Lame-O

I wish I were a little less lame. If I were a little less lame I would have posted something in the last few months. Where am I at? Who knows. The Hellkat is easier to pinpoint. She's 11 months old today and I'm more than a little freaked that she's only 1 month away from the big UNO. She's such a big kid these days. She says "shoe" and possibly "George" and the usual Mama and Dada. She can woof woof and meow better than me. She gives big open mouthed kisses to the characters in her books, to the dog, sometimes to her parents. She's crawling and standing. She can tell me where my nose is. She's not sure about walking yet but we think it's coming soon. She dances like a rock star and responds to songs like "If You're Happy" at the right times with the right tricks. She throws her food and wrestles us when we want her to snuggle. She sleeps pretty well but wakes up a wee bit too early. She's a picky eater already, preferring pasta and cheese over everything else. She's still damn cute and yummy. We laugh a lot and hug a lot. She adores her dad.

Motherhood rocks. I wish I could do it a little more than I do. Soon we'll be switching daycare facilities and M. and I will each get a day at home with her during the week. I'm pretty excited to have a day alone with my little love. We'll do errands and go to the park. But, I'm supposed to be working from home that day and I'm not sure how that will work when all I want to do is hang with the kiddo. We'll see how it goes. It's much easier on our bottom line and I think the new daycare will be great. I'm going to try to do this more often and hopefully it'll be less dull.

Craptastica

It's been quite a week. It's not my intention to make this blog a bitchfest but I'm going through a rough patch so I don't really give a damn right now. Hellkat had a lovely little stomach virus last weekend that she, being the sweet little devil she is, passed along to her adoring mother. So, after spending one whole night awake and worrying about my projectile vomiting, dehydrating, sad sack of a daughter I got to spend one whole night awake projectile vomiting and dehydrating myself! We're recovered.

Also in the last week we tried giving the kidlet a little formula, which she sucked down so readily I thought she may never go back to the breast again. That Monday I sent some formula to school and dropped a pumping session at work, which was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. When I pick her up at daycare I learn that not only did she refuse the formula but she held a grudge against the woman that tried to feed it to her for the rest of the day. Back to the pump I go. We're sneaking small amounts of formula in but it'll be a much slower process than I thought.

Then we had a bunch of issues with our pediatrician's office. Many different doctors all on different pages. We've been happy until recently and maybe I'm overreacting but I'm pretty annoyed and don't think I'll be able to trust them again so I'm starting a search for a new pediatrician, which I really don't have much time for right now.

Now's the part where I promise that my next post will be more positive in tone.

Quitter Wanna Be

I have obsessive tendencies. Lots of them. One is an unhealthy affection for not stopping until I reach some sort of conclusion often coupled with an unhealthy affection for measuring my progress. For example, I rode a bicycle across the country and spent way too much time calculating the distance to and from home or whatever our destination was that day or estimate how much time it would take to get to the next pit stop if I maintained my speed. Thankfully, most activities have a natural conclusion. I couldn't ride a bike across the Atlantic. I can only get the toilet so clean. There are only so many episodes of Quantum Leap. You get what I mean.

So, here I am, 247 days from The Hellkat's birth and approximately 240 from my first pumping session. 240 days? I've probably averaged about 3 pumping sessions per day at about 20-25 minutes per session. That's 240-300 hours with my poor boobies attached to a milker. 10+ entire days of my life. I hate pumping. I hate that I know how many days I've spent pumping. I'd happily nurse my kid until college if I had to, but pumping is seriously getting me down. The problem: there's no natural conclusion. I keep make plans daily to start weaning myself from the pump and get the kid hooked on formula but I keep putting it off another day. I'm not even planning on quitting nursing mornings and nights. I even have a few weeks worth of boobcicle pops in the freezer. I don't think I'll be able to stop unless something happens to make me stop (drop in supply, loss of interest from Hellkat, broken pump).

I guess it's not such a terrible thing to keep pumping while I work this out in my head because my babe sure does appreciate it. But, if I'm still pumping in 4 months I seriously hope someone throws me an intervention. I'll bring the booze.

Here's The Hellkat telling the pump who's boss.