Snowbound Herpetologist

I'm so excited about going to California in a month - and about the fact that it's 51°F outside right now(!!!!) - that Maya tried on some summer clothes this morning.  Here's our little Michigan cherry! A full length shot so you can see the fit - this is a 9mo outfit, yikes!

I'm going to whine just a little bit here, but I am not actually looking for solutions/sympathy - I just want to vent.  On my birth club message board, we call such ramblings "Dear Diary" posts. We have had two major challenges this week, one being that Maya's nighttime sleep has gone into the shitter - not that she was sleeping that well before - but for the past three nights, she's been up every hour between 10pm and 5am, and then napped in my lap (but only  in my lap, and only if I remain very still) all morning to make up for it.  The only good part about this is that all the extra nursing has been helping me resolve bad challenge #2, which is that I'm currently battling my 5th clogged milk duct in 10 days - quite the record for me!  Clogged ducts are bad enough on their own, especially the ones that plug right at the nipple (oh lord, the stabbing pain!), but my coworker just had one turn into a raging case of mastitis and then an ABSCESS in the space of...

Spontaneously, the three of us went out for dinner for the first time tonight, since we walked through downtown on the way home from work - and there were no meltdowns!  Then, once we got home, I had some extra milk on hand from this morning (I'm trying to get an extra 3oz per day), so husband fed her a bottle, I pumped again, and now I'm enjoying a wonderful beer as I'm *done* with feedings for the evening.  What a perfect night, we should do this more often :) Here are some photos, starting with a really sweet one that husband took of Maya and me the other morning.  My hair is a disaster, but I really love the composition on this one! For the record, she's in a snowsuit because it's super cold again today, and Maya and I walked to campus and back.  She fell asleep on the walk to dinner, and there was no way that I was going to risk waking her up by getting the snowsuit off of her!  But she overheats if we leave her in it when indoors, hence the unzipp...

Tummy to back, and only once - we couldn't get her to repeat it. But it's a start!! Also, we got our first house finch of the season on our feeder, so spring finally seems like more of a possibility! A pic from yesterday - Maya learning to chew on toys:

A few days late, but so it goes!  Here's a little update about Maya's progress over the last month :) I snuck into the pediatrician's office yesterday for a clandestine weight check, simply to get a 3 month data point for her (I can measure her length and head circumference on my own).  I also wanted to know her weight for my own peace of mind - my breastfeeding technique/schedule/ratio to pumping seems to change weekly (and sometimes change drastically) as I try to take cues from Maya herself, but that always leaves me wondering if she's not getting enough milk, or maybe not the best foremilk/hindmilk balance.  Not that she looks too skinny (although she doesn't look super fat either, especially when naked) or that she acts like she's starving, but she's the kind of baby that would literally nurse all day, every day if you let her…like, continuously, and not just during growth spurts, so she always acts like there's not enough boob in her day.  Plus, ...

It seems like short posts are all I get to do nowadays!  I have like three seconds while she *discovers* some things on her activity mat (this week's activities are "reaching" and "rolling"), while work things continue to stack up.  I feel inordinately proud of myself for accomplishing the following so far this morning - I won't tell you what (read: how much) is still left on the list, because it might make you cry: - reviewed my grad student's manuscript (while baby was still asleep) - nursed baby - got her down for mini nap - pumped (trying to get a tiny freezer stockpile completed, shooting for ~60oz, but I can only pump well after nights where she only wakes up twice to nurse.  If she's up more than that, it's not worth the work of washing the pump parts :)) - nursed again - emailed some pics to my mom - practiced rolling Anyway, the big news of the weekend is that she laughed for the first time yesterday - in response to her daddy ...

For your enjoyment :)

A *very* quick post while Maya naps...we're trying to teach her to fall asleep on her own (i.e., without yoga ball bouncing, baby wearing, swing, or nursing), and we've been successful a couple of times (although she does startle a lot).  Anyway, she's currently in the middle of a "self nap" now! Our trip this weekend was awesome.  Ohio was downright tropical, nearly 50°F with *no snow* on the ground.  It was the first time I've seen grass in over three months, and I felt like we went to Florida or something.  Maya was really quite well behaved for the 4 hour (each direction!) journey, with very little crying and no complete meltdowns - and I have now nursed at a number of service plazas along the Ohio Turnpike, lovely :) What we learned over the weekend: 1) Maya discovered how to make a new sound: screeching pterodactyl.  Use that voice, Maya! Husband likes to encourage the screeching. 2) We discovered that she *loves* TV.  Good thing we don'...

We'll be spending some time this weekend with husband's parents, which is going to be super fun! We really will try to take photos this time, promise :) Here's Maya trying on some of her 6 month sized clothes - and she's currently 11 weeks old!  Would you believe that even with a fat baby, I *still* worry incessantly that she's not getting enough to eat :)

It took us until this morning to actually get around to applying (husband, baby, and I all had to be there in person), but here's her photo!  Husband called it "her first mugshot" :) Chipmunk cheeks!

I only have a second to post - soooo much to do today and sooo cold (making everything harder to accomplish!!!) - but I wanted to mark a special day!  On March 1st, 2013, I took my very last birth control pill, full of hopeful excitement about what might come to pass - and feeling a slight bit of naughty danger, I must confess :)  Twenty days later, I was pregnant! A very blurry, but happy, selfie taken last March 1st of me holding my last BCP.  Well, last for 2013, anyway. Here we are a full year later, and there's no way that I could ever have properly anticipated how different my life has become.  Happy changes, mind you, but changes nonetheless :)  Here's to another March 1st, this time spent cuddling with my two girls in a warm (but very unmade!) bed! March 1, 2014 - Abby in the foreground camouflaging herself on the dark blue blanket! What shall next March 1st bring, I wonder...?