Phoenix and weaning

Ian and I went to Phoenix this last weekend to visit my grandmother. We had a good time, going to the zoo and on a boat ride on Saguaro Lake. I have lots of pictures that i will post once I get them uploaded.

On Saturday night, the night before we were set to leave, Ian ran a very high fever. He sat in my lap and I immediately realized that his back was burning up. Grandma ran to the store for a thermometer (I forgot Ian's at home) and I gave Ian some Tylenol. When she got back, I immediately checked him and he was at 104.2. I put in a call right away to the after hours pediatrician (my kid only gets sick on weekends) and was told to alternate Tylenol and Motrin and to keep an eye on his temperature. If it didn't start to go down, I was to call back.

I gave him a lukewarm bath and got him ready for bed. His temperature was down to 99.9 before bed, so I was pretty happy about that. He refused to sleep in his own bed, though, and would only sleep with me--he has refused to do that since he was 8 months old, so I knew he didn't feel well. He woke around 10 screaming--he was flailing his arms and kicking and hitting me. I could not get him to calm down at all, no matter what I did. Finally, I took his temperature (97.7) and during that process he peed on himself. After that he finally calmed down enough to fall back to sleep, which leads me to believe he was having a nightmare and I wasn't able to wake him. It was the strangest, scariest thing I have seen with him. I didn't know what was going on.

He woke again around 3 and was talking to me and asking for milk. I got up to get him his sippy and checked his temperature again--he was back up over 103 so I gave him some more Tylenol (we didn't have any Motrin with us). At that point, he wanted to go back to sleep in his own bed.

The next day his temperature was fine, and today his temp has still been about normal. I don't know if it was a short lived virus, stress, or teething, but it was scary!

Now, for the "weaning" part of this post. For at least a month now, he could take or leave nursing. He dropped his morning nurse which was our longest one several weeks ago (maybe even a couple of months? I'm not certain). After that, I started to feel like I stopped producing milk. We were left with our nap and bedtime nursings, which were both short, less than 5 minutes each. Then he started to get frustrated when I would try to nurse and would just want his binky and to be put into bed.

Since Wednesday, he has not nursed at all--I've offered and he has refused. I'm taking this as child led weaning and am following his desire, although i'm a little sad about it. He is almost two, though, so I can't say we didn't have a good run. ;) I also think I was right about being out of milk--5 days without nursing and I haven't had ANY discomfort/pain/engorgement. Nothing. He even let Hazen put him down for his nap today, which was amazing--no one but me has put him to bed since he was born. This could be the start of a good thing for me.

I guess I should feel fortunate. I have an extremely busy, strong-willed little boy, but the "hard" things have been pretty easy. He was the one that chose to leave our bed and now he's chosen to stop nursing. I could have it much worse.