Month: July 2008

While doing dishes last night, I moved my hand jerkily and my wedding band flew off (it kinda needs to be sized). Anyhoo, I thought it landed in the corner where our cabinets form an L shape. But searching on my hands and knees (which was quite painful thanks to Bootcamp) yielded no results. I called in the knight in shining armor (Matt) and enlisted his help in the search. We looked ALL OVER. Moved the fridge, ec. etc. I was really pretty convinced it hadn't gone far. I hadn't heard rolling or anything. But it wasn't there!

Then Matt noticed that if you put your hand up under the lip of the cabinet (where the cabinet meets the baseboard) there was a hole…. ruh-roh. We could not think of another single spot where my ring could be and so Matt ended up ripping off part of the baseboard and sure enough … back about a foot in there, almost underneath the neighboring cabinet (and almost REALLY REALLY lost) was my wedding band. It is back in my posession now and I'm very happy. Poor Matt will be spending a couple of hours this weekend fixing the baseboard. And my rings are going to the jeweler's.

• Tabby had her follow-up session of poking and prodding with the radiology dept. last week. Her condition has improved, but not gone away all together. So she's still on antibiotics and we have to repeat this whole deal in a year's time. Which really sucks.
• I'm into my second week of bootcamp and I must tell you … it's kicking my ass. Which is exactly what I wanted. I can't describe specifically what I do (as I mentioned before), but I think it's safe to tell you that we do something called Crossfit twice a week which just shreds me. The other days aren't exactly recovery days either.
• As a result of the above item, I always want a nap. And if I don't get a nap, I want to go to sleep at 8 PM. Too bad there are things to be done.
• I'm having 10 people from my mom's group over on Fri night for game night. I've promised snacks and I have no idea what those are going to be. Feel free to send me suggestions if you have any!
• I'm so freaking sick of green leafy things I might just go all postal if I see another head of Asian Bitters. Where the hell are my zucchini??? Stupid hippies.
• On the bright side, I now know like 10 different ways to cook greens. They're mostly variations on two themes, but I'm getting my vitamins (and I say this all British – vit-a-mins), damnit!
• My garden is also now extremely overgrown and has already yielded us two (2!!) teeny tomatoes. They were pretty tasty too. I have high hopes for the squash as well.
• Must research garden pruning/cutting back on the web when I get a chance.
• I found a new piece of software for keeping my maniacal schedule (I was using Excel before), called Achieve Planner. They've got a free trial if you're interested.
• Bought this T'shirt of Shirt.Woot. It pretty much sums up how I feel about this whole political process. Vote Moose!
• I almost lost my wedding band … like for good. That would've sucked. Matt retrieved it though. More on that later … tomorrow?
• Our pumpkin crossed neutral borders and tried to strangle our tomatoes, complete with cute little curly strangling tendrils (like the pumpkin-into-coach scene in Disney's Cinderella). Kinda glad we only planted one.
• Tomorrow is only Thursday. Bollocks.

Tabby would like to extend heartfelt good wishes to her Aunt Gaga on today, Gaga's 26th Birthday. She thinks Gaga is all kinds of fun, and enjoys playing with Gaga's bunnies, having her hair styled by Gaga, getting dressed up in a new outfit by Gaga, and taking shelter in Gaga's arms when Mama and Dada are being unreasonable (as they are want to be). Tabby says “Hiiiiiiii!” and blows Gaga a kiss.

Happy birthday, Kells! Love you lots!

Did I get your attention? Ha. I just came across a wonderful article at babble called The Breastfeeding Conspiracy. To sum it up for you (it's pretty long), it discusses the guilt and perceived benefits/reprocussions of bottle/formula-feeding instead of breastfeeding. The basic conclusion comes down to: 1) we pretty much all agree that breastfeeding is the ideal, nature-created way to feed your baby, but 2) the consequences and reprocussions of formula feeding aren't nearly so bad as they've been made out to be and 3) the perceived benefits of breastfeeding aren't as monumental as they've been made out to be and 4) whatever you choose, people should not be nasty to you for your choice.

Tabby and I never got the hang of breastfeeding. She didn't latch right. My milk didn't come in very fast or in much quantity. We worked damn hard at it for a month or so using a variety of contraptions and techniques. All we could ever really do was nurse with something called a nipple shield … that I was supposed to wean her off of after a few weeks. The weaning never happened. Everytime we tried it was a disaster. And I really gave up when I went back to work about 2.5 months after she was born. Once I was back at work, we nursed in the evenings and I pumped during the days. Breastfeeding made me ravenously hungry all the time and I gained weight while I breastfed (I am pretty certain it was breastfeeding that caused this this, because once I stopped, I lost weight and didn't feel like I had to consume everything in my path). I never produced enough milk either. She was supplemented from the beginning when she lost 20% of her body weight and that never stopped.

Around 5 months, Tabby would start screaming hysterically every time we tried to nurse. After a couple of days, I just stopped nursing her. I was determined the precious hours I saw her in the evening would not be ruined with this struggle. I was able to pump for a month or so longer and that was that. I feel that overall I made the right decision. Especially by that point, I was pretty OK with it, but in the early days I felt pretty guilty for not being able to do what I thought should come so naturally. And I had help! Lots of help! Lactation consultants in the hospital (really pushy ones as I recall). A visiting nurse. My darling husband who helped me set up for marathon pumping sessions (before and after I nursed Tabby) and fed her using this bizarre IV/tube contraption taped to his finger so she wouldn't get “nipple confusion.” But by the time it as all done, I was mostly OK with it. Still, guilt reared its ugly head for a long while with people making little comments to me here and there. A nurse at my doctor's office telling me that she might be healthier (she had a cold!) if I'd nursed 9 months instead of 6.

Months removed from the whole situation, I have a much better perspective on the situation. I will try to breastfeed when I have another baby, but I will not make myself crazy over it. Those days of infancy are just too precious to spend in constant conflict and struggle. And anyone who judges me can have a piece of my (grumpy and sleep-deprived) mind.

I feel like such a broken record lately. All I can do is tell you about how insanely busy. I'm so busy I don't even have time to be interesting. So … wanna hear about my garden? It's growing! It's growing like mad! The tomatoes are almost taller than their bamboo stakes. They are blooming like crazy too. And we actually have one that looks ripe! It's tiny and something gnawed on a it a bit, but it's progress, right? The squash has really rallied from its low-point following the hail and I have no idea what to do with the the ton and a half of basil and dill.

Meanwhile, our fridge is STILL oveflowing with greens from our CSA shares. We're getting better at figuring out what to do with them, though. Stir fry is big in our house right now as are salads. And I hear radish sandwiches and sautees are good, though we chunked them in the stirfry last week. The dinner I cooked last night was awesome and used a whole bunch of some unidentifiable green. And it was way tasty.

The kid is growing like a weed too. Not physically so much at the moment (except her teeth), but she is growing developmentally by leaps and bounds. Tons of new words are popping up and she's been wielding her spoon like a pro. She's huge into books right now as well and we've put her to bed with a book a couple of nights to appease her, which has been a big hit.

But apparently, sharing is not in her vocabulary. She spent time with another little girl at her sitter's today and the “mine” word reared its ugly head OVER and OVER (accompanied by screaming). Ahh well … it's a form of growth, I suppose … hehe. Something to work on.