn’t too long before we were there. We got checked in and headed out!

There were TONS of people – men, women, children, dogs – oh, the dogs! So many adorable pooches – Matthew pointed to all of them with his stubby little fingers and we marveled how they all differed from Ava – well, I did most of the marveling. Matthew was quite taken with the volunteer cheerleaders – they cheered him on for strolling against breast cancer, and a minute or so later, after we’d passed them, he’d clap wildly. Hee.

Halfway there!

Home stretch now – almost to the finish line! Near the finish line Matthew hopped out of the stroller and the two of us walked together while Baba pushed the stroller behind us.

We did it! We walked the 5 mile course in about 90 minutes, I think – I didn’t check my time. Since it was noncompetitive, I wasn’t obsessively counting it down to the last second!

After the walk, we went to catch a bus… and had an irritating MUNI experience where the bus driver asked us to fold the stroller up and as we were doing it, drove off. Bah! We finally got on a bus and headed out to Oakland to meet Josh’s grandmother for lunch (dim sum) and by the time we got home, it was well after 2. Matthew conked out in the car.

And then woke up 20 minutes after we got back home, wailing. The only thing that settled him was lying on top of me, so we cuddled, and then he fell asleep. Then I fell asleep. Then Josh fell asleep. It was quite possibly the best afternoon nap I’ve ever taken.

We got up at around 4:30 and not too long afterward headed out to do the grocery shopping, and then after that to my new favorite Korean restaurant. My mouth is still tingling from the spiciness of the food. It was a perfect end to a very close to perfect day (there was a dishsoap incident resulting from incompetent bagging skills from the Safeway, but I am putting that out of my mind).

Dear Matthew:

Today you are 15 months old. This time a year ago, I had just returned to work full-time. I look back on photos of you from that time and marvel at how round you once were!

Today, though, you are a solid little boy. Your Great Grandma P says it’s like we poured a ton of cement into you. You are tall and stocky. You are no longer content to just walk or stumble around – much of the time you run, as fast as your chunky little legs will carry you – often in the exact opposite direction from where we want you to go! You are your very own little person too – you have your likes and dislikes and are not afraid to express your emotions! We hold your hands when we walk around and sometimes if you don’t want to go where we want you to go, you do what we call “passive resistance” – you let your body go slack and essentially stage a silent protest.

I have a feeling your teenage years are going to be great fun.

At any rate, this month we had a few firsts – you got a haircut, which was sorely needed, but it made you look more like a little boy than ever before. I have an envelope here with a snippet of your hair. It’ll go into your memory box I’ve got here, and when you’re 18 you can gaze lovingly at the items in the box while simultaneously wondering at which mental institution to deposit me when I’m not looking.

The other big thing that happened is that, for a variety of reasons, stopped breastfeeding. (If you are ultraearthy or have some blinding desire to tell me what a mistake I am making, feel free to close your email client. I won’t read what you have to say, and I’d hate for you to waste your time crafting an email that will only make you look a little lame when I post it here). When I was first pregnant, I wasn’t entirely certain about this whole nursing thing. No one I knew breastfed, while your baba came from a long line of nursing Berkeley hippies. He never questioned me or asked me about breastfeeding – he always considered it the way babies were fed. We went to a course at the hospital on breastfeeding techniques and I had to keep telling myself that it’s more often than not our nursing relationship will be just fine. And it has been.

You were born with a textbook latch that could rival anything Hoover would produce. Despite the textbook latch, it wasn’t a piece of cake – I experienced a lot of toe-curling, blinding pain, every time you latched on, until your mouth got a little bigger. We’ve nursed everywhere – at home (our many homes), at work (Baba used to take you to work with me on a weekly basis so I could get some baby snuggle-time in), on planes, on trains, in automobiles (stopped, of course), in parks, in playgrounds, in museums – everywhere. It makes me swell with pride that you’ve been able to thrive so well on my milk – I look at your tremendous growth, your every fat roll, and I think, I made that! We donated 266 ounces of milk to another infant who needed to put some weight on. I pumped at work until you were 11 months old.

For the first nine months of your existence in utero, I provided your sustenance. For the next six months (exclusively) and since then supplementally, we nursed. Up until you were really able to communicate with me, the only real link I had to being a mother – not just any mother, but your mother, was our nursing relationship. I have enjoyed every minute (well, mostly every minute) of our nursing relationship. I’m all schmoopy and wussy about our weaning. In true Matthew fashion, though, you’ve not noticed it a bit. We went from nursing in the morning and evening to just in the morning, and then we stopped all together. You haven’t skipped a beat.

Anyway – that was a long ode to our nursing relationship. Thanks for making it a great one.

Love,
Mama

More month 15 pictures.

Matthew’s first painting.