New Year's Eve

The holidays have been busy, and I am just trying to get by each day right now. My mind, at the moment is a bit frazzled from tiredness so this might ramble/ not make any sense! We had the eating/ gift extravaganza with the inlaws. Great food...I can't seem to stop eating again. Saw a movie on Xmas day...Benjamin Button...very long, but a beautiful movie. Dh and I were both in a cleaning/ clearing out mood these past few days so I have made a few trips to Goodwill and the dumpster. Tonight I will be celebrating new year's with sparkling grape juice and the kiddies and dh at home.

I have been daydreaming about returning to work earlier than I planned again. Of course, it is the whole, I am not earning money thing again, but it has been hard for me to be at home at this point. The nanny has everything under control and my presence seems to only antagonize my 3 year old (I know that kids behave worse when mom/ dad is around sometimes...just a fact of life). She won't let me take a nap and today everytime I nursed the baby she came over and yelled/ screamed. I know, this too shall pass. I am just feeling old and tired.

I wish everyone good health, prosperity, and happiness for 2009. Happy New Year!

Bottomless pits

Today is a cloudy, cold wintry day here and all MSB and I want to do is EAT! Wee one doesn't eat, she just bounces from room to room, occasionally stopping to consume some candy she has found (we were cleaning out closets this weekend) or a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl. But MSB and I are a different story. Our stomachs are bottomless pits, demanding, milk for MSB (either mommy's or similax)---she doesn't care, and for mommy, anything edible in the kitchen. I have been trying to cut back on wheat products after reading a theory on possible opiate like effects of wheat peptides on the colon and because the baby and I are so gassy all the time this past week. It is much harder than it seems to avoid wheat/ gluten. Rice, potatoes, corn, corn chips, etc...until I can get to the grocery store and regroup. I did make some really kick-as* Muddy buddies chex mix with rice (gluten free for my celiac diseased sis in law and nephew). Those really rock. I should be taking a nap right now but I have to appease the hunger 1st or else I can't fall asleep. I am going to try and be healthy and attack the box of pears from Harry and Davi$ I just got in the mail.

Life

38 years ago today, I was born. I have lived a really nice life and today I got to celebrate with loved ones, had lunch with dh (just the 2 of us!), received cards, ate birthday cake (for breakfast!), and opened some nice gifts. A pretty great day overall.

I was catching up on sending/ receiving email and I got an email from an old childhood friend. Earlier in the week, she endured one of the most horrible things that can even happen. The family was involved in a terrible car accident and she lost her only child, a 14 month old daughter. My heart aches for her and the family. I cannot understand or comprehend this. Why did this happen? I don't know. How can one survive this? I don't know. I hold my children tight and am grateful for the time I have with them. Hopefully, a long time.

In the race

As I am in the marathon that is the period of newborn-ness, I am beginning to lose a bit of stamina and am recalling the mental race of watching the clock again. Feed baby, count the time I have until the next feeding to sleep/ do laundry/ cook/ etc. This time is not as bad as the 1st baby as I have a very distracting 3 year old I still have to pay (extra) attention to at this time. It is especially acute in the evenings when dh comes home, the nanny is gone and I am trying to get dinner/ feed baby/ bathe 3 year old/ control chaos. My dh is very very good about entertaining wee one so I am grateful for that, but I feed off any anxiety or stress on his/ her part. I have heard this is often the worse part of the day for many families.

So, I am trying to get some perspective on this too, all of this. Life for me, has often been hard and so I don't expect the easy. College and med school were hard, residency was hard, divorce was hard, working up the courage to get married again was hard, getting pregnant with #1 was hard, going through a cancer scare last year was hard, etc. Some may look at my life and think I have it easy and perhaps I have compared to the trials so many others have. However, I am at the point in my life that I have some control sometimes over my options. I can rearrange/ reconfigure/ add/ subtract/ change things to make life easier. The trick is to figure out what may work.

Doing my part

Just returned from Tarjay again and left a bunch of money there in exchange for some bags of baby stuff, 2 Xmas gifts, canned goods, 1 black skirt for mommy, a dozen eggs, and an organizing bin for wee one's room. I can't seem to get out of there under 3 figures this month. I laugh at the days when I was a poor student and was stressed about spending $30 there!

It is kind of weird right now to be spending money, not only because of the relentless media honking about the economy, but because I am not working right now. Dh is working of course, and I saved up money for this leave, but it is still a bit uneasy to me. I suppose it is some of kind internal fear in me about not being able to take care of myself/ my kids. Who knows...money comes and goes anyway. I am blessed in so many other ways I can't even count.

Next week is the big Xmas lollapalooza with my IL's who go overboard...I have been cleaning out closets and bookshelves in my house as I know new things will be gathering there. They probably think I am not very thoughtful (although this year I have an excuse...Hey I just gave birth!) as I tend to give large fruit baskets from a catalog (from a local grower!). The kids all get gifts, of course. Xmas time is very special especially this year as I gaze on my sleeping baby...sleep in heavenly peace indeed.

Care and feeding of your child

MSB is doing well and doing all the things that a newborn should. Her check up last week went smoothly. Weight gain documented, head measured, and reminders about feeding guidelines reviewed.

Wee one is in a big NO phase and it occasionally makes all of us NUTS! I let her eat too much candy today (candy canes) and she didn't nap so who knows what may transpire this evening. I am about to climb into a big bath and maybe she will join me. She missed her bath last night because she passed out right after dinner. It was way too cold anyway so her skin actually was probably saved by keeping those extra oils on.

I am enjoying my time and got out of the house for some beauty treatments (haircut, pedicure) yesterday and today. I still look tired in spite of that and the help I have (babysitter in the afternoons). Some people are asking me if I am back at work yet...dude, it's only been 2 weeks since I had the baby...need more sleep/ rest.

Tomorrow I am going to see my OB and we are going to discuss a hormone secreting IUD (mirena). He recommended this instead of a tubal so I plan on trying this even though I am not sure about having something in me. But at this point, no more pregnancies for me please.

Bouncing back

Physically, this time after childbirth, I am much stronger physically. Mentally, better too, however I have another cold that is making me nuts and my upper lip and nose super sore. I have spent so much money on Puffs with lotion and buying pseudoephdrine (no, mr. pharmacist, I am not making meth with this stuff...just trying to unclog my left nostril and sinus).

Today I went to stock up on supplies at Wallyworld and buy a few Xmas gifts. There are sure a lot of people who have time to shop at 10am on a Monday morning. It completely exhausted me and I scarfed down lunch, watched "A Baby Story" on TLC and passed out on the couch until it was time to pick up my daughter at school. The Baby story episode was touching...a lady with a brain tumor that appeared clinically with the epidural for her 2nd pregnancy. She had surgery (2!) to remove it and was giving birth to her 3rd child. She was remarking (her dh too) that having a baby at age 40 was really different as she was so tired. Tiring indeed.

Baby feet!

I got my dh a new camera for the occasion of the birth of the new baby. He's been having fun with it and snapping happily. He was the last of many children and apparently there are only like 1 or 2 pictures of him as a baby documented! I did have to look high and low for where he put his camera so I could download the pictures onto my computer. He was looking at the pictures and he noted that he had taken one of me while I was feeding the baby and my naked boob was showing. I strongly suggested that he delete that one unless he felt he could make some money off of it on the internet...ha, ha,ha!

Back to the Boobies

MSB was a bit inconsolable the other night which is very unusual for her so far. She is a very tranquil, contented baby the majority of the time. So I checked her our, cuddled, changed diaper, etc and I knew she wasn't hungry as she had polished off a bottle 1/2 hour before. Finally, a bit reluctantly (with a series of flashbacks to never ending nursing sessions, bleeding cracked nipples, plugged ducts, sprays of milk going across the room, mastitis, the intimate relationship with the pump ---electric and cool hand held avent model, trudging around with the stained boppy pillow, resenting my baby and dh for getting me into this, hating myself for having those feelings, and me running away from my dh every time he got near my chest) I put the baby to my breast and she latched on. Ooooo, ow, ahhhhh....she was sucking away and I actually got the relaxed, stoned feeling that nursing moms love.

The milk is flowing (I totally could be wet nurse) but I am going to do this mainly for comfort and around the planned schedule for when I go back to work. No pumping....at all. I figure 2-3 sessions a day is better than none at all. To go totally boob all the time is something I cannot handle without going crazy.

Absent minded

Today I...

1. Left a package of chicken thighs in the car from the grocery store until it was time to cook them (they were quite frozen and were still cold and my mom deemed them ok to cook/ eat...we'll see how we are doing in the next few hours)

2. Stuck a maxi pad in my pants and forgot to take the adhesive strip off the "wings" and bled all over myself

3. Started this blog entry last night, didn't finish, left open on dh's computer and he asked me if I was done

4. At the 5am feeding, lost track of how many scoops of powdered formula I had put in the bottle.

Gotta love the sleep disruption/ deprivation