Don't worry, I haven't fallen into a crevice or joined a cult and given up the internets. We're still here, floundering along.
I keep thinking of things to write about, but it seems that whenever I sit down to post I get distracted by work or things which must be done urgently. It doesn't really help that the dumpling has hit his 6 month growth spurt and my supply still isn't back up to normal. Our daily routine is a bit of a grind at the moment. I mean, it's never a good sign when your 2 year old says: "See you tomorrow dada" at 8:45 am every morning as you walk out the door with her. Of course, there are also very sweet moments in the morning during their brief hour half together every day. This morning she insisted upon referring to JD as buttercup all morning.
I have utterly failed to meet all self-imposed deadlines related to my degree and am currently still tossing and turning over whether I should abandon ship at this point or battle it out to some type of (maybe successful?) gory end. I am leaning towards sticking it out still, but there are days which are really hard.
Posts I would like to write soon: to push or not to push, the big preschool dilemma; how not to throttle your daycare provider (subtitled: introducing solids); parenting and loneliness (subtitled: yours truly is now known as "the Amt.rak mom"; a little more travel here and there.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
still here, still pumping
Nothing much new over here. The 2 days of lying curled up in a ball in bed followed by 2 more days of not eating from food poisoning have completely tanked my supply. These J cups are pumping 2 ounces (total) at a time nowadays. The dumpling needs at least 12 ounces of milk to go to daycare. Yeah.
What I am doing:
- Feeding him every possible minute, including leaving work to nurse. This would have been totally sufficient with the fusspot (after all we survived swine flu (while living alone abroad), the dreaded pox (mine and hers), the gas baby of 2010 and a pregnancy without any real drop in supply) but the dumpling is not a great nurser. After a minute or two he unlatches to smile at me, look around and check on his feet, the usual. Even when we're alone in a dark room. It's infuriating. The baby cannot nurse to sleep because he gets distracted by everything.
- Pumping every 2 hours when separated, after every feed when we're together
- Motherlove "magical concoction of gross green plants" as per bottle
- Drinking lots
Any other suggestions? We're going to the beach for the weekend so I'm planning plenty of time alone in the bedroom nursing, but we need this fixed. Soon.
Any suggestions welcome. In the meantime I'll be pumping.
ps - Yes, yes, yes I know that there is nothing wrong with using some formula to tide us over until solids. But, as always, every ounce of formula is a sign to your body that it doesn't need to produce all that much milk, and since I would very much like to breastfeed ... well, practically forever, I need milk. And yes, when I am all done nursing forever I am most assuredly going to get a little cosmetic surgery done and maybe land up as a totally adorable wear-a-dress-without-alterations D cup. Bliss.
What I am doing:
- Feeding him every possible minute, including leaving work to nurse. This would have been totally sufficient with the fusspot (after all we survived swine flu (while living alone abroad), the dreaded pox (mine and hers), the gas baby of 2010 and a pregnancy without any real drop in supply) but the dumpling is not a great nurser. After a minute or two he unlatches to smile at me, look around and check on his feet, the usual. Even when we're alone in a dark room. It's infuriating. The baby cannot nurse to sleep because he gets distracted by everything.
- Pumping every 2 hours when separated, after every feed when we're together
- Motherlove "magical concoction of gross green plants" as per bottle
- Drinking lots
Any other suggestions? We're going to the beach for the weekend so I'm planning plenty of time alone in the bedroom nursing, but we need this fixed. Soon.
Any suggestions welcome. In the meantime I'll be pumping.
ps - Yes, yes, yes I know that there is nothing wrong with using some formula to tide us over until solids. But, as always, every ounce of formula is a sign to your body that it doesn't need to produce all that much milk, and since I would very much like to breastfeed ... well, practically forever, I need milk. And yes, when I am all done nursing forever I am most assuredly going to get a little cosmetic surgery done and maybe land up as a totally adorable wear-a-dress-without-alterations D cup. Bliss.
Monday, August 15, 2011
sick
It seems that it's always when things are going well that one little glitch reminds you that this is hard. I have food poisoning, caught eating out on Sunday afternoon. Cue 24 hours lying curled up in a ball too sick to get out of bed ... and you have a nursing disaster. Thankfully I have a long history of GI problems and wonderful docs, but it was still none too heartening when they suggested an immediate trip to the ER for IV fluids, oh, and pick up some formula on the way over. I skipped the ER (for now, definitely still in reserves depending on how I'm doing in a few hours) and have been raiding the freezer stash, but it's looking like a few long days of non-stop nursing/pumping to get everything back in order. At this point we have no idea if the fever is Salmonella related, or the result of a plugged duct. If only there were some breastfeeding-safe meds to treat the awful d this would be a lot easier. And of course, I hadn't really noticed until it became a problem that we have just reached 5.5 months - the pinnacle of milk demand for the baby and the point when I start to feel really over the whole nursing thing (Nursing a toddler who also eats solids is entirely different from nursing an exclusively breastfed baby, the former I could do happily do forever). On our calendar we have another 6-10 weeks before we start solids (I know, I know we are crazy fanatics about early food. All I can say is that it was fine before) and I am getting increasingly excited. Of course, the idea of a second high chair and the attendant mess being dropped directly into our friendly rodents' holes is a bit terrifying, but hopefully they will be long gone by then.
In summary: sick, pumping non-stop, still turning on the lights before walking into every room in the apartment, rather grumpy.
In summary: sick, pumping non-stop, still turning on the lights before walking into every room in the apartment, rather grumpy.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Dishes, mice, and playground chatter
I just wished my first dishes in 6 weeks. Six delightfully long weeks when I occasionally cooked, frequently cleared the table, and yet managed to not wash a single dish.
Which is also to admit that JD's leave has come and gone and we are slowly sinking back into our regular routine. We have instituted Sunday evening cooking for the week (this week baked pasta, bean burritos, wilted spinach and bbq chicken. Variety: yes. Nutrition: meagre), outsourced the laundry, and even had a cleaning team in twice (that would be 2 times total 8 years together) and thus far it is ... ok.
My work stress remains and will build in the coming weeks. We have had many long talks and the time has come for us to start to prepare for new careers/a new city/being homeowners someday/living someplace we will need a car/leaving our warm little cocoon of similarly-inclined parents. And while it is nice to have the time to prepare, a small part of me thinks that this may very well be just like IF: I wish no one had told me until I really had to deal with it.
But before we get to the big things, I have learned how to minimize the steps between light switches in our new apartment in the hopes that turning the lights on will inspire the rodents of an unusual size (thankfully not rats, just rather large mice) to flee prior to my arrival.
The baby continues to slide down on the growth charts (now 16th percentile!) but looks exceedingly robust and meets every physical benchmark despite his noticeable lack of interest in eating. Some day I may just bash the pediatrician's scale. For now, we smile and nod and politely decline any invasive tests (i.e. anything beyond the scale and fairly frequent checks for ear infections. Beats me why they are worried about ear infections, but I don't really mind and neither does the dumpling).
My neighbor confided at the playground today that she'd had a "scare" recently and it convinced her that they are not at all ready for #2. Let's hope the daggers of jealousy went unnoticed. Another acquaintance waddled by when I was running errands. Due next week! I smiled and chatted politely. My mother was ranting about someone's planned homebirth and I accidentally let slip that we might just consider that in the future if there is no mid-way option like a birthing center available. Long silence on her part. So yeah, even from where I stand with 2 adorable healthy children I know that we will someday dive back into this mess again. And in part I want to keep my blog going so that when we do I will still have that support network out there. The more obvious reason is that my readers are just incredible and I am lonely. But then I keep reading about privacy and awful things on the internets and I want to be careful about saying things here which I would not say to someone's face. Eventually someone from my family will find this blog and while I hope they will have the perspective to understand it, I do not want to deliberately hurt anyone. So I won't really be talking about couples therapy or worrying that my toddler is screaming at me because she's heard one too many fights at home or the immense fear that giving up my career will send me into an utter tailspin of depression. But it's all there somewhere and PPD really sucks.
Which is also to admit that JD's leave has come and gone and we are slowly sinking back into our regular routine. We have instituted Sunday evening cooking for the week (this week baked pasta, bean burritos, wilted spinach and bbq chicken. Variety: yes. Nutrition: meagre), outsourced the laundry, and even had a cleaning team in twice (that would be 2 times total 8 years together) and thus far it is ... ok.
My work stress remains and will build in the coming weeks. We have had many long talks and the time has come for us to start to prepare for new careers/a new city/being homeowners someday/living someplace we will need a car/leaving our warm little cocoon of similarly-inclined parents. And while it is nice to have the time to prepare, a small part of me thinks that this may very well be just like IF: I wish no one had told me until I really had to deal with it.
But before we get to the big things, I have learned how to minimize the steps between light switches in our new apartment in the hopes that turning the lights on will inspire the rodents of an unusual size (thankfully not rats, just rather large mice) to flee prior to my arrival.
The baby continues to slide down on the growth charts (now 16th percentile!) but looks exceedingly robust and meets every physical benchmark despite his noticeable lack of interest in eating. Some day I may just bash the pediatrician's scale. For now, we smile and nod and politely decline any invasive tests (i.e. anything beyond the scale and fairly frequent checks for ear infections. Beats me why they are worried about ear infections, but I don't really mind and neither does the dumpling).
My neighbor confided at the playground today that she'd had a "scare" recently and it convinced her that they are not at all ready for #2. Let's hope the daggers of jealousy went unnoticed. Another acquaintance waddled by when I was running errands. Due next week! I smiled and chatted politely. My mother was ranting about someone's planned homebirth and I accidentally let slip that we might just consider that in the future if there is no mid-way option like a birthing center available. Long silence on her part. So yeah, even from where I stand with 2 adorable healthy children I know that we will someday dive back into this mess again. And in part I want to keep my blog going so that when we do I will still have that support network out there. The more obvious reason is that my readers are just incredible and I am lonely. But then I keep reading about privacy and awful things on the internets and I want to be careful about saying things here which I would not say to someone's face. Eventually someone from my family will find this blog and while I hope they will have the perspective to understand it, I do not want to deliberately hurt anyone. So I won't really be talking about couples therapy or worrying that my toddler is screaming at me because she's heard one too many fights at home or the immense fear that giving up my career will send me into an utter tailspin of depression. But it's all there somewhere and PPD really sucks.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
bother
It seems that the summer has turned my older child feral. Instead of asking to use the restroom nowadays, the fusspot will declare loudly no matter what the setting: "I need to go pee in the grass." Speaking of toilet training, we had our worst accident ever 3 weeks ago (rivaling the peeing in the carseat at the beginning of a long drive on a very hot day such that the stench ... well ...). A very tired fusspot was sitting in a high chair at our local diner when ... I felt my feet get wet. Yay. Needless to say we exited the restaurant rather promptly, with one fusspot wrapped in my nursing tank (I had a t-shirt over it) and an entire meal left uneaten. I offered repeatedly to clean up but was shooed away by the host, who naturally earned an enormous amount of compensation for her warm smile. In summary: worst accident ever is when your 2 year old pees in a high chair in a moderately fancy restaurant before the meal is served, and where everybody knows your name. Thankfully no accidents at all since then. Moving on.
And ... the dumpling turns 5 months old today. I know that I am not one to wax eloquent about how adorable my babies are (they are) but wow. 5 months. And while he is by no means crawling, he has been fully mobile for at least the past 2 weeks. Which is to say that when you put down my 4.5 month old on the far side of the living room and wander into the kitchen ... he would eventually join you by a combination of rolling, slithering, licking, grunting. It's pretty astonishing to watch but the little guy can definitely make it across our apartment.
He remains the easiest baby ever. Perhaps a tad too easy for his own good. When I have to jump up from nursing to rescue the fusspot from her own cleverness, I tend to just set him down. Unlike the fusspot (at his age or now), he will gnaw contentedly on his hands until I return.
And when the little guy wakes up at 11 pm or 1 am (we are after all super-late night folks) it is often just easier to release him to the living room floor rather than rock him back to sleep. And he will happily roll around and chew on things until we're ready to put him back to bed. The guy also has a serious affection for licking furniture. It's not all that unusual to find him lovingly trying to consume a kitchen chair leg or the couch.
But the best part is still waking up next to this little guy every morning and having him roll over and smile at me:
And ... the dumpling turns 5 months old today. I know that I am not one to wax eloquent about how adorable my babies are (they are) but wow. 5 months. And while he is by no means crawling, he has been fully mobile for at least the past 2 weeks. Which is to say that when you put down my 4.5 month old on the far side of the living room and wander into the kitchen ... he would eventually join you by a combination of rolling, slithering, licking, grunting. It's pretty astonishing to watch but the little guy can definitely make it across our apartment.
He remains the easiest baby ever. Perhaps a tad too easy for his own good. When I have to jump up from nursing to rescue the fusspot from her own cleverness, I tend to just set him down. Unlike the fusspot (at his age or now), he will gnaw contentedly on his hands until I return.
And when the little guy wakes up at 11 pm or 1 am (we are after all super-late night folks) it is often just easier to release him to the living room floor rather than rock him back to sleep. And he will happily roll around and chew on things until we're ready to put him back to bed. The guy also has a serious affection for licking furniture. It's not all that unusual to find him lovingly trying to consume a kitchen chair leg or the couch.
But the best part is still waking up next to this little guy every morning and having him roll over and smile at me:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)