Our Little Family: An Update

Breastfeeding: Four months in, and we're still going strong. I'm not a cow, like some women tend to be when they breastfeed this long, but I'm able to consistently produce enough. My lactation consultant told me that Catherine should not need any more than 4 ounces per feeding while at daycare, so that's what Christy was giving her, twice a day. Finally, Christy mentioned that maybe we should up it to 5 ounces, which stressed me out. I was only producing 10 ounces, which would mean there would be nothing left over for me to freeze at the end of the week, or for Christy to use in case Catherine had a sudden growth spurt. But we upped it to 10 ounces, and I've been keeping up. I am part of a breastfeeding support group on Facebook, and several times, mothers will post something about "low milk supply" because they're not producing more than what their baby eats. Well, duh (and I can say that now that I finally understand breastfeeding, thanks to many support groups, lactation consultants, phone calls to the hospital, and reading a shit-ton of books on it. Oh, and let's not forget, googling the shit out of it). Your body is only going to produce what your baby eats. The other day at Catherine's four-month appointment (where she weighed a whopping 12 pounds, 3 ounces... 4.5 pounds less than James at four months!) the doctor showed some concern regarding her weight, but not much considering she is still gaining steadily. Luckily, her appointment was during the time she typically nurses, so I was able to breastfeed and weigh her. She ate 6 ounces. Multiply that by 5, and she's eating anywhere from 25-30 ounces a day. That's more than the lactation consultant recommends, but she's a hungry girl, I guess! Luckily, I'm able to produce that much, and I'm fortunate to have a job that allows me to pump 3 times a day in order to provide for my child. I am also excited that I am no longer in the panicky stage of breastfeeding. I am in the smooth-sailing stage, where now all I need to do is nurse Catherine when she needs/wants it. From here on out, my milk supply will begin to taper off, and then diminish as we start adding more and more solids to her diet. Crazy to think that this is the peak season, so to speak. But I'm thankful it's going well, and I am so grateful to all the people who have helped along the way. Oh yeah, and for Google too. Thank God.

Battle of the Bulge: The Battle of the Bulge has been won, but the Battle of the Body Image is on-going. To the point where we got our family photos back, and I cried to Eric because I felt like I looked terrible. My hips were too wide, I have love-handles, my thighs touch together. Oh, and let's not forget, I just had a baby, so even though I'm below pre-preggo weight, I'm still "misshapen." And who knows if I'll ever get back to the body I had before. So just today, I was looking at the pictures, and I tried to look at them from my husband's point of view, a guy who tells me nearly every day how beautiful I am to him. I used to hate it when he would say things like that to me. But after trying to be a better wife, I have realized I am very lucky to have a husband who still thinks that about me, two kids and 10 years later. I'm not the 19-year-old he fell for anymore, in more ways than one. He loves me for who I am; big hips, loud demeanor and quick mood swings! So maybe I need to start looking at how I see myself. Instead of seeing love handles that stick out in a weird way, maybe I need to start looking at the fact that I haven't been this weight, or looked this good, in over three years. I love my long hair, which is weird because I've always wanted to keep it short for easy maintenance. No, long hair is easy maintenance! I think my eyes are really pretty. For not working out and just having a baby, my stomach is surprisingly flat. I have good looking legs. And all in all, for the most part, I feel good about myself. It's just hard not to see photos and zero in on those things that aren't "perfect," especially for a perfectionist like me!

The Daily Poop Scoop (and Sleep Update): Catherine had some poop issues earlier in life, and it seems as though they are still plaguing her. On Monday night, she became fussy about 6:30 and by 7:00 was scream-crying to the point where my anxiety was going to cause me to crawl out of my skin. I finally gave her a bath and while she settled and sat, soothed from the warm water, I realized she hadn't had a bowel movement all day. When I really thought about it, she hadn't had a bowel movement all weekend. That was three and a half days without poop. No wonder she was fussy. So I did what any good mom would do - wet a wash cloth and tried to stimulate her rectum. Never thought there would be a day where I could add that to my resume of amazing things I've done in this lifetime. But there you had it, and that's all it took. She started pooping... and straining to poop, then pooping again. I took paper towel after paper towel to catch it when it would come out so it wouldn't get in the water and make it nasty. It was a dirty job, but Eric was getting James, who had been puking all weekend and into Monday, ready for bed, so I was on my own. Following the poop-scapade, I put Catherine to my breast to nurse and she fell instantly asleep. My milk didn't even let down (which led to some crazy-full boobs the next morning!) And she slept all night. So that's where the sleep  issues come in. Once she sleeps, this girl sleeps. But it takes her so much to get to sleep. It's the most grating, anxiety-inducing two hours of my life. So last night, I just let go of my anxiety (who knew it would be so easy?) and decided that I was going to let her cry it out. After 20 minutes of screaming, it was apparent she was NOT going to sleep. So I nursed her, which she did NOT want. Then I tried baby massage. I have never massaged a baby in my life, nor have I ever taken any special massage class. I just rubbed her little legs and funny enough, when I got to her hips/butt cheeks, that's when she calmed down. Again, not something I thought I would be able to add to my resume in this lifetime, but there you have it. Professional Butt Massager. Once she calmed down enough, I put her in her bassinet (she's still small enough that we just use her bassinet). And boom. Immediate scream-crying started all over again. Luckily my nerves were that tired that I was able to walk away and let her cry it out for the 15 minutes it took her to eventually fall asleep. She did end up waking up last night, for the first time in ages, but she soothed herself back to sleep. Tonight, I put her to bed at 5:30, an hour and a half before she normally falls asleep. She talked to herself for about 15 minutes and then I heard nothing on the monitor. When i checked on her, she was fast asleep, and stayed that way. When I woke her up to change her diaper and dream feed her, she was asleep by the time my milk let down (but thankfully because of intelligent design, she continues to suck and thus still gets full. Beautiful!). I put her in her bassinet and she's been sleeping ever since. Hopefully, this sleep pattern continues!

Speech Regression: A few weeks back, I blogged about James' speech regression. The progress he has made has been amazing. He talks so frequently now! He needs to work on his diction a bit for better understanding by strangers, but to us, he talks much clearer than he ever has. Tonight, I asked him if he had to pee, and he said, "Uh-uh. No pee, mama, no pee." So adorable! I'm so thankful we're heading in the right direction. It's awesome to hear all the new words he knows! And somewhere in between that post and this one, he learned his alphabet (upper and lower case) and his numbers up until 10. What? One day we were watching Super Why (God bless PBS) and boom - he pointed out and said all the letters that popped up on the screen. Holy crap! It is awesome as he is so proud. He is starting to spell short words, like "B-O-B, Bob!" for Bob the Builder, and things like that, which is much faster than I would have anticipated. So even though he doesn't totally communicate how we'd like him to, the kid can spell for God's sake. We've got to take what we can get.

Illnesses: Dear God, help us. Last week, I was sick with a cold and fever. I've also been blessed with viral-induced asthma, which doesn't allow me to properly cough anything up, so bacteria just sits in my lungs and manifests into something worse. Normally, every year, I end up with walking pneumonia or something. But this time, at Catherine's four month appointment, I mentioned it and the doctor gave me a steroid inhaler to use every morning and night, and another one for "attacks." I can tell a difference already, which is amazing. I wish I would have figured this out aBeingbout 5 years ago!! Hopefully this year, I don't get sick! However, once I got over my fever, James got the flu. The nasty diarrhea/vomiting flu. It was horrible! Following that, today Christy called us to come get him because he had a fever! Seriously? It's not even October yet, so I'm dreading the winter. Hopefully, this is the worst of it? Yeah right....

Being a Better Wife: My mother is an incredibly critical person, I an inherited that trait ten-fold. I am a perfectionist and I expect people who I surround myself with to be perfect as well. Only, I expect them to be perfect the way I want them to be perfect. So instead of being critical, I've tried really hard to look at the positive things. Instead of the fact that Eric has the garage so full of shit that I can't even walk through to find anything, I am trying to concentrate on the fact that the reason it's full of shit is because of all the work he's doing on other people's houses, which brings in money that allows us to live the way we live. Things like that. I told him tonight that I feel like I'm in a much better mood most of the time now that I'm not wasting energy hating the things he does. I have to admit, he does a lot, he works hard, and he's a great dad. So... we'll see how long this Positive Polly charade keeps up. I'm trying really hard, which is good.


So there you have it. There are so many things I've been wanting to blog about, I thought I'd just put them all in one post rather than several other posts. Who posts 5 things in one day, any way? Seriously? And, let's face it, very few people, if any, read this blog. It's really for me to chronicle this life as I live, and love, it.

Let's hope for a good night's sleep... :)