"What I Will Miss About Nursing"

Stephanie sent me this article tonight, and I am so glad she did.  It made me laugh and it made me cry, and it put into words a lot of what I've been feeling. 

I have said before and will say again that in my opinion, nursing is like a full-time job in itself.  It was challenging for Lilly and me at first, and we were very fortunate to get the hang of it three months in (Better late than never, I say.  To this day, every time we see L's pediatrician, Dr. V shakes her head and tells me she has literally never seen anything like it.  L just wanted to do it in her own time, I guess!).  Once Lilly picked it up, we never looked back.  I don't think it's something that I know how to put into words, and I think it's hard to explain to those, like my husband, who are not nursing mothers, but I have absolutely loved every second.  There's something so special about the bond that it creates between mother and child.  Selfishly, I also have loved the fact that it is something only I can give to Lilly.

Going back to work and keeping it up was maybe an even harder challenge than getting the hang of nursing to begin with.  It truly made me understand why a lot of Moms stop, or never nurse at all.  It is a lot, and I mean  LOT of work.  Making time to pump, scheduling around pumping, even just those few minutes it takes to get dressed and undressed add up.  Add to that the stress of trying to juggle it all, which has a direct effect on supply, worrying about aforementioned supply which probably doesn't help matters, and worrying about what you're eating/drinking and whether it will affect the baby among other things and it can downright seem like a chore. 

Lately, there have been a lot of days when I have thought, "I can't wait until Lilly's first birthday so this will be over."  Those have mostly been the days when I'm not with her, either due to being at work or out of town.  The past two weekends, we've had weddings out of town. I've had to pump on planes, in bathrooms, and annoy everyone I've been with by scheduling my activities around pumping or missing aforementioned activities all together so that I could pump.  And that's just the pumping itself.  The logistics of transporting it are a whole different nightmare (I realize that I could avoid this by not bringing any home, but after all of the work that goes into getting it in the first place, I can't bring myself to dump it out for no good reason!).  To say I have been "over it" would be an understatement.  Side note: major shout out to my husband for being supportive, because I'm quite sure there have been more than a few times over the course of the months that he's been "over it" and ready for me to quit as well.  Like on all of the planes I've had to pump on recently.  Or when we went to California and almost missed our flight home because we got a male TSA agent who wanted to test every. single. bag. of milk.  Or like two weekends ago when we went to Vegas and I forgot my pump charger so we had to figure out how to charge the pump.  Or like last weekend when we almost missed our flight again because I realized as we were walking out the door to go to the airport that I'd forgotten my pump at work (oops). 

But there have also been days like today, when I got to see my baby girl for the first time since I put her to bed Thursday night, and she is coming down with a cold and isn't feeling well and only wants her Mommy.  As I was putting Lilly to bed tonight, nursing her and rocking her and singing to her, I thought to myself how much I will miss this time with her, just Lilly and Mommy, when we no longer have it.

I am starting to realize that I have an almost 10-month-old, who in two short months will turn one.  One year is when Lilly can start having whole milk, and while I know I don't have to stop nursing right at one, I think for both of us, it will be time.  And while there are plenty of things I won't miss about it, there are also plenty more things that I will miss.  Regardless of whether we make it to a year, I am so proud of both of us for making it this long, because there was a time not too long ago that I remember thinking, "if we even make it a month with this, I will be shocked."  I think the article above perfectly sums up what I'm feeling, especially #10:

"Most of all, I will miss the baby I am nursing. In no time at all, she'll be...leaving me behind. I'll get to wear my proper bra and drink a beer guilt-free, and my breasts will dry up and once again look like tube socks half-filled with uncooked rice. But I will never have my baby back again. And that will be all right and as it should be, but that does not mean I won't miss her."

Sarah

Well hello there, old friend.

I've said it before, but this has to be the longest I've gone to date without a blog post.  I know I will appreciate the fact that I tried to keep up with this blog at some point in the future, but man is it hard to find time to post these days!  We have been too busy to even begin to describe, so I thought I'd do a quick picture post update to show what we've been up to.

Two weekends ago on our way back from Seagrove we stopped to visit Granny & Papa.  Lilly LOVED being at their house, probably because Granny kept letting her play with fun kitchen utensils that Mommy doesn't have.

Speaking of kitchen utensils, Lilly loves to help do the dishes these days.  I'll have to show her this picture one day to remind her how much she used to love doing dishes when she is required to do them as a chore.  :-)

We wore our Panthers dress for the first time and they won!  The next week, Mommy forgot to tell Grandma and Grandpa that L has to wear her jersey on Sundays and the Panthers lost.  Oops!  Sorry!

We bought Lilly a car for Christmas (or maybe her birthday, we hadn't decided which), but Dan is a sucker got too excited and couldn't wait that long to give it to her.  At first, she was way more interested in the box than the car itself.  She crawled in and out of this thing for a good 20 minutes.

She heard Daddy cursing while putting it together and decided that he needed help.

She seriously LOVES. THIS. CAR.  The child literally never sits still, but I can put her in that car and leave her sitting in the middle of the den and she'll play in the thing for 45 minutes.  It's insane.

She pretty much has driving down pat...look at that excellent "reverse" technique.

L.O.V.E.S I.T. I tell you.  Squeals every morning when we come downstairs and she sees it:

I'm not sure whether you heard, but there was an election recently, so we exercised our right to choose.  No early voting in the Baum house!  Dan says that Election Day is like Christmas morning, and we don't get to open presents early so we can't vote early.  He's insane, I tell you, but the three of us got up early and went.  And Lilly and I are famous (see slides 14 and 15).

Nick and Blaire got married last weekend.  In Las Vegas.  Best wedding ever?  Maybe.  Lilly and Layla stayed with Grandma and Papa and had a big time.  Mommy and Daddy had so much fun spending the weekend with all of our college friends.  I took a ton of photos, so I'll only post a few here.

Champagne in a can?!  With a straw?!  Should have been a hint that it was not delicious...

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. McCoy - we're so glad we got to celebrate with you!

We had a great time in Vegas, but I was SO happy to get home to Lilly.  Please ignore the fact that I look terrible in the below picture which was taken the day after we returned. Lilly is naked because she peed everywhere in her sleep but she was extra snuggly that morning so I didn't care.  :-)

This week we've been busy trying to get back in the swing of things.  Tonight we ate Mexican, which is one of Lilly's favorites.  She ate some chicken from my burrito, some cheese quesadilla, and some rice and beans.  Fatty!

This one's from bath time tonight but is extra cute so I thought I'd include it:

I guess that just about catches us up!  We are gearing up to head to New York this weekend for another wedding, and Lilly and Layla are excited to stay with Grandmommy and Pawpaw.  And then next week is Thanksgiving...how did that happen?!?!?!  

As an update to the last post on our sleeping issues, I guess Lilly must have just been going through a weird phase or something.  I was determined to fix her sleeping issues before Dan's parents came to keep her, because I didn't want her to wake up for them, so I decided to try giving "cry it out" another go.  Less than 10 minutes and she was out, and never looked back.  It may have actually been teeth...when I left for Vegas she had 3 teeth and when I returned she had 5.  Poor thing!  Anyway we're mostly back to normal now, except I think she may still be on the pre-time-change schedule because she's been waking up about an hour earlier than usual.  Any suggestions on how to fix that would be greatly appreciated.  :-)

More updates to come whenever I can catch my breath...

Sarah

Sleep Regression?!?!?!

For a week now, Lilly has been waking up at night. 

Before I continue, please let me go on record and say that I know I shouldn't complain because we really have had such an easy time with sleeping.  BUT.  As a result of aforementioned easy time with sleeping, I am not used to sleep deprivation and I am here to tell you that it. sucks.

I'm not really sure what's going on.  We've had the occasional "wake up during the night" here and there, but it's never been consistent and I've normally been able to pinpoint the cause: teething, sick, super dirty diaper, etc.  This time is different, because I just can't figure it out.

I was worried at first that the wake-ups were due to Lilly being hungry.  I know what you're thinking: how could a child with that many rolls possibly be hungry?!  She is obviously not malnourished.  I think I mentioned in a previous post, though, that my supply has taken a huge hit as of late.  I thought it was stress, or maybe pregnancy (let the record show that it is NOT pregnancy), or any number of things.  On the days when we're together and Lilly nurses, it's not like she's hungry after nursing - but when I pump, I'm not getting NEARLY as much as I used to.  Any lactation consultant or doctor will tell you that what you pump is definitely not indicative of what you're actually producing when a baby nurses, but it's still been hard not to worry when I was used to getting a certain amount from pumping and it just dropped seemingly overnight.  Most work days, I don't even pump enough while at work to make one bottle for Lilly, so we've had to dip into the freezer supply some.  I'm more thankful now than ever for my early oversupply and our freezer stock (which we hopefully will not deplete over the next two weeks due to all of our upcoming travel).  Anyway, I digress, I don't think it's even a possibility that she's waking up due to hunger, because she goes to bed not too long after she eats solids for dinner (and she has been eating a LOT of solids).  Also, three times this week instead of nursing I gave her a bottle just to make sure my low supply wasn't starving her.  She still woke up.

When L wakes up, I nurse her.  I'm not sure whether you're "supposed" to do that, but it's what we do.  I know she's not hungry, I think it's more of a comfort thing, but it's really just easier that way because she is up and down in less than 10 minutes (Me on the other hand, not so much.  It takes me FOREVER to fall back asleep, hence the sleep deprivation.).  We tried letting her cry it out a little on Friday night - we used some variation of the Ferber method - but we are suckers and only lasted an hour.  After the hour, I went in and got her and nursed her and she was literally back asleep in 5 minutes.

Anyway, so now I just have to figure out what is going on.  I think she has a few more teeth coming in - I can see two on the top that haven't yet broken through, and she's back to drooling up a storm and chewing on everything in sight.  Other than that, I guess it could be anything.  She hasn't really eaten anything different, so I don't think it's gas.  She drinks a lot more water now so she has wetter diapers but I don't think that's it, either.  I'm pretty sure it's not hunger.  Her room for some reason gets pretty chilly at night but she's never cool to the touch - we dress her in PJ's and a sleep sack (she's not hot/sweaty, either).  It's just so strange to me that whatever is happening is happening now, when it hasn't happened before.  In addition to not knowing what's wrong, I feel like I'm not sure what I should be doing.  By nursing her to help comfort her and calm her down, am I teaching her that it's okay to wake up in the middle of the night?  Should I be trying to let her cry it out?  I realize that it's only been a week, and I'm hoping this is just a phase, but you just never know.

Has anyone else had issues with this?  Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Sarah

Lilly's First Halloween!

I was heading out the door this morning before it was time to wake Lilly up.  On my way out I asked Dan if he would please dress her in her Halloween outfit today.  

Dan: You want her to wear it all day?

Sarah: Not her Halloween costume, her Halloween outfit.

Dan: What's the difference?

Sarah: (Rolls eyes)

Of course Dan doesn't understand, but I wanted her to wear the outfit since she won't be able to wear it anymore after today!

Lilly was in an exceptional mood this evening.  Dan picked her up and got started feeding her a little earlier than normal so that we could take her trick-or-treating prior to her normal 7:30 - 8:00 bed time.  We only went to four houses - just a few neighbors - but she had a great time!  Before we did, though, Meagan was nice enough to come take some pictures of us on the porch (sans Layla, who had to be put inside at this point because she and Fender were barking at the trick-or-treaters who were starting to come out):

Thanks for taking our pictures, Meagan!  Next year, your little one will be walking around with us.  :-)

After we snagged a million few photos, we were off!

Our first stop was to visit Lilly's friend Callie.  Lilly and Callie stay with the nanny together every day.  They are so cute together - Callie kept trying to give Lilly candy and didn't understand why she couldn't have any.

After we visited with Callie, we had to hurry through a few more houses because L was getting antsy.

All of the trick or treating wore baby girl out!  She was so tired that she went straight to bed without playing in her crib for a while first, which is rare.  

In case you weren't already on cute overload, I'll leave you with a few pics that Steph took over the weekend when we got the girls together for a little Halloween photo shoot.  Are they the cutest zebra and owl you've ever seen, or what?  The following photos are courtesy of Stephanie Aldridge Photography:

Happy Halloween, y'all!

Sarah