Fare-thee-well, old friend!

Today was my first day back in my classroom. It was a mess! Our district privatized our custodians (you get what you pay for...) and at the end of the last school year I pretty much moved all of my stuff to my new classroom and got the heck out of there! (That choice meant lots of work now, but at the time it was what I really needed to do.) One of the things that I found in my organizing/purging/cleaning spree was the sign above. My four at home have benefited from that sign - a sign I put on my door while I would pump the feeding they missed at lunch-time.
I think when we had the Bigs, we had no idea what children 'cost', partly because we never had to buy formula (and at the time Jeff was a stay-at-home-dad...). My pump became my best friend and was by far the best investment any nursing mom could make! All but Joe had my milk for the first year of life (I only had to stop nursing Joe because I was pregnant with Ali Jane, but still went longer than I was supposed to...).
I am retiring my old pump because in just two months my body will become my own once more, never to be shared again. I've decided that as much as I love nursing, pumping is not so much fun and Sean will be weened to cows milk and/or formula when my freezer 'stores' are gone. I will not miss you, dear pump... but as for nursing, that's another story. I think my dad (of all people) put it best... He once told my mom that the only time he wished to be a woman was when he watched her nursing me and my brother. I have to admit, it's tops on my list of being a woman, too!