Feeding issues, new tricks, and a haircut!

I realize I haven't written any actual news since January. Sorry, blog readers - I've been lazy. So here's what's been happening with Romelie and her parents in the last few weeks.

After the stomach flu, Romelie and I started having a few breastfeeding issues. It started with low milk supply (which I blamed on the flu - being a bit dehydrated and undernourished). Then Romelie had a couple nights where she wanted to feed literally from 4:30 when I picked her up from daycare until 9:30 when she went to bed. Very stressful, but we later realized that it was probably just a growth spurt.

Then she started this weird latch-unlatch thing. She would latch, suck for about 2 seconds, then unlatch. I once counted - 15 times before she latched on and stayed. Very frustrating for both of us, because the milk was there; but she was being so weird about it. I don't know if she didn't like it for whatever reason...still don't get that one. She did that for about a week. I even took her to a La Leche League meeting (boy, was that a strange experience - nothing like a bunch of women sitting around in a circle talking and nursing their kids). No really helpful suggestions, but she seems to be done with that, so I guess it's okay.

Now, we're back to low milk supply. She eats more at daycare than she used to, and I'm making a little less milk than I used to, so the combination of the two means I'm short 3-4 ounces every day. My options are (A) pump in the evening after she goes to bed, then pump again after her middle-of-the-night feeding; between the two, I get about 3 ounces, so she's got enough milk for the next day, but it also means pumping at 3 AM. Not so fun. Option (B) is that I pull some of the stored milk from the freezer. I do this when I have to (when I just don't get enough milk), and as a result, I'm down to 8 "emergency" bags (I had 20-25 just three weeks ago).

We're still formula-free, but I intend to stay that way. So I've talked with a lactation nurse and I'll be talking with Dr. Mitchell on Wednesday, and I'm hopefully going to start taking some herbs that might help, and we'll see what we can do.

To talk about something other than breastfeeding...Romelie had her first professional photos taken yesterday. They're awfully cute. We pick them up on Wednesday, so I'll post shortly thereafter, but in the meantime, here is a non-professional-but-still-adorable photo that I took recently; hopefully it'll tide you over.

She's done a few new things in the last few weeks. She's starting to do better with "tummy time" - it used to be that she'd get really frustrated and cry when I put her on her belly, but Jen (daycare) has been putting her on her stomach for a bit longer each day, and she can now do about 10 minutes before she starts getting upset. Not bad - she may learn to crawl yet! She also makes buzzing sounds with her mouth. She did that a lot when she first figured it out last week. She can hold onto things for as long as she finds them interesting, but eventually gets tired of the object and lets go. And she managed to roll from her back onto her side at the LLL meeting a couple weeks ago - twice, so I know it wasn't an accident - but I haven't managed to get her to do it again. Ah well.

Friday we went to visit Chason at work. It's official - Romelie is super cute. People claimed she looks like me (I still don't see it), but Chason says it's just because she doesn't have a beard.

Also, we are regular church attendees now - every Sunday, we go with Crystal to the Corner Church near downtown Mpls. She loves the music, sits very well for the first have of the sermon, and generally wets herself and cries during the second half. The nice thing is, Corner Church is in a coffee shop - so I can just go to the couches in the back, change and nurse her pretty discreetly, and not miss the rest of the service. She's the only baby there, so I feel a little self-conscious at times, but the people are really friendly and seem to like her. I'm enjoying getting to church again, and it's a relaxed environment for Romelie.

Oh - and I got a haircut! Not news for normal people, but it was my first haircut since September, so I was pretty gosh-darned excited.

I know there's more, but this is a super long post, so I'll save it for later. Love to all.