the baby is growing up...

i'm having a major baby dilemma. it's time for her to move out of our bed and into the crib. and i just don't want to do it! this has been a point of contention with my husband and i for some months now, as she's gotten bigger and has adopted her new favorite sleeping position - head in my chest, feet in dad's back (kick kick kick). i love her sweet snuggly body next to mine all night, b/c she does wiggle right up next to me and it is by far the cutest thing. but i know, although i don't really want to admit it, that moving her into a crib is best for her and us. her late bed time means that i have to be up while she is, sometimes until midnight. and she nurses almost constantly while she's trying to go to sleep which, at a point, drives me up the wall. so going down in her own room would mean much more sleep for mommy. but she still wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse and the idea of having to get up, get her out of bed, nurse her in her room and try to get her to go back to sleep just doesn't appeal to me nor do i think it will be very easy - for me or her. its so much easier to just roll over and let her nurse while i go back to sleep. but maybe she won't want to nurse as much if the milk isn't right in her face. i don't know. and i won't know until we try it. so we're going to try it. i think this weekend. i'm torn - i want this to happen but i don't. but i know realistically that she can't stay in our bed forever and my goal was to have her out by the time she's one. and that time is very soon. i really didn't expect to have such a hard time letting her go.....sad face. any suggestions to make it easier? my first thought was to have her in the cosleeper next to us and then ease her into her room. but now i think that would be worse, b/c we'd be right there but she couldn't be next to us, and that would just piss her off. i also thought putting her down for naps in her crib for awhile first may make her more used to the crib and she'd be more willing to go down at night there. or mayeb let her fall alseep with me in our bed and then move her (but i'm afraid that would piss her off too)? i know only a few moms that do cosleep, but i know all moms have had to move kids into their own rooms. maybe we should have done it much earlier?
we're also trying to discourage the pacifier. it has now been put off limits except at night or naps (although this is not a hard and fast rule b/c it comes out often in the car). i got some great advice from jenny that we need to take it away before she can ask for it. and since she's starting to talk and point at things she wants, now is a good time. i don't even think she really cares - its more for us (terrible, but we really use it to keep her quiet if she's super fussy).
so two big steps to her moving on and growing up. these will probably be harder on mom than anyone else.

and we're back!

Oh my goodness! two weeks have absolutely flown by! and so many changes in my baby over that time i can hardly believe it. South Africa was absolutely amazing. fantastic trip. the baby, despite all my irrational fears, was a perfect little angel on the flight there - even with her first ever cold (the dosings of benadryl to contain copious amounts of snot may have helped). on the flight back she slept almost the entire time too. and we had no problems adjusting to the six hour time change. i think the overnight flight really helps.  we relaxed. slept in until 11:30 every day, drank wine, played with the baby, watched soccer. i went to a glass bead making class which was really cool, although slightly scary lighting the giant torch. we (of course) attended some world cup games, visited a nature preserve and saw elephants, zebra, giraffe, and a lion preserve where we got to pet lion cubs. all in all extremely cool. and miss m started to really get good at pulling herself up to standing, saying "Hi!!" and "Bye!" and "Uh oh..", waving, crawling - especially to find us, and eating solid foods. i mean she just really grew up while we were there. very exciting.
what was really interesting was the culture in regards to children there. first of all people LOVED merit. i mean, how could you not? but seriously - men, women, kids, adults, african, afrikaaner, indian, chinese. it didn't matter. they would hold her (like literally take her and walk around with her - which really freaked out jack but she loved it), talk to her, give her cookies, rub her arms, hold her hands, touch her cheeks, make faces at her. it was crazy. and she totally loved it. we would walk into a place and she would immediately start with her waving and  "hi!hi!hi!" so people would come over to see her. but we saw very few other children her age out. according to jack's mom, although S.A. is child friendly, you'd never see them b/c everyone has nannies and the kids stay at home. very strange. but the other great thing was i got absolutely no looks whatsoever nursing her in public. not on the plane or anywhere else. it was extremely refreshing. these are just things that don't happen in the states. people aren't comfortable with other people's children,people are too scared that some crazy parent is going to accuse them of hurting their child. and of course, it happens and you have to be cautious but i'm afraid we're overly cautious. and its a shame b/c it just makes our children uncomfortable in public. obviously it starts at home, teaching children who is ok to talk to and not, what to do when a stranger asks you into their car...but to just be able to go out and other people enjoy your kid and help you out if you need it without fear of CPS being called on them, it was refreshing. and the breastfeeding in public - so great! i mean, we do it here and i think the attitude is not what it used to be, but there is NO attitude there. it was nice. i'll miss you south africa.