Working Out

This work thing might not be so bad after all.

I had my first day back at work on Tuesday.  It went ok.  Things there haven't really changed, so that's nice.  It was hard to go, and I was a little teary for the first hour or so, but I did ok.  More importantly, so did Haydon.  He was a little clingy James said, and bed time was rough, but he hadn't slept well the night before, so he may have been that way anyway because he was tired.  I took my pump, pumped a bit after dinner (I work afternoon shifts, 1-9 or 3-11), and all was well.

Today's my second shift.  And, as much as I wasn't a huge fan of working afternoons and missing out on bedtime, there are definitely perks to working afternoons.  Like the fact that I've spent all day with my boys!  I was able to hang out a load of laundry, bath my kiddo, go for a walk with my main men, have a nice lunch, and put Haydon down for both of his naps.  He starts bedtime around 6, so, really, I'm only going to miss about 3 hours of his day.  AND he finally accepted a bottle, so James is able to give him milk before bed, and, there's not much to worry about!  I'll be able to spend a big chunk of the day with him, James will be able to work on school assignments while I'm around, and everything's gonna be a'ight.

That's a relief!

In other news...I've gone almost a whole week without buying stuff, kinda, sorta.  Ok, it was Saturday last week that we binged.  And tomorrow's Saturday.  And we're going to the Locke Street Festival tomorrow, so I really shouldn't be touting my success just yet.  And, the more I think about it, there have been some purchases this week.  We bought Haydon some jammies at Little Bird, 'cause sleepers are on sale right now and he's grown out of most of his.  And we bought him a winter hat, 'cause he'll need one of those (both legitimate, I'd say)...but we also bought some shirts 'cause they were just too darn cute to leave behind.  The other thing I bought was breast pads.  I've been trying not to, 'cause I have lots of reusable ones, but this is one area where I can't say I've found a reusable product that performs as well as the disposable.  I've tried.  Many times.  Like this week, the day I had the interview, when I noticed as I was heading out the door that I'd leaked through the wool pad, my bra, and my shirt.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  And, James really wanted pizza last night.  He bought it for us from his allowance, but it ended up costing more than he'd expected, and I'm a sucker, so I think we'll go halfsies with him.  Oh yeah.  There was also that ice cream maker James bought off kijiji.  He's such a nut.

Finally, next week I'm going join Bible Study Fellowship International again, and I'm so excited!  I went to BSF when I was in university, and really enjoyed it's approach to studying the Bible.  Really looking forward getting back into it again.

Have a lovely weekend!  Check out the Locke Street Festival tomorrow - should be a great time!  Haydon and I will be at the La Leche League's booth, helping with the boobie bake sale... :P

Extreme Breastfeeding

This post just may be "too much information" for those of you who don't breastfeed/don't want to hear about it.  You've been warned.

Haydon has recently embraced "The Pounce," which is absolutely hilarious.  When he gets up in the morning (if it's not ridiculously early and just one of us is getting up with him), he comes into our bed and we wake up slow together.  He crawls around and plays, pulls on his dad's chest hair, then will come rocketing over and dive-bomb my chest.  Or he'll crawl over, push his legs into a standing position and face plant onto a boob.  Then practice his standing up, with his bum going up and down, as he nurses.

The other day he was less interested in nursing, and more interested in playing, and as he crawled around he put a hand on my very full breast...and squirted his dad, a good 3 feet away, in the face.  He's also very good at  "The Pop and Spray" resulting in a high-powered stream that gets all over his face and clothes.

Ah, the joys.

Hey, Mom

Came across this great breastfeeding site today, and figured I'd share it since it's World Breastfeeding Week, after all.

http://www.breastmilkcounts.com/

My favourite part is the song that plays - it's a cute little ditty, touting all the benefits of nursing.  Give it a listen.

Swimming, swimming in the swimming pool...

I need to start exercising.

I go through these spurts.  If I look back on it, June is usually a good time for me and exercise, and this year is no different.

So, I decided I need to hit the pool at least three times a week.  If I do, I get some sort of mini reward, which is yet to be determined (suggestions are welcome - not food).  If I do that for four weeks, at that point I get a bigger reward, which I've decided will be a lovely mug from a local potter.  My coffee tastes better already.

Anyway, getting to the pool is often a little tricky for me.  Most of this has to do with the fact that I'm lazy and somewhat sleep deprived, so getting up early has little appeal, and I tell myself that sleep is very important for me to be a happy and functional mama.  Then I roll over and hit the snooze.  It also has something to do with the fact that James and I share a car, so I don't have wheels.  And I have a baby, and he doesn't swim on his own, so someone needs to care for him.

But, apparently I actually have a car 3 days a week most weeks, and the Y I have a membership at has child minding for a reasonable price.

So I went.  On Wednesday.  And put my baby boy who I have never left with a stranger into the arms of some young bright-eyed thing who had 3 toddlers to look after as well and trusted that there were more staff that would appear shortly and took off into the changeroom.  I whipped my clothes off as fast as I could and made a bee-line for the pool, 'cause like, I'm paying for child care so I'm not wasting my sweet time.  I hop in, and away I go.

About 3 lengths in, I realize there is something very weird going on in my swimsuit.  There are things bobbing around in there (not those things...)  Then I remember that I breast feed.  And that because I breastfeed I have leaky boobs.  And because I have leaky boobs I wear breast pads.  And because I didn't want milk all over my suit and the clothes I was planning on wearing home from the pool I had slipped my breast pads into my suit, planning on taking them out before I got in the pool.  Apparently in my haste to get in the pool I had overlooked that...

And so I had these sopping wet over-absorbed tennis ball sized breast pads with the absorbent gel gunk leaking out of them bopping around inside my suit as I swam.  And I'm sure I swam at least two lengths on my back before I realized this.  The male lifeguards I'm sure were quite entertained by my ample quadruple bosom.

Oy vey.  Anyway, I took them out, placed them at the end of my lane next to my water bottle, and swam away.

And Haydon did fine.

Speaking of Breastfeeding...

This was on the front page of the Hamilton Spectator today. 


http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/781722



 Can you believe it?!

I frequent that McDonald's...

I know you're shocked, I frequent a McDonald's.  I know it's gross.  I just can't help it.  The coffee is good, and it's between me and a couple of my friends' houses, so, when I'm walking and it starts to rain or I am running behind and need breakfast or it just smells like salty deliciousness I stop in.  Which is too often. 

But this isn't about me and McDonald's.  This is about McDonald's employees asking a woman to stop breastfeeding her baby in the play area of the restaurant. 

Ridiculous.

I think I'll nurse next time I'm there.  In fact, I think I'll invite the mum's that I meet with every week to go and we'll all nurse.

Breastfeeding Article

I love breastfeeding.

It was a rough go at first.  A long, rough go.  Poor latch, cracked, bleeding nipples, engorgement, thrush, mastitis...not really a walk in the park.  When Haydon was 2 weeks old, I remember putting him down and dreading the fact that he would wake up in two hours and we'd have to do it all over again.  My mom looked at us one day and said to me "Ah, isn't nursing just the best!?"  And I wanted to hurt her.  Best for my baby, sure, I knew that, and I wasn't about to quit, but there was nothing enjoyable about it.

After 6 weeks we got it sorted out.  With the help of lactation consultants and breastfeeding friends, we worked out the latch, and suddenly it wasn't painful anymore.  And now?  Now I enjoy it.  It's a precious time I get to spend with my boy.  I knew that something had "clicked" when I crawled back into bed one night after feeding Haydon and thinking "James just missed that," and thinking how lucky I was to have spent that time with him.

Anyway, there's a great article at mothering.com called Taking Down the Bottle.  It discusses how despite the fact that health professionals all agree that "breast is best," culturally, bottle feeding is still the norm, and this colours how we think, talk and act with respect to feeding our children.