Snowbound Herpetologist

The baby is upstairs and napping with my phone playing white noise, so I will update this post with photos after she wakes up. My sweet little Annika is five months old - it's hard to believe!  Where did the time go?  In some ways, days (and nights, sigh) drag on, but in other ways, it goes so fast.  I know everyone says that same thing, but that doesn't make it any less weird to actually experience! At five months, Annika is bursting into true babyhood.  Although still enormous (will her growth rate ever slow down???) at ~19.5lbs and 27.5 inches, she can now roll both directions and sit up unassisted, but both only when she actually wants to.  She fights sleep, and she never really *wants* to sleep alone.  She's spunky when awake, and absolutely knows what she wants (and protests vociferously when she doesn't get it!).  She claws my chest all night to get to my boobs if I'm not waking up quickly enough for her - and she absolutely cannot be deterred/redirected,

If there was one thing I could tell all new moms about pumping when they're first starting out, it would be to be kind and patient with yourself if you can't pump a "milk waterfall" right out of the gate. It took me a LONG time and LOTS of practice to get good at pumping - just like any new skill!  Some women will respond well to the pump right away, but many others (like me!) have to train themselves to pump well, including lots of trial and error.  But lo and behold, I got much, much better at it over time! Here's today's 10 minute pumping session while I did online shopping: I didn't have to try very hard for this, and I could have pumped more if I'd wanted to (but Annika won't drink even this much at daycare, so I don't bother) I've posted this photo before, but here's my very first pumping session when Maya was about 6 days old, which took like 25 minutes and I cried the entire (painful!) time: Christmas Day, 2013: I