Happy birthday Chason!

I'm a bit late in typing this entry. It's been brewing.

Chason's birthday was April 10, and his mom and Aunt Karen came for a visit! We had a great time with these fun ladies, and Romelie Ann enjoyed meeting her Great Aunt for the first time. If you haven't already seen it, check out the video of them serenading Romelie during her breakfast. It's fabulous.

Also, on April 11, Romelie had a bonus well-baby checkup just to check her weight and height and see if she's now eating enough. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (drum roll) rrrrrrrrr - 16 pounds, 2 ounces! And 28 inches long. So she's back up to 90% for weight, which is where she used to be and therefore where she's supposed to be. Yay, Metoclopram! And we'll be starting her on her first solids in about a week, which should be fun for all. Go, rice cereal and breastmilk. Appetizing.

I'm keeping it short cause she's been napping for about 25 minutes now, and her weekend naps usually only last about 30...so I will compensate by adding a new video - Romelie driving. And only 5 months old. I'm telling you, she's advanced.

Dinner Theater

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Remember the movie "A Perfect Storm?" That movie pissed me off. Because they said at the beginning that it was based on a true story. And then (spoiler alert) everyone on board the ship dies. So the only part of the story that was true was that a ship went out, there was a big storm, and it never came back. But all the crap about them catching tons of fish and then their ice maker breaks and that's why they come back despite the storm and all the other adventures are all made up. True story, my bottom.

Well, we had our own little perfect storm this weekend (having nothing to do with my tangent above). The plan was simple. On Saturday, I had to teach in St. Cloud (about 90 minutes away in the direction of my mom and John's place, for those non-Minnesotan readers), so I figured I'd bring Romelie along. My mom could watch her while I was teaching, then we could drive the last two hours to Menahga, spend the night at the cabin, and then return to Minneapolis sometime Sunday.

Here's what REALLY happened.

Saturday night, there was a huge snowstorm in Menahga. For the record, no snow fell in Minneapolis. None. By 10:00 pm, the power had been knocked out and I was changing Romelie's diapers and feeding her by candlelight. Good times. By Sunday morning, power was back, but Romelie was sick. Fever, cough, the works. She'd been a bit fussy Saturday, but now she was sick, and I hadn't thought to bring Infant Tylenol for a 24-hour trip. So my mom had to drive 20 miles through 2 feet of snow to get medicine from Walmart. Meanwhile, the snow kept falling - we were not going to be driving back that day. I called in to my boss and left a message saying that I'd be out Monday. Romelie kept whimpering all day cause she didn't feel well and didn't know how to cough the phlegm out of her lungs - pretty pitiful to see. But I took a picture anyway.

Monday morning, snow finally stops - and the van gets stuck in the mud for an hour. I call to check my cell phone messages to learn that my boss hadn't gotten my voicemail and no one at The Bakken knows where I am. Awesome.

We finally get on the road at 3:00 and are home by 6:30. The only blessing is that Romelie sleeps the whole way home. Oh, by the way...it's my mom's birthday. Which she spent digging a van out of the mud and driving 3-1/2 hours. Good times.

That was my series of unfortunate events. Now Romelie is mostly better, but she hasn't been sleeping well for the past 2 weeks, which means I haven't been sleeping well, which means every day I get crankier and crankier. It was totally understandable when she was sick, but now that she's mostly better - I just want her to stop waking up 3-4 times a night. Too much.

On a better note, we got to see some old friends last week - we visited CLIMB on Thursday and had lunch with Shad and James, and saw some former CLIMBers on Friday night at a coffee shop near Uptown.

Can't wait to see Gramma Diane and Great Aunt Karen tomorrow!! Be warned: it's supposed to snow this weekend. You may THINK you're leaving on Sunday...

Happy Easter! (yesterday)

Romelie’s last feeding was at about 11:00 last night. I woke up (well, she woke me up) at 6:30 this morning, and I was totally ENGORGED. So much milk was my body producing, it was literally painful. And I’m not complaining – I’m gloating. This Metoclopram has worked so much better than I ever hoped. It’s awesome not to have to worry about my milk supply, whether or not I’m underfeeding Romelie (especially since, apparently, I was), or feeling like I need to ration-feed her so we have some milk left for later. I now have an ABUNDANCE of milk. Take that, same time last week! In your face, 75% weight to 97% length! Look out, 3-6 month clothes, cause I’m about to fatten up my baby! (Insert inspirational Rocky-theme-like music here)

Enough of that craziness. With any luck, you won’t have to read about my breasts for a while, so hey – added bonus.

We had a fabulous Easter. Romelie got to do a little search for her Easter presents (see picture of her finding one of her presents), then we went to church, had lunch at my dad’s (and got to take home leftovers…yummy ham sandwiches for lunch…), and Chason and I went on two – count ‘em, TWO – dates this weekend! Saturday night we went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern place by our house called Shiraz, and Sunday night we saw “Jane Eyre” at the Guthrie (thank you, babysitting Gramma Carol). Don’t worry, we spent plenty of time playing with the baby, too.

4-month check-up, and more on breasfeeding

Romelie had her 4-month check-up yesterday. She did not like having her ears looked at – she refused to turn her head, so Dr. Mitchell had to pretty much force it to the side, causing her to scream and cry so loudly that nurses came it to see if we needed help! She chilled out a bit, even started smiling, and was rewarded with her 4-month immunizations. Needless to say, we had a cranky baby on our hands for the rest of the night. She has not slept well the last two nights, either, which means Chason and I haven’t slept well, either. We’ll see if she does better tonight.

The only news of concern is that she’s a bit underweight. Not underweight exactly – she’s still in the 75% for babies her age – but she’s in the 97% for length, and she was in the 90% for weight two months ago (by the way, she's 27" long, and 14 lbs 12 oz). So she’s not gaining weight as well as she should. Which means she’s not eating enough. Which I was afraid of. So now I feel a bit guilty that I’m starving my baby (yes, I know I’m being melodramatic, she’s not starving…but when she cries at the end of a feeding because she’s still hungry, I know that she is, genuinely, still hungry, so I feel even worse that I have nothing left to give her). The fenugreek supplement I was taking didn’t work, so now I’m taking Metoclopram which is usually prescribed for things like reflux and ulcers, but apparently sometimes boosts milk supply in breastfeeding mothers. I can’t tell if it’s doing anything yet, but I’ve only been on it for 2 days, so we’ll see. But if this doesn’t work, as Dr. Mitchell said, we haven’t come to the absolute bottom of our bag of tricks, but we’re getting pretty close.

I feel annoyed, though. Not at anyone in particular, just annoyed. Breastfeeding is supposed to be this amazing mind-body connection where the body makes milk, and then the baby eats it, so the breast tells the brain that it’s empty and the brain tells the breast to make more. And if it’s constantly making too much, it tells the brain to make less, and if it’s making too little, it tells the brain to make more. But for some reason, my brain to tell my body that it only needs to make 24 ounces of breastmilk a day. Period. And even through the baby crying and the mom stressing and the conscious mind telling the body that it needs to make more, the brain is simply not getting the message. Or maybe it is getting the message, but it’s not bothering to pass the message on to the body. Or maybe it’s the body that’s just ignoring the message. Or something else stupid. So cross your fingers or say a little prayer for me, because I would hate to go 4 months with breastfeeding and then have to start supplementing with formula this late in the game.

For fun, though, I finally have those pictures from her ProEx photo session. They’re pretty cute, though I’d probably go with a different photographer in the future (we didn’t get to set up any of these shots or have any say in them, so they’re super generic…but dang, she’s just so photogenic!).

March madness

I was watching "Lost" yesterday (we recorded it), and there was a scene where Sun, one of the characters, was in labor. They gave her some morphine, but basically, it was a natural childbirth. The doctor said she needed a c-section, but then he went, "The baby's crowning. You need to push NOW." She was screaming and grunting and pushing and it was awful to watch...and then, LITERALLY 30 seconds later - POP! Out came the baby.

Whatever, TV. That's all I have to say. Whatever.

Anyway...Romelie has her 4-month well baby visit today, so I figured I would write now, and then I would have brand new information to urge me to write another blog tomorrow rather than waiting three more weeks. So here's what's new.

Beginning of March, Romelie and I drove up to visit my mom and John (with my mom...we didn't have to make the drive on our own). She's a bit older than the last visit, so we brought her into the duck house to say hi to the ducks. The rooster crowing startled her a bit, but she seemed interested. No touching ducks yet - someday. And she went for a little ride on her fake horsey. Good times were had.

Romelie has also been back to The Bakken. On Saturday, she and I went to our school partnership Celebration Day (big free party for the schools we work with). She got to watch an Aztec dance group perform and was fascinated by all the noise and colors, so I asked one of the dancers if she would take a picture with us. She even let Romelie wear a piece of her costume that normally goes around her leg as a headdress. Can anyone say cute?

And we put together another piece of baby equipment. This is her rainforest exersaucer - seriously, I'M overstimulated by this crazy contraption. Romelie loves it (in small doses so far - she's not quite big enough to go nuts in it, so I don't want to overexpose her to it yet).

And work has finally slowed down for Chason and me, so we'll be a little less stressed in general. Couple that with the weather finally starting to improve (though it did snow a bunch last night, it's already starting to melt), and Spring is looking positive and hopeful.

That's the latest. I'll write more after Romelie's check-up.

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.