sueeeus

• the number of years my firstborn has been gracing the earth
• the number of months my last born has been gracing the earth
• the number of hours spent expressing breast milk on any given day
• the number of hours of sleep I manage to accumulate on most nights
• the time of morning when a) my firstborn wakes me up to tell me he’s wet or b) my last born makes it known that it’s time to be fed or c) both a) and b)
• the number of days before Gadget returns from visiting Gizmo
• the number of days remaining of my single mom ‘vacation’
• the number of weeks before my last born begins daycare
• the number of working days left before Christmas
• the number of times each day (on average) that I lose my temper with my firstborn (I so need to figure out this mothering a nearly four year old thing)

before

small child, big mind, loud

dropped food, dropped dish, unhappy

tired, patience long worn

after

time out, minutes pass

words spoken, young mind meets old

until the next time

almost four

boundaries tested

it’s not easy being four

how I love that boy

I wish it were easier to get started when it comes to exercise.  The combination of all things down makes even the prospect of exercise almost insurmountable.  If by some miraculous force of will I can push myself over that edge, and make my grudging self sweat a little, oh, the results!

I managed to spend a little time playing DDR again today.  I try to stick to the fast songs, and I try to do the difficult level.  The antics can be quite comical, and the result is a sweating, heart-pumping, chuckling me.  All good things.  The boost lasts quite some time, too.  Instead of a nap after work, I tidied BB’s room.  It wouldn’t be honest to say that I cleaned it, but where the floor was not visible prior to entry, it is now bravely exposed.  I gave up sorting the toys into their various bins.  It seems pointless, when they all end up on the floor together.  I think I’m the only one who appreciates the order of like things sorted with like things.  He’s nearly four.  He likes chaos.

I feel generally happier, and with that, hopeful.  Hope is a powerful thing.  Depression, on the other hand, is a life sapping force, and I wish it weren’t so easy for it to catch me in its suffocating grasp.

As for hope.  It prompts us to try things we might not otherwise try.  Breastfeeding, for example.  After a shower (bliss!) I noticed that milk was dripping from me.  Unprecedented!  So what do I do?  I take my beautifully content little boy and put him to the breast.  It’s the football hold, the milk is freely flowing, there is NO WORK INVOLVED.  What does he do?  Screws up his face and screams like there’s no tomorrow.  Gadget just laughs and shakes his head.  She’ll never learn, he says to LB.  The Gadget boys don’t like boobs.  It’s just the way it is.

My exercise endorphines are still hanging in there, so I don’t let this lapse of sanity crush my otherwise fragile feelings.  Pumping is more efficient, anyway.  I get both sides drained at the same time, and I get to use the time to read, surf, blog, or otherwise entertain myself on the computer.  It’s me-time!

I have so very much to be thankful for, but this…  …this lights up my life and fills my cup to overflowing.

Bliss.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are two main trains of thought milling about my head right now.  One is that I need to go back to the office.  Need to.  Need some adult interaction, a change of environment, and a better defined routine.  Need it.

The other is that I have a new goal that I need to explore and fully define, but it’s a goal, nonetheless, and it’s important.  I’m sure it’s a repeat goal that I’ve attempted before, and abandoned, but it’s time for a resurrection.

There.  About the office.  I don’t recall feeling this caged the last time I was telecommuting full time.  Maybe it has something to do with the time of year.  BB was born in January, so spring was springing when I was returning to work.  There was more sunshine, there were flowers blooming, there were afternoon walks.  LB was born at the end of August, and we’re fast forwarding past autumn and into winter.  There is rain, and more rain, and wind and more rain.  The sky is darkening by 4 p.m.  Did I mention the rain?  There are no lovely afternoon walks, unless mad dashes through Costco and Fred Meyer count.  I’m only working three days a week, taking Tuesdays and Thursdays as vacation days so I can catch up on the sleep I missed while working Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Having over 20 years under my belt has its advantages.  I get 4 weeks of paid vacation a year, and I can roll a full year over, so I’ve banked 8 weeks that I’m using now, and I can spread it out for quite some time.  I think I can work 3 days a week until April, in fact, and still get paid for full time.  Woot!

But something is different and I’m feeling house-bound.  Stir crazy.  I don’t necessarily get more work done at the office, but it sure is nice to see people, and, dare I say it, social anxiety or not, be seen.  I miss my peeps.  Over twenty years with some of these people make them family.  We’ve spent the better part of our lives together.  I miss that.  I miss them.  I actually brought up the mother’s room calendar today, to see how many people were using it, and if I could fit my pumping schedule in.  A couple of the women have dropped out, and there’s a new one, but it looks like there is room for me.  Do I want to drag my pumping gear around with me?

And then there’s the pang, big time, I feel when considering sending LB off to daycare earlier than later.  He’s only a baby for such a short short time, and what kind of a person am I to send him off when I actually could keep him with me for a little while longer.  As long as he’s not interfering with my work, it’s reasonable to allow him to stay, and since he’s still sleeping through most of my working hours, it’s okay.  So if he’s sleeping, does it matter that he sleeps at my house or at the daycare?  I think I’ll consider starting him at daycare in January, after the bustle of the holidays is over.  He’ll be a little over 4 months old.

Sigh.

Did I mention that I Googled child care rates across the country and found that I’m fortunate enough to live in one of the more expensive states?  I wonder if that means our per capita earnings are accordingly higher?  Right.  I doubt it.  Anyhow, I’ll be getting a blazing steal of a bargain at $300/week for the two kids.  It’s way under the average, so I shouldn’t complain.

And now for the other item.  My goal.  I need to get to know myself better, get over myself, and fall in love with myself, if any of that makes sense.  Get over myself, because I get wrapped up in the same patterns and thoughts and depressions and cycles, over and over and over again.  It’s getting old.  I’m getting old.  And fall in love with myself, so that I can honor myself and accept myself and be comfortable with myself, and just cut myself some slack.  Walk the talk, so to speak.  Not have ridiculous expectations that can’t be met.  Relax a little, alright, already.  No conditions.  That’s the goal.  Unconditional love.  For my self.  I have no idea how to get there, but there it is.  That’s my goal.

I think that unconditional love will wash away a lot of stress and anxiety.  And guilt.

I’ve had thoughts milling about that I was considering writing about, but at this point all I have is a quagmire and the best thing to do would be to get some rest, and let sleep bring on its healing restoration, and hopefully with the dawn I’ll have a better grasp.

I might not be feeling so irritated that it’s past midnight and BB is still awake.  Irritated that he doesn’t obey when he’s asked to go to bed, irritated that if a bed time is to be enforced, it appears that it’s entirely up to me to make it happen.  Irritated that I tried to go to bed over two hours ago, knowing full well I’d need to pump around midnight, and that in getting some rest ahead of time, I might have a chance at not feeling like a trainwreck in the morning when I need to be working.  Irritated that all the time passed, and still he’s awake, and I can’t postpone it any longer and absolutely must pump NOW, but in so doing, will give him yet more cause to force himself to stay awake.

And just like that, maternity leave is over.

Look at you, Mister Eight Weeks Old Today!

Where did the time go?  I don’t think I squeezed in enough snuggles and cuddles and smoochies and hugs.  I think I spent too much time doing housework and not enough time sleeping.  I could have done better.  I could have (and should have) played more, instead of being wrapped up in the business of mothering — harping, snapping, reprimanding, disciplining, and completely losing my patience with BB, pumping, feeding, bathing, consoling.  How do I remind myself, and actually get myself, to play more?  How do I put the blinders on, to hide the myriad things that are calling to be done, and just concentrate on the moment that is a delicious little bundle of boyness?

And now it’s back to the frazzle dazzle working mom’s routine, so it’s all that much more important to magnify those moments of baby yumminess.

In retrospect, the first day back wasn’t so bad.  I think we’re going to be okay.  After a nap, that is.

Because I’ve recently mentioned that I’ve spent a small fortune on baby bottles, all in the quest for that which my oh-so-particular child will tolerate, I thought I would provide a review, as a public service and all.  Because  I need to stop spending my pumping time and loads of money online shopping and do something less expensive and more constructive I’m kind and generous that way.

First.  We begin with what I use, and why.

(LOOK!  More than a full day’s worth of stockpiled liquid gold! Unbelievable!!)

I don’t know if my baby has colic, GER, GERD, or some other unspecified gastro-intestinal issue, but he tends to be fussy at times, and barely tolerates a bottle, let alone a breast.  There are a number of bottles on the market that claim to reduce or prevent colic, and there are camps of people who strongly favor one or another.  We seem to have the most success with the Dr. Brown’s line, but I’m not emotionally attached to it.  We used the wide neck version with BB nearly four years ago, and liked them well enough then.  They had a nice shape with a comfortable hold, and the wide mouth made them easy to clean.  We also used the Avent bottles, and liked them as well.  However, with the crisis du jour regarding BPA, I traded in my BPA Dr. Brown’s and Avent bottles for BPA-free Dr. Brown’s and Born Free bottles.

I started with the Dr. Brown’s preemie bottles, and really liked them for the preemie slowest of slow flow nipples and also the tiny two-ounce size, which was just right for my newborn.  However, they were still BPA bottles, so I decided to exchange them for non-BPA.  The options are 3.5 oz glass, 4 oz polypropylene, or 8 oz polypropylene.  I ended up with some of each.  Unfortunately, the valve reservoir stem is a different length for each different bottle size, and I could only find the long 8oz version reservoir stem available in the replacement parts section.

I don’t care for the actual bottle part of the Dr. Brown’s polypro line.  It’s a hard plastic, and it’s completely cylindrical.  It doesn’t feel particularly good to hold, and because of the special valve system, the bottles tend to be taller to accommodate the valve.  This makes them a bit bulky and unwieldy.  Especially the 8 oz size.  That bottle seems to be about as big as my baby, so I put the 8 oz bottles away for when he’s older and bigger, but harvested the valves and nipples for use with other bottles now.

The glass bottles are nice, but they’re heavy, and as soon as my baby can hold his own bottle, I’ll probably give them up, because the last thing I need is a heavy glass projectile in the hands of a wee one just getting used to his motor skills.

I decided to find other bottles that could be used with the Dr. Brown’s valve system, but because each size bottle has a different length stem, and because replacement stems are only available for the long 8oz size, I had to cut the valve stems to fit the appropriate bottle.  This makes for a tangled and confusing mess of parts, which is best not left to the spouse, who will, without fail, grumble exceedingly if asked or expected to warm up a bottle of stored milk and find the appropriate nipple/collar/valve/reservoir stem, and who will, inevitably, select any stem without consideration, jam it onto any bottle, then curse and sputter when the bottle leaks or hand it to me to feed the by then screaming child, in which case I will mutter something unkind about general laziness and lack of attention to detail.  Not conducive to marital bliss.

The collars actually fit the Medela bottles that I use for pumping, however, the Medela bottles don’t have many threads and they sometimes leak.  They’re not all that comfortable to hold, either, so I just stick to them for collecting the milk, and transfer the expressed milk to the bottles that I like — the old fashioned inexpensive Evenflo hexagonal bottles.  If only they made them in a 5 or 6 oz size.  I buy the 4 oz size for now, and store the milk in 3 oz lots.

And now for the rejects.  Although I like the Born Free, the nipples tend to collapse a bit, and the baby doesn’t seem to like them as well, so they’re set aside for a few months, until he’s a bit more coordinated.

He struggled with most of the nipples pictured above.  The breast flow version is good in concept but the outer nipple completely collapses in use and seems nothing like a breast at all.  He chokes on the Soothie nipple and gets tangled up with the Nuk nipple.   The cheap Gerber style with the lime green collar leaks like a sieve, but the threads work with the Dr. Brown’s parts, so they’re the last resort storage bottles, used only when I run out of everything else (because I don’t care for the odd trapezoidal shape, which isn’t particularly comfortable to grasp).  The bottle on the far left is a different Gerber variety, and it actually is the best tolerated of the lot above.  It’s not BPA free though, so just in case, we’re letting it be.  I did try to do a BPA exchange at Babies -R- Us with the four outer bottles, but they weren’t on the list, like the Dr. Brown’s and Avent varieties, for whatever reason.

I was planning to be more comprehensive with the rejects, but I’ve grown weary of this post.  At least it kept me from Amazon.com and eBay for this particular expression session, and that was the point, in part.

What has been happening lately, one might ask?

My boy wonder is now five weeks old.  Five weeks already!  Which means I must return to work in three short weeks.  Thank the heavens I will be able to work from home for some time.  And that I have three weeks rather than one week left.

I just want to eat him up!  Here he is in all his squeezable goodness, modeling an outfit received from an aunt.  It may be the only time he wears that jacket — what business do babies have wearing things with big scratchy zippers?  He is wearing 3-6mos things now, so we may only get a few wears out of 0-3mos things like this anyway.  In fact, culling the closets has been on my to-do list for several days now.  For whatever reason, I still haven’t gotten to it.

So what have we been doing?

Ever working on milk supply, is what, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been able to produce enough to feed him breast milk exclusively for several days now!  I’m expressing between 24 and 26 ounces a day now, which is enough to keep up with my little guy (barely!  –and reviewing my logs from BB, it wasn’t enough for his voracious appetite –because I was actually making a bit more at this stage in his life than I am now, yet it’s enough for LB, thank the heavens above).  That’s not to say he has any interest in the breast itself.  Oh no, he’s just like his brother before him, screaming and shaking his head when given the prospect of warm soft skin, settling only when he feels the impersonal silicone and its ready flow of milk.  I’m not letting it get me down this time, and am looking at the bright side and advantages of a bottle feeding relationship.  I still get to snuggle him close.  We have a good thing going on.

There is the matter of poop, however.  I’ve resorted to brown sugar three times so far in his short life.  Our pediatrician said to use it if he goes over a day.  I gave him some on day two of the latest round, which was two days ago, and he still didn’t go until the evening of day three.  I’ve read online that breast milk fed babies may go some days without a poop, so am not freaking out over this, but I would like some more assurance.

All in all, I think the domperidone experiment is looking like a success, and I think I’d recommend it to anyone who is in the same boat as I am.  I haven’t noticed any side effects, and I’m not sure how much of my production is related to the drug, as opposed to the myriad other factors involved, but if it IS related, then it is well worth it.  And I’m thinking that I may need to name my good friend the breast pump, as we are spending so very much time together.  How does Old Bessie sound?

Run along now.  This is a post that will likely be long and laborious.  I’ve just got a load of disappointments that are eroding my sense of equilibrium, so I think it may behoove me to write it out.  Perhaps I’ll feel better at the end of it.

• Much as I’m grateful for the magic and mystery that is the human body, and its ability (however challenged, in my case) to produce milk, and much as exclusive pumping has its advantages, I have to admit that I am, after all, disappointed that I don’t get to be one of those nursing mothers, completely attuned to her child, the child contentedly suckling away.  I suppose there is a bit of grief to process here.  It’s one of those experiences that I’d longed for and worked valiantly toward.  And it’s apparently not for me.  I’ve studied in earnest hundreds of pictures of nipples and breasts (dear me, I might actually get blog traffic for that combination of words) and suckling babes trying to determine what they have that I don’t have.  Yes, milk flow was and is certainly a handicap, but it appears that I come from a line of women who can not nurse.  Not my grandmother, not my mother, not my sister.  My nipples are wide and flat, and the aerolae are huge.  I could do without Gadget’s ever helpful mother’s suggestion that perhaps the baby would be able to nurse if he’d get his mouth past the nipple and on to the ‘dark circle part’.  No, dear MIL, I wasn’t aware of that.  Sigh.  She means well, so I shouldn’t be so sarcastic and short with her.  And she hasn’t seen what I have to work with.  Not that I plan to flash my breasts at her, but it would go a long way in explaining things.
• I don’t like goodbyes.  My sister and her family came to spend LB’s first week with us, and she filled three freezers with amazing food for us, to tide us through many months.  She’s wonderful and generous and I love her to bits.  It’s always so hard to say goodbye, and I selfishly wish and hope that one day we can live closer, much much closer, to each other.
• Shortly after my sister left, my mother and her husband (MH) arrived, to spend ten days with us, and they left this morning.  None of the siblings have a particularly close relationship with her, but we love her.  She’s our mother.  So I’m sad when she leaves.  It took a little arm twisting to convince her to stay as long as she did.  I don’t know how much of it is her, and how much is her husband, but they generally stay only a day or two, and they zip off long before sunrise, sometimes without even saying goodbye.  Well, they say goodbye at night before bed, but what’s the hurry?  They’re retired.  It’s easy to push buttons and tread on nerves (more on this later), but even so, it’s sad to say goodbye.
• With a new baby, we’ve been trying to organize some family get togethers, so everyone can meet him.  One of my nieces planned a trip up, and wanted to make a dinner for us.  We gladly accepted, and as the time drew near, we all decided to get together at my SIL’s place, rather than my place, because she’s more centrally located to all of us, so the commute would be much easier for most people.  She planned to make Thai food, so Gadget said he’d stay home, since he doesn’t like Thai.  I gave him the evil eye, and later I told him that it would mean a lot to me if he’d go, regardless of what was being served for dinner, because it wasn’t really about the food in the first place.  He said he was only kidding (but he wasn’t) and that he’d go.  Then we were trying to figure out when to get together with Gadget’s family, because we wanted to do it while my mom was here, for more family bonding.  We weren’t certain of the dates, so the next thing we knew, my mother’s husband was dialing the phone.  He’d called my niece, and proceeded with the grand inquisition, which probably freaked her out a bit.  It would me.  He has a tendency of taking more initiative within the family than many of us are comfortable with.  For instance, he spanked my nephew once, and I’m not sure how my SIL handled that, but my sister who witnessed it was livid, as was my BIL, and because of that, MH is not welcome to stay in their home.  Somehow, I didn’t notice that event, but I kept a bit of an eye on him while here, because I didn’t want him to be disciplining my child in such a manner.  He came close, but didn’t cross the line where I’d have had to rear up as MAMA BEAR and tell him to leave the discipline to me.
• The day for the niece dinner arrived, and we converged on my SIL’s home.  But where was the niece?  Dinner was to be around 6, and she didn’t even arrive until after 7.  She has two kids of her own, which she left at home for this trip, but surely she knew that kids can only wait so long while maintaining reasonably good behaviour.  Surely she knew that?  My SIL ended up putting together a quick kids meal to take care of the hoarde of hungry children.  Once my niece arrived, she seemed preoccupied, and went to work immediately in the kitchen, prepared a fine meal, grabbed a plate, took a bite or two at most, then left.  She left!  I don’t know….  I was disappointed because we were having this family get together that it seemed as though she didn’t even want to be a part of.  Maybe she didn’t really want it to be a big thing, and maybe she just wanted to come to my house by herself and cook dinner for just us, rather than for us, my mom and her husband, my sister, my nephew, and my SIL and her kids (half of whom are her half-siblings).  Maybe it was family overload and maybe she has a touch of social anxiety.  It runs in the family.  I just don’t know.  But I felt disappointed afterwards, and even now, thinking of it.  I’m certainly taking it personally, whether or not I should.  It feels sort of like rejection.
• The next day was the Gadget family get together.  To make it easy, we bring all the food and we drive an hour and a half to get there, so they don’t have to do anything but show up at the MIL’s house.  The rest of them live only minutes from her, so it makes it very convenient.  But do they show up?  NO!  Only one of Gadget’s sisters came, apart from the brother who already lives there.  His other sister and dad, who live less than a mile away, didn’t come, nor did the other brother.  It will be a long time before I agree to a get-together up there again.  It was especially disappointing because it seemed like it should have been a big deal, to come meet a brand new baby in the family.  Plus, with my mother and her husband making the effort to extend themselves to the other side of the family, it all seems like a slap in the face.  And more rejection.
• I’ve made the recent observation that there are several personalities within my family, that, were I not related, and should I cross paths in the course of living with people of these personalities, I wouldn’t befriend them, and probably would never even make any effort to introduce myself or interact with them at all.  At all.  This makes me sad, because these are my people.  What is it they say, that you can love someone, but not like them?  I suppose this is how it is.  And it makes me sad.  And maybe a bit ashamed.
• I find it very sobering to recognize that those traits which I find most frustrating and least appealing in my mother are traits that I quite possibly manifest myself.

…it doesn’t seem to have helped (much).  I’ve written it out, but don’t feel much better, if at all.