Favorite Moments Friday

Man I have been really bad at this whole Favorite Moments Friday lately.  In fact, my last Favorite Moments post? November 7th.  Yeah, I am bad.

So let's start with November: 

• Superman stayed with his first real babysitter so hubby and I could go to a movie.  It was fabulous! Then a couple weeks later the babysitter came back and hubby and I went to the Blazer's game.  It is so nice to have a babysitter that we can count on.
• I found out that I am pregnant with baby #2 and Superman is going to be a big brother!
• Superman started to teeth his molars this month.  They wouldn't come in till the end of next month, but the pain lasted all month long.
• We ditched the bucket seat and Superman is now in a convertible seat.  He is a growing boy!
• We headed to Kansas City for Thanksgiving.  It was so much fun to see Superman play with his cousins.  We also went and got family pictures taken...they turned out great!  The only downside to the trip was having to fly with a little one that really just wanted to get down and play and not stay seated in our laps.  Thank goodness for direct flights.

December 

•  Teething is driving me insane and causing Superman so.much.pain!  
• We started two new traditions...going to the Oregon Zoo's Zoo Lights and Portland International Raceway lights.  The Zoo Lights was super cold, but a whole lot of fun.  Superman liked the lights more than I thought he would, thus making the experience that much more enjoyable for us.   The lights at the raceway were also a lot of fun.  We tried taking Superman out of his car seat so he could see them better, but he just wanted to play with the door.  So I put him back in his car seat and angled his mirror so he could see them.  It worked out great.  Next year he will be big enough that I can flip his car seat around to be forward facing just for the trip around the track. 
• Christmas time was so much fun! We went and cut down our own tree.  It was so blistery cold, but it is a tradition that I love.  Decorating the house confused Superman at first.  He wasn't sure what to make of it all.   Christmas day was also a lot of fun. He loved all the paper and the boxes....oh the boxes!  He loves his new toys, but for a while he just wanted to play with the wrapping.  We also went over to my husband's aunt and uncle's home for Christmas dinner and he got to play with his cousins.  I find it fascinating how much he wants to play with the big kids (although he did have some love for his cousin that is 4 months younger).  
• He has begun to throw everything!  He throws things out of his crib, out of his play area, and food onto the floor.  We are trying to ignore the behaviors that we don't like, but it is so hard when he throws food onto the floor with two hungry (they would say starving) dogs in the house.  We started putting the dogs upstairs while he was eating, but that is a big pain.  The thing that seems to work the best is just taking the rest of the food away and saying "all done".  If he isn't done? He reaches for the food and we help him eat by giving him one piece at a time.  Hopefully he will give this fun new game up soon!
• Superman has 2 new teeth! The two top molars have poked their way through...finally!  The one on the right poked through on Christmas eve and the one of the left on Christmas day. 
• Superman is SO.CLOSE to walking independently.  Prior to Christmas he had taken a couple steps independently, but not without a lot of encouragement.  On Christmas morning he was leaning on a box on blocks and all of a sudden just let go and stood on his own.  He fell when I started to freak out, but since then has stood independently many, many times. 
• S is beginning to feed himself with a spoon.  We have to put the food on the spoon, but he takes over from there.  Needless to say meals have gotten a bit more messy, but I love that he is becoming independent!
• He helped me put his toys away!  Tuesday night my husband was about to bring him up for his bath and I asked him to help me put the blocks in the bucket.  After watching me, he began to throw some of the blocks in too.  Once we were done, he took a couple out and threw it back in, probably because we made such a big stink every time he threw one in.  

Superman turns 1 on Sunday.  I can't believe it!  This year has gone by so quickly.  I have changed so much in that time, I hardly feel like the same person.   I am going to take some time this weekend and write Superman a letter for his first birthday.  Check back on Sunday to see it!

Breastfeeding Blues Part #2

If you didn't read the first part of Breastfeeding Blues, please go read that first here. 

December 6, 2010
So I saw Nancy and (like always) she made me feel so much better!  She said to keep nursing morning and night, give him a bottle of breastmilk/whole milk before each nap and forget that the feeding after the naps ever existed.  She said if Superman continues to hurt me when I am feeding him, to "vote him off the island" and give him a bottle.

She said it all so matter-of-factly that it was hard to add the "but I want to breastfeed till he wanted to stop", but I did.  Her response was that he is going to get breastmilk till he is 1 or almost 1 and that is good enough...that if I had to stop today that it would be great, that he will be just fine.  I don't know why hearing it from her made such a difference, but it did.

Update on December 30, 2010: Since I haven't posted this post yet and I really don't want a 3rd post of all this, I am going to just update what is going on here.

Superman was all good for a few days and then decided that he didn't want the bottle before naps.  I would then spend the time from when he woke up till it was time to nap again, trying to get milk in him.  So not the way I want things to go.  I tried dropping snacks and that didn't really help at first.  Finally I started giving him the bottle downstairs, letting him drink a few ounces and then bringing him up for his nap.  My sister suggested giving it to him while we read stories and that worked pretty well too.  What I have learned is that he will take the milk downstairs, while getting his diaper changed, and while reading books, but as soon as I start the real bedtime procedures like closing the blinds or turning on the white noise...he wants nothing to do with the bottle.  At first I was frustrated by this, but now I love that cuddle time. He settles in with his head on my chest and we rock as I sing his "night, night" song.   Occasionally he doesn't drink all the milk so when I get him up from his nap I usually bring the bottle back up with me and sometimes he wants and sometimes he doesn't...either way not a big deal.  He is getting plenty of milk now and I am much less worried about this whole transition.

Breastfeeding Blues - Part 1

December 3, 2010

I am beginning to hate breastfeeding. No, wait. Actually, I think I actually hate it right now. I hate the pain that comes with Superman latching on. I hate the feeling that I being completely drained each time. I hate that I am once again worrying about supply and weight gain.

So what to do? What to do? Give up completely? Try and push through with some of the feedings and supplement with others? Just keep plugging along and deal with it all later.

Fortunately, I have about 60 3oz. bags of pumped milk in the freezer. I am currently breastfeeding 6 times a day. So enough milk to last about a week if I completely give up.  There is a problem though...I feel really strongly about breastfeeding for at least 1 year and really wanted to breastfeed till Superman wanted to wean (not when I wanted to). So even though I am really, really close to that year, I feel like I am failing, like I am letting Superman and myself down.

This all makes me want to try and stick it out, but that doesn't help the fact that I cringe every time Superman goes to latch on. So I wonder what it would be like to just nurse less. Maybe I could take those 60 something bags, drop two nursing sessions a day and make it the month easy peasy? (I say hopefully).

I guess this decision is better than some of the alternatives and I shouldn't do anything drastic anyway. Stay tuned to find out what happened!

Update: After I wrote this I decided that my husband's plea recommendation that I go see the lactation consultant was a good one and made an appointment for Monday.  I will write another post with an update after the appointment.

Thrown

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that during his nap, Superman was not actually sleeping, but rather crying because he had thrown his two stuffed animals and his blanket to the floor.  I wanted reassurance that I shouldn't go in and retrieve them.  Actually I really only wanted to retrieve the blanket, but that is neither here nor there.  Of course, everyone told me to hold strong and that going in would merely reinforce the throwing of items out of the crib.  

The problem is that the throwing of items isn't isolated to his crib.

When I put him in his "baby corral"  to play for about 30 minutes every morning, he throws his toys out.  He doesn't cry when they are out of the corral, unless he throws his blanket.  Then he tries to reach for it and cries.  I don't usually put the toys back in, but will hand him his blanket again (and he doesn't throw it again during that duration). 

Then when he is in his high chair...watch out!  He will be eating away and the moment he decides he is done with a food, he starts dropping it off the side of his tray.  This is a real issue considering we have two dogs that are ready to pounce on any piece of food that hits the floor.  We have tried telling him no, but he doesn't seem to understand or doesn't care since there isn't anything that happens if we say no and he does it again.  Do almost one year olds even understand "no"?  In the end we end up taking the food away and if he reaches for it, we give him it to him piece by piece, but sometimes he eats it and sometimes he takes it out of his mouth and tries to throw it on the floor.  It is really frustrating. 

So...HELP!!  What do I do?  Are these situations even connected or are there different things going on?  What would you do?

Thanks!