eight months

Such a happy boy in the morning :)

Our little man is eight months old today!!! His hair is getting so long it's going over his ears, so we're planning to take a family trip to get it cut this weekend :) He still just has the two teeth on the bottom, and in the crazy weeks since we moved to Iowa we managed to get him to sleep through the night! Can I get a hell-yeah~!!!

I'm really not sure how Dustin and I survived the past month without killing ourselves or each other. Honestly. I don't think I stopped to realize what we were doing at the time, but in the past month we've moved our household to a different state all while I was traveling and completely out of pocket for 3 weeks. Add two sick puppies to the mix (Chopper even had a barium swallow last week) and I'm lucky my husband hasn't packed his bags and left! One day I got a text from him that both Chopper and Jonah had puked on him already :/ He truly is a saint. Naturally I feel like the worst mom on the face of the earth for being gone SO much, but knowing this move was the best thing for our family will makes all the agony worth while. And it's OVER! I'm DONE traveling!!! Can I get a Hallelujah!!! 

Eight months already!?!

Yesterday was monumental in that I disinfected my pump to hand off to Dustin's sister when she's here next month. I'm DONE. Done. Done. Done. On a flight out of Jackson, Mississippi last week I was harassed by a complete idiot of a TSA agent. The conversation went something like this:

Him: "I just don't understand why you have milk if you don't have your baby"

Me: "Um...." (seriously?) "If I had my baby I wouldn't have any milk"

Him: "I just don't understand why you have milk- where is the baby?"

Me: "Well, you see, when you breastfeed you continue to make milk even when you're not with your baby" (do I need to spell it out for him?!)

Him: "Well I guess I don't know why you wouldn't just throw it out"

Me: "Throw it out?! THROW IT OUT?!? This is like liquid gold!  You don't throw it out!"

I'm already embarrassed going through security at the airport- I have to set my milk out for all to see, then follow the security officer carrying my black bag and milk in hand while s/he test the inside of the bag. Then they place the containers of milk on a magical machine which lets them know it's not explosives or something. I guess it's just having perfect strangers around me see my bodily fluids that makes me feel vulnerable-- add a moron questioning my motives to the mix and the tears flowed freely. Not in front of the said moron unfortunately.

Me and Jonah- reunited once again at the Cedar Rapids airport this time.

The good news is I have a happy airport story to share! I was attempting to get home from St. Louis last Friday- the last day of a very long week away from home including 6 flights and 3 different cities. Due to weather moving through the flights going out of STL were delayed, and I was going to end up in Detroit for the night, not getting home until 1pm on Saturday. I sheepishly asked if I could at least get my luggage since my breast pump was in there- (that reminds me I need to fill you in on how I attempted to stop pumping by leaving my black bag at home that week- NOT a good idea. I am now the proud owner of a manual breast pump which is what was in my suitcase). The Delta agent asked me where my baby was and I replied "at home- I haven't seen him in five days". Great big crocodile tears sprung from my eyes as the reality of that statement sunk in. She immediately got on the phone with her supervisor and rebooked me on a flight through Minneapolis, getting me home just two hours later than initially planned. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 

More good news: I finally was able to get my butt out of bed and start working out in the morning this past week! I'm SO happy about that. It's such a great feeling to have that out of the way first thing rather than have it interrupt your evening. Now that I'm done with travel I have a little weekly workout schedule figured out- including a Friday night Zumba class with the Grabe girls :D I'm pretty sure my scale is broken- the damn thing has been reading the same weight since my birthday- but I tried on some of my summer clothes and things are starting to fit again so hey- I'll take what I can get ;) xx

Life isn't fair

... is what my mom used to say. My brother and I just hated to hear that, although now I realize what a valuable lesson that really was. I can't help but wonder sometimes why life isn't a bit easier- today was one of those days. My dad had an appointment today- a routine check up following his partial glossectomy a few years back. They found spots on his vocal cords this time and he'll be back under the knife in a few weeks to have them biopsied. The procedure itself is of the outpatient sort, and they could find nothing at all. At least I live close-by again to be able to be with him before and after surgery since he is alone otherwise. I sure wish he didn't smoke among other things which are also hard on his throat. I cannot begin to express the heartache it causes me to think of my dad being anything but the invincible man I knew as a little girl. God please give me strength. xx

My Valentine

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iowa

Well we're here! I'm not sure which way is up in this sea of boxes, but we've officially arrived. I'm not going to lie it was extremely painful saying goodbye to the neighbors. Dylan broke my heart into a million little pieces and I kept apologizing to Felicia for moving.  

On the other hand you couldn't wipe the smile off my face if you tried as Jonah and I rolled into CR! :) Within just hours of my arrival we had our first house guests- Dustin's cousin and his wife stopped by with beer and take out. I'm looking forward to his step mom coming to watch Jonah today while we continue unpacking, and also a visit from my best friend Kristin. Saturday I'm invited to join a group of girls at the gym I used to go to for a Zumba class. I feel at home already and I haven't even been here for 24 hours~!

Jonah is definitely aware of his new surroundings and chose the move as the perfect time to develop separation anxiety. He woke up at 1am and was essentially unconsolable. After struggling for an hour or so we brought him into bed with us, where he cried unless he had a boob in his mouth. I'm really to wean now.

He is morphing into a little boy right before our eyes; I can't keep up with all the changes! His two bottom teeth are so cute and I think he may be working on more because we've had a few sleepless nights lately. He notices EVERYTHING. I've never had a baby before but I swear he is more observant than he should be at his age. He has a favorite TV show! The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse :) Whenever the "hot dog" song comes on his face lights up and he stays glued to the television. He can sit up on his own from laying down. He's getting the bye-bye wave down pretty well. He's added to his vocabulary and is saying "mamamama"; it won't be long before he's talking! He's not crawling yet but can really scoot all over the place.

We just got Jonah's photos back from his 6 month shoot. I wish I would've had some of them for Christmas cards! They're sooooooo great. I think I'm going to do something with them for Valentine's Day at least ;) I'm so addicted to photography and it doesn't help that I'm also obsessed with the subject.

twenty thirteen

Happy New Year~!  And a happy 7 month birthday to Mr. Jonah. So far in the past few weeks he is:

• Getting up on all fours and rocking
• teething :*(
• I'm pretty sure he's saying "hi" or "hey"
• obsessed with cups and loves to drink out of mine when we're out
• getting upset when I leave the room
• rolling on his belly every time we try to change his diaper, giving us a nice shot of his little tiny booty.
• enamored with technology. In fact he's watching me type right now like it's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. I'll bet he can't wait to get his gritty little paws on my ipad keyboard when we're watching Baby Einstein later today! 

I hope you had a safe and happy New Year's! xx

adventures in breastfeeding

Jonah is nearly 7 months old. In just the past week alone a tooth has broken the skin, he's able to get up on his haunches and rock back and forth, and is eating three meals of "real people food" a day. 

I was so hell bent on breastfeeding him from the get-go Dustin and I spent hours (and I mean HOURS) trying to get him to latch and even doing entire feedings using a curved tipped syringe while Jonah sucked on my finger. I wouldn't give up. I woke up with him every single night for every single feeding (except of course those times when I was out of town for work) because I was scared my supply would tank if I missed a feeding. Formula terrified me. I heard the horror stories and of course believed every one of them without doing an ounce of research. It's not that I judged women who formula fed (okay I'll admit I did judge the women that didn't even try to breast feed) I just didn't want it for my baby.

Then New Jersey happened. I pumped, and I pumped, and I pumped, and thanks to the guy working in the mail room one day my FedEx package didn't go out, so Dustin and Felicia were left without any breast milk to feed my munchkin. This happened to take place on the day of our 5 year wedding anniversary... in my third week of training. Needless to say I had a little meltdown. Well a medium one really. Dustin was angry in his oh-so-protective way. Angry that I did everything I needed to and it was someone else's mistake that screwed it all up. After I got over feeling so devastated  I began to feel... liberated. It dawned on me that it wasn't the worst thing in the world for my six month old to have formula once in a while. I had no idea how to mix it up, but of course Felicia did, and both of us had identical cans of free Similac they had shipped out at home. So Jonah had formula, and mommy had drinks :) 

I will feed him in a car!

We're back to exclusive breast feeding now- mainly because I'm home and it's easy, but Sunday I leave for Mississippi for Field Sales Training, and somehow my stock of frozen milk was 100% depleted this week. I'm over it. After getting home from New Jersey I didn't so much as touch my pump- I'm pretty sure I left my used parts in the ziploc bag. I dreamt my pump grew a tape worm, and the tape worm got under my toe nails...?!? Then I had to drag it to St. Louis for a day while I met with my new boss. He took me to his house where I met his sweet midwestern wife and we sat in the basement and did business planning all morning. It was such an intimate setting I was scared to say anything, but by 1100 my boobs felt like they were going to burst (Jonah's last feeding was at 0430 that morning). I had to excuse myself. As I sat in my new boss' bathroom pumping while he was just a few feet away I decided I'd had enough of the little black bag with a tape worm. My Mississippi training is with another gentleman and it's essentially job shadowing him day in and day out- I just don't want to deal with him waiting for me twice a day while I tend to my mommy business. 

I will feed him from afar!

It's pretty comical when I think of all the little binds my "mommy business" has gotten me into in the past 7 months. One of my first days back to work I was stuck in the OR for hours and hours- they were using my device and I couldn't leave- sure enough after about hour 4 my scrub shirt had two little wet circles on the front and I had to beg the circulating nurse for a jacket to cover up my lactating self. I've pumped (and breastfed) in more public bathrooms than I can count, including an airplane lavatory as it sat on the tarmac for hours. I wasn't the bravest of breastfeeding moms, but did do the duty in a restaurant while waiting for a table. I'm not sure how many hours Dustin and I have put sitting in the car- me in the back seat feeding Jonah and him in the front seat patiently waiting. Today Jonah ate while I sat on the floor of a Macy's fitting room (why they didn't have a chair was beyond me and it was one of those can't-get-the-boob-in-his-mouth-fast-enough kind of moments). 

One of the funniest moments of my whole life was at a bar in New Jersey. After spending 2 weeks with everyone in my training class my secret life of pumping was long out of the bag. Our Sales Development Managers planned a fun day of laser tag followed by a little congregating at a local pub. Good stuff~ except that it meant spending hours upon hours without access to my own car, or room, or the nice little "nurture space" the institute provided. A few beers in to the pub experience I had to go to the bathroom and pump. As I sat there I thought (as I often do) what a waste to dump out perfectly good- and nutritious- breast milk. My dogs weren't there to eagerly lap up my alcohol infested antibodies so I would be left to sadly dump it out. Then it dawned on me. I returned to the table to share my idea with Pai, one of my classmates from Miami, and he was game. I snuck off to the bar and ordered a shot of Bailey's, then back to the black bag to pour the Bailey's into one of my Medela bottles. I handed it to Pai and it seemed as if that yellow cap caught everyone's attention. Pai took the lid off, hesitated for a second and then took it down in one shot. Holy crap I thought people's eyeballs were going to pop right out of their heads. Looks of disbelief, disgust and distaste flooded their little faces, and our teacher got up from his seat and laid down on a bench across the room as if he was exasperated. I was laughing so. freaking. hard. I could barely talk, and only when Sal got up off the bench and began repeating over and over "HE DRANK YOUR BABY'S MILK!" did I fill him in that he had been punked. SO SO SO funny. 

My plan is to continue BFing morning and night, but not to pump anymore during the day. Of course since I'll be gone day and night for the rest of my training I'll still have to drag the damn tape worm infested bag with me, but it won't have to leave my hotel room at least :)

We wish you a Merry Christmas

I sure am thankful Jonah is too little to understand this whole Santa Claus thing. In my youth my parents didn't want to take away from the real meaning of Christmas, so I never believed. "Santa" would fill our stockings in the night, but we always knew who was behind that. This leaves me with no idea how any of this works! Does Santa wrap the presents? Does he get the big gifts or the smaller ones? Do the kids compare notes on which gifts Santa brought?

Needless to say we did not have Jonah's picture taken with Santa this year- although I'll admit I woke up on Christmas Eve in a bit of a panic, feeling like a bad Mom for not taking him. Unfortunately I also woke up with a sore throat and body aches, so we didn't even make it to candlelight service last night :( Poor Jonah got his first snotty nose for his first Christmas. Despite sounding like a COPD'er this morning I am feeling a bit better, so Santa best get a move on before the man in my life gets out of bed ;)

Merry Christmas to all! xx