Glasses!

This summer Peter and his mom thought we should take Nate to the eye doctor because he had a hard time focusing on things that were far away. And Peter had a 10+ year old prescription that he figured should be updated, so I figured we might as well send them both to my eye doctor. Well, turns out Nate is actually a little far-sighted! So the doctor suggested that he gets some glasses to wear when reading, playing video games, etc. He's not so far sighted that he needs to wear them all the time, but enough that we want to take this route and hopefully he will grow out of it in the next couple years.

He's such a big boy now! And so excited about his new glasses! He really wanted the round ones (I think because the characters in all of the books that he reads wear round glasses) but they were either too small or too big. So we got him excited to choose his color. He loved the red! And he actually does a pretty good job of wearing them when he is supposed to.

Peter also got a new prescription. The doctor just told him to wear them all the time for the first few weeks and then he cold wear them until he got a little more used to them. I don't think he's there quite yet, but he's doing pretty well. He was kind of upset because he had been the only one of his siblings that didn't have to wear glasses. Not anymore - I guess this is what getting older looks like!

Newbies - they don't look at all alike, do they?

 So now we all wear glasses! Well, except Mia, and we will just keep our fingers crossed about her!

One Year!

One Year stats
Height:  29.75” (60^th percentile)

Weight:  19lbs 10oz (40^th percentile)

Happy girl!

Hair: Still red, still commented on. We even got some warning from other non-ginger parents of a ginger, that it will continue well into the school age years. It’s getting longer though, and thicker. One of her doctors even commented on how she has more hair than a lot of other kids her age. Too bad she doesn’t like me put anything in it! Her teachers like to call her “Brave” after the girl from the movie Brave (they couldn’t remember her name) and “Pippi”. I guess they think her personality fits her hair.

Teeth: She got one more tooth on the top, but that second tooth on the top is causing us some major problems! It has been on the verge of breaking through for what seems like months! Just come out!

Eating: She is still a big eater! She seemed to be getting a bit of a Buddha belly so we were worried she had gained a few pounds since we were last at the doctor’s office (a couple weeks ago), but obviously that is not an issue. Her daycare has said that she out eats everyone, and that they wish all of their kids would eat like her.

Sleeping: This has been a bit of an issue. We started out OK, but then something came up, and something else came up, and we were just so tired that we just wanted to sleep… But last night we started again and today at the doctor we got some good pointers for ways to get her to not associate going to sleep with feeding and hopefully that will make her sleep a little longer.

Walking: She started walking right around 10 months and never looked back! She can kind of run when she really wants to, and is on stable ground. When she started daycare, and when it started getting colder, she had to start wearing shoes and she doesn’t seem to mind them too much unless they are hard soles when her method of walking has to change.

Talking: She is definitely saying “Mama” and “Dada”. Sometimes she says variations like “Mommy” or “Mom”, etc. Other than that it is hard to say. Sometimes she repeats things that sound exactly like something you just said, or very close to words that would be an appropriate response to a question you just said. My brother could have sworn she said “cup” when we were in New Jersey. At the doctor’s office today she wanted to get down and walk around (of course) and it sounded almost exactly like she said “No, let me go!” So, who knows; some of it may be real, some of it may be a parent’s wishful thinking, but our doctor did say she thought she was advanced in her talking skills. And at the very least she most definitely understands a lot of what we are saying and responds accordingly.

Daycare: Mia started daycare the Monday after Thanksgiving. We found out at the beginning of November that Peter’s mom (through doctor’s orders) is no longer able to pick up the kids. So Mia for sure is no longer able to stay with Jack and Dianne on a full time basis. We signed her up in a daycare that we had looked at last year when we were looking for part-time stuff for Nate. We liked them, but they don’t have a part time option. Our school district contracts with them for Pre-K and the Pre-K director says they are really great, and they have a five (out of five) star rating, so they come well recommended. We looked at the Infant room and the Wobbler (young Toddler) room, and knew since she was so close to her birthday, is so smart and was already walking, that we should just go ahead and start her in the Wobbler room. When we first started we were kind of unsure about it. We got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but I think a lot of that was just not knowing exactly what we were supposed to do every day for pick up and drop off, but it got better pretty quickly. Now her teachers (and pretty much everyone else that works there) just love her. They always tell us how they wish they had a class full of Mias. She hasn’t been there for almost three weeks because I was on vacation for the first two, and Peter is on vacation most of this week, and her teacher has texted us multiple times asking when their Mamma Mia is going to be back. I’m sure they do this for everyone to make the parents feel like their kids are loved, but I like to think that they really mean it for my little girl!

Nate: As usual it is up and down between these two. He really seems to like all of her new Christmas and birthday toys, but he doesn’t always want to share them with her.  But there are some sweet points. He has really liked feeding her the past couple months (even though she can mostly feed herself), and he just likes to look after her. When he’s not pushing her down anyway.

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I cannot believe that it has been one full year with this little girl! Parts of it seemed to go by super slow (see my pumping post), but in general it has gone by crazy fast. She really does seem to be the perfect (final) addition to our family and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here, and who she grows to be.

We made it! Well, mostly.

My plan from the day I decided to not work for two weeks around Christmas was that when I came back to work after my vacation, I would no longer pump. We would have passed Mia's one year mark, and I really feel like I have given up enough of my own free time! So, walking back into work today I no longer felt like the bag lady I've felt like for the past year. I didn't have to bring my pump, and since I am not giving up my lunch hour I didn't have to bring a bag full of lunch and snacks to get me through the day. Of course, it felt a lot like this the week before I went on vacation as well.

When I had strep throat two weeks before Christmas, I still attempted to pump, that was the only reason I woke up the first day, but my body must have had different ideas. The first day I was only able to pump about 4 oz and the next day I only got two. She usually drinks two bottles of 4-6 oz each during the day while I'm at work, so that was not going to get her through. Since we had blown through what little stash I had been able to amass and we were only two weeks away from her birthday I decided to cut myself some slack and go ahead and introduce her to milk during the day for that last week of work.

It was amazing! It actually came in pretty handy given that it was the week before Christmas and I had been out of commission for most of the previous week. I was able to run errands, come home, clean, wrap... do whatever I wanted! I had my life back! I never realized how much I was missing until I got that free time back. What a difference an hour makes. I have big plans for that hour going forward. I didn't do much with it before Mia came... When I was pregnant I would sometimes take a nap. But now that two kids just makes everything a little harder to manage, it will be nice to actually have some "free" time to do those things.

My sister-in-law suggested that I make a kind of guide to pumping at work post in case it would be helpful to other people. I do not claim to be an expert at all, but I will just make some lists here that others can take what they want from.

Things that helped me:
1. My body - I think I'm just lucky to have a body that is pretty happy to produce milk. As much as I don't like most aspects of my body, that is one thing it does right! (That and the no morning sickness thing!)
2. Supportive boss - My boss breastfed each of her kids 18 months plus, so she was very supportive of my plight.
3. Flexible work schedule - I was able to work my pumping schedule around the needs of my body and Mia's hunger and not my work schedule (most of the time). I was also able to take some extra time on days when I really just needed to do something with my lunch other than pump, or if I wanted to be included in our monthly birthday lunches.
4. A good pump - I started with the pump I had used with Nate. I think in the 2 years between pumping for Nate and pumping for Mia one of the sides stopped working, and it never worked that great to begin with. Well, did you know you can use FSA money to pay for breast pumps and supplies? Well, you can! And I did! I got a great pump that did both sides at once with great power. The difference on the very first day was amazing!
5. Fenugreek - Come month 9 my supply started to drop dramatically (only when pumping - supposedly this is pretty normal), and this corresponded with trying to store up for a 3 day conference. So I started taking fenugreek and added one late-night pumping session for two weeks to build up my stash. I could tell the difference almost instantly.
6. Conviction - I think this was really the most important thing. I constantly had people saying how impressed they were that I kept going as long as they did. And I do feel pretty good about myself, but if I didn't REALLY want to do it, I could have stopped at many points throughout the year. Even people who were generally supportive sometimes did things that weren't always in the best interest of continued pumping, but I had to work hard to push through.

Things I didn't like:
1. Time suck - I really missed my free time! And always felt bad that I had to make other people go on the Starbucks runs.
2. Nipple soreness - Yeah, just... yeah. Sometimes were worse than others, but it's really not the most pleasant experience.
3. Publicizing a private thing - There was no way around it, everyone in my office knew exactly what I was doing when I was in that conference room. Luckily most of them are women and got used to it, but on the few occasions I had to ask other people if I could use their offices it could get a little awkward.
4. No set space for pumping - I was able to use the same room about 85% of the time, but it was a conference room that was sometimes in use when I wanted to pump, so I had to go in search of an empty office or hope someone was out to lunch. During conferences and workshops I had to spend my lunch hour in Nurses or Guidance Counselor offices and hotel rooms. Luckily no one ever minded me using their space for that purpose! (See #3.)
5. Mommy guilt - The times during the year that I wasn't able to keep up (a couple days during the first couple months) or when I was afraid I wouldn't be able to, I really started to make myself feel bad about it. And even cried. Whatever benefits it gives Mia and me, it is not worth the guilt! Luckily, I got over that just in time!

Things I will miss:
1. Reading - That was what I did while I pumped, so I read a lot of books last year! I'm going to have to find a way to keep that up this year.
2. My cow magnet - My boss had a cow magnet on the door to the conference room that I used to hang up my "Do Not Disturb" sign. I didn't think about it at first, but really loved that kind of in-the-know haha.

So, I'm done with pumping. It was very hard at times, but I am so glad that I kept it up for as long as I did, and so lucky that I was able to. As of right now I don't have any plans to wean Mia beyond the mid-day feedings. I will still nurse for her morning and night time feedings, but I will take her lead and if she starts to show less interest, or I get to my breaking point, then we can call it quits. At this point I have reached my goal. We made it!