A year gone by...

What a difference a year makes! My school year just ended (thankfully) and I am looking at a nice, long, school-free summer! I'll be taking another class in the fall, but I will enjoy every last second of my break. There have also been some changes in the nursing school arena. Hubby and I decided to postpone nursing school another year so that we can have another baby! Are we crazy? Most definitely. But I am so excited I can't stand it. I had my IUD removed at the beginning of April, and much to my suprise, wound up pregnant almost immediately. Sadly, I had a miscarriage very soon into the pregnancy and so we are back to our Plan A, which is to wait until July to start trying for a baby. That would mean an April baby, if all goes according to plan. And to keep me busy in the meanwhile, I have a new job! I just got out of training, so I am an official Social Worker now! So far, I love it. It's hard and busy and emotional, but wonderful. My coworkers are fantastic and my boss is great, and that makes such a difference in any job.

Babies and work and school, oh my!
Jenny

And Cat Makes Five

My little boy is talking! I can't believe it. I can proudly say that his first word was Mama, with Dada soon to follow. Dog came next, which he will use spontaneously when he sees (or hears) a dog. He will repeat truck, and as of this morning, he will also repeat cat. It is so neat to see him start to realize that he can repeat sounds that he hears! He will repeat words we say to him, sounds he hears in songs, and he even tried to repeat the sound of me knocking on a door! His world is opening up, and it is really fun to watch. What a neat realization it must be, to find that you can make the sounds that you hear around you - that you can talk. Hello, expressive language!

In chemistry news, it has been a busy week. I had a quiz, lecture exam, lab exam, homework problem set and two pre-lab question sets all due. Oh. My. God. I am realy glad that week is over. It was insane. But, I got my exams back yesterday, and I am pleased to report that I got an 88% (possibly 89% - I am questioning one of the problems...) on my lecture exam, and a 98% (hell yeah!) on my lab exam!! Awesome. Last night was a chemistry-fee evening (in part because I forgot my book bag in my husband's truck, and he was at work...) in celebration of the end of such a busy week. Today I begin again. I am not going to know what to do with all the free time I am going to have after this class is over!

Busily,
Jenny

Little Nursling Boy

I am not sure what cause the milk shortage that I had a week or so ago, but it seems to have resolved itself. And by "resolved itself" I mean by me taking nine fenugreek capsules a day and reeking like syrup, and all the while pumping like a madwoman... But either way, things seem to have gone back to normal. I am quite relieved to be able to still be nursing my little boy. I don't know when we will quit, but when we do, I want it to be because I decided or because he decided. I don't want to have to quit because of some outside reason forcing it to happen. And for now, things are looking good as we truck on towards nursing for a year.

Before Liam was born, I knew I wanted to nurse him - I was very determined to at least make a solid try of it. I went to a breast feeding support group lead by a lactation consultant a few weeks before my due date, and started going to the group regularly when Liam was three days old. If I didn't nurse, it sure as hell wasn't going to be because I didn't try everything before quitting.

And it was hard. Really hard. It hurt so much, and he nursed for hours on end, giving my poor, abused nipples almost no breaks. And he never nursed calmly - he screamed, and pulled, and cried through nearly every feeding. I was thrilled if I could get ten or fifteen minutes of solid eating out of him. He started reflux medications. I drastically altered my diet, quitting dairy, soy and wheat. And I cried through countless breast feeding support group meetings. And slowly, slowly, things got better. One day, I was suprised to realize that I was nursing and it wasn't hurting either of us.

Now we are closing in on Liam's first birthday, and I am enjoying nursing more than I ever expected to. I owe everything to my "boob group" meetings and the amazing lactation consultant who runs them, and also to my neighbor, who was nursing her son, and offered me encouragement and advice every step of the way. For me, all the pain and trouble has been worth the reward of my nursing happiness that I have now. But I understood completely, in the first 48 hours of my nursing career, why people want to do it but then say, "to hell with this - give him a bottle." It certainly isn't for everyone. But it is for me.

I don't know how much longer we will nurse. I am just enjoying every time we do, because I really don't know when the end could come. We may wean just after his birthday, or perhaps we will still be nursing in a year. I don't know, and that's ok - which for a crazy planner like me is really saying something!! We are nursing right now, and it is beautiful and wonderful, and that is enough for me to be satisfied with.

Lovingly,
Jenny

Who's That Mewing At My Door?

My husband woke me up in the middle of the night on Saturday night/Sunday morning to let me know that there were kittens in our garage. Kittens. We have one cat. He's indoor only. He is a he. He is neutered. And yet - kittens in our garage.

Our neighbors have a cat that we can't seem to keep out of our garage. She will sneak in there sometimes, and get locked in, and then we will kick her out the next day when we discover her. And as you can probably guess, it turns out that she wasn't spayed. She apparently snuck into our garage and had kittens, and then we kicked her out the next day, not realizing what had happened. Cut to 2am when Hubby hears kittens mewing in the garage...

We opened up the garage door so that hopefully Mama Cat would come back to her kittens and in the meantime, got to hold tiny tiny kittens! They were covered in saw dust from my husband's workshop, but otherwise seemed to be doing alright. One white one, one black one, and one gray tabby like Mama Cat. And sadly, a fourth kitten that did not make it.

Mama Cat did find her way back to her babies, and we locked the new family in our garage for the night with some food and water for Mama. In the morning, we let the neighbors know about their grand-kittens, and they relocated the whole bunch back to their house.

What a day.

SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS, PEOPLE!

Jenny

Curry and Coffee

My wonderful and amazing sister-in-law came to visit me tonight. I live a half hour away from her (and everyone else), so it isn't often that she comes to visit, so it was a wonderful treat. And to make a nice night fabulous, she brought me dinner and coffee! Yummm... Kalid's Kurry from Beyond Bread, and an iced decaf Americano from Starbucks. Delicious.

I was very glad to see her and get to visit with her - we try to visit every week, but it has been a few weeks since we saw eachother last. It was a nice way to top off a very stressful week.

One of the big things that I am trying very hard not to stress about is nursing Liam. My supply has really been dropping over the last few weeks, and it has gotten pretty low. I started taking an herb called fenugreek that will increase my milk supply (and it has), with the peculiar side effect of making me smell like syrup. Huh. I started taking it, but before it had a chance to kick in, I tried to nurse Liam before bedtime, as is our usual routine, and there was NO milk. None. Liam was so frustrated, and I felt so terrible. I have never felt so helpless in my entire life. Luckily, with the fenugreek, things seem to be getting back on track. I was very scared and sad that I may have had to quit nursing before I wanted to - I want to decide when I am done, and not have that decision made for me. I love nursing Liam. I hoped that I would like it, but I did not expect to love it as much as I do. I feel proud to be able to make him grow so big and strong, and I love the closeness and cuddling that come along with it. I love feeling his warm little body on my lap. I love being able to make my sweet boy so happy and calm.

While my sister-in-law and I were visiting, we made plans for her to take Liam's one year photos. It is awfully nice to have a photographer for a sister! She takes amazing photos, and Liam feels comfortable with her, so we don't have to worry about him being upset...It works very well. So August 22nd, Liam will be getting pictures taken. I absolutely can't believe that his birthday could really be coming up. It can't be possible. How could my little baby be growing up so fast??

Unbelievingly,
Jenny

Home Again, Home Again

Aaaaaaand I'm home. Vacation over. Boo. Vacations always seem so long at the start, but they always manage to fly by - on the last day, I found myself thinking about all the things I had planned to do, and had not managed to fit in. But it was a very nice vacation, with lots of time spent visiting and relaxing.

But back to the real world. Or at least sort of. Tonight I should have been doing chemistry homework, but instead, I designed the invitation for Liam's first birthday party (which isn't until September). Oh procrastination, how I love thee... The bad news is I have a LOT of chemistry to do in the next two days. However, the good news is that Liam's invitation is going to be darling. If I do say so myself. I traced the "newborn" sized onsie that he wore home from the hospital, and also traced a "12 month" sized onsie that he is wearing now, and I am going to attach them together with a brad so that you can swing the smaller one off the bigger one to reveal the party details. Like I said - darling. It does present some logistical problems, though. First and foremost - how to mass produce it. Hmm. I am milling over ideas, including printing on vellum and taping it onto the onsie cutouts. I will have to scour Michael's for very big paper to make the cutouts on. It's a tall order, but in Michael's I trust! It is true that the project was shameless procrastination, but I do think that the invitation project will take quite a while, so it is probably not the worst thing that I started it now.

Also today I had Liam make his daddy a Father's Day card. I wrote it out, and put him in his high chair armed with a Crayola marker. I thought he would make some marks on the page, at least accidentally. But no. He just wanted to eat the pen. So I ended up coloring on his hands and having him make hand prints. Or rather hand smudges. I also colored one foot and did a foot print - that came out much better than the hand prints! Daddy will be recieving a CD of Pink Floyd songs done into lullabies. I am eager to listen to it. It definitely sounds interesting, and I am sure Liam's Daddy will dig it.

Any Colour You Like,
Jenny

Life's A Beach

Liam had his first dip in the Pacific Ocean on Friday! It was a hit. He held my fingers and walked all the way across the sand to the water, and would have just kept right on going if I had let him! We let some waves come in and get our feet wet, and he had me walk him up and down the beach at the water's edge. He sat in the damp sand and grabbed handfuls, and then dumped them out again. The fun lasted until one of those handfuls went into his mouth. Apparently, he agrees with pretty much everyone else that sand tastes gross!

We took a walk to the end of the wharf, and he got excited when he saw seagulls flying. After several hours of beach fun, he crashed out alseep in his stroller. He slept as we walked through the cute beach shops and ate ice cream, and he stayed asleep the whole drive home. Whew. Trips to the beach are tiring!

Yesterday and today he has gotten to visit with family and friends who have stopped by to see him, some just meeting him for the first time. He's been a good sport through it all, though I think his teeth are bothering him today. What a hassle it must be to teeth.

I was able to leave him with his grandparents after he went to bed last night, and I went out to dinner with a good friend from high school. And tonight, my mom and I are going to dinner and then out to see Angles & Demons. I believe that this will be my first movie theater movie since Liam was born. Wow. Only took nine months! It was nice to get out of the house without Liam in tow, and fun to have grown-up time! Aren't grandparents wonderful?

Grateful,
Jenny