The Day I Am Having

I decided yesterday to stop nursing completely. Kind of. Miller has been bottle feed half formula and half breastmilk for almost a week like a champ! Eight ounces in fact. Every three hours. Except at night. So I have been pumping, slowly eliminating a session every few days. But yesterday I calculated how much longer I had going the slow way and decided just to stop. I am 23 hours in and I really thought I'd be feeling better. Ouch. The pain is unreal. And that is with the pain meds, cabbage, and ice packs. Noah loves the fact I put "badge" on my chest. He wants some too. I am trying to distract myself by doing little things around the house and watching racecars and coloring. Poor Miller. He doesn't understand why I hold him away from my body and why I feed him on a pillow instead of snuggled up in my arms. But surely in a few hours it will be better right? How long does it take? In an effort to distract myself I called the church to check and see if we could have Noah's birthday party in the gym. But having a birthday party in November in the south is almost as tricky as having a wedding. Especially when your church is literally across the street from Bryant Denney Stadium. So it looks like it will be at our house again. Which is fine except that Noah wants to invite some of his classmates. And if you invite some you invite the whole class. Right? That is a lot of kids. The party is Curious George with yellow, turquoise, and red as the colors. And lots of balloons. I'm thinking that at this age you need something to do at parties. So I am thinking about little carnival type games to match titles of classic George stories. But so far all I've come up with is Curious George Goes Fishing (baby pool with magnetic fish and poles.) Suggestions??? For his 1st birthday we did zoo animals and then last year it was things that go. I had things much more planned out at this point. Including the perfect presents. I'm not sure what we will get Noah. He loves to play with his cars (he doesn't need more of those) and do crafts with me. But I really have no idea as to what he would get excited about. Suggestions on toys for three year old boys??? He has grown very imaginative so I thought about some playsets. He loves the zoo so I thought a membership, but I'm not sure he would understand. And I have successfully distracted myself from the pain for twenty minutes. Thanks for indulging me. Any suggestions on birthdays would be apprciated. I have to go now, Noah just ran by with his potty seat headed for my bedroom.