Pump, pump it up!

Here I am at the 5.5 month mark of Jude's life and I am still breast feeding the little tyke. I've almost made it to my goal of 6 months.

One of the benefits of having Jude in May was that I had 3 months of time with him before returning to work for the fall school year. This meant I have 3 months of feeding him from the boobie, on demand, around the clock, no bottle, and more than a few sleepless nights. This was great! We had a bit of a rough time at the start with a painful latch and then my overabundant supply and hormone havoc, but by August, we had a peaceful routine together.

Then came the "Return to Work" about 10 weeks ago.

This meant that 4 days a week I'm gone from home from about 7:30am until about 5pm. On these days, Brian gives Jude a bottle of milk and I try to get a couple of pump sessions done while in my office at work. Then, I play catch up with Jude contact time on the other 3 days a week.

This had lead to several "funny" moments in my pumping adventures.

To begin with, I'm lucky because my office is complete with 4 real walls and a door that locks. However, I need to remember to LOCK my door at times. Yep, while pumping away during the weekend, a fellow faculty member (not a biologist) came up to my nearly completely shut door. He knocked and barged right in before I could tell him not too. He took one look at me hooked up to a machine, turned bright red, said excuse me, and left. I never did learn why he had stopped by the office. And then there is our janitor who has a key to the offices and who never seems to visit at the same time each day. There have been several occasions where, I have started pumping, and then heard him in the hall knocking on my neighbor's doors. This meant that I had to quickly halt spewing milk, shove the boob away, and allow him to empty my garbage without flashing a bit of extra flesh.

And these a are just two funnies. Pumping is never a 100% guarantee. Some days I relax and chug out tons, other days not much at all. Sometimes I pump and then I get home an hour later and Jude's famished and screaming. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy and hear voices in the sound of the pumping mechanism. Granted this last one is usually during the 10pm pump session.

So, where am I now?

I smell like milk. I smell like milk alot . I swear I sweat milk at night. I wonder if others around me notice the sweet milk odor I'm emanating. I look around to see if other small babies, young puppies, cute kittens are following me having been lured by milk smell and hope of being fed. My shirts still don't fit quite right, though Brian has admitted to enjoying the "busting-out" look. I am sometimes more than a bit too tired to pump at night 'round 10:30pm.
Jude's more hungry 'cause he's a growing boy. And this past week he has been waking at least 2x a night (2 and 5am) to eat. Ugh. And other nights waking at 11pm, 3, 5am. Double ugh.

Jude's growing more distracted while eating, which means he's turning his head at any sound (brother, daddy, tv, whatever). This meant longer feeds and more than a few pinches to me). Jude's been eating food, but hasn't slacked on milk at all...some days it seems like he is just an eating machine. Other days Jude's reflux is bad and he is only eating because the sucking helps his pain...then he upchucks most of the milk. Poor little dude.

I still holding out to hit the 6month mark with the breastfeeding, but we'll see.

My sister's been married for two weeks...

Wishing Shelly and her new family the best of luck with the future :-)







We had fun with the wedding... especially our cute little Tamlin who loved dancing!

Jude's new sounds

Jude's latest vocalization are hilarious...he has been imitating a screech owl.

"AAAAAAAKKKK"
"EEEEEEEEEKKKKK"
"AAAAAAHHHH"
"OOOHHHHKKKK"

And he is Delighting in the sounds! He ususually has a huge goofy grin on his face as he is screeching. If he really gets going, he even starts laughing at himself.

Tam comments..."Jude's singing, mama"

Last Sunday, we all headed to church for 8:30 service. Tam spends the first hour in the nursery playing, Brian helps lead the singing, I hold Jude and listen to the service. Usually, Jude falls asleep mid-sermon.

This week, he was wide awake. He sat on my lap grinning like a maniac at our preacher through out her sermon. Even at a few points, he commented on her words by cooing. She melted and couldn't help grinning back at baby Jude. Good thing it wasn't a fire & Brimstone lecture this week.

Jude continued his antics by howling and screeching happily during the hymns. Our pastor commented at the end of service that we had our own little "amen" section this week with wee little Jude. I really appreciate it that the few other members that attend this early service don't mind a bit that we have a baby in there with us :-)

Wordless Wednesday - 5 1/2 months

Jude is 5.5 months old!

Halloween 2011

We had a great Halloween as a family of four!

Tamlin was old enough this year to understand so many new ideas that are with this holiday. We let him watch some "scary" movies, such as Coraline, Casper the friendly ghost, and Hocus Pocus. Tam held his own and wasn't too freaked out by any of these :-) We also talked about costumes and dressing up and pretending to be something else. He's just starting to get into imaginative play, so this was a great time to talk about it all. And, Brian had fun jumping out at him from behind doors to holler "Boo" at make Tamlin jump. Tam LOVES this. He still likes to be scared a little bit, as long as it is all in fun and momma and daddy are near by.

Now for costumes, we only had time to craft one of the kiddos looks. Jude's I cheated on and actually bought from Target (but it was on clerence, so not too bad). Jude was a puppy dog, complete with booties and cute hat. He looked so sweet :-)

Tamlin was a race car driver. I got the idea from an online mom blog who had her son dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine using a cardboard box. I thought, hmmm, Tam likes trains, but loves cars...could we adapt this? I told Brian about the idea, and took it and ran! I totally credit the car to Brian with only basic suggestions (such as using suspenders and plates) from me. I crafted the racer suit. This was a simple black sweat outfit and I added the checkered sleeves and sewed all the patches on the front. Then we added "Racer Tamlin" with iron-on letters to the back. It is not my best sew job, which is a bit hard to do on itty-bitty sleeves...but Tam still liked it.
Okay, so Tam loves the entire costume. He called the car his "Adventure Car" after the Cat in the Hat Thing-a-ma-jig mobile. He also makes car sounds: Vroom, Zoom, Ert (breaks), and beep-beep-beep (backing up).

Brian went as a Pittsburgh Pirate in black and gold with all of his costume from a costume closet. I went simplest of all as a dark moth with purple wings and antenna.

On Friday, after we all got gussied up, we went over to our church for their Halloween family festival. This included a costume parade around the sanctuary, kid-friendly dinner, games, prizes, and candy (of course).
This was the first time Tamlin meant other kids his size dress-up in costumes. What a huge grin was plastered on his face. Jude just liked hanging out on our lap watching all the festivities. Tam also enjoyed playing the games, like the duck pond and coin toss. However, he liked the cake walk the best...and NOT for the cake prize! He just really, really, really, enjoyed walking around on the numbers while the music played then stopping at the end of song. I swear he spent nearly 20 minutes walking around on stage and got other toddlers / pre-schoolers to walk around the stage with him (even when there was no more cake prizes).

We all had a fun time...even Jude, who eventually just fell asleep in my arms.

What about actual Halloween, October 31st?

We did go trick-or-treating for the first time with the boys. Because not many people pass out candy on our street, we opted to trick-or-treat at the mall. This was a great alternative because its inside, well lit, safe, and not wet from rain. Tam walked with Brian and I followed behind with Jude in the stroller as we mosied from store to store. It took a couple of tries before Tamlin realized that this nice people in the front of the stores were giving out...CANDY. Then it took a few more stores before he got the hang of saying "Trick or Treat". (But he had saying "Thank you" since the first store front). By the end of an hour, one circuit of the mall, and a stop in the playland Tam realized that Halloween = Costumes = Trick or treating = Candy. We got a ton of compliments on Tam's costume, from his spikey hair to cardboard car to flame shoes. Some folk even tried to give us candy for Jude, which we turned down because he doesn't eat it and we didn't need any more. Yes, the kids got a good haul of goodies :-) I'm glad we got to the mall early for this at 3pm because it was mostly preschoolers at this time. By the time we left around 4pm, more grade schoolers (and high-schoolers) had arrived and it was becoming a bit more crowded and crazy.

Once we got home, everyone was a bit tired so we were going to nix trick-or-treating on our street. But, our two closest neighbors caught us outside and asked if Tamlin was going to stop by because they had bought candy. How could we say no? Especially when Tam likes wearing his adventure car costume. After dinner, around 6pm, we went out to see our two neighbors who both gushed over cute Tamlin and little Jude. And Tam obliged their sweet tooths by grinning, saying trick or treat and thank you, and zooming around their yards.

Finally, at the end of the day, all wee ones are in bed in a sugar-induced sleep (hopefully). I'm already thinking about next year...maybe a cardboard train with Tam as the engine and Jude as the Caboose. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - Humor

Laughed so hard, almost had milk out my nose :-)