I might get a C- in chores but I get an A+ in being a mommy

The title may sound arrogant and if there was indeed a grading scale I would not have a perfect score (more than once I put him in PJ’s and forgot all about the bath) but at least I’m good on the important parts.

For the past month I’ve been dealing with child proofing blues.  It’s something that we should have done long ago but kept procrastinating on. I look at our house and it feels like a baby death trap, there is so much to do that I don’t know how to accomplish it all without moving half of the house into storage/ dumpster.

Now that Shammy is mobile and getting into everything, it was time to get into gear. I’m very watchful of Shammy when he’s playing but sometimes I need to not be hovering so much without interrupting his play, like when cooking dinner or doing laundry.  Plus I am trying to find a balance between keeping him safe without being too overprotective and letting the kid crawl and explore.

We had wanted to get a playard aka baby jail for a while and found a very good deal on it at a consignment sale but once put it together I felt like it was too much like jail despite being so large.  So then it was time to sit down with the husband and decide on which room of the house we were going to surrender to the baby.  The natural choice would have been the baby’s room (which is currently only used for diaper changing and baby stuff storage, lol) but I didn’t want him to be isolated when playing.

We finally decided to surrender the dining room, the table had not been used for dining in months anyway and Shammy would get to enjoy the nice view to the backyard.  And so we started the process of relocating furniture and a bird to transform part of the space into a fun haven.

 

Now that he’s becoming more independent I am actually starting to get stuff done at home besides the bare minimum.  It’s still nothing close to spring cleaning and it will take a while to recover from all of the months of spot cleaning and tidy messes.

I am very proud to have achieved the 8 month breastfeeding milestone, it was touch and go for a little bit there on the exclusive factor.  I no longer have a freezer stash and Shammy’s schedule since daylight savings time means that I never have an opportunity to pump at a time when I would get a decent output.

Shammy has never tasted formula in his life but I have reached the point where it’s not the end of the world if it comes to that, he’s older than 6 months, he’s eating other foods, it’s not the end of my philosophical world anymore.

No, I’m not done breastfeeding, not even close.  What I’m close to being done with is stressing over how many ounces are in the freezer vs how many he will need while hanging at grandma’s.  Stressing doesn’t lead to a good letdown and that leads to tiny pumped amounts, it’s a horrible cycle that I’ve been stuck in for a couple of weeks.

Nothing is official but the current tentative plan is that I will continue to breastfeed full time and pump while working but supplement to make up the difference when I’m not around.  95% or more of his milk will still be breast milk, I will still pump when away from him for more than 5 hours.  I have not made any purchases, but I already researched brands.  We’ll see…  I’ve said it before and I’ll say this again, I bow down to exclusively pumping mamas, I don’t know how they do it, here I am stressing myself dry over occasional pumping.

I’m glad to wean off the pump except for work but not yet ready to wean my son.  This week I cried along with a heartbroken mama whose toddler self weaned this week.  She had no idea that it was the last time when it happened.  Every time I nurse Shammy I try to savor it because I know that it will be over before I know it and will miss it too.

 

 

For the past few weeks we have been dealing with mild separation anxiety.  One of the things that I have found to help is laying the shirt that I wore that day in his bed, I have found that he sleeps better that way.

Now that he has learned to call me Mama I can no longer tell my husband “it’s your turn”.  He says that Shammy has quickly learned that saying that equals fast response and that is fine.  I’d rather him know that he can call me and I will come than having to resort to crying to get the attention he wants.

 

For a few weeks Shammy would eat from anyone that wasn’t me, it was challenging since I would be the only one available during the weekdays most times.  This made me consider BLW (Baby Led Weaning- where you skip the purees and let baby feed himself)  so I experimented and it was a success.  I can’t say that I’m a total convert but I will probably do it here and there.

 

 

Something interesting that I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks, the first diaper to go in the pail after I put in a load of laundry is always a poopy one!  I wash diapers every other day and this has been accurate for 3 weeks and counting, lol.  So I guess that if I want him to poop on command I just need to throw some diapers in the washer.

 

This week’s rant is a short one:

If you’re thinking of breastfeeding your baby, be warned: People will think you’re stupid. That’s right, a recently published report highlighted not one, but three studies that found people think of women who breastfeed as less competent than “otherwise identical women.”  Seriously?!

In my opinion a woman that breastfeeds is smarter than a woman that formula feeds (by choice, not circumstance) because it means that the nursing mama is well informed about the benefits of breastmilk over formula and knows that it’s way easier to lift up a shirt in the dark than hunt for a bottle you hopefully remembered to prepare at 3am.