When Sarah left Tyler in sole care of yours truly, she was (rightfully) concerned about a few things. Aside from the obvious and tactfully worded “don’t you dare hurt my baby, you maniac,” one of Sarah’s issues was what to do on the topic of breast milk. Tyler’s been slowly weaning himself off the boob. He still wants HAS TO HAVE his nursies – as they are lovingly referred to in the Gearhart household – before bed, and in the mornings. He also gets them as a late night, please-go-back-to-sleep snack on those nights where waking up at two in the morning seems like the right thing to do, in his mind, of course.

So, what to do when Sarah’s out of town for nine days, two of them without Tyler? I gave her the “don’t worry, I’ve got this” speech, which did little to appease her worries or put her under the belief that I did, indeed, have this. I eventually compromised by telling her that I’d put some breast milk in a sippy cup, if Tyler absolutely had to have his nursies. I didn’t really see it as a concern, because he only wants nursies when Sarah’s around. Wait, let me say that another way. We never taught Tyler the sign for nursies, so he doesn’t exactly know how to tell us he wants them. As it stands now, he will try to pull Sarah’s shirt down and say “Dat”, to which Sarah will say, “Oh, do you want your nursies, Tyler? I couldn’t tell if that’s what you were asking for.” With Sarah being out of town for two days, he doesn’t really have an effective way of conveying the need for nursies to me. As long as he isn’t pulling down my shirt and trying to get to my nipples, he’ll be aces in my book.

This whole business of Tyler weaning himself off of the boob – with this unavoidable extra little push – got me to thinking about how much Tyler has really grown over the last thirteen months. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

*a ton of bricks hits Joe*

Tyler isn’t a baby anymore. Completely unbeknownst to me, Tyler went and turned into a toddler. I am not happy with this. He’s my baby boy. He’s a baby that doesn’t need nursies anymore. He’s a baby that walks around, and probably doesn’t even remember how to crawl. He’s a baby that stacks toys and tries to figure things out. He’s a baby that tells us when he’s thirsty or hungry. He’s a baby that – sometimes – eats with a fork and spoon.

As much as I hate to accept it, and I really do hate it, Tyler’s baby chapter is over. I became so wrapped up in his story, that I failed to see the page that marked the beginning of a new chapter. My perfect baby boy is a toddler.

Anyway, the title of this post is “He hasn’t noticed yet” and the point I originally intended to make was that Tyler hasn’t had his nursies in over 48 hours. I guess I could have made a couple creative edits to this post and just titled it “The next chapter”, but I like the way it reads as it is now.

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