5 months!

Wow - I am really slacking at posting. I promise I will get better. I am starting to be in more of a routine, as is Angus, and I will be able to add a consistent time in for blogging.

Angus is 5 months old today! I can't believe how fast it's all going. In 1 month he'll be half a year, and that sounds crazy to me. I met a 7 month old the other day and he was just sitting on the floor, reaching into a toy box and playing with toys...amusing himself and leaning forward on his arms and rocking back and forth on his knees thinking about crawling. Angus has a ways to go before that happens, but he really only seems interested in rolling from his back to his tummy and lifting his head up and stretching his arms out.

It's so crazy to me how babies work. We get emails every month from babycenter.com about his development, and they're spot on. It will be fun when he can sit up without falling over. It will be insane when he crawls. It will be funny when he eats real food. We can't WAIT for all these so-called milestones, but there's also some part of us that will miss his baby-ness very much. Right now, we're the boss of him, but soon enough he's going to be telling us what he wants to do and where he wants to go and when. It will be so much fun, and so tiring. I'm sure that's when we'll say "remember when he was a baby and we could put him in his stroller and take him wherever we wanted to go? And make him do whatever we wanted to do?"

father's day tooth!

Johnny was away for a few days and came home on father's day eve. The day before, I found a very exciting surprise in Angus' mouth....a TOOTH! His bottom left tooth is in. SO awesome! All the drooling and hand eating finally rewards us with a cute little chomper! I did my very best secret holding in and manager to not tell Johnny, and instead, I wrote out Angus' father's day card with a note to say he could find his present in his mouth. He didn't get it at first, and I pretty much had to tell him. It was quite a surprise! It came in without much fanfare - I didn't notice too much crankiness, but then again he was with sitters all week, but none of them reported any extra fussiness. I hope the rest of them come in that smoothly!

There are some things I have that I really couldn't live without that I thought I would share...ok - I could live without them, but they sure are making my life easier right now!

1) Pumpin' pal super shields
These things are so great because they allow you to lean back and relax while pumping and not worry about the milk going into the bottle. Very smart idea

2) La Leche League pull-over sleep bra
I've already worn one of these out, and I just bought 2 more. They are cheap, comfy and easy to nurse with and comfy to sleep in with just enough support.

3) pumping bra
Being hands-free allows to me to do things like write this blog (which I am doingnow while pumping), eat, read magazines etc). This particular version works well for me, although it looks insane.

4) More Milk Special Blend
This tincture has really helped me with my milk production. It tastes horrible, but it works. They have different blends for different women's needs and I am a believer.

5) My Brest friend
I originally thought this thing was dumb, but then a lactation consultant showed me how to use it, and I rarely nurse without it. It keeps Angus supported and it keeps me sane. My husband calls it my lunch tray.

time flies!

Time is flying by SO fast. The days fly by, and the weekends do the same. I am finding it hard to find time to blog, let alone do things like pay my bills or put stuff away! I get up with Angus at 5:30 or 6:30, and he eats and we snuggle until 8am, and then he's in the care of a babysitter or my husband while I get ready for work and then leave at 8:45. It's hard to leave him, especially since I don't get home until close to 7, and that's with leaving work 30 minutes early! I don't want to think about it too much or it will make me cry. When I get home, he gets his pj's on and I start feeding him. Halfway through his feeding he gets burped and swaddled, and then eat some more and is put to be usually around 8pm. I get about 2 hours in the morning and about 1.5 hours at night. 3.5 hours a day, 17.5 hours a week. That is awful when you think about it. Why should a babysitter get to spend more time than me with my son? Now I'm thinking about it too much. Oops. I really hope that some day I can be a stay-at-home mom, but in the meantime I need my job, and I need my health insurance, so I don't have the option of staying home. If the economy was better maybe I would have quit and then found another job down the line, but it's just not possible these days. It's hard every day, but I am getting used to it. I don't know if it will ever get "better", but as he gets older I think he'll be a little less needy and easier for sitters to deal with. Right now he needs 100% full-time attention, and I worry that a babysitter will get bored and frustrated and he will just cry and be upset and whoops...there goes my brain thinking the worst. He's 4.5 months old now and just so damn cute. I want the people that look after him to be the best that they can be and I really hope that's what they are being!

efficiency

I've been doing a TON of research on pumping and Angus's eating. Thing is, the kid normally takes about an hour to eat. I think that's too long - I mean some babies take that long, and I don't really mind, but I think if he becomes a more efficient eater, I will become a more efficient pumper. What I am now doing, is going back to the method of switching sides. I stopped doing that a while ago when I thought he was having a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance (which he wasn't) and kept doing that. Now I am switching and it's helped a bit. It's only been a couple of days, but I think he's down to 40/45 minutes. I think it's helping me make more milk too. It makes sense, right? I had a day or 2 of soreness, so something is working! I've also learned that I need to do breast impressions, which had indeed helped. I've also been taking fenugreek, but I've now switched to something called more milk plus. Yuck. It tastes like medicine. Either way, I have noticed an improvement aready. I'm still now where I'd like to be in terms of output, but 2 letdowns is actually a good thing! I'm also setting an alarm and getting up to pump, which is what I am doing now at 3am - yikes! Sadly this is really affecting my mornings. I am feeling SO much more tired. I hope my body gets used to it. I'm fine when I get to work, but when Angus wakes up at 5:30 or 6:30 I feel like quite a zombie! Here's to adjusting!

back at work :(

I am back at work now - day three. It seems like 4 months just flew by. My emotional state is ok during the day, but when I get home I get super sad. It really sucks that if I'm lucky I get 3 hours a day with him, and much of that time is spend by him nursing. I am trying to arrange leaving work 30 minutes early so I can leave at 6, which will help us stick to getting him to bed at 8pm.

I am pumping during the day and that REALLY stinks. I'm just not getting much out of the pump. Day 2 was better than day 1, ie: more milk, but it's still not enough....plus I need to pump 4 times a day, 5 would be awesome - and for a 20 minute session each time + set up, it's nearly 2 hours out of my day. I feel guilty about that - which I need to get over. It's just a lot of time when I am trying to catch up on work and get up to speed. I really hope I get more mik soon. I bought fenugreek drops and mother's milk tea, so hopefully I will see a result from that. Thing is, I only have 2 letdowns during a 20 minute session...and my son normally breastfeeds for an hour! I feel like I might need to call a lactation consultant to try to gt him to eat more efficiently before I will pump more efficiently, but who knows. Either way, I'm trying not to stress about it since that would cause me to make even less milk! Any tips?

clothes

Angus has an unbelievable amount of clothing. His paternal grandmother is a shopping addict, and every time we see her, he gets 4 or 5 new outfits! Most are cute but some are not so cute. We usually manage to tell her when something isn't to our liking and she returns it - but I feel a little guilty so I let my husband do it. I will have to get over that. I think she has a closet full of clothes for him that she spreads out each time we go. He's a lucky little guy. If only Babywit had a store in Long Island!

Speaking of clothing, I need more. My body is a mess from being pregnant and I didn't buy any new clothes last year really, other than some maternity ones so I am severely lacking. I ordered some nice stuff from Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic, but my favorite items come from Boden. Their stuff is lovely! Hopefully I will manage to look half decent when I go back to work next week. Hopefully I will be able to get away during the day to run to get some pants, as I am severly lacking in those. I don't know how I'm going to fix my body though. My balance is off and I have weight to lose...especially around my gut. That was the case even before I got pregnant, and much more so now. I'm actually not that far off from my pre-pregnancy weight, and hopefully when I get back to work and closer to things like salads, it will help. I think I would have a much better summer if I was happy about how my body looked. Bikini here I come - NOT!!!