New Year – A Change of Rules

First off, I hope you all have an amazing New Year’s Weekend! Woohoo 2012! I predict it will be babies for everyone in 2012. 

I have come to the conclusion that it is time….it is time to change the rules of this blog. I am sorry to do this to you all, but now that there are actually people out there who read my blog – Holla at my peeps! – I have started to feel a bit of unease. Unease at how completely easy it would be to piece together my life.

It’s not you….I trust you. It is others. The non-commenters, the non-followers who stop by….they make me nervous. I HAVE GUNS! You should know that secret hidden people!

Anyway, long story short, the New Year marks the perfect time for this to happen. I am going to increase my anonymity. But I thought it was only fair to give you some warning.

I am going to spend the next few days taking down many of my posts (first step was to copy my blog in its entirety to save for myself). Don’t worry chances are your favorites will remain. Probably the ones that will disappear are the ones no one cares to read anyway.

This also means that those who are near and dear to me (aka real life friends) now get to have the amazing super special honor of getting nicknames. Now give me some time. I can only come up with so many amazing nicknames at once. But I will find the perfect one that fits you….right Iron Ducts?

So Ladies….and I am pretty sure no Gentlemen. Things is about to change!

Happy New Year.

Chubby Girl’s Guide to the Gym

I am obviously enjoying this whole Chubby Girl’s Guide blogging, so here we go again. The Gym - a dreaded word in any chubby girl’s vocabulary. We fear it, sometimes the fear is so great it makes us pee a little.

But it makes me laugh immensely to imagine what I look like at the gym. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the floor to ceiling mirrors and yes indeedy, I am hilarious looking. As you might imagine, the first rule of gym-going for this chubby girl is to avoid eye contact with the mirrors. Look at the floor, the tv, out the window, at other people, just try as best as you can to avoid yourself in the mirror. You’ll feel better just thinking you weigh 120 and have abs.

After several successful weeks of running outside during my lunch break, I finally had to cave and take my exercise indoors. Maintaining the idea that the only way I will stick to exercising is to do it during work hours rather than taking away more time from my family, I looked into a gym about a 5 minute walk from the office. And I joined.

My biggest mistake was to join a gym run by a World’s Strongest Man hopeful…..or was it a mistake? Sure standing in front of this giant meat head made me feel dumpy and like he was judging every inch of me, -

him: you just want the open gym membership?

me: yeah

him: you don’t want any one-on-one personal training and coaching, or to join in on one of our boot camps?

me: no

him: (judgy look) okay

- but at the same time it is kind of a trip working out and hearing him talk. Obviously as his muscles have grown, his brain has shrunk. Some of the things that come out of his mouth, I just internally smile and think ‘I may be chubby, but thank god I am not that dumb’. Score for brains right?

Not only do I go work out with Strongest Man judging me with his pea brain, but then there is also cute Tiny Ponytail Trainer. Seriously?….way to make me just want to slit my wrists. I had to remind myself that if I was at a gym for 8 hours a day I would probably look like her too…oh and yesterday when I was there, she totally racked herself in the vajayjay. I shit you not! She was on the lateral pull down machine, or at least about to start it. She was wearing her “I am super intense” bicycle gloves (apparently you need to wear this to look like you know what you’re doing? I dunno) and she put on this strap or whatever that basically tied her to the pull down bar…..I don’t know. She was singing along to the banging rap music playing overhead and another trainer was chatting her up. Then she went to sit down and was apparently too forward or something and banged her vajayjay into the leg-rest thingy. HAHAHAH, but ow at the same time.

As a fellow vagina owner I felt her pain. The other dude had to help unstrap her so she could run into the office and shed some tears. But as a chubby girl I smugly thought ‘I would never be that hasty’. Score numero dos for the chubby girls!

The good news is, the gym is super small and nice. Sure SM and TPT are there, but besides that there is usually only 2 other people working out when I go, one of whom is my co-worker. It is way easier to work out with 4 fit people, one of which is totally dumb and one who doesn’t take good care of her vagina, then it is to work out at a big gym with 40 semi-fit people.

As this New Year business gets closer, I think many of us are thinking the same thing ‘I want to be in better shape next year’. As much as I try to love every inch of myself and tell myself I am perfect just the way I am, working out does make me feel better. It isn’t even that my body is changing significantly, it is just that I feel good. When I feel good, I feel like I look good too.

If you learn anything from this post (doubtful) let it be this: Watch out for your vaginas people. Keep them safe!

Broken Hearts

Unfortunately this Christmas didn’t go as planned for everyone I love. And my heart is breaking for E and H. I wish I could hold E tight and tell her everything that is meant to be will be. I wish I could go to the microwave and just push a button and pull out a baby made just for her. I just want to fix it….I am not even sure what it is, I just want to fix it. Give me the tools and a manual, I will figure out a way to fix it…..unfortunately there is no manual for fixing this one. So we will all just mourn with her.

Mom Guilt

Whoops, I scheduled this to go up on Friday, I guess that didn’t happen. So pretend you are reading this last Friday.
Mom guilt is stupid. I hate it. As a logical being I know that I shouldn’t give in to the stupid part of my brain that exacts revenge on me through “mom guilt”. Jack bashes his head on the floor, Mom guilt rears its ugly head – it’s because you put those damn socks on him!
Last Wednesday was Jack’s 9 month appointment. The dude has been chillin’ on the 50th percentile curve since birth. Sometimes 57%, sometimes 52% but right around average. Yesterday, um not so much and the mom guilt bit me in the ass….the brain ass….you know what I mean.

Logically Jack is doing great. He has and continues to hit all his developmental benchmarks. The arrival of teeth is slightly later than some of his peers, but still not unreasonably late. Teeth arrival can happen anywhere from stupid early to well after a year. So again, he seems to be about average and I count myself lucky that I haven’t had to live with the fear for a long while now.

He weighed in at 18lbs 8oz and measured 27 1/2″. This puts him under the 25th percentile……FUCK! Okay Logical Brain says ‘this is no big deal’. Facts: he has been moving around like a crazy pants. The kid is crawling and getting into everything. He is on the move. So it is only natural that he wouldn’t be able to get enough food to keep up with the activity; which is what the doctor said. The height thing….well I suppose it is the same case there. But the doctor made a big mistake.

He looked at the number for Jack’s height and was like ‘hmm this doesn’t seem right…let’s re-measure to be sure’. Sure enough the nurse was spot on. Now to his credit he said ‘well it is okay that his growth tapers off just a little, I am sure it will pick back up’. But “Mom Guilt” was already in full swing.

As you can imagine I pretty much believe it is my fault. It’s no shocker that I’ve been experiencing changes in my milk supply, so obviously Mom Guilt is like - you are starving him! You don’t have enough milk for him!

All the way home and for the remainder of the evening I was flipping out. Now Logical Brain tells me that he is still getting plenty of milk. He is drinking off the frozen supply and so even though I am not pumping as much, he is getting enough. I know that I need to relax. I know that it is going to be okay. I know that it isn’t my fault…..but it is a battle…an epic battle between Logic Brain and “Mom Guilt”. And although Logic Brain wins the majority of the time, the battles are pretty hairy.

The good news is this: turns out Jack can actually start getting cow’s milk at 10 months according to our doc. I had thought it was 12 months (I will probably look into this a little more, but link me if you have found some studies). He actually brought this up before the whole weight/height discussion and he was like ‘go ahead and just give him whatever milk you guys drink. 2% or whatever, he doesn’t need whole. If he does fine with it, you can keep him drinking that during the day and nurse him in the morning and at night or whatever you feel like doing’.

Obviously for me this was a huge relief. I no longer have to worry about squeaking through until 12 months with my supply or supplementing with formula. Now, hopefully, we can introduce some cow’s milk to help out. Thanks Bessie! You’re the best girl.

After the worrisome (in my head anyway) discovery of Jack’s lightness and shortness (could just be his dad’s gene’s rearing their ugly head….great I am going to have a short child…hehehe…Don’t tell Andy I just wrote that….I mean he is going to be “average” height) I turned to the doc and said ‘with the height and weight thing in mind, should we not try him on whole milk instead?’. He fully agreed and again told me not to worry too much (easy for him to say).

So we have 19 more days (who’s counting right?…um “Mom Guilt” is totally counting) until we can try out some cow’s milk. Obviously until then, I am going to be stuffing him with milk and food as much as possible.

I am throwing the sleep training out the window for a bit. We’ve been working on getting him to sleep through the night and now I am going to go back to letting him nurse whenever and as much as he wants. I know some of you are probably saying “calm down Natalie!”. But I think this is the most logical step to take. Mom Guilt definitely shouted at me - it’s because you are trying to eliminate his night feedings!!!!! So Logical Brain is going to give her that one just to ease some of her mind. We’ve got 19 days until we can try out the cow’s milk and until then I am going to do my best to sequester this Mom Guilt.

TVT

It’s TVT Bitchesssssss! Yeah. Today I am like Natalie in hyper-drive and here’s why:

• First up – Snow! That is right, we are having a blizzard RIGHT NOW!!! And I love snow. Especially before Christmas. I originally had planned to work all this week and next, but with the snow I have decided to take tomorrow off and we are going sledding. I don’t even care if no one else wants to go, I am forcing Big Butter, my SIL, Andy and Jack to all go sledding with me tomorrow. It is going to be epic.
• Big BUTTER is visiting! YEAH!!!! I LOVE THAT DUDE….well obviously because he is my brother.
• Last Night was Winter Solstice and we spent it with some very dear childhood friends of mine. Obviously I had to put Jack in a ridiculous sweater because hello….that is like my job. Here he is with my dad (who for those wondering, is doing awesome. All done with chemo and his PSA is ridunkulously low. woohoo)

• It is Auntie Em’s birthday today! Auntie Em is Andy’s sister. She is completely awesome in every way. She has taken on the difficult task of updating my fashion. It is basically like having a free personal stylist. When we go shopping together, I am still looking at the first item I spotted and I turn around to see her with 14 things pulled. The girl is efficient.

Jack loves her because she always wears lots of accessories for him to play with. He especially likes her necklaces and scarves.

•  It’s almost Christmas! Yeah dudes. This is awesome. Sure Jack is teething (number 2 is getting it’s cut on in his mouth) and a little crankier than normal (which let’s face it for him, this means he only smiles and laughs like 85% of the time…the dude is happy) and sure the roads are icey and dangerous, but that isn’t going to get this girl down. BECAUSE IT IS CHRISTMAS!!!! Or rather it is almost Chrishanukwansolsticivous! And the snow has made me really feel it this year. YAY snow!

• Tiny shoes – We had a couple of pairs of baby shoes that were hand-me-downs or gifts. There was really no point to them, so we only put them on Jack once or twice. But recently I bought Jack some shoes from a consignment store ($3.50 each? WHAAAA? Such a good deal) and now I am so excited to put shoes on him. Sure he is like ‘what are these?’, but they are adorable. And I am pretty sure they will be useful soon. Notice the one-handed cruising? Little man is getting close.
• I had a venti chai this morning! So there’s that. 
• PEACE BITCHES! Have an awesome weekend.  

Teef

Dudes, we have a tooth….one single tooth on my 9 month old baby, yeah suck it you mom’s with babies my age or younger with 4 or more…..And for my closest ladies, I mean suck it in like the nicest way possible. Imagine I am handing you a candy cane (holiday themed post – check) and telling you to suck it. We good? Alright then.

So yes, we have a tooth….well Jack has a tooth. Let me tell you it is one of the most exciting and yet terrifying things in my world right now. First – the exciting part! – my kid won’t need dentures. He won’t be the youngest Polident spokesperson. I won’t have to play momma bird and pre-chew all of his food for the rest of his life…..okay I realize we are getting ahead of ourselves. We are just talking about one tooth so far. He won’t be that successful if more don’t show up. But at least it is a sign of progress. Woohoo! My kid will most likely get more teeth!

Okay terrifying – Have you ever been really excited about something that is the equivalent to putting your arm into a blender that has a history of randomly going off because there is a short in the wiring? This analogy will make more sense in a sec, let me explain.

I discovered said tooth on his 9 month day mark, or whatever you want to call it. To call it his 9 month birthday sounds weird. I was brushing his gums, like we do every night…why?….because I am starting good habits, that is why! don’t make fun of me. A dentist literally told Pickles that you should get your baby used to brushing their teeth early so then it is not a big fight when the time comes. So there. Medical professionals agree. Anyway, I was brushing Jack’s gums and I like to get a little feel in at the end to see if there is anything to report about. And I felt the slightest bit of sharpness. Nothing you could see, but I knew it was coming.

I trotted upstairs and victoriously announced that Jack would not be a toothless wonder for much longer. Andy and his sister weren’t that excited about it. They were like ‘eh whatever’. So I trotted back down stairs and turned to Jack ‘well I am excited for you’. Then came the time to put my boob in his mouth…..and suddenly this fear washed over me. Holy fuck! This is terrible. This is the worst thing that could ever happen.

Jack has chomped me before. When his gums are bothering him and I am feeding him half asleep, sometimes a nice chomp down will happen. It wakes me up, I detach him immediately and we give him some time to know that isn’t awesome. The gum-only chomps aren’t terrible, but they aren’t pleasant either. Now we are adding a razor blade into the mix and I am fucking scared peeps.

The only good thing about this situation is we are only talking about one tooth and it is on the bottom, so when he is eating he covers it with his tongue. But I have become like a jittery nervous wreck near the end of each feeding. I am watching him closely to make sure I can get him off of there when he is done drinking and before he gets a gnaw in there.

This is a scary new world.

TVT

Whoa have I been a super slackity slacker when it comes to Thought Vomit Thursdays. Believe me it is not for a lack of Vomit. There is plenty in this her noggin’. Let’s get started:

• My boss and I are friends again. I snapped at him yesterday, but today we’re back to our old knee-slapping ways. I just spent 15 minutes with him in his office staring down at two women in the parking lot who were going through a pile of clothes. He was like “NATALIE!!!! Quick! What the hell is going on here?”. He has two sons. So he has no idea the weird things that ladies do, like exchange clothing out of our trunks and what not. He’s like ‘wait, why didn’t she like that? not her color?’. Hilarious. Obvi I like it much better when my boss and I are friends. Maybe I have just had a stick up my butt lately, but he was getting on my nerves. After snapping at him, I re-evaluated and realized I should have dealt with that differently. Being a grown up is hard yo.

• Turns out letting your friends live their own lives is a hard-learned lesson for me. It is good for me to remind myself though. I totally need to let things go and not internalize. Vague enough for ya? Yeah, I am not going to go further either.

• I am like a giant ball of emotions. Happy, nervous, excited, scared, frustrated, all of that. Mostly it surrounds E and the impending arrival of her ADOPTED SON!!!! WHAAAT? Yeah, dudes. YOu know how I was like ‘I am giving my eggs to E’? Well like 45 seconds after that post she found out she is getting a baby for Christmas! HFS! Hang on, let’s spell that out, it deserves it. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!! So yeah most of my emotions have to do with her. The others have to do with Josey’s new bouncing baby girl. And the rest have to do with my own life and work and shit. I won’t go into that on a TVT….I am still processing it anyway.

• My Aunt, the one that is like almost twinsies with my mom, sent Jack an advent box this year. It was SUPER sweet and adorable. See my mom used to go all Martha Stewart on everyone’s asses and before Thanksgiving she would put together advent boxes for EVERY SINGLE ONE of my cousins, and my brother and I obvi. She would tie stuff to a ribbon and then each day we would pull the next gift out of the box. It was super exciting for a kid. So anyway, this year Jack gets a box in the mail from my Aunt on like December 2 and it looks like this:

It is so beyond awesome and I just wish Jack was a couple years older to really appreciate it because my Aunt went like all out. So every other day is a small gift, like bathtub dye (did you know this exists?) or a rubber ducky, but the other days she attached pictures of my mom with little notes about her. Like “Grandma Patty had the most beautiful hair. She wished it was straight, but everyone remembered her for her beautiful black curls”. Therefore every other fucking day I am crying as I help Jack pull the items out. It is both awesome and sad at the same time. I think I will save everything and put it back in the box next year so we can do it every year until he is old enough to really understand.

That’s about it for this TVT. Hope you all have an awesome Vomit-filled….thought vomit that is…Thursday.

This Kid

I have an 9 month old. Crazy crazy town.

I think one of the weirdest parts to think about is that it has been 9 months since I pushed a watermelon out my hoohaa, granted he was a very tiny watermelon in comparison to like, you know, real watermelons and stuff. You will all be glad to know (or maybe you won’t and will now want to wash your brain) that my hoohaa is doing fabulously. If this were the vagina monologues she would say something like ‘baby? what baby? a baby came through here? when?’. Yep the lady business seems to be… well…just like before all this crazy pregnancy and birth activity. Well obviously minus the period aspect, but that is technically pretty normal as well.

So back to my kiddo, yeah he is getting big, yet he is still super small. I pat his little head every day and think ‘wow your head is little’. And then he will do something new and I will be like ‘you are getting so big’. So I am probably confusing him. Whatever, good thing he doesn’t really know what I am saying yet…probably.

Let’s see what has been up with the Jackster? He has started to dance. He is super into it to. Whenever music comes on…and I am talking whenever: intros to TV shows, the radio, whatever…he starts dancing. It is so cute. And I love it. It is probably my favorite thing about him right now because I to love to dance. Today I had a day dream about the two of us going to a dance class together and busting up the floor. Mom and son style!…..something tells me Andy won’t be on board with that one. He is cool with the baby dancing, but there might be a point where he objects to my ideas of a family dance crew….whatever.

He is also into everything! Well he has been into everything for a while, but now he is like SUPER into everything like times 1,000. It definitely keeps you on your toes. We have now moved on from the “pushing stuff further away on the coffee table” to “there can no longer be anything on the coffee table”. He really likes to put shit in his mouth and going in after it, despite having no teeth, is fucking difficult. That kid has iron jaws. I have figured out my technique which is to stick my finger in the side of his mouth which forces him to push whatever it is out with his tongue….it almost works every time. Used to use the same trick on my horse to get the bit in his mouth. Who knew that would come in handy again eh?

The most hilarious new thing is that he is SUPER into food. I was wary giving him any solid solids (let’s face it “starting solids” really just means “starting liquid food”) because he obviously still doesn’t have any teeth. But he wants my food like his life depended on it. So who am I to deny him…because well obviously he is the king of the household (shhh don’t tell him, I am sure he has no idea). He gets super pissed if I don’t give him a “bite” of whatever I am eating in between each of my bites. The most hilarious example of this is when I am eating an apple.

“You moving in on my rice?”

Now as you can imagine, a toothless baby can’t do shit to an apple, but oh does he try. So I take a bite, he reaches for the apple and shoves it in his mouth. Gums at it for a second, sucks, gums, sucks, basically he just drools all over my apple. Then I get a bite again. Gee thanks! Then he wants it back again. I think he is just trying to be nice letting me have some bites of his apple. He repeats the not doing shit to the apple. Meanwhile he is laughing and smiling because he is like stupid excited to be….well nothing the apple. We repeat this process until I have eaten the whole apple.

The first time this whole apple-eating happened, I didn’t give it back to him after my second bite. He went into a hulk-like rage. Clamping down his fists, yell/growling, and shaking until I got the apple in range where he could grab it and pull it to his mouth.

His hulk-like rages are hilarious. Most of the time it isn’t because he is mad. It is almost as if he just has a burst of energy and has to let it out somehow, so he like growls and flexes and then 4 seconds later it is over. Usually it takes us by surprise, so we just stop and look at him. When it is over it hasn’t even phased him just what happened, but it cracks our shit up, which makes him crack up.

His laughs are so awesome. I love his laughs. And he is getting sturdy enough to like toss him onto the bed and shit, which makes him laugh super hard. God damn I love this kid. He gives me so much joy. I am one lucky momma.

Now I recall reading in Dr. Sears that baby’s development takes 18 months. It is 9 months in the uterus and 9 months out of the uterus. So what does that mean exactly? I have no idea. Maybe I should pull that book out and reread that section. Oh so that is a new thing right? I haven’t read a book about babies since Jack was a newborn. Being an expectant/new mom, you want to do everything perfectly. But if I can give any advice, I will tell you, throw out the books and go with your gut. I know it seems like a scary idea, but believe me, your kid will be just fine.

So yeah, I guess (not surprisingly since I am a big hippie) I have taken on the “go with the flow” style of parenting. It has been a really long time since I kept track of when he wakes up for feedings in the night, mostly because I go get him in a sleepy trance and if I take the time to look at a clock, that would totally wake me up. I don’t read in detail about where he should be development-wise, because honestly he seems to be developing just great.

He isn’t walking hands-free yet, but he is cruising around the coffee table and bravely transferring his reach from the coffee table to the couch (so standing without support for half a second at a time). I quietly hold my breath every time he does this because I still brace for a fall, but he does it and then is like ‘eh no big deal’. His days of bashing his head into things are thankfully over as well. That was a scary month (like 7mos-8mos) where he was hitting it on everything! Andy was ready to get him a helmet.

I can ride my bike with no handlebars….or at least walk while holding on. One of the two.

Let’s see what else? He loves to swim. We went swimming on Sunday and he was hilarious! Kicking his legs and flailing around. I actually worked up the courage and dunked him. It was super hard for me to do. When I pulled him back up he was a little surprised, but didn’t freak out or get mad. He was just like ‘whoa….what was that?’. I did it one more time and he took in some water and coughed afterward. Again he didn’t freak out, but I was like ‘okay that’s enough for one day (obviously talking about myself not him)’.

 Seriously adorable pajamas, they have little dragons and castles on them. Whaaa? I had to take a picture. All our stuff is hand-me-downs so I get excited every time I open a new box of clothes and see what is in there.

“Check it out mom, another baby!” I’d clone him in a second and give everyone copies.

I think that is about it. Not sure how we will celebrate the end of his external gestation. I think he needs a hat of some sort though. Because I love putting hats on him. Oh and shoes. Look out for a nekid picture of him with just a hat and shoes on. hehehe.

The W Word

What’s been going on in this here brain of mine lately? Well a million things, but the loudest topic is weaning. Obviously this topic wouldn’t be at the forefront of my consciousness if it wasn’t for the drastic plummet of my milk supply over the last few weeks. Whenever I find myself freaking out completely there are a couple things I do: first, I turn to Oak and Kelly. They are my girls. Kelly offers that soothing comforting friend response that is like ‘it is okay, even if you only produce one bottle a day, you are giving him something’. And Oak offers that no nonsense response of ‘shut the eff up stupid head, it’s going to be fine’. Both are much needed to help this crazy train stay on the tracks.

It is really difficult to verablize what breastfeeding has come to mean to me. Kelly and I have both tried to discuss it, but the conversation kind of goes like this: me - ’I don’t know how to describe it, but well…it is just like….yeah I don’t know’. Her – ‘I understand, it is the same for me’. I know pretty explanatory. We both just get it. Whilst she exclusively pumps, she too has formed the same attachment to giving Maggie breastmilk. I think the best way to describe it comes from her when she told me ‘it is something no one else can do for her and so it makes me want to keep going’.

Kelly has become my bosom friend (see what I did there?) when it comes to milk and such. We both had/have the same initial idea about our “plan”. Try to make it a year and then start the weaning process……well that is until shit started happening with my supply.

Now if you are a breastfeeding mother (obviously by this I am also talking about those who pump and then bottle feed, just to clarify because I don’t want to write that every time throughout this post. Basically let’s just agree that when I write breastfeeding I mean breast milk feeding), let me give you a link for when you might panic. Whenever I start to flip out about my supply, which is like every other day, I like to go here. Warning: they are biased as shit. They are those crazy hippie people who encourage women to breastfeed until your child is really ready and they say that can be between 2-4 years old. Okay everyone wipe that grossed out look off your face.

Believe me, I understand the look. I had it too when I first read that. I read their “section”, which was 4 measely sentences, about “mother-led” weaning. Basically it was like, wean if that is what is right for you. But do it very slowly. And hey, how about you consider waiting until after you baby is a year and a half rather than wean. So yeah biased towards breastfeeding. I read their website and then turned to both Oak and Kelly and said ‘silly hippies! I am going to look at other articles’.

Then I found this one. And I started to feel a little convinced….convinced by those ‘silly hippies’ and their arguments for extended breastfeeding. I am not really certain how I came to the “one-year deadline” for breastfeeding Jack. I guess I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it this long. With going back to work and traveling  being a big part of my work (my boss has been amazing by the way. I have basically had a travel-pass despite us being at the point where Jack is now taking the bottle, but that is a story for another day) I wasn’t really sure if I could make it past 3 months. And here we are eeeking up to the 9 month mark. I find myself saying (shout out to Josey) Holy Fucking Shit! I am glad. I am honestly glad I have made it this far. And when my supply took an additional dive this week, I decided rather than panic (easy for me to type, less easy to do) I should just go with the flow. If this is as far as I can go, so be it.

To give you some numbers (if you’re not interested skip past the colored text):

When I first started back to work I was pumping 10-16 ounces a day. 4 months in 8-10 ounces a day. 6 months in 8 ounces a day. Starting this Monday, so call it 9 months in, 4 ounces. Which I obviously flipped out about. So after Monday’s pump, I decided to start the milk stimulants and to bump up to two pumping seshes a day. Rather than 1 - 10 minute session, I find myself doing 2 – 20-30 minute sessions just to get 6-8 ounces of milk. It is obviously disturbing me a little. kelly.mom (dot) com is obviously helping a little bit and I am trying to have the ‘it is because he is eating solids and this is just a natural drop’ yada yada yada attitude. But what I am actually thinking (which is probably more logical and less hippie based) is ‘I am pumping less than 8 and in that same period he is drinking 12-16 at daycare. yep we have a supply and demand issue’.

No statistician could be swayed by them there numbers. But in reality, Jack is just catching up to the milk he missed out on those first however many fucking months he decided he hated bottles. I pumped that milk for him, so he is just finally getting around to drinking it. And who knows. This lull could just be temporary, but considering we are on week two of taking jagerboob stimulants and drinking a shit ton of water and uping my protein and what not and we are still barely getting 6-8 ounces out of two pumps….we might be on a downward slope.

But let’s say this is just a blurp. Maybe next week things will be back on track, I will be producing enough to keep him going and what not. Then what? Do I really want to wean at 12 months? As I said, the selection of 12 months was just a pick out of the air kind of thing. Really what it all boils down to is the Deuce.

The Deuce is what I have lovingly dubbed child numero dos. I would like to get that little effer on his/her way before too much longer. It shouldn’t come as a shock to most of you, since I outright said I wasn’t going to get on birth control after having Jack, that I am just asking to get pregnant. Hear that world? I am fucking sitting here tempting fate to get pregnant and what are you doing about it? nothing! That’s right you aren’t even making me pay for it. All those times I made fun of those “I didn’t know I was pregnant” chicks saying ‘who doesn’t know they are pregnant? stupid women’….yeah I said those things….come on, don’t you want me sorry for ever saying that?….I am a bitch and you should teach me a lesson by letting me get pregnant without knowing it..come on do it…..fucking mother nature right? She can’t even teach you a lesson when you really deserve it.

If you couldn’t gather from that little ranty rant, I wouldn’t mind getting pregnant with the Deuce. I think I kind of flipped out a little about the idea when the Oakster got pregnant and we all started to come to grips with the fact that her kiddos were only going to be 15 months apart. But after that initial shock,…i found myself jealous. Having kids 15 months apart does sound overwhelming, but it also sounds fucking awesome. Think about how close Mac and Natalie (obviously what she is naming her 2nd child) are going to be.

Despite wavering a little bit back and forth about the idea of getting pregnant again so soon, I am ready. And by that I mean a little scared shitless, but also kind of ready….it is hard to explain. And just to see if fate really was going to make a fool out of me, I POAS a couple weeks ago just to be sure that I wouldn’t wake up one day and feel the need to poop and then feel really bad about jokingly calling my child the Deuce. Obviously it was a BFN…..and those bitch ass IF feelings came flooding back in. Great I am broken, I don’t work, I am not a woman. No seriously, those thoughts made themselves right at home in my noggin’ and here I am one of the luckiest girls in the world to have been given the gift of Jack. I guess once an IF, always a bit of an IF.

Obviously I quickly reminded myself that I do work…or well I did work that one time. And I know it is perfectly natural what is going on with my bod. As much as people try to warn you ‘you can get pregnant while nursing!’….I am thinking it might be an impossibility for me. I haven’t had a period yet. So despite hoping I can get pregnant while nursing….yeah it might not happen.

Basically it all boils down to: wanting to get pregnant and not really wanting to wean right now. So what is my plan of attack? Because obviously I always have some sort of plan of attack. I think I will semi stick to the original plan. At 12 months I think I will get back in touch with my acupuncturist and see if she can get my cycle going without having to wean. I will give that a go. And if that route doesn’t work, then I will start the weaning process. I am hoping if I just eliminate a couple of feedings a day then AF will be convinced to show back up. We’ll see.

Fall off a Rock

Hello Peeps! Yes I am still alive. Sorry. I don’t know what my deal is? And I am not even sure where I have been. It is like I was mentally kidnapped temporarily. Hm I suppose my brain has been going like a bajillion different directions at once: buy christmas presents, don’t give in to Andy’s mental terrorism to extricate said present ideas from brain….dudes he is a ninja. I am pretty sure I have told you this before, but seriously, I am reminded every year just how talented he is at ‘negotiating’. I made the stupid decision to text “I’ll never tell!” to him when he asked what I was getting him…..yeah that is dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Luckily he hasn’t like water boarded me or anything, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He seems to be one of those people who just can’t wait to find out what they are getting. Silly boy.
Anyway, so far so good. I haven’t given in to his interogations. He might have me totally figured out because my face doesn’t really lie and he did technically guess something I already bought him….but I deflected it, hopefully well, because technically we were talking about something else I was thinking about getting him and not what I had already bought him…..does that make sense? no. Whatever my brain is tired.

Let’s see what’s up in my world? Well we might be nearing the end of the massive frozen milk supply. That’s right we are down to just two grocery bags full of frozen milk and my prediction is that it might not last until Jack turns a year. When I picked him up last Friday, I handed Pippa that week’s pump results and she said ‘oh awesome…but can you get me some more?’. Turns out Jack is over his bottle aversion completely and has taken to drinking about 16 ounces during the day….which is totally awesome, except I only pump about 8 a day, 10 if I am lucky. And yesterday…..oh fuck me, I didn’t even get 4 ounces.

I am not quite ready to give up completely. I sent a bag of our frozen stash to Pippa today and I am giving one big push to up my production. Oak recommended Motherlove’s More Milk Plus. Which I was able to get at my local natural grocery store. I bought the big bottle…go big or go home right? $30 later I am ready to really push this milk envelop and see if we can make it to March. Pippa is going to start giving him more solids and I am giving him more food at night as well to try to help.

More Milk Plus tastes like Jager…..or that is what I have been told. I don’t like drinking things that smell bad, so I have never actually tasted Jager for myself. Until I started taking MMP that is. Anyway, every time I squeeze a dropper-full in my mouth I think ‘just pretend you are at a frat party’….yeah that doesn’t really help. I hate frat guys. They are stupid and their houses smell.

The company I worked for in NY got a job documenting and remodeling 8 fraternity houses. The buildings were gorgeous, all 100 years old or older and most of them were big stone mansions that used to belong to rich folks (holla for historical research! that was fun). Anyway, I was pissed off the entire time because the frat boys had basically ruined these houses. They smelled like vomit and pee and those were the cleaner ones. Could you imagine being one of the people in charge of cleaning a frat house? Kill me now. I would beat the shit out of those guys. Anyway…..I am sidetracked. Where are we?

Ah yes milk. Well I have decided it is okay if this doesn’t work. If my production stays low and I am only able to give him little bits for the next couple of months, it will be okay. Maybe this is the way it is supposed to go for us. Honestly I was kind of worried about making the actual decision to wean, so I guess it is cool if this is the way things go. But we’ll see. I will report back.

Hmmm what else is there to tell you? Oh! So for the Christmas presents for our parents and other people I didn’t know what to get, I made some collaged photo prints….well technically the store is making them, but I picked out the pictures and selected where they are going. I am so excited about it. A few weeks ago I took Jack outside, sat him in the leaves in front of our house and took some pictures.

I contemplated taking him to a photo studio, but then I remembered I just bought a $600 camera and should probably try my hand at taking them myself. So I did. And it went okay. The biggest issue was that Jack was so mesmerized by the leaves he didn’t want to look at me for pictures…..and there is pretty much drool on his chin in every one. But whatever. So for your viewing enjoyment here are some of my favorites:

I know I still have a lot to learn (I asked for a photo class for Christmas…so that will help), but I thought they turned out pretty well. OMG I have to show you these too. Because they make me smile.

Those are from our trip to Grand Junction. Jack was super stuffed up and sick that weekend. We were up every couple of hours. At 5 am we went and got in the shower to steam him out (apparently I need to travel with the Holy Trinity of Clogged Nose Resolution) then he was able to fall back asleep. And he was so precious, I had to take some pictures. Oh elbow dimples just kill me. I love elbow dimples.

Alright I should boogie. Hope everyone’s holiday season is going well. Hapmerry Chrishanukwansolsticivous! That should cover it.