My little chatty Cathy :-)

My little Mi is over 2 months and almost 14 lbs!! Holy crap. She's doing great. This weekend has been so amazing. Saturday morning we all woke up and played in bed together. She is staying up so much longer now. In the mornings she is so rested and happy, she makes faces and plays around for hours. It is so nice to have my husband home with us on the weekends. She's holding her head up amazingly and getting really strong. She is vocalizing so much more now, i'll post a video of her being chatty last night.

F and I went to see the Gators play again yesterday. We kicked Tennessee's little orange and white butts! It's funny, the University sent out an email to tell fans to wear Blue (we are Orange and Blue), because TN's colors are orange and white. It was hella hot at the stadium. The student section isn't shaded, so we sat in the sun from 3pm-7pm, needless to say we forgot sunscreen! Oops! We look like tourists with our sunglass tan lines now. Our friends Christy and Ashley watched Mimi for us, they claim she was an angel, thank god, I always pray that she's not being "Mimi the Miserable" for other people, when she gets like that nursing is really the only calming thing.

Breastfeeding is still going really well. For a mostly-nursed baby, I feel like i'm always sterilizing bottles! She gets my frozen milk via the bottle when I'm away or need a break. I use a Medela double electric breastpump, which seems to work really well. I can pump 8-10 ounces in about 5 minutes. My friend used the Medela Swing, which is the single (less powerful I think) electric breastpump. She didn't have the same speedy pumping I have, don't know if it was her supply issues, or a weaker pump, but mine works great. Sometimes I think I have overactive letdown because if she unlatched my milk will spray her in the face, nice eh? I continue to be thankful that breastfeeding is comfortable for both of us and that I have an adequate supply. I generally have about 20 bags of milk (4-5oz) in the freezer. I'm also really thankful to not have to buy formula!

Going to school while taking care of Mimi almost full time has been really stressful. I constantly feel like i"m playing catch-up and constantly feel like I;m letting someone down in some way. Next semester will be easier, I am only TAing one class. I envy mom's who can stay home full time and still have adequate finances. I get to stay home with Mi, but I have to work while i'm at home writing and taking online classes and I leave for one class on T/TH. People always ask me, is it hard taking care of her? and I say--no, taking care of her is not too difficult, it's taking care of her AND going to school AND teaching AND writing my dissertation that is hard. Mimi is a good baby and a joy to be around, even when she' "Mimi the Miserable."

I love her more and more and more everyday! I love watching her grow and change and we're enjoying every minute. She's out of her 0-3 month clothes so it's kind of fun putting her new stuff on her.

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments. Ask is you have any questions!

Bye

She's Gaining, I'm Losing!

Hey Guys,

I put this cute sleeper on Mimi today before bed and realized it is the last time she'll probably wear it! Her feet hung about 3 inches out of the bottom of the feet! Good thing they are footless jammies! I can't belive that she's two months old this wednesday.

I had kind of a scare today, I woke up with a really sore throat and feeling really run down. I thought, oh no, I must have caught a bug being on campus or something, hopefully not swine flu! I quickly too my temperature, which was normal and was careful not to kiss the baby at all today. That made me so sad, one of the best things is kissing her fat little face. I was even more diligent with hand washing, which I wash my hands so much as it is that my skin is dry and cracking on my hands--which shouldn't happen in the middle of summer in FL! Hopefully it was just a scratchy throat from the fan blowing on my face at night and my asthma meds. I'm going to keep taking my temperature and avoid kissing her fat little face I guess for awhile.

I have only gotten to go running twice in the last week and a half. It's really hard to get out of the house to run while F is with her when it's not 90 degrees out. I guess I should start going to the gym. They have a free daycare at our gym for babies 6 weeks and older. It looks very clean and well staffed, but with the number of cases of this H1N1 flu in our city I think it's best to just leave her at home with F and get to the gym alone when I can or run on the track.

Breastfeeding continues to go pretty well, I had some pains in my breasts today and thought maybe the run down feeling I have in conjunction with the breast pain might be mastitis, but I don't have fever or any redness. My supply is dropping back a little, which is nice because before I would leak a lot and wake up at night saturated in breastmilk. Now I seem to produce what she needs plus an extra bottle or maybe two bottles (4-5 oz) a day. That is fine with me. I have over 20 bags of milk (4-5 oz) bags in the freezer now. I try to replace what bottles get used each day, plus pump with the medela pump one more bottle at least for backup. I just want to have enough extra milk so that if I had to take a medication or something that wasn't safe for breastmilk Mimi could still get exclusively breastmilk.

I think breastfeeding really helps with weightloss. Still have 5 lbs left to lose to my pre pregnancy weight, which I think is awesome for 8 weeks. I am happy with my progress so far. I hope to continue to lose past that weight because I was a little overweight before becoming pregnant.

This week was a really hard week. I'm getting really overwhelmed with schoolwork, housework and staying home with Mimi. I had a little breakdown about it today with my husband. He reminded me this is the last semester I have to take any classes and next semester will be better. He's right, just need to make it through the next few months.

Hope all is well, congrats to Courtney and her little baby Sophie! She's adorable! Can't wait to hear how her birth went.

Time

I said to my husband yesterday as he was dropping me off on campus, I don't feel like there is enough time in the day. We were sitting in traffic, baby screaming in the backseat, both of us sleep deprived and he looked at me and said "I don't know if I want anymore kids." He later admitted he didn't mean it, but sometimes all the stress of being a parent to a newborn makes him think he wouldn't want to do it again. I know how he feels. You know when you have a baby that things are going to be rough, but I think both of us underestimated how truly difficult it would be.

Sleep deprivation obviously happens to both of you whether you are breastfeeding or not. My husband tends to be a light sleeper and one of those people, once woken up cannot go back to sleep. So even though I get up at night with our daughter, sometimes it wakes him up to, then he'll be off the entire day from waking up at 4 am and not going back to sleep. The sleep deprivation effects my stress level more than anything. When I'm rested I can handle "Mimi the Miserable" but when I'm not, I break down in tears sometimes at the stress of it all. I think the second most frustrating thing after chronic loss of sleep is the fact that there is no longer enough time for all other things in life. You slowly watch your house and your job fall to pieces, trying to catch up on the weekends from a week that went by so fast you couldn't even get laundry done.

Having my daughter has taught me to be more patient and lower my expectations. That was actually one piece of advice someone gave us "Lower your expectations." Accept that things won't always get done, life won't always be perfect, and overall you'll be a lot happier. I think this is somewhat true. I just take each day, one at a time, I do the best I can to be a good parent, wife, student, and friend. Some days I can do a lot, the house is clean, my daughter isn't covered in puke, there's food on the table and I manage to get some work done. Other days we're in our pj's till 2pm and I've had cereal for breakfast and lunch and dinner is looking like takeout.

When I kiss my daughters fat little cheeks and hear her coo, and I watch my husband talk to her and give her kisses it makes all the crap, all the stress, hell and all the money worth it!

I put up a photo of Mimi laying in the bathroom before her bath. She seems really happy to stare at the shower curtain and kick her legs. This last about 5 or 10 minutes. The other photo is her in her Halloween onesie that probably won't fit by Halloween!

Sometimes life is frustrating

Do you ever have days where you need to remind yourself that you love your husband? This makes me sound so terrible, but sometimes I just really get frustrated with my husband. I love him so much, but sometimes I just lose it.

Why is it that....

My husband asks me questions that I've answered 100 times already? Like what are the dates he needs to take off for our trip this fall...or where the bibs are....things I've answered or we've had conversations about 100 times in the past month?

He throws his clothes on the floor next to the hamper....literally next to...but can't seem to make them into the hamper?

He tells me we need toothpaste but can't seem to stop at one of the 10 CVS's or Wallgreen's on his way to work to buy some?

He thinks that because I'm home with the baby I don't have to work as well...oh I don't know, ,like write my dissertation or take classes or teach classes?

Why is it that when he's stressed out, he needs to relax, but for me life just has to go on cause there's too much to do?

What did their mothers do to them to make them so lazy and enabled?

GRRRRRRRRR okay, I have vented about my husband.

Now let me focus on the positive.

My husband takes care of me when I'm sick, like when I had shingles in my face (I know, F'ing crazy to get shingles at 26), or when I had my C section.

My husband takes good care of our baby without me worrying if he's doing a good job or not. I know you are thinking, well shouldn't this be a given? But I've know a lot of other husbands/dads that freak out at the thought of having to take care of a baby all alone for an extended period, with the mothers freaking out the entire time they are gone is their baby is going to be alive when they get home.

My husband works a job that isn't challenging to him but is convenient so that I can stay in this city to finish my graduate education.

My husband is my best friend.

Okay now I don't feel like such a terrible person. Here's my husband hanging out the my daughter Sunday morning. She's naked because she pukes all over herself, sometimes it's just easier to leave her naked until her stomach has settled a little!