seven months old

dear jude,

this week you turn seven months old. we forge bravely ahead into the realm of month eight.  this week has been a sudden and big week of firsts.



last week you crawled your first crawl and every moment since then you move faster, go further.  you're suddenly quite a busy little person with places to go and people to meet.   your babysitter jokes about putting a swiffer on you so you can do some cleaning as you roam.

tonight, just before bed, i waved at you and you raised your chubby little hand and flapped right back at me.

last weekend, you signed quite desperately to dad for milk! milk! in baby sign language.  we're close so close! to maybe knowing more about what's going on in that quietly grinding gearbox.



you are ever the quiet zen watcher.  absorbing everything like a sponge.



from the beginning the whole mama thing was aok.  but let me tell you, it gets better every month that goes by.  it feels right.  it's really... fun, being your mama.  at least most of the time.

we lay together in the quiet parts of the morning on our bellies with our faces snuggled so close and for a few minutes we rest before it's OFF AGAIN, crawling up and around and into the corner and over the pillow and laughing and laughing.



yep. seven months is good.  eight will be better.

love,
mama

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lest you think i'm some kind of breastfeeding guru

i enjoy writing about breastfeeding and i've waxed eloquent about it around here quite often lately.  these posts {probably} make me sound like i know what i'm doing.  and to some extent i do, trust me i read and read and read and read about it.  but they also make me sound so... reasonable and balanced about it.  as jon could probably tell you, nothing is further from the truth.

a few years ago jon and i were still living downtown and experiencing a lot of gun violence in our neighborhood.  i was researching the crappy apartment building across the street and somewhere came across the name cabrini green.  {cabrini green was a public housing complex in chicago which in the 80's and 90's was one of the most dangerous in the nation}  i took a passing interest in it and i spent the next three weeks reading every possible scrap of information i could get my hands on, including a 300 page statistical safety report.  if i've ever mentioned to you that i'm "interested" in something, by "interested" i probably mean i've read obsessively about it and could write a twenty-page paper on it from memory. 

–did i mention i'm crazy?  "reasonable" is NOT my middle name.

immediately after writing those pumping at work series posts guess what happened?  thursday i only went home with 7 ounces.  my first session that day i got TWO OUNCES.  friday i pumped four times and went home with 10.  not enough for a full day for the very hungry jude.  and not what i'm used to at all.

i cried.

true story.  i'm not sure if it's because i've been quite sick recently or if it was related to my 5 days off work (and off pumping) but... commence the freaking out.  mostly only in my head but freaking out all the same.

so this weekend i pumped every. single. hour.  every hour.  i'm fairly certain jon thought i was out of my mind.  however jude was not thrilled to go in for a snack and find out that it had been poached a hour before by some damn machine.  the final straw came in the afternoon when he was fussing and fussing and jon was holding him.  we were discussing if he might be hungry vs. tired and as jude was wildly thrashing around in jon's arms he was squeezing his little hand open and closed. open and closed.

the sign for MILK!  {which we have been dutifully showing him at every feeding since forever}

oh, poor little hungry the jude. i'm sorry.

after that the pump was abandoned for the rest of the weekend and jude went back to being perfectly zen.  his beloved foods were his and his alone to consume at his discretion.  today back at the office i'm planning to pump four times a day, all week, to see if i can get things back to normal.  i even threw one of his little shirts in my bag this morning to smell and hold and love.  i've heard that can help ladies along with their production and i figured oh, what the hell.  it can't hurt.  so a few minutes ago i got all set up to pump and got the shirt out and kept thinking, "man, this shirt really smells like bananas.  why does my baby's shirt smell like bananas?  blech.  not helping.  ...man, i hate bananas."  now, my baby does not normally smell like disgusting banana candy.  he usually smells like... warm, and soft, and milk, and fuzz.

...but guess who brought a banana for lunch today in her bag, huh, huh?
grumbles fail.

it's hard to tell how it's going so far, we'll see at the end of the day.  the most important thing is just to do it! and do it more! smoke signals for MORE MILK PLEASE!

this is just to say to you, dearest reader,
that i have felt more fallible, more human.  that for all my nursing primers, i'm still reduced to tears when things go awry.  that for all my knowledge the posts you seem to love best are the ones where i talk about what a crazy freak i am.

i can haz crazy and i don't know what i'm doing at all.

cheers,
grumbles
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happy easter, friends

we went to an easter egg hunt in our local park yesterday, and then i took 10,000  pictures of flowers and bees.  the end.

more flowers and bees here, if you're interested.

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fine. here.

get your mini baby photo fix, more to come:

oh, the jude. you dastardly charmer.

my heart is all a-flutter over this boy.

make your weekend a good one.

the grumbles primer on pumping at work (part three, the final chapter)

if you need to catch up here's part one: the logistics of it all
and part two: when where how often how much

today- how to keep going on and on day after day despite how incredibly inconvenient and embarrassing this can be when your company makes you to go a team-building exercise and you have to pump at a bowling alley.  or, as i prefer to call it, your pumping morale.

truly, the hardest part of pumping at work is... pumping at work.  i would much rather stay at my desk and keep working, especially when it's a busy day and i'm crunched for time and juggling 3,000 things at once.  to drag myself away from my desk every 3 hours has taken some practice and dedication.  the balance between getting your shit done and feeding your kid is hard to find.  but it was a decision i made that was important enough to me to commit to a certain amount of inconvenience.

i've written pretty extensively about how embarrassing i find pumping.  the time i was walked in on in the bathroom or the ode to the pumping life i've written, for example.  hooking yourself up to a machine to be milked is pretty damn disheartening.  but let me explain it this way- i like breastfeeding when i'm at home so much that i'm willing to put up with how much this part of it (quite literally) sucks.  some days it feels like a huge compromise that i have to make just to feed the kid and i majorly resent it.  most days i just stare off into space and get the job done so i can go back to... getting the job done.  breastfeeding is something that i can be proud of.  it's natural, blah blah.  pumping? not so much.

on days when i'm feeling downtrodden i try to think about the fact that this is a choice.  i don't have to and no one is making me.  it's a choice i made because i thought it was best for our family, and i still do, so damn it girl, stick with it.  i can stop whenever i want and it's my decision to continue.  the only person inconveniencing me is me.  it helps that i can't blame someone else on those woe-is-me days.  plus i do feel proud that i've been able to provide for my baby and that helps too.  basically it's like any other chore that i don't particularly like doing- i still have to do it anyway so either get over it or stop.

i'm not one of those moms who judges other moms for how they feed their baby.  formula? pumping? breastfeeding? i don't care! chances are all our kids are going to be just fine no matter what option you choose.  i've chosen to breastfeed because it came pretty easily and because i like it.  you do whatever you want and be proud about it.  but- i do think moms who pump long-term deserve a pat on the back.  because man, it is so hard to keep going.  it's a time commitment, embarrassment factor, and overall really... GAH!  annoying!  so many days it feels like a thankless job.  it's easy to get frustrated with all the washing and cleaning and constant worry about supply and demand and worry about your job and just throw in the towel.  but it is possible to keep going.  as long as you want to.  and when you decide you're done? throw yourself a party and don't think twice about it.

pumping moms, your baby can't say thank you.  so i'll say it for them: thank you!  the choice you're making isn't the only option.  you aren't trapped.  but it is a valuable choice and you deserve our support.

now, it's that time again...

next up part four- there's trouble ahead, pumping technical issues and supply problems

this series is complete- quick! skip to:   part one  |  part two  |  part three  |  part four


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ta-ta-ta-trouble is coming...

this happened yesterday.  all of a sudden.  ready?

trouble from the grumbles on Vimeo.