Owen helped someone broke the record - on the day he visited NC Zoo for his time, so call the largest nature habitat zoo - NC zoo had a a record day of visitors, totally 32K people visited zoo during the weekend.

It was a hot day, but obviously the 1.5 year old is not so hot about the zoo, he felt asleep before even seeing the sleeping lions (don’t know why, this is the 2nd time we saw the lions in NC zoo, the lions were sleeping when visited last time). Fortunately we get enough photos before he started day-dreaming…

So here is bit of advice, if you do plan to bring your little baby travel, make sure you plan the schedule to cover the things you want him/her to do/see in the morning.  Sleeping is very contiguous - by 2pm, we have seen most parents/grandparents were carrying sleeping children (in very many sleeping poses)…

I have been weaning Owen since April and now, more and more frequently, I will try to nurse but Owen would become frustrated because there is little breastmilk for him. Not long ago, after a few minutes of sucking, he pushed me away, and said “No, no, nothing.”

Looking back at 22 months of breastfeeding - 20 of those REAL feedings until April - there are so many memories. From waking up every hour when Owen was just born, to my highly stressed period during Owen’s first year (not due to caring for Owen, but my self-imposed goal to nurse him through at least the first year), to my insistence to go just a little further to 18 months, to finally conceding to it’s time to wean him.

I think back to all the things I have done to ensure that I can nurse Owen as long as I possibly can and can honestly say that I have done my best:

- nursing every hour in the beginning
- coming home during lunch from work every weekday for 20 months
- countless HUGE bowls of fish and pigfeet soups to stimulate milk glands (I don’t even eat pigfeet!) every night during the first year
- pumping every 3 hours at work during the first year

Although it has caused some level of inconvenience to my life, I did not mind it at all and would do it all again in a heartbeat given the endless benefits to Owen. I have really treasured these intimate moments with Owen, cuddling him close to me and happily watching his little face grow content in the nursing process, and just basking in the joy of motherhood and my God-given ability to provide him with the nature’s best food.

The intimacy is a big reason why I am weaning him so late…I do not want to let it go. I am not ready to let it go. I don’t think I ever will. Owen seems to have a hard time letting go as well, as he certainly does not need the milk anymore, but still wants to nurse. It’s still the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning, when we come home, before we sleep at night, and through the night. Both of us need time to slowly let go, so we’ll let nature take its course.