On March 5th, 2010 I went wine tasting to celebrate a girlfriends birthday. We went out to dinner, spent the night at The Allison Inn & Spa, had breakfast, a massage, and stopped for lunch on the way home. It was good to feel independent for 24 hours.

When I got home I found out that my baby girl had not eaten anything since I left the previous day at noon. She had a jar or two of solids, but no milk. She was 6 months old and wouldn’t take a bottle.

I felt like a terrible mom.

I felt like a terrible wife.

How could I have left to have fun when nobody was having fun at home?

What was I thinking?!

She never did drink from a bottle.

We tried for 6 months after that.

I bought every bottle I could.

We tried sippy cups.

Nothing.

When she turned a year old I asked the pediatrician how I should go about weaning her.  I was ready to be done. I needed a break. He just told me to stop…cut one feeding a week. (Meaning, if I was feeding her 4x a day, cut down to 3x for the 1st week, 2x for the 2nd week, etc.)

I did.

It took a little over a month.

It was fine.

She still doesn’t drink milk.

On March 4th, 2011 I spent the first night away from my kids since that night. Almost one year to the day.

This time I did not worry about the bottle. Baby girl can eat. She eats all day.

I felt liberated.

Independent.

Free.

(But, I still wanted Ryan to send me pictures of the kids eating their dinner and sleeping in their beds)

Thanks, Ryan. I needed that.

I’ll write more about it later.

home is…not worrying about the bottle.