HH she stops crying when I sing her this song. Sometimes she even dances a head-bob (different than the hammering).
Category: Baby
Green Tomatoes
Or: Reasons Why It Doesn’t Completely Suck to Go Back To Work:
Green tomatoes from my coworker (because before I left for maternity leave I was talking about how I wanted to make fried green tomatoes.) Nice.
I used to hate this door. I made fun of it regularly and often talked about putting a picture of Spike on there. I didn’t understand why I had to be assaulted by everyone’s grandbaby pictures every time I went into the kitchen.
But then I came back from being gone and someone in the office had printed a monster sized picture of my baby’s head and stuck it in the middle of the door. Hammerhead dominates the kitchen door. Anybody going into the kitchen is totally assaulted by her 10-minute-old face. Now I hate it less. I actually kind of love it.
Oh hey there XXX cubetree, nice to see you again.
And finally, I had never realized how enjoyable it can be listening to music and filing 2 months worth of emails uninterrupted. I really appreciated that on Monday. It’s since lost a little bit of its shine, but still. Uninterrupted time is nice.
…and with that, week #1 DONE. Happy weekend!
Lactation Station
Breastfeeding is kind of weird. Pumping is weirder. Pumping in the office because you went back to work before the baby is eating regular food is weirdest.
But thanks to some pushing from my boss, my employer is providing me with a room where I can pump (or, as our (male) HR manager refers to it, a “lactation station”. Said in all seriousness.)
Our office is in a big building. My firm is on the 4th floor. The room is on the 7th. So yesterday I was handed a key, taken up to the empty 7th floor, and led to a nondescript door.
We opened the door.
This is not just a room(/station). It’s an entire office suite. A completely empty office suite. With lots of empty rooms.
Random, abandoned furniture and books (including Dallas Cowboys: The Authorized Pictorial History). Holes in the ceiling. Holes in the wall. Plaster peeling off the walls, littering the ground.
It is very empty and potentially really creepy. Especially the sink.
And not because it looks like you might get tetanus from touching the sink, but because there is a huge hole in the ceiling right above where you stand to wash your hands. And yesterday, as I was rinsing out the equipment, I heard this scratching/thumping noise coming from inside the ceiling. Right above my head.
I couldn’t tell if it was something happening on another floor, or a huge rat (or person) about to launch an aerial attack through the car-sized hole. (I don’t know why it is that every time I hear an unidentified noise anywhere I assume it’s something coming to attack me. But I do. Especially when I’m in a locked room on an abandoned floor far from anybody who might hear my screams.)
Nothing happened. This time. I brought my mace today.
HOWEVER! In the room that I actually pump in, there is a really nice view aaand…
…a couch. And after getting a feel of what my sleep patterns might be over the next few months….heeeeelllooooo lactation station.
Held Hostage
I cannot believe I used to stress on the nights that I got less than 7 hours of sleep. So stupid.
A play-by-play of last night:
- 10pm: successful final feeding of the day, we turn the lights down, white noise machine on, rock her to sleep, everything is so peaceful and calm…
- 10:30pm: put her in bassinet. she is OUT.
- 11:30pm: fussing starts. i get up, stick the pacifier that she has spit out back in her mouth, put the hat that she has wiggled her way out of back on her head, calm her down, then very, very carefully lay back down and pray to god that she is really asleep. this cycle goes on for 90 minutes.
- 1am: real crying starts. get up, diaper change, go out to living room and feed her.
- 2:30am: try to put her down. crying starts the second she touches the bassinet. we’re so tired that paul gives up and puts her on his chest. she IMMEDIATELY falls asleep. we lay there half asleep for about an hour.
- 3:30am: veeeery carefully pick her up off paul’s chest and put her back in the bassinet. immediate fussing. plug with pacifier. hat fix. repeat.
- 4am: crying. again. pick her up, realize her back is all wet. not sure if it’s sweat or pee. go to change her and find her diaper like down by her knees (probably because she’s been squirming like a maniac in the bassinet). so I yell at paul. obviously.
- 4:15am: apologize to paul. head back out to the living room to feed her again. she eats a full meal plus all of the supplemental pumped milk we have in the fridge.
- 4:45am: paul rocks the (super full) baby, I pump to replenish supply in fridge.
- 5:45am: marsha arrives to save the day! (this is not part of our normal schedule. just last night.) she takes the baby. paul and i head to to sleep.
- 7am: Alarm goes off. Time for work!
I don’t know if this is sustainable.
Hammerhead
photo via
Before I went into labor I told a friend of mine that if I had the baby during Shark Week we would name her after a shark. Obviously.
Well, guess what. Muffinbutt squeaked into Shark Week by 9 minutes.
Unfortunately, Paul wasn’t cool with the name we’d chosen. And since naming a baby is a team sport, Goblin didn’t make it onto the Social Security card.
But then we came home and realized that every time she gets frustrated and hungry, she bangs her head against my chest (or Paul’s chest, whoever happens to be holding her). Like a hammer. With her head.
It’s destiny.
Happy weekend
Guess who was 2 months old yesterday.
It has been one of those weeks. Baby (and I) have regularly required 3 daily wardrobe changes due to her pooing up her back (I think it may be time to move out of newborn diapers). Paul worked the weekend shift, then had to travel for residency interviews, and then worked the night shift. I dropped my phone in the toilet. This morning after I got up to feed at 4am, Paul was trying to be nice and took the baby and tucked me in with Spike to let me get a little more sleep, and 10 minutes later the dog threw up in the bed. Etc, etc.
BUT! As I sit here pumping away I can’t help but revel in the moment, because…
today my sister is coming to visit and meet the baby for the first time.
And Paul doesn’t have to work at all this weekend. And the weather is ab-so-lutely glorious. And we’re going to a BBQ and then the KY-Alabama football game and then tomorrow the races. Soooooo…the past week, compared to this, is nothing.
Enjoy your weekend!
waking up
When it’s 2am and my alarm goes off, again, to wake her up for another feeding, and it’s like the MOST PAINFUL THING EVER to open my eyes and drag myself into an upright position, when I pick her up and unwrap her from her swaddle…
TOUCHDOOOOWN! Every time.
Is this by design? I mean, she’s 6 lbs. How can you stay angry?
P.S. Speaking of waking up, or a re-awakening of some part of my pre-baby life, had a doctor appointment yesterday, got the OK to run and swim again. Like, woah. Excitement.
Happiest Lady On the Block
going for a walk
A few big events that happened this week that will most likely effect you not at all:
- Munchkinhead had a weigh in on Weds with a goal of 6 lbs 5 oz (which would mean she had gained an ounce a day over the past week.) She weighed in at 6 lbs 8.5 oz. That is a 10oz gain in 7 days. Freaking. A. And as fun as overachieving is, the real reason that this is exciting is because it means…
- We can start feeding her EVERY 4 HOURS AT NIGHT. Praise be. Which meant…
- Last night she only woke up once to eat. And let me tell you, there is nothing more beautiful than 3 straight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Holy crap, I feel amazing.
- It is currently 65 degrees outside with no humidity. Hello, fall. So nice to see you.
Put your walking (hopefully soon running) shoes on…it’s time to break out the BOB and hit the road. To quote a friend, heaven is a Kentucky fall day.
Happy Friday.
Moo
oh heeeeey
So, obviously I lied. More on the baby was not coming sooner. It was coming much later.
I may have started making to-do lists that extend beyond getting out of my pajamas at some point during the day, but that doesn’t mean any of it actually gets done. Ever.
So, babycakes has been a little slow gaining weight.
teeny tiny
Nothing terrible, but she’s a little behind the curve, which means we are on a strict feeding regimen.
So I feed. Then pump. Then supplement her with the pumped milk. Then feed and feed and feed some more. Then pump. Every 2.5 hours. Which, when you take into account that each feeding/pumping session takes about an hour, means max 90 minutes free in between at a time. All day. And night. YEAH. (Though during the day, she has been demanding food every hour and a half or so. I have no idea how a creature that small, with a stomach the size of an almond, can consume that much liquid.)
if only cupcakes were an option
Initially I was like, man, maternity leave is going to be AWESOME. I’ll get up in the morning, we’ll go for long walks and get coffee, I’ll have extra time to read and blog and be productive…until I realized that if I want to get coffee, that means I have to want to stay awake. Which so far I have not. And if I want to go for a long walk the baby has to be cool not eating on demand every hour or so. Which she isn’t. And blogging/being productive requires (at least a few) neurons to be firing. Which they have not been.
dad getting his supplemental feeding time in
And so the valuable days of maternity leave (or, since my office doesn’t have maternity leave, all of my vacation and accrued sick leave that I am currently using up) tick by, with me spending the majority of my time sitting, exhausted and milk-soaked, in my rocking chair, baby in hand, hooked up to a pump, zoning out to the WAH-wah-WAH-wah-WAH-wah of the machine, dreaming of what we’re GOING to do just as soon as things calm down.
At least I have some good company.
In the meantime, I’m going to keep researching marathons for next year.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 