The Nanny

My alarm went off at 4:50 this morning. That's sort of early around here, especially for me. I'm not sure if I should admit this or not, but Brendan does early bird duty at our house. Gets up with whoever is the first to rise and makes sure the morning routine goes as smoothly as possible for all the school-agers. He even brews me a pot of coffee and when I hear the grinder start up in the kitchen I know I only have a few minutes left before I get my official wake up call.

This system stems from the fact that I was a nursing mother. For months and months, heck maybe even years, I was the one who had to get up each night to hush and lull and nurse 3 little ones. So it only seemed natural that I should get to sleep in a little bit each morning.

Yeah, it's a bit of an outdated system. There haven't been any midnight feedings around here in a long time. In fact I'm going to come right out and say that I am officially done nursing. Even in the daylight. It's been a long time coming, and it still hasn't truly sunk in yet, but Saoirse is done, she doesn't even ask me anymore. A part of me is relieved, free. Another part of me is heartsick. When the twins weaned I was already 5 months pregnant with Saoirse so I knew that I'd nourish another, but this time it's different. She's the baby and she's done. You'd think that after four consecutive years of sharing my body with babies that I'd be rejoicing over this milestone, and I will, but I'd be lying if I said that I was doing cartwheels and blowing up balloons. Maybe in time.

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We went to the children's museum today, which always throws Oscar off a bit. "What do you mean it doesn't have any din-O-saurs?", he asks skeptically, like he doesn't believe for one second that it could possibly be fun, or even a museum for that matter, without any terrible lizards lurking about. I convinced him to keep an open mind.

I did it, I turned the twins forward facing when they turned three.

Saoirse is still rear facing and will be for at least another 18 months.

So last week the library ended with dragon breath. I decided to make things easier on all of us for today's field trip. I invited the nanny along.

Isn't she pretty?

Aside from the initial upset she caused in our house, which was more my fault than hers (apparently husbands like to know ahead of time when you spend small fortunes), she has without a doubt been worth every single penny and then some. Today when it was time to leave the museum and Oscar was running away screaming and Saoirse was running away screeching and Nuala was running away giggling, yeah, well it didn't even phase me (that much) because the nanny was there to lend a hand.

Now if I could just remember to take her along to the library.

*Oh and as for why I got up at 4:50 this morning? I have officially started my 2011 San Francisco Marathon training. More on this later*